Ptolemy (Gnostic)

[1] No other certain details are known about his life; Harnack's suggestion that he was identical with the Ptolemy spoken of by Justin Martyr is as yet unproved.

Ptolemy was, with Heracleon, the principal writer of the Italian or Western school of Valentinian Gnosticism, which was active in Rome, Italy, and Southern Gaul.

Ptolemy's works have reached us in an incomplete form in a fragment of an exegetical writing preserved by Irenæus;[3] as well as an epistle to Flora, a Christian[1] lady not otherwise known to us.

This demiurge occupies a middle position between the Supreme God and the devil, and is the creator of the material universe; he is neither perfect nor the author of evil, but ought to be called 'just' and benevolent to the extent of his abilities.

In his cosmogonic depiction of the universe, Ptolemy referred also to an extensive system of aeons that emanated from a monadic spiritual source.