Origen, Valentinianism and Women's Roles

This article analyses Origen of Alexandria’s and Heracleon’sexegeses of the Sa-maritan woman. It focuses on their allegorical interpretations of the woman and feminine elements (e.g. water jar) as theological and philosophical concepts. The first part of the article offers a brief overview of the scholarship on Origen and Valentinianism. The second part examines and confronts the exegetical meth-odology, the feminine allegories and the resulting theologies in the texts of the two authors. I will show that their different uses of the feminine as theological and philosophical categories give rise to opposing exegeses of the gospel pas-sage and divergent views about women’s role in society