The approach to the study of the New Testament of the followers of the heretic Valentinus, as studied by the first woman to be graduated a Theologiae Doctor in Germany. After a review of the sources (the Excerpts from the Valentinian Theodotus collected by Clement of Alexandria, the Prophetic Extracts of Eusebius, and the Refutation of All Heresies by Hippolytus of Rome), Barth considers the Valentinian scheme of salvation by the union of the Saviour and Sophia as typified in the life of Jesus, from the Star of Bethlehem, the Baptism, the Temptation in the Wilderness, the Passion, and the Resurrection (in John's version, with Mary Magdalene). They also saw allegories in the Parables and Sayings and in the Epistles, and had a system of plays on words. From all this, their doctrines of the subcreative Aeons and the Creation of the World by continual emanation.