Florinians

Florinians a sect in the 2d century who inclined to the views of the Valentinians. They were so named from Florinus, a Roman presbyter who was deposed by Eleutherius. His views are only to be gathered from a letter of Irenaeus and from a passage in Eusebius (5:20). It appears that Florinus at first pushed monarchianism so far as to make God the author of evil; and afterwards, on the other extreme, in connection with the peculiar dogmas of Valentinus, Florinus maintained that light and darkness were two eternal principles from which all the good and evil respectively in the universe had proceeded.—Neander, Ch. Hist. 1:680; Mosheim, Ch. Hist. 1:408. SEE VALENTINIANS.