The Greater Gnostic Systems Bas

The Gnostic systems having most influence within the Church and effect

upon its development were those of Basilides and Valentinus. Of these

teachers and their followers we have not only the accounts of those

opponents who attacked principally their esoteric and most

characteristically Gnostic tenets, but also fragments and other remains

which give a more favorable impression of the religious and moral value of

the gre t schools of Gnosticism. In their "systems" of vast theogonies and

cosmologies, in their wild mythological treatment of the most abstract

conceptions and their dualism, the Church writers naturally saw at once

their most vulnerable and most dangerous element.





A. The School of Basilides





The school of Basilides marks the beginning of the distinctively

Hellenistic stadium of Gnosticism. Basilides, its founder, apparently

worked first in the East; circa 120-130 he was at Alexandria. He was the

first important Gnostic writer. Of his Gospel, Commentary on that Gospel

in twenty-four books (Exegetica), and his odes only fragments remain of

the second, preserved by Clement of Alexandria and in the Acta Archelai

(collected by Hilgenfeld, Ketzergeschichte, 207-213).



Additional source material: Clement of Alexandria, Strom., II, 3, 8, 20;

IV, 24, 26 (ANF. II); Hippolytus, Ref., VII, 20-27; X, 14 (=VII, 1-15,

X, 10, ANF, V); Eusebius, Hist. Ec., IV. 7. The account of Hippolytus

differs markedly from that of Irenaeus, and his quotations and references

have been the subject of long dispute among scholars.





(a) Acta Archelai, 55. (MSG, 10:1526.)





The Acta Archelai purport to be an account of a disputation held

in the reign of the Emperor Probus (276-282) by Archelaus, Bishop

of Kaskar in Mesopotamia, with Mani, the founder of Manichaeanism.

The work is of uncertain authorship; it belongs to the first part

of the fourth century. It is the most important source for the

Manichaean doctrine (v. infra, § 54). It exists only in a Latin

translation probably from a Greek original.





Among the Persians there was also a certain preacher, one Basilides, of

more ancient date, not long after the time of our Apostles. Since he was

of a shrewd disposition himself, and observed that at that time all other

subjects were preoccupied, he determined to affirm that dualism which was

maintained also by Scythianus. And so, since he had nothing to advance

which he might call his own, he brought the sayings of others before his

adversaries. And all his books contain some matters difficult and

extremely harsh. The thirteenth book of his Tractates,(39) however, is

still extant, which begins thus: "In writing the thirteenth book of our

Tractates, the word of salvation furnished us with the necessary and

fruitful word. It illustrates(40) under the figure of a rich [principle]

and a poor [principle], a nature without root and without place and only

supervenes upon things.(41) This is the only topic which the book

contains." Does it not, then, contain a strange word, as also certain

persons think? Will ye not all be offended with the book itself, of which

this is the beginning? But Basilides, returning to the subject, some five

hundred lines intervening, more or less, says: "Give up this vain and

curious variation, and let us rather find out what inquiries the

Barbarians [i.e., the Persians] have instituted concerning good and

evil, and to what opinions they have come on all these subjects. For

certain among them have said that there are for all things two beginnings

[or principles], to which they have referred good and evil, holding these

principles are without beginning and ingenerate; that is to say, that in

the origins of things there were light and darkness, which existed of

themselves, and which were not declared to exist.(42) When these subsisted

by themselves, they each led its own proper mode of life as it willed to

lead, and such as was competent to it. For in the case of all things, what

is proper to it is in amity with it, and nothing seems evil to itself. But

after they came to the knowledge of each other, and after the darkness

contemplated the light, then, as if fired with a passion for something

superior, the darkness rushed to have intercourse with the light."





(b) Clement of Alexandria, Strom., IV, 12. (MSG, 8:1289.)





Basilides taught the transmigration of souls as an explanation of

human suffering. Cf. Origen in Ep. ad Rom., V: "I [Paul], he

says, died [Rom. 7:9], for now sin began to be reckoned unto me.

But Basilides, not noticing that these things ought to be

understood of the natural law, according to impious and foolish

fables turns this apostolic saying into the Pythagorean dogma,

that is, attempts to prove from this word of the Apostle that

souls are transferred from one body to another. For he says that

the Apostle has said, 'I lived without any law'--i.e., before I

came into the body I lived in that sort of body which is not under

the law, i.e., of beasts and birds."





Basilides, in the twenty-third book of the Exegetics, respecting those

that are punished by martyrdom, expresses himself in the following

language: "For I say this, Whosoever fall under the afflictions mentioned,

in consequence of unconsciously transgressing in other matters, are

brought to this good end by the kindness of Him who brings about all

things, though they are accused on other grounds; so that they may not

suffer as condemned for what are acknowledged to be iniquities, nor

reproached as the adulterer or the murderer, but because they are

Christians; which will console them, so that they do not appear to suffer.

And if one who has not sinned at all incur suffering (a rare case), yet

even he will not suffer aught through the machinations of power, but will

suffer as the child which seems not to have sinned would suffer." Then

further on he adds: "As, then, the child which has not sinned before, nor

actually committed sin, but has in itself that which committed sin, when

subjected to suffering is benefited, reaping the advantage of many

difficulties; so, also, although a perfect man may not have sinned in act,

and yet endures afflictions, he suffers similarly with the child. Having

within him the sinful principle, but not embracing the opportunity of

committing sin, he does not sin; so that it is to be reckoned to him as

not having sinned. For as he who wishes to commit adultery is an

adulterer, although he fails to commit adultery, and he who wishes to

commit murder is a murderer, although he is unable to kill; so, also, if I

see the man without sin, whom I refer to, suffering, though he have done

nothing bad, I should call him bad on account of the wish to sin. For I

will affirm anything rather than call Providence evil." Then, in

continuation, he says expressly concerning the Lord, as concerning man:

"If, then, passing from all these observations, you were to proceed to put

me to shame by saying, perchance impersonating certain parties, This man

has then sinned, for this man has suffered; if you permit, I will say, He

has not sinned, but was like a child suffering. If you insist more

urgently, I would say, That the man you name is man, but God is righteous,

'for no one is pure,' as one said, 'from pollution.' " But the hypothesis

of Basilides says that the soul, having sinned before in another life,

endures punishment in this--the elect soul with honor by martyrdom, the

other purged by appropriate punishment.





(c) Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., I, 24:3 ff. (MSG, 7:675.)





The system of Basilides, as presented by Irenaeus, is dualistic and

emanationist; with it is to be compared the presentation of the

system by Hippolytus in his Philosophumena, where it appears as

evolutionary and pantheistic. The trend of present opinion appears

to be that the account given by Irenaeus is more correct, or, at

least, is earlier. The following account has all the appearance of

having been taken from an original source (cf. Hilgenfeld,

Ketzergeschichte, 195, 198). It represents the esoteric and more

distinctively Gnostic teaching of the school.





Ch. 3. Basilides, to appear to have discovered something more sublime and

plausible, gives an immense development to his doctrine. He declares that

in the beginning the Nous was born of the unborn Father, that from him in

turn was born the Logos, then from the Logos the Phronesis, from the

Phronesis Sophia and Dynamis, and from Dynamis and Sophia the powers and

principalities and angels, whom he calls the first; and that by these the

first heaven was made. Then by emanation from these others were formed,

and these created another heaven similar to the first. And in like manner,

when still others had been formed by emanations from these, corresponding

to those who were over them, they framed another third heaven; and from

this third heaven downward there was a fourth succession of descendants;

and so on, in the same manner, they say that other and still other princes

and angels were formed, and three hundred and sixty-five heavens.

Wherefore the year contained the same number of days in conformity with

the number of the heavens.



Ch. 4. The angels occupying the lowest heaven, that, namely, which is

visible to us, created all those things which are in the world, and made

allotments among themselves of the earth, and of those nations which are

upon it. The chief of them is he who is thought to be the God of the Jews.

Inasmuch as he wished to make the other nations subject to his own people,

the Jews, all the other princes resisted and opposed him. Wherefore all

other nations were hostile to his nation. But the unbegotten and nameless

Father, seeing their ruin, sent his own first-begotten Nous, for he it is

who is called Christ, to set free from the power of those who made the

world them that believe in him. He therefore appeared on earth as a man to

the nations of those powers and wrought miracles. Wherefore he did not

himself suffer death, but Simon, a certain Cyrenian, was compelled and

bore the cross in his stead; and this latter was transfigured by him that

he might be thought to be Jesus and was crucified through ignorance and

error; but Jesus himself took the form of Simon and stood by and derided

him. For as he is an incorporeal power and the Nous of the unborn Father,

he transfigured himself at pleasure, and so ascended to him who had sent

him, deriding them, inasmuch as he could not be held, and was invisible to

all. Those, then, who know these things have been freed from the princes

who made the world; so that it is not necessary to confess him who was

crucified, but him who came in the form of a man, and was thought to have

been crucified, and was called Jesus, and was sent by the Father, that by

this dispensation he might destroy the works of the makers of the world.

Therefore, Basilides says that if any one confesses the crucified, he is

still a slave, under the power of those who made our bodies; but whoever

denies him has been freed from these beings and is acquainted with the

dispensation of the unknown Father.



Ch. 5. Salvation is only of the soul, for the body is by nature

corruptible. He says, also, that even the prophecies were derived from

those princes who made the world, but the law was especially given by

their chief, who led the people out of the land of Egypt. He attaches no

importance to meats offered to idols, thinks them of no consequence, but

makes use of them without hesitation. He holds, also, the use of other

things as indifferent, and also every kind of lust. These men,

furthermore, use magic, images, incantations, invocations, and every other

kind of curious arts. Coining also certain names as if they were those of

the angels, they assert that some of these belong to the first, others to

the second, heaven; and then they strive to set forth the names,

principles, angels, powers, of the three hundred and sixty-five imagined

heavens. They also affirm that the name in which the Saviour ascended and

descended is Caulacau.(43)



Ch. 6. He, then, who has learned these things, and known all the angels

and their causes, is rendered invisible and incomprehensible to the angels

and powers, even as Caulacau also was. And as the Son was unknown to all,

so must they also be known by no one; but while they know all and pass

through all, they themselves remain invisible and unknown to all; for "Do

thou," they say, "know all, but let nobody know thee." For this reason,

persons of such a persuasion are also ready to recant, yea, rather, it is

impossible that they should suffer on account of a mere name, since they

are alike to all. The multitude, however, cannot understand these matters,

but only one out of a thousand, or two out of ten thousand. They declare

that they are no longer Jews, and that they are not yet Christians; and

that it is not at all fitting to speak openly of their mysteries, but

right to keep them secret by preserving silence.



Ch. 7. They make out the local position of the three hundred and

sixty-five heavens in the same way as do the mathematicians. For,

accepting the theorems of the latter, they have transferred them to their

own style of doctrine. They hold that their chief is Abraxas [or Abrasax];

and on this account that the word contains in itself the numbers amounting

to three hundred and sixty-five.