2

4

The theosophic reveries of Valentinus were so susceptible of easy transformations, that many of his most illustrious disciples, such as Heracleon, Ptolemy, Secundus,3 Colobarsus, and particularly Marcus, widely deviated from their master's teaching.

OBSERVATION.-For a more complete and thorough knowledge of the Gnostic systems of Eons, and particularly that of Valentinus, and the various methods of enumeration adopted in each, it will be necessary to consult the explanations of their teachings, given by the Gnostics themselves, and to be found in the works of Irenacus and Tertullian," and in the Philosophumena. The system of Valentinus appears to be a personification, under a mythical form of speculations and ideas, gathered from Platonic philosophy and Christian revelation.

6

4. CARPOCRATES.

Iren. I. 25. Clem. Alex. strom. III. 2. Philosophum. VII. 32. Euseb. h. e. IV. 7. Epiphan. haer. 27 (opp. T. I., p. 102 sq.), haer. 32, c. 3 (T. I., p. 210). Theodoret. haeret. fabb. I. 5. Conf. Tillem. T. II., p. 253 sq. Fuldner, de Carpocratianis, Lps. 1824.

Carpocrates, of Alexandria, who lived in the reign of the emperor Hadrian, is usually numbered among the Gnostics, although he can scarcely be said to have belonged to any of the Christian sects.

He taught that the Holy Ghost did not manifest Himself (zat' soy) any more distinctly in the person of Christ than He had done before Christ came into the world, and continues

1Epiphan. haer. 36.

2Iren. I. 12, II. 4. Epiphan. haer. 33.

3

3 Epiphan. haer. 32. Tertull. adv. Valent., c. 4 et 38. Theodoret. 1. c. I. 8. 4Iren. I. 12. Epiphan. haer. 35. Theodoret. 1. c. I. 12.

5Iren. I. 13 sq. Epiph. haer. 34.

6 For further explanations concerning av poros and ikkλnoia, cf. Iren. I. 12, n. 3, p. 57, concerning vous as the symbol and fountain of all life. I. 8, n. 5; II. 13, n. 1; II. 14.

Tertull. adv. Valent., c. 4. Nominibus et numeris Aeonum distinctis in personales substantias, sed extra Deum determinatas, quas Valentinus in ipsa summa divinitatis, ut sensus et affectus et motus incluserat. Conf. de anima, c. 14. According to Neander (Hist. of Christ. Ethics, edited by Erdmann, Berlin, 1864), by the opos of Valentine, this profound idea is said to be represented: "The importance of self-control for all moral life may be judged from the fact that all confusion arises from a disposition in the individual to aspire to what does not belong to his individuality, instead of being content with what is properly his own.

to do since He left it; that the doctrine of Christ, properly understood, is neither more nor less than Platonic and Pythagorean philosophy, adapted to a new revelation; that the traditionally-received Christianity can no more claim to be a true religion than any other philosophical system or religious belief, which, like it, is destitute of all scientific basis; and that Christ was simply a philosopher, like Plato and Pythagoras. Hence, the Carpocratians placed the picture of Christ. among those of the other great philosophers, which they set up in their sanctuaries.

Carpocrates asserted that the world being the work of fallen spirits (arreλor zooμоñоrot), the Divinity (pová) was not to be sought there; that the spirit can arrive at a knowledge of God (γνῶσις μοναδική) only when disengaged from every earthly affection and influence; and that the conditions of a union with the Divinity consist in raising one's self to the moral freedom of virtue (sia dizaoovn), by shunning all contact with the world, and renouncing the received religion and morality, which serve indeed to give a legal status to the individual, but neither cleanse nor justify him. Only a few persons, such as Plato, Pythagoras, and Christ, whose souls had enjoyed intimate relations with the Deity before their earthly existence, are capable of reaching so elevated a height. A portion of the divine virtue which they enjoyed in a former life still clings to them, and calls up in their souls memories of the past. They have the power of transgressing the narrow and confined limit set to the life of ordinary mortals, and of thus directly paying homage to the true God. All men, he said, may reach the same exalted destiny.

In spite of theories so spiritual, Carpocrates indulged in every sort of wanton libertinism. While he himself was gathering about him numerous followers at Rome, and still earlier in Egypt, his son Epiphanes disseminated his doctrine on the island of Cephalonia, and, following the system of Plato, taught that women and goods should be common, this being the only true way to honor God. At the close of their feasts, they indulged in the concubitus promiscuos. The cognate sects of the Antitacts and Prodicians also practiced the profligate habits of the Carpocratians.

5. HERMOGENES.

Tertull., lib. adv. Hermog. Philosophum., lib. VIII. 17; also Theophilus of Antioch and Origen wrote against him. See Euseb. h. e. IV. 24. Theodoret. fabb. haeret. I. 9. Conf. Walch, Hist. of Heretics, Vol. I., p. 576 sq. Boehmer, Hermogenes Africanus, Lund. 1832.

The heresy that goes under the name of Hermogenes can lay still less claim to be classed among the Christian sects than that of the Carpocratians. Hermogenes lived in Africa in the second century, and was by trade a painter. Following the doctrine of the Platonists, he assumed that two principles had existed from all eternity-God, the creating and active principle, and a shapeless, disorderly, subjective matter, or conceiving substance, from which God formed the world. He said that everything in the world was continually resisting the creating principle, and that this active opposition of matter was the source of all evil. While he denied the possibility of the Catholic doctrine of creation out of nothing, he equally rejected the Gnostic theory of emanation as entirely unworthy of God. He held that the soul, as well as the body, was formed from this eternal matter. Tertullian refuted his whole theory, and for this particular doctrine refers to his work, “De Censu Animae," which has been lost.

Theodoret says that Hermogenes also taught that Christ during His ascension laid down his body in the sun, and that Satan and his demons (evil) would be changed into matter. There is, however, hardly any evidence to connect such a doctrine with the theory of Hermogenes.1

Tertullian, referring to his habit of painting mythological characters and to his incontinency and repeated marriages, says of him, "Pingit illicite, nubit assidue."

B.-THE SYRIAN GNOSTICS. SOME OF THESE, SUCH AS THOSE MENTIONED UNDER NUMBERS 7, 8, AND 9, MAKE A STILL NEARER APPROACH TO THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH THAN THOSE ALREADY TREATED.

6. SATURNINUS.

Iren. I. 24. Philosophumena, lib. VII. 28; literally copied out of Irenaeus. Epiph. haer, 23. Theodoret. haeret. fabb. I. 3. Tillemont, T. II., p. 217–219.

1

Saturninus, or Saturnilus, was a contemporary of Basilides,

1 Unless it owes its origin to his belief in the inherent evil of matter.

and taught at Antioch about A. D. 125, during the reign of Hadrian. His system is closely connected with those of Simon Magus and his disciple, Menander,' and its principal features are the following:

The Supreme Unknown (rathρ arvwotos) created angels, archangels, and powers (δυνάμεις, ἀρχαί, ἐξουσία). The angels, by and by, fell from their estate, and those who had sunk to the lowest depth became the spirits of the seven planets (äppelor nooμozpáτopes). These created the world; but while doing so, a bright image of a spiritual being burst upon them, remained for an instant, and was gone. They then created man in the likeness of this image, which had remained fixed in their memory. Man, so formed, had not the power of speech or of standing erect, but was obliged to crawl upon the earth, till the Supreme Father, taking pity upon his condition, sent forth a spark of divine life, which enabled him. to assume an erect posture, and live. One of these angels was also the God of the Jews.

There is also in his system an evil principle (ó Zatavās), opposed to the Supreme Unknown; but it is not certain whether Saturninus ascribed his origin to an act of rebellion, or believed him coeval with the good Primaeval Being. Satan created a dark race of men, who, in many things, bore a close resemblance to himself, and whose duty it was to oppose the men of light.

Christ, the chief of the Eons, who, though uncreated and without any real body, was to all appearance human in form, was sent by the Father to set man free from the bondage of Satan and the God of the Jews, and to keep the divine spark aglow within him.

The sons of light, who are the allies of God, and particularly the Saturninians, are destined to salvation; but not so those men of animal nature, who are quite incapable of so high a destiny.

Saturninus ascribed the origin of animal food and marriage to Satan, and maintained that in order to be wise, like him, man should abstain from both.

1 Iren. contr. haer. I. 24.

This heretical system, though unsatisfactory and defective, contains the germ of what was more fully and consistently developed by the later Gnostics.

7. BARDESANES.

Fragments of the book repì cipapμévns, on Fate, in Euseb. praep. evang. VI. 10, and Orelli, de fato, Tur. 1824; in a Syriac transl., ed. Cureton, in the Spicilegium Syriacum, Lond. 1855. Epiphan. haer. 56. (T. I., p. 476 sq.) Theodoret. haereticor. fabulae I. 22. Conf. Tillemont, T. II., p. 454 sq. Merx, Bardesanes of Edessa, and the Clementine Recognitions in their relation to the Book of the Laws of Countries, Halle, 1863. Hilgenfeld, Bardesanes, the last of the Gnostics, Lps. 1864.

Bardesanes was born about A. D. 154, and we find him at Edessa A. D. 174. Eusebius and St. Jerome, who derived their knowledge from a translation of his works, speak of him as a man of great learning, and some talent for poetry. Epiphanius says that he fell away from the Catholic Church and joined the Valentinians; while Eusebius and Theodoret, on the contrary, affirm that he was a convert from Valentinian Gnosticism, but that he never quite relinquished some of his former tenets, and ended by becoming the founder of a new sect. He is said to have held the following Gnostic theories: "Satan can not be said to have derived his origin from God," and "Our body being the prison of the soul, can never rise again." Adopting the teachings of Zoroaster and the principles of Greek philosophy, he divided all being and existence into three classes: the qua, or established powers of nature; the sipapμévy, or those under the fatal influence of the star spirits; and the God of the Christians, the guardian of moral freedom. He held that Christ was clothed with a celestial and immaterial body, and that He taught man to subdue the sensual passions, and enjoined fasting, abstinence, and contemplation, as a means of shaking off the fetters of evil matter; that thus freed from grosser bonds, the body might return to Heaven after the death of the flesh, as an ethereal substance.1 Bardesanes also asserted that the soul of man, before he was seduced by Satan,2 had been clothed with

1 Cor. xv.

2 Gen. iii. 6.