fl. c. 120–140 CE · Christian Gnostic teacher
Basilides
Βασιλείδης
In Alexandria: 117–138 CE
Taught in Alexandria under Hadrian and Antoninus Pius and wrote twenty-four books of Exegetica on the gospel. Irenaeus and Hippolytus give two incompatible accounts of his system; the fragments Clement quotes are the surest guide. His son Isidore carried on the school.
Their life and work
He is the first Christian teacher known by name in Alexandria, under Hadrian. Clement quotes from his Exegetica and from his son Isidore, and the quotations show a teacher concerned with suffering and providence: martyrs, he argued, suffer for faults of their own, so that God's goodness stays clear (Stromata 4.81–83). Agrippa Castor wrote against him in his lifetime, as Eusebius reports. Irenaeus's system of 365 heavens and the god Abrasax and Hippolytus's quite different account cannot both be his, and Löhr builds his account instead on the surviving fragments of his own writings, most of them preserved by Clement, with others in Origen and the Acts of Archelaus.
Our device: Their emblem is a gem cut with the name Abrasax. No portrait of any of these people survives. The emblems are our devices.
On the shelves
- Basilides of Alexandria, Exegetica · c. 120–140 CE · Survives in fragments
Moments
- c. 120–160 CE · Basilides, Valentinus and Carpocrates Known: attested
In the show
- Exorcism, theurgy, and the mission of the Elus-Cohen, episode 5, at 30 minutes 57 secondsTranscriptThe demiurge who 'didn't realize there was anything higher', placed by the speaker in the Basilidian corpus.Known: attested
- Exorcism, theurgy, and the mission of the Elus-Cohen, episode 5, at 32 minutes 51 secondsTranscript“I believe it's in the val the the basalitian corpus where uh it might be in the exogetica”Basilides' Exegetica, in twenty-four books (Clement; Agrippa Castor in Eusebius).Known: attested
- Crisis, descent, and recurring esoteric patterns, episode 37, at 39 minutes 47 secondsTranscript“if you're thinking of like the the Basilidians and some of the the early Christian sects, it's actually when they celebrated the incarnation of Christ.”Mark Stavish's conversation; Clement, Stromata I.21.146.Known: attested
+ 5 more
- Baptism, anointing, and the Holy Spirit, episode 2, at 23 minutes 50 secondsTranscript“Basalian gnostics did not celebrate the incarnation of the Lord on or around the winter solstice”Known: attested
- Path: Martinism and Reintegration, station 4Understand the anointing. The Basilidian feast of the Baptism.Known: attested
- Gnosticism · Chronology: Great system-builders'Basilides active in Alexandria under Hadrian, 117–138'.Known: attested
- GematriaHebrew gematria only. Abrasax = 365 in Greek isopsephy (Irenaeus, Against Heresies I.24.7) is the Alexandrian counterpart the instrument does not cover.Known: attested
Sources (5)
- Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 4.81–83; 7.106.4
- Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.24.3–7
- W. A. Löhr, Basilides und seine Schule (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996)
- Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.7.6–8
- Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 7.20–27