Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 2.djvu/379

 BASILIDES

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BASILIDES

His System. — As practically nothing of Basilides' Nvriting is extant and as we have no contemporaneous Gnostic witnesses, we must gather the teaching of this patriarch of Gnosticism from the following early sources: (a) St. Irena^us, "Contra Htereses",!, xxiv, written about 170; (b) Clement of Alexandria, "Stromata", I, xxi, II. vi, viii. xx. IV, xi, xii, xxv, V, i, etc., written between 208-210, and the so-called "Excerpta ex Theodoto" perhaps from the same hand; (c) Hippolytus of Rome, " Philosophumena ", VII, wTitten alx)ut 225: (d) Pseudo-Tertullian, "Against All Heresies", a little treatise usually at- tached to Tertullian's "De Praescriptionibus", but really by another hand, perhaps by Victorinus of Pettau, vTitten about 240 and based upon a non- extant "Compendium" of Hippolytus; (e) Artistic remains of Gnosticism such as Abrasax gems, and literary remains like the Pistis Sophia, the latter part of which probably dates back to the end of the second centurj- and, though not strictly Basilidian, yet illustrates early Alexandrian Gnosticism. Later sources are EpiphanitLS, "Adv. Hser.", xxiv, and Theodoret, " Ha>r. Fab. Comp.",I,iv. Unfortunately, the descriptions of the Ba.silidian system given by our chief informants, St. Irena;us and Hippolytus, are so strongly divergent that they seem to many quite irreconcilable. According to Irenteus, Basilides ■was apparently a dualist and an emanationist, and according to Hippolj-tus a pantheistic evolutionist.

Seen from the viewpoint of Irenaeus, Basilides taught that Nous (Mind) was the first to be bom from the Unborn Father; from Nous was bom Logos (Reason); from Logos, Phronesis (Prudence); from Phronesis, Sophia (Wisdom) and Dj-namis (Strength) and from Phronesis and DjTiamis the Virtues, Princi- palities, and Archangels. By these angelic hosts the highest heaven was made, by their descendants the second heaven, and by the descendants again of these the third, and so on till they reached the num- ber 365. Hence the year has as many days as there are heavens. The angels, who hold the last or visible heaven, brought about all things that are in the world and shared amongst themselves the earth and the nations upon it. The highest of these angels is the one who is thought to be the God of the Jews. And as he wished to make the other nations subject to that which was especially his ovni. the other .ingelic principalities withstood him to the utmost. Hence the aversion of all other peoples for this race. The Unborn and Nameless Father seeing their miserable plight, sent his First-born. Nous (and this is the one who is called Christ) to deliver those who should believe in him from the power of the angelic agencies who had built the world. And to men Christ seemed to be a man and to liave performed miracles. It was not, however, Christ who suffered, but rather Simon of CjTene, who was constrained to earn,- the cross for him, and mistakenly crucified in Christ's stead. Simon having received Jesus' form, Jesus assumed Simon's and thus stood by and laughed at them. Simon was crucified and Jesus returned to His Father. Through the Gnosis (Knowledge) of Christ the souls of men are saved, but their bodies perish.— JOut of Epiphanius and Pseudo-Tertullian we can complete the description thus: the highest god, i. e. the Unborn Father, bears the mystical name Abrasax (q. v.), as origin of the 365 heavens. The .\nge!s that made the world formed it out of Eternal Matter; but matter is the principle of all evil and hence both the contempt of the Gnostics for it and their docetic Christologj'. To undergo martjTdom in order to confess the Crucified is useless, for it is to die for Simon of CjTene. not for Christ.

Hippolytus sets forth the doctrine of Basilides as follows: "There was a time when nothing existed, neither matter nor form, nor accident; neither the simple nor the compoimd. neither the unknowable

nor the invisible, neither man nor angel nor god nor any of those things, which are called by names or perceived by the mind or the senses. The Not-Being God (ovK (ii/ 9c6s), whom Aristotle calls Thought of thought (i-^Tjcris T7J! voTjo-eut), without conscious- ness, without perception, without purpose, without aim, without passion, without desire, had the will to create the world. I say 'had the will' ", continues Hippoh^ns, "only by way of speaking, because in reality he had neither will, nor ideas nor perceptions; and by the word 'world' I do not mean this actual world, which is the outcome of extension and di- vision, but rather the Seed of the world. The seed of the world contained in itself, as a mustard seed, all things which are eventually evolved, as the roots, the branches, the leaves arise out of the seedcom of the plant." Strange to say this World-seed or All-seed (Panspermia) is still described as Not-Being. It is a phrase of Basihdes: "God is Not- Being, even He, who made the world out of what was not; Not- Being made Not-Being." — Basilides distinctly re- jected both emanation and the eternity of matter. "What need is there", he said, "of emanation or why accept 'Hyle' [f'X?;. Matter]; as if God had created the world as the spider spins its thread or as mortal man fashions metal or wood. God spoke and it was; this Moses expresses thus: 'Let there be light and there was light'." This sentence has a Christian ring, but we must not forget that to Basilides God was Absolute Negation. He cannot find words enough to bring out the utter non-existence of God; C!od is not even " unspea.kable " {S.ppriToi'), He simply is Not. Hence the popular designation of Oukontiani for people who always spoke of Oukon, Not-Being. The difficulty lies in placing the actual transition from Not-Being into Being. This was probably supposed to consist in the Sperma or Seed, which in one respect was Not-Being, and in the other, the .A.ll-seed of the manifold world. The Panspermia con- tained in itself a tlireefold Filiation, Hyiotes (uiirTjs): one composed of refined elements, Leptomeres (XeiTTOfupii) , a second of grosser elments, Pachy- meres (Traxv/iep^t) , and a third needing purification, Apokatharseos deomenon {dTroKaBapaeois deiiuvov).

The.se three Filiations ultimately reach the Not- Being God, but each reaches him in a different way. The first Filiation rose at once and flew with the swiftness of thought to the Not-Being God. The second, remaining as yet in the Panspermia, wished to imitate the first Filiation and rise upwards; but, being too gross and hea\y, it failed. Whereupon the second Filation takes to itself wings, which are the Holy Ghost, and with this aid almost reaches the Not- Being God. But when it has come near, the Holy Ghost, of different substance from the Second Filia- tion, can go no further, but conducts the Second Filiation near to the First Fihation and leaves. Yet he does not return empty but, as a vessel full of ointment, he retains the sweet odour of Filiation; and he becomes the "Boundary Spirit" (Methorion Pneuma, litdipiov TrveCpui), between the Supermun- dane and the Mundane where the third Filiation is still contained in the Panspermia. Now there arose out of the Panspermia the Great Archon, or Ruler; he sped upwards until he reached the firmament, and thinking there was nothing above and beyond, and not knowing of the Third Filiation, still con- tained in the Panspermia, he fancied himself Lord and Master of all things. He created to himself a Son out of the heap of Panspermia; this was the Christ and being himself amazed at the beauty of his Son, who was greater than his Father, he made him sit at his right hand; and with him he created the ethereal heavens, which reach unto the Moon. The sphere where the Great Archon rules, i. e. the higher heavens, the lower boundarj- of which is the plane where the moon revolves, is called the Ogdoad