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102 of one Glaucias, alleged to be an interpreter (ἐρμηνέα) of St. Peter (Clem. Strom. vii. p. 898). He taught at Alexandria (Iren. p. 100 Mass.; followed by Eus. H. E. iv. 7; Epiph. Haer. xxiv. 1, p. 68 ; cf. xxiii. 1, p. 62 ; Theod. Haer. Fab. i. 2): Hippolytus (Haer. vii. 27, p. 244) in general terms mentions Egypt. Indeed Epiphanius enumerates various places in Egypt visited by Basilides; but subsequently allows it to appear that his knowledge of the districts where Basilidians existed in his own time was his only evidence. If the Alexandrian Gnostic is the Basilides quoted in the Acts of the Disputation of Archelaus and Mani (c. 55, in Routh, Rell. Sac. v. 196; see later, p. 276), he was reported to have preached in Persia. Nothing more is known of his life. According to Epiphanius (62, 68 , 69 ), he had been a fellow-disciple of Menander with Saturnilus at Antioch in Syria; but this is evidently an arbitrary extension of Irenaeus's remarks on the order of doctrines to personal relations. If the view of the doctrines of Basilides taken in this article is correct, they afford no good grounds for supposing him to have had a Syrian education. Gnostic ideas derived originally from Syria were sufficiently current at Alexandria, and the foundation of what is distinctive in his thoughts is Greek.

Several independent authorities indicate the reign of Hadrian (A.D.117‒138) as the time when Basilides flourished. To prove that the heretical sects were "later than the Catholic church," Clement of Alexandria (l.c.) marks out early Christian history into different periods: he assigns Christ's own teaching to the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius; that of the apostles, of St. Paul at least, ends, he says, in the time of Nero; whereas "the authors of the sects arose later, about the times of the emperor Hadrian (κάτω δὲ περὶ τοὺς κ.τ λ. γεγόνασι), and continued quite as late as the age of the elder Antoninus." He gives as examples Basilides, Valentinus, and (if the text is sound) Marcion, taking occasion by the way to throw doubts on the claims set up for the two former as having been instructed by younger contemporaries of St. Peter and St. Paul respectively, by pointing out that about half a century lay between the death of Nero and the accession of Hadrian. Again Eusebius (l.c.) places Saturnilus and Basilides under Hadrian. Yet his language about Carpocrates a few lines further on suggests a doubt whether he had any better evidence than a fallacious inference from their order in Irenaeus. He was acquainted with the refutation of Basilides by Agrippa Castor; but it is not clear, as is sometimes assumed, that he meant to assign both writers to the same reign. His chronicle (Armenian) at the year 17 of Hadrian (A.D.133) has the note "The heresiarch Basilides appeared at these times"; which Jerome, as usual, expresses rather more definitely. A similar statement without the year is repeated by Jerome, ''de Vir. Ill. 21, where an old corrupt reading (mortuus for moratus'') led some of the earlier critics to suppose they had found a limit for the date of Basilides's death. Theodoret (l.c.) evidently follows Eusebius. Earliest of all, but vaguest, is the testimony of Justin Martyr. Writing in or soon after A.D.

145, he refers briefly (Ap. i. 26) to the founders of heretical sects, naming first the earliest, Simon and Menander, followers of whom were still alive; and then apparently the latest, Marcion, himself still alive. The probable inference that the other great heresiarchs, including Basilides, were by this time dead receives some confirmation from a passage in his Dialogue against Trypho (c. 35), a later but probably not much later book, where the "Marcians," Valentinians, Basilidians, Saturnilians, "and others," are enumerated, apparently in inverse chronological order: the growth of distinct and recognized sects implies at least the lapse of some time since the promulgation of their several creeds. It seems therefore impossible to place Basilides later than Hadrian's time; and, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, we may trust the Alexandrian Clement's statement that his peculiar teaching began at no earlier date.

II. Writings.—According to Agrippa Castor (Eus. H. E. l.c.), Basilides wrote "twenty-four books (βιβλία) on the Gospel." These are no doubt the Exegetica, from the twenty-third of which Clement gives an extract (Strom. iv. §§ 83 ff., pp. 599 f.). The same work is doubtless intended by the "treatises" (tractatuum), the thirteenth book of which is cited in the Acta Archelai, if the same Basilides is referred to. The authorship of an actual Gospel, of the "apocryphal" class, is likewise attributed to Basilides on plausible grounds. The word "taken in hand" (ἐπεχείρησαν) in Luke i. 1 gives Origen occasion to distinguish between the four evangelists, who wrote by inspiration, and other writers who "took in hand" to produce Gospels. He mentions some of these, and proceeds "Basilides had even the audacity" (ἤδη δὲ ἐτόλμησεν, more than ἐπεχείρησεν) "to write a Gospel according to Basilides"; that is, he went beyond other fabricators of Gospels by affixing his own name (Hom. in Luc. i.). This passage is freely translated, though without mention of Origen's name, by Ambrose (Exp. in Luc. i. 1); and is probably Jerome's authority in an enumeration of the chief apocryphal Gospels (Com. in Matt. praef. t. vii. p. 3); for among the six others which he mentions the four named by Origen recur, including that of the Twelve Apostles, otherwise unknown (cf. Hieron. Dial. cont. Pelag. iii. 2, t. ii. p. 782). Yet no trace of a Gospel by Basilides exists elsewhere; and it seems most probable either that Origen misunderstood the nature of the Exegetica, or that they were sometimes known under the other name (cf. Hilgenfeld, Clem. Rec. u. Hom. 123 ff.).

An interesting question remains, in what relation the Exegetica stand to the exposition of doctrine which fills eight long chapters of Hippolytus. Basilides (or the Basilidians), we are told (vii. 27), defined the Gospel as "the knowledge of supermundane things" (ἠ τῶν ὑπερκοσμίων γνῶσις), and the idea of the progress of "the Gospel" through the different orders of beings plays a leading part in the Basilidian doctrine (cc. 25 ff.). But there is not the slightest reason to think that the "Gospel" here spoken of was a substitute for the Gospel in a historical sense, any more 