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110 as the occasion when Jesus received "the Gospel" by a Divine illumination. The supposed descent of "Christ" for union with "Jesus," though constantly assumed by Hilgenfeld, is as destitute of ancient attestation as it is inconsistent with the tenor of Basilidian doctrine recorded by Clement, to say nothing of Hippolytus. It has been argued from Clement's language by Gieseler (in the Halle A.L.Z. for 1823, i. 836 f.; cf. K.G. i. I. 186), that the Basilidians were the first to celebrate our Lord's Baptism. The early history of the Epiphany is too obscure to allow a definite conclusion on this point; but the statement about the Basilidian services of the preceding night receives some illustration from a passage of Epiphanius, lately published from the Venice MS. ii. 483 Dind.: iii. 632 Oehler), in which we hear of the night before the Epiphany as spent in singing and flute-playing in a heathen temple at Alexandria: so that probably the Basilidian rite was a modification of an old local custom. According to Agrippa Castor (Eus. l.c.) Basilides "in Pythagorean fashion" prescribed a silence of five years to his disciples.

The same author, we hear, stated that Basilides "named as prophets to himself Barcabbas and Barcoph, providing himself likewise with certain other [? prophets] who had no existence, and that he bestowed upon them barbarous appellations to strike amazement into those who have an awe of such things." The alleged prophecies apparently belonged to the apocryphal Zoroastrian literature popular with various Gnostics.

From Hippolytus we hear nothing about these prophecies, which will meet us again presently with reference to Basilides's son Isidore, but he tells us (Haer. vii. 20) that, according to Basilides and Isidore, Matthias spoke to them mystical doctrines (λόγους ἀποκρύφους) which he heard in private teaching from the Saviour: and in like manner Clement (Strom. vii. 900) speaks of the sect of Basilides as boasting that they took to themselves the glory of Matthias. Origen also (Hom. in Luc. i. t. iii p. 933) and after him Eusebius refer to a "Gospel" of or according to Matthias (H. E. iii. 25, 6). The true name was apparently the Traditions of Matthias: three interesting and by no means heretical extracts are given by Clement (Strom. ii. 452; iii. 523 [copied by Eusebius, H. E. iii. 29. 4]; vii. 882). In the last extract the responsibility laid on "the elect" for the sin of a neighbour recalls a passage already cited (p. 275 ) from Basilides.

It remains only to notice an apparent reference to Basilides, which has played a considerable part in modern expositions of his doctrine. Near the end of the anonymous Acts of the Disputation between Archelaus and Mani, written towards the close of the 3rd cent. or a little later, Archelaus disputes the originality of Mani's teaching, on the ground that it took rise a long time before with "a certain barbarian" (c. 55, in Routh, Rell. Sac. v. 196 ff.). "There was also," he says, "a preacher among the Persians, a certain Basilides of great [or 'greater,' antiuqior] antiquity, not long after the times of our Apostles, who being himself also a crafty man,

and perceiving that at that time everything was preoccupied, decided to maintain that dualism which was likewise in favour with Scythianus," named shortly before (c. 51, p. 186) as a contemporary of the Apostles, who had introduced dualism from a Pythagorean source. "Finally, as he had no assertion to make of his own, he adopted the sayings of others" (the last words are corrupt, but this must be nearly the sense). "And all his books contain things difficult and rugged." The writer then cites the beginning of the thirteenth book of his treatises (tractatuum), in which it was said that "the saving word" (the Gospel) by means of the parable of the rich man and the poor man pointed out the source from which nature (or a nature) without a root and without a place germinated and extended itself over things (rebus supervenientem, unde pullulaverit). He breaks off a few words later and adds that after some 500 lines Basilides invites his reader to abandon idle and curious elaborateness (varietate), and to investigate rather the studies and opinions of barbarians on good and evil. Certain of them, Basilides states, said that there are two beginnings of all things, light and darkness; and he subjoins some particulars of doctrine of a Persian cast. Only one set of views, however, is mentioned, and the Acts end abruptly here in the two known MSS. of the Latin version in which alone this part of them is extant.

It is generally assumed that we have here unimpeachable evidence for the strict dualism of Basilides. It seems certain that the writer of the Acts held his Basilides responsible for the barbarian opinions quoted, which are clearly dualistic, and he had the whole book before him. Yet his language on this point is loose, as if he were not sure of his ground; and the quotation which he gives by no means bears him out: while it is quite conceivable that he may have had some acquaintance with dualistic Basilidians of a later day, such as certainly existed, and have thus given a wrong interpretation to genuine words of their master (cf. Uhlhorn, 52 f.). It assuredly requires considerable straining to draw the brief interpretation given of the parable to a Manichean position, and there is nothing to shew that the author of it himself adopted the first set of "barbarian" opinions which he reported. Indeed the description of evil (for evil doubtless is intended) as a supervenient nature, without root and without place, reads almost as if it were directed against Persian doctrine, and may be fairly interpreted by Basilides's comparison of pain and fear to the rust of iron as natural accidents (ἐπισυμβαίνει). The identity of the Basilides of the Acts with the Alexandrian has been denied by Gieseler with some shew of reason. It is at least strange that our Basilides should be described simply as a "preacher among the Persians," a character in which he is otherwise unknown; and all the more since he has been previously mentioned with Marcion and Valentinus as a heretic of familiar name (c. 38, p. 138). On the other hand, it has been justly urged that the two passages are addressed to different persons. The correspondence is likewise remarkable between the "treatises" in at least thirteen books, with an interpretation of 