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112 sufficient reply is given in Uhlhorn's ''Hom. u. Recog. d. Clem. Rom.'' 1854, pp. 286 ff.

VI. Isodorus.—In the passage already noticed (Haer. vii. 20) Hippolytus couples with Basilides "his true child and disciple" Isidore. He is there referring to the use which they made of the Traditions of Matthias; but in the next sentence he treats them as jointly responsible for the doctrines which he recites. Our only other authority respecting Isidore is Clement (copied by Theodoret), who calls him in like manner "at once son and disciple" of Basilides (Strom. vi. 767). In this place he gives three extracts from the first and second books of Isidore's Expositions (Ἐξηγητικά) of the Prophet Parchor. They are all parts of a plea, like so many put forward after the example of Josephus against Apion, that the higher thoughts of heathen philosophers and mythologers were derived from a Jewish source. The last reference given is to Pherecydes, who had probably a peculiar interest for Isidore as the earliest promulgator of the doctrine of metempsychosis known to tradition (cf. Zeller, Philos. d. Griechen, i. 55 f. ed. 3). His allegation that Pherecydes followed "the prophecy of Ham" has been perversely urged as a sign that he set up the prophets of a hated race against the prophets of Israel. The truth is rather that the identification of Zoroaster with Ham or Ham's son, whatever may have been its origin, rendered it easy to claim for the apocryphal Zoroastrian books a quasi-biblical sanctity as proceeding from a son of Noah, and that Isidore gladly accepted the theory as evidence for his argument. "The prophets" from whom "some of the philosophers" appropriated a wisdom not their own can be no other than the Jewish prophets. Again Clement quotes his book On an Adherent Soul (Περὶ προσφυοῦς ψυχῆς) in correction of his preceding quotation from Basilides on the passions as "appendages" (Strom. ii. 488). If the eight lines transcribed are a fair sample of the treatise, Isidore would certainly appear to have argued here against his father's teaching. He insists on the unity (μονομερής) of the soul, and maintains that bad men will find "no common excuse" in the violence of the "appendages" for pleading that their evil acts were involuntary: our duty is, he says, "by overcoming the inferior creation within us (τῆς ἐλάττονος ἐν ἡμῖν κτίσεως) through the reasoning faculty (τῷ λογιστικῷ), to shew ourselves to have the mastery." A third passage from Isidore's Ethics (Strom. iii. 510) is intercalated into his father's argument on I. Cor. vii. 9, to the same purport but in a coarser strain. Its apparent difficulty arises partly from a corrupt reading (ἀντέχου μαχίμης γυναικος, where γαμετῆς must doubtless be substituted for μαχίμης, ἀντέχου meaning not "resist," which would be ἀντέχε, as in the preceding line, but "have recourse to"); partly from the assumption that the following words ὅταν δὲ κ.τ.λ. are likewise by Isidore, whereas the sense shews them to be a continuation of the exposition of Basilides himself.

Basilides had to all appearance no eminent disciple except his own son. In this respect the contrast between him and Valentinus is

remarkable. A succession of brilliant followers carried forward and developed the Valentinian doctrine. It is a singular testimony to the impression created at the outset by Basilides and his system that he remained for centuries one of the eponymi of heresy; his name is oftener repeated, for instance, in the writings of Origen, than that of any other dreaded of the ante-Nicene church except Marcion, Valentinus, and afterwards Mani. But the original teaching, for all its impressiveness, had no vitality. The Basilidianism which did survive, and that, as far as the evidence goes, only locally, was, as we have seen, a poor and corrupt remnant, adulterated with the very elements which the founder had strenuously rejected.

VII. The Spurious Basilidian System.—In briefly sketching this degenerate Basilidianism it will seldom be needful to distinguish the authorities, which are fundamentally two, Irenaeus (101 f.) and the lost early treatise of Hippolytus; both having much in common, and both being interwoven together in the report of Epiphanius (pp. 68‒75). The other relics of the Hippolytean Compendium are the accounts of Philaster (32), and the supplement to Tertullian (4). At the head of this theology stood the Unbegotten (neuter in Epiph.), the Only Father. From Him was born or put forth Nûs, and from Nûs Logos, from Logos Phronesis, from Phronesis Sophia and Dynamis, from Sophia and Dynamis principalities, powers, and angels. This first set of angels first made the first heaven, and then gave birth to a second set of angels who made a second heaven, and so on till 365 heavens had been made by 365 generations of angels, each heaven being apparently ruled by an Archon to whom a name was given, and these names being used in magic arts. The angels of the lowest or visible heaven made the earth and man. They were the authors of the prophecies; and the Law in particular was given by their Archon, the God of the Jews. He being more petulant and wilful than the other angels (ἰταμώτερον καὶ αὐθαδέστερον), in his desire to secure empire for his people, provoked the rebellion of the other angels and their respective peoples. Then the Unbegotten and Innominable Father, seeing what discord prevailed among men and among angels, and how the Jews were perishing, sent His Firstborn Nûs, Who is Christ, to deliver those Who believed on Him from the power of the makers of the world. "He," the Basilidians said, "is our salvation, even He Who came and revealed to us alone this truth." He accordingly appeared on earth and performed mighty works; but His appearance was only in outward show, and He did not really take flesh. It was Simon of Cyrene that was crucified; for Jesus exchanged forms with him on the way, and then, standing unseen opposite in Simon's form, mocked those who did the deed. But He Himself ascended into heaven, passing through all the powers, till He was restored to the presence of His own Father. The two fullest accounts, those of Irenaeus and Epiphanius, add by way of appendix another particular of the antecedent mythology; a short notice on the same subject being likewise inserted parenthetically by Hippolytus 