But before indicating the themes of the Gnostic solution and revealing its origins, it is necessary to see how it fits into the movement of thought being considered in this work. This is, moreover, to redefine gnosis, this time on the metaphysical plane. Gnosticism poses problems in a Christian manner. It solves them in Greek formulas. Basilides and Marcion are actually persuaded of the wretchedness of the world. But insofar as one accuses the carnal side of reality, one expands the catalogue of sins and wretchedness and increasingly widens the gulf between man and God. There will come a time when no repenting nor any sacrifice will suffice to fill in such a chasm. It suffices to know God to be saved.5 Otherwise, any works or any other source would be able to draw man out of his nothingness. This is, as we have seen, the Christian solution of salvation through Incarnation. It is also, in one
- From the beginning of the second century to the end of the third.
- The first half of the second century.
- Cf. in Buddhism, the parent form of Amitabha.
sense, the solution of the Gnostics. But Christian grace retains a character of divine arbitrariness. The Gnostics, unaware of the profound meaning of the Incarnation, restricting it in its significance, have transformed the notion of salvation into that of initiation. Valentinus actually separated humanity into three orders or types:6 materialists, who are tied to the goods of this world; psychics, balanced between God and matter; and the spiritual, who alone live in God and know him. The latter are saved as later will be the Chosen ones of Mani. Here is introduced the Greek notion. The spiritual are saved only by gnosis or knowledge of God. But this gnosis they learn from Valentinus and from men. Salvation is learned. It is therefore an initiation. For though these notions of salvation and initiation appear, at first sight, related, analysis can no doubt discern subtle but fundamental differences between them. Initiation gives man influence over the divine kingdom. Salvation admits him to this kingdom, without his having any part in achieving it. One can believe in God without being saved. It was sufficient to contemplate the mysteries of Eleusis.7 On the other hand, baptism does not imply salvation. Hellenism cannot be separated from this hope, about which it is so tenacious, that man holds his destiny in his own hands. And at the very heart of Christianity there was, as it happens, a tendency slowly to draw the notion of salvation back into that of initiation. In the same way that the Egyptian fellah slowly won, through the Pharaoh, the right to immortality, the Christian, through the Church, finally had in his hands the keys to the kingdom of heaven.
It is quite right, one sees, that we are able to consider Gnosticism as one of the solutions, one of the Christian stages in the problem that we detect: gnosis is an attempt to reconcile knowledge and salvation. But let us now look at the detail of this attempt.
- De Faye, Gnostiques et Gnosticisme,I, ch. II. Amelineau, Essai sur le Gnosticisme égyptien.
- Cf. Hymne homérique à Déméter, 480–83: “Heureux, celui des hommes vivant sur la terre qui a vu ces choses. Mais celui qui n’a pas été initié aux cérémonies sacrées et celui qui y a pris part n’auront jamais la même destinée après la mort dans les vastes ténèbres.” P. Loisy, [Les mystères païens et le mystère chrétien,] p. 76.
[Homeric Hymn to Demeter, 480–83: “Happy are those men living on earth who have seen these things. But those who have not been initiated into the sacred ceremonies and those have taken part will never have the same destiny after death in the vast darkness.”*]
I. The Themes of the Gnostic Solution
More or less emphasized in the different authors, four fundamental themes are found at the heart of the entire Gnostic system: the problem of evil, redemption, the theory of intermediaries, and a conception of God as an ineffable and incommunicable being.
a) If it is true that the problem of evil had been at the center of all Christian thought, no one had been more profoundly Christian than Basilides.
This original figure is not very widely known. We know that he lived under the reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus the Pious (that is to say, toward 140 CE) and that he probably began to write toward 80 CE. The only partially complete note on his thought is now considered as having little foundation. This note is one of the Philosophumena, which in all likelihood deals with a pseudo-Basilides. Our most important source remains Clement of Alexandria, in his Stromateis. Irenaeus speaks of Basilides in his catalogue, Epiphanius in his Contra Haereses (chapter 24). Finally, we can put together a few allusions from Origen.8
“The origin of this evil doctrine is in the inquiry about where evil is from.”9 This is, in fact, what stands out from the little we know of Basilidean thought. Removed from all speculation, he devoted himself only to moral problems, and more precisely to that moral problem which was born of the relations between man and God. What interests him is sin and the human side of the problem. From faith itself he creates a natural and real existence. “Basilides seems incapable of conceiving an abstraction. It is necessary for him to give it an appearance of substance.”10
It is from this point of view that Basilides develops his thought and is bound to establish a theory of original sin. To tell the truth, the word does not exist in his thought, but only the idea of a certain natural predisposition to sin. Finally, he adds two complementary assertions: sin
- Commentary on RomansV; Homily on Luke I; Commentary on Matthew 38.
- Contra Haereses, XXIV, 6, 72c [sic]: “L’origine et la cause de cette mauvaise doctrine, dit Épiphane, c’est la recherche et la discussion du problème du Mal.”
[Epiphanius, Panarion, 24.6.1, in The Panarion of St. Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis: Selected Passages,ed. and trans. P. R. Amidon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 70.— Trans.] - De Faye, [Gnostiques et Gnosticisme,] 31.
always carries with it a punishment, and there is always an enrichment and an atonement to draw out of suffering. These three themes are attributed indiscriminately to Basilides and to his son, Isidore.
Be that as it may, Basilides is deeply struck by the fate of martyrs. According to him, martyrdom is not useless suffering. Each suffering requires a previous sin that justifies it. Basilides must therefore conclude that martyrs have sinned. Moreover, this state is perfectly reconciled with their holiness. It is precisely their privilege to be able to atone so completely for their past. But who is the greatest of the martyrs, if not Jesus himself? “If you were to insist more urgently, I would say, That the man you name is a man, but that God is righteous. ‘For no one is pure,’ as one said, ‘from pollution.’”11 The allusion is transparent, and we understand why the doctrine was viewed unfavorably by Epiphanius. Christ does not escape the universal law of sin. But at least he shows us the path of deliverance, which is the cross. This is why Basilides and his son, Isidore, inaugurated, to a certain extent, an ascetic life.12 Moreover, it was necessary for Isidore, because it is to him that we owe the theory of the appendage passions. The passions do not belong to us but cling to the soul and exploit us.
Isidore saw clearly that a similar theory could lead the wicked to pre- sent themselves as victims and not as guilty. Hence, the ascetic rule of life.
This is what remains for us of Basilides’ philosophy. We scarcely see how these few reports could be in harmony with the instructions of Hippolytus in the Philosophumena.13 According to Hippolytus, Basil ides would have conceived the idea of an abstract God, residing in the ogdoad, separated from our world by the intermediary universe, or hebdomad. The God of this intermediary world, the great Archon, Basilides would have identified with the God of the Old Testament: “The Ogdoad
- Cited by De Faye, ch. I: “Si l’on me pousse, je dirai qu’un homme, quel que soit celuique tu nommes, est toujours homme, tandis que Dieu est juste. Car comme on l’a dit, personne n’est pur de toute souilure.”
[Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, trans. W. L. Alexander, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson (1870; repr., Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1989), 2:424. De Faye himself offers no reference for this text. It is, as I have indicated, from Clement’s
Stromateis. The passage is found on p. 42 in De Faye.—Trans.] - Cf. De Faye, [Gnostiques et Gnosticisme,] ch. I, 26–27.
- Hippolytus, Philosophumena, bk. VII [sic].
[The more common English title of this work is The Refutation of All Heresies.—Trans.]
is Arrhetus, whereas the Hebdomad is Rhetus. This, he says, is the Archon of the Hebdomad, who has spoken to Moses, and says: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob, and I have not manifested unto them the name of God,’ (for so they wished it had been written)—that is, the God, Arrhetus, Archon of the Ogdoad.”14
This metaphysical cosmology does not seem very compatible with the profound tendencies of our author, above all when we attribute to him a) the idea that Christ did not die crucified, but that he took the place of Simon of Cyrene, b) and the grandiose eschatology that predicts the following: “When this takes place, God . . . will bring upon the whole world enormous ignorance, that all things may continue according to
