Basilides

Basilides, one of the greatest of the Gnostics, who flourished at Alexandria about the year 125 A.D. Many of his fantastic speculations bear greater resemblance to the doctrines of Zoroaster, and in some points to Indian philosophy, than to the religion of Jesus. The first principle of all things is the unborn and unknown Father, from whom emanated in succession nous ('mind'), logos ('the word'), phronesis ('understanding'), sophia ('wisdom'), and dynamis ('power'). From the last sprung dikaiōsynē ('justice') and eirēnē ('peace'), and these seven with the Father formed the first Ogdoad, or octave of existence which originated the first heaven. From them emanated other powers which created the second heaven, and so on through the whole circle of emanations, which amount to 365, the mystic number so often inscribed on the symbolic stones in the Gnostic schools (see ABRAXAS STONES). Each of these angelic powers governs a world. There are, consequently, 365 worlds, to each of which Basilides gave a name. The archōn or head of the 365th, or lowest world, rules the material universe, which he also created. He is the God or Jehovah of the Old Testament, and when the earth was divided among the rulers of the material universe, the Jewish nation fell to the share of himself, who was the prince of the lowest class of angels. But wishing to absorb all power himself, he strove against the other angels, and to make them subject to his 'chosen people,' the result of which was war, strife, division in the world, together with the loss of the true religion, to restore which the Supreme God sent Nous, the first emanation who became incarnate in Jesus at his baptism. His disciples (Basilidians) were numerous in Egypt, Syria, Italy, and even in Gaul, where they continued to exist till the 4th century. Such mainly is the account of the teaching of Basilides given by Irenæus, and accepted by all until the discovery of the Philosophoumena of Hippolytus in 1842. According to this, Basilides started with a God unknown and unknowable by human faculties, rather than with a dualism of God and matter or evil, or with a theory of emanation. This non-existent God by his volition created the pan sperma, or seed, the germ of all things, containing within itself three degrees of divine sonship: one pure, the second gross, the third requiring purification. The great archōn, sometimes called Abraxas, next sprung from the pan sperma, ascended into the firmament, and produced a son greater than himself, by whose help he framed the world. Their rule—the Ogdoad—extends through all the ethereal region down to the moon's sphere, where the grosser air begins—the Hebdomad, ruled by an inferior archōn, the God of the Jews. The process of enlightenment is thus: first, the mind of the son of the great archōn is illuminated; next, the light passes to the son of the archōn of the Hebdomad, then to Jesus, who instructs such of mankind as are capable of truth. Their souls go upwards; their bodies return to the primeval chaos. The three progressive periods of human enlightenment are thus the Ante-Jewish, the Jewish, and the Christian. See Baur's History of the Church in the first three Centuries.