6

The Earliest Alexandrian Theologians

Basilides, Carpocrates, and Prodicus

Introduction
When Jewish life and institutions declined in Alexandria after 117 ce,
devotees of Jesus were not forced to begin afresh. There was no “pagano-
Christian reconstruction.”1 Some – possibly even most – of the Christian
groups in the city continued to function after 117. The emergence of a
highly educated Christian leadership during and beyond Hadrian’s reign
(117–138 ce) – in the persons of Basilides, Carpocrates, and Prodicus –
indicate that Christianity not only survived the Diaspora Revolt but
thrived.2
According to what survives, these theologians showed no interest in
practicing distinctively Jewish customs. They were not politically disen-
franchised or, generally speaking, opposed to the wider society. In many
ways, they were culturally well accommodated. They had access to the
educational resources of Alexandria, as is indicated by their rhetorical
proficiency and exegetical skill. They were sophisticated thinkers who
wrote didactic letters, commentaries, sermons, and songs. Their educa-
tional attainments indicate at least a middling measure of wealth and
social status. Unfortunately, we only possess fragments and summaries
of their works. When sifted and combined, however, the evidence is
substantial.3

1
Modrzejewski, Jews of Egypt 230.
2
For the Hadrianic date, see Clement, Strom. 7.17.106.4–107.1.
3
Strictly speaking, one cannot include Valentinus as a distinctly Alexandrian theologian,
since his teaching career was mainly centered in Rome. For surveys of Alexandrian Christian
teachers, see Bernard Pouderon, “‘Jewish,’ ‘Christian,’ and ‘Gnostic’ Groups in Alexandria

91
92 The Earliest Alexandrian Theologians

In approaching this material, I prioritize the genuine fragments from

Basilides and Epiphanes (son and disciple of Carpocrates) over heresio-
logical reports.4 In the case of Prodicus and Carpocrates, we only have
heresiological summaries. Yet even these can be checked for accuracy
and consistency against the fragments of their fellow Alexandrians. Since
my goal is to remain within the second century, I do not use later sources
such as the Basilidean report in the Refutation of All Heresies, or the
post-Irenaean reports on Carpocrates. I believe that some early data can
be extracted from Irenaeus’s heresy catalogue, though it, too, must be
fact-checked against the fragments.5

Relation to Judaism
The relation of Basilides, Carpocrates, and Prodicus to Judaism is com-
plex. One can readily see how these theologians adapted Jewish lore and
exegetical techniques. Yet they demonstrated no interest in performing
Jewish rites (circumcision, Sabbath, kashrut, and so on). Prodicus and
his followers only accepted an unwritten law, which presumes that they
rejected the law thought to be written by Moses.6 They considered them-
selves to be “lords of the Sabbath.”7 Evidently, they read gospels accord-
ing to which Jesus proclaimed “the son of the Human” as “lord of the
Sabbath” and they claimed the same rights.8
Unlike the author of Barnabas, Basilides, Carpocrates, and Prodicus
did not seek to authorize themselves solely based on their knowledge of
Jewish scriptures. The book of Genesis was a lightning rod for Christian
interpretation. Yet Basilides wrote his groundbreaking twenty-four-book
commentary (the Exegetica) on a Christian gospel, probably an early
form of the gospel ascribed to Luke.9 Carpocrates (or his followers) cited

during the 2nd Cent.: Between Approval and Expulsion,” in Beyond Conflicts, ed. Arcari,
155–176; Löhr, “Christliche ‘Gnostiker’ in Alexandria im zweiten Jahrhundert,” 413–434;
Markschies, “Christian Gnosticism and Judaism in the First Decades of the Second
Century,” in Jews and Christians in the First and Second Centuries 340–354.
4
See further Litwa, Carpocrates 13–14.
5
Irenaeus, AH 1.23–31. See further Litwa, Carpocrates 11–12.
6
Clement, Strom. 3.4.30.2.
7
Clement, Strom. 3.4.30.1.
8
Mark 2:28; Matt 12:8; Luke 6:5.
9
Eusebius, HE 4.7.5–6; Acts of Archelaus 67.4–12. Pace James A. Kelhoffer, “Basilides’s
Gospel and Exegetica (Treatises),” VC 59:2 (2005): 115–134. Heine points out that Origen
used the same term, exēgētica, to refer to the twentieth book of his Comm. Jo. 20.422
(Origen 52, n.118). See further Christoph Markschies, “Das Evangelium des Basilides,”
 The Judean Lord 93

a gospel that combines what is now Matthew and Luke.10 Distinctly

Christian sacred texts, it seems, were becoming the focus of interpreta-
tion among Alexandrian theologians after 117 ce.
One almost never finds anti-Jewish polemic in the fragments and sum-
maries of Basilides, Carpocrates, and Prodicus, even though this sort of
polemic flourishes in Barnabas and in the Preaching of Peter. Apparently the
Christian circles after 117 were not tempted to participate in Alexandrian
synagogues – many of which had been destroyed anyway. Judaism was no
longer, it seems, perceived as a significant threat to Christian theologians
who had already carved out a distinctive identity and practice.11

The Judean Lord

Perhaps the clearest sign of these theologians’ break with Judaism is
their view of the Judean deity. As readers will recall from Chapter 5,
“Barnabas” claimed that an “evil angel” deceitfully instructed the
Israelites about fleshly circumcision (9:4). Yet in Genesis 17:1 (LXX), the
being who commands circumcision is referred to as “lord” (κύριος) – and
is usually identified with Yahweh.12 “Barnabas” did not call the Jewish
deity an “evil angel”; but later Alexandrian theologians did begin to dis-
associate the Judean lord from the true and transcendent God.
Basilides believed that the Judean lord was originally ignorant of the
true God above him. This view emerges from his comments on Proverbs
1:7: “the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Basilides understood
the Judean deity to be the “lord” (his common title in the Septuagint). He
then supplied a backstory to the proverb: the lord was struck with fear
when he heard the “ministering Spirit” declare the good news about Jesus.
The lord apparently did not understand who Jesus was. Yet when he was
informed by the Spirit, he willingly learned about the true God and aided
Jesus. Such information we learn from a fragment in Clement.13

in Markschies and Schröter, ed. Antike christliche Apokryphen 1/1.460–465; Winrich

Löhr, “Editors and Commentators: Some Observations on the Craft of Second-Century
Theologians,” in Pascha Nostrum Christus: Essays in Honour of Raniero Cantalamessa,
ed. Pier Franco Beatrice and Bernard Pouderon (Paris: Beauchesne, 2016), 65–84.
10
Irenaeus, AH 1.25.5. See further Litwa, Carpocrates 126–127.
11
As late as Origen’s Comm. Jo. 1.7, we hear that believers from the Hebrews were rare in
Alexandria.
12
James Carleton Paget, “Barnabas 9:4: A Peculiar Verse on Circumcision,” VC 45
1991:242–254; Isaac T. Soon, “Satan and Circumcision: The Devil as the ἄγγελος
πόνηρος in Barn 9:4,” VC 76:1 (2021): 60–72.
13
Clement, Strom. 2.8.36.1. Cf. Ref. 7.26.1–2. See further Löhr, Basilides 61–78.
94 The Earliest Alexandrian Theologians

From Irenaeus one gathers that Basilides viewed the Judean lord as a
subordinate being in control of the nation of Judea, somewhat like the
archangel Michael in Daniel 12:1 (compare Deut 32:8–9 LXX). At some
point, this lord wanted to subject all nations to his own people, Israel. His
desire for domination explains why the (angelic) rulers of other nations
resisted him. This is an apparent explanation for the repeated wars against
Judea and people of Judean heritage between 66 and 135 ce.14
Carpocrates’s view of Jesus – that he rejected Jewish law – also suggests
misgivings about the Judean lord, the ultimate bestower of the Law.15
Carpocrates may have agreed with Paul, “Barnabas,” and the author of
Acts that angels mediated (elements of) Jewish law.16 Yet Carpocrates’s
theology is, in fact, the subject of a dispute: For while Irenaeus gives
the impression that Carpocrates believed in angels who created the
human body and hindered the human ascent to God,17 Carpocrates’s
son Epiphanes referred to the creator positively as the father and maker
of this universe.18 Since Carpocrates was Epiphanes’s teacher,19 one may
infer that he maintained a basically positive view of the creator, even if
subordinate angels in his system became renegades.20 Carpocratians also
believed in the devil, widely taken to be a fallen angel.21
As for Prodicus, we have no report of him openly criticizing the creator.
All we learn from Clement is that his followers considered themselves “natu-
ral children of the primal God.”22 The description of the primal God, along
with Prodicus’s rejection of Jewish law, indicate that the primal God was
a transcendent being not identical with the Judean lord. A review of these
theologians tends to confirm Celsus’s point that Christians under the aus-
pices of Jesus’s teaching “stand apart from the creator as an inferior being”
and approach “a God whom they regard as superior,” namely the father of
Jesus.23 Commentators sometimes limit this remark to Marcionites, but it
applies just as well to Basilidean and Prodican Christians.
14
Irenaeus, AH 1.24.4.
15
Irenaeus, AH 1.25.2.
16
Gal 3:19; Acts 7:38, 53; Barn 9:4. Cf. Jub. 1:27–2:1 (OTP).
17
Irenaeus, AH 1.25.1.
18
Clement, Strom. 3.2.7.1.
19
Clement, Strom. 3.2.5.3.
20
On the fundamental agreement of Epiphanes and Carpocrates, see Izabela Jurasz,
“Carpocrate et Epiphane: Chrétiens et platoniciens radicaux,” VC 71 (2017): 134–167.
See further Dale B. Martin, “When Did Angels Become Demons?” JBL 129:4 (2010):
657–677.
21
Irenaeus, AH 1.25.5.
22
Clement, Strom. 3.4.30.1.
23
Origen, Cels. 5.54.
 Apostolic Authority 95

Apostolic Authority
It is significant that Basilides, Prodicus, and Carpocrates did not appeal
to Jewish figures such as Adam, Seth, or Norea as heroes or models of
salvation. Instead, each of these theologians – or their followers – forged
a connection to an apostolic authority. Paul became a major player in
Alexandrian theology. There is evidence, albeit contested, for Paul’s let-
ter to the Alexandrians, which was perhaps a pseudepigraphon designed
to include Alexandria in the Pauline orbit.24 Although Epiphanes avoided
quoting scripture directly, one can hear echoes of Paul’s letters in his
prose, especially from Romans 5 and 7.25
Basilides is good evidence for Petrine authority in early second-
century Alexandria. This theologian reportedly claimed to be a disciple
of Glaucias who was in turn a disciple of Peter.26 Basilides could thus
claim a direct conduit to the prince of the apostles, the ascribed author
of the Preaching of Peter and the Apocalypse of Peter. Basilidean teach-
ing was evidently integrated into “Petrine discourse” in early second-
century Alexandria.27
As for Carpocrates, we have no surviving report that he connected
himself to an apostle. His disciple Marcellina, however, was linked to
traditions of Mariamme (namely Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, or
some fusion of Marys), Martha, and Salome.28 She probably appealed
to all three women as apostolic or quasi-apostolic authorities.29 Mary
also appears in the Gospel of Mary, a document probably written in
Carpocrates’s lifetime. Salome, in turn, appears in the Gospel According
to the Egyptians. These female disciples were evidently important among
Carpocratian Christians.

24
The reference is found in the Muratorian Canon, whose authenticity is disputed. See
Joseph Verheyden, “The Canon Muratori: A Matter of Dispute,” in The Biblical
Canons, ed. J. M. Auwers and H. J. de Jonge (Leuven: Peeters, 2003), 487–556; Claire
K. Rothschild, The Muratorian Fragment: Text, Translation, and Commentary, STAC
132 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022).
25
Litwa, Carpocrates 51–52.
26
Clement, Strom. 7.17.106.4–107.1.
27
Tobias Nicklas, “Petrus-Diskurse in Alexandria: Eine Fortführung der Gedanken von
Jörg Frey,” in 2 Peter and the Apocalypse of Peter 99–127.
28
Origen, Cels. 5.61–62.
29
See further H. Gregory Snyder, “She Destroyed Multitudes: Marcellina’s Group in
Rome,” in Women and Knowledge in Early Christianity, ed. Tervahauta et al. 39–61;
Scopello, Femme, Gnose et Manichéisme: De l’espace mythique au territoire de réel
(Leiden: Brill, 2005), 219–221; Litwa, Carpocrates 139–143.
96 The Earliest Alexandrian Theologians

The Witness of Celsus

Evidence about Marcellinians comes again from Celsus, the second-
century Platonist critic of Christianity. Celsus provides key evidence about
early Christian diversity, so it is important to determine his provenance.
Although some scholars have vouched for Rome, the general consensus
is that Celsus was writing from Alexandria.30 This view is supported by
his specific and first-hand knowledge of Egyptian local culture and wor-
ship customs. For instance, Celsus knew that the Egyptians “for a few
coins make known their venerable lessons in the midst of marketplaces and
drive daimones out of people and blow away diseases and invoke the souls
of heroes, displaying expensive banquets, tables, cakes, and condiments
which are non-existent.”31 He knew, furthermore, that “the Egyptians
have glorious precincts and groves, majestic and beautiful entryways,
astounding temples, splendid awnings all around, with rites that are sol-
emn and secretive. But when one enters and goes inside, one sees them
bowing down to cats, monkeys, crocodiles, goats, and dogs.”32 Celsus
knew that the phoenix periodically visited Egypt from Arabia, bringing its
deceased sire balled up in myrrh, later placing him in the precinct of the
sun (at Heliopolis).33 Celsus mentioned that the people of Naucratis – a
Greek colony not far from Alexandria – had recently adopted the wor-
ship of Serapis.34 Egyptians, according to Celsus, called Zeus “Amoun.”35
Celsus directly (that is, orally) learned from Dionysius, “an Egyptian musi-
cian,” that magic arts were only effective for uneducated and immoral
people.36 Finally, Celsus knew the thirty-six “daimones” (the decans) in
control over the human body and could even list some of their (distinctly
Egyptian) names.37 This knowledge of Egypt is not absolutely unique,
but it is detailed and specific. Evidently, Celsus had more than mere book
learning about Egyptian culture and customs. This was the kind of knowl-
edge one would pick up by living in Egypt, at least for a time.

30
Philip Alexander, “Celsus’ Judaism,” in Celsus in His World: Philosophy, Polemic
and Religion in the Second Century, ed. James Carleton Paget and Simon Gathercole
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 327–359 at 327; Horacio E. Lona, Die
‘Wahre Lehre’ des Kelsos übersetzt und erklärt (Freiburg: Herder, 2005), 56–57.
31
Origen, Cels. 1.68.
32
Origen, Cels. 3.17.
33
Origen, Cels. 4.98; cf. Herodotus, Hist. 2.73; Aelian, Nat. an. 6.58.
34
Origen, Cels. 5.34.
35
Origen, Cels. 5.41.
36
Origen, Cels. 6.41.
37
Origen, Cels. 8.58.
 The Witness of Celsus 97

To this distinctive knowledge, one can add key points where Celsus
overlaps with other Alexandrian authors in points of detail. Celsus’s
accusation that the Jews worship angels, for instance, is also found in
the Preaching of Peter.38 Celsus showed awareness of the Hermetic
idea that the cosmos is God’s child.39 His attempt to relate biblical to
Hellenic mythology (for instance, the tower of Babel with the story of
Otus and Ephialtes as well as Noah and Deucalion) has a precedent in
Philo.40 Celsus knew precise details about 1 Enoch, an authoritative text
in Egypt. He noted that wicked angels were cast under the earth in chains
(κολάζεσθαι δεσμοῖς ὑποβληθέντας ἐν γῇ) – a description that appears also
in 2 Peter (2:4: ὁ θεὸς … σειραῖς ζόφου ταρταρώσας), which is probably
Alexandrian.41 Finally, Celsus’s charge that the gospels contain myths
(μύθοι)42 is echoed and seemingly answered in 2 Peter 1:16 (“we have
not followed cleverly devised myths”). There is, in short, a rich vein of
circumstantial evidence that Celsus was writing from Egypt and probably
from a large urban center such as Alexandria.43
If Celsus was writing from Alexandria, he testifies that Judaism had
made a resurgence probably by the mid–second century ce. After all,
Celsus put some of his weightiest arguments into the mouth of a Jew
who argued that Christians were renegades against Mosaic customs.44
Maren Niehoff has argued that Celsus constructed his “Jew” using an
authentic Jewish document written in mid-second-century Alexandria.45
Although I consider her case unproven, Celsus’s knowledge of Judaism
and his ability to represent the interests and mindset of an educated Jew
of his time is noteworthy. He likely interacted, if not with actual Jews
in conversation, then with texts that represented a Jewish point of view
(such as the Dialogue of Jason and Papiscus).
Niehoff asserts that Celsus lived in Alexandria, but adds that he sojour­
ned in Rome where he gained “acute awareness of Marcion’s teaching.”46
Although it is certainly possible that Celsus traveled to Rome, by his

38
Origen, Cels. 1.26; 5.6.
39
Origen, Cels. 6.47; cf. Ascl. 8; CH 9.8; 10.14.
40
Celsus in Origen, Cels. 4.21; 4.44. Cf. Philo, Conf. 4; Praem. 23.
41
Origen, Cels. 5.52; Grünstäudl, Petrus Alexandrinus; Frey, “Second Peter in New
Perspective,” 7–74.
42
E.g., Origen, Cels. 2.55; 4.36; 4.51.
43
See further Lona, Die “Wahre Lehre” 56.
44
The debate between Jesus and the Jew occurs in Origen, Cels. 1.28–2.79.
45
Niehoff, “A Jewish Critique of Christianity from Second-Century Alexandria: Revisiting
the Jew Mentioned in Contra Celsum,” JECS 21:2 (2013), 151–175.
46
Niehoff, “Jewish Critique,” 155, n.12, citing Origen, Cels. 6.51–53, 74.
98 The Earliest Alexandrian Theologians

time (the late 170s ce) Marcionite thought had most likely spread to
Alexandria (see Chapter 9). The same point about Celsus’s movements
applies to Marcellina. Marcellina made a move from Alexandria to
Rome in the late 150s or early 160s.47 Yet Celsus need not have gone
to Rome to encounter her circle. He could have known Marcellinians in
Alexandria.
Assuming that Celsus was familiar with Alexandria, he becomes a
key source for early Christian diversity in this city. He mentioned not
only Marcellinians but “Harpocratians” (apparently Carpocratians),
Simonians, Helenians, and a group later known as Ophites.48 From
Celsus’s point of view, Alexandrian Christians were riven into factions,
although they all maintained the name “Christian.”49 He portrayed them
as detesting each other, not making the least concession in their ran-
corous debates.50 What united them was their opposition to Judaism.51
When Celsus presented his Jewish critic of Jesus, the Jew assumed that
Christians, who convince “a great number” of people, belong to an
opposing party.52

Ritual Distinctiveness
Basilides and Carpocrates developed distinctive worship customs and
so evidently sponsored their own separate gatherings. Basilides, for
instance, celebrated the anniversary of Christ’s incarnation on January 6
or 10 (there was later dispute about the exact date). On this occasion, the
circle of Basilides listened to scriptural or other religious texts long into
the night. At dawn, they celebrated the moment of incarnation, perhaps
with song.53 Basilides was a songwriter and his group apparently hymned
along with him.54
Agrippa Castor, an otherwise unknown critic of Basilides, claimed
that Basilides required his initiates to maintain five years of silence before

47
Irenaeus, AH 1.25.6.
48
Origen, Cels. 5.62; 6.30–40.
49
Origen, Cels. 3.12.
50
Origen, Cels. 5.63.
51
Origen, Cels. 3.14.
52
Origen, Cels. 2.46.
53
Clement, Strom. 1.21.145.6–1.21.146.4. See further Thomas. J. Talley, The Origins
of the Liturgical Year, 2nd ed. (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1986), 119–129;
Hans Förster, Die Anfänge von Weihnachten und Epiphanias: Eine Anfrage an die
Entstehungshypothesen (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 57–67.
54
Origen, Enarrations on Job 21.12 (PG 17 80a).
 Ritual Distinctiveness 99

learning advanced lessons.55 According to legend, this was Pythagoras’s

requirement for his advanced students.56 Serious Pythagoreans could
not speak a word for several years (a feat reportedly achieved by the
Pythagorean Apollonius of Tyana).57 Agrippa was probably trying to
depict Basilides’s group as a Pythagorean conventicle. If his data are
not exact, they are probably not entirely concocted. If Basilides did in
some way model his own group on traditional philosophical circles, he
might have required silence prior to a higher initiation. After several
years, Basilides’s students would in turn become teachers of the higher
lore. This would indicate that there were levels of initiation in Basilides’s
group. It seems fair to grant that Basilides required a period of disciple-
ship in preparation for higher levels of teaching, just like other philo-
sophical and religious groups at the time.58
There were probably levels of initiation among Carpocratians as well.
Carpocratians, like most Christians, were initially baptized with water.
Yet those of higher gnosis were baptized by fire and the Holy Spirit
(Matt 3:11). These Christians received a brand mark on the back of their
right earlobe. Thus Carpocratian initiates could recognize one other.
Reportedly, Carpocratians also venerated small statues or paintings of
Pythagoras, Plato, and Jesus.59 This distinctive practice suggests that
Carpocratians respected and used what was considered to be Platonic
and Neo-Pythagorean thought, which were prevalent philosophical
streams in Alexandria.
The circles of Carpocrates and Basilides were not mere philosophi-
cal salons. Their practices included religious rituals such as hymn sing-
ing, vigils, and the marking of the body after baptism. Exegesis was a
philosophical discipline, but for these theologians it was also a form of
rational worship. Of course, later opponents of these theologians wished

55
Eusebius, HE 4.7.5–8. See further Löhr, Basilides 6–14.
56
Iamblichus, Pythagorean Life 72. See further Christoph Riedweg, Pythagoras: His Life,
Teaching, and Influence, trans. Steven Rendall (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
2008), 101–102.
57
Philostratus, Vita Ap. 1.15–16.
58
Garth Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 97–104; Christian H. Bull, The
Tradition of Hermes: The Egyptian Priestly Figure as a Teacher of Hellenized Wisdom,
RGRW 186 (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 209–370.
59
Irenaeus, AH 1.25.6. See further Litwa, Carpocrates 143–146; Robin M. Jensen, “Visual
Representations of Early Christian Teachers and of Christ as the True Philosopher,” in
Christian Teachers in Second-Century Rome: Schools and Students in the Ancient City,
ed. H. Gregory Snyder (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 60–83.
100 The Earliest Alexandrian Theologians

to portray their groups as mere philosophical schools or sects in order

to undercut their Christian identity.60 We would do better to describe
their formations as religious movements designed to satisfy the needs of
Alexandrian intellectuals and seekers more broadly.

Cultural Accommodation
In his treatise On Justice, Epiphanes envisioned a society wherein every-
thing was communally shared: land, food – even sexual partners.61 As it
turns out, Plato, Zeno of Citium, and Diogenes the Cynic all envisioned
similar societies in their various Republics (written from the fourth to
third centuries bce).62 In each case, we seem to be dealing with a phi-
losopher’s dream, a vision of society not actually implemented by any of
these writers, including Epiphanes. After all, Carpocrates, Epiphanes’s
father, lived in a monogamous relationship with Epiphanes’s mother
Alexandreia.63 Furthermore, Marcellina – one of Carpocrates’s disciples –
was never accused of supporting “free love.” (If she was morally sus-
pect, heresiographers would have seized upon the slightest rumor.)
At the same time, the fact that Epiphanes could envision an alterna-
tive society indicates that his own intellectual context allowed for free
interaction with a variety of philosophical ideas (Platonic, Stoic, and
Cynic).
Neither Epiphanes nor Marcellina can be described as mere philoso-
phers. The wellsprings of their imagination were biblical. Epiphanes took
seriously an alternative society in which there really was “neither Jew
nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female” (Gal 3:28). Female leader-
ship was exemplified and promoted by Marcellina, apparently in both
Alexandria and Rome. Marcellina allegorically interpreted a saying of
Jesus about paying the last penny, which she took to be a parable (Luke
12:58–59; Matt 5:25–26). For his part, Epiphanes’s communalism may
have been inspired by an ideal represented in Acts. In its initial chapters,

60
Einar Thomassen, “Were there Valentinian Schools?” in Christian Teachers in Second-
Century Rome 32–44 at 33; Einar Thomassen, “Gnosis and Philosophy in Competition,”
in Philosophia in der Konkurrenz von Schulen, Wissenschaften und Religionen, ed.
Christoph Riedweg (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2017), 61–74.
61
See further Kathy L. Gaca, Making Fornication: Eros, Ethics, and Political Reform
in Greek Philosophy and Early Christianity (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2003), 273–291.
62
Litwa, Carpocrates 65–67.
63
Clement, Strom. 3.2.5.2.
 Strangers and Foreigners 101

we learn that early Christians shared everything: “All those who believed
were together and held everything in common (εἶχον ἅπαντα κοινά). …
Not one of them was saying that one of their possessions was private
property, but for them everything was common (ἦν αὐτοῖς ἅπαντα κοινά)”
(2:44; 4:32).
Early Alexandrian theologians read widely. Carpocrates adapted a
passage from Plato’s Phaedrus to speak of the nature of Jesus’s preex-
istent soul.64 Epiphanes read about ideal societies from Stoic and Cynic
authors. Basilides discoursed on Persian theology and used prophetic
books ascribed to sages called Barkabbas and Barkoph.65 Prodicans used
books attributed to Zoroaster.66 The use of such works indicates a cos-
mopolitan intellectual openness that was common in Alexandria.

Strangers and Foreigners

Basilidean Christians called themselves “the election” (ἡ ἐκλογή). They
considered themselves foreign from other people and naturally above
this world.67 Prodicans too believed that they arrived in this world as
foreigners.68 Their foreign status meant that they were not subject to
human laws. They were natural children of the primal God and thus free.
They followed an unwritten law and considered themselves mastered by
nothing. They were mastered by nothing evidently because they had con-
quered their passions. As victors over their passions, they had no need of
human laws to instruct them about what to do. They naturally followed
the will of the primal God.69
Clement accused the Prodicans of adultery, but he could cite no actual
case.70 He probably assumed that Prodicans were adulterers because
they rejected the Mosaic law that forbid adultery. Yet Prodicans, as
mastered by nothing, would not have needed the law of Moses to forgo
adultery or any other crime. They were the noble children of a higher

64
Irenaeus, AH 1.25.1–2. See further Litwa, Carpocrates 96–98.
65
Eusebius, HE 4.7.5–8; Clement, Strom. 6.6.53.2–5.
66
Clement, Strom. 1.15.69.6.
67
Clement, Strom. 4.26.165.3.
68
Clement, Strom. 3.4.31.3.
69
Cf. Ps.-Heraclitus, Ep. 9: “law is not something written, but a god” (νόμος ἐστὶν
οὐ γράμμα, ἀλλὰ θεός)” (Attridge 82.22–23). See further J. W. Martens, One God,
One Law: Philo of Alexandria on the Mosaic and Greco-Roman Law (Leiden: Brill,
2003), 1–66.
70
Van den Broek, “Prodicus,” in DGWE 974–975.
102 The Earliest Alexandrian Theologians

God, and thus by disposition they were superior to laws and the worldly
powers who gave them.71

Martyrdom
Basilides and Prodicus were later depicted as critics of martyrdom.72 For
these thinkers, to be sure, martyrdom did not ensure that one received
an unfading crown of life. Martyrdom, according to Basilides, atoned
only for the martyr’s sins. Even if a martyr appeared saintly and inno-
cent, he or she still had previous sins to account for, or at least the pro-
pensity to sin.73 Agrippa Castor accused Basilides of saying that martyrs
could publicly deny their faith. But the authentic fragments show that
Basilides considered martyrdom a boon for those that might otherwise
suffer for their sins.74 The view that God demanded martyrdom assumed
a negative picture of a bloodthirsty deity according to the Prodicans. In
their view, no additional blood needed to be spilled after Christ’s death.
Martyrs could not and did not save themselves or others by dying.75

Transmigration
According to Basilides, the only punishment bad people receive is trans-
migration.76 Rivers of fire, boiling mud, and hanging by one’s genitals –
as in the Apocalypse of Peter – were all excluded.77 Carpocrates, who

71
Clement, Strom. 3.4.30–33.
72
Cf. Clement, Strom. 4.12.81–83. Ismo Dunderberg, “Early Christian Critics of
Martyrdom,” in The Rise and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries of
the Common Era, ed. Clare K. Rothschild and Jens Schröter (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck),
419–440.
73
Pierre Nautin rejected these passages as corrupted by Clement (“Les fragments de
Basilide sur la souffrance et leur interpétation par Clément d’Alexandrie et Origène,”
in Mélanges des Histoire des Religions offerts a Henri-Charles Puech [Paris: University
Press of France, 1973], 393–404). See also Dieter Georgi, “Das Problem des
Martyriums bei Basilides: Vermeiden oder Verbergen?” in Secrecy and Concealment:
Studies in the History of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Religions, ed. Hans G.
Kippenberg and Guy G. Stroumsa (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 247–264; Yves Tissot, “A
propos des fragments de Basilide sur le martyr,” Revue d’histoire et de philosophie
religieuses 76:1 (1996): 35–50.
74
Eusebius, HE 4.7.5–8.
75
Tertullian, Scorp. 15.6.
76
Origen, Comm. Ser. 38 on Matthew = Löhr fragment 17.
77
If one accepts Ref. 7 as from Basilides, then he did believe in an end of the world after
the purification of human souls. See further Barbara Aland, “Seele, Zeit, Eschaton bei
einem frühen christlichen Theologen: Basilides zwischen Paulus und Platon,” in Psychē-
Seele-Anima: Festschrift für Karin Alt (Leipzig: Teubner, 1998), 255–278 at 276–278.
 Transmigration 103

also accepted a version of transmigration, seems to have viewed this

mortal life as a kind of punishment. The only Hades was earth itself, as
Philo taught.78 To be sure, heresiologists depicted Carpocrates and his
followers as licentious. But as Irenaeus records, Carpocrates believed in
a just Jesus who conquered his passions; he also encouraged Christians
to imitate this Jesus.79 If this was Carpocrates’s message, Carpocratian
Christians aimed for the same virtues embodied in Jesus.
Both Basilides and Carpocrates appealed to scriptures to ground their
teachings. Paul wrote that he was once alive apart from law (Rom 7:9).
But since Paul was born a Jew, there was technically no time for him to
have escaped the obligations of Jewish law. He must therefore have been
referring to a previous life.80 Carpocratians apparently pointed to John
1:21, where the Jewish leaders ask John “Are you Elijah?” Jesus’s answer
in Matthew, namely that John “is Elijah,” not just a prophet like him
(17:12; 11:14–15), would suggest that he had the spirit (that is, soul) of
Elijah and not just Elijah’s “power” (Luke 1:17).81
The acceptance of transmigration by both Basilides and Carpocrates
links them to Philo and attests a typically Alexandrian blend of bibli-
cal and Platonist lore. Despite Origen’s claim that transmigration was
a secret doctrine of the Jews, it seems to have had no secure place in
Jewish tradition.82 Instead, transmigration was a well-known Platonic-
Pythagorean idea, although many claimed that Pythagoras (and by
extension, Plato), had learned the notion from Egyptian priests.
Transmigration is also well represented in Hermetic literature as well, a
literature that thrived in Alexandria.83 As it happens, Christian notions
of transmigration seemed to have flourished only in Alexandria. Based
on surviving data, no second-century Christian theologian of Italy, Asia
Minor, Syria, or Greece advocated this doctrine. It would be no sur-
prise then, as Sami Yli-Karjanmaa argues, that Clement of Alexandria
accepted the doctrine as well.84

78
E.g., Philo, Her. 78; Cong. 57; Irenaeus, AH 1.25.5.
79
Irenaeus, AH 1.25.1–2.
80
Origen, Comm. Rom. 5.1. Contrary to what Origen says here, it is unlikely that the
previous life was that of a bird or cow. See further Löhr, Basilides 212–218.
81
See further Litwa, Carpocrates 121; Aland, “Seele, Zeit, Eschaton,” 272–276.
82
Origen, Comm. Jo. 6.73.
83
CH 10.7–8; SH 23–26. See further Bull, Tradition of Hermes 97–120, 154–158.
84
Yli-Karjanmaa, “Clement of Alexandria’s Position on the Doctrine of Reincarnation
and Some Comparisons with Philo,” in Studia Patristica CX: Papers Presented at the
Eighteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies Held in Oxford 2019, ed.
Markus Vinzent (Leuven: Peeters, 2021), 75–90.
104 The Earliest Alexandrian Theologians

Basilides and Carpocrates were not slavish borrowers of Pythagorean

transmigration. They adapted it, making it part of God’s system of pur-
gatory and providence. Basilides wrote that he would say anything rather
than call providence evil.85 Providence demands not just that the world
make sense, but that souls in this world be allowed to improve. For both
Basilides and Carpocrates, the soul came into the body to be purified.86
Purification was another way of describing moral improvement and per-
fection. When the soul became pure, it was released – not just from its
current body – but from the whole wheel of reincarnation. In reality,
however, the vast majority of human souls needed multiple embodiments
to attain purity. If there was a final judgment, it occurred after the soul
had the opportunity to experience various lives.
Plato wrote that most good souls required ten lives to attain purity;
philosophers, by contrast, could make it in three.87 Carpocrates had the
theory that Jesus, due to his justice, purity, and self-mastery, obtained
final release from flesh in a single lifespan.88 Other Christians were
called to imitate Jesus’s one-time incarnation. Most Christians, how-
ever, would fail to attain the justice and purity of their teacher. Multiple
lives were needed to collect all the necessary experience for the soul’s
improvement.89
According to Carpocrates, the soul redeemed from a body became a god
(that is to say, a deathless spirit being). In part this explains why Carpocrates
and his wife Alexandreia paid divine honors to their son Epiphanes when
he died at the age of seventeen.90 In fewer than seventeen years, Epiphanes’s
soul had attained the intellectual heights. Excerpts from Epiphanes’s treatise
On Justice are the only surviving fragments from any Carpocratian. This
treatise is no teenage screed with “pornographic tendencies.”91 It reads,
rather, like the informed meditations of a mature philosopher. According
to Carpocrates and Alexandreia, at least, it was a special soul that came to
roost in the body of their son. A soul purified and enlightened so quickly
could rise on eagle’s wings back to the circle of the divine.
If there was a final judgment for Carpocrates and Basilides, there was
likely a limit to the cycle of transmigration. Souls would only have so

85
Clement, Strom. 4.12.82.2.
86
Clement, Strom. 3.3.13.2.
87
Plato, Phaedrus 249a.
88
Irenaeus, AH 1.25.1–2; 2.32.2. See further Litwa, Carpocrates 119–134.
89
John 14:12; Ap. Jas. (I,2) 4.32–5.3; 6.19; 7.13–15.
90
Clement, Strom. 3.2.5.1–2.
91
Pace Henry Chadwick, Alexandrian Christianity 25.
 Conclusion 105

long to wander between bodies. According to Basilides, souls that did

not reform may have been destroyed. For Carpocrates, it seems, every
last soul, experiencing every form of life, would be redeemed.92 In short,
Carpocrates is the first attested theologian to support a doctrine of uni-
versal salvation.

Conclusion
Dark as the second century seems to us, the light of Alexandrian theo-
logians shines through. Basilides, Carpocrates, and Prodicus spoke of a
transcendent and good God far above the Jewish creator and lawgiver.
This lawgiver was not evil, but local and limited in his power. He was
the ultimate begetter of flesh and the manager of the punitive but reme-
dial cycle of transmigration. Basilides and Carpocrates made transmi-
gration the tool of providence, God’s scheme for developing human
virtue. Virtue was not a matter of following human laws but of defeating
the wild and vitriolic emotions called passions. These passions fed on
the desires of the flesh. Once the flesh was relinquished, one soared to the
stars. Carpocrates developed the clearest ethics of imitating Christ, Son
of Human and Lord of the Sabbath. Humans such as Epiphanes could
imitate Christ in his deifying path of purifying the mind and achieving
true virtue.
In our chart of Alexandrian tendencies, theologians such as Basilides
and Carpocrates score a five out of six. They asserted a wholly tran-
scendent God, separate from creative agents (angels or the Judean lord,
or both), a doctrine of transmigration, the rejection of corruptible flesh,
and the deification of the mind. The only element lacking in the surviv-
ing fragments is the manifestation of God as an archetypal Human, but
Eugnostus – as we shall see in Chapter 7 – made up for this lack.
These Alexandrian tendencies were only the tip of the iceberg. The
sheer breadth and complexity of Alexandrian Christian thought during
this period is astounding. Alexandrian theologians treated providence,
apostolic authority, martyrdom, theories of creation,93 socialism, nega-
tive theology, theories of Jesus’s incarnation, the nature of other gods, the
date of Jesus’s baptism, sexual ethics, psalmody, and much more. They
were the first known exegetes of distinctly Christian scriptures. They had

92
Irenaeus, AH 1.25.6. See further Litwa, Carpocrates 131, 219.
93
Gerhard May, Creatio ex nihilo: The Doctrine of “Creation out of Nothing” in Early
Christian Thought, trans. A. S. Worrall (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 62–84.
106 The Earliest Alexandrian Theologians

their own forms of worship, their own hymns, and their own holidays.
They were open to the larger Alexandrian philosophical culture (mainly
Platonic and Pythagorean, but also Stoic).
In the end, Basilides, Carpocrates, and Prodicus are our best mirror
for reflecting the character of Alexandrian Christianity both in the gener-
ation before and after them. These theologians, to be sure, hardly spoke
for everyone. Yet understanding their thought and practice is still the best
means for understanding early Alexandrian Christian theological culture.
In the 130s and 140s ce, no other Christian thinker had attained the
intellectual heights of a Basilides or a Carpocrates. Indeed, it would take
a half century or more for Christian intellectuals in other areas to rise to
their level of theological sophistication.
Partly this was because Alexandrian theology itself became mobile.
Theologians such as Valentinus and Marcellina traveled to Rome to
export their ideas – eventually provoking strong reactions from Irenaeus
and Tertullian. Regardless of their later – often negative – reception his-
tory, the earliest Alexandrian Christian theologians played a vital role in
the invention of the educated Christian intellectual, an ideal that helped
to increase the legitimacy of early Christians as they accrued more social
and intellectual capital in time to come.