Chapter XXIV: Section III: Carpocrates And Cerinthus

CARPOCRATES is placed by Irenæus next to Basilides(582): but as there is a general agreement amongst the early writers that Carpocrates was prior to Cerinthus(583), and that the latter flourished in the last years of St. John, it appears most probable that Carpocrates was, if any thing, earlier than Basilides, and more properly coeval with Menander. In favour of this idea there is this internal argument, that his system does not appear to be in any degree an amplification or alteration of that of Basilides, but rather to have been an independent modification of the original scheme of Simon.

He agreed with him, and Menander, and Basilides, in professing magic(584), and in preaching licentious doctrines. He agreed with Simon likewise in teaching the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, and adapted it to the support of profligacy, by asserting that every soul is destined to become acquainted with every kind of action, and that it passes from body to body until it has accomplished every thing to which it is predestined(585).

Like all other Gnostics, he asserted that the world and human bodies were made by Angels(586); he agreed with some in teaching that all souls were originally in the same _sphere_ (περιφορὰ) as the Supreme Being(587), but that when once placed in bodies, they continued under the power of the Angels, until they had fulfilled their destined task; that when a person died, his soul was brought before the Prince of the Angels, by the Devil, and if it had not accomplished every thing, was handed over to another Angel, to be inclosed again in a body; but that when it has fulfilled its destiny they have no longer any power over it, but it returns to the Father, from whom it originally came(588).

Unlike Simon, however, or any whom I have yet mentioned, (except, perhaps, Ebion) he taught that Jesus was a mere man, the son of Joseph; that being brought up in the Jews’ religion, remembering what he had been when in the same sphere with the Father, and being of an unusually firm and resolute mind, he looked down upon the Angels, and set at nought bodily suffering(589). But his followers thought that there was no reason why any individual man might not surpass Jesus, and that, in point of fact, many of their sect were superior to the Apostles. Others went so far as to affirm, that the Apostles were not at all inferior to Jesus, and that if any man whatever could attain to a greater degree of contempt for the Creators than Jesus arrived at, he would become superior to him(590).

They affirmed that we are to be saved by faith and love; all actions being good or bad only according to human opinion; and that Jesus taught their system as an esoteric doctrine to the Apostles, who delivered it to those who were worthy(591).

Some branded their followers upon the right ear(592).

I mentioned before that the first worship of images arose amongst heretics: and it is remarkable that heretics again, viz. the Carpocratians, were the first to pay honour to the image of Christ, whom they worshipped equally with Pythagoras, and Plato, and Aristotle, with the same kind of honour as that which was customary amongst the heathen(593).

One of the female followers of Carpocrates, by name Marcellina, is said to have visited Rome in the time of Anicetus, and to have seduced many(594).

Respecting CERINTHUS, whom we know from Irenæus to have been a contemporary of St. John(595), the information he furnishes is very slight. He did not attribute the Creation to the Angels in a body, but to some one Power far removed from the Supreme Power. He made Jesus a mere man, but more excellent than other men: he affirmed that the Christ had descended upon him at baptism, and made known to him the unknown Father, and empowered him to work miracles, but that he departed from him before the crucifixion, and left him to suffer alone(596).