Search

Modern scholarship has as yet reached no agreement whether or not there existed in Late Antiquity a distinct religious group or sect that took its name from Adam's son Seth (Gen 4:25; 5:3). Whereas some scholars express scepticism (e.g. Wisse), others feel confident in demarcating a body of Sethian literature and in reconstructing the doctrine of a distinct group of Sethians (e.g. Schenke, Turner). They claim that the Sethians were as much a distinct group as the Valentinians [→ Valentinus and V…

The Perates are a gnostic group whose name is first mentioned by → Clement of Alexandria ( Stromateis, VII, 108, 2). Hippolytus identifies two otherwise unknown persons as their founders ( Refutatio, V, 13, 9): Akembes (IV, 2, 1; Kelbes: V, 13, 9; Ademes: X, 10, 1), who is called ho Karystios (Karystos is a town in Euboia), and Euphrates, who is called ho Peratikos (also mentioned by Origen, Contra Celsum VI, 28 as a teacher of the → Ophites). Clement opines that the name Perates is derived from their place of origin. Different suggestions have been discussed: Eub…

The Carpocratians belong to the broad spectrum of Christian schools in the 2nd century that teach Christianity as a philosophy. Their founder, the Alexandrian Christian Carpocrates, was married to a lady called Alexandria who came from the island of Kephallenia in the Adriatic sea. They had a son called Epiphanes who received from his father an “encyclopaedic education”, wrote some treatises and died at the age of seventeen. Clement reports that the deceased Epiphanes was given divine honours: a temple and a mouseion were erected in Same on the island of Kephallenia and every…

Basilides,, 2nd century Basilides was a free Christian teacher who presumably lived and taught in Alexandria during the reign of the emperor Hadrian (cf. Jerome, Chronicle, 201, 1f Helm). He had a son who became his disciple, Isidore. The ancient evidence about Basilides and his school can be divided into three groups: 1. the fragments and testimonies preserved by → Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius of Caesarea and Hegemonius ( Acta Archelai); 2. the report of Irenaeus of Lyon, which influenced the heresiology of Pseudo-Tertullian, Epiphanius of Salamis and F…