Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
3. ACCOUNT OF THE TEACHING ACCORDING TO SATURNINUS. 1. Among the successors of these is Saturninus, who taught that the world, and everything in it, was made by angels. Man, however, is a creation of the angels: when a shining image appeared from above, from the highest power, and they were unable to hold it fast because it immediately sped back upward, they exhorted one another, saying, "Let us make man according to the image and likeness." When man had been formed, and the mold could not stand upright because of the weakness of the angels, but wriggled about like a worm, the power above, moved to compassion because man bore its own likeness, dispatched a fiery spark of life, and this it was that lifted the man upright, furnished him with joints, and brought him to life. This spark of life, he says, returns after death to those things of the same kind as itself, while the rest, out of which he was made, is dissolved back into its elements.
He showed the Savior to be unbegotten, incorporeal, and without form, and to have appeared as a man only in seeming. The God of the Jews, he taught, is one of the angels; and because all the other rulers wished to destroy his Father, Christ arrived to bring down the God of the Jews and to rescue everyone who puts faith in him, namely those bearing that spark of life within them. He taught further that mankind, as molded by the angels, falls into two kinds, one base and one upright; and because demons lent their aid to the baser sort, the Savior arrived to bring ruin upon wicked men and demons alike, while rescuing the upright. Marriage and procreation, they say, are of Satan. Many of those belonging to this sect also abstain from animal food, leading many astray through such a feigned continence. Some prophecies, he taught, were spoken by the angels who fashioned the world, others by Satan himself, whom he represents as an angel opposed to the makers of the world, and above all to the God of the Jews. 4. WHAT IS THE ARGUMENT OF BASILIDES. Basilides, however, in order that his teaching might seem loftier and more plausible, extended his doctrine to an immense degree, showing that Nous (Mind) was first born of the unbegotten Father, and that from him was born Logos (Word); then from Logos, Phronesis (Understanding); and from Phronesis, Sophia (Wisdom) and Dynamis (Power) — the principalities, authorities, and angels, whom he calls the first, and by whom the first heaven was made. Then, by derivation from these, others were made, who shaped a second heaven modeled upon the first; and by that same process, others yet again arose from these, patterned after those preceding them, who fashioned a third heaven; [the record of what stood between is broken off, mentioning only that the sect possessed a commentary on the Gospel and that its founder produced books upon the prophet "Parchor," perhaps Bar Kochba, and that its teachers handed down odes and incantations which Irenaeus likewise records, fragments of which survive in Clement's Stromateis] — and from the third, others descending downward made a fourth, and so on in the same manner; other rulers and angels, they say, were made one after another, and heavens to the number of three hundred and sixty-five. For this reason, too, the year has that many days, corresponding to the number of the heavens. Those angels, however, who made the last heaven — the one visible to us — established everything that is in the world, and divided among themselves the parts of the earth and of the nations upon it. Their ruler is reckoned to be none other than the God of the Jews. And since this god desired to bring the remaining nations under the dominion of his own people—that is, of the Jews—every other ruling power set itself against him in resistance. That is why the nations, in turn, rose against his people as well. The unbegotten, unnamed Father, however, beholding their destruction, dispatched his firstborn Nous—the one termed Christ—to liberate believers from the dominion of the world's makers. [A damaged clause in the apparatus appears to number the heavens differently and to relocate a phrase about "their prince having numberless powers in himself" to the end of the chapter; Harvey judges that this clause, out of place in the manuscripts, belongs there instead, though the sense remains uncertain. Here too belongs the dualism of darkness and light of which Hegemonius expressly speaks; what follows about the origin of mankind is merely an episode arising from it.] To their nations he appeared on earth as a man, and performed miracles. Therefore he himself did not suffer, but a certain Simon of Cyrene was compelled to carry his cross in his place; and it was this man who, through ignorance and error, was transfigured by him and crucified, so that everyone would take him for Jesus, while Jesus adopted Simon's appearance and stood nearby, mocking their error. Being an incorporeal power, the very Nous of the unbegotten Father, he could reshape himself however he pleased, and thus rose back up to the one who had sent him, mocking them all the while, since nothing could seize him and he escaped notice entirely. Those, then, who possess this knowledge are liberated from the rulers responsible for the world; and no one should profess the crucified one, but rather the one who took a man's shape, was mistaken for the crucified one, bore the name Jesus, and was dispatched by the Father, so that by this device he might overturn the handiwork of those who made the world. Whoever, he says, professes the crucified one remains enslaved and subject to the dominion of those who fashioned bodies; but whoever refuses to profess him escapes their grip, and comes to know the design of the unbegotten Father. 5. It is only the souls of these men, he holds, that are to be saved; the bodies, he says, were themselves also made by the rulers who fashioned the world. [The apparatus debates at length here whether Basilides himself, or rather his disciples, pushed this doctrine to the point of a full opposition between matter and spirit — that is, between what is to be understood merely as "soul" in the ordinary sense and what belongs properly to gnosis; several scholars rightly express doubt on this point, since Basilides elsewhere speaks of the soul in his own proper sense.] Properly speaking, the law, they hold, was given by their own chief, the very one who brought the people up out of Egyptian territory. They teach that meats offered to idols should be despised and counted as nothing, and used without any anxiety; and that the use of all other practices, and of every indulgence, is a matter of indifference. These men also employ magic, images, incantations, invocations, and every other such curious art; they likewise invent certain names, as of angels, declaring that some belong to the first heaven, others to the second, and so on through the rest, and they set forth the names, first principles, angels, and powers belonging to each of these many heavens. And they say that the world itself has a name — the one in which they say the Savior descended and ascended — namely, Caulacau. [Harvey would place the period differently here: for if one removes the clause asserting that the law comes from the God of the Jews, one fails to understand why the followers of Basilides invoked the practices forbidden in that law to justify their own desires.]
So then, whoever has learned these things and has come to know all the angels and their causes becomes invisible and incomprehensible to the angels and to all the powers, just as Caulacau also was. And just as the Son is unknown to all, so they themselves ought to be known by no one; yet while they themselves know all things and pass through all things, they remain invisible and unknown to everyone. 'You,' they say, 'must come to know everyone, but let no one come to know you.' For this reason such people are also ready to deny the faith — or rather, they cannot even suffer for the Name, since they are indistinguishable from everyone else. They say that not many can know these things, but one in a thousand, and two in ten thousand. They say, moreover, that they are no longer Jews, but not yet Christians, and that their mysteries ought not to be spoken at all, but kept hidden in silence. They also assign local positions to the three hundred and sixty-five heavens, just as astrologers do [gloss: 'mortal' — in Hebrew, 'precept upon precept,' since it is the creature of the Demiurge, the lawgiver; Zeesar; 'the Jordan flowing upward' — in Hebrew, 'yet a little while,' since, as will soon be said, the spirit is hidden from very many]. These, then, are the three names, insofar as they signify what is divine, what is human, and what belongs to gnosis. Caulacau is above all things, because he belongs to the Savior, as is made clearer from what follows... They have transferred the character of this teaching [to themselves], saying that the ruler [is] within himself. [The text breaks off here.]