In this fifth post in my book analysis of Irenaeus’ Against Heresies, I want to cover 1.24-31. In these chapters, Irenaeus provides his readers with a bird’s eye view of all the various heretical groups of his day.
Simon Magus (from Acts 8)
In 1.24, Irenaeus traces the various Gnostic sects of his day back to Simon Magus (or Simon the magician), whose interaction with Peter is recorded in Acts 8. In that chapter, we are told that Simon initially was attracted to the Christian movement and had actually been baptized by Phillip. When he saw the power that apostles like Peter were displaying, he offered to pay Peter for that power, but Peter essentially told him to buzz off, because the power of the Holy Spirit could not be bought by money. That, though, is all we are told regarding Simon in Acts.
Irenaeus tells us that Simon ended up opposing the apostles at every turn, tried to convince people that he himself was some kind of wondrous being, and engaged in magic. According to Irenaeus, during the reign of Claudius, some Samaritans made a statue of Simon and believed he was a god. Simon taught that he, not Jesus, was the one who appeared among the Jews as the Son. After that, he then appeared to the Samaritans as the Father, and later on as the Holy Spirit to the nations.
Apparently, Simon started his sect after he bought a Phoenician women named Helena out of slavery. He proceeded to tell people that she was, in fact, “the first conception of his mind” and the “mother of all.” He had sent her to the “lower regions” of space so he could form the angels and powers, but they ended up forming the material world and imprisoning her within a material, human body for ages and ages, so that she couldn’t return to the Father (i.e. Simon). She just simply passed from one female body to another. Simon even claimed this Helena was the same Helen of Troy from the Trojan War, but that she eventually became a common prostitute. It was then that Simon found her and redeemed her, just like the lost sheep in Jesus’ parable.
Simon would tell people that not only had he come into this material world to save Helena, but to also make himself known to the powers by appearing as a man, although he wasn’t really a man. Even though people thought he had suffered in Judea, that wasn’t true. He never really suffered because he wasn’t really a man. Thus, the apostles were lying. Another thing the apostles lied about was how the Old Testament prophets had prophesied about the suffering of the Messiah. Simon claimed those prophets were prophesying by the power of those jealous angels who had formed the material world and imprisoned Helena in a human body.
Therefore, he amassed followers who rejected the apostles’ teaching and the prophets, and who only listened to what Simon and Helena taught them. Another thing they taught was that since the material world was bad, it would eventually be completely dissolved. Therefore, no one had to obey the rules (and moral teachings) of the angelic powers that created it. Personal actions in the material world didn’t matter. Since they couldn’t save you or damn you, Simon encouraged people to live reckless and promiscuous lives and told them that his grace would save them.
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Many current scholars doubt Irenaeus’ claim that it was Simon Magus who was the root of all the subsequent Gnostic sects. They basically say Irenaeus just made that claim up in an attempt to discredit all the other equally valid versions of early Christianity. Needless to say, I have a huge problem with that kind of blanket dismal of Irenaeus’ claims. If one is going to dismiss what Irenaeus is claiming, one’s reason has to be a little more than, “Nu-uh!” In fact, earlier this year, in my book analysis of Candida Moss’ The Myth of Persecution, I was shocked at the level of unscholarly circular reasoning “scholars” like Moss engage in when dismissing the claims of early Church Fathers like Irenaeus.
The fact is, Irenaeus is very thorough, detailed, and accurate when describing all the various Gnostic sects—both their teachers and their teachings. Therefore, if he is proven to be accurate and truthful when he describes all these various Gnostic sects, on what basis does one have to dismiss his claims about the origin of these Gnostic sects? The only reason scholars like Moss dismiss his claims is that they contradict their own unsubstantiated and biased claims that these various Gnostic schools who taught about Aeons, masculo-feminine beings falling out of the Pleroma, being confused, creating the material world in a state of ignorance, then being saved back into the Pleroma by a Christ being who wasn’t a human being, etc. etc.—that all that was just an equally valid, intellectual version of the early Christian faith.
Needless to say, I beg to differ. By contrast, if what Irenaeus says about Simon Magus is true, it is very easy to see how the entire “Gnostic system” is rooted in those initial claims of Simon Magus. There is a clear, logical connection between the later claims in all the various Gnostic schools with what Irenaeus tells us about Simon Magus. I can hear some so-called scholars scoffing and saying, “Oh, but isn’t that just too convenient?” That’s not a logical reason to doubt what Irenaeus is saying. It’s like saying, “Oh come on! Are we really to believe that all the entirety of World War I was really started because a single man (Franz Ferdinand) got shot in 1914? Isn’t that just too convenient an explanation? It’s more likely that all these nations just happened to fight with each other at the same time for various reasons!”
Saturninus and Basilides
Irenaeus then tells us that Simon’s successor was a man named Menander. His top two students were Saturninus and Basilides, with Saturninus teaching in Antioch and Basilides teaching in Alexandria. We don’t know exactly when they lived, but given what we do know, they probably lived and taught in the late first century to early second century. In addition, given the fact that the later New Testament books (like the Johannine writings) seemed to be warning against Gnostic-like teachings, it isn’t that much of a stretch to conclude that it was the teachings of Saturninus and Basilides the later New Testament books are combating.
In any case, Irenaeus tells of how these men further developed Simon’s teachings. In them, we see further development into what would eventually morph into the entire “Gnostic system” he painstakingly details throughout his book. The teaching of Saturninus includes: (1) the Father is completely unknown to all, and He made the angels and powers; (2) man was originally a shining image from that supreme power, but was someone brought down to the material world and formed “in the image” of the angelic powers who made the material world; (3) when man dies, he leaves his material body and his “spark of life” ascends back heavenward; (4) the Savior never was born or had an actual material body; (5) the god of the Jews was one of those rebellious angels who formed the material world and who wanted to destroy the supreme Father; (6) getting married and having children are from Satan (because they further material beings, and the material world is bad); and (7) some OT prophecies were made by those rebellious angels, while others were made by Satan, who was also an angel but who was still the chief enemy of the god of the Jews.
The teaching of Basilides is largely similar to that of Saturninus, only his explanations are a lot more intricate and complex. One unique thing is that he taught that there were 365 heavens, with each heaven corresponding to one of the 365 angelic powers, with the lowest ones having made the material world and who are constantly fighting each other over who gets to rule it. That is why the supreme Father sent Christ (“the first-begotten Nous”) into the material world—to save the good men trapped in it from the warring angelic powers. Although Christ appeared as a man, he never really suffered death. In reality, Basilides claimed, Simon of Cyrene who carried Jesus’ cross was crucified instead because Jesus shape-shifted to look like Simon, and the Romans crucified the wrong guy. Jesus then laughed at everyone and ascended back to heaven. As with Simon Magus, Menander, Satruninus, and all later Gnostic teachers, Basilides taught that only the immaterial soul was saved, not the body. The body was that icky substance only the lowest of the lowly, rebellious angelic powers made.
A Laundry List of Later Gnostics
Having detailed the earliest Gnostic teachers, Irenaeus proceeded to give a laundry list of many later Gnostic groups in 1.25-31. I’ll just bullet-point the highlights. As you’ll see, there is a common thread that runs through them all. They all simply elaborate and expand in some form or another the basic teachings found in Simon Magus, Saturninus, and Basilides.
- Carpocrates (1.25) taught Jesus was a real human being fathered by Joseph but who had a pure soul. That is why the Father allowed his power to descend upon Jesus, so that he could escape the material world and ascend to the Father. Even though Jesus was Jewish, he hated Judaism and Jewish practices. Irenaeus goes on to say that Carpocrates’ followers practice magical arts, engage in immoral living, and justify it by saying that in order to attain the higher life, they have to experience every kind of action in the material world. They claim that is what Jesus taught his disciples in secret—namely, no action is really evil; all must be experienced.
- Cerinthus (1.26.1), educated in Egypt, taught this world was made, not by the supreme God, but by a lesser power who is ignorant of the supreme God. He also taught Jesus wasn’t born of a virgin, but was the result of sex between Joseph and Mary.
- The Ebionites (1.26.2) were Jews who believed the world was made by God, but who didn’t believe Jesus was anything more than a human being (similar to the belief of Carpocrates and Cerinthus). They only accept Matthew’s Gospel and completely reject Paul because they believe he was an apostate from the Torah.
- The Nicolaitans (1.26.3) were the followers of Nicolas, one of the seven deacons originally chosen by the apostles. But they promoted self-indulgent and promiscuous living. The Apostle John warned about them in the Book of Revelation.
- Credo (1.27.1) lived in Rome during the time of Hyginus, the ninth bishop (138-142 AD) and taught the God in the Torah and prophets was not the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The God of the Torah was known and fairly nice, but the Father of Jesus was unknown and righteous.
- Marcion of Pontus (1.27.2-4) was the successor to Credo. He taught the God of the Old Testament was evil and was the one who made the world. Jesus, though, came from the Father who was above the God of the Old Testament. Marcion only accepted a mutilated versions of Luke’s Gospel and Paul’s letters. Anything that mentioned God as the maker of the world or the God of the Old Testament as the Father of Jesus was ripped out, as well as any quote from the Old Testament prophets. Marcion not only echoed the notion that physical bodies couldn’t be saved, but he also went so far to say that only those souls who listened to his teachings could be saved. Not only that, but he claimed Cain, the Sodomites, Egyptians, and other pagan nations were saved when the Lord descended into Hades, but that Abel, Enoch, Noah, the so-called righteous men who came from Abraham, and the prophets were rejected by Jesus. Translation? Any and everything “Jewish” is damned.
After that, Irenaeus tells of many other Gnostic sects. He calls it all nonsense and likens all these Gnostic sects to the Lernaean hydra, the many-headed beast of Greek mythology. Specifically, in 1.31, Irenaeus mentions a book a certain heretical sect wrote—The Gospel of Judas. In it, they claim that Judas the traitor actually was given inside information by Jesus that the other disciples didn’t know about. Simply put, Judas was the truly obedient disciple, because his “betrayal” of Jesus was part of the greater mystery that had to be done in order bring the created world into confusion.
Interestingly, this Gospel of Judas had been lost to the world until a copy of it was found in 2001. Sure enough, it was published and soon hailed by scholars like Bart Ehrman (among others) as tremendous find that sheds light on the wonderful diversity of early Christian teaching.
I do not find this surprising at all. Back in the second century, Irenaeus wrote an entire book detailing how the “edgy academics” of his day were teaching things that were not only completely contrary to the original, Apostolic teaching of the Church, but were (there’s no other way to say it) completely asinine and stupid. And here we are, 1800 years later, and “edgy academics” are still enamored with the same asinine and stupid teachings of those ancient Gnostics, and they gain their own cult-like followers who love to hear such edgy claims. Oh, it’s “secret knowledge,” alright—so secret that only the elite, intellectual class can really appreciate it. But it’s all just intellectual games, with nothing that makes any actual demands on one’s life or behavior. Intellectual dopamine, nothing more.
