Basilides

Life

Basilides is known to have been active in Alexandria in the first half of the second century, around the reigns of the Roman emperors Hadrian and Antoninus Pius. The years of his birth and death, as well as his place of origin, are uncertain. His own writings survive only in brief quoted fragments, so his life and thought are known chiefly through the accounts of the Church Fathers (theologians of the early church) who refuted him. Irenaeus placed him in a line of succession descending from Simon Magus and Menander. Clement of Alexandria reports that the followers of Basilides claimed he had been taught by Glaucias, the interpreter of Peter. His son Isidore carried on the same teaching.

Ministry and Work

According to Eusebius, citing Agrippa Castor, Basilides wrote twenty-four books of commentary on the gospel. His thought is classified as a branch of Gnosticism, a movement holding that salvation comes through secret knowledge (Greek gnōsis). The sources that report his thought, however, differ considerably from one another.

• Irenaeus's account: Basilides taught that a series of spiritual beings emanated from the supreme God and that there are 365 heavens. He is also said to have taught that Jesus did not actually suffer, but that Simon of Cyrene was transformed into the likeness of Jesus and crucified in his place (cf. Mark 15:21). This claim is akin to Docetism, the view that Christ's body was merely an appearance.
• Hippolytus's account: Unlike Irenaeus, Hippolytus attributes to him an elaborate system in which the seed of the world came forth from a "non-existent God."

Scholars are divided over which account more closely reflects Basilides's own thought and whether it has been blended with the ideas of his later disciples.

Influence on the Korean Church

Basilides has had no direct influence on the Korean church. He is, however, presented as a representative example of early Gnosticism in seminary courses on church history and the history of doctrine, as well as in instruction concerning heresy. He is also cited as an early example of the claim that a substitute was crucified in Jesus' place when the crucifixion and the passage about Simon of Cyrene are discussed, and in this respect he is sometimes compared with the Islamic interpretation that a substitute died on the cross.

Assessment

Church Fathers such as Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and Clement condemned the teaching of Basilides as heresy, holding that it denied Christ's true humanity and real suffering. Their refutations later provided a foundation for formulating the doctrines of the Incarnation and the Atonement. Basilides's followers reportedly claimed that his teaching was a tradition handed down from the apostles. Modern scholars also note that he was an early thinker in second-century Alexandria who sought to combine Greek philosophy with the Christian faith. The loss of his works, which leaves only the accounts of his opponents, is regarded as a limitation in evaluating him.