Saint Basilides

Basilides (Greek: Βασιλείδης) was an early Christian Gnostic religious teacher in Alexandria, Egypt who, according to Clement of Alexandria, was active between 117–161 AD, and claimed to have inherited his teachings from the apostle Saint Matthias. He was a pupil of either the Simonian teacher Menander, or a disciple of Peter called Glaucias. He is believed to have written over a 24 book long commentary on the Christian Gospel as reported by Agrippa Castor (now all lost) entitled Exegetica, making him one of the earliest Gospel commentators. Origen of Alexandria informs us of a Gospel according to Basilides but his report is probably nothing more than a distortion of the well-known fact that Basilides had composed a collection of commentaries on the Gospel, his Exegetica. Jerome and Ambrose similarly follow this error. The followers of Basilides, the Basilideans, formed a movement that persisted for at least two centuries after him – Epiphanius of Salamis, at the end of the 4th century, recognized a persistent Basilidian presence over the Nile Delta in Egypt. It is probable, however, that the school melded into the mainstream of Gnosticism by the latter half of the 2nd century. The two main sources for the mythological and philosophical system of Basilides are from the writings of Irenaeus and Hippolytus of Rome. However, these two sources starkly contradict one another. The consensus of historians previously favored the account of Hippolytus as more authentic, but the matter has become more contested in recent years, and some even consider both accounts as unreliable. According to Irenaeus, Basilides believed that the ungendered Father was the first principle.