By Water & Blood

On Basilides and Isidore

Basilides, despising these myths as cheap, invented others more impious. For he said that the Unbegotten first generated Mind; that from Mind the Word was projected; Prudence from the Word; from Prudence Wisdom and Power; and from these angels and archangels; and that these crafted the heaven; and that from their outflow other angels coming to be made another heaven similar to the first; then again from their outflow others arising fashioned yet another heaven; and those from these again another; and that the outflow that took place and the crafting of the heavens lasted as far as the three hundred sixty-fifth; and that the angels inhabiting the last heaven, the one seen by us, crafted the world and divided among themselves the lordship of the earth, and that one was allotted the administration of the Jews and ruled the others; and that when this one wished to subject all the nations to his own people, the other rulers opposed him; and that the Unbegotten, seeing these things, sent his firstborn Mind, whom he also named Christ, so as to save those who choose to believe; and he says that this one suffered in no way at all, but that Simon of Cyrene underwent the passion, being thought to be Christ; and that Christ, looking from afar, laughed at the frenzy of the Jews, and then later went away to the one who sent him. He said that one must believe not in the crucified one, but in the one who seemed to have been crucified. For thus, he says, it is possible to be freed from the dominion of the world-makers. He also denied the resurrection of the flesh; and he too said that the prophecies had come to be by angels, and that the law was laid down by the ruler of the Jews. He ordered them to partake without fear of things sacrificed to idols, and to perform the forbidden deeds without discrimination. And these too, similarly to those from Menander and Simon, use charms and sorceries and enchantments of every kind. And having fashioned names of angels, they said that some hold the first heaven, others the second, and so on as far as the three hundred sixty-fifth. The Savior and Lord they name Kaulakau. These things they call unspeakable, and not accessible and graspable for all, but for one out of a thousand. Their ruler, he says, is Abrasax; for the numerical value of the name signifies the number of the 365 heavens. Basilides also had prophets, Barcabas and Barcoph, and certain others similarly barbarian. And he invented other myths fouler than these, which I have not inserted because of the harm to those who will meet with them. And Isidore, the son of Basilides, strengthened his father’s mythology with a certain addition. Agrippa, also surnamed Castor, and Irenaeus, and Clement the Stromateus, and Origen fight against these, championing the truth.