The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 38

Hilaenfeld (' Dae Evangelinm und die BrieCe Johannis nach ihrem Lehrbe.,.riff darge;tellt:' 1849) seeks by a most elaborate proce~s to trace the subject-matter or"the prologue and the Logos-id~a, that of God and r~demption, to the Gnostic speculations, especially those of Valentrnus. Thoma. (Zoe. cit., p. 822) admits that the use of the Gospel by Valentinus is neither chronologically nor dogmatically impossible, though it is indemonstrable. 7. BAeILIDEB and the Basilideans. We now approach another name of still more importance; for if Basilides can be shown to have quoted or used the Gospel, it is morally certain it wo.s not produced after the time of Valentinus. For, accord.in" to the 11 tatements of Jerome (' De Viris Ill.,' c. xxi.), he must have died after A~D. 132. Eusebius places hie activity under Hadrian (A.D. 117-138). Hippolytus (' Ref. Hrer.,' vii. 8, Eng. trans.): "Basilidee and Isidorus, the true sons and disciples of Ba.silidee, say that Matthias communicated to them secret discourses, which, being specially instructed, he heard from the Saviour." Whether the two heresiarchs lied or not about Matthias, they could hardly have laid such a. claim if their date of birth and aae had rendered this incredible or impossible. Epiphanius (' Hier.,' xxiii. 1-7; xxiv. 1) t~lls us that Basilides was teaching in Antioch before he went to Alexandria, and at Alexandria he was the predecessor of Valentinue. Now, if Basilides made use of the Fourth Gospel, we are thrown back to the very first vears of the second century as the latest period when it could have been written. The question of questions is whether Hippolytus, in discussing his philosophy and quoting his quotations, had the great work of Basilides before him, and referred to llasilides himself or to some later Basilidean. If we take his general method into account, that he contrasts the system of Basilides with the school of Valentinus, and that when he refers to a school he uses the term ,p1111l11, or 1<aT" avro6s, or 1>.e-you11,, and when he refers to a man or to a book he uses the singular ,p1111,, we can hardly enter- tain a. reasonable doubt that Hippolytus was quoting (totidem, verbis) the method in which Basilides defended his views. Let the whole (bk. vii. 22 [8, Eng. trans.J) passage be read in which Hippolytus represents Basilides quoting from the Gospels: "He was the true Light that lighteth every man coming into the world." High authorities and great critics concur in the belief, if not the moral certainty, that this is the case (see Sanday, lib. cit., pp. 298, etc.). See also eh. ii 4 of the Gospel in bk. vii. 27 (15, Eng. trans.); Matthew Aruold, 'God and the Bible,' p. 268, concludes that Basilide8 had before him (A.n.125) the Fourth Gospel; Mangold's edition of' Bleek's Einleitung,' 265. It is true that, in the midst of the passage, Hippolytus does use the term 1>.,-you111 oliTo,, although in the former part of it he does make special reference by name to Basilides himself; aud, as if going back to him, after a momentary digression. Thus he suggests the fact that he had the work of Basilides open before him (art. on "Basil ides" in Smith's 'Dictionary of Christian Biography'). 8. 0PHITES, or Naaseni. Baur admits that the sect calling themselves by this name were amongst the earliest of the Gnostics (' Das Chr. und die Chr. Kirche der ersten Jahrh.,' p. 192). Irenreus (i. 29. 1 and 31. 3) speaks of them as predecessors of the school of Valentinus, its "fathers and mothers;" and Hippolytus (vi. 6) even names 'Simon Magus' among their offshoots. They were subdivided, according to him, into several groups-Peratre, Cainites, Sethians, Justinians. They all, in their violent hostility to the God of the Old Testament, reverenced the serpent; hence their title, either from the Hebrew i:im, nachash, a serpent., or from the Greek ~,Pu. The serpent was regarded by them as the author of intelligence and of emancipation to enslaved man. Consequently, "the seed of the serpent" from Cain to Judas received homage from them. Intense dualists, charging evil of all kinds upon man's corporeal frame, they sought in" intelligence" (-y11oi11u) deliverance from evil. Now, the New Testament affords strong evidence 0f the existence of these sectaries and Gnostic speculations in the first century. If we cnu accept th,1 authenticity of the pastoral Epistles, there is abundant proof of such a tendency, against which those Epistles are a wo.rning. So ~trong is the protest contained in them against "endless ~enealogies," against the evil inherent in things created by God, against a "-y11&11,s falsely so called," that many have cude:i.voured to drag the pastoml Epistles down to the time of Marcion, in order to nccount for these references. Other Epistles of St. Pnul, also contestc,l on the same gl'Ound, such as the Epistle to the Colossians, are equally explicit (ii. 1S) (see Light- xiii INTROnlJCTION TO