Afghan

I seem to have caught a curiosity bug about the Carpocratians. I'm no great scholar of the early church though and I'm not entirely sure where to start looking. Trawling the Internet for this stuff is difficult at the moment as my home computer has died a death. Persuading my manager of the work relevance of Adversus Haereses is likely to prove difficult.

So I thought I'd throw it out to the group mind here...

I've found a very nice online English translation of Irenaeus's Adversus Haereses but tracking down something similar for Book III of Clement's Stromateis is proving harder work. My Latin is probably up to working through what I have found but again, probably not at work.

Also, does anyone know if the writings of Epiphanes (it might be a De Iustitia I think) survive?

Any other sources I might be missing?

I'm not particularly interested in the Secret Mark stuff at the moment. There are already threads about it here.

Thanks.

andrewcriddle

Book III of the Stromateis appears to be online in English at
http://www.angelfire.com/yt3/mxx/stromatabook3.htm
This contains a long quotation by Clement from 'On Justice' by Epiphanes. IIUC this quotation is all that survives of this work.

Andrew Criddle

Afghan

Oy. Apparently Angelfire is something of a persona non grata for our proxy server here. I am now going to attempt to read the thing on my mobile phone.

andrewcriddle

try
http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...3-english.html

Andrew Criddle

Afghan

Much better. Thank you.

I've got a couple more questions now I'm afraid. These ones are of a slightly more speculative nature.

The first is this. Both Clement and Irenaeus seem at pains to point out the Platonic aspects of Carpocratian practice and downplay the Christian aspects. Clement, for instance, says "I would not call their meeting an agape." I do not know much about the style of either writer or the historical context. Does this indicate that Carpocrates was more of a Platonist than a Christian or, as I suspect, that the church fathers were simply taking pains to dissociate themselves from the Carpocratians.

Second, both Irenaeus and Clement seem to agree that the Carpocratians had a strongly antinomian bent by which they justified their licentiousness. Irenaeus however goes further and claims that they had a doctrine of active depravity - "paying the Devil his last farthing". This however would seem to contradict the rather more Gnostic/Neo-Platonist account of Carpocratian theology that Irenaeus himself gives earlier and that Clement cites from Epiphanes. Does it seem likely that this claim of Irenaeus is a bit of inventive vaudeville, were both justifications part of Carpocratian theology or is there some other explanation?

andrewcriddle

I'll try and speculate. The problem is that apart from the Secret Gospel of Mark Clement and Irenaeus are all the evidence we have. Everyone else is copying one or the other (or both).
Irenaeus and Clement should not be regarded as detached objective writers but 'On Justice' by Epiphanes does IMO read as rather more Platonic than Christian. IMHO Carpocrates was a (rather unusual) Christian but Epiphanes developed things in a more strongly Platonic and less Christian way.
Claims that your opponent practices active depravity should always be regarded with suspicion, but the idea of freedom from the Law does seem central to Carpocrates. IMHO Carpocrates taught that salvation requires fredom from taboos inhibitions repressions etc and this type of teaching is easily interpreted (more or less honestly) by opponents as amounting to advocacy of active depravity.

Andrew Criddle

Afghan

Thanks.

Yes, not easy. Thanks for the attempt. As a matter of interest, are we on safe ground treating Clement and Irenaeus as independent sources?

That seems fair. I have to confess, being the amateur that I am, I had not considered that Carpocrates and Epiphanes might differ in their theology.

I was thinking specifically of Irenaeus's claim that the Carpocratians believed that they had to experience every single sin in order to escape the cycle of metempsychosis. It seems almost certain that the school of Carpocrates was actively engaging in a fair bit of depravity but I was wondering if the believed that they had to or merely that they were permitted to.

andrewcriddle

Clement is writing about 20 years after Irenaeus and in principle could have known his work, but shows little or no sign of having done so.

I should have mentioned another independent reference to the Carpocratians, Celsus as quoted in Origen's 'Contra Celsum' book 5
Harpocratians here are thought by scholars to be the same as Carpocratians. Celsus MAY be talking about the Harpocratians/Carpocratians in the following passage.
(There is also a mere mention of the name Carpocratians in a list of heresies made by Hegesippus according to Eusebius but although probably independent it is not particularly informative.)

Andrew Criddle

Afghan

Yes. The accounts seem to differ quite substantially and Clement seems to be using a primary source that Irenaeus didn't have or chose to ignore.

Interesting. Wasn't Origen a student of Clement? It's interesting then that he claims to have no knowledge of the Carpocratians.

Also, wasn't Harpocrates a Hellenization of 'Horus the Child'?

andrewcriddle

Eusebius claims that Origen was a student of Clement but there is no indication of this in Origen's own writings. (He does mention Pantaenus as his predecessor but not Clement)
IIUC both Harpocrates and Carpocrates are used in Greek inscriptions when referring to 'Horus the Child'.

It has been suggested that there was no 'historical Carpocrates' but that the group originated in some form of Christian/Egyptian religious syncretism.

Similar doubts have been cast on the 'historical Epiphanes'.

IMHO these doubts are probably unjustified.

Andrew Criddle