Duvduv

You have also never seen any evidence for the existence of Valentians and their communities either. Nor have I or anyone else. <snip>

Bernard Muller

Earlier than the Valentinians and Valentinus, gnostic Basilides knew about the gospels:

Basilides (120-140), as reported by Irenaeus, 'Against Heresies', I, 24, 4 "[Basilides thought] He appeared, then, on earth as a man, to the nations of these powers, and wrought miracles. Wherefore he did not himself suffer death, but Simon, a certain man of Cyrene, being compelled, bore the cross in his stead, so that this latter being transfigured by him, that he might be thought to be Jesus, was crucified, through ignorance and error, while Jesus himself received the form of Simon, and, standing by, laughed at them."

Note: Gnostic "teacher" Basilides, because he thought Christ could not die, used the synoptic gospels mention of 'Simon of Cyrene carrying the cross' to have the same Simon crucified on it, instead of Jesus.

According to Hippolytus of Rome, in 'Refutation of all heresies', book VII:
Chapter XV "... all the events in our Lord's life occurred, according to them [Basilidians], in the same manner as they have been described in the Gospels." (which would imply Basilides knew about a few gospels, as can be confirmed next, from the same book)

- Basilides knew about GJohn:
Chapter X "The seed of the cosmical system was generated, he [Basilides] says, from nonentities; the word which was spoken, "Let there be light." And this, he [Basilides] says, is that which has been stated in the Gospels: "He was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."[words in italics are as in Jn1:9]" and
Chapter XV "And that each thing, says [Basilides], has its own particular times, the Saviour is a sufficient [witness] when He observes, "Mine hour is not yet come." [words in italics are as in Jn2:4]"

- Basilides knew about GLuke:
Chapter XIV "This, he [Basilides] says, is that which has been declared: "The Holy Spirit will come upon thee," that which proceeded from the Sonship through the conterminous spirit upon the Ogdoad and Hebdomad, as far as Mary; "and the power of the Highest will overshadow thee," [bolded italics as in Lk1:35]"

- Basilides knew about GMatthew:
Chapter XV "And the Magi [afford similar testimony] when they gaze wistfully upon the star [according to Mt2:1-2,9-10]. For [Jesus] Himself was, he [Basilides] says, mentally preconceived at the time of the generation of the stars,"

Cordially, Bernard

stephan huller

But notice that the specific gospels names are not mentioned. Like the Marcionites we are probably dealing with a Diatessaronic text.

Duvduv

Bernard, how can you know that "Basilides" existed when he is "reported" about by Irenaeus, for whom no evidence exists for him either, not in Rome and not in Lyons?

Bernard Muller

to Duvduv,
Do you know other Christian writers from Lyons?
Hippolytus of Rome mentioned Irenaeus.

Cordially, Bernard

Duvduv

None of this matters. There is no evidence for Basilides except in the claims of texts written by church apologists. There is no evidence for a Basilides and no evidence for an Irenaeus in the 2nd century unless you accept the the claims of the church texts on faith.

Toto

What if you just provisionally accept the church texts as having some probability of reflecting actual facts, using the usual criteria of historical reliability?

Do you have an explanation for why the heresiologists would invent Basilides?

You are trying to create some sort of false equivalency between your own faith based beliefs and normal historical methods. It's getting tiresome and disruptive.

Duvduv

I don't know why you have to make this so complicated. What might be tiring is rather the ad nauseum attempt to converse about groups or people for whom there is no evidence of existence. The statements found in books attributed to second century apologists or even in later books about the second century is not evidence that they existed. How can you say you want to attribute veracity to statements in books without any evidence that the sects or communities ever even existed?

It's the same for Marcion and the so-called Marcionites.

If you accept the statements on faith, that's fine, but one should be straightforward enough to admit as much. When biased writers make a claim for which there is no evidence then you have no choice but to take what they says as a matter of faith, EVEN if you choose to believe that "they" would have no reason to invent them. That is merely an assertion of faith, not evidence.

There is no evidence for such sects in the second century just like there is no evidence of the existence of Christian communities in the first (or second ) century in the towns to which the epistles were addressed. If one chooses to accept their existence, one is doing so on faith. The only problem is the choice to deny that this is a leap of faith behind the cloak of rigorous objective analysis.

However, we DO know that the church was interested in constructing a history to strengthen its own claims of its status in relation to everyone else, and inventing the "heretics" is certainly not a problem. If one reads a script of Star Trek you'll read all about Romulans, Vulcans and Klingons, but that does not prove they exist.

stephan huller

Even if the name of a particular heretic - i.e. 'Ebion' of the Ebionites - is false, you still have the tradition to deal with. The argument that because we don't know anything about Marcion we can dismiss the Marcionites is outrageous. We don't know how Pharisaic Judaism originated, the same is true with the Sadducees. Was there a Zadok for whom the individual Sadducees were all sons or does the name derive from 'righteousness' or both? It really doesn't matter. To argue that the non-existence of Zadok means that the Sadducees were fictitious is no different than making the same argument about any sectarian group. It's stupid.

Duvduv

The stories promoted by official church writers concerns many different alleged heretical groups standing against the official church with only names, which seemed never to be able to be victorious, always facing new councils and new decrees. However in the case of both Saducees and Pharisees there are sources referring to these single groups, and mutually antagonistic groups who refer to two major groups of Jews.

But in the case at hand, one of many different alleged groups competing against the great pure church, even the pure church apologists can never give any detailed description of the location, names, geography etc. of this group and its existence.