Basilides

Basilides (Greek: Βασιλείδης) was an early Gnostic religious teacher in Alexandria, Egypt who taught from 117 to 138 AD, and claimed to have inherited his teachings from Matthew. He was a pupil of either Menander, or an interpreter of Peter named Glaucias. The Acts of the Disputation with Manes state that for a time he taught among the Persians. He is believed to have written over two dozen books of commentary on the Christian Gospel (now all lost) entitled Exegetica, making him one of the earliest Gospel commentators. Only fragments of his works are preserved that supplement the knowledge furnished by his opponents.

The followers of Basilides, the Basilidians, 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 Gnosis in Egypt. It is probable, however, that the school melded into the mainstream of Gnosticism by the latter half of the 2nd century.

Doctrine

Creation

The descriptions of the Basilidian system given by our chief informants, Irenaeus (in his Adversus Haereses) and Hippolytus (in his Philosophumena), are so strongly divergent that they seem to many quite irreconcilable. According to Hippolytus, Basilides was apparently a pantheistic evolutionist; and according to Irenaeus, a dualist and an emanationist.

Basilides (Stoic)

Basilides (Greek: Βασιλείδης; 2nd century BC), was a Stoic philosopher who denied the existence of incorporeal entities.

Nothing is known about the life of Basilides. From a table of contents in one of the medieval manuscripts, we know that he was listed in the missing part of Book VII of Diogenes Laërtius' Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. His position in the table of contents indicates that he lived around the time of Antipater of Tarsus in the 2nd century BC.

He is known principally from a passage in Sextus Empiricus, who notes that "Basilides and his followers thought no incorporeal [entity] exists." The specific context is the Stoic's theory of language. The Stoics held that any meaningful utterance will involve three items: the sounds uttered; the thing which is referred to or described by the utterance; and an incorporeal item, the lekton, that which is conveyed in the language. Basilides denied the existence of the lekta.

Another (probably Stoic) philosopher called Basilides of Scythopolis (2nd century AD), is listed in the Chronicle of Jerome, as being as a teacher of Marcus Aurelius.

Basilides (patricius)

Basilides (Greek: Βασιλίδης) was a Byzantine official, who held the office of magister officiorum during the reign of Emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565). He was a member of the commission responsible for forming the Corpus Juris Civilis.

On February 13, 528, Basilides was appointed as a member of the commission preparing the Corpus Juris Civilis, serving under Tribonian. Their work was completed in 529. While this is the first chronological mention of him, the text of his appointment mentions him as being already a vir excellentissimus ("most excellent man"), a former praetorian prefect of the East and a patrician. His title of praetorian prefect has been suggested to be honorific, as modern historians find it strange that Basilides could have served in this high-ranking position prior to holding lower offices.

On April 7, 529, official texts mention Basilides as the serving praetorian prefect of Illyricum, a rank lower than his previous title of praetorian prefect of the East. A passage of the Greek Anthology mentions a "Basilius" (Greek: Βασίλειος, Basil) who had served as praetorian prefect of Illyricum and whose statue reportedly stood over the east gate of Thessalonica. Cyril Mango has suggested that this "Basilius" was actually Basilides.