Basilides

Life & Legacy

Basilides (Greek: Βασιλείδης) was an early Christian Gnostic religious teacher in Alexandria, Egypt who, according to Clement of Alexandria, was active between 117–161 AD, and claimed to have inherited his teachings from the apostle Saint Matthias. He was a pupil of either the Simonian teacher Menander, or a disciple of Peter called Glaucias. He is believed to have written a 24 book long commentary on the Christian Gospel entitled Exegetica (now all lost), as reported by Agrippa Castor, making him one of the earliest Gospel commentators. Origen, Jerome, and Ambrose mention a Gospel according to Basilides, but this is probably only a mischaracterization of the Exegetica.
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 presence in the Nile Delta in Egypt. It is probable, however, that the school melded into the mainstream of Gnosticism by the latter half of the 2nd century.