Heracleon was a Gnostic who flourished about
AD 175-Roman Empire:* Marcus Aurelius suppresses a revolt of the legate Avidius Cassius in Syria after Cassius proclaims himself to be Emperor.* Commodus, son of Marcus Aurelius and his wife Faustina, is named Caesar.* M...
, probably in the south of
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
. He is generally classed by the early heresiologists as belonging to the Valentinian school of Gnosticism.
In his system he appears to have regarded the divine nature as a vast abyss in whose
pleromaPleroma generally refers to the totality of divine powers. The word means fullness from comparable to which means "full", and is used in Christian theological contexts: both in Gnosticism generally, and by Paul of Tarsus in Colossians 2.9.Gnosticism holds that the world is controlled by...
were aeons of different orders and degrees,
emanationsEmanationism is Platonic monism, and an idea in the cosmology or cosmogony of certain religious or philosophical systems. Emanation from the Latin emanare meaning "to flow from", is the mode by which all things are derived from the First Reality, or Principle...
from the source of being. Midway between the supreme God and the material world was the Demiourgos, who created the latter, and under whose jurisdiction the lower, animal soul of man proceeded after death, while his higher, celestial soul returned to the pleroma whence at first it issued.
Though conspicuously uniting faith in
ChristChrist is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed". It is a translation of the Hebrew . The term "Christ" was a title rather than a proper name. In the four gospels in the New Testament, the word "Christ" is nearly always preceded by the definite article...
with spiritual maturity, there is proto-orthodox hearsay that, like other Valentinians, Heracleon did not sufficiently emphasize abstinence from the moral laxity and worldliness into which his followers fell.
Heracleon was a Gnostic who flourished about
AD 175-Roman Empire:* Marcus Aurelius suppresses a revolt of the legate Avidius Cassius in Syria after Cassius proclaims himself to be Emperor.* Commodus, son of Marcus Aurelius and his wife Faustina, is named Caesar.* M...
, probably in the south of
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
. He is generally classed by the early heresiologists as belonging to the Valentinian school of Gnosticism.
In his system he appears to have regarded the divine nature as a vast abyss in whose
pleromaPleroma generally refers to the totality of divine powers. The word means fullness from comparable to which means "full", and is used in Christian theological contexts: both in Gnosticism generally, and by Paul of Tarsus in Colossians 2.9.Gnosticism holds that the world is controlled by...
were aeons of different orders and degrees,
emanationsEmanationism is Platonic monism, and an idea in the cosmology or cosmogony of certain religious or philosophical systems. Emanation from the Latin emanare meaning "to flow from", is the mode by which all things are derived from the First Reality, or Principle...
from the source of being. Midway between the supreme God and the material world was the Demiourgos, who created the latter, and under whose jurisdiction the lower, animal soul of man proceeded after death, while his higher, celestial soul returned to the pleroma whence at first it issued.
Though conspicuously uniting faith in
ChristChrist is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed". It is a translation of the Hebrew . The term "Christ" was a title rather than a proper name. In the four gospels in the New Testament, the word "Christ" is nearly always preceded by the definite article...
with spiritual maturity, there is proto-orthodox hearsay that, like other Valentinians, Heracleon did not sufficiently emphasize abstinence from the moral laxity and worldliness into which his followers fell. He seems to have received the ordinary Christian scriptures; and
OrigenOrigen was an early Christian scholar and theologian, and one of the most distinguished of the early fathers of the Christian Church. According to tradition, he is held to have been an Egyptian who taught in Alexandria, reviving the Catechetical School of Alexandria where Clement of Alexandria had...
, who treats him as a notable
exegeteExegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text.Biblical exegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of the Bible. The goal of Biblical exegesis is to find the meaning of the text which then leads to discovering its significance or relevance.Traditionally the term exegesis...
, has preserved fragments of a commentary by him on the fourth gospel (brought together by
GrabeJohn Ernest Grabe , Anglican divine, was born at Königsberg, where his father, Martin Sylvester Grabe, was professor of theology and history....
in the second volume of his
Spicilegium), while
Clement of AlexandriaTitus Flavius Clemens , known as Clement of Alexandria , was a Christian theologian and the head of the noted Catechetical School of Alexandria. Clement is best remembered as the teacher of Origen...
quotes from him what appears to be a passage from a commentary on
LukeThe Gospel of Luke is the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels. This synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It details his story from the events of his birth to his Ascension...
. These writings are remarkable for their intensely mystical and allegorical interpretations of the text.
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