_, dates his first appearance from
A.D. 133, but according to Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._ iv. 7 ss. 6-8, Agrippa
Castor, who lived under Hadrian (117-138), already wrote a polemic against
him, so that his activity may perhaps be set back to a date earlier than
138. Basilides wrote an exegetical work in twenty-four books on "his"
gospel, but which this was is not known. In addition to this there are
certain writings by his son Isidorus [Greek: Peri prosphuous psuches];
[Greek: Exegetika] on the prophet Parchor ([Greek: Parchor]); [Greek:
Ethika]. The surviving fragments of these works are collected and commented
on in Hilgenfeld's _Ketzergeschichte_, 207-218. The most important fragment
published by Hilgenfeld (p. 207), part of the 13th book of the _Exegetica_,
in the _Acta Archelai et Manetis_ c. 55, only became known in its complete
form later, and was published by L. Traube in the _Sitzungsbericht der
Muenchener Akad._, phil. histor. Kl. (1903), pp. 533-549. Irenaeus (_Adv.
Haer._ i. 24 ss. 3-7) gives a sketch of Basilides' school of thought,
perhaps derived from Justin's _Syntagma_. Closely related to this is the
account in the _Syntagma_ of Hippolytus, which is preserved in Epiphanius,
_Haer._ 24, Philaster, _Haer._ 32, and Pseudo-Tertullian, _Haer._ 4. These
are completed and confirmed by a number of scattered notices in the
_Stromateis_ of Clemens Alexandrinus. An essentially different account,
with a pronounced monistic tendency, is presented by the so-called
_Philosophumena_ of Hippolytus (vii. 20-27; x. 14). Whether this last
account, or that given by Irenaeus and in the _Syntagma_ of Hippolytus,
represents the original system of Basilides, has been the subject of a long
controversy. (See Hilgenfeld p. 205, note 337.) The most recent opinion
tends to decide against the _Philosophumena_; for, in its composition,
Hippolytus appears to have used as his principal source the compendium of a
Gnostic author who has introduced into most of the systems treated by him,
in addition to the employment of older sources, his own opinions or those
of his sect. The _Philosophumena_, therefore, cannot be taken into account
in describing the teaching of Basilides (see also H. Stachelin, "Die
gnostischen Quellen Hippolyts" in _Texte und Untersuchungen_, vi. 3; and
the article GNOSTICISM). A comparison of the surviving fragments of
Basilides, moreover, with the outline of his system in Irenaeus-Hippolytus
(_Syntagma_) shows that the accou