Fate: Condemned by Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Hippolytus. Community active through 3rd century. No primary texts survive — all knowledge comes from hostile summaries, meaning Basilides’ actual teaching may be significantly distorted.

Basilides of Alexandria (~117–138 AD) taught under the emperors Hadrian and Antoninus Pius. His system posited an unbegotten, ineffable God from whom 365 heavens emanate — hence the Gnostic word Abraxas, whose Greek letters sum to 365. The God of the Jews rules only the lowest heaven and is a mere subordinate power. Christ is a divine power who only appeared to suffer on the cross — Simon of Cyrene was actually crucified in his place (docetism). Basilides claimed his teachings derived from a secret tradition from the apostle Matthias and from Peter through Glaukias. His son Isidore continued the school. The Basilidean community reportedly celebrated January 6 (Epiphany) as Jesus’s baptism — the moment the divine Christ descended — which may be the origin of the Epiphany festival absorbed into orthodox Christianity.

What happens when a group is declared heretical: The process is rarely sudden. It typically begins with episcopal letters condemning a teaching, escalates to synodal condemnation at a regional council, and — after Constantine — can be ratified by an ecumenical council backed by imperial authority. Once condemned: (1) Leaders are excommunicated, exiled, or — in later centuries — handed to secular authorities for execution. (2) Writings are ordered burned; possession becomes a criminal offense. Eusebius records that after Nicaea, Constantine ordered Arian books destroyed under penalty of death. The same logic applied to Gnostic texts — which is why the Nag Hammadi library was buried in a sealed jar around 367 AD, the same year Athanasius’s Easter letter listed the NT canon and ordered non-canonical books removed from churches. (3) Communities are dissolved by force where state power reaches; in regions beyond imperial reach they survive for centuries. (4) Memory is controlled — the only surviving accounts of most heresies are hostile summaries by their opponents (Irenaeus, Tertullian, Epiphanius’s Panarion), meaning we are largely reading prosecution briefs, not the groups’ own self-understanding.