Debunking the Myth of the 'Carpocratians' [Part Two]

So based on my two previous posts I can't help but feel confident that the term 'Carpocratians' might well have developed as a uniquely Alexandrian term (and not necessarily specific to Alexandrian Christianity) which applied to corrupt expressions of faiths native to Alexandria.

Clement story about a statue of Epiphanes the Carpocratian seems to closely related to the ridiculous stories in Justin and other Fathers about a statue of Simon Magus in Rome. As Mosheim rightly notes:

For who can believe that the people of Sama, who were polytheists, and addicted to the superstitions of the Greeks, could have acted such a strangely inconsistent part, so as to assign a place amongst their gods, and annually pay divine honors to a young man who was a Christian, or at least a worshipper of Christ, and who held in detestation the gods of the Gentiles, whom in common with his father believed to be a set of proud, indignant angels, the authors of this world, and the present calamitous state of things in it? Then again why confer honours on Epiphanes any more than his father? - or his mother who was a Cephalenian, a woman of the country? In fact I suspect that as is the case with Simon so likewise in this case of Epiphanes, an affinity an affinity between words and names has given rise to a most egregious error. Those whoa are conversant with the Greek language well know that the word epiphanias was a term frequently made use of in the Greek rites; and that it was common for the Greek writers to demoninate the appearance of any particular deity epiphaneia. The festivals instituted in commemoration of such divine manifestations or appearances were termed epiphania. It strikes me therefore as highly probable, that it might have been customary for the people of Sama to refer to some festival or other of this kind under the title of epiphaneia, and that certain Christians of Egypt, accidentally sojourning in that city, but entirely unacquainted with the customs, religion and names of the Greeks, being caught by the sound of the word and recollecting that Epiphanes, the son of Carpocrates of Alexandria, had a Cephalonian woman for his mother, hastily ran away with the idea that this epiphania was a festival instituted by the people of Sama, in honor of that Epiphanes. On their return to Alexandria it was natural of them to recount what they had thus witnessed, and, as they thought, well understood; and hence I take it arose the fable of the apotheosis of Epiphanes, and the extensive honours that were annually paid to his memory by the people of of Sama. (p. 448)

I think that Mosheim's understanding is generally correct (at least with respect to the origin of the story about the statue of Epiphanes). Where he goes wrong is in not seeing that BOTH Carpocrates AND Epiphanes develop from Greek religious practices associated (wrongly or rightly) with an Alexandrian origin.

The point then is that THERE IS NO REALITY TO THE 'SECT OF THE CARPOCRATIANS.' There never was a Carpocrates who was a Christian and who had followers that spread his doctrine beyond the borders of Egypt. The terms 'Carpocrates' and 'Carpocrates' developed from the general idea that Greeks were taking Alexandrian ideas and misunderstanding, misapplying and misrepresenting the native Alexandrian cults.

I even suspect that the term might have predated Christianity and only made sense to an Alexandrian audience.

Epiphanes was a 'Carpocratian' because he took the doctrine of sharing of property and wives ALREADY DEEMED HERETICAL in the epistle originally identified as 'to the Alexandrians' (1 Cor chapter 5) and spread it to the Greeks. This is what it meant to be a 'Carpocratian.' In order to understand the reference in To Theodore we have to look at how the term developed owing to the influence of another prominent 'Carpocratian' in the late second century - Marcellina - and HER association with both the emerging Roman establishment, the Secret Gospel of Mark, general sexual licentiousness and 'idolatry.'

This is of course not an easy thing to do given the obscurity of the period. However if I am right about the identification of the 'little Marcia' who came to Rome at the beginning of the reign of reign of the two Antonines (Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus) we can understanding much more significant than the proper interpretation of the Mar Saba document.

We can actually begin to understand how our New Testament canon was developed in the Commodian period from an Alexandrian (Marcionite) original.

More to follow ...