Another Question From a Reader

A reader has emailed and asked me:

Mr huller what do you think about borborites they are gnostics or not?

The answer to this question is maybe. Let me explain what I mean. As you know borbores means filth. Epiphanius received a tradition (or invented himself) where the gnostics who emerged from the redemption baptism identified themselves as 'pure.' The Church Fathers AS ALWAYS turned around this original belief and said they were now 'filthy' because of their impure rites. We know this is true because one of the other names Epiphanius tells us the 'Borborites' went by is the Zacchaeans which comes from the Aramaic zakkai which means 'pure.'

So the gnostics called themselves 'pure' and the Church Fathers called them 'filthy.'

All of the reports of the Church Fathers work on these principles. The Ebionites are identified as 'poor in faith.' Who knows where that name comes from. The 'Borborites' really identified themselves as the zakkai or 'pure.'

Were they gnostics? Well by the time Epiphanius was writing the term gnostic was meaningless. It meant the same as heretic.

Scholars like Bart Ehrman like to throw around the 'Borborites' as a early Christian group because it helps sell books. But I am not so sure.

The followers of Novatian also named themselves katharoi, or the pure, and affected to call the Catholic Church Apostaticum, Synedrium, or Capitolinum. They were found in every province, and in some places were very numerous.

They were not gnostics. As such it is difficult to say what exactly lays behind Epiphanius report given its unreliability.