Heracleon

The common source of Philaster and Pseudo-Tertullian (i.e. probably the earlier treatise of Hippolytus) contained an article on Heracleon between those on Ptolemaeus and Secundus, and on Marcus and Colarbasus.

In his system he appears to have regarded the divine nature as a vast abyss in whose Pleroma were Aeons of different orders and/or degrees, emanations from the source of being.

[1] He seems to have received the ordinary Christian scriptures; and Origen, who treats him as a notable exegete, has preserved fragments of Heracleon's commentary on the Gospel of John, while Clement of Alexandria quotes from him what appears to be a passage from a commentary on the Gospel of Luke.

[1] Neander and Cave have suggested Alexandria as the place where Heracleon taught; but Clement's language suggests some distance either of time or of place; for he would scarcely have thought it necessary to explain that Heracleon was the most in repute of the Valentinians if he were at the time the head of a rival school in the same city.

It seems, therefore, most likely that he taught in one of the cities of S. Italy; or Praedestinatus may be right in making Sicily the scene of his inventions about Heracleon.

The date of Heracleon is of interest on account of his use of St. John's Gospel, which clearly had attained high authority when he wrote.

Origen, in the still extant portion of his commentary on St. John, quotes Heracleon nearly 50 times, usually controverting, occasionally accepting his expositions.

The first passage quoted by Clement bears on an accusation brought against some of the Gnostic sects, that they taught that it was no sin to avoid martyrdom by denying the faith.

Thus he calls attention to the facts that in the statement "all things were made by Him," the preposition used is διά; that Jesus is said to have gone down to Capernaum and gone up to Jerusalem; that He found the buyers and sellers ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ, not ἐν τῷ ναῷ; that He said salvation is of the Jews not in them, and again (John 4:40) that Jesus tarried with the Samaritans, not in them; notice is taken of the point in Jesus's discourse with the woman of Samaria, where He first emphasizes His assertion with "Woman, believe Me"; and though Origen occasionally accuses Heracleon of deficient accuracy, for instance in taking the prophet (John 1:21) as meaning no more than a prophet; "in three days" (John 2:19) as meaning no more than "on the third day"; yet on the whole Heracleon's examination of the words is exceedingly minute.

He finds mysteries in the numbers in the narrative—in the 46 years which the temple was in building, the 6 husbands of the woman of Samaria (for such was his reading), the 2 days Jesus abode with the people of the city, the 7th hour at which the nobleman's son was healed.

The water of Jacob's well which she rejected is Judaism; the husband whom she is to call is no earthly husband, but her spiritual bridegroom from the Pleroma; the other husbands with whom she previously had committed fornication represent the matter with which the spiritual have been entangled; that she is no longer to worship either in "this mountain" or in "Jerusalem" means that she is not, like the heathen, to worship the visible creation, the Hyle, or kingdom of the devil, nor like the Jews to worship the creator or Demiurge; her watering-pot is her good disposition for receiving life from the Saviour.

Origen even occasionally blames Heracleon for being too easily content with more obvious interpretations.

Hilgenfeld, Volkmar, and DeConick consider that the Evangelist shows that he embraced the opinion of the Valentinians and some earlier Gnostic sects that the father of the devil was the Demiurge or God of the Jews.

He says nothing of the Gnostic theories as to stages in the origin of the universe; the prologue of St. John does not tempt him into mention of the Valentinian Aeonology.

Their king, the Demiurge, is represented as not hostile to the Supreme, and though shortsighted and ignorant, yet as well disposed to faith and ready to implore the Saviour's help for his subjects whom he had not himself been able to deliver.

When his ignorance is removed, he and his redeemed subjects will enjoy immortality in a place raised above the material world.