Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
WHAT CARPOCRATES TEACHES CONCERNING ALL THINGS. Carpocrates and his followers say that the world and the things in it were made by angels far inferior to the unbegotten Father. Jesus, they say, was born from Joseph, and although he was like other men in every way, he differed from the rest in this: that because his soul was firm and pure, it remembered the things it had seen while in that revolution which took place in the presence of the unbegotten God. And for this reason a power was sent to him from that God, so that through it he might escape the makers of the world, and passing through all of them and being freed from all, might ascend to that God — and that the same would happen to those souls who embraced things similar to it. They say that the soul of Jesus, though reared in Jewish custom, despised the Jews, and for this reason received powers by which it did away with the passions that were in men as a punishment.
Any soul, then, that likewise despises the makers of this world, the archons, as the soul of Jesus did, can likewise receive powers to do the same works. Hence they have been carried to such a pitch of arrogance that some of them claim to be equal to Jesus, while others claim to be even stronger than he in some respect — more advanced, in fact, than his very own disciples — men like Peter and Paul, and the others besides — these, they claim, fall short of Jesus in nothing. For their souls, coming from the same revolution and therefore likewise despising the makers of the world, are held worthy of the same power, and will return again to the same place. And if anyone should despise the things of this world more than Jesus did, he could become greater than Jesus himself. [Note: these things pertain, in their essence, to spirits joined to the rational soul through a certain primeval disturbance and confusion, etc. — Observe that Clement attributes to Basilides many things which more properly belong to Carpocrates. Compare: the hypothesis of Basilides says that the soul which had sinned previously in another life suffers punishment here, etc.] They themselves also practice the magic arts, and incantations, love-philtres and charm-potions, and the sending of familiar spirits and dream-senders, and the rest of such wicked devices, claiming that they already have power to rule over the princes and makers of this world — and not only over them, but over everything that has been made in it. And these men have been sent forth by Satan, just as the pagans have, to bring the divine name of the Church into disrepute — some, by hearing what such men do and supposing that all of us are like them, turn their ears away from the proclamation of the truth; others, seeing what these men do, blaspheme all of us, sharing with them nothing in common — not in teaching, not in conduct, not in the manner of everyday life. But while they lead a licentious life, they use an impious doctrine as a cloak for their wickedness — men whose judgment is just, as they will receive from God a recompense worthy of their deeds.
And they have been carried away by such unbridled madness that they claim to have the power and ability to do absolutely anything, however irreligious and impious. For they say that things are called good or evil solely by human opinion. And they hold that souls must, in the course of transmigrations into successive bodies, pass through every kind of life and every kind of act — unless one, anticipating this in a single lifetime, does all these things at once and together, all at the same time — deeds which it is not lawful for us even to speak or hear, let alone allow to enter our minds, but which their own writings say must be accomplished by the soul in the whole range of life's experience — so that it will not be compelled, for lack of something still owed to its freedom, to be sent back once more into a body. For this reason they say that Jesus spoke this parable: 'While you are on the way with your adversary, make an effort to be freed from him, lest he hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and he throw you into prison. Truly I say to you, you will not come out from there until you have paid the last penny.' And they say the 'adversary' is one among the angels present within this world, the one they name the devil, saying he was made for the purpose of leading the souls that have perished from the world to the ruler. And they say this one is the chief of the makers of the world, and that he hands such souls over to another angel who serves him, so that he may enclose them in other bodies — for they say the body is a prison. And the saying, 'You will not come out from there until you have paid the last penny,' they interpret to mean that no one escapes the power of those angels who made the world, but is transferred from body to body continually, until he has fulfilled every kind of activity that exists in the world; and when nothing more is lacking to him, then his soul, having been set free, is released upward to that God who stands beyond the angels who made the world; and thus all souls are saved in like manner — whether by anticipating everything in a single lifetime and mingling with every kind of activity, or by transmigrating from body to body, or by being sent into [an obscure and corrupt fragment of text follows, untranslatable] — fulfilling the requirements proper to each kind of life and paying their debts, they are set free, so that they are no longer put into a body. [As for whether they may lawfully do] things that are irreligious, and unjust, and forbidden — I for my part will never believe it. Yet in their own writings it is recorded that the Lord spoke to his own apostles privately, and that they asked him to hand these things down separately to those who were worthy and consenting. For, they say, salvation comes through faith and love; all else, being indifferent, is called good or evil merely according to human opinion, since nothing is by nature evil. [Note: some of them, moreover, brand their disciples with a mark, cauterizing them on the back of the right earlobe. Hence also Marcellina, who came to Rome under Anicetus, being of this teaching, led many astray.] They call themselves Gnostics. They also possess images — some painted, others fashioned from other materials — claiming that Pilate had commissioned a portrait resembling Christ during the time Jesus dwelt among men. These they crown with garlands and set up alongside the images of the pagan philosophers — that is, alongside the images of Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, and the rest — and they pay them the same sort of honor that the pagans do.