BORBORIANS (BORBORITES). - Antinomian Gnostics; St. Epiphanius was the first to call them by this name, but they probably existed even earlier (cf. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, II, 20, and III, 4; PG 8, 1061, 1132-33). According to St. Epiphanius (Panarion, XXVI, 3; PG 41, 336), who encountered them in Egypt, they take their name from βόβαρμος (mud). Philastrius (De Haeresibus, LXXIII; PL 12, 1186) believed that they actually smeared themselves with mud. More correctly, St. Augustine (De Haeresibus, VI; PL 52, 26) interprets the name in a metaphorical sense. In fact, they professed doctrines and practiced rites of revolting immorality. If they were not identical, they certainly differed little from other Gnostics of the time, such as the Coddites, Naassenes, Stratiotics, Phibionites, etc. They interpreted Holy Scripture arbitrarily and moreover accepted the Gospel of Eve, the Apocalypse of Adam, the Gospel of Philip, and other apocryphal works.
They still existed in the 5th century, so much so that they were condemned together with other heretics by an imperial law in 428 (cf. Codex Theodosianus, XVI, v, 65).