CARPOCRATES AND CARPOCRATIANS. - Egyptian Gnostic. He bears the name of the Egyptian god Harpocrates, in later times also written Karpokrates (cf. R. Harder, Karpokrates von Chalkiis, in Abhandl. d. Preuss. Akademie [1944], p. 8). Of an Alexandrian family, he taught in the first half of the 2nd century (according to Michael the Syrian, Chronicle, ed. Chabot, I [Paris 1899], around 135 [foundation of Aelia Capitolina]; his disciple Marcellina appears [v. IRENAEUS] in Rome under Anicetus, therefore around 154).
C. spoke of a supreme, otherworldly God (Father). Lower angels — together with the devil — created this world (v. CERINTHUS; MENANDER; SATURNILUS). Souls, once united with god in the "rotation" (Plato, Phaed., 247 B/C), were imprisoned by these cosmic powers in bodies and exposed to every suffering, and they will not leave the prison of the transmigration of souls "until the last penny is paid" (Gnostic interpretation of Mt. 5:25-26). One must therefore "come to terms with the adversary (that is, with the devil), while one is on the same road with him" (Mt. 5:25), committing every act of licentiousness, because in this way the cosmic powers are deceived and one arrives at liberation from transmigrations, returning to the otherworldly god (denial of the resurrection). To embodied souls there remains the memory of the original state, called by C., following Plato, "anamnesis." A strong soul means a soul that despises the creative powers of this world and their ordinances (judging law and moral law), and like that of Jesus receives the help of assisting powers. From the standpoint of principle there is no difference between Jesus and other men. In their gnosis, superior to the cosmic powers, these Gnostics have the possibility of employing all the means of magic. Baptism is for them the "baptism of fire" (Mt. 3:11), administered in the form of a tattoo on the tip of the right ear, the seat of memory (v. F. J. Dölger, in Antike und Christentum, 1 [1929], p. 75), thus linking the Gnostic-Platonic anamnesis with Christian Baptism. They also knew the agape, which gave them the possibility of committing acts of lust, justified by their communist theory, which also included the communism of women.
The report transmitted by the Fathers (Irenaeus, I, 26, 4; Epiphanius, 27, 6; Augustine, Haer., 7) that the Carpocratians had representations of Christ in the form of paintings or figurines (of gold and silver) which they adored as the images of the philosophers is to be connected with the ancient custom of carrying with oneself, for example during journeys, statuettes of gods (cf. Apuleius, Apol., 63; F. J. Dölger, Gottesbildchen als Reiseamtsette in Antike und Christentum, 4 [1933-34], p. 67 ff.; id., Demeter und Dionysos. Figürchen als Glücksanhänger nach einer Mahnpredigt des Apollonius von Tyana, ibid., p. 277 ff.; A. D. Noch, Journ. Roman Studies, 37 [1947], pp. 112 and n. 4) and implies the idea of a kind of divinization of Jesus, because gnosis, philosophy, makes the wise immortal (v. F. Cumont, Recherches sur le symbolisme funéraire des Romains, Paris 1942, p. 263 f.).
Son of C. was Epiphanes, instructed by his father in Platonic philosophy. Having died at 17, the youth, author of a work on justice, is said to have been venerated as a god at Sama, the principal city of the island of Cephalonia, probably as a divinized philosopher. Clement of Alexandria cites extracts from the book of Epiphanes, in which the latter maintains the thesis that the justice of God demands the community of goods. This is an attempt to propagandize for the antinomian gnosis of C. under the guise of a pseudo-Platonism.