CARPOCRATE and CARPOCRAZIANI. – Egyptian Gnostic. He bears the name of the Egyptian god Harpocrates, later also written Karpokrates (cf. R. Harder, Karpokrates von Chalkiis, in Abhandl. d. Preuss. Akademie [1944], p. 8). Of Alexandrian family, he taught in the first half of the second century (according to Michael the Syrian, Cronaca, ed. Chabot, I [Paris 1899], around 135 [the foundation of Aelia Capitolina]; his disciple Marcellina appears [V. IRENEO] in Rome under Anicetus, therefore around 154).
C. spoke of a supreme, otherworldly God (the Father). Inferior angels, together with the devil, created this world (v. CERINTO; ALESSANDRO; SATURNILO). The 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 kind of suffering; they would not escape from the prison of transmigration of souls “until the last penny has been paid” (a Gnostic interpretation of Mt. 5:25–26). One must therefore “come to terms with the adversary (that is, the devil), while proceeding with him along the same road” (Mt. 5:25), committing every act of libertinism, because in this way the cosmic powers are deceived and liberation from transmigrations is attained, with a return to the otherworldly god (denial of the resurrection). The souls embodied retained the memory of their original state, which C., following Plato, called “anamnesis.” A strong soul means a soul that despises the creative powers of this world and their commands (the judicial law and the moral law), and that, like the soul of Jesus, receives the assistance of attendant powers. In principle, there is no difference between Jesus and other human beings. In their gnosis, superior to the cosmic powers, these Gnostics had the ability to employ every means of magic. Baptism for them was the “baptism of fire” (Mt. 3:11), administered in the form of a tattoo at the tip of the right ear, the seat of memory (v. F. J. Dölger, in Antike und Christentum, 1 [1929], p. 75), thereby bringing Gnostic-Platonic anamnesis into relation 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 possessed representations of Christ in the form of paintings or figurines (of gold and silver), which they worshipped
like images of philosophers, should be related to the ancient practice of carrying with oneself, for example during journeys, statuettes of gods (cf. Apuleius, Apol., 63; F. J. Dölger, Gottesbildchen als Reiseamulett 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 deification of Jesus, because gnosis, that is, philosophy, makes the wise immortal (v. Cumont, Recherches sur le symbolisme funéraire des Romains, Paris 1942, p. 263 ff).
The son of C. was Epiphanius, instructed by his father in Platonic philosophy. Having died at the age of seventeen, the young man, author of a work on justice, was said to have been venerated as a god at Same, the principal city of the island of Cephallenia, probably as philosophy deified. Clement of Alexandria cites excerpts from Epiphanius’s book, in which he maintains the thesis that God’s justice requires the community of goods. This was an attempt to propagandize C.’s antinomian gnosis under the guise of a pseudo-Platonism.