CARPOCRATES and the CARPOCRATIANS. – Egyptian Gnostic. He bears the name of the Egyptian god Harpocrates, later also written Carpocrates (cf. R. Harder, Karpokrates von Chalkis, in Abhandl. d. Preuss. Akademie [1944], p. 8). Of Alexandrian family, he taught in the first half of the 2nd century (according to Michael the Syrian, Chronicle, ed. Chabot, I [Papiro 1899], around 135 [founding of Aelia Capitolina]; his disciple Marcellina presented herself [V. IRENAEUS] in Rome under Anicetus, thus around 154).
C. spoke of a supreme, otherworldly God (Father). Angels, inferior beings, together with the devil, have created this world (v. CERINTHUS; MENANDER; SATURNILUS). Souls, once united with God in the "revolution" (Plato, Phaedo, 247 B/C), were imprisoned by these cosmic powers in bodies and subjected to all sufferings, and they did not escape from the prison of the transmigration of souls "until the last penny is paid" (Gnostic interpretation of Mt. 5:25-26). One must therefore "be reconciled with the adversary (i.e., with the devil), while proceeding with him on the same path" (Mt. 5:25), committing every act of licentiousness, because in this way the cosmic powers are deceived and one achieves liberation from transmigrations, returning to the otherworldly God (denial of the resurrection). To the embodied souls there remains the memory of the original state, which C. called, with Plato, "anamnesis." A strong soul is one that despises the creative powers of this world and their ordinances (Jewish law and moral law), and, like that of Jesus, receives the aid of assisting powers. In principle, there is no difference between Jesus and other men. In their superior gnosis over the cosmic powers, these Gnostics have the possibility of employing all means of magic. Baptism for them is the "baptism of fire" (Mt. 3:11), administered in the form of a tattoo on the tip of the right ear, seat of memory (v. F. J. Dölger, in Antike und Christentum, I [1929], p. 75), thus linking Gnostic-Platonic anamnesis with Christian Baptism. They also practiced the agape, which allowed them to commit acts of lust, justified by their communist theory, which included the community of women.
The account transmitted to us by the Fathers (Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., 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 worshiped as images of philosophers is to be connected with the ancient custom of carrying, for example, statuettes of gods during travels (cf. Apuleius, Apol., 63; F. J. Dölger, Gottesbildchen als Reiseamulete in Antike und Christentum, 4 [1933-34], pp. 67 ff.; id., Demeter und Dionysos. Figurchen als Glücksanhänger nach einer Mahnpreisig des Apollonius von Tyana, ibid., pp. 277 ff.; A. D. Nock, Journ. Roman Studies, 37 [1947], pp. 112 and n. 4) and implied the idea of a kind of deification of Jesus, because gnosis, like philosophy, makes the wise immortal (v. Cumont, Recherches sur le symbolisme funéraire des Romains, Paris 1942, pp. 263 ff).
A son of C. was Epiphanes, instructed by his father in Platonic philosophy. Dying at the age of 17, the youth, author of a work on justice, was worshiped as a god in Sama, the principal city of the island of Cephalonia, probably as a deified philosopher. Clement of Alexandria cites extracts from the book of Epiphanes, in which he maintains the thesis that the justice of God demands the community of goods. This is an attempt to propagate C.’s antinomian gnosis under the guise of pseudo-Platonism.