MENANDRO (Menandros). — One of the earliest Gnostics, a disciple of Simone Mago. Born at Kapparataia (St. Justin, Apol., I, 26) in the 1st century A.D., he carried out his doctrinal activity at Antioch in Syria.
According to St. Irenaeus (Adv. haer., I, 17–23), he claimed to have been sent by the invisible aeons for the salvation of human beings. He taught that the world had been made by the angels, emanations of eternal reason (Evroux). He differed from his master Simone Mago by teaching that his baptism made people immortal and by rejecting Simon’s libertinism. He was the teacher of Saturnino or Saturnilo and of Basilide, the former of whom taught at Antioch, the latter in Alexandria. It seems that Saturnino’s doctrine was very close to that of M. (Irenaeus, I, 18; Hippolytus, VII, 28; Eusebius, Hist. ecd., IV, 7; Epiphanius, Haer., 23; Theodoret, Haer. fab., I, 3). M. probably brought about the transition from Eastern to Hellenic Gnosticism.
prot. Theol. und Kirche, XII, p. 574 ff.; F. Schulthess, Die Sprüche des Menander aus dem Syrischen übersetzt, in Zeitschrift für alttestam. Wissenschaft., 32 (1912), pp. 199–224; F. P. Steffes, Das Wesen des Gnostizismus, Münster 1922. Lucchesio Spätling