Borborites
Encyclopedia
- "Borborites" is also an invalid name for the small dung fly familyFamily (biology)In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...
(SphaeroceridaeSphaeroceridaeSphaeroceridae are a family of true flies in the order Diptera, often called small dung flies, lesser dung flies or lesser corpse flies due to their saprophagous habits. They belong to the typical fly suborder Brachycera as can be seen by their short antennae, and more precisely they are members of...
).
According to the Panarion
Panarion
In early Christian heresiology, the Panarion , to which 16th-century Latin translations gave the name Adversus Haereses , is the most important of the works of Epiphanius of Salamis...
of Epiphanius of Salamis
Epiphanius of Salamis
Epiphanius of Salamis was bishop of Salamis at the end of the 4th century. He is considered a saint and a Church Father by both the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches. He gained a reputation as a strong defender of orthodoxy...
(ch. 26), and Theodoret
Theodoret
Theodoret of Cyrus or Cyrrhus was an influential author, theologian, and Christian bishop of Cyrrhus, Syria . He played a pivotal role in many early Byzantine church controversies that led to various ecumenical acts and schisms...
's Haereticarum Fabularum Compendium, the Borborites or Borborians (also Koddians; in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, Phibionites; in other countries, Barbalites, Secundians, Socratites, etc.) were a libertine Gnostic
Gnosticism
Gnosticism is a scholarly term for a set of religious beliefs and spiritual practices common to early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism , and Neoplatonism.A common characteristic of some of these groups was the teaching that the realisation of Gnosis...
sect
Sect
A sect is a group with distinctive religious, political or philosophical beliefs. Although in past it was mostly used to refer to religious groups, it has since expanded and in modern culture can refer to any organization that breaks away from a larger one to follow a different set of rules and...
, said to be descended from the Nicolaitans. The word "Borborite" comes from the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
word Βορβορος, meaning "mud
Mud
Mud is a mixture of water and some combination of soil, silt, and clay. Ancient mud deposits harden over geological time to form sedimentary rock such as shale or mudstone . When geological deposits of mud are formed in estuaries the resultant layers are termed bay muds...
"; thus "Borborites" could be translated as "filthy ones".
Doctrine
The Borborites possessed certain sacred books, one called NoriaNorea
Norea is a figure in Gnostic cosmology. Sometimes she is said to be the syzygy of Adam, or wife of Noah, and daughter of Eve. Norea is perceived within gnostic thought as Sophia after her fall from grace....
(the name they gave to Noah
Noah
Noah was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs. The biblical story of Noah is contained in chapters 6–9 of the book of Genesis, where he saves his family and representatives of all animals from the flood by constructing an ark...
's wife), a Gospel of Eve
Gospel of Eve
The Gospel of Eve is a currently almost entirely lost text from the New Testament apocrypha, which may be the same as the also lost Gospel of Perfection...
, Books of Seth
Seth
Seth , in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, is the third listed son of Adam and Eve and brother of Cain and Abel, who are the only other of their children mentioned by name...
, Revelations of Adam
Apocalypse of Adam
The Apocalypse of Adam discovered in 1945 as part of the Nag Hammadi library is a Gnostic work written in Coptic. It has no necessary references to Christianity and it is accordingly debated whether it is a Christian Gnostic work or an example of Jewish Gnosticism...
, etc. They used both the Old and New Testament, but did not acknowledge the God of the Old Testament as the supreme deity.
They taught that there were eight heavens, each under a separate archon
Archon
Archon is a Greek word that means "ruler" or "lord", frequently used as the title of a specific public office. It is the masculine present participle of the verb stem ἀρχ-, meaning "to rule", derived from the same root as monarch, hierarchy, and anarchy.- Ancient Greece :In ancient Greece the...
. In the seventh reigned Sabaoth, creator of heaven and earth, the God of the Jews, represented by some Borborites under the form of an ass or a hog; hence the Jewish prohibition of swine's flesh. In the eighth heaven reigned Barbelo
Barbelo
The Gnostic term Barbēlō refers to the first emanation of God in several forms of Gnostic cosmogony. Barbēlō is often depicted as a supreme female principle, the single passive antecedent of creation in its manifoldness...
, the mother of the living; the Father of All, the supreme God; and Christ
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
. They denied that Christ was born of Mary, or had a real body; and also the resurrection of the body.
The human soul after death wanders through the seven heavens, until it obtains rest with Barbelo. Man possesses a soul in common with plants and beasts. According to Augustine they taught that the soul was derived from the substance of God, and hence could not be polluted by contact with matter
Hyle
In philosophy, hyle refers to matter or stuff. It can also be the material cause underlying a change in Aristotelian philosophy. The Greeks originally had no word for matter in general, as opposed to raw material suitable for some specific purpose or other, so Aristotle adapted the word for...
.
Sexual sacramentalism
Epiphanius says the Borborites were inspired by Sethianism, and had as a distinct feature of their rituals elements of sexual sacramentalism, including smearing of hands with menstrual blood and semenSemen
Semen is an organic fluid, also known as seminal fluid, that may contain spermatozoa. It is secreted by the gonads and other sexual organs of male or hermaphroditic animals and can fertilize female ova...
, and consumption of the same as a variant of eucharist
Eucharist
The Eucharist , also called Holy Communion, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, and other names, is a Christian sacrament or ordinance...
. They were also said to extract fetuses from pregnant women and consume them, particularly if the women accidentally became pregnant during related sexual rituals.
Epiphanius claimed some firsthand knowledge of the sect, and to have run away from certain Gnostic women who reproached him thus:
Epiphanius later reported the group to the bishops, resulting in the expulsion of around 80 people from the city of Alexandria.
As all these tellings about the Borborites come from their opponents, it is unknown if they are true or exaggerated. Stephen Gero finds them plausible and connected with earlier Gnostic myths.
Barbelo
It is unlikely they would have called themselves Borborites, yet this, their alternative names, and the descriptions of their beliefs, reveals a connection to BarbeloBarbelo
The Gnostic term Barbēlō refers to the first emanation of God in several forms of Gnostic cosmogony. Barbēlō is often depicted as a supreme female principle, the single passive antecedent of creation in its manifoldness...
. Some of the Gnostic scriptures have been called "Barbeloite" because of her appearance in them, such as the Apocryphon of John
Apocryphon of John
The Secret Book of John is a 2nd-century AD Sethian Gnostic text of secret teachings. Since it was known to the church father Irenaeus, it must have been written before around AD 180. It describes Jesus Christ appearing and giving secret knowledge to the apostle John...
and Trimorphic Protennoia
Trimorphic Protennoia
The Trimorphic Protennoia is a Sethian Gnostic text from the New Testament apocrypha. The only surviving copy comes from the Nag Hammadi library ....
. The last of these seems to have undergone Sethian revision, although similar, fully Sethian texts have their own distinct perspective—maybe suggesting some Sethians were inspired by Barbeloite writings. These writings do not mention any sexual rituals, but neither any moral codes. Trimorphic Protennoia does describe the divine as a sexual being, but being a highly esoteric work leaves much to the imagination. If the Barbelognostics were libertines and these are their writings, then the unfriendly account of Epiphanius has to be contrasted with the elegant spiritual writings they produced.
Sources
- Epiphanius of SalamisEpiphanius of SalamisEpiphanius of Salamis was bishop of Salamis at the end of the 4th century. He is considered a saint and a Church Father by both the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches. He gained a reputation as a strong defender of orthodoxy...
. Panarion (Adversus Haereses). Chapters 25 and 26. - TheodoretTheodoretTheodoret of Cyrus or Cyrrhus was an influential author, theologian, and Christian bishop of Cyrrhus, Syria . He played a pivotal role in many early Byzantine church controversies that led to various ecumenical acts and schisms...
. Haereticarum Fabularum Compendium.