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Christian
A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...
Gnostic
Gnosticism (from Ancient Greek: , romanized: ''gnōstikós'', Koine Greek: �nostiˈkos 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems that coalesced in the late 1st century AD among early Christian sects. These diverse g ...
religious history, the Colarbasians (from Gk. Colarbasus, Hippol., Ps. Tert.; Colorbasus, Iren., Epiph., Theodoret, Philast. cod., Aug.; ''C. Bassus'' Philast. codd.) were a supposed
sect
A sect is a subgroup of a religion, religious, politics, political, or philosophy, philosophical belief system, typically emerging as an offshoot of a larger organization. Originally, the term referred specifically to religious groups that had s ...
of the 2nd century, deemed
heretics
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, particularly the accepted beliefs or religious law of a religious organization. A heretic is a proponent of heresy.
Heresy in Christianity, Judai ...
, so called from their leader Colarbasus, a disciple of
Valentinius. Colarbasus, along with
Marcus, another disciple of
Valentinus
Valentinus is a Roman masculine given name derived from the Latin word "valens" meaning "healthy, strong". It may refer to:
People Churchmen
*Pope Valentine (died 827)
*Saint Valentine, 3rd century Christian saint
*Valentinus (Gnostic) (died c. 1 ...
, was said to maintain the whole plenitude, and perfection of
truth
Truth or verity is the Property (philosophy), property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth, 2005 In everyday language, it is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise cor ...
and
religion
Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...
, to be contained in the
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BC. It was derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and is the earliest known alphabetic script to systematically write vowels as wel ...
; and that it was for this reason that
Jesus
Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...
was called the ''
Alpha and Omega''.
Analysis
The name occurs first, and that only incidentally, in a solitary passage of
Irenaeus
Irenaeus ( or ; ; ) was a Greeks, Greek bishop noted for his role in guiding and expanding Christianity, Christian communities in the southern regions of present-day France and, more widely, for the development of Christian theology by oppos ...
i. 14, 1 which has been the subject of much discussion.
Marcus, Irenaeus seems to say, boasted that he alone was allowed to become the womb and receptacle of the Sigé (''Silence'') of Colarbasus; the offspring to which he gave birth being the statement and revelation recorded afterwards. There is no previous mention of Colarbasus. Irenaeus has for six pages been speaking of Marcus alone. Eleven pages back he refers briefly to "a certain other ''Illustrious'' teacher of theirs"
he Valentinians">Valentinians.html" ;"title="he Valentinians">he Valentinians but there is no coincidence of doctrine, and nothing to suggest that the nameless, or obscurely named [Epiphanes], heretic was himself Colarbasus, as some have supposed.
Sources
According to Philastrius, Philaster (''Haer''. 43) Colarbasus taught after Marcus and "in like manner:" his two lines of description are merely a vague echo of
Marcosian doctrine. Pseudo-Tertullian (15) combines the two names indistinguishably in one article. Their common source, the lost Compendium of
Hippolytus, can have contained no special information about Colarbasus. When Hippolytus wrote the great later treatise ''
Against all Heresies'', he was evidently not better instructed. At the beginning of the sixth book he promises to describe "the doctrines held by Marcus and Colarbasus;" he devotes in due course twenty-three pages to a repetition of Irenaeus's account of Marcus; and at the end he considers he has sufficiently shown who
iz., Pythagoreans and astrology">astrologers
Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that propose that information about human affairs and terrestrial events may be discerned by studying the apparent positions of celesti ...
] were the masters of Marcus and Colarbasus, "the successors in the school of Valentinus:" yet not a word is given to Colarbasus separately. Once elsewhere (iv. 13) Colarbasus is said to have "endeavoured to expound theology by measures and numbers;" but this is simply the Marcosian method.
The proceeding of
Epiphanius of Salamis
Epiphanius of Salamis (; – 403) was the bishop of Salamis, Cyprus, at the end of the Christianity in the 4th century, 4th century. He is considered a saint and a Church Father by the Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic Churche ...
is more audacious. He has a separate article (''
Haer'', xxxv. 258–262) on Colarbasus, the composition of which has been fully laid bare by
R. A. Lipsius (''Zur Quellengesch. d. Epiph''. 167 f.). The long account of Marcus in Irenaeus is preceded by a series of short notices (mostly without names) of the chief doctrines maintained by different branches of the great Valentinian sect. The passage relating to one group distinguished as "those who are reputed to be the wiser among them," is transferred bodily by Epiphanius to Colarbasus, and with it, stranger still, the next paragraph down to the end of the chapter, though it sets forth in single sentences the doctrines of no less than five sets of Valentinians about the Saviour. The passage about the "wise" group immediately follows one on
Ptolemaeus
Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine, Islamic, and W ...
; and accordingly Epiphanius makes Colarbasus to spring from "the root of Ptolemaeus," as well as to borrow from Marcus, and attributes to him a purpose of devising a greater and more ingenious scheme than his predecessors.
Theodoret
Theodoret of Cyrus or Cyrrhus (; AD 393 – 458/466) was an influential theologian of the School of Antioch, biblical commentator, and Christian bishop of Cyrrhus (423–457).
He played a pivotal role in several 5th-century Byzantine ...
(''Haer. Fab''. i. 12) merely abbreviates Epiphanius, changing at the same time "Colorbasus" into "the Colorbasians." A doubtful conjecture has brought Colarbasus into a single sentence of
Tertullian
Tertullian (; ; 155 – 220 AD) was a prolific Early Christianity, early Christian author from Roman Carthage, Carthage in the Africa (Roman province), Roman province of Africa. He was the first Christian author to produce an extensive co ...
(''adv. Val.'' 4), where at most no more is said than that a road was marked out for him by Valentinus; Ptolemaeus is named next, then
Heracleon
Heracleon was a Gnostic who flourished about AD 175, probably in the south of Italy. He is the author of the earliest known commentary on a book that would eventually be included in the Christian New Testament with his commentary on the Gosp ...
, Secundus, and Marcus.
All these various writers against heresies are known to have learned, directly or indirectly, from Irenaeus; and every statement of theirs about Colarbasus can be at once traced, through transcription or immediate inference, to something in the text of Irenaeus not far distant from the place where the name of Colarbasus occurs. On the other hand, the reports of doctrine have little or nothing in common, Hippolytus and his followers make Colarbasus to have taught only what Marcus taught: Epiphanius and his copyist fathers upon him the discordant views of a miscellaneous cluster of Valentinians.
The Voice of Four
The credit of detecting the cause of the confusion belongs to C. A. Heumann (''Hamburgische Vermischte Bibliothek'', 1743, i. 145). He got rid of the mysterious double of Marcus by pointing out that ''Chol-arba'' (כלארבע) means "''All-Four''" i.e. the divine Tetrad, which in the scheme of Marcus stood at the head of the Pleroma. He was less successful in dealing with the details of the text: and
F. C. Baur (''K.G. d.'' 3 ''erst. Jahrh''. i. 204) has rightly substituted ''Col'' (קול) for ''Chol'' (''The Voice of Four'' for ''All-Four''). Volkmar explains the appearance of ''s'' by the Aramaic commutation of ע with צ, and the ''o'' of several authorities by Theodoret's ''Kossianos'' for ''Kassianos'': ''Colassae'' and ''Colossae'' afford a still better illustration.
Sigé
Both the Tetrad and Sigé appear in the context as if they made revelations to Marcus, but (what has not been sufficiently observed) in different ways. When Irenaeus is simply recording what he found in his Marcosian authority, he speaks of the Tetrad or Tetractys. Thus (66–69):—
Sigé on the other hand, is mentioned only when Irenaeus speaks in his own person, and always with a touch of sarcasm. Thus (68–78):
It may therefore be questioned whether Marcus ever represented Sigé as herself visiting him. Two passages indeed suggest pretty clearly that he held her to be faithful to her name. Speaking of "Truth," virtually the alphabet, also called Man, he says (69) that she "is the fountain of every speech, and the beginning of every voice, and the utterance of everything unutterable, and the mouth of the unspoken Sigé (''tês siôpômenês Sigês''). Again we hear (64) that Marcosians were taught to offer a prayer for deliverance from "the Judge" to a female divinity addressed as "thou that sittest beside God and the mystic Sigé before the aeons" (or ages: ''ô paredre theou k. t. l.''). This address supplies the required clue, for the divinity is called "the Mother," in a passage almost immediately preceding the occurrence of the name Colarbasus; and elsewhere (75: cf. 84) "the Mother of the Universe" is identified with "the first Tetrad." Sigé herself then doubtless remains hidden above; but her mysteries are made known to Marcus by the Tetrad, the ''Colarbas'' or ''Voice of Four'', who must be the (nameless) "most mighty power from the invisible and innominable places," to whom he boasted that he owed his "knowledge," as we read in Irenaeus's first paragraph about him (60).
The difficulty of the primary phrase ''tês Kolarbasou Sigês'' remains. In the absence of a second article, it can only mean "the Sigé of Colarbas" (or Colarbasus) instead of "the Colarbas (or Colarba) of Sigé," as the sense above elicited requires. The difficulty would be lightened, and the perplexing termination of ''Kolarbasou'' at the same time removed, by reading ''tês Kolarbas ek Sigês'', "the Colarba (Voice of Four) proceeding out of Sigé (Silence)." In round continuous uncials the change would be easy, EK and OY having much resemblance when written. The two names would thus stand in the right relation to each other. The phrase however would still be briefer than we should expect. The sudden appearance of the Hebrew term remains likewise unaccounted for. The obscurity evidently lies in the original text of Irenaeus, if not of the authority whom he followed; and it was found as embarrassing in the 3rd and 4th centuries as now. It was only disguised, not removed, by supposing a heretic named Colarbasus.
Bibliography
* ''This article uses text from ''A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines, Being a Continuation of "The Dictionary of the Bible"'' by
William Smith and
Henry Wace.''
*{{1728
Early Gnostic sects
Gnostic religions and sects