The Apologists · AD 130–180 · External witness
Carpocrates of Alexandria
fl. c. 130 (death unrecorded) · Gnostic teacher of Alexandria · Alexandria
External witness
Who Carpocrates of Alexandria was
An Alexandrian teacher of the Hadrianic period whose sect the heresiologists remembered as the most morally scandalous of the Gnostic schools: holding the world made by inferior angels, they taught (Irenaeus reports) that the soul must pass through and exhaust every experience to escape rebirth — a licence the church condemned outright. His followers were said to keep painted images of Christ alongside Pythagoras and Plato. His son Epiphanes reportedly died young with a cult of his own. Named by Irenaeus and Clement as a warning; the archive keeps him as the sources present him — an adversary defined by the church’s recoil.
Also listed in non-christian witnesses and heretics & schismatics.
Common questions
When was Carpocrates active?
Carpocrates of Alexandria is dated fl. c. 130 (death unrecorded) in the archive, which places Carpocrates in the Apologists (AD 130–180). The dating is traditional and approximate; the archive marks it as uncertain rather than fixing a year the sources do not give.
Which early sources mention Carpocrates?
Carpocrates of Alexandria is named in 4 primary-source passages catalogued here, drawn from Irenaeus of Lyon, Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius of Caesarea and Augustine of Hippo. Every passage is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.
Where was Carpocrates from?
The archive associates Carpocrates of Alexandria with Alexandria.
Who were Carpocrates’ contemporaries?
The archive links Carpocrates of Alexandria to 5 other figures, including Basilides of Alexandria, Valentinus, Clement of Alexandria and Epiphanes, son of Carpocrates. Each connection is drawn from a source that places them together, not from inference.
Primary-source mentions (4)
Every passage below is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.
Against Heresies I.25.1
c. AD 180Carpocrates and his followers maintain that the world and the things which are therein were created by angels greatly inferior to the unbegotten Father… and they practise also magical arts.Irenaeus of Lyon · I.25.1 · source text
Stromateis III.2 (father and son refuted together)
c. AD 200Ecclesiastical History IV.7
c. AD 325Carpocrates, the father of another heresy, which was called the heresy of the Gnostics.Eusebius of Caesarea · Ecclesiastical History IV.7 · source text
On Heresies 7
c. AD 428Connected in the archive
People
- Basilides of Alexandria
- Valentinus
- Clement of Alexandria
- Epiphanes, son of Carpocrates
- Marcellina the Carpocratian
Events in this lifetime
- AD 70 · The fall of Jerusalem, AD 70
- AD 95 · Domitian’s reprisals, AD 95
- AD 96 · Rome writes to Corinth: 1 Clement, AD 96
- AD 112 · Pliny writes Trajan, AD 112
- AD 117 · Symeon and Ignatius martyred, AD 117
- AD 135 · Bar Kokhba crushed; Aelia Capitolina, AD 135
Place
Places served
The one place the sources put Carpocrates.