The Ante-Nicene Church · AD 180–313 · External witness
Heracleon
fl. c. AD 170 – c. 180 · Valentinian exegete · First commentator on John · Italy(?)
External witness
Who Heracleon was
The most learned of Valentinus's heirs — 'said to be his most esteemed disciple' — and author of the first known commentary on the Gospel of John, which Origen answered page by page and so preserved in fragments. Irenaeus pairs him with Ptolemy at the head of the Italian school; the church's tradition of verse-by-verse exegesis begins, awkwardly, with a Gnostic.
Also listed in non-christian witnesses.
Common questions
When was Heracleon active?
Heracleon is dated fl. c. AD 170 – c. 180 in the archive, which places Heracleon in the Ante-Nicene Church (AD 180–313). The dating is traditional and approximate; the archive marks it as uncertain rather than fixing a year the sources do not give.
What did Heracleon write?
Heracleon has 1 catalogued writing in the archive: Hypomnemata — Commentary on John (fragments).
Which early sources mention Heracleon?
Heracleon is named in 3 primary-source passages catalogued here, drawn from Irenaeus of Lyon, Clement of Alexandria and Origen of Alexandria. Every passage is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.
Where was Heracleon from?
The archive associates Heracleon with Italy(?).
Writings (1)
Hypomnemata — Commentary on John (fragments)
The first commentary on a Gospel; forty-eight fragments preserved by its opponent Origen[48 fragments, quoted and contested passage by passage in Origen's Commentary on John]Read the interlinear source text →
Primary-source mentions (3)
Every passage below is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.
Against Heresies II.4.1
c. AD 180The followers of Ptolemy and Heracleon… have set forth these opinions with yet greater refinement.Irenaeus of Lyon · II.4 · source text
Stromateis IV.9 (his exegesis of confession quoted)
c. AD 200Heracleon, the most distinguished of the school of Valentinians, in explaining this passage, says.Clement of Alexandria · Stromateis IV.9 · source text
Origen, Commentary on John (quoted and refuted throughout, the first named exegetical duel)
c. AD 231[Origen quotes Heracleon by name in order to refute him, and everything that survives of the first commentary on a Gospel survives that way.]Origen of Alexandria · Origen, Commentary on John, books II, VI, X, XIII, XX
Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John, begun at Alexandria c. AD 226 and continued at Caesarea; nine of the original thirty-two books survive. Greek: Erwin Preuschen, Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller 10 (1903). English translation of books I–X by Allan Menzies, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 10 (1896), public domain; the whole in Ronald Heine, Fathers of the Church 80 and 89 (1989–93). The fragments themselves are catalogued in this archive as Heracleon: Fragments of the Hypomnemata.
Connected in the archive
People
Events in this lifetime
- AD 112 · Pliny writes Trajan, AD 112
- AD 117 · Symeon and Ignatius martyred, AD 117
- AD 135 · Bar Kokhba crushed; Aelia Capitolina, AD 135
- AD 144 · Marcion expelled at Rome, AD 144
- AD 156 · The New Prophecy erupts, AD 156
- AD 177 · Persecution at Lyon and Vienne, AD 177
- AD 180 · The Scillitan martyrs, AD 180
Place
Places served
The one place the sources put Heracleon.
- 1Italyprovince only