Borborites

According to the book "Panarion", by Epiphanius of Salamis [Chapter xxv, xxvi.] , and Theodoret's "Haereticarum Fabularum Compendium", the Borborites [Or barbelos, barbelites, phibionites, stratiotici, coddians etc.] were a libertine Gnostic ophite sect. The word "borborite" comes from the Greek word "borboros" which means "mud"; thus "borborites" could be translated as "filthy ones."

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 semen, and consumption of the same as a variant of eucharist. They were also said to extract fetuses from pregnant women and consume them, particularly if the women accidentally became pregnant during related sexual rituals.

As all these tellings about the Borborites come from their opponents, it is unknown if they are true or exaggerated. Stephen Gero [In "With Walter Bauer on the Tigris: Encratite Orthodoxy and Libertine Heresy in Syro-Mesopotamian Christianity", one of a collection of works published in "Nag Hammadi, Gnosticism, and Early Christianity" in 1986.] finds them plausible and connected with earlier Gnostic myths.

It is unlikely they would have called themselves Borborites, yet this, their alternative names, and the descriptions of their beliefs, reveals a connection to Barbelo. Some of the Gnostic scriptures have been called Barbeloite because of her appearance in them, such as the Apocryphon of John and Trimorphic Protennoia. The last of these seems to have undergone Sethian revision and 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. The Trimorphic Protennoia does describe the divine as a sexual being but being a highly esoteric work leaves much to the imagination.

If the Barbelo gnostics were libertines and these are their writings then the unfriendly account of Epiphanius has to be contrasted with the elegant spiritual writings they produced. Also he was presumably not speaking from first hand knowledge, so most scholars assume, and he claims to have run away from the gnostic women who reproached him thus:'We have not been able to save the young man, but rather, have abandoned him to the clutches of the ruler'

Epiphanius later reported the group to the bishops and went through the church resulting in the expulsion of around 80 people from the city of Alexandria.

ources

*Epiphanius of Salamis. "Panarion/Adversus Haereses" chapter xxv, xxvi.
*Theodoret. "Haereticarum Fabularum Compendium".

Notes