Borborites
According to the
Etymology
The word Borborite comes from the
Teachings
Sacred texts
The Borborites possessed a number of sacred books, including
Epiphanius of Salamis records that The Greater Questions of Mary contained an episode in which Jesus took Mary Magdalene up to the top of a mountain, where he pulled a woman out of his side and engaged in sexual intercourse with her. Then, upon ejaculating, Jesus drank his own semen and told Mary, "Thus we must do, that we may live." Upon hearing this, Mary instantly fainted, to which Jesus responded by helping her up and telling her, "O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?"[6]
Cosmology
They taught that there were eight heavens, each under a separate
Epiphanius also indicates that the Phibionites honored 365 archons, with the 8 listed archons merely being the greatest of them. According to him, a male would have sex for each one of the archons as an offering.[8]
Tangentially during his description of the
Sexual sacramentalism
Epiphanius claims that the Borborites were inspired by Sethianism and that elements of sexual sacramentalism formed an important role in their rituals. He asserts that the Borborites engaged in a version of the eucharist in which they would smear their hands with menstrual blood and semen and consume them as the blood and body of Christ respectively.[4] He also alleges that, whenever one of the women in their church was experiencing her monthly period, they would take her menstrual blood and everyone in the church would eat it as part of a sacred ritual.[10]
The Borborites were also said to extract fetuses from pregnant women and consume them, particularly if the women accidentally became pregnant during related sexual rituals.[11] Buckley notes that this implies treatment of an aborted foetus as "strayed semen", and would serve to prevent it from developing into another body "for the archons' clutches".[1]
Historiography
Background of Epiphanius
Epiphanius wrote that he had some first-hand knowledge of the sect. According to him, two Gnostic women approached him and attempted to recruit him into the sect and seduce him. They also allowed him to read their scriptures, yet Epiphanius claims he was untempted and did not join. Instead, he reported the group to the bishops, resulting in the expulsion of around 80 people from the city of Alexandria.
17:4 For I happened on this sect myself, beloved, and was actually taught these things in person, out of the mouths of people who really undertook them. Not only did women under this delusion offer me this line of talk, and divulge this sort of thing to me. With impudent boldness moreover, they even tried to seduce me themselves—like that murderous, villainous Egyptian wife of the chief cook—because they wanted me in my youth.... Now the women who taught this dirty myth were very lovely in their outward appearance but in their wicked minds they had all the devil's ugliness. But the merciful God rescued me from their wickedness, so that after reading their books, understanding their real intent and not being carried away with it, and after escaping without taking the bait, I lost no time reporting them to the bishops who were there, and finding out which ones were hidden in the church. Thus they were expelled from the city, about 80 persons, and the city was cleared of their tare-like, thorny growth.
— Epiphanius, Panarion, 26, 17.4, 17:8–9. Translated Frank Williams.
Opinions of modern scholars on reliability
Because everything that is known about the Borborites comes exclusively from polemics written by their opponents, it is still disputed whether or not these reports accurately reflect Borborite teachings or if they are merely propaganda intended to discredit them.
Stephen Gero finds the accounts written by Epiphanius and later writers plausible and connects them with earlier Gnostic myths.[12]
J. J. Buckley, similarly, highlights parallels which the Phibionite or Koddian belief system and rituals described by Epiphanius show with other Gnostic groups. The consumption of seminal and fetal material, as a microcosm of Barbelo's seduction of the archons to recover captive light, shows parallels with the
In Mandaean texts
Gelbert (2013, 2023) suggests that one passage in the Ginza Rabba (Right Ginza 9.1, paragraph 26[13]) describes the Borborites, although they are not given a name in Mandaic.[14][15]
References
- ^ .
- ^ ISBN 978-0-472-11954-7. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
- ISBN 9780823233410. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
- ^ ISBN 9780823233410. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
- ^ Epiphanius of Salamis 26.6.1
- ^ Epiphanius of Salamis 26.8.1-3
- ^ Epiphanius of Salamis 26.10
- ^ a b Epiphanius of Salamis 26.9
- ^ Epiphanius of Salamis 25.2
- ISBN 9780823233410. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
- ^ ISBN 9780199928033.
- ^ Gero, Stephen (1986). "With Walter Bauer on the Tigris: Encratite Orthodoxy and Libertine Heresy in Syro-Mesopotamian Christianity," in C.W. Hedrick, R. Hodgson (eds.), Nag Hammadi, Gnosticism, and Early Christianity, Peabody, Ma.: Hendrickson Publishers.
- ISBN 9780958034630.
- OCLC 853508149.
- ISBN 9780648795414.
Bibliography
- Epiphanius of Salamis. Panarion (Adversus Haereses). Chapters 25 and 26.
- Theodoret. Haereticarum Fabularum Compendium.