They were called Stratiotics, Zacchaeus, Fivionites, Barbelites, and also Coddians and Borborites. The last two names are especially instructive. The first designates people with whom no one would want to lie down next to them while eating, and the second deciphers why these Christian heretics are compared to dirt or dung.
Borborites (translated as "dung beetles") were a mystical offshoot of Christianity, ground and cursed by the official Christian church.
Enraged Epiphanius
Almost the only source that tells us in detail about these lost mystics of the past are the works of Epiphanius of Cyprus.
He was a well-known denouncer of heretics in the 4th century. Borborites (or it is more correct to call them barbelites) also fell under his hot hand. Epiphanius himself was a Phoenician who first converted to Judaism, and then converted to Christianity. Like any neophyte, he quickly got rid of the inheritance that had fallen on him and engaged in spiritual searches - that is, he began to wander around Egypt and Palestine and get acquainted with people engaged in exactly the same searches. So he probably came across the Barbelite Gnostics. They so confused the fragile soul of Epiphanius that already being the bishop of Salamis, 30 years after his short interest in them, he could not forget them. During this time, Epiphanius had already branded more than one heretical sect, almost died at the hands of pagan Parsis, almost lost his life, preaching to Bedouins, but harmless and mocking Gnostics,who provided him with lodging and food, he did not forgive. For them, he found such cruel and poisonous words, which, it seems, from the bishop and you do not expect to hear. As if the memories of his youth returned to him the once experienced shame with interest! It was then that in his composition "Panarion" (which translates as "a chest of medicines") he branded several dozen heretical movements for ever - both Christian and pre-Christian, including the Barbelites. For in his youth he wanted a faith based on knowledge, but he was offered such knowledge and such a Christ that he did not understand anything and was so frightened that he fell into temptation and sin. This horror remained with him until old age, although it probably has little to do with the teachings of the Barbelites …which you don't expect to hear from the bishop. As if the memories of his youth returned to him the once experienced shame with interest! It was then that in his composition "Panarion" (which translates as "a chest of medicines") he branded several dozen heretical movements for ever - both Christian and pre-Christian, including the Barbelites. For in his youth he wanted a faith based on knowledge, but he was offered such knowledge and such a Christ that he did not understand anything and was so frightened that he fell into temptation and sin. This horror remained with him until old age, although it probably has little to do with the teachings of the Barbelites …which you don't expect to hear from the bishop. As if the memories of his youth returned to him the once experienced shame with interest! It was then that in his composition "Panarion" (which translates as "a chest of medicines") he branded several dozen heretical movements for ever - both Christian and pre-Christian, including the Barbelites. For in his youth he wanted a faith based on knowledge, but he was offered such knowledge and such a Christ that he did not understand anything and was so frightened that he fell into temptation and sin. This horror remained with him until old age, although it probably has little to do with the teachings of the Barbelites …It was then that in his composition "Panarion" (which translates as "a chest of medicines") he branded several dozen heretical movements for ever - both Christian and pre-Christian, including the Barbelites. For in his youth he wanted a faith based on knowledge, but he was offered such knowledge and such a Christ that he did not understand anything and was so frightened that he fell into temptation and sin. This horror remained with him until old age, although it probably has little to do with the teachings of the Barbelites …It was then that in his composition "Panarion" (which translates as "a chest of medicines") he branded several dozen heretical movements for ever - both Christian and pre-Christian, including the Barbelites. For in his youth he wanted a faith based on knowledge, but he was offered such knowledge and such a Christ that he did not understand anything and was so frightened that he fell into temptation and sin. This horror remained with him until old age, although it probably has little to do with the teachings of the Barbelites …
Dangerous rituals
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In Epiphany's transmission, these people were purely abominable. They had wives in common, and they loved to receive guests. And immediately, as the guest crossed the threshold, in a special way, "with a tickle", they shook his hand. If the guest responded to this "tickling" with "tickling", then he belonged to the same sect, and if he did not answer, they immediately understood that he was a stranger. Then the guest was seated at the table and offered excellent food, meat dishes and wine, "although they were poor." The Barbelites anointed their bodies with oils, kept them clean, courted them in every possible way, and dressed them up in beautiful clothes. They did not recognize any fast and tried to eat well. On church holidays, they had a common meal. And after the meal, all those present indulged in carnal sin, which was a sacred act for them; men, having plucked a seed on the back of their hand, stretched out their hand to heaven with the words:"We bring you this offering - the body of Christ." After that, the “offering” was eaten together with prayer. In a similar way, the menstrual blood of women was used as the "blood of Christ".
The Barbelites themselves, according to Epiphanius, explained this strange practice by the fact that the tree of life bears twelve fruits annually - that is, the rituals were associated with pagan fertility rites and … the female monthly cycle. Children, conceived as a result of ritual copulation, were still removed as embryos and were intended for a sacrificial Passover meal - they were prepared along with other meat products with the addition of herbs and spices and consumed in honor of Christ … The ritual, of course, is wild, but no more wild than deprivation virginity by means of a stone idol or the sacrifice of the firstborn.
Epiphanius, obviously, also took part in one of these orgies … In any case, he referred to his youth, inexperience, and depravity of morals … And in every possible way he censured women who tried to seduce him, and proudly declared that he still managed to resist, although these barbelites were very seductive and beautiful! He reproached the Barbelites both for opposing childbirth in every possible way (not for ritual purposes), and for the fact that their pastors sinned with sodomy and masturbation.
The doctrine of good and evil
In Epiphany's exposition, the teaching of the Barbelites looks like this. They considered both Testaments as fundamental texts, as well as "Questions of Mary", "Apocalypse of Adam", "Book of Set", "Book of Noria", "Gospel of Eve". Epiphanius was especially outraged by the "Questions of Mary", which used the apocryphal text of the Sermon on the Mount about the copulation of Christ with a woman.
The world, according to their faith, is made up of eight spheres (heavens). In the first heaven is Prince Iao, in the second - Sakpas, in the third - Set, in the fourth - David, in the fifth - Eloai, in the sixth - Jaldabaot, in the seventh - Sabaoth, in the eighth - the mother of all living Barbelo, as well as the Father of All, God is the Self-Father and another Christ, who was not born by Mary, but only shown by her. Therefore, the Barbelites believed that Jesus did not die on the cross and was never in the flesh, but appeared in the world as a ghost. After death, the soul can pass through the whole series of these heavens if it possesses knowledge. If not, then the ruler of the material world will captivate her and bring her back to life again, but in the form of an animal. However, initiates can avoid this fate if they perform the ceremonies described above and perform them at least 760 times. Then the soul will be in the eighth heaven in the possession of Barbelo.
Another name for Barbelo is Tetragrammaton: water, air, fire and earth (matter). The Gnostics viewed Barbelo as a mother or a fertilized pneuma (a vital force identified with the logos-primary fire, cosmic "breath", spirit). According to the Gnostic text Pistis Sophia, when the soul enters the substance of Barbelo, the archons (chiefs) of the seven eons (special divine emanations) are reconciled with the mystery of light. This is how Christ is born. Truth and the world kiss each other. Graphically, Barbelo was depicted as a cross. This cross had nothing to do with that of Calvary. This cross is a symbol of birth, not death. And birth in the spirit.
Only the path of birth, or rather, the rebirth of the soul, was more than specific among the Barbelites.
Of course, much of what Epiphanius wrote can be regarded as slander and insult. Most likely, he did not understand much in the teachings of the Barbelites. But not only Epiphanius treated them with disgust. Brothers in the faith, the Ophite Gnostics, also considered the teachings of the Barbelites unworthy and hoped that the Higher Forces would never reveal their secrets to those who consume blood and sperm every month. In other words, both the Ophites and the Barbelites read the same books, strove for the same knowledge, and they both were mystics, but their rituals differed like day and night. The Ophites, too, were disgusting with the method of eternal rebirth, which the Barbelites chose - eating bodily eruptions in order to become like the ghostly Christ! Most of all, they urged to avoid ignorance and fornication, otherwise no secrets of light and divine revelations would be seen.
However, it is difficult to interpret the teaching, from which almost nothing remained, except for the brief comments of the Ophites and the angry rebuke of Epiphanius. Moreover, the Barbelites are also credited with two very beautiful and not sexually motivated texts - Trimorphic Protennoia and Apocrypha from John. Trimorphic Protennoia is a mystical cosmogonic text. The Apocrypha from John reveals the secrets that Jesus revealed to the apostle, who appeared to him after the Resurrection. If these scriptures actually belong to the Barbelites, then they either do not agree at all with their sacred sexual practices, or these practices must be viewed in some other, unknown to us, key. So far, it is impossible to answer these questions due to the paucity of facts.
Nikolay KOTOMKIN