the earlier treatise of Hippolytus) contained an article on Heracleon between those on Ptolemaeus and Secundus, and on Marcus and Colarbasus.
The chief interest that now attaches to Heracleon is that he is the earliest commentator on the N.T. of whom we have knowledge. Origen, in the still extant portion of his commentary on St. John, quotes Heracleon nearly 50 times, usually controverting, occasionally accepting his expositions. We thus recover large sections of Heracleon's commentary on cc. i. ii. iv. and viii. of St John. There is reason to think that he wrote commentaries on St. Luke also. Clement of Alexandria (Strom. iv. 9) expressly quotes from Heracleon's exposition of Luke xii. 8; and another reference (25 Eclog. ex Script. Proph. p. 995) is in connexion with Luke iii. 16, 17, and so probably from an exposition of these verses. The fragments of Heracleon were collected by Grabe (Spicileg. ii. 85, etc.), and reprinted as an appendix to Massuet's, Stieren's, and Migne's editions of Irenaeus.
The first passage quoted by Clement bears on an accusation brought against some of the Gnostic sects, that they taught that it was no sin to avoid martyrdom by denying the faith. No exception can be taken to what Heracleon says on this subject. "Men mistake in thinking that the only confession is that made with the voice before the magistrates; there is another confession made in the life and conversation, by faith and works corresponding to the faith. The first confession may be made by a hypocrite: and it is one not required of all; there are many who have never been called on to make it, as for instance Matthew, Philip, Thomas, Levi [Lebbaeus]; the other confession must be made by all. He who has first confessed in his disposition of heart will confess with the voice also when need shall arise and reason require. Well did Christ use concerning confession the phrase 'in Me' (ἐὰν ὁμολογήσῃ ἐν ἐμοί), concerning denial the phrase 'Me.' A man may confess 'Him' with the voice who really denies Him, if he does not confess Him also in action; but those only confess 'in Him' who live in the confession and in corresponding actions. Nay, it is He Whom they embrace and Who dwells in them Who makes confession 'in them'; for 'He cannot deny Himself.' But concerning denial, He did not say whosoever shall deny 'in Me,' but whosoever shall deny 'Me'; for no one that is 'in Him' can deny Him. And the words 'before men' do not mean before unbelievers only, but before Christians and unbelievers alike; before the one by their life and conversation, before the others in words." In this exposition every word in the sacred text assumes significance; and this characteristic runs equally through the fragments of Heracleon's commentary on St. John, whether the words commented on be our Lord's own. or only those of the Evangelist. Thus he calls attention to the facts that in the statement "all things were made by Him," the preposition used is διά; that Jesus is said to have gone down to Capernaum and gone up to Jerusalem; that He found the buyers and sellers ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ, not ἐν τῷ ναῷ; that He said salvation is of the Jews not in them, and again (iv. 40) that our Lord tarried with the Samaritans, not in them; notice is taken of the point in our Lord's discourse with the woman of Samaria, where He first emphasizes His assertion with "Woman, believe Me"; and though Origen occasionally accuses Heracleon of deficient accuracy, for instance in taking the prophet (i. 21) as meaning no more than a prophet; "in three days" (ii. 19) as meaning no more than "on the third day"; yet on the whole Heracleon's examination of the words is exceedingly minute. He attempts to reconcile differences between the Evangelists, e.g. our Lord's ascription to the Baptist of the titles "Elias" and "prophet" with John's own disclaimer of these titles. He finds mysteries in the numbers in the narrative—in the 46 years which the temple was in building, the 6 husbands of the woman of Samaria (for such was his reading), the 2 days our Lord abode with the people of the city, the 7th hour at which the nobleman's son was healed. He thinks it necessary to reconcile his own doctrine with that of the sacred writer, even at the cost of some violence of interpretation. Thus he declares that the Evangelist's assertion that all things were made by the Logos must be understood only of the things of the visible creation, his own doctrine being that the higher aeon world was not so made, but that the lower creation was made by the Logos through the instrumentality of the Demiurge. Instances of this kind where the interpreter is forced to reject the most obvious meaning of the text are sufficiently numerous to shew that the gospel was not written in the interests of Valentinianism; but it is a book which Heracleon evidently recognized as of such authority that he must perforce have it on his side.
He strives to find Valentinianism in the Gospel by a method of spiritual interpretation. Thus the nobleman (βασιλικός, iv. 47) is the Demiurge, a petty prince, his kingdom being limited and temporary, the servants are his angels, the son is the man who belongs to the Demiurge. As he finds the ψυχικοί represented in the nobleman's son, so again he finds the πνευματικοί in the woman of Samaria. The water of Jacob's well which she rejected is Judaism; the husband whom she is to call is no earthly husband, but her spiritual bridegroom from the Pleroma; the other husbands with whom she previously had committed fornication represent the matter with which the spiritual have been entangled; that she is no longer to worship either in "this mountain" or in "Jerusalem" means that she is not, like the heathen, to worship the visible creation, the Hyle, or kingdom of the devil, nor like the Jews to worship the creator or Demiurge; her watering-pot is her good disposition for receiving life from the Saviour. Though the results of Heracleon's method are heretical, the method itself is one commonly used by orthodox Fathers, especially by Origen. Many orthodox parallels to Heracleon's exposition could be adduced, e.g. that the cords with which our Lord drove the traffickers from the temple represent the power of the Holy Spirit; the wood to which He assumes they
