He taught, moreover, that they who knew his whole system, and could recount the names of the angels, &c., were invisible to them all, and could pass through and see them, without being seen in return: that they ought likewise to keep themselves individually and personally unknown to common men, and even to deny that they are what they are; that they should assert themselves to be neither Jews nor Christians, and by no means reveal their mysteries(579). This, of course, and their unscrupulousness as to actions of any kind whatever, would entirely exempt them from persecution.
It appears likewise, from a fragment preserved in Origen's _Commentary on the Romans_(580), that he taught the transmigration of souls. He affirmed that the martyrs suffered for offences committed at some other time: for he thought it contrary to the divine justice that any innocent person should suffer(581).
In this scheme we find a feature, which was afterwards taken up and amplified, viz., the connection of mystical numbers with Gnosticism.
It is likewise curious to observe how much of the Gospel history and phraseology was interwoven with it, without one single atom of its purity and regenerating influence.
CARPOCRATES is placed by Irenæus next to Basilides(582): but as there is a general agreement amongst the early writers that Carpocrates was prior to Cerinthus(583), and that the latter flourished in the last years of St. John, it appears most probable that Carpocrates was, if any thing, earlier than Basilides, and more properly coeval with Menander. In favour of this idea there is this internal argument, that his system does not appear to be in any degree an amplification or alteration of that of Basilides, but rather to have been an independent modification of the original scheme of Simon.
He agreed with him, and Menander, and Basilides, in professing magic(584), and in preaching licentious doctrines. He agreed with Simon likewise in teaching the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, and adapted it to the support of profligacy, by asserting that every soul is destined to become acquainted with every kind of action, and that it passes from body to body until it has accomplished every thing to which it is predestined(585).