chapter 2 “She Destroyed Multitudes”: Marcellina’s Group in Rome H. Gregory Snyder In his discussion of the Alexandrian philosopher Carpocrates, Irenaeus briefly mentions a female student of Carpocrates named Marcellina.This intrepid lady left her teacher in Egypt and immigrated to Rome in the mid-second century, where she founded a group dedicated to the Platonist-inspired teachings of her mentor. The circle of devotees she attracted supposedly used images of Jesus, Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle as part of their religious practice, a fact that should earn her a place in the first chapter of any study on Christian iconography.1 A woman who leaves her home, travels from one end of the Mediterranean to the other, founds her own group in the largest and most intimidating city in the known world, a group that, in the words of Irenaeus, “destroyed multitudes,” will naturally excite both admiration and curiosity. It makes a fitting topic for the present volume, given Antti Marjanen’s attention to the study of women in early Christianity. Heresiological Accounts of the Carpocratians After a somewhat lengthy section on Carpocrates, Irenaeus comments as fol- lows,2 1 Neither Marcellina nor the Carpocratians are mentioned in Ernst Kitzinger, “The Cult of Images in the Age before Iconoclasm,” dop 8 (1954): 83–150; missing also from Paul Corby Finney, The Invisible God: The Earliest Christians on Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). In Face to Face: Portraits of the Divine in Early Christianity (Minneapolis: Eerdmans, 2005), 8–9, Robin Jensen mentions the Carpocratians generally, without drawing attention to Marcellina in particular. One of the most sustained treatments of Marcellina is by Madeleine Scopello, Femme, gnose, et manichéisme; de l’espace mythique au territoire du réel (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 218–221. 2 Haer. 1.25.6. The translation given here is chiefly that of Dominic Unger, in Irenaeus of Lyons, Against the Heresies, Book 1, acw 55 (New York: Paulist Press, 1992), 89–90, with a few minor changes. With regard to “teaching,” Unger discusses why doctrina surely represents © H. GREGORY SNYDER, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004344938_004 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.H. Gregory Snyder - 9789004344938 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:24:24AM via free access 40 snyder Some of them put a mark on their disciples, branding them behind the lobe of the right ear. Among these [followers of Carpocrates] was Mar- cellina, who came to Rome under Anicetus and, with this teaching (doc- trina), she destroyed many. They call themselves gnostics. They also pos- sess images, some of which are paintings (imagines), some made of other materials, saying that Christ’s image was copied by Pilate at the time Jesus lived among men. They put garlands on these images and exhibit them along with the images of the philosophers of the world, images of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and the rest.Toward these [images] they prac- tice other rites like those of the nations.3 This short notice conceals a puzzle often elided in the brief treatments this pas- sage receives. First, there is some question as to whether the “they” that serves as the subject of vocant in the third sentence and habent in the following sen- tence, (“they call themselves gnostics,” “they possess images”) refers primarily to Marcellina or to the Carpocratians generally, the main subject of this sec- tion. If the latter—if the remarks about the use of images apply principally to Carpocrates and his followers in Alexandria—then the specificity of this remark and whether it should apply to Marcellina in Rome is diminished. Even if she does proceed from the orbit of Carpocrates, there is no guarantee that her group automatically replicates all Carpocratian practices: not all students follow in the exact footsteps of their teachers. The question becomes more acute on reading Hippolytus’s account of the Carpocratians, as he makes no mention of Marcellina. After recounting Car- pocratian teachings on metempsychosis—straightforwardly copying much of διδασκαλεῖον in the Greek original (pp. 242–243), and so he translates, “because she belonged to this school.” But as he notes in his commentary to 11.1 (pp. 194–195), where a similar situation arises, it must mean something more like “system of doctrine,” for which “teaching” seems adequate. 3 Alii vero ex ipsis signant, cauteriantes suos discipulos in posterioribus partibus exstantiae dexterae auris. Unde et Marcellina, quae Romam sub Aniceto venit, cum esset huius doctri- nae, multos exterminavit. Gnosticos se autem vocant. Et imagines quasdam quidem depictas, quasdam autem et de reliqua materia fabricatas habent, dicentes formam Christi factam a Pilato illo in tempore in quo fuit Iesus cum hominibus. Et has coronant, et proponunt eas cum imaginibus mundi philosophorum, videlicet cum imagine Pythagorae et Platonis et Aris- totelis et reliquorum, et reliquam observationem circa eas similiter ut gentes faciunt. The Latin text is from Adelin Rousseau and Louis Doutreleau, eds., Irénée de Lyon: Contre Les Hérésies, Livre 1, 2 vols., sc 263–264 (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1979), 2:342–344. The Latin translation, probably executed shortly after Irenaeus, in the early third century, is “slavishly” literal, according to Unger (Irenaeus of Lyons, Against the Heresies, 14). H. Gregory Snyder - 9789004344938 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:24:24AM via free access “she destroyed multitudes”: marcellina’s group in rome 41 Irenaeus’s discussion of the same subject—Hippolytus asserts that the follow- ers of Carpocrates tattoo their acolytes and employ images, using very similar language to that found in Irenaeus: Some among them also brand their own disciples in the back parts of the lobe of the right ear. And they fashion images of Christ, claiming they were made by Pilate at that time.4 As he does often throughout his work, Hippolytus takes this material straight from Irenaeus. But he never mentions Marcellina here or elsewhere; a puzzling omission, had she appeared in the version of Irenaeus he had before him. And Hippolytus (or perhaps proto-Hippolytus as per Allen Brent), given his loca- tion in Roman environs, might have been better-placed than Irenaeus to know of Marcellina’s group or the vestigial remains of the “multitudes” she allegedly destroyed.5 Even if he had no actual knowledge of Marcellina’s tenure in Rome or her followers, why miss the chance to draw attention to the prismatic vari- ety of the heretics and their thralldom to pagan philosophy? In his account of Simon Magus and his consort Helena, another section where he follows Irenaeus, no details unfavorable to Simon escape the author’s notice.6 And given that Hippolytus seeks above all to tarnish deviant Christian groups by tying them to Greek philosophy, how could he overlook a group that venerates images of Greek philosophers? Nor does Tertullian mention Marcellina, though he too is known to have used Irenaeus’s work. Indeed, his discussion of Carpocrates makes reference to the same gospel story used by Irenaeus, namely, that of the defendant who must make friends with his accuser on the way to court, lest he be thrown 4 Τούτων ⟨δέ⟩ τινες καὶ καυτηριάζουσι τοὺς ἰδίους μαθητὰς ἐν τοῖς ὀπίσω μέρεσι τοῦ λοβοῦ τοῦ δεξιοῦ ὠτός. καὶ εἰκόνας δὲ κατασκευάζουσι τοῦ Χριστοῦ, λέγοντες ὑπὸ Πιλάτου τῷ καιρῷ ἐκείνῳ ⟨γε⟩γενῆ- σθαι. Hippolytus, Ref. 7.32.8. The Greek text is from Miroslav Marcovich, ed., Hippolytus: Refu- tatio Omnium Haeresium (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1986), 316. On the subject of tatooing, see Alain LeBoullec, La notion d’hérésie dans la litérature grecque iie–iiie siècles (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1985), 1:130. 5 Peter Lampe observes that Hippolytus fails to mention Praexes, who lived in Rome during the 190s, and that his account of Callistus’s origins seems acquired at second-hand. Lampe infers that Hippolytus was not present in Rome before the beginning of the third century. See Peter Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries, trans. Michael Steinhauser (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 350. 6 Hippolytus’s account is in Ref. 6.19, Irenaeus’s in Haer. 1.23. Hippolytus (Ref. 6.40) also expands Irenaeus’s discussion of Marcus’s practices with his female followers (Haer. 1.13). H. Gregory Snyder - 9789004344938 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:24:24AM via free access 42 snyder in jail and not released until he has paid “the last penny” (Mt. 5:26 // Lk. 12:29).7 Surely, the man who disparaged the heretics for allowing women to teach, preach and—God forbid—to baptize, would have drawn attention to Marcellina, had she been mentioned in his sources. We must conclude that neitherTertullian nor Hippolytus had a version of Irenaeus’s writing containing this particular remark about Marcellina coming to Rome, about Marcellina’s group (or the Carpocratians) “calling themselves gnostic,” or about Marcellina’s (or the Carpocratian’s) manner of venerating images of the philosophers.8 All Hippolytus has in his text and seems to know is that the Carpocratians tattoo their devotees and that they possess images of Christ. Epiphanius gives a breathless report on Carpocrates in the same general sequence found in Irenaeus and Hippolytus, moving from Carpocrates to Ce- rinthus, and then to the Ebionites. Of Carpocrates, he observes: And this school of Carpocrates marks the right ear-lobes of the persons they deceive with a burning iron, or by using a razor or needle. I heard at some time of a Marcellina who was deceived by them, who corrupted many people in the time of Anicetus, Bishop of Rome, the successor of Pius and the bishops before him.