HERACLEON, a Gnostic who flourished about 125 A.D., probably in the south of Italy or in Sicily, is generally classed by the early heresiologists with the Valentinian school of heresy. In his system he appears to have regarded the divine nature as a vast abyss in whose ρleroma were aeons of different orders and degrees,—emanations from the source of being. Midway between the supreme God and the material world was Demiurgus, who created the latter, and under whose jurisdiction the lower, animal soul of man proceeded after death, while his higher, celestial soul returned to the pleroma whence at first it issued. Heracleon seems to have received the ordinary Christian Scriptures; and Origen has preserved fragments of a commentary by him on St John’s gospel, while Clement of Alexandria quotes from him what appears to to be a passage from a commentary on St Luke’s gospel. These writings are remarkable for their intensely mystical and allegorical interpretations of the text. The portions of the commentary on St John’s gospel have been brought together by Grabe in the second volume of his Spicilegium.