Apelles (Gnostic)

Apelles (Greek: Aπελλής) was a second-century Gnostic Christian thinker. He began his ministry as a disciple of Marcion of Sinope, likely in Rome. However, at some point, Apelles either left or was expelled from the Marcionite church.

According to Tertullian, this separation occurred because Apelles became involved with a woman named Philumena, who claimed to be possessed by an angel that revealed 'revelations' to her. Apelles publicly read these revelations, which was seen as controversial. Since Marcion preached that Christians should practice celibacy and abstain from marriage, Apelles' relationship with Philumena was deemed unacceptable by the Marcionite church.

After his departure from the Marcionite community, Apelles traveled to Alexandria, where he developed his own distinctive theological doctrine — a modified form of Marcionism.

Apelles' philosophy appears to have been a departure from the strict dualism and complete rejection of the material world found in Marcion's teachings. For example, Apelles believed in a single Supreme God, as opposed to the two gods posited by Marcionism. According to Apelles, the Supreme God first created the heavens along with the "powers and angels" who inhabit them. The Earth, however, was created by a fiery angel subordinate to the Supreme God. This angel sought to imitate the heavenly world but failed to replicate it with the same perfection as the Supreme God.

Unlike the Docetic view promoted by Marcion — which held that Jesus never possessed a physical body — Apelles taught that Jesus had true human flesh. However, he denied that Jesus was born of human parents. Instead, Apelles claimed that Jesus descended directly from heaven and that his body was formed from the "stars and the substances of the higher world" as he passed through the heavens to Earth.

Apelles also taught that during Jesus' ascension back to heaven, he dismantled his fleshly body, returning its constituent elements to their original places in the heavens. This view is distinct from mainstream Christian doctrine, which asserts that Jesus ascended bodily into heaven.

Apelles' attitude toward the Hebrew scriptures was notably different from that of Marcion. While Marcion viewed Jewish scripture as a legitimate revelation from the "creator god" (albeit a lesser god distinct from the Supreme God), Apelles believed that much of the Old Testament was composed of "fables" and contained failed prophecies.

Despite this critical view, Apelles did not reject all of the Jewish scriptures. He regarded certain parts as divinely inspired, though it remains unclear which specific portions he accepted as true and which he considered false. This nuanced stance distinguished him from Marcion, who rejected the Jewish scriptures entirely as the product of a false god.