Basilides

Basilides was an early Christian Gnostic religious teacher in Alexandria, Egypt who, according to Clement of Alexandria, was active between 117–161 AD, and claimed to have inherited his teachings from the apostle Saint Matthias. He was a pupil of either the Simonian teacher Menander, or a disciple of Peter called Glaucias. He is believed to have written over a 24 book long commentary on the Christian Gospel as reported by Agrippa Castor entitled Exegetica, making him one of the earliest Gospel commentators. Origen of Alexandria informs us of a Gospel according to Basilides but his report is probably nothing more than a distortion of the well-known fact that Basilides had composed a collection of commentaries on the Gospel, his Exegetica. Jerome and Ambrose similarly follow this error.