A painter by profession and a metaphysician by inclination, Hermogenes of Carthage emerged at the close of the second century as a peculiar theological voice on the fringes of orthodoxy. Though not a Gnostic in the full sense, his speculative dualism, denial of creation ex nihilo, and eccentric cosmology provoked the ire of Tertullian, who lambasted him with rhetorical venom. Hermogenes sought to resolve the enigma of evil by invoking eternal matter as a co-existent principle alongside God—a view he shaped with Platonic overtones and artistic imagination. Though his doctrines were unorthodox, he desired to remain within the Christian community, a paradoxical figure straddling fidelity and innovation.
Life and Character
Hermogenes was active in Carthage during the transitional period from the second to the third century. By trade, he was a painter—an artist whose brushes may have conveyed beauty on canvas, yet whose speculative theology painted a more controversial portrait of the universe. Tertullian, his fiercest critic, provides a vivid—if hostile—portrait of Hermogenes, accusing him of being “turbulent, loquacious, and impudent,” and famously quipping that he “married more women than he painted.”
Such invective should be taken with caution, particularly given Tertullian’s own Montanist rigorism. Hermogenes’ personal life may indeed have been colorful, but his theological concerns were sober and profound, focused on questions that continue to haunt philosophical theology: the origin of evil, the nature of matter, and the limits of divine omnipotence.
Philosophical Dualism and the Origin of Evil
Hermogenes’ theology is only tenuously connected to Gnosticism, but he shares with the Gnostics a deep discomfort with the imperfections of the material world. His solution, however, is less mythological and more philosophically grounded in a form of Platonic dualism. Unlike the Christian doctrine of creation out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo), Hermogenes taught that matter was eternal—uncreated, coeval with God, and resistant to His perfect will.
Drawing from Platonic cosmology, Hermogenes posited that God created the world not from nothing, but from pre-existent, formless matter (ὕλη), which was itself eternal and ungenerated. This primordial matter, though passive, resisted the divine intention and thus introduced imperfection and ugliness into the cosmos. In his view, evil could not originate from a good God; rather, it was a consequence of the intrinsic disorder and limitation of matter.
Hippolytus summarizes this doctrine succinctly, stating that Hermogenes “claimed that God made all things from matter, which was coeternal and unbegotten” (ὕλης συγχρόνου καὶ ἀγεννήτου). For Hermogenes, this metaphysical principle allowed a clear explanation for moral and natural evil without compromising the goodness of the Creator.
Christology and the Solar Tabernacle
One of Hermogenes’ most eccentric theological ideas was his teaching concerning the ascension of Christ. He speculated that Christ, upon ascending into heaven, left his physical body in the sun, which he interpreted allegorically through Psalm 19: “He hath placed His tabernacle in the sun.” While bizarre to later orthodox ears, this interpretation underscores Hermogenes’ blend of scriptural mysticism and philosophical speculation. The sun, in his cosmology, becomes a kind of celestial receptacle for the sanctified material body of Christ, now radiating divine light.
To Tertullian, such notions bordered on the ridiculous, and he rebuked Hermogenes sharply in his treatise Adversus Hermogenem, written around A.D. 206. Tertullian insisted upon the foundational Christian belief in the creation of all things from nothing, asserting that any theory positing eternal matter undermines both divine sovereignty and the integrity of Scripture.
Relation to the Church and Final Evaluation
Despite his speculative divergences, Hermogenes did not separate himself from the visible church, nor did he attempt to found a sect or movement. He appears to have regarded himself as a Christian thinker proposing alternative answers to theological riddles, particularly the origin of evil. In this respect, he was not a schismatic but a heterodox inquirer—much like Origen, whose daring ideas likewise walked the tightrope between innovation and heresy.
His theological instincts, though flawed, were animated by a desire to preserve the moral perfection of God in the face of the world’s undeniable fallenness. In postulating eternal matter as the source of corruption, Hermogenes avoided blaming the Creator but introduced a metaphysical dualism incompatible with Christian monotheism.
In the end, Hermogenes stands not as a full-fledged Gnostic but as a speculative Christian philosopher whose artistic vision and Platonic leanings led him into metaphysical errors. His legacy survives primarily through the polemics of his opponents, yet he remains a curious example of how early Christian thinkers struggled—and sometimes stumbled—in their attempts to reconcile faith with philosophy, Scripture with speculation.
