O fangeuse grandeur! sublime ignominie!
I.
I've always been fond of a bit of base materialism, thus my fascination with the works of Georges Bataille who knew a thing or two about constructing a down and dirty philosophy of excess and excrement (or muck and mysticism as one critic described it) and seeking some kind of transcendent limit-experience via the transgression of social and sexual norms.
But of course, torpedophiles are likely to know all this; there's been shitloads of stuff written on Bataille over the last thirty years - not to mention loads of shit stuff - beginning with Nick Land's classic (if fittingly unorthodox) study The Thirst for Annihilation (1992).
And so my interest here is in not in Bataille, but members of a Gnostic sect who might be said to prefigure the modern writers with whom we are more familiar. Known as the Borborites (or Borborians), their name derived from the Greek word βόρβορος, meaning dirt, muck, or sewage.
It is thanks to this etymology that the term Borborites can probably best be translated as the filthy ones ...
II.
Like other early Christian sects, there's not a great deal known about the Borborites and what details we do possess were often written by their opponents (so must be read with a degree of scepticism).
It seems that the Borborites based their creed on a number of texts which they deemed sacred, but which would later be branded as heretical; these include, for example, the Gospel of Eve, the Gospel of Philip, and The Apocalypse of Adam.
The figure who most captured their religious imagination, however, was Mary Magdalene and they produced a body of literature revolving around the question of her status and significance, as well as the precise nature of her relationship with Jesus, whom they acknowledged as a teacher, whilst rejecting his Father as an imposter deity [1].
According to Epiphanius of Salamis, a 4th-century saint who assembled a compendium of heresies known as the Panarion [2], one Borborite work, known as The Greater Questions of Mary, contained a shocking episode in which Jesus took Magdalene for a walk to the top of a mountain, whereupon he pulled a fully-formed woman from out of his side and engaged in sexual intercourse with her.
As if this weren't enough, Jesus then proceeded to eat his own ejaculate and, turning to Mary, told her: Thus we must do, that we may live. At this point, Mary fainted and had to be helped to her feet by Jesus who chastised her for being of little faith.
I'm not quite sure what to make of this cum-eating Christ, but it's an amusing narrative to consider. As are the other elements of sexual sacramentalism which, according to Epiphanius, formed an important role in Borborite ritual. He informs us, for example, that the Borborites performed their own obscene version of the eucharist (i.e. what would become known as a black mass), in which - scorning the use of wine and wafers - they would consume menstrual blood and semen.
Epiphanius also insists that the Boborites had a penchant for eating aborted foetuses obtained from women who became pregnant during religious sex rituals, but I find such hard to swallow (even when mixed with honey and various spices) [3].
In conclusion: unlike most other Gnostics who, because of their belief that the flesh was evil and formed a prison for the spirit, practised celibacy, fasting, and various other forms of self-denial, the Borborites were more cheerfully libertine than grimly ascetic and that makes them rather more attractive in my book.
To paraphrase Dick Emery, ooh, they were awful ... but I like them.
Notes
[1] According to Borborite theo-cosmology, there were eight heavens, each under a separate archon (ruler).
In the seventh, reigned Sabaoth, creator of heaven and earth and the God of
the Jews, believed by some Borborites to take the form of an ass or pig. Jesus - whom they considered a celestial being and not born of Mary (in accordance with the doctrine docetiem) - belonged to the eighth heaven, reigned over by Barbeloth, the supreme deity and Father of All.
[2] Epiphanius was a 4th-century bishop considered a saint and a true defender of the faith
by both the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches. He is best remembered as the man who
assembled a compendium of heresies known as the Panarion (c. 375-78), a work which discusses numerous religious sects and philosophies from the time of Adam onwards, detailing their histories and condemning their unorthodox beliefs and practices. According to Epiphanius, when he was a young man, he had dealings with the Borborites, but declined their invitation to join them, instead informing the local Church authorities of what they were up to and therby ensuring they were excommunicated and exiled.
[3] Similar accusations of ritual child abuse and eating babies etc. would continue to be made by the Church against those it feared and hated or regarded as heretics; not just Gnostics, but Jews, pagans, witches, Satanists, et al. For Christians, this blood libel is the worst of all conceivable charges you can lay against those regarded as non-believers.
