Editing Basilides (section)

===Faith and Election===
Like other gnostics, Basilides taught that salvation comes through knowledge and not faith.<ref>Louis P. Pojman, "Basilides," in ''The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy," 3rd ed., ed. Robert Audi.</ref> This knowledge, or ''gnosis'', was considered esoteric, a revelation to human beings by the divine [[Aeon (Gnosticism)|being]], Jesus Christ. Faith played no part in salvation. Indeed, Basilides believed faith was merely "an assent of the soul to any of the things which do not excite sensation, because they are not present". He also believed faith was a matter of "nature," not of conscious choice, so that men would "discover doctrines without demonstration by an intellective apprehension".<ref>[[s:Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume II/CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA/The Stromata, or Miscellanies/Book II/Chapter III.|St. Clement of Alexandria, ''Stromata'' Book ii. Chapter iii.]]</ref> Basilides also appears to have accumulated forms of dignity in accordance with ones' faith.<ref>[[s:Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume II/CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA/The Stromata, or Miscellanies/Book V/Chap. I.|St. Clement of Alexandria ''Stromata'' Book v. Chapter i.]]</ref>

Because Basilides believed faith was a matter of nature, doubtlessly he pushed election so far as to sever a portion of mankind from the rest, as alone entitled by Divine decree to receive a higher enlightenment. In this sense it must have been that he called "the elect a stranger to the world, as being by nature supermundane".<ref>[[s:Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume II/CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA/The Stromata, or Miscellanies/Book IV/Chapter XXIII.|St. Clement of Alexandria, ''Stromata'' Book iv. Chapter xxvi.]]</ref>