Basilides ( el, Βασιλείδης; 2nd century BC), was a Stoic philosopher who denied the existence of incorporeal entities. Nothing is known about the life of Basilides. From a table of contents in one of the medieval manuscripts, we know that he was listed in the missing part of Book VII of

Diogenes Laërtius Diogenes Laërtius ( ; grc-gre, Διογένης Λαέρτιος, ; ) was a biographer of the Ancient Greece, Greek philosophers. Nothing is definitively known about his life, but his surviving ''Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'' is a ...

' ''

Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers Diogenes Laërtius ( ; grc-gre, Διογένης Λαέρτιος, ; ) was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. Nothing is definitively known about his life, but his surviving ''Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'' is a principal sourc ...

''. His position in the table of contents indicates that he lived around the time of Antipater of Tarsus in the 2nd century BC. He is known principally from a passage in

Sextus Empiricus Sextus Empiricus ( grc-gre, Σέξτος Ἐμπειρικός, ; ) was a Ancient Greece, Greek Pyrrhonism, Pyrrhonist philosopher and Empiric school physician. His philosophical works are the most complete surviving account of ancient Greek and ...

, who notes that "Basilides and his followers thought no incorporeal ntityexists." The specific context is the Stoic's theory of language. The Stoics held that any meaningful utterance will involve three items: the sounds uttered; the thing which is referred to or described by the utterance; and an incorporeal item, the , that which is conveyed in the language. Basilides denied the existence of the . Another (probably Stoic)

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

called Basilides of Scythopolis (2nd century AD), is listed in the ''

Chronicle A chronicle ( la, chronica, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and lo ...

'' of

Jerome Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian presbyter, priest, Confessor of the Faith, confessor, th ...

, as being as a teacher of

Marcus Aurelius Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Latin: áːɾkus̠ auɾέːli.us̠ antɔ́ːni.us̠ English: ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good ...

.Jerome, ''Chron.'' ad Olymp. 232

Notes

{{AncientGreece-philosopher-stub 2nd-century BC Greek people 2nd-century BC philosophers Hellenistic-era philosophers from Asia Stoic philosophers