There is no need to follow further the system of Basilides, nor to describe the extremely complicated tangle of worlds, principalities, powers, and rulers, including the 365 heavens and their Archon or ruler Abraxas, which Basilides interposes between this earth and the Godhead. M. Amélineau has endeavoured to show that, in this, Basilides was borrowing from the ancient Egyptian religion which he imagines to have been still flourishing in the Egypt of the second Christian century[317]. It may be so; and, although M. Amélineau’s proofs seem hardly strong enough to bear the weight of the conclusions he would draw from them, it may be conceded that in the Ogdoad and the Hebdomad of which we hear so much in Hippolytus’ account of Basilides’ teaching, we have a distinct echo of the extraordinary arithmetic of the Pharaonic or old Egyptian theology, wherein we are constantly meeting with an Ennead or “company” of nine gods which, as M. Maspero has shown, sometimes consists of eight, sometimes of ten, and sometimes of a still more discrepant number of individuals[318]. But Basilides’ system was never intended for popular use; for he himself said, according to Irenaeus, that only one out of a thousand or two out of ten thousand could understand it, and that his disciples should keep their adherence to it strictly secret, seeking to know all things, but themselves remaining unknown[319]. Its interest for us here lies in the fact that Valentinus who transformed post-Christian Gnosticism, as will presently be seen, from an esoteric or mystical explanation of Pagan beliefs[320] into a form of Christianity able to compete seriously with the Catholic Church, was himself a native of Egypt, that he studied the Platonic philosophy in Alexandria[321], and that he must have resided there at the same time as Basilides, who was slightly older than he, and died before Valentinus’ doctrine was promulgated[322]. It is therefore hardly possible that Valentinus should not have known of Basilides’ teaching and have borrowed from it, even without the internal evidence of borrowing afforded by a comparison of the two systems[323]. The almost total silence of the Fathers as to Basilides’ school after that of Valentinus became famous is to be accounted for, as Matter points out, by supposing that the hearers of Basilides, probably few in number, came over to him in a body[324].