Carpocrates

He taught, about a.d. 135 in Alexandria, a syncretistic Christianity. He believed that God is an unrevealed First Principle; the world was created by subordinate beings; souls transmigrate on the cyclic model of the Phaedrus; Jesus, a mere man, perceived eternal truths and rose above world powers; full exploitation of human experience qualifies the soul for direct experience of God without reincarnation. Carpocratians, renowned for licentiousness, revered images of both Christ and philosophers.