I have found another interesting exegesis about Heracleon and Capernaum in an Italian article (Daniele Bertini,
Divenire Dio La teologia giovannea del maestro gnostico Eracleone).
I translate the part of interest:
According to the traditional interpretation, the element of economic innovation would be the event of Logos's earthly coming [Cfr. M.Simonetti, Eracleone e Origene, art.cit., p. 135; E.Corsini (a cura di), Commento al Vangelo di Giovanni di Origene, op.cit., p. 393, n. 15; M.Simonetti (a cura di), Testi gnostici in lingua latina e greca, op.cit., p. 462.]. The reason I propose to support this identification is, in my opinion, very convincing: Capernaum represents the lowest and most degrading part of the cosmos, its pure materiality, as it faces stagnant waters. In fact, gnosis advocates the symbolic equivalence of stagnant water, a place of spiritual and material death [See Gospel of Philip 77:9-18]. An additional motivation is also advanced by E. Corsini: Heracleon may also have recalled the doctrine of the Gnostic teacher Marcion, who did put in this step the beginning of the new Christian economy.
(my bold)
Where is the
evidence that Capernaum is before
''stagnant waters'' ?
I read further:
in pre-nicean age both proto-catholics and gnostics identified the beginning of Christian revelation in baptism at the Jordan. In the descent to Capernaum, the incarnation of the Logos would not be prefigured, but the descending of Holy Spirit, the companion of sizigia of the superior Christ, on the Logos present in Jesus at the time of John's baptism. In order to substantiate his interpretation, Navascués uses two eresiological sources: the Valentinian doctrine of Mark about the generation and baptism of Jesus; the extra-pleromatic desensitization-ascension characterization of the messenger of the superior Christ-the Holy Spirit. A joint reading of these passages justifies the following doctrinal reconstruction: Heracleon sees a mention of the auroral event of the new economy in the descent of Jesus towards Capernaum. In the church of origin this event was generally identified in baptism at the Jordan. The allusions affirmed by the gnostic teacher means that a descent is also taking place in this event. Who descends? At this point Mark's doctrine intervenes: during the baptism of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the paraclete, the consoler, descends on the incarnate Logos. This Holy Spirit is descended from the voyage of Jesus narrated in John 2:12. The principle of prefiguration is the consolatory nature of the Savior sent by the superior Christ-the Holy Spirit. The Savior does, in fact, a consolatory function in regard to Sophia who is expelled by the Pleroma, descending on her, and ascending with her in the final redemption: the peregrination of Jesus towards Capernaum acquires then the nature of an image parallel to that of the relationship between the two eons , determined by the movement that leads from one cosmic place to another, according to the hierarchical disposition of the environments occupied by these, since the Savior descends to console Sophia, as Jesus, the consoler, descends on the eternal "land of consolation" of Capernaum, alluded by his ethymology according to the testimony of Origen. The descent to Capernaum, because of its indication of the principle of consolation and the beginning of the new economy, is thus a middle term of the Savior's identification of an extrapleromatic agent on Sophia and the Holy Spirit acting economically in baptism.
(my bold)