Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume I/Church History of Eusebius/Book III/Chapter 28

Cerinthus the Heresiarch.

1. have understood that at this time Cerinthus, The earliest account which we have of Cerinthus is that of Iren&#230;us (Adv. H&#230;r. I. 26. 1; cf. III. 3. 4, quoted at the end of this chapter, and 11. 1), according to which Cerinthus, a man educated in the wisdom of the Egyptians, taught that the world was not made by the supreme God, but by a certain power distinct from him. He denied the supernatural birth of Jesus, making him the son of Joseph and Mary, and distinguishing him from Christ, who descended upon him at baptism and left him again at his crucifixion. He was thus Ebionitic in his Christology, but Gnostic in his doctrine of the creation. He claimed no supernatural power for himself as did Simon Magus and Menander, but pretended to angelic revelations, as recorded by Caius in this paragraph. Iren&#230;us (who is followed by Hippolytus, VII. 21 and X. 17) says nothing of his chiliastic views, but these are mentioned by Caius in the present paragraph, by Dionysius (quoted by Eusebius, VII. 25, below), by Theodoret (H&#230;r. Fab. II. 3), and by Augustine (De H&#230;r. I. 8), from which accounts we can see that those views were very sensual. The fullest description which we have of Cerinthus and his followers is that of Epiphanius (H&#230;r. XXVIII.), who records a great many traditions as to his life (e.g. that he was one of the false apostles who opposed Paul, and one of the circumcision who rebuked Peter for eating with Cornelius, &amp;c.), and also many details as to his system, some of which are quite contradictory. It is clear, however, that he was Jewish in his training and sympathies, while at the same time possessed of Gnostic tendencies. He represents a position of transition from Judaistic Ebionism to Gnosticism, and may be regarded as the earliest Judaizing Gnostic. Of his death tradition tells us nothing, and as to his dates we can say only that he lived about the end of the first century. Iren&#230;us (III. 2. 1) supposed John to have written his gospel and epistle in opposition to Cerinthus. On the other hand, Cerinthus himself was regarded by some as the author of the Apocalypse (see Bk. VII. chap. 25, below), and most absurdly as the author of the Fourth Gospel also (see above, chap. 24, note 1). the author of another heresy, made his appearance. Caius, whose words we quoted above, in the Disputation which is ascribed to him, writes as follows concerning this man:

2. &#8220;But Cerinthus also, by means of revelations which he pretends were written by a great apostle, brings before us marvelous things which he falsely claims were shown him by angels; and he says that after the resurrection the kingdom of Christ will be set up on earth, and that the flesh dwelling in Jerusalem will again be subject to desires and pleasures. And being an enemy of the Scriptures of God, he asserts, with the purpose of deceiving men, that there is to be a period of a thousand years for marriage festivals.&#8221;

3. And Dionysius, who was bishop of the parish of Alexandria in our day, in the second book of his work On the Promises, where he says some things concerning the Apocalypse of John which he draws from tradition, mentions this same man in the following words:

4. &#8220;But (they say that) Cerinthus, who founded the sect which was called, after him, the Cerinthian, desiring reputable authority for his fiction, prefixed the name. For the doctrine which he taught was this: that the kingdom of Christ will be an earthly one.

5. And as he was himself devoted to the pleasures of the body and altogether sensual in his nature, he dreamed that that kingdom would consist in those things which he desired, namely, in the delights of the belly and of sexual passion, that is to say, in eating and drinking and marrying, and in festivals and sacrifices and the slaying of victims, under the guise of which he thought he could indulge his appetites with a better grace.&#8221;

6. These are the words of Dionysius. But Iren&#230;us, in the first book of his work Against Heresies, gives some more abominable false doctrines of the same man, and in the third book relates a story which deserves to be recorded. He says, on the authority of Polycarp, that the apostle John once entered a bath to bathe; but, learning that Cerinthus was within, he sprang from the place and rushed out of the door, for he could not bear to remain under the same roof with him. And he advised those that were with him to do the same, saying, &#8220;Let us flee, lest the bath fall; for Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within.&#8221;