One of an ancient religious sect, so called from Cerinthus, a Jew, who attempted to unite the doctrines of Christ with the opinions of the Jews and Gnostics.
A set of heretics, so called from Cerinthus, one of the first heresiarchs in the church. They denied the divinity of Christ, but they held that, in his baptism, a celestial virtue descended on him in the form of a dove, by means of which he was consecrated by the Holy Spirit and made Christ.
Of Cerinthus, the founder of this sect, Dr. Burton gives the following account: Cerinthus is said to have been one of those Jews who, when St. Peter returned to Jerusalem, expostulated with him for having baptizedCornelius, Acts xi, 2. He is also stated to have been one of those who went down from Judea to Antioch, and said, “Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved,” Acts xv, 1. According to the same account, he was one of the false teachers who seduced the Galatians to Judaism; and he is also charged with joining in the attack which was made upon St. Paul, for polluting the temple by the introduction of Greeks, Acts xxi, 27, 28. I cannot find any older authority for these statements than that of Epiphanius, who wrote late in the fourth century, and is by no means worthy of implicit credit. He asserts, also, that Cerinthus was one of the persons alluded to by St. Luke, as having already undertaken to write the life of Jesus. But all these stories I take to be entirely inventions; and there is no evidence that Cerinthus made himself conspicuous at so early a period. Irenæus speaks of the heresy of the Nicolaitans, as being considerably prior to that of the Cerinthians. According to the same writer, Carpocrates also preceded Cerinthus; and if it be true, as so many of the fathers assert, that St. John wrote his Gospel expressly to confute this heresy, we can hardly come to any other conclusion, than that it was late in the first century when Cerinthus rose into notice. He appears undoubtedly to have been a Jew; and there is evidence that, after having studied philosophy in Egypt, he spread his doctrines in Asia Minor. This will account for his embracing the Gnostic opinions, and for his exciting the notice of St. John, who resided at ...Ephesus. He was certainly a Gnostic in his notion of the creation of the world, which he conceived to have been formed by angels; and his attachment to that philosophy may explain what otherwise seems inconsistent, that he retained some of the Mosaic ceremonies, such as the observance of Sabbaths and circumcision; though, like other Gnostics, he ascribed the law and the prophets to the angel who created the world. This adoption or rejection of different parts of the same system was a peculiar feature of the Gnostic philosophy; and the name of Cerinthus probably became eminent, because he introduced a fresh change in the notion concerning Christ. The Gnostics, like their leader, Simon Magus, had all of them been Docetæ, and denied the real humanity; but Cerinthus is said to have maintained that Jesus had a real body, and was the son of human parents, Joseph and Mary. In the other points he agreed with the Gnostics, and believed that Christ was one of the æons who descended on Jesus at his baptism. It is difficult to ascertain who was the first Gnostic that introduced this opinion. Some writers give the merit of it to Ebion; and yet it is generally said that Cerinthus and Ebion agreed in their opinions concerning Christ, and that Cerinthus preceded Ebion. Again Carpocrates is said to have held the same sentiments; and he is placed by Irenæus before Cerinthus: so that it is difficult, if not impossible, to decide the chronologicalprecedence of these heretics. Perhaps the safest inference to draw from so many conflicting testimonies is this: that Carpocrates was the first Gnostic of eminence who was not a Docetist; but that the notion of Jesus being born of human parents was taught more explicitly and with more success by Cerinthus. Carpocrates is reported to have been distinguished by the gross immorality of his life; and whatever we may think of the imputations cast upon the Gnostics in general, it seems impossible to deny that this person, at least, professed and practised a perfect liberty of action. There is also strong evidence that in this instance Cerinthus followed his example.
There is a peculiar doctrine ascribed to this heretic, which, if it originated with him, may well account for the celebrity of his name. Cerinthus has been handed down as the first person who held the notion of a millennium; and though the fathers undoubtedly believed that, previous to the general resurrection, the earth would undergo a renovation, and the just would rise to enjoy a long period of terrestrial happiness, yet there was a marked and palpable difference between the millennium of the fathers and that of Cerinthus. The fathers conceived this terrestrial happiness to be perfectly pure and freed from the imperfections of our nature; but Cerinthus is said to have promised his followers a millennium of the grossest pleasures and the most sensual gratifications. It is singular that all the three sources, to which we may trace the Gnostic doctrines, might furnish some foundation for this notion of a millennium. Thus Plato has left some speculations concerning the “great year,” when, after the expiration of thirty-six thousand years, the world was to be renewed, and the golden age to return. It was the belief of the Persian magi, according to Plutarch, that the time would come, when Ahreman, or the evil principle, would be destroyed; when the earth would lose its impediments and inequalities, and all mankind would be of one language, and enjoy uninterrupted happiness. It was taught, in the Cabbala, that the world was to last six thousand years, which would be followed by a period of rest for a thousand years more. There appears in this an evident allusion, though on a much grander scale, to the sabbatical years of rest. The institution of the jubilee, and the glowing descriptions given by the prophets of the restoration of the Jews, and the reign of the Messiah, may have led the later Jews to some of their mysticalfancies; and when all these systems were blended together by the Gnostics, it is not strange, if a millennium formed part of their creed long before the time of Cerinthus. It seems probable, however, that he went much farther than his predecessors in teaching that the millennium would consist in a course of sensualindulgence; and it may have been his notions upon this subject, added to those concerning the human nature of Christ, which led him to maintain, contrary to the generality of Gnostics, that Christ had not yet risen, but that he would rise hereafter. The Gnostics, as we have seen, denied the resurrection altogether. Believing Jesus to be a phantom, they did not believe that he was crucified; and they could not therefore believe that he had risen. But Cerinthus, who held that Jesus was born, like other human beings, found no difficulty in believing literally that he was crucified; and he is said also to have taught that he would rise from the dead at some future period. It is most probable that this period was that of the millennium; and the words of St. John in the Revelation would easily be perverted, where it is said of the souls of the martyrs, that “they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years,” Rev. xx, 4.
CERINTHUS was the founder of one of the earliest heretical sects of the Christians. He was brought up in Egypt (Theod. Hoer. Fαb. ii. 3), but removed to Asia Minor, where he propagated his doctrines. He flourished, according to Eusebius (Hist. Ecd. iii. 28) in the time of Trajan (98-117). Irenaeus relates a story which represents him as a contemporary of the apostle John (Contra Hoer. iii. 3, 4). He says that John, the disciple of the Lord, when in Ephesus went to bathe, and when he saw Cerinthus inside, he leapt from the bath without bathing, crying out, “Let us flee, lest the bath fall, for Cerinthus the enemy of the truth is within.” Irenaeus heard this story from some people who heard it from Polycarp, who may have heard it directly, or more likely at second-hand, from some of the friends of St John. The same story is told in regard to Ebion, but not on so good authority. We know nothing of the death of Cerinthus.
We possess three different authorities for the opinions of Cerinthus, to some extent inconsistent with each other,— Irenaeus, Caius the Roman presbyter, and the third unknown. Lipsius has tried to prove that the third was Hippolytus....
According to Irenaeus (Contra Hoer. i. 26), Cerinthus taught “that the world was not made by the supreme God, but by a certain power which was separated and distant from the supreme authority, which is over all, and which was ignorant of the God over all.” He also maintained “that Jesus was not born of a virgin, but was the offspring of Joseph and Mary, born like all other human beings, and that he was juster and wiser and more prudent than all.” He affirmed also “that after his baptism the Christ came down into him in the form of a dove from the Lord, who is above all, and that then he proclaimed the unknown Father and performed miracles, but towards the end the Christ flew away from Jesus, and that Jesus suffered and was raised up, but that the Christ remained impassible, being spiritual.” The same information is given in the treatise The Refutation of Heresies, first ascribed to Origen, and now to Hippolytus (lib. vii. c. 33), in the very words of Irenaeus, and the writer repeats it in his summary (x. 21), with the addition that it was by an angelic power that the world was made. Irenaeus (iii. xi. 7, see also Jerome, De Viris III. c. 9) also informs us that the gospel of St John contained statements which were specially intended to remove the error of Cerinthus, and of the Nicolaitanes who held the opinion before him, that the maker of the world and the supreme God were different.
From Caius the Roman presbyter our information is as follows. “Cerinthus, by means of revelations which pretend to be written by a great apostle, speaking falsely, introduces wonders which he speaks of as if they had been shown to him by angels, saying that after the resurrection the kingdom of Christ was to be on earth, and that again men in bodily form would live in Jerusalem and be subject to lusts and pleasures. And being an enemy to the Scriptures, and wishing to lead astray, he affirms that a thousand years will be spent in marriage feasting” (Eus. Hist. Eccl. iii. 28). It is plain from this passage that Caius derived his opinion of the character of the millennium in which Cerinthus believed from the revelations which Cerinthus wrote in the name of a great apostle. Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, affirms that some maintained that the Apocalypse was not the production of the apostle John, not even of a saint, but of Cerinthus, who established the sect called Cerinthian from him, and who wished to give a respectable name to his own fiction (Eus. Hist. Ecd. vii. 25). The context proves conclusively that Dionysius refers specially to Caius, whose words he partly quotes and partly paraphrases. The paraphrase shows how easy it is to invent a discreditable character and doctrine for a heretic. He says that Cerinthus believed “that the kingdom of Christ would be on earth, and that being fond of the body and altogether carnal, he dreamt that he would revel in these delights for which he longed—the satisfaction of the stomach and the parts below it, that is. in foods, and drinks, and marriages, and the means by which he thought that he could more decently procure these, namely, feasts and sacrifices and the slaying of victims.” It is barely possible that Dionysius may have had access to other sources of information than the statement of Caius, but the probability is all on the other side. He was a determined antagonist of millenarianism, and was prepared to see gross sensuality in the adherents of the doctrine; but there is no good evidence that Cerinthus was sensual. We cannot even affirm that he was a millenarian, for Caius evidently formed his opinion on this matter in consequence of his belief that Cerinthus wrote the Revelation ascribed to St John—a belief which others seem to have shared with him (Epiph. Haer. li., 3).
Our third source is not extant in its original form, but is to be traced in Epiphanius (Haer. xxviii.), and in almost all the Latin writers on heresy contained in Oehler’s first volume of his Corpus Hoeresiologicum, but most markedly in Philastrius (c. 36) and Pseudo-Augustinus (c. 8). According to Irenaeus, Cerinthus carefully distinguished between the historical man Jesus and the aeon Christ. This source evidently represented Jesus and Christ as the same, and it was the descent of the Holy Ghost after his baptism that rendered Jesus Christ capable of performing miracles. Jesus Christ was the son of Joseph and Mary, and was for the short time of his ministry miraculously endowed through the descent of the Holy Ghost, but the Holy Ghost left him before he suffered, and he died and did not rise again, but will rise again when the general resurrection takes place.
Cerinthus, according to these authorities, affirmed that the world was made by angels, and that the law and the prophets were given by one of the angels who made the world. Philastrius thus sums up the other features of the heresy. “He taught circumcision and the observance of the Sabbath . . . He does not receive the apostle Paul, he honours Judas the traitor, he receives the gospel according to Matthew, he despises three gospels, he rejects the Acts of the Apostles, he blasphemes the blessed martyrs.” Epiphanius makes him accept only a portion of the gospel of St Matthew. He thinks that he was one of those Judaic Christians referred to in Acts xv. 24, that he also found fault with the apostle Peter for going to Cornelius (Acts xi. 3) and created a commotion against Paul in connection with Titus (Acts xxi. 28), and that St Paul alludes to a practice of Cerinthians in noticing baptism for the dead.
Most of these statements are probably incorrect, and some of them are to be rejected without hesitation for chronological reasons. Some of the writers mention a Merinthus, who was either the same as Cerinthus or was confounded with him. It is likely that this is not the only confusion in these accounts, and we may well doubt whether either Justin or Hippolytus could be the source from which they were drawn, or that the account contained in it was more accurate than that of Irenaeus.
Cerinthus is mentioned in nearly all the historians of early Christianity, but special reference may be made to Lardner’s works, vol. viii. (Kippis’s edition); ManseΓs GnosticHeresies (London, 1875); Lipsius’s “Gnosticismus,” in Erseh and Graber, p. 257; his Zur Quellenkritik des Epiphanias (Vienna, 1865), p. 115, and his Die Quellen der ältesten Ketzergeschichte (Leipsic, 1875), p. 39; and Adolf Harnack’s Zur Quellenkritik der Geschichte des Gnosticismus (Leipsic, 1873), p. 46.
9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 5, p. 346 — signed J. D. [1,339 words — estimated reading time: 8 minutes]
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