sense, there is none of whom the notices are adapted to excite any considerable degree of interest or curiosity, except Cerinthus. Cerinthus is represented by Irenæus, who first mentions him, as a Gnostic leader, contemporary with St. John. He taught, according to Irenæus, that the world was not formed by the Supreme God, but by a certain Power, widely separated from him, and ignorant of his existence. He supposed Jesus not to have been born of a virgin, but of Joseph and Mary. He regarded him as having been distinguished from other men by superior wisdom and virtue. Into him, at his baptism, he believed that Christ descended, from "that Principality which is over all," (the Pleroma,) in the form of a dove; and that then he announced the Unknown Father, and performed miracles. At the crucifixion, Christ, who was spiritual and impassible, re-ascended from Jesus, and Jesus suffered alone. He alone died, and rose from the dead.* Irenæus also relates an idle tale, which, he says, some had heard from Polycarp, that John, while residing at Ephesus, on going to bathe, found Cerinthus in the building, and rushed out, exclaiming, "Let us fly; lest the bath

* Cont. Hæres. Lib. I. c. 26. § 1. p. 105

*

should fall upon us; Cerinthus, the enemy of truth, being within." He further supposes, that one purpose of John in writing his Gospel was to confute the errors of Cerinthus.†

In the account given by Irenæus, of the doctrines of Cerinthus, there is nothing, perhaps, intrinsically improbable; and from this account it would appear, that Cerinthus held the characteristic doctrines of the Gnostics. But the Roman presbyter, Caius, contemporary with Irenæus, represents him as a believer in a millennium, in which sensual pleasures were to be enjoyed, and affirms him to have been the author of a certain book, which Caius so describes, as to leave, I think, little doubt that he intended the Apocalypse. He speaks of

Cerinthus as one "who, in Revelations, written under the name of a great apostle, introduced forged accounts of marvels, which he pretended had been shown him by angels; and taught, that, after the resurrection, there was to be an earthly reign of Christ; and that men, dwelling in Jerusalem, would again become slaves to the lusts and pleasures of the

* Cont. Hæres. Lib. III. c. 3. § 4. p. 177.- The same story is told by Epiphanius, not of Cerinthus, but of Ebion. Hæres. XXX. § 23. pp. 148, 149.

† Lib. III. c. 11. § 1. p. 188.

flesh."* In the last half of the third century, Dionysius of Alexandria, referring probably to this passage, says, that some of those before him had ascribed the Apocalypse to Cerinthus, regarding it as an unintelligible and incoherent book; and he himself assigns to Cerinthus the same Jewish notions concerning the millennium, which Caius had represented him as holding. In the account of Irenæus, Cerinthus appears as an early Gnostic; but the expectation of a millennial reign of Christ had its origin in the belief of the Jews, antecedent to Christianity, concerning the temporal reign of their Messiah. The doctrine was Jewish in its origin and character, and altogether foreign from the conceptions of the Gnostics. They could not but revolt at the idea of assigning to their Christ a glorious reign on this earth, which, in their view, was the dwelling-place of imperfection and evil, over followers re-clothed in what they regarded as the pollution of flesh. But, according to Irenæus, Cerinthus coincided with the Gnostics in holding their essential doctrines

* ̓Αλλὰ καὶ Κήρινθος, ὁ δι' ἀποκαλύψεων ὡς ὑπὸ ἀποστόλου μεγάλου για γραμμένων τεραταλογίας ἡμῖν ὡς δὲ ἀγγέλων αὐτῷ δεδειγμένας ψευδόμενος ἐπεισάγει, λέγων, μετὰ τὴν ἀνάστασιν ἐπίγειον εἶναι τὸ βασίλειον τοῦ Χριστοῦ *. . . Apub. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. Lib. III. c. 28.

† Ibid. et Lib. VIII. c. 25.

of an Unknown God, of an ignorant and imperfect Creator, and of the necessity of a divine interposition through Christ, descending from the pure world of spirits. Agreeing with them thus far, he could hardly but have agreed with them in their views of the millennium. This doctrine was ascribed to him in connexion with the supposed authorship of the Apocalypse. But the strongly marked character of the Apocalypse is such as to render it impossible, that it should have been written by a Gnostic, or by one holding the doctrines that Irenæus attributes to Cerinthus. The supposition would have been too glaring an absurdity, to have been made by Caius, or countenanced by Dionysius. They, therefore, did not regard him as holding those doctrines. On the other hand, they not improbably considered him as an Ebionite, according to one part of the representation, which, as we shall see, was given by Ephipanius concerning him.

Cerinthus is not named (and the fact is of importance in forming a judgment concerning his history) by Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, or Origen. From this, we may conclude, that he was not particularly conspicuous in the first century; that he left no reputation which had made a deep impression

on the minds of men; that there was no considerable body of heretics bearing his name in the second and third centuries; and that no writings of his were extant of any celebrity. Probably there were none whatever; for, except a story of Epiphanius about a pretended gospel, which we shall elsewhere have occasion to examine, none are referred to by any writer. Justin Martyr, as has been mentioned, does not name Cerinthus. On the contrary, he implies his ignorance of any individuals who sepa

rated the man Jesus and the Eon Christ in the manner in which Cerinthus and his followers are said to have done by Irenæus. In a passage, in which he is speaking of the Gnostics generally, and in which he particularly mentions the names of the leading sects, he describes them as "not teaching the doctrines of Christ, but those of the spirits of delusion; " yet "professing themselves to be Christians, and professing that Jesus who was crucified was the Lord and Christ."* According to the account of Irenæus, Cerinthus and his followers could have made no such profession. The distinction, that was in fact supposed by the theosophic Gnostics between the Eon Christ, and the man

Dial. cum. Tryph. p. 207.