CERINTHIANS. The followers of Cerinthus, who seems to have flourished about the end of the first century A.D., and to have been a contemporary of John of Asia. The principal authority for his teaching is Irenaeus. According to a story told Irenaeus by Poly carp, John of Asia actually met Cerinthus in Ephesus. On entering the baths at Ephesus one day he saw Cerin thus there, and left immediately saying : " Let us flee; the house may fall in, for it shelters Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth " (Hcer. iii. 3). The doctrine of Cerinthus is stated by Irenaeus in the following passage (Herr. 1. 26): " A certain Cerinthus in Asia taught that the world was not made by the Supreme God, but by a certain power entirely separate and distinct from that authority which is above the universe, and ignorant of that God who is over all things. He submitted that Jesus was not born of a virgin (for this seemed to him impossible), but was the son of Joseph and Mary, born as all other men, yet excelling all mankind in righteous ness, prudence, and wisdom. And that after His baptism there had descended on Him, from that authority which is above all things, Christ in the form of a dove; and that then He had announced the unknown Father and had worked miracles; but that at the end Christ had flown back again from Jesus, and that Jesus suffered and rose again, but that Christ remained impassible, since He was a spiritual being " (as quoted by A. S. Peake). Hippolytus adds that Cerinthus taught that the world was made by an angel, and that the Law was given to the Jews by another angel, who was the God of the Jews. These angels were far below the Supreme
Being. The teaching of Ceriuthus has often been re garded as a mixture of Judaism and Gnosticism. J. M. Fuller more correctly speaks of it (Dict. of Christ. Biogr.) as a link connecting Judaism and Gnosticism. A. S. Peake agrees with Th. Zahn in regarding the Judaism of Cerinthus as only a learned myth. He points out that the representation of Cerinthus as a Judaizing Gnostic is due to Epiphanius and Philaster. " It is quite likely that what has given rise to it is the way in which Irenaeus connects Cerinthus with Carpocrates and the Ebionites." Irenaeus speaks of the Ebionites as holding views similar to those of Cerinthus and Car pocrates, and as using only the Gospel according to Matthew. " The point of contact between the Ebionites and Cerinthus lay in their denial of the supernatural origin of the humanity of Jesus; and this was extended by Epiphanius and Philaster to an acceptance of a mutilated Gospel of Matthew and a Judaizing legalism " (A. S. Peake). Epiphanius speaks of the Merinthians, and connects Merinthus with Cerinthus. Merinthus may be another form of the name Cerinthus, or it may be a nickname (" noose "). See Louis Duchesne, Hist.; Arthur S. Peake in Hastings' E.R.E.; Wace and Piercy.