CERINTHUS, whence the word •Cerinthians,' by which his fol lowers were denominated, was by descent a Jew, and born not many years after, if not before, the death and ascension of Christ. His family appears to have been one of those who were settled without the limits of Palestine towards the north. Perhaps he studied in the schools of Alexandria. But of his own history little is known, and the preservation of his name and memory is owing to certain peculiarities of opinion, by which he was distinguished from other followers of Christ, having led to the mention of him in the writings of some of the earliest Christian fathers, and in catalogues which were early formed of Christian heretics. Tho fathers who especially notice him are Irenmus, Epiphanius, and Theodoret.
Cerinthus was one of those persons who looked upon the doctrine of our Saviour as not intended to supersede the doctrine of Moses and the Scribes, but to be engnifted upon it, and when perfectly received to be taken in union with the doctrine and institutions of his own nation, even to the point of eircumcisidn. This opinion prevailed very extensively in the first age of the Church, as is evident from much of the New Testament, But Cerinthus had some notions more peculiar concerning the creation of the world and the person of Christ. Departing from the simplicity of the Mosaic doctrine, that "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," he maintained that the creation was the effect of some angelic virtue, to use the almost unintelligible phrase of the self-called philosophy of that age and nation. He maintained that Jesus of Nazareth was the son of Joseph and Mary, and that at his baptism the Christ, the Son of God, descended upon him in the form of a dove, and became united to him, and that thus it was that Jesus became acquainted with the great unknown Father, and was empowered to work miracles • that at the crucifixion Jesus only suffered, while Christ remained untouched, and leaving Jesus returned to Heaven. Thesis opinions are attributed
to him by Ireniens, a very early Christian writer. Authorities less respectable represent him as having denied the resurrection, and as having taught men to expect the reign of Christ for a thousand years on earth, when the saints should delight themselves in all terrestrial enjoyment.
However, he seems by common consent to have been placed among those who held singular opinions in the Christian church, called 'heresies.' Epiphanius names him as one of those who opposed St,. Peter and St. Paul. St. John the apostle and evangelist is also said to have personally opposed him. The following story is told : The baths in ancient times were places of public resort : St. John, being at Ephesus, repaired to the bath, but happening to find Cerinthus there, he left the place without bathing, observing to his friends, that it was proper to leave it lest the building should fall, so great an enemy to the truth as Cerinthus being within it. This anec dote is related by Irenveus, who says they who told him had it from Polycarp, a contemporary and friend of St. John. Such an anecdote is important, not so much on account of itself as of the way iu which it has been transmitted, showing how the writers of the New Testa ment, and the persons named in it, are connected with the writers and persons of the succeeding age, and they agaiu with the men of the age succeeding them. Irenieus also says that St. John wrote his Gospel with the express intention of confuting the errors of Cerinthus.