Cerinthus
gnostic
70 CE to 130 CE
Cerinthus (c. 100 CE) is a gnostic and to some, an early Christian, who was, in the view of the early Church Fathers, prominent as a "heresiarch".
Contrary to proto-orthodox Christianity, Cerinthus's school follows the Jewish law, uses the Gospel according to the Hebrews, denies that the Supreme God had made the physical world, and denies the divinity of Jesus.
In Cerinthus' interpretation, the Christ came to Jesus at baptism, guided him in his ministry, but left him at the crucifixion.
He teachesthat Jesus will establish a thousand-year reign of sensuous pleasure after the Second Coming but before the General Resurrection, a view that was declared heretical by the 4th-century Council of Nicaea.
Cerinthus uses a version of the gospel of Matthew as scripture.
Cerinthus teaches at a time when Christianity's relation to Judaism and to Greek philosophy has not yet been clearly defined.
In his association with the Jewish law and his modest assessment of Jesus, he is similar to the Ebionites and to other Jewish Christians.
In defining the world's creator as the demiurge, he matches Greek dualism philosophy and anticipates the Gnostics.
Early Christian tradition describes Cerinthus as a contemporary to and opponent of John the Evangelist, who wrote the First Epistle of John and the Second Epistle of John to warn the less mature in faith and doctrine about the changes he was making to the original gospel.
All that is known about Cerinthus comes from the writing of his theological opponents.
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Cerinthus, a Jewish-Christian teacher, establishes a gnostic sect in the Roman province of Asia that flourishes around 100.
All we know about Cerinthus comes from the writing of his theological opponents.
Contrary to proto-orthodox Christianity, Cerinthus's school follows the Jewish law, denying that the Supreme God had made the physical world, and denying the divinity of Jesus.
Teaching that the world was created either by a Demiurge (inferior deity) or by angels, he maintains that Jesus was merely human until his baptism, when he received a divine energy that had guided him in his ministry but left him at the crucifixion.
Like many early Christians, Cerinthus teaches that Jesus would establish a thousand-year reign of sensuous pleasure after the Second Coming but before the General Resurrection, a view that would be defined as heretical at the Council of Nicea in 325.
Cerinthus uses a version of the gospel of Matthew as scripture.
Teaching at a time when Christianity's relation to Judaism and to Greek philosophy has not yet been clearly defined, in his association with the Jewish law and his modest assessment of Jesus, he is similar to the Ebionites, a Jewish Christian sect that lives in and around Judea and Palestine, and to other Jewish Christians.
In defining the world's creator as the demiurge, he matches Greek philosophy and anticipates Alexandrine gnosticism.
His description of Christ as a bodiless spirit that dwelled temporarily in the man Jesus matches the Gnosticism of Valentius.