CERINTHUS.—Gnostic; according to Irenaeus (*Adv. haer.*, I, 21; ed. W. Harvey, p. 211; ed. A. Stieren, I, 26, p. 253). C. taught that the world was created by a lower power that did not know the highest God.
Jesus, born of Joseph and Mary, was a man like others, only more just and wise. At the Baptism the Christ descended upon him in the form of a dove, and from that moment Jesus began to preach the unknown Father and to perform miracles. In the end, Jesus and Christ separated again: the former suffered, the latter ascended to heaven and remained impassible. In Irenaeus’ list of heretics, C. appears between Carpocrates and the Ebionites. With Carpocrates he teaches the distinction between the highest God and the power that created the world; with the Ebionites he affirms the human nature of Jesus. C., whom Irenaeus says taught in Asia Minor, must be a representative of an ancient Jewish-Christian gnosis. The gnosis is linked to the Baptism, in which the Holy Spirit descends, identified with Christ. The relationship between Christ and the unknown Father does not become clear in Irenaeus’ account, but the contrast between the supreme God and the power that created the world presupposes a polemic against the Jewish idea of God as creator of the world.
According to the pseudo-Tertullian (*Adv. omnes haereses*, 3), this creator of the world is an angel, and angels also gave the Law. The descent of Christ at the Baptism presupposes his passage through the world of angels, and the ascent to heaven probably occurs when, at the moment of death, the body and the Pneuma-Christ separate. According to Irenaeus, Jesus, for C., would have suffered and risen; the opposite, which generally follows Irenaeus, omits mention of the Resurrection of Jesus (X, 21, 3; ed. Wendland, p. 281, 15). The notice of the Resurrection of Jesus is suspect, for it presupposes too positive an evaluation of the body of Jesus. According to Epiphanius (*Panar.*, 28, 6, 1; ed. K. Holl [CB, XXV] p. 318, 4), C. would have denied the Resurrection of Jesus, awaiting it for the day of the general resurrection.
For Christian tradition C. has become either the adversary of John, who, according to Irenaeus (*op. cit.*, III, 11, 7; ed. W. Harvey, p. 40; ed. A. Stieren, II, 1, p. 462), polemicized in his Gospel against C., or the adversary of Paul as the exponent of those Jewish-Christians who were combated by the Apostle of the Gentiles (*Epiphanius, Panar.*, 28, 2, 3; 28, 3, 4). Epiphanius’ theory is untenable because the adversary of the judging God (Irenaeus) could not at the same time be the defender of the Law against Paul. Epiphanius presupposes an identification of C. with Ebion, which moreover underlies the assertion of Caius that C., a Jewish-Christian millenarian, was the author of the Gospel and the Apocalypse of John. The title of pseudo- has also been given to C.; in the so-called *Epistle of the Apostles* he is identified with the adversaries of St. Paul.
According to Irenaeus (*op. cit.*, III, 3, 4; ed. Harvey, p. 13; ed. Stieren, p. 434), C. was contemporary with John the “disciple of the Lord” (meeting in the bath at Ephesus), but his error would already have been taught, long before, by the Nicolaitans (Irenaeus, *op. cit.*, III, 11, 7; ed. Harvey, p. 40). If Hippolytus, Filastrius, the pseudo- give C. as a “successor” of Carpocrates, a contemporary of C. was an heretic of the apostolic age.