EPIPHANIUS of SALAMIS. — Born after 310 in a small town near Eleutheropolis, in Palestine, perhaps to Jewish parents (v. Cronaca di Seer: PO 5, 301). He lived for several years among the ascetics in Egypt. In 367 he was elected bishop of Constantia in Cyprus. Later (in 390 or 392) he preached against Origen in Jerusalem and succeeded in separating St. Jerome from his teacher. In 400 he allowed himself to be incited by Theophilus of Alexandria against Chrysostom; but, having discovered Theophilus’s motives, he left the Synod of the Oak before its conclusion and died on the return journey (403).
He wrote: 1) Ancoretus, a compendium of dogmatics; in the appendix, two professions of faith. 2) The Panarion (Medicine Chest), against all heresies, composed between 374 and 377, an extensive work combating 50 heresies. Important for its use of earlier lost writings, but confused in its treatment. Its conclusion is known under the title Expositio fidei. 3) An extract from this great work is the Recapitulatio (Ἀνεκεφαλαιώσις), perhaps not by E. himself. 4) De mensuris et ponderibus, a kind of biblical encyclopedia (a list of the books and translations of the Old Testament); the weights and measures mentioned in Sacred Scripture; the geography of the Holy Land. It has been preserved only partially in Greek; the complete text in Syriac was published by P. Lagarde in Symmetta II (Göttingen 1886, pp. 149 ff.). 5) De duodectus geminis, an allegorical explanation of the twelve stones in the vestment of the Jewish high priest. The complete text has been preserved in a Georgian translation. Fragments in Greek, Coptic, and Ethiopic, as well as a long section in Latin, are found in the Collectio Avellana (a collection of letters of popes from the second half of the sixth century). Of the epistles, only a few fragments are known: a) an epistle to the presbyters of Pisidia on Easter (Severus of Antioch, Liber contra impium Grammaticum), in Syriac. Cf. the Greek fragment published by K. Holl in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kirchengeschichte, II, Tübingen 1928, pp. 204 ff.; b) an epistle ad Basilianum (also in Severus); c) an epistle ad Blagnum, Antiochica presbyterum (the same source); d) an epistle to the clergy of Egypt concerning a certain Doros (in the Florilegium Edessenum); e) two letters preserved in Latin.