EPIPHANY OF SALAMIS. - Born after 310 in
a small village near Eleutheropolis, in Palestine,
perhaps of Jewish parents (v. Chronicle of Seer:
PO 5, 301). He lived for several years among the ascetics in
Egypt. In 367 he was elected bishop of Constantia in Cyprus.
He preached later (390 or 392) against Origen at Jerusalem and succeeded in detaching St. Jerome from his
master. In 400 he had himself incited by Theophilus of Alex-andria against Chrysostom, but, having discovered the motives
of Theophilus, he dissolved the Synod of the Oak before its closing
and died during the return journey (403).
He wrote: 1) Ancoratus, a compendium of dogmatics;
in the appendix two professions of faith. 2) The Panarion
(Medicine Chest) against all heresies, composed
between 374-77, a vast work that combats 50 heresies. Important for its use of earlier lost writings, but confused
in its treatment. The conclusion is known under the title
Expositio fidei. 3) An extract from this great work
is the Recapitulatio (Ἀνεκεφαλαιώσις) perhaps not from the
hand of E. himself. 4) De mensuris et ponderibus, a
kind of biblical encyclopedia (list of the books and
translations of the Old Testament); weights and measures cited
in Sacred Scripture; geography of the Holy Land; it is preserved
only partially in Greek; the entire text in the
Syriac language was published by P. Lagarde in Symmicta II
(Göttingen 1886, p. 149 ff.). 5) De duodecim gemmis, an allegorical explanation of the twelve stones on the garment of the
Jewish high priest. The entire text is preserved in a
Georgian translation. Fragments in Greek, Coptic and
Ethiopic and a long portion in Latin are found in the Collectio Avellana (Collection of letters of the popes from the second
half of the 6th century). Of the epistles only a few
fragments are known: a) epistle to the presbyters of Pisidia on the
Pascha (Severus of Antioch, Liber contra impium Grammaticum), in the Syriac language. Cf. the Greek fragment pub-lished by K. Holl in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kirchengeschichte, II, Tübingen 1928, p. 204 f.; b) epistola ad
Basilianum (also in Severus); c) epistola ad Blagnum,
presbyterum Antiochicum (the same source); d) epistle to the
clergy of Egypt concerning a certain Dorossus (in the Florilegium Edessenum); e) two letters that have survived in Latin.
Bibliography4 works
Erik Petersen