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With him there came forty ships of the Locrians who dwell beyond Euboea. The fierce Abantes held Euboea with its cities, Chalcis, Eretria, Histiaea rich in vines, Cerinthus upon the sea, and the rock-perched town of Dium; with them were also the men of Carystus and Styra; Elephenor of the race of Mars was in command of these; he was son of Chalcodon, and chief over all the Abantes.
Suppose, however, the truth of the Irenæan tradition; that the Creed of Cerinthus was what Irenæus states it to have been; and that John, at the instance of the Asiatic Bishops, wrote his Gospel as an antidote to the Cerinthian heresy; does there not thence arise, in his utter silence, an almost overwhelming argument against the Apostolicity of the 'Christopædia', both that prefixed to Luke, and that concorporated with Matthew?
Now from Euboea came Canthus eager for the quest, whom Canethus son of Abas sent; but he was not destined to return to Cerinthus. For fate had ordained that he and Mopsus, skilled in the seer's art, should wander and perish in the furthest ends of Libya.
John knew or suspected that Cerinthus had a cutaneous disease, there would have been some sense in the refusal, or rather, as I correct myself, some probability of truth in this gossip of Irenaeus. Ib. p. 128. They corrupted the faith of Christ, and in effect subverted the Gospel. That was enough to render them detestable in the eyes of all men who sincerely loved and valued sound faith.
V. The grovelling Ebionite, and the fantastic Docetes, were rejected and forgotten: the recent zeal against the errors of Apollinaris reduced the Catholics to a seeming agreement with the double nature of Cerinthus.
To escape from each other, they wandered through many a dark and devious thicket, till they were astonished by the horrid phantoms of Cerinthus and Apollinaris, who guarded the opposite issues of the theological labyrinth. As soon as they beheld the twilight of sense and heresy, they started, measured back their steps, and were again involved in the gloom of impenetrable orthodoxy.
"The general reception of the Gospels is a proof that their history is true and consistent; for, since the writing of the Gospels, many heresies have arisen, holding opinions contrary to what is contained in them, who yet receive the Gospels either entire or in part." Cerinthus is said by Epiphanius to have received the Gospel of Matthew, but not entire. What the omissions were does not appear.
Who ever had heard tell of Simon, Menander, Saturninus, Basilides, Carpocrates, Cerinthus, Ebion, Valentinus, Secundus, Marcosius, Colorbasius, Heracleo, Lucianus, and Severus, before the Apostles were sent abroad? But why stand we reckoning up these? Epiphanius rehearseth up fourscore sundry heresies; and Augustine many more, which sprang up even together with the Gospel? What then?
The Alogians rejected the Gospel of St. John as not his, but made by Cerinthus. The Acts of the Apostles were rejected by Severus, and the sect of his name. The same rejected all Paul's Epistles, as also did the Ebionites, and the Helkesaites. If recognition by the early writers be taken as a proof of the authenticity of the works quoted, many apocryphal documents must stand high.
But the justice and generosity of such a desertion are strongly questionable; and the fate of an innocent martyr, at first impelled, and at length abandoned, by his divine companion, might provoke the pity and indignation of the profane. Their murmurs were variously silenced by the sectaries who espoused and modified the double system of Cerinthus.
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