Panarion
Encyclopedia
In early Christian
Early Christianity
Early Christianity is generally considered as Christianity before 325. The New Testament's Book of Acts and Epistle to the Galatians records that the first Christian community was centered in Jerusalem and its leaders included James, Peter and John....

 heresiology
Heresiology
In theology or the history of religion , heresiology is the study of heresy. It can be distinguished from heresiography, or the recording of heresy....

, the Panarion (Greek: Πανάριον, "Medicine Chest"), to which 16th-century Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 translations gave the name Adversus Haereses (Latin: "Against Heresies"), is the most important of the works of Epiphanius of Salamis
Epiphanius of Salamis
Epiphanius of Salamis was bishop of Salamis at the end of the 4th century. He is considered a saint and a Church Father by both the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches. He gained a reputation as a strong defender of orthodoxy...

 (d. 403). It was written in Koine Greek
Koine Greek
Koine Greek is the universal dialect of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity , developing from the Attic dialect, with admixture of elements especially from Ionic....

 beginning in 374 or 375, and issued about 3 years later, as a treatise on heresies
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...

, with its title referring to the text as a "stock of remedies to offset the poisons of heresy." It treats 80 religious sect
Sect
A sect is a group with distinctive religious, political or philosophical beliefs. Although in past it was mostly used to refer to religious groups, it has since expanded and in modern culture can refer to any organization that breaks away from a larger one to follow a different set of rules and...

s, either organized groups or philosophies, from the time of Adam to the latter part of the 4th century, detailing their histories, and rebutting their beliefs. The Panarion is an important source of information on the Jewish Gospels, Gospel of the Ebionites
Gospel of the Ebionites
Gospel of the Ebionites is the conventional name given to the description by Epiphanius of Salamis of a gospel used by the Ebionites. All that is known of the gospel text consists of seven brief quotations found in Chapter 30 of a heresiology written by Epiphanius known as the Panarion...

 and the Gospel according to the Hebrews.

It can be considered a sequel to the Ancoratus (374), which takes the form of a letter to the church of Syedra in Pamphylia
Pamphylia
In ancient geography, Pamphylia was the region in the south of Asia Minor, between Lycia and Cilicia, extending from the Mediterranean to Mount Taurus . It was bounded on the north by Pisidia and was therefore a country of small extent, having a coast-line of only about 75 miles with a breadth of...

, describing how the "barque
Barque
A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing vessel with three or more masts.- History of the term :The word barque appears to have come from the Greek word baris, a term for an Egyptian boat. This entered Latin as barca, which gave rise to the Italian barca, Spanish barco, and the French barge and...

" of the church can counteract the contrary winds of heretical thought, and become "anchored" (), hence the title of the work; the Ancoratus even outlines the content of the Panarion within its text.

Content

The treatise begins with two proems
Preface
A preface is an introduction to a book or other literary work written by the work's author. An introductory essay written by a different person is a foreword and precedes an author's preface...

: a table of contents, and a description of Epiphanius's methods and purpose in writing. The work is divided into three books, with a total of seven volumes. It ends with what has since been called De Fide, a short description of Catholicism
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....

.

The number of sects covered in the work is based on Song of Songs
Song of songs
Song of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon, is a book of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. It may also refer to:In music:* Song of songs , the debut album by David and the Giants* A generic term for medleysPlays...

 6:8-9, quoted below in the original Hebrew, and in the English translation from JPS
Jewish Publication Society of America Version
The Jewish Publication Society of America Version of the Tanakh was the first Bible translation published by the Jewish Publication Society of America and the first translation of the Tanakh into English by a committee of Jews...

 1917:
8 There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and maidens without number.
9 My dove, my undefiled, is but one;


Epiphanius interpreted the fourscore (80) concubines as sects, who take the name of Christ without being truly matrimonial; the threescore queens as the generations from Adam to Jesus; the one dove as the true wife, the church; and the numberless virgins as all the philosophies unrelated to Christianity.

The first section of the first of the three books contains an account of 20 heretical sects before the time of Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

; the remaining portion is occupied with the description of 60 sects of Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

. However, the total number of sects is actually 77, because three of the first 20 are general names: Hellenism
Hellenism
Hellenism may refer to:*Hellenic studies*Hellenistic civilization*Hellenistic period, in Greek antiquity*Hellenistic Greece*Hellenization, the spread of Greek culture over foreign peoples*Hellenistic philosophy in the Hellenistic period and late antiquity...

, Samaritanism, and Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

. In the editions of the Panarion, each heresy is numbered in order; hence it is customary to quote the Panarion as follows: Epiphanius, Haer. N [the number of the heresy].

The general form, though not universal, in which Epiphanius described each sect included four parts: a brief mention of the sect's relationship to previously-mentioned sects; a description of the sect's beliefs; a lengthy refutation of its doctrine, including arguments from the scriptures and reductio ad absurdum
Reductio ad absurdum
In logic, proof by contradiction is a form of proof that establishes the truth or validity of a proposition by showing that the proposition's being false would imply a contradiction...

of their beliefs; a comparison of the sect to a repulsive animal, particularly a snake.

Necessarily much of the information in this large compilation varies in value. The Panarion reflects the character of Epiphanius and his method of working. Sometimes, his intense passion prevents him from inquiring carefully into the doctrines he opposes. Thus, on his own avowal (Haer., lxxi), he speaks of Apollinarianism on hearsay. At Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

, he had to acknowledge to the Origen
Origen
Origen , or Origen Adamantius, 184/5–253/4, was an early Christian Alexandrian scholar and theologian, and one of the most distinguished writers of the early Church. As early as the fourth century, his orthodoxy was suspect, in part because he believed in the pre-existence of souls...

ist monks, whom he opposed, that he was not acquainted with either their school or their books, and that he only spoke from hearsay (Sozomen
Sozomen
Salminius Hermias Sozomenus was a historian of the Christian church.-Family and Home:He was born around 400 in Bethelia, a small town near Gaza, into a wealthy Christian family of Palestine....

, Hist. eccl., VIII, xl). There is, however, much information not found elsewhere. Chapters devoted only to the doctrinal refutation of heresies are rare. As an apologist, Epiphanius appeared generally weak to Photius.

The Panarion furnishes very valuable information concerning the religious history of the fourth century, either because the author confines himself to transcribing documents preserved by him alone, or because he writes down his personal observations. With regard to Hieracas (Haer., lxvii), he makes known a curious Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

ian sect by whom asceticism
Asceticism
Asceticism describes a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from various sorts of worldly pleasures often with the aim of pursuing religious and spiritual goals...

 and intellectual work were equally esteemed. In connection with the Meletians
Meletians
The Meletians were one of a large group of denominations in early Christian history. The point with which they broke with the larger church was about the ease with which lapsed Christians reentered the church. They were named after Meletius of Lycopolis....

 of Egypt (Haer., lxviii), he has preserved important fragments of contemporary Egyptian history of this movement. With regard to Arianism
Arianism
Arianism is the theological teaching attributed to Arius , a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt, concerning the relationship of the entities of the Trinity and the precise nature of the Son of God as being a subordinate entity to God the Father...

 (Haer., lxix), if he gives an apocryphal letter of Constantine
Constantine I
Constantine the Great , also known as Constantine I or Saint Constantine, was Roman Emperor from 306 to 337. Well known for being the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, Constantine and co-Emperor Licinius issued the Edict of Milan in 313, which proclaimed religious tolerance of all...

, he transcribes two letters of Arius
Arius
Arius was a Christian presbyter in Alexandria, Egypt of Libyan origins. His teachings about the nature of the Godhead, which emphasized the Father's divinity over the Son , and his opposition to the Athanasian or Trinitarian Christology, made him a controversial figure in the First Council of...

. He is the only one to give us any information concerning the Gothic
Goths
The Goths were an East Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin whose two branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe....

 sect of the Audians (Haer., lxx), as well as the Arabian sect of the Collyridians
Collyridians
Collyridianism was an obscure early Christian heretical movement whose adherents apparently worshipped the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus, as a goddess. The main source of information about them comes from their strongest opponent, Epiphanius of Salamis, who wrote about them in his Panarion of about...

. He has made use of the lost report of the discussion between Photinus (Haer., lxxi), and Basil of Ancyra
Basil of Ancyra
Basil of Ancyra, was a Christian priest in Ancyra, Galatia during the fourth century. Very meager information about his life is preserved in a metaphrastic work: “Life and Deeds of the Martyred Priest Basil.” He fought against the pagans and the Arians...

. He has transcribed a very important letter from Bishop Marcellus of Ancyra
Marcellus of Ancyra
Marcellus of Ancyra was one of the bishops present at the Councils of Ancyra and of Nicaea. He was a strong opponent of Arianism, but was accused of adopting the opposite extreme of modified Sabellianism...

 (Haer., lxxii) to Pope Julius
Pope Julius
Pope Julius could refer to:*Pope Julius I *Pope Julius II, The Warrior Pope**Pope Julius , a card game thought to be named after Pope Julius II*Pope Julius III...

, and fragments of the treatise of Acacius of Caesarea
Acacius of Caesarea
Acacius of Caesarea in Greek Ἀκάκιος Mονόφθαλμος was a Christian bishop, the pupil and successor in the Palestinian see of Caesarea of Eusebius AD 340, whose life he wrote. He is remembered chiefly for his bitter opposition to St. Cyril of Jerusalem and for the part he was afterwards enabled to...

 against Marcellus. With regard to the Semiarians (Haer., lxxiii), he gives in the Acts of the Council of Ancyra (358) a letter from Basil of Ancyra and one from George of Laodicea
George of Laodicea
George of Laodicea was a philosopher from Alexandria, involved in the debate over the doctrine of the Trinity.-References:...

, and the stenographic text of a singular sermon of Melitius at the time of his installation at Antioch
Antioch
Antioch on the Orontes was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Orontes River. It is near the modern city of Antakya, Turkey.Founded near the end of the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great's generals, Antioch eventually rivaled Alexandria as the chief city of the...

. In the chapter dealing with the Anomeans (Haer., lxxvi) he has preserved a monograph
Monograph
A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...

 of Aetius.

Epiphanius also wrote the Anacephalaeoses, as an epitome, or abridged version, of his Panarion. Augustine
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...

 used them as the basis for his Contra Omnes Haereses, "Against all Heresies".

Translations

The original text was written in Koine Greek
Koine Greek
Koine Greek is the universal dialect of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity , developing from the Attic dialect, with admixture of elements especially from Ionic....

. Three Latin versions were published in the 16th and 17th centuries, from writers focused on ecclesiastical interests. Since then, writers have been interested in the historical content of the text itself.

A full Russian translation was published in the 19th century. A partial translation exists in German and another in English (by Philip Amidon).

The first English translation of the entire Panarion was published in 1987 (Book I) and 1993 (Books II and III), by Frank Williams. This was based on Karl Holl's edition, released in 1915 (Book I), 1922 (Book II), and 1933 (Book III), totaling 1500 pages..

Further reading



  • The Panarion of St. Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, Philip R. Amidon, translator, 1990 (Oxford University Press, New York) ISBN 01-95-06291-4. This is a selection.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK