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SAINT EPIPHANIUS (c. 315-402)

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Originally appearing in Volume V09, Page 695 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SAINT See also:EPIPHANIUS (c. 315-402)  , a celebrated See also:Church See also:Father, See also:born in the beginning of the 4th See also:century at Bezanduca, a See also:village of See also:Palestine, near See also:Eleutheropolis . He is said to have been of Jewish extraction . In his youth he resided in See also:Egypt, where he began an ascetic course of See also:life, and, freeing himself from Gnostic influences, invoked episcopal assistance against heretical thinkers, eighty of whom were driven from the cities . On his return to Palestine he was ordained See also:presbyter by the See also:bishop of Eleutheropolis, and became the See also:president of a monastery which he founded near his native See also:place . The See also:account of his intimacy with the See also:patriarch See also:Hilarion is not trustworthy . In 367 he was nominated bishop of See also:Constantia, previously known as See also:Salamis, the See also:metropolis of See also:Cyprus—an See also:office which he held till his See also:death in 402 . Zealous for the truth, but passionate and bigoted, he devoted himself to two See also:great labours, namely, the spread of the recently established See also:monasticism, and the confutation of See also:heresy, of which he regarded See also:Origen and his followers as the See also:chief representatives . The first of the Origenists that he attacked was See also:John, bishop of See also:Jerusalem, whom he denounced from his own See also:pulpit at Jerusalem (394) in terms so violent that the bishop sent his See also:archdeacon to See also:request him to desist; and afterwards, instigated by See also:Theophilus, bishop of See also:Alexandria, he proceeded so far as to summon a See also:council of See also:Cyprian bishops to condemn the errors of Origen . In his closing years he came into conflict with See also:Chrysostom, the patriarch of See also:Constantinople,who had given temporary shelter to four Nitrian monks whom Theophilus had expelled on the See also:charge of Origenism . The monks gained the support of the empress Eudoxia, and when she summoned Theophilus to Constantinople that See also:prelate forced the aged See also:Epiphanius to go with him . He had some controversy with Chrysostom but did not stay to see the result of Theophilus's machinations, and died on his way See also:home . The See also:principal See also:work of Epiphanius is the Panarion, or See also:treatise on heresies, of which he also wrote an abridgment .

It is a " See also:

medicine See also:chest " of remedies for all kinds of heretical belief, of which he names eighty varieties . His accounts of the earlier errors (where he has preserved for us large excerpts from the See also:original See also:Greek of See also:Irenaeus) are more reliable than those of contemporary heresies . In his See also:desire to see the Church safely moored he also wrote the Ancoratus, or discourse on the true faith . His encyclopaedic learning shows itself in a treatise on Jewish weights and See also:measures, and another (incomplete) on See also:ancient gems . These, with two epistles to John of Jerusalem and See also:Jerome, are his only genuine remains . He wrote a large number of See also:works which are lost . In allusion to his knowledge of See also:Hebrew, See also:Syriac, See also:Egyptian, Greek and Latin, Jerome styles Epiphanius HevrayXwaaos (Five-tongued); but if his knowledge of See also:languages was really so extensive, it is certain that he was utterly destitute of See also:critical and logical See also:power . His See also:early See also:asceticism seems to have imbued him with a love of the marvellous; and his religious zeal served only to increase his credulity . His erudition is outweighed by his See also:prejudice, and his inability to recognize the responsibilities of authorship makes it necessary to assign most value to those portions of his works which he simply cites from earlier writers . The See also:primary See also:sources for the life are the church histories of See also:Socrates and See also:Sozomen, See also:Palladius's De vita Chrysostomi and Jerome's De vir. illust . 114 . See also:Petau (Petavius) published an edition of the works in 2 vols. fol. at See also:Paris in 1622; cf .

See also:

Migne, Pate . See also:Grace . 41-43 . The Panarion and other works were edited by F . See also:Oehler (See also:Berlin, 1859–1861) . For more See also:recent work especially on the fragments see K . Bonwetsch's See also:art. in See also:Herzog-Hauck's Realencyk. v . 417 . Other theologians of the same name were: (1) Epiphanius Scholasticus, friend and helper of See also:Cassiodorus; (2) Epiphanius, bishop of See also:Ticinum (See also:Pavia), c . 438–496; (3) Epiphanius, bishop of Constantia and See also:Metropolitan of Cyprus (the Younger), c . A.D . 68o, to whom some critics have ascribed certain of the works supposed to have been written by the greater Epiphanius; (4) Epiphanius, bishop of Constantia in the 9th century, to whom a similar attribution has been made .

End of Article: SAINT EPIPHANIUS (c. 315-402)
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