Roger Pearse

There is no English translation other than the Williams one (which was in two volumes, not three). This is in copyright, and in print, and so won't appear online until all of us are dead.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

hatsoff

Thankyou!

andrewcriddle

Eusebius in the Ecclesiastical History Book 3 ch 28 and book 7 ch 25 quotes Gaius (a leading member of the Alogi) and Dionysius of Alexandria for the idea that Revelation (as distinct from the Gospel of John) may have been written by Cerinthus.

I suspect that these ideas are the ultimate source of what Epiphanius claims.

Andrew Criddle

Ben C Smith

I have the fuller context of this statement, both in (unaccented) Greek and in English translation, on one of my web pages, along with other patristic statements to the same effect.

Ben.

hatsoff

Thanks, Ben.

So am I to understand that when Epiphanius talks about the Alogi, in particular their beliefs concerning the authorship of John, he is talking about a fourth-century sect, and not the original second-century movement?

In other words, this would not constitute any sort of meaningful evidence for Cerinthus as the actual author of GJohn, right? Or is there more to this story?

Forgive my romanticizing of old literature.

Ben C Smith

Those are good questions, and the answers, as I understand them, are debated.

If, as it seems to me, Epiphanius is relying upon earlier testimony to these men who rejected the Johannine literature, then he is indeed discussing a sect much older than century IV. It has been argued, for example, that Epiphanius depends here on Hippolytus, who in turn was attacking Gaius of Rome, whom many would identify as the leader of the Alogi and the originator of the notion that Cerinthus wrote the apocalypse and gospel of John. Other scholars, however, regard such an equation as a connection of dots too diverse to form a whole picture.

I would recommend reading the pages that I link to at the top of that page, especially the articles by J. Gwynn and T. H. Robinson, then reading that book by Charles Hill. That will give you a feel for the nature of the controversy over Gaius and the rejection of the Johannine books in century II.

Ben.