On Polycarp and Cerinthus

You can't believe how seriously I have taken some of the problems related to the identification of 'heretics' in the early Church.  The case of 'Cerinthos' is only one of the clearest examples.  Almost from the day I started thinking about these matters this one name stood out.  In the end, as regular readers of this blog know, I went back to someone smarter than me.  I essentially agree with Petrement's assessment that 'Cerinthos' derives its origin from 'Corinthos' - i.e. 'the Corinthian.'

I have of course written about this before.  But I want to make clear that the most likely way that this confusion developed was through Aramaic where 'Corinthian' can be spelled beginning with qof resh (by the way I couldn't believe that I found Jastrow's Aramaic Dictionary on line in an easy to use format here.  You can't believe how beaten up my edition is now!).

The point is that the ONLY explanation for Cerinthos is that it derives from Corinthos by way of Jewish or Samaritan Aramaic.  Petrement's assessment that 'Cerinthos' has something to do with the heresy of 'to the Corinthians.' is I think also correct.  The million dollar question of course is 'what was the original heresy'?

As we don't have time to delve into such matters at present, it is enough to mention that the manner in which ancients read this and other texts, it is quite possible to have had a 'heresy' active in the body of the Church att the time of the apostle's writing of 'to the Corinthians' and that later readers read the description of this evil as warning of something that would come in their age.

To this end Tertullian begins his Prescription Against the Heretics with exactly this idea - that Paul wrote 'to the Corinthians' foretelling what would afflict the Church in his (i.e. Tertullian's) day:

The character of the times in which we live is such as to call forth from us even this admonition, that we ought not to be astonished at the heresies (which abound) neither ought their existence to surprise us, for it was foretold that they should come to pass; nor the fact that they subvert the faith of some, for their final cause is, by affording a trial to faith, to give it also the opportunity of being approved. [1 Corinthians 11:19; Prescription 1]

The same idea is expressed again in chapter five of the same book:

But let us rather be mindful of the sayings of the Lord, and of the letters of the apostles; for they have both told us beforehand that there shall be heresies, and have given us, in anticipation, warnings to avoid them; and inasmuch as we are not alarmed because they exist, so we ought not to wonder that they are capable of doing that, on account of which they must be shunned. The Lord teaches us that many ravening wolves shall come in sheep's clothing. Matthew 7:15 Now, what are these sheep's clothing's, but the external surface of the Christian profession? Who are the ravening wolves but those deceitful senses and spirits which are lurking within to waste the flock of Christ? Who are the false prophets but deceptive predictors of the future? Who are the false apostles but the preachers of a spurious gospel? [ibid 5]

In other words, to the early Church Fathers including Tertullian, the Church began with absolute agreement by means of the Holy Spirit only to fall LATER to the wiles of the heretics. To this end, Paul's reference to a certain type of 'heresy' might well have been identified as 'coming to pass' only in the time of Polycarp.

As such Polycarp might well have been identified as 'Corinthos' or 'Cerinthos' owing to the fact that he embodied the falling away from orthodoxy described in the letter 'to the Corinthians.' If the readers can remember back to my posts last month about 'to the Corinthians' originally being called 'to the Alexandrians' in the Alexandrian New Testament canon, it should be obvious that Polycarp would then be described as 'the one who fell away FROM THE ALEXANDRIAN CHURCH.' I think this is origin of the name and it explains why it was at Rome that he was called Cerinthos.