The years of Cerinthus’s life aren’t known with certainty, but he was active in the 1st century, and reportedly was known to — and a stern opponent of — the apostle John. All of what we know of him comes from the pens of later Christian “heresy hunters,” so it’s best to take it all with a grain of salt.
According to Irenaeus of Lyons, Cerinthus was learned in Egyptian Gnosticism. If true, that’d make him by far the earliest among a collection of early Gnostic sages originally from Alexandria (Basilides, Valentinus, and Carpocrates). But he was reportedly most active elsewhere, especially in the Levant.
Irenaeus and Epiphanius of Salamis both report he’d meddled extensively in churches in and around Jerusalem and Antioch, and according to the latter his teachings had spread into Anatolia. Christian tradition claims Paul’s epistle to the Galatians, condemning the Judaizers, had been his response to Cerinthus’s activities and teachings.
In classical times, Christian “heresy hunters” classified Cerinthus as a Gnostic. However, they did so well after his own time (the earliest of those being Irenaeus, who wrote about him anywhere from 75 to 100 years later). According to their reports, Cerinthus taught that the physical realm had been created by a lesser being than the one true Supreme God.
Cerinthus also reportedly emphasized a need for gnōsis of the Supreme God. Furthermore, he taught that Jesus of Nazareth, and the Christ, were two different beings. The Christ indwelled the man Jesus from the moment of his baptism by John the Baptist, until Jesus’ crucifixion, when the Christ fled. Moreover, he taught that Jesus hadn’t yet been resurrected; that would happen at the time of the Apocalypse when Jesus would be raised from the dead — along with the rest of the faithful.
All of this (aside from the part about the apocalypse and resurrection) is fully in line with what the majority of Gnostic sects would later teach. It also made him a docetist and an adoptionist.
Other aspects of what Cerinthus reportedly taught are decidedly non-Gnostic in nature. In fact, it appears his primary message was that Christians, including Gentile converts, had to follow Mosaic Law to the letter (including men being circumcised). Few Gnostics would ever have agreed with that principle; they overwhelmingly dismissed Judaic scriptures and rules on the grounds that they’d been established by a vile sub-deity.
There’s no reference to Cerinthus’s movement requiring any kind of initiation (aside perhaps from baptism, and for Gentile men, circumcision) or any level of secrecy. And Cerinthus reportedly followed a gospel of his own that was more or less identical to that of the Ebionites. All of this places Cerinthus well outside of any “Gnostic” designation.
From a modern perspective, Cerinthus wasn’t much of a Gnostic, but more of a Jewish Christian. In fact, a good deal of what’s reported about him resembles what the Ebionites or Nazoreans would become, by the 2nd century.
Especially because we don’t have good dates for Cerinthus’s life or career, aside from the fact that he was active in the middle to late 1st century, it’s hard to know where his movement fits in with subsequent Christian history. He might have contributed to later Jewish Christian sects such as that of the Ebionites and/or the Nazoreans. He might also have presaged the work of Gnostic sages like Basilides despite not being very Gnostic himself.
Ultimately, though, it’s impossible to say what Cerinthus’s legacy is. Not only do we face the problems of being uncertain when he was active and that everything we know of him is reported by people who opposed him, there are gaps in between his (possible) time and later movements that showed some agreement or other with things he taught.
What this means is that he might have fueled the creation of more than one very different Christian sects (e.g. the Ebionites, Nazoreans, and/or Basilideans). His career might also have been a literal dead-end which never had any lasting effect on Christendom. However, the latter conclusion appears unlikely, given that even a couple centuries after his possible time, Christian “heresy hunters” still wrote about him, condemning his ministry. His name could not have come to their attention, if they had no material to work from that mentioned him.
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