Mysteries I Am Too Stupid to Solve: Cerinthus & Corinthian

[stephan happy huller]

Petrement noticed the similarity between Cerinthos and Corinthos. Epiphanius says Cerinthus is the Judaizing heretic who stirred up the Judaizers against him. But which came first? Is Cerinthus a corruption of Corinthian? Is it in reverse? Or is there some other term behind both?

[spin]

Is Cerinthus a corruption of Corinthian? Is it in reverse?

Suthnirec?

[stephan happy huller]

There you go. Mystery solved

[ph2ter]

It is a play on words.
Cerinthus was a substitute for honey and wax. A honeyed mouth was a complement to oral performance. Writing tablets were covered with a wax on which letters could be easily composed and erased...

[arnoldo]

Petrement noticed the similarity between Cerinthos and Corinthos. Epiphanius says Cerinthus is the Judaizing heretic who stirred up the Judaizers against him. But which came first? Is Cerinthus a corruption of Corinthian? Is it in reverse? Or is there some other term behind both?

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.

http://stephanhuller.blogspot.com/2010/ ... nthus.html

[stephan happy huller]

Just an idea. Not the ultimate solution

[Duvduv]

If anyone can possibly make heads or tails of what the alleged Cerinthius and his group actually believed, or it they even existed as described by the apologists in the second century, I'd be very, very surprised. The contradictions are so many that the descriptions are practically useless.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03539a.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerinthus

[stephan happy huller]

Epiphanius throws in the variant 'Merinthus' which is baffling too.

[Peter Kirby]

Garbage in, garbage out.

There were no Cerinthians or Cerinthus, were there?

[stephan happy huller]

I don't know but there must have been Jewish Christians who were later connected with "Cerinthus"