Kerinthians - Gnostic Heresy

Dissent from the Creed - Heresies Past and Present
by Richard M. Hogan
Kerinthian, Ebionite, Elchasaite, and Mandean Heresies

   Gnostics believed in God, but they thought God did not create the material world. A lesser being who created the material world and ruled through the aid of evil beings was the creator of the world. Human beings exist in the material world created by the lesser god. But without the knowledge of this lesser god, human beings have been given a "spark," a divine element, which belongs to the true God. Gnosis also means knowing the true God and knowing that true human happiness consists through union with God.

   Gnosticism embraces dualism. There are two principles: good and evil. Evil is material and physical. Good is spiritual and divine. There is an anti-god, who is not equal to God, but who governs through evil and who created the spiritual world . The point of life is to come to the God who is all good and to escape the god who is evil.

   Taking ideas and practices from Christian, Jewish, and Gnostic sources, a series of religious movements developed about the turn of the second century in the lands east and north of Palestine. Among these movements was one begun by a certain Kerinthos.

Kerinthians

   According to Irenaeus (bishop of Lyons, c. 200), Kerinthos lived in Asia Minor about the end of the first century (c. 100). He was probably influenced by Gnostic ideas and heterodox Jewish movements as well as by the Judaizers within Jewish Christian circles.

   Kerinthos emphasized the observance of the Sabbath and the Jewish laws. He also taught that Jesus was the natural son of Mary and Joseph, but not God the Son. According to Kerinthos, God recognized Jesus' justice and wisdom and so at the time of Jesus' baptism, Christ (God the Son) descended on Jesus. From that time on, Jesus taught about the Father and performed miracles. But Christ left Jesus before his passion and death. Further, Kerinthos distinguished between the highest God and the creator of the world, who did not know the highest God. This last idea has tinges of Gnosticism and might have attracted some who held Gnostic beliefs.

   Kerinthos's teaching on Christ is clearly heterodox, but in denying the divinity of Christ and the virgin birth as well as the concept of God dying for our sins, his ideas have been more acceptable in Jewish circles, but not to faithful Christians. Of course, his emphasis on the Jewish law and the observance of the Sabbath attracted the Jews as well as the Judaizers in Christian circles, but again diverged from orthodox Christianity and Judaism. The notion of  a highest God and the God-creator also is unacceptable in an Orthodox Christian context or for that matter in an Orthodox Jewish belief system.

   Kerinthos does not seem to have gained a very large following. Nevertheless, even at this early date in the life of the Church, Christians were troubled by anyone questioning the divinity of Christ. Irenaeus tells us that St. John wrote his fourth Gospel in response to Kerinthos. This is an intriguing remark. It would explain the wonderful emphasis in St. John's Gospel on the divinity of Christ. The truth is probably that Kerinthos's teaching was one of stimulus among many (not excluding the divine influence of the Holy Spirit) which prompted St. John to give us the fourth Gospel.