According to Epiphanius Scholasticus, he was born in Athens, but there is also a tradition of an Alexandrian birth.

Epiphanius states that Luke was one of the Seventy ( Panarion 51. 11 ), and John Chrysostom indicates at one point that the " brother " Paul mentions in 2 Corinthians 8: 18 is either Luke or Barnabas.

Surviving traditions about Simon appear in anti-heretical texts, such as those of Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Hippolytus, and Epiphanius, where he is often regarded as the source of all heresies.

Epiphanius of Salamis also makes Simon speak in the first person in several places in his Panarion, and the inference is that he is quoting from a version of it, though perhaps not verbatim.

* February 25 – Epiphanius is elected patriarch of Constantinople by the Byzantine emperor Justin I.

The same account is believed, at least to some extent, by Jerome and other writers in the 4th century ; but it is irreconcilable with the traditional account of the character of Nicolas given by Clement of Alexandria, an earlier writer than Epiphanius.

It does not appear that the Oriental philosophy, or the earliest Gnostic systems, recognised any place higher than the eighth sphere ; and it is here that according to the account of Epiphanius ( Haer.

Epiphanius refers to an Acta Pilati similar to this, as early as 376 AD, but there are indications that the current Greek text, the earliest extant form, is a revision of an earlier one.

Epiphanius is to complete the reunion himself.

Epiphanius was born into a Christian family in the small settlement of Besanduk, which is near Eleutheropolis, Palestine, and lived as a monk in Egypt, where he was educated and came into contact with Valentinian groups.

While Epiphanius often let his zeal come before facts-he admits on one occasion that he writes against the Origenists based only on hearsay ( Panarion, Epiphanius 71 )-the Panarion is a valuable source of information on the Christian church of the fourth century.

One unique feature of the Panarion is in the way that Epiphanius compares the various heretics to different poisonous beasts, going so far as to describe in detail the animal's characteristics, how it produces its poison, and how to protect oneself from the animal's bite or poison.

Aside from the polemics by which he is known, Epiphanius wrote a work of biblical antiquarianism, called, for one of its sections, On Measures and Weights ( περί μέτρων καί στάθμων ).

He is clearly quoting a writer who was at Rome in the time of Anicetus and made a list of popes A list which has some curious agreements with Epiphanius in that it extends only to Anicetus, is found in the poem of Pseudo-Tertullian against Marcion ; apparently Epiphanius has mistaken Marcion for " Marcellina ".

It is now thought that later accounts of these " Ophites " by Pseudo-Tertullian, Philastrius and Epiphanius of Salamis are all dependent on the lost Syntagma of Hippolytus.

His criticism of the Nazarenes is noticeably more direct and critical than that of Epiphanius.

That by these " changing human forms " are to be understood the appearances of Adam and the patriarchs is pointed out by Epiphanius, according to whom the Jewish-Christian sects of Sampsæans, Ossenes, Nazarene, and Ebionites adopted the doctrine of the Elcesaites that Jesus and Adam are identical.

Commonly unaccepted, we cannot know the accuracy of this statement, since it is delivered by his orthodox adversary Tertullian, but according to a tradition reported in the late fourth century by Epiphanius, he withdrew to Cyprus, where he continued to teach and draw adherents.

Ptolemy is known only for this letter to a wealthy gnostic lady named Flora, a letter itself only known by its full inclusion in Epiphanius ' Panarion ; it relates the gnostic view of the Law of Moses, and the situation of the Demiurge relative to this law.

* the Vita Hilarionis, of the same date, containing more trustworthy historical matter than the other two, and based partly on the biography of Epiphanius and partly on oral tradition.

Epiphanius says the Borborites were inspired by Sethianism and had as a distinct feature of their rituals elements of sexual sacramentalism, including smearing of hands with menstrual blood and semen, and consumption of the same as a variant of eucharist.

Theodoret and Epiphanius of Cyprus reported him as boasting that he had the same knowledge about God as God had about Himself.

Reading from the same source, Epiphanius states that the Ebionites abstained from " meat with soul in it " ( 15. 3 ), and he attributes this teaching to Ebionite interpolations " they corrupt the contents and leave a few genuine items ".

The two fullest accounts, those of Irenaeus and Epiphanius, add by way of appendix another particular of the antecedent mythology ; a short notice on the same subject being likewise inserted parenthetically by Hippolytus.

It is thought to be a gnostic text of the Ophites, and is believed by some to be the same as the Gospel of Eve, though the words of Saint Epiphanius implied that they were separate Gospels.

On the Origin of the World refers the reader to an Account of Oraia and the First Book of Noraia, one of which may be the same as the Book of Noria mentioned by Epiphanius.

Epiphanius ( see below ) in discussing the 4th Century Nazarene sect claims pre-Christian origins for the sect, but there seems to be no evidence of the term prior to Tertullus, and no evidence for Epiphanius ' opinion.

Their comparative method was considered very foolish in Epiphanius ’ opinion who derided them as " stupid ".

( c. 4 ), who likewise follows Hippolytus's Compendium, adds some further particulars ; that ' Abraxas ' gave birth to Mind ( nous ), the first in the series of primary powers enumerated likewise by Irenaeus and Epiphanius ; that the world, as well as the 365 heavens, was created in honour of ' Abraxas ;' and that Christ was sent not by the Maker of the world but by ' Abraxas.

The patriarch Epiphanius invited him to perform Mass ; but the pope, mindful of the traditional policy of encroachment, refused to do so until they had offered him the first seat.

The texts appear not to have been given a polish but consist of rough notes and sketches, as Allen A. Shaw, a modern commentator, concluded ; nevertheless Epiphanius ' work on metrology was important in the History of measurement.

Ophite teaching was, most likely, dying out in the days of Hippolytus ; in the time of Epiphanius it was not absolutely extinct, but the notices in his work would lead us to think of it as but the eccentric doctrine of some stray heretic here and there, and not to have counted many adherents.

According to Epiphanius, and Josephus, Mount Carmel had been the stronghold of the Essenes that came from a place in Galilee named Nazareth ; though this Essene group are sometimes consequently referred to as Nazareans, they are not to be confused with the " Nazarene " sect, which followed the teachings of Jesus, but associated with the Pharisees.

He was the son of Epiphanius, governor of Cyprus, and was of noble descent ; in early life he was married and had children, but his wife and children soon died, and he entered the religious life.

; Eusebius and Epiphanius held that these men were Joseph's sons from ( an unrecorded ) former marriage Jerome, another important early theologian, also followed the perpetual virginity doctrine, but argued that these adelphoi were sons of Mary's sister, whom Jerome identified as Mary of Cleopas.

; Epiphanius, Panarion, 31 ( including the Letter to Flora ); Theodoret, Haer.

-Heresy of Theodotus ; and Epiphanius Heresies 30 ) Others claim the name Ebionite means " poor one " and is derived from Matthew 5: 3, for they rejected material wealth.

' The Alexandrine Chronicle derives the Samaritans from Cainan *; Eustachius Antiochenus, the Saggodians ; George Syncellus, the Gaspheni ; Epiphanius the Cajani.

Citations of Pseudo-Clement are by the Palestinian Epiphanius, who found the romance among the Ebionites of Palestine ; by St. Jerome, who had dwelt in the Syrian desert and settled at Bethlehem ; by the travelled Rufinus ; by the Apostolical Constitutions, compiled in Syria or Palestine.

In 394, in consequence of the attack upon the doctrines of Origen made by Epiphanius of Salamis during a visit to Jerusalem, a fierce quarrel broke out, which found Rufinus and Jerome on different sides ; and, though three years afterwards a formal reconciliation was brought about between Jerome and John, the breach between Jerome and Rufinus remained unhealed.

It is not certain whether he actually married this lady ; she seems to have lost her money and retired to a convent, whereupon Ennodius entered the Church, and was ordained deacon ( about 493 ) by Epiphanius, bishop of Pavia.

The earliest reference to Epiphany as a Christian feast was in A. D. 361, by Ammianus Marcellinus St. Epiphanius says that 6 January is hemera genethlion toutestin epiphanion ( Christ's " Birthday ; that is, His Epiphany ").

In briefly sketching this version of Basilidianism, which most likely rests on later or corrupt accounts, our authorities are fundamentally two, Irenaeus and the lost early treatise of Hippolytus ; both having much in common, and both being interwoven together in the report of Epiphanius.