Ben-Ezra. Part I. c. v. p. 67.
Eusebius and St. Epiphanius name Cerinthusas the inventor of many
corruptions. That heresiarch being given up to the belly and the
palate, placed therein the happiness of man. And so taught his
disciples, that after the Resurrection, * * *. And what appeared most
important, each would be master of an entire seraglio, like a Sultan,
&c.
I find very great difficulty in crediting these black charges on
Cerinthus, and know not how to reconcile them with the fact that the
Apocalypse itself was by many attributed to Cerinthus. But Mr. Hunt is
not more famous for blacking than some of the Fathers.
Ib. pp. 73, 4.
Against whom a very eloquent man, Dionysius Alexandrinus, a Father of
the Church, wrote an elegant work, to ridicule the Millennarian fable,
the golden and gemmed Jerusalem on the earth, the renewal of the
Temple, the blood of victims. If the book of St. Dionysius had
contained nothing but the derision and confutation of all we have just
read, it is certain that he doth in no way concern himself with the
harmless Millennarians, but with the Jews and Judaizers. It is to be
clearly seen that Dionysius had nothing in his eye, but the ridiculous
excesses of Nepos, and his peculiar tenets upon circumcision, &c.
Lacunza, I suspect, was ignorant of Greek: and seems not to have known
that the object of Dionysius was to demonstrate that the Apocalypse was
neither authentic nor a canonical book.
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