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EPIPHANIUS.
9. Called erroneously the patriarch, author of some works on the schism of the Eastern and Western churches. See above, No. 5.
10. Of petra, son of Ulpianus, was a sophist or rhetorician of considerable reputation. He taught rhetoric at Petra and at Athens. He lived also at Laodiceia in Syria, where he was very intimate with the two Apollinarii, father and son, of whom the latter afterwards became the founder of the sect of the Apollinaristae. The Apollinarii were excommunicated by the bishop of Laodiceia on account of their intimacy with Epiphanius, who, it was feared would convert them to the religion of the Greeks ; from which it appears that Epiphanius was a heathen. While he was at Athens, Libanius, then a young man, came thither, but did not apply for instruction to Epiphanius, then in the height of his reputation, though they were both from Syria; neither is this Epiphanius the person to whom Libanius wrote. (Libanius, Epist. 831.) Epiphanius did not live to be very old; and both he and his wife, who was eminent for her beauty, died of the same disease, an affection of the blood. He wrote many works, which are enumerated by Sui-das. They are as follows: 1. riepl Kuivwias /col SiaQopas f&v (rrdcre&v. 2. Hpoyvjj.vdcr^ara. 3. MsAercu. 4. Arf/iccpxot. 5. rioAe/mp%i/cos. 6. Aoyoi 'EniSeiKTiKol : and, 7. Miscellanies. Socrates mentions a hymn to Bacchus, recited by him, attendance on which recitation was the immediate occasion of the excommunication of the Apollinarii. (Socrates, Hist. Eecl. ii. .46; Sozomen, Hist. EccL v. 25 ; Eunapius, Sophist. Vitae {Epiphanius and Libanius) ; Eudocia, 'Iowa, in the Anecdota Graeca of Villoison, vol. i. ; Suidas, s. v. *Eiri(j)dvtos; the passages in Suidas and Eudocia are the same.)
11. Described as scholasticus. Sixtus of Sena calls him a Greek, but Ceillier (Auteurs Sacres, vol. xvi.) and Cave (Hist. Lit. vol. i. p. 405) call him an Italian. He lived about the beginning of the sixth century. He was the friend of Cassiodorus [cassiodorus], at whose request he translated from Greek into Latin the Commentary of Didymus on tJie Proverbs and on Seven of the Canonical Epistles [didymus, No. 4.], the Eocposition of Solomon's Song, said by Cassiodorus to be by Epiphanius of Constantia or Salamis. Garetius thinks this exposition was probably written by Philo of Carpasus or Carpathus; but Foggini vindicates the title of Epiphanius to the authorship. Whether Epiphanius Scholasticus was concerned in the translation of the Jewish Antiquities of Josephus, and of the Notes on some of the Catholic Epistles, from the writings of Clement of Alexandria, which Cassiodorus procured to be made, can only be conjectured, as' Cassiodorus does not name the translators. Sixtus of Sena ascribes to Epiphanius Scholasticus a Catena (or compilation of comments) on the Psalms, from the Greek Fathers ; but we know not on what authority. But his principal work was translating and combining into one the Ecclesiastical Histones of Sozomen, Socrates, and Theodoret. The Historia Tripartita of Cassiodorus was digested from this combined version. He also translated, by desire of Cassiodorus, the Codeoo Encyclius, a collection of letters, chiefly synodal, in defence of the council of Chalcedon, which collection has been reprinted in the Concilia of Binius, Labbe, Coletus, and Harduin, but most correctly by the last two. The version of the
EPIPHANIUS.
Commentary of Didymus on the Canonical Epistles is said [didymus, No. 4] to be that given in the Bibliotheca Patrum ; but that on the Proverbs has not, we believe, been printed ; the versions of Epiphanius, Josephus, and Clement of Alexandria, have been printed. That of Epiphanius on Solomon's Song was first published by Foggini, at Rome, in 1750, with a preface and notes. (Cassiodorus, Praef. in Histor. Tripart., De Institutione Divinar. Literar. cc. 5y 8, 11, 17, with the notes of Garetius ; Sixtus Senensis, Bibliotlieca Sancta, lib. iv. ; Fabric. Biblioth. Med. et Inf. Latinitatis, vol. ii, p. 101, ed. Mansi, Biblioth. Graec. vol. vii. p. 425, vol. viii. p. 257, vol. xii, p. 299 j Cave, Ceillier, and Foggini, II. cc.)
Beside the foregoing, there are many persons of the name of Epiphanius of whom little or nothing is known but their names. The ecclesiastics of the name, who appear in the records of the ancient councils, may be traced by the Index in Labbe's Concilia, vol. xvi. [J. C. M.]
EPIPHANIUS (sE7rt(£aW), bishop of constantia and metropolitan of Cyprus, \vas born at Bezanduca, a small town in Palestine, in the district of Eleutheropolis, in the first part of the fourth century. . (Sozomen. vi. 32.) His parents were Jews. He went to Egypt when young, and there appears to have been tainted with Gnostic errors, but afterwards fell into the hands of some monks, and by them was made a strong advocate for the monastic life, and strongly imbued with their own narrow spirit. He returned to Palestine, and lived there for some time as a monk, having founded a monastery near his native place. In A. d. 367 he was chosen bishop of Constantia, the metropolis of the Isle of Cyprus, formerly called Salamis. His writings shew him to have been a man of great reading; for he was acquainted with Hebrew, Syriac, Egyptian, Greek, and Latin, and was therefore called irevrdy^(*}(T(ros. But he was entirely without critical or logical power, of real piety, but also of a very bigoted and dogmatical turn of mind, unable to distinguish the essential from the non-essential in doctrinal differences, and always ready to suppose that some dangerous heresy lurked in any statement of-belief which varied a little from the ordinary form of expression. It was natural that to such a man Origen, whom he could not understand, should appear a dangerous teacher of error; and accordingly in his work on heresies he thinks it necessary to give an essential warning against him. A report that Origen's opinions were spreading in Palestine, and sanctioned even by John, bishop of Jerusalem, excited Epiphanius to such a pitch, that he left Cyprus to investigate the matter on the spot. At Jerusalem he preached so violent a sermon against any abettors of Origen's errors, and made such evident allusions to the bishop, that John sent his Archdeacon to beg him to stop. Afterwards, when John preached against anthropomorphism (of a tendency to which Epiphanius had been suspected) he was followed up to the pulpit by his undaunted antagonist, who announced that he agreed in John's censure of Anthropomorphites, but that it was equally necessary to condemn Origenists. Having excited sufficient commotion at Jerusalem, Epiphanius repaired to Bethlehem, where he was all-powerful with the monks; and there he was so successful in his denunciation of heresy, that he persuaded
