Panarion earned its author the reputation of the great heresiologist of his time: around the mid-370s, Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis, records the study of eighty heresies, thereby preserving unique texts and information on the most sensitive files. It is capital sum of the knowledge of Christianity of the first centuries, of the various currents which crossed it, of the polemics and the doctrinal debates which opposed the "Great Church" to those which it marginalized or excluded by means of the charge of heresy. After a general introduction and a summary of the eighty heresies, this volume contains the first volume of book I, with its prefaces, which composes a table of non-Christian "heresies" (Heresies 1 to 20: barbarism, Scythism, Hellenism, Judaism , Stoics, Platonists, Pythagoreans, Epicureans, Samaritans, Essenes...), and the first part of volume II, with Heresies 21 to 25 (Simonians, Menander, Satornil, Basilides, Nicolaitans) preceded by the presentation On the Incarnation. A fundamental document on the relationship of Christianity with the pagans, the Jews, the Greek philosophers and the Gnostics, which it allows us to know better.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.