Scott Manor: Did Epiphanius Know The Meaning Of "Heresiology"?

The Panarion is notoriously difficult to understand, especially when measured against the backdrop of heresiologies like that of Irenaeus and others. Clear traces of heresiological predecessors are woven throughout the Panarion, providing some ballast of reliability for a work whose course seems set for uncharted waters. Nevertheless, numerous scholars have characterized the Panarionas sort of imaginative or even hallucinatory treatment of theology and history. Recent works have rightly noted that Epiphanius’ loose grip on such particulars may warrant sustained critique, but that the Panarion's idiosyncrasies may also serve as lenses that, when aligned properly, help bring clarity to some of the eccentricities that lie at the core of who he is and what he wrote.This paper will assess key points at which Epiphanius’ heresiological account deviates from that of Irenaeus in both structure and content. This naturally limits the scope of the inquiry to Book I and the early portion of Book II of the Panarion. The aim is to ascertain, as much as possible, the rationale behind these divergences so as to make a modest contribution to the portrait of the complex and enigmatic figure Epiphanius and his work that is emerging in recent scholarship.

DIEGO ELIAS ARFUCH: Entre le culte et l’histoire. Echos autour de la figure d’Épiphane de Salamine selon l’hagiographie

Épiphane de Salamine-Constance fut un personage complexe pas seulement pendant sa vie, mais aussi après sa mort. En effet, dans le récit hagiographique de la Vita Epiphanii se manifestent, comme un écho, les objections et problématiques que l’évêque de Chypre suscitait parmi les fidèles.
Dans cette présentation, en mettant en relation les donnés historiques disponibles, nous voulons élucider les causes et la nature des objections que les biographes cherchaient à repondre de manière plus ou moins claire ou explicite.

William Klingshirn: Prophecy and Divination in the Hypomnesticon of Joseph of Tiberias

The Hypomnesticon of Joseph (PG 106:10-176) is a Christian handbook of biblical learning compiled from the Bible itself and from a variety of Jewish, pagan, and early Christian sources. It was likely composed in the later fourth century by Joseph of Tiberias, whose association with the patriarch Hillel II, conversion to Christianity, and church-building in the Galilee are described by Epiphanius of Salamis (Panarion 30.4-11). The chapters of the Hypomnesticon consist mainly of lists on subjects as varied as the generations from Adam to Christ, the names of the high priests, the titles of the Old Testament books, translators of the Scriptures into Greek, the variety of Christian heresies, and how many men named John are mentioned in the New Testament. A significant portion of the work is devoted to prophecy and dreams, and (in a passage borrowed, at least in part, from Porphyry of Tyre) to Greek forms of divination. This paper seeks to understand Joseph's discussion of prophecy in the context of the fourth-century pagan/Jewish/Christian debate over the relationship between divinatory practice and religious truth, to which the Hypomnesticon provides an important witness.

Eduard Iricinschi: Forged Books and Phantasms in Panarion 25-26: The Heresiological Simulacra of Epiphanius of Salamis

Epiphanius’s Panarion 25 and 26 presents two groups, the Nicolaitans and the Gnostics. Epiphanius sees them as related to each other; he describes them as being intensely preoccupied with knowledge provided through revelations, with elaborate mythologies, with biblical interpretation, and with writing most of these in what he regards as forged books. In Panarion 25-26, Epiphanius will attempt to falsify the above claims to special knowledge, the access to private revelations, and ownership of religious books by employing the strong rhetorical devices of heresiology. I advance in this short communication that Epiphanius’s main purpose was to create heresiological simulacra of the rituals, hermeneutics, and sacred books of these groups he labels as “heretical,”  with the clear purpose of delegitimizing their religious claims. Epiphanius accuses the the Nicolaitans and the Gnostics of producing forged religious books and of lending them authority through revelations from heavenly figures with the purpose of inventing mythologies and religious illusions.

Catalin Necsa: Extra-biblical literature in the Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis

This paper will analyse the extra-biblical literary sources used by Epiphanius of Salamis in his Panarion. First, the analysis will focus on three main categories of such literature: apocrypha, pseudoepigrapha and gnostic literature (a special attention will be given to Manichaean and Marcionite texts), using a quantitative method.
In the second part, I will focus on the quality and accuracy of these texts as we found quoted in the Panarion, using a comparative method of the original text and the quoted text.
The last part will be concentrated on hermeneutical issues in the Panarion, and it will answer at the questions of how and why Epiphanius uses these texts in his compendium of heresies.