comprises in 121 sections a prolix exposition, full of repetitions, of the doctrines of the Trinity, the true humanity of Christ and the resurrection of the body, with a constant polemic against Origen and the heresiarchs of his own time, especially Arians, Sabellians, Pneumatomachi, and Dimoirites (Apollinarians). The whole concludes with the Nicene creed in a twofold form with various additions. This work is chiefly of interest as a witness to the orthodoxy of its time. The Panarion is of much greater importance. It deals in three books with 80 heresies. The catalogue is essentially that already given in his Ancoratus (cc. 11 and 12). He begins with heresies existing at the time of our Lord's birth—Barbarism, Scythianism, Hellenism, Judaism, Samaritanism. The last three are subdivided; Hellenism and Samaritanism into four each, Judaism into seven. Then follow 60 heresies after the birth of Christ, from the Simonians to the Massalians, including some which, as Epiphanius acknowledges, were rather acts of schism than heresies. The extraordinary division of pre-Christian heresies is founded on a passage he often quotes (Col. iii. 11). Barbarism lasted from Adam to Noah, Scythianism from Noah to the migration of Peleg and Reu to Scythia. Hellenism, he thinks, sprang up under Serug, understanding thereby idolatry proper. Of the various Greek schools of philosophy, which he regards as particular heresies belonging to Hellenism and offers a complete list of them in the conclusion of his work, he shews himself but poorly informed. His communications concerning the various Jewish sects are for the most part worthless; and what he says of the Nasarenes and Ossenes (Haer. xviii. and xix.) is derived purely from respectable but misunderstood narratives concerning the Ebionites and Elkesaites. His accounts of the Jewish-Christian and Gnostic sects of the 2nd and 3rd cents. mingle valuable traditions with misunderstandings and fancies of his own. His pious zeal to excel all previous heresiologers by completing the list of heretics led him into strange misunderstandings, adventurous combinations, and arbitrary assertions. He often frames long narratives out of very meagre hints. The strangest phenomena are combined with a total absence of criticism, and cognate matters are arbitrarily separated. Yet he often copies his authorities with slavish dependence, and so enables critical commentators to collect a rich abundance of genuine traditions from his works. For the section from Dositheus to Noetus (Haer. xiii.-lvii.) he used a writing now lost, but of very great importance, which is also used by a contemporary writer, Philastrius of Brixia—viz. the work of Hippolytus, Against all Heresies. Besides this he used the well-known work of Irenaeus of Lyons. These narratives are often pieced together in very mechanical fashion, resulting in frequent repetitions and contradictory statements.
Besides these two, he had access to many original works of heretics themselves and numerous trustworthy oral traditions. Very valuable are his extracts (Haer. xxxi.) from an old Valentinian work, the Ep. of Ptolemaeus to Flora, which is quoted entire (xxxiii.), and the copious extracts from Marcion's gospel (xlii.). Against the Montanists (xlviii.) he uses an anonymous controversial work of great antiquity, from which Eusebius also (H. E. v. 17) gives large extracts; in his article on the Alogi (Haer. li.) he probably uses the work of Porphyry against the Christians. In the section against Origen (xliv.) copious extracts are introduced from Methodius, περί ἀναστάσεως. Several notices of heresies existing in Epiphanius's own time are derived from his own observation. The last main division of the Panarion (Haer. lxv.-lxxx.), where he carefully notes the different opinions of Arians, semi-Arians, Photinians, Marcellians, Pneumatomachi, Aerians, Aetians, Apollinarists, or Dimoirites, is one of the most important contemporary authorities for the Trinitarian and Christological controversies since the beginning of the 4th cent. Although a fanatical partisan, and therefore not always to be relied on, Epiphanius speaks almost everywhere from his own knowledge and enhances the value of his work by the literal transcription of important documents. Of far inferior value are his attempted refutations, which are further marred by fanatical abuse, misrepresentation of opinions, and attacks on character. He takes particular pleasure in describing real or alleged licentious excesses on the part of heretics; his refutations proper contain sometimes really successful argument, but are generally weak and unhappy. The work concludes with the section περί πιστεως, a glorifying description of the Holy Catholic Church, its faith, its manners, and its ordinances, of great and manifold significance for the history of the church at that time. Each section is preceded by a short summary. An Ἀνακεφαλαίωσις, probably the work of Epiphanius himself (preceded by a short extract from an epistle of Epiphanius to Acacius and Paulus, and followed by an extract from the section setting forth the Catholic faith), almost literally repeats the contents of these summaries. This Ἀνακεφαλαίωσις, a work used by St. Augustine and St. John Damascene, apparently circulated as an independent writing, as did bk. x. of the Philosophumena and the summary added to Hippolytus's σύνταγμα against all heresies and preserved in a Latin translation in the Praescriptiones of Tertullian. Of another more copious epitome—midway between the brevity of the Ἀνακεφαλαίωσις and the details of the Panarion, a large fragment was pub. by Dindorf from a Paris MS., No. 854, in his ed. of Epiphanius, vol. i. pp. 339-369 from a transcript made by Fr. Duebners (cf. also the various readings given by Dindorf from a Cod. Cryptoferrar. vol. iii. p. 2, praef. pp. iv.–xii.).
The best ed., that of W. Dindorf (Leipz. 1859-1862, 5 vols. sm. 8vo), contains all the genuine writings (the Ancoratus, Anacephalaeosis, Panarion, and de Mensuris et Ponderibus in the Gk. text, de Gemmis in all three text forms, and the two epistles in Jerome's trans.), and also the spurious homilies, the epitome, and the Vita Epiphanii of Polybius. Of works and treatises concerning Epiphanius may be mentioned the book attributed to the abbé Gervais, L’Histoire et la vie de St.
