Epiphanius of Cyprus

July must be the month for books about Epiphanius of Cyprus. This month, from the University of California Press, we have Epiphanius of Cyprus: A Cultural Biography of Late Antiquity by Andrew S. Jacobs (352pp.).

About this book the publisher tells us:

Epiphanius, Bishop of Constantia on Cyprus from 367 to 403 C.E., was incredibly influential in the last decades of the fourth century. Whereas his major surviving text (the Panarion, an encyclopedia of heresies) is studied for lost sources, Epiphanius himself is often dismissed as an anti-intellectual eccentric, a marginal figure of late antiquity. In this book, Andrew Jacobs moves Epiphanius from the margin back toward the center and proposes we view major cultural themes of late antiquity in a new light altogether. Through an examination of the key cultural concepts of celebrity, conversion, discipline, scripture, and salvation, Jacobs shifts our understanding of "late antiquity" from a transformational period open to new ideas and peoples toward a Christian Empire that posited a troubling, but ever-present, "otherness" at the center of its cultural production.

A year ago at this time, we had Epiphanius of Cyprus: Imagining an Orthodox World by Young Richard Kim (U Michigan Press, 2015), 296pp.

About this study we are told:

Epiphanius of Cyprus offers the first complete biography in English of Epiphanius, lead bishop of Cyprus in the late fourth century CE and author of the Panarion, a massive encyclopedia of heresies. Imagining himself a defender of orthodoxy, he became an active heresy-hunter, involving himself in the most significant theological and ecclesiastical debates of his day.

Young Richard Kim studies the bishop as a historical person and a self-constructed persona, as mediated within the pages of the Panarion. Kim’s “micro-readings” of the Panarion present a close look at autobiographical anecdotes, situated in historical contexts, that profoundly shaped both Epiphanius’ character and how he wanted his readers to perceive him. “Macro-readings” examine portions of the Panarion that reflected how Epiphanius imagined his world, characterized by an orthodoxy that had existed since Creation and was preserved through the generations. In the final chapter, Kim considers Epiphanius’ life after the publication of the Panarion and how he spent years “living” the pages of his heresiology.

Kim brings a more balanced perspective to a controversial figure, recognizing shortcomings but also understanding them in light of Epiphanius’ own world. The bishop appears not as a buffoon, but as someone who knew how to use the power of the rhetoric of orthodoxy to augment his own authority. Quintessentially late antique, he embodied the contentious transition from the classical past to the medieval and Byzantine worlds.

This book will be of broad interest to students and scholars of ancient history, classics, and religious studies.

And then half-way between these two books, in January of this year, the Society of Biblical Literature published Frank Williams, The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis: Book I (Sects 146).

About this work, we are told:

Epiphanius, monastic founder and bishop of Salamis on Cyprus for almost forty years of the fourth century, threw heart and soul into the controversies of the time and produced the Panario or Medicine Chest, a historical encyclopedia of sects and heresies and their refutations. Book I deals with material that is also found in Nag Hammadi, other Gnostic writings, and in such patristic authors as Irenaeus and Hippolytus. Students of Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism, patrologists, historians of religion, church historians, and Judaism have found this translation useful.