ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the Panarion of Epiphanius of Cyprus to represent an apex in the development of heresiology. Heresiology was certainly not unique to Christianity, and other religious traditions have exhibited parallel and later developments in the articulation of some form of orthodoxy set in opposition to a constructed heresy or heresies. Orthodox Christians, they claimed, traced their lineage directly to Jesus Christ, and they maintained the idea that they preserved and transmitted through the generations the correct beliefs and practices as established by Scripture and the Apostles. The heresiologists emphasised the concept of diadoche. Hippolytus broadly attacked his theological opponents by attempting to create a heresiological taxonomy that linked pagan philosophy, Christian heresy and 'Gnosticism'. Irenaeus punctuated his discussion by reaffirming what true Christians believed about the nature of God the Father and the Son. Epiphanius maintained throughout the Panarion the Irenaean dichotomy of truth and error and the Hippolytan emphasis on the link between paganism with heresy.
