in church-history, Christian heretics, followers of Cerinthus, who lived and published his heresy in the time of the apostles themselves. They did not allow that God was the author of the creatures, but said that the world was created by an inferior power: they attributed to this creator an only son, but born in time, and different from the world: they admitted several angels and inferior powers: they maintained that the law and the prophets came not from God, but from the angels; and that the God of the Jews was only an angel: they distinguished between Jesus and Christ; and said, that Jesus was a mere man, born, like other men, of Joseph and Mary; but that he excelled all other men in prudence and wisdom; that Jesus being baptized, the Christ of the supreme God, that is, the Holy Ghost, descended upon him; and that by the affluence of this Christ, Jesus performed his miracles. It was partly to refute this fact that St John wrote his gospel.