“ The first of the Origenists that he attacked was John, bishop of Jerusalem, whom he denounced from his own pulpit at Jerusalem (394) in terms so violent that the bishop sent his archdeacon to request him to desist; and afterwards, instigated by Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, he proceeded so far as to summon a council of Cyprian bishops to condemn the errors of Origen. In his closing years he came into conflict with Chrysostom, the patriarch of Constantinople, who had given temporary shelter to four Nitrian monks whom Theophilus had expelled on the charge of Origenism. ”

“ He had some controversy with Chrysostom but did not stay to see the result of Theophilus’s machinations, and died on his way home. The principal work of Epiphanius is the Panarion, or treatise on heresies, of which he also wrote an abridgment. It is a “medicine chest” of remedies for all kinds of heretical belief, of which he names eighty varieties. His accounts of the earlier errors (where he has preserved for us large excerpts from the original Greek of Irenaeus) are more reliable than those of contemporary heresies. ”

“ In his youth he resided in Egypt, where he began an ascetic course of life, and, freeing himself from Gnostic influences, invoked episcopal assistance against heretical thinkers, eighty of whom were driven from the cities. On his return to Palestine he was ordained presbyter by the bishop of Eleutheropolis, and became the president of a monastery which he founded near his native place. ”