Cerinthus (flourished c. ad 100) was a Christian heretic whose errors, according to the theologian Irenaeus, led the apostle John to write his New Testament Gospel.
Cerinthus was probably born a Jew in Egypt. Little is known of his life save that he was a teacher and founded a short-lived sect of Jewish Christians with Gnostic tendencies. He apparently taught that the world was created by angels, from one of whom the Jews received their imperfect Law. The only New Testament writing that Cerinthus accepted was the Gospel of Matthew. Cerinthus taught that Jesus, the offspring of Joseph and Mary, received Christ at his baptism as a divine power revealing the unknown Father. This Christ left Jesus before the Passion and the Resurrection. Cerinthus admitted circumcision and the sabbath and held a form of millenarianism.