Epiphanius
was a learned and widely read men. HE has the command of all five languages:
Greek, Syriac, Hebrew, Coptic, and even Latin to a considerable extent. His
fiery temperament and unreasonable impetuosity, which his long and strict asceticism
failed to conquer, made the claim objectivity necessary for scholarly work impossible
for him. His narrow-mindedness is apparent in the part he played in the
Origenist controversy and the violence with which he attacked the veneration of
images. He considered this idolatry, and in his testament he anathematized
anyone who would even gaze upon a picture of the Logos-God. His temperament made
him suspicious of heresy everywhere, and he made capital of even the smallest
inaccuracy of statement. (Aloys Dirksen, Elementary Patrology: The Writings
of the Fathers of the Church [London: B. Herder Book Co., 1959], 117)
Further Reading:
Answering
Fundamentalist Protestants and Roman Catholic/Eastern Orthodox on Images/Icons
