Could the following passage in 2 Corinthians be referring to the Jesus of a competing sect of Christianity who viewed Jesus as an Angel of Light – namely the Word?

“those who desire an opportunity to be regarded just as we are in the things (about Jesus) of which they boast…And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.” (II Corinthians 11:12-4)

“In the beginning was the Word (which by the Philonian definition is the “oldest angel”), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.”(John 1:1-8)

The Christ-Poem of the Gospel of John looks awfully close of an Angel of Light.

Epiphanius did note that the Cerinthians “are the ones the apostle Paul calls “false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ”” (Panarion I: 28:4.6) in the passage before II Corinthians 11:14.

“Now Cerinthus in turn…he slanderously gives the same account of Christ…that he [Jesus] was born of Mary and Joseph’s seed, and likewise that the world was made by angels [arguably the Word]” (Epiphanius Panarion 28:1.2).

“”Cerinthus, again, a man who was educated in the wisdom of the Egyptians, taught that the world was not made by the primary God, but by a certain power [arguably, the Word] far separated from him, and at a distance from that Principality who is supreme over the universe…Moreover, after his baptism, [the divine] Christ descended upon him [the human Jesus] in the form of a dove” (Irenaeus Against Heresies I:26.1)

It is of note that the gospel of John has no nativity story and does claim that the Word – as an angel – is the creator of the world in contrast to the Genesis of the Old Testament which claims that God created the world directly without an intermediary Logos.

Historically, the 4th gospel and the Book of Revelations had its detractors. “Now these Alogi (without Logos – those who did not believe in the Word)…rejects the books by John. As they do not accept the Word which John preaches…and accept neither John’s Gospel nor his Revelation…For they say that they are not John’s composition but Cerinthus’, and have no right to a place in the church.” (Epiphanius II:3.1-3.6)

“Tradition tells us that at this time Cerinthus founded another heresy. Gaius, whose words I quoted earlier, write this about him in the Dialogue attributed to him:

“Moreover, Cerinthus, through revelations supposedly penned by a great apostle [presumably John], offers us false tales of wonders allegedly shown to him by angels. After the resurrection, he says, the kingdom of Christ will be on earth (instead of in heaven with the Lord as described in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)…[and] claims that the marriage festivities will last a thousand years.”

Dionysius too, who was Bishop of Alexandria in my own time, comments from ancient tradition on the Revelation of John in Book 2 of his Promises and then refers to Cerinthus in the following words:

“But (they say that) Cerinthus, who founded the sect which was called, after him, the Cerinthian, desiring reputable authority for his fiction, prefixed the name. For the doctrine which he taught was this: that the kingdom of Christ will be an earthly one.”” (Eusebius Church History iii.28)

Sounds like a fairly close match for the “new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband…And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelations 21:2-4).