Emily Dickinson Lexicon

CE-RINTH'I-ANS, n.

A set of heretics, so called from Cerinthus, one of the first heresiarchs in the church. They denied the divinity of Christ, but they held that, in his baptism, a celestial virtue descended on him in the form of a dove, by means of which he was consecrated by the Holy Spirit and made Christ. – Encyc.