Mead however thinks that Epiphanes was a legend and may not have been an actual person, that the real author of On Righteousness may be the Valentinian, Marcus.
Clement wrote that Epiphanes was "worshipped as a god with the most elaborate and lascivious rites by the Cephalonians, in the great temple of Samē, on the day of the new moon.".
The new moon's life of 17 days (in the lunar cycle) may have been misunderstood as Epiphanes' 17 years of life..[2] On the other hand, Vanderbilt Professor Kathy L. Gaca (The Making of Fornication: Eros, Ethics, and Political Reform in Greek Philosophy and Early Christianity, University of California Press, 2003) promotes a view of Epiphanes as one of the voices in early Christianity who held a positive and liberationist view of sexual pleasure, and who was among those like him who were ultimately silenced by the victorious leadership represented by Clement of Alexandria, Tatian, Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine.
[2] A notable belief attributed to Epiphanes and described in On Righteousness was the idea of communal living or communitarianism, including shared property and spouses.
Clement took this very seriously as a sign of libertine promiscuity, but the real followers were likely to be more philosophical and merely observant of the Early Christian practice of Agape, communal feasts and property.