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Heresies

Have you ever wondered just what the heresies really are? Well, me neither. I am sometime called a heretic, so it is interesting to see what kind of heretic I am. An enlightening (and fun) read for perspective on this subject is Heretics for Armchair Theologians. Charles Nightingale, a fellow parishioner, recommends, A. Fitzsimmons', former bishop of SC, book, The Cruelty of Heresy: An Affirmation of Christian Orthodoxy

In our theology class the heresies come up a lot in year 3 as you read about the various Counsels the early church called, starting around 325 CE. These counsels were called initially by the Roman emperor, Constantine, in an effort to consolidate his empire. They were called to resolve theological or doctrinal differences between the early churches and to define the Christian faith. Many deal with the nature of Christ. Was he god or human or both?

Here is a list of them composed by Mel O'Day, one of the mentors/facilitators of our class, and edited by Linda McGee, one of my fellow 4th year colleagues in the class. Mel composed these from Education for Ministry: Year 3: Church History (University of the South, Sawanee,TN).

Monophysite

Jesus Christ is one divine nature, one form

Egypt & Syria absorbed mystical piety of Alexandria → one divine nature. There were many variant forms. The controversy regarding how the divine nature of Jesus Christ is to be defined; ex., Jesus Christ is of one divine nature.Council of Chalcedon (451 CE) condemned it. In Eastern Christianity, i.e., Egypt, (Coptic), rejected authority of Council of Chalcedon.

Ebionism:

Name means “the poor”; emphasized that Jesus was a human being & denied his divinity.

Hebraic salvation - means God’s promises to Israel fulfilled. No incarnation of God in humanity is required.
Background of Jewish monotheism - a Judaizing version of Christianity, but not of conservative Jewish Christians like Paul debated.

Jesus was a human being, claimed as the long-awaited Messiah who fulfilled the Torah & opened the new age of the kingdom of God. A man inspired by God & enabled to live the Torah to its fullest.

Gentile Christians - emphasized binding character of Mosaic Law; rejected Pauline epistles & used only Gospel according to Matthew; denied divinity of Jesus - not necessarily the anointed agent of redemption.
Ignatius in Antioch during reign of Emperor Trajan (98 - 117); died 107 CE

In Hellenistic view, a mere human cannot be a savior. Salvation is equated with immortality, i.e., salvation can come only from God & can be granted to humanity only by one who is himself God, yet brought into this material world as a human.

Docetism:

Gk for “to appear, to seem”. In Hellenistic culture, salvation is equated with immortality. Docetism emphasized Jesus’ divinity; denied his true humanity; Jesus only appeared to be human.

In the Hellenistic worldview - salvation (immortality) can come only from God. Ignatius felt that Docetism was more dangerous than Ebionism because unless Jesus was fully human, God’s sacrifice wasn’t genuine. i.e., affirmed the true divinity & the true humanity of Jesus; “one person, of two natures”; which came first was irrelevant.

Manichaeism:

Named for Mani, a Persian teacher; influenced by Zoroastrianism
Dualistic: prescribed ways of combating the power of the material world & escaping into the world of spirit & light. St. Augustine was a Manichee before converted to Christianity.

Gnosticism:

Gk for “knowledge”. Gnostics claimed a special & secret knowledge about the meaning of life & salvation, which was secretly delivered by the Lord to his disciples; an inner meaning of the Lord’s teachings. Various forms: i.e., Valentinus, Basilides.

Worldview: no communication / communion between the Godhead & the material world, between eternity & time, between spirit & flesh. Some developed complex mythological systems - 2nd, 3rd centuries; was docetic (denying Jesus’ humanity).

Irenaeus of Lyon, c. 130 - c. 200; a biblical theologian; the critical question that he debated with the Gnostics was redemption: church’s teaching was sure because it derived directly from Jesus. Church’s teaching consistent with the truth, because is both public & ascertainable.

Gnosticism was dualistic - rejecting goodness of created order & of God who created it.

Salvation: only as delivered out of present evil environment & reconstituted into the divine being from which they ultimately have come.

Different levels of knowledge - fixed; various schools of thought which included different degrees of Gnosticism.

Christian Gnosticism: Clement of Alexandria didn’t want the Gnostics to be allowed exclusive use of word “gnosis”; also spoke of different levels of spiritual maturity; i.e., those converting from heathenism → Christianity = children who received spiritual ‘milk’. At the other end of the spectrum, were the spiritually mature, the ‘true Gnostics’ → levels of spiritual development not fixed by nature, received the rich ‘meat’ of the Christian gospel. (3:6, p. 88)

Summary of redemption: “By reason of his immeasurable love (Jesus Christ) became what we are, in order to make us what he himself is.” Uses term “recapitulation” to describe redemption - “When Jesus Christ recapitulates the creation of God, he brings it to the fullness or unity intended for it by the Creator.”
Irenaeus wrote Against Heresies - Gnosticism chief target

Marcionism:

Variation of Gnosticism. Marcion - Asia Minor, son of a bishop
Rejected the entire Old Testament notion of God of justice. Yahweh - not God, but a fallen angel who created the material world. Christ, who was docetic, sent by the true God of love & forgiveness.

Believed church lost basic (essential) teaching of Paul; i.e., salvation by the love & forgiveness of God. Church was too legalistic. Many Christians interpreted Christianity primarily in moral terms.

Marcion considered only Paul’s epistles & Gospel of Luke as authoritative. He purged of these of references speaking favorably of Old Testament. He was excommunicated in 140 CE by the Bishop of Rome; established own church

Christianity - existence of 2 rival bodies, each claiming to be “the true church”.

Montanism:

Montanus of Phrygia in Asia Minor. He claimed he was the chosen vessel for a new movement of the Holy Spirit (HS). Associated with two women as co-receivers of the HS. Essentially rigorously moralistic; expected to lead lives of perfection.

Tertullian espoused Montanism in 207 CE. Was 1st to use “trinitas” (trinity) for totality of Godhead. 1st major theologian to write in Latin.
Callixtus elected Bishop of Rome in 217 - extended possibility of restoration to Christians guilty of fornication or adultery (“mortal” sins)

Hippolytus - One of foremost theologians in Rome; thought Callixtus had gone too far → accepted election, ordination to Bishop of Rome; 2nd of two bishops of Rome; led to schism.

Callixtus’ successor & Hippolytus banished by civil authorities to a prison camp in mines of Sardinia; both died in 235.

Novatian Schism:

Church was no longer viewed as home of saints, but a hospital for sinners. Novatian schism - replay of above schism - during Decian persecution.

Cornelius elected to Bishop of Rome (pope) in 251; granted restoration to the penitent among those who had apostatized under persecution.
1st generation Christians (“twice born”) accepted baptism after genuine conversion - interior experience of coming from bonds of pagan futility to freedom of life with Christ.

Novatianism:

Novatian - represented old virtues; believed those restorations were a betrayal of Christ; started own schismatic group (rigorous moralists). Consecrated as rival Bishop of Rome. (Oxford Dictionary of Christian Church), p. 415

Novatian church → survived until 5th century; views accepted by Antioch, rejected by Dionysius of Alexandria.
2nd & 3rd generation Christians believed in Christ, but missed interior experience of conversion (“once born”).

Donatism:

Named after Donatus. Schism began when rigorists in N. Africa protested that ordination received from hands soiled by unforgivable sin of apostasy couldn’t be recognized. Major contention → an unworthy person couldn’t perform a sacramental act.

Elected own bishop → Donatus; created schism (followed pattern of Novatian schism); schism continued until African church destroyed by Arabs in 7th - 8th centuries (Mohammedan)

Council of Arles in 314 - rejected Donatists; action of council protected worshippers from uncertainty about the value of the sacrament when the spiritual or moral state of officiant couldn’t be determined. Ruling not accepted by N. African church; separated church in N. Africa until 7th century.

Modalism:

Trinitarian controversy: How can God be ‘three’ yet remain ‘one’?

Emphasis on divine unity; accepted the three-fold distinctions only as temporary successive modes in the Divine Economy. Divine Economy - the three persons of the Trinity carry out different operations (functions) - Sabellius.

Favored in the West - had trouble with the three-fold distinctions.
Tertullian - in West; undertook task to show how Father, Son, Holy Spirit were truly distinct, without implying tritheism, & not merely successive modes.

Subordinationism:

An inherent tendency in the Logos concept emphasized by apologists of the East.

Christ the Son & Holy Spirit - subordinate to the Father; suggesting two Gods - one subordinate to the other. Origen saw it as his major task to demonstrate this is not so; i.e., that the incorporeal God is one & undivided.

Origenism: 3:6, pp. 90 - 95

Origen was born c. 185 in Alexandria - 2 strains of thought regarding the Trinity:
1.Of the essential nature of God - He is eternally triune, with no division into a greater & lesser; i.e., although Father, Son, Holy Spirit are distinct from one another, their distinctions do not divide the Godhead into inferior & superior parts.
2.Subordinationism - of the Triune God’s relationship with the created order, the Father is greater than the Son (firstborn of all creation) & greater than the HS - referred to the 3 persons as they “function” (in the Divine Economy). Origen was excommunicated

Origen’s theological descendents - 2 wings (related to above):
1.Right-wing emphasized the essential unity & equality of the 3 persons within the undivided nature of the incorporeal deity. Forced to use novel language & introduce new concepts to support their position. Eventually became the established position.
2.Left-wing used subordinationist language to stress the distinctions among those three. Ultimately, seen as attackers of orthodoxy, but at the time, the leftists were maintaining variations of the oldest interpretation of Jesus & his relationship to the Father (appealed to NT for support).

Monarchianism: 3:6, pp. 95 - 100

Two forms developed. A response to the perceived threat to monotheism; with the emphasis on the divine aspect of Jesus.

1. Dynamic Monarchianism:

Jesus was truly indwelt by ‘the divine’, but not by God himself. It was God’s power that was in Christ; i.e., ‘in some sense’ divine, yet still only one God, who was totally distinct from Jesus → left-wing Origenism - extreme; barely escapes being Ebionite.

Paul of Samosata (3rd century bishop of Antioch) - the Word became flesh in Jesus. Mary conceived Jesus through the power of God, while still a virgin. The man, Jesus, received the Word of God as no one else ever had. He could be called the Son of God because his birth caused by God’s direct act & his complete accord with the mind of God. But the Son of God was Jesus, not a divine being subsisting within the Godhead.

Doctrine considered ‘reactionary’ - harked back to times when Jewish Christians were attempting to express their faith in Jesus as Lord without surrendering their conviction in God as One. Shema: “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.”
Countered by Gregory the Wonder-Worker; bishop of Neocaesarea: right-wing Origenism; espoused Origen’s teaching about the ‘essential Trinity’.

Not what Hellenistic Christianity wanted. They were searching for a way to call Jesus divine without positing three Gods (needed to be divine to be Savior).

2.Modalistic Monarchianism:

The one God, primarily known as ‘Father’, himself became flesh as the ‘Son’ to redeem the world. After suffering death in his flesh, he ceased his activity as Son and poured himself forth upon believers as ‘Holy Spirit’ to empower them for a life of holiness; i.e., the roles of Son & Holy Spirit were simply modes of activity for the one single Father-God → was a denial of the continuing reality of the 3 Persons; exaggerated emphasis on the divine unity.

Eventually came to be known as Sabellianism after its most prominent teacher, Sabellius of Rome (a proponent of right-wing Origenism). Insisted it was God himself who was incarnate in Jesus; also that God is one & can’t be divided in his own interior life. Opposed by Tertullian & Hippolytus - modalism was condemned in Rome. Was opposed by left-wing Origenism

He was expelled from Rome and denounced by Dionysius of Alexandria, who used most subordinationist terms of Origen’s language, i.e., (both of these were concerns of Hellenistic Christianity). His solution to the problem of ‘the three and one’ couldn’t be accepted by anyone who had drunk from Origen’s well, i.e., that ‘Father’, ‘Son’, and ‘Holy Spirit’ were nothing more than temporary modes in the Divine Economy → only one existed at a time.

Wings of Origenism contended against the 2 major heresies of the day:

Dynamic Monarchianism - denial of the divinity of the Son

Sabellianism - denial of the continuing reality of the Father, Son & Holy Spirit

Hellenistic Christians - needed to know that the Savior was divine, & therefore saw error in Dynamic Monarchianism more easily than in Sabellianism; i.e., the right-wing, that opposed Paul of Samosata (DM), came off better in ecclesiastical opinion than the left-wing that opposed Sabellianism. Dionysius of Alexandria (left-wing) had to retract his leftist (subordinationist) statements.
hypostases of the Godhead (= Latin, substantia)

Provoked loud outcries of Modalism from left-wing, i.e., Dionysius of Rome vs. Alexandrian left-wing Origenistic heritage (believed all Origenists were left-wing). Was opposed by right-wing Origenists
and left-wing Origenists.

Arianism:

Arius - a student of Lucian (Aristotelian - realism); represented by Eusebius - believed Alexandria sounded like Sabellianism (left-wing Origeni).

Jesus is incarnation of the Son of God. Son of God is divine, but not the one God himself.

Antioch - world view (Aristotelian) different from & less abstract than Alexandrian (Platonic) - more mystical. Antiochene - stressed full integrity of Christ’s humanity; content to settle for a merely moral unity between Jesus Christ & the Son of God.

The Father is unbegotten, one & eternal; the Son is begotten; i.e., two different beings

Chief characteristic of God - he is “the one” in whom everything else originates, but has no origin himself; i.e., the unoriginated source of all reality; is one, eternal, unbegotten, self-existent.

Chief characteristic of the Son - is begotten, derived from the Father; being begotten is not unoriginate; i.e., the Son is not God, but a lesser existence than God; is begotten & created;

Even though begotten, before time, but not eternal (before time, but “there was a time when he was not”); Jesus not quite divine, but not fully human.

Was created by the Father from nothing as an instrument for the creation of the world; not God by nature; differed from other creatures in being the one direct creation of God.

Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria deposed Arius in 320 CE

Arius appealed to friends of Lucian’s school in Antioch. Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia, mustered support for Arius throughout the eastern empire.

Constantine called Council of Nicea in 325; Arius banished.

Apollinarianism:

Apollinarius, bishop of Laodicea (near Antioch in Syria); right-wing Origenist; opposed Antiochene position.

The divine Word took “human flesh” & “animal soul” (body) when he became incarnate, but he himself as Word (Logos) functioned as the “rational soul” in Christ; enabled Apollinarius to affirm that Christ was one person.

Christ was not acted upon by flesh & its passions as we are; the Word was always in charge, causing the flesh to do his will; i.e., his divinity prevailed.

The divine Word (Logos) is the archetype after which human rational souls (logoi) are patterned. In Christ, the ‘copy’ was simply replaced by the ‘original’.

Apollinarius carried the expression “the Word became flesh” (in John) to its literal conclusion -- the Word took human flesh, not a human mind. Respected & befriended by Christian scholars (eg. Basil of Caesarea, Athanasius)

Gregory of Nazianzus saw fallacy in his manner of expressing the closest possible union between the Word & humanity. ”What [the Word] has not assumed [the human rational soul], he has not healed; it is what is united to his deity that is saved.”

Condemned in 381 at the Council of Constantinople. 3:9, p. 135

Nestorianism:

Nestorius - bishop of Constantinople from 428 until deposed in 431 at 3rd general council - Council of Ephesus

Was a student of Theodore of Mopsuestia at Antioch

Still exists in Kurdistan; Nestorianism was Mar Thoma church in India by 550 CE; likely connected with Nestorian, Patrick of Bagdad. Renounced in 1599. Large portion → Roman Catholics, 1660; the rest → Anglicans
From Major Heresies - Christ is 2 persons (God the Son & the human, Jesus Christ) each acting through his own nature.

Antiochene tradition strongly (emphasized) insisted on the full humanity of Jesus. Jesus could be of no significance to us if he did not experience the complete human experience.

Nestorius tried to express the Antiochene position. Gospel of Matthew probably composed in Antioch - is; i.e., Christianity → new Torah, Jesus typical of Antiochene viewpoint → new Moses (see Paul of Samosata, p. 4). Christ is the conjunction (not a union as Apollinarius would have it) a of complete human nature, existing as a concrete human individual, with the divine Word.

Nestorius - Mary bore Christ, not God (even for Alexandrians, Christ was divine & human); it was implied that the Christ wasn’t also God. Historians divided about Nestorius’ own views. Nestorius declared (to the pope with a letter from Cyril of Alexandria) that he believed in “both natures which by the highest and unmixed union are adored in the one person of the Only Begotten.” → in accord with Rome’s position (see Pope Celestine I above)

Cyril of Alexandria described Nestorius’ views in their worst possible light. Pope Celestine I declared in favor of Cyril against Nestorius; Rome & Constantinople were rivals.

3rd general council (Council of Ephesus), 431 - supporters of Nestorius were late; he was condemned.

Monotheletism:

“One will”; Emperor Heraclitus (610) tried to achieve unity between orthodoxy (including Rome) & Monophysitism (see p. 1); edict in 638 - Christ operated under the exercise of one divine-human will.
Not close enough for dissident Monophysites & too close for Rome. Heraclitus condemned at a synod in Rome, 649. Because Pope Martin I secured condemnation at synod, he was taken to Constantinople, imprisoned.

Pelagianism:

Pelagius - from Britain or Ireland; in Rome, c. 400; shocked by moral conditions in Rome.

Salvation - God has given us the ability to do good or to do evil; everyone who sins does so of his/her own free will. We need God’s grace if we are to be righteous, & we have it abundantly in many forms: creation, scripture & the Law, by forgiveness.

Western theologians (Rome), beginning at least as early as Tertullian, said the human soul was born tainted with Adam’s sin, unable to do good → Augustine’s original sin.

Pelagius - when Paul said sin came into the world through Adam, he meant only that we have consistently followed Adam’s example.

Coelestius - Pelagius’ friend & spokesman; pushed too far toward the claim that salvation could be achieved by human effort alone. Pelagius condemned in 431 at the Council of Ephesus; Augustine of Hippo had stronger influence in West.

Eastern theologians allowed for human cooperation in salvation.

Coelestius’ view declared heresy at same council.

Semi- Pelagianism:

John Cassian, who knew John Chrysostom, travelled in the East & West, established a monastery, convent at Marseilles, 415; taught a moral & spiritual discipline that relied on the human will’s ability either to reject or respond to God; i.e., only the grace of God can provide salvation, but I can accept or reject it.

At the Synod of Orange, 531, proclaimed that we are all born into original sin & have no power to turn to God. Only by the infusion of the Holy Spirit are we moved to seek out our salvation & submit to baptism. We can resist God’s grace if we desire. Acceptance of grace requires God’s initiative, but our own wills cooperate to receive it.
Pope Boniface II approved findings of Synod of Orange, 531; could be called semi-Pelagianism or semi-Augustinianism

Jansenism:

Cornelius Jansen (1585 - 1638)
A morally rigorist, anti-humanist piety with roots in Augustine that stressed personal religious experience. Eventually condemned & declared heretical.

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Dr. Y "Thinks" Index

Christ--who was he?
Strange Piece of Ass Syndrome
Christian heresies
Baby boomers are dancing on... e
A Wild Ride
Dannion Brinkley
Circumcision
Why Vision Quest?
Vision Quest 1998
Enlightenment on a Harley
God, faith and the Recession
Breakfast Blessing
The Closet
God as my GPS
God as my GPS
Descartes and Christianity
Health Care Reform and Christianity

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