Heresies and Heroes
Chris Parsons NLC 2011
Three views on history...
“There is nothing new under the sun” Ecclesiastes 1:9
“History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't
want tradition. We want to live in the present and the
only history that is worth a tinker's dam is the history we
made today.” Henry Ford, Interview in Chicago Tribune, May 25th,
1916
“History is the witness that testifies to the passing of
time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides
guidance in daily life and brings us tidings of antiquity.”
Cicero, in ‘Pro Publio Sestio’; Roman author, orator, & politician (106 BC
- 43 BC)
Where are we
going today?
The Early Church
Fathers
1st C- AD 312
What is the relevance of
this history today?
• We are returning to a pre-Christian age where myth,
legend and superstition are commonplace
• There are tensions between the institutions of
Christendom and movements that seek authentic
spiritual experience
• We encounter syncretistic attempts to construct an
overarching religious scheme through such things as
interfaith worship
• Rejecting an arrogant historicity which views the early
Christian centuries as ‘primitive’ we can learn from
those who have gone before us...
Into what world did the gospel emerge?
• A gentile world...
we see challenges in
the New Testament
• An assimilating and
syncretistic world...
A melding of beliefs &
practices
• A Roman world...
a variably controlled
environment
Three things the church wrestled with...
• Moral laxity and apostasy - which could lead to
exclusion from the community of faith (Permanent or
temporary?)
• Intellectual deviation – what was and was not an
acceptable viewpoint (Who decides this?)
• Establishing the authenticity of the gospel message
to prove its truthfulness and validity – moving from
an oral to written tradition (Which texts?)
“The moment they passed outside the ambit of the
synagogues of the Jewish dispersion and their loosely
attached Gentile adherents, the missionaries were in a
twilight world of pagan syncretism, magic and
astrology” Henry Chadwick ‘The Early Church’
Who were the
Early Church
Fathers?
?
“By the 4th Century “the Fathers” had come to
be used as a collective title for those church
writers (whether bishops or not) whose
writings were accepted as an authoritative
source for Christian doctrine”
Maurice Wiles ‘The Christian Fathers’
What were the
main concerns of
the Church Fathers?
Three Key Areas
• The nature of God
• The relationship of the Son to the Father & the
Spirit
• The form, purpose and significance of Jesus’
incarnation
• The origin of sin and the means of salvation
• The nature and authority of the church
• The sacramental structure of grace
• The ethical life of the believer
The problem
A small deviation in course ends up with an
arrival in a different place...or on the rocks!
The BIG
question?
Where does authority lie?
They found three answers:
•The local bishop – ‘we ought to regard as the Lord
himself’ Ignatius of Antioch (approx AD 50-108)
•The formation of the New Testament canon
Early on Justin Martyr (approx AD 103-165)
accepted the synoptics and his pupil Tatian (approx
AD 120-180) added John’s gospel. The Muratorian
Canon from Rome (AD 200 approx) lists: four
gospels, thirteen letters of Paul, Acts, two letters of
John, Jude, and Revelation of John ALSO The
Wisdom of Solomon and The Revelation of Peter
•Rules of faith or creedal statements (Irenaeus
approx AD 125 – 202) and Tertullian (approx AD
160-220) led to later defining fourth century
formulations
Two early figures from
the shadows of the 1st
Century had particular
influence in determining
an authorative way
ahead for the post
apostolic age...
Clement of
Rome
(AD 1st C -101)
Bishop of Rome
The influence of Clement of Rome
• In his letter to the Corinthian Church (AD 96)
asserted the authority of deposed presbyters
as the order prescribed by the apostles
• By the appeal to his judgement he indirectly
asserted the priority if not the primacy of
Rome as a place of authority
Ignatius of
Antioch
(approx AD 35-108)
The influence of Ignatius of Antioch
An early influential voice he wrote seven letters
on the way to his martyrdom in Rome:
• He emphasised the importance and authority
of the local bishop
• He encouraged the keeping of Sunday as the
day of resurrection rather than Jewish Sabbath
• He taught explicitly the deity of Christ
• He was the first to refer to the ‘catholic’
(universal) church
What were the
main heresies that
grew to challenge
the church?
The main Heresies
•
•
•
•
Gnosticism
Montanism
Monarchianism or modalism
Arianism
Gnostics and Gnosticism AD 80-150
• Believed they were superior and had secret
knowledge (gnosis) to attain redemption
• Believed the spirit was pure and good and the
body nothing – could lead to EITHER moral
licence OR to extreme moral asceticism (e.g.
no marriage or at least no sex!)
• Believed in the worship and following of
intermediate powers – often angelic powers
tied to planetary bodies which influenced
man’s fate
Gnostics and Gnosticism AD 80-150
• Believed the elect, following a pre-cosmic
disaster, had in them a divine spark that had
become imprisoned in matter, and had lost
memory of its true home
• Believed in secret passwords and magic amulets
that could be obtained by the soul as it passed
through planetary systems to heaven
• Believed that the serpent in Genesis was a good
power because he had enlightened Adam and Eve
to true knowledge over against the god who had
kept them in ignorance and his son Jesus
What are we to make of these
Gnostic conjectures?
“The truly significant contrast is not between
scientific knowledge of the solar system or
geology...and the cramped ideas of the Church
Fathers; but between those same ideas, which
for all their limitations derived from history, and
the arbitrary reconstruction of reality which
sprang like a fairy palace, cloud capped but
unsubstantial, from the imagination of
Hellenistic mythology” GL Prestige ‘Fathers and
Heretics’
Implications of Gnosticism
for the Gospel
• Rejected the idea of both the incarnation and the
resurrection
• Rejected the Hebraic concept of resurrection of
the body preferring the Platonic idea of the
immortality of the soul
• Rejected Creation as the work of at best, an
incompetent or at worst a malevolent power, and
saw the physical world as intrinsically evil
• Tended to see the Old Testament as a story of a
malevolent god choosing a bloodied nation as his
chosen people (Marcion ‘s Antitheses : excommunicated AD 144)
Where do we find Gnosticism today?
• The New Age movement
• In some Gaia philosophy
• In an Angelology stripped
of its biblical context
• In movements within the
church where creation,
sex and procreation are
viewed as second best to
a pure world of the spirit
• Among those who favour
a spiritual resurrection
over a holistic physical
resurrection...
Justin
Martyr
(approx AD 103-165)
from Nablus, on the West Bank
The influence of Justin Martyr
‘Dialogue with Trypho the Jew’ – approx AD 160
• An argument with the Jews which saw the OT as
prefiguring the Gospel and the law as a necessary
discipline for a wayward people who were waiting
for their redemption in Christ
‘First and Second Apologies’ – approx AD 150
“The future lay with the programme first announced by Justin
Martyr, (AD 160) by which the church would make common
cause with Platonic metaphysics and stoic ethics, whilst rejecting
pagan myth and cult as a demonic, superstitious, counterfeit
religion propagated by evil powers and maintained by prejudice
and erroneous information about the nature of the church”
Henry Chadwick ‘The Early Church’
The influence of Justin Martyr
• Justin’s adoption of platonic ideas was critically
important for the future development of Christian
thought – seeing both Abraham and Plato as ‘Christians
before Christ’
• Jesus is the ‘Son-Logos’, God immanent derived from
the Father (God transcendent) as one torch is lit from
another – light from light
• Justin rejected Gnostic promotion of a predestination
robbing individuals of their free will and a moral
imperative
• He also rejected the Gnostic Marcion’s disparagement
of the Old Testament instead seeing its prophetic
fulfilment in Christ
The influence of Justin Martyr
• For Justin, Creation was good and the work of the
supreme God acting through the Logos as mediator
• In the incarnation the Logos assumed a complete
manhood, body, soul, and mind
• Christ truly suffered in his passion - not the Docetic
view (an off-shoot from Gnostic thought) that Christ
only ‘seemed’ to be human
• For Justin the destiny of man was not freedom from
bondage in his mortal frame but a rising again in a
literal resurrection
• In Revelation he saw a millennial hope where Christ
would descend to earth and begin a 1000 year reign
The influence of Justin Martyr
• Justin was the first recorded Christian thinker to
sense two distinct periods of human history as
being the profane and sacred with the coming of
Christ as the pivotal moment between the two
• Also important was the idea that God had planted
seeds of truth in many places that would eventually
guide men to the importance of Christ for all the
world
Irenaeus
(approx AD 125 – 202)
Bishop of Lyon in France
The influence of Irenaeus
‘Against Heresies’ (approx. AD180)
• Directing his arguments against the Gnostics Marcion
and Valentinus he stressed the unity of the Old and
New Testaments seeing the parallelism of Adam and
Christ in Paul’s writings
• In Christ, he said, we gain the likeness of God lost
through the Fall
• Mistakes and imperfections were the result of Adam
and Eve who, like children, were prone to error on
their way to maturity though the incarnation of the
Divine Word and the gospel diffused throughout the
world by the church
The influence of Irenaeus
• He saw the necessity of having a definitive canonical
list of New Testament writings
• He gave reasoned arguments for what should or
should not be included
• He stressed the importance of the doctrinal unity
authentically preached in the churches of apostolic
foundation, none of whose bishops were Gnostics,
- appealing especially to what was taught in Rome
• He appealed to the unchanging faith taught from the
apostles time and argued against the myriad doctrinal
innovations and inventions so prevalent in the Gnostic
sects
Clement of
Alexandria
(approx AD 150-215)
The influence of Clement of Alexandria
The Exhortation to Conversion (Protrepticus)
The Tutor (Paedagogus)
The Miscellanies (Stromateis)
• Clement saw Gnosticism as vulnerable to philosophical
attack and combined philosophical argument with a
biblical exegesis understood by the Greek world
• He was also able to articulate the necessity of a higher
moral virtue in which the Gnostics were disinterested
• He saw Platonic metaphysics, Stoic ethics, Aristotelian
logic as God implanting seeds of truth in his rational
creatures with all truth and goodness coming from one
Creator
The influence of Clement of Alexandria
• He affirmed celibacy and marriage and saw
ascetic practices as a matter of personal
conscience not universal prescription
• He saw the Christian life as a dynamic advance
towards God
The main Heresies
•
•
•
•
Gnosticism
Montanism
Monarchianism or modalism
Arianism
Montanism AD 170
• A Phrygian (located today in Central Turkey)
named Montanus and two women Prisca and
Maximilla claimed to be speaking directly from
the ‘Paraclete’
• Insisted on the literal resurrection of the flesh
and the imminence of the return of Jesus
• The heavenly Jerusalem would last a thousand
years and would descend upon...Phrygia!
• All Christians had to accept this divine revelation
– rejection of it was to be seen as both a rejection
of, and blasphemy against, the Holy Spirit
Montanism AD 170
• This was partly a struggle between two opposing
forces in the Church – a focus on increasing order
and structure and the freedom and individualism
of a former apostolic age
• Eventually Tertullian became an advocate of
Montanism which he saw as restoring the church to
‘spiritual’ men
• But Hippolytus of Rome – saw spiritual gifts as
good but the greater gift being conversion with
every believer enabled to use the gifts of the spirit.
The supernatural was to be found in the normal
ministry of word and sacrament not in a divisive
exercise of gifts leading to pride and judgmentalism
Where do we see traces of
Montanism today?
• In exclusive charismatic
circles or sects where
extra biblical authority is
claimed for special
prophecies, spiritual
awakenings, and end
time warnings
• In faiths or sects which
demand allegiance to
post biblical prophets
Tertullian
(approx AD 160-220)
A lawyer from Carthage, North Africa
The influence of Tertullian
Apology; The tracts ‘Against Marcion’, ‘Against
Praxeas, ‘On Baptism’
• A North African fiery and brilliant lawyer who
demanded a purity that forbade attendance at
the arena, service in the army, civil service, or
schools, or in anything that might contribute
in any way to idolatry
“The blood of the martyrs is the
seed of the church”
The influence of Tertullian
• He was the first major figure of the patristic
period to write in Latin and therefore used
vocabulary and forms of language that
became part of later Trinitarian and
Christological debates
• He had three major concerns:
 Christianity’s attitude to the Roman state and
society
 The defence of orthodox beliefs against heresy
 The moral behaviour of Christians
The influence of Tertullian
• He was not pessimistic about the nature of
man without grace but saw traces of goodness
and truth as latent attributes of the divine
image and the gospel as a means of stripping
away of pagan influences freeing the soul to
attain God’s original intention
The main Heresies
•
•
•
•
Gnosticism
Montanism
Monarchianism or modalism
Arianism
Monarchianism or modalism
Was the Son ‘one with’ OR ‘distinct from’ the
Father? Those who upheld the ‘monarchy’ of God
were divided into two contradictory camps:
• Modalism (or Modalistic Monarchiansm)
Sabellius (3rd C priest and theologian)
emphasizing the unity of God put forward the
view (against the logos theology of Justin
Martyr) that the Father, resurrected Son and Holy
Spirit were aspects or modes of the one God
perceived by the believer rather than three
distinct persons in God himself
• Adoptionism (or Dynamic Monarchianism)
held that God was one being, above all else,
wholly indivisible, and of one nature. Its
approach was that the Son was not co-eternal
with the Father, and that he was essentially
granted godhood (adopted). Different
proponents located this adoption as taking
place at either his baptism or ascension
Where do we see traces of
Monarchianism or Modalism today?
• In a relativistic culture which rejects objective
truth and locates it in an individualistic
framework - “truth is what I perceive it to be”
• Among those in a material and rationalistic
worldview who prefer to see Jesus as a
‘special man’ rather than God’s divine Son
• Among Unitarians who wish to emphasise
today the unity of the Godhead
Origen
(AD 184-253)
from Alexandria
and then Caesarea in Palestine
Origen
The outstanding scholar of his age and a
voluminous writer. Most notable are his biblical
commentaries and also other works Stromateis,
On First Principles, Hexapla (A 50 volume 6
column analysis of the Old Testament text in
different versions of his day), Exhortation to
Martyrdom, On Prayer, Contra Celsum,
Origen’s legacy
“He was the founder of biblical science and though
not absolutely the first great biblical commentator, he
first developed the principles which exposition was to
follow and applied the fashion of methodical
explanation on the widest possible scale. He
inaugurated the systematic treatment of theology by
writing a book which treated God, the world, and
religion in their several relations. He finally and
completely established the principle that Christianity
is an intelligent religion, by bringing all the strength
and vigour of Greek philosophical insight to bear on
the elucidation of Hebrew religious intuition and
Christian spiritual history.” GL Prestige ‘Fathers and Heretics’
Key Areas of influence
• Despite using and studying extensively its forms
Origen turned consciously away from Greek
‘inspiration’ for Christians
• He was the first to locate his anti-Gnostic
arguments within an overall doctrinal
framework in which the Gnostic questions could
find their answer in a wider and deeper if
speculative system (see Appendices for examples)
• He saw the apologetic necessity of an accurate
and mutually acceptable Old Testament
Key Areas of influence
• In his biblical exegesis he found consistency though
both an allegorical and spiritual understanding with
historical narrative being secondary to spiritual
truth
• Layers of meaning were to be found in biblical texts
and Christians were to seek the inner meaning
even at the expense of the literal understanding –
from the material to the spiritual
• Scriptural meditation likewise assuages spiritual
hunger and thirst as “God grants food to satisfy the
soul’s hunger” moving from the letter to the Spirit
Origen
“Origen is the greatest of that happily small
company of saints who, having lived and died in
grace, suffered sentence of expulsion from the
Church on earth after they had already entered
into the joy of their Lord” GL Prestige ‘Fathers and
Heretics’
Meanwhile...
A pagan intellectual reaction
• Celsus (AD 177-180) a Platonist fought for
polytheistic practice
• Plotinus (AD 205-270) sought a philosophical
synthesis between Aristotelian logic and Stoic
ethics
• Porphyry (AD 232-305) Plotinus’ biographer,
wrote a fifteen volume treatise against the
church and other anti Christian works
The persecution of Decius (AD 249-51)
• Decius demanded that everyone should hold a
certificate (libellus) of sacrifice to the gods
before specially appointed commissioners
• The church was split as to how to deal with
the large number of apostates. How far could
sin be remitted and by whom?
• After the martyrdom of the Bishop of Rome
two rival candidates were elected over this
issue Cornelius (liberal) and Novatian (strict)
The Great Persecution of Diocletian
• Under Diocletian (AD 284-305) with administration of
the Roman Empire split between East and West –
persecution in the East once more broke out and
wrought great destruction of life and property – less
so in the West
• Constantine the son of Constantinius (assistant Caesar
to Maximian) influenced by his Christian half sister
named Anastasia (resurrection) was proclaimed
Emperor by his troops on his fathers death in York in
AD 306
• In AD 312 he sought the Christian God for help in
gaining complete power in the Western Empire. In
AD 312 Constantine in the West and Licinius in the
East emerge supreme and in Milan in AD 313 they
agreed on a policy of religious freedom and
toleration for all and on the restoration of all
property both to individual Christians and churches
The main Heresies
•
•
•
•
Gnosticism
Montanism
Monarchianism or modalism
Arianism
Arius and Arianism
• Arius (AD 250-336) was an Alexandrian Christian
presbyter
• He taught that that the Son of God did not always
exist, but was created by - and is therefore distinct
from and inferior to - God the Father
• Arianism arose in the 3rd century but dominated
theological debate throughout the 4th Century
• In AD 325 Constantine convened the Council of
Nicaea to develop a statement of faith that could
unify the Church. The Nicene Creed declared that
the Father and the Son were of the same substance
(homoousios)
• But the controversy was far from over and
looking back to AD 360 Jerome could write
that the world “awoke with a groan to find
itself Arian”
• Not until AD 380/81 and the edicts of Emperor
Theodosius did the Nicene Creed (actually
finalised in Constantinople in AD 381) triumph
and Arianism subside
Where do we see Arianism today?
• Common in some thinking outside the church
today ‘The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel
Christ’ Philip Pullman
• Common on the fringes of the Church where
the divinity of Jesus might be questioned
• Common in theological circles where the
search for the ‘historical Jesus’ rather than the
Jesus over layered with centuries of piety and
tradition can easily become a search for Jesus
‘the man’ at the expense of his divinity
Athanasius
(AD 293-373)
Bishop of Alexandria
The foremost champion against Arianism
• He attended the Council of Nicaea in AD 325
as a deacon accompanying his bishop
• Succeeded Alexander as Bishop in AD 328
• Exiled five times as political fortunes changed
Gaul (AD 335-337); Rome (AD 339-346); to the
Egyptian desert monks (AD 356-361); Egypt in
hiding (AD 362-363) & again (AD 365-366)
“Christ was made man that we
might be made divine”
‘On the Incarnation’
• Only God could restore man to communion
with himself
• He argued that if Christ was less than God he
could not be our saviour
The stage was set for...
• Further division over the definition of apostasy
and the re-admittance of apostates to the church
community (Who decides?)
Led to The Donatist schism in Carthage, North
Africa. Donatus was a rival bishop who held to
the strict view that no apostate should be
readmitted to the church.
• The question of the relationship between church
and state and ecclesiastical rivalries (Who rules?)
• Continuing debate and division over the
relationship of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit
• The nature of the Christian life (Which is best?)
and the key players...
• The successors to Athanasius ...
The Cappadocian Fathers – Basil of Caesarea
Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa
• Cyril of Alexandria
• John Chrysostom
• Augustine of Hippo
• The Desert Fathers (the Ascetic movement)
• And others...
Appendices
1. The historic creeds
Nicene Creed
Apostles Creed
Chalcedonian Creed
2. Further notes on Origen
3. Books that may be helpful
The Nicene Creed [First Council of Nicea AD
325, Revised at Constantinople in AD 381]
We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and
of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the onlybegotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God,
Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made, being of one
substance with the Father, by whom all things were made; who for us men,
and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy
Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us
under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose
again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on
the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both
the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end.
And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceedeth
from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is
worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And we believe in one
holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the
remission of sins. And we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life
of the world to come. Amen.
The Apostles’ Creed [From 2nd Century, First
written in Letter to Milan AD 390]
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven
and earth. And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin
Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead,
and buried. He descended into Hell; the third day he rose
from the dead. He ascended into heaven; and sits on the
right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there he
shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in
the Holy Ghost; the holy Catholic Church, the communion
of the saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of
the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
The Chalcedonian Creed
[Council of Chalcedon, Asia Minor AD 451]
Therefore, following the holy Fathers, we all with one accord teach
men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at
once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and
truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one
essence with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart
from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the
ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our
salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer; one and the same Christ,
Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without
confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the
distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but
rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming
together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or
separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Onlybegotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from
earliest times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught
us, and the creed of the Fathers has handed down to us.
Origen on creation and redemption
• Creation was a spiritual realm from which
souls endowed with reason and free will fell
after becoming sated in their adoration of
God – one soul never tuned away from God Christ
Origen on creation and redemption
• The material word results from the fall but has
purpose at its heart – to educate train and
remake man so that he turns once again to his
Creator
• Life in the material world is a temporary and
provisional stage in a much longer journey of
the soul
• Redemption is a gradual process and
atonement takes place constantly
Origen on creation and redemption
• Revelation is conditioned by the capacity of
the recipient
• Language of heaven and hell though primarily
symbolic still bears an inner truth of divine
punishment with remedial intent
• For Origen freedom is an inalienable
possession of rational beings allowing even
Satan to turn once again to God but thereby
also allowing the possibility of an endless
cycle of fall and redemption
Origen on the Trinity
• Deeply opposed to Monarchiansm in its
modalistic and dynamic or adoptionist form
he saw Christ as the pre-existent logos albeit
as a lower level within the God head.
• He saw the Son as being ‘ begotten not made’
and as a mediator between God and man
Origen on the Trinity
• After Origen's death the gulf between those
who like Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria, a
pupil of Origen, who denied the Father and
the Son were of one substance (homoousios)
and those who tended to speak in terms of
the unity of the Godhead such as Dionysius of
Rome, grew wider. In a correspondence
Dionysius of Rome rebuked his Alexandrian
namesake over his views
Origen on the Trinity
“The correspondence is the first indication of a
gulf, which soon became a yawning chasm
between East and West. The Origenist
theology looked like tritheism to the West. The
Western doctrine was perilously near
‘Sabellianism’ in the eyes of the East.”
Henry Chadwick ‘The Early Church’
Books that may be helpful
• ‘The Early Church’ by Henry Chadwick
One of the best and easiest introductions to the subject
• ‘Spirit and Fire’ Edited by Hans Urs Von Balthasar
First published in 1938 but by far the most accessible way into
Origen’s writings and still in print
• ‘The writings of Justin Martyr’ published by Shepherd’s notes
An example of an original source that is still available today
• ‘The Christian Fathers’ Maurice Wiles
Eminently readable history introducing the Church Fathers around
the different doctrinal views they expressed
• ‘Fathers and Heretics’ GL Prestige
Originally given as the Bampton lectures and first published in 1940
this is one of the classic books on the patristic period with a
wonderfully enthusiastic chapter on Origen
• ‘The writings of Irenaeus’ published by The Apocryphile Press
Another example of an original source that is available today