Heresies and Heroes

1. Heresies and Heroes Chris Parsons NLC 2011

2. 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 PublioSestio’; Roman author, orator, & politician (106 BC - 43 BC)

3. Where are we going today? The Early Church Fathers 1st C- AD 312

4. 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...

5. 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

6. 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’

7. Who were the Early Church Fathers? ?

8. “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’

9. What were the main concerns of the Church Fathers?

10. 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

11. The problem A small deviation in course ends up with an arrival in a different place...or on the rocks!

12. The BIG question? Where does authority lie?

13. 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

14. Two early figures from the shadows of the 1st Century had particular influence in determining an authorative way ahead for the post apostolic age...

15. (AD 1st C -101)Bishop of Rome Clement of Rome

16. 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

17. (approx AD 35-108) Ignatius of Antioch

18. 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

19. What were the main heresies that grew to challenge the church?

20. The main Heresies • Gnosticism • Montanism • Monarchianism or modalism • Arianism

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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’

24. 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)

25. 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...

26. Justin Martyr (approx AD 103-165) from Nablus, on the West Bank

27. 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’

28. 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

29. 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

30. 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 placesthat would eventually guide men to the importance of Christ for all the world

31. (approx AD 125 – 202) Bishop of Lyon in France Irenaeus

32. 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 Christin 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

33. 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 timeand argued against the myriad doctrinal innovations and inventions so prevalent in the Gnostic sects

34. (approx AD 150-215) Clement of Alexandria

35. 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

36. 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

37. The main Heresies • Gnosticism • Montanism • Monarchianism or modalism • Arianism

38. 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

39. 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

40. 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

41. (approx AD 160-220)A lawyer from Carthage, North Africa Tertullian

42. 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”

43. 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

44. 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

45. The main Heresies • Gnosticism • Montanism • Monarchianism or modalism • Arianism

46. 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

47. 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

48. 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

49. (AD 184-253)from Alexandria and then Caesarea in Palestine Origen

50. 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,