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Top: Society: Religion_and_Spirituality: Christianity: Denominations: Catholicism: History: By_Time_Period: Early_Church: Heresies
Heresies in the Early Church from the beginning of the Christian era to the fall of the Western Roman Empire(5th century AD.)
Adoptionism, also called dynamic monarchianism, is a belief concerning Christ that first appeared in the second century. Those who held it denied the preexistence of Christ and, therefore, His deity. Adoptionists taught that Jesus was tested by God and after passing this test and upon His baptism, He was granted supernatural powers by God and adopted as the Son. As a reward for His great accomplishments and perfect character Jesus was raised from the dead and adopted into the Godhead.
Apollinarianism was a fourth-century Christological heresy propounded by Apollinaris of Laodicea. The theory that Jesus had a human body and soul, but that the Logos took the place of the human spirit or mind in Jesus. It was solemnly condemned at the Council of Constantinople in 381.
Arius, a priest of Egyptian Alexandria, began to preach that the Second Person of the Trinity, known as Jesus Christ, was not truly equal to the Father, nor therefore could he be "true God of true God." He was, according to Arius, nothing more than a creature immensely more perfect than any other creature, but a creature, nonetheless. This teaching was rejected at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.
The orthodox idea of Christ was that he is fully God, yet existed as fully human, the two natures being “eternally distinct and uniquely united” at the same time, and that he suffered as a human. Heresies in this category are those which contradict these principles.
Docetism (from the Greek δοκέω [dokeō], "to seem") is the belief that Jesus' physical body was an illusion, as was his crucifixion; that is, Jesus only seemed to have a physical body and to physically die, but in reality he was incorporeal, a pure spirit, and hence could not physically die.
The Donatists were a schismatic sect of especially rigorous Christians in North Africa from the fourth to the seventh centuries. Donatism was essentially a response to alternating periods of persecution followed by toleration, culminating in the beginning of the fourth century by the formal legalization of Christianity by Constantine. The Donatists held that Christians who had caved in to persecution were no longer fit to occupy positions of leadership in the Church, and, perhaps more importantly, had lost the grace of the Holy Spirit to effectively administer sacraments.
Ebionites [Aramaic,=poor],are a Jewish-Christian sect of rural ancient Palestine, of the first centuries after Jesus. There were two groups, according to Origen. The Judaic Ebionites held closely to Mosaic law and regarded Jesus as a miracle-working prophet and St. Paul as an apostate. Gnostic Ebionites believed Christ to be a spirit, invisible to men, giving him the title "Prophet of the Truth."
The Encratites were an ascetic Christian sect led by Tatian, a 2nd-century Syrian rhetorician. The name derived from the group’s doctrine of continence (Greek: enkrateia). The sect shunned marriage, the eating of flesh, and the drinking of intoxicating beverages, even substituting water or milk for wine in the Eucharist.The name of Tatian (c. 120-173 CE), who edited a complilation of the gospels called the Diatesseron is associated with this heresy. Around 172, Tatian became a Gnostic of the Encratite sect. Tatian reinterpreted the story of Adam and Eve and Christian documents such as 1 Corinthians 7:3-6 to support the idea that humans must abandon sexual intercourse in order to regain the Spirit of God that had been lost because of Adam and Eve's fraility. People were to be married to God, not to each other.
Eutychianism was an early heresy which maintained that Jesus Christ was of one nature only.The heresy was named after Eutyches of Constantinople, who tried in the year 433 to make the 12 Anathemas of Cyril of Alexandria the standard of orthodoxy and do away with the "inspired man" Christology of Antioch. Another goal was to make Alexandria, instead of Constantinople, the second most powerful see in Christendom (next to Rome).
The view of Eutyches was that Christ had only one nature - a confused mixture of human and divine. Eutycianism is also known as monophysitism from monos (single) and physis (nature). It assumes that Christ can have only one nature, which is a mixture of divine nature and human natures, such that the human becomes divine and the divine human. This confuses both Christ’s true humanity and his true deity. The view was officially deemed heresy by the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE.
Followers of Manes (216-277) adhered to a radical dualism between good and evil, or spirit and body, and recommended an ascetic way of life. Augustine, who had been a Manichaean before his conversion to Christianity, later wrote an extended refutation of this heretical doctrine.
Marcionism is the dualist belief system that originates in the teachings of Marcion of Sinope at Rome around the year 144 AD. Marcion affirmed Jesus Christ as the savior sent by God but denied the incarnation of God in Jesus as a human. Marcion also rejected the Hebrew Bible and declared that the God of the Hebrew Bible was a lesser demiurge, who had created the earth, but was (de facto) the source of evil.
Monarchianism opposes the concept of Trinity, the divine unity of God, the Holy Sprit and Jesus Christ. Monarchianism represents an ultimate monotheism. In Monarchianism, only God was the deity. But as Monarchianism did not reject the existence of the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ, it faced the similar problems of definition as the advocates of Trinity did.Monarchianism was represented in two orientations, Sabellianism and Adoptionism. Sabellianism, or Modal Monarchianism as it often is called, defined God to be a single unity appearing in three modes.
Adoptionism, or Dynamic Monarchianism as it often is called, also declared God to be a single unity, but explained Jesus Christ to be of divine nature only temporarily, only for as long as his mission lasted.
Monophysitism is a Christological heresy that originated in the 5th century A.D. Its chief proponent was the monk Eutyches, who stated that in the person of Jesus Christ the human nature was absorbed into the divine nature like a cube of sugar dissolves in a cup of water. Therefore, Christ was left with only one nature, the Divine (Greek mono- one, physis - nature).Eutyches' position on monophysitism is often referred to as Eutychianism, a position that went beyond the Christology as expressed by Cyril of Alexandria and is also anathematized by non-Chalcedonians who accept the faith of Cyril. Eutyches formulated this doctrine in response to the heresy of Nestorianism, which divided the person of Christ almost to the point of having two separate persons (not two natures, as the Orthodox believe).
Another branch of monophysitism, called Apollinarianism, holds that Christ had a human body and human "living principle," but that the Divine Logos had taken the place of the nous, or "thinking principle," analogous but not identical to what might be called a mind in the present day.
Monophysitism (particularly Eutyches' variety) was condemned at the Fourth Ecumenical Council, held in Chalcedon in the year 451. Apollinarianism had previously been condemned at the Second Ecumenical Council in 381.
Monothelitism was the christological doctrine that Jesus had one will but two natures (divine and human). Under the influence of the Patriarch Sergius I of Constantinople, monothelitism was developed during the reign of Heraclius (610-641) as a response to the failure of Monoenergism as an attempt to reconcile the Monophysites with the Chalcedonians.
Montanism is a movement founded in AD 156 by Montanus. Having converted to Christianity, Montanus fell into a trance and began to prophesy. Others joined him, and the movement spread through Asia Minor. The Montanists held that the Holy Spirit was speaking through Montanus and that the Second Coming was imminent. The bishops of Asia Minor excommunicated the Montanists (c. 177), but the movement continued in the East as a separate sect; it also flourished in Carthage, where its most illustrious convert was Tertullian. It had almost died out by the 5th – 6th century, though some remnants survived into the 9th century.
Nestorianism is the doctrine that Christ exists as two persons, the man Jesus and the divine Son of God, or Logos, rather than as two natures (True God and True Man) of one divine person. The doctrine is identified with Nestorius (c. 386–c. 451), Archbishop of Constantinople. This view of Christ was condemned at the Council of Ephesus in 431, and the conflict over this view led to the Nestorian schism, separating the Assyrian Church of the East from the Byzantine Church.
Pelagianism views humanity as basically good and morally unaffected by the Fall. It denies the imputation of Adam's sin, original sin, total depravity, and substitutionary atonement. It simultaneously views man as fundamentally good and in possession of libertarian free will. With regards to salvation, it teaches that man has the ability in and of himself (apart from divine aid) to obey God and earn eternal salvation.Pelagianism was deemed to be incompatible with the Bible and was historically opposed by Augustine (354-430), Bishop of Hippo, leading to its condemnation as a heresy at Council of Carthage in 418 A.D. These condemnations were summarily ratified at the Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431).
Sabellianism (also known as modalism or modalistic monarchianism) is the nontrinitarian belief that the Heavenly Father, Resurrected Son and Holy Spirit are different modes or aspects of one God, as perceived by the believer, rather than three distinct persons in God Himself.
The orthodox idea of man and his need for salvation is that God already knows all who are chosen for eternal life (the elect), yet man has the free will to choose whether or not to believe in Christ’s redemptive work. This category is for those ideas which contradict these concepts.
Subordinationism is a doctrine in Christian theology which holds that God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are eternally subordinate to God the Father, implying a hierarchical view of the Trinity. Subordinationism is sometimes mistakenly confused with Arianism. While Arius and his followers were certainly also subordinationist, the Arians also went further to assert that there was a time when Christ did not exist (ex nihilo.)
The orthodox idea of the Trinity is that God (the Father), Jesus Christ (the Son), and the Holy Spirit are simultaneously three distinct beings, and all the same being, none subserviant to another, all three with complete equality and a single will. There was no time when any did not exist. These heresies here contradict some of those concepts.
Tritheism is the teaching that the Godhead is really three separate beings forming three separate gods. This contradicts the doctrine of the Trinity which states that there is but one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The doctrine of the trinity is, by definition, monothestic. That is, it is a doctrine that affirms that there is only one God in all the universe.
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