KNOW THE HERETICS<\/p>\n
JUSTIN S. HOLCOMB<\/p>\n
ZONDERVAN<\/p>\n
Know the Heretics
\nCopyright \u00a9 2014 by Justin Holcomb<\/p>\n
This title is also available as a Zondervan ebook.<\/p>\n
Requests for information should be addressed to:
\nZondervan, 3900 Sparks Drive SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546<\/p>\n
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
\nHolcomb, Justin S.
\nKnow the heretics \/ Justin S. Holcomb.
\npages cm.\u2014 (The know series)
\nIncludes bibliographical references.
\nISBN 978-0-310-51507-4 (softcover)
\n1. Christian heresies. 2. Christian heretics. I. Title.
\nBT1315.3.H65 2014
\n273\u2014dc23
\n2013049100<\/p>\n
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version\u00ae, NIV\u00ae. Copyright \u00a9 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.\u00ae Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. www.Zondervan.com. The \u201cNIV\u201d and \u201cNew International Version\u201d are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.\u00ae<\/p>\n
Scripture quotations marked RSV are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. Copyright \u00a9 1946, 1952, 1971 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means\u2014electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other\u2014except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.<\/p>\n
Cover design: Gearbox<\/p>\n
First printing April 2014<\/p>\n
CONTENTS<\/p>\n
Foreword by Thomas C. Oden
\nAcknowledgments<\/p>\n
Introduction: Why Heresy?<\/p>\n
1. Judaizers: The Old Rules Still Apply
\n2. Gnostics: God Hides Messages for the Enlightened
\n3. Marcion: Vengeful Yahweh versus Gentle Jesus
\n4. Docetists: The Spiritual Is Good, the Physical Is Evil
\n5. Mani: God Must Be Freed
\n6. Sabellius: One Actor and Three Hats
\n7. Arius: Jesus Is a Lesser God
\n8. Apollinarius: Christ May Be Human, but His Mind Is Divine
\n9. Pelagius: God Has Already Given Us the Tools
\n10. Eutyches: Christ as a New Kind of Being
\n11. Nestorius: Christ\u2019s Divinity Must Be Shielded
\n12. Socinus: The Trinity Is Irrelevant and Jesus\u2019 Death Is Only an Example<\/p>\n
Conclusion<\/p>\n
Appendix 1: The Council of Nicaea and the Nicene Creed
\nAppendix 2: Antioch and Alexandria; Two Understandings of Christ<\/p>\n
FOREWORD<\/p>\n
Why try to understand the heretics? We learn something important from them: how to distinguish the apostolic teaching from those views of Scripture that are not consistent with original Christianity. The heretics warn us not to be deceived by well-meaning teachers who have not listened carefully enough to Scripture to articulate the faith as understood by the apostles. Classic Christian writers have pointed to God\u2019s purpose for permitting heresies: to awaken the church to misinterpretations of the apostles\u2019 intentions.
\nIn Know the Heretics, Justin Holcomb has condensed a great deal of complex information into concise, well-informed, and simple explanations of why these ideas are \u201cother than\u201d (hairesis) that which has been consensually received by the major interpreters of the apostolic tradition over the largest possible time frame.<\/p>\n
\u2014THOMAS C. ODEN<\/p>\n
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS<\/p>\n
First of all, a special thanks to Jeffrey Haines for his superb research assistance and editing. Much gratitude for those who also assisted with research: Jordan Buckley, James Gordon, Nathan Chang.
\nI would like to thank Carl Trueman for his insights and advice on how to approach the history of heretics and heresies.
\nAt Zondervan, I would like to thank my editor, Madison Trammel, who supported the book and series marvelously.<\/p>\n
INTRODUCTION<\/p>\n
Why Heresy?<\/p>\n
The orthodox Church never took the tame course or accepted the conventions; the orthodox Church was never respectable \u2026 It is always easier to let the age have its head; the difficult thing is to keep one\u2019s own.<\/p>\n
\u2014G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy<\/p>\n
Who is Jesus? Is he divine? Is he human? How does he relate to the God of the Old Testament? How do the divinity and humanity of Christ relate to his work in saving humanity? How is the fact that Christ was both human and God connected to how he rescues humanity? What does that rescue look like? How does Jesus save\u2014by example or by some supernatural intervention?
\nThese are the questions that the leaders and thinkers of the early church wrestled with after the time of the apostles. And as you might imagine, the answers were far from clear-cut. Over the course of the first few centuries, a large number of theories were developed to try to explain all that the Bible has to say about God and humanity. But not all of these explanations were equally well grounded\u2014many of them owed too much to the spirit of the times or cut out essential parts of the Bible in order to make the explanation fit. This book is the story of those theories\u2014what they were and why they did not become a part of mainstream Christianity. Some believe that these theories were rejected because the institutional church was unwilling to be open minded; however, although I have tried to represent them as fairly as possible here, I am taking the position that they were rejected because they simply did not measure up to the beliefs that were accepted in the end.
\nThe main terms I will use throughout this book for the different sides are \u201corthodoxy,\u201d for the mainstream doctrines, and \u201cheresy,\u201d for the theories that were not accepted.<\/p>\n
What Is Orthodoxy?<\/p>\n
Orthodoxy (literally \u201cright teaching\u201d) is the word that most scholars use for mainstream Christianity. But as you might imagine, every group thinks that it has the right teaching! What\u2019s more, the groups that we will be describing as orthodox were not always those who had the support of the institutional church, the smartest thinkers, or the greatest influence. During the Arian controversy (chapter 7), for instance, not only did most of the clergy take the heretical side but the state persecuted the group that we are going to refer to as orthodox. A similar thing happened during the Monothelite controversy, when the heresy was contained to a small group but happened to include the emperor and the highest church officials. So orthodoxy and heresy can\u2019t be measured by the number of bishops or intellectuals\u2014or numbers, period\u2014who embraced a given theory.
\nBecause we aren\u2019t basing our definitions of orthodoxy on how these groups viewed themselves or on an objective category like number of supporters, a cynical interpretation might be that orthodoxy is the teaching that succeeded and heresy the teaching that lost out. In this view, modern Christianity is more or less an accident. We believe that certain theories are better not because they are truer but because we happen to have inherited them. (Much like saying that if a Christian had been born in India, he would have been a Hindu; if Arianism had won out, we would all be Arians and think that Arianism was more faithful to the Bible.) We\u2019ll come back to this view in a bit, because it deserves a detailed response, but suffice it to say that I believe that God is active in the world and is interested in preserving his revelation, his truth, and his church, even though his revelation may be misunderstood or ignored, the truth may be doubted or questioned, and his church may go through some dark and puzzling times.
\nIn the end, I will define orthodoxy as follows. Orthodoxy is the teaching that best follows the Bible and best summarizes what it teaches\u2014best accounts for the paradoxes and apparent contradictions, best preserves the mystery of God in the places where reason can\u2019t go, and best communicates the story of the forgiveness of the gospel. For each heresy that we discuss, I will try to demonstrate why the orthodox position best accounts for the Bible\u2019s teaching and why it was a good thing that the church chose it.<\/p>\n
What Is Heresy?<\/p>\n
Heresy can be a fighting word. Traditionally, a heretic is someone who has compromised an essential doctrine and lost sight of who God really is, usually by oversimplification. Literally, heresy means \u201cchoice\u201d\u2014that is, a choice to deviate from traditional teaching in favor of one\u2019s own insights. But that sense of the word has been lost. To some people today, heretic suggests a rebel\u2014someone with courage, the kind of person who can think for himself and stand up to the institutional church. Some Christians simply use the word to refer to anyone who doesn\u2019t agree with their particular version of Christianity. In modern parlance, the word heretic usually means that you aren\u2019t in the club, but it\u2019s not the sort of club you would want to be in anyway.
\nThere have been times when the church has taken extreme measures to punish innocent dissidents by labeling them heretics. Even so, giving heresy a positive meaning is worrisome. The concept of heresy is a valid one. It\u2019s true that the church has often been too quick to brand a new leader or idea as heretical, sometimes to its later embarrassment\u2014the way that the Catholic Church handled Galileo\u2019s idea that the earth revolves around the sun is a classic example\u2014but in many instances, a legitimate heresy has threatened to confuse ordinary believers simply because of the speculations of an influential thinker. It is often a fine balance between allowing free exploration of who God is and reasserting what we can know for sure, and in the cases presented in this book, the exploration went so far as to distort our understanding of God as he has revealed himself to us.
\nThis book is a case study of fourteen major events when the church made the right call\u2014not for political or status reasons (though politics and status sometimes played a part) but because orthodox teaching preserved Jesus\u2019 message in the best sense, and the new teaching distorted it.
\nAs Christianity grew and spread, it increasingly came into contact with competing belief systems such as paganism, Greek philosophy, Gnosticism, and others. Inevitably, teachers arose who attempted to solve the intellectual difficulties of Christian faith and make it more compatible with other philosophical systems. In this way, many of the heresies that arose had to do with the identity of Jesus Christ as he related to the God of Israel.
\nIt should be made clear that most of those dubbed heretics were usually asking legitimate and important questions. They weren\u2019t heretics because they asked the questions. It is the answers that they gave that are wrong. They went too far by trying to make the Christian faith more compatible with ideas that they already found appealing, especially those of pagan Greek philosophy. Others struggled with Jesus\u2019 claims to be both sent from God and one with God. The reactions of the religious leaders in the New Testament to Jesus\u2019 claims underline the difficulty of this revelation and point to later struggles about Jesus\u2019 identity.
\nThe following briefly describes the answers given by some of the thinkers we will cover in more detail in this book:<\/p>\n
Marcion: The God of the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament are two different gods.
\nDocetists: Jesus only appeared to be human.
\nArius: The Son was a created being of a lower order than the Father.
\nApollinarius: Jesus\u2019 divine nature\/Logos replaced the human rational soul in the incarnation. In other words, Jesus\u2019 \u201cpure\u201d divine nature replaced the \u201cfilthy\u201d mind of a typical human.
\nSabellius: Jesus and the Father are not distinct but just \u201cmodes\u201d of a single being.
\nEutyches: The divinity of Christ overwhelms his humanity.
\nNestorius: Jesus was composed of two separate persons, one divine and one human.<\/p>\n
Whereas orthodox Christianity answers Jesus\u2019 question to Peter\u2014\u201cWho do you say I am?\u201d (Mark 8:29)\u2014by affirming that Christ was both God (the Creator of the universe, the Lord of Israel) and human (an average Joe, yet without sin), these heretical thinkers answered the question differently. As we will see, their challenges caused a tragic amount of controversy among Christians in the early centuries of the church. However, with each new heresy, the church was forced to study the Scriptures, wrestle with intellectual problems, and articulate more clearly the \u201cfaith which was once for all delivered to the saints\u201d (Jude 3 RSV).<\/p>\n
Does the Bible Mention Heresy?<\/p>\n
The Bible itself seems to presuppose a right and a wrong interpretation of Jesus\u2019 coming and the nature and character of God, as it uses strong language against false teachers who promote doctrines that undermine the gospel. As historical theologian Bruce Demarest notes, \u201cthe NT expresses serious concern for \u2018false doctrines\u2019 (1 Tim. 1:3; 6:3) and places the highest priority on maintaining \u2018the pattern of sound teaching\u2019 (2 Tim. 1:13; cf. 1 Tim. 6:3). Scripture urges Christians to be alert to doctrinal deception (Mt. 24:4) and to avoid heresy by carefully guarding the pure content of the gospel (1 Cor. 11:2; Gal. 1:8).\u201d
\nIn Galatians 1:9, Paul uses the strongest words possible against those who distort the gospel, writing, \u201cIf anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God\u2019s curse!\u201d And the apostle Peter warns against \u201cfalse teachers among you [who] will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them\u2014bringing swift destruction on themselves\u201d (2 Peter 2:1).
\nAs is clear from the New Testament, the apostles were not afraid to call out heresy when they saw it. If a teaching or practice threatened the integrity of the gospel, it was strongly condemned (as in the case of Peter and the circumcision party described in Galatians 2). However, heresy was a weighty charge that was not made lightly, nor was it used whenever there was theological inaccuracy or imprecision. (Think of the response to Apollos in Acts 18:24\u201328.)<\/p>\n
Heresy and the Early Church<\/p>\n
Following the apostles, the early church maintained that heresy means directly denying the central orthodox beliefs of the church. Early church creedal statements codified orthodoxy into a widely accepted form. Even before important Christian beliefs such as the canon of Scripture (list of books in the Bible) and the Trinity had been carefully articulated, the mainstream of Christian believers and leaders had a sense of the essential truths that had been handed down from the apostles and the prophets, and passed along to each generation of Christians through Scripture, sermons, and baptismal creeds. Before the developments at Nicaea and Chalcedon regarding the proper beliefs about the Trinity and the dual natures of Christ, the early church possessed what is known as the \u201crule of faith.\u201d To quote Demarest again, \u201cThe early church defended itself against heretical teaching by appealing to \u2018the rule of faith\u2019 or \u2018the rule of truth\u2019, which were brief summaries of essential Christian truths \u2026 The fluid \u2018rule of faith\u2019 gave way to more precise instruments for refuting heresies and defining faith, namely, creedal formulations such as the Apostles\u2019 Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Definition of Chalcedon and the Athanasian Creed.\u201d
\nThe New Testament speaks frequently about false teaching and doctrine. For the early church, heresy was merely teaching that stood in contrast to the right belief received from the prophets and the apostles in the Scriptures and put into written formulas in the rule of faith and the creeds. The early church formed an accepted and received statement of what is true and essential to the Christian faith. The rule of faith gave birth to more precise statements of the essentials of the faith, such as the Apostles\u2019 Creed and the Nicene Creed. These widely accepted formulations of the essential \u201cright doctrine\u201d (orthodoxy) handed down from the apostles were crucial for combating heresy.
\nIt is important to note, however, that the early church did not consider every potential wrong belief to be heretical. Rather, only those beliefs that contradicted the essential elements of the faith were to be labeled heresy, not disagreements on nonessential doctrines.
\nUnlike some churches today, the early church did not stipulate all of the minor beliefs that its members should hold, nor did it consider mere disagreement to be heresy. Significant leaders in the early church wrote about heresy as a corruption of right doctrine rather than merely an alternative point of view:<\/p>\n
Origen: \u201cAll heretics are at first believers; then later they deviate from the rule of faith.\u201d
\nIrenaeus urged Christians \u201cto avoid every heretical, godless and impious doctrine.\u201d
\nTertullian said that \u201cto know nothing in opposition to the rule of faith is to know all things.\u201d He also said that \u201cthe philosophers are the fathers of the heretics.\u201d
\nClement of Alexandria said that heresies are a result of self-deceit and a mishandling of the Scriptures.
\nCyprian said, \u201cSatan invented heresies and schisms with which to overthrow the faith, to corrupt the truth and to divide unity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not All Theological Errors Are Equally Serious<\/p>\n
Because there is always some room for mystery and speculation, both the Roman Catholic and Reformed traditions have been careful to distinguish three \u201czones\u201d between strict orthodoxy and outright heresy. In Catholicism, to bluntly deny an explicitly defined church doctrine is heresy in the first degree\u2014for example, a severe contradiction, like saying that Christ is not God. A doctrine that has not been explicitly defined by one of the church\u2019s articles of faith but diverges from the received majority view is considered an opinion approaching heresy (sententia haeresi proxima)\u2014for instance, to say that Christ can be found in other religions. One who holds a position that does not directly contradict received tradition but logically denies an explicitly defined truth is said to be erroneous in theology (propositio theologice erronea). Finally, a belief that cannot be definitively shown to be in opposition to an article of faith of the church is said to be suspected or savoring of heresy (sententia de haeresi suspecta, haeresim sapiens).
\nSimilarly, the Reformed tradition has traditionally distinguished three kinds of doctrinal error related to fundamental articles of the faith: (1) errors directly against a fundamental article (contra fundamentum); (2) errors around a fundamental or in indirect contradiction to it (circa fundamentum); (3) errors beyond a fundamental article (praeter fundamentum).
\nThe point is that historically both the Roman Catholic tradition and the Reformed tradition have understood that not all theological errors are equally serious. Theological historian David Christie-Murray distinguishes between orthodoxy, the body of Christian belief which has emerged as a consensus through time as the church reflects on Scripture; heterodoxy, Christian belief which differs from orthodoxy; and heresy, belief that diverges from orthodoxy beyond a certain point.
\nIt is important to bear these distinctions in mind as we discuss heresy, since there are those who think that heresy is anything that does not agree with their own interpretation of Holy Scripture. These people fail to differentiate between the primary and secondary elements of the Christian faith and make every belief they have into a pillar of Christianity. So, on this view, if someone disagrees with them about the millennium, about infant baptism, about the role of women in ministry, or about the nature of the atonement, they are quickly labeled a heretic. While such impulses can be well intentioned, sometimes because Scripture reveals a great deal about God\u2019s workings, the church of the New Testament walked the line between holding fast to some convictions and being flexible about others.
\nThough this group of heresy-hunters often say they\u2019re motivated by concern for the faith once for all delivered to the saints, their practice of labeling every diverging belief as heresy has the opposite effect. Rather than making much of right belief, they minimize its importance by making, for example, the mode of baptism to be as important as the divinity of Christ. When everything is central, nothing is.<\/p>\n
Is It Even Appropriate to Speak of Heresy?<\/p>\n
In a modern, pluralistic society, it can be hard to imagine a \u201cwrong\u201d or \u201cdangerous\u201d interpretation of a religion, as long as it does not encourage violence or hurt to others. This is particularly true when it comes to a book like the Bible, which everyone agrees has a few parts that are difficult to understand. For this reason, more and more scholars are arguing that it is no longer appropriate to speak of heresy and orthodoxy in the early church. Instead, they argue, there were a number of early Christian groups who all took Jesus\u2019 words to mean different things. According to this theory, the Christianity that modern people practice is simply the descendant of one of these early groups that happened to win out\u2014the other early Christian groups are heretical from its point of view, but from their point of view modern Christianity would be heretical. (This is a scholarly version of the historical accident view mentioned in the section on orthodoxy.)
\nThis idea was most famously promoted by Walter Bauer, a twentieth-century scholar of early Christianity who wrote about his theory in Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity in 1934. Bauer argued that there was really no such thing as objective heresy in the early church. Rather, according to his thesis, the Roman church labeled its own view of Christian doctrine orthodoxy while calling others who did not hold to their own views heretical. Bauer argued that these heretical forms of Christianity actually preceded so-called orthodoxy. According to him, there were many early Christian movements that we know of today as heretical that were actually practicing some form or another of legitimate expression of devotion to Christ. Thus, heresy is not a concept to be viewed in contrast to truth or right doctrine; rather heresy is any view that opposes the political interests of the church and as such needs to be stamped out. Orthodoxy is merely that which has been advanced by the Roman church as correct in order to facilitate some sort of oppressive control over those who would thwart their expansive efforts.
\nThere is much to be said against this view. Bauer\u2019s thesis has been shown time and time again to be false. In reaction to Bauer, Canon H. E. W. Turner argued in his book The Pattern of Christian Truth that early Christians held to three fixed, nonnegotiable elements of faith: (1) religious facts such as God the creator and the divine historical redeemer Christ; (2) the centrality of biblical revelation; and (3) the creed and the rule of faith. That is, early Christians, though marred by sin and susceptible to error, were ultimately concerned with truth about God, not politics.
\nIn fact, it is the historical redeemer (rather than myth), the centrality of the Bible (over pagan philosophy), and the traditional creed (rather than innovation) that distinguished the orthodox from the heretics. An important question regarding heresy is whether there is really a tradition that leads back to Jesus Christ. The ancient Christians took great pains to establish such a connection; they were interested not simply in propagandizing other groups but in upholding what they believed to be their authentic inheritance, based on real events that had made a difference in the world. \u201cTo my mind,\u201d Ignatius of Antioch declared less than a century after Christ, \u201cit is Jesus Christ who is the original documents. The inviolable archives are his cross and death and his resurrection and the faith that came by him. It is by these things and by your prayers that I want to be justified.\u201d It was vital for Ignatius and others like him to preserve the story of Christ as it had been passed down to them. As will be seen, most heretical groups were not particularly interested in doing likewise.<\/p>\n
Why Do We Need to Learn about Heresy?<\/p>\n
Core Christian doctrines such as the Trinity, the nature of Christ, and which books should be included in Scripture were developed through the early church\u2019s struggles with heresy. When teachers began to lead movements that were blatantly opposed to the apostolic tradition, the church was forced to articulate the essential elements of the faith.
\nThe history of heretics, heresies, and the orthodox leaders who responded to them can be disheartening. Why learn about arguments over what sometimes seems like theological minutiae? There are two major reasons. The first is that while there is certainly ambiguity in the Bible, the Creator of the world has decided to reveal himself to us and even to live with us. It is important to honor that revelation. When we find this revelation distasteful and try to reshape God according to our preferences, we are beginning to drift away from God as he really is. Imagine a friend who ignores the parts of you that he or she doesn\u2019t like. Is that a deep relationship? Ambiguity or not, uncomfortable or not, it is vital that we are obedient to what we can know about God.
\nThe second reason is related to the first. When we have a flawed image of God, we no longer relate to him in the same way. Think of the way that you might have related to your parents when you were growing up. Even if you didn\u2019t necessarily understand the reasons behind boundaries they set for you in childhood, they look a lot different when you are confident in your parents\u2019 love than when you fear or resent your parents. It is surprising how much our beliefs about God impact our daily lives, which is partly what makes theology such a rewarding (although difficult and dangerous) discipline.
\nIt cannot be repeated enough that (as the old cliche goes) those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Moreover, as C. S. Lewis warns, if we remain ignorant of the errors and triumphs of our history, we run the risk of what he calls \u201cchronological snobbery,\u201d the arrogant assumption that the values and beliefs of our own time have surpassed all that came before. Lewis writes, \u201cWe need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.\u201d
\nLearning how Christians throughout history have wrestled with the tough questions of our faith gives us a valuable perspective and keeps us from assuming that our own know-how, pat answers, or inspiring platitudes are best suited to solving the problems of the world.<\/p>\n
Know the Heretics<\/p>\n
This book aims to provide an accessible overview of some of the major heresies throughout the Christian tradition. It is not intended as a comprehensive guide to all heresies\u2014there are far too many for anything less than an encyclopedia to cover them all. Nor is this book meant to offer any kind of systematic theory of the nature of heresy and orthodoxy. Rather, I hope that after reading this book you will come away with a greater understanding of the main heretical figures and ideas that have most impacted the history of Christianity.
\nThis book is designed to be read by individuals or used in a group setting. My hope is that this book will complement longer works such as Alister McGrath\u2019s Heresy: A History of Defending the Truth. His book is about heresy in general and touches only briefly on specific heresies and heretics.
\nThe chapters are brief and to the point. For each heretic, I present the historical background, the heretical teaching, the orthodox response, and contemporary relevance. Because some readers will prefer to look at just a few specific issues, I have tried to strike a balance between letting each chapter stand alone and building the narrative of the \u201cprogression of doctrine.\u201d Recommended reading for further study and discussion questions are included at the end of each chapter.<\/p>\n
Further Reading on Heretics and Heresies<\/p>\n
Bromiley, Geoffrey. Historical Theology: An Introduction. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1978.
\nBrown, Harold O. J. Heresies: Heresies and Orthodoxy in the History of the Church. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003.
\nChadwick, Henry. The Early Church. Rev. ed. New York: Penguin, 1993.
\nDavis, Leo Donald. The First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325\u2013787): Their History and Theology. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1983.
\nFrend, W. H. C. The Rise of Christianity. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984.
\nKelly, J. N. D. Early Christian Doctrines. Rev. ed. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1978.
\nKostenberger, Andreas, Michael J. Kruger, and I. Howard Marshall. The Heresy of Orthodoxy: How Contemporary Culture\u2019s Fascination with Diversity Has Reshaped Our Understanding of Early Christianity. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010.
\nMcGrath, Alistair E. Heresy: A History of Defending the Truth. New York: HarperOne, 2010.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. Historical Theology: An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1998.
\nNichols, Stephen J. For Us and for Our Salvation: The Doctrine of Christ in the Early Church. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007.
\nOlson, Roger E. The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition and Reform. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Academic, 1999.
\nPelikan, Jaroslav. The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100\u2013600). Vol. 1 of The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1971.
\nQuash, Ben, and Michael Ward. Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007.
\nSchaff, Philip. History of the Christian Church. Vol. 2. 1858; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2006.
\nSchaff, Philip and Henry Wace, eds. Ante-Nicene Fathers. Vol. 1. Reprint. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. Ante-Nicene Fathers. Vol. 3. Reprint. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: First Series. Vol. 5. Reprint. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Second Series. Vol. 4. Translated by Cardinal Newman. Reprint. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995.<\/p>\n
CHAPTER 1<\/p>\n
JUDAIZERS<\/p>\n
The Old Rules Still Apply<\/p>\n
Historical Background<\/p>\n
One of the earliest heresies in the church is known only from the New Testament. As everyone knows, Jesus was a Jewish man, and most of his early followers were Jewish as well. In fact, there are some statements that suggest that his mission was a purely Jewish affair; for instance, consider how he says, \u201cDo not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them\u201d (Matt. 5:17), and, \u201cI was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel\u201d (Matt. 15:24). But mixed with these Jewish statements are several instances when he heals non-Jews and sends his disciples to spread the message of his coming to the peoples surrounding Israel.
\nAs long as those coming to Christ were circumcised and followed the customs of the Jewish law of the Old Testament, there was no issue about Jewishness or non-Jewishness. But when uncircumcised Gentiles started following Christ, the church became divided on what Christ had intended. Did he mean that Christianity was to be an updated or expanded version of Judaism, in which the laws of the Old Testament were now to be applied to converted non-Jews? If not, what was the connection between Christ and the Old Testament\u2014how could the new followers still be heirs of the promises that God had made to the Jewish people? Certain Jewish believers wanted the Gentiles to be circumcised and to follow Jewish customs if they were to be saved and considered their equals in Christ. These early Jewish Christians have come to be known as the Judaizers.<\/p>\n
Heretical Teaching<\/p>\n
There are three major incidents with Judaizers in the New Testament. One is the circumcised believers criticizing of Peter for eating with Gentiles (non-Jews) in Acts 11, a second is the first church council in Acts 15, and the last is the Paul\u2019s opposition of Peter recorded in Galatians 2. From these three incidents, we can gather the basics of the Judaizing heresy.
\nThe first incident occurs in Acts 11. In Acts 10, the apostle Peter receives a vision in which all foods are declared clean, contrary to Jewish law. He interprets this vision to mean that all people, \u201cclean\u201d and \u201cunclean\u201d or \u201cJew\u201d and \u201cGentile,\u201d are meant to be included in God\u2019s kingdom, and the Holy Spirit leads him to the house of a Gentile named Cornelius to put this new plan into practice. However, when Peter returns to Jerusalem from the house of Cornelius, a group known as the \u201ccircumcision party\u201d (the Judaizers) is upset with him: \u201cSo when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying, \u2018Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?\u2019 \u201d (Acts 11:2\u20133 RSV).
\nThe circumcision party seems to be an established group by this point, because the reader is expected to know who they are without any explanation. The criticism that Peter faces here for eating with an uncircumcised believer will reappear later from the other side of the fence; Paul will criticize him for refusing to eat with uncircumcised believers.
\nThe second major appearance of the circumcision party comes during the first church council, which is described in Acts 15. In that instance, Paul and Barnabas are in Antioch, where they \u201cgathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles\u201d (Acts 14:27). However, \u201cCertain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: \u2018Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.\u2019 This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question\u201d (Acts 15:1\u20132).
\nHere the ideas of the circumcision party become clearer. In Acts 11, the circumcision party criticizes Peter, but does not explain why eating with an uncircumcised believer is a big deal. In Acts 15, we see that these men who came from Judea specifically connect the act of circumcision with salvation. The Gentiles must be circumcised like Jews or they \u201ccannot be saved\u201d (Greek sozo, used for salvation throughout the New Testament). The passage continues with Paul, Barnabas, and the others appointed to accompany them going to Jerusalem to discuss the matter: \u201cWhen they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders, to whom they reported everything God had done through them. Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, \u2018The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses\u2019 \u201d (Acts 15:4\u20135).
\nTwo things are worth noticing here: circumcision is mentioned again as the prerequisite to salvation, and it is some believers (that is, people inside the church rather than another sect) who were formerly members of the Pharisees who are stirring things up. The circumcision party is openly interested in forcing non-Jewish Christians to observe Jewish customs, with the most prominent customs being those that clearly separated Jews from the surrounding culture: often circumcision, though issues like calendar observances (for example, Sabbath) and food laws seem to be on the agenda as well.
\nHowever, the best-known encounter with the circumcision party occurs later, in Galatians, where Paul coins the term \u201cJudaizer.\u201d The word Judaizer is found only once in the entire New Testament, in Galatians 2:14, where Paul rebukes Peter (Cephas) for no longer eating with Gentiles when certain Jews arrive in Antioch. For a traditional Jew, eating with a non-Jew made him \u201cunclean\u201d\u2014not morally evil, but what we might think of as \u201cdirty.\u201d Peter is implicitly endorsing the circumcision party, and Paul calls him out: \u201cWhen I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas [Peter] in front of them all, \u2018You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs [in the Greek, \u201cJudaize\u201d]?\u2019 \u201d (Gal. 2:14).
\nDepending on the English version, the underlying word is translated in slightly different ways: \u201clive like Jews\u201d (ESV, NASB), \u201cfollow Jewish customs\u201d (NIV), \u201cfollow the Jewish traditions\u201d (NLT). However, the gist of the word is the same. It is found in some other literature outside the New Testament, as well, where it indicates living like a Jew. The issue here is not simply that Peter was following his native customs but that he was sending the message that it was following those customs that reconciled Gentiles with God. As one scholar writes, \u201cPaul\u2019s opponents were not merely insisting on the nationalization of Gentiles into Israel as a prerequisite for fellowship in the church, but were strenuously insisting that their very salvation rested on obeying the law.\u201d Thus, Paul saw Judaizing conduct as \u201cnot acting in line with the truth of the gospel\u201d (Gal. 2:14).
\nBut the Judaizers drew their beliefs not from pagan philosophy or exotic religious ideas but from the actions of God in earlier times. God had commanded his chosen people to practice circumcision. He had given them laws that were to mark them out as a chosen people. Had God changed his mind?<\/p>\n
Orthodox Response<\/p>\n
The determining factor in the orthodox response was that God himself seemed to have discarded the old categories of Jew and non-Jew; furthermore, he had given the church ample indication of this change by giving the Holy Spirit to non-Jews without converting them to Jewish practices first. In Acts 10, when Peter saw that the Holy Spirit \u201chad been poured out even on Gentiles\u201d (v. 45)\u2014none of whom was circumcised\u2014his response was, \u201cSo if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God\u2019s way?\u201d and the response of those to whom he recounted this was to acknowledge, \u201cSo then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life\u201d (Acts 11:17\u201318). Later, at the Council of Jerusalem, Paul makes a similar case: \u201cGod, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith\u201d (Acts 15:8\u20139). Therefore, human opinions had to give way\u2014the Gentiles were just as Christian as their Jewish counterparts.
\nIn his later encounters with Judaizers, Paul gives a more detailed response as to why the Jewish law is not mandatory for salvation. Gentiles are equally Christian because Jesus, as a person, is a better version of the elements that the Judaizers find appealing in Old Judaism. Since both groups have Jesus, they already have everything that the Old Testament pointed toward: \u201c[The old practices] are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ\u201d (Col. 2:17).
\nChrist is the Chosen One, and his people the true remnant that God has spared from the destruction of the rest: \u201cSo too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace\u201d (Rom. 11:5\u20136).
\nChrist is the true circumcision, the sign that God owns us: \u201c[A] person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person\u2019s praise is not from other people, but from God\u201d (Rom. 2:29).
\nChrist is the true Sabbath, and we find peace when we come to him: \u201cFor if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God\u2019s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his\u201d (Heb. 4:8\u201310).
\nChrist is the true guilt-offering, for which our sins are forgiven: \u201cThe blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!\u201d (Heb. 9:13\u201314).
\nPaul also uses the Judaizing controversy to address a broader issue\u2014the idea that we have to work hard and be a good person, whatever that might look like to us. Instead, when we trust Christ, he draws us out of sin. He has set the standards and satisfied them, so we can rest. To choose works, Paul warns, is to reject Christ altogether, not just to take Christ as a helper: \u201cMark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace\u201d (Gal. 5:2\u20134).
\nPaul is quite passionate on the issue, and understandably so. Another response is found in Galatians 5:12: \u201cAs for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!\u201d Paul is so perturbed that he suggests castration for those who require circumcision for others\u2014he made his point clearly. Thus, according to the apostle and the response drafted at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, the Gentiles were in no way obligated to follow the restrictions of the law. They were free in Christ, who had fulfilled the demands of the law. Paul only exhorted the Gentiles to abstain from practices associated with pagan idol worship, not so that they might earn their salvation but as a response to the life-changing message of the gospel as God\u2019s free gift.
\nPaul\u2019s response to the teaching of the Judaizers is twofold: (1) salvation is by grace alone through faith in Christ, not by anything anyone does, and (2) Jews and Gentiles stand on equal footing before God in Christ. The law no longer serves to mark out the people of God the way it did in the past. The gospel of Jesus Christ is for the world\u2014for everyone. The following are Bible passages in which Paul challenges the \u201cworks\u201d model of his Judaizing opponents:
\nFirst, God saves people freely by grace (God\u2019s supernatural intervention) through faith:<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u201cFor it is by grace you have been saved, through faith\u2014and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God\u2014not by works, so that no one can boast\u201d (Eph. 2:8\u20139).
\n\u2022 \u201cHe has saved us and called us to a holy life\u2014not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time\u201d (2 Tim. 1:9).
\n\u2022 \u201cBut when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit\u201d (Titus 3:4\u20135).<\/p>\n
And second, the gospel includes both Jews and Gentiles (and anyone who believes):<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u201cOr is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith\u201d (Rom. 3:29\u201330).
\n\u2022 \u201cTherefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham\u2019s offspring\u2014not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all\u201d (Rom. 4:16).
\n\u2022 \u201c[F]or all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham\u2019s seed, and heirs according to the promise\u201d (Gal. 3:27\u201329).
\n\u2022 \u201cTherefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called \u2018uncircumcised\u2019 by those who call themselves \u2018the circumcision\u2019 (which is done in the body by human hands)\u2014remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility\u201d (Eph. 2:11\u201314).<\/p>\n
Contemporary Relevance<\/p>\n
Why does this matter today? The teaching of the Judaizers forced Paul to explain more precisely how we are saved by Jesus. God does not require us to carry out a certain command in order to restore our connection with him. Indeed, he calls us to carry out his orders as his children, servants, and creatures, but our obedience does not solve the problem of being separated from God. In fact, since obedience can become a point of pride, doing good can even be detrimental\u2014we must sometimes repent of our virtues as well as our vices. Instead, it is the fact that God declares us to be chosen people or new creations that carries the final weight, since his word trumps all others. And we are declared to be God\u2019s chosen people when we trust in Jesus, meaning that we can rest.
\nGrace by faith alone, without other qualifications, is a central reason Martin Luther took issue with the Roman Catholic Church of his day, whose stress on responding correctly to God in actions threatened to drive believers to despair. While the issue can be overemphasized to the neglect of other New Testament teachings, the grace-centeredness and inclusivity of the gospel must never be lost. This issue was about Jews and Gentiles in the first century, but the heart of the problem was something more fundamental: we tend to prioritize what we do (works) over what God has done (grace). For these reasons, we are tempted to exclude those who do not behave the way we behave.
\nThus, while the heresy of the Judaizers was put to rest by the apostle Paul in the first century, the Judaizers\u2019 ideas still permeate the church today. The issues are no longer circumcision or ceremonial uncleanness, but the question of how the law relates to salvation is still something that many Christians remain confused about. How are our actions connected to our salvation? Paul\u2019s exhortation to the Judaizers remains as important as ever. It is not by works that we are saved but solely by the grace of Christ. In fact, to add anything to the work of Christ for salvation negates God\u2019s grace. Paul says, \u201cI do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification were through the law, then Christ died to no purpose\u201d (Gal. 2:21 RSV). This means that the gospel is for everyone, not just those who lived according to the rules: \u201cthe same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, \u2018Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved\u2019 \u201d (Rom. 10:12\u201313).<\/p>\n
Discussion Questions<\/p>\n
1. What does it mean for the Christian faith if Judaizing rules the day? How does Judaizing undercut the gospel?
\n2. In what ways can Christians still operate today like the Judaizers?
\n3. Do you have a pet \u201cwork\u201d that you believe others must do (or avoid) to enjoy God\u2019s favor more fully? Maybe you wouldn\u2019t say people are saved by it\u2014because we know that is bad theology\u2014but perhaps at times you feel or act like their status as \u201cgood Christians\u201d is in jeopardy because of it?
\n4. Who might you be excluding from the gospel? Who is the person or group of people that you just cannot imagine being in the fold, included in the \u201call\u201d of Paul\u2019s \u201cyou are all one in Christ Jesus\u201d (Gal. 3:28)? How might God be challenging you to reconsider?
\n5. In what areas of your life have you hardened your heart to the free grace of God? Where are you under a yoke of slavery instead of finding the freedom that the love and grace of Jesus bring? In what ways have you been motivated by the grace of God?<\/p>\n
Further Reading<\/p>\n
Campbell, W. S. \u201cJudaizers.\u201d In Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, edited by Gerald F. Hawthorne and Ralph P. Martin. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1993.
\nGathercole, Simon. \u201cWhat Did Saint Paul Really Mean?\u201d Christianity Today 51, no. 8 (2007), 22\u201328.
\nRightmire, David R. \u201cJudaizers.\u201d In Baker Theological Dictionary of the Bible, edited by Walter A. Elwell. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1996.
\nThomas R. Schreiner. Galatians. Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010.
\nWesterholm, Stephen. Perspectives Old and New on Paul: The \u201cLutheran\u201d Paul and His Critics. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004.<\/p>\n
CHAPTER 2<\/p>\n
GNOSTICS<\/p>\n
God Hides Messages for the Enlightened<\/p>\n
Historical Background<\/p>\n
Gnosticism is not a specific heretical movement in church history but rather a loose collection of different religious beliefs. Gnosis is the Greek word for \u201cknowledge,\u201d and Gnostics claimed to have a special knowledge that was hidden from most people. Although they often used similar terms and rituals as Christians, the Gnostics interpreted them according to deeper, secret meanings; for instance, one early text explained Jesus\u2019 claim to be the fount of living water as a metaphor for his teachings rather than for Jesus himself: \u201cJesus said, \u2018Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me; I myself shall become that person, and the hidden things will be revealed to him.\u2019 \u201d Other characteristics that bound different Gnostic groups included the belief that matter is evil and that spirit is pure, as well as an elaborate primordial mythology.
\nThe origins of Gnosticism are still a bit unclear. Some think Gnosticism originated as a heresy that diverged from orthodox Christian teaching, while others see the movement as an independent, non-Christian movement stemming from either paganism or Judaism. For example, church historian Everett Ferguson argues that \u201cGnosticism seems to have grown up concurrently with Christianity in a similar environment (but from different roots), with the two having some interactions in the first century before Gnosticism developed into a separate religion in the second century.\u201d That Gnosticism had contact with early Christianity is almost certain\u2014there seem to be anti-Gnostic warnings in the letters of Paul (although many Gnostics also liked to claim Paul for themselves), as well as 1 John. However, the first certain identification comes from the mid-second century, in the writings of Irenaeus of Lyons. His book Against Heresies provides detailed descriptions and refutations of a number of different Gnostic sects, including Valentinians, Ophites, Sethians, Cainites, and the followers of Basilides. Based on the number of sects and the wide range of beliefs, we can certainly conclude that the Gnostics had been established for some time before Irenaeus wrote.
\nIrenaeus\u2019s work was a staple for later scholars of heresy, and it represented much of the information on Gnosticism that was available for some time. Since Irenaeus and his disciples were obviously hostile toward the Gnostics, researchers didn\u2019t believe that they were representing Gnostic beliefs fairly. However, the relatively recent discovery of a library of Gnostic texts near Nag Hammadi in Egypt (containing forty new documents from the late fourth century) has greatly increased scholars\u2019 ability to analyze and describe early forms of Gnosticism. The library contains the sacred scriptures of many of the groups that Irenaeus wrote about, and although it confirms most of Irenaeus\u2019s information, it also provides a more detailed glimpse into their world.<\/p>\n
Heretical Teaching<\/p>\n
Definition<\/p>\n
The Gnostics differed widely in their beliefs, and some scholars have wondered if it is appropriate to use a single term to denote all of them. Nevertheless, Birger Pearson has provided a list of several categories that broadly describe Gnosticism:<\/p>\n
Gnosis: The adherents of Gnosticism regarded gnosis (secret knowledge), rather than faith in Christ or observance of the law, as the way of salvation. The saving \u201cknowledge\u201d involved a revelation of the true nature both of the self and of God. For Gnostics, self-knowledge is knowledge of God.
\nTheology: The Gnostics often believed in one, transcendent, supreme god who was utterly silent. This god was revealed by the coming of Jesus (as opposed to God\u2019s interactions with the Hebrews). However, there are numerous intermediate gods (known as Aeons) and dark, evil gods (known as Archons) that hover just above the earth.
\nCosmology: The universe, having been created by an inferior and ignorant power, is a dark prison in which human souls are held captive.
\nAnthropology: A human being is a divine spark that originated in the transcendent divine world and, by means of gnosis, can be released from the cosmic prison and return to its heavenly origin. The human body, on the other hand, is part of the cosmic prison from which the spirit (the \u201creal\u201d person) must be redeemed.
\nExperimental: Mystical experience was an important part of Gnosticism. Religious experience, for the Gnostics, involved joy in the salvation won by gnosis, as well as an extreme alienation from, and revolt against, the physical world.
\nMyth: What held everything together for Gnostics is myth. One of the most characteristic features of Gnosticism was its impulse to create an elaborate mythical system. Each Gnostic teacher created new elements to be added to their received myth, and, with such elaborations, Gnostic myths could become more and more complicated as they developed.
\nParasitical: What makes Gnosticism so hard to define is, finally, its parasitical character. It borrowed freely from other religions, and its members sometimes attached themselves to other congregations.<\/p>\n
Beliefs<\/p>\n
Gnostic myth is best understood by thinking of a pyramid. At the top is the supreme transcendent god, who lives in \u201csilent silence.\u201d There is usually a divine mother who follows, and from the two of them there are hordes of Aeons, or lesser gods. Following the Aeons down the pyramid, the gods become more numerous, but also less good and less powerful. Finally, at the bottom of the pyramid are Archons, or evil gods. The Archons are less powerful and less good than humankind, but they have managed to hold sway over humankind by their terrible illusions. (Think of the manipulative deceptions of the Wizard of Oz.)
\nThe God of the Hebrew Bible is considered one such Archon. In the Gnostic myth On the Origin of the World, the arrogant, evil creator god Yaldabaoth is meant to be identified with the God of Israel: \u201cHe boasted over and over again and said to [the wise gods], \u2018I don\u2019t need anything.\u2026 I am God, and there is no other but me.\u2019 \u201d Yaldabaoth is crude and petty, and he fears the enlightenment of humankind, for it was prophesied to him that he would be overshadowed when humans reached their full potential: \u201cThe human will trample upon you as potter\u2019s clay is trampled, and you will descend with those who are yours to your mother the abyss.\u201d Consequently, it is in God\u2019s interest to keep humans fearful and ignorant. In some versions, Satan is a hero who freed humans from this arrogant creator god by pointing them to the fruit of knowledge (or gnosis). Sects who held this view included the Sethians, Ophites, and Barbeliotes.
\nThe role of Jesus in these myths is to dispel the errors of the old pagan religions (as well as Judaism), along with the fearful illusions of the Archons. Since matter is evil, Jesus did not come in the flesh or suffer. Instead, Jesus was pure spirit, and he merely mimicked the appearance of a man in order to show how flimsy the material prison really is. A typical interpretation of how a pure-spirit Jesus redeems the world appears in The Second Discourse of the Great Seth, where Jesus himself describes to the Gnostics what really happened at the crucifixion. \u201c[The children of the petty gods] saw me and punished me, but someone else, their father, drank the gall and the vinegar; it was not I. They were striking me with a scourge, but someone else, Simon, bore the cross on his shoulder. Someone else wore the crown of thorns. And I was on high, poking fun at all the excesses of the ruler and the fruit of their error and conceit. I was laughing at their ignorance.\u201d
\nThe Gnostics too could laugh with this Jesus at the error of those who worshiped the God of Israel, since they believed their eyes had been opened to the true nature of things. Because they thought Jesus was an example rather than a savior, the Gnostics could become enlightened with him.
\nIn other versions of this Gnostic myth, Jesus\u2019 primary task is less to combat Archons than to reveal the silent transcendent god and awaken people to their identity as gods. The Gospel of Truth, for instance, talks of how God the Father had a book that would reveal the true nature of the world, but no one could read it without dying. Jesus, in an act of heroism, underwent that task on the cross, which released the power that was concealed in the book:<\/p>\n
Jesus appeared,
\nput on that book,
\nwas nailed to a tree
\nand published the Father\u2019s edict on the cross.
\nOh, what a great teaching!<\/p>\n
Although this might seem like a poetic version of Christian teachings on the crucifixion, the key to salvation here is knowledge, rather than divine intervention. When Jesus was crucified, people not only knew the thoughts of the previously unseen Father but also realized that they were gods themselves: \u201cHe found them within himself, and they found him within themselves.\u201d
\nGnosticism certainly borrowed the theme of redemption from Christianity, but the means of redemption in Gnostic thought was not Christ\u2019s work. The Gnostics were quite clear that the orthodox interpretation of the cross had no place in their writings; a gospel purportedly written by some of Jesus\u2019 disciples records, \u201cWhen [Jesus] saw us happy, he said, \u2018Woe to you who are in need of an advocate \/ Woe to you who stand in need of grace \/ Blessed will they be who have spoken out and acquired grace for themselves.\u201d Instead, believers were responsible for forging their own spiritual paths, as historian Henry Chadwick notes: \u201cThe content of the Gnostic gospel was an attempt to rouse the soul from its sleep-walking condition and to make it aware of the high destiny to which it is called.\u201d In contrast to the New Testament Gospels, Gnostic texts deemphasized the idea of a historical redeemer and instead focused on supposedly deep and cryptic sayings of Jesus.<\/p>\n
Ethics<\/p>\n
As with beliefs (of which the above are only a small sampling), it is difficult to discuss a system of ethics, ritual, or daily life that applied to all Gnostics. Some writings, usually those that more closely resembled the Christian gospels that they mimicked, urged good works and care for one another. However, these writings seem to be the exception rather than the rule. Their confidence that they had \u201cseen through\u201d the normal ways of the world, coupled with the belief that matter is evil and will not be redeemed, led many Gnostics to live with extreme self-indulgence, especially in regard to food and sex. In his book on Gnostic ethics, Edwin Yamauchi comments, \u201cThe followers of Carpocrates [a Gnostic teacher] \u2026 taught that promiscuity was God\u2019s law \u2026 [but] it should be noted that though the antinomian Gnostics indulged in sexual license, they did not want to engender any children.\u201d In other words, food and sex became purely means of pleasure rather than tools.
\nOther Gnostics, such as the Encratites, drew the opposite conclusion from the doctrine that matter is evil. They practiced extreme asceticism; instead of pampering their bodies, they starved and beat them, determined to kill the evil matter that had enslaved them and to set their divine spirits free. Examples of this attitude appear in the Acts of Judas Thomas, in which abstinence from sex is promoted as the way to heaven.
\nMany of these trends had appeared in the church as early as the letters of the apostle Paul to the churches at Corinth and Colossae. The spiritual elite at Corinth questioned the resurrection and believed the body to be meaningless, which had profound moral consequences\u2014such as the promiscuous sexual behavior mentioned earlier. Moreover, at Colossae the believers observed special ascetic practices and worshiped intermediate angelic powers. Because of these similarities, some scholars think that the congregations at Corinth and Colossae were influenced by early strands of Gnostic thought.<\/p>\n
Orthodox Response<\/p>\n
Although small in number, the Gnostics and their teachings wreaked havoc in the mainstream Christian community. Their use of Scripture and Christian language meant that they could attend Christian services seemingly as one of the faithful. Their idea of an elite, informed clique was naturally appealing, as was their dismissal of the Hebrew Bible with its stories of anger and war and vengeance. Being Gnostic was associated with being urbane, sophisticated, and intelligent, which was a powerful draw at a time when ordinary Christians had few intellectual centers.
\nTo the churches at Corinth and Colossae, Paul battled the Gnostic heresy with a robust Christology\u2014teaching about the person and work of Christ. His solution to their abhorrent views of the body, the resurrection, and salvation was to point them to the supremacy of Christ in his incarnation, life, death, and victorious resurrection.
\nAfter the time of the apostles, Christian leaders responded to Gnosticism in two ways. The first was to try to identify and exclude Gnostic teachers and Gnostic writings from their ranks. The first canons (lists of books recognized as authoritative Scripture) were formed in the mid-second century as part of a reaction to a teacher of a different heresy named Marcion (discussed in detail later), who had tried to create his own Bible, excluding the Old Testament and much of the New. In response to Marcion, lists were drawn up of \u201cthe books we have used from the beginning\u201d as Scripture, such as the Muratorian Canon. It is perhaps no coincidence that the formation of the first canons corresponds with the composition of most of the major Gnostic works. The Christian canon attempted to preserve the authentic biblical writings of the apostles so that churches would be wary of the new, spurious works that were beginning to circulate.
\nHowever, it was not enough simply to circle the wagons and try to keep the Gnostics out. Irenaeus of Lyons and other intellectuals such as Hippolytus, Epiphanius, and Tertullian worked to mount an effective Christian response to Gnosticism. Irenaeus urged the Gnostics to repent of the spiritual pride that was the heart of their religion: \u201cIt is \u2026 better and more profitable to belong to the simple and unlettered class, and by means of love to attain to nearness to God.\u201d God was not trying to trick people or hide himself from the unsophisticated, said Irenaeus, but rather desired the salvation of all people. Thus, the Old Testament demonstrated the workings of God in simple, physical terms that everyone could understand, and it prophesied the coming of God in the flesh to fulfill that salvation. When Jesus came, he confirmed the Old Testament both by fulfilling the prophecies and by relying on specific images from the Hebrew Scriptures: \u201cHe declares: For in this place is One greater than the temple. But [the words] greater and less are not applied to those things which have nothing in common between themselves.\u201d In other words, Irenaeus said, Christ was superseding the Old Covenant, but he was not opposing it, and when he spoke of his Father in heaven he did not mean a new supreme god but was reaffirming the lordship of the God of Israel. Finally, Irenaeus pointed out that Christ was resurrected in the flesh, not as a spirit, and that this had enormous implications for the future. The Gnostic objection to the body had truth to it, he acknowledged\u2014the flesh was weak and sick and seemingly useless. But God\u2019s power was great enough to transform it into something new, not simply to discard it.
\nIrenaeus\u2019s approach proved immensely popular and eventually overshadowed a second response from other Christians, which was to try to reclaim the word \u201cGnostic\u201d for orthodox Christian use. Clement of Alexandria, a third-century theologian, expounded the duties of a Christian Gnostic in his work Miscellanies. According to him, a Gnostic was one who had special spiritual insight and communion with God, but instead of using that knowledge to feel superior to the mundane Christians around him, the real Gnostic helped them to know God better: \u201cThe Gnostic, then, is pious, [if he] cares first for himself, then for his neighbours, that they may become very good.\u201d It was a role for someone who had time, education, and piety to strengthen brothers and sisters who could not spare the time for advanced study. The idea of a \u201cChristian Gnostic\u201d endured until the late fourth century, but finally fell into disrepute.<\/p>\n
Contemporary Relevance<\/p>\n
The discovery of the Nag Hammadi scrolls has given weight to a perception that Jesus\u2019 teachings were hijacked by an institutionalized, patriarchal church in the fourth century, because it seems as though there is secret information about Jesus that mainstream Christianity has been withholding. Dan Brown\u2019s bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code, to cite only one example, appeals to information from the Gnostic gospels as factual truth. The character Sir Leigh Teabing, an expert on early Christianity, describes the suppression of the Gnostics by the church: \u201cMore than eighty gospels were considered for the New Testament, and yet only a relative few were chosen for inclusion.\u201d Teabing then blunders, however, when he says, \u201cThe early Church needed to convince the world that the mortal prophet Jesus was a divine being. Therefore, any gospels that described earthly aspects of Jesus\u2019 life had to be omitted from the Bible.\u201d Ironically, the problem with the Gnostics was exactly the opposite\u2014the church had to fight to show that Jesus was human and material against groups that would accept only his divinity.
\nGnosticism has made a surprising spiritual renaissance. Gnostic churches have been established and writings about Gnosticism are currently in vogue in bookstores. Although the strong asceticism that characterized some early forms of Gnosticism is almost entirely lacking today, Gnosticism has also contributed to New Age spirituality. Consider the promise of a book featured on Oprah in recent years called The Secret: \u201cWithout The Power you would not have been born. Without The Power, there wouldn\u2019t be a single human being on the planet. Every discovery, invention, and human creation comes from The Power. Perfect health, incredible relationships, a career you love, a life filled with happiness, and the money you need to be, do, and have everything you want, all come from The Power.\u201d
\n\u201cThe Power\u201d is classic Gnosticism\u2014a silent, supreme god that also lives inside of you and who will allow you to become as powerful as you wish. Often, as in Gnosticism, a Jesus separate from the God of Israel is featured in New Age beliefs as a spirit guide or key to enlightenment, but never as a Lord who calls for repentance and dependence on the Savior\u2019s life, death, and resurrection.
\nWhat sets Christianity apart from Gnosticism is that in Christ, the supreme character of the once-hidden God has now been definitively and exhaustively revealed, so much so that Jesus could tell his followers that those who had seen him had seen his Father. There is no God that remains hidden from plain sight or reserved for an elite, enlightened group of people. Instead, Christ has made supreme knowledge of God available in his life, death, and resurrection, and that knowledge was written and recounted in the Christian Scriptures that testify to Christ.
\nPaul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:4\u20136 that the message of Christ, not ourselves, is supreme: \u201cThe god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus\u2019 sake. For God, who said, \u2018Let light shine out of darkness,\u2019 made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God\u2019s glory displayed in the face of Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n
Discussion Questions<\/p>\n
1. What do you make of the idea of a silent god? How does that compare with the God of the Bible?
\n2. How does the resurrection affect how we view our bodies?
\n3. The Gnostic creed was \u201cKnowledge is power.\u201d Is that true at all? Is knowledge an important part of being a Christian?
\n4. How does Christian knowledge relate to Christian practice? Is it possible, according to Scripture, to have knowledge of God without also allowing that knowledge to affect one\u2019s behavior?<\/p>\n
Further Reading<\/p>\n
Clement of Alexandria. Miscellanies VII. http:\/\/www.earlychristianwritings.com\/text\/clement-stromata-book7.html.
\nFerguson, Everett. Backgrounds of Early Christianity. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993.
\nIrenaeus of Lyons. Against Heresies. http:\/\/www.newadvent.org\/fathers\/0103.htm.
\nMeyer, Marvin, ed. The Nag Hammadi Scriptures. New York: HarperCollins, 2007.
\nPagels, Elaine. The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters. Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1975.
\nSmith, Carl B. II, No Longer Jews: The Search for Gnostic Origins. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004.<\/p>\n
CHAPTER 3<\/p>\n
MARCION<\/p>\n
Vengeful Yahweh versus Gentle Jesus<\/p>\n
Historical Background<\/p>\n
Marcion (ca. 85\u2013160) was the son of a Christian bishop and a teacher in Rome. Although unbiased historical information is scant, we know that Marcion was a wealthy ship owner from Sinope in Pontus, with excellent organizational skills. Around AD 140 he arrived at Rome, where he was welcomed by the church and soon donated large amounts of money and a building. But by AD 144, Marcion\u2019s views had gotten him into trouble, and he was excommunicated from the church.
\nMarcion\u2019s trouble began when he became involved with Cerdo, an early Gnostic teacher (see chapter 2). Cerdo influenced Marcion\u2019s thought toward dualism, a worldview that pits two basic realities against each other. Gnostics were known for teaching a spirit\/flesh dualism, in which spirit is good and flesh is evil\u2014an idea contrary to the Bible. Marcion did not exactly adopt Gnosticism, but he was intrigued by the concept of dualism and applied it to the Old and New Testaments. According to Marcion, the God of the Old Testament was a wrathful, vengeful deity who wanted to keep humankind subject to himself, while Christ was sent by the real supreme God to reintroduce the old religion of love and peace.
\nThe massive amount of literature written against Marcion over the years by numerous theologians indicate that this man was no small-time fringe teacher but a major threat to orthodoxy. In fact, church historian Henry Chadwick calls Marcion \u201cthe most radical and to the church the most formidable of heretics.\u201d W. H. C. Frend, a British historian, comments, \u201cFor nearly a century after his death (c. 160), [Marcion] was the arch-heretic, condemned in turn by individuals who were vastly different in outlook: Polycarp, Justin, Irenaeus, Clement, Tertullian, Hippolytus, the Latin writer known as Pseudo-Tertullian, Bardesanes, and Origen. He was distinguished in his age.\u201d Distinguished, but not in a flattering way. Irenaeus recalled a meeting between Bishop Polycarp and Marcion, during which Marcion asked Polycarp if he remembered him. Polycarp replied, \u201cI do know you, the first-born of Satan.\u201d
\nAfter he was no longer welcome in Rome, Marcion put his organizational skills to work traveling and establishing new alternative churches sympathetic to his view. Eventually his influence stretched all around the Mediterranean, and it lasted for a couple of centuries until the first Christian emperors suppressed Marcionism.<\/p>\n
Heretical Teaching<\/p>\n
Behind Marcion\u2019s practical influence of money and political connections lay a theology founded on extreme dualism. This can be seen in his most well-known book, Antithesis, in which he pitted the New Testament against the Old Testament:
\nMarcion saw too many discrepancies between the Testaments. Old Testament passages suggest there are things God does not know, whereas the New Testament teaches that Jesus knows everything. The problems that Marcion wrestled with are similar to the problems that modern readers often experience. Why does God need to ask questions, if he\u2019s all-knowing? Why does the Old Testament attribute to God qualities that we might consider petty\u2014anger and jealousy and being arbitrary? The solution to this dilemma seemed clear to Marcion. There was not one God but two\u2014the Yahweh of the Old Testament and Jesus of the New Testament\u2014both bitter enemies, and by coming to Israel, Jesus was challenging the rule of Yahweh. Marcion taught that Jesus Christ was sent by an unknown Father to save us from Yahweh\u2019s evil wrath. Unlike many early heretics, Marcion was attentive to the Old Testament, particularly Isaiah 39\u201366. In 45:7 he found, \u201cI form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, [Yahweh], do all these things.\u201d Interpreting this passage in a narrow, literal way led Marcion to conclude that Yahweh is the one who causes the darkness and evil in the world rather than testifying that he is the supreme God. Marcion dubbed the cruel God of the Old Testament \u201cYahweh\u201d and the kind father of the New Testament \u201cAbba.\u201d<\/p>\n
OLD TESTAMENT
\nNEW TESTAMENT
\n\u201cAnd the Lord Yahweh called unto Adam, and said unto him, \u2018Where art thou?\u2019 \u201d (Gen. 3:9).
\n\u201cBut when Jesus perceived their thoughts, He answering said unto them, \u2018Why do you reason in your hearts?\u2019 \u201d (Luke 5:22).
\n\u201cAnd Elijah answered and said to the captain of fifty, \u2018If I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty.\u2019 And there came down fire from heaven, and consumed him and his fifty\u201d (2 Kings 1:9\u201310).
\n[Jesus\u2019 disciples]: \u201c \u2018Lord, wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elijah did?\u2019 But He turned and rebuked them, and said, \u2018Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of; for the Son of man is not come to destroy men\u2019s lives, but to save them\u2019 \u201d (Luke 9:54\u201355).
\n\u201cI form light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord Yahweh do all these things\u201d (Isa. 45:7).
\n\u201cGod is light, and in Him is no darkness at all\u201d (1 John 1:5b).
\n\u201cGod is love\u201d (1 John 4:16).
\n\u201cI the Lord your God am a jealous God\u201d (Exod. 20:5).
\n\u201c[F]or the Lord, Whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God\u201d (Exod. 34:14).
\n\u201cLove knows no jealousy\u201d (1 Cor. 13:4).
\nSee \u201cAntithesis\u201d at http:\/\/www.earlychristianwritings.com\/marcion.html.<\/p>\n
Because of his highly negative view of Yahweh, Marcion became radically anti-Jewish, rejecting Christianity\u2019s early struggle with Judaism for the right to be the true Israel. He found the church\u2019s desire to be identified as the true Israel misguided. In his eyes, he was attempting to liberate the church from captivity to the law, and he believed that the only way to do this was to rid Christianity of all traces of Judaism. Tertullian summarized it best: \u201cMarcion\u2019s special and principal work is the separation of the law and the gospel.\u201d Marcion wanted nothing to do with the Old Testament law. Because the content written by the author of the law was so different from the content written by the author of the gospel, Marcion believed that the two authors could not be the same; the God who gave the law could not be the God who gave the gospel.
\nTo solidify the wedge between the law and gospel, Marcion created his own canon, or list of sacred books he thought genuine. He rejected all allegorical interpretations of Scripture, which were often used to make difficult sections more palatable; only a literal approach of reading Scripture at face value could be acceptable for it to be authoritative. Marcion selected books from the New Testament that he believed to be faithful to his guideline of separating the law and the gospel. He cut out the Old Testament altogether. He argued that the Old Testament was tied up in the law, and that faith had superseded it in the gracious new era Christ ushered in. Therefore it was obsolete. Even several New Testament books were not safe from Marcion\u2019s canonical knife. All references to Jesus\u2019 Jewishness were removed, along with anything that he felt had been \u201ccorrupted\u201d by Judaizing elements. The only books to survive the cut in Marcion\u2019s Bible were a mutilated version of the gospel of Luke and ten of Paul\u2019s epistles. He idolized Paul as the great enemy of the law. With this new Bible completely free from law, Marcion\u2019s version of the gospel emphasized spirituality, faith, and grace. This unknown Father Jesus revealed was kind, forgiving, and gracious, unlike the known Yahweh, who was angry, vengeful, and just.
\nIn addition to his assault on the Christian Scriptures, Marcion\u2019s heretical teachings include a destruction of the humanity of Christ. Because Marcion interpreted Christianity through a dualistic worldview, which saw all created things as evil, he wanted to dismiss anything from the Bible that was concerned with the earthly realm. Notably, because of his disdain for the material world, Marcion was skeptical that any divine redeemer could be born of a woman. For this reason, he rejected Jesus\u2019 birth story, and, as church historian Stephen Nichols puts it, \u201cHis Jesus floats down out of the sky at the wedding at Capernaum. (No wonder they ran out of wine).\u201d Christ\u2019s humanity was denied, so therefore salvation was only for the soul.<\/p>\n
Orthodox Response<\/p>\n
The massive volume of antiheretical literature directed against the Marcionite heresy is a testimony to the heresy\u2019s importance. Marcion\u2019s rejection of Jesus\u2019 humanity caused the church to develop a complete defense of the doctrine. To this end, Tertullian, a leader of the church in North Africa, in AD 207\u20138 led the charge in his work Against Marcion, which was composed of five books that spelled out Marcion\u2019s ideas before countering them with argument after argument. Tertullian saw Marcion\u2019s denial of Christ\u2019s humanity as detrimental to Christianity, because, \u201cThe sufferings of Christ will be found not to warrant faith in him. For he suffered nothing who did not truly suffer; and a phantom could not truly suffer. God\u2019s entire work therefore is subverted. Christ\u2019s death, wherein lies the whole weight and fruit of the Christian name, is denied.\u201d
\nTertullian also questioned Marcion\u2019s authority because he had no connection to the earliest Christians; he demanded of Marcion that he produce one Marcionite church that could trace its descent from an apostle. With no connection to the apostolic tradition, Marcion was to be treated like a trespasser when he talked about Scripture. Tertullian challenged him: \u201cWho are you? When and whence do you come?\u2026 What are you doing on my land? By what right are you cutting down my timber, Marcion?\u2026 This property belongs to me \u2026 I am heir to the apostles.\u201d
\nSince both the Old and New Testaments testify to the nature and work of God, Tertullian rejected dualism and argued there is only one God. God is the supreme being, subordinate to no one. He declared, \u201cChristian verity has distinctly declared this principle, \u2018God is not, if He is not one.\u2019 \u201d If there were any being equal to God, God would no longer be the supreme being, and thereby would no longer be worthy of worship.
\nTertullian also argued for the goodness of the material creation, which displays God\u2019s wisdom and glory, and demonstrated the futility of condemning it: \u201cMarcion has ridiculed the insects but he cannot imitate the skills of bee, ant, spider, silkworm or any other of God\u2019s tiny creatures.\u201d Tertullian points out the hypocrisy of Marcion\u2019s followers for their shameless \u201caddiction to astrology.\u201d Are not the stars part of Yahweh\u2019s creation they depreciate? Contrary to Marcion\u2019s assertion, nature points to the goodness of God and was created as a good thing before sin came into the world.
\nAgainst Marcion\u2019s dualism between justice and love, Tertullian argued that God is both good and just. Without justice God \u201cwould have to give commands without intentions to execute them and forbid sins without intentions of punishing them.\u201d Tertullian reasoned, \u201cHe takes no offense, therefore his will is not wronged.\u201d If this is the case, he challenged Marcion, why not live a life dedicated to selfish pleasure? But by the fact that Marcion did live as though there is a right and a wrong, he showed that God does carry out his promises of punishment for sin. Tertullian reached to the heart of the matter in salvation. If there is no retribution for doing what is forbidden, how could God deliver us from sin and death when we were never handed over to sin and death in the first place? Justice is better seen as an agent of goodness than as the enemy of goodness.
\nFinally, Tertullian set out to prove that Christ belongs to the Creator rather than opposing him. Marcion\u2019s problem, Tertullian suggested, was that \u201cMarcion used the knife, not the pen, massacring scripture to suit his own material.\u201d Even with Marcion\u2019s mutilated version of the gospel of Luke, one can see that Christ \u201chas administered (the Creator\u2019s) dispensations, fulfilled his prophecies, promoted his laws, given reality to his promises, revived his mighty power, remolded his determinations, expressed his attributes, his properties.\u201d The overwhelming conclusion was that Marcion\u2019s division between law and gospel, Old and New Testaments, and flesh and spirit was foreign to the truth.
\nIrenaeus also spoke forcefully against Marcion, saying that \u201che mutilated the Gospel according to Luke, removing all the narratives of the Lord\u2019s birth, and also removing much of the teaching of the discourses of the Lord wherein he is most manifestly described as acknowledging the maker of this universe to be his father. Thus he persuaded his disciples that he himself was more trustworthy than the apostles, who handed down the Gospel; though he gave to them not a Gospel but a fragment of a Gospel.\u201d Furthermore, Irenaeus writes, Marcion \u201csays that salvation will be of our souls only, of those souls which have learned his teaching; the body, because forsooth it is taken from the earth, cannot partake in salvation.\u201d
\nWhile Marcion was excommunicated from the church in Rome in 144, because he was a wealthy man he was able to establish a significant following throughout the next several centuries. However, the struggle also provided an opportunity for the church to clarify several major doctrines. For one thing, Marcion and his \u201cNew Testament\u201d\u2014the first to be compiled\u2014forced the church to recognize a core canon of New Testament Scripture books: the four gospels and the letters of Paul. The Old Testament was also reaffirmed as Christian Scripture; Tertullian declared the Hebrew Bible is indeed the Word of God, arguing in Against Marcion that the two Testaments of the Bible are not contrary. At the same time, the church affirmed that the New Testament books are to be considered as fully authoritative as God\u2019s revelation in the Hebrew Bible.<\/p>\n
Contemporary Relevance<\/p>\n
Marcion is relevant to the church today because much contemporary teaching about Jesus and the Bible merely restates Marcion\u2019s claims about the struggle between a God of love and a God of justice. Richard Dawkins, in his New York Times bestseller The God Delusion, writes, \u201cThe God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.\u201d This view is quite similar to Marcion\u2019s and still wreaks havoc in the church today.
\nA conclusion from church historian Bruce Shelley could not be stated better: \u201cBy retaining the Old Testament the church scored two important points. First, it insisted that faith for the Christian would have to reconcile both the wrath and love of God. Marcion\u2019s message was too easy. By eliminating the Old Testament he hoped to make the love of God central for the Christian. But love that never faces the demands of justice is not Christian love. It was not the love Marcion\u2019s hero knew! Paul found in the Cross not only a demonstration of God\u2019s love but a display of his righteousness. Christ\u2019s death, he said, allowed God to be both just and the justifier of all who believe in Jesus (Rom. 3:25, 26). That is the marvel of the grace of God Marcion missed.\u201d
\nSecond, by retaining the Old Testament, the church underscored the importance of history for the Christian faith. Christianity is a historical religion not just in the sense that it comes from the past or that it is associated with a historical character named Jesus. It is historical because it stems from the belief that within history itself, in a particular place, at a particular time, God himself played a role in human affairs. Historian Philip Schaff remarked that in Marcion\u2019s view it is \u201cas if God had neglected the world for thousands of years until he suddenly appeared in Christ.\u201d
\nAs Tertullian rightly declared, if Christ was not truly human, then he could not truly suffer, and if he did not truly suffer, then he cannot be the one who has identified with us as fallen human beings, winning our salvation in his atoning death and life-giving resurrection.<\/p>\n
Discussion Questions<\/p>\n
1. Why is it an oversimplification to say that the Old Testament is about justice with no grace and the New Testament is about grace with no justice?
\n2. What would be lost if the church disregards the Old Testament?
\n3. Consider Romans 11:11\u201324. Marcion wanted to rid the church of anything that had to do with Israel. Is that what Paul wants as well? How should we think about ethnically Jewish people (not the geopolitical nation or Judaism) in light of this passage?<\/p>\n
Further Reading<\/p>\n
Foster, Paul. \u201cMarcion: His Life, Works, Beliefs, and Impact.\u201d Expository Times 121 (2010): 269\u201380.
\nMarcion. \u201cAntithesis: Marcion and Contradictions between the Old Testament God and the New Testament.\u201d Http:\/\/gnosis.org\/library\/marcion\/antithes.htm. (Note: Antithesis is a reconstruction of Marcion\u2019s lost work by the same name. The link begins with a modern commentary that explains Marcion\u2019s reasoning on his own terms.)
\nMoll, Sebastian. The Arch-Heretic Marcion. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 250. Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010.
\nOsborn, Eric. Tertullian, First Theologian of the West. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997.<\/p>\n
CHAPTER 4<\/p>\n
DOCETISTS<\/p>\n
The Spiritual Is Good, the Physical Is Evil<\/p>\n
Historical Background<\/p>\n
For many people today, it seems natural to believe that Jesus Christ was a human and a struggle to believe that he was God. A few Christian offshoots also struggled with this problem. For instance, a Jewish sect called Ebionitism began to flourish in the early centuries of the Christian era. They regarded Jesus merely as an ordinary human being\u2014the biological son of Mary and Joseph and not the Son of God. However, most philosophers of the first few centuries had the opposite problem\u2014they struggled to understand how Jesus could possibly be human. The reason that Christ\u2019s humanity was such a puzzle was not because people considered the gospel to be legend or mythology but because it seemed impossible that anything good, spiritual, pure, and divine should mix with anything evil, ugly, filthy, and decaying.
\nThe apostle Paul declared to the church in Corinth, \u201cJews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles\u201d (1 Cor. 1:22\u201323). A man\u2019s death on the cross was unanimously seen as shameful and degrading. To those outside the church, there was nothing heroic or inspiring about such a death. It was the pinnacle of unsightliness and therefore the opposite of the spiritual, which was supposed to be obviously good and beautiful. Therefore, a movement sprang up in certain intellectual circles to redefine Jesus in purely spiritual terms.<\/p>\n
Heretical Teaching<\/p>\n
Docetism, which derives from the Greek verb \u201cto seem\u201d or \u201cappear,\u201d taught that Jesus Christ was totally divine and that his humanity was merely an appearance. Although he seemed to have a human body, he was not subject to any kind of human experiences. This included being immune to human \u201cbirth, fatigue, thirst, hunger, suffering, [and] death.\u201d
\nUnlike many other heresies, Docetism was not linked to a particular leader or representative. It should be viewed as more of a tendency among some in theology. Usually proponents of Gnosticism (see chapter 2) or Marcionism (see chapter 3) were associated with Docetism, but it was not limited to these groups.
\nDocetism developed to make Christianity more acceptable to pagan societies. Many societies, especially those influenced by Greek or Persian dualistic thought, viewed flesh as evil. The very thought of God incarnating as a man was unthinkable. The incarnation inevitably implied suffering. As a man, Jesus Christ was subjected to the humiliation of being a helpless baby. He required food and drink to survive. When he was fasting in the wilderness for forty days, he was tempted. He was spat upon, beaten, and crucified. All these events were thought to be beneath a great and spiritual God who transcends everything.
\nThe apocryphal (that is, of dubious authority) Gospel of Peter illustrates a Docetic view of Christ\u2019s sufferings. It says that during his crucifixion, Jesus \u201ckept silence, as one feeling no pain,\u201d which implied \u201cthat His bodily make-up was illusory.\u201d The Docetic idea that God must be free from suffering and impure matter can also be seen in the words put into the mouth of Christ by a Gnostic: \u201cBut I was not afflicted at all. Those who were there punished me. And I did not die in reality but in appearance, lest I be put to shame by them because these were my kinsfolk. I removed the shame from me and I did not become fainthearted in the face of what happened to me at their hands. I was about to succumb to fear, and I suffered according to their sight and thought, in order that they may never find any word to speak about them. For my death which they think happened, (happened) to them in their error and blindness, since they nailed their man unto their death. For their (thoughts) did not see me, for they were deaf and blind.\u201d
\nThe writer goes on to explain that the executioners mistakenly crucified Simon of Cyrene, who helped carry the cross. \u201cMeanwhile, the triumphant Christ invisibly present behind the scene, was \u2018laughing at their ignorance.\u2019 \u201d For the Redeemer to be effective, in the minds of Docetic theologians, everything about the earthly ministry of Christ had to be retold to free Christ from the weakness of flesh and matter.<\/p>\n
Orthodox Response<\/p>\n
Ignatius of Antioch (ca. 50\u2013117) was one of the earliest to defend orthodoxy against Docetism. History remembers him as a disciple of the apostle John and one of the five apostolic fathers, the next generation of leaders after the apostles died. Docetism prompted Ignatius to formulate one of the earliest, albeit informal, Christian creeds: \u201cBe deaf, therefore, when any would speak to you apart from (at variance with) Jesus Christ [the Son of God], who was descended from the family of David, born of Mary, who truly was born [both of God and of the Virgin \u2026 truly took a body; for the Word became flesh and dwelt among us without sin \u2026], ate and drank [truly], truly suffered persecution under Pontius Pilate, was truly [and not in appearance] crucified and died \u2026 who was also truly raised from the dead [and rose after three days], his Father raising him up \u2026 [and after having spent forty days with the Apostles, was received up to the Father, and sits on his right hand, waiting till his enemies are put under his feet].\u201d
\nNotice the emphatic repetition of the word \u201ctruly.\u201d And also notice the outright statement that Christ\u2019s crucifixion was \u201cnot in appearance.\u201d
\nAt the end of his life, Ignatius was sentenced to suffer the fate of a martyr, which he gladly accepted. He dissuaded fellow Christians from protecting him, because he wanted truly to experience death and truly to rise from the dead like his Savior. Otherwise, he argued, \u201cIf the Lord were in the body in appearance only, and were crucified in appearance only, then am I also bound in appearance only.\u201d Then he rhetorically asks, \u201cAnd why have I also surrendered myself to death, to fire, to the sword, to the wild beasts? But [in fact,] I endure all things for Christ, not in appearance only, but in reality, that I may suffer together with Him.\u201d In Ignatius\u2019s eyes, it would have been ridiculous for him to have been imprisoned for proclaiming one who merely appeared to suffer for his sake. Indeed, it would make no sense for martyrs to die for an illusion. Salvation depends on Christ\u2019s really being a man who suffered and was resurrected, so that those in Christ may die and rise with him.
\nPolycarp of Smyrna (69\u2013155), another apostolic father and a fellow disciple of the apostle John, took a different approach from his friend Ignatius. While Ignatius described positively what we should believe and then warned readers to avoid Docetism, Polycarp cursed Docetism.
\nHe began by quoting his mentor, John: \u201cFor whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is an antichrist\u201d (1 John 4:3). He continued, \u201cAnd whosoever does not confess his suffering on the cross, is of the devil; and whosoever \u2026 says that there is neither a resurrection nor a judgment, he is the first-born of Satan.\u201d Strong words, but he concludes with the hope that Jesus Christ \u201cbore our sins in His own body on the tree\u201d and \u201cendured all things for us, that we might live in him.\u201d In other words, only a real death on the cross can enable Christ to bear our sins so that we might live. The docetic alternative would have been a sham.
\nIrenaeus (ca. 130\u2013202), a disciple of Polycarp, wrote an important\u2014and surprisingly amusing\u2014five-volume work titled Against Heresies to refute Gnosticism, taking special aim at one of Docetism\u2019s prominent teachers, Valentinus (ca. 136\u2013165). Irenaeus\u2019s unique contribution to theology was making the incarnation the centerpiece of God\u2019s plan, arguing that the incarnation is utterly necessary for salvation.
\nDocetics thought of Christ\u2019s work as purely spiritual, and therefore the incarnation was not necessary to salvation. Irenaeus turned this argument on its head by saying that the incarnation itself was redemptive. Using Paul\u2019s argument from Romans 5, Irenaeus argued that Christ\u2019s human body is the spearhead of a movement to transform creation as the second Adam. The first Adam sinned at the fall and therefore as the \u201chead\u201d he plunged the world into sin. Christ had to be made of the same substance Adam was made of in order to restore the world as the \u201cnew head.\u201d Irenaeus rightly taught that redemption was not an escape from creation but a process of restoring creation.<\/p>\n
Contemporary Relevance<\/p>\n
As Stephen Nichols points out, much contemporary popular theology tends to \u201cview Jesus as sort of floating six inches off the ground as he walked upon the earth\u201d or attributes to him a glowing angelic radiance. These expressions of theology tend toward the heresy of Docetism and, more important, do not match the biblical picture of Jesus given to us in the Gospels. While on earth, Jesus experienced hunger (Matt. 4:2) and thirst (John 19:28), showed compassion (Matt. 9:36), was tired (John 4:6), felt sorrow to the point of weeping (John 11:35), and grew in wisdom (Luke 2:52). Yet in all of his humanness, Jesus never sinned (Heb. 4:15).
\nThe root of Docetism was the desire to make Christ more palatable to a world that sees the cross as foolishness. But the more they tried to please the world, the farther they strayed from the truth contained in Scripture.
\nA modern example of this can be found among classic Christian liberalism. With the dominance of science and philosophy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, many Christian theologians tried to make Christianity more palatable to a modern society. This is captured in the title of a book by controversial liberal bishop John Shelby Spong: Why Christianity Must Change or Die. Liberalism removed any literal supernaturalism (miracles, literal creation, and prophecies) in the Bible. It explained that any stories that contain supernatural elements were not historical but were mythological ways to communicate subjective experiences. New Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann called this method of interpretation \u201cdemythologizing.\u201d
\nOne consequence of demythologizing the Bible is to believe that the resurrection never truly happened. When it comes to the resurrection, elements of Docetism are apparent in liberalism. New Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann thought it obvious: \u201cThe resurrection itself is not an event of past history.\u201d Liberalism explains that the resurrection could merely be the disciples\u2019 nostalgia for their personal intimacy with Jesus during his earthly life. Liberalism claims that the real meaning of the resurrection is \u201cthe ethical teachings of Jesus, and \u2026 the vague hope that the One who enunciated such principles had some personal existence beyond the grave.\u201d It denies the humanness of Jesus Christ outside the tomb. This form of theological liberalism is in many ways a recapitulation of Docetism.
\nBut this is a mistake. Paul reminds us that the cross is a stumbling block for the Jews and folly for the Gentiles, \u201cbut to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God\u201d (1 Cor. 1:24).
\nFinally, as the author of Hebrews writes, Jesus \u201chad to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people\u201d (Heb. 2:17). It is because he was tempted as we are that he is able to sympathize with us in our weakness. Put bluntly, the whole of the atonement rests on Docetism\u2019s being false. Twentieth-century Reformed theologian T. F. Torrance put it this way: \u201cAny Docetic view of the humanity of Christ snaps the lifeline between God and man, and destroys the relevance of the divine acts in Jesus for men and women of flesh and blood.\u201d If Docetism is true, then we no longer can place our confidence in Jesus Christ, who as truly God and truly man serves as the mediator between God and humanity.<\/p>\n
Discussion Questions<\/p>\n
1. How does a fully human Jesus affect our relationship to God? In particular, how does he affect the problem of our weakness and sinfulness and God\u2019s goodness?
\n2. Why would the Docetists insist on a God who is not fully human? What sort of benefits could you see in that arrangement?
\n3. What are some examples of where the authors of the New Testament go to great lengths to stress the humanity of Jesus Christ?<\/p>\n
Further Reading<\/p>\n
Gavrilyuk, Paul L. The Suffering of the Impassible God: The Dialects of Patristic Thought. Oxford Early Christian Studies. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2004.
\nRadler, Charlotte. \u201cThe Dirty Physician: Necessary Dishonor and Fleshly Solidarity in Tertullian\u2019s Writings.\u201d Vigiliae Christianae 63 (2009): 345\u201368.
\nTertullianus, Quintus. The Writings of Tertullian Vol. II, edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. In Ante-Nicene Christian Library, vol. XVIII. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1870.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. The Writings of Tertullian Vol. III, edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. In Ante-Nicene Christian Library, vol. XVIII. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1870.<\/p>\n
CHAPTER 5<\/p>\n
MANI<\/p>\n
God Must Be Freed<\/p>\n
Historical Background<\/p>\n
In the third century, Christian ideas were swirling around the Middle East and mixing freely with other religions. The man who carried out this mixing most successfully was a religious leader named Mani, who lived in Babylonia (modern day Iraq) from 216\u201376 and spoke Syriac (a form of Aramaic). In the third century, Mani combined Christian, Buddhist, and Zoroastrian (Persian) doctrines to create what he considered to be the perfect religious system. Like the Gnostics, Mani believed that the spiritual realm is good and that matter is inherently evil, and he thought that he had been sent from heaven to cobble together a new faith from bits of all the major religions of his world. Although Mani\u2019s new religion was fiercely persecuted by the Persians, Romans, and Chinese, it spread rapidly from Iran both east and west\u2014to the Chinese coast and all the way to North Africa\u2014where it posed a serious threat to orthodox Christianity.<\/p>\n
The Life of Mani<\/p>\n
Mani was born somewhere in Babylonia in AD 216. Religious zeal ran in his blood\u2014his father, Patik, had apparently made considerable personal sacrifices to convert to a Jewish-Christian sect known as the Elchaisites (founded by a Jewish Christian named El Chasai). The Elchaisites retained a strict interpretation of the Jewish law in addition to a belief in Christ as a divine teacher, and they emphasized a kosher diet, a deep reverence for the environment, and baptism. Many of Mani\u2019s ideas about Christianity seem to stem from his childhood religion.
\nAround the age of twenty-five, Mani had a vision of an angel, who revealed to him that God had chosen him as the \u201cParaclete\u201d whom Jesus promised. The angel was Mani\u2019s future glorified self, who had been appointed to protect him during his earthly mission. He explained to Mani that the true primordial religion had been corrupted by the Elchaisites and that freedom came only from separation\u2014pure spirit had to be divorced from evil matter: \u201cImmediately there flew down and appeared before me that most beautiful and greatest mirror-image of my self \u2026 He delivered, separated, and pulled me away from the midst of that Law in which I was reared \u2026 (The Twin showed Mani) who my Father on high is; or in what way, severed from him, I was sent out according to his purpose, and what sort of commission and counsel he was given to me before I clothed myself in this instrument and before I was led astray in this detestable flesh \u2026 [He showed me] the secrets and visions and the perfections of my Father; and concerning me, who I am, and who my inseparable Twin is.\u201d
\nInstead of expanding on the Elchaisite doctrine, Mani rebelled against it, cutting out most of the Jewish elements and elevating Christ. He rejected all of the Old Testament in addition to much of the New, and he referred to himself as \u201cMani, Apostle of Jesus Christ by the appointment of God the Father.\u201d To the shock of the Elchaisite community, Mani discarded kosher food rules and declared all plant foods clean. The Elchaisites, after attempting to change Mani\u2019s mind, finally cast him out.
\nAccording to the Manichaean biography of Mani, he then traveled across Iran to India, where he made some converts and secured political support. It was perhaps during this journey that Mani encountered Zoroastrianism, the religion of fire that was soon to become the official religion of the Persian Empire, and Buddhism, which had made significant inroads into eastern Iran at that time. Zoroastrianism became the basis for much of Mani\u2019s view of the universe as a war between good and evil, while Buddhism influenced his ideas about the presence of God in the natural world. After spending some time in India, Mani journeyed back to Iran and won the affection of the Persian emperor, Shapur, who protected him and allowed him to spread his ideas. Followers of Mani\u2019s religion, which he claimed to be the unadulterated form of Christianity and a universal religion for both the East and West, were called Manichaeans.
\nUnfortunately for Mani, his success was short-lived. King Shapur soon died, and his successor, Bahram, threw Mani into prison, where he died under torture in 276.<\/p>\n
The Spread of Manichaeanism<\/p>\n
Mani believed that by combining Buddhism and Zoroastrianism with Christianity, he could create a global religion: \u201cThe primeval religions were in one country and one language. But my religion is of that kind that it will be manifest in every country and in all languages, and it will be taught in far away countries.\u201d He lived to see this vision come true; during his lifetime, Manichaean missionaries reached both Israel and Central Asia and did not stop until they had made converts from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast.
\nDespite the success of its missionaries, Manichaeanism never established a political system. It clashed with governments almost as a matter of course\u2014Manichaeans were pacifist, lived introspectively, and practiced a number of alien rituals. Since they came from Iran, the Romans suspected them of being Persian spies; meanwhile, since Mani had incorporated so much of Buddhism into his system, Buddhist Chinese suspected them of being Buddhist heretics. As a result, the Manichaeans were persecuted with extreme vigor in most of the lands in which they settled. Mani\u2019s ideas persisted, however. Small pockets survived up until the fourteenth century, and although Manichaeanism never made great headway in Europe, it may have influenced two great heresies of the Middle Ages, Catharism and Bogomilism, which were both dualist and antimaterial, and which both preached salvation for ordinary people by virtue of the efforts of a small cadre of the elite.<\/p>\n
Heretical Teaching<\/p>\n
Cosmology<\/p>\n
For Mani, the key to salvation was separation: the divine spirit was confined in the material world and needed to be released. But how did the divine spirit get there in the first place?
\nTo answer this question, Mani developed an elaborate cosmology based on Zoroastrian dualism, the idea that good and evil are locked in an eternal battle, with neither side having the upper hand. Manichaean cosmology bears little resemblance to Christianity, but the structure of the story will be familiar to most readers. Just as the Christian story begins with the story of the fall, in which humankind rebels against God, Mani\u2019s story also begins with a fall of sorts, where darkness and light began to mingle.
\nIn ages past, according to Mani, the kingdom of darkness launched a supernatural attack on the kingdom of light, which the kingdom of light was unable to repel entirely. God was forced to send part of himself as a soldier, known as the Primal Man, along with five gods, to battle the evil gods known as Archons. In the struggle, the Primal Man was defeated and taken captive. The Archons then created the material world to hold the Primal Man as a hostage\u2014every plant, animal, and human contained glimmers of him. In an ingenious move, the Archons also came up with the idea of sex, which would imprison more and more pieces of God in matter as humans reproduced. Humankind is made up partly of the Primal Man, who is dazed and only faintly remembers his heritage, and partly out of the material prison.
\nThe next stage of the story involves redemption, where God begins the process of extracting Primal Man from the material world. Through messengers such as Buddha, Zoroaster, and especially Jesus (note that there are no other Jewish messengers), God tried to alert Primal Man to his condition. Most of the story of redemption involves only teaching\u2014it is a matter of awakening a sleeping God rather than restoring a fallen nature. The story of Jesus, for instance, is framed as follows:<\/p>\n
[He] found the Primal Man swallowed up by darkness, him and his Five Sons \u2026 [He] took on the aspect [form] of a sharp sword, and he allowed his shape to become visible to Primal Man, and said to him:<\/p>\n
\u201cGreeting, O Good Man in the midst of Evil,
\nO Creature of Light in the midst of Darkness!
\nGod dwells in the midst of the beasts of wrath
\nWho do not know his honour.\u201d<\/p>\n
And the Primal Man \u2026 said to him:<\/p>\n
\u201cCome with salvation, since thou bringest
\nThe burden of salvation and peace \u2026
\nHow goes it with our Fathers,
\nThe Sons of Light, in their City?\u201d<\/p>\n
And the Call [i.e. Christ, the voice of God] said to him:<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here Christ\u2019s role is primarily reminding Primal Man of his latent divinity. Christ also takes the lead in the conflict with darkness (directly after this dialogue, Christ slays the Archons), but his main duty is to make Primal Man aware that the material world is not his home.
\nThe final stage of the cosmology involved the duties of the believers before the destruction of the world. While Christ was preaching his message, the kingdom of light organized a final counterattack. The material world would be destroyed and so, unfortunately, would the pieces of God held hostage in it. Time was running short.<\/p>\n
The Role of the Believer in Salvation<\/p>\n
Church historian J. N. D. Kelly describes the Manichaean view that humans are both saved by God and the savior of God: \u201cAs he exists, man is tragically involved in the material order; he is fallen and lost. Actually, however, he is a particle of Light, belonging to, though exiled from, the transcendent world. He is of the same essence as God, and human souls are fragments of the divine substance \u2026 in the process of salvation, God is at once redeemer and redeemed.\u201d
\nAfter Christ revealed to Mani that God had been trapped in an alien world, Mani organized an elite class known as the Righteous, or the Elect, to carry out the work of redeeming God. The Elect went through a lengthy purification process and lived an ascetic life, wholly dependent on the financial support of the Manichaean peasants and craftsmen, who led more or less ordinary lives. Although good works and prayer were important, the main task of the Elect was to free the pieces of God that were trapped in plants (especially cucumbers and melons, which Mani thought looked and smelled so wonderful that they must be direct links to heaven), by eating them. To maintain this power to free God by eating, they could not buy themselves clothes or food, and they could not have any sexual relations (having children would trap more of God in more forms of matter). The freed particles of God would then drift up to heaven in a spectacular display known as \u201cthe Column of Glory.\u201d
\nTo protect and support the Elect, Mani organized a second, much larger class known as Hearers, or Auditors. The Auditors could own property and marry, although they practiced self-restraint and birth control. Most important, they provided food for the elect and allowed them to maintain their ascetic existence. Although the Auditors were not freeing pieces of God themselves, they were guaranteed security from the coming destruction because of their care for the Elect. However, this guarantee came with a twist\u2014if the Elect slipped in their moral purity, the salvation of the Auditors would also disappear. The two classes were thus mutually dependent.
\nUsing Mani\u2019s vision as a guide, the Elect were promised immediate access to the afterlife, where they would be freed from their material prisons and made into angels. The Auditors were offered the chance to be reincarnated as Elect or, if they were especially good, as melons (a sort of express route to heaven). As far as others were concerned, the God particles would continue cycling in different forms until the final battle of good and evil took place. Because all material things, including the physical body, were viewed as evil and restrictive, the Manichaeans rejected the New Testament concept of the resurrection of the dead.<\/p>\n
Appeal<\/p>\n
Mani\u2019s preaching is unusual, to say the least, and it might seem surprising that it won considerable support in the ancient world. To understand its appeal, think for a moment about a world without modern medicine\u2014even basics like aspirin and penicillin. Think of how painful a toothache or an infection would be, and how there would be no prospect of relief. In such a world, it would be easy to make the blanket statement that material things are evil. And one had the option to become a Manichaean without a terrible amount of commitment by joining as an Auditor.
\nThose are practical reasons, but there is a theological reason as well. On the surface, Mani solved the problem of suffering very neatly. In his scheme, God is purely good and simply not all-powerful. He wants to make the world a good place, but he is thwarted by a potent evil force. The goodness of the world is trapped in evil and needs to be extracted. There is no theological difficulty over the problem of evil and the goodness of God, and little need to confront ourselves as sinners. In Christianity, humans are fallen from goodness in both body and soul, but in Manichaeanism the material part is evil in itself. This view of God and humankind is a crucial difference between Manichaeanism and orthodox Christianity.<\/p>\n
Orthodox Response<\/p>\n
Orthodox Christians were deeply concerned by Manichaeanism, not only because it was a highly successful rival but because it claimed to be a newer, more reliable interpretation of Christianity. Manichaeans used Christian terms and claimed Christianity\u2019s central figure, even while rejecting most of its core doctrines.
\nChristian theologians attacked Manichaeanism on four main grounds: first, that by stripping God of his omnipotence, Mani had also stripped him of his goodness; second, that the Manichaeans rejected God\u2019s work in history by rejecting the Old Testament; third, that Manichaeans could not accept the incarnation and thus made the work of Christ meaningless; and finally, that by placing their hopes in their efforts to free God particles, Manichaeans were looking to the wrong source for salvation.<\/p>\n
Goodness of God<\/p>\n
Ephrem, a Syriac Christian writer who lived on the border of the Persian Empire, had extensive contact with the Manichaeans and composed one of the better-informed refutations of their teachings. He argued that the Manichaean doctrine that the forces of evil are equally as powerful as the forces of good boils the question of good and evil down to the preference of the individual. Neither side can claim to have created the world or to have a preexisting right to rule. Instead, one side seeks the aid of humankind in gaining dominance over the other. Although Mani thought he had solved the problem of suffering and the goodness of God by removing God\u2019s absolute sovereignty, he had really made God into a politician who needed to negotiate and manipulate to get his way.<\/p>\n
Canon of Scripture<\/p>\n
St. Augustine, a North African bishop, adhered to Manichaeanism for ten years while he was at Carthage, and then at Rome, before he converted dramatically to Christianity. After his conversion, Augustine wrote against Manichaeanism in his Confessions and Against Faustus the Manichaean. (Faustus was a chief theologian of Manichaeanism.) Although other Christian apologists, such as Hegemonius, Cyril, and Alexander of Lycopolis, made a strong case against Manichaeanism, Augustine\u2019s experience within it provided him with some of the best arguments against it.
\nAs a young man, Augustine had been horrified by the moral failures of the Old Testament\u2014its angry God and its ruthless wars\u2014and its apparent crudeness. This paired very well with the position of the Manichaeans, who added diplomatically that they did not feel comfortable taking for themselves a text that was written explicitly for the Jewish people. However, as an older man, Augustine began to appreciate the Old Testament more. It was a nonnegotiable part of the Christian tradition, he explained, because it was written by God and foretold the coming of Christ. But more than that, it showed in physical terms the spiritual riches that would be granted in the New Testament. Only once the world had first seen how God acted in concrete things\u2014victory in war, financial prosperity, national peace\u2014could it then realize both God\u2019s power over every aspect of life and what God\u2019s goodness might look like spiritually even when those things were taken away: \u201cHow can you understand spiritual things of the inner man, who is renewed in the knowledge of God \u2026 if you do not possess temporal things? You boast of despising as worthless the land of Canaan, which was an actual thing, and actually given to the Jews; and yet you tell of a land of light cut asunder on one side, as by a narrow wedge, by the land of the race of darkness.\u201d By rejecting the Old Testament, the Manichaeans were missing a crucial aspect of who God is and how Christ had come to fulfill that revelation.<\/p>\n
Work of Christ<\/p>\n
The Manichaeans denied that Christ was really born or really suffered. They believed Christ merely made himself visible to remind the Primal Man of what he was. His sufferings were symbolic, not real, because for the Son of God to take our nature would be to contaminate himself with evil. The incarnation, as a contradiction of dualistic belief, was considered outlandish and implausible. Because of this conviction, the Manichaeans doubted the authenticity of the gospel accounts on the matter of Christ\u2019s birth, citing the conflicting genealogies of Matthew and Luke as proof that the humanity of Christ was a later invention. The only reliable information was thought to be Christ\u2019s ascetic teachings to \u201csell all\u201d and live a life of devotion and self-sacrifice.
\nAugustine replied by pointing to the significance of Christ\u2019s death and resurrection to overcome evil. In the Manichaean account, Christ remained aloof from the material world and called to the parts of God that were trapped within. But in the New Testament, Christ entered into the material world and \u201cbecame a curse\u201d by bearing the punishment of death that God had laid on humanity. Augustine maintained that the fact that Christ was a human, flesh and all, was vital to understanding how he saved humanity, and that he had taken great pains to demonstrate his material nature by inviting the apostle Thomas to touch him after the resurrection. To say otherwise was to place oneself as a higher authority than Christ.<\/p>\n
Root of Salvation<\/p>\n
The Manichaeans argued that they were truer to Christ\u2019s teaching because they lived a purely ascetic life, while the Christians were less radical: \u201cFaustus said: Do I believe the gospel? You ask me if I believe it, though my obedience to its commands shows that I do. I should rather ask you if you believe it, since you give no proof of your belief. I have left my father, mother, wife, and children, and all else that the gospel requires; and do you ask if I believe the gospel? Perhaps you do not know what is called the gospel. The gospel is nothing else than the preaching and the precept of Christ. I have parted with all gold and silver, and have left off carrying money in my purse; content with daily food; without anxiety for tomorrow; and without solicitude about how I shall be fed, or wherewithal I shall be clothed: and do you ask if I believe the gospel?\u201d
\nIn terms of works, the Manichaeans were nothing if not devout. They gave their entire lives to their beliefs, and not only in consuming cucumbers to free God-particles. An ancient guide to Manichaean spirituality reveals that they were people who really tried to be temperate, to guard the environment, and to cultivate humility. They were likely pleasant people. But they directed their energies to the wrong source. In response to Faustus, Augustine writes, \u201cFor the precepts, supposing you really [were] to fulfill them, would not profit you without true faith. Do you not know that the apostle says, \u2018If I distribute all my goods to the poor, and give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profits me nothing?\u2019 Why do you boast of having Christian poverty, when you are destitute of Christian charity?\u201d The long list of Faustus\u2019s accomplishments was useless because he placed his trust in his radical lifestyle rather than God\u2019s love.
\nOf course, Manichaeanism is contrary to orthodox Christianity because it insists that there is no omnipotent God who is the creator of all things. Rather, the eternal struggle between good and evil places the force of the good on equal footing with the force of evil. In contrast, orthodox Christianity asserts that there is one God who existed prior to and separate from creation. Humanity is not part of God, and God is able to defeat evil. Colossians asserts that Christ is above every earthly power, and his victorious resurrection serves as the ultimate answer to the problem of evil. Moreover, and contrary to Manichaeanism, Christianity does not ascribe evil to creation, for the book of Genesis describes everything created by God as good before the fall of Adam.<\/p>\n
Contemporary Relevance<\/p>\n
Manichaeanism no longer directly influences any major religion today, nor is it likely to reemerge in the West in the near future. The material comfort of Western society leaves little room for a religion that is based largely on the rejection of material things as evil, and the pragmatic, secular culture that has come to dominate the West is unlikely to embrace Mani\u2019s elaborate cosmology. However, Manichaeanism represents a few challenges, both inside and outside the church, that should be recognized.
\nMani\u2019s view of salvation lay in separating darkness from light, and he drew a sharp, unambiguous distinction between the two. The doctrine has a grain of truth\u2014we, too, believe that we are being drawn out of sin and into God\u2019s salvation; that is, we are sanctified progressively. However, while it is true that salvation is a process\u2014that we are \u201cbeing saved\u201d\u2014Christians are not attempting to become more and more free from their material selves. In Christ, Christians have put on a new self that renders the old fallen humanity as dead. We have newness of life in Christ, but that newness of life will fully be realized only at the final bodily resurrection, when the fullness of salvation is finally consummated.
\nSecond, Mani\u2019s ascetic interpretation of the gospel offers a significant challenge to much contemporary consumerism and calls into question how we spend our time and money. There is no mistaking the fact that Christ calls for a simpler, less comfortable life than we would like. On the other hand, where Manichaeanism devalued the physical world as evil, the classical Christian interpretation urges us to delight in what God has created. The balance between forsaking the pleasures of the world and enjoying the goodness of creation is increasingly difficult to find in modern life.
\nFinally, Christians in every age must overcome one of the primary ways in which Mani stumbled\u2014namely, in his rejection of the elements of Christianity that clashed with his own worldview and offended him. While modern Christians may laugh at the naivete of one who believes that a good person will be reincarnated as a cucumber or a melon, it is all too easy for some to overlook some of the more difficult parts of the Bible or minimize what our culture would call superstitious (such as the incarnation, the cross, the resurrection, and the ascension). We should be sure that our preferences don\u2019t dictate which parts of the Bible we consider authoritative. The central elements of the Christian faith, though standing in opposition to culturally acceptable forms of thought, are where Christians find salvation and hope.<\/p>\n
Discussion Questions<\/p>\n
1. Why did the Manichaeans consider the body \u201cdetestable\u201d? Do you agree with their reasoning?
\n2. What are some ways in which Christians still undervalue the human body and other elements of God\u2019s good creation?
\n3. Manichaeans had more than good intentions\u2014as Faustus demonstrates, they often lived intensely devout lives and professed faith in Jesus Christ. Why did ancient Christians consider them to be outside the fold of the church?
\n4. What attitude should a Christian have toward material things? Do you have to \u201csell everything and give the money to the poor\u201d to be a Christian? If not, how might you treat material goods in a way that differs significantly from the world?<\/p>\n
Further Reading<\/p>\n
Augustine. The Confessions. Translated by Maria Boulding. New York: New City Press, 2001.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. Contra Faustum. http:\/\/www.newadvent.org\/fathers\/140604.htm.
\nBeDuhn, Jason. The Manichaean Body: In Discipline and Ritual. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2000.
\nWelburn, Andrew. Mani, the Angel, and the Column of Glory: An Anthology of Manichaean Texts. Edinburgh: Floris Books, 1998.
\nWidengren, Geo. Mani and Manichaeanism. Great Britain: George Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1965.<\/p>\n
CHAPTER 6<\/p>\n
SABELLIUS<\/p>\n
One Actor and Three Hats<\/p>\n
Historical Background<\/p>\n
During the second and third centuries, Christianity was struggling to reconcile the idea of a single God, as stated in no uncertain terms in the Old Testament\u2014\u201cI am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God\u201d (Isa. 45:5)\u2014with the three divine names that appear at the end of the gospel of Matthew\u2014\u201cTherefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit\u201d (Matt. 28:19). What was to be done about the apparent discrepancy? If there was no God besides the God of Israel, who were the Son and the Holy Spirit? Were they new gods who had just been revealed? Was one or both somewhere in between, a demigod? Some theologians, like Marcion (see chapter 3), took the confusion as proof positive that the whole Old Testament had to be rejected, while others concluded that all three names were just three different ways that God wanted people to think of him. The most famous advocate of the latter position was a third century theologian and priest named Sabellius. Little is known about Sabellius, who was excommunicated sometime around AD 220, but the teaching attached to his name, known as Sabellianism or Sabellian Modalism, became a well-known heresy.<\/p>\n
Heretical Teaching<\/p>\n
Sabellianism is the most intellectually well-developed form of Modalism, a heresy that claims that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are simply different modes, or forms, of God rather than distinct persons. Modalism is itself a variety of an older heresy called Monarchianism, which stresses the \u201cone rule\u201d of God. The universe is so orderly, the Monarchians believed, that it must be the product of one supreme ruler, which means a single being. Trinitarianism seemed to complicate the idea of that single being. Monarchianism emerged as a response to the polytheism around the early Christians, affirming that there is no being equal to God and that he is the ruler over everything.
\nWhile early versions of Modalism stood out as simplistic and easily dismissable, Sabellius gave the teaching a facelift, making it much more advanced and defensible. In Sabellianism, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are just three different hats or masks that God wears, as the situation demands. Therefore, while it was proper to speak of God the Father and God the Son, it would be incorrect to refer to them as interacting with one another or having separate experiences. According to Hippolytus, an early opponent of Sabellius, Sabellianism divided up the three roles into the actions of the one God at different times in history. In other words, Father, Son, and Spirit are merely adjectives describing how the one divine being acts and is perceived by believers. Sabellius used the analogy of the sun to explain his position on the life of the Godhead. In the same way that the sun, a concrete object, gives off both light and heat, so also the single divine being radiates in history in different fashions. In the Old Testament we see the divine being acting as Father, then again in redemption in a different form as the Son in the Gospels, and finally in the lives of believers as the Holy Spirit in the present age.
\nSabellius\u2019s idea raises some important questions. First, if God takes one role at a time, who was crucified? Did God actually die? And second, to whom was Jesus speaking when he referred to God the Father? The answers to these two questions made Sabellius famous. As to who died on the cross, he adopted a position that his enemies dubbed \u201cPatripassianism\u201d or \u201cthe suffering of the Father.\u201d Sabellius was consistent with his theory of the different roles: when Scripture said that Jesus was crucified, it was referring to the same person who had made a covenant with Israel in the Old Testament as well as the one who lived with believers in the New. To buttress this point, Sabellius quoted several passages from the Old Testament, such as Isaiah 63:8\u20139 LXX): \u201cHe became to them deliverance out of all their affliction: not an ambassador, nor a messenger, but himself saved them, because he loved them and spared them: He himself redeemed them.\u201d It seemed pretty obvious to Sabellius that the prophecy should be taken literally\u2014the God of Israel came down and died to deliver his people, albeit in a new role. He was adamant that it was all of God rather than part of God that suffered, since the point he had taken issue with in the first place was the division of God.
\nAs for whom Jesus was addressing, Sabellius was again consistent in his theory. He proposed that Jesus was demonstrating how to pray for our benefit rather than holding an actual conversation with God. Sabellius used Jesus\u2019 words to Philip at the Last Supper as a prooftext: \u201cDon\u2019t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, \u2018Show us the Father\u2019?\u201d (John 14:9). This passage should have priority over the prayer, Sabellius believed, because Jesus was clearly identifying what the nature of God is. The idea that Jesus was praying as a demonstration was also related to Sabellius\u2019s interpretation of \u201cthe Word\u201d in John 1; while acknowledging that John 1 seems to hint at the divinity of the Word (traditionally seen as Christ by the orthodox), Sabellius maintained that the Word was to be understood in the simplest sense, as a sound that God had made, rather than turning the Word into a person.
\nSabellius\u2019s writings do not survive\u2014the previously quoted passages are taken from quotations preserved by his opponents\u2014and it is difficult to pin down his theology in its best form. It is also unclear what led him to develop his theory. However, from what we can glean from the reactions of his opponents, he had several legitimate concerns. Naturally, he wanted to defend the oneness of God. At this time, several groups had split from Christianity that proclaimed two or more gods\u2014Marcion, for instance, or the Gnostics (see chapter 2). Many of these groups had thrown out Christianity\u2019s Jewish heritage. By prioritizing oneness, Modalists were voting for continuity with Judaism and in particular with Jewish monotheism. The fact that God the Father and God the Son (as the Trinitarians put it) each had their own testament only invited division. Marcion had published a list of differences between what he saw as the personalities of the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New, and declared his allegiance to the God of the New. But what if both books were actually devoted to the same God in different roles? The discrepancies would be resolved. Furthermore, Sabellians defended the full divinity of Christ against what they saw as a worrying tendency to demote him to a demigod. Earlier theologians such as Hippolytus had made claims that Christ and God the Father were two persons; Sabellians must have considered the division too sharp, and they charged Hippolytus and others like him with ditheism (worshiping two gods).
\nSome of Sabellius\u2019s concerns were pastoral. Sabellius thought that the idea of assigning persons to the three names was overly complicated in a way that God himself would not be. Perhaps the Trinity was a distinction that specialized theologians could make, but for the uneducated lay people who made up the bulk of the church, a God who is both three and one would be impossible to worship without drifting into polytheism. So in addition to trying to maintain Jewish monotheism, Sabellius thought that his theory of \u201csimple Unity\u201d was a way to take Christianity out of the hands of academics and put it back where it belonged.
\nSabellianism persisted in the outer regions of the Roman Empire for some time (especially in Libya, Sabellius\u2019s homeland), and was condemned at most church councils. Although its theology was influential, largely because it was so easy to grasp, Sabellianism lacked clout as a movement and never made much headway into the church proper. The closest it came to doing so was when Sabellius managed to gain favor with Pope Callistus, a rival of Sabellius\u2019s archenemy Hippolytus, but Callistus soon excommunicated Sabellius and ended his career in the public eye.
\nHowever, Sabellianism was indirectly credited with creating a much bigger theological crisis in the following centuries. Arianism, which drew sharp distinctions between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, was in many ways the opposite of the Sabellian heresy. It was rumored that Arius, who had formerly been a Christian monk, developed overly strong views on the distinctions among the Godhead after hearing what he considered to be a Sabellian sermon in Egypt. Indeed, Arianism represented most of the criticisms that Sabellius leveled against the Trinitarians, including the division of God into multiple beings.<\/p>\n
Orthodox Response<\/p>\n
In theology, it is much easier to tell when an idea is wrong than it is to articulate precisely the right answer. The church had been adamant that Modalism did not adequately account for the way God had revealed himself in Scripture, but as of yet few theologians had advanced a solution that was adequate. The challenge of Sabellianism and its brief influence in high places motivated the first substantial Trinitarian theologies and generated the terms that we use today.
\nThe orthodox party was represented by three major figures: Hippolytus, a failed candidate for pope, Tertullian, a North African lawyer and convert to Christianity, and Origen, a brilliant but eccentric philosopher from Egypt. Together, these figures hammered out the basics of Trinitarian theology that later figures, such as Athanasius, improved upon.
\nThe Sabellians maintained that any Scripture passage that suggests that God is more than one must be interpreted metaphorically. But Tertullian argued that a metaphorical interpretation twisted the terms \u201cFather\u201d and \u201cSon,\u201d which were given to humans to convey something real about God. \u201cIn order to be a husband, I must have a wife,\u201d Tertullian said. \u201cI can never myself be my own wife. In like manner, in order to be a father, I have a son, for I never can be a son to myself; and in order to be a son, I have a father, it being impossible for me ever to be my own father.\u201d Furthermore, he showed that Christ showed his deity to the apostles not only by assuming the attributes of the God of Israel (such as when he says, \u201cI am,\u201d in John 8:58) but also by calling on God the Father as a separate witness. Quoting John 8:18, Tertullian writes, \u201c \u2018I am one who am bearing witness of myself; and the Father (is another) who has sent me, and bears witness of me.\u2019 Now, if he were one\u2014being at once both the Son and the Father\u2014he certainly would not have quoted the sanction of the law, which requires not the testimony of one, but of two.\u201d The fact that Christ did not know when the end of the world would take place, the fact that he was forsaken by God on the cross, and the fact that he constantly pointed his listeners to the Father as well as himself all rendered Sabellius\u2019s theory difficult to maintain.
\nHowever, it remained for the orthodox party to explain precisely what Christ is in relation to the Father, and this was the real achievement of the controversy. They agreed that there are not two gods, as Marcion and some of the Gnostics said. Tertullian therefore developed terms that emphasized the unity of God as well as his distinctions. He proposed that we speak of the Godhead as \u201cone substance (substantia) consisting in three persons (persona),\u201d which was rendered in Greek as ousia (essence or being) and hypostases (concrete things). That way, God can be understood properly as one being, a single agent, but it can also be acknowledged that God is also three persons who interact with one another and work together. It is from Tertullian that we get the important Christian word \u201cTrinity,\u201d although the idea of the Trinity had been around long before and is taught in the Bible.
\nTertullian and Origen also set forth explanations of how a Trinity might be possible without creating demigods. They proposed that Christ eternally proceeds from the Father, rather than being born at a single moment in time. (The Sabellians had accused the orthodox of embracing the Valentinian heresy, which said that God created a number of lesser gods, or Aeons.) Although \u201cbegotten\u201d suggests a one-time, completed action in the past, Tertullian pointed out that God is said to beget Wisdom in Proverbs 8:22\u2014a personified, speaking Wisdom\u2014but was there a time when God was without or will be without Wisdom? Surely not. God does not have to create his own insight\u2014it simply flows out of him. Similarly, it is possible to \u201cbeget\u201d the Son of God without meaning that God created a separate god. Christ came from, was dependent on, and was inextricably linked to the Father: \u201cI confess that I call God and His Word\u2014the Father and His Son\u2014two. For the root and the tree are distinctly two things, but correlatively joined; the fountain and the river are also two forms, but indivisible; so likewise the sun and the ray are two forms, but coherent ones. Everything which proceeds from something else must needs be second to that from which it proceeds, without being on that account separated. Where, however, there is a second, there must be two; and where there is a third, there must be three. Now the Spirit indeed is third from God and the Son; just as the fruit of the tree is third from the root.\u201d
\nHowever, even if this is so, why not speak of a divine Triad? Should we refer to God as the three persons of the Trinity, as \u201cthem\u201d instead of \u201chim\u201d? Tertullian argued that when Jesus said, \u201cI and my Father are one,\u201d he was emphasizing the idea of substance, or divine essence, that allows us to refer to God as a single being. The phrase meant more than the mere unity of purpose that two separate beings would have, even if it also meant less than the complete identification of the Father with the Son that Sabellius had suggested. Instead, Christ was saying that he and the Father are one being, and that the idea that God is a single being came first: to talk to Christ, for example, is to talk to all the members of the Trinity. The later Athanasian Creed puts it this way:<\/p>\n
1. [W]e worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity;
\n2. Neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.
\n3. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit.
\n4. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal.
\n5. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n
Since God is one, it is possible to distinguish the members of the Trinity, but that distinction does not affect worshiping God as a whole. Jesus\u2019 glory is also the Father\u2019s glory, and so forth. Many of the ideas listed above appeared in Tertullian\u2019s work during this controversy.<\/p>\n
Contemporary Relevance<\/p>\n
Sabellianism is one of the heresies in the church that sticks around. Anyone who has sat in a Sunday school class and heard that God is like water because he can take three forms (liquid, steam, and ice) has been exposed to a contemporary variation of Modalism. God is not one person who can change into three different forms but a being who is complex within himself.
\nAlthough it generally has a low profile compared to Arianism, Modalism has also gained some momentum. It is seen today in the oneness Pentecostalism movement, which denies the Trinity.
\nHowever, Modalism gains ground less because it is strongly advocated than because of apathy. Sabellianism is attractive in its simplicity, and Sabellius\u2019s pastoral challenge\u2014that the Trinity is the province of specialized theologians\u2014strikes a chord in modern culture. Compared with the idea that God is merely one, the orthodox answer might seem overly complex and philosophical, or an unnecessary later addition to the authentic Christian faith. After all, the Bible does not spell out the Trinity\u2014though it is clearly taught from passages from all over Scripture.
\nPerhaps one of the best reasons for complex Trinitarianism comes from C. S. Lewis, who once wrote, \u201cGood philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.\u201d In some respects, this describes the Sabellian controversy; orthodox philosophy needed to be developed to answer the Sabellian philosophy. But Trinitarian theology is much more than a merely human philosophy. It takes seriously the idea that God has revealed himself in Scripture and wants to be known, and that he has revealed himself in a certain way. The question at the beginning of the chapter\u2014only one God, or three?\u2014is unavoidable when reading the Bible, and the consequence of leaving the question unanswered is to let it be badly answered.
\nSabellianism was one such bad answer. In the Sabellian scheme, God is no longer love, because he no longer has anyone whom he has loved eternally. The intimate relationship between God the Father and Jesus in John 17 becomes a weird sort of schizophrenia. Finally, since God takes on several different roles as he pleases (such as Son and Father), it is questionable whether we have ever encountered God as he really is rather than what he does. The orthodox party\u2014laboriously, with many starts and stops in the first few centuries\u2014worked out the answer that is best in accord with Scripture.
\nWhat\u2019s more, Modalism undercuts the atoning work of Jesus Christ. If there is only one God who merely appears in different forms in history, one must question whether Jesus Christ was truly man, or if he only appeared to be, as in the heresy of Docetism. If Jesus Christ is not fully God and fully man, then he cannot be the one mediator between God and man.
\nOn a final, practical note, some other religions, particularly the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses and Mormons, see Christianity as Sabellian.<\/p>\n
Since many of the errors that these groups ascribe to mainstream Christianity are actually Sabellian in nature, it is useful to know the middle road that orthodox doctrine strikes between unity and distinction. Being able to articulate concisely what the Trinity is, how it makes the best sense of Scripture, and how it affects our salvation and the worship of God can be valuable in witnessing to others as well as developing our own relationship with God.<\/p>\n
Discussion Questions<\/p>\n
1. What do you make of Sabellius\u2019s pastoral challenge? Does the doctrine of the Trinity overcomplicate matters? How would you introduce solid Trinitarian theology to others?
\n2. Why do you think Sabellianism, with its idea that God is merely one, was less of a problem for the church than other heresies?
\n3. Sabellius placed a great deal of weight on the Old Testament prophecies that God would come to Israel. How would an ortho dox interpretation of those prophecies differ from Sabellius? What difference would that make in our understanding of God?<\/p>\n
Further Reading<\/p>\n
Bickersteth, Edward Henry. The Trinity: The Classical Study of Biblical Trinitarianism. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2000.
\nHippolytus. A Refutation of All Heresies, Book IX. http:\/\/www.newadvent.org\/fathers\/050109.htm.
\nLetham, Robert. The Holy Trinity: In Scripture, History, Theology, and Worship. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2004.
\nTertullian. Against Praxeas. http:\/\/www.newadvent.org\/fathers\/0317.htm.<\/p>\n
CHAPTER 7<\/p>\n
ARIUS<\/p>\n
Jesus Is a Lesser God<\/p>\n
Historical Background<\/p>\n
Sudden chaos overtook Alexandria in 318. A riot broke out and people streamed into the street chanting, \u201cThere was a time when Christ was not!\u201d Meanwhile, another large group of Christians stood their ground with the bishop against this movement, insisting that Christ is the eternal God along with the Father. Eventually this conflict spilled over to the rest of the empire and threatened to break apart the unity of the church. What began this crisis? It really came down to one man\u2014Arius (ca. 256\u2013336).
\nArius was a presbyter in Alexandria, the home of the brilliant theologian Origen (184\u2013230). He came under the influence of Lucian of Antioch, a headmaster at a Christian school, and went to school with Eusebius of Nicomedia, who eventually became an important and influential bishop. Arius eventually went on to become a presbyter in Alexandria. Like most in Antioch, all three erred on the side of emphasizing the humanity of Christ rather than his divinity. They firmly rejected Sabellius\u2019s Modalism (see chapter 6), because that would imply that God the Father died and was crucified on the cross. And lest they put their respective church positions in jeopardy, they knew they could not publicly embrace Paul of Samosata\u2019s Adoptionism (the idea that a human person named Jesus was adopted into divinity). A new solution needed to be developed. Based partly on Origen\u2019s teachings on the Trinity, Arius developed a theory of the nature of God that firmly separated Jesus from the Father.
\nSince part of Arius\u2019s responsibility as presbyter was to direct a school of biblical interpretation for priests and laypersons who wished to teach, his theories quickly gained traction with the next generation of Christian leaders. Over time he began to openly criticize Alexander, bishop of Alexandria. Alexander has been described in history as a gentle and tolerant soul who did not relish conflicts. Nevertheless, the bishop took the field against Arius and insisted that the Son is just as much God as the Father. Arius then accused Alexander of being sympathetic to Sabellius\u2019s Modalism.
\nA time came when the Arian movement became so popular that Alexander could no longer fight Arius\u2019s criticism with mere sermons and correspondences. He called a synod of bishops to discuss whether Arius\u2019s views were orthodox. Before they made a decision, Arius rallied his followers to pour out into the streets to add pressure to the leaders. Arius\u2019s sympathizers wrote songs to fire up the working class. The mob got caught up in the passion of the slogans, songs, and Arius\u2019s personality, but they did not necessarily grasp the theological issues. In response, Alexander\u2019s supporters likewise marched in the streets against Arius. When the two groups met, a riot broke out.
\nBut the synod went on. More than a hundred bishops from various parts of the eastern Roman Empire listened to Alexander critique Arius\u2019s teachings. He accused Arius of resurrecting Paul of Samosata\u2019s Adoptionism in a more sophisticated way. It did not matter whether the Logos was created before or after time began, Alexander argued. The difference was slight. The fact of the matter was that Arius denied the deity of Christ, which is why Paul of Samosata\u2019s teaching was rejected. Alexander insisted that salvation depends on God\u2019s uniting himself with humanity in the person of Jesus Christ so that we can be saved. After hearing this, the synod decided that Arius\u2019s view was heretical and forced him to leave the city.<\/p>\n
Heretical Teaching<\/p>\n
Arius was not trying to start a crisis; he thought that the relationship between God and Jesus was simple and needed to be freed from overcomplication. After all, \u201cTrinity\u201d was not a common term at the time, and it had not yet been precisely defined. The word \u201cTrinity\u201d is not found in Scripture (it was first used by Tertullian), and it is best described as shorthand for all the teachings of Scripture on the nature of God. Since the age of the apostles, Jesus had always been considered divine in at least some sense, but his precise relationship to the Godhead had not yet been articulated. Yet the church still had an unspoken sense of what the Trinity isn\u2019t. This was why Sabellius was rejected for teaching that God is sometimes the Father, at other times the Son, and then at another time the Spirit, but never all at once (Modalism). Paul of Samosata, likewise, was rejected, because he taught that Jesus started out as a mere man who was \u201cadopted\u201d by God to become the Son of God (Adoptionism). Those early explanations were deemed incompatible with Scripture and therefore heresies.
\nArius\u2019s own conceptions of the Trinity can be traced back to Origen (184\u2013253), a brilliant and imaginative Egyptian theologian. Two streams of thought flowed in Origen\u2019s teachings concerning the Son, and followers gravitated to one of the two streams. In one stream, Origen strongly affirmed that the Son is equal to the Father. In the other stream, Origen wrote that the Son is eternally subordinate to the Father. The implication of the second stream communicated to some that the Son is somehow a lesser being than the Father, though Origen did not elaborate. The lack of a fuller explanation of the second stream of Origen\u2019s thought left the door wide open for further suggestions.
\nTo understand Arius\u2019s theory, we must mention two common presumptions about God that were derived from the logic of Greek philosophy. First, God does not change (immutability). Change implies imperfection. For good or bad, if God changes, then he cannot be deemed absolutely perfect because he has either improved or regressed. God is already at the peak of perfection, so there is no room to grow, and he is fixed at that peak of perfection, so he cannot regress. Second, the other presumption is that God cannot suffer; he is \u201cpassionless\u201d (impassibility). Most early theologians believed in these two attributes of God.
\nArius and his followers exploited these two attributes to advance their argument that the Son is not coeternal with the Father but is the supreme creation. He acknowledged that everyone believed that Jesus Christ is the incarnation of the Logos (the Word). No problem there. The problem lay with the following: \u201cIf the Logos is divine in the same sense that God the Father is divine, then God\u2019s nature would be changed by the human life of Jesus in time and God would have suffered in him.\u201d The implication that God changes and suffers seemed blasphemous! So it must be then, Arius concluded, that only God the Father is without beginning. The Son came into existence through the will of the Father. To avoid charges of Adoptionism, Arius taught that the Logos was begotten \u201ctimelessly\u201d\u2014that is, before Genesis 1:1. \u201cIn the beginning,\u201d the Logos was created and was given all things from the Father to share. With this solution it was not God the Father who grew up and eventually suffered on the cross but only the Logos experienced this on behalf of God and humanity. Thus, when the Scriptures speak of Jesus as the Son of God, this is merely a title of honor\u2014a title given to Jesus as the one on whom the Father had lavished a special grace.
\nArius believed that the Father and the Son are two separate beings and that the biblical model for their relationship is one of eternal subordination: the Father is the one who decides matters and the Son is the one who obeys. That the Son would yield to the Father\u2019s preferences was a natural conclusion, since in Arius\u2019s model the Son is simply a loyal creature serving his creator.
\nArius explained the sharpness of his division in reasonable terms: \u201cFor God to implant His substance to some other being, however exalted, would imply that He is divisible and subject to change, which is inconceivable. Moreover, if any other being were to participate in the divine nature in any valid sense, there would result a duality of divine beings, whereas the Godhead is by definition unique.\u201d According to Arius, if the Father and the Son were of the same essence, it is difficult to see how in the incarnation the Father would not become passible.
\nArius argued that the Son was created before time. He is not coeternal with the Father. As he put it, \u201cBefore he was begotten or created or appointed or established, he did not exist; for he was not unbegotten.\u201d Furthermore, the Son is not of one divine substance with the Father. He is rather of a similar substance with the Father (Greek homoiousios). On this view, the divine qualities of the Son are derivative (contingent, not essential), given to the Son by the Father. As Arius described Jesus, \u201cHe is not God truly, but by participation in grace \u2026 He too is called God in name only.\u201d<\/p>\n
Orthodox Response<\/p>\n
The Arian division caught Emperor Constantine\u2019s attention. Although Christianity was not the official religion, Constantine hoped to use Christianity as a glue to hold the already shaky empire together. As Christianity went, so went the empire. Thus, he called the Council of Nicaea in 325 to resolve the situation. After dramatic rounds of debates, the majority in the council stood with Alexander and condemned Arianism. They added to the Apostle\u2019s Creed precise wording to clearly denounce Arianism with the following: \u201cWe believe \u2026 in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten from the Father [only-begotten; that is, of the essence of the Father, God of God], Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance [homoousious] with the Father \u2026\u201d
\nThey adopted the term homoousious, meaning, \u201cof the same substance,\u201d to describe the Son\u2019s relation to the Father. This horrified the Arians, but the orthodox bishops, such as Alexander and his young protege Athanasius, were overjoyed. However, even this council could not quell the rising popularity of Arianism. In fact the council served as a catalyst for it to grow even more rapidly! So much so that Constantine began to doubt the wording of the Nicene Creed and thought about rewriting it in favor of Arianism. One man stood in his way: Athanasius (ca. 296\u2013373).
\nThe torch passed on from Alexander to Athanasius to defend orthodoxy even when it was starting to become unpopular. Elected as the new Bishop of Alexandria in 328, Athanasius found it appalling that Arius insisted that the Son is a creature. He had no time for Arius\u2019s \u201csmooth sophistry.\u201d A creature is a creature. What other types of creatures are there? Athanasius argued two negative consequences make Arianism dangerous and unacceptable.
\nFirst, Athanasius argued that only God can save humanity. No creature can cancel the power of sin and death, and thereby offer eternal life to other creatures. Only the Creator can do this. So he argued that Arianism makes salvation impossible, because\u2014no matter how high his status\u2014the Son is still only a creature. Since everybody in the church recognizes that Jesus Christ saves, it stands to reason that Jesus is therefore God.
\nSecond, looking at the common liturgy taking place in the fourth century, it was clear that the church prayed to and worshiped Jesus Christ. If the Son is only a creature, then the church is making a grave mistake in its public worship. Clearly, the first of the Ten Commandments forbids the people of God from worshiping anything else but God. If Arianism were true, Christians were committing idolatry. The church should not be worshiping Christ if he is merely a creature. So either Arians are right in their doctrine of the Son or the Church is right in its practice of worshiping the Son. Both cannot be right. Athanasius argued the church was right to worship the Son, because the Son is God.
\nAthanasius called the heresy of Arius the \u201cforerunner of the Antichrist.\u201d Athanasius proposed an alternative interpretation: since God created the world through Christ, and since Christ alone is said to be from the Father, it is proper to understand Christ and the Father as both being God.
\nAccording to Athanasius, the Son was eternally begotten from the Father such that he can be said to be of the same essence (homoousios) with the Father: \u201cThe Son is other in kind and nature than the creatures, or rather belongs to the Father\u2019s substance and is of the same nature as He.\u201d Although the word \u201cbegotten\u201d (which Athanasius borrowed from John 3:16) might suggest a one-time event, Athanasius relied on the unchanging nature of God to explain that the Father is eternally begetting and the Son is eternally begotten. If that sounds confusing, remember Tertullian\u2019s early analogy of the different parts of a tree. There is the root, which carries water into the trunk, which then distributes it to the branches\u2014a constant process as long as the tree is alive.
\nMoreover, Athanasius heavily emphasized the idea of salvation through theosis, a concept that had been popular with Origen and other Alexandrian intellectuals of his day. The doctrine of theosis said that the ultimate purpose of salvation is to make humans godlike\u2014the image of God in humankind would be made pristine. It\u2019s roughly equivalent to what Protestant churches call \u201cglorification.\u201d According to Athanasius, it is nonsensical to say that a nondivine creature could make others divine. His thoughts are worth quoting in full:<\/p>\n
For humanity would not have been deified if joined to a creature, or unless the Son were true God. Nor would humanity have been drawn into the Father\u2019s presence, unless the one who had put on the body was the true Word by nature. And as we would not have been delivered from sin and the curse, unless it had been by nature human flesh which the Word put on (for we would have had nothing in common with what was foreign), so also humanity would not have been deified, unless the Word who became flesh had been by nature from the Father and true and proper to him \u2026 Therefore let those who deny that the Son is from the Father by nature and proper to his essence deny also that he took true human flesh of Mary Ever-Virgin. For in neither case would it have profited us human beings, if the Word had not been true Son of God by nature, or the flesh not true which he assumed.<\/p>\n
Defending his arguments proved to be a difficult task for Athanasius. In 332, Constantine restored Arius to his position as presbyter under immense political pressure. Athanasius was asked to accept this, but he refused. So he was exiled to the farthest outpost in Germany. Along his way to his exile, he met with several bishops in the West. They began to favor his view and Athanasius was seen as somewhat of a hero for standing up to Constantine. Disappointments, after all, still brewed in the West over the moving of the capitol from Rome to Constantinople.
\nSo, ironically, Athanasius\u2019s exile helped bring back momentum for orthodoxy. Not only was Athanasius building up a network of support in the West but the church in Alexandria refused to replace Athanasius. So he was still technically a bishop. Arius never did return to his position; he died a day before he was to be reinstalled (336). Constantine died a few months later (337).
\nConstantine\u2019s son and successor, Constantius, allowed Athanasius to return to his position in Alexandria. But their relationship was a tumultuous one. Constantius, like his father, wanted stability for the empire. To maintain this, he thought the Semi-Arian view could be a good compromise between the Arians and the orthodox doctrines. They proposed replacing the word homoousious (meaning \u201cof the same substance\u201d) with the word homoiousious (meaning \u201cof similar substance\u201d). The words were differentiated in Latin by one little letter. Surely, Constantius thought, there is no harm in compromising with some slight differences.
\nTo Athanasius, this was no small matter. That little letter made all the difference in the world in understanding how the Father relates to the Son. Salvation depends on Christ\u2019s being God, not \u201clike God.\u201d He still insisted only God can save humanity. He argued that \u201csalvation is not \u2026 possible through an hierarchical chain, from the Father through an intermediate Son to creatures. For an intermediary separates as much as he unites creatures with the Father.\u201d The essentials to the gospel remained: Jesus Christ must be truly God and truly human in order to be the perfect mediator.
\nAthanasius had to endure five exiles. In his forty-six years as bishop, he spent only seventeen in Alexandria. But he stubbornly stuck to the truth despite being up against what seemed like the world, and he is now recognized as perhaps the foremost defender of Nicene orthodoxy and the most prolific writer of orthodox Trinitarian doctrine in the fourth century. A few years after he died, his friends, the Cappadocian fathers\u2014Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus\u2014carried the torch to win the fight against Arianism and Semi-Arianism at the Council of Constantinople in 381.<\/p>\n
Contemporary Relevance<\/p>\n
When it comes to the Trinity, a helpful caution might be in order. We can and should confess what the Trinity is, but no matter how deep we may probe into God\u2019s nature, we cannot possibly begin to understand it fully. Evangelical theologian Harold O. J. Brown elaborates:<\/p>\n
Without a coherent doctrine of the Trinity, the New Testament witness to the activity of God in Christ and in the work of the Holy Spirit will tend to force one either into modalism or a kind of tritheism. But if one begins with a doctrine of Trinity\u2014as a number of orthodox Protestant theologians do\u2014there is the danger that doctrine will take precedence over the New Testament witness and turn living, personal faith into theological metaphysics. It seems apparent that the safest course is to let theological understanding and personal faith go hand in hand. Too much enthusiastic faith without a corresponding degree of theological understanding is almost certain to lead to error, perhaps to serious heresy. Too much doctrine unaccompanied by a living and growing faith is the recipe for dead orthodoxy.<\/p>\n
Though we can apprehend the doctrine of the Trinity, we cannot fully comprehend it. Despite that fact, it is vital to maintain a Trinitarian faith. As seen earlier, the doctrine of the Trinity impacts one\u2019s understanding of salvation. Additionally, it also affects the way we worship.
\nAthanasius saw the deity of Christ and the Trinity as essential to the practice of the church. Not only were baptismal and Eucharistic confessions bound up in Trinitarian language but so also were prayers. The Son was adored, prayed to, and believed to be present in the Eucharist, and if he was not really God, the worshipers were depriving God of the worship which is his due. But more than this, Athanasius saw that if the Son were not divine, the salvation of humans was called into question. In the same way that Gregory of Nazianzus argued that Jesus Christ must be fully human (as opposed to the claims of Apollinarianism in chapter 8) if he were to be the mediator between God and men, Athanasius argued that Jesus must be fully divine:<\/p>\n
\u201cFor it became Him, for Whom are all things, and through Whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through suffering;\u201d by which words He means that it belonged to none other to bring man back from the corruption which had begun, than the Word of God, Who had also made them from the beginning. And that it was in order to [become] the sacrifice for bodies such as His own that the Word Himself also assumed a body, to this, also, they refer in these words: \u201cForasmuch then as the children are the sharers in blood and flesh, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same, that through death He might bring to naught Him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and might deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Athanasius saw an intimate connection between the salvation of humanity and the deity of Christ. Even though some sects like the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses still repeat elements of Arian teaching, Jesus claimed to be God, and the Christian tradition has maintained Athanasius\u2019s belief in an intimate connection between salvation and the deity of Christ.
\nWe are saved from God by God. Only a divine Savior can bear the weight of God\u2019s wrath in atonement. Only Jesus as the God-man can satisfy the enormous debt and penalty caused by human sin against God. No mere human could bridge that gap. Only a divine Savior can pay the costly price for redeeming us from our bondage to sin and death. Only the God-man can conquer all his people\u2019s enemies. Our salvation is dependent on the infinite divine capacity of our Savior, Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n
Discussion Questions<\/p>\n
1. If the Father is totally separate from the Son, does that change how he treats the Son? Put another way, does Arianism invite the charges of \u201ccosmic child abuse\u201d that critics level against God the Father? Read John 10:14\u201318. How does Trinitarianism resolve those criticisms?
\n2. Is it appropriate to pray to Jesus or to the Holy Spirit? Does this look different from praying to the Father?
\n3. What does salvation look like in Arianism? How is this different from the way that orthodox Trinitarians interpret salvation?<\/p>\n
Further Reading<\/p>\n
Anatolios, Khaled. Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011.
\nAthanasius. Four Discourses against the Arians. http:\/\/www.newadvent.org\/fathers\/2816.htm.
\nAyres, Lewis. Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth Century Trinitarian Theology. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2006.
\nHanson, R. P. C. The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy, 318\u2013381. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006.
\nLeithart, Peter J. Athanasius. Foundations of Theological Exegesis and Christian Spirituality. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011.
\nNewman, John Henry Cardinal. The Arians of the Fourth Century. London: Longmans, 1919.
\nPettersen, Alvyn. Athanasius. Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse, 1995.
\nRusch, William G., ed. and trans. The Trinitarian Controversy. Sources of Early Christian Thought. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1980.
\nWilliams, Rowan. Arius: Heresy and Tradition. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002.<\/p>\n
CHAPTER 8<\/p>\n
APOLLINARIUS<\/p>\n
Christ May Be Human, but His Mind Is Divine<\/p>\n
Historical Background<\/p>\n
In the years following the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, the church wrestled with many important questions about the person and work of Christ. Nicaea established the deity of Christ as orthodox Christian teaching by framing certain Trinitarian statements. The Nicene Creed confessed Jesus\u2019 deity as \u201cvery God of very God\u201d and confirmed his humanity as \u201cthe man Jesus Christ.\u201d Emperor Constantine convened the council at Nicaea to resolve church divisions over Arian teachings that Christ was not fully God but was indeed fully human. This controversy prompted theologians to state unambiguously that Jesus was the eternal, preexistent Son of God. At the same time, heresies such as Docetism (see chapter 4) and Gnosticism (see chapter 2) compelled the council to be clear that Jesus was really a man, not one in appearance only. The question that remained was, How could the nature of Christ\u2019s humanity relate to the nature of his deity in a single person? A heated debate raged on for the next hundred years or so until the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451), which provided a definition of the relationship of the human and divine in Christ.
\nThis debate can be divided into two schools of thought: the Alexandrian school and the Antiochene school. During the first few centuries AD, the cities of Alexandria in Egypt and Antioch in Syria produced some of the most sophisticated theological minds in early Christianity. The tendency in Alexandria was to emphasize what happened to the human nature when God became man. They asserted that God was interested in making humans godlike, so they tended to emphasize the fact that Christ had created something entirely new by taking on a human nature. The Alexandrian approach is often referred to by scholars as a \u201cWord-flesh\u201d Christology, because it was focused on how Christ had changed what it means to be human. In contrast, the thought in Antioch preferred to view the two natures of Christ as distinct: \u201cGod became incarnate in this person and took him on, not it (a mere human nature).\u201d Scholars often call the Antiochene view a \u201cWord-man\u201d Christology because the Antiochenes wanted to emphasize the fact that Christ\u2019s humanity included a mind and human desires.
\nOf course, extreme versions of each school of thought resulted in heretical error. The theology of Nestorius took Antiochene theology so far as to separate the natures of Christ and potentially create two persons. Apollinarius (d. 390) took Alexandrian theology to the point of blurring the distinctions between the natures.
\nEach of these errors compromises important teachings about salvation. For instance, if there are two persons in Jesus, how can he truly be the one mediator between God and man? Moreover, if the unity of Jesus\u2019 person is overemphasized, such that the Logos (his divine principle) replaced his rational soul and merely drove his body around (thereby serving as the animating principle of his person), then it is questionable whether Jesus is fully human. That is, if he has no human soul, he did not become truly and entirely human. This is the error of Apollinarius.<\/p>\n
Heretical Teaching<\/p>\n
According to Gregory of Nazianzus, Apollinarianism can be traced to as early as AD 352. Apollinarius, named Bishop of Laodicea in 362, was a devoted opponent of Antiochene Christology. Apollinarius brought the debate between Alexandrian and Antiochene Christology to the public with his teachings. As Bishop of Laodicea, he tried to teach his church how Jesus could be truly human and truly God. He vigorously rejected subordinationism, which taught that since the Son and the Holy Spirit proceed from the Father, they are not fully divine. He attributed this heresy to the Antiochene school, therefore he would not hear of any talk about two distinct natures in Christ. He appealed to Nicaea and emphasized the full deity of the man Jesus Christ. More than an illuminated man, \u201che delighted to speak of Christ as \u2018God-incarnate,\u2019 \u2018flesh-bearing God,\u2019 or \u2018God born into a woman.\u2019 \u201d To Apollinarius, salvation was at stake here. If Christ was merely a man, then he could not save humanity. He would not be worthy of worship. His deity must be defended! However, in his attempt to emphasize Christ\u2019s deity, he overreached by overly deemphasizing Christ\u2019s humanity.
\nThere are two assumptions we must understand about Apollinarius before getting into what he contributed to the debate.<\/p>\n
1. Concerning human nature, Apollinarius was influenced by Plato and understood human nature to be composed of three aspects: a body, a sensitive soul, and a rational mind. Apollinarius would argue that the Bible teaches the same concept using the language of body, soul, and spirit (1 Thess. 5:23). To him, the body and the soul made up the lower part of nature as the life force; the rational intellectual mind was identified as part of the higher nature known as the mind or consciousness.
\n2. Concerning the divine nature, Apollinarius emphasized the teaching that God does not change (immutable), cannot suffer (impassible), and is all-knowing (omniscient). He considered it blasphemous then to suggest that God could be made into a weak and limited human being susceptible to any kind of suffering. God has no beginning and is not about to begin something new in his nature at any point in history, so Christ must possess the divine traits from the beginning.<\/p>\n
With these two presuppositions in mind, the question then was \u201cinto what kind of flesh can God be made?\u201d Apollinarius answered that Jesus Christ took on humanity only to the extent of assuming a human body and a sensitive soul. The Logos, or eternal Son, replaced the rational intellectual soul that would have existed in a normal human person, which meant that the person of Jesus Christ lacked an important piece of human nature. As Stephen Nichols summarizes Apollinarius\u2019s view, \u201cIn order to preserve Christ\u2019s deity, Apollinarius was unwilling to grant that Christ has a human will, which for him could be nothing but sinful, and therefore Christ did not have a human rational soul.\u201d
\nOne could say then that Jesus, as Apollinarius described him, was only two-thirds human. But that didn\u2019t bother Apollinarius. After all, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, rather than through ordinary biology. The full humanity of Christ was not necessary to Apollinarius\u2019s doctrine of salvation because it had nothing to do with the infinite power of Christ to make man more and more like God (a special focus of the fourth century).
\nThe simplicity of Apollinarianism quickly caused it to gain popularity among Trinitarians and heretics alike. \u201cIt could \u2018work\u2019 whether one believed the Son of God who dwelled in Jesus Christ as his rational soul was eternal God or created demigod,\u201d observes Roger Olson. However, Apollinarius did not think he was inventing anything new. He thought he was just teaching the same doctrines prior orthodox theologians had taught, but in a better way.
\nUnfortunately, by suggesting that the eternal Word of God (the Logos) replaced the human rational soul of the man Jesus, Apollinarianism compromised the full humanity of Jesus. If Jesus was said to be human, Apollinarius reasoned, it could not be in the usual sense, because his humanity depended on his divinity. Thus, Jesus was human in the sense that his human side \u201cleaned on\u201d his divine side\u2014where there was a question about whether his mind or his will was human or divine, the divine part automatically overruled the human part.
\nKelly points out the problem: \u201cThe frankly acknowledged presupposition of this argument is that the divine Word was substituted for the normal human psychology in Christ.\u201d Put differently, the humanity that was assumed in the incarnation was not a complete humanity but lacked a significant component of personhood. If Apollinarius is right, then Jesus was only partially human.<\/p>\n
Orthodox Response<\/p>\n
As word got around concerning Apollinarius\u2019s innovative teaching, opposition came out of the woodwork. First, Pope Damascus of Rome in 377 held a council to condemn Apollinarius outright. After this, the dominoes fell rapidly in the synods of Alexandria (378) and Antioch (379) to confirm Rome\u2019s decision. Finally, the Council of Constantinople in 381 put the nails in the coffin of Apollinarianism. The primary defender of theological orthodoxy was Gregory of Nazianzus, a fourth-century Archbishop of Constantinople devoted to orthodox Trinitarian theology.
\nGregory saw that Apollinarianism undermined the saving work of Jesus, which forced him to devote a vigorous letter-writing campaign against it. With laserlike precision, Gregory sliced through the error of sacrificing the full humanity of Jesus Christ. Salvation would be impossible under this heresy because \u201conly a Christ who had all the elements of human nature could redeem all of man, and if every phase of man\u2019s nature were not redeemed, redemption would not be a fact.\u201d What a tragedy it would be if the saving work of Christ only partially saved humanity! Gregory came up with a simple formula to summarize everything: \u201cWhat has not been assumed has not been healed.\u201d For Jesus Christ to be the full and appropriate mediator of the hostility between God and man, he himself had to be both fully God and fully man. The God-man.
\nTo strengthen his argument, Gregory discussed Christ\u2019s role as the second Adam. He commented, \u201cIf anyone has put his trust in him as a man without a human mind, he is really bereft of mind, and quite unworthy of salvation. For that which he has not assumed he has not healed; but that which is united to his Godhead is also saved. If only half Adam fell, then that which Christ assumes and saves may be half also; but if the whole of his nature fell, it must be united to the whole nature of Him that was begotten, and so be saved as a whole.\u201d In other words, if all of Adam was lost and ruined by the fall, then Christ, the second Adam, must put on all that Adam possessed in order to restore human nature and live the life that Adam failed to live.
\nGregory stressed hard that the third aspect of humanity, the intellect, must be included in Christ\u2019s nature along with body and soul. Christ did not merely clothe himself with a human body; he was fully human with a functioning human mind as well. Gregory asked, \u201cBut if [Christ] has a soul, and yet is without a mind, how is He man, for man is not a mindless animal?\u201d The man Jesus Christ was a tabernacle in which the fully divine Son dwelled. If you take away the human mind of Christ, the Son might as well dwell in an \u201cox, or some other brute creatures.\u201d So Gregory concluded that the logic of an Apollinarian description of the personhood of Christ is equally damaging to the doctrine of the Trinity. The orthodox doctrine of the Trinity taught that there are multiple (three) persons, but they all share one nature in the Godhead, preserving monotheism. Conversely, the personhood of Christ shares multiple (two) natures\u2014God and man, timeless and subject to time, invisible and visible\u2014yet he is one person.<\/p>\n
Contemporary Relevance<\/p>\n
The insights of faithful churchmen such as Gregory of Nazianzus are important for us today as we consider the saving work of Jesus. If Apollinarius is right and the \u201cWord\u201d replaced the human mind of Jesus, we are left wondering how Christ can be fully human. The Gospels depict Jesus as being completely human in the way he experienced sorrow, pain, and other genuinely human experiences. Certainly Jesus Christ was fully God, as the council of Nicaea maintained, but he was also fully man. And it was his deity as well as his humanity that allowed him to be our perfect substitute, the mediator between God and humanity for us and for our salvation.
\nAn interesting way to evaluate the status of orthodox Christianity is to listen to the critiques of outsiders. For example, influential liberal New Testament scholar John A. T. Robinson (1919\u201383) lampooned orthodox Christians for their view of Christ. He believed that if you asked any typical Christian to describe the nature of Christ\u2019s birth or the personhood of Christ, one would most likely receive an answer that is essentially Apollinarianism. That is, \u201cChrist only appeared to be a man or looked like a man: \u2018underneath\u2019 he was God.\u201d If they were pressed harder to talk about the humanity of Christ, they would most likely repudiate the idea that Christ was not a \u201cperfect man\u201d as well as \u201cperfect God.\u201d However as a liberal who rejected any kind of supernaturalism, he further critiqued, \u201cThe traditional supranaturalistic way of describing the Incarnation almost inevitably suggests that Jesus was really God almighty walking about on earth, dressed up as a man. Jesus was not a man born and bred\u2014he was God for a limited period taking part in a charade. He looked like a man, he talked like a man, he felt like a man, but underneath he was God dressed up\u2014like Father Christmas. However guardedly it may be stated, the traditional view leaves the impression that God took a space-trip and arrived on this planet in the form of a man. Jesus was not really one of us; but through the miracle of the Virgin Birth he contrived to be born so as to appear one of us. Really he came from outside.\u201d
\nIf one can overlook the snide tone, Robinson\u2019s observation has merit. If not adequately taught, a typical orthodox Christian may imagine the incarnation in Apollinarian terms.
\nThe evangelical tendency to overemphasize the divinity of Christ at the expense of Christ\u2019s humanity came from overreacting to liberal doctrines in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Liberals called the church to abandon any kind of literal miracles to make Christianity more palpable to a modern society. Of course, on the one hand, biblical orthodoxy cannot embrace the liberal view that Jesus was only a man (John 1:1, 18). He was and is and always will be fully God. On the other hand, orthodoxy ought not be defined solely as a polar opposite of its opponent. This was the trap into which Apollinarius fell. Our beliefs must be biblical. Therefore, the full humanity of Christ is a crucial doctrine to be taught and believed, because he must be one of us in order to save us (Heb. 2:17\u201318).<\/p>\n
Discussion Questions<\/p>\n
1. Do you believe the Bible teaches that a human is made of three aspects: body, soul, and spirit? Or two aspects: body and soul (or material and immaterial)? Why?
\n2. Apollinarius taught that Jesus\u2019 divine nature\/Logos replaced the human rational soul in the incarnation. What is lost if Jesus Christ is not fully human? How is salvation affected?
\n3. Do you agree with John A. T. Robinson\u2019s observation about the typical Christian\u2019s understanding of the nature of Jesus Christ?
\n4. What are some ways the church can make sure its new members\u2014whether children or new converts\u2014have a correct understanding of the nature of the incarnation?<\/p>\n
Further Reading<\/p>\n
Apollinaris of Laodicea. \u201cOn the Union in Christ of the Body with the Godhead.\u201d In The Christological Controversies. Edited and translated by Richard A. Norris Jr. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980.
\nDaley, Brian. \u201c \u2018Heavenly Man\u2019 and \u2018Eternal Christ\u2019: Apollinarius and Gregory of Nyssa on the Personal Identity of the Savior.\u201d Journal of Early Christian Studies 10, no. 4 (Winter 2002): 469\u201388.
\nGregory of Nazianzus. \u201cDivision I. Letters on the Apollinarian Controversy.\u201d In Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Second Series. 10 vols. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995.
\nMeredith, Anthony. The Cappadocians. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir\u2019s Seminary Press, 1997.
\nRaven, Charles Earle. Apollinarianism: An Essay on the Christology of the Early Church. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1923.<\/p>\n
CHAPTER 9<\/p>\n
PELAGIUS<\/p>\n
God Has Already Given Us the Tools<\/p>\n
Historical Background<\/p>\n
Early in the fifth century, a controversy boiled over in the Western church about the origin of sin, the freedom of the will, and the nature of God\u2019s grace. Christians in the first four centuries held two beliefs concerning human nature:<\/p>\n
1. Humanity is fallen and requires divine help for salvation.
\n2. Humans have a will and are responsible for their sin.<\/p>\n
Just like the apparent paradox of the doctrine of the Trinity\u2014God is one but exists in three persons\u2014the two ideas were difficult to reconcile. The conflict came to a head with the clash of two popular teachers: Pelagius and Augustine.
\nPelagius was a heretic of a different sort. He was Trinitarian and held to the divinity and humanity of Christ. This gave him the benefit of the doubt with many Christians at the time, but what landed him in trouble was his understanding of the fall of humanity. Understanding Pelagius\u2019s historical context is helpful here.
\nPelagius was born around AD 350 in Britain. The details of his life are shrouded in mystery, but historians know he became a monk and eventually moved to Rome to teach the Bible. He had a mild personality, and there was no controversy surrounding his early life. However, upon seeing the lax moral discipline in Rome, he developed a reputation for being a spiritual director who urged people to reform their behavior and live lives as upstanding, moral citizens. It must be understood that Constantine had not only Christianized the Roman Empire in the fourth century but also brought about the \u201csecularization\u201d of the Christian church. Before Christendom, as it came to be known, Christians were being persecuted or ignored. It was a serious choice to become one. After Christians gained considerable power in the Roman Empire, it became politically expedient to be a Christian. Nominal Christians increased in number as a result.
\nTo counter the dangerous moral laxity that he observed, Pelagius developed an ascetic form of Christianity with an optimistic theology of human nature. He pled for a sense of urgency about moral reformation and a pursuit of \u201creal\u201d Christianity. As historian Peter Brown notes, Pelagius lived in a world where Christians occupied more positions of power than they ever had before. Out of his discussions with these sophisticated men, Pelagius formed the basis of his theology in his Expositions of the Letters of St. Paul.
\nBefore 410, Pelagius had to flee Rome to avoid the invasion of the Arian Gothic leader Alaric. He then moved to North Africa, where he met intense opposition, before migrating to Palestine. In 418 he was banished from Jerusalem, after which he vanished from the historical record. His teaching was condemned by the Council of Ephesus in 431.<\/p>\n
Heretical Teaching<\/p>\n
The starting point of Pelagius\u2019s moralistic theology was his insistence that God would never command anything that is impossible for humans to carry out. Pelagius emphasized humans\u2019 unconditional free will and moral responsibility. Specifically, Pelagius took issue with Augustine\u2019s prayer in his Confessions: \u201cI have no hope at all but in your great mercy. Command what you will: give what you command.\u201d He felt that this kind of talk encouraged laziness rather than piety, and that laziness is not a safe state of mind when it comes to sin.
\nPelagius saw Augustine\u2019s prayer as turning humans into puppets determined by God\u2019s action. Indeed, he thought that God\u2019s commanding a person to do something that he lacked the ability to do would be useless: \u201cTo call a person to something he considers impossible does him no good.\u201d If God called humans to live moral lives, Pelagius thought, it should be within their own power to carry out God\u2019s commands.
\nIn his Letter to Demetrias, Pelagius laments that Christians do not consider it an honor to be ruled by God\u2019s precepts in his Word. He writes, \u201cIn fact, we act like lazy and insolent servants, talking back to our Lord in a contemptuous and slovenly way: \u2018That is too hard, too difficult! We cannot do that! We are only human; our flesh is weak!\u2019 What insane stupidity! What impious arrogance! We accuse the Lord of all knowledge of being doubly ignorant. We assert that he does not understand what he made and does not realize what he commands \u2026 The just one did not choose to command the impossible; nor did the loving one plan to condemn a person for what he could not avoid.\u201d
\nNotice Pelagius believed that God commands only according to our abilities. In Matthew 5:48, Jesus commands, \u201cBe perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.\u201d Pelagius interpreted this to mean that perfection must be within our reach. Since perfection is achievable, it should therefore be obligatory.
\nIt is important to understand that Pelagius\u2019s motivation was good. He saw one form of God\u2019s divine sovereignty as eliminating human responsibility. Moreover, Pelagius intended to avoid the error of the Manicheans (see chapter 5), who posited a dualism between immaterial good and material evil (and since Augustine had been a Manichaean before his conversion to Christianity, Pelagius was doubly suspicious of his emphasis on the evil of human nature). In the Manichaean view of humanity, to be human (even before Adam\u2019s fall from grace) is to be inherently evil, and the highest good is achieved in the soul\u2019s separation from the evil body. Pelagius, however, saw human nature as something good created by God.
\nIt is the result of the fall upon humanity (original sin), however, that Pelagius ignores, causing his theology to fall into error. First, Pelagius argued that there is no such thing as original sin. In no way were humans after Adam guilty of or implicated in his first sin. Adam\u2019s sin in no way makes humans guilty or corrupt. Instead, \u201cover the years [our own sin] gradually corrupts us, building an addiction and then holding us bound with what seems like the force of nature itself.\u201d Humans by nature have a clean slate\u2014a state of neutrality\u2014according to Pelagius, and it is only through voluntary sin through the exercise of an unhampered human free will that humans are made wicked. Potentially, then, one could live a sinless life and merit heaven, for there is nothing intrinsically sinful about humans even after Adam and Eve\u2019s sin. Pelagius didn\u2019t consider humans to be intrinsically damnable after the fall.
\nIn short, Pelagius rejected the doctrines of original sin, substitutionary atonement (the idea that Christ\u2019s death in our place is a supernatural intervention to save us), and justification by faith (the idea that believing and trusting in Christ is the way to salvation). This had major implications for Pelagius\u2019s theology of the freedom of the will, the origin of sin, and the nature of grace.<\/p>\n
Pelagius on the Freedom of the Will<\/p>\n
Early-church scholar J. N. D. Kelly observes that \u201cthe keystone of [Pelagius\u2019s] whole system is the idea of unconditional free will and responsibility.\u201d Humans are given the unique privilege of carrying out God\u2019s will by their own choice. Pelagius identifies three elements in conduct: ability, will, and act. The first one comes from God, while the latter two are strictly humanity\u2019s. This means that God has given us all the tools we need to do good, but it is up to us to want to do good and to carry it out. Hence, people are responsible for their own sins and cannot blame any outside influences (addiction, abuse, duress, or most especially original sin). As seen in Pelagius\u2019s quote above, if we say we are incapable, we impugn God\u2019s creative ability. God made humans to be good.<\/p>\n
Pelagius on the Origin of Sin<\/p>\n
Most Christian theologians would reply, \u201cYes, but what about the fall?\u201d Pelagius would reply that it had nothing to do with our sins. Yes, Adam was a bad example for his descendants, but his sins affected only himself. Pelagius rejected as absurd and unjust the doctrine Augustine termed \u201coriginal sin.\u201d Why should a person be punished for another person\u2019s sins? The human duty to self-improvement could not be abandoned. People are born sinless, just like Adam. We sin not because we are born sinners but because we make a deliberate choice to do so. Sin exists only in the act. Pelagius taught that many Old Testament heroes were able to remain sinless, and since it had been done before, we are therefore without excuse.<\/p>\n
Pelagius on the Nature of Grace<\/p>\n
So what about grace? Pelagius did not discard grace entirely, but he did not understand it to mean dependance on God for salvation. When Pelagius spoke of grace, he meant the natural ability that God had given humanity to control their affairs, rather than a supernatural intervention. God has given us the grace to obey him. Pelagius also spoke in terms of instruction. It is by grace that we have the Word of God. So the grace of God through Jesus Christ is his perfect example of obedience.
\nAccording to Augustine, Pelagius\u2019s disciple Caelestius summarized Pelagianism succinctly with this list:<\/p>\n
1. Adam was created mortal, and he would have died, whether he sinned or not.
\n2. Adam\u2019s sin injured himself alone, not the human race.
\n3. The law, as well as the gospel, leads to the kingdom.
\n4. There were men without sin before Christ\u2019s coming.
\n5. Newborn infants are in the same condition as Adam before the fall.
\n6. It is not through the death or the fall of Adam that the human race dies, nor through the resurrection of Christ that the whole human race rises again.<\/p>\n
Orthodox Response<\/p>\n
Pelagius\u2019s teachings prompted a storm of anti-Pelagian literature, especially from the North African bishop Augustine, who opposed Pelagianism in many of his major works, such as On the Spirit and the Letter (412), On Nature and Grace (415), On the Grace of Christ and on Original Sin (418), On Grace and Free Will (427), and On the Predestination of the Saints (429). Toward the end of his life, Augustine kept the sovereignty of God, human depravity, and humanity\u2019s need of grace at the center of his theology.
\nAugustine worked out his theology of humanity long before the Pelagian controversy. The amount of writings against Pelagius\u2019s view on the freedom of the will, origin of sin, and nature of grace showed how seriously Augustine considered Pelagius\u2019s errors to be.<\/p>\n
Augustine on the Freedom of the Will<\/p>\n
Augustine affirmed that humans were created with free will, teaching that only Adam and Eve had real freedom. This freedom was not in the fact that they had an inability to sin but rather because they had the ability not to sin. Pelagius said that humans started out in a neutral state but easily fell prey to bad habits. As the person commits more and more wrongs, he is less and less able to reform his life. Augustine said that after the fall, humans were preconditioned to commit wrong because Adam and Eve had sinned, and that all humans were guilty of that sin. The direction toward evil and away from God was already set. They are \u201cnot able not to sin.\u201d Hence, God must intervene and turn humans back toward him. Unlike Pelagius, who thought that hardened sinners are least likely to be able to return to God, Augustine believed that God sometimes chooses hardened sinners over the good, pious people in order to better show his grace.
\nHumans are restored after the mediation of divine grace in Jesus Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit\u2014and only by the mediation of divine grace, for the will is bent in on itself and unable to choose to do good\u2014and receive once again, by God\u2019s grace, the ability not to sin. Augustine writes, \u201cThis freedom of will is not therefore removed because it is assisted; it is assisted just because it is not removed. For he that says to God \u2018be thou my helper\u2019 confesses that He wills to fulfill what He has commanded, but that he asks the aid of Him who commanded that he may have power to fulfill it.\u201d The range of freedom one enjoys is narrowed the deeper one is in sin, and broadened the deeper one is in Christ.<\/p>\n
Augustine on the Origin of Sin<\/p>\n
The problem is original sin. If Adam had not sinned, he would not have died. But he did, so the consequences were severe. Augustine taught that the fall affected all of Adam\u2019s descendants with sin. Now every part of humankind is corrupted by sin, darkening the human mind and hardening the human heart. Furthermore, all human beings are born guilty of Adam\u2019s sin. In other words, people are not sinners because we sin; we sin because we are born sinners. Sin is like a hereditary disease passed down from one generation to the next. Augustine called humans a \u201clump of sin\u201d incapable of saving themselves. He \u201cwas happy to regard the church as a hospital where fallen humanity could recover and grow gradually in holiness through grace.\u201d<\/p>\n
Augustine on the Nature of Grace<\/p>\n
In On the Grace of Christ, Augustine charges Pelagius with ignoring Philippians 2:12\u201313, which urges Christians to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling even though God is actually at work in them. Augustine says, \u201cThus [Paul] did not say, \u2018God works in you to be able,\u2019 as though they had willing and working of themselves and had no need of God\u2019s help for these two. Instead he said, \u2018It is God who works in you both to will and to accomplish.\u2019 \u201d Put differently, \u201cit is clear that [Pelagius] located this capacity [to will and to work] in nature itself\u201d rather than in divine grace. Or further, \u201cThe grace Pelagius acknowledges is God\u2019s showing and revealing what we ought to do, not giving and helping us to do it.\u201d
\nTo Augustine, grace is the only way to salvation. In On Nature and Grace Augustine argued that if it were possible for a person to live a perfectly righteous life and be saved without faith in Christ, as Pelagius alleged, then Christ \u201cdied in vain\u201d (Gal. 2:21).
\nAlbert Outler beautifully summarizes Augustine\u2019s view of grace: \u201cGrace, for Augustine, is God\u2019s freedom to act without any external necessity whatsoever\u2014to act in love beyond human understanding or control; to act in creation, judgment, and redemption; to give his Son freely as Mediator and Redeemer; to endue the Church with the indwelling power and guidance of the Holy Spirit; to shape the destinies of all creation and the ends of the two human societies, the \u2018city of earth\u2019 and the \u2018city of God.\u2019 Grace is God\u2019s unmerited love and favor.\u201d Augustine is famous for his play on the Latin words gratis (free) and gratiae (grace): \u201cThis grace, however, of Christ, without which neither infants nor adults can be saved, is not rendered for any merits, but is given gratis, on account of which it is also called grace.\u201d<\/p>\n
Contemporary Relevance<\/p>\n
The theology of Augustine won against Pelagianism only formally at the Council of Carthage (418). Pelagianism refused to die and has continued to live on in various forms throughout church history. As theologian Robert Reymond opines, human beings are born \u201cwith Pelagian hearts,\u201d meaning all people are prone to attempt salvation through natural means from within ourselves, rather than through the supernatural means of relying on God\u2019s grace. Ask most people, \u201cWhy would you go to heaven?\u201d and if the person believes in heaven, a safe bet is that the answer will be, \u201cBecause I\u2019ve tried my best to be a good person.\u201d One arrives at this common answer because of a combination of three basic Pelagian concepts:<\/p>\n
1. Freedom is defined as independence from God\u2019s sovereignty.
\n2. Original sin is rejected; we are all born good. Sin is only in the act of the will.
\n3. Grace as unmerited favor from God is rejected, ignored, or unknown.<\/p>\n
The combination of these three results in personal morality as the basis for salvation.
\nBut this must be rejected, as it is clear from Scripture that \u201c[t]here is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God\u201d (Rom. 3:10\u201311). This is because of original sin, as Paul writes, for \u201cjust as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned\u201d (Rom. 5:12).
\nChrist came to set us free from the bondage of sin, from which we are unable to break free on our own (John 8:34\u201336). Paul said that we are free from righteousness, but that leads to death (Rom. 6:20\u201323). We are called to freedom (Gal. 5:1, 13), and true freedom is not being left to do what we please but acting in the way that God has always intended for us (Rom. 6:18). We either serve sin or we serve God.
\nThe good news is that we are not left to our own devices to choose righteousness, but we are changed and empowered by God\u2019s grace to love and obey God more and more. That is one of the roles of our Helper the Holy Spirit (John 14:16\u201317). One day those redeemed in Christ will enjoy ultimate freedom, when sin will no longer be an option.
\nUnderstanding Pelagius\u2019s error and Augustine\u2019s contribution to the doctrine of sin is monumentally important today. Ignoring, as Pelagius did, the consequences the fall of Adam has on every human can lead to diminishing the multifaceted work of Christ. Jesus not only bore our sins on the cross but lived a perfect life in obedience to the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit\u2014the life that Adam failed to live\u2014in order to restore fallen humans to their original state of grace through union with him. But God not only saves humans by grace; he also sustains them by grace. As Augustine put it, \u201cGod set the strong one free and permitted him to do what he chose; he guards the weak so that by his gift the saints unfailingly choose the good and unfailing refuse to abandon it.\u201d Without understanding the magnitude of sin and the plight of humanity, the gracious work of Jesus for us and our salvation seems superfluous, at best. First Peter 1:18\u201319 says, \u201cFor you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.\u201d It is for this reason that the work of Augustine in upholding the truth of Scripture in the fifth century is relevant for the church today.<\/p>\n
Discussion Questions<\/p>\n
1. What does freedom mean to you? In the new heaven and the new earth, where Satan, sin, and death are all done away with, is it really freedom not to have a choice to sin anymore?
\n2. What do you think about sin? In what ways have you seen the concept of sin minimized or downplayed? How does minimizing the concept of sin affect ones understanding of salvation?
\n3. What role does holiness play in the life of grace?
\n4. Who gets the credit for our salvation? Why?<\/p>\n
Further Reading<\/p>\n
Brown, Peter. Augustine of Hippo: A Biography. Berkley: Univ. of California Press, 2000.
\nBurns, J. Patout, ed. and trans. Theological Anthropology. Sources of Early Christian Thought. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981.
\nRees, B. R. Pelagius: Life and Letters. Woodbridge: Boydell, 1991.
\nWarfield, Benjamin B. \u201cAugustine and the Pelagian Controversy.\u201d In The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield. Reprint. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2003.<\/p>\n
CHAPTER 10<\/p>\n
EUTYCHES<\/p>\n
Christ as a New Kind of Being<\/p>\n
Historical Background<\/p>\n
If there is one word to describe the Eutychianist controversy, it would most certainly be \u201cdrama.\u201d The theological wars from the First Council of Nicaea (325) to the First Council of Constantinople (381) mostly dealt with how God the Father relates with God the Son. Once the doctrine of the Trinity was settled, the debate shifted to how the church should understand the person of the God-man, Jesus Christ. The councils of Nicaea and Constantinople already confessed him to be truly human and truly divine. But the remaining question was, How do Christ\u2019s two natures relate to one another in the incarnation?
\nTwo great city centers dominated the discussion in a great theological tug-of-war. The city of Alexandria pulled hard to emphasize the unity of Christ\u2019s two natures. The city of Antioch pulled back with equal force, arguing that Jesus Christ\u2019s human and divine natures must maintain their distinction. Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, went too far with the Antiochene emphasis. He refused to acknowledge sufficient unity between Christ\u2019s two natures. They were to stay separate, making Christ seem like two persons. Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, was appalled by this and wrote to Leo the Great, Bishop of Rome, to join him in calling a third ecumenical council\u2014the Council of Ephesus (431)\u2014to condemn Nestorius (see chapter 11).
\nMuch to the Alexandrians\u2019 dismay, Cyril reluctantly made a compromise with the school of Antioch by allowing talks of two natures of Christ. But Cyril clarified, \u201cA distinction of the natures is necessary, a division is reprehensible.\u201d Still, most historians agree the problem with Cyril\u2019s doctrine of Christ is that it was too ambiguous. He favored the formula \u201cOne nature after the union.\u201d This left the door wide open for future heresies such as Eutychianism.
\nThe Council of Ephesus was only a temporary solution for both schools of thought. Cyril of Alexandria was satisfied because Nestorianism was condemned. Antiochene theologians were pleased that it was still necessary to acknowledge two distinct natures of Christ. But as historian Roger Olson puts it, \u201cThe council that was supposed to resolve the dispute and establish universal orthodoxy \u2026 opened up a greater conflict and forced another council to bring it to closure.\u201d A fourth ecumenical council was inevitable.
\nUntil the Council of Chalcedon, the atmosphere in the Mediterranean seemed to be the calm before the storm. There was no complete agreement, but at least there was peace and fellowship between the bishops of Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, and Rome\u2014the four most powerful bishops, known as the patriarchs. But it was an uneasy peace, and a new patriarch soon upset the balance.
\nCyril died in 444, leaving Dioscorus\u2014a man with some serious character flaws\u2014to succeed him as bishop of Alexandria. More than seeking to renew the doctrinal war between Alexandria and Antioch, Dioscorus sought \u201cto advance the Alexandrian see to the supremacy of the entire East.\u201d At the time, the current bishop of Constantinople favored the Antiochene school, so the goal was to undo that partnership. Constantinople was the prize. It was strategic to win over the capital city of the eastern Roman Empire to exert influence on the rest of the churches. Then Dioscorus might be able to obliterate any talk of two natures of Christ, because he sincerely believed it inevitably led to Nestorianism.
\nThe drama began to build up in the capital city of the eastern Roman Empire. Theologian Theodoret of Cyrus was most likely on his way to become the next bishop of Constantinople. He was also the favored son of Antioch. Clearly, Dioscorus did not like this one bit. So he schemed privately and an incidental controversy provided a solution for him. Rather than poking at the house of cards himself, Dioscorus allowed someone else to do it unwittingly for him\u2014Eutyches (378\u2013454).<\/p>\n
Heretical Teaching<\/p>\n
Despite the fact that the heresy bears Eutyches\u2019 name, he was mostly a pawn in the whole controversy. Nothing is known about his life except that he was an elderly monk of Constantinople. He spent most of his later life in seclusion as an archimandrite (head of a cloister of three hundred monks). The only time he raised his head in public was at the Council of Ephesus to condemn Nestorius, but he quickly retreated into seclusion to teach thereafter.
\nWhereas the heretic Nestorius was guilty of overemphasizing the distinct natures of Christ and thereby positing two persons (one human and one divine), Eutyches was guilty of so emphasizing the unity of the one person that he blurred the distinction between the divine and human natures.
\nAs a radical Alexandrian, he denied that theologians should talk about two natures after the incarnation. This, however, was not what got him into trouble. Alexandrians had been arguing this for a long time. The teaching that triggered a controversy afresh was his denial that Christ shared the same substance, or essence, with humankind. To Eutyches, the human nature and divine nature both assimilated in Christ, resulting in a single new nature\u2014a third kind of nature, in which categories were blurred. An appropriate analogy is that Christ\u2019s humanity was like \u201ca drop of wine in the ocean of his deity\u201d\u2014the ocean was now part wine rather than purely water, but only a very small part. About Eutyches, Stephen Nichols writes, \u201cTo him Christ was a third thing (the Latin expression is tertium quid).\u2026 One new and different person fashioned out of two natures is how he liked to put it. That is a theological way of saying yellow and blue makes green.\u201d
\nTheodoret made Eutychian theology known more widely in 447 by writing Eranistes, a three-part theological dialogue between \u201cOrthodoxos\u201d and \u201cEranistes\u201d (beggar). Orthodoxos represented Theodoret\u2019s thought, and though he never mentioned Eutyches by name, Eranistes was a supporter of Eutychianism. In the third dialogue, Theodoret clearly placed Eutyches\u2019 teaching in a category with Alexander the coppersmith (2 Tim. 4:14), Valentinus, Apollinarius, and Arius\u2014he called it a heresy.
\nDioscorus used this book as an opportunity to shake up the relative peace between the schools of Alexandria and Antioch. He manipulated a court in Constantinople to take action against Eutyches in 448 and at the same time he accused Theodoret of Nestorianism. Eutyches was forced to defend himself. Theodoret and Domnus, bishop of Antioch, likewise came to defend their own views. Eutyches admitted that \u201cthe holy Virgin\u201d had the same substance as us, but skirted around admitting whether the Son did as well. When pressed about whether he believed there were two natures in Christ, Eutyches suggested that there was only one nature in Christ after the incarnation, and insisted he simply followed Athanasius and Cyril: \u201cI admit that our Lord was of two natures before the union, but after the union one nature.\u2026 I follow the doctrine of the blessed Cyril and the holy fathers and the holy Athanasius. They speak of two natures before the union, but after the union and incarnation they speak of one nature not two.\u201d However, the extent to which Eutyches\u2019 position stands in continuity with that of Athanasius and Cyril is questionable, at best. When all was heard, the local synod charged Eutyches with error and deposed him of his position. Theodoret and Domnus were acquitted of their charges.
\nNow there was a propaganda war from both sides trying to persuade distant bishops to come to their side. Eutyches went on to appeal to Leo the Great for refuge. At the same time, Dioscorus swayed Emperor Theodosius II to support Eutyches, as well. Just when Dioscorus thought he had completed his scheme, Leo threw a wrench into his plan with a letter to Flavian, Bishop of Constantinople. Leo confirmed the synod\u2019s decision and gave sophisticated reasonings for his condemnation of Eutyches\u2019 theology of Christ. This famous letter came to be known as Leo\u2019s \u201cTome.\u201d Eutyches eventually found refuge in Alexandria with Dioscorus.
\nThe emperor called a second council in Ephesus (449) to resume peace, but it became one of the biggest scandals in church history. One hundred and thirty-five bishops showed up, but Theodoret was not invited. Dioscorus arrived with an intimidating entourage of thuggish monks, essentially silencing Flavian and his friends. Flavian had no chance to read Leo\u2019s Tome. One representative, however, spoke in favor of two natures of Christ, but he was shouted down by many: \u201cLet (him) be burnt; let him be burnt alive. As he has cut Christ in two, so let him be cut in two.\u201d Representatives of Leo saw the writing on the wall, so they departed early to avoid being identified with the council. In the final decision, the council condemned a theology of two natures of Christ as heresy and excommunicated its advocates: Theodoret, Flavian, and Leo. Eutyches\u2019 theology of only one new nature of Christ was reaffirmed and he was restored to his former position.
\nDioscorus succeeded in his scheme. With the backing of the emperor and a so-called ecumenical council in his pocket, he felt justified to send his aggressive monks to attack Flavian when he sought to convene another council to counteract the Second Council of Ephesus. Flavian died as a result, leaving Anatolius, a friend of Dioscorus, to become the next patriarch of Constantinople. It now seemed the whole Eastern church was subjugated to the Eutychian doctrine of Christ, but things worked out differently than Dioscorus planned.<\/p>\n
Orthodox Response<\/p>\n
Leo of Rome would not go down without a fight. Horrified with the recent decisions and events, he famously dubbed the second council in Ephesus \u201cthe Robber Synod.\u201d He appealed to Emperor Theodosius to reverse all the decisions in the council and to arrest the murderers of Flavian. Not surprisingly, Theodosius refused all of Leo\u2019s demands. Leo then began the process of calling another ecumenical council to meet in the West without the emperor\u2019s approval. By this time, relations between the East and the West were so distant in the Roman Empire, he knew he did not have to worry about any retaliation from the emperor.
\nBut in the following year (450), Leo\u2019s fight against the East became unnecessary. Theodosius died in a freak accident, having been thrown off his horse. Dioscorus\u2019s main source of political power to uphold his heresy in the East was now suddenly removed.
\nTo add further problems for Eutychianism, Theodosius\u2019s successor\u2014his sister Pulcheria and her husband, Marcian\u2014advocated for the capital city to be completely independent from too much alliance with either schools of Alexandria or Antioch. They ordered Flavian\u2019s body to be returned to Constantinople so that he might be buried with full honors. Then they called a fourth ecumenical council to replace Ephesus II (the Robber Synod) and meet at Chalcedon. The anti-Eutychian letter, Leo\u2019s Tome, was distributed to the five hundred bishops ordered to attend. It was fairly obvious to Dioscorus that the Council of Chalcedon was not going his way, but he nevertheless went to the council with a fighting spirit, calling for the excommunication of Leo.
\nThe tension between the schools of Alexandria and Antioch was high. Yet the Council of Chalcedon also sought to bridge the two schools by avoiding the extremities of either party and upholding respective truths they both guarded. A new statement of orthodox belief about the person of Jesus Christ was very much needed, but the council was clear that the formulation of Chalcedon was not a new creed but an interpretation and elaboration of the Nicene Creed of 381.
\nLeo\u2019s Tome proved to be a persuasive argument for the necessity of distinguishing two natures of Christ. Leo declared in it, \u201cFor He who is true God is also true man: and in this union there is no lie, since the humility of manhood and the loftiness of the Godhead both meet there. For God is not changed by the showing of pity, so man is not swallowed up by the dignity. For each form does what is proper to it with the co-operation of the other \u2026\u201d Notice that in the first statement, Leo restates the Nicene declaration that Christ is both truly God and truly man. The human nature and the divine nature in Christ remain distinct and unmixed in the incarnation so that Jesus is truly God and truly man. Because Eutyches denied this by teaching that Christ\u2019s humanity is swallowed up in his divinity, Leo accused him of teaching another form of Docetism, thus the statement \u201cthere is no lie.\u201d
\nOn the other side of the same coin, Cyril\u2019s letter to Nestorius and another one to John of Antioch were discussed at the council to emphasize the single personhood of Christ. In the latter letter, Cyril acknowledged to John, \u201cwe confess that our Lord Jesus Christ \u2026 is complete God and complete human being with a rational soul and body \u2026 This same one is coessential (of the same being) with the Father, as to his deity, and coessential with us, as to his humanity, for a union of two natures has occurred, as a consequence of which we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord.\u201d Though Cyril acknowledged Christ\u2019s two natures, he emphasized that we must confess Christ as one Lord without confusion.
\nIn the end, the council recognized that Jesus Christ is one person who exists with two distinguishable natures. To make this clearer and to avoid future heresies, the council crafted \u201cthe Definition of Chalcedon.\u201d Four fences were constructed around the mystery of the person of Christ\u2014namely, he is \u201crecognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.\u201d The definition went on to say that \u201cthe distinction of natures\u201d was in no way \u201cannulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence.\u201d This definition made sure to exclude Eutychianism and Nestorianism from any place in orthodox Christianity.<\/p>\n
Contemporary Relevance<\/p>\n
The political scheming in the Eutychian controversy is off-putting; however, the orthodox doctrine of the person of Christ is crucial for followers of Christ. The bishops at Chalcedon labored hard to craft a careful statement that distinguished the two natures in one person because salvation depends on both natures of Christ. Stephen Nichols puts the problem with Eutychianism this way: \u201cThe problem with stressing the unity without the counterbalance of the two intact natures, as Eutyches does, is that Christ loses his human and divine identity. As such, he is not truly our representative. The Christ of Eutyches falls way short of Paul\u2019s teaching of Christ as the last Adam (Rom. 5:12\u201321; 1 Cor. 15:42\u201349).\u201d
\nThis is the problem Leo the Great identified, and it was the problem with all the christological heresies in the early church. The orthodox theologians of the first several centuries saw an intimate connection between the incarnation and the atoning work of Christ. Thus Leo writes, \u201cWithout detriment therefore to the properties of either substance which then came together in one person, majesty took on humility, strength weakness, eternity mortality; and for the paying off of the debt belonging to our condition, inviolable nature was united with passible nature, and true God and true man were combined to form one Lord, so that, as suits the needs of our case, one and the same Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, could both die with the one and rise again with the other.\u201d
\nIn Leo\u2019s view, it is the fact that Christ became human, even including the awkward or embarrassing parts of humanity, that allows him to advocate for us in our own weakness and sinfulness. Eutyches\u2019 attempt to honor Christ by downplaying his humanity took away the purpose of his mission.<\/p>\n
Discussion Questions<\/p>\n
1. One of the results of a Eutychian view of Jesus Christ is that his humanity becomes overwhelmed and enveloped by his divinity. How does this view that even Jesus\u2019 humanity is in some way divine make it difficult to think of Christ as a human being just like us?
\n2. The orthodox response to Eutychianism was to develop a robust understanding of both the divinity and the humanity of Jesus Christ. In what ways do the Old Testament prophecies about Jesus Christ require that he be both human and divine? What New Testament passages teach clearly Jesus\u2019 divinity? What passages teach about his humanity?
\n3. Because Jesus\u2019 humanity was not blended with his divinity like Eutyches taught, it was like our humanity in every way (except sin). Are there any places in the New Testament that show the Holy Spirit ministering to Jesus in the same way the Holy Spirit ministers to us?<\/p>\n
Further Readings<\/p>\n
Grillmeier, Aloys, S.J. Christ in Christian Tradition, vol. 1, From the Apostolic Age to Chalcedon (451). Translated by John Bowden. Atlanta: John Knox, 1975.
\nNorris, Richard A., trans. and ed. The Christological Controversy. Sources of Early Christian Thought. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980.<\/p>\n
CHAPTER 11<\/p>\n
NESTORIUS<\/p>\n
Christ\u2019s Divinity Must Be Shielded<\/p>\n
Historical Background<\/p>\n
The period of controversy surrounding Nestorius in the early fifth century is one of the most important periods of christological discussion in the history of the church. The orthodox position had always been that Christ was both God and man, and the Council of Nicaea, in 325, had codified this position: \u201cWe believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.\u201d
\nBut it was one thing merely to say that Jesus was both God and man; since he was a historical person, what did that mean? How much God was he, and how much man? Did it mean that he had two minds\u2014a divine and a human one\u2014which seems impossible, or did it mean that the divine part of him overwhelmed the human part, which seems to contradict the idea that he was fully human?
\nAs the fifth-century church wrestled with how to understand how Jesus could be both God and man, two main theological \u201cschools\u201d competed: the Alexandrian school and the Antiochene school. The Alexandrians tended to focus on Jesus\u2019 deity and the unity of the divine Logos with the human person of Jesus, and their chief proponent, Cyril the Patriarch of Alexandria (ca. 348\u2013444), described the identity of Christ as a \u201chypostatic union\u201d of God and man into one prosopon, or person. The Antiochene school, on the other hand, favored a historical, literal approach that emphasized the humanity of Jesus; they believed the completeness of both the divine and human natures of Christ to be paramount. Their concern was driven by the belief that salvation is possible only because the Son of God became completely human; as fourth-century theologian Gregory of Nazianzus put it, \u201cThat which was not assumed, was not healed.\u201d This emphasis led to a distinction between the infinite Godhead and the finite humanity in the person of Christ. Both schools tended to be misunderstood by the other side. The Antiochene position tended to be misconceived as teaching that Christ was two persons, while the Alexandrian emphasis drew accusations of Monophysitism, the heresy that Jesus had one merged divine-human nature.
\nOut of the Antiochene stream of thought came Nestorius (ca. 386\u2013451), who was appointed Patriarch of Constantinople in June of 428. Fervent, stubborn, and politically naive, he quickly alienated many of the people in the city. For instance, after assuring the emperor, Theodosius II, that the empire would triumph over its enemies once the emperor threw out all heretics, Nestorius proceeded to burn down a chapel belonging to members of the Arian heresy. A great deal of the city also burned as a result of the fire, which earned Nestorius the nickname \u201cTorchie.\u201d In another instance, Nestorius refused a request by the Roman pope, Celestine, to return some Pelagian heretics who were taking refuge in Constantinople. Nor did he show himself open to listening to other points of view\u2014when he could not answer the questions of some monks during one of his sermons, he invited them to come to his house the following day to discuss the matter further; when the monks arrived, however, they were beaten by Nestorius\u2019s guards. In a short time, Nestorius had made an impressive number of enemies, although he had enough friends among the nobility to ensure his continued reign as patriarch.<\/p>\n
Heretical Teaching<\/p>\n
Nestorius came to the center of theological controversy when he was asked to comment on whether it is fitting to call Jesus\u2019 mother Mary Theotokos (\u201cMother of God\u201d). For Nestorius, who wanted to keep the two natures of Christ separate, this was a difficult assertion to make. While he maintained that Mary did indeed give birth to Christ, Nestorius thought it was inappropriate to speak of Mary as being the mother of God when she bore the child Jesus. God is eternal, and any attempt to say that God was born of Mary seemed to Nestorius to be closet Arianism (which taught that there was a time when the Son of God did not exist). He said he could affirm Theotokos if Anthropotokos (\u201cMother of Man\u201d; together, \u201cMother of the God-Man\u201d) was added to her title. He considered Christotokos (\u201cMother of Christ\u201d) the most fitting title, for as J. N. D. Kelly notes, \u201cGod cannot have a mother, [Nestorius] argued, and no creature could have engendered the Godhead. Mary bore a man, the vehicle of divinity but not God.\u201d
\nNestorius maintained that Jesus Christ not only had two natures, divine and human, but that in the incarnation, he maintained two distinct persons, and that these two persons and natures could not be mixed or confused. Following the Nicene Creed, he maintained that Jesus Christ shared a full nature with God and a full nature with humankind. \u201cPerson\u201d is a harder concept, but in simple terms it is an acting subject or consciousness. When the Nicene Creed used the word \u201cconsubstantial\u201d (of the same substance), it was talking about nature; Jesus had the same nature as the Father. For Nestorius, Jesus Christ had and maintained two natures and two persons. At no time did the nature of the Logos mix with the nature of the man Jesus. The persons also remained distinct: a person of the Logos and a person of the man Jesus. This distinction was important for several reasons. First, it seemed to explain why the gospel writers describe Jesus as being ignorant of events which God would have to know because he is omniscient. Second, it also protected the \u201cimpassibility\u201d of God. In the Greek mind, God is unable to change, because change implies that something is less than perfect, that it can be improved in some way. It was believed that God cannot suffer because God cannot change. And therefore, because Christ was fully God, he was not able to suffer. But Jesus obviously suffered during the events of Good Friday. Nestorius\u2019s solution was that the natures and the persons remained distinct. The human person of Jesus Christ suffered, but the divine person of Jesus Christ did not.
\nNestorius acknowledged he developed his Christology in the light of the major heresies of Arianism and Manichaeanism. Nestorius attempted to form a Christology that upheld orthodox Christian teachings against these two heresies and others like it. Against the Arians, who mingled the human and divine parts of Jesus, Nestorius held firmly to the belief that Jesus was both fully God and fully man, and that these parts were separate. Thus, Jesus could really suffer for the redemption of humankind, in his passible, human part, but remain in control and impassible in his divine part. Against the Manichaeans, who believed that a human Christ would actually be a detriment to salvation, Nestorius tended to emphasize that Jesus was fully human in all points. That Jesus was human in every possible way was crucial to the way that Nestorius conceived of the atonement\u2014in his body, Jesus was a substitute for those who were like himself, so that they would be able to pass through death into the resurrected life. \u201cAnd since many are brought low by the fear of death,\u201d Nestorius wrote, \u201che endured unto death and gave a just compensation for us in that he exchanged for our death the death which came unjustly upon him.\u201d If Jesus were somehow not like us, his atonement would be invalid.
\nNestorius wanted to reject any sort of suffering in the divine nature of Christ while insisting that Christ also grew and was tempted. On the other hand, he wanted to maintain that Christ really was divine. The two-person model seemed the best way to do that. In his mind the separation of the natures of Christ and the emphasis on Christ\u2019s humanity did not mean that Jesus was two separate people or that he was not fully God. Although his opponents often accused him of holding such positions, it is important to understand that Nestorius himself did not believe that he had overstepped any boundaries.<\/p>\n
Orthodox Response<\/p>\n
The chief opponent of Nestorius was Cyril (ca. 376\u2013444), Patriarch of Alexandria from 412 to 444. Like Nestorius, Cyril had also earned a less than stellar reputation for being antagonistic. His tenure as Patriarch of Alexandria saw the murder of a female pagan philosopher, as well as the breakdown of secular Roman authority in favor of rule by militant monks. Unlike Nestorius, however, he had twenty-five years of political experience by the time of the council and is generally considered a deeper thinker and a more profound theologian than his rival.
\nWhere Nestorius emphasized the humanity of Jesus as crucial for salvation, Cyril believed that the real importance lay in the divinity of Jesus. What Cyril found most troubling about Nestorius\u2019s two-nature theory was that the humanity of Jesus could potentially be so opaque that the divinity of Jesus would not be able to shine through. Cyril argued that if Jesus had two natures, one God and one man, and if to everyone around him he seemed to be like every other man, then he could offer no more salvation than Moses could. Those who worshiped Jesus would worship only the outward, human form and those who were reshaped in his image would only be reshaped to resemble his human nature. For Cyril, Nestorius\u2019s theory threatened the idea of Jesus as the \u201cexpress image of God\u201d and \u201cGod among us.\u201d
\nFurthermore, Cyril thought that Nestorius\u2019s theology threatened the unity of Jesus and ultimately made Jesus into two people who were loosely tied together. He was just as concerned as Nestorius with establishing Jesus as a human being rather than a God who was cloaked in humanity, but he thought that if Christ suffered only in his human form, he would not be an effective high priest. Cyril held that it was through divine suffering that Christ mediated the sins of humankind, and so even though the suffering of God on the cross might be a paradox, it is nevertheless a nonnegotiable principle of the faith.
\nFor Cyril, it was proper to call Mary the \u201cMother of God\u201d because in the incarnation, the nature of the Logos was united with the nature of humankind in the single person of Jesus Christ. Since Christ was a single person, it was proper to use the term that belongs to either nature to refer to the single person Jesus Christ. This is called the communicatio idiomatum, or communication of properties. The communication of properties means you can say that God suffered on the cross, or that the baby Jesus lying in the manger was the creator of the heavens and the earth\u2014because it is hard to wrap your mind around two such opposite images, the communication of properties reminds us that it is sufficient just to think of one at a time, with the understanding that both are equally true.
\nIn 429, Cyril heard that Nestorius refused to recognize Mary as Theotokos, and the two exchanged a series of heated letters. Cyril wrote to Pope Celestine with a summary of Nestorius\u2019s views, asking him to pass judgment on whether Nestorius was truly teaching the faith of Nicaea. Cyril\u2019s motives were not purely doctrinal. He hoped to embarrass Constantinople, because the authorities there wanted to claim ecclesiastical jurisdiction second only to Rome, and Cyril considered their efforts a purely political move and not grounded in the history of the church. If the Bishop of Constantinople were declared a heretic, perhaps this would lessen the threat of Constantinople. Cyril and Nestorius both appealed to Pope Celestine, but he sided with Cyril and held a synod in Rome (430) to affirm the title Theotokos against Nestorius. Cyril informed Nestorius of the ruling and ordered him to cease his teaching and recant his position; he wrote a long letter to Nestorius consisting of twelve anathemas that were \u201cdeliberately provocative.\u201d It is likely that Cyril\u2019s new statement of anathemas was unfair, as it represented a more extreme version of Alexandrian Christology, which even moderate Antiochenes would have labeled Apollinarian. Consequently, Theodosius the emperor called a meeting in June of 431 at Ephesus. This meeting, later known as the First Council of Ephesus, was the climax of the conflict between Cyril and Nestorius.
\nIt was perhaps inevitable that Cyril and Nestorius would clash over both politics and theology, considering they were representatives of rival theological schools (Alexandrian and Antiochene). When battle lines were drawn at the Council of Ephesus, the bishops largely split along ethnic lines\u2014Syrians supported Nestorius, while Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans (whom Nestorius had alienated) backed Cyril.
\nThe political background to the council can seem jarring to modern readers. It is useful to remember that the ancient world operated under different conceptions than we do. For instance, both Nestorius and Cyril believed that it was vital for the empire to hold the proper ideas about Christ in order for its people to prosper. Both were placed in a situation in which they were expected to forge political connections and wield authority, even authority that required the use of force. These circumstances might not excuse the actions that they undertook to win the council, but it must be understood that they were not simply power-hungry fanatics. However, both patriarchs were deeply concerned with understanding the nature of Christ in a way that was true to Scripture and that would lead others to salvation.
\nFrom the beginning, however, the Council of Ephesus was slanted in Cyril\u2019s favor. Although the council had been slated to take place at Constantinople, Pulcheria, the emperor\u2019s sister, moved it to Ephesus. Pulcheria was a longtime enemy of Nestorius and knew that Ephesus was the site of a thriving shrine to Mary. The locals at Ephesus obviously favored the title of Theotokos, and their opinions became a key factor in the debate. Through a series of politically motivated and orchestrated events, few of the supporters of Nestorius arrived in time for the council, and Cyril and his supporters began the Council of Ephesus without them, amid some protest.
\nIn an unfortunate blunder, Nestorius said that he refused to worship a God who was a baby of two or three months old. By this he meant that if Mary were the mother of God, then it was implied that she was the mother of God in all his fullness\u2014an obvious absurdity. The Cyrilline party took this statement as an opportunity to paint Nestorius as a heretic. They accused him of believing that Christ was a man whom God later made divine (the \u201cadoptionist\u201d heresy), a charge that was made more credible by the fact that Nestorius\u2019s home city of Antioch had produced a prominent adoptionist not long before named Paul of Samosata. The people of Ephesus either believed the charge of Adoptionism or used it as an excuse for their own ill will toward Nestorius, because threats were soon made against bishops friendly to Nestorius and several abandoned him for Cyril\u2019s side.
\nThe council decided against Nestorius and deposed him from his position as patriarch for his heretical views. As the council was wrapping up, Nestorius\u2019s supporters finally arrived and started their own council. This council met and deposed Cyril, restored Nestorius, and declared the previous council invalid. When the representatives from the pope finally arrived, they declared that Cyril and the council he led were the official council and Nestorius\u2019s view of two persons was condemned. In addition, the term Theotokos was officially approved. Mary was indeed to be called the Mother of God. Nestorius was stripped of his power and rank and driven into exile.
\nThe council resulted in schism between the church of Antioch, which stood by Nestorius, and the church of Alexandria. In the years following the Council of Ephesus, however, the two sides reached a compromise with the Formula of Union in 433. Concessions were made to the Diphysite (two-nature) Antiochene position, and the standard orthodox Christology formulated not long after at the Council of Chalcedon (451) settled that Christ had two natures united in one person, but the condemnation of Nestorius remained; he was deposed from his ecclesiastical position and eventually died in exile around 451. The proposition that Jesus Christ contained in himself two distinct persons, God and man, was condemned as the heresy of \u201cNestorianism,\u201d though Nestorius himself vehemently rejected this description of his teaching and maintained his orthodoxy to the end. However, the heresy of \u201ctwo Sons\u201d has remained associated with his name throughout the history of the Christian church.
\nSympathizers of Nestorius fled the empire to Mesopotamia and Persia, where they established themselves in Nisibis, the intellectual center of the Persian church. The Persian church continued to honor Nestorius and eventually separated itself from the West when the Persian Empire began to clash with the eastern Roman Empire. In the next few centuries, Nestorian missionaries planted churches in Iran, India, Central Asia, and up to the coast of China. Some of these communities survive to the present day. Inadvertently, the decision at Ephesus resulted in the expansion of Christianity; without the seemingly harsh ruling of the council, there would have been much less incentive to bring the gospel to those new territories.<\/p>\n
Contemporary Relevance<\/p>\n
The Nestorian controversy represents an important development in Christian theology. Despite their rivalry, both sides were seriously trying to understand how Christ saves humankind, and the questions they raised are worth deep consideration. How human was Christ? Did his humanity dilute or mask his divinity? Did his divinity interfere with the effectiveness of his sacrifice? As we have seen, the Council of Ephesus firmly promoted the unity of Christ\u2019s being, and despite the political wrangling, it did so because it considered Nestorius\u2019s Christology as the beginning of a slippery slope that might disconnect Christ from his divinity in all but name. Later, the Council of Chalcedon (451) revisited the issue and moderated the decision made at Ephesus in a way that resolved some of Nestorius\u2019s concerns. But by taking a decisive stand for the unity of Christ\u2019s nature, the church had moved one step closer to a more articulate Christology that helped believers understand the work of salvation.
\nAll of these questions may seem abstract and even irrelevant today, but they continue to have real implications for the way Christians see the life and ministry of Jesus. To take only one scenario, think of how differently we might interpret his temptation in the desert if we believed Jesus had a divine but not a human mind. Or consider his redemptive sufferings on the cross\u2014what if he were suffering only as an ordinary human being, or conversely only as a human body propelled by a divine control center? Would that change how we look to Christ for salvation? These questions greatly concerned ancient theologians, and because the church wrestled through them in the fifth century, we have a clearer understanding of who Jesus is and how his life, death, and resurrection brought salvation to humanity.<\/p>\n
Discussion Questions<\/p>\n
1. Why was Nestorius so concerned with maintaining the distinction between Christ\u2019s divine and human natures? Why was Cyril so adamant about their unity?
\n2. How does the unity of Christ\u2019s natures affect the way we worship Christ?
\n3. How was the question of calling Mary Theotokos relevant to the nature of Christ?
\n4. What can the Nestorian controversy teach us today about the right and wrong ways to approach theological debates and disagreements?<\/p>\n
Further Reading<\/p>\n
Clayton, Paul B., Jr. The Christology of Theodoret of Cyrus: Antiochene Christology from the Council of Ephesus (431) to the Council of Chalcedon (451). Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2007.
\nCyril of Alexandria. Five Tomes against Nestorius. Oxford: James Parker, 1881.
\nGrillmeier, Aloys. Christ in the Christian Tradition. Vol. 2, From the Council of Chalcedon (451) to Gregory the Great (590\u2013604). Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995.
\nMcGuckin, John. St. Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controversy. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir\u2019s Seminary Press, 2004.
\nNestorius. The Bazaar of Heracleides. Translated by G. R. Driver and Leonard Hodgson. Oxford: Clarendon, 1925.
\nWessel, Susan. Cyril of Alexandria and the Nestorian Controversy: The Making of a Saint and of a Heretic. Oxford Early Christian Studies. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2004.<\/p>\n
CHAPTER 12<\/p>\n
SOCINUS<\/p>\n
The Trinity Is Irrelevant and Jesus\u2019 Death Is Only an Example<\/p>\n
Historical Background<\/p>\n
Faustus Socinus (1539\u20131604), also known as Fausto Sozzini or Faust Socyn, was born into a noble family of bankers and jurists and became independent early in life thanks to an inheritance he received from his grandfather. With independent wealth, Socinus chose various paths for study, showing promise in law and writing. Eventually, however, this Renaissance man with connections to the Sienese intellectual elite became famous for his theological thought. However, in orthodox circles, the fame that Socinus gained is not generally praiseworthy.
\nThough little is known of Socinus\u2019s childhood, by 1558, two of his uncles, Celso and Camillo, were suspected of Lutheranism, and they were pursued by the Catholic Inquisition. Another uncle, Lelio, had shifted his own studies from law to divinity and, in large part because of his family\u2019s money, had made acquaintances with some of the leading Reformers of the day, including Philip Melanchthon, John Calvin, and Heinrich Bullinger. During the 1550s, Lelio spent a considerable amount of time traveling throughout Europe seeking to gain access to his inheritance, which had been commandeered by the leaders of the Inquisition. Those travels eventually took him to Poland, where he became closely acquainted with several men who later led the anti-Trinitarian movement that gained traction in Poland.
\nLargely because of his family\u2019s reputation, Socinus came under the suspicion of the Inquisition as well, and, by 1559, he had fled with Lelio to Zurich for refuge. When Lelio died in 1562, Socinus acquired his uncle\u2019s papers (most of which were unpublished) and began his own writing career. After returning for a time to lands controlled by the Catholic Inquisition, Socinus finally fled to Transylvania and eventually to Poland, where he lived the remainder of his days.
\nIn Polish lands, Socinus found not only a tolerance for religious diversity but also a community eager for his unorthodox teaching, which had already gained some notoriety for its anti-Trinitarian leanings, and he quickly gained influence in the Minor Reformed Church, or the Polish Brethren, a sect of the Protestant church in Poland that had separated from the Polish Reformed Church in 1565 over differences in their understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity.<\/p>\n
Heretical Teaching<\/p>\n
Beginning with his first publication in 1562, a work titled An Explanation of the Prologue of the Book of the Gospel of John, Socinus developed his understanding of the unity (rather than trinity) of the Godhead with Jesus\u2019 role as the divine Logos (usually translated \u201cWord\u201d) being an office he held rather than an aspect of his nature. According to this view, only God the Father is truly and fully divine. Jesus, \u201cthe Son of God,\u201d received a unique divinely appointed office as the Logos, an office which deserves respect and even worship. However, for Jesus, that respect and worship were limited to his office and did not extend to his person, which Socinus argued was not divine. Two additional works, Jesus Christ Savior and The State of Man before the Fall, provided Socinus the opportunity to develop his theology into a full-fledged system built not only on his unitarian view of God but also on distinctive views of the atonement and the role of human reason. Socinus\u2019s church officially endorsed his teachings at the Synod of Racovia in 1603. Socinus died shortly thereafter, but the Racovian Academy, a school which had been established in 1602, began printing and disseminating Socinus\u2019s works, including his last and most influential work, a catechism known as the Racovian Catechism. The theological system held by Socinus affected every theological tenet, such that virtually no teaching held by the Socinians could be considered really orthodox.<\/p>\n
Human Reason<\/p>\n
The preeminent presupposition of the Socinian theological system was an elevation of individual human reason over and against church tradition and the divinely inspired revelation of God in Scripture. According to several acquaintances, Socinus emphatically declared that his only instructors had been his uncle, Lelio, and the Bible. Such lack of education, Socinus thought, did not compromise his theological capabilities. Instead, it safeguarded him against the errant teachings of human traditions, allowing him to perceive the essentials of salvation without falling victim to the \u201cfables of human device.\u201d Whereas those who embraced traditional church doctrine did so at the expense of human reason, Socinus thought his own individual theological ventures gave him clarity that was otherwise inaccessibly clouded by the traditions of the church.
\nThis position, of course, was a stark reaction against the Roman Catholic Church, for it impinged upon the Roman church\u2019s monopoly on authority and set the individual readers in a position to determine authoritative teaching for themselves. Socinus even called upon believers to reject \u201cevery interpretation which is repugnant to right reason,\u201d a practice which he believed would lead to the rejection of much Catholic teaching and a restoration of the original purity of the Scriptures. For the Socinians, that purity included rejecting anything that could not be explained or understood by human reason, including all divine mystery. Like many movements in church history (such as Arianism), Socinus rejected the significance of the great tradition of Christianity and sought to develop his views apart from the influence of others.
\nBecause Socinus and his followers elevated human reason so highly, they also held to a specific version of the sufficiency of Scripture that further undermined the authority of the clergy and the learned elite. The Socinian system did not reject human teachers altogether, however, as the Polish Brethren understood the need for the masses to learn from the literate. According to the Racovian Catechism, human teachers had four main purposes: (1) to help the illiterate or unlearned masses to understand Scripture; (2) to collect the various Scriptures into a logical argument; (3) to encourage people to act on what they know; and (4) to aid in dealing with the more difficult passages of Scripture. This low view of the Scriptures compared with human reason also led Socinus to renounce any nonbiblical terminology (such as \u201cTrinity\u201d or \u201coriginal sin\u201d), for to use such terminology, he argued, would be to introduce human traditions at the expense of the clear teaching of Scripture.<\/p>\n
Unitarianism<\/p>\n
Based on the concepts that the clear teaching of Scripture should suffice and tradition is irrelevant in all theological teaching, Socinus argued that the ecumenically accepted doctrine of the Trinity could not be defended. For one, the term never appears in Scripture\u2014an undisputed point. Also, the very concept of a triunity (as most of his contemporaries referred to the doctrine) of personhood with a singularity of essence flew in the face of human reason. No one would dispute that a reading of the Old Testament demands monotheism, but Socinus and his followers did not account for the way the New Testament authors include Jesus conclusively within the identity of the God of Israel.
\nDespite his lack of formal training, Socinus did not shy away from the more academic arguments of theology. With an intellect that demonstrated a keen understanding of both the philosophical and the text critical arguments of his day, Socinus waded into the discussion regarding the definition of the terms \u201cperson\u201d and \u201cessence\u201d with confidence. According to the Socinians, the idea that those two terms could be used distinctly made a mockery of the biblical text. Rather, the term \u201cperson\u201d should simply be defined as \u201can indivisible, intelligent essence,\u201d and, thus essence and person were interchangeable\u2014to say that God is one essence means that he is one person, as Sabellius had suggested (see chapter 6). This definition led naturally to the concept of the radical oneness of God that has largely become synonymous with Socinianism. Unfortunately, Socinus failed to take into account both the biblical basis for the Trinity and the careful Trinitarian distinctions used by his medieval scholastic predecessors, most significantly Aquinas and Duns Scotus, both of whom demonstrated with great care that there is no logical difficulty in understanding God as both three persons and one simple undivided essence.
\nThat unity of God also undergirded Socinus\u2019s Adoptionist view of Jesus of Nazareth. According to the Racovian Catechism, the Socinians did acknowledge some supernatural aspect of Jesus\u2019 birth, but they did not accept the traditional understanding of his divinity. Rather, Jesus, the man, was chosen by God for a special work. He was adopted and given a unique filling of the Holy Spirit adequate and necessary for that office, that of Redeemer.
\nFor Socinus, this understanding of divine unity did not merely apply to the office of Christ; it also had serious ramifications for his understanding of the Holy Spirit, which Socinus argued was merely the \u201cvirtue or energy flowing from God\u201d without any distinct personhood. Thus, like the spirit of a man, the Spirit of God, or Holy Spirit, simply referred to an aspect of the divine being, not a distinct person.<\/p>\n
View of the Atonement<\/p>\n
Given his understanding of the radical unity of God and, consequently, Jesus\u2019 merely human existence, Socinus\u2019s view of the atonement logically differed from commonly accepted views\u2014especially that of Anselm and the Calvinist modification of Anselm\u2019s view. Because Jesus was not divine, Socinus argued that his death could not have been intended to make satisfaction (as Anselm argued) or to pay a penalty on behalf of other humans (as the Calvinists argued). Instead, Socinus understood Christ\u2019s death to serve as a way for God to model true love and devotion and to demonstrate the way of salvation. Jesus, then, provided the unique and divinely anointed model for humans to imitate. Because Socinus thought that the idea that Jesus was both God and man ended up compromising his humanity, he also suggested that seeing Jesus as merely human was of more comfort to believers. After all, if Christ was merely human and was resurrected, Socinus argued, it provided much more assurance of our own resurrection than if Christ triumphed over death as a supernatural being.
\nBy the time of Socinus\u2019s death, Protestant discussions had begun to focus on the minutiae of the extent of the atonement Christ\u2019s death achieved. Rather than getting caught up in those discussions, Socinus provided a radically different concept of the atonement, one which did not need an answer for how Christ\u2019s death affected salvation or who it saved. According to Socinus, the death of Christ was indeed glorious and divinely orchestrated, but God did not die in the person of Jesus.
\nConsequently, Socinus considered any discussion about the payment made by that death premature and misplaced. Socinus, or at least his contemporary followers, did, in places, allow for the resurrected Christ to take on added significance in God\u2019s ongoing divine governance of the cosmos. As the vindicated one, the resurrected Christ could, at least in the view of some Socinians, take an eternal role in God\u2019s kingdom. This modified view provides some added significance to Christ\u2019s death on the cross without shifting the overall teaching away from Socinus\u2019s atonement model.
\nIn the end, the Socinian model of the atonement\u2014even the modified versions of some of Socinus\u2019s followers\u2014removes the necessity of the death of Christ and provides no method for dealing with the problem of sin, the central problem for humanity according to leading theologians from both the Catholic and Protestant traditions. According to the Socinian system, the same \u201cbenefits\u201d provided by the crucifixion of Jesus could have been delivered in other ways, though the sheer dramatic effect of the method used would be difficult to duplicate.<\/p>\n
Orthodox Response<\/p>\n
Unlike many viewed as radical during the Reformation, Faustus Socinus avoided imprisonment and execution. Hostile reactions to his views forced Socinus to leave his family home in Siena and seek refuge in lands controlled by leaders who supported religious liberty. On several occasions, Socinus experienced persecution from unruly mobs, the last such incident occurring in Krakow, where he had lived for several years. On that occasion, Socinus was dragged from his house and injured badly. During his subsequent recovery, Socinus moved to a village outside of Krakow that provided more safety from such popular uprisings. He remained there until his death several years later.<\/p>\n
Catholic Response<\/p>\n
Thanks to the Catholic Church\u2019s heavy-handed response to the Reformation in the lands they still controlled, Socinus\u2019s teachings quickly became labeled as heretical and found their way onto the Index of Forbidden Books. For the Catholic hierarchy, Socinianism served two major purposes. First, it confirmed the church\u2019s fears about making the Scriptures available to the laity. In the eyes of the Catholic leadership, the unlearned masses\u2019 having access to the Word of God could only lead to a \u201ctwisting\u201d of Scripture that would undermine the historical teaching of the church\u2014as Socinus aptly demonstrates. Europe had already witnessed the monstrosities of such an event with the anarchical destruction of Munster in 1534\u201335, a horror feared by Catholic and Protestant alike. Second, Socinus demonstrated the intellectual and theological extremes that could be reached without the stabilizing effects of the authority of tradition. For the Catholic Church, a rigid understanding of theological truth provided the only sure defense against such ungodly heresy. The Catholic Church officially condemned Socinianism as heresy in two different papal bulls. The first, declared by Pope Paul IV and titled Cum quorundam (1555) dealt more with the teachings of Lelio Socinus than of Faustus, though the two were nearly identical on the key aspects. The second condemnation, pronounced by Pope Clement VIII in 1603, was titled Dominici gregis. These two bulls combined to condemn the Socinian tenets that denied the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the doctrine of original sin, the unique understanding of the sacraments, and the denial of the authority of tradition.<\/p>\n
Protestant Response<\/p>\n
The Protestant Reformers also condemned nearly every aspect of the Socinian system. For the most part, Poland and Transylvania were both dismissed as lands \u201cowned\u201d by the Radical Reformation, so the leading Protestant authorities did not fight Socinianism from a political stronghold\u2014as they had done with other anti-Trinitarian theologies such as that espoused by Michael Servetus, who was executed in Geneva in 1553.
\nAs was often the case in the midst of the Reformation, the leaders of the orthodox sects and those eventually labeled as heretics had a lengthy history. Lelio Socinus\u2019s travels during the 1550s provided him with numerous rich relationships with many of the Protestant leaders. During that time, Lelio Socinus shared some of his reservations about traditional doctrine, and several of those leaders responded with clear concern. Calvin, especially, warned Lelio against continuing in the line of \u201cvain and fruitless\u201d conjectures and inquiries, which he believed would result only in \u201csevere suffering.\u201d
\nBy the time Faustus Socinus matured as a theologian, his uncle\u2019s acquaintances had apparently given up on the hope of providing any moderating support. While correspondence between Lelio and other Protestant leaders was abundant, the same cannot be said of Socinus. Rather, the Protestant response to Socinus and the full-fledged Socinian model was far more polemic in nature. The term \u201cSocinian\u201d quickly became a pejorative catchall for any theology with even a hint of anti-Trinitarianism. Across the spectrum of Protestantism\u2014from those in the Lutheran camp to those in the Calvinist camp\u2014Socinianism was renounced as heretical and extremely dangerous. After the Racovian Academy established its printing press in 1602, the Socinian doctrines began to spread, and the political and theological establishment found itself needing to respond.
\nThe response of the English establishment serves as a prime example of the usual Protestant response to this system. The Racovian Catechism was first published in England at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The teachings were quickly denounced as heretical and banned by the Church of England. In 1612, Bartholomew Legate and Edward Wightman became the last two English people to be executed as heretics. Among the charges that led to their conviction was the charge that they held Socinian tenets. In 1614, King James ordered all copies of the Racovian Catechism burned with the hope of weeding out anti-Trinitarian theologies. The move did not work, and by the end of the seventeenth century, works written both in support and in condemnation of Socinianism abounded. The Racovian Catechism even found a new audience among the religious sects during the tumultuous seventeenth century.<\/p>\n
Contemporary Relevance<\/p>\n
While the term \u201cSocinian\u201d has largely fallen out of use, Socinian doctrines continue to have influence. Most modern unitarian theologies trace their history either directly to Socinus or to other theologians who were directly influenced by Socinian teachings. In England, entire Christian groups bought into some aspects of Socinian theology during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Additionally, the Socinian model of the atonement can still be found within more liberal Protestant theologies\u2014both explicitly and implicitly.
\nBy far the strongest legacy of Socinianism can be found in the elevation of human reason in the interpretation of Scripture. The central Socinian tenet of the authority of human reason as the final arbiter of truth\u2014over against both human tradition and supernatural revelation\u2014became one of the preeminent philosophical foundations of much of modern civilization. That foundational premise held sway for the better part of three hundred years. The influence of Socinus in that area simply cannot be ignored, and that influence was not limited to the philosophical world.
\nThe question must be asked whether this theological system and its influence over modern Western thought can be harmonized with the teachings of Scripture that clearly move beyond human reason. In the end, the believer must decide what role human tradition and human authority will, should, or must play in the determination of orthodoxy. The hyperindividualized \u201cme and my Bible\u201d understanding of theology and biblical interpretation espoused by Socinus and the Socinian system has become commonplace within evangelical Protestantism. As J. I. Packer put it, \u201c[Tradition] is not infallible, but neither is it negligible, and we impoverish ourselves if we disregard it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Discussion Questions<\/p>\n
1. While Jesus\u2019 death is certainly an example of the highest form of human sacrifice, what do we lose if his death were only an example for us to emulate?
\n2. What are some ways that today\u2019s society allows faith to be determined and judged by autonomous human reason?
\n3. One of Socinus\u2019s major shortcomings was his insufficient view of the Trinity. Many today share Socinus\u2019s view that the doctrine of the Trinity is either nonsensical or irrelevant. In what ways does the Christian doctrine of the triune God positively impact our faith?<\/p>\n
Further Reading<\/p>\n
Franks, Robert S. The Doctrine of the Trinity. London: Duckworth, 1953.
\nGreig, Martin. \u201cThe Reasonableness of Christianity? Gilbert Burnet and the Trinitarian Controversy of the 1690s.\u201d Journal of Ecclesiastical History 44, no. 4 (1993): 631\u201351.
\nMcLachlan, H. John. Socinianism in Seventeenth-Century England. London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1951.
\nMortimer, Sarah. Reason and Religion in the English Revolution: The Challenge of Socinianism. Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2010.<\/p>\n
CONCLUSION<\/p>\n
The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.
\n\u2014G. K. Chesterton, \u201cOn St. George Revivified\u201d<\/p>\n
Dwell on the past and you will lose an eye. Forget the past and you will lose both eyes.
\n\u2014Russian Proverb<\/p>\n
What are we to make of all these controversies? It is tempting to see the history of orthodoxy and heresy as proof that no one knows very much about God, and that any opinions work. If the church can become deeply divided over so basic a doctrine as whether Jesus is God, then it might be better to agree just to get along with one another and do the best we can. After all, Jesus did say that if a person loves God and loves others, then they are fulfilling all of the commandments. \u201cWhy,\u201d you may ask, \u201cdoes it even matter if we believe the right things about God as long as we love God and other people?\u201d Two brief responses to this objection are worth noting.
\nFirst, while it is certainly true that living doctrine out in love for God and others is important, Jesus also said that part of loving God is loving him with all of our minds, souls, and strength\u2014that is, with our entire person. Believing right things about God is part of loving him, in the same way that it matters to you whether someone knows your interests, likes and dislikes, occupation, and past. And second, in order to love God we have to know who he is. When the Israelites were training their children, they referred to God by recalling the things he had done for them in the past. The God they worshiped was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the one who had brought them out of Egypt in the exodus. They used specific phrases to specify who it was that they were worshiping. The orthodox understanding of the Trinity and of Jesus Christ does something similar\u2014it identifies who the God Christians worship actually is. Therefore, in order to love God, one must know who God is. In this way, right belief about God\u2014orthodoxy\u2014matters quite a bit.
\nChristians should agree that there exists a perfect orthodoxy in the mind of God; however, the proliferation of schisms, disagreements, and divisions throughout church history points to the fact that we as sinful and fallible humans are imperfect at agreeing precisely on that orthodoxy. The general overview of the heresies and the church\u2019s orthodox responses in this book should make clear how messy the pursuit for theological truth can be.
\nHowever, there is room for mystery in Christian belief. We must remember that the entirety of what we think Christians should believe is not identical to what a person must believe to be saved. We believe in justification by faith in Christ, not justification by accuracy of doctrine. We are not saved by our intellectual precision; we are saved by the grace of Jesus. That does not diminish the importance of correct doctrine, but rather allows it its proper place in glorifying the triune God, who graciously saves sinners because of the person and work of Christ.
\nAs I hope has been clear in this book, the line between orthodoxy and heresy has developed over time and through theological conflict, and the line between heterodoxy and heresy is blurry. That means we need lots of wisdom, discernment, and humility before we declare that someone has departed into full-blown heresy. At the same time, we should be clear in our minds on the nonnegotiables of Christian doctrine and belief.
\nThe current climate of the church shows that Christians need to relearn the ability to care about right doctrine and have earnest doctrinal disagreements without shouting \u201cheresy!\u201d when we disagree. We need a more restrained definition of heresy drawing on the early church creeds. The Nicene Creed is a historic, globally accepted ecumenical creed that encapsulates the good news of the gospel into a short and rich summary. It covers the basic essentials of (1) who God is, (2) what God is like, and (3) how God saves.
\nIf a believer authentically holds to the Nicene Creed, we should not call them a heretic, no matter how strongly we believe they are gravely in error on the details or on other doctrines. A good shorthand for heresy, then, is to ask, \u201cCan they say the Nicene Creed and mean it without their fingers crossed?\u201d If the answer is yes, they may still be wrong, and they may be heterodox, but we cannot call them heretics, because they fit within the bounds of historic Christianity.
\nEven with this narrow and confined definition of heresy, we should still discuss and debate with those whose beliefs are unhelpful. We can still say that their teachings are not a good application of Scripture to life and doctrine. But don\u2019t treat them as heretics. Treat them as brothers and sisters with whom we lovingly disagree. As the famous saying goes, \u201cIn essentials unity, in nonessentials liberty, and in all things love.\u201d
\nRather than either of the two extremes\u2014nothing is heresy on the one hand, and everything that I disagree with is heresy on the other\u2014the church has continually confessed that heresy is that which deviates from the central teachings of the Christian faith, as expressed in the rule of faith and subsequently in the church\u2019s confessions. As such, Christians today would do well to recover the doctrinal precision of the early church before judging any belief as heretical.
\nHeresy is not located in one\u2019s beliefs about baptism, one\u2019s beliefs about the continuation of certain spiritual gifts, or one\u2019s beliefs about a specific view of the atonement. It is a specific and direct denial of any of the central beliefs of the Christian church about the deity and identity of the triune God and about the person and work of Jesus Christ.
\nPerhaps the best way to construct an opposite of \u201cheresy\u201d is not simply \u201cright belief\u201d\u2014though, technically speaking, orthodoxy is the opposite of heresy. The category of \u201cconfession\u201d is much more positive. Since even the demons have \u201cright belief,\u201d it is appropriate to see confession as a joyful dependence on the gospel of Jesus Christ. As John Webster says, \u201cTo confess is to cry out in acknowledgement of the sheer gratuity of what the gospel declares, that in and as the man Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit, God\u2019s glory is the glory of his self-giving, his radiant generosity. Very simply, to confess is to indicate \u2018the glory of Christ\u2019 (2 Cor. 8:23).\u201d
\nAn attitude of humble, charitable engagement stands in stark contrast to the spirit of theological conflict today. Rather than turning disagreement into division, we should contend for the truth with humility and grace. That\u2019s how Jesus treated us.<\/p>\n
APPENDIX 1<\/p>\n
THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA AND THE NICENE CREED<\/p>\n
Many of the chapters in this book reference Nicaea or Nicene orthodoxy. What we call the Nicene Creed is actually the product of two ecumenical councils\u2014one in Nicaea in AD 325, and one in Constantinople in AD 381\u2014and a century of debate over the nature of the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
\nThe Council of Nicaea was a watershed for the Christian church\u2014shortly after Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in 313, he convened the first ecumenical, fully representative, universally recognized council of the Christian church. There, the bishops discussed one of the most important questions that Christianity would ever have to face\u2014what was the status of Jesus in relation to God? Everyone there agreed that Jesus was a divine being, but the Arians (see chapter 7) could not reconcile the idea that he was the same being as God the Father.
\nAfter a long and heated debate, the council decided that the evidence from the Bible and tradition lent itself much better to the belief that Jesus was God rather than a lesser being. They phrased this belief as follows: \u201c[We believe] in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father [the only-begotten; that is, of the essence of the Father, 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 [both in heaven and on earth]; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down and was incarnate and was made man; he suffered, and the third day he rose again, ascended into heaven; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.\u201d
\nLater, at the Council of Constantinople in 381, the bishops added a section to include the Holy Spirit as God as well: \u201c[We believe] in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets.\u201d
\nAlthough the Trinity had been a standard doctrine long before Nicaea, these two councils provided Christians with the language that they needed to discuss the Trinity and the authority to use the Trinity as a basis for evaluating orthodoxy. Thus, when I reference Nicaea or Nicene orthodoxy in this book, I am talking about the fact that the bishops of the era were concerned that any new theories about God or Christ needed to line up with the Nicene Council.<\/p>\n
APPENDIX 2<\/p>\n
ANTIOCH AND ALEXANDRIA<\/p>\n
Two Understandings of Christ<\/p>\n
Of the four major Christian centers in early Christianity (Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Rome), Antioch and Alexandria produced some of the greatest theologians. Alexandria was known for names like Origen, Cyril, and Athanasius; Antioch for Nestorius and Theodore of Mopsuestia.
\nThe two cities were natural rivals, partly because they were both large Mediterranean ports which controlled a lot of trade (think Boston and New York), and partly because they had very different ways of interpreting Scripture. Alexandria tended to produce more creative theologians who emphasized the spiritual. So when it came to Christ, Alexandrians wanted the church to endorse theories in which his divinity played a major role. They tended to favor theories in which Christ was spoken of as a single person (a \u201cwho\u201d) rather than the sum of his divine and human natures (the \u201cwhats\u201d); sometimes this is referred to as a \u201cWord-flesh\u201d outlook, because Christ\u2019s godhood is the main focus and the human part is almost incidental. Heresies that sprang from Alexandria included Eutychianism, Monothelitism, and Apollinarianism.
\nAntioch, by contrast, was concrete, literal, and historical. Antiochene theologians wanted to emphasize that God had come down as a human person and walked on earth with us. As a result, Christ was not only God but also a fully functional human person with mind, will, desires, and all the embarrassing and nonpoetic parts of being human. Sometimes this is referred to as a \u201cWord-man\u201d outlook, because it emphasizes the entire human aspect of Jesus. However, the Antiochene view sometimes focused so heavily on Christ\u2019s historical human presence that his divinity became distant or abstract. Heresies that sprang from Antioch included Nestorianism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KNOW THE HERETICS JUSTIN S. HOLCOMB ZONDERVAN Know the Heretics Copyright \u00a9 2014 by Justin Holcomb This title is also available as a Zondervan ebook. Requests for information should be addressed to: Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Drive SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Holcomb, Justin S. Know the heretics \/ Justin S. … <\/p>\n