Historical
Controversies or Heresies
There were many
literatures – gospels that were floating around at that time claimed to be
heresies image. They are not orthodox. They are:
1) Judaistic Heresies: These
people who were Judiastic heresies were known as ebionities. Heresies comes
from Jewish background. They wanted the Christians to be obliged to Law of
Moses. They rejected teaching of Paul. There were difference between Christians
and Ebonites.
2) Gnosticism: It believes
knowledge is important and salvation is obtained through knowledge.
3)
Marcionism: They are the people who
are versatile in New Testament.
Gnosticism
Gnosticism
is one of the Phenomenon of first century. Gnosticism is the combination of
four elements.
i)
Hellenistic philosophy of Greek.
ii) Oriental
religion of Persia and the third is
iii) Christianity.
iv) Heterodox Judaism: It is not heresy. It is right opposite to
Orthodox having combination many cultures.
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Gnosticism was common
in Christian community. For Gnostic salvation was important. In order to attain
salvation they wanted to have knowledge. It is not intellectual knowledge. It
is based on revelation, the secret knowledge. For them Knowledge is means to
salvation. Only those people belong to this sects were regarded as having
secret knowledge. They know the mind of others and could prophesize and knew
the secrets of other people and thereby attract people..
Dualism
It consist of God and
world. Anything that comes out of God is pure and good, anything that comes out
of the world is impure and sinful. They have the concept of idea of lesser
deity below the supreme God – Demiurge who created this world. They denied the
real incarnation of Jesus Christ. They believed Jesus cannot be sinful being as
they regarded the world would be sinful. The divine spirit entered in Jesus
Christ at the time of baptism and left at the time of crucifixion. They denied
atoning work of Christ.
Arianism
It happened in the city
of Alexandria. Arianism comes from a person called Arius. He was the bishop of
Antioch called Lucian and Arius was his student. The concept of Arianism was
first introduced by him. It was in around 300 CE, he became the presbyter in
the city of Alexandria. The bishop Alexander was the bishop of Alexandria who
confronted the teaching of Arius. His main teaching was of son not co equal and
not co eternal to father. Son was regarded as logos or word. The opponents of
Airus were accusing for he denied the divinity of Christ as Son. In order to
cut short the story there was a council called Nicaea. Nicaea council was held
in 325 presided by emperor Constantine. Here a new chapter opened that of
involvement of emperor in Church affairs. By the time many of the bishops had
already condemned the teaching of Arius. They came up with a new formula in
order to solve the problem is known as Nicaea Creed. They added the word
Homoousios because Arius had taught a similar word Homoiousios. Arius said
father and son are like similar and made up of exact same substance.
Monatanism:
It was basically
started by prophet Montanus. He had always two prophetesses Priscilla and
Maximilla with him. Apologetic event stress on Prophetic life and Ascetic life:
They were expecting the end event. The prophetesses believed that they got
power from Spirit – Paraclete (Comforter). It was in 172 BC the Monatanism
announced Parousia – Second Coming. He said God established a new Jerusalem
Phrygia - which is now in Turkey. In
order to be prepared for Purousia they asked followers to follow strict ascetic
life. They were really anticipating the second coming of Christ in their
lifetime. A Prophetess Maxmilla told that – after me there will be no more
prophesy but the end i.e second coming of Christ. The great Tertullian was
supporter of this group. Because people saw some corruption in the Church.
Their aim was to cleanse the church
Manichaeism
Manichaeism was founded
in Babylon in 276 AD and the founder was Mani or Manes. They believed that Mani
was incarnation of Christ. Just like Jesus Christ he was also born of Holy
virgin. Eg. His mother’s name was Mariham. He also had 12 disciples just like
Jesus Christ.
It has dualistic
approach in understanding of God. They said that in order to get salvation a
kind of special knowledge is required. Some thought that they were another
religion. It is slightly different from Gnostics. Like Gnostics they were
interested in knowledge. Dualist had understanding of black and white. They
said that the foundation of the universe is the opposition of two principles –
good and evil. They believed good and evil constitute 50% - 50% of the world.
They used terms like good and evil light and darkness etc. in which they talked much about light as they thought those who got salvation were regarded as the son of the light. Augustine was
regarded as the son of light and followed Manichaeism for 10 years before he
became a Christian. People saw it similar with Christianity. Just like Gnostics
they said abomination of all matters. They rejected anything concerned with
matter. They believed all matters to be evil; especially they see flesh as evil
because flesh is meant for sex. They basically abstained from sex. They avoided
eating meat, egg. However, they ate fish. Anything related to copulation is
regarded as sin.
Original
sin:
In their approach there are 2 Gods: evil God and Light or good god. They
believed evil God created the world. Augustine a former Manichaean told that,
Christians believe that sin started from Adam and Eve from Eden garden.
Before they die if they
vow to good God they will be saved. They don’t want to be impure in life in
order to be saved. They believed that all individual has a spark, a small
participle of goodness in their life.
Those who don’t say vow will be reincarnated. They have some
similarities with Hinduism and Buddhism. It spread so widely and even came to
China.
Holiness: Christianity had difficulty in accepting these
people that Manichaeism viewed that Christian sacraments and Priests are not
holy. On the other hand they believed all Manicheans people are holy. Just like
Jesus was tempted by the Satan on the mountain to get the whole kingdom, Mani
was also tempted. It was Orthodox Church started fighting against these people
to defend allegations against priests. It was basically spread to Persia.
During the early period of 300-400 C E they were fought by Orthodox Church. In
the beginning Mani followers persisted eventually Mani was captured. In the
middle ages they got different names like Cathars, Paulicians, Albigeases,
Bogoneils and they became Albigensians.
Monarchianism
Monarchianism comes
from the Greek term one ruler. They believe in the adoptionism
meaning Jesus was adopted son of by God. They believed that because Jesus was
the true son of Joseph and Mary and was regarded as a common man. They believed
that trinity is convenient designations. They cannot believe in the
identity of trinity. Tertullian was one who spoke much against monarchianism
and told that people crucified father also.
Nestorianism
It comes out after the
name Nestorius who was the patriarch of Constantinople. These people will come
up with the idea of Nestorius whether Jesus was fully human or fully God.
During the Nestorian time in 381 C E Constantinople was the second powerful church
in Rome. They had problem with the title like Theotokos and Christotokos. There were various titles
given to many like Theotokos and Christotokos. Theotokos – bearer of God; Christotokos – Christ bearer
They could not accept
that Jesus was in Mary’s womb for 9 months. So they said Mary was not a bearer
of God but a bearer of Christ. The famous opponent of Nestorianism was Cyril of
Alexandria. In order to solve the problem there was a debate in the synod of
Rome in 430 AD. In this synod the Cyril and Nestorians were made to debate and
finally Cyril won. They asked Cyril to give punishment for Nestorians. Nestorians were exiled to
Egypt where they started Nestorian church or Eastern Church.
After the council of
Rome there was a council of Ephesus in 431.
Nestorianism was growing. The main leaders and opponents of Cyril, the
Nestorians did not arrive in time. So Cyril conducted council before the
supporters of Nestorian bishop arrive and this time also Cyril won. Since they
were part of the council they started a new council synod of Bethlaput in 484
CE. For Nestorians all other churches were monoplysites and duoplysites.
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