Major Doctrinal Errors in Christian History

Since early times the Church was faced with challenges to its faith. Some Jews who became Christians were opposed to the idea that non-Jewish people could convert to Christianity without having to conform to Jewish traditions such as circumcision. As Christianity grew in the Greek world of thought, she was confronted by philosophies opposed to faith. Docetism for example denied that Christ took on an actual human nature and claimed he only appeared as human! This idea threatened the good news that Christ actually saved men since, according to this thought, he did not share with us our human nature. Although it is not possible to fully comprehend the truth of Christianity, the Christian mysteries are not opposed to reason. The Christian mysteries have depth beyond our limited thought, like an ocean that we enter in but cannot see its horizon. The basic truth that Christianity proclaims is that “God is Love.” This truth is the basis of all Christian teachings. The essence of God is that he the source of life, cannot but love, and so from eternity he begets his only Son out of self-emptying love. The Son, receiving his Father’s love returns love with self-emptying love, and the life-giving Love that unites the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit. This is the Trinity: three persons, equal from eternity, united yet distinct in one divine essence. God is one but not a lonely monistic person. The creation of the world is an act of divine love. When evil enters the world and attempts to destroy it, this divine love is manifested in the act of redemption i.e. the salvation plan fulfilled by the incarnation of Christ, his suffering, death and glorious resurrection. This act of salvation is also willed by the Father and continued by the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit who renews creation. If the Word did not become fully human in Christ, humanity could not be saved since he would not share the essence of humans and act for them. The Holy Spirit, the giver of life, continues the redemptive work of Christ through the Church's ministry, enabling her by his grace to proclaim the gospel, and to minister the sacraments for the salvation of people. Against these fundamental good news, errors of thought erupted in history. Against the Trinity we see the heresies (errors) of Arianism, Modalism, and Subordinationism that deny the divinity of one of the persons in God. Against the oneness of Christ, both human and divine in one person, we see the heresy of Nestorianism that divides Christ into two persons. Stretched in the other direction, we see the heresies of Monophysitism and Monothelitism that see in Christ one divine nature and one divine will that absorb the human nature and will. If we understand that through the Incarnation of the Word, God enters matter and sanctifies it, then we can further appreciate the goodness of creation, and the intrinsic value of every person. Against this faith, we see the heresies of Gnosticism, Manichaeism that deny the value of the body, and Iconoclasm that denies the veneration of what is material even if it is the relics or images of saints. The following list summarizes the more important heresies in the history of Christianity. 1) Early Trinitarian Heresies: Modalism: Modalism is the heresy that the three Persons of the Trinity are actually mere manifestations (or modes) of God ...rather than distinct and co-existent Persons. This is known as Monarchianist Modalism, and also Sabellianism (after a Roman priest, Sabellius), as well as Patripassianism. Subordinationism: Subordinationism is the heresy that one Person of the Trinity is lesser in rank or dignity than others. Arianism: Promoted by Arius, an Alexandrian priest, (c 250-336 A.D. ), Arianism is the heresy that Jesus is not Divine, and that Christ was a created being (subordinate to God the Father). In this scheme of things, Christ had been the first created person. Adoptionism: Adoptionism is the heresy that Jesus was the adopted son of God, and NOT co-eternal with God the Father. (It's also known as Dynamic Monarchism). According to this error, Jesus was elevated to godhood either at His baptism or after His resurrection. 2) Early Christological Heresies: Docetism: Docetism is a word derived from the Greek term dokesis, "appearance" or "semblance", because they taught that Christ only "appeared" or "seemed to be a man, to have been born, to have lived and suffered. Some denied the reality of Christ's human nature altogether, some only the reality of His human body or of His birth or death. Docetism was also the heresy that a.) Jesus was God the Father and only appeared to be human, and/or b.) Jesus didn't really die on the cross but was replaced there by Simon of Cyrene or by Judas Iscariot (Moslems believe that Simon died in place of Jesus. There was also a Gnostic variant of Docetism.) Apollinarianism: Apollinarianism is the heresy that Christ took on only a fleshly human nature, and not full humanity. ( So-called because it was originally promoted by Apollinaris the Younger (c. 310-c. 390), bishop of Laodicea in Syria.). Apollinaris taught that Jesus had a divine mind and divine soul, but not a human mind or human soul. He conceded that Jesus had a human body ...yet a spiritual one not fully human. Nestorianism: Advanced by Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople I(428 A.D.), Nestorianism is the heresy that Christ's two natures (human and Divine) are two different persons in one ...and not two natures inseparably joined in one person. Note: The Assyrian Church was thought at one time to follow the heresy of Nestorius, hence they were labeled Nestorians. However, recent theological dialogue between the Assyrian Church and the Catholic Church, has shown that the Assyrians recognize the unity of the two natures in the one person of Christ and their difference with Catholics appears to be mainly terminological using old philosophical terms. Eutychianism (known as Monophysitism): Advanced by Eutyches , a monk of Constantinople (448 A.D), Monophysitism or Eutychianism is the heresy that in Christ the divine nature has swallowed the human nature, so after the incarnation there is only one divine nature. Note: The Old Oriental Non-Chalcedonian Churches (e.g. Coptic, Syrian, Armenian, Ethiopian) were thought at one time to follow the heresy of Eutyches, hence they were labeled monophysites. However, recent theological dialogue between these Churches and the Catholic Church, has shown that their understanding of the natures of Christ is hardly different from the Catholic Church's understanding and the difference appears to be mainly terminological. Monothelitism: Advanced in the 7th century, it was essentially a modification of Monophysitism, propagated within the Catholic Church in order to conciliate the Monophysites, in hopes of reunion. Claimed that the person of Christ , being divino-human, has a single will, thus overriding the human will of Jesus. 3) Heresies about The Relationship of God and Man: Gnosticism: Gnosticism claims that salvation is by knowledge (gnosis "knowledge", gnostikos, "good at knowing"). Whereas Monotheist religions hold that the soul attains its proper end by obedience of mind and will to the Supreme Power, i.e. by faith and works, it is markedly peculiar to Gnosticism that it places the salvation of the soul merely in the possession of a quasi-intuitive knowledge of the mysteries of the universe and of magic formulae indicative of that knowledge. The rise of Gnosticism was influenced by Greek Platonic philosophy and the Greek mysteries centuries before Christianity. But it spread in the early Egyptian Church. In Marcionism, the most dualistic phase of Gnosticism, salvation consisted in the possession of the knowledge of the Good God and the rejection of the Demiurge (great Workman, the Maker of heaven and earth). The Good God revealed himself in Jesus and appeared as man in Judea; to know him, and to become entirely free from the yoke of the World-Creator, the God of the Old Testament, is the end of all salvation. The Gnostic Saviour, therefore, is entirely different from the Christian one. Marcionism: Heretical sect founded in A.D. 144 at Rome by Marcion and continuing in the West for 300 years, but in the East some centuries longer, especially outside the Byzantine Empire. They rejected the writings of the Old Testament and taught that Christ was not the Son of the God of the Jews but the Son of the good God, who was different from the God of the Old Testament. They anticipated the more consistent dualism of Manichaeism and were finally absorbed by it. Manichæism: Manichæism is a religion founded by the Persian Mani in the latter half of the third century. It purported to be the true synthesis of all the religious systems then known, and actually consisted of Zoroastrian Dualism, Babylonian folklore, Buddhist ethics, and some small and superficial, additions of Christian elements. As the theory of two eternal principles, good and evil, is predominant in this fusion of ideas and gives color to the whole, Manichæism is classified as a form of religious dualism. Iconoclasm: Iconoclasm (Eikonoklasmos, "Image-breaking") claims that icons and images of the Lord and saints is a kind of idolatry and hence cannot be displayed for worship of the Lord and veneration of the saints. It spread in the eighth and ninth centuries in Eastern Christianity and has been represented as an effect of Moslem influence on the Eastern Church. Pelagianism: Advanced by Pelagius, a British monk (d. 411) it claims that humans do not need God to be saved but can be saved by their own good works. It rests on the error that Adam's sin harmed only himself, not the human race. Children just born are in the same state as Adam before his fall. The whole human race neither dies through Adam's sin or death, nor rises again through the resurrection of Christ. The Mosaic Law is as good a guide to heaven as the Gospel, so even before the advent of Christ there were men who were without sin. The Protestant Reformation: Advanced by Martin Luther and others in the 16th century. The Protestant Reformers insist on justification by faith alone. They also insist that when God justifies man, man is not changed but merely declared just or righteous. God treats man as if he were just or righteous, imputing to man the righteousness of Christ, rather than imparting it to him. They also claim that the Scriptures are the sole source of revelation, and exclude Tradition as a source of revelation inseparable from the deposit of faith. According to the Protestant mind, every individual is free to interpret the Scriptures as he will be guided by the Holy Spirit. Furthermore they provide no means by which the Church, as a community of believers, could determine when the Bible was being authentically interpreted or who within the community had the right to make such a determination for the community. The Reformers also denied the ecclesial priesthood (and thus the Apostolic succession of the bishops), the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, most of the Sacraments, the intercessory role of the saints, veneration of saints, the teaching on purgatory, indulgences and the use of images. Note: The Catholic Church has signed with the Lutheran Reformation Communion a declaration in 1999, emphasizing the common understanding that justifying faith is not simply the assent to the teaching that by Christ we are justified but must also produce through sanctifying grace, the fruits of love (which Catholics call good works and Protestants include in the term faith itself). Modernism: Promoted by Alfred Loisy, George Tyrell and others in the 19th century and early 20th century, Modernism held that 1) God cannot be known and proved to exist by natural reason;(2) external signs of revelation, such as miracles and prophecies, do not prove the divine origin of the Christian religion and are not suited to the intellect of modern man; (3) Christ did not found a Church and the essential structure of the Church can change; (4) the Church's dogmas continually evolve over time so that they can change from meaning one thing to meaning another; (5) faith is a blind religious feeling that wells up from the subconscious under the impulse of a heart and a will trained to morality, not a real assent of the intellect to divine truth learned by hearing it from an external source. Postmodernism: A current thought that refuses to privilege any one 'truth claim' over another. Ideals of universally applicable truths give way to provisional, decentered, petit recits which, rather than referencing some underlying universal reality, point only to other ideas and cultural artefacts, themselves subject to interpretation and re-interpretation. Knowledge is interpreted according to our own "local" experiences, not measured against all encompassing universal structures. In this sense, postmodernity owes much to its allied school of thought post-structuralism (or deconstruction) which sought to destabilise the relationship between language and the objects to which it referred by suggesting that the same text may have different meanings to different people, ages and cultures.