"Airesis" or "Heresy" (#2): Exegesis and Church History

We continue our brief on the Greek word "airesis" or "heresy" in the New Testament and church history. We have seen a couple of narrower definitions and then a more technical one concerned with doctrinal deviations from Apostolic doctrine, thus compromising apostolic succession. Let us pick up with early heresies. The Judaizing movement mentioned by Saint Paul was roundly condemned as “accursed,” that is, works-salvation. This was the first heretical threat to Christianity in the New Testament. This was “heresy” in the doctrinal sense. It applies currently to all synergistic soteriologies like Rome and others. Gnosticism had many mutations and produced schisms. It reached its peak in the 2nd century. Its general teachings included separating the true God from the Creation and redemption of the soul, not the whole person. Irenaeus tackled Gnosticism. It denied the bodily resurrection at the final judgment, a "heresy." Marcionism was also a second-century heresy. It postulated the New Testament God of grace versus the Old Testament God of judgment, justice, holiness, and divine retribution. Marcionites rejected the Old Testament Canon. I might add that we live in a Marcionitic age—there is reluctance and pushback on the holiness, righteousness, and justice of the infinite, eternal God. The Bishop of Exeter, UK, told yours truly that the CoE was largely rebuffing the doctrine of original sin and associated judgments. It involves doctrinal "heresy" about God. Trinitarian and Christological heresies entered the picture in the late 2nd century. In defense of the divine monarchy, Adoptionists viewed Jesus as a Man “adopted” into Deity. Subordinationism arranged the divine person in a descending hierarchy. Modalists treated the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as economic, not con-essential modes of the one God. As such, the Patrapassionist variant could say that the Father, no less than the Son, suffered on the cross. One can see the manifold divergence in the early church. In the 4th century, Arianism insisted that Christ was pre-existent in the eternal ages, but was created in those ancient ages. Semi-Arians resisted the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son. Macedonians, or Pneumatochians, applied the same type of thinking to the Holy Spirit. In contrast, Apollinarianism believed that the Logos replaced the rational soul in Jesus, thus truncating Christ’s full humanity. All these teachings were condemned at the Council of Constantinople in 381. The historic Anglican and Reformed communities uphold these Councils. The Nestorians of the 5th century were accused of teaching two persons and two natures in Christ, as well as denying the title "Theotokos," the "God-bearer," to the virgin. The Monophysites went to the opposite extreme and found only one nature and one Person. Later, the Monothelites found only one will in Jesus, although there might be two natures in Christ. The councils of Ephesus in 431, Chalcedon in 451, and Constantinople in 681 excluded these deviations. These became “heresies” by “heretics” in later centuries. The Manicheans revived Dualism in the 4th century from the anthropological heresy with speculations about the pre-existence and transmigration of souls. This was found in Origen of Alexandria with Platonic influences and the transmigration of souls. However, in the 2nd century, these hardly had the status of heresies, but they came under formal condemnation in the 6th century. Origen also suggested soteric universalism, followed at this point by Gregory of Nessa, although again, it was taught more as a possibility and as a divergent doctrine. Universalism is another "heresy." In the 5th century, Pelagianism took a radical turn, denying original sin and arguing for freedom to live a righteous life. Theoretically, one could attain salvation by willpower and without the divine forgiveness of Christ. We must add that the Episcopal Prayer Book of 1979 has a pure breed Pelagianism catechism. It is believed that the Hats and laity simply do not care about original and actual sins, yet they hold the "Pelagian heresy." After some vacillation, the church rejected Pelagianism at Ephesus in 431. A mediating movement known as Semi-Pelagianism emerged. The 529 Council of Orange allegedly condemned it a century later, although we view it as still Semi-Pelagian. Case pending. Charismatic and disciplinary matters arose with three important schismatic movements. Montanism, or ancient Pentecostalism or enthusiasm, took root in the late 2nd to early 3rd centuries. Montanists were rejected for their erroneous or “heretical” views on prophesying and ascetic practice. Donatism was a disciplinarian issue resulting from the Imperial persecutions of the 2nd-4th centuries. Donatists were separatists forming their own clergy with strict admission principles for lapsed Churchmen. So much for some of the major heresies in the early church--put forward most briefly, if not most inadequately.