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Christianity

Orthodoxy vs. Heresy
2nd - 4th centuries

(Will the real Christianity please stand up!)

At the same time that Christians were in external conflict with the non-Christian Roman Empire, there were also internal conflicts.

From early centuries the Christian church has been divided over doctrinal issues and questions.

The issue of orthodoxy and heresy is a relative one: one man's "orthodoxy" is another man's "heresy." "Orthodoxy" = "straight thinking." it was the authority in control of the church which labeled all other so called "Christian" thinking as "heresy." The "heretics" themselves considered their thinking to be correct and the "orthodox" to be wrong. It was simply the "luck of the [political] draw" as to which doctrines became official. 

Questions of Christology: a question of how Jesus’ humanity and divinity are related, how Jesus is related to God, how Jesus is related to humanity and how the spiritual force (the "Holy Spirit") is related to both God and Christ

Several views were accepted and thus considered "orthodox":

• The early Gospels and acts saw Jesus as a man, born and died, but adopted by God after death

• Paul’s view understood the Christ to be pre-existent but losing some divinity with the incarnation

• John’s view presented Christ as pre-existent and fully divine in the incarnation

Heretical views were also circulating:

• Is Jesus half and half?

• Does he change his nature back and forth like a chameleon changes its color?

• Is he only seemingly but not really divine or human?

• Some held that Jesus had not really died on the cross, that he hadn’t really resurrected, that he hadn’t really been present in physical form at all and so couldn’t die.

• Gnosticism:

• Gnostics claimed secret knowledge (Greek: "Gnosis") believed to have been taught by Jesus. They held a basically dualist view wherein spirit is good and matter is evil (a view based on Greek Platonic metaphysics) thus believed that the divine Christ could not have really experienced a physical (material) life and suffering (divinity cannot, by its nature, participate in evil) (docetisim).

• The "Gnostic Gospels" (e.g., the Nag Hammadi) stressed "self-knowledge" where to know the self is to know God; Jesus is presented as the revealer of wisdom; focus is on the message, wisdom and knowledge of Jesus rather than on his death and resurrection (Paul’s focus).

• Gnosticism was too syncretic for orthodox sensitivities. It crossed the lines of Greek and Jewish thinking, incorporating similar concepts from various other religious systems as well. But it was always seen as heretical by the religious and social mainstream of all religions and cultures (it is the same problem had throughout history by mystics and "new age" type thinking to this day).

Learn more about Gnosticism

None of these heretical views satisfied the needs demanded by the notion that Jesus could have been a proxy sacrifice for human sin. He would have actually had to have been human and have actually died to be the sacrifice and thus savior.

Other heresies involved heretical practices rather than beliefs:

• Some early Christians maintained closer ties with the Jewish religion and thinking in regarding Jesus as a fully human messiah "adopted" by God and continued to hold Jewish law as binding (Ebionites).

• Some went to the other extreme, totally rejecting the Jewish law and Jewish notions of God in favor of the new idea of a God of love, divorcing themselves entirely from the Jewish roots of Christianity (Marcionism).

• Some Christian groups looked forward to an immediate outpouring of the spirit of God, expected and sought direct contact with God by each individual and lived an ascetic life in preparation and expectation of the imminent coming of the Kingdom of God on earth (Montanism). Orthodox Christianity had already moved beyond this 1st cent. expectation.

• There continue to exist, today, movements which embody these so-called "heresies": Messianic Jews continue to embrace Jewish culture and worship practices, while a surprising number of Christians remain ignorant of the Jewish roots of their own faith. Pentecostals look for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in worship each Sunday.

In the 2nd century Bishop Irenaeus tried to dictate and unify the new religion by limiting the number of official Gospels.

By the 4th century Constantine completed the task of unifying Christianity through the elimination of heretics.

Learn more about Christology: complete this on-line tutorial
(if you want credit for doing this, print and submit completed pre- and post-quizzes and reflect upon what you learn as well as the process of learning)