Posted on 05/20/2008 7:45:05 AM PDT by NYer
From Christianity’s beginnings, the Church has been attacked by those introducing false teachings, or heresies.
The Bible warned us this would happen. Paul told his young protégé, Timothy, "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths" (2 Tim. 4:3–4).
What Is Heresy?
Heresy is an emotionally loaded term that is often misused. It is not the same thing as incredulity, schism, apostasy, or other sins against faith. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, "Incredulity is the neglect of revealed truth or the willful refusal to assent to it. Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and Catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him" (CCC 2089).
To commit heresy, one must refuse to be corrected. A person who is ready to be corrected or who is unaware that what he has been saying is against Church teaching is not a heretic.
A person must be baptized to commit heresy. This means that movements that have split off from or been influenced by Christianity, but that do not practice baptism (or do not practice valid baptism), are not heresies, but separate religions. Examples include Muslims, who do not practice baptism, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, who do not practice valid baptism.
Finally, the doubt or denial involved in heresy must concern a matter that has been revealed by God and solemnly defined by the Church (for example, the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the sacrifice of the Mass, the pope’s infallibility, or the Immaculate Conception and Assumption of Mary).
It is important to distinguish heresy from schism and apostasy. In schism, one separates from the Catholic Church without repudiating a defined doctrine. An example of a contemporary schism is the Society of St. Pius X—the "Lefebvrists" or followers of the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre—who separated from the Church in the late 1980s, but who have not denied Catholic doctrines. In apostasy, one totally repudiates the Christian faith and no longer even claims to be a Christian.
With this in mind, let’s look at some of the major heresies of Church history and when they began.
The Circumcisers (1st Century)
The Circumcision heresy may be summed up in the words of Acts 15:1: "But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brethren, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.’"
Many of the early Christians were Jews, who brought to the Christian faith many of their former practices. They recognized in Jesus the Messiah predicted by the prophets and the fulfillment of the Old Testament. Because circumcision had been required in the Old Testament for membership in God’s covenant, many thought it would also be required for membership in the New Covenant that Christ had come to inaugurate. They believed one must be circumcised and keep the Mosaic law to come to Christ. In other words, one had to become a Jew to become a Christian.
But God made it clear to Peter in Acts 10 that Gentiles are acceptable to God and may be baptized and become Christians without circumcision. The same teaching was vigorously defended by Paul in his epistles to the Romans and the Galatians—to areas where the Circumcision heresy had spread.
Gnosticism (1st and 2nd Centuries)
"Matter is evil!" was the cry of the Gnostics. This idea was borrowed from certain Greek philosophers. It stood against Catholic teaching, not only because it contradicts Genesis 1:31 ("And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good") and other scriptures, but because it denies the Incarnation. If matter is evil, then Jesus Christ could not be true God and true man, for Christ is in no way evil. Thus many Gnostics denied the Incarnation, claiming that Christ only appeared to be a man, but that his humanity was an illusion. Some Gnostics, recognizing that the Old Testament taught that God created matter, claimed that the God of the Jews was an evil deity who was distinct from the New Testament God of Jesus Christ. They also proposed belief in many divine beings, known as "aeons," who mediated between man and the ultimate, unreachable God. The lowest of these aeons, the one who had contact with men, was supposed to be Jesus Christ.
Montanism (Late 2nd Century)
Montanus began his career innocently enough through preaching a return to penance and fervor. His movement also emphasized the continuance of miraculous gifts, such as speaking in tongues and prophecy. However, he also claimed that his teachings were above those of the Church, and soon he began to teach Christ’s imminent return in his home town in Phrygia. There were also statements that Montanus himself either was, or at least specially spoke for, the Paraclete that Jesus had promised would come (in reality, the Holy Spirit).
Sabellianism (Early 3rd Century)
The Sabellianists taught that Jesus Christ and God the Father were not distinct persons, but two aspects or offices of one person. According to them, the three persons of the Trinity exist only in God’s relation to man, not in objective reality.
Arianism (4th Century)
Arius taught that Christ was a creature made by God. By disguising his heresy using orthodox or near-orthodox terminology, he was able to sow great confusion in the Church. He was able to muster the support of many bishops, while others excommunicated him.
Arianism was solemnly condemned in 325 at the First Council of Nicaea, which defined the divinity of Christ, and in 381 at the First Council of Constantinople, which defined the divinity of the Holy Spirit. These two councils gave us the Nicene creed, which Catholics recite at Mass every Sunday.
Pelagianism (5th Century)
Pelagius denied that we inherit original sin from Adam’s sin in the Garden and claimed that we become sinful only through the bad example of the sinful community into which we are born. Conversely, he denied that we inherit righteousness as a result of Christ’s death on the cross and said that we become personally righteous by instruction and imitation in the Christian community, following the example of Christ. Pelagius stated that man is born morally neutral and can achieve heaven under his own powers. According to him, God’s grace is not truly necessary, but merely makes easier an otherwise difficult task.
Semi-Pelagianism (5th Century)
After Augustine refuted the teachings of Pelagius, some tried a modified version of his system. This, too, ended in heresy by claiming that humans can reach out to God under their own power, without God’s grace; that once a person has entered a state of grace, one can retain it through one’s efforts, without further grace from God; and that natural human effort alone can give one some claim to receiving grace, though not strictly merit it.
Nestorianism (5th Century)
This heresy about the person of Christ was initiated by Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, who denied Mary the title of Theotokos (Greek: "God-bearer" or, less literally, "Mother of God"). Nestorius claimed that she only bore Christ’s human nature in her womb, and proposed the alternative title Christotokos ("Christ-bearer" or "Mother of Christ").
Orthodox Catholic theologians recognized that Nestorius’s theory would fracture Christ into two separate persons (one human and one divine, joined in a sort of loose unity), only one of whom was in her womb. The Church reacted in 431 with the Council of Ephesus, defining that Mary can be properly referred to as the Mother of God, not in the sense that she is older than God or the source of God, but in the sense that the person she carried in her womb was, in fact, God incarnate ("in the flesh").
There is some doubt whether Nestorius himself held the heresy his statements imply, and in this century, the Assyrian Church of the East, historically regarded as a Nestorian church, has signed a fully orthodox joint declaration on Christology with the Catholic Church and rejects Nestorianism. It is now in the process of coming into full ecclesial communion with the Catholic Church.
Monophysitism (5th Century)
Monophysitism originated as a reaction to Nestorianism. The Monophysites (led by a man named Eutyches) were horrified by Nestorius’s implication that Christ was two people with two different natures (human and divine). They went to the other extreme, claiming that Christ was one person with only one nature (a fusion of human and divine elements). They are thus known as Monophysites because of their claim that Christ had only one nature (Greek: mono = one; physis = nature).
Orthodox Catholic theologians recognized that Monophysitism was as bad as Nestorianism because it denied Christ’s full humanity and full divinity. If Christ did not have a fully human nature, then he would not be fully human, and if he did not have a fully divine nature then he was not fully divine.
Iconoclasm (7th and 8th Centuries)
This heresy arose when a group of people known as iconoclasts (literally, "icon smashers") appeared, who claimed that it was sinful to make pictures and statues of Christ and the saints, despite the fact that in the Bible, God had commanded the making of religious statues (Ex. 25:18–20; 1 Chr. 28:18–19), including symbolic representations of Christ (cf. Num. 21:8–9 with John 3:14).
Catharism (11th Century)
Catharism was a complicated mix of non-Christian religions reworked with Christian terminology. The Cathars had many different sects; they had in common a teaching that the world was created by an evil deity (so matter was evil) and we must worship the good deity instead.
The Albigensians formed one of the largest Cathar sects. They taught that the spirit was created by God, and was good, while the body was created by an evil god, and the spirit must be freed from the body. Having children was one of the greatest evils, since it entailed imprisoning another "spirit" in flesh. Logically, marriage was forbidden, though fornication was permitted. Tremendous fasts and severe mortifications of all kinds were practiced, and their leaders went about in voluntary poverty.
Protestantism (16th Century)
Protestant groups display a wide variety of different doctrines. However, virtually all claim to believe in the teachings of sola scriptura ("by Scripture alone"—the idea that we must use only the Bible when forming our theology) and sola fide ("by faith alone"— the idea that we are justified by faith only).
The great diversity of Protestant doctrines stems from the doctrine of private judgment, which denies the infallible authority of the Church and claims that each individual is to interpret Scripture for himself. This idea is rejected in 2 Peter 1:20, where we are told the first rule of Bible interpretation: "First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation." A significant feature of this heresy is the attempt to pit the Church "against" the Bible, denying that the magisterium has any infallible authority to teach and interpret Scripture.
The doctrine of private judgment has resulted in an enormous number of different denominations. According to The Christian Sourcebook, there are approximately 20-30,000 denominations, with 270 new ones being formed each year. Virtually all of these are Protestant.
Jansenism (17th Century)
Jansenius, bishop of Ypres, France, initiated this heresy with a paper he wrote on Augustine, which redefined the doctrine of grace. Among other doctrines, his followers denied that Christ died for all men, but claimed that he died only for those who will be finally saved (the elect). This and other Jansenist errors were officially condemned by Pope Innocent X in 1653.
Heresies have been with us from the Church’s beginning. They even have been started by Church leaders, who were then corrected by councils and popes. Fortunately, we have Christ’s promise that heresies will never prevail against the Church, for he told Peter, "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18). The Church is truly, in Paul’s words, "the pillar and foundation of the truth" (1 Tim. 3:15).
***We have the Holy Eucharist, they have rattlesnakes.***
I guess that it depends upon how you handle it.
Where is “RCC” there is “Christ on a stick”. There - I fixed it for ya.
For the redeemed, we have Christ seated on the right hand of God the Father, victorious over death and the grave - hanging in shame with our sin on Him NO LONGER!
Yes, and I don’t mean to a)cast myself as a theologian (though I study the scriptures and b) in any way claim to have arrived at a full answer (only in Heaven will we [fully] know even as we are [fully] known. I would say that “Christ [being] the same yesterday, today and tomorrow...” would indicate that His person has eternality beyond what we are able to comprehend. Becoming a man was something that was “new” to Him (almost sounds blasphemous to say it.) The Hebrew writer points out that “He learned obedience by the things He suffered.” These verses seem to indicate Christ came to know/understand something He had previously never entered into before (and I know that what I just said needs to be improved—the words and the thought they conjure almost seem to bring Christ down—and that is not my intention at all). That said, nothing has ever happened without His notice, He was with the Father in eternity past (sharing His glory, ever pleasing Him, daily being His delight)...These are things that we who just dwell in these earthly tabernacles cannot possibly fathom.
One day...face to face...Not till then shall we fully understand the magnitude of His person, His work, His love for us.
***One day...face to face...Not till then shall we fully understand the magnitude of His person, His work, His love for us.***
And I will agree. The Mel Gibson movie The Passion of the Christ prodded me into greater appreciation of His Passion. But what He did is beyond our comprehension.
As to what He knew and experienced; that is beyond us.
Actually, every “named” church on planet Earth is the construct of man. The church of Jesus Christ does not belong to the RCC or the SBC - those each has some sheep (and some goats) within them.
I suggest you avoid blasphemy, buster.
My name’s not “buster” and I did not blaspheme. I would suggest the RCC comes much closer to that by claiming it’s Christ in their crackers and wine and keeping an “image” of Him on cross EVERYWHERE.
***For the redeemed, we have Christ seated on the right hand of God the Father, victorious over death and the grave - hanging in shame with our sin on Him NO LONGER!***
Fascinating. I have had it from the seriously Reformed crowd that the summation of Christianity is “Christ Crucified”. We like to think that Christ Resurrected from the dead is the pinnacle of His gift to us; but carry on. You are welcome to Catholic (and therefore God’s) beliefs. Jesus never hung in shame, by the way. See what comes of trying to be your own Pope?
***My name’s not “buster” and I did not blaspheme. I would suggest the RCC comes much closer to that by claiming it’s Christ in their crackers and wine and keeping an “image” of Him on cross EVERYWHERE***
If you ignore His commands and you dismiss His Eucharist as crackers and wine in such disparaging comments, you are blaspheming. You are in fine company, by the way, but it does not excuse your actions.
Your words are so enriching. Feel the love.
“If you ignore His commands and you dismiss His Eucharist as crackers and wine in such disparaging comments, you are blaspheming. You are in fine company, by the way, but it does not excuse your actions.”
You can likely find that in the RCC doctrine - but I would be SHOCKED!!!! if you can show that to me in the Scriptures.
Free advice: have 862 and 867 pulled by the mods.
I mean, I hope they stay up, but if they were mine, I'd have them pulled immediately.
Christ WAS crucified. Certainly you know the message of Hebrews (in particular): 1:3 “when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;”
8:1 & 2 “We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.”
10:12 “But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God”
12:2 “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
This message is taught by Peter, Paul, Luke, and others.
When Christ was on the cross it was shame - note Heb 12:2. How could it not have been shame for the Son of God to take on the sins of men?
I’m not trying to be my own pope - there is no office of pope outside the RCC. I stand clothed in Christ, able to approach the Father without shame.
Where was the shame in the crucifixion? Christ came to fulfill prophesies, His death and resurrection is a triumph!
Luke 22:
15
He said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover 5 with you before I suffer,
16
for, I tell you, I shall not eat it (again) until there is fulfillment in the kingdom of God.”
17
Then he took a cup, 6 gave thanks, and said, “Take this and share it among yourselves;
18
for I tell you (that) from this time on I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
19
7 Then he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me.”
20
And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you.
I trust that the shock is not too painful.
***When Christ was on the cross it was shame - note Heb 12:2. How could it not have been shame for the Son of God to take on the sins of men?***
Shame is something that one experiences of one’s own actions.
***I’m not trying to be my own pope ***
I think that you are.
***I stand clothed in Christ, able to approach the Father without shame.***
I see little evidence of that, except to note that if one does not understand, then one cannot experience shame.
***Where was the shame in the crucifixion? Christ came to fulfill prophesies, His death and resurrection is a triumph!***
Not to the children of the Reformation. They focus on His death only. They look on the worst of all possible worlds, except when it comes to selected elected elite.
What’s your point? I’ve read Luke and I’m a bit familiar with RCC perversion of Scripture but you’re not approaching it square on if that’s your aim.
Do not look to your own understanding, but believe the Scripture. Hebrews 12:2 “Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame”. The shame of OUR sin was hung on Him. It was a SHAME for the sinless man to be made sin on our behalf.
You can certainly THINK I’m trying to be my own pope - that certainly does not make it so.
Since you do not know me, and we merely cross swords over doctrinal issues (some of them worthy of being divided over), how COULD you see evidence of me being in Christ? The fruit of the Spirit is not visible to the natural eyes nor is it to be mistaken for agreeing with false teaching.
***What’s your point? I’ve read Luke and I’m a bit familiar with RCC perversion of Scripture but you’re not approaching it square on if that’s your aim.***
Oh, it’s just that the Eucharist is commanded by Jesus, but I realize that the understanding of the Protestant version(s) of Scripture supersede Jesus’ commandments. Call us sentimental, but we think that the instructions of Jesus trump anything that you men happen to come up with.
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