HC1315 EARLY CHURCH

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HC1315 EARLY CHURCH

• HERESY AND GNOSTICISM

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For there must be factions among you in order
that hina those who are genuine among you may
be recognized. I Corinthians 11.19
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Heresy (haeresis)

• Choice, selection
• Minority opinion
• Party, faction
• Self-chosen philosophical doctrine or religious
  school of thought (SECT)

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Acts 24.14

• But this I admit to you, that according to the
  Way, which they call a sect, I worship the God of
  our ancestors, believing everything laid down
  according to the law or written in the prophets.

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Heresy (standard definition)

• The deliberate denial of revealed truth coupled
  with the acceptance of error
• But false prophets also arose among the people,
  just as there will be false teachers among you,
  who will secretly bring in destructive opinion.
• They have left the straight road and have gone
  astray, following the road of Balaam.
• II Peter 2.1, 15

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Care about the Truth

• In our study, the single best predictor of church
  participation turned out to be belief--orthodox
  Christian belief, and especially the teaching
  that a person can be saved only through Jesus
  Christ. Virtually all our baby boomers who
  believe this are active members of a church.
  Among those who do not believe it, some are
  active in varying degrees a great many are not.
  Ninety-five percent of the drop-outs who describe
  themselves as religious do not believe it. And
  amazingly, enough, fully 68 percent of those who
  are still active Presbyterians don't believe it
  either.1
•     1Benton Johnson, Dean R. Hoge, and Donald
  Luidens, "Mainline Churches The Real Reason for
  Decline," First Things, No. 31 (March, 1993) 15.
  This article is a summary of their research for
  the book. See Vanishing Boundaries (Louisville
  Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994).

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For there must be factions among you in order
that hina those who are genuine among you may
be recognized. I Corinthians 11.19
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Life is a Test

• 1 Corinthians 101-13 NRS I do not want you to
  be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our
  ancestors were all under the cloud, and all
  passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized
  into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and
  all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank
  the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the
  spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock
  was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased
  with most of them, and they were struck down in
  the wilderness. 6 Now these things occurred as
  examples for us, so that we might not desire evil
  as they did. 7 Do not become idolaters as some
  of them did as it is written, "The people sat
  down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play."
  8 We must not indulge in sexual immorality as
  some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell
  in a single day. 9 We must not put Christ to the
  test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by
  serpents. 10 And do not complain as some of them
  did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. 11
  These things happened to them to serve as an
  example, and they were written down to instruct
  us, on whom the ends of the ages have come. 12
  So if you think you are standing, watch out that
  you do not fall. 13 No testing has overtaken you
  that is not common to everyone. God is faithful,
  and he will not let you be tested beyond your
  strength, but with the testing he will also
  provide the way out so that you may be able to
  endure it.

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• Matthew 41-11 NRS Then Jesus was led up by the
  Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the
  devil. 2 He fasted forty days and forty nights,
  and afterwards he was famished. 3 The tempter
  came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God,
  command these stones to become loaves of bread."
  4 But he answered, "It is written, 'One does not
  live by bread alone, but by every word that comes
  from the mouth of God.'" 5 Then the devil took
  him to the holy city and placed him on the
  pinnacle of the temple, 6 saying to him, "If you
  are the Son of God, throw yourself down for it
  is written, 'He will command his angels
  concerning you,' and 'On their hands they will
  bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot
  against a stone.'" 7 Jesus said to him, "Again
  it is written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to
  the test.'" 8 Again, the devil took him to a
  very high mountain and showed him all the
  kingdoms of the world and their splendor 9 and
  he said to him, "All these I will give you, if
  you will fall down and worship me." 10 Jesus
  said to him, "Away with you, Satan! for it is
  written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve
  only him.'" 11 Then the devil left him, and
  suddenly angels came and waited on him.

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Simon Magus Acts 8.4-21 4 Now those who were
scattered went from place to place, proclaiming
the word. 5 Philip went down to the city of
Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah to them. 6 The
crowds with one accord listened eagerly to what
was said by Philip, hearing and seeing the signs
that he did, 7 for unclean spirits, crying with
loud shrieks, came out of many who were
possessed and many others who were paralyzed or
lame were cured. 8 So there was great joy in that
city. 9 Now a certain man named Simon had
previously practiced magic in the city and amazed
the people of Samaria, saying that he was someone
great. 10 All of them, from the least to the
greatest, listened to him eagerly, saying, This
man is the power of God that is called Great. 11
And they listened eagerly to him because for a
long time he had amazed them with his magic. 12
But when they believed Philip, who was
proclaiming the good news about the kingdom of
God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were
baptized, both men and women. 13 Even Simon
himself believed. After being baptized, he stayed
constantly with Philip and was amazed when he saw
the signs and great miracles that took place. . .
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Acts 8.4-21 (continued) 14 Now when the
apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had
accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and
John to them. 15 The two went down and prayed for
them that they might receive the Holy Spirit 16
(for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of
them they had only been baptized in the name of
the Lord Jesus). 17 Then Peter and John laid
their hands on them, and they received the Holy
Spirit. 18 Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was
given through the laying on of the apostles
hands, he offered them money, 19 saying, Give me
also this power so that anyone on whom I lay my
hands may receive the Holy Spirit. 20 But Peter
said to him, May your silver perish with you,
because you thought you could obtain Gods gift
with money! 21 You have no part or share in this,
for your heart is not right before God. 22 Repent
therefore of this wickedness of yours, and pray
to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your
heart may be forgiven you. 23 For I see that you
are in the gall of bitterness and the chains of
wickedness. 24 Simon answered, Pray for me to
the Lord, that nothing of what you have said may
happen to me. The New Revised Standard Version,
(Nashville, TN Thomas Nelson Publishers) 1989.
12
One was a certain Simon, a Samaritan, from the
village of Gitta, who in the time of Claudius
Caesar 41-54 A.D., through the arts of the
demons who worked in him, did mighty works of
magic in your imperial city of Rome and was
thought to be a god. He has been honored among
you as a god by a statue, which was set up on the
River Tiber, between the two bridges, with theis
inscription in Latin, SIMONI DEO SANCTO to
Simon the holy god. Justin, First Apology,
in Richardson, 258.
13

• Hippolytus (170-236)
• Irenaeus . . .the others who are called
  Gnostics began with Menander, the disciple of
  Simon . . .All of these rebelled much later than
  the founding of the Church, in the midst of the
  Churchs history. Richardson, 375

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Montanism (2nd century)
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. . .it is said that a certain recent convert to
the faith named Montanus (while Gratus was
proconsul of Asia c. 172 A.D.), in the
immeasurable longing of his soul for the
pre-eminence, first gave the adversary a passage
into his heart and that moved by the spirit he
suddenly fell into a state of possession, as it
were, and abnormal ecstasy, insomuch that he
became frenzied and began to babble and utter
strange sounds, that is to say prophesying
contrary to the manner which the Church had
received from generation to generation by
tradition from the beginning. Eusebius, HE,
v.16.7
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. . .the devil secretly stirred up and enflamed
the minds, which had lost in sleep the true
faith, of those disobedient persons whose ruin he
had devised. . .So that he raised up two women as
well, and so filled them with the spurious spirit
that they too chattered in frenzied, inopportune
and unnatural fashion like Montanus. .
.Moreover this arrogant spirit taught them to
blaspheme the entire universal church under
heaven. . . Eusebius, HE, v.16.9
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Montanist Sayings

• I am the Lord Almighty dwelling in man. It is
  neither angel nor ambassador, but I, God the
  Father, who am come (Montanus)
• Hear not me but hear Christ (Maximilla)
• Christ came to me in the likeness of a woman
  (Priscilla)
• Epiphanius, Haer. 48, 49 Quoted in
  Stevenson/Frend, A New Eusebius, p. 105

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Montanist Teachings

• Supersede the Apostles
• Ecstatic prophecy
• No redemption after fall from grace
• Hebrews 64-6 For it is impossible to restore
  again to repentance those who have once been
  enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift,
  and have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 and have
  tasted the goodness of the word of God and the
  powers of the age to come, 6 and then have
  fallen away, since on their own they are
  crucifying again the Son of God and are holding
  him up to contempt.
• Emphasis on the avoidance of sin and church
  discipline honored chastity forbid remarriage.

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St. Augustine 354-430

• Do not believe, brethren, that heresies are
  produced by insignificant souls! Only great men
  produce heresies.
• Enarrationes in psalmos. 5 quoted in Hans
  Küng, The Church, p. 245.

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Gnosticism

• Gnosticism represents this soul it is less a
  specific set of teachings than a religious mood
  of world-rejection coupled with what might best
  be called a transcendentalist habit of minda
  love and taste for a higher non-sensible
  reality.
• Walker, p. 61

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Nag Hammadi
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• In this Seed existed the principle of Sonship,
  in a triple sense. The first Sonship was subtle
  in substance, the Second more opaque or coarse,
  the Third required purification. The First on
  bursting forth from the Seed flew upward to the
  non-existent God, the Second desired to do so
  but could reach the non-existent only by the
  help of a wing which Basileides called Holy
  Spirit the latter could not itself reach this
  sphere. . .
• Basileides (c. 140 A.D.), quoted in
  Stevenson/Frend, p. 74

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Irenaeus common sense

• Secundus says that there is a first Ogdoad, a
  right-hand and a left-hand Tetrad. . .one light,
  the other darkness and the power that fell away
  and suffered lack was not begotten of the thirty
  Aeons, but of their fruits. . .

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• Iu, iu, and pheu, pheu! Truly we may utter these
  exclamations from tragedy at such bold invention
  of ridiculous nomenclature, For when he say,
  There is a certain Proarche before all things,
  above all thought, which I call Monotes, and
  again, With this Monotes there reigns a Power,
  which I call Henotes, it is obvious that he
  admits that he is talking about his own
  inventions which no one else has given them
  before. . .

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• It is clear also that Secundus himself dared
  to make up these names and unless he had been on
  hand the Truth would have had no name. There is
  no reason why someone else shouldnt assign names
  like these on the same basis There is a royal
  Proarche above all thought, a power above all
  substance, indefinitely extended. Since this is
  the power which I call the Gourd, there is with
  it the Power which I call Superemptiness. This
  Gourd and Superemptiness, being one, emitted, yet
  did not admit, the fruit visible, edible, and
  delicious, which is known in the language as the
  Cucumber.
• Irenaeus, Against the Heresies, I/11/4 quoted
  in Richardson, p. 363

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The actors in it are not those gods and goddesses
of primitive lore whom Greek philosophy was in
the business of demythologizing. Quite often they
are abstract philosophical or theological
notions, or general religious symbols, which are
used not as symbols but as namesremythologized
as it were, and made the subject of a
tale. Walker, p. 63
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Five Reason for Appeal of Gnostics

• Loss of Jewish influence
• Christianity more Greek
• So, then, seeing Christianity appeared an
  object of veneration to men, not to the more
  servile class alone, as Celsus supposes, but to
  many among the Greeks who were devoted to
  literary pursuits, there necessarily originated
  heresies,not at all, however, as the result of
  faction and strife, but through the earnest
  desire of many literary men to become acquainted
  with the doctrines of Christianity. The
  consequence of which was, that, taking in
  different acceptations those discourses which
  were believed by all to be divine, there arose
  heresies, which received their names from those
  individuals who admired, indeed, the origin of
  Christianity, but who were led, in some way or
  other, by certain plausible reasons, to
  discordant views. Origen, Contra Celsum, iii,
  12
• Decline of apocalyptic
• Gnostic ideas within the faith
• Attraction of Gnostic worldview

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• Abandon the search for God and the creation and
  other matters of a similar sort. Look for him by
  taking yourself as the starting point. Learn who
  it is within you who makes everything his own and
  says, My God, my mind, my thought my soul, my
  body. Learn the sources of sorrow, joy, love,
  hate. . .If you carefully investigate these
  matters you will find God in yourself.
• Monoimos, quoted in Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic
  Gospels, p. xx.

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Five Key Features of Gnosticism

• God is existence without qualities
• Universe creation of demiurge
• Yahweh (Ialdabaoth) does not know true God
• Humanity in ignorance of God until Logos
• Incarnation is defilement

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Marcion (d. c. 160)

• Born in Sinope
• Son of wealthy ship owner (son of bishop?)
• Came to Rome 139 A.D.
• Excommunicated 144
• Forced the church to formulate rules of faith and
  NT canon
• Dualist Law and Gospel (Harnack)