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Christian History Study Series #3 (key)
NOTES
Contending for the Faith
By Craig B. Esvelt
Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common
salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the
faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. – St. Jude 3
Introduction: Aside from the outside threat of persecution leveled against
Christianity by the Roman Empire, the Church—from its very inception in the
apostolic age*—waged a war from within as it sought to preserve the purity
of doctrine. The early Church was largely composed of converts from either
legalistic Judaism or philosophical Greek intellectualism, and the temptation
was to accommodate or blend the new Faith with certain long-held systems
of thought or traditions. The question that had to be decided was, just how
accommodating could the teachings of the Faith be? The need arose for a
common, accepted form of Christian beliefs which would be supported by
the majority of Christians and be expressed in their official proclamations
and creeds and used as a rebuttal for false teachings. This became known
as orthodox Christianity.
I.
EARLY HERESIES
A. Legalistic Heresies from Judaism: The Ebionites
1. The Judaizers continued to plague the Church for two
centuries in the form of Ebionism (the earliest heresy).
2. They held that Christ was a mere man who became the
Messiah by completely fulfilling the Mosaic Law.
a. They denied the Trinity
b. They insisted that Jewish converts were bound by the
Mosaic Law and regulations.
B. Philosophical Heresies from Greek Culture
1. Gnosticism
a. It is traced to Simon Magus. It is essentially dualism,
an attempt to divorce God (pure, eternal good, spirit)
from anything material (evil).
b. The belief was that such a God could not have “gotten
His hands dirty” with creating the material world, so a
system of “demiurges (a series of emanations of
lesser gods) bridged the gap to a demiurge that had
enough of both spirit and matter to create the material
world (viz., the god of the Jews).
c. Christ, being absolutely spiritual “good” and thus not
associated with matter was explained by Docetism,
that he only seemed to have a body (phantasm).
d. Salvation came by means of special knowledge
(gnosis) and was only for the spiritual side of man.
The body (material, evil) was either kept under control
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*John’s gospel and epistle reveal that the
author was addressing two disparate false
beliefs about Jesus Christ: that he was
merely human on the one hand (note
rebuttal in John 1:1-14) or not human at all
on the other (note rebuttal in 1 John 1:1,
4:2)
Every plank in the platform of orthodoxy
was laid because some heresy had arisen
that threatened to change the nature of
Christianity and to destroy its central faith. –
Bruce Shelley, Church History In Plain
Language, p. 63.
Dr. Craig B. Esvelt, Valley View Christian Church, Kent, WA., ARR.
by asceticism or given over to sensuality.
e. One of its early leaders was Marcion, who rejected all
of the Old Testament, much of the New Testament,
and was anti-Semitic. He was opposed by one of the
early church fathers, Irenaeus (a disciple of Polycarp
who was a disciple of the apostle John).
f. The so-called “lost gospels” popularized in the last
couple of decades (Gospel of Thomas, Judas, etc.)
were Gnostic-inspired documents of the second
century* that are at odds with the teachings of the
New Testament documents written in the first century.
2. Manicheanism
a. This was an offshoot of the above, another dualistic
philosophy that combined Christian thought, oriental
religion and Zoroastrianism.
b. Manicheanism taught that there were two opposing
forces: light and darkness. Primitive man, who possessed pure light, lost some of this light so that his
soul was linked with light but his body with darkness.
Salvation came by liberating one’s soul from the
bondage to the body by exposure to light (Christ).
c. For twelve of his pre-conversion years Augustine (4th
century Church leader) was an “auditor” in Manicheanism who assisted the elite priestly caste.
3. Neoplatonism
a. It taught that knowledge of God comes directly by
intuition or spiritual illumination. Union with God was
achieved by meditation and the goal of the universe is
re-absorption into the divine essence at death.
b. Neoplatonism is the well-spring from which much of
Christian mysticism emerged.
C. Other Theological Aberrations
According to Polycarp, the apostle John
was once entering the baths at Ephesus
and spotted Cerinthus, a well-known
Gnostic. John turned and quickly departed
the bath saying, “Let’s flee before the baths
fall in—Cerinthus, the enemy of truth, is
inside!”
*Scholars recognize that these documents,
written in the 2nd or 3rd century, are not the
works of those so-named (Thomas, Jude,
etc.) who lived in the 1st century, but were
the works of Gnostics writing about those
so-named. The early Christians at that time
did not see them as “gospels” or authoritative but discarded them as spurious.
1. Montanism (A.D. 150)
a. Montanus desired to counteract a growing formality
and dependence on human leadership in the church.
He rather encouraged seeking after the Holy Spirit and
emphasized the second coming of Christ.
b. Unfortunately, he developed some fanatical
tendencies and teachings. The early church historian,
Eusebius, noted that, “He was carried away in the
spirit and wrought up into a certain kind of frenzy and
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Dr. Craig B. Esvelt, Valley View Christian Church, Kent, WA., ARR.
irregular ecstasy, raving, and speaking and uttering
strange things, and proclaiming what was contrary to
the institutions that prevailed in the church.” So also,
his meetings were characterized by followers falling
into fits of ecstasy, tears, and tongues.
1) He, along with his two prophetesses Priscilla and
Maximilla, falsely prophesied that the New
Jerusalem promised in the Book of Revelation
would descend on the village of Pepuza in 177
A.D.—a false hope for Christians at that time who
were living in fear of persecution.*
2) He believed revelation was continuous and that he
was the advocate whom the Holy Spirit spoke
through, e.g., “I am the Father, the Word, and the
Paraclete!” Who could question the authority of
someone who made such claims?! Even the great
Church apologist Tertullian was caught up in this
movement.
2. Monarchianism (“one monarch”)
a. Also called patripassionism or Sabellianism was a
movement that emphasized the unity of the Godhead
and Monotheism in order to counteract another
heresy, Tritheism. In doing so they ultimately denied
the Trinity and became what we know as Unitarians.
b. Sabellius (A.D. 215) advocated what is known as
Modal Monarchianism, and claimed that the Trinity
was a manifestation of forms or modes rather than
essence (e.g., God is like a man who wears the
different hats of father, employee, and husband).
c. Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch (A.D. 260), was a
follower of Monarchiansim.
1) He exhibited violent body gestures and asked for
applause during his preaching and the waving of
handkerchiefs. Female choirs sang praises to him.
2) He taught that Christ was not divine but only a
good man who, by a righteous life and penetration
by the Holy Spirit, became the Logos. The Holy
Spirit was not a person but simply a manifestation
of the grace of God.
3. Arianism
a. Arius, a North African priest, maintained that Jesus
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*Such beliefs promoted by Montanus
fostered a turning away from military and
public service as well as the abandonment
of family and possessions. As the
movement spread Roman officials, not
realizing that the majority of Christians did
not share such anti-state sentiments,
attempted to suppress such hints of
independence by opposing conversions to
Christianity and initiating more persecution!
Dr. Craig B. Esvelt, Valley View Christian Church, Kent, WA., ARR.
was a created being, not of the essence or substance
of the Father (‘homoousios’) but only “like” the Father
(‘homoiousios’). He even put his doctrines into simple
tunes that became popular among the populace.
b. He was opposed by Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria,
and his teaching was condemned at the Council of
Nicea* that convened in A.D. 325 by order of the
emperor Constantine, who sought to unite what was
potentially a divided Christendom.
c. Arianism persisted until the 7th century among
European tribes such as the Vandals and Visigoths. It
has been reborn in later times as Unitarianism and the
Jehovah Witnesses.
*In Dan Brown’s popular novel The Da
Vinci Code, one of the characters asserts
that the divinity of Christ was established by
only “a very close vote” at Nicea. In reality,
the divinity of Christ was not debated at
Nicea, only his co-eternality with the Father,
and the “close vote” was over 300 bishops
voting for the accepted doctrine and only
two voting against it!
II. THE CONTENDERS
A. The Polemicists
Their aim was to denounce and correct false teachings and
teachers and preserve the purity of Christian doctrine.
1. Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons in Gaul (A.D. 150?)
a. He was born to Christian parents in Antioch and was a
student of Polycarp.
b. Believing that Gnosticism was a greater threat to the
Church than persecution, he wrote five books against
the sensual practices of the Gnostics and their
heresies, including Against Heresies. He also opposed
Montanism.
2. Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 150)
a. He was born Titus Flavius Clemens to pagan parents
in Athens and was converted to Christianity as a
young man.
b. He did not seek so much to discard Greek philosophies offhandedly but to demonstrate that the ultimate
answers to such questions of creation, evil, and salvation were to be found in Christ. He believed that philosophy was to the intellectual Greeks what the Law
was to the Jews—a “schoolmaster” to lead them to
Christ.
c. With Gnostic mystic speculation on the one hand and
Christian anti-intellectualism on the other, he attempted to forge a path between the extremes of the two.
Lesson 3
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Dr. Craig B. Esvelt, Valley View Christian Church, Kent, WA., ARR.
3. Origen of Alexandria (A.D. 200)
a. He was born to Christian parents in Alexandria and
saved as a young man from zealously trying to follow
his father (and hero) Leonides into martyrdom during a
crackdown on Christians (she hid his clothes).
b. A pupil of Clement, he wrote Against Celsus, answering the critic’s purported claims of Christian irrationality
and by showing the superiority of Christian conduct
over paganism.
c. He was the first to set forth an intellectual framework
of the Christian faith, writing comprehensive commentaries on Jewish Scriptures and New Testament works
that dispelled Gnostic errors. He is considered by
some historians to be the greatest Christian writer,
theologian, and evangelist of the post-biblical period.
B. The Apologists
(from ‘apologeia’ meaning to defend, not apologize for!)
These were men who stepped up to defend the Christian faith
against the criticisms and false rumors leveled against it,
directing their writings primarily to government leaders. Since
many of them had been trained in Greek philosophy, they
wrote from a philosophical standpoint and sought to present
an intelligent defense of the Faith, attempting to prove that,
since the charges against it were false, Christianity should be
legally tolerated. Two notable apologists were:
1. Justin Martyr (A.D. 100-160)
a. Born of pagan parents, he looked for truth in various
philosophies (Stoicism, Platoism, Aristotelianism, …),
but was directed to the Jewish Scriptures one day by
an old man while walking along the seashore and
found himself believing in their righteous God.
b. Having earlier believed the repugnant stories that
circulated about Christians, he committed his life to
Christ when he saw Christians die fearlessly for their
faith in the arena and realized the absurdity of believing they (as rumored) lived for sinful pleasures. He
wrote First and Second Apologies.
c. Devastating in debates, he lived up to his name and
was finally executed along with several of his students
when he refused to recant and offer a sacrifice to
pagan gods.
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Dr. Craig B. Esvelt, Valley View Christian Church, Kent, WA., ARR.
2. Tertullian (A.D. 160-220) - the “father of Latin theology”
a. He was the son of a Roman centurion. Prior to his
conversion he became a lawyer and was trained in
both Greek and Latin classics and taught public
speaking.
b. The example of Christian martyrs brought him to faith
in Christ. He pointed out that persecution fails
because it actually causes the growth of Christianity.
c. Though a defender of orthodoxy, he was later attracted to Montanism for a time because of its appeal to
asceticism and martyrdom. His final years were
marked by controversy and division.
III. THE FORMATION OF THE CANON
(“canon” means cane or measuring rod)
A. The Occasion
1. Persecution and the attempted destruction of Christian
writings forced Christians to recognize which writings were
to be believed on and suffered for if need be.
2. There was never an official meeting of leaders to decide
what was or was not Holy Scripture. During the first few
centuries, only certain writings were found to have the
stamp of divine authority and had been accepted as
Scripture by the early Church. To put it another way, canonicity was not determined but discovered or recognized.
3. The first complete list of the 27 New Testament books is
found in an Easter letter written by bishop Athanasius
from Alexandria in 367 A.D.
B. Tests of Inclusion
1. The primary test of canonicity: Was it written by an apostle
or someone closely associated with the apostles?
2. If a book had been in doubt or disputed, some other tests
for canonicity were:
a. Is it authoritative? (e.g., Thus says the Lord--!)
b. Is it prophetic? (Was it written by a man of God?)
c. Is it orthodox? (Does it conform to the “rule of faith?”)
d. Is it authentic? (“When in doubt, throw it out”)
N
e. Is it dynamic? (Does it edify and give evidence of the
life-transforming power of God?)
f. Was it received, accepted and widely used by God’s
people?
Lesson 3
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The canon of heresy was closed no later
than the canon of Scripture. – Dr. William F.
Kerr
A History of Christianity by Kenneth Scott
Latourette (2 volumes, by Harper Publ.)
Church History In Plain Language by
Bruce Shelley (Word, Inc.)*
History of the Church by Philip Schaff
(Hendrickson Publ.)
The Christians: Their First Two
Thousand Years (12 volumes by SEARCH
of the Christian History Project)**
Christian History Magazine (published by
Christianity Today but now out of print)
Christian History Institutes Glimpses
pamphlets (Worcester, PA)
Dr. Craig B. Esvelt, Valley View Christian Church, Kent, WA., ARR.