Know Your Heresy
Innocent people have been burned for it. Churches have split over it. A lightning strike on York Minster has been blamed on it, and most Christians have at least come close to it at some point. It has been initiated by businessmen, priests and prophetesses. But what is it?
Heresy, the belief in doctrines that are contrary to those of the orthodox Christian faith, has dogged the church ever since the Docetists of the first century AD. It comes from the Greek word for “choice”, and originally had no negative connotations. Indeed, Christianity itself was once described by the church historian Eusebius as, “the most sacred heresy”. That neutrality didn’t last, though, once heresy had racked the church. It is reported that John (of gospel fame), on seeing the heretic Cerinthus, ran from the Ephesian public baths, shouting, “Let us flee before the baths cave in, for Cerinthus the enemy of truth is inside!” Do you take heresy seriously, though? Do you, the Christis reader, have any idea what it really is, what it can do, or where it may be hiding in our midst? Do you, in short, know your heresy? Read on…
Marcionism
The Heresy: Marcion, a wealthy shipowner, couldn’t see how Jesus, who preached peace and love, could be the same as the vengeful, warlike God of the Old Testament. To get around this, he came up with the belief that they were enemies. Moses’ god was actually the ‘Demiurge’, a cruel, barbaric being whose over-strict laws caused the sin and suffering in the world. However, all was not lost. A god unknown to the Demiurge sent his son Jesus to earth, to preach against his evil ways. The Demiurge didn’t recognise Jesus, and had him crucified, though he had done no wrong. However, in doing this, the Demiurge broke his own code of justice, and was defeated.
The History: Marcion arrived in Rome in AD140, where he founded a community dedicated to his beliefs, and to austere living. He was excommunicated after only four years, but this didn’t deter him! He still had his shipping fortune to live on. He proceeded to cut out all the parts of the Bible that had been corrupted by the Demiurge — everything except 10 of Paul’s letters and a slimmed down Luke, and rewrote the remainder to fit better with his views. Marcionism continued to spread, and by AD250 it stretched from Arabia to Egypt to Italy.
The Danger: Let’s face it: Marcion sounds like he was off his head. Inventing invisible extra gods to cover for your skewed reading of Scripture is never a good idea. Apart from anything else, he must have believed Jesus to be rather dishonest, if he didn’t make himself clear enough to be recognised by more than two people. The biggest problem with Marcionism is that once you’ve stripped out all the bits of the Bible you don’t like, no-one can argue against anything you say, however wrong it is.
Arianism
The Heresy: A fairly easy heresy to understand, this one, if very major indeed. According to the priest Arius, Jesus wasn’t fully God. Simple as. He wasn’t eternal, he couldn’t be called Creator, but had himself been created by God. Since he wasn’t fully God, he couldn’t (and so didn’t) redeem us, that is save us from our sins. Citing John 17:3 as his justifi cation (don’t ask why), Arius claimed that Jesus was a special being, but just that. His dignity was only a gift from his creator God.
The History: A senior cleric in Alexandria, Arius was a fine preacher and songwriter who spread his message through popular music. Excommunicated in AD320, he spent most of the rest of his life in hiding from somebody or other, but the movement he founded had real force. Many of the Roman imperial family were at one time Arians, and later, the Visigoth and Vandal tribes who were to overrun the empire, converted to Arianism. It lasted for centuries, and the odd Arian community still survives today.
The Danger: Only God is able to unite himself with humankind. It’s by His grace that we’re saved, not by our strength. So saying that Jesus wasn’t fully God, meant that he couldn’t put us right with God. What good did his coming to earth and dying for us do, if not being God, he couldn’t grant God’s forgiveness? The first whole-church (ecumenical) council ever held, the Council of Nicea, was to fi ght Arianism. The Nicene creed they produced goes largely to say that Jesus is “True God from True God, of one being with the Father, begotten not made…”. Every time we say the creed in church, we condemn Arianism in ringing terms.
Docetism
The Heresy: The earliest of the major heresies (it emerged within the Apostles’ lifetimes), Docetism was, in a way, the opposite of Arianism. It was strongly related to Gnosticism, a semi-Christian belief system which (heretically — see Genesis 1:31, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good”) viewed matter as evil and spirit as good. Hence, the docetists (and many gnostics) concluded that Jesus couldn’t have been a real man, in a real body. Instead, they talked of his birth, life and death being an illusion, a ghost.
The History: Though never really a heresy in its own right, Docetist beliefs tended to survive by piggybacking on other heresies, such as Gnosticism and Manichaeism. It emerged very early on; Paul, who was killed in the persecution of AD64/5, combated it in Colossians 1–2. Though outlawed again by the council of Chalcedon in the fi fth century, it kept popping up. In 1984, David Jenkins, whose denial of Jesus’ physical resurrection had echoes of Gnosticism and Docetism, was consecrated bishop of Durham in York Minster. Three days later, the Minster was struck by lightning and set alight; an act that some saw as God displaying his displeasure with Jenkins and the church.
The Danger: Again, the danger is related to Jesus’ passion. The problem being that if he wasn’t really a man, he couldn’t die, and therefore couldn’t rise from death. The very basis of Christianity is that, “Dying you destroyed our death. Rising you restored our life. Lord Jesus, come in glory.” Without that, we’re stuffed.
Montanism
The Heresy: Somewhat of a personality cult, Montanism consisted of the followers of the preacher Montanus, and his two female accomplices, the ‘prophetesses’ Prisca and Maximilla. Montanus claimed that “I am the Lord God, the Almighty dwelling in man” and Prisca claimed to have slept with Jesus Christ, when he had passed on his secrets to her. They claimed that the end of the world was to say the least, imminent, and founded their own cult to prepare for it.
The History: To enter the cult, believers underwent an initiation ceremony, after which, the Montanists believed that no major sins committed could be forgiven. At fi rst, Montanists fasted most of the time, in readiness for judgement. After the Earth stayed put, and fasting became impractical (or lethal, choose your word!) they ate only at night, and only dried fruit. Neither this nor Montanus’ ban on marriage had much effect — the heresy continued in some places into the eighth Century.
The Danger: For a start, consider Montanus’ claim that he was equal to Jesus — blasphemy in the extreme! Then there was the Montanist claim that Jesus’ coming hadn’t been enough to save the world, which was why Montanus had been sent. This heresy, quite apart from being crazy, was possibly the worst case of ‘Gospel-Plus’ (adding your own extra bits to the gospel) ever recorded! Saying that Jesus didn’t save us does seem to defeat the point of Christianity. Sadly, because Montanist worship was very charismatic, well-meaning Pentecostal Christians have often been compared to Montanists by their enemies.
Ever since the time of Christ, there have been heretics, and those who’ve fought against them. From the Docetists, we got Paul’s writing that, “[God’s] Son became a human, and died. So God made peace with you” (Col 1:22). Against the Gnostic writing of many spurious gospels, and the Marcionite butchering of those we had, the church made efforts to defi ne an authoritative canon of scripture. The earliest New Testament canon we have is from the second century, and differs in only three books to today’s NT. There have always been those with strange and heretical ideas. And I’ll admit it: I’ve laughed at them. I find Marcion’s crackpot tendencies hilarious. Everyone loves clowns. But I meant to write more than a freak show. We can only laugh because there have (almost) always been people around at the time, who’ve pointed out why, in the light of scripture, tradition and reason, the heretics were talking rubbish. Jesus’ greatest commandment was this, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” (Mark 12:30) Researching heresy has reminded me just how important it is to use your mind.