A Miscellany of Heresy
By Jed Perkins.
This is a list of heresies condemned by the Church in the Nicene Creed.
Heresy comes from the Greek word for 'choose'. In Christendom we are not
to
choose but rather 'trust and obey'.
Adoptionism - the view that Christ was a mere man upon whom God's spirit
descended at baptism.
Arianism - Arius (c.250-c.336), a priest in Alexandria, saw Jesus as
created
by God in His first act of creation. Jesus is 'a god', not 'The God'.
Arians
criticised orthodox Christology for seeing Jesus as 'the brother of God'.
Apollinarianism - Apollinaris the Younger, bishop of Laodicea in Syria
during the 4th century, taught that Jesus had a human body, but being God
had the divine Logos in place of a human spirit or soul.
Docetism - Derived from the Greek dokeo, 'to seem' or 'to appear'.
Docetists
held that since Jesus is truly God (and the material world is evil or
unreal), his manhood and suffering were unreal, for the sake of appearance
only.
Ebionism - The Ebionites, an early Jewish/Christian sect, believed Jesus
to
be the messiah, but not divine.
Modalism - Broadly speaking, Modalists accepted the deity of Jesus, but
saw
no real distinction between Jesus and God. Father, Son and Spirit are to
God, for example, as ice, water and steam are to H2O.
Nestorianism - Nestorius, who died in 451 AD, was Patriarch of
Constantinople. He held that Mary was the mother of Christ only in respect
to His humanity: she was not the "Mother of God." The problem here was
that
if Christ's humanity and divinity could be separated in this way, it may
have been Jesus the human rather than the divine Jesus who was crucified:
and this wouldn't redeem us.
Patripassianism - This is the belief that the Father and the Son are
simply
different aspects of God. Since Jesus is God, the Father underwent his
experiences and thus the Father suffered on the cross.
Pneumatomachians - This group from the 4th century saw the Holy Spirit as
an
impersonal force of God, separate to God.
Sabellianism - Named after Sabellius, a priest excommunicated by Pope
Callistus I in 220, this heresy says that God is three only in relation to
the world, in so many "manifestations" or "modes." The Father is the
essence
of God, and the Son and Spirit are forms of self-expression as light and
heat are of the sun.
The early Jesus movement grew out of the conviction that this man had
changed his followers' complete way of seeing the world, and that when
they
were with him they were with God in a special way. In the early centuries
there were many explanations of who he was and how he related to God. It
wasn't until the Nicene Creed that a common explanation was imposed upon
the
Empire by Constantine. After that, those who 'chose' to think differently
were driven out of the Church and even the Empire. The history of the
Church
has been the history of excluding minorities who 'choose' to see things
differently and 'choose' not to keep quiet. Yet in conversation I have
found
that most members of the Church hold one of these heresies, even though
they
would see themselves as orthodox.
from http://www.sof-in-australia.org/blog.php?blog_id=88
--
MY BLOG - MARK T - my thoughts on Christianity & links
http://www.blognow.com.au/strooth/
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http://www.soundclick.com/marktindall
FUNDY FUNHOUSE -
http://fundamentalistfunhouse.blogspot.com/
- a resource on the current Fundamentalist Dark Age and Christian
fundamentalism.
PASTOR DALE K WHANGKE
http://dalekwhangke.blogspot.com/
Wyrst Pentacostal Church
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