CHAPTER
X
TENETS
OF CHRISTIANITY
HERESIES AND SCHISMS
Introduction
This is perhaps
the most painful chapter in the history of the early Church. Jesus had prayed to his Father and our Father
that “They all may be one”(Jn 17: 21-23).
He had particularly put his apostles on their guard against the
divisions which would grow up among even those who received the good news of
reconciliation with the Father and the universal fraternity of all the
saved. It was to happen very soon. Once the glorious enthusiasm of the first days
had died down, Christians dared to strike a blow at the unity of faith and
love.
The early Church
did not make any distinction between schismatics and heretics. One was in communion with the neighboring
bishoprics and their communities, or one was not; and this communion was
plainly manifested by the fact that at the moment of celebrating the Eucharist,
which is the sacrament of unity, each bishop named in a loud voice, before the
Lord and in the presence of his assembled people, the bishops whose faith he
shared;[1]
these names were written on tablets called diptychs. It was the Middle Ages which distinguished
canonically between schism and heresy, heresy being a grave attack on the
doctrinal unity of the Church, schism a grave attack on its disciplinary unity.
Christian Belief
The
Christian doctrine was synthesized in the Credo (Creed) and was
presented to those to be baptized as an obligation and as a rule of faith (regula
fidei), also called the rule of truth.
It was also called “truth, faith, teaching, institution, doctrine” or
even “the word” alone.
That faith
included the belief in one God, Father and Creator of everything, omnipotent
and governor of the world. This absolute
monotheism was common to both Christians and Jews and was the point of
distinction of Judaism and Christianity from polytheism and paganism.
A new and
exclusive doctrine to Christianity was the belief in the Holy Trinity, that is,
the belief in the One Triune God, which we find in the commandment of baptizing
all people (Mt 28:19).
The Christian
religion demanded belief in the only-begotten Son of God who appeared in Jesus
Christ of Nazareth for the salvation of mankind as the Messiah prophesied by
the prophets, who was born a man of the Blessed Virgin Mary, suffered under
Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died on the cross and was buried, He ascended up
to heaven and reigns as Lord (kyrios) with power and glory and will come
to judge the living and the dead. The
spurious Second Letter of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians begins with the
words:
Brethren, we must think of
Jesus Christ as we think of God, that is, as judge of the living and of the
dead.
The Christians
believed, too, in the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity,[2]
the Holy Paraclete, who will always remain with the disciples of Christ (Jn
14:16). They believe in the Holy Church,
which Paul described as the Mystical Body of Christ. They believed in the remission of sins,
actuated in Baptism as a bath of regeneration; they believed in the
Resurrection of the flesh which will take place at the moment of the end of the
world and last coming (parousia) of the Lord and finally they believed in the
happy and eternal life of the world to come as a reward for the just.
The whole effort
of the first Christian generation was aimed at maintaining intact this teaching
received, this trust which had been faithfully transmitted and which they must
transmit equally faithfully in their turn.
The word was communicated by word of mouth, rather like a secret. It was truly the object and the instrument of
initiation. One did not invent Christian
truth, one did not change it. One did
not touch it up, one did not even discuss it.
One received it as it was, one believed it as it was, one eventually
defended it, and above all one transmitted it just as one had received it. It was only later, on the occasions of the
discussions between theologians which led to the decisions of the great
ecumenical councils – that one thought of developing a little the teaching
received, of making it more explicit.
But in the beginning everything revolved around the question of faithful
transmission.[3] The idea, while very lawful and very
valuable, of an organic development of Christian revelation, as of a living
thing which opens out and displays its potentialities, was still strange to the
early Church.
We must
underline now an extremely important point.
In practice, the Christians of early times gave their adherence of
faith, not so much to the words said to come from the lips of Jesus, as to the
teaching which in their eyes offered the surest guarantees of apostolicity. The ephemeral success of the apocryphal
gospels did not deceive the Church.
Instinctively the Christians preferred to them the more solid food of
the teaching of the apostles. Also, from
the beginning, local communities which went back in a direct line to an apostle
(Corinth, Rome, Ephesus, etc.) enjoyed exceptional prestige, exceeding even
that of Jerusalem, and a good number of Christian Churches proved the integrity
of their faith simply by the fact of the uninterrupted succession of their
bishops from the apostle-founder. In
practice, then, the supreme norm in the matter of doctrinal safety was none
other than the teaching of the Church herself in the measure in which this was
built over the foundation of the apostles.
It was her own teaching which served as a touchstone of doctrinal
purity; it was her own heads, the bishops, who were successors of the apostles,
who kept intact the paradosis and transmitted it authoritatively to the
faithful. For the Christians that time
(and it is the same for us today) what the Church taught was true, because by
the apostolic succession of her bishops she took the teaching directly from the
apostles. Once again, apostolicity is
shown to be a fundamental characteristic of the Church of Christ.
But not all to
whom the gospel of salvation was preached recognized the beatific word of God,
which had to be received simple and pure as it was, without adding or taking
away anything. Some people believed that
they could accept what they liked or was pleasing to them and mixed that
doctrine with some strange beliefs. The
Lord has foretold that in the kingdom of God the weeds would grow with the
wheat until the day of the last harvest.
According to St. Paul, there must be divisions (heresies) in the Church.[4] In fact, the whole history of the Church is
permeated by non-Christian doctrines which constantly appear and put to the
test the faith handed down to us by Jesus and his apostles. These doctrines are the so-called heresies.
How does heresy
begin? This, no doubt, is an important
question and a student of history should try to make an effort to understand
the genesis of heresy.
Theology implies
an attempt to understand the contents of the revealed religion with the help of
human reason. Orthodox theology starts
by underlying a concrete revealed dogma, or the whole canon of faith, and
afterwards compares the results of its own intellectual and theological
reflections with that dogma. Orthodox
theology “listens” and “confesses” the faith before trying to explain it. Orthodox faith tries to take seriously all
the truths of faith.
Unorthodox
theology parts away from the previous method by Orthodox theology. Unorthodox theology, in its wish to explain
the Christian faith, puts its own judgments before the objective truth, before
the faith proclaimed by the Church. It
is a subjective attitude, not an objective one.
This attitude implies a selection of the whole treasure of revelation
and thus becomes unilateral, particular.
Instead of catholic synthesis we have heretical partiality. The essence
of heresy is subjectivism and partiality.
A study of the
heresies of all times testifies, in a clear and instructive way, what we are
writing about above and it also shows that the Church is the system of the
center, the synthesis that faithfully protects the whole treasure of
revelation.
From the second
century the name “catholics”[5] is
used in a general way to designate the members of the “great” Church[6] in
opposition to the small communities formed by the heretics.
During the first
period of the Church the heresies or heretical doctrines were of either Jewish
or pagan origin. The Jews, or better,
the Christians coming from Judaism, could not quite admit that the Mosaic Law
was substituted by the New Testament. It
is the heresy of the Judaizers. The
pagans, on the other hand, reacted against the Christian doctrines about
creation and origin of evil, because it seemed impossible for them to accept “Creatio
ex nihilo” and so they opposed this doctrine with their dualism (God and
eternal matter). Hence the Gnostic and
Manicheistic Heresies. The Trinitarian
dogma, that is, the question about reconciling the Divinity of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit with the unity of God, was the cause of the first heresies on
this point.
The heresies had
a tremendous importance in the development of the Christian doctrine. They gave a notable impulse to a clearer and
deeper understanding of the truth of the faith in all its various aspects and
were the motive for a more complete formulation of the dogmas of the
Church. This is why St. Augustine has
this to say:
Haeretici cum foris sunt
plurimum prosunt, non verum docendo quod nesciunt, sed ad verum quaerendum
carnales et ad verum aperiendum spirituales catholicos excitando.”[7]
(The heretics, although outside, help tremendously, not teaching the truth,
which they do not know, but moving the carnal people to search for the truth
and the spiritual catholics to be opened to the truth.)
Judaizers
We
have already spoken of Judeo-Christianity.
It was, in the beginning of the Church, the only kind of
Christianity. Then the entry of crowds
of pagans into the Christian communities made it the Christianity of some only,
who perpetuated thus the memory of their glorious origin. But, from the time that some of these
converted hebraics refused the decisions of the Apostolic Council of Jerusalem,
continuing to treat the Mosaic observances as a necessity of salvation for all
Christians, Judeo-Christianity went astray; because Jesus alone is our Savior,
and the law of the Old Testament was only there to prepare hearts to receive
the grace of the New. Beginning with
this refusal, Judeo-Christianity became a heresy. It was the doctrinal error of those who
claimed that the redemptive work of Jesus had not dispensed his believers from
the practice of the Jewish law. To
support their point of view the Judeo-Christians quoted these words of Jesus:
“I am not come to destroy the law or the prophets, but rather to fulfill them”
(Mt 5: 17), interpreting these words in the most material, most literal sense,
while Jesus used “to fulfill” in the sense of “bringing to perfection, to
perfect”. Towards the end of the second
century in Palestine, the meddlesome activity of one Ebion catalyzed
this Judaic obstinacy. His disciples
formed a group, the Ebionites, who considered St. Paul as an apostate
and enemy of the Mosaic Law, and Christ as a simple man. The other group are the Nazarites, a
less intransigent group, who admitted a miraculous birth of Christ from the
Virgin Mary by the work of the Holy Spirit.
The Fathers of the Church, however, considered these groups as plain
heretics with their own Gospel, the Gospel to the Hebrews, and continued
in Syria and Palestine up to the Arab conquest (637).
Gnosticism
Introduction
The young
Christian Church had to face tremendous dangers from within during the first
and the second centuries. Perhaps this
internal danger has been the most
serious the Church had ever had to face in her whole history. This danger is called Gnosis or Gnosticism.
The Gnosis is
basically a pagan phenomenon which reflects the great religious movement of
paganism, or, better to say, the mixture of religions of the first centuries of
the Christian era. The Christian
heretical Gnosis, which is the only one to have interest for the history of the
Church, is no more than a part of the general phenomenon prevalent in the
Graeco-Roman world of the first, second and third centuries called
syncretism. The Gnosis tried to explain
the problems which continuously beset the human spirit in a way opposed to the
Gospel and the traditions of the Church.
In so doing, the Gnosis put in danger the very existence of the Church.
The Gnostics
dissolved and mixed the Christian religion in such a way as to leave it
unrecognizable, with concepts and ideas taken from Platonist and Pythagorean
philosophies, from Stoicism, from the religions of Asia Minor; such as the
dualism of Zoroaster (God-World; Light-Darkness), Syrio-Phoenician cosmogony,
Babylonian astrology, etc. Gnosticism is
not only a school of thought inspired by an all powerful religious tendency,
hoping to find a deeper meaning of Christianity than that offered by the
Gospels and the tradition of the Church, but also “an attempt on the part of
the Christian intellectuals” – some of them thinkers of unusual power – “to
usurp a right of speculating, of systematizing and dogmatizing in the strictest
sense of the word after the manner of the pagan school of philosophy.”
To the ordinary man, the
detailing of the belief and theories of these heretics is a wearying
business. Speculations seemingly as
divorced from the right reason as the schemes of the professors in Laputa,
nightmarish, mechanically contrived fantasies, a wilderness of sounding phrases
and necromantic names, a chaos where sounds abound and sense is all to see – in
studying these systematic aberrations we have to remind ourselves at every turn
that their bizarre-extravagance covers a discussion and an offered solution, of
the most fundamental of all problems.
The nature and origin of evil, of man, of God, the purpose of life and
its attainment through living – these are the problems, theoretical and
practical, which the Gnostic interpretation of Christianity claimed to
answer. Nor was Gnosticism a mere
academic discussion, it offered itself as a religious system. It had its rituals and its observances, its
regulatons and its officials. It was a
formidable competitor to traditional Christianity, and to Gnosticism the Church
lost its best minds and the most energetic spirits. Nor did the influence of the movement end
with the second century. That century
witnessed a life and death struggle between the Church and the Gnostics, which
ended in the Gnostics’ expulsion from the Church; but the defeated theories
survived outside the Church to provide, for centuries yet to come, an
under-current of influences which never cease to irritate and disturb the
development of Catholic thought.[8]
Gnosis literally
means knowledge. Gnosis in the pagan
religions of the first and second centuries and in the Christian heresy,
however, means not only knowledge but a salvific knowledge, that is, a
knowledge of a religious character. St.
Paul also pretended that his religious communities should build, on the first
foundation of the Good News, a superior structure, and so arrive at an
“epignosis” (superior knowledge of the Gospel).
But while this superior knowledge was destined to all Christians, in the
second century, there appeared certain Christian trends of thought which
defended that there existed a special salvific knowledge which was accessible
to only a few, the so-called “knowledger” (Gnostics) and that this Gnosis was
different and superior to faith (pistis).
There existed
more than 60 main different systems of Gnosticism. All of them contain certain ideas from the
Judeo-Christian revelation and elements of the Graeco-Oriental religions. In some of the Gnostic systems the Christian
element plays a preponderant role. But
the most important thing in them is not the faithful acceptance of
revelation. The first thing for the
Gnostics is the attempt to construe a conception of the world taking as basis
the intellect which freely decides for itself.
More often than not the intellect is substituted by phantasy and
philosophical extravagance (mainly the oriental Gnosis).
Essential Points of Gnosticism
The point of
coincidence of all the Gnostic sects (which were more than 60) was the solution
of the problem of evil; it was explained by the co-existence of two principles,
one good and the other bad: God and Matter.
Then, as now, the Church taught the Creatio ex nihilo and
considered evil as abuse of freedom.
Some Gnostics, however, supposed that matter was eternal, while others
sustained that it was derived from the divine substance. According to this hypothesis the world had
not been created by God, who could not have any contact with the matter,
principle of evil, but by some intermediaries called Eons, Demiurges. Considering matter as something evil, in what
way they can man, who aspires to his union with God, separate or free himself
from the domination of matter? To give
him a means, God sent a superior Eon, the Word, the Logos Christ. His work is called Redemption. To achieve this, Jesus took the appearance of
a Body: the Logos could not unite Himself with matter, which is something
evil. This doctrine is called Docetismus
(from the Greek Dokein, appear).
St. John the Evangelist said that the Word was from God and that the
Word was made Flesh.
The morality of
Gnosticism recommends asceticism, because the human soul could not free itself
from matter but with a severe penance.
This theory, carried to its extreme, tended to a disappearance of life,
condemned matrimony and in general all kinds of work, because of it, one needed
the concourse of matter. As we can see,
Gnosticism is a doctrine absolutely not Christian – naturalistic: it does not
only eliminate God and the unity of the celestial Logos with the terrestrial
mission, but reduces all religion to a naturalistic process which does not
respond to the free will of man. For the
Gnosis redemption is only a part of the general evolution of the world, not a
free act of love from the part of God.
The Gnostics
divided the Christians into three different types:
1.
the Gnostic or spiritual men (pneumatikoi)
2.
the animate man or somatic men (pistikoi)
3.
the material men (hylikoi)
According to
them only the Gnostics, the pneumatikoi, the chosen by the Spirit are
the truly and really Christians. Only to
them is due, by a special grace, the true redemption. The pistikoi, the sumple faithful,
attain a redemption of secondary order through the sacraments and good
works. The last type, the hylikoi,
in whom matter lives, are left outside redemption.
This theory was
a false ideal, but it seduced many souls in search of spiritual
perfection. They thought of themselves
not only as superior, which is already against Christianity, but as the only
ones capable of salvation and redemption.
The Church condemned them. Within
the community any man is capable of obtaining total salvation. This was the fundamental decision against
this spiritual elitist, contrary to Christ’s designs. This was a dangerous spiritual separatism. Against this separatism and all the sects and
conventicles which repeatedly appear in history, presuming to present a surer
kind of Christianity, the Church emphasized the fundamental need of spiritual
unity in the community.
The strict
asceticism of the Gnostics, of which we wrote above is something extrinsic, an
overcoming of matter and assumes an exterior rigor, sometimes against nature.
Experience,
however, teaches us that at all times this rigor passed quite easily to the
opposite extreme. In the concrete case
of the Gnostics, the identification of the Demiurge Creator of the world as the
Legislator of the Old Testament favored an autonomy and licentious
“libertinage”. The Gnostics pretended to
have a superior knowledge and undervalued the eternal discipline; because of
this, some of them considered an indifferent thing to partake with the pagans
at their sacrifices and as a superfluous thing the confession of the faith
before the pagan authorities, because true and proper confession or martyrdom
consisted in the Gnosis. The Gnostics,
as perfect men, could not commit sins. Many of them led a life of debauchery, because
for them the Gnosis gave a state of impeccability.
Conclusion on Gnosticism
The Gnosis
represents the radical degeneration of the inviolable religious revelation of
Jews and its conversion into a philosophy.
It was the complete “hellenization” of Christianity, the corruption of
its very essence. The great success of
the Gnosis is due to its religious contents, which impressed the human
phantasy, and also due to the greatness of its conception of the universe.
Marcion (floruit ca. 140-160)
The Gnostic
system close to Christianity and the more serious morally and religiously and,
because of this, more dangerous for the Church, was the system of Marcion. Its creator, based on it, founded in Rome, in
146, a proper Church. Marcion, a rich merchant from Sinope, a city near the
Black Sea, was obsessed with the difference between the Old and the New
Testaments. He exaggerated this
difference to the point of creating an absolute contraposition between the
two. Like other Gnostics, Marcion
imagined that there existed an opposition between the God of the Old Testament
(the God of the Law and of merciless and pitiless justice) and the God of the
New Testament (the good God, Father of love who revelaed himself in Jesus). He founded a real Church in Rome, with
bishops, priests and a liturgy in competition with the real Church. He won more adherents than any other Gnostic
sect, but he was excommunicated and by the fifth century, Marcionism had
entirely disappeared.
Manicheism and the Persian Gnosis
Introduction
When at the end
of the second century Gnosticism had lost most of its importance in the
Graeco-Roman world, a new Gnostic religious sect appeared in Babylon and
Persia, the so-called Manicheism. With
its subsequent diffusion, it became a universal religion and a dangerous rival
of Christianity.
The basis of its
doctrine is a rigid dualism, taken from Zoroaster and from many other
religions, such as the religion of the Babylonians, Chaldeans, Buddhists (for
morals and asceticism), Jews and Christians.
To tell the truth, the Christian elements were known, so it seems,
through the Gnostic Marcion and the Syrian Gnostic Bardesane. These elements are quite insignificant and
can be reduced in substance to mere names, forms and external usages.
Founder of Manicheism
The founder of
the new religion was Mani (Manes or Manicheus) born in Babylon in 216 from
Persian parents and educated in the religion of the Mandeans (Gnostics still in
existence today in Southern Mesopotamia).
In the years 1902-1903 many fragments of the writings of Mani and his
followers were discovered in the Chinese Turchestan. In 1930, many original works were found in
Coptic in Egypt. We find there his
letters, psalms, homilies and a description of his death. From his writings we gather some of his
doctrines.
In these
writings Mani recognizes the dependence upon the “Fathers of Justice”, Jesus,
Zoroaster and Buddha, but confesses his intention of surpassing these
religions, considered by him as “sects”, through missionary actions all over
the world. He had already preached in
India, when after the year 242, under king Sapor I (241-272), he came to Persia
as an “Apostle of the True God” and there founded many communities. He was, for some time, favored by King Sapor
and took part with him in his military expeditions. But at the end of 277, under King Bahram I,
he was crucified, due to the intrigues of the magicians, that is, the priestly
castes of Zoroaster. His followers
suffered a violent persecution for political reasons not only in their land but
also under Diocletian, that is, within the Roman Empire. Diocletian in 296, published an edict against
them and the Christian Emperors did the same.
Sissinius, Mani’s successor (282-305) as head of the sect also ended his
life on the cross. The Manichean
writings were burned, but Manicheism, in spite of the persecutions, diffused
itself in many new countries. In the
East it went as far as China and in the west it reached North Africa, where
Augustine was a follower for nine years.
It spread to Italy and Spain, although the number of followers was not
very high.
The Fathers of
the Church and ecclesiastical writers and, from the fourth century, the Synods
took great pains in fighting Manicheism.
Even during Medieval times, Manicheism constituted a favorable field for
subsequent heresies: Neo-Manicheism, Paulicians, Bogomilians, Cathari or
Albigensias and others.
Doctrine of Manicheism
According to
Manes there are two eternal principles in perpetual hostility: God and
Satan. The first is the principle of
good and light and the second, the principle of evil. Man cannot free himself from matter except
through the knowledge of true science.
This true science was taught by Jesus, who came to the world in a
phantasmagorical body (Docetismus). This
work, which is the Redemption, and which for some time was put in danger by the
apostles, had to be completed through the Paraclete, who made his appearance in
the person of Manes, the last and the greatest prophet.
To attain the
further liberation of the element of light, Manes taught the three seals:
1.
the signaculum oris – seal of the mouth,
prohibition of impure words and pleasure, especially flesh meat and wine.
2.
the signaculum manus – (manuum) the prohibition
of manual work, considered as an offense against the world of light.
3.
the signaculum sinus – prohibition of marriage.
When the
separation of the two worlds becomes complete, the visible world will be
destroyed in a fire of 1,468 years.
Montanism
While Gnosticism
preached a kind of Christianity based on the worldy spirit of Hellenist
culture, there were within the Church certain people who advocated a discipline
of extreme rigor and even a total “flight” from the world.
This tendency is
well represented by Montanism. At first it was only a movement of religious
enthusiasm, similar to revivals in Protestantism or in some modern Catholic
Charismatic movements. It promulgated no
new doctrine, but it desired to group all Christians together, to separate them
from the world, and to prepare them for the kingdom of God which was
imminent. Yet Montanism did in fact
constitute a new Gospel, and when faced by the opposition of the Church, the
Montanists were soon led to form a Church of their own, and what was at first
only a group of prophets and enthusiasts degenerated into a sect.
If we wish to
understand the rise of this movement, we must remember the part played by
prophecy in the Church. We have in the Didache
the important plave occupied by most prophets at the end of the first
century. Hermas at Rome gave the
prophets precedence over the priests.
This belief in
the diffusion of the prophetic spirit was not without its dangers: some might
claim gifts which in fact they did not possess, and worse still, charlatans
could deceive Christians by semblance of prophecies. The danger was so serious that in the Didache
and the Shepherd of Hermas, the faithful are put on their guard against
false prophets, and they are given signs whereby these are to be
recognized. The danger was still more
evident in which the Last Day was awaited.
The founder was
Montanus, a neophyte supported by two female Christians Maximilla and
Priscilla. Probably he had been a priest
of the goddess Cybeles. According to St.
Epiphanus (315-405) Montanus appeared in the scene around the year 155-156, but
if we are to follow Eusebius’ Chronicle, without doubt much more exact, he
began in Asia Minor, in 173. He
presented himself as a prophet and reformer under the pretense of being the
organ of the Paraclete (Cf. Jn 14: 16-26) promised by Christ to inaugurate for
the Church the age of the Holy Spirit.
The first age, then, was Judaism, dictated by God the Father; the second
was Christianity, dictated by God the Son.
The third, more perfect than the two previous ones, was already
manifested in the world, through the work of the Holy Spirit. This last age differs from the two others by
a very severe discipline. The Montanists
began by prohibiting second marriage (often marriage as such was very much
despised). Fasting was made more
difficult and Xerophagy was ordained (to eat dry food, without meat). It was prohibited to flee during persecutions
and even it was recommended to offer oneself spontaneously to martyrdom. Those guilty of capital sins (adultery,
apostasy, murder) could never be admitted into the Church. During the sacred functions the Virgins and
Spouses had to carry along with them their veils.[9]
If the Christian Church had
listened to and followed Montanus, it would have meant the exit of Christianity
from the world, it would have meant the destruction of Christianity. The Church would then have renounced to
evangelize the world and to dominate the world.
Montanism means the attempt to deny the historical development of the
kingdom of God on earth and putting back this development to its infant
state. The movement that parted from
Montanus was the first idealist and utopian movement within the Church. If his movement had been seconded, the
Universal Church would have been no more than a series of conventicles. The redemption of the world (mankind) would
have finished in the more enthusiasm of a few dreamers or visionaries.
The Church also
rejected this ideal of Christianity, which is false because it is partial. The Church affirmed with it, once more to be
the system of the center; to be religious, Christian and ascetical and
nevertheless be open to the world; to be “earthly” yet not to be lost in the
world.
This movement,
however, diffused itself quite rapidly not only in Asia Minor, but also in some
other countries. As a result of keen
propaganda, Montanism spread with astonishing rapidity. It appeared in Phrygia in 173, but already in
177 the Churches of Lyons and Rome were alarmed at the commotion caused, of
which they felt the effects.
The bishops
realized the danger. They might have
been more tolerant towards a rigorous asceticism which was content to preach
fast and abstinence, forbid second marriages, and recommend chastity and even
towards a milleniarism like that of Justin and Ireneaus which also made room
for a less literal interpretation of the prophecies of the Apocalypse, but they
could not suffer a message which calling itself prophetic, claimed to go beyond
the Gospel and rejected the hierarchy.
Synods were
convoked, the first which history mentions, and the heresy was therein
condemned. These measures were certainly
efficacious. The Montanists were
regarded as excommunicated, and even persecution did not modify their severe
attitude. Closely linked together the Asiatic
bishops succeeded in arresting the disease and in expelling from the Church the
adherents of the new prophecy.
Pope Victor
(189-198) and Pope Zephyrinus (198-217) did the same in Rome. But nothing could stop the movement which
spread, especially, in Northern Africa.
Here, in 205, Tertullian of Carthage, with his hard and bitter
temperament, professed himself favorable to Montanism and became its greatest
defender. He wrote a series of writings[10]
defending the Montanist ideal and in his polemic against the Psychicos
(Catholics) became more and more intransigent.
The sect still continued for a long time. The synod of Trullum of 682 and Emperor Leo
the Isaurian (717-745) in the year 722 adopted some provisions against the
Montanists.
Chiliasmus or Millenarianism
Among the
Christians of the early primitive Church there was the widely diffused hope of
an immediate return of Christ (Parousia).
This eschatological expectancy contributed to give to the way of
thinking and living of the Christians profound seriousness and a great
rigor. The Apostles themselves believed
that Christ would soon return for the final judgment of mankind (Parousia).
Because of this,
there were some exaggerated movements; one of them was Chiliasmus or
Milleniarism, that is, the error of those Christians who believed in an
immediate coming of Christ to inaugurate with his saints a glorious kingdom of
a thousand years, hence Milleniarism.
This was a terrestrial, political kingdom.
This error was
due to the influence of the Judeo-Christians who still expected the Messianic
kingdom on earth. Some Christians
associated that glorious kingdom with the second coming of the Lord and
interpreted in this sense the mysterious words of the Apocalypse of St. John
(ch. 20-21). According to them, Satan,
after some time, would be chained and the just people would remain with Christ
for a thousand years, hence the name Chiliasm or Xiliasm; afterwards, the devil
will be freed from his chains and defeated a second time; there would then be a
general resurrection, the last judgment and the formation of a new heaven and a
new earth, the world coming like thus, to its end.
In the terrible
hours of the persecution, the milleniarist error offered beautiful hopes for
the future and contributed to a high degree, to give fortitude to the
Christians who went to martyrdom. It is
then, not strange to find followers of Xiliasm not only among the
Judeo-Christian sects, but also among famous Christian martyrs and writers,
such as:
a.
the author of the Letter to Barnabas (150?)
b.
Papias of Hierapolis (130?)
c.
St. Justin (ca. 100-168)
d.
St. Irenaeus (ca. 140-202)
e.
St. Hippolytus (ca. 170-235)
f.
Tertullian (ca. 155-228)
Millenniarism
lost ground not through rational arguments or discussions against them but
through the sudden and complete change of the conditions of the Church under
Constantine (306-337) and his successors.
However, it never died and, now and then, we find it in certain
movements of sectarian tendency.
Milleniarism met with opposition at Rome (Caius) and in the east
(Origen; Dennis of Alexandria).
Triumph of the Church Over the Gnosis
In spite of its
Gnostic-dualist basis, the system of Marcion represented an attempt to save
Christianity from the menacing smothering of the Gnosis. Montanus made another attempt, but in the
field of moral life alone. Both were
total failures. The only attempt against
the Gnosis which was successful was carried out by the Church through a
faithful defense of the apostolic legacy.
The heretics
taught doctrines which were in contradiction with the concepts of the doctrine
of the Church. They themselves knew
quite well that Christianity could only accept the truths preached and handed
over by apostolic tradition. Hence, to
defend their opinions, the Gnostics had recourse to an occult apostolic
tradition. Based on this supposed
tradition they not only rejected capriciously some of the books of Holy
Scriptures, but also mutilated those which they accepted, and created a rich
literature of new gospels (apocrypha), or Acts of the Apostles, etc.
In the fight
against the Gnosis, Christian science and the bishops established the bases
peculiar and essential to Christianity and the Church, which distinguishes them
from that of heretics and of supposed occult apostolic tradition. The bases are:
a.
The Canon of the Holy Scripture, that is, the
treasure of the true revealed books, with the expressed inclusion of the Old
Testament.
b.
A detailed Creed, as rule of faith, which
contains the essential belief of Christianity (unity of God, Who is Creator of
the world and Father of Jesus Christ;
earthly life of Jesus) and according to which the Holy Books must be
interpreted.
c.
The fact and need that every doctrine must come, in an
uninterrupted way, from the residents of the Church. Orthodoxy will be assured by this “apostolic
tradition” of the bishops and especially of the Roman bishops.
With her victory
against the Gnosis the Church made impossible, once and for all, the
dissolution of the Christian doctrine into a philosophy. This doctrine was final and decisive for all
time.
The work of the
adversaries of Gnosticism, St. Irenaeus, Tertullian, St. Hippolytus can also be
considered as a synthesis. To the
separation of “creation or redemption”, “knowledge or faith” they opposed the
true Christian doctrine of “creation and redemption”, “faith and knowledge”.
[1]
Today still, at the beginning of the Canon of the Mass, they mention the Pope,
the Bishop of the diocese, and all the bishops of the world who “faithful to
the true doctrine, keep the Catholic and apostolic faith.”
[2]
The word “trias” appeared for the first time in Theophilus, Ad Autholicum
II, 15; or in Clement of Alexandria (120-215), Excerpta ex Theodoto 80,
3; “Trinitas” in Tertullian (155-228), Adv. Praxeam, 2 et ff.
[3] In
Greek, paradosis, which is best translated in the Christian language by
“tradition.” Paradosis as well as
“tradition” can mean both the transmission itself of the faith and its
doctrinal content.
[4]
“…For there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine
among you may be recognized.” I Cor 11: 19.
[5]
The expression if first found in St. Ignatius of Antioch (d. ca. 117 AD).
[6] A
term used by the pagan philosopher Celsus to refer to the Church.
[7]
Augustine, De Vera Rel. 8, 15.
[8]
Philip Hughes, A History of the Church, I, pp. 84-85.
[9]
The Church rejected Montanism but its spirit is ever present in some
exaggerated Christian movements recurrent in history.
[10] De
Exhortatione Castitatis, De Monogamia, De Ieiunio Adversus Psychicos, de
Virginibus Velandis, De Fuga in Persecutione, De Pudicitia.
