Lyle Brecht 4-Aug-05

EFM.Heresies (EFM.YR3) Page 1 of 4

Christological1 Heresies

1. Christ’s divinity can be denied.

2. Christ’s humanity can be denied.
3. The unity of Christ can be denied.
4. What happens when divinity and humanity are united in Christ?2

Apollinarianism: view of Apollinarius (c. 310-c.390) that Christ did not assume full
human nature but that in the incarnation the divine Logos took the place of the human
soul or psyche. It sought to maintain the unity of the person of Jesus Christ as the one
incarnate nature of the divine Logos.

Arianism: teaching of Arius (d. 336) that the Son of God, incarnated as Jesus Christ, was
not eternal but created before the ages by the Father from nothing as an instrument for the
creation of the world (“the Word”). Jesus was therefore not God by nature, but creature,
and so susceptible to change (his “passibility:” capacity to be acted upon from without;
capacity for changing emotions; and liability to feelings of pleasure or pain caused by the
actions of other creatures), even though different than all other creatures in being the one
direct creation of God. Thus, Jesus is the highest and most complete manifestation of the
true moral nature of humanity (“a purely righteous creature”) but does not share the same
substance as God the Father. Arius’ views were condemned by his bishop, Alexander, at
a synod at Alexandria (c. 320) and declared a heresy largely due to the arguments of
Athanasius, then a deacon at Alexandria, at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. Athanasius
defined the orthodox view of the Catholic faith as believing in the coeternity and
coequality of both the Father and the Son. Athanasius used the term, homoousios (Gk.
“of one substance”) to express their consubstantiality (Lat. “of one and the same
substance or being”).

Docetism (do-CET-ism), contended that Jesus was divine and only ‘appeared’ human. At
the opposite extreme were Ebionites, who contended that Jesus was strictly the human
son of human parents; held to Mosaic Law; accepted only Matthew and rejected Paul’s
letters. Their Jewish monotheism made it impossible for them to accept Jesus as divine.

1
Christology (Gk Christos, “anointed one” + logos, “study”): discusses any evaluation of Jesus w/ respect
to who he was and the role he played in the divine plan. (The study of the person and work of Jesus Christ,
and in particular of the union in Him of the Divine and human natures, and of Jesus’ significance for the
Christian faith.) The basic theological views about Jesus Christ were adopted at Nicea (325),
Constantinople (381), and Chalcedon (451).
2
Tertullian formula was: Christ was one person in two natures, each distinct from the other, yet inseparable
bound together in the unity of one person.
Lyle Brecht 4-Aug-05
EFM.Heresies (EFM.YR3) Page 2 of 4

Monarchism: emphasis on the divine aspect of Jesus challenged the sovereignty of one
God. Dynamic monarchism: Jesus was truly indwelt by the divine, but not by God
himself; it was God’s power that was in Jesus. Modalism: the one God (the Father)
himself became flesh as the Son of God, to redeem the world. The West is inclined to see
God as one single divine entity (essence – Tertullian used substantia) carrying out three
roles in the oikonomia.

Monothelitism (MON-oh-THEL-uh-ism): held that Jesus had only one will. In 649, Pope
Matin I secured its condemnation at a synod in Rome. For his opposition, Matin was
taken to Constantinople and cast into prison, where he died. Constantine IV convened
Third Council of Constantinople, 680, which asserted that Christ had two wills, one
human and one divine, since he had two natures, but that they always acted in mutual
accord.

Monophysites (mon-AH-fi-site): heretical view that Christ had only one nature rather
than a divine and a human nature that were united in one person

Nestorius (d. 451), Patriarch of Constantinople, taught Mary should not be called
theotokos – bearer of God – but instead should be called Christokos – bearer of Christ
because in Jesus there were “two natures and two persons,” one divine and one human.
Only the human nature and person were born of Mary. Thus, Jesus Christ was two
separate persons as well as possessing two distinct natures. Nestorianism was declared
heretical by Council of Ephesus, 431

Other Heresies

Donatists: a schismatic body in the African Church that continued until the African
Church was destroyed by the Arabs in the 7th – 8th century. They believed that the clergy
must be morally fit to administer sacraments and that if a sacrament was administered by
a clergy who had sinned, the sacrament was invalid. They were vigorously opposed by
Augustine.

Gnosticism: claiming a special and often secret knowledge not generally available to the
public about the meaning of life and salvation. Gnostics believed that Christ’s teachings
had hidden meanings that he imparted to a privileged group of his disciples. They saw
creation as purely corrupt, unable to be in communion with God, and intimated that the
teaching of Jesus might be profaned if it got into the wrong hands. Ostensibly, this
effectively eliminated any type of communion amongst Christians.
Lyle Brecht 4-Aug-05
EFM.Heresies (EFM.YR3) Page 3 of 4

Manicheism (MAN-ik-ee-ism) was an important syncretistic and dualistic religion from

Persia – a Gnostic rival of catholic Christianity in the fourth century. Mani borrowed
from the teachings of the church and from the ideas of Marcion and Basildes. It was
based on a dualistic philosophy where the devil and his kingdom became a rival not only
to the Christian soul, but to the divine sovereignty.3 Augustine of Hippo, the most
influential of all western church fathers started out as a Manichaean adherent from 374 –
383. The problem of evil had driven him to Manichaeism, but Manichaeism had failed to
resolve it.

Marcionism: Marcion’s (d. c.160) central thesis was that the Christian Gospel was a
Gospel of love to the exclusion of the Law. He consequently rejected the Old Testament
in its entirety claiming that the Creator God of the OT had nothing whatsoever to do w/
the God of love and grace as revealed by Jesus Christ. For Marcion, the only Canonical
Scriptures were 10 of the Epistles of St. Paul and a portion of Luke’s Gospel. His
Christology was Docetic.

Modalism: heretical view that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are roles God adopts in chief
stages of salvation history. Tertullian crushed modalism in his Contra Praxean.

Montanists: adherents of Montanus, especially in N. Africa, who proclaimed himself the

chosen vessel for the Holy Spirit and protested the growing worldliness of the church by
providing a church w/ absolute standards. Tertullian converted to Montanism in 207.
Condemned by the church.

Patripassianism (Modal Monarchism): The Son identified w/ the Father. “the Father
himself descended into the virgin, was himself born of her, himself suffered” (Tertullian).

Pelagius (pel-AY-jee-us) an Irish monk came to Rome ~400 CE where he attacked

Manichaeism (MAN-ik-ee-ism). For Pelagius, the sin of Adam was his alone; we have
not inherited it. According to Pelagius, everyone who sins does so of his or her own free
will. To assign blame for our sin on an inherited defect of our nature is an affront to our
Creator as well as an evasion of our own responsibility. Pelagius agreed that we need the
grace of God if we are to be righteous. But we already have it. God gave us the freedom
to obey when he created us. He gave us the Bible so we would know his will. He gave us

3
Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100 – 600) (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1971), 85, 91, 136.
Lyle Brecht 4-Aug-05
EFM.Heresies (EFM.YR3) Page 4 of 4

Law. He forgave our sins. Thus, we have sufficient grace for righteousness. God has
given us the freedom to do good or to do evil. Pelagius imposed “the terrifying weight of
complete freedom on the individual: [the individual] was responsible for every action
(ref. Peter Brown) vs. Augustine who held that our wills were corrupt from birth” – a
greater tolerance toward those who sinned was reasonable.4 Ultimately, the third general
council at Ephesus in 431 condemned Pelagianism (pel-Ay-jee-an-ism) as heresy.

Pneumatomachianians (Macedonians): did not believe in the full divinity of the Holy
Spirit but that the Spirit was subordinate to God the father and God the Son. Their
teaching was condemned by Pope Damascus in 374.

Sabellianism (also modalism or Modalistic Monarchism): Teaching of Sabellius (early

3rd century) that God has one nature and is one person with three names: Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. This Trinitarian teaching was heretical as the church taught that God is one
and that the Godhead consists of three persons.

Subordinationism: Christ and the Holy Spirit are lesser in rank than the Father. Inferred
from oikonomia appearing in writings of Justin Martyr 9c.100-c.165), Origen (c.185-
c.254) and in Arianism. This was viewed as heresy by Council of Constantinople, 381.

Bibliography

De Barry, Edward Oscar. Education for Ministry: Year Three. 4th ed. University of the
South, 2001.

Gonzalez, Justo L. The Story of Christianity: Vol. 1 The Early Church to the Dawn of the
Reformation. HarperSanFrancisco, 1984.

Livingstone. Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. 2nd edition.

McKim. Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms, 1996.

4
Gary A. Anderson, The Genesis of Perfection: Adam and Eve in Jewish and Christian Imagination
(Louisville: John Knox, 2001), 66.