Digging Out the Embedded Church - The Maranatha Community

and the order of the Church which had come down from the first apostles, preserved through
an episcopal succession. He believes that the Church can identify this succession in the
names of bishops descended from the Apostles. He refers to the disputes beginning at Corinth
mentioned in Clement‟s letter and sees Rome as the Church that has apostolic authority to
correct the errors of the Corinthians. The truth handed down is Biblical truth but it is
expounded by faithful men who are consistent in their teaching with the apostles‟ doctrine.
But there were false counter-apostolic views abroad from a very early date. There were also
men who divided the church, not doctrinally, but by their style of church discipline, which
went counter to the general conduct of the churches. Some of the heresies were ephemeral;
some were long-lasting; and some can even be found today, mainly in sects which have risen
up since the 19 th Century.
Jerome (c.345-420 AD) said that there was something in the distinction that a schism was a
separation from the Church while a heresy was a denial of orthodox doctrine; but he noted
that every schism had within it a fault in doctrine.
We can see in the Church‟s response to these challenges to its faith the formation of
responses that have become the bases for unity which we can rediscover and celebrate today.
Almost all the heresies in the Early Church, up to the 4 th Century, have to do with opinions
concerning either the Person of Christ (some denying his complete humanity, others
impugning his full deity) or the relationship of Father, Son and Spirit within a Triune
Godhead.
THE MAIN HERESIES AND SCHISMS OF THE EARLY CHURCH
Let us look at the main heresies and schisms of the first 400 years of the church.
Docetism
The first challenge to apostolic teaching can be found within the New Testament itself in the
form of a heresy often termed Docetism. As John was writing his letters in the province of
Asia towards the end of the 1 st Century, he challenged the view that the real humanity of
Christ only appeared to have a real body of flesh and blood (dokeo – „I seem or appear to‟).
The roots of this heresy lay in Gnosticism (from gnosis – knowledge), widespread in the 1 st
Century, which claimed an inner knowledge of the way things were in the universe. Later, in
Christianised forms, Gnosticism was to trouble the Church considerably, so that in the next
century Irenaeus of Lyons wrote strongly against it as a deviation from Christian truth.
Gnosticism, if unchecked, would have seriously diminished an apostolic view of the person
of Christ and his redemptive work, because Gnosticism presupposed an antithesis between
the physical and the spiritual. Matter was evil, only spirit was good. This dualistic view could
not accommodate the idea of a supreme, good God taking on a material form in human flesh.
Some Christian Gnostics tended to see the God of creation as opposed to the supreme good
God, because a good God could not have been involved in the creation of matter.
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