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Excerpts from Heresy by Joan O'Grady

This Christian Allegory was painted by Jan Provoost circa 1510-15.

 

This blog article presents excerpts from Heresy (1985) by Joan O'Grady.  The book offers commentary about the evolution of Christianity.


 


By his adherents, Jesus of Nazareth was called Christ, the anointed one.  To the Romans, Chrestus was the name of a trouble-maker, put to death in the reign of Tiberius.  "Jews were driven out of Rome for rioting at the instigation of one, Chrestus."  (Suetonius, Life of Claudius)


Some scholars say that Christ was not regarded as God until well into the second century.century. 


In the years immediately after the birth of Christianity there were no written records or written teaching.  All that could be learned about 'the amazing events in Judaea' was through oral instruction.  St. Paul's letters are the earliest written records about Christianity that we have.  These letters were probably written between 50 A.D. and the year of Paul's death, about 64 A.D.


Though in the epistles there are no references to details of Jesus' life and sayings, Paul probably thought that his readers were sufficiently conversant with them, through the oral teaching which they certainly would have been given.  All those events and teachings were handed down primarily by oral transmission for many decades.


Early in the second century letters from venerated leaders and documents, often termed 'Memoirs of the Apostles,' were being circulated.  Using these records teachers began to gather groups of pupils around them.


Among the teachers in these rapidly multiplying schools were those later called 'Gnostics' by the Church Fathers of the Second and Third Centuries.  What the Fathers termed 'Gnosticism' was considered by them to be one of the most dangerous of the 'heresies' which the 'orthodox' Church had to face.

It is difficult, with the data that we have, to know exactly what these gnostic teachings were.  Until fairly recently our knowledge of them came almost entirely from accounts and descriptions given by the Church Fathers, who were attacking them.


In many parts of the world—in Egypt, in Greece, in Babylon—we have accounts of mystery religions, which involve secret rites of initiation into various stages through which the believer must pass, often corresponding, on the cosmological scale to ascension through worlds or spheres in the universe.


The Alexandrian Jewish philosopher, Philo, writing shortly after the birth of Christ, was the foremost representative of Hellenistic Judaism.  His most important work was his Allegorical Commentary on the Old Testament.  Philo was deeply influenced by Plato, particularly in his doctrine of God and creation.  In Philo's exposition, God is indefinable, with no qualities that can be perceived by man.  He is perfect Spirit and so cannot have contact with carnal substance.  Through the mediation of Divine Ideas, or Forces, united into one Supreme force—the Logos—the orderly world came into being out of shapeless, lifeless matter.  The Logos was the creative 'Word of God' in Genesis — the vice-regent of God. . . . At death those who have lived free from attachment can return to their original condition with God.  All others must, at death, pass into another body.


The centre of Christianity for Origen was Christ; not as Man, but as Logos — the Logos who was with the Father from all eternity.  


The practice of worshipping Jesus as Son of God was gradually becoming the Accepted form of devotion at Christian gatherings.  


It was the desire to stress the Unity of God and to prevent any development which might lead to abandoning monotheism that motivated a school of thought known as Monarchism.  The term was first used by Tertullian, the Christian writer who lived at the end of the second century.  He termed 'Monarchists' those to whom the idea of the single rule of God was of such importance that all explanations of the nature of Christ had to be given in this light.

To keep to the strict idea of the Unity of God, the Monarchists accepted either what were called 'Adoptionist' views of Christ or what were called 'Pneumatic.'  A division had arisen between those who held that Christ was a man in whom the Spirit of God dwelt, and those who believed that a Divine Spirit assumed human flesh.  The Adoptionists accepted the first and held that Christ was a human being, even if miraculously conceived, who was filled with divine power to an intense degree.


The other, the Pneumatic school of thought, held that Christ on Earth was the temporary manifestation in human form, of a Divine Redeemer.  But the Monarchists, in order to ensure strict adherence to monotheism, adopted what came to be called the Modalist view of God, which in the Eastern Churches was later termed Sabellianism after its protagonist, Sabellius.  In this conception, 'the Father' and 'the Son' were held to be different designations of the same subject — that is to say, different aspects or modes of the One God.


In studying these controversies and the Councils that attempted to settle them, it often seems that their endless dissensions, condemnations and counter-condemnations were merely theologians' quarrels about the detailed use of words and about minute differences in the 'expression of the inexpressible.'


Arguments about the Trinity and about the relation of Christ to the Father had been growing in intensity during the opening year of the century.  Attempts to explain Christ's divinity were, some thought, leading to the danger that his humanity would be forgotten: Christ would be treated merely as an aspect of God.  It was fear of this that led Arius, a priest of Alexandria at the beginning of the fourth century, to protest against what he considered to be the Sabellianism of his Bishop, Alexander, who had said that "God is always; the Son is always; and the Son was present in the Father without birth."


The Bishop of Alexandria called for Arius' excommunication and for the anathematising of his writings.  Arius collected around him supporters of his teaching, and rival groups begun to form.  So began the disputes that led to the great breakaway movement, termed the Arian Heresy, which was to divide the Christian Church and which did not finally disappear until the eighth century.

The Emperor Constantine was alarmed at this further disunity in his Empire; for disunity was what he especially wanted to avoid.  He tried to bring the parties together, saying that they were both equally right; but the controversy continued.  In 323 Constantine summoned a great council—the first world (ecumenical) council—that of Nicaea.


By the close of the council the formula of the creed used for preparing catechumens for baptism in Caesarea had been accepted as the basis for agreement, and the word homoousios—of one substance—was adopted to describe the being of Christ.


Arius was excommunicated and sent into exile. 


Immediately after the Council dispersed the Emperor Constantine gave his support to anti-Arian decrees, but still the squabbles continued.  The Latin West (including Egypt) accepted peacefully the Nicene definition; but the Greek East was divided into many schools of thought and was harassed by fears of Sabellianism.

Doctrinal and personal quarrels multiplied and the Emperor intervened either to support or to exile the leaders of the conflicting parties.  Three years after accepting the decrees of the Council of Nicaea Constantine changed his mind, recalled Arius from exile and supported the anti-Nicene party until the end of his reign.

Succeeding Emperors had varying views, and their varying views affected the life of the Church.


The birth and growth of Christianity are still shrouded in mystery.  Perhaps the important thing is to recognise that they are a mystery.  It has not been explained how, against all the odds, and surviving all the pressures that would normally destroy an institution, organised Christianity, as a world religion, still exists; the very fact that questions concerning its birth and growth are still unresolved may even be a clue.

 

Other analytical metaphysical books reviewed in previous blog articles after my being guided to read them are The Call of The Trance (2014) by Catherine Clément and When God Had a Wife (2019) by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince.  (article)





This post first appeared on Interesting Articles, Links And Other Media, please read the originial post: here

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