HERESIES CONCERNING CHRIST

The Church has always taught:

that Jesus is both God and man,
that He has both a divine and human nature but that He is one person,
that He always exists as God the Son, that He is equal to God the Father,
that He was begotten of the Father; He is not a created being
that He was born as a human,
that He died and rose again
that He ascended into heaven
and that He will come again.

The problems came in trying to decide how all that could be. Soon very sincere men slipped into heresies when they tried to explain exactly who Jesus was. Some of the errors in doctrine they professed continue today.

There are still those who deny that Jesus was truly God. Those who fall into this heresy believe that Jesus was a great man and a godly man but that he was not God. In this heresy they deny Christianity since the doctrine of the Incarnation'that the Second Person of the Trinity came to earth as a human without ceasing to be divine – is the very basis of Christianity. Generally this is the belief of Deists and Adoptionists.

Other heresies stressed the oneness of God by denying the other two persons of the Trinity as 'persons' in the Godhead. Monarchians, Patripassinists, & Modalists believed that God the Father and Christ is 'one person.' They maintain that God the Father became Christ.

Others believe that He was the Son of God but not really equal with God the Father. This is the heresy of the Arianists (the heresy that the Nicene Council addressed). Arianists believe that God the Father created God the Son. That is to say that God the Father existed before God the Son and made God the Son as he made the earth and everything else. They assign the role of creator solely to God the Father while others believe in

God the Creator (Father), God the Redeemer (Jesus), and God the Sanctifier (Holy Spirit), as if there were 3 gods. This is the heresy of Polytheism.

There are also misguided Christians who believe Mary was the mother only of Jesus the man and should not be called 'Mother of God.' This is the heresy of Nestorianism which was spread by Nestorius, a monk of Antioch, who as patriarch of Constantinople in 428AD. Nestorius preached that the Man Christ was not God; God only dwelt in Him as in a temple, and that He became God by degrees. In other words, he taught that there were two persons in Christ, the one human, the other divine. Logically he had to deny that Mary is the Mother of God. He said she should be called Christotokos (Christ bearer), but not Theotokos (God bearer). The doctrine of this heresy was addressed at the Council of Ephesus in 431AD. The Church pronounced that Christ is only one person, not two. Therefore, Mary is the mother of that person and if that person is God then

Mary is the Theotokos and deserves to be called the Mother of God. It was from the ruling of this council that "Holy Mary, Mother of God" was added to the "Hail Mary."

Manichaeans taught that their founder, Manes (c. 215-276AD), received a higher form of truth than taught by Christ. This is also basically the teaching of Mohammed (d. 639AD) the founder Islam. Both heresies deny the Trinity and the divinity of Christ.

To question Jesus' humanity is also heresy. It is the old heresy of Monophysitism. Monophysites distort St. Paul's statement that Jesus was "a man like us in all things but sin," but they have trouble thinking, for example, that He really was subject to illness or fatigue, or all the humbling bodily functions, or the desires or temptations that all men have. They believe that instead to two natures, both human and divine, that He was human but His nature was divine. They denied that Christ had a true human nature. The human nature, they maintained, was absorbed in the Divinity as a drop of wine in an ocean. Therefore, they believed there was really only one nature in Christ, and that was His divine nature, hence, 'mono'= one and physite = nature.

Monophysites are very close to the heresy of Docetism and the Gnostic-Docets These heresies basically believe that Jesus was somehow not subject to all the things that make one a human. They taught that Christ merely assumed the appearance of a human body. Docetism denies the reality of the humanity of Christ. St. Ignatius was answering this heresy when he wrote: "For I know and believe that He was in the flesh after the Resurrection: and when He came to Peter and his company, He said, 'Lay hold and handle Me, and see that I am not a bloodless spirit', and straightaway they touched Him and believed, being joined to His flesh and blood. Therefore also they despised death, nay, were found superior to it; and after His Resurrection He ate and drank with them, as one in the flesh, though spiritually He was united with the Father....The Docetists abstain from the Eucharist, because they allow not that It is the flesh of our Savior, which flesh suffered for our sins, and which the Father of His goodness raised up." St. Ignatius was martyred c. AD 107

In 451 the Council of Chalcedon with nearly 600 Bishops assembled settled the issue by declaring the Catholic doctrine of the two natures in one Divine Person of Christ. All present arose and exclaimed "That is the faith of the Fathers; that is the faith of the Apostles! So we all believe! Peter has spoken through Leo!" The definition of the Council of Chalcedon was not accepted by the whole Church. The Monophysite controversy went on for nearly a hundred years. Finally all those parts of the Eastern Empire in which Greek was not the language of the people severed themselves from the Church and have remained in schism: the Copts in Egypt, the Jacobites in Syria, the Armenians, and the Abyssinians.

The Monophysite heresy led to the Monotheletism heresy (monon = one and thelema = will). In an effort to conciliate the Monophysites, Sergius, Patriarch of Constantinople since 610AD, thought that by declaring that there was only one will in Christ, the Syrian and Egyptian Monophysites would be satisfied and give up their schism. The Church opposed this teaching in the VI Council of Constantinople. The Church maintained that Christ was one person, with two natures both human and divine and that both natures were in perfect accord.

These are heresies that relate directly to Christ. There are many others. Another heresy popular today is the heresy of Pelagianism, the belief that humans can obtain salvation solely through their own efforts.

Acts 4:12 "Only in Him is there salvation; for of all the names in the world given to men, this is the only one by which we can be saved."

John 14:6 "Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.'"

Ancient heresies which have been recycled into the "New Age" movements and cults of today:

Deists and Adoptionists: Deny that Jesus was fully divine. Those who fall into this heresy believe Jesus was a great teacher and a godly man but He was not God.
Monarchians, Patripassinists, and Modalists: These heresies stress the oneness of God by denying the other 2 persons of the Trinity as "Persons" in the Godhead. They maintain that God the Father became God the Son.
Arianists: They believed Jesus was the Son of God but that He was a created being and therefore not equal with God. Jesus is begotten not created.
Polytheism: Regards the Holy Trinity as 3 separate gods.
Nestorianism: Believed Mary was only the mother of Jesus the man and should not be addressed as the Mother of God as though Jesus was two separate persons instead of one person with two natures.
Manichaeans: Denied the Holy Trinity and the divinity of Christ.
Monophysitism: Denied Jesus had a true human nature and acknowledged only Jesus' divine nature.
Monotheletism: Believed that Jesus is two persons but with one divine will. The Council of Constantinople VI opposed this teaching and maintained that Christ is one person, with two natures, human and divine, and two wills bit both His natures and His wills were in perfect accord.
Pelagianism: The belief that humans can obtain salvation outside of Christ solely through their own efforts.
Gnosticism: Belief that salvation can be achieved through a "secret knowledge". Matter is believed to be hostile to spirit, and the universe is held to be a depravation of the Deity. The old Gnostic heresy has been re-presented as the New Age movement. Although extinct as an organized religion, Gnosticism is the invariable element in every major Christian heresy today by its denial of an objective revelation that was completed in the Apostolic Age and its disclaimer that Christ established in the Church a teaching authority to interpret decisively the meaning of the revealed word of God. The book The DaVinci Code is Gnostic heresy intermixed with the "sacred feminine: of paganism".

Michal Hunt 1999/revised 2004