Dr. Pothana's Teaching

1. COACH Institute of Intercultural Studies, Hyderabad
History of Christianity-1
Dr. Pothana

2. A. Introduction:
Clarifying Terminology
1. Early Church Fathers: Broad
category covering leaders in the
church for the first six centuries of
church history.
2. Apostolic Fathers
a. A subset of early church fathers
b. 95-140 AD
3. The Second Century: The Era of the Apostolic Fathers

3. c. Traditionally connected directly with the apostles
themselves, but most scholars believe that this was only
true for a few of them.
d. Still a valuable designation because it describes how
these church leaders were seeking to define themselves
and the church.
e. Little information about them survives. A few
surviving writings and incidental mention of these men
in materials of later generations. Because of this it is
inaccurate at best and dangerous at worst to try to
appeal to the apostolic fathers to argue for say, apostolic
succession or the purity of the church vis-à-vis its
councils, etc.

4. 2nd Century Heresies
 Ebionites (Judaic-Christian sect)
 Marcion (Similar to Gnosticism)
 Montanism (Charismatic Sect)

5. B. Orthodoxy and Heresy
1. What is the difference between heresy and
error?
2. Notable heresies and heretics
a. Ebionites: Pharasaic Judaizers. The word
Ebionite comes from the Hebrew ebionim,
which means “the poor ones,” which probable
means that Ebionites took a vow of poverty.
1) Refused to recognize Paul’s apostleship,
2) All Christians should be circumcised
3) Denied deity of Christ and virgin birth
4) Jesus was chosen by God as messiah because
of his piety
5) Reluctant to think of him as subject to
sufferings and death.

6. Affect of the Ebionites on Christian
Doctrine
 This is a foreshadowing of an anti-Jewish
mindset that would last for millennia.
 The rhetoric of some writers have applied the
label of Ebionite to all Jewish Christians who
continued to keep the law of Moses. Such people
were not necessarily heretical, but the adjective
heretical properly applies to all who made the
keeping of the law necessary for salvation and
especially to all who denied the deity and
atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

7. 1) The Greek gnosis is a special
knowledge which transcended
the simple faith of the Church.
2) Belief that the creation of the
world was the result of a pre-
cosmic disaster which accounted
for the present misery of our lot.
3) The elect few have a “divine
spark” that has become
imprisoned in matter and has lost
its memory of its true, heavenly
home.
4) The Gnostic gospel was an
attempt to arouse the soul from
its sleep- walking condition and to
make it aware of the high destiny
to which it is called
b. Gnosticism

8. 5) The world was in the iron control of evil
powers whose home was in the seven
planets, and after death the elect soul
would be faced by a perilous journey
throughout the planetary spheres back to its
heavenly home.
6) They were dualists believing that the
spirit is everything, the body nothing (if not
actually evil).
7) Consistent with dualism they rejected as crude the
Hebraic doctrine of the resurrection of the body, preferring
the Platonic doctrine of the immortality of the soul; in any
event, to those who were already perfect, resurrection could
add nothing.
8) They fell into moral license justifying their eroticism by
appeals to the Symposium of Plato as teaching that love is
mystical communion with God.

9. 9) The Fall of Eve was taken to symbolize a pre-cosmic catastrophe in
which a female power, the “Mother” went astray.
10) The principle ingredient which Gnosticism derived from
Christianity was the central idea of redemption. The divine Christ
might have appeared to blinded worldlings as if he were tangible flesh
and blood, but those with higher insight perceived that hewas pure
spirit and that the physical appearance was an optical illusion and
mere semblance.
15 Salvation is knowledge which comes from the Great Spirit. The one
who brings the good news is Jesus Christ, who awakens spiritual
persons to their nature, and sets them on the way to perfect
knowledge.
11) They were persuaded to worship intermediate angelic powers,
identified with the heavenly bodies, and believed to possess a power
to determine human fate unbroken by the gospel.
12) A further consequence was the depreciation of the Old Testament.
The Gnostics liked to contrast the God of the Old Testament as the
God of justice, whose principle was an eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth, with the loving Father proclaimed by Jesus.
13) They believed in the existence of an ultimate spiritual being. This
being is superior to the physical world and its creator-- The craftsman
(demiurge, from the Greek, meaning “architect”).

10. 1) Montanus from Mysia claimed to receive
special prophecies and revelations from God
that told him that he had been specially chosen
as God’s mouthpiece. He had a large following
– it seems also a large following of women
(Montanists were charged with loose living).
2) Emhasized charismatic, ecstatic experiences
(tongues, prophecy, etc.).
3) An attempt to recover the prophetic note in
primitive Christianity, and to challenge both the
intellectualistic tendencies in Gnosticism and
the ecclesiastical trend of the 2nd century.
4) Emphasized the nearness of Christ’s return.
c. Montanism

11. 5) One church historian suggests
that Montanism flourished for two
reasons:
a) Christ had not yet returned,
people were disappointed and
looking for something from God.
15 This belief is referred to as
Docetism (from a Greek word which
means “to seem”), which one need
not have been a Gnostic to embrace.
b) Consciousness of the work of the Holy Spirit
wasfailing. 6) The church’s opposition to
Montanism rested upon the conviction that the
Christian revelation was complete. Nothing new in
principle could be added to the apostolic deposit
of faith.

12. Montanism’s Affect on Christian
Doctrine.
 Contemporaries decreed that the
Apocalypse of John (Book of Revelation)
was the last truly inspired Prophecy. This
doctrine still exists today among strictly
orthodox Christianity.

13. 1) Came from Asia Minor to Rome.
2) Excommunicated in 144 AD.
3) Wrote Antithesis. He listed contradictions between the Old and New Testaments
to prove that the God of the Jews, “the creator of this miserable world,” was quite
different from the God and Father of Jesus. It was inconceivable that the divine
redeemer could ever have been born of a woman, and Marcion rejected the story of
the birth and childhood of Christ as falsification imposed on the authentic story.
4) Did not reject the OT, but accepts it as a divine revelation, and insists that it be
taken literally. But he maintained that the God revealed therein could not be the
God and Father of Jesus Christ, who is absolutely good.
5) Kept most of Paul, part of Luke (his list is important for understanding canon
questions of the 2nd century). The twelve apostles had not possessed the insight to
comprehend the true meaning of Jesus. 6) Contrasted the God of the Old Testament
as the God of justice, whose principle was an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,
with the loving Father proclaimed by Jesus. 7) Docetic as well, Marcion held that
Christ had a body onlyin appearance.

14. Affect of Marcion on Christian
Doctrine
 Because he chose certain books, the
question arose about the canon.

15. 3. The role of heresy:

16. The Psychological Affects of
Heresy on Christian Doctrine
 Everyone was on edge about false
doctrine. Therefore, heretic would become
an easy word to label an opponent.
 It started to become obvious that
Christianity needed to be well defined
with a general consensus amongst
theologians.
4. The “Apologists”:
defenders of the faith

17. 4. The “Apologists”: defenders of the faith
a. Significant works
1) The Letter of Clement c. 96 by Clement, a Bishop in the church at Rome. Was written to the
Corinthian church, to settle a dispute there.
2) The Letters of Ignatius of Antioch (Ignatius was executed in Rome in AD 110, and he wrote
seven letters to various churches as he traveled to Rome.
3) The Didache: This is the oldest surviving handbook of church discipline in two parts: Part 1 is
about Christian doctrine; Part 2 is about church practice.
4) The Fragments of Papias c. 110-130. Papias was the bishop of the church in Heirapolis in
Phrygia. His letters were intended to preserve some of the saying of Jesus which have not
beenrecorded in the gospels. Not everyone in the church accepted that these sayings originated
with Jesus. 16 L Berkhof, The History of Christian Doctrines (Banner of Truth, 1937), 49-50.
5) The Letter of Barnabas c. 120, probably written in Alexandria and is markedly anti-Semitic,
portraying the Jews as the murderers of Jesus.
6) The Shepherd of Hermas (somewhere between 110 and 140), written in Rome. Hermas
claimed to have received revelation from two heavenly figures. It emphasizes the need for moral
purity in the church.
7) The Letter of Polycarp to the Philippians c. 110. Polycarp was a famous 2nd century martyr,
and his letter is important as an indicator of mainstream church life during the perioud. Quotes
extensively from the NT and warns against heresy.
8) The Letter to Diognetus (somewhere in the first half of the 2nd century) written to
demonstrate the superiority of Christianity, author unknown.

19. b. Main characters
1) Justin Martyr (100-165 AD)

20. St Justin Martyr,
The Philosopher and Apologist

22. We shall not injure God
by remaining ignorant of
Him, but shall deprive
ourselves of His
friendship.
– Fragment VII

23. a) Wrote his Apology in 151 for the emperor Antonius Pius.
b) Christ is for Justin the principle of unity and the criterion by which the truth is
judged.
c) Justin sees the logos as Light of Light, begotten, but distinct from the father,
therefore not diminishing or dividing the being of the Father.
d) 160 AD Dialogue with Trypho the Jew—concerned with the Christian claim to be
the universal religion to which the Old Testament prophets had looked forward, and
dominated by detailed arguments from particular prophetic texts. He was
convinced of the argument from prophecy.
e) This led him to renounce Marcion’s disparagement of the Old Testament.
f) In the Sermon on the Mount, Justin Martyr saw an ethic of universal validity,
continuous with the highest aspirationsof Judaism, but freed of the shackles of
ceremonial rules peculiar to one race among the hundreds of God’s creation.
g) Early Christian theology and apologetic relied on interpretation of Old Testament
prophecy as foreshadowing the gospel. It was also the prime content of the
instruction of catechumens. The defense of the hope within them was found in the
OT prophecy of Christ cf. Psalm 22; Isaiah 53.
h) Furthermore if the resurrection had been a fiction the apostles would not have
risked their life for it. i) Interpreted the resurrection in the most literal sense ofbody
and soul.
j) Insisted that Christ was not a mere man but was also God. At his birth he had
been worshipped by the Magi, and there could be not question of a holy life being
rewarded by elevation to divine rank.

24. Tertullian
Personal
Converted to Christianity between 190 and 195
Became a presbyter of the Church (197)
Zealous champion of Christianity
Profoundly influences later Church fathers
Embraced and became a leader of
the Montanists (207?) a sect later declared
heretical
Place and dates
(Rome) 160?-220?
Writings
Apologeticus (c. 197): his most famous work; a defense of
Christians against pagan charges
On the Claims of Heretics: argues that the Church alone has
the authority to declare what is and is not orthodox Christianity
On Baptism
On Prayer: throws light on contemporary religious practices
100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000

25. Tertullian (155-230 AD)
b) Scornfully mocked those who ‘advocate a
stoic or Platonic or an Aristotelian
Christianity. ¾ “What has Athens in common
with Jerusalem?” ¾ “I believe it [i.e. in
Christianity] because it is absurd.”
c) Was a significant exponent for
Trinitarianism (3rd century).