The Road To Niceae

1
The Road To Niceae

• The history of Nicaea/Constantinople is so
  complex that the nature of the solution is
  always in great danger of being oversimplified.
• The mixture between theology and politics is one
  indication
• The mixture between argument, discussion and
  brute force is another
• The fact that it is not even the solution of a
  single Council, but of two, is yet another.
• So what sort of solution, answer to the
  problem, was it
• this three persons in one Godhead?

2
The Road To Niceae

• Whatever we say,
• One thing must be remembered
• ever since this council,
• every main line Christian church has affirmed the
  Nicene creed.
• We accept it as an expression of our faith.
• This does not mean that it was perfect
• It does not mean that it solved all problems
• And above all it does not mean that by simply
  repeating it verbatim we are necessarily being
  faithful to what it proclaimed.
• This is the area of our concern.

3
The Road To Niceae

• It may be only a caricature but when it was
  recently said of President Clinton that
• If he received a three-man deputation led by the
  Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost he wouldnt
  resign
• More was effectively being said about the common
  Christian understanding of the Trinity than about
  American political morals.

4
The Road to Nicaea

• Make disciples of all nations baptizing them in
  the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
  Holy Spirit (Mt. 2819)
• The New Testament concludes in the affirmation of
  the necessary insertion into the bosom of the
  divine society of the Father, the Son and the
  Holy Spirit
• the human society
• The one human family made up of so many diverse
  nations
• This high point in Trinitarian revelation
• postulates and demands
• the entire doctrinal development that follows it.

5
The Road to Nicaea

• This formula contains in germ the the Symbol of
  the Apostles and the dogmatic definition of
  Nicaea and of Constantinople.
• The new Testament clearly shows that the Son and
  the Holy Spirit pertain to the sphere of YHWH,
• to the divine sphere
• Is the Symbol of the Apostles which binds all
  Christians together originally based on the
  mystery of Christ or on the Trinitarian mystery?
• Is it Christological or Trinitarian?

6
The Road to Nicaea

• The ancient Greek word symbolon signified half of
  an object that had been broken (for example, half
  of a seal) which was offered as a sign of
  recognition.
• The separated parts were put together in order to
  prove the bearer's identity.
• In this way strangers about to enter into a
  contract could easily identify one another
  through symbolon broken and exchanged in advance
  via messengers.
• Further meanings of "symbol" come from such
  things as
• proofs of identity,
• letters of credence
• and a treaty or contract of which the symbolon
  was the proof.

7
The Road to Nicaea

• Passage from this meaning to that of a collection
  or summary of reported and documented things was
  natural enough.
• In our case as Christians, "symbols" signify the
  collection of the principal truths of faith
• What the Church believes.
• Systematic Teaching of the Faith (catechesis)
  contains instructions on what the Church
  believes, that is, on the contents of the
  Christian faith.
• The "Symbols of Faith" are the first and
  fundamental reference point for catechesis.

8
The Road to Nicaea

• The earliest known profession of faith in the
  apostolic Church is Christological.
• It is professed in three concise formulas
• Jesus is the Christ (Acts 236 1036 Col 26)
• Jesus is the Lord (1 Cor 123 Rom 109 Acts
  236 Phil 211)
• Jesus is the Son of God (Acts 920 1333 Rom
  14 Heb 414)
• This profession was developed and elaborated on
• (1 Cor 153-4 Phil 26-11 1 Tim316)
• A Trinitarian profession of faith is a natural
  evolution,
• for the Trinitarian confession was latent in the
  Christological
• (Acts 233)
• And implied in the early kerygma
• (Acts 214-39 312-26 48-12 529-32
  1034-43 1316-41)

9
The Road to Nicaea

• The evolution and the Trinitarian structure of
  the symbol
• The symbol as it appears between the years 175
  and 190 is the product of two symbols
• one Trinitarian one Christological
• It is impossible to tell which predates the other
• The Trinitarian formula is more brief and does
  not include within it profession of
  Christological faith as we know it today
• This Trinitarian symbol was part of the Baptismal
  Liturgy
• As a triple response to a tri-fold question at
  the core of the sacramental rite
• As a symbol recited by the catechumen before
  baptism

10
The Road to Nicaea

• The Der-Belizeh Papyrus
• Discovered in Upper Egypt in the 6th century
• This document represents a fourth century
  liturgy but the symbol contained in it goes back
  to a much earlier date, probably the end of the
  2nd century.
• I believe in God, the Father almighty, and in
  his only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, and in the
  Holy Spirit, and in the resurrection of the flesh
  in the Holy Catholic Church.
• Its Trinitarian form expands Matthew 2819
• It contains no elaborate Christological
  development.

11
Dogmatic Development

• Gods special providence
• Divine revelation
• Inspiration of Sacred scripture
• The Magisterium of the Church
• Four main aspects
• Objective
• Subjective
• Evaluative
• Hermeneutical

12
Dogmatic Development

• Objective aspect
• A comparison of the gospels with conciliar
  documents
• Gospels are not just a collection of true
  propositions
• They teach the truth in a way that penetrates the
  sensibility, fires the imagination, engages the
  affections, touches the heart, opens the eyes,
  attracts and impels the reader
• Conciliar decrees
• They declare what is true so clearly and
  accurately that they seem to bypass the senses,
  the feelings and the will, to appeal only to the
  mind.
• The do not faithfully reproduce in scriptural
  language the many truths revealed in scripture
• Between scripture and councils there intervenes a
  process of synthesis a reduction to fundamental
  proposition

13
Dogmatic Development

• Objective aspect
• Two distinct elements
• Transition from one literary genre to another
• Scriptures are addressed to the whole person
• Councils aim only to enlighten the intellect
• Transition in the order of truth
• Scripture presents a multitude of truths
• Council expresses a single truth related to the
  many truths of scripture as a kind of principle
  or foundation

14
Dogmatic Development

• Consciousness
• Two distinct definitions
• The state of being aware of what is happening
  around one
• Having a feeling or knowledge of ones sensations
• Awareness of oneself as a thinking being
• The totality of ones thoughts, feelings and
  impressions
• Feeling or knowing that something is
• Intentional awareness of what one is thinking,
  doing, and feeling

15
Dogmatic Development

• Subjective Aspect
• Change in a manner of apprehending or considering
  the truth requires a change in the individual
• Conscious human acts occur within different
  patterns of experience, patterns that can be
  identified and described, distinguished from and
  related to each other.
• Undifferentiated consciousness involves the whole
  person, operating simultaneously and equally with
  all their powers
• Differentiated consciousness is capable of
  operating exclusively, on a single level, while
  the other levels are either entirely subordinated
  or held in check so that they do not hinder
  attainment of the goal
• Intellect vs Will

16
Dogmatic Development

• Subjective Aspect
• Understanding of Dogma requires a transition from
  undifferentiated common sense to to the
  differentiated intellectual pattern of
  experience.
• Consciousness of the gospels is undifferentiated
  since they address the whole person
• Consciousness of Dogma is differentiated since
  they force a person to focus attention on the
  aspect of truth alone placing other powers under
  the sway of intellect
• The requires a slow learning process sustained by
  serious effort

17
Dogmatic Development

• Evaluative Aspect
• It is characteristic of man that he not only
  acts, but also pauses to reflect on his actions
  and to pass judgement on them.
• Study of dogma requires
• that we be at home in a new, more austere
  literary genre that is a more precise style or
  type of literature
• that we grasp and reflect on divinely revealed
  truths in a new manner
• The Creed is Dogma
• To understand rather than just recite the creed
  requires a subordination of ones other powers to
  ones intellect.
• Think Outside The Box Until It Hurts!

18
Dogmatic Development

• Hermeneutical Aspect
• The science of interpretation
• The view that one holds about dogmatic
  development will influence personal investigation
  and interpretation of that development
• The human mind is not equally open to all ideas
• Interpretation involves selection, structuring
  and judgement
• Every judgement anticipates a future judgement
• There are as many opinions as opinion holders
• Dogma makes one opinion emphatic
• Therein lies the conflict!

19
Dogmatic Development

• Dogma emerges from the revealed word of God,
  carried forward by the tradition of the Church
• The success or failure of its development is
  firmly based on five basic premises concerning
  truth
• The Word of God is true
• If one separates the word from the truth, if one
  rejects propositional truth in favor of some
  other kind of truth, then one is not attending to
  the Word of God as true.
• Heresy acts to focus the Churchs attention on
  the Word of God as true
• It is not enough to attend to the Word of God as
  true, if one has a false conception of the
  relationship between truth and reality.
• One does not automatically overcome the equity
  that exists between truth and reality by stepping
  into the realm of pure spirit.
• No change from one pattern of consciousness to
  another can make the true false or the false
  true. (Mt 537)

20
Dogmatic Development

• CONSUBSTANTIAL
• What in fact corresponds to the word as true is
  that which is.
• And if what is said of the Father is also said of
  the Son, except that the Son is Son, and not
  Father,
• it follows that the Son is the same,
• but not the same person as the Father.
• Latin liturgys preface to the Blessed Trinity
• What from revelation we believe about your
  glory,
• THAT
• without difference or distinction
• we hold about your Son and about the Holy Spirit.

21
Dogmatic Development

• Consciousness
• Although there are many different states and
  patterns of consciousness each with its own
  proper place still they are not unconnected
  there is a bond that unites them all
• If it was the word of God, considered precisely
  as true, that led from the gospels to dogmas,
• It was the same word, from the same point of
  view, that brought about what has been described
  as differentiation of consciousness
• The same subject can remain in the same world,
  although he shifts from one pattern of
  consciousness to another
• The Bond is the Word as TRUE

22
Dogmatic Development

• Consciousness
• Sermon on the Mount
• But let your word be Yes, Yes and No, No.
• Dogmatic Pronouncements
• If any one sayslet him be anathema sit.
• Whenever anyone educated or uneducated affirms a
  statement as true they are affirming the word as
  true, every negation is a rejection of the word
  as false.
• Different expressions of the same truth can exist
  from one state of consciousness to another but
  just as the human subject does not change the
  truth does no change.
• No change from one state of consciousness to
  another can make the true false or the false true

23
Dogmatic Development

• In arguing with those who say
• there is a discontinuity between gospels and
  dogmas
• there is one simple rule
• Pay attention to THE WORD as TRUE!
• Perceptionist - Think they know before they have
  enough information to make a judgement
• Idealist - Insist that what is perceived is only
  the appearance of things, not things themselves
• Essentialist - Attempt to distinguish between
  essence and being, thinking and knowing
• Hellenism - Reduce fact and truth to essence of
  being
• Dogmas are affirmations of what is

24
Dogmatic Development

• Ante-Nicene movement
• Two distinct, though related developments
• Trinitarian and Christological doctrine
• The very notion of dogma
• Two types of doctrinal development
• That which leads from obscurity to clarity
• The notion of dogma, grounded in the word of God
  as true
• That which leads from one kind of clarity to
  another
• The gospel writers thoughts about Jesus are clear
  and distinct
• Their teaching acquired a new clarity and
  distinctness through the definition of Nicaea

25
The Judaeo-Christians

• It is somehow a law of human thought that a
  culture which receives Christianity tends
  spontaneously to reinterpret the revealed truths
  within its categories
• Heresies arise from the abuse of this
  inclination,
• as orthodox theology springs from legitimate
  exercise of this law
• Judaeo-Christianity confronted with Trinity
• began its attempt at expressing mystery in the
  categories of Jewish thought

26
The Judaeo-Christians

• There are two distinct approaches to defining
  this group
• A complex of heresies arising out of Judaism
• This conception is subdivided into various sects
• Ebionites, Elkesites, Cerinthus, Christian
  Samaritan Gnostics, Various Gnostic sects in
  Egypt, Carpocrates and many others
• A cultural form legitimately rising from Judaism,
  shared by orthodox Jewish Christians no less than
  heretics

27
The Judaeo-Christians

• An unfamiliar world with its own
• Particular type of imagination
• Strange manner of conception
• Mode of speech
• It found expression in the writings of both
  Jewish and non-Jewish authors of that period
• This would include apocryphal books of the Old
  and New Testament
• Odes of Solomon, Letter of Barnabas, The Shepherd
  of Hermas
• Ignatious of Antioch, Clement of Rome and all
  that Irenaeus and Papias attribute to the
  tradition of the elders
• These require a grasp of literary genre and the
  particular type of interpretation they contain

28
The Judaeo-Christians

• In the writings of Irenaeus (180-199), Hermas
  (140-155) Origen(200-254) and the Ascension of
  Isaiah (Pg 19)
• The term angel is applied to both Christ and the
  Holy Spirit
• Christians of Jewish origin attempted to express
  the mystery in the categories of Jewish thought
  not only of the Old Testament, but of Judaism
  that is distinct from it.
• The Word and the spirit are represented as Angels
  following the etymological meaning of Malak
  Yahweh, as envoys of God (the Father)
• For them, Like the term spirit, so the term Angel
  does not necessarily signify an illegitimate
  assimilation to the created universe
• Application of the term angel to Christ must not
  infer that he was regarded as a creature

29
The Judaeo-Christians

• J. Danielou has notedangelomorphic
  Judaeo-Christian theology will have an
  unfortunate effect on the theology of Origen and
  of the Arians.
• M. Werner (1941) interpreted this to mean that
  Judaeo-Christians considered Christ a creature.
• W. Michaelis (1942) G. Kretschmar (1956)
  attacked Werners interpretation
• For the presentation of the Trinity according to
  the vision of Isaiah (Is. 6) recognizes three
  distinct, subsistent persons, far more excellent
  than all the angels
• Hellenistic thought makes a sharp distinction
  between creature and creator. Semitic thought
  did not.
• Application of the term angel to Christ must not
  infer that he was regarded as a creature

30
The Judaeo-Christians

• The exegesis of Genesis 1
• Paul attested t multiple meanings in interpreting
  reshith (Col 115-18) Christ was before all,
  the head of the body which is the church, and
  the first born of all creation
• Justin (148-161) took the Word, the
  Beginning, and the Son to be one and the same
• Tatian (170) felt the beginning was the power
  of the word
• Irenaeus (180-199) translated the same verse A
  Son in the beginning God established, then heaven
  and earth
• Tertullian (197-222) was familiar with this
  rendering but considered it dubious
• Ptolemy and some other Gnostics identified the
  beginning with the Son, and so they understood
  the Word as coming from the Son

31
The Judaeo-Christians

• The exegesis of Genesis 1
• Clement of Alexandria (190-215), deciding in
  support of the Kerygma of Peter, took the opening
  words, In the beginning, to mean In the first
  born and therefore in the Son
• Theophilus of Antioch (180-199) understood what
  was said of the beginning to apply also to the
  Word
• Origen (200-254) felt the beginning was our
  Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, the first born of
  all creation, the Word, and he also said that
  Christ is the beginning, inasmuch as he is
  Wisdom.
• Jerome (347-420) points out that Aristo of Pella
  in his Dialogue of Jason and Papiscus translated
  the Hebrew In his Son God made heaven and earth
• Hilary (350-367) says Breshith is a Hebrew word,
  which has three meanings in the beginning, in
  the head, and in the Son.

32
The Judaeo-Christians

• The Law and the Covenant
• The Law, Torah, is understood in an active
  sense--not as a legal document, but as God
  establishing laws
• Philo Judaeus (20bc-50ad)identifies Law and Word
• In the Shepherd of Hermas (140-145) while Christ
  is never called Logos, still the Law of God and
  the Son of God are identified with each other.
• Justin (148-161) sometimes calls Christ both the
  law and the covenant, but most often just
  Covenant.
• Clement of Alexandria (190-215) testifies that in
  the Kerygma of Peter, which is Judeo-Christian,
  Christ is called both Logos (Word) and Nomos
  (Law). He cites Is 2,3 from Sion will go forth
  the law, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

33
The Judaeo-Christians

• In early stages of Judaeo culture
• by name is normally meant not the mere name,
  but the person, the power, the nature of the one
  named.
• The name of God meant to the Hebrews more or
  less what the divine nature meant to the Greeks
• In writing the New Testament appropriate passages
  were chosen from the Old where there is mention
  of the name of God
• Amos 922/Acts 1516, Is. 525/Rom. 224, Ex.
  916/Rom. 1012
• The Son is the name of the Father

34
The Judaeo-Christians

• The Son is the name of the Father
• Texts in Acts speak of salvation through the name
  of the Lord (221) or through his name (412)
• Referring to the divine nature of Christ rather
  than to a person distinct from the Father
• Rom.1012 suggests that it is one and the same
  thing to invoke the Lord (Christ), and to invoke
  the name of him from whom salvation comes.
• Johannine writings actually develop a theology of
  the name
• Jn 1228 Father, glorify your name and the
  prayer Jn 175 And now glorify me, Father would
  seem to be one in the same prayer
• This seems to infer that the son is the name of
  the Father

35
The Judaeo-Christians

• The Son is the name of the Father
• Clement of Rome (92-101) - refused to call the
  Son Logos
• Calling rather for obedience to the most holy
  name, full of glory, and for submission to the
  omnipotent and most excellent name
• He commends confidence in the most sacred name of
  his magnitude, the passage from ignorance into
  the knowledge of the glory of his name and hope
  in his name as the source of all creation.
• For Clement the name means the Son the Word,
  that was the beginning, through which all things
  were made.
• Irenaeus (180-199)-The Lord manifestly coming
  into his own (domain) and his own (created
  nature) sustaining him while itself being
  sustained by him.

36
The Judaeo-Christians

• The Son is the name of the Father
• Shepherd of Hermas (140-155) -The tower (Church)
  is founded on the word of the name that is
  omnipotent and full of glory, but is ruled by the
  invisible power of the Lord, that the name of the
  son of God is great and infinite and carries the
  whole universe and it is asked, if the whole
  creation is carried by the Son of God, what is to
  be said of those who have been called by him,
  those who bear the name of the son of God and
  walk in his commands.
• Gnostics - For what is visible in Jesus is called
  Wisdom and the Church of the higher seeds, what
  is invisible is the Name, which is the only
  begotten Son
• Of Mt 2220 Gnostics said that he has a
  superscription through Christ the name of God,
  and the Spirit as an image.
• Gospel of Truth (140-180) - Now the name of the
  Father is the Son

37
The Gnostics and Other Sects

• The Gnostic movement taken in its totality aims
  at seeing man achieve by himself an awareness of
  his own divine nature, an awareness that would be
  his salvation.
• For Gnosticism, salvation is then the act of
  becoming aware of mans divinity
• According to J. Danielou, Christian Gnosis had
  its origin in the rebellion against Yahweh of
  certain Jewish circles, after the catastrophe of
  the year 70 and the fall of Jerusalem
• A revolt against God the creator of the world and
  of history.
• Yahweh is considered to be an inferior demiurge,
  author of a world that has run aground.

38
The Gnostics and Other Sects

• The doctrine of salvation by knowledge.
• This definition, based on the etymology of the
  word (gnosis "knowledge", gnostikos, "good at
  knowing")
• is correct as far as it goes
• It gives only one, though perhaps the
  predominant, characteristic of Gnostic systems of
  thought.
• Judaism and Christianity, and almost all pagan
  systems, hold that the soul attains its proper
  end by obedience of mind and will to the Supreme
  Power, i.e. by faith and works,
• It is markedly peculiar to Gnosticism that it
  places the salvation of the soul merely in the
  possession of a quasi-intuitive knowledge of the
  mysteries of the universe and of magic formulae
  indicative of that knowledge.

39
The Gnostics and Other Sects

• Gnostics were "people who knew"
• Their knowledge at once constituted them a
  superior class of beings, whose present and
  future status was essentially different from that
  of those who, for whatever reason, did not know.
• Because of the problem of evil, the Stoic
  conception of God as immanent in the world--as
  indeed the soul of the world--is rejected.
• They affirm a transcendent God, who is unknown
  and, to a certain extent, unknowable.
• The origin of all evils in the world is found in
  a fall from the divine order.
• Salvation is placed in the acquisition of
  knowledge (gnosis) of God

40
The Gnostics and Other Sects

• They introduced a series of intermediaries
  between God and man
• They attributed both fall and redemption to a
  kind of natural process, rather than free will
  (predestinationism)
• They defined three classes of people
• hylics - those who cannot be saved
• pneumatics - those who cannot but be saved
• psychics - those who may or may not be saved
• They borrowed their terminology almost entirely
  from existing religions
• But they only used it to illustrate their great
  idea of the essential evil of this present
  existence
• And the duty to escape it by the help of magic
  spells and a superhuman Savior.
• Gnostics make no mention of creation

41
The Gnostics and Other Sects

• Wherever they borrowed, their pessimism from
• they did not borrow it from
• Greek thought, which was a joyous acknowledgment
  of and homage to the beautiful and noble in this
  world, with a studied disregard of the element of
  sorrow
• Egyptian thought, which did not allow its
  elaborate speculations on retribution and
  judgment in the netherworld to cast a gloom on
  this present existence, but considered the
  universe created or evolved under the presiding
  wisdom of Thoth
• Iranian thought, which held to the absolute
  supremacy of Ahura Mazda and only allowed Ahriman
  a subordinate share in the creation, or rather
  counter-creation, of the world
• Indian Brahminic thought, which was Pantheism
  pure and simple, or God identified with, the
  universe, rather than the Universe existing as
  the contradictory of God
• Semitic thought, for Semitic religions were
  strangely quiet as to the fate of the soul after
  death, and saw all practical wisdom in the
  worship of Baal, or Marduk, or Assur, or Hadad,
  that they might live long on this earth.

42
The Gnostics and Other Sects

• Its parent soil can be found within Buddhism
• but Buddhism is ethical,
• it endeavors to obtain its end by the extinction
  of all desire
• Utter pessimism, bemoaning the existence of the
  whole universe as a corruption and a calamity
• A feverish craving to be freed from the body of
  this death
• A mad hope that, if we only knew, we could by
  some mystic words undo the cursed spell of this
  existence
• This is the foundation of all Gnostic thought.
• Gnosticism is pseudo-intellectual, and trusts
  exclusively to magical knowledge.

43
The Gnostics and Other Sects

• Mandeans (mandeenz)
• A small religious sect in Iran and S Iraq, who
  maintain an ancient belief resembling that of
  Gnosticism
• (Manda means knowledge in Greek).
• Their emanation system and their dualism suggest
  a Gnostic origin, but unlike the Gnostics, they
  abhor asceticism and emphasize fertility.
• Recent scholarship places their origin in
  Palestine or Syria.
• Their customs and writings indicate early
  Christian, perhaps pre-Christian, origin.
• Their system of astrology resembles those of
  ancient Babylonia and the cults of the Magi in
  the last centuries BC
• Although some of their practices were influenced
  by Christianity, Judaism, and Islam,
• they reject all three.

44
The Gnostics and Other Sects

• Mandeans
• They are also known as Christians of St. John,
  Nasoraeans, Sabians, and Subbi.
• The Mandeans respect John the Baptist because of
  his baptizing, since their principal concern is
  ritual cleanliness and their chief rite is
  frequent baptism.
• The custom, which antedated the baptisms of St.
  John, stems from the belief that living water is
  the principle of life.
• They have a communion sacrament, which is offered
  for the remembrance of the dead.
• Their chief holy book, the Ginza Rba, like their
  other books, is a compendium of cosmology,
  cosmogony, prayers, legends, and rituals, written
  at various times and often contradictory.
• A few Mandeans survive, some near the Tigris and
  Euphrates rivers, others in the area of Shushtar,
  Iran, and in cities of Asia Minor.

45
The Gnostics and Other Sects

• Valentinians
• Valentinus was an Egyptian teacher based in
  Alexandria around 110-175, c.e.
• He separated himself from the Roman Church when
  he was denied, or failed, to become a Bishop of
  Rome.
• He was, at one time, a student of Basilides and
  claimed to have received the secret teachings of
  St. Paul through one of Paul's disciples,
  Theodas.
• He is considered to be the most important and
  most influential of all the Gnostics.

46
The Gnostics and Other Sects

• Valentinians
• An eightfold emanational view (ogdoad) was
  developed consisting of the following
• Thought, Grace,
• Silence, Mind,
• Truth, Man,
• Ecclesia, and Sophia.
• From this ogdoad evolve all lower realms of
  being.
• An important aspect of Gnosticism is found in the
  Valentinian scheme of the threefold distinction
• Pneumatic Man
• Noetic/Psychic Man
• Somatic/Hylic Man.

47
The Gnostics and Other Sects

• Much of the modern revival of Gnosticism is
  patterned after the Valentinian system.
• This may be due to the fact that this sect
  preached that once one received Gnosis, he could
  no longer sin.
• This was interpreted by many as license, or
  sanctioning, of self-indulgence and even
  hedonism.
• They were a school that had rapid growth and
  acceptance.
• This was probably due to the fact that the school
  encouraged a sense of speculation that reached
  beyond the rigid confines of conformistic
  thinking.
• Independent thinking and expression was highly
  preached and supported.
• Although the modern Church no longer recognizes
  Valentinus, he is remembered in a rather mundane
  sense by the continuing remembrance as through
  the observation of Valentine's Day.

48
The Gnostics and Other Sects

• Ptolemy (student of Valentinus 140-180) -
• Gnostic concept of divinity
• The Divine Order was constituted by 30 ages
  divided into groups of 8, 10 and 12 enumerated by
  male/female principles each possessing an active
  disposition for its underlying matter and coupled
  in the sequence which they occurred.
• The eight (Ogdoad) were as follows
• Active disposition Underlying matter
• Abyss Silence
• Intelligence Truth
• Logos Life
• From these came the ten (Decad)
• Man Church
• From these came the twelve (Dodecad)

49
The Gnostics and Other Sects

• Gnostics and Procession
• The Abyss and Silence being understood according
  to a sort of psychological analogy gave
  expression to the transcendence of the hidden
  God.
• Silence was spontaneous, ungrounded thought from
  which arose Intelligence, as the Only-begotten
  Son of the abyss and Silence
• From the union of Intelligence and Truth there
  proceeded Logos and Life, and from these came Man
  and the Church
• This concept of procession would one day become a
  mainstay in Christian thought

50
The Gnostics and Other Sects

• Gnostics and Consubstantiality
• Irenaeus (180-199) attests to the following
  personal interview
• But another one, a distinguished teacher among
  them, reaching higher and as if advancing into
  greater knowledge, explained the first four Aeons
  thus Before all is Proarche, beyond all thought,
  ineffable and unnamable, whom I call Menotes
  (unity). With this Menotes is a power, and this
  I call Henotes (oneness). With this Monotes is a
  power and this I call Henotes (oneness). This
  Henotes and Menotes, being one, emitted, without
  emitting anything, the source of all things,
  intelligent, unbegotten, and invisible. This
  source of all is given the name Monas". With
  this Monad, in turn, there is a power that is
  consubstantial (homoousios) with it, which I call
  Hen (One). These four powers Monotes, Henotes,
  Monas and Hen, emitted all the rest of the
  Aeons.
• Psychological analogy implies a kind of fourfold
  unity the first two emit the others, without
  emitting anything which provides a dialectical
  way of describing something that transcends the
  concept of emission.

51
The Gnostics and Other Sects

• Gnostics and Consubstantiality
• Ptolemy (140-180) explains a second kind of
  consubstantiality (homoousion)
• Since, as we believe and profess, the Source of
  all things is one, ungenerated and incorruptible,
  and also good since, further, the good by its
  very nature generates and produces what is most
  like itself, and of the same nature as itself
  you may wonder how both of these natures can
  exist, namely, that which is corruptible and that
  which is in a kind of middle state, since they
  are different in nature from what is
  incorruptible. Do not let this disturb you.
• Irenaeus
• The principle that every agent produces its own
  like cannot be reconciled with the successively
  lower ranking of the emissions which was a
  central feature of the Gnostic system.

52
The Gnostics and Other Sects

• Marcionism
• Heretical sect founded in A.D. 144 at Rome by
  Marcion (85-160) and continuing in the West for
  300 years, but in the East some centuries longer,
  especially outside the Byzantine Empire.
• They rejected the writings of the Old Testament
  and taught that Christ was not the Son of the God
  of the Jews, but the Son of the good God, who was
  different from the God of the Ancient Covenant.
• Marcionism first utilized the concept of
  procession in reference to the inner workings of
  God

53
The Gnostics and Other Sects

• Marcionism
• We must distinguish between the doctrine of
  Marcion himself and that of his followers.
• Marcion was no Gnostic dreamer.
• He wanted a Christianity untrammeled and
  undefiled by association with Judaism.
• Christianity was the New Covenant pure and
  simple.
• Abstract questions on the origin of evil or on
  the essence of the Godhead interested him little
• But the Old Testament was a scandal to the
  faithful and a stumbling-block to the refined and
  intellectual gentiles by its crudity and cruelty,
  and the Old Testament had to be set aside.

54
The Gnostics and Other Sects

• The first description of Marcion's doctrine
• dates from St. Justin (148-161)
• "With the help of the devil Marcion has in every
  country contributed to blasphemy and the refusal
  to acknowledge the Creator of all the world as
  God".
• He recognizes another god, who, because he is
  essentially greater (than the World maker or
  Demiurge) has done greater deeds than he. The
  supreme God is hagathos, just and righteous. The
  good God is all love, the inferior god gives way
  to fierce anger. Though less than the good god,
  yet the just god, as world creator, has his
  independent sphere of activity. They are not
  opposed as Ormusz and Ahriman, though the good
  God interferes in favor of men, for he alone is
  all-wise and all-powerful and loves mercy more
  than punishment. All men are indeed created by
  the Demiurge, but by special choice he elected
  the Jewish people as his own and thus became the
  god of the Jews.

55
The Gnostics and Other Sects

• Marcionism
• The two great obstacles in his way he removed by
  drastic measures.
• He had to account for the existence of the Old
  Testament
• He accounted for it by postulating a secondary
  deity, a demiurgus, who was god, in a sense, but
  not the supreme God
• He was just, rigidly just, he had his good
  qualities, but he was not the good god, who was
  Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
• He had to account for those passages in the New
  Testament which countenanced the Old.
• He resolutely cut out all texts that were
  contrary to his dogma in fact, he created his
  own New Testament admitting but one gospel, a
  mutilation of St. Luke, and an Apostolicon
  containing ten epistles of St. Paul.

56
The Gnostics and Other Sects

• Marcionism
• The mantle of St. Paul had fallen on the
  shoulders of Marcion in his struggle with the
  Judaisers.
• The pure Pauline Gospel had become corrupted and
  Marcion, not obscurely, hinted that even the
  pillar Apostles, Peter, James, and John had
  betrayed their trust.
• He loves to speak of "false apostles", and lets
  his hearers infer who they were.
• The Catholics of his day were nothing but the
  Judaisers of the previous century.

57
The Gnostics and Other Sects

• Marcionism
• Once the Old Testament had been completely got
  rid of, Marcion has no further desire for change.
  
• His theological outlook is limited to the Bible,
  his struggle with the Catholic Church seems a
  battle with texts and nothing more.
• The Old Testament is true enough, Moses and the
  Prophets are messengers of the Demiurge
• The Jewish Messiah is sure to come and found a
  millennial kingdom for the Jews on earth, but the
  Jewish Messiah has nothing whatever to do with
  the Christ of God.
• The Invisible, Indescribable, Good God, formerly
  unknown to the creator as well as to his
  creatures, has revealed Himself in Christ.
• Marcion makes his purely New Testament Church as
  like the Catholic Church as possible, consistent
  with his deep seated Puritanism.

58
The Gnostics and Other Sects

• Marcionism
• How far Marcion admitted a Trinity of persons in
  the supreme Godhead is not known
• Christ is indeed the Son of God, but he is also
  simply God without further qualification,
• Marcion's gospel began with the words "In the
  fifteenth year of the Emperor Tiberius God
  descended in Capharnaum and taught on the
  Sabbaths".
• However unethical his manipulation of the Gospel
  text, It is a splendid testimony that, in
  Christian circles of the first half of the second
  century
• The Divinity of Christ was a central dogma.

59
The Gnostics and Other Sects

• Marcionism
• Anticipated the more consistent dualism of
  Manichaeism (240) and was finally absorbed by it.
  
• As they arose in the very infancy of Christianity
  and adopted from the beginning a strong
  ecclesiastical organization, parallel to that of
  the Catholic Church,
• They were perhaps the most dangerous foe
  Christianity has ever known.

60
Ebionites Adoptionists

• In the 2nd century held that Jesus was simply a
  human being and a great moral teacher.
• He was no more than a man who had a special call
  from God
• They ignored the entire soteriological (salvation
  through Jesus Christ, derived from the Greek
  soter savior) doctrine of the New Testament
• They had no teaching about the Holy Spirit
• They held on to observance of the Old Law
• It is said that the Apostle John wrote his gospel
  at the request of the ministers of the several
  churches of Asia, in opposition to the heresy of
  Corinthus and the Ebionites, who held that Jesus
  was a mere man.

61
Ebionites Adoptionists

• Irenaeus (180-199) wrote Against Heresies between
  182 and 188 to engage the teaching of the
  Ebionites and the later teaching of the
  Adoptionists.
• Irenaeus makes clear that Jesus is both Son of
  God in his divinity and in his humanity.
• Jesus divinity and humanity is fully united in
  one person.
• He wrote the following Epistle on Pauls Letter
  to the Romans
• "Much more they who receive abundance of grace
  and righteousness for eternal life, shall reign
  by one, Christ Jesus." It follows from this, that
  he knew nothing of that Christ who flew away from
  Jesus nor did he of the Savior above, whom they
  hold to be impassible. For if, in truth, the one
  suffered, and the other remained incapable of
  suffering, and the one was born, but the other
  descended upon him who was born, and left him
  gain, it is not one, but two, that are shown
  forth. But that the apostle did know Him as one,
  both who was born and who suffered, namely Christ
  Jesus, he again says in the same Epistle "Know
  ye not, that so many of us as were baptized in
  Christ Jesus were baptized in His death? that
  like as Christ rose from the dead, so should we
  also walk in newness of life." He declares in the
  plainest manner, that the same Being who was laid
  hold of, and underwent suffering, and shed His
  blood for us, was both Christ and the Son of God,
  who did also rise again, and was taken up into
  heaven, Book 3 chpt. XV, XVI

62
Ebionites Adoptionists

• Hippolytus (215-235) tells of a certain Theodotus
  of Byzantium, a tanner in Constantinople, who
  acknowledged God as creator, but held Jesus was a
  mere man, though born of a virgin according to
  the divine will.
• In Theodotus view, when Jesus was baptized in
  the Jordan he didnt become God, but he received
  the power to work miracles, because a certain
  spirit, who is the heavenly Christ, descended
  upon him in the form of a dove and dwelt within
  him.
• Some of Theodotus disciples added that after his
  resurrection Jesus did in fact become God.
• Some referred to Jesus as the image of a supreme
  power named Malchisedek.

63
Ebionites Adoptionists

• The Adoptionists did not believe that Jesus was
  Gods son in his divinity, but only Gods son by
  adoption as a human being.
• Sometime later adoptionists came to be called
  dynamic monarchianists as they claimed that the
  divine power descended upon Christ at his baptism
  and again after his resurrection.
• Dynamic monarchianism stated that Jesus was an
  ordinary man, in whom had been placed a divine
  power by God (dynamis is Greek for 'power').
• Theodotus was excommunicated in AD 198, but
  disciples of his would continue the battle for
  some time to come.

64
The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus (215-217)

• Written at Rome in the early third century,
  probably by a Syrian priest, the Apostolic
  tradition contains a baptismal liturgy attributed
  to Hippolytus.
• The sacrament is administered with a threefold
  profession of faith, accompanied by a threefold
  immersion.
• The minister of the sacrament asks three
  questions, corresponding to the three articles of
  faith to each question the catechumen answers
• I believe

65
The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus (215-217)

• Do you believe in God, the Father almighty?
• Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
  who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, died and
  was buried, who on the third day rose again,
  alive, from the dead, ascended into heaven and
  took his seat at the right hand of the father,
  and shall come to judge the living and the dead?
• Do you believe in the holy Church and the
  resurrection of the body in the Holy Spirit?
• Taken as a unit, this baptismal profession
  represents a Symbol of faith, the structure of
  which is Trinitarian.
• The second article contains a more elaborate
  Christological development

66
The Gnostics and Other Sects

• Manichaeism
• The universe is the opposition of two principles,
  good and evil, each equal in relative power
• Mani was born in southern Babylon sometime around
  the year 215 or 216 CE and received his first
  revelation at the age of 12.
• Around the age of 20 he seems to have completed
  his system of thought and began missionary work
  around the year 240.
• Although he found some support early on from
  Persian rulers, he and his followers were
  eventually persecuted and he appears to have died
  in prison in 276.
• His beliefs spread as far as Egypt and attracted
  a great many scholars, including Augustine prior
  to his conversion.

67
The Gnostics and Other Sects

• Manichaeism
• Manichaeism is an extreme form of dualistic
  gnosticism.
• It is Gnostic because it promises salvation
  through the attainment of special knowledge of
  spiritual truths.
• It is dualistic because it argues that the
  foundation of the universe is the opposition of
  two principles, good and evil, each equal in
  relative power.
• Today it is not uncommon for extreme dualism in
  fundamentalist Christianity to be labeled as a
  form of modern Manichaeism.

68
Subordinationism

• The heresy that one Person of the Trinity is
  lesser in rank or dignity than others.
• A doctrine that assigns an inferiority of being,
  status, or role to the Son or Holy Spirit within
  the Trinity.
• Condemned by numerous church councils, this
  doctrine has continued in one form or another
  throughout the history of the church.
• In the early centuries, the struggle to
  understand the human and divine natures of Christ
  often led to placing the Son in a secondary
  position to the Father.
• Justin Martyr (148-161), Tertullian (197-222) and
  Origen (200-254) all evidence a certain amount of
  subordinationism in their writings.

69
Subordinationism

• This early tendency toward subordinationism,
  especially that of Origen, eventually led to
  Arianism and other systems such as Sabellianism,
  Monarchianism, and Macedonianism.
• Arius would allow no intermediary being between
  the supremacy of the One God and his creatures
• From this it followed that Christ the Word was
  less than God incarnate and was instead a
  subordinate image of the Father.
• He denied the full deity of Christ.
• In subordinationism lay the roots from which
  modern Unitarianism and related theologies were
  to spring.

70
Monarchians, Patripassians, Sebellians

• The word, Monarchiani, was first used by
  Tertullian (197-222) as a nickname for the
  Patripassian group and was seldom used by the
  ancients.
• All Christians hold the unity (monarchia) of God
  as a fundamental doctrine.
• The Monarchians properly so-called (Modalists)
  exaggerated the oneness of the Father and the Son
  so as to make them but one Person
• Thus they saw the distinctions in the Holy
  Trinity as energies or modes, not Persons
• God the Father appears on earth as Son hence it
  seemed to their opponents that Monarchians made
  the Father suffer and die.
• In the West they were called Patripassians,
  whereas in the East they are usually called
  Sebellians.

71
Monarchians, Patripassians, Sebellians

• The Patripassians used the principle of Gods
  unity to deny the Trinity.
• The first to visit Rome was probably Praxeas, who
  went on to Carthage some time before 206-208 but
  he was apparently not in reality a heresiarch
• The arguments refuted by Tertullian of Carthage
  (197-222) somewhat later in his book "Adversus
  Praxean" are doubtless those of the Roman
  Monarchians.
• Noetus of Smyrna openly denied the distinction
  between the Father and Son.
• He was attacked by Hippolytus (224-245) in his
  Against the heresy of Noetus and Refutation of
  all Heresies.

72
Monarchians, Patripassians, Sebellians

• Eusebius of Caesaria (263-340) Wrote of a
  certain Artemas who taught that Jesus was a mere
  man.
• Artemas claimed that this doctrine was the
  teaching of the apostles until around the death
  of Pope Victor (about 198)
• Eusebius relates that Origen with great skill
  converted Beryllus of Bostra who dared to assert
  that our Lord and Savior, before he moved among
  men, did not subsist as a distinct person, and
  further, that in himself he had not his own, but
  only the Fathers divinity.
• Paul of Samasota, Bishop of Antioch from about
  260-270 was condemned, in a synod held in that
  city, for his Christological doctrine. Eusebius
  says,
• He revived the heresy of Artemas.

73
Monarchians, Patripassians, Sebellians

• Sebellius was a Christian priest and theologian,
  born probably in Libya or Egypt.
• God, he held, was one indivisible substance, but
  with three fundamental activities, or modes,
  appearing successively as
• the Father (the creator and lawgiver),
• as the Son (the redeemer), and
• as the Holy Spirit (the maker of life and the
  divine presence within men).
• He went to Rome, became the leader of those who
  accepted the doctrine of Modalistic
  Monarchianism, and was excommunicated by Pope St.
  Calixtus I in 220.

74
Monarchians, Patripassians, Sebellians

• Opposing the orthodox teaching of essential
  Trinity, Sebellius advanced the doctrine of the
  economic Trinity.
• The term Sabellianism later was used to include
  all sorts of speculative ideas that had become
  attached to the original ideas of Sebellius and
  his followers.
• In the East, all Monarchians came to be labeled
  Sebellians.
• Tertullian expounded a mode of thought and
  expression which,
• while acknowledging that the Son was truly
  divine,
• did not at once eliminate all traces of
  subordinationism.

75
Subordinationism

• The Nicene fathers ascribed to the Son and Spirit
  an equality of being or essence, but a
  subordination of order, with both deriving their
  existence from the Father as primal source.
• Athanasius (295-373) insisted upon the
  co-equality of the status of the three Persons of
  the Trinity
• The Athanasian Creed declared that in the
  Trinity "none is before or after another, none is
  greater or less than another,
• Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is
  necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith.
• Augustine (354-430) that these Persons are
  co-equal and co-eternal.

76
Subordinationism

• Ancient and modern theologians have argued for a
  subordination in the role of Son and Spirit to
  the Father and cite in support such passages as
• (Matt. 1127 John 526 - 27 638 828 1428).
• Some apply a doctrine of subordination of woman
  to man on the basis of a similar relationship
  within the Trinity
• (1 Cor. 113).
• Others argue that passages that seem to teach a
  subordination of Son to the Father speak of
  Christ's voluntary humiliation when he assumed
  human form
• (Phil. 25 - 8).
• In his exaltation, however, he returned to the
  equality of the eternal relationship expressed in
  such passages as
• (John 11 517 - 23 1015, 30 Titus 213 Rom.
  95 1 John 57).

77
Of One Substance

• Tertullian Athanasius
• The reason why the Father and the Son are
  distinct from each other is that the Son is a
  substance emitted, or extruded, by the Father
• The Word of God is not empty and hollow, like a
  sound uttered by man proceeding from so great a
  substance and making such great substances, it is
  itself a substance
• It is a spirit in its own likeness, for the
  things that we call invisible have their own
  shape in Gods presence, whereby they are visible
  to him.
• Although the Son is a substance emitted, or
  extruded, from the substance of the Father, their
  intimate union of knowledge and love, and the
  non-separation of the Son from the Father
  constitutes them as one.

78
Of One Substance

• Tertullian Athanasius
• Tertullians mind is tied to images
• The Son is other than the Father because a
  substance is emitted or extruded from a substance
  and he proceeded or came out
• God is one,
• however, because
• two things are conjoined,
• two manifestations are undivided,
• two aspects cohere,
• because nothing is exiled from its source,
• and because the phases are tightly woven.

79
Of One Substance

• Tertullian Athanasius
• The difference between of one substance as used
  by Tertullian and homoousion as used by
  Athanasius
• The two set out to prove the same thesis
• That the Father is God, that the Son is God, and
  that there is only one God.
• The first Vatican council says of Athanasius that
  he inquires so diligently, piously, and soberly
  that his reason, illumined by faith, discovers
  the following rule
• All that is said of the Father is also said of
  the Son, excerpt that the Son is Son and not
  Father.
• Of Tertullian they say,
• His mind is so immersed in the sensible that for
  him a spirit is a body so confined is he to the
  sphere of the imagination that he explains the
  unity of the divine substance in terms of the
  concord of a monarchy, and a kind of organic
  undividedness and continuity

80
The Subtleties of Dogmatic Development

• The Council of Nicaea says God from God, and so
  the question can arise whether one can also say,
  substance from substance, will from will.
• In scripture the Father is the one from whom all
  things come, whereas the Son is the one through
  whom all things come (1Cor86 Col117 Heb13
  Jn13).
• The Son is the Word (Jn11-18), the wisdom of God
  (1Cor124), the image of God (2Cor44,Col115)
  and whatever can be said of Old Testament Wisdom
• If one were to infer from these passages
• That the Son was born of the Father only when the
  Father willed to create, in order to assist the
  Father in creating and governing the universe.
• One would be involved in many errors

81
The Subtleties of Dogmatic Development

• Tertullian held that the Son was Temporal
• There was a time when there was neither sin to
  make God a judge, nor a son to make God a Father.
  For the Father is the whole substance, whereas
  the Son is something derived from it, and a part
  of it, as he himself professes when he says, For
  the Father is greater than I
• He also taught that the Son is subordinate to the
  father
• The one commanding what is to be done, the other
  doing what has been commanded.
• These positions stand in clear opposition to the
  principle thesis.

82
The Subtleties of Dogmatic Development

• If the substance of the Father and that of the
  Son is one and the same substance
• therefore if the Father is eternal, so also is
  the Son
• If the Father exists for his own sake, not for
  the sake of his creatures
• no less does the Son exist for his own sake
• If the Father exists necessarily
• then the Son exists necessarily
• If the Father and the son share one substance
• so in reality they also share a single will
• So the Son cannot be some object, really distinct
  from the Fathers will, and arising out of a
  decision of the Fathers will.

83
Arianism

• First among the doctrinal disputes which troubled
  Christians after Constantine had recognized the
  Church in A.D. 313, and the parent of many more
  during some three centuries
• Arianism occupies a large place in ecclesiastical
  history.
• It is not a modern form of unbelief, and
  therefore will appear strange in modern eyes.
• We better grasp its meaning if we term it an
  Eastern attempt to rationalize the creed by
  stripping it of mystery so far as the relation of
  Christ to God was concerned.

84
Arianism

• The roots of Arianism are traced back to Lucian
  of Antioch founder of the exegetical school at
  Antioch, who favored subordinationism
• Lucian spent a long time outside the Church but
  then apparently underwent a conversion and died a
  martyrs death in 312
• Arius studied under Lucian but what Lucians
  exact teaching were are lost in history
• Arius eventually bec