Splitting apart and coming together
Extract from chapter three of Primitive Materialism
The principal heresies of the Christian Church are as follows:
The Manichaean Heresy
God the Father, not omnipotent, is opposed by a coeternal evil power.
Heresies of the Trinity
Arianism
Jesus was begotten in time and is subordinate to God the Father.
Atheism
Followers of Aetius maintained that the Father was not like the Son.
Monarchism
God is one person.
Tritheism
There are three distinct and infinite minds or substances, three co-equal and co-eternal beings all making up the Divine Essence.
Sabellianism
The Three Beings are all one and the same Being manifested under different forms. The Logos is not a person, but an attribute; it is only in a figurative sense that the Word is a Son.
Adoptionism
Christ was adopted as the Son by the Father. Denies that God the Father made the physical world. Christ incarnated in Jesus at the baptism and left him at the crucifixion.
Homooiousian
God the Son is similar to the Father but not identical in substance.
Heresies of Revelation
Montanism
There can be new revelations of the Holy Spirit.
Marcionism
Rejects the Old Testament.
Ebionite
Jewish Christian movement based at Pella after the destruction of the Temple. Jesus was revered as the greatest of the prophets but not the Logos or Son of God.
Heresies of Apostolic Succession
Novatianism
Refused readmission into the Church those who apostatised during the persecution of Decius.
Donatism
Africa and Church of Carthage. Refused to accept sacraments from those who apostatised during the persecution of Diocletian.
Heresies of the Incarnation
Monophysitism
Christ has only one divine nature.
Docetism
The human form of Jesus is a phantom. Jesus was the Aeon or Emanation of the Deity; he assumed human form and appeared mortal but was not. At the Crucifixion the Christ returned to the spirit, and left Jesus to suffer.
Apollinarianism
Jesus had a human body and human emotions, but a divine mind.
Heresy of Eutyches
Christ has not derived his body from the substance of the Virgin.
Monothelitism
Christ has two natures, but only one will.
Coptic
Christ has one nature from two natures – miaphysite – one composite nature from two.
Nestorianism (Dyophysitism)
Christ has two natures, human and divine. The Blessed Virgin is the mother of Christ, but not the mother of God.
The work of Gibbon – The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire – is the record of all the pain and misery that was enacted by Western humanity in the conflict of orthodoxy and schism – the history of all the antagonisms, debates, quarrels, persecutions, beatings, humiliations, murders, massacres and wars occasioned by these differences of dogma, all committed in the name of Christianity, whose founder propounded only two laws: love God, and love thy neighbour. In this process, we must not forget the persecutions of pagans. It is not possible to reckon all the millions that died in this process, which is coextensive with the collapse of the Roman empire, with the invasions of barbarians all of whom adopted Christianity, with other wars and with pestilence, but Gibbon estimates that in the whole course of events the population of the Roman Empire collapsed from 400 million to 100 million, to which the great schisms of Christianity contributed. At the Second Council of Ephesus (449) it was chanted, “May those who divide Christ, be divided with the sword, may they be hewn in pieces, may they be burnt alive!”
The Manichaean Heresy
God the Father, not omnipotent, is opposed by a coeternal evil power.
Heresies of the Trinity
Arianism
Jesus was begotten in time and is subordinate to God the Father.
Atheism
Followers of Aetius maintained that the Father was not like the Son.
Monarchism
God is one person.
Tritheism
There are three distinct and infinite minds or substances, three co-equal and co-eternal beings all making up the Divine Essence.
Sabellianism
The Three Beings are all one and the same Being manifested under different forms. The Logos is not a person, but an attribute; it is only in a figurative sense that the Word is a Son.
Adoptionism
Christ was adopted as the Son by the Father. Denies that God the Father made the physical world. Christ incarnated in Jesus at the baptism and left him at the crucifixion.
Homooiousian
God the Son is similar to the Father but not identical in substance.
Heresies of Revelation
Montanism
There can be new revelations of the Holy Spirit.
Marcionism
Rejects the Old Testament.
Ebionite
Jewish Christian movement based at Pella after the destruction of the Temple. Jesus was revered as the greatest of the prophets but not the Logos or Son of God.
Heresies of Apostolic Succession
Novatianism
Refused readmission into the Church those who apostatised during the persecution of Decius.
Donatism
Africa and Church of Carthage. Refused to accept sacraments from those who apostatised during the persecution of Diocletian.
Heresies of the Incarnation
Monophysitism
Christ has only one divine nature.
Docetism
The human form of Jesus is a phantom. Jesus was the Aeon or Emanation of the Deity; he assumed human form and appeared mortal but was not. At the Crucifixion the Christ returned to the spirit, and left Jesus to suffer.
Apollinarianism
Jesus had a human body and human emotions, but a divine mind.
Heresy of Eutyches
Christ has not derived his body from the substance of the Virgin.
Monothelitism
Christ has two natures, but only one will.
Coptic
Christ has one nature from two natures – miaphysite – one composite nature from two.
Nestorianism (Dyophysitism)
Christ has two natures, human and divine. The Blessed Virgin is the mother of Christ, but not the mother of God.
The work of Gibbon – The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire – is the record of all the pain and misery that was enacted by Western humanity in the conflict of orthodoxy and schism – the history of all the antagonisms, debates, quarrels, persecutions, beatings, humiliations, murders, massacres and wars occasioned by these differences of dogma, all committed in the name of Christianity, whose founder propounded only two laws: love God, and love thy neighbour. In this process, we must not forget the persecutions of pagans. It is not possible to reckon all the millions that died in this process, which is coextensive with the collapse of the Roman empire, with the invasions of barbarians all of whom adopted Christianity, with other wars and with pestilence, but Gibbon estimates that in the whole course of events the population of the Roman Empire collapsed from 400 million to 100 million, to which the great schisms of Christianity contributed. At the Second Council of Ephesus (449) it was chanted, “May those who divide Christ, be divided with the sword, may they be hewn in pieces, may they be burnt alive!”
Questions
1. Why is Christianity prone to so many heresies?
2. Is it time to "live and let live" and allow Christianity to become a religion of many views, without dogmas? Can one be a Christian and a heretic? Is it time to divest heresy of its odious connotations?
3. Do in fact Christians believe in their dogmas?
4. Assuming that Gibbon attributes in part the decline of the Roman empire to the negative influence of Christianity, was he right to castigate Christianity for this historical development?
2. Is it time to "live and let live" and allow Christianity to become a religion of many views, without dogmas? Can one be a Christian and a heretic? Is it time to divest heresy of its odious connotations?
3. Do in fact Christians believe in their dogmas?
4. Assuming that Gibbon attributes in part the decline of the Roman empire to the negative influence of Christianity, was he right to castigate Christianity for this historical development?
Second extract
The heresy that Christianity is only brotherly love may seem to come relatively late in the history of the West – as late as the Nineteenth Century. In philosophy it may be traced to Kant, and in theology to Kierkegaard. Mention may be made of the romantic movement, and in the English literary tradition particularly of William Blake. Charlotte Bronte is significant.[1] In so far as George Eliot is a Christian, she also fits into this pattern, which is that of a Christianity seeking Christian duty and love rather than perpetuating hostility towards the body. Human passion, and manifestations of bodily desire, appear in works of romanticism as pure and necessary correctives to the will-to-dominate. Thackeray also subscribes. In the Russian tradition, Dostoyevsky belongs to this movement. (Tolstoy is backward looking.) It is possible to read Nietzsche in this way. This heresy has been practised throughout the history of the Christian Church – though passing unnoticed, because the adherents did not come into open conflict with the dogmas. Shakespeare was a member of this party; Milton defended the purity of sexual love at least in the prelapsarian state.
Perhaps the most important of these heretics is Immanuel Kant, whose Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason (1793) is the implicit starting point of discussion. Kant believed in a single universal religion that was accessible to reason alone: “religion – to be universal – must always be based on bare reason.”[2] All practising religions are expressions of church faiths merely, and every church faith is valid only in so far as it approximates to the universal religion. The central doctrine of universal religion is the duty ethic of brotherly love, expressed in lay terms by the command to do unto others as you would be done by, and in philosophical terms by his three variants of the categorical imperative. The entire valid content of any church faith is contained in its moral teachings.
[1] Charlotte Bronte attacks the split-consciousness psyche in the sketches of such perverse characters as Mr. Brocklehurst and St. John Eyre Rivers.
[2] Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Indianapolis/Cambridge, 2009, Trans. W.S. Pluhar, Philosophical Doctrine of Religion, p.124.
Perhaps the most important of these heretics is Immanuel Kant, whose Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason (1793) is the implicit starting point of discussion. Kant believed in a single universal religion that was accessible to reason alone: “religion – to be universal – must always be based on bare reason.”[2] All practising religions are expressions of church faiths merely, and every church faith is valid only in so far as it approximates to the universal religion. The central doctrine of universal religion is the duty ethic of brotherly love, expressed in lay terms by the command to do unto others as you would be done by, and in philosophical terms by his three variants of the categorical imperative. The entire valid content of any church faith is contained in its moral teachings.
[1] Charlotte Bronte attacks the split-consciousness psyche in the sketches of such perverse characters as Mr. Brocklehurst and St. John Eyre Rivers.
[2] Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Indianapolis/Cambridge, 2009, Trans. W.S. Pluhar, Philosophical Doctrine of Religion, p.124.
Questions
1. Is the core of Christianity an ethical teaching of brotherly love?
2. Was Immanuel Kant a heretic?
3. Should modern Christianity be based upon Kant's work, Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason?
2. Was Immanuel Kant a heretic?
3. Should modern Christianity be based upon Kant's work, Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason?