Ebionites & Adoptionists

1. 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.”

2. 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 Paul’s 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

3. 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 didn’t 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.

4. Ebionites & Adoptionists The Adoptionists did not believe that Jesus was God’s son in his divinity, but only God’s 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.

5. 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”

6. 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

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. Monarchians, Patripassians, Sebellians The Patripassians used the principle of God’s 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.”

13. 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 Father’s 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.”

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. 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. 11:27; John 5:26 - 27; 6:38; 8:28; 14:28). Some apply a doctrine of subordination of woman to man on the basis of a similar relationship within the Trinity (1 Cor. 11:3). 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. 2:5 - 8). In his exaltation, however, he returned to the equality of the eternal relationship expressed in such passages as (John 1:1; 5:17 - 23; 10:15, 30; Titus 2:13; Rom. 9:5; 1 John 5:7).

18. 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 God’s 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.

19. Of One Substance Tertullian & Athanasius Tertullian’s 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.

20. 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”

21. 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 (1Cor8:6; Col1:17; Heb1:3; Jn1:3). • The Son is the Word (Jn1:1-18), the wisdom of God (1Cor1:24), the image of God (2Cor4:4,Col1:15) 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

22. 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.

23. 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 Father’s will, and arising out of a decision of the Father’s will.