Heresies (Christological, etc.)

Question 1

Docetism

Answer 1

Jesus is wholly divine, his manhood is an illusion. The divine Christ could not take part in evil flesh and only “seemed” (doceo, Gk. “to seem”) to be a man. The “Christ” departed from the man Jesus before the crucifixion.

Question 2

Modalistic Monarchianism [Sabellianism, Patripassionism]

Answer 2

God is one and at different times has changed his mode of being or roles as Father, Son or Holy Spirit. There is no permanent distinction between Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Question 3

Apollinarianism

Answer 3

Jesus is fully God but only partially a man. Christ did not have a human mind or will but only a divine nature that controlled his human flesh.

Question 4

Ebionitism

Answer 4

God is one. Jesus is a special prophet much like prophets in the Old Testament.

Question 5

Dynamic Monarchianism [Adoptionism]

Answer 5

At his birth or baptism, God adopted the human Jesus to be his son and gave him special power (Gk. dynamis, “power”)

Question 6

Arianism

Answer 6

the Word (logos) was created by God before time (“There was a time when he was not.”). The Word was God’s agent in creating the world. Jesus is less than God by more than a man.

Question 7

Monophysitism [Eutychianism]

Answer 7

Jesus has only one nature. Jesus’manhood absorbed by his divine nature.

Question 8

Nestorianism

Answer 8

Jesus has two natures and two persons. The divine Christ and the human Jesus lived together in Jesus Christ.

Question 9

Orthodoxy’s Answer to Christological Heresies

Answer 9

Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. Christ has both a divine and human nature in one person “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”

Question 10

Gnostics

Answer 10

Secret knowledge is the key to salvation and is reserved for the enlightened; dualism - spirit is good / body is evil; Christ was pure spirit; his body was phantom/ghost;

Question 11

Marcionites

Answer 11

(excommunicated by church in Rome in 144) taught by Gnostic teacher who believed God of OT (vengeful & author of evil); different God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ in NT (revealed & loving and gracious); JC wasn’t born, just appeared in synagogue at Capernaum in 29 ( similar to Docetists view); JC sufferings were apparent not real; believed (as Gnostics) that physical body was inherently evil, pro-asceticism; But didn’t support fanciful and mythological views of redemption held by Gnostics; opposed by Justin Martyr and Tertullian (“Against Marcion” in 207).