The Apostolic Fathers: Orthodoxy and Heresy

The Catholic Tradition of the Church

The meaning of the word catholic

Protestants sometimes hesitate to employ this word on account of its general association with the Roman Catholic Church.

The English word catholic is derived from the Greek word katholika, meaning “universal.”

The term catholic church refers to that church Christ has promised to found and to preserve, a church rich in heritage and tradition.

The meaning of the word tradition

Three different uses of the word tradition

To talk about a school of interpretation about the Bible (e.g. Calvinist interpretation of Scripture)

The word tradition took on another meaning in the ancient church: the teachings of the Apostles preserved in the life of the church but not in Scripture.

Some would later assert that this tradition is authoritative and supplementary to Scripture.

Protestantism rejects the notion of tradition possessing the same authority as Scripture.

To refer to a new tradition that is embraced and taught as if ancient on account of papal authority

This study uses the word tradition to refer to the universal study and understanding of the Bible as it emerged in the ancient church period.

As inheritors of a long, thoughtful tradition, Protestants sometimes take for granted the investment and effort their predecessors employed to explain difficult doctrines in concise, lucid ways.

The doctrines of the Trinity, Christology, and missions and the canon of the New Testament that we embrace today proceed from the ancient church.

The majority of what we embrace concerning the doctrines of the church, sacraments, ministry, worship, and salvation were expounded from Scripture by the ancient church.

iii. A study of the ancient church will reveal how their understanding of Scripture, right and wrong, has helped the current church.

The Pagans and the Apologists

The Expansion of the Church into the Greco-Roman World

The Romans believed themselves civilized, enlightened, and superior to those they conquered.

The Romans enforced their system of law and equity onto others for the betterment of civilization.

Christianity, a minority belief founded by Jews, was not esteemed highly by the Greco-Roman people who boasted in predecessors such as Plato and Aristotle.

As the government of Rome increasingly transitioned from republican rule to imperial rule during the first century, the Roman people began to look for satisfaction outside of imperialism, particularly in new religions.

The Romans were attracted to ancient claims of truth because they believed that truth must have been known from long ago.

Ancient Greek philosophers and Egyptian gods fascinated them as symbols and guides to truth.

Judaism received a special kind of fascination, for it claimed its origin at creation.

There was great Jewish missionary activity at the time of Jesus.

Higher ranking Romans tended to look poorly on these missionary endeavors.

Christianity faced a very difficult task as it sought to spread throughout the empire: Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah and founder of Christianity, had just died decades earlier

The early church suffered from confusion, immorality, and attacks from outside its walls. This sparked the first wave of theologians: the apologists.

The apologists rose up to defend the faith against heretics and pagan criticism.

Justin Martyr (“the Martyr”), a second century (100-165 AD) Christian apologist trained in pagan philosophy and eventually beheaded for his faith, exemplifies the Christian apologists of his day.

Justin and other apologists mocked pagan mythology and illuminated its absurdities, depravation, and contradictions.

The Christian faith, founded in the Old Testament and fulfilled in Jesus, boasted a spiritual faith that was morally, intellectually, and spiritually superior, and these truths made inroads into the Roman population amid the corrupt paganism that was faltering around them.

Gnosticism and Iranaeus

Gnostics, a heretical group in the early church, claimed to possess a special, superior knowledge to the apostolic message.

The word Gnosticism is derived from the Greek word for knowledge, gnosis.

The Gnostics boasted that they possessed a special knowledge distinct and superior to the message of the early church. While there were divergent factions within the Gnostic movement, they all promised a special knowledge unique to their sect.

The secret knowledge every faction of Gnosticism claimed ultimately promised a deeper spirituality to the adherent that denied the importance of history and the physical body.

The promise of a special knowledge appealed to many.

The similarity between these views and ancient Greek philosophers, such as Plato and his followers, also held allure to the Greco Roman world.

The Gnostics claimed to bring the true message of Jesus Christ, and the church needed to respond to this heresy.

Irenaeus

Irenaeus was born circa AD 130 and became a bishop in Southern France, probably dying as a martyr around the year AD 200.

Irenaeus, one of the great theologians of the early church, answered the heresy of the Gnostics, particularly in his work Against All Heresies.

Irenaeus argued that the true eternal God had created the physical world, and He created it good.

Many Gnostics claimed that a lesser god had created the physical world, and he had not created it good. Consequently, physicality was something to overcome.

Irenaeus argued against this, and he claimed that God had created us to be physical beings living in a history shaped by God for redemptive purposes. This trustworthy message may be found in Scripture.

Irenaeus also implored people to seek counsel from local bishops in the church, not from Gnostic teachers.

The term bishop did not carry the same understanding in Irenaeus’ day as it does today.

A bishop in the early church was a teacher and a pastor, primarily over a local church.

Irenaeus called Christians to seek good, reliable preaching from Scripture by their local pastor.

The church later misunderstood Irenaeus’ advice and attributed too much authority to the bishop.

Montanism and Tertullian

Montanism claimed that God was still working through the Holy Spirit to provide a prophetic word to the church.

This theory was developed by Montanus, a Christian in the early church who developed this line of thought in a desire to protect the church from heresy.

Although in line with apostolic Christianity in many ways, the desire to possess certainty led the Montanists away from the surety of Scripture. Furthermore, it created within their movements strictures even greater than the apostolic church.

Out of this movement, or better to say into this movement, went Tertullian, one of the great thinkers of the early church.

Tertullian

Tertullian lived at the end of the second century and into the early third century, and he become one of the great Latin thinkers and writers in the early church.

Tertullian wrote and utilized Latin masterfully, a tool admired in his day.

Although Tertullian advanced the cause of Christianity greatly in defense of its doctrines against heresy, his rigorist nature drew him to the Montanist sect.

Tertullian wrote against many different forms of heresy, and he constantly called the church to separate itself from worldly endeavors.

Tertullian wrote many treatises on practical living for the Christian.

Although Tertullian died a Montanist schismatic, the ancient church still appreciated and identified with much of his insightful theology.

Origen and Asceticism

Origen, a child of Alexandria, a city in Egypt considered one of the most important centers for commerce and learning in the ancient world, was a pioneer of the early church who lived through the end of the second century and into the beginning of the third.

Alexandria possessed a vital Christian community, and it conducted a school for catechumens (converts who had not yet been baptized).

The school had been around since the second century.

Origen taught these catechumens.

Origen desired to move beyond teaching catechism and wanted to develop a systematic theology in order to serve the church and to keep it from heresy.

Origen served the church by arguing against many of its critics.

Celsus, a pagan, Platonist philosopher, argued that the church consisted of stupid individuals trying to get the attention of God by making a lot of noise.

Origen responded to this elitist attitude by saying that Celsus was correct: you don’t have to be much to come to Christ, and all people may come to Jesus to find forgiveness of their sins and transformation into new life.

Origen developed a three-fold path of sanctification.

The first stage begins with illumination, at which an individual is converted and gains the mind capable of being informed.

The second stage is called purgation, which involves putting off sin and even our attachments to good things. The Platonic influence of over spiritualization crept into Origen’s understanding of sanctification.

After illumination and purgation occur, the soul then may reach union with God, at which point the soul is immediately connected to God.

This notion is a bit ambiguous, but it demonstrates the over-emphasis on spirituality to which Origen fell prey.

This emphasis on spirituality led to the increase of asceticism in the early church, which called for Christians to cut themselves off from connections to this life and all of its values.

Asceticism

The word asceticism derives from the Greek word meaning discipline, but it came to have the sense of discipline as denial.

The term asceticism was related to the discipline of an athlete preparing for a contest.

Asceticism came to be understood as discipline for running the race of Christ by denial.

This view led to a dichotomy between the commands of God and the counsels of Jesus.

Every Christian must follow the commands of God.

Those who are really spiritual keep the counsel of Jesus that he didn’t give to all Christians, but just some.

Out of this ascetic view emerged three key elements of denial—chastity, poverty, and obedience.

Late in the second century and into the middle of the third century there developed a movement of Christians who felt that true spirituality arose from a radical asceticism.

This radical asceticism produced hermits who lived alone in the wilderness, and ultimately these ascetics gathered into communities, forming the first monastic communities and beginning this movement.

By the late ancient period, the clergy, in an attempt to model this spiritualism, began to practice asceticism, eventually resulting in the Roman Catholic mandate that all clergy take a vow of celibacy.

These principles of asceticism grow out of Origen and others who over-emphasized and misunderstood the nature of spirituality amongst God’s people.

Origen was a pioneer for the faith, and although he forged many faulty trails, he raised many wonderful questions and powerful insights.