Heresies In The Early Church

The Heresies of the Early Church

The Christian Church has been threatened time after time because of heresies made throughout history. A heresy in Christianity is any declaration that clearly defies Christian doctrine. While heresies are still common today, their roots date back to early beginnings of the Church, and they ultimately gave the Christian Church a strong foundation to stand on. Without these dangers to the faith, the Church would not have solidified its doctrine until later, which could have resulted in more unnecessary turmoil in the Church’s history.

The Primary Heresies

While there are a great number of heresies in the Church’s history, it’s important to focus of those that caused the greatest unease, and, in response, those

The issue that made this heresy known was at the consecration of Bishop Caecilian of Carthage in 311 AD. Felix, one of the three bishops who were performing the consecration, was considered a traditor, and a group of bishops said that the consecration was invalid (Slick, Donatism). This idea of invalidating Christian leaders based upon their morality became popular in Northern Africa. Many followers were upset that their Christian brothers had died while other leaders of the church appealed to the enemy and were set free. These people did not want the traditors to lead their churches.

With Caecilian’s consecration “invalid” the group of bishops named Majorinus their bishop. His successor was Donatus, who declared that anyone who relapsed could not perform sacraments, and if they did, it would be invalid (earlychrisianhistory.info). This caused for heated dueling between the “Donatists” and the rest of the Church. The interesting thing about Donatism is that despite its doctrinal issue, the church was nearly identical. While there were two bishops, the two churches had similar services and

Arius had trouble gaining many bishops, while Alexander and his apprentice, Athanasius, had led the entire council. Eusebius of Nicomedia sided with the Arians, who stated that Jesus is not God, but a creation. Eusebius of Caesarea drew up a creed that would eventually become the Nicene Creed, the profession of the Christian faith, common to Catholics and Eastern Orthodox alike (Wilhelm, The Nicene Creed). This is ever significant, for it made a steadfast doctrine evermore important to Christians. Language was also a factor in the Council of Nicea. Because the scripture had to be translated, the Arians argued for every verse that they could. They would argue that the original texts would mean something different than the translated version (Williams, Arianism). The bishops were then tested to see who believed what. Did God create Jesus, or were Jesus and God one in the same? All but 6 bishops agreed to the latter, to which 4 later gave in (Williams, Arianism). Emperor Constantine attended as well, and he too agreed to the traditional Christian terms. He exiled Eusebius of