Early church heresies

Early heresies

The early centuries of the church were troubled by a number of heresies.

Montanism

Montanus was a rouge prophet who travelled around with two prophetesses, called Priscilla and Maximilla.   He believed that he was a mouthpiece for the Holy Spirit.  One of the mistakes he made was to say when Jesus would return.  Of course, when Jesus did not return at that time he was discredited.  Take note that there have been people in very generation of the church who have believed that they know the date of Jesus’ return.  Remember that Jesus says that the day and the hour are unknown to us (Matthew 25:13).  

One of Montanus’s distorted ideas was to break up the Bible into three periods.  He associated the Old Testament with the Father, the New Testament with the Son and now as the age of the Spirit.

Don Carson points out that it appears that the gift of tongues was extremely rare after the beginning of the second century until the beginning of the twentieth century.  However, the gift of prophesy was known and cherished in the church until the rise of Montanism.  He suggests that it is probable that prophecy waned with the rise of Montanism because the church was seeking to protect itself against Montanists extravagant claims.  The Montanists are accused of claiming that their prophecies superseded the writings of the apostles.  Interestingly the allowed women bishops, but made virgin girls wear veils.  

Montanism persisted in some isolated places until the 6^th century.

Sabellianism

Sabellianism is a form of modalism.  What is modalism?  Modalism is the idea that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are simply the one God appearing in different forms at different times.  There is a children’s talk that thinks of God as being like ice, water and steam.  But if we are not careful that children’s talk can sound like it is teaching modalism.  Modalism seems to be taught today in a teaching that is referred to as ‘oneness’ Pentecostalism.  

Gnosticism

Gnosticism comes for a word meaning ‘to know’ (‘gnosis’).  One of the key teachings of Gnosticism was dualism—a sharp distinction between the material and the spiritual.  The material world was seen as evil and the soul was seen as good.  Some responded to this with asceticism—denying pleasures to their bodies.  Although others responded to this teaching by saying, ‘if the body is not valuable, I can do with it whatever I want including any sinful indulgence I want.’

A quote went around Facebook recently which was attributed to C. S. Lewis (although apparently C. S. Lewis did not say this) was, ‘you are not a body with a soul, but a soul with a body.’  Such thinking, however, is dualistic, and is in danger of suggesting that the body is not important to Christians.

Gnosticism also emphasised the idea of being initiated into a secret knowledge.  I think the desire of special knowledge, that makes you feel superior to lesser people who do not know it, lies behind the attraction to many conspiracy theories we have today.