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History of the Christian Church* a Grace Notes course History of the Christian Church By Philip Schaff CH212 Volume 2. Second Period – Ante-Nicene Christianity, A.D. 100 - 311 Chapter 12: The Development of Catholic Theology in Conflict with Heresy History of the Christian Church CH212 Volume 2. Second Period, Ante-Nicene Christianity, AD 100 - 311 Chapter 12: The Development of Catholic Theology in Conflict with Heresy Table of Contents Chapter 12. The Development of Catholic Theology in Conflict with Heresy ..................................3 2.137. Catholic Orthodoxy .................................................................................................................. 3 2.138. The Holy Scriptures and the Canon ......................................................................................... 7 2.139. Catholic Tradition .................................................................................................................. 13 2.140. The Rule of Faith and the Apostles’ Creed ............................................................................ 14 2.141. Variations of the Apostles’ Creed .......................................................................................... 17 2.142. God and the Creation ............................................................................................................ 20 2.143. Man and the Fall .................................................................................................................... 22 2.144. Christ and the Incarnation ..................................................................................................... 23 2.145. The Divinity of Christ ............................................................................................................. 25 2.146. The Humanity of Christ .......................................................................................................... 28 2.147. The Relation of the Divine and the Human in Christ ............................................................. 30 2.148. The Holy Spirit ....................................................................................................................... 31 2.149. The Holy Trinity ..................................................................................................................... 33 2.150. Antitrinitarians. First Class: The Alogi, Theodotus, Artemon, Paul of Samosata .................. 36 2.151. Second Class of Antitrinitarians: Praxeas, Noëtus, Callistus, Berryllus ................................. 38 2.152. Sabellianism ........................................................................................................................... 40 2.153. Redemption ........................................................................................................................... 41 2.154. Other Doctrines ..................................................................................................................... 44 2.155. Eschatology. Immortality and Resurrection .......................................................................... 44 2.156. Between Death and Resurrection ......................................................................................... 49 2.157. After Judgment. Future Punishment ..................................................................................... 52 2.158. Chiliasm ................................................................................................................................. 54 History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 3 CH212: Volume 2, Chapter 12 a Grace Notes course Chapter 12. The Development of Catholic From this time forth the distinction between Theology in Conflict with Heresy catholic and heretical, orthodoxy and heterodoxy, the faith of the church and 2.137. Catholic Orthodoxy dissenting private opinion, became steadily I. Sources: The doctrinal and polemical writings more prominent. of the ante-Nicene fathers, especially JUSTIN Every doctrine which agreed with the holy MARTYR, IRENÆUS, HIPPOLYTUS, TERTULLIAN, scriptures and the faith of the church, was CYPRIAN, CLEMENT OF ALEX., and ORIGEN. received as catholic; that is, universal, and II. Literature: The relevant sections in the works exclusive. on Doctrine History by PETRAVIUS, MUENSCHER, NEANDER, GIESLER, BAUR, HAGENBACH, SHEDD, [Note: the word “catholic” and “church” NITZSCH, HARNACK (first vol. 1886; 2d ed. 1888). are used to refer to the universal church, JOS. SCHWANE (R.C.): Dogmengeschichte der the body of Christ, Christian believers in vornicaenischen Zeit. Muenster, 1862. general, not to the Roman or Greek churches, per se. wd] EDM. DE PRESSENSÉ: Heresy and Christian Doctrine, transl. by Annie Harwood. Lond. 1873. Whatever deviated materially from this BY the wide-spread errors described in the standard, every arbitrary notion, framed by preceding chapter, the church was challenged this or that individual, every distortion or to a mighty intellectual combat, from which corruption of the revealed doctrines of she came forth victorious, according to the Christianity, every departure from the public promise of her Lord, that the Holy Spirit sentiment of the church, was considered should guide her into the whole truth. heresy. To the subjective, baseless, and ever-changing Almost all the church fathers came out speculations, dreams, and fictions of the against the contemporary heresies, with heretics, she opposed the substantial, solid arguments from scripture, with the tradition realities of the divine revelation. of the church, and with rational demonstration, proving them inwardly Christian theology grew, indeed, as by inward inconsistent and absurd. necessity, from the demand of faith for knowledge. But in doing this, while they are one in spirit and purpose, they pursue two very different But heresy, Gnosticism in particular, gave it a courses, determined by the differences powerful impulse from without, and came as between the Greek and Roman nationality, a fertilizing thunder-storm upon the field. The and by peculiarities of mental organization church possessed the truth from the and the appointment of Providence. beginning, in the experience of faith, and in the Holy Scriptures, which she handed down The Greek theology, above all the with scrupulous fidelity from generation to Alexandrian, represented by Clement and generation. Origen, is predominantly idealistic and speculative, dealing with the objective But now came the task of developing the doctrines of God, the incarnation, the trinity, substance of the Christian truth in theoretical and Christology; endeavoring to supplant the form fortifying it on all sides, and presenting false gnosis by a true knowledge, an orthodox it in clear light before the understanding. philosophy, resting on the Christian pistis. Thus the Christian polemic and dogmatic It was strongly influenced by Platonic theology, or the church’s logical apprehension speculation in the Logos doctrine. of the doctrines of salvation, unfolded itself in this conflict with heresy; as the apologetic The Latin theology, particularly the North literature and martyrdom had arisen through African, whose most distinguished Jewish and heathen persecution. representatives are Tertullian and Cyprian, is History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 4 CH212: Volume 2, Chapter 12 a Grace Notes course more realistic and practical, concerned with Gnosis; in the second book be begins his the doctrines of human nature and of refutation in philosophical and logical style; salvation, and more directly hostile to in the third, he brings against the system the Gnosticism and philosophy. catholic tradition and the holy, scriptures, and With this is connected the fact, that the Greek vindicates the orthodox doctrine of the unity fathers were first philosophers; the Latin of God, the creation of the world, the were mostly lawyers and statesmen; the incarnation of the Logos, against the docetic former reached the Christian faith in the way denial of the true humanity of Christ and the of speculation, the latter in the spirit of Ebionitic denial of his true divinity; in the practical morality. fourth book he further fortifies the same doctrines, and, against the antinomianism of Characteristically, too, the Greek church built the school of Marcion, demonstrates the unity mainly upon the apostle John, pre-eminently of the Old and New Testaments; in the fifth the contemplative “divine;” the Latin upon and last book he presents his views on Peter, the practical leader of the church. eschatology, particularly on the resurrection While Clement of Alexandria and Origen often of the body—so offensive to the Gnostic wander away into cloudy, almost Gnostic spiritualism—and at the close treats of speculation, and threaten to resolve the real Antichrist, the end of the world, the substance of the Christian ideas into thin intermediate state, and the millennium. spiritualism, Tertullian sets himself His disciple Hippolytus gives us, in the implacably against Gnosticism and the “Philosophumena,” a still fuller account, in heathen philosophy upon which it rests. many respects, of the early heresies, and “What fellowship,” he asks, “is there between traces them up to, their sources in the Athens and Jerusalem, the academy and the heathen systems of philosophy, but does not church, heretics and Christians?” But this go so deep into the exposition of the catholic difference was only relative. doctrines of the church. With all their spiritualism, the Alexandrians The leading effort in
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