Session 4 – The Early Church Apologists

We will look at many of the church fathers who fought against heresies

Many things that we will look at are relevant to today and heresies that are still around

Keep in mind! During everything we will go over there was great persecution going on

Justin Martyr (100-165 A.D.)

Justin Martyr is the best known 2nd century apologist in the

early church

He was a Greek Philosopher who was trained in stoic philosophies and others

He was not raised a Christian, but converted to Christianity after he had his Greek education

Justin Martyr debated publically with Christians and Non-Christians on issues

of apologetics and the faith

His works include:

Discourse to the GreeksOn the Resurrection

On the Sole Government of GodHortatory Address to the Greeks

Dialogue with TryphoSecond Apology

First Apology

His first Apology was written to the emperor

His second Apology was written to the senate

He was writing due to persecution of the church, he argued that Christians

were good citizens

Two other works he wrote are called Against all Heresies and Against Marsion

Marsion was on the Gnostic side of things

He believed the God of the OT and the God of the NT (Jesus) are different Gods

He believed the OT God created matter (which is evil) and he believes Jesus is the good God

He was not a fan of the Old Testament

He did not believe in the Bodily resurrection due to his Gnostic teachings (we’ll discuss later)

He made his on Canon (including Luke and Paul)

Justin Martyr tried to find common ground with a lot of Greek thinking

He used his Greek education in his apologetic, and looked for areas where Greek thinking and

the Bible overlap

This was seen as bad by some church fathers, and even today we have debates on how we should do apologetics, and what resources

we can utilize

Tertullian (155–230 A.D.)

Tertullian argues that Christians are good citizens when persecution is going on

He was a Roman Lawyer, so he went on the offensive and had strong opinions often

He was not always a Christian, was born to a Roman Centurion and became a Christian at

some later time

He wrote on the problem of the lapsed

Clement of Alexandria (cir. 150-215)

Clement's first major work is titled “Exhortation to the Greeks” and is basically a call to the educated Greco-Roman society to hear the

gospel of Jesus.

His other significant apologetic is “Miscellanies,” a strange work that covers a multitude of topics

without any apparently clear outline.

What is clear in this work is that Clement is attacking the various Gnostic leaders who had

made an impact in second century Egypt, chiefly Basilides and Valentinus

“I call him truly learned who brings everything to bear on the truth, so that from geometry,

music, grammar, and philosophy itself, culling what is useful, he guards the faith against

assault.” - Clement of Alexandria

Irenaeus of Lyons (135-202 A.D.)

His primary work is Against Heresies

Full title: “Refutation and overthrow of knowledge, falsely so-called”

Eusebius uses a lot of material from Irenaeus when writings his Ecclesiastical history

Irenaeus argues against the ideas and philosophies of the Gnostics in most cases

“Error, indeed is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being thus

exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in

an attractive dress, so as, by its outward form, to make it appear to the

inexperienced more true than truth itself.” Irenaeus of Lyons

One of my favorite quotes by Irenaeus

We learn from the author himself that he grew up in the faith and actually sat at the feet of Polycarp

as a young boy (A.H. III.3,4). Eusebius gives us more from a letter of Irenaeus which no

longer survives:

"For when I was a boy I saw you in lower Asia with Polycarp....I remember the events of that time

more clearly than those of recent years. For what boys learn, growing with their mind, becomes

joined with it; so that I am able to describe the very place in which the blessed Polycarp sat as he

discoursed, and his goings out and his comings in…

and the manner of his life, and his physical appearance, and his discourses to the people, and the accounts which he gave of his intercourse with John

and with the others who had seen the Lord. And as he remembered their words, and what he heard from

them concerning the Lord, and concerning his miracles and his teaching, having received them from

eyewitnesses of the 'Word of life,' Polycarp related all things in harmony with the Scriptures...I listened to

them attentively, noting them down, not on paper, but in my heart. And continually, through God's grace, I

recall them faithfully.” (E.H. V.20,5-7)

Understanding Gnosticism

Originally many skeptics said the church fathers were exaggerating the Gnostic beliefs

Until the Nag Hammadi discovery

The Nag Hammadi Library, a collection of

thirteen ancient codices containing over fifty

texts, was discovered in upper Egypt in 1945.

This discovery includes a large number of primary "Gnostic

Gospels" -- texts once thought to have been

entirely destroyed. Scriptures such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, and the Gospel of Truth

were discovered.

These texts were written in the

second centuryThey have a very “New Age” feel

to them

Gnostic beliefs (which is a philosophy, not an organization) have some variation to them, but

all tend to agree a certain points

Gnosticism says that the material word is evil (matter is bad)

It offers secret knowledge needed to acquire salvation (which is different for them)

They believed the spirit is trapped inside the body

Origen of Alexandria (185—254 C.E.) Who was a big name in the early church addressed Gnosticism (as did almost everyone else)

Origen said: "kind of doctrines which are believed in plain terms through the apostolic teaching are the following:- First, that God is one, who created and set in order all things, and who, when nothing existed, caused the

universe to be. He is God from the first creation and foundation of the world, the God

of all righteous men,..

…of Adam, Abel, Seth, Enos, Enoch, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, of the twelve patriarchs, of

Moses and the prophets. This God, in these last days, according to the previous announcements made through his prophets, sent the Lord Jesus Christ, first for the purpose of calling Israel, and

secondly, after the unbelief of the people of Israel, of calling the Gentiles also. This just and good God,

the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, himself gave the law, the prophets and the gospels, and he is God both of the apostles and also of the Old and

New Testaments.”

There were also proto Gnostic ideas in the first century which Paul may be addressing some

places in scripture

1 John 4:2: “By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has

come in the flesh is of God,”

There are many places in scripture where it sounds like they may be dealing with

developing Gnostic ideas

A smaller group the church had to deal with was called the Ebonites

Irenaeus addresses this group in Against Heresies

The Ebonites mean the poor, it started in Palestine and move to some other areas in Asia

They were Jewish Christians that believed Jesus was the Messiah, but not God

(more of a prophet)

They didn’t like the writings of Paul, they rejected his epistles

They emphasized the imminent return of Christ, and the literal millennium

kingdom coming to earth

They are avid followers of James and what he wrote

They were a smaller group that eventually faded away

Monarchianism was another heretical view

There were two strands of Monarchianism

The views they had have resurfaced

One view (called Modalistic Monarchianism) believes that God the father, son, and spirit

are the same person in different modes

The other view (Dynamic Monarchianism, also Adoptionism) holds to the ideas of Unitarianism

Modalistic view

Turtullian spent time speaking against this view specifically as well as others like Justin Martyr

The first person historically identified for introducing Modalism was Noetus

So disturbing was Noetus to the Christian community that Hippolytus devoted an entire work against him entitled, Against the Heresy

of One Noetus

What did Noetus say his view was?

“If therefore I acknowledge Christ to be God, He is the Father Himself, if He is

indeed God; and Christ suffered, being Himself God; and consequently the

Father suffered, for He was the Father Himself” (Against Noetus 1, in Roberts

and Donaldson, 1994: vol. 5:223; emphasis added)

“The Scriptures speak what is right; but Noetus is of a different mind from them ... Theodotus employed when he sought to prove that Christ

was a mere man…

Hippolytus of Rome, (born c. 170—died c. 235)

Hippolytus was a leader of the Roman church from about 199–217

In addressing the views of Noetus he wrote the following

But neither has the one party nor the other understood the matter rightly, as the Scriptures

themselves confute their senselessness, and attest the truth. See, brethren, what a rash and audacious dogma they have introduced, when they say without shame, the Father is Himself

Christ, Himself the Son, Himself was born, Himself suffered, Himself raised Himself. But it

is not so. The Scriptures speak what is right; but Noetus is of a different mind from them”

(Against Noetus 3, in Roberts and Donaldson, 1994: vol. 5:224).

In his First Apology, Justin Martyr also addressed this issue and said the following:

“For they who affirm that the Son is the Father, are proved neither to have become acquainted with the Father, nor to know that the Father of

the universe has a Son; who also, being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God.” (63, in

Richardson, 1970: 284-85):

This was not a minor issue to the early church like it is to most of us today

“Unity into a Trinity, placing in their order the three Persons—the Father, the

Son, and the Holy Spirit three …” (Against Praxeas 2, in Roberts and Donaldson, 1994: vol. 3:598).

Turtullian was the first to use the word trinity, and it was in addressing this issue

It’s interesting the arguments used by modalists haven’t changed since

the early church

“They [modalists] are constantly throwing out against us that we are preachers of two gods and

three gods, while they take to themselves pre-eminently the credit of being worshippers of the

One God” (Against Praxeas 3, in Roberts and Donaldson, 1994: vol. 3:599)

“In the case of this heresy,” Tertullian writes, “which supposes itself to possess the pure truth, in thinking that one cannot believe in One Only God in any other way than by saying that the Father,

the Son and the Holy Ghost are the very selfsame Person” (Against Praxeas 2, in Roberts and

Donaldson, 1994: vol. 3:598).

Adoptionism

It was a condemned heresy in the early church

In his most important work, The Refutation of All Heresies, Hippolytus speaks of the beginnings of

dynamic Monarchianism and its distinctive theology (VII:23, in Roberts and Donaldson, 1994:

vol. 5:114-15):

He writes the following addressing it:

“But there was a certain Theodotus, a native of Byzantium, who introduced a novel heresy ... he alleges that (our Lord) appeared in some such

manner as I shall now describe. (According to this, Theodotus maintains) that Jesus was a (mere)

man, born of a virgin, according to the counsel of the Father, and that after he had lived

promiscuously with all men, and had become pre-eminently religious, he subsequently at his

baptism in Jordan received Christ, who came from above and descended (upon him) in the form of a

dove...

And this was the reason (according to Theodotus) why (miraculous) powers did not

operate within him prior to the manifestation in him of that Spirit which descended, (and) which proclaims him to be the Christ. But (among the followers of Theodotus) some are disposed (to

think) that never was this man made God, (even) at the descent of the Spirit; whereas

others (maintain that he was made God) after the resurrection from the dead.

And this was the reason (according to Theodotus) why (miraculous) powers did not operate within

him prior to the manifestation in him of that Spirit which descended, (and) which proclaims him to be the Christ. But (among the followers of Theodotus)

some are disposed (to think) that never was this man made God, (even) at the descent of the Spirit; whereas others (maintain that he was made God)

after the resurrection from the dead.

This was the more popular view of the two, and still has it’s strands in “Christianity” today

Memory Verse

1 John 4:2: “By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has

come in the flesh is of God,”