3rd CenturyDoctrine from Schismatics

"I know only one God, Jesus Christ, and apart from Him no other who was born or could suffer… It was not the Father who died but the Son.“ – Bishop Zephyrinus or Rome

HermeneuticsAlexandria Antioch

Allegorical•Plain, Historical Sense•Typological Sense•Spiritual Sense Only for the Spiritual

Literal•Plain United the Two Testaments•Typological History was God’s plan unfolding

School at Alexandria Pantaenus (d. ca. 200)

Established catechetical school in 180Former Stoic philosopher who converted

Sought to reconcile faith and philosophyPressed for the conversion of philosophers to Christianity

No works remain, only quotes by Clement and later historians. Went to India as a missionary preacher

Clement of Alexandria 150-211/216• Divided Christians into two categories

• Simple – unlearned, uneducated, physical• Relied on faith and a literal meaning

• Gnostic – educated, spiritual, mystic• Sought ‘deeper’ meanings• Must seek philosophical understanding of the bible

• Referred to Plato as divine, nearly inspired• Taught Christian universalism• Doctrine later declared erroneous by Rome (1748)• Doctrine of God, Logos and Sprit

• God is unchangeable (impassible) • Logos and Spirit are created beings

• Divided the Logos-Son from the Logos within God• Made the Logos-Son a creature• Christ gave gnosis as the cure to sin

Origen Excepted Clement’s division of Christians and universalism

Taught that even demons would be reunited with GodPlatonic in thinking that the spirits imprisoned in the body will be purified by fire

Sought symbolic truths in every letter of the ScripturesUsed the exegesis of Heracleon (Valentinus) on JohnBelieved that the word of God was an organic Logos

Taught a hierarchal structure of the TrinityTaught three separate hypostases

One only in harmony of wills (symphonia)God was a perfect unity

God is unknowable, transcendent Logos was one of many emanations of the Father

Borrowed Plato’s Logos as rational principle The Son is divine, only as He participates in the FatherAn image of first rank

Spirit proceeds from the SonHas power in the Saints alone Divine, but not Deity.

First Textual Critic for New Testament and SeptuagintBelieved that some of the Pauline Corpus was pseudonymous

Schism in Rome 199-235

• Zephyrinus, Bishop of Rome, 199-217• Recognized by Rome as carrying the Tradition of the Church• Believed in the unity of the Godhead and the Godhead of Jesus

Christ• Believed in one God, Jesus Christ

• Denied Patripassianism in that the Son died, not the Father• Regarded the rising Logos doctrine as ditheism

• Protected Sabellius• His actual views were recorded by opponents

• Believed that God revealed Himself in different modes, or manifestations

• Modern Scholarship aligns Sabellius with Irenaeus• God was one Person

• Sabellianism lasted until 5th century in Rome and Asia Minor

• Hippolytus, Schismatic ‘Antipope’• Wrote against Noetus as means to Zephyrinus

• Believed that the Father died because the Son was the Father• Called Christ the one God• Smyrna Church condemned Noetus in 180• Noetus’ disciple, Cleomenes, influenced Zephyrinus

• Declared Heraclitus as the progenitor of all heresies• Doctrine of the Godhead

• Three personages• The Father

• First writer to apply parental rule to Father• Son

• Preincarnate Word• Incarnate Son

• Spirit• Reconciled with Rome before his death in 236

Montanism • Montanism

• Began early 2nd Century• Founded in Hierapolis (Papias)

• Focused on the holy Spirit• Spirit was just now being given to the Church• Montanus claimed to be the Word of God• Claimed new revelations • The belief that the prophecies of the

Montanists superseded and fulfilled the doctrines proclaimed by the Apostles

• Died out in 8th century• Sect of Sabellian-Montantists existed in 5th century

Rome

Schism from Africa • Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus (Tertullian)

• Orthodox until 200 then Montanist (Schism)• Never reconciled with Rome• Not mentioned in Nicene Debates

• Had a strong distaste of Greek Philosophy• Introduced new theology into the church during Montanist phase

• Trinity• tres Personae, una Substantia

• Damasus, Bishop of Rome (366-384) redefined statement to reflect Nicene formula

• Consubstantia (One Person)• God is indivisible, distinct only in manifestation

• Word (Reason) was always with the Father• Generation from Eternity• Preincarnate Word• Incarnate Son

• Spirit proceeded from the Son

• Praxeas• Unknown• Believed to be associated with Rome• Some Scholars believe him to be Irenaeus

others Callistus, Bishop of Rome• Name found as a corrector of Noetus

• Opposed by Tertullian• Prevented Rome from falling to the ‘New

Prophecy.’• Christ was the Father incarnate, Jesus died only

in His humanity as the Son• Jesus was the name of the flesh; Christ was

the divine

Tertullian’s Formula"tres Personae, una Substantia“ – Three Persons, One Substance

Latin Greek

Substantia(Person)

Hypostasis(Person)

Personae (Face)

Prosopon(Face)

For the Father is the entire substantia, but the Son is a derivation and portion of the whole. Against Praxeas 9

Cyprian of Carthage• Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage

• Defended against Rome’s ascendency to power• Accused Stephen of breaking tradition

and assuming power• Fault against Roman Baptism

• Rome baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ

• Believed that the Church was one single unit• No Salvation outside the church

• Church united through the Bishops• Refused Doctrinal Development

Dyo-DionysiusPope Dionysius of Alexandria, named 'the Great', was the Pope of Alexandria from 248 until his death on November 17, 265 after seventeen years as a bishop. He was the first Pope to have the title "the Great" attached to his name (before a Bishop of Rome even). We have information on Dionysius because during his lifetime, Dionysius wrote many correspondence letters. Only one original letter survives to this day, the remaining letters are found re-written in the works of Eusebius.

Dionysius of Rome ,Grecian by birth, was elected bishop in 259, after the martyrdom of Sixtus II in 258. The office had been vacant for nearly a year due to difficulty in electing a new bishop during the violent persecution which Christians faced. When the persecution had begun to subside, Dionysius was raised to the office of Bishop of Rome. Emperor Valerian I, who had led the persecution, was captured and killed by the King of Persia in 260. The new emperor, Gallienus, issued an edict of toleration, bringing the persecution of Christians to an end and giving the Church legal status. On the protest of some of the faithful at Alexandria, he demanded from the bishop of Alexandria, also called Dionysius, explanations concerning his doctrine regarding the relation of God to the Logos, which was satisfied.

D. Of Rome to D. of Alexandria •“Next, I may reasonably turn to those who divide and cut to pieces and destroy that most sacred doctrine of the Church of God, the Divine Monarchy, making it as it were three powers and separated substances (hypostaseis) and three deities. I am told that some among you who are catechists and teachers of the Divine Word, take the lead in this tenet, who are diametrically opposed, so to speak, to Sabellius’s opinions; for he blasphemously says that the Son is the Father, and the Father the Son, but they in some sort preach three Gods, as dividing the sacred Monad into three substances (hypostaseis) foreign to each other and utterly separate.

•For it is the doctrine of the presumptuous Marcion, to sever and divide the Divine Monarchy into three origins,—a devil’s teaching, not that of Christ’s true disciples and lovers of the Saviour’s lessons.

•For if He came to be Son, once He was not; but He was always, if (that is) He be in the Father, as He says Himself, and if the Christ be Word and Wisdom and Power (which, as ye know, divine Scripture says), and these attributes be powers of God.

•Neither then may we divide into three Godheads the wonderful and divine Monad

Paul of Samosata

• Paul of Samosata (200-275)• Godhead• Jesus was a mere man, but became God after

baptism• Man-become-God by the Logos

• Removed in 269 by a synod of Antioch• Reinstalled by the Queen of Syria