Early Heresy – Part 2
February 9, 2003
Dear Friends,
Last week we began to answer the question of “when heresy officially began and when the church strayed from the ‘true’ church.” We stated that of the three major heresies, Judaizing, Gnosticism and Platonism, we hope to focus on the latter two. Two resources that developed to combat these heretical movements were the canonization of the New Testament and the institution of a professional clergy.
One last measure that was taken was to create a Statement of Faith or “Rule of Faith.” This statement started out very simple and benign, but gradually grew and metastasized to destroy the ecclesia it was designed to protect. Irenaeus declared that the whole church “believes in one God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and the seas and all that is therein, and in one Christ Jesus the Son of God, who was made flesh for our salvation, and in the Holy Spirit who through the prophets preached the dispensations and the comings and the virgin birth and the passion, and the rising from the dead and the assumption into heaven in his flesh of our beloved Lord Jesus Christ, and his coming from heaven in the glory of the Father. ..to raise up all flesh.”(1) This simple statement is interesting in comparison to what it would become in successive years.
The point worth noting at this step in the process, the seeds had been sown for apostasy in the authoritative clergy and the statements of faith even though the initial implementations were not offensive. A system was developing in which the few could control the many. This set the stage for the death blow of Platonism.
Platonism, of course, is the teachings of the renowned Greek philosopher Plato who was born approximately 428 BC. The first major proponent of Platonism in the church was Justin Martyr (100-165). According to Henry Chadwick, “The future lay with the programme first announced by Justin Martyr, by which the church would make common cause with Platonic metaphysics and Stoic ethics…”(2) The Gnostics had used the philosophy of Plato to prove their abhorrent doctrine, and now Justin intended to turn the tables on them.
Henry Chadwick relates Justin’s “conversion” as follows: “Justin….as a young man went to Ephesus to study philosophy. He described his quest, in a form which owes something to literary embellishment but may well have a substratum of truth, in his Dialogue with Trypho. He began with a Stoic tutor – still at this period the most popular philosophy – but passed on to an Aristotelian teacher, who disillusioned him by an unphilosophical anxiety about his fee; he then went to a Pythagorean, and finally to a Platonist with whom he was well content, principally because of the religious and mystical side of Platonic aspirations. Plato had written in ecstatic language of the soul’s vision of God. But while meditating in solitude on the seashore Justin met an old man who refuted the Platonic doctrine of the (immortal) soul, and proceeded to tell him about the prophets of the Old Testament who foretold the coming of Christ. Justin was converted, but did not understand this to mean the abandonment of his philosophical inquiries, nor even his renunciation of all that he had learnt from Platonism.” (3)
We will pick up again next week, Lord willing, with “Saint” Justin Martyr, as he is now known. His unabashed dream of blending pagan culture, Greek philosophy and Christianity was soon to be realized although it would still take another fifty years to become official.
Have a great week!
(1) Henry Chadwick, The Early Church (1986) Dorset Press. pg. 44
(2) Ibid., p. 69
(3) Ibid., pg. 75
