CHHI 520 - History of the Christian Church I

1. Discuss Legalism. Legalism is the belief that a simple faith in Christ as Savior is not enough for salvation. Legalists typically believe that certain laws have to be obeyed for a person to be saved, and this form of heresy was particularly true for the Jewish because they were very concerned about Gentiles coming to Christianity. The Council of Jerusalem, in Acts 15, met to decide whether a person had to become a Jew (circumcised) in order to become a Christian. The decision was that they did not. Paul also wrote to the Galatian church to respond to the Judaizers who were there. But even with these attempts, Legalism remained a problem. In the early second century, the Ebionites said that a person had to be circumcised and baptized to be saved. This specific belief started coming to an end towards the end of the second century, but Legalism has always been something of a problem for the church.

2. What was the influence of Legalism on Christianity? Because of Legalism, the church concluded that Christianity is the only religion where people are saved only by what someone else has done for them. Namely, Jesus dying on the cross provided the way by which we are all saved.

3. Discuss Gnosticism. The Gnostics were greatly concerned with the existence of evil. They thought that evil existed in physical materials (an idea from the Greeks), and this belief lasted throughout the first two centuries of the church. Remnants of Gnosticism have remained even until now, however. While the church was dealing with persecution outside the church, they had to deal with heresies within. Some of the characteristics of Gnosticism were: (1) Gnosticism was more philosophical (trying to find a world view) than theological (Gnostics were not interested in understanding the Bible), (2) it was anti-Jewish, (3) they taught that God is unknowable, (4) they taught that evil is in material things, so Jehovah God must have had some evil in Him, (5) they believed in AEONS (a movement of spirit beings in the universe from one spirit to another. They taught that Jehovah God was the result of a miscarriage by Sophia because she had tried to associate with the abyss (good spirits) when she should not have), (6) they embraced an aestheticism approach to life which meant trying to be as spiritual as possible and putting all importance on spiritual things only, and (7) they believed in an allegorical view of Scriptures (they turned many things about Jesus into allegory).

Concerning the historical development of Gnosticism, Paul wrote the church at Colosse (Colossians) about their dealing with the Gnostics. In Revelation 2:1-16, John wrote to the church of Ephesus about the Nicolaitans, and those enemies of the church might have been the Gnostics. A wealthy merchant from Pontus, named Marcion, was excommunicated from the church in 144AD for being a Gnostic. He had studied under a well-known Gnostic named Credo. Marcion had tried to identify his own Canon. In so doing, he tried to remove Luke, chapters 1 and 2, Matthew, Acts, and Hebrews. He tried to remove the Jewish stuff about Jesus and some of the things relating to His physical birth. He claimed that the original Scriptures had been obscured, but the church said no. The Canon had not been established yet, so what Marcion was doing was not entirely bad. However, he seemed to be promoting Gnostic ideals in the way that he was doing it. Valentinus was a pure Gnostic, and he wrote more about it than anyone else. Ptolemy was one of his disciples. Valentinus developed thirty-three aeons between the first pure spirit to Jesus and twenty-four aeons from Christ to Sophia. He also wrote the Gospel of Truth and the Gospel of Thomas. All of the writings for and against Gnosticism are clues that it was a big problem for the early church.

4. What were the influences of Gnosticism on Christianity? Iraenus wrote five books against heresies in general and Gnosticism in particular. Tertullian also wrote against Gnosticism. Despite these writings, Gnosticism had several impacts on the early church. Some of those were: (1) it forced the church to define itself theologically, (2) the church started forming their New Testament Canon in the second century, (3) the church began making definitive statements of faith such as the Apostle's Creed, (4) the church developed Christian schools to counter the secret Gnostic meetings, (5) on the bad side, some church people claimed to be from an authoritative line (Apostolic Succession), (6) Gnosticism paved the way for some church people to become involved in the Gnostic meetings, and (7) Gnosticism led to Monastacism which led people to monasteries and strict lifestyles to be closer to God.