Origin of Heresies

Historically, the first great question that came up in the early church had to do with the Person of Christ. This even took the forefront over the work of Christ because who He was would greatly interpret what He did.

As previously noted, most early heresies therefore based their beliefs on the assumption that Christ must be either divine or human, but not both. Because these two natures in Christ seemed to be mutually exclusive, they either held to one while rejecting or diminishing the other, or vice versa. For that reason, all early heresies either ended up under-evaluating Christ's divinity, His human nature, or both.

The origin of these early heresies must be seen in the context of the current philosophies and religious views into which Christ was born. It was during the second and third centuries that the influence of STOIC and PLATONIC thought caused some to deny the full deity of Christ. For that reason, for the first three centuries in the Christian era, religious discussion centered almost entirely on the relationship between the Father and the Son, almost to the complete neglect of the Holy Spirit. As one theologian said, "The doctrine of the two natures united in one person is the key to understanding the Biblical Christ. The alternatives which we are to encounter face-to-face are:- either, the two-natured Christ in history, or a strong delusion". (Christology and Criticism, Dr. Benjamin B. Warfield, (P 309)

However, we must be honest and quick to state that throughout our study of the two natures of Christ, as with the study of the Trinity, we are faced with an impenetrable mystery. It is one of the mysteries which the scriptures reveal but which they make no effort to explain. Christ is absolutely the most unique Person of history. As St. Augustine once said concerning the doctrine of the Trinity, “Spend your life trying to understand it, and you will lose your mind; but deny it and you will lose your soul”.