1. Canon, Creeds
and Heresy
Strong Meat, Church Roots, Week Three
Early Church Part 3/3

2. • Christianity began as a Jewish sect; it
initially involved Jews who recognised the life,
death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth
as the fulfilment of the hope for a Messiah –
but soon it became clear that the new wine
was putting a strain on the old wine skins
• The first Christians didn’t have time to stop
and think; but their special identity could be
recognised by the embodiment of certain
actions

3. What actions
characterised the
early church?
• Mission
• A New Ethics
• Sacraments
• Worship
• A New Politics

4. Challenges
• Persecution
• Understanding, Explaining and
Defending the “Way” in a
hostile world (i.e. creation of
doctrine)

5. • Theological debate is at the heart of
Christianity – but it was not a leisure
activity!!! The first Christians were forced to
explain and defend what their new way of
being in the world (followers of the messiah
Jesus) against internal and external threats,
but this activity made them think deeper
about what had actually happened

6. Threats
• Death of the Apostles
• Judaism (Acts 15, council of
Jerusalem, Jamnia)
• Heresies that threatened the “new
way”

7. Ebionites
‘The Poor’
Jewish Christian sect which practiced circumcision and observed Jewish law.
Regarded Jesus as human prophet, not divine.
Gnosticism
 Most important heresy of 2nd-3rd centuries.
 Rooted in dualism of Matter (evil) vs. Spirit (good).
 Human being: divine spirit entombed in evil body.
 Salvation by secret knowledge (gnosis) – enlightens, liberates, enables spirit to escape from body
and material world.
 Ethics: either asceticism or libertinism.
 Marcion?
Docetism
 Christ is purely divine, not a real human being
 only seemed to have a real body
 did not really suffer or die
 calls into question both incarnation and atonement.
1, 2, 3 John confront Gnostic heresy of libertine type.

8. Early Christian Writings
Did Paul and the others sit down and say, “let’s add
some new parts to the Bible?”
Luke - “Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly
account of the events that have been fulfilled among us,
2
just as they were handed on to us by those
who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word,
3
I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very
first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus,
4
so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have
been instructed.
Paul – didn’t set out to write theology; he was a pastor, but had apostolic authority

9. Apostles used the authority of the Jewish Scriptures to
support their writings:
“The fourth edition of the United Bible Societies' Greek
Testament (1993) lists 343 Old Testament quotations in
the New Testament, as well as no fewer than 2,309
allusions and verbal parallels. The books most used are
Psalms (79 quotations, 333 allusions), and Isaiah (66
quotations, 348 allusions). In the Book of Revelation,
there are no formal quotations at all, but no fewer than
620 allusions."Furthermore, "the OT is quoted or alluded to
in every NT writing except Philemon and 2 and 3 John.“
(Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology)

10. Canon
Canon (scripture) = reed g measuring stick g collection
of authoritative writings by which right doctrine is measured
“sola canonica scriptura est regula fidei”
“Canonical scripture is the sole rule of faith”
(St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on John, c. 1260)

11. by the end of the 1st century Christians were
quoting Paul’s letters and the first three gospels
to defend orthodoxy: 2 Peter 3:15-16 15
Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means
salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also
wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him.
16 He writes the same way in all his letters,
speaking in them of these matters. His letters
contain some things that are hard to understand,
which ignorant and unstable people distort, as
they do the other Scriptures, to their own

12. NT – developed over several centuries, what books were
“canonical”?
Irenaeus (c.160)
Argued for a four gospel canon
Origen (c.185-254)
Our NT
minus James, 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John
added Shepherd of Hermas
Athanasius (293-373)
Easter letter 367 included modern NT books
Jerome’s Vulgate commissioned in 383
Synod of Hippo 393: NT Books and Septuagint
Council of Carthage 397 and 419
But what if they got it wrong?
“Authority precedes canonicity” (F. F. Bruce)

13. Church Leadership
But: writings only had authority because of the apostolic
authority of the authors
Did the apostolic office pass on?
Episcopal structure (rule by bishops)
Hierarchical structure emerged:
Bishop (episkopos) = 'overseer.'
Presbyters = 'elders' (priests).
Deacons = 'servants.'

14. “Heresies Exist Because Christ, the
Head of the Church, is Not Looked To,
that the Common Commission First
Entrusted to Peter is Contemned, and
the One Church and the One Episcopate
are Deserted.”
(Cyprian, The Unity of the Church, c. 200)

15. Creeds
Short statements of core beliefs to teach doctrine and
refute heresy.
 Early forms:
- Rom. 10:9 – ‘That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is
Lord”, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the
dead, you will be saved’.
- 1 Cor. 12:3 – 'Therefore I tell you no-one who is speaking by the
Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed”, and no-one can say,
“Jesus is Lord', except by the Holy Spirit”.
'Apostles’ Creed': probably pre-AD 250

16. I believe in God,the Father almighty,Creator of heaven
and earth,and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,who
was conceived by the Holy Spirit,born of the Virgin
Mary,suffered under Pontius Pilate,was crucified, died
and was buried;he descended into hell;on the third day he
rose again from the dead;he ascended into heaven,and is
seated at the right hand of God the Father
almighty;from there he will come to judge the living and
the dead.I believe in the Holy Spirit,the holy catholic
Church,the communion of saints,the forgiveness of sins,the
resurrection of the body,and life everlasting. Amen

17. The Church Fathers
Apologists & Theologians

18. • Ignatius (c. 55 – d. 98/117) - Bishop of Antioch
– Possibly a disciple of John
– Known almost exclusively through seven letters authenticated by
James Ussher (17th C.)
• Polycarp (c. 70-155/60) - Bishop of Smyrna
– Disciple of John
• Justin Martyr (c. 100 - 165) – Philosopher; First of the apologists
– Wrote Apology to the Emperor Antonius Pius
• Irenaeus (fl. c. 175-c.195) - Bishop of Lyons
– Disciple of Polycarp
– Wrote Against Heresies to combat Gnosticism

19. • Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 225)
– Powerful thinker, philosopher in Carthage; helped formalize the
Trinity
• Origen (c.185 – c.254)
– Perhaps the greatest scholar of early church
• Cyprian (c. 200/10-258)
– Wrote The Unity of the Church
• St. Anthony (c. 251 -356)
– Pioneer of anchoritic monasticism

21. Recommended Books on Church History:
• Roger E. Olson and Adam G. Smith, A Pocket
History of Theology
• Henry Chadwick, The Early Church
• Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History
• Thomas Cahill, Desire of the Everlasting Hills
• James Stevenson and W. H. C. Friends, The New
Eusebius
• Robert Webber, The Divine Embrace
• F. F. Bruce, The Spreading Flame
• Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians
• N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God