Heresies Heresy and Orthodoxy in the History of the Church
"The history of Christian theology is in large part a history of heresies, because Jesus and the claims he made . . . seemed incredible," writes the author.
User Ratings and Reviews
3 Stars Too convenient a theory
Dr. Brown at one point writes, "In a sense, the first heretics were the more sophisticated and more intellectual Christians. They were impatient with the hesitant, gradual attempts of those we now see as orthodox…" Elsewhere, he writes, "Since the early modern era, a number of historians and theologians have tried to demonstrate that the heretics – the innovators, the nonconformists, the protesters – were the truest and best imitators of Christ…" Thus, the book establishes its guidelines. Heretics are smart, sophisticated, impatient and the truest Christians. The notion is a bit too conveniently modern for my taste.
In scope, the book represents a fairly conventional 1980s historiographic tour of Christian controversies. The style is highly interpreted and psychological. Ancient text is rarely allowed to speak for itself. Post World War II archeological discoveries are ignored. The author regularly describes a world without doctrinal diversity: "The first congregations were…", "the first heretics were…", "Gnosticism was a response …"
I found Dr. Brown's analysis of the first and second centuries the most problematic. Once we start to approach the fourth century the arguments become more 2 dimensional, but one has to wonder if the relatively thoughtless start can do anything but undermine the rest.
4 Stars We Define Christian Orthodoxy by Heresies
Heresy presupposes orthodoxy as orthodoxy was there from the beginning. Orthodox in Greek simply means "right-believing" and in ascertaining, studying and defining the breadth of heresies, one gets a better idea of what constitutes the orthodox Christian faith and orthodox doctrine. This book is a chronological church history capturing the theological debates that rocked the church through the centuries.
Brown with a trenchant pen clarifies and defines those damnable heresies that strayed from Biblical Christology from Arianism to Socinianism. Quite naturally, Brown devotes his analysis of early church heresies to various anti-Trinitarian and other damnable heresies that repudiate orthodox Christology. Arianism, Gnosticism, Modalism, Monarchism, Monophysitism, and other heresies are discussed in detail. Gnosticism had its fountainhead in Alexandria, which was awash in Manichean, Dualist, and other eastern belief systems in a psuedo-Christian clothing that denied the humanity and deity of Christ's person as well as his atoning, death, burial and resurrection. Gnostics purported that the God of the Old Testament (i.e. demiurge) to be evil. Today, gnosticism has been long obscured, but is rising in popularity coincidal with a pop culture obsession with the occult. Gnosticism is explicitly anti-Christian in that it latches onto Christian clothing while disavowing all the core tenets of the Gospel. Arianism found its wellspring in the eastern church and is concomitant to the heresy of adoptionism, which disavows the eternality of Christ, and presupposes he was adopted and infused with divinity. This belief acts to undermine his deity.
It's ironic but many modern heretical sects embrace elements of centuries-old heresies and old heresies never really died out, they just took on new names, and new expositors, and new adherents.
Brown surmises that that Reformation Protestantism "could credibly claim to have recovered vital elements of the Gospel and thus be more in accord with the New Testament than Catholicism." Though, continuity and unity of a physical, purportedly apostolic church was supposedly lost, the Gospel was no longer smothered in a sea of sacerdotal ritual and works-righteousness. Europe, however, was fragmented as the success was only partial and the Inquisition violently suppressed Reform efforts in southern Europe. The Reformation was a multi-faceted protest not only against the corruption, and sacramental and liturgical excesses of the medieval church, but it was an affirmation of justification by faith in Pauline-Augustianian mode. Martin Luther characterized "Faith alone" as "the article upon which the church rises of falls." Contrary to Catholic straw man caricatures of Justification by Faith Alone, the doctrine does not entail a faith that is naked, fruitless and devoid of good works. The fruit of saving faith is good works, but good works are not the impetus for justification of the believer, but rather the meritous work of Christ, which is imputed to the believer through faith. Faith in Christ is the instrument of justification. Reformers Luther, Calvin, Beza, Tyndale, and Wycliffe, are all discussed. The Reformation was commensurate with the accords set in Nicaea and Chalcedon. Likewise, Wesley and Arminius are discussed as well. The advent of Arminianism unleashed what I call the Protestant Deformation, because it loses sight of the orthodox Reformation principles articulated by Calvin and Luther. Arminianism is simply semi-Pelagian Romanism stripped of its sacramental and liturgical excesses: both have the same na
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