Early Classic Heresies: Ebionitism, Docetism, Valentinism
Early Classic Heresies: Ebionitism, Docetism, Valentinism
Christianity had its origins in the region of Judea, especially the city of Jerusalem. It initially regarded itself primarily as a continuation and development of Judaism and hence flourished in regions with which Judaism was traditionally associated, supremely Palestine. However, it rapidly spread to neighboring areas, partially through the efforts of early Christian evangelists such as Paul of Tarsus. By the end of the first century, Christianity appears to have become established throughout the eastern Mediterranean world and even to have gained a significant presence in the city of Rome, the capital of the Roman Empire.1
This expansion, however, was intellectual as much as geographical. As Christianity developed throughout the civilized world of the late classical period, it encountered ways of thinking that posed challenges to, yet also offered opportunities for, its proclamation of the gospel. Although Christianity initially found itself having to negotiate its identity in relation to Judaism, it soon found itself confronting other cultural and intellectual movements in the area, such as the various Greek religious and philosophical traditions that were firmly embedded in cities such as Antioch and Alexandria. The result was growing intellectual pressure to identify the most authentic and reliable ways of articulating and explaining the Christian faith. This “quest for authenticity” involved exploring ways of understanding and expressing the gospel, some of which proved to be powerful and resilient. Others, however, turned out to be dead ends, whose drawbacks outweighed their advantages. The process of developing and evaluating these approaches was slow, often extending over many decades precisely because it was thorough and extensive. The crystallization of the notions of orthodoxy and heresy was thus generally measured and cautious.
The first five centuries witnessed the crystallization of the notions of orthodoxy and heresy through this process of intellectual exploration. It soon became clear that the task of Christian theology could not be limited simply to the loyal and uncritical repetition of formulas derived from the past—such as biblical verses. Simply repeating early Christian formulas and ideas was found to be inadequate to meet the church’s need for mature, reliable statements of faith. These statements, which were occasionally in tension with one another, needed to be woven together into a coherent tapestry of faith. But what pattern did they reveal?
In recent years there has been a growing interest in the patristic interpretation of the Bible, partly reflecting an increased awareness of how significantly doctrinal formulations rest upon biblical foundations.2 This scholarship has illuminated many points—such as the way in which patristic authors use individual biblical books.3 Yet for our purposes, the most important point concerns how biblical passages were woven into more complex dogmatic statements, resolving (or at least holding in tension) the complex New Testament witness to central gospel themes.4 This process of interpretation was contested, leading to multiple outcomes, each of which required careful testing against an emerging sense of what constituted “authentic” Christianity.5 Which seemed to represent the “best fit” between theological formulations and the actual experience of Christian living?
It must be emphasized that this journey of conceptual exploration was undertaken with the best of motives and intentions. While some early Christian heresiologists portrayed writers such as Valentinus in dark and somber colors, the evidence suggests that most of those who would later be regarded as heretics undertook their theological quests out of a genuine concern to ensure that the Christian faith was represented and articulated in the most authentic and robust forms. The inevitable outcome of the early Christian community’s corporate quest for theological excellence was that a variety of manners of conceiving the gospel were initially proposed and subsequently subjected to rigorous examination, leading to some being rejected. The problems really began when movements eventually regarded as inadequate or as theological liabilities refused to accept this status, seeing themselves instead as suppressed orthodoxies.
As emphasized earlier, the classic heresies of the Christian faith all emerged during the first five centuries of faith, often referred to as the patristic period. Although the term “heresy” was applied to many movements in the Middle Ages, it was clearly used in a legal or juridical sense to stigmatize a movement that was seen as a challenge to the authority of the pope. We shall consider this point later , when we examine medieval heresies in much greater detail. However, it is appropriate to expand these comments further at this earlier stage.
It is clear that medieval movements such as the Hussites, Waldensians, and Lollards were seen as threats to the church not so much on account of their ideas as on account of their popular appeal.6 They had the potential to become alternative centers of power and influence, bypassing or challenging the centralized structures of the church. It has been realized for some time that it is not appropriate to use the term “heresy” to refer to such movements. This point was first made in 1935 by Herbert Grundmann,7 who argued that the notion of heresy was here being defined from an inquisitional rather than a theological perspective. Heresy was being defined in terms of challenges posed to the political authority of the church rather than in terms of the actual ideas of these movements.
A purely historical account of the notion of heresy in the Middle Ages is obliged to define orthodoxy in terms of papal teaching and heresy in terms of dissent from such teaching. Given this context, heresy will inevitably be understood primarily as a legal or juridical notion.8 Where the patristic period conceived heresy in terms of a deviation from the Catholic faith, the church lawyers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries succeeded in redefining the notion in terms of the rejection of ecclesiastical authority, especially papal authority. As Robert Moore has argued, the extension of the category of heresy became an increasingly important instrument of social control,9 by means of which the papacy was able to claim religious justification for suppressing what were essentially political and social movements. This medieval redefinition of heresy locates its essence in challenging papal power rather than in deviating from Christian orthodoxy. Heresy became the means by which a society subsumed its endemic tensions under a notionally religious category. It ceased to be a theological notion and was now defined legally or sociologically. We shall return to consider medieval heresies in chapter 9.
Our concern in this chapter and that which follows, however, is with the heresies that emerged during the great theological voyages of discovery and exploration that took place during the patristic age. While each of the heresies to be considered has its own special points of interest, in each case we shall explore how the heresy emerged, identify its distinctive features, and consider how and why it came to be regarded as inadequate. In the following chapter, we shall consider three of the later heresies, which came to be of importance after the Christianization of the Roman Empire: Arianism, Donatism, and Pelagianism. In the present chapter, we shall consider three early heresies, all of which developed during the second century. We open our discussion by considering Ebionitism.
Ebionitism: A Jewish Model for Jesus of Nazareth
Most of the heresies to be described in this and the following chapters are named after the individuals who are especially associated with them—such as Arius, Marcion, Pelagius, and Valentinus. Our first heresy, however, is not associated with any specific person but represents a general trend in some Christian circles in the first and early second centuries to limit the interpretation of the identity of Jesus of Nazareth to categories inherited from Judaism. The terms “Ebionite” and “Ebionitism” are used to refer to such models of Jesus, which typically interpret him as a prophet.10 Frustratingly little is known about this movement, despite the fact that it represents such a significant theological landmark.11 While uncertainties remain concerning the origins of the name of the movement, and some significant historical questions still await clarification in the light of the Qumran documents,12 it is nevertheless widely accepted that the beliefs of the Ebionites are to be positioned firmly within the matrix of contemporary Judaism.
The early church fully recognized the importance of articulating the importance of Jesus Christ for the human mind, imagination, emotions, and behavior. In the course of its development, the church had to deal with a number of interpretations of the identity of Jesus Christ that it regarded as failing to do justice to his significance. An improper location of Jesus Christ on a conceptual map would be fatal to Christian evangelism and discipleship. Yet it was clear that this process of identifying the best conceptual framework within which to locate Jesus Christ was intensely difficult. The initial tendency was to take existing categories, inherited from the social matrices to which early Christians belonged, and treat these as appropriate to the task of conceptualizing the significance of Jesus Christ. The origins of such a trend can be seen inside the New Testament itself, in that the Gospels record attempts to make sense of Jesus that are drawn from contemporary Judaism—such as interpreting Jesus of Nazareth as a second Elijah, a new Jewish prophet, or a high priest of Israel.13
Recent scholarship, while affirming that Ebionitism represents an essentially Jewish way of thinking about Jesus of Nazareth, has raised some concerns about the historical use of the term. The problem arises partly because of our indirect knowledge of the movement, which often derives from its critics, such as Irenaeus of Lyons and Hippolytus of Rome.14 Most scholars consider that early second-century Ebionitism was characterized by a “low Christology”—that is, an understanding of Jesus of Nazareth that interprets him as spiritually superior to ordinary human beings but not otherwise distinct.15 In this approach, Jesus of Nazareth was a human being who was singled out for divine favor by being possessed by the Holy Spirit in a manner similar to, yet more intensive than, the calling of a Hebrew prophet. Yet it is possible that the term later came to be used to refer to a somewhat different set of beliefs, influenced to various extents by Gnosticism (on which more later).16 For this reason, we shall focus on the early phase of Ebionitism, in which it clearly has the features of an essentially Jewish Christology.
So what is the problem with Ebionitism? Why was it rejected as inadequate by the church? One simple answer is that it was perceived to be inadequate to do justice to the full significance of Jesus of Nazareth. An incident from the Gospel accounts of the ministry of Jesus casts some light on this point: the healing of a paralytic (Mark 2:1–12).17 On hearing that Jesus is in the vicinity, four people bring their paralyzed friend to be healed by him. All the evidence we possess suggests that those who witnessed Jesus in action initially tried to interpret him in terms of existing models and categories—for example, as a healer.18 It was entirely natural to do so. After all, the Old Testament contained many references to God’s way of acting in the world, and it was entirely reasonable to try to assimilate Jesus to one of these familiar patterns. So why not regard Jesus as a new Elijah who was able to heal the sick?
Yet as the narrative proceeds, it undermines and ultimately subverts such attempts to assimilate Jesus to prevailing Jewish models of divine endorsement or inhabitation.
When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, “Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
In line with Jewish orthodoxy, the scribes point out that Jesus was claiming to be able to do something—forgive sins—that is to be regarded as an exclusively divine prerogative.19 Yet the Gospel narrative presses traditional ways of thinking about God’s presence in the world to their absolute limits by intimating the outcome of Jesus of Nazareth’s intervention:
“But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic—“I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.” And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”
The healing of the paralytic may be dramatically primary within the narrative; nevertheless, it is theologically secondary. The amazement of the crowds resulted primarily from their realization of the theological implications of what they had just seen and heard. Someone had implicitly claimed authority to act as God and for God. The outcome of this intervention appeared to imply that God had honored—even endorsed—this astonishing claim. Traditional Jewish ways of thinking about God’s presence and activity in the world seem subverted when confronted with the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.
It is significant that the Gospels follow their account of this remarkable incident by citing Jesus of Nazareth’s words about the failure of old wineskins to contain new wine (Mark 2:22). The coming of Jesus into human history is understood to have introduced something new, something dynamic, that traditional ways of thinking within Israel’s prophetic and wisdom traditions alike were not capable of grasping. This theme is of especial importance in Matthew’s Gospel, which is generally regarded as the most concerned to establish parallels between Israel and the church.20 The inescapable failure of Israel’s traditional rationalities of faith to enfold Jesus of Nazareth forced a revision of existing models of God’s presence and activity in this specific individual. Ebionitism can be regarded as an attempt to constrain innovation by insisting that Jesus of Nazareth be interpreted only within the traditional paradigms of theological rationality inherited from Israel. In the end, these proved inadequate to the challenge that they faced. Innovation was clearly demanded.
Ebionitism has been widely criticized by leading orthodox theologians. For example, the Swiss Protestant theologian Karl Barth argued against any Ebionite account of the identity of Jesus that treats him essentially as a heroic human being or as a human being who was “adopted” by God.21 Barth’s approach corresponds to the widespread tendency to interpret Ebionitism as an approach to Jesus of Nazareth characterized by a refusal to concede his intrinsic divinity, affirming only his humanity. While this is partly true, it is far from representing a full account of Ebionitism as a historical movement. Furthermore, it makes Ebionitism difficult to distinguish from Arianism, which can also be characterized as a denial of Christ’s divinity. The historian of Christian thought will agree that both Ebionitism and Arianism denied the essential and intrinsic divinity of Jesus of Nazareth, yet will point out that they denied it for significantly different reasons.
This brings home the importance of studying heresies in their historical contexts rather than reducing them to a theological headline. Despite a superficial theological similarity, Arianism and Ebionitism are historically and sociologically distinct. One originates within the world of Alexandrian Hellenistic philosophy, the other within the world of Judaism. It is indeed true that both Arianism and Ebionitism deny the divinity of Jesus Christ. But they do so for very different reasons. As we shall see, Arianism insists that Christ is to be seen as a human being on account of a philosophical commitment to the absolute unity of God. God is utterly distinct from the created order, and it is unthinkable that any hybrid or intermediate being can exist. Jesus Christ must therefore be seen as a creature, as the alternatives are philosophically incoherent.
Ebionitism, in contrast, did not arise as a result of philosophical concerns. Indeed, it could be argued that it did not really deny the divinity of Christ; it simply saw no reason to assert it. Ebionitism chose to situate Jesus of Nazareth within the context of Judaism and to interpret his importance using its categories. Jesus was thus to be understood as analogous to the great prophets of Israel—human beings who were in some way given special insight or wisdom through the Holy Spirit. The suggestion that Jesus of Nazareth was himself divine does not really enter into consideration, given the Jewish context within which Ebionitism arose.
So why did the church reject Ebionitism as a heresy? The process by which this rejection took place is not clear, although the perception that Ebionitism was unacceptable had certainly crystallized in Roman Christian circles by about 135. The reasons for this perception cannot be established with complete certainty, partly because early patristic reports concerning Ebionitism—such as that provided by Irenaeus—may conflate a number of distinct groups.22 Nevertheless, it is possible to identify the main concerns that appear to have led to the exclusion of Ebionitism.
The most important of these was the perception that Ebionitism was a form of Jewish Christianity.23 The position of Jewish Christianity within an increasingly Gentile church became increasingly difficult with the passage of time, especially in relation to potentially contentious issues such as circumcision, food laws, and the observation of the Sabbath.24 Gentile Christians regarded themselves as liberated from these, and cited Paul in support of their position.25 Although some accounts of the development of Christianity suggest that these issues were essentially resolved in favor of the Gentiles by the end of the first century, there is evidence that they lingered on well into the second century. For example, Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho, which dates from around the year 150, explicitly refers to such tensions.26
The problem that Gentile Christians experienced with Ebionitism was that it interpreted Jesus of Nazareth within a Jewish context, reinforcing the notion that Christianity was essentially a new form of Judaism. This approach to Christology sat very uneasily with the growing perception that Christianity was distinct from Judaism, however their present relationship was to be understood. The Ebionites perceived Jesus of Nazareth as a reforming Hebrew prophet. While Marcion’s view that Christianity should totally dissociate itself from its Jewish origins won few supporters, it was a telling indication of the way Christianity now saw itself—as a new universal faith that acknowledged its origins within Judaism27 but also transcended its ethnic, cultural, and religious limitations. Ebionitism trapped the new faith within a Jewish matrix, making it a prisoner of its own history. The future of Christianity as a faith in its own right—rather than as a Jewish sect—depended upon the church’s developing new categories for making sense of Jesus of Nazareth. These categories would acknowledge, even value, his origins within Judaism while at the same time articulating his significance in terms that emphasized his global, even cosmic, significance. In the end, Ebionitism became heretical because it was a symbol of parochialism within a faith that was clear about its universal significance and calling. Although Ebionitism lingered, in various forms, it finally simply petered out.
But not permanently. One of the most intriguing religious developments in the last hundred years, generally overlooked by journalists28 and scholars alike, is a significant stream of conversions from Judaism to Christianity. While some Jewish converts assimilated themselves completely to Christianity, abandoning their Jewish culture, others saw themselves in a very different way. As the anthropologist Juliene Lipson has pointed out, the term “Hebrew Christian” is now widely used to refer to “a Jew who has accepted Christ as the Messiah and his savior, but who nonetheless chooses to retain his identity as a Jew.”29 This Jewish identity is expressed in a number of ways, including observing the Sabbath, but particularly by using the Hebrew term Yeshua to refer to Jesus.
The resurgence of Jewish Christianity in recent years has led to a new interest within the movement of articulating the significance of Jesus in essentially Jewish terms. Just as the name Jesus is avoided on account of its Greek roots, so many traditional Christian ways of explaining his significance are also held to reflect Greek metaphysical ideas and hence require restatement in more authentically Jewish ways—such as seeing Jesus as a prophet. This has led to the reemergence of an Ebionite Christology within Jewish Christian circles.
We now turn to consider another early heresy concerning the identity of Jesus of Nazareth, generally known as Docetism.
Docetism: The Illusionary Humanity of Jesus of Nazareth
The three letters of John are regarded by some scholars as being among the later works of the New Testament, possibly dating from around the year 90. According to these letters, a new and potentially dangerous idea was in circulation in some Christian churches—that Jesus of Nazareth was not really a human being at all.30 Jesus only seemed to be human; in reality, he was divine. His humanity was a phantasm, an illusion. The term “Docetism,” deriving from the Greek verb dokein (“to appear”), rapidly came to be used to refer to this teaching. It is thought that the first person to have used the word “Docetism” in this sense was Serapion, bishop of Antioch (190–203).
According to Irenaeus of Lyons, writing toward the end of the second century, these ideas were associated with Cerinthus, who was active in the city of Ephesus around the time that the letters of John were being written.
Cerinthus, a man who was educated in the wisdom of the Egyptians, taught that the world was not made by the primary God, but by a certain power far separated from him, and at a distance from that Principality who is supreme over the universe, and ignorant of him who is above all. He represented Jesus as having not been born of a virgin, but as being the son of Joseph and Mary according to the ordinary course of human generation, while he was nevertheless more righteous, prudent, and wise than other men. Moreover, after his baptism, Christ descended upon him in the form of a dove from the Supreme Ruler, and that he proclaimed the unknown Father, and performed miracles. But at last Christ departed from Jesus, and that then Jesus suffered and rose again, while Christ remained impassible, inasmuch as he was a spiritual being.31
Cerinthus thus drew a distinction between a human “Jesus” and a divine “Christ.” Jesus differed from the remainder of humanity only in the extent to which he possessed certain virtues, and to the extent that the divine Christ descended upon him at the baptism and left him at the cross.
The first explicit references to what is recognizable as a form of Docetism are found in some of the letters of Ignatius of Antioch (c. 35–c. 107), bishop of Antioch in Syria, who was martyred at Rome. Ignatius is remembered mainly on account of seven letters, which both exercised considerable influence in the early church and bear important witness to some of its controversies. These letters show him to be concerned about the teachings of two groups, each of which clearly had influence within some Christian churches: the Judaizers, who wished Christianity to remain within the orbit of Judaism;32 and the Docetists, who argued that the suffering of Jesus was illusory. His letters to the churches at Trallia and Smyrna clearly indicate that some were arguing that Christ merely appeared to suffer. Christ, Ignatius maintained in his letter to the Trallians, “really and truly did suffer, just as he really and truly rose again. His passion was no imaginary illusion.”33
The Docetic refusal to accept the fundamental humanity of Jesus of Nazareth is expressed in a number of intriguing ways. Valentinus, whom we shall consider presently, took a strongly Docetist view of Christ, and extended this to include his digestive system. The idea that Jesus of Nazareth should urinate or defecate was simply inconceivable to Valentinus. These were degrading aspects of being human, something that could not conceivably apply to Jesus. According to Clement of Alexandria, Valentinus taught that Jesus of Nazareth “was continent,” in that “he ate and drank in a special way, without excreting his solids.”34
Despite these clear indications of the influence of Docetic ideas in the early church, it is difficult to find evidence of a coherent movement that could be called Docetism.35 The earliest sources available to us indicate that some parties held that Jesus had only appeared to suffer; yet these are never explicitly styled “Docetists.” Irenaeus, for example, cites a number of unorthodox writers as claiming that Jesus of Nazareth “was a man merely in appearance” he does not, however, refer to this as Docetism. Hippolytus of Rome, writing in the early third century, clearly encountered a group called Docetists, which he associates with a refusal to allow that Jesus Christ really suffered. However, the forms of Docetism that he encountered often mingled these ideas with some of the concepts from various Gnostic sources, making it difficult to understand what is specifically distinctive about Docetism.
Once more, we are confronted with a complex historical picture of what early Christianity understood by the term “Docetism.” Some scholars have suggested that the best way of defining Docetism historically is to limit it to the belief that, in the words of the patristic scholar Norbert Brox, “Jesus was different from what he appeared to be.”36 Two types of Docetism can be identified, which are clearly related but not identical.37 The first relates to Christ’s incarnation. Jesus Christ could not really be properly human, as there was no way in which the divine and the human could coexist in a single being. Christ would therefore have to be totally spiritual in nature. The second relates to his suffering on the cross: even if Christ was indeed truly human, he did not really suffer on the cross. Of these two views, the first appears to have been the more widespread within the early church.
Understanding the origins of Docetism is just as problematic as making sense of its essential ideas. Some have argued that it arose as a result of Greek philosophical influences, particularly difficulties in understanding how God could coexist alongside “matter.” Others have suggested that it was the result of Jewish influences or that it reflects the growing influence of certain forms of Gnosticism within early Christianity.38 Recently, however, another approach has emerged, one that may well cast light on why Docetism proved so attractive to many at this time.
In their study of the historical origins of Docetism, Ronnie Goldstein and Guy Stroumsa note how classical Greek mythology makes reference to heroes and heroines being replaced by “doubles” when their death is imminent.39 This device is common in Greek tragedy and can be seen in Euripides’ account of Helen of Troy, which dates from the fifth century B.C.40 The figure of Helen of Troy represented a considerable challenge to the dramatists of the classical age in that she had to be recognized as one who was simultaneously to be valued and despised. On the one hand, she was a prize for which countless men were willing to fight and die—the “face that launched a thousand ships”41 on the other, she was an adulteress and was hence both the source and object of deep shame. Some dramatists portrayed her as heartlessly evil, others as sympathetically chastened, and still others as subject to forces beyond her control. Yet there was a fourth approach, elaborated by authors as diverse and distinguished as Stesichorus, Herodotus, and Euripides. A new myth was constructed, displacing the harsher historical narrative: Contrary to Homer, Helen herself never went to Troy. A phantom (eidolon) took her place.
For those who do not know it, the story is worth repeating. According to Plato, the poet Stesichorus lost his eyesight as a punishment for slandering Helen in a poem, in which he accused her of lewd behavior.42 Stesichorus then repented and wrote a second, revised version of his poem (Palinodia) according to which Helen did not really go to Troy. This solved a theological problem—how to protect the virtue of the divinized Helen in places where she was already the object of a cult, when her behavior in Troy caused such offense and undermined her claims to divinity. How could Helen of Troy be worshipped as divine when she had such a questionable reputation? According to Goldstein and Stroumsa:
The eidolon is systematically used in Greek literature to solve theological problems related to myth and its interpretation. This simple device of the hero’s double solves the problem of an unworthy behavior on the part of the (usually divine) hero, or of his (or her) intolerable fate, without suppressing the mythical story altogether.43
Was such an approach found in early Christian heresy? A case can be made for suggesting that Jewish Christian groups might have been tempted to assimilate the narrative of the crucifixion of Christ to the story of Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 22), in which the demand for the death of Isaac as a sacrifice is averted at the last moment, as a substitute victim is provided.44 Irenaeus of Lyons certainly reports this unorthodox view as having been in circulation, attributing it to Basilides.
[Jesus Christ] did not suffer. Rather, a certain Simon of Cyrene was forced to bear his cross for him, and it was he who was unwittingly and accidentally crucified, being transformed by the other, so that he was taken for Jesus.45
This is clearly a form of Docetism, originating within a Gnostic framework.
The influence of this approach within Gnosticism proved to be considerable, as is evident from the body of literature recovered from Nag Hammadi. Consider this extract from the Gnostic Second Treatise of the Great Seth, which offers an alternative account of the crucifixion of Christ, spoken in the first person:
I did not succumb to them as they had planned. But I was not afflicted at all. Those who were there punished me. And I did not die in reality but in appearance…. For my death, which they think happened, [happened] to them in their error and blindness, since they nailed their man unto their death. For their Ennoias did not see me, for they were deaf and blind. But in doing these things, they condemn themselves. Yes, they saw me; they punished me. It was another, their father, who drank the gall and the vinegar; it was not I. They struck me with the reed; it was another, Simon, who bore the cross on his shoulder. It was another upon Whom they placed the crown of thorns.46
We see here a studied reluctance to allow that Jesus of Nazareth should have suffered the indignity of death, especially such a humiliating death. The Docetic Christological trends that are so characteristic of such types of Gnosticism here lead to some intriguing historical revisionism.
We have referred to Gnosticism at several points in our discussion without explaining what is to be understood by this term. So what exactly was Gnosticism? And why did it have such an impact on the early church? We shall begin to answer these questions by considering the case of Valentinus, an important figure in the early church’s struggle to define its center and limits.
Valentinism: Gnosticism and Christianity
At the end of the first century, the city of Rome was the hub of a vast empire. Yet although Rome had subjugated much of the world of its day, a subtle form of reverse colonialism took root. Religious movements having their origins in Greece, Palestine, and beyond began to gain a following in Rome. One of them, of course, was Christianity, which rapidly found its way to the center of the empire. The evidence clearly suggests that the church to which the apostle Paul wrote was actually a collection of individual congregations meeting in homes, rather than a single coherent Roman church. At this stage, the Roman church possessed little in the way of centralized authorities or organization.47 It is perhaps best compared to secular Roman clubs or societies (the collegia), or to Jewish synagogues. In each case, these were essentially independent associations with no centralized control.
Others derived from other regions of the Roman Empire. The Eleusinian mysteries, which had their origins in Greece, gained many adherents at Rome. These were based on the cults of Demeter and Persephone, and were believed to unite the worshipper with the gods, offering rewards in the afterlife.48 The Mithraic mysteries also took hold around this time, proving particularly popular within the Roman army. The origins of this cult, and the identity of its central figure of Mithras, remain uncertain,49 although it probably represents a local adaptation of an Anatolian or Iranian cult.
Yet most scholarly interest has focused on a tradition that is widely known as Gnosticism (a term derived from the Greek word gnosis, “knowledge”). If any ancient religious tradition can be said to resonate particularly well with contemporary social and religious fashions in North America, it is Gnosticism. What we know of Gnostic beliefs suggests that they chime in with contemporary ideals of self-discovery, self-awareness, self-actualization, and self-salvation, not to mention a dislike of any kind of authority, especially ecclesiastical. The current fascination with Gnosticism on the part of segments of modern American academia tells us rather more about contemporary cultural anxieties and aspirations than about this religious movement.50
Such movements often use the term “Gnosticism” in a loose sense to designate an emphasis on the spiritual side of life and a concern for seeking truth within the depths of human nature rather than being told what is right by authority figures. While these themes are indeed found within Gnosticism, they were so widespread within late classical antiquity that they cannot be regarded as being distinctive of the movement. There is a need for historical precision at this point, not least in trying to understand why the church came to see Gnosticism as constituting a threat rather than—like Platonism—being a congenial dialogue partner.
So what is this Gnosticism? Traditionally, the movement has been held to refer to those groups in the Roman Empire, especially in the first or second century, that advocated knowing God through experience rather than formal doctrines.51 This creates the impression that Gnosticism is a well-defined movement with a well-formed set of beliefs.
In fact, this religious tradition turns out to be something of a broad church—so broad, in fact, that many are questioning whether it can actually be regarded as a well-defined school of thought with any specific identity.52 There is a growing consensus that the term “Gnosticism” is misleading in that it gathers together a number of quite disparate groups and presents them as if they represented a single religious belief system. There is growing sympathy for the view that the idea of Gnosticism as a coherent entity is largely the invention of modern scholars of religion,53 who have perhaps been unduly influenced by early Christian writers such as Irenaeus of Lyons, who had their own reasons for wanting to portray it as a homogenous, well-organized group—an evil empire that posed a real threat to the fledgling Christian church.54
There is now a clear consensus that it is very difficult to use the category of Gnosticism in any meaningful way.55 According to Karen King, “The variety of phenomena classified as ‘Gnostic’ simply will not support a single, monolithic definition, and in fact none of the primary materials fits the standard typological definition.”56 So do we need to give up on using the words “Gnosticism” and “Gnostic”? No. They simply need to be used with caution. A good case can be made for using them to refer to a family of religious doctrines and myths that flourished in late antiquity and that maintain or presuppose two things: (1) that the cosmos is a result of the activity of an evil or ignorant creator; and (2) that salvation is a process in the course of which believers receive the knowledge of their divine origin so that they are enabled to return to the realm of light after having been freed from the limitations of the physical world in general and the human body in particular.
With these cautionary points in mind, let us turn to consider the views of Valentinus, widely regarded as the originator of a form of Gnostic Christianity. We possess enough information to be able to offer a reasonably complete account of his ideas and assess their significance.57 Valentinus appears to have arrived in Rome around the year 135. His earlier history is difficult to fix with any precision. Traditionally, he is portrayed as originating from Egypt, having been born in the Nile Delta area and educated at Alexandria. (Significantly, Walter Bauer had suggested that Alexandria was a leading center for Gnosticism at this time.) The disciples of Valentinus claimed that he had been educated by Theudas, a pupil of the apostle Paul, from whom he derived his “secret teachings.” Also present in Rome around this time was the Christian theologian Justin Martyr, who condemned Valentinus’s ideas. Yet Justin had no official position within the Roman church and appears to have existed on its margins, having limited influence at the time.58
Although most popular accounts of Valentinus’s career routinely report that he was condemned by the church at Rome, there is actually no historical evidence that any figure of authority within the Roman church ever condemned him or his teachings.59 This has led some to suggest that Valentinus remained active in the church at Rome, and others to speculate that the disciplinary structures of the Roman church were tightened up in the second half of the second century.
So what are the fundamental ideas of Valentinism?60 It is not clear to what extent the distinctive doctrines of Valentinism can be ascribed to Valentinus personally, since at least some of those ideas were developed by his followers after his death. The easiest way to make sense of Valentinism is to see it as originating within Christianity yet interpreting or developing essentially Christian ideas in a Gnostic manner—especially in regard to the imperfection of matter and the subordinate status of the creator God. It is thought that Valentinus himself encountered the teachings of Basilides, an Alexandrian teacher who held that the Jewish creator God was not the same God as that disclosed by Jesus of Nazareth. As Basilides’ later followers were wont to say, believers were “no longer Jews, but still not yet Christians.”61
The diversification of Valentinism is partly due to the variety of its later interpreters and its geographical expansion. The greatest interpreters of Valentinus are usually thought to be Ptolemy, Theodotus, and Heracleon. Yet both early Christian sources and modern scholarship have expressed doubts about whether Heracleon was really a representative of Valentinism.62 Furthermore, early documentary sources make reference to two “schools” within Valentinism, one based in Italy and the other in “the east.”63 Interestingly, the texts discovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945 include a number of Valentinian texts, along with documents representing another form of Gnosticism that is generally known as “Sethian” Gnosticism.64 Yet despite these difficulties, it is possible to provide a general overview of the Valentinian system while recognizing that variations exist within the school.
Valentinism used the term “fullness” (Greek: pleroma) to refer to the dwelling place of the true God, the Father of the Universe, as well as a host of eternal beings who lived in perfect harmony with each other. This cosmic harmony was destroyed by one of the eternal beings, Wisdom (Greek: sophia), which was not prepared to rest content with its own position but wished to imitate the Father of the Universe and do some creating itself. This abortive attempt at creation by Wisdom resulted in the Demiurge (from the Greek term demiurgos, “workman”), who was expelled from the divine realm and subsequently attempted to create worlds of his own.
This idea of an inferior creator god, the Demiurge, is found in classical Greek philosophy and plays a significant role in Plato’s dialogue Timaeus. In general, Gnosticism held that the Demiurge created the physical world without any knowledge of the “true God,” falsely believing that he was the only God. Since the Demiurge acted in ignorance of the true God, his creation had to be considered as imperfect or even evil. Gnosticism thus proposed a dichotomy between the visible world of experience and the spiritual world of the true God. Sethian Gnosticism, which shows little Christian influence and is widely thought to derive from Judaism, took a strongly negative view of the creator god, often referred to using the Semitic name Yaldabaoth, and occasionally as “the fool” or “the blind god.” Yaldabaoth is typically presented, in demonic terms, as the leader of other spiritual beings and as the enemy of humanity. For Sethian Gnosticism, Yaldabaoth was tormented by sexual desire, leading him to rape Eve and to father her two sons, Cain and Abel. Seth is Adam’s own son, and is thus to be seen as a prototype of “spiritual” humanity.65 In contrast, Valentinism understood the Demiurge in more positive terms than in many Gnostic systems, holding that the Demiurge was the mediator for Wisdom in the creation of the world.
So what of the place of humanity within this created order? While the human body was created by the Demiurge, it nevertheless contains a divine spirit that enables it to establish a connection with the highest God. For this reason, human beings may be regarded as being superior to their creator. The divine “spark” within humanity possesses a homing instinct, longing to break free of the body and achieve its true destiny. The aim of the body created by the Demiurge is to function as a prison and cause humanity to repress or forget the divine spirit within. The Greek slogan soma sema (“the body is a tomb”) expresses this notion well. Yet this spark can be awakened if and when a divine messenger awakes individuals from their dream of forgetfulness, thus allowing it to illuminate humanity through this esoteric knowledge and reconnect with its divine origins.
For Valentinism, Christ is this redeemer figure who awakens the divine spark within humanity, enabling it to find its way back to its true home. In order to save those who were held captive by the body, the savior “let himself be conceived and he let himself be born as an infant with body and soul.”66 Theodotus taught that the savior, or Logos, descended from the pleroma to the visible world, where he assumed a “spiritual flesh” in order to allow the spiritual elements trapped in earthly human beings to be reunited with their divine origins.67
So why did the church reject such an approach? Why did it feel that Valentinism posed such a threat? The simplest way to understand the church’s rejection of Valentinism is that it was seen as an attempt, in effect but not intention, to subvert the church from within. Irenaeus of Lyons’s polemic against Valentinus reveals how similar his ideas were to those of the mainstream church: both Valentinians and adherents of the mainstream church went to the same meetings, used the same vocabulary, read and respected the same scriptures, and took part in the same sacramental rites.68 The difference lay in how these were interpreted. Valentinus’s use of New Testament books is consistent with the majority view within contemporary scholarship, which is that Valentinism originated within the matrix of Christian orthodoxy at a time when the canon was in the process of crystallizing.69
It is clear that Valentinus saw himself as enriching Christianity by using Gnostic ideas both as a means of deepening its appeal to contemporary culture and to give it added intellectual depth. A significant number of Valentinians thought of themselves as representing a deeper, more spiritual version of Christianity. Yet others saw this as tantamount to the conversion of Christianity to Gnosticism. Instead of making Christianity congenial to Gnostics, it had achieved precisely the opposite result. Valentinian biblical exegesis seemed to involve the imposition of Gnostic meanings upon Christian words. Valentinus offered a version of Gnosticism that seemed highly adapted to Christian sensitivities, especially when compared with its Sethian counterpart. It was, however, still a form of Gnosticism.
In responding to Valentinus and his circle, Irenaeus of Lyons argued for the “economy of salvation.” The entire work of salvation, from creation through to its final consummation, was carried out by one and the same God.70 The creator God was no Demiurge, nor was the redeemer some mere emissary from the heavenly realms. Irenaeus accentuates the importance of the emerging doctrine of the Trinity as a means of articulating divine continuity throughout the history of the world on the one hand and as safeguarding the essential unity of Scripture on the other. Matter is not intrinsically evil; it is God’s good creation. It has fallen and is susceptible to restoration and renewal. For Irenaeus, the doctrine of the Incarnation and the Christian use of sacraments represent explicit denials of any Gnostic notion of an intrinsically evil matter. Did not God choose to become incarnate, uniting himself to human nature? Does not the church use water, wine, and bread as symbols of divine grace and presence?
Irenaeus’s concern at this point was to place clear blue water between the church and its Gnostic alternatives. Yet it appears that for Irenaeus, underlying differences of substance was a deeper concern about issues of method—above all, the interpretation of Scripture. As he reflected on Valentinus’s interpretation of sacred texts, Irenaeus appears to have come to the conclusion that the Gnostics had hijacked the foundational documents of Christianity and interpreted its core terms in a Gnostic manner. The outcome, in Irenaeus’s view, was that Valentinus turned Christianity into Gnosticism.
Irenaeus’s response to this development is widely regarded as marking a landmark in early Christian thought. Heretics, he argued, interpreted the Bible according to their own taste. Orthodox believers, in contrast, interpreted the Bible in ways that their apostolic authors would have approved. What had been handed down from the apostles through the church was not merely the biblical texts themselves, but a certain way of reading and understanding those texts.
Everyone who wishes to know the truth should consider the apostolic tradition, which has been made known in every church in the entire world. We are able to number those who are bishops appointed by the apostles, and their successors in the churches to the present day, who taught and knew nothing of such things as these people imagine…. The apostles have, as it were, deposited this truth in all its fullness in this depository, so that whoever wants to may draw from this water of life. This is the gate of life; all others are thieves and robbers.71
Irenaeus’s point is that a continuous stream of Christian teaching, life, and interpretation can be traced from the time of the apostles to his own period. The church is able to point to those who have maintained the teaching of the church, and to certain public standard creeds that set out the main lines of Christian belief.
Tradition is thus the guarantor of faithfulness to the original apostolic teaching, a safeguard against the innovations and misrepresentations of biblical texts on the part of the Gnostics. The New Testament represents the teaching of the apostles, which is to be interpreted as the apostles wished. The church, Irenaeus insisted, safeguarded both text and interpretation, passing both on to future generations. This development is of major importance, as it underlies the emergence of creeds—public, authoritative statements of the basic points of the Christian faith. This point was further developed in the early fifth century by Vincent of Lérins, who was concerned that certain doctrinal innovations were being introduced without good reason. There was a need to have public standards by which such doctrines could be judged.
Yet what is particularly interesting about Irenaeus’s appeal to the apostolic tradition is his clear sense that orthodoxy is chronologically prior to heresy. Valentinism is clearly understood to be a recent development, one whose very novelty raises questions about its provenance and integrity. A similar argument about the temporal priority of orthodoxy can also be found in the writings of Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, and Justin Martyr.72 We have already noted the difficulties that this poses for Walter Bauer’s historical account of the origins of heresy.
We noted earlier that later followers of the Gnostic writer Basilides held that so-called Christians were “no longer Jews, but still not yet Christians.”73 We see here a Gnostic notion of a trajectory away from Judaism and toward a purer form of Christianity. The church, for its Gnostic critics, had stalled along this road and was still far closer to Judaism than it ought to be. In what follows, we shall consider the most famous movement in the early church that sought to dissociate Christianity totally from its Jewish roots—Marcionism.
Marcionism: Judaism and the Gospel
What is the relationship of Christianity to Judaism? The model that began to gain the ascendancy in early Christianity was that of the fulfillment of the hopes of pagans and Jews in Christ. Writers such as Justin Martyr were adamant that the story of Jesus of Nazareth could not be told in isolation. To understand the identity and significance of Jesus, it was necessary to tell other stories and explore how they interlocked and interrelated. One of those stories concerns God’s creation of the world; another tells of God’s calling of Israel; a third tells of the age-old human quest for meaning and significance. For Justin Martyr, the story of Jesus intersects all three, ultimately to provide their fulfillment. Jesus is the focal point from which all other stories are to be seen and on which all finally and decisively converge.74
This theme has fascinated theologians throughout Christian history, especially those of the Greek-speaking church of the first five centuries. The great Egyptian city of Alexandria was noted for its philosophical sophistication.75 Several schools of thought, all basing their ideas on the great classical philosopher Plato, argued for the existence of an ideal world lying beyond the world of appearances. But how could this shadowy and elusive realm be known? Or, more tantalizingly, how might it be entered? Growing importance came to be attached to the idea of the Logos—a Greek term best translated as “word,” referring to a mediator between these two very different, yet apparently interconnected, worlds. But how might this gap be bridged? Who could bring the ideal realm into the everyday world? Or bring people from the present order of things to the ideal world lying beyond it?
Alexandria was also home to a highly cultured Jewish population well aware of the importance of the questions raised by Greek philosophy yet faithful to their own way of seeing the world. For such writers, “Law”—the Torah—was of critical importance. Law represented God’s will, the ultimate standard of life, and the true goal of human nature. Yet some within Judaism held that the Law did not represent the final state of things. It was an interim measure, a staging post on the way to something still better. They waited for the fulfillment of the Law—for the culmination of the hopes of Israel in God’s anointed one, the Messiah. A new prophet was awaited who would be as Moses and know God face-to-face. A new king was expected who would restore the fortunes of Israel’s great monarch David. A new priest would come, in the line of Aaron, who would finally purge the guilt of his people. Early Christian writers proclaimed that the hopes of the ages had been fulfilled through the coming of Christ, which brought to perfection and completion the great aspirations of the seemingly endless human quest for truth. Greek philosophy and the Law of Israel alike were fulfilled and transcended in this one individual, Jesus of Nazareth. Human wisdom and divine promise converged.76 There was a fundamental continuity between the old and new covenants, with the church as the new Israel.
This idea gradually emerged as dominant within the church of the late first and early second centuries. In his letters, Paul affirmed the divine inspiration of the “writings” or “scriptures”—meaning the Hebrew Bible—and recognized its importance for moral guidance within the church.77 He represented Jesus of Nazareth as fulfilling the Torah. Later, other writers began to develop schemes for deepening this understanding of the relation of Jesus of Nazareth to the history of Israel. An excellent example of this approach is found in the idea of the type—an event or person who is understood as anticipating some aspect of the New Testament, especially Jesus of Nazareth.78 An excellent example of this approach is found in the writings of Justin Martyr (100–165), who interpreted the story of the bronze serpent (Num. 21:4–9) as a type of Christ. As God could not have intended Moses to set up an idol, the serpent must have had some other, deeper significance. Since a serpent on a pole would be in the shape of a cross, Justin argues that the bronze serpent was a symbol or “type” of the future defeat of the devil through the cross.79
But not all shared this vision. Some held that the progress of Christianity was impeded by its connection with Judaism and that the church ought to sever all of its links with the older religion. This view received its classic expression in the writings of Marcion of Sinope, who died around 160. Relatively little is known about him. He was originally from Sinope in Pontus, in Asia Minor, and is believed to have moved to Rome in the late 130s, where he appears to have established a shipping business, becoming wealthy. Perhaps to ensure his acceptance in the Roman church after what appears to have been a slightly questionable past in Asia Minor, Marcion gave the Roman church a very sizable gift—two hundred thousand sesterces—upon his arrival. At first, Marcion appears to have been accepted by the Roman church. However, following his failure to persuade the church to adopt his radical views on Judaism, Marcion severed his connections and set up his own alternative religious community.
Marcion’s fundamental argument is that the “God” of the Old Testament was not the same as that of the New Testament. Justin Martyr summarized Marcion’s views thus:
One Marcion, a man of Pontus, who is still alive even now, taught those who believe him to pay honor to a different god, greater than the Creator: and this man has by the assistance of those demons caused many of every nation to utter blasphemies, denying the God who made this universe, and professing that another, a greater than he, has done greater things.80
For Marcion, the Old Testament God was to be seen as inferior, even defective, in the light of the Christian conception of God. There was no connection whatsoever between these deities.
Marcion proposed that Jesus had no direct relation to the Jewish creator god and that he was not to be thought of as the “Messiah” sent by this Jewish God. Rather, Jesus was sent from a previously unknown, strange God, characterized by love rather than jealousy and aggression.81 Irenaeus of Lyons represents Marcion as declaring that the Jewish God “is the creator of evil things, and takes delight in wars, is fickle, and behaves inconsistently.”82 Tertullian tells us that he proposed two gods “of unequal rank, the one a stern and warlike judge, the other gentle and mild, kind, and supremely good.”83 The creator god of the Bible was a Jewish divinity that represented the total antithesis of the very different God who sent Jesus—a view set out in some detail by Marcion in his now-lost Antitheses. As Robin Lane Fox comments:
The creator, [Marcion] argued, was an incompetent being: why else had he afflicted women with the agonies of childbirth? “God” in the Old Testament was a “committed barbarian” who favored bandits and such terrorists as Israel’s King David. Christ, by contrast, was the new and separate revelation of an altogether higher God. Marcion’s teaching was the most extreme statement of the newness of the Christian faith.84
The stridency of the anti-Jewish tone of Marcion’s theology85 suggests that issues deeper than theology were involved in his hostility toward the Old Testament.
There are possible connections between Marcion and Gnosticism, evident especially in Marcion’s strongly negative evaluation of the world and the one who created it.86 Marcion regarded the material world with intense distaste and had no time for the idea that the world’s redeemer should be contaminated through human flesh. Marcion was inclined to a Docetic Christology, which played down the historical and human side of Jesus of Nazareth. Naturally, to minimize or deny the humanity of Jesus was correspondingly to downplay or deny his Jewishness.
Yet Marcion was not prepared to rest content with affirming the radical difference between the God of the Jews and the God of Jesus of Nazareth. Many of the documents that were being widely accepted as authoritative by early Christians—which would later be canonically gathered together as the New Testament—made extensive reference to the Jewish scriptures. Marcion thus developed his own authorized collection of documents, which excluded works that he regarded as contaminated by Jewish ideas and associations. Needless to say, Marcion’s biblical canon excluded the Old Testament altogether. It consisted simply of ten of Paul’s letters, along with the Gospel of Luke. Yet Marcion was obliged to edit even these works in order to remove contaminating influences that suggested that there was some connection between Jesus and the Jewish God. Marcion thus excised from his version of Luke’s Gospel the narratives of the Annunciation and the Nativity; Christ’s baptism, temptation, and genealogy; and all references to Bethlehem and Nazareth.87 Paul’s letters also required some editorial work, to remove their associations with Judaism.88
So, did Marcion regard himself as having the right to change the contents of Scripture? Irenaeus certainly thought so, and complained bitterly about Marcion’s presumption in daring “openly to mutilate the scriptures.”89 Tertullian complained about Valentinus’s altering of the scriptures by means of faulty exposition, and Marcion’s by textual emendation. One used sophistry, the other a knife.90 The evidence suggests that Marcion did not see his editorial work in this light, taking the view that Luke’s Gospel had already been doctored by Jewish sympathizers, who had also altered Paul’s letters. Marcion therefore saw himself as eliminating contaminating additions, restoring the texts to their original condition. To avoid misunderstanding, Marcion also appears to have added “prologues” to the epistles, reinforcing his anti-Judaizing message. For example, a strongly antagonistic attitude toward the Old Testament is easily discerned in his prologue to Paul’s letter to Titus: “[Paul] warns and instructs Titus concerning the constitution of the priesthood and spiritual conversation, and heretics who believe in the Jewish scriptures who are to be avoided [et hereticis vitandis qui in scripturis Iudaicis credunt].”91
So why did Marcion’s approach pose such a threat to the church? Most obviously, it attempted to deny Christianity’s roots in Judaism and, above all, Jesus of Nazareth’s Jewish lineage. Marcion’s excision of the genealogy in Luke’s Gospel is a powerful symbol of his refusal to accept that Jesus of Nazareth was, in the first place, a human being and, in the second place, a Jew. Judaism, according to Marcion, is a religion with a corrupt view of God. In dealing with such challenges, Christian theologians have developed approaches to the Old Testament that allow them to respect its moral and religious insights while at the same time neutralizing some of its more problematic aspects—such as the ethnic cleansing of Canaan.92 If Marcion had had his way, this would not have been an issue. Yet other problems would have arisen, not least the total historical dislocation of the Christian faith. For Marcion, the gospel comes from nowhere, without any historical context. There is no sense of its being the climax and fulfillment of God’s engagement with humanity, which began with the call of Abraham.
Yet it is easy to see why Marcionism is so appealing. Richard Dawkins’s God Delusion is one of the most successful works of atheist apologetics in recent years. In this work, Dawkins mounts a ferocious attack on the morality of God. The God that Dawkins does not believe in is “a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”93 Virtually all of the biblical material that underlies Dawkins’s charges is drawn from the Old Testament.94
It is not particularly difficult to see why some wonder whether Christianity would have been better off if it had broken with Judaism altogether. Indeed, the famous German liberal Protestant theologian Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930) argued along these lines in a controversial attempt to reinstate Marcion within German Christianity in 1921.95 While Harnack was opposed to the more strident versions of anti-Semitism that gained ground within Germany from about 1880, his attitude toward Jews has been described as “paternalistic.”96 Sadly, Marcionism is a heresy that seems set to be revived with every resurgence of anti-Semitism. It is not just a heresy about the identity of Jesus of Nazareth; it is a heresy about the dignity and historical significance of the Jewish people.
One final point needs to be stressed. Popular accounts of Marcion’s career speak of his being “condemned” or “expelled” by the church at Rome. This never happened. Irritated that the Roman church refused to accept his views, Marcion left the church, which promptly returned a generous gift he had made earlier. It was not that the church decided that Marcion was not a proper Christian; rather, Marcion came to the view that the Roman church was not properly Christian, and left to found his own pure sect.97 Marcion excluded himself from the church.
Reflections on Early Heresies
In this section, we have considered three early heresies, two of which have particularly strong links with the churches of Rome. These heresies have some common themes. For example, a belief that matter is fundamentally evil is found in Docetism, Marcionism, and Valentinism. All three involve the relationship between Christianity and other religious groups—Judaism and Gnosticism—that threatened to dilute or distort the essence of Christianity. Yet what is particularly interesting about these three approaches to Christianity is that they emerged and were finally judged to be heretical before the church had evolved any permanent authority structures, before the emergence of creeds as personal or official statements of faith, and before the New Testament canon had been formally agreed upon. Although many studies continue to speak of the church declaring Marcion and Valentinus to be heretics, the situation is much more complex than this suggests, as we noted earlier.
We do not entirely understand how the process of recognizing movements as heretical took place in the church of the first half of the second century. The evidence suggests that a gradual process of crystallization of opinion took place, similar to that which led to the emergence of early canons of the New Testament. The relatively high degree of diversity that was such a characteristic feature of Christian congregations at this stage allowed Marcion to go and establish his own church, separate from existing congregations, and Valentinus to continue ministering in some Roman congregations. The organizational fluidity of the early church was such that it was difficult to organize any campaign against alleged heresies. As far as we can tell, the first action taken by the Roman church against Valentinism dates from the 190s, a generation after the movement came into being.98
So how was heresy identified at this time? What processes led to a theological opinion being transformed into a heresy? We probably do not yet know enough about the manner in which a consensus emerged within the early church, which depends upon an understanding of its complex social networks, the growing authority of Scripture (which began to emerge as a coherent entity around this time), and especially the role of opinion makers (such as Justin Martyr) and members of the hierarchy, to answer this question. Yet there can be little doubt that these opinions crystallized, to become the settled opinion of the church.
As we noted earlier, Walter Bauer portrayed the triumph of orthodoxy as essentially an ideological accident. It was the power of institutions that really mattered; which ideas they chose to promote within the diversity of early Christianity was secondary. The decision as to which of the early competing visions of Christianity would be declared orthodox and which heretical reflected the power politics of the age, not the intellectual merits of the ideas in question. Heresy was thus simply an early orthodoxy that failed to gain the support of the power brokers.
Yet the historical evidence does not really fit the picture proposed by Bauer. Furthermore, there are clearly theological issues at stake. The relative weakness of institutional ecclesiastical structures at this time, including those at Rome, suggest that the quality of the ideas themselves played a significant role in their evaluation—especially in regard to their intellectual provenance and their consequences for the identity and mission of the church.99
So what of later heresies? What of the ideas that were declared heretical after the church gained its somewhat problematic status as the favored religion of the Roman Empire, when issues of imperial stability and polity came to be interlocked with the life and thought of the church? In the following chapter, we shall consider some of the great heresies of the fourth and fifth centuries, including what many regard to be the greatest of all—Arianism.