Early Christian Beliefs

[Makaveli1992]

Early Christian Beliefs

[Things That They Don't Tell You About in the Church]

There was serious conflict between the Pauline and the Jerusalem interpretations of Jesus and his message. This conflict, after simmering for years, finally led to a complete break, by which the Pauline christian Church was founded, comprising, in effect, a new religion, separated from Judaism. On the other hand, the Jerusalem Nazarenes did not sever their links with Judaism, but regarded themselves essentially as practicing Jews, loyal to the Torah, who also believed in Jesus, a human Messiah figure.

When the Jewish insurrection was crushed by the Romans and their Temple destroyed in 70 CE, the Jewish Christians were scattered, and their power and influence as the Mother Church and center of the Jesus movement was ended. The Pauline christian movement, which up until 66 CE had been struggling to survive against the strong disapproval of Jerusalem, now began to make headway.

The Jerusalem Church, under the leadership of James, originally known as Nazarenes, later came to be known by the derogatory nickname Ebionites (Hebrew evyonium, “poor men”), which some Nazarenes adopted with pride as a reminder of Jesus’ saying, “Blessed are the poor.” They had a gospel written in Aramaic which is now lost to us . After the ascendency of Graeco-Roman Church, the Nazarenes became despised as heretics, due to their rejection of the doctrines of Paul.


According to Biblical scholar Barrie Wilson the Ebionites believed that;

1. Jesus was a created human and not divine
2. Jesus was a teacher
3. Jesus was the expected Messiah
4. The Law of the Torah must be observed
5. Theirs was the earliest congregation of followers to Jesus, starting from around 30 AD
Several church fathers described how Ebionites rejected The Divinity of Jesus and The Atoning Death of Jesus.

According to the ancient Church historian, Irenaeus (c. 185 CE), the Ebionites believed in one God, the Creator, taught that Jesus was the Messiah, used only the Gospel According to Matthew, and rejected Paul as an apostate from the Jewish Law.

According to those church fathers, the Ebionites emphasized the oneness of God and the humanity of Jesus. They considered Paul an apostate of the law who corrupted Jesus’ message.

Ebionites were known to still exist in the 4th century. Some had left Palestine and settled in Transjordan and Syria and were later known to be in Asia Minor, Egypt and Rome.

Monarchianism, a Gentile christian movement which developed during the 2nd and 3rd centuries continued to represent the “extreme” monotheistic view of the Ebionites. It held that Christ was a man, miraculously conceived, but was only ‘Son of God’ due to being filled with divine wisdom and power. This view was taught at Rome about the end of the 2nd century by Theodotus, who was excommunicated by Pope Victor, and taught somewhat later by Artemon, who was excommunicated by Pope Zephyrinus. About 260 CE it was again taught by Paul of Samosata, the bishop of Antioch in Syria, who openly preached that Jesus was a man through whom God spoke his Word (Logos), and he vigorously affirmed the absolute unity of God.

Between 263 and 268 at least three church councils were held at Antioch to debate Paul’s orthodoxy. The third condemned his doctrine and deposed him. However, Paul enjoyed the patronage of Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, to whom Antioch was then subject, and it was not until 272 when the emperor Aurelian defeated Zenobia that the actual deposition was carried out.

In the late third and early fourth centuries, Arius (b. c. 250, Libya - d. 336 CE), a presbyter of Alexandria, Egypt, also taught the finite nature of Christ and the absolute oneness of God, which attracted a large following, until he was declared a heretic by the council of Nicaea in May 325 CE. During the council, he refused to sign the formula of faith stating that Christ was of the same divine nature as God. However, influential support from colleagues in Asia Minor and from Constantia, the emperor Constantine’s daughter, succeeded in effecting Arius’ return from exile and his readmission into the church. The movement which he was supposed to have begun, but which was in fact an extension of Jerusalem Nazarene/Jewish christian belief, came to be known as Arianism and constituted the greatest internal threat to the Pauline christian orthodoxy’s belief in Jesus’ divinity.

From 337 to 350 CE, the emperor in the West, Constans, was sympathetic to the orthodox Christians, and Constantius II, sympathetic to the Arians, was Emperor in the East. Arian influence was so great that at a church council held in Antioch (341 CE), an affirmation of faith was issued which omitted the clause that Jesus had the “same divine nature as God”. In 350 CE Constantius II became sole ruler of the empire, and under his leadership the Nicene party (orthodox Christians) was largely crushed. After Constantius the Second’s death in 361 CE, the orthodox christian majority in the West consolidated its position. However, the defense of absolute monotheism and the suppression of orthodox christian trinitarian beliefs continued in the East under the Arian emperor Valens (364-383 CE). It was not until Emperor Theodosius I (379-395 CE) took up the defense of orthodoxy that Arianism was finally crushed. The unitarian beliefs of Arius, however, continued among some of the Germanic tribes up until the end of the 7th century.

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الموضوع الأصلي : Early Christian Beliefs     -||-     المصدر : مُنتَدَيَاتُ كَلِمَةٍ سَوَاءِ الدَّعَويِّة     -||-     الكاتب : Makaveli1992