Scripture
Heresy and the Scriptural Canon by Presbytera Jeanne Constantinou
H
eresy has played an important role in Orthodox history. Whatever threats various heretical movements have posed in the short term, the Holy Spirit has used them, again and again, to bring about the refinement of true Christian doctrine. Had Arius not preached in the 4th century that Christ wasn’t fully God, there would have been no reason to convene the Council of Nicea, and the Church’s fundamental teachings would not have been set down in the Nicene Creed. Saint Athanasius might never have written his brilliant tract On the Incarnation, which remains the best articulation of basic Christology. And if Nestorius hadn’t preached, a century later, that Mary should not be called the “Mother of God,” there would have been no Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, where her title “Theotokos” was affirmed as an accurate expression of the Incarnation of the Son of God. But this trend has not been limited to the formation of doctrine. Within the first two centuries of Church history, two heretical movements also played a pivotal role in the selection of the Scriptural canon: Gnosticism and Marcionism. By tracing how this happened, we can better understand how the early Christians thought about Scripture and canonicity, and we can also catch a glimpse of how the Holy Spirit works through history—in all its messiness.
Gnosticism Gnosticism may have been the single greatest threat to the early Church. It was a religious movement that combined elements of Greek philosophy, Christianity, and eastern “mystery” religions. The name “Gnosticism” comes from the Greek word gnosis, which means “knowledge.” Gnostics taught that Jesus was not really human: that is, he seemed to be human, but he didn’t actually have a physical body. Rather, Jesus was one of many “aeons,” or divine spirit beings, who had been produced by the highest divinity, called the “Unknown Father.” Together, the Unknown Father, his wife “Silence,” and the aeons formed the “fullness of divinity” (the Pleroma). The Unknown Father did not create the physical world, because matter was evil and the Pleroma was pure
spirit. The creation of the world was a mistake, the action of an inferior divinity who was not part of the Pleroma. Also, according to Gnostic teaching, human souls were actually divine, but humans were trapped inside their corrupt physical bodies. Gnostics believed Jesus was sent to earth to reveal the secret and heavenly knowledge which souls needed to return to the Unknown Father. When a person died, according to the Gnostics, his soul would be questioned on its path to the afterlife. If the person knew the answers, the soul could rise upward and return to the Unknown Father and the rest of the Pleroma. In this paradigm, salvation had nothing to do with the death and resurrection of Christ, living a moral Christian life, faith in Christ, and so on. Salvation was achieved only by acquiring this secret knowledge, something akin to knowing the “secret passwords” or other mysteries of a secret society. Gnosticism was popular because it incorporated many beliefs and concepts from Greek philosophy which many people assumed were absolute truths. It also appealed to the vanity and elitism of the Gnostics, who believed they were better than ordinary Christians who did not know the “secrets” and therefore had no hope of salvation. But Gnostic teachings were not supported by the Christian tradition or the Gospels. The Apostolic writings, all of which dated back to the first century, describe Jesus teaching that forgiveness, love, mercy, faith, humility, and following Him to the Cross were necessary for salvation, not “secret knowledge.” The Jesus of the Gospels was fully human: he had a mother, he was born, grew up, and at times was tired, hungry, and thirsty. He suffered, bled, and died, and rose from the dead in the flesh. Gnostics knew their doctrines could not be defended by citing the Apostolic writings, so what could they do to promote their ideas? They wrote their own gospels and falsely attributed them to Apostles to try to lend Gnostic teachings legitimacy. Gnostics wrote false gospels attributed to Thomas, Peter, and Judas as well as false Pauline Epistles and a false Book of Acts. The Gnostics claimed these writings had always existed and had only been 37
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