Major Heresies

From the middle of the second century, different group of church fathers known as an apologist. In the 2nd century, the Christianity still regarded as the illegal religion in the Roman Empire. Therefore, it was subjected to persecution, imprisonment, exile, confiscation of property and death. (The persecution ended in the 4th century 313 A.D under the emperor Constantine by the Edit of Milan). There was an attack from outside persecution and inside heresies. So the apologist was the group who defended the Christian faith. There are some major heresies which threaten the church during the early centuries. They are as follows:

1. Gnosticism: 

According to Tertullian and Irenaeus Gnosticism has its origin in Greek philosophy. The first Gnostic known in history is Simon Magus, the sorcerer of Samaria. They obtain their name from the Greek word “gnosis” meaning knowledge. According to them matter is evil and spirit is good. So the world is created by an inferior God. They did not believe in the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

2. Ebionites: 

Ebionites (Hebrew ebyōn, “poor”), a name applied in the 2nd and 3rd centuries to a group of Jewish Christians who retained much of Judaism in their beliefs. The sect is supposed to have originated when the old church of Jerusalem was dispersed by an edict of the Roman emperor Hadrian in AD 135. They adopted a conservative Pharisaic creed at first, but after the 2nd century, some of them espoused a mixture of Essenism, Gnosticism, and Christianity. Ebionites in two groups, those who believed in the virgin birth and those who rejected it. Both the Sabbath and the Christian Lord‟s Day were holy to them, and they expected the establishment of a Messianic kingdom in Jerusalem. Until the 5th century, remnants of the sect were known to have existed in Palestine and Syria.

3. Montanism: 

Montanism, 2nd-century heretical movement. It was founded by the prophet Montanus in Phrygia, now part of Turkey. About 156, Montanus appeared in a small village, fell into a trance, and began prophesying in what he claimed was the voice of the Holy Spirit. With two young women, Prisca and Maximilla, he travelled teaching his doctrine throughout Asia Minor. Montanism held that the Holy Spirit (or Paraclete) appeared through Montanus and his associates. Montanists taught that Christ's second coming was imminent and that one fallen from grace could not be redeemed. Followers were instructed to seek not flee persecution and even martyrdom.

4. Marcionism: 

Marcion (circa 100-160), founder of a Christian sect, born in Sinope, Pontus (now Sinop, Turkey), and probably the son of the bishop of that city. He went to Rome about 140. Several years later, differing with the established Christian church on doctrine, he was excommunicated as a heretic and founded his own sect. The Marcionite sect, highly ascetic and celibate, grew rapidly until it was second in strength only to the original church; it had churches and an episcopal hierarchy and practiced the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist, the latter without the use of wine. Marcion rejected the Old Testament and almost all of the New Testament, including the accounts of the incarnation and the resurrection, basing his teachings on ten of the Epistles of St. Paul and on an altered version of the Gospel of Luke.