5th WEEK

THE EARLY APOLOGIST AND THEIR FIGHT AGAINST HERESIES

Before we mention the early Apologists (well-educated Christians who defended the faith from
heresies through their writings), let us briefly acquaint ourselves with prevalent heresies at the time
of the early Church.

1. Heresies Against the Early Church

Aside from persecution, the proliferation of heresies (false teachings) against the early Church
threatened the unity and stability of the Christians. These false teachings were perpetuated by
the following groups/sects in the early centuries.

1.1. Gnosticism is derived from the Greek term gnosis which means knowledge. The Gnostics,
adherents of Gnosticism, claimed to have a special, salvific type of knowledge. Philip Hughes
(1979) elaborates:

It (Gnosticism) proclaimed its teachings, its rites and its practical prescriptions to be divinely
revealed and to have been transmitted and preserved through some mysterious tradition. It
offered itself as an infallible means of salvation, operating usually through magical rites and
formulae, and it offered itself not to all men, but-and this was one secret of the movement’s
attraction-to the select band of the initiate few.

In addition, the Gnostics viewed the world of matter as evil and the spirit alone as good.
Thus, the human body, since it is matter, is deemed to be defiled and evil. Even marriage
was seen from this view due to the mortal, bodily desires that accompany with it, like the
person’s sexual desires and pleasures.

As a consequence, the bodily resurrection of Jesus was denied by the Gnostics, and marriage
was condemned. Bodily or worldly pursuits, as long as it touches on the material, were also
abhorred and despised.

In relation to Christianity, Henry Chadwick (1992) writes:

Most of the Gnostic sects claimed to be Christian; that is, to represent the secret tradition
which Jesus had taught the Apostles in private. They collected sayings of Jesus shaped to fit
their own interpretation (as the Coptic Gospel of Thomas), and offered their adherents an
alternative or rival from of Christianity. Gnostic teachers claimed that their dualism
explained the origin of evil far better than the orthodox view that the created world comes
from a perfectly good and all-powerful God.

In terms of practice and doctrine, the Gnostics truly differed, even came to a point of
conflict, with the orthodox teachings of the early Christianity. In later centuries, they
attracted followers to their group and continued to perpetuate their false teachings. Their
number increased, “not so much driven by the resolve to moral perfection for they were
 indifferent to it, but due to the determinism which assured a small elect minority (Gnostics)
of salvation.”

1.2. Marcionism is named after its founder, Marcion (ca. 85-160). Its belief was first a reaction to
the “contradicting God” of the Old Testament and the New Testament. Adalbert Hamman
(1993) enables us to better understand when he described Marcionism as the “error of
Marcion (second century) who rejected the vengeful God of the Old Testament in favor of
the good God revealed in Jesus Christ.” In view of such idea, Philip Hughes affirms:

For Marcion there were two Gods, the lesser of whom was the creator of the visible world.
It is this god, Demiurge, who, jealous of his own creature man, expelled him from Paradise
and thereby began the history of human sin and misery..Salvation is from the good God,
who sent Jesus to save men from the bond of Demiurge, and who was Himself really God
but man in appearance only, for matter is essentially evil, and so He who could not a body
that was a reality.

Marcion was an advocate of a loving God but he cannot reconcile the : vindictive God” of
the Old Testament, based on his own interpretation. Eventually, he found himself deviating
from the true teaching of the Church. He absolutely equated the God of the Old Testament
as undeserving to be God because of the wars, and conflicts that were recorded in his name.
He also reduced Jesus as simply divine, and attributed His humanity as merely an
appearance due to the evil that is inherent in every matter- an idea that he carried from
Gnosticism. He made a radical call for the prohibition of marriage “in consequence of his
view of the body as part of evil matter.” And in order to advance his own teachings and
interpretations of scripture, he formulated his own canon of scripture, ‘from which the
whole of the Old Testament was a priori excluded, for therein spoke therein spoke the God
of justice, the creator of the universe, the Demiurge, who was stranger to goodness and
love.”

1.3 Montanism made an important mark in the history of the Church when its leader,
Montanus (132 A. D.), claimed a special inspiration from the Holy Spirit. Hubert Jedin
describes the development of such claim:

The development of Montanist movement had an early phase, then a period when it
underwent modification by Tertullian, and finally a stage of decline after the Church had
defeated it. The early phase began about 170, when the recently baptized Montanus, in
Phyrgia, proclaimed to his fellow-Christians, with ecstatic behavior and in stage, obscure
language, that he was the mouthpiece and prophet of the Holy Spirit, who was now through
him, to lead the church to all truth. At first this message was received with some doubts; but
when two women, Priscilla and Maximillia, joined Montanus himself promised his adherents
a higher place in the approaching heavenly Jerusalem, a wave of enthusiasm swept away all
hesitation.
In the year 200, Montanism was condemned by Pope Zephyrinus, putting a gradual end of
the movement.
 1.4 Manichaenism was founded by Mani (ca. 216-276), a Persian priest who “had the
deliberate plan to unite in a new religion the best elements of the old.” He retained the
ascetical practice of Gnosticism and its attitude on matter as evil. He preached that there is
“a fundamental battle between good and evil, with opposing forces struggling for the souls
of humans,” and “claimed that all the great religious teachers, Jesus included, had come to
teach people about the world of light and how they might struggle toward it, largely by
ascetical practices such as celibacy and vegetarianism.

Manichaenism rose to greater prominence when it won Saint Augustine of Hippo as one of
their members. But Augustine’s conversion to the Christian faith turned him into an ultimate
adversary of Manichaenism and the great defender of Christian practice and doctrine.

2. CHRISTIAN RESPONSE: THE APOLOGISTS

After the time of the Apostles, a new breed of dedicated Christian men devoted their
lives for the propagation and defense of the faith through their writings. We refer them as
Apologists.

Now, we may ask the question: How did the Christian Apologists respond to these distortions of
doctrines and the division created by such heresies?

Let us list down a few names and mention their essential contributions in defending the
Christian faith.

2.1 Clement of Rome (30-100 A. D.)

In Philippians 4:3, we rad:

And I ask you also, true yokefellow, help these women, for they have labored side by side with
me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book
of life. Who was this Clement being referred to in Paul’s letter to the Philippians? By general consensus,
scholars and experts believe that it refers to Clement, the fourth Pope of the Church9AFTER THE PAPACY
OF St. Peter, Linus and Anacletus. According to them, Clement wrote an Epistle to the Church at Corinth.
As cited in A. Cleveland Coxe (1994), Eusebius wrote:

There is one acknowledge Epistle of this Clement (whom he has just identified with the friend of
St. Paul), great and admirable, which he wrote in the name of the Church in Rome to the Church of
Corinth, sedition having then arisen in the latter Church. We are aware that this Epistle has been
publicly read in very many Churches both in old times, and also in our own day.

With the above citation, there is no doubt that Clement of Rome stood as an important figure
after the time of the Apostles. His significance is better appreciated in his writings which seek to defend
and propagate the Christian faith. His exhortation on the example of the martyrs as exemplars of
holiness and humility, his reminder to the Corinthians of the commandment of love, and the pursuit of
good works and virtues, his teaching on the order of ministers for the Church as divinely vindicated, and
the admonition and call for repentance won for him the reverence and praise of being a great pastoral
leader in the first century.

2.2 Polycarp of Smyrna (65-155 A.D.)

Polycarp was in direct contact with the Apostles, and therefore, our direct link to the Lord’s
disciples. In fact, we can discern the rich influence of John and Paul in his epistle.

Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, wrote tot eh Church at Philippi on the exhortation of virtue, the
practice of love, hope and patience, the reminders for deacons, youth and virgins, and the duties
presbyters and Christians. He was betrayed by a servant, asked to denounce his faith in Jesus by his
persecutors, refused to revile Christ, stood unthreatened by torture and death, and embraced
martyrdom by being burned alive inside the stadium before a multitude of people.

The following account narrates Polycarp’s martyrdom:

The proconsul was astonished and sent his herald to proclaim in the midst of the stadium thrice,
“Polycarp confessed that he is a Christian.” This proclamation having been by a herald, the whole
multitude both of the heathen and Jews, who dwelt in Smyrna, cried out with uncontrollable fury and in
a loud voice, “This is the teacher of Asia, the father of the Christians, and the overthrower of our gods,
he who has teaching many not to sacrifice, or to worship the gods.” Speaking thus, they cried out, and
besought Philip the Asiarch to let loose a lion upon Polycarp. But Ploycarp answered that it was not
lawful for him to do so, seeing the shows of wild beasts were already finished. Then it seemed good to
them to cry out with one consent, that Polycarp should be burned alive..he (Polycarp) turned about ad
said prophetically to the faithful who were with him, “I must be burnt alive…” Immediately then they
surrounded him with those substances which had been prepared for the funeral pile. But when they are
about also to fix him with nails, he said, “Leave me as I AM; FOR He that giveth me strength to endure
the fire, will also enable me, without securing me by nails, to remain without moving in the pile…O Lord,
God Almighty, the Father of Thy beloved and blessed Son, Jesus Christ.. I give the thanks that Thou has
counted me worthy of this day and this hour.. Amen.” When he had pronounced his amen, and so
finished his prayer, those who were appointed for the purpose kindled he fire. And as the flamed blazed
forth in great fury, we, to whom it was given to witness it, beheld a great miracle.. Fro the fire, shaping
itself in the form of an arch, like the sail of a ship when filled with the wind, encompassed as by a circle
of the body of the martyr. At length, when those wicked men perceived that his body could not be
consumed by the fire, they commanded an executioner to go near and pierce him through a dagger. And
on doing this, there came forth a dove, and a great quantity of blood.

The martyrdom of Polycarp was well recorded by ancient writers, and was considered as one of
the most inspiring stories of the early Christians that defiled human persecution and withstood the trial
of faith, even the fearful test of death.

2.3 Ignatius of Antioch (30-107 A. D.)

Adalbert Hamman briefly describes the life of Ignatius of Antioch:

Coming from humble origins, Ignatius succeeded Evodius as Bishop of Antioch, the largest city in
Syria, at the beginning of the second century, when the Church was fifty years old. Originally a pagan
and influenced by philosophy, he knew the procedure of Stoic diatribe as well as the sophistication of
Asian rhetoric. He was arrested around 110 and taken under a military escort to Rome. There he was not
beheaded, but thrown to the wild beasts for food.

As to his fight against heresies, Ignatius fought the Judaizers and the Docetists. The Judaizers
were “Christians who felt that all Christians, Gentile converts included, must follow the Jewish law. On
the other hand, Docetism “was the name given to the belief that Jesus did not really have a body but
only “seemed” to have one (Greek, dokeo); its adherents probably wanted to protect the divine Son of
God from the corruptibility of the flesh, but a Christ with a phantom body could not suffer, die or rise. “

St. Paul already fought the Judaizers in his letter to the Galatians. Ignatius, on his part, strongly
cautioned the Christians in his Epistle to the Magnesians against Judaizing” :

For whosoever is called by any other name besides this, he is not of God; for he has not received
the prophecy which speaks thus concerning us: “The people shall be called by a new name, which the
Lord shall name them, and shall be a holy people.” This was first fulfilled in Syria; for “the disciples were
called Christians at Antioch, “when Paul and Peter were laying the foundations of the Church. Lay aside,
therefore, the evil, the old, the corrupt leaven, and be ye changed into the new leaven of grace. Abide in
Christ that the stranger may not have dominion over you. It is absurd to speak of Jesus Christ with the
tongue, and to cherish in the mind a Judaism which has now come to an end. For where there is
Christianity there cannot be Judaism.

Such were the strong words against those who choose to remain faithful to Jewish beliefs and
traditions while embracing the Christian faith! They would have felt criticized and condemned by
Ignatius.

Ignatius, an ardent believer of his vocation to Christ, emphasized the divine vindication of the
Christians as the new people of God who replaced the “corrupt” Jews through Christ’s passion, death
and resurrection; stressed the superiority of the Christian faith; pointed out the contradiction of one’s
confession to Christ while refusing to let go of Judaism; and promised the destiny of every Christian “to
eternal life in Christ.”

With regards to Docetism, Ignatius, in his Epistle to the Trallians, explained the errors of the
Docetists:

For if they had been branches of the father, they would not have been “enemies of the cross of
Christ,” but rather of those who killed the Lord of glory.” But now, by denying the cross, and being
ashamed of the passion, they cover the transgression of the Jews, those fighters against God, those
murderers of the Lord; for it were too little to style the merely murderers of the prophets. But Christ
invites you to share (share) in His immortality, by His passion and resurrection, inasmuch as ye are His
members.

Like his comment against the Judaizers, he criticized the Docetists as an “evil offshoot which
produces death-bearing fruit, whereof if any one tastes, he instantly dies because of their denial of the
bodily resurrection of Jesus, and his human appearance.
2.4 Iranaeus of Lyons (120- 202 A. D.)

Iranaeus was born in Smyrna, and was in early youth acquainted with Polycarp, the illustrious
bishop of the city. To the Christian Church, St. Irenaeus of Lyons was best remembered as the apologist
who notably defended the Christian practice and doctrine in his great work entitled, Adversus Haeresus
(Against Heresies), which condemned and refuted the theological and moral errors of Gnosticism. He
labored to dispel the exclusive claim of the Gnostics in receiving a special revelation from God, in the
following words:

Irenaeus attacked the Gnostics, but in a new and effective way. Realizing that the Gnostics
based much on their claims of secret traditions reaching back to the apostles, Irenaeus turned this
approach on its head, insisting that he could trace what he taught back to the apostles and could prove
it because his teachings had public verification, that is, they could be found in Scripture (here including
the Old Testament and at least the four Gospels and some other New Testament books) and apostolic
succession, that is, a succession of bishops who could be traced back to the Apostolic age. He himself
was taught by Polycarp, who, he claimed had been taught by John (presumably he meant John the
Twelve), and thus Irenaeus understood Apostolic succession as something organic, a living link to the
first age of the Church. Thus, what have been the Gnostic strong point, the secret traditions, now
become its weak point. This theological method, commonly called ‘Scripture and Tradition,” became the
standard approach for all the other early Christian theologians, who insisted that what they taught was
no more than what the apostles had taught.

Irenaeus, therefore, was able to point out that what the Gnostics preached as “salvific
revelation by God” was not rooted in the teachings of the Apostles but a fruit of their intellectual
distortions and tailored to cater their own agenda as “exclusive recipients” of God’s salvation.

The Church owes a lot from Irenaeus for laying the ground of “Scripture and Tradition” as an
acid test for the veracity of the truth against those who deviate from the Church, against those
individuals who protect and perpetuate their own interest in the guise of religious devotion, and the
pursuit of man’s salvation.

2.5 Justin Martyr (114-165 A. D.)

Cleveland Coxe traces Justin’s origin:

Justin Martyr was born in Flavia Neapolis, a city of Samaria, the modern Nablous. The date of his
birth is uncertain, but may be fixed about 114 A. D.

After his conversion from paganism, Justin found his peace in the hope offered by the Christian
faith. He was “impressed with the extraordinary fearlessness which the Christians displayed in the
presence of death, and with the grandeur, stability and truth of the teachings of the Old Testament.
From this time he acted as an evangelist, taking every opportunity to proclaim the Gospel as the only
safe and certain philosophy, the only way to salvation. His works-the two Apologies, and the Dialogue
with Trypho, earned him the merit as its genuine writer. Let us briefly describe the brilliance of this
apologist by describing his works.

The Apology of Justin opens with a Christian address to the Roman Emperor Titus Aelius Adrian
Antoninus Augustus Caesar and other Roman persons of nobility, power and influence for the demand
of justice from the persecutions that Christian suffered. The later part is dedicated in proving the
fulfillment of the prophecies of the Old Testament in the life and person of Jesus Christ. Finally, it closes
by describing the life of the Christians centered on the practice of Baptism, Eucharist and its weekly
worship. The Justin challenges the Roman authorities in the following words:

And if these things seem to you to be reasonable and true, honour them, but if they seem
nonsensical, despise them as nonsense, and do not decree death against those who have done no
wrong, as you would against enemies. For we forewarn you, you shall not escape the coming judgment
of God, if you continue in your injustice; and we ourselves will invite you to do that which is pleasing to
God.

On the other hand, Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho is a fascinating and engaging conversation
between Justin and Trypho about matters pertaining to the Jews and the Christians. The dialogue starts
with an intellectual inquiry on their philosophies, progresses in its emphasis on the primacy of Christ as
the fulfilled prophecy, highlights the new role of the Christians in God’s plan for salvation, and ends with
an exhortation for the conversion of the Jews to Christ in order to be saved.

2.6 Tertullian (145-220 A. D.)

Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus is most remembered by his strong character and pure
brilliance for the Church’s defense against heresies.

Uncertain about the details of his life, some historians claim that Tertullian was born a pagan in
Carthage, Africa while others maintain that he was born from Christian parents. Either way, historians
find it difficult to categorically determine his roots. But when it comes to his educational background, it
is certain that he was “well-educated in the law, rhetoric, and Greek. In fact, Joseph Kelly has an
admirable portrait of the scholar in him:

He (Tertulian) was the first great Latin Christian writer, and he wrote extensively. Consequently,
he created much Latin theological terminology, which in turn found its way into English, for example,
from the words tri (three) and unitas (unity) he created Trinitas (Trinity). He also used words such as
substantia and persona, terms with long theological features. He was a brilliant writer whose literary
abilities sometimes outstripped his arguments. His legal background found its way into theology; he was
fond of arguing with heretics from a legalistic viewpoint. Tertullian was the Father of the African Church.

He was truly a fighter against faulty reasoning and divisive, false teachings. As a matter of fact,
he produced a number of apologetical writings against Marcion, against paganism and heresy, as well as
a systematic exposition of Christian doctrine. But Tertullian deviated from the Church whom he dearly
loved and greatly defended because “around 206 he abandoned the Church for Montanism. Tertullian,
the hero of Christians in Carthage, became the villain of the Christian Church.

3.Conclusion

The Catholic Church is not immune from attacks of heretical teachings, and false claims by
certain persons and groups. The time of the Gnostics, Marcionists, Montanists and Manichaenism
proved to be an ordeal of the veracity and wisdom of the teachings of the Church throughout the
centuries.
 From its end, the Cathlolic Church through its apologists grounded and defended herself against
heresies by making use of its sources of teaching, namely, the Apostolic Tradition, the Sacred Scripture
and the guidance of the Magisterium (the official teaching office of the Church).

Today, the Church is confronted with a new challenge in the midst of a very pluralistic world and
a growing culture of relativism and subjectivism. Sad but true, truth at times becomes a matter of
personal judgment and a business of subjective preference, most especially due to the contagious
influence of mass media and the internet.

Thus, the Catholic Church today has continued to play its mission as the instrument and
vanguard of the truth even if it appears to be unpopular and its position for the truth is always non-
negotiable. In its own prayer and discernment, it remains consistent to be guided by the Sacred
Scripture, Apostolic Tradition and Magisterium.

Being members of the Catholic Church, we are then called to examine the basis of our belief, or
even our own share of doubt and unbelief, repel that which is heretical to our faith, while we show a
docile, listening heart to the truth. Let us guard ourselves from deception of relativism, and the
temptation of pure subjectivism in our choices. Let our commitment be dedicated to the truth. After all,
are we not all servants to the TRUTH?