Heresies
Teachings that a Church or a council rejected in the first centuries. Each page says what they held and how they were answered, with the Fathers and councils involved.
1st century
c. 45–100
Held that Gentile believers had to be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses in order to be saved or to belong fully to God's people.
c. 90–250
Taught that Christ only 'seemed' (Gk. dokein) to have a human body and to suffer, since the divine could not truly unite with flesh.
c. 100–400
A family of movements teaching that salvation comes through secret knowledge (gnōsis), usually distinguishing the supreme God from a lower creator (demiurge) of the material world.
c. 100–400
A Jewish-Christian group that kept the Law, rejected Paul and, at least in part, saw Jesus as a man chosen by God rather than pre-existent or virgin-born.
2nd century
c. 144–450
Distinguished the just Creator God of the Old Testament from the good God revealed by Jesus, and rejected the Jewish Scriptures.
c. 156–550
A prophetic movement proclaiming a new outpouring of the Spirit (the Paraclete) through its prophets, with stricter discipline and intense end-time expectation.
c. 190–800
In its early form, Jesus was a man on whom God's power came and who was adopted as Son; the distinct 8th-century Spanish Adoptionism called Christ 'adoptive son' only in respect of his humanity.
c. 190–400
Held that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not distinct persons but three modes or successive manifestations of the one God.
4th century
c. 311–411
Held that sacraments administered by clergy who had surrendered the Scriptures in persecution (traditores) were invalid, and that the true Church is the Church of the pure.
c. 318–381
Held that the Son is God's first and highest creature, not eternal nor of the same substance as the Father: 'there was when he was not'.
c. 360–420
Held that in Christ the divine Logos took the place of the human rational soul (nous), so that Christ lacked a complete human mind.
c. 360–400
Accepted (to varying degrees) the Son's divinity but denied that the Holy Spirit is God in the same sense, regarding the Spirit as a creature or an intermediate being.
5th century
c. 405–431
Denied that Adam's sin is passed on to his descendants and held that human beings can, by free will aided by the law and Christ's example, avoid sin without the need for prior inner grace.
c. 426–529
As later defined, held that the beginning of faith (initium fidei) can come from the human will, with grace then assisting and completing that first movement.
c. 428–451
As condemned, the teaching divided Christ into two subjects (the Word and the man Jesus) united only morally, and rejected calling Mary Theotokos ('God-bearer').
Eutychianism held that after the union Christ's humanity was absorbed into his divinity, so that he was not consubstantial with us. 'Monophysitism' was later also applied to miaphysites, who reject Eutyches and confess one incarnate nature of the Word, fully divine and fully human.
7th century
Monothelitism (and Monoenergism)
c. 633–681
Held that in Christ, though in two natures, there is a single 'energy' or operation (monoenergism) and later a single will (monothelitism).
8th century
c. 726–843
Held that venerating images (icons) of Christ and the saints is idolatry, and that Christ cannot be depicted without dividing or confusing his natures.