Christology concerns itself with the doctrines about Jesus, his identity, and person. It is an essential part of Christianity because it leads to the understanding of who Jesus was and how he affects Christianity and the relationship between human beings and God. Christianity comprises of theological doctrines whose basis is Jesus himself. The debate on the humanity aspect of Jesus has led to a lot of criticism considering that he was born and bred just like a normal human being who could face hunger (Mark 2: 15) and even died (Mark 15: 37). It is for that reason that the Christian church has always been on the receiving end when it comes to criticism, and there have been instances when false teachings of the person of Christ have been introduced to Christian believers (Ames 128). That is the point where Christological heresy comes in for it is defined as the denial or doubt of the truth about Jesus Christ especially after one has been baptized and fully committed their life to Jesus. Whenever a person refuses to be corrected, then they will have committed heresy. Throughout the church history, there are several Christological heresies that have been committed against the person of Christ, and that will be the object of discussion in this essay.
In the 1st century, the circumcision heresy came into being, and it propagated that for anyone to become a Christian they had to be circumcised according to the teachings and laws of Moses. In the New Testament, Christianity was first embraced by Jews who brought with them some of their religious and cultural traditions, among them, were circumcision (Grillmeier & Allen 84). Because it was taught that Jesus was a manifestation and fulfillment of the Old Testament, then the laws of circumcision had to be kept. But in Acts 10, God makes it clear to Peter that the Gentiles, the uncircumcised people are accepted into the kingdom of God. That led to the circumcisers’ heresy. That was followed by Gnosticism heresy of the 1st and 2nd centuries. It was based on the philosophical teachings that taught that “matter was evil, and the Spirit was good (Grillmeier & Allen 86). Thus, God could not have sent his son in the form of a human being to come to the world considering that the human body is evil. Thus, Jesus could never have been a purely spiritual being let alone God. Thus, the person of Jesus Christ was doubted, depicted as evil and could not signify God in any way.
As the church continued to grow the first heresy by the church saw Jesus as supreme, and one above all other creatures and that meant that he was not divine. It was called Arianism and the man behind it was called Arius. According to him, Jesus stood out as the highest of all creations (Bloesch, 45), as a created being Jesus stood out as a demi- god and according to this controversy there is no way he could have been God is he was one of the creations. That Jesus was a son to a father who was God and was not thus Jesus was not God himself (Ames 126). Arius went on to compare the Son and God, the stated that God had no origin and was divine, but Jesus had an origin as the son of God (Ames 39). Then there followed the Apollinarianism heresy. In it, it was believed that the Word took up the human body through Jesus Christ thereby replacing human soul and mind (Ames 73). The heresy was promoted by a man named Apollinaris, and he was the Bishop of Laodicea. According to him, the divine word of God replaced the human mind and soul, and that made Jesus not a complete human being. Thereby, Jesus had become a gloried and spiritualized being but was still human. Jesus was an incarnation but who was still infused with divinity and thus unified man and God.
There was also Nestorianism heresy that was propagated by Nestorius, who borrowed a lot of his philosophical beliefs from Theodore of Mopsuestia. The argument he propagated stated that Jesus human and divine nature were separate and distinct (Bloesch 116). Thus, the divine nature of God lived side by side with the human nature of Jesus Christ. He also opposed the use of the term “Mary the Mother of God” and instead asked that the term “Mary the Mother of Christ” be used so as to categorically identify the fact that Mary could never have been the mother of God but a human being whose divinity of God dwelled in him (Bloesch 121). Thus, this heresy concerned itself with the separation of Humanity and divinity, making Jesus more human and acknowledging how God worked through him. Eutychianism, on the other hand, was a heresy that was started by Eutyches and as a respected spiritual advisor. According to him and the school Alexandria from which he borrowed a lot, they continued with the debate on the separation of the natures in Jesus Christ. According to this heresy, these natures were two before they united in Jesus but became one later; and that was the divine nature (Ames 69). Therefore, Christ’s divinity was given more importance than his human nature. Thus, Jesus could not be human and God at the same time. Thus human nature was completely absorbed by his divinity and thus became divine.
When reading about the ministry of Jesus while he was on earth, and even after he died, rose and ascended into heaven, the attributes of his person have been subjected to a lot of criticism from people from different times and eras. Even when he was alive, the Jews objected to the fact that he called himself the Son of God (Bloesch 124). The Pharisees and even the teachers of the law tried as much as possible to find fault in his teachings because they in a way, went against the laws of Moses. For a long time, theologians have tried to twist the information they access about Jesus, and that has led to the emergence of one heresy after another throughout the centuries after his death. There are those who argue against his powers and position as a member of the Holy Trinity while others believe he was divine and not human.
Based on several erroneous interpretations of the Scriptures, some believed that Jesus Christ was created just like all of God’s creation. For instance, Arians adopted that same doctrine, and Apollinaris propagated that the person of Jesus Christ was more of a divine being than he was human because he was possessed by the spirit. Nestorius, on the other hand, propagated the ideology that both natures, divine and human existed in the person of Jesus Christ. And finally, Eutychianism combined the two natures to come up with one. To this day, these heresies put a question on the true nature of Jesus Christ because their set of ideas questions his very existence. But today, all the denominations of Christians that exist subscribe to Bible teachings, there are those who criticize it, but many accept Bible teachings.
Works Cited
Ames, Christine Caldwel. Medieval Heresies. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Print
Bloesch, Donald G. Jesus Christ: Savior and Lord. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2005. Print
Grillmeier, Aloys & Allen, Pauline. Christ in Christian Tradition: From the Council of Chalcedon (451) to Gregory the Great (590- 604). Vol. 1. Atlanta: Westminster John Knox Press, 1986. Print
