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Oh No, It's Time For Early Christological Controversies!


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You may also find this quiz to be helpful.

 

We shall start with Arianism.  Hilariously, Wikipedia describes Arianism as a "heterodox" belief, which we all know is a polite substitution for "heretical," and they're not fooling anyone, just like swapping BCE and CE for BC and AD doesn't fool anyone.  Really, Wikipedia?  Is this the time for ecclesiastical relativism?  Just call them heretics; it's not like any of them are left to get upset.  Conceivably someone could get upset on their behalf, and demand you moderate your hurtful and judgmental words concerning theological controversies of the third and fourth centuries Anno Domini; and the technical term for someone who does that is "shitnosed little weasel."

 

The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia has a refreshingly literary description of Arianism, which explains in no uncertain terms that Arians were not merely mistaken, but unbelievers, and that the Catholic faith was always correct.  As one would expect from something called the "New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia."

What the Catholics are correct about is difficult for me to say.  It is either because I lack the years of training in theology, or because David Stove is right and the entire thing represents human cogitation run so profoundly off the rails of rational thought that trying to analyse it is hopeless (NB: David Stove and the NACE are in fundamental agreement on this issue vis a vis trinitarian controversies).

 

But Arianism was not merely another largely academic debate about the precise nature of the Godhead.  Arian Christianity was quite successful for a time and spread, not just among Nicene Christians but among the previously pagan Germanic tribes to the East.  Many of the German tribes that moved westward and camped among the ruins of the Western Roman Empire in the Fifth Century Anno Domini had been Arian Christians for generations.  Most notably both the Goths and the Vandals were Arian Christians.  In areas with heavy influence by these tribes, like North Africa and parts of Spain, Arianism would hang on until the Seventh Century Anno Domini.

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Depends on when and who you're talking about whether Arianism was heterodoxy or heresy. There was kind of a big deal attempt to resolve the differences between the two. But it's really kind of misleading to label one of the competitors for the official canon when it was codified as a heresy because that implies there was an official canon when it started for it to diverge from.

 

Then again this is a religion which had a remarkably ill-defined canon for a lot of the early days, including things like coopting a priapic statue worshipped by local people into a Saint Guerlichon, the veneration (ha ha) of which kept the monks busy making new members for the statue.

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  • 7 months later...
Which Early Christian Heresy Are You?
Your Result:
Antinomianism
You are Antinomianism! Antinomianism teaches that, since salvation is by faith alone, Christians are under no obligation to obey any moral law. Views of this sort were held by various Gnostic sects in the early centuries of the church, who argued that laws governing human behaviour were of no account since the inward spiritual essence of the human person could never be affected by the actions of the physical body. The term "antinomianism" itself, however, only arose in the aftermath of the continental Reformation, in which some of the more extreme followers of Luther understood the new emphasis on salvation through faith to invalidate the validity of any standard of moral law. Although Luther himself condemned this belief as a heresy, bitter antinomian controversies continued to spring up within Lutheranism and within English Puritanism throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The doctrine is condemned in the Lutheran Book of Concord and in the Decree on Justification of the Council of Trent.

 

 

Looking at the results, this is because the 3 questions I cared the least about and just randomly clicked on happened to be Antinomi whatever.

 

The questions I cared the most about, defending yourself with a flamethrower and my favorite fallacy being the Gambler's Fallacy, weren't taken into account.

 

Quiz result 2/10. Would not Counter Reformation again.

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Heresy originally meant 'choice' or 'freedom of thought' while the orthodox meant what was to be considered 'right'. During the time when Arians existed, they were indeed considered heretics because their interpretation of the religion was different from the standard 'orthodox' belief and was officially condemned during the Council of Nicaea. 

 

Early heresies came from different interpretations of the Christian religion and the bible, especially considering that the religion is relatively new. Heresies started to become a problem later on because Christian leaders were obliged to hold the correct religious beliefs and made sure others had to do the same as those who believed in false religions will be condemned to hell.

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