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Early Christian Heresies

 

 

Nestorianism:  Nestorius attempted to create a theory to unite Jesus' divinity and humanity, one of the central questions of the early church. Cyril of Alexandria was his principle opponent

-Nestorius was never a Nestorian.  

1.  Jesus is God by virtue not by nature. 

2.  God dwelled within the man Jesus as parallel individuals.

So conceived, the man Jesus had two natures (divine and human) living in parallel within one human body.  Another way to say this is that there were two persons, distinct and un-united.  Jesus had a human nature, a human will, and a human body.  And then we had God the Son come alongside this human person and guide it or direct it.

The opposition to the Nestorian position was that God directly came down to take on human will. the divine nature of Jesus is the primary focus.  Only God saves.  God had to come to earth and become the sacrifice that would provide reconciliation.  It isn't necessary to look closely at how this happens, according to Cyril.  God didn't simply use a man, but rather God himself became a man.


Arius:  the Arian heresy declared that Jesus, by virtue of him being a Son of God, must have proceeded from the Father.  Because he was, in some sense, an offspring of God the Father, that therefore he was a created being.  Since he was created, there must have been a time when God the Father existed alone.  Therefore the Son was part of creation and therefor lesser than the Father.  God the Father is the only fully realized God, while Got that Son was a lesser being, a created being.

The implication however, is that God the Son was not fully God when he lived on earth and made an atoning sacrifice for humanity.  Therefore, he wasn't fully equipped to be that perfect sacrifice.





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