Question | Answer |
Theology | Is there a God? Who is God and what does it mean? |
Christology | Discussion of who Jesus is; what is our relationship to Jesus? |
Ecclesiology | Theology of the church; how does the church relate to the world? |
Ignatius | Significance of church, bishop; first to defend against virgin birth; church governance, everything through bishop; point is unity; bishop of Antioch; "follow the bishop as Jesus followed the Father" |
Ebionites | Jesus not born of a virgin, son of Mary and Joseph; spirit came at baptism; first to defend the virgin birth in writing, eventually labeled as heretics |
Docetism | Flesh vs. Spirit; Jesus not really human flesh; "flesh is evil", matter far less than spirit, denied Jesus as matter |
Gnosticism | Knowledge; matter evil, spirit good; human suffering is result of spirit being trapped in matter; demiurge; escape physical world through knowledge&discipline; Christ revealer of special knowledge; Christ's body and death symbolic-teach us not accomplish |
Demiurge | Horrible, terrible creator that created Creation and trapped spirit and flesh |
Irenaeus | Recapitulation; apostolic succession; defense against Gnosticism; believes we should have all four gospels; must explain and have a point for why something is true |
Marcion | Argued difference between God of judgement of OT and God about which Jesus preached; kept Luke and edited Paul; OT does not = NT God |
Montanism | Spirit led movement; recover purity of early church; claimed to be returning to spirit led movement of early days; also challenged and declared heretical |
Pliny the Elder | Wrote to Trajan rules if Christians were accused; governor of Pontus/Birthynia |
Trajan | Emperor of Rome; agrees rules execution of Christians based on certain rules but "don't go knocking down doors unless they know yours down" |
Nero | (54-68) burning of Rome; blames Christians for fire |
Domition | (81-96) Imperial cult; promoted Roman gods to strengthen government; sacrifice to gods or execution |
Septimius Serverus | (193-211) Desire for united religion; Has to worship at lease this one; gives you document for sacrifice |
Decius | (249-251) Economic problems and abandonment of the gods |
Diocletion | (284-305) A fire (blames Christians) in the place, books burned in response |
Martyrdom Stories | "Popular" genre in early Christian literature; good examples for others interesting, sad, spread like wildfire; Polycarp; Perpetua & Felicity |
Tertullian | Well educated; had major problems with Greco Roman philosophy; issues with idxity of the church toward repentance; often called "father of Latin Christianity"; coins idea of trinity; believes faith is enough; but he does employ to develop ideas |
Justin Martyr | Big fan or Greco Roman philosophy; Logos = Jesus, little bit in all of us; basically everyone is Christian because of reason |
Logos | Reason; Ultimate Reason; wisdom |
Origen | Greco Roman philosophy; starts school; three fold way: body = literal, soul = deeper, spirit = really deep, sometimes misses body aspect, mother hid clothes so he wouldn't be martyred |
Canon | Original meaning = measure, comes to mean = "a group of texts that are authoritative for a community" |
Apocrypha | Hidden books |
Muratorian | 4 gospels, Acts, Paul's letters, and rest of NT minus Hebrews, James 1 and 2 Peter, plus Shepherd of Hermas |
Festal Letter of Athanasius | 367; has all books of current NT just in a different order |
Constantine | Leader and changer of a lot of things; takes control of Christianity at one point in time; has lots of power; emperor |
Liceniius | Partners with Constantine; agrees with content for a few years, but then disapproves of what he is doing, Constantine defeats him |
Adoptionism | Jesus was "adopted" by God; he wasn't always Christ but became Christ, probably at his baptism; emphasis on separation the two, Jesus and God |
Sebellianism, Modalism | Father -> Son -> Holy Spirit, different modes, any given time, God existed in one of these modes, different aspects perceived by people but not 3 distinct persons, so God and Jesus get collapsed into a single person |
Arius | Has solution; Jesus = Logos and Father = unitary principle behind Logos; Christ could not be coeternal with the Father |
Council of Nicaea | 325; decide who is going to get thrown out: Arius; homoocusion, co-eternal; Constantine presided over the council and urged unity; urged early to teach basics of Christianity (especially before baptism) |
Athanaisus | Bishop of Alexandria, defends Nicaea |
Homoiousion | Similar substances |
Homoousion | One substance with the father; God is one substance |
Cappadocian Fathers | Comes to help out a offer a solution to Nicaea; should clarify homoocusion and homoeosis; keep homoocusion and add hypostasis; gets to one substance, three persons |
Hypostasis | Three persons |
Council of Constaninople | 381; Affirmed Nicaea, hypostasis; clarified Holy Sprit |
Tertillian | Analogies; root, tree, fruit; sun, ray, apex/heat; fountain, river, stream; all same substance but there are 3 simultaneous expressions |
Gregory of Nyssa | God the Father through the Son to the Holy Spirit; you have life given to you by God and the Son and HS, you would have 3 lives, but we must just have one, that means there must be one God |
Antioch | Aristotle; more about classification; 2 natures, divine and human; Christ became "human"; exist alongside each other, he must have been both; Antrhopotokos (human bearer) |
Alexandria | Plato; 1 nature, monophysite; Word of God became "flesh"; implied interchangeability between Christ's humanity and divinity; Theotokos (God bearer) |
Council of Ephesus | 431; Cyril fights Notorious; they both try to excommunicate each other; Alexandria wins the day; end up using half of each ideas |
Second Council of Ephesus | 449; Dioscuros; monophysites, Alexandria wins again; Rome rejects the conclusion of the second council of Ephesus |
Council of Chalcedon | No to Dioscuros; embrace two natures of Christ; hold to theotokos of Mary (gets to stay mother of God); Antioch's view of nature; Alexandria's view on theotokos |
Donatist | Claimed that the bishop must be holy, and each individual must be holy for the church to be holy; no to bishops who tried to hand over text to diecotan; Rome says it's okay |
Schematics | Not heretics; more structural; about ecclesiology |