Please note that the following is taken from a book published in 1840 which was written from a Presbyterian perspective. Therefore some of this might be outdated but nevertheless I hope this is of some benefit to Christians.
Excerpted from Chapter 1 of James Wharey Church History (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board Of Publication, 1840).
5. Errorists in the Primitive Churches
Even in this first century, several errors made their appearance, and heresies began to spring up. A difference of opinion very early arose between the Jewish and gentile converts, about the necessity of an observance of the rules of the Mosaic Law. This subject called together the first council or synod, which was held by the apostles at Jerusalem, and decided upon this question, as we read in Acts 15.
When Jews were converted to Christianity, it was natural that they should still retain some leaning towards the opinions they had formerly entertained, and a partiality for their old ceremonies and institutions. These prejudices, which are natural to the human mind, would not fail to give to Christianity a peculiar model among Jewish converts, suitable to their particular views and feelings. A spice of the old leaven still retained, would leaven the new lump. This thing we find the apostles often labouring to correct; and the whole epistle to the Hebrews seems mainly designed for this purpose.
In like manner, when heathen converts were received into the church, it was natural they should bring with them some taint of their old philosophy, and former superstitions; and some fondness for the rites and ceremonies of their idolatrous worship. Long established opinions are seldom entirely eradicated, and old habits, with which we have been brought up, are not likely to be totally renounced. Sometimes the teachers of religion were too indulgent to those prejudices; and in order that the gospel might be the less offensive, tolerated in their new converts, opinions and practices little consistent with it. An indulgent feeling of this sort was natural, and duly regulated, was very proper. Thus Paul was made "all things to all men that by all means he might save some." But the principle was often carried too far.
From these sources, therefore, we shall find, springing up many of the errors and heresies that deformed the beauty, and marred the peace of the church, during the first three or four centuries. Some of them were Jewish, but most of them of heathen origin; and all proceeded from the same source, a fondness for old opinions and practices, and a disposition to yield as far as possible to these Jewish and heathen prejudices, and thus in a good degree, to remote the offence of the cross. Indeed we shall find that when Christianity became the established religion of the Roman Empire, and took the place of paganism, it assumed, in a great degree, the forms and rites of paganism, and participated in no small measure of its spirit also. Christianity as it existed in the dark ages might be termed, without much impropriety of language, baptized paganism.
"At the head of all the sects," says Dr. Mosheim, "which disturbed the peace of the church, stand the Gnostics. Under this appellation, are included all those in the first ages of the church, who modified the religion of Christ, by joining with it the Oriental philosophy, in regard to the source of evil, and the origin of this material universe." They were divided into a number of particular sects or parties, but seem to have held the following errors in common. They taught that Jesus Christ is inferior to the Father; that he did not possess a real body, and consequently did not really suffer; that evil dwells essentially in matter; and therefore they denied the future resurrection of the body, and enjoined severe bodily penances and mortifications, and held other notions of like character, derived from that false philosophy which they professed, and upon which they attempted to engraft Christianity.
The followers of Simon Magus are reckoned by some, among the Gnostic sects, which, in this century, corrupted the gospel. But, according to the best evidence we possess, Simon, after the memorable rebuke given him by the apostle, (Acts 8:20-23) became, not a corrupter, but a persevering enemy of Christianity.
The Nicolaitans are generally supposed to have been a branch of the Gnostics, although this is uncertain. They rather appear to have been a class of Antinomians, who turned the grace of God into lasciviousness. The Docetae, a Gnostic sect, received their name from their distinguishing tenet that Jesus had not a real, but only an apparent human body, and that consequently his sufferings on the cross were only in appearance. Cerinthus, who was cotemporary with John, the apostle, taught, on the contrary, that Jesus had a real body, and indeed was merely a man, the son of Joseph and Mary; but that, at his baptism, the Christ, a being of superior nature, descended on him in the form of a dove, remained in him during his public ministry, and leaving him, when he was apprehended by the Jews, ascended again to heaven; so that not Christ, but Jesus died. It is related by Irenaeus, on the authority of Polycarp, who was acquainted with John, that this aged apostle once going into a bath at Ephesus, discovered Cerinthus there; upon which, leaping out of the bath, he hastened away, saying, he was afraid lest the building should fall on him, and crush him along with the heretic.
The Nazarenes and Ebionites were Judaizing Christians that sprung up in the first century, but were not organized into distinct sects, until the second century. The Nazarenes differed little from the orthodox, except that they adhered to the rites of the Mosaic Law. The Ebionites denied the Divinity of Christ, rejected the Jewish Scriptures, except the five books of Moses, and all of Paul's epistles.
The writers of the first century are the apostles and apostolic fathers. At what time, and by whom the books of the New Testament were collected into one volume, is uncertain; but it is certain that before the middle of the second century, the most of them were read in every Christian church, and regarded as the divine rule of faith and practice. The apostolic fathers are, Clement, bishop of Rome, and author of the Epistles to the Corinthians; Ignatius, disciple and companion of the apostles, who suffered martyrdom under Trajan, being exposed to wild beasts in the theatre at Rome; Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, who suffered martyrdom at an extreme age, in the middle of the second century. Several works ascribed to these fathers, are known to be spurious; others are doubtful; and those, which are generally received as genuine, are not free from interpolations.
(To be continued)
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