Early Heretics: Difference between revisions

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 |'''Cerinthus'''
-||Educated in Egypt, and claimed angelic inspiration. He taught that:
+||A leader among the Gnostics, educated in Egypt, and who claimed angelic inspiration. He taught that:
 *A lesser deity created the physical world;
 *Jesus was the son of Joseph and Mary, and not God or Christ;
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 |'''Valentinus'''
-||Born (c. 100 AD) and educated in Egypt.  Claimed to receive special 'knowledge' from Theudas, who was reported to be a follower of St. Paul.  Valentinus was a member of the church in Rome under the Bishops Hyginus, Pius, and Anicetus, but left to follow his own doctrines.  This departure may coincide with Polycarp's visit to Rome, or may be because he was not elected Bishop of Rome himself. He taught that:
+||Born (c. 100 AD) and educated in Egypt.  Claimed to receive special 'knowledge' from Theudas, who was reported to be a follower of St. Paul.  He was a Gnostic and believed that the world is the product of a foolish creator (demiurge) who set to work without the permission of the highest and therefore “Unknown” God. This foolish creator was assisted in the creation process by a lower angel or planetary being. In order to put an end to the monstrous process of physical (nonspiritual) creation, the highest God had only one choice: to avail himself of cunning countermoves which he initiated among human beings, understood to be the apex of the physical creation. Without the knowledge or consent of the foolish creator, the highest God provided humankind with an otherworldly, divine substance variously called “spirit,” “soul,” and “spark.” This substance enabled humanity (called the ideal Adam) to see through the monstrous physical work of the lower creator and to perceive as the true goal of humanity a return to the spiritual realm of the highest God, which was often depicted as the “Kingdom of Light.”<ref>Kurt Rudolph, “Gnosticism,” ed. David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 1033.</ref>
-*Knowledge, not faith, is the key to salvation;
-*Sophia (wisdom) was the imperfect creator of the universe, herself a creation of the Father,
-*Sophia created Christ and the Holy Spirit.
-Valentinus is condemned by Irenaeus as a heretic, and first person to devise trinitarian-like teachings:
-:''Valentinus, the leader of a sect, was the first to devise the notion of three subsistent entities (hypostases), in a work that he entitled On the Three Natures. For, he devised the notion of three subsistent entities and three persons—father, son, and holy spirit.''  (Marcellus of Ancyra, On the Holy Church, 9)
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 |'''Marcion'''