Heresies of Church Fathers

[jswranch]

Not all of the Early Church Fathers became saints. Some of them fell into heresy (Polycarp etc..). Which one's fell into heresy? Which heresy and how far?

[Era Might]

Even some of the Fathers who are Saints fell into what we would classify today as heresy. See, for example, the Catholic Encyclopedia entry on the heresy of Apokatastasis, taught by St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Clement of Alexandria, following the lead of Origen. ([url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01599a.htm"]LINK[/url])

Pio Nono posted this passage from the Holy Father's "Introduction to Christianity" a few weeks ago. It helps contextualize heresy in the early Church, and its role in the development of dogma:

[quote]The concept of persona was once condemned, as we have seen; the crucial word that in the fourth century became the standard of orthodoxy, homoousios (=of one substance with the Father), had been condemned in the third century; the concept of "proceeding" has a condemnation behind it - and so one could go on. ... When one looks at the history of the dogma of the Trinity as it is reflected in a present-day manual of theology, it looks like a graveyard of heresies, whose emblems theology still carries around with it like the trophies from battles fought and won.  But such a view does not represent a proper understanding of the matter, for all the attempted solutions that in the course of a long struggle were finally thrown out as dead ends and, hence, heresies are not just mere gravestones to the vanity of human endeavor, monuments that confirm how often thinking has come to grief and at which we can now look back in retrospective - and, in the last analysis, fruitless - curiosity.  On the contrary, every heresy is at the samet ime the cipher for an abiding truth, a cipher we must now preserve with other simultaneously valid statements, separated from which it produces a false impression.  In other words, all these statements are not so much gravestones as the bricks of a cathedral, which are, of course, only useful when they do not remain alone but are inserted into something bigger, just as even the positively accepted formulas are valid only if they are at the same time aware of their own inadequacy.[/quote]

Edited March 21, 2006 by Era Might

[Era Might]

By the way, Polycarp is in fact a Saint ([url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12219b.htm"]LINK[/url]). Origen and Tertullien are two non-Saints who come to mind. I believe Tertullian's error was Montanism.

[thessalonian]

Origen was off in his theology regarding salvation and leaned strongly toward universalism. Tertullian became a Montanist later in life. Even Augustine had some errors in his predestination theology as I understand. Don't know that Poly Carp had any errors. Justin Martyr held that aethists might even go to heaven which is a bit questionable. There is also indication that he was pre-mill, though this is not certain. That's off the top of my head.

One must be careful in saying they were heretics though. Some of these things had not be dogmatized by the Church and so their errors were less culpable than today.

[jswranch]

[quote name='thessalonian' date='Mar 21 2006, 06:52 AM']Origen was off in his theology regarding salvation and leaned strongly toward universalism.  Tertullian became a Montanist later in life.  Even Augustine had some errors in his predestination theology as I understand.  Don't know that Poly Carp had any errors.  Justin Martyr held that aethists might even go to heaven which is a bit questionable.  There is also indication that he was pre-mill, though this is not certain.  That's off the top of my head.

One must be careful in saying they were heretics though.  Some of these things had not be dogmatized by the Church and so their errors were less culpable than today.
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Polycarp-Tertullian, Augustine-Aquinas: names I regularly swap on accident. I will go take another ritalin.

I understand why Tertullian was not cannonized. I do not understand why Origen was not (other than self-castration). Are there other big names that were not cannonized?

True, we must be careful with use of the term heretic with these guys. Some of them had questions on sensitive issues, picked a side, and wound up wrong after the church decided the issue.

[thessalonian]

Origen's slide to universalism I believe was what prevented his canonization.

[EcceNovaFacioOmni]

Origen is the "founder" of Origenism.
[quote name='thessalonian' date='Mar 21 2006, 07:52 AM']Don't know that Poly Carp had any errors.  Justin Martyr held that aethists might even go to heaven which is a bit questionable.[right][snapback]916311[/snapback][/right]
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I am fairly certain St. Polycarp is good. He learned the faith from St. John the Apostle himself. I think I know what you are refering to regarding St. Justin Martyr:
[quote][b]St. Justin Martyr[/b]
“We have been taught that Christ is the first-born of God, and we have declared above that He is the Word of whom every race of men were partakers; and those who lived reasonably are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists; as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men like them; and among the barbarians, Abraham, and Ananias, and Azarias, and Misael, and Elias, and many others whose actions and names we now decline to recount, because we know it would be tedious. So that even they who lived before Christ, and lived without reason, were wicked and hostile to Christ, and slew those who lived reasonably. But who, through the power of the Word, according to the will of God the Father and Lord of all, He was born of a virgin as a man, and was named Jesus, and was crucified, and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, an intelligent man will be able to comprehend from what has been already so largely said.” (First Apology, Chapter 46 [A.D. 151]).[/quote]
It doesn't sound bad to me. I wouldn't say some of those named were atheists either.