Attitudes towards Tertullian and Origen

[ArmyMatt]

Are they mutually exclusive? If someone is a schismatic, aren't they by definition a heretic? Or...? Can you elaborate a bit on the definitions?

heretics break because they preach a different Christ. schismatics break due to admin differences. you can be both but schism is worse.

 

[ArmyMatt]

Yikes! I have his book about universal salvation, but haven't read it yet. I hear his writing style isn't that great.

one of the worst theology books out there.

 

[The Liturgist]

Yikes! I have his book about universal salvation, but haven't read it yet. I hear his writing style isn't that great.

I like his writing style; and I liked his book The Atheist Delusion, a response to the pretentious attack Dawkins made against religion. The tragedy is that DBH has embraced dual heresies.

 

[The Liturgist]

heretics break because they preach a different Christ. schismatics break due to admin differences. you can be both but schism is worse.

Indeed, and the tragedy is that Tertullian, in joining a schismatic sect that was also heretical, managed to tick both boxes. It would be a bit like if a Roman Catholic joined the Palmarians (a neo-Collyriidan schismatic cult headquartered in Spain with its own Pope, that completely rewrote the BIble, among other heretical acts, but which is also schismatic).

 

[Basil the Great]

he was by Demitrios of Alexandria

I do not doubt that he was condemned by individuals, Army Matt, but Origen was never condemned by a Church Council during his lifetime. It would seem that the likely reason for such is that the Church had not yet reached a final decision on the status of the eternity of Hell during Origen's lifetime.

 

[ArmyMatt]

I do not doubt that he was condemned by individuals, Army Matt, but Origen was never condemned by a Church Council during his lifetime. It would seem that the likely reason for such is that the Church had not yet reached a final decision on the status of the eternity of Hell during Origen's lifetime.

councils are called when a heresy becomes a problem, not because the Church hasn’t yet made a decision on dogma.

 

[ArmyMatt]

Indeed, and the tragedy is that Tertullian, in joining a schismatic sect that was also heretical, managed to tick both boxes. It would be a bit like if a Roman Catholic joined the Palmarians (a neo-Collyriidan schismatic cult headquartered in Spain with its own Pope, that completely rewrote the BIble, among other heretical acts, but which is also schismatic).

yep

 

[The Liturgist]

councils are called when a heresy becomes a problem, not because the Church hasn’t yet made a decision on dogma.

Indeed - the Orthodox Church probably would never have called an ecumenical council had it not been for the nightmare caused by Arius and his supprters in the aftermath of the edict of Milan, and their continued contumacy after Pope St. Alexander of Alexandria anathematized Arianiasm and deposed Arius. And there wouldn’t have been a second ecumenical council without people like Eusebius of Nicomedia conspiring to convert the heir apparent, Constantius, to the Arian religion, away from Christ, and to perpetuate the heresy of Arius even after Arius was struck down by what many believe was a providential act, just before Arius was to be allowed to receive communion in the Hagia Sophia according to one of the ancient Synaxaria.

Indeed by the Second Ecumenical Council there were multiple Arian denominations - the Eunomians, the semi-Arians, the Pneumatomachs, and other screwball groups such as the Apollinarians, who were the first to confuse the humanity and divinity of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ, compromising the doctrine of the Incarnation, which would later be continued by the Eutychians, who degenerated into Tritheism by the time of John Philoponus, the last known intellectual of the original Monophysites (the group following Eutyches that was anathematized both by the Chalcedonians and the non-Chacledonians). Interestingly the modern successor to that group is probably the Mormons, insofar as Mormons are tritheistic, and Eutychianism promotes Tritheism by comingling the humanity and divinity in the prosopon of the Logos.

Then the Monothelites were actually created for the most farcical of reasons - an attempt to heal the schism between the Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox, by basically reinventing Apollinarianism. This did not work, the only lasting result being the schism of the Monothelite Maronites of Lebanon from the Syriac Orthodox - the Maronites later entered into communion with the Roman Catholic Church and the Syriac Orthodox have a formal agreement with the Antiochian Orthodox since 1991 (which I’ve been told is not in force in North America, which makes sense, because AOCNA is an autonomous church under the omophorion of the Antiochian Orthodox Patriarch, His Beatitude John X Yazigi, for the Antiochian emigres and other Arabic speaking Orthodox Christians were served by the ministry of St. Rafael of Brooklyn, an Antiochian bishop transferred canonically to the Russian Orthodox Church, which was widely regarded as the canonical church in North America prior to the confusion and chaos that followed the Bolshevik revolution, which resulted in the Russian church splitting into three Slavic groups, which became ROCOR, the Metropolia (later the OCA) and the Patriarchal Parishes, and likewise caused a schism among the ethnically Syrian Christians who had been under the pastoral care of the Metropolitan of New York and North America (historically St. Tikhon of Moscow, the first Patriarch since Nikon, and the last for well over a decade, who died in a Soviet prison in the early 1920s, where he was treated harshly) and until his repose in 1915, St. Rafael of Brooklyn.

Interestingly there was also a schism among the Armenians after the USSR invaded that country. The Communists caused a massive number of schisms, almost all of which have healed, thankfully, because people became fearful that the church authorities had been corrupted by the secret police - a legitimate concern.

One group I have very little patience for are the small minority of ROCOR members who left ROCOR and joined schismatic groups like the “Genuine Orthodox Church” after schism separating ROCOR from the MP and the other canonical churches including the OCA was healed in a glorious moment in 2007. But what for most Orthodox was a moment of great happiness, was for a small misguided minority an occasion for sinful despair and schism.

 

[ArmyMatt]

Indeed - the Orthodox Church probably would never have called an ecumenical council had it not been for the nightmare caused by Arius and his supprters in the aftermath of the edict of Milan, and their continued contumacy after Pope St. Alexander of Alexandria anathematized Arianiasm and deposed Arius. And there wouldn’t have been a second ecumenical council without people like Eusebius of Nicomedia conspiring to convert the heir apparent, Constantius, to the Arian religion, away from Christ, and to perpetuate the heresy of Arius even after Arius was struck down by what many believe was a providential act, just before Arius was to be allowed to receive communion in the Hagia Sophia according to one of the ancient Synaxaria.

Indeed by the Second Ecumenical Council there were multiple Arian denominations - the Eunomians, the semi-Arians, the Pneumatomachs, and other screwball groups such as the Apollinarians, who were the first to confuse the humanity and divinity of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ, compromising the doctrine of the Incarnation, which would later be continued by the Eutychians, who degenerated into Tritheism by the time of John Philoponus, the last known intellectual of the original Monophysites (the group following Eutyches that was anathematized both by the Chalcedonians and the non-Chacledonians). Interestingly the modern successor to that group is probably the Mormons, insofar as Mormons are tritheistic, and Eutychianism promotes Tritheism by comingling the humanity and divinity in the prosopon of the Logos.

Then the Monothelites were actually created for the most farcical of reasons - an attempt to heal the schism between the Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox, by basically reinventing Apollinarianism. This did not work, the only lasting result being the schism of the Monothelite Maronites of Lebanon from the Syriac Orthodox - the Maronites later entered into communion with the Roman Catholic Church and the Syriac Orthodox have a formal agreement with the Antiochian Orthodox since 1991 (which I’ve been told is not in force in North America, which makes sense, because AOCNA is an autonomous church under the omophorion of the Antiochian Orthodox Patriarch, His Beatitude John X Yazigi, for the Antiochian emigres and other Arabic speaking Orthodox Christians were served by the ministry of St. Rafael of Brooklyn, an Antiochian bishop transferred canonically to the Russian Orthodox Church, which was widely regarded as the canonical church in North America prior to the confusion and chaos that followed the Bolshevik revolution, which resulted in the Russian church splitting into three Slavic groups, which became ROCOR, the Metropolia (later the OCA) and the Patriarchal Parishes, and likewise caused a schism among the ethnically Syrian Christians who had been under the pastoral care of the Metropolitan of New York and North America (historically St. Tikhon of Moscow, the first Patriarch since Nikon, and the last for well over a decade, who died in a Soviet prison in the early 1920s, where he was treated harshly) and until his repose in 1915, St. Rafael of Brooklyn.

Interestingly there was also a schism among the Armenians after the USSR invaded that country. The Communists caused a massive number of schisms, almost all of which have healed, thankfully, because people became fearful that the church authorities had been corrupted by the secret police - a legitimate concern.

One group I have very little patience for are the small minority of ROCOR members who left ROCOR and joined schismatic groups like the “Genuine Orthodox Church” after schism separating ROCOR from the MP and the other canonical churches including the OCA was healed in a glorious moment in 2007. But what for most Orthodox was a moment of great happiness, was for a small misguided minority an occasion for sinful despair and schism.

it also implies dogma is really human choice, not Divine revelation. as if Arianism was a valid option before Nicaea

 

[The Liturgist]

it also implies dogma is really human choice, not Divine revelation. as if Arianism was a valid option before Nicaea

Indeed. And we know that not to be the case - Arianism was not only not a valid option before Nicaea, but similar heresies such as those of Paul of Samosata, who was closer to the Unitarians of the 18th century (and also so corrupt the Pagan Roman government actually processed a complaint against him by the orthodox Christians if memory serves, because his embezzlement was so obvious; if I read that bit of history correctly and it actually happened, it would probably be a rare instance since Emperor Nero until the Edict of Milan that a Roman magistrate in the provinces helped the Christian, but its not inconceivable, since this happened in Antioch and not Rome, and Antioch was at best the fourth city of the Roman Empire culturally, and the third city economically, and lacked the reputation for being as beautiful as Alexandria.

By the way, I find it amusing the word pagan is derived from paganus, which has the implication of “country bumpkin”

 

[ArmyMatt]

Indeed. And we know that not to be the case - Arianism was not only not a valid option before Nicaea, but similar heresies such as those of Paul of Samosata, who was closer to the Unitarians of the 18th century (and also so corrupt the Pagan Roman government actually processed a complaint against him by the orthodox Christians if memory serves, because his embezzlement was so obvious; if I read that bit of history correctly and it actually happened, it would probably be a rare instance since Emperor Nero until the Edict of Milan that a Roman magistrate in the provinces helped the Christian, but its not inconceivable, since this happened in Antioch and not Rome, and Antioch was at best the fourth city of the Roman Empire culturally, and the third city economically, and lacked the reputation for being as beautiful as Alexandria.

By the way, I find it amusing the word pagan is derived from paganus, which has the implication of “country bumpkin”

yep