3.23 The Imperial Church Incorporate III: The Heresy Hunter

History in the Bible

Garry Stevens

History, Christianity, Judaism, Bible, Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 693 Ratings

🗓️ 24 December 2022

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The imperial church of the late 2nd century was bedevilled by external competitors -- Gnostics, Marcionites, Montanists – and vexed by internal division over the nature of Christ. Was he man, god, or both? The church brought forth fighters to defend its corporate markets. These were the heresy hunters. Justin Martyr and Hegesippus the Holy were early soldiers.

Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon was the greatest of these warriors. His works was enormously influential. For a start, he decisively moved the church away from its reliance on the Jewish holy books as divine authorities, and towards a new holy canon.

In his greatest work, “Against Heresies”, Irenaeus produced an encyclopedia of the church’s enemies. He invented the concept of heresy, incorrect belief. This was a concept unknown to the ancient world. Irenaeus used the concept to set up clear borders between the church incorporate and its rivals.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Giday, I'm Gary Stevens.
0:09.9	And welcome to the third season of the History in the Bible podcast.
0:15.2	In this final season, I explore how the Jews and the Christians constructed new religions when they
0:23.5	were sent spinning into the void after the destruction of the temple. All of the history,
0:30.5	about all of the books beyond the Bible.
0:39.6	Episode 3.23.
0:45.2	The Imperial Church Incorporate, Part 3, The Heresy Hunter.
0:50.9	A Merry Christmas and a happy Hanukkah to you for 2022.
0:54.7	May the next year be better for you than the last few.
1:00.7	In episodes 3.19 and 3.20,
1:03.7	I recounted the rise of the Gnostics.
1:08.2	In episode 3.21, the heretic, I related the story of Marcian.
1:13.3	In episode 3.22, The Martyr, I introduced Justin Marta,
1:20.0	the greatest Christian intellectual and writer of the middle of the second century.
1:25.6	The growing imperial church in corporate faced a rising number of challenges.
1:31.7	The Marcionites had constructed a rival franchise that threatened the business model of the church.
1:39.0	Gnostics had infiltrated the Orthodox congregations,
1:43.5	subverting the teachings of the corporate hierarchy,
1:46.6	the Presbyters and Bishops.
1:49.5	In the late 2nd century, other troublemakers emerged in central Anatolia to vex the church.
1:57.7	The hotspot was the little region of Frigia.
2:01.6	St. Paul had passed through Frigia in his travels.
	...

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