Heresies in Early Christianity Developments
Donatism:
Donatism was taught by Donatus, bishop of Casae Nigrae (in North Africa) that the effectiveness of the sacraments depends on the moral character of the minister. Their primary disagreement with the rest of the Church was over the treatment of those who forsook their faith during the Persecution (303–305 AD) of Diocletian. Donatists proclaimed that any sacraments celebrated by the priests and bishops who had betrayed their belief were invalid.
The birth of the Donatist movement came out of opposition to the appointment of Caecilian as bishop of Carthage. One of the three bishops, Felix, bishop of Aptunga, who consecrated Caecilian, had given copies of the Bible to the Roman persecutors. A group of about 70 bishops formed a synod and declared the consecration of the bishop to be invalid.
Donatism’s unforgiving nature and its hostility to Roman authorities even after Christianity was legalized made them an enemy to the Roman churches. In 317 its believers were persecuted by Constantine. In 409, Marcellinus of Carthage, Emperor Honorius's secretary of state, decreed the group heretical and demanded that they give up their churches. They were harshly persecuted by the Roman authorities. However it survived long time in North Africa into the Muslim period.
Arianism:
Arianism was a Christological view held by followers of Arius, a Christian priest who lived and taught in Alexandria, Egypt, around 320AD. It is said to "almost took over the church". When the Germanic peoples entered the Roman Empire and founded successor-kingdoms, most had been Arian Christians for more than a century
Arianism held the belief that Jesus not divine but a human adopted by the God as son. Jesus is not the one God, but a separate being subordinate to the Father, and that Jesus at one time did not exist. I personally think this concept is much easier to follow than the concept of Trinity.
Arianism was condemned in the first ecumenical council of the church : the council of Nicaea in 325.
Marcionism:
Marcionism was an religious organization found by Marcion, a wealthy son of bishop from Sinope (in Modern Northern Turkey). It is considered by the Roman Catholic Church to have been "the most dangerous foe Christianity has ever known".
Marcionism contradicted Orthodox Christianity in two major aspects:
First, it believes that there are two Gods. The world (and much of the sufferings in the world) is created by the bad God who is jealous, inconstant, wrathful, and legalistic --- the harsh Jewish God in the Old Testament ; and Jesus was sent by the good God to free humanity from his vengeful predecessor.
Consequently, Marcionism denied the human nature of the Christ, believing that Jesus was divine all the time and was never human. His human body was just an illusion. (This belief is also called Docetism, which was condemned at the Council of Chalcedon in 451.)
Marcionism therefore posed two problems to the Orthodox Christianity : first, by claiming that it is the bad God that created all the sufferings, it undermined the original sin of the humanity inherited from Adam; secondly, it undermined the Jesus’ sacrifice in his crucifixion, since he was believed never to be a human.
Gnosticism:
Gnosticism may have been an adaptation of Greek philosophy. Gnosis in Greek means knowledge. It believes that our world is illusional and the only salvation is to obtain a special knowledge that will free ourselves from the delusional attachment to material reality and deliver ourselves to a better place with the Father. The movie Matrix borrowed a lot of ideas from Gnosticism! The Gospel of Thomas is considered to be Gnostic. Gnosticism also sounds very close to Buddhism to me.
Gnosticism was troublesome to Orthodox Christianity in several ways : Since the salvation depends on the personal quest of knowledge, the hierachy system of the church is therefore not respected as the church wanted people to. Women were equal to men in Gnosticism (as described by the Da Vinci Code). Also, the belief that Jesus is the only path to salvation --- crucial in Orthodox Christianity --- was not considered as important in Gnosticism.
Sources :
The Christian Apoloetics and Research Ministry:
http://www.carm.org/heresy.htm
The Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org
Time magazine: The Lost Gospels. Dec. 22, 2003
Lost Christianities by Bart Ehrman
Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
