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27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The "How" & "Why" of Heresies, and Their Consequences, March 24, 2000
This is the second printing of this particular title. It was originally published in 1984 under the title Heresies : The Image of Christ in the Mirror of Heresy and Orthodoxy from the Apostles to the Present. There was a very good review by Joseph Sobran in the October 5, 1984 issue of "National Review" which led me to purchase the original book. Please see my specific remarks for the edition under that title.
Dr. Brown is currently with the Reformed Theological Seminary Resident Faculty, in Charlotte NC. Heresies is a comprehensive history book as well as a copious treatise of various heresies since the first century A.D. This would explain its renaming for the current editions.
"Heresies" are defined by Dr. Brown as those beliefs that are so at odds with orthodox Christian theology that they are a direct threat to the basic beliefs necessary for adequately understanding God's plan for personal salvation. They are more than differences of opinion, and the heretic must have some claim on calling himself Christian, some real original relationship to orthodoxy or the "FAITH ONCE REVEALED". A non-believer cannot be a heretic. He can only be a non-believer. In this sense some "heresies" are not truly heretical but another religion.
Dr. Brown explains that all theological concepts subject to heretical interpretation are found in the Bible. These are primarily those on the Trinity and those on the nature of Jesus, as well as other subjects that became the basis for some heresies. The earliest Christians generally understood these concepts. However, until heretical beliefs started materializing and needed formal refuting these truths were not systematized and comprehensively presented in an understandable way. Yet these early orthodox beliefs are available to us through the analysis of the writings of the heretics themselves. (Hence the "...Mirror of Heresy..." in the original title of this work.)
It took several centuries for the early theologians to develop the ideas and vocabulary needed to present orthodox beliefs on the Trinity and on the nature of Jesus. When this was done the results were the various major creeds (Apostles, Nicene(AD325/381), Athanasian, Chalcedonian(AD451)) created for popular use. But even this is not enough. For though some will generally agree with the particular postulations, the intellectual need to further explain these basics in the extreme leads to heretical thought. And this leads to the subsequent (to AD451) one thousand five hundred fifty years of repeating heresies. For most, if not all, modern heresies are revivals of or share assumptions with heresies of the first four and one half centuries of Christianity.
Dr. Brown brings this to us in a logical, well written, chronological narrative. It is easy reading, chockfull of interesting details and bibliography/footnoting par excellence. He discusses the early persecutions and shows that even some heretics were genuine martyrs. Most importantly to the layman, he explains clearly the ramifications of any particular heresy. He does not stop with an explanation of why it is wrong, but discusses thoroughly the logical implications, conclusions, even actions to which this variant belief brings the heretic.
The story progresses to the political successes of the church when it achieves official state recognition and eventually becomes an official state religion. He recounts with sadness the change of the church of the martyred saints into a government organization persecuting, or when not yet official having the government persecute, its "enemies."
These enemies were not always heretics, but often political rivals with minor differences of theological opinion. Even some of this difference of opinion was really the result of linguistic misinterpretation (willful or incidental depending on the goals of the personages) between Latin and Greek speakers. When the opponents actually were heretical there were instances when the persecutions strengthened opposition to orthodoxy much in the same way early persecutions strengthened the church. It was some of this attitude and prejudice that left varieties of North African and Middle Eastern Christians vulnerable to the wholesale conversions to Islam in the 7th and 8th Centuries. The author also shows a point in time when it is the state that is interested in Christian orthodoxy and unity, and the official Church is more interested in making war.
This newer publication was improved immensely with the addition of a more comprehensive index. One can now find and relocate entries dealing with the myriad of types of heresies and historical topics discussed. A glossary would improve reviewing the meanings of the sundry heresies and sub-heresies but might make the book, already at 512 pages, too unwieldy. Looking them up in the index is the next best. I would like to see a companion book of terms with page references. Even to find what the creeds say it is necessary to look them up from other sources. It is too bad some of the more explanatory footnotes cannot be parenthetically added to the text for this also would make a large book even bigger. The reader needs to get used to flipping back to the footnotes from the beginning or he will miss a lot of information.
The book was not updated in any form since its original publication in 1984. Is there no new information or heresy revival in this period? How about a few paragraphs on the place of the Charismatic Renewal of the 60's and 70's, which was already waning when the author started his writing? Though cults are only touched on (& then only in historical perspective) notorious examples might be used to illustrate current heresy revivals. Just a thought...
I recommend this book to most varieties of conservative Christians, which is no surprise. Next are "moderate" Christian Protestants and Roman Catholics who are comfortable with their Salvation in Jesus. Roman Catholics who are wedded to the Church hierarchy and tradition add-ons will find parts of the work difficult to accept. Those who will be least pleased, other than honest by gosh heretics, are liberal and universalist Christians whose doctrines and beliefs themselves border on heresy.
I also highly recommend it to non-believers who have any interest in church history, or are interested in Christian beliefs and controversies. They will find this a terrific source of well documented information.
(Dr. Brown died of cancer on July 8, 2007.)
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A History of Heresies in the Christian Church., May 11, 2004
_Heresies: Heresy and Orthodoxy in the History of the Church_ by Harold O. J. Brown is an extensive overview of the numerous doctrinal disputes within Christendom from the early Church to the present. Brown writes from the perspective of a conservative Lutheran, which determines the somewhat narrow point of view in some parts of this study. However, the good in this book far outweighs its negativity. Part of the problem when writing about heresy and heresies is the difficulty when defining exactly who the "heretics" are, what doctrines and dogmas are acceptable and which ones are unacceptable and to be categorized as "heretical." Many ultramontane Catholics will consider the entire Protestant Reformation heretical, while conservative, and fundamentalist/evangelical Protestants of various denominations view the central tenants of Catholicism (Mariology, Papal infallibility, literal transubstantiation of the Eucharist, etc). Also, where does Eastern Orthodox Christendom fit in?The key difference between the ancient heretics and theological liberals of today, notes Brown, is the ancients sincerely believed what they espoused as Christian truth while today's skeptics are wishy-washy nay-sayers. Brown begins by noting the Greek/Hellenistic and Roman/Latin influence in the theological teachings of early Christianity. Many disputes, the most fundamental being the nature of God, the Trinity and the Person of Christ, were outside the material covered in the canonical biblical writings. Instead, theologians used Greek philosophical concepts and complicated language to explain Christian doctrinal concepts as they developed over time. This tendency (beginning with St. Paul) has been heavily criticized by moderns, (both liberal and evangelical/fundamentalist reductionists) as taking away from the original, Semitic contents of the Bible. The first major heresies, in the second, third and fourth centuries AD were those of Gnosticism and Arianism. Gnosticism was a loose collection of different sects teaching elaborate, dualistic cosmologies, and believing Christ was a being who illuminated mankind and brought freedom from the supposedly evil god of the Old Testament (Demiurge) creator of the material world. Gnosticism and its "knowledge (gnosis) falsely so called" was refuted by Ireneaus of Lyons, one of the first great theologians. Indeed, the process of formulating "Orthodox" Christian doctrine has been somewhat of a "dialectical process," as another reviewer notes, of an arising heresy followed by an Orthodox response and official definition. Ironically, the two other greatest defenders of Orthodox Christianity during the early Church period, Tertullian and Origen, later left the Church (Tertullian) and promoted some questionable doctrines, as Origen did when he speculated on the pre-existence of human souls. The Arians (named after Arius, a renegade priest) were a splinter group from Orthodox Christianity who believed that the Jesus Christ, the Son, was the greatest created being of God the father-not of the same nature as the Father. Constantine summoned the first Ecumenical Council to promote Christian unity at Nicea, and formally defined God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as all different persons of the same God. However, Constantine himself and a number of his successors tended to support the Arian position. Almost the sole defender of Christian Orthodoxy, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, led the battle at Nicea-Athanasius _contra mundi_, i.e., against the world. The second phase concerned the nature of Christ and spawned the controversies of Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople and the Monophysites of Alexandria. Nestorius focused on the human nature of Christ and did not want the use of "Theotokos" (strictly translated from Greek to English means "bearer of God," NOT "mother of God.") as a formal title for the Virgin Mary. The prelates of Alexandria, notably Cyril, who stressed Christ's divine nature, opposed Nestorius. A subsequent council condemned Nestorius. His followers broke off to form the "Nestorian" Church or Church of the East, which spread from Mesopotamia and Persia even as far as China by its missionaries. The next controversy arose during the fifth century and centered on around the political posturing of the Empire's four great cities: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria and Antioch. The primary dispute was between Antioch's theologians and Alexandria. Rome, Brown notes, at this time remained the most doctrinally Orthodox as it was removed from Christianity's center of gravity in the Greek speaking empire during this period, lacking the cosmopolitan theological innovators of the East. The outcome of this fourth council, Chalcedon, according to Brown, tended to lean back towards the "Nestorian" view of Christ with its doctrine Christ's human and divine nature. Alexandria, which triumphed during the early stages of this conflict, suffered a reversal. The Egyptian (Coptic) Church broke off from the official Church of the Roman Empire and Constantinople, forming the Oriental Orthodox Church, which has its branches in Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Syria, Armenia and India. However, Nestorians and Monophysites (who maintained that Christ only had a divine nature) remain within Orthodox theology, unlike the Gnostics, Arians and the later Manicheans, Bogomils and Cathars. During the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church experienced a schism because of theological and political controversies. The Roman Papacy assumed the status of a temporal power in Italy. The worldly corruption of the Roman Church, its sale of indulgences, and it's doctrine of literal transubstantiation officially formulated during the 1200s all gave impetus for the coming Protestant Reformation of the early 1500s. But after the Reformation, who is to be considered a heretic? Brown admits that it is much easier for a Protestant polemicist to use the invective "antichrist" to describe the pope rather than "heretic." Here is where the shortfalls of a Protestant outlook come into play. It ignores the Orthodox Church, which kept the original faith "once delivered to the saints." Brown also notes the main issue with "Pietism" that arose during the 1700s in England and Germany. Pietism is doctrinally orthodox, but places its emphasis on personal conversion and personal faith experience. In the long run it looses its objectivity when it comes to actual doctrine and polemics against attacks on Christianity by today's forces of secularism and liberalism.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Informative and Engrossing, April 9, 2004
I felt like I walked through the valley of Christian history, and on every side of me lay dragons and lions of dissent, seeking to devour Truth and replace it with the viscera and bones of deception. Brown presents Christian history as the dialectic of orthodoxy, heresy, and the response to heresy. Without heresy, the Church would not be what we know today. For we defined ourselves by what became heretical. There would be no need to state the precise nature of the Trinity (or as precise as is possible) if there had not been those who denied it's existence. There would be no need to say that Jesus is one person, in two natures, one divine and one human, if some had not claimed that Jesus was only divine, or two persons. There would be no need to dwell on the grace of Christ's soteriology, if some had not believed that we were essentially good, and just needed to be reminded of the truth through Christ's example. For those who would claim, as some do these days, that heresy was orthodoxy, and orthodoxy only the most powerful of the parties who wrote the histories, Brown convincingly shows how what we understand orthodoxy to be today is what has always been believed, from the earliest times, and the earliest sources. It is not however simple to uncover this truth, or simply that what we believe now must be what was first believed- this Brown also makes clear. Perhaps one of his most interesting insights is how the Roman Church left the path it was on, in reformatting it's doctrine of transubstantiation, making it more exact than it needed to be. In so doing, they removed the personal efficaciousness of soteriology. And though the Eastern Church also believed in a literal transformation, with their less legalistic focus on mystery, they were still able to unite the average believer with her Lord. Unfortunately, this legalistic soteriology dependent on literal transformation of elements, which only priests could perform and thus be fully involved with, created a gap between God and man. This gap needed to be resolved, and lead directly to the Protestant Reformation, in Brown's opinion, as one possible solution. If only the Roman Church had been content to not innovate in doctrine, but allow for differences in understanding on the elements, the Church today might still be more united. Brown does better on early heresies than later ones. Once he gets to the last few centuries, what he calls the End of the Age of Heresy, his writing style declines, and the story becomes much drier. Without heresy, a book on heresies is simply less interesting. And so it took me a good deal of time to wend through the end, though the first 4/5ths of the book took only a few days.
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