Is My Phylactery Showing?

It is sadly not uncommon for the average Catholic to encounter Christological heresy, whether it is of the New-Age, Gnostic sort (that Jesus was an ascended being that realized the godhead available to all of us) or of that materialistic type that denies any divinity to Him at all. As with the poor, history shows that we will always have these heresies with us. While certainly it would be an overstatement to claim that every Christological heresy has roots in the old, one can certainly find the familiar taint of the modernist skeptic in the heresiarchs of old. St. Thomas describes many of these early Christological heresies in Book 4 of Summa Contra Gentiles. Of these, three in particular had a tremendous impact on the early Church: Valentinianism, Arianism, and Nestorianism.

In the early days of the Church, the Fathers knew well the importance of fine care in the choice of language and terminology. Perhaps nothing made the statement more clearly on the difference an iota (or a jot or a tittle) could make than the early Arian and Semi-Arian controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries, when the immense metaphysical gulf between homoousios and homoiousios threatened to capsize the barque of Peter.

Here's what happens when you overprepare for a short paper.

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In the Gospel according to John, the evangelist writes, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father” (1:14, RSV). He continues that we have received from His fullness “grace upon grace” (1:16) and that “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (1:17).