David Wilhite, an associate professor of theology at Truett Seminary, has tackled ten of the “heretical” debates of early Christianity. One might call the volume a unique case of “faith seeking understanding”—of orthodox faith attempting to understand alternative views by “taking the heretics seriously” (3). Rather than an “antagonistic” approach, Wilhite proposes “an honest and critical reading” (4). “Beyond an understanding of the heresies themselves, such a study of the various unorthodox alternatives that shaped traditional Christian thinking offers those who wish to understand their own orthodoxy a more complete picture” (2).
Wilhite's nine chapters cover the Marcionites, Ebionites, Gnostics, Modalists, Arians, Apollinarians, Nestorians, Eutychians, Iconoclasts, and Muslims. At first glance, the inclusion of Iconoclasts and Muslims may seem extraneous. Wilhite acknowledges that Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and Protestant confessionalism do not view the iconoclastic controversy in the same manner (209). Many readers (whether Christian or Muslim) may find it strange to think of Islam as a “Christian heresy.” The placement of these two chapters side by side, however, allows Wilhite to analyze the use of icons from the perspective of the conciliar consensus (including the seventh ecumenical council) and the contemporaneous Muslim critiques (242).
In general, Wilhite's discussions are suitably refined by socio-rhetorical scholarship. For instance, he expunges “the concept of a single sect” of Gnosticism, resorting to a “scholarly-construct understanding” instead (66, 67). Similarly, “docetism” was not “a fixed thing,” but a term applied to “a spectrum” of beliefs (77). While Wilhite ultimately deems the heretical teachings to be “inadequate,” “unconvincing,” and “wrong,” he acknowledges that the orthodox were often “rhetorically violent” and resorted to “unfair caricatures” and “guilt by association” (14, 17, 49, 96). No one “played nice” in the Christological controversies (147).
Any analysis of “heresies” faces a host of difficulties, which Wilhite assails with skilled acumen. Scholars must often resort to a mirror reading of orthodox sources, because most heretics left “no voice of their own” (79). Yet sorting between the actual tenets of heretical movements and the constructed caricatures can be challenging (91). Moreover, some terms, such as “adoptionism,” have more than one possible meaning. “Docetic” can be used for phantasmal, possessionistic, and replacementist forms of Docetism (78). “Monarchianism” is applied to both “dynamic” and “modalistic” perspectives (92). The term “monophysitism” remains “a misleading and unreliable category” (170).
Furthermore, the meaning of words shifted over time and through translation (159). The term hypostasis originally was a synonym of physis, but Nicene supporters began to use it as a stronger version of persona (156). The translation of Greek and Latin words into Syriac and Coptic exacerbated matters (188). Muslims likely did not understand the “Word” (Kelimāt in Arabic) in the “cosmic sense” that Christians did (239). “The term ‘person’ meant something different in the early Christian centuries than it does today” (101). Similarly, the English word substance implies materiality, but the Latin word substantia did not (118). As a further complication, patristic theologians used analogies (such as “light from light”) that were not informed by modern scientific knowledge (120).
While the Christological controversies may seem like skirmishes in a “hair-splitting” war of words, the motivation was more than a love of logomachy. Wilhite sets off to connect the semantic debates with specific consequences in soteriology, since the “gospel” is “the intersection of Christology and soteriology” (3). One might wish that this helpful dual-focus was equally developed throughout all the chapters. For example, the explanation of how Arian Christology affected Arian soteriology provides enough to whet the appetite, but not enough to satisfy it (128). The Christological-soteriological focus can also limit discussions. The chapter on Islam highlights the “range of encounters” between Muslims and Christians and the accompanying “spectrum of behaviors” (231), but does not delineate the range of core theological differences. Notwithstanding, the Christological-soteriological matrix properly highlights the importance of the debates.
There are a few minor lacunae, such as the lack of reference to Nestorianism's growth in China (166) and to the Nazirite-type description of James as found in Hegesippus (49). Nevertheless, to be realistic as well as fair, not all trails can be explored in such a concise volume. Wilhite claims that the “canons” of writings used by Ignatius and Polycarp are “roughly the same as Marcion's” (27). But 1 Peter, 1 John, and 1 Timothy, though absent from Marcion's canon, are among the best attested sources in Polycarp's Philippians. While Wilhite asserts that “iconodulism” and “iconolatry” are “often synonymous” (196), Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic theologians distinguish vigilantly between veneration (dulia) and worship (latria).
Overall, Wilhite provides a useful framework for a nuanced understanding of the development of early Christian orthodoxy. The orthodox confessed the incarnation of the Son as a mystery, and therefore they did not attempt to define the fullness of Trinitarian truth or the comprehensive details of the hypostatic union. Rather, they set parameters. The history of the Christological controversies is not so much a pre-set course along the straight and narrow, but a dialogical journey accompanied by the rejection of dead-end alternatives. The inadequacy of heretical options helped focus orthodoxy via its own response of disambiguation (247–249). In this sense, the orthodox owe a “historical indebtedness” to the heretics (254). “Without the necessary ‘heresies among you’ we would never explore and discover the boundaries” (253).
The Gospel According to Heretics is academically grounded in up-to-date scholarship yet remains accessible to the non-scholar. Hopefully, this volume will bring “diophysite-yet-monoprosopite” Christology and the communicatio idiomatum to a new range of readers. The book was edited well, with only one typographical error noted, a missing “to” in “Eutyches had the opportunity do so” (174). Wilhite's lucid guidance and his structured prose (including his mastery of transition statements) proficiently help the reader navigate the maze of controversy. At times, his engaging style is even spiced with a touch of humor.
