The early Christians believed in Jesus and accepted him for what he claimed to be, Messiah and Lord. The Gnostics taught a form of Platonic dualism between the spiritual and the material and said that Christ could not have lived an actual human life and have also been God. He was one of many spirits, they said, and did not really acquire human form, though he seemed to. Such assertions were obviously heretical and was the first instance where truth was challenged by false teaching.
Impact: The competition with Gnosticism compelled the early Christians to define and defend their faith, and supplied certain of the technical terms of later theology. With the aid of apologists and teachers, the Church worked itself free from Gnosticism. Several of the eminent champions of orthodoxy drew up simple statements of belief as rules of faith. One of the first to do this was Ignatius of Antioch who wrote that Jesus was “truly born, ate and drank, truly suffered persecution under Pontius Pilate, was truly crucified and died, who was also truly raised from the dead, his Father raising him up.” Such rules of faith as this became standards in the local churches, and later they were elaborated into creeds, like the Apostles’ Creed.