Yeah! I mean, if they’d all simultaneously jumped at the right moment, they could’ve knocked Jesus right off the cross, and THEN where would Christianity be?!
Arianism (IIRC) posited that Jesus was not human – that he was a purely spiritual being born to Mary, because no human being could be as pure as Jesus. I’d have to pull out my list of the heresies to see if there was an early belief that Jesus was “just zis guy, you know?” Probably there was, but I’m not recalling it. Maybe the “Who wrote the Bible?” articles will be of some help.
It was fairly clear to me in the religion class I just finished that heresy was essentially only heresy because it wasn’t popular. If the church elders disagreed with you then you were wrong and a heretic. The only difference between heresy and a difference of opinion was the willingness to turn that difference of opinion into a holy war.
Arianism had Jesus as a really much nicer version of Hercules. He was divine, but created when he was conceived. (BTW, I am not sure that this is not still a pretty popular belief). I think you’re thinking of the Albegensians.
Tangentially related to the OP, though not necessarily to the subsequant wanderings.
Yesterday I was at the (Catholic) funeral mass for a cousin of mine. I was not expecting the first five minutes of the homily to be a diatribe about the evils of the DaVinci Code. I am sure my aunt was so comforted. That is so much more important than anything dealing with my cousin or our faith in general. Granted, he eventually moved on to such trivial matters.
(As an aside to my hijack, I am not sure that the priest’s argument (paraphrased) that “If the DaVinci Code is true than we are all a bunch of credulous schmucks living meaningless lives doomed to turn into worms thus is must be false” would be my first choice of arguments against the credibility of that work.)