Heresy in Christianity

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Heresy in Christianity denotes the formal denial or doubt of a core doctrine of the Christian faith^[1] as defined by one or more of the Christian churches.^[2]

The study of heresy requires an understanding of the development of orthodoxy and the role of creeds in the definition of orthodox beliefs, since heresy is always defined in relation to orthodoxy. Orthodoxy has been in the process of self-definition for centuries, defining itself in terms of its faith by clarifying beliefs in opposition to people or doctrines that are perceived as incorrect.

Etymology

The word heresy comes from haeresis, a Latin transliteration of the Greek word αἵρεσις originally meaning choosing, choice, course of action, or in an extended sense a sect or school of thought,^[3][4] which by the first century came to denote warring factions and the party spirit. The word appears in the New Testament, usually translated as sect,^[5] and was appropriated by the Church to mean a sect or division that threatened the unity of Christians. Heresy eventually became regarded as a departure from orthodoxy, a sense in which heterodoxy was already in Christian use soon after the year 100.^[6]

Definition

Heresy is used today to denote the formal denial or doubt of a core doctrine of the Christian faith

Development of orthodoxy

The development of doctrine, the position of orthodoxy, and the relationship between the early Church and early heretical groups is a matter of academic debate. Walter Bauer, in his Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (1934/1971),^{[note 1]} proposed that in earliest Christianity, orthodoxy and heresy did not stand in relation to one another as primary to secondary, but in many regions heresy was the original manifestation of Christianity.^[9][10] Bauer reassessed as a historian the overwhelmingly dominant view^{[note 2]} that for the period of Christian origins, ecclesiastical doctrine already represented what is primary, while heresies, on the other hand somehow are a deviation from the genuine (Bauer, "Introduction").^[9]

Scholars such as

The

• Gnosticism (particularly Valentinianism) – reliance on revealed knowledge from an unknowable God, a distinct divinity from the Demiurge who created and oversees the material world.
• Marcionism – the God of Jesus was a different God from the God of the Old Testament.
• Montanism – relied on prophetic revelations from the Holy Spirit.
• Adoptionism – Jesus was not born the Son of God, but was adopted at his baptism, resurrection or ascension.
• Docetism – Jesus was pure spirit and his physical form an illusion.

Proto-orthodoxy

Before AD 313, the heretical nature of some beliefs was a matter of much debate within the churches, and there was no true mechanism in place to resolve the various differences of beliefs. Heresy was to be approached by the leader of the church according to Eusebius, author of the Church History.

Early attacks upon alleged heresies formed the matter of

The earliest controversies in Late Antiquity were generally

The orthodox teaching, as it developed in response to these interpretations, is that Christ was fully divine and at the same time fully human, and that the three persons of the Trinity are co-equal and co-eternal.

Legal suppression of heresies

It was only after the legalisation of Christianity, which began under

The edict of Theodosius II (435) provided severe punishments for those who had or spread writings of Nestorius.^[20] Those who possessed writings of Arius were sentenced to death.^[21]

Ecumenical councils

Seven councils considered by main Christian denominations as ecumenical were convened between 325 and 787. These were mostly concerned with Christological disputes:

1. The First Ecumenical Council was convoked by the Roman Emperor Constantine at Nicaea in 325 and presided over by the Patriarch Alexander of Alexandria, with over 300 bishops condemning the view of Arius that the Son is a created being inferior to the Father.^{[note 4]} Each phrase in the Nicene Creed, formulated at this Council of Nicaea (AD 325), addresses some aspect that had been under passionate discussion prior to Constantine I. Nevertheless, Arianism dominated most of the church for the greater part of the 4th century, often with the aid of Roman emperors who favoured them.
2. The Second Ecumenical Council was held at Constantinople in 381, presided over by the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, with 150 bishops, defining the nature of the Holy Spirit against those asserting His inequality with the other persons of the Trinity. This council also condemned Arianism.
3. The
   Third Ecumenical Council is that of Ephesus, a stronghold of Cyrillian Christianity, in 431. It was presided over by the Patriarch of Alexandria, with 250 bishops and was mired in controversy because of the absences of the Patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch, the absence of the Syrian Clergy, and violence directed against Nestorius and his supporters. It affirmed that Mary is the "Bearer" of God (Theotokos), contrary to the teachings of Nestorius, and it anathematized Nestorius. A mirror Council held by Nestorius (Patriarch of Antioch) and the Syrian clergy affirmed Mary as Christokos, "Bearer" of Christ, and anathematized Cyril of Alexandria
   .
4. The Fourth Ecumenical Council is that of Chalcedon in 451, with the Patriarch of Constantinople presiding over 500 bishops. This council affirmed that Jesus has two natures, is truly God and truly man, distinct yet always in perfect union. This was based largely on Pope Leo the Great's Tome. Thus, it condemned Monophysitism and would be influential in refuting Monothelitism.
5. The Fifth Ecumenical Council is the second of Constantinople in 553, interpreting the decrees of Chalcedon and further explaining the relationship of the two natures of Jesus; it also condemned the teachings of Origen on the pre-existence of the soul, etc.
6. The
   Monothelites
   .
7. The Seventh Ecumenical Council was called under the Empress Regent Irene of Athens in 787, known as the second of Nicaea. It supports the veneration of icons while forbidding their worship. It is often referred to as "The Triumph of Orthodoxy"

Not all of these Councils have been universally recognised as

In addition, the Catholic Church has convened numerous other councils which it deems as having the same authority, making a total of twenty-one Ecumenical Councils recognised by the Catholic Church.

The

Present-day nontrinitarians, such as Unitarians, Latter-day Saints and other Mormons, and Jehovah's Witnesses, reject all seven Councils.

Some Eastern Orthodox consider the following council to be ecumenical, although this is not universally agreed upon:

1. The
   Barlaam of Calabria
   .
2. In addition to these councils there have been a number of significant councils meant to further define the Eastern Orthodox position. They are the
   Synod of Iași, 1642, and the Pan-Orthodox Synod of Jerusalem, 1672
   .

Some individual examples of the execution of Eastern Orthodox heretics do exist, such as the execution of Avvakum in 1682.

High Middle Ages (800–1299) and Late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance (1300–1520)

There were many Christian sects, cults, movements and individuals throughout the Middle Ages whose teachings were deemed heretical by the established church, such as:

• Paulicians – an Armenian group (6th to 9th centuries) who sought a return to the purity of the church at the time of Paul the Apostle.
• Tondrakians – an Armenian group (9th to 11th centuries) who advocated the abolition of the Church along with all its traditional rites.
• Bogomils – a group arising in the 11th century in Bulgaria who sought a return to the spirituality of the early Christians and opposed established forms of government and church.
• Gundolfo – an itinerant 11th century preacher near Lille, France, who taught that salvation was achieved through a virtuous life of abandoning the world, restraining the appetites of the flesh, earning food by the labor of hands, doing no injury to anyone, and extending charity to everyone of their own faith.
• Cathars – a major Christian movement in the Languedoc region of southern France from the 11th to 13th centuries. The Cathars believed that human souls were the spirits of angels trapped within the physical creation of an evil god. Through living a pure and sinless life, the soul could become perfect and free from the snare of matter.
• Arnoldists – a 12th-century group, inspired by the example of controversial figure Arnold of Brescia (c. 1090 – June 1155), from Lombardy who criticized the wealth of the Catholic Church and preached against baptism and the Eucharist.
• prayers for the dead and organ
  music.
• Henricans were 12th century followers of Henry of Lausanne in France. They rejected the doctrinal and disciplinary authority of the church, did not recognize any form of worship or liturgy and denied the sacraments.
• Waldensians – a movement that began in the 12th century in Lyon, France, and still exists today. They held that Apostolic poverty was the way to spiritual perfection and rejected what they perceived as the idolatry of the Catholic Church.
• mortification
  . Initially approved by the church, they were suppressed for disobedience in 1571.
• Christ, and that the perfected soul was free of sin and beyond all ecclesiastical, moral
  and secular law.
• Dulcinians) – a 13th to 14th century sect from northern Italy founded by Gerard Segarelli and continued by Fra Dolcino of Novara
  . The Apostolic Brethren rejected the worldliness of the church and sought a life of perfect sanctity, in complete poverty, with no fixed domicile, no care for the morrow, and no vows.
• Fraticelli (or Spiritual Franciscans) – Franciscan through the 13th to 15th centuries who regarded the wealth of the Church as scandalous.
• Beghards, who wished to return to the purity of the life of Adam by living communally, practicing social and religious nudity, embracing free love and rejecting marriage
  and individual ownership of property.
• Nicholas of Basel – a 14th-century Swiss leader who, after a spiritual experience, taught that he had the authority to use episcopal and priestly powers (even though he was not ordained), that submission to his direction was necessary for attaining spiritual perfection, and that his followers could not sin even though they committed crimes or disobeyed both the Church and pope.
• Lollards – the 14th century followers of John Wycliffe. They advocated translating the Bible into English, rejected baptism and confession, and denied the doctrine of transubstantiation.
• Hussites – a 15th-century Czech movement, following the teachings of reformer Jan Hus.

Inquisition

At the beginning of the 13th century, the Catholic Church instituted the papal or monastic Inquisition, an official body charged with the suppression of heresy. This began as an extension and more rigorous enforcement of pre-existing episcopal powers (possessed, but little used, by bishops in the early Middle Ages) to inquire about and suppress heresy, but later became the domain of selected Dominicans and Franciscans^[22] under the direct power of the Pope. The use of torture to extract confessions was authorized by Innocent IV in 1252.^[22]

The

Last execution of a heretic

The last case of an execution by the inquisition was that of the schoolmaster

Valencia after a two-year trial.^[31]

(Among the positions in violation of the views of the Catholic Church that Martin Luther had taken when he was a Catholic priest were, "Haereticos comburi est contra voluntatem Spiritus" (It is contrary to the Spirit to burn heretics). This phrase was the name given to summarized version of his comments that were included in Exsurge Domine, a 1520 papal bull^[32][33] that listed his anti-heretic killing sympathies along with 40 other positions Luther had taken in his writings that were allegedly heretical, and which he was ordered to recant. When Luther failed to accept the bull and give a broad recantation of his writings, he was excommunicated in the subsequent 1521 papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem.)

Modern Roman Catholic response to Protestantism

Main article: Heresy in the Catholic Church § Modern Roman Catholic response to Protestantism

Some of the doctrines of Protestantism that the Catholic Church considers heretical are the belief that the Bible is the only supremely authoritative source and rule of faith and practice in Christianity (sola scriptura), that only by faith alone can anyone ever accept the grace of salvation and not by following God's commandments (sola fide), and that the only Christian priesthood can be a universal priesthood of all believers.^[34]

See also

• Catholic teachings on heresy
• History of Christianity
• Infallibility of the Church
• List of movements declared heretical by the Catholic Church
• Esoteric Christianity
• List of people burned as heretics
• Pelagius
• Diversity in early Christian theology
• Word of Faith

Notes

1. ^ Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum Tübingen 1934 (a second edition, edited by Georg Strecker, Tübingen 1964, was translated as Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity 1971).
2. ^ Bauer (1964:3f) instanced Origen, Commentarius II in Cant., and Sel. in Proverb. and Tertullian, De praescript. haer. 36 as espousing the traditional theory of the relation of heresy.
3. ^ According to Gregory & Tuckett, Bock "is not an expert on the Christian Apocrypha, and his shortcomings are often apparent."^[15]
4. ^ 300 bishops, as well as Constantine I, were present at the Council. Constantine had invited all 1800 bishops of the Christian church (about 1000 in the east and 800 in the west). The number of participating bishops cannot be accurately stated; Socrates Scholasticus and Epiphanius of Salamis counted 318; Eusebius of Caesarea, only 250.

References

Citations

1. ^ ^{a b} J.D Douglas (ed). The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church Paternoster Press/ Zondervan, Exeter/Grand Rapids 1974, art Heresy
2. ^ ^{a b c} Cross & Livingstone (eds) Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 1974 art Heresy
3. ^ Oxford English Dictionary
4. ^ LSJ, Definition of ancient Greek haeresis
5. ^ Bible Hub, All uses of haeresis in the New Testament
6. ISBN 978-316148561-9
   ), p. 342
7. ^ Prümmer, Dominic M. Handbook of Moral Theology Mercer Press 1963, sect. 201ff
8. ^ Cross & Livingstone (eds) Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 1974 arts apostasy, schism
9. ^
   ISBN 0-8006-1363-5
   .
10. ISBN 978-0-19-166781-7
    . [Walter Bauer claimed] that Christianity was a diverse phenomenon from the beginning, that 'varieties of Christianity' arose around the Mediterranean, and that in some places what would later be called 'heretical' was initially normative [...] Although some of Bauer's reconstructions are inaccurate and have been dropped, the idea that Christianity was originally a diverse phenomenon has now been generally accepted.
11. ISBN 0-679-72453-2
    .
12. ISBN 0-19-514183-0
    .
13. ISBN 978-0-19-518249-1
    .
14. ^ H. E. W. Turner (2004), The Pattern of Christian Truth: A Study in the Relations between Orthodoxy and Heresy in the Early Church, Wipf and Stock Publishers, from the book-summary.
15. ^ ^{a b} Gregory & Tuckett 2015, p. 453.
16. ISBN 978-0-7852-1294-2
17. ISBN 978-0-521-81239-9
    .
18. ^ A History of Heresy in Ancient and Medieval Christianity
19. ^ R. Gerberding and J. H. Moran Cruz, Medieval Worlds (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004) p. 58
20. ISBN 978-1-4982-7447-0
    .
21. ISBN 978-90-04-17904-2
    .
22. ^ ^{a b} "Catholic Encyclopedia Inquisition". New Advent. Retrieved October 3, 2018.
23. ^
    ISBN 978-1440836695
    .
24. ISBN 978-0567317469
    .
25. ^
    ISBN 978-0810878945
    .
26. ^ Hurst, John Fletcher (1903). John Wesley the Methodist: A Plain Account of His Life and Work. Eaton & Mains. p. 200.
27. ^ The Wesleyan Methodist Association Magazine. Vol. 12. R. Abercrombie. 1849. p. 368.
28. ISBN 978-0521816052
    .
29. ISBN 978-9401032230
    .
30. ^ ^{a b} Heffron, Christopher (14 October 2011). "Ask A Franciscan: What is Americanism?". Franciscan Media. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
31. ^ "Daily TWiP – The Spanish Inquisition executes its last victim today in 1826". 26 July 2010. Retrieved 8 June 2013.
32. ^ Bainton, Roland H. (1950). Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther. Abingdon-Cokesbury Press., pp. 145–147.
33. ^ Fredericq, Paul (1900). Corpus Documentorum Inquisitionis Haereticae Pravitatis Neerlandicae (in Latin). p. 27.
34. ^ "Catholic Encyclopedia: Protestantism". www.newadvent.org. Retrieved 2023-01-25.

Sources

• Gregory, Andrew; Tuckett, Christopher, eds. (2015). The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Apocrypha. Oxford University Press.

• Keating, Karl (1990), Catholicism and Fundamentalism: The Attack on Romanism by Bible Christians, San Francisco: Ignatius Press,
  ISBN 9780898701777

Further reading

• Clifton, Chas S. (1992). Encyclopedia of Heresies and Heretics. New York: Barnes and Noble Books.
  ISBN 0-7607-0823-1
  .
• Edwards, Mark (2009). Catholicity and Heresy in the Early Church. Ashgate.
  ISBN 978-0754662914
  .
• Slade, Darren M. (January 2014). "Arabia Haeresium Ferax (Arabia Bearer of Heresies): Schismatic Christianity's Potential Influence on Muhammad and the Qur'an" (PDF). American Theological Inquiry. 7 (1): 43–53. Archived from the original on 2014-02-02.
• Latinovic, Vladimir (2020). Who Do You Call a Heretic? Fluid Notions of Orthodoxy and Heresy in Late Antiquity. Palgrave.
  ISBN 978-3-030-53425-7
  .

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