usually with an implicit censure of the factious spirit to which such
divisions are due. The term is applied to the Sadducees (Acts v. 17) and
Pharisees (Acts xv. 5, xxvi. 5). From the standpoint of opponents,
Christianity is itself so described (Acts xxiv. 14, xxviii. 22). In the
Pauline Epistles it is used with severe condemnation of the divisions
within the Christian Church itself. Heresies with "enmities, strife,
jealousies, wraths, factions, divisions, envyings" are reckoned among
"the works of the flesh" (Gal. v. 20). Such divisions, proofs of a
carnal mind, are censured in the church of Corinth (1 Cor. iii. 3, 4);
and the church of Rome is warned against those who cause them (Rom. xvi.
17). The term "schism," afterwards distinguished from "heresy," is also
used of these divisions (1 Cor. i. 10). The estrangements of the rich
and the poor in the church at Corinth, leading to a lack of Christian
fellowship even at the Lord's Supper, is described as "heresy" (1 Cor.
xi. 19). Breaches of the law of love, not errors about the truth of the
Gospel, are referred to in these passages. But the first step towards
the ecclesiastical use of the term is found already in 2 Peter ii. 1,
"Among you also there shall be false teachers who shall privily bring in
destructive heresies (R.V. margin "sects of perdition"), denying even
the Master that bought them, bringing upon themselves swift
destruction." The meaning here suggested is "falsely chosen or erroneous
tenets. Already the emphasis is moving from persons and their temper to
mental products--from the sphere of sympathetic love to that of
objective truth" (Bartlet, art. "Heresy," Hastings's _Bible
Dictionary_). As the parallel passage in Jude, verse 4, shows, however,
that these errors had immoral consequences, the moral reference is not
absent even from this passage. The first employment of the term outside
the New Testament is also its first use for theological error. Ignatius
applies it to Docetism (_Ad Trall._ 6). As doctrine came to be made more
important, heresy was restricted to any departure from the recognized
creed. Even Constantine the Great describes the Christian Church as "the
Catholic heresy," "the most sacred heresy" (Eusebius, _Ecclesiastical
History_, x. c. 5, the letter to Chrestus, bishop of Syracuse); but this
use was very soon abandoned, and the Catholic Church distinguished
itself from the dissenting minorities, which it condemned as "heresies."
The use of the term heresy in the New Testament cannot be regarded as
defining the attitude of the Christian Church, even in the Apostolic
age, towards errors in belief. The Apostolic writings show a vehement
antagonism towards all teaching opposed to the Gospel. Paul declares
_anathema_ the Judaizer, who required the circumcision of the Gentiles
(Gal. i. 8), and even calls them the "dogs of the concision" and "evil
workers" (Phil. iii. 2). The elders of Ephesus are warned against the
false teachers who would appear in the church after the apostle's death
as "grievous wolves not sparing the flock" (Acts xx. 29); and the
speculations of the Gnostics are denounced as "seducing spirits and
doctrines of devils" (1 Tim. iv. 1), as "profane babblings and
oppositions of the knowledge which is falsely so called" (vi. 20).
John's warnings are as earnest and severe. Those who deny the fact of
the Incarnation are described as "antichrist," and as "deceivers" (1
John iv. 3; 2 John 7). The references to heretics in 2 Peter and Jude
have already been dealt with. This antagonism is explicable by the
character of the heresies that threatened the Christian Church in the
Apostolic age. Each of these heresies involved such a blending of the
Gospel with either Jewish or pagan elements, as would not only pollute
its purity, but destroy its power. In each of these the Gospel was in
danger of being made of none effect by the environment, which it must
resist in order that it might transform (see Burton's Bampton Lectures
on _The Heresies of the Apostolic Age_).
Gnosticism.
These Gnostic heresies, which threatened to paganize the Christian
Church, were condemned in no measured terms by the fathers. These false
teachers are denounced as "servants of Satan, beasts in human shape,
dealers in deadly poison, robbers and pirates." Polycarp, Ignatius,
Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Tertullian and even Clement of
Alexandria and Origen are as severe in condemnation as the later fathers
(cf. Matt. xiii. 35-43; Tertullian, _Praescr._ 31). While the necessity
of the heresies is admitted in accordance with 1 Cor. xi. 19, yet woe is
pronounced on those who have introduced them, according to Matt. xviii.
7. (This application of these passages, however, is of altogether
doubtful validity.) "It was necessary," says Tertullian (ibid. 30),
"that the Lord should be betrayed; but woe to the traitor." The very
worst motives, "pride, disappointed ambition, sensual lust, and
avarice," are recklessly imputed to the heretics; and no possibility of
morally innocent doubt, difficulty or difference in thought is admitted.
Origen and Augustine do, however, recognize that even false teachers may
have good motives. While we must admit that there was a very serious
peril to the thought and life of the Christian Church in the teaching
thus denounced, yet we must not forget that for the most part these
teachers are known to us only in the _ex parte_ representation that
their opponents have given of them; and we must not assume that even
their doctrines, still less their characters, were so bad as they are
described.
The attitude of the church in the post-Nicene period differs from that
in the ante-Nicene in two important respects. (1) As has already been
indicated, the earlier heresies threatened to introduce Jewish or pagan
elements into the faith of the church, and it was necessary that they
should be vigorously resisted if the church was to retain its
distinctive character. Many of the later heresies were differences in
the interpretation of Christian truth, which did not in the same way
threaten the very life of the church. No vital interest of Christian
faith justified the extravagant denunciations in which theological
partisanship so recklessly and ruthlessly indulged. (2) In the
ante-Nicene period only ecclesiastical penalties, such as reproof,
deposition or excommunication, could be imposed. In the post-Nicene the
union of church and state transformed theological error into legal
offence (see below).
Christian definition.
We must now consider the definition of heresy which was gradually
reached in the Christian Church. It is "a religious error held in wilful
and persistent opposition to the truth after it has been defined and
declared by the church in an authoritative manner," or "pertinax
defensio dogmatis ecclesiae universalis judicio condemnati" (Schaff's
_Ante-Nicene_ Christianity, ii. 512-516). (i.) It "denotes an opinion
antagonistic to a fundamental article of the Christian faith," due to
the introduction of "foreign elements" and resulting in a perversion of
Christianity, and an amalgamation with it of ideas discordant with its
nature (Fisher's _History of Christian Doctrine_, p. 9). It has been
generally assumed that the ecclesiastical authority was always competent
to determine what are the fundamental articles of the Christian faith,
and to detect any departures from them; but it is necessary to admit the
possibility that the error was in the church, and the truth was with the
heresy. (ii.) There cannot be any heresy where there is no orthodoxy,
and, therefore, in the definition it is assumed that the church has
declared what is the truth or the error in any matter. Accordingly
"heresy is to be distinguished from defective stages of Christian
knowledge. For example, the Jewish believers, including the Apostles
themselves, at the outset required the Gentile believers to be
circumcised. They were not on this account chargeable with heresy.
Additional light must first come in, and be rejected, before that
earlier opinion could be thus stigmatized. Moreover, heresies are not to
be confounded with tentative and faulty hypotheses broached in a period
prior to the scrutiny of a topic of Christian doctrine, and before that
scrutiny has led the general mind to an assured conclusion. Such
hypotheses--for example, the idea that in the person of Christ the Logos
is substituted for a rational human spirit--are to be met with in
certain early fathers" (ibid. p. 10). Origen indulged in many
speculations which were afterwards condemned, but, as these matters were
still open questions in his day, he was not reckoned a heretic. (iii.)
In accordance with the New Testament use of the term heresy, it is
assumed that moral defect accompanies the intellectual error, that the
false view is held pertinaciously, in spite of warning, remonstrance and
rebuke; aggressively to win over others, and so factiously, to cause
division in the church, a breach in its unity.
Schism.
A distinction is made between "heresy" and "schism" (from Gr. [Greek:
schizein], rend asunder, divide). "The fathers commonly use 'heresy' of
false teaching in opposition to Catholic doctrine, and 'schism' of a
breach of discipline, in opposition to Catholic government" (Schaff).
But as the claims of the church to be the guardian through its
episcopate of the apostolic tradition, of the Christian faith itself,
were magnified, and unity in practice as well as in doctrine came to be
regarded as essential, this distinction became a theoretical rather than
a practical one. While severely condemning, both Irenaeus and Tertullian
distinguished schismatics from heretics. "Though we are by no means
entitled to say that they acknowledged orthodox schismatics they did not
yet venture to reckon them simply as heretics. If it was desired to get
rid of these, an effort was made to impute to them some deviation from
the rule of faith; and under this pretext the church freed herself from
the Montanists and the Monarchians. Cyprian was the first to proclaim
the identity of heretics and schismatics by making a man's Christianity
depend on his belonging to the great episcopal church confederation. But
in both East and West, this theory of his became established only by
very imperceptible degrees, and indeed, strictly speaking, the process
was never completed. The distinction between heretics and schismatics
was preserved because it prevented a public denial of the old
principles, because it was advisable on political grounds to treat
certain schismatic communities with indulgence, and because it was
always possible in case of need to prove heresy against the
schismatics." (Harnack's _History of Dogma_, ii. 92-93).
Heretical baptism.
There was considerable controversy in the early church as to the
validity of heretical baptism. As even "the Christian virtues of the
heretics were described as hypocrisy and love of ostentation," so no
value whatever was attached by the orthodox party to the sacraments
performed by heretics. Tertullian declares that the church can have no
communion with the heretics, for there is nothing common; as they have
not the same God, and the same Christ, so they have not the same baptism
(_De bapt._ 15). Cyprian agreed with him. The validity of heretical
baptism was denied by the church of Asia Minor as well as of Africa; but
the practice of the Roman Church was to admit without second baptism
heretics who had been baptized with the name of Christ, or of the Holy
Trinity. Stephen of Rome attempted to force the Roman practice on the
whole church in 253. The controversy his intolerance provoked was closed
by Augustine's controversial treatise _De Baptismo_, in which the
validity of baptism administered by heretics is based on the objectivity
of the sacrament. Whenever the name of the three-one God is used, the
sacrament is declared valid by whomsoever it may be performed. This was
a triumph of sacramentarianism, not of charity.
Types of heresy.
Three types of heresy have appeared in the history of the Christian
Church.[1] The earliest may be called the _syncretic_; it is the fusion
of Jewish or pagan with Christian elements. _Ebionitism_ asserted "the
continual obligation to observe the whole of the Mosaic law," and
"outran the Old Testament monotheism by a barren monarchianism that
denied the divinity of Christ" (Kurtz, _Church History_, i. 120).
"_Gnosticism_ was the result of the attempt to blend with Christianity
the religious notions of pagan mythology, mysterology, theosophy and
philosophy" (p. 98). The Judaizing and the paganizing tendency were
combined in _Gnostic Ebionitism_ which was prepared for in _Jewish
Essenism_. In the later heresy of _Manichaeism_ there were affinities to
Gnosticism, but it was a mixture of many elements, Babylonian-Chaldaic
theosophy, Persian dualism and even Buddhist ethics (p. 126).
The next type of heresy may be called _evolutionary_ or _formatory_.
When the Christian faith is being formulated, undue emphasis may be put
on one aspect, and thus so partial a statement of truth may result in
error. Thus when in the ante-Nicene age the doctrine of the Trinity was
under discussion, dynamic _Monarchianism_ "regarded Christ as a mere
man, who, like the prophets, though in a much higher measure, had been
endued with divine wisdom and power"; modal _Monarchianism_ saw in the
Logos dwelling in Christ "only a mode of the activity of the Father";
_Patripassianism_ identified the Logos with the Father; and
_Sabellianism_ regarded Father, Son and Spirit as "the _roles_ which the
God who manifests Himself in the world assumes in succession" (Kurtz,
_Church History_, i. 175-181). When Arius asserted the subordination of
the Son to the Father, and denied the eternal generation, Athanasius and
his party asserted the _Homoousia_, the cosubstantiality of the Father
and the Son. This assertion of the divinity of Christ triumphed, but
other problems at once emerged. How was the relation of the humanity to
the divinity in Christ to be conceived? Apollinaris denied the
completeness of the human nature, and substituted the divine Logos for
the reasonable soul of man. Nestorius held the two natures so far apart
as to appear to sacrifice the unity of the person of Christ. Eutyches on
the contrary "taught not only that after His incarnation Christ had only
one nature, but also that the body of Christ as the body of God is not
of like substance with our own" (Kurtz, _Church History_, i, 330-334).
The Church in the Creed of Chalcedon in A.D. 451 affirmed "that Christ
is true God and true man, according to His Godhead begotten from
eternity and like the Father in everything, only without sin; and that
after His incarnation the unity of the person consists in two natures
which are conjoined without confusion, and without change, but also
without rending and without separation." The problem was not solved, but
the inadequate solutions were excluded, and the data to be considered in
any adequate solution were affirmed. After this decision the
controversies about the Person of Christ degenerated into mere
hair-splitting; and the interference of the imperial authority from time
to time in the dispute was not conducive to the settlement of the
questions in the interests of truth alone. This problem interested the
East for the most part; in the West there was waged a theological
warfare around the nature of man and the work of Christ. To Augustine's
doctrine of man's total depravity, his incapacity for any good, and the
absolute sovereignty of the divine grace in salvation according to the
divine election, Pelagius opposed the view that "God's grace is destined
for all men, but man must make himself worthy of it by honest striving
after virtue" (Kurtz, _Church History_, i. 348). While Pelagius was
condemned, it was only a modified Augustinianism which became the
doctrine of the church. It is not necessary in illustration of the
second type of heresy--that which arises when the contents of the
Christian faith are being defined--to refer to the doctrinal
controversies of the middle ages. It may be added that after the
Reformation Arianism was revived in Socinianism, and Pelagianism in
Arminianism; but the conception of heresy in Protestantism demands
subsequent notice.
The third type of heresy is the _revolutionary_ or _reformatory_. This
is not directed against doctrine as such, but against the church, its
theory and its practice. Such movements of antagonism to the errors or
abuses of ecclesiastical authority may be so permeated by defective
conceptions and injurious influences as by their own character to
deserve condemnation. But on the other hand the church in maintaining
its place and power may condemn as heretical genuine efforts at reform
by a return, though partial, to the standard set by the Holy Scriptures
or the Apostolic Church. On the one hand there were during the middle
ages sects, like the Catharists and Albigenses, whose "opposition as a
rule developed itself from dualistic or pantheistic premises (surviving
effects of old Gnostic or Manichaean views)" and who "stood outside of
ordinary Christendom, and while no doubt affecting many individual
members within it, had no influence on church doctrine." On the other
hand there were movements, such as the Waldensian, the Wycliffite and
Hussite, which are often described as "reformations anticipating the
Reformation" which "set out from the Augustinian conception of the
Church, but took exception to the development of the conception," and
were pronounced by the medieval church as heretical for (1) "contesting
the hierarchical gradation of the priestly order; or (2) giving to the
religious idea of the Church implied in the thought of predestination a
place superior to the conception of the empirical Church; or (3)
applying to the priests, and thereby to the authorities of the Church,
the test of the law of God, before admitting their right to exercise, as
holding the keys, the power of binding and loosing" (Harnack's _History
of Dogma_, vi. 136-137). The Reformation itself was from the standpoint
of the Roman Catholic Church heresy and schism.
Modern use of the term.
"In the present divided state of Christendom," says Schaff (_Ante-Nicene
Christianity_, ii. 513-514), "there are different kinds of orthodoxy and
heresy. Orthodoxy is conformity to the recognized creed or standard of
public doctrine; heresy is a wilful departure from it. The Greek Church
rejects as heretical, because contrary to the teaching of the first
seven ecumenical councils, the Roman dogmas of the papacy, of the double
procession of the Holy Ghost, the immaculate conception of the Virgin
Mary, and the infallibility of the Pope. The Roman Church anathematized,
in the council of Trent, all the distinctive doctrines of the Protestant
Reformation. Among Protestant churches again there are minor doctrinal
differences, which are held with various degrees of exclusiveness or
liberality according to the degree of departure from the Roman Catholic
Church. Luther, for instance, would not tolerate Zwingli's view on the
Lord's Supper, while Zwingli was willing to fraternize with him
notwithstanding this difference." At the colloquy of Marburg "Zwingli
offered his hand to Luther with the entreaty that they be at least
Christian brethren, but Luther refused it and declared that the Swiss
were of another spirit. He expressed surprise that a man of such views
as Zwingli should wish brotherly relations with the Wittenberg
reformers" (Walker, _The Reformation_, p. 174). A difference of opinion
on the question of the presence of Christ in the elements at the Lord's
Supper was thus allowed to divide and to weaken the forces of the
Reformation. On the problem of divine election Lutheranism and Calvinism
remained divided. The Formula of Concord (1577), which gave to the whole
Lutheran Church of Germany a common doctrinal system, declined to accept
the Calvinistic position that man's condemnation as well as his
salvation is an object of divine predestination. Within Calvinism itself
Pelagianism was revived in Arminianism, which denied the
irresistibility, and affirmed the universality of grace. This heresy was
condemned by the synod of Dort (1619). The standpoint of the Reformed
churches was the substitution of the authority of the Scriptures for the
authority of the church. Whatever was conceived as contrary to the
teaching of the Bible was regarded as heresy. The position is well
expressed in the _Scotch Confession_ (1559). "Protesting, that if any
man will note in this our Confession any article or sentence repugning
to God's Holy Word, that it would please him, of his gentleness, and for
Christian charity's sake, to admonish us of the same in writ, and we of
our honour and fidelity do promise unto him satisfaction from the mouth
of God; that is, from His Holy Scripture, or else reformation of that
which he shall prove to be amiss. In God we take to record in our
consciences that from our hearts we abhor all sects of heresy, and all
teachers of erroneous doctrines; and that with all humility we embrace
purity of Christ's evangel, which is the only food of our souls"
(Preface).
Although subsequently to the Reformation period the Protestant churches
for the most part relapsed into the dogmatism of the Roman Catholic
Church, and were ever ready with censure for every departure from
orthodoxy--yet to-day a spirit of diffidence in regard to one's own
beliefs, and of tolerance towards the beliefs of others, is abroad. The
enlargement of the horizon of knowledge by the advance of science, the
recognition of the only relative validity of human opinions and beliefs
as determined by and adapted to each stage of human development, which
is due to the growing historical sense, the alteration of view regarding
the nature of inspiration, and the purpose of the Holy Scriptures, the
revolt against all ecclesiastical authority, and the acceptance of
reason and conscience as alone authoritative, the growth of the spirit
of Christian charity, the clamorous demand of the social problem for
immediate attention, all combine in making the Christian churches less
anxious about the danger, and less zealous in the discovery and
condemnation of heresy.
Persecution of heretics.