Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, particularly the accepted beliefs or religious law of a religious organization. A heretic is a proponent of a heresy.
Heresy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam has at times been met with censure ranging from excommunication to the death penalty.Sandle, Mark. 2007. "Soviet and Eastern bloc Marxism." pp. 59–77 in Twentieth-Century Marxism, edited by D. Glaser and D. M. Walker. London: Routledge. . p. 62.
Heresy is distinct from apostasy, which is the explicit renunciation of one's religion, principles, or cause, and from blasphemy, which is an impious utterance or action concerning God or sacred things. Heresiology is the study of heresy.
Etymology Derived from Ancient Greek haíresis (), the English heresy originally meant "choice" or "thing chosen".Cross, F. L., and E. A. Livingstone, eds. 1974. "Heresy." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. However, it came to mean the "party, or school, of a man's choice",Bruce, F. F. 1964. The Spreading Flame. Exeter: Paternoster. p. 249. and also referred to that process whereby a young person would examine various philosophies to determine how to live.
The word heresy is usually used within a Christian, Jewish, or Islamic context, and implies slightly different meanings in each. The founder or leader of a heretical movement is called a heresiarch, while individuals who espouse heresy or commit heresy are known as heretics.
Christianity
In Titus 3:10, it is said that a divisive person should be warned twice before others separate from them. The Greek term for "divisive person" became a technical term in the early Church for a type of heretic who promoted dissension.The NIV Study Bible. London: Zondervan / Hodder & Stoughton. 1987. Titus 3:10n. In contrast, correct teaching is called "sound" because it strengthens orthodox belief and protects it against the "corrupting" influence of heretical teachers.The NIV Study Bible. London: Zondervan / Hodder & Stoughton. 1987. Titus 1:9n.
Tertullian () implied that it was the Jews who most inspired heresy in Christianity: "From the Jew the heretic has accepted guidance in this discussion [that Jesus was not the Christ]." This is largely because Tertullian does not consider Christianity as an additional religion but rather a continuation of Judaism with the Jewish messianic component fulfilled.
The use of the word heresy was given wide currency by Irenaeus in his 2nd-century tract (Against Heresies) to describe and discredit his opponents during the early centuries of the Christian community. He described the community's beliefs and doctrines as orthodox (from , , "straight" or "correct" and , , "belief") and the Gnostics' teachings as heretical. He also invoked the concept of apostolic succession to support his arguments. Appendices provide a timeline of councils, schisms, heresies and persecutions in the years 193–604. They are described in the text.
Constantine the Great, who along with Licinius had decreed toleration of Christianity in the Roman Empire by what is commonly called the Edict of Milan,Cross, F. L.; Livingstone, E. A., eds. (1974). "Milan, Edict of". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. and was the first Roman Emperor baptized, set precedents for later policy. By Roman law the Emperor was Pontifex Maximus, the high priest of the College of Pontiffs () of all recognized religions in ancient Rome. To put an end to the doctrinal debate initiated by Arius, Constantine called the first of what would afterwards be called the ecumenical councilsChadwick, Henry (1967). The Early Christian Church. Pelican. pp. 129–130. and then enforced orthodoxy by Imperial authority. The Emperor established and enforced orthodoxy for domestic tranquility and the efficacy of prayers in support of the empire.
The first known usage of the term in a legal context was in AD 380 by the Edict of Thessalonica of Theodosius I, As Christianity placed its stamp upon the Empire, the Emperor shaped the church for political purposes. which made Christianity the state church of the Roman Empire. Prior to the issuance of this edict, the Church had no state-sponsored support for any particular legal mechanism to counter what it perceived as "heresy". By this edict the state's authority and that of the Church became somewhat overlapping. One of the outcomes of this blurring of Church and state was the sharing of state powers of legal enforcement with church authorities.
Within six years of the official criminalization of heresy by the Emperor, the first Christian heretic to be executed, Priscillian, was condemned in 386 by Roman secular officials for sorcery, and put to death with four or five followers.Bassett, Paul M. (2013). "Priscillian". In Ferguson, E., ed. Encyclopedia of Early Christianity (2nd ed.). Routledge. . pp. 949–950.John Anthony McGuckin (2004). The Westminster Handbook to Patristic Theology. Westminster John Knox Press. . p. 284. However, his accusers were excommunicated both by Ambrose of Milan and by Pope Siricius,Chadwick, Henry. The Early Church, Pelican, London, 1967. p. 171 who opposed Priscillian's heresy, but "believed capital punishment to be inappropriate at best and usually unequivocally evil". The edict of Theodosius II (435) provided severe punishments for those who had or spread writings of Nestorius. Those who possessed writings of Arius were sentenced to death.
In the 7th-century text Concerning Heresy, Saint John of Damascus named Islam as Christological heresy, referring to it as the "heresy of the Ishmaelites" (see medieval Christian views on Muhammad). The position remained popular in Christian circles well into the 20th century, by theologians such as the Congregationalist cleric Frank Hugh Foster and the Roman Catholic historian Hilaire Belloc, the latter describing it as "the great and enduring heresy of Mohammed".
For some years after the Reformation, Protestant churches were also known to execute those they considered heretics; for example, Michael Servetus was declared a heretic by both the Reformed Church and Catholic Church for rejecting the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity. The last known heretic executed by sentence of the Catholic Church was Spanish schoolmaster Cayetano Ripoll in 1826. The number of people executed as heretics under the authority of the various "ecclesiastical authorities" is not known.
Although less common than in earlier periods, in modern times, formal charges of heresy within Christian churches still occur. Issues in the Protestant churches have included modern biblical criticism and the nature of God. In the Catholic Church, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith criticizes writings for "ambiguities and errors" without using the word "heresy."An example is the Notification regarding certain writings of Fr. Marciano Vidal, C.Ss.R.
On 11 July 2007, Pope Benedict XVI stated that some Protestant groups are "ecclesial communities" rather than Churches.Cf. the documents "Responses to Some Questions" and "Commentary" from the Congregation on the Doctrine of the Faith. Representatives of some of these Christian denominations accused the Vatican of effectively calling them heretics."Dismay and anger as Pope declares Protestants cannot have churches." The Guardian. 11 July 2007."Will the Pope's Pronouncement Set Ecumenism Back a Hundred Years?" Progressive Theology. 11 July 2007 However, Pope BenedictXVI clarified that the phrase "ecclesial community" did not necessitate explicit heresy, but only that the communities lacked certain "essential elements" of an apostolic church, as he had written in the document Dominus Iesus.
Catholicism
In the Catholic Church, obstinate and willful manifest heresy is considered to spiritually cut one off from the Church, meriting excommunication automatically (latae sententiae). The 1983 Code of Canon Law defines heresy as, “the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith”.
The 6th century civil code Codex Justinianus (1:5:12) defines "everyone who is not devoted to the Catholic Church and to our Orthodox holy Faith" a heretic, disallowing such from positions of authority in the Eastern Roman Empire.
The Church had always dealt firmly with strands of Christianity that it considered heretical, but before the 11th century these tended to centre on individual preachers or small localised sects, like Arianism, Pelagianism, Donatism, Marcionism and Montanism. Jesuit historian David Collins has noted that in the roughly 700 years from the fall of the Roman Empire, there is only a single known execution of heretics.
The diffusion of the almost Manichaean sect of Paulicians westwards gave birth to the famous 11th- and 12th-century heresies of Western Europe. The first one was that of Bogomils in modern-day Bulgaria, a sort of sanctuary between Eastern and Western Christianity. By the 11th century, more organised groups such as the Patarini, the Dulcinians, the Waldensians and the Cathars were beginning to appear in the towns and cities of northern Italy, southern France and Flanders.
In France the Cathars grew to represent a popular mass movement and the belief was spreading to other areas,"Massacre of the Pure." Time. April 28, 1961. though some historians such as Robert Ian Moore point out a paucity of direct evidence. The Cathar Crusade was initiated by the Catholic Church to eliminate the alleged Cathar heresy in Languedoc.Joseph Reese Strayer (1992). The Albigensian Crusades. University of Michigan Press. p. 143.
Heresy was a major justification for the Inquisition (Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis, Inquiry on Heretical Perversity) and for the European wars of religion associated with the Protestant Reformation. Galileo Galilei was brought before the Inquisition for heresy, but abjured his views and was sentenced to house arrest, under which he spent the rest of his life. Galileo was found "vehemently suspect of heresy", namely of having held the opinions that the Sun lies motionless at the centre of the universe, and that the Earth is not at its centre and moves, and that one may hold and defend an opinion as probable after it has been declared contrary to Holy Scripture. He was required to "abjure, curse and detest" those opinions. Most contemporary historians of science believe the Galileo affair is an exception in the overall relationship between science and Christianity.
Pope Gregory I stigmatized Judaism and the Jewish people in many of his writings. He described Jews as enemies of Christ: "The more the Holy Spirit fills the world, the more perverse hatred dominates the souls of the Jews." He labeled all heresy as "Jewish", claiming that Judaism would "pollute [Catholics and] deceive them with sacrilegious seduction". The identification of Jews and heretics in particular occurred several times in Roman-Christian law.Constitutio Sirmondiana 6, 14; TheodosiusIINovella3; Codex Theodosianus 16:5:44, 16:8:27, 16:8:27; Codex Justinianus 1:3:54, 1:5:12,21, 1:10:2; Justinian, Novellae 37, 45
Lutheranism Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon, who played an instrumental part in the formation of the Lutheran Churches, condemned Johannes Agricola and his doctrine of antinomianismthe belief that Christians were free from the moral law contained in the Ten Commandmentsas a heresy. Traditional Lutheranism, espoused by Luther himself, teaches that after justification, "the Law of God continued to guide people in how they were to live before God".