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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 heresy.
Heresy in Christianity, Judaism, 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.
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.
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."
The use of the word heresy was given wide currency by Irenaeus in his 2nd-century tract Contra Haereses ( 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 orthodoxy (from ὀρθός, orthos, "straight" or "correct" and δόξα, doxa, "belief") and the Gnosticism' 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 (2 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 ( Collegium Pontificum) 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." pp. 949–950 in Encyclopedia of Early Christianity (2nd ed.), edited by Everett Ferguson. Routledge. . p. 950. John Anthony McGuckin, The Westminster Handbook to Patristic Theology (Westminster John Knox Press 2004 ), 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.
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.
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 notes 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 westwards gave birth to the famous 11th- and 12th-century heresies of Western Europe. The first one was that of Bogomilism in modern-day Bulgaria, a sort of sanctuary between Eastern and Western Christianity. By the 11th century, more organised groups such as the Pataria, the , 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 Galileo affair for heresy, but Abjuration 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 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
The Augsburg Confession of 1539, which is among the foundational documents of Lutheranism, lists 10 heresies by name which are condemned: Manichaeism, Valentinianism, Arianism, Eunomians, Islam, Samosatenes, Pelagianism, Anabaptism, Donatism and "certain Jewish opinions"
Book of Concord.org, Articles 1–17
In Britain, the 16th-century English Reformation resulted in a number of executions on charges of heresy. During the thirty-eight years of Henry VIII's reign, about sixty heretics, mainly Protestants, were executed and a rather greater number of Catholics lost their lives on grounds of political offences such as treason, notably Sir Thomas More and Cardinal John Fisher, for refusing to accept the king's supremacy over the Church in England.
Christenson, Ron. 1991. Political Trials in History. Transaction Publishers. . p. 302.O'Donovan, Oliver, and Joan Lockwood O'Donovan. 1999. From Irenaeus to Grotius. Eerdmans. . p. 558. Under Edward VI, the heresy laws were repealed in 1547 only to be reintroduced in 1554 by Mary I; even so two radicals were executed in Edward's reign (one for denying the reality of the incarnation, the other for denying Christ's divinity).Dickens, A.G. The English Reformation Fontana/Collins 1967, pp. 327, 364 Under Mary, around two hundred and ninety people were burned at the stake between 1555 and 1558 after the restoration of papal jurisdiction. When Elizabeth I came to the throne, the concept of heresy was retained in theory but severely restricted by the 1559 Act of Supremacy and the one hundred and eighty or so Catholics who were executed in the forty-five years of her reign were put to death because they were considered members of "a subversive fifth column."Stephen Neill. Anglicanism. Pelican. pp. 96–97. The last execution of a "heretic" in England occurred under James VI and I in 1612.MacCulloch, Diarmaid. 1996. Thomas Cranmer. Yale University Press. p. 477. Although the charge was technically one of "blasphemy" there was one later execution in Scotland (still at that date an entirely independent kingdom) when in 1697 Thomas Aikenhead was accused, among other things, of denying the doctrine of the Trinity.MacCulloch, Diarmaid. 2003. The Reformation. Penguin. p. 679.Another example of the persecution of heretics under Protestant rule was the execution of the Boston martyrs in 1659, 1660, and 1661. These executions resulted from the actions of the Anglican Puritans, who at that time wielded political as well as ecclesiastic control in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. At the time, the colony leaders were apparently hoping to achieve their vision of a "purer absolute theocracy" within their colony. As such, they perceived the teachings and practices of the rival Quaker sect as heretical, even to the point where laws were passed and executions were performed with the aim of ridding their colony of such perceived "heresies."
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist tradition, harshly criticized antinomianism, considering it the "worst of all heresies". He taught that Christian believers are bound to follow the Ten Commandments for their sanctification.
Ottoman Empire Sultan Selim I regarded the Shia Qizilbash as heretics.Jalal Al-e-Ahmad. 1982. Plagued by the West, translated by Paul Sprachman. Center for Iranian Studies, Columbia University. . Shiites, in general, have often been considered heretics by , especially in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
To Mughal Empire Emperor Aurangzeb, were heretics.
Ahmadiyya is widely considered by both Sunnis and Shias alike to be heresy due to their belief in prophets after Muhammad.
Despite not being considered Muslim, the Baháʼí Faith has been considered a heretical offshoot of Islam.
In 1989, Ruhollah Khomeini, supreme religious leader of Iran, issued a fatwa that declared the writing of Salman Rushdie to be heretical, and a bounty was issued for anyone who assassinated him. Heresy remains an offense punishable by death in some nations. The Baháʼí Faith is considered an Islamic heresy in Iran, with systematic persecution of Baháʼís.
Although Zoroastrianism has had an historical tolerance for other religions, it also held sects like Zurvanism and Mazdakism heretical to its main dogma and has violently persecuted them, such as burying Mazdakians with their feet upright as "human gardens." In later periods Zoroastrians cooperated with Muslims to kill other Zoroastrians deemed heretical.Houtsma, Martijn Theodoor (1936), First Encyclopaedia of Islam 1913–1936: E.J. Brill,
Chinese Buddhism and Taoism monks in medieval China often called each other "heretics" and competed to be praised by the royal court. Although today most Chinese believe in a hybrid of the "Three Teachings" (Buddhism, Taoism, Confucian) the competition between the two religions may still be seen in some teachings and commentaries given by both religions today. A similar situation happened with Shinto in Japan. Neo-Confucian heresy has also been described.
Scientist/author Isaac Asimov considered heresy as an abstraction, mentioning religious, political, socioeconomic and scientific heresies.
Asimov's views are in "Forward: The Role of the Heretic". He divided scientific heretics into: endoheretics, those from within the scientific community; and exoheretics, those from without. Characteristics were ascribed to both and examples of both kinds were offered. Asimov concluded that science orthodoxy defends itself well against endoheretics (by control of science education, grants and publication as examples), but is nearly powerless against exoheretics. He acknowledged by examples that heresy has repeatedly become orthodoxy.Publishing his findings as The Dinosaur Heresies, revisionist paleontologist Robert T. Bakker, himself a scientific endoheretic, treated the mainstream view of dinosaurs as dogma:
I have enormous respect for dinosaur paleontologists past and present. But on average, for the last fifty years, the field hasn't tested dinosaur orthodoxy severely enough.He adds that, "Most taxonomists, however, have viewed such new terminology as dangerously destabilizing to the traditional and well-known scheme." The illustrations by the author show dinosaurs in very active poses, in contrast to the traditional perception of lethargy.
Immanuel Velikovsky is an example of a recent scientific exoheretic; he did not have appropriate scientific credentials and did not publish in scientific journals. While the details of his work are in scientific disrepute, the concept of Catastrophism (extinction event and punctuated equilibrium) has gained acceptance in recent decades.
The term heresy is used not only with regard to religion but also in the context of political theory. The term heresy is also used as an ideological Pigeonholing for contemporary writers because, by definition, heresy depends on contrasts with an established orthodoxy. For example, the tongue-in-cheek contemporary usage of heresy, such as to categorize a "Wall Street heresy" a "Democratic heresy" or a "Republican heresy", are that invariably retain a subtext that links orthodoxies in geology or biology or any other field to religion. These expanded metaphoric senses allude to both the difference between the person's views and the mainstream and the boldness of such a person in propounding these views.
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