Heresy in Christianity: Difference between revisions

 

==Etymology==

 

==Anathema==

{{Main article|Anathema#Religious usage}}

 

In the [[Christianity in the 5th century|fifth century]], a formal distinction between anathema and excommunication evolved, where excommunication entailed cutting off a person or group from the [[rite]] of [[Eucharist]] and attendance at worship, while anathema meant a complete separation of the subject from the Church.

===Early suppression of heresies===

{{Main article|History of Christian thought on persecution and tolerance}}

 

 

The first known usage of the term 'heresy' in a civil legal context was in 380 by the "[[Edict of Thessalonica]]" of Theodosius I. 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, in some senses, the line between the Catholic Church's spiritual authority and the Roman State's jurisdiction was blurred. One of the outcomes of this blurring of Church and State was a sharing of State powers of legal enforcement between Church and State authorities, with the state enforcing what it determined to be orthodox teaching.

This position was challenged in the 4th century by [[Arius]]. [[Arianism]] held that Jesus, while not merely mortal, was not eternally divine and was, therefore, of lesser status than [[God the Father]] ({{Bibleverse||John|14:28}}). [[Trinitarianism]] held that God the Father, [[God the Son]], and the [[Holy Spirit]] were all strictly one being with three [[Hypostasis (Christianity)|hypostases]]. Many groups held [[Dualistic cosmology|dualistic beliefs]], maintaining that reality was composed into two radically opposing parts: matter, usually seen as evil, and spirit, seen as good. [[Docetism]] held that Jesus' humanity was merely an illusion, thus denying the incarnation. Others held that both the material and spiritual worlds were created by God and were therefore both good, and that this was represented in the unified divine and human natures of Christ.<ref>R. Gerberding and J. H. Moran Cruz, ''Medieval Worlds'' (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004) p. 58</ref>

 

{{main article|Creed}}

Urgent concerns with the uniformity of belief and practice have characterized Christianity from the outset. In the three centuries between the crucifixion and the [[First Council of Nicaea]] in 325, the religion was at times an illegal, underground movement spreading within the urban centres of the Roman Empire, a process bolstered through merchants and travel through the empire. The process of establishing orthodox Christianity was set in motion by a succession of different interpretations of the teachings of Christ being taught after the [[crucifixion]], though Christ himself is noted to have spoken out against false prophets and false christs within the Gospels themselves: Mark 13:22 (some will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples), Matthew 7:5-20, Matthew 24:4, Matthew 24:11 Matthew 24:24 (For false christs and false prophets will arise). On many occasions in Paul's epistles, he defends his own apostleship, and urges Christians in various places to beware of false teachers, or of anything contrary to what was handed to them by him. The epistles of John and Jude also warn of false teachers and [[prophet]]s, as does the writer of the ''[[Book of Revelation]]'' and 1 John. 4:1, as did the Apostle Peter warn in 2 Peter. 2:1-3. Due to this, in the first centuries of Christianity, churches had locally begun to make a statement of faith in line with mainstream Christian doctrine a prerequisite for [[baptism]]. The reason for this demand was to insure that new converts would not be followers of teachings that conflicted with widely accepted views of Christianity such as Gnosticism and other movements that later were considered heretical by church leaders. These statements of faith became the framework for ecumenical creeds such as the [[Apostles Creed]] and the [[Nicene Creed]]. It was against these creeds that teachings were judged in order to determine orthodoxy and to establish teachings as heretical. The first ecumenical and comprehensive statement of belief, the [[Nicene Creed]], was formulated in 325 at the First Council of Nicaea.

 

===Last execution of a heretic===

 

===Modern Roman Catholic response to Protestantism===

Well into the 20th century, Catholics defined Protestants as heretics. Thus, [[Hilaire Belloc]], in his time one of the most conspicuous speakers for Catholicism in Britain, was outspoken about the "Protestant heresy". He even defined [[Islam]] as being "a Christian heresy", on the grounds that Muslims accept many of the tenets of Christianity but deny the [[divinity of Christ]].

 

{{quote|The difficulty in the way of giving an answer is a profound one. Ultimately it is due to the fact that there is no appropriate category in Catholic thought for the phenomenon of Protestantism today (one could say the same of the relationship to the separated churches of the East). It is obvious that the old category of ‘heresy’ is no longer of any value. Heresy, for Scripture and the early Church, includes the idea of a personal decision against the unity of the Church, and heresy’s characteristic is pertinacia, the obstinacy of him who persists in his own private way. This, however, cannot be regarded as an appropriate description of the spiritual situation of the Protestant Christian. In the course of a now centuries-old history, Protestantism has made an important contribution to the realization of Christian faith, fulfilling a positive function in the development of the Christian message and, above all, often giving rise to a sincere and profound faith in the individual non-Catholic Christian, whose separation from the Catholic affirmation has nothing to do with the pertinacia characteristic of heresy. Perhaps we may here invert a saying of St. Augustine’s: that an old schism becomes a heresy. The very passage of time alters the character of a division, so that an old division is something essentially different from a new one. Something that was once rightly condemned as heresy cannot later simply become true, but it can gradually develop its own positive ecclesial nature, with which the individual is presented as his church and in which he lives as a believer, not as a heretic. This organization of one group, however, ultimately has an effect on the whole. The conclusion is inescapable, then: Protestantism today is something different from heresy in the traditional sense, a phenomenon whose true theological place has not yet been determined.<ref name="XVI1993">{{cite book|title=The Meaning of Christian Brotherhood|year=1993|publisher=Ignatius Press|isbn=9780898704464|page=88|author=Pope Benedict XVI}}</ref>}}

 

 

==See also==

*[[History of Christianity]]

*[[Infallibility of the Church]]

*[[List of Christian heresies]]

*[[List of people burned as heretics]]

 

==References==

* {{Cite book|ref=harv|last=Edwards|first=Mark|year=2009|title=Catholicity and Heresy in the Early Church|publisher=Ashgate|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z9acTl-jAkAC}}

* {{cite journal|last=Slade|first=Darren M.|title=Arabia Haeresium Ferax (Arabia Bearer of Heresies): Schismatic Christianity’s Potential Influence on Muhammad and the Qur’an|journal=American Theological Inquiry|date=January 2014|volume=7|issue=1|pages=43–53|url=http://atijournal.org/ATI_Vol7_No1.pdf|deadurl=yes|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140202093241/http://atijournal.org/ATI_Vol7_No1.pdf|archivedate=2014-02-02|df=}}

 

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