Heresy. The formal denial or doubt of any defined doctrine of the Catholic faith. In antiquity the Greek word αἵρεσις, denoting ‘choice’ or ‘thing chosen’, from which the term is derived, was applied to the tenets of particular philosophical schools. In this sense it appears occasionally in Scripture (e.g. Acts 5:17) and the early Fathers. But it was employed also in a disparaging sense (e.g. 1 Cor. 11:19) and from St *Ignatius (Trall. 6, Eph. 6) onwards it came more and more to be used of theological error. From the earliest days the Church has claimed teaching authority and consequently condemned heresy, following Christ’s command: ‘If he refuse to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as the Gentile and the publican’ (Mt. 18:17). On the other hand the need to rebut heresy has sometimes stimulated the formation of orthodox Christian doctrine.
In the early centuries heresy was mainly a matter of erroneous attempts to understand the nature of the Person of Christ (e.g. *Docetism, *Apollinarianism, *Nestorianism, *Monophysitism, *Monothelitism), of the Trinity (e.g. *Monarchianism, *Tritheism, *Subordinationism), or both (e.g. *Arianism). These heresies were condemned at the *Oecumenical Councils. After the Church had become a highly structured and incidentally wealthy institution, many of the heretical movements were inspired by a desire to return to what was seen as the simplicity of the apostolic Church. They thus had much in common with the orthodox reform movements, such as the *mendicant orders, some of whose members (esp. among the *Franciscans) were charged with heresy. Many of the heretical bodies in the Middle Ages (e.g. the *Bogomils, *Cathari, *Waldensians, the followers of *Henry of Lausanne and *Peter de Bruys) came to reject the sacraments as well as other institutions of the Church. The *Inquisition was established to secure the conversion of heretics, and punished the obdurate. With the Reformation, the establishment of Protestant state Churches ended the power of the RC Church to coerce heretics in much of Europe, though in France the hierarchy long continued to regard the *Huguenots as heretics rather than granting them the toleration promised in the Edict of *Nantes; *Calvinists in Switzerland burnt those Protestants whom they regarded as heretics.
Acc. to RC canon law, heresy is defined as the obstinate denial or doubt, after Baptism, of a truth ‘which must be believed with divine and catholic faith’ (CIC (1983), can. 751). This ‘formal’ heresy is a grave sin involving ipso facto excommunication. Catholic theology distinguishes it from what is termed ‘material heresy’. This means holding heretical doctrines through no fault of one’s own, ‘in good faith’, as is the case, e.g., with most persons brought up in heretical surroundings. It constitutes neither crime nor sin, nor is such a person strictly speaking a heretic, since, having never accepted certain doctrines, he cannot reject or doubt them. Heresy is to be distinguished from *apostasy and *schism (qq.v.). See also BURNING, DE HEARTICO COMBURENDO and individual heresies.
W. Bauer, Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum (Beiträge zur historischen Theologie, 10; 1934; 2nd edn. by G. Strecker, 1964; Eng. tr., Philadelphia, 1971; London, 1972). M. Simon, ‘From Greek Hairesis to Christian Heresy’, in W. R. Schoedel and R. L. Wilken (eds.), Early Christian Literature and the Classical Intellectual Tradition in Honorem Robert M. Grant (Théologie Historique, 53 [1979]), pp. 101–16. A. Le Boulluec, La notion d’hérésie dans la Littérature grecque, IIe–IIIe siécles (2 vols., Études Augustiniennes, 1985).
W. L. Wakefield and A. P. Evans, Heresies of the High Middle Ages: Selected Sources Translated and Annotated (Records of Civilization, Sources and Studies, 81; 1969). [J. J.] I. von *Döllinger, Beiträge zur Sektengeschichte des Mittelalters (2 vols., Munich, 1890). G. [A.] Leff, Heresy in the Later Middle Ages: The Relation of Heterodoxy to Dissent c.1250–c.1450 (2 vols., Manchester and New York, 1967). J. Le Goff (ed.), Hérésies et sociétés dans l’Europe pré-industrielle 11e–18e siècles: Colloque de Royaumont, 27–30 Mai 1962 (Civilisations et sociétés, 10; 1968), with bibl. of post-1900 studies on medieval heresies, pp. 407–67. N. G. Garsoïn, ‘Byzantine Heresy. A Reinterpretation’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 25 (1971), pp. 85–113. W. Lourdaux and D. Verhelst (eds.), The Concept of Heresy in the Middle Ages (11th–13th C.): Proceedings of the International Conference, Louvain May 13–16, 1973 (Mediaevalia Lovaniensia, 1st ser., vol. 4; 1976). M. D. Lambert, Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from Bogomil to Hus (1977; 3rd edn., Oxford, 2002). G. G. Merlo, Eretici e Inquisitori nella Società Piemontese del Trecento (Turin [1977]). R. Kieckhefer, Repression of Heresy in Medieval Germany (Philadelphia and Liverpool, 1979). Y. Stoyanov, The Hidden Tradition in Europe: The secret history of medieval Christian heresy (1994; rev. edn., The Other God: Dualist Religions from Antiquity to the Cathar Heresy, New Haven and London, 2000).
H. Schlier in TWNT 1 (1933), pp. 179–84 (Eng. tr., 1 (1964), pp. 180–5), s.v. αἱρέομαι. A. Michel in DTC 6 (1920), cols. 2208–57, s.v. ‘Hérésie, Hérétique’; A. Patschovsky in Lexikon des Mittelalters, 4 (1989), cols. 1933–7, s.v. ‘Häresie’. See also works cited under CATHARI and other heresies mentioned in the text.
F. L. Cross and Elizabeth A. Livingstone, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 762–763.
