Heresy

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A heresy is a belief or system of theology which goes against the teachings of the Bible.

Typically, heresies spread erroneous conceptions of God, Scripture or the institution of the Church.

History

In the New Testament

Heresy within the Church has existed since the time of the Apostles.

The Book of Acts speaks of a false convert named Simon Magus, who was rebuked by the Apostles for attempting to bribe them into teaching him how to do miracles. From this comes the term "Simony," meaning the buying or selling of ecclesiastical privileges, offices, or sacred things, especially in a church context.

The Apostle Paul especially had to battle heresy within the Churches of Corinth and Galatia in his Epistles. The Galatian heresy was especially pernicious, and was rebuked by Paul in the harshest of terms in his Epistle to the Galatians. It was a Judaizing heresy, as it required Gentile converts to first become Jewish before they could become Christian.

The Book of the Revelation includes denouncements of "the Nicolaitans," with God explicitly saying to the Church in Ephesus, "thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate." (Revelation 2:6). The Bible does not say much more about this group, but Saint Clement of Alexandria connects them to antinomianism.

The so-called "Gospel of Judas Iscariot", a Gnostic text

In the Pre-Nicene Church

The worst heresy of the very early Church was the various Gnostic sects, which emphasised esoteric knowledge as the secret to salvation. Saint Irenaeus of Lyon wrote an extensive work exposing and denouncing their beliefs and practices, called "Against Heresies". As a result of this work and expositions by other Church fathers, they became largely irrelevant by the 5th century.

The Manichean heresy, beginning in Persia and influenced by Buddhism and Zoroastrianism gained a large following in the 2nd to 7th centuries, including convincing Saint Augustine of Hippo prior to conversion to Christianity. Along with orthodox Christianity, it was widely persecuted in both the Persian and Roman Empires. It spread as far as Xinjiang in China and Great Britain in Europe before dying out, largely due to its community of travelling ascetics.

The Trinitarian controversies

The Arian heresy, which taught that Jesus is not God and not co-equal with the Father originated in Alexandria with the teachings of the heresiarch Arius. Following Roman Emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity, the Council of Nicaea was assembled to discuss the nature of Christ and the Trinity. At the end of the council, only two of the 318 attending Bishops agreed with Arius' conception of the Godhead.

As such, Arianism was declared a heresy and the Nicene Creed was written to formalise the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, declaring the Eternal Sonship of Jesus Christ and affirming the use of the word "homoousios" to refer to the relationship between the Father and the Son.

Following the Council of Nicaea, more disputes about the Trinity emerged, including Macedonianism (rejected at the Council of Constantinople), Nestorianism (rejected at the Council of Ephesus) and Monophysitism (rejected at the Council of Chalcedon).

Following the Schism of 1054

Before and after the Great Schism of 1054, the Church itself officially permitted and adopted many heretical ideas, including the equal primacy of Church authority with the authority of Scripture, the worship of Saints and the mass practice of monasticism.

The doctrine which caused the Schism of 1054, however, was a controversy about the western Church's addition of the term "Filioque" (Latin: "And the Son") to the Nicene Creed. The original Nicene Creed read:

"I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father; who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified;"

The western revision, however, amended the text to include and affirmation that the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father and the Son". The eastern Churches argued that this contradicted the original intention of the Bishops at Nicaea, however the west had the support of the Bishop of Rome, thus turning the dispute into a battle between independent Church sovereignty and Roman overreach. This, and previous events, laid the foundation for the Roman Catholic doctrine of Papal supremacy.

Eventually, the Church split between the west (who became the Roman Catholic Church) and the east (who became the Eastern Orthodox Churches). Both sides of the split, however, retained the heretical doctrines previously mentioned, despite attempts by certain factions in the Byzantine Church to abolish the worship of Icons (See Byzantine Iconoclasm).

Following the Protestant Reformation

With the advent of the Protestant Reformation, the practice of monasticism and the worship of Saints and icons were abolished in the Protestant Churches. Uncertainties about the extent to which Sola Scriptura should be applied, however, lead to various errors within early Protestantism and even the renouncement by some of both Protestantism and Roman Catholicism (see Restorationism).

Modern heresy

Much of the present heretical sects are caused by the over-emphasis on political discussion within theology. This has led to the heresies of both "Theological Liberalism" and "Christian nationalism," both of which must be rejected.

See also

The following is a list of heretical groups

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