What is meant by the term heresy? Etymology, examples, explanation and history of medieval heresies, doctrines contrary to the truths of faith.
Heresy: Definition and Meaning
Heresy is an affirmation, a doctrine contrary to a truth of faith. The code of canon law, currently in force, defines heresy as follows : ” the obstinate denial, after having received baptism, of some truth that must be believed by divine or Catholic faith, or the obstinate doubt about it . Medieval heretics did not want to separate themselves from the Church but wanted it to return to the purity of its origins. To speak of heresy, it is necessary to affirm a single thought with respect to which one can define oneself as a heretic. Between the 5th and 11th centuries in the West, no heresies capable of becoming a public danger appeared, but only narrow confrontations between theological schools.
In ancient times, the term heresy did not have negative connotations: this term indicated different schools. In short, they were currents of thought, interpretations different from the main one. Over time, however, the term takes on negative connotations and a heretic becomes someone who not only thinks differently but who, for this reason, must be condemned.
The problem of medieval heresy arose with the Reformation , that is, with the attempt by Protestant historians to retrace the origins of their faith and to identify its main actors. Heretics were often used as a positive or negative example, but never understood in their true essence. Great attention was paid to them starting from the second half of the nineteenth century : in the last decades historiography has turned to the study of individual heresies, feeling less the need to give a collective meaning to the heretical phenomenon.
Heresy and Trinity
The central problem posed by the heresy was that of the Trinity : the Christian God was one and triune. In the first council (Nicaea 325) the same divine substance was found in both God and Christ. Augustine of Hippo wrote a work in which he described the heresies contemporary to him, preparing a vocabulary that spread over the centuries. Augustine based his doctrines on the foundations of Manichaeism (contrast between evil and good which with him became the inferiority of the devil with respect to God, etc.) of Donatism (rejection of the profession of priests and the like which transformed into the necessary mediation of the Church) and of Pelagianism (man independent of God and without original sin which Augustine transformed into the emphasis of divine grace).
Heresy in the West after the year 1000
In the first half of the 11th century, heresy was seen as a sort of infection that infected the faithful . Heretics were considered mad because they read the sacred texts autonomously, without the mediation of the ecclesiastical world. Heretics were never anti-Christian: they rejected the ecclesiastical hierarchy and its function of mediation with respect to God .
The name of ancient heresies began to indicate phenomena such as simony (the buying and selling of ecclesiastical offices) and nicolaism (the concubinage of clerics). In the first half of the 11th century a movement known as pataria was born whose objectives were the fight against clerical marriage and against simony.
Pataria cannot be considered a heresy because it proposed first and foremost the creation of a more educated and correct Church. Reform of the Church : occurred in the 11th century; the main objective of the reformers was to free the Church from everything that appeared to be an interference with its interests and its autonomous functioning. The centrality assumed by the Pope caused the Eastern Schism in 1054 which determined the birth of the Greek Orthodox Church. Pope Gregory VII gave an important turning point to the reform by establishing that all bishops depended directly on Rome and hinged the religious life of the faithful within a series of obligatory and controlled sacraments. With the Dictatus papae the absolute superiority of the Pope was established. The first heresies were born with the Reformation.
Among the various movements considered heretical, we can also remember pauperism , according to which true Christians should not possess anything. This doctrine had a decisive role in defining some religious movements between the 12th and 13th centuries. Many of these movements were persecuted for heresy.
Nestorianism
Nestorianism is a Christological doctrine attributed to the Patriarch of Constantinople Nestorius, from 428 to 431. According to this doctrine, in the person of Christ the divine nature would be distinct from the human one and therefore the Virgin Mary does not correspond to the “Mother of God”, since Christ would have been generated by her only as a man, while the divine nature derives directly from the Father. The object of a heated controversy, this doctrine was condemned in 431 by the Council of Ephesus which exiled Nestorius and declared his followers heretics. The Nestorians nevertheless found refuge in Persia, India, China and Mongolia, giving birth to the Nestorian Church.
Arianism
Arianism is a 4th-century Christian doctrine named after Arius , an Alexandrian priest who denied the divine nature of Jesus Christ, entering into conflict with his bishop in 319 and suffering exile in 325. Arius taught that, if God is unbegotten and without beginning, the Son, the second person of the Trinity, as begotten cannot be considered God like the Father and does not exist from eternity, but was created, like all other beings, by the will of the Father, so that between Father and Son there would not exist a bond of nature but of adoption.
These doctrines were condemned in 325 by the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea : the 318 bishops who participated drew up a symbol of faith, still used by Christians, to proclaim Christ as the Son of God ” begotten and not created, of the same substance as the Father “. The solemn condemnation did not succeed in stopping the spread of Arianism and its political exploitation: it was the emperor Constantine who recalled Arius from exile in 334 and, through the influence of prominent figures such as the patriarch of Constantinople Eusebius of Nicomedia and the emperor Constantius II himself, the Arian faith acquired, until 359 , the dignity of official religion of the empire. Then some divisions arose within the movement between the so-called “semi-Arians” who, while accepting the principles of the Nicene Creed, advanced doubts about the identity of substance between the Father and the Son, and the more intransigent current which did not hesitate to proclaim the totally different nature of the Son with respect to the Father, while a third group also considered the Holy Spirit as a created reality on a par with the Son.
With the accession to the throne of Valens, after the death of Constantius II in 361, there were the first signs of a return to Nicene orthodoxy, declared the sole and official faith by the emperor Theodosius in 379 and reaffirmed as such by the Council of Constantinople in 381. Arianism, however, survived for another two centuries among the Germanic peoples who had been converted to Christianity by Arian missionaries.
Pelagius the Heretic
Pelagius , an English ascetic monk and theologian, arrived in Rome around 390 and enjoyed great prestige in the circles of the Roman aristocracy who had become Christian. He wrote numerous works including a Commentary on the Letters of St. Paul , promoting an ideal of rigorous Christian life and strong moral commitment. According to the theories he supported, human nature, as it is endowed with free will, can fulfill God’s commandments because original sin was in reality a personal sin of Adam alone, a sin that exerts its influence on humanity only as a bad example.
Man, if he wanted, could avoid sin even without the support of grace. It follows that baptism, which only removes personal sins, is not necessary for unaware infants. Pelagius’ theses were harshly fought by St. Augustine, but they spread in Italy, Africa and the Christian East. Pelagianism was condemned by the Council of Carthage in 418.
