HERETIC. 



707 



When the idea of a Catholic church, its dogmas and 

 exclusive claims to salvation, became more fully 

 developed, the word heretic was used in a narrower 

 sense, to indicate one who differs from the Catholic, 

 tliat is, universal church, and who, at the same time, 

 calls himself a Christian. Hence neither Jews nor 

 Mohammedans, nor even apostates from Christianity, 

 except very rarely, are called heretics. Augustin 

 gives the following definition of a heretic : Hereti- 

 cus est qui ajcujus temporalis commodi, et maxime 

 gloriee principatiisque causa, novas opiniones vel 

 gignit, vel sequitur; and gui sub vocabulo Christiana 

 doctrines Christiana contumaciter resistit. The defi- 

 nition of a later distinguished Catholic writer, Bos- 

 suet, is : Un heretique est celui qui a une opinion a 

 lui, qui suit sa proprc pensee, et son sentiment parti- 

 cutter ; tin Catholique, au contraire, suit sans hesiter 

 le sentiment de I'eglise universelle. It is plain that 

 the idea of a heretic presupposes the idea of a uni- 

 versal or general church, and an established faith. 

 Thus Christ was crucified, and Stephen stoned by 

 the Jews for heresy, or for deviating from their 

 established church. The origin of heretics is to be 

 referred to the time when a Christian church was 

 publicly established, and began to acknowledge cer- 

 tain dogmas as orthodox, and to designate opinions 

 at variance with them as false. Yet a diversity of 

 opinions always existed on certain points, because 

 the Bible is a book of faith, treating of divine sub- 

 jects in the imperfect language of men, and, there- 

 fore, admitting, in many passages, different explana- 

 tions, according to different preconceived views. 



Many of the early Christians preserved their 

 Jewish or Greek philosophical notions, and mingled 

 them with the doctrines of Christianity. This was 

 another source of difference. Even in the* time of 

 the apostles, we find traces of the Gnostics. From 

 them sprang the Simonians (who opposed to the 

 Supreme God a principle of evil), the Nicolaitans 

 and the Cerinthians, who introduced Jewish Gnostic 

 ideas into Christianity. In the second century, we 

 must mention particularly the Basilidians, who taught 

 the generation of the ^Eons from God, and denied 

 the divinity of Christ; the Carpocratians, who con- 

 sidered Christ a mere man, and maintained that the 

 most wicked had the greatest chance of salvation ; 

 the Nazareeans, following the Mosaic law with great 

 strictness; the Ophites, worshipping Christ under 

 the image of a serpent; the Patropassians, denying 

 the distinction of three persons in the Godhead ; the 

 A rtemonians, believing in a union of a part of the 

 Godhead with Christ at his birth ; the Hermogen- 

 ians, asserting the production of the human soul from 

 an eternal but corrupt matter ; the Montanists, who 

 held their founder for the Comforter ; the Sethites, 

 who declared Seth to be the Messiah ; the Quarto- 

 decimans, who celebrated Easter like the Jews ; the 

 Cerdonians, who denied the resurrection ; the Mani- 

 clu-eans (q. v.), who adopted two divine principles, 

 and mixed the wildest theories with the doctrines of 

 Christianity ; the A logians, who denied the divinity 

 of Christ ; the Encratites, who condemned matri- 

 mony ; the Artotyrites, who used bread and cheese 

 in the Lord's Supper. 



In the third century, there were the Monarchists, 

 denying three persons in the Godhead ; the Samosa- 

 tensians and Paulinians, declaring Christ a mere 

 man, and the Holy Ghost a divine power; the Ara- 

 bici, denying immortality ; the Hieracites. belonging 

 to the Manichasans ; the Noetians, teaching that God 

 the Father had become a man, and suffered; the Sabel- 

 liaus, denying the distinction of persons in the Trinity; 

 the Novatians, who refused to re-admit those who 

 had fallen off during the times of persecution ; the 

 Origeiiians, believing in the final salvation of the 



devil and the damned; the Chiliasts, or Millenarians, 

 believing in a millennium ; the Aquarians, using 

 water instead of wine, in the Lord's supper. 



In the fourth century, the principal heretical sects 

 were the Arians, ascribing to the Son a nature and 

 essence inferior to that of the Father ; the Apollina- 

 rians, denying the human nature of Christ; the Photin- 

 ians, maintaining that Christ was born of the Holy 

 Ghost and Mary; the Macedonians, denying the divi- 

 nity of the Holy Ghost; the Priscillianists, reviving the 

 Gnostic errors ; the Donatists, who held peculiar 

 opinions respecting the church ; the Euchites, ascrib- 

 ing to each individual an evil spirit, which could 

 only be driven out by prayer; the Collyridians, who 

 made offerings to Mary ; the Seleucians, ascribing a 

 bodily form to God ; the Anthropomorphites, ascrib- 

 ing a human body to God ; the Jovinians, denying 

 the virginity of Mary; the Bonosians or Adoptianists, 

 considering Christ as merely the adoptive Son of 

 God. 



In the fifth century arose the Nestorians, who at- 

 tributed the two natures of Christ to two persons ; 

 the Eutychians, Monophysites, and Jacobites, allow- 

 ing but one person in Christ ; the Theopaschites, 

 teaching the incarnation and crucifixion of the three 

 persons of the Godhead; the Pelagians, denying the 

 depravity of human nature, and its salvation by 

 grace alone ; the Predestinarians, teaching the fore- 

 ordination of salvation and damnation. 



In the sixth century were the A gnoetaj, teaching 

 that Christ, in his human nature, did not know all 

 things ; the Tritheists, making three distinct Gods of 

 the three persons of the Deity ; the Monothelites, 

 allowing only one will in Christ; the Aphthardocetes, 

 teaching that the body of Christ was not subjected 

 to any suffering. 



In the ninth century were the Paulicians, adher- 

 ing to some doctrines of the Manichseans : in the 

 twelfth century, the Bogomili, teaching the creation 

 of the world by a fallen angel, driven from heaven ; 

 the Catharists, reviving Gnostical doctrines ; the Pe- 

 trobusians, rejecting the baptism of children ; the 

 Waldenses, demanding a reformation of the church ; 

 the Mystics, the Wicliffites, Hussites, and, at a 

 later period, the Lutherans, Calvinists, with all the 

 variety of Protestant sects and churches. 



It is evident that for the historian, the word heretic 

 can have only the relative meaning of heterodox be- 

 cause, as soon as a church or sect declares itself in 

 possession of the true and sole doctrine of salvation 

 and religious truth, it declares, by this circumstance, 

 all other doctrines of faith heretical. Thus the 

 Greek Catholic church declares Roman Catholicism 

 a heresy, and vice versa, whilst the Calvinist declares 

 popery a heresy. We shall not here speak of all the 

 persecutions which different sects have directed 

 against those whom they considered heretics, 

 but will only mention that the Roman Catholic, 

 church, as such, has always made a distinction be- 

 tween heretics who obstinately persist in their heresy, 

 and heretics merely through error, or who have been 

 born in heresy. The fathers of the church declare 

 themselves ignorant of the final condition of the 

 latter. Again, the church distinguishes peaceable 

 heretics from those whose doctrines produce public 

 confusion and disorder. However, it generally con- 

 siders that all heresies lead, sooner or later, to dis- 

 turbances and bloodshed. 



The doctrines considered heretical by the Roman 

 church may be found in the Dictionnaire des Heresies, 

 by the abbe Pluquet, with the- history, progress, na- 

 ture, and also the Catholic refutations of their errors. 

 It is well known that the Catholic church prohibits 

 priests from shedding blood (they were not even al- 

 lowed to perform surgical operations); and hence, 

 2 v 2 



