heresy, a theological doctrine or system rejected as false by ecclesiastical authority.
Heresy differs from schism in that the heretic sometimes remains in the church despite his doctrinal errors, whereas the schismatic may be doctrinally orthodox but severs himself from the church. The Greek word hairesis (from which heresy is derived) was originally a neutral term that signified merely the holding of a particular set of philosophical opinions. Once appropriated by Christianity, however, the term heresy began to convey a note of disapproval. This was because the church from the start regarded itself as the custodian of a divinely imparted revelation which it alone was authorized to expound under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Thus, any interpretation that differed from the official one was necessarily “heretical” in the new, pejorative sense of the word.
This attitude of hostility to heresy is evident in the New Testament itself. St. Paul, for instance, insists that his gospel is identical with that of the Twelve Apostles, and in the later books of the New Testament the contrast in attitudes regarding approved doctrines and heretical ones is even more sharply drawn. In the 2nd century the Christian church became increasingly aware of the need to keep its teaching uncontaminated, and it devised criteria to test deviations. The Apostolic Fathers, 2nd-century Christian writers, appealed to the prophets and Apostles as sources of authoritative doctrine, and Irenaeus and Tertullian laid great stress on “the rule of faith,” which was a loose summary of essential Christian beliefs handed down from apostolic times. Later, the ecclesiastical and universal church council became the instrument for defining orthodoxy and condemning heresy. Eventually, in the Western church, the doctrinal decision of a council had to be ratified by the pope to be accepted.
During its early centuries, the Christian church dealt with many heresies. They included, among others, Docetism, Montanism, Adoptionism, Sabellianism, Arianism, Pelagianism, and Gnosticism. See also Donatist; Marcionite; monophysite.
Historically, the major means that the church had of combating heretics was to excommunicate them. In the 12th and 13th centuries, however, the Inquisition was established by the church to combat heresy; heretics who refused to recant after being tried by the church were handed over to the civil authorities for punishment, usually execution.
A new situation came about in the 16th century with the Reformation, which spelled the breakup of Western Christendom’s previous doctrinal unity. The Roman Catholic church, satisfied that it is the true church armed with an infallible authority, has alone remained faithful to the ancient and medieval theory of heresy, and it occasionally denounces doctrines or opinions that it considers heretical. Most of the great Protestant churches similarly started with the assumption that their own particular doctrines embodied the final statement of Christian truth and were thus prepared to denounce as heretics those who differed with them. But with the gradual growth of toleration and the 20th-century ecumenical movement, most Protestant churches have drastically revised the notion of heresy as understood in the pre-Reformation church. It does not now seem to them inconsistent for a person to stoutly maintain the doctrines of his own communion while not regarding as heretics those who hold different views. The Roman Catholic church, too, draws a distinction between those who willfully and persistently adhere to doctrinal error and those who embrace it through no fault of their own, e.g., as a result of upbringing in another tradition. The term heresy also has been used among Jews, although they have not been as intense as Christians in their punishment of heretics. The concept and combating of heresy has historically been less important in Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islām than in Christianity.