Cultural and Intellectual Motivations for Heresy
Cultural and Intellectual Motivations for Heresy
How are the origins of heresy to be understood? What are the motivating concerns that led to its emergence? Early Christian writers offered a variety of explanations for the origins of heresy: heretics were driven by personal ambitions, ecclesiastical jealousies, a naive enthusiasm for philosophical speculation, or an inflated sense of their own theological genius. Yet despite the fulminations of some early Christian heresiologists such as Tertullian, there are no real grounds for supposing that heresy was the outcome of malevolent and arrogant apostates plotting to destroy Christianity by reckless, eccentric biblical interpretation and driven by a paganizing agenda.
This older stereotype is found in most nineteenth-century accounts of heresy written by stalwart supporters of orthodoxy. For John Henry Newman (1801–90), heresy was a phenomenon whose origins lay outside of the church. Arianism, for example, was an ungodly byproduct of its environment, combining the worst elements of pagan culture, particularly Judaism and syncretistic philosophy.1 For H. M. Gwatkin (1844–1916), Arianism was “an illogical compromise” between Christianity and paganism, tipping the balance in favor of paganism. It was “a mass of presumptuous theorizing” that was “utterly illogical and unspiritual.”2 Subsequent scholarship has raised troubling difficulties for such assertions, especially in relation to the motivation of those considered heretics. While it is notoriously difficult to psychologize the dead, the idea that the essential “person description” of a heretic includes obstinacy and arrogance, supplemented by some degree of mental incompetence and institutional disloyalty, seems to bear little relation to what is known of early heretics.
The historical evidence, though not unequivocally clear on this matter, suggests that we should think of heresies as the outcomes of journeys of exploration that were originally intended to enable Christianity to relate better to contemporary culture. Heresy arose through a desire to preserve, not to destroy, the gospel. In this chapter, I propose to set to one side the idea that the movements that came to be identified as heresies owed their origins primarily to perversion or malevolence, and to explore the more disturbing notion that heresies might originate instead from natural, well-intentioned, and essentially benign motivations.
And if this analysis even approaches the truth, it has an important corollary—namely, that heresy cannot be thought of as a past problem that has now been resolved and tamed. The journey of theological and spiritual exploration continues. Every new avenue that is opened up for investigation is potentially a wrong turn and dead end as much as a navigable channel for faith. To explore why this remains a contemporary rather than a historical issue, we need to consider something of the new discipline of the “cognitive science of religion,” which has important insights to offer concerning how at least some types of heresy arise.
Heresy and the Cognitive Science of Religion
In recent years, a new way of approaching the origins of heresy has been made possible through the development of the cognitive science of religion.3 This approach aims to clarify how religious beliefs are shaped and developed, avoiding the reductionist approaches that have led to sensationalist, easily discredited claims to “explain away” religious beliefs.4 The cognitive science of religion aims to explore the basic cognitive structure of beliefs that might be termed “religious.” Its fundamental assumption is that human conceptual structures are not contingencies shaped by culture or history but reflect deeper patternings within the human mind. Human conceptual structures, which can be investigated experimentally, thus both inform and constrain cultural expression.
So how do these studies have any bearing on the origins of heresy? One of the most interesting outcomes of the cognitive science of religion concerns the “naturalness” of certain beliefs.5 Certain “nonreflective” habits have a significant impact on the way in which ideas are developed and evaluated. A critical question is often, Which of several options has the greater natural appeal? An understanding of what is “natural” is, of course, derived from a variety of sources, including personal observation and cultural influences.
In the case of Christianity, heresy often—but not invariably—results from what we might call the “naturalization” of Christian belief—that is, the assimilation of orthodoxy to more “natural” ways of thinking. For example, detailed historical analysis of the origins and development of the “two natures” doctrine in Christology and the doctrine of the Trinity allow us to identify the intellectual arguments that led to the emergence of these apparently deeply counterintuitive ideas.6 Yet no matter how good these arguments may be, these ideas—that of Jesus Christ being both divine and human, and that of one God being three persons—remain counterintuitive, causing difficulty for those accustomed to more “natural” ways of thinking. The cognitive science of religion offers us a framework for allowing us to see why some assimilate these “unnatural” ideas to more “natural” counterparts. It is much more “natural” to think of Jesus Christ as simply a human being, or of God as simply one source of ultimate authority.7
So what “natural” ways of thinking can we identify, ways that may have had a significant role in catalyzing the emergence of heresy? One obvious possibility is a long cultural familiarity with certain ideas, giving the impression that they are “natural” when in fact they have merely been culturally dominant over an extended period of time. An excellent example of this is provided by the various forms of Platonism that were present in the eastern Roman Empire of the early Christian age, and especially in the cosmopolitan city of Alexandria. This led to a cluster of metaphysical commitments being seen as self-evidently true or “natural,” opening the door to the metaphysical assimilation of Christian doctrines to what were seen by some as more “natural” ways of thinking.
Yet this process of assimilation was not necessarily seen as detrimental by most early Christian writers. When subject to careful controls and limits, it could establish an important bridge between Christianity and other groups. Christianity could adapt itself tactically to these more “natural” ways of thinking without losing its distinct identity. A good example of this process can be found in Justin Martyr’s use of the categories and vocabulary of Middle Platonism during the second century. By correlating the Christian faith with the categories of Platonism, Justin appears to have enabled Christianity to gain a not unsympathetic hearing in the Hellenistic world of the Mediterranean during the second century. Perhaps most notably, Justin noted how the Platonic notion of the Logos offered important apologetic possibilities. The fundamental Christian theme of Christ as mediator between humanity and God could be developed and explained to a Platonic audience through a judicious use of this notion.8
Justin’s approach illustrates both the potential and the risks of such a procedure. By judicious translation of some leading themes of the Christian faith into the intellectual vernacular of the region, Justin made them far more accessible to its educated elite than would otherwise have been the case. Furthermore, the intellectual rigor of such forms of Platonism was a stimulus to the development of a comparable precision within theology. Yet there was a downside. Justin risked collapsing distinctively Christian notions into their Platonic equivalents. An approach designed to allow the expansion of Christian influence within the Platonic community might backfire, leading to an increase of Platonic influence within the Christian community. The correlation of the Christian gospel with contemporary culture is thus a two-way street.
The point can be seen from Augustine of Hippo’s classic analysis of the relation of faith and secular philosophy.9 In exploring this issue, Augustine uses the narrative of the exodus of Israel from Egypt to make sense of the church’s attitude toward the intellectual and cultural riches of classic culture. Israel left behind the “idols and burdens” of Egypt while taking with her a “wealth of gold and silver and clothes.” Israel discarded what she regarded as theologically dangerous or oppressive while appropriating what was excellent and valuable. And so, Augustine argues, should the church approach the riches of contemporary culture—appropriating what is good and useful, and disregarding what is dangerous and oppressive.
Augustine’s analogy is impressive and generally helpful. Yet it raises a question that is fundamental to any attempt to make sense of the phenomenon of heresy. How is the Christian community to reach a decision concerning which doctrinal approaches or formulations are positive and appropriate, and which are negative and inappropriate? What happens if something is initially believed to be good and useful, yet ultimately turns out to be dangerous and oppressive? Early Christian writers were deeply concerned about the possibility of irreversible intellectual contamination and degeneration: might some ideas, once appropriated within the church, turn out to be like yeast or mold, permanently infecting or damaging their host? Augustine himself believed that there was a distinctively Christian language, what he called the “church’s way of speaking [ecclesiastica loquendi consuetude].”10 What happens if this is lost, or corrupted, through the importation of other ways of speaking?
It will be argued in this chapter that the desire to communicate the Christian faith effectively to other groups on the one hand, and to incorporate into Christianity the “best” of alternative or supplementary wisdoms on the other, represents one of the most fundamental causes of heresy. This most emphatically does not imply that there is anything wrong with either wanting to communicate the faith or enabling it to make the best use of contemporary cultural riches. There is nothing wrong with the method; the problems begin when some of its outcomes prove to be dangerous. What happens if the new ideas turn out to be Trojan horses, allowing intellectual forces outside the gates of the church to take it over?
In what follows, we shall explore a number of pressures that appear to be implicated in the genesis of heresy. The five most significant pressures appear to be the following:
1. Cultural norms. A perception that Christianity is significantly out of touch with contemporary cultural values often leads to pressure for certain intellectual adjustments to be made. 2. Rational norms. The belief that certain Christian ideas are contrary to “right reason” often leads to their elimination or modification in order to make them conform to prevailing criteria of rationality. 3. Social identity. All social groups need to establish their identity, and this often involves religious notions. Heresy often arises as a means of religious self-identification of marginalized social groupings. 4. Religious accommodation. The coexistence of Christianity with rival religious groupings often leads to pressure to modify certain aspects of the Christian faith in order to facilitate coexistence, or to develop a credible apologetic. 5. Ethical concerns. Heresy often arises from the perception that religious orthodoxy is excessively morally permissive or anarchic on the one hand, or restrictive or oppressive on the other.
In this chapter, we shall consider each of these five issues, noting how they bear on the classic heresies of the patristic age as well as more recent debates.
Heresy and Contemporary Social Norms
Christianity has existed in a wide variety of social contexts, each of which is characterized by certain cultural norms. Some of these resonate with Christian values; others are in tension with them. Christian apologists often focus on the former, using the resonance between the Christian faith and certain cultural beliefs and values as bridges for the communication and commendation of faith. But what of the areas of tension?
Many Christian theologians have been content to live with this tension. Others, however, have believed that these tensions constitute a significant barrier to faith. Certain aspects of the Christian faith, they argue, are an apologetic liability. Why not jettison them? Or assimilate them to contemporary cultural norms? This process of assimilation to cultural norms often leads to forms of heresy. We shall illustrate this by considering an aspect of the Pelagian controversy before moving on to make some broader points.
A central theme of the New Testament is that Christians are saved not by works but by grace (Eph. 2:5, 8–9). The notions of “salvation by grace” and “justification by faith” are firmly woven into the fabric of the New Testament, especially the Pauline epistles.11 Yet these ideas were in tension with some fundamental values of the imperial Roman culture of the late fourth century. As Christianity was by now the official religion of the Roman Empire, any tensions between Roman cultural norms and Christianity were a matter of some significance. Many Roman Christians—including Pelagius (c. 355–c. 435) and Julian of Eclanum (c. 386–c. 455)—argued that certain ways of understanding the Christian faith (most notably, that of Augustine of Hippo) needed modification if they were to be culturally acceptable. How could such provincial theological ideas prove useful in the metropolis?
A central issue concerned this question: what does it mean to say that God is “righteous [justus]”? Classic Roman thinking on this matter had been shaped by Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.), who had laid down that the essence of “righteousness” or “justice”—the two English words that are widely used to translate the single Latin term justitia—is to give someone their due.12 Applied to God, this means that God deals with people according to their entitlements, rewarding the good and punishing the evil.
This is certainly how the idea of divine justice was interpreted by Julian of Eclanum, perhaps the most culturally sophisticated of the Pelagian writers, noted for his thoroughgoing assimilation of the Christian gospel to the social and civil norms of Roman society.13 For Julian, it was self-evident that the idea of the “righteousness of God” was to be assimilated to prevailing cultural norms. God gave each their due. Justification was thus about God rewarding the righteous and punishing the wicked.
Yet this idea of divine justice sat very uneasily with the Old Testament notion of divine righteousness. While emphasizing the importance of social justice in maintaining virtue and discouraging vice, the Old Testament links the idea of the “justice of God” with salvation. An appeal to God’s righteousness is fundamentally a plea for salvation and deliverance, as is evident from the following classic passage from Psalm 31:
In you, O Lord, do I take refuge,
Let me never be put to shame.
In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me.14
In his exegetical and systematic writings, Augustine of Hippo emphasized that secular notions of justice were not suitable for describing God’s dealings with humanity. The “justice of God” was quite distinct from human justice. For Augustine, any assimilation of the “righteousness of God” to the Ciceronian idea of “giving to each their due” was called into question by many biblical passages that indicated that this cultural notion of righteousness could not be used without significant adaptation. In countering Julian, Augustine appealed to the parable of the laborers in the vineyard (Matt. 20:1–16) to demonstrate that the idea of the “justice of God” primarily refers to God’s fidelity to the gospel promises of grace, irrespective of the merits of those to whom the promise was made. Each laborer, in a Ciceronian definition of justice, was entitled to different rewards, given that each worked for different periods. Yet each had been promised the same reward, often in excess of what strict justice demanded. Divine justice was about God’s faithfulness to his generous and gracious promises.
A central theme in the debate between Augustine and Julian of Eclanum therefore concerned precisely what the idea of the “righteousness of God” actually entailed.15 Julian defined divine justice in terms of God rendering to each individual their due, without fraud or grace, so that God would be expected to justify those who merited his grace on the basis of their moral achievements. This approach yielded a doctrine of the justification of the godly, whereas Augustine held the essence of the gospel to be the justification of the ungodly.
Julian’s concern was unquestionably apologetic. His goal was to explain the Christian faith in ways that would resonate with prevailing notions of justice and entitlement within late classical antiquity. The idea that undeserving people should receive divine approbation was culturally distasteful and would, in Julian’s view, simply alienate many persons of distinction.
This single case study illustrates the more general point, highlighting the difficulties that arise when a central Christian theme or value is perceived to exist in tension with cultural norms. Other examples illustrating the same problem could easily be given.
Heresy and Accommodation to Secular Reason
In the previous section, we noted how tensions between Christianity and cultural norms have been the occasion of the origins of heresy. A related tension concerns prevailing notions of reason. Each social context has its own idea of what counts as rational. Commenting on the success of C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) as an apologist, the Oxford theologian and New Testament scholar Austin Farrer (1904–68) pointed out how the rationality of faith was important for its cultural acceptance.
For though argument does not create conviction, the lack of it destroys belief. What seems to be proved may not be embraced; but what no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned. Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish.16
Lewis’s success, Farrer argued, reflected his ability to offer “a positive exhibition of the force of Christian ideas, morally, imaginatively, and rationally.”
Farrer’s wise comments point to a significant danger for Christian theology: that some of its core themes appear indefensible in the light of contemporary ideas about what is “rational.” Patristic writers were acutely aware of this issue, in that certain core themes of the Christian faith did indeed seem “irrational” in the light of the norms of classic Greek philosophy.17 A good example is that of the Incarnation, which was widely ridiculed by pagan writers as incoherent. The origins of Arianism are often attributed to a concern that Christianity was rendering itself as intellectually risible in a culture dominated by Greek philosophy.
Similar concerns were expressed about the doctrine of the Trinity during the patristic age. However, the most significant critiques of the Trinity emerged during the sixteenth century, when the radical wing of the Reformation began to press for the abandonment of certain traditional teachings, partly because they seemed to be irrational, and partly because they were held not to be well grounded in the Bible. Radical groups, angry with what they regarded as compromises on the part of Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli, demanded more sweeping changes.18 Traditional doctrines that Luther and Zwingli had regarded as entirely orthodox and not in need of revision were now openly questioned. Many radicals argued that the doctrine of the Trinity was not explicitly stated in the Bible. Far from being an authentic Christian doctrine, it reflected the later speculations and elaborations of misguided theologians.
Anti-Trinitarianism, already evident in the late 1520s, became a hallmark of the radical Reformation in the 1550s,19 causing widespread concern in both Protestant and Catholic circles. It was given significant intellectual momentum in the writings of Fausto Paolo Sozzini (1539–1604), often known by the Latin form of his name, Faustus Socinus. The movement, which came to be known as “Socinianism,” began to pose a challenge to both Protestant and Catholic orthodoxy in the late sixteenth century. Although Socinus’s writings ranged widely, challenging many aspects of traditional Christian beliefs, he is especially associated with anti-Trinitarianism. Abandoning the doctrines of the Incarnation and Trinity, which he rightly discerned to be interconnected, he argued for a more generalized religious belief in Jesus of Nazareth as a divinely inspired person with exceptional abilities to keep the commands of God.20
The motivation for this critique of the doctrine of the Trinity was partly biblical but predominantly rational. To put it simply: the doctrine seemed scandalously irrational, and thus threatened to cause reputational damage to Christianity. As rationalism began to gain cultural influence throughout much of western Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there was growing pressure for Christianity to abandon what was seen as Trinitarian irrationality and return to a more reasonable notion of God, such as that advocated by Deism.21 The resurgence of the doctrine of the Trinity in the twentieth century, mainly resulting from the work of Karl Barth (1886–1968) and Karl Rahner (1904–84), can be seen partly as the outcome of the erosion of the rationalism that predominated in the early Enlightenment as its weaknesses and difficulties became increasingly obvious.
At this point, we should also note the fact that many prominent scientists often have heterodox religious beliefs. This applies as much to Islam and Judaism as to Christianity.22 For example, Isaac Newton’s attempt to apply scientific methods to his Christian faith led him to reject the doctrine of the Trinity, although he was careful not to draw attention to this fact during his lifetime.23 We see here the same tension between orthodox religious belief and the methods of a particular community. While some scientists maintained perfectly orthodox religious beliefs, others found that the concept of “reasonableness” that prevailed in their community led them to draw quite different conclusions. In his well-documented study of Arianism in the early modern period, Maurice Wiles notes the particular prevalence of this heresy among many early modern scientists.24
The way in which prevailing cultural notions of rationality can lead to distorted or inauthentic notions of God raises some difficult questions for Christian apologists. For example, the traditional discipline of “natural theology” aims to argue for the existence of God by an appeal to human reason or the ordering of nature. The American philosopher William Alston defines natural theology as “the enterprise of providing support for religious beliefs by starting from premises that neither are nor presuppose any religious beliefs.”25 Yet historically, the application of natural theology tends to lead to a deistic God that bears little relation to the fully orbed Trinitarian God of the Christian tradition.26 There remains a significant gap between notions of God that may be inferred from the natural realm or deduced from reason on the one hand, and the Christian vision of God on the other.
Heresy and the Shaping of Social Identity
The importance of religion in communal self-definition has often been noted.27 If communities are to survive over time, centers need to be defined and boundaries policed. Religion often provides a marker of communal identity—not necessarily the only marker, but often one of the most prominent. More specifically, religious beliefs often serve as a means of creating a sense of social identity, shaping the outlook of a community and justifying its original and continued existence in the face of rival communities with comparable claims. It assists in defining both the limits of, and the conditions for entering, such a community. Effective social cohesion requires the fixing of boundaries and the fostering of a sense of community identity.28 A distinct religious commitment is one of a number of options for marking the identity of a community. So, in a situation dominated by Christianity—for example, western Europe during the Middle Ages—might some communities adopt heretical religious views as markers of their identity? Might the perceived need for a distinct identity lead communities into adopting heterodox beliefs?29
The evidence is far from secure, and it is best to suggest that this represents an interesting possibility that may cast at least some light on the origins and appeal of heresy. To explore this point, we may consider Donatism in more detail. We have already considered the historical emergence of this heresy and noted some aspects of its theology . The observation that Roman settlers in North Africa tended to adopt the Catholic position whereas native Berber Christians tended toward Donatism is certainly suggestive of some link between communal identity and theology, whether orthodox or heterodox.
Supporters of this view argue that Donatism was particularly associated with the rural population of areas that were less populated by Roman colonists, and with the poorer classes in the towns.30 Numidia, for example, was the least Romanized province in North Africa; it was here that Donatism was at its strongest. Again, there is a considerable degree of overlap between the areas of North Africa in which the Donatists were dominant and those areas in which the Berber language is still spoken today. In contrast, Catholic Christianity was the religion of the Romanized upper classes.31
Yet there are difficulties with this position. For example, it is relatively easily demonstrated that many Donatist leaders were actually rather wealthy and socially influential. Augustine of Hippo complained about wealthy Donatist landowners purchasing land and forcing the rebaptism of their acquired workers.32 More significantly, recent studies have emphasized the importance of religious rather than social or economic factors in causing and sustaining Donatism.33 The view that Donatism was essentially a socioeconomic movement with an accidental or superficial association with religious ideas does not sit easily with what is known of the movement. The evidence seems to fit better a more traditional approach that holds that Donatism was, at heart, an essentially loose religious movement that came to have an especial appeal to socially alienated groups but was not itself constituted by such concerns.
A similar conclusion seems to be required for other dissident movements linked with heterodoxy—for example, Catharism and Hussitism. Yet while such movements appear to have had an essentially religious basis, it must be conceded that political and social issues may have helped to consolidate their sense of identity, or to cause the movements to be viewed with particular alarm in certain quarters. Yet these religious ideas do not appear to have emerged as accidental markers of identity of already existing movements, often with socioeconomic agendas. Rather, they seem to have been embedded within the movement’s identity, generally being a major factor in having brought it into existence in the first place.
Religious Contextualization and Heresy
From its earliest period, Christianity found itself immersed in a complex religious situation. On the one hand, it had emerged from Judaism as a distinct belief system, affirming continuity with its past (Marcion’s view on this matter failing to prevail); on the other, it was at the same time being forced to engage with other worldviews, secular and religious, as it expanded into new geographical regions. Its strongly evangelistic impulse impelled Christianity to build bridges to such communities—for example, by restating some core Christian ideas in terms already familiar to them. The manner in which Christian apologists engaged Platonist audiences in Alexandria is widely regarded as a classic example of such a strategy.
It is, however, a profoundly risky strategy. What might initially have been envisaged as a tactical reworking of some basic Christian ideas seems to have had the propensity to end up as a longer-term reconceptualization of Christianity itself. There is no doubt that this was a serious concern within the early Christian community, moving Tertullian to declare a virtual embargo on serious dialogue between Christianity and philosophy on account of the associated risk of contamination.
Exploration of how Christianity related to other religious groups was a major stimulus to theological reflection in the early Christian period and is associated with two landmark heresies. Ebionitism may be regarded as Christian assimilation to Judaism, and Marcionism as a Christian rejection of Christianity’s Jewish heritage. These two heresies define the extremities of a spectrum of possibilities, with orthodoxy navigating a via media.
Yet Judaism may rightly be observed to be a special case in that it defined the religious matrix from which Christianity emerged. What of other religious movements within the late classical period? One group that some early Christian writers believed to be significant was the loose, multifaceted movement often referred to as Gnosticism. As we have already seen, the origins of this movement remain obscure, and it is likely that further investigation will reveal multiple origins of a complex entity, reflecting an essentially diverse movement with considerable variation. Our current state of knowledge of Gnosticism is simply not good enough to allow us to answer some of the most fundamental questions concerning its origins and development with any confidence.
That being said, there is no doubt that several influential early Christian writers encountered Gnosticism, especially in Egypt, and came to regard it as a movement that demanded engagement. Valentinus, for example, seems to have encountered Gnosticism at Alexandria. On migrating to Rome—note the ease of travel that proved so important in transferring ideas around the Mediterranean coastline—Valentinus sought to advance this engagement, clearly believing that it was in the church’s interest to do so.
But what form did this engagement take? The evidence is insufficient to allow us to decide whether Valentinus was of the view that Christianity could restate its fundamental ideas in essentially Gnostic terms to advance the evangelization of that movement, or whether he regarded Gnostic ideas as being so robust that Christianity would benefit from incorporating them into its own way of thinking and making any appropriate conceptual adjustments. Whatever his intentions, the outcome of Valentinus’s strategy was seen to be the distortion of Christianity and the contamination of certain of its core ideas—such as the identity of the God of the Old and New Covenants.
Ethical Discontent and the Origins of Heresy
The Christian faith offers a moral vision that allows the world of social reality to be seen in a certain way, leading to corresponding modes of action.34 Christian ethics and political action require a vision that will render action intelligible. Yet many found themselves dissatisfied with the moral vision offered by the forms of Christianity that history permitted them to know, and sought alternatives. This sense of moral discontent often led to heretical conclusions.
Popular accounts of heresy often suggest that orthodox Christianity was ethically restrictive and authoritarian, leading enlightened individuals to seek more libertarian ways of life and thought. It seems to have become axiomatic in recent years that heresy is morally and intellectually liberating, to the extent that orthodoxy is stifling. This tells us a lot about the cultural mood of postmodernity, and the agendas of some of those who find heresy to be attractive.
Yet it needs to be pointed out that history completely forbids us from drawing such a simplistic conclusion, however attractive it may be to those alienated from religious orthodoxy, for whatever reasons. As we shall see, certain heresies did indeed regard Christian orthodoxy as somewhat forbidding and repressive; other heresies, however, regarded orthodoxy as dangerously lax and permissive, and sought to impose moral rigor on the Christian community. It is indefensible to suggest that moral or intellectual libertarianism is an essential characteristic of heresy. There is clearly considerable variation among heresies, some having no quarrel with prevailing orthodox ethical outlooks, others seeing them as heavy-handed and puritanical, and still others seeing them as lax and degenerate.
An obvious example of a heresy that regarded Christian orthodoxy as morally careless and slipshod is Pelagianism. The origins of this movement, as we noted earlier , lay in Pelagius’s shock at the moral degeneracy that he found in the Roman church on his arrival from Britain. It was a common enough reaction: Benedict of Nursia (480–547) felt the same way about the Roman church on his arrival in the city a century later. Nor was Pelagius’s asceticism particularly original. What really mattered was the emphasis he placed upon asceticism, and the theological conclusions he drew from it.
Pelagius and his circle developed a theology that authorized an emphasis upon a Christian quest for moral perfection, arguing that the best solution to the lack of moral vision within the Roman church was to make certain adjustments to the prevailing theological consensus. Humanity, Pelagius and his circle argued, had an intrinsic God-given capacity for perfection, which it needed to actualize through moral attentiveness. In all fairness to Pelagius, there are no grounds for suggesting that he set out to intentionally subvert Christianity. His rigid moralism was more of a reaction to the ethical and spiritual laxity he saw all around him. Initially, Pelagius probably saw himself as doing nothing more than attempting to give some sorely needed words of exhortation. Yet his analysis of what theological presuppositions were necessary to undergird his moral exhortations led him, in Augustine’s view, to develop some thoroughly unchristian views.35 Even allowing for some degree of interpenetration between the theological agendas of Pelagius himself and other moral activists at Rome (most notably, Caelestius and Rufinus of Syria), it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the moral emphasis of Pelagianism stimulated the formulation of some theological principles intended to serve this end, yet that were in tension with the New Testament’s views on sin, grace, and human nature.
As we noted earlier, both Pelagius and Benedict of Nursia were distressed by the moral laxity of the Roman church. It is instructive to compare their quite different responses. Where Pelagius and his circle altered the theological framework governing and informing Christian morality, Benedict created a new environment grounded in an orthodox conception of human nature yet adapted to the fostering of morality. If humanity had difficulty in coping with the moral complexities of life in a fallen world, the situation could be remedied, at least to some extent, by transferring these complexities to a context in which these weaknesses were recognized and addressed. For Benedict, the answer thus lay in a monastic community with a rule of life that was aspirational in its goals yet realistic in its assumptions.
Pelagianism is one of a group of heresies that regarded orthodox Christianity as morally deficient. Another example is Montanism, which attracted a theologian of the status of Tertullian. It emerged during the third century and emphasized the holiness of God and its implications for human behavior.36 While most theological attention has concerned Montanism’s views on prophecy and the role of the Holy Spirit (which seem to anticipate some aspects of modern Pentecostalism), its moral rigor also merits attention. Tertullian’s decision to convert to Montanism appears to have been motivated at least in part by its stringent and strident moralism.
Interestingly, Pelagianism provoked certain extreme reactions that were in themselves regarded as heresies. Some reacted against Pelagian asceticism with such force that they ended up being considered heretical on account of their antiascetical views. An excellent example of this phenomenon is to be found in Jovinian (d. c. 405), who was initially a strident advocate of monastic asceticism.37 He was excommunicated as a heretic at a synod convened by Ambrose of Milan in 390 for a variety of theological reasons, although it is possible that the real concern was that Jovinian had become something of a scandal on account of his love for the good life. While some aspects of the situation remain unclear, it seems that Jovinian was seen as having “flipped” from one extreme to the other, abandoning self-denial and embracing self-indulgence. For Ambrose, there had to be a middle way between these extreme moral positions.
Yet other heretical movements adopted much more libertarian approaches to morality. The classic example of this is a network of individuals during the later Middle Ages who are often grouped together as representing the “Heresy of the Free Spirit.”38 This loosely connected movement, which is generally thought to have flourished in the fourteenth century, is often held to be characterized by its hostility toward ecclesiastical authoritarianism, and by its subversion of traditional morality. It is often difficult to determine the reliability of some accounts of its beliefs and activities, as these are thought to be open to exaggeration by those concerned to discredit them. As Norman Cohn pointed out fifty years ago, what emerges from contemporary accounts of this heresy is “an entirely convincing picture of an eroticism which, far from springing from a carefree sensuality, possessed above all a symbolic value as a sign of spiritual emancipation.”39
The brief historical overview presented in this section makes it clear that moral discontent with orthodoxy is not of the essence of heresy. It can be one of its features, but it is not necessarily of central importance. Yet the notion that heresy is intrinsically liberating cannot be sustained. This represents a retrojection onto history of the ideals and aspirations of those alienated from conventional religion on account of the alleged “authoritarianism” of forms of orthodoxy. This notion of heresy is partly imagined and invented, and bears relatively little resemblance to the historical realities of heresy.
The material we have explored in this chapter points to a number of pressures that, though not heretical in themselves, can lead to heresy as outcomes. The common theme here is that of the adaptation of orthodoxy to a specific cultural environment, which may—but does not necessarily—lead to heresy. This observation fits in well with the fivefold analysis of heresy offered by the British patristic scholar H. E. W. Turner, who suggests that heresy can be conceived as the outcome of five related yet distinct processes: dilution; truncation; distortion; archaism; and evacuation.40 As we noted earlier, the fourth of these can be seen as representing a refusal to concede that Christian theology must develop—not merely reiterate—the ideas of the New Testament . Yet it will be clear that Turner’s four remaining categories point to the possibility of cultural and intellectual assimilation of the Christian faith, either by incorporating alien ideas or by abandoning Christian ideas, in response to cultural pressures.
It is clearly necessary and appropriate for Christianity to engage with its cultural environment. Church history indicates that this process of engagement has been an integral part of the long process of Christian expansion and consolidation through the ages. To suggest that this process might lead into heretical byways is not to invalidate the process, but simply to mandate theological vigilance in its execution.
Yet there remains one issue that needs closer attention. To what extent are heresy and orthodoxy the outcomes of power struggles? Given the importance of this issue in some recent speculation about the origins and nature of heresy, it clearly deserves closer analysis.