Orthodoxy, Heresy, and Power
Orthodoxy, Heresy, and Power
Heresy is the orthodoxy of history’s losers. This view, expressed and given a somewhat inadequate historical justification in the writings of Walter Bauer , points to the potential importance of power in determining what is orthodox. For Bauer and his more recent followers, heresy is just an orthodoxy that had the bad luck to get mixed up with the wrong people. The other side won and enforced their ideas as the regnant orthodoxy. Theological victory rested with those who had the power to enforce their viewpoints.
This development is of considerable importance, not least because it helps account for the growing cultural interest in—not to mention sympathy for—heresies. In this reading of things, heresy is the orthodoxy of the plucky underdog, the voice of suppressed and downtrodden cultural groups. Scholarship can reverse the judgments of history, which is invariably written by its winners, and restore the ideas and values of those who were culturally vanquished to their proper place. The rehabilitation of heresy can thus be seen as a profoundly moral action. It is, it must be conceded, very difficult to defend this reading of history. To its critics, it appears to represent an attempt to read certain cultural judgments or biases into history rather than attempt a critical historical analysis of the emergence and character of “heresy.”
From a Christian perspective, however, heresy has a very different sense.1 The term has come to refer to a set of beliefs that maintain the outward form of the gospel yet ultimately subvert its essence. Heresy renders the Christian faith incoherent and unstable, and thus undermines its longer-term prospects for survival in a fiercely competitive world of ideas. To use a familiar Darwinian image: if it is the fittest who are to survive, then the fittest form of Christianity must be identified and promoted—namely, Christian orthodoxy. In this volume, I have explored this Christian approach to heresy, trying to identify what was potentially so subversive or destructive about the classic movements within the early church that were ultimately declared to be heretical.
Yet the scholarly study of heresy has undergone significant change in recent years. Heresy is no longer seen as a specifically Christian notion but as a broader social phenomenon, ultimately reflecting questions of power and influence. Heresy is a concept found in other world religions (though sometimes under other names) as well as Christianity,2 ultimately reflecting the fact that these are social movements linked with questions of power and influence.
These factors are taken into account in this study, which can be thought of as offering a “critical realist” account of heresy.3 Critical realism has gained increasing influence recently in the social sciences, and is characterized particularly by its exploration of the interaction of ideas with their social contexts. Critical realism recognizes that ideas emerge within, and are modulated by, their social context and often play critical social roles—for example, in defining the boundaries of communities. In the present chapter, we shall explore some of the sociological issues that relate to the origins and development of heresy, focusing especially on the complex interplay between heresy, orthodoxy, and power.
Sociological Approaches to Heresy
The origins of an essential social account of heresy can be traced back to early Marxism. Karl Marx (1818–83) set out an account of the origins of ideologies (the “production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness,” a notion that might now be translated as “worldviews”) that held that they were fundamentally expressions of social and economic factors. Ideology acts as the superstructure of a civilization or culture, in that it defines the conventions and beliefs that make up the dominant ideas of a society. The “ruling ideas” of a given historical epoch are thus those of the ruling class:
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society is also its ruling intellectual force…. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of their dominance.4
This approach leads to heresy being seen as the ideology of a defeated or oppressed group, whereas orthodoxy is the ideology of the ruling class. Although this approach to heresy has obvious applications to the institution of the church, it is not limited to them. Heresy has, in effect, thus been conceived in social or institutional—rather than theological—terms. Friedrich Engels (1820–95) made this connection in his important Peasant War in Germany (1850). Engels’s objective in writing this book was primarily to offer consolation to those discouraged by the failure of attempted revolutionary activity in 1848–49, drawing a parallel with the earlier failure of the German Peasants’ Revolt of 1525.5 Yet the work also set out the idea that heresies are manifestations of class conflict. The theological differences between Martin Luther and the radical leader Thomas Müntzer were actually grounded in social and political issues.
In eras that were dominated by the conceptualities and language of the Christian church, alternative social movements had little option other than to use religious language as a means of expressing their identity. Yet the heart of such movements, in this reading, is not religious—despite outward appearances of religious concerns—but political, social, or economic. Recent studies of the sociology of heresy have emphasized this point. For example, George Zito observes that heresy is not primarily “a religious phenomenon, but an institutional phenomenon.” It initially developed within religious contexts “only because of the religious institution’s central position in governing the discourses of a particular historical moment.”6
Given that heresy and orthodoxy need to distinguish themselves, intellectual divergence between them is inevitable. Yet in this sociological understanding of heresy, this sort of divergence is ultimately of limited significance. The real point at issue lies underneath the ideas and is not directly expressed in or by those ideas. The orthodox and heretical are to be distinguished socially, institutionally, or economically. Heretical ideas are the superstructure erected on a sociological foundation and are not themselves of primary importance.
This important development leads directly into one of the most characteristic features of contemporary writing on heresy. Where earlier generations of heresiologists lauded orthodoxy and castigated heresy, most recent writing in the field appears simply to have inverted this judgment. If the distinction between heresy and orthodoxy rests on power and dominance, sympathy now seems to lie decidedly with the heretic. The issue is not that of “right” and “wrong” rather, it is who has the power to compel assent to their way of seeing things. Today’s orthodoxy can thus easily transmute into tomorrow’s heresy. All that is required is a radical change in the social relationship of the parties involved.
To what extent, then, has the church’s discussion of heresy been shaped by interests and relationships of power? We begin by considering the patristic era, interacting particularly with the six classic heresies that we considered in chapters 6 and 7.
Power, Heresy, and the Patristic Age
To begin with, we need to reiterate a point made earlier: the Christian church in the first and second centuries possessed no political power of any significance, and appears to have had no means at its disposal to enforce orthodoxy. There is no persuasive evidence to suggest that early heresies of the second century—such as Valentinism and Marcionism—were subjected to any form of coercion from Roman church leaders in order to force them to conform to Roman theological norms. Marcion and Valentinus, irritated at failing to secure acceptance within the church, founded their own communities. They were not forcibly expelled against their wishes.
The importance of power interests in defining early Christianity has often been noted. For example, the sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920) proposed that the process of the formation of any canon of texts was ultimately a struggle for power. Thus Weber argued that “most, though not all, canonical sacred collections became officially closed against secular or religiously undesirable additions as a consequence of a struggle between various competing groups and prophecies for control of the community.”7 Not surprisingly, Weber sees the process of closure of the Christian and Hebrew biblical canons in terms of power struggles between rival groups, the outcome determining which would dominate the shape of any institution governed by such texts.8 Heresy could therefore be interpreted as arising from the decision to recognize an alternative canon of Scripture, its distinctive ideas arising primarily from using different sources than those used by orthodoxy rather than from placing different interpretations upon the same sources as those used by orthodoxy.9
Yet it is questionable whether such an analysis based on power can be applied credibly to the period of “proto-orthodoxy.” Walter Bauer, whose approach reflects Weber’s ideas, seems to have retrojected the later political power and status of the Roman church into the second century. Yet this anachronism cannot be defended. It was not until the conversion of Constantine in the early fourth century that Christianity can be said to have had any real political clout in Rome. In the second century it was an illegal religion on the margins of society, without access to political or social influence, let alone any way of enforcing its viewpoints.
This is not to say that the church was not concerned about threats to Christian authenticity, or was failing to pay attention to how the most authentic expressions or performances of faith might be identified and sustained. For example, the writings of Origen can be considered as an attempt to identify “orthodoxy” as the most consistent rendering of Scripture, not least in terms of the patterns of divine action that it disclosed.10 It is clear that informal networks of bishops and theologians were in the process of clarifying the nature of orthodoxy, often through personal correspondence.11 Yet this process was fundamentally concerned with the crystallization of perceptions within the church, not the imposition of some predetermined outcome.
Yet all this changed with the accession of Constantine and the gradual transformation of the social and political status of Christianity from a fringe religious movement to the established religion of the Roman Empire. Divisions within imperial Christianity now had the potential to cause division and potential instability within the empire. Constantine appeared to have little interest in the theological issues underlying such debates. His responses suggest a pragmatic determination to sort out the issues expeditiously yet civilly.
Constantine was dragged into the Donatist controversy at an early stage, partly on account of its implications for Roman colonial policy in North Africa. His involvement initially took the form of strong suggestions that the respective parties sort things out between them, followed by the imposition of a mechanism for conflict resolution. After the failure of this, Constantine himself adjudicated the issue, settling in favor of the Catholic party. Yet it is clear that his involvement in the affair was reluctant, his fundamental instinct being to allow the church to sort out its own disputes.
A similar issue arose in the Arian controversy, where Constantine again reluctantly found himself drawn into a theological dispute for which he regarded himself as ill equipped. Once more, Constantine’s concern was to reestablish unity within the church, and again he proposed a mechanism for the resolution of the conflict. The Council of Nicaea (325), modeled on classic Roman senatorial precedents, was not intended to impose Constantine’s views on Christology; indeed, there are indications that his preference may have been for an Arian Christology.12 His primary objective in becoming involved in these disputes appears to have been the establishment of concord and agreement within the church.
Yet while Constantine appears to have been content to allow the church to sort out its own theological debates, he had no hesitation in using the force of the state to impose uniformity once this decision had been reached. Constantine moved to enforce Nicene orthodoxy, exiling those who refused to accept it—including Arius himself, the deacon Euzoios, and the Libyan bishops Theonas of Marmarica and Secundus of Ptolemaïs. He also ordered all copies of the Thalia, the book in which Arius had expressed his teachings, to be burned.
The state may not have defined orthodoxy; it was, however, certainly prepared to enforce it. Once this point is recognized, it has important implications for the Bauer thesis—namely, that the enforcement of orthodoxy, found repugnant by many of Bauer’s disciples, would have applied equally had movements now designated as heretical been declared to be orthodox. If the driving force for suppression of diversity is imperial unity, whatever view is designated as “orthodoxy” will be enforced. This has clear implications for the curious recent perception that heresy is intrinsically libertarian and orthodoxy repressive. The social function of these movements does not appear to be determined by the ideas themselves, but by their espousal and endorsement by the state.
If Donatism had won Constantine’s approval rather than the Catholic position, it would have been enforced as a matter of imperial policy, for the good of the social cohesion of the empire. Similarly, if Nicaea had endorsed Arianism, that would also have been enforced in the same way, and for the same reason. Imperial stability demanded ecclesiastical uniformity and conformity. It is a theme that recurs throughout the history of church-state relations—witness, for example, Elizabeth I’s “Act of Uniformity” (1559), designed to stabilize the religious and political situation in England in a period of national and international tension.13
That this is no whimsical speculation is indicated by developments that took place after Constantine’s death in 337. His son, Constantius, reopened the Nicene debates with a view to reversing the original judgment on Arianism. Advised by the Arian Eusebius of Nicomedia, Constantius inverted Nicene orthodoxy, declaring Athanasius of Alexandria to be heterodox and Arius orthodox. Constantius proceeded to use in defense of Arianism the same imperial power that Constantine had used to enforce the Athanasian position. Athanasius was exiled, as were other supporters of the theology hammered out at Nicaea.14 The situation was reversed in 381, when the Council of Constantinople reaffirmed and consolidated the basic ideas of the Council of Nicaea.15
Constantius’s declaration of the orthodoxy of Arianism and the heterodoxy of the “two natures” doctrine might appear to confirm the view that orthodoxy is simply a religious ideology favored by those in positions of power. A shift in power thus led to a corresponding shift in orthodoxy: Arianism, having been declared heretical in 325, was the regnant orthodoxy twenty years later. However, a closer examination of the events between the councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381) suggests that they actually undermine the idea that heresy and orthodoxy are essentially a matter of power politics.
The political decision that Arianism was orthodox and its rivals heretical provoked detailed intellectual examination of the credentials of the theological options available to the church. Writers such as Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus offered a theological analysis that led to a significant tension emerging between the intellectual merits of a theology and its political expediency. Arianism might have been imposed upon the church by an act of imperial authority; it was, however, becoming clear that it was not the best intellectual option.16 In the end, political influence proved inadequate to sustain a deficient vision of the Christian faith. While Arianism would continue to exercise influence in peripheral regions of the church for some time, its centers of influence had been won over again to the Nicene vision of the faith.
Power, Heresy, and the Middle Ages
The gradual collapse of the Roman Empire led to a series of realignments in both the Eastern and Western churches.17 In the West, the church gradually emerged as the guarantor of the established social order. This development reflects a number of factors, including the weakness of alternative authority structures. As the only agency to possess any significant credibility or influence throughout the Middle Ages, the church played a decisive role in the settling of international disputes.18 Under Innocent III (pope from 1198 to 1216), the medieval papacy reached a hitherto unprecedented level of political authority in western Europe.19 This was given theological justification in 1198, when Innocent III laid down the basic principle of the subordination of the state to the church. Just as God established “greater” and “lesser” lights in the heavens to rule the day and night—a reference to the sun and moon—so God had ordained that the power of the pope exceeded that of any monarch. It was part of the order of things, lying beyond challenge. The church’s authority was often recognized with great reluctance; there was, however, no other institution in western Europe with anything remotely approaching its influence.
It is important to appreciate that the medieval church stood at the heart of the social, spiritual, and intellectual life of western Europe throughout the Middle Ages. An individual’s hope of salvation rested on their being part of the community of saints, whose visible expression was the institution of the church. The church could not be bypassed or marginalized in any account of redemption: there was, as Cyprian of Carthage had so cogently argued in the third century, no salvation outside the church.20 It was a point tangibly expressed and reinforced in the architecture of churches.
An excellent illustration of this point can be see in the French Benedictine priory church of St.-Marcel-lès-Sauze, which was founded in 985 and extensively developed during the twelfth century.21 An inscription over the main door to the church reads as follows: “You who are passing through, you who are coming to weep for your sins, pass through me, since I am the gate of life.” Those who were searching for the consolation of heaven or the forgiveness of sins could not secure these benefits without the intervention and interposition of the institution of the church and its authorized ministers.22 Salvation had been institutionalized.
With these developments, heresy came to have a new significance. As heretical movements were formally deemed to be “outside the church,” they were regarded as formally incapable of leading to salvation. Yet perhaps more significantly for the theme of this chapter, they were also seen as challenging the authority of the church by offering an alternative belief system, master narrative, or reading of Scripture. Heretical movements, although based on certain essentially religious ideas, ultimately represented alternative visions of both church and society, posing a significant threat to the monopoly that the church was in the process of establishing.
Heresy began to emerge as a significant problem in the eleventh century, having had a remarkably low profile in the previous three centuries.23 Some have suggested that the year 1000 was seen as possessing mystical significance, triggering a wave of heretical speculation during the “millennial generation” (1000–1033).24 The study of heresy in western Europe during the Middle Ages raises some important questions of definition.25 Some of the movements that were declared to be heretical seem to represent renewal or modification of older heresies. An excellent example of this is provided by the Cathars, a religious sect that appeared in the Languedoc region of France in the eleventh century and flourished in southern France during the following two centuries.26 This sect adopted views that are recognizably Gnostic, perhaps originating from eastern Europe—such as the notion that matter is intrinsically evil, and a dialectic between an inferior creating divinity and a superior redeeming divinity.
Others, however, seem to fall into a more political category—movements that posed a threat to the authority of the church. This challenge might take the form of an alternative vision of society or of the privileged place of the church in the interpretation of Scripture. An example of such a movement is Waldensianism, a reform movement that emerged in southern France about the year 1170 as a result of the activity of a wealthy Lyonnais merchant by the name of Valdés.27 Valdés embarked on a reforming ministry that was based upon a literal reading of the Bible, particularly injunctions to poverty, and biblically based preaching in the vernacular. This ethos contrasted sharply with the somewhat loose morality of the clergy at that time and attracted considerable support in southern France and Lombardy. Although this was little more than a grassroots movement seeking reform, it was regarded as a significant threat to the power and status of the church.
The politicization of the notion of heresy is perhaps best seen in the church’s reaction to John Wycliffe (c. 1320–81), an English theologian who is often credited with inspiring the first English translation of the Bible. The defining issue for Wycliffe was who has the right to read and interpret a text—all believers, or a spiritual elite? As Kantik Ghosh pointed out, Wycliffe treats Scripture above all as an “ideologically empowering concept.”28
There is a fundamental issue of power here. By insisting that the Bible should be translated into English, Wycliffe was expanding the circle of those who had access to this text and those who believed they had the right to interpret it. Those who resisted Wycliffe’s demands for the democratization of biblical interpretation offered a traditionalist theological defense of their elitist conception of the right to interpret the Bible.29 Nevertheless, the motivation of issues of power and the consolidation of the status quo can hardly be overlooked. The effect of the Wycliffite “heresy” was to weaken the church’s grip on the control of how the Bible was to be interpreted.
There is a pattern here that needs to be noted. Although the Middle Ages did indeed see the revival, often with local transmutations, of older heresies, many movements were branded as heretical for political reasons. The establishment of the Inquisition can be seen as marking a confirmation of the increasing political and institutional significance of heresies deemed to pose a threat to papal authority.30 This represents a significant move away from patristic attempts to encapsulate the essence of heresy, which focused on the threat it posed to the Christian faith as a whole—not to Christian individuals or institutions. The use of the term “heresy” to denote a threat to the church is to be seen as inquisitorial rather than theological. As Herbert Grundmann pointed out in 1935, many of the religious movements of the Middle Ages that were branded heretical were really nothing of the sort. There was a serious case to be made for abandoning the use of the word “heresy” to designate many of them.31
The importance of this point can be seen by considering the Catholic Church’s response to the emergence of Protestantism, to which we now turn.
A New Heresy? Protestantism
An upsurge of radical religious reflection began in earnest in western Europe during the 1510s. Reforming movements had sprung up throughout Europe, demanding the renewal and reform of the church from within.32 When Martin Luther raised some fundamental questions about the sale of indulgences, partly intended to raise funds for the rebuilding of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, things began to spiral out of control. Luther’s famous “Ninety-Five Theses,” nailed on the castle door at Wittenberg in October 1517, eventually caused Leo X to issue the papal bull Exsurge Domine (“Arise, O Lord”), which condemned Luther as a heretic in 1520. The theological basis of this condemnation was seriously flawed. But theology was not the real issue here. The genuine concern was the challenge to papal influence and authority now posed by Luther.
Luther had no intention of recanting his ideas. Indeed, in the year of his condemnation as a heretic he published three popular works in quick succession, setting out his vision for the reformation of the church. His Appeal to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, widely regarded as the most important of these works, set out the case for reform of the church, and argued that German nobles had every right to demand change. The Babylonian Captivity of the Church criticized the church’s teaching on sacraments. The Freedom of a Christian explained Luther’s views on justification in easily accessible terms. While all three posed a threat to papal authority, the most serious such challenge lay in the Appeal.
Luther’s core argument in this work is that the church has shielded itself from criticism and demands for reform by erecting defensive walls around itself. In the first place, a fundamental distinction is drawn between the “temporal” and “spiritual” orders—in other words, between the laity and the clergy. The government of the church is declared to be a matter for the clergy, not the laity, who are seen as subordinate in matters of faith. Second, the right to interpret the Bible is denied to the laity and ultimately rests with the pope. Third, only a pope can convene a reforming council. Like the walls of Jericho, Luther declares, these must be brought to the ground. The metaphorical trumpet blasts that Luther directs against these walls encapsulate some of the fundamental themes of the Reformation, themes that set a pattern that would gradually become normative for much of Protestantism.
Luther began his critique of the church by setting out one of the greatest themes of the Reformation—the democratization of faith. Luther uses the German term Gemeinde (“community”) to refer to the church, anxious to emphasize that it is fundamentally a gathering of believers, not a divinely ordained institution with sacred powers and authority vested exclusively in its clergy. All believers, men and women, by virtue of their baptism, are priests. Luther noted an important corollary of this doctrine: the clergy should be free to marry, like all other Christians. This right to clerical marriage rapidly became a defining characteristic of Protestantism.
Luther grounded his doctrine of the “priesthood of all believers” in the New Testament’s concept of the church as a corporate “royal priesthood.”33 There was no basis, Luther argued, for asserting that the clergy were superior to the laity, as if they were some kind of spiritual elite, or that their ordination conferred upon them some special “indelible character.” The clergy are merely laity who have been recognized by other laity within the community of the church as having special gifts and are authorized by their colleagues to exercise a pastoral or teaching ministry among them. The authority to make such decisions thus rests with all Christians, not with an autocratic elite or putative spiritual aristocracy.
Luther developed this point with a civil analogy, as accessible today as it was five hundred years ago. The clergy are “office holders” who are elected by the laity as their representatives, teachers, and leaders. There is no fundamental difference between clergy and laity in terms of their status; the difference lies entirely in the former being elected to the “office” of a priest. All believers already have this status, on account of their baptism. This election to office is reversible; those who are thus chosen can be deselected if the occasion demands it.
On the basis of this doctrine of the universal priesthood of believers, Luther insisted that every Christian has the right to interpret the Bible and to raise concerns about any aspect of the church’s teaching or practice that appears to be inconsistent with the Bible. There is no question of any “spiritual” authority, distinct from or superior to ordinary Christians, who can impose certain readings of the Bible upon the church. The right to read and interpret the Bible is the birthright of all Christians. At this stage, Luther clearly believes that the Bible is sufficiently clear for ordinary Christians to be able to read and understand it. Following through on his democratizing agenda, Luther insists that all believers have the right to read the Bible in a language they can understand, and to interpret its meaning for themselves. The church is thus held to be accountable to its members for its interpretation of its sacred text, and is open to challenge at every point.
The significance of Luther’s point can hardly be overlooked. By insisting that it had a divinely ordained monopoly on biblical interpretation, the medieval church had declared itself to be above criticism on biblical grounds. No external critic had the authority to interpret Scripture, and thus to apply it to criticize the church’s doctrines or practices. Luther’s response was to empower the laity as interpreters of the Bible, and to hold the church accountable to its people for what it taught. And if they were not satisfied with the outcome, they, as laity, had the right to demand that a reforming council should be convened to address their concerns.
This final point was perhaps the most dangerous of all, as Luther seemed to have an important historical precedent on his side. Tongue placed firmly in his cheek, Luther reminded his readers that it was the Roman emperor Constantine who was responsible for summoning the Council of Nicaea (325), one of the most important councils of Christian history. If a lay ruler could summon such a council back then, why should not the German princes do the same twelve hundred years later?
Luther and other Protestants were roundly denounced as heretics by the church. For many Catholic apologists, Lutheranism was simply the reappearance of earlier heresies. In condemning as heretical or heterodox Luther’s early theological theses in the sixteenth century, the University of Paris attempted to establish the essential continuity between earlier heresies and the ideas now being expounded by Luther.34 Luther’s ideas were thus not to be regarded as original, but were essentially the republication of older heresies. Thus Luther was a Hussite in his theology of contrition, a Wycliffite in his doctrine of confession, and a Manichaean in his theology of grace and free will. According to the University of Paris, the Reformation represented little more than the reappearance of older heresies that were already known and condemned.
Yet the unbiased reader of Luther is more impressed by his continuity with the patristic tradition than his departure from it. In terms of the great classic heresies of Christianity, Luther is to be judged as broadly orthodox at every point, save possibly in relation to his doctrine of the church. Given the political situation of the 1520s, Luther believed that it was necessary to break away from the church, ideally only temporarily, in order to retain the purity of the Christian faith. Luther was convinced that the church of his day had compromised its doctrine of grace, in effect upholding the Pelagian view that salvation was something earned or merited (a judgment that most scholars now dispute). For Luther, the historical circumstances of the time forced him to choose between holding an orthodox doctrine of the church, on the one hand, and of grace, on the other. According to the great nineteenth-century American Protestant theologian B. B. Warfield, “The Reformation, inwardly considered, was just the ultimate triumph of Augustine’s doctrine of grace over Augustine’s doctrine of the church.”35 This aligns Luther with Donatism at this specific point rather than with the views of Augustine of Hippo. Yet in other respects, Luther’s doctrine of the church is thoroughly anti-Donatist.
Furthermore, both Luther and the mainstream Reformation as a whole regarded alignment with the classic forms of Christianity of the patristic era as essential to their self-understanding. Where some more radical Protestant movements abandoned traditional practices such as infant baptism and beliefs such as the doctrine of the Trinity, Luther and Calvin both insisted that their reforming programs were a direct extension of the classic patristic approach. Protestantism would endorse Athanasius’s and Augustine’s judgments on what was orthodox and what was heretical.36
So was Luther really a heretic? And what of Protestantism as a whole? The passing of time has seen a marked mellowing of Catholic attitudes toward Luther and the churches of the Reformation. The Second Vatican Council (1962–65), for example, affirmed that the Holy Spirit was active in non-Catholic Christian communities. All who have been baptized and justified by faith can justly be said to be “members of Christ’s body” and have a right to be called “Christian” and “brothers” by the Catholic church.
Yet our concern here is not with ecumenical relations between Protestantism and Catholicism, which have improved substantially in the last fifty years, but with the question of whether the concept of heresy was used with a different agenda after the patristic era. During the classic era, the concept has a robustly theological significance, denoting a manner of articulating or conceptualizing the Christian faith that ultimately renders it incoherent or indefensible. Yet in the Middle Ages, the term comes increasingly to mean a social or religious movement that is seen as a threat by or to the pope. In my judgment, Herbert Grundmann is correct to argue that it is inappropriate to use the term “heresy” in this way, in that it comes to be defined by the historical contingencies of the ecclesiastical politics of the age rather than the core ideas of the movements in question.
Protestantism and the Problem of Heresy
As we noted earlier, Protestantism was rapidly branded as a heresy by the Catholic Church. Protestants responded with indignation, retorting that they had recovered orthodoxy from its medieval distortions. What was Protestantism if not the recovery of the orthodox faith of the early church?37 Yet Catholics had little difficulty in arguing that, while Protestantism might be perfectly capable of recovering earlier biblical interpretations, it lacked the means to determine whether what it had retrieved was orthodox or heterodox. And lacking any such capacity to discriminate such interpretations, Protestants were obligated to repeat the judgments of the Catholic church on these matters. In their turn, Protestants argued that, since they were committed to restoring the authentic teaching of the early church, this naturally extended to the church’s views on orthodoxy and heresy.
The Protestant approach to heresy worked well, providing it was restricted to the reaffirmation of the church’s condemnation of existing heresies or their revival in new forms. A good example of this revival of older heresies in modern forms can be seen in the rise of anti-Trinitarianism in Italian Protestant circles, which rapidly gained a following in northern Europe.38 For Juan de Valdés and others, the doctrine of the Trinity was simply not to be found in the Bible, nor could it be defended on its basis. Protestants who were faithful to the Bible were therefore not only under no obligation to accept this doctrine; they had a responsibility to challenge it as a distortion of biblical truth. Forced out of Italy by the Inquisition, many settled in the independent republic of the Grisons in southeastern Switzerland, where their influence upon Reformed Protestantism began to grow.
In this case, Protestantism was able to deal with such heterodox trends by an appeal to the consensus of faith of the church as set out in the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon. Christianity as a whole had declared such teachings to be heretical; Protestantism thus endorsed this pattern of traditional teaching and, in doing so, rejected anti-Trinitarianism as heretical. These ideas arose within Protestantism yet were relatively easily discredited as new forms of older heresies. Yet what of new religious teachings, arising specifically within Protestantism, that had no real precedents in earlier Christian history? Could these be described as heretical if they were found unacceptable?
An excellent example of this question lies in the Arminian controversy, which arose over the teachings of Jakob Arminius (1560-1609) on predestination.39 This major controversy within Calvinism arose over the doctrine of predestination and led to a fundamental bifurcation between Calvinism and Arminianism. Calvinist orthodoxy in the seventeenth century held that an individual’s eternal destiny was entirely a matter of divine sovereignty. Arminianism held that human beings were, if only to a limited extent, implicated in their own election, having the capacity to resist God’s calling. Each accused the other of being heretical. Yet in reality, each could equally claim to represent coherent interpretations of the Bible, interpretations that happened to differ substantially in terms of both their basic ideas and their implications for the Christian life.
The difficulty for Protestantism was that it was found to possess no higher authority that can declare one or the other to be in the right. If Scripture is the supreme rule of faith, no interpretative authority can be placed above Scripture. In the end, the only practical means of deciding the question was a vote within the Protestant constituency in question—as, for example, at the Synod of Dort (1618–19), which established the boundaries of Calvinist orthodoxy. Orthodoxy thus ran the risk of being defined as the theology with the most votes within a given constituency, and heterodoxy as the minority voice.
The problem here is that “heresy” is ultimately a teaching judged unacceptable by the entire church; the term is not properly applicable to either Calvinism or Arminianism, which represent divisions within one constituency of Protestantism—namely, the Reformed church. One can certainly speak of heresy arising within Protestantism—for example, the revival of Arianism in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Anglicanism.40 Yet in that case, ideas that the entire church regarded as heretical made their reappearance. The nature of Protestantism is such that it is very difficult to use the term “heresy” to refer to divergent schools of thought within that movement, and limited to that movement, unless they reproduce ideas that the church as a whole had already agreed to be unorthodox. We find here a set of competing Protestant orthodoxies, each with its own grounding in the Bible, its own understanding of the internal dynamics of faith, and its own parameters of adjudication as to what is acceptable and what is not. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the term “heresy” is simply not appropriate in this situation. A heresy is a teaching that the whole Christian church, not a party within that church, regards as unacceptable.
Yet there are significant voices within Protestantism that called for—and continue to call for—a reconsideration of the relation between orthodoxy and power, especially in the light of the right of individuals to interpret the Bible as they see fit. The great English Puritan theologian and poet John Milton (1608–74), for example, argued that freedom of religious conscience was of central importance to any attempt to define orthodoxy. The very idea of the imposition of orthodoxy ran counter to Milton’s deepest theological and cultural instincts.41 Orthodoxy designates an interpretation of Scripture that seems right to the individual Protestant conscience. We see here a reaction against authoritarianism, framed in terms of an appeal to the theological judgment and exegetical integrity of the individual. For what is the church if not a collection of individuals, all attempting to make sense of the same Scripture as seems best to them? For Milton, a “heretical” opinion is any religious opinion that rests upon external authority instead of individual conscience:
Seeing therefore that no man, no synod, no session of men…can judge definitively the sense of scripture to another man’s conscience…it follows plainly, that he who holds in religion that belief or those opinions which to his conscience and utmost understanding appear…in the scripture, though to others he seems erroneous, can no more be justly censur’d for a heretic than his censurers; who do but the same thing themselves while they censure him for so doing.42
Milton’s analysis thus highlights the difficulties in which Protestantism has found itself when trying to deal with the notion of heresy. Protestantism places the interpretation of Scripture at the heart of its theology and recognizes no authority above Scripture.43 This being the case, it is obliged to recognize that multiple interpretations of Scripture will ensue, with no authorized means of determining which is “orthodox” and which “heretical.” This difficulty can be alleviated, but not resolved, by appealing to the judgment of antiquity concerning which views were heretical and which orthodox. Yet ultimately Protestantism would wish to keep such questions open, at least theoretically maintaining the possibility that such patristic judgments might require revision in the light of ongoing biblical interpretation. Protestantism thus finds itself entangled in some theological difficulties when dealing with the connected notions of “heresy” and “orthodoxy.” We shall return to consider this point again later in this chapter.
Postmodernism, Heresy, and the Suspicion of Power
In this chapter, we have explored some aspects of the relationship between heresy, orthodoxy, and power. While there can be little doubt that the concept of heresy is linked with issues of power, this does not mean that heresy is defined by those with power or that there is no intellectual essence or characteristic of heresy. The classical heresies of the Christian faith, all of which arise from the journeys of theological exploration of the patristic era, may well have political and social implications. They are not, however, ultimately political or social constructs but are better understood as theological dead ends.
There is a further point that must be explored a little further in closing this chapter. We have already noted that contemporary Western culture finds heresy attractive. The values of postmodern culture are such that they offer implicit reasons for preferring heresy over orthodoxy—such as the pervasive belief that heresy is less moralistic and authoritarian than orthodoxy, that heresy is more intellectually exciting than its stolid orthodox rival, or that orthodoxy has suppressed the truth about heresy in an attempt to cover up its own intellectual or historical shortcomings. All of these perceptions are difficult to defend historically; yet they resonate with the cultural mood. The history of Western culture suggests that such perceptions rapidly become realities.
Yet history indicates that many heresies—such as Montanism—were much more authoritarian and morally rigorous than orthodoxy. Far from being “innovative” or “radical,” many heresies were actually rather conservative, attempting to hold on to traditional ideas that were being undermined by the more radical ideas developed by early Christianity. The ideas of Gnosticism, for example, seem rather dull and plodding compared with the transformative Christian notion of the Incarnation. And the recent surge in historical interest in the early Christian world, including the origins of heresy, has provided little in the way of ammunition for the conspiracy theorists. Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code (2003) is of interest more for its selective manipulation of history than for any credible critique, historical or intellectual, of Christian orthodoxy. The novel’s success partly reflects its resonance with the cultural mood.
Yet two aspects of the somewhat fuzzy postmodern attitude toward heresy merit closer attention. The new cultural fascination with heresy in the West is partly due to two of postmodernity’s distinctive beliefs: first, that regnant orthodoxies are simply the outcome of power; and second, that any attempt to achieve “closure” of debates is improper. We shall explore these briefly, and note their significance.
First, we need to note the deep suspicion of orthodoxy that lurks within postmodernity. Orthodoxy, in a postmodern reading of things, is not about the merited triumph of ideas that were clearly superior to their rivals. It is about the imposition of such ideas by those in power as a way of both expressing and buttressing their social positions. Orthodoxy is thus a controlling ideology, designed to enhance and defend the vested interests of the establishment. To use Michel Foucault’s famous image, orthodoxy was the “panopticon,” the “all-seeing place,” from which everything could be controlled and manipulated, in order to preserve the status quo.44
Foucault’s critique of any privileged viewpoint merits close consideration, not least because it correctly notes how concepts of “truth” are easily subverted in the interests of power. Readers familiar with the history of the Soviet Union will recall the title of the organ of the Communist Party: Pravda—the Russian word for “truth.” Foucault’s point has force when dealing with the use of the notion of heresy in the Middle Ages in that the idea was often used to disempower, and provide an intellectual justification for the elimination of, individuals or groups who were deemed to pose a threat to the papacy. For this reason, among others, I am inclined to limit the use of the term “heresy” to the classic period, ending with the formulations of the Council of Chalcedon in 451.
In the classic period, the evidence points strongly to the consensual emergence of the idea of heresy. The term was occasionally used by some patristic writers in an attempt to denigrate their rivals and opponents, especially when matters of ecclesiastical politics were involved. Yet these personal accusations of heresy were subject to evaluation and reception by the church as a whole.45 The concept of heresy was a matter for the church, not for powerful individuals or interest groups. It is thus significant to note that the exercise of ecclesiastical power by emperors in the fourth century tended to favor Arianism rather than orthodoxy, suggesting that, if anything, heretical positions were privileged by this use of power.
Secondly, some regard the notion of “orthodoxy” with suspicion on account of its sense of closure. Are these not questions that ought to remain open? Is not orthodoxy a provisional notion, one that needs to be kept under constant review? This is certainly the view of the postmodern writer Hilary Lawson, whose critique of the idea of closure merits consideration here. For Lawson, “closure can be understood as the imposition of fixity on openness.” It represents an improper “closing of that which is open.”46 All journeys of intellectual exploration are ongoing and do not arrive at a fixed or permanent destination. Lawson thus argues for a permanent state of openness concerning reality. We do not arrive at a destination in our intellectual voyaging, but only at a “temporary resting point.”47
Lawson’s demand for a permanent suspension of judgment, a keeping open of all intellectual options, has value in emphasizing the importance of constant theological vigilance. Yet it is questionable whether it has any merit beyond affirming the importance of avoiding complacency and regularly reexamining intellectual options. Lawson’s position is that reality is wide-open and that human observers falsely and improperly “close” it through their theories, which inevitably limit and distort our grasp of things. The only way of avoiding this distortion, according to Lawson, is to avoid closure itself.
There is merit in this point, although not perhaps as Lawson states it. As one who is very happy to identify himself as a representative of classic Protestantism, I am committed to the notion of the constant interrogation and review of existing formulas of faith, constantly wishing to ensure that the church uses only the best and most authentic means of expressing the fundamental themes of its faith. This means that orthodoxy is understood to be a viewpoint that is sufficiently robust and coherent that such a process of interrogation can lead only to its confirmation and vindication. Orthodoxy does not demand to be dogmatically imposed, but rather calls out to be recognized on account of its intrinsic virtues.
In any case, it would be misleading to speak, for example, of the Council of Chalcedon as having secured total closure of the question of the identity of Jesus of Nazareth. The council’s pronouncements are better seen as identifying some ground rules for thinking about the person of Christ, marking off some options as inadequate while legitimating a range of possibilities as orthodox. If the range of possible interpretations of Christ’s identity and significance is a field, Chalcedon simply placed a hedge around the good pastures. As the noted theologian Karl Rahner pointed out, the Council of Chalcedon actually marked a new beginning to Christian reflection on the identity of Christ rather than the ending of any such process.48
Yet underlying these points is something that is often overlooked—namely, that Christian orthodoxy is as much an ongoing process as a fixed set of outcomes. As a classic Protestant, for example, I would hold that I have every reason to suppose that a certain set of beliefs constitute “orthodoxy” yet at the same time, I am committed to their constant interrogation in case they should prove to be in some way inadequate or inauthentic. Orthodoxy is thus, in a certain sense, unfinished, in that it represents the mind of the church as to the best manner of formulation of its living faith at any given time. Conflicts and tensions past and present may help the crystallization of fresh insights and the development of new ways of expressing traditional ideas, or they may bring about the realization that a certain way of speaking and thinking, once thought to be adequate, must now be regarded as problematic.
The history of early Christian thought makes clear the dangers of theological complacency. Ideas that were once regarded as orthodox turned out, on closer examination—often over extended periods of time—to be inadequate. Indeed, it is possible to argue that Arius was actually a theological traditionalist who failed to appreciate that his “tidying up” of the Christian tradition actually impoverished it and severely impaired its conceptual and linguistic capacity to accommodate the realities of faith.49 Paradoxically, those who woodenly define orthodoxy as the verbal repetition of theological formulas of the past risk fossilizing the Christian faith, trapping it in one of its specific historic forms without giving it the conceptual and verbal spaciousness to remain true to the mystery it attempts to express and convey.50
In this chapter, we have considered the interplay of orthodoxy and heresy on the one hand and political power on the other. While there is unquestionably an interactive dynamic between them, it will be clear that it is not possible to maintain the idea that Christian orthodoxy simply represents the establishment’s preferred outcome during the patristic era, when many Christian doctrines crystallized into their present forms. Yet when Christianity morphed from being a religious movement outside the establishment to becoming a major political player, culminating in the emergence of Christendom, the idea of heresy inevitably developed new associations. The politicization of orthodoxy inevitably entails a corresponding politicization of its antithesis—heresy.
The social outcome of this was perhaps inevitable. Where a dominant politicized orthodoxy was experienced as privileged, repressive, or uncaring, heretical movements offered individuals an alternative religious vision and structure. They had the capacity to become effective movements of social protest on account of their political context, which created space for this social function. Given this context, it is not difficult to understand how heresy came to be tinged with aspirations of libertarianism in early modern Europe. Indeed, the postmodern fascination with heresy is grounded largely in this lingering cultural memory. The social realities may have changed, but their memory and associations live on.