“his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat”

This lesson is part I of II, please also read “Heresy by the Century (Eleventh to Twenty First)”

What is heresy? “In the Roman Catholic Church, heresy has a very specific meaning. Anyone who, after receiving baptism, while remaining nominally a Christian, pertinaciously denies or doubts any of the truths that must be believed with divine and Catholic faith is considered a heretic. Accordingly four elements must be verified to constitute formal heresy; previous valid baptism, which need not have been in the Catholic Church; external profession of still being a Christian, otherwise the person becomes an apostate; outright denial or positive doubt regarding a truth that the Catholic Church has actually proposed as revealed by God; and the disbelief must be morally culpable, where a nominal Christian refuses to accept what he knows is an doctrinal imperative.” A heretic therefore is resolved in their position; they are not merely wrestling to understand but rather are permanent in their denial or doubt. A heretic has to know what they are rejecting, in others words you can accidently be a heretic. It is the obligation of every Catholic to live what they believe and to accomplish that call; every Catholic must know what they believe.

This lesson briefly outlines the major heresies, as well as religions or beliefs that have budded from heresies over the last two thousand years. Many of these heresies are gone, others have disappeared only to reappear in another guise, while some will be with us until the last day when they and all falsehood will be separated from will be separated and burned as the weeds are in relation to the wheat. “Heresies, then, like weeds in a field, may spring up in the Church; but the day must come when they will be uprooted; some of them will wither on the parent stems, but the whole cockle shall be gathered into bundles to burn. Where are now the heresies that sprang up in the first ages of the Church? And in another hundred years, what will have become of the heresy, which, under the pretentious name of ‘the reformation,’ has caused incalculable evil? It is the same with the scandals which rise up with the pale of the Church: they are a hard trial; but trials must come.” [1]
 
What are some of the biggest false doctrines? Any seed sown by the evil one grows into false doctrines. “We Christians should have been on guard to make sure that the good things placed in this world by the Creator were developed in the service of truth and good. But we have fallen asleep-a sad thing, that sluggishness of our heart! While the enemy and all those who serve him worked incessantly. You can see how the weeds have grown abundantly everywhere.” [2] There are so many false doctrines in the 2,000-year history of the Church. The biggest false doctrines of today could arguably be secularism, materialism, and relativism.

Hersey by the Century [3]

First Century

Judaziers – Early Jewish Christians who considered the Mosaic Law still binding. Observance of the Sabbath instead of Sunday, circumcision, and keeping the severe dietary laws were the principal customs they wanted to keep.

Gnosticism – The theory of salvation by knowledge. Matter was said to be hostile to spirit, and the universe was held to be a depravation of the Deity. Gnosticism is the invariable element in every major Christian heresy; by its denial of an objective revelation that was completed in the apostolic age and its disclaimer that Christ established in the Church a teaching authority to interpret decisively the meaning of the revealed word of God.

Third Century

Montanism – Monatists taught that the Holy Spirit was now supplementing the revelation of Christ, with consequent displacement of the bishops and even the Pope. Its members considered themselves specially gifts by the Holy Spirit as prophets of Christ’s second coming. This heresy won over the great Tertullian.

Monarchianism – A denial of the Trinity of Persons. It was a belief in modalism that taught that God acts in three modes. The modalist type admitted only a distinction of functions in God, who as Father created the world, as Son redeemed, and as the Holy Spirit sanctified the world.

Manichaeism – In the Manichaean system there are two ultimate sources of creation, the one good and the other evil. God is the creator of all that is good, and Satan of all that is evil. Man’s spirit is from God; his body is from the devil. The body and matter are bad, the spirit is good and there is a constant battle between the two.

Fourth Century

Arianism – This heresy claimed that the Son, Jesus, was less than and a creature of the Father. Arians denied the divinity of Jesus Christ. There was a time when Jesus did not exist and He is the Son of God by grace and adoption. He is not of the same substance of the Father.

Donatism – This heresy claimed that the validity of the sacraments depends on the moral character of the minster; also that sinners cannot be members of the Church, nor can the true Church tolerate them if their sins are publicly known.

Pelagianism – Pelagius taught that Adam would have died even if he had not sinned. He also taught that Adam’s fall injured only himself and at worst affected his posterity by giving them a bad example. Another belief was that newborn children are in the same condition as Adam before he fell and that mankind will not die because of Adam’s sin or rise on the Last Day because of Christ’s redemption. Finally, the law of ancient Israel no less than the Gospel offers equal opportunity to reach heaven. Ultimately Pelagianism denied the supernatural order and the necessity of grace for salvation.

Fifth Century

Monophysitism – This heresy claimed that in Christ there was only one nature. Christ’s human nature was suppressed.

Nestorianism – The heresy taught that there were two distinct persons in the Incarnate Christ, one human and the other divine. Nestorius came to describe their union; he could not have them joined ontologically (in their being /substance) or hypostatically (constituting one person), but only morally or psychologically.

Seventh Century

Monothelitism – This heresy claimed that there was a kind of divine-human operation in Christ. They believe in the two natures of Christ but taught that these two natures had a common will and a common activity.

Islam – Monotheistic religion founded by Mohammed who was exposed to many of the heresies or strands of heresies listed above. Islam is not a heresy but rose out of the soil of the Eastern Church which was plagued with heresies, confusion and false doctrines. One could say that small heresies can mount up to a large religion.

Eighth Century

Iconoclasm – A heresy that rejected as superstition the use of religious images and advocated for their destruction. It was occasioned by the rise of Islam, which considers all sacred images idolatrous. Iconoclasm literally means image breakers. 

[1] Abbot Aueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Book 4
[2] St. Josemaria Escriva, Christ Is Passing By, 123
[3] Information about heresies taken from Warren Carrol’s 2000 Years of Christianity and Fr. John Hardon’s Modern Catholic Dictionary.