Most controversial matters were unresolved by either consensus or church legislation until the fifth century councils. As the church developed orthodoxy, so too did it begin to define heresy, action or belief that opposes official principles of a religion.
Yet one sect's orthodoxy could be another sect's heresy, even with common foundations. For example, when the church developed into the differing parties of the Orthodox-Catholic-Chalcedonian; Nestorian; and Monophysite-Jacobite-Coptic, each considered the others heretical, despite that all three held firmly to the 'Nicene Creed'.
Even the Islamic faith, now one of the world's most widely practiced religions, was once thought to be a Christian heresy. What is defined to be heresy – or orthodoxy or another religion altogether – is changeable over time and subjective to one group or another.
In the aptly titled text "On the Correction of the Donatists," Augustine understands the Donatists to be heretical and out of communion with the Catholic Church. So important is this restored communion - and for the Donatists to see the error of their ways - that Augustine justifies coercion in the form of fines and nonviolent means. Some who are "brought back" later express contentment and gratitude despite the means by which they were initially persuaded, and to Augustine this is a sign that it is better for heretics to suffer discipline but to be brought back to the church than it is for them to suffer in their old ways.
He does, however, show some reluctance to coercing the Donatists to the Catholic Church - primarily in not advocating corporal or capital punishment. Inflicted death leaves no space for earthly repentance and sacrament. He further believes it would be unjust if they were to coerce people and then not educate them; the suffering would have been in vain, and would not bring about the change that Augustine genuinely desires for them.
The Manichaeans were also among all those who were subjected to imperial coercion, repressed and persecuted for their heretical views, but they were the only dissident Christians to be executed in the fourth century.
An issue as seemingly simple as the veneration of a particular saint caused distinction among some medieval Christian sects: the question of the validity of St. Guinefort, the Holy Greyhound, thought to protect infants, among the most vulnerable of people.
Those who embrace Guinefort as a saint understand this to mirror what Jesus lived to do: to protect the marginalized and those who do not have a voice. Notably, this heretical thirteenth century cult would continue well into the nineteenth century. Despite being maintained as a minor cult, it retains its adherents for a period of 600 years, and thus is not an easily quashed off-shoot of orthodox belief. While many other controversies developed about matters of life, death, and afterlife, the question of a dog as a saint was less influential church-wide, and yet was outwardly rejected as heresy by some groups.
It would seem that "heresy" is simply a word used by one group to dismiss the religious belief of others - and perhaps at times that is the case. The ancient western church's acceptance of Augustine's ideas of original sin and "Christian imperfection," for instance, are debatably an effort - deliberate or somewhat subconscious - not only to maintain order in the church but to reserve a space for it and for the sacraments and rituals.
Apart from the possibility that this is simply the case - that the church developed orthodoxy from concepts which would sustain it - there is additionally the consideration that those within the councils in the position to make such affirmations were indeed clerics. I propose that they genuinely believed in this method - even genuinely encountered some indication of the divine in it - perhaps because, as clerics, that was how they approached faith. They are already in a position to find merit to sacraments and rituals not only because it gives meaning to their work but also because these are the means by which they have personally experienced and articulated their own spirituality.
In this way, a claim of heresy may be at times an earnest appeal to the "other," a statement that they have indeed found "truth." If two or more concepts or practices cannot simultaneously be correct, they are logically compelled - even obligated - not only to believe that a conflicting view is incorrect but to intervene and educate those who are apparently misguided. Augustine certainly saw this as the case.
I love this concept, but I find it all the more complicated when we
consider how to decide what is "essential"... Good effort, though.
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One might be inclined to wonder if perhaps early Christians would have liked, in an ideal and effortless religious schema, to agree on all accounts and to have a clear, coherent, unified understanding of the faith. The church consistently struggles toward unity and dissolves into sects with each doctrinal challenge. Therefore this leads to at least two possible explanations for the claims of heresies: on one hand, perhaps it is indeed a power struggle arising from the need to declare one's view as "correct" or from the need for power itself, and/or perhaps an authentic and virtually immutable conviction in one's beliefs to the point of sensing urgency in others "realizing the error of their ways" and "learning the truth" - the expectation that such people will be better off and grateful about it once they finally understand the orthodox truth. Either explanation lends itself well to the example of the dissenting Christian groups which all claimed that the other groups were in fact heretical, or the disagreement between those who venerated Saint Guinefort the greyhound and the sects which specifically did not.
In examining the effect of declarations of heresy on the physical division of the church and monastic sects, it would seem that heresy is more an ecclesiastical issue than a theological one. This claim, however, would be an oversimplification. Perhaps schisms are the stuff of ecclesiology, as the church communities struggle to define themselves and maintain unity on one level while causing fragmentation on another.
Based primarily upon The Word Made Flesh: A History of Christian Thought by Margaret R. Miles (Blackwell Publishing 2005) and the lectures of Dr. Catherine Peyroux, Drew University, Fall 2010. Conclusions made in the last four paragraphs are my input.
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