John
Kilcullen
Abstract: Medieval theologians took their concept of heresy mainly from the texts of Jerome and Augustine quoted in Gratian’s Decretum. Thomas Aquinas held that anyone who pertinaciously denies even a minor item of Church or Bible teaching falls into heresy. Ockham developed criteria for pertinacity and argued that a Christian, even if his or her opinions are actually in error, cannot be regarded as pertinacious simply for refusing to defer to the teaching of a pope.
(A shorter version of this essay is being published in Springer Enclyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy.)
From the outset the Christian
religion faced some
difficult questions. Christians believed that Jesus Christ was at the
same time
God and a man. This implied that he was a body and also not a body,
subject to
hunger and thirst and also impassible, eternal and also born of the
virgin
Mary, mortal and also immortal—indeed, during Easter Saturday
both immortal and
dead. Early Christianity also faced competition from Gnostics,
according to
whom a plurality of aeons emanated
from the Father of all things; the Christian doctrines of Trinity,
Creation and
Incarnation needed to be differentiated from such doctrines.
For several centuries
philosophically educated
Christians worked to formulate their faith in a coherent way. In a
series of
four great councils of the Church (
The Codex
iuris canonici promulgated in 1917 includes (canon 1325, § 2) clear definitions of several
relevant terms: A baptised person who pertinaciously denies or doubts a
truth
that must be believed by divine and Catholic faith is a heretic, one
who completely
withdraws from Christian faith is an apostate, one who refuses to be
subject to
the pope or to communicate with members of the Church subject to the
pope is a
schismatic. The implied definition of heresy is that it is a
proposition
inconsistent with some truth that is part of Catholic faith. A. Michel
in an
article in DTC (col. 2211)
defines heresy as “une doctrine qui s’oppose
immédiatement, directment et
contradictoirement à la vérité
révélée par Dieu et
proposée authentiquement
comme telle par l’Église”. In this
perspective, heresy and schism are distinct,
and the term “heresy” is more fundamental than the
term “heretic”—a heretic is
one who pertinaciously holds a heresy.
But this perspective first
becomes clear with Thomas
Aquinas. For patristic authors, it often seems that
“heresy” is a term applied
primarily to groups and a heretic is a person who belongs to such a
group (or
has an attitude that makes it seem likely he or she may establish or
join such
a group); “heresy” was only secondarily a term for
doctrine. In some passages
at least, Augustine regards heresy as inveterate schism, schism
characterised
by pertinacity (de Guibert, p. 375). Jerome seems closer to the later
view.
According to Jerome a heresy is a sect of people holding false
doctrine,
whereas schismatics hold orthodox doctrine but have separated from the
body of
the Church; according to him persistent schism becomes a heresy in the
sense of
a party espousing false doctrine, because schismatics seek a doctrinal
justification for their separation from the Church (In Epistolam ad Titum, PL vol. 26, col.
598A).
The term
“heresy” is of Greek origin. In Greek hairesis originally had no unfavourable
implication. The word meant (among other things) choice, and also a
school of
thought or intellectual tendency, or those who exemplified the
tendency, i.e. a
following or sect, for example a philosophical movement (see Diogenes
Laertius
I.19-21, vol. 1, pp.
20-22). Although medieval and modern discussions of heresy often focus
on the
sense of individual choice, in the New Testament the term means a sect
or its
doctrine. The New Testament refers to the hairesis
of the Sadducees or of the Pharisees (Acts 5:17, 15:5, where the Latin
of the Vulgate
is haeresis). When Jews refer to
the
Christians as a hairesis, Paul
seems
to deprecate the word, preferring the term “way”
(Acts 24:14). This suggests
that hairesis was already acquiring
a
pejorative sense, which is clear in other NT passages: 2 Peter 2:1
(Vulgate sectas), 1 Cor. 11:19 (haereses), Gal. 5:20 (sectae).
In all of these places the
reference is to a sect of people united by doctrine—when the
term is
pejorative, false doctrine taught by “pseudo-prophets and
lying teachers” (2
Pet. 2:1). In the NT there is one occurrence of the term heretic (or
rather,
the adjective heretical), in Titus 3:10: “After a first and
second admonition,
avoid an heretical man”; here the term may mean
“factious”, likely to establish
or join a sect.
However, our concern is not with heresy and heretics in the New Testament or the Patristic period or with various heresies in particular, but with the concept of heresy during the Latin middle ages. Medieval theologians at first do not seem to have reflected much on the concept of heresy. Peter Lombard’s Sentences, for example, asks the question what is heresy, but gives a very uninformative answer (PL vol. 192, col. 868). However, another major text at the foundation of Medieval religious thinking, Gratian’s Decretum (written some time around 1150), includes a significant collection of patristic texts relating to heresy, and the collection of decretals issued in 1234 by Gregory IX (the Liber Extra) includes titles concerning Jews, Apostates, Schismatics and Heretics (Friedberg, vol. 2, col. 749ff). Gratian’s Causa 23 (Friedberg, vol. 1, col. 889ff) concerns warfare, compulsion and physical punishment directed against the wicked, including heretics. Causa 24 (col. 965ff) discusses the case of a bishop who becomes a heretic and excommunicates some of his priests, but is himself after death condemned for heresy along with his followers and all their households or families: this leads to various questions about heresy, the doctrinal authority of the Roman Church (C.24 q.1 cc.5-17), excommunication and the punishment of the families of heretics. Several chapters (C.24 q.3 cc.26-31) offer materials toward a definition of heresy drawn mainly from Jerome and Augustine: “Heresy is Greek for choice, viz. that each person chooses for himself the teaching he thinks better. Therefore, whoever understands Scripture in another sense than that demanded by the Holy Spirit (by whom it is written), even if he does not leave the Church, yet he can be called a heretic” (Jerome). (Some canonists, including Hostiensis, suggested another derivation, from hercisci, to divide an inheritance (Hageneder, p. 95).) “A heretic is one who, for the sake of some temporal advantage… either begets or follows false and novel opinions. But one who trusts such a person is deluded by a certain image of truth” (Augustine). “But those who defend their opinion, though false and perverse, with no pertinacious spirit (especially an opinion begotten not by the audacity of their presumption, but accepted from seniors seduced and fallen into error), but seek truth with careful solicitude, ready to be corrected when they find it, are not to be counted among the heretics” (Augustine). “Those in Christ’s Church who think something unhealthy and depraved, and if they are corrected so as to think something healthy and right, resist contumaciously and will not amend their pestiferous and mortiferous doctrine but persist in defending it, are heretics” (Augustine). The texts quoted suggest that a heretic begins as a member of the Church but pertinaciously maintains a false doctrine despite correction.
However, popes and councils had
stigmatised as
heresy, or anathematised, various other things besides false doctrine.
The canonists
combed through the authoritative texts noting all the places where any
authority had said that something was heresy or that someone was a
heretic. According
to the gloss to Liber extra 5.7.3, s.v. hereticum
(Hageneder, p. 45), heretics include (1) those who pervert the
sacraments, such
as simoniacs (i.e. those who buy or sell Church offices), (2) those who
cut
themselves off from the Church (i.e. schismatics), (3) those who have
been
excommunicated, (4) those who err in the exposition of the Bible, (5)
those who
invent a new sect or join such a sect, (6) those whose thinking differs
from
that of the Roman Church about articles of faith, and (7) those who
think wrongly
about the sacraments. The gloss to C.24 q.3 p.c. 25, s.v. heresim (Hageneder, p. 48n), gives a
similar list, but with a few
extra items: (8) anyone who is doubtful about the faith, (9) anyone who
wishes
to take away a privilege of the Roman Church, and (10) anyone who
transgresses
a precept of the Roman Church. The second gloss goes on to distinguish
a broad
and a strict sense of the term: “Sometimes a heretic is said
broadly to be
anyone who does not hold the articles of faith, and thus Jews and
gentiles
[i.e. pagans] are heretics…In the strict sense a heretic is
anyone who has been
removed from the Church because he errs in faith.” The other
kinds of heretics mentioned
in the list could also be said to err in belief—for example,
a simoniac seems
to believe that spiritual power can be bought and sold (see Acts
8:9-20), a
schismatic or an excommunicate person who persists in that state for
some time
can be presumed not to believe that there is any obligation to be
reconciled
with the Church, those who try to reduce the rights of the Roman Church
or
disobey its precepts implicitly reject the doctrine that the pope is by
divine
appointment the head of the Church, and so on. It might therefore seem
possible
to bring all these kinds under the core concept. Hageneder
remarks: “Der
rote Faden, der alle angeführten Häresiearten
miteinander verbindet, ist die
Trennung von der Kirche auf Grund eines Glaubensirrtums” (p.
50). However,
although error in faith is one of the themes in the copious extracts
Hageneder gives,
it does not seem that the canonists believed it possible or desirable
to reduce
all kinds of heresy to error of belief.
Canonists were also concerned
with the
punishment of heretics. In C.24 q.4 (col. 899ff) Gratian begins by
quoting texts
that say that sometimes the wicked and the evils they do should be
tolerated—in
particular, Christians ought to be ready to tolerate evils inflicted on
themselves; but still, delinquents ought to be corrected. From c. 37
onwards the
coercion of heretics becomes the dominant theme, carried mainly by long
quotations
from Augustine (to Vincentius, Ep.
93, 1.1-4.15; to Boniface, Ep. 185,
2.11-5.19; to Donatus, Ep. 173,
1-10;
In Evang. Ioan. tract. 11, 13-15; Contra Petilianum; on
Augustine’s views
on coercion see Brown).
Causa 24
q.6 (col. 947ff) includes more quotations from Augustine and others on
the
compulsion of the wicked, including heretics. Causa 24 q.7 (col. 950ff)
includes quotations arguing that heretics can rightly be deprived of
their
possessions. The Liber Extra, book
5
title 7 (Friedberg, vol. 2, col. 780ff), consists of decretals relating
to
heretics, which, together with other legislation enacted during the
12th and 13th
centuries, established in the Church a system for the apprehension and
trial of
heretics. Canonists were involved in designing, explaining and
administering
this system. The physical punishment of heretics was left to the
secular rulers.
The first major theological
treatment of heresy
was by Thomas Aquinas. He refers explicitly to Gratian as the source of
some of
his quotations from the fathers, and Gratian could have been his source
for
others also.
According to Thomas, heresy is
a species of
unbelief, and his discussion of heresy is therefore part of his
discussion of
faith and its opposite, unbelief. The “formal”
object of faith (i.e. that by
which the “material” objects of faith, the many
propositions believed, are
known) is the First Truth, God himself. “The faith of which
we speak assents to
something only because it has been revealed by God” (ST 2-2
q.1 a.1).
The
things believed are propositions, of which some are fundamental or
principal and
others secondary. The former are “articles of
faith”, and over time these have
increased in number as the implications of the most fundamental
articles have
become more explicit (ST 2-2 q.1 a.6,
a.7).
The articles of faith
relate to
the things
through which mankind is brought to eternal life, which include belief
in the
Trinity and Incarnation. It is appropriate for the articles to be
formulated in
a creed, and it is the business of the pope to formulate creeds.
Without faith
it is impossible to be saved. Salvation requires explicit faith in some
things,
but for other things implicit faith is enough, i.e. readiness to
believe them,
insofar as one is ready to believe whatever is contained in the Bible
(for
example that Abraham had two sons—this is not a principal
object of faith). What
has to be believed explicitly varies somewhat from person to person and
from
time to time. If any pagans were saved, it was through belief in divine
providence, without explicit belief in a Mediator (ST 2-2 q.1 a.7
ad
3). In the
Jewish community before Christ, the leaders, who were to teach others,
were
obliged to believe explicitly in the Incarnation and the Trinity, but
simple
people believed in Christ only “under a veil”.
Since the coming of Christ, even
simple Christians are obliged to believe explicitly in the Incarnation
and the
Trinity and other articles of faith observed throughout the Church and
publicly
proclaimed (ST 2-2 q.1 a.7).
As references above to Bible
and Church imply, Thomas
holds that revelation comes to individuals in two ways,
through
the
Bible and through the teaching of the Church. This becomes explicit
when he
argues that a heretic who disbelieves even one article of faith has no
faith at
all, even if he believes other articles. “The formal object
of faith is the
First Truth, as manifested in the sacred scriptures and the teaching of
the
Church. Anyone who does not adhere, as to an infallible and divine
rule, to the
teaching of the Church, which proceeds from the First Truth manifested
in the
sacred scriptures, does not have the habit of faith but holds things
that
belong to the faith in some other way than by faith… A
heretic who
pertinaciously disbelieves one article is not ready to follow Church
teaching
in all things—but if not pertinaciously, then he is not a
heretic but only one
who errs” (ST 2-2 q.5 a 3).
He refers here to the articles of
faith, but the
argument could be applied to the secondary objects of faith, such as
the
proposition that Abraham had two sons. Thomas makes this application
later (ST
2-2 q.11 a.2).
This thesis, that anyone who pertinaciously disbelieves
or
doubts even the minor point that Abraham had two sons has no faith at
all, illustrates
de Guibert’s statement, “Tandis
qu’Augustin refuse de mettre dans cette
catégorie d’hérétiques ceux
qui erreraient sur un détail de la
vérité révélée,
nous mettons aujourd’hui [i.e. 1920] sur le même rang toute
négation de vérité
révélée, quelqu’en
soit l’importance et le lien avec l’ensemble de
l’économie chrétienne” (de
Guibert, p. 381): this development seems to be due to Thomas Aquinas.
Turning from faith to its opposite, unbelief, Thomas holds that unbelievers who have never heard Christian preachers do not sin in not believing the Christian faith, but (following Augustine) he says that their ignorance is a penalty for original sin and if they commit other serious sins they will be damned, since their lack of faith makes reconciliation with God impossible (ST 2-2 q.10 a.1; cf. q.2 a.5 ad 1). Those who do hear the gospel but reject it thereby sin. Some hear the gospel and accept it but later reject it, altogether or in part; the former are apostates, the latter heretics. Unbelievers who have never been Catholics must not be compelled to receive the faith, though they must be compelled not to offend or corrupt the faith of Catholics. Heretics and apostates should be compelled to fulfil their promise and hold what they once received: the basis for the coercion of heretics is that in baptism they (or their godparents for them) promised to keep the faith, and people may be compelled to keep promises (ST 2-2 q.10 a.8). Simple Catholics should not have any dealings with unbelievers. Christians strong in faith may communicate with unbelievers when there is hope of converting them. Unbelievers should not be allowed to gain political power over believers, though if their power is already well established it should not be challenged, to avoid scandal. Unbelievers sin in their rites, but their rites may be tolerated, either on account of some possible good result (e.g. so that they can gradually be converted to the faith) or because of some evil avoided; the Church, at times, has tolerated the rites even of heretics and pagans when they were numerous. The children of Jews should not be baptized against their parents’ will, because they may apostasize later and because it is against natural justice to take a child away from the parents’ custody or do anything to the child against the parents’ wishes.
Coming to heresy specifically, Thomas quotes Jerome’s remark that “heresy” comes from the Greek word for choice, and says that heresy is the species of unbelief found in those who profess the Christian faith but corrupt its teachings by choosing to assent not to what Christ really taught but to their own ideas. False opinions in geometry are not heresies, since heresies are in matters belonging to the faith—namely the articles of faith, which belong to faith directly and principally, and the secondary objects of faith, denial of which leads to disbelief in some article of faith. It is possible to err about secondary matters, in which implicit faith is enough, without being a heretic. Thomas quotes Augustine (from the Decretum, C.24, q.3, c. 29): “We should by no means class as heretics those who defend a false and perverse opinion in no pertinacious spirit, but seek the truth with careful solicitude, ready to correct their opinion when they have found the truth,” because they do not choose against the doctrine of the Church. Jerome and Augustine differed on some questions, but neither was a heretic because the questions were either not concerned with faith or had not yet been determined by the Church. Pertinacious defence of an error in a matter determined by the Church would be heresy. The authority to decide matters of faith belongs to the pope (for this Thomas quotes Decretum, C.24 q.1 c.12, Friedberg, vol. 1, col. 970; cf. ST 2-2 q.1 a10, where he refers to Decretum, d.17 c.5, col. 51). Jerome, Augustine and other orthodox doctors never defended any error against the authority of the pope; hence they were not heretics (ST 2-2 q.11 a.2 ad 3).
Should heretics be tolerated? They
deserve to be killed as soon as they are
convicted of heresy: it is much worse to corrupt the faith,
which vivifies the soul,
than to forge money,
which supports temporal life, and forgers are punished by death.
However, the
Church has mercy, and condemns “after the first and second
admonition,” as the Apostle
directs: after a
second
The
next
major treatment of heresy and heretics was by William of Ockham in Part
1 of
his Dialogus. In this work Ockham
does not speak in his own person, but it is generally possible to
recognise
which positions he recommends, and for brevity I will summarise the
argument as
if it were directly presented. The interpretation can be confirmed from
other
works not in dialogue form, notably Contra
Ioannem and Contra Benedictum,
in
which Ockham speaks directly in his own person. The whole of Part 1 of
the Dialogus is concerned with
heresy and
heretics, but in this article we will restrict our attention to the
first four
books. For analysis of the argument of 1 Dialogus books 1-5, linked to
English translation, see here.
In 1 Dial. 1 Ockham argues that the topics of heresy and heretics belong primarily to theologians. In the prologue to his Summa aurea the canonist Hostiensis claims that the science of canon law is the “science of sciences”, comprehending both all law and theology. “All ought to be led by it and not by their own understanding.” (On this claim, and on the rivalry between canonists and theologians, see Scott.) Ockham rejects such claims. Canon law is a collection of Bible texts, texts of the Fathers, imperial laws, and statutes and determinations of councils and popes, touching on theological and moral matters (c. 8). The canonical science is subalternated to theology and moral philosophy (c. 10). Canonists may have better memory of the canon law texts, but the theologians can understand them more deeply. It is for theologians, not canonists, to decide what is heresy and how to determine whether an individual is a heretic. Canonists are experts on the legal processes, but “it pertains to theologians to judge by universal rules whether the ecclesiastical laws about punishing heretics in certain ways and about the way of proceeding against them are contrary to the divine scriptures, because if such laws were opposed to sacred scripture they should not in any way be tolerated” (c. 15).
In 1 Dial. 2 the question is, What counts as Catholic truth and what as heresy? In early times opponents of heresy referred to “the rule of faith” as the measure against which orthodoxy is to be tested. Sometimes the rule of faith seems to be a summary of leading doctrines that candidates for baptism were expected to know, sometimes the general purport of the Christian tradition (Kelly, pp. 39, 40, 43). Canonists sometimes seemed to think that heresy was any disagreement with or disobedience to the pope, yet at other times they acknowledged that a pope might become a heretic. For some (Marsilius, and later the Protestants) the rule of faith is the Bible. For Ockham, the rule of faith is what it was also for Thomas Aquinas, namely “sacred scripture and the teaching of the whole Church, which cannot err” (CI, 72.34-5). This rule is twofold: it may be difficult to ascertain what is the teaching of the whole Church, but someone who has access to the Bible will, in some cases, be able to find a sure answer in its text. “Concerning many questions of faith those learned in sacred letters can be certain of Catholic truth, notwithstanding the question or doubt of anyone else whomsoever” (CB, 250.4-6).
In the Dialogus
Ockham
tries to clarify the notion of Catholic truth by listing five classes
of truths
that Catholics are obliged to believe (1 Dial. 2.2,
5),
namely:
(1) anything contained in the Bible,
either explicitly or by necessary implication;
(2) anything handed down, outside the canonical scriptures, from the
Apostles;
(3) factual information in chronicles, histories, etc., that are worthy
of
trust;
(4) anything necessarily implied by Bible and tradition together, or by
either
in conjunction with chronicles etc.;
(5) new undoubted revelations made by God to the Church. (Ockham
does
not know of any instance of a truth divinely revealed to the Church
after the
time of the Apostles, but God does have power to make revelations at
any time
and if some new truth is undoubtedly revealed by God then a Catholic
cannot
reject it; 1 Dial. 2.27.) Corresponding
to the five kinds of truths that Catholics are obliged to believe are
five
kinds of “deadly errors” (1 Dial. 2.17).
However,
these truths and errors are
not equivalent to Catholic truths and heresies respectively. Truths of
category
(3) and others that depend on them do not count as Catholic truths.
Catholics
have a duty to respect the good faith testimony of witnesses worthy of
trust,
and much in Christian life requires trust in such witnesses (on matters
of
Church history, on the transmission of Bible texts, etc.); but denials
of such
truths are not heresy. What makes something Catholic truth is
revelation by God
to the Church in one or other of the modes corresponding to (1), (2)
and (5).
To identify apostolic tradition (category (2)) would require historical research, but there is a short cut. Ockham interprets Matthew 28:20, “I am with you all days, even unto the end of the world”, as a promise that error will never prevail in the Church (1 Dial. 2.3, etc.). If at some period (for example, in the recent past) Catholics all held that some proposition is a truth of faith, then it is a truth of faith. Even if we cannot find any basis for it in the Bible, even if we cannot trace the process by which this belief was handed down from the Apostles, even if we have no evidence of a post-apostolic revelation, we can be sure that it is indeed a truth of faith that came to the Church in one or other of these three ways: otherwise an error would have prevailed in the Church, contrary to Christ's promise.
In 1 Dial. 3 the question is, What makes a person a Catholic, and what makes a person a heretic? A person is a Catholic if he or she has been baptised and holds the whole of the Catholic faith; a heretic is anyone who has been baptised (or presents himself as such) who pertinaciously rejects or doubts any Catholic truth whatsoever (1 Dial. 3.3). To explain how it is possible to hold the whole of the Catholic faith, Ockham draws on Thomas Aquinas’s distinction between explict faith and implicit faith. To believe a truth implicitly means (a) to believe explicitly some other truth in which it is implied and (b) not to believe pertinaciously anything inconsistent with it (1 Dial. 3.1). Catholics must have explicit belief in some Catholic truths (CI, 45.35-40; cf. 2.1 Dial. 11), but it is enough to believe the others implicitly—that is, to have explicit belief in something that implies the rest, namely that whatever is contained in the Bible and the teaching of the Church is true. “A Catholic is said to believe implicitly all things contained in divine scripture because he believes explicitly that all things taught in divine scripture are true” (CI, 46.20-22). Thus someone who believes that everything in the Bible is true implicitly believes that Bilhah was the mother of Dan even though he has never read Genesis 30:5-6, unless for some reason he believes pertinaciously that Bilhah was not the mother of Dan. People who regard themselves as orthodox Catholics may be heretics without knowing it, if they hold pertinaciously some belief really inconsistent with something they have never realised was a Catholic truth (1 Dial. 4.2, 4; 2.1 Dial. 11).
According
to Thomas Aquinas it belongs especially to the pope to draw up
formulations of
the articles of faith. Ockham agrees: it is especially the function of
the
pope, aided when that is appropriate by a Council, to settle doubts
about the
faith (1 Dial. 2.14).
However, according to Ockham a pope may become a
heretic
(as the canonists and even papalist theologians also generally
acknowledged;
see Tierney, pp. 57-67; McGrade, 1994, p. 148ff.). Neither pope nor
council nor
any part of the Church is infallible. Christ’s promise to be
with his Church
all days does not guarantee that any part of the Church will never err.
“What
is promised to the whole and not to any part ought not to be attributed
to any
part, even to a more principal part” (1 Dial. 5.22).
What
Christ’s promise does
guarantee is that there will be somewhere in the Church at least one
person who
speaks out against a false doctrine being presented as Catholic truth
(1 Dial.
5.28). If a pope or
council asserts that some doctrine is Catholic truth
and some Catholics, even a few illiterate lay people, contradict that
assertion, the deniers may be right—they may be the people
speaking out against
false doctrine being asserted as Catholic truth. Supporters of the
assertion would
need to produce evidence that their doctrine is in the Bible or the
apostolic
tradition, or that there has been a time when all Catholics accepted it
as
Catholic truth. If the deniers can show that this doctrine contradicts
Bible or
apostolic tradition or the unanimous belief of all Catholics at some
time, then
the pope or council is asserting a heresy. If neither side can prove
its case,
then the question is for the time being indeterminable. As Jerome says,
better
God-fearing doubt than rash definition (1 Dial. 2.28;
5.28).
In 1 Dial. 4 the question is, what is pertinacity and how can it be established? Pertinacity is a state of mind. Pertinacity may not be a deeply rooted disposition but merely a matter of present intention; someone who at present is not willing to conform his thinking to the rule of faith is pertinacious and a heretic, even if he may later change his mind (CB, 321.21-30). Is it possible to infer from outward behaviour that a person is unwilling to be corrected? A judgment by one human being that another is pertinacious in heresy is always fallible, since it requires inference about dispositions (readiness to be corrected or the opposite) from outward words or behaviour (1 Dial. 3.11, 4.2). This explains why Ockham always says “is to be regarded as a heretic”, or something similar, rather than “is a heretic”.
In 1 Dial. 4.5-34 Ockham discusses twenty possible ways of recognizing that a person is pertinacious and a heretic. According to the fourth way, for example, if a person denies any Catholic truth which is widely disseminated as Catholic among all Catholics, including those with whom he has been living, he is immediately, without further examination, to be judged a heretic—though if he can prove (e.g. by oath, if he is an uneducated person) that he did not know that this truth was Catholic he can be excused (1 Dial. 4.11). This illustrates the point that people will learn part, perhaps most, of the Catholic faith from the everyday life of the Church, not by reading official documents. Another way is the seventh, the way of “legitimate correction”, according to which a person can be adjudged pertinacious if he does not change his mind when shown from the Bible or otherwise that his opinion is not Catholic truth (cf. CI, 52.2-6; see McGrade, 1974, p. 48ff). He is not obliged to change his mind just on the say-so of some prelate; a simple person may defend a heresy a thousand times in the presence of the pope without being pertinacious or a heretic. Before he can be judged pertinacious, it must be shown to him, in a way suited to his education and understanding, that his opinion is heresy (1 Dial. 4.15-24). On the other hand, according to the eighth way, anyone, including a pope, who tries to impose a heresy as Catholic truth on others by commands, threats, punishments, promises, oaths, etc., is to be judged pertinacious without examination to see whether he is ready to be corrected—the attempt to impose his opinion on others is sufficient proof of pertinacity (1 Dial. 4.25). Like a simple person, a pope or other prelate can put forward and defend an heretical opinion without being a heretic, as long as he does not attempt to impose it on others: as soon as he tries to impose it by authority he can be adjudged pertinacious.
Ockham’s discussion of the ways of proving pertinacity amounts to a defence of freedom of discussion within the Church. Concerning the Inquisition, he remarks: “Some people say that inquisitors and some prelates often proceed unfairly and unjustly. For they say that many are unlearned and simple men blinded by greed and avarice who try to condemn those accused of heresy in order to acquire their goods. And therefore no assertion should be based on their practice” (1 Dial. 4.21). Ockham’s views on the punishment of a heretic seem less harsh than those of his contemporaries. He says that a pope who has been deposed as a heretic should be handed over to a Catholic bishop, or preferably to a true pope, who should degrade him from his clerical status; after degradation he should either be committed to perpetual imprisonment “or, if he seems truly penitent, be released from custody” (CB, p. 317.27).
Ockham had the same conception of the rule of faith as Thomas Aquinas had and a very similar view of implicit faith and of pertinacity. Ockham perhaps put less emphasis on the distinction between articles of faith and the secondary objects of faith, though Thomas also held that there can be heresy in the pertinacious rejection of any detail of the Bible. Ockham’s discussion of how pertinacity is recognized was an original contribution. According to Thomas, the fact that Augustine and Jerome never defended their opinions against the authority of the pope showed that they were not heretics, whereas according to Ockham even an illiterate might defend a heresy before the pope “a thousand times” without being a heretic.
Dialogus
was copied and studied,
for example by
The conception of heresy worked out by Thomas Aquinas and reinforced by Ockham was already close to that of the 1917 code of Canon Law and the DTC article on heresy; between Ockham and early 20th century Catholic theology only minor details seem to have been added. During the Reformation, and especially in seventeenth century France, the question of the Rule of Faith was debated between Catholics and Protestants, but the Catholics do not seem to have gone beyond Ockham’s arguments against Marsilius. However, new ideas were stirring. Fundamental to medieval thinking was the proposition that “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6), interpreted to mean that God requires of every human being adherence (at least by implicit faith) to the particular body of doctrine found in the Bible and the teaching of the Church. Richard Hooker, and others, put forward another view of what God requires. According to Hooker, “It is not required nor can it be exacted at our hands, that we should yield unto any thing other assent than such as doth answer to evidence which is to be had of that we assent unto” (vol. 1, p. 179). In 1637 William Chillingworth wrote: “God desires that. . . the strength of our faith be equal or proportionable to the credibility of the motives to it” (p. 27). In Bayle, writing in the 1680s, the idea is quite clear: “God in the present Condition of Man exacts no more from him than a sincere and diligent Search after Truth, and the loving and regulating his Life by it, when he thinks he has found it out. Which… is a plain Argument that we are obliged to have the same deference for a reputed as for a real Truth” (p. 264); “He has… impos’d no… Duty, but such as is proportion’d to our Facultys, to wit, that of searching for the Truth, and of laying hold on that, which upon a sincere and faithful Inquiry, shall appear such to us, and of loving this apparent Truth, and of governing our selves by its Precepts” (p. 261). This means that the duty is, not to believe the Bible and the Church, but to search for truth and believe what seems true. If there is any sin, it is not in believing heresy, but in negligence and self-deception in the search for truth, and the sin is negligence and self-deception, not believing the wrong thing—and in fact the orthodox may be guilty of negligence and self-deception. We are not in a position to judge whether another person is guilty of such sin, and in any case human authority is not called on to punish it (according to Bayle, Locke and other 17th century writers, anticipated by Marsilius, government does not enforce divine law as such). Locke wrote: “I imagine it is beyond the power or judgment of man, in the variety of circumstances, in respect of parts, tempers, opportunities, helps, etc. men are in, in this world, to determine what is everyone’s duty in this great business of search, inquiry, examination; or to know whether anyone has done it” (p. 103-4). Under the influence of such ideas, the punishment of heretics came to seem simply unjust.
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