The Heretics: Heresy Through the Ages

by Walter Nigg

Heresy through the ages!

Genres: History, Christianity, Religion

430 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[Dolf van der Haven · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of the books I read around my 20th and that I meanwhile inherited from my dad. Back then I was more impressed, now I find it very old-fashioned and hardly relevant for today's perspective on heretics from the past. It is mostly lacking a historical perspective, instead dwells on philosophical issues, which makes it hard to put things in the right time. Time to find a more contemporary book about the same subject.

[Ondrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

As Walter Nigg states in this book heretics have been part and parcel of Christianity from its very beginning (e. g. Simon Magus). The Holy See's millennia-long battle against the seed of heresy is one part of what this book is about.

But the main topic of this book are the deep philosophical and theological ideas of these, at the times, controversial figures. If you are a philosophy and theology layman like me, that studied said ideas only as a preparation for an university admission, than you might struggle a bit. I know I did, and often had to put down the book for a month or so, before I was able to continue. This would be the only strife I had with it, but that's more of a 'me' problem.

The big strenght of this book is that the chapters are divided by the individual heretical figures and you can skip certain 'less' interesting heretics (if that is what you wish). Other plus is the beautiful and easy-to-read type of prose Mr. Nigg used. You can tell the topic is close to his heart as he often tries to undo the centuries long dehumanisation of heretics by the Church, by thoughtfully explaining what they actually believed. And in my opinion he succeeded.

This book opened my eyes about how often the Church embraced the heretical teachings of these men just few decades later after condemning them. I'm glad I learned so much about these progressive thinkers that helped Christianity (and with it the Western world) plant the seeds from which we benefit today.

[Henry Sturcke · Rating 4 out of 5]

For many years, Walter Nigg was a Reformed pastor in a small village west of Zürich. As an avocation, he turned out a number of books on various aspects of church history. They sold well in Switzerland, but because they were aimed at a popular audience, Nigg was never fully accepted by academic church historians. I knew none of this when I picked up this book in the U.S. Only during the course of reading it did I realize that he had been pastor in the same village where I then lived, the predecessor of my next-door neighbor.
In addition to this book on heretics, Nigg wrote on Catholic saints, which didn't always go down well with his parishioners in those pre-Vatican II days. Now he can be seen as one of the early champions of ecumenism, especially in the area of Protestants accepting that there were admirable personalities in the church before 1517, therefore part of a heritage they can claim as well.
This book is remarkable in demonstrating the church's debt through the ages to heretics. Not that the heretics were always right, in Nigg's opinion, but their errors often highlighted the weak spots in orthodox teachings, causing problem areas to be thought through more carefully. Even more, for an institution that claimed to be built on the teachings of the one who said, "love your enemies," its treatment of those whose only "crime" was to hold a different opinion on some point of doctrine was a painful reality check. A good read.

[Joshua Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

One would not believe a book on Christian heresy could be so entertaining but Nigg pulls it off. Excellent work! Highly recommended.