Heretics: The Creation of Christianity from the Gnostics to the Modern Church

by Jonathan Wright

In Heretics Jonathan Wright charts the history of dissent in the Christian Church through the stories of some of its most emblematic heretics—from Arius, a fourth-century Libyan cleric who doubted the very divinity of Christ, to more successful heretics like Martin Luther and John Calvin. As he traces the Church’s attempts at enforcing orthodoxy, from the days of Constantine to the modern Catholic Church’s lingering conflicts, Wright argues that heresy, by forcing the Church to continually refine and impose its beliefs, actually helped Christianity to blossom into one of the world’s most formidable and successful religions. 

Today, all believers owe it to themselves to grapple with the questions raised by heresy. Can you be a Christian without denouncing heretics? Is it possible that new ideas challenging Church doctrine are destined to become as popular as have Luther’s once outrageous suggestions of clerical marriage and a priesthood of all believers? A delightfully readable and deeply learned new history, Heretics overturns our assumptions about the role of heresy in a faith that still shapes the world.

Genres: History, Religion, Nonfiction, Theology, Christianity, Gnosticism, Christian History

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Jonathan Wright is a British journalist and literary translator. He studied Arabic, Turkish and Islamic civilization at St John's College, Oxford. He joined Reuters news agency in 1980 as a correspondent, and has been based in the Middle East for most of the last three decades. He has served as Reuters' Cairo bureau chief, and he has lived and worked throughout the region, including in Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon, Tunisia and the Gulf. From 1998 to 2003, he was based in Washington, DC, covering U.S. foreign policy for Reuters.
Wright came to literary translation comparatively late. His first major work of translation was Taxi, the celebrated book by Egyptian writer Khaled al-Khamissi. This was published by Aflame Books in 2008 and republished by Bloomsbury Qatar in 2012. Since then, he has translated several works including Azazeel and The State of Egypt.

Reviews

[محمد على عطية · Rating 3 out of 5]

الكتاب جيد كمحتوى علمي جامع للهرطقة في المسيحية في مذاهبها الرئيسية المختلفة منطلقاً من الكاثوليكية مذهب الكاتب بكل ما عده هرطقة و بدعاً و خروجاً عنها في العصور الأولى للمسيحية, مروراً بالقرون الوسطى, ثم الإنشقاقات الكبرى التي واكبت الإصلاح الديني, و كذلك العصور الحديثة و التي يُعتبر الإلحاد و اللامبالاة بالدين هو أخطر ما يواجه الفاتيكان على حد قول الكاتب.
تكلم الكاتب أيضاً عن البروتستانتية بكل ما خرج من عباءتها من (بدع) و هرطقات بدورها...و كان الكتاب جيداً في عرضه للبدع في البروتستانتية الأمريكية
و كان الجديد علي في هذا الكتاب هو القراءة عن البدع الروسية, و التي أفرد الكاتب لها فصلاً خاصاً.
يعيب الكتاب أسلوب تحريره, و كذلك إغفاله لبعض الهرطقات المعروفة في العصر القديم و كذلك في القرون الوسطى, أو مروره على بعضها مروراً عابراً.
كلمة أخيرة: الحمد لله على نعمة الإسلام و كفى بها نعمة

[عمر الحمادي · Rating 4 out of 5]

كتاب جيد يأخذك في جولة سريعة في تاريخ البدع والانشقاقات المسيحية التي لها نظائر كثيرة في التراث الإسلامي، فهناك الموحدون الذين يرفضون مساواة المسيح بالله تعالى والذين مازال لهم كنائس متفرقة حول العالم، وهناك الأوشتيون الذين يطردون الشياطين باستخدام لعاب فمهم ومخاط أنفهم، وهناك فرق ترفض التعبد بالصور في الكنائس وعملوا على مكافحة الأيقونات كما فعل المسلمون حين آمنوا إيماناً لا علاقة له بالمادة في مساجدهم، وهناك البدع الروسية الغريبة التي تمثلت بالتخصي والانتحار الديني والرقص المجنون والحلد فكانت أقرب إلى البدائية منها إلى الحضارة.

في هذا الكتاب ستقرأ تاريخاً شيقاً عن سيادة الكنيسة الكاثوليكية على ممالك أوروبا الشاسعة، وستقرأ عن محاكم التفتيش التي اختلفت حدتها باختلاف الشعب الذي تعاطى معها، فأسبانيا المثقلة بالثارات الدموية لم تكن مثل إيطاليا المحبة للفن والجمال.

[Brice Karickhoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about the history of heresy within Western Christianity. It was incredibly entertaining (if you are into that kind of thing) and incredibly informative (if you put your thinking cap on).

I loved several aspects of this book:

First, it was well-researched and well-communicated. The author thoroughly explained history without letting his biases seep into the text much, if at all. It didn’t lack detail, but it wasn’t as painfully long-winded as books of this nature can often be. The chapter breaks made sense and the book was well-ordered and chronological, which I always appreciate.

Second, the author made a really interesting move in presenting every heresy with a tone of neutrality regardless of whether or not said heresy was entirely outlandish, or wound up becoming orthodoxy (as in the case of Luther). The approach was almost “ahistorical” in a way; it presented each heresy as it was approached by its contemporaries. This really forced the reader to think through what they’d make of each heretic’s claims, rather than delegating that task to the author.

I never could peg the author’s own perspective until I got to the conclusion of the book, where he finally (with a beautiful dose of humility) put forward some of his own thoughts. It turns out that I don’t entirely align with his worldview, but his musings were incredibly profound. His aversion to “chronological snobbery” borders on full-blown subjectivism, but apparently it is possible for an author to believe truth is subjective and still write a 5-star work of non-fiction.

[Ends of the Word · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is not easy to compress 2000 years of Christian heresy in a 300-page book. Jonathan Wright somehow manages to do so. His survey is a necessarily general but reasonably comprehensive one which takes in its stride the various brands of heresy, from the abstruse theological polemics of the Early Church to the groundbreaking spiritual movements which developed amongst the American pioneers - new spiritualities for a New World.

Wright, who describes himself as an agnostic, tries to keep an objective stance throughout the book. Whilst not squeamish in describing the punishments meted out to perceived heretics throughout the ages, he also consistently reminds us not to judge history through contemporary eyes. Contrary to popular belief, for instance, torture and executions were considered a "last resort" and were not particularly widespread. Nor were heretics necessarily the "liberal heroes" we tend to make them out to be. Indeed, a consistent theme throughout the book is that, given the opportunity (and the authority) heretics could be as tough on those *they* considered unorthodox.

Whether you enjoy this book or not will likely depend on your particular points of view. Conservative believers may well be irritated by Wright's chummy, Wodehousean humour applied to matters of faith. On the contrary, critics of the established religion might be put off by what they might consider an "apologetic" approach. As a non-academic reader with a general interest in history and theology and a practising Catholic with an open mind (or so I like to think), I found Wright's book very interesting if somewhat repetitive. It is certainly a fine, well-balanced introduction to a thorny subject.

[Domhnall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a damned reasonable survey of heresy in the Christian religion, from ancient to modern times, that it would be impolite and perhaps self defeating to express irritation. It has an awful lot of ground to cover and, in closing, it addresses and acknowledges the extent of the material it has had to neglect, which is huge. At the close it has successfully name checked diverse major and lesser heresies and examined their impact on the unfolding history of Western Christianity, incorporating an interesting chapter on religious intolerance in the USA. It does so without anger or even much in the way of passion.

For the most part, the attitude taken is that heretics have played a constructive role, obliging religious leaders to define orthodoxy in the teeth of attack, and in at least a proportion of cases it is arguable that the choice might reasonably have gone either way, so long as a decision was taken. This quality of Christian thinking might invite more critical attention. The author himself notes how opponents of Christianity have, from the earliest times, seen its plasticity, its fecundity, its lack of clarity, as an obvious indicator that it is a human invention. It is worryingly easy to suggest alternative interpretations at too many points of its teachings, which is why Christians have invested so much in the construction and the violent defence of “orthodoxy.” The author notes this and dismisses it rather too lightly. He implies instead that this flexibility has enabled Christianity to remain relevant as circumstances changed – which is certainly the case but not a direct answer to the challenge. [Perhaps he is just too well aware of the catch all defence – that revelation unfolds over time, that the Christians have worked slowly and painfully towards understanding the truth. You can’t argue with that so why bother?]

He recognises that, after a period of being persecuted by state authorities (and the author agrees without exploring the topic that this has been greatly exaggerated), the alliance of Church and state (or altar and throne) placed the Church itself in the position of persecuting its rivals, a role adopted with enthusiasm. He notices (another aside) the thesis that persecution itself played a big part in the politics of Western Europe and he points out periods in which the active seeking out of heretics served a useful function in the way power was exercised. He finally explores the emergence of the concepts of tolerance (which is in itself provisional and retains the implication of a power relationship) and then religious freedom, primarily in the American context, though his suggestion that this was a miracle seems is, of course, just plain unsatisfactory.

All this is good and useful history, well worth reading, but I have the impression that it is a mill without sufficient grist, a blade without a sharp enough edge. To take a single example, I suggest that both the extreme barbarity of the Thirty Years War in Europe and the resolution in the Treaty of Westphalia, at its conclusion, to avoid any future wars of religion was a major landmark – not the overnight conversion of Europeans to religious toleration at all, but a major, tangible step in that direction which should be given due weight. In other words, the emergence of tolerance was not a miracle, but rather a product of history and available for study. The book mentions these things, but it deals with too many serious issues in the same way, by name checking it without paying due attention.

Part of the point of heresy is certainly that people died and were killed – typically in horrible ways - for their opinions. Part of the point about tolerance and freedom of worship, from which too many modern day extremists wish to distract us, is not merely that it is bad to kill people over opinions in a world without certainty, but that the attack on heresy very often served a disreputable part in the corrupt exercise of power. Heresy does have its own internal dynamics but it also serves a political role. When the attention of the crowd is [mis]directed towards heresy, there is something more material from which they are being distracted.

After all, when we read ...
Even without Christianity, people would have found things to fight about, and even without Christianity, the convenient (perhaps even necessary) concepts of heresy and orthodoxy would have carved out an existence. [p300]
.. then surely we are entitled to ask if heresy really ever was entirely a matter of Christian theology in the first place, rather than human politics. After all, the author does remind us several times that heresy only becomes a problem when someone decides to make it one. Other sources have mentioned that most Christians today continue to hold at least some and often many beliefs that have been ruled heretical in the past. So we need to give more time to examining its context and sometimes give more weight to that rather than the obscurity of the theological debate itself.

One conclusion the book does reach is worth preserving; there is always a place for strong opinions. Yet this author does not seem to suffer from strong opinions – he is fanatically moderate. It’s difficult to be offended by anything in particular [especially when it closes with a coy reference to a song “Bring in the Clowns” which my mother loved] but even he concedes that some people will decide to be offended anyway. I am an example. I am even irritated by the calm acceptance that there can be no “stable truth in a moral universe”. Some things are certainly wrong and burning heretics is high on that list.

Heresy and orthodoxy ... are flawed concepts, because they orbit around the notion of stable truth in a moral universe that is often defined by flux. They are however also very useful ideas ... We might accept that most of our choices and assumptions are dictated by accidents of time and place, and we might feel a little hard done by because of all the determinism in our lives, but we still have to live them as if they were the best possible reflection of our chosen beliefs. That’s far less choice than we’d like ... but even if there’s a little intellectual dishonesty and sleight of hand involved, we have to be able to say “I’m right” and “you’re wrong”, even if neither of us is really sure. Else what’s the point?” [p301]

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

A shortish, broad history of (primarily Western) Christianity from the beginning to the present. I found it very readable although I felt the author, in his desire to be fair-minded, pulled his punches in expressing his own conclusions. It was nice to read on Kindle because the author used a number of words that are either British english (i.e., "swingeing") or have specifically religious connotations ("irenic").

Given the time period involved and the page length, the work often oversimplifies, but is recommended nevertheless for those who want a general overview and do not possess a detailed knowledge of Church history or theology.

[Al Bità · Rating 3 out of 5]

For those readers new to the subject of heresy and heretics, this well-written introduction would be an excellent starting point. Wright proves to be a very congenial companion, and there is little that might “scare the horses” as it were. He is aware that he is potentially treading on dangerous ground, and spends some time early on to establish a wider, more tolerant view of heresy as being really another word for an alternative view. It is not, of course, that simple.

Heresy, as we often tend to respond to the word, is more a creature of Christianity than any other religion, but alternative views are also part and parcel of all religions or religious interpretations. This is mostly because of the inherent ambiguities and contradictions they all espouse, one way or another. The Christian version, on the other hand has a history of being connected in people’s minds with some of the more horrendous actions perpetrated by some human beings on others. The only statement Wright seems to make is : “Why did differences of opinion have to lead to foulmouthed catfights, scatological imagery, executions, banishments and ash-making exhumations?” This is more a cri de cour than anything else, and Wright quickly moves on to consider the process of heresies as “history making” rather than the individual pain and suffering of specific heretics. This allows him to present arguments regarding one’s acceptance of alternative opinions as something helpful in the development of ideas and beliefs — and, from the point of Christianity, which helped it to become the world’s most powerful religion. So if you are looking for a negatively critical evaluation of heresy, you won’t find it here. More’s the pity.

I would have preferred a more robust approach: surely it is more than time that historians were to take a more judgemental stance. Simply to argue that heresies help to refine questions of belief apparently “resolved” in Councils seems rather wimpish to me. It’s almost the same as saying that the end justifies the means… But even this approach is misleading. The nastiness of theologians towards one another (called odium theologicum) which lead Roman Emperor Julian to protest: “… the deadliest wild beasts are hardly so savage against human beings as most Christians are against each other”. If this process was essential to help establish Christianity’s power and influence, it should not, in my opinion, be presented as something which is to be lauded or accepted without qualification. And as to the furphy that Councils resolved issues, more often than not they merely served to engender more heresies than ever before, leading to further schisms, more recriminations, and, when combined with State powers, increasingly nasty and destructive repercussions. The result is that, to this day, there has been no resolution as to the truth or otherwise of many if not all religious dogmas.

As a rule, religious “histories” are imbedded in an aura of “untouchability” — at best one can merely state what happened, and one must never “criticise” any religious opinion. This approach appears to be amenable to modern day sensibilities (but not to fundamentalists of whatever shape or colour). People don’t like to be bullied, but so many “beliefs”, consciously or unconsciously, stem from the intense bullying and outrageous behaviour of apparently apopleptic “theologians” who appear to be insulated from cogent comment by their protective cloak of religion: thus Christianity itself is tainted by the mistaken interpretations and erroneous conclusions of these past commentators which are taken as gospel truths, when in fact they are not. If “success” in religion comes from the superiority of vituperation and bellicosity over tolerance and acceptance, then perhaps we should reconsider what we mean by that success, and then maybe, just maybe, we will be able to come up with better solutions.

One thing is clear: regardless of Wright’s “soft” approach, the attentive reader will soon come to realise that, when it comes to dogmas and beliefs, all religions that still survive today can be “lauded” as flourishing through difficult times, both now and in the past; but they can also be clearly identified as mistaken and/or erroneous, and most definitely as the stumbling attempts of fallible human beings that do not necessarily warrant our respect. By all means, let the weeds flourish with the wheat; but when it comes to making bread, if that’s what one wants, then the weeds and the chaff need to be eliminated, not included in the mix.

[Keith Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love a good book about heresy. All creative thought in religion comes out of heresy and every new religious movement starts out as a heresy from an older religion. For that matter pretty much all orthodox theology is written in reaction to heresy. Of course having a new religious idea is not enough to create a heresy. Someone else has to be so certain that they alone possess absolute truth that they believe they are justified in using force to compel anyone who disagrees with them to recant.

Christianity seems to be particularly fertile when it comes to spawning new heresies. After two thousand years of theological pontificating there are still core concepts that are tantalizingly vague. Every attempt to precisely explain the relationship between God the Father and God the Son inevitably leads to the explainer being accused of heresy. The process by which believers acquire salvation is also still up for heated debate.

There is a temptation to depict the heretics of old a heroes and the orthodox as villains. While it is honorable to sympathize with those who were tortured or executed for refusing to give up their unorthodox beliefs, it is important to remember that few if any were champions of religious pluralism or tolerance. The heretics were often just as convinced of their absolute correctness and when they occasionally came into power were quick to use the same tools of persecution against the ones who persecuted them.

Wright is less interested in the details of the various heresies of the past than with the great historical trends that produced them. Why did some heresies fail while others went on to become their own independent orthodoxies? Why were some time periods rife with heresy while others were relatively quiet? The greatest mystery of the history of religion may not be why people were willing to kill each other over minor points of doctrine, but why they have for the most part stopped.

[G0thamite · Rating 4 out of 5]

A high-level flight over the history of Christian heretics from the early church until 20th century American history. Unfortunately, Wright accepts the main point of the Bauer thesis that the early church was one big mish-mash of competing "Christianities" none of which had the true claim to legitimacy. (A great counterpoint to this is Kostenberger and Kruger's The Heresy of Orthodoxy (2010). This point of view is not central to his story, however, and you should find the book otherwise interesting and educational.

The best part of Wright's book is that he shows how the treatment of heresy has changed from outright persecution in Medieval times to toleration in current times. What cultural, political or religious forces brought this change about? All in all, an interesting read.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wright speed walks through history for the sake of thematic links, but the names and periods run by so quickly that it's sometimes difficult to process everything properly. It's nice that he periodically harkens back to names he mentioned earlier on in the book, but if the mentioned historical personae didn't leave an impression on me earlier on, I found it difficult to remember who they were when he mentioned them again later on.

On the plus side, I really enjoyed the line of objectivity that Wright walks with this book, and the topic is such a fascinating one that it's hard not to get caught up in it when he does go into greater detail about a specific era or person.

In his intro, he mentions that this book is meant as a primer for the history of Western Christianity and heresy, so he's at least conscious of the fact that it's not a fully fleshed out work. As is, it does the job of getting one interested in the topic, and I see myself digging deeper on historical figures like Arius, Marcion, the Cathars, and others just because of Wright mentioning them and their compelling histories.

3.5/5

[Blair Hodges · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wright wrote this interesting overview of how the idea of heresy has helped to shape Christianity for a popular audience. What it lacks in specificity it accounts for in an entertaining, sweeping narrative which tells the stories of various heretics and their followers from the time of the early Christian Church up until (approximately) Vatican II in the 1960s. Often he tells a "commonly accepted" version of events followed by the adjustments to such myths found in more recent scholarship. Wright closes with his own impassioned defense of the right to disagree, a right which was not argued for or expected by proto-free-thinkers and "heretics" of earlier centuries, but which has come to the fore in the last few hundred years.

[Clem · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heretic. Along with words like “witch”, “demonic”, or “infidel”, this word spurs a high level of uncomfortableness amongst the faithful. On closer examination, though, the definition of “heretic” is defined as “anyone who does not conform to an established attitude, doctrine, or principle”. O.K. fair enough, but when put in the context of two-thousand plus years of Christianity, when was there ever a clear-cut “established attitude, doctrine, or principle”? This is essentially the theme running through this excellent read by Jonathan Wright.

In many ways, this book is an excellent retrospective of the many conflicts throughout the history of Christianity. Wright makes a solid argument that, whatever a Christian believes, a different Christian somewhere is likely to have a conflicting opinion, and controversy will likely arise. So essentially, we’re all “heretics” in someone else’s eyes. We must also remember that throughout the history of the church, even in its earliest days, there was never really a consensus of belief among the masses. Even Jesus himself would have been deemed a “heretic” by the definitions of Judaism during his time.

What many Christians don’t realize is that the four gospels and the majority of the epistles weren’t even written until 30 – 60 years after Jesus finished his earthly ministry and ascended into Heaven. It was a few hundred MORE years after, that an official canonized version of scripture (what we know as “The Bible”) made it to the scene. So how did over 300 years of professing Christians know exactly what they were supposed to believe? Well, in a word, they didn’t. Consider the nature of Christ: The common believe among Christians today is that Jesus was both fully human and fully God. There were many back then that didn’t believe that. Before we get too angry, we must remember that most of these individuals couldn’t even read let alone get possession of scrolls of scripture. There were movements like the Docetists, who believed that Jesus was actually ALL God and not so much human. On the other side of the coin, you had the followers of Arius who deviated from the norm and believed that Christ, although God, was a “creation” of the Father, and certainly didn’t exist forever. So there was already trouble brewing and conflicting opinions during this early time.

Depending on the politics and however the wind happened to be blowing, those in the leadership position could pick an individual, movement, or belief of said individual and cry “heretic”. Sadly, this was often a death sentence for the offenders. And the death was never pleasant. We read constant instances of people being burnt at the stake; often with “green branches” to prolong the agony. There are even a few anecdotes of “heretics” who had already died, so the powers that be would dig up the corpse and THEN burn them. The author takes us through about 1700 years or so of such behavior and episodes. In many ways this book is a history book, and in this case the history wasn’t often pretty.

Once our narrative gets to the eighteenth century, the story slows down and then stops rather abruptly. The author essentially tells us that it was around this time that the persecutions essentially stopped and, while there were still differences of opinion (many hotly debated), there was (and thankfully still is) a stronger desire to live and let live as opposed to executing those with different beliefs with chopping blocks and thumbscrews. To be honest, I wished the author would have kept the momentum going and discussed the many conflicts that still exist today among the different camps, but the author specifically states that this was never his intention and is way beyond the scope of his underlying thesis.

It’s still quite interesting to see the many definitions of “heresy/heretic” throughout the centuries, and we even see that such name-calling and egg-throwing often depends on who (usually the Pope) is in charge at the particular time. We learn that Francis of Assisi is a great example. The Catholic church regards him as one of their most honored and benevolent saints, yet we’re shown that similar individuals that existed at different times with the same thoughts and agendas were loudly disdained and sent to the proverbial woodshed. Interesting, yet sad. Well, history is not always pretty, and we should never try to make it so.

Another thing I thoroughly enjoyed about the book was the author’s writing style. Now, I would advise that you read this book on an e-device, since you can hold your finger down on an unfamiliar word to get the definition. If not reading an electronic copy, ensure you have a dictionary close by. There are a LOT of big, unfamiliar words within this text, yet I still really enjoyed the author’s prose. Although in most cases, it’s advised not to use a sophisticated word when a simpler one will do, the rich style here really added to the enjoyment. There were many times when I couldn’t suppress a guffaw simply because of how the author chose to get his point across to his reader. In fact, he seemed to have a light, almost humorous touch when discuss some topics. That would almost seem insensitive due to the subject matter, but it never came across this way. In fact, I’m tempted to read his few other works, not because the subject matter necessarily interests me, but I felt personally enriched by his writing.

A very good, if somewhat sad, read.

[Drkshadow03 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jonathan Wright writes a comprehensive historical survey of heresy in Christianity from the early church to modern times for the general reader. The author argues that heresy helped orthodoxy invent, define, and refine its doctrines, especially in the chaos of the early church. He also emphasizes that the line between a heretic and an upstanding pious member of the church was a thin porous one and often in the eye of the beholder.

Although early church fathers like Ignatius of Antioch and Cyprian wrote about a single unified church, Wright suggests these works should be seen as propaganda rather than reality and the early church was a muddle of different competing interpretations without a single definitive version. The reason so many of the early church fathers had to define orthodox doctrines against heretical ones was because there was no single orthodox tradition in place. The early church quarreled over Christianity’s relationship with its predecessor Judaism, the nature of Jesus, and the relationship between God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. These disagreement produced heresies such as Ebionism that combined Jewish practices with Christianity, Marcionism that rejected Judaism and Jewish scripture by advocating a dualism in which the God of the Old Testament was a malevolent figure that created a corrupt world and was different from the benevolent spiritual God who had sent Jesus, Gnosticism that promoted a similar dualism with a focus on spiritual salvation through esoteric knowledge, Montanism with its extreme asceticism and belief in new prophecies, and Donatism with its rejection of priests and sacraments administered by them that had lapsed during state-sponsored persecution. Seemingly Orthodox thinkers like Tertullian who castigated heresies in his writing would later end up sympathizing with heretical movements like Montanism, showing the thin line between good members of the church and heretics. The author also points out that there was a lot of overlap between the ascetic practices of Montanists and their legitimate counterparts known as the desert fathers. Many heresies took ideas already prevelant in Christian communities and interpreted and practiced them in extreme ways that the theological leadership found objectionable. The difference between orthodox and heresy could often be very arbitrary.

While what counted as Orthodoxy continued to be developed through the ages, it was with the ascension of Constantine that Christian orthodoxy melded with state power. Constantine found the endless infighting and squabbling among Christians embarrassing and a tool for its pagan critics. At the Council of Nicaea (325 CE) he hoped the bishops of the church would settle the issue, condemning Arianism and establishing the Nicene Creed as the official orthodox position. The church's efforts to define orthodoxy and stamp out heresy became increasingly linked to political power. With the fall of the Roman Empire accusations of heresy diminished for a period in the west, while the Eastern Byzantine Empire continued to experience controversies from heretical debates between Chalcedonians and Monophysites over the nature of Jesus, Paulicians, and Iconoclasm in which certain Emperors banned icons over fears of idolatry.

When the average person thinks of heresy, it is usually images of the inquisition and the Middle Ages that pop into their head. Wright dedicates two whole chapters addressing just the Medieval period. In previous periods, heresy was mostly restricted to theologians, but a particular feature of the Middle Ages was that accusations of heresy expanded to laypeople. Heresy also became linked to all sorts of immorality beyond disputes over theological positions like engaging in sexual orgies, eating children, and consorting with the Devil.

To be sure, theologians within the church during the Middle Ages still ran afoul of heresy accusations. Berengar of Tours promulgated unorthodox positions against transubstantiation in the 11th century, Siger of Brabant of the 13th century developed unorthodox ideas about the soul’s immortality and an eternal world, and the brilliant medieval scholar Abelard was condemned at the councils of Soissons in 1121 and Sens in 1141 for his intellectual theological speculations on the trinity and was forced to throw his writings into the fire. The budding universities, especially the University of Paris, became a place of debate over theology, which led to constant accusations of heresy between intellectual opponents. Even celebrated theologians like Thomas Aquinas had some of his arguments condemned.

The first state-sponsored execution of heretics in medieval Europe happened in Orléans in 1022 in which a council overseen by the king accused clerics of all sorts of immoral acts. Heretics like the Waldensians, Henry of Lausanne, and Arnold of Brescia challenged the church's power and teachings with Henry quite literally revolting against the local bishop and Arnold leading a movement that temporarily seized political control of Rome from the Pope.

The most famous medieval heretics of all were the Cathars. They may have borrowed ideas from another heretic group known as the Bogomils. They adopted a dualist perspective, condemning the material world, abstaining for meat, marriage, and sex, and engaged in a ritual to prepare their spirit for death called consolamentum. They even developed their own ecclesiastical hierarchy with a group called the perfecti on top.

The church responded to this threat in southern France by sending priests and friars to preach to them and debate them in order to expose their errors. When this failed, Pope Innocent III declared a crusade against the cathars in 1209, which was taken up by northern French lords eager to win more land, and led to violent campaigns against the Cathars. However, despite the brutality of these crusades, the Cathar heresy survived.

It is with this background that the inquisition was formed. To combat heresy, the church launched the inquisition in the 13th century. The papal decree known as Ad extirpanda in 1252 allowed the legal use of torture during investigations of the inquistion. It is easy to focus on the brutality of the inquisition, but Wright reminds the reader multiple times that despite popular imagination the majority of those accused received penances like wearing a patch or public recantations or pilgrimages. It was rare for someone to be executed or burned at the stake, which usually only happened to those who refused to recant or relapsed.

To emphasize his point that who counted as a heretic and who a pious member of the church was often arbitrary, Wright compares St Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Franciscan order, and Valdes, a layman condemned for preaching a life of poverty and self-denial without ecclesiastical permission that helped spawn the Waldensians, noting they preached similar things, but one was regarded as a saint, the other a heretic, showing there was a thin line between heresy and orthodoxy. While late medieval heretics like Jan Hus and John Wyclif viewed themselves as reformers, not heretics.

When dealing with the Reformation the author warns about seeing the way things unfolded as an inevitable progression of history. Luther wanted to reform the church, not form his own sect, and at least seemed to do so partially from fear and psychological uncertainty over his own salvation. He settled on a handful of theological ideas: sola scripture (the Bible is the primary source) not all the other traditions the church had accumulated over the year, sola fide (salvation by faith alone), and a priesthood of all believers. Some of the traditions he questioned were the veneration of the saints, the role of priests, purgatory, disagreements over the nature of the Eucharist, monasteries, etc. The Protestant reformation even involved redesigning the physical architecture and appearances of church buildings. Another important figure of the reformation was John Calvin who advocated an extreme version of predestination.

Protestantism transformed the political landscape, ending Christian unity.

“Ancient and medieval Western Christianity could always cling to the fiction of unity; later Christians (however hard they tried) could never ignore the fact that their faith had been rent asunder. There were now two churches —or more like twenty. They described one another in the most unflattering heretical terms and, from time to time, fell into military conflict. As contemporaries put it, Europe now faced a struggle between Christ and Antichrist, the lamb and the beast, the whore and the virgin (168).”

At the same time, many average people who fell in one camp or the other just wanted to get along with their neighbors and found the competing theologies of the Reformation a confusing mess. They wanted to live their lives in peace and not get too enmeshed in the religious debates, or in some cases were even downright confused with what they were supposed to believe. Wright warns this shouldn’t be confused with modern notions of religious freedom; the motivation seemed to be a desire for peace with one’s neighbors even if one privately thought one’s neighbors were heretics destined for hell. They adopted a pragmatic perspective. Much of the antagonism and acrimony of the period was a top-down affair coming from the leaders, priests, and theologians.

The Catholic Church failed to respond quickly to the Protestant threat because Popes worried calling a church council threatened its own authority and Catholic secular rulers like Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire and Francis I of France were too busy fighting each other. The Catholic Church finally convened the Council of Trent, which not condemned Protestantism, but it also further defined doctrines and church institutions. As Wright points out “heresy was continuing to play the oddly constructive role in which it had always excelled (185).”

The original purpose of ending division under Constantine had been to reduce political and social turmoil by fostering unity. As it became clear neither side could defeat the other, coexistence was a product of pragmatism. It is with this political pragmatism in mind that treaties such as the Peace of Augsburg in the Holy Roman Empire, the Edict of Nantes in France, and Union of Utrecht appeared. However, sporadic violence against opposing religious camps still broke out here and there.

The second half of the book is as much a history of religious toleration and freedom as it is about heresy. Theorists like Jean Bodin advocated for limited toleration. He recognized reason couldn’t solve these issues and there would always be doubts between one faith and another, leading to skepticism about doctrinal certainty. John Locke went even further with religious toleration, arguing it was part of each individual person’s liberty to choose their own religious beliefs and suggesting magistrates should have no authority to regulate religion. In the context of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Pierre Bayle challenged Augustine’s reasoning about coercion being necessary to promote unity by arguing in reality it would lead to perpetual conflict, violence, and discord, while also arguing God imbued us with reason to help us discern moral truths, which coercion violated. True faith can only be accomplished through persuasion. From this he argued it was general toleration that protected society from violence and discord.

Wright next takes us to colonial America. Early colonial America was a contradictoary place of double impulses in which religious tolerance coexisted with religious intolerance. While the Pilgrims and Puritans left England to escape persecution, they often engaged in similar intolerance and persecution once they had established their own polities in the New World. John Winthrop imagined he would create a society that would be an example to the whole Christian world, but ended up persecuting people who didn’t toe the line. One religious dissenter that caused social discord in Puritan society was Anne Hutchinson who was put on trial for theologizing about Calvinism and its errors as a woman. Another was Roger Williams who was soon banished from Massachusetts for his criticism of civil authorities trying to enforce religion, arguing physical punishment had no place in convincing others of religion, and went off to found what would become Rhode Island. Meanwhile, Quakers like William Penn founded the colony of Pennsylvania based on religious toleration.

There was a plurality of religious sects by the time of the revolution. Although it is tempting to praise the founding fathers for their forward thinking, Wright points out that the founders lacked consensus about religious freedom and the first amendment didn’t end all religious persecution. He identifies Madison’s changing of the language in George Mason’s proposed religious tolerance clause to the Virginia state constitution from mere toleration to the free exercise of religion as a pivotal moment. It was later followed by the passage of the first amendment as part of the federal bill of rights. This is when we might speak of a principle of religious freedom rather than begrudging toleration appearing, although it took years for the full implications of the First Amendment to take full effect, applying first only to the federal government and not the individual states.

“The First Amendment seemed to inaugurate a new way of dealing with religious difference. Unfortunately, that amendment has always been hard to interpret. First, we have to ponder why it was enacted in the first place: for some people - Madison, certainly — it represented the articulation of a heartfelt philosophical stance. For others, it was still very much about pragmatism (and, though this is sometimes forgotten, the need to contain the social perils of religious diversity was also part of Madison's thinking). By the end of the eighteenth century, as we've seen, America was home to countless Christian denominations. Many were very influential, with robust congregations, and there was considerable risk of chaos among the sects. This — just as in the sixteenth-century Holy Roman Empire, or just as in one of those tolerant Reformation-era German cities — had to be alleviated. This was one of the reasons, and a very sensible one, for the arrival of the First Amendment. There was more to it than that, of course, but an older logic still played its part (271).”

Despite legal protections, many 19th century Americans could still be intolerant in their personal interactions. 19th century America saw riots and persecutions of Catholics and violence against the new American religious tradition of the Mormons. It is important to remember the first amendment didn’t make every American instantaneously tolerant. Nevertheless, over times religious pluralism expanded in America and Europe. While accusations of heresy continued to appear they had been neutered, consisting mostly of angry tirades in newspapers or internal affairs of churches that led to loss of academic or clerical positions or social snubs between individuals, no longer did it lead to violence, torture, and persecution.

In the concluding section, Wright covers briefly a few episodes of heresy in Islam and Judaism, noting that Christianity didn’t have a monopoly on heresy. He justifies the objective approach he took that tries to avoid making moral judgements about the past from the perspective of present, while acknowledging there are other valid alternatives other scholars have taken to studying heresy. He moves in a polemical direction by warning that modern society should be careful about feeling too comfortable with religious freedom and widespread toleration and believing heresy is a thing of the past as it may prove more a superficial veneer. This book was not only extremely informative, but it was also engaging, and earns the distinction of the book I would recommend if someone asked me for one book about the history heresy.

[Larry White · Rating 3 out of 5]

But Is It the Gospel Truth?

Jonathan Wright, in his ambitious book, “Heretics: The Creation of Christianity from the Gnostics to the Modern Church”, explores the pernicious and multifaceted problem of heresy throughout Christian history. He covers a lot in 300+ pages, often with wry humor, bringing to light episodes and persons that are sometimes familiar but often new. His analysis is revealing but sometimes strays into areas that seem less about the conflict between orthodoxy and heterodoxy and more about his personal views. Early on he makes a well-taken point that “(h)eresy was always orthodoxy’s grumpy but indispensable twin” forcing Christianity to be clearer in its doctrines. Fair enough, and a useful thought as one explores the development of Christian doctrine, but Wright may overestimate the effects of heretical beliefs in shaping doctrine as opposed to illuminating orthodox doctrine through its divergence. True, Wright offers examples where highly similar beliefs once attacked as heresy become accepted orthodoxy within generations. But these are rather few and far between, and not enough is said about the reasons for change. Wright, consistent with his apparent agnosticism, seems sometimes to embrace the notion that Christian belief has been readily changeable over the centuries. One could counterargue that true and prevailing orthodoxy has always sought accord with apostolic teaching. Finally, he perhaps makes too much about the American experience of Christianity, an analysis which seems to struggle to fit with the topic of Christian orthodoxy and heresy. Yes, there have been and continue to be departures and errors, pronounced and subtle, but true Christian orthodoxy has always looked to its origins for doctrinal truth. And that’s a Gospel truth that sometimes seems overlooked or underestimated in “Heretics”.

[Michelle Lambers · Rating 2 out of 5]

In case you're picking up this book and wondering, this is written from a secular perspective. I had a hard time getting through his discussion in the first few chapters of the book due to this and almost put it down. However, I recently lost access to my large library and am in a bit of a literary desert at the moment, so I pushed through.

He's actually a decent storyteller (once you get through the first few chapters), though this is very much an overview of Christian heresy. I think he loses some things in trying to make some of the stories juicy though. For example, in discussing Calvin and Servetus, I do not feel he treated Calvin fairly. Particularly, he did not mention that Calvin warned Servetus not to come to Geneva in the first place.

His conclusion came abruptly and ultimately, I didn't feel that he recapitulated his thesis very well (that Christianity itself was defined by defining itself against heresies). He just sort wandered around some thoughts about Christianity, Islam, and how the word heresy is thrown around lightly today. I think the thrust of his conclusion, though, is in this statement: "I think we can sensibly conclude that the extraordinary perseverance of Christian heresy must, in large part, be put down to the mutability of the Christian message." That probably tells you about what you need to know about his perspective in writing this book.

[Zac Ori · Rating 5 out of 5]

I do not think that everyone needs to read this book for the Christian history. I think that everyone needs to read this book because it contains what may be the best description of historical consciousness that I have ever seen.

Here I am, criticizing others for imposing modish, overarching theories on the
past, while I myself commit a comparable sin. My approach to the study of history looks eminently levelheaded, but it too is one more product of those aforementioned fleeting, contingent, and historically determined circumstances. I can bleat
about objectivity but, with no small amount of paradox and irony, the very bleating
is subjective, and in a hundred years it might look preposterous. Worse yet, this
particular understanding of objectivity wouldn't have made much sense to the people about whom I've been writing.

The fact that history has become such a battleground in the culture wars means that historical consciousness is an important skill for anyone that wishes to be an informed citizen of the world. I can think of no better introduction to that skill than this book.

[Robby · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is mostly useful as a general survey of heresy in Western Christianity. There are many important topics given only a couple of pages, and there were many times where I tired of the historian's general observations (which are never particularly challenging) and wanted more meat. Even as a survey, there are some glaring omissions, such as the Great Schism and the Salem witch trials (though medieval witch trials are given a couple of pages). There are also many quotations cited from secondary and tertiary sources rather than tracking down and citing the appropriate primary source documents, and no explanatory footnotes. Still, I think it is likely useful for someone new to the topic to get a general sense of important historical figures and theological concepts in the periods it covers.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very detailed. I learned so much. Through the descriptions of various "heretics" of the Catholic religion, I learned a great deal about the Catholic religion that I did not know, even though I am a "cradle" Catholic.
I am reading another book on Christianity (Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years) that does not concentrate just on the heretics, but instead includes the political situation of the world - Europe, Asia, the Middle East, etc. It also keeps a running contrast between the Church in Rome and the Orthodox Church of Constantinople.
The two books are dovetailing nicely and adding to my knowledge and understanding of how things came to be in Catholicism.

[Hiram Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant focusing of thoughts that have rattled around in my head since childhood

A a child growing up in a west Texas town with a Methodist College, a Baptist College and a Church of Christ affiliated college. I grew up wondering, “Who is right and who is wrong? Who does God accept and who does he reject?” I still don’t have the answers. I’m confident that I will not have an answer in my lifetime. The author gives me some small assurance that it just might be OK for me to go to my grave just so limited. He also convicts me that I have tried much too hard to be inoffensive.

[Jeffrey Cavanaugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

A highly approachable popular history of Christian heresy that will leave you scratching your head as to why it was once thought necessary to torture and kill people over silly things like adult baptism and the doctrine of transubstantiation.

[booklover1882 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. I admire the amount of research that went into this and how well-written it was that I was not bored once, and it blew right by. Read it in two sittings, which I usually only do with fiction books.

[Bill Radunovich · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent, non-academic review of heresies throughout history. Wright shows that a) heresy has been part of the changing view of the Bible, God, and the church(es) throughout history, and b) the charge of "heresy" has had as much to do with power as it has with actual theology.

[Michael Chittum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding

This brief overview of the history of heresy within the Christian church is well written and challenging. It serves as a reminder that there have always been alternatives to the narrow stream of orthodox faith.

[عماد أحمد العالم · Rating 3 out of 5]

‏رائع هذا الكتاب في موضوعه ومبحثه، فهو من الكتب التي تشرح تاريخ وانشقاق وطبيعة ونشوء وأفكار البدع والمعتقدات للفرق التي ترفضها الكنيسة المسيحية، وكان لها دور في الصراع المسيحي- المسيحي عبر التاريخ.
‏كل بدعة خارجة عن الخط الرسمي للكنيسة تسمى هرطقة.

‏استمتعت جدا بقراءته

[Richard Worden · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent introduction to an active time in church history.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

What makes a heretic, how did christian leaders respond to heretics, and how did heretics shape the christian church as it is today? Thank heavens for the lonely road of the outliers.

[Cathie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned so much from this book. The writing is transparent and engaging, with just enough wry British humor to make the subject entertaining.

[Alonzo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an informative book, well-written and with an easy to read style/voice. It's good enough that I plan to re-read it, hoping to get even more out of it. I'm very interested in Church/Christian History as a whole, but especially enjoy reading history from an objective perspective. I don't get the sense that I'm reading a particular brand of Christianity's history, or even a history with too much slant on it, i.e. it’s not making up my mind for me, but simply presenting information and allowing me to think and make conclusions for myself.

According to Wright without heresy, orthodoxy may never have been solidified. He writes, “Heresy certainly helped define orthodoxy, but it still required a bold leap to equate that orthodoxy with the only reputable version of Christianity” (82). This last statement is a thought I have often had, but have not been able to put into words as clearly as Wright does. Wright is not giving a prescription, here, but rather a description. Again, he lets the reader come to their own conclusions.

Wright presents representative arguments from all sides before, during and after the seemingly all-important councils. The arguments on the Trinity vs. Unitarian concepts; the god-nature vs. human nature of Jesus Christ. He discusses how the Holy Spirit slowly changed from an almost afterthought to one third of the Trinity. He gives information on the various heresies and the people who were accused of holding them and what happened to them. And, as Wright states, “we are reminded that the line between orthodoxy and heterodoxy was always very thin” (104). This is even more true today.

According to others (e.g. Ross Douthat) heresy is now almost the norm, having overcome the most staid and staunch orthodoxy. Wright takes a different thought, writing that “[i]t is hard to reach a firm conclusion. Was there really more heresy during the medieval era, or simply more attempts to seek it out and eradicate it?” (135). I tend to be between the two ideas, that there is heresy. I think it’s prominent because of modern knowledge (particularly scientific knowledge). In order to keep people interested, the leaders in churches have to avoid deep theological issues. In order for people to feel congruent, they have to hold unorthodox ideas. Some orthodox concepts are quite hard to jibe with what is experienced on a daily basis. I have a feeling that most of what we call Christianity, today, would have been considered heresy in the Middle Ages. Wright may agree. He writes, “There was no more conspicuous example of medieval Christianity’s inability to neatly define the borders between heresy and orthodoxy than the Beguines, who were welcomed, at first, by paeans of support and ended up being thrown into the flames” (142).

One good thing about the tolerance of/freedom of religion we enjoy, at least in most Western countries, few are dying for their unorthodox beliefs and thoughts. “It has recently been calculated that, across Europe in the sixteenth century, as many as five thousand people were legally executed for their supposedly heterodox religious beliefs” (Wright 181). That is progress, but others (again, Douthat) seem to bemoan this change. I’m probably reading to much into those ideas, but I prefer heresy to mass killings of supposed heretics.

Wright also presents the concept “In one of the more notable plus ca change moments of European history, the persecuted quickly became the persecutors” (187). This continued throughout church history.

I appreciate how Wright gives equal ink to both sides of the issue; he keeps a pretty objective voice throughout and makes it easy for the reader to come to their own conclusion. He also has a good scholarly apparatus: i.e. notes, bibliography, index.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it highly. If you are interested in history in general or Church/Christian history in particular, this is an excellent book to increase your knowledge of this subject.

[Candace Mac · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an VERY informative book and so very well written. I am not a scholar in any way of of either religious history or of European, so will have to re-read this book several times to ingest all the detailed history. As it approached the end in modern times, it did lead to some provocative questions, most especially about the "veneer" of tolerance different sects of Christianity suggest to have for one another while always maintaining that their own sect is the "true" way to salvation.

Unfamiliar words:


pg. 2 caritas: charity
pg. 4 pertinacity: persistent
pg. 8 shibboleths: a peculiarity of speech, dress, etc., usually identifying a group
pg. 9 ecumenism: the aim of unity between all Christian sects
pg. 11 hermeneutic: interpretive or explanatory
pg. 19 heterodoxy: unorthodox
pg. 39 swingeing: enormous
pg. 63 raiment: attire, clothing
pg. 68: quidities: * could not find a definition in a standard US or British dictionary
pg. 107 abnegation: denying oneself some rights
pg. 112 alms: anything given as charity
pg. 119 fealty: fidelity to a lord
pg. 121 Thurbiles: *
pg. 128 vassals: in a feudal system one granted land in return for fealty
pg. 135 anathematize: to denounce or curse
pg. 137 wastrel: waste or refuse or a person who s wasteful
pg. 144 opprobrium: the disgrace incurred by shameful behavior
pg. 199 irenic: tending to promote peace or reconciliation
pg. 218 sophister: an unsound or fallacious reasoner
pg. 221 legerdemain: slight of hand
pg. 270 calumny: a false statement meant to harm another's reputation
pg. 293 dullards: a stupid or insensitive person

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heretics by Jonathan Wright
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011
302 pages
Non-fiction; Christian
4.5/5 stars

Source: Received a free e-ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I chose to read this in order to learn more about heresy within the Christian faith. Almost from the beginning, "heresy" blossomed. I put that in quotes because there was disagreement about almost everything within Christianity. Was Jesus God or man or somewhere in between? How did one worship God? These and other questions pushed toward the solidification of an orthodox interpretation in a reciprocal relationship.

Then the entire setup changed as a relationship between church and state, beginning with Emperor Constantine, emerged. This increased the stakes for enshrining an orthodoxy as well as the stakes for heretics, who were increasingly exposed to tortures. Then came the Reformation and America's creation until we reach the modern period with our notions of religious pluralism and the consequence that the word heretic has somewhat lost its punch. People are called heretics in circumstances that are unlikely to have them lose their lives.

Overall, very interesting and scholarly and worth savoring slowly over a period of time.

Cover: I like the fire but it's not very eye-catching.