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 has been
published in Springer Encyclopedia
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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