HERESY, HISTORY OF

The word αἵρεσις in classical Greek signified a school or party. It was used by the Hellenists to designate a philosophical school and by Josephus to describe the Jewish theological sects.

1. In the Early Church

The primitive Christians were considered at first another school or sect within Judaism (Acts 24.5, 14;28.22). But among themselves the early Christians quickly distinguished between those who accepted the doctrine as preached by the Apostles and received by the Church, or assembly of the faithful, and those who tried to adapt the Christian message to their own personal, doctrinal, or disciplinary notions (1 Cor 11.19; Gal 5.20). What the Church rejected in thought or deed was heretical. Thus both the doctrines propagated by the Gnostic sects (see gnosticism) and the quartodeciman adherence to the Jewish paschal calendar were condemned as heretical (Hippolytus, Philos. 7.18.19).

In the 2d and 3d Centuries. During the 2d century little distinction was made between heresy and schism, and the criterion of true faith and practice appealed to was that of the Roman Church. The earliest collection of heretical doctrines was made by justin martyr in his Syntagma against all heresies. This work is mentioned by Justin himself (1 Apol. 26.8). Irenaeus in his Exposé and Refutation of the False Gnosis, usually quoted as Adversus haereses, used the Syntagma of Justin and mentions a Contra Marcionem that appears to be part of Justin's work (Adversus haereses 4.19.9). The exposé concentrates on the Valentinian Gnostics but also gives a résumé of the beginnings of Gnosticism with the teachings of Simon, Menander, and other early sectaries.

During the reign of Pope zephyrinus (199–217), hippolytus of rome wrote a Syntagma directed against all heresies; it is cited by Eusebius of Caesarea (Ecclesiastical History 6.22) and by Photius (Bibliotheca codex 121). A fragment of this work, the Contra Noetum, has been discovered and published by P. Nautin. Hippolytus wrote also an Elenchus or collection of 33 heresies from that of the Naassenians to that of Noetus, together with their refutations. It is known under the incorrect title of the Philosophumena. The author traces each doctrinal aberration to a school of false philosophy but in general follows irenaeus for his information. The work seems likewise to have been synthesized by tertullian as an appendix to his De praescriptione. Jerome (De Viris illustribus 74) attributes an Adversus omnes haereses to victorinus of pettau (d. 304).

Treatises of Epiphanius and Augustine on Heresies. Epiphanius of Constantia between 374 and 377 composed a Panarion or box of antidotes against all heresies. He names and refutes 80 heresies, relying on Irenaeus and Hippolytus for the older doctrinal errors, and citing the writings of heretics themselves for the more recent heresies. The Panarion was used by Filastrius of Brescia (d. 397) for his Liber de haeresibus (385–391).

Toward 428 augustine wrote a De haeresibus for the deacon Quodvultdeus; it is in the main a catalogue of 88 heresies. The last eight cited, however, including Pelagianism (see pelagius and pelagianism), give evidence of his personal study and knowledge. theodoret of cyr (d. c. 460) wrote a compendium of heretical fables (c. 451) in five books, claiming that he culled these false doctrines from his reading of the early Church Fathers. For arius, Eudoxius, nestorius, and eutyches, he cites primary evidence. At the close of the patristic period, john damascene (d. 749) lists a catalogue of heresies as the second part of his Source of Knowledge. Only the three final heresies mentioned, namely, Islam, iconoclasm, and the Paulician heresy, are examined from contemporary evidence.

Bibliography: y. m. j. congar, Catholicisme. Hier, aujourd'hui et demain, ed. g. jacquemet (Paris 1947–) 5:640–642. h. petrÉ, "Haeresis, Schisma et leurs synonymes latins," Revue des études latines 15 (1936) 316–325. w. bauer, Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum (Tübingen 1934). j. brosch, Das Wesen der Häresie (Bonn 1936). c. journet, L'Église du Verbe Incarné, 2 v. (Paris 1951) 818–823. g. kittel, Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament (Stuttgart 1935–) 986–987.

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2. Medieval Period

During the Middle Ages both eastern and western Europe were essentially a Christian society. Thus, heresy, a body of doctrine substantially differing in some aspect from the doctrine taught by the Church, was bound to have reverberations in the secular world as well as in the Church. The early Christian community, essentially a minority Church (especially in the West) before Constantine's Edict of Religious Toleration (313), had been shaken in the 4th and 5th centuries by such major heresies as arianism, donatism, nestorianism, monophysitism, and, in the West, by Pelagianism. In the 6th and 7th centuries, while Europe was absorbed in regrouping after the mass migrations of the barbarian nations, the byzantine empire was still split over the question of Monophysitism, complicated now by the controversy over the three chapters, and turned to monothelitism in its attempt to reestablish religious unity throughout the empire.

Earlier Middle Ages. With the West's revival of interest in learning in the 8th and 9th centuries—a phenomenon often labeled the carolingian renaissance, but with its religious facets called the Carolingian Reformation—new study of the inherited theology of late antiquity resulted in the first truly "medieval" heresies. The filioque controversy had overtones of heresy, as did the contemporary predestination (see gottschalk of orbais) and Eucharistic Controversies, the latter spearheaded by the opponents paschasius radbertus and ratramnus. adoptionism flourished and died. The pantheistic concept of the world, inherent in the Stoic and Neoplatonic philosophy behind Arianism, seems to have received some impetus from the writings of john scotuserigena—although it is probable that this was the result of misunderstanding Erigena's thought. At the same time the byzantine church and State were convulsed by the great struggle over heretical iconoclasm.

High Middle Ages. With the revitalization of all facets of life in Europe in the High Middle Ages, heresy once again became a real issue in the religious and secular worlds. Despite the cluniac and gregorian reforms the 11th century saw the return of the Eucharistic heresy in berengarius of tours, who adopted the older teachings of Ratramnus. During the 12th century—the century of the crusades, of the cistercians, and of the nascent medieval universities—occurred the rise of the cathari, the most serious heretical threat with which the Middle Ages had to contend. The religious equilibrium of the early 12th century had been thrown off balance by the sporadical heresies of peter of bruys and his petrobrusians, of henry of lausanne, and of arnold of brescia, all of whom advanced certain antisacramental and antisacerdotal ideas, and by amalric of bÈne and his amalricians, who were essentially pantheists. But only the Cathari, with their roots in the dualism of the bogomils and paulicians, had a viable doctrinal framework. The heresy, originally Eastern, was brought to Europe after the Second Crusade and by 1175 counted members in northern France, the Rhineland, and Italy, but especially in southern France, the Midi. There the orthodox Christian Church waged spiritual and material war on the strongholds of the Cathari (or albigenses). The cistercians, the Albigensian Crusade, the inquisition, the University of Toulouse and, most importantly, the mendicant orders finally proved effective, and by 1300 Catharism was defeated in Europe.

The same 12th century also saw the rise of serious non-Manichaean heresies. Although heretical fringe groups, such as the Judaizing Passagini and the followers of radicals, such as Éon of stella or tanchelm at Antwerp, were of only passing interest, a number of heresies arose out of the contemporary demand for extreme Church reform in the spirit of apostolic poverty and preaching (see poverty movement). These heresies shook the religious foundations of all Europe. Although the same spirit had motivated orthodox reform interests among the patarines, humiliati, and franciscans, in the waldenses the original ideal of evangelical poverty deviated into an antisacerdotal heresy. In 1173 Valdés of Lyons, a layman, renounced all his worldly possessions, took a vow of poverty, and then began preaching to the people. As the "Poor Men of Lyons" grew more numerous, Pope lucius iii and Emperor frederick i barbarossa agreed at Verona in 1184 that Waldenses who preached without permission or who attacked the Church's hierarchy or Sacraments would be branded as heretics, but that others would be accepted as orthodox. Thus small sects of Waldenses stayed within the Church, although the greater number eventually fell into antihierarchical heresy. The Waldenses were never as strong numerically as the contemporary Cathari, and they were banned from the empire in 1253; from that time on their membership shrank away except in the valleys of the Piedmont and the Briançonnais, where they survive today.

In the 12th, but especially in the 13th, century, groups of heretical spiritualists became discernible in European society. Molded by essentially Catharist ideas wedded to the ideology of joachim of fiore, the various groups all adopted an extreme stand on poverty as a protest against the possessions of the Church. Thus the Franciscan spirituals, as corrupted into the fraticelli under angelus clarenus, were declared heretical by Pope john xxii. Amalrician ideas, now combined with rejection of the sacramental Church, lived on among the brothers and sisters of the free spirit who were found in Swabia and along the Rhine from the 12th to the 15th century. A similarly oriented group were the apostolici, founded by Segarelli of Parma (burned 1300) and his successor Fra dolcino (burned 1307).

Later Middle Ages. The major heresy of the 14th century was that initiated by John wyclif, who adopted Berengarius's Eucharistic position concerning the permanence of bread and wine after consecration and propounded questionable doctrine concerning the Church and the ownership of property. He was silenced in May 1377 by Pope gregory xi and was finally condemned after his denial of transubstantiation c. 1380. The lollards, who adopted Wyclif's radical views on lordship, grace, the Sacraments, and the temporal power of the papacy, ceased to exist effectively after 1431.

In the meantime, however, Wyclif's teachings had become of primary importance in Bohemia, where they had influenced John hus, leader of the reform movement in Prague. Although burned as a heretic at the Council of constance in 1415, his only heretical deviation was his rejection of the formal and necessary primacy of jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome. His followers, however, the hussites, adopted the full teaching of Wyclif, abandoning orthodoxy as they came to deny transubstantiation and other traditional Catholic teachings. Emperor sigismund led "crusades" against the Hussites for 15 years until their defeat in 1436; the Catholic utraquists (moderate Hussites), however, survived alongside the orthodox Catholics in Bohemia until the rise of Lutheranism. The radical Hussite ideas were revived in the bohemianbrethren, a group that provided a direct link between the Hussites and the Protestants of the 16th century.

Repression. It is to the medieval concept of "kingdom" as a morally unified society that one must turn to understand the cooperation of Church and secular power in the repression of heresy during the Middle Ages. Medieval man believed that civil society, in order to survive, must adhere to a well-defined moral system. When hugh of saint-victor declared that "the spiritual power must institute the temporal that it might exist," and when Pope boniface viii asserted in unam sanctam that the Church had both swords, spiritual and temporal, they meant that the contemporary civil powers, deriving their justification from Christian moral doctrine, depended necessarily on the fountainhead of that doctrine. Thus, the temporal power was expected to react against doctrines that undermined its own position. To cite an extreme example, when the Cathari branded pregnancy and normal sexual intercourse as Satan's work, or when they counseled their members to commit suicide (endura ), contemporary society felt that such action could not go unpunished. In the Church's attitude toward heresy's challenge to the religious status quo, there was always much conflict between men, such as the 11th-century Bp. wazo of liÈge or bernard of clairvaux, who insisted that faith was a matter of persuasion, and others, such as Pope innocent iii or St. dominic, who approved of the Church's part in the effective repression of heresy. Similar tension is found in the two attitudes of St. augustine, one stressing the voluntary character of faith and the other underlining the right of society to compel its members to good actions. Prominent medieval Christians realized that the repression of heresy remained essentially a pastoral problem and that a delicate balance was required between justice and charity: leniency in the chastisement of heresy could endanger the faith of others, but excess of zeal in administering justice might become a major impediment to the apostolate. In practice, the Church's medieval antiheresy campaign adopted as its tools the process of legatine inquest and the cooperation of ecclesiastical and civil power (see inquisition) to stamp out heresy that had gained a popular following.

Bibliography: e. vacandard, The Inquisition, tr. b. l. conway (New York 1908). j. guiraud, Histoire de l'inquisition au moyen âge, 2 v. (Paris 1935–38). h. x. arquilliÈre, L'Augustinisme politique (2d ed. Paris 1955). j. rupp, L'Idée de chrétienté (Paris 1939). m. l. cozens, A Handbook of Heresies (New York 1947). a. c. shannon, The Popes and Heresy in the 13th Century (Villanova, Pa. 1949). g. schnÜrer, Church and Culture in the Middle Ages, tr. g. j. undreiner (Paterson, N.J. 1956–). k. bihlmeyer and h. tÜchle, Kirchengeschichte, 3 v. (17th ed. Paderborn 1962) 1:81–85, 91–96, 207–213, 308–313, 435–444. j.n. garvin and j. a. corbett, The Summa contra haereticos Ascribed to Praepositinus (Notre Dame 1958). h. maisonneuve, Études sur les origines de l'inquisition (2d ed. Paris 1960). Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. a. vacant et al., 15 v. (Paris 1903–50; Tables générales 1951–) Tables générales 2051–62. h. grundmann, Ketzergeschichte des Mittelalters (Göttingen 1963). j. russell, "Interpretations of the Origins of Medieval Heresy," Mediaeval Studies (1938–) 25 (1963) 26–53.

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3. Modern Period

Heresies upon condemnation do not die but reappear, often with vigorous new growth. Thus the primitivism (the search for a more authentic Christianity in the infancy of the Church) that is found in evangelical Protestantism, as well as Modernism, was already a cry of the Montanists of the 2d century. The Neoplatonist mysticism of the medieval Beghards and Beguines, condemned at the Council of Vienne (1311), appeared once again in the behavior of the Spanish alumbrados of the 16th century, and the later quietist movement. Conciliarism, formulated at the University of Paris by Conrad of Gelnhausen and Henry of Langenstein, and expressed in an extreme form by peter of ailly and Jean gerson at the Council of Constance (1414–17), persisted in the many types of Gallicanism. Moreover, the theories of Church and State that appeared during this modern period were influenced by caesaropapist ideas of the Roman emperors, the exaggerated charges of the French legists of Philip the Fair and the equally pretentious claims of the papal curialists, the doctrine of dominion by grace of John Wyclif, the proimperial theses in the Defensor pacis (1324) of marsilius of padua, the power politics of Niccolò machiavelli's Il principe (1513), and the Venetian theorist, Paolo Paruta's Discorsi politici (1599). Therefore many heresies of this period are more noted for their eclecticism than for their originality.

Protestantism. It is principally on the dogmas of justification, predestination, and sacramental theology that the reformers departed from orthodox belief. Though expressing divergent views on these theological doctrines, they were in agreement in demanding that the Bible be the sole source of faith to the rejection or neglect of tradition.

Lutheranism. The theology of Martin luther as synthesized in the Book of concord (1580) was still creedal, accepting the Apostolic, Nicene, and Athanasian formulas, but avowing Scripture as the sole and constant guide of the Christian. It taught the total depravity of man after the Fall, which left him powerless before indomitable concupiscence to perform deeds of merit, so that he is justified by his faith in Christ alone and the imputation of His merits. This rejection of all forms of synergism whereby the human will can or should cooperate with grace, leaves God the sole agent in the conversion of the soul to justification. Of the Sacraments, only two were sanctioned by Scripture: baptism, incorporating the recipient into membership of a nonhierarchical church, and the Lord's Supper, commemorating the redemptive act. In place of transubstantiation Luther defended consubstantiation in which Christ becomes present in the substance of the elements, not hypostatically, but in a transcendent though real manner.

Reformed Theology. In the doctrines of the Reformed Churches, based upon the tenets and church organization of Huldrych zwingli, Martin bucer (butzer), Heinrich bullinger, and, principally, John calvin, are found a similar reliance upon the Bible as sole source of authority, and the fundamental Lutheran doctrine of total human depravity. Calvin established the principles of his system in the Institutes (1536), where he teaches that God by divine ordinance disregards the acts of the creature and predetermines him to salvation or doom (see institutes of calvin). It is God's unconditioned will, independent of any foreknowledge of merit or demerit, that determines justification.

This image of an inexorable God was resisted by Jakob Arminius, the Dutch divine, who asserted against Calvin that divine sovereignty is compatible with human will and that grace is not irresistible (see arminianism; in fralapsarians; supralapsarians). The propositions of this modified conception of calvinism were drawn up in the Remonstrance (1610) by Simon Episcopius (1583–1643) and defended unsuccessfully at the Synod of Dort (1618). (see confessions of faith, protestant.) Though rejected by Calvinists, Arminianism spread to England and eventually divided Methodism into the moderate party of John wesley, and the strict Calvinists, led by George whitefield.

Zwingli, whose doctrine was formulated in the 67 theses (Zurich 1523) and in Bullinger's First Helvetic Confession (1536), was more insistent on reliance upon Scripture and upon primitivism. To restore the Church to its original simplicity he removed the liturgy and reduced the conduct of his church to congregational direction, and the ultimate control of its revenues to civic tribunals. Zwingli met with Luther, Philipp melanchthon, and Johannes oecolampadius at the Colloquy of Marburg (Oct. 1–4, 1529) to attempt a doctrinal compromise, but their theories upon the presence of Christ in the Eucharist were unreconcilable. After Zwingli's death (1531), Calvin, Guillaume farel, and Bullinger met in Zurich in 1549, where they formulated the Zurich Consensus on the Eucharistic presence; by 1580 zwinglianism and Calvinism became the Reformed Church (see reformed churches).

Radicalism. The anabaptists (Zwichau Prophets, Swiss Brethren, Jorists, Hutterian Brethren, Melchiorites, Familists, and mennonites) constituted a more radical Protestant motion that appealed to an infallible Scripture and an apocalyptic expectation. Their theories of Christian communism that were put into practice in the polygamic kingdom of Münster made them particularly unloved by conservative Protestants as well as Catholics. The Radicals were characterized by the phenomenon of prophetic charism that had been a by-product of Christian heresies since the primitive Church. It appeared in the hysteria of the Montanist prophetesses, Priscilla and Maximilia, and the Circumcellions of the 5th century who brought Donatism into ridicule; the rantings of the 11th-century Cathars and later medieval mystics; the exhibitionism of the Jansenist convulsionaires at the cemetery of St. Médard (1731); the prophecies of the Calvinist camisards who terrorized 18th-century France; the feats of revivalism of the American frontier; and the glossolalia (speaking in tongues) that has appeared in some 20th-century Protestant sects.

Baianism and Jansenism. The Council of trent established a body of dogma, but could not prevent further heresy in the question of grace and human justification. Michael baius and John Hessels, Flemish theologians of the University of Louvain, believed that Catholic reaction to Protestantism had turned too far and that the great villain dividing the Church was scholasticism, especially in its Thomistic expression. For the dialectic of the schoolmen, Baius substituted greater use of scriptural and patristic sources, especially Cyprian, Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine, since these were most often appealed to by Protestants. Baius's fundamental tenet was God's creation of man in a state of natural integrity, so that after the Fall all his actions were motivated by a nature vitiated toward concupiscence and thus evil to God. Accordingly, after the Redemption, only those actions that proceed from a perfect love of God are of merit. Justification is a continued process of works that merit heaven only if motivated by perfect charity in a triumphant battle over concupiscence. These elements of Baianism as found in the Opuscula and the 79 propositions condemned by Pius V in the bull Ex omnibus afflictionibus, Oct. 1, 1567, have been criticized as Pelagian, Calvinistic, and Socinian.

Far more reaching in its effect was the theology of Cornelius jansen, Louvain professor and bishop of Ypres, who with his friend Jean Duvergier de Hauranne, Abbé of St. Cyran and guide of the consciences of the nuns of port-royal from 1636, planned to save the Church from Protestantism, from Jesuits, for whom Jansen had an eminent dislike, and from itself. This was to be achieved again by clearing scholasticism away from the path that led back to Augustine and to the simplicity of the primitive Church. Jansen exposed his doctrine in the augustinus, published posthumously (1640), and for whose preparation he read the works of Augustine 10 times, and his anti-Pelagian tractates 30 times. Like Baius he asserts man's creation in a state of natural integrity, so that fallen man is radically depraved and at the mercy of concupiscence. In his redeemed state man is still drawn to earthly delectation (delectatio terrestris ), unless impelled by an irresistible heavenly impulse (delectatio coelestis ). Thus man is irresistibly attracted to good or evil, depending upon which delectation prevails (delectatio victrix ). As a corollary came the discouragement of the use of the Sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance. The first was to be received rarely and as a reward for virtue; the second held worthless unless repentance was motivated by perfect love of God. The course of this heresy was a series of ineffectual condemnations, reprisals, insincere submissions, subterfuges, and casuistry that continued even after the sweeping condemnation in the bull unigenitus of clement xi in 1713. In Holland Jansenists were involved in the irregular consecration of Cornelius Steenhoven as archbishop of Utrecht (1723), which led to schism with Rome. These Utrecht Jansenists remained separated and later allied themselves with the Old Catholic party, which declared against papal infallibility in 1870.

Laxism. Contemporary with the Jansenist crisis were the disputes among theologians over the degrees of probability needed for a licit moral action. The theory of probabilism (it is licit to act on a probable opinion even though the opposite is more probable) was accepted and taught by the Jesuits, and attacked by the Jansenist Blaise pascal in his Lettres provinciales (1657) as dangerous casuistry. This opened an active controversy with George Pirot, SJ (1599–1659), whose L'Apologie pour les casuistes (1657) widened the scope of licit probability to the extreme of laxity. The book was proscribed by the Parlement of Paris, the Sorbonne, and censored by the Holy Office in 1659. Laxism was further condemned by Alexander VII by decrees of Sept. 24, 1665; March 18, 1666; and May 5, 1667. Innocent XI condemned 65 laxist propositions on March 2, 1679. Tutiorism (it is not allowed to follow even the most probable among probable opinions) as expressed by the Irish Jansenist John sinnich in Saul Exrex (1662), was also condemned by Alexander VIII on Dec. 7, 1690.

Quietism and Semiquietism. Mysticism is a borderland infrequently traversed, so the expression of the phenomena that occur there cannot be easily touched with precise phrase. Thus the great Rhineland mystic, Meister Eckhart (d. 1327) was accused of being pantheistic and Beghardic; SS. Ignatius Loyola, Teresa of Avila, Francis Borgia, and Joseph Calasanctius were suspected of the Neoplatonic tendencies of the Alumbrados. In the 17th century, however, there was a great revival of quietistic mysticism. Miguel de molinos in his book, Guía espiritual, taught a complete contemplative passivity before God. The soul in seeking interior annihilation can allow all license to carnal desire, acts of which are not blameworthy but produce a salutary disinterestedness to sensible devotion as well as personal salvation. Though denounced by the Holy Office (1685), quietism in a modified form became prominent through the Barnabite François Lacombe (c. 1640–1715) and his more famous disciple Madame guyon (Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte). They accepted the doctrine of pure love from Molinos's theology, according to which the soul becomes powerless to act in its own interest. This thesis was expanded in Madame Guyon's Moyen court et très facile de faire oraison (1685) and the Explication des maximes des saints (1697) of her follower, François fÉnelon, eminent churchman and at the time of the appearance of his book, the governor of Louis XIV's grandson, the duke of Burgundy. Madame Guyon was arrested and imprisoned (1695) at Vincennes, Vaugirard, and the Bastille, where she signed a retractation. Fénelon's book, after two years of bitter controversy with Jacques bossuet, was condemned by Innocent XII in the letter Cum alias, on March 12, 1699.

Caesarism. From the time of Protestantism, State interference in the affairs of the Church was much more significant than the ancient Byzantine caesaropapism or the pope-king quarrels of the Middle Ages. Now that Europe contained Christian communities no longer a part of Catholicism, opposition of monarchs to Rome was not only political but touched faith or was founded upon principles that could be destructive of it.

Anglicanism. The divorce proceedings that effected the English schism and set Henry VIII at the head of a national church did not yet place England in heresy. The six Henrician articles (June 1539) attest to the king's demand for orthodoxy. It was during the short reign of his son Edward VI (1547–53) that Continental Protestantism took hold. Peter Martyr Vermigli and Martin Bucer were instrumental in the formation of the Edwardine Ordinal (1550). Thomas cranmer, long an admirer of the Lutheran movement, produced the revision of the Book of common prayer in 1552, and in the next year prevailed on the king to sign the 42 Articles of Religion into the law of the land. Edward's action effectively established England as a Protestant nation, and the king as its religious arbiter, a position that was strengthened by the Stuart claim to authority by divine right within their hereditary line of succession. In the later development of anglicanism, the Erastian (see erastianism) idea of State ascendancy over the Church in ecclesiastical matters took hold in the Westminster Assembly (1643), and in the ideal secularization of the church as conceived by Thomas Hobbes.

Gallican Liberties. In 16th-century France there was a distrust of Rome and its ultramontane foreign policies that sometimes resulted in papal alliances with French enemies, especially the Hapsburg emperor. When the French crown felt oppressed, it appealed to the libertés de l'Église gallicane, which it could proudly trace back to King Clovis and his Merovingian successors. The concordat between Leo X and Francis I in 1516 annulled the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges (1438), which had accepted many of the conciliarist decrees of the Council of Basel (1431–37); gallicanism, however, persisted and came to a crisis when Louis XIV attempted to extend the regalia (royal right to the revenues of vacant sees) to all the sees of France. Innocent XI (1676–89) repudiated this usurpation of right and threatened ecclesiastical sanction. In reply Louis gathered the clergy of France who adopted the Four Gallican Articles of 1682, which were conciliarist and limited the exercise of papal primacy to the customs of the French Church. Though Louis and Innocent came to terms in 1693, these articles became a formula of anti-Romanism adopted when convenient elsewhere in Europe.

Febronianism and Josephinism. In Germany, the suffragan bishop of Trier, Johann Nikolaus von hontheim, under the pen name of Justinus Febronius, attacked Roman power as compared to papal primacy and as founded upon the False Decretals, and advocated an ecclesiastical order that was regulated as much as possible by episcopal and civic control. These ideas, absorbed by Hontheim from the Gallican canonist of Louvain, Zeger Bernhard van espen, led the archbishops of Mainz, Trier, Cologne, and Salzburg to assert their grievances against Rome at a congress at Bad Ems in Hesse-Nassau, even though Clement XIII had condemned Febronianism in 1764. The Punctation of Ems, issued Aug. 25, 1786, restrained appeals to Rome, and declared papal bulls to be conditioned upon the acceptance of the German episcopate. The force of febronianism was felt in the empire and expressed in the policies of Empress maria theresa and her son, joseph ii, whose Toleration Edict of 1781 suppressed certain religious orders, placed exempt monasteries under diocesan control, and required civic authorization for the publication of papal documents. Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany and brother of the emperor, introduced Josephinist ideas into northern Italy. In 1786, under the presidency of Scipione de' ricci, Bishop of Pistoia-Prato, a synod was held that passed reform measures based upon the Gallican articles, 85 of which were condemned by Pius VI in the bull Auctorem fidei, Aug. 28, 1794.

The Kulturkampf and Old Catholics. In the 19th century Caesarism appeared in the anti-Romanism of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. His kulturkampf oppressed the Church, interfered in its educational processes, limited its disciplinary powers by the May Laws (1873), and exiled religious orders. Unexpectedly, this oppression effected a Catholic revival in Germany and strengthened the Catholic political party. The publication of the Syllabus errorum by Pius IX on Dec. 8, 1864, and the definition of infallibility by Vatican Council I (1870) aroused the resistance of Johannes J. I. von dÖllinger, who met with some professors at Nuremberg and Bonn, where it was agreed that these measures of the pope would paralyze the Church. Despite Döllinger's disapproval, they formed the schismatical church of Old Catholics, receiving episcopal succession from the bishops of the Church of Utrecht, in schism since 1723. The Old Catholics, with affiliated churches in the Netherlands, Poland, and the United States, retain most of the Roman rite (but in the vernacular), allow a married clergy, and make the Sacrament of Penance optional.

Traditionalism. Much Catholic thought in the 19th century grew as a reaction to the philosophies of the Enlightenment or as an attempt at adaptation. Against the primum mobile, the depersonalized god of the rationalists, the skepticism as expressed in David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature (1738), and the sophistication resulting from new technology and travel abroad, especially during England's Augustan age, some Catholic theologians proposed theories of traditionalism, placing the norm of human certitude in the sens commun rather than in distrusted individual intellectual ability. The traditionalists, Casimir Ubaghs, Louis E. bautain, Augustin bonnetty, and Hugues Félicité de lamennais, tried to revive faith, just as the ontologists, Vincenzo gioberti, Antonio rosmini-serbati, and Jakob Frohschammer, by their central tenet that God is the first object of our intelligence, established a type of optimistic rationalism. Georg hermes attempted to adjust theology to Kantian philosophy, and Anton gÜnther, after studying the pantheistic idealism of Georg hegel and Friedrich von schelling, proposed that it was within human power to deduce the mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation.

All these figures were condemned. Bautain was removed from his chair of philosophy at Strasbourg by Bp. Lepappe de Trévern in 1834; Ubaghs was censored by the Holy Office, Sept. 21, 1864; Bonnetty was denounced by the Congregation of the Index, June 11, 1855; Gioberti's writings were placed on the Index, Jan. 14, 1853; Hermes was condemned by the brief, Dum acerbissimas, Sept. 26, 1835; Günther's works were doomed by the Index, Jan. 8, 1857; and propositions from the books of Rosmini-Serbati were condemned by a decree of the Holy Office, Dec. 14, 1887. Frohschammer, professor at the University of Munich, refused to submit to the condemnatory letter of Pius IX, Gravissimas inter, which found unorthodox propositions in his Einleitung in die Philosophie und Grundriss der Metaphysik (1858), and was suspended. Lammenais believed the future of the Church in post-Napoleonic France would be brighter if its dependent affiliations with the restored monarchy were replaced by a Catholic liberalism. Together with several French intellectuals, such as Charles de montalembert and Jean B. lacordaire, he published the brilliant L'Avenir (1830–31), advocating freedom of the press, of speech, and labor unions; the magazine, however, was suppressed for indifferentism by Gregory XVI in an encyclical Mirari vos, Aug. 15, 1832. The adherence to Royalism among many of the French clergy persisted into the 20th century, when a number rallied to the monarchist crusade of Charles maurras and his collaborator, Léon daudet. Their publication, L'Action française was denounced by Pius XI, Dec. 20, 1926.

Modernism. A more pervading heresy was the complex of movements condemned under the name of modernism by Pius X in the decree, Lamentabili sane exitu, July 3, 1903, and the encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis, Sept. 8, 1907. Attempting to reconcile the Church with the present, Modernism viewed scholastic Aristotelianism no longer suitable to illustrate and defend Christian belief. The prominent Modernists, Maurice blondel, Lucien laberthonniÈre, Alfred loisy, Edouard le roy, Eudoxe I. mignot, Antonio Fogazzaro, Romolo murri, Friedrich von hÜgel, and George tyrrell, composed no theological school or consistent doctrine, but they agreed upon the necessity of reconciling the Church with modern times. From their writings the following beliefs appeared: dogmatic statements have a spirit that is absolute and fixed, and a form that is relative and mutable; Christ's messianic mission and His divinity are not to be sought from Scriptural sources, whose authors were subjected to the limitations of all human historians, but deduced from the conscientia christiana; the Christ of history is thus less than the Christ of faith, and it is not important to know whether He instituted a church, since the Holy Spirit guides its progress; and in Christianity there is a religious immanence that effects a continual evolution and pragmatic adaptation to historical situations.

Americanism. By the end of the 19th century the term "adaptation" meant a dangerous tampering with faith, as is witnessed in the so-called heresy of americanism. From a French translation of a biography of Isaac T. hecker, founder of the Paulists, statements were extracted by Roman theologians that advocated the adaptation of the external form of the Church to modern American life, and extolled the active virtues (humanitarianism, democratic fellowship) to the depreciation of passive virtues (subjection to authority, humility). By an apostolic letter to Cardinal James gibbons of Baltimore, testem benevolentiae, Jan. 22, 1899, Leo XIII cautioned against these notions, and by referring to them as Americanism with the implication that they were widespread, created what F. Klein called a phantom heresy (Une hérése fantôme, L'Americanisme, Paris 1949).

The Fathers of Vatican Council II chose not condemn any errors by means of anathemas. At the same time, the pastoral constitution Gaudium et spes cited many errors prevalent in modern society. Debates upon the floor of the council and continual written discussions on its schema emphasized the need to consider theological realities in their place in the stream of history. The result, in terms of the understanding of heresy, has been an emphasis on the difference between the rejection of an eternal, unchanging truth and the rejection of its changing historical manifestation.

Bibliography: a. michel, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. a. vacant et al., 15 v. (Paris 1903–50; Tables générales 1951–) 6.2:2208–57, bibliog. g. cross, j. hastings, ed., Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, 13 v. (Edinburgh 1908–27) 6:614–622. a. dru, The Church in the Nineteenth Century: Germany 1800–1918 (London 1963). É. poulat, Histoire, dogme et critique dans la crise moderniste (Paris 1962). m. creighton, Persecution and Tolerance (New York 1895). s. chÂteillon, Concerning Heretics, tr. r. h. bainton (New York 1935). k. rahner, On Heresy, tr. w. j. o'hara (New York 1964). m. novak, The Open Church (New York 1964). For extensive bibliographies see j. lecler, Toleration and the Reformation, tr. t. l. westow, 2 v. (New York 1960), and La Documentation Catholique 49 (1952) 714–750.

[e. d. mcshane]