[83] See Waterland, Regeneration Stated and Explained: Works, Vol. vi. pp. 359—362. The whole tract may be commended for clearness and moderation.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE MEANING OF HERESY IN THE NEW TESTAMENT, AND THE APOSTLE’S DIRECTIONS RESPECTING THE TREATMENT OF HERETICAL PERSONS.
“A man that is heretical after a first and second admonition refuse; knowing that such a one is perverted, and sinneth, being self-condemned”—Titus iii. 10, 11.
It is in connexion with this instruction respecting the treatment of heretical persons that we have some of the earliest testimonies to the genuineness of the Epistle to Titus. Thus Irenæus about A.D. 180 writes: “But as many as fall away from” (ἀφίστανται, 1 Tim. iv. 1) “the Church and give heed to these old wives’ fables” (γραώδεσι μύθοις, 1 Tim. iv. 7), “are truly self-condemned” (αὐτοκατάκριτοι, Tit. iii. 1): “whom Paul charges us after a first and second admonition to refuse” (Adv. Hær., I. xvi. 3). It will be observed that in this passage Irenæus makes an obvious allusion to the First Epistle to Timothy, and then quotes the very words of our text, attributing them expressly to St. Paul. And about ten or twelve years later, Tertullian, after commenting on St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians, “For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you” (1 Cor. xi. 19), continues as follows: “But no more about that, seeing that it is the same Paul who elsewhere also in writing to the Galatians reckons heresies among sins of the flesh (Gal. v. 20), and who intimates to Titus that a man who is heretical must after a first[84] admonition be refused, because he that is such is perverted and sinneth as being self-condemned. But in almost every Epistle, when insisting on the duty of avoiding false doctrines, he censures heresies of which the practical results are false doctrines, called in Greek heresies, with reference to the choice which a man exercises, whether in instituting or in adopting them. For this reason he says that the heretical person is also self-condemned, because he has chosen for himself that in which he is condemned. We, however, may not allow ourselves anything after our own will; nor yet choose what any one has introduced of his own will. The Apostles of the Lord are our authorities: and even they did not choose to introduce anything of their own will, but faithfully consigned to the nations the instruction which they received from Christ. And so, even if an angel from heaven were to preach any other gospel, he would be called accursed by us” (De Præs. Hær., vi). In this passage, which contains a valuable comment on the meaning of the word “heresy,” it will be noticed that Tertullian not only quotes the text before us as coming from the Epistle to Titus, but, like Irenæus, his earlier contemporary, says expressly that the words are those of St. Paul. Thus, from both sides of the Mediterranean, men who had very large opportunities of knowing what books were accepted as Apostolic and what not, attribute our Epistle without hesitation to St. Paul. And in both cases this is done in treatises directed against heretics, who might be expected to reply with very telling effect, if it could be shown that what was quoted against them as the writing of an Apostle was of quite doubtful origin and authority.
But the testimony which these passages bear to the authenticity of this Epistle is not the main reason for their being quoted here. Their interest for us now consists in the light which they throw upon the history of the word “heresy,” and upon the attitude of the primitive Church towards heretics.
“Heresy,” as Tertullian points out, is a word of Greek origin, and the idea which lies at the root of it is choice.[85] Choosing for oneself what pleases oneself, independently of other considerations;—that is the fundamental notion on which later meanings of the term are based. Thus in the Septuagint it is used of a free-will offering, as distinct from what a man is bound to offer (Lev. xxii. 18; comp. 1 Macc. viii. 30). Then comes the notion of choice in reference to matters of opinion, without, however, necessarily implying that the chosen opinion is a bad one. And in this sense it is used quite as often for the party or school of thought which holds the particular opinion as for the body of opinion which is held. In this sense it is several times used in the Acts of the Apostles; as “the sect of the Sadducees” (v. 17), “the sect of the Pharisees” (xv. 5; xxvi. 5): and in this way Christianity itself was spoken of as a “heresy” or “sect”; that is, a party with chosen opinions (xxiv. 5, 14; xxviii. 22). And in profane literature we find Diogenes Laertius in the second or third century speaking of ten “heresies” or schools in moral philosophy (i. 19). But it will be seen from the passages in the Acts that the word is already acquiring somewhat of a bad meaning; and indeed this was almost inevitable, unless the original signification was entirely abandoned. In all spheres of thought and action, and especially in matters of belief, a tendency to choose for oneself, and to pursue one’s own way independently, almost of necessity leads to separation from others, to divisions and factions. And factions in the Church readily widen into schisms and harden into heresies.
Outside the Acts of the Apostles the word heresy is found in the New Testament only in three passages: 1 Cor. xi. 19; Gal. v. 20; and 2 Pet. ii. 1. In the last of these it is used of the erroneous opinions themselves; in the other two the parties who hold them may be indicated. But in all cases the word is used of divisions inside the Church, not of separations from it or of positions antagonistic to it. Thus in 2 Pet. ii. 1 we have the prophecy that “there shall be false teachers, who shall privily bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master that bought them.” Here the false teachers are evidently inside the Church, corrupting its members; not outside, inducing its members to leave it. For the prophecy continues: “And many shall follow their lascivious doings; by reason of whom the way of the truth shall be evil spoken of.” They could not cause “the way of the truth to be evil spoken of,” if they were complete outsiders, professing to have no connexion with it. In Gal. v. 20 “heresies” are among “the works of the flesh” against which St. Paul warns his fickle converts, and “heresies” are there coupled with “factions” and “divisions.” In 1 Cor. xi. 19 the Apostle gives as a reason for believing the report that there are divisions in the Church of Corinth the fact that (man’s tendency to differ being what it is) divisions are inevitable, and have their use, for in this way those which are approved among Christians are made manifest. It is possible in both these passages to understand St. Paul as meaning the “self-chosen views,” as in the passage in 2 Pet., rather than the schools or parties which have adopted the views. But this is not of much moment. The important thing to notice is, that in all three cases the “heresies” have caused or are tending to cause splits inside the Church: they do not indicate hostile positions outside it. This use of the word is analogous to that in the Acts of the Apostles, where it represents the Pharisees and Sadducees, and even the Christian Church itself, as parties or schools inside Judaism, not as revolts against it. We shall be seriously misled, if we allow the later meaning of “heresy,” with all its medieval associations, to colour our interpretation of the term as we find it in the New Testament.