A formal doubt or rejection of the central beliefs of Christianity was referred to as heresy. It differs from apostasy and division, though. Apostasy is the complete rejection of Christianity and its beliefs after a person has voluntarily embraced them. Schism, on the other hand, is a purposeful and formal division of Christianity that is not grounded in any fundamental beliefs or teachings. (Madigan).
Since there was no doctrine in the first century, there was no heresy. In the old translation of the New Testament, heresies were essentially significant differences in viewpoint. Various small communities in the early ages practiced and believed in whatever they pleased. There were no central authorities, no church hierarchy, no established body of doctrines, no greed on scriptures and no set rituals at this point in time. During this period, each Christian group was free to believe whatever it wanted. Due to this freedom, ideas and practices in various communities diverged and resulted in conflict of doctrinal interest (Madigan).
Heresy Repression
Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons at the end of the second century, saw the increase in development of different opinions due to the freedom of worship. Irenaeus tried to establish orthodox body of teaching by writing five-volume work against heresies. He also compiled a canon of the New Testament. Additionally, he claimed that there was only one church and that outside that there could be no salvation. According to Irenaeus, the \heretics were to be expelled form the church and if possible, be destroyed. The first Christian Emperor agreed upon the suggestions by Irenaeus and they agreed to destroy the heretics in unison (Ames).
Constantine the Great prohibited the assemblies of the heretics and destroyed their properties following the preamble that was ill with passion and reproach against heretics. The confisticated properties of the heretics were either used for creating revenue to the Catholic Church. The sects against whom the imperial severity was directed appear to have been the adherents of Paul of Samosata; the Mountains of Phrygia, who maintained an enthusiastic succession of prophesy; the Novitians, who sternly rejected the temporal efficacy of repentance; the Marcoinites and Valentians, under whose leading banners the various Gnosticc of Egypt and Asia insensibly rallied; ad perhaps the Manicheans who had recently imported from Persia a more artful composition of oriental and Christian theology.
Laws against heresy were further established under the Christian Emperor Theodosius I in 380 AD. The laws of Theodosius and his new rules, it stated that those persons who follow the rules should embrace the name of Catholic Christian. Those who do not however, shall be adjudged demented and insane and shall sustain the infamy of heretical dogmas. The heretic places of meetings shall not receive the name of churches and shall face by divine vengeance and retribution of the Christian's own initiative that shall assume in accordance with the divine judgment (Ames).
Between 354 and 430 AD, St Augustine taught that error has no rights. He cited biblical texts such as Luke 14: 16-23 to justify the use of compulsion. According to him, Christ himself blinded the apostle Paul in order for him to see the true light. Coercion by use of great violence was justified by St Augustine. He distinguished between the unbelievers who were persecuted due to cruelty from Christians who were persecuted as a result of love. According to him, the war aimed at preservation restoration of the unity of the church was a just war waged by God himself. St Augustine also found a way of preventing the churchmen from getting blood on their hands by allowing anyone condemned by the church to be punished by the state since he proposed that a dissention against the church was a dissention against the state. The ideas of St Augustine culminated in the activities of inquisition that required secular authorities to adopt the Roman methods of torture in order for the church to ensure uniformity by punishing those who did not conform to their teachings and doctrines. In 385 AD, the first executions on heretics were carried on under the reign of Emperor Maximus at the request of the Spanish bishops. An Avalian bishop by the name Priscillian was charged with witchcraft though his real crime was agreeing with Gnostic opinions. E was tried and tortured along with his companions by the state. They were expected after they confessed and now the church had precedents for both persecuting heretic and witch hunting based in the moral opinions of St Augustine (Delph, Ronald, Michelle, and John).
Heresy is the theoretical denial of essential Christian doctrines in a public and in an obstinate manner. Practical deviation from the current orthodox doctrines was considered to be judicial heresy. During the 5th century, more than hundred active statutes in the Christian empire were formulated concerning heresy. Virtually all-Christian theologians from St Augustine onwards agreed that heretics were to be persecuted and killed. The act of heresy was considered a kin to leprosy during the early centuries and was viewed as a disease that that had potential threats to the health of the church and its believers. Such diseases were to be exterminated at all costs. St Thomas Aquinas even though it wise to burn the heretics virtuously and even favored the opinion of burning them alive. The execution of heretics became more common in the turn of the millennium and the grounds for doing so become more unlikely. In 1051, a group of Christians at Goslar in Germany were executed fro heresy only because thy refused or declined to kill chickens (Delph, Ronald, Michelle, and John).
Many popes were in support of extirpation of anyone disagreeing with the current papal line of opinions. Some these popes preached and embraced republican ideas of ancient Rome. They had the papal authority to execute the heretics.
The Waldensians preached to the poor and provided for their basic needs. Waldo developed hatred for the clergy by commissioning a translation of the bible into Occitan, a language of what is now southern of France. The Waldensians heresies were numerous in number and they read the translated bible for themselves, denied a temporal authority of the priests and massively objected the papal corruption. They rejected various accretions such as mass, [prayers for the dead, confessions, church music, indulgences, penances, adoration of saints, killing and swearing of sacrament. They also allowed their women to preach which was contrary to the opinions of the popes. These heretics were excommunicated in 1184 and executed with zeal at the Council of Verona. 150 of these heretics were burnt Grenoble in 1393 in a single day. Those who survived flew to the remote valleys in the Alps. Pope Innocent VIII organized a crusade against the heretics in attempt to execute and completely do away with them but this was not successful. Anyone who denied attending the Roman Catholic Church was liable for crusification upside down. There was however variations in the manner in which executions were conducted in various cities. Some of the heretics were dangerously maimed and left to die of starvation while some had strips of flesh cut off from their bodies and left bleeding to death. Some of them were stoned, others impaled alive upon hooks and stakes and other even literally minced. Some of the heretics had their toes and fingers chopped off in sections, amputated each day in attempt for them to accept and adopt the roman faith. Other also had their mouths stacked with gunpowder, which was then ignited to blow. Paolo Garnier of Roras was literally castrated then skinned alive. Various children of the heretics were killed alive before the eyes of their parents and the few who escaped to the valleys and mountains were killed by exposure, disease or starvation (Delph, Ronald, Michelle, and John).
Heresy has widely covered more and more areas of belief. Some popes such as Paschal I, who was in the papal throne between 1099 and 1118, claimed that any person who disagreed with the apostolic teachings and doctrines should be considered a heretic. Pope Innocent III in 1199, declared heresy as a high treason against God and called for the execution of and excommunication of those persisted in the heretic activities. According to him, those individuals who literally interpret Jesus' teachings about limiting their statements to a straight no or yes are heretics who are worthy of death. Thos who refused to swear in court were also considered heretics according to him. Pope Gregory IX in 1229 declared that it was the duty of all Catholics to execute and prosecute heretics. He preached against people whose heresy amounted to more than just rejecting the temporal authority of the Archbishop of Bremen. Under the command of these bishops and the popes, most of the heretics were persecuted through death and other drowned along with children, women and older men. The whole population of the heretics was exterminated under the watch of these Christian leaders (Van).
The apostolic commands of pope Innocent IV, the archbishop of Narbione order the consignment of 200 heretics to the flames in the year 1243. Every kind of this operation leading to consignment of these individuals resulted from heresy. It was heretical to eat meat on Friday, to criticize cleric, read bible, eat meat on Friday, to know Greek, to refuse to pay church taxes or to deny that money lending was sinful. The idea of St Augustine that error has no right became of a favorite of persecutors and the great sin was mostly cited as an authority for operations of all sorts of heresy. Under Pope John XXII and 14th century popes were burnet for heresy for claiming that Christian apostles had not owned property, preaching absolute poverty and refusing to lay huge granaries of foods. A sect about the Apostlicals founded in 1300 tried to live as apostles. Those who are lucky were burned on the stake while the others suffered gross fates (Van).
In the early 14th century the knights templar were accused of heresy. Their charges were acknowledged and were inspired by his desire to seize their wealth. A church council was summoned to consider the question and despite the templer's torture there was no enough evidence to judge against the Templers. Pope Clement V permitted individual Templers in the western Christendom to be tortured and burned in order to please the king. This idea was aroused by the fact that the Heresies existed in groups that were organized to worship Satan much as Christians worshipped God. This idea was greatly responsible for the emergence of witches into malignant agents of the devil. The Templers were considered harmless before their trials and as they were skilled in folk medicine and the act of weather forecasting. Now they were considered heretics who deliberately eroded the Christian practices and doctrines. They were thought to be making pacts with the devil hence an enemy of Christianity. They saw the consequences of their deliberate actions through persecutions and executions (Van).
An Italian scientist by the name of Cecco d'Ascoli was literally burnt on the stake in 1327 for calculating the date of Jesus' birth by use of the stars. There were however more significant heresies than astrology at that point in time. Teachings of John Wycliffe of England, Jan Hus and Gerad Groot of Netherlands promoted the church reforms that highly condemned the heretical conducts. In this regard, heresy constituted refusal to take oaths and paying church taxes. Any deviation from the norms of the church was enough to merit death of the deviator. The rejection of infant baptism, vegetarianism, and the rejection of the previous orthodox view that people should be given both wine and bread at mass were also considered heresy and could be extremely punished (Van).
2000 heretics were burned in the tiny state of Andalusia under Pope Sixtus in 1482. Pope Leo X in 1520 condemned Martin Luther for daring to state that the burning of the heretics was against the will of God. The pope thought it to be presumptuous for ordinary human to claim that they know the will of God. He was perhaps right since martin Luther in 1531 changed his mind and stated to advocate for the death penalty of the heretics and the blasphemers. He thought that it should be a huge offence to deny the resurrection of the dead or the reality of heaven and hell (Ames).
According the Roman Church, translation of the bible into other languages and helping in the printing of such bible publications was considered a heresy. In Europe, women were buried alive for practicing heresy. In Paris, one printer was burned on a pyre of his own books. In the 16th century, William Tyndale managed to translate the bible into English. This placed him in so much danger of being arrested. He fled away for the fear of his life and was later arrested in Netherlands. In 1536 h was executed for heresy for agreeing with the doctrines of Luther of justification by faith (Ames).
The Calvinists, Lutherans and Catholics persecuted the precursors of modern Baptists, also known as Anabaptists, alike. The main crimes of the Anabaptists were the calling for special reforms that favored adult baptism over the baptism of infants. Their other offences were the embracement of pacifism, whereby they refused the killing of condone any capital punishment or offering services to the army. They also advocated for ancient Antinomian views. The leaders of the Anabaptists died in various ways. Some of them were burned on the stake in 152, other drowned. Still some of them had their tongues chopped off and mutilated by red-hot pincers and others burned alive in 1527 for a range of beliefs, non of which would now merit criminal persecution. When the whole city went together to join the Anabaptists, the Catholics and Protestants would join forces to retake the city from the Anabaptists. The leaders of the Anabaptist were tortured publicly to death with red-hot pincers and their bodies hanged in cages outside the church where they remained for some years before they could be removed (Ames).
The variety of offences that wee considered heretical was ever expanding and flexible. During this period, it was still a crime to read the bible or cite pages that were considered inappropriate from the bible. In 1676, a protestant writing master from Toledo was burned alive in the stake for decorating his room with the full texts of the Ten Commandments. The Roman Catholic Church deliberately omitted the part of the second commandment that forbids the worship and rendering reverence to images.
The persecution of heretics in England was less popular than elsewhere in Europe. Most of the refugees who denied the necessity for baptism, the mass and matrimony fled to England under Henry II to escape persecution. In 1166 at Oxford, these refugees were tried by the ecclesiastical court being presided over by the King himself and were later found guilty of heresy. These victims were seared on the foreheads with hot irons and whipped through the streets, sent into the countryside to die of exposure in the winter snow since there was no precedent that existed for sentencing he victims. None of the heretics would be offered food or shelter by anyone. Anyone who was found any support in whatever way to the heretics would be considered to have disobeyed the voice of god and to abet heresy, and would be rendered sinful and unchristian (Midigan).
John Wycliffe who was a proto-protestant rector of Lutterworth in Leicester was the most eminent scholar at Oxford. His scholarship gave him a measure of protection during his lifetime, especially since there was limited official statute in England that covered the offences on heresy. Jan Hus, the Rector of Prague university was significantly influenced by the ideas of Wycliffe and he refused to surrender his books when order by the Pope. Supported by King Wenceslas, he denounced the practice of granting indulgences hence spreading his preaching of Wycliffe's ideas far and wide. While traveling under safe conduct from the emperor Sigismund, he was arrested and tried by the church council of Constance that later disregarded his safe conducts on the grounds that the church did not need to keep faith with a heretic. Hus was burned on the 6th July of 1415, making him a Czech national hero. His ideas rapidly spread from Bohemia to Austria, Saxony, Silesia, Bavaria and Hungary (Ames).
The church had no way to handle Wycliffe and his followers who were now called the Lollards. William Courtney, the Archbishop of Canterbury and his fellow bishops filled in the omission by forging the Act of Parliament to deal with heresy. The parliament however, spotted the imposture and the House of Commons petitioned the King in 1383 to annul this fake statute as never assented to by the Commons. Genuine and mild statutes were later passed but the church was still not hay with them. The prelates insisted on death penalties and a series of statutes known as de haeretico comburendo were passed in 1401 under King Henry IV. This statute introduced the death penalty for heresy. They were unable to define the offence and so heresy remained to be what the church defined it to be. The unrepentant heretics were to be burned to death publicly (Delph, Michelle and John).
Espousing unorthodox views were trivial and could result in death penalties. In 1528, Patrick Hamilton was burned for holding heretical opinions such as denying the freedom of the will. In 1546, Anne Askew was burned because of her beliefs about the Eucharist (Van).
Conclusion
Heresy has seen tremendous persecutions by the Christian faith. Various atrocities have been imposed on these individuals just because of their difference in religious opinions. Their exposures and refusal to subscribe to the Christian faith has seen most of such individuals being mercilessly tortured, hanged on torture stakes, stroked by hot iron rods, drowned and ruthlessly persecuted to death. The Catholic Church had moved to the extent of imposing legislations that saw the heretics being persecuted and convicted by the state. Because of secular laws, the churches now find it difficult o persecute the heretics even though persecution still remains a part of the mainstream Christian thought. The oath that is taken by the Roman Catholic bishops at their consideration often involves the will to persecute and wage war against heretics.
Works Cited
Ames, Christine C. Righteous Persecution: Inquisition, Dominicans, and Christianity in the Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. Print.
Madigan, Kevin. Medieval Christianity: A New History. , 2015. Print.
Delph, Ronald K, Michelle Fontaine, and John J. Martin. Heresy, Culture, and Religion in Early Modern Italy: Contexts and Contestations. Kirksville, Mo: Truman State University Press, 2006. Print.
Van, der S. G. "The Historical Development of the Right to Freedom of Religion." Tydskrif Vir Die Suid-Afrikaanse Reg. (2004): 259-272. Print.
