The Meanings and Occurrences of the Underlying Words for “Heresy”

The words “heretic” and “heresy” in English New Testament translations are actually transliterations of Greek words that primarily denote division or divisiveness. They are used with those primary meanings in Acts. They did not come to secondarily connote teaching,teachers or doctrines disapproved by a church organization until the late second century. Tha authors of the New Testament did not know of this later technical meaning.

The words “heretic” and “heresy” in English New Testament translations are actually transliterations of the Koine Greek noun hairesis and related phrase hairetikon anthrōpon (in which hairetikon is an adjective). They were transliterated rather than translated, in some but not all contexts, first in medieval Latin (haereticus, haeresis), then in English and most other languages into which the Bible has been translated, largely in order to preserve their already-established application as an ecclesiastical law terms of art at the time the translations were prepared.  The use of “heresy” and “heretic” as ecclesiastical terms of art did not first arise until Irenaeus of Lyons popularized this use of the words in his work Against Heresies, c.a. 180 C.E.^3,4,5. See, Latourette, 131; MacCulloch, Christianity, 143 (full citations to these books are given at the end of this post). However, in addressing the subject of “heresies”–in his book, primarily those of the Gnostics–Irenaeus properly gave his first attention to the persons of those who use false teachings to create divisions: “certain men [who] have set the truth aside… and by means of their craftily-constructed plausibilities draw away the minds of the inexperienced and take them captive.” Against Heresies I.1. Only after setting forth his view that the real problem is the divisive persons who use false teachings to create themselves a following does Irenaeus approach the falsehood of the teachings.

Heresy did not obtain permanent legal recognition as an offense against the state until Emperor Theodosius I made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire in 380 C.E.^6,7,8.—although Christians, particularly bishops and scholars, considered heretics by emperors currently in power, had sometimes been punished as such throughout the Fourth Century, starting with the conversion of Constantine to the toleration and official use of Christianity in 312 C.E⁹.  (I state the matter of Constantine’s “conversion” in this way because it is not clear that Constantine was “converted” to saving faith in Christ at the Milvian Bridge experience in 312 C.E., though he likely had reached that point by the time of his death 25 years later.  In the interim, his attitude toward Christ was changing, and complicated, something that is also true of many of us.)  See, Ellul, Subversion, 122-124; Latourette, 97-98, 153-163; MacCulloch, Christianity, 211-221; Sandgren, 494-495.  There is little or no evidence that the writers of the New Testament were aware of the later technical meanings of hairesis or hairetikos, or that they used the terms in the technical sense in their writings.

In fact, in a majority of the places the noun hairesis is used in the New Testament, it is clearly not used in the later, technical sense.  The primary meaning of hairesis is a religious “sect,” a political “party” or a philosophical “school^10,11,” Arndt and Gingrich, 23, that is, a group that has separated itself on political or ideological lines. The word is, in turn, derived from the verb haireo, which means “to take” or “to choose.” The essence of the word is the making of a choice. In Acts 5:17, for example, the Sadducees are referred to as a sect (hairesis) of the Jews.  Here, hairesis is plainly used in its primary meaning of a “sect,” those who have formed a separate group within the larger body of Judaism on ideological lines, and it is here uniformly translated as “sect,” or something similar, not “heresy,” in all English translations.  The Pharisees are called a Jewish hairesis in Acts 15:5 and 26:5, Christians (“Nazarenes”) are called by others a Jewish hairesis in Acts 24:5 and 28:22, and Paul agrees that others have called him a member of a Jewish hairesis in Acts 24:14.  None of these references give any hint of the technical meaning of the word. But, after translating hairesis uniformly as “sect,” or some other term without the technical meaning of “heresy” throughout Acts, translators are just as consistent translating hairesis using the technical term “heresy” where the same word occurs in the epistles of Peter and Paul. Some also translate the related phrase hairetikon anthrōpon using the technical word “heretic” in Titus 3:10^12,13(the only place where it occurs).  A consideration of those uses of hairesis and hairetikos, in the order of their appearance, will follow in the next few posts.

NEXT: A Disagreement Over Doctrine does Not Necessarily Lead to Heresy–Acts 15.

Print References for this Series

Arndt, W.F. and F.W. Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Second Ed. (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago 1979) (“Arndt & Gingrich”).

Ellul, Jacques, The Subversion of Christianity (Eugene, OR; Wipf & Stock, 1986) (“Ellul, Subversion”).

 Latourette, K.S., A History of Christianity: Vol. 1: to A.D. 1500 (S.F.: Harper 1975; Prince Press reprint 1999) (“Latourette”).

 Louw, J.P., E.A. Nida, R.B. Smith & K.A. Munson, Eds., Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, Second Ed. (N.Y.:  United Bible Societies1989) (“Louw & Nida”)

MacCulloch, D., Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (N.Y.: Penguin 2009) (“MacCulloch, Christianity“).

 Sandgren, L.D., Vines Intertwined: A History of Jews and Christians from the Babylonian Exile to the Advent of Islam (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson 2011) (“Sandgren”).

Thayer, J.H.  Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: AP &A n.d.) (“Thayer”).