# LCMS Convention Workbook_St. Louis Missouri_1969_S541 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) 530 THEOLOGY OF FELLOWSHIP teachers within Christian congregations. these difficul- ties increased greatly after the death of the apostles. The return of the Lord to judgment, which He Himself had foretold (Matt. 24:3 ff.), and which the church ap- pears to have expected as imminent (Phil. 4:5: 2 Thess. 2:1-3), was delayed. This was used by some as an excuse for a slackening of Christian living (2 Peter 3:3,4). Moreover, the church, even under persecution, experienced a phenomenal growth, penetrating ever more deeply into the farthest reaches of the Roman Empire and beyond. The church found it increasingly difficult to keep herself free of manifestly impenitent sinners. Also the problem of the so-called “lapsi,” peo- ple who had denied their Lord during persecution but later repented and desired to be readmitted to the church, troubled the church throughout the period of the persecutions and beyond. While the church wrestled with these problems, she was constantly engaged in the struggle against heresy and schism. Of one thing the church was certain: no heretic and no schismatic could be a member of the church.! However, the definition of heresy and heretic, and of schism and schismatic was not simple. So long as the heretics were men like the Gnostics, who held fanciful and often revolting concepts of God. or Doce- tists. who taught that the Son of God had not really come in the flesh (1 John 4:2, 3), they could easily be identified and branded heretics. When. however, more subtle errors arose, or when heretics used language which appeared to differ but little from that employed by orthodox teachers of the church, it became possible for an Arius to mislead even bishops and emperor, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that this man was finally identified as a heretic and excommunicated. It is not possible to gain an unequivocal definition of heresy and heretic from the church fathers. The father who spoke most specifically on this question is Saint Augustine. 3. St. Augustine’s Definition of Heresy and Schism St. Augustine admitted that the definition of heresy and heretic was anything but simple. When a deacon by the name of Quodvultdeus asked him “to write a com- pendium of all heresies which have spawned against the teaching of the Lord our Saviour since the time of His coming,” Augustine responded that two learned bishops had compiled such lists, but that one had listed 128 heresies, the other 80. He concludes: This would surely not have happened if what appeared heresy to one of them had also appeared heresy to the other. ... Undoubtedly, when there was a question of deciding what constitutes a heresy they did not see it in the same way. As a matter of fact, this is an ex- tremely difficult definition to formulate, and when we try to enumerate all of them we have to be on our guard. not to pass over some which are really heresies or to include some which are not.2 Though St. Augustine admits that the definition of heresy and heretic is difficult. he clearly operates with a definition, and it is possible to show from his writings what that definition was. Augustine recognized in heresy an objective element which is common to all heresy. and he also recognized in heretics a number of subjective elements. a. The Objective Element of Heresy The objective element which all heresies and heretics have in common is error in doctrine; that is, a departure from some phase of the rule of faith as it gradually took form amid the labors and struggles of the church, first in the so-called Baptismal Confession, and in time in the Apostles’ Creed.” In his interpretation of the tares among the wheat, Augustine says: . it may also be said, that the children of the evil one (mali) are heretics, who, though begotten out of the same seed of the Gospel and name of Christ, have been turned to wicked opinions and false dogmas.1 In this understanding of the objective element of heresy Augustine is at one with the understanding of the church both before and after him. b. The Subjective Elements of Heresy Among the subjective elements of heresy, which are to be found in the person of the heretic, Augustine lists obstinacy, perversity, intractability, and the desire for personal gain and glory. Writing to a friend, Honoratus, who was himself under the influence of heresy, and whom Augustine was seeking to win away from it, he writes: A heretic, as I suppose, is one who for some temporal advantage, and chiefly for his own glory and preemi- nence, begets or follows new and false opinions.5 To the subjective characteristics of the genuine heretic, in Augustine’s opinion, belongs obstinacy in de- fending his error. Those ... in the Church of Christ who savor anything morbid and depraved, and, on being corrected that they may savor what is wholesome and right, contumaciously resist, and will not mend their pestiferous and deadly dogmas, but persist in defending them become heretics, and going without [scil. the Church] are to be reckoned as enemies. .. 6 A clear recognition of the subjective elements which characterize the genuine heretic enables St. Augustine to draw a sharp line of distinction between a heretic and an erring person who is not a heretic. Not to be classed as heretics, according to Augustine, are persons who are deceived by a heretic, and in ignorance follow him. Writing to Honoratus, who was enmeshed in the toils of the Manichaean heresy, he writes: If I thought, Honoratus, that there was no difference between a heretic and one who follows heretics, I should judge that my tongue and my pen alike should remain quiescent in this matter. But there is a great difference. A heretic, as I suppose, is one who for some temporal advantage, and chiefly for his own glory and preemi- nence, begets or follows new and false opinions. He who trusts such men is deluded by some illusory appearance of truth and piety. This being so, I thought I ought not keep silent... .7 Also not an heretic, according to St. Augustine, is a person in the Catholic church, who holds an heretical opinion, however in the erroneous persuasion that it is the teaching of the church. Concerning such a person Augustine says: