LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1965, Page 275

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THEOLOGY OF FELLOWSHIP 275

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.®

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... 8

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:

I consider him as not yet a heretic unless, when the doc-
trine of the Catholic faith is made clear to him, he
chooses to resist it, and prefers that which he already
holds®

According to Augustine people who inherited error
are not to be accounted heretics.

. . . those who maintain their own opinion, however
false and perverted, without obstinate ill will, especially
those who have not originated their own error by bold
presumption, but received it from parents, who had been
led astray and had lapsed, those who seek truth with
careful industry, ready to be corrected when they have
found it, are not to be rated among heretics.9

Less sharp is Augustine’s definition of schism and
schismatic, though he is firm on the proposition that
neither heretics nor schismatics are true members of
the church. Concerning the difference between a heretic
and a schismatic he says:

It is customary also to ask wherein schismatics differ
from heretics, and to find that it is not a different faith
which makes schismatics, but the fact that a group has
broken fellowship.1°

When Cresconius, who was in the Donatist schism,
resented having Donatists called heretics, he stated the
difference between heresy and schism as follows:

A heresy is a sect following different beliefs; a schism
a separation following the same beliefs.

Augustine accepted this. However, he adds a bit later:

I can approve even more that distinction between schism
and heresy, according to which a schism is said to be
a recent dissension in the congregation from some di-
versity of opinion (for a schism cannot happen, unless
those who make it follow something different); a heresy,
however, is a schism which has become old (in-
veteratum).

He offers that if the Donatists will concede this, he
will call them schismatics rather than heretics.1

4. The Concept of Heresy and Heretic in Luther

We consider it useful to append to this study of the
concept of heresy and schism in St. Augustine a study
of the concept of heresy and heretic in Luther, who
owed so much in his theology initially to Augustine.

Luther, even as Augustine, knows an objective and
a subjective side in heresy and heretics. Essentially his
statements agree with those of the Bishop of Hippo. On
the objective side of heresy he says:

A heretic is a person who does not believe those parts
[seil. of the Christian doctrine] which are necessary to
believe.12

Tetzel had called Luther a heretic because he had
written against indulgences. That, countered Luther, is
not a heresy since the matter of indulgences is not an
article of faith.

Commenting on Acts 24:14 Luther says:

Within Christendom all those are called heretics, who
step outside the unity and common manner of the Chris-
tian faith .. . and believe in a manner peculiar to them-
selves, and choose ways for themselves; therefore the
two words catholicus and haereticus are against each
other. Catholicus he is called who is with the multitude
and agrees wholly with the entire congregation in faith
and spirit; as St.Paul says to the Ephesians, ch. 4, v. 5;
one baptism, one faith, one Lord, one Spirit, etc.; but
haereticus he is called who invents a way and party of
his own. Therefore haereticus really means a man who
has his own opinion in divine matters, a peculiar man
(ein Sonderling) who knows something better, and
chooses his own way to heaven.13

Commenting on Ps. 11:1, Luther writes:

The holy fathers understood this Psalm of the heretics,
and rightly so; only we must understand under heretics
all those who teach a different righteousness than the
righteousness which avails before God like the Jews and
all those who urge works, or all who trust in their works,
of whom the Church today is full... 14

Again Luther writes:

This is a mark of all heretics, hypocrites, and enthusiasts,
that they invent their own picture of God.15

Again he says:

That man is not to be called a heretic who, contrary to
the commands of the Church omits ceremonies, even
though he sins, because he does not keep what he prom-
ised... . That man must be called a heretic who errs
stubbornly in an article of faith, and maintains his
error.16

Similar expressions could be multiplied on the objec-
tive side of heresy.