Collection › LCMS Convention Workbook (St. Louis, Missouri) › 1969 · 48th Convention › Sheet 562
LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Sheet 562

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

THEOLOGY OF FELLOWSHIP 531

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.8

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.?

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.!°

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.

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

[scil. of the Christian doctrine] which are necessary to
believe.!?

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.!8

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-
ive side of heresy.

However Luther, like Augustine, also knows a sub-
jective side of heresy. On this subject he writes:

... They [scil. heretics] are not conquered by the power
of evidence, they do not permit themselves to be led
by reason, also they are not won through the reputation
of others, but are proud against all these things, and
keep the upper hand, until the hand of the Highest
changes them.!7

He stresses in particular the love of honor on the
part of heretics:

Thus do commonly at all times all heretics, that they
draw to themselves the honor, which is due the Church
and the people of God; for each of them pretends to be
closest to God.}8

Again:

Heretics do not merely err, but refuse to be instructed,
defend their error as being right, and fight against the
truth, which they know, and against their own con-
science. Concerning such St.Paul says (Titus 3:10, 11):
You are to avoid a heretic, when he has been admonished
once or twice and you are to know, that such a man is
perverted, and sins autocatacritos, that is, intentionally
and against better knowledge, and wants to remain in
his error.19

In the course of time Luther came to the conclusion
that heresy is the sin against the Holy Ghost, because he
had never seen or read of a heretic being converted.

I have ... never read, that the teachers who start
heresies have been converted; they remain hardened in
their opinion . . . they do not permit anyone to teach
them or to hinder them. This is the sin against the Holy
Ghost, for which there is no forgiveness. For it finds
neither sorrow nor repentance, but defense and excuses,
as though it were a holy, precious thing, and as though
the true Gospel, which is against it, were wholly of the
devil,.20
In view of this essentially Augustinian concept of
heresy and heretic in Luther we are not surprised to
find Luther agreeing with Augustine also in his refusal
to consider erring Christians heretics.
Concerning a man who is ignorant of an article of
faith he says:

That man cannot be called a heretic, who is not ac-
quainted with an article of faith.?

In defense of himself against the charge that he is
a heretic, he writes: