The Origin of Heresy

A History of Discourse in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity

Robert M. Royalty

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136277429
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Christianity

Heresy is a central concept in the formation of Orthodox Christianity. Where does this notion come from? This book traces the construction of the idea of 'heresy' in the rhetoric of ideological disagreements in Second Temple Jewish and early Christian texts and in the development of the polemical rhetoric against 'heretics, ' called heresiology. Here, author Robert Royalty argues, one finds the origin of what comes to be labelled 'heresy' in the second century. In other words, there was such as thing as 'heresy' in ancient Jewish and Christian discourse before it was called 'heresy.' And by the end of the first century, the notion of heresy was integral to the political positioning of the early orthodox Christian party within the Roman Empire and the range of other Christian communities.

This book is an original contribution to the field of Early Christian studies. Recent treatments of the origins of heresy and Christian identity have focused on the second century rather than on the earlier texts including the New Testament. The book further makes a methodological contribution by blurring the line between New Testament Studies and Early Christian studies, employing ideological and post-colonial critical methods.

Part I
Genealogy of a Discourse

1
The Origin of Heresy

There are so many ways to commit heresy these days as to suggest the old adage that it’s getting hard to commit an original sin. One can commit heresy by serving the wrong wine at dinner, breaking with your political party on a policy, running on third-and-long, or changing a business plan. Every business, group, club, and organization seems to have its “heretics” who challenge the “reigning orthodoxy” of the system. One can still, of course, commit heresy the old-fashioned way—in a religious community.¹ Christians invented this concept still used so widely today. While shared among several religions, the idea of “heresy” is central to the history of Christianity, from the fourth-century ecumenical councils of Nicea and Chalcedon, to the Medieval Inquisition and Reformation, to recent clashes over sexual practice and critical church histories.

The word “heresy” comes from the ancient Greek word hairesis, meaning a choice, school of thought, sect, or party, which was itself derived from the verb haireō, which meant to choose or prefer one thing over another. The word hairesis had wide, fairly common, and non-pejorative meanings in the ancient Hellenistic world.² The meaning of the word changes, however, from the late first century CE, when it appears in writings of the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus and the Acts of the Apostles to designate what we might call denominations or sects of Judaism, to the middle of the second century, when Christian writers start to employ it with the technical sense of incorrect doctrine, religious deviance, or error.³

That significant ideological shift in the meaning of hairesis is the focus of this book: the origins of “heresy” in early Christianity and the development of heresiology, the Christian genre of polemical rhetoric against “heretics.” The development of heresiology in orthodox Christianity from the second century CE onwards has been well studied by historians of the early Church; I will begin with a summary of that story. But going deeper into the origins, or genealogy, of the idea of heresy takes me to the rhetoric of difference and disagreement in the first-century texts of the New Testament and the writings of Second Temple Judaism. Here, I argue, we find the origin of what comes to be labeled “heresy” in the second century. In other words, there was such a thing as “heresy” in ancient Jewish and Christian discourse before it was called “heresy.”

This discourse, the rhetoric of difference that becomes orthodox Christian heresiology, can be located in political conflicts between Christian groups of the first century. I argue that the orthodox project of political hegemony under the ideological banner of Christian unity begins, as with all the different aspects of Christianity, in the first century among Jesus’ earliest followers. This book joins the larger historical project among scholars of early Christianity to recover lost and suppressed Christian voices. In addition to expressing my commitment to an ethic of theological diversity within Christianity, this book should call into question the demonizing, destructive heresiological patterns that continue to mark our religious and political rhetoric. Such correlations might be hard to break, since they are integral to the Christian notion of heresy. As a regime of knowledge and technology of power within early Christian social formations, the notion of heresy has had a political function, from its origins in apocalyptic Judaism and contested identities of “Israel” to its central polemical role in early Christian discourse. By the beginning of the second century, the notion of heresy was central to the political positioning of the early orthodox Christian party within the Roman Empire against a range of other Christian groups.

In this chapter, I introduce that claim by reconsidering traditional constructions of the origins of Christianity in a framework of truth preceding error, or “orthodoxy” before “heresy”; the thorny problems in constructing the history of earliest Christianity from the New Testament, which was assembled much later than the first century; and the methodological issues in reading these early texts as “Christian.” I will describe my methodology of reading these texts by means of the rhetoric of difference and exclusion, with attention to Christian communities as colonial locations within the Roman Empire. I conclude with an outline of the book, my thesis, and the rhetoric of early Christian heresiology.

SPEAKING CHRISTIAN

The notion of heresy, I maintain, is integral to how people “speak Christian” and thus to Christian identity. This specifically Christian way of identifying and dealing with ideological difference has had long-lasting and profound effects on both Christian and later Islamic cultures. But it is important to clarify that I am using the word “Christian” as shorthand for one type of ancient Christianity, the party (a term I prefer because of its political connotations) that chose the term “orthodox” or “right-thinking” for themselves. Christian churches and denominations today, from Greek Orthodox (which retains the ancient name) and Roman Catholic to Baptist and Pentecostal churches, are theological descendants of the ancient orthodox Christians. As wide as the range of Christian beliefs and practices might appear today, it was even more diverse in the Roman Empire during the first few centuries. The range of people who took the name Christian—or who might be called “Christians” by historians today—was vast.

The orthodox party held that the ancient Hebrew Scriptures applied to Jesus of Nazareth and should be read as an “Old Testament”; that Jesus was both an actual man and the son of God; and that his death and resurrection were salvific acts of God in human history. That is an over-simplification but one intended to mark the similarities of modern Christian beliefs and the ancient orthodox Christians. Many if not most Christians today would find some point of agreement in these three dogmatic positions. But many, maybe even most people who followed Jesus of Nazareth in the first century had quite different ideas about who he was, where he came from, and what his death meant (if his death mattered to them at all). These other groups are often called Gnostic Christians, Marcionite Christians, Jewish Christians, and other inflected variations (inflections that retain the notion of “orthodox” origins). Scholars have even argued whether the word “Christian” should be used at all to describe these first- or second-century communities. I will, however, be more promiscuous in the use of the terms “orthodox” and “Christian” than many recent scholars. For the latter, I will include any text or group that focused their philosophy, belief, or practices on Jesus as a Christian text or community, regardless of whether they used the term. This would include Paul, the communities that produced the “Q source” found in Matthew and Luke, and the Gospel of Matthew itself. By so doing I do not mean to shoehorn the doctrine and ideology of fourth-century orthodox Christianity into these first-century texts and communities but rather to recognize some family resemblance within this wide diversity of belief and practices. And, as discussed ahead, I am not arguing for a common core of “true Christianity” in the first or second century. Furthermore, I will apply the term “orthodox,” in lowercase, more freely than even the current favorite “proto-orthodox,” not theologically but as a discursive and political label for leaders and communities in the generation after Paul, including some Gospel writers, disciples of Paul who wrote in his name, Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna.⁴ Within this wide variety of early Christianity, I will identify the ones who “spoke Christian” in ways that continue to mark Christian discourse today by employing the rhetoric of heresiology as the foundation of what came to be orthodox Christianity. Let us now turn to the acknowledged practitioners of this way of speaking Christian in the second century.

THE ORIGIN OF HERESY

The standard account for the origin of Christian heresiology begins with Justin of Flavia Neapolis about one hundred years after Paul founded churches in Asia and Greece.⁵ Justin and the other second-century Christians discussed here might not be as familiar as Paul, Jesus, and his disciples. Justin was a teacher and apologist (“defender”) of “Christians.” He wrote two Apologies to the Emperor of Rome, who no doubt never received nor read them, as well as an intriguing Dialogue with a Jewish character of Justin’s own literary creation named Trypho. An earlier contemporary of Justin by the name of Hegesippus was one of the first Christian historians. His writings are known only through Eusebius of Caesarea, whose fourth-century Ecclesiastical History (E.H.) provides an invaluable narrative of the development of Christianity—from his particular point of view and his strong advocacy of the Emperor Constantine. He quotes numerous texts at length, some of which would be otherwise lost. Irenaeus was a Christian bishop who wrote in Gaul (modern France) around 180 CE. He was a central figure in forming the New Testament canon as well as attacking a group of Christians he called “Gnostics.”

These so-called Gnostics were part of a larger group of second-century Christian authors known mainly through the writings of their opponents, such as Justin and Irenaeus, until the Nag Hammadi texts were discovered in 1948 in Egypt. This was the greatest single trove of documents for non-orthodox ancient Christianities.⁶ These Christian teachers were attacked and excluded by the orthodox as “heretics” from Justin and Irenaeus until late antiquity. The attacks could be bitter and harsh, and from our perspective often unfair, since orthodox writers distorted and misquoted their opponents’ views. Not all orthodox Christians approached Gnostics the same way, of course. The philosopher Valentinus, while grouped among the “Gnostic” texts found at Nag Hammadi, was read and admired by orthodox writers such as Clement of Alexandria.

Around 150 CE, Justin faced a political problem. His church name, St. Justin Martyr, reveals the stakes at hand. And names were important for him, particularly the use of the name “Christian,” which, as with the name and identity of “Jews,” was in considerable flux at this time. In his First Apology addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius and his sons, the Senate, and the people of Rome, Justin argues that Jesus’ followers have been condemned merely for the name “Christians” and that they deserve a fair hearing based on their deeds.⁷ Yet in defending Christians from attack on this name alone, Justin does not mean all Christians. There are many who take this same name whom Justin does not defend (1 Apol. 7.3). An important part of his task in this Apology is to separate the “right-thinking” (orthognōmoi) Christians, including himself and his followers, from these others who also claim the name Christianoi. While his party of “right-thinking” Christians should not be condemned by the name alone, Justin offers no defense for these others. Rather, he attacks them.

In roughly the center of the speech, Justin turns directly against these other Christian teachers as part of his appeal to the Romans that his group “be accepted … because we are speaking the truth” (1 Apol. 23.1).⁸ He claims that Simon, Menander, and Marcion, and their followers, all of whom are called Christians, really teach ideas put forth by demons.⁹ These demons are central to the genealogical relationship Justin constructs for the other Christian teachers.¹⁰ According to Justin, Simon Magus (the Simon of Acts 8:9–13) was a magician who traveled with a former prostitute, Helen, and was worshipped in Rome as a god.¹¹ Menander was a disciple of Simon’s who, under demonic influence, deceived Christians at Antioch by magic arts. Finally Marcion, still active as a teacher in Justin’s time, has “by the help of demons made many in every race of men to blaspheme and to deny God the Maker of the Universe.” He insinuat...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Routledge Studies in Religion
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Part I Genealogy of a Discourse
• 1 The Origin of Heresy
• 2 The Rhetoric of Difference in Israel
• 3 Reform and Revolution in the Roman Empire John the Baptist and the Disciples of Jesus
• 4 Paul and the Rhetoric of Difference
• 5 The Christian Gospels as Narratives of Exclusion
• Part II The Politics of Heresy
• 6 Policing the Boundaries The Politics of Heresiology
• 7 The Politics of Orthodoxy
• 8 Conclusions
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index