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A thirteenth-century genealogy of heresy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
How did the medieval Church cope with the existence, both in its past and its present, of dissent and heresy within its own body? The churchmen who were engaged in writing anti-heretical treatises in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries did not view the Church’s doctrinal history as a process of interplay between new, and possibly heterodox, ideas which defined and refined those ‘orthodox’ doctrines which became acceptable to the Church. Still less did they conceive of it in terms of Bauer’s ‘competing orthodoxies’, one of which eventually became dominant. For these polemicists, the Pauline injunction – Oportet et haereses esse in its Vulgate form (I Corinthians 11.9) – was interpreted as meaning that there must always be heresies among them. Heresy had existed as a separate entity from the inception of the Church; indeed, it was viewed almost as God-given, part of God’s scheme and the natural life of the Church, one of the four temptations sent to test and mould her. Moreover, although the heresies which had troubled the Church at various times sometimes seemed to be only distinctly related, polemicists held firmly to the conviction that all of these apparently distinct heresies were in fact offshoots of the one heresy. Their understanding of the Church’s doctrinal history, therefore, was of the intermittent manifestation, in a variety of guises, of this ‘heresy’ and its subsequent detection and repulsion by the Church. In looking back on this long history, polemicists were able to use past heresies to identify contemporary sects as heretical. At this level retrospection offered a means of combating the appeal of the ascetic and evangelical groups which were springing up during this period, many of which displayed an alarming potential to evade the control of the institutional Church. The retrospective example of the great heresies – the Arians and the Manicheans, for instance – thus provided a simple but effective method of warning the laity away from groups which the clerical and episcopal hierarchies found suspicious or threatening.
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References
1 For a useful, although now incomplete, list of the anti-heretical sources see Wakefield, W. L. and Evans, A. P., eds, Heresies of the High Middle Ages (New York, 1969) [hereafter Wakefield and Evans], pp. 633–8 Google Scholar. The sources contained in this list are directed against the so-called ‘popular’ heretical movements rather than those aimed more specifically at ‘intellectual’ heretics such as Abelard, these latter falling outside the scope of this article. Those authors who were concerned with popular heresy came from a wide range of geographical locations and occupations. A few were scholastic academics, many were inquisitors, some were popular preachers, others were parish priests or monks, but all wrote primarily to provide their colleagues with information about the beliefs and practices of tlieir opponents, and the arguments with which these could be countered; all of which was an essential weapon in the institutional Church’s struggle against heresy.
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4 A view expressed, e.g., by Bernard of Clairvaux: the persecutions and great doctrinal controversies were the earliest ‘temptations’ to which the Church was subjected; in Bernard’s own times the Church was faced with avarice and ambition among the clergy and the re-emergence of heresy; the final temptation would be the coming of the Antichrist and the Last Judgement. See Leclercq, J., ‘L’hérésie d’après S. Bernard de Clairvaux’, in Lourdaux, W. and Verhelst, D., eds, The Concept of Heresy in the Middle Ages: Proceedings of the International Conference of Louvain, May 13–16, 1973 (Louvain, 1976), pp. 12–14 Google Scholar.
5 The phrase is W. L. Wakefield’s. Cf. his ‘Notes on some antiheretical writings of the thirteenth century’, Franciscan Studies, 27 (1967), pp. 308–9.
6 Cf. II Tim. 2.17.
7 Cf. Rev. 2.6.
8 ‘In libris paganorum legimus quendam philosophum, qui piccagoras dicitur, quendam errorem instituisse; dicebat enim animas post mortem hominis alia corpora vel hominum vel pecorum vel avium ingredi, et ideo carnes abhominatus est. Huius errores moderni sibi vendicaverunt; et ecce inicium secte eorum. Marchionem, cherintum, et ebionem, in tempore, quo iohannes apostolus predicabat, in asia fuisse legimus, qui contra sanctum iohannem apostolum predicantes minorem filium patrem [sic] dicebant, omniaque transitoria non a deo salvatore, set [sic] a maligno facta; ob quam causam a beato iohanne antichrist! dicuntur. Et istos errores vestri patroni ab illis acceperunt. Fuerunt alii in persida, zeroen scilicet et arfaxat, qui inter reliquas blasphemias datorem mosaice legis deum tenebrarum dixerunt; quorum error a beato matheo et iuda et simone exsecratus est; et ecce alios patronos. Fuerunt alii, ymeneus scilicet et filetus, qui paulo resistentes resurrexionem minime credebant, qui saducei merito vocati sunt; et istos similiter habetis patronos. Fuit alius, qui ab apostolis ordinatus fuerat, nicholaus nomine, qui ab apostolis discedens unum et idem peccatum dixit hominem agere cum propria coniuge quam cum meretricibus vel quibuslibet feminis. Este similiter duo principia asseruit; cuius error in apocalipsi detestatur, domino dicente angelo ephesi: “hoc habes bonum, quia odisti facta nicholaitarum, que ego odi.” Et istum similiter habetis patronum. Fuerunt et alii, qui gnostici sunt dicti, qui inter cetera execramenta duos, unum bonum et alterum malum, deos asserebant; et istos similiter abetis patronos. Fuit et alius, manicheus nomine, qui omnia visibilia a diabolo facta asseruit. Fuit et aluis, tacianus nomine, qui carnes abominatus est. Et istos similiter abetis patronos, et quamplures alios, quos enumerare longissimum est.’ Durand of Huesca, Liber antiheresis, i, De statu ecclesie, ed. in Selge, K.-V., Die ersten Waldenser, mit Edition des Liber Antiheresis des Durandus von Osca, 2 vols (Berlin, 1967), 2, pp. 97–8.Google Scholar
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10 The most useful collection of these is Oehler, F., ed., Corpus haeresiologicum, 3 vols (Berlin, 1856-61)Google Scholar. For discussion of these and related texts see McClure, J., ‘Handbooks against heresy in the west, from the late fourth to the late sixth centuries’, JThS, 30 (1979), pp. 186–97 Google Scholar.
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14 Ebrard of Béthune, Liber antiheresis, ed. de La Bigne, M., Maxima bibliotheca veterum patrum, et antiquorum scriptorum ecclesiasticunorum, 24 (Lyons, 1677)Google Scholar, col. 1575. See Broeckx, , Le Catharisme, pp. 221–2 Google Scholar; some mention in Borst, A., Die Katharer (Freiburg, 1991), p. 22.Google Scholar
15 Wakefield and Evans, p. 732 n. 39.
16 ‘Sunt autem predestinatorum genera 1111°’. Quidam enim sunt qui dicunt bona omnia preordinata esse a deo bono, mala vero a diabolo cuncta; quem errorem traxerunt a Simone mago et a manicheis qui hanc perfidiam disseminasse leguntur. Alli vero delirant omnia inferiora regi secundum motum et cursum syderum aliorumque corporum superiorum, ctiam animam ipsam dum tegitur carne. Addunt etiam quod mundus sit eternus et quod Adam non fuerit primus homo. Quem errorem videntur traxisse et dictis Aristotelis maxime, prout inferius in suis allegationibus patebit … Quartum vero genus est illorum qui blasphemant non esse angelos aliquos neque animas hominum ista vita finita. Cuius auctores stultite Saducei primo fuerunt quam postea mutatus est quidam nomine Arabs qui domaticavit [sic] cum complicibus suis animam cum carne finiti. Adiecit et quidam alius nomine Zeno cum discipulis suis quod post modicum intervailum carne perempta perimatur et anima.’ St Peter Martyr of Verona (?), Summa contra haereticos, 23, ed. T. Kappeli, ‘Une Somme contre les hérétiques de S. Pierre Martyr?’, AFP, 17 (1947), pp. 331–2.
17 Cf.Ricchini, T., Moneta de Cremone: Adversus Catharos et Valdenses (Rome, 1743; facsimile reprint Ridgewood, N.J., 1964), p. 411 Google Scholar, n. 78. See also Selge, , Die ersten Waldenser, 2, p. 7, n. for line 24Google Scholar; Thouzellier, Une somme, p. 75, n. for line 14.
18 Eckbert of Schönau, Tresdecim sermones contra Catharos, 1, ed. R.J. Harrison, ‘Eckbert of Schonau’s “Sermones contra Kataris”’, 2 vols (Ohio State University Ph.D. thesis, 1990), 1, p. 22 (I am grateful to Dr Harrison for permission to cite his unpublished work). The standard study of the Sermones is R. Manselli, ‘Ecberto di Schònau e l’eresia catara in Germania all metà de secolo XII’, in Arte de storia: studi in onore di Leonello Vincenti (Turin, 1965), pp. 309–38. See Harrison, ‘Eckbert’, 1, ch. 1 for biography of Eckbert.
19 Wakefield and Evans, p. 732 n. 39.
20 The descriptions of the myth of Zurvan in fact come from Christian Armenian and Syriac authors; their common source may be Theodore of Mopsuestia; on this cf.Gnoli, G., ‘Zurvanism’, in Eliade, M., ed.. Encyclopedia of Religion (New York, 1987), p. 59 Google Scholar. The standard work on Zurvanism is Zaehner, R. C., Zurvan: a Zoroastrian Dilemma (Oxford, 1955)Google Scholar. See also Obolensky, D., The Bogomils: a Study in Balkan Neo-Manichaeism (Cambridge, 1948), pp. 14–15.Google Scholar
21 Gen. 10.21; I Chr. 1.17; Judith 1.1; Luke 3.36.
22 Cf. Obolensky, The Bogomils, p. 14.
23 For biography of Moneta, see Wakefield and Evans, pp. 307–8. Some discussion in Broeckx, Le Catharisme, pp. 228–32. On the sources of the Adversos Catharos et Valdenses, see Wakefield, ‘Notes on some antiheretical writings’, pp. 297–9, 305–15.
24 A late-thirteenth-century compilation of scriptural texts intended for the use of preachers against heresy. See Wakefield and Evans, pp. 351–61.
25 Benedict of Alignan, Tractatus fidei contra diversos errores super titulum de summa trinitate et fide catholica decretalibus. See Grabmann, M., ‘Der Franziskanerbischof Benedictus de Alignano (†1268) und seine Summa zum caput Firmiter des vierten Lateran-Konzils’, in Ignatius-Maria Freudenreich, P., ed., Kirchengeschichteliche Studien P. Michael Bihl, O.F.M., als Ehrengabe dargeboten (Colmar, 1941), pp. 50–64 Google Scholar, for details of these MSS. I have used Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS Clm 7453, fols 82r-355v; the genealogy appears at fols 90v-91r. Very few biographical details are known for Benedict; see Grabmann, ‘Der Franziskanerbischof, p. 50.
26 ‘Fuit enim quidam Paganus Pythagoras nomine, qui animas hominum in alia corpora, hominum, scilicet, vel pecudum intrare, dixit, cui errori plures Pagani consenserunt, et dicti sunt Pythagorici, quos velu exordium suum Cathari, qui duo ponunt principia, imitantur. In hoc errore fuerunt etiam quidam alii perfidi, scilicet Zarden, et Arphaxat, qui dixerunt datorem legis Moysi esse Principem tenebrarum, a quibus omnes Cathari, quod hunc errorem derivati sunt. Fuerunt etiam apud Judaeos Saducaei, qui horum corporum resurrectionem negabant, a quibus omnes Cathari duxerunt originem. Fuit quidam alius Manes nomine qui due principia posuit, et duas creationes, duasque naturas, unde Manichaei dicti sunt quidam, et ab istis quidam Catharorum sumpserunt principia. Item omnia visibilia, et transitoria asserebant a Diabolo fabricata, unde Christum negabant carnem istam sumpsisse de Virgine. Vetus autem testamentum respuunt, quos Cathari plurimum imitantur. Fuit etiam quidam Tatianus nomine, a quo Tatiani quidam dicti sunt, qui esum carnium reprobavit, quern Cathari imitantur. Item Valentiniani a Valentino, qui Christum dixit nihil de Virgine assumpsisse.’ Adversus Catharos et Valdenses, V, ii, 2, p. 411.
27 ‘Viso, quod Ecclesia Romana a Christo velut capite sumpsit exordium, nunc unde Catharorum Ecclesia originem duxerit ostendamus. Sicut enim per universitatem creditorum ab Ecclesia Romana ostensum est, quod ipsa est Christi ecclesia, ita etiam per universitatem creditorum ab eis ostenditur, quod eorum congregatio non est Dei ecclesia, nec ab ipso velut capite sumpsit originem, sed potius a paganis, aut Judaeis, aut Apostatis Christianis.’ Adversus Catharos et Valdenses, V, ii, 2, p. 411.
28 Cf. Gratian’s definition of a heretic, which was highly influential among the anti-heretical polemicists: ‘Omnis enim hereticus aut iam dampnatam heresim sequitur, aut novam confingit’, Decretum Cratiani, C.24 q. 1 d.a.c.l: Corpus iuris canonici, ed. E. Friedberg and L. Richter, 2 vols (Leipzig, 1879; reprint Graz, 1959), 1, col. 966.
29 From the Contra epistolam Manichaei, the De moribus Manichaeorum and the De haeresibus. See Harrison, ‘Eckbert’, 1, pp. 352–73.
30 ‘ut qui legerint possint quasi a fundamento totam hanc heresim plenius agnoscere et intelligant quoniam hec heresis omnium heresum sentina est’. Harrison, ‘Eckbert’, 1, p. 24.
31 Contra Manicheos, xiv, p. 239.
32 Harrison, ‘Eckbert’, 1, pp. 17–24; Anselm of Alessandria, Tractatus de hereticis, 1, ed. A. Dondaine, ‘La hiérarchie cathare en Italie, II: Le “Tractatus de hereticis” d’Anselme d’Alexandrie, O.P.’, AFP, 20 (1950), pp. 308–10.
33 Simon, M., ‘From Greek hairesis to Christian heresy’, in Schroedel, W. R. and Wilken, R. L., eds, Early Christian Literature and the Classical Intellectual Tradition (Paris, 1979), pp. 102–3 Google Scholar.
34 Simon, ‘From Greek hairesis’, p. 104.