The roman Catholic Church defines a heretic as “any
baptized person who, retaining the name Christian,
pertinaciously denies or doubts one or another truth
believed by divine and catholic faith” (corpus iuris
canonici, c. 1325, §2). Historically most Protestants
have not demurred from that fundamental delineation,
and, as the sixteenth century often noted, Protestant
churches holding mutually contradictory doctrines
exemplified attitudes toward heresy which were iden-
tical to the Catholic's. In practice, however, the formal
conditions have not always obtained, and those views
have been regarded as heretical which the Church or
its leaders, Catholic or Protestant, have judged to be
so. This has meant that orthodoxy and heresy have not
been uniformly specified from age to age and from
group to group.
The implications of such a definition of heresy are
several. First, norms for judgment must be specifiable.
Second, not every sect or each instance of dissent can
be regarded as heretical. Theoretically, neither Jew nor
Turk is a heretic since neither claims the Christian
faith, although the distinction between the heretic and
the infidel was not always honored. It has thus always
been possible to differ, within certain bounds. Third,
the alleged heretic must hold to his deviant view and
to his claim to the name Christian obstinately. Fourth,
the label “heresy” has acquired an exclusively pejora-
tive meaning.
The term “heretic” is applicable to individuals or
groups, to laymen or clergymen. There are several
distinctions within the general category: objective
heresy indicates an overt statement contradicting a
dogma. Subjective heresy is the acceptance of such a
statement. Formal heresy denotes the actual articula-
tion of a heretical statement and requires fitting pun-
ishment. Material heresy circumscribes an inarticulate
error in belief held in ignorance.
