IIERESY (Ai'pects), as used in the N. T., means a sect or party. In this sense it is used of the Pharisees as one of the religious parties among the Jews (Acts v. 17 ; xv. 5 ; xxvi. 5 ; xxviii. 22) ; and it is in the same sense applied by them to the Christians (Acts xxiv. 5, 14). This is in accord ance with the common usage of the Greek, for not only does Josephus speak of the three sects of the Jews, the Pharisecs, the Sadducees, and the Essenes, as the three heresies of the Jews' (A setiq. xiii. 5. 9 ; Vita, sec. 2) ; but the Greeks commonly used this term to describe the schools into which their philosophers were divided.
The word itself properly ineans choice, or the taking of one thing- in preference to another ; and from this by an easy transition it passed to desig nate the party or body which was constituted through choosing a certain dogma or set of dogmas in preference to others. But as all such choosing implies the assertion of a right to choose, the word may come to have a bad meaning attached to it when the choice is exercised where such a right does not exist ; and further, when by the exercise of such choice a small party separates itself from the great body of those who profess the same aims and the same pursuits, the application to them of the title heresy' may involve a censure of them as so sepa, rating themselves. Hence we find in the N. T that the word heresy' came to be applied within the church to divisions among the brethren arising from arbitrary and self-willed preferences on the parl of some (1 Cor. xi. 19 ; Gal. v. zo ; 2 Pct. ii. 1), divisions to be censured and shunned. A still further departure was made in the cburcb from the primitive usage of the word in the ages which suc ceeded the apostolic. From designating the sec
tion or body of persons making the lawless or wrong choice, it came to be used of the dogma or opinion by the choice of which they were distin guished ; and as the standard set up was the assumed consent of the Catholic Church, a heresy came to mean any opinion in religion which was a departure from this standard. `Hreses,' says Tertullian, dic Grxea voce ex interpretatione electionis, qua quis sive ad instituendas sive ad suscipiendas eas utitur' (De Preescript Hxret., 6). The same change passed on the cognate adjective heretic (alpe rzeds). In the N. T. this means one who makes a party in a church., and thereby produces division (Tit. iii. to); in subsequent ecclesiastical usage it means a man who adopts an opinion not in accordance with the assumed Catholic belief. This usage of the term is purely ecclesiastical. A Stoic could not have called a Peripatetic simply dye-tutor, though lie might have spoken of him as alperteas Ti3S ' Apeo- TOTALK7IS ozXoo-olzias. The Christian writers are, therefoie, the first in which we find the word alpe rocas used by itself' (Burton, Bampton Lectures, p. 1). Instances, however, occur in which the Christian fathers use the word in its original sense ; as, ex. gr., when Basil (Apist. 33) speaks of his own 7E1)2 rap Oedv alpiaews. They use it also sometimes of opinions which do not pretend to be Christian ; but this is a rare and improper use of the term (comp. Dorner Entwickelungsgesch. p. 71, note 4, Eng. Tr. I., App. Note U).—W. L. A.