HERESY (Gr. h.:ere:is) primitively means a choice or election, and in its application to religious belief is used to designate as well the act of choosing for one's self, and maintaining opinions contrary to the authorized teaching, as also the heterodox opinions thus adopted. In the Acts of the Apostles the word seems to be used of a sect or party, apart from the con sideration of its character, whether good or bad; but in the Epistles and in the early Chris tian writers it is almost invariably used in an evil sense, which is the sense uniformly accepted in all subsequent theological literature down to recent times.
Even in the apostolic times heresies had arisen in the Church, and before the Council of Nice the catalogue of sects had already swelled to considerable dimensions.
From the very date of the establishment of Christianity in the Roman empire heresy ap pears to have been regarded as a crime cogniz able by the civil law; and Constantine enacted several severe laws for its repression, which were continued and extended by his successors, and were collected into a single title, 'De Hwre ticis,' in the Justinian code. The penalties of heresy ordained by these enactments are very severe, extending to corporal punishment, and even to death; and they all proceed on the dis tinct assumption that a crime against religion is a crime against the state. These enactments of the Roman law were embodied in the various codes of the European kingdoms; in English law heresy consisted in holding opinions con trary to the faith of Holy Church. By common
law the offender was to be tried in the pro vincial synod by the archbishop and his council, and, after conviction, was to be given up to the king to be dealt with at his pleasure. But the statute 2 Hen. IV, chap. 15 (De hceretico corn burendo) empowered the diocesan to take cog nizance of heresy, and, on conviction, to hand over the criminal directly, and without waiting for the king's writ, to the sheriff or other com petent officer. This statute continued practically in force, with certain modifications, till the 29 Charles II chap. 9, since which time heresy is left entirely to the control of ecclesiastical legis lation.
The doctrines considered heretical by the Christian Church may be found in the (Diction naire des Heresies,' by the Abbe Pluquet, with the history, progress, nature, and also the refu tations of their errors. From the viewpoint of the Roman Catholic Church all Protestants (in cluding in this term Anglicans) are accounted heretics; the right of private judgment is the keystone of Protestantism. The Protestant churches have themselves judged members who have dissented on doctrinal points heretics, and the Anabaptists were at one time so regarded; but with increasing toleration prosecutions for heresy are becoming very infrequent and are not regarded as excluding from the fellowship of believers those who thus come under the ban of ecclesiastical censure or disapproval.