De locis theologicis

ON THE VARIOUS DEGREES OF ERROR, AND FIRST ON HERESY AND THE HERETICAL PROPOSITION

Before I define the kinds and marks of such propositions, we must explain whether everything required to constitute a heretic is also required for heresy. For there are distinguished authors who think that every proposition opposed to the truth of faith is heresy, even if it is defended by someone ignorant and without any obstinacy; but a heretic, they say, cannot be understood in any way unless he is obstinate. They try to give many reasons for this view. The first is that, unless it were so, a proposition affirmed by one person would be heresy but not by another. For example, if an educated man, knowing that the opposite is contained in the sacred books, asserted that Moyses was not a Iudaean but an Egyptian, no one could doubt that the proposition was heretical. But if the same thing were asserted unknowingly by some rustic and uneducated person, it would not be heretical. It would follow that a proposition depended on the person asserting it, which, as they say, is plainly erroneous even to someone moderately educated. For if a proposition is false, it will always be false whoever says it; therefore, if it is a heretical proposition, it will always be heretical whoever asserts it. They give a second reason: Catholic truth does not depend on the person asserting it in order to be Catholic truth. For whether a Iudaean, pagan, or Christian affirms that God is one and triune, that assertion is certainly Catholic. Therefore, the contrary falsehood does not derive its name or character of heresy from the person who asserts it, but is heretical absolutely and in itself, since it absolutely and in itself conflicts with Catholic truth. I either do not understand their other reasons or judge them unworthy of being reported by us. A stronger reason, which they omit, seems to be that theologians, when asked whether some proposition is heretical, simply answer yes or no, without considering who asserted it. It would be a new and unheard-of thing if theologians refused to identify propositions whose marks they are asked to determine unless they first knew the character, condition, learning, and fault of those who assert them. From this they infer that every proposition which is heretical now has always been heretical, and that the Church does not make something nonheretical into something heretical by her definition, but declares what was already so in reality, though unknown and hidden. This was the view of Ocham (I par. dialogor. li. 2 c. 11), Cardinal Turrecremata (lib. 4 par. 2 cap. 3), Adrianus (4 Senten. q. 1 De confess.), and Alphonsus Castro Zamorensis (libr. I De iusta haereti. puni. cap. I). Other authors, no worse—in my view, though many consider them better—differ greatly from these; among them are Caietanus (2.2. q. art. 1) and even Divus Thomas (prioris ad Corin. c. II lect. 4). They bring many arguments to confirm this view. First, the Council of Constantia distinguishes heretical propositions from erroneous ones and ones that savor of heresy. It would be very difficult to distinguish these things if every error in a matter of faith were heresy even before it was defined by the Church. Next (24 q. 1 ca. Quod autem et cap. Achatius, et 24 quaest. 3 cap. Notandum), some heresies are said to be new and some old. Therefore, heresy cannot be called such absolutely, without any regard to the person asserting it. Moreover, obstinacy is required to constitute a heretic as a heretic; therefore, obstinacy belongs to the character of heresy. Just as if we understand having dinner to mean only in the evening, dinner too will be understood as occurring only in the evening. And certainly, just as “white” is named from whiteness, so “heretic” is named from heresy; therefore, whoever asserts heresy is a heretic, as one who has

whiteness is white. What could be more absurd than saying there is true fornication in someone who is not a fornicator, or true and proper homicide in someone who is not a murderer? It is therefore absurd to say that heresy truly and properly exists in someone who is not a heretic. Moreover, heresy is a vice not only of the intellect but also of the will; it is a crime that cannot be understood without the will’s consent. Where, then, there is no crime and no opposition of the heart to faith, there is no heresy either. Add that an act of Catholic faith occurs only when we assent to a Catholic proposition defined by the Church. For as long as the matter is ambiguous and the Church has not determined either side of the controversy, assent to neither opinion is an act of Catholic faith. From this it is understood that there is no heresy unless someone opposes a Catholic truth that the Church has certainly prescribed. Add also that it seems foreign even to the name “Catholic truth” to call something Catholic truth which the Church has not proposed for belief and which the faithful do not believe through infused faith, but which each person holds by a probable opinion. No one would dare call heresy the opinion that denied the divine persons are distinguished by relations, before this was defined by the Church; nor would anyone dare call Catholic truth the view defending the contrary position. I have always made it my practice either to avoid disputes over terms entirely or to explain them briefly. Thus, if we are speaking properly of heresy, I do not doubt that the more widely received and common view is the truer one: namely, that nothing more is required to constitute a heretic than what constitutes heresy; for heresy is a crime in a person and gives its name to the person in whom it is found. Therefore, anyone who can truly and justly be branded with heresy will truly and justly be a heretic. Some of the arguments just given plainly prove this. But just as urine is improperly called healthy because it is a sign of health, even though the sign can sometimes be misleading, so a proposition spoken or written is called heretical because it is usually a sign of heresy, even though the person who said it is sometimes excused from heresy because he was ignorant. In this sense the view is true of those who think that a proposition can be heretical even when the person asserting it is not a heretic. Or they are speaking of heresy by kind and object. For example, someone might call Iacob’s first intercourse with Lia fornication, not because it really was fornication but because it is so by kind and nature, even though ignorance intervened. But Scholastic theologians, who take the meaning of words more precisely, say neither that Iacob’s intercourse with Lia was fornication, nor that taking another’s property was theft, nor that killing a person was homicide, unless another’s property is wrongfully taken by injustice and a person is unlawfully killed. Therefore, let this remain settled and permanent: if we follow the true and proper meaning of the word, there is no heresy without obstinacy and all the other things without which the crime of heresy is not truly and properly constituted. Even if those things pertain in themselves to faith which God revealed to the Church, although we may perhaps be ignorant of them, we will not immediately judge contrary errors to be heresy. For just because a color is contrary to white, it is not at once black; nor does everything opposed to generosity at once take the name of avarice. Thus it can happen, as we will show shortly, that a Christian has an error somehow opposed to faith, yet it is not heresy, even though it is perhaps the greatest among the vices opposed to faith. Just as yellowish, bluish, and pale colors are contrary to white, though imperfectly (for this example should be pressed again and again), there are also errors among Christians which, because they are incomplete and undeveloped, do not reach the character of heresy, although they come very close to it.

Since heresy not only conflicts with faith but conflicts with it most strongly, it follows that an error is properly heresy when it is opposed to faith formally, not materially (I would like to borrow the Schoolmen’s words here, but I will try to say it better, if I can). If a believer errs through ignorance in matters of faith and even culpably ignores some Catholic truth, then according to the rules of dialectic he contradicts the faith and, according to the moral law, is guilty of mortal sin. But unless he dies, as the saying goes, with his eyes open—that is, unless he knowingly and willingly separates himself from Catholic dogma—he neither forms a sect nor commits heresy. For he does not yet conflict with the form of faith simply and absolutely, if we are speaking of moral opposition; we are not now concerned with dialectical opposition. Such errors are nevertheless forms and beginnings of heretical depravity, indirectly reduced to its character as the imperfect is to the perfect, just as the embryo of a human being is something shapeless and undeveloped, but is not simply a human being, only in a qualified sense. Therefore, if an error opposed to faith creeps into a believer through ignorance or blameworthy negligence, it will not immediately be called heresy, which is a supreme species of unbelief and an error opposed to Catholic faith not in any way whatsoever, but perfectly, absolutely, and formally. Since this perfect, absolute, and formal opposition is also moral, not merely dialectical, it is not considered separately by its object and kind without also considering the person and the human will. For who does not know that moral acts, from differences in people’s status, condition, disposition, and knowledge, likewise receive different names and kinds? Thus, the error “Christ is not true God,” although it conflicts with faith in a person of any condition, is Iudaean unbelief in a Iudaean, pagan unbelief in a pagan, and heresy in a Christian—unless we are so unskilled in speech as to call the guilt of such an error in a pagan heresy. Therefore, among us, who distinguish many different kinds of unbelief according to people’s varied forms of worship and profession, nothing prevents such kinds of things and words from depending on those who assert them. Once these points have been explained, it is easy, I think, to see that the definition of heresy is defective when it says that heresy is an error opposed to Catholic truth, since that definition applies equally to every error of Iudaeans, Saracens, pagans, and heretics. But the Scholastic theologians, experts in defining, put it very clearly: “Heresy is the obstinate error of someone who has professed the faith, plainly contrary to a truth that is certainly Catholic.”