The Concept of Heresy and Schism

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov)

 

 

1. The Concept of Heresy

Heresy is a Greek word (αἵρεσις) and in general means any separate teaching. Thus, the Christian teaching itself at its appearance was sometimes called a “heresy” (Acts 28:22). But afterward the name heresy came to be applied exclusively to an arbitrary and false teaching about Christianity, separating itself and differing from the teaching of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

Christianity is the teaching of God, it is the Revelation of God. As knowledge granted by God to men, it must be accepted and held with the greatest reverence and obedience, befitting this greatest holiness. It can be accepted and held only by humble faith, as something wholly beyond human reason. This is that Spiritual, Mystical Book (Rev. 22:18, 19), the Book of the Knowledge of God, written and issued by God, to which nothing can be added and from which nothing can be taken away. From this it is evident what a grave sin heresy is. It is the disturbance and rebellion of the creature against the Creator, the rebellion and disturbance of the most insignificant and limited being, man, against the all-perfect God. It is, dreadful to say, man’s judgment upon God and man’s condemnation of God. It is the sin of the mind, the sin of the spirit. It is blasphemy against God, enmity against God. It is the fruit of pride, that cause of the fall of the fallen angels. And the consequences of falling through it are very similar to the consequences of the fall of the rejected spirits: it darkens the mind, hardens the heart, pours its poison even into the body itself, and brings eternal death into the soul. “It is incapable of humility.” [1] It makes a man altogether alien to God. It is a mortal sin. As the fruit of pride, heresy holds its captive in iron chains, and a rare captive tears himself out of its chains. Obstinacy in heresy is a property of the heretic.

The first heretics were Christians from among the Jews who, while outwardly believing in Christ, at the same time wished to adhere to the ceremonial and civil law of Moses in its literal sense. The typological law was fulfilled by the redemption of mankind and the establishment of the spiritual law of freedom, of which it had served as a prefiguration, a shadow. By such fulfillment it was abolished: what use can prefigurations be when that which was prefigured has been received? what use are pledges of the promise when that which was promised has been given? He who wishes to remain with the prefigurations thereby rejects that which was prefigured. The holy Apostle Paul said to Christians who thought to combine Christianity with Judaism: “If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain” (Gal. 2:21). “If ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. Ye are fallen from Christ [alienated from Christ], ye who would be justified by the law [of Moses]; ye are fallen from grace” (Gal. 5:2, 4). To the Jews who had accepted Christianity and afterward turned to Judaism, the Apostle addressed the following terrible words: “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame [that is, mock Him]. For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs fit for them by whom it is tilled, receiveth blessing from God: but that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected and is near unto cursing, whose end is to be burned” (Heb. 6:4–8). Church History has borne witness to the truth of this saying: whole nations have been led astray into heresy, while conversion from heresy to Orthodoxy is seen in very few individual persons, and that rarely, very rarely. A terrible poison is heresy! an incomprehensible poison is heresy!

Another source of heresies became pagan philosophy and human learning in general. The writer of the second century, Tertullian, explained in detail and with precision that all the errors which disturbed the peace of the Church had as their source without fail some philosophical school. [2] This is very natural: the scribe, or earthly scholar, according to the commandment of the Savior, must learn the Kingdom of God in order to attain the state of bringing forth from his treasury things old and new, that is, to present the teaching of God in the forms of human learning (Matt. 13:52). To learn the Kingdom of God means to acquire the Kingdom of God within oneself. Without this, the earthly scholar can offer only the old, even if he speaks about God from a soulish, scholastic knowledge. It is impossible for him to avoid error, despite all his learning, because oldness, in the spiritual sense, is precisely the state of delusion and self-deception. Saint Symeon, the fool for Christ’s sake, indicated the cause of the error of the most learned and gifted Origen in the fact that Origen did not undertake the labor of passing from the soulish state into the spiritual, and, having sailed far out into the sea of thought, he drowned in it. [3] It is necessary, altogether necessary, for every learned Christian, and especially for the Christian teacher, not to stop at his earthly learning, however rich he may be in it, but to pass from the fleshly and soulish state into the spiritual, and to receive a living, grace-given knowledge of God. “He that hath My commandments,” planted in his heart so that they constitute a man’s possession and treasure, said the Lord, “he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him and will manifest Myself to him” through the action of the Holy Spirit (John 14:21). He who has the Word of God planted and abiding within himself, who has been granted the vision of God because of purity of mind, who has shaken off the soul’s deafness and hears the voice of God (John 5:36–37), will speak of his Lord with boldness and power, not as the scribes did (Mark 1:22), for “God is known in Judah: His name is great in Israel” (Ps. 75:2 [76:1]). By the name of Judah here is understood the true Church, and by the name of Israel those members of the Church who have been vouchsafed spiritual vision and the knowledge flowing from it. Saints Gregory the Wonderworker, Athanasius the Great, Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great, and many other luminaries of the Church, having acquired the human learning of their time, took care, by means of evangelical life, to pass from the fleshly and soulish state into the spiritual; they put off the old Adam and put on the new. Thus they became capable of imparting to their brethren, to men, the new teaching in an old form, so pleasing to fallen man, so natural to fallen humanity. Men, being carried along by the earthly eloquence of the holy teachers, imperceptibly to themselves accepted the word of salvation clothed in earthly rhetoric. On the contrary, the learned Arius, although he was a presbyter, the eloquent Nestorius, although he was a patriarch, and many others like them, while occupying high ecclesiastical ranks, became heresiarchs and heretics for the same reason for which Origen, the crown of the learning of his age, sank into the depth of the sea of thought. Saint Gregory of Sinai says: “Those who write and speak apart from the Spirit, and wish to build up the Church, ‘are’ carnal, ‘soulish,’ as the Divine Apostle says somewhere, ‘not having the Spirit’ (Jude 1:19). Such men are subject to the curse that says: ‘Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!’ (Isa. 5:21). For they speak from themselves, and it is not the Spirit of God in them that speaks, according to the Lord’s word. For those who speak from their own thoughts before purification have been deceived by the spirit of opinion. Concerning this Proverbs says: ‘I have seen a man who thinks himself wise: there is more hope for a fool than for him’ (Prov. 26:12). And again, ‘Be not wise in your own conceits’ (Rom. 12:16), Wisdom commands us. And the Divine Apostle himself, filled with the Holy Spirit, confesses, saying: ‘Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God’ (2 Cor. 3:5). And again: ‘As from God, before God, in Christ we speak’ (2 Cor. 12:19). For the words of such men are not sweet and are unenlightened, because they do not speak while drawing from the living fountain of the Spirit, but as from some muddy lake, from a heart that seeks out and nourishes leeches, and serpents, and frogs of lust, and pride, and intemperance; and the water of their understanding is foul-smelling, muddy, and lukewarm; those who drink from it are turned to sickness, and loathsomeness, and vomiting.” [4]

Sacred Scripture, studied according to the letter by fleshly and soulish men, served them for the invention of heresies, for the destruction both of themselves and of others by means of them. The holy Apostle Peter said of the epistles of the holy Apostle Paul that some “unlearned and unstable wrest” [5] them, “as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction” (2 Pet. 3:16). Here the words “wrest” and “distort” are used very correctly, because the fleshly and soulish man, not understanding the spiritual meaning in Scripture, gives it a meaning corresponding to his own disposition. It cannot be otherwise: the soulish man must, after all, arrive at some notion when reading or studying the Divine Scripture, and since he is incapable of understanding Scripture as he ought, he necessarily gives himself whatever notion seems good to him. The origin of Sacred Scripture, and the manner of understanding and explaining it, are set forth with complete clarity by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul. Saint Peter says: “No prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation.” [6] “For prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:20, 21). This means: just as the Word of God, or Sacred Scripture, was uttered through the agency of the Holy Spirit, so also only through the agency of the Holy Spirit can it be explained, and consequently understood. The holy Apostle Paul says: “No man knoweth the things of God, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit Who is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us by God; which things also we speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Holy Spirit, interpreting spiritual things by spiritual means” [7] (1 Cor. 2:11–13).

From this it is evident that in the exposition and explanation of Scripture human learning had no part whatever, nor did the scholastic study of Scripture, the study of its letter, in which the Jewish scribes and Pharisees excelled and gloried, and which the Apostle Paul also possessed, a possession that he counted as loss for himself because of the surpassing knowledge of Christ Jesus bestowed by the Holy Spirit (Acts 22:3; cf. Phil. 3:5–8). After the words cited above, the Apostle continues: “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” [8] (1 Cor. 2:14). The Apostle said this from his own experience. While he was in the state of a fleshly, natural man, he had been instructed in Scripture concerning faith in God according to the contemporary custom prevailing among the Jews at that time, a custom which had destroyed among them the spiritual understanding of the law (Matt. 23), and had rendered the Jewish theologians incapable of recognizing and receiving God when He appeared to them in the form of man with incontrovertible and most clear testimonies of His Divinity. In his conversion from Judaism to Christianity, Saint Paul passed very quickly from the natural state to the spiritual because of the strictly moral life that had preceded his conversion (Phil. 3:6). Abundantly taught by the Holy Spirit, he learned in his own person that his former knowledge, though likewise abundant in its own way, not only did not explain God to him, but even hid God from him, darkened him, made him an enemy of God (Rom. 8:7), took from him the ability to submit to the teaching of Christ (Rom. 8:7), and made the teaching of Christ seem to him strange, wild, absurd, blasphemous (1 Cor. 2:14). It seemed strange also to Nicodemus, the Jewish teacher (John 3:4); it seemed harsh and unbearable to many such as had already been disciples of the God-Man and had followed Him in His wandering (John 6:60). To these disciples, who were scandalized and left the Divine Teacher, He said: “It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh” (that is, the fleshly understanding of the Word of God) “profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). The fleshly understanding of the Word of God leads to unbelief, to scandal even at the all-holy Word of God itself, to false and perverse conclusions and opinions, to the abandonment of God, to destruction. Nicodemus also, though he believed in the God-Man because of the signs performed by the God-Man, was scandalized at His Word by giving the Word of God a fleshly meaning. To the Lord’s words, “Except a man be born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God,” Nicodemus objects: “How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?” (John 3:3–4). A natural man, if he is humble, can cast down his thoughts “that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God, and bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5); but in pride, in a high opinion of his knowledge, in trust in his own mind and understanding, the natural man must necessarily account the Word of God foolishness, that is, absurdity or madness, as the holy Apostle Paul said, as the learned Jewish high priests and priests proved in deed by rejecting the Lord, and as the countless throngs of heretics proved and continue to prove in rejecting the Divine Truth. All who have possessed the learning of this world and then have engaged in purifying themselves by spiritual struggle sincerely confess that they had to endure a grievous battle with the thoughts of human wisdom, which rose up with cruel force against the evangelical teaching and disputed with extraordinary stubbornness the Gospel’s dominion over the struggler’s mind. The natural and fleshly state is the consequence of our fall: it is a state of rebellion against God and enmity toward God. Because the natural man is incapable of rightly understanding spiritual things, the Holy Church forbids her children the arbitrary interpretation of Sacred Scripture, and commands them strictly to adhere to the interpretation of Scripture made by the holy Fathers; [9] she commands all who desire to know Christianity in detail and with precision, especially pastors and teachers, after acquiring knowledge from men and from books, to acquire an active and living knowledge of Christianity by living according to the evangelical commandments, by crucifying the flesh “with the passions and lusts” (Gal. 5:24), and by partaking of the Divine Grace of the Holy Spirit. Most justly did Saint Mark call theoretical knowledge about Christianity introductory. This God-wise Father sets forth with particular clarity the necessity of experiential and grace-given knowledge, and shows that terrible affliction of soul into which one falls who has acquired the first knowledge and been negligent about acquiring the second. “The learned, being negligent about spiritual life,” said Saint Mark in reply to a learned man who asserted that the learned remain outside the fall, sustained by their learning, “having fallen all at once into a terrible and twofold fall, that is, into the fall of exaltation and negligence, can neither rise without prayer, nor have anywhere further to fall. For what other cause can there be for the devil to fight with those who always lie on the ground and never rise? There are some who are at one time victorious and at another vanquished, who fall and rise, who offend and are offended, who fight and are fought; but others, remaining in their first fall because of extreme ignorance, do not even know of themselves that they have fallen. To these the Prophet addresses himself with compassion, saying: ‘Shall he that falleth not arise? and he that turneth away, shall he not return?’ (Jer. 8:4). And again: ‘Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light’ (Eph. 5:14). But to those unwilling to take upon themselves this labor of rising and abiding in prayer and submitting to deprivations for the sake of piety, for the sake of the Kingdom to come, he says: ‘O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in Me is thy help’ (Hos. 13:9). ‘There is no soundness, nor bruise, nor festering wound’ (Isa. 1:6), no kind of evil that happens without the consent of the will: for this wound is voluntary, and is a sin unto death, not healed even by the prayers of others. ‘We would have healed Babylon,’ says the Prophet, ‘but she is not healed’ (Jer. 51:9), because this sickness is self-chosen, and ‘there is no plaster to apply, nor oil, nor bandaging’ (Isa. 1:6), that is, no assistance from others.... Behold, even the Old Testament restrains him who trusts in himself and is exalted by his own wisdom: ‘Trust in the Lord,’ it says, ‘with all thy heart; and do not exalt thyself in thine own wisdom’ (Prov. 3:5). These are not mere words, as it seemed to some who for this reason acquired books, learned what was written in them, fulfilled nothing of what was written in deed, and only became puffed up with naked notions. Such men exalt themselves by praises for words and investigations; among men who know nothing of the matter they bear the loud name of philosophers; but since they have not touched laboriousness, nor secretly learned the matter, they receive from God and from laborious and pious men a great reproach (condemnation, censure), because they have misused the introductory understanding of the Scriptures, using it for the display of themselves before men and not for the work itself, and have been deprived of the operative grace of the Holy Spirit. They are those who ‘glory in appearance, and not in heart’ (2 Cor. 5:12). Therefore those who do not know the work should touch it, that is, take it up: for what is said in Scripture is said not only in order that men should know it, but also that they should do it. Let us begin the work: thus, advancing little by little, we shall find that not only hope in God, but assured faith, and unfeigned love, and freedom from remembrance of wrongs, and brotherly love, and self-control, and patience, and the deepest understanding of what is hidden, and deliverance from temptations, and the bestowal of spiritual gifts, and confession of the heart, and diligent tears are given to the faithful through prayer; and not only these, but also endurance of the sorrows that befall us, and pure love toward neighbors, and knowledge of the spiritual law, and the attainment of the righteousness of God, and the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the giving of spiritual treasures, and everything that God has promised to grant to faithful men both here and in the age to come. It is altogether impossible for the soul to restore in itself the image of God otherwise than by the grace of Christ and the faith of man, when man abides in much humility of mind with unscattered prayer in the mind. How then do those deprived of such and so many blessings, because of their ignorance and negligence concerning prayer, say, ‘We have not fallen,’ and ascribe wisdom to themselves, not even knowing of their fall, wretched on account of the fall, and still more wretched on account of their ignorance? They achieve only this, that they confirm us the more in believing Scripture, which says that ‘the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God’ (1 Cor. 3:19), and that what descends from God ‘is from above, from the Father of lights’ (James 1:17), and its sign is humility of mind. But those wishing to please men have appropriated human wisdom instead of Divine Wisdom; being puffed up by it and inwardly exalted by it, they have deceived many who knew not the matter, inclining them to philosophize not in the labors of piety and prayer, but in the ‘persuasive words of human wisdom’ (1 Cor. 2:4), which the Apostle often censures and calls the nullifying of the Cross of Christ. He says in the Epistle to the Corinthians: ‘Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the Cross of Christ should be made void’ (1 Cor. 1:17). And again: ‘God chose the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God chose the base things of the world, and the things despised, and the things which are not, to bring to nought the things that are: that no flesh should glory before God’ (1 Cor. 1:27–29). If, as has been shown, God is well pleased not with the words of Hellenic wisdom, but with the labors of prayer and humility of mind, then truly those think in vain who, having abandoned the first manner of piety as difficult to fulfill, do not wish to be saved by a second or even a third way, but remain outside the sacred enclosure.” [10]

2. Heresy Is the Sin of the Mind. The Essence of This Sin Is Blasphemy

Being properly a sin of the mind, heresy not only darkens the mind, but also imparts a particular hardness to the heart, killing it with eternal death.

By this sin man most closely likens himself to the fallen spirits, whose chief sin is resistance to God and blasphemy against God.

The distinguishing property of the fallen spirits is pride; the distinguishing property of heretics also is pride, whose most evident manifestation consists in contempt for and condemnation of all who do not belong to their sect, in revulsion toward them, and in fierce hatred for them. But the essential manifestation of pride in heretics and schismatics consists in this: having rejected the knowledge of God and the worship of God revealed and delivered by God Himself, they strive to replace them with a knowledge of God and forms of worship of their own devising, blasphemous and opposed to God. The devil does not trouble himself to tempt one infected by heresy and schism with other passions and obvious sins. And why should the devil tempt and struggle against one who, by means of the mortal sin of heresy, has both been slain with eternal death and already, while still alive, belongs to the devil? On the contrary, the devil sustains the heretic and the schismatic in abstinence and in other outward ascetic labors and forms of virtue, in order thereby to keep him in self-satisfaction and delusion, and by the mask of holiness which the heretic wears upon himself to draw the Orthodox into heresy, or at least to lead them to excuse it and in some measure approve it, and also to doubt Orthodoxy and to grow cold toward it.

One who possesses a treasure is attacked by robbers, but he who has nothing is not troubled by robbers. He who possesses the treasure of Orthodoxy is fiercely assailed by the enemy. The enemy attacks the Orthodox man with great force, striving to present him before human society as being in a state of defeat, with the same aim for which he strives to present the heretic as virtuous and worthy of respect. With such incomprehensible cunning does the evil spirit act in favor of heresy and to the harm of true Christianity. To our misfortune, this wile of his succeeds very well. By it he ensnares thousands of men to destruction.

Many lived a most strict ascetic life while remaining in heresy or schism; but when they accepted Orthodoxy, they became subject to various weaknesses. To what conclusion should this lead? To this: that in the first state the enemy did not war against them, recognizing them as his own, but in the second he rose against them in savage warfare, as against those who had openly declared and confessed themselves to be his adversaries. Sacred Scripture calls the evil spirit not only an enemy, but also an avenger (Ps. 8:3). He not only wars against man, but, being infected with fierce envy toward man, cannot look with indifference upon the fact that man practices virtue and is pleasing to God, and so he takes revenge on man for his God-pleasing deeds by bringing upon him countless temptations, both from without—from evil men—and from within, by stirring up various passions in man.

Schism and heresy have a strange effect even upon the human body. The hardening of the spirit is communicated to the body. This is not noticeable to all during a man’s lifetime, but after death the body of a heretic and schismatic instantly becomes rigid, instantly begins to give off an unbearable stench. And this occurs especially with those among them who lived the strictest ascetic life, were renowned teachers of their sect, and had won the universal respect of the blinded world; it is they who after death emit the most dreadful stench; from their dried-up bodies streams of foul-smelling pus flow forth; their burial and attendance at it become difficult. Demons remain present at their graves and appear there in various forms, either to terrify or to deceive.

For a heretic, repentance and the knowledge of the Truth are difficult of access. Repentance and the true knowledge of God are more accessible to adulterers and criminal offenders than to a heretic or schismatic, especially if he is learned and ascetic. Both were demonstrated by the manifest sinners and learned sectarians contemporary with Christ who are mentioned in the Gospel: sinners received both the Lord and His Forerunner, whereas the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees rejected both Jesus and John.

The feeling of repentance is alien to one who is fully satisfied with himself and sees around him only scandal and every sort of defect in others. To one who regards himself as wiser than all, there is likewise alien the hunger and thirst for the boundless Divine Truth, which fully satisfies its disciple and by that very satisfaction arouses yet greater hunger and thirst for grace-filled righteousness. It is alien for him to renounce his blasphemy, since he regards that blasphemy as holy Truth; it is alien for him to behold the Holy Truth, because the very organ of sight, the eye of the soul, his mind, has been blinded by falsehood. The conversion of a heretic and schismatic to Orthodoxy is a special mercy of God, brought about by a special Providence of God for the elect known to God alone. Human means for the conversion of schismatics and heretics are powerless.

Although at the First Council of Nicaea against Arius and his like-minded followers stood the luminaries of the Church—Athanasius the Great, Nicholas the Wonderworker, James of Nisibis, [11] and Spyridon of Trimythous—and although they acted not only by the power of the word but also by the power of signs, they nevertheless did not soften the hardened heretical assembly or the heresiarch Arius, who remained obstinate and faithful to his delusion to the end of his life, as Church History relates.

Verbal disputation is the weakest weapon against heretics, a weapon more harmful than useful. It becomes such in accordance with the nature of the spiritual sickness of heresy. Proud heresy does not endure rebuke; it does not endure being defeated. By rebukes it is hardened; by defeats it is driven into frenzy. Countless experiences have proved this.

Heresy is overcome by gentle exhortation; even more easily by a silent greeting, humility, love, patience and long-suffering, and by earnest prayer filled with compassion for one’s neighbor and mercy toward him. Heresy cannot be conquered by man, because it is a demonic invention and undertaking. Its conqueror can be God alone, when He is invoked to struggle against it and to smite it through a man’s humility before God and that man’s love for his neighbor.

He who wishes to fight successfully against heresy must be entirely free of vainglory and enmity toward his neighbor, lest he express them by some mockery, some barbed or harsh word, or by some brilliant turn of phrase that may resound in the proud soul of the heretic and stir up its passion. Anoint your neighbor’s sore and wound as though with pure oil, solely with words of love and humility, that the merciful Lord may look upon your love and your humility, that they may be made known to your neighbor’s heart, and that there may be granted to you the great gift of God—the salvation of your neighbor. The pride, boldness, obstinacy, and fervor of the heretic only have the appearance of energy; in essence they are weakness, needing prudent compassion. This weakness is only increased and made more savage when one acts against it with irrational zeal expressed in harsh rebuke.

3. Heresy Is a Veiled Rejection of Christianity

When men began to abandon idolatry, because of its obvious absurdity, and to come to the knowledge and confession of the Redeemer, when all the devil’s efforts to preserve idolatry among men remained in vain, then he invented heresies; and by means of heresy, while preserving for those who adhered to it the name and a certain outward appearance of Christianity, he not only took Christianity away from them, but replaced it with blasphemy.

What is Arianism? It is a renunciation of Christ and of Christianity; it is a renunciation of God. If the Son is a creature, as Arius asserted, then there is no true God in Three Persons. If the Son is not God, then where is the incarnation of God? where is the participation of human nature in the Divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4), acquired for men by the incarnation of God? where is salvation? where is Christianity? “He that denieth the Son hath not the Father,” says the Word of God (1 John 2:23). Arianism is both godlessness and blasphemy.

What is Nestorianism? It is the rejection of the incarnation of God the Word. If one born of the Virgin was a mere man, then where is the conception by the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:18)? where is the fulfillment of the words of Scripture: “The Word was made flesh” (John 1:14)? Where is the birth of the Son of God (Luke 1:31)? where is Christianity? Nestorius repeats the heresy of Arius, but under a different mask: the essence of these heresies is one—the rejection of Christ, and by the rejection of Christ, rejection of God.

The same is done by Eutyches and the Monothelites: by fusing in the God-Man the two natures and the two wills into one, and asserting that in Christ the humanity disappeared in the Divinity as a drop of wine in the vast sea, they arrive at the same goal, though from another side, as Arius and Nestorius did; because, by denying the presence of human nature in the incarnate Son of God, they necessarily deny all that the Lord suffered as man, and consequently they deny also the redemption of mankind by the sufferings and death of the Lord—they deny the whole of Christianity.

The iconoclasts strive for the same thing. By denying the possibility of depicting Christ in painting, they indirectly deny the coming of the Son of God in human flesh. If the Son of God was clothed in flesh, then it is fully possible to depict Him, Who is indescribable according to the Divine nature, as man. If He can be depicted, then His depictions ought to be held in special honor. We honor the images of our parents, kings, rulers, and benefactors, and place them in places of honor: all the more, then, should the icon of our Savior be revered, and likewise the icons of the Mother of God and of all the saints.

The same thing papism strives to accomplish; this is the name given to the heresy that overtook the West, from which, as branches from a tree, various Protestant teachings sprang. Papism attributes to the pope the properties of Christ, and by this rejects Christ. Some Western writers have almost openly pronounced this renunciation, saying that it is far less a sin to renounce Christ than the sin of renouncing the pope. The pope is the idol of the papists; he is their deity. Because of this terrible delusion, the grace of God departed from the papists; they were given over to themselves and to Satan, the inventor and father of all heresies, among them papism as well. In this state of darkening they distorted certain dogmas and sacraments, and deprived the Divine Liturgy of its essential meaning by throwing out from it the invocation of the Holy Spirit and the blessing of the offered bread and wine, at which they are transubstantiated into the Body and Blood of Christ. This essential part of the Liturgy was present in all the Liturgies handed down by the Apostles of Christ throughout the whole world—it was present also in the original Roman Liturgy. [12] No heresy expresses so openly and brazenly its excessive pride, its harsh contempt for men, and its hatred for them. Papism invented the most dreadful tortures, the most dreadful executions for mankind. Countless thousands of people died in stifling prisons, were burned at the stake, and were tortured in various ways. And this terrible fanaticism, breathing murder and thirsting for blood, is called the one true Christianity, and with frenzied zeal strives to draw the whole universe into its heresy. “By their fruits ye shall know them,” the Savior said of teachers and their teaching (Matt. 7:16). By its fruits papism comes very close to Mohammedanism: both these heresies recognize as an act of faith and the highest virtue all the crimes and all the murders committed by them in any society of men of another confession.

The Protestants rose up against the errors of the papists—or, more accurately, they rose up against the monstrous power and claimed divinity of the popes; but since they acted under the impulse of the passions, sinking in moral corruption, and not with the direct aim of striving for the Holy Truth, and not as Cornelius the Centurion sought it, they did not prove worthy to behold it. “Everyone that doeth evil hateth the Light, neither cometh to the Light” (John 3:20). Of all the errors of the papists, the Protestants rejected only their impious opinion concerning the pope; the rest of the papists’ errors they followed, many of their faults they intensified, and to the former delusions and mistakes they added many new ones. Thus, for example, they rejected all the sacraments, the priesthood itself; they rejected the Liturgy altogether; they rejected all Church Tradition and allowed each of their followers to interpret Sacred Scripture according to his own will, whereas it, having been uttered by the Holy Spirit, can be explained only by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet. 1:21).

To heresies one must also assign that teaching which, without touching either the dogmas or the sacraments, rejects life according to Christ’s commandments and permits Christians to live a pagan life. This teaching, which outwardly appears as though not hostile to Christianity, is in essence wholly hostile to it: it is a renunciation of Christ. The Lord Himself said: “I will profess unto them”—those who confess the Lord with their lips, but by their deeds contradict His will—“I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity” (Matt. 7:21, 23). Faith can be living only when accompanied by works of faith; without them it is dead (James 2:26). Moreover, even a correct understanding of Christian dogmas is itself lost through a non-Christian life. Even in the time when idolatry was still very strong, heretics lived a pagan life. Saint Athanasius the Great makes this observation about the Arians, who gave themselves over to the amusements of idolaters and resembled them in morals. In more recent times, pagan life first appeared in the bosom of papism; the pagan feeling and taste of the papists show themselves with particular vividness in their application of the arts to religious subjects, in painted and sculpted images of the saints, in their church singing and music, in their religious poetry. All their schools bear upon themselves the stamp of sinful passions, especially sensuality; there one finds neither the feeling of chastity and propriety, nor the feeling of simplicity, nor the feeling of purity and spirituality. Such are their church music and singing. Their poet, describing the liberation of Jerusalem and of the Lord’s tomb, does not hesitate to invoke the muse; he sings of Zion together with Helicon, passing from the Muse to the Archangel Gabriel. The infallible popes, these new idols of Rome, present examples of debauchery, tyranny, godlessness, and blasphemous mockery of all that is holy. Pagan life, with its comedy and tragedy, with its dances, with its rejection of shame and decency, with its fornication and adultery and the other customs of idolaters, first revived in Rome under the shadow of its gods—the popes—and from there spread throughout all Europe. By means of heresies and finally by means of pagan life, all the pagans who once accepted Christianity have left and are leaving Christianity, returning to their former complete ignorance of God and to the service of demons, though no longer in the form of idolatry.

What is the cause of such an effect of heresy? The cause lies in the fact that this terrible sin, which contains blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, completely alienates a man from God and, having alienated him from God, delivers him into the power of Satan. In this state man is incapable of any spiritual thought, feeling, or action, and consequently is incapable of a spiritual state; on the contrary, the soulish and fleshly states develop strongly in him. In him there flows abundantly an earthly, natural, demonic wisdom, full of envy, strife, and pride (James 3:11, 15). In this wisdom there is no meekness, no love, no edifying humility: it is verbose and grandiloquent, rich in human and demonic knowledge, overflowing with self-deception, and it deceives those who listen to it. It cannot be otherwise, because the thoughts of the heretic—who is estranged from the grace of God—are under the constant compulsion and guidance of the fallen spirits. This is incomprehensible and unbelievable to many; let such hear the judgment of a Spirit-bearing man, who said: “The good cannot be believed or done except in Christ Jesus and in the Holy Spirit.” [13] Thought, word, and deed, in order to be worthy of the Lord, must be anointed by the grace of the Holy Spirit; but those thoughts, words, and deeds which do not have this anointing belong to the old man and are abominable to God, however wise and good they may appear outwardly before the judgment of the world.

The state of alienation from God, the state of self-deception, darkening of mind, and the stirring of the strongest passions has always been the state of heretics, especially heresiarchs. Usually they were given over to various passions. Eutyches was extremely avaricious and, contrary to the monastic vow of non-possession, accumulated considerable wealth. Apollinarius even in his old age had a concubine. Arius wrote the Thalia—a work in verse, not preserved to us—filled with shameless depravity. This work began to be read at the First Council of Nicaea, but the Fathers of the Council refused to hear it, so disgraceful was it, and consigned to the fire the copy presented to them. Such also are the productions of modern heretics. They are filled with infernal blasphemy, audacious false reasonings, terrible shamelessness, and depravity. The notion given of them here is still very weak compared with the notion one receives from reading their writings. What the heresiarchs uttered and wrote could not enter the mind of an ordinary man. Yet all the writings of heretics are composed under the influence of spirits and contain a moral poison that kills the soul with eternal death. Their dogmatic books necessarily contain false dogmas and blasphemy against the dogmas delivered to the Holy Church by the Holy Spirit; their books on asceticism, although outwardly they present themselves as teaching the loftiest virtues and Christian states, are in essence the fruits and expression of self-deception and demonic delusion, incomprehensible to the crowd; their moral writers teach a morality proper to the old Adam, since that alone they understand, and by no means Christian morality, which is wholly inaccessible to their mind and heart. Novels, comedies, and other writings openly sinful and filled with sensuality are likewise fruits of heresy; some such works were written by clergymen, as, for example, Telemachus was written by Fénelon. The reading of all these books is extremely harmful, although to inexperienced eyes the poison in some of them is obvious, while in others it is very hidden. The hiddenness of the poison does not lessen its power; on the contrary, refined poisons act with particular destructiveness. Reading a dogmatic book, and especially an ascetical heretical book, often stirs up lustful thoughts, while reading novels stirs up thoughts of unbelief, various perplexities, and doubt concerning the faith. Unclean spirits and sins have an affinity with one another: he who voluntarily submits to one sin involuntarily and of necessity submits also to the influence of another, because of the affinity of evil spirits and passions. Experience proves that men passed over to heresy and godlessness chiefly from a depraved life, and conversely, heresy always carries with it a corruption of morals because of the kinship of sins among themselves. The initial effect of all heretical books consists in stirring up thoughts of doubt concerning the faith. “Beware,” said Saint Isaac the Syrian, “lest you read heretical dogmas: for this is what most of all arms against you the spirit of blasphemy.” [14] Does anyone have blasphemous thoughts working in him? Has anyone been shaken in his trust in the Orthodox Church, which alone is the true Church of Christ? Has anyone become a universal Christian, belonging—according to his heartfelt conviction, or more accurately, according to his complete ignorance of Christianity—equally to all confessions, and therefore belonging to none? Know that he has been brought to this state by reading heretical books or by conversations with those infected by such reading.

People given over to sensuality read with particular eagerness heretical books on Christian asceticism and perfection, while they shun and recoil from the moral books of the Orthodox Church. What is the reason for this? It is the similarity in the disposition of the spirit. Such people find delight in reading a book written out of imagination and self-conceit, seasoned with refined sensuality, vainglory, and pride of mind, which appear to minds and hearts not purified by the true teaching of Christ as though they were grace. Orthodox books call to repentance and the abandonment of a sinful life, to self-denial, self-condemnation, and humility—precisely what the son of this world does not desire.

Idolatry and every kind of open rejection of God can be likened to an open poison, from which anyone can easily guard himself. Heresy can be likened to food that outwardly has a beautiful appearance, but is poisoned: such food is the same poison, from which it is already difficult to guard oneself, both because the poison is concealed and because the beautiful appearance and fragrance of the food arouse in man his natural desire to be fed and to delight in the food. Heresy is always accompanied by hypocrisy and pretense; it is verbose, eloquent, and abounds in human learning; and therefore it easily attracts people and ensnares them unto destruction. Incomparably more people have been ensnared into eternal death by means of heresy than by means of the direct rejection of Christ.

4. On Schism

Schism is called a breach of full unity with the Holy Church, while still preserving exactly the true teaching concerning the dogmas and the sacraments. A breach of unity in dogmas and sacraments is already heresy.

Properly speaking, in Russia only the Old Believer churches and the churches under the authority of the chief priests (formerly the ober-priests) may be called schismatic churches. The former differ in certain rites, which has no influence at all on the essence of Christianity, while the latter have no bishop over them, contrary to the rules of the Church. The formation of the former was due in part to ignorance, which attributes to certain rites and customs more importance than these rites actually possess; and the formation of the latter was due to the Protestant tendency of certain private individuals. In the former churches there is noticeable an excess of piety reaching the point of superstition and hypocrisy, while in the latter an excess of freedom reaching the point of extreme negligence and coldness. When a Christian turns all his attention to outward rites, he necessarily leaves unattended the essential part of Christianity—the cleansing of the inner vessels—and consequently is deprived of all spiritual progress and of the true knowledge of Christ that flows from such progress, that is, he becomes a stranger to true Christianity. But when, on the contrary, a Christian is cold toward the faith and performs its outward rites carelessly, by this he drives God away from himself, God Who desires that His servants serve Him with fear and trembling, and he becomes godless and a heretic.

The other schismatics in Russia must be recognized as heretics as well: they have rejected the sacraments of the Church, replacing them with their own monstrous inventions; they have deviated in many respects from the essential Christian doctrine and moral teaching; they have wholly renounced the Church.

At the same time, one must not place all the blame on the schismatics. Western enlightenment flooded into Russia so powerfully that it penetrated even into the Church and disturbed her Eastern Orthodox character, though it disturbed it in matters that in no way touch the essence of Christianity. These violations of the Eastern Orthodox character scandalize the schismatics and grieve the sons of the Church who have studied Christianity thoroughly. These violations are so minor that they can be removed very quickly. Russia no longer obeys and imitates Europe blindly; she subjects Western culture to prudent criticism; she desires to appear among the society of European states in her own proper character, and not in a character temporarily borrowed, as on loan. To attain this, she is already making attempts, which we shall now indicate.

All Russians have understood that Italian paintings cannot be holy icons. Yet Italian painting entered almost all Orthodox Russian churches from the time of Russia’s transformation along European lines. This painting scandalizes the schismatic and grieves the truly Orthodox; it is a Western ulcer upon the Orthodox temple. From whom did the Italian painters draw the images of the most holy women? From their mistresses. Raphael’s famous Madonnas express the most refined sensuality. It is known that Raphael was a most depraved man; he wished to express an ideal that would act upon him most powerfully, and not infrequently would throw down his brush in order to throw himself into the embrace of the model standing before him. Other painters, whose talent was coarser than Raphael’s, expressed sensuality in their supposed icons far more vividly; some expressed not sensuality alone, but also shamelessness and indecency. The icons of certain holy men were painted from women, as, for example, the famous image of John the Theologian painted by Domenichino. The icons of certain martyrs the Italian sensual painters painted from their companions in debauchery, after a night or nights spent by them in disorderly living, when that conduct had imprinted itself upon their exhausted faces. All the movements, all the poses, all the physiognomies in Italian paintings, or in general in paintings made by Western heretics and depicting sacred subjects, are sensual, passionate, affected, theatrical; there is nothing holy, nothing spiritual in them. It is evident that the painters were wholly fleshly men, having not the slightest notion of the spiritual state, no sympathy whatever for it, and therefore having no possibility of depicting a spiritual man in painting. Having no conception of what expression the features of a holy man immersed in prayer assume, what expression his eyes, his lips, his hands, his whole body assume, they devise in their ignorant imagination an arbitrary, ignorant fantasy; in accordance with this fantasy they arrange a male or female model, and a skillful brush depicts upon canvas a perfect absurdity, just as the most eloquent orator would by necessity deliver the most incoherent speech if he were forced to speak about a subject wholly unknown to him. The pupils of the Russian Academy of Arts were formed according to Western models and filled the churches with icons wholly unworthy of the name of icons. If these icons, before which chaste eyes are cast down, did not stand in church, no one would even think that the dignity of icons was attributed to them. A worldly man, who has seen everything and has broad experience, cannot imagine the effect such images have upon a virginal nature. A certain elder, who had lived an elevated monastic life in the desert, was obliged for certain reasons to come to Petersburg. There one evening he was invited by a pious elderly lady for a spiritual conversation. At that time the old lady’s daughters were dressing to go to a ball. When they were dressed, or rather undressed according to the demands of contemporary fashion, they came to their mother in order to kiss her hand and get into the carriage. The elder, seeing what he had never in his life seen before—young women shamelessly exposed according to the rule of the West, according to the rule of heresy and paganism—was horrified. He declared that after the temptation he had seen, the devil himself no longer needed to appear in person in order to tempt. What then must it be for such a virginal eye to see a similar image on an icon, an image that stirs up not prayer but the most impure passions?

The unsuitability of Italian painting for icons is now already obvious and acknowledged. But, unfortunately, contemporary fashion has rushed to another extreme: to imitate old Russian icon painting with all its inaccuracies, together with the addition of various incongruities of more recent invention. Here there is a new cause for scandal. Before such an icon the schismatic is not scandalized, being unable to distinguish a correct drawing from an incorrect one; but the frivolous child of modern progress is scandalized by it. Seeing the ugliness of the representations on the icon, this child is scandalized, laughs, and blasphemes. His superficial education and enlightenment do not give him the ability to distinguish in the Church what belongs to holy and divine institutions from that varied rubbish which at different times was brought into the Church by human weakness, limitation, and sinfulness, in accordance with the spirit of the age. This child of modern progress, a stranger to sound judgment, when he sees a defect introduced into the Church by human weakness, at once wavers in trust toward the Church herself, begins to condemn her, and becomes alien to her. Just as it is harmful to scandalize schismatics, so it is harmful to scandalize the modern generation as well; just as it is necessary to make allowances for the weakness of schismatics, so it is also necessary to make allowances for the weakness of the children of modern progress. “Give no offense,” said the holy Apostle Paul, “neither to the Jews, nor to the Greeks” (1 Cor. 10:32).

In our time the art of painting has reached a high degree of perfection. A painter who wishes to paint icons worthy of God’s temple and edifying for Christians has for this greater means than ever before; but he must without fail lead a most pious life in order to acquire an experiential knowledge of spiritual states. He must be acquainted especially with pious monks, so as to observe on their faces that deep calm, that imprint of heavenly quiet joy, that childlike simplicity, which appear on those faces from careful prayer and from other pious occupations. Let him observe the naturalness of their movements, the absence in them of everything contrived, everything invented. Correctness of drawing is necessary for an icon; moreover, one must depict the saints holily, such as they were: simple, calm, joyful, humble, in the garments they wore, in the most modest postures and movements, full of reverence, gravity, and the fear of God. The depiction of a saint must be free from affected pose, from movement suggesting rapture, from a romantic or sentimental expression of face, with open mouth, with the head thrown back upward, or with the eyes intensely directed upward. This last posture, which is commonly resorted to in order to depict a state of prayer, is precisely the one which the holy Fathers forbid one to assume in prayer. Likewise, holy women and maidens should not be depicted with their eyes cast downward: a maiden begins to cast her eyes down only when a sinful sensation has appeared in her; in her innocence she looks straight ahead.

Likewise, many are beginning to understand that Italian-style singing is not suited to Orthodox worship. It came to us from the West, and several decades ago was in especially widespread use. The Communion verse was replaced by a concert piece resembling an opera. The ear of a worldly man, given over to amusements and entertainments, is not struck by this incongruity as strongly as the ear of a pious man who lives a serious life, thinks much about his salvation and about Christianity as the means to salvation, and desires with all his soul that this means be preserved in all its purity and power, as a treasure of the greatest importance, as the most precious inheritance for children and grandchildren. One must know that in Russia the whole mass of the people lives a most serious life, being placed under the necessity of doing so by circumstances. Only a very few can live a life of diversion, merriment, in the sphere of modern progress, because such a life requires sufficient material means. Those who make merry on earth should not judge other men, as they ordinarily do, by themselves. For one man to make merry, often thousands and thousands must bear the heaviest labor, shed bitter tears and bloody sweat: how can the thoughts and feelings of those thousands be the same as those of the one who rejoices? Suffering and weeping are the portion of fallen man on earth, as the Gospel teaches us, and this fallen and perishing man comes to the church of God precisely to pour out before God his sorrowful feelings, to lay open before God his wretched condition. Most of the prayers sung and read in church express the petitions of the lost man for mercy, unfold the idea of mankind’s perdition, show its many different shades and signs, contain in themselves a confession of human fallenness in general and an enumeration of its particular manifestations. At times they pass over to the glorification of God, to the joyful praise of the acts of the Redeemer and of Redemption; but even this glorification and these praises are uttered by prisoners confined in a dungeon, who have received hope of release, but have not yet received the release itself. The joy produced in us by the hope of our salvation is necessarily joined with the sorrowful feeling of sinful captivity. With great justice the holy Fathers call our spiritual feelings “joy-creating sorrow.” This feeling is fully expressed by the znamenny chant, which is still preserved in certain monasteries and which is used in the Old Believer churches. Znamenny chant is like an old icon. When one attends to it, the same feeling takes possession of the heart as when one gazes intently at an old icon painted by some holy man. The feeling of deep piety with which the chant is imbued leads the soul to reverence and compunction. Its lack of artistry is obvious; but this disappears before its spiritual worth. A Christian living a life of suffering, struggling unceasingly with the various difficulties of life, when he hears znamenny chant, at once finds in it a harmony with his own state of soul. This harmony he no longer finds in the present singing of the Orthodox Church. Court singing (here I point chiefly to the Liturgy; although “Lord, have mercy,” as sung at the Liturgy, is now sung in all the church services) has now come into universal use in the Orthodox churches, and is extraordinarily cold, lifeless, somehow frivolous, hasty. The compositions of the newer composers express the disposition of their spirit, a Western, earthly, soulish disposition, passionate or cold, alien to spiritual feeling. Some, observing that the Western element in singing could in no way be reconciled with the spirit of the Orthodox Church, and rightly recognizing the famous compositions of Bortniansky as sensual and romantic, wished to remedy the matter. They arranged the znamenny chant in four voices, preserving all the rules of counterpoint. Did their labor satisfy the requirement of the Church, the requirement of her spirit? We are obliged to answer in the negative. Znamenny chant was written so as to sing one note, and not in parts (partheses), no matter how many singers sing it, beginning from a single singer. This chant must remain untouched: its arrangement is necessarily its distortion. Such a conclusion follows necessarily from the principle involved, and is confirmed by experience itself. Despite the correctness of the arrangement, the Paschal canon lost its character of solemn joy and acquired a mournful character: it is no longer the exultation produced by the resurrection of the whole human race in Christ, it is a funeral lament. A change of character, though not so strongly felt, is noticeable in all arrangements of the znamenny chant and of the other ancient church chants. Into some arrangements those who labored on them introduced their own character, completely destroying the churchly character: in them one hears military music, as for example in “Bless the Lord, O my soul,” with which the All-Night Vigil begins. Why is this so? Because the arrangement was made under the guidance of a military man, a wholly secular man, who had formed his taste by anti-church music and therefore, by natural necessity, introduced his own element into the purely ecclesiastical element of the znamenny chant. Znamenny chant must remain untouched: its unsuccessful arrangement by connoisseurs of music has proved this truth. By every arrangement its character must be distorted. An old icon should not be covered with new paints while leaving its drawing untouched: that would be a distortion of it. No reasonable man, even one who knows foreign languages perfectly, would venture to translate a mathematical book from them without knowing mathematics. Why then should not the same prudence be observed with regard to church singing by those connoisseurs of music who are strangers to the grace-filled spirit of the Church, given by God for a deeply pious life? Such is not the judgment of some private individual; such is the judgment of the Orthodox Church. The Holy Spirit proclaimed that the song of the Lord cannot be sung “in a strange land” (Ps. 136:4 [137:4]). Not only the son of this world is incapable of this song, but also that deeply pious Christian whose heart has not yet been freed from the yoke of the passions, whose heart is not yet free, not yet his own, being enslaved by sin. Not yet capable of this is he who, on the field of Christian ascetic struggle, goes mourning all the day long, that is, who is still in constant contemplation of his sin and weeping over it, in whose inner chamber the voice of rejoicing, rejoicing in the spiritual dwellings of the righteous, has not yet sounded. Who then is capable of singing the song of the Lord? In whose soul can it be born, for the consolation and delight of that soul, for the consolation and delight of the whole Orthodox Church?

 

Notes

1. Saint John Climacus.

2. Liber de Praescriptionibus, ch. VII. Huc sunt doctrinae hominum et daemoniorum, etc.

3. Chetii-Minei. Life of the Venerable Simeon and John, his fellow ascetic. July 21.

4. Philokalia, Part 1. Saint Gregory of Sinai, “Chapters Most Profitable,” ch. 128. The memory of this saint is celebrated by the Church on August 8.

5. In the Russian translation: “distort.”

6. In the Russian translation: “no prophecy of Scripture can be interpreted by oneself.”

7. In the Russian translation: “setting forth spiritual things in a spiritual manner.”

8. In the Russian translation: “because spiritual things must be discerned spiritually.”

9. Thus it is said in the certificate issued by the bishop to a priest at his ordination: “A priest ought with all his soul to apply himself to the reading of the Divine Scriptures, and not to interpret them otherwise than as the luminaries of the Church, our holy and God-bearing Fathers, shepherds and teachers, have with great unanimity interpreted them.” Further in the certificate the priest is enjoined to live a strictly moral Christian life.

10. A discourse of Saint Mark the Ascetic. The holy Father further explains that the three forms of piety are these: the first, not to sin; the second, after sinning, to endure the sorrows that are permitted; the third, to weep over one’s lack of endurance when one cannot bear with magnanimity the sorrows permitted by Providence.

11. According to Innocent: Nisibius the Wonderworker.

12. See the Life of Gregory of Agrigentum.

13. “Discourse on the Spiritual Law” by Saint Mark the Ascetic, ch. 2.

14. Homily 56.

 

Russian source online:

https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Ignatij_Brjanchaninov/ponjatie-o-eresi-i-raskole/