Christian Heresies

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"La Charte de Niquinta est un enjeu essentiel, car elle est le seul document à témoi-gner d’une organisation assez solide de la dissidence dite « cathare » dans le Midi déjà au XIIe siècle et – parmi les sources qui se présentent comme provenant du milieu dis-sident – à postuler la filiation « bogomile » des hérétiques méridionaux. Inconnue par un manuscrit médiéval quelconque et publiée seulement en 1660 par l’historien Guil-laume Besse, la Charte n’a pas tardé à éveiller de graves soupçons. Selon M. Zerner, il s’agirait d’un faux du XVIe ou XVIIe siècle, dont la rédaction finale serait due à Besse lui-même.
L’édition du document d’après le ms. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, fonds Baluze 7, 40-42 v est suivie de quelques remarques qui mènent à conclure contre la rédaction du document au XVIe ou XVIIe siècle, notamment : 1) les neuf ligatures trompeuses de et dans Baluze 7, mal lues par Besse comme quod dans la plupart des cas ; 2) le nom de Raimond de Bauniaco ; 3) la cooccurrence des noms de Pierre Isarn et Pierre Pollan."

Plutôt qu’un faux du XVIe ou XVIIe siècle, la Charte de Niquinta semble être un récit sur les commencements, rédigé au XIIIe siècle. Si nous écartons l’hypothèse d’un faux catholique des années 1220, qui se heurte à l’ensemble du document, il reste trois hypothèses principales sur la nature du document. Il peut s’agir : (1) d’un rapport historique, (2) d’un faux de Pierre Pollan et/ou Pierre Isarn, destiné à soutenir les intérêts de l’église du Carcassès, ou (3) d’un récit légendaire sur les commencements des églises dissidentes dans le Midi, influencé par les légendes sur les origines des églises d’Italie, dont nous connaissons, de toute évidence, des versions remaniées et « complétées » par les polémistes grâce au De heresi catharorum et au Tractatus de hereticis. Cette narration a pu incorporer un acte de bornage authentique, dressé à un rassemblement de portée locale.

This paper discusses the use of the names of heresies: bogomilism, messalianism and the heresy of autoproscoptae in 14th century Bulgarian sources. The author underlines that the names of bogomilism and messalianism do not always refer to dualism. Two wider unknown examples of such use of the name “messalinism” are recalled. In the Pseudo-Zonaras Nomocanon (CIAI 1160), the name “messalianism” is treated as being equal to the “heresy of autoproscoptae”. In the Rule for hermits, messalians are presented not as heretics, but as monks disregarding their rules.

The article analyses a number of late antique Christian sources that use choreutic gesture to highlight the cultural alterity of pagan cults, Judaism and heretical movements. The Christian intellectual critique of dancing is not interpreted as an aversion to the practice per se, but as part of an anthropological process that encouraged men to become perfect imitators of the angelic choreia in the Platonic framework. This Christian choreia did not only characterize a presumed Ideal City, but also had to be performed during life on earth. It excluded infames, pagans, Jews and heretics, namely all those that did not comply with the new gestural and behavioural schemata defined by Christian intellectuals.

ABSTRACT: This essay uses the method of historiographical criticism to reexamine the frameworks used to research the relationship between apocalypse and violence. Its focus is the presentation of Anabaptist rule at Münster in the mid-1530s. New religions scholars and historians alike often cite this case as evidence of how millenarian prophecy can lead believers to violent actions. The essay demonstrates that this view is based largely on anti-Anabaptist and anti-sectarian propaganda that has its origins in the medieval and early modern eras. Partly because of the popularity of Norman Cohn's The Pursuit of the Millennium (1957), which translated older polemical interpretations of religious outsiders into a modern scholarly form, hostile assumptions about Anabaptist violence have found their way into academic debates today. The essay shows that the distorting effects of these kinds of assumptions are not limited at all to the case of Anabaptist Münster, but in fact shape unhelpfully the way scholars conceptualize more generally the relationship between dissenting "sects" and established "churches." "Thinking outside the cages" of polemically derived conceptualizations can form the basis for cross-disciplinary research on believers under siege.

Historians have never properly dealt with the Twelve Great Feasts (the Dodekaortion) of the Eastern Orthodox Church.  While some feasts have received much attention, others have been almost totally ignored, making an understanding of these feasts as a group difficult.  More importantly, scholars have largely disregarded the historical causes behind the feasts' existence.  When the feasts are studied as a group, it becomes clear that their original purpose was not to commemorate events in Christ's life, as has been claimed (Dix), but rather to put forth theological and ultimately political propositions in an accessible and convincing form.
The early Church observed only three feasts as independent celebrations (what I call the Core Group: the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and Pentecost).  It was not until centuries later, after the Council of Constantinople, that the other feasts were observed throughout the East.  These post-Nicene feasts followed a similar pattern of institution for the most part.  A feast usually originated at one specific Church as the popular manifestation of opposition to a particular heresy or schismatic doctrine.  Observance of the feasts was at first strictly local.  The rest of the Eastern Church usually adopted them for the same reasons that the local Churches had; but, occasionally, because of the Orthodox character of the feasts, their doctrinal potential was redirected toward other controversies.
Like so much of Christian theology, whose original simplicity became more and more complicated, the post-Nicene feasts were formed in reaction to the various heresies.  The Core Group corresponds to the early stage of Christian theology, commemorating from the beginning the essential tenets of salvation.  The Cyrillian Group (the Raising of Lazarus, Palm Sunday, and the Ascension) comprises the first feasts formed in conscious reaction to a heresy--Arianism.  Before Cyril of Jerusalem, there were no universal feasts apart from the Core Group; with him, the feast as an anti-heretical device became established.  The Epiphany and the Nativity were likewise directed against Arianism, but they derived from pre-existing feasts of local significance that probably had no original connection with heresy.  The Marian Group (the Presentation, the Dormition, and the Annunciation) arose in opposition to the next great threat to Orthodoxy, Nestorianism.  In this group, the first documentary evidence of institution by imperial decree appears, testimony to the importance of festal practice.  The last feast to be adopted, the Transfiguration, seems to have been a statement of the ultimate sanction of Chalcedonian Orthodoxy as the official government position at the end of a long period of Christological argument.
The Twelve Great Feasts took on the superficial character of a life cycle of Christ for two reasons.  First, by presenting their theology in the form of feasts commemorating events in the life of Christ they became more accessible to the faithful and more likely to make an impression on them.  Second, as appeals in theological controversies, they called upon the ultimate theological authority--Christ himself.
The canon of the Twelve Great Feasts began to take shape as the great Christological controversies began.  By the time those controversies reached their indecisive conclusion, all the feasts had been instituted.  Thus, the post-Nicene feasts arose during the period of the great controversies, but the feasts themselves were more than the mere results of these arguments, they played an active, and at times even crucial, part in their outcome.
Written when I was a graduate student, this article received prize for best interdisciplinary essay, and is cited as the principal authority on the subject in the 3rd ed. rev. of the highly authoritative Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church).

The article examines the food-implications that Augustine assigns to the different groups catalogued in the unfinished work De haeresibus. The aim isto check whether eating habits (and, if so, what eating habits) could be a criterion of heretical identity and identification. On concluding the examination it was found that the eating habits identified by Augustine are a very significant component (and sometimes even discriminatory) used to determine the heretical character of individual dissident groups. However, this same plurality of eating habits which sometimes oppose each other, cannot be reduced to a single paradigm which is able to define the quid faciat hereticum in a broader and more comprehensive manner. In Augustine‟s mind, the heretical identity (and identification) is not reducible to a standard and unique formula

La Charte de Niquinta, texte qui rapporte un grand rassemblement hérétique à Saint-Félix de Lauragais en 1167 et qui se réclame de la provenance dissidente, est un enjeu essentiel de la recherche actuelle sur le catharisme et le bogomilisme. La Charte est le seul document dissident à témoigner d’une organisation assez solide de la dissidence cathare dans le Midi dès le XIIe siècle et à postuler les liens des hérétiques méridionaux avec la dissidence orientale. L’hypothèse d’un faux moderne se montre plutôt improbable. Mais il reste plusieurs autres hypothèses de sa rédaction au Moyen Âge, donc de son interprétation : il peut s’agir d’une stylisation antihérétique, d’un document relatant largement des faits historiques, d’un faux dissident, d’une légende dissidente du XIIIe siècle. Cet article résume l’état actuel de la discussion et apporte des arguments pour et contre les différentes hypothèses.

In October 1319, the archbishop of Narbonne and the Dominican inquisitor Jean de Beaune surrendered to the secular arm the first members of the group of men and women known to historians as the Beguins of Languedoc. The execution that followed marked a turning point in the evolution of a religious movement that had legitimately developed for decades under the wing of the most radical branch of the Franciscan Order. In a matter of months, these individuals and their supporters where forced to adapt to clandestinity in order to survive. The aim of the present paper is to show that the Beguins of Languedoc were perceived by ecclesiastical authorities as a 'new heresy' whose novelty made it necessary to provide a working definition that helped to better prosecute it. It will also be discussed how some of the features of an alternative religious culture were built into the inquisitorial discourse and how the resulting 'heresy' was in fact co-constructed between inquisitors and religious dissenters.

Now available. https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-08707-8.html

Publisher's description:

Early in the third century, a small group of Greek Christians began to gain prominence and legitimacy as intellectuals in the Roman Empire. Examining the relationship that these thinkers had with the broader Roman intelligentsia, Jared Secord contends that the success of Christian intellectualism during this period had very little to do with Christianity itself.

With the recognition that Christian authors were deeply engaged with the norms and realities of Roman intellectual culture, Secord examines the thought of a succession of Christian literati that includes Justin Martyr, Tatian, Julius Africanus, and Origen, comparing each to a diverse selection of his non-Christian contemporaries. Reassessing Justin’s apologetic works, Secord reveals Christian views on martyrdom to be less distinctive than previously believed. He shows that Tatian’s views on Greek culture informed his reception by Christians as a heretic. Finally, he suggests that the successes experienced by Africanus and Origen in the third century emerged as consequences not of any change in attitude towards Christianity by imperial authorities but of a larger shift in intellectual culture and imperial policies under the Severan dynasty.

Original and erudite, this volume demonstrates how distorting the myopic focus on Christianity as a religion has been in previous attempts to explain the growth and success of the Christian movement. It will stimulate new research in the study of early Christianity, classical studies, and Roman history.

The essay deals with the cultural and religious climate in Rome during the papacy of Leo X connected to anatomical studies of which Leonardo was an important interpreter. In particular, the article shows how philosophical research, during the V th Lateran Council, has become a field of repression for the Church of Rome, because of the thesis on the immortality of the soul due to the anatomies performed on the fetuses. Even Leonardo da Vinci, during his Roman stay and in the course of his research, had to face the widespread diffidence on anatomies, from which deductions were drawn alongside heresy. Riassunto. Il saggio propone una ricostruzione del clima culturale e religioso che ruotava attorno agli studi anatomici e filosofici nella Roma di Leone X di cui Leonardo da Vinci fu importante interprete. In particolare, si è cercato di mostrare come la ricerca filosofica divenne terreno di scontro con la Chiesa di Roma, durante il Concilio Lateranense V, in virtù delle tesi sull'immortalità dell'anima che scaturirono dalle dissezioni anatomiche sui feti. Anche Leonardo da Vinci, durante il suo soggiorno romano e nel corso delle sue ricerche, si dovette scontrare con la diffusa diffidenza che ruotava attorno agli studi anatomici a causa delle conseguenti tesi filosofiche, spesso assimilate prossime all'eresia. Le correnti filosofiche, strettamente correlate agli studi anatomici di cui Leonardo da Vinci fu uno dei protagonisti più attivi, approdarono nel corso del Rinascimento a pericolose dottrine per la Chiesa di Roma 1. Sarà opportuno ricordare che per secoli gli studi o i dibattiti filosofici e naturalistici si erano svolti in un clima di relativa libertà d'indagine, ma un provvedimento di Leone X emanato il 19 dicembre del 1513 all'interno dell'ottava sessione del Concilio Lateranense V (1512-1517), la costituzione Apostolici regiminis, aveva posto un rigoroso vincolo alla libertà di ricerca, soprattutto quando questa metteva in discussione l'immortalità dell'anima 2. Poiché il vero non può contraddire il vero, definiamo falsa ogni asserzione contraria alla verità della fede illuminata dall'alto e proibiamo rigorosamente di insegnare una diversa *Università di Bologna, [email protected] 1 La letteratura su questo argomento è molto vasta, mi limito a segnalare le seguenti voci e bibliografia correlata: D. LAURENZA, Leonardo da Vinci, in Dizionario Storico dell'Inquisizione (= DSI), A. PROSPERI, diretto da, J.

The contribution examines the double perception of the Manichean living space and traveling space, corresponding to the dialectic between sedentary and missionary obligation to propagate the faith. For building a house means causing violence to the environment and earth, wherein the Anima Viva’s sparkle is cast, and so making a sin that is stigmatized in the doctrine. However, in the history of this religion we find the presence of monastic hospitality structures for the Electi, who were also the places to preserve the culture, in writing, copying and illustration of the sacred texts

Abstract: This article disputes two common points made in previous interpretations of the claim that Galen was worshipped by the Theodotians, a group of Christians contemporary with him at Rome. First, the claim is a probable sign of the Theodotians' interest in medical subjects, contrary to suggestions that they were only interested in Galen's works on logic and philosophy. The Theodotians had good reason to be interested in the research of Galen and other doctors, particularly in the area of embryology, a topic that held an underappreciated significance in Christological debates of the second and third centuries. Second, there is no reason to believe that Galen had any personal connection with the Theodotians, much less that he played a significant role in the development of their program of study, as has often been claimed. Galen had no patience for amateur scholars from non-elite backgrounds, and he would thus have had nothing to do with the banausic Theodotians, whose founder was a leather-worker by profession.

Nel Medioevo, l'abbazia di Montecassino non è tra i centri della lotta antiereticale. La comunità si confronta infatti solo marginalmente al fenomeno dell'eresia negli anni 1079-1080: nel 1079, secondo la Chronica di Montecassino, il monaco grammaticus Alberico prende parte al Concilio Lateranense del 1079, scrivendo un libello per confutare la tesi di Berengario di Tours, come vedremo meglio nel corso del presente articolo; nel 1080, poi, papa Gregorio VII scrive all'arcivescovo normanno Roffredo di Benevento per incitarlo a ricercare un eretico nella sua arcidiocesi e suggerendogli di farsi accompagnare dall'abate Desiderio di Montecassino (iunctus religioso abbati Montis Casini). L'eretico, un certo Macario (Macharus), di cui non dà conto nessun'altra fonte, era stato segnalato al papa dall'arcivescovo di Synnada che lo aveva espulso dall'Armenia 1 . Nella lettera pontificia tuttavia, non esiste cenno alcuno al presunto errore di Macario, né si fa riferimento a eventuali compagni o a un qualsiasi rischio di diffusione dell'eresia. E, il 6 giugno dello stesso anno, Gregorio risponde all'arcivescovo armeno senza più menzionare la vicenda: non sappiamo dunque quale sia la sorte di Macario, né se l'abate Desiderio si fosse effettivamente messo a cercarlo insieme all'arcivescovo di Benevento. In

M. Pesce, “Quali paradigmi per comprendere le ridefinizioni del cristianesimo in età moderna?”, in M. Priarolo - E.Scribano (a cura di), Le ragioni degli altri. Dissidenza religiosa e filosofia nell’età moderna (Philosophica 3), Venezia, Edizioni di Ca’ Foscari, 2017, 13-45.

J. BEDUHN, The First New Testament. Marcion’s Scriptural Canon, Salem (OR) : Polebridge Press, 2013.
J. LIEU, Marcion and the Making of a Heretic. God and Scripture in the Second Century, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2015.
D. T. ROTH, The Text of Marcion’s Gospel, « New Testament Tools, Studies and Documents » 49, Leyde – Boston : Brill, 2015.

Version d’auteur disponible sur HAL-SHS : https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01527940

Nicephorus Gergoras was the first polemicist of the XIVth century to bring an accusation of iconoclasm against Gregory Palamas and his partisans drawing upon Nicephorus’ of Constantinople writings erroneously ascribed to Theodore Graptos. In the “First Antirretici” and “Historia Rhomaike” he 1. proved the possibility of employing anti-iconoclastic testimonies in the Hesychast controversy; 2. offered an original heresiological concept of genetic and typological connection between Iconoclasm and Palamism; and 3. drew a complex scheme of political allusions and historical reflections, presenting Palamas as a new Eusebius of Caesarea, himself — as a new Theodore Graptos, and John VI Cantacuzene — as a new Theophilus.

Nel capitolo VII ("De stella et magis") della sezione "In evangelia" dell'Historia scholastica, Pietro Comestore riporta una curiosa notizia che non trova altro riscontro letterario: Beda avrebbe creduto che la stella dei Magi caduta nel pozzo di Betlemme fosse stata vista da alcune vergini vissute al tempo di Paola ed Eustochio. I confratelli di Beda, ritenendo il racconto favoloso, avrebbero deciso di allontanarlo temporaneamente dal monastero. L'A. riesce a ricostruire soltanto in parte le fonti usate dal Comestore per l'episodio relativo alla stella dei Magi: accanto all'auctoritas di Fulgenzio dichiarata nel testo, ma in realtà poco sfruttata, si individuano calchi con le "Enarrationes in Mattheum" (attribuite da Migne ad Anselmo di Laon e in seguito al maestro Goffredo Babione), dove tuttavia l'episodio di Beda è assente, ed echi lessicali da Pietro Abelardo e Pietro Lombardo.

The Historia scholastica by the Parisian master Petrus Comestor preserves a singular testimony on the biography of Venerable Bede. The renowned monk had been separated from the community of his fellow monks due to his unacceptable beliefs regarding the star of the Magi. Bede believed the star of the Magi had fallen into a well in Bethlehem and that it had been seen by several virgins who had lived at the time of Paula and Eustochium.

PhD Dissertation (defended January 17, 2013, VU University Amsterdam).
(The pdf contains: preface, table of contents, bibliography, summaries [ENG, NL]).
A study of some fundamental aspects of Pelagius' confession of faith ("Libellus fidei", written 417 CE): context, background and immediate cause; text (critical edition); sources; analysis of and commentary on the paragraphs directly related to the controversy.
Augustine had labelled the confession as misleading and ambiguous, pope Zosimus on the other hand accepted it as both honest ("without pretence") and orthodox. Augustine's view is repeated and confirmed up to the present day.
The analysis offered suggests that Augustine mistook Pelagius' confession for an answer to African accusations and questions. Pelagius, however, seems to have taken Jerome's writings as point of departure rather than Augustine's. This throws new light on his supposed ambiguity.
The thesis also includes editions of some text not yet critically edited or reconstructed before: the confessions of Caelestius and Julian of Aeclanum/a group of Aquileian bishops, Ambrose "of Chalcedon", et al.
(Commercial publication, in two separate volumes, is in preparation.)

Ce mémoire a pour objet une meilleure compréhension du système astrologique présent dans le Livre des lois des pays [ci-après LLP]. Considéré comme un chef-d'oeuvre de la littérature syriaque, le LLP est un dialogue entre le philosophe et théologien syrien Bardesane et certains de ses disciples. Rédigé à la fin du deuxième ou au début du troisième siècle de notre ère, ce traité porte sur la réfutation de la toute-puissance du destin et des astres ainsi que sur la promotion du libre arbitre. Pour réfuter le fatalisme absolu, l'auteur prête à Bardesane une argumentation d'ordre astrologique, qui se fonde sur l'emploi de plusieurs termes et notions techniques relatifs à cette discipline. Notre recherche poursuit un objectif double. Dans un premier temps, nous situerons le LLP dans l'histoire de l'astrologie antique. Nous produirons ensuite un commentaire sur le système astrologique mis en place par l'auteur. L'analyse du vocabulaire astrologique syriaque du LLP nous permettra d'atteindre ces deux objectifs.

L'étude d'une dissidence depuis des siècles disparue dans les remous de l'histoire n'est pas chose facile, tant, par nature, les documents qui en conservent trace sont artificieux, « monuments du pouvoir » selon les mots de Georges Duby, reflétant la perpétuelle raison du plus fort, ses constructions infiniment piégées, ses certitudes en trompe-l'oeil. À plus forte raison lorsqu'il s'agit d'une hérésie, phénomène qui en son temps a concentré sur lui les regards malveillants du politique et du religieux. Que nous le voulions ou non, à des degrés divers, nous sommes tous les héritiers de vieux présupposés, que seul le travail historien peut débusquer et déminer, en l'analysant. Depuis les décennies que le chantier de l'histoire laboure le champ de l'hérésie médiévale -quels que soient les noms qu'on lui donne -c'est peut-être la pratique d'un commun langage qui a le plus manqué aux chercheurs.