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Two Thousand Years of Heresy: An Essay

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Wolfgang Wackernagel
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The source of my interest in the study of heresiology originates in many years of research on the work and life of Meister Eckhart. It is therefore in an Eckhartian perspective, which presupposes a certain leniency, and even sympathy, towards the phenomenon of heresy, that I am going to give a survey of ‘the other side of Christianity’, from the Acts of Simon Magus, ‘father of heresy’, to the dawn of the second millennium, while exposing the medieval period in greater depth.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 47 , Issue 187 , September 1999 , pp. 134 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 1999

References

Notes

1. This article recapitulates a programme made for Radio Suisse Romande, Espace 2, ‘Domaine Parlé', of Alphonse Layaz (interview by Serge Margel), broadcast from Monday 31 May to Friday 4 June 1999.

2. ‘To carry the word to that city was an act of daring, for the Samaritans had for centuries been excluded from the community of Israel.' Bible, translated and annotated by Émile Osty and Joseph Trinquet (Éd. du Seuil: Paris), p. 2332 and notes.

3. See Walter Nigg's excellent book, Das Buch der Ketzer (Zurich, 1949), pp. 29-30.

4. Adolf von Harnack. (1924, 2nd edn 1996). Marcion: das Evangelium vom fremden Gott. Eine Monographie zur Geschichte der Grundlegung der katholischen Kirche. Berlin.

5. See Socrates Scholasticus. Ecclesiastical History. From the Accession of Constantine, A.D. 305 to the 38th Year of Theodosius II, Including a Period of 140 Years, Translated from the Greek sine nomine (London, 1853), p. 3; (new edn: Edinburgh, 1989). By definition the advocate has to arrange facts in his client's favour. So one should not be surprised that the objectivity of this author has been challenged. His Ecclesiastical History is none the less an interesting source for the study of this period, stretching from the end of the Diocletian persecutions (309) to the year 439, that is, three decades after the sack of Rome by Alaric, king of the Visigoths (410). Ibid. p. 343.

6. See Hans von Campenhausen, Les Pères grecs, translated by O. Marbach (Paris, 1963), p. 99.

7. The Vandals experienced the same fate in 533-534. The Visigoths, Swabians and Lombards by contrast became Catholic during the papacy of Gregory the Great (590-604). Some traces of Ulphilas's church still survived in the nineteenth century, notably in Silesia. Only the oriental branch, known as ‘Nestorian', has numerous faithful today, especially in Iran and the United States.

8. On this subject there is another interesting hypothesis, which suggests different sources of inspiration joined together: the Pog of Montségur is perhaps derived from Bog, which means ‘god' in Slav languages (cf. bogomiles). In parallel with other languages, one can also associate it with the idea of wood (sacred), book and beech. We know that in ancient legends the god or some deified hero slept in a mountain, before returning ‘at the end of time'. The possibility that onto this myth that of the Second Coming of Christ was superimposed cannot be excluded. Such a phenomenon is also observable in connection with the Eckhartian legends. See in this connection my article, ‘Eckhart et son double. Mythographie comparative d'un non emblématique', in Revue des Sciences Religieuses, 69e année, no. 2, Strasbourg, April 1995, pp. 216-226.

9. Jean Guiraud, Cartulaire de Notre-Dame de Prouille, précédé d'une étude sur l'albigéisme languedocien aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles (Bibliothèque historique du Languedoc, 1: Paris, 1907), p. ccxxxi.

10. ‘Revixit et Arrius in partibus occidentis, qui ab orientali judicio in propria persona damnatus, nunc in successoribus suis fines ultimos occupavit.' Quoted in Herbert Grundmann, Religiöse Bewegungen im Mittelalter (Berlin, 1935), 4th edn, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft: Darmstadt, 1977), n. 35, pp. 31-32.

11. See Fernan Niel, Albigeois et Cathares (Que sais-je? Paris, 1955), p. 6.

12. See Henry Charles Lea, A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages (1888). French trans. Salomon Reinach (Société nouvelle de librairie et d'édition: Paris, 1900).

13. It is generally believed that béguine comes from the Dutch beggaert. However, Jan van Mierlo, a distin guished Dutch scholar, asserts by contrast that begina is derived from Al-bigen-ses. It is therefore not surprising that béguine has always preserved a suspect colouring (cf. the condemnations of 1311 and 1317), since the word has the same origin as Ketzer (‘heretic’) namely the Albigensian Cathars. Other epithets have also been in circulation, as this extract from a sermon given by Jacques de Vitry between 1229 and 1240 demonstrates: ‘… Sapientes autem … huius seculi, prelati scilicet seculares et alii maliciosi homines volunt eam interficere et a bono proposito retrahere dicentes: Hec vult esse Beguina - sic enim nominantur in Flandria et Brabancia - vel Papalarda - sic enim appellantur in Francia - vel Humiliata - sicut dicitur in Lumbardia - vel Bizoke - secundum quod dicitur in Italia - vel Coquenunne - ut dicitur in Theotonia; et ita deridendo eas et quasi infammando nituntur eas retrahere a sancto proposito.' See Herbert Grundmann, Religiöse Bewegungen im Mittelalter, pp. 377 n. 47, 532 n. 19.

14. Romana Guarneri, Il movemento del Libero Spirito, testi e documenti, storia e letteratura (Rome, 1965), p. 7. The heretical aspect of the Free Spirit stems from the fact that it abolishes the idea of sin, so that the Church, the sacraments and penitence become useless. See also Raoul Vaneigem, Les hérésies (PUF, Que sais-je? Paris, 1994), bibliography.

15. Herbert Grundmann, Religiöse Bewegungen im Mittelalter, p. 533 and n. 29 (Momumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores 26, 234, 443).

16. For the differences between Eckhartian preaching and some theses attributed to beguines close to the Free Spirit - which Meister Eckhart attempted to correct, notably in Sermons 5a, 29, 86 and in the Sermon de l'homme noble (‘Sermon concerning the noble man’), see Marie-Anne Vannier, ‘L'homme noble, figure de l'oeuvre d'Eckhart à Strasbourg', in Les mystiques rhénans (Revue des sciences religieuses, 70e année, no. 1, Strasbourg, Jan. 1996) (Paris, 1996), pp. 73-89.

17. Quoted from Auguste Jundt, Histoire du panthéisme populaire au Moyen Âge et au XVIe siècle (suivie de pièces inédites concernant les frères du Libre-Esprit, Maitre Eckhart, les libertins spirituels, etc.) (Paris, 1875; Frankfurt am Main, 1964), pp. 51-52.

18. Poésies mystiques et prière de (et autour de) Maître Eckhart, trans. and ed. Wolfgang Wackernagel (Geneva, 1998), pp. 93 ff. See also my article, ‘Maitre Eckhart et le discernement mystique. À propos de la rencontre de Suso avec ‘la (chose) sauvage sans nom', in Revue de Théologie et de Philosophie, 129 (Lausanne, 1997), pp. 113-126. And in english: ‘Some Legendary Aspects of Meister Eckhart: The Aphorisms of the Twelve Masters', Eckhart Review No. 7, (Oxford, Spring 1998), pp. 30-41.

19. ‘Predigt 86', in Meister Eckhart: Die deutschen Werke, III (DW III), ed. Josef Quint (Stuttgart, 1958), p. 361, trans. Jeanne Ancelet-Hustache, Maître Eckhart: Sermons, III (Anc. 3) (Paris, 1979), p. 178.

20. Maître Eckhart, Traités et sermons (Paris, 1993), trans. Alain de Libéra, pp. 407-415.

21. Cf. Winifred Trusen, Der Prozess gegen Meister Eckhart: Vorgeschichte, Verlauf und Folgen (Rechts- und Staatswissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen der Görres-Gesellschaft, new ser., 54; Paderborn, 1988); Heinrich Stirnimann and Ruedi Imbach (eds.), Eckhardus Theutonicus, homo doctus et sanctus: Nachweise und Berichte zum Prozess gegen Meister Eckhart (Fribourg [Switzerland], 1992).

22. Plato, Oeuvres complètes, trans. L. Robin and M.-J. Moreau (Gallimard-La Pléiade), vol. 1, p. 359.

23. Suderman having devoted a considerable part of his life to deciphering and copying old manuscripts certainly read this information somewhere. In the catalogue of his important collection he says that ‘numer ous good things [relating to Eckhart and Tauler] have been omitted in the printed books'. See Ingeborg Degenhardt, Studien zum Wandel des Eckhartbildes (Leiden, 1967), pp. 90-102, nn. 1 (p. 93), 2 (p. 94).

24. Exodus 22: 17-18, according to the Vulgate translation, the only biblical reference-work for the Middle Ages, ‘Maleficos non patieris vivere'.