A Little Dab’ll Do ‘Ya

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.  2 Peter 2:1 ESV

Heresies – The Greek word haíresis has been given a bad rap by Christian and Jewish theologians alike.  Why?  Because today “heresy” is considered false ideas, even sinful ideas, that undermine the truth of orthodoxy.  But haíresis never really meant this until it was enlisted by both Jews and Christians to drive wedges between opposing orthodoxies.  Daniel Boyarin’s book, Boarder Lines, examines in great detail the transition of the Greek term from simply “difference of opinion” to “beliefs contrary to the truth.”  He writes:

The invention of heresy and the invention of a Christian religion that is clearly distinct from a Jewish religion are thus shown to go intimately together, part and parcel of the very production of the discursive institution of orthodoxy itself.[1]

Heresiology emerges at the moment when sectarian/school structure is becoming less viable everywhere.  The transformation of both nascent Christianity and nascent Judaism from groups of sects—collections of philosophical schools, as Josephus had described Judaism and Allen Brent third-century Christianity—into orthodox churches with their heretical others would be seen on this reading as part of the same sociocultural process and practice.  Theological discourse was the major discursive vehicle for the making of this difference.[2]

If we look at the classical meaning of haíresis, we find “selective preference,” “choice,” and “resolve.”  But something happened in the first and second centuries.

1. haíresis in Classical Usage and Hellenism. On the basis of hairéō, the senses are “seizure” “choice” “resolve.” Choice of opinion led to the philosophical use for “teaching” “school” with the associated ideas of delimitation from other schools, the authority of the teacher, specific doctrine, and the private character of these features.
2. haíresis in the LXX and Judaism. The sense of “choice” occurs, e.g., in Lev. 22:18, but Philo uses it for philosophical schools, e.g., in On Noah’s Work as a Planter 151, and Josephus for the Essenes and Jewish parties in The Jewish War 2.118; Life 12. The corresponding rabbinic term was first used for parties in Judaism but later only for those opposed by the rabbis (late 1st and early 2nd cent.) and then for non-Jewish groups (late 2nd cent.).
3. haíresis in the NT.
4. The usage in Acts resembles that of Josephus and the early rabbis (Acts 5:17; 24:5; 26:5).
5. Yet there is from the outset a suspicion of the haíresis within Christianity itself, not through the development of orthodoxy, but through the basic incompatibility of ekklēsía and haíresis (cf. Gal. 5:20; 1 Cor. 11:18–19). In 1 Cor. 1: 10ff. haíresis has a sifting purpose. In 2 Pet. 2:1 it affects the church’s very basis; a haíresis creates a new society alongside the ekklēsía and thus makes the ekklēsía itself a haíresis and not the comprehensive people of God. This is unacceptable.^[3]

Read the comment in TDNT carefully.  Did you notice that the disturbance in the New Testament, according to Schlier, is not false doctrine but rather the existence of a separate community.  In the first century, haíresis was still “difference of opinion,” in the case of Peter’s letter, a difference that led to an alternative ekklēsía.  Today we might even call this denominational separation.  But just like today, separate denominations are usually not considered false religions.  It took the rabbis and the bishops of the second and third centuries to treat haíresis as false belief.  Interestingly, the two orthodoxies, Christian and Jewish, looked at the opposite community as false believers, and, as Boyarin demonstrates, they did this in order to solidify their power over their respective communities.

Politics and religion—a lethal combination.

Topical Index: Boyarin, haíresis, heresy, orthodoxy, 2 Peter 2:1

[1] Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines: the Partition of Judeo-Christianity (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), p. 29.

[2] Ibid., p. 30

^[3] Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). In Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Abridged in One Volume (p. 28). W.B. Eerdmans.