The concept of heresy has played a significant role across Christian history. Traditionally, heretical sects have been regarded as distinct, real-life groups of people who had departed from the stable orthodox traditions of Christianity, and who posed a threat that needed to be addressed, sometimes through violent repression. More recently, scholarship has focused on the notion of heresy as discourse, placing particular emphasis on its literary construction and the social and cultural contexts. This literature has generated significant debates about the nature and historicity of many heresies. The Cambridge Companion to Christian Heresy provides a systematic and up-to-date guide to the study of this topic and its methodological challenges. Exploring different forms of written material that have played vital roles in historical disputes and in modern scholarly accounts, it includes thirteen case studies of key heresies, ranging from the Gnostics through to the Hussites at the dawn of the Reformation.
Introduction Richard Flower; Part I. Approaches and Evidence: 1. Theories and definitions of heresy John H. Arnold; 2. Dialogue literature Richard Lim; 3. Heresiological catalogues Richard Flower; 4. Councils, popes and canon law Rebecca Rist; 5. Inquisition and trial records Christine Caldwell Ames; Part II. Case Studies: 6. Gnosticism Michael A. Williams; 7. Manichaeism Jason BeDuhn; 8. Arianism and other Christological disputes Robin Whelan; 9. Pelagius Ali Bonner; 10. The Nestorian controversy: dyophysites, monophysites and miaphysites J. Edward Walters; 11. Islam as a Christian Heresy John Tolan; 12. Iconoclasm Judith Herrin; 13. Accusations of Heresy between East and West Marie-Hélène Blanchet and Nikolaos G. Chrissis; 14. Bogomils Andrew P. Roach; 15. The Cathars Jörg Feuchter; 16. The Medieval waldenses Pete Biller; 17. Wyclif, Lollards and popular heresy J. Patrick Hornbeck II; 18. Hussite revolution and its heresies Pavlína Rychterová
Richard Flower is Professor of Classics and Late Antiquity at the University of Exeter. A scholar of religious conflict, he is the author of Emperors and Bishops in Late Roman Invective (2013) and (co-edited with Morwenna Ludlow) Rhetoric and Religious Identity in Late Antiquity (2020).
