The Positive Side of Heresy

As the Church undergoes its passion, and the night of apostasy keenly felt, I thought it worthwhile to present an extract from the great work of Mourret Thompson on the History of the Church. He brings to light the positive side of this terrible scourge – heresy.

The “Period of the Fathers” has also been called the “Period of Great Heresies.” “There must be heresies,” said the Apostle. There had to be, if only to stir the intellectual activity of the church. St. Hilary begins his immortal treatise On the Trinity by saying that heresy spurred his mind.

“The errors of heretics and blasphemers force us to scale perilous heights, to speak unutterable words.” Heresies had to be, since God, desiring the development of His Church to the end of time, seems to will that it should always develop by struggle. In the era of bloody persecutions, the first Pontiffs by their martyrdom cemented the movement of expansion and organization of the early Church. The doctors followed them endured another sort of martyrdom, defending against sophistry and blasphemies and in the face of persecution, insult, and calumny, the Church which was attacked in its essential dogmas and calumniated in its purest morality. But from this crisis they saw Catholic doctrine arise triumphant, elucidated, and strengthened.

The strife against actual heresies was not the sole cause for the grief of those venerable Fathers. In the tendencies of some Eastern doctors, in the political acts of certain emperors, and in the jealous attitude of peoples grouped about Constantinople, they could for see the remote cause of schism. Yet although their souls groaned, their faith was never shaken.

Though all the dissident sects, in schism as in heresy, agreed on one point – hatred for the Roman Church – the latter remained steadfast in adherence to its earliest traditions and by its generosity, as in the time of clement of Rome, ever deserved to be called the one “that presides over charity.” Whereas each of these sects assumed the name of its leader or of the locality where it was born, the common voice of all peoples reserved the name Catholic Church for that one group which was connected with Rome. While Arians, Donatists, Nestorians, and Eutychians divided and subdivided, forming independent branches, the Church, faithfully united to the Roman Pontiffs, tightened the bonds of its hierarchy. The Roman Church, in its discipline as in its doctrine, was indeed the Church to which Christ foretold that “the gates of hell would not prevail against it.”

(Mourret Thompson, History of the Church)