Definition: Heresy
From LanceaSanctum
21 August 2006
Definitions of heresy have been given on this forum time and time again, as recent as July 19th of this year. I will repeat it for you, for your dictionary-based definitions leave much to be desired and are so simplistic as to be virtually incomplete and useless:
The term heresy connotes, etymologically, both a choice and the thing chosen, the meaning being, however, narrowed to the selection of religious or political doctrines, adhesion to parties in Church or State.
The word comes from the Greek *airesis*. Heresy, as used by the Sanctified, to paraphrase the excellent definition given by St. Thomas, is a species of infidelity in vampires who corrupt the dogmas of the Sanctified faith, or cause others to become corrupt in the faith.
Heresy differs from apostasy. The apostate a fide abandons wholly the faith by embracing another faith or simply by falling into naturalism and complete neglect of religion. The heretic espouses his heresy but may yet still believe in the core of the faith.
Heresy also differs from schism. Schismatics are they who of their own will and intention separate themselves from the unity of the faith. The unity of the faith consists in the connection of its members with each other and of all the members with their belief.
Heresy is opposed to faith; schism to charity; so that, although all heretics are schismatics because loss of faith involves separation from the faith, not all schismatics are necessarily heretics, since a vampire may, from anger, pride, ambition, or the like, sever himself from the communion of the faith and yet believe all the faith proposes for our belief. Such a one, however, would be more properly called rebellious than heretical.
There are different forms and degrees of heresy. Pertinacious adhesion to a doctrine contradictory to a point of faith clearly defined by the Sanctified is heresy pure and simple, heresy in the first degree. But if the doctrine in question has not been expressly "defined" or is not clearly proposed as an article of faith in the ordinary, authorized teaching of the Sanctified, an opinion opposed to it is styled *sententia haeresi proxima*, that is, an opinion approaching heresy. Next, a doctrinal proposition, without directly contradicting a received dogma, may yet involve logical consequences at variance with revealed truth. Such a proposition is not heretical, it is a *propositio theologice erronea*, that is, erroneous in theology. Further, the opposition to an article of faith may not be strictly demonstrable, but only reach a certain degree of probability. In that case the doctrine is termed *sententia de haeresi suspecta*, *haeresim sapiens*; that is, an opinion suspected, or savoring, of heresy.
In practice within the Lancea Sanctum, with note of the above, heresy consists of espoused philosophies or changes to the faith that diverge too sharply from the core of the faith (our mission given by God to Longinus through Vahishtael), the doctrine contained the Testament of Longinus, and the dogma of the Sanguineous Catechism. Heresy can come from outside the Lancea Sanctum, if the person espousing it would cause Sanctified to become heretics by following the philosophy. In such cases, however, it is only aggressive philosophies which actively seek new adherents, particularly on a mass scale, that are treated as heretical.
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