What Role Did Heresy And Heretics Play In Christian Religion

When one thinks about the Christian faith it calls to mind pageantry, sermons, rituals, and a community of shared beliefs in what is right. This idea of the “right way” to think and do things with a religious slant is call orthodoxy. In the medieval times churchmen faced people that questioned certain aspects of the Church’s beliefs and practices. This questioning was a threat to the structure and power of the Church leading to it fighting back with condemnation, doctrine, and persecution of these people using the terms of witch, witchcraft, heresy, and heretics. The Church’s ideas regarding heresy and heretics would be shaped from the ancient ideals of magic, witches, and the unseen world. These foundational notions would be one of the key

The trial of Apuleius brought to light evidence that mages in Persian society were teachers of kings and played a role in educating people on how to worship the gods. That they were similar to priests and were linked to good and divine things that people did not fear. That incantations were practices using beautiful words and were beneficial for the mind, and did the court not want people to be healthy (Levack, 2015, p. 11)? However, another set of readings point to magic being used for evil to curse Roman charioteers and their horses to achieve the winning of one color over another (Levack, 2015, pp. 14-15) Love magic was commonly used in antiquity with examples still found today similar to the example in Levack’s Witchcraft Source book dated from the fourth century C.E. which lays out the ingredients and rituals require to concoct it. Horace’s play which spoke of the witch Candida’s use of magic to regain her lover’s interest through the torture and starving of boy for his liver. It showed her skulking about in cemeteries for bones and looking like an evil hag. This wasn’t meant to engender fear among his audience, it was meant to make fun of witchcraft and those that practiced it demonstrating it was a common thing that happened in antiquity (Levack, 2015, pp. 22-24). However, all of these

Augustine discussed the practices of Manichaeism religious beliefs and practices regarding the duality of God and mankind. The idea of goodness being co-mingled with evil and that man must strive to separate the two through various acts; especially through the consumption of food and drink by the Manichean Elect. This consumption allowed the divine substance that resided in man and in the food to join together. Once purity is attained then goodness is released back into the universe. Some of the foods the Elect consumed were said to contain human seeds gotten from illicit sexual acts. That these seeds contained divine substances that needed to be freed by man. These acts and beliefs were identified by St. Augustine and the Church as sacrilege. St. Augustine also lumped in the Cathers and Mattarii as follow the same heretical practices ensuring a link of heresy is created among these non-conformist sects (Peters, 1980). All of the descriptive acts list by St. Augustine can been seen as a link to witchcraft and the developing images of witches and heretics. Other sect of heretics identified as the Lyonist and Waldensians were said to slither into places, create the appearance of humble church goers, recruit followers, and preach against the clergy. The Passau Tractate states, “The first error of the Lyonist and Runkarii is that the Church of Rome is not the church of Jesus Christ, but the church of the wicked and of the whore in the Apocalypse, who sits upon a great