Meaning of heresiarch | Babel Free

Definitions

The founder of a heresy, or a major ecclesiastical proponent of such a heresy.

Equivalents

Examples

“He died in 1223, and seems to have had no successor; not is it an ascertained point that more than one such hæresiarch was ever recognized.”

“Is the heresiarch a less pernicious member of society than the murderer? Is not the loss of one soul a greater evil than the extinction of many lives? […] If then, the heresiarch causes infinitely greater evils than the murderer, why is he not as proper an object of penal legislation as the murderer? We can give a reason,—a reason, short, simple, decisive, and consistent. We do not extenuate the evil which the heresiarch produces; but we say that it is not evil of that sort against which it is the end of government to guard.”

“Sermons, whose writers played such dangerous tricks / Their own heresiarchs called them heretics, […]”

“Nestorǐus, a celebrated Haeresiarch, was appointed patriarch of Constantinople a.d. 428, but in consequence of his heresy was deposed at the council of Ephesus, 431. […] Nestorius carefully distinguished between the divine and human nature attributed to Christ, and refused to give to the Virgin Mary the title of Theotocus (Θεοτόκος) or "Mother of God."”

“Beautiful as Mr. [James Allanson] Picton's book was, its tendency was away from Christianity, and, followed to its logical conclusions, led to the renunciation of the Christian faith. He was illustrating an old truth, though to me then an undiscovered one, that a heresiarch may be, and often is, a very noble man, whatever may be the result to society of his views.”

“Although questions remain, it is, on balance, most reasonable to assign the Gospel of Truth to the Valentinian tradition. This is also the judgment of the majority of scholars. Whether the homily was actually composed by Valentinus himself, as some believe, cannot confidently be known. However, the quality of the composition and the authority of the voice that speaks in it do point in the direction of the heresiarch himself, rather than some minor and unknown figure.”

“Who were the heresiarchs of the Beguins? Surely the ultimate heresiarch was Peter [John] Olivi himself, and his body ("relics" to his followers, mere bones to the inquisitors) were spirited away from Narbonne at the very beginning of the conflict to be burned like a live heresiarch, with the ashes thrown into the Rhône.”

CEFR level