Note: This is the second of a set of Lenten reflections on the heresies which have fought against and been fought by the Church. The first one can be read here

“For such false apostles are deceitful workmen, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no wonder: for Satan himself transformeth himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers be transformed as the ministers of justice, whose end shall be according to their works” ( 2 Corinthians 11:13-15)

Saint Paul warned the early Christian community in Corinth to be on guard against the wiles of the devil. Though many signs and miracles would be performed in the name of Christ, so too would there be signs performed which were not in His name. Such signs could seem to be under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and to point those who saw them to God; yet the Devil himself was once an angel of light, and so he can disguise himself as such. Similarly can he work some types of miracle through those who follow him, in order to dupe the faithful and lure them away from the Faith.

This is especially true in an earlier time, when belief in the supernatural was more widespread than it is now. The Devil can work equally well with the magician who draws supernatural powers from him as with the materialist who believes neither in him nor in any spirit. In our own age, many do not believe in the supernatural or the spiritual, and so it is of Satan’s advantage not to shake the people from their unbelief by raising magicians to work signs in his name.

However, in the Church’s infancy, many—both inside and outside the Church—believed in the supernatural. In such an age, the Devil could best lure men away from the faith directly by appearing as an angel of the light sent to give new instruction; or by sending his own false apostles—magicians who countered the Church’s miracles with signs of their own—to lure the people away from the Church’s protection. The Church has long stood, and will always continue to stand, as a bulwark against which the armies of Satan cannot stand; such was Christ’s promise to St Peter.

This promise did not apply to those who stood outside of the Church. For them, there would be no salvation; Satan could sift them like wheat, and they would be helpless as lambs against is snares and treachery. It is thus in his interest to lure people away from the Church through any means possible, be it false preaching and false prophets, or false signs wrought by false apostles, or by scandals, by severe asceticism and false sanctity, or simply by confusing the faithful.

In the days of the early Church, belief in the supernatural was fervent, and the Holy Spirit had descended on many. Such is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, but also in epistles of St Paul. M L Cozens notes in A Handbook of Heresies that

“In the early days of the Church at Corinth, so plentifully were many of the faithful endowed with these marvelous gifts [of the spirit], that their exercise seemed likely to hinder rather than to promote the spiritual welfare of the whole body, so that St Paul…has to correct the disorder occasioned by the Corinthians’ want of temperance and discipline in spiritual things….Nor was the risk of irreverence or scandal the only or the greatest danger. These manifestations, or mystical phenomenon, as they were afterwards called, were far more easily counterfeited by Satan than are the more ordinary workings of the Holy Ghost, and so souls, themselves misled, might lead other souls astray to spiritual ruin.”

The Devil’s ability to mislead through appearance as an angel of light and through the signs worked by his apostles would be difficult to resist, and so one is tempted to despair of ever knowing Truth. It is in large part for this reason which Christ established His Church and granted her the authority to teach in matters of faith and morals. Thus, the means to finding Truth is above all humble submission to the authority of the Church.

“The only safeguard was humility and obedience. When the gift was genuine [that s, granted by the Holy Spirit] it was accompanied always by respect for the regular and authorized channels of truth and grace, while those who resisted authority proved themselves to be led not by the spirit of peace and truth but by that rebel spirit whose motto is ‘I will not serve’.”

The Devil fell from grace because of his pride, and so pride is his greatest weapon for leading the faithful astray. Pride is to be countered by the virtue of humility, the recognition of an authority beyond oneself. This authority is found not so much in the weak man Simon but the office held by Saint Peter, not in the sinful men who are ordained as bishops but in the office which they hold. No authority has been granted to individuals, but rather to the Church; it is not then exercised by individuals by their own right, but rather by the guarantee of Christ that the Church which He established would prevail even against “the gates of hell” (Matthew 16:18).

During the latter half of the third century, a man named Montanus was led astray by the Devil. He was granted the ability to work signs and wonders—becoming in effect a magician of the Devil—and he claimed for himself authority as the one who could work such wonders. These signs began to attract the attention of many, who were in turn drawn away from the Church and to this man. He forbad remarriage of widows and taught a severe asceticism in anticipation of a second advent, in stark contrast to Scriptures’ teaching that marriage was ended at the death of one partner and that of Christ’s Return “of that day or hour no man knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son of Man” (Mark 13:32).

Rather than submitting the Church’s authority on these matters, Montanus set himself first as an alternative and then a higher authority than that of the Church. Centuries later another and more famous heretic would claim for himself much the same thing, and his heresy still lasts to this day. Montanus, though, did not stop at declaring himself as an authority greater than that of the bishops in communion with the Pope; he eventually claimed to be a greater authority than the apostles and then even to be greater than Christ Himself.

Such was the nature of the Devil’s work in cultivating this heresy. We would, however, be mistaken to believe that it was an early heresy which was defeated never to surface again. In the early Church, many signs were worked and these miracles were clear for all to see. In such a time, the Devil could use a magician to be his standard-bearer, whether the man Montanus knew the diabolic nature of his powers or no. In modern times, elements of this heresy are still present. The source of this heresy’s power over men was miracles in a previous age, and miracles are not so widely worked. But at its core is the human pride, the refusal to submit humbly to the teachings (and corrections) offered by the Church. Those who reject the authority of the Church or subordinate it to their own are thus victims of a form of Montanism, differing often in degree and not in kind from the original Montanists.

Within the Church herself, there are those who would subordinate the teachings of the Church to their own consciences (in the case of morality) or to their own reasoning about one or another doctrine (in the case of matters of the Faith). This occurs especially in matters of morality, though there are many who having rejected a part or the whole of the Church’s moral teachings would also reject her doctrinal teachings on matters of faith; there are also a few who reject one or another doctrinal teachings, and then reject the morality as a result.

Within the Church, it is very often the “liberal” members of the Body of Christ who do this, though conservatives are guilty at times as well. The primary excuse cited for the rejection of one or another moral dogma is the primacy of conscience; similarly, conscience may be used to reject “theological” doctrines (i.e. doctrines such as transubstantiation, the Trinity, or the nature of the Sacraments). The claim is that a person cannot violate his conscience, and to assent to a matter of faith which one does not understand or believe on the basis of one’s reasoning faculties would be such a violation of conscience.

Very often, this begins with the rejection of one or another moral doctrine. Since moral doctrines are often more readily accessible to reason than theological doctrines, it is difficult to maintain belief in the theological doctrines once one has rejected the moral ones. For example, a person who rejects the Church’s prohibition against abortion might do so because he also rejects the Church’s teaching concerning the beginning of human life from the moment of conception. This latter is an idea which may be reached, however weakly, by unaided reason, and the conclusion that abortion is an abomination follows from that premise. For this reason there are even a small number of atheists who oppose abortion.

The doctrine of Transubstantiation is much more a matter of faith. It is true that the Bible is riddled with allusions or even outright statements by both Christ and His apostles which confirm this doctrine. Yet, the doctrine itself is still a matter of faith, since there is no outward evidence that a transformation has occurred. The accidents themselves are unchanged, so that Christ Himself appears in the guide of bread and wine. Unaided reason cannot explain this doctrine, and it is given to the deposit f faith in the form of revelation. If a person rejects the teachings of abortion, which may be supported however weakly by reason, how can he then accept the teachings concerning Transubstantiation, a doctrine which unaided reason would reject outright?

Those who hide behind their conscience and place it above the Church forget that conscience is supreme only if well-formed. That is to say, they have a responsibility to form their consciences in accordance with the Church’s teachings, and to earnestly try to reconcile themselves to those moral or even theological teachings. Those who have never humbled themselves to learn from the Church cannot attain a well-formed conscience, and thus cannot rely on their consciences to be good guides. Yet, in placing a conscience formed only by desires as their primary source of truth, such people have made themselves a higher authority than the Church; at times, this is so in relation only to themselves, though many now try to draw others away from the Church’s teachings and to their own, even as Montanus did.

Nor is the problem limited only to the liberal faction within the Church. However, the tendency of conservatives is often to break away from the Church in formal schism. This has been done in such groups as the Society of Pope Saint Pius X and the Sedavacantists. The former do not recognize many of the liturgical and social changes in the Church which were brought about by the Second Vatican council; many of these changes were performed incorrectly, and it is right to reject liturgical abuses wherever these may occur, but one must do this without rejecting the authority of the Church herself, without rejecting the spiritual leadership of the Pope and those bishops in communion with him. The second group—Sedavacantists—claim a greater authority than the Church in rejecting the legitimacy of the last few popes. It is true that the Church needs a pope for councils to be valid and doctrines to legitimately develop; but the Church has had popes appointed by the college of cardinals—validly elected and ordained—to guide her.

There are also conservatives and liberals who are beyond mere schism who would claim authority for themselves. Protestants in particular claim for themselves a greater authority than that granted to the Church in determining doctrines and morals. The Church’s own infallibility protects her from erring in matters of faith or morality, and she has never reversed any of her authentic teachings n these matters in her 2000 years of existence. Thus, once she proclaims a universal truth, she is herself bound by that truth and cannot change it; this is not so with many Protestant heretics. Under the guise of “Spirit-inspired” Scriptural interpretation will invent novel doctrines and impose those doctrines on their followers (be those followers their family or their flock) as binding matters of faith; yet those same “binding” teachings may be changed or even reversed decades, years, months, weeks, or even days later as new information becomes available or as their moods change.

Such is the case with moral teachings such as contraception or even abortion. Now other matters such as homosexuality, once universally declared a sin and now in some denominations considered as morally licit as heterosexual acts within the confines of marriage; in this case, authority is claimed by the individual or the leaders of the denominations which exceeds the authority of the apostles and even Christ Himself, who declared such things to be sinful. A more conservative example is found in those individuals who reject certain books of the Bible as non-Scriptural. The Deuterocannonical books are nearly universally rejected by Protestants, and some of the most conservative Protestants also reject books such as the Epistle of St James, which Luther himself called the “epistle of straw.” This latter book has been moved first out (by Luther) and then back in (by his advisers) to the Protestant canon; and some of the most conservative Protestants reject it and would remove it again from their canons.

Finally, there are the theologically liberal Christians—Catholics and Protestants alike—who claim for themselves greater authority than the apostles had. They reject the eyewitness accounts of any miracles in general and of Christ’s death and Resurrection in particular. This is in contrast to the eyewitness accounts of the apostles and other early disciples who knew Jesus and saw these events with their own eyes. The faith of the early Christians hinged on the this one historical event the Resurrection, long before the Bible itself had been completely written and its canon determined. Those who reject the possibility of the spiritual in favor of the material only claim that Christ was a great moral teacher, but that He was nothing more. According to these, He was a man, but not God. Having rejected the supernatural and embraced some degree of materialism, they can find no explanation of the Resurrection or indeed of any miracles, and so reject these. They therefore subordinate the testimony and thus the authority of the apostles to their own.

Montanus became convinced of his authority and then his superiority by nature of the wonders and false miracles that he worked. These modern heretics become convinced of their authority and superiority because they have not themselves witnessed and miracles, and thus conclude that these do not exist; hence, anybody who claims to have witnessed such miracles is dismissed out of hand, and any explanations which hinge on the existence of miracles are likewise dismissed. Because such men have too much pride in themselves and too little humility to trust the witness or to accept the authority of the Church, they reject her teachings, and thus the salvation which she offers to them.