History and Heresy in the Lutheran Reformation

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores Lutheran categorisations of heresy by considering definitions of heresy and depictions of heretics. It begins with a discussion of the historiography of the writing of Reformation history, and a survey of the historiography of heresy in the Early Church and in the medieval period. References in Luther’s writings to ‘heresy’ and ‘heretics’ show how Luther responded to his own condemnation as a heretic and reveal his presentation of figures and groups categorised as heretics, illustrating his distinction between heresy and orthodoxy. As Lutheran historiography of the Reformation developed, it focused on genealogies of truth, and the witness of the testes veritatis: those included were generally not those who had been condemned as heretics. Although the emergence of Lutheran theology and self-understanding, combined with inner-Protestant conflicts, gave rise to new categories of orthodoxy and heresy, past heretics were not generally viewed as the forerunners of the Lutheran Reformation.