Heretical Doctrines Research Articles

The Darakbang Heresy? Measures, Gauges and Measurements of Heretical Doctrine: Heretics and Accusers are Equally Evil

This article ensures and emphasises that a doctrine's standard, authoritative gauge and objective measurement is heresy. This purpose is motivated by the serious danger of false doctrine and accusations. False doctrine and false accusation are evil and should not be tolerated. This is contrary to the teachings of the Bible. The first and foremost step is to conduct scientific research. This research uses a case study method, namely the accusations of heresy against several Christian religious colleges in Indonesia for collaborating with Darakbang in South Korea. Based on this case study method, it was found that there is no heresy in them based on standardised measures. No authorised institution can legally declare someone or some other institution heretical. The accusers not only do not have and use the standard biblical measure of universal doctrine but also do not have authority as a measure authorised to declare heresy. In addition, none of the writings and accusations were found to be based on scientific measurements (studies). This finding is important as a recommendation for academics to distinguish between false teachings and false accusations so that academics do not become ignorant, evil people who mislead or accuse heretics unscientifically.

The Soviet Era in Russia’s Millennium History. Rereading Viktor Trostnikov

The article focuses on the works of the renowned Russian religious thinker Viktor Trostnikov and his perspectives on the Soviet period. The primary question guiding his creative output was: “What was the ultimate meaning behind the sufferings and hardships that befell Russia in the 20th century?” Viktor Trostnikov’s reflections on the Soviet epoch, which largely coincided with the greater part of his life, appear more objective and significant compared to the reasoning of authors adhering to either pro-communist or anti-communist views. Viktor Trostnikov regarded Marxism as a heretical doctrine that, through its pseudo-scientific nature, poisoned the minds of the Russian people. The religious nature of Marxism influenced the Christian sentiments of the people, facilitating the success of the October Revolution. The doctrine of communism was a Christian heresy, Christianity without Christ. During the Soviet era, the Russian people retained the ability to believe in something higher than the material world. Leninism provided the people with an inspiring and uplifting dream. The Christian paradise in the heavens was replaced by a terrestrial communist utopia in the future. Throughout the Soviet period of Russian history, state atheism failed to dismantle the deeply rooted traditional spiritual and moral values of Orthodox civilization within the people’s souls. Viktor Trostnikov highlighted instances of genuine asceticism during the Soviet era. Despite the USSR being an atheistic state until its dissolution, covertly our country remained the Third Rome. Viktor Trostnikov proposed considering the history of Russia of the 20th century, including revolutionary events and the Soviet era, from the perspective of Russian civilization. Crucially, during this challenging period, the people managed to preserve the core of their culture and civilizational identity, which was “camouflaged by external godlessness”. Viktor Trostnikov offered a distinct understanding of Stalin’s figure, the relationship between authorities and the people during the Soviet era, the role of industrialization in Soviet history, and the role of art in the country’s life.

Liberius on Athanasius at Arles, Milan, and in Constantius’ Court

Abstract Liberius is often viewed as Athanasius’ ally in the mid-350s, but his own writing, contemporary testimony, and the pagan historian Ammianus Marcellinus suggest otherwise. Rather than defending Athanasius at the councils of Arles and Milan and in Constantius II’s court, Liberius attempted to establish acceptable conditions for peace in the Church by trading Athanasius’ excommunication, which he saw as justified by Athanasius’ refusal to comply with traditional ecclesial-judicial procedures, for doctrinal concessions from certain Eastern bishops whom Liberius suspected of sympathizing with heretical doctrine.

Reinventing The Interpretation of Taqiyya Verse for Strengthening Religious Tolerance

Even though the teaching of taqiyya is explicitly mentioned in the Qur’an, this concept is often negatively connoted as a heretical doctrine of a particular group, especially the Shia. This study aims to explore the interpretation of the Qur’an commentators towards the taqiyya verse (Q.S. Āli Imrān [3]: 28) in order to formulate the concept of taqiyya which can be actualized for the benefit of religious life. By examining the interpretations of some Qur’an commentators from various Islamic sects and implementing the descriptive-analytical method, the study concluded that the interpretation of taqiyya verse is not only limited to life-threatening emergency situations among kāfir ḥarbi, but also considered to be practiced in Muslim relations with non-Muslims or fellow Muslims in ordinary situations. Thus, taqiyya can manifest two main components of tolerance; patience and endurance by hiding beliefs or understandings that have the potential to disrupt the unity and integrity of multicultural society.

Henry VIII and Martin Luther: The Second Controversy, 1525–1527 ed. by Richard Rex

Reviewed by: Henry VIII and Martin Luther: The Second Controversy, 1525–1527 ed. by Richard Rex Korey D. Maas Henry VIII and Martin Luther: The Second Controversy, 1525–1527. Edited by Richard Rex. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2021. xvi + 306 pp. The bad blood between Henry VIII and Martin Luther has long held a prominent place in narratives and interpretations of the early English Reformation. The King's 1521 salvo against Luther's Babylonian Captivity, rewarded with the ultimately ironic "Defender of the Faith" title, never goes without mention. Nor do the hard feelings resulting a decade later from Luther's refusal to endorse the dissolution of Henry's first marriage, and from the intransigence attending England's bid to enter the Schmalkaldic League. Less well-known is the subject of Richard Rex's latest volume, what he dubs the "second controversy" between Henry and Luther. That this conflict has received less sustained attention is largely understandable, as it revolved around only two relatively brief letters. Luther wrote privately to Henry, expressing his belief that the King was becoming favorable to the Wittenberg theology and hoping that the imprudence of his earlier invective might be forgiven. Henry then replied publicly, saying, in effect, "You're badly [End Page 246] misinformed about my inclinations toward your still damnably heretical doctrines—but I'm glad we now agree about the foolishness of your earlier writings." Although the brevity and straightforwardness of the exchange itself might not demand extended scholarly analysis, Rex emphasizes that it quickly (if briefly) became an international affair, with more than a dozen editions of the two letters being published almost immediately across continental Europe. He highlights especially "the level of attention it attracted from leading Catholic scholars in Europe" (40), who "gave it all the publicity they could" (x), and who leveraged the opportunity to heap "praise on the king and scorn on Luther" (23). In addition to the texts of the original letters, the bulk of the volume is given over to transcriptions, translations, and annotations of the various pamphlets, letters, and prefaces produced in the months after the initial correspondence was made public. As such, it makes readily accessible to scholars a valuable cache of primary source material. The author's own 54-page introductory essay sheds further light on some important contextual questions. Perhaps the most obvious and baffling of these: What possible reason could Luther have had for suspecting a royal change of heart? Rex rightly notes that all objective indicators militated against that supposition, and that the most frequent explanation—that Luther had been misled by the exiled Christian II of Denmark—is unsupported by any extant evidence. Intriguingly, though, especially in light of long-running debates about who might have helped draft the King's contribution to the "first controversy" of 1521 (which the introduction illuminates), the author points to evidence indicative of Thomas More having a hand in Henry's 1526 reply to Luther. Similarly relevant to the earlier controversy, Rex deftly demolishes the "abiding myth" (2) that Henry was already at work on anti-Lutheran polemic as early as 1518. One significant question is unfortunately left unaddressed. While emphasizing that the attention given the correspondence by Catholic polemicists is one of the "remarkable features" (40) of the exchange, the author nowhere indicates—aside from the inclusion of one further contribution by Luther himself—whether the exchange [End Page 247] provoked any similarly polemical reactions from European Protestants. If it elicited only silence that is surely worth highlighting, if only because it further bolsters the implicit thesis that Luther's original missive constituted an unforced error and handed his detractors an embarrassingly lopsided rhetorical triumph. If, on the other hand, Protestants did weigh in against the King's letter, those interventions, too, surely deserve some attention. [End Page 248] Korey D. Maas Hillsdale College Hillsdale, Michigan Copyright © 2023 Johns Hopkins University Press and Lutheran Quarterly, Inc.

The Notion of "communis schola" in the Thought of Jean Gerson (1363–1429)

The article aims to analyze the meaning and the role of the notion of communis schola in the theological and ecclesiological thought of Jean Gerson (1363–1429), Chancellor of the University of Paris, schoolman influent in every intellectual debate of his time, and renowned spiritual advisor. Driven by a constant concern for the unity of the Church, Gerson is aware of the need to realize this unity first of all within the University environment, in order to avoid the circulation and the spread of heterodox or even heretical doctrines; his references to the concept of “common school”, in different textual contexts and with various shades of meaning, invest not only the doctrinal contents, but also the methodology, the moral attitudes, and the right theological models of the ideal master and of the ideal student of theology. The article also touches the way in which the Parisian chancellor deals with mysticism and mystical writers, using the concept of “common school” to define the borders and the terms in which it is possible to access the difficult and obscure field of the mystical theology.

Iosif “Syllogistikos”

Abstract Iosif Volotskii’s practical and rhetorical mastery of logic was a major factor in its pedagogical and polemical effectiveness. This logic pervades his Prosvetitel’ (Book against the Novgorod Heretics) in the structure of each discourse, grouping of the discourses, ordering of subjects and themes within and among the discourses, hypothetical heretical objections and Orthodox refutations, sequencing of proof texts, application of syllogistic literary devices, explicit epistemological principles, emphasis on and variety of proofs, enthymematic presentation of both the major heretical doctrines and the Orthodox correctives, and overall syllogistic interconnectedness. The numerous formal refutations in Discourse 11 partially explains its division into four chapters, while the greater unity of discourse structure of the theological Discourses 1–11, in contrast to the more prosecutorial Discourses 12–16, speaks in favor of the chronological primacy of the brief redaction. The positive theology and ethics are presented as a coherent whole, as is the binary opposition of legitimate ruler, pastor or pious layman vs. the tyrant, “wolf,” or lay heretic. The reliability of Prosvetitel’ as a source for dissidence remains questionable, but its pedagogical utility for Orthodox Muscovites is indisputable.

Heretical doctrine of Photinus of Sirmium in Hilary of Poitiers’ De trinitate

This article aims to provide the comprehensive and systematic review of the doctrine of Photinus of Sirmium († 376), based on the work of Hilary of Poitiers De Trinitate composed between 358 and 360. Photinus error is primarily Christological. The first part of the article deals with Hilary’s interpretation of Photinus’understanding of the subject of the Incarnation according to which God the Word/the Word of God was comprehended as a part or one of God’s powers, a mere word, the expression of thought, which does not re­ally differ from God, having no subsistence or existence, so that God is ultimately considered solitary. It is a strict Monarchianism. The second part focuses on Photinus’understanding (based on De Trinita-te) of what was “assumed” of the humanity by the Word of God for the pur-pose of Incarnation, and in which way. Two interpretations referring to Pho-tinus’understanding of the conception of Jesus Christ in Mary, attribute it super­natural causes (the Virginal conception by the non-subsistent Word) and presu­mably quite natural causes. For the purpose of the Incarnation, the Word of God “assumes” (“takes on”) the entire man, conceived in Mary. The “Incarnation”, as such, is accomplished by the extension of the non-subsisting Word and its in/ dwelling in that man. Based on De Trinitate, the third part deals with the effects of “the Incarnation” as it was understood by Photinus. Hilary concludes that it results in two subjects: on the one hand, it is solus communis generis homo who was born of Mary, and on the other hand, the non-subsistent Word of God that dwelt in that man. The union of the man born of Mary and the Word of God – a part of God’s powers – is reduced, by Photinus and in Hilary’s interpretation, to habitatio, temporary and accidental in/dwelling of the Word of God in the man in a manner the Spirit dwelt in prophets. The effect of the in/dwelling of the Word in a man born of Mary (or the dwelling itself) can be taken as prophetal inspiration, animation, consisting of mere external strengthening of the man and empowering him for his and Divine activity, never­theless, man’s vital and, and as it seems operative, principle is his soul. Based on De Trinitate, Divine Sonship or filiation and “deification” of man born of Mary, according to Photinus, seems to be due to the fact that the non-subsisting Word of God – a part of God’s powers – dwells in him, inspiring or animating him by strengthening him and empowering him for divine activity. According to Hilary, Photinus denies pre-existence of the Word, that is, the Son, Christ so he cannot even be the co-Creator of the world. He becomes existent, that is, subsistent only through the Incarnation and birth of Mary. For Hilary, Photinus’ adoptionist position is clear: the man is assumed into the Son and into the God. According to Hilary, in Photinus’ doctrine there is no place for the real Incarnation of the true Son of God. Hilary’s interpretation of Photinus’ under­standing of Jesus Christ, the Son, is that he is not the Word made flesh, nor he is one and the same both God and Man. For Hilary Jesus Christ or Son of God as Photinus understands him is just someone like a prophet (a man) inspired, that is empowered by a Word of God dwelling in him – by a part of God’s powers – for divine activity; ultimately, Hilary reduces him to a mere man, to a creature. The fourth part points out that opinions expressed in the scholarship – based exclusively on the Book Ten of Hilary’s De Trinitate – according to which Photinus, motivated by soteriology, insisted on the wholeness of Jesus’ humanity that is on the fact that Jesus Christ had a human soul, should be taken relatively. To conclude, on the basis of Book Ten of De Trinitate Photinus insisted on the wholeness of the humanity of Jesus Christ, that is, on his possessing of the human soul, just to the extent which he held that he was a mere man (in whom the non-subsistent Word of God dwelt as a Spirit in prophets).

Intermarriage in the Canonical Tradition of the Orthodox Church

Abstract My research tries to re-examine the issue of mixed marriage from the point of view of the Orthodox Canonical Tradition in the broader context of marital and baptismal theology, through an extensive interpretation of the canons of the Orthodox Church regarding intermarriage according to the historical, social, legal, doctrinal, and canonical context of the promulgation of those canons. The interpretation of the canons regarding mixed marriage will try to emphasize the definition of heretical groups in accordance with the baptismal theology and with the manner of reception of heretics into the Orthodox Church that was developed by every Council. In accordance with the Canons of the Council of Laodicea and of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, I will demonstrate that the Church did not stipulate any immediate conversion of the non-Orthodox spouse and the marriage was not grounded on immediate baptism, but on the willingness of the heterodox person to promise and accept Orthodox teachings for a future baptism. In accordance with the interpretation of Canon 72 of the Council of Trullo, I will emphasize that the canonical prohibition of mixed marriage is not a doctrinal one, otherwise the canon would reject any cohabitation between Orthodox and non-Orthodox, but rather it is a pastoral, canonical and disciplinary measurement in order to suppress the spread of heretical doctrines and teachings.

Bṛhaspati and the Barhaspatyas

The name of Bṛhaspati is associated with the materialist doctrine in India. He is supposed to be the preceptor of the gods. It was in order to help them in their battle against the demons that he created the materialist doctrine and thereby deluded the demons. This story, Puranic in origin, can be traced back to a late Upaniṣad, Maitrī. However, the story given in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa and other sources does not contain anything specifically materialistic; all the heretical doctrines preached by Māyāmoha appear to be pre-existing; the Jains and the Buddhists are particularly mentioned, not the Lokāyatikas or the Cārvākas. More interestingly, in some other later sources, Bṛhaspati does not seem to be a god or a demi-god; he is as much a human as Kapila, Gautama and other founders of philosophical systems are. This trend of treating Bṛhaspati as a human is found in Kṛṣṇamiśra’s play, the Prabodhacandrodaya. He belongs to the camp of Kali. Whatever be the identity of Bṛhaspati, his attribution to materialism is inappropriate and has got nothing to do with the development of materialism in India.

Papism, Mahometism and the Tree of Heresies

The main objectives of this paper are: 1) to identify the editorial context in which appear two 16th and 17th centuries’ engravings representing the family tree of heresies, surmounted by the figures of the pope and the Ottoman sultan; 2): to explain the ideological significance of this iconographic motif; 3): to examine some signs of their reception in 17th century Protestant circles. Having located the books containing these pictures, it is concluded that: a) both reflected effectively the idea, widespread in Protestant environments, that the Catholic Church and Islam are two great heresies serving the Antichrist and developed from preexisting heretical doctrines. b) The simultaneous attack against Popery and Islam (the latter identified with the religion of the Ottoman Empire), beyond its polemical orientation, is conditioned by a millenarian mentality.

Magna Carta: The rule of law in early common law litigation

Activist judges are often accused of changing the rule of law into the rule of men. Some Americans are disturbed by U. S. Supreme Court decisions that create new law, invade state sovereignty, and impose recent standards for sexual conduct. The fourteenth century Court of Common Pleas invented the heretical doctrine that judges have the power to change law. The medieval court implemented new rules, ignored the plain meaning of legislation, and undermined Magna Carta guarantees. This paper explains how a head-strong judge seized power, and violated traditional respect for the rule of law. His innovations are discussed in the context of American judicial activism.

Thomas More’s Humor in his Religious Polemics

Thomas More’s humor was influenced by his studies of Greek Old and New Comedy and Lucian’s Dialogues. He was fascinated by the multiple ways human follies could be exposed to provoke laughter. Although aware of the “anti-laughter” tradition of the Early Church Fathers, he asserted that the intellectual, moral, and spiritual superiority of “the man who laughed” justified using humor to provoke “critical laughter” as an effective rhetorical strategy to ridicule the comic incongruities and corruption of “the inferior man who was laughed at.” In his religious polemics: Responsio ad Lutherum, Supplication of Souls, Dialogue Concerning Heresies, and Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, More enjoyed using invectives, lampoons, and scholastic parody to denigrate Lutherans and their heretical doctrines. He considered laughter an appropriate response to heresy, and his vituperative humor provided a rhetorical punishment of derision as an alternative to the horrifying physical punishment of execution proscribed for heretics. More’s humor was intended to discourage his readers from accepting Lutheran doctrines, but it also invited them to share his joyful superior affirmation of faith in the tenets of the Catholic Church that will lead them to “the eternal merriment of heaven.”

Between Apocalypse and Extinction: Eschatology in Ezra Pound’s Poetry

Ezra Pound’s lifelong poetic project, The cantos, aspired to comprise ‘the best that had been thought and read’ in history by way of citation, gloss, allusion and quotation of a formidable variety of sources. Although Pound intended his poem to perform as a repository for important ideas and their often-precarious textual transmission, his project was also aimed at the poetic representation of a paradiso terrestre, an ideal state of intellectual community at the end of history. Consequently, in a critical phase during the 1930s he was drawn to models of theological and political eschatology, not least those of the Confucian cosmos and Italian Fascism. This intensified interest was to have drastic consequences: Pound was arrested on charges of treason and subsequently detained in the US Army Disciplinary Training Center outside of Pisa for his radio broadcasts during World War Two in Italy. During his incarceration Pound wrote much of The Pisan cantos, in which pastoral observation is combined with political vituperation and nostalgic reminiscence. Pound also makes sustained reference to John Scottus Eriugena, the ninth-century Hibernian-Carolingian theologian and poet who was condemned on account of disseminating heretical doctrines during his lifetime and again posthumously in the Averroist condemnations at the University of Paris in the thirteenth century. Following the war and the publication of The Pisan cantos (for which Pound was controversially awarded the inaugural Bollingen Prize), Pound’s epic turned to increasingly fragmented meditations on law, economics, political history and cultural production. In these later cantos, the ruined dream of his paradise terrestre is glimpsed at in the world of the Na-Khi, a Chinese ethnic minority adhering to matriarchal social structures and demonstrating a deeply ecological system of knowledge. This essay will explore the ways in which these apparently disparate sources provide Pound with a means by which to imagine a paradise in his poem in the midst of its disillusion in his own life.

The Face of the Soul, the Face of God: Maximus the Confessor and Prosōpon

This paper offers a comprehensive examination of the language of “prosōpon” in Maximus the Confessor. It emerges that “prosōpon” almost never has an autonomous meaning in Maximus’ Christology and anthropology. While “person” is either a synonym for “hypostasis” or a term expressing heretical Christological doctrines, it may be used in its own right when Maximus emphasizes the fact that human actions make each of us recognizable as a unique individual. This usage cannot be separated from the colloquial meanings of “face” and “character,” or from instances of “prosōpon” in Maximian Biblical exegesis. “The face of the intellect,” identified with “the face of Christ” within us and reflected in our actions as “the face of the soul,” is the perfect image of the eternal Divine logoi of virtues, impressed by grace in the intellect of saints and reflected in their actions. Possessing one’s own “persona” or “face,” and building one’s uniqueness through one’s own decisions, is of less interest to Maximus than assimilation of oneself to Christ.

Les sermons Contra haereticos du cardinal Eudes de Châteauroux († 1273)

Master then Chancellor of the University of Paris, papal legate for the kingdom of France, and finally Cardinal, Eudes de Châteauroux, who died in 1273, has left homiletic work that counts among the most important of the thirteenth century, quantitatively as well as qualitatively. Many of the sermons show that throughout his preaching career the Cardinal was focused on the heresy problem. While several sermons address this theme indirectly, fourteen, however, are fully or largely devoted to refuting the arguments ascribed to ‘Manichean’ heretics. Two others were intended to be given at the sentencing to the stake of one or more of the heterodox. The article examines how Eudes de Châteauroux envisaged the struggle against allegedly heretical doctrines through preaching and the complex relationships that some of the sermons have with two anti-heretical treatises of the first half of the thirteenth century, the Disputatio inter catholicum et paterinum hereticum and the Adversus Catharos et Valdenses of the Dominican Moneta of Cremona. It also provides a critical edition of the sixteen sermons, unpublished or only partially transcribed by Cardinal Jean-Baptiste Pitra, which deal more specifically with heresy and with the condemnation of heretics.

The Yang Mo 楊墨 dualism and the rhetorical construction of heterodoxy

Abstract The Mengzi 孟子 (The Book of Mencius) served as a constant model of doctrinal argumentation and style for centuries. One of the distinctive traits that emerges from the work is the image of Mencius struggling against the disorder arising from the increasing influence of the heretical doctrines of Yang Zhu 楊朱 (ca. 4th century BC) and Mo Di 墨翟 (ca . 480–390 BC). It deserves particular attention, as the authors of the Mengzi – or perhaps even Mencius himself – carved a rhetorical strategy of strong emotional impact, hyperbolic in its very nature, based on the “moral balance” (zhong 中) of the Ru 儒 (Classicists) tradition compared to both the egoism (wei wo 為我) promoted by Yang Zhu and the vitiated form of indiscriminate and unbalanced concern for others supported by Mo Di's followers. To date, the Mengzi seems to be the first text in which the “Yang Mo 楊墨” symbol for Yang (Zhu) and Mo (Di) occurs. It became proverbial in Chinese literature for the two prototypes of ethical drift from which traditions that had allegedly strayed from the Ru should be retracted. The importance of both thinkers within a Mencian framework is evident: it is around these two figures that the text structures a highly sophisticated rhetorical framework, characterized by implicit and explicit strategies of inventio and dispositio.

Les historiens «méridionaux» et la Croisade des albigeois

The southern Historians and the Albigensian Crusade The first historians of the southern French provinces (a Midi which includes both Provence and Languedoc) between the XVIth century and XVIIIth centuries cannot avoid putting the question of medieval heresies, Catharism in Languedoc and Waldensianism in Provence. These are often confused because of the political consequences which their repression brought in its train for the futures of their respective provinces. It is interesting to see how these historians deal with the problem : how they describe the heresies, what concrete knowledge they have about them, and how they judge the actors in the conflict. One can see, although between the end of the XVIth century and the XVIIIth century progress in scholarship allows better understanding of heretical doctrines, nevertheless many errors and prejudices survive. One can recognise also that the principal political consequence of the crusade, the annexation of Languedoc by France, does not pose any problem for these loyal subjects of the king, despite their local patriotism. However, within their denunciation of medieval heresy, one can catch a glimpse of a denunciation of a heresy of much more topical interest for them, namely Protestantism.

A Schematic Evaluation of the Impact of Heresies and Persecution in the Catholic Church: an Igbo Pragmatic Perspective

The history of Christianity and for that fact that of Catholic Church is long fraught with incidents of persecution and of emerging heretical doctrines. In many ways, the church has tried to contend with such afflictions to the security of life of her members and the integrity of her teaching authority and has found in each of them quite some rich resources for her continued existence and growth. While the blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christianity, the errors of heresy have at particular moments of the church’s life, called the attention of the church to the need to much formally define her doctrines and often times elevating some of such doctrines to the status of irreformable dogmas presented to the faithful and requiring obedience of faith. After a brief comparative description of the nature and effects of persecutions and heresies, this work looks at the differential degrees of anxiety afforded to the Church by the dual events of persecution and heresy. It finds that heresies being invidious in outwork are dangerous to the faith of the Church which is its direct victim. It further finds that in a typical Igbo Christian community under the strong influence of a pragmatic worldview, heresies are a welcome experiment as they provide yet other pragmatic possibilities for resolving life’s riddles and solving gnawing problems of human life through the religious pathway; persecution on the other hand, because it often visits with attack on life and physical integrity of Christians, is for the Igbo convert, detestable as it is ominous, life being the Igbo man’s greatest good. This essay employs the method of phenomenology, analysis and hermeneutics in its investigation and recommends for a new era of evangelization of the Igbo Christians so as to align their spiritual sensibilities with the ancestry of Christian faith long demonstrated from the apostolic times till now in the lives of the martyrs.

Thomas More’s Quarrel with Reform

In letters to family and friends while he was confined in the Tower of London in 1534 and the first few months of 1535, Thomas More explained his refusal to comply with the first Act of Succession with the argument that his allegiance was to a council higher than the parliament of England. The “higher council” to which More referred was the General Council of Christendom, whose determinations embodied Christianity’s canonically enjoined consensus fidelium and therefore held precedence over laws enacted by lesser assemblies such as England’s parliaments. Ecclesiastical consensus was the foundation of all More believed. It was the test that screened Catholic from heretical doctrine, and it was infallible. But More could not lawfully adhere to the principle of consensus and at the same time swear to uphold the royal supremacy enacted in 1534 because the king’s supremacy in the English church implicitly asserted England’s separateness and therefore broke up Christianity’s consensual uniformity. Thus the oath of allegiance to the first Act of Succession was one of several pieces of legislation that More could not in conscience obey.