Henderson, J. B. (1998). The construction of orthodoxy and heresy: Neo-confucian, islamic, jewish and early christian patterns. Albany (N.Y.: State University of New York Press.) 

Henderson was the William R. and Letitia Bell Endowed Professor, Co-ordinator of Chinese Studies, Department of History, Louisiana State University

He died in April 2019. Obituary. 

This book is a dizzying survey and analysis of orthodoxy and heresy across five religions and twelve hundred years, give or take. 

I like the notion that the exercise “may be characterised as ‘the science of the error of others’” (p2) (citing Wasserstrom, Between Muslim and Jew, p.154), but Henderson’s method is not scientific and is none the worse for it. It is historical, at a high level of abstraction, founded on an extensive and impressive range of reading and command of his materials.

I did not see a general or abstract definition of heresy. Perhaps I missed it, but I hope not: I assert that heresy is constructed in the making, that the concept has substance in the specific historical and local or organizational application of the term, but dissipates into mist in the abstract. Henderson takes as his subject teaching which others asserted was heretical. The very range of his study militates against a single definition being sufficient.

Chapter 4: the construction of heresy

Henderson catalogues patterns and mechanisms by which orthodoxy has characterised its antonym heresy. Together these offer an extensive manual or tool box for any would-be heresy hunter. 

Characterisations of heresy have included (my numbering and summary):

1. Elaborating the wild diversity of heresies counterposed to the ordered unity of orthodoxy, not least in Christianity. (pp.120, 129)

2. Conversely, conflating all heresies as a single enemy “the multiple heads of a single monster” (pp.122, 130). 

3. Even “constructing and inventing heresies …” (pp.123-4) to serve the rhetorical needs of defenders of orthodoxy. And, to strengthen a case, constructing “artificial networks between the sects with scant basis in historical reality.” (p.127) 

which is close cousin to:

4. Denying the historical dynamism and development of heresies (p.128) and reducing divergent heretical groups to an undifferentiated unity (p.130). This has the tactical benefit of tarring all groups - the least divergent and the most -- with the same obloquy. 

5. In Neo-Confucianism in particular,

1. heresies could be set out in “binary pairing …  as complementary opposites centred on an orthodox middle way.” (p.131), or

2. “in hierarchical networks” (p.131) of relative sophistication, or seductiveness or the potential for harm, and

3. “One of the most common types of heresiographical schematization or simplification in Neo-Confucian tradition” was to reduce them to “a sort of common denominator of error.” (p.132f) and thence to conflate them with the “ur-heresies” of Yang Chu, Mo Ti and Kao-tzu.

6. Heresy might be deemed static, and reducible to a line of transmission stemming from an original lack of charity (p.134) or attributed to an individual heresiarch (p.135) not least, in Christianity, to Simon Magus who offered to buy the gift of the Holy Spirit from St. Peter (Acts 8:9-24) (p.135). 

7. Or a more abstract history of ideas might be provided, tracing a contemporary Christian heresy back to Judaism or paganism or secular philosophy. Such borrowings were deemed “not simply plagiaristic … but degenerative as well.” (p.137) 

8. Still more denigrating, early Christian heresiologists “sought to demote heresy to a level lower than that of the pagans ...”, “... the lowest form of religious life.” (p.138)

9. And, as perhaps the most benign characterisation: “Heresies are … truth, but only partial truth which becomes error inasmuch as it takes itself to be complete truth.” (p.139, quoting George Santayana). Incompleteness might entail, for example, 

1. selecting or privileging some parts of scripture whilst rejecting the remainder, or

2. “exaggerating a particular point of orthodoxy to the point of ignoring others”, (p.140), or

3. taking an extreme view on one aspect of orthodoxy to the neglect of the remainder.

10. Heresies are parochial, orthodoxy is universal. 

This test is intriguing. Strictly it would suggest that there has never been an orthodox church, or that orthodoxy is a question of degrees of generalisation more than of theological content. The test remains important, however, insofar as each separate church deems its own theology to be both orthodox and universal whilst being fully aware of both its own limits and the authenticity of other, differently orthodox, churches. 

Of course, distilling and tidying arguments from long ago and far away strips much of the detail out of the picture. Historical allegiances, political considerations and the fear, threat and fact of violence, are not relevant to us. Distance obscures the subtleties and dulls the passions which drove conflicts back in the day. Our Olympian perspective may, who knows, leave us with a temptation towards smugness in the assumption that we know that we are in the right, even if we can’t be certain about anyone else.