was procured of the emperor by means of Acacius, patriarch of Constantinople, with the assistance of the friends of Peter Mongus and Peter Trullo. The sting of this edict lies here; that it repeats and confirms all that has been enacted in the councils of Nice, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, against the Arians, Nestorians, and Eutychians, without making any particular_mention of the council of Chalcedon. It is in the form of a letter, addressed by Zeno to the bishops, priests, monks, and people of Egypt and Libya. It was opposed by the Catholics, and condemned in form by pope Felix II. of the essential doctrines of Christianity, publicly and obstinately avowed. It must be acknowledged, however, that particular modes of belief or unbelief, not tending to overturn Christianity, or to sap the foundations of morality, are by no means the object of coercion by the civil magistrate. What doctrines shall therefore be adjudged heresy, was left by our old constitution to the determination of the ecclesiastical judge, who had herein a most arbitrary latitude allowed him; for the general definition of an heretic, given by Lyndewode, extends to the smallest deviations from the doctrines of the holy church: "Hæreticus est qui dubitat de fide catholica, et qui negligit servare ea que Romana ecclesia statuit, seu servare decreverat:" or, as the statute, 2 Hen. IV. cap. 15, HENRICIANS, a sect so called from Henry, its founder, who, though a monk and hermit, undertook to reform the superstition and vices of the clergy. For this purpose he left Lausanne, in Swit-expresses it in English, "teachers of zerland, and, removing from different places, at length settled at Tholouse, in || the year 1147, and there exercised his ministerial function; till, being overcome by the opposition of Bernard, abbot of Clairval, and condemned by pope Eugenius III. at a council assembled at Rheims, he was committed to a close prison in 1148, where he soon ended his days. This reformer rejected the baptism of infants, severely censured the corrupt manners of the clergy, treated the festivals and ceremonies of the church with the utmost contempt, and held private assemblies for inculcating his peculiar doctrines. erroneous opinions, contrary to the faith and blessed determinations of the holy church." Very contrary this to the usage of the first general councils, which defined all heretical doctrines with the utmost precision and exactness; and what ought to have alleviated the punishment, the uncertainty of the crime, seems to have enhanced it in those days of blind zeal and pious cruelty. The sanctimonious hypocrisy of the Canonists, indeed, went, at first, no farther than enjoining penance, excommunication, and ecclesiastical deprivation, for heresy; but afterwards they proceeded boldly to imprisonment by the ordinary, and confiscation of goods in fios usus. But in the mean time they had prevailed upon the weak HERACLEONITES, a sect ofChristians, the followers of Heracleon, who refined upon the Gnostic divinity, and maintained that the world was not theness of bigoted princes to make the ciimmediate production of the Son of God, .but that he was only the occasional cause of its being created by the demiurgus. The Heracleonites denied the authority of the prophecies of the Old || Testament; maintained that they were mere random sounds in the air; and that St. John the Baptist was the only true voice that directed to the Messiah. HERESIARCH, an arch heretic, the founder or inventor of an heresy; or a chief of a sect of heretics. HERESY. This word signifies sect or choice; it was not in its earliest acceptation conceived to convey any reproach, since it was indifferently used either of a party approved, or of one disapproved by the writer. See Acts v. 17. xv. 3. Áfterwards it was generally used to signify some fundamental error adhered to with obstinacy, 2 Pet. ii. 1. Gal. v. 20. According to the laws of this kingdom, heresy consists in a denial of some vil power subservient to their purposes, by making heresy not only a temporal but even a capital offence; the Romish ecclesiastics determining, without appeal, whatever they pleased to be heresy, and shifting off to the secular arm the odium and drudgery of executions, with which they pretended to be too tender and delicate to intermeddle. Nay, they affected to intercede on behalf of the convicted heretic, well knowing that at the same time they were delivering the unhappy victim to certain death. See ACT OF FAITH.Hence the capital punishments inflicted on the ancient Donatists and Manichæans by the emperors Theodosius and Justinian; hence, also, the constitution of the emperor Frederic, mentioned by Lyndewode, adjudging all persons, without distinction, to be burnt with fire, who were convicted of heresy by the ecclesiastical judge. The same emperor, in another constitution, ordained, "determined that if any temporal lord, when admo- c. 14. the bloody law of the six articles nished by the church, should neglect to was made, which were clear his territories of heretics within a and resolved by the most godly study, year, it should be lawful for good Ca- pain, and travail of his majesty; for tholics to seize and occupy the lands, which his most humble and obedient and utterly to exterminate the heretical subjects, the lords spiritual and tempopossessors. And upon this foundation ral, and the commons in parliament aswas built that arbitrary power, so long sembled did render and give unto his claimed, and so fatally exerted by the highness their most high and hearty pope, of disposing even of the kingdoms thanks!" The same statue established of refractory princes to more dutiful a mixed jurisdiction of clergy and laity sons of the church. The immediate for the trial and conviction of heretics; event of this constitution serves to illus- Henry being equally intent on destroytrate at once the gratitude of the holy ing the supremacy of the bishops of see, and the just punishment of the royal Rome, and establishing all their other bigot; for, upon the authority of this corruptions of the Christian religion. very constitution, the pope afterwards Without recapitulating the various reexpelled this very emperor Frederic peals and revivals of these sanguinary from his kingdom of Sicily, and gave it laws in the two succeeding reigns, we to Charles of Anjou, Christianity being proceed to the reign of Queen Elizabeth, thus deformed by the dæmon of perse- when the reformation was finally estabown lished with temper and decency, uncution upon the continent, our island could not escape its scourge. Ac- sullied with party rancour or personal cordingly we find a writ de hæretico resentment. By stat. 1. Eliz. c. 1. all comburendo, i. e. of burning the heretic. former statutes relating to heresy are See that article. But the king might repealed; which leaves the jurisdiction pardon the convict by issuing no pro- of heresy as it stood at common law, viz. cess against him: the writ de hæretico as to the infliction of common censures comburendo being not a writ of course, in the ecclesiastical courts; and in case but issuing only by the special direction of burning the heretic, in the provincial of the king in council. In the reign of synod only. Sir Matthew Hale is, inHenry IV. when the eyes of the Chris- deed, of a different opinion, and holds tian world began to open, and the seeds that such power resided in the diocesan of the Protestant religion (under the also: though he agrees that in either opprobrious name of Lollardy) took case the writ de hæretico comburendo root in this kingdom, the clergy, taking was not demandable of common right, advantage from the king's dubious title but grantable or otherwise merely at to demand an increase of their own the king's discretion. But the principal power, obtained an act of parliament, point now gained was, that by this stawhich sharpened the edge of persecu- tute a boundary was for the first time tion to its utmost keenness. See HERE- set to what should be accounted heresy; By statute 2 nothing for the future being to be so deTICO COMBURENDO. Henry V. c. 7, Lollardy was also made termined, but only such tenets which a temporal offence, and indictable in the have been heretofore so declared,-1.by king's courts; which did not thereby the words of the canonical Scriptures;gain an exclusive, but only a concurrent 2. by the first four general councils, or jurisdiction with the bishop's consistory. such others as have only used the words Afterwards, when the reformation be- of the Holy Scriptures; or,-3. which gan to advance, the power of the ec- shall hereafter be so declared by the clesiastics was somewhat moderated; parliament, with the assent of the clerfor though what heresy is was not then gy in convocation. Thus was heresy precisely defined, yet we are told in reduced to a greater certainty than some points what it is not; the statute before, though it might not have been 25 Hen. VIII. c. 14. declaring that of-the worse to have defined it in terms fences against the see of Rome are not heresy; and the ordinary being thereby restrained from proceeding in any case upon mere suspicion; i. e. unless the party be accused by two credible witnesses, or an indictment of heresy be first previously found in the king's courts of common law. And yet the spirit of persecution was not abated, but only diverted into a lay channel; for in six years afterwards, by stat. 31 Hen. VIII. still more precise and particular; as a man continued still liable to be burnt for what, perhaps, he did not understand to be heresy, till the ecclesiastical judge so interpreted the words of the canonical Scriptures. For the writ de hæretico comburendo remained still in force, till it was totally abolished, and heresy again subjected only to ecclesiastical correction, pro salute animae, by stat. 29 Car. II. c. 9; when, in one and the warmly opposed by Tertullian. HERNHUTIERS. See MORAVI ANS. same reign, our lands were delivered || leader Hermogenes, who lived towards from the slavery of military tenures; the close of the second century. Herour bodies from arbitrary imprisonment mogenes established matter as his first by the habeas corpus act: and our principle; and regarding matter as the minds from the tyranny of superstitious fountain of all evil, he maintained, that bigotry, by demolishing this last badge the world, and every thing contained in of persecution in the English law. it, as also the souls of men and other Every thing is now less exceptionable spirits, were formed by the Deity from with respect to the spiritual cognizance an uncreated and eternal mass of corand spiritual punishment of heresy. un- rup matter. The opinions of Hermoless, perhaps that the crime ought to genes with regard to the origin of the be more strictly defined, and no prose-world, and the nature of the soul, were cution permitted, even in the ecclesiastical courts, till the tenets in question are by proper authority previously de clared to be heretical. Under these re- HERODIANS, a sect among the strictions, some think it necessary, for Jews, at the 'ime of our Saviour, Matt. the support of the national religion, tha xxii. 16 Mark iii. 6. The critics and the officers of the church should have commentators are very much divided power to censure heretics; yet not to with regard to the Herodians. St. Jeharass them with temporal penalties, rome, in his dialogue against the Lumuch less to exterminate or destroy ciferians, takes the name to have been them. The legislature has, indeed, given to such as owned Herod for the thought it proper that the civil magis Messiah; and Tertullian and Epiphatrate should interpose with regard to nius are of the same opinion. But the one species of heresy, very prevalent in same Jerome, in his comment on St. modern times; for by stat. 9 and 10 W. Matthew, treats this opinion as ridicuIII. c. 32. if any person, educated in the lous; and maintains that the Pharisees Christian religion or professing the gave this appellation, by way of ridicule, same, shall, by writing, printing, teach-to Herod's soldiers, who paid tribute to ing, or advised speaking, deny any one of the persons in the Holy Trinity to be God, or maintain that there are more Gods than one, he shall undergo the same penalties and incapacities which were inflicted on apostacy by the same statute. Enc. Brit. Dr. Foster and Stebbing on Hersey; Hallett's Discourses. vol. iii. No 9. p. 358, 408; Dr. Campbell's Prel. Dis. to the Gospels. HERETIC, a general name for all such persons under any religion, but especially the Christian, as profess or teach opinions contrary to the establish ed faith, or to what is made the standard of orthodoxy. See last article, and Lardner's History of the Heretics of the first two Centuries. the Romans agreeable to which the Svrian interpreters render the word by the domestics of Herod, i. e. "his courtiers." M. Simon, in his notes on the 22d chapter of Matthew, advances a more probable opinion: the name Herodian he imagines to have been given to such as adhered to Her d's party and interest, and were for preserving the government in his family, about which were great divisions among the Jews. F. Hardouin will have the Herodians and Sadducees to have been the same. Dr Prideaux is of opinion that they derived their name from Herod the Great; and that they were distinguished from the other Jews by their con currence with Herod's scheme of subHERMIANI, a sect in the second || jecting himself and his dominions to the century; so called from their leader || Romans, and likewise by complying Hermias. One of their distinguishing|| with many of their heathen usages and tenets was, that God is corporeal; customs. This symbolizing with idolaanother, that Jesus Christ did not as- iry upon views of interest and worldly cend into heaven with his body, but left policy was probably that leaven of Heit in the sun. rod, against which our Saviour cautioned his disciples. It is further probable that they were chiefly of the sect of the Sadducees; because the leaven of Herod is also denominated the leaven of the Sadducees. HERMIT, a person who retires into solitude for the purpose of devotion. Who were the first hermits cannot easily be known; though Paul, surnamed the hermit, is generally reckoned the first. The persecutions of Decius and Valerian were supposed to have occasioned their first rise. HERMOGENIANS, a sect of ancient heretics; denominated from their HETERODOX, something that is contrary to the faith or doctrine established in the true church. See OR THODOX. HEXAPLA, a Bible disposed in six ruptions might have happened, and that columns, containing the text and divers || versions thereof, compiled and publishview of securing ed by Origen, with the sacred text from future corruptions, and to correct those that had been alEusebius relates, ready introduced. that Origen, after his return from Rome under Caracalla, applied himself to learn Hebrew, and began to collect the several versions that had been made of the sacred writings, and of these to compose his Tetrapla and Hexapla; others, however, will not allow him to have begun till the time of Alexander, after he had retired into Palestine, about the year 231. To conceive what this Hexapla was, it must be observed, that, besides the translation of the sacred writings, called the Septuagint, made under Ptolemy Philadelphus above 280 years before Christ, the Scripture had been since translated into Greek by other interpreters. The first of those versions, or (reckoning the Septuagint) the second, was that of Aquila, a proselyte Jew, the first edition of which he published in the 12th year of the emperor Adrian, or about the year of Christ 128; the third was that of Symmachus, published, as is commonly supposed, under Marcus Aurelius, but, as some say. under Septimius Severus, about the year 200; the fourth was that of Theodotion, prior to that of Symmachus, under Commodus, or about the year 175. These Greek versions, says Dr. Kennicott, were made by the Jews from their corrupted copies of the Hebrew, and were designed to stand in the place of HIERACITES, heretics in the third the Seventy, against which they were prejudiced, because it seemed to favour century; so called from their leader the Christians. The fifth was found at Hierax, a philosopher, of Egypt, who Jericho, in the reign of Caracalla, about taught that Melchisedec was the Holy the year 217: and the sixth was discov- Ghost; denied the resurrection and conered at Nicopolis, in the reign of Alex- || demned marriage. HIERARCHY, an ecclesiastical esander Severus, about the year 228; lastly, Origen himself recovered part of tablishment. The word is also used in rea seventh, containing only the Psalms. ference to the subordination some supNow, Origen, who had held frequent pose there is among the angels: but whedisputations with the Jews in Egypt and ther they are to be considered as having Palestine, observing that they always a government or hierarchy among themobjected to those passages of Scripture selves, so that one is superior in office quoted against them, appealed to the and dignity to others; or whether they Hebrew text, the better to vindicate have a kind of dominion over one anothose passages, and confound the Jews, ther; or whether some are made parby showing that the Seventy had given takers of privileges others are deprived the sense of the Hebrew; or rather toof, cannot be determined, since Scripshow, by a number of different versions, what the real sense of the Hebrew was, undertook to reduce all these several versions into a body, along with the He brew text, so as they might be easily confronted, and afford a mutual light to each other. He made the Hebrew text his standard; and allowing that cor ture is silent as to this matter. HIGH CHURCHMEN, a term first given to the non-jurers, who refused to acknowledge William III. as their lawful king, and who had very proud notions of church power; but it is now commonly used in a more extensive signification, and is applied to all those E e who, though far from being non-jurors, yet form pompous and ambitious conceptions of the authority and jurisdiction of the church. HISTORY, ECCLESIASTICAL. See ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. HOFFMANISTS, those who espoused the sentiments of Daniel Hoffman, professor in the university of Helmstadt, who in the year 1598 taught that the light of reason, even as it appears in the writings of Plato and Aristotle, is adverse to religion; and that the more the human understanding is cultivated by philosophical study, the more perfectly is the enemy supplied with weapons of defence. God, the Creator, Preserver, and Lord of all, was worthy of all honour and worship, and as a token of men's giving themselves entirely up to him. It is called in Scripture a burnt offering, Sacrifices of this sort are often mentioned by the heathens as well as Jews. They appear to have been in use long before the institution of other Jewish sacrifices by the law of Moses, Job i. 5. Job xlii. 8. Gen. xxii. 13. Gen. viii. 20. On this account, the Jews, who would not allow the Gentiles to offer on their altar any other sacrifices peculiarly enjoined by the law of Moses, admitted them by the Jewish priests to offer holocausts, because these were a sort of sacrifices HOLINESS, freedom from sin, or prior to the law, and common to all the conformity of the heart to God. It nations. During their subjection to the does not consist in knowledge, talents, Romans, it was no uncommon thing for nor outward ceremonies of religion, but those Gentiles to offer sacrifices to the hath its seat in the heart, and is the ef- God of Israel at Jerusalem. Holocausts fect of a principle of grace implanted by were deemed by the Jews the most exthe Holy Spirit, Eph. ii. 8, 10. John iii. 5. || cellent of all their sacrifices. See SARom. vi. 22. It is the essence of happi-CRIFICE. ness and the basis of true dignity, Prov. HOLY DAY, a day set apart by the iii. 17. Prov. iv. 8. It will manifest itself church for the commemoration of some by the propriety of our conversation, saint, or some remarkable particular in regularity of our temper, and uniformity the life of Christ. It has been a quesof our lives. It is a principle progressive ||tion agitated by divines, whether it be in its operation, Prov. iv. 18. and absolutely essential to the enjoyment of God here and hereafter, Heb. xii. 14. See SANCTIFICATION, WORKS. proper to appoint or keep any holy days (the sabbath excepted) The advocates for holy days suppose that they have a tendency to impress the minds of the people with a greater sense of religion; that if the acquisitions and victories of men be celebrated with the highest joy, how much more those events which relate to the salvation of man, such as the birth, death, and re HOLINESS OF GOD, is the purity and rectitude of his nature. It is an essential attribute of God, and what is || the glory, lustre, and harmony of all his other perfections. Ps. xxvii. 4. Exod. xv. 11. He could not be God without it, Deut. xxxii. 4. It is infinite and un-surrection of Christ, &c. On the other bounded; it cannot be increased or di- side it is observed, that if holy days had minished. Immutable and invariable, been necessary under the present disMal. iii. 6. God is originally holy; he pensation, Jesus Christ would have obis so of and in himself, and the author served something respecting them, and promoter of all holiness among his whereas he was silent about them; that creatures. The holiness of God is visi- it is bringing us again into that bondage ble by his works; he made all things to ceremonial laws from which Christ holy, Gen. i. 31. By his providences, all freed us; that it is a tacit reflection on which are to promote holiness in the the Head of the church in not appointend, Heb. xii. 10. By his grace, which ing them; that such days, on the whole, influences the subjects of it to be holy. are more pernicious than useful to soTit. ii. 10, 12. By his word, which com-ciety, as they open a door for indolence mands it, 1 Pet. í. 15. By his ordinances, which he hath appointed for that end, Jer. xliv. 4, 5. By the punishment of sin in the death of Christ, Is. liii. and by the eternal punishment of it in wicked men, Matt. xxv. last verse. See ATTRI-on Nonconformity; A Country Vicar's BUTES. HOLOCAUST, formed from 0x05, "whole," and, "I consume with fire," a kind of sacrifice wherein the whole burnt offering is burnt or consumed by fire, as an acknowledgment that and profaneness; yea, that Scripture Sermon on Christmas day, 1753; HOLY GHOST, the third person in the Trinity. |