HERMITS OF SAINT AUGUSTINE. — Of Hebrew origin in the 13th century, when several congregations of hermits, scattered especially in Italy (Giulielmini, Giamboniti, Brettini, Tuscan Hermits of the Most Holy Trinity, Sacchetti and several others minor), were united into a single Order under the name of Hermits of St. Augustine, and the Rule of the saint.
However, the information about these monastic institutions that has come down to us is scarce. With the bull *Incurvati nobis* of 16 November 1243, Innocent IV united the Hermits of Tuscany into a single body and gave them the Rule of the Bishop of Hippo. Thus arose the Order of Hermits of Saint Augustine in Trascia. Two years later, the same Pontiff, with the bull *Di liberis*, extended the privileges and indulgences enjoyed by the Order to other communities in Italy and beyond, which later extended further: perhaps some convents of the same congregation, established outside Tuscany, were included.
The Giamboniti were also of recent origin. Their founder, Giovanni Bono, died in 1249, and already in 1251 the process regarding his life and virtues was conducted by the Bishop of Modena at the order of Innocent IV. His followers spread into Lombardy, Romagna, and Veneto; bulls of Gregory IX from 1230 and 1240 attest that they soon adopted the Rule of Saint Augustine. Little is also known of the Brettini, scattered in the Marca d'Ancona. They took their name from a locality near Fano called Brettino, where they possessed a convent that in 1227 was placed under the protection of the Holy See; a year later the Congregation was granted the Augustinian Rule.
Meanwhile, a movement gained strength aimed at merging the various hermit institutions into a single body. Alexander IV, with the bull *Cum quicquam salubris* of 15 July 1255, invited the two Orders of Saint Augustine and Saint William to send two religious from each community to his presence, at the place and time to be established by a letter from Cardinal Riccardo di Sant’Angelo, to hear and accept the instructions of the Holy See. It was in Rome that the representatives of the Hermits of Tuscany and the Guglielmites, together with those of the Brettini and the Giamboniti, gathered in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo and there constituted a single Order, called the Friars Hermits of Saint Augustine. This union took place in the period between 15 July 1255, the date of the convocation, and 9 April 1256, the deadline for the drafting of the bull *Licei Ecclesiae*, with which the Pope approved and confirmed the union of the Hermits and the deliberations of the fathers gathered in Santa Maria del Popolo. At the head of the new Order was placed a man of proven virtue, Fr. Lanfranco Settala, already superior general of the Giamboniti. Provinces were erected in various parts of Italy. Very likely the convents were given a draft of the constitutions pending the definitive ones, and some religious were sent to monasteries in France, England, Germany, Spain, and Portugal to practically implement the union in those countries as well. However, the Guglielmites refused, at least at a later stage, to adhere to the decisions of the Chapter of Santa Maria del Popolo. In August of the same year, 1256, and again in 1261, they were granted permission to continue under the Benedictine Rule under which they had been founded, and in 1263 they were forbidden to transfer to the Hermits of Saint Augustine without special permission from the Holy See.
The new institute was numbered among the Orders mentioned and enjoyed rapid growth. By the end of the 13th century it was divided into 17 provinces, which in 1269 rose to 24, and to 26 a few years later. Closely connected with that of Sicily was the small province of the Holy Land. In the 15th century, as monastic discipline relaxed due to epidemics and the Western Schism, some convents took steps to restore strict observance under the immediate obedience of the general and formed congregations that quickly spread. By 1266 the Order counted 35 provinces and congregations. To achieve these results, the former hermits had modified their primitive life, which had been oriented predominantly toward contemplation, and had also taken up active life, with preaching, study, teaching, the ministry of confession, and the spread of the Gospel among the lands of the infidels. They cultivated studies and distinguished themselves in the field of learning. They took particular care in the education to be imparted to their young members. In the official acts that have come down to us, we find mention of two houses of study in the years 1275 and 1276; but indications become more frequent, and soon the instruction of students and the training of teachers became a concern of the young institute.
In 1285, the college that the Augustinians had erected in Paris was incorporated into the University, from which it received its statutes and academic degrees. A chair of Theology was reserved for the Order, and Giles of Rome (q.v.) opened the series of its teaching masters. He founded a flourishing school whose principal representatives were Giacomo da Viterbo, Agostino Trionfo, Gerardo da Siena, Alessandro da Sant’Elpidio, Alberto da Padova, and Tommaso da Strasburgo. They were all eminent thinkers and brilliant polemicists. Giles of Rome became the official doctor of the Order, and a decree of the General Chapter of Florence (1287) imposed on the Hermits the duty of conforming to his doctrines. Later, Gregory of Rimini (d. 1338) created a new intellectual current oriented toward the nominalism of his time; the school he founded lasted for almost a century alongside the Gilesian one. In the great cultural centers of Europe, the Augustinian Hermits established their schools: at Oxford the disputations held in their *studium* were a normal part of the city’s academic life, and the memory of them survived even after the suppression of the house under the reign of Henry VIII.
Besides those already mentioned, the following distinguished themselves in the field of learning: Dionysius of Borgo San Sepolcro, Simone Fidati of Cascia, Bartolomeo of Urbino, Filippo Agazzari, Luigi Marsili, Bonaventura of Padua, Giles Antonini, Girolamo Seripando, Onofrio Panvinio, Cristiano Lupo, Enrico Noris, Giovanni Berti, and Agostino Ciasca.
The Order has given five saints to the Church: Nicholas of Tolentino (1249–1305); John of Saint Facundus (1430–79); Thomas of Villanova (1488–1555); Clare of Montefalco (1268–1308); and Rita of Cascia (1381–1457).
Notable also was the missionary activity of the Hermits. They went to Mexico in 1533, to Peru in 1550, to Ecuador in 1587, and to Chile in 1591. They were the first missionaries in the Philippines (1565), and from there they moved on to China (1575) and Japan (1602). In 1573 they undertook the evangelization of the Indies, and later of Persia (1602), Georgia, and Armenia. Even today they maintain extensive missions in Asia, Australia, South America, and Africa. Their habit today consists of a black woolen tunic, girded with a leather belt, and a hood or a triangular mantle. The white habit, by privilege or in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is also permitted, but only when there is no danger of confusion with that of religious of other institutes.
The Hermits of Saint Augustine today number 26 provinces with about 350 houses and more than 3,000 religious, and in various nations they are engaged in the education of the laity.
it will reveal the doctrine, by which what was previously only an object of divine faith comes to assume the character of a truth to be believed by divine and Catholic faith. 3) An opposition to revealed truth; and such opposition must be immediate, direct, and contradictory.
If any one of these elements is lacking, a proposition cannot properly be called heretical, but, depending on the case, it will be termed: proximate to heresy, if it contradicts a doctrine proximate to faith, that is, one which, although not yet defined, is considered by theologians as definable; erroneous, if it denies a theological conclusion or, in general, a truth intimately connected with dogma; *sapiens haeresim*, if the form of expression, under certain circumstances, gives rise to suspicion of heresy (cf. CENSURA).
III. IN MORALS: THE SIN OF HERESY
St. Thomas reduces heresy to a kind of positive infidelity (Sum. Theol., 2a—2ae, q. 11, a. 1). Therefore, as a sin it is usually defined as: “the voluntary and pertinacious error of a Christian against a divine and Catholic truth.”
It is said to be: 1. Voluntary error. The sin of heresy, since it implies a judgment contrary to the act of faith, is first of all an act of the intellect judging against the rule of faith. It may manifest itself in a denial or even in a positive doubt that reduces certainty to mere opinion. Negative doubt, which merely suspends judgment, although it may be gravely sinful, does not yet directly oppose faith. Positive doubt, however, since it withholds assent altogether, is a formal revolt against faith itself, implying a firm and unshakable rejection. Besides the intellectual element, in the genesis of interior heresy there is also an impulse from the will, analogous to what occurs in the act of faith: only through such influence can the intellect freely determine itself to give erroneous assent regarding Revelation. 2. Pertinacious. This pertinacity constitutes the specific element of its moral culpability. It does not consist in a special obstinacy, but in the awareness one has of opposing the rule of faith, so that, if this is lacking, heresy will be merely material, not formal. 3. Of a Christian, so that the subject capable of committing it can only be one who, through Baptism, has entered into the society of the Church: a catechumen, therefore, and one who has been invalidly baptized, may commit the sin of infidelity, but not of heresy. 4. Against a truth, etc. This refers to the objective element already discussed above.
The sin of heresy is subdivided into: 1. formal and material, depending on whether it is joined to pertinacity or not; 2. internal and external, depending on whether it resides only in the mind or is also manifested outwardly; 3. occult and public, depending on whether it is communicated to none or to few in secret, or before a considerable number of people.
Among the sins of infidelity, it is the gravest, because it more than any other opposes the virtue of faith: indeed, on this account it surpasses the gravity of any other sin, with the exception of hatred of God. This gravity is reflected in the manifold consequences that befall the heretic in his relations with the interior life of the Christian and with ecclesiastical society. The most important are: 1. the loss of the life of grace; 2. the destruction of the infused virtue of faith; 3. separation from the body of the Church in the case of public heresy, by which the heretic becomes a severed and separated member, even if, as the more common doctrine holds, he adheres to heresy only materially. It is not certain that the same can be said of the occult heretic, that is, of one who has not yet officially professed himself as such.
IV. IN CANON LAW: THE CRIME OF HERESY
Heresy, inasmuch as it breaks the unity of the Church, is by its nature an eminently antisocial act: it cannot therefore escape the coercive power of the Church. However grave it may be in relation to doctrine and morals, the sin of heresy, if it remains a purely internal fact, does not yet constitute a crime in the juridical sense of the term, liable therefore to canonical sanctions. To become such, it is necessary that heresy also assume an external, public, or occult character. This external manifestation may be expressed in any manner, by signs, writings, words, and actions, provided it sufficiently appears that it is a true and fully deliberate adherence, that is, formal.The manner in which the Church has repressed heresy has varied over the centuries. At first extremely severe, later it somewhat tempered its primitive rigor, though reserving very grave penances for this crime. Once the empire became Christian, civil sanctions such as exile, confiscation of goods, and even death were added to ecclesiastical penalties. Particularly harsh was the treatment of heretics after the year 1000, on account of the rise of new heretical movements. It was at this time that the Inquisition was instituted (cf. v.).
The penalties now in force are the following (can. 2314 CIC): 1. Heretics incur ipso facto excommunication. 2. If, after being warned, they do not repent, they shall be deprived of benefices, dignities, pensions, offices, and other ecclesiastical charges; they shall be declared infamous and, if clerics, after a second warning, deposed. 3. Those publicly affiliated or adhering to non-Catholic sects are thereby infamous, and, if clerics, after being warned in vain, must be degraded.
One who is suspected of heresy, after being warned in vain, shall be forbidden legitimate ecclesiastical acts, and, if a cleric, shall be suspended *a divinis*; if he does not amend within six months, he shall be considered a heretic (can. 2315).
Absolution from excommunication is reserved to the Apostolic See; however, if the crime was brought before the Ordinary in the external forum, even by free confession, he, after an abjuration (cf. v.), may absolve the offender in the external forum; the offender may then receive absolution from the sin from his confessor (can. 2314 § 2).
V. In the history of the Church
The breadth of the topic does not permit more than a mention of the major heretical movements, for which reference should be made to the relevant entries.### Period of the Fathers
Heresy appears with the very rise of the Church itself. The first manifestations come from the Jewish milieu, through the work of groups that had passed over to Christianity without, however, definitively breaking away from the Synagogue; the Ebionites, the Nazarenes, and the Cerinthians belong to this category. A similar movement arose in the pagan environment in the 2nd century with Gnosticism: it represents an attempt on the part of pagan thought to absorb and distort the evangelical doctrine, transferring it into a religious philosophy. Montanism, Millenarianism, and Manichaeism are other heresies that arose through contamination with other religions. On a distinctly Christian basis, however, Romanticism arose in the 3rd century with the proclamation of the third and final Revolution, that of the Holy Spirit. Meanwhile, the controversies against heretics, together with the penetration of the Gospel among the cultured classes, opened a new series of heresies of a predominantly intellectual character, which would subsequently lead to the denial of the most fundamental dogmas. It was the Trinitarian doctrine that was first denied between the 2nd and 3rd centuries, both in the East with Subordinationism and in the West with the Monarchianism of Noetus and Praxeas, later developed into Sabellian Modalism. These errors would culminate at the beginning of the 4th century in Arianism, which denied the divinity of the Word, followed by Macedonianism, and, analogously, errors concerning the Holy Spirit.
Once the Trinitarian controversies had ceased, the struggle flared up again in the East between the 5th and 6th centuries on the Christological terrain. Nestorianism, which denied the unity of person in Christ, Monophysitism, which confused His natures, and later Monothelitism, constitute the most important deviations in this field. Meanwhile, the West was preoccupied with problems concerning the Church, the Sacraments, and Grace: hence the Donatist heresy and above all Pelagianism, both vigorously combated by St. Augustine. Iconoclasm represents the last great heresy of this troubled patristic period, which, however, had decisive importance in the clarification of dogma.
### High Middle Ages
In the period following that of the Fathers, noteworthy are the Adoptionism of Elipandus of Toledo and Felix of Urgel and the Predestinarianism of Gottschalk. At this time, too, the Greek Schism arose; however, at least in its early stages, it did not involve any particular heretical affirmations. Far more serious were the dangers that the Church had to face after the year 1000. Many popular reform movements of an openly anarchic and anti-ecclesiastical character proliferated everywhere. The Cathars, the Waldensians, and then the pseudo-mystical currents of the Fraticelli, the Beghards, and the Beguines are the most significant expressions of this heretical ferment. The very constitution of the Church was later threatened by the doctrine of Marsilius of Padua and the so-called conciliar theories. When the movements of the Englishman Wycliffe and the Bohemian Hus were added, the ground was already prepared for the outbreak of the Lutheran revolt.
### Modern Era
The modern period opens with Protestantism, which shattered the unity of the Western Church and gradually led the life and culture of Europe away from Christianity. The Church would face new trials in the 18th century. The Reformation had indeed given rise to very grave controversies concerning Grace and freedom, from which movements arose that, while professing orthodoxy, were in practice rebellious against dogma and hierarchy, such as Baiusism and above all Jansenism—a movement of exceptional importance whose repercussions extended into the 20th century. Meanwhile, on the juridical terrain, the intensification of nationalism and the absolutism of the princes gave rise to Gallicanism, Febronianism, and Josephinism, which placed the Church in grave difficulty in its relations with the State. Notable in this period, too, are the controversies in the moral field, which led to the condemnation of Laxism, Rigorism, and Quietism. In the 19th century, Traditionalism, Fideism, Ontologism, Hermesianism, Güntherianism, and Old Catholics enjoyed wide resonance in France and Germany. The other errors against which the Church in this century had especially to defend itself, more than heresies, were forms of total defection from Christianity. The last serious attack was the more recent Modernism, with which an attempt was made to introduce rationalism into the field of theology and biblical criticism.
For moral theology: St. Thomas, Suárez, De Lugo cited above, especially St. Alphonsus de’ Liguori, Theologia moralis, I, ed. Gaude, Rome 1907, p. 310 ff., where many references to earlier authors are found. Among recent works, especially A. Wernz, Theologia moralis, Principia, I, 3rd ed., Rome 1927, pp. 22 ff.; D. C. M. Prümmer, Manuale theologiae moralis, I, 6th ed., Freiburg im Br. 1940, pp. 364 ff.; J. Aertnys-C. Damen, Theologia moralis, I, 4th ed., Turin 1947, pp. 207 ff.
For canon law: as regards works prior to the CIC, see Michel, op. cit. Among the commentators on the CIC V. F. Cappello, De censuris, Turin 1919, passim; E. F. McKenzie, The delict of heresy, Washington 1932; G. Chiaudano, Ius poenae, 4th ed., Trento 1935, p. 75 ff.; M. Conte a Coronata, Institutiones I. C., II, 2nd ed., Turin 1939, p. 247 ff.; and IV, IV, 1935, p. 279 ff.; G. Chiaudano-P. Cipriotti, Ius Canonicum de delictis et poenis, 5th ed., Victoria 1943, pp. 75-81.
For history: the decisions of the Church against the various heresies are collected in Denz.-U. Among the authors who gathered them into a corpus cf. J. Hermant, Histoire des hérésies, Rouen 1712; G. Arnold, Unparteiische Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie, Frankfurt am Main 1729; F. Van Ranst, Historia hierarcharum et haeresum, Venice 1735; W. Walch, Entwurf einer vollständigen Geschichte der Ketzerei, Leipzig 1769; C. Cantù, Gli eretici in Italia, Turin 1865-67; A. Lombard, Vaudois, Pauvres et Bonshommes en Orient et Occident, Basel 1870; F. Tocco, Le eresie nel medioevo, Florence 1884 (tendentious); J. Dollinger, Beiträge zur Sektengeschichte des Mittelalters, Munich 1890; G. Volpe, Movimenti religiosi e sette ereticali nella società medioevale italiana, 2nd ed., Florence 1926. Among the various dictionaries of heresies V. Ph. Fritz, Ketzerlexikon, Ratisbon 1838; F. A. Pluquet, Dictionnaire des hérésies, in J. P. Migne, Encyclopédie théologique, XI and XII, Paris 1847; J. H. Blunt, Dictionary of sects, London 1903; G. Runciman, Le manichéisme médiéval, L’Histoire dualiste dans le christianisme, French trans., Paris 1948; H. Jedin, Geschichte des Konzils von Trient, Italian trans. Brescia 1950; P. Hayot, Les délits d’hérésie d’apostasie et de schisme, in Revue diocésaine de Tournai, 5 (1950), pp. 134-139; G. Welter, Hist. des sects chrétiennes des origines à l’apostasie, in Revue de l’Autorité et cat. théologie, 2nd ed., Guggisberg-Zannoni 1950.
VI. Archaeology
If by this word we are to understand a system or doctrine, and consequently a sect that rejects part of the Church’s teaching, then very few works of art can be shown with certainty to have a heterodox character. Scenes of Christian-heretical origin must not be confused with those of purely pagan origin, even if tinged with mystical reflections that may have some bearing on Christianity.Setting aside, because of their rather magical character, the numerous collections of amulets and gems widely used by Gnostics, we know of a few monuments of the so-called major arts whose decoration reveals more or less evident mixtures of purely Christian motifs with others more mysterious, which seem to derive from heterodox speculations. The most typical case is that of the hypogeum of the Aurelii on Viale Manzoni, though interpreters have not been able to agree on which sect made use of it: Gnostic, Carpocratian, Marcionite, or Montanist?
The heterodox character of the so-called hypogeum of Trebius Justus on the Via Latina is very doubtful. The same may be said of the representations discovered beneath the triclinia in the catacombs.