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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Shi’ite Islam: Orthodoxy Or Heterodoxy? Second Amended and Amplified Edition Chapter 2: Towards a Definition of Shi‘ism As we have seen before, “election,” “option,” and “inclination” are some of the comprehensive meanings the Greek language gave to the term hairesis .

These meanings were passed into Latin, with the necessary etymological adjustments, as hoeresis which conveys the ideas of “opinion,” “dogma,” “party” and “sect.” Dictionaries define the meaning of “sect” as a “body of people sharing religious opinions who have broken away from a larger body.” It is often used as a term of disapproval and is thus inconsistent with its original meaning of “doctrine of a particular teacher who developed it and explained it and which is accepted and defended by a group of followers.” By straying from their original meanings and etymological roots, the words “heresy” and “sect” have been applied for centuries to those who professed “false” beliefs worthy of excommunication.

In this limited sense, the word “heresy” has more in common with the Hebrew term herem , meaning excommunication and anathema, and the Arabic word ḥarām , from the root ḥarrama , which means to deprive, to anathematize, to remove and to excommunicate. The words “heresy” and “sect” were used in ancient times to describe various schools of philosophy.

Over the course of centuries, however, the terms acquired pejorative connotations which eventually came to dominate and replaced their original meanings. The terms “heresy” and “sect” came to be commonly applied to all religious groups which broke away from an original doctrine and who were in disagreement with the dogmas and rituals which were officially orthodox.

For the Roman Catholic Church, all protestant sects born from the Reformation were, in a strict sense, “heretical” and “heterodox” from the moment they broke away from the Vatican. From around 1971, the term “heretic,” with all of its connotations, was suppressed from the Catholic ecclesiastic lexicon.[^1] Consequently, there are no longer any “heresies”, these have been replaced with “mere doctrinal errors” which do not merit excommunication.

The modern mentality was evidently unsatisfied with its classical lexical heritage and along with the older terminology, it developed a wide body of new definitions. The Western world uses these terms in so many contradictory ways that they do not have a constant meaning.