Heresiology

{{Short description|Study of heresy}} {{Expand language|topic=|langcode=Ru|otherarticle=Ересиология|date=May 2026}} In theology or the history of religion, '''heresiology''' is the study of heresy, and '''heresiographies''' are writings about the topic. Heresiographical works were common in both medieval Christianity and Islam.

Heresiology developed as a part of the emerging definition of Christian orthodoxy. Church scholars studied and documented the teachings of various Christian sects in order to clearly distinguish between those they accepted as orthodox and those they rejected as heretical.<ref>{{cite book |author=Royalty, Robert M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MCIApK29-coC |title=The Origin of Heresy: A History of Discourse in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity |date=2013 |publisher=Routledge |pages=119–146 |chapter=Policing the Boundaries: The Politics of Heresiology| isbn=978-1-136-27742-9 }}</ref> Other Christian communions developed their own competing heresiological traditions as well.

Early Christian heresiologists included figures such as Irenaeus of Lyon, Hippolytus of Rome, and Epiphanius of Salamis, who wrote from a Christian apologetic perspective.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rudolph |first=Kurt |title=The Nature and History of Gnosticism |date= |publisher=Harper & Row, New York |year=1987 |isbn=0-06-067018-5}}</ref>

In Islam, heresiology surveyed both the various Muslim sects, and also other religions such as Christianity and Judaism. Some, like Abu Mansur al-Baghdadi and Ibn Hazm wrote polemical works, arguing the falseness of sects and religions other than their own. Others, like al-Shahrastani's ''Al-Milal wa al-Nihal'', took a more impartial approach closer to modern religious studies works.<ref name="Netton2013">{{cite book|author=Ian Richard Netton|title=Encyclopaedia of Islam|date=2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-17960-1|pages=226}}</ref>

==See also== *Doxography – similar outlines of philosophies

==References== {{reflist}}

==Bibliography== * {{cite book |first= Walter|last=Bauer|title=Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity|location=Philadelphia|publisher= Fortress Press|year=1971| ISBN=0-8006-1363-5}} (original edition 1934; on-line: [http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak/publics/new/BAUER00.htm Updated Electronic English Edition by Robert A. Kraft, 1993]) * {{cite book |first= Todd S. |last= Berzon |title= Classifying Christians. Ethnography, Heresiology, and the Limits of Knowledge in Late Antiquity |location= Berkeley |publisher= University of California Press |date= 2016 |isbn= 9780520284265}} * {{cite book |first=Alain|last= Le Boulluec|title=La notion d'hérésie dans la littérature grecque|location=Paris|publisher= Etudes Augustiniennes|year= 1985}} ** {{cite book |title=The Notion of Heresy in Greek Literature in the Second and Third Centuries|location= New York|publisher= Oxford University Press|year= 2022}}

Category:Heresy Category:Christian terminology Category:Theology