The Greek word translated _heresy_ [200:1] in our authorised version of the New Testament, did not primarily convey an unfavourable idea. It simply denoted a _choice_ or _preference_. It was often employed to indicate the adoption of a particular class of philosophical sentiments; and thus it came to signify a _sect_ or _denomination_. Hence we find ancient writers speaking of the _heresy_ of the Stoics, the _heresy_ of the Epicureans, and the _heresy_ of the Academics. The Jews who used the Greek language did not consider that the word necessarily reflected on the party it was intended to describe; and Josephus, who was himself a Pharisee, accordingly discourses of the three heresies of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes. [200:2] The Apostle Paul, when speaking of his own history prior to his conversion, says, that "after the strictest heresy" of his religion he lived a Pharisee. [200:3] We learn, too, from the book of the Acts, that the early Christians were known as "the heresy of the Nazarenes." [200:4] But very soon the word began to be employed to denote something which the gospel could not sanction; and accordingly, in the Epistle to the Galatians, heresies are enumerated among the works of the flesh. [200:5] It is not difficult to explain why Christian writers at an early date were led to attach such a meaning to a term which had hitherto been understood to imply nothing reprehensible. The New Testament teaches us to regard an erroneous theology as sinful, and traces every deviation from "the one faith" of the gospel to the corruption of a darkened intellect. [201:1] It declares--"He that believeth not is _condemned already_, because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God; and this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, _because their deeds were evil_." [201:2] Thus it was that the most ancient ecclesiastical authors described all classes of unbelievers, sceptics, and innovators, under the general name of heretics. Persons who in matters of religion made a _false choice_, of whatever kind, were viewed as "vainly puffed up by a fleshly mind," or as under the influence of some species of mental depravity. It thus appears that heresy, in the first century, denoted every deviation from the Christian faith. Pagans and Jews, as well as professors of apocryphal forms of the gospel, were called heretics. [201:3] But in the New Testament our attention is directed chiefly to errorists who in some way disturbed the Church, and adulterated the doctrine taught by our Lord and His apostles. Paul refers to such characters when he says--"A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject;" [201:4] and Peter also alludes to them when he speaks of false teachers who were to appear and "privily bring in damnable heresies." [201:5]