ANCIENT HERESIES & OLD SCHOOL BAPTISTS

In Greek, the root of “heretic” is αἱρέω / αἵρεσις, originally meaning “to choose” and then a choice, school, or party—a neutral term for a philosophical camp. Hellenistic Jews (like Josephus) use αἵρεσις for religious sects such as Pharisees and Sadducees. In the New Testament the word shifts: in Acts it can still mean “sect,” but in Paul’s lists it means factions that tear the church, and αἱρετικός (Titus 3:10) is the factious man who insists on his own line. In the 2nd–4th centuries, as the church confronts Gnostics, Marcionites, Arians, etc., writers like Irenaeus take αἵρεσις and harden it into a technical term for doctrinal deviation from the apostolic “rule of faith”; a heretic is now someone who chooses his own teaching against the church’s confession. Councils then use it canonically, distinguishing heretics (wrong doctrine), schismatics (break unity), and other irregular groups. From there the terms pass into Latin as haeresis / haereticus and into English as heresy / heretic, with the strong pejorative sense fixed—but the original sting remains: the heretic is the one who chooses his own “school” over the common faith. Old School (Primitive) Baptists later inherit the word in this fully loaded sense, typically using “heresy” for denials of sovereign grace, particular redemption, and the finished work of Christ, even as they themselves are often branded “heretical” by others for rejecting popular systems and clinging, in their own self-understanding, to the apostolic pattern of doctrine and church order.