religious traits) with peculiar characteristics such as separatism, marginality,
and insularity. The concept of‘sect’is therefore relational: it presupposes the
existence of a majority group from which the sect is or has become separate.
However,‘sect’does not necessarily require the existence of an orthodoxy or
‘mainstream’: the majority from which the sect has broken off can be con-
stituted itself of an amalgamation of other, similarly sectarian groups, without
any group achieving social majority or political hegemony. A sect,finally,
remains closely related to the rest of society and shares many features in
common with it, even though it is regarded, both from within and from
without, as separate and different, and even though its‘sectarian’ideology is
often one of seclusion and rejection of the rest of society (and sometimes even
of the world as a whole).^1
‘Heresy’tends to cover a different range of meanings. It is used most
prominently in the context of Christianity, where—unlike‘sect’—the term
appears already in ancient sources, although originally not in the same sense as
we are familiar with today.‘Heresy’in the modern sense (in which I shall be
using this word) is a relational concept, perhaps more distinctly than‘sect’,
because it is meaningful only in relation to an‘orthodoxy’against which it is
defined and from which it is distinguished—even if, again, it is closely related
to the orthodox group and shares many features in common with it.‘Ortho-
doxy’does not necessarily represent the mainstream or social majority: its
status is not derived from any intrinsic virtue or superior truth (even if it
claims it), but rather through social forces such as the backing and power of
political rulers and/or the higher social status of its adherents. This means that
heresies, unlike sects, are not necessarily insular or in the minority, even if they
are politically and socially marginalized (and sometimes violently persecuted).
Furthermore, in the case at least of early Christianity, the identity of some
groups as‘heresies’is entirely subjective: for a group designated by others as
heretical often sees itself as orthodox. In early Christian sources, the term
‘heretical’functioned to a large extent as a label that was applied polemically to
groups within early Christianity by other Christians who saw themselves as
orthodox and wished to be dissociated from them. For this reason, historians
today prefer to regard early Christian heresy not as a social fact, but rather as
an ideological, literary, and rhetorical construct: it served, to Christianity, as a
polemical method of creating, constructing, and interpreting its internal divi-
sions and differences. This cultural construct, however, had concrete effects on
the social and political world of early Christianity, which became even more
pronounced after the conversion of the Roman Empire to the new religion.^2
(^1) On sects and sectarianism in the context of ancient Judaism and in modern sociological
theory, see Chalcraft (2007). 2
For modern approaches to early Christian heresy, see Iricinschi and Zellentin (2008).
356 Calendars in Antiquity