Sect and heresy, therefore, are far from synonymous. A sect can only be
identified as also a heresy if it is defined in relation to orthodoxy, which—in
the absence of any identifiable‘orthodoxy’—is arguably not applicable in the
context of early Judaism. A heresy can only be identified as also a sect if it is a
minority and secluded group, which does not apply to the very wide-scale
Christian‘heresies’of late Antiquity such as Arianism and Monophysitism.
Furthermore,‘sect’is an objective designation, whereas‘heresy’is far more
subjective. The questions we apply to‘sect’and‘heresy’in the context of
ancient calendars must therefore be substantially different. In the case of‘sect’,
for example, a question might be to what extent calendar differences drove
sects towards social insularity; whereas in the case of‘heresy’, the question
would rather be to what extent calendar differences were exploited, from
within and from without, in the subjective construction of heretical identity.
But the potential for calendars to generate social disputes and divisions, or
conversely for calendars to be generated by them, goes well beyond the narrow
context of sects and heresies. Although the controversies surrounding the date
of Easter in the fourth andfifth centuries (but also in other periods of
Christian history) involved heretical groups such as the Quartodecimans,
they were not played out exclusively between the camps of‘orthodoxy’and
‘heresy’: they also resulted from rivalry between different orthodox ecclesias-
tical authorities. Rivalry between the churches of Rome and Alexandria, in
particular, had a distinctive impact on the development of their Easter calen-
dars, even though their disagreements were subtle and did not lead to crude
accusations of‘heresy’, or to radical social splits or schisms. As we shall see,
Easter controversies between Christian heresies and rival orthodox churches
belonged in a certain sense to the same continuum, which suggests that the
study of the relationship between calendars, society, and social cohesion
should really be extended beyond the limited context of sects and heresies to
encompass all forms of dissent and dispute within ancient social movements
and societies.
In the course of this chapter, I shall question an assumption shared by many
scholars that calendar difference inevitably generates sectarianism, heresy,
and/or social schism. It has thus been argued that the Qumran sect (known
through the‘Dead Sea Scrolls’) was formed, in the second centuryBCE, because
of its adoption of a deviant calendar of 364 days which forced it to break off
from mainstream Jewish society. Similar arguments have been applied to
certain Christian heresies such as the Quartodecimans of the fourth and
fifth centuriesCE. In actual fact, the reverse could equally be argued: at
Qumran and elsewhere, it could have been the sectarian or heretical split
that generated calendrical difference. But more fundamentally, we need to
question the underlying assumption that calendar and sectarian (or heretical)
schisms were closely linked.
Sectarianism andHeresy 357