divergent meanings of the Eucharist, at least in terms of how it
was viewed in relation to the narrative of Jesus’ ministry.Orthodoxy and heresy
The most serious threat to Christian unity came not from diver-
gent forms of organization or ritual, but from serious differences
over doctrine – that is, over the teachings that constituted the very
foundations of Christian belief. This is the debate usually char-
acterized as being between orthodoxy (literally, correct belief)
and heresy (from the Greek word hairesis, originally meaning
simply ‘choice’, but eventually coming to denote religious spec-
ulations that deviated from correct belief). Although conflicts over
doctrine often involved debates about the authority of the church’s
hierarchy, it would be naïve to imagine that worldly power was
the only issue at stake. At heart, the dispute was about some-
thing altogether more serious and otherworldly: the salvation of
Christian souls, something that could only be achieved through
the true message of Jesus Christ.
The central place of the struggle between orthodoxy and
heresy in the history of Christianity was neatly summarized
by the Jesuit scholar Karl Rahner (1904–84), one of the most
influential Roman Catholic theologians of the twentieth century:The history of Christianity is also a history of heresies and
consequently of the attitudes adopted by Christianity and
the Church towards heresy, and so involves a history of the
concept of heresy itself. In all religions that possess any
kind of definite doctrine... there are differences of opinion
about that doctrine and as a consequence quarrels and
conflict about it and about the socially organised forms in
which the different religious views find expression.
(Rahner 1964: 7)It could be said that the debate is visible already in the origins of
Christianity as a form of Judaism, when those who would comeORTHODOXY AND ORGANIZATION IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY
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