NOBLE ARMY OF "HERETICS"
FOREWORD
Heretics or martyrs - what is the difference? We hope this book will enlighten you.
A Jesuit priest wrote a booklet several years ago in which he enumerated many heretical groups, some of which fully deserve the name.
Among these groups were 30 of real interest, starting with the Paulicians in the first century to the Salvation Army in the nineteenth.
These groups were researched regarding ten different points of doctrine, all of which the priest said were heresies.
These doctrines are listed below. Next to the belief is given the number of the 30 groups studied who subscribed to that particular teaching. Then, as you read this book, we will look more closely at many of these groups, and see what the scriptural conclusion must be: martyr or heretic?
Belief in Justification by Faith 21
Reject Transubstantiation 16
Reject Tradition 16
Reject Purgatory 20
Reject Praying to Saints 19
Reject the Sacrifice of the Mass 18
Reject Celibacy of the Priesthood 18
Reject the Authority of the Pope 19
Reject the Veneration of the Cross 20
Reject the use of Images 20
If accurate records were available as to what the religious groups on question really believed, the number would have been even higher. Some groups are recorded as only having one heretical belief, or in some cases two or three; whereas, in actual fact, they possibly rejected the whole dogmatic structure of Romanism.
The theory of Transubstantiation, which is central to the Mass, was not formally decreed by a Council until 1215, so that would account why some of the earlier "heresies" did not reject it.
To Introduction