The Great Heresies by Hilaire Belloc
Insightful And Prophetical
Belloc cited the many beliefs and theological principles which Islam shares
with Catholicism. Where Islam decisively diverges from Catholicism (and
Christianity in general) is the denial of the Incarnation and all the
sacramental life of the Church that followed from it. In The Great Heresies
Belloc grouped the Protestant Reformation together with Islam as one of
the major heresies threatening the Church Universal.
Personal Review: The Great Heresies by Hilaire Belloc
Hilaire Belloc begins his book by justifying its existence. Modern education
and thought largely ignore religion, particularly the parts that unfolded in
what we label "The Middle Ages". But Belloc has some inconvenient facts
for us. The history of civilization is the history of religion. A society rises or
falls by the strength of its individuals; those individuals rise and fall by the
strength of their religion. To understand the past, grasp the present, and
know the future, we must know religion. The one religion that has stood at
the center of human history is the Catholic Church. And to take the

measure of that religion, we must look at the challenges it has faced and
overcome.
Belloc's spare, straightforward prose takes us through a whirlwind tour of
five heresies that the Church defeated. The Arian Heresy denied the full
divinity of Jesus. It was rejected by Church leaders, but survived in the
Roman Army for much longer. The Albigsenean attack came later, during
the High Middle Ages. It was an attack not just on theology but on the
fundamental nature of reality. The end product of denying reality was an
obsession with intense experience, such as bizarre rituals involving fire-
worship. Fortunately for us, both of these notions passed into the dustbin
of history.
The chapter on Islam is the longest and the most illuminating. Belloc
begins it by unerlining the fact that Islam was a heresy. It was not a brand
new religion, but a corruption and oversimplification of the Christian
doctrine that the Prophet Mohammed learned in Syria. But more
importantly, Belloc focuses on the social environment where Islam first
rose. A massive underclass in the decaying Persian and Byzantine
Empires toiled under the restrictions of the upper class. Among these
oppressed, the nascent Islamic movement found willing support for its
doctrine of total equality and total submission to God.
We all view Islam as decaying, stagnant, and backwards-looking. We
rarely remember that until about three centuries ago, Islam dominated the
world with the most advanced technology, thought, and political systems.
Belloc does. He enjoins us to remember that almost into the 18th century,
the Muslim hordes were knocking on the doors of Central Europe, and that
Vienna was only saved by a last-minute intervention by the Poles. (It
happened, in a delightful historical twist, on September 11.) In 1938 Belloc
saw an Islam that was down but not out; he predicted that it would soon be
knocking impolitely on Europe's door again. A far-fetched prediction at the
time, this has now come true, and Belloc knows why. Islam thrives on
social injustice; when westerners decided to prop up oil-wealthy shieks
throughout the Arab world, they created the exact conditions in which the
Muslim message can rally the masses.
Thr fourth and probably least popular chapter is "What was the
Reformation?" Belloc acknowledgeed that by the 16th century, the
Catholic Church was badly in need of a correction. Yet the cure, as so
often happens, may be worse than the disease. He emphasized that
Martin Luther aimed to fix the Church from within. It was only John Calvin
who insisted on breaking away and forming a new church with a radically
different theological basis. Belloc predicted that the Protestant world
would lose its vitality and join the secular world. Again, time has proved
him right; Protestantism remains strong in the USA but throughout northern
Europe the churches are disintegrating.

And that leads us to the final chapter, "The Modern Attack". Secularism is
the first heresy to try overthrowing all the building blocks of Christianity. In
denies not only the supremacy of God but also the need for justice,
equality, joy, and love. It replaces morality with self-interest, education
with job-training, freedom with tyranny. And yet, awesome as this final
attack may have seemed, Belloc saw the seeds of the Church's victory
already sprouting. Time has proved him right yet again. Pope Jonh Paul II
stood up to lead the defense against communism. Now Christianity
regains it strength in the former Soviet block and also throughout the third
world, and there are tantalizing signs that Western Europe will soon be
Christian again. And so Belloc finishes the book with tempered optimism.
Christianity will survive; we have Jesus's word on that. How it will look in
the future remains to be seen. But in any case this book gives a spirited
look at parts of world history which our schools now ignore totally, and for
that alone it's more than worth reading.
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