αἱρετικός

From the study of Titus 3:10

Range of meaning

The word comes from the verb haireomai, 'to choose', and the noun hairesis, 'a choice'. Hairesis came to mean a chosen way of thinking, so a school or party, and then a faction or split. In Greek writers before the New Testament, hairetikos could simply mean 'able to choose' (Pseudo-Plato, Definitions 412a). Applied to a person in a community, it means one who picks his own line and gathers a party around it. In other words, a person who splits people off and causes division.

Against the English

The KJV has 'an heretick', which for modern readers means someone who holds wrong doctrine. Modern versions use 'divisive' (BSB, NIV), 'factious' (WEB, NASB), 'stirs up division' (ESV) or 'sectarian' (YLT). These keep the focus on behaviour that splits the community.

How it drifted

In the New Testament, hairesis is still neutral or names a split. Luke uses it for the 'party' of the Sadducees (Acts 5:17), of the Pharisees (Acts 15:5; 26:5) and of the Nazarenes (Acts 24:5; 28:22). Paul lists it among 'factions' in Galatians 5:20 and 1 Corinthians 11:19. In the early 2nd century Ignatius began using it for teaching that divides (Ephesians 6.2; Trallians 6.1). By Irenaeus (around 180 AD) it was a technical word for false doctrine as opposed to orthodoxy. Latin took it over as haereticus, the Vulgate used that word here, and English 'heretic' came from the Latin, along with all the later meaning of doctrinal crime.

Used elsewhere in the period

Josephus calls the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes three 'haireseis', meaning schools of thought (Antiquities 13.171; War 2.118, 2.162). Philo and other Greek writers use hairesis for philosophical schools. 2 Peter 2:1 ('destructive haireseis') is the nearest the New Testament comes to the later sense, and even there splitting is part of the meaning.