The belief that frees the Christian from the obligations of the moral law
By: Louis Ginzberg, Kaufmann Kohler
The Law a Source of Sin.
A term generally used to denote the opposition of certain Christian sects to the Law; that is, to the revelation of the Old Testa ment. The apostles were compelled, in response to the urging of Paul and his friends, to accept the doctrine of the non-binding character of the Law for heathen Christians (Acts, xv. 8), but Paul set up in addition a theory concerning the Law which not alone posits its complete abrogation in the period after Jesus, but also diametrically opposes the fundamental principles of Jewish (and Judaeæo-Christian) thought concerning it. The latter taught that the Law was the only means by which man could be justified before God, as may be seen by the early utterance: "God desired to justify Israel, and therefore He gave him many laws and commandments" (Mak. Mishnah); Paul declared that "by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight" (Rom. iii. 20, Gal. ii. 16). The Law, according to Paul, was calculated to multiply sin through the added opportunities for transgression which were afforded by its numerous precepts (Gal. iii. 19, Rom. v. 20). By reason of the Law, transgressions against it become positive disobedience to the divine will, and are felt as such; thus leading to the recognition of the true nature of sin (Rom. iii. 20, iv. 15, vii. 7). Being transgressions of divine commandments, transgression heaps up guilt upon guilt for man, who thus becomes subject to the rejection and the wrath of God, and to the "curse of the law" (Rom. iii. 19). Consequently this experience of the, Law leads man to despair of the possibility of attaining to righteousness by his own acts, and thus the full destructive power of sin stands revealed to him. Then the cry of agony goes up from him, calling aloud for salvation from the state of death into which sin has plunged him. In this sense the Law may be said to be the negative preparation for the New Testament dispensation of grace through Jesus. From the pedagogic character of the Law, Paul further deduces its transitory purpose; for with the appearance of Jesus, with whom the era of grace begins, it ceased, and must cease, because grace and Law are irreconcilable opposites.
Paulinism and Pharisaism.
If it be asked how came it that Paul, the former Jew, the strict Pharisee, arrived at a conception of the Law so offensive to the Jewish standpoint, the reply must be made that he learned the art of destroying the Law by the Law, or, as the author of the Clementine writings has it, "ex lege discere quod nesciebat lex" ("Recognitiones," ii. 54), from his Pharisaic masters. It was altogether a practical motive which seems to have inspired Paul to attack the universal conception of justification through the Law, for he had been convinced, by his own strenuous endeavors, of the impossibility of complete obedience to it. Paul's conviction was prevalent in those days in many Pharisaic circles ("Monatsschrift," 1899, pp. 153, 154). His utterances with reference to the abrogation of the Law after Jesus had also some precedent, for there is no doubt that the assertions made by many rabbis concerning the abrogation of the sacrifices,"In the time of the Messiah the sacrifices will cease (except that of thanksgiving)" (Pesiḳ. ix. 79a, the oldest Midrash collection); the same sentence is repeated in many other Midrashim, as was pointed out by S. Buber, note a. l.as also of the festivals, "All festivals will in future be abolished" (Midr. Mishle, ix. 2). This same passage is repeated in Yer. Meg. i. 5, but there it is intentionally modified.opposed though they were to the dogmas of the later Pharisees who daily prayed for the restoration of the Temple, were simply older conceptions of the Messianic age developed by Paul, and therefore disavowed by the later rabbis. In his argument for his theory of the Law, Paul shows himself an apt pupil of Pharisee doctrine, a knowledge of which is essential to the complete understanding of Paulinism. Thus his statement in Gal. iii. 19, "it was ordained by angels," has long been understoodto be of rabbinical origin. Proof for this is not indeed to be found in the Septuagint (Deut. xxxiii. 2), or in Josephus ("Ant." xv. 5, § 3); for both passages describe the presence of angels on Mount Sinai during the revelation as contributing to the glory thereof, whereas Paul seeks to demonstrate the inferiority of the Torah in that it is the work of angels, and not of God. The following Talmudic passage, however, affords an interesting parallel to these words of Paul: "An unbeliever said to R. Idit, 'Why is it said in Ex. xxiv. 1, "And he said unto Moses, Come up unto the Lord"? It should say, "Come up unto me." The rabbi answered: 'God in this place is the Meṭaṭron, whose name is as the name of his Lord.'"Sanh. 38b. The correct explanation of this passage is that, according to R. Idit, YHWH does not always mean God in person, but sometimes an angel. This is also maintained by the Jew in Justin Martyr, "Dialogus," lvi., and Gen. R. li. 2.The "Meṭaṭron" is probably a Babylonian Meṭaṭron is never found in any rabbinical work of Palestinian origin; Targ. Yer. Gen. v. 24 is a later gloss. R. Idit, who is usually called R. Idi, lived in Babylonia (see Bacher, "Ag. Pal. Amor." pp. 707 et seq.).interpolation, for the older sources mention some archangel, such as Michael, prince of Israel, as the actual giver of the Law, thus affording some foundation for Paul's disparaging reflection upon the Torah's origin. Similarly, his reference in Gal. iii. 11 to Hab. ii. 4, "The just shall live by his faith," from which he seeks to prove the superiority of faith over the Law, is not original with him. "Six hundred and thirteen commandments," says the Talmud in Makkot, 23b, 24a, "were given to Moses; . . . then came Habakkuk and reduced them to one, as it is said, 'The just shall live by his faith.'" The difference between the Talmud and Paul here is, of course, quite a fundamental one; the Talmud meaning only that the chief content of the Law is faith, without abolishing thereby a single precept. It is very instructive, however, to note how Paul adapts Pharisaic utterances to his own purposes.
Further Development of the Doctrine.
Pauline Antinomianism became the property of the Church only in a much restricted sense; namely, in its practical aspect, the non-binding nature of the Law. The reason for this is easily discerned. The Church had a very clear way out between Jewish nomianism and Paul's violent Antinomianism, by simply regarding the Jewish law as an imperfect, preparatory grade of revelation, which was to be fulfilled and completed in the higher Christian morality. Equally evident is the reason why Paul could not select this way. "He was too much of a Pharisee to distinguish critically between what was temporary and what was permanent, between the form and the contents of the Law; the Law was to him an inseparable whole of divine origin, which was either the sole and entire means to salvation or else the means, not to salvation, but to damnation (Pfleiderer, "Urchristenthum," 207). Paul was indeed too much of a Jew to draw the fullest consequences of his antinomistic doctrine, so that only through the artificial separation between Law and the promise to the forefathers, especially to Abraham, could he maintain a historical connection between Judaism and Christianity. The Gnostics developed Antinomianism more consistently. Regardless of their differences of opinion in other respects, they are all strictly antinomistic, and the opposition with them is no longer between Law and Gospel, but between the God of the Old Testament and that of the New Testament. They do not, like Paul, approach the topic historically, but from the side of their doctrine of dualism which originated in Platonism, or, properly speaking, in Parseeism. Hence the Gnostic view of the difference between the Supreme God and the World-Creator leads to the contrast of Redemption and Creation, as finding exposition in the New and Old Testaments respectively.
Gnostic Elaborations.
Paul's Antinomianism seems to have exercised most influence upon the Gnostic Marcion (who taught in Rome about 150), whose dualism, unlike that of other Gnostics, is not the cause, but the result, of his pronounced Antinomianism (Harnack, "Dogmengeschichte," iii. 256). Marcion proceeds from the strong Pauline antitheses: Law and Gospel, wrath and grace, works and faith, flesh and spirit, sin and righteousness, death and life; and as these opposites seem irreconcilable, he arrives at the dualistic doctrine of the just and angry God of the Old Testament, and of the God of the Gospels who is only love and mercy. Besides Marcion, his contemporary Tatian (came to Rome about 172) must be mentioned (compare Hilgenfeld, "Ketzergeschichte," p. 384). His dualism of the demiurge of the Old Testament and of the Supreme God of the New Testament is likewise an offshoot of Pauline Antinomianism. He differs from Marcion only in that he does not conceive the relation between the demiurge and God as a hostile one (Kurtz, "Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte," i. 79).
The influence exerted by Antinomianism on the conduct of life proved to be of a twofold nature; while Marcion and Tatian were led by it to extreme asceticism, with the Gnostics it resulted in libertine practises which contributed not a little to their ultimate downfall. Especially notorious in this regard were the Nikolaitans, the Simonians, the Carpocratians, and the Prodicians, to which must be added the Pseudo-Basilidians.
L. G.
Joel ("Blicke in die Religionsgeschichte," i. 28, Breslau, 1880) says: "We claim that the antinomistic (and antinational) movement in Christianity originated among the Hellenistic Jews already in the days of Philo, and that its representatives were thus uninfluenced by Christianity." The interesting passage in Philo ("De Migratione Abrahami," xvi. 450), showing plainly that the allegorical system of interpretation had long before led to Antinomianism, reads as follows: "For there are those who, while taking the letter of the laws as a symbol of spiritual things, lay all the stress upon the latter, but neglect the former. I am inclined to blame them for their levity, inasmuch as they ought to pay regard to both the accurate investigation of the things hidden and the faithful observance of those laws which are manifestly stated. These men, however, conduct themselves as if they lived alone in a desert, or as if they were souls without connection with the body, as if they had no knowledge of the existence of a city, village, or house, or of any intercourse of men; they disregard everything that is pleasing to the majority, aiming only at the plain, naked truth by itself. Yet Holy Scripture warns such men not to despise a good reputation, nor to disregard any of the customs which holy men, of greater wisdom than any of our time, have established. For we are far from thinking that because the Sabbath is inwardly a lesson to teach us the power of the Uncreated and the inactivity of the things created, we should therefore have the laws of the Sabbath abrogated and so light a fire, till the land, carry burdens, or bring suits before the court and give judgment, or demand the restoration of deposits, or exact the payment ofdebts, or do other things permitted only on other days not sacred. Nor should we, because the festivals are the symbolic expression of spiritual joy and of the thanksgiving we owe to God, abolish the annual festival convocations. Nor does it follow because the rite of circumcision is an emblem of the excision of pleasures and passions, and of the refutation of that impious opinion according to which the mind considers itself able to produce by its own power, that we are to annul the law which has been given regarding circumcision. . . . We take heed of the laws given in plain words in order to more clearly understand those things of which the laws are the symbols, and thus we shall escape blame and accusation from men in general." M. Friedlaender goes further still and considers the Minim to have been Jewish Gnostics of antinomistic views. See his "Der Vorchristliche Jüdische Gnosticismus," pp. 67-123. His opinion is not shared by Bacher ("R. E. J." 1899, pp. 38 et seq.). It would seem, however, that the life and teaching of Elisha ben Abuyah place him in the same category with the Hellenistic antinomians to whom Paul and Apollos belonged.
(Greek: anti, against; nomos, law)
A term made familiar by the heresy of Antinomianism preached by Johannes Agricola as a deduction of Luther’s teaching on justification by faith alone. If good works, argued Agricola, do not help to salvation so evil ones do not hinder it and therefore justified Christians are not bound to observe the law. The deduction is logical, but Luther repudiated it and preached earnestly against it. Though often acted upon by some extremists in Germany and England, it was never favored by any Protestant sect.
(anti, against, and nomos, law)The heretical doctrine that Christians are exempt from the obligations of moral law. The term first came into use at the Protestant Reformation, when it was employed by Martin Luther to designate the teachings of Johannes Agricola and his secretaries, who, pushing a mistaken and perverted interpretation of the Reformer’s doctrine of justification by faith alone to a far-reaching but logical conclusion, asserted that, as good works do not promote salvation, so neither do evil works hinder it; and, as all Christians are necessarily sanctified by their very vocation and profession, so as justified Christians, they are incapable of losing their spiritual holiness, justification, and final salvation by any act of disobedience to, or even by any direct violation of the law of God. This theory — for it was not, and is not necessarily, anything more than a purely theoretical doctrine, and many professors of Antinomianism, as a matter of fact, led, and lead, lives quite as moral as those of their opponents — was not only a more or less natural outgrowth from the distinctively Protestant principle of justification by faith, but probably also the result of an erroneous view taken with regard to the relation between the Jewish and Christian dispensations and the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Doubtless a confused understanding of the Mosaic ceremonial precepts and the fundamental moral law embodied in the Mosaic code was to no small extent operative in allowing the conception of true Christian liberty to grow beyond all reasonable bounds, and to take the form of a theoretical doctrine of unlimited licentiousness.Although the term designating this error came into use only in the sixteenth century, the doctrine itself can be traced in the teaching of the earlier heresies. Certain of the Gnostic sect — possibly, for example, Marcion and his followers, in their antithesis of the Old and New Testament, or the Carpoeratians, in their doctrine of the indifference of good works and their contempt for all human laws — held Antinomian or quasi-Antinomian views. In any case, it is generally understood that Antinomianism was professed by more than one of the Gnostic schools. Several passages of the New Testament writings are quoted in support of the contention that even as early as Apostolic times it was found necessary to single out and combat this heresy in its theoretical or dogmatic as well as in its grosser and practical form. The indignant words of St. Paul in his Epistles to the Romans and to the Ephesians (Romans 3:8, 31; 6:1; Ephesians 5:6), as well as those of St. Peter, the Second Epistle (2 Peter 2:18, 19), seem to lend direct evidence in favour of this view. Forced into a somewhat doubtful prominence by the "slanderers" against whom the Apostle found it necessary to warn the faithful, persisting spasmodically in several of the Gnostic bodies, and possibly also colouring some of the tenets of the Abigenses, Antinomianism reappeared definitely, as a variant of the Protestant doctrine of faith, early in the history of the German Reformation. At this point it is of interest to note the sharp controversy that it provoked between the leader of the reforming movement in Germany and his disciple and fellow townsman, Johannes Agricola. Scnitter, or Schneider, sometimes known as the Magister Islebius, was born at Eisleben in 1492, nine years after the birth of Luther. He studied and afterwards, taught, at Wittenberg, whence, in 1525, he went to Frankfort with the intention of teaching and establishing the Protestant religion there. But shortly afterwards, he returned to his native town, where he remained until 1536, teaching in the school of St. Andrew, and drawing considerable attention to himself as a preacher of the new religion by the courses of sermons that he delivered in the Nicolai Church. In 1536 he was recalled to Wittenberg and given a chair at the University. Then the Antinomian controversy, which had really begun some ten years previously, broke out afresh, with renewed vigour and bitterness. Agricola, who was undoubtedly anxious to defend and justify the novel doctrine of his leader upon the subject of grace and justification, and who wished to separate the new Protestant view more clearly and distinctly from the old Catholic doctrine of faith and good works, taught that only the unregenerate were under the obligation of the law, whereas regenerate Christians were entirely absolved and altogether free from any such obligation. Though it is highly probable that he made Agricola responsible for opinions which the latter never really held, Luther attacked him vigorously is six dissertations, showing that "the law gives man the consciousness of sin, and that the fear of the law is both wholesome and necessary for the preservation of morality and of divine, as well as human, institutions"; and on several occasions Agricola found himself obliged to retract or modify his Antinomian teaching. In 1540 Agricola, forced to this step by Luther, who had secured to this end the assistance of the Elector of Brandenburg, definitely recanted. But it was not long before the wearisome controversy was reopened by Poach of Erfurt (1556). This led ultimately to an authoritative and complete statement, on the part of the Lutheran, of the teaching upon the subject by the German Protestant leaders, in the fifth and sixth articles of the "Formula Concordiae". St. Alphonsus Liguori states that after Luther’s death Agricola went to Berlin, commenced teaching his blasphemies again, and died there, at the age of seventy-four, without any sign of repentance; also, that Florinundus calls the Antinomians "Atheists who believe in neither God nor the devil." So much for the origin and growth of the Antinomian heresy in the Lutheran body. Among the high Calvinists also the doctrine was to be found in the teaching that the elect do not sin by the commission of actions that in themselves are contrary to the precepts of the moral law, which the Anabaptists of Munster had no scruple in putting these theories into actual practice.From Germany Antinomianism soon travelled to England, where it was publicly taught, and in some cases even acted upon, by many of the sectaries during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. The state of religion in England, as well as in the Colonies, immediately preceding and during this troublesome period of history was an extraordinary one, and when the independents obtained the upper hand there was no limit to the vagaries of the doctrines, imported or invented, that found so congenial a soil in which to take root and spread. Many of the religious controversies that then arose turned naturally upon the doctrines of faith, grace, and justification which occupied so prominent a place in contemporary thought, and in these controversies Antinomianism frequently figured. A large number of works, tracts, and sermons of this period are extant in which the fierce and intolerant doctrines of the sectaries are but thinly veiled under the copious quotation from the Scriptures that lend so peculiar an effect to their general style. In the earlier part of the seventeenth century, Dr. Tobias Crisp, Rector of Brinkwater (b. 1600), was accused, in the company of others, of holding and teaching similar views. His most notable work is "Christ Alone Exalted" (1643). His opinions were controverted with some ability by Dr. Daniel Williams, the founder of the Dissenters’ Library. Indeed, to such an extent were extreme Antinomian doctrines held, and even practised, as early as the reign of Charles I, that, after Cudworth’s sermon against the Antinomians (on John, ii, 3, 4) was preached before the Commons of England (1647), the Parliament was obliged to pass severe enactments against them (1648). Anyone convicted on the oaths of two witnesses of maintaining that the moral law of the Ten Commandments was no rule for Christians, or that a believer need not repent or pray for pardon of sin, was bound publicly to retract, or, if he refused, be imprisoned until he found sureties that he would no more maintain the same. Shortly before this date, the heresy made its appearance in America, where, at Boston, the Antinomian opinions of Anne Hutchinson were formally condemned by the Newton Synod (1636).Although from the seventeenth century onward Antinomianism does not appear to be an official doctrine of any of the more important Protestant sects, at least it has undoubtedly been held from time to time either by individual members of sections, and taught, both by implication and actually, by the religious leaders of several of these bodies. Certain forms of Calvinism may seem capable of bearing an Antinomian construction. Indeed it has been said that the heresy is in reality nothing more than "Calvinism run to the seed". Mosheim regarded the Antinomians as a rigid kind of Calvinists who, distorting the doctrines of absolute decrees, drew from it conclusions dangerous to religion and morals. Count Zinzendorf (1700-60), the founder of the Herrnhuters, or Moravians, was accused of Antinomianism by Bengal, as was William Huntingdon, who, however, took pains to disclaim the imputation.But possibly the most noteworthy instance is that of the Plymouth Brethren, of whom some are quite frankly Antinomian in their doctrine of justification and sanctification. It is their constant assertion that the law is not the rule or standard of the life of the Christian. Here again, as in the case of Agricola, it is a theoretical and not a practical Antinomianism that in inculcated. Much of the teaching of the members of this sect recalls "the wildest, vagaries of the Antinomian heresy, which at the same time their earnest protests against such a construction being put upon their words, and the evident desire of their writers to enforce a high standard of practical holiness, forbid us to follow out some of their statements to what seems to be their logical conclusion." Indeed, the doctrine generally is held theoretically, where held at all, and has seldom been advocated to be put in practice and acted upon. Except, as has already been noted, in the case of the Anabaptists of Munster and of some of the more fanatical sections of the Commonwealth, as well as in a small number of other isolated and sporadic cases, it is highly doubtful if it has ever been directly put forward as an excuse for licentiousness; although, as can easily be seen, it offers the gravest possible incentive to, and even justification of, both private and public immorality in its worst and most insidious form.As the doctrine of Antinomianism, or legal irresponsibility, is an extreme type of the heretical doctrine of justification by faith alone as taught by the Reformers, it is only natural to find it condemned by the Catholic Church in company with its fundamentally Protestant tenet. The sixth session of the Ecumenical Council of Trent was occupied with this subject and published its famous decree on Justification. The fifteenth chapter of this decree is directly concerned with Antinomian heresy, and condemns it in the following terms: "In opposition also to the cunning wits of certain men who, by good works and fair speeches, deceive the hearts of the innocent, it is to be maintained that the received grace of justification is lost not only by the infidelity, in which even faith itself if lost, but also by any other mortal sin soever, though faith be not lost; thereby defending the doctrine of the Divine law, which excludes from the King of God not only the unbelieving, but also the faithful who are fornicators, adulterers, effeminate, abusers of themselves with mankind, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners, and all others who commit deadly sins; from which, with the help of Divine grace, they are able to refrain and on account of which they are separate from the grace of Christ" (Cap. xv, cf. also Cap. xii). Also, among the canons anathematizing the various erroneous doctrines advanced by the Reformers as to the meaning and nature of justification are to be found in the following: Canon 19: "If anyone shall say that nothing besides faith is commanded in the Gospel; that other things are indifferent, neither commanded nor prohibited, but free; or that the Ten Commandments in no wise appertain to Christians; let him be anathema." Canon 20: "If anyone shall say that a man who is justified and how perfect soever is not bound to the observance of the commandments of God and the Church, but only to believe; as if forsooth. the Gospel were a bare and absolute promise of eternal life, without the condition of observation of the commandments; let him be anathema." Canon 21: "If anyone shall say that Christ Jesus was given of God unto men as a Redeemer in whom they should trust, and not also as a legislator whom they should obey; let him be an anathema." Canon 27: "If anyone shall say that there is no deadly sin but that of infidelity; or that grace once received is not lost by any other sin, however grievous and enormous, save only by that infidelity; let him be anathema." The minute care with which the thirty-three canons of this sixth session of the Council were drawn up is evidence of the grave importance of the question of justification, as well as of the conflicting doctrine advanced by the Reformers themselves upon this subject. The four canons quoted above leave no doubt as to the distinctly Antinomian theory of justification that falls under the anathema of the Church. That the moral law persists in the Gospel dispensation, and that the justified Christian is still under the whole obligation of the laws of God and of the Church, is clearly asserted and defined under the solemn anathema of an Ecumenical Council. The character of Christ as a lawgiver to be obeyed is insisted upon, as well as His character as a Redeemer to be trusted; and the fact that there is grievous transgression, other than that of infidelity, is taught without the slightest ambiguity — thus far, the most authoritative possible utterance of the teaching of the Church. In connection with the Tridentine decrees and canons may be cited the controversial writings and direct teaching of Cardinal Bellarmine, the ablest upholder of orthodoxy against the various heretical tenets of the Protestant Reformation.But so grossly and so palpably contrary to the whole spirit and teaching of the Christian revelation, so utterly discordant with the doctrines inculcated in the New Testament Scriptures, and so thoroughly opposed to the interpretation and tradition from which even the Reformers were unable to cut themselves entirely adrift, was the heresy of Antinomianism that, which we are able to find a few sectaries, as Agricola, Crisp, Richardson, Saltmarsh, and Hutchinson, defending the doctrine, the principle Reformers and their followers were instant in condemning and reprobating it. Luther himself, Rutherford, Schluffleburgh, Sedgewick, Gataker, Witsius, Bull, and Williams have written careful refutations of a doctrine that is quite as revolting in theory as it would ultimately have proved fatally dangerous in its practical consequences and inimical to the propagation of the other principles of the Reformers. In Nelson’s "Review and Analysis of Bishop Bull’s Exposition. . .of Justification" the advertisement of the Bishop of Salisbury has the following strong recommendation of works against the "Antinomian folly":. . . To the censure of tampering with the Strictness of the Divine law may be opposed Bishop Horsley’s recommendation of the Harmonia Apostolica as ’a preservative from the contagion of Antinomian folly.’ As a powerful antidote to the Antinomian principles opposed by Bishop Bull, Cudworth’s incomparable sermon preached before the House of Commons in 1647. . . . cannot be too strongly recommended.This was the general attitude of the Anglican, as well as of the Lutheran, body. And where, as was upon several occasions the case, the ascendency of religious leaders, at a time when religion played an extraordinarily strong part in the civil and political life of the individual, was not in itself sufficient to stamp out the heresy, or keep it within due bounds, the aid of the secular arm was promptly invoked, as in the case of the intervention of the Elector of Brandenburg and the enactments of the English Parliament in 1648. Indeed, at the time, and under the peculiar circumstances obtaining in New England in 1637, the synodical condemnation of Mrs. Hutchinson did not fall short of a civil judgement.Impugned alike by the authoritative teaching of the Catholic Church and by the disavowals and solemn declarations of the greater Protestant leaders and confessions or fomularies, verging, as it does, to the discredit of the teaching of Christ and of the Apostles, inimical to common morality and to the established social and political order, it is not surprising to find the Antinomian heresy a comparatively rare one in ecclesiastical history, and, as a rule, where taught at all, one that is carefully kept in the background or practically explained away. There are few who would care to assert the doctrine in so uncompromising a form as that which Robert Browning, in "Johannes Agricola in Meditation", with undoubted accuracy, ascribed to the Lutheran originator of the heresy: — I have God’s warrant, could I blend All hideous sins, as in a cup, To drink the mingled venoms up; Secure my nature would convert The draught too blossoming gladness fast; While sweet dews turn to the gourd’s hurt, And bloat, and while they bloat it, blast, As from the first its lot was cast. For this reason it is not always an easy matter to determine with any degree of precision how far certain forms and offshoots of Calvinism, Socinianism, or even Lutheranism, may not be susceptible of Antinomian interpretations; while at the same time it must be remembered that many sects and individuals holding opinions dubiously, or even indubitably, of an Antinomian nature, would indignantly repudiate any direct charge of teaching that evil works and immoral actions are no sins in the case of justified Christians. The shades and gradations of heresy here merge insensibly the one into the other. To say that a man cannot sin because he is justified is very much the same thing as to state that no action. whether sinful in itself or not, can be imputed to the justified Christian as a sin. Nor is the doctrine that good works do not help in promoting the sanctification of an individual far removed from the teaching that evil deed do not interfere with it. There is a certain logical nexus between these three forms of the Protestant doctrine of justification that would seem, to have its natural outcome in the assertion of Antinomianism. The only doctrine that is conclusively and officially opposed to this heresy, as well as to those forms of the doctrine of justification by faith alone that are so closely connected with it both doctrinally and historically, is to be found in the Catholic dogma of Faith, Justification, and Sanctification.-----------------------------------Decreta Dogmatica Councilii Tridentini: Sess VI; Bellarmine, De Justificatione; Judicium de Libro Concordantia Lutheranorum; Alzog, Church History III; Liguori, The History of Heresies (tr. Mulloch); Formula Concordiae; Elwert, De Antinomia J. Agricolae Islebii; Hagenbach, A Text Book of the History of Doctrines; Bell, The Wanderings of the Human Intellect; Bull, Opera; Hall, Remaine; Sanders, Sermons; Rutherford, A Survey of the Spiritual AntichirstÊopening the secrets of Familisme and Antinomianisme in the Anti-christian Doctrine of J. Saltmarsh; Gataker, An Antidote Againt the Error Concerning Justification; Antinomianism Discovered and Unmasked; Baxter, The Scripture Gospel Defended . . . In Two Books . . . The second upon the sudden reviving of Antinomianism; Fletcher, Four Checks to Antinomianism; Cottle, An Accent of Plymouth Antinomians; Teulon, History and Teaching of the Plymouth Brethren; Nelson, A Review and Analysis of Bishop Bull’s Exposition . . . of Justification.FRANCIS AVELING Transcribed by Heather Hartel The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume ICopyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
See Law.
(Greek: anti, against; nomos, law)
A term made familiar by the heresy of Antinomianism preached by Johannes Agricola as a deduction of Luther’s teaching on justification by faith alone. If good works, argued Agricola, do not help to salvation so evil ones do not hinder it and therefore justified Christians are not bound to observe the law. The deduction is logical, but Luther repudiated it and preached earnestly against it. Though often acted upon by some extremists in Germany and England, it was never favored by any Protestant sect.
The word comes from the Greek anti, against, and nomos, law. It is the unbiblical practice of living without regard to the righteousness of God, using God’s grace as a license to sin, and trusting grace to cleanse of sin. In other words, since grace is infinite and we are saved by grace, then we can sin all we want and still be saved. It is wrong because even though as Christians we are not under the Law (Rom 6:14), we still fulfill the Law in the Law of love (Rom 13:8; Rom 13:10; Gal 5:14; Gal 6:2). We are to love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves (Luk 10:27) and, thereby, avoid the offense of sin which cost God His only begotten Son. Paul speaks against the concept of antinomianism in Rom 6:1-2: "Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?". We are not to use the grace of God as a means of sin. Instead, we are to be controlled by the love of God and in that way bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:22-25).