I've read a good amount of Belloc but this is my favorite by far. His exploration of the various heresies - Arian, Albengensian, Islam, Protestantism, etc is greatly insightful. Especially his chapter on Islam where he predicts Islam coming back as a power. It is fascinating to read what he writes about why Islam as a Catholic heresy has been the only heresy with staying power, though he does not pretend to have all the answers. Belloc the historian is seen in force here as he discusses the distractive nature of heresy and what it does to civilization. Every chapter though has valuable information and puts a lot of things together historically.

A must read for all Christians and western conservatives

This book contains some of the most lucid and accurate descriptions of what has threatened Christendom throughout the ages. All who are interested in theology, Christianity and what threats face the West would do well to read this...even the non-believer.

Fabulous book, but do not get the Stellar Editions version. They appear to have scanned the pages in and done no editing, so it was somewhat painful to get through because of that. Belloc's writing is great and thoughtful, if a little hard core at times.

Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (27 July 1870– 16 July 1953) was an Anglo-French writer and historian. His Catholic faith had a strong impact on his works.

I am a Catholic and am interested in learning more about my faith. Belloc started by describing terms. Heresy is defined as 'the dislocation of some complete and self-supporting scheme by the introduction of a novel denial of some essential part therein.' How complicated!! I searched for a simpler definition. Since Belloc was talking about heresies against the Catholic religion, I wish he had used the following instead: In Western Christianity, heresy most commonly refers to those beliefs which were declared to be anathema by any of the ecumenical councils recognized by the Catholic Church.

Belloc does describe what he feels are heresies (or, as one reviewer termed them: 'the five greatest threats to the Christian Faith over the past two thousand years.'): The Arian Heresy, The Heresy of Mohammed, The Albigensian Attack, The Protestant Reformation, and the 'Modern Attack'.

I found the discussions of Islam and the 'Modern Attack' the most interesting.

Belloc surprised me when he posited that the teachings of Mohammed were not originally a “new faith”, but a distortion of orthodox Christianity. I am not sure I understand his arguments, but I did understand this much.

The 'Modern Attack' is also known as the 'Anti-Christ Attack'. Belloc describes such isms as Communism, materialism as being the core of the 'attack'. Writing in 1938, he foresaw 'the rise and fall of communism, the prominence of atheism, and the rise of hatred for the Church.'

I found the book to be over my head at times, but am still glad that I was able to get some thoughts on the subject of heresies.

3 stars

Twice: as soon as I had finished I started again.

History just how I like it: important, familiar yet new, openly opinionated.

Virtually every sentence was interesting, but especially intriguing were:
* Islam as a heresy, not as a new religion
* Today's disbelief, rejection, as a heresy
* The continuing anti-joy purity of successive heresies
* The development of the Protestant split from a series of other problems - it was nearly impossible in isolation.

Meandering, repetitive and unorganized, I was looking forward to reading Belloc because of his association with Chesterton. The main focus is the social atmosphere in which these heresies arose and not their theological significance, which I was more interested in. Of course in a 120 page book, its tough to give full attention to 5 different heresies so I can't dock points in that regard.

This is a short book and not about heresy in general. Rather the author chooses five examples of heresies and devotes a chapter to each, some heresies get longer treatment.

What is a heresy? Belloc defines it as 'the dislocation of some complete and self-supporting scheme by the introduction of a novel denial of some essential part therein.'
The five heresies chosen by Belloc are Arianism, Islam (Belloc sees Islam as modified Christianity), Albigensianism, Protestantism (Reformation) and the last one is unnamed but vaguely defined as modern secularism, science, capitalism (all of which he considers offshoots of The Reformation) which he abhors.

I'm not going to review the book on factual errors, because there are too many (though many of these errors are because its an old work). I'm going to look at couple of problems in his underlying assumptions and definitions.

From the his definition of heresy (quoted above) you can already see that he puts Catholicism at the center and holds it as true and orthodox and anything deviating from it is called a heresy and gets factually wrong and horrible treatment. Here he's on Arius:

'His theory was certainly not his own original discovery, but he made it his own; he identified it with his name. Further, he was moved to a dogged resistance against people whom he thought to be persecuting him. He suffered from much vanity, as do nearly all reformers. On the top of all this a rather thin simplicity, "commonsense," which at once appeals to multitudes.'

He believes that heresy by definition is simplification and rationalization of the orthodoxy and leads to degeneration. He puts this like a physical law. He uses the word rationalism as derogatory.

From this follows that all creeds/heresies lead to degeneracy and bad. The problem is that he views Catholicism as the original Christian creed or orthodoxy. This is factually wrong. Disproven by bible itself. There wasn't such thing as Catholic orthodoxy at the beginning. There were many interpretations of scriptures and one of these won on political/sociological/demographic grounds and got recognized as orthodoxy.

Another problem is that he views Catholic Christianity as the true and original creed, and all derivations from it are 'simplification and rationalization' that lead to degenerate creeds. But then you could turn the tables around and say that Christianity is itself ''simplification and rationalization' of Judaism so is a degenerate religion.

The only reason I gave this book 2 stars is that it's lucidly written. And he takes people's beliefs seriously. But his treatment of all heresies are misguided in many places and contain many factual errors. And those subjects are themselves very complicated and there're a lot of good works on each of them. Highly recommend Diarmaid MacCulloch's books "The Reformation" and "Christianity"; Bart Ehrman has many works on early Christianity.

Belloc's answer to the problem of Evil:

'What the Catholic solution is we all know. Not that the Catholic Church has proposed a complete solution of the mystery of evil, for it has never been either the claim or the function of the Church to explain the whole nature of all things, but rather to save souls. But the Catholic Church has on this particular problem a very definite answer within the field of her own action. She says first that man's nature is immortal, and made for beatitude; next that mortality and pain are the result of his Fall, that is, of his rebellion against the will of God. She says that since the fall our mortal life is an ordeal or test, according to our behavior, in which we regain (but through the merits of our Saviour) that immortal beatitude which we had lost.'

- What a pathetic excuse. Stuff like this disgust me.

There are a lot of silly stuff in this book: 'faith is at the root of knowledge'.

An informative book. I think the author did well in analyzing and writing about the major heresies that have plagued the Church.

“The Great Heresies,” was written in 1938, on the eve of the Second World War. Belloc explores five significant heresies in history: Arianism, Albigensianism, Islam, the Protestant Reformation, and what is called “the modern phase”.
He examines each heresy’s characteristics and historical development, highlighting their impact on the Catholic faith, with his usual attention to military history as a catalyst for many historical changes (for example, he highlights how the entire army of the Roman Empire was Arian, and how Islam was allowed to survive due to the failure of the Third Crusade). He also identifies common traits among them, such as doctrinal simplification and rejection of authority. Despite initial success, each heresy eventually fades, leaving behind moral and social consequences in affected regions.

As always, his Catholic perspective is clear and well-presented, yet with a certain objectivity, without the coercion of someone trying to persuade another. Furthermore, each of his points is always supported by historical facts, making it truly difficult not to be “convinced.”

Belloc is truly one of those few individuals I would ask to meet for a beer to discuss various topics, if I could.

This book is very interesting and I like it.

Thought-provoking and informative. I would have wished for more on the modernist heresy, but I suppose that's not quite fair given the publication date. Belloc's style is generally very clear and easy to follow - very different from his colorful and bombastic friend Chesterton, bless his heart.

This is an interesting book, but from reviews I have read it is not entirely accurate as the author was too committed to his Catholic faith to be objective when describing the heresies. I found it interesting though to read an apologists defense of Catholicism written through the prism of description of the great heresies of the last two thousand years. I especially enjoyed his takes on the "Mohammedan" heresy, and on the Reformation. If I recall correctly he vehemently blasts Luther as the greatest heretic of all, probably due to his "heresy" being the most recent and driving the greatest wedge yet between Christians. Interestingly, he considers not at all the great schism of 1054. It is almost as if he forgets (and I'm certain he did not) that the Eastern Orthodox churches and the Catholic church were once together.