The heresy test

---

Once upon a time, when the Internet was young – approximately 1996 – I had a funny little website which drew no traffic at all. (Almost like today!) It was mostly a nice way for me to practice writing HTML. I posted jokes, and had a family-history section.

I also had a nice heresy test.

It was very simple: five questions, multiple-choice. You were expected to answer from the dogmatically established Roman Catholic point of view. Otherwise, the test threw you out. You were a heretic and bound to burn in hell unless you renounced your heretical beliefs.

Here’s a sample question:

 

 

The Blessed Virgin Mary was the mother of Jesus. Jesus was, of course, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, which means he was God. If you follow this line of thinking, you will probably realize that this makes Mary (a human being) the mother of God (who is eternal).

 

 

How can a mother be younger than her own son?

 

 

A: Oh, to hell with logic. Mary is the Mother of God. Period. End of story.

 

B: Mary was the mother of the human part of Jesus. She’s not the mother of God; that wouldn’t be logical.

 

C: Mary is the mother of Jesus in some sense of the word, but not in every sense of the word. We shouldn’t try to define these things too precisely.

The correct answer is A. This was established (with some strife) at two Church councils: the “robber’s council” of Ephesus in 449, which claimed B to be correct, and the Council of Chalcedon in 451 (only two years later!) which reversed Ephesus and laid the Church’s path to the present day.

Did you get the question right?

I didn’t think so.

Burn in hell, heretic.

---