Bible Dictionaries
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Easton's Bible Dictionary

(Gr. hairesis, usually rendered "heresy", Acts 24:14; 1 Chronicles 11:19; Galatians 5:20 , etc.), meaning properly "a choice," then "a chosen manner of life," and then "a religious party," as the "sect" of the Sadducees (Acts 5:17 ), of the Pharisees (15:5), the Nazarenes, i.e., Christians (24:5). It afterwards came to be used in a bad sense, of those holding pernicious error, divergent forms of belief (2 Peter 2:1; Galatians 5:20 ).