Sect

Sect - (Easton's Bible Dictionary)

(Gr. hairesis, usually rendered "heresy", Acts 24:14; 1 Chr. 11:19; Gal. 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 Pet. 2:1; Gal. 5:20).

Sect - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

SECT, n. [L. Sp. secta; from L. seco, to cut off, to separate.]

1. A body or number of persons united in tenets, chiefly in philosophy or religion, but constituting a distinct party by holding sentiments different from those of other men. Most sects have originated in a particular perlon, who taught and propagated some peculiar notions in philosophy or religion, and who is considered to have been its founder. Among the jews, the principal sects were the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. In Greece were the Cynic sect, founded by Antisthenes; and the Academic sect, by Plato. The Academic sect gave birth to the Peripatetic, and a Cynic to the Stoic.

2. A cutting or coin. [Not used.]

sekt (hairesis): "Sect" (Latin, secta, from sequi, "to follow") is in the New Testament the translation of hairesis, from haireo, "to take," "to choose"; also translated "heresy," not heresy in the later ecclesiastical sense, but a school or party, a sect, without any bad meaning attached to it. The word is applied to schools of philosophy; to the Pharisees and Sadducees among the Jews who adhered to a common religious faith and worship; and to the Christians. It is translated "sect" (Ac 5:17, of the Sadducees; Ac 15:5, of the Pharisees; Ac 24:5, of the Nazarenes; Ac 26:5, of the Pharisees; Ac 28:22, of the Christians); also the Revised Version (British and American) Ac 24:14 (the King James Version and the English Revised Version margin "heresy"), "After the Way which they call a sect, so serve I the God of our fathers" (just as the Pharisees were "a sect"); it is translated "heresies" (1Co 11:19, margin "sects," the American Standard Revised Version "factions," margin "Greek: `heresies' "; the English Revised Version reverses the American Standard Revised Version text and margin; Ga 5:20, the American Standard Revised Version "parties," margin "heresies"; the English Revised Version reverses text and margin; 2Pe 2:1, "damnable heresies," the Revised Version (British and American) "destructive heresies," margin "sects of perdition"); the "sect" in itself might be harmless; it was the teaching or principles which should be followed by those sects that would make them "destructive." Hairesis occurs in 1 Macc 8:30 ("They shall do it at their pleasure," i.e. "choice"); compare Septuagint Le 22:18,21.

See HERESY.

W. L. Walker