COMMONITORIA

637CHERE BEGINS THE TREATISE of Peregrinus, for the antiquity and universality of the Catholic faith against the profane novelties of all heretics.

Since Scripture says and admonishes, Ask thy fathers, and they will tell thee; thy elders, and they will declare to thee, Deut. 32, and again, Incline thine ear to the words of the wise, Eccli. 6, and again, My son, forget not these words, and let thy heart keep my words, Prov. 3, it seems to me, Peregrinus, the least of all the servants of God, 638Cthat a matter of no small usefulness will result, the Lord helping, if I set down in writing those things which I have faithfully received from the holy fathers — a thing surely most necessary to my own weakness, since I would then have ready at hand that by which the frailty of my memory might be repaired by constant reading. To which task not only the fruit of the work, but also the consideration of the time and the opportunity of the place, urges me on. The time: because, since all human things are snatched away by it, we too ought in turn to snatch from it something that may profit unto 639life eternal; especially since a certain terrible expectation of the approaching divine Judgment demands that the zeal of Religion be increased, and the fraudulence of the new heretics gives sign of much need of care and attention. The place, moreover: because, shunning the throng and crowds of the cities, we dwell in the retreat of a rather remote little farmstead, and in it the secluded lodging of a monastery, where, without great distraction, that may come to pass which is sung in the psalm: Be still, he says, and see that I am the Lord, Psal. 45. And the plan of our purpose accords with this too; for we, who for some while were tossed about in the various and sorrowful whirlwinds of secular soldiery, at last, Christ breathing upon us, found harbor in the port of Religion, ever most faithful to all; so that there, laying aside the blasts of vanity and pride, and appeasing God by the sacrifice of Christian humility, we might be able to escape not only the shipwrecks of the present life, but also the fires of the age to come. But now, in the name of the Lord, I will approach what is at hand, namely, to set down the things handed down by our elders and deposited with us, with the fidelity of a reporter rather than the presumption of an author; keeping, however, this law of writing: that I touch by no means upon all things, but only upon such as are necessary, and that not in an ornate and polished but in an easy and common speech, so that most things may seem indicated rather than expounded. Let those write elegantly and carefully who are led to this office either by confidence in their talent or by the reckoning of their duty. But for me it will be enough to have prepared a Commonitory for myself, for the sake of relieving my recollection, or rather my forgetfulness — which nevertheless I shall try, little by little, by recalling what I have learned, to amend and fill out daily, the Lord granting it. And I have given this very warning beforehand for this reason: that if perchance it should slip from us and come into the hands of holy men, they may not rashly find fault in it with anything which they may yet see is to be filed down by the promised amendment.

Often, therefore, inquiring with great zeal and the utmost attention from very many men eminent in holiness and learning, in what way I might discern, by some sure and, as it were, general and regular path, the truth of the Catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical depravity, I brought back from nearly all of them almost always an answer of this kind: that whether I or anyone else wished to detect the frauds of the heretics as they arose, and to avoid their snares, and to remain sound and whole in a sound faith, he ought to fortify his faith in a twofold manner, the Lord helping: 640first, namely, by the authority of the divine law, and then, secondly, by the tradition of the Catholic Church. Here perhaps someone may ask: Since the Canon of the Scriptures is perfect, and abundantly and more than sufficient of itself for all things, what need is there that the authority of ecclesiastical understanding be joined to it? Because, evidently, owing to its very depth, not all men receive Holy Scripture in one and the same sense, but one interprets its utterances one way and another another, so that almost as many opinions can seem to be drawn out from it as there are men. For Novatian expounds it one way, Sabellius another, Donatus another; Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius another; Photinus, Apollinaris, Priscillian another; Jovinian, Pelagius, Caelestius another; and lastly Nestorius another. And therefore it is very necessary, on account of so many windings of such varied error, that the line of prophetic and apostolic interpretation be directed according to the standard of the ecclesiastical and Catholic sense. In the Catholic Church itself, moreover, great care must be taken that we hold that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all. For this is truly and properly Catholic, as the very force and reason of the name declares, which comprehends nearly all things universally. But this will at length come to pass, if we follow universality, antiquity, consent. And we shall follow universality in this way, if we confess that one faith to be true which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity, moreover, thus, if we in no wise depart from those senses which it is manifest our holy elders and fathers celebrated; and consent likewise, if, in that very antiquity, we follow the definitions and opinions of all, or certainly of almost all, the priests and teachers alike.

What, then, will a Catholic Christian do, if some little portion of the Church has cut itself off from the communion of the universal faith? What indeed, but prefer the soundness of the whole body to the pestilent and corrupt member? What if some new contagion attempts to defile not merely a little portion, but the whole Church alike? 641Then likewise he will provide to cleave to antiquity, which now can in no way be seduced by any fraud of novelty. What if in that very antiquity an error be detected of two or three men, or certainly of one city or even of some province? Then he will altogether take care to prefer the decrees of the universal Church, established of old universally, if there be any, to the rashness or ignorance of a few. What if some such thing should emerge where nothing of this kind is found? Then he will give his effort to consult and question the opinions of the elders, compared among themselves — of those, at least, who, though in diverse times and places, yet remaining in the communion and faith of the one Catholic Church, stood forth as approved teachers; and whatever he shall have found that not one or two only, but all alike, with one and the same consent, openly, frequently, perseveringly held, wrote, and taught, let him understand that this too is to be believed by himself without any doubt.

But that what we say may become plainer, they must be illustrated one by one with examples and amplified a little more fully; lest, by a zeal for excessive brevity, the weight of the matters be carried off by the speed of the discourse. In the time of Donatus, from whom the Donatists are named, when a great part of Africa was hurling itself into the frenzies of its 642error, and, forgetful of its name, its religion, its profession, was preferring the sacrilegious rashness of one man to the Church of Christ, then whoever throughout Africa, detesting the profane schism, were associated with all the Churches of the world — these alone out of all those were able to be saved within the sanctuary of the Catholic faith; leaving indeed to posterity an excellent pattern, namely, how thenceforth, by a good custom, the soundness of all should be preferred to the madness of one, or certainly of a few. Likewise, when the poison of the Arians had contaminated not now some little portion, but almost the whole world, so that, nearly all the bishops of the Latin tongue being deceived partly by force, partly by fraud, a certain fog was poured over their minds as to what above all was to be followed in so great a confusion of things, then whoever stood forth a true lover and worshiper of Christ, preferring the ancient faith to the new perfidy, was stained by no plague of that contagion. And by the peril of that time it was more than sufficiently shown how great a calamity is brought in by the introduction of a new doctrine. For by it not only small things, but even the greatest, were shaken to their foundations. For not only affinities, kinships, friendships, households, but even cities, peoples, provinces, nations, and finally the whole Roman Empire were utterly shaken and moved from their place. For when that profane novelty of the Arians, like some Bellona or fury, having first captured the Emperor of all, then subjected all the heights of the palace to new laws, it never thereafter ceased to confound and vex all things, private and public, sacred and profane alike, to make no distinction of the good and the true, but to strike down whomsoever it pleased, as from a higher place. Then were wives dishonored, 643widows despoiled, virgins profaned, monasteries demolished, clerics thrown into confusion, deacons beaten, priests driven into exile, workhouses, prisons, and mines filled with saints: the greatest part of whom, the cities being forbidden them, thrust out and banished, among deserts, caves, wild beasts, and rocks, afflicted with nakedness, hunger, and thirst, were worn down and wasted away. And all these things — for what other cause, save indeed while human superstitions are brought in for the sake of a heavenly doctrine, while well-founded antiquity is undermined by wicked novelty, while the institutions of our forebears are violated, while the decrees of the fathers are rescinded, while the definitions of the elders are torn up, while the lust of profane and new curiosity does not contain itself within the most chaste bounds of a hallowed and incorrupt antiquity?

But perhaps we invent these things out of hatred of novelty and love of antiquity. Whoever thinks this, let him at least believe blessed Ambrose, who, in his second book to the Emperor Gratian, himself lamenting the bitterness of the time, says: « But now, almighty God, we have sufficiently washed away, by our exile and our blood, the slayings of Confessors, the exiles of Priests, and the abomination of so great an impiety. It has become sufficiently clear that those who have violated the faith cannot be safe. » Ambrose, On the Faith, Book 2, ch. 4, otherwise 16. Likewise in the third book of the same work: « Let us therefore keep, he says, the precepts of our forefathers, and not, with rude rashness, dare to violate the seals of our inheritance. That sealed prophetic book neither Elders, nor Powers, nor Angels, nor Archangels dared to open: to Christ alone was reserved the prerogative of expounding it. Who of us would dare to unseal the priestly book, sealed by Confessors, and already consecrated by the martyrdom of many? Those who were afterward compelled to unseal it 644nevertheless sealed it again, the fraud being condemned; those who did not dare to violate it stood forth as Confessors and martyrs. How can we deny the faith of those whose victory we proclaim? » Ibid., Book 3, ch. 7, otherwise 15. We proclaim it plainly, I say, O venerable Ambrose! We proclaim it plainly, and, praising them, we marvel. For who is so out of his mind as not to long, even if he cannot avail to attain them, to follow those whom no force drove back from the defense of the faith of our forefathers — not threats, not blandishments, not life, not death, not the palace, not the guardsmen, not the Emperor, not the empire, not men, not demons? — whom, I say, for their tenacity in a devout antiquity, the Lord judged worthy of so great a gift, that through them he restored the prostrate Churches, gave life again to the spiritual peoples that had been extinguished, set back in place the cast-down crowns of the priests, and — a fountain of the tears of the faithful being poured from heaven upon the bishops — blotted out those nefarious things of the new impiety, not writings but blottings, and at last called back nearly the whole world, stricken by the savage tempest of a sudden heresy, from a new perfidy to the ancient faith, from the madness of novelty to the ancient soundness, from the blindness of novelty to the ancient light. But in this certain divine virtue of the Confessors there is also this above all to be considered by us, that then, in the very antiquity of the Church, the defense undertaken by them was not that of some party, but of the whole. For it was not right 645that men so great and of such a kind should assert, with so great an effort, the wandering suspicions of one or two men, contrary even to themselves, or truly should contend, by some rash conspiracy, for the sake of some provincio lae, but, following the decrees and definitions of all the priests of the holy Church, the heirs of apostolic and Catholic truth, they chose rather to betray themselves than the faith of the ancient universality. Whence also they merited to arrive at so great a glory, that they are rightly and deservedly held to be not only Confessors, but even the chief of Confessors.

Great, therefore, and plainly divine is this example of those same blessed men, and to be recalled by all true Catholics with unwearied meditation, who, like the seven-branched candlestick shining with the sevenfold light of the Holy Spirit, showed forth to posterity a most clear pattern of how thereafter, through each and every empty talk of errors, the audacity of profane novelty may be crushed by the authority of hallowed antiquity. Nor is this indeed anything new. For this custom has always flourished in the Church, that the more devout each one was, the more readily he opposed himself to new inventions. All things are full of such examples. But, lest it grow long, let us take some one, and this above all from the Apostolic See; that all may see, clearer than light, with how great force, with how great zeal, with how great contention the blessed succession of the blessed Apostles has always defended the integrity of the Religion once received. Once, then, Agrippinus of venerable memory, bishop of Carthage, first of all mortals, against the divine Canon, against the rule of the universal Church, against the judgment of all his fellow priests, against the custom and institutions of our forefathers, held that rebaptism ought to be practiced. Which presumption brought in so much evil, that it furnished not only to all heretics a pattern of sacrilege, but even to certain Catholics an occasion of error. When, therefore, all cried out on every side against the novelty of the thing, and all the priests everywhere held back, each according to his own zeal, then Stephen of blessed memory, Pope, prelate of the Apostolic See, together 646indeed with his other colleagues, but yet more than the rest, resisted, judging it worthy, as I suppose, that he should surpass all the rest as much by devotion to the faith as he excelled them by the authority of his place. In short, in the Epistle which was then sent to Africa, he decreed in these words: LET NOTHING BE INNOVATED SAVE WHAT HAS BEEN HANDED DOWN. For the holy and prudent man understood that the reckoning of piety admits of nothing else than that all things which had been received from the fathers with the same faith should be consigned to the sons; and that it behooves us to follow Religion, not to lead it whither we would, but rather whither it leads; and that it is proper to Christian modesty and gravity, not to hand down our own things to posterity, but to keep the things received from our elders. What, then, was the outcome of the whole affair? What indeed, but the usual and accustomed one? Antiquity, namely, was kept, and novelty was hissed off. But perhaps at that time patronage was wanting to the new invention? Nay rather, there was present so great a force of talent, so great rivers of eloquence, so great a number of maintainers, so great a semblance of truth, so many oracles of the divine law — but plainly understood in a new and evil fashion — that to me all that conspiracy seems in no way to have been able to be destroyed, unless the very undertaking, the very defended and praised profession of novelty which was the cause of so great an effort had itself failed. Finally, what force had that same African Council or decree? By God's gift, none; but all things, as though dreams, as though fables, as though superfluous, were abolished, made obsolete, trodden underfoot. And, O wondrous turning of events! The authors of that same opinion are judged Catholics, but the followers heretics; the masters are absolved, the disciples condemned; the writers of the books shall be sons of the kingdom, but hell shall receive the maintainers. For who is so out of his mind as to doubt that that most blessed light of all the saints and bishops and martyrs, Cyprian, with the rest of his colleagues, shall reign forever with Christ? Or who is so sacrilegious to the contrary as to deny that the Donatists and the other plagues, who by the authority of that Council 647boast that they rebaptize themselves, shall burn forever with the devil?

Which judgment indeed seems to me to have been divinely promulgated chiefly on account of the fraudulence of those who, since they contrive to concoct a heresy under another's name, generally seize upon the writings of some ancient man, published a little too obscurely, which, by reason of their very obscurity, seem, as it were, to agree with their own doctrine; so that whatever that unknown something is which they put forward, they may seem neither the first nor the only ones to hold it. Their wickedness I judge worthy of a twofold hatred: both because they do not dread to offer to others the poison of heresy, and also because they fan with profane hand the memory of each holy man as though ashes now laid to rest, and defame by a revived opinion the things that ought to have been buried in silence, following altogether the footsteps of their author Ham, who not only neglected to cover the nakedness of the venerable Noah, but also proclaimed it to the rest for mockery. Whence he earned so great an offense of injured piety that even his descendants were bound by the curses of his sin — very far unlike those blessed brothers, who wished neither to violate with their own eyes the very nakedness of their revered father, nor to let it lie open to those of others, but, turned away, as it is written, covered him: which is neither to have approved nor to have betrayed the error of the holy man; and therefore they were endowed with a blessed benediction upon their posterity. But let us return to our purpose. With great 648fear, therefore, must the guilt of a changed faith and a violated religion be dreaded by us; from which only the discipline of ecclesiastical ordinance, but also the censure of apostolic authority deters us. For it is known to all how gravely, how severely, how vehemently the blessed Apostle Paul inveighs against certain men who, by a wondrous fickleness, had been too quickly carried over from him who had called them into the grace of Christ, unto another Gospel, which is not another; 2 Tim. 4, who had heaped up to themselves masters according to their own desires, turning away their hearing indeed from the truth, but turned unto fables; 1 Tim. 5, having damnation because they had made void their first faith; whom those had deceived concerning whom the same Apostle writes to the Roman brethren: I beseech you, brethren, that you observe those who make dissensions and scandals contrary to the doctrine which you yourselves have learned; and avoid them. For such do not serve Christ the Lord, but their own belly, and by sweet speeches and blessings seduce the hearts of the innocent, Rom. 16. Who make their way into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, who are led away with various desires; ever learning, and never arriving at the knowledge of the truth, 2 Tim. 3. Vain talkers and seducers, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of filthy lucre, Tit. 1. Men corrupt in mind, reprobate concerning the faith, 2 Tim. 3, proud, and knowing nothing, but languishing about questions and strifes of words; who are deprived of the truth, esteeming gain to be godliness: and at the same time, being idle, they learn to go about from house to house; and not only idle, but also full of words, and curious, speaking things which they ought not, 1 Tim. 5: who, casting away a good conscience, have made shipwreck concerning the faith, 1 Tim. 1: whose profane vain babblings advance much unto impiety, and their speech spreads like a canker, 2 Tim. 2. And it is well that of them likewise it is written: But they shall proceed no further. For their folly shall be manifest to all, as also that of those men was. 2 Tim. 3.

When, therefore, certain such men, going about the provinces and cities, and carrying around their venal errors, had come even to the Galatians, and when the Galatians, having heard these things, seized by a certain nausea of the truth, vomiting up the manna of apostolic and Catholic doctrine, took delight in the filth of heretical novelty, the authority of apostolic power so exerted itself that with the utmost severity 649it decreed: But although we, he says, or an angel from heaven preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema, Gal. 1. What is it that he says, But although we? Why not rather, But although I? This is to say: Even if Peter, even if Andrew, even if John, even if finally the whole choir of the Apostles should preach to you besides what we have preached, let him be anathema. A tremendous strictness, that for the sake of asserting tenacity in the first faith he spared neither himself nor his fellow apostles! It is little: Even if an angel, he says, from heaven should preach to you, besides what we have preached, let him be anathema. It had not sufficed, for the keeping of the faith once handed down, to have mentioned the nature of the human condition, unless he had also comprehended the angelic excellence. Although we, he says, or an angel from heaven. Not because the holy and heavenly angels can now sin; but this is what he says: If even, he says, that which cannot be done should be done — whoever he be that shall attempt to change the faith once handed down, let him be anathema. But perhaps he spoke these things perfunctorily, and poured them out by human impulse rather than decreed them by divine reason. God forbid. For he goes on, and drives home this very thing with the immense effort of a repeated insinuation: As we have foretold, and now I say again: If anyone preach a gospel to you besides that which you have received, let him be anathema. He did not say: If anyone announce to you besides what you have received, let him be blessed, praised, received; but, let him be anathema, he says, that is, separated, set apart, excluded, lest the dire contagion of one sheep should, by a poisoned intermixture, contaminate the innocent flock of Christ.

But perhaps these precepts were given to the Galatians only. Then those things too were enjoined on the Galatians alone which are mentioned in the following parts of the same Epistle: such as these: If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be made desirous of vainglory, provoking one another, envying one another, Gal. 5, and the rest. But if that is absurd, and they were enjoined upon all equally, it remains that, just as these commands concerning morals, so also those which are prescribed concerning the faith comprehend all in like manner; and just as it is lawful for no one to provoke one another or to envy one another, so let it be lawful for no one to receive anything besides that which the Catholic Church everywhere preaches. Or perhaps it was then commanded that if anyone announced besides what had been announced, he should be anathematized; but now it is no longer commanded. Then that too which he likewise says there: And I say, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the desire of the flesh, was commanded then only, but now is no longer commanded. But if to believe so is at once impious and pernicious, it necessarily follows that, just as these things are to be observed in all ages, so also those things which have been sanctioned concerning the faith not to be changed have been enjoined upon all ages. To announce, therefore, to Catholic Christians anything besides that which they have received was never lawful, is nowhere lawful, will never be lawful; and to anathematize those who announce anything besides what has once been received was at no time not fitting, is nowhere not fitting, will never not be fitting. Since these things are so, is there anyone either of so great audacity as to announce anything besides that which has been announced in the Church, or of so great fickleness as to receive anything besides that which he has received from the Church? He cries out, and by repeating cries out, and to all, and 650always, and everywhere through his letters he cries out — he, that vessel of election, that teacher of the nations, that trumpet of the Apostles, that herald of the lands, that one privy to the heavens — that if anyone announce a new doctrine, let him be anathematized. And on the contrary there cry back certain frogs, and gnats, and flies about to die, such as are the Pelagians, and this to Catholics: On our authority, they say, with us as leaders, with us as expounders, condemn what you were holding, hold what you were condemning, reject the ancient faith, the institutions of the fathers, the deposits of the elders; and receive — what, then, at last? I shudder to say: for they are so arrogant that to me they seem able not only not to be afirmari, but not even to be refuted, without some guilt.

But someone will say: Why, then, are certain eminent persons set in the Church very often divinely permitted to announce new things to Catholics? A right question, and worthy to be treated more diligently and more fully: to which, however, satisfaction is to be given not by one's own wit, but by the authority of the divine law, by the teaching of the ecclesiastical magisterium. Let us hear, then, holy Moses; and let him himself teach us why learned men, and those who on account of the grace of knowledge are even called prophets by the Apostle, are sometimes permitted to put forward new doctrines, which the Old Testament is wont in allegorical speech to call strange gods, namely because the heretics observe their own opinions just as the Gentiles do their gods. The blessed Moses, then, writes in Deuteronomy: If there arise, he says, in the midst of thee a prophet, or one who says that he has seen a dream, Deut. 13, that is, a teacher set in the Church, whom his disciples or hearers think to teach from some revelation. What next? and shall have foretold, he says, a sign and a wonder, and there shall have come to pass what he spoke. Assuredly some great teacher, I know not who, is signified, and of such great knowledge that to his own followers he may seem able not only to know the things that are human, but even to foreknow the things that are above man; such as their disciples boast that Valentinus, Donatus, Photinus, Apollinaris, and the rest of that kind were. What afterward? and shall have said, he says, to thee: Let us go, and follow strange gods whom thou knowest not, and let us serve them. Who are the strange gods, but foreign errors which thou didst not know, that is, new and unheard of? And 651let us serve them, that is, let us believe them, let us follow them. What at the last? thou shalt not hear, he says, the words of that prophet or dreamer. And why, I pray thee, is it not forbidden by God to be taught that which by God is forbidden to be heard? Because, he says, the Lord your God tries you, that it may be made manifest whether you love him or not, with all your heart and with all your soul. Clearer than light the cause is laid open why divine Providence sometimes suffers certain teachers of the Churches to preach certain new doctrines. That the Lord your God may try you, he says. And assuredly it is a great temptation when he whom thou thinkest a prophet, a disciple of the prophets, a teacher and maintainer of the truth, whom thou hast embraced with the utmost veneration and love, suddenly and secretly brings in harmful errors, which thou canst neither quickly detect, being led by the prejudgment of the ancient teaching, nor easily deem it right to condemn, being hindered by affection for the old master.

Here perhaps someone may demand that the things which have been asserted in the words of holy Moses be demonstrated by some ecclesiastical examples. A fair demand, and not to be long deferred. For, to begin from things near and manifest, of what kind do we suppose the temptation lately was, when that unhappy Nestorius, suddenly turned from a sheep into a wolf, had begun to tear the flock of Christ, while those very men who were being gnawed still for the most part believed him a sheep, and therefore lay the more open to his bites? For who would easily think him to err whom he saw chosen by so great a judgment of the Empire, attended by so great a zeal of the priests; who, while he was celebrated with great love of the saints and the highest favor of the people, daily handled openly the divine utterances, and refuted every harmful error of the Jews and Gentiles? In what way at last would this man not have made anyone believe that he taught rightly, preached rightly, held rightly, who, that he might open a hearing for his one heresy, assailed the blasphemies of all the heresies? But this was that which Moses said: The Lord your God tries you, whether you love him or not. And, to pass over Nestorius — in whom there was always more of admiration than of usefulness, more of fame than of experience, whom for some while human 652favor rather than divine had made great in the opinion of the crowd — let us rather call to mind those who, endowed with many advances and much industry, stood forth as no small temptation to Catholic men. As in Pannonia, within the memory of our elders, Photinus is recorded to have tempted the Church of Sirmium: where, when he had been taken into the priesthood with the great favor of all, and for some while administered it as a Catholic, suddenly, like that evil prophet or dreamer whom Moses signifies, he began to persuade the people of God entrusted to him to follow strange gods, that is, foreign errors, which before they knew not. But this is usual. That, however, is pernicious, that for so great a wickedness he used no mean supports. For he was both strong in the powers of talent and excellent in the riches of learning and most mighty in eloquence 653; inasmuch as he disputed and wrote copiously and gravely in either tongue: which is made manifest by the monuments of his books, which he composed partly in the Greek, partly in the Latin tongue. But well it is that the sheep of Christ committed to him, much watchful and wary for the Catholic faith, quickly looked back to the words of the forewarning Moses, and, though they admired the eloquence of their prophet and shepherd, yet did not fail to recognize the temptation. For him whom before they followed as though the ram of the flock, the same they thereafter began to flee as though a wolf. And not only by the example of Photinus, but also of Apollinaris, do we learn the peril of this ecclesiastical temptation, and are at the same time admonished to the more diligent keeping of the guard of the faith. For he too generated great heats and great straits for his hearers; inasmuch as, on this side, the authority of the Church drew them, on that side the custom of the master drew them back; and, wavering and tossing between the two, they could not make out what they ought rather to choose for themselves. But perhaps he was a man of such a kind as to be worthy of being easily despised. Nay rather, he was so great and of such a kind that in very many things he was too quickly believed. For what was more excellent than he in acuteness, in exercise, in learning? How many heresies he crushed in many volumes, how many enemy errors of the faith he refuted, that work of no fewer than thirty books is witness, most noble and greatest, in which he confounded the mad calumnies of Porphyry with a great mass of proofs. It is long to recount all his works; by which assuredly he might have been equal to the highest builders of the Church, had he not, by that profane lust of heretical curiosity, invented I know not what new thing whereby he both befouled all his labors as though by the admixture of a certain leprosy, and brought it about that his doctrine should be called not so much an edification as rather an ecclesiastical temptation. 654

Here perhaps it may be demanded of me that I set forth the heresies of those whom I have mentioned above, namely of Nestorius, Apollinaris, and Photinus. This indeed does not pertain to the matter of which we now treat. For our purpose is not to pursue the errors of each, but to bring forth the examples of a few, by which may be evidently and clearly demonstrated that which Moses says: namely, that if ever some ecclesiastical teacher, himself also a prophet in interpreting the mysteries of the prophets, attempt to bring some new thing into the Church of God, divine Providence suffers this to be done for our temptation. It will therefore be useful, in a digression, briefly to set forth what the above-mentioned heretics hold, that is, Photinus, Apollinaris, Nestorius. The sect of Photinus, then, is this. He says that God is single and solitary, and is to be confessed after the Jewish manner. He denies the fullness of the Trinity, and thinks there is no person of the Word of God nor any of the Holy Spirit. But Christ he asserts to be merely a solitary man, to whom he ascribes a beginning from Mary: and this he teaches in every way, that we ought to worship only the person of God the Father and only Christ as man. This, then, is Photinus. Apollinaris, indeed, boasts that he in a manner consents to the unity of the Trinity, and this itself not with the full soundness of faith; but in the incarnation of the Lord he blasphemes by open profession. For he says that in the very flesh of our Savior either there was no human soul at all, or certainly it was such as had no mind and reason. And he said that the very flesh of the Lord was not taken from the flesh of the holy Virgin Mary, but had descended from heaven into the Virgin; and, ever wavering and doubtful, he preached it now coeternal with God the Word, now made out of the divinity of the Word. For he would not have there be in Christ two substances, one divine, the other human, one from the Father, the other from the mother; but he thought the very nature of the Word to be cleft, as though one part of it remained in God, but another had been turned into flesh; so that, whereas the truth says that Christ is one out of two substances, he, contrary to the truth, asserts that out of the one divinity of Christ two substances were made. This, then, is Apollinaris. But Nestorius, with a disease contrary to Apollinaris, while he feigns to distinguish two substances in Christ, suddenly introduces two persons, and by an unheard-of wickedness will have there be two 655sons of God, two Christs, one God, the other man, one who is from the Father, the other who is begotten from the mother. And therefore he asserts that holy Mary is to be called not Theotocon, but Christotocon: namely because from her was born not that Christ who is God, but he who was man. But if anyone thinks that in his writings he says one Christ and preaches one person of Christ, let him not rashly believe it. For either he has contrived this by the art of deceiving, that through good things he might the more easily persuade evil ones as well, as the Apostle says: Through that which is good it wrought death in me, Rom. 7. Either, then, as we have said, for the sake of fraud, in certain places of his writings he boasts that he believes one Christ and one person of Christ, or certainly, after the Virgin's childbearing, he alleges that two persons so came together into one Christ, that nevertheless at the time of the Virgin's conception or childbearing, and for some while after, he contends that there were two Christs; so that, namely, Christ was first born a common and solitary man, and not yet joined to the Word of God by unity of person, and afterward the person of the assuming Word descended into him; and, although now he who was assumed abides in the glory of God, yet for some while there seems to have been no difference between him and other men.

These things, then, do Nestorius, Apollmaris, Photinus, rabid dogs, bark against the Catholic faith: Photinus, by not confessing the Trinity; Apollinaris, by calling the nature of the Word convertible, and by not confessing two substances in Christ, and by denying either the whole soul of Christ or certainly the mind and reason in the soul, and by asserting that the Word of God was in place of the sense of the mind; Nestorius, by affirming that there are two Christs always, or that there were two for some while. But the Catholic Church, holding right views both of God and of our Savior, blasphemes neither in the mystery of the Trinity nor in the incarnation of Christ. For it venerates both one divinity in the fullness of the Trinity and the equality of the Trinity in one and the same majesty, and confesses one Christ Jesus, not two, and the same both God and man alike. One person indeed in him, but two substances; two substances, but it believes there is one person: two substances, because the Word of God is not mutable, that it should be turned into flesh; one person, lest, by professing two sons, it should seem to worship a quaternity, not a Trinity. But it is worth the labor that we unfold this very thing again and again more distinctly and more expressly. In God one substance, but three persons; in Christ two substances, but one person. In the Trinity, one person and another, not one thing and another; in the Savior, one thing and another, not one person and another. How, in the Trinity, one person and another, not one thing and another? Because, namely, the person of the Father is one, that of the Son another, that of the Holy Spirit another; but nevertheless of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit there is not one nature and another, but one and the same nature. How, in the Savior, one thing and another, not one person and another? Because, evidently, one substance is of the divinity, the other of the humanity; but nevertheless the deity and the humanity are not one person and another, but one and the same Christ, one and the same Son of God, and of the one and the same Christ and Son of God there is one and the same person; just as in man the flesh is one thing, and the soul another, but one and the same man is soul and flesh. In Peter and Paul the soul is one thing, 656the flesh another; nor yet are there two Peters, flesh and soul; nor one Paul the soul, and another Paul the flesh; but one and the same Peter, one and the same Paul, subsisting from the twofold and diverse nature of soul and body. So, therefore, in one and the same Christ there are two substances; but one divine, the other human; one from God the Father, the other from the Virgin mother; one coeternal and equal to the Father, the other in time and less than the Father; one consubstantial with the Father, the other consubstantial with the mother; yet one and the same Christ in either substance. Not, therefore, one Christ God, another man; not one uncreated, another created; not one impassible, another passible; not one equal to the Father, another less than the Father; not one from the Father, another from the mother; but one and the same Christ, God and man, the same uncreated and created, the same unchangeable and impassible, the same changed and suffering, the same both equal to the Father and less, the same begotten of the Father before the ages, the same generated in the age from the mother, perfect God, perfect man. In God the highest divinity, in man full humanity. Full humanity, I say: inasmuch as it has at once a soul and flesh, but true flesh, ours, maternal, and a soul endowed with intellect, strong in mind and reason. There is, therefore, in Christ word, soul, flesh; but this whole is one Christ, one Son of God, and one our Savior and Redeemer. One, however, not by some corruptible confusion of divinity and humanity, but by a certain whole and singular unity of person. For that conjunction did not convert and change the one into the other (which is the error proper to the Arians), but rather so compacted both into one, that, the singularity of one and the same person ever remaining in Christ, 657the property of each nature also abides forever; so that, namely, God may never begin to be body, nor may the body ever cease to be body. Which is also demonstrated by the example of the human condition. For not only in the present, but also in the future, each of men will consist of soul and body, nor yet will either the body ever be turned into the soul or the soul into the body; but, since each of men will live without end, in each of men the difference of both substances will of necessity remain without end. So in Christ too the property of each substance, proper to each, is to be retained forever, the unity of the person nevertheless being preserved.

But since we often speak of a person, and say that God was made man through a person, we must beware most earnestly lest we seem to say that God the Word took upon himself the things that are ours by a mere imitation of action, and that whatever belongs to human life he performed as one shadowed forth, not as a true man — as is wont to happen in the theaters, where one actor suddenly counterfeits several persons, of whom he himself is none. For as often as any imitation of another's action is undertaken, the offices or works of others are so performed that nevertheless those who play them are not themselves those whom they play. For neither (to use, for example's sake, the cases of the secular stage and of the Manichaeans), when a tragic actor represents a Priest or a king, is he a priest or a king. For when the acting ceases, the person which he had taken up ceases along with it. Far be from us this wicked and impious mockery. Let that madness belong to the Manichaeans, who, preachers of a phantom, say that the Son of God is God, and that the person of a man existed not in substance but was feigned by a certain putative action and manner of life. But the Catholic faith declares that the Word of God was so made man that he took upon himself what is ours not deceitfully and in shadow, but truly and expressly, and that he did not imitate what was human as though it were another's, but rather bore it as his own; and that altogether what he did, this also he was. Just as we ourselves too, in that we speak, know, live, and subsist, do not imitate men, but are men. For neither Peter nor John — to name them above all — were men by imitating, but by subsisting. Nor did Paul feign an Apostle, or counterfeit Paul; but he was an Apostle, and subsisted as Paul. So too God the Word, by assuming and possessing flesh, by speaking, acting, and suffering through the flesh, yet without any corruption of his own nature, deigned wholly to bring this to pass: that he did not imitate or counterfeit a perfect man, but exhibited one; that he was not seen or reckoned to be a true man, but was such and subsisted as such. Therefore, just as the soul joined to the flesh, and yet not turned into flesh, does not imitate a man but is a man — and a man not by pretense but by substance — so also the Word, God, without any conversion of himself, 658by uniting himself to man, not by confounding, not by imitating, was made man, but by subsisting. Let there be cast off, then, entirely and to the depths, that understanding of a person which is taken up by imitative feigning, where there is always one man and another thing is counterfeited, where he who plays is never the one whom he plays. For far be it that God the Word be believed to have taken the person of a man in this deceitful manner; but rather in this way — that, his own unchangeable substance remaining, and by taking up in himself the nature of a perfect man, he himself was flesh, he himself man, he himself the person of a man, not a feigned but a true person, not an imitative but a substantial one, not one, finally, that would cease with the action, but one that would wholly abide in substance.

This unity of person in Christ, then, was by no means compacted and perfected after the Virgin's childbearing, but in the very womb of the Virgin. For we must most earnestly take heed to confess Christ not merely as one, but also as always one: for it is an intolerable blasphemy that, even if you now grant him to be one, you should nevertheless contend that at some time he was not one but two — one, that is, after the time of his baptism, but two at the time of his nativity. And this immense sacrilege we shall assuredly not be able to avoid in any other way than by confessing that man was united to God — but by a unity of person — not from the ascension, or the resurrection, or the baptism, but already in the mother, already in the womb, already, in short, in the very virginal conception: on account of which unity of person the things proper to God are ascribed to the man indifferently and interchangeably, and the things proper to the flesh are ascribed to God. For hence it is that it is written by God's own word that both the Son of man descended from heaven, and the Lord of majesty was crucified upon earth, John 3, 1 Cor. 2. Hence also it is that, the flesh of the Lord being made, the flesh of the Lord being created, the Word of God itself is said to be made, the very wisdom of God to be filled, knowledge to be created; just as in prophecy his hands and his feet are reported to have been pierced. Through this unity of person, I say, that too was accomplished by a like reckoning of mystery, that, the flesh of the Word being born of an undefiled mother, God the Word himself is most catholically believed, and most impiously denied, to be born of the Virgin. And since these things are so, far be it that anyone should attempt to defraud holy Mary of the privileges of divine grace and of her special glory. For she is, by a certain singular gift of our Lord and God, who is however her own Son, most truly and most blessedly to be confessed theotocos; yet not theotocos in the way that a certain impious heresy imagines, which asserts that she is to be called mother of God by mere appellation, because, that is, she bore him as man who afterward was made God — just as we speak of a Presbyter's mother, or a Bishop's mother, not because she bore a Presbyter or a Bishop, but because she brought forth as man him who afterward was made a Presbyter or a Bishop. Not so, I say, is holy Mary theotocos, but rather for this reason: because, as was said above, already in her consecrated womb that most sacred mystery was wrought, whereby, on account of a certain singular and unique unity of person, as the Word in the flesh is flesh, so the man in God is God.

But now let us, for the sake of renewing the memory, more briefly and closely repeat those things which were said above in brief concerning the aforementioned heresies 659or concerning the Catholic faith; that so they may both be understood more fully by repetition, and be held more firmly by being driven home. Anathema, therefore, to Photinus, who does not receive the fullness of the Trinity, and who preaches Christ as only a solitary man. Anathema to Apollinaris, who asserts in Christ a corruption of the divinity turned into flesh, and who takes away the property of a perfect humanity. Anathema to Nestorius, who denies that God was born of the Virgin, who asserts two Christs, and who, the faith of the Trinity being exploded, brings in upon us a quaternity. But blessed is the Catholic Church, which venerates one God in the fullness of the Trinity, and likewise the equality of the Trinity in one Divinity; so that neither may the singularity of substance confound the property of the persons, nor again may the distinction of the Trinity separate the unity of the Deity. Blessed, I say, is the Church, which believes in Christ two true and perfect substances, but one person of Christ, so that neither may the distinction of natures divide the unity of the person, nor again may the unity of the person confound the difference of the substances. Blessed, I say, is the Church, which, that it may confess Christ to be and to have been always one, confesses that man was united to God not after the childbearing, but already in the very womb of the mother. Blessed, I say, is the Church, which understands that God was made man not by a conversion of nature, but by reason of the person — a person, moreover, not feigned and transient, but substantial and abiding. Blessed, I say, is the Church, which preaches that this unity of person has such power that, on account of it, by a wondrous and unspeakable mystery, it ascribes both the divine things to the man and the human things to God. For on account of it, it does not deny that the man, according to God, descended from heaven, and it believes that God, according to the man, was made on earth, suffered, and was crucified. On account of it, finally, it confesses both the man to be the Son of God, and God to be the Son of the Virgin. Blessed, therefore, and to be venerated, blessed and most holy, and altogether to be compared to that heavenly praising of the angels, is the confession which glorifies the one Lord God with a threefold sanctification. For it is for this very reason above all that it preaches the unity of Christ: lest it exceed the mystery of the Trinity. Let these things be said in passing, to be treated and set forth more fully at another time, 660if it shall please God. Now let us return to our purpose.

We were saying, then, in the earlier passages, that in the Church of God there is a testing of the people, an error of the teacher, and a testing all the greater the more learned is he who errs. Which we were teaching first by the authority of Scripture, then by ecclesiastical examples — namely, by the recalling of those who, though for some while they were held to be of sound faith, yet in the end either fell away into another sect, or themselves founded their own heresy. A great matter, assuredly, and useful for learning, and necessary for pondering; which we ought again and again to illustrate and drive home with masses of examples, so that all who are truly Catholic may know that they ought to receive teachers together with the Church, not to desert the faith of the Church together with the teachers. But I judge thus: that although we are able to bring forward many in this kind of testing, there is almost no one who can be compared to the testing of Origen; in whom things so many and so illustrious, so singular, so wondrous, existed, that anyone would easily have judged that faith was to be placed in all his assertions from the very outset. For if a life makes authority, great was his industry, great his chastity, patience, endurance. If birth or 661learning, what more noble than he, who was first born in that house which was made illustrious by martyrdom, then, for Christ's sake, deprived not only of his father but of all his substance as well, made such progress amid the straits of holy poverty that, for the name of the Lord's confession, he was, as they report, often afflicted? Nor indeed were these the only things in him which would afterward all become matter of testing, but also so great a force of intellect, so profound, so keen, so refined, that he far and greatly surpassed almost all; so great a magnificence of learning and of all erudition that there were few points of divine philosophy, and perhaps almost none of human, that he did not thoroughly master: and, the Greek disciplines yielding to his knowledge, the Hebrew too were elaborated by him. But why should I mention his eloquence, 662whose speech was so charming, so milk-sweet, so pleasant, that to me not so much words as certain honey seems to have flowed from his mouth? What things difficult of persuasion did he not clarify by the powers of disputation? What things hard in the doing did he not make to seem most easy? But perhaps he wove his assertions together only by the connections of arguments? Nay, plainly there was never any of the teachers who used more examples of the divine law. But, I suppose, he wrote little? No mortal wrote more; so that to me all his works seem not only never to have been read through, but not even able to be found: to whom, lest anything at all be lacking for the instruments of knowledge, even the fullness of years abounded. But perhaps he was little happy in his disciples? Who was ever happier? Indeed from his bosom there came forth teachers innumerable, priests innumerable, confessors and martyrs. Now truly, how great was the admiration of him among all, how great his glory, how great his favor, who could recount? Who did not, being somewhat religious, fly to him from the farthest parts of the world? Who among Christians did not venerate him almost as a prophet, who among philosophers not as a master? And how reverend he was not only to private station but to the empire itself, the histories declare, which report that he was summoned by the mother of the Emperor Alexander, by the merit surely of his heavenly wisdom, with the grace and love of which she too burned. And they bear witness also to the testimony of his Epistles, which, to the Emperor Philip, who was the first of the Roman Princes to be a Christian, 663I wrote with the authority of a Christian teacher. And if anyone, when we report of his certain incredible knowledge, does not accept the testimony of a Christian, let him at least receive the confession of a Gentile from the testifying philosophers. For that impious Porphyry says that, roused by his fame, he went as almost a boy to Alexandria, and there saw him already an old man, but plainly such and so great a one as had founded the citadel of all knowledge. The day would fail me sooner than I could touch, even in its smallest part, upon those things which existed illustrious in that man: all of which, however, pertained not only to the glory of Religion, but also to the magnitude of the testing. For how few would either easily set aside a man of such intellect, of such learning, of such favor, and not rather use that saying — that he would rather err with Origen than think truly with others? And why say more? To this the matter came: that a testing — not any human one, but, as the outcome taught, an exceedingly perilous one — of so great a person, so great a teacher, so great a prophet, led very many away from the integrity of the faith. Wherefore this Origen, so great and so notable, while he abuses the grace of God too insolently, while he indulges his own genius too much, and trusts himself enough, while he reckons of little worth the ancient simplicity of the Christian Religion, while he presumes to be wiser than all, while, despising the ecclesiastical traditions and the teachings of the ancients, he interprets certain chapters of the Scriptures after a new manner, he deserved that of him too it should be said to the Church of God 664: If there arise within your measure a prophet, Deut. 13. And a little after: You shall not hear, he says, the words of that prophet. And again: Because the Lord your God tests you, he says, whether you love him or not. Truly not only a testing, but even a great testing, suddenly, little by little, and by degrees, to lead the Church — devoted to him and hanging upon him in admiration of his intellect, knowledge, eloquence, manner of life, and favor, suspecting nothing about him, fearing nothing — from the ancient Religion into a new profanity. But someone will say that Origen's books have been corrupted. I do not resist; nay rather I even prefer it. For this has both been handed down and written by certain persons, not only Catholics, but also Heretics. But this is what we must now observe: that even if not he himself, yet books published under his name are of great testing; which, teeming with many wounds of blasphemies, are read and loved not as another's but as his own; so that, although Origen's mind was not in conceiving the error, yet for the persuading of the error Origen's authority seems to have force.

But of Tertullian too the same reckoning holds. For as the former is among the Greeks, so this man among the Latins is easily to be judged the chief of all our own. For what is more learned than this man, what more practiced in things divine and human? Indeed he embraced all philosophy and all the sects of the philosophers, the authors and defenders of the sects, and all their disciplines, all the variety of histories and studies, with a certain wondrous capacity of mind. And did he not excel in a genius so weighty and vehement that he proposed to himself almost nothing to overthrow which he did not either break through by acuteness or crush by weight? Now further, who could recount the praises of his speech, which is knit together with such — I know not what — necessity of reasonings that it drives to agreement with itself those whom it could not persuade; of whom there are almost as many judgments as words, as many victories as meanings? This the Marcions, the Apelleses, the Praxeases, the Hermogeneses, the Jews, the Gentiles, the Gnostics, and the rest know; whose blasphemies he overthrew with the many and mighty masses of his volumes, as with certain thunderbolts. And yet this man too, after all these things — this Tertullian, I say — holding too little firmly to the catholic doctrine, that is, to the universal and ancient faith, and much more eloquent than fortunate, having afterward changed his opinion, did at the last what the blessed confessor Hilary writes of him in a certain place: By a following error, he says, he detracted authority from his approvable writings, Hilary on Matthew, ch. 5. And he too was a great testing in the Church. But of this I do not wish to say more. This only will I recall: that, rising up in the Church against the precept of Moses, and asserting to be true prophecies the newfangled ravings of Montanus and those insane dreams of insane women concerning the novel doctrine, he deserved that of him too and of his writings it should be said 665: If there arise in the midst of you a prophet. And soon: You shall not hear the words of that prophet. Why? Because, he says, the Lord your God tests you, whether you love him or not.

By these, then, so many and so great masses of ecclesiastical examples, and by the rest of the same kind, we ought evidently to perceive, and, according to the laws of Deuteronomy, to understand more clearly than light, that if ever some ecclesiastical teacher has strayed from the faith, divine Providence suffers it to happen for our testing, whether we love God or not with all our heart and with all our soul.

And since these things are so, he is the true and genuine Catholic who loves the truth of God, who loves the Church, who loves the body of Christ, who sets nothing before the divine Religion, before the catholic faith — not the authority of any man, not his love, not his genius, not his eloquence, not his philosophy; but, despising all these things, and fixed, stable, and abiding in the faith, he determines that whatever he has come to know the Catholic Church has held universally and from antiquity, this alone is to be held and believed by him; and whatever, from that point on, he perceives to be introduced as new and unheard-of by some one man, apart from all or against all the saints, this he understands to pertain not to Religion but rather to testing — being taught above all by the sayings of the blessed Apostle Paul: for this is what he writes in the first Epistle to the Corinthians: There must, he says, be also heresies, that they who are approved may be made manifest among you, 1 Cor. 11; as if he were saying: For this reason the authors of heresies are not at once rooted out by God, that they who are approved may be made manifest — that is, that each one may appear how tenacious and faithful and fixed a lover of the catholic faith he is. And in truth, when any novelty boils up, at once the heaviness of the wheat and the lightness of the chaff are discerned; then, without great effort, that which was held by no weight within the threshing-floor is shaken off from it. For some fly right away at once; but others, only shaken, both fear to perish and blush to return, wounded, 666half-dead and half-alive; inasmuch as they have drunk down such a quantity of the poison as neither kills nor is digested, neither compels to die nor suffers to live. Alas, pitiable condition! By what surging tides of cares, by what whirlwinds, are they tossed about? For now, wherever the wind has driven, they are carried off by the error let loose; now, returned into themselves, they are dashed back like contrary waves; now by rash presumption they approve even those things which seem uncertain; now by irrational fear they dread even those things which are certain; uncertain which way to go, which way to return, what to seek, what to flee, what to hold, what to let go. And this affliction of a doubtful and ill-poised heart is the medicine of the divine compassion toward them, if they are wise. For it is for this reason that, outside the most safe harbor of the catholic faith, they are shaken, beaten, and almost slain by the diverse storms of their thoughts, that they may lower the sails of a mind lifted up and borne on high, which they had ill spread to the winds of novelties, and may draw themselves back and hold themselves within the most faithful anchorage of their calm and good mother, and first of all vomit up again those bitter and turbulent floods of errors, that they may thereafter be able to drink the streams of living and leaping water. Let them unlearn well what they had learned ill; and of the whole doctrine of the Church, let them grasp what can be grasped by understanding, and let them believe what cannot.

And since these things are so, revolving and pondering these same matters within myself again and again, I cannot sufficiently wonder at the great madness of certain men, the great impiety of a blinded mind, the great lust, in short, for erring — that they are not content with the rule of belief handed down once and received from antiquity, but seek new things upon new by the day, and always long to add something to Religion, to change, to take away; as though it were not a heavenly doctrine, which it suffices to have been once revealed, but an earthly institution, which cannot be perfected otherwise than by continual amendment, nay rather by continual censure — whereas the divine oracles cry out: Remove not the bounds which your fathers have set, Prov. 22; and: Judge not against him who judges, Ecclus. 8; and: Scirdentem a hedge, a serpent shall bite him, Eccles. 10; and that apostolic word, by which all the wicked novelties of all the heresies have often been, and are always to be, cut down as with a certain spiritual sword: O Timothy, keep the deposit, avoiding the profane novelties of words and the oppositions of knowledge falsely so called, which certain men professing have erred concerning the faith, 1 Tim. 6. And after these things, are there found some of such hardness of an inveterate brow, of such an anvil of shamelessness, of such adamant of obstinacy, that they do not succumb to such masses of the heavenly sayings, do not weary under such weights, are not shattered by such hammers, are not, in short, crushed by such thunderbolts? Avoid, he says, the profane novelties of words: he did not say antiquities, he did not say the things of old; nay, plainly he showed what would follow to the contrary. For if novelty is to be avoided, antiquity is to be held; and if novelty is profane, the old is sacred. And the oppositions, he says, of knowledge falsely so called. Truly the name is false among the doctrines of the Heretics; so that ignorance is decked with the appellation of knowledge, and fog with that of clear sky, and darkness with that of light. Which certain men, he says, professing, have erred concerning the faith. 667Professing what, did they err, but some new and unknown doctrine? For you may hear certain of them saying: Come, O foolish and wretched, who are commonly called Catholics, and learn the true faith, which no one but us understands, which for many ages before lay hidden, but has lately been revealed and shown; but learn it by stealth and in secret: for it will delight you. And again: When you have learned it, teach it in hiding; lest the world hear, and the Church know: for to few is it granted to grasp the secret of so great a mystery. Are not these the words of that harlot who, in the Proverbs of Solomon, calls to herself those passing by the way, who direct their journey aright? Whoever is, she says, the most foolish among you, let him turn aside to me. And those void of sense she exhorts, saying: Touch gladly the hidden loaves, and drink stolen sweet water. What then? But he, she says, knows not that the earth-born perish with her, Prov. 9. Who are these earth-born? Let the Apostle expound: Who, he says, have erred concerning the faith, 2 Tim. 2.

But it is worth the labor to treat the whole chapter of the Apostle itself more carefully. O Timothy, he says, keep the deposit, avoiding the profane novelties of words. O! That exclamation is at once of foreknowledge and of charity. For he foresaw the errors that were to come, over which also he grieved beforehand. Who is Timothy today, but either generally the whole universal Church, or specially the entire body of the Prelates, who ought themselves both to have the whole knowledge of divine worship and to pour it into others? What is, keep the deposit? Keep it, he says, because of thieves, because of enemies, lest, while men sleep, they oversow tares upon that good seed of the wheat which the Son of man had sown in his field. The deposit, he says, keep. What is the deposit? That is, what has been entrusted to you, not what has been invented by you; what you have received, not what you have devised; a thing not of genius, but of teaching; not of private usurpation, but of public tradition; a thing brought to you, not brought forth by you: in which you ought to be not the author, but the keeper; not the founder, but the follower; not the leader, but the one who follows. The deposit, he says, keep; preserve the talent of the catholic faith inviolate and unimpaired. What has been entrusted to you, let this remain with you, let this be handed on by you. You have received gold, render gold: I do not want you to substitute for me one thing for another; I do not want you to put down, in place of gold, either shamelessly lead or fraudulently base metal: I do not want the appearance of gold, but plainly its nature. O Timothy, O Priest, O Expositor, O Teacher, if the divine gift has made you fit, by genius, by practice, by learning, be the Bezalel of the spiritual tabernacle; carve out the precious gems of the divine doctrine, fit them together faithfully, adorn them wisely, add splendor, grace, beauty. Let that be understood more clearly, by your setting forth, which before was believed more obscurely. Through you let posterity rejoice to have understood what before antiquity venerated without understanding. Yet teach the same things which you have learned, so that, though you speak in a new way, you speak not new things.

But perhaps someone says: Shall there then be held to be no progress of Religion in the Church of Christ? Let there be, plainly, and the greatest. For who is he so envious of men, so hateful to God, who would attempt to forbid this? But in such a way, nevertheless, that it be truly a progress of the faith, 668not a change. Since indeed it pertains to progress that each single thing be enlarged within itself; but to change, that something be turned from one thing into another. It behooves, therefore, that there grow and greatly and vigorously advance, of individuals as of all, of one man as of the whole Church, according to the stages of ages and centuries, the understanding, the knowledge, the wisdom — but only within its own kind, that is, in the same doctrine, the same meaning, and the same judgment. Let the religion of souls imitate the reckoning of bodies: which, although with the advance of years they unfold and unroll their numbers, yet remain the same that they were. There is much difference between the flower of boyhood and the maturity of old age; yet the very same become old men who had been youths; so that, although the state and condition of one and the same man be changed, nevertheless there is one and the same nature, one and the same person. The small limbs of nurslings, the large of young men, are yet the same. As many are the members of little ones as of grown men; and if there are any which are brought forth at the age of a riper time, they were already put forth in the reckoning of the seed; so that nothing new is afterward produced in old men which did not already lie hidden beforehand in children. Whence there is no doubt that this is the lawful and right rule of advancing, this the sure and most beautiful order of growing: if the number of the ages ever unfolds in the greater those parts and forms which the wisdom of the Creator had preformed in the little ones. But if the human shape be afterward turned into some figure not of its own kind, or if certainly something be added to the number of the members or taken away, it must needs be that the whole body either perish, or become monstrous, or certainly be weakened: so also it befits the doctrine of the Christian Religion to follow these laws of progress, that it be consolidated by years, dilated by time, exalted by age, yet remain uncorrupted and unimpaired, and be full and perfect in all the measures of its parts and in all its members, as it were, and its own senses, admitting thereafter no change, sustaining no loss of its property, no variety of its definition. For example: our forefathers of old sowed in this ecclesiastical field the seeds of the wheaten faith; it is exceedingly unjust and unfitting that we, their posterity, should gather, in place of the genuine truth of the grain, the counterfeit error of tares. Nay rather this is right and consequent, that, the first and the last not being at variance with themselves, from the increases of the wheaten planting we reap also the fruit of the wheaten doctrine; so that when something from those first beginnings of the seeds is unfolded in the course of time, and is now made glad and cultivated, yet nothing be changed of the property of the shoot: let the appearance, the form, the distinction, be added, yet let the same nature of each kind remain. For far be it that those rosy nursery-plants of the catholic understanding be turned into thistles and thorns. Far be it, I say, that in that spiritual paradise, from the shoots of cinnamon and balsam, darnel and aconite should suddenly spring up. Whatever, then, has been sown in this husbandry of the Church of God by the faith of the fathers, this same it befits should be cultivated and observed by the industry of the sons, this same should flourish and ripen, this same should advance and be perfected. For it is lawful that those ancient doctrines of the heavenly 669philosophy be, in the course of time, refined, filed, polished; but it is unlawful that they be changed, unlawful that they be lopped off, that they be mutilated. Let them receive, indeed, clarity, light, distinction; but they must needs retain their fullness, integrity, and property. For if once this license of impious fraud be admitted, I shudder to say how great a peril of Religion to be cut down and abolished follows. For, any part of the catholic doctrine being renounced, another too, and again another, and thereafter another and another, will be renounced, as it were now by custom and by leave. Furthermore, the parts being repudiated one by one, what else will follow at the last, but that the whole likewise be repudiated? But on the contrary, if things newfangled begin to be mingled with the old, foreign things with the domestic, and profane with the sacred, this custom must needs creep on into everything, so that thereafter nothing be left among the Church untouched, nothing unimpaired, nothing whole, nothing unspotted, but there be there thenceforth a brothel of impious and base errors where before was the sanctuary of chaste and incorrupt truth. But may the divine mercy avert this wickedness from the minds of her own, and let this rather be the madness of the impious. But the Church of Christ, a careful and cautious keeper of the doctrines deposited with her, never changes anything in them, diminishes nothing, adds nothing; she does not cut off what is necessary, does not append what is superfluous, does not lose her own, does not usurp what is another's; but with all industry she is intent on this one thing: that, by treating the old faithfully and wisely, if there be any things anciently shaped and begun, she may perfect and polish them; if any things already expressed and unfolded, she may consolidate and strengthen them; if any things already confirmed and defined, she may guard them; in short, what else has she ever striven for by the decrees of the Councils, but that what before was believed simply, this same might afterward be believed more diligently; what before was preached more slackly, this same might afterward be preached more urgently; what before was cultivated more securely, this same might afterward be cultivated more solicitously? This, I say, and nothing else, has the Catholic Church, roused by the novelties of the Heretics, ever accomplished by the decrees of her Councils, but that what she had first received from her Elders by tradition alone, she should afterward consign also to posterity by the handwriting of Scripture, comprehending a great sum of matters in few letters, and, for the most part, for the sake of clearness of understanding, marking a not-new meaning of the faith by the property of a new appellation. 670

But let us return to the Apostle. O Timothy, he says, keep the deposit, shunning the profane novelties of words. Shun it, he says, as a viper, as a scorpion, as a basilisk, lest they strike you not only by touch, but even by sight and by their breath. What is "to shun"? With such a one not even to take food, 1 Cor. 5. What is "shun"? If anyone, he says, comes to you, and does not bring this doctrine, 2 Joann. What doctrine, but the catholic and universal, one and the same through the several successions of the ages, abiding by the incorrupt tradition of the truth, and destined to abide unto the ages without end? What then? Do not, he says, receive him into the house, nor say Ave to him. For he that saith Ave to him communicateth with his malignant works. Profane, he says, novelties of words. What is profane? Those things which have nothing sacred, nothing religious, wholly foreign to the inner recesses of the Church, which is the temple of God. Profane, he says, novelties of words. Of words — that is, novelties of doctrines, of things, of opinions — which are contrary to what is old and ancient: which, if they be received, it is of necessity that the faith of the blessed fathers be violated, either wholly, or at least in great part; it is of necessity that all the faithful of all ages, all the saints, all the chaste, the continent, the virgins, all the clergy, the levites and priests, so many thousands of confessors, so many armies of martyrs, so great a throng and multitude of cities and of peoples, so many islands, provinces, kings, tribes, kingdoms, nations, in short by now well-nigh the whole round world, incorporated into Christ the Head through the catholic faith, be pronounced to have been ignorant, through so great a course of the ages, to have erred, to have blasphemed, not to have known what it believed. Profane, he says, novelties of words: shun them — which to receive and to follow was never the mark of Catholics, but ever of heretics. And indeed, what heresy ever boiled up except under a certain name, in a certain place, at a certain time? Who ever established heresies except one who had first separated himself from the agreement of the universality and antiquity of the catholic Church? That this is so, examples show clearer than light. For who ever, before that profane Pelagius, presumed so great a power of free will that he did not think the grace of God necessary to aid it, in good works, through the several acts? Who, before his monstrous disciple Coelestius, denied that the whole 671human race was bound by the guilt of Adam's transgression? Who, before the sacrilegious Arius, dared to sunder the unity of the Trinity; who, before the wicked Sabellius, to confound the Trinity of the unity? Who, before the most cruel Novatian, called God cruel, in that he would rather the death of the dying than that he should return and live? Who, before Simon Magus — smitten by apostolic severity (from whom that old whirlpool of foulnesses has flowed, by a continuous and hidden succession, down to the most recent Priscillian) — dared to call God the Creator the author of evils, that is, of our crimes, impieties, and shameful deeds? For he asserts that such a one creates with his own hands the very nature of men, which, by a certain motion of its own and by the impulse of a certain necessary will, can do nothing else, wills nothing else, than to sin, in that, driven and inflamed by the furies of all vices, it is swept with insatiable desire into all the abysses of foulness. Innumerable are such things, which for the sake of brevity we pass over; by all of which, however, it is shown clearly and plainly enough that this is, as it were, customary and lawful among well-nigh all heresies, 672that they ever delight in profane novelties, loathe the decrees of antiquity, and, by the oppositions of knowledge falsely so called, make shipwreck of the faith. But on the contrary, this is truly proper to Catholics: to keep the deposits committed to them by the holy fathers, to condemn profane novelties, and, as the Apostle said and again foretold, if any man announce anything besides that which has been received, let him be anathema, Gal. 1.

Here perhaps someone may ask whether heretics too make use of the testimonies of divine Scripture. They use them plainly, and very vigorously indeed. For you may see them flying through each and every volume of the sacred law, through Moses, through the books of Kings; through the Psalms, through the Apostles, through the Gospels, through the Prophets. For whether among their own or among strangers, whether privately or publicly, whether in discourses or in books, whether at banquets or in the streets, they bring forth well-nigh nothing of their own which they do not attempt to shade over with the words of Scripture as well. Read the little works of Paul of Samosata, of Priscillian, of Eunomius, of Jovinian, and of the rest of those plagues; you will discern an endless heap of examples, well-nigh no page omitted which is not painted and colored with the opinions of the New or the Old Testament. But they are the more to be guarded against and dreaded, the more secretly they lurk under the shades of the divine law. For they know that their stenches will be pleasing quickly to well-nigh no one, if they be breathed out naked and plain; and therefore they sprinkle them, as it were, with a certain aroma of heavenly eloquence, so that he who would easily despise a human error may not easily contemn divine oracles. And so they do what those are wont to do who, being about to temper certain bitter draughts for little children, first smear the rims round about with honey, so that the unwary age, when it has felt the sweetness beforehand, may not dread the bitterness. This too is the care of those who color over evil herbs and noxious juices with the names of medicines, so that well-nigh no one, when he has read the remedy written above, may suspect the poison. Hence at last the Savior too cried out: Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly are ravening wolves, Matth. 7. What is the clothing of sheep, but the utterances of the Prophets and Apostles, which the same, with a certain sheeplike sincerity, wove, as it were, into fleeces for that immaculate Lamb which 673taketh away the sin of the world? Who are the ravening wolves, but the fierce and raging senses of heretics, who ever infest the folds of the Church and tear the flock of Christ in whatever way they can? But that they may more deceitfully creep upon the unwary sheep, the ferocity of the wolves abiding, they lay aside the wolfish appearance, and wrap themselves in the opinions of the divine law as in fleeces, so that when anyone has felt beforehand the softness of the wool, he may in no wise dread the points of the teeth. But what says the Savior? By their fruits you shall know them: that is, when they have begun no longer merely to bring forth those divine words, but even to expound them, and no longer only to vaunt them, but even to interpret them, then that bitterness, then that harshness, then that madness will be understood, then the novel venom will be breathed out, then the profane novelties will be laid open; then first you may see the hedge broken, then the boundaries of the fathers removed, then the catholic faith cut down, then the ecclesiastical dogma mangled. Such were those whom the Apostle Paul strikes in his second Epistle to the Corinthians, saying: For such, he says, false apostles are deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the Apostles of Christ, 2 Cor. 11. What is transforming themselves into the Apostles of Christ? The Apostles brought forth examples of the divine law; these too brought them forth. The Apostles brought forth the authorities of the psalms; these too brought them forth. The Apostles brought forth the opinions of the Prophets; and these no less brought them forth. But when they had begun to interpret in unlike manner the things they had brought forth in like manner, then the simple were distinguished from the crafty, then the uncolored from the painted, then the upright from the perverse, then at last the true Apostles from the false Apostles. And no wonder, he says. For Satan himself transformeth himself into an angel of light. It is therefore no great thing if his ministers be transformed as the ministers of justice. Therefore, according to the teaching of the Apostle Paul, as often as either false apostles or false prophets or false teachers bring forth the opinions of the divine law, by which, ill interpreted, they endeavor to build up their errors, there is no doubt that they follow the crafty devices of their author — which he assuredly would never have contrived, unless he knew that there is altogether no easier way to deceive than that, where the fraud of nefarious error is insinuated, there the authority of divine words be held forth.

But someone will say: Whence is it proved that the devil is wont to use examples of the sacred law? Let him read the Gospels, in which it is written: Then the devil took him, that is, the Lord and Savior, and set him upon the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him: If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down. For it is written that he hath given his angels charge over thee, that they keep thee in all thy ways; in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest perhaps thou dash thy foot against a stone, Matth. 4. What will he do here to poor wretched men, who assailed the very Lord of majesty with the testimonies of the Scriptures? If, he says, thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down. Why? For it is written, he says. Greatly is the teaching of this passage to be heeded and retained by us, that, by so great an example of Gospel authority, when we see any men bring forth apostolic or prophetic words against the catholic faith, we may in no wise doubt that the devil speaks through them. For as then the head spoke to the Head, so now too the members speak to the members 674— the members, that is, of the devil to the members of Christ, the perfidious to the faithful, the sacrilegious to the religious, the heretics in short to the Catholics. But what at length do they say? If, he says, thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down; that is, if thou wilt be the Son of God and receive the inheritance of the heavenly kingdom, cast thyself down — that is, let thyself down from the teaching and tradition of this lofty Church, which is even reckoned the temple of God. And if anyone should ask any one of the heretics who persuades him of such things: Whence dost thou prove, whence dost thou teach, that I ought to forsake the universal and ancient faith of the Catholic Church? — straightway he replies: For it is written. And at once he prepares a thousand testimonies, a thousand examples, a thousand authorities from the law, from the Psalms, from the Apostles, from the Prophets, by which, interpreted in a new and evil manner, the unhappy soul may be cast headlong from the catholic citadel into the abyss of heresy. But now, by those promises which follow, the heretics have been wont to deceive the unwary in a marvelous manner. For they dare to promise and to teach that in their Church — that is, in the little conventicle of their communion — there is a certain great and special and plainly personal grace of God, so that, without any labor, without any zeal, without any diligence, even though they neither ask, nor seek, nor knock, whosoever belong to their number are nevertheless so divinely dispensed that, borne up by angelic hands — that is, kept by angelic protection — they can never dash their foot against a stone, that is, never be scandalized.

But someone will say: If both the devil and his disciples — of whom some are false apostles, others false prophets and false teachers, and all wholly heretics — make use of the divine eloquences, opinions, and promises, what shall Catholic men and the sons of mother Church do? In what manner shall they discern the truth from falsehood in the holy Scriptures? This assuredly they will take great care to do, which at the beginning of this Commonitorium we wrote that holy and learned men had handed down to us: that they should interpret the divine Canon according to the traditions of the universal Church and according to the rules of catholic dogma; and in that same Catholic and apostolic Church they must needs follow universality, antiquity, consent. And if at any time a part should rebel against the whole, novelty against what is old, the dissent of one or of a few in error against the consent of all — or at least of far the greater number — of Catholics, let them prefer the soundness of the whole to the corruption of a part; and within that same universality, let them prefer the religion of antiquity to the profanity of novelty; and likewise, within antiquity itself, let them set, before the rashness of one or of a very few, first of all the general decrees, if there be any, of a universal Council; and then next, if there be none such, let them follow what is nearest — the mutually agreeing opinions of many and great masters. Which being faithfully, soberly, and carefully observed, with the Lord's help, we shall without great difficulty detect the noxious errors of any heretics that arise.

Here now I see it to be consequent that I should demonstrate by examples in what manner the profane novelties of heretics may be both detected and condemned by bringing forward and comparing the mutually agreeing opinions of the ancient masters. And 675this ancient consent of the holy fathers is to be sought out and followed by us with great zeal, not in all the little questions of the divine law, but certainly, above all, only in the rule of faith. Nor are all heresies always to be assailed in this manner, but only the novel and recent ones — at the very moment, that is, when they first arise, before they are hindered by the straits of the time itself from falsifying the rules of the ancient faith, and before, as the venom spreads more widely, they attempt to corrupt the volumes of our elders. But heresies now widespread and grown old are by no means to be attacked in this way, because through the long lapse of the times a long occasion of assailing the truth has lain open to them. And therefore, whatsoever those more ancient profanities, whether of schisms or of heresies, it behooves us in no wise to do otherwise than either to convict them, if need be, by the sole authority of the Scriptures, or at least to shun them as already, of old, convicted and condemned by the universal Councils of the catholic bishops. And so, as soon as the rottenness of any evil error begins to break out, and to steal certain words of the sacred law for its own defense, and to expound them falsely and fraudulently, straightway the opinions of our elders are to be gathered together for the interpreting of the Canon; by which whatsoever novel thing shall arise, and therefore profane, may be laid bare without any ambiguity, and condemned without any retractation. But only the opinions of those fathers are to be brought together who, living, teaching, and abiding holily, wisely, and constantly in the catholic faith and communion, deserved either to die faithfully in Christ or to be slain happily for Christ. Who nevertheless are to be believed on this law: that whatsoever either all, or the greater number, have — with one and the same sense, manifestly, frequently, perseveringly, as though by a certain mutually agreeing council of masters — in receiving, holding, and handing down, confirmed, that is to be held for undoubted, certain, and ratified. But whatsoever anyone, though holy and learned, though a Confessor and Martyr, has held apart from all, or even against all, let that be set aside among his own private and hidden and personal little opinions, from the authority of the common and public and general opinion; lest, with the utmost peril of eternal salvation, after the sacrilegious custom of heretics and schismatics, the ancient truth of the universal dogma being forsaken, we follow the novel 676error of a single man. And lest anyone should rashly think that the holy and catholic consent of these blessed fathers is perchance to be contemned by him, the Apostle says in the first Epistle to the Corinthians: And some indeed God hath set in the Church: first Apostles (of whom he himself was one), secondly Prophets (such as we read Agabus to have been in the Acts of the Apostles), thirdly Doctors, who are now called expositors, whom this same Apostle also sometimes names Prophets, in that through them the mysteries of the Prophets are opened to the peoples. Whosoever therefore contemns these — dispensed by God through times and places in the Church of God, agreeing in some one thing in Christ according to the sense of catholic dogma — contemns not man, but God: from whose truthful unity, that no one may depart, the same Apostle more earnestly adjures, saying: Now I beseech you, brethren, that you all say the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you; but that you be perfect in the same sense and in the same opinion, 1 Cor. 1. But if anyone should fall away from the communion of their opinion, he shall hear that word of the same Apostle: God is not the God of dissension, but of peace, 1 Cor. 14 (that is, not of him who has fallen away from the unity of consenting, but of those who have remained in the peace of consenting), as, he says, in all the churches of the saints I teach — that is, of Catholics; which are therefore holy, because they persist in the communion of the faith. And lest anyone perhaps, the rest being passed over, should claim that he alone be heard, that he alone be believed, a little after he says: Or, he says, did the word of God go forth from you, or did it come to you only? And lest this be taken as it were carelessly, he added: If any man, he says, seem to be a prophet or spiritual, let him know the things I write to you, that they are the commandments of the Lord. Which commandments — what, but that, if anyone be a prophet or spiritual, that is, a master of spiritual things, he should show himself with the utmost zeal a cultivator of equality and unity; so, namely, that he neither prefer his own opinions to the rest, nor depart from the senses of all? And he who knows not the commandments of this thing, he says, shall be unknown: that is, he who either learns not things unknown, or contemns things known, shall be unknown — that is, shall be held unworthy to be regarded of God among those united in faith and made equal in humility; than which evil I know not whether anything more bitter can be conceived. Which nevertheless we perceive to have befallen, according to the apostolic threat, that Pelagian Julian, 677who either neglected to incorporate himself with the sense of his colleagues, or presumed to unbody himself from it. But now it is time that we bring forth the promised example — where and in what manner the opinions of the holy fathers were gathered together, that according to 678them, by the decree and authority of a Council, the rule of ecclesiastical faith might be fixed. And that this may be done the more conveniently, let there here now be the measure of this Commonitorium; that the rest which follow we may take up from another beginning.

• 677

It has been lost, and no more of it remains than the last little portion — that is, the recapitulation alone, which is also subjoined below.

677Since these things are so, it is now time that we recapitulate, at the end of this second one, the things which have been said in these two Commonitoria. We said in the foregoing that this has ever been, and is today also, the custom of Catholics: to prove the true faith by these two ways — first by the authority of the divine Canon, then by the tradition of the Catholic Church; not because the Canon alone does not of itself suffice for all things, but because most men, interpreting the divine words according to their own judgment, conceive various opinions and errors, and therefore it is necessary that the understanding of the heavenly Scripture be directed to the one rule of the ecclesiastical sense — in those questions especially on which the foundations of the whole of catholic dogma rest. Likewise we said that in the Church herself the consent alike of universality and of antiquity ought to be regarded; lest either we be torn away from the soundness of unity into the part of schism, or be cast headlong from the religion of what is old into the novelties of heresies. Likewise we said that in the very antiquity of the Church two things are to be observed with great earnestness and zeal, to which whosoever would not be heretics ought wholly to cleave: first, if anything was of old decreed by all the bishops of the Catholic Church by the authority of a universal Council; and then, if any new question should arise where this is by no means found, recourse must be had to the opinions of the holy fathers — of those only who, each in his own times 678and places, abiding in the unity of communion and of faith, had stood forth as approved masters; and whatsoever they should be found to have held with one sense and one consent, that should, without any scruple, be judged the true and catholic doctrine of the Church. And that we might not seem to bring this forth by our own presumption rather than by ecclesiastical authority, we adduced the example of the holy Council which was celebrated about three years ago in Asia at Ephesus, in the consulship of the most illustrious men Bassus and Antiochus: where, when there was debate about the sanctioning of the rules of faith, lest perchance some profane novelty should there creep in after the manner of the Ariminian treachery, it seemed to all the bishops — who had assembled there to the number of about two hundred — most catholic, most faithful, and best to do, that the opinions of the holy fathers should be brought forth into the midst, of whom it was established that some had been martyrs, others confessors, but all catholic bishops, and had so remained; 679that so, duly and solemnly, out of their consent and decree, the religion of the ancient dogma might be confirmed, and the blasphemy of profane novelty condemned. And when this had been so done, by right and desert was that impious Nestorius judged contrary to catholic antiquity, but the blessed 680Cyril in accord with sacrosanct antiquity. And that nothing might be lacking to the credibility of the matter, we published both the names and the number (though we had forgotten the order) of those fathers, according to whose mutually harmonious and concordant opinion, in that place, both the utterances of the sacred law were expounded, and the rule of divine dogma was established: whom, to confirm the memory, it is by no means superfluous to recount here also.

These, then, are the men whose writings were read in that Council, either as of judges or as of witnesses. Saint Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a most excellent teacher and most blessed martyr. Saint Athanasius, prelate of the same city, a most faithful master and most eminent confessor. Saint Theophilus, likewise Bishop of the same city, a man renowned enough in faith, in life, in knowledge, whom the venerable Cyril succeeded, who now illumines the Church of Alexandria. 681And lest perchance this teaching should be thought that of a single city and province, there were adduced also those lights of Cappadocia: Saint Gregory, Bishop and confessor, of Nazianzus; Saint Basil, Bishop and confessor of Caesarea in Cappadocia; and likewise another Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Bishop, by the merit of his faith, conversation, integrity, and wisdom most worthy of his brother Basil. But lest Greece alone, or only the East, but also the Western and Latin world, should be shown to have ever thought thus, there were read there also certain Epistles, to certain persons, of Saint Felix the martyr and of Saint Julius, Bishops of the city of Rome. And that not only the head of the world, but also the flanks might bear testimony to that judgment, 682there was adduced from the South the most blessed Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage and martyr; from the North, Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. These, then, are all the masters, counselors, witnesses, and judges brought forward at Ephesus in the consecrated number of the Decalogue; whose doctrine that blessed Synod holding, whose counsel following, believing their testimony, obeying their judgment, it pronounced concerning the rules of faith without weariness, without presumption, and without favor. Although a far greater number of the elders might have been adduced, yet it was not necessary; because neither ought the times of the business to be taken up by a multitude of witnesses, nor did anyone doubt that those ten had in truth thought nothing other than all the rest of their colleagues.

After all these, we added also the opinion of blessed Cyril, which is contained in the ecclesiastical acts themselves. For when the Epistle of Saint Capreolus, Bishop of Carthage, had been read — who aimed at and prayed for nothing else than that, novelty being vanquished, antiquity might be defended — thus Bishop Cyril spoke forth and defined. Which it seems not out of place to insert here also. For he says at the end of the acts: And this Epistle, he says, which has been read, of the venerable and most religious Bishop of Carthage, Capreolus, shall be inserted into the record of the faith; whose opinion is plain. For he wills that the dogmas of the ancient faith be confirmed, but that things novel, and superfluously devised, and impiously promulgated, be reproved and condemned. All the bishops cried out: These are the voices of all; this we all say; this is the wish of all. What at length are the voices of all, or what the wishes of all, but that what had been handed down of old should be held, and what had lately been devised should be rejected? After which we marveled and proclaimed how great was the humility and holiness of that Council: that so many bishops in number, well-nigh for the greater part Metropolitans, of such erudition and such learning that nearly all of them could dispute about dogmas — for which reason the very gathering of them into one might have seemed to add to itself confidence of daring and of establishing something — yet innovated nothing, presumed nothing, 683arrogated nothing at all to themselves, but in every way took care not to hand down anything to posterity which they had not themselves received from the fathers; and not only ordered the matter well in the present, but also furnished examples to those to come, that they too, namely, should cherish the dogmas of consecrated antiquity, but condemn the devices of profane novelty. We inveighed also against the wicked presumption of Nestorius, in that he boasted that he first and alone understood the sacred Scripture, and that all those had been ignorant, whosoever before him, endowed with the office of teaching, had handled the divine eloquences — all the bishops, namely, all the confessors and martyrs, of whom some had expounded the law of God, others had consented to or believed the expounders — and asserted, in short, that even now the whole Church errs, and had always erred, which, as it seemed to him, both had followed and would follow ignorant and erroneous teachers.

All which things, although they would abundantly and superabundantly suffice to overwhelm and extinguish any profane novelties whatsoever, yet, lest anything should seem to be lacking to so great a fullness, at the last we added the twin authority of the Apostolic See — one, namely, of Saint Pope Sixtus, who now, venerable, illumines the Roman Church, 684the other of his predecessor of blessed memory Pope Coelestine, which we judged it necessary to insert here also. So then Saint Pope Xis tus says, in the Epistle which he sent concerning the case of Nestorius to the Bishop of Antioch: Therefore, he says, because, as the Apostle says, there is one faith, which has evidently prevailed, let us believe the things to be said, and say the things to be held. What at length are those things to be believed and to be said? He continues, and says: Let nothing further be permitted to novelty, because it is fitting that nothing be added to what is old. Let not the clear faith and belief of our elders be troubled by any admixture of filth. Wholly apostolic: to adorn the belief of the elders with the light of clearness, but to describe novel profanities by the admixture of filth. But Saint Pope Coelestine likewise, and with the same opinion. For he says, in the Epistle which he sent to the priests of the Gauls, reproving their connivance in that, forsaking the ancient faith by silence, they suffered profane novelties to arise: Deservedly, he says, does the cause regard us, if by silence we foster error. Therefore let such men be corrected; let them not be free to have speech according to their pleasure. Here perhaps someone may be in doubt who they are whom he forbids to have speech free according to their pleasure — the preachers of what is old, or the devisers of novelty. Let him himself say; let him himself dissolve the doubt of the readers. For he continues: Let it cease, he says, if the matter is so (that is, if it is so as certain persons charge before me concerning your cities and provinces, that you make them consent to certain novelties by a harmful dissimulation), let it cease then, he says, if the matter is so, let novelty cease to assail what is old. Therefore this was the blessed opinion of blessed Coelestine: that not what is old should cease to overwhelm novelty, but rather that novelty should cease to assail what is old.

Whosoever gainsays these apostolic and catholic decrees must needs first of all insult the memory of Saint Coelestine, who ordained that novelty should cease to assail what is old; then deride the definitions of Saint Sixtus, who decreed that nothing further be permitted to novelty, because it is fitting that nothing be added to what is old; and let him also contemn the ordinances of blessed Cyril, who with great proclamation praised the zeal of the venerable Capreolus, in that he desired that the dogmas of the ancient faith be confirmed, but the devices of novelty condemned; let him trample too the Ephesine synod, that is, the judgments of the holy Bishops of well-nigh the whole East, to whom it was divinely pleasing to decree that nothing else be believed by posterity than what the consecrated antiquity of the holy fathers, agreeing with itself in Christ, 685Ahad held; who also, crying out and acclaiming, testified with one mouth that these were the voices of all, that this was the desire of all, that this was the judgment of all; so that, as well-nigh all the heretics before Nestorius, contemning what is old and asserting novelty, had been condemned, so Nestorius himself too, the author of novelty and the assailer of what is old, should be condemned. If their consent, inspired by the gift of sacrosanct and heavenly grace, displeases anyone, what else follows but that he asserts the profanity of Nestorius not to have been justly condemned? At the last too, let him contemn the whole Church of Christ, and her masters the Apostles and prophets, but especially the blessed Apostle Paul, as though they were certain refuse: her, in that she has never departed from the religion of the faith once handed to her to be honored and cherished; 685Bhim, in that he wrote: O Timothy, keep the deposit, shunning the profane 686Anovelties of words, and likewise: If any man announce to you anything besides that which you have received, let him be anathema. But if neither apostolic definitions nor ecclesiastical decrees are to be violated, by which, according to the sacrosanct consent of universality and antiquity, all heretics ever, and at the last Pelagius, Coelestius, Nestorius, have been by right and desert condemned, it is assuredly necessary for all Catholics thenceforth, who are eager to prove themselves lawful sons of mother Church, that they cleave to, be glued to, and die in the holy faith of the holy Fathers, but that they detest, shudder at, pursue, and persecute the profane novelties of profane men.

These are, in sum, the things which, discussed more at large in the two Commonitoria, are now bound somewhat more briefly by the law of recapitulating; that my memory, for the aiding of which 686Bwe have composed these things, may both be restored by the assiduity of reminding, and not be overwhelmed by the tedium of prolixity.