Refutatio et Eversio 1 part 21/21

and if the wretched ones yield to these things, they will nonetheless remain idolaters altogether.

Such indeed are the irrational and absurd contents of this citation, worthy rather of being laughed at than of being refuted;

Let us see whether these things were in fact written to Theodosius, and whether he became obedient to the words of this great teacher.

But that this was not even fashioned in a dream regarding Theodosius, let those who have written of him bear witness;

but that, from the times after him, it rather increased, and the propriety of the sacred images advanced greatly, the very facts themselves will cry out;

and it will resound the piety of the man, as many things as East and West display, artistically wrought, in divine shrines and sacred vessels.

Therefore these things, wickedly and impiously written, are neither from Epiphanius nor to Theodosius.

And here let these things have their conclusion;

For since it has been shown from many quarters that Epiphanius has no part in this letter, let us henceforth abstain from discourse concerning it, and let us at once, as best we are able, take hold of the subsequent arguments.

For there follows the remaining and last of the citations brought forward by them, namely a letter fabricated as if by Epiphanius, inscribed to John, bishop of Aelia, proclaiming the following:

May the God of peace act with us according to his love for mankind, unto the crushing of Satan under our feet, we the Christians, and unto the driving away of every evil pretext, so that the bond of the unfeigned love and peace and right faith and truth of Christ may not be torn from us.

But since I heard that some murmured against us, that when we were crossing to the holy place of Bethel to assemble with your honor, as we came to the village called Anautha, seeing a lamp burning and having asked, we learned that there was a church in the place;

and entering to perform a prayer, we found a dyed veil at the door, on which was painted something in human likeness, idol-like;

which they said, perhaps, was the image of Christ or of one of the saints;

for I do not remember having seen it.

And knowing that it is a defilement for such things to be in a church, I tore it, and advised that a dead poor man be clothed in it.

But those who murmured said:

'He ought to have replaced the veil from his own resources before tearing it' - although indeed I had promised that I would send another in its place.

But I was slow to send it, because I had to seek a suitable one;

for I was expecting one to be sent to me from Cyprus.

Now, therefore, I have sent what I found.

Deign, therefore, to command the presbyter of the parish to receive from the reader the thing sent;

and I beseech you, command that such things not be spread out in the churches.

For it is fitting for your honor to take thought for all things and to be precise concerning what is beneficial to the church of God and to the peoples.

To this, first it must be said, that the blasphemous things lying at the end of this citation seem to be superfluous and spurious and interpolated.

For the things preceding these, namely 'the God of peace shall act with us' and what follows, promise the end of the letter;

for it has the character of a prayer, which almost always completes the end of letters.

To offer such a rotten and lifeless thing in rebuttal is, I think, boorish and uneducated;

for one would risk falling into the same accusations, being made like unto the vanity of the fool;

for these things are no different from the words of drunk and deranged men, and of children playing in the marketplaces, and are worthy rather of being mocked than of being set right.

For how does he who at one time says that God has been depicted in a painting, but now says that he does not even remember having ever seen it, not deserve to be laughed at and mocked? And to be so ignorant as to have to learn from others what it is that is seen on the veil, not even knowing it for certain, but still being in doubt even about what those who were asked reported to him?

And how will it stand to reason that these ravings are those of Epiphanius? For did Epiphanius indeed never see such a thing? And who is so full of folly and ignorance as to choose to agree with such a claim? And thus it is possible for whoever wishes to arrive at the truth by conjecture.

For what place, when reached, has not received Epiphanius? What cities and regions has he traversed without recording them? Should one begin from the Libyan regions, then come to Egypt, and pass through Phoenicia and Palestine and all Syria, and arrive among the Arabs and Persians, there he will behold Epiphanius present.

We learn that he set foot in venerable Rome not once but many times;

And as for Byzantium, how variously he came, and indeed sojourned there for a considerable time, what need is there to say? He traversed nearly the whole inhabited world, working wonders;

so that the account will make him known to us as another Heracles, our own, by virtue of his going about the whole world.

Did he, then, who flew through nearly the whole East and West (for beyond Gades is not passable), and this while dwelling among Christians and entering the sacred places of Christians, never once see an image of Christ or of a saint? No one distinguished for understanding and sobriety would say so.

And nothing is so fitting as to add this also to the argument: that the very great length of his lifetime, and his having been led through very many places and affairs of life, afforded him this occasion.

Then did the bishop of the Aelians yield to what was written, and did the sacred images cease, and has such a thing never yet been found, from that time until today, either in veils or in sacred vessels or in divine shrines, throughout the region of the Jerusalemites? Or do not all the things here recorded and shown stand as a monument and a triumph of those who labor in vain and babble idly at random? - especially when they are unwilling to follow, with the clarity of the facts themselves and with the genuine testimonies, the unimpeachable and indisputable teachings of the God-bearing one, but instead fall, thoughtlessly and erroneously, into things furthest removed from his teaching and opinion.

If, then, they accept those things as being of Epiphanius, it is high time for them to accept, still more readily, as also of Epiphanius, the things that stand diametrically opposed to them; they do not escape being caught between two doubts, or between two precipices;

For the followers of the foolish Apollinarius proclaim that Epiphanius introduced the worship of a man - the God-bearing man - and moreover that he falsified the hope that is in God.

But it is altogether better, henceforth, to let these things go and not to speak superfluously;

For there is no need of further words, since it is possible, letting those who hold the most opposite opinions concerning the man contend with one another - each either persuading or refuting the other's absurdity - for us ourselves to be freed from the matter, bidding farewell and leaving aside the nonsense of others.

But this one must firmly believe: that these impious contrivances are the work of someone afflicted with the godlessness of the Docetists, who assumed the name of Epiphanius, so that, by the credibility of that person, he might lead the more simple and unstable into his own God-hated doctrine;

and, like some kind of mask, he put on the name of idolatry, in order to conceal his own bitterness of fantasy, attempting to heal the great evil by a greater evil.

He has been done away with, according to the word of the priest Symeon;

For because of the simplicity of the man's character, and the plainness of his style, and the multitude of his writings, having found his works easy to tamper with, they wrought such deceits.

Let these things, then, be said thus, and let an end be taken of these wicked and detestable misdeeds.

For all things have been overturned and cast down, struck by the sling of truth, and the shame and the vileness and the hidden deceit of the things contrived, and the devised method of the error, have been clearly uncovered;

and the celebrated Epiphanius has been freed from every wicked suspicion, and the begetter of the impious doctrines has been pilloried by very many arguments, bearing the fabricated - not true - appellation of Epiphanius.

And as one might say, summarizing more concisely:

First, from the genealogy, from which the difference (1) of the persons is exhibited;

second, from the testaments, in which a difference (2) of what was arranged is manifest;

third (3), from the fact that none of the men dwelling in Cyprus, whether old or young, know the contents of the false testament or the other unholy writings which are falsely circulated as being of Epiphanius;

fourth (4), from the fact that the title of the book was long ago falsified, in which the name of Epiphanius was substituted in place of the previously written name Epiphanides;

fifth, from the fact that nowhere at all, in the works written by Epiphanius against the heresies (5), is it said that the church ever accepted idolatrous institutions, although he discoursed much concerning images from outside and idols.

Sixth: he nowhere calls the idols 'dead', as though they had never lived — as he writes in the treatise Against the Collyridians — whereas the Epiphanides, on the contrary, calls them 'dead' everywhere.

Seventh: from the genuine letter written to the emperor Theodosius for the purpose of expelling the heresies in Cyprus, in which there is not contained what the false letter contains.

Eighth: from the unlawful fasting kept every Sabbath, which was taken over from the abominable Marcion.

Ninth: from the types of the Nazoreans, which Epiphanius, in his work Against the Massalians, establishes at length to have arisen of old with reference to Christ.

But the opposing [forged letter] says that those who attempt to connect types with Christ have erred — as is contained in the fabricated letter to Theodosius.

Tenth: from the heresy of the Docetists, which Epiphanius denounces at great length, proclaiming — in accordance with the mind of the Church — the perfect and undeceiving incarnation of God the Word; whereas he [the forger], as though heading their doctrine of illusion, speaks in concert with them.

Eleventh: from the fact that what is written in the letter to John, bishop of Aelia, does not agree with what has been composed concerning the Life of Epiphanius, as has been shown therein.

Twelfth: from the fact that the sacred iconographic depiction is conspicuously displayed in all the churches throughout Cyprus.

From these, then, and from the rest already set forth above, it is evident that the teacher of apostasy is a stranger to the divine wisdom of the Christians.

And since the champion of the heretical battle-line has, through his own madness and audacity, suffered an extraordinary fall, it follows that the whole abominable and unholy phalanx has likewise been shattered and cast down together with him — just as one might see, in the case of a general fallen in battle at the enemy's hand, the army perishing together with him.

From which it has resulted that the baseness of falsehood is darkened, while the brilliance of truth flashes forth, and the Church of Christ, bearing trophies, has obtained the prizes of victory.

It would now be timely to add next what seems fitting and worth saying.

And indeed let it now be said, that it is written:

All things are plain to those who understand, and right to those who find knowledge; and moreover: The ways of the Lord are straight, and the righteous will walk in them, but the ungodly will stumble in them.

With this aim — to direct one's own heart toward the straight and salvific word, and to walk without turning aside along the smooth and royal path that leads straight ahead, and to shun the steep and impassable by-paths — one may perceive that the idle babble of those smuggled-in and falsely-credited teachers, whom certain people, cherishing them as their own, have embraced and drawn to themselves, possesses discord and incompatibility both with one another and with the teaching of the Spirit, since they proceed from a contrary spirit, and for this reason must be dismissed and disregarded.

But the sacred discourses of the illustrious leaders of the Church — among whom it would not be right to exclude the God-bearing Epiphanius, treated as though outdone in renown, from that glorious assembly, since he shines forth with the very same glory as they do, even though he is often plotted against by outsiders — shining likewise with light, kindle for us from on high the rays of the divine dogmas, resounding with a great and lofty proclamation.

For, being supplied from one and the same source — the grace of the Holy Spirit — they preserve unanimity and likeness of character in all things, both within themselves and toward one another.

But they openly expose to shame the unevenness and incoherence of the false statements that have been wickedly and impiously heaped together and concocted by the outsiders.

Since, then, Christ is burdensome to them, both when he comes to mind and when he is beheld in an image, these dazed fools have lowered themselves into disjointed and unfitting inquiries.

Having forsaken their own uprightness and having chosen instead a foreign crookedness, they are initiated by such late-born fathers and heterodox teachers, being newly schooled in the deceitful and thievish doctrine.

They have taken up the easily-besetting sin of impiety, publicly parading the adulterated and stultified state of their feeble judgment.

It was not possible for them to establish anything whatsoever concerning the matters about which they supposed they had contended; rather, they have labored in vain, having spent that boundless toil.

For neither from the teaching of the God-inspired oracles nor from the teachings of the Fathers did they have the strength to derive any support for their own ill-counsel.

Rather, having disregarded the whole of the Old and New Scripture — or having misused it foolishly and impiously to suit their own heretical preference — and having spurned the words of the Fathers, they have sinned against Christ and the evangelical proclamation.

For they had the father of lies speaking within themselves.

What, then, follows from these things? That it necessarily and inescapably follows that our doctrines prevail in every respect — doctrines which possess the advocacy, strength, and confirmation both of the divine oracles of the Spirit, and of the ministers of the Gospel, and of the ancient and secure tradition among Christians, and of truth itself, and which have thus from the beginning been proper to the Church.

I think it better also to add this to what has been said: that if their argument had any force, and if some spark of truth were somehow dimly present in the doctrines they propound, it would surely have existed somewhere also in the other hierarchies, preserved and known.

But as it is, this can nowhere be recognized.

For both the Eastern and the Western realms continue alike to cherish this very evangelical and apostolic proclamation.

And never, in any other authority or realm where there are Christians, has that unlawful, illegal doctrine — alien to Christian piety — been found to have sprung up and taken hold; nor have those wicked and abominable compositions come to be so much as mentioned — save only in this enslaved and subjugated realm, in which there prevails the passionate and materialistic mindset — earthly, boastful, and arrogant — of those who are turned about and grovel among the things of the earth; where reign the love of power, self-love, the love of pleasure, the love of glory or vainglory, the enjoyment of everything agreeable to desire, the wanting of everyone to rule and not even to be ruled by God himself, and the acquisition and procurement of human glory — or, to speak more justly, of shame — together with contempt and disregard for the divine glory.

Hence the whole subject populace, suffering harm, is forced to submit to the doctrines and wishes proceeding from that quarter.

For the sake of which a living weapon has been forged — assembled, in appearance, for the purpose of bodyguarding, but in truth devised for the plundering of the Church of Christ.

I think it is not out of place also to say this at present: that it is the custom of those who choose heresy to be audacious against well-established and correct doctrines, dragging them about to suit their own opinion and twisting them according to their own will, thus falsifying and corrupting what has been spoken by the Spirit in a manner befitting God.

This indeed the Jews themselves, and the Manichaeans hateful to God, have also impiously dared to do, both against the ancient legislation and against the new sacred proclamation of the Gospel.

But the word of our divine wisdom will say: 'Even if an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let him be anathema.'

What need is there to speak of things outside the Church? Even if a discourse circulates inscribed with the name of the teachers of the Church, or any citation whatsoever, yet if it is incompatible and discordant with the tradition and teaching of the Catholic and Apostolic Church, it will be judged — as corrupted and falsified — useless, spurious, and to be rejected.

And this brings no prejudice whatsoever to our pious confession.

For an inviolable and immovable statute has been established, commanding us to hold fast to the traditions which we received, both those that are written and those that are unwritten — which possess no less the same authority as the written ones.

To transgress it is a rash act, alien to our piety.

For it brings the gravest peril to the soul, and sets one as far as possible from the kingdom of heaven.

All those, therefore, who have their faculties trained to discern the good from what is not such, preserving a sound and unimpaired mind, and possessing a firm and well-founded faith — let them choose the proper and correct doctrine of piety, and let them nobly thrust away the foreign and perverted doctrine.

And let them remain in the right and good confession, not turning aside to the right or to the left, but proceeding along the royal road.

For those who err from this teaching, and speak discordantly from foreign sources, and mutter things more insignificant than the insignificant, prove to be base and slavish in judgment and understanding, and are seen to be easily led astray and unstable with regard to the faith.

They shall render an account for the things they wrongly thought and did, and shall fall into inescapable accusations before divine justice, undergoing inescapable punishment.

Let us be earnest not to experience these things, but rather, through a pure life and correct doctrines, to be deemed worthy of the divine loving-kindness, and to attain the good things laid up for those who choose to think and act in this manner — in Christ Jesus our Lord.

To whom all glory, honor, and veneration are due, together with the Father who is co-eternal and supremely good, and the all-holy and life-giving Spirit, now and always and unto the ages of ages.