But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling-block before the eyes of the children of Israel, to eat things offered to idols and to commit fornication; so you too have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. Likewise do penance.' He says this to be the doctrine of the Nicolaitans which was also Balaam's, that is, idolatry and fornication, over which he commands penance to be done. And because he speaks to men of the Church, he shows it, saying: 'These things says the Spirit to the churches.' But that there is fruit of penance, he signifies thus: 'To him who conquers,' he says, 'I will give to eat of the hidden manna'—so that through penance one may conquer sins.
For what is it to repent, except to grieve over things past and thenceforth to refrain from those things which one had committed? 'And to the angel of the church of Thyatira write: These things says the Son of God, who has his eyes like a flame of fire, and his feet like fine brass: I know your works and love and faith and ministry and patience, and your latter works greater than the former. But I have against you, that you suffer the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and teaches and seduces my servants to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed to idols. And I gave her time to repent, and she would not do penance for her fornication.
Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they do penance for their deeds, and I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he who searches the reins and hearts, and I will give to each one of you according to his works. But to you I say, to the rest who are at Thyatira, who do not have this doctrine and do not know the depths of Satan, as they say: I cast upon you no other burden; nevertheless hold fast what you have until I come. And to him who conquers and keeps my works until the end I will give power over the nations.' Under one letter given to the church of Thyatira he confounds and explodes the twofold error of the Novatian heresy;
for he both promises the fruit of penance to those who repent on account of idolatry, and shows that in one church the evil do not contaminate the good, since they were certainly of one communion. For he was not writing to those placed outside the church when he said: 'He who has ears,' he says, 'let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.' For in like manner the apostle Paul: 'But we know,' he says, 'that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law'; and in another place: 'For why,' he says, 'should I judge those who are outside?' Therefore he provokes the men of one church partly to penance, partly he commends them, saying: 'But to you I say, to the rest who are at Thyatira, whoever do not have this doctrine'—that is, of idolatry—'hold fast what you have until I come';
this is, 'persevere until the end,' because he who shall persevere until the end, he shall be saved. In like manner also he who shall persevere in evil shall be condemned. And through this, just as the righteousness of the righteous will not deliver him in the day in which he shall have erred, so too the iniquity of the unrighteous will not harm him, when he shall have converted himself. Therefore he said: 'He who sacrifices to gods shall be uprooted; but if he converts himself, he shall live the life.' So also is that which the Lord says: 'He who denies me, I will deny him. But if he converts himself, he cannot be denied by him whom he confesses.' Hence it is that he said in the psalm: 'No living man shall be justified in my sight.' For this sentence is imputed to a man, in which he dies.
For because in the church the evil were to be together with the good until the judgment of God, the Lord himself also signified this, saying: 'The kingdom of heaven is like a net cast into the sea, which gathers of every kind of fish. But when it had come to the shore, they separated the good into their vessels, but the bad they cast outside. So shall it be at the consummation of the age: the angels shall go forth and shall separate from the kingdom of God all scandals and those who work iniquity.' This same cause is signified also in him who was found among those reclining at table not having a wedding garment, whom alone he shows cast out from the assembly of the church, because the crime of his unworthiness did not defile the rest;
and because this unworthiness of his was made manifest, in that he did not have a wedding garment, he was made evident to the rest. For they saw that he among them was clothed otherwise. Hence it is that the apostle Paul says: 'But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and earthenware.' He put this on account of Hymenaeus and Philetus, who, although they were of the church, perversely held wrong views concerning the resurrection, just as some of the church of the Corinthians denied the resurrection. But this great house Novatian signifies is to be understood as the world, not the church, lest he be compelled to assert the evil together with the good, the clean with the unclean, in one church. Which I think is easily refuted. For in one house all are under one name;
for although they are diverse in their morals, yet they are reckoned under the one name of their lord in their profession. But this world contains men of diverse profession, so that they profess to have unequal things—both gods and lords. You see, therefore, that this could not have been said of the world, but of the church, in which those living under one name are diverse in their conduct. Which indeed I perceive Novatian was not ignorant of; but because he had no just complaints for his secession, lest he should openly blush, he forged for himself certain arguments through a bad interpretation of the law, by which he might strive to excuse and to cover the envious will of his malice. Finally, he answered to these things which we have said, saying:
'I do not refuse that penance is to be done for committed idolatry, but I do not dare to forgive, because this crime is to be forgiven by him against whom it was committed.' But this he answered with deceit. For he is exposed by his own interpretations, by which his fraud appears. For when he says: 'It is written, He who denies me, I also will deny him, and he cannot lie whose words they are,' he shows the penance which he says is to be done to be empty and fruitless. For if the sentence has been given, and he who gave it does not deceive, why do you compel a man to be tortured with lamentations and groans, the effect of which thing you either deny, or confess that you by no means know?
For everyone who gives counsel to another gives it, of course, to this end: that he may proclaim what profit one can derive from it. But because you, Novatian, profess this deceitfully, you say penance is to be done in order to mock the minds of men. For knowing openly that this cannot be denied, you act subtly, because not in word but in effect you cut off penance. You say, of course, that everyone who has sacrificed to idols sins against the Holy Spirit, for whom you contend, through the words of the law, that this sin is forgiven neither here nor in the world to come. In what manner, therefore, do you say penance for this offense is to be done, except that you deceive, as I have shown above? But you are wont to wish to cover this fraud with another deceit, saying that in the same sense Peter the apostle also said to Simon:
'Do penance for this malice of yours, if perhaps it may be forgiven you.' But the apostle Peter, beholding the venomous and most bitter malice of the man, for that reason gave him a doubtful answer. For what mortal ever sinned so as to wish to buy the gift of God with money? Therefore that answer was given to malice, not to error. For this is the thing that has no remedy, since it is neither error nor a necessity by which it might be excused, so that one might be able to come to pardon through weeping. If, therefore, any have been found in such a cause, let them hear what Simon also heard. For the apostle Peter shows why he answered doubtfully, saying: 'For I see you to be in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.'
If, therefore, in so grave a cause, and one which seems to be without remedy, the answer was doubtful, there is no ambiguity that to those who sin against God through error or some necessity, it can be forgiven, if they do fitting penance. For this has been granted to ecclesiastical law by its Author: that it both give penance and, after penance, receive back. There is also another thing which Novatian reprehends: 'Why,' he says, 'do they hand over the body of the Lord to those whom they know to be sinners?'—as though they themselves could be accusers, who are judges. But if they have been accused and made manifest, they will be able to be cast out. For what judge takes on the person of an accuser?
For if the Lord himself endured Judas, whom he knew to be a thief and to carry off the things that were put in, and did not cast out him who had not been accused, we ought to use this example, that it be not lawful to cast out one who has not been publicly exposed. For neither does it befit a righteous man to accuse anyone. Whence Joseph, 'since he was,' it says, 'a righteous man and was unwilling to expose her, wished to put her away secretly.' Judas, therefore, since he was among the disciples, did not defile them by his contagion—they who certainly dissented from his thefts—and, receiving the Eucharist among them, did not pollute the innocent; nor did the Lord deny his body to him whom he knew to be a robber, because, according to the apostle, 'he who takes unworthily takes a sword to himself'—whence neither did he turn himself away from his kiss.
For sinners defile those who consent to their evils. Whence it is said: 'You saw a thief and you ran with him.' Hence it is that the apostle rebukes the people of the Corinthians, because they did not correct or shun that man who publicly had his father's wife, in order that he might amend himself, saying: 'Do you not know that a little leaven corrupts the whole lump?' For since there was no leader or one set over the church, it belonged to the people to correct him whom they saw conducting himself so basely and obscenely among them. And through this the apostle rebukes them as though consenting to his crime. For in this matter there was no need of an accuser or of witnesses;
for he publicly had his stepmother in place of a wife. And so, as far as pertains to our cause, we have set forth our reasoning, not accusing others, but defending ourselves. But I call to witness the conscience of the Novatian, who always accuses us, whether he knows all whom he has with him to be holy. But he is so angry with us that he even denies that we are Christians, although he knows that we have been baptized in that same faith of which he himself presumes. Certainly profession and life make a Christian. If, therefore, you see a man profess those things which you do, and not be unlike you in life, why do you deny that he is what you are? Certainly he who says 'the Lord Jesus' says it in the Holy Spirit; for he says a true thing. For all truth is from God. Why do you not assent to one speaking the truth, but deny him?
You contradict one who confesses God, not by reason but by rage. Do you not appear to be an enemy of God, you who resist a man professing the truth about Him? When a pagan hears someone declaring that idols are gods, does he deny that man to be a pagan? Why then do you deny to be a Christian one whom you hear professing words of sound faith, when you read: 'With the heart one believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation'? Yet you, like an enemy, in what through anger you fail to see, fight against God, denying that this man who confesses has salvation, though the Lord says: 'Whoever confesses me, him also will I confess.' Did He say, 'If a Novatian confess me'? But you so construct this argument, that you may seem to defend your own position, namely that he be saved who is not merely a Christian, but who is also a Novatian.
But if confession made in Christ gives salvation, then wherever and among whomever this confession is intact, it has salvation. And so, if the tradition of this confession is corrupted among us, or its meaning altered, you rightly accuse us. For if it remains in us just as also in you, then in denying us you appear to deny yourself as well. But you accuse the ministers of the faith; grant that it were true, though you cannot prove it. Yet those who have heard from them—is what they heard true or false? For not even if a corrupt man speaks the truth will it cease to be true, because it was spoken by a corrupt man, since the cause of one's conduct is one thing and that of one's profession another. Does not the persecutor, out of hatred of the Christian name, persecute the profession, not the conduct?
In the first place, knowing that this furthers our religion—namely, that we confess ourselves to be Christians—the sacrilegious persecutor believes us as we confess what he does not wish to hear, because he hates it. But you, since you are of the same profession and seal, do not believe us when we confess the very things that you yourself confess. If you knew us to be reborn in any way other than you were reborn, you would rightly not believe that we are what you are. To what end do I suffer persecution from a sacrilegious man, if I am not what you are? For if I professed of myself what you say of me, I should not suffer persecution. In the end, I am to be believed concerning myself, not you. For the judge seeks my own profession, not yours about me.
Why then, when I confess, do you deny it, since in this matter what is true is that not another's testimony but my own profession is required, whether for me or against me? I wished that you should be examined under torture for the Name against me, so that it might appear whether, while I confessed the truth, you denied it against me, or whose word should be believed. For you propose this by craft, that you may seem to have a just cause for schism. For you are not ignorant that in this matter my own testimony concerning myself is required, not another's, and that this is held true which I shall have confessed, not what another shall have denied.
It is therefore plain that those are free who, out of love for Christ, not scrutinizing the deeds of men, run together to obtain faith in Him, approving in those ministers that which they know to be useful to themselves—that is, that they may receive the tradition of the faith which is of Christ. For whoever thinks that, besides the ministry, anything else of the man is necessary in this matter, does injury to the tradition; for he thinks too little of the grace of God. For whenever he denies that the gift of God can profit the one devoted to it unless the merit of the man be present, he makes the man either superior or equal to the tradition itself, though the merit of the man is far removed from this office, just as the apostle Paul says concerning this very thing: 'I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.'
And so neither he that plants is anything, nor he that waters, but God that gives the increase. How then in this matter is anything to be hoped for from man, when the words which are handed down have been given by God? Let us therefore see what it will profit, if the minister be of good merit, or what it will harm, if he be of bad merit. The one approaching desires to hear the words of God, lending faith to which he believes he receives salvation. What does it matter in this affair whether he who hands down the solemn words be of good or bad life, when the devout faith of the recipient is sought, that he may believe with his whole soul the things which he hears? Surely, if he who hands them down be of bad life, will he cause an impediment to the recipient, so that he should not believe the things he hears, which are to be believed—as though that man's sin should enter into his heart so that he should not believe?
Or must God, who is just, despise one devoted to Him on account of the sin of the man whom He Himself suffers to be in office? Not even a man judges so, who, as is well known, is often deceived or partial. If it were so, and a man were to plead his cause, would he not say to God: 'Who this man is, on whose account You despise me, I know not. I approached him for Your sake, because he was called Your priest. You I sought, You I desired, You I trusted; from the man I hoped for nothing. Why then should his evils harm me—a man I would not have known unless I had sought You? If his goods could profit me, it would perhaps seem just that his evils also should harm me. But just as his goods, had I believed with doubt, profited me nothing, so also his evils ought to harm nothing to me who believe well.
For I gave faith to his words, which are said to be given by You, and which You inspire, You speak, concerning You they make promise; to this man I believed nothing about himself nor his deeds, but to the faith which is from You I joined myself.' According to these things, the cause of the believer is intact. For receive the priests after the manner of advocates. Surely, if an advocate be of bad life, shall judgment be pronounced against his client? This is the office of the advocate, that according to the order of law he should plead the cause of his client: can his life, if it be base, harm the cause of his client? For the person of the advocate can neither harm nor profit; for of whatever sort the cause shall have been, so shall the response be given to it. So also are those who wish to become Christians.
They approach the priest, they declare to him their vows; he speaks the words of ecclesiastical law. If the vows are true, they are received by the Judge. In this how can the priest either harm or profit, seeing that he does not even know the cause of his client? For it is known to God the Judge alone with what mind each one approaches. It is therefore the part of the priest to perform the office delegated to him, but the part of the Judge either to accept or to reject the cause of the client. For He Himself is found to have said: 'Daughter, your faith has made you whole.' You see therefore that no one is saved by another's help, but each one by his own faith. For this God has decreed for faith, that, if it does not doubt, it may obtain everything it has willed.
Yet you, not as a friend but as an enemy of Christ, have gathered a people under your own name, so that they should not be Christians unless they be Novatians—though the apostle condemns it, if anyone should say he is of Paul or of any other. But you, judging yourself superior, have set your own name above the name of Christ, as though He were not sufficient to protect His own Church. CHAPTER 103. SINCE IT IS ESTABLISHED THAT IN LEVITICUS THE LORD COMMANDED CONCERNING THE OFFERING OF SACRIFICES, HOW IS IT THAT, BEING ANGRY AT THE PEOPLE, HE SAYS THAT HE DID NOT COMMAND THEIR FATHERS THAT THEY SHOULD OFFER LIBATIONS OR SACRIFICES OR HOLOCAUSTS? FOR HE SPEAKS THUS THROUGH THE PROPHET JEREMIAH: 'THUS SAYS THE LORD:
GATHER YOUR HOLOCAUSTS TOGETHER WITH YOUR SACRIFICES AND EAT THE FLESH, FOR I SPOKE NOT TO YOUR FATHERS NOR COMMANDED THEM, IN THE DAY THAT I BROUGHT THEM OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT, CONCERNING HOLOCAUSTS AND SACRIFICES.' If you consider deeply, there is no ground to raise a question about this matter; nor should you think the Lord lied or changed, so as to command and afterwards to deny it. For concerning sacrifices and libations or holocausts of this kind nothing is found to have been commanded—those concerning which He testifies that He spoke nothing. Note then the two kinds of sacrifices: one which was commanded to be offered according to each several kind, and another which was called voluntary.
That sacrifice, then, which was prescribed to be offered according to its various kinds, whether for sins or for the firstborn—what was to be offered, and of what sort, and in what manner—was commanded. But the voluntary sacrifice was certainly not commanded, because it was left to free choice, so that if anyone wished to offer, he might offer what seemed good to him; for these were votive sacrifices. And because they offered these carelessly and improvidently, not considering—since one who offers ought to offer chosen gifts to a more powerful one—therefore it is said to them: 'I did not command you concerning these; but if you wish, you ought to offer the things that are worthy.' For so is found also Cain to have sinned, since he did not consider that those things ought to be offered to God which are more excellent.
For when they said they offered these things to propitiate God, in that very thing they provoked God to indignation, so that in the very thing in which they said they were doing well, they sinned, offering to God unworthy holocausts. Hence He says in the prophet Malachi: 'If you bring to the sacrifice the blind or the lame or the sick, it is not good. But offer it to your governor or your prince—will he accept you?' says the Lord almighty. Hence it is that in Isaiah God complains about the same matter, saying: 'To what end is the multitude of your holocausts to me? Nor have you honored me in your sacrifices. For I did not make you for this, that you should labor in incense, or that you should buy me incense with silver; nor did I desire the fat of your sacrifices; but in your sins and iniquities you stood before me.'
It is therefore plain that complaints arose because, when they offered voluntary sacrifices, they did not honor God in them, offering unworthy things, since this surely was not a matter of necessity. For if they had been commanded, they would have seemed to offer of necessity whatever they offered; but since they offered these of their own choice, they ought to have offered such things by which they might show God's favor toward them. But because their mind strayed in the desire of idols, they did these things thoughtlessly. Therefore they are reproached on a twofold ground, because both, acting wickedly, they dared to offer to God, and they offered things that were unworthy—since wicked deeds are not redeemed by sacrifices, but by lamentation and mercy. Hence David says, when he had sinned: 'If You had wished it, I would surely have given sacrifices;
You will not delight in holocausts. The sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit, and a contrite and humbled heart God does not despise.' Likewise Samuel says to Saul, who, when he had despised the commandment of the Lord, thought that God could be appeased by sacrifice: 'God,' he says, 'desires not sacrifice so much as that His voice be obeyed.' And the Scripture says: 'I desire mercy rather than sacrifice,' because, when they were unjust and unmerciful, they supposed that God was made propitious by offerings—just as even now some, spurning justice, think they are praised by their offerings. The offering is therefore good, if justice be preserved and mercy not neglected, since what we ask for ourselves we ought to grant also to others. CHAPTER 104. ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE.
Knowing that the Jewish war against Himself was to come, the Lord told His disciples to prepare swords for themselves. And when this was done, when the war had begun under the leadership of Simon the Iscariot, the apostle Peter, seeing the enemies rising up, drew his sword and cut off the ear of the servant of the priests. Then the Lord told Peter to put the sword back into its sheath: 'For everyone,' He says, 'who takes the sword shall perish by the sword.' To what end did He command swords to be prepared, who forbade them to strike, marking out as guilty even of death the man who should strike with the sword—though surely the apostle does not seem to have struck unjustly? For as far as it pertains, he struck the man whom he saw armed against himself. For he ought to have resisted the ungrateful servants armed to kill the Lord.
If you examine the several members of the case, the reason of which you wish to be disclosed, you will find also other points which you may inquire about beyond these statements. For what need was there that He, who relied on spiritual power, should command carnal swords to be prepared; and that He, who before on the way had commanded that neither bag nor money nor staff be carried, should now command to be held those very things which He before forbade? Let us therefore begin to explain why He commanded swords to be prepared and forbade striking. For not only on account of the enemies, but also on account of His own disciples, did He command arms to be procured for the coming war. For a new and marvelous thing was about to happen, that He who worked new and unheard-of signs should so suddenly be humbled, as to be subjected both to scourgings and to death.
Therefore, lest He should seem to suffer these things as one without foreknowledge, and as one from whom power had perhaps departed, He foretold all these things in such a way that He would not be in doubt about them, but, foreknowing, would prepare Himself against them; and, because He was humbled by His own will, He commanded that the enemies should not be resisted too fiercely—thereby showing that He was still the same who He had been—so that, even when already arrested, He restored the ear which had been cut off, and that He gave back what had fallen by the working of the sword. Not indeed as a carnal physician, but as the Maker of the body, He refashioned His own work that had been mutilated. For physicians cannot restore the cut-off members of the body. But that the power of God might be seen to be not diminished in Him, but to be present just as it had been, and that He might confirm also that which He had said:
I have power to lay down my soul, and I have power to take it up again.' For this cause, then, He ordered swords to be prepared, yet did not order killing. Now this remains: why, beholding the deed of the apostle Peter, He said that he who used the sword should perish by the sword, although he does not seem to have struck unjustly. For, as is signified in Luke, it was with the Lord Himself permitting that he struck, and thus, being forbidden, he heard these words. For it was permitted to this end, that they might be seen both able to avenge themselves, but unwilling, and that the power might be shown to remain in Him in whom it had been; so that in both respects there might be no doubt that they were able to avenge themselves, while the enemies might hold for certain that the power had been given them by Him to do these things. For He did not appear conquered, but as one delivering Himself to their will.
Why then was the sentence given, that he who takes the sword should perish by the sword, except because it is lawful for no one, save the judge, to kill anyone with the sword? But to the apostle Peter it was permitted thus far, that he should inflict pain, not that he should kill. For hearing this, that he should not strike again, he learned besides that it is no longer lawful for those already made Christians to kill—since to those placed in mercy it is not lawful to use harshly the law of the world's justice that has been entrusted. But that which He seems to have commanded before, to the disciples going on the way, that they should take nothing on the way, is for the cause of peace and the grace of the virtues and the affability of teaching. For what need was there to take anything on the way, to whom, for the sake of the signs, all things were to be offered?
But when the time came in which He permitted Himself to suffer, on account of which strife, indeed war, was rather threatening, He commands the disciples to be armed—not that He who willed to suffer might fight back, but, as I have said, that He might show Himself both foreknowing of this matter and having His passion in His own power, while He humbled Himself for the cause of human salvation, which will be told in its place. CHAPTER 105. THAT THE GOSPEL AGREES WITH PROPHECY. Since at the first coming of the Lord it was foretold that the sun would be darkened in His passion at the same hour in which it is proved to have happened—that is, at noon; for so it is written in the prophet Amos: 'And it shall be in that day, says the Lord, the sun shall set at noon, and the day of light shall grow dark over the earth'—,
On that day, therefore, the sun was darkened from the sixth hour until the ninth hour, and thus the prophecy of the aforesaid prophet was fulfilled. For an image of this thing, which is to come at the second coming of the Lord, was shown in the passion of the Lord, because at the end, when the Lord shall have begun to come to judge the world, the luminaries shall be released from their office, the Lord saying: 'In those days the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give its brightness.' This indeed the prophet Joel also did not pass over, so that, when it is signified by Joel, it might without doubt be believed to be fulfilled. For thus he said: 'The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and manifest day of the Lord shall come.' This, so far as appears, agrees rather with the second coming;