Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 5 part 112/118

For by some means or other the other man has strayed away, and though most diligently sought among our people, he could in no way be found, most blessed lord and deservedly venerable father. But that hymn, which they say belongs to our Lord Jesus Christ, which above all things has stirred your reverence, is wont to be found in the apocryphal writings. These writings are not peculiar to the Priscillianists alone; other heretics too, in the impiety of the empty error of several sects, make use of them, though they hold differing views among themselves. Hence each of them has followed his own various heresies, yet they hold these writings in common amid their diversity, and those especially are accustomed to frequent them who do not accept the old Law and the canonical prophets.

For they deny, like the Manichaeans, that these things pertain to the good God and to Christ his Son. So too the Marcionites and the rest, to whom this damnable blasphemy was pleasing. These men do not accept everything even in the canonical Scriptures of the New Testament, that is, in the Gospels and in the apostolic writings, but only what they wish; and they choose which books they will accept, while rejecting others. Moreover, within each individual book they mark off passages that are thought to suit their errors, and they hold the rest in those books to be false. For certain Manichaeans repudiate the canonical book whose title is "the Acts of the Apostles," because they fear its most evident truth.

There it appears that the Holy Spirit was sent, who was promised by the Lord Jesus Christ in the truth of the Gospel. For under the name of that very Spirit, from whom they are utterly estranged, they deceive the untaught hearts of men, asserting with astonishing blindness that this same promise of the Lord was fulfilled in their heresiarch Manichaeus. This too those heretics do who are called Cataphrygians, saying that through certain madmen — namely Montanus and Priscilla, whom they hold as their own prophets — there came the Holy Spirit whom the Lord promised he would send. The Priscillianists, however, accept everything, both canonical and apocryphal alike;

but whatever things are against them they pervert into the sense of their own depravity, by an interpretation now cunning and crafty, now ridiculous and dull — and not even in such a way that they believe those very things which they expound to men outside their sect to be true. Otherwise they would either be catholics, or not far removed from the truth, if in those apocryphal writings themselves they found catholic meanings, or seemed willing to find them. But since they themselves hold other views with their own, and among their own teach or learn things they dare not disclose (because these are truly wicked and detestable), they nevertheless proclaim the catholic faith to those whom they fear — not the faith they hold, but the faith under which they hide.

For perhaps some heretics can be found more unclean than these, but none is comparable to them in deceit. Others indeed, as human vices go, lie out of the custom or weakness of this life; but these men are reported to have a precept in the very wicked teaching of their heresy, that for the sake of concealing their doctrines they should lie even with false oaths. Those who have had experience of them, and had themselves belonged to them and by God's mercy were freed from them, even recall the very words of this precept: "Swear, forswear, but betray not the secret." Accordingly, that it may be seen without any difficulty how they do not think of the apocryphal writings what they pretend to expound, the reasoning must be considered which they seem to offer.

namely, that to these same writings divine authority should be attributed, so that — what is more wicked — they even prefer them to the canonical Scriptures. You have their words set down thus in that book: "The hymn of the Lord, which he said secretly to the holy apostles his disciples, since it is written in the Gospel: When the hymn had been said, he went up into the mountain"; and that "it is not placed in the canon on account of those who think according to themselves and not according to the Spirit and truth of God; and because it is written: It is good to hide the secret of a king, but to reveal the works of God is honorable."

This is their great reason why this hymn is not in the canon: because, as it were, like the secret of a king, it had to be hidden from those who think according to the flesh and not according to the Spirit and truth of God. Therefore the canonical Scriptures do not pertain to the secret of the king, which they think must be hidden from those men, and they were written down for those who think according to the flesh and not according to the Spirit and truth of God. And what is this other than to say that the holy canonical Scriptures neither savor of the Spirit of God nor pertain to the truth of God? Who could hear this? Who could endure the horror of so great an impiety?

Or if the canonical Scriptures are understood spiritually by the spiritual and carnally by the carnal, why is not this hymn also in the canon, if the spiritual too understand it spiritually and the carnal carnally? Then again, what reason is there that these men try to expound this same hymn according to the canonical Scriptures? For if it is for this reason not in the canonical Scriptures, because those Scriptures were written for the carnal, while this hymn was written for the spiritual, how is a hymn that does not pertain to the carnal expounded from Scriptures that pertain to carnal men? For if, for example, it is for this reason sung and said in that hymn: "I wish to loose and I wish to be loosed" —

because, as these men expound these words, the Lord Christ looses us from the converse of this world, so that we may not again be bound in it — these things we have indeed learned in the canonical Scriptures, namely that the Lord looses us from the converse of the world, and that we ought not to be bound up in it again. For what else is: "You have broken my bonds asunder"? What else is: "The Lord loosens the fettered"? And the Apostle admonishes those already loosed, saying: "Stand fast therefore, and be not again held under the yoke of bondage"; and the Apostle Peter says:

"For if, having fled the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in these and overcome, their latter state is become worse for them than the former" — thus showing that, once we have been loosed, we ought not to be bound to the world again. Since, therefore, these things are manifest in the canon — whether from those testimonies which I have recalled, or from very many others — and do not cease to be read and preached, what is the reason that these men say this hymn (where the words, to speak according to them, are set most obscurely of all) is for that reason not in the canon, lest it be revealed to the carnal, when rather we see revealed in the canon, but in this hymn wholly veiled, the very things which they themselves assert?

For, as is more to be believed, these are not those very things at all, but some others I know not what, which by such an exposition they veil much more, and are afraid to reveal. For assuredly, if by those words this were signified, that the Lord looses us from the converse of the world and that we may not again be bound in it, it would not be said: "I wish to loose and I wish to be loosed," but rather: "I wish to loose, and those whom I have loosed I wish to be bound." Or if he transfigures his members, that is, his faithful, into himself — as he says: "I was hungry, and you gave me to eat" — he would rather say: "I wish to be loosed, and I do not wish to be bound." Or if for this reason he himself looses and is himself loosed, because when the Head is loosed, the members are loosed which he was persecuting, to whom he cried from heaven: "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"

— this indeed the expositor of these words did not say; but even if he had said it, we reply to him what we replied a little before, namely that we read these things in the canonical Scriptures, there we understand them, thence we confirm them, thence we daily preach them. What then is the reason that this hymn is said to have been withdrawn from the carnal, so that it might not be placed in the canon, when what is covered in it is uncovered in the canon? Or are they so foolish — nay rather, are they so mad — as to dare to say that the secret of the king is hidden from the spiritual in this hymn, but is manifest to the carnal in the canon? This can also be said about the earlier words of the same hymn, where it says: "I wish to save and I wish to be saved."

For if, as they themselves expound, these words signify this — that we are saved by the Lord through baptism, and that we save, that is, we keep within us the Spirit given to us through baptism — does not the canonical Scripture proclaim this same meaning, where we read: "He saved us through the washing of regeneration," and where it is said to us: "Do not quench the Spirit"? How then is this hymn for that reason not in the canon, lest it become known to the carnal, when that which is obscure in it shines clear in the canon — unless because, under this or that exposition which they hold out to any others, they try to conceal what they themselves inwardly think here?

Yet they are so blind that they even bring forward certain words from the canon itself to expound the hymn which for this reason they say is not in the canon, lest the secret of the king should be betrayed to the carnal. What then do they do with things more clearly set down in the canon, by which the obscurities in this hymn are laid open? For if, as they say, that is to be understood in this hymn where it says "I wish to be born," which is written in the canonical epistle of the apostle Paul: "Whom I bring to birth again, until Christ be formed in you"; if that is to be understood in this hymn where it says "I wish to sing," which is written in the canonical psalm: "Sing to the Lord a new song"; if that is to be understood in this hymn where it says "Dance, all of you" —

which is written in the Gospel song: "We have piped to you and you have not danced"; if this is to be understood in this hymn: "I wish to mourn; beat yourselves, all of you," which is written in the Gospel song: "We have wailed to you and you have not lamented"; if "I wish to adorn and I wish to be adorned" signifies this in this hymn, which is written in the canon: "that Christ may dwell through faith in your hearts" and: "You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you"; if what it says in this hymn: "I am a lamp to you, you who see me" signifies this, which is written in the canonical psalm: "In your light we shall see light"; if what it says in this hymn: "I am a door to you, whoever knocks at me" signifies this, which is read in the canonical psalm:

"Open to me the gates of righteousness; entering into them I shall confess to the Lord," and in another psalm: "Lift up your gates, O princes, and be lifted up, O eternal gates, and the King of glory shall enter in"; if what it says in this hymn: "You who see what I do, keep silent about my works" signifies this, which is written in the book of Tobit: "It is good to hide the secret of a king" — why is this hymn said not to be in the canon for the reason that the secret of the king may be hidden from the carnal, when the very things that are expounded in this hymn are read also in the canon, and are found there so manifest that through them the obscurities of that hymn are expounded, unless because they hold these expositions in which they may hide, while in the words of that hymn —

which they pretend to expound, they inwardly hold a meaning that they are afraid to expound to strangers? It would be tedious to demonstrate every point by argument; but from the things we have said it is very easy to consider the rest, and to see that those things which they say in the exposition of this hymn as good and honorable are also found in the canon. Hence that plea of theirs is no reasoning but an evasion — that the hymn was separated from the canon because the secret of the king had to be hidden from carnal men. Hence not without cause are they believed by these expositions not to wish to lay open what they read, but rather to cover over what they think.

Nor is it any wonder, seeing that they have believed the Lord Jesus himself, speaking not through the mouths of prophets or apostles or angels but through his own mouth, to have been a mocker rather than a teacher of truth. For to this very hymn they attribute divine authority, where some contriver of that hymn feigned that he had said: "By a word I mocked all things, and I was not mocked at all." Let these excellent "spiritual" men answer, if they can: where are we to go, to whom shall we open our ears, to whose word shall we in any way give credence, in whose promise shall we place our hope, if Christ mocked all things by a word, if the Almighty Master mocked all things by a word, if he who is the Only-begotten, the Word of God the Father, mocked all things by a word? What more shall I say concerning the lost —

these vain talkers and seducers of minds, first of their own and then of others, whom they have been able to associate with themselves in eternal destruction, as men predestined to ruin? I have written back to your reverence both much later than I had wished, and more at length than I had intended. You do excellently to guard vigilantly against the wolves; but labor also, with pastoral diligence, for the healing of the sheep, if perchance the wolves have injured or already wounded any — the Lord of shepherds himself assisting you. Letter 238. I had indeed wished, at your request and insistence — that you may deign to remember — nay rather, at your command (in keeping with the merit of your age and dignity), to confer a discourse concerning the Christian faith even in person, face to face, so far as the Lord should grant me the ability;

but because after the midday meal that displeased you which in the morning had pleased us between us — namely that our words should be taken down by notaries — lest you should further say (what I hear you do not keep silent about) that I did not dare to state my faith to you, receive by this letter what you yourself may read, and hand over to be read by whomever you wish, and to which, in turn, you yourself may reply in writing whatever you please. For it is unjust that anyone should wish to judge concerning another and be unwilling to be judged concerning himself.

And concerning our past agreement, which you were unwilling to fulfill at the appointed midday hour, it can easily be judged which of us lacked confidence in his own faith: whether he who wished it to be spoken yet feared to be held to it, or he who was so unwilling that it should be withdrawn from the judgment of those disputing, that he wished it committed to writing and even entrusted to the memory of readers, lest anyone, either thinking so through forgetfulness or provoked through disagreement, should say that something was not said by one of us which had been said, or was said which had not been said. For it is in such matters that those who are more eager for contention than for truth are wont to seek out hiding-places for their evil defense.

But this could be said neither by you nor by me, neither about you nor about me, if you had remained faithful to the agreement, that our words should be taken down and written; especially since you yourself, in those very words by which you declared your faith, as often as you repeated them, so often varied them — which I believe was done by no fraud but by forgetfulness. For at first you said that you believed "in God the Father Almighty, invisible, unbegotten, incomprehensible, and in Jesus Christ his Son, God born before the ages, through whom all things were made, and in the Holy Spirit."

When I had heard these things and replied that nothing had yet been said by you which was repugnant to my faith, and that therefore, if you had written them down, I too could subscribe to them, the matter was somehow brought to this point: that, having received a sheet, you wished to set forth in writing, in your own hand, those very things you had said. And when you had given this to me to read, I noticed that you had written less — namely "Father" — although you had written "God almighty, invisible, unbegotten, unborn." When I called attention to this, after not much altercation you added "Father"; and "incomprehensible" indeed, which you had said in words, you had passed over in writing, but no mention of this was made by me.

Then, when I had said that I was ready to subscribe, and that those words could still be mine as well, I first inquired — lest what had come into my mind should slip away — whether "the Father unbegotten" was anywhere read in the divine Scriptures. Now I did this because, at the outset of our discourse, when Arius and Eunomius had been mentioned (not by me but by my brother Alypius, who was asking which of them Auxentius had followed — Auxentius who a little before had been praised by you with no small commendation), you cried out anathema upon both Arius and Eunomius. Then straightway you demanded that we too anathematize the homoousion, as though there were any man called by this name, like Arius and Eunomius.

Then you vehemently insisted that we should show you this word in the Scriptures, and that you should immediately share it with us. It was answered by us that, since we were speaking in Latin and that was Greek, it must first be inquired what homoousion is, and then it should be demanded that it be shown in the holy books. But you, on the contrary, repeating the word itself again and again and invidiously bandying it about, and recalling that it had been written down in the councils of our elders, vehemently urged that we should show that very word which is homoousion in the holy books, while we again and again recalled that, since our tongue was not Greek, it must first be interpreted and expounded.

what homoousion is, and only then should it be sought in the divine writings, because even if perhaps the name itself were not found, yet the thing itself would be found. For what is more contentious than, when the matter is agreed upon, to wrangle about the name? Since therefore we had already conferred among ourselves about these things, after it had come to this — that you should write your faith, as I have recalled — although I saw nothing in those words contrary to our faith, and therefore said I was ready to subscribe, I inquired, as I have said, whether the Scripture of God contained this word, that the Father was "unbegotten"; and when you had answered that it was written, I asked more insistently that you would show it.

Then one of those who were present, as far as could be understood a partner in your faith, said to me: "What then? Do you say the Father is begotten?" I answered: "I do not say so." And he: "If then he is not begotten," said he, "surely he is unbegotten." To whom I said: "You see," said I, "that it can happen that even concerning a word which is not in the Scripture of God, a reason may nonetheless be rendered whereby it is shown rightly to be said. So then, homoousion also, which we were being compelled to show in the authority of the divine books — even if we do not find the very word there, it can happen that we find that to which this word is judged rightly to be applied."

When these things had been said, I attended to what seemed to you thereupon, that I might hear it; and you said that it was rightly done that the Father should not be called "unbegotten" in the holy Scriptures, lest by such a word injury should be done to him. "Therefore," said I, "injury has just now been done to God, and that by your own hand." Hearing which, you had already begun to confess that you ought not to have said this. But when I admonished you that, if such a word seemed to you to pertain to injury against God, you should delete it from where you had written it, you considered — I believe — that it could rightly be said and could be defended, and again you said: "Absolutely, I do say this." Then I repeated what I had already said,

namely that it can happen that even homoousion is neither found written in the sacred pages and yet, when spoken in the assertion of the faith, is defended — just as we nowhere read "unbegotten" of the Father in those books, and yet it is defended that it ought to be said. Then you took from me the sheet you had given, and tore it up. And we agreed that after the noon hour notaries should be present to take down our words, and that between us we should handle these matters as carefully as we could. We came, as you know, at the appointed hour; we brought notaries, so that yours also might be present; we sat down. You first spoke your faith, and in your words I did not hear "the Father unbegotten" — because, I believe, you had considered what had been said about it in the morning, and wished to take precaution.

Then you demanded that I too should state my faith. When I had requested — recalling our forenoon agreement — that you would rather deign to dictate those things which you had said, then you cried out that we were preparing a calumny against you, and that this was why we wished to keep your words in writing. What I answered there, I do not care to recall — and would that you too did not remember it! Yet I preserved the honor due to your dignity, and did not reckon it a curse that I had deserved to hear not from truth but from power. Yet, because I did repeat those very words, saying in a subdued voice: "Do we then prepare a calumny against you?" — I ask that you forgive me.

But you, having heard these things, again repeated your faith in a clearer tone, and in your words I did not hear "God the Son," which you had never omitted as often as you stated it. Here, when I modestly requested, as best I could, that what had been agreed between us — about the taking down of our words — should be carried out, I even suggested the very usefulness of it from present experience, saying that you yourself had not been able to retain in memory your own most familiar words, since you were never able to repeat them without passing over something, and that most necessary;

how much less could those who might hear us so remember our words that, if perchance either you should wish to review and examine anything of mine, or I anything of yours, they could clearly recall what was said or not said — a difficulty in which the notaries' recitation would most easily come to our aid! Then you said indignantly that it would have been better for me always to hear my reputation, since you had found me far inferior to what that reputation had boasted of you. Then I recalled that, when we had greeted you before the meal and you had extolled that reputation to us, I had said this — that it had lied about me. Here indeed you said that I had spoken the truth. Accordingly, since two different things have been spoken to you concerning me —

one my reputation and another myself — surely I ought rather to rejoice that I, rather than it, have been found truthful. But because it is written: "God alone is truthful, but every man a liar," I fear lest I have said even this about myself rashly; for neither in ourselves nor through ourselves are we truthful, when we are, but when he speaks in his servants who alone is truthful. If you recollect that these things were done as I have narrated, you see how little you ought to boast among men that I did not dare to assert my faith to you — since indeed you were unwilling to stand by the faith of our agreement; and though so great a man, who for the faith you owe to the commonwealth do not fear the curses of the provincials, yet for the faith you owe to Christ you fear the calumnies of bishops.

Then, since you had desired that men of honorable rank should also be present at our disputation, I wonder how, in this very avoidance of calumny, you fear that your words be written down by notaries, yet do not fear that they be heard from your own mouth by most distinguished witnesses. Do you not consider it difficult for men to suspect that you feared any calumny from us — so that you were unwilling for your words to be taken down — but rather that, since you had thought yourself held to the word written in your own hand before the meal, you had at the same time thought that you could not so easily blot out the notaries' tablets as easily as you tore up that little sheet?

But if you say that those things were not done as they have been narrated by me, either you are deceived by forgetfulness — for I do not dare to say "you lie" — or I too am either likewise deceived or I lie. You see therefore how rightly I say that those things which are transacted especially about such matters ought to be taken down and written, and how rightly this very thing had pleased you too, had not the afternoon fear broken the forenoon agreement. Hear then now my faith. The mercy of the Lord our God is able to grant that I may so speak what I have believed as to offend neither his truth nor your humanity. I profess that I believe in Almighty God the Father, and I call him eternal with that eternity, that is, immortality, which God alone possesses;

this I believe also of his only-begotten Son in the form of God, this also of the Holy Spirit of God, who is the Spirit of God the Father and of his only-begotten Son. But because the only-begotten Son of God the Father himself, our Lord and God Jesus Christ, after the fullness of time had come, opportunely, for the day of our salvation, took the form of a servant, many things are said of him in the Scriptures according to the form of God, many things according to the form of a servant. Of these, for example's sake, I recall two, that individual sayings may be referred to individual forms. According to the form of God he said of himself: "I and the Father are one"; according to the form of a servant: "Because the Father is greater than I." But what is written of God: "Who alone possesses immortality," and:

"To the invisible, only God, be honor and glory," and other things of this kind — we take these not of the Father only, but also of the Son, as far as it pertains to the form of God, and of the Holy Spirit. For the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God, and the only true God, and the only immortal one, according to a substance altogether unchangeable. For if it is said of flesh of a different sex: "He who cleaves to a harlot is one body," and of the spirit of a man — which is not what the Lord is — it is consequently written: "But he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit," how much more is God the Father in the Son, and God the Son in the Father, and the Spirit of the Father and of the Son one God, where there is no diverse nature —

since from things diverse yet in a certain way cohering with each other, there is said to be either one spirit or one body! And since from soul and body cohering with each other one man is said to be, why should not, much more supremely, from the Father and the Son cohering with each other, one God be said to be — since they cohere with each other inseparably, in a way that body and soul do not? And since body and soul are one man, although body and soul are not one thing, why should not much more the Father and the Son be one God, since the Father and the Son are one, according to that voice of truth: "I and the Father are one"? Likewise, since the inner man and the outer man are not one thing — for the outer is not of the same nature as the inner, because the outer, together with what is called the body, is called man,

while the inner is understood in the rational soul alone — yet both together are called not two men but one man; how much more are the Father and the Son one God, since the Father and the Son are one, because they are of the same nature or substance, or by whatever other word that which God is may be more fittingly named — whence it was said: "I and the Father are one"! And so, one is the Spirit of the Lord and one the spirit of a man, and they are not one thing, and yet, when the latter cleaves to the Lord, they are not two but one spirit; and one is the inner man and one the outer man, and they are not one thing, and yet, because of the connection of a natural bond, both together are not two but one man; much more, since the Son of God says: