The defense of the great synod of Chalcedon — which the Acephali charge with having judged orthodox the letter of the venerable Ibas that praises the doctrine of Theodore — has compelled us, at the special admonition of the Eastern council, to bring forward certain things from the sayings of the ancient Fathers which to readers may seem to give offense no less than those things which they blame in Theodore himself. And since such offense is not to be despised, and we cannot excuse all the things we have brought forward from their sayings, nor, even if we could, would time suffice to excuse also the rest of the things which can give offense in the writings of these and of other Fathers — by this compendious and safe argument we defend all who have died in the peace of the Church:
namely, that we may show that we cannot worthily judge any of them a heretic, even if some are found to have been ignorant of something concerning questions of this kind. But let no one think that in the present book I have undertaken to define what it is that makes a heretic; for I have proposed only to demonstrate this — which indeed I have already demonstrated above by an acceptable argument, as I judge — that no one, living or dead in the Church of Christ, who shows or has shown himself teachable in Christian doctrine, ought to be judged a heretic on account of ignorance of such questions.
For if now the Church is a certain school of Christ, and all her faithful are said to be Christ's disciples, and no one can truly be called a disciple who learns nothing, nor is anything learned except what is unknown — then without doubt either, as you teach, ignorance does not make a heretic, or every disciple of Christ will be a heretic. And who now will be said to be a Catholic, if everyone who learns anything concerning the Christian religion is to be called a heretic? But if some are even believed to have so learned all things that they can now have nothing left to learn — yet because they were ignorant of something before they learned it, they will seem to have been made Catholics out of heretics:
and thus it is concluded that no one is found in the Church of Christ who is not declared either to be or to have been a heretic — but to say or think this is both most impious and also exceedingly absurd. We ought therefore to know that what makes a heretic is not the ignorance that is not contumacious against the truth of doctrine, but rather the obstinate defense of falsehood.
To this obstinacy we say that there belong — indeed, we affirm that they hold the chief place in it — those doctrines also which certain men devised, not as it were by understanding the divine Scriptures less, but by openly resisting them, by the sole presumption of their own spirit, such as Manichaeus and Origen and the rest, who erred not, like others, by following their intention in abstruse questions, but, exalting themselves above them, believed that they themselves understood or spoke better.
For if he is to be called obstinate who does not yield to the constitutions of the Church confirmed by the authority of those same Scriptures, how much more of a worse obstinacy is he to be called who, disdaining to acquiesce in the divine Scriptures themselves, either abrogates the truth from their inviolable fullness, or thinks that something is lacking in them which he ought to supply by his own invention? But in what matters this obstinacy is to be held a heresy is a question of greater scope, and foreign to the intention of this work: let us now pursue what we have proposed. We say therefore that every heretic is a stranger to Christ. But the Apostle says to the Corinthians: 'I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ.
I have fed you with milk to drink, not with meat, for hitherto ye were not able; nay, not even now are ye able: for ye are yet carnal' (1 Cor. III, 1-2). If therefore the Corinthians, who as yet did not know the perfect knowledge hidden in the ministry, were not heretics — because, as the Apostle says, they were babes in Christ — how can anyone, whether yet living or dead in the Church of Christ, be judged a heretic on account of partial ignorance alone, of which no one convicts him so that he should be said to have refused to receive correction? Writing also to the Philippians: 'I count not myself,' he says, 'to have apprehended;
but this one thing I do: forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk in this' (Phil. III, 13-16). Since these things are so, what do we believe concerning these same Philippians, to whom the Apostle said that they were otherwise minded, and whom he admonished that meanwhile they should walk in that to which they had attained — that is, that they should advance? Shall we then pronounce such men heretics, or untaught Catholics? But we shall not dare to call them heretics, with whom the whole Church, together with the Apostle, held communion.
It remains therefore that we should say them to have been Catholics, although untaught and minded otherwise than the truth teaches. Moreover he writes thus also to the Colossians: 'For though I be absent in the body, yet am I with you in the spirit, rejoicing and beholding your order, and that which is lacking to the profit of your faith' (Col. II, 5). Ought we then to have called these men heretics, since the Apostle saw that something was lacking to them for the profit of their faith? Far be it. For how could the same Apostle be in spirit with such men, and rejoice together at their order? And concerning that woman also, who was in an issue of blood for twelve years and had spent all her substance upon physicians, and could be cured by none, what is to be thought?
For she had not believed Christ to be God when she touched the fringe of his garment. For when the Lord said, 'Who is it that touched me?' and Peter and those who were with him answered, 'Master, the multitudes throng thee and press thee, and dost thou say, Who touched me?' (Luke VIII, 45) — and the Lord again said, 'Someone touched me: for I perceived that virtue had gone out from me' (ibid., 46) — and revealing what had been done, so that she rather who had been healed might stand as a witness of the divine virtue, as the evangelist there following says: 'And when the woman saw that she was not hid, she came trembling' (ibid., 47), and fell down before his feet, and declared before all the people for what cause she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed.
Therefore from the words of Luke, who says 'And when the woman saw that she was not hid,' we understand that she had so touched him as to be hid: but she could not believe that she might be hid from God. Therefore she had believed Christ not to be God, whom she had believed could be hid from her, so much so that she thought she ought to declare what she knew had been done in her. For thus also another evangelist relates: 'But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth' (Mark V, 33); so that what shame had hidden while she was sick, devotion confessed when she was made whole. And perhaps for this reason she touched Christ from behind, that even by the very act she might signify that she had attained, by faith, not his prior nature whereby he precedes all things — according to what is said:
'In the beginning was the Word' — but the humanity, whereby the Word was afterward made flesh (John I, 1, 14). For just as words have been given to us for the signifying of things, so almighty God, to whose power all things are subject, and whose wisdom singularly knows how fittingly to adapt even the voluntary motions of those who know not, for the use of doctrine, signifies whatever things he wills by the act of his creature. Whence I think it not incongruous that she came to the saving fringe of his garment, who, according to the measure of her faith, could not attain to the excellence of his majesty, but to that which belonged to his pious incarnation, through which, inclined to the earth, he was made nearer to our lowliness.
Nor is it any wonder if this woman's faith was imperfect, or that in that very imperfection she received healing from Christ's mercy — since even among the apostles themselves some such are seen to have been, as we have already shown concerning Thomas and Philip, through whom nevertheless they wrought miracles among the people. Nor is it incredible that, although she did not believe Christ to be God, she yet said, 'If I shall touch but his garment, I shall be made whole' — since it is written in the Acts of the Apostles that the faithful of Christ believed so much in the virtue even of his disciples, that not only were handkerchiefs or aprons carried from the body of Paul upon the sick, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out (Acts XIX, 12);
but moreover, that the multitude of men and women believing in the Lord brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that when Peter came at least his shadow might overshadow some of them (Acts V, 13-16); while the multitude of the neighboring cities ran together to Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those vexed with unclean spirits, who were all healed. Is it then our pleasure that we should condemn this woman also among the heretics, for that faith by which she deserved to be healed, and concerning which the Lord said to her: 'Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace' (Luke VIII, 48)? But if the faith of the little ones is to be condemned by those who seem to themselves to be of great and perfect faith, why should not this woman too be condemned?
Why not also Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, since both said to the Lord, 'If you had been here, my brother would not have died' (John 11:21, 32)? This, as we have already said, they would assuredly not have said if they believed Christ to be God. For who would suppose God to be absent from anywhere? And Martha, even when the Lord came to the tomb and commanded that the stone which was laid over it be taken away, thought it her duty to advise him as one who did not know — just as that woman did who was cured of an issue of blood — saying, 'Lord, by this time he stinks, for he has been dead four days' (ibid., 39). Why then should we not call even these persons familiar with Christ to have been heretics, if simple ignorance also makes a man a heretic?
Nay, why not all the worshippers of God from the beginning of the world — those who, whether like the Corinthians and the Philippians and the Colossians, or like these women, believed somewhat too little concerning those things by whose faith we are cleansed, yet ended a holy and simple life in obedience to God's commandments? But this is the marvel: that the imperfect and very small faith of that woman who was in the issue of blood obtained from the righteousness of Christ a perfect and great healing, while of these sisters it merited the stupendous resurrection of a brother four days dead. Yet our faith, which seems to ourselves so great and perfect that we do not spare the dead — even if it were true what is said, that they were imperfect — has not strength enough to obtain even the smallest thing.
We dispute ceaselessly and without order about the dogmas of the Christian faith, wishing to appear learned and religious in the censure of others; and the heavenly mysteries, which ought to be handled with reverence and sparingly, we toss about everywhere. The very name has now been left them in vain, by which they were called mysteries. For among idle and vulgar fables are reckoned questions of faith that are necessary and to be entrusted only to few. And in all these things we seem to ourselves to be pleading the cause of piety, while we throw the Church into turmoil, in whose peace we cast out the departed as heretics for a tiny faith — as we suppose — although the very apostles were at one time imperfect in faith, yet never heretics;
and while as yet they believed but little concerning Christ, they received great power over unclean spirits, to cast them out and to heal every sickness and every infirmity, the Lord sending them and commanding them: 'Go, preach, saying that the kingdom of heaven is at hand; heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons: freely you have received, freely give' (Matt. 10:7-8). But if the apostles were not heretics even in the time of their ignorance, by what reasoning could anyone affirm those to be heretics who departed this life in such a state? And if they who had the very Truth present with them in the body could without crime feel something otherwise or less rightly about him,
why should it be reckoned a crime of heresy if anyone in the Church, endowed with piety, devoted in obedience, submissive and apt to learn, has thought otherwise about that matter — being ready to correct what is reproved? Wherefore all who are in the discipleship of truth, and who show themselves docile to reason and submissive to the authority of the Church, if they think otherwise about those things by whose faith we are cleansed — whether through their incapable understanding, or through paying less attention to the matter than is needful — are utterly without doubt to be detested as heretics? For he who has resolved in his heart firmly to believe this, which in such matters the doctrine and faith of the Church holds, though he may not perfectly understand or speak about all these things;
yet because he does not trust in his own knowledge, and does not doubt that many things in which he errs or is in doubt are rightly held by the Church, being placed where, as in the school of truth, he has a pious purpose of learning — he is not to be called an enemy of the truth itself, which is what a heretic is, but rather a disciple to be perfected. That imperfect man assuredly does not presume to teach by some authority of his own anything fabricated by the invention of his own heart, as certain heretics do, nor does he follow those who teach such things;
but he leans upon the authority of the divine writings, and where he has not attained their understanding (for in those very pages, by reason of their great profundity, human sight grows dim), recognizing what concerning that matter the universal Church has determined, he renounces his error with the pious humility of his heart, because he never forbade himself to think otherwise. As therefore there are certain more perfect men, who by a great gift of wisdom are strong to contemplate in mind those things which by others perfect in life are only believed, so there are many imperfect in the Church of Christ, and yet perfect in preserving its unity: who, although through their ignorance they err in very many things, yet believe that the Church in nothing errs, by whose unity they trust they are saved.
Wherefore, even if we seem to ourselves wiser — although it is written that piety is wisdom — we ought not to expel these worshippers of God from his Church, nor to reckon them among her adversaries, as cast out from the walls of the spiritual Zion. 'Encompass Zion,' says the prophet, 'and embrace her; tell it in her towers; set your hearts on her strength, and distribute her houses' (Ps. 47[48]:13); or, as other manuscripts have it, 'Distribute her houses and her degrees.' We ought therefore rather to surround with all our defenses, and to embrace in charity, those who belong to Zion, and not to exclude them, set in whatever degree of hers:
but so to render to the higher in her the great honour that is due, that to her inferior ones also love be not denied to any. For this is what he says: 'Distribute her degrees,' which is elsewhere said: 'Set love in order within me' (Cant. 2:4). As therefore the lower degree of certain men perfect in faith is not to be despised because they cannot grasp the truth by the understanding — since this others of a loftier degree can do —
so neither are they themselves to be despised, nor — what is more cruel — to be condemned by the Church under anathema after death, who, although they may seem to have been of imperfect faith because they could not, as is fitting, direct their minds to all the many great things the Christian religion contains, yet did not doubt that all things in the faith of the Church are true and right, so that they might remain in her to be perfected; and through this, believing thus, according to a certain degree, they too are seen to be perfect in faith, who believed that they were to be perfected and saved in the unity of the Church. Those, then, endowed with a more excellent degree of understanding, were able, as far as is granted in this life, to attain to the very reality whose full revelation is reserved for the future.
Those also, perfect in faith alone, drew nearer to him. But these inferior ones, whom we have placed in the third degree, although separated by some longer interval, yet look toward the same thing, and have the purpose of coming thither. And if these be judged heretics, what part will be left to us — I will not say of all the common people, but of the very prelates of the Churches — that ought to be judged catholic? Since the bosom of piety receives even those men of more excellent understanding, who, walking through steep places by the necessity of the office they have undertaken, sometimes fall — that piety by which they submit themselves to the authority of the Church whose teachers they are, that no flesh may glory in his sight?
Heresy therefore is not to be called anything but the stubborn contradiction of the proud, which forbids itself to think otherwise, and being admonished scorns to acquiesce in the truth. Such a one rather obstinately chooses to be separated from the Church, or to lurk deceitfully within her, than to change his perverse opinion. But we distinguish the ignorant from the deceitful in this, that they are neither found, when at any time corrected, sufficiently obstinate concerning the things they understand too little, nor do they corrupt the minds of the simple by their hidden arguments, but are wont freely and simply to disclose what they think.
But if anyone wishes to learn, even among the very disciples of Christ whom he had when he dwelt here in mortal flesh, how great is the difference between the spirit patient of reason, and the spirit contumacious toward authority, by which heretics are driven — who are readier to be scandalized and to separate themselves than to learn — and between the less capable understanding of the pious, who meekly await the opportunity for instruction, and preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace: he will find it likewise in one chapter of John the Evangelist, where the Lord said, 'I am the living bread, who came down from heaven: if anyone eat of this bread, he shall live forever' (John 6:51-52). And:
'He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him' (ibid., 57). 'As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me, he also shall live because of me' (ibid., 58). And when the Jews strove and said to one another, 'How can this man give us his flesh to eat?' (ibid., 53), many also of his disciples, hearing it, said, 'This is a hard saying; who can hear it?' (ibid., 61); on account of which, as he relates in what follows:
'Many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him' (ibid., 67). Behold, that is the spirit impatient of reason and contumacious toward authority, by which heretics are driven, who are readier to be scandalized and to separate themselves than to learn. But the ignorance of the pious, who meekly await the opportunity for instruction, preserving the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, is thus disclosed in what follows. For there the Evangelist adds, relating thus: 'Jesus therefore said to the twelve: Do you also wish to go away?' (ibid., 68) — which would by no means have been said to those who likewise did not understand the mystery, but were not likewise harsh and contumacious toward authority.
Why would they be asked whether they too wished to go away, if they had understood what had been said mystically? For knowing the mystery, they could not be scandalized and go away. But they were asked that they might answer whether, although not understanding what was said, yet the authority of a good Master held them; and that a wholesome example of this piety and meekness might be furnished us in them, that wherever we do not understand, we may yield to authority. Finally, Peter too answered the Lord thus questioning, in such a way that he did not say he was unwilling to go away because he had understood the mystery, but because that very thing which was spoken by such a Master pertained beyond doubt to eternal life. For he says: 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life;
and we have believed and have known that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God' (John 6:69). But had he understood the mystery, he would rather have said this: 'Lord, there is no reason for us to go away, since we believe that we are to be saved by the faith of your body and blood.' Much, therefore, does the impious harshness of heretics differ — rending the body of the Church, or lurking with a feigned heart in the Church — from the less capable understanding of catholics, subject to the doctrine of Christ, and preserving the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. That Spirit they assuredly do not have who separate themselves from the Church, as Jude the apostle says: 'These are they who separate themselves, sensual, not having the Spirit' (Jude 19).
But neither do those have him who lurk in the Church with a feigned heart: 'For the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee deceit' (Wisd. 1:5). We ought not therefore to confound these things which are much distinct, nor to suppose the same to be what is far different. For this reason therefore the holy Fathers, whose apostolic rule certain men are seen to have wrongly transgressed, did not decree condemnation upon those teachers of the Church who, preserving its like (faith) even to the end, perhaps erred in certain points of the Christian faith; but upon those who, after a first and second correction, when the rule of truth had been made manifest and established through a synod by the Fathers, presumed to believe and teach otherwise:
since they could not condemn these men alone, apart from the whole Church, which, when it perceived them, did not censure them for preaching such things. For they belonged to all, by whom they were not disapproved, since these things were not unknown to them. You see therefore, most merciful Emperor, how great a condemnation would follow, if any one of such men were to be condemned by the presumption of those who come after: but so much weight is placed upon remaining in the unity of the body of Christ, and not setting oneself forth as contentious, but submitting a docile mind to the truth, that for the sake of the fruit of that peace and charity, whatever perhaps is held otherwise than the true faith requires may be purged by the Lord, that one may bear more fruit in peace. For the fruit of righteousness, according to Paul the apostle, is sown in peace by those who make peace (James
3:18); for this reason, as the Lord says in the Gospel: 'I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman: every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he will take it away; and every one that bears fruit, he will purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit' (John 15:1-2). Nor let it seem strange, if those remaining in the framework of the body of Christ, and preserving the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, are through that very charity purged from their errors, since it is written that charity covers all sins (Prov. 10:12). But just as we dare not call the life of many men impious, on account of the testimony of God's Scripture by which they were praised, although we are gravely offended by some of their deeds,
so also we ought not to call the doctrine of many men heretical, on account of the testimony of the Church of God by which they were honoured, although in some of their sayings we are gravely offended: and as we do not judge those men, though praised by divine Scripture, to be imitated in all things, so neither let us judge these, though honoured by the Church, to be approved in all things. But this reverence we render to divine Scripture itself, that we do not believe it praised anything unworthily. And therefore, when we hear the Apostle praising Samson too among other righteous men, and saying, 'For time will fail me telling of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets:'
'who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises' (Heb. 11:32-33), and the rest: we understand that when this same Samson slew himself together with the Philistines by the collapse of that vast ruin, he did this not from impatience of his own calamity, but inspired by the divine nod. Otherwise, sufficient strength would not have been given him to shake and cast down with his own hands so great a structure, in which the nation of the Philistines was holding its feasts; nor, if by his own nod he had brought death upon himself, would he be praised by the Apostle among the righteous: and therefore we judge his deed by the testimony of divine Scripture, not by our own custom.
Likewise, when we see David praised by the same Scripture, who joined homicide also to the adultery he had committed, since we read therein at the same time that he did penance for these crimes, we believe that he was therefore praised by it. But when it praises also the high priest Aaron, who made the calf at Horeb to be adored by the people (Exod. 32), nor does it matter where he repented of so great a sacrilege, the reverence which we owe to that same holy Scripture demands of us that, although it has been silent on this, we nevertheless do not believe that it could praise him except as one repenting of so great a sacrilege. This observance, therefore, we ought to maintain also in the case of those whose doctrine has been received in the Church of God;
so that if anything in their words has offended us, we should first inquire whether it is not that they have spoken the truth, but that we have been less able to discover their intention. And just as we judge that work of Samson by the testimony of divine Scripture, and not by our own custom, so let us judge the sayings of these men by the testimony of the Church, and not by our own understanding. But if their error is certain, like that of David and Aaron, let us not believe that they were praised except for their correction — whether this be shown, as we have shown that Theodore amended what he had brought forth too incautiously, or whether perhaps it cannot be evidently shown: for otherwise the Church of God could not approve them.
But as it is exceedingly unseemly and offensive that we, most curiously inquiring into the sins of those to whom God's Scripture has borne testimony of righteousness, should mark them down enumerated, wishing thereby to appear holy and undefiled: so it is exceedingly unseemly and offensive that we should most scrupulously search out the ignorance of those to whom the Church of God has borne testimony of sound doctrine, and, if we have detected or supposed any errors of theirs, should toss them about heaped together, wishing thereby to appear learned and catholic. But just as their sins, so also if any ignorance of these men is found, it is enough that, when we read it, we disapprove of it, the Apostle saying, 'Prove all things; hold fast that which is good' (1 Thess. 5:21).
And just as we judge their life — not from certain blameworthy deeds as impious, but from other far more numerous right ones as righteous — according to the testimony of God's Scripture: so let us also judge their doctrine — not from certain blameworthy sayings as heretical, but from other far more numerous right ones as catholic — according to the testimony of the Church of God. Whence the holy synod of the East, writing to Theodosius, said: 'But if anyone, holy Emperor, should say that something obscure is found in the letters of Theodore or of others, it is not necessary that this be reconsidered. For to those whose life had its best end in the priesthood and ministry, we dedicate a pre-eminent glory, and do not judge them from those things of which some atrociously accuse them.'