Book of Heresies 1 part 5/9

There is another heresy which says that paganism was instituted by God, and was not devised by the malice of men and by the suggestion of the enemy for the sake of vices and of the begetting of crimes. But that which was instituted by God — how is it condemned by the same God? For there is no doubt that from the beginning of the world the knowledge of God the almighty Father, and of His Son, and of the Holy Spirit was proclaimed. For when in the book of the world's creation, that is, in Genesis, you have it written: 'And God said, and God made'; and again: 'God said, Let there be lights ...'; and on the sixth day God said: 'Let us make man after our image and likeness.'

And it is made manifest that what God made — in the creation of man — He made not by any angel as persuader, but by His own Son, Christ our Lord, and by the Holy Spirit. For you have in Genesis, that is, in the first book, the holy and adorable Trinity proclaimed to men of old. For thus it says: 'And the Lord rained down from the Lord brimstone and fire.' And again, concerning the Spirit, on the first day: 'And the Spirit of God was borne over the water.' And Pharaoh king of Egypt says: 'Who shall interpret these things for us,' he says, 'except one who has the Spirit of God?' And David: 'By the word of the Lord were the heavens established, and by the Spirit of His mouth all their host.'

But afterwards, when the depraved will of men, drawing back from so great a knowledge of godliness, eagerly hastens to give itself in service to the lies and vanities of idols, and chose rather to give itself to a most shameful manner of life, it was held liable to the sentence of damnation — so that the prophets of old said: 'He that sacrifices to gods shall be rooted out.' And again: 'The gods who made not heaven shall be rooted out.' And therefore the Lord too showed forth that His presence was not new, saying: 'I who spoke in the prophets, behold, I am here.'

Nowhere, then, did the Lord command that angels be adored, nor the elements of the world, nor any creature, nor idols — which the most wicked will of men chose to invent for the sake of perpetrating its own crime and vileness, so that, worshipping them, they might have free license to work out evil unrestrained. For the very name 'idol' (idolum) is so called, from the Greek interpretation, as 'a species of deceit' (dolus) and 'a transgression of form.' Thus the Trinity of Christianity was preached from the beginning of the world, and the truth of godliness was taught everywhere without interruption. For David too: 'The Lord said to my Lord'; and: 'Thy good Spirit shall lead me into the right way'; and again: 'The Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole world'; and: 'Whither shall I flee from Thy Spirit, and whither shall I go from Thy face?'

For blessed Solomon teaches that idolatry was instituted by a certain man who, when he had long bewailed his lost son as a father does, once made an image of that son, and took delight in gazing upon it; and that from him it was handed down to those who came after, and that thence diverse material for impiety sprouted up in the human race. There is another heresy which says that Christians were created later than and after the Jews and pagans, not knowing that Christians were created prior to Jews and pagans in nature, and in faith, in life and in time, in sacrifice and in conduct.

In faith, indeed, because from Adam down to Moses, through three thousand seven hundred years, all the righteous, worshipping God and God, the Lord and the Lord, and also the Holy Spirit, proclaimed the true Trinity — so that you may come to know that same Trinity whole and entire, without difficulty, from those blessed men of old and from the ancients; and that afterwards this was made manifest to us also by the Lord. For when Scripture says: 'The Lord rained down from the Lord upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire,' what does it seem to proclaim there? Did it not declare that God the Father, through His Son — that is, through Christ God — accomplished all the signs and wonders?

Knowing this, David proclaimed the Lord the Father, and the Lord Christ, that is, His Word, and the Holy Spirit together; he proclaimed indeed a Trinity of persons, yet of one majesty and substance and of equal power of Godhead. Yet he showed plainly that the Son is of God the Father as prior, and likewise the Holy Spirit, teaching: 'By the word of the Lord were the heavens established, and by the Spirit of His mouth all their host'; and again elsewhere: 'The Lord said to my Lord.' And all the prophets proclaimed concerning the Word and the Spirit, everywhere saying thus: 'And the word of the Lord came to me,' and: 'The Spirit,' it says, 'of the Lord was upon me.'

Therefore Christianity is not, as to its faith, a thing of mere time, but before the Jews and the pagans it had been made manifest to those who, under the law, were studious and inquiring; though to those who could not receive it, the knowledge of the almighty Father was scarcely proclaimed by those holy and perfect teachers. In life too, those holy men of old used no other life than this in which we live. For down to most blessed Abraham, they pleased God without having circumcision and without delighting in sacrifices, and were proclaimed by Him righteous in all things. For David said: 'A sacrifice to God is a contrite heart'; and: 'Offer to God the sacrifice of praise.'

And that temporal sacrifices, compelled by the necessity of human weakness, were enjoined upon the Jews as neither perpetual nor true nor saving, the prophet says to the Jews: 'Behold, I do new things,' and: 'Before they come to pass, they have been announced to you.' Before, then, Isaiah the prophet testified to the Jews: 'For who has required these things at your hands?' And again: 'Be circumcised in your hearts, and not in your bodies.'

But what manner of sacrifice Melchizedek, in the days of Abraham, offered above all others — four hundred and thirty years before the Jews were named, or Judah was born, and before they received [the law] — you may clearly see in the book of Genesis, that is, the mystery of Christianity: so that you may recognize that all things which are in Christianity, whether faith, or life, or sacrament, are not temporal, but were established and proclaimed and even celebrated from the beginning of the world. In Christ, however, and through Christ, by whom all things were made, it behoved us to see and to know these things from Him, and to receive from Him more fully — completed and fulfilled — that which was the greater mystery in the law that had been proclaimed beforehand concerning Him.

For that chastity likewise existed in very many of the prophets there is no doubt — as in blessed Elijah, holy Elisha, Daniel, Jeremiah, Ezra and the three young men, and many other most blessed ones: so that in the presence of Christ both that which was above the law might be recognized as having been foretold by them, and that which through the law was marriage might be confirmed by His own divine sentence, and this grace might be known as granted to the will and the zeal of men. Therefore the Lord Himself joined together those holy men of old before the law to us, and us to those men of old, according to the faith of righteousness; but He rejected the Jews and the pagans, who were placed in the middle time between the commandment and grace —

who, ruined by a hostile and pernicious will, are found in fleshly vices, enemies and adversaries of the heavenly doctrine, reserved for the eternal judgment of punishments. There is another heresy which says that we are born pagans by nature, not Christians — that is, they suppose that by the nature of things the body and soul of man are not created daily by God through Christ, but proceed thus through pagan vanity; whereas from Adam to Abraham, and afterwards down to Judah, who after Abraham is the fourth in descent, they were not pagans, nor were they called Jews, but were named 'gentiles' (gentes), from the name and diversity of provinces.

But the pagans, after the Jews, were so called either from 'pagus,' that is, a locality, or from a single province, or from a King Pagan — which is shown to be true, as Hesiod the Greek poet says. If, then, it is from 'pagus,' it is an indication of place, just as even now one says 'of such a village'; but if it is from idols, [it is] because those who worshipped these graven images were so named pagans, that is, gentiles. These idols, not from God, but from the most depraved will of men, were invented, as both our Scripture and very many of the pagans have proclaimed: that men devised these for the seducing and damning of souls, since the people, gazing upon them, took delight in feasting, and in the vanity thereof brought ruin upon their own souls.

But there is a sure and weightier proof, namely that the pagans themselves report in their own histories that they were called pagans from a King Pagan, as Hesiod the Greek poet says: who afterwards, from King Pagan, the son of Deucalion and Pyrrha, as though holding his name to be pleasing and lovable — or rather honoring his memory down to the present day — still even now retain this lie of a name, persisting in their veneration. Hellen, that is, the Greek man, is so called from the language and from the name of the king, who was the son of Deucalion, and who was so named — just as the Italians [took their name] from Italus, and the Romans from Romulus, and the Latins from Latinus received their name, not from the impiety of idols. For idols, that is, the forms of graven images, the most depraved will of men afterwards invented.

But the Greek language the distinctive property of a single province made known, which a pagan king confirmed from his own name — just as Romulus named the Romans, and as Hesiod says that the Greeks were called Greeks from a Greek king, who was Greek by name, the son of Deucalion.

There is another heresy which says that the number of years from the origin of the world is uncertain, and that men are ignorant of the courses of times — whereas from Adam to the Flood there are ten generations and two thousand two hundred and forty-two years; and from the Flood to the confusion of tongues under holy Eber (who had not consented to the building of the tower) is the fifth generation, almost six hundred years, when also the names of the provinces were divided, into as it were seventy-five tongues; and thence to blessed Abraham the patriarch is the fifth generation, five hundred and forty years. And from Abraham to Moses, seven generations, four hundred and thirty years, as the blessed Apostle says:

and from Moses to Samuel the judge, six hundred and twenty-nine years; and from Samuel and David to the captivity of the Jews in Persia, almost five hundred years; and from the captivity to the presence of our Lord, almost five hundred years; and thence from the Lord down to now, four hundred and thirty years, more or less. Therefore, if this faith was in those former holy fathers of ours which is in us — and it was handed down and proclaimed by them beforehand, namely this divine knowledge of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit — how is it a thing of mere time, as some suppose, and not rather this Christian knowledge proclaimed beforehand to all men from the beginning of the world, which is shown to have been made manifest and proclaimed in the commandment and in the law?

But if, in the middle time under Moses, something was said less plainly through a shadow, this was assuredly not the grudging of the Lord who gives, but rather the weakness — incapable and feeble — of a people not receiving the heavenly mystery, and of men unable [to grasp it], shall be charged with the blame. Finally, Christ the Lord Himself enjoined afterwards, by way of confirmation, that which He had foretold before through the holy prophets, saying: 'Go, baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit' — so that He might declare not only that this faith was the same from the beginning of the world, but might also approve the life in which we walk today, in the circumcision of the heart, not in the boasting of the flesh.

They err exceedingly, therefore, who dare to ascribe the begetting of man either to pagan impiety or to Jewish vanity — since a man may not be called a Jew unless he has received [circumcision] on the eighth day, nor a pagan either, unless one suppose that vain gods made man. Therefore the nature of things must be ascribed to God, not to any of these vanities; but doctrine, which comes second after nature, if it be true, must be joined to the faith of God and bound to a most wholesome servitude, by no means departing from it, but rather acknowledging through faith its own Lord and remembering, naturally, its Creator. And so it is not the weakness of men's natural mind, but rather their depraved will, that is to be accused, the Lord saying:

'And now, if you are willing and will hear me, you shall eat the good things of the earth; but if you are unwilling and will not hear me, the sword shall devour you. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken this.' And the Lord: 'Come to me, all you who are burdened, and I will give you rest.' There is another heresy which says that the names of the days — of the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn — were thus appointed by God from the beginning of the world, and not named by the vain presumption of men, [holding that this has been so] from the first origin.

But down to the Greek kings and that most deceitful Hermes, who dared by lying to name these most vain and frivolous names — if you are willing to inquire, you will find that much time had flowed by, and that thus the pagans, that is, the Greeks, gave these names; since they said that the generation of men consists according to these seven stars, as that very raving man defines it. For the number of the days — first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh — was named by God, not in this vanity of a most shameful naming, proclaimed or handed down at the beginning.

There is another heresy which says that the worlds are infinite and innumerable, according to the empty opinion of certain philosophers — whereas Scripture has said that the world is one, and has taught us concerning one; and they take these things, moreover, from the apocrypha of the prophets, that is, the secret writings, as the pagans themselves have said. So too that Democritus, who asserted that there are many worlds, and when he preaches this out of his own wisdom, has stirred up the souls and the doubtful senses of many with diverse errors. There is a heresy which, when it reads in Genesis the word of the Lord saying concerning Adam: 'Behold, Adam has become as one of us, knowing good and evil;'

'and now, lest perhaps he stretch forth his hand and touch and taste of the tree of life and live forever, the Lord,' it says, 'drove him out of paradise' — they say this was for envy's sake. And first they hold this: that one god made the soul, another the flesh, as the Manichaeans, Gnostics, Nicolaitans, and other lost ones suppose, saying that one god indeed is good, but another, they say, is evil in this world. And they reckon that this evil god said [the word] that [Adam] should be driven from paradise — not heeding that one God and the same Father, through His Son, made Adam our father and gave him the commandment, that by keeping it he might remain immortal, but that, the commandment being transgressed, he should be driven from paradise, as it is written;

and because he suffered this through the persuasion of the enemy — while they do not heed the mercy of Christ — they descend into the headlong fall of everlasting death. Here, then, God, not out of envy, drove our father from paradise, that he should not remain there or taste of the tree of life; but rather, taking thought for him as one who had sinned in a small matter, He did not spare him — lest by sparing him He should find him going on, in fuller age, to even greater crimes, and afterwards, when made guilty by a criminal verdict, should the more severely condemn him. For between man and the devil Christ was alike a hearer and a most just and good judge in all things.

Likewise He spared not the man who had sinned in a small matter, none the less giving to him also a fitting sentence according to the sin he had committed, and to the devil equally leaving a place for repentance. But since the devil did not understand, so as to feel remorse for the suggestion of so great an evil, He reserved for him afterwards a greater judgment. And the man indeed, when he is driven from paradise, is found more inclined to repentance; but the devil, since he is seen to be harder toward repentance, awaits from Christ the Lord the greater severity of the judgment to come — as it is said: 'He would not understand, that he might do well.' And again: 'But he hated not malice.'

Because, then, Adam, sinning in a small matter, persuaded by the devil to eat, repented at once and did penance, he merited to obtain pardon of his offense, and to return into paradise, into the presence of Christ, even by the begetting of children. But the devil, doing no penance, together with his satellites, is reserved for a greater judgment, as the Lord said: 'Depart from me into the eternal fire, which my Father has prepared for the devil and his angels.'

There are certain heretics who suppose that our father Adam and our mother Eve were blind before they tasted of the tree, and that afterwards they opened their eyes, and then perceived that they were naked — whereas Scripture had said before that 'Eve saw with her eyes the tree and its fruit, which was good to look upon and pleasant to the sight, and stretching out her hand, she tasted.' It is therefore a mark of heretical madness, and rather of Jewish blindness, so to think — since they do not understand the manner of the nakedness, and that this loss of immortality, in the transgression of the commandment, is what it taught us, not nakedness of body. This the Apostle taught us, saying: 'And, if we have put on Christ, may we not be found naked'; and again: 'Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.'

and that the Lord in the Gospel rebukes [the man], saying to him who had no wedding garment, though he had been called to the wedding. There is a heresy which, when it hears in Genesis that the Lord clothed our first parents with garments of skins after the transgression, supposes that He then at that time made [these] of a body and that they so put them on — whereas Scripture had said that on the seventh day God took earth from the clay and formed their bodies, and thus afterwards completed the flesh of the woman from the rib of Adam. He did not, then, here proclaim that their bodies were garments of skins, but declared that He had given them wisdom by His divine power, so that they might make for themselves coverings for their bodies, as it is written: 'Who gave to women wisdom to fashion garments?'

But if anyone should wish to take it that the Lord made the garments for them, [then] the Almighty made them out of nothing, as it is written: 'Who calls out of nothing those things which are not as though they were.' If, then, they made the garments by their own wisdom, as the prophet says, it is reasonable; or if God by His own power furnished this to them, it is not void. For in the temple the women and virgins wrought purple and fine linen and flax and other furnishings for the honor and covering of the temple, and likewise the diverse and various ornaments of the temple. There is a heresy which, when it hears in Exodus that an angel met Moses at the lodging-place where they had halted and wished to slay him — not his son, who had not yet been circumcised — takes from this no small stumbling-block to itself.

For if anyone wishes to understand it thus, that the angel held out threats to him because, after the appointed days had passed — that is, eight, on which eighth day the male ought to have been circumcised — they had not done it, and had thus despised God's commandment: therefore, in the case of children established at a tender age, the fault is not theirs, but rather their parents', as it is written. Wherefore, when she understood that the fault was the parents', not the infant's, 'at once,' it says, 'taking a sharp stone, his mother circumcised the boy,' at the sight of whose blood the angel forthwith departed from him, and altogether removed the penalty of death which he was threatening to inflict upon him.

For Moses is not recognized as having been circumcised in that hour, as some suppose, but it is his son who was circumcised, because that which was earlier enjoined under the patriarchs and the law was being fulfilled by the people, or by the parents of some, with slow work, not swift, as it is written. There are certain heretics who are troubled about Deuteronomy, in which Moses, when he was departing from the body and was writing this book by recapitulating from the four books — in which he as it were lays down the foundations of the prior law, and because he the more attests the fleshly presence of Christ — are led by no small error in thinking otherwise. For the things which were written before in the law, that is, in Exodus, are contained likewise in that same book: only this seems to have been said by him in addition, because he added:

'The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet from among our brethren: him you shall hear, as you hear me. And it shall come to pass, if anyone will not hear him, he shall be utterly rooted out.' For some think that it was called Deuteronomy from this, that in it too he received again on the mountain the stone tablets newly written — whereas in Exodus he is recognized to have received them twice and to have ascended the mountain. It is therefore reasonable that what belonged to the law and to grace should be made manifest concerning Christ the Lord; so that what was celebrated in the law through a shadow, in the fleshly presence of Christ — the heavenly grace being poured out — might be proclaimed from among believers, and might be handed down to all, written in that very book as a kind of testimony.

There are certain heretics who, when they hear that blessed David said in the fiftieth psalm: 'In iniquity was I conceived, and in sin did my mother bear me,' suppose that the prophet so spoke as to call the lawful right of marriage iniquity and sin — whereas before this God says in the book of Genesis: 'Be born and multiply, and fill the earth'; and: 'Marriage is to be held in honor,' and so forth. For if anyone should so think, then so many and so great righteous men were conceived in iniquity — although they were also sanctified in the womb, as the patriarchs, prophets, judges, blessed Jeremiah, and most blessed John the Baptist, as it is written.

But they do not know that blessed David the prophet spoke in another sense — not of natural begetting, but of the transgression of Adam our father and of Eve, who, after the transgression of the commandment, being driven from paradise, had begotten sons; and that thence, as it were the mother of all, Eve after the iniquity of the transgression of the commandment thus conceived and thus brought forth — this he taught. For how could David say of himself that he was conceived in iniquity and born in sin, when he was born by lawful right, and was chosen by God and sought out for so great a glory of kingship, as it is written of him?

He was not, then, here teaching that he himself was conceived in iniquity or born in sin, but he wished to show our parents Adam and Eve — that, after sin had been admitted, that is, the transgression of the commandment, [Eve] afterwards thus begot sons, and from them they likewise bring forth us all. And therefore, after the transgression: 'In sorrow shalt thou bring forth sons,' He says. Because, then, we have from those former parents the common and general iniquity of the flesh, descending from the first inheritance into all by transgression — as the Apostle said: 'As by one man death entered into all men.' For this right of marriage, promulgated by God, is daily praised and is customarily blessed.

For he showed both what was first by sorrow, and announced that the heavenly grace of Christ would bring great joy to believers, saying: 'Unless one be regenerated of water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.' And therefore in that same psalm, foreknowing the joy to come, he testified, saying: 'Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed; Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow' — so that through Him we believers also, in the saving baptism, might rejoice together with Him.

There are certain heretics who do not think rightly concerning the division of the earth's circle and the partitioning of habitation, disputing that the Greeks, or the Egyptians, or the Persians began to map out the whole circle of the earth — and not that blessed Noah, after the Flood, divided it for his three sons, gave it and defined it and apportioned it in order. Whence afterwards the historiographers, taking it up as it were certain pathways, have falsified it with diverse untruths. Thus blessed Noah divided the whole circle of the earth among his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and assigned to Shem the eastern parts of India, of the Persians, as far as some portion of the south, the west, the north, up to Mount Lebanon; and he confirmed by fixed sentence that his firstborn should there have his bounds.

To Ham also, the second son, in apportioning the earth, he assigned all the Syrias and the diocese of Egypt, of Africa, of Ethiopia, the vast breadth that stretches almost to the borders of the ocean and of the Spains, and by divine inspiration he foretold that it would be possessed and inhabited by them; while in the middle he granted them to have their bounds as far as Cappadocia, that is, Mount Taurus. To the third, named Japheth, he assigned by divine command, for those entering Cappadocia and going out from Cilicia, the cold regions which are those of Armenia, the Bosphorus, Pontus, Thrace, the Pannonias, Illyricum, Italy, and all the parts of the West. And from the first he reckons that twenty-five generations descended, from the second thirty-five — that is, from Ham.

But concerning Japheth, to whom at that time a smaller number of generations was reckoned, that is, only the fifteenth, a more ample one was promised to him by blessed Noah as desirable and destined to come hereafter, as Scripture says: «May the Lord enlarge Japheth, and may he dwell in the tents of Shem.» To him, the younger son with the smaller charge, a smaller number of generations was found granted at that time; but afterward, as it grew, a greater number was destined to be enlarged to him than to his two brothers, so that he should hold both the middle and the outermost regions, that is, the empires of the Canaanites, the Egyptians, the Africans, and the Persians. From him afterward the Romans were brought forth, conquerors of the whole world and rulers of all nations.

Hence we recognize that the Romans, the Latins, and the Italians trace their lineage from Japheth, and that these hold the whole world under their dominion daily, and have held it more often in former times. But if anything is reckoned ancient through the falsehood of the Greeks, it is in every way proved temporal by the testimony of their own authors, as Solon testifies to the Athenians that he heard it from an Egyptian priest who said to him: «Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always young men and children.» (For a Greek will never be old or ancient, nor do you possess any ancient teaching or knowledge, but you hold what has been snatched and seized from others, and you set it forth altered with diverse lies, and thus you instruct men.) For Plato in the Timaeus repeatedly says so.

For after the confusion of tongues, diverse names then began to spread abroad; and from there, two or three Greek historiographers, drawing upon them and composing what were as it were diverse records, while they wish to obscure and conceal their own lateness in time, have been judged and proved most untruthful by their own witnesses. For when fifty of them — that is, Greeks, Egyptians, Chaldeans, Syrians — agree concerning our antiquity, while two or three dissent, it is just to assent to the many who agree as one rather than to the two or three discordant historiographers, since those many spoke truly rather than the two. There is another heresy which says that under Deucalion and Pyrrha there was a most ancient flood, more ancient than the one which occurred under blessed Noah.