Tractates 2 part 1/6

The Codex Wirceburgensis (Würzburg manuscript) Mp. th. q. 3, written in the fifth or sixth century. By the sign | I have marked the end of a page, by || that of a folio, and by ||| that of a line. (In the critical apparatus) within | i | I have enclosed those things which exist in an erasure in such a way that what was previously written cannot be determined.

Although our faith, hindered by no stumbling-blocks of life, is free as it journeys on the secure path of catholic order toward God, nevertheless, because it is the more proved when, struck by the devil's slander, it is wounded in that very point, we have judged it glorious for ourselves, most blessed bishops, that—with no accusing conscience, though we have already spoken in frequent treatises declaring our faith and condemned the dogmas of all heretics, and though in the treatise of our brothers Tiberianus, Asarbus and the rest, with whom we share one faith and one mind, all dogmas that seem to be against Christ have been condemned and those for Christ approved—yet even now, because you wish it,

as it is written, being always ready to give an answer to everyone who asks us concerning the faith and hope that is in us, we have not wished to be silent in what you command. For although our confession has been repeated, and though all that we live lies before your eyes, and though, set in the light of faith, we follow no secret things of any dark manner of life, yet we do not refuse—so that satisfaction might be given even to those ignorant of us, lest anyone, believing evil concerning us, should sin against others in inexcusable error—nor do we decline to show with our mouth what we believed in our heart. For although it is not fitting to glory in what we were, nevertheless we were not brought forth into the world in so obscure a station, nor called so foolish, that the faith of Christ and the learning of belief could bring us death rather than salvation.

For to this end, as you yourselves know, having gone through all the trials of human life and having renounced the manners of our evil ways, we entered as into the harbour of secure repose.

For recognizing that no one, unless born again of water and the Holy Spirit, could ascend into the kingdoms of heaven, we purified our souls to the obedience of faith through the Spirit; and renouncing the desires of our former life, of which we were ashamed, we received, for the journey of renewed grace, the symbol of catholic observance, which we hold: that entering the laver, the redemption of our body, and being baptized into Christ, having put on Christ, spurning the empty glory of the world, we might give our life to him alone, as we did give it—to him who, granting remission of sins, himself suffered for us and bestowed upon our souls both redemption and salvation.

For who is there who, reading the Scriptures and believing in one faith, one baptism, one God, does not condemn the foolish dogmas of the heretics—who, while they wish to compare the divine with the human, divide the substance united in the power of God, and through the crime of the Binionites parcel out the greatness of Christ, venerable in the threefold fountain of the Church—since it is written: 'I am God and there is no other besides me; there is no righteous one and saviour besides me'; and: 'I am the first and I am after these, and besides me there is no God; who is like me?' Again elsewhere: 'I am, and before me there was no other, and after me there shall be none like me; I am God and there is none besides me who saves'; and again, when Moses says: 'The Lord our God is one God'; and Jeremiah says:

'This is our God, and no other shall be reckoned besides him, who found out every way of wisdom and gave it to Jacob his servant and to Israel his beloved; afterward he was seen upon the earth and conversed with men.' For he it is who was, who is, and who is to come, seen from the ages, the Word made flesh, who dwelt among us; and being crucified, having conquered death, he was made heir of life, and rising on the third day, made the pattern of what is to come, he showed the hope of our resurrection; and ascending into the heavens he built the way for those who come to him, being wholly in the Father and the Father in him, that what is written might be made manifest: 'Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to men of good will'; as John says:

'There are three that bear witness on earth: the water, the flesh and the blood, and these three are in one; and there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word and the Spirit, and these three are one in Christ Jesus.' And because you wish us to go through each point, that we may declare what we believe—though it would befit us rather to be taught by you, yet because, according to the ordinance of God (who, while he showed by works who he was, nonetheless willed to hear from his disciples who he was or who he was believed to be), because you wish us also to prove to you what you know—we ask pardon if, both in affirming our faith and in refuting those things which error insinuates for the corrupting of unbelievers' minds, we speak at greater length.

For the fault lies with those who, while they fabricate many things against the humanity of Christ, have caused us at greater length to reject those very things which they bring as charges against themselves. For let him be anathema who, believing the evil of the Patripassian heresy, troubles the catholic faith, since it is written, Peter saying: 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God'; and elsewhere: 'He who has the Son has life; he who has not the Son has not life'; and again, with the Lord himself saying: 'I and the Father are one'; and elsewhere: 'I am in the Father and the Father in me'; to the testimony of which matter there was added even in the Gospel the demoniac's confession, saying: 'You are the Christ, the Son of God; why have you come before the time to destroy us?'

Which we know was set down not because God willed the testimony of demons, but that men, made to the image and likeness of God, might be bound to worse torments if they should not know these things which even the demons confess. But to us there is one God the Father, from whom are all things and we in him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and we through him. To their folly the Novatian heresy draws near, as though, the error of sin ever growing worse, men were to be purged by repeated baptisms—whereas the apostolic Scripture testifies to one baptism, one faith, one God, and we know that, besides that which has been preached to us, not even an angel from heaven is to be heard if he should say anything different.

But we, once baptized in Christ, leaving the things that are past, stretching ourselves forth to the things before, wish to lay hold of that for which we were laid hold of, since, besides the one Christ Jesus, united in faith, we have no other defense than that of the one baptism, knowing that Christ came in the flesh to save sinners and to restore the redeemed in himself to the ordinances of everlasting life. But he who denies that Jesus Christ came in the flesh, this one is antichrist, and his perdition shall not slumber, as the apostle says: 'He who denies the Son has not the Father either; but he who confesses the Son has both the Son and the Father.'

But anathema be the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, and let whoever either institutes or follows sacrileges hateful to God have his portion with Sodom and Gomorrah. Anathema be he who, reading of griffins, eagles, asses, elephants, serpents and superfluous beasts, captive to the vanity of a confused observance, sets up as it were the mystery of divine religion—whose works and detestable forms are of the nature of demons, not the truth of divine glories. For these are they whose God is the belly, and whose glory is in their shame;

these are they who overthrow the doubting and lead them to the ruin of their own destruction, and call that a sacrament which, according to the Scriptures of God, they know not to be a mystery of perdition; and going into the precipice, as the prophet says, they have become as a spirit in the wings of flying creatures, and therefore they shall be confounded out of their own shrines, made like the horse and the mule which have no understanding; and worthy are they whose God is the Sun.

But we, instructed by the words of the divine Scriptures, though we know that an idol is nothing in this world, but that what they sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, yet we labor that, as it is written, understanding the subtleties of speeches and the interpretations of parables and doing what we are in God, we may have in us nothing of the figure of beasts, but that the discipline of Christ our God may hold the whole—because there is no fellowship between the table of the Lord and the table of demons, between light and darkness, between Christ and Belial. As John also, speaking of such things, says: 'If anyone worships the beast and its image, this one has received a mark on his forehead and on his hand'; and the same elsewhere:

'I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on its heads ten diadems and a name of blasphemy; and it was like a leopard, and its feet like a bear's, and its mouth like a lion's mouth; and the dragon gave it his seat and his power.' As Daniel also says of this same thing:

'I beheld, and lo, four winds were striving upon the great sea, and four beasts were coming up out of the sea, each surpassing the other in greatness; and the first was like a lioness, and its wings like an eagle's, and it rose from the earth and stood upon a man's feet, and a man's heart was given to it. And behold, another beast like a bear, and it stood on one side, and three ribs were in its mouth, in the midst of its teeth; and it was said to it: Arise, devour the flesh of many. And behold, another beast like a leopard, and it had four wings of a bird and four heads, and power was given to it. And behold, a fourth beast, horrible and wonderful and exceedingly strong, and its teeth were of iron and its claws of bronze.'

All which things, set forth in their visions, the prophets willed to be read by all and, when understood, to be shunned; and therefore those who, while learning these things, did not rightly understand what it was they read, have had their heart given to the beast, and their flesh shall be devoured; for they became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened; and professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of corruptible man and of birds and of four-footed beasts and of serpents; and conforming themselves to the former desires of a life of ignorance, they fell into those things which they do not understand.

But we, knowing that the law is spiritual and that all prophecy needs interpretation, having Christ our God in our mind as the one who shows it forth—through whom, even if we were to think otherwise, these things were revealed to us—have resolved to serve the righteousness of the Lord unto sanctification; so that, as the prophet says, the names of the Baalim being rooted out of our mouth and their titles exterminated, we may cast away from ourselves, as it is written, the covenant that is with the beasts of the field and the birds of heaven and the creeping things of the earth, recognizing that all these are the wages of sin, whose end is death; but grace and peace and life eternal are in Christ Jesus our Lord. As Solomon also says:

'God gave me the true knowledge of all these things that are, that I might know the disposition of the globe of the earth and the power of the elements, the beginning and the end and the midst of the months, the changes and divisions of the seasons, the courses of the year and the dispositions of the stars, the natures of animals and the rages of beasts, the force of winds and the thoughts of men, the differences of trees and the powers of roots; and all things that are hidden and manifest I came to know.' As he also says: 'Certain men, going astray, worshipped dumb reptiles and serpents and superfluous beasts; and he sent upon them a multitude of dumb animals for vengeance, that they might know that by the things through which a man sins, by these also he is tormented.' As David also says:

'Many bulls have compassed me about; fat oxen have beset me; they opened their mouth against me like a ravening and roaring lion.' Reading which, let the unclean mind of the schismatics take heed, and, if it can be converted and can avoid perishing, let it not perish; for holy David did not fear bulls or oxen, but, as it is written: 'Your adversary the devil, like a ravening and roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour; whom resist, steadfast in faith.' As it is also written elsewhere: 'Be not a lion in your house, overthrowing your household members'; and as it says there: 'Exalt not yourself in the thought of your soul like a bull, lest perhaps your strength be dashed in pieces and through folly it devour your leaves.' As David also says:

'My tongue cleaved to my jaws, and you have brought me down into the dust of death, for many dogs have compassed me about'; in which, however, holy David, to show what he had declared in the earlier outcry, added: 'the assembly of sinners has beset me.' As Isaiah also says: 'They are dogs, souls that know no satiety.' So likewise the Lord our God, speaking to Job the prophet, said: 'Show me whether the lion already submits to you, or whether the unicorn will serve you or sleep in his den.' And elsewhere God to him: 'You shall take Leviathan, and you shall fill the souls of dragons with fear, that they may dread, sitting in their dens within the woods and working deceit.' And again elsewhere the Lord says to him:

'You shall draw out the dragon with a hook, or put a ring in his nostril, or bore through his lips; and he shall speak softly to you, that he may make a covenant with you, and you may have him as a perpetual servant'; in which holy Job, understanding the Lord who spoke, and wishing also to open to us the understanding of the words said: 'Why,' he says, 'am I still judged, O Lord, while I am chastised and reproved? Or what answer, O Lord, shall I give to such words, since I am nothing?' And then the Lord, granting also to us who were to come after the work of the word for understanding himself, set forth the parable of his own saying, saying: 'Do not,' he says, 'set aside my judgment, nor deem that I have decreed otherwise than that you might appear the less unjust;

but take on height and power and brightness, and clothe yourself with honor; leave the angels of wrath, and quench every proud and injurious one within you; break off from yourself the impious, and hide them in the earth, and fill their faces with ignominy, that they may be without honor; and then you shall confess that my right hand is mighty to save you. Even before you the wild beast, made like an ox, eats hay, whose strength is in his loins and his power in the navel of his belly, and his tail erect like a cypress, and his sinews twisted like ropes, and his sides plates of bronze, and his backbone like a wall of iron; and this is the beginning that was made for the angels to mock at my creature.'

All which things, most blessed bishops, searching the Scriptures, we know are written for our sake, that he who understands the natures of beasts spoken of in parables, rejecting the vices of worldly manners that are in him, may chasten himself, as it is written in the Apocalypse: 'Behold, the waters which you saw, where the harlot sits, are peoples and crowds and nations and tongues.' As John also says there: 'Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, and she is become a habitation of demons, because the nations have drunk of the wrath of her fornication'; and the same there: 'And they shall weep and bewail themselves over her, because they committed fornication with her and lived in her delights.' As the apostle also says:

'For you have no wrestling against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers of this world, the rulers of these darknesses, against the spiritual wickednesses in heavenly places.' As John also says: 'I saw, out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs; and these are spirits of demons, which, working signs, go forth to trouble the kings of the earth.' Finally, as those initiated in Christ, we retain the first rudiments of the faith we received: we know that we have believed what we believe in God, and have renounced what we renounced in the devil, and that what is called the wild beast is the one thing, but that what Christ Jesus is, is God. As the apostle also says:

'For God has no care for oxen, but he says it for our sake, since he who plows ought to plow in hope, and he who threshes ought to partake of the fruit of his hope.' Let no one therefore ascribe to us the understanding of his own perversity; everyone shall be condemned by his own words and justified by his own words; we confess what we believe, and searching the Scriptures, rejecting the appearance of demons, we understand, as it is written, the deep things of Satan, knowing, as the apostle says, that no one has delivered us from the body of this death save the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ; for it is written: 'Unless you believe, you shall not understand'; and elsewhere: 'A good understanding to all who do it.'

But as for that, most blessed bishops, which they have brought forward—the idolatrous forms, Saturn, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Mars and the other gods of the gentiles—even if we lived so idle toward God and instructed by no faith through the Scriptures, yet while we still delighted in the conversation of worldly folly, by worldly wisdom, though still unprofitable to us, we nevertheless recognized these things to be contrary to our faith, and detecting the gods of the gentiles, we laughed at the worldly follies and miseries, whose works we read as it were for the equipping of our wit.

But if even in these things the faith of our profession is sought: anathema be it, and let their table be made a snare and a stumbling-block to those who call gods the Sun and Moon, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Venus or Saturn and all the host of heaven—whom the gentiles' error, in the rites of their sacred ceremonies and ignorant of God, has taken to itself—and who venerate them, though they are detestable idols, worthy of Gehenna; since it is written: 'Woe to him who says to the wood, Wake and arise, and to the stone, Be exalted; let them perish with their gods, who are spoken of whether in heaven or on earth; may he exterminate the vine of their sense'—as it is written—'the boar out of the wood and the solitary wild beast feed upon it.'

But for us, set free by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ from the body of this death, as it is written, 'a thousand shall fall at our side and ten thousand at our right hand,' so that, according to the Scriptures, clad in the armor of God, ascending upon the basilisk and the asp, we may tread down the lion and the dragon, subject to no likeness of idolatrous wretchedness; concerning which it is written: 'What profits the graven image, because its maker has graven it? They have fashioned it a molten thing, a lying phantasm; and those who shaped it are confounded over their own figment, for the idols were dumb.'

Wherefore either the foolish superstitions of these idols, or the forms of sins, or the names of demons, or the death of vices is shown to us, that, understanding the darknesses, we may desire the light of the Lord, and crying out, 'Know, O nations, God is with us,' we may break their bonds and cast away from us their yoke, and not be defiled, as it is written, in the studies of the Egyptians; for the Lord shall deride them and the Lord shall mock them. Concerning whom John, showing the prince of idolatrous wretchedness, says: 'He is of the seven, and the eighth shall go into perdition.' Concerning whom Solomon also says: 'Sow not in the furrows of iniquity, and you shall not reap them sevenfold'; for so he also says elsewhere: 'Before man are life and death, water and fire;

let him stretch out his hand to whichever he wills.' For these are the seven shepherds and the eight bites of men, according to that which is written, working in the sons of distrust. But to us, to live is Christ, life is Christ, faith is Christ, knowing that we have an anointing from the Holy One, and that we were redeemed not with corruptible silver and gold from our vain conversation of the tradition of the fathers, but with the precious blood, as of a lamb undefiled and unspotted, Jesus Christ; established in whom, no one plunders us according to the philosophy of the world and not according to Christ. Let those who love gold fashion for themselves a golden age of Saturn: to us divine wisdom is more precious than all gold and silver and than the precious stone;

let those whose habitation is the fire of Gehenna call the Sun their god and confess themselves to be of its element—they who will not have Christ as God to be their beginning: to us all things that are under the sun are vanity and the presumption of a perverse spirit, knowing that it shall perish with the world. Let those confess in their evils the Moon to be god who, carried about by every wind of doctrine, set themselves to observe days, seasons, years and months. Let those call Mars their god who have pleased themselves in the adulterous Mars and, given over to the concupiscence of the flesh, are bound in fornications; and, having become as sounding brass or tinkling cymbal, let them judge Jupiter their god, doomed to perish with their father as with their author:

but to us God is Christ Jesus, who, when we were dead in transgressions, made us alive together, forgiving us all our trespasses and blotting out the handwriting that was against us, which was contrary by its decrees, and took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross; the principalities and powers he confidently led across, triumphing over them in himself. For those who worship such demons shall be smitten with the sword of the Lord like their gods, and, not knowing the true Father and Christ the God, the Son of God, made like their idols, they shall appear, as it is written: 'father against son, son against father, daughter-in-law against mother-in-law, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law, and a man's enemies shall be those of his own household.' Let them worship.

Let those worship Mercury as god who, jingling the little purses of earthly treasures, venerate his caduceus or his money-bag in acquiring them: we seek treasures hidden in the heavens and unseen, which neither rust lays hold of nor moth corrupts, knowing that the rich man has not entered into the kingdoms of heaven, as it is written: 'Go to now, you rich, weep and howl over your miseries that come upon your riches; your garments have rotted and become moth-eaten; your gold and your silver, which you have laid up, in the last days shall rust, and their rust shall be for a testimony against you, and shall eat your flesh like fire.' But we know that God has chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, heirs of the kingdom.

But let those venerate Venus as god who work shameful things and look for the reciprocal reward of their error, as is fitting: but we, looking unto Abraham our father and unto Sarah who travailed, we who are brought forth from the Church our mother and produced with wisdom as midwife, press on toward the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministry, unto the building up of the body of Christ, until we all meet in the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. And although no one is sufficient for these things, yet we know our God to be mighty, since he who promised is able also to perform; for he himself said:

'Who has hoped in the Lord and been confounded? Who has remained in his commandments and been forsaken?' Anathema be he who venerates Saclas, Nebroel, Samael, Beelzebub, Nasbodeus, Belial and all such, because they are demons, with the unhappy sanctification of ceremonies, or says they are to be venerated; all of whom, as we read in the Scriptures of God, we condemn, the assertion of demonic wisdom being despised;

for into whatever species and forms the devil may now transform himself, we know that he can be nothing other than the devil; and whether he be called Abaddon in Hebrew, or Apollyon in Greek, or in Latin Exterminans (the Destroyer), whether he be set forth as a beast having seven heads and ten horns, or be put as a serpent or a dragon, we know that he is the devil and the spirit according to the prince of the air of this world, who works in the sons of distrust, among whom we all also once had our conversation in the desires of our flesh, doing the wills of the flesh and of the thoughts; concerning whom it is written in the Apocalypse:

'And the great dragon was cast out of heaven, that old serpent who is called the devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world; and he was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast down with him.' And therefore those who believe in such things, or who sanctify themselves by such an author, being by nature children of wrath and of perdition, walking in darkness, it is no wonder if, denying in themselves the image and likeness of God, and made like the devil in vices, they ascribe the creation of man to demons; concerning whom the apostle well says: 'The natural man,' he says, 'does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God; nor indeed can he, for it is foolishness to him, and he cannot discern it; but the spiritual man discerns all things, while he himself is discerned by no one'; and as it is written:

'Those who are of the flesh mind the things of the flesh; but those who are of the Spirit, the things of the Spirit; and the prudence of the flesh is death, but the prudence of the Spirit is life and peace.' And if they wish to know what we think concerning each of the things that are written: rightly to such, united with the earthly Adam who was made a beast, there is a kinship of dark life, as it is written: 'As is the earthly, such are those also that are earthly; as is the heavenly, such are those also that are heavenly.' Worthy are they whom Eve, travailing in the form of Cain and Lamech—she who had been made the mother of all living, but committed adultery against God and, consenting to the devil's seduction, called Saclas her demon and god and husband—as it is written in the prophet:

'Behold, judgment! Plead against your mother, for she is not my wife, nor am I her husband; and I will take away her fornication from before my people, and her adultery from between her breasts.' And there again: 'And I will take away my garments and my fine linen, that she may not cover her shame, and I will lay bare her filthiness in the sight of her lovers.' And in Jeremiah, the Lord rebuking Jerusalem, who became a servant with her sons, says to her: 'How do you say, I am not polluted and I have not gone after Baal? Behold, look upon your ways in the multitude, and see where you have not committed fornication.' And Ezekiel says: 'Thus says the Lord: Your root is of the land of Canaan, your father an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.' As also elsewhere:

'I likened your mother to the night; my people is like one having no knowledge.' As also in the Gospel God says to such: 'You are the sons of the devil, and you have the devil for your father.'