書信與論戰集（CSEL） 第 23 章 第 2/3 段

Nor let us listen to those who say that the Father alone is the true and everlasting God, but that the Son was not begotten of him but made by him out of nothing, and that there was a time when he was not, yet that he holds the first place in all creation; and that the Holy Spirit is of lesser majesty than the Son and was himself made after the Son; and that of these three the substances are diverse, as gold and silver and bronze.

For they do not know what they say, and from those things which they have been accustomed to see with fleshly eyes they transfer empty images to their disputations, since in truth it is a great thing to behold with the mind a generation which does not come to be out of any time but is eternal, and to behold that very charity and holiness by which the begetter and the begotten are ineffably joined to one another. It is a great and difficult thing to behold these things with the mind, even if it be at peace and tranquil.

It cannot therefore come to pass that those men should see these things who gaze too intently upon earthly generations, and who add to that darkness yet more smoke, which they do not cease to stir up for themselves by daily contentions and struggles, having souls flowing away with the affections of the flesh, like logs sodden with moisture, in which fire only belches smoke and cannot have bright flames. And this indeed can most rightly be said of all heretics. Believing therefore in the unchangeable Trinity, let us also believe in the temporal dispensation for the salvation of the human race. Nor let us listen to those who say that the Son of God, the Christ, is nothing other than a man, but so righteous that he is worthy to be called the Son of God.

For these too the Catholic discipline has cast out, because, deceived by desire of vain glory, they wished to dispute contentiously before they understood what the power of God is, and the wisdom of God, and the Word in the beginning, through which all things were made, and how the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Nor let us listen to those who say that the Son of God did not take on a true man, nor was born of a woman, but showed to those who saw a false flesh and a feigned likeness of a human body.

For they do not know how the substance of God, administering the whole creation, can in no way be defiled, and yet they proclaim that this visible sun scatters its rays through all the dregs and filth of bodies and everywhere keeps them pure and unstained. If therefore visible pure things can be touched by visible unclean things and not be defiled, how much more did the invisible and unchangeable Truth — taking on soul through spirit and body through soul, the whole man being assumed — free him from all infirmities without any defilement of itself! And so they suffer great straits and, while they fear what cannot happen, namely lest Truth be defiled by human flesh, they say that Truth lied. And when he commanded, saying:

Let it be in your mouth: yes, yes; no, no — and when the Apostle cries out: In him there was not yes and no, but in him there was yes — these men contend that his whole body was false flesh, so that they may not seem to themselves to be imitating Christ if they do not lie to their hearers. Nor let us listen to those who indeed confess the Trinity in one eternal substance, but dare to say that the man himself, who was assumed by the temporal dispensation, did not have a human mind, but only a soul and a body. This is to say: he was not a man, but had human bodily members. For beasts too have soul and body, but they do not have reason, which is proper to the mind.

But if those are to be execrated who deny that he had a human body, which is the lowest thing in man, I marvel that these men do not blush who deny that he had that which is the best thing in man. For the human mind is much to be lamented if it is conquered by its own body: if indeed it was not reformed in that man, in whom the human body itself has now received the dignity of a heavenly form. But far be it from us to believe this, which rash blindness has fabricated and proud garrulity has invented. Nor let us listen to those who say that the man who was born of the Virgin was thus assumed by that eternal Wisdom in the same way that other men are made wise by it who are perfectly wise.

For they do not know the proper mystery of that man, and they think that he had this alone more than the rest of the most blessed, namely that he was born of a Virgin. Yet if they would well consider this very thing, perhaps they would believe that he merited this beyond the rest for the reason that this very assumption has something proper beyond the rest. For it is one thing to be made merely wise through the wisdom of God, and another to sustain the very person of the wisdom of God. For although the nature of the body of the Church is the same, yet who does not understand that there is a great difference between the head and the other members? For if the head of the Church is that man, by whose assumption the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, the other members are all the saints, by whom

the Church is perfected and completed. As therefore the soul animates and gives life to our whole body, but in the head it perceives both by seeing and by hearing and by smelling and by tasting and by touching, while in the other members only by touching, and for this reason all things are subjected to the head for action, but it itself is placed above for taking counsel, because the head in a certain manner sustains the person of the very soul which takes counsel for the body — for there all sense appears — so to the whole people of the saints, as to one body, the head is the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

And therefore the wisdom of God and the Word in the beginning, through which all things were made, did not assume that man as it does the other saints, but far more excellently and far more sublimely, in the manner in which he alone ought to be assumed, in whom wisdom might appear to men, as it was fitting that it be shown visibly. Wherefore other men are wise in one way — whoever they are or could have been or shall be able to be — and in another way that one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who not only has the benefit of that wisdom itself, through which all men are made wise, but also bears its person. For of other wise and spiritual souls it can rightly be said that they have in themselves the Word of God, through which all things were made;

but of none of them can it rightly be said that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, which is most rightly said of our Lord Jesus Christ alone. Nor let us listen to those who say that only a human body was assumed by the Word of God, and who thus hear what was said — And the Word was made flesh — so as to deny that that man had either a soul or anything of a man except flesh alone. For they err greatly and do not understand that flesh alone was named in that which was said — the Word was made flesh — because to the eyes of men, for whose sake that assumption was made, flesh alone could appear.

For if it is absurd and greatly unworthy that that man should not have had a human spirit, as we treated above, how much more absurd and unworthy is it that he should have had neither spirit nor soul, and should have had this alone which is even in cattle baser and lowest, that is, a body! Let this impiety therefore also be excluded from our faith, and let us believe that a whole and perfect man was assumed by the Word of God. Nor let us listen to those who say that our Lord had such a body as appeared in the dove which John the Baptist saw descending from heaven and remaining upon him in the sign of the Holy Spirit.

For they thus try to persuade that the Son of God was not born of a woman, because, they say, if it was necessary for him to be shown to fleshly eyes, he could have assumed a body just as the Holy Spirit did. For that dove too, they say, was not born of an egg, and yet it could appear to human eyes. To these it must first be answered that in that place where we read that the Holy Spirit appeared to John in the likeness of a dove, we also read that Christ was born of a woman; and one ought not to believe the Gospel in part and in part not believe it. For from where do you believe that the Holy Spirit was shown in the likeness of a dove, unless because you read it in the Gospel? Therefore I too believe from there that Christ was born of a Virgin, because I read it in the Gospel.

But the reason why the Holy Spirit was not born of a dove, in the way that Christ was born of a woman, is this: because the Holy Spirit had not come to set doves free, but to signify to men innocence and spiritual love, which was visibly figured in the likeness of a dove. But the Lord Jesus Christ, who had come to set men free — among whom both males and females pertain to salvation — neither scorned males, because he took on a male, nor females, because he was born of a female. To this is added a great mystery: that, since death had befallen us through a woman, life might be born to us through a woman:

so that from each nature, that is, feminine and masculine, the vanquished devil might be tormented, since he had rejoiced over the overthrow of both; for it had been too little for his punishment if both natures had been set free in us, unless we were also set free through both. Nor do we say this so as to say that the Lord Jesus Christ alone had a true body, but that the Holy Spirit appeared falsely to the eyes of men; rather we believe that both those bodies were true bodies. For as it was not fitting that the Son of God should deceive men, so it was not becoming that the Holy Spirit should deceive men:

but to almighty God, who fashioned the whole creation out of nothing, it was not difficult to form a true body of a dove without the agency of other doves, just as it was not difficult for him to fashion a true body in the womb of Mary without the seed of a man, since bodily creation served the command and will of the Lord both in the inward parts of a woman for the forming of a man, and in the world itself for the forming of a dove. But foolish and wretched men do not believe that what they either cannot do themselves or have never seen in their lifetime could have been done by almighty God. Nor let us listen to those who wish to compel us, for this reason, to number the Son of God among creatures, because he suffered. For they say: if he suffered, he is changeable;

and if he is changeable, he is a creature, because the substance of God cannot be changed. With whom we too say both that the substance of God cannot be changed and that a creature is changeable. But it is one thing to be a creature, and another to assume a creature. The only-begotten Son of God therefore, who is the power and wisdom of God and the Word, through which all things were made, since he can in no way be changed, assumed a human creature, which he deigned to raise up when it was fallen and to renew when it was grown old. Nor was he himself changed for the worse in it through his passion, but rather changed it for the better through his resurrection. Nor for this reason is it to be denied that the Word of the Father, that is, the only Son of God, through whom all things were made, was born and suffered for us.

For we say that the martyrs too suffered and died for the kingdom of heaven; and yet in that suffering and death their souls were not slain. For the Lord says: Do not fear those who kill the body, but can do nothing to the soul. As therefore we say that the martyrs suffered and died in the bodies which they bore, without the slaying or death of their souls, so we say that the Son of God suffered and died in the man whom he bore, without any change or death of his divinity. Nor let us listen to those who deny that such a body of the Lord rose again as was laid in the tomb. For if it had not been such, he himself would not have said to the disciples after the resurrection:

Handle me and see, for a spirit does not have bones and sinews, as you see me to have. For it is sacrilege to believe that our Lord, since he himself is the Truth, lied in anything. Nor let it disturb us that it is written that he suddenly appeared to the disciples when the doors were shut, so that on that account we should deny that it was a human body, because we see it to be against the nature of this body to enter through shut doors. For all things are possible to God. For to walk upon the waters also is manifestly against the nature of this body; and yet not only did the Lord himself walk before his passion, but he also made Peter walk. So therefore after the resurrection also he did with his body what he willed.

For if before his passion he was able to make it shine like the brightness of the sun, why after his passion could he not also reduce it in a moment of time to whatever fineness he willed, so that it could enter through shut doors? Nor let us listen to those who deny that our Lord carried that very body with himself into heaven, and who cite what is written in the Gospel: No one has ascended into heaven, except him who descended from heaven; and they say that, because the body did not descend from heaven, it could not ascend into heaven. For they do not understand that the body did not ascend into heaven; for the Lord ascended, but the body did not ascend, but was lifted up into heaven by him lifting it, who ascended.

For if, for example, someone should descend naked from a mountain, and after he has descended should clothe himself and, clothed, ascend again, we quite rightly say: no one has ascended, except him who descended; nor do we consider the garment which he carried up with him, but we say that he alone who is clothed ascended. Nor let us listen to those who deny that the Son sits at the right hand of the Father. For they say: does God the Father have a right side or a left, as bodies do? Nor do we hold this concerning God the Father; for God is defined and bounded by no form of body. But the right hand of the Father is the perpetual blessedness which is promised to the saints; just as his left hand is most rightly said to be the perpetual misery which is given to the impious:

so that the right and the left be understood not in God himself, but in creatures, in the manner we have said; for the body of Christ also, which is the Church, will be in that right hand, that is, in that very blessedness, as the Apostle says, that he both raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places. For although our body is not yet there, yet our hope is already there. For this reason the Lord himself, after the resurrection, commanded the disciples whom he found fishing to cast their nets on the right side. And when they had done so, they caught fishes, which were all great, that is, they signified the righteous, to whom the right hand is promised.

This is signified by what he also said in the judgement, that he would set the lambs on the right and the kids on the left. Nor let us listen to those who deny that there will be a day of judgement, and who cite what is written in the Gospel, that he who believes in Christ is not judged, but he who does not believe in him is already judged. For they say: if he who believes will not come into judgement, and he who does not believe is already judged, where are those whom he is going to judge on the day of judgement? They do not understand that the Scriptures speak in such a way as to intimate past time for future time: just as we said above, that what the Apostle said of us — that he made us sit together in the heavenly places — has not yet happened;

but because it is most certainly going to happen, it is spoken of as if it had already happened. Just as the Lord himself also said to the disciples: All things that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you; and a little after he says: I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. How then had he said: All things that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you, unless because he spoke of that which he was most certainly going to do through the Holy Spirit as if he had already done it? So therefore when we hear: he who believes in Christ will not come into judgement, let us understand that he will not come to condemnation. For judgement is said for condemnation, as the Apostle says: let him who does not eat not judge him who eats, that is, let him not think evil of him. And the Lord says:

Do not judge, lest judgement be passed on you. For he does not take away from us the understanding to judge, since the prophet also says: if you truly love righteousness, judge rightly, O sons of men, and the Lord himself says: do not judge by persons, but judge righteous judgement. But in that place where he forbids judging, he admonishes this: that we not condemn anyone whose thought is not opened to us, or of whom we do not know what he will afterward become. So therefore when he said: he will not come into judgement, he said this because he will not come into condemnation; but he who does not believe is already judged — he said this because he is already condemned by the foreknowledge of God, who knows what threatens those who do not believe.

Nor let us listen to those who say that the Holy Spirit, whom the Lord in the Gospel promised to the disciples, came either in the apostle Paul, or in Montanus and Priscilla, as the Cataphrygians say, or in some Manes or Manichaeus, as the Manichaeans say. For these men are so blind that they do not understand the plain Scriptures, or so negligent of their own salvation that they do not read them at all. For who, when he has read, will not understand — whether in the Gospel, where it is written after the Lord's resurrection, the Lord saying: I send the promise of my Father upon you; but sit here in the city until you be clothed with power from on high?

and in the Acts of the Apostles, after the Lord departed from the eyes of the disciples into heaven, when ten days had passed, on the day of Pentecost — do they not attend that most manifestly the Holy Spirit came; and when they were in the city, as he had before warned them, he filled them, so that they spoke with tongues? For the diverse nations which were then present, each one of the hearers understood his own language. But these men deceive those who, negligent of the Catholic faith and even of their own faith, which is manifest in the Scriptures, will not learn, and — what is more grievous and much to be lamented — while they occupy themselves negligently in the Catholic Church, they lend a diligent ear to heretics.

Nor let us listen to those who deny that the holy Church, which is the one Catholic Church, is spread throughout the world, but suppose that it flourishes only in Africa, that is, in the party of Donatus. So deaf are they against the prophet saying: You are my Son, this day have I begotten you; ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and for your possession the ends of the earth — and many other things which are written, whether in the books of the Old or of the New Testament, so as most manifestly to declare that the Church of Christ is spread throughout the world. And when we object this to them, they say that all these things were already fulfilled before the party of Donatus existed, but they contend that afterward the whole Church perished and that its remnants remained only in the party of Donatus.

O proud and wicked tongue! Not even if they truly lived in such a way as at least to keep peace among themselves afterward! But as it is, they do not attend that in Donatus himself was already fulfilled what was said: with what measure you measure, it shall be measured back to you. For as he tried to divide Christ, so he himself is divided by his own people with daily cutting-asunder. To this also pertains that which the Lord says: for he who strikes with the sword shall die by the sword. For the sword in that place, since it is set in an evil sense, signifies the quarrelsome tongue, with which that unhappy man then struck the Church, but did not slay it. For the Lord did not say: he who kills with the sword shall die by the sword, but he said: he who has used the sword shall die by the sword.

Therefore that man struck the Church with a contentious tongue, by which he himself is now cut to pieces, so that he utterly perishes and dies. And yet the apostle Peter did that then not out of his own pride, but out of a love for the Lord which, though carnal, was still love. And so, being admonished, he put back the sword; but this man did not do so even when defeated, since, when he pleaded his cause with bishop Caecilianus before the bishops at Rome, whom he himself had petitioned, he could prove none of the things which he had alleged; and thus he remained in schism, so as to die by his own sword.

But his people, when they do not hear the prophets and the Gospel, in which it is most manifestly written that the Church of Christ is spread throughout all nations, and when they hear schismatics who seek not the glory of God but their own, sufficiently signify that they are slaves, not free, and that they have the right ear cut off. For Peter, erring in love of the Lord, cut off the right ear of a slave, not of a free man. From which it is signified that those who are struck by the sword of schism are both slaves of carnal desires, not yet led forth into the liberty of the Holy Spirit, so that they no longer trust in man, and that they do not hear what is right — that is, the glory of the Lord spread most widely through the Catholic Church — but hear the left-hand error of human self-inflation.

But nevertheless, since the Lord says in the Gospel that, when the Gospel has been preached among all nations, then the end shall be — how do these men say that all the other nations have already fallen from the faith and that the Church has remained only in the party of Donatus, when it is manifest that, from the time this party was cut off from unity, some nations afterward believed, and that there are still some who have not yet believed, to whom the Gospel does not cease to be preached daily?

Who would not marvel that there should be someone who wishes to be called a Christian and yet is carried away against the glory of Christ with such great impiety that he dares to say that all the peoples of the nations, who even now are still coming to the Church of God and hastening to believe in the Son of God, are acting in vain, because no Donatist baptizes them? Without doubt men would abhor such things and forsake them without delay, if they were seeking Christ, if they loved the Church, if they were free, if they kept their right ear whole. Nor let us listen to those who, although they rebaptize no one, have nevertheless cut themselves off from unity and have preferred to be called Luciferians rather than Catholics. For in that they understand that the baptism of Christ is not to be repeated, they act rightly.

For they perceive that the sacrament of holy washing exists nowhere except from the Catholic Church, yet that these cut-off branches carry with them that form which they had received in the vine itself, before they were cut off. For these are they of whom the Apostle says: 'having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof'; for the great power of godliness is peace and unity, because God is one. This they do not have, because they are cut off from unity. And so, if any of them come over to the Catholic Church, they do not repeat the form of godliness which they have, but they receive the power of godliness which they do not have. For the Apostle most plainly teaches that even branches that have been cut off can again be grafted in, if they do not remain in unbelief.

That the Luciferians understand this and do not rebaptize, we do not disapprove; but that they too willed to be cut off from the root—who would not recognize this to be detestable? And especially so, because that displeased them in the Catholic Church which truly belongs to Catholic holiness. For nowhere ought the bowels of mercy to flourish so much as in the Catholic Church, so that, like a true mother, she neither proudly insults her sinning children nor forgives grudgingly those who have been corrected. For it is not without cause that among all the apostles Peter sustains the person of this Catholic Church; for to this Church the keys of the kingdom of heaven were given, when they were given to Peter. And when it is said to him, it is said to all: 'Lovest thou me? Feed my sheep.'

Therefore the Catholic Church ought willingly to forgive her children who have been corrected and established in piety, since in Peter himself, who bore her person—both when he wavered in the sea, and when he carnally called the Lord back from the passion, and when he cut off the servant's ear with the sword, and when he denied the Lord himself three times, and when afterward he lapsed into superstitious dissimulation—we see that pardon was granted, and that he, corrected and established, attained even to the glory of the Lord's passion.

And so, after the persecution which had been carried out by the Arian heretics, once peace—which indeed the Catholic Church holds in the Lord—was restored even by the princes of this world, many of the bishops who in that persecution had consented to the perfidy of the Arians, having been corrected, chose to return to the Catholic Church, condemning either what they had believed or what they had pretended to believe. These the Catholic Church received into her maternal bosom, as she received Peter after the weeping of his denial, admonished by the cock's crow, or as she received the same Peter, corrected by the voice of Paul after his wicked dissimulation.

These men, proudly receiving this love of their mother and impiously reproaching it, because they did not rejoice with Peter as he rose again after the cock's crow, deserved to fall with Lucifer, who used to rise in the morning. Nor let us listen to those who deny that the Church of God can forgive all sins. And so these wretched men, while they do not understand the rock in Peter and refuse to believe that the keys of the kingdom of heaven were given to the Church, have themselves let them slip from their hands. These are they who condemn widows, if they marry, as adulteresses, and who proclaim themselves cleaner than the apostolic doctrine: who, if they were willing to acknowledge their name, would call themselves worldly rather than clean. For being unwilling to be corrected if they have sinned, they have chosen nothing else than to be condemned along with this world.

For those to whom they deny the pardon of sins, they do not preserve by any soundness, but withdraw medicine from the sick; and they force their widows to burn, whom they do not permit to marry. For they are not to be held wiser than Paul the Apostle, who says: 'I would rather that they marry than burn.' Nor let us listen to those who deny that there will be a future resurrection of the flesh, and cite what the Apostle Paul says: 'Flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God,' not understanding what the same Apostle says: 'This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.' For when this shall have been done, it will no longer be flesh and blood, but a heavenly body. This the Lord also promises when he says: