備忘錄 第 1 章

I. Since Scripture says and admonishes, 'Ask thy fathers, and they will tell thee; thine elders, and they will declare to thee,' and likewise, 'Incline thine ear to the words of the wise,' and likewise, 'My son, forget not these discourses, but let my words keep thy heart,' it seems to me, Peregrinus, the least of all the servants of God, that, with the Lord's help, it will be a thing of no small usefulness, if I commit to writing those things which I have faithfully received from the holy fathers — necessary indeed for my own infirmity, since I have at hand that whereby the weakness of my memory may be repaired by constant reading. To which undertaking not only the fruit of the work, but also the consideration of the time and the opportuneness of the place exhorts me. The time:

because, since all human things are snatched away by it, we too ought in turn to snatch from it something that may avail unto life eternal; especially since a certain dread expectation of the approaching divine Judgment demands that the zeal of religion be increased, and the fraudulence of new heretics calls for much care and attentiveness. The place, moreover: because, shunning the throngs and crowds of cities, we dwell in the retreat of a more remote little farmstead and in it the secluded dwelling of a monastery, where, without great distraction, that may be done which is sung in the psalm: 'Be still,' it says, 'and see that I am the Lord.' But the very plan of our purpose also accords with this;

for, since for some while we were tossed about in the various and grievous whirlwinds of secular service, at length, by Christ's inspiration, we have settled ourselves in the harbour of religion, ever most faithful to all; that there, having laid aside the blasts of vanity and pride, and appeasing God by the sacrifice of Christian humility, we might be able to escape not only the shipwrecks of the present life, but also the fires of the age to come. But now, in the name of the Lord, I will approach that which presses: namely, that I may describe the things handed down by our forefathers and deposited with us, with the fidelity of a reporter rather than the presumption of an author;

yet observing this law of writing, that I touch upon by no means all things, but only whatever is necessary, and that not in ornate and exact, but in easy and common speech, so that most things may seem rather indicated than explained. Let those write elegantly and accurately who are led to this task either by confidence in their talent or by the obligation of their office. But for me it will suffice to have prepared for myself a Commonitorium for the relieving of my recollection, or rather of my forgetfulness: which, however, little by little, by recalling what I have learned, I shall endeavour daily, by the Lord's bestowal, to amend and to fill out. And I have given this very forewarning for this reason, that if perchance, having slipped from me, it should come into the hands of holy persons, they may rashly reprehend nothing in it which they still see needs to be polished by the promised amendment. II.

Often, therefore, inquiring with great zeal and the utmost attention from very many men eminent in holiness and doctrine, by what sure and, as it were, general and regular way I might be able to discern the truth of the catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical depravity, I received from nearly all an answer of this kind: that whether I, or anyone else, wished to detect the frauds of the heretics that arise and to avoid their snares, and to remain sound and whole in a sound faith, he ought, with the Lord's help, to fortify his faith in a twofold manner: first, namely, by the authority of the divine law, and then by the tradition of the catholic Church. Here perhaps someone may inquire:

Since the Canon of the Scriptures is perfect, and abundantly sufficient of itself for all things, what need is there that the authority of ecclesiastical understanding be joined to it? Because, namely, on account of its very depth, not all receive sacred Scripture in one and the same sense, but its words one interprets one way and another another way, so that almost as many opinions can seem to be elicited from it as there are men. For Novatian expounds it one way, Sabellius another, Donatus another, Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius another; Photinus, Apollinaris, Priscillianus another, Jovinianus, Pelagius, Caelestius another; and lastly Nestorius another.

And therefore it is very necessary, on account of so many windings of such varied error, that the line of prophetic and apostolic interpretation be directed according to the norm of the ecclesiastical and catholic sense. In the Catholic Church itself, moreover, great care must be taken that we hold that which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For this is truly and properly catholic, as the very force and meaning of the name declares, which comprehends nearly all things universally. But this will at last be done, if we follow universality, antiquity, consent. And we shall follow universality in this manner, if we confess that one faith to be true which the whole Church throughout the world confesses;

antiquity, on the other hand, in this way, if we in no wise depart from those senses which it is manifest our holy elders and fathers celebrated: consent likewise also, if, in this very antiquity, we follow the definitions and opinions of all, or at least of nearly all, the priests and masters alike. III. What then shall a catholic Christian do, if some little portion of the Church has cut itself off from the communion of the universal faith? What indeed but prefer the soundness of the whole body to the pestilent and corrupt member? What if some new contagion should attempt to defile, not now only a small portion, but the whole Church alike?

Then likewise he will take care to cleave to antiquity, which now can in no way be seduced by any fraud of novelty. What if, in antiquity itself, the error of two or three men, or at least of one city or even of some province, be detected? Then by all means he will take care to prefer the decrees of the universal Church, of old universally given, if there are any, to the rashness or ignorance of the few. What if something of this kind should emerge, where nothing of the sort can be found? Then he will give his effort to consult and interrogate the collated opinions of the forefathers, of those only who, though in diverse times and places, yet remaining in the communion and faith of the one Catholic Church, stood forth as approved masters;

and whatever he shall have learned that not one or two only, but all alike, with one and the same consent, openly, frequently, perseveringly held, wrote, and taught, let him understand that this is to be believed by him also without any doubt. IV. But, that what we say may become plainer, it must be illustrated one by one with examples, and somewhat more fully amplified; lest, by zeal for excessive brevity, the weight of the matters be carried away by the swiftness of the discourse.

In the time of Donatus, from whom the Donatists are named, when a great part of Africa was hurling itself into the madness of its error, and, unmindful of the name, of religion, of profession, was preferring the sacrilegious rashness of one man to the Church of Christ, then whoever, being established throughout Africa, having detested the profane schism, were associated with the universal Churches of the world, alone of all those were able to be saved within the sanctuaries of the catholic faith; leaving indeed to posterity an excellent pattern, namely, how thenceforth, by good custom, the soundness of all should be set before the frenzy of one or at least of a few.

Likewise, when the poison of the Arians had contaminated not merely some small portion but nearly the whole world, so that almost all the bishops of the Latin tongue, deceived partly by force and partly by fraud, had a certain darkness poured over their minds, and it was unclear what above all ought to be followed amid so great a confusion of affairs, then whoever proved a true lover and worshipper of Christ, by preferring the ancient faith to the new treachery, was stained by no plague of that contagion. By the peril of that time it was shown abundantly and more than enough how great a calamity is brought in by the introduction of a novel teaching. For by it not only small matters but even the greatest were shaken.

For not only were kinships, blood-ties, friendships, and households shaken, but even cities, peoples, provinces, nations, and finally the whole Roman Empire were utterly convulsed and overthrown. For when that profane novelty of the Arians, like some Bellona or Fury, had first of all captured the Emperor and then subjected all the heights of the palace to its new laws, it never thereafter ceased to confound and harass all things, private and public, all things sacred and profane, drawing no distinction between good and true, but striking down whomever it pleased, as if from a higher vantage point.

Then wives were defiled, widows stripped of mourning, virgins profaned, monasteries demolished, clergy scattered, deacons beaten, priests driven into exile; the workhouses, prisons, and mines were filled with holy men. Of these the greatest part, banished from the cities, thrust out and exiled, were among deserts, caves, wild beasts, and rocks, afflicted with nakedness, hunger, and thirst, worn down and wasted away.

And were all these things for any other cause whatever than that, for the sake of a heavenly teaching, human superstitions were being introduced; that a well-founded antiquity was being undermined by a wicked novelty; that the institutions of those before were being violated; that the decrees of the fathers were being torn up; that the definitions of our elders were being uprooted; that the lust of profane and novel curiosity would not contain itself within the chaste limits of sacred and uncorrupted antiquity? V. But perhaps out of hatred of novelty and love of antiquity we are inventing these things. Whoever judges so, let him at least believe the blessed Ambrose, who, in his second book to the Emperor Gratian, himself lamenting the bitterness of the time, says:

'But now, Almighty God,' he says, 'we have sufficiently atoned by our exile and our blood for the slaughters of the Confessors, the banishments of the priests, and the crime of so great an impiety. It has become sufficiently clear that those who have violated the faith cannot be safe.' Likewise in the third book of the same work he says: 'Let us therefore keep the precepts of our forefathers, and not dare with the rashness of the untrained to violate the seals of our inheritance. That sealed prophetic book neither the Elders, nor the Powers, nor the Angels, nor the Archangels dared to open: to Christ alone was reserved the prerogative of expounding it. Who of us would dare to unseal the priestly book, sealed by the Confessors and already consecrated by the martyrdom of many? Those who were afterwards compelled to unseal it nevertheless sealed it again, condemning the fraud;

those who did not dare to violate it became Confessors and martyrs. How can we deny the faith of those whose victory we proclaim?' We proclaim it indeed, I say—O venerable Ambrose! We proclaim it indeed, and praising it we marvel. For who is so mad that—even if he be unable to attain to them—he does not long to follow those whom no force drove away from the defense of the faith of the fathers: not threats, not flatteries, not life, not death, not the palace, not the courtiers, not the Emperor, not the empire, not men, not demons?

Those, I say, whom the Lord, for their tenacity in holding to the religious antiquity, judged worthy of so great a gift that through them He restored the prostrate Churches, gave life again to the spiritually dead peoples, replaced the cast-down crowns of the priests, and wiped out those wicked marks—not letters but blots—of the new impiety, by pouring out upon the bishops from heaven a fountain of the faithful's tears; and finally He recalled almost the whole world, struck by the savage tempest of a sudden heresy, from a new treachery back to the ancient faith, from the madness of novelty back to the ancient soundness, from the blindness of novelty back to the ancient light.

But in this divine virtue, as it were, of the Confessors, this above all must be especially considered by us: that then, in the very antiquity of the Church, it was not the defense of some part, but of the whole, that was undertaken by them. For it would not have been right that men so great and of such quality should assert, with so great an effort, the wandering and self-contradictory conjectures of one or two men, or contend on behalf of some little province by a kind of rash conspiracy; but rather, following the decrees and definitions of all the priests of the holy Church—heirs of the apostolic and catholic truth—they chose to betray themselves rather than the faith of the ancient universality.

Whence also they deserved to attain to so great a glory that they are rightly and deservedly held to be not only Confessors, but even princes of the Confessors. VI. Great therefore, and plainly divine, is this example of those same blessed men, and to be pondered with tireless meditation by all true Catholics: who, with the seven lamps of the sevenfold candlestick shining with the light of the Holy Spirit, showed beforehand to posterity a most clear pattern of how thereafter, through each and every empty babbling of errors, the audacity of profane novelty might be crushed by the authority of sacred antiquity. Nor is this anything new. For this custom has always flourished in the Church, that the more religious anyone was, the more readily he opposed the novel inventions. All things are full of such examples.

But lest it grow too long, we shall take some one example, and this preferably from the Apostolic See, so that all may see more clearly than the light with what force, with what zeal, with what striving the blessed succession of the blessed Apostles always defended the integrity of the Religion once received. Long ago, then, Agrippinus, bishop of Carthage, of venerable memory, the first of all mortals, against the divine Canon, against the rule of the universal Church, against the judgment of all his fellow-priests, against the custom and institutions of our elders, judged that there must be rebaptizing. This presumption brought in so great an evil that it furnished not only to all heretics a form of sacrilege, but even to certain Catholics an occasion of error.

When therefore all on every side cried out against the novelty of the thing, and all the priests everywhere held back, each according to his own zeal, then Pope Stephen of blessed memory, prelate of the Apostolic See, resisted—together indeed with the rest of his colleagues, but yet beyond the rest—judging, as I suppose, it fitting that he should surpass all the others as much in the devotion of his faith as he excelled them in the authority of his office. In short, in the letter which was then sent to Africa, he ratified it in these words: 'Let nothing be innovated except what has been handed down.' For that holy and prudent man understood that the principle of piety admitted nothing else than that all things which had been received from the fathers in the same faith should be consigned to the children in that same faith;

and that we ought to follow the Religion, not to lead it where we would wish, but rather where it would lead us; and that it is proper to Christian modesty and gravity not to hand down our own things to posterity, but to keep what has been received from our forefathers. What then was the outcome of the whole affair? What indeed but the usual and customary one? Antiquity, of course, was retained, novelty was hissed off the stage. But perhaps then patrons were lacking to that novel invention?

On the contrary, there was present so great a force of talent, such rivers of eloquence, so great a number of supporters, such plausibility, so many oracles of the divine law—but plainly understood in a new and evil manner—that it seems to me that whole conspiracy could in no way have been destroyed, had not the very profession of novelty undertaken, defended, and praised for the sake of so great an effort abandoned its own cause. What, finally, was the strength of the African Council itself, or of its decree? By God's gift, none; but all of it, like dreams, like fables, like superfluities, was abolished, made obsolete, and trodden underfoot. And, O wondrous reversal of affairs! the authors of that same opinion are judged Catholics, but its followers heretics; the masters are absolved, the disciples condemned;

the writers of the books shall be sons of the kingdom, but Gehenna shall receive the asserters of them. For who is so mad as to doubt that that most blessed light of all the saints, both bishops and martyrs, Cyprian, together with the rest of his colleagues, shall reign forever with Christ? Or who is so contrarily sacrilegious as to deny that the Donatists and other plagues, who boast that on the authority of that Council they rebaptize, shall burn forever with the devil? VII.

This judgment indeed seems to me to have been promulgated by divine providence chiefly on account of the fraudulence of those who, while they contrive to concoct a heresy under another's name, very often snatch at the writings of some ancient man, published a little obscurely, which because of their very obscurity seem to accord, as it were, with their own dogma; so that whatever it is they put forward, they may seem to be neither the first nor the only ones to hold that view.

I judge their wickedness worthy of a double hatred: both because they do not fear to give the poison of heresy to others to drink, and also because with a profane hand they fan the memory of some holy man, like ashes already laid to rest, and what ought to have been buried in silence they spread abroad with a revived report—following altogether in the footsteps of their author Ham, who not only neglected to cover the nakedness of the venerable Noah, but even announced it to the others to be mocked.

Whence he merited so great an offense of injured piety that even his posterity were bound by the curses of his sin—wholly and far unlike those blessed brothers, who would neither defile with their own eyes the nakedness of their revered father nor lay it open to others, but, turning away (as it is written), covered him: which is neither to have approved nor to have published abroad the lapse of a holy man; and therefore they were endowed with a blessed benediction upon their posterity. But let us return to our subject. With great fear, then, must we dread the guilt of an altered faith and a defiled religion; from which not only the discipline of ecclesiastical ordinance, but also the censure of Apostolic authority, deters us.

For it is known to all how gravely, how severely, how vehemently the blessed Apostle Paul inveighs against certain men who with marvelous fickleness had too quickly been removed from him who had called them into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel which is no gospel; who had heaped up for themselves teachers according to their own desires, turning away their hearing indeed from the truth, but being turned aside to fables, having damnation because they had made void their first faith; whom those had deceived concerning whom the same Apostle writes to the Roman brethren: 'I beseech you, brethren, to mark those who cause dissensions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you yourselves have learned; and turn away from them.'

'For such men do not serve Christ our Lord, but their own belly; and by sweet words and benedictions they seduce the hearts of the innocent. They make their way into households, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, who are led away by various desires, ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth. Vain talkers and deceivers, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of filthy gain. Men corrupt in mind, reprobate concerning the faith, proud, knowing nothing, but languishing about questions and strifes of words; who are deprived of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness; and being at the same time idle, they learn to go about from house to house;'

'and not only idle, but also tattlers and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not: who, putting away a good conscience, have made shipwreck concerning the faith: whose profane vain babblings advance much unto impiety, and whose word spreads like a cancer.' But it is well that of these it is likewise written: 'But they shall proceed no further; for their folly shall be manifest to all, as theirs also was.' VIII.

When therefore certain such men, going about through provinces and cities and carrying their errors for sale, had come even to the Galatians, and when, on hearing them, the Galatians, seized with a kind of nausea for the truth, vomited up the manna of Apostolic and Catholic doctrine and were delighting in the filth of heretical novelty, then the authority of Apostolic power so exerted itself that it decreed with the utmost severity: 'But although we,' he says, 'or an angel from heaven preach to you any gospel besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.' What is it that he says, 'But although we'? Why not rather, 'But although I'? That is:

'Even if Peter, even if Andrew, even if John, even if finally the whole choir of the Apostles preach to you any gospel besides that which we have preached, let him be anathema.' A tremendous strictness, that for the sake of asserting tenacity in the first faith he spared neither himself nor his fellow Apostles! It is too little: 'Even if an angel,' he says, 'from heaven preach to you any gospel besides that which we have preached, let him be anathema.' It had not been enough, for the safekeeping of the faith once handed down, to have recalled the nature of the human condition, unless he had also included angelic excellence. 'Although we,' he says, 'or an angel from heaven.' Not because the holy and heavenly angels can now sin; but this is what he means:

'Even if,' he says, 'that which cannot happen should happen, whoever shall attempt to change the faith once handed down, let him be anathema.' But perhaps he spoke these things perfunctorily, and poured them out rather by human impulse than decreed them by divine reason. Far from it. For he goes on, and drives home this very thing with the enormous effort of a repeated declaration: 'As we said before, so now I say again: If any man preach to you a gospel besides that which you have received, let him be anathema.' He did not say: 'If anyone announce to you a gospel besides that which you have received, let him be blessed, praised, received'; but, 'let him be anathema,' he says—that is, separated, set apart, excluded—lest the dreadful contagion of one sheep contaminate by its venomous mixture the harmless flock of Christ. IX.

But perhaps these precepts were given to the Galatians only. Then those things too were commanded to the Galatians alone which are recorded in what follows in the same Epistle: such as these: 'If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be made desirous of vainglory, provoking one another, envying one another,' and the rest. But if this is absurd, and these things were commanded equally to all, it remains that just as these are precepts of conduct, so too those things which are decreed concerning the faith must be grasped by all in like manner; and just as it is lawful for no one to provoke one another or to envy one another, so let it be lawful for no one to receive anything besides what the Catholic Church everywhere preaches.

Or perhaps it was then commanded that if anyone should announce anything besides what had been announced, he should be anathematized; but now it is no longer commanded. Then likewise that which he also says there: 'But I say, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the desire of the flesh,' was then only commanded, but now is no longer commanded. But if it is both impious and pernicious so to believe, it necessarily follows that, just as these things are to be observed in all ages, so too those things which have been ordained concerning the unchanging faith have been commanded for all ages. To announce, therefore, anything to Catholic Christians besides what they have received was never lawful, is nowhere lawful, will never be lawful;

and to anathematize those who announce anything besides what was once received was never wrong, is nowhere wrong, will never be wrong. Since these things are so, is there anyone of such great audacity as to announce, besides what has been announced in the Church, or of such great fickleness as to receive, besides what he has received from the Church? He cries out, and crying repeats it, and to all, and always, and everywhere through his letters he cries—that one, that chosen vessel, that teacher of the nations, that trumpet of the Apostles, that herald of the lands, that one privy to the heavens—that if anyone announce a new dogma, he should be anathematized.

And against this certain frogs, gnats, and flies doomed to perish cry back—such as the Pelagians—and that to Catholics: 'On our authority,' they say, 'with us as leaders, with us as expositors, condemn what you held, hold what you condemned, cast away the ancient faith, the paternal institutions, the deposits of our forefathers—and receive...': what, then, at last? I shudder to say it; for they are so arrogant that to me they seem to be incapable of being affirmed, or even refuted, without some sacrilege. X. But someone will say: Why then are certain eminent persons set in the Church so very often divinely permitted to announce new things to Catholics? A right question, and worthy to be treated more diligently and more fully:

yet it must be satisfied not by our own ingenuity, but by the authority of the divine law, by the testimony of the Church's teaching office. Let us hear, then, holy Moses; and let him himself teach us why learned men—and those who, on account of the grace of knowledge, are even called prophets by the Apostle—are sometimes permitted to bring forth new dogmas, which the Old Testament was accustomed in allegorical language to call 'strange gods,' inasmuch, namely, as the opinions of heretics are observed by their followers just as their gods are observed by the heathen. Blessed Moses, then, writes in Deuteronomy:

'If there arise,' he says, 'in the midst of you a prophet, or one who says that he has seen a dream'—that is, a teacher set in the Church, whom his disciples or hearers suppose to teach from some revelation. What then? 'And he foretell,' he says, 'a sign and a wonder, and that come to pass which he spoke.' Some great teacher, I know not whom, is surely signified, and of such great knowledge that he may seem able to his own followers not only to know what is human, but even to foreknow what is above man—such as the disciples of Valentinus, Donatus, Photinus, Apollinaris, and others of that kind generally boast theirs to have been. What afterwards? 'And he say,' he says, 'to you: Let us go and follow strange gods, whom you do not know, and let us serve them.'

Who are the 'strange gods' but foreign errors which you did not know—that is, new and unheard-of ones? 'And let us serve them'—that is, let us believe them, let us follow them. What at the last? 'You shall not hear,' he says, 'the words of that prophet or dreamer.' And why, I ask you, is it not forbidden by God to teach what is forbidden by God to be heard? 'Because,' he says, 'the Lord your God tests you, that it may be made manifest whether you love Him or not, with all your heart and with all your soul.' The cause is laid open clearer than light why divine Providence sometimes permits certain teachers of the Churches to preach certain new dogmas. 'That He may test you,' he says, 'the Lord your God.'

And surely it is a great temptation when that one whom you suppose to be a prophet, a disciple of the prophets, a teacher and asserter of truth, whom you have embraced with the highest veneration and love, suddenly and secretly insinuates harmful errors, which you can neither quickly detect, being led by the prejudice of an old teaching, nor easily think it right to condemn, being hindered by affection for the old master. XI. Here perhaps someone may demand that those things which have been asserted in the words of holy Moses be demonstrated by some ecclesiastical examples. A fair demand, and not to be long deferred.

For, to begin with what is nearest and most manifest, what kind of temptation do we suppose it was lately, when that unhappy Nestorius, suddenly turned from a sheep into a wolf, began to tear the flock of Christ, while those very ones who were being gnawed still in great part believed him to be a sheep, and were therefore the more exposed to his bites? For who would easily think him to err, whom he saw chosen by so great a judgment of the Empire, attended by so great a zeal of the priests; who, celebrated with great love of the saints and the highest favor of the people, daily handled the divine eloquences openly, and refuted whatever harmful errors of Jews and Gentiles?

In what way, finally, would he not have made anyone believe that he taught aright, preached aright, thought aright—he who, in order to open men's hearing to his own single heresy, assailed the blasphemies of all heresies? But this was that very thing which Moses said: 'The Lord your God tests you, whether you love Him or not.' And, to pass over Nestorius—in whom there was always more of admiration than of usefulness, more of fame than of experience, whom human grace, rather than divine, had for some time made great by the opinion of the crowd—let us rather recall those who, endowed with many advancements and much industry, proved no small temptation to Catholic men. As in the Pannonias, in the memory of our elders, Photinus is reported to have tempted the Church of Sirmium:

where, when he had been received into the priesthood with great favor of all, and for some time administered it as a Catholic, suddenly, like that evil prophet or dreamer whom Moses signifies, he began to persuade the people of God entrusted to him to follow strange gods—that is, foreign errors, which before he had not known. But this is usual. The pernicious thing, however, is that for so great a wickedness he made use of no mean supports. For he was both strong in the powers of his talent and rich in the resources of learning. By the example of that ecclesiastical temptation we learn the danger, and at the same time we are admonished to keep the custody of the faith more diligently. For he himself bred in his hearers great heats and great straits;

for the authority of the Church drew them one way, the custom of their master drew them back the other way; and wavering and tossing between the two, they could not make out what they ought rather to choose for themselves. But perhaps that man was of such a kind as deserved to be easily despised. On the contrary, he was so great and of such quality that in very many matters he was too readily believed. For what was more excellent than he in acuteness, in practice, in learning? How many heresies he crushed in many volumes, how many errors hostile to the faith he refuted, is shown by that work of no fewer than thirty books, most noble and most great, in which he confounded the insane calumnies of Porphyry by a great mass of proofs. It would be long to recall all his works;

by which works he could surely have been equal to the chiefest builders of the Church, had he not, by that profane lust of heretical curiosity, invented some new thing—I know not what—by which he both befouled all his labors, as it were by the admixture of a kind of leprosy, and brought it about that his teaching should be called not so much an edification as rather an ecclesiastical temptation. XII. Here perhaps it may be demanded of me that I should set forth the heresies of those whom I mentioned above—namely of Nestorius, of Apollinaris, and of Photinus. This indeed does not pertain to the matter of which we now treat.

For our purpose is not to pursue the errors of individuals, but to bring forward the examples of a few, by which it may be clearly and plainly demonstrated that which Moses said: namely, that whenever some ecclesiastical teacher, himself a prophet in interpreting the mysteries of the prophets, attempts to introduce something new into the Church of God, divine Providence permits this to come about for our testing. It will therefore be useful, in a digression, to set forth briefly what the above-mentioned heretics hold—that is, Photinus, Apollinaris, Nestorius. The sect of Photinus, then, is this. He says that God is single and solitary, and is to be confessed after the Jewish manner.

He denies the fullness of the Trinity, and thinks that there is no person of God the Word nor any of the Holy Spirit. But he asserts Christ to be a mere solitary man, to whom he ascribes a beginning from Mary; and he dogmatizes in every way that we ought to worship only the person of God the Father, and only Christ as man. This, then, is Photinus. Apollinaris, however, boasts that he agrees, as it were, in the unity of the Trinity—and even this not with the full soundness of the faith; but in the Lord's incarnation he blasphemes by open profession. For he says that in the very flesh of our Savior either there was no human soul at all, or at least that there was such a one as had no mind and reason.

But he also said that the Lord's flesh itself was not taken from the flesh of the holy Virgin Mary, but had descended from heaven into the Virgin; and, ever wavering and doubtful, he preached it now as coeternal with God the Word, now as made from the divinity of the Word. For he was unwilling that there should be in Christ two substances, one divine, the other human, one from the Father, the other from the mother; but he thought that the very nature of the Word was rent asunder, as if part of it remained in God, but part had been turned into flesh; so that, whereas the truth says that Christ is one out of two substances, he, contrary to the truth, asserts that out of the one divinity of Christ two substances have been made. This, then, is Apollinaris.

Nestorius, however, with a disease contrary to Apollinaris, while he pretends to distinguish two substances in Christ, suddenly introduces two persons, and with an unheard-of wickedness wishes there to be two sons of God, two Christs—one God, the other man, one who is from the Father, the other who is begotten from the mother. And therefore he asserts that holy Mary ought to be called not Theotocos (God-bearer) but Christotocos (Christ-bearer): because, namely, from her was born not that Christ who is God, but that one who was man. But if anyone thinks that in his writings he says one Christ and preaches one person of Christ, let him not believe it rashly. For either he has contrived that by the art of deceiving, so that through good things he might the more easily persuade also evil ones, as the Apostle says:

'Through what is good he has wrought death in me.' Either then, as we have said, for the sake of deceit he boasts in certain passages of his writings that he believes in one Christ and one person of Christ; or else, after the Virgin's childbearing, he asserts that two persons came together into one Christ in such a way that nevertheless he maintains that at the time of the Virgin's conception or childbearing, and for some while afterwards, there were two Christs—namely, that Christ as man was first born ordinary and alone, not yet joined to the Word of God in unity of person, and that afterwards the person of the assuming Word descended into him; and that, although now he abides as the assumed one in the glory of God, yet for a while there seems to have been nothing distinguishing him from other men.

These therefore—Nestorius, Apollinaris, Photinus—as rabid dogs bark against the Catholic faith: Photinus, by not confessing the Trinity; Apollinaris, by declaring the nature of the Word to be convertible, and by not confessing two substances in Christ, and by denying either the whole soul of Christ or at least the mind and reason within the soul, and by asserting that the Word of God took the place of the mind's intellect; Nestorius, by maintaining that there either always are, or for some while were, two Christs. But the Catholic Church, thinking rightly both of God and of our Saviour, blasphemes neither in the mystery of the Trinity nor in the incarnation of Christ.

For it venerates one Godhead in the fullness of the Trinity, and the equality of the Trinity in one and the same majesty; and it confesses one Christ Jesus, not two, the same being equally both God and man. It believes that in him there is one person, but two substances; two substances, yet one person: two substances, because the Word of God is not changeable, so that it should be turned into flesh; one person, lest by professing two sons it should seem to worship a quaternity and not a Trinity. But it is worth the effort to unfold this very point more distinctly and explicitly again and again. In God there is one substance, but three persons; in Christ two substances, but one person.

In the Trinity there is one and another, not one thing and another thing; in the Saviour one thing and another thing, not one and another. How in the Trinity one and another, not one thing and another thing? Because, namely, the person of the Father is one, that of the Son another, that of the Holy Spirit another; yet the nature of Father and Son and Holy Spirit is not one and another, but one and the same. How in the Saviour one thing and another thing, not one and another? Because, namely, the substance of the Godhead is one thing, that of the manhood another; yet the deity and the manhood are not one and another, but one and the same Christ, one and the same Son of God, and of the one same Christ and Son of God there is one and the same person;

just as in a human being the flesh is one thing and the soul another, yet the soul and flesh are one and the same human being. In Peter and Paul the soul is one thing, the flesh another; yet there are not two Peters, flesh and soul; nor one Paul the soul and another Paul the flesh; but there is one and the same Peter, one and the same Paul, subsisting from the twofold and diverse nature of soul and body. So therefore in one and the same Christ there are two substances; but one divine, the other human; one from God the Father, the other from the Virgin Mother; one coeternal with and equal to the Father, the other from time and less than the Father; one consubstantial with the Father, the other consubstantial with the Mother; yet one and the same Christ in both substances. Therefore the Christ who is God is not one, the man another; nor one uncreated, another created;

not one impassible, another passible; not one equal to the Father, another less than the Father; not one from the Father, another from the Mother; but one and the same Christ, God and man, the same uncreated and created, the same unchangeable and impassible, the same changed and suffering, the same both equal to and less than the Father, the same begotten of the Father before the ages, the same born in time of a Mother, perfect God, perfect man. In God supreme divinity, in the man full humanity. Full humanity, I say: for it possesses at once both soul and flesh, but flesh that is true, ours, derived from a mother, and a soul endowed with intellect, strong in mind and reason. There is therefore in Christ the Word, a soul, and flesh;

but this whole is one Christ, one Son of God, and one our Saviour and Redeemer. Yet one, not by some corruptible confusion of divinity and humanity, but by a certain entire and singular unity of person. For that conjunction did not convert and change the one into the other (which is the error proper to the Arians), but rather joined both into one in such a way that, while the singularity of one and the same person ever remains in Christ, the property of each nature also abides forever; so that, namely, God never begins to be a body, nor does the body at any time cease to be a body. This too is demonstrated by the example of the human condition.

For not only in the present, but also in the future, every human being will consist of soul and body, yet the body will never be turned into soul nor the soul into body; but, since each human being will live without end, in each human being the difference of both substances will of necessity remain without end. So too in Christ the proper character of each substance must be retained, each its own forever, yet with the unity of person preserved.

But since we often name the 'person,' and say that God became man through a person, we must greatly beware lest we seem to say this: that God the Word took upon himself the things that are ours only by an imitation of action, and that whatever there is of human living, he performed as though shadowed forth, not as a true man; just as is wont to happen in theatres, where one man suddenly counterfeits several persons, of whom he himself is none. For whenever some imitation of another's action is undertaken, the offices or works of others are so performed that yet those who act are not themselves those whom they act. For (to use, by way of example, instances from the secular world and from the Manichaeans), when a tragic actor counterfeits a priest or a king, he is not a priest or a king.

For when the act ceases, the person which he had assumed also ceases together with it. Far be from us this wicked and impious mockery. Let that madness belong to the Manichaeans, who, being preachers of phantasm, say that the Son of God, God, did not exist as the person of a man in substance, but only feigned it by a certain make-believe act and manner of living. But the Catholic faith says that the Word of God became man in such a way that he took up what is ours not deceitfully and in shadow, but truly and expressly, and that he imitated what was human not as something foreign, but rather bore it as his own; and that altogether what he did, that also he was. Just as we ourselves too, in what we speak, perceive, live, and subsist, do not imitate human beings, but are human beings.

For neither Peter nor John—to name these especially—were human beings by imitating, but by subsisting. Nor did Paul feign an apostle, or pretend to be Paul; but he was an apostle, and subsisted as Paul. So too God the Word, by assuming and having flesh, by speaking, doing, and suffering through flesh—yet without any corruption of his own nature—deigned wholly to bring this about: that he did not imitate or feign a perfect man, but presented one; that he was not seen or supposed to be a true man, but was one and subsisted as one.

Therefore, just as the soul, joined to the flesh yet not turned into flesh, does not imitate a human being, but is a human being—and a human being not by pretence, but by substance—so also the Word, God, without any conversion of himself, by uniting himself to the man, not by confounding, not by imitating, became man, but by subsisting. Let there be cast away therefore, utterly and from the very root, every notion of that person which is assumed by feigning imitation, where one is always something other than what is feigned, where he who acts is never the one whom he acts. For far be it that God the Word should be believed to have assumed the person of a man in this deceitful way;

but rather in such a way that, while his own unchangeable substance remained, and by taking up in himself the nature of a perfect man, he himself existed as flesh, he himself as man, he himself as the person of a man—not feigned, but true; not imitative, but substantive; not, in short, one that would cease together with the action, but one that would altogether abide in substance. This unity of person in Christ, therefore, was in no way compacted and perfected after the Virgin's childbearing, but in the Virgin's very womb. For we must most vehemently beware to confess Christ not only as one, but also as always one;

because it is an intolerable blasphemy if, even though you now grant that he is one, you nevertheless contend that at some time he was not one but two—namely, one after the time of his baptism, but two during the time of his nativity. This immense sacrilege we shall assuredly be able to avoid in no other way than by confessing the man to have been united to God—but by a unity of person—not from his ascension, or resurrection, or baptism, but already in the mother, already in the womb, already in short in the very virginal conception: for which unity of person, indifferently and interchangeably, both the things proper to God are attributed to the man, and the things proper to the flesh are ascribed to God.

For from this it comes that it is written by divine inspiration that the Son of Man came down from heaven, and that the Lord of majesty was crucified on earth. From this also it comes that, the flesh of the Lord having been made, the flesh of the Lord having been created, the very Word of God is said to have been made, the very Wisdom of God to have been filled, knowledge to have been created; just as, in the foreknowledge, his hands and his feet are reported to have been pierced. Through this unity of person, I say, that too was accomplished by the reckoning of a like mystery: that, the flesh of the Word being born of an undefiled mother, God the Word himself is most catholically believed, and most impiously denied, to be born of the Virgin. Since these things are so, far be it that anyone should attempt to defraud holy Mary of the privileges of divine grace and of her special glory.

For by a certain singular gift of our Lord and God, who is also her Son, she is most truly and most blessedly to be confessed Theotokos (God-bearer); but not in the manner of Theotokos which a certain impious heresy supposes, which asserts that she is to be called Mother of God by mere appellation, because, namely, she bore as man him who afterwards was made God; just as we say the mother of a presbyter, or the mother of a bishop, not by bearing a presbyter or a bishop, but by giving birth to a man who afterwards was made a presbyter or a bishop.

Not in this way, I say, is holy Mary Theotokos, but rather for this reason: that, as was said above, already in her consecrated womb that sacrosanct mystery was wrought, whereby, on account of a certain singular and unique unity of person, just as the Word in the flesh is flesh, so the man in God is God. But now let us, for the sake of renewing the memory, repeat more briefly and tightly the things briefly said above concerning the aforementioned heresies and concerning the Catholic faith; so that, namely, repeated they may be understood more fully, and inculcated more firmly they may be held. Anathema therefore to Photinus, who does not receive the fullness of the Trinity, and preaches Christ to be merely a solitary man.

Anathema to Apollinaris, who asserts in Christ the corruption of a converted divinity, and takes away the property of a perfect humanity. Anathema to Nestorius, who denies that God was born of the Virgin, who asserts two Christs, and, with the faith of the Trinity hissed off, introduces to us a quaternity. But blessed is the Catholic Church, which venerates one God in the fullness of the Trinity, and likewise the equality of the Trinity in one Divinity; so that neither the singularity of substance confounds the property of the persons, nor again the distinction of the Trinity separates the unity of the Godhead.

Blessed, I say, is the Church, which believes in Christ two true and perfect substances, but one person of Christ, so that neither the distinction of natures divides the unity of person, nor again the unity of person confounds the difference of substances. Blessed, I say, is the Church, which, in order to confess that Christ ever is and was one, confesses the man to have been united to God not after his birth, but already in his mother's very womb. Blessed, I say, is the Church, which understands God to have been made man not by a conversion of nature, but by the reckoning of person—and a person not feigned and transient, but substantive and abiding.

Blessed, I say, is the Church, which proclaims that this unity of person has such great force that on account of it, by a wondrous and ineffable mystery, it ascribes both the divine to the man and the human to God. For on account of it, it does not deny that the man, according to his Godhead, came down from heaven, and it believes that God, according to his manhood, was made on earth, suffered, and was crucified. On account of it, finally, it confesses both the man to be the Son of God and God to be the Son of the Virgin. Blessed therefore and venerable, blessed and sacrosanct, and altogether to be compared to that heavenly praise of the angels, is the confession which glorifies one Lord God with a threefold sanctification. For on this very account, above all, it proclaims the unity of Christ, lest it should exceed the mystery of the Trinity.

Let these things be said in a digression, to be more fully treated and explained another time, if it shall please God. Now let us return to our subject. We were saying then, in the foregoing, that in the Church of God there is the temptation of the people and the error of the teacher, and the temptation is the greater in proportion as he who errs is the more learned. This we taught first by the authority of Scripture, then by ecclesiastical examples, namely by the recollection of those who, though they had for some while been held of sound faith, yet at the last either fell away into an alien sect, or themselves founded their own heresy. A great matter indeed, both useful for learning and necessary for recollection; which we ought again and again to illustrate and inculcate by masses of examples;

so that all true Catholics may know that they ought to receive teachers together with the Church, not to desert the faith together with the teachers of the Church. But I judge thus: that, although we are able to bring forward many in this kind of temptation, there is almost no one who can be compared to the temptation of Origen; in whom there existed so many things illustrious, so singular, so wonderful, that anyone might easily judge that credence was to be given at the outset to all his assertions. For if a man's life makes authority, great was his industry, great his chastity, his patience, his endurance. If his lineage or his erudition, what was nobler than he, who, as they say, was rather often afflicted.

Nor indeed were these the only things in him that were afterward all to be a temptation, but there was also so great a force of genius, so profound, so keen, so refined, that he surpassed almost all by far and away; so great a magnificence of doctrine and of all erudition, that there were few branches of divine, and perhaps almost none of human philosophy, which he did not thoroughly master: in which knowledge, when the Greek studies yielded, the Hebrew also were laboriously acquired. But why should I make mention of his eloquence, whose discourse was so pleasant, so milky, so sweet, that to me there seemed to flow from his very mouth not so much words as a kind of honey? What things difficult of persuasion did he not clarify by the powers of argument; what things hard in the doing did he not make to seem as though most easy?

But perhaps he wove his assertions together only by the linkings of arguments? Nay rather, plainly there was never any of the teachers who employed more examples from the divine law. But, I suppose, he wrote little? No mortal wrote more; so that to me it seems that not only have all his works not been read through, but that they cannot even be found: and that nothing might be lacking to him as instruments of knowledge, even a fullness of years overflowed for him. But perhaps he was little successful with his disciples? Who was ever more successful? Surely innumerable teachers, innumerable priests, confessors, and martyrs came forth from his bosom. And now indeed, how great was the admiration of him among all, how great the glory, how great the favour, who could fully relate?

Who that was somewhat religious did not fly to him from the uttermost parts of the world? What Christian did not venerate him almost as a prophet, what philosopher did not venerate him as a master? And how reverend he was not only to private station, but even to the empire itself, the histories declare, which record that he was summoned by the mother of him who was the first of the Roman emperors to be a Christian, by reason of the authority of Christian teaching. Concerning his incredible knowledge, if anyone does not accept the Christian testimony from us who report it, let him at least, from the philosophers who testify, receive the gentile confession.

For that impious Porphyry says that he, when almost a boy, was stirred by the fame of him and went to Alexandria, and there saw him already an old man, but plainly such and so great a one as had founded the citadel of all knowledge. The day would fail me sooner than I should touch, even in the least part, upon those things which were illustrious in that man: all which, however, pertained not only to the glory of Religion, but also to the magnitude of the temptation. For how rare a one would easily lay aside a man of such genius, such doctrine, such grace, and not rather use that saying, that he would prefer to err with Origen than to think the truth with others? And what more?

The matter came to this pass: that the temptation of so great a person, so great a teacher, so great a prophet—a temptation not merely human, but, as the outcome showed, exceedingly dangerous—drew very many away from the integrity of the faith. Wherefore this Origen, so great and such a one, while he abuses the grace of God too insolently, while he indulges his own genius too much and believes too readily in himself, while he sets little store by the ancient simplicity of the Christian Religion, while he presumes to be wiser than all, while, despising the ecclesiastical traditions and the teachings of the ancients, he interprets certain chapters of the Scriptures after a new fashion, deserved that of him too should be said to the Church of God: 'If a prophet rise up in the midst of thee.' And a little after, it says: 'Thou shalt not hear the words of that prophet.' And again:

'Because,' it says, 'the Lord your God is testing you, whether you love him or not.' Truly it was not only a temptation, but even a great temptation, to lead the Church—a Church devoted to him and depending upon him through admiration of his genius, knowledge, eloquence, manner of life, and grace, suspecting nothing concerning him, fearing nothing—suddenly, by little and little and gradually, from the old Religion into a new profanity. But someone will say that Origen's books have been corrupted. I do not resist; nay rather, I even prefer it. For this has been both handed down and written by certain men, not only Catholics, but even heretics. But this is what we must now attend to: that even if it was not himself, yet the books published under his name are of great temptation:

which, teeming with many wounds of blasphemies, are read and loved not as another's, but as if his own; so that even if, in conceiving the error, it was not the mind of Origen, yet for persuading to the error the authority of Origen seems to avail. But of Tertullian also the same account holds. For just as the former, among the Greeks, so this one, among the Latins, is easily to be judged the foremost of all our writers. For what was more learned than this man, what more exercised in things divine and human? For he embraced, with a certain wondrous capacity of mind, all philosophy and all the sects of the philosophers, the authors and defenders of the sects, and all their disciplines, all the variety of histories and studies.

And as for his genius, did he not excel with one so weighty and so vehement that he set before himself almost nothing for overthrowing which he did not either break in upon by sharpness or crush by weight? Furthermore, who could fully recount the praises of his discourse, which is knit together by such, I know not what, necessity of reasonings, that it drives to consent with itself even those whom it could not persuade; whose words are almost as many as its sentences, whose perceptions are as many as its victories? This the Marcionites, the followers of Apelles, the Praxeans, the Hermogenians, the Jews, the Gentiles, the Gnostics, and the rest, know; whose blasphemies he overthrew with the many and great masses of his volumes, as though with certain thunderbolts.

And yet this man too, after all these things—this Tertullian, I say—held too little fast to the catholic dogma, that is, to the universal and ancient faith, and being far more fluent than fortunate, with his opinion thereafter changed, did at the last what blessed Hilary, the confessor, writes of him in a certain place: 'By his following error,' he says, 'he detracted authority from his commendable writings.' And he too was a great temptation in the Church. But of this I do not wish to say more. This only will I mention: that, rising up against the precept of Moses in the Church, by asserting the new ravings of Montanus and those insane dreams of a novel dogma dreamed by insane women to be true prophecies, he deserved that of him too and of his writings it should be said:

'If a prophet rise up in the midst of thee.' And presently: 'Thou shalt not hear the words of that prophet.' Why? 'Because,' it says, 'the Lord your God tests you, whether you love him or not.' By these therefore, so many and so great masses of ecclesiastical examples, and others of this kind, we ought evidently to perceive, and, according to the laws of Deuteronomy, to understand more clearly than the light, that if at any time some ecclesiastical teacher has strayed from the faith, divine Providence suffers this to come about for our testing, whether we love God or not with our whole heart and with our whole soul.

Since these things are so, he is the true and genuine Catholic who loves the truth of God, who loves the Church, who loves the body of Christ, who sets nothing before the divine Religion, before the catholic faith—not the authority of any man, not love, not genius, not eloquence, not philosophy; but, despising all these, and fixed, stable, and abiding in the faith, he resolves that whatever he shall have known the Catholic Church universally to have held from antiquity, that alone is to be held and believed by himself;

but whatever he shall have perceived to be afterward introduced anew and unheard-of by some one man, apart from all or against all the saints, he understands that to pertain not to Religion but rather to temptation—being especially instructed by the words of the blessed Apostle Paul: for this is what he writes in the first Epistle to the Corinthians: 'There must,' he says, 'be also heresies, that they who are approved may be made manifest among you'; as if he should say: For this reason the authors of heresies are not at once divinely rooted out, that they who are approved may be made manifest—that is, that each one may appear how tenacious and faithful and fixed a lover of the catholic faith he is. And in very truth, when any novelty bubbles up, at once is discerned the weightiness of the wheat and the lightness of the chaff;

then without great effort that is shaken off from the threshing-floor which was held within the floor by no weight. For some forthwith fly clean away; but others, only shaken loose, both dread to perish and blush to return, wounded, half-dead, and half-alive; inasmuch as they have drunk so great a quantity of poison as neither kills nor is digested, as neither compels to die nor permits to live—alas, pitiable condition! By what surgings of cares, by what whirlwinds are they tossed about? For now, whithersoever the wind has driven them, they are swept away by a runaway error; now, returned upon themselves, like contrary waves, they are dashed back; now by rash presumption they approve even the things that seem uncertain; now by irrational fear they take fright even at the things that are certain;

uncertain which way to go, which way to return, what to seek, what to flee, what to hold, what to let go. Yet this affliction of a doubting and ill-poised heart is, if they be wise, the medicine of the divine mercy toward them. For on this very account they are, outside the safest harbour of the catholic faith, shaken, beaten, and almost done to death by diverse storms of thoughts, that they may lay down the sails of an exalted mind raised aloft, which they had ill-spread to the winds of novelties, and may draw themselves back and keep themselves within the most trusty anchorage of their placid and good Mother, and may first vomit up those bitter and turbulent waves of errors, that they may afterward be able to drink the streams of living and leaping water. Let them unlearn well what they had learned ill;

and out of the whole dogma of the Church let them grasp what can be grasped by understanding, and what cannot, let them believe. Since these things are so, turning over and pondering the same things with myself again and again, I cannot sufficiently wonder at the so great madness of certain men, the so great impiety of a blinded mind, the so great lust, finally, of erring, that they are not content with the rule of believing once delivered and received from antiquity, but seek things new and ever new from day to day, and ever long to add something to Religion, to change, to take away; as though it were not a heavenly dogma which it suffices to have been once revealed, but an earthly institution, which cannot be otherwise perfected except by constant emendation, nay rather by reprehension—while the divine oracles cry out:

'Remove not the landmarks which thy fathers have set'; and: 'Judge not against him who judges'; and: 'He who breaks through a hedge, a serpent shall bite him'; and that apostolic word, by which all the wicked novelties of all heresies have often been, and are ever to be, lopped off as with a kind of spiritual sword: 'O Timothy, guard the deposit, avoiding the profane novelties of words and the oppositions of falsely-named knowledge, which some, professing, have erred concerning the faith.'

And after these things, are there found some of so great hardness of inveterate brow, of so great an anvil of shamelessness, of so great an adamant of obstinacy, who do not succumb to such masses of heavenly utterances, who do not give way before such weights, who are not shattered by such hammers, who are not, in short, crushed by such thunderbolts? 'Avoid,' he says, 'the profane novelties of words': he did not say antiquities, he did not say what is old; nay rather, he plainly showed what should follow from the contrary. For if novelty is to be avoided, antiquity is to be held; and if novelty is profane, antiquity is sacred. 'And the oppositions,' he says, 'of falsely-named knowledge.' Truly a false name among the doctrines of the heretics;