Diversarum hereseon liber

Concerning the diverse pestilence of heresies and the various errors that have emerged from the beginning of the world, flowed down under the Jews, and sprouted forth from the time when our Lord Jesus the Saviour came in the flesh, it is necessary to speak, and to set forth gradually their number, and to recognize that the enemy of the human race [the devil] was not undeservedly compared by the holy prophet to the partridge: which, since it often suffers from barrenness, stealthily broods over the offspring of others as if they were its own, and cherishes and claims them as its sons for a time; but when the age of discernment has grown upon them, then, having lost their false parents, recalling the rights of parents by their own sense, and beholding them openly with their eyes, they no longer delay to follow them. For what reason has this likeness been announced to us? Because, on account of the impiety of the devil, who thought he held the whole world under his sway and power, after Christ the true parent was seen and recognized by us, every man, having lost the falsehood of the most deceitful parent, no longer delays to follow the footsteps of the true parent, Christ. For we recognize that daily, through the enigma, the prophecy of the most blessed Jeremiah is fulfilled, saying thus: The partridge cried out, it gathered what it did not hatch, making riches for itself not with wisdom; in the midst of its days they will abandon it, and in the end it will be foolish.

Now that all nations daily abandon the deadly idolatry of the enemy, hearing Christ as the true God from the Law and the Prophets and believing that he is always with the Father, and remembering this, they hasten equally in every way as suppliants to fly to him, so that the prophecy may be fulfilled: "All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord Christ." HERE, THEN, IS THE NUMBER OF HERETICS FROM THE BEGINNING AND ORIGIN OF THE WORLD: The first are the Ophites, who are also called Serpentini. They venerate the serpent, that is, the snake, saying that it first brought us the beginning of the knowledge of good and evil. Hence they assert that God was envious of it, because, they say, it first brought the knowledge of good and evil to the woman, and through her it thus spread to the whole human race; for which reason, they say, it was first cast down from heaven into another place; hence they also say that it will come from heaven, and they consider it to be some kind of divine power, and they proclaim that it is to be worshipped.

There are the Cainites, who praise Cain the fratricide, the firstborn of our father and the blessed Adam the first-formed, saying that Cain was made from one power, that is, the devil, but that Abel was born from the other, most blessed, and that the greater power, which was in Cain himself, prevailed, so they say, to kill his brother. There is another heresy of the Sethians, who venerate Seth, the son of Adam born later and so named, by name; he was born after the killing of the most blessed Abel; from him they are called Sethians, worshipping him and saying that when two men were created in the beginning and the angels were in dissension, the female power prevailed in heaven; for among them males and females are thought to be gods and goddesses. Seeing this, so they say, the mother, because the just Abel had been killed, planned to give birth to the just Seth, into whom she placed a spirit of great power, so that the hostile powers might be destroyed, so they say.

But concerning Seth himself, they claim to trace the lineage of Christ the God. Some of them, however, not only trace his lineage from him but also assert and believe that he himself is Christ. A certain Dositheus later, a Jew by birth, dared to say that one should live only according to the flesh, not hoping for a future resurrection from the law of God and from it, and believing neither in the spirit of God nor in an angel, nor expecting a future judgment from the law and the prophets. The Sadducees after him, from a Jewish man named Saddoc who was called by this name—who was a disciple of that man, and who also confirmed this heresy, so that from him they were called Sadducees—likewise preach that one should live only according to the flesh, that one should be circumcised, and that the body should be baptized, expecting nothing else from the divine law, following the madness of Epicurus rather than the precepts of the divine law. Concerning them, it is also written in the Gospel, with the Lord teaching and preaching against this pestilential heresy.

Another is that of the Pharisees, which confesses a future resurrection, accepts the Law and the Prophets, but awaits Christ as a just man. They Judaize and do not accept the Gospels, and they assert that certain times are contrary to our Lord Christ. Others, however, are the Samaritans, so named from King Samareus. But others say from the son of Canaan, who was called by this name Samareus, from whom the Samaritans are named. They accept the Law of Moses, that is, only four books, not expecting a future judgment, denying the resurrection, not believing beforehand in Christ the God the Son of God announced in the Law and the Prophets, nor do they perceive, according to the Law, that man has an immortal soul, but think that one is to live only in this body, and they consider the future resurrection to be in the procreation of children, which occurs daily in this world, esteeming and proclaiming this vanity, being compared to senseless beasts, as it is written in the Prophet: "A man placed in honor did not understand, he was compared to senseless beasts, and became like them.

Another is the heresy of the Jews who are called Nazorei, which accepts the Law and the Prophets, but affirms that one must live carnally, and supposes that all justification consists in carnal observance, also nourishing the hair of the head and thinking that every virtue of justice consists in that, as if presuming this for themselves from that judge Samson, because they were called Nazorei; from which later pagans, usurping from that figure, named strong men Hercules. The Esseni, however, are others, who are called by this name. They practice the life of monks, not taking choice foods, nor having concern for clothing, nor possessing anything, but devoting themselves to reading and good works, living also in separate places, but not expecting Christ as God the Son of God, nor recognizing him announced in the Law and the Prophets as Lord, but believing and expecting him only as a prophet or a just man.

Others are the Heliognosti, who are also called Deinuictiaci, worshipping the sun and saying that the sun knows all things that are of God, that it illuminates no one else but the sun, and that the sun provides all nourishment to them, not recognizing that it, placed in servitude, traverses its course daily, established by God the Father through Christ the Lord in the Holy Spirit, concerning which it is written: He who commands the sun to rise, and it rises, and not to rise, and it does not rise. That vain pagan Hermes Trismegistus taught that after almighty God, no one else but the sun ought to be worshipped by him and by men; when he had gone to the province of the Celts, he is known to have taught them and to have persuaded them to succumb to this error. The captive Jews worshipped this same sun, as the prophet Ezekiel condemns those Jews by accusing them, and declares and argues them guilty of the crime of treason, as it is written.

Others are those who worship frogs, which under Pharaoh, at that time, by the wrath of God, swarmed forth from the land of the Egyptians, so that they might weary the Egyptians with stench; and in this crime they still persist, thinking that they can appease the wrath of God by this vain observance. Others are those called Musiritae by name, who worship shrewmice; these, under a certain priest Eli, when the ark of the covenant had been captured by the Philistines, and by the wrath of God the land had produced shrewmice so that their crops might perish, were admonished by their own people, made golden mice, and sent them back with the ark and five golden seats, and the pestilence ceased from them. Thus these people accept the Law and the Prophets, but do not recognize that this is vain and abominable, which is condemned by all and in every way derided. Others are those who worship the fly of Ekron in the city so called, as is written in the Book of Kings, how King Uzziah of the Jews, languishing, had sent to the city of Ekron, to the fly, to see if he could be healed of his bodily weakness.

For this reason the blessed Elijah, the prophet, angered with divine zeal because the king of the Jews preferred to hope for salvation not from the God Christ but rather from a fly and the city of Accaron, the blessed prophet, angered at this, declared by divine spirit that he would not escape but would die immediately in his bed. There are the Troglodytes, who are so called among the Jews, who, dwelling in hidden caves, did not cease to worship idols, as the prophet Ezekiel says, the Lord showing how the elders of the people, holding censers, sacrificed to idols in hidden caves, and with blind minds adored them. There is another heresy among the Jews, which calls the Queen, whom they also name the Fortune of Heaven, and whom they also call Caelestis in Africa, and they do not hesitate to offer sacrifices to her, as even the Jews then said openly to the prophet Jeremiah, when he warned them to withdraw from idols and serve the Lord, and that they ought to adore him alone.

They cry out in anger, saying that from the time they, he says, do not sacrifice to the Fortune of Heaven or the Queen, all evils and dangers have befallen them. For this reason the blessed Jeremiah, departing from their people and their city, wrote down the Lamentations in a book on account of their impiety, and announced that ruin would come upon them and the city not long after. There are others among them who, retaining the memory of the name Bahal, king of the Tyrians, and worshipping his idol, sacrificed to it, as is contained in the book of Kings, when Ahab, king of the Israelites, and his wife Jezebel did not cease to sacrifice to that idol. In this matter, led by divine zeal, the blessed prophet Elijah, sent by Christ the Lord, said to them, to those confessing the law under the name of Judaism but serving pernicious pagan impiety, and to all the people, he spoke thus: Why do you limp on both your knees? Either God, God, or Bahal, Bahal. And nevertheless, the king and queen, favoring the priests of the groves, perished by various punishments and tortures. The people also, not withdrawing from idols, perished in repeated captivities.

Others are those who worshipped Asthar, a man, and Camoth, the abomination of the Canaanites and Sidonians—that is, idols of men and women—and offered various sacrifices to these same. Because of them, captivity befell those kings and the people at that time, with the Lord permitting it, more often, as is contained in the books of Kings. Apart from the blessed King David and the holy Hezekiah and Josiah and Jehu son of Nimshi, all the other kings allowed the peoples to sacrifice to idols, and they themselves often faced destruction along with them, not destroying these idols but rather hastening to become supporters of their impiety, like the other kings, as the books of Kings testify. There is another heresy among the Jews, concerning which the Lord rebuked them through the prophets. And concerning it the blessed Stephen the martyr rebuked them, saying: “Did you not offer immolations and sacrifices to me for forty years, O house of Israel, says the Lord Almighty? And now have you taken up the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of the god Remfam, the forms of fixed idols and sculptures?” Because of this the Lord says:

I will make you be taken captive in transmigration to the land of Babylonia and of the Persians and to other places, both interior and arid, and to the most remote parts of all lands. Others are those who, setting up an altar called Tafeth after the name of someone, in the valley of the son of Ennom, there sacrificed their own sons and daughters [the Jews] to demons. Concerning these, the Lord says through the prophet Ezekiel: Behold, son of man, see what the people of Israel do: this one sacrifices his own sons and daughters in the valley of Tafeth to demons, to whom I did not command this iniquity to be done among the people of Israel. Others are the Puteoritae, who worship wells, digging them deep and drawing from them as if for the water of salvation, hoping in them for something, although the Lord says through the prophet, warning: They have abandoned me, the spring of living water, and have dug for themselves broken cisterns, which cannot hold the water of salvation. What therefore he previously said through the prophet, he fulfilled in his own divine presence, saying: Everyone who drinks from this earthly water will thirst again; but from the water which I will give him, if he drinks, he will not thirst forever, but it will spring forth for him into eternal life. Indeed, it was the Christian grace of saving baptism granted to the human race by the Lord Savior.

Another heresy is among the Jews, which sacrificed to a serpent and celebrated this same impiety up to the time of Hezekiah, the most blessed king of the Jews, as we read in the books of Kings that the Jewish people sacrificed to a bronze serpent up to the time of Hezekiah. This serpent the blessed Moses had been ordered to make at the departure of Israel from Egypt, when the Jews were being bitten by serpents, murmuring and perishing. And in this matter the Lord commanded that Moses make a bronze serpent and suspend it in the midst of the people upon a piece of wood; and those who looked upon it were saved from the plagues and various wounds. Therefore the Jewish people sacrificed to that bronze serpent up to the time of King Hezekiah. They also made formations on a great stone like an obelisk, which was placed in the temple as a column, and on it they carved incisions and impressions by human hand and like certain letters, and they took up and placed various figures on a lamina and wore them around the neck.

They also taught incantations and, as it were, wore phylacteries, or rather practiced them as sorceries, and cultivated these same things; and from this they carried and still carry on their bodies ligatures and protections, which the Lord had everywhere forbidden in the Law, because this was the impiety of pagan blindness. Therefore the most blessed King Hezekiah ordered these impressions or engravings to be destroyed and completely scraped away with iron and cut out, and he also commanded the bronze serpent to be taken down and broken. For this he was deservedly freed by the Lord from so great a siege of the Persians and Assyrians, who had come at that time to take captive the people of Judah and the city, so that on that night, when King Hezekiah feared the barbarians, an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and struck down one hundred and eighty-five thousand of the foreigners besieging the city in the silent night, and in the morning showed all the men lifeless and dead to the king and the entire people of Judah.

Another heresy is that by the command of God the prophet Ezekiel saw beneath the earth, in a cave, seventy elder men of the Jews standing, holding censers, sacrificing to sculptures of various forms, and worshipping the same men and the same things. Another heresy of the Jews is that which the prophet is compelled to see in a cave by the command of God: women sitting and lamenting a certain man named Thamuz, who was the son of a king of the gentiles, whose image the Jewish women worshipped with weeping, and, cultivating the impiety of the gentiles, they did not cease to offer sacrifices to him. For Thamuz was also called that Pharaoh, the king of the Egyptians, who presided over the Egyptians under the blessed Moses at that time. Another heresy among the Jews is that which, as of many men and many women, by worshipping the idols of the Baalim, they did not cease to offer sacrifices to them in hidden caves, the Scripture saying that the number was as of many men and many women.

This, however, *** either from King Belus, who held the East under his powerful rule for a long time, and showed that from his wife and children, or from sons and daughters thus born of their parents, all their progeny proceeded, so that from them they were called Bahalites in the plural. For just as there is the race of the Greeks or of the Anicii and others, so all their progeny emerged from their parents, an impious generation called by one name, so that they were called Bahalites. Thus, when the dead were placed in tombs, and their progeny were likewise buried in that place, they merited from their own people to be called by this name by their descendants, so that they were called Bahalites from their original generation. Now Belus, whether from his own name or from the strength of war, because he overcame many at that time, obtained this name or surname. And concerning this matter, the Jewish people, by following the impiety of the Gentiles, are accused by divine Scripture, because, while sacrificing to them—that is, to the kings and their sons and to all their following kindred—they were handed over to various captivities.

Another heresy among the Jews is that they assert that the idol Baal ** or Balaam the false prophet, who had come from Mesopotamia against the most blessed Moses, took its name, because at that time Balac, king of the Moabites, had asked him to go to him and curse the people of the Jews. And because he was formerly called a prophet in the scriptures, but having despised the Lord's command, he later fell into destruction while plotting against the people of God, the Jews, like the pagans making an idol under this name of his, did not cease to worship it. Another heresy *** concerning the Pythoness, because covering a woman with garments, they hoped to be able to obtain certain responses from her. Whence they also say that that Pythoness summoned the soul of the blessed Samuel from the underworld, and from this especially it is believed (that men up to this day very many suspect it possible, because what the most blessed prophet had said to King Saul while still alive, those same responses, as if of a god, he is known to have spoken again truthfully in the summoning).

Many, preferring to acquiesce in this falsehood, descend forever into perdition, since the prophet says: "The souls of the just are in the hand of the Lord, and death does not touch them." How, then, could an impious soul raise a pious and holy soul, and especially that of a prophet, from the dead? But because they are ignorant that souls which have withdrawn from faith in Christ the Lord already devote themselves to impiety and subject themselves to it with all their zeal—since every man is of his own free will, and God permits him to choose and do what he wishes—already, because he has withdrawn from the Lord, an unclean spirit rules over him, as the blessed Elijah said to those who are doubtful and faltering in the divine law: "Either to God, to God, or to Baal, to Baal." For he who adheres to Christ is one body, and he who adheres to an unclean spirit is of one accord. And Ahab, king of the Jews, when he believed Zedekiah and other false prophets and despised the true prophet of the Lord, Micaiah, consulted an unclean spirit—a place of goodness still granted to the king by Christ the Lord for a certain time, so that, if he wished to believe the true prophet, he might avoid the storm of peril; if he did not wish to, and rather believed the false prophets, he would undoubtedly perish.

For thus the Lord interrogates the unclean spirit, saying: "Who," he says, "will seduce King Ahab of the Israelites, so that he goes into battle and is slain there?" And behold, the unclean spirit arrives, saying: "I will go and do it." And the Lord said to the unclean spirit: "How will you do it?" And the unclean spirit said to the Lord: "I make myself like an angel of light and will utter similar words, and I will lead him into battle, and there I will abandon him, and thus he will die." And the Lord said to him: "Go, you will do thus." Therefore also the apostle says: "It is no great thing if even Satan transforms himself as if into an angel of light, when his own satellites are transformed." And thus they deceive many by sight, word, or persuasion, indeed of no other thing than what is like and true; so that, when men wish to believe and cling to them at the time through words as if similar and sights as if good and not evil, they incur the unavoidable sentence of eternal death, and after the departure of the body are plunged into various punishments and torments. Which danger also befell the king of the Jews at that time, because he preferred to believe false prophets rather than the true prophets of God.

There is a heresy among the Jews who, worshipping Asthar and Astharoth after the death of Moses and the succession of Joshua son of Nun, were handed over to the captivity of the Gentiles. For they worshipped Asthar and Astharoth, men and women, and their images, which names were those of kings of the Syrians and Egyptians: whose sons and daughters, when they were worshipped by their own peoples, and after they also made temples for them, after their death burying their offspring in the same place, they offered them the names of gods and goddesses together with sacrifices likewise. For Astartium is in Syria ** and other diverse and very many things, which impiety of the race of the Canaanites blazed up at that time, which race Moses was ordered by the Lord to eradicate together with all his people. Others are the Herodians, so called from Herod, king of the Jews. These confess the resurrection, accept the law and the prophets, but they hope for and expect Herod, king of the Jews, struck by an angel, himself as Christ. I

After the passion of our Lord Christ and his ascension into heaven, there was a certain Simon, a magus by trade, a Samaritan by birth, from Gitta, a village in Samaria so called. Devoting himself to the magic arts, he deceived many, claiming to be a certain power of God which, he said, is above all powers. The Samaritans venerate him as a father and exalt him as the founder of their pernicious heresy, striving to extol him with many praises. Baptized by the blessed apostles, he withdrew from their faith and sowed a wicked and pernicious heresy, saying that he had been transformed in appearance, that is, as if through a shadow, and that he had suffered in this way, although, he said, he did not suffer. He also dared to say that the world was made by angels, and that the angels were made by him, endowed with certain senses from heaven, and that they deceived the race of men. Moreover, he asserts that there is a certain other intellect which descended into the world for the sake of saving men, namely that Helen, he says, who is reported in the Trojan war by the most vain poets.

And the virtues, he says, which had made the world, led by desire for that Helen, were stirring up sedition. For this Helen, he says, giving desire to those virtues, and appearing in a female form, could not ascend into heaven, because the virtues which were in heaven did not permit her to ascend; but she was waiting for another virtue, that is, the presence of Simon the Magus himself, which would come and save her. He also asserts, by way of allegory, that the wooden horse, which the most frivolous poets say existed in the Trojan War, was that machine of ignorance of all the impious nations, although it is established that that Helen who was with the Magus was a prostitute from Tyre, and that she followed this same Simon the Magus, and that with her he perpetrated various magics and various crimes. When he fled the blessed apostle Peter from the city of Jerusalem and came to Rome, and there fought with the blessed apostle before King Nero, defeated on all sides by the prayer of the blessed apostle and struck by an angel, he thus deserved to perish, so that his evident magic and falsehood were made clear to all men.

After this one, a certain Menander by name, who had become his disciple, followed his impiety in all things. After this one, a certain Saturnilus, also taking from that source the kindling of his deadly teaching, asserted, saying that the world was made by angels, and that the angels were distinct from that power, and that the world was divided through an order of angels, and that they had thought to make man. They made man, therefore, and the work of theirs, he said, was man; for from the supreme power a light had been sent down, which illuminated this world and led the angels to lust, and immediately ascended into heaven. But those angels, having become desirous of that light, wished to see its power; but not prevailing, they said to one another: Let us make man in our image and likeness. And when man was made, because he was powerless, he could not be saved. Therefore, the supreme power, seeing that they had done this, sent a spark, which corrected man and roused him and made him live.

They therefore suppose that the spark is to be saved, but that the other part, by those virtues which they have made, is abandoned and left behind. They affirm that Christ appeared in a shadowy manner, and that he did not take on true human flesh and soul, and that he thus fulfilled the entire economy of the mystery of the Savior. After these, Basilides, who is called a heresiarch by many, because, while setting forth and speaking from the law, the prophets, and the apostles, he thought otherwise, violating the laws of Christian truth. When he had come to Egypt, he taught, defining as follows: from the unbegotten and only God, Intellect was born; from Intellect, Word; from Word, Sense; from Sense, however, Virtue and Wisdom; from Virtue and Wisdom, Principalities and Powers and various angels were made. These angels, he says, made the heaven; after them, other angels made another heaven; thus, from others, still others brought forth made a third heaven. And in order: and others, he says, made three hundred and sixty-five heavens.

He imposes angelic names upon those virtues, and, himself devoted to magic arts, likewise deceives many ignorant people. He asserts that man was made by angels; he even dares to call the true and omnipotent God an angel, and claims that he took the race of the Jews as his inheritance and led them out of the land of Egypt. Having thus grown bolder, he says that he was raised up against the other angels, and, wishing to hold others in subjection, he encountered hostile peoples, whom his inimical virtues stirred up. Therefore, he says, diverse peoples rose up against the Jews. He says that Christ suffered only as if through a shadow, in appearance. He also affirms that Simon of Cyrene came to the passion in his place. For he himself, he says, carried the cross. This man also permits living wickedly and grants license to cling to worldly vices. He even forbids men from suffering martyrdom for the name of the Lord Christ, saying: "You do not know what you desire. For Christ did not suffer, nor was he crucified.

How, then, can you, he says, confess this crucified one, since he was not crucified, and you do not know who suffered? Let us also consider the madness by which Nicolaus of Antioch, a foreigner, was deceived. He was among the apostles and was chosen by them as the seventh deacon, as is written in the Acts of the Apostles, and afterwards, withdrawing from them and from sound teaching, he was ruined by various errors and deceits. He was at first with the apostles and with the most blessed martyr Stephen, and he himself says that there are very many powers; whence also the Gnostics, who think they know something, especially emerged. These venerate Barbelo and a certain woman Nora, but others among them venerate a certain Ialdabaoth, and others a man Calacaun. They also speak and set forth the following doctrine: Before, they say, there were only darkness and the deep and water, and from these a division was made in the middle, and a spirit separated these elements. Then the darkness, rushing upon the spirit, generated four Aeons, and these four generated another four Aeons.

This, however, is right and left, light, he says, and darkness. They also say that a certain man lay with that woman and by power, from whom were born gods and men and angels and seven spirits of demons. They also add that certain prophets were born from her, handsome by name and Barcaban. Others, however, assert, raving, the Gospel of Consummation and empty visions full of deceit and diverse dreams. Others, however, instituted a heresy from Judas the traitor, saying that Judas did a good work because he betrayed the savior. For this man, he says, was for us the author of all good knowledge, through whom the heavenly mysteries were revealed to us. For the powers in heaven, he says, being unwilling that Christ should suffer, and knowing that if he suffered he would give life to men, Judas, he says, knowing this, that if Christ suffered he would bring salvation to men, therefore betrayed the savior.

After this wicked assertion of impious doctrine, which to some vain and foolish men seems at times plausible, though it is in every respect contrary and abominable, since the blessed prophet David before and the Lord Savior condemned it, and the blessed apostles confirmed the Lord's sentence against it by their teaching. After this man, one Carpocras by name arose, also saying that there is one principle, from which principle, that is from God, emanations were made, he says, of angels and powers: but those powers which are below, he says, made this visible creation where we, he says, dwell. He says that Christ was not born of the Virgin Mary and the divine Spirit, but he supposes that he was born a man from the seed of Joseph, and he suspects that he was born from it carnally, like all men. After his passion, he says, he was found to be better among the Jews in his upright life and conduct; they proclaim that his soul was received into heaven, but they consider that his flesh was left on earth, and they think that the salvation of the soul is sound, but that the salvation of the flesh does not occur.

Cerinthus succeeded to this man’s error and likeness of vanity, teaching likewise about the generation of the Savior and about the creation of angels, in no way disagreeing with him, except that he partially consents to the Law, that it was given by God, and he considers the God of the Jews himself to be the one who gave the Law to the sons of Israel. He teaches, moreover, that one should be circumcised and keep the Sabbath, and that Christ has not yet risen from the dead, but announces that he will rise. He does not accept the blessed Apostle Paul, honors the traitor Judas, and accepts only the Gospel according to Matthew, rejects the three Gospels, casts aside the Acts of the Apostles, and blasphemes the blessed martyrs. This man stirred up a question of sedition under the blessed apostles, saying that men ought to be circumcised, on account of which the blessed apostles decreed a sentence against him and his heresy in their Acts: that men coming from the Gentiles who believed in Christ our Lord and Savior ought no longer to obey Judaism, that is, circumcision and other such carnal things of vain superstition.

His disciple Ebion, in many things similarly erring with Cerinthus, supposed our Savior to be a man carnally born from Joseph, and taught that there was no divinity in him, but asserted that he had the grace of God just as all the prophets did, yet did not believe him to be the God of majesty and the Son of God the Father, coeternal with the Father, although the divine Scriptures everywhere testify and proclaim God coeternal with the true and coeternal Father. After this man, a certain Valentinus arose, more a Pythagorean than a Christian, belching forth a certain vain and pernicious doctrine and preaching a most deceitful knowledge like arithmetic, that is, the knowledge of numbers, and captivated the souls of many ignorant people. And at first he was in the Church. But having become more arrogant afterward, he was deceived by no small error, and while living in the province of Cyprus, he began to define this: There was nothing else before, he says, in the world, except the Depth of the Sea and Silence, which vain poets assert and teach as Chaos, and from this Depth and Silence proceeded Intellect and Truth, from Intellect and Truth, Word and Life, from Word and Life, Man and Church.

Concerning Man, however, and the Church, he says that twelve Aeons, that is, Ages, proceeded; and from Word and Life, ten Aeons proceeded; and from Intellect and Truth, eight Aeons proceeded; and that this is the Triacontad of the Ages, that is, thirty Aeons of Aeons. He raves, therefore, that the thirty Aeons consist of an Ogdoad, a Decad, and a Duodecad. He says, moreover, that Christ was sent by the Father, whom he calls by the name Depth, for the salvation of the whole world, and that he brought flesh down from heaven, and took nothing from the holy Virgin, but affirms that he passed through her as water through a channel. He supposes, therefore, that only the soul is saved, but that the body of man is not saved. There are others, his successors: Ptolemy, who introduced an equally vain doctrine, saying that there are four Aeons, and another four, wishing to decree something new by false invention beyond what his teacher Valentinus had fabricated. After him, a certain Secundus by name, similarly teaching concerning Aeons, asserts that infinite ones were made, but supposes that Christ appeared as if through a phantasm, that is, like a shadow to the human race, and did not have true human flesh.

After this man, his disciple Heracleon arose, saying that the beginning is one, which he calls God, then that another was born from this, and from these two he asserts the generation of many principles, raving along with his own teachers in the same way. A certain Marcus, however, his successor after him, making number and measure and calculation, and also the reasoning of the computation of letters, as if a plausible inventor of some new thing, thinking that he could be praised by some, fell into no small madness of error likewise. For he speaks thus: There are twenty-four letters, he says, which have the perfection of all things. On account of which, he says, Christ also said: I am the Alpha and the Omega. He also said that in the last time Christ descended to Jesus in the form and likeness of a dove, and he taught that Christ himself is the dove, which descended, he says, to the twelve Aeons, that is, to the twelve apostles, and he thought that one of them fell, that is, Judas. He says that Christ appeared putatively, and suffered as if through a shadow, but he does not think that he truly suffered in the body.

After this man, Colorbasus arose, who similarly asserted that the life and generation of all men consist in the letters and number of the elements and the seven stars, not perceiving that true salvation for men is to be hoped for in the majesty and power of Christ, nor in his carnal presence. But a certain Cerdo arose after these men, preaching worse than his teachers, who, when he had come to Rome from Syria, dared to say that there are two principles, that is, one good god and one evil god, and that the good god indeed makes good things, and the evil god evil things. He asserts that Jesus the savior was not born of a virgin, nor appeared in the flesh, nor descended from heaven, but was seen by men in a phantasmal way, who, he says, was not truly seen, but was a shadow: whence he was thought by some to suffer, yet he did not truly suffer. But Marcion, his disciple, by race a Pontian, from the city of Sinope, came to the city of Rome, and living there was sowing a wicked heresy, and questioning the holy presbyters of the catholic church, he set before them the deadly error of his own mind, saying thus: What is it, he says, that is written in the gospel when the Lord says:

No one will put a new patch on an old garment, nor new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine is spilled. And again: It is not a good tree that produces bad fruit, nor a bad tree that produces good fruit. And receiving an interpretation of this from the holy presbyters, he did not acquiesce to the truth, but rather confirmed the falsehood of his teacher Cerdo, and he likewise proclaimed one good god and one evil god; but he believed that Christ appeared putatively, that is, as if through a shadow, and that he suffered shadowily, yet not in true flesh. He accepts only the Gospel according to Luke, not the other Gospels, nor the epistles of the blessed apostle Paul, except those to Timothy and Timothy; for what they say about Christ as about a true God, he passes over; but what the scriptures say as if about a man, those passages he accepts; and he does not even confess Christ to be the judge of all.

He, having been defeated and put to flight by the blessed John the Evangelist and by the presbyters from the city of Ephesus, was sowing this heresy at Rome. A certain Lucanus after him, establishing and decreeing things similar to Marcion, just as that teacher of his, Marcion, is in all things counterfeit. There was Apelles, his disciple, preaching things similar to Marcion in some respects. When asked by some how he thought concerning the faith, he replied: "It is not necessary for me to say from Marcion that I assert two coeternal principles: for I proclaim one principle to exist, whom I acknowledge as God, who God made angels, and also made another power, whom I know to be a second god, who is also the power of God, which made the world. But this god, who made the world, is not, he says, good, as is the one who made him: he is, however, subject to that god by whom this one was also made, and he obeys the will, command, and precepts of that one in all things.

Of which Arius the associates and supporters are now, preaching and thinking thus. He says that Christ appeared in the flesh, but not, as Valentinus held, that he laid down the flesh from heaven. He also says that after the passion the flesh did not rise, but from the four elements. That is, Christ received from the dry, hot, moist, and cold, and at the resurrection gave back to the elements what he had taken from the world, and dismissed them into the earth, but he himself ascended into heaven without the flesh, he asserts. So under the apostles these were the heresies in order. AFTER THE PERSECUTION OF DECIUS, however, there was a certain Tatian, a disciple of the blessed Justin the martyr, who departed from the truth after his passion, and despised the teaching of so great a holy and blessed martyr and master in all things, saying that certain Aeons were brought forth from heaven, adding also this, that Adam, our first-formed father, is not saved.

He announces aeons, just as Marcion raved. He also abhors human procreation and rejects the lawful right of marriage, and does not confess that right as established by God. Others arose after these, the Cataphrygians, dwelling in the province of Phrygia. They accept the prophets and the law, confess the Father, Son, and Spirit, and await the resurrection of the flesh, which the Catholic Church also preaches. But they proclaim certain prophets of their own, namely a man named Montanus, and Priscilla and Maximilla, whom neither the prophets nor Christ announced. They also add that the fullness of the Holy Spirit was not granted through the blessed apostles by Christ’s gift, but they suppose it was imparted through those false prophets of theirs, and they separate themselves from the Catholic Church on account of those false prophets and false teachers of theirs. They baptize the dead, celebrate the mysteries publicly, and call their own village Pepuza, which is so named in Phrygia, Jerusalem, where Maximilla and Priscilla and Montanus himself are known to have spent their time of life in vain and fruitless pursuits.

Here also the abominable impiety of the Cynic mystery and of the infant is celebrated. For they say that they mix the blood of an infant into their sacrifice at Passover, and thus send it out everywhere through their pernicious and false satellites. After these, a certain Theodotus, a Byzantine by birth, became a denier of Christ our God in the persecution of the Savior, and began to speak, teaching thus: Christ, he says, was a common man, like all men. He said this, however, so that he would no longer suffer the reproach of denial from men, thinking that if someone should say to him: Why did you deny Christ as God and Lord? he would say: I denied the man, not God. These men use the chapters of the scriptures which teach about Christ as about a man, but those which speak of him as of God they do not accept, reading them and understanding them in no way, showing themselves to be partners of pagan impiety and Jewish blindness rather than participants in Christian salvation.

Others say that the Son enters into the Father and is contained within Him as a vessel within a vessel, calling this metangismon, not understanding what they assert, since the Savior did not say that the Son enters into the Father, but taught the cause of equality in divinity and power, not an entry or containment, as they rave in their opinion, and not understanding that as the Father is immeasurable, so also is the Son, so also is the Holy Spirit, equal in all things, so that the Trinity is immovable, immeasurable, and omnipotent, and everlasting everywhere, which is announced to us most clearly from the holy Scriptures, so that there are three persons living in perpetuity, and equal in every majesty and power, yet the Son and the Holy Spirit are properly from the Father. After these, others, departing from them, said similar things, and they also add Melchizedek the priest, saying that he is a great power of God, and they assert certain diverse names of men, dissenting from the Catholic faith.

Others, however, are Noetians, after a certain senseless man named Noetus, who said that the omnipotent Father is Himself Christ, and that He Himself was born, and He Himself suffered, and He Himself died in a body. This man also claimed to be Moses, and his brother to be the prophet Elijah. After him, Sabellius, from Libya, his disciple, likewise followed the likeness of his own teacher and his error, whence they were later called Sabellians, who are also Patripassians, and Praxians after Praxeas and Hermogenes, who were in Africa, and who, holding such opinions, were cast out from the Catholic Church. What is this vanity of the Galatians, the heretics Seleucus and Hermias? They, wishing God to be incorporeal, also assert that hyle, that is, the matter of the world, is coeternal with God, and they do not understand the matter of the elements—which is without soul, irrational indeed, which was made by God the Father through the Son out of nothing, so that it might exist which before did not exist—in this way; but they say that the spirit of man, that is, the soul, was not made by God through the Son, but is from the earth.

They assert that evil is sometimes from God, sometimes from matter. They deny that the Savior sits in the flesh at the right hand of the Father, but believe that He divested Himself of the flesh and placed it in the sun, because the prophet said—though they do not understand what he said—"He placed His tabernacle in the sun." They deny the visible Paradise, following Plato, and these men, devoted to vanities, also believe that human souls are composed of fire and spirit. They do not use baptism, because of this saying of the blessed John the Baptist: "He Himself will baptize you in spirit and fire." They say that the angels are the creators of our souls, not Christ the Savior; they assert that this world is hell, and they proclaim that the resurrection which occurs daily in the human race through the procreation of children is this resurrection, not expecting that future and glorious resurrection of immortality. There are others, disciples of these, who are called Proclianites and Hermeonites. They add various errors, teaching that what is written in the prophet Ezekiel, they say, concerning the four living creatures—that the lion is the king of the Parthians, the calf of the Egyptians, the eagle of the Romans, and the man holds the likeness of the most pious—this they suppose.

They use the book of Wisdom of that Sirach who wrote after Solomon, that is, after many times, one book of Wisdom, denying that Christ came in the flesh, not hoping for resurrection and judgment, not believing that He was born of a virgin. Those who dwell in the regions of Galatia, and lurking like foxes plunder very many, as Solomon testified, saying: Catch for us the little foxes that destroy the vineyards of the Lord Savior. There are others who are called Floriani or Carpocratiani, who are also called Milites, because they were from the military, denying judgment and resurrection, not believing that Christ was born of a virgin, and considering that all resurrection consists in the procreation of children through abominable intercourse, so that in their church after dark, with lamps extinguished, they did not hesitate to mingle with women, thinking they were fulfilling the commandment of the law: Be born and multiply, hastening to obey Judaism and abominable paganism rather than to acquiesce in Christian truth, and holding rather to the life and madness of beasts, whom Scripture also compared to the life of beasts.

Others are those who dispute the most salutary day of Easter, asserting that Easter should be celebrated on the fourteenth moon, not as the Catholic Church celebrates it, and they assert that it should always be celebrated in the month of March; and when they do this, they do not always keep the Lord's day for Easter, not computing the hours and days, but they celebrate on the second or third or fourth or fifth or sixth day, and in this error they do not recognize the one true and salutary day of Easter of our Lord, established and confirmed for the whole world by the course, the number of the moon, the months, the intercalary months, and since they do not compute these things, they are ignorant of what they celebrate. Another is the heresy of the Chiliasts, that is, of the thousand years: which teaches thus: When Christ comes from heaven, it says, those thousand years will be for us again to live carnally, to beget and to eat, as happens now in this world daily; they are ignorant of heavenly food, that is, of immortality.

ed on the fourteenth moon, not as the Catholic Church celebrates it, and they assert that it should always be celebrated on the fourteenth moon, even if it falls on a weekday, and they do not wait for the resurrection day. They are called Quartodecimans. After these are other heretics who do not accept the Gospel according to John and his Apocalypse. And since they do not understand the power of the Scripture nor desire to learn, they persist in heresy and perish, so that they even dare to say that it belongs to that heretic Cerinthus, and that the Apocalypse likewise is not of the blessed John the Evangelist and Apostle, but of the heretic Cerinthus, who was then manifested as a heretic by the blessed apostles and cast out of the church. After these, the Manichaeans arose from Persia, named after Manes or Turbon, with their pernicious teachings

minds of their predecessors, who assert that there are two gods, one good and one evil, and proclaim a battle between god and god, and suppose that the human soul indeed comes from god properly, but think that the body was made by the devil, denying the resurrection, not hoping for judgment, worshipping demons, adoring the elements, invoking the names of gods and goddesses like pagans, and teaching that certain beings are hermaphrodites and partakers of both natures, and serving unspeakable filth. Those who were overcome, cast out, and marked by the holy bishop Archelaus in a disputation were made manifest to all at that time, and like thieves, now under the guise of Christian confession, they do not cease to capture the souls of many with falsehood and bestial filth: they are said to lurk in Spain and five provinces, and daily to capture many with this deceit. There are others, the Patricians, from a certain Patricius, who was in the city of Rome. These assert that the flesh of man was not made by God, but think it was made by the devil.

This they also decree is to be despised and rejected in every way, so that some of them have not hesitated even to inflict death upon themselves. Other Symmachiani, disciples of that man, holding the same opinions in all things, not hoping for judgment, preach that one should serve worldly vices and carnal lusts. There was a certain Paul of Samosata after these in Syria, who denied that the Word of God, that is, Christ, God the Son of God, is substantial, personal, and coeternal with the Father, but said he was prolationary, that is, like a kind of air, yet he taught that the living person of the Son was not to be believed coeternal with the eternal Father. This man preached Christ as a righteous man, not as true God, Judaizing rather, who also taught circumcision; whence he also taught a certain Queen Zenobia in the East at that time to Judaize. After him, Photinus, following his teaching in all things, preached similarly, and persisting in this falsehood, he was cast out of the church of the city of Sirmium, having been overcome by holy bishops.

There are the Arbians, from Arius, a presbyter of the city of Alexandria, who lived under Alexander, a bishop of good memory, and under the holy emperor Constantine, of good memory, saying that the Son of God is like God: saying "like" in name only, and not believing him to be from the divine substance of the Father himself, he fell into a dangerous heresy. For even a creature is said to be like God, since Scripture says: "Let us make man in our image and likeness." Yet man or angel is not from God properly and naturally, that is, from that ineffable and everlasting divine substance of the Father begotten, as the only Son, who is begotten from the Father properly everlasting, but man and angel were made from nothing. Since the Son, however, is true, it is necessary that he be acknowledged as begotten from that divine substance of the Father. For the true God cannot be the only Son in any other way unless he is properly begotten from that divine substance of the Father.

The eternal likeness, therefore, of the Son is according to works, because just as the Father acts, so the Son likewise does everything, born from the divine substance of that same quality, since he was properly born eternal from him, not made from nothing, like man and angel or any creature which is perishing in all things. There are the Semi-Arians. These think rightly about the Father and the Son, believing in one substance of quality, one divinity, but they preach that the Spirit is not from the divine substance, nor a true God, but a made and created Spirit, so that they join and compare him to a creature, although the Lord Christ joined him to the Father and to himself in the faith of the baptism of eternal salvation, and commanded that he be adored together with the Father and the Son by all believers, and established that he be proclaimed as a true God to every age: not understanding that when the evangelist says, "All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made," he does not speak about the Holy Spirit, as if the Spirit were made through the Son.

The prophet defines that the Trinity made all things visible and invisible, saying: "The heavens were strengthened by the word of the Lord, and all their power by the breath of His mouth." Therefore, in every creature which was made through the Spirit, He omitted nothing that was not made through Him; otherwise, the servant would not be joined with the Lord in faith, if the divine and holy Spirit were a creature. For this reason, all Scripture and the Lord Himself had pronounced by a heavenly sentence that all sins are forgiven to men except blasphemy against the divine and adorable Spirit. After these, the Eunomians, from Eunomius, a disciple of Arius, enemies of the true faith in all things, say that there are three substances of different quality, like gold, silver, and bronze, and that the Father indeed made the Son, and again the Son, who is a creature, made, they say, the Holy Spirit. And they assert that the Son is not like the Father, because He is a creature, nor is the Spirit like the Son, because He was made by the Son, agreeing most openly with pagan impiety and Jewish iniquity rather than wishing to obey Christian doctrine and Catholic faith.

Others err concerning the incarnation, saying that the Savior did not assume the true rational soul of a human being, but only the human body; and by removing the soul from the body, they deny the true salvation of the human being. How, then, can it be called a soul, which was not taken up by the Savior, when the Savior says: "My soul is sorrowful unto death"? Otherwise, it could not have been called a soul unless it were in him for whose sake it had also come. Therefore, both of these were in the incarnation of the Savior, that is, body and soul, which he deigned to assume for our salvation. It is fitting for us to know that he had a true human soul, possessing intellect, and a human body, likewise having carnal sensation, so that he could both suffer in body and die. Yet this flesh is known to have been made and this soul created by the Holy Spirit, as it is written in the Gospel: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you." And that he had a true soul, saying: "I lay down my soul for you.

and concerning the passible flesh to Thomas: *** that spirit does not have bones and flesh as you see me. And the blessed apostle Peter testified concerning the Savior, saying: Whose soul was not left behind in hell, nor did his flesh see corruption. But in that he was incarnate, and a human being for the sake of our salvation, and is believed, known, worshipped, and proclaimed as true God in the catholic church. There are others, the Tropitae, who say that the Word was turned into flesh, not understanding what the blessed apostle John says: the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us; not paying attention that the Word is immutable and inconvertible, that is, God the Son of God, but the flesh which he received for our salvation, he himself, forming it, assumed and put it on for the sake of our incapacity. For the sake of seeing him, therefore, these things joined together for our salvation declared not a change of the Word into flesh, but rather an assumption of a visible thing, so that the invisible might be seen, believed, and known through visible flesh, and be worthily adored by the human race.

Others, however, are heretics who err concerning the passion, saying that in the passion our Lord Christ put aside the flesh, and thus ascended into heaven, and that the divinity is no longer in it, they say. For after the passion he did not rise again in the flesh, nor did he ascend into heaven with the flesh, since the whole salvation of every man consists in the passion of his flesh, and in the resurrection and ascension into heaven; without hesitation for us and for all believers; since also the blessed angels said to the apostles for our faith and joy in the Acts of the Apostles, that: Just as you saw him ascending into heaven, so hope for him to come again from heaven. There are the Aerians, so called from a certain Aerius, who devote themselves to abstinences, and very many of them dwell in the province of Pamphylia, who are also called Encratites, that is, abstainers. They possess nothing, they abhor foods which God with blessing bestowed upon the human race: they also condemn marriage from the law, asserting that it was not instituted by God.

There is another heresy of the Borboriani, who, entangled in the vices of the world and serving evil lusts, do not hope for a future judgment, but rather praise the carnal lust of the world. Thus they go into the mire and, having forgotten themselves from the mire, disfigure their faces and limbs, and show the same to all as if it were a blameworthy creature of God: since that abyss of faults and pernicious condemnation of vices has descended from the will of men, not from the permission of divine law. There are others, called Artotyritae in Galatia, who offer bread and cheese, not that which the catholic and apostolic church celebrates by offering. There are again others, the Ascodrugitae in Galatia, who inflate a wineskin, place and cover it in their church, and go around it, raving and reveling rather, like those pagan Liberipatriani, raging with insane minds in the manner of the gentiles, and not understanding what the Savior said, that new wineskins are to be taken, and new wine is to be put into them, not into old ones.

And with their own blindnesses they hasten to serve, being found in every way alien to Christian salvation, since the apostle rejects that Jewish and carnal justification, and confirms the true and full sentence of Christ, saying: The old have passed away; behold, all things are made new through Christ. For concerning the law and the shadow the Lord spoke, and concerning his grace of fullness, and of the two men *** what the apostle says: The first man is earthly from the earth, the second man is heavenly from heaven. For what was through the shadow, and what was to be greater and better in the presence of the Lord, this he announced by teaching and confirming by the testimony of things. There are others, the Passalorinchitae, who, placing a finger on their nostrils and on their mouths and lips, as if always practicing silence, devote themselves to nothing else but silence as if applying study. But in doing this, they desire to imitate the blessed prophets, because the blessed David says: Place, O Lord, a guard over my mouth, and a door of circumstance over my lips.

And because they devoted themselves to the fasts of the blessed prophet and more often lent silence, from this those men, usurping, think they observe something, hastening to follow the Pythagorean vanity rather than the heavenly life and wisdom of the prophets. There are others called Aquarii, who in the celestial sacraments offer water, not that which the catholic and apostolic church is accustomed to do. There are other heretics who assert the prophets daily and proclaim that prophecies are made, ignorant that the law and the prophets were up to the blessed John the Baptist, and that the end of the law and the prophets was completed and consummated in the presence of Christ. There are, moreover, others, the Coluthians, so called from a certain Coluthus in Egypt, who say that God is not the maker of evils. On the other hand, another opposed him, saying that God is the maker of evils, who himself was likewise a heretic, and when both were carried away by empty contention, they did not know the power of reason.

Scripture, however, proclaimed that God makes good things and nevertheless also makes evil things, when the prophet says: I am the Lord, who makes peace and creates evils. And another prophet: If, he says, there is malice in the city, which God did not make. But Scripture did not say that these evils are a nature made by God, but that they arise from existing causes, namely of men sinning under the law against the Lord, which are the temptations, persecutions, and various afflictions that rise up against sinners with God’s permission, as it is written: Who gave Israel over to plunder? Was it not the Lord, against whom they sinned and refused to walk in his ways? Nowhere, however, does Scripture say that God made evils as a nature: For behold, it says, all things are very good which God made, in the book of Genesis, that is, the creatures of the world. And elsewhere the prophet says: Because God did not make evil, nor does he delight in the destruction of the living. Therefore, since evil is not naturally by the cause of God’s creating, but by the will of men, which, being subject to the law of God and judgment, is pressed and constrained by coercion, these things are inflicted upon men daily by the Lord for the sake of conversion. Therefore.

These things are said, but how they are said is not understood. For those things which are imputed to men as evil coercion are full of instruction and utility, which the perverse will of men deserves to suffer, as the apostle says: Is God unjust, who inflicts his wrath upon men? Nevertheless, all these things are permitted to happen to the human race not without benefit and future advantage. For the just man, in enduring tribulation, is proven more faithful and more just, while the sinner either ceases to sin, having been corrected, or, persisting, is removed from the world, lest, while still in the body, he appear to commit further wrongdoing. Therefore, either, when he still remains in the body, having been corrected, he will not delay in doing good work, or his mind is summoned so that he may cease from sin, as the apostle says: He who is dead is justified from sin. But there is another heresy, which says that the world does not change, but always remains in that same state, even after the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ from the heavens, although he himself says: All things will pass away and be changed.

They do not understand, however, that this was said by the Lord on account of the change of the elements, so that when these are changed, a new creation might be restored, as David also teaches: "They themselves will perish," he says, "but you yourself are eternal." And the Lord says: "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away." And: "I will make a new heaven and a new earth," says the Lord. Therefore he announces that the elements are to be restored, not to perish; and although it is not impossible for God, who made everything from nothing, to be able to destroy everything again, as the most blessed Job says: "But if he should destroy the universe, who will say to him, 'What have you done?'" Therefore, if you think thus, you acknowledge the omnipotence of the Lord Christ; or if one judges that they are to be restored, he accordingly understands. For even if Scripture shows that the seeds are to perish, that is, that the world itself can come to nothing, nevertheless, because what he made does not perish. For he made, as Solomon says, everything from nothing so that things which were not could exist. And in the resurrection of men, it shows that the seeds do not perish but come to greater glory, as the apostle says: "An animal body is sown, a spiritual body rises; it is sown in corruption, it rises into incorruption." And again the same most blessed apostle:

For the expectation of creation awaits the revelation of the sons of God: for creation is subject to vanity unwillingly, but on account of the one who subjected it in the hope of future glory and dignity. On account of which, it says, creation itself will be freed from the servitude of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the sons of God, thus showing that the elements will proceed to the glory of the sons of God, that is, men together with this visible creation, when the Lord says: The sun will then shine sevenfold. Therefore the elements will pass into a greater glory, and will remain in it with men, although the Lord who made all things could also reduce them to nothing. But in this lies the eminent majesty and power of Christ, that he promises that these same elements will pass into a greater glory. For the apostle also announces and prophesies that these elements will melt away and come to nothing. There is another heresy which asserts that men ought to walk barefoot, because, it says, it was said to Moses: "Remove your sandals," and because the blessed Isaiah walked thus for three years: which things are rather of human and vain superstition, not of the tradition of the saints and of the command and authority of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Novatians arose after the last persecution, from a certain Novatus, who, like the Catholic Church, previously believed, accepting the Old Testament and the New. In the persecution, however, because many of the faithful had lapsed and were received into penance by the Catholic Church, they, angered—or rather, led by presumption and pride—attempted to sow a vain doctrine, separating themselves from the Catholic Church and dissenting from the goodness and mercy of Christ, and saying that there is no place for penance for a believer after baptism, not knowing that the Lord declares through the prophet: "I live," says the Lord, "if I desire the death of the sinner, how much more that he should return and live?" Therefore, if they say that the Scripture spoke concerning those who are to be baptized, but not concerning the faithful, let them hear the Savior, after the baptism of water, speaking of another baptism, namely that of penance through passion. He speaks thus: "Baptism," he says,

I have to be baptized, and how I hasten, if you only knew, showing us indeed after baptism, what he had previously given through water, that another thing also of passion and penitence was to be granted to the human race by his own goodness and clemency to those who fall, and to be bestowed by the same Lord. The apostles, understanding this about his most salutary passion, proclaimed that after that first grace for the human race, he had also conferred this. For as a provident and omnipotent being, he grants to sinners through penitence, so that one who has fallen, rising and fighting again, and persevering in it, may hope to be able to obtain from the Lord the desired victory. For in Christ and his clemency and justice and goodness abound daily on account of sinners and penitents, as the blessed Paul was grieved about those who had not performed penitence because of sin, as he said in his epistle: "Who is sick, and am I not sick?" and again: "Lest I come to you, and again the Lord humble me on account of some who have not performed penitence." And the blessed apostle Peter had said to Simon Magus:

Do penance, if in some way what you have done may be forgiven you. And Paul ordered that the one whom he had cast out should be received again after a time. Therefore such persons can suffer loss of rank, not detriment to salvation, as the Lord says: There are many mansions in my Father’s house. There are others, the Montenses, who rebaptize if they have seduced any men, and upon the baptism of the Catholic Church they madly promise their own baptism, who are also called Donatiani from a certain Donatus established in Africa, who sowed this heresy; and they are now called Parmeniani from a certain Parmenianus, who recently succeeded to their errors and falsehood. There are others in Gaul, Spain, and Aquitaine, as it were abstinents, who likewise follow a most pernicious little faction of the Gnostics and Manichees, and do not hesitate to preach the same things, separating marriages of men by their persuasions, and promising abstinence from foods, which is not from the precept of the law.

but for the sake of heavenly promotion and dignity, such grace has been granted by Christ to the will of men. For the Lord says to Peter: Not all grasp this word. And again the same Lord says: He who dismisses his wife without cause of crime makes her commit adultery. Therefore it is one thing for this to be done by common consent for the sake of praise in order to obtain a greater reward from the Lord, and another to persuade against the law and to act against the will of both. And again: He who does not eat should not despise the one who eats, and he who eats should not judge the one who does not eat. Therefore what is done by will is a matter of praise and of greater, or rather of heavenly reward, a desire: but what is outside the law has not been handed down by Christ God, but has been invented by the empty presumption and error of men. For it is written: I have given you all things to eat like hay. They do this, however, so that by gradually spurning foods they may say that these are not good, and thus that foods were not granted to men by God as a cause, but were made by the devil, as they assert; they think in this way and already strive to proclaim that creation was not created by God, but was made by the devil, and through this lie they have captivated the souls of many.

Others are in Africa who are called Circuitores. They wander the land, and whomever they meet on the road, they compel them to be killed by them, saying that they desire to suffer martyrdom, and under this pretext many are sometimes given to brigandage. Some of them, however, die as if by self-inflicted death, throwing themselves over a precipice and undergoing various kinds of disastrous ends. Since they hasten to perish without cause in this way, they suffer the loss of an honorable death, and rather entangle themselves in the future judgment of God than release themselves from it. There are others, moreover, who do not take food with other men, led by vain presumption, thinking they are doing something better because, they say, the prophets also did this, not knowing that the diverse economy of Christ the Lord was established by divine arrangement for men. These think rightly about the Father and the Son, but they do not receive correctly concerning the Holy Spirit, believing the Holy Spirit to be created and made, not God, as the Scriptures declare and the Catholic Church preaches.

Another heresy is that which asserts that we ought to celebrate Passover with the Jews. These people dwell in Galatia, Syria, and Phrygia, and also in Jerusalem, and as they follow the Jews, they perish together with them in error. And in this they also confirm the Jews’ falsehood, when they see that certain unlearned Christians follow the vanity of their law rather than the rule of catholic truth. And nevertheless those others celebrate together with these, so that they are revealed as partners in the crime and wickedness of the Jews and are recognized as such by all. Another heresy is that which has only the Apocrypha, that is, secret books, of the prophets and apostles, and does not accept the canonical scriptures, that is, the Law and the Prophets, the Old and New Testament. And when they wish to read only those apocryphal books zealously, they hold opinions contrary to the canonical scriptures, and little by little they dogmatize, giving sentences against them, setting forth opinions against the Law and the Prophets and against the ordinances of the most blessed apostles.

Among them are especially the Manichaeans, Gnostics, Nicolaitans, Valentinians, and many others, who, having separate apocryphal acts of the prophets and apostles, despise reading the canonical scriptures. For this reason it was established by the blessed apostles and their successors that nothing else ought to be read in the catholic church except the Law and the Prophets and the Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles and the thirteen epistles of Paul, and seven others: two of Peter, three of John, one of Jude, and one of James, which are joined to the Acts of the Apostles. But the hidden scriptures, that is, the apocrypha, even if they ought to be read for the sake of morals by the perfect, ought not to be read by all, because heretics, not understanding, added and removed many things as they wished. For the Manichaeans have the apocrypha of the blessed apostle Andrew, that is, the Acts which he performed coming from Pontus into Greece, which the disciples following the blessed apostle then wrote down; whence the Manichaeans and others like them also have the Acts of the blessed Andrew and of the blessed evangelist John, and likewise of the most blessed apostle Peter, and equally of the blessed apostle Paul.

in which, because they performed great signs and wonders, so that even cattle and dogs and wild beasts would speak, they also supposed that the souls of men were similar to such as dogs and cattle, the lost heretics. There are others who do not assert that the epistle of the blessed Paul to the Hebrews is his, but say it is either that of the blessed apostle Barnabas or of Clement, bishop of the city of Rome; others, however, say it is of the most blessed evangelist Luke. Some wish to read an epistle also written to the Laodiceans of the blessed apostle. And because they added certain things in it, not understanding rightly, it is not read in the church; and if it is read by some, it is not, however, read to the people in the church except the thirteen epistles of his and sometimes the one to the Hebrews. And in it, because he wrote rhetorically, with plausible speech, they therefore do not think it is of the same apostle; and because he calls Christ a created being in it, it is therefore not read; also concerning penance, on account of the Novatians.

Therefore, when he says that Christ was made, he says it with reference to the body, not that he was made in his divinity, since he teaches in the same passage that the Son is of the divine paternal substance: "Who is the splendor of glory," he says, "and the image of his substance." Moreover, he does not exclude repentance by his teaching, but shows a different degree of dignity between the one who preserved integrity and the one who sinned. Therefore, there is a loss of dignity in the one who sinned, not a loss of salvation. For if someone has fought bravely through martyrdom, he will recover his former health, or if he has lived worthily in this world, he obtains what he desires to achieve. For in that same epistle he excludes rebaptizers, but does not deny that the baptism of repentance is to be conferred, which in many cases will be found fruitless among the penitents: since afterwards they were praised by the Lord in this world for their faith, life, and good work: those persisting already in good things and fruitful works, as the Lord said through the prophet: "I will not remember his evils, but rather his goods, if he already persists in good works.

The Melitians are those who follow a certain Melitius in Egypt, who had been of the party of Anianus and was cast out from the Catholic Church; later, as if following the truth, he was received back, and his disciples together with him. And again, desiring to act indifferently after this, they communicated both with heretics and with the Catholic Church. When the Catholic Church learned of their indifference, it made them excluded from its communion. There are others in Egypt and Alexandria, by a certain name of Rhetorius, who praised all heresies, saying that all think rightly, and that none of them errs, but that all of them walk well: and he did not think that they believe wrongly. If, therefore, he praised all, whom did he blame? Therefore, he does not hold what is true. And so Photinus is to be praised, and the heretic who denies that Christ is God before the ages with the Father, and every heresy which blasphemes either against the Father or against the Son or against the Spirit.

Why, then, does he praise blasphemous heretics, when the Lord Christ has already condemned them in this world, saying that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not forgiven to those who blaspheme and persist, neither here nor in the future? For this reason it is clear that this man is a heretic, or rather knows nothing, who has judged that they are to be praised, not censured and rejected. There is another heresy which says that the divinity suffered, when the flesh, united with the divinity, suffered on the cross, erring because not only can the divinity not naturally suffer, nor be held, nor be seen, but also the soul of man, which was made by God, cannot, as the Lord says: Do not fear those who kill the body, for they cannot kill the soul, but rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. Therefore, those who say that the divinity of Christ is by nature passible err in every way, and they impiously think that it either suffered or wept or groaned; for the passion of Christ is carnal, the flesh suffering naturally, not the divinity.

Therefore he was not recognized by the Jews, who spoke of him as being in passible flesh, he who was announced to them as God from the law and the prophets, and was openly proclaimed as about to come in the flesh, the prophet saying: God will come openly, and again the same prophet David: The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup. For what is the cup but his passion? He, conferring so great a gift of goodness and clemency upon the human race, was unknown to the most iniquitous people of the Jews. Therefore he suffered in passible flesh, not in the naturally impassible divinity, he who is both acknowledged and believed, yet with the divinity not absent, but joined together with the body equally on account of the mystery of the consummation established and defined beforehand. Knowing this, the apostle did not separate the divinity from the flesh on the cross, saying: For if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of majesty. Thus the blessed Paul joined both together in order to manifest to us the fullest goodness and mercy of Christ. The blessed apostle Peter, however, taught openly what is passible by nature and what is impassible, saying: He died indeed in body, but was made alive in spirit.

Therefore neither was the flesh separated from the divinity, nor the divinity from the flesh, when the flesh suffered humanly according to its nature, and in this very thing, with the divinity of Christ permitting, the mystery of our salvation was being accomplished by the Lord for the sake of our salvation, so that the complete defeat of the enemy might occur, so that, in that which he seemed to suffer as a man, he who was God in the flesh, he would conquer the enemy not for himself but for us, and for us, already conquered in his passion, he would open the power of conquering to those believing in him, and to those following him he would bestow heavenly glory. Therefore, a natural passion and pain of God was not generated in his divinity, as some suppose: otherwise he would have been only a man, not God and man, as it is written: but the mystery of our eternal salvation was being accomplished, which had been announced beforehand by the law and the prophets alike. There is another heresy which says that God is, as it were, three-formed and composite, so that there is one part of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Spirit, and they assert that it must be believed thus, and in saying this they do not know nor understand the meaning of divine scripture.

For they blaspheme greatly, saying that there is a kind of threefold substance, being ignorant that one is the sender, another the one sent. Therefore there is the true person of the Father, who sent the Son, and there is the true person of the Son, who came from the Father, and there is the true person of the Spirit, who was sent by the Son and the Father. Thus of these three persons there is one truth, majesty, and equal substance and eternal divinity. For as the immense, ineffable person of the Father is, so also is that of the Son, so also is that of the Holy Spirit, so that in the distinction of names and of the three persons there is no diversity of nature. Therefore this Trinity is immeasurable and invisible and ineffable, which is known by faith alone, yet is not adequately expressed by the exposition of the human voice and mortal sense. For when it says that the Father sends the Son and the Son sends the Holy Spirit, it speaks on account of the persons, not showing them separated by a separation of place, on account of the heretics Sabellius and Photinus, namely, who did not wish to understand worthily concerning God, the Lord saying: "Whom do you make me like?" says the Lord, "and to whom will I be like?" *** For just as the heaven is distant from the earth, so are your senses and thoughts and counsels distant from my senses and thoughts, says the Lord.

Therefore, when he says that the Father sent, and that the Son was sent, he speaks on account of the persons, lest anyone, thinking that the Father himself was sent or that the Son himself sent, should rave as Sabellius does, not feeling thus. And lest again the Son, sent from heaven, be thought not to be everywhere with the Father, he indeed said that he was sent by the Father, yet he shows that he is everywhere with the Father, saying: The Father, who sent me, is with me. Therefore he did not speak of a separation of place, since the Son himself fills and contains all things together with the Father and the Holy Spirit; but so that we might believe in the true person of the Father, and that of the Son such as that of the Father, and that of the Holy Spirit such as that of the Son, and recognize the one substance of quality, majesty, and power of these three persons, he deigned to teach these things thus: and especially while established in the flesh, in which his humility shone forth to the world and his ineffable goodness and condescension to human frailty gleamed, in such abundant clemency and liberality that he might be revealed to the human race, he deigned to work and speak these things for our salvation, so that we might be able to know, grasp, and understand something about God.

Another heresy is that which disputes about the diversity of the heavens. For Scripture declares that on the first day the heaven and the earth were made, these two elements, and that on the second day the firmament was made from the water, and nevertheless that this same firmament was called heaven. But David speaks of the heavens thus: Praise the Lord God of the heaven of heavens, and the waters which are above the heavens. Therefore, whether one wishes to understand six heavens, according to David, and this seventh as the firmament, he does not err: for Solomon speaks of three heavens thus: Heaven and the heaven of heaven. The blessed apostle Paul likewise confesses that he was snatched up to the third heaven. Therefore, whether one understands seven, as the blessed David, or three, or two, he does not err, because the Lord also says: The Father who is in heaven. For even the most foolish pagans sometimes profess one heaven and the pole. Therefore, the blessed David taught what is full; but Solomon taught what is partial, and the blessed Paul likewise. But the book of Genesis announced two heavens to us.

Another heresy is that which disputes about the earth, saying that this is the only one, and that there is no other, not knowing that there is another, which is like a matrix of all things and contains everything, and which is found in the Scriptures as TAH, that is, matter, which is invisible and unformed, and which was made by God on the first day. But this earth, on which we dwell, is shown to be founded upon water, as David said: "Who founded the earth upon the water." For the immense matrix of all things, the TAH, is that prior one which was made on the first day, which contains the water and this earth which is inhabited by us, and which abundantly yields crops and fruits to the human race and to birds, serpents, cattle, and all other things, commanded by Christ the Lord and Savior, as it is written in the book of Genesis, that is, of creation. Another heresy is that which disputes about water, that it was not made by God, but they assert that it always exists of itself, not knowing that if the greater element was made, that is, the earth, how much more so the lesser, that is, the water, which is contained by the earth, as the prophet Jonah says: "I am a servant of God, who made the sea and the dry land.

And David likewise says that water was made by the Lord, and the three youths likewise. So there is one earth which contains all things, and another earth which is founded upon the water, namely this one which is inhabited by us, concerning which the prophet says: "Who founded the earth upon the water" — not that first earth, of course. Therefore this earth must be renewed and purified, which we often perceive to be moved by earthquake, concerning which the Lord says: "I make a new heaven and a new earth." And again the Lord says in the Gospel that heaven and earth pass away. Thus this earth is known to have its substance, as it were, from the roots of that prior earth, which was commanded to subsist upon the water, and which abundantly supplies nourishment to the human race. There is another heresy, which says that the body of man was made first, not the soul, and that the image of God is the body, not the soul of man, and that the Lord spoke according to predestination, as they suppose, when Scripture says: "And God made man. He made him in his own image, he made them male and female"; they being ignorant of what the prophet said.

For when it says "Let us make," it promises that he will make, and when it says "God made," it already shows the work as made, and declares that not flesh was made, but the soul, which is rational, was made. For that flesh cannot speak without the soul is not in doubt; therefore flesh is the instrument of the soul, which is a rational thing. When Scripture says that male and female were first made, it does not here indicate the sex of bodies, but declares the sign of the ruling and subordinate soul. And that bodies were not made lying down beforehand, as some imprudent persons suppose, is not ambiguous, since the flesh of Adam and the woman was made later; for on the seventh day Scripture says of Adam thus: "And the Lord took earth from the mud, and fashioned the man whom he made." You see, therefore, how it first shows that man was made, that is, the rational and immortal soul was created by the Lord, which indeed is called the image of God. But that earth taken from the mud was joined to the soul, that is, the outer man, the fragile body, it revealed was fashioned on the following day, and thus after sleep was sent into Adam, and later from his rib the Lord took and made the woman, Scripture testifies and proclaims.

And that the soul was made first, that is, on the sixth day, and that on the seventh day the body of Adam was formed from the earth, and that woman was made from the man's body, that is, from his side, is not ambiguous; and that the soul was made before, but the flesh was formed afterward, and then later the spiritual inspiration of God was infused as grace at the end, so that man might thus be shown capable of divine law and not powerless before the Lord—this is the evident reasoning of truth. This is what the blessed David also said, that the soul was made first, and the body formed afterward: "Your hands," he says, "made and formed." And then he declared that the spirit was infused afterward, saying: "And do not take your holy spirit from me." There is another heresy which says that the inspiration is the soul, not that inspiration was given into the soul, not knowing that if inspiration is the soul, how can it be distinguished what was properly infused from God? Since they do not consider that the inspiration of the divine spirit is a certain grace and advancement of dignity, so that man can be capable of the heavenly law.

And that to our father Adam, who already had a soul, a breath was given, and that a soul was not breathed into him, the Lord shows in the Gospel. For just as He had previously breathed into Adam, so afterward He breathed a greater grace of the divine Spirit into the apostles, who already had souls, after the resurrection, saying: "Receive the Holy Spirit," and so forth. And He did not say "receive a soul," but "receive the Holy Spirit." Therefore, He who breathed into the already-made man Adam, who had a soul, also afterward breathed into the blessed apostles, who had souls, so that it may be understood that all things were made through Him and nothing was made without Him. It is therefore of no reason that anyone should wish to suppose that the breath is the soul, since the soul is known to have been made, which, placed under the condition of the law, is found subject to judgment, concerning which it is said: "Do not fear those who kill the body; they cannot kill the soul. But fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.

Inspiration, therefore, is not the soul, but the grace of dignity, coming from the divine spirit through God Christ to all, which those who have and preserve receive an addition of graces, as the apostles and prophets and all the just. But the unjust, being negligent and contemptuous, lose so great a merit of dignity, as that Saul, of whom it was said: The spirit of the Lord departed from him, and an unclean spirit harassed him. And that it will not enter into an evil soul; the spirit of wisdom testifies in Scripture. There is another heresy which says that the soul of man, not made by God, is so called soul, but before, it says, it was called intellect, and was in heaven: afterwards, however, because it desired earthly things, it departed from heaven, and from that they think it was named soul, not knowing that in the beginning, made by God and created after the angels, the soul was called by the Lord, and that it received this name of property from God, that it be called soul, not intellect, as Scripture says: His soul will dwell in good things.

And again: "That you do not abandon my soul in hell." And again: "Turn, my soul, into your rest." And again: "My soul is greatly troubled." And again: "Thus my soul longs for you, O God." And again: "Blessed is the Lord, who made my soul." Therefore those empty opinions of the philosophers will be present, not that divine Scripture so proclaims. There is another heresy which supposes that cattle, serpents, and birds are rational like men, as the Manichees and lost Gnostics, and certain of the most vain poets and Stoic philosophers suspect, not knowing that a rational man has an intellect of the mind concerning God, that is, to be able to know about God and to believe, but has a bodily sense in common with cattle and certainly with other similar creatures, which can indeed have a bodily sense, but can in no way have an intellect of the mind concerning God, or an immortal and rational soul, as man, who is called the image of God, according to Scripture:

Do not become like the horse and the mule, in which there is no understanding. And: When man was in honor, he did not understand; he was compared to senseless beasts, and he became like them. Therefore, the sensation of beasts, birds, and serpents is common to us in the body, but understanding belongs only to men, that is, the power of the immortal soul infused into it by the Holy Spirit, which is called the image of God, which commands, rules, and possesses all things abundantly, as it is written: I have given you all things under your power. There is another heresy which says that evil kings and false prophets do not come and arise from their own will, but that they are sent by the command of God, not knowing that the Scriptures announce that false prophets or evil kings are not made by God, but declare that they come against God's will by their own will and the suggestion of the enemy, as Jannes and Mambres came against the blessed Moses and the priests of God Aaron under Pharaoh by their own will, since Scripture says: They did not reign through me, nor through my spirit, says the Lord. And concerning false prophets, thus: The Lord says this to the false prophets: I did not send them, and they went in my name to prophesy.

Therefore, the Lord often decrees a fitting sentence of death even in this world against them, announcing it. Thus, false prophets are not sent by God, nor are impious kings who have turned away from the Lord; but even if the wicked are sometimes stirred up against the wicked, with the Lord permitting it, this occurs so that the wicked may be consumed by the wicked. For the good, enduring persecution and having righteousness before the Lord, await the great promise of a future reward. The wicked, however, are sometimes destroyed by the wicked—not only by the good—so that their iniquity may be partially punished even in this age. There is another heresy which opines that an earthquake occurs not by God’s command and indignation, but from the very nature of the elements, since it does not know what Scripture says: “Who,” it says, “beholds the earth and shakes it with an earthquake.” And again, further: “I will shake heaven and earth.” Not attending to God’s power, they dare to ascribe the motion of power to the nature of the elements, like certain vain-talking philosophers who, ascribing this to the natures of things, did not recognize God’s power.

This also in matters of this kind the indignation and power of God works and stirs his own creature for the sake of conversion and the utility, indeed, of many who are sinning and returning to the Lord, the savior and creator. There is another heresy which, according to the vanity of the pagans, professes various names of stars, such as that Hermes Trismegistus, who is to be judged vain rather than great, and certain poets similar to him, who assert comets and pogonias and Hyades, Haedi, and other things of this kind, raving in name, although Scripture has declared to us few names of stars, the blessed prophet Job saying, before the pagans had transferred the names of stars from the holy scriptures. For Job himself says: Who made the Pleiades and Arcturus, he says, and Hesperus and the treasure of the south and Orion and Lucifer. These names, therefore, we receive from the holy scriptures as announced once: Scripture did not say all the names of the stars, but reserved them for the power of God, declaring through the prophet and saying thus: Who numbers the multitude of the stars, and calls all of them by name.

These few names, then, which we read in the holy scriptures, poets and false philosophers later dared to usurp, joining to their own falsehoods and many other things, and to preach the seeds of impiety to the age, so that from these they thought they could hope to comprehend also the names of all or of very many stars, since the names of all stars were placed and known by none other than God Christ, through whom the Father made all things, and he called each of them by their individual names, as it is written. There is another heresy which disputes about tongue and tongues, although scripture speaks both of one tongue and of tongues. If, therefore, there was one before, because there were few people, or afterwards many, because many men had already been born and increased in the world, it is not so useless to think in this way. For after the fifteenth generation from Adam up to the holy Heber, there are two thousand seven hundred years, under whom the confusion of tongues was sent, on account of the sin which they had committed in building the tower and the city, and because they were rebelling against God, they suffered this.

For they, having angelic grace, that is, knowledge of many languages, did not acknowledge the giver of such great wisdom, the Lord, and striving against him, they lost the grace which they had been granted divinely without any labor, and which had been given beforehand by the Lord without study and naturally to all, as the image of God. Afterwards, however, through study and learning, with forgetfulness sent by the Lord, they could scarcely learn, not all, nor many, but barely a few languages, so that one might manage to learn three or four, and with difficulty speak them. Nevertheless, all knowledge of languages, which men, offending, had lost two thousand seven hundred years before, the Lord, after his ascension, again conferred through the Holy Spirit without any labor upon believers, as is written in the Acts of the Apostles. For it is of angelic power to know the languages of all men: but through faith in Christ, knowledge of all languages is supplied without labor to believers, as we read, with the divine Spirit teaching the apostles and likewise the peoples believing at that time in Christ the Lord and Savior, they preached the knowledge of all languages granted without labor.

under Peter and Paul and others, it happened that when they taught the nations, the spirit of God had come from God, and they were able to speak in many languages, so that people from the nations, hearing them, marveled that they themselves, through faith in Christ, had knowledge of so many languages granted without instruction. There is another heresy which says that the name of language first proceeded from the Jews, others from the pagans, while both, feeling this way, are deceived by no small error. For man was made a participant in reason: therefore, he who spoke by reason, how was he a stranger to reason? Therefore, it is more the case that one is first a participant in reason and is called rational, than to have a special and local name of some language and to possess something from the name of man. For from Adam up to Heber, two thousand seven hundred years had passed. Therefore, the name of language of all men was one, and one language. But from the time they plotted against God, that celestial knowledge, that is, the understanding and wisdom of all languages, was taken away from them. And Heber, indeed, being holy because he did not depart from God according to his name, God wished his lineage to increase further and to be first called by this name in the world, so that from Heber, who had not consented to the building of the tower of the rebels, they would be called by the name Hebrews.

Before this, therefore, not only among pagans but also among Jews, that is, before seven hundred years, Heber is known to have been most righteous, who, believing in God and having separated himself from the conspiracy of wicked men, merited to obtain this first naming of his own from the Lord. Whence also the vain poets, transferring that building to their falsehoods, taught that the giants, those rebellious Aloadae, wished to ascend into heaven by piling up mountains, and that they were condemned for it. Their ravings did not escape the knowledge and skill of Christian teaching. There is another heresy that doubts about the announced year, because the prophet Isaiah says: "To announce the acceptable year of God, and the day of retribution." Some therefore think that from the time the Lord came until the consummation of the world, the number of years is no more and no less than three hundred sixty-five, until the divine presence of the Lord Christ again from heaven. This is found to be contrary, if anyone should think so.

We know that four hundred years and more have already passed, and that they were completed from the time the Lord came. How, then, will this be reasonable concerning the year, as very many have wished to understand it in this way? For the Lord commanded that only what he did and taught in one year be written down, not what was done and said by him in the first thirty years, according to the blessed John, who says that the world could not contain it if everything he had done were written down. Therefore the prophet Isaiah spoke of that year of the Lord Savior in which he taught, up to his passion and resurrection and ascension into heaven, just as the most blessed apostles handed down—not of three hundred and sixty-five years, as some suppose, but of that year after his baptism, namely, in which, preaching, he unlocked the mysteries of salvation for believers, at the same time testifying to and fulfilling what had long ago been said from the law and the prophets.

Another heresy is that which asserts that the consummation of the world was not established by God Christ the Savior according to a definition of times, and from this they suspect that the number of the consummation is certain, and they suppose it to be neither more nor less, although the prophets everywhere announced that the consummation of the world would occur around the five-hundredth year, and that the Lord would then come again from heaven. For Daniel counts seventy weeks, hearing from the Lord Christ: "Hear," he says, "O man of desires, because seventy weeks have been appointed for your people until the coming of the leader Christ, so that all things that were said concerning the city of Jerusalem and the people may come to pass." But just as this was said to Daniel before Christ came in the flesh and was nearly fulfilled, so also the same number, after the Lord's incarnation, *** up to the law which Moses received and up to the entry into the promised land, you will find not very far distant from the number of five hundred years.

Therefore, when the Lord spoke of various signs—famines, persecutions, floods, earthquakes, plagues—coming near the end, He also said to the blessed Peter, in an enigma, concerning the multitude of years. When Peter said, “Lord, how many times shall I grant forgiveness to a brother who sins?” the Lord said: “Not seven times, but seventy times seven,” showing indeed that the infinite number of daily sins of the human race must be forgiven by man to man, and to a Jew returning, or a pagan, and to others who are carnal and who return from impiety to the faith of Christ and to His Catholic Church, that it is necessary for all who believe that every debt be conceded by them. For even the Jewish historiographers have taught, saying that from Daniel four hundred and eighty years and more passed, and thus the Lord came in the flesh. You also have in Genesis the mystery very clearly announced, concerning Cain sevenfold vengeance, but concerning Lamech seventy-sevenfold vengeance: by which it is not doubtful that Scripture foretold, without hesitation, the impiety of one people and the iniquity of another in two persons.

For the law is spiritual, according to the apostle, and these, he says, are the two testaments. For we neither lose the history—that the people spent seventy years in Persia—nor do we reject spiritual understanding. Therefore, the seventy weeks spoken of by Daniel—four hundred and ninety years—were then nearly completed, and thus Christ came in the flesh; and from the presence of Christ until the end of the world, you will find nearly the same number of years to be completed. For the seventy weeks that Daniel saw, the first wise interpreters taught that they are seventy times seven, that is, four hundred and ninety years *** which jubilee in the law the Jews—not these, but the ancient and learned ones—that is, the year of Christ's remission and indulgence, ** celebrating beforehand the carnal presence through a figure, awaited with great joy, as is contained in Leviticus. For the lesser jubilee has fifty years, not less:

But it cannot have more; for the greater jubilee has five hundred years *** the lesser jubilee has fifty. Therefore the greater has ten times the lesser, five hundred years, so that by this one jubilee the presence of Christ and the consummation of the age would be declared. The seventy years of the captivity of the people in Persia, even if they are understood historically, and after they returned to Jerusalem and up to the incarnation of the Lord Christ nearly five hundred are found to be completed, yet this is also to be understood spiritually, that after seventy times seven, that is after about four hundred and ninety years, the Jews must ... under the Antichrist, when he has been found deceitful by the Jews themselves, who first will have thought him to be the Christ. Not long afterward, however, when his perfidy and deceit are known, then those who remain, repenting, will all fly to the faith of the Lord Christ, and repenting of their sins, they will obtain pardon from the Lord Christ himself, just as the others, so that what is said may be fulfilled:

Amen I say to you, you will not see me again until you say: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; and so that this may be fulfilled: Until the fullness of the nations enters, and thus all Israel will be saved, as it is written; and: If the people of Israel are like the sand of the sea, the rest will be saved. And that blessed Isaiah openly taught concerning Christ, that he will be clothed when all return, the Lord himself said thus: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Therefore he anointed me to evangelize the poor, he sent me to preach remission to captives, sight to the blind, to announce the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of retribution. Concerning which, when the Lord in the temple had taken the book and had seen this scripture through, he said to the apostles and in all things that this had now been fulfilled in his presence. Which also the most blessed Daniel observed, because the Lord had said to him, saying: Hear, O man of desires, and pay attention from the exit of the word of God, that is, from the incarnation of Christ, and again from his divine presence from heaven and the consummation of the age, which will be present with the angels.

Another heresy is that which asserts concerning the giants that angels mingled with women before the flood, and they suspect that giants were born from this: whereas Nimrod was not born from a spirit, that is, not from an angel, but from the man Cush, who was the son of Ham, and was born later; he is also called the first giant in Scripture, because he began to be a hunter, and a strong man, so that he was called a giant on earth: whence they will say, "like Nimrod the giant, so is he strong," if anyone similar to him in strength should be seen afterwards. Therefore, men were strong and from their youth rapacious, devastators, javelin-throwers, runners, devoted to plunder, and thus, as if alien not only in character but also in appearance to men, they were considered monstrous, and because they perpetrated such great crimes contrary to the nature of other men, they were called giants. For "giant" is said by etymology to be a monster of the earth, composed from two words, whether in form, or life, or appearance, or strength, or bulk of limbs. For so that you may know that giants were born not from another nature, but from the progeny of men: and in the books of Kings you have, whom the books of Kings announced as of great form and with limbs spread out in bulk and of immense strength from the race of giants after two thousand three hundred years of the flood:

just as that Goliath whom the most blessed king and prophet David alone cast down in battle, and of others of that kind: "J Carra," it says, "they carried the equipment of arms." Therefore, because from childhood such men were given over to plunder in a bestial manner, and as if alien to human nature and customs, Scripture reported it. For that those angels who were cast down from heaven are not like human nature is not in doubt, except only that they prevailed in suggesting nefarious and contrary things against the law, just as they also do now to men, entering into men, that is, persuading them; just as the enemy of the human race persuaded the Jews to perpetrate such crimes against the Lord and against the holy prophets, as it is written: "Satan," it says, "entered into Judas." Thus, therefore, also before, unclean spirits entering into the souls of men and women had spread the crimes of evil persuasion throughout the world.

If, however, anyone thinks it just that angels sinned in such a way that they were transformed into flesh, so as to believe that they remained in that flesh or were thus made carnal, he decides the history by violent reasoning, just as the falsehoods of pagans and poets assert that gods and goddesses, transformed, committed abominable unions. But if this happened at some time, it will not be ambiguous that it happens now; but what has never happened at some time is manifestly not happening now. Moreover, "giant" is taken in a good sense for the sake of virtue: "For he will exult like a giant to run the course." This is shown and fulfilled in the divine presence of Christ. There is another heresy which says that paganism was instituted by God, not that it was devised by the malice of men and the suggestion of the enemy for the sake of vices and the generation of crimes. Therefore, how is that which was instituted by God condemned by the same God? For that the knowledge of God the Father Almighty and of His Son and of the Holy Spirit was proclaimed from the origin of the world is not in doubt.

For in the book of the creation of the world, that is, in Genesis, you have it written: "And God said, and God made"; and again: "God said: Let there be lights" *** and on the sixth day God said: "Let us make man in our image and likeness." And that God did not make man by the persuasion of any angel, but of his Son, our Lord Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, has been made manifest. For you have in Genesis, that is, in the first book, the holy and adorable Trinity announced to men beforehand. For it says thus: "And the Lord rained down sulphur and fire from the Lord." And again concerning the Spirit on the first day: "And the Spirit of God was borne over the water." And Pharaoh, king of Egypt, says: "Who will interpret these things for us," he says, "except one who has the spirit of God?" And David: "The heavens were strengthened by the word of the Lord, and all their power by the spirit of his mouth." Afterwards, however, the perverse will of men, departing from such great knowledge of piety, when it hastens to serve diligently the lies and vanities of idols and had preferred to give itself over to a most shameful life, was held liable to the judgment of condemnation, so that the prophets said beforehand: "He who sacrifices to gods shall be rooted out." And again: "The gods who did not make the heaven shall be rooted out.

And therefore the Lord did not show his new presence, saying: "He who spoke in the prophets, behold I am here." Neither did the Lord anywhere command that angels be worshipped, nor the elements of the world, nor any creature, nor idols, which the worst will of men preferred to invent for the sake of their own crime and baseness, so that by worshipping them they might have license to commit evil. For the very name "idol" is derived from the Greek interpretation as a species of deceit and a perversion of form. Thus the Trinity of Christianity was proclaimed from the origin of the world, and the truth of piety was taught everywhere without interruption. For David says: "The Lord said to my Lord"; and: "Your good spirit will lead me on the right path"; and again: "The spirit of the Lord filled the whole earth"; and: "Where shall I flee from your spirit, and from your face where shall I go?" For the blessed Solomon teaches that idolatry was instituted by that man who, when he had lost his son and wept for him long as a father, made an image of him, and took delight in looking at it; and from that it was handed down to posterity, and diverse material of impiety sprouted forth from it in the human race.