Epistolae

Sisebutus, (Florez, España Sagrada, vol. VII.) First Letter. Letter of King Sisebutus to Caecilius, Bishop of Mentesa, when he had shut himself up in a monastery. I was hoping, most dear father, that with your flock preserved unharmed before you, our immense sins, which are not revealed by our own merits, might at least be washed away by your prayers. But who can bring help for another’s pain, when he has denied himself the remedy of healing? Nor will anyone be able to turn the straying sheep back into the Lord’s folds, who, through negligence, sent them into the jaws of wolves, and, having denied them grassy and fragrant fields, preferred to wound his companions among the thorns and briars and the cubs of ravening lions, so that the innocent flock, while the watchman’s vigilance withered, is torn apart by rabid jaws and savage mouths, with no one opposing, and the beasts’ slaughter kills them in hidden winding paths, with no one defending. How lamentable this matter is, and to be bewailed with every source of tears, I would say, were it not that such a pitiable event has occurred that I prefer to weep over it more than it is fitting to recount.

If the Lord carried one straying little sheep on His shoulders until He placed it in the hundredfold number, how much more care must human frailty bear, so that if it could not gain profit, it should not have lost what it received! Nevertheless, lest it seem to you that what we assert stands far from reason, hear with what darts in the Gospel the Lord strikes the hearts of sinners, and with what great rewards He enriches the aforementioned faithful, so that He who multiplied the talents entrusted to him, [He caused to remain with Him in joy, established with the greatest honors, and appointed him to rule]. On the contrary, namely, as to him who had hidden the money by keeping it, with what punishment overtakes him, and with what loss the burning wrath rages against him, you will be better able to investigate from the divine oracles. For if he who brought forth the sum in a state of no profit was so penalty condemned, with what censure will he be punished who, acquiring nothing, and by neglecting what he had, cruelly lost it?

The countless swarms of divine volumes lie open, which do not permit you to be innocent in this matter. Yet if small things are of use, I believe that many things suffice as well. Today, if someone entangled in worldly affairs and defiled by the foulness of every crime should pay the debt of nature, yet wishes to obtain a single reward of penance; when the remedy has been denied to the ailing one, and thus eternal death swallows him up—from whose hand will the Lord, trusting, seek his soul? Likewise, when a pagan has been presented to the holy fonts, the person of the bishop having withdrawn, and he has not yet been immersed, so that the condition of death forestalls it—I ask, who will be able to render an account for him? It seems to me, when He to whom all things are laid open comes, these will say: We were awaiting both penance and baptism; but we perceived this man as a parricide, who did not grant the vows of the penitents, but rather, being negligent, denied them. I think that another will receive their punishments. And since no one is found worthy concerning himself, who judges himself clean from sin, how much more so when the crimes of others are added to him? I believe him to be worthy of a thousand deaths.

But since we have learned from your letter that you took up the monastic life for no other reason than to be able to bring aid to your own infirmities, I am amazed that you are even happy at the cost of harm to many, and that you do not rather immediately correct those things which you recently preferred to commit cruelly. Hence, because you await our oracles, we have immediately summoned a notary and chosen what should be recited; when these have been brought forth in your hands, with all cunning set aside, let your steps be directed quickly to our presence and that of your brothers, so that, rebuked by a living voice and corrected by the style of words, you may at last come to your senses and return to the increase of virtues. LETTER II Of the Patrician Caesarius to King Sisebutus, on behalf of the aforementioned Caecilius, sent while he had been captured by soldiers. To the most glorious and most clement lord, King Sisebutus, Caesarius, by the will of God, your venerating patrician. Our frequent petition before your eminence has been, which could have no effect at all; but may the inescapable cry of the groaning ones now overcome your royal majesty, and may the inspiration of God prepare your heart for restoring the state of peace. Let God be appeased, even late, by the wailing of so many, if, looking upon the streams, he has quenched the torrent of tears. For the earth, which, as the heat waned, sustained the rain for the sake of producing its fruit, has now sated itself with the immense rushing flood of Catholic blood and has fulfilled the work of an alluvion.

Moreover, the multiplied captivity from both our regions and yours has filled nearly the entire known world, and the land, having received the habitation of nobles, has groaned, crowded. Therefore, concerning such great slaughters inflicted, I do not refrain from beseeching your Eminence with my entreaty, that you not despise my humility, that you hear my prayers, and that you not cease to grant what is requested. Make yourself the giver of peace after God, so that He who, having taken on a body, ascended into heaven and left peace to men, may count your kingdom among the peacemakers and place you, a son of peace, in the assembly of the saints. For me, who am asking for peace, which all need, grant it with the Lord inspiring, so that even if I live in foreign lands, yet bearing stored-up affection in my heart, I may always hold the name of your kingdom in a special way, and it may not depart from your mind. For we have released the most blessed father Caecilius, who was detained by our men, hastening to heal everything in the contemplation of God and of your kingdom, and we have given evident effort so that he may be presented to his holy Church and to your most Christian eyes.

Now, just as we released that most holy man without any prompting from your kingdom, hastening to gratify the condition of your kingdom in all things, so may your most eminent power not disdain to fulfill our petition, which by the counsel of many is proven to be for the sake of souls, showing yourself in all things a cultivator of good pursuits. But if our will does not remain sad in its entreaty, before the most serene lord of the city, your father, our author, your eminence will acknowledge us in all things as existing for his greatest benefit. We discharge the rights of the duty owed by us, and, desiring to know the health of your Clemency, we inquire with a literary service, so that the mind of your Clemency may be provoked to repay the favor of a reply to those who inquire and who love. LETTER III OF KING SISEBUTUS TO CAESARIUS, Sent through Ansemundus. If the scrutineer of hearts were to infuse our love into your feelings; if he were to insert our affection into your secrets; if he were to unseal to the gaze of your mind whatever I think about you (which I cannot unfold by beating the air); I believe that, with the hindrances of occasions driven out, with the business of perishing causes driven out, with the ambiguities of nascent delays driven out, you would long ago have been a companion to me, and the alternation of charity could have enjoyed a pure mind in both of us.

But, as I understand it, I ascribe this to my own sin, that no fruits of the one I love above all others are returned to my side, nor is any recompense exchanged for my lot. Why do you hesitate, dearest friend, if faith is to be shown to Christians? Accept the treaties; if the rewards that are cheap in your eyes, accept the gifts. I profess, before God Himself who is propitious, that I will keep my promise in all things and hold the purpose of sacred devotion with an untainted mind. For the days that ought to lead us, living well, into abundant joy and exultation—why should they be mutilated by the slaughter of disasters, by persistent plague, by ruinous consuming calamity? It is not unworthy of us to await counsel, but it is ours, for the one we love, to lay bare the whole desire, as many as are the days of our life, which we know without knowing; for our intention, while there is time, ought to aim at what is beneficial and in perpetual time, how justly, how most rightly, how relying on the mercy of God, we ask that things, with God as giver, stand—as you, a most vigilant knower, can perceive from the matter itself. But if wars arise, if the fierce sword rages in any part, if the life of men does not demand a time of war, whom do you think will render account to God for such great crimes, for the inflicted slaughters, for the most deadly wounds inflicted?

It seems to me, and indeed it seems right, that the one who refused the most piously offered remedy should be held liable for so many evils. But why do we weave these things again, when it suffices only to admonish? Let us return to your most ample affection and our most pure devotion. Trust Ansemundus confidently, receive him with suspended hesitation, with suspicion removed, whatever you have ordered, gentle in his heart; for he is ours, and though unpolished in speech, not in zeal for purity; for I, with sincere affection, have chosen those things which are fitting, instructed those which seem so, polished them as I could, whence I commit his sincerity to you to be guided, and whatever he has achieved less elegantly, through you, my dearest, I defend as if I were present. What more I might intimate to your experience I do not find, to whom I desire to offer myself entirely. Moreover, this bearer is so blocked in all things, and so finally ordered, that whatever your clemency may seek from him, I think he will give you a most complete answer. Indeed, the letters which he will publicly offer to you intimate the rectitude of justice and guard the limit of truth; for nothing detracts from your glory, if things more expedient for us have been contributed, and, with God's mercy, have come to the effect which we solely and ardently seek. The bow sent to us by Ansemundus from your glory has arrived; for this we render you greater thanks, because we are enriched by you both with words and with a gift.

Letter 4 From the Patrician Caesarius to King Sisebutus, sent through Ursellus. When your noble letter became known, by which means and in what ways it decided to make itself known, and with what careful design it was composed, we read it sincerely, we considered it cautiously and attentively, and we commanded a notary to be summoned to take it down while we were actually engaged. Now he knows what he already knew before; we give thanks, and not undeservedly, that we have knowingly recognized what was already known beforehand by you with a merciful mind; but just as your clemency wished to make us aware of many things, so we render your most noble sentiments more certain concerning all that has been done.

Theodoric and our legates, with the help of Him to whom all things are subject, are already joined together in our regions with full gratitude, and have been sent back to us redeemed, with honest and cheerful spirits indeed, by the most clement emperor, our lord, who is difficult to compare. I believe that those things which speech once demanded, which a pious mind earnestly sought, which a sincere heart desired, will now be impressed upon our minds. To believe otherwise is impious, nor can the royal majesty offend the emperor, whom it befits to grant more abundantly the desired benefit. Finally, with life remaining under Christ’s accompaniment, when these longed-for men have arrived here, we reserve fully for your understanding whatever their most complete speech will have guided our conscience. Some things, indeed, are held in your addresses, where part is conveyed figuratively, part historically; not a few things occupy the place of tropic narration. To speak of these genres requires more extensive leisure, which the matter itself demands; with whatever brevity I can, I will touch upon them in a fitting manner. Spiritual war, according to the sacred scriptures, must be waged against spiritual wickedness, which your goodness has warned us not to permit. In these matters, divine rather than human aid is to be sought. He who was the death of death and the life of the living—may He Himself crush the war for both of them.

If, however, your judgment pronounces this concerning men, we have long been known to you, and we have met more frequently, whom your agreement neither vindicates nor defends in intention. But while the time of delay is prolonged, while the occasion for opportunity is granted, while the mind is scattered in different directions, our party has by no means received what it requested, to such an extent that a man given over to the highest crime and prostrated by every disease, for the sake of strictness, for chastity, for abstinence, our intention followed. Our petition was unable to reach its effect; we thought that this pseudo-presbyter should be inserted for this reason, so that we might make you, who know, aware of what you are least unaware of among other things. Nevertheless, your goodness has made known to us that your judges offer such sanctions to our judges, that they hold and demand from us what is in no way fitting, and what is justly owed to your parts they do not delay to render. Let your clemency know that this is pleasing to me; it is enough for us to defend our own, and not to seek what belongs to others. I render with a most devoted mind the signs of your safety and the rights of happiness that are owed, and again, by the grace of God, I reserve myself to be, in time to come, one who will receive the abundance of your epistolary address concerning your health.

LETTER V To King Sisebutus from the Patrician Caesarius, sent through Amelius and Theoderic. We have received the most venerable letters, willingly offered by the most lordly emperor whom we hold in paternal embrace, with exceedingly great devotion; their most noble sequence, gleaming with the amplest distinction, has earned honor, since, written with a style by the hand of the renowned power for the most excellent trust, it has inspected itself. With such gifts, finally, we ourselves, refreshed, have preferred that your benevolence should share in them, since, as I think, you more willingly carry out the commands of the renowned power. Finally, it is certain that the glorious and most truth-loving Theoderic, according to the command of the most clement and, beyond all men, in all things exceptional emperor, has been sent to your glory, and we have thought it just to join to him the venerable presbyter Amelius, whom a fortunate journey has made united in going; let no occasion whatsoever cause them to be divided in returning. These men, finally, are able to disclose to you everything with faithful words and vivid eloquence, whose trust is deemed suitable, sincerity abundant, industry exceedingly cautious. Therefore, for the sake of your friendship, it was necessary that the matters brought to your knowledge through them be conveyed to your incorruptible senses, so that, with superfluous causes finally removed, the divine sanction, which is to be preferred to mortals, may be able to bring to effect the glory of your tranquility, which persists in the mutual, for all who strive.

I return to you the rights of salutations as best I can, and I commend our dearest ones, on account of the immense excellence of the emperor's love, both those present and those above, as private persons, with pious devotion. LETTER VI FROM KING SISEBUTUS TO BISHOP EUSEBIUS To the holy and venerable father, Bishop Eusebius. A letter more dead than dying, arisen from ashen sepulchers, defiled and foul with every contagion, we have barely touched with our farthest hands; we have beheld it more gasping, as if not dead, but never living. In those very smoky ashes we have observed that you are a follower of empty causes, and that you are not in agreement with the most solid realities, but consent to wretched men and those vainly inflated. This charge, that you have obtained the office of the theatrical games of bulls, namely, the ministry, seems uncertain to no one: who does not see what it even repents one to see? You, bearing corpses before blessed men, and reproaching men devoted assiduously to divine worship with your reprobate opinion. Therefore, do not henceforth expect any address from our perpetuity, but entrust the Church of Barcelona to be ruled and governed to this man who pleases God more than wretched men, so that, with Christ as our auspice, when the glorious solemnity of Easter has become manifest, we may rejoice in his desirable pontificate, and in your consent, albeit belated.

LETTER VII OF KING Sisebutus, Sent to Theudilanus, When He Had Converted from the Lay State to a Monastery. For who would not render thanks to you beyond immense powers, whom the fire of the Holy Spirit has made its own worshippers? Who, finally, could not be raised up with the most faithful praises, those whom he knows to be more eagerly pressing onward into eternal regions? For faith is proven in deed from this, when a good work is accomplished from faith, and we unhesitatingly confess that those obtain heavenly things whom we know have effectively and willingly abandoned earthly things. Therefore, O offspring of my character, and my dear lights, and the most splendid rudiments of my very vitals, may the firmness or faith in you render this work, which we see to be unworthy in us, suitable; for we expect to gather numerous rewards of fruits, when we trust that from our seeds we have destined, to the blessed region, the hagiographic precepts crying out among them. "Blessed are those," it says, "who establish their sons in Zion, and their households in Jerusalem"; by such an understanding it is left that paternal affection is remembered in sons, when they remember how they were brought up in domestic cares. And although I do not judge you subject according to the sacred praises of the author, but more precious friends, still I do not doubt that greater assistance will come to me from you, whom I trust have passed from the state of subjection to a friendly purpose.

Nevertheless, because the wicked often hate the good, and the unfaithful oppose the faithful, as far as the slenderness of my intellect supplies, I earnestly beseech that you, the offspring born from me, live as piously and cautiously as possible; and I trust that those whom I have bound in the Lord are also joined together by the bond of charity, so that, with divine support, avoiding the waves of this world through the sentences set forth below, you may rejoice to have arrived at the harbor of victory. I could gather a little about the greed of all, the nurse of evils, in the battle-line, but it was superfluous for those who, we know, have delightfully abandoned what was owed to themselves, ever to embrace what belongs to another, having destined themselves for a profitable rest. Concerning pride, of course, the sister of envy, which is all the more to be avoided because it has a companion, whose nefarious origin made it the beginning of death, as the apostle Peter most wisely affirms beyond all others: "The envy of the devil," he says, "brought death into the world." Indeed, both vices are rendered dead by these virtues when frequent humility overcomes pride and love tramples the envy of fraternal division; let there be, therefore, fitting and sincere prayer without interruption, assiduous reading, moderate eating, tempered abstinence, abundant humility, fixed hope, most certain faith, and above all these, charity, which covers a multitude of sins, more and more abundantly.

And when with all these things you have been surrounded by grace, you must resist strongly against the manifold wiles of the most cunning deceiver, lest—which God forbid—just as the kind of hostile pride seems not so much to be virtues as vices, but however great the gifts of the giver have been to you as a gift, so much more prompt your mind ought to be, without anyone’s praise, in the most holy work. For he who, from the lofty pinnacles of virtues, swollen with envy and pride alike, not undeservedly but unhappily, was cast down into this form of air, displays his ancient hatred against the human race, and our clamorous frailty grieves that we acquire through humility the grace which he lost through ill-fated pride; indeed, his intent is easily crushed when Christ accompanies us, once the Lord has been invoked and has aided us; for the creator of all creatures, in pious mercy, commanded that he descend to the earth, so that he might lead the human race to the ethereal abodes through the abundance of goodness, in order that the fullness of Christ’s body might be believed with Christ, when the joining of all members had reached the head in the heavens.

Thus, dearest ones, faithfully instructed and with a sincere mind, without guile, you have learned that those from whom the precious blood of the Lord was spilled lie under eternal punishments. But lest we seem, through a circumlocution of words, to have advanced far from reason what we have introduced, let us bring forth evangelical precepts clearer than light, where among other things it embraces the just and terrifies the impious, it intimates paradise prepared for all of us, and for the devil and his angels it demonstrates an inextinguishable fire, and that the one who is to come is for the rewards of the faithful and the punishments of the impious. These holy ones, whom I trust are united in the grace of the Lord, I beseech with a sincere petition, and I testify by the Lord that you not be reluctant to offer constant prayers to our Redeemer Lord, who came to save sinners, not to destroy them, and to pray with unceasing supplication for our sins and immense crimes, so that, freed from eternal punishments, He may lead me together with the holy angels to the eternal kingdom. Finally, I think there will be remission before God for us if your prayer intercedes for us. Otherwise, how will the Lord have strengthened your purpose, which He foreknew to be blessed, in holy virtues, or how will you have attained the cenobitic life, so that paternal desires and filial affection may make your replies joyful?

Great is God everywhere, the never-changing author. . . . May you, Teudila, always be dear to me forever, and with a grateful heart, love the name of one who loves. May He who commanded the divine vow to be granted to you Himself give you Sandrimer Almavia. May the true Lord preserve you with truthful grace, so that you may vindicate your name by your own merits. May the Lion of the tribe of Judah be your protector everywhere; may Christ, pious everywhere, be your life and light. Amen. LETTER VIII. OF SISEBUTUS, KING OF THE Goths, TO ADVALVALDUS, KING OF THE LOMBARDS, AND TO THEODOLINDA, THEIR QUEEN. For the faith of Christ, sent through Totila. To the most eminent and most venerable lords, and joined to me in brotherly love, to my brother Advalvaldus, king of the people of the Lombards, and to Queen Theodolinda, in the name of the Lord, Sisebutus, king of the Visigoths. For charity is truly known from a sincere work when the immaculate rule of faith is demonstrated by a Catholic mouth; a pure profession brings forth immense joys to each side when the accursed Arian perniciousness is driven from a noble lineage, and, dug out or choked off by the roots, is considered to be from the body of Christ, the grace of Christ. Meanwhile, just as we are raised up with abundant exultation over the converted, so we are weighed down with an immense burden of grief over the adverse, when a renowned offspring, born from a clear mark, is held captive by a serpent’s bite and, devoured by bloody jaws, allows itself to perish of its own free will.

It is not so much a thing to be wondered at as a thing to be lamented, that one should grasp salutary precepts and yet hurl oneself headlong to the door of death, pursue transitory things, and reject eternal ones. We grieve over these remedies, and not without reason do we pour forth rivers of tears with immense weight, recognizing that the kinship of our blood is now polluted by Arian contagion, and that by the virulent spread of a cancer, fraternal connection is sundered. We see rustic men, that is, those less capable of reason, daily serving in the heavenly camp through Mother Church; why does a noble race and noble form, inborn virtue and natural prudence, elegance of manners and the censure of a good life, conspicuous dignity and the exceptional glory of dignity, ignominiously sit beneath dead and buried heresies, and, to speak more truly, never living for themselves, unhappily bow their necks? Let them be ashamed, at last, to follow nefariously the blasphemies of this sect; let them be ashamed to travel the intolerable path of a smoky track; let them be ashamed, finally, to reach the punishment of eternal death. Let such things move them, that which is daily sung about their heresiarchs throughout almost the whole world, who, with stinking, eviscerated entrails, assigned his horrific soul to eternal fires. I think that his followers will receive this same eternal punishment, unless they believe rightly. There was, there was once a disease spread by a most bitter plague, which secretly mingled the souls of the wretched with infernal abodes and, with a smeared sweetness of cups, administered deadly antidotes.

Vast calamities then and various scarcities, very bitter wars more frequently and daily misery, lack of crops and pestilential wounds oppressed this more insolent nation in past time. After the starry radiance shone upon the hearts of the faithful, and orthodox faith gleamed in blinded minds, with the peace of Catholics increased, the Lord granting it, the kingdom of the Goths flourishes. And those who long ago were torn by scythed battle-lines, wounded by the hooked stings of scorpions, and by the triple venom of the serpent will grow green at the mouth; these, cleansed by maternal affections, the Catholic Church heals. It heals the professed without wrinkle of heart and tongue, the unchangeable, indivisible, uncreated, creator of all, the eternal Trinity heals them. Hence we beseech your clemency with words, we beseech with prayers, we beseech with pure minds, that your nation be a participant in such great rewards and united in the body of Christ together with you be a companion; it is too intolerable and detestable and not to be borne that so copious a head, exalted by virtues, should be followed by any sluggish members; that very thing, acting unhesitatingly in the matters themselves, gave us confidence, you who were born from Catholic bowels and are seen to have been reborn from the Catholic font. Concerning both, I think your glory is exalted by more splendid titles by divine gift, if you gloriously preserve the path of your mother, and if you extend to others, with all the effort you can, the gift that has been bestowed upon you.

How great a glory of the future kingdom awaits you, most clement king, as its heir; how great the gifts of largesse that divine virtue sustains for you to bestow; and how great the rewards of the insignia of happiness the same author desires, if you are willing to seize them—I would say; but it is not granted to mortals to know what is prepared for the immortals. Nor can human senses or mind attain what the Lord has promised to bestow upon the rightly believing. But if the mind should perhaps waver—which it is forbidden to utter—toward converting heretics into something, inasmuch as it has cut away errors with the putrid scalpel of experience too little (we speak to those who recognize), what a loss it feels for itself and its own, or what account it renders to the shepherd of shepherds, we have entrusted these matters to your senses for judgment; if a learned man prefers to gather sentences from nourishing eloquence rather than words, I think that time would run out before the examples.

Therefore, do not hesitate; for with Christ as your patron, all mortal things yield. There you have a mother to be venerated with every honor, a most steadfast teacher of the faith, illustrious in her works, sincere in her humility, penitent in her prayer, devoted to charitable pursuits, bound by the bond of charity, provident in counsel, rich in mercies, preeminent in integrity, laden with all virtues, sweet in speech, sharp in intellect, generous in giving, just in judgment, clement in word, most beloved of Christ, a friend to the Catholic flock, ever hostile to the devil, and most hostile to his always heretical body. Her virtues justice demands, so that she may persevere more balanced; prudence impels her to attend to the force of reason. Nor is she unworthily ennobled by the name of such great renown, she who, surrounded by so many rewards, is known under the starry Author. Therefore, if we wish to attend to the force of this name, in clear Argive words: Theodolinda. (In the manuscript of the Church of Toledo, the letter ends here.)

Some are to be punished by the promise which some subtly desire for a time when they burn, some a gentle threat of the rule ought to subdue, some a harsher rebuke ought to bend; for the greedy man is easily drawn by an offered bribe, and the stubborn man is driven from his depraved sect by the severity of strictness. These things are indeed to be borne equably according to place, time, and person, until the ardor of faith, growing strong with Catholic vigor, with the lamp gleaming, makes the founded hearts of believers radiant with light, and, burning up the putrid remnants of heretics from the notorious materials that gave them rise, reduces them to ashes. Lest perhaps by this pure reason, which the austerity of our defended charity has extorted, and so forth. But unpolished confidence, driven by love, has sent presumption ahead, may it confer upon the hearers what the speech, with less flourishing words, touches upon everything for the cultivation of religion; let him who is about to speak these things rightly hear that the kingdom of God consists not in words alone, but in virtue. Since for the prudent, strong things please more than ornamented ones, and wholesome things are more expedient for the sick than pleasant ones, we have not taken up the form of teaching, but have shown brotherly affection; and just as we share in the origin of kinship, so let us share in the quality of holy faith.

Therefore, if the splendor of measured grammatical art, if the eloquence of rhetorical acclamation, if the argumentation of dialectical discipline has been lacking, it is not that poverty has denied the abundance of speech, but that divine speech has withdrawn from revealing the words to those who believe in such a prosecution. Since the one who speaks is odious, through Solomon, sophistically; and again the same through the apostle says: Where is the wise man, where is the scribe, where is the inquirer? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this age? It sufficiently shows that the proofs of faith are to be asserted in simple words, that the orthodox profession is to be shown in customary speech, that secular studies of letters are to be removed from there, and that the acclamations of the pagans are by no means to be preserved in their errors. But we have drawn certain examples from the resplendence of the heavenly library, and we have noted the connected institutions of the faithful fathers on a tablet, so that the authority of the faith of the richer may render it unimpaired, and the apostolic rule handed down by the fathers, darkened by no shadows, may reach you. He who has confessed me, says the Lord, before men, I also will confess him before my Father who is in heaven. And: He who has denied me before men, I also will deny him before my Father who is in heaven. But such must be the confession that makes you and your people followers of the apostles.

Build the foundation of faith upon the rock, so that it may scatter the caverns of heretics, driven by the blast of winds, and spurn the turbulent tricklings of the faithless with the most secure fullness of fortitude. "You are," says the Lord, "Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and to you I entrust the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and the gates of hell will not prevail against you; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." It is shown clearly enough that no one can be absolved from crime in the past, present, or future, unless he has held the apostolic profession without wrinkle: closed and hardened will be the heavenly entrance for him whose heart has remained hardened in defending errors. The quality of faith is compared to a mustard seed, when it is said by the Lord in this way: "If you have faith as a mustard seed, and you say to this mountain: 'Move yourself,' it will move itself." Just as a mustard seed in no way admits of cutting, but by bearing fruit and extending itself through the increase of branches, it becomes a dense, lofty tree, so the purity of catholic faith, which is like an uncuttable thing, until it begins to wipe away errors, multiplies with such nobility of fruits and elevates with such height by supporting, that it reaches to heaven, and the heavenly gifts that the deserving receive are never destroyed by the failing of Christ at any time.

Death here will show the enemy of faith, the cultivator of heretics, who, terrified by the standard of the cross and disturbed by orthodox profession, when he cannot inflict the most wicked harm upon Catholics, rushes headlong into his own always uprooted destruction. The Lord spoke to his disciples, saying: "Go, baptize the nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit"—not "in the names," he says, but "in the name," so that the distinction of the Trinity may appear in three persons, and the ineffable divinity of one substance may shine forth. Hence also the teacher of the Gentiles, running in the footsteps of his master, declares in these words: "One God, one faith, one baptism." Clearly and lucidly he made known that there is one confession of believers for the worship of veneration, which the Church, following the apostles, received from Rome and, with the crops of heretics uprooted, handed on with maternal affection to those rightly seeking. There are also other testimonies scattered through the fields of divine law, abundantly flowering, which, like keys or lamps, clarify the obscure and open the locked. Meanwhile, as to what the Arian presumption, barking in opposition to the perversity of its own dogma, vociferates—how it perversely twists the examples of divine volumes with impious words in its opinion—we have chosen sentences, in order to unravel their abominable ditties, connecting the most sacred utterances of the undefiled faith below, so that, with the condition of both investigated more easily, heretical temerity being frustrated, one may both know how to teach the good and more perfectly know how to unteach the evil.

Wanting, finally, to exclude the Son from the paternal substance by the audacity of temerity, they bring forward those things which pertain to human nature into the subjection of our Redeemer. "The Father," they say, "is greater than I." And this: "He who sent me, he himself gave me the command." And: "I did not come, but he sent me." And again: "I did not come to do my own will." And again: "As the Father told me, so I speak; and what he gave me I have kept, and all that he gave me no one will take from me." After such things they bring forward: "I will ask my Father, and he will show me more than twelve thousand legions of angels," and: "If this cup cannot pass, unless I drink it"; and: "If it can be done, let this cup pass from me; not as I wish, but as you wish." They also add: "And I always do what is pleasing"; and: "To sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to give you." Raving, they connect: "And he gave him a name which is above every name"; and: "He exalted his servant"; and: "Your Lord God blessed you"; and: "He raised him from the dead and made him sit at his right hand"; and many similar things, which the most correct faith receives in such a way that it knows what pertains to divinity and what to humanity. By these reasons and faithful examples, indeed, the unhappy ones are refuted; in the Son of God we confess most certainly that there are two natures, one of divinity and the other we acknowledge of humanity. Christ, therefore, in the form of a servant, which he took from the Virgin, is said to be subject to the Father.

They confirm the Apostle as the leader of the Gentiles: "When," he says, "the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, made subject to the law." In that nature he is said to be subject, in which he is born generated from a woman under the law. If anything is found in the divine utterances that makes the person of Christ more subject to the Father, it does not evacuate the nature of the divinity, but affirms that the true man of the divinity is subject to the divinity. Therefore, where God the Son is shown to be equal to God the Father, we have gathered from the treasuries of sacred law like chosen flower heads, and, draining them into one heap, we have offered the gifts of the eternal king. For the Son says to the Father: "All that is mine is yours"; and again the Evangelist: "Making himself equal to God in every power"; and "I and the Father are one." And in what follows: "That they may be one in us, just as you and I are one"; and: "Did you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me?" "My Father works, and I work"; and: "Just as the Father raises the dead and gives life, so also the Son gives life to whom he wishes"; and: "He who has seen me has seen the Father"; and: "He who hates me hates my Father"; and: "Glorify your Son, so that your Son may glorify you"; and: "I have glorified on earth and made your name known to men.

Now so that every intention of disputation may rest, let them accept and defend this foreseen statement of John, narrating in this manner the most sacred words: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Therefore let the tongues of the mad cease, with the sword of their boastful speech, which, panting, attempt to separate the Son from the substance of the Father. Concerning the Holy Spirit, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Son in equal unity of power, they, blinded, bark out such an unhappy opinion, to be lamented with every source of tears, that with a funeral, impious prosecution, wounded by madness, they dissociate him from the Father and the Son, and proclaim him not God (which it is impious to say) but a creature, with criminal voices. Yet sacred authority, rich in divine eloquence, has demonstrated that the Holy Spirit is God and Creator with the Father and the Son, by these clearest utterances: "By the word," it says, "of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the spirit of his mouth all their power." Again, the one who above beautifully declared through eloquence: "Send forth your spirit, and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth." That king, wiser than all, and the prophet: "He himself," he says, "created them through the Holy Spirit." Job, most patient in suffering beyond all men: "The divine Spirit," he says, "who created me." And the warrior Judith: "To you," she says, "every creature serves, who spoke, and they were made; you sent your Spirit, and they were created.