De Ecclesiasticis Dogmatibus (Incertus)

APPENDIX XIII. ON ECCLESIASTICAL DOGMAS. CHAPTER ONE. — On the Faith of the Trinity. We believe that there is one God, Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit. Father, in that He has a Son; Son, in that He has a Father; Holy Spirit, in that He proceeds from the Father and the Son, coeternal with the Father and the Son. The Father, therefore, is the principle of divinity; who, just as He was never not God, so He was never not Father, from whom the Son is born, from whom the Holy Spirit is not born, because He is not the Son; nor unbegotten, because He is not the Father; nor made, because He is not from nothing, but proceeding God from God the Father and God the Son. The Father is eternal in that He has an eternal Son, whose eternal Father He is. The Son is eternal, in that He is coeternal with the Father. The Holy Spirit is eternal, in that He is coeternal with the Father and the Son. The Trinity is not confused in one person, as Sabellius says, nor separated or divided in the nature of the Divinity, as Arius blasphemes; but one in person is the Father, another in person is the Son, another in person is the Holy Spirit. One in nature in the holy Trinity is God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

CHAPTER II. — On the Incarnation of Christ. The Father did not assume flesh, nor the Holy Spirit, but only the Son; so that he who was in the divinity the Son of God the Father, would himself become in man the son of a human mother, lest the name of son pass to another who was not a son by eternal birth. Therefore the Son of God became the son of a man, born according to the truth of nature from God as Son of God, and according to the truth of nature from man as son of man, so that the truth of the begotten one would have the name of son by birth in each nativity, not by adoption, not by appellation, and he would be true God and true man, one Son. Therefore we do not confess two Christs nor two Sons, but God and man, one Son; whom we also call only-begotten, remaining in two substances, as the truth of nature conferred upon him, with the natures not confused, nor intermingled, as the Timotheans wish, but united by separation. Therefore God assumed man, man passed into God; not by reversibility of nature, as the Apollinarists say, but by the condescension of God, so that neither would God be changed into human substance by assuming man, nor man into divine substance when glorified into God, because change or reversibility of nature brings about diminution and abolition of substance. We believe the holy Trinity is joined without confusion, distinguished without separation.

Therefore the Son of God was born from a woman, and not through a man, that is, not from sexual intercourse, as Ebion says; but drawing flesh from the body of the Virgin, and not bringing it with him from heaven, as Marcion, Origen, and Eutyches affirm. Nor in phantasy, that is, without flesh, as Valentinus asserts, that is, not merely imagined, but a true body. Not only flesh from flesh, as Marcianus, but true God from divinity and true man from flesh, one Son; in divinity the Word of the Father and God, in man soul and flesh. A soul not without sense and reason, as Apollinaris, nor flesh without a soul, as Eunomius; but a soul with its reason, and a body with its senses, through which senses it endured true pains in the passion and before the passion of its flesh. CHAPTER III. — That the eternal God was born from the Virgin. Nor was he born from the Virgin in such a way that he received the beginning of his divinity by being born as a man, as if before he was born from the Virgin he was not God, as Artemon, Berillus, and Marcellus taught; but the eternal God and man was born from the Virgin.

CHAPTER IV — On the Perfect Trinity. We believe nothing created or servile in the Trinity, as Dionysius, the source of Arius, would have it; nothing unequal, as Eunomius and Arius would have it; nothing unequal in grace, as Aetius would have it; nothing earlier or later, or lesser, as Arius would have it; nothing foreign or official to another, as Macedonius would have it; nothing inserted by persuasion or surreption, as Manichaeus would have it; nothing corporeal, as Melito and Tertullian would have it; nothing bodily figured, as the Anthropomorphites and Vadianus would have it; nothing invisible to itself from creatures, as Origen would have it; nothing visible to creatures, as Fortunatus would have it; nothing diverse in character or will, as Alaric would have it; nothing from the essence of the Trinity drawn down into the nature of creatures, as Plato and Tertullian would have it; nothing singular in operation, nor communicable to another, as Origen would have it; nothing confused, as Sabellius would have it; but the whole perfect, because the whole from one, and one from the whole; yet not solitary, as Praxeas and Salvanus, that damnable doctrine of the Pentapolitans, presume.

CHAPTER V — On the Homoousion. Therefore the Son is homoousios, that is, co-essential in divinity with the Father; the Holy Spirit is homoousios with the Father and the Son; the one Son, remaining God in His own man, is homoousios with God and man in the glory of the Father, desirable to be seen by angels; just as the Father and the Holy Spirit are adored by angels and by every creature; not a man made apart from God, nor Christ with God, as Nestorius blasphemes, but man in God, and God in man. CHAPTER VI — On the Resurrection. There will be a resurrection of all dead men, but one and at the same time, and once. Not a first resurrection of the just and a second of sinners, as is the fable of dreamers, but one of all. And if that which falls is said to rise again, then our flesh will truly rise again, just as it truly falls. And not according to Origen will there be a change of bodies, that is, another new body in place of the old; but the same corruptible flesh, which falls, of both the just and the unjust, will rise again incorruptible, which can either suffer punishment for sins, or remain in eternal glory for merits.

CHAPTER VII — The Resurrection Common to All. The resurrection will be of all men: if it is of all, then all die, so that death, introduced by Adam, rules over all his children, and that privilege remains in the Lord, which is said of him specifically: "You will not let your holy one see corruption" (Ps. 15:10). For his flesh did not see corruption. We have received this reasoning as handed down by the greatest multitude of the Fathers. But since there are also other equally catholic and learned men who believe that, with the soul remaining in the body, those who are found alive at the coming of the Lord are to be changed to incorruption and immortality, and that this is reckoned to them as resurrection from the dead, because they lay aside mortality by change, not by death—whichever way one may acquiesce, he is not a heretic, unless he becomes a heretic from contentiousness. For it is sufficient in the law of the Church to believe in the future resurrection of the flesh from death.

CHAPTER VIII — On the Judgment of the Living and the Dead. When we say in the Creed that at the coming of the Lord the living and the dead are to be judged, we believe that this signifies not only the just and sinners, as Diodorus thinks, but also the living, those who are to be found in the flesh, who are believed to be still to die, or are to be changed, as others wish, so that they are judged together with the dead, having been raised immediately or reformed. CHAPTER IX — No Restoration to Be Expected After the Judgment. After the resurrection and judgment, we do not believe that there will be a future restoration, as Origen deliriously imagines, so that demons or impious men, after torments, as if purified by punishments, either return to the angelic dignity in which they were created, or are granted the fellowship of the just, on the grounds that this befits divine mercy, lest any rational creature perish, but be saved in some way. But we believe in the just judge and rewarder of all, who said: “The impious shall go into eternal punishment, the just into eternal life” (Matthew 25:46), so that they may receive the fruit of their works.

CHAPTER X — The Creation of the World. The Creation of the Angels. In the beginning God created heaven and earth, and water, out of nothing. And while darkness still concealed the water itself, and the water hid the earth, the angels and all the heavenly powers were made, so that God’s goodness might not be idle, but might have those in whom to display its goodness over many ages beforehand; and thus this visible world was made and adorned from matter which had been made by God. CHAPTER XI — Only God is Incorporeal. Nothing incorporeal and invisible by nature is to be believed except God alone, that is, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He is rightly believed to be incorporeal because He is everywhere, and fills and contains all things; He is also invisible to all creatures because He is incorporeal. CHAPTER XII — Every Creature is Corporeal. Every creature is corporeal; angels and all heavenly powers are corporeal, although they do not subsist in flesh. We believe that intellectual creatures are corporeal for this reason, that they are circumscribed locally; as also the human soul, which is enclosed in flesh, and demons, who are of the substance of angelic nature.

CHAPTER XIII — That Intellectual Natures Are Immortal. We believe that intellectual natures are immortal, because they lack flesh, nor have they anything by which they might fall, so as to need resurrection after a fall as a necessity. CHAPTER XIV — How the Human Soul Is Created. We hold that the souls of men were not from the beginning among the other intellectual natures, nor were they created all at once, as Origen fancies; nor are they sown together with bodies through sexual intercourse, as the Luciferians, Cyril, and some Latin presumers affirm, as if preserving a consequence of nature. But we say that the creation of the soul is known only to the Creator of all, and that only the body is sown through the union of marriage, but by God's judgment it is coagulated in the womb, and compacted, and formed, and when the body is already formed, the soul is created and infused, so that in the womb man lives, consisting of soul and body, and comes forth alive from the womb, full of human substance. CHAPTER XV — That There Are Not Two Souls in Man.

We do not say that there are two souls in one man, as James and others of the Syrians write—one animal soul, by which the body is animated and which is mixed with the blood, and another spiritual soul, which supplies reason—but we say that there is one and the same soul in man, which both gives life to the body by its association and orders itself by its own reason, having within itself freedom of choice, so that it may elect in thought what it wills in its own substance. CHAPTER XVI — That the Human Soul Is Immortal. We believe that only man has a substantive soul, which lives apart from the body and retains its senses and faculties vigorously. It does not die with the body, as Aratus asserts, nor after a short interval, as Zeno says, because it lives substantially. CHAPTER XVII — The Souls of Brute Animals. The souls of animals, however, are not substantive, but are born with the flesh itself by the vitality of the flesh, and with the death of the flesh they end and die; and therefore they are not governed by reason, as Plato and Alexander think, but are led by all the incitements of nature.

CHAPTER 18. — The soul is infused. The human soul does not die with the flesh, because it is not sown with the flesh, as we said above; but after the body is formed in the mother’s womb, by the judgment of God it is created and infused, so that man lives within the womb, and thus proceeds by birth into the world. CHAPTER 19. — The two substances of man. Man consists of only two substances: soul and body. The soul with its reason, and the body with its senses. Yet the body does not move those senses without the partnership of the soul. The soul, however, even without the body, retains its rational nature. CHAPTER 20. — Soul and spirit are the same. There is not a third substance in man, the spirit, as Didymus contends, but the spirit is itself the soul; it is called spirit on account of its spiritual nature, or because it breathes in the body. The soul, however, is so called because it animates the body for living or for giving life. But the third thing which the Apostle introduces along with soul and body, we understand to be the grace of the Holy Spirit, which the Apostle prays may remain whole in us (1 Thess. 5:23), lest by our own fault it be diminished or put to flight from us, because the Holy Spirit flees from a feigned heart (Wis. 1:5).

CHAPTER 21. — On Free Will. Man was entrusted to his own free will immediately in his first condition, so that, with only the vigilance of the mind striving, he might also persevere in the keeping of the precept, if he wished to remain in that state in which he had been created. But after he fell through the seduction of the serpent by Eve, he lost the good of his nature and likewise the vigor of his will; yet not the power of choice, lest it not be his own that he avoided sin, nor would merit be granted for what he had not washed away by his own will. Thus freedom of the will—that is, rational will—remains for seeking salvation, but with God first admonishing and inviting to salvation, so that one may either choose, or follow, or act by occasion of salvation, that is, by the inspiration of God. But that he may attain what he chooses, or what he follows, or what he acts upon by occasion, we freely confess to be of God. Therefore we have the beginning of our salvation through God’s mercy; that we acquiesce to the salutary inspiration is within our power; that we attain what we desire by acquiescing to the admonition is a divine gift; that we do not falter in the acquired gift of salvation is of our own diligence and equally of heavenly assistance; that we falter is of our own power and negligence. Yet not to obtain it without Him who makes those who seek find, who opens to those who knock, who gives to those who ask. Therefore, just as we believe we have the beginning of our salvation through God’s mercy and inspiration, so we freely confess that the will of our nature is obedient to divine inspiration.

Therefore, that we do not fall away from the good, whether of nature or of merit, is a matter of our own diligence and equally of heavenly assistance; that we do fall away is a matter of our own power and negligence. CHAPTER 22. — On Grace. It must be most firmly believed that in the transgression of Adam all men lost their natural capacity and innocence; and that no one from the depth of that ruin can rise up through free will, unless the grace of the merciful God has raised him up. "For free will, having suffered that, while it uses its own goods too rashly, fell, sunk into the depths of transgression; and it found nothing by which it could rise up from there; and, deceived by its own liberty forever, it would have lain hidden under the oppression of this ruin, had not the coming of Christ after him, by his grace, raised it up, who, through the purification of a new regeneration, cleansed every past fault with the washing of his baptism." CHAPTER 23. — No One Is Good by Himself.

No one is good through himself, unless he who alone is good has bestowed a share of himself upon him. CHAP. XXIV. — Perseverance in Good from God. No one, even when renewed by the grace of baptism, is fit to overcome the snares of the devil and to conquer the lusts of the flesh, unless he receives, through the daily help of God, perseverance in a good way of life. CHAP. XXV. — Free Will. That no one makes good use of free will except through Christ, the same teacher proclaims in the letter given to the Council of Milevis, saying: "Pay attention at last, O doctrine of the most depraved minds, that freedom itself deceived the first man in such a way that, while he used its reins too indulgently, he fell into transgression through presumption. Nor could he be rescued from this, unless the providence of regeneration had restored the state of his former freedom by the coming of Christ the Lord." CHAP. XXVI. — Merits.

That all the pursuits, works, and merits of the saints are to be referred to the glory and praise of God, because no one pleases Him from any other source than from what He Himself has given; in which opinion the regular authority of Pope Zosimus of blessed memory directs us, when writing to the bishops of the whole world he says: "But we, by the instinct of God (for all good things are to be referred to their author, whence they arise), have referred everything to the conscience of our brothers and fellow bishops." And this discourse, radiant with the light of the most sincere truth, the African bishops venerated with such honor that they wrote to the same man as follows: "That indeed which you placed in the letters which you took care to be sent to all provinces, saying: 'We, however, by the instinct of God,' etc., we accept as spoken, so that you might, as if in passing, cut down with the drawn sword of truth those who, against the help of God, exalt the freedom of human choice. For what did you do so freely by your own choice as that you referred everything to the conscience of our humility? and yet you faithfully and wisely saw it to be done by the instinct of God, and you truly and confidently said so. This is so, because the will is prepared by the Lord, and so that they may do something good, He Himself touches the hearts of His children with paternal inspirations (Proverbs 8:25, according to the LXX). For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God (Romans

VIII, 14); so that we may feel that our own free will is not lacking, and yet we may not doubt that in every single motion of human will toward any good, His help is more powerful. CHAPTER XXVII. — Whatever good is from God. Thus God works in the hearts of men and in free will itself, so that holy thought, pious counsel, and every motion of good will is from God, because through Him we are able to do something good, without whom we can do nothing. CHAPTER XXVIII. — The power of grace. If anyone says that the grace of God, by which we are justified through our Lord Jesus Christ, avails only for the remission of sins already committed, and not also for the assistance of grace that they not be committed, let him be anathema. CHAPTER XXIX. — Understanding from grace. If anyone says that the grace of God through Jesus Christ helps us not to sin only for this reason, that through it the understanding of the commandments is revealed and opened to us, so that we may know what we ought to seek and what to avoid, but that it is not through it that we are granted also to love and to be able to do what we have learned ought to be done, let him be anathema.

CHAPTER XXX. — The Prayers of Priests. Let us also consider the sacraments of priestly supplications, which, handed down by the apostles throughout the whole world, and celebrated uniformly in every Catholic Church, establish that the law of prayer should determine the law of belief. For when the leaders of the holy congregations, acting as ambassadors on a mission entrusted to them, plead the cause of the human race before divine mercy, and, with the whole Church groaning together with them, they ask and pray that faith be granted to the unbelievers, that idolaters be freed from the errors of their impiety, that for the Jews, the veil over their hearts having been removed, the light of truth may appear, that heretics may come to their senses through the reception of the Catholic faith, that schismatics may receive the spirit of renewed charity, that remedies of penance be conferred upon the lapsed, and finally, that for catechumens led to the sacraments of regeneration, the court of heavenly mercy be opened. That these things are not asked of the Lord perfunctorily or in vain is shown by the effect of the things themselves, since from every kind of error God deigns to draw many, whom, rescued from the power of darkness, He transfers into the kingdom of His beloved Son, and from vessels of wrath makes vessels of mercy. This is so entirely felt to be the work of the divine that thanksgiving and praise are always offered to the God who accomplishes this, for the illumination or correction of such persons.

CHAPTER XXXI. — Exorcism and Insufflation. That also which the holy Church uniformly performs throughout the whole world concerning those to be baptized, we do not contemplate with an idle gaze. Whether they be infants or youths, when they come to the sacrament of regeneration, they do not approach the font of life before the unclean spirit is driven from them by the exorcisms and insufflations of the clergy, so that it may then truly appear when the prince of this world is cast out (John 12:31), and how the strong one is first bound, and afterwards his vessels are plundered (Mark 3:27), transferred into the possession of the victor, who leads captivity captive and gives gifts to men (Psalm 68:19). CHAPTER XXXII. — Grace and Free Will. We profess God to be the author of all good affections and works, and of all endeavors and all virtues by which from the beginning of the faith one tends toward God. And we do not doubt that all human merits are anticipated by His grace, through which it comes about that we both begin to will and to do something good. By this aid and gift of God, free will is not taken away, but is liberated, so that it becomes luminous from dark, upright from crooked, sound from sick, and provident from imprudent (Philippians 2:13). For the goodness of God toward all men is so great that He wills our merits, which are His own gifts, to be ours, and for these which He has bestowed, He is to bestow eternal rewards.

He indeed works in us so that we will and do what he wills; nor does he allow to lie idle in us those things which he has given to be exercised, not neglected, so that we may be co-workers with the grace of God. And if we see something in us languishing from our own remissness, let us diligently have recourse to him who heals all our infirmities, and redeems our life from destruction, and to whom we daily say: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil (Matt. 6:13). CHAPTER XXXIII. — Adam First Created Immortal. Whosoever says that the first man Adam was made mortal, so that whether he sinned or did not sin, he would die in the body, that is, depart from the body, not by the merit of sin but by necessity of nature, let him be anathema. CHAPTER XXXIV. — Concerning Infants to be Baptized. Whosoever denies that infants newly born from their mothers' wombs are to be baptized, or says that they are indeed baptized for the remission of sins, but derive from Adam no original sin which is to be expiated by the laver of regeneration, so that it follows that the form of baptism for the remission of sins in them is understood to be not true but false, let him be anathema. For it is not to be understood otherwise than what the Apostle says: Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and thus it passed into all men, in whom all have sinned (Rom. 5:12), except as the Catholic Church spread everywhere has always understood it.

For according to this rule of faith, even little children, who could not yet have committed any sins in themselves, are truly baptized for the remission of sins, so that in them what was contracted by birth may be cleansed by regeneration. CHAPTER XXXV. — We are all truly sinners. What the holy apostle John says: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us," should anyone think it is to be understood in such a way as to say that for the sake of humility we ought not to say we have no sin, not because it is the truth, let him be anathema. For the apostle continues and adds: "But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just who remits our sins and cleanses us from all iniquity" (1 John 1:9). Where it sufficiently appears that this is said not only humbly but also truly. For the apostle could have said: "If we say: We have no sin, we exalt ourselves, and humility is not in us"; but when he says: "We deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us," he sufficiently shows that he who says he has no sin does not speak truly, but falsely.

CHAPTER XXXVI. — That all must pray for the remission of sins. Whoever says that in the Lord’s Prayer the saints say “Forgive us our debts” (Matthew 6:12) not for themselves, because this petition is no longer necessary for them, but for others who are sinners among their people; and that therefore each saint does not say “Forgive me my debts” but “Forgive us our debts,” so that the righteous person is understood to ask for others rather than for himself—let him be anathema. For the apostle James was holy and righteous when he said: “For in many things we all offend” (James 3:2). For why is “all” added, unless that sentence agrees with the psalm where it is read: “Do not enter into judgment with your servant, for no living man will be justified in your sight” (Psalm 142:2)? And in the prayer of the most wise Solomon: “There is no man who does not sin” (Ecclesiastes 7:21). And in the book of holy Job: “In every man’s hand a seal is set, so that every man may know his own weakness” (Job 37:7). Whence also Daniel, holy and righteous, when in prayer he said in the plural: “We have sinned, we have done iniquity” (Daniel 9:5), and the rest which he there truthfully and humbly confesses, lest it be thought, as some suppose, that he said this not of his own sins but of the sins of his people, he later said: “When I prayed, and confessed my sins and the sins of my people to the Lord my God.

He did not wish to say "our sins," but he said both "of his people" and "his own," because, like a prophet, he foresaw those future persons who would understand so badly. CHAPTER XXXVII. — Debts are also forgiven to the saints. Whoever wishes that in those very words of the Lord's Prayer, where we say "Forgive us our debts" (Matthew 6:12), this is said by the saints in such a way that it is said humbly, not truthfully, let him be anathema. For who would endure a person praying, and lying not to men, but to the Lord Himself, who says with his lips that he wishes to be forgiven, and says in his heart that he has no debts to be forgiven? CHAPTER XXXVIII. — The Fall of Adam. If anyone says that through the offense of Adam's transgression man was not changed for the worse in his entirety, that is, according to body and soul, but, with the freedom of the soul remaining unharmed, holds the body alone liable to corruption, he, deceived by the error of Pelagius, contradicts Scripture which says: "The soul that has sinned, it itself will die" (Ezekiel 18:4); and: "Do you not know that to whom you obey, and by whom one is overcome, to that one he is added as a slave" (Romans 6:16; 2 Peter 2:19)?

CHAPTER XXXIX. — The Sin of Adam in His Offspring. If anyone asserts that Adam’s transgression harmed only Adam himself, and not also his offspring, or that only the death of the body—which is the penalty of sin—and not also sin itself, which is the death of the soul, passed from one man into the whole human race, he will attribute injustice to God, contradicting the Apostle who says: “Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death, and thus it passed into all men, in whom all men have sinned” (Rom. 5:18). CHAPTER XL. — Grace. If anyone says that the grace of God can be conferred by human invocation, but not that grace itself causes us to invoke it, he contradicts the prophet Isaiah, or the Apostle saying the same: “I was found by those who were not seeking me; I appeared plainly to those who were not asking for me” (Isa. 65:1; Rom. 10:20). CHAPTER XLI. — Good Will from God. If anyone contends that, in order for us to be cleansed from sin, our will must wait upon God, but does not confess that even our desire to be cleansed is brought about in us by the infusion and operation of the Holy Spirit, he resists the Holy Spirit Himself speaking through Solomon: “Will is prepared by the Lord” (Prov. 19:14, according to the Septuagint). And the Apostle salutarily proclaiming: “It is God who works in us both the willing and the perfecting for good will” (Phil. 2:15).

CHAPTER XLII. — Grace Works All Things. If anyone says that, just as the increase of faith, so also its beginning, and the very disposition of belief itself, by which we believe in Him who justifies the impious and by which we arrive at the regeneration of sacred baptism, is present in us not by the gift of grace—that is, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit correcting our will from unbelief to faith, from impiety to piety—but by nature, he is shown to be an adversary of apostolic teachings, the blessed apostle Paul saying: “We are confident that He who has begun a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6). And this: “It has been granted to you for Christ not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him” (Philippians 1:28). And: “You have been saved by grace through faith, and this not from yourselves, for it is a gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). For those who say that the faith by which we believe in God is natural, in a certain sense define all who are alien to the Church of Christ as believers.

CHAPTER XLIII. — That All Things Are Owed to Grace. If anyone says that mercy is conferred upon us from above without the grace of God, who are believing, willing, desiring, striving, studying, seeking, asking, knocking; but does not confess that it is through the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit that we are able to believe, or will, or do all these things as we ought; and if he subordinates the help of grace to humility or human obedience, and does not acknowledge that it is a gift of grace that we are obedient and humble, he resists the Apostle who says: “For what do you have that you have not received?” (1 Cor. 4:7) And: “By the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Cor. 15:10). CHAPTER XLIV. — That Man Can Do Nothing Without God. If anyone affirms that by the vigor of nature a man can think, or expediently choose, or elect something good that pertains to the salvation of eternal life, or consent to the salutary, that is, the evangelical preaching, without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who gives to all sweetness in consenting and truth in believing, he is deceived by a heretical spirit, not understanding the voice of God in the Gospel saying: “Without me you can do nothing” (John 15:5); and that of the Apostle: “We are not indeed able to think anything from ourselves as if from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God” (2 Cor. 3:5).

CHAPTER XLV.—God Alone Draws Man. If anyone contends that some come to the grace of baptism through mercy, but others through free will—which in all who are born from the transgression of the first man is manifestly corrupted—he is proven alien from the right faith. For he either asserts that the free will of all is not weakened by the sin of the first man, or he thinks it so injured that nevertheless some are able, without the revelation of God, to acquire the ministry of eternal salvation by themselves. How contrary this is, the Lord Himself proves, who testifies that not some, but no one can come to Him unless the Father draws him (John 6:44). As He also says to Peter: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father, who is in heaven” (Matthew 16:17); and the Apostle: “No one can say ‘Lord Jesus’ except in the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3).

CHAPTER XLVI.—Free Will. The will’s choice was weakened in the first man and cannot be restored except through the grace of baptism; what was lost cannot be given back except by him who could give it. Hence the Truth says: “If the Son frees you, then you will truly be free” (John 8:36). CHAPTER XLVII.—Grace. Human nature, even if it had remained in that integrity in which it was created, could in no way preserve itself without the help of its Creator. Therefore, since without the grace of God it cannot keep the salvation it received, how without the grace of God will it be able to recover what it lost? CHAPTER XLVIII.—Whether Grace Is Nature. Just as to those who, wishing to be justified by the law, have fallen from grace, the Apostle says most truly: “If justice is in the law, then Christ died for nothing” (Galatians 2:21); so to those who think that the grace which the faith of Christ commends and receives is nature, it is said most truly: “If justice is by nature, then Christ died for nothing.” For here already there was the law, and it did not justify; here already there was nature, and it did not justify. Therefore Christ did not die for nothing, so that the law might be fulfilled through him who said: “I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it” (Matthew 5:17); and that nature, lost through Adam, might be restored through him who said he came to seek and to save what had perished.

CHAPTER XLIX.—Recapitulation of the Foregoing. According to the aforementioned sentences of the holy Scriptures or the definitions of the ancient Fathers, with God propitious, we must both preach and believe that through the sin of the first man the human race was so inclined that afterward no one could love God as he ought, or believe in God, or work for God what is good, unless the grace of divine mercy has preceded. Whence we believe that the illustrious faith which the Apostle Paul extols in their praise (Heb. xi ff.) was conferred upon the righteous Abel, and Noah, and Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the whole multitude of the ancient saints, not by the goodness of nature which had been given earlier in Adam, but by the grace of God. Which grace, even after the coming of the Lord, we know and believe is not possessed in free will by all who desire baptism, but is bestowed by the generosity of Christ, according to what has already often been said and what the Apostle Paul preaches: “It has been granted to you for Christ, not only that you believe in him, but also that you suffer for him” (Phil. i, 29); and this: “God who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of our Lord” (Ibid., 6); and this: “You have been saved by grace through faith, and this not from yourselves, for it is a gift of God” (Eph. ii, 8). And what the Apostle says of himself: “I have obtained mercy, that I might be faithful” (1 Cor. vii, 25).

He did not say: Because I was, but that I might be; and this: What do you have that you did not receive? and this: Every good datum and every perfect gift is from above, descending from the Father of lights (James 1:17); and this: No one has anything unless it has been given to him from above (John, at 27). CHAPTER L.—The Will of Man after Baptism. This also we believe according to the Catholic faith, that after receiving the grace of baptism, all the baptized, with Christ assisting and cooperating, can and ought, if they are willing to labor faithfully, to fulfill those things which pertain to the salvation of the soul. But that some are predestined to evil by divine power, we not only do not believe, but if there are those who wish to believe such great evil, with all detestation we pronounce anathema upon them. CHAPTER LI.—Whence the Beginning of Merits. In every good work we do not begin, and afterwards are helped by God's mercy, but He Himself, with no preceding good merits of ours, first inspires in us both faith and love of Himself, so that we may faithfully seek the sacraments of baptism, and after baptism, with His help, we may be able to fulfill those things which are pleasing to Him. Whence it must be most clearly believed that the so admirable faith of that thief whom the Lord recalled to the homeland of paradise (Luke 23:45), and of the centurion Cornelius, to whom an angel of the Lord was sent (Acts 10:1), and of Zacchaeus, who merited to receive the Lord Himself (Luke 19:6), was not from nature, but was given by the bounty of divine grace.

CHAPTER XLII. — Who Are to Be Regarded as Baptized. Baptism is one, but in the Church, where there is one faith, where it is given in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And therefore if any who have been baptized among those heretics who baptize in the confession of the Holy Trinity come to us, they are indeed to be received as baptized, lest the invocation or confession of the Holy Trinity be annulled; but they are to be fully taught and instructed as to the sense in which the mystery of the Holy Trinity is held in the Church; and if they consent to believe, or acquiesce in confessing, already purified by the integrity of faith, they are to be confirmed by the imposition of hands. But if they are small children, or the dull-witted who do not grasp teaching, those who offer them are to answer for them according to the custom of baptizing; and thus, fortified by the imposition of hands and chrism, they are to be admitted to the mysteries of the Eucharist. However, those who have been baptized among heretics not with the invocation of the Holy Trinity, and come to us, we pronounce that they ought to be baptized, not rebaptized.

For it is not to be believed that those were baptized who were not immersed in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, according to the rule laid down by the Lord, such as the Paulinians, Proclians, Borborites, Siphori, who are now called Bonostani, Photinians, Montanists, and Manichaeans, and various shoots of impiety, or the other pests of that origin or order, which introduce two principles unknown to them, like Cerdon and Marcion; or contrary principles, like Manichaeus; or three, and barbarous ones, like Sethianus and Theodosius; or many, like Valentinus; or that Christ was a man without God, like Cerinthus, Hebion, Artemon, and Photinus. From these, I say, if any come to us, it is not to be asked of them whether they are baptized or not; but rather this: whether they believe the faith of the Church, and are baptized with ecclesiastical baptism. CHAPTER LIII. — On the Eucharist. I neither praise nor reproach receiving the communion of the Eucharist daily. However, I advise and exhort that all should communicate on every Lord's day, provided the mind is without the desire to sin. For I say that one who still has the will to sin is more burdened by the reception of the Eucharist than purified. And therefore, although someone is stung by sin, if he no longer has the will to sin thereafter, and, about to communicate, makes satisfaction with tears and prayers, and trusting in the Lord's mercy, who is accustomed to grant forgiveness to pious confession, let him approach the Eucharist intrepid and secure.

But I say this about one whom capital and mortal sins do not weigh down; for one whom mortal crimes committed after baptism oppress, I urge first to make satisfaction through public penance, and thus, reconciled by the judgment of the priest, to be joined to communion, if he wishes not to receive the Eucharist to his own judgment and condemnation. But we do not deny that mortal crimes can be absolved by secret satisfaction; but only after first changing the secular habit, and professing the zeal of religion through correction of life, and continual, indeed perpetual mourning, with God taking pity, provided that he does the opposite of those things for which he repents, and receives the Eucharist on every Lord's day, suppliant and submissive, until death. CHAPTER LIV. — On Penance. True penance is not to admit things that should be repented of, and to bewail those that have been admitted. The satisfaction of penance is to cut away the causes of sins, and not to grant access to their suggestions. CHAPTER LV. — On Divine Promises.

In divine promises we should expect nothing earthly or transitory, as the Meletians hope; not the union of marriages, as Cerinthus and Marcion rave; not what pertains to food or drink, as Papias, with Irenaeus as his authority, and Tertullian and Lactantius agree. Nor should we hope that after the resurrection the kingdom of Christ will be on earth for a thousand years, and that the saints will reign with him in delights, as Nepos taught, who invented a first resurrection of the righteous and a second of the impious; and between these two resurrections of the dead, that nations ignorant of God are to be preserved in the flesh in the corners of the earth; which after a thousand years of the reign of the righteous on earth, at the instigation of the devil, are to be stirred up to war against the righteous rulers, and, with the Lord fighting for the righteous, are to be restrained by a rain of fire; and thus, having died along with the others who died in impiety before them, are to be revived in incorruptible flesh for eternal punishments.

CHAPTER LVI — That no one is saved except by the authority of God. We believe that no one comes to salvation unless God invites them; that no one who is invited works out their own salvation unless God assists them; that no one merits assistance unless they pray; that no one perishes by the will of God, but by His permission, due to the choice of free will, lest the innate power once granted to human beings be compelled into servile necessity. CHAPTER LVII — That evil is not from God. Evil or malice was not created by God, but was invented by the devil, who himself was created good by God. But because he was entrusted by God with free will, as a rational creature, and had received the capacity for thought, he turned the knowledge of good toward evil, and by thinking many things became the inventor of evil; and what he had lost in himself he begrudged in others; not content to perish alone, he persuaded others so that he who was the inventor of his own malice might also become the author of others’ malice, and from that point evil or malice spread through the rest of rational creatures.

CHAPTER LVIII — That nothing is mutable except God. Hence we know that nothing is by nature immutable except God alone—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—who cannot be changed from good, because He possesses good by nature, nor can He be anything other than good. CHAPTER LIX — Stability in angels. Angels, however, who persevere in the beatitude in which they were created, do not possess good by nature so as to be immutable like the rest, but by preserving the good will of their choice, and the good of their condition and fidelity to their Lord. For this reason they are also deservedly called holy angels by the Lord Himself, because they have held to the sanctity of their choice and have not deviated from good by the example of their companions. CHAPTER LX — Nature is nothing evil. True faith, which is catholic, confesses the good substance of all creatures, whether spiritual or corporeal, and that there is no nature of evil, because God, who is the creator of the universe, made nothing that is not good. Hence the devil would be good if he had remained in what he was made. But he who used his natural excellence badly and did not stand in truth did not pass into a contrary substance, but departed from the highest good, to which he ought to have adhered.

CHAPTER LXI — The Happiness of the Angels. The angelic virtues, which remained fixed in divine love, when the proud angels fell, received this gift of recompense: that they are no longer gnawed by any rust of stealthy fault; so that they may both remain in the contemplation of the Creator without end of happiness, and, having been created in this condition, abide in eternal stability. CHAPTER LXII — The Free Will of the Angels. The angels were created in such a way that, if they wished, they could persist in the light of blessedness. But if they wished, they could also fall. Hence Satan fell, along with the legions that followed him. But after his fall, the angels who persisted were so confirmed that they could not fall at all, because they received the power of immutability, so that they would not fall at all. CHAPTER LXIII — Marriage. Marriage is good, but for the sake of children and for the purpose of restraining fornication. CHAPTER LXIV — Continence.

Continence is better, but it is not sufficient for happiness if it is maintained solely for the love of chastity; rather, it must also be chosen with the affection and for the sake of being free to serve the Lord. Otherwise, it seems more like a divorce from marriage than a desire for chastity. CHAPTER LXV — Virginity. Virginity is more excellent than both goods, because it conquers both nature and struggle: nature, by bodily integrity; struggle, by the peace of chastity, which is at peace solely for the love of chastity. CHAPTER LXVI — Choice of Foods. It is good to take food with the giving of thanks, and to eat whatever God has commanded. To abstain from some things, however, not as from evils, but as from things not necessary, is not evil. To moderate their use according to necessity and time is properly characteristic of Christians. CHAPTER LXVII — Marriage and Food. To speak ill of marriage, or to compare it to fornication or to debauchery; also to believe that foods are evil, or that they cause evils in those who partake of them, is not characteristic of Christians, but properly of Hierachites and Manichaeans.

CHAPTER LXVIII. — Merits and Abstinence. To equate marriage with virginity consecrated to God, or to believe that no merit accrues to those who abstain from wine or meat for the sake of chastising the body, is not the teaching of Christians, but of Jovinian. CHAPTER LXIX. — That the Blessed Virgin was always a virgin. It must be believed with unbroken faith that the blessed Mary, the mother of Christ God, conceived as a virgin, gave birth as a virgin, and remained a virgin after childbirth. Nor should one acquiesce in the blasphemy of Helvidius, who said: She was a virgin before childbirth, but not a virgin after childbirth. CHAPTER LXX. — On the elements of the world. We must not believe that the elements, that is, heaven and earth, are to be destroyed by fire, but rather changed for the better; also that the form of the world, that is, its image, will pass away, not its substance. CHAPTER LXXI. — On the distribution of resources. It is good to distribute one’s resources to the poor with discretion. It is better to give them away all at once with the intention of following the Lord, and, freed from care, to be in need with Christ.

CHAPTER LXXII. — Impediments to Clerical Orders. A man who has married two matrons after baptism is not to be ordained a cleric. Nor is he who has had one woman, but a concubine, not a matron. Nor he who has taken a widow, or a divorced woman, or a prostitute in marriage. Nor he who has mutilated himself in any part of his body, overcome by some indignation, or by fear whether just or unjust. Nor he who is convicted of having taken usury, or is known to have performed on the stage. Nor he who laments mortal crimes through public penance. Nor he who has at some time raved in madness, or has been afflicted by the devil. Nor he who, through ambition, offers money in imitation of Simon Magus. CHAPTER LXXIII. — On the Relics of the Saints. The bodies of the saints, and especially the relics of the blessed martyrs, are to be honored most sincerely as if they were members of Christ; and the basilicas named after them, as holy places consecrated to divine worship, are to be approached with the most pious affection and the most faithful devotion. If anyone comes against this opinion, he is believed to be not a Christian, but a Eunomian and a Vigilantius.

CHAPTER LXXIV. — On Deceased Catechumens and Unbaptized Martyrs. We believe that the path of salvation is only for the baptized. We do not believe that any catechumen, even if deceased in good works, possesses eternal life, except in the case of martyrdom, where all the sacraments of baptism are fulfilled. The candidate for baptism confesses his faith before a priest, and when questioned, he responds; the martyr does the same before a persecutor, for he too confesses his faith, and when questioned, he responds. The former, after confession, is either sprinkled with water or immersed; the latter is either sprinkled with blood or touched by fire. The former receives the Holy Spirit through the imposition of the bishop’s hand; the latter becomes a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, since it is not he himself who speaks, but the Spirit of the Father who speaks in him. The former communicates in the Eucharist in commemoration of the Lord’s death; the latter dies together with Christ himself. The former confesses that he will renounce worldly affairs; the latter renounces life itself. All sins are forgiven in the former; in the latter, they are extinguished.

CHAPTER LXXV. — How the Eucharist is Offered. In the Eucharist, pure water ought not to be offered, as some are deceived by an image of sobriety; but wine mixed with water, because wine was present in the mystery of our redemption, when He said: "I will drink no more of this fruit of the vine" (Matthew 26:29); and it is mixed with water, not because it was given after supper, but because from His side, pierced by the lance, water came forth with blood, showing that wine from the true life of His flesh is expressed with water. CHAPTER LXXVI. — On Human Flesh. Our flesh is good, and very good, as indeed created by the sole good God, and it is not evil, as the Sethians, Ophians, and Patricians hold; nor is it the cause of evil, as Florianus taught; nor is it composed of evil and good, as Manichaeus blasphemes. But since it is good by creation, it becomes for us either good or evil by the will of the soul, not by a change of substance, but by the reward of its execution. For it is this flesh that will stand before the tribunal of Christ, in which the soul bears the deeds of its own body, as it has conducted itself, whether good or evil.

CHAPTER LXXVII. — Resurrection. I In the resurrection from the dead, the form of sex will not be changed; but a dead man will rise in the form of a man and a woman in the form of a woman, yet lacking the condition of the sexes in this life, not the natural species, lest it not be a true resurrection if that which falls does not rise again. CHAPTER LXXVIII. — The Souls of the Saints before the Passion of the Lord. Before the Passion of the Lord, all the souls of the saints were held in the underworld under the debt of Adam’s transgression, until they were freed from servile condition by the authority of the Lord through his undeserved death. CHAPTER LXXIX. — The Souls of the Saints after the Ascension. After the Ascension of the Lord to the heavens, the souls of all the saints are with Christ, and upon leaving the body they go to Christ, awaiting the resurrection of their body, so that they may be changed together with him into complete and perpetual blessedness, just as the souls of sinners, placed in the underworld under fear, await the resurrection of their body, so that together with it they may be thrust into eternal punishment.

CHAPTER LXXX. — On the Forgiveness of Sins. We believe without doubt that penance abolishes sins, even if a person repents of their misdeeds in the final breath of life and the sins are disclosed through public lamentation, because the purpose of God, by which he decreed to save what had perished, stands immovable; and therefore, since his will does not change, whether through amendment of life if time is granted, or through confession under penalty if life is immediately ended, the forgiveness of sins is faithfully assumed from him who does not desire the death of the sinner, but that he be converted from perdition by repenting, and, saved by the mercy of the Lord, live (Ezek. 18:32; 33:11). If anyone thinks otherwise concerning the most just mercy of God, he is not a Christian, but a Novatian. CHAPTER LXXXI. — That the Devil Is Unaware of Thoughts. We are certain that the devil does not see the internal thoughts of the soul; but we have learned from experience that they are gathered by him from the movements of the body and the indications of the affections. However, the secrets of the heart only that one knows to whom it is said: "You alone know the hearts of the sons of men" (1 Kings 8:39).

CHAPTER LXXXII. — On Thoughts. Not all our evil thoughts are always stirred up by the devil’s prompting, but sometimes they arise from the motion of our own free will. Good thoughts, however, are always from God. CHAPTER LXXXIII. — How Demons Take Hold of Men. We do not believe that demons substantially slip into the soul through an energetic operation, but that they unite with it by application and oppression. However, it is possible for that one who created the mind to slip into it—He who, subsisting as incorporeal by nature, is capable of reaching His own creation. CHAPTER LXXXIV. — On Signs and Virtues. We have learned that even sinners perform signs, prodigies, and healings in the name of the Lord, by God Himself; and while they help others by this presumption, they harm themselves through ambition for human glory, because they boast in a false gift, not in a debt of merit. CHAPTER LXXXV. — That No One Becomes Holy by Signs. We rightly believe that a Christian can become famous by signs and prodigies, yet not holy, if he acts with intemperate and harsh morals; but with temperate and gentle morals, even without the efficacy of signs, he becomes both holy and perfect, and a man of God.

CHAPTER LXXXVI. — That Saints Are Also Sinners. No saint or righteous person is without sin; yet they do not on this account cease to be righteous or saintly, since they hold to sanctity in their intention. For we acquire sanctity not by the powers of human nature, but by the aid of resolve through the grace of God. And therefore all saints are truly declared to be sinners, because in truth they have something to lament, even if not by the reproach of conscience, certainly by the instability and mutability of a transgressing nature. CHAPTER LXXXVII. — Easter. Easter, that is, the solemnity of the Lord’s Resurrection, cannot be celebrated before the passing of the vernal equinox and the completion of the fourteenth moon, in the same month in which it is born. CHAPTER LXXXVIII. — The Image of God in the Soul. On account of recent legislators, who say that the soul is created only in the image of God, so that, because God is rightly believed to be incorporeal, the soul may also be believed to be incorporeal, we freely confess that the image is found in eternity, the likeness in morals.