Professio Fidei

THE FAITH OF BACHIARIUS. Everything that has been is itself what will be; and not everything is new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9, according to the LXX). And again the Apostle: All these things happened as a figure of us (1 Corinthians 10:0): which is proved by the effect of the present matter, since the mysteries of the Gospel sacrament, once performed long ago, are now again celebrated, renewed in the times of our age. Behold now, as far as we understand. Christ asks for water from the Samaritan woman, when your blessedness requires faith from us. It makes us suspect, as far as I see, not our speech, but our region; and we who are not ashamed of our faith, are confounded by our province. But far be it, most blessed one, that the stain of earthly birth should infect us in the eyes of holy men. We know our homeland, even if according to the flesh, but now we no longer know it (2 Corinthians 5:16), and desiring to become sons of Abraham, we have left our land and our kindred (Genesis 12:1). We say this, however, because just as the Samaritans are not believed by the Jews, so we are not believed, because a certain stain of heresy once touched our original soil: thus we are judged by the opinion of certain presiding authorities, as if we cannot be free from the deception of error. It was similarly said once by unbelievers: Can anything good come from Nazareth (John 1:46)? and yet Christ came from there. Did the perfidy and avarice of one man, who came, I will not say from the same region, but from their very side, change the merits of the Apostles? Did the fault of brothers disgrace the life of the patriarchs?

Did the oracles of the prophets falsify the fictions of the false prophets? When that Levite Korah turned aside into heresy, did the rest of the kindred descending from this stock contract a stain from their proximity? When the sons of the high priest offered alien fire, their brothers perform the priestly office and, by the honor of their ministry, testify that they are blameless of the crime of their brethren. When the deacon Nicolaus turned aside into heresy, the glorious works of the assembled brothers in the virtues of God shone forth. The crime of the region is charged against us. Whoever says this, let him read that Christ was called a Samaritan (John 8:48): in which province they served not only heresy but also the crimes of idolatry. In the house of the profane and most wicked Ahab, the servant Obadiah was found, who merited to be joined to the bodies of the prophets. In Sarepta of Sidon, among the most wicked race of the Canaanites, a faithful widow is found and is chosen as the hostess of the prophets. The master of idolatry and head of heresy, Balaam, was admitted to proclaim Christ. Job descended from the profane and unfaithful stock of Esau. Ruth, a relative of the race of Christ, is described as a Moabite, whose origin is forever excluded from the doors of the Church. Abraham, the head of the faith, descended from the stock of the Chaldeans, to whom the native and natural impiety of the magic art belongs. The Magi, adoring Christ, are not charged with the old reproaches of their errors. Moses, educated in the arts of the Egyptians, is granted the grace of the prophetic spirit.

Now among those reborn in Christ, is the error of an earthly province to be imputed? If we acknowledge the homeland, let us blush for the fault as well; for me, the city in which I have been reborn has become my region or homeland. Let nothing be ascribed to me from earthly affinities, which I remember having renounced. Whoever judges me unfaithful by reason of provincial kinship, let him know that he himself is unfaithful; for he has either forgotten, or considers slippery, what he knows was confessed in baptism: without doubt, he does not abandon earthly kinship who refutes me concerning ancestral error. Certainly, according to the institution of human custom, the father makes the homeland. How is a homeland said to exist for me on earth, when by divine precept I am not permitted to call or have a Father on earth (Matthew 23:9)? Do you wish, then, that I prove this to you through evident examples, you who impute the faults of a homeland as error? Did not the Novatians, dissenting from Catholics in this manner, contract the leprosy of a shameful heresy by a perverse judgment, because they believed that a series of past faults was also to be ascribed to posterity, and hated not so much the heresy as the people? If for the fault of one, the entire generation of a province is to be anathematized, let that most blessed city, the disciple, that is, Rome, be condemned as well, from which now not one, but two or three, or even more heresies have sprouted; and yet none of them could hold or move the chair of Peter, that is, the seat of Faith.

Let all provinces from which rivulets of diverse error have flowed be condemned as well. That vessel of election and Teacher of the Gentiles (Acts 20:9), when Eutychus had fallen from the third story and, I believe, erred concerning something of the Trinity, restored the warmth of faith and gave back life, that is, granted pardon. Perhaps we, still sitting at the window—that is, on the path of light and in the splendor of faith—are condemned by overly severe judges, not from examination but from suspicion; they do not know that by the judgment with which they have judged, judgment will be passed on them (Matthew 7:2), and that whoever has said "racha" to his brother will be guilty of the fire of Gehenna (Matthew 5:22). For "racha" is interpreted as "empty." And who is empty, if not one whose inner parts lack the truth of faith, and who is like sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal (1 Corinthians 13:1)? That man who had seen Christ for only one night said to his fellow tribesmen: "Does our law judge a man unless it first hears what he does" (John 7:51)? And these who are followers of the Lord of so many years—do they judge before they hear and know that about which they judge? If a sentence is to be pronounced before knowledge, why did the lawgiver command (Leviticus 14 ff.) that a house be not judged unclean before the priest enters and sees whether it is afflicted with the leprosy of decay or of tinkling heresy? I beg you, most blessed brother, let no ill be thought of the province.

It is not hidden from your perspicacity that when, at the arrival of the Ark of the Lord, the head of Dagon was shattered into a hundred pieces along with both feet, its spine is described as having survived intact (1 Sam. 5:4, according to the LXX). For we understand the head or feet of Dagon to be the members of the world, that is, the East and the West; in which parts, under the presence of the Law, all perversity of errors has been crushed. It is for you to judge what the middle of the spine is, in which the joining of the knots still persists unresolved. Why, I ask, is my province sought? I am a stranger, as are all my fathers (Ps. 38:17). Yet if it is greatly sought where I was born, let my confession, which I gave in the nativity of baptism, be accepted: for not my homeland gave me confession, but confession gave me a homeland; because I believed, and I received (Matt. 21:22). Nor should the Samaritan condition obscure me; because, when questioned at the well, I believed in Christ, and, cleansed from the leprosy of unfaithfulness, I acknowledged him. Yet, since the precepts of apostolic teaching urge us (1 Pet. 3:15) to set forth to all who ask the reason for the faith and hope that is in us, let us not delay in demonstrating the rule of our faith to your Beatitude, who are the very artisan of that edifice.

But lest this very thing—that I respond more slowly to the questions—should inspire suspicion of unfaithfulness: we believe that God exists; what He was, He was; what He was, He will be, never other, always the same: Father God, Son God, Holy Spirit God: one God, and one Son from the Father, Holy Spirit of the Father and the Son. This is the substance of the one Trinity, and these three have one will. Neither does the greater communicate, nor the lesser receive; nor is the second from the first, nor the third from the second; because the prophetic institutions have taught us thus, saying: "You shall not ascend by steps to my altar" (Exod. 20:26). For we suspect the altar to be, as it were, a certain base of Faith, from which the nourishment of life-giving food is shared; because the altar, from the property of its name, is the high knowledge of sublime things alone. For the name of the altar, divided into syllables and begun from its end, signifies and sounds a high thing. To this Faith we ought not to ascend by steps, lest, by thinking unequally, we make a transition from the lower to the higher; but we should enter with an equal step of our heart, so that we may perceive the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as of one substance, one power, one might. For the Father is the principal name of the divinity through Himself, which is believed, and which is said: Father God, Son God from the Father, not from Himself, but from the Father. Father God, and Son God: but the Father is not the same as the Son; yet the Father is believed to be the same as the Son.

And the Holy Spirit is not the unbegotten Father, but the Spirit of the unbegotten Father. The Son is begotten, not the Spirit Son, but the Son Himself, upon whom the Spirit was sent by the Father. Therefore, since the Father is unbegotten, whose Spirit He is, the Holy Spirit is incautiously called unbegotten, lest two unbegotten ones, or two Fathers, be supposed by the unfaithful. The Son of the Father, begotten before the ages by the Father, cannot have another begotten companion, so that He may be believed to be only-begotten, and two begotten ones shall not be spoken of. For the Father is one unbegotten, the Son is one begotten, the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father, coeternal with the Father and the Son; since the work is one, and the operation of the will in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is one. The Father is unbegotten, the Son is begotten, the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father, coeternal with the Father and the Son; but He is born, this one proceeds, as is read in the Gospel of the blessed John: "The Spirit who proceeds from the Father, He will announce everything to you" (John 15:26, and 16:13). Therefore, let the Holy Spirit be considered neither the unbegotten Father, nor the begotten Son; but the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father. But that which proceeds is not other than that from which it proceeds. If a person is sought, He is God.

This threefold conjunction and conjoined division excludes union in the persons and maintains unity in the distinction of persons. And thus we believe the most blessed Trinity: that it is of one nature, one deity, one and the same power and substance; nor is there any diversity between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, except that He is the Father, and He is the Son, and He is the Holy Spirit; Trinity in subsisting persons, Unity in nature and substance. We also believe that the Son was born in the last days from the Virgin and the Holy Spirit, and that he took on flesh of human nature and a soul. In that flesh we believe and confess that he suffered and was buried, and rose from the dead; and in that same flesh in which he lay in the tomb, after the resurrection he ascended into heaven, whence we expect him to come to judge the living and the dead. We also know the Virgin from whom he was born, and that she was a virgin before birth and a virgin after birth, lest we be considered partakers of the Elvidian error.

We confess the flesh of our resurrection to be whole and perfect, that same flesh in which we live in the present age, and by which we are either governed by good arts or subjected to evil works, so that in it we may either endure the torments of punishments for evil deeds or acquire the rewards of goods for good deeds. And we do not say, as some most absurdly do, that another flesh will rise in place of this one, but this very flesh itself, with no member whatsoever amputated from it, nor any part of the body cut off. This is the treasure of our Faith, which we guard, sealed with the ecclesiastical Symbol that we received in baptism. Thus we believe in our hearts before God; thus we confess with our lips before men: so that our knowledge may make faith for men, and its image may bear witness for God. This is the staff of our defense, with which we strike the mouths of those murmuring against us, who, as we pass through the way of this age, bark at us from the yoke of custom, not from the zeal of reason. This is the shield of our faith, with which we repel and avoid the words of detractors and the poisoned darts of suspicions, lest any member in us lie open and naked from the protection of faith, and the enemy’s speech, which is aimed to strike, find it. But let us be silent about these things, because for us now the care is not to strike back, but only to avoid the enemy.

Now if it is also asked of us what we think concerning the soul, we believe it to have been made, as we read in the prophet Jeremiah through King Zedekiah saying: "As the Lord lives, who made this soul of ours" (Jer. 38:16). But if it is asked from what it was made, I confess I do not know, because I do not recall having read it anywhere; and therefore I am not ashamed of my ignorance, since I am not taught by reading, nor do I fear danger, because I do not presume upon what I do not read, lest I be found a transgressor of the prophetic precepts, which command that blood not be eaten, adding (Lev. 17:14) that the blood of all flesh is the soul. For what is it to eat blood, but to dispute about the soul? And therefore we can say that the flesh which was founded in you in Adam was compacted from the qualities of the world, with God as artisan and author of its substance; for we place blood at the base of the altar; that is, we leave it to the one who created to know from what he created. For the base of the altar is like a certain root of depth, to whose secret we also join the reason of the soul, about which we cannot dispute. And therefore we do not say that the soul is a part of God, as some assert, because God is impartible, undivided, and impassible; but the soul is subject to various passions, as the daily outcome of events proves.

We do not say that it is made from any creature, lest we make it more base than the other creatures over which it is set as mistress, if it acts rightly; but we believe it to be formed solely by the will of God, whose power does not require matter from which to work what it wills, but His will itself is the matter of those things which He has commanded to come into being or to exist. Nor do we surrender to that assertion in which some take excessive delight, that souls are generated by transmigration; for the blessed David contradicts this suspicion, saying: "Know that the Lord Himself is God: He Himself made us, and not we ourselves" (Ps. 99:3). And elsewhere: "Who fashioned their hearts one by one" (Ps. 32:15). Where will transmigration find a place here, where hearts are fashioned one by one, or where it is said: "He Himself made us, and not we ourselves"? Therefore, those who say that souls are generated by transmigration are said to assert that we make ourselves. But this prophetic foreknowledge rebukes them, saying: "He Himself made us, and not we ourselves." Therefore, apart from the Trinity alone, we believe and confess that everything which has power, is acted upon, or is moved in the heavens or on earth and sea is a creature.

We do not think that the Devil was made as the Devil is, nor that he had his own kind of nature, so that he was born the Devil and that this name was to be given to him as a merit, not from God: nor that he is unbegotten, because he is not God; nor that he was made the Devil, because God did not make evil, but that he was made a good angel, as Scripture shows: "Through the good, every desire has been worked in me" (Rom. 7:8). For I believe that he was an evil angel, as the Apostle says: "A goad of my flesh has been given to me, an angel of Satan who strikes me" (2 Cor. 12:7). And elsewhere: "Unless the renegade and the apostasy come" (2 Thess. 2:3). Therefore, he who is now a renegade was once in the sight of the Creator, and in that sublimity of rank which is written by the prophets, when it is said: "And you were the seal of likeness, and the crown of beauty" (Ezek. 28:12), and the rest; and elsewhere: "How did Lucifer, who rose in the morning, fall from heaven?" (Isa. 14:12). We say that this one, capable of both good and evil, received from the maker a nature, surrounded by the glory and honor of immortality; he also received the dignity of knowledge; who, lifted up in pride, believed to be his own what was not; because he did not see the Lord who had made him. "I am," he said, "and there is no other besides me" (Isa. 47:12). Thence he was consigned to earth and ashes, as it is written: "Why are you proud? earth and ashes" (Sir. 10:9), and, "The beginning of sin is pride" (Sir. 10:15).

He who is consigned to Tartarus and perpetual fire is of everlasting punishment, not of immortal life. We believe that every creature of God which has been granted by the Creator for use as food is good, just as it was made: "And God saw that they were very good" (Gen. 1:30, 31). But to abstain from these for a time, not out of religious superstition nor abhorrence of God's creature, but for the sake of continence of the flesh, we consider useful according to the counsel of the Apostle, who says: "It is good not to eat meat, nor to drink wine" (Rom. 14:21); and that when one wishes, to partake, and when it pleases, to abstain, lies within a person's power. We approve of marriages, which are granted by God as author; we preach continence within them; virginity, as a distinguished shoot proceeding from a barren trunk's root, we extol and admire. The distinction between the just and sinners, we believe, arises not from the condition of the Creator but from the choice of the will. We embrace penance for sins with the fullest faith, and regard it as a second grace, as the Apostle says to the Corinthians: "I wished to come through you, so that you might have a second grace" (2 Cor. 1:15).

We receive the Old and New Testament with an equal balance of faith; and just as a scale runs through the marks of its weight, so we weigh the deeds of the testimonies with mobile meditation. Nor do we, by emptying the trustworthiness of history, believe that all the deeds we read are not; but according to Apostolic teaching we search out the spiritual sense in them, as the Lord shall have granted: which sense, however, pertains to the type of Christ and the Church, or advances toward the correction and amendment of morals. And this very thing is according to what the Apostle says: All these things happened as a figure of us (1 Cor. 10:6). And elsewhere blessed Peter: Every speech needs interpretation (2 Pet. 1:20). Every scripture which does not agree with nor consent to the ecclesiastical canon, we not only do not receive, but we also condemn as alien to the truth of the Faith. To foreign and unknown fables concerning the content of the scriptures, we do not readily give our assent; nor does new doctrine quickly enter the caverns of our ears, because we read of another new Virgin in secret, which doctrine we suspect to be crude or secret; which is forbidden to be inspected for this reason, lest it deceive the hearts of men, by means of fabrications, under the appearance of truth, with the beauty and sweetness of words.

That doctrine is a virgin which is known to no ecclesiastical or catholic man; but it has always grown up among women, that is, among souls which, always learning, credulously mingle themselves with every spirit of deception, having no care from whom they conceive; although the Lord commanded in the Law that one should not be joined in marriage except from one's own tribe, that is, that understanding of faith which descends from the seed of the fathers, that is, from doctrine, and is ennobled and distinguished by the lineage of Abraham, who first believed in the foreskin. That doctrine is a virgin which pleases itself only in secret and blushes to go out into public. Such a doctrine we not only flee, but also condemn with a public voice, teaching that it is foolish to believe what we ourselves cannot defend, or what ought not to reach public ears. 7.3 We observe more attentive fasts according to ecclesiastical rule and discipline, so that at three times of the year our masculine element (Exod. 34:23), that is, the work of virtue which excels other work, may appear: and whenever fasts are proclaimed by the Church, then we desire to fast not only from customary use, but also from conversation, from tales, from greetings which interweave tales.

And since we, with God as witness, hold these things as we write them, yet we do not so flatter ourselves concerning the truth that, if perchance priests or teachers, who are the heads of the people and the pillars of the churches, should approve something from among those things we have professed and declare something more correctly, we would be slow to pass over to their opinion; and we remember the precept written: "Ask your fathers, and they will tell you" (Deut. 32:7). For we are not so foolish that, having submitted our heads to them for sanctification, we would be unwilling to humble our hearts to them. He is a pastor: where he calls, I will follow; what he says, I will ruminate; because he himself knows that he must render an account for my safekeeping (Heb. 13:17). These are the things concerning which I have been able to meet with you for the present: if any things seem either to have been passed over by me through study, or still to titillate you, deign to ask without shame, so that I may answer without hesitation, and either correct from error or confirm in the Faith. I testify to every reader of the words of this profession, that if anyone removes anything from these, God will remove that person's part from the book of life (Rev. 22:19). For indeed, he who has believed that we speak one thing with our lips and hold another in our heart—as I said above, God can inspect our heart. We have offered our lips to him for confession: concerning these things, men can judge; we have satisfied; and thus our every word will stand by two witnesses (Deut.

(Psalm 17:6), that is, God, whose judgment we invoke upon ourselves if we deceive; and men, whose suspicions we correct by our confession, lest they sin further by thinking ill of us. If anyone, having heard these things, persists in unbelief and does not grant us the assent of faith, I do not doubt that on the day of judgment he will have a place either among the unbelieving people or among false witnesses, and according to the judgment of the law of Moses, he will receive the iniquity which he meditates against his brother (Deuteronomy 19:19). For we, although we are sinners, nevertheless ought not to make those three hundred golden shields which Solomon fashioned (1 Kings 14:27) into bronze ones. For the shield is the form of Faith according to the Apostle, who says: "And taking up the shield of faith" (Ephesians 6:10). And he makes bronze ones instead of golden ones who, having removed the truth of faith, renders only a degenerate sound and a clatter of confession; and although he appears devout in number, yet he is found guilty in his intention, confessing what he does not believe. Concerning these, the blessed Apostle is to be suspected of having said: "Having the appearance of piety, but denying its power" (2 Timothy 3:5). Does it not seem to you that virtue can be perceived in gold, and appearance in bronze? But we wish to keep the prophetic assertion, so that before the feet of the king's horses—which are bishops or teachers, whose feet are swift upon the mountains (Isaiah 52:7), evangelizing peace—we place the shields of our faith.

Three hundred gold shields, whether the faith of the blessed Trinity or the sowing of all creatures, of heaven, earth, and the sea: for the runners who place them before the feet of horses are to be believed those who were able to say: I have finished the course (2 Tim. 4:7): because, instructed by the law, we may be able to keep them up to this end, lest that Suracim, king of Egypt (1 Kings 14:25), that is, the devil, snatch them from the temple of our heart. Let the supports of your prayers watch over Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom is glory for ever and ever. Amen.