Praedestinatus Sive Praedestinatorum Haeresis

THE PRAEDESTINATUS, OR THE HERESY OF THE PRAEDESTINATI, AND A REFUTATION OF THE BOOKS RECKLESSLY ASCRIBED TO ST. AUGUSTINE. DIVIDED INTO THREE BOOKS. (From the edition of Sirmond, in Galland's Bibliotheca, vol. X)

BOOK ONE.

An epitome of the Ecdicesios of Hyginus against the heresiarchs, and of the Categoriae of Epiphanius against the sects, and of the Expositiones of Philaster, which he, translating them from Greek into the Latin tongue, published when the Arians were condemned. First Hyginus, after him Polycrates, Africanus, Hesiodus, Epiphanius, Philaster; these at various times wove together accounts of various heresies.

The first heresy took its beginning from Simon, who said that chastity did not pertain to God, that God did not make the world, and things similar to these. He was so publicly overcome by the blessed and holy apostle Peter that, falling before his feet, he could not rise up at all.

II.

The second heresy was that of the Menandrianists, from Menander, who testify that the world was made not by God but by angels. The holy Linus, bishop, the second after the apostle Peter, cast these out from the fellowship of our conversation and punished them with eternal damnation, teaching reasonably, according to the holy Scriptures of the Old Testament, that God who spoke with Moses is the creator of all things, and that there is nothing in all created things that can be blameworthy by its own nature. For all things that are judged culpable are blamed for their act, not for their condition.

III.

The third heresy is that of the Basilidians, from Basilides. These, saying that there are three hundred and sixty-five heavens, set themselves against Moses, and call the god of these heavens Abrasax. For the reckoning of the Greek letters, when calculated, reaches this total. ABRASAX, that is, A, one, and B, two, and R, a hundred, and A, one, and S, two hundred, and A, one, and X, sixty, make in sum 565. The Church, counting these men as possessed, condemned them not by arguing but by casting them out.

IV.

The fourth heresy, that of the Nicolaitans, was devised by Nicolaus, who was ordained one of the seven deacons by the apostles. When this man was reproached for jealousy over a most beautiful wife, he began to teach that wives ought to be used indifferently, not only by laymen but also by those who performed the office of the priesthood. The holy John, apostle and evangelist, condemned these men, and ordered that whoever had mingled even a word of conversation with them should for that very reason be deprived of communion; teaching reasonably that from the beginning of the world chastity was most pleasing to God; and that now Christ, the Son of God, had also dedicated in Himself the glory of chastity, since, having a virgin for His mother, He was to remain a virgin, and permitted none of His disciples to have intercourse even in lawful marriage, saying: If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me (Matthew 16:24).

The fifth heresy is that of the Saturninians, from Saturninus. He taught that seven angels made the world, and that it was their concern to implant lusts, so that while the diversity of sex desires one another, the world, held back from its end, might be able to be perpetual. The blessed Thomas, apostle of Christ, anathematized these, teaching reasonably that the world had a beginning, and because it had a beginning, it would come to an end. But the angels could not have omnipotence, and therefore they could not have established the world. But the creator of the world is the one God, whom Moses proclaimed to have made heaven and earth, and the sea and all things that are in them.

VI.

The sixth heresy is that of the Gnostics, who wished to call themselves Gnostics, as if on account of excellent knowledge, although they were held to be more wretched than the earlier ones whom we have mentioned. The blessed apostle Paul teaches them reasonably that they do not serve God but their own belly and lust, that they are puffed up, and know nothing, and are sick concerning questions and word-battles.

VII.

The seventh heresy is that of the Carpocratians, invented by Carpocrates, who taught that the powers of darkness cannot be passed through except by those alone who had mingled in every kind of shameful filth. These asserted that our Lord Jesus was born of both sexes, but received such a soul as knew the things above the heavens. Denying the resurrection of the body, they condemned the prophets of the Old Testament. They had moreover a certain Marcellina, who set up images of Jesus and Paul and of Pythagoras the philosopher in the midst of the people whom she deceived, and caused them to pay the honor of divinity to these images and to place incense before them. Blessed Barnabas, disciple of Christ, condemned these in Cyprus, teaching that they were ministers of Satan, and that a Christian ought not to have any conversation at all with them.

VIII.

The eighth heresy is that of the Cerinthians, from Cerinthus. They said that the world was made by angels, that one ought to be circumcised in the flesh, and that the precepts of the Old Testament ought to be observed according to the letter. They declared that Jesus was only a man, that he had not risen, but would yet rise. These the blessed apostle Paul condemned in Galatia with an eternal anathema. These, finally, he touches in his Epistle which he sent to the Galatians.

IX.

The ninth heresy is that of the Nazarenes. They indeed confess the Son of God, but they observe every rite of the Old Testament in the Jewish manner. The blessed apostle Paul taught them that they ought to attend to the Scriptures spiritually; and he caught them in the churches of Galatia, and established that those who did not consent to his doctrine were anathema.

The tenth heresy is that of the Ebionites. They assert that the Lord Jesus Christ was a mere man only, and they establish that the commandments of the law are to be kept in the Jewish manner. Luke the evangelist, finding them at the church of Antioch, condemned them, teaching that the angel had said to Mary: The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. Therefore also the holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35).

XI.

The eleventh heresy is that of the Valentinians, from Valentinus. These, scattered throughout the East, grievously wounded the Church of God, saying that the Depth and the Height were mingled together. From these two, as from a marriage, they say the world proceeded: calling the Height the Father, and the Depth the Son, and that he took nothing from the virgin Mary; but that he passed, like water through a channel or a pipe, without any assumption of flesh. But the resurrection of the flesh they deny in every way.

The blessed Zacchaeus, bishop of Caesarea, anathematized them, teaching that our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true man, passed through the virginal secret places, from the seed of David according to the flesh, but was truly born a man, truly suffered, truly died, truly rose again from the dead, and truly ascended into heaven.

XII.

The twelfth heresy is that of the Secundians. They differ from the Valentinians only in this, that they add to this sect even bodily shamefulness, which those false-chaste ones pretend to avoid. Diodorus, bishop of Crete, condemned them.

XIII.

The thirteenth heresy is that of the Ptolemaeans, from Ptolemaeus, a disciple of Valentinus, who scattered this same heresy by disputing more sharply; he was condemned at the same time by the holy Zacchaeus, bishop of Caesarea, mentioned above. Yet he scattered this most wicked heresy through many regions of the East.

XIV.

The fourteenth heresy was devised by a certain Marcus, who, denying the resurrection of the flesh, tried to assert that Christ did not truly suffer, but only in appearance.

The holy Clement, bishop of Rome and most worthy martyr of Christ, confuting him with fixed and sound assertions and exposing him before all the people in the church, punished him with eternal damnation, teaching that our Lord Jesus Christ was truly born and truly suffered, recalling nothing that was done by him in mere appearance, and clearly showing that truth, the enemy of falsehood, could have nothing false in itself: just as neither can light have darkness in itself, nor blessing cursing, nor sweetness bitterness; and even if these things could be mingled, he taught that it is impossible for God to be mingled with a lie.

XV.

The fifteenth heresy is the Colorbasian, invented by Colorbasius. He attempted to establish that the whole life of men is placed in the seven stars, and that these are the seven Churches, and the seven golden lampstands. The holy Theodotus, bishop of Pergamum, having held a synod of seven bishops, anathematized him, teaching that the seven Churches are consecrated in the sevenfold Spirit. One form, he says, is when man is recalled into the form that the first man had lost. The second, when the one who was a sinner is made immaculate. The third, when the dead body is raised from the earth. The fourth, when the soul is drawn out from the confines of hell. The fifth, that the soul is nourished by the dwelling of paradise, until it receives its incorruptible body. The sixth, that he makes sons of God of those who were sons of Adam. The seventh, that he makes man a partaker of the kingdom of heaven.

These are the forms of the Holy Spirit placed in the seven churches, in the seven eyes, and in the seven golden lampstands.

XVI.

The sixteenth heresy, that of the Heracleonites, was devised by Heracleon; it taught that a baptized man, whether righteous or a sinner, is reckoned in the place of a saint, and it declared that sins do no harm to the baptized, saying: just as the nature of fire does not receive frost into itself, so the baptized person does not receive sin into himself. For just as fire by its look melts away the snows, however near they may be, so one who has been baptized once does not receive the guilt of sins, however many sins may be mingled with his works. This man began to teach in the regions of Sicily. Against him the bishops of the Sicilians took up the cause, Eustachius of Lilybaeum and Theodore of Panormus. And these, having entreated a synod of all the bishops who were throughout Sicily, decreed to hear him by official acts, and directing all his assertions to the holy Alexander, bishop of the City, they asked that he ordain something for confuting him. Then the holy Alexander, drawing forth against each several head of the hydra a single sword of the Word of God from the sheath of the divine law, arranged a book against Heracleon and sent the presbyter Sabinian, most fervent in intellect; and he, both by the writings of the bishop and by his own assertion, so confuted him that at midnight he fled under the protection of a ship, and no one at all knew whither he had gone.

XVII.

The seventeenth heresy is that of the Ophites. They are named from the snake, for the snake is called ophis in Greek. They therefore keep a snake accustomed to lick their bread with its tongue, and so, as it were, to sanctify the Eucharist from itself. This snake of theirs they call Christ. Against them the priests of the province of Bithynia, that is, Theocritus and Evander, bishops of the cities of Chalcedon and Nicomedia, took up the cause, and confuting them publicly they overcame them, and making a surprise attack upon them through their assemblies, in the parts of Bithynia, as I said, secretly through their estates where they were perpetrating these very things, they both drove out their priests and killed their snakes, and giving an account to all the people, they freed the greatest part of the common folk from this danger.

XVIII.

The eighteenth heresy is that of the Cainites. They are called this for the reason that they honor Cain, saying that he was of the most twisted virtue. At the same time they think that Judas the traitor was something divine, and they reckon his crime a benefit, asserting that he foreknew how much the passion of Christ would profit the human race, and that for this reason he handed him over to the Jews to be killed. That we have arisen from the priests of the Churches of Syria, the Mesopotamians wrote to the rest of their fellow bishops.

These thirty-two bishops residing at Antioch, together with Theodore, bishop of that same city, refuted and condemned them in person, saying to them what the Holy Spirit spoke through the prophet: Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness (Isa. 5:20). It is evident, therefore, that you have been condemned by yourselves, you who wish those to be reckoned great and just whom God, according to the quality of their deed, has destined for the fire of eternal Gehenna.

XIX.

The nineteenth heresy is that of the Sethians. These took their name from the son of Adam who was called Seth, boasting that he was born of a heavenly mother, whom they say came together with the heavenly father, so that another divine seed might be born, from which seed God would choose the just for himself and call them his sons. These arose in the regions of Achaia. Against them Saint Perigenes, bishop of the city of Argos, took up the case, showing them that from the one holy, true, and just Isaac two twin sons were born, brought forth from one womb together: one penetrated to the higher things of divine grace, the other descended to the lower things of the underworld. Therefore, he said, one of two things follows: either they are sons of an evil nature, and both must be condemned for what they were born as; or they are of a good nature, and, according to the quality of their deed, blessing justly crowned the one and cursing condemned the other.

As holy Perigenes asserted these things and others like them, some who believed were converted from this most wicked error; those who did not believe, nor convert, were cut off by the sword of anathema.

XX.

The twentieth heresy received its name from its leaders in Crete, the Archontics. For they boast that they worship the rulers, whom they say created this world. Holy Dioscorus, bishop of Crete, condemned them, teaching that the one and true God cannot at all be divided into substantial parts: that this is the God who showed himself both to the prophets and delivered those who believe in him from all dangers, as Noah, as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the sons of Israel, Jonah, Susanna, the three youths; and countless signs of powers which God showed toward those who believe in him, by which he showed himself to be the only God. Those who acquiesced to the truth he received, but those who dissented he punished with eternal abomination.

XXI.

The twenty-first heresy arose from Marcion. He affirms that there were two principles, of good and of evil. Epiphanius said that he taught three principles: of good, of just, and of evil; but Eusebius writes that a certain Syrinus, not Marcion, was the author of three principles and natures. And the Marcionites, when they were staining the universal Church of the East, were overcome by Origen, refuted, and condemned throughout individual cities.

Likewise after some years, already conquered and cast down, they were sprouting up in the regions of Africa, whom Tertullian so overcame by every means that he made them publicly preach against their own sect.

XXII.

The twenty-second heresy is that of the Apellites, whose leader is Apelles, who indeed introduces two gods, but acknowledges one principle, that is, that the other was made by that one principle itself. Since this was found to be evil, it was cast away by the good; but cast away by the good principle, this principle, which was acting evilly against the will of the good principle, made the world in its own malice. Hence it follows by nature that we are more prone to evil than to good, and, he says, it delights more in vices than in virtues. They assert that our Lord Jesus Christ took flesh from the elements, which he returned to the air when he ascended, and without it entered into heaven. Origen so perfectly overcame these that for their sake he became a period-deacon, and going through the East preached in each and every city. And because the volumes of his treatises are innumerable, the heretics, having been overcome, changed his books according to their own whims by the most cunning argumentation, so that those whom they wished to deceive, they would say Origen had so defined in his expositions. Hence whoever reads Origen even to this day, if he knows how to distinguish him by prudent recitation, detects the places corrupted by the heretics; that this is so, the holy martyr Pamphilus declared in his Apologeticus.

XXIII.

The twenty-third heresy, that of the Cerdonians, took its beginning from Cerdo, who taught as dogma two principles opposed to each other, and that the God of the law and the prophets was not the father of Christ, and that God was not good but just, while the father of Christ was good; and that Christ himself was neither born of a woman, nor had flesh, nor truly died or suffered anything, but feigned his passion. Against him Saint Apollonius, bishop of the Corinthians, took up the cause, and condemned him together with the whole Eastern synod, giving the reason that this is the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom Moses says at the beginning of his book: In the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gen. 1:1). He approved all the blameless men of the Old Testament according to the Apostle, saying: Who shall accuse against the elect of God? God who justifies; who is there who condemns (Rom. 8:33-34)? But when heretics had been condemned for this reason, these things and others like them seemed to satisfy the priests by reasonable discourse, whether to recall them from their error, or to show that they condemned the sects, not the men; but the men condemned themselves, who, embracing condemned sects, depart from the truth.

XXIV.

The twenty-fourth heresy is that of the Severians, who sprang from Severus. They do not drink wine, because they assert, with fabulous vanity, that the vine sprouted from the earth from the seed of Satan. They also reject the resurrection of the flesh, along with the Old Testament. Saint Euphranon, bishop of Rhodes, condemned them; for their superstition arose at Rhodes. He refuted them by the reasoning of the holy Scriptures, in which it is read that God brings bread out of the earth to strengthen the heart of man, and wine to make him glad (Ps. 103:15, 16). But the non-use of wine is not necessary; rather, the excess of it is to be blamed as hostile to salvation. But the resurrection of the flesh was promised by him who in the present raised the dead; for if he had lied, he could certainly not have raised the dead. That the letters of the Old Testament are holy, like the foundations of a house, he taught excellently, saying: The foundations of a house are placed around weak places, so that the parts which are above may suffer no insult from filth. Therefore the upper parts of the house are raised up with gilded panels, painted walls, and varied metal of marbles. But the lower parts, near the earthly moisture, having been arranged, also receive all the things of the upper parts. What then shall we do now? If we take away the lower parts, the upper parts collapse. Yet if the lower parts were to be destroyed, no one else could do this except the Son of God. Let us see, therefore, whether he himself destroyed this which we say remains: Do you think, he says, that I came to destroy the law or the prophets?

I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it (Matt. 5:17). Saying these things and others like them, the holy bishop Euphranon converted many; but those who persisted in error he deprived of communion by perpetual sanction.

XXV.

The twenty-fifth heresy is that of the Tatians, instituted by a certain Tatian, who are also called Encratites. These condemn marriage, and altogether make it equal to fornications and other corruptions, nor do they receive into their number anyone who uses marriage, male or female. They do not eat meat, and altogether abominate it. Against these, the holy Epiphanius, bishop of Ancyra in Galatia, took up the cause, objecting to them the first epistle of the apostle Paul to Timothy, because they have a cauterized conscience, forbidding to marry, and teaching to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by the faithful and by those who have known the truth: because every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected which is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified through the word of God and prayer (1 Tim. 4:1-5). But we praise our catholic abstainers for this reason, that when they do not receive foods, it is not as if they were saying it is evil to receive them, but they call it good and most excellent, which they assert themselves to be unworthy to receive. Thus it comes about that that decree of the Apostle is also preserved, which says: Let not the one who does not eat judge the one who eats, and let not the one who eats despise the one who does not eat (Rom. 14:3).

For he does not accuse the creature, but declares himself to be such a one, from whom he says he does not deserve to be excluded from its feasts.

XXVI.

The twenty-sixth heresy is that of the Cataphrygians, who took this name from a province, not from a doctrine; their authors were Montanus, Prisca, and Maximilla. These assert that the coming of the Holy Spirit promised by the Lord was given in themselves rather than in the apostles. They regard second marriages as fornication, and therefore they say that the apostle Paul permitted them because he knew in part and prophesied in part. For that which is perfect had not yet come. But they rave that this perfect thing came in Montanus and in his prophetesses whom we mentioned above. Thus far I have spoken of the Cataphrygians. The other things that are said, as being uncertain, I pass over. That they receive [it] from the blood of an infant—which we say for this reason, lest we seem to be ignorant of all the things that are said about them; for those who wrote against them made no mention of this at all. Saint Soter, pope of the City, wrote a book against them, and Apollonius, bishop of the Ephesians. Tertullian, presbyter of Carthage, wrote against them. Although he wrote all things well and excellently and incomparably, in this one respect he made himself reprehensible, that he defended Montanus, acting against Soter, the aforementioned pope of the City, asserting that the things about the blood of an infant were false, [and maintaining] the Trinity in the unity of the Godhead, penance for the lapsed, and, in the same mysteries, one Pascha with us.

We differ in this alone," he says, "that we do not accept second marriages, and we do not reject the prophecy of Montanus concerning the future judgment." Some object to Tertullian that he said the soul is from the tradux, that is, that the soul is begotten from the soul just as the body is from bodies; which the catholic faith vehemently abhors.

XXVII.

The twenty-seventh heresy is that of the Pepuzians, who are named from a certain place. Epiphanius calls this a deserted city; but these, thinking it to be something divine, call it Jerusalem. They give such preeminence to women that they are even honored with the priesthood among them. For they say there are two churches, of Quintilla and Priscilla, in the same city of Pepuza. They are one with the Cataphrygians. But the latter hold them in contempt, because these Pepuzians consider themselves better than the rest. For they say that this Pepuza was the village of Montanus, Prisca, and Maximilla, and because they began to preach there and lived there, therefore they called the place Jerusalem. And because they are inhabitants of the place, therefore they claim to be better than the rest. Apollonius, bishop of the Ephesians, overcame these.

XXVIII.

The twenty-eighth heresy calls its followers Artotyrites, to whom the offering gave this name. For they offer bread and cheese, saying that by the first men offerings to God were celebrated from the fruits of the earth and of sheep. Epiphanius joins these to the Pepuzians, against whom no one deigned even to speak.

XXIX.

The twenty-ninth heresy is called Tessarescadecatitae, because they celebrate Pascha on the fourteenth moon, on whatever day of the week it falls; and if the Lord's day falls on it, they fast and keep vigil on that very day. In this alone do they differ from us, in nothing else. The holy John, bishop of Constantinople, won these over in many cities by such reasoning. He went with his clergy, and celebrated Pascha with them, saying: "Just as we have celebrated Pascha with you, come and you also receive with us." When he obtained this from them, they began to be of one mind and to celebrate the day with us. For they approved that we hold the whole rule of faith just as they do, and that they believe just as we do.

XXX. The thirtieth heresy is that of the Alogians. They are so called because they refuse to accept that the Word of God is the Son; to such an extent that they say the Gospel of Saint John is not his, and they do not accept the Apocalypse of the same John. What more? In all things they think with us, but they utterly detest the Word of God, the Son of God, as if it were blasphemy. Philo the bishop often overcame them.

XXXI. The thirty-first heresy is that of the Adamians, who took their name from Adam, whose nakedness in paradise they imitate, such as it was before sin. Hence they also abhor marriage, because he did not know his wife before he was sent out of paradise. They believe, therefore, that there would have been no marriages if no one had sinned. And so men and women come together naked, hear readings naked, pray naked, celebrate the sacraments naked. And from this they consider their church to be paradise. The holy presbyter Polycarp exposed them, overcame them, and drove them out.

XXXII.

The thirty-second heresy is that of the Helceseans. A certain false prophet by the name of Helchi deceived them; from his line, two women are said by them to have been adored as goddesses. In other respects they are asserted by Epiphanius to hold views similar to those of the Ebionites. Papias, a presbyter of Achaia, won them over.

XXXIII.

The thirty-third place among the heresies is held by the Theodotians, founded by a certain Theodotus, who asserted that Christ the Son of God was merely a man; and it is said that this same Theodotus taught this for the following reason: having fallen in persecution, he thought that in this way he could avoid the disgrace of his fall, if he should not seem to have denied God, but a man. Crato, bishop of the Syrians, won them over.

XXXIV.

The Melchisedechians devised the thirty-fourth heresy. They hold that Melchisedech, priest of the most high God, was not a man, but a power of God, following that passage of the Apostle to the Hebrews where he says, without father, without mother, without genealogy (Heb. 7:3). Dionysius, bishop of Jerusalem, opposed them, saying that this man had both a father and a mother; and that the Apostle said this for the reason that neither his genealogy nor his mother's and father's lineage was recorded in that order in which the law of the Hebrews was written down, since the generation of the Hebrews was certainly pleasing to God.

XXXV.

The thirty-fifth heresy is that of the Bardesanites, corrupted by a certain Bardesanes. This Bardesanes is said to have been a perfect catholic, but afterward fell into this error through a disciple of Valentinus, so as to say that the creation of human flesh is evil, but that of the soul good. Theocritus, a bishop, condemned him in Cappadocia, teaching that the good God made both, joined both together, and that it is not the nature of human flesh but its transgression that is to be blamed.

XXXVI.

The thirty-sixth heresy is that of the Noetians, who say that Christ is the same as the Father and the Holy Spirit: not in substance, as we say, but in person, so that the Holy Spirit is called so supposedly, not truly. This man was condemned by Tranquillus, bishop of the Chalcedonians of Syria. For he showed the Father to be true, the Son true, the Holy Spirit true: confirming that one God is to be believed in through one substance, but three through the distinction of persons.

XXXVII.

Into the thirty-seventh heresy fall the Valesians, wretches who castrate both themselves and their guests. In this way they say that the saying is fulfilled: "Those who have castrated themselves for the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 19:12). They are also said to teach other heretical and shameful things, but what these are not even Epiphanius himself records, nor have I been able to find them anywhere. These were condemned by the synod of Achaia.

XXXVIII.

The thirty-eighth heresy is that of the Cathars, who most arrogantly called themselves by this name, as if on account of purity. They do not admit second marriages. They deny repentance, following the heretic Novatus; hence they are also called Novatians. Against him the blessed Xystus, martyr and bishop, and the venerable Cyprian, martyr of Christ, then pontiff of Carthage, wrote; against Novatus he wrote the book On the Lapsed, [showing] that through repentance they can recover the grace which they had lost by falling, which Novatus asserted could by no means be done.

XXXIX.

The thirty-ninth heresy is that of the Angelici. These wished to be called Angelici. For they say that angels ought to be adored and cultivated in the mind, and prayers poured out to them, so that they themselves, who they know can do more from themselves, may come to the aid of men's vows and petitions. Epiphanius testifies that these have now entirely failed, conquered by Theophilus, bishop of Apamea.

XL.

In the fortieth place appeared the Apostolici, who wished to be called by this name arrogantly, because they do not receive into their communion those who use marriage, and those possessing their own property, such as the catholic Church has, and monks and very many clerics. Therefore these are heretics, because, separating themselves from the Church, they think that those who use these things which they themselves lack have no hope. Against them the Church meets them in that testimony in which the Apostle says: Even if I not only wear out my body with abstinences, but even hand it over with fire to be burned, yet have not charity, it profits nothing (1 Cor. 13:3).

XLI. The forty-first heresy is that of the Sabellians, who fell into it through Sabellius, confessing the Father himself to be the same as the Son himself and the same as the Holy Spirit himself. These are the ones also called Praxeanists, who had a certain Praxeas as their teacher in the early days. They are also called Hermogenians, because they had Hermogenes in the fellowship of Sabellius. Dositheus, bishop of Seleucia, opposed them, teaching that he denies the whole Trinity while he thinks he is defending the unity. For the Father is unbegotten, the Son begotten, the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father, coequal in all things with the Father and the Son. For the Godhead so receives the unity of substance that it does not lose the distinction of person.

XLII. The forty-second heresy was begun by the Origenians, from a certain Origen, not that one who is known to almost everyone, but another, a most wicked Syrian; concerning whom Epiphanius says that he taught such shameful things that they ought not to be transmitted in writing to our descendants.

XLIII.

The forty-third heresy is that of the Origenists, who followed immediately after, as Epiphanius says; they deny the resurrection of the dead. They say that the Holy Spirit is a creature of Christ, and they maintain that paradise and the heavens were spoken of allegorically. These two Origens wrote all manner of depraved things. Heretics and perverse teachers mixed their own errors with our catholic expositor Origen, so that what is said by the Lord in the Gospels might be fulfilled: "Did you not sow good seed in your field? Where then do these weeds come from?" And he answered and said: "An enemy has done this" (Matthew 13:28). For this reason, when we read Origen, we find him catholic, fighting against heresies and conquering; and again, when we read Origen, we find him heretical and asserting things contrary to the faith. The letters convey the words and the meaning; if they could also show the faces of those speaking, no one could fall into error concerning the person of the teacher. For this too must be guarded against: a certain Ampullianus, a Bithynian heresiarch, who taught the Church of God after Origen. He fell into such a heresy as to say that all the guilty, together with the devil and the demons, are boiled in hell until they can come out from there pure, clean, and undefiled, so that what they had previously been, free from guilt, might be restored again to their Creator. When he was being refuted by the universal Church, he began to bring forward the books of Origen, which he himself had corrupted, and to say: "Behold, this is how Origen understood it," and especially in the four books of Peri Archon.

But one who is of sound mind and has bright eyes sees and recognizes these evils added to the works of Origen in the same way as if he were to discern white patches or patches of some other color sewn onto a scarlet blanket. That this is so, the holy martyr Pamphilus teaches, who before he attained the crown of martyrdom irreproachably held the chair of the episcopate and ministered the sound doctrine of God to the peoples. He published an Apologeticum and excluded all the things that Catholics, in their ignorance, falsely claim about Origen, showing that the things found reprehensible in his works are not Origen's but those of the men whom he himself had overcome; while other things that are wholly perverse belong to two other heretics, who had Origen's name but not his faith or conscience.

XLIV.

The forty-fourth heresy, invented by Paul of Samosata, made for itself a people called Paulianist. They say that Christ did not always exist but began from Mary, and that he is nothing more than a man. This heresy previously belonged to Artemon; when it had failed, it was restored by this Paul of Samosata. Likewise, the Church, taking up the case against him, though after many years, when the depraved defense had failed along with its assertors, renewed again by our bishop Photinus, sprouted a Photinian people.

Whether, then, you hear of the Artemonians, or the Paulians, or the Photinians, know this one thing: just as we call them Donatists, and Montenses, and Parmenians—Donatists from Donatus, Montenses from the hiding-place of the mountains, Parmenians from Parmenian, who went about through all Africa composing books against us and making new psalms, against whom our Optatus wrote. But let us return to the Paulians. It is known to all that we do not rebaptize heretics who come to us, but apply the hand of reconciliation and so hand them over to be joined to the divine people. Concerning the Paulians, however, the holy synod of Nicaea decreed this: that they should be baptized outright, and only then be joined to the catholic people. Hence I believe that they do not hold the rule of baptism intact, and that this decree was therefore established by the pontiffs of Christ.

XLV.

The forty-fifth heresy is that of the Photinians, from Photinus, whom I said was our bishop, just as Judas of Iscariot was our apostle. He made a people of his own. He taught that Christ was a mere man, and held, with Paul of Samosata, that he began from Mary, but he declared that the Holy Spirit always existed: in this alone he differs from the forty-fourth heresy, that he called the people he perverted after his own name.

XLVII.

The forty-sixth heresy, begun by Manes, formed the fellowship of the Manichaeans. This Manes, when he was a Persian citizen and, teaching in Persia, called himself an apostle of God, also spread down into Greece. His Greek disciples, avoiding the name of madness, decreed that he be called "Manichaeus," that is, as it were, pouring forth manna. He composed two principles, different and opposed to each other, and the same eternal and co-eternal, that is, that they always existed; and he opined two natures and substances, namely of good and of evil, following other ancient heretics. Asserting according to his own dogmas their struggle with each other and commixture, and the purification of good from evil, and the damnation unto eternity of the good that could not be purified together with the evil, they fabricate many things, all of which it is too long to weave together. They say that good souls are of the same nature as that to which God belongs. Accordingly, they indeed confess that the world was made from the nature of good, that is, from the nature of God, but from the commixture of good and evil, which was made when both natures fought with each other. But the purification and liberation of good from evil they say the power of God brings about not only through the whole world and from all its elements, but also through the food which his elect consume. For they assert that the substance of God is commingled in these foods, as in the whole world; which they think is purified in their elect by that kind of life by which the elect of the Manichaeans live, as being holier and more excellent than their hearers.

For they wished their church to consist of these two professions, that is, of the elect and the hearers. But in other men, even in their own hearers, they think that this portion of the good and divine substance, which is held mixed and bound up in foods and drinks, and most of all in those who beget children, is bound more tightly and more filthily. But whatever light is purged from every side, they hold to be returned through certain ships, which they wish to be the moon and the sun, to the kingdom of God as to its own proper seats. These ships they assert to be fashioned from the pure substance of God; and this corporeal light, which lies near to the eyes of mortal living creatures, they say is the nature of God. For the five elements which begot their own princes, they assign to the race of darkness; and these elements they call by these names: smoke, darkness, fire, water, wind. In smoke, two-footed animals were born, from which they reckon men to draw their origin; in darkness, creeping things; in fire, four-footed beasts; in the waters, swimming creatures; in the wind, flying creatures. To subdue these five evil elements, they say that another five elements were sent from the kingdom and substance of God; and in that battle they were mingled: air with smoke, light with darkness, good fire with evil fire, good water with evil water, good wind with evil wind. But those ships, that is, the two luminaries of heaven, they distinguish thus: they say the moon was made from good water, but the sun from good fire.

But that there are in those ships holy powers which transform themselves into males, so that they may entice the women of the hostile race; and that through this enticement their concupiscence being stirred, the light which they held mingled with its members may flee from them, and be received to be purged by the angels of light, and having been purged may be placed in those ships to be carried back to their own kingdoms. On which occasion their elect are compelled to take, as it were, a eucharist kneaded together with human seed, so that from there too, as from the other foods which they receive, that divine substance may be purged. But while they deny that they do this, they have been detected. For even at the church of Carthage they were thus made manifest. Finally, in a gathering of bishops before all the people, a girl not yet twelve years old confessed this nefarious turpitude; and she disclosed many things, asserting that she herself had for this reason endured the violence of their wicked sacrament. And when at first she, a single girl and alone, was not believed, she named very many women as conscious of this crime; and it is established that these, by the consolation of Ursus the tribune, who at that time presided over the royal household, having been cast out from the various houses where they were harbored in hiding, and brought by the clerics to the church called Restituta, and having suffered this very thing for this very reason, were scarcely even compelled to confess.

Then that whole most shameful crime is brought out into the open, where flour is spread underneath to catch and mix together the semen of those lying together; and—a thing that is said and heard with boundless shame—in recent times some of them were brought to the church, as the episcopal records drawn up in that place testify. There are, then, three kinds of them: the Catharists, from Macbarius, and the Manichaeans. Yet it is established that all these three forms were written by one master, that criminal Manes himself. In short, all of them read the Manichaean, and all his books are without doubt common to them. In these books it is urged that through concupiscence the prince of darkness of either sex be dissolved, and that the divine substance, freed, flee from them—which substance they believe is held polluted in human seed; whence also they are called Catharists, as it were purifiers. And since they do not eat flesh, they are so polluted that along with all their other things they even take human seed, though they do not accept eggs themselves; for they say that these too breathe out when they are broken. But neither do they use milk as food; not because they think there is nothing of the divine substance mixed in it, but because their error itself is not consistent with itself. For they do not drink wine either, saying that it is the gall of the prince of darkness; and yet they eat grapes, though they would not dip a finger in must.

They believe that the souls of their hearers are rolled back into the elect; but the other souls, which are not those of their hearers, they assert return into cattle and into all things that are fixed by roots and nourished in the earth. For they think that there is life in herbs and trees in such a way that they believe they feel and suffer pain when they are harmed. Hence, being mad, they accuse agriculture, which is the most innocent of all arts, as guilty of very many murders, and especially when they see a field cleared of thorns; and they believe that their hearers are therefore forgiven because they provide food from it for their elect, so that that divine substance, purified in their belly, may obtain pardon for those by whose offering it is said to need purification. And so the elect themselves, working nothing in the fields, nor plucking fruits, nor pulling any leaves, expect these things to be brought for their use by their hearers, living by so many and such great murders of others according to their own vanity. They also warn these same hearers of theirs that, if they eat flesh, they should not kill animals, lest they offend the princes of darkness bound together in the heavens, from whom they say all flesh takes its origin. And they use their wives in such a way as to avoid conception and generation, lest the divine substance which enters into them through food be bound in fleshly chains in offspring. For thus they believe that souls come into all flesh, that is, through foods and drinks.

Hence they also without doubt condemn marriage and, as far as in them lies, forbid it, since they forbid begetting, for which reason marriages are to be joined. They assert that Adam and Eve were born from the princes of smoke, whose father, they say, was named Saclas; they assert that he devoured the offspring of all his consorts, and whatever of the divine substance had been mingled from this, by sleeping with his wife he bound it in the flesh of offspring as if with a most tenacious bond. But they affirm that Christ was the one whom our Scripture calls the serpent: by whom they assert their eyes were enlightened, so that they might distinguish good and evil; and that this Christ came in the last times to free souls, not bodies. Nor was he truly in the flesh, but offered a simulated appearance of flesh to mock human senses, where he lied not only about death but likewise about resurrection. They affirm that the God who gave the law through Moses and spoke in the Hebrew prophets is not the true God, but one of the princes of darkness. And they read the Scriptures of the New Testament itself as if falsified, so that they take from it what they wish and reject what they do not wish; and as though having the whole truth, they prefer certain apocryphal writings to them. They say that the promise of our Lord Jesus Christ concerning the Paraclete was fulfilled in their heresiarch Manichaeus. Hence he himself in his writings calls himself an apostle of Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ promised that he would send him; and therefore his apo.

...apostle, because the Holy Spirit was sent in him. For this reason even Manichaeus himself had twelve disciples, in the likeness of the apostolic number, which number the Manichaeans keep even today. For from their elect they have twelve whom they call masters, and a thirteenth, their prince. But the bishops who are ordained by the masters, and the presbyters who are ordained by the bishops, are of an indefinite number. The bishops also have deacons. The rest are called only elect. But even those who seem suitable are sent to this error, either where it is to be increased or where it is not to be sown. They maintain that baptism in water brings salvation to no one, nor do they think that any of those whom they deceive are to be baptized. They pray to the sun by day, wherever it circles; to the moon by night if it appears; but if it does not appear, to the northern part, where the sun, when it has set, returns to the East. They stand while praying. But they attribute the origin of sins not to the free choice of the will, but to the substance of the hostile race, which they dogmatize to be mixed with men. Indeed they assert that all flesh is the workmanship not of the Divinity but of an evil mind, which is coeternal with the contrary god. They hold that the carnal concupiscence by which the flesh lusts against the spirit is a contrary substance, clinging to us in such a way that when we are freed and purified, it is again revealed, and in its own nature even itself lives immortally.

They say that in one man there are two souls and two minds, and that these are by nature contrary, good and evil; and they say that these have a conflict with each other. But when this age is finished, after the conflagration of the world, they say that this substance of evil will live in a certain globe as if in a prison. They affirm that to this globe there will come and always cling, as a kind of covering and roof, those who are by nature indeed good souls, but who could not be cleansed from the contagion of the evil nature.

XLVII.

The forty-seventh heresiarch, Hierax, instituted the Hieracites. These deny the resurrection of the flesh. They receive into communion only monks and nuns, and those who have no marriages. They say that little children do not belong to the kingdom of heaven, because they have no merits of the contest by which vices are overcome. Against this man Saint Aphrodisius, bishop of the Hellespont, took up the cause, asserting that the resurrection of the flesh is confirmed by both the New and the Old Testament. But that infamous men already exist: and just as if anyone kills them, he incurs the crime of a homicide; so whoever consecrates them by baptism acquires for himself a reward from the salvation of a man. Communion is to be denied to no one, except to those who, having set aside their own wives, seek others.

XLVIII.

The forty-eighth heresy is that of the Meletians, from a certain Meletius. Refusing to pray with those who had fallen in persecution, they made a schism. Saint Basil, bishop of Cappadocia, opposed them, saying that the greater charity of hope and faith is that which bears all things, and that the hand should rather be extended to the fallen. He also urges that the despairing be roused by the offer of recovery to return: since indeed one penitent makes greater joy even among the angels in heaven than ninety-nine who have not sinned (Luke 15:7).

XLIX.

The forty-ninth heresiarch, Arius, arose. He established the Arian peoples, who refuse to hold that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are of one and the same substance, but hold that the Son is a creature, and the Holy Spirit a creature of a creature, that is, they hold him to have been created by the Son himself. But in that he supposes that Christ took flesh without a soul, Epiphanius has set forth. And therefore he says the Father is greater than the Son, as a creator: and the Son greater than the Holy Spirit, as his creator. They rebaptize our people, that is, catholics, who come to them: whether they do this also to others, that is, non-catholics, is nowhere read. The first to take a stand against them was Saint Hesiod, bishop of the Corinthians, a man who is even asserted to have raised the dead. Whence it came about that men, attending more to his holiness than to disputation, execrated Arius.

For it is asserted that by his prayers Arius himself, sitting in a privy, poured forth all his inward parts together with his excrement. Already bishops of both the East and the West have written against his sect. In these writings they assert that he blasphemes, point by point, the dogmas of the ancients.

Epiphanius records the fiftieth as the Audians, not indeed heretics but schismatics; others call them Anthropomorphites, because they fashion God for themselves by carnal thought, in the likeness of the image of corruptible man, saying: The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous (Ps. 33:16); The heavens are the works of the fingers of God (Ps. 8:4); and: God sits upon his holy throne (Ps. 46:9); and: God stood in the synagogue of gods (Ps. 81:1), and other things which can be conceived in visible terms. Since, therefore, they err in nothing else, Epiphanius, dealing with them more gently, was unwilling to call them heretics, granting pardon to their rusticity. But because they do not hold communion with us, they cry out that our bishops possess riches, which Christ commands even the laity to despise. They celebrate the Passover with the Jews. Zeno, bishop of the Syrians, wrote against them.

LI.

The fifty-first heresy is that of the Eunomians, from Eunomius. These, filled with the spirit of the ancient serpent, assert that the Son is not only lesser, but not even of like essence. Ammonius the presbyter wrote against them.

LII.

The fifty-second heresy is that of the Macedonians, from Macedonius. These our people in the East call Pneumatomachi, because they contend about the Holy Spirit. For they think rightly concerning the Father and the Son, but they refuse to believe that the Holy Spirit is God, calling him a creature. Philaster writes that Macedonius said the Holy Spirit is the Deity of the Father and of the Son; by which statement he seems to deny his own property to the Holy Spirit.

LIII.

The fifty-third heresy is that of the Aerians, from a certain Aerius, who, when he was a presbyter, is said to have grieved that he had not been ordained bishop. He began to teach that offerings ought not to be made for the dead, nor the appointed fasts to be celebrated; but that each one should fast when he wished, lest he seem to be under the law. That a presbyter ought to be distinguished from a bishop by no difference; and that no one should be admitted to his communion unless abstaining from marriage.

LIV.

The fifty-fourth heresy is that of the Aetians, named from Aetius. These, together with Eunomius, confess that the Son is unlike the Father in all things; and they say: whoever agrees with our faith should know that no sins whatsoever that they have committed are a hindrance to them. A synod of bishops acted against these in Achaia.

LV.

The fifty-fifth heresy is that of the Apollinarists, begun by Apollinaris. They deny that a complete man was in Christ, but say that the assumption of flesh was so made that within the man, in place of a soul, there was the divinity. But he wished to teach that the flesh and the Word are of one and the same substance, most contentiously asserting: The Word was made flesh (John 1:14); they wish to teach that something of the Word was turned into flesh. Moreover, they also affirm that nothing was taken from the flesh of Mary in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. A synod acted against this one in Antioch.

LVI.

In the fifty-sixth heresy are named the Antidicomarians, heretics who so contradict the virginity of Mary that they assert that after Christ was born she had intercourse with a man. Theodotus, bishop of Cyprus, acted against these.

LVII.

We have found the fifty-seventh heresy to be that of the Messalians: this name is from the Syriac language; in Greek, however, they are called Euchites, so named from praying. They do not sing psalms, they pray continuously. But because they do this alone, having neither love nor of conversation nor of humanity, they have been refuted as heretics by the holy synod. They also condemn those monks who have done anything besides the works of reading and praying, whether of craft or of agriculture. Epiphanius reached as far as these and was silent. I believe he lived up to that time. For human curiosity can indicate things past and present, but God alone can foretell things to come. But because Philaster also in his own books, in which he reviewed the histories of various persons, [wrote of] the heresies that arose in all other times as well, we now present in their midst, culling from his books, only the heresies. Ephrem, a presbyter of the Syrians, wrote against these.

LVIII.

The fifty-eighth heresy was begun by the Metangismonites. In the Greek language a vessel is called a vessel, but a vessel within a vessel is what is meant. From this article, then, they take their name, saying: The Son is in the Father as a smaller vessel within a larger vessel. The Church rejects them for this reason: because they think carnally about the incorporeal, and treat of the incomprehensible in a fleshly manner, and establish degrees in the equality of the Godhead. Diodorus, bishop of Nicomedia, contended against these.

LIX.

In the fifty-ninth heresy are the Seleucians, sprung from Seleucus, who say that the matter of the elements from which the world was made was not made by God, but is coeternal with God; nor do they attribute the soul to God the creator, but would have the angels to be creators of souls from fire and spirit. But they assert that evil is sometimes from God, sometimes from matter. They deny that the Savior sits in the flesh at the right hand of the Father, but maintain that he put it off and placed it in the sun, taking occasion from the psalm where it is read: In the sun he has set his tabernacle (Ps. XVIII, 6). They deny a visible paradise, they do not accept baptism in water, they do not believe that there will be a resurrection, but daily assert it in the generation of children. The discipline of our faith does not permit them to enter into disputation with us, but has commanded that they be consigned to anathema in accordance with its definitions.

LX.

The sixtieth heresy the Proclinianists made from Proclinus. These say that the Son of God so appeared on earth as Raphael the angel, or Gabriel, not by taking flesh, but by seeming to. Thus they mix themselves with the people of God, so that they are not understood. Finally, because they suffer no other error, they communicate with us: and this is what is worse, because whatever simple people they find, they make them feel and believe thus. This crime, greatly hostile to our salvation, they assert thus: Therefore did God have to endure those filths which the natural conception of the offspring and of the one giving birth inflicts; and did the Son of God have to have a belly washing away his digested food, moisture from the nostrils, saliva from the mouth, filth in the ear, excrement in the belly, stench in the exhalation? and things similar to these, which the madness of the mind devises. Against these Tertullian vehemently contends, showing that the Son of God is impassible, and that these things bring not injury but praise to the Divinity. Just as a king, who wishing to lift a golden ring with a gem from a sewer, puts on a servile tunic, and thus descends to the sewer, so that that tunic may receive the filthy insults, and putting in his hand, and snatching out the golden ring with the gem, washes it with water, and puts it on his royal finger, after he has ascended from there.

Thus without doubt the Son of God, taking the form of a servant, came not only to the lower parts of the heavens, where we are who seem to live in the world, but also to the lower parts below, which are as much deeper than we are as we are below heaven; and to snatch the human race from there, he endured the filth of all sordid things, not his own but ours. For the living he so lived as we who live, differing in nothing except that he led an immaculate life, having God within himself; for the dead he so died, differing in nothing except that on the third day he rose from the dead; and he descended for this reason, that he might snatch the saints from there and bind the prince of death. But what he meant by placing a golden ring with a gem, he taught in the following reading, declaring that the ring is the body and that the gem enclosed is the soul. Therefore Christ, lifting this ring from the ancient dung-heaps and from the sewer of this world, and pouring over it the water of baptism, washing it from all filth, made it shine in his holy hands. For thus it is read: But the souls of the just are in the hand of God (Wisdom 3:1). And again: Set me as a ring in your hand (Song of Songs 8:6). And: Into your hands I commend my spirit (Psalm 30:6); and countless similar things are found in the sacred writings, which we pass over for the sake of brevity, and let us come to the sixty-first heresy.

LXI.

The sixty-first heresy was that of the Patricians, taking their beginning from Patricius. These say that the substance of human flesh was created not by God but by the devil; and they detest it so much that they call him perfect who can steadfastly kill himself. There are some among them who even ask strangers whom they have met to be killed by them. This madness began long ago in the regions of Upper Numidia and Mauretania. Later the wretched Donatists of this world began to hand themselves over by throwing themselves from a mountain, as if they were to be future martyrs: so that those who abandon the eternal life of the catholic faith may find eternal death by a violent death. Against these, Optatus is read to have written.

LXII.

The sixty-second heresy is that of the Ascitae. The Ascitae are so called from a wineskin. For in Greek a wineskin is called askos. These, although they hold nothing evil concerning the Trinity, nevertheless place a huge wineskin next to the altar, and inflate it when empty, and cover it with linen cloths and adore it, because they add there the consecrated blood of the Lord, saying that evangelical word: They put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved (Matthew 9:17).

LXIII.

The sixty-third heresy is that of the Passalorynchites. When they all assemble at their church, they devote themselves to such silence that they place a finger on their nostrils and lips, lest they injure even that very silence with their breath. But why they preferred to signify the finger by a stake, from which this name is compounded, I do not know, since in Greek a stake is called palus, and a finger is called digitus, and the nose is called rhinos. It seems better to me, however, that they be called Dactylorynchites. The devil has found for himself in the law of God those whom he might make Pythagoreans, observing that saying of the Apostle: I will pray with the spirit, I will pray also with the mind; I will sing a psalm with the spirit, I will sing a psalm also with the mind. They therefore teach people what they should say in their hearts when they are placed inside the church, as if the same Apostle had not said: With the heart one believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. I say that he takes up a vain labor who deigns to consume time by responding to such people, and I judge it just that we conquer those who are silent by keeping silent.

LXIV.

The sixty-fourth heresy is that of the Aquarii, who are called Aquarii for this reason, that they offer water in the cup of the sacrament. For they say that wine is a thing of drunkenness, through which murders and fornications and the rest of crimes are perpetrated, although it is evident that all things exceeding measure commit crime and breed vice. Therefore it is not by the draught of wine, but by excess, that crimes are committed. For what is it that, taken too much, does not incur blame? Let water be drunk too much, and let us see whether it does not harm; let bread be eaten too much, and let us see whether it does not cause surfeit. Holding therefore the best measure in all things, we anathematize even these, because, separating the blood of Christ from the fountain, by the prejudice of fornicators and murderers they boldly break the rule founded by Christ.

LXV.

The sixty-fifth heresy of the Coluthians arose from a certain Coluthus. These say that God created evils and goods, understanding according to the letter what is said: I am God, creating evils and making goods (Isa. 45:7). Although God promised this through the prophet, that he would make them live without the sword of enemies, and would make the earth give its sprout and abundance of all fruits, if they had kept his commands; but if they were transgressors, they would suffer the sword and famine. And to these words he added: I am God, creating evils and making goods. They, transferring this from the species to the substance, assert that God is the creator of evils.

Since no creature is evil, they can, as I see it, blaspheme God—the perverse one—because he says to the people: If you walk uprightly, I also will walk with you uprightly; but if you walk perversely, I also will walk with you perversely (Leviticus 26:23-24).

LXVI.

The sixty-sixth heresy is that of the Floriani, from Florianus, who says that both evil souls and good souls are created by God. For this reason, he says, those who are malicious are evil and are not changed; and the good, living simply, are not drawn into the audacity of iniquitous men. This statement is briefly refuted by Theodore as follows: Judas was good, and he became a traitor. At the very time when that worst of harlots was bathing his feet with tears, seeking mercy, if the woman had an evil soul, why did she not persist in the crime of harlotry at that time? It is established, therefore, that good souls are created by God; to these the Creator granted by nature that, since they are good, they should not only be made better by their own action, but could even be converted in the midst of wickedness itself, since diligence finds the one thing while negligence runs into the other.

LXVII.

The sixty-seventh heresy is that of the Satannians, from Satannius. These say that after the resurrection of the dead, they will not remain in the same state in which we now are; nor are they to be so changed that there is a new heaven and a new earth, as holy Scripture promises (II Peter 3:13). Against these the writings of both Testaments contend.

LXVIII.

The sixty-eighth heresy is that of the Gymnopodes. These always walk with bare feet, because the Lord said to Moses: Loose the sandal from your feet (Exodus 3:5); and because holy Isaiah is read to have walked with bare feet (Isaiah 20:2). Therefore these make a schism, since they condemn those who wear shoes.

LXIX.

In the sixty-ninth heresy, the Donatists arose from Donatus: who, on account of Caecilian, bishop of the Church of Carthage, having been ordained against their will, made a schism, charging him with crimes not proven, and especially that he had been ordained by the traditors of the divine Scriptures. But when they were convicted of lying in this matter, they turned the schism into a heresy. As if, even if the crimes against Caecilian had been true, the Church throughout the whole world could have lost its standing because of the guilt of one man—whether true, or, as appeared more clearly to the judges, false; and Donatus alone in the African part could have preserved the standing of the Church, while from the whole world the labor of the holy apostles and the passion of the martyrs would have been erased.

Nay, the very blood of our Savior has failed to preserve the heaven of the catholic faith, which Donatus alone with some little asses of Byzacena obtained. And therefore they have dared to rebaptize catholics. In which work they have proved themselves both presumptuous and damnable, since they know that it has pleased the universal Church, and that not even in heretics themselves is the power of baptism to be violated. We read that the leader of this heresy was Donatus: who, coming from Numidia to Carthage, and dividing the people of Christ against Caecilian, joining to himself the bishops of the same faction, ordained as bishop on his own side at Carthage one Majorinus by name. To this Majorinus another Donatus succeeded in the same division: who by his eloquence so confirmed this heresy that many think the Donatists took the beginning of the heresy rather from him. His writings exist today, where it is proved that he received [a teaching] on the Trinity contrary to the catholic faith. And although he says that God the Father is of one substance in the Trinity, yet he attempted to confirm that the Father is greater than the Son, and the Son greater than the Holy Spirit. But no one of his people paid attention to this error, because their intent was otherwise among the parties. These heretics in the regions of Italy are called Montenses, in inner Africa Parmenians, in the Carthaginian territory Donatists.

In the regions of both Numidias they have, as it were, monks whom we call Circumcellions, rustic and most audacious servants of demons: who not only rage fiercely against others, but also, wretched as they are, do not spare even themselves. For by various deaths, especially by precipices, waters, and fires, they are accustomed to kill themselves, and to this end they seduce as many of either sex as they can. Sometimes, too, they beg those whom they meet to be killed by them, threatening death if they do not do it. It is true that such men displease many of the Donatists: but in word, not in deed. For if they truly displeased them, they would certainly not hold communion with such men, who throughout the whole world lay the crime of one Caecilian against the Churches. For they also frequently had dissensions among themselves. Finally, at Carthage, in the times of Count Heraclian, when Maximian, ordained against Primian by nearly a hundred bishops of the same error, had been condemned by the remaining three hundred and ten bishops who laid crimes against his ordination, he taught the people who followed him that the baptism of Christ could be given even outside the Church.

Finally, whoever either went over from Primianus to Maximianus, or from Maximianus to Primianus, is not baptized again by him who was ordained against their will; they are approved by him whom they both condemned; they do not cast him off, do not reject him, do not change the sacrament of baptism. And whether one is baptized or ordained a cleric by Primianus or by Maximianus, it is as though it were done by one, not by two who are opposed; in whatever dignity one has come from one to the other, he perseveres in it: the baptism is not changed, nor is the dignity taken away; because the division is shown to have arisen not from a dispute about baptism, but from a contention about ordination. For they began to disagree over the ordination of Caecilianus, not over baptism or the transgression of the law, and cut themselves off from the Church.

LXX.

The seventieth heresy, that of the Priscillianists among the Spaniards, Priscillian is read to have begun. These affirm that souls are of a divine nature. They say that these descend through seven heavens and through certain principalities, step by step, to undergo a certain voluntary contest on earth, and fall in with an evil prince, by whom they hold this world was made, and by this prince are sown into various bodies of flesh. They assert also that men are bound by the fates of the stars, and that our very body is composed according to the twelve signs of heaven.

Just like those commonly called Mathematici, they set a ram in the head, a bull in the neck, twins in the shoulders, a crab in the breast, and running through the other signs by name down to the feet, they have migrated from the sign of Christ to the signs of the astrologer. These and many other fabulous and vain things they invent. They separate wives from husbands as many as they can. They avoid meats like the Manichaeans. They accept apocryphal writings together with the canonical Scriptures, and turn them into their own meanings by allegorizing. But the Trinity, like the Sabellians, they confess as the Father himself to himself, the Son himself to himself, the Holy Spirit himself to himself.

LXXI.

The seventy-first heresy the Adelophagi began, saying that a Christian ought not to take food in such a way that he is seen by another while he eats. And this alone is known to separate them from the Church. For they confess the Trinity of the same substance. The bishops from Ephesus dealt with them.

LXXII.

We have found the seventy-second heresy, that of the Rhetorians, begun by Rhetorius, in the writings of Philistrus. These have fallen into such great vanity that they say all heretics walk rightly before God, because this has been granted in their minds: they worship God as they are able. Their error seems to us reprehensible; but before God there is neither error nor blame. These are taught by their teachers that, apart from temples and synagogues, wherever Christ born of the Virgin is invoked, they should enter and make themselves partakers with the heretics.

LXXIII.

The seventy-third heresy is that of the Theoponitae. These say that in Christ, while he suffered, the Divinity grieved just as a soul can grieve while the body is subjected to torments. Concerning these Bishop Gregory says: The unhappy and wretched do not see that in trees, when they are cut down with iron, the sun is indeed in the trees; does the splendor of the sun not grieve, which, before it reaches the wood, is certainly struck first by the blow of the iron? God therefore is light, and how can light be cut? For that it is the soul which grieves in the body, we perceive from this, that when the soul departs from the body, the body can feel nothing, neither adversity nor prosperity.

In the body, therefore, of our Lord Jesus Christ, the human soul felt what it experienced together with the body it assumed, not He Himself who assumed it, just as the sun did not shine in the tree that we mentioned; even if the sun's light in the tree can be struck down by one who beats it, in Christ the Divinity cannot be touched by one who tortures Him; because the sun's light is a creature, but here the Creator is acknowledged and proved. For as to the fact that the soul of the humanity felt the passion, the Lord Himself said to His disciples, saying: My soul is sorrowful even unto death (Matt. 26:38). And concerning this, let it suffice to have said: let us proceed to the rest.

LXXIV.

They have fallen into the seventy-fourth heresy, that of the Triscilidae, who assert God to be threefold in such a way that one part of Him is the Father, another part the Son, another part the Holy Spirit, and hence there is a Trinity in unity. Concerning these Gregory says: The unhappy and wretched do not see that they blaspheme the whole Trinity itself. For He is not God unless He is perfect in Himself. The perfect Father, therefore, begot from Himself a perfect Son; the perfect Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. Behold, three perfect beings do not make three gods, but one, because the Godhead is one. For it is not the case that as there are three persons, so there are three Godheads; but there are three, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit; yet one Godhead, one majesty, one power, one will, and one substance is to be confessed.

LXXV.

The Hydrotheites made the seventy-fifth heresy, saying that water is God, having neither beginning nor end, washing away filth, forgiving sins, and having the Holy Spirit. The catholic faith rightly condemns them as blind, and as not seeing to what impurities water is subject, and to what impurities God can be subject; or of what importance water is without consecration. The living word gives it life, the holy word sanctifies it, so that the Holy Spirit may deign to dwell in it, or so that it may be able to cleanse the sins of believers. And thus, just as it receives the power of this thing through blessing so that it can cleanse all sins, it cannot cleanse the sins of one who has not first believed with his whole faith that it is to be offered to God. Therefore the Holy Spirit is poured into men not through the one washing alone, but rather through the one believing, and forgiveness of sins is granted.

The Homuncionites made the seventy-sixth heresy, saying that the image of God is in the body of man, not in the soul. Hence Gregory says: since the image of God ought to be sought in the great and primary things that are in man—in memory, in intellect, in knowledge, and in those places from which man is moved to piety—these things are established in the soul, not formed in bodily lineaments, and it is similar to God the more purely it has been able to obtain these things which we have mentioned.

LXXVII.

The Ametrites established the seventy-seventh heresy, saying that there are innumerable worlds. He thinks this is new for them to say, who has not read the philosophers; for some of the gentile philosophers once said this. But we receive Moses as sent by God: and what we should think and what we should believe about the world, we have learned from him.

LXXVIII.

The Psychopneumones occupied the seventy-eighth heresy, saying that the good souls of men are turned into the spirits of angels, but the evil souls of men are changed into the spirits of demons.

LXXIX.

The seventy-ninth heresy is held by the Adecerditae, who say: when Christ descended to the underworld, the whole multitude of souls ran to meet him, and believed in him, and was set free.

LXXX.

The eightieth heresy says that the Son of God was begotten afterwards, after the Father willed it; if the Father had not willed it, he would not have begotten him: granted, let us confess the Son equal to the Father; but that he is equal is not a matter of nature, but of grace. The Father willed this, and by this very fact the whole belongs to the Father, not to the Son. We, on the contrary, say: just as a spring has begotten the river from the very moment it exists, so the Father has begotten the Son from the very moment he exists; and just as a spring has begotten the river not by willing and not willing, but by begetting; so the Father, not by debating, or willing, or not willing, but as it is the nature of a spring that it flows forth from its fullness, so the Father, pouring forth the Son from his fullness, begot him. And just as the river circles the whole world and enters the sea, and yet does not withdraw from the bosom of the spring, so too the Son never departed from the bosom of the Father, not even when he humbled himself and became obedient unto death. Thus, then, he appeared among us through his assumption of humanity, but through his majesty he never departed from the bosom of the Father. For that this might be done, neither ability nor will was lacking to God. If either of these was lacking to God, he cannot be called God. For he who does not will the good is evil; he who cannot do what he wills is not omnipotent. Condemning this blasphemy in the heretic we have mentioned, let us proceed to the rest.

LXXXI.

We do not accuse the eighty-first heresy of Lucifer, but we charge it as schism. They are indeed catholic in all things, but by making peoples Luciferians and dividing themselves from the Church, they have excluded themselves from their own faith and from charity, since the Apostle says: If I have faith so as to move mountains, but have not charity, it profits me nothing (1 Cor. 13:2). They boast indeed that they have not deviated from the faith, but we charge that they incur no small crime, who have been unwilling to have charity with the Church of God.

LXXXII.

The Jovinianists are shown to have seized the eighty-second heresy from a certain Jovinian. They, as the Stoic philosophers think, say that all sins are equal; and that a man cannot sin after receiving the washing of regeneration, and that fasts or abstinence from certain foods profit nothing. They destroy the virginity of holy Mary, saying that she was violated by giving birth. They also equate the virginity of holy virgins, the chastity of the continent, and men choosing a celibate life with the merits of chaste and faithful marriage; so that certain sacred virgins already of advanced age, in the city of Rome where he was teaching this, are said to have married upon hearing it. Indeed Jovinian himself neither had nor wished to have a wife: a fact which he said would not profit the future life, but applied to present convenience. Against him Saint Ambrose, bishop of Milan, took up the pen, and he published a book to destroy all the contrivances of his inventions.

When this had been read in the middle of Rome, that is, in the Lateran church, both the Roman people and the priests with one voice cried anathema upon those same Jovinianists and upon Jovinian himself, at the very beginning of Lent, while the holy Anastasius was bishop and prelate. Finally, in that same authentic week of Easter, they were found feasting and drawing banquets from the flesh of pigs: so that a roasted pig which they had found on their table, the people hung upon its neck, and so made it go around through the whole city. The presbyter Jerome also wrote certain books against them; whoever reads these more fully both learns how many good things virginity and continence and abstinence possess, and shudders at how many evils gluttony and luxury possess.

LXXXIII.

Our historiographer Eusebius places the eighty-third heresy in the sixth book, which neither Epiphanius mentioned anywhere, nor Polycrates, nor Africanus, nor Hesiod, who, describing all the heresies in the Greek tongue, produced volumes of many books. In the sixth book, then, as I said, Eusebius narrates that there are heretics in Arabia, whose author, because he does not mention him, we can call Arabici. These, he says, claim that souls die with bodies and are dissolved, and that both are restored at the end of the age. But he records that these were for the most part recalled by the disputation of Origen.

LXXXIV.

We record that the eighty-fourth heresy, that of the Helvidians, was taken up by Helvidius. These so contradict the virginity of holy Mary as to say that she bore other sons by Joseph after the birth of Christ. These indeed arose recently, that is, under Siricius, bishop of the Romans, and they directed their disciples throughout Italy and the Gauls. Against them Jerome, that distinguished teacher, wrote two books, which, when read in due time, they anathematized with fitting execration. But our Epiphanius, the investigator of heretics, writing a little book against these men, who at that time were putting forth this assertion full of blasphemies, judged that they should be called Antidicomarians.

LXXXV.

We read that the eighty-fifth heresy, that of the Patemians, began. These hold the opinion that the lower parts of the human body were made not by God but by the devil, and granting license to every shameful act from those parts, they live most impurely. When Damasus the bishop condemned these men, detected in wickedness, he wrote of them in his report to Valentinian the elder, saying: We wish your piety to know that the Venustians, detected in a most shameful crime, have been condemned by the apostolic see. He also sent their confessions together with this. Against these a special law later went forth, that wherever they were found, they should be put to death by the avenging sword.

LXXXVI.

We read that the Tertullianists were once condemned by the Roman pope Soter. But the reason we say that they took up the eighty-sixth heresy is this: a certain Octaviana coming from Africa, whose husband, named Hosperius, seemed to be very closely connected with Arbogast, who also had much influence with the tyrant Maximus—this Octaviana brought with her a certain crafty and shifty demon, to whom seven hundred [spirits] ran to meet him as he spoke at length and put his confidence in man. When this man said that he was a Tertullianist presbyter, he obtained by a sacred writing that a congregation should be built for him outside the walls of the City. When he had obtained this from the tyrant Maximus, he shut out the place of our saints, that is, of the two brothers Processus and Martinianus, saying that they had been Phrygians and had therefore held this law which Tertullian held; and in this order, on the occasion of the martyrs, he was seducing the people of God. But when the religious Augustus Theodosius gave victory, and the satellite of Maximus, by whose power he boasted himself a Tertullianist, was punished, he immediately fled with the matron who had come, and no report of him, living or dead, was renewed. God restored the watches of his martyrs to catholic festivity. Now Tertullian was a citizen and presbyter of Carthage; he published most eloquent and fervent little works in defense of the truth. He had a basilica at Carthage, where the people came together to him. This basilica lasted until the bishop Aurelius.

For when Augustine, bishop of Hippo, was acting and reasoning with them in disputation, they were converted and brought their church over to the holy Church. But the catholic authority reproves Tertullian on this point: that he says the soul is born from the soul, and he defends Montanus, and Prisca, and Maximilla against the catholic faith, and against Apollonius, bishop of the East, and against Soter, pope of the city of Rome, as we said above when we were exposing the Cataphrygian heretics. Later, having been separated from them—lest the people seem to exclude the name of Tertullian on account of Montanus—he poured out from himself all the vanity of Phrygia and propagated conventicles of Tertullianists; yet he changed nothing in the faith. For he also condemns second marriages, as we said, he asserts that the soul comes by transmission, and he labels us catholics "Psychics." But wherever you read Tertullian's work Against the Psychics, know that he is acting against the catholics.

LXXXVII.

In the eighty-seventh heresy we name the Abelites: who, although they are almost earlier than all heretics, have now been ended in our times. These had taken the derivation of their name from the son of Adam, that is, from Abel they wished to be called Abelites. These did not have relations with wives, and yet it was not permitted to them to live without wives. Therefore a male and a female, living together under the profession of continence, adopted for themselves a boy and a girl, to be their successors in the pact of the same union. When any individuals were prevented by death, others were substituted, provided that two of the other sex succeeded two in the fellowship of that household. For when either parent had died, the children served the one remaining until his death as well; after his death, they too similarly adopted a boy and a girl. Nor did they ever lack a source from which to adopt, since the neighbors round about were begetting children and gladly gave their own needy sons to the hope of another's inheritance. This alone was the difference between us and them: in that they reproached ours, that marriages were not practiced in our law in such a way that even those who marry are as though not marrying.

LXXXVIII.

The apostolic see under the holy pope Innocent showed that it had found the eighty-eighth heresy in Pelagius, when Coelestius, a disciple of Pelagius, taught at Carthage that men could be without sin, human nature alone being sufficient for itself. A certain Paulinus, deacon and defender and procurator of the church of Milan, resisted him, and in an assembly of priests brought many charges against him contrary to the catholic faith, which Coelestius neglected to condemn, saying: It does not pertain to me concerning the things he has charged, where my name is, and the crime is another's. Then they offered him his own books, where he said that the very nature of man could suffice for perfection by itself: that is, a man can practice such great justice that he can even be without sin if he wishes. That Adam was made mortal, who, whether he sinned or did not sin, was going to die. That the law sent to the kingdom just as the Gospels do. That infants are to be baptized for the remission of sins we confess for this reason, on account of the rule of the universal Church. That the sin of Adam harmed the human race in nothing. All these kinds of opposing propositions were brought forward to condemn Coelestius. But he said that many of these things were among those which his faith held, and on account of them he could not condemn the rest. Then, at the report of almost all the African bishops, pope Innocent wrote the condemnation of both Pelagius and Coelestius.

But they, whether before they were condemned by the universal Church or after they were condemned, did not cease to write that a man can be without sin, and that Adam did no harm to the human race, and that the law was sent for the kingdom just as the Gospels were, and that infants are not to be baptized for the reason that they can have original sin; and that nature was made so well by God that it alone suffices for it to be able to be without sin. Against these a certain Constantius, a tractator, took up the case without Scripture. After him, however, Augustine, bishop of Hippo, and Jerome, the presbyter of Bethlehem, also wrote against them. Yet the Pelagians, or Coelestians, are mixed in with the catholic people, because they have no other church: and therefore, wherever it has happened among them, they do not refuse communion. For they say that they are of one confession in this part, in which the eucharist is consecrated: for, they say, it is over a question, not over communion, that we are distinguished. For this boldness, both by our people, if they are detected, they are subject to dangers, and by their own they are held in execration. For they have both their own presbyters and bishops. But Pelagius himself writes thus in his commentary on Romans, when he was treating that passage where the Apostle says: For through one man sin entered into this world, and through sin death; and so it passed into all men, in whom all sinned (Rom.

And touching the Caelestians, who first wrote against the transmission of sin, he speaks in these words: These men, he says, who come against the transmission, strive thus to attack it: If Adam's sin harmed even those who did not sin, then Christ's grace also benefits even those who do not believe. They add this also: If baptism removes that original sin, then those born of two baptized persons ought to be free of this sin; for how do they transmit to their descendants what they themselves had in no way in themselves? These things, as written by Pelagius himself, we have set down. Concerning this, then, which was said—that a man can be without sin—the objection was put to them thus: Either he can, and does not seek help; or he cannot, and does seek help. For whoever seeks aid from anyone declares that he cannot accomplish what he wishes to do; otherwise he asks in mockery, who alone can fulfill that for which he requests aid. For example, if I wished to lift ten pounds of any thing, and sought help, I would seem ridiculous while I ask. But if I wished to lift two hundred pounds or more, because I cannot accomplish it, I demand aid, and with mighty prayers I seek help: especially if the state of life seems to be placed in this weight, so that if I have not lifted the weight I mentioned, I cannot attain to life. But that one born of two baptized persons has nothing from the faith of his parents, this reasoning teaches us.

Since those who have been baptized have two births—one by which the flesh begot them, the other by which the Holy Spirit begot them—and being born from these two generations, they send forth two generations to their descendants: one from the flesh, through the ministry of marriage; the other from the Spirit, by the consecration of baptism. Therefore, I ask you: this one who has been born from baptized parents, for what reason has he been born? From the flesh, that is, from the first generation, or from the spirit, that is, from the second generation? If he has been born from the spirit, he ought not to be baptized. Why? Because the Holy Spirit caused him to be born, not the lust of marriage. But if he is from carnal marriage, that is, from male and female, it remains that those who have been regenerated from Christ and the Church should in turn regenerate their own offspring from the same source. For it is from the first Adam that we are born; but from the second that we are recreated, as the holy Apostle says: The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam a quickening spirit. But that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven, heavenly. Therefore, just as we have borne the image of the earthy, that is, just as we have created children carnally, let us also bear the image of the heavenly (I Cor. 15:45); that is, those whom we have created carnally, let us recreate spiritually: or let us who have been created carnally by the will of the Creator be again spiritually recreated by His grace.

But this, the Apostle said, because flesh and blood—that is, men born only by the first generation—unless they have merited to obtain divine grace, cannot enter the kingdom of God. Neither will corruption possess incorruption (Ibid., 50).

LXXXIX.

Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, is read to have incurred the eighty-ninth heresy. For it is the custom that the bishop of Alexandria send one of his treatises to Constantinople, to be read aloud at Easter; and the bishop of Constantinople send his treatise to Alexandria, to be read aloud there. In his treatise Nestorius of Constantinople wrote that Mary is not Theotokos, but Christotokos: that is, that she did not give birth to God, but to a man. Cyril of Alexandria censured this statement so as to say by letter that, if perhaps he had been mistaken, he should correct what he had said. From this very fact that Nestorius was censured by Cyril, he began to cry out that Cyril was a heretic. A synod was held at Ephesus; and not even so did Nestorius wish to correct himself, so as to say that Mary gave birth to God and man, but only, he said, to a man. For if we say that she gave birth to God, we have made her the mother of God, like the gentiles. Mary, therefore, he said, gave birth to a temple for God, not to him who dwells in the temple. He was permitted to be brought in, either to condemn his statement and return to his see as bishop, or, if he refused to condemn it, he could not return afterwards. He did not, and he remained in the same confession.

The synod at Ephesus condemned him; in that condemnation the Roman pope Celestine wrote, and all the Eastern and Western bishops subscribed together with him.

XC.

The ninetieth heresy, which we said in our preface falsely claimed the name of Augustine the bishop, received the name of the Predestinarians. These define election of the good and rejection of the evil as God decreeing it, not man striving or neglecting. They will not have God's rights either guarded by those who strive or violated by those who neglect. They say that even if one predestined to evil wishes to do good, he cannot arrive at good; for one predestined to good, even if he neglects, will be brought to good unwilling. They say that the water of baptism does not cleanse all the sins of the world. They say that grace so precedes free will that a man receives before he asks, finds before he seeks, has it opened to him before he knocks. They say that no one comes to Christ unless he has been drawn by the Father unwilling; attending to that saying: No one comes to me unless the Father who sent me draws him (John 6:44). They say that all things happen not in reality but in hope, so that what the Apostle says—Hope that is seen is not hope (Rom 8:24)—they also apply to the mysteries, and say: The things that are perceived seem indeed to be, but are not. They say: Adam was more harmful to the human race in doing harm than Christ was helpful in giving aid.

For, they say, what has harmed remains so, such that neither the passion of Christ nor the sanctification of baptism can take it away.

But why, O holy and zealous reader, do we strike delays into you? We present to you their entire book, just as it was published, in this body of ours; by reading it you will recognize its definitions, invented by the imitators of Antichrist. But whenever we have taken up arms against them, they have said that we act against them out of the quibblings of heretics. For seeing themselves so overcome that they could not even sigh, they have always inflicted this calumny upon catholic efforts, so that while they pretend that heretics are being defamed, they might restrict the speech of truth in silence. For their sake, therefore, we have uncovered all the heresies from Simon up to this point, so that we may prove that we alone are in concord with the catholic faith. We ask you, Lord, Father of heaven and earth, who with your Son and the Holy Spirit hold the majesty of one truth, hold the Deity of one majesty, hold the trinity of one Deity, that you help us as we wield weapons against your enemies. Let them have the camp of Goliath set in the battle line of the Allophyloi. Let us Hebrews, assuming the pastoral staff of your boy David, fight from your cornerstone; so that, trusting, we may be able to say with your Apostle: Thanks be to our God, who has given us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (I Cor. 15:57).

Let there be peace to all catholics, and let them cry out together with the angels in one voice with us, singing, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.

BOOK TWO, FALSELY COMPOSED UNDER THE NAME OF AUGUSTINE,

Containing the ninetieth heresy, in which he asserts that sins are committed by the predestination of God.

The suggestion of spiritual brethren has invited me to become a partaker of your intention, you who defend the truth. Hence, briefly inserting myself into your efforts, I have avoided a broad discourse, and I have confined to a narrow compass the thoughts of those who seek a wide field of combat, so that I might remove from you the distaste for reading, and bring the occasion of defending the truth, and confute servants fighting against the will of their own Lord: namely, those who say that the wills of men are moved against God's will and unwillingness, and that the power of the immortal God is infringed by the power of mortals. To this they add, that men are made holy by their own will, and by their own judgment come to the friendships of God. You will see these men rushing headlong with a light impulse, by whom human solicitude has received both the better and the first parts, by whom, with God excluded, it is said that man can save himself, not by the ordination of God, but by his own will. But you, O sons of charity, keeping the zeal of faith sealed in your minds, be secure concerning the ordination of God, which he established by predestining: and let the sentence spoken by the apostolic mouth be certain to our minds: For whom he wills, God has mercy on, and whom he wills, he hardens.

For it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy (Rom. 9:18); because the potter has power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor (ibid., 21); and hence it is that the flesh is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit to the flesh. These, says the Apostle, are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you will (Gal. 5:17). For in His work God foresaw all men beforehand, and by foreseeing He determined what would befit each one. This is a singular proof of His majesty, in which He has no equal. For God alone is He who foreknew things to be thought, spoken, and done; and because He foreknew the deeds of all in general before they were done, by disposing their merits He beheld them as though already done. And therefore the things, as though seen and set plainly before Him, He predestined at the time when He foreknew them, and determined to whom they should be conformed to the image of His Son, so that His Son might be the firstborn among many brothers; and those whom He predestined, these He also called; and those whom He called, these He also justified; and those whom He justified, these He also glorified (Rom. 8:29-30). Hence also the prophet says: The way of man is not in himself (Jer. 10:23). What do you think, you fragile, you fallen, wretched and mortal men—that if you do anything well you are to be praised, or that if you sin by theft you are altogether to be condemned? Since the law speaks for this reason, that it may strike fear; otherwise there is nothing except what God has willed.

Whom God wills to be holy, is holy; he cannot be otherwise. Whom he has foreknown to be wicked, will be wicked; he cannot be otherwise. For the predestination of God has already fixed both the number of the righteous and the number of sinners, and it must be that the appointed limit cannot be passed over. But he established this not as one who shows partiality to persons, but as one who foreknows all future things. For God fixed and established his predestination not by acceptance of persons, but by foreknowledge. Those whom he foreknew would in no way be converted, he predestined to death; those whom he foreknew would be converted in every way, he predestined to life. But I am amazed that testimonies of the Old Testament are brought forward against the authority of the New. For they are accustomed to seize upon the testimonies of the holy prophet Ezekiel, who says: Thus says the Lord: When I have said to the wicked man, You shall die the death; and he has turned from his wickedness, as I live, says the Lord, he shall live the life (Ezek. 18:21). This, as I have said, was written in the old law for the time of the captivity, for the cause by which that captivity came about, for the person of the people upon whom it was imposed, so that, placed in captivity, it might learn that for its own sins it had been subjected to the yoke of the king of Assyria. Certainly the captivity came about because of sin; and why did the righteous incur captivity together with the sinners, if not because the mysteries of God cannot be thoroughly known by our frailty? This mystery, therefore, was written in the old law.

But in the New Testament the Apostle cries out: Vessels of wrath fitted for destruction (Rom. 9:22). And therefore he recalls that it is written that God said through his foreknowledge: Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated (Rom. 9:13). For when they had not yet been born, nor had done anything good or evil (ibid., 11), it was said from foreknowledge that one was held in hatred and the other loved. These things have not been invented by us, nor do we say anything beyond what the Apostle proclaimed. He himself recalls that predestination was made by God's foreknowledge. Of God he himself says: Those whom he called, he predestined (Rom. 8:30). If you read in the Apostle one who foreknows, predestines, and calls, why do you lay a charge against us for saying that God predestined men, whether to righteousness or to sin, lest he should seem to himself to have made men as it were without providence—men who would do what he did not wish? For God remains invincible in his own will, while man is continually overcome. If, therefore, you confess that God is invincible, confess this also: that what he who created them willed them to be, they cannot be otherwise. From this we conclude in our mind that those whom God has once predestined to life, even if they are negligent, even if they sin, even if they are unwilling, will be brought to life against their will; but those whom he has predestined to death, even if they run, even if they hasten, labor in vain. Nor should you admit this without the teaching of a clear example.

Judas heard the word of life every day, every day he clung to the Lord, every day he was occupied with virtues, every day he heard the very Son of God as his monitor; and because he was predestined to death, in a single sudden stroke he perished. Saul was every day a persecutor, every day a stoner of Christians, every day a ravager of the Church; and because he was predestined to life, in a single sudden stroke he was made a vessel of election. Why then do you, who remain in sins, tremble? If God has deigned to regard you, you will be holy; or why are you, who live in holiness, made anxious, as if your own anxiety preserved you? If God has not willed it, you will never fall. Let both of you be secure concerning God. Are you, who are holy and anxious lest you fall, and who attend prayers day and night, are occupied with fastings, and diligently apply yourself to divine readings, devote yourself to exhortations, and every day press on in all holy pursuits—are you ever to be saved by this your own striving? Will you be holier than Judas, who received power to heal the sick, to drive out demons, to raise the dead, to tread upon serpents and scorpions, a colleague of the apostles, a disciple of Christ; and yet, because he was predestined to death, he found eternal death? Cease concerning yourself, O man, cease, I say, to be anxious about your own virtue, and be secure, trusting only in the will of God. For you will obtain nothing good from God against his will; but if God deigns that you remain in good, you will be saved.

You too, who are shaken in the sin of despair by empty things, learn from the apostle Paul: who was ever found to be his equal in crimes? Could you at any time have committed worse sins than he did? And yet, because he was predestined to the apostleship, he suddenly escaped all his crimes and ascended from the lower depths to the higher realms of the highest. Therefore all whom God knows to be worthy of the salvation of his redemption, these he has predestined to salvation; and he saves only those whom he knows he has predestined to salvation. For the salvation of God does not serve the will of such a man; for he himself knows to whom he does it. Nor does the freedom of human will precede the grace of God, but the grace of God precedes the will of human choice. For the will of man is vain and unfruitful, and the choice of human will is vain. He errs who thinks that through what he wills he comes to Christ as a good, since Christ himself says: No one comes to me unless the Father has drawn him (John 6:44). You who think better things, say from Christ—tell us if Christ is a liar—and only then assert that we have fixed this opinion against the rule of Christ. For if Christ spoke the truth, we do not lie in what we say: that the predestined are drawn to life, because he himself is life.

But if the force of the gospel's testimony weighs on you, you who come against our opinion, and, weighed down by the burden of that opinion, you cannot give us an answer, at least expound to us the apostle's definition, who says: It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy (Rom. 9:16). Therefore, however much the human will may stir up the strength of its zeal to build, it struggles in vain combat. Or why does man's frailty think that its vigilance will profit external desires, when the prophet cries out with evident proofs, saying: Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it have labored in vain. Unless the Lord guards the city, those who guard it have watched in vain (Ps. 126:1). What is it that, against the divine letters and against his own conscience, anyone hopes that he is devoted to building, when by these sacred letters he is taught that man's building is not certain but vain? But if you come against us, you do not come against us, but against him who said: Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it have labored in vain. Unless the Lord guards the city, those who guard it have watched in vain. Did he therefore not know that it was not useful for the people of God that these things be written and directed through posterity even to the end of the ages? You, therefore, who find fault with these things, take them away from the book of Psalms, because those who read and sing these verses, as you say, cannot be built up.

But what do these men think—that by their own will they can attain the fruit of edification, when not even the vessel of election himself claims that he could fulfill his own will? For the Apostle says of himself: For the good that I will, that I do not; but the evil that I will not, that I do. If, then, the Apostle cannot prevail to fulfill the good that he wills, how do these men say that by their own will they come to the fruit of grace? These are the Apostle's words; we add nothing of our own. He says of himself: For the good that I will, that I do not; but the evil that I will not, that I do. And you find fault with us because we say, None are called except the predestined? For the grace of God precedes the will of man. For God is first in what is good for man; but man, even if he be the best, is scarcely found last in every good. Give the first place to God, that you may empty out human pride. But if you wish to nourish pride in men, it is evident that you are seeking the ruin of the human race, because you teach that in a good work it is not God who comes first, but the will of men—so that they themselves seem rather to admonish God by their suggestions to do good, as though he would not do good unless they had told him, when it is certain that God bestows good things on all with no one suggesting, no one asking. For the Apostle does not say, When we asked, etc.; but, he says, When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God, not through our will, but through the death of his Son. Where, then, is the will of man? It is excluded. Why?

For not everyone who wills is himself saved; for if everyone who willed were saved, no one could be made a stranger to salvation. For every man wills to be saved, but not every man is saved; but he is saved whom God has willed—yes, I say, he whom God has willed, so that, with man's will excluded, He may manifest His own grace fully and entirely. But if God wills someone to be good, and he is not good, then man overcomes God. For he overcomes God if God wills him to be good and he is not good. Therefore God's will is also the effect in a man's goodness. For it was not when we were asking, nor when we were petitioning, but, as it says, While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son. But when you read that the death of His Son was for all, I wonder how you understand all, when you see that few scarcely attain to salvation. But wherever you read all, you wish all to be understood generally, although all is often taught in reference to a part. For when it is said: All have turned aside (Ps. 13:2), yet not all have turned aside; and Every man is a liar (Ps. 116:11), yet not every man is a liar, because we read of a certain one: He was a true man. And that passage: Lying men shall not be mindful of him; but true men are found in her (Sir. 15:8). Therefore the greatest part seems to signify all, although it is certainly agreed that all ought not to be understood.

And this I marvel at, that with closed eyes you pass by the snares of the enemy, you who say that the will of man can acquire something of virtue: not attending to how great ruins of chastity are wrought by the devil, and how great crimes of concupiscence, avarice, envy, and treachery are perpetrated daily. Which if you truly saw, we would not labor to show you the losses of virtues and the victories of vices. For if the freedom of the will were whole, these things would not happen. Therefore by the transgression of the first man, the freedom of the will perished from men. But you renew the Pelagian heresy again, when you say that through the freedom of the will men can put an end to sins. For you exclude grace through the freedom of the will. For either we are freed by free will, or we are rescued by the grace of God. Choose what you say. If you give everything to grace, we are of one mind; if to free will, know that we cannot agree with you. But whence is there in that one a greater freedom of the will for good, and in this one a lesser, unless because by God's dispensation they are reckoned so? For in one grace shows itself slender, in another abundant and lavish, according as grace itself wills, not according as we will, who have departed from the order of our making. To such an extent, finally, have we known the nature of man to be vitiated by the transgression of Adam, that it has obtained its restoration through Christ not in reality but in hope, as the Apostle says: We are saved by hope; but hope that is seen is not hope (Rom. 8:24).

If therefore we have been saved in hope, we have not yet received the thing itself in the present age. For this reason, indeed, even after baptism they desire again in a carnal manner and suffer those motions of the body, because it is in hope, not in reality, that they have obtained the help of restoration. For if they had obtained it in reality, after the grace of baptism there would be no possibility of sin, nor the will to sin. But because the power of baptism is so great that it wipes away all sins, yet the sprouting of sins is not washed away by the wave of baptism; for it is clearly taught that it is present naturally through Adam. For those members which at the hour of baptism are free from shame afterward receive shame, whereby they avoid being seen everywhere and seek privacy by means of what is shameful. For the members which God had made, transgression turned into shameful parts, and they are not called members but shameful parts. Those shameful parts at that moment of baptism become members, but soon again they are made shameful parts from members; for they have been restored not in reality but in hope. For the concupiscence of the flesh, which through the transgression of Adam reigns in the body like the law of sin, again claims the baptized person for itself and strives to overthrow his whole mind. For this is the root of that wound which Christ healed. But he healed it in such a way as the Apostle says: We have been saved in hope. And he commands us to transfer the mind to the contemplation of invisible things, and not to fall by presuming upon the things that are seen; and therefore he says: But hope that is seen is not hope.

Lest perhaps they should think that sins are so taken away through baptism that the very roots of sins are likewise torn out. For that motion of pollution which invaded nature through transgression remains in the baptized person like the root of a hair when it has been cleansed and shaved on the surface with a razor. For it has been shaved so that the place might be cleansed; it has not been uprooted, lest it grow again thereafter. For if the whole frailty of Adam's transgression were removed entirely through baptism, all the baptized would be drawn to crimes by no motion of heat, no one would be stained by human filth, no one would be pricked by the sting of concupiscence. But because we have been saved in hope, what we do not yet see we await through patience. The time has come in which they neither marry nor take wives, but are as the angels in the heavens (Matthew 22:30). For when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. Where is, O death, your contention? Where is, O death, your sting? But the sting of death is sin; yet the power of sin is the law (1 Corinthians 15:54-56). Then we shall say: Thanks be to God, who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (ibid., 57).

PROLOGUE OF THE FOLLOWING BOOK.

The book of the enemies of men has been finished, fabricated against the catholic faith; a deceitful book, surrounded by fallacies, a corrupter of the sound definition; and one which, as Saint Cyprian says, displays false things so as to steal in true ones. Published under the appearance of piety, it acts against the institutions of all the saints. For the sake of this book, as we have mentioned in the little preface, we have gathered the sects of all the heretics into one book, so that its defenders may know that we oppose all heresies; and that we use the agreement of none against them. Therefore, O holy mother Church, begetter of the pure faith, against your hidden enemies, against the new barbarians who feign a peaceful demeanor, against those who through you take up arms against you, exalt our strength, and aid those willing to enter the contest: especially against these, against whom as yet no one has fought by writing, since they have already wounded almost the whole world by their writings, under the name of the priest Augustine, by bringing forth corrupted books, and by giving various letters which they pretend to be those of the aforementioned bishop of Hippo. And you, all defenders of the catholic faith, we entreat with prayers, that, with every occupation shut out, you attend more intently to our battle: and having the future judge of your judgment before your eyes, defend thoroughly what must be defended, condemn thoroughly what must be condemned.

But the reason why, setting aside other corruptions, we have brought this book alone into the open is this: that they hand it down in the manner of a creed to those whom they have deceived. We therefore believed that it should be written out entirely, in order, lest those things which could easily be refuted seem to have been plucked out of their book, and those things craftily passed over which could have vindicated that same book from the injury of our accusation. We have therefore passed over nothing, but exposing its whole body in these writings, we bring forth against it the sword of the word of God, and cutting it into parts, we lay bare each and every one of its members to the eyes of catholics: showing what poisons it has in its head, what it twists in its mouth, what arrows it shoots from its breast; and through the individual functions of its members, proving the cunning of its hostility, and laying it captive at the feet of the catholic Church, we make it manifest to all: so that from this it may itself be its own condemner, since, deserting catholic doctrine, it has wished to violate its consent with the contagion of this book.

BOOK THREE,

containing the refutation of the preceding book, forged under the name of St. Augustine.

Up to this point the forests of all the heretics have been set ablaze, forests in which faith's riches were laid waste by brigand treachery, the Church suffered plunder, and the blood of souls was poured out. But since it is customary for thorns to sprout again after the burning, let us hold the sickle of divine judgment, so that we may cut off the thorns that grow back and rise against heaven. God providing, there will not be lacking laborers for this field, so that the blessed who are undefiled in the way, undefiled in faith, who walk in the law of the Lord (Ps. 118:1), may reach their destination without being hindered by brambles. The Predestinarians have made the ninetieth heresy, displaying false books which they fabricate as Augustine's, whose sayings are read in many places to be greatly contrary to these books. Therefore a true suspicion is given to Catholics that such wicked words cannot be those of an orthodox man, who, handing them over to the Mathematicians, say that the human race is so subject to divine predestinations that all the evils which are done in the world are said to be committed by the will of God. Therefore, lest human fear or shame make us partakers of them, we have examined the concerns of all the heretics, and we have found that no one could have erred worse than these who say that all evils and crimes are committed by the predestination of God.

Let all the heretics therefore have one book, in which we have condemned them not by power but by true reasoning, so that the Predestinati may know that we agree with no heretic. Let the Predestinati also have one book, in which God himself convicts them, who knows that he has predestined no one to evil, but has predestined all to good, so that we may approve as his own whatever is good. For all the good things that men do now, or have done from the beginning, or will do, we say are of God's grace, of God's mercy, of God's help, and are completed even by God's predestination. By that predestination, however, not by which God does violence to those unwilling to do good, but by which he himself never changes his purpose of goodness and is unceasingly ready for those willing good, but unprepared for those willing evil. Since indeed for those coming to good he at once bestows the reward of their faith, granting pardon of sins by conversion and making them sons of God; but for those going to evil he does not at once bring in the punishment they deserve, but grants them the pious truces of his waiting. This purpose of God we confess to be predestined and fixed. Therefore while evils are done, God has not withdrawn his purpose, but man has brought in his own contempt; nor was sin ever committed with God willing it, but it was committed with man neglecting the good. To such an extent did the human race sin with God unwilling, that he was always angry with those practicing sins and came to the aid of those doing justice.

Finally, when the whole world had turned aside from righteousness and deserved to perish in the shipwreck of the flood, God is shown to have willed that it be saved through his own rebuke. For what is it that the apostle Peter says? The patience of God waited for those who were unbelieving in the days of Noah, while the ark was being built (1 Pet. 3:20). Tell us, what was the patience of God waiting for? Was it a predestined perdition, or a provoked conversion? And so the building of the ark became the herald of the flood. The axe cried out, the hammer resounded, the saw testified; the very tools preached the flood to the unbelieving. And so, with a hundred years' reprieve granted, the law came first, which declared that those who were to perish could escape by repenting—a law that predestination did not hinder, which would deny that they could be saved by correcting themselves. For if predestination has fixed its own boundary limits, the law that wishes to invade another's boundaries is unjust. Therefore, in order to establish predestination, refute the commandments; grant the law a bill of divorce, so that you may bring in the kingdom of predestination; for the law always willed to command all and never to serve anyone. If, then, predestination breaks the empire of the law, and the law disturbs the rights of predestination, one of the two wields tyranny. Choose now, catholics, to whose neck we should submit. If to the law, let us deny that predestination excludes the law from its empire, because the law says: Keep my commandments, and you shall live; but predestination says: Vessels of wrath already fitted for destruction, and vessels of mercy which are called to life.

Both things are written: "Choose now what we should do." If there are already vessels of wrath fitted by God so that they sin, and vessels of mercy fitted for life so that they live, let us all abandon ourselves to the command of predestination and drive out the law together with its preachers. And lest perhaps you think this is a new sin, committed by some novel outrage, the whole crowd of sinners has done this from the beginning. For why was the crowd of prophets and apostles and all the saints killed, except for this reason: that by pressing the law of God upon human minds, they reproved vices in sinners? If they had wished to bring in the kingdom of predestination by the voice of flattery, with the law of justice shut out, no one would have been killed. For they used to say to them, as it is written: "Do not preach to us hard things" (Isa. 30:10). What is "Do not preach to us hard things"? This is undoubtedly: do not preach to us punishments through the threatening law. They say in reply: If the monitors of our time had heard them, they would have had to serve them in these words by flattering, and, as you do, to deceive them by the badly interpreted testimonies of the law.

Be secure concerning God's ordination, which he established by predestining. God has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens. For it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. The potter has power from the same lump of clay to make one vessel for honor, another for dishonor. The flesh is opposed to the spirit, and the spirit to the flesh. These are opposed to one another, so that you do not do the very things you will. God has already predestined those whom he foreknew; and those whom he predestined, he called; those whom he called, he justified; and those whom he justified, he magnified. His way is not in man. What do you think—that so many of you are to be praised for the good you do, when the law speaks for this very purpose, to strike fear? Otherwise there would be nothing except what God has willed: whom he has willed to be holy, is holy; there will be nothing else; whom he has foreknown to be unjust, is unjust; there will be nothing else. For the predestination of God has already fixed both the number of the just and the number of sinners; and it must be that the appointed limit cannot be passed by. If those whom you address had said these things, they would indeed have escaped the temporal wrath of men, but they would have found the eternal punishments of God. Therefore they did not say these things, but they said: Thus says the Lord: If you are willing and hear me, you shall eat the good things of the land; but if you are unwilling and do not hear me, the sword shall devour you. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things (Isa. 1:19–21).

And again: Thus says the Lord: Because you have withdrawn from me, I also will withdraw from you, and I will deliver you to the Assyrians for plunder; they will kill your sons before your eyes, and they will carry off your wives, because you have despised my law, and you have chosen the things that I did not will. And again: Thus says the Lord: Have I become a reproach to the house of Israel, because they have forsaken me and have counted my precepts and my statutes as nothing? And again: Because I called and you despised me, I also will laugh at your destruction, and I will rejoice when sudden calamity comes upon you (Proverbs 1:21-27). Saying these things and things like them, they were killed with various punishments. Hence the Lord also cries out to the people of the city in which the prophets had been killed, both in the prophets and in his Gospels, saying: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you, how often I willed to gather your children, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not (Matthew 23:37). You would not, he says, what I willed; you willed what I did not will. If, therefore, God did not will what they willed, either he established predestination under compulsion from some more powerful being; or if he himself established it, he has done them a wrong. For why does he say to a man: I willed this, which you did not will, if he knows that he predestined him not to will it?

According to your blasphemy, the guilt of man is excluded, and the calumny against God appears; and he who does wrong is proved innocent, and he who punishes is proved unjust. For one ought to grieve over the sinner rather than be angry with him, because he suffered violence from divine predestination when he rushed headlong into the precipices of crimes. For this is what the one who created willed; for the one who created, he himself predestined. But if this is so, it is evident that the fault belongs not at all to the one who sins. If, therefore, the one who sins has no fault at all of his own, and it is evident that all the things which he condemns are foreign to a just God, then whose act it is found to be, his sin will be found to be. For no reason allows that where one is the predestinator, the other should be said to be the transgressor; nor does the equity of the good and just accept this, that predestination should make its own crime another's. Therefore, in order that you may punish the sinner, show the one who predestines; give the author of predestination, so that you may be able to point out the judge of sin, because you cannot show the same one as both predestining and condemning. For if God is the author of predestination, and he himself is the establisher of our works, show another who punishes the predestined sins; or if, as if just, he condemns the unjust deeds of human work, show another predestinator of this injustice. For he whom a deed displeases could never have established that it be done. For it is exceedingly foolish if you confess that the same one is both the predestinator and the condemner of works.

For no one is so impious as he who shrinks from a thing preordained by himself, and punishes as done what he himself preordained to be done. Unless perhaps, with his mind turned to better things, by a change of counsel, he judges that what he did before ought to be condemned, and he who does this is driven by the teaching of something better. But he who stands in the virtue of omnipotence, and knows no equal, nor fears a superior—tell us, by what compulsion did he condemn his own predestination? For if the work of the predestined is guilty, much more is the ordination of the one predestining criminal. For if he who is predestined is guilty through that very predestination, how much more is he by whom the predestination was made called into fault? Beware, I beseech you, lest these tares of adulterous seed be sprinkled upon the chaste dogma of the Church: because sin is not directed by the one predestining, but is committed by the one sinning. Let the vain arguments of words therefore depart. The transgression of the sinner and the predestination of the avenger have nothing at all in common: because sin is in the will of the transgressor, but predestination is ordered in the virtue of the redeemer. For he who created did not predestine anything else, except that man might be able to live according to his will. For it is impious, it is excessively criminal, that the presumption of man should be believed to descend from the predestination of God, and the vice of the sinner should be reckoned the preordination of the future judge. At this point they meet us and say: By foreknowledge God established his predestination.

For those whom he foreknew would in no way be converted, he predestined to death; and those whom he foreknew would be converted in every way, he predestined to life. Let us now see whether you do not drag the judgment of God to a prejudice against justice by your iniquitous circumlocutions. So then, men are not yet created, and already they suffer prejudice from a just God? It seems to me that you have invented for yourselves another God, one so impious that he deceives the mass of the human race by a prejudice, and by reckoning the merits of a man not yet born establishes them, and binds him by the chain of his own predestination to sin; and for whom conception has not yet taken place, for him he already prepares eternal punishments; and to whom he has not yet given the fleeting gifts of this passing light, to him he already prepares the perpetual penalties of darkness. Seek for yourselves, as I said, another God of whom you may say these things. For you will never provoke this pious and merciful God of ours to such a point that, moved even by your blasphemies, he should do this to you as well. For he who patiently tolerates you, I do not know whom, when he sins, he will not spare. Daily he comes to our aid when we act unjustly, and to more recent sins he repeatedly grants ever more recent gifts of his indulgence; and you say: Already before the foundation of the world, being angry with us for future sins, he predestined the sentence. In the present he grants pardon to those who blaspheme him; and you say: Already then he was angry against those who would sin, and he predestined them to death, when he formed the first outlines of the human race.

So then he already carried out the judgment of the world at that time, before he established the world itself, so that now after the end of the age he may find no one left to punish. Perhaps he wished to spare himself the labor, and lest he fail to come to judge men after their deeds, he predestined them to death before they were created to life. And yet, if he himself created those whom he predestined to punishment, he has anticipated the merit of killing them; and the one who has not yet begun to live has already received the sentence of eternal death. Our God never did this; if your god is some other, he is the one to whom you direct these blasphemies. But of our God the prophet says: As I live, says the Lord, when I say to the sinner, You shall surely die, and the sinner turns away from his evil way and from his worst pursuits, as I live, says the Lord, he shall surely live, and he shall not die in the sin that he committed. And if I say to the righteous man, You shall surely live, and he turns back after this from his righteousness, as I live, says the Lord, he shall surely die: his righteous deeds shall not deliver him on the day when he turns away from righteousness and casts iniquity upon himself; in his iniquity he shall die. You see that our God warns the righteous man on both sides, lest through security he fall, and speaks to the sinner, lest through despair he fail to rise. If you have read anywhere concerning God: As I live, says the Lord, because the one whom I have predestined to life shall be no other, and the one whom I have predestined to death shall without doubt die—who could endure you teaching such things?

Behold, God speaks against your judgment, and you do not believe God himself when he gives testimony about himself. "Nor let the righteous be secure," he says, "if I say to him: You shall live the life, because if he departs from righteousness, he shall die in iniquity; and when I have said to the sinner: You shall die the death, and he has turned, I live, says the Lord, I will not remember his iniquities, he shall live the life. For I do not will the death of the dying man, only that he be converted and live." They meet us again, crying out: "This is written in the old law, but in the new the Apostle cries out: Vessels of wrath fitted for destruction" (Rom. 9:22). Therefore if before the coming of piety piety was already overflowing, how much more now, when piety itself has received the sentence of impiety on behalf of the impious, so as to absolve the impious from their guilt and recall them to the grace of pardon? Let us see, then, in what order the vessels of wrath are fitted for destruction. Hear the Apostle, applying this not to God's preordination but to man's negligence or diligence. "In a great house," he says, "there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; and some indeed are for honor, some however for dishonor. If anyone therefore has cleansed himself from these, he shall be a vessel sanctified for honor, useful to God, prepared for every good work" (2 Tim. 2:20-22).

Therefore the vessels fitted for wrath unto destruction, if they have cleansed themselves from those things for which they were fitted unto destruction, will be vessels sanctified unto honor, and useful to God, prepared for every good work; according to what he said above to the prophet: When I shall have said to the sinner, You shall die the death (Ezek. 33:14), that is, when I shall have said: You shall be a vessel fitted for things that perish—and if this sinner has turned himself from his iniquity, that is, when he who was a vessel fitted unto destruction has cleansed himself from those things, he shall be a vessel sanctified unto honor. After you have overcome them on this point, they flee to the more obscure places of the Scriptures, so as to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart.

II. Do you not know, they say, that it is written: Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated? For when they had not yet been known, nor had done anything good or evil, it was said from foreknowledge, so that the one might be held in hatred and the other loved. In this place it will be necessary for us to kindle the light of this little interpretation from the light of the sacred law, so that you may be exposed as fixing nothing else in the obscure places except that, walking simply, you may despoil the catholics of their garment of gold and clothe them in the rags of the heretics, full of filth. In the book of Genesis it was said concerning Rebecca: Two nations and two peoples shall come forth from your womb, and the people shall overcome the people, and the greater shall serve the lesser (Gen. 25:23).

The prophecy, therefore, is not about those who were born according to the flesh, but about the two peoples, of the Jews and of the Gentiles: in which the greater people of the Jews will serve the lesser, that is, of the Gentiles. For so also the Apostle continues: It was said, he says, by the Foreknowing One, that the greater will serve the lesser (Rom. 9:12). Why did you say this, O blessed Paul the apostle? I ask that you answer. Was it for this reason that you said it, that predestination might bring prejudice to those who are to be born? The Apostle answers thus: I said for this reason, The greater will serve the lesser, that the election from the Gentiles might be made. Therefore, if the Apostle interprets for us the mystery of this prophecy, who are you who expound this meaning otherwise than the true Master explained it to us, since it was said by him that if an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel other than what we preached to you, let him be anathema (Gal. 1:8)?

III. At this point, with the contest renewed, they object, saying: We do not say anything other than what the Apostle preached. He himself mentions that predestination was made through the foreknowledge of God; he himself says of God: Those whom he called, he predestined (Rom. 8:30). If you read in the Apostle one who foreknows and predestines and calls, why do you charge us with a crime? We do not charge you with a crime, but we prove it.

For if you call yourselves learned, we argue that you ought not thus to cut up the apostolic meanings; or if you prove yourselves unlearned, we rebuke you that, not knowing, you ought not to presume, and to promise the teaching of a matter of which you have never wished to be disciples. For you, if you had wished first to learn and so to teach, fleeing from these interpretations, you would never have departed from God's equity, nor would you say that he does not will all men to be saved. But the Apostle—our teacher of the law—says that he became all things to all men, that he might gain all sinners (I Cor. 9:22). For he had already learned that God has shut up all things in unbelief, and wills to have mercy on all (Rom. 11:32). He had learned that every mouth ought to be stopped, and that all the world ought to become subject to God (Rom. 3:19), and therefore he said: But I say, through the grace that has been given to me, to all who are among you (Rom. 12:3). And again: Reproving every man, and teaching (Col. 1:28). And again: The same God is rich in all of you (Rom. 10:12). And again: The grace of God has appeared to all men, instructing and teaching us (Tit. 2), that every man may be perfect in Christ (II Tim. 3:17). And because he knew that the Son of God was born for all, suffered for all, he therefore cries out, saying: This is pleasing before God our Savior, who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (I Tim. 2:3).

Hence also daily in His Gospels the Lord Himself cries out to us, saying: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest (Matt. 11:28). Hence, to teach that He repels no man from His bounty—prompt, generous, abundant, never doing less—He speaks in His Gospels, saying: Everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened (Matt. 7:8). For even the Scripture of the Old Testament, inviting all nations to hear, said: Hear these things, all you who dwell in the world, you who are earth-born and sons of men, together in one, rich and poor (Ps. 48:2–3). And therefore the same Apostle, seeing that God wills all men, yet not all men will God, recalling the future judgment, cries out, saying: We must all be made manifest before the tribunal of Christ, that each one may receive what is proper to his body, according as he has done, whether good or evil (2 Cor. 5:10). Hence also the apostle Peter says: The grace of God is upon all, and in all of you. All the prophets call, all the apostles call, all call Christ; throughout the whole world innumerable priests of God call their sheep to the grace and mercy of God and to forgiveness.

Only two or three little men, having a blind heart, go forth with these apostate books, which, pretending that they are the work of catholic men, wound the whole world; introducing a new kind of blasphemy through them, they say that God does not will all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth; and, having suffered the obscurity of one passage, they wish to bring the darkness of their own blindness against so great a light and so immense a splendor. But because the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it (John 1:5), with the Lord's help, receiving from His treasures, we have explained the passage which they think lends a hand to their heresy. Let us now speak also of foreknowledge and of predestination. God foreknew and foretold that in the seed of Abraham, that is, in Christ, all nations would be blessed. While this was happening, the Jews took it rather badly. For this reason they seized the apostles and kept them in custody, saying to them: We forewarned you not to preach this name; but you have filled all things with your doctrine (Acts 5:28). But the apostle Paul, seeing that the Jews were failing in this, that the nations were entering into the faith and were excluding the Jews from the privilege of the Synagogue through the privilege of the Church, addresses them so that they may not be grieved, saying (1 Thess. 2:16): Why now do you forbid us to speak to the nations so that they may be saved, when you know that God said to Abraham, that in your seed I will give all nations as an inheritance (Gen. 22:8; Acts 3:25)?