The Book of Heresies

The first are the Ophites, who are called the Serpentines; these venerate the serpent, saying that he first brought us the beginning of the knowledge of good and evil. Hence they also assert that the Lord was envious, because he first brought knowledge of good and evil to the woman, and through her it spread to the whole race of men; on account of which, they say, he was first cast down from one heaven to another, whence they also say he will come from heaven, and they esteem him to be a certain power of God, and proclaim that he is to be adored.

The Caianites, who praise Cain the fratricide, the firstborn of our father and the blessed Adam the first-formed, saying that Cain was made from one power, that is, of the devil, while the most blessed Abel was born from another power, and that the greater power which was in Cain prevailed so that he killed his brother.

The heresy of the Sethians, which venerates Seth the son of Adam, afterwards begotten and called by this name, because he was born after the killing of the most blessed Abel, from which they are also called Sethians, worshipping him and saying that when two human beings were created in the beginning, and the Angels were set in dissension, a feminine power prevailed in heaven; for among them male and female gods and goddesses are supposed to exist. Perceiving this, they say, the mother, because the just Abel had been slain, resolved to bring forth the just Seth, in whom she also placed a spirit of great power, so that the hostile powers might be destroyed. From Seth himself they say that Christ the Lord derives his lineage. But some among them assert and suppose not only that he derives his lineage from him, but that Christ himself is Seth.

A certain Dositheus, a Jew by race, afterwards dared to say that one must live according to the flesh alone in the Law of the Lord, and hoping for no resurrection to come from it, believing in neither the Spirit of God nor an Angel, and expecting no future judgment from the Law and the Prophets.

The Sadducees after him, from a Jewish man named Saddoc, who was called by this name, who was a disciple of that man, who also confirmed this heresy, so that from him they were called Sadducees: they likewise preach that one must live according to the flesh alone, that one must be circumcised, and that the body must be baptized. But from the divine Law they expect nothing else, following rather the madness of Epicurus than the ordinances of the divine Law. Concerning whom it is also written in the Gospel, where the Lord teaches and preaches against this pestilential heresy.

Another is that of the Pharisees, which confesses the future resurrection, accepts the Law and the Prophets, but awaits Christ as a just man. These Judaize and do not accept the Gospels, and assert that certain times are contrary to Christ our Lord.

The Samaritans were thus named from King Samarius. But others say they were named from the son of Canaan, who was called Samarius by this name, from whom the Samaritans were called. These accept the Law of Moses, that is, four books only, not awaiting a future judgment, denying the resurrection, not believing in Christ the Lord, the Son of God, announced beforehand in the Law and the Prophets: not holding that man has an immortal soul according to the Law; but thinking that one must live only in this body, and esteeming the future resurrection to be the begetting of children, which takes place daily in this age, and proclaiming this vanity; truly compared to senseless cattle, as it is written in the Prophet: Man placed in honour did not understand; he was compared to senseless cattle, and became like them.

The heresy of the Nazarenes is one which accepts the Law and the Prophets, yet affirms that one must live carnally, and supposes that all justification consists in carnal observance. They also let the hair of their head grow, thinking that all the power of righteousness consists in this, as though presuming this judgment for themselves from that Samson, because they were called Nazarenes, from whose figure the pagans afterwards, borrowing the name for strong men, called them Hercules.

The Essenes, moreover, are those who practise the life of monks, not taking delicate foods, nor caring about clothing, nor possessing anything; but devoting themselves to reading and good works, dwelling also in separate places. But they do not await Christ the Lord, the Son of God, nor do they acknowledge him as Lord announced in the Law and the Prophets, but believing him to be only a Prophet or a just man, they await him.

The Heliognostics, who are also called Devictiael, adoring the sun and saying that the sun knows all things that belong to God; that it is the sun alone that enlightens men, and that the sun provides all nourishment for them: not knowing that, placed in servitude, it traverses its course daily established by God the Father through Christ the Lord in the Holy Spirit, concerning which it is written: Who commands the sun to rise, and it rises, and not to rise, and it does not rise. That vain pagan Hermes Trismegistus taught that, after the almighty Lord, men ought to adore none other than the sun itself: who, when he had gone to the province of the Celts, is known to have taught them this, and to have persuaded them to submit to this error. The Jews in captivity adored this sun, as the prophet Ezekiel, rebuking and condemning those same Jews, declares and argues the crime of majesty more sharply and attests it, as it is written.

There are others who worship frogs, which in the time of Pharaoh the land of Egypt brought forth through the wrath of God at that time, to weary the Egyptians with their stench, and they persist still in that wickedness, thinking that the wrath of God can be appeased by this observance.

The Musoritae are certain people by name, who worship mice; when, also under the priest Eli, the Ark of the Covenant had been captured by the Allophylians, and the earth had brought forth mice through the wrath of God, so that their crops perished, they were warned and made golden mice, and sent them back together with the ark and five golden seats, and immediately the plague ceased among them. And so these people, accepting the Law and the Prophets, do not recognize that this is a vain and abominable thing, which is despised by all and ridiculed in every way.

There are others who worship the Fly of Accaron in the city so called, as it is written in the book of Kings: just as Ochozias king of the Jews, being sick, had sent to the Fly in the city of Accaron, to learn whether he could be healed of his bodily illness; on account of which the blessed Elias, a prophet angered with divine zeal, because the king of the Jews had preferred not to hope for health from God but rather from the Fly and the city of Accaron, the blessed prophet, angered at this, immediately pronounced by the divine Spirit that he would not escape but would die in his bed.

The Troglodytes, so called among the Jews, who dwelling in hidden caves did not cease to worship idols, as the prophet Ezekiel says, when the Lord showed how the Elders of the people, hiding in secret caves and holding censers, were sacrificing to idols and adoring them with blind minds.

There is another heresy among the Jews, which names the Queen whom they also call the Fortune of Heaven, and whom they also call the Celestial in Africa, and they did not hesitate to offer sacrifices to her; so that even the Jews at that time said openly to the prophet Jeremiah, when he warned them to withdraw from idols and to serve the Lord and that they ought to adore him alone, they cried out in anger, saying that from the time they ceased to sacrifice to the Fortune of Heaven or the Queen, from that time all evils and dangers had befallen them. On account of which the blessed Jeremiah, departing from the people and from their city, had written his Lamentations in a book on account of their impiety, and announced that ruin would come upon them and upon the City not long after.

There are also Baalites among them, who, keeping in memory the name of Baal, king of the Tyrians, and adoring his idol, sacrificed to him, as is contained in the book of Kings, when Achab king of the Israelites and his wife Jezabel did not cease to sacrifice to that idol. In this matter the blessed prophet Elias, led by divine zeal, sent by the Lord, spoke to them under the name of Judaism—to those who confessed the Law but perniciously served pagan impiety—and said thus to all the people: Why do you halt on both your knees? Either God, God: or Baal, Baal. And nonetheless the king and queen, favouring the priests of the groves, perished by various punishments and torments. The people also, not withdrawing from idols, perished by repeated captivities.

There are others who venerated Astar the man and Chamos the abomination of the Canaanites and Sidonians, that is, idols of men and women, and offered various sacrifices to them, on account of which captivity came upon those kings and the people at that time, by the Lord's permission, repeatedly, as is contained in the books of Kings. Apart from the blessed king David, and the holy Ezechias, and Josias, and Jesus the son of Nave, all the others permitted the peoples to sacrifice to idols, and frequently along with their own destruction they also venerated them, not destroying them but rather hastening to become promoters of their impiety, as the other, as the books of Kings attest.

There is another heresy among the Jews, concerning which the Lord, prophesying, rebuked them, and concerning which the blessed martyr Stephen reproved them, saying: Did you offer me slaughters and sacrifices in the desert for forty years, O house of Israel, says the Lord almighty, and now you have taken up the tabernacle of your Moloch and the star of your god Remphan, the forms of your fashioned sculptured idols (from)? On account of which the Lord says, I will make you be carried away captive into Babylon, and into the inner regions of the Persians and other dry places, and into the uttermost parts of all the earth.

There are also those who, setting up an altar called by that name, Tophet, from the name of someone, in the valley of the son of Ennon; there the Jews sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons. Concerning whom the Lord says through the prophet Ezekiel: Behold, son of man, see what the people of Israel are doing; this people sacrifices its sons and daughters to demons in the valley of Tophet, which I did not command them to do, this iniquity in the people of Israel.

The Puteoritae are those who worship wells, digging deep into the ground and drawing from them, as though hoping for some water of salvation in them, when the Lord says through the Prophet in warning: They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves broken cisterns, which cannot hold saving water. What therefore he had said before through the Prophet, he was fulfilling in his own divine presence, saying: Whosoever drinketh of this earthly water shall thirst again; but of the water that I shall give him, if he drink, he shall not thirst for ever, but it shall be in him a well springing up into eternal life. For the grace of Christian baptism was indeed granted by the Lord Saviour as salvation for the human race.

There is also a heresy among the Jews, which sacrificed to the serpent, and celebrated the same impiety up to the time of Ezechias, king of the Jews. For the people of the Jews sacrificed, as recorded in the Books of Kings, up to Ezechias, to the bronze serpent which Moses had been commanded to make at the departure of Israel from Egypt: when the murmuring Jews were being bitten by serpents and perishing wickedly, the Lord commanded Moses to make a bronze serpent and to hang it in the midst of the people upon a piece of wood, and those who looked upon it were saved from the plagues and various wounds.

To that bronze serpent, therefore, the people of the Jews sacrificed up to King Ezechias, also making images in a great stone like an obelisk, which was placed in the temple as a column, and in it carvings and impressions made by human hands, so that the Jews, engraving certain letters as well, and taking up and placing various formulas on a plate, carried them on their necks: also teaching incantations and having them as it were as phylacteries, or rather practising evil arts, they venerated these same things and from them carried their bindings and protections, and carry them on their breast, which the Lord had everywhere in the Law forbidden to be done, because this was the impiety of pagan blindness.

Therefore the most blessed King Ezechias commanded these impressions and carvings to be destroyed, and to be scraped away entirely with iron, and cut out; he also commanded the bronze serpent to be taken down and broken, for which reason he deservedly was freed by the Lord from the great siege of the Persians and Assyrians, who had come at that time to take captive the people of the Jews and their city, so that on that night in which King Ezechias feared the Barbarians, the Angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and struck down a hundred and eighty-five thousand of the foreigners besieging the city in the silent night, and showed all the men lifeless and dead in the morning to the king and to all the people of the Jews.

There is another heresy, as the prophet Ezechiel, by God's command, observed: seventy elder men of the Jews standing beneath the earth in a cave, holding censers, and sacrificing to various carved images of forms, and adoring the same.

There is also another heresy of the Jews, which the prophet is compelled by God's command to observe beneath a cave: women sitting and mourning one Thamus by name, who was the son of a king of the nations, whose image the Jewish women were adoring with weeping, and, cultivating the impiety of the pagans, they did not cease to offer sacrifices to him. For that Pharaoh was called Thamus, the king of the Egyptians, who presided over the Egyptians under the blessed Moses at that time.

There is another heresy among the Jews, who, venerating the idols of many men as it were, and of many women, in the hidden caves of the Baalites, did not cease to offer sacrifices to the same, Scripture saying that the number was as of women and of many. Now this derived from Belus the king, who held the East under his powerful rule for a long time, and from his wife and sons and daughters, so born of their parents, it showed that all their progeny had proceeded from them, so that from them they were called Baalites. For just as there is the race of the Gracchi, or of the Anitii and others, so from their parents all that multitude emerged as a progeny, so that from one name the impious generation was called Belitae.

And so when he died and was placed in a tomb, and their progeny was likewise buried in that place, he deserved to be named by this name by his own people and by posterity, so that they were called Belitae from their ancient generation. Belus moreover, whether from his own name, or from the strength of war, because he overcame many at that time, obtained this name or surname, and on this account the people of the Jews, by following the impiety of the pagans, is accused by divine Scripture, because sacrificing to them, that is to Kings and their sons and all their kindred, they were handed over to various captivities in consequence.

There is another heresy among the Jews, who assert that the idol Baal received its name from Balaam the false prophet, who had come from Mesopotamia against the most blessed Moses, because Balac, king of the Moabites at that time, had asked him to go to him and curse the people of the Jews: and because, as he was previously called a prophet in the Scriptures, yet having despised the commandment of the Lord, he afterwards descended to the ruin of a false prophet, plotting against the people of God, the Jews, like pagans, making an idol of him under this name, did not cease to worship it.

There is another heresy concerning the Pythonissa, whereby covering a woman with garments, they hoped to be able to obtain certain answers from her: whence also they say that that Pythonissa raised the soul of the blessed Samuel from the underworld; and from this a very great number of people today suppose it can chiefly be believed that men, and whatever the most blessed Prophet had said to King Saul while still living, those same things, even in their execution, as if they were again responses of God, are known to have been spoken truly: and since very many prefer to acquiesce in this lie, they descend into eternal ruin, since the Prophet says: The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and death shall not touch them. How then could an impious soul raise up a holy and righteous soul, and especially a Prophet, from the underworld?

But because they do not know that souls departing from faith in Christ the Lord make themselves already given over to impiety, and subject themselves to it with all their effort: because every man is of his own free will to choose what he wishes to do, God permitting it. But because he has departed from the Lord, so that an unclean spirit might now have dominion over him. To those who are doubtful and wavering in the divine law, what the blessed Elias said: either God, God: or Baal, Baal. For he who cleaves to Christ is one body, and he who cleaves to an unclean spirit is one consent.

And Achab, king of the Jews, when he believed Sedecias and other false prophets, and despised Micheas, the true prophet of the Lord, the Lord questions the unclean spirit, still granted to the king by Christ the Lord in place of goodness for some time, so that if he were willing to believe the true Prophet, he might avoid the storm of danger: if he were unwilling, and rather believed the false prophets, he would without doubt perish. For thus the Lord questions the unclean spirit, saying: Who will seduce King Achab of the Israelites, that he may go into battle and be slain? And behold an unclean spirit came forward saying: I will go and do it. And the Lord said to the unclean spirit, how will you do this? And the unclean spirit said to the Lord: I will make myself as an angel of light and will speak similar words, and will lead him into battle, and there I will abandon him, and so he will die.

And the Lord said to him: Go, so shall you do. And therefore the Apostle also says: It is no great thing if Satan also transforms himself as an angel of light, since his own servants transform themselves. And so they deceive many by sight, word, or persuasion of no other thing, but indeed by a sight as if plausible, so that when men wish to believe and cleave to words as if similar, and to visions as if good and not evil in time, they incur the inevitable sentence of eternal death, and after the departure from the body are utterly destroyed by various punishments and torments. Which danger also came upon the King of the Jews at that time, because he had preferred to believe false rather than true prophets of God.

There is a heresy among the Jews, who, worshipping Astar and Astaroth after the death of Moses and the succession of Jesus son of Nave, were handed over to captivity among the Gentiles: for both Astar and Astaroth were worshipped as men and women, and their figures, which were the names of kings of the Syrians and Egyptians, whose sons and daughters, when they were worshipped by their own peoples, and afterwards temples were made for them, and after their deaths their progeny was buried in the same place, offerings were made to them with sacrifices likewise under the name of gods and goddesses. For there are Astartia in Syria and elsewhere, various and very many, and all this impiety blazed forth at that time from the race of the Canaanites, which race Moses was commanded by the Lord to root out together with all his people.

Others are Herodians, so called from Herod, king of the Jews: these confess the Resurrection, receive the Law and the Prophets, but await Herod the King of the Jews, struck down by an Angel, hoping for him as the Christ.

After the passion of Christ our Lord, and his ascension into heaven, there was a certain Simon, a Magus by race, a Samaritan from a village which is called Gittheus, who, devoting himself to magical arts, deceived many, saying that he was certain power of God which was above all powers. Him the Samaritans venerate as a Father, and perniciously extol as the founder of their heresy, and strive to set him before many with praises. He was baptized by the blessed Apostles, but departed from their faith, and sowed a wicked and pernicious heresy, saying that he had been transformed in appearance only, that is as a shadow, and that he had thus suffered, when, he says, he did not suffer. He also dared to say that the world was made by angels: but that the angels were made by certain intelligences endowed from heaven, and that these had deceived the human race.

He asserts moreover that there is a certain other Intelligence which descended into the world for the salvation of men, that Helen, he says, who is reported in the Trojan war by the most vain poets. And the powers, he says, which had made the world, led by desire for that Helen, stirred up strife: for she giving, he says, desire to those powers; and appearing in the form of a woman, she could not ascend into heaven; because the powers that were in heaven did not permit her to ascend: but she was awaiting another power, that is the presence of Simon the Magus himself, which would come and save her.

He also asserts by allegory the wooden horse, which the most vain poets say was in the Trojan war, that that contrivance was the ignorance of all the impious nations, since it is established that that Helen who was with the Magus was a prostitute from Tyre, and that this same Simon the Magus had followed her, and with her had committed various acts of magic and various crimes. When he was fleeing from the blessed Apostle Peter from the city of Jerusalem, and came to Rome, and there fought with the blessed Apostle before Nero the king, he was defeated on all sides by the prayer of the blessed Apostle, and struck down by an angel, and so deserved to perish, so that the manifest falsehood of his magic was made plain to all men.

After him one Menander by name, who became his disciple, followed his impiety in all things.

A certain Saturninus, shortly thereafter, himself also taking from that source the kindling of deadly doctrine, asserted and said that the world was made by angels, and that the angels are distant from that power, and that the world is divided by order among the angels, and that they conceived the idea of making man. And so they made man, and man, he says, was their work; for from the power above, they say, a light was sent down which illuminated this world and brought the angels to desire, and straightway ascended into heaven. But they, having become desirous of that light, longed to see its power; being unable, however, they said to one another: Let us make man according to our image and likeness. And when man was made, because he was powerless, he could not be saved. The power above, therefore, seeing that they had done this, sent a spark which corrected man and raised him up and caused him indeed to live.

This spark, then, they hold must be saved, but the rest they suppose is given over and abandoned to those powers which made it; and they affirm that Christ appeared as a shadow, that he did not take on true human flesh and soul, and that he thus fulfilled the entire economy of the mystery of the Saviour.

Basilides, who is also called a Heresiarch by many, because by setting forth and speaking from the Law and the Prophets and the Apostles, yet thinking otherwise, he violated the rights of Christian truth. When he had come into Egypt, he taught, beguiling in this manner: that from the unbegotten and sole God, intellect was born; from intellect, the word; from the word, sense; from sense, however, and power, wisdom; from power and wisdom, principalities and powers, and various angels were made. These angels themselves made, he says, a heaven; after them other angels made a heaven; and so others brought forth from others made a third heaven; and others in order, he says, made three hundred and sixty-five heavens; and he assigns angelic names to those powers, and he himself, being likewise devoted to magic arts, deceived many ignorant persons. He asserts that man was made by angels.

He even dares to call the true almighty Lord an angel, and to say that he received the people of the Jews as an inheritance, and led them out from the land of Egypt. This one, therefore, growing bolder, was lifted up, he says, against the other angels, and wishing to hold others in subjection, had opposing nations, which the Powers hostile to him stirred up. Therefore also against the Jews, he says, diverse nations arose. He says that Christ suffered as if by a shadow, putatively. He also affirms that Simon of Cyrene came to the Passion in his place; for he himself, he says, carried his cross.

This man also wickedly permits men to live, and gives license to cling to worldly vices; he also forbids men to suffer martyrdom for the name of Christ, saying thus: You do not know what you desire; for Christ did not suffer, he says, nor was he crucified; how then can you, he says, confess this one as crucified, since he was not crucified, and you do not know who it was that suffered.

Let us see by what madness Nicholas the Antiochene, a stranger, was deceived, who was among the Apostles and was chosen by them as the seventh Deacon, as is written in the Acts of the Apostles. And afterwards, departing from them and from sound doctrine, he was ruined by various errors and deceits. He was first with the Apostles and with the most blessed martyr Stephen; he himself also says that there are many Powers, whence also the Gnostics, who think they know something, chiefly arose. These venerate Barbelo, and a certain woman called Noria. But others among them venerate one Jaldabaoth, and others a man called Caulacau. And they also set forth these doctrines. Before, there were only darkness and the deep and water, and a division of the earth was made in the midst, and the spirit separated these elements. Then, therefore, the darkness rushing upon the spirit begot four Aeons, and these four begot four other Aeons. This, they say, is the right and left light.

And they say that a certain one also lay with that woman and power, from whom gods were born, and men, and angels, and seven spirits of demons. They add also that certain prophets were born of her, with a fair-sounding name, and Barcaban. But others assert that they see the Gospel of Consummation, and vain visions full of deceit, and various dreams, raving.

But others established a heresy from Judas the traitor, saying that Judas did a good work in betraying the Saviour. For he, they say, was the author of all good knowledge for us, through whom heavenly mysteries were made manifest to us. For since the Powers in Heaven were unwilling that Christ should suffer, and knew that if he suffered he would grant life to men: Judas, knowing this, he says, that if Christ suffered he would bring salvation to men, therefore betrayed the Saviour. Now this evil of impious assertion seems to some vain and foolish persons to be plausible at times, though it is in all respects contrary and execrable, since the prophet David beforehand, and the Lord Saviour condemned him, and the blessed Apostles confirmed the sentence of the Lord against him by their teaching.

After him one named Carpocras arose, himself also saying there is One Principle, from which Principle, that is, from God, emanations of Angels and Powers were made; but those Powers which are below made this visible creation where we dwell. He says that Christ was not born of the Virgin Mary and the divine Spirit, but supposes that he was born as a man from the seed of Joseph, and suspects that he was born of him carnally, just as all men are. Who after the Passion, he says, was found better among the Jews in integrity of life and conduct, whose soul he proclaims was received into heaven; but he reckons that the flesh was left behind on earth, and holds that only the soul is saved, but that the salvation of the flesh of man does not occur.

Cerinthus succeeded to his error and likeness of vanity, teaching likewise concerning the generation of the Saviour and concerning the creation of angels, differing from him in nothing, except that only in part he agrees with the Law that it was given by God, and reckons that the Lord of the Jews himself is the one who gave the Law to the children of Israel. He teaches circumcision and sabbath-keeping, and announces that Christ has not yet risen from the dead, but will rise. He does not accept the Apostle Paul, he honors Judas the traitor, he accepts only the Gospel according to Matthew, he spurns the three Gospels, he rejects the Acts of the Apostles, he blasphemes the blessed Martyrs.

Under the Apostles he stirred up a controversy about sedition, saying that men ought to be circumcised, on account of which the Apostles in their Acts decreed a sentence against him and his heresy, that men coming from the gentiles who believed in Christ our Lord and Saviour ought no longer to obey Judaism, that is, circumcision and other such things of vain superstition pertaining to the flesh.

Ebion, a disciple of Cerinthus, erring similarly to him in many things, supposed that our Saviour was a man born carnally of Joseph, and taught that there was nothing of divinity in him, but asserted that just as all the prophets, so also he had the grace of God, yet did not believe that he was the Lord of majesty and the Son of God the Father, co-eternal with the Father; whereas the divine Scriptures everywhere bear witness and proclaim the Lord to be eternal, and equally co-eternal with the Father who is likewise eternal.

After him a certain Valentinus arose, more a Pythagorean than a Christian, belching forth a certain vain and pernicious doctrine, and proclaiming it as if it were arithmetic, that is, a new deceit of numerousness, and he took captive the souls of many ignorant persons. And at first indeed he was in the Church; but afterwards, growing more arrogant, he was deceived by no small error; and dwelling in the province of Cyprus, he began to define this. There was nothing else before, he says, in the world, except the Deep of the sea and Silence, which the poets assert is chaos; and from this Deep and Silence he teaches that Intellect and Truth proceeded, and from Intellect and Truth, the Word and Life; from the Word and Life, Man and the Church; and from Man and the Church there proceeded twelve Aeons, that is, Ages; and from the Word and Life ten Aeons proceeded; from Intellect and Truth, eight Aeons; and this is the τριακοντάς of Ages, that is, thirty Aeons.

He raves that the thirty Aeons consist of the ogdoad and the decade and the duodecade. He says that Christ was sent by the Father, whom he calls by the name of the Deep, for the salvation of the whole world, and that he brought flesh down from heaven, but received nothing from the holy Virgin, but as water through a channel, so he passed through her, he affirms. Therefore he holds that only the soul is saved, but that the body of man is not saved.

There are others who are his successors: Ptolemy, who introduced an equally vain doctrine, saying that there are four Aeons, and four others; wishing to determine something new in his false invention, beyond what his teacher Valentinus fabricated.

After him a certain one named Secundus, likewise teaching that Aeons were made, asserts however that they are infinite. He supposes that Christ appeared as if by a phantasm, that is, as a shadow to the human race, and that he did not have true human flesh.

After him Heracleon, his disciple, arose, saying: there is One Principle, whom he calls Lord; then from this one another was born; and from these two he asserts the generation of many Principles, raving together with his teachers.

But a certain Marcus after him, his successor, making number and measure and calculation, and also a reckoning of letters, as if a plausible inventor of something new, since he thought he could be praised by some, fell likewise into no small madness of error; for he says thus: there are twenty-four letters, which hold the perfection of all things. For which reason also Christ, he says, said: I am Alpha and Omega. He also said that in the last time Christ descended to Jesus in the form and likeness of a dove; and he taught that Christ himself was the dove which descended, he says, to the twelve Aeons, that is, to the twelve Apostles, and he supposed that one of them fell, that is, Judas. He says that Christ appeared putatively, and suffered as if by a shadow, yet he does not hold that he truly suffered in body.

After him Colorbasus similarly asserted that the life of all men and their generation consist in letters and in the number of the elements and of the seven stars, not in the majesty and power of Christ, nor did he perceive that true salvation of men is to be hoped for in his bodily presence.

But a certain Cerdon arose after these, preaching worse than his teachers, who when he had come to Rome from Syria, dared to say that there are two Principles, that is, one good God and one evil; and that the good God does good things and the evil one evil things. He asserts that Jesus the Saviour was not born of a Virgin, nor appeared in flesh, nor descended from heaven, but was seen putatively by men, who was not truly seen, he says, but was a shadow; whence also he was thought by some to suffer, yet he did not truly suffer.

Marcion, however, his disciple, a Pontic by birth, from the city of Sinope, came to the city of Rome, and dwelling there sowed his wicked heresy, and questioning the holy presbyters of the catholic Church, was offering them the deadly error of his own mind, saying thus: What is it that is written in the Gospel, where the Lord says: No one puts a new patch on an old garment, nor new wine into old wineskins, otherwise the wineskins will burst and the wine will be spilled? And again: A good tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can an evil tree bear good fruit. And receiving an interpretation of this from the holy presbyters, he did not acquiesce in the truth, but rather confirmed the falsehood of his teacher Cerdo, and like him likewise proclaiming one God good and one evil; but he believed that Christ had appeared in a phantasmal manner, that is, as if by a shadow, and that he had suffered in a shadowy way, not however in true flesh.

He accepts only the Gospel according to Luke, not the Gospels, nor the Epistles of the apostle Paul, except those to Timothy and Titus: those passages which speak of Christ as of the true God he passes over; but those passages of the Scriptures which speak of him as it were of a man, those chapters he accepts, and he does not confess that Christ is the judge of all. He, having been overcome and driven out by the blessed John the Evangelist and by the presbyters from the city of Ephesus, was sowing this heresy at Rome.

A certain Lucanus after him, establishing and decreeing things similar to Marcion, as that teacher Marcion himself, has lied in all things.

Apelles was his disciple, preaching things similar to Marcion in certain respects, who, when asked by some in what manner he held the faith, replied: I have no need to learn from Marcion so as to assert two coeternal Principles: for I proclaim One Principle, whom I acknowledge as God, who God made angels, and also made another Power, whom I know to be a second God, who is also the Power of God, which made him. But this God who made the world is not, he says, good, as he who made him; or he is subject to that God by whom this one was also made, and he obeys his nod and command and precepts in all things: of whom the Arians are now companions and supporters, so preaching and thinking. He says moreover that Christ appeared in the flesh, yet not as Valentinus held that he took flesh from heaven.

He also says that after the Passion it was not the flesh that rose, but that from the four elements which he had taken from the world, and had released them into the earth, he himself ascended into heaven without flesh, as he asserts. Under the Apostles, therefore, these were the heresies in order.

After the persecution of Decius there was a certain Tatianus, a disciple of the holy martyr Justin, who departed from the truth after the passion of that man: and he despised in all things the teaching of so great and so blessed a martyr and master, saying that certain Aeons had been brought forth from heaven. Adding also this: that Adam our father the protoplast is not saved; and proclaiming Aeons as Marcion raved. He also execrates the generation of mankind, and rejects the lawful right of marriage, and does not confess that this right was established by God.

Others after these arose, the Cataphrygians, dwelling in the province of Phrygia; these accept the Prophets and the Law, confess the Father and the Son and the Spirit, await the resurrection of the flesh, which the catholic Church also proclaims. But they proclaim certain prophets of their own, that is, one named Montanus, and Priscilla, and Maximilla, whom neither the Prophets nor Christ announced. They also add that the fullness of the Holy Spirit was not granted through the Apostles by Christ's gift, but they suppose it was imparted through those pseudo-prophets of theirs, and they separate themselves from the catholic Church through those pseudo-prophets and false teachers of theirs. They baptize the dead, celebrate the mysteries publicly, call Pepuza, their village, which is so named in Phrygia, Jerusalem, where Maximilla and Priscilla and Montanus himself are known to have spent their time in vain and fruitless living. Where also the mystery of the Cynics and the abominable impiety toward an infant is celebrated.

For they say that they mix the blood of an infant at Pascha into their sacrifice, and so send it everywhere through their pernicious and false agents.

After these a certain Theodotus, a Byzantine by birth, proved to be a denier of Christ our God the Savior in the persecution, who began to teach, saying thus: Christ was a common man, as all men are. He said this so that he might no longer suffer the reproach of his denial from men; thinking that if anyone said to him, why did you deny Christ, God and Lord? He could say that he denied a man, not God. These use passages of the Scriptures which teach of Christ as it were of a man: but those which speak of him as God, these they do not accept. Reading and in no way understanding, and showing themselves to be sharers rather in pagan impiety and Jewish blindness than participants in Christian salvation.

There are others saying μεταγγισμόν, that is, that the Son enters into the Father and is present as a vessel within a vessel; not knowing what they assert, since the Savior did not say that the Son enters into the Father, but taught the cause of equality in divinity and power, not an entry or containment, as those suppose, imparted. And they separate themselves from the catholic Church on account of those pseudo-prophets in whose madness they persist, thinking this and not understanding that as the Father is immeasurable, so also is the Son, so also is the Holy Spirit, equal in all things, so that the Trinity is immovable, immeasurable, and omnipotent, and eternal everywhere, which is proclaimed to us from the holy Scriptures most openly, so that there are three Persons living forever, and equal in all majesty and power: yet the Son and the Holy Spirit are properly from the Father.

After these others departing from them said similar things; they also add that Melchisedech the priest is a great Power of God, and assert certain diverse names of men, being at variance with the catholic faith.

Others are the Noetians, named after a certain senseless man Noetus, who said that the almighty Father himself is Christ, and that he himself was born, and himself suffered, and himself died in the body: he also said that he was Moses, and that his brother was Elijah the prophet.

Sabellius after him, from Libya, his disciple, likewise followed the likeness of his teacher and his error, whence they were afterwards called Sabellians, who are also called Patripassians, and Praxians from Praxeas, and Hermogenians from Hermogenes, who were in Africa, who, holding such views, were cast out from the catholic Church.

What is this vanity of the Galatians, of the heretics Seleucus and Hermias? Who, wishing God to be corporeal, also assert that hyle, that is, the matter of the world, is coeternal with God, and the matter of the elements, which is without soul, that is irrational, which was made by God the Father through the Son out of nothing, so that it might exist which did not exist before, they do not accept in this way. But the spirit of man, that is, the soul, they say was not made by God through the Son, but is from the earth: and evil they assert is sometimes from God, sometimes from matter. But they deny that the Savior in the flesh sits at the right hand of the Father, but suppose that he stripped off the flesh and placed it in the sun, because the Prophet said, though they do not know what he said: He placed his tabernacle in the sun.

They affirm a visible Paradise from Plato, and these men, serving vanities and supposing that the souls of men are from fire and spirit, do not use this baptism, on account of this word which John the Baptist said: He himself will baptize you in Spirit and fire. These say that angels are the creators of our souls, not Christ the Savior. They also assert that this world is hell, and they proclaim that the Resurrection consists in the begetting of children, which takes place daily in the human race, and do not announce that future immortal and glorious one in expectation.

There are others who are disciples of these, who are called Proclianites, and Hermiorites. They also add various errors, teaching that what is written in Ezekiel concerning the four living creatures means that the lion holds the likeness of the king of the Parthians, the calf of the Egyptians, the eagle of the Romans, but the man of the most pious. These use the book of Wisdom of that Sirach, who wrote after Solomon, that is after many ages, one book of Wisdom. Denying that Christ came in the flesh, not believing in the Resurrection and the Judgment, who dwell in the regions of Galatia, and lurking like foxes, they plunder very many, as Solomon testified, saying: Catch for us the little foxes that destroy the vineyard of the Lord the Savior.

There are also those called Floriani, or Carpocratians, who are also called Soldiers, because they came from military men, denying the Judgment and the Resurrection, not believing that Christ was born of a Virgin; and supposing that all Resurrection consists in the begetting of children, of their abominable assembly, so that in their church after sunset with the lamps extinguished they did not hesitate to mingle with women, thinking they were fulfilling the precept of the Law: Be fruitful and multiply. Hastening to obey Judaism rather and abominable paganism than to acquiesce in Christian truth; and retaining rather the life and mindlessness of cattle, to whom Scripture also compared the life of cattle.

There are also those who are in doubt concerning the most salutary day of Pascha, asserting that Pascha is to be celebrated on the fourteenth moon, not as the catholic Church celebrates it, and they assert it is always to be celebrated in the month of March; and when they do this, they do not always observe the Lord's Day for Pascha, not computing the hours and days, but they celebrate on the second, or third, or fourth, or fifth, or sixth day, and from this error they do not know the true and salutary one day of the Pascha of our Lord, established and confirmed for the whole world by the Lord through the numerical course of the moon, months, and embolisms, and since they do not compute these, they do not know what they celebrate.

There is another heresy of the Chilionetites, that is of the thousand years, which teaches thus: when Christ shall have come from heaven, those thousand years will be for us again to live carnally, to beget, and to eat, as happens now in this age daily; not knowing that heavenly food, that is, that reward of immortality which is to come, not this perishable and passing one; since the Lord in the Gospel said to certain Jews who supposed this: You do not know, he said, the Scriptures, and you are ignorant of their power: for on the day of judgment they will neither marry nor be given in marriage, but they will be like the angels. And again the Apostle says: The Kingdom of God is not food and drink, but justice, peace, and joy in the Spirit of the Lord everlasting.

After these there are heretics who do not accept the Gospel according to John and his Apocalypse, and since they do not understand the power of Scripture, nor desire to learn, they remain in heresy and perish, so that they even dare to say that the Apocalypse likewise is not of the blessed John the evangelist and apostle, but of the heretic Cerinthus, who at that time was exposed as a heretic by the blessed apostles and cast out from the Church.

The Manichæans arose after these from Persia, from a man named Manes, or Turbo as he was called, drawing their pernicious fuel from those earlier ones, who assert that there are two Gods, one good and one evil, and who preach that there is a struggle between God and the Lord; and who suppose that the soul of man is properly from God, but believe that the body was made by the devil.

Denying the Resurrection, not hoping for judgment, worshipping demons, adoring the elements, invoking the names of gods and goddesses as pagans do, and saying that certain beings are male-female, partaking of both natures, and serving unspeakable filthiness; who, having been overcome in disputation by the holy Bishop Archelaus, were cast down and branded, and made manifest to all at that time, and yet like robbers under the guise of the Christian confession they do not cease to ensnare the souls of many with falsehood and bestial filthiness; who are also said to lurk in Spain and in five Provinces, and to ensnare many daily with this deceit.

The Patricians are so called from a certain Patricius who was at Rome. They assert that the flesh of man was not made by God, but believe it was made by the devil. They also decree that it is to be despised and cast aside by every means, so that some of them have not hesitated to inflict death upon themselves of their own accord.

The Symmachians, disciples of that man, holding the same views in all things, not hoping for Judgment, preach that one must serve worldly vices and carnal lusts.

There was a certain Paul of Samosata after these in Syria, who denied that the Word of God, that is, Christ the Son of God, is subsistent, personal, and eternal together with the Father; but he called him prolative, that is, as it were a kind of breath, and yet taught that the living and eternal person of the Son together with the eternal Father was not to be believed. This man preached Christ as a just man, not as true God, Judaizing rather, who also taught circumcision, whence he himself at that time taught a certain queen Zenobia in the East to Judaize.

Photinus, following his teaching in all things, preached likewise, and persisting in this falsehood, was cast out from the Church of the city of Sirmium, overcome by the holy bishops.

The Arians take their name from Arius, a presbyter of the city of Alexandria, who lived under Bishop Alexander of blessed memory and under the holy emperor Constantine, saying that the Son of God is like God: calling him like in name only, and not believing in the divine substance of God the Father himself, he fell into a dangerous heresy; for even a creature is said to be like God, since Scripture says: Let us make man in our image and likeness. Yet man or angel is not properly and naturally born of God, that is, of that ineffable and eternal divine substance of the Father, as the only-begotten Son, who is born of the Father, properly eternal; but man and angel were made from nothing. The Son, however, since he is true, must be known as begotten of that divine substance of the Father: for the only-begotten Son cannot be true God in any other way, unless he is properly begotten of that divine substance of the Father.

The eternal likeness of the Son therefore is also according to works, because as the Father does, so also the Son likewise does all things, and he is begotten of the divine substance of God's own quality, because he is properly born of him as eternal, not made from nothing as man, and angel, or any creature is.

There are also Semi-Arians; these think rightly concerning the Father and the Son, believing that there is one substance of quality, one divinity: but they preach that the Spirit is not of the divine substance, nor true God, but a made and created Spirit, so as to join and compare him to a creature; whereas Christ the Lord joined him to the Father and to himself in the faith of baptism for eternal salvation, and commanded that he be adored together with the Father and the Son by all believers, and decreed that he be proclaimed true God to every age. They do not understand that when the Evangelist says: All things were made through him, and without him was made nothing, he does not speak of the Holy Spirit as though the Spirit were made through the Son; for the Prophet declares that the Trinity made all things visible and invisible, saying: By the Word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their power.

In every creature therefore that was made through the Spirit, he left nothing that was not made through him; otherwise a servant would not be joined with the Lord in faith, if the divine and holy Spirit were a creature. For whose sake all Scripture, and the Lord, pronounced by heavenly sentence that all sins are forgiven to men, except blasphemy against the divine and adorable Spirit.

The Eunomians after these, from Eunomius a disciple of Arius, enemies of the true faith in all things, say that there are three substances of diverse quality, as of gold, silver, and bronze, and that the Father made the Son, and again the Son, who is a creature, made the Spirit: and they assert that the Son is not like the Father, because the Spirit was made by the Son: consenting most openly to pagan impiety and Jewish iniquity rather than wishing to obey Christian teaching and catholic faith.

There are others who err concerning the incarnation, saying that the Saviour did not take on a true rational human soul, but only a human body; and by withdrawing the soul from the body, they deny the true salvation of men. How then can that be called a soul which was not assumed by the Saviour? Since the Saviour says: My soul is sorrowful even unto death. Otherwise a soul could not have been spoken of, unless it were in him for whose sake he had come. Therefore both of these things together in relation to the Saviour, that is, body and soul, which he deigned to take up for our salvation, were present. We must know that he also had a true human soul possessing intellect, and a human body likewise with carnal sense, so that he could both suffer in body and die.

Yet this flesh is known to have been made of the Holy Spirit, and the soul likewise created, as it is written in the Gospel: The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. And that he had a true soul, saying: I lay down my soul for you. And concerning his passible flesh to Thomas: That a spirit does not have bones and flesh, as you see me to have. And the Apostle Peter testified of the Saviour, saying: His soul was not left in hell, nor did his flesh see corruption (from). From the moment he was incarnate, he is believed, known, worshipped, and proclaimed in the catholic Church both as man for the sake of our salvation and as true God.

The Tropites are those who say that the Word was converted into flesh, not understanding what the Apostle John says: The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. They do not attend to the fact that the Word is immutable and inconvertible, that is, God the Son of God. But the flesh which he assumed for our salvation, he himself took it up by forming it and put it on, for the sake of our incapacity. For the purpose of being seen by us, these things were joined together for our salvation, declaring not a mutation of the Word into flesh, but rather an assumption of a visible thing, so that the invisible one might be seen through visible flesh, believed and known, and worshipped in a manner accessible to the human race.

There are also heretics who err concerning the Passion, saying that in the Passion our God Christ put aside the flesh, and so ascended into heaven, so that the divinity is no longer in the flesh: for neither did he rise again in the flesh after the Passion, nor did he ascend into heaven with the flesh, they say, whereas the entire salvation of men consists in the Passion of his flesh, and in the Resurrection, and in the Ascension into heaven, without any doubt for us and for all believers; since the angels also said to the apostles for our faith and joy, in the Acts of the Apostles: That just as you have seen him ascending into heaven, so hope that he will come again from heaven.

The Aerians are so called from a certain Aerius; they devote themselves to abstinences, and very many dwell in the province of Pamphylia, who are also called Encratites, that is, abstainers. These possess nothing, they abominate foods which God granted to the human race with his blessing, and they also condemn marriage as established by the Law, asserting it was not instituted by God.

There is another heresy of the Borborians, who, entangled in the vices of the world and serving evil lusts, do not hope for the future judgment, but rather praise the carnal lust of the world. These therefore going into the mud, and smeared from it, disfiguring their faces and limbs with mud, by this same act demonstrating to all as it were that God's creation is blameworthy: whereas that abyss of sins and that pernicious condemnation of vices descended from the will of men, not by the permission of the divine Law.

The Artotyrites are so named from the thing itself, in Galatia, who offer bread and cheese, not that which the catholic and apostolic Church celebrates in its offering.

There are others, the Ascodrogites in Galatia, who place an inflated wineskin and cover it in their church, and go around it raving with drink and reveling, as pagans do to Father Liber, raging with mad minds after the manner of the gentiles, and not understanding what the Saviour says: that new wineskins are to be taken, and new wine poured into them, not into old ones. And while they hasten to serve their own blindnesses, they are found to be utterly alien to Christian salvation, since the Apostle casts down that Judaic and carnal vanity of justification, and confirms the true and full knowledge of Christ, saying: Old things have passed away, and behold all things have been made new through Christ. For the Lord was speaking of the Law and its shadow, and of the fullness of his grace: and of the two men, as the Apostle says: The first man is from the earth, earthly; the second man is from heaven, heavenly.

For what existed through shadow, and what was to come in the Lord's presence as greater and better, this he announced by teaching and confirmed by attesting deeds.

There are others, the Passalorinchites, who placing a finger on their nostrils and their mouths and their lips, as it were always practice silence, devoting their effort to nothing else but taciturnity. In doing this they wish as it were to imitate the prophets, because the prophet David says: Set, O Lord, a guard over my mouth, and a door of enclosure about my lips. And because the blessed prophets, devoting themselves to fasts, often gave themselves to silence, these men, borrowing from that, think it must be observed, hastening to follow the vanity of Pythagoras rather than the heavenly life and wisdom of the prophets.

The Aquarians are so called because in the heavenly Sacraments they offer only water, not that which the catholic and apostolic Church has been accustomed to do.

There are some who assert that there are prophets daily, and preach that prophecies are still being made, not knowing that the Law and the Prophets were until John the Baptist, and that the end of the Law and the Prophets was fulfilled and consummated in the presence of Christ.

The Colluthians are so called from a certain Colluthus in Egypt, who say that the Lord is not the maker of evils. Against this, however, a certain other man argued on the opposite side, saying that the Lord is the maker of evils, and he himself is likewise a heretic; and since both were carried along in empty contention, they did not know the force of reason: for Scripture proclaimed that God makes good things, and likewise also evil things, when the prophet says: I am the Lord, who make peace, and create evil.

And another prophet says: If there is evil in a city, which God has not made. But Scripture says that these evils are not by nature, made by God, but arise from the causes of men, namely those sinning against the Lord in the Law, which are the trials of persecution and various afflictions that arise, by God's permission, upon those who sin, as it is written: Who gave Israel to plunder, was it not the Lord, against whom they sinned, and in whose ways they refused to walk? But Scripture nowhere says that God made an evil nature: For behold, all things that God made were very good, in the book of Genesis, that is, the creatures of the world. And elsewhere the prophet says: For God did not make evil, nor does he delight in the destruction of the living.

Since, therefore, the cause of evil in nature is not God the Creator, but the will of men, which is subject to the law of God and is pressed and restrained by its coercion, these things are brought upon men daily by the Lord for the sake of conversion. When therefore they say these things, they do not understand how they were said; for the things that seem to men to be evils in coercion are full of instruction and benefit, which the perverse will of men deserves to suffer, since the Apostle says: a Is God unjust, who inflicts his wrath upon men? Yet all these things are not permitted to happen to the human race without benefit and future advantage: for the just man, by enduring in tribulation, is proved more faithful and more just; but the sinner either ceases to sin when corrected, or, persisting, is taken from the world, lest while remaining in the body he appear to sin further.

Therefore either, when corrected, while he still remains in the body, he will not delay to do good henceforth, or the mind is restrained so that it desists from sin, as the Apostle says: He who has died is justified from sin.

There is another heresy which says that the world is not changed, but always remains in the same state, even after the coming of our Lord Christ from the heavens, when he himself says: All things shall pass away and be changed. But they do not understand that this was said by the Lord on account of the change of the elements, so that, when these are changed, a new creation may be reformed, which David also teaches: They shall perish, but thou thyself art forever. And the Lord: Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. And: I make a new heaven and a new earth, says the Lord. He announces therefore that the elements are to be restored rather than to perish; and although it is not impossible for God, who made all things from nothing, to be able also to destroy all things, as the most blessed Job says: But if he should destroy all things, who shall say to him, what hast thou done?

Therefore if you understand it thus, you will acknowledge the omnipotence of the Lord Christ; but if one judges that they are to be restored, he will understand it in sequence: for even if Scripture demonstrates that seeds are to perish, that is, that the world itself can come to nothing, yet because what he made does not perish; for he made, as Solomon says, all things from nothing so that they which were not might exist: and in the Resurrection of men it shows not seeds that are to perish, but coming to greater glory, as the Apostle says: It is sown a natural body, it rises a spiritual body: it is sown in corruption, it rises in incorruption. And the same Apostle again: For the expectation of the creature awaits the revelation of the sons of God: for the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but on account of him who subjected it, in hope of the future glory of dignity.

For which reason the creature itself also, he says, shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God. Showing therefore that the elements are to proceed from glory to glory, that is, men together with this same visible creation, when the Lord says: The sun shall then shine sevenfold. The elements therefore shall be passing to a greater glory already, and are to remain in it together with men; although the Lord who made all things is also able to bring them to nothing. But in this consists the surpassing majesty and power of Christ, that he permits the same elements to pass over to greater glory; for the Apostle likewise announces and prophesies that these elements shall melt and come to nothing.

There is a heresy of the Unshod, which asserts that men ought to walk unshod, because, they say, it was said under Moses: Remove thy sandals. And because Isaiah walked thus for three years, which things belong rather to human and vain superstition, not to the tradition of the saints and the command and authority of our Lord Jesus Christ and his power.

The Novatians arose after the last persecution from a certain Novatus, who believed as the Catholic Church did formerly, accepting the Old and New Testament, but when in the persecution many of the faithful lapsed and were received into penance by the Catholic Church, they, angered, or rather led by presumption and pride, attempted to sow a vain doctrine, separating themselves from the Catholic Church and dissenting from the goodness and mercy of Christ, and saying: that there is no place of penance for a believer after baptism, not knowing that through the prophet he cries out: As I live, says the Lord: I desire not the death of the sinner, but rather that he return and live. If therefore they shall say that Scripture spoke of those who are to be baptized, and not of the faithful; let them hear the Saviour saying after the baptism of water concerning another baptism, namely that of penitential suffering, thus: I have a baptism, he says, to be baptized with, and how I am pressed until it be accomplished.

Showing certainly to us that after the baptism which he had previously given through water, another baptism also of penitential suffering was to be granted to the human race by his goodness and clemency to those who fall, and to be bestowed by the same Lord. Which the Apostles, understanding from his most salutary passion, proclaimed that he had conferred this also upon the human race after that first grace. For as one who is provident and omnipotent, he grants to those who sin through penance, so that a he who has fallen, rising and fighting again and persevering, may hope to be able to obtain from the Lord the victory he desires. For in Christ and his clemency, both justice, goodness, and mercy abound daily for those who sin and do penance; as Paul testified concerning those who had not done penance for the cause of sin, as he said in his Epistle: Who is weak, and I am not weak?

And again: Lest I come to you, and God humble me again among you on account of some who have not done penance. And the Apostle Peter had said to Simon the Magician: Do penance, if perhaps this which thou hast done may be forgiven thee. And Paul him whom he had cast out, he commands to be received again after a time. Such persons can therefore suffer loss of dignity, not loss of salvation, as the Lord says: There are many mansions with my Father.

The Montanists are those who rebaptize any men they have seduced, and in their madness promise above the baptism of the Catholic Church another baptism of their own, who are also called Donatians, from a certain Donatus established in Africa, who sowed this heresy, who are also now called Parmenians from a certain Parmenis, who recently succeeded to their errors and falsehood.

There are in Gaul, and in Spain, and in Aquitaine certain so-called abstainers, who equally follow a most pernicious portion of the Gnostics and Manicheans and do not hesitate to preach the same things, separating by their persuasions the marriages of men, and promising abstinence from foods, which is not from the precept of the Law, but a such grace has been granted by Christ to the will of men for the sake of heavenly advancement and dignity. For the Lord says to Peter: Not all receive this word. And again the same Lord says: He who dismisses his wife without cause of crime makes her commit adultery. It is one thing therefore for this to be done by mutual consent for the sake of greater praise to be obtained from the Lord, and another to persuade against the Law and to act against the will of both. And again: He who does not eat, let him not despise him who eats, and he who eats, let him not judge him who does not eat.

What therefore is of the will is of greater praise, or rather is the desire of heavenly reward: but what is outside the Law has not been handed down by God Christ, but has been devised by the vain presumption and error of men: for it is written: I give you all things to eat as grass. But they do this so that, gradually despising foods, they may say that they are not good; and so they hold that foods were not granted to men by God, but were made by the devil, as they assert. And in this they strive to proclaim that the creation was not created by God but made by the Devil, and through this lie they have taken captive the souls of many.

In Africa there are those who are called Wanderers; these roam through the lands and those whom they find on the road they compel to be killed by them: saying that they desire to suffer martyrdom, and under this pretext many of them commit robbery at times. But some of them die as suicides, throwing themselves from a precipice and undergoing various kinds of calamitous destruction; who, since they hasten thus to perish without cause, suffer the loss of an honorable death, and entangle themselves rather in the future judgment of God than free themselves from it.

Nor are there lacking those who do not take food with men, led by vain presumption, thinking they do something better: because the Prophets also, they say, did this, not knowing that a different economy has been established for men by Christ the Lord. These think rightly concerning the Father and the Son; but concerning the Spirit they do not hold rightly, believing the Holy Spirit to be created and made, not God, as the Scriptures declare and the Catholic Church proclaims.

There is another heresy which asserts that Easter ought to be celebrated with the Jews. These dwell in Galatia, and Syria, and Phrygia, and in Jerusalem, and since they follow the Jews they err with a like error to theirs. And in this the Jews also confirm their own lie, when they observe that certain unlearned Christians follow the vanity of their law rather than the rule of catholic truth, and nonetheless those when they celebrate together with these are manifested and recognized by all as sharers in the crime and wickedness of the Jews.

There is also a heresy which is called the Apocrypha, that is the secret; which accepts only the Prophets and Apostles, not the Canonical Scriptures, that is the Law and the Prophets, namely the Old and New Testament. And since they wish to read only those apocryphal writings, they deliberately hold opinions contrary to the Canonical Scriptures, and gradually set forth dogmas, pronouncing judgments against them: placing their decisions against the Law and the Prophets, and against the ordinances of the most blessed Apostles, of whom the chief are the Manicheans, Gnostics, Nicolaitans, Valentinians, and very many others, who, possessing apocryphal writings of the Prophets and Apostles, that is separate Acts, disdain to read the Canonical Scriptures.

For which reason it has been decreed by the Apostles and their successors, that nothing else ought to be read in the Catholic Church except the Law, and the Prophets, and the Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles, and the thirteen Epistles of Paul, and seven others, two of Peter, three of John, one of Jude, and one of James, which seven are joined to the Acts of the Apostles. But the hidden Scriptures, that is the apocrypha, even if they ought to be read for the sake of morals by the perfect, ought not to be read by all, since heretics who did not understand added many things and took away what they wished.

For the Manicheans have the apocrypha of the blessed Apostle Andrew, that is the Acts which he performed coming from Pontus into Greece, which the disciples following the Apostle then wrote down: whence the Manicheans and others of that sort also have the Acts of blessed Andrew and of John the Evangelist, and likewise of the blessed Apostle Peter, in which, because they performed great signs and wonders, so that cattle and dogs and beasts spoke, those lost heretics even attributed to the souls of men a nature like that of dogs and cattle.

There are others also who do not assert that the Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews is his own, but say it is either of the apostle Barnabas, or of Clement, bishop of the city of Rome. Others however say it is from Luke the evangelist: also that the Epistle to the Laodiceans 1 was written. And because they added certain things in it, not thinking rightly, it is therefore not read in the Church; and if it is read by some, it is nevertheless not read in the Church to the people, except for his thirteen Epistles, and to the Hebrews occasionally. And in it, because he wrote rhetorically in pleasing style, they therefore do not think it belongs to the same Apostle. And because he also says that Christ was made in it, it is therefore not read. Concerning penance, equally on account of the Novatians.

When therefore he says that Christ was made, he says made in body, not in divinity, since he teaches in the same place that the Son is of the divine and paternal substance, who is the splendor of glory, he says, and the image of his substance. He does not exclude repentance by his teaching either, but shows a different degree of dignity between one who has kept integrity, and one who has sinned. It is therefore a loss of dignity in one who has sinned, not a loss of salvation. For if someone shall have fought bravely through martyrdom, he will receive his former dignity; or if he shall have lived worthily in this age, he obtains what he desires to attain. For in that very Epistle he excludes those who rebaptize, he does not deny the baptism of penance.

It is to be considered that it is sometimes found fruitful for many penitents, that afterwards through faith, life, good work, and in this age they were praised by the Lord, persevering now in good deeds and fruitful works, which the Lord had said through the prophet: I will not be mindful of his evils, but rather of his good deeds, if they shall have remained now in good works.

The Melitians are from a certain Meletius in Egypt, who had been of the Arian party, and was cast out from the catholic Church; who afterwards as if following the truth was received back, and his disciples along with him equally. And again desiring to act indifferently after these things, they communicated both with heretics and with the catholic Church. When the catholic Church had recognized their indifference, it made them excluded from its communion.

There are others in Egypt and Alexandria from a certain Rhetorius, who praised all heresies, saying that all think rightly, and that none of them err, but that all of them walk well, and he held that they do not believe badly. If therefore he praised all, whom did he blame? Therefore he does not hold what is true. And therefore Photinus the heretic is to be praised, who denies that Christ the Lord exists before the ages with the Father. And every heresy which blasphemes either against the Father, or against the Son, or against the Spirit. Why therefore does he praise blasphemous heretics, when Christ the Lord has already condemned them from this age, saying: that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not forgiven to men who blaspheme and persevere, neither here nor in the future? On account of which it is established that this man also is a heretic, or rather knows nothing at all; who has judged that they are to be praised and not to be blamed and rejected.

There is another heresy which says that the Divinity suffered when the flesh suffered on the cross, joined to the Divinity: erring in this, that not only can the Divinity not suffer naturally, nor be held, nor be seen; but also not even the soul of man, which was made by God, the Lord saying: Fear not those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul; but fear rather him who can destroy both soul and body in gehenna. They err therefore in every way, who say that the Divinity of Christ is by nature passible, and impiously hold that it either suffered, or wept, or groaned: for the passion of Christ is carnal, with the flesh naturally suffering, not the Divinity. And therefore he was not recognized by the Jews as to who he was, speaking in passible flesh, who was announced as the true God from the Law and the Prophets, and was openly proclaimed as coming in the flesh, the Prophet saying: God shall come openly.

And again the same prophet David: The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup. For what is the cup, if not his passion? Who, conferring the gift of such great goodness and mercy upon the human race, was ignored by the most wicked people of the Jews. He suffered therefore in passible flesh, not in the Divinity which is naturally impassible; who is both recognized and believed, with the Divinity nevertheless not absent, but joined equally with the body on account of the mystery of the consummation established and defined beforehand. Knowing this, the Apostle did not separate the Divinity from the flesh on the cross, saying: For if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of majesty. Paul therefore joined both together, so as to manifest to us the most full goodness and mercy of Christ. But the apostle Peter taught openly what is passible by nature and what is impassible, saying: He was indeed put to death in the body, but made alive in the Spirit.

Neither therefore was the flesh absent from the Divinity, nor the Divinity from the flesh, when the human flesh was suffering naturally, and in this very thing with the Divinity of Christ permitting it, the mystery of our salvation was being accomplished by the Lord, so that a full defeat of the enemy might be achieved, so that he who was seen to suffer as a man, who was God in the flesh, might conquer the enemy not for himself but for us; and to us who had been conquered before, he might open in his passion the power of conquering for those who believe in him, and to those following him he might furnish heavenly glory. Therefore no such natural passion and pain of God was generated in his Divinity, as some suppose, otherwise he was man only, not God and man, as it is written; but the mystery of our eternal salvation was being accomplished, which had been announced beforehand equally by the Law and the Prophets.

There is a heresy which says that God is as it were threefold and composite, so that a certain part belongs to the Father, a certain part to the Son, a certain part to the Holy Spirit: and thus it asserts one should believe, and in saying this it does not know, nor understand the meaning of divine Scripture. For in saying a certain threefold substance, it blasphemes greatly above all, not knowing that one is he who sent, another he who was sent. Therefore there is a true Person of the Father, who sent the Son, and there is a true Person of the Son, who came from the Father, and there is a true Person of the Spirit, who was sent by the Son and the Father. Of these three Persons therefore there is one truth, majesty, and equality of substance, and everlasting divinity.

For such as is the immense and ineffable Person of the Father, such also is that of the Son, such is that of the Holy Spirit: so that in the distinction of names and of the three Persons there is no diversity of nature. This Trinity is therefore immeasurable; invisible and ineffable, which is known by faith alone: yet it is not worthily expressed by the exposition of human voice and mortal sense. For when he says that the Father sends the Son, and the Son sends the Holy Spirit, he says it on account of the Persons, and does not show them separated by a separation of place, namely on account of the heretics Sabellius and Photinus, who were unwilling to understand worthily concerning God, the Lord saying: To whom have you made me like, says the Lord, and to whom shall I be like?

For as heaven is distant from earth, so are your thoughts, and your plans, and your counsels distant from my thoughts and plans, says the Lord. When therefore he says that the Father sent, that the Son was sent, he says it on account of the Persons, lest anyone should suppose that the Father himself and the Son himself are the same, which Sabellius raves in so thinking: and lest again the Son sent from heaven should be supposed not to be everywhere in the Father, he said indeed that he was sent by the Father, yet showed that he is everywhere with the Father, saying: The Father who sent me is with me.

He did not therefore speak of a separation of place, since the Son himself also fills and contains all things together with the Father and the Holy Spirit; but so that we might believe the true Person of the Father, and such a Person of the Son as that of the Father, and the true Person of the Holy Spirit as that of the Son, and might recognize the one quality of substance, majesty and power of these three Persons, he deigned to teach these things thus, and especially when constituted in the flesh; in which both his humility shone forth to the age, and his ineffable goodness shone out, and his condescension to human frailty in such abundant mercy and liberality, so as to be made manifest to the human race; these things he deigned to accomplish and to speak for our salvation, so that we might be able to know something of God, and to grasp and understand it in some part.

There is a heresy which is uncertain about the diversity of the heavens. For Scripture declares that heaven and earth were made on the first day, these two elements: on the second day the Firmament of water was made, and it likewise testifies that this same Firmament was called heaven. But David speaks of the heavens thus: Praise the Lord, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that are above the heavens. Whether therefore someone shall have wished to accept six heavens, according to David, and the seventh as this firmament, he does not err; for Solomon speaks of three heavens, thus: Heaven, and the heaven of heaven. The apostle Paul equally confesses that he was caught up to the third heaven. Whether therefore someone shall have accepted seven, as David, or three, or two, he does not err, because the Lord also says: The Father who is in the heavens. For even the Pagans profess one heaven, and heavens at times. David therefore taught what is complete. Solomon however what is in part, and the blessed Paul equally.

But the Book of Genesis announced two heavens to us.

There is another heresy which is uncertain about the earth, saying that this is the only one and that there is no other: not knowing that there is another, which is as it were the matrix of all things, and contains all things; which is found as it were as ὕλη, that is matter, in the Scriptures; which is invisible and unformed; which was made by God on the first day. But this one in which we dwell is shown to be founded upon water, as David said: Who hast founded the earth upon the water. For the matrix of all things is that immense prior earth which was made on the first day; which contains the water, and this earth which is inhabited by us; which also abundantly furnishes crops and fruits to the human race and to birds, serpents, cattle, and all other creatures; commanded by Christ the Lord the Savior, as it is written in the book of Genesis, to serve creation.

There is another heresy which is uncertain about water, asserting that it was not made by God, but that it always exists of itself: not knowing that if the greater element was made, that is earth, how much more also the lesser, that is water, which is contained by the earth! The prophet Jonah saying: I am a servant of God, who made the sea and the dry land. And David likewise says that water was made by the Lord. And the three young men likewise. There is therefore another earth, which contains all things, and another which is founded upon water, namely this one which is inhabited by us, of which the Prophet says: who hast founded the earth upon the water. Not that first one certainly. This one therefore must needs be renewed and purified, which we also know to be often moved by earthquake, of which the Lord says: I will make a new heaven and a new earth. And again the Lord says: Heaven and earth shall pass away, in the Gospel.

This earth therefore is known to have its substance as it were from the roots of that prior one, which was commanded to subsist above the water, which abundantly furnishes nourishment to the human race.

There is also a heresy which says that the body of man was made before the soul, not the soul; and that the image of God is the body, not the soul of man; and that according to predestination he said so he thinks, when the Scripture says: And God made man, after his own image he made him, male and female he made them. Not knowing what the Prophet said; for when he says let us make, he promises that he will make, and when he says: God made, he now shows the work as done, and declared that not flesh but the soul, which is rational, was made. For that flesh without a soul cannot speak is not in doubt: therefore flesh is the organ of the rational soul. When Scripture says male and female, it here declares not the sex of bodies, but the sign of the soul that dominates and of that which is subject.

And that bodies were not made first lying there, as certain imprudent persons suppose, is not in doubt, since the flesh of Adam and of the woman was made afterward; for on the seventh day Scripture says of Adam thus: And the Lord took earth from the clay, and formed the man whom he had made.

You see therefore how he shows that man was made, that is, that the soul was created rational and immortal before by the Lord, which is indeed called the image of God: but the earth taken from the clay, joined to the soul, that is, the outer man, the fragile body, he revealed as formed on the following day, and Scripture testifies and declares that a sleep was sent upon Adam, and afterward the Lord took from his rib and made the woman: and that the soul was made first, that is on the sixth day; but on the seventh day, the body of Adam was formed from the earth; so it is shown that the woman was made from the body of the man, that is from his side, there is no doubt: and that the soul was made first, but the flesh was formed afterward, and so afterward the breath of God was infused, and spiritual grace was conferred at the end, so that man might now be shown by the Lord to be capable of the divine Law and not incapable.

The reason of truth is evident, which also blessed David declared, that the soul was made first, and then the body formed: Thy hands, he says, O Lord, have made me and formed me. And so he declared that the Spirit was afterward infused, saying: And take not thy holy Spirit from me.

Another heresy is that which says the breath is the soul, not that the breath was given into the soul: not knowing that if the breath is the soul, how can that which has been properly infused by God be judged, since it does not attend to the fact that the breath of the divine Spirit is a certain grace, and a bestowal of dignity, so that man may be able to exist capable of the heavenly Law. And that the breath was given to our father Adam who already had a soul, and that it was not a soul breathed into him, the Lord shows in the Gospel: for just as he himself had breathed into Adam before, so afterward he breathed a greater grace of the divine Spirit upon the Apostles who had a soul, after the Resurrection, saying: Receive the Holy Spirit. And he did not say, receive a soul, but the Holy Spirit.

He therefore who breathed into the man already made having a soul in Adam, himself also afterward breathed upon the blessed Apostles who had a soul; so that it may be known that all things are through him, and without him nothing was made. It is therefore of no reason that anyone should wish to suppose that the breath is the soul, since the soul is known to have been made; which, placed under the condition of the Law, is found subject to judgment, concerning which he says: Fear not them who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul; but fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.

The breath therefore, which is not the soul but a grace of dignity, coming from the divine Spirit from God Christ to all; those who have and keep it receive an addition of graces, as the Apostles, and Prophets, and all the just: but the unjust, neglecting and despising it, lose so great a merit of dignity, as that Saul, of whom it was said: The Spirit of the Lord departed from him, and an unclean spirit troubled him. And that the Spirit of wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul Scripture testifies.

Another heresy is that which says that the soul of man, not made by God, is so called Soul, but before, it says, it was called Intellect, and was in Heaven; but afterward, because it desired earthly things, it departed from Heaven, and from that time they suppose it was named Soul: not knowing that in the beginning the Soul was made and created by God after the Angels, and was called Soul by the Lord, and received this name of its proper nature from God, to be called Soul, not Intellect, as Scripture says: His soul shall dwell in good things. And again: That thou wilt not leave my soul in hell. And again: Return, O my soul, to thy rest. And again: My soul is greatly troubled. And again: So does my soul desire thee, O God. And again: Blessed be the Lord, who made my soul. These things therefore they assert with the empty opinion of the philosophers, which the divine Scripture does not so declare.

There is a heresy which supposes that cattle, and serpents, and birds are rational as men; as the Manicheans, and the lost Gnostics and whatever poets, and Stoic philosophers conjecture: not knowing that rational man has the understanding of the mind from God, that is the ability to know God and to believe; but he has the sense of the body in common with cattle indeed and all other similar creatures, which can have the sense of the body, but can in no way have the understanding of the mind concerning God, nor an immortal and rational soul as man, who is called the image of God, as Scripture says: Be not like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding. And: Man when he was in honour did not understand, he is compared to senseless cattle, and is made like to them.

The sense therefore of cattle, birds and serpents is common with us in the body; but understanding belongs to men alone, that is the power of the immortal soul infused into it from the holy Spirit; which is called the image of God; which commands all these things, rules and possesses all things abundantly, as it is written: I have given you all things under your power.

Another heresy is that which says that evil kings and false prophets come and are made not by their own will, but are sent by God's command: not knowing that the Scriptures do not announce that God makes them false prophets or evil kings, but declare that contrary to God's will, by their own will and by the suggestion of the enemy, they come in this way, as Jannes and Mambres came against Moses and Aaron the priests of God under Pharaoh by their own will; since Scripture says: They reigned, but not through me, neither through my Spirit, says the Lord. And concerning false prophets thus: Thus says the Lord: I did not send them, and they went to prophesy in my name. For which reason also against them the Lord often decrees and pronounces a sentence of death worthy of them in this world.

False prophets therefore are not sent by God, nor are impious kings who depart from the Lord; but even if evil men are stirred up against evil men at times by the Lord's permitting it, this comes about so that evil men may be consumed by evil men. For the good, enduring persecution and having justice before the Lord, await the great recompense of the future reward. But evil men are therefore sometimes destroyed by evil men, and not only by good men, so that their iniquity may be partly punished even in this age.

A certain heresy supposes that earthquake does not occur by God's command and indignation, but by the very nature of the elements, not knowing what Scripture says: Who lookest upon the earth, it says, and movest it with earthquake. And again: Yet once more I will move heaven and earth. Not attending to the power of God, they dare to ascribe the movement of power to the nature of the elements, as certain vain philosophers, who ascribing this to the nature of things, did not know the power of God. That in such matters also the indignation and power of God operates, and moves its own creation, for the cause of conversion and benefit: indeed of the many who sin and return to the Lord the Saviour and Creator.

Another heresy is that which according to the vanity of the pagans professes the various names of the stars, as that Hermes Trismegistus, who ought to be judged vain rather than great; and certain poets like him, who in their ravings assert Comets, and Pogonias, and Hyades, and Kids, and such names of this kind, when Scripture has told us a few names of the stars, as Job the prophet says, before the pagans had transferred the names of the stars from the holy Scriptures; for Job himself says: Who made the Pleiades and Arcturus, he says, and Hesperus, and Auster, and Orion, and Lucifer. These names therefore we receive as announced from the holy Scriptures; for Scripture did not say the names of all the stars, but reserved them to the power of God, declaring through the prophet and saying thus: Who numbers the multitude of the stars, and calls all of them by their names.

These few names therefore, reading them from the holy Scriptures, poets afterward, and false philosophers, dared to usurp them and couple many other names to their own lies, and to proclaim seeds of impiety to the age, so that from these they might think that the names of all or very many stars could be comprehended. Since the names of all the stars none other than God Christ, through whom the Father made all things, has set and known, and has called each of them by their individual names, as it is written.

There is another heresy which is uncertain about tongue and tongues, since Scripture speaks both of one tongue and of tongues. If therefore there was one before, because there were few, or afterward many, because many men had now grown and been born in the world, it is not altogether useless to think thus. For from the fifteenth generation from Adam up to Heber two thousand seven hundred years elapsed, under whom the confusion of tongues was sent, on account of the sin which they had committed in building a tower and a city; and because they suffered this as rebels against God: for having angelic grace, that is the knowledge of many tongues, they did not acknowledge the Lord as the giver of so great wisdom; and striving to advance against him, they had lost the grace which they had received granted to them by God without any labour.

And what had been granted before by the Lord naturally to all without effort, as befitting the image of God: afterward through effort and learning, forgetfulness having been sent by the Lord, they could scarcely learn not all, nor many, but scarcely a few tongues, so that one might be able to learn three or four, and could scarcely speak in them. Yet all the knowledge of tongues, which more than two thousand and seven hundred years before men had lost by offending, under the Apostles the Lord again after his ascension conferred through the Holy Spirit without any labour upon believers, as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles.

For it is of angelic power to know the tongues of all men; but through faith in Christ, the knowledge of all tongues is supplied without labour to believers; as we read that the Apostles, taught by the divine Spirit, and likewise the peoples then believing in Christ the Lord and Saviour, proclaimed the knowledge of all tongues granted without labour; as under Peter and Paul, and others a it was done, when they taught the peoples that the Spirit of God had come from God, and that they had been able to speak in many tongues, so that men hearing from the peoples marvelled that they too through faith in Christ had the knowledge of so many tongues granted without learning.

There is another heresy which says that the name of a language first proceeded from the Jews, while others say from the Pagans, when both parties holding this view have been deceived by no small error. For man, having been made, was a partaker of reason; he who therefore spoke by reason, how was he a stranger to reason? It is therefore prior and more fundamental to be a partaker of reason and to be called rational, than to have a special and local name of some language, and to possess something from the name of a man; for from Adam until Heber two thousand seven hundred years passed. The name of the language of all men was therefore one, and one language. But from the time they took counsel against the Lord, that heavenly knowledge was taken away from them, that is, the understanding and wisdom of all languages.

And indeed holy Heber, who did not depart from God according to his own name, God willed that his race should multiply more abundantly, and that this name should first be proclaimed in the age, so that from Heber, who had not consented to the building of the tower of the rebels, they should be called Hebrews by name. Heber is therefore recognized as having been most righteous not only before the Pagans, but also before the Jews, that is, before seven hundred years, who, believing in the Lord and separated from the conspiracy of wicked men, merited to obtain from the Lord this first designation of his name. Hence also the vain poets, transferring that building to their own falsehoods, taught that giants, those Aloadae who were rebelling, wished to ascend into heaven by the piling up of mountains, and that they were therefore condemned. Whose ravings no longer escaped Christian knowledge and skill.

There is another heresy wavering concerning the proclaimed year, of which the prophet Isaiah speaks: To proclaim the acceptable year of God, and the day of retribution. Certain persons therefore suppose that from the time the Lord came until the consummation of the age, the number of years shall be no more and no less than three hundred and sixty-five, until the divine presence of Christ the Lord again from heaven. This is found to be contrary, if those who have so thought; for we know that more than four hundred years have already passed and been completed since the Lord came. How therefore will this be reasonable concerning the year, as very many have wished to think it so. For the Lord commanded that only those things which he did and taught in one year should be written down. For the things done and said by him before, in the first thirty years, according to blessed John, who says that the world could not contain them if all that he had done were written.

The prophet Isaiah therefore spoke of that year of the Lord Saviour, in which he taught until the passion, and the resurrection, and the ascension into heaven, as the most blessed ones have handed down, not of three hundred and sixty-five years, as some suppose, but of that year after baptism, namely, in which, preaching to believers, he was unlocking the mysteries of salvation from the Law and likewise from the Prophets, which had been spoken of old, both confirming and fulfilling them.

There is another heresy, which asserts that the consummation of the age was appointed by God Christ the Saviour according to a fixed determination of times. And hence it supposes that the number of the consummation is certain, and they think it shall be no more and no less, since the prophets have everywhere announced that the consummation of the age shall occur around the five hundredth year, and that the Lord shall thus come again from heaven. For Daniel counts seventy weeks, hearing from Christ the Lord: Hear, he says, O man of desires, for seventy weeks are determined upon thy people until Christ the leader, that all things which have been said concerning the city of Jerusalem and the people about to come may be fulfilled. Now just as this was said to Daniel before Christ came in the flesh and was nearly fulfilled; so also the same number up to the law which Moses received, and up to the entrance into the promised land, is found not far distant from the number of five hundred years.

The Lord therefore, when he spoke of signs and various things, famines, persecutions, floods, earthquakes, pestilences coming about at the end, also said to blessed Peter by a riddle concerning the multitude of years, when Peter said: Lord, how many times shall I forgive a brother who sins against me? The Lord said, not seven times, but seventy times seven. Showing indeed both that the infinite daily number of the sins of the human race ought to be forgiven by man to man, and that to Judas returning, or to the pagan and others who are carnal, and to those returning from impiety to the faith of Christ and to his Church, all debt ought to be granted to all who believe. For also the Jewish historians taught, saying that from nothing more than four hundred and eighty years had passed, and that the Lord had thus come in the flesh.

You have also in Genesis the mystery most plainly announced: concerning Cain sevenfold, but concerning Lamech seventy times sevenfold vengeance, which the Scriptures have without doubt foretold the impiety of two peoples in two persons, the iniquity of the one, the wickedness of the other. For the law is spiritual, according to the Apostle; and these, he says, are two testaments. For we neither lose the historical sense that the people spent seventy years in Persia, nor do we despise the spiritual knowledge. Therefore also the seventy weeks spoken of by Daniel, four hundred and ninety years, were then nearly completed, and thus Christ came in the flesh, and from the presence of Christ until the consummation of the age you will find nearly the same number of years to be completed. For the interpreters taught the seventy weeks which Daniel saw.

Those first wise men, seventy times seven, four hundred and ninety years—which the Jews in the law called the jubilee, not these later ones but those ancient and skilled ones—awaited with the greatest joy the year of Christ's remission and indulgence, celebrating his bodily presence beforehand through a figure, as is contained in Leviticus. Now the lesser jubilee has fifty years; it cannot have less, nor can it have more: for the greater jubilee has five hundred years, the lesser jubilee fifty. The greater therefore has five hundred years less a tenth, so that from this one jubilee might declare the presence of Christ and the consummation of the age.

The seventy years of the people's captivity in Persia, even if they are taken historically, and after they returned to Jerusalem, and up to the incarnation of Christ the Lord nearly five hundred are found to be completed: yet this also is to be understood spiritually, that after seventy times seven, that is after four hundred and around ninety years, it is necessary that the Jews under Antichrist, when he who they first supposed to be Christ shall be found to be a deceiver by the Jews—not long after, however, when his treachery and deceit are recognized, then all those who remain, repenting, shall fly to the faith of Christ the Lord, and repenting shall obtain forgiveness of their sins from Christ himself, as the rest have done, so that what was said may be fulfilled: Amen I say to you, you shall not see me henceforth until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

And that this may be fulfilled: Until the fullness of the Gentiles enter in, and so all Israel shall be saved, as it is written; and if the people of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, the remnant shall be saved.

And what blessed Isaiah openly taught concerning Christ, that he would grant pardon to all who return, the Lord himself said thus: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, therefore he has anointed me, he has sent me to preach the gospel to the poor, to proclaim remission to captives, to announce sight to the blind, the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of retribution, concerning which the Lord, when he had received the book in the temple, the Scripture which had foreseen this, said to the Apostles and in all things that this had now been fulfilled in his presence, which also most blessed Daniel perceived, because the Lord had said to him: Hear, O man of desires, and attend from the going forth of the word of God, that is from the incarnation of Christ, and his divine sentence again from heaven and the consummation of the age, which shall come with the angel.

There is another heresy which asserts concerning the giants that angels mingled with women before the flood, and supposes that giants were born therefrom; whereas Nembroth was born afterwards not from a spirit, that is not from an angel, but from a man, Chus who was the son of Cham, who is also in Scripture called the first Giant, because he began to be a hunter and a strong man so as to be called a Giant in the earth: Thence they shall say, it says, as Nembroth the Giant, so is he strong, if anyone should afterwards appear like him in strength. Men therefore were strong, and from youth rapacious, plunderers, javelin-throwers, runners, given to plunder, and hence as it were alien not only in their ways but also in their appearance to other men: so enormous also that, perpetrating such crimes against the nature of other men, they were called giants.

For Giant by etymology is called a monster of the earth, composed of two names, whether in form, or in life, or in appearance, or in strength, or in bulk of limbs. For that you may know that giants were not of another nature but were born of human stock, you have the six-fingered ones in the Books of Kings, whom the Books of Kings announced as of great form and bulk of limbs and immense strength, of the race of giants, more than two thousand three hundred years after the flood; as also that Goliath whom most blessed David the king and prophet alone struck down in battle; whose chariot, it says, bore the equipment of his arms. Because therefore men of this kind were given over from childhood to plunder after the manner of beasts, Scripture announced them as alien as it were from the nature of men and their ways.

For that those angels who were cast down from heaven are not similar to human nature is not in doubt, except only that they prevailed to suggest wicked and contrary things, and things against the Law, as they also do now to men, entering into men, that is persuading, as the enemy of the human race persuaded the Jews to perpetrate such crimes against God and against the holy prophets, as it is written: Satan, it says, entered into Judas. Thus therefore also before, unclean spirits entering into the souls of men and women had spread the crimes of evil persuasion throughout the world. But if anyone shall have thought it just that angels so sinned, transformed in the flesh, as to have remained in it, or shall have believed them to have been made thus carnal, he decides the history by violent reasoning; just as also the falsehoods of the pagans and poets assert that gods and goddesses, transformed, committed abominable unions.

For if this was done at some time, it will not be doubtful that it is done now also: but what was not done at some time, it is manifest that it is not done now either. Giant is also taken in a good sense on account of virtue: For he shall rejoice as a Giant to run his course. Which is shown to be proved and fulfilled in the divine presence of Christ.

There is another heresy, which says that Paganism was instituted by God, and was not devised by the malice of men and the suggestion of the enemy for the purpose of producing vices and crimes. But how can that which was instituted by God be condemned by that same God? For it is not in doubt that it was announced from the origin of the world by the knowledge of God the Father almighty, and of His Son, and of the Holy Spirit; for in the book of the creation of the world, that is in Genesis, you have it written: And God said, and God made. And again: God said, let there be lights. And on the sixth day God said: Let us make man in our image and likeness. And God made; it is manifest that this was not by the persuasion of an angel in the creation of man, but by His Son Christ our Lord, and the Holy Spirit.

For you have in Genesis, that is in the first book, the holy and adorable Trinity announced to men beforehand; for it says thus: And it rained from the Lord from the Lord brimstone and fire. And again concerning the Spirit on the first day: And the Spirit of God moved over the water. And Pharaoh king of Egypt says: Who, he said, shall interpret these things for us, unless he who has had the Spirit of God? And David: By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their power. But afterwards the perverse will of men, departing from so great a knowledge of piety, when it hastened eagerly to serve the lies and vanities of idols and had preferred to give itself over to a most shameful life, was held bound under judgment liable to condemnation, so that the prophets said beforehand: He that sacrifices to gods shall be rooted out. And again: The gods who did not make heaven shall be rooted out.

And therefore the Lord was not showing a new presence of His own, saying: He who spoke in the prophets, behold I am here. Nowhere, therefore, did the Lord command that angels be worshipped, nor the elements of the world, nor any creature, nor idols, which the most wicked will of men preferred to devise as a cause for perpetrating its crime and wickedness, so that those who worship them might have an unrestrained license for doing evil: for even the very name of idol, as a kind of deceit and a transgression of form, is so called from the Greek interpretation. The Trinity of Christianity was therefore preached from the origin of the world, and the truth of piety was taught everywhere without interruption; for David also teaches: The Lord said to my Lord. And: Thy good Spirit shall lead me in the right way. And again: The Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole earth. And: Whither shall I flee from thy Spirit, and whither shall I go from thy face?

For Solomon teaches, that idolatry was instituted by man; because a father, who had long wept for his lost son, made an image of him, and took delight in looking upon it, and from this it was handed down to posterity, and a varied material of impiety thence sprang up in the human race.

There is another heresy, which says that Christians were created most recently and later than Jews and Pagans: not knowing that Christians were created prior to Jews and Pagans in nature, and in faith, life, and time, in sacrifice, and in manner of life.

In faith indeed, because from Adam to Moses, through three thousand seven hundred years, all the just, worshipping God and God, Lord and Lord, and also the Holy Spirit, proclaimed the true Trinity, so that you can recognize that same complete Trinity without difficulty from those blessed earlier and ancient ones, and that this was also afterwards made manifest to us by the Lord. For when Scripture says: The Lord rained from the Lord upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire, what does it seem to you to announce? Does it not declare that God the Father accomplished all signs and wonders through His Son, that is Christ God? Knowing this, David proclaimed the Lord the Father, and the Lord Christ, that is His Word, and the Holy Spirit: he proclaimed a Trinity of persons, yet of one majesty, and proclaimed the equal power of one substance and divinity.

Yet he properly showed that the Son is from God the Father as the prior, and the Holy Spirit, teaching: By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their power. And again elsewhere: The Lord said to my Lord. And all the prophets proclaimed the Word and the Spirit, saying everywhere thus: And the word of the Lord came to me; and: The Spirit of the Lord was upon me. Therefore the cause of faith is not temporal Christianity, but it was made manifest before Jews and Pagans to those who were diligently seeking and searching in the Law; but to those who were not desirous, the voice of the Father and the knowledge of the Almighty was proclaimed by those holy and perfect Doctors.

In life also, those earlier holy ones used no other life than that in which we live. For up to Abraham, not having circumcision, not rejoicing in sacrifices, they pleased God, and were proclaimed by Him as just in all things. For David said: A sacrifice to God is a contrite heart, and: Offer to God a sacrifice of praise. And that the temporal sacrifices, compelled by the necessity of their unteachableness, were not perpetual nor truly appointed for the Jews, nor salutary, the prophet says to the Jews: Behold I do new things; and: Before they come, they are announced to you. Therefore Isaiah the prophet testified to the Jews beforehand: For who required these things at your hands? And again: Circumcise your hearts, and not your bodies. But how remarkable is it that Melchisedech offered sacrifice under Abraham in the beginning, four hundred years before the Jews were named, or Judah was born, and before they received the book of Genesis, foreseeing the mystery of Christianity?

So that you may know that all things which are in Christianity, whether faith, or life, or sacrament, are not temporal, but were established and announced from the origin of the world, and moreover celebrated. But in Christ and through Christ, through whom all things were made, it was fitting that we should see and know from Him, and receive from Him more fully completed and consummated what had been the greater mystery in the Law announced beforehand concerning Him. For that chastity likewise existed in very many of the prophets is not in doubt, as in Elijah, Elisha, Daniel, Jeremiah, Ezra, the three young men, and many other most blessed ones; so that in the presence of Christ, what was above the Law, having been announced beforehand by them, might be recognized, and what was joined through the Law might be confirmed by His divine sentence, and this grace might be known to have been granted to the will and zeal of men.

And therefore the Lord Himself joined those earlier holy ones before the Law to us, and us to those earlier ones, according to the faith of righteousness: but looking upon the Jews and Pagans, who were placed in the middle time between the commandment and grace, who are found ruined by hostile and pernicious will in carnal vices, enemies and adversaries of heavenly teaching, reserved for the eternal judgment of punishments.

There is a heresy which says that Pagans are born naturally, not Christians, that is, it holds that the body and soul of man are not created daily by God through Christ according to the nature of things, but proceed in this way through pagan vanity: whereas from Adam to Abraham, and afterwards to Judah, who after Abraham is the fourth in generation, they were called neither Pagans nor Jews; but were called Gentiles from the name and diversity of their provinces. Pagans, however, after the Jews, were called either from a pagus, that is a place, or from one province, or from a Pagan king, which is manifest to be true, as Hesiod the Greek poet says. If therefore from pagus, it is an indication of a place, just as it is also now said of that pagus: but if from idols, because those who worshipped carved images were thus called Pagans, that is Gentiles; because idols were not invented by God, but by the most depraved will of men, as also our Scripture says.

And very many of the Pagans announced that men invented these things for the seduction and damnation of souls, because the people, looking upon them, took delight in feasts, in whose vanity they brought destruction upon their own souls. But the certain and greater proof is that the Pagans were named from a Pagan king, as Hesiod the Greek poet says, because afterwards from the Pagan king Deucalion's son and Pyrrha, as it were holding his name as pleasing and lovable, or rather venerating his memory, they retain this lie of a name even to this day in their devoted worship. Hellas, that is the Greek man, is named from the language and from the name of the king, who was the son of Deucalion, who was so called, just as the Italians received their name from Italus, and the Romans from Romulus, and the Latins from Latinus, not from the impiety of idols. For idols, that is the carved forms of men, were afterwards invented by most wicked will.

But the property of one province declared the Greek language, which the Pagan king confirmed from his own name, just as Romulus named the Romans, and as Hesiod says, the Greeks were named from the Greek king, who was named Graecus, the son of Deucalion.

There is another heresy, which says that the number of years from the origin of the world is uncertain, and that men are ignorant of the courses of time: whereas from Adam to the flood there are ten generations and 2242 years. And from the flood to the confusion of tongues under holy Eber, who had not consented to the building of the tower, is the fifth generation, nearly 600 years; when also the names of the provinces were divided, as it were into tongues. From thence to Abraham is the fifth generation of the patriarchs, 540 years. And from Abraham to Moses seven generations, 430 years, as the blessed Apostle says. And from Moses to Samuel the judge, 719 years. And from Samuel and David to the captivity of the Jews in Persia, nearly 500 years. And from the captivity to the presence of our Lord, nearly 500 years. And from the Lord until now, more than 380 years.

Therefore if this faith which is in us was in those earlier holy fathers of ours, and was handed down and proclaimed by them beforehand, that is, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: how indeed is this divine knowledge temporal, as some suppose, and was not this Christian knowledge announced to all men from the origin of the world, which is shown to have been made manifest and proclaimed in the commandment and the Law? But if in the middle of time under Moses, through shadow something was said in lesser terms, it was certainly not the envy of the Lord, inasmuch as the heavenly mystery was not grasped by the people, and the incapacity and weakness of men who were not able to receive it shall not be charged against them.

Finally Christ the Lord himself, what he had previously announced through the holy prophets, this he also afterwards confirmed by commanding, saying: Go, baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; so that he might not only declare this to be the ancient faith from the origin of the world, but also confirm the life in which we live today, in circumcision of the heart, not in the boasting of the flesh. They err therefore exceedingly who dare to ascribe the generation of man either to Pagan impiety or to Jewish vanity; since a Jew cannot lawfully be called a Jew unless he has received circumcision on the eighth day, nor likewise a Pagan unless he has believed that vain gods made man.

Therefore the nature of things is to be ascribed to God, not to the vanity of any of these: but the teaching which brings fruitfulness after nature, if it be true, is to be joined to faith in God, and united to most wholesome service; not departing from it indeed, but rather acknowledging through faith its own Lord, and naturally remembering the Creator. And so it is not the weakness of the nature of men's souls, but rather their perverse will that is to be blamed; as the Lord says: And now if you are willing and will hear me, you shall eat the good things of the earth: but if you are unwilling and will not hear me, the sword shall devour you. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. And this: Come to me, all you who are burdened, and I will lift you up.

There is also a heresy to be noted, which says that the names of the days—of the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn—were so placed by God from the origin of the world, and were not called by the vain presumption of men; whereas if you are willing to inquire, from the first origin up to the Greek kings and that most deceitful Hermes, who dared to invent and assign these most vain and frivolous names by lying, you will find that much time had elapsed, and that thus the Pagans, that is the Greeks, gave these names; since they also said that the generation of men consists according to the seven Stars, as that same raving man defines. For the number of the days—first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh—was named by God, and was not proclaimed or handed down at the beginning in this shameful vanity of naming.

There is a heresy which, when it reads in Genesis the word of the Lord speaking concerning Adam: Behold, Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil. And now lest at any time he stretch forth his hand and touch and taste of the tree of life and live forever, says: He expelled him, it says, from paradise on account of envy.

And first they hold this, that one God made the soul and another the flesh, as the Manicheans, Gnostics, Nicolaitans, and other lost ones suppose, saying that one God indeed is good and another is evil, they say: in this age, and they reckon this evil God to have said that they should be driven from paradise; not attending to the fact that one and the same God the Father made our father Adam through the Son, and gave him a commandment, so that by keeping it he would remain immortal, and by transgressing the commandment he would be driven from paradise, as it is written, and that he suffered this through the persuasion of the enemy; since they do not attend to the mercy of Christ, they descend into the abyss of eternal death.

This God therefore, not envying, drove our father from paradise, not that he might linger there, or not taste of the tree of life; but rather consulting his good in punishing him for a small sin, lest by sparing him he might find him guilty of greater crimes as well with advancing age, and thereafter condemn him more severely as guilty by criminal judgment. For between man and the devil, Christ was at once a hearer and a most just and good judge in all things; and likewise he did not spare man sinning in a small matter, giving to him also a fitting sentence according to the sin he had committed; and equally leaving to the devil a place of repentance. But since the devil did not understand so as to repent of the suggestion of so great an evil, a greater judgment was reserved for him afterward.

And man indeed, when driven from paradise, is found more inclined to repentance; but the devil, since he is seen to be harder toward repentance, awaits a greater servitude of future judgment from Christ the Lord, as it is said: He was not willing to understand so as to do good. And again: But evil he did not hate. Because therefore Adam, sinning in a small matter, was persuaded by the devil to eat, and immediately did penance, he merited to obtain pardon for his fault, and to return to paradise into the presence of Christ, also through the procreation of children. But the devil, not doing penance, and his satellites, are reserved for a greater judgment, as the Lord said: Depart from me into the eternal fire which my Father has prepared for the devil and his angels.

There is another heresy, which says that worlds are infinite and innumerable, according to the empty opinion of certain philosophers: whereas Scripture has said that there is one world, and has taught concerning one. These also take their material from the apocrypha of the prophets, that is from secrets, as the Pagans themselves have called them; so that even that Democritus, who asserted that there are many worlds, and boasts of his wisdom in this matter, has stirred up the souls of many and their uncertain minds with various errors.

There are certain heretics who suppose that our father Adam and our mother Eve were blind before they tasted of the tree, and that afterward their eyes were opened, and then they perceived that they were naked: whereas Scripture had said before that he also saw the tree with his own eyes, and its fruit; and that it was good to look upon and pleasant to the sight; and that stretching forth his hand, he tasted. It belongs therefore to the madness of heretics, and rather to the blindness of Jews, to think thus, since they do not understand the manner of nakedness; and this loss of immortality in the transgression of the commandment he taught us, not the nakedness of the body. Which the Apostle taught us, saying: And, if clothed with Christ, we may not be found naked. And again: Put on Christ Jesus. And what the Lord rebukes in the Gospel, speaking to him who had not a wedding garment, who had been called to the wedding.

There is a heresy which, when it hears in Genesis that the Lord clothed our first parents with tunics of skins after the transgression, supposes that he then made their bodies and thus clothed them, whereas Scripture said on the seventh day that the Lord took earth from the clay and fashioned their bodies, and afterward completed the woman's flesh from the rib of Adam. Therefore here he was not announcing that their bodies were tunics of skins, but was declaring that he had given them by divine power the wisdom to make garments for their bodies, as it is written: Who gave women wisdom to weave tunics? But if anyone wishes to accept that the Lord made tunics for them, the Almighty made from nothing what is written: Who calls from nothing the things that are not as though they were. If therefore by his wisdom he made tunics, as the Prophet says, it is reasonable; or whether God by his power provided this for them, it is not void.

For in the Temple women and virgins worked purple and byssus and linen and other furnishings for the honor of the temple, and likewise also various and diverse ornaments of the temple.

There is a heresy which, when it hears in Exodus that an angel met Moses at the inn where he had lodged, and wished to kill him, not his son who had not yet been circumcised, takes no small scandal from this. For if indeed anyone wishes to think that the angel was threatening them because, after the appointed days had passed, that is eight, on which the male ought to have been circumcised, they had not done so, and had thus despised the commandment of God: and therefore the fault of those constituted in tender age is not theirs, but rather that of their parents, as it is written. Wherefore when she understood that the fault was the parents' and not the infant's, immediately, it says, taking a stone she circumcised the boy, his mother, at the sight of whose blood the angel immediately departed from him, and had altogether removed the punishment of death which he threatened to inflict upon him.

For Moses is not recognized as having been circumcised at that hour, as some suppose, but his son was circumcised; because what was commanded under the Patriarchs and the Law was fulfilled by the people, or by the parents of some, with slow rather than swift action, as it is written.

There are certain heretics who are troubled by Deuteronomy, in which Moses, when he was departing from the body and was writing this book by repeating from the four books, in which he decrees as it were the foundations of the prior Law and bears fuller witness to the bodily presence of Christ, are led into no small error by thinking otherwise. For what is written in the Law, that is in Exodus, is contained also in that same book; but this alone seems to have been said additionally by him, because he added: The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet from among your brethren, like me; you shall hear him; and it shall be that if anyone does not hear him, he shall be utterly rooted out. For some suppose it to have been said from Deuteronomy by him, that in it also he received on the mountain again the stone tablets written upon, whereas in Exodus he is known to have received them twice and to have ascended the mountain.

It is therefore reasonable that what belonged to the Law and to grace should be made manifest concerning Christ the Lord; so that what is celebrated in the Law through shadow might be announced in Christ through bodily presence, with heavenly grace poured out upon believers, and that what was written in the book might be handed down to all as it were in testimony.

There are certain heretics who, when they hear that David said in the fiftieth psalm, that in iniquity I was conceived, and in sin did my mother bear me, suppose that the prophet meant to say that the lawful right of marriage is iniquity and sin. Whereas it is said beforehand in the book of Genesis: Be born, and multiply, and fill the earth. And: Marriage is to be held in honour. For if anyone should think thus, then even so many and so great just men were conceived in iniquity, since they were also sanctified in the womb, as the Patriarchs, the Prophets, the Judges, Jeremiah, and the most blessed John the Baptist, as it is written.

But they are ignorant of the fact that the prophet David spoke in another sense, not of natural generation, but of the transgression of Adam our father and of Eve, who after the transgression of the commandment, having been driven from paradise, begat children; and that he thereby taught that she, as it were the mother of all, after the iniquity of the transgression of the commandment, so conceived and so brought forth. For how could David say of himself that he was conceived in iniquity and born in sin, when he was born by lawful right and was chosen by God to be sought out for such great glory of kingship, as is written of him? He was not therefore teaching here that he was born in iniquity or in sin; but he wished to show our parents Adam and Eve, that after sin had first been committed, that is the transgression of the commandment, they thereafter begat children in such a manner, and from them brought us all forth likewise.

And therefore after the transgression, in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, it says; because therefore from those first parents we have the common iniquity of the flesh of their transgression, and the general one descending from the first inheritance into all, as the Apostle said: As through one man death entered into all men. For this right of marriage promulgated by God is praised daily and customarily blessed; for both what was first showed sadness, and what Christ's grace was to bring as great heavenly joy to believers, he announced saying: If anyone has not been regenerated of water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. And therefore in that psalm, foreknowing the future joy, he bore witness saying: Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop and I shall be cleansed, thou shalt wash me and I shall be made whiter than snow; so that through him we also who believe may rejoice together with him in the saving baptism.

There are certain heretics who do not think rightly concerning the division of the earth and the partition of habitation: disputing that the Greeks, or the Egyptians, or the Persians began to describe the whole circle of the earth, and that the blessed Noah did not divide, give, define, and apportion it in order to his three sons after the flood. Whence afterwards the historians, taking up as it were certain paths, fabricated various falsehoods. To his three sons therefore, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, he divided and handed over the whole circle of the lands. To Shem indeed the eastern regions of India, extending to the Persians as far as a certain part of the South; of the West and North as far as Mount Lebanon, and there his firstborn would have his boundary—this he confirmed by fixed decree.

To Ham also, his second son, he distributed by reckoning all the Syrias, and the dioceses of Egypt, Africa, the vast breadth of the Ethiopians stretching near the borders of the Ocean, and the Hispanias, and pronounced by divine spirit that he should possess and inhabit it; but in the middle as far as Cappadocia, that is Mount Taurus, he granted him to have his borders. To the third, however, by name Japheth, to those entering Cappadocia and departing from Cilicia, the cold regions, namely those of Armenia, the Bosphorus, Pontus, Thrace, Pannonia, Illyricum, Italy, and all the parts of the west, he assigned by divine command in establishing them for him. And from the first indeed twenty-five generations are counted as having descended. From the second thirty-five, that is from Ham.

But from Japheth, to whom a smaller generation was numbered at that time, that is only the fifteenth, a more ample one to be desired was promised by the blessed Noah as coming to him in the future, with Scripture saying: May the Lord enlarge Japheth, may he dwell in the tents of Shem. Since to the younger son a smaller number of generations was found to have been granted at that time, a greater number growing was afterwards to be amplified for him as coming, as it were beyond his two brothers, so that he would hold the dominions of the middle and the extreme regions, that is of the Canaanites, Egyptians, Africans, and Persians. From whom afterwards the Romans were produced, conquerors of the circle of the earth and rulers of all nations: whence we know that the Romans, Latins, and Italians derive their lineage from Japheth, and that these hold the circle of the earth under their dominion daily, and have held it more often before.

But what is thought to be ancient by the falsehood of the Greeks, is proved to be temporal in every respect by the testimony of their own authors, Solon bearing witness to the Athenians that he had heard from an Egyptian priest, who said to him: Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always young and children. But a Greek will never be old or ancient, nor do you have any ancient learning or knowledge; but you have what has been seized and taken from others, and you set it forth changed with various lies, and so you teach men. For Plato says this in the Timaeus. For after the confusion of tongues, diverse names then began to spread forth, and taking from these the Greek historians, writing two or three diverse records as it were, while they wish to obscure and hide their own temporality, they have been judged and proved most mendacious by their own witnesses.

For when fifty of them agree among themselves concerning our antiquity, that is Greeks, Egyptians, Chaldaeans, Syrians, but two or three dissent: it is more just to acquiesce in the many consonant in one than in two or three dissonant historians, because those many have declared more truly than the two.

There is also a heresy which says that the flood under Deucalion and Pyrrha was more ancient than that which took place under Noah. Which the pagans, transferring it with changed names in an impious manner, assert that the ark was as it were in Greece after the flood; and what belongs to the most vain temporality of paganism is proclaimed by them as ancient with much falsehood. And what took place in Thessaly in a small place is taught by those thieving pagans as having taken place everywhere, that is in the world. What indeed took place after years in Thessaly, in a place at times small, that flood however took place in the whole age, as even the Scripture of those Gentiles themselves bears witness.

There is another heresy which says that men are born according to the twelve signs of the Zodiac, as those most vain Mathematicians, asserters of all error and wickedness: and hearing these things very many of the unlearned at times, abandoning the law of God, do not hesitate to serve the vanities of the mathematicians: whence the Apostolic sentence is fulfilled: They worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator. And again: See that no one deceive you through philosophy and vain deceit according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ; because in him dwells all the fullness of divinity bodily.

Therefore they are ignorant of the fact that these twelve Zodia, as they are called by them, are diverse climates and diverse regions in the circle of the earth disposed by God to be inhabited, and that diverse temperaments of places and times have been established, such as hot, cold, dry, and moist, as at the four corners of the age, from which when as it were full of quality the springs overflow with breath, breathing upon one another with great force properly directed, and a wholesome mixture existing: again when their mixture is spread everywhere, a pleasant temperament of health is thereby administered to all inhabitants, and so the sweet and prosperous life granted and imparted to mortals by the Lord through divine power is not unknown.

Nor is there lacking a heresy which says that the souls of usurers, of the wicked, and of murderers, and of others such as these pass into demons, and cattle, and beasts, and serpents: being ignorant that the soul of a man when it has departed from this age, whether good or evil, that is pious or impious, is led by an angel to an appointed place, so that in the future it may receive according to what it has done while established in this age. But if anyone should think this to be so, he seems to have fellowship with the paganism and vanity of the philosophers rather than with Christianity; since the Apostle says: We must all appear before the tribunal of Christ, that each one may receive what he has done in this body. And again: But in hell who shall confess to thee?

The nature of the soul therefore is not turned into another nature; but when by its will it despises and neglects the commandment of God, and dissembles in adhering to lawful and salutary pursuits, dedicating itself to the future judgment of punishments, it is known to be comparable to cattle for no other reason than that of its morals, not by nature but by morals, as it is written. Therefore men of this kind—pagans, Jews, and very many others—are made like to the nature not of cattle but in morals in this age. For even the Saviour, when he said to the Jews: You are of your father the devil, was showing by reproof and judgment that they were like him not in nature but in the morals of wickedness and bestial sensibilities. And John said to the Jews: Brood of vipers.

There are other heretics who say that the Lord descended into hell and there also proclaimed to all after death, so that those confessing there might be saved; whereas this is contrary to the prophet David saying: But in hell who shall confess to thee? And to the Apostle: As many as have sinned without the law shall perish without the law. But he also says: a It shall be more tolerable for some than for that city which shall not have believed, namely in the doctrine of the Apostles and the Gospel. In comparison with many punishments he says they endure lesser torments than those others, yet he does not affirm that they are saved by this reasoning.

For b those who suppose that false poets and vain philosophers can be saved, rebels against God: they err worse than those, and dissent from the truth, since none other than those vain poets and philosophers sowed the seeds of pagan impiety, sowing in the minds of men the names of gods and goddesses, while the Prophet cries out concerning the future judgment, that it might be remitted to him here in repentance, saying: Remit to me that I may be refreshed, before I go and shall be no more. If therefore the just, sinning and still in this life, scarcely received repentance while repenting, as Solomon says, and if the just man is scarcely saved, where shall the impious and the sinner appear? For e if they had believed God to exist, they would not have sown the shameful names of gods and goddesses, and at Christ's descent into hell they would have obtained pardon. Since therefore the impious and enemies of God are everywhere, how were they saved there confessing after death?

Since the Apostle teaches that every man must die, and after this be judged, as it is written, before the tribunal of Christ, and receive according to what he has done in this age. But the Saviour confirms this saying of them that they believed not even the Father, whence he also declared them to be judged: but he who believed in the Father, before Christ came in the flesh, passed from the judgment of the impious. In comparison however of sinners and the impious, there is a diversity of punishments and stripes; there is not a full absolution of both, but the justice of discrimination, and a condign recompense according to sin, even for those who had been swallowed up by water under Noah, as Scripture has taught.

There is also another heresy, which, being uncertain about the nature of the soul, supposes that it consists of elements, as many most vain philosophers, now suspecting the soul of man to be of fire, now of water, now of spirit, now of matter, now of a source, now of atoms, now as it were of air; whereas the soul was made by the Lord, from nothing indeed, as it is written: Who made from nothing all things, that those things which were not might exist. The soul therefore, made by God, was called the image of God, after the creation of the angels, that is: for man is lesser than the nature of the angels, as it is written: Thou hast made him a little less than the angels. But if he shall have kept the commandments of the Law, then he shall be as the Angels.

If therefore the Angels are servants of God placed under the Law, how much more also the soul of man, under the Law which has been proclaimed, if it shall have kept what was commanded to it, ought then to say what the Lord says to the apostles: And if you shall have done all things, say that we are unprofitable servants.

There is another heresy, which says of the Saviour, that he first existed with the Father, and was thus born; and since it confesses this in a simple manner, it furnishes various scandals to men: for to exist before, and afterwards to be born, is contrary in every respect. And although his generation itself is twofold, one of his divinity, indefinite and eternal, the other of his incarnation through the Virgin temporal: yet there is no doubt, that according to his divinity we ought to acknowledge, that he neither at any time was absent from being with the Father, nor was he who was always with the Father from himself, and was not known to be begotten of the Father, as certain ones wandering suppose.

If therefore both are set forth with a right interpretation, it is shown to be correct and a foundation of faith, that we both acknowledge him to be begotten of the Father properly as this only Son, yet not in time: but we acknowledge and believe, as is fitting, that before all ages and every creature he was begotten of the Father properly; and let us not be ignorant that he remains with the Father in perpetuity, and has always remained so. There is therefore no separation, or contrariety, between always existing and having existed, and being begotten: for always existing is said on account of eternity, lest the Son be deemed temporal; but it says begotten, because the Church, in its preaching, acknowledges him to be born not from himself, but of the Father.

Therefore one must not be disjoined from the other, but the eternity of the Son must be joined together, and the generation must be coupled with eternity; and concerning the Father, the confession is to be believed and held in such a way that one Father as begetter and one only Son of the Father, properly begotten of the Father, is acknowledged by us. Therefore always to exist and to be begotten 6 is equitable in pious faith: so that his eternal generation may not be temporal, and the true property and eternity of the only-begotten Son of the Father, and with the Father, may not be unknown. But if anyone first confesses him to be unbegotten, and thus afterwards to have been begotten of the Father, he knows not what he confesses.

For while he thinks he is escaping one heresy, he falls into another worse one, by confessing the Son to be unbegotten, or rather by denying both the Father and the Son, and by proclaiming two unbegotten things, and by denying the truth of the one unbegotten Father and the one only-begotten Son of the Father.

There are certain heretics who think that the Lord spoke thus through Moses concerning Pharaoh: That for this purpose I have raised thee up, that I might show in thee my power. And: Hardening I will harden the heart of Pharaoh, that he will not let you go. And the Apostle says: So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. But the Apostle says this not as a definitive statement, but as he disputes and teaches what is true, lest anyone suppose that God spoke in such a manner. For he ought to attend to what the Lord says: That I might show in thee indeed all my power, that is, magnanimity, goodness, patience, which is certainly poured out upon all in this age.

For when he speaks to him, he speaks to every man established in the body, namely in prosperity, in temporal wealth and power, he proclaims to those who, when they attend to riches, become more sluggish and negligent regarding the fear and grace of God and Christ, and thus forget their salvation to the very end, and become unmindful of the fear of God. For when Pharaoh himself was afflicted, he unwillingly acknowledged the Lord, as it is written. And when he was again released by God, he returned as a dog to his own vomit. And therefore the souls of all Pagans, Jews, heretics, and the rich alike, and of sinners, are found at times to be despisers of God in prosperity: therefore useful instruction is salutary to the human race in all things, as the Prophet says: It is good for me, O Lord, that thou hast humbled me, that I may learn thy justifications. And again concerning chastisement: When the Lord slew them, he says, then the Jews sought him, and they returned early to him.

Therefore the blessed Apostle does not say that we should not run, or not wish to serve God; but first we ought to run by our own will, then not with presumption and boasting, as though by our own power and justice being worthy, lest we fail to merit being saved by the clemency of Christ. For he who runs with pride and presumption does not hope for aid from God, inasmuch as he presumes justice for himself from his own conduct. And thus the blessed Apostle teaches us both to run and to will; and that it is in our will, that in the very course of good works we persevere in humility, and then at last hope to be able to obtain salvation from the Lord himself, as the Lord says: And when you have done all things, say that we are most unprofitable servants. And: If the just man is scarcely saved; the sinner and the ungodly, where shall he appear? Therefore there are certain things in us in which we must run.

But there are greater things which are to be hoped for and obtained from God, as the Apostle says: You know not what you ask. As for instance if anyone should say, I can be a martyr, I can be an apostle; and does not say, if God Christ shall have willed it, because that increase of gift and grace is conferred by him, and is not obtained by the vain presumption and boasting of men: for such a will is that of a man who tempts and presumes; not of one who seeks and supplicates, that he may merit to attain so great a dignity.

There are certain heretics, such as the Manicheans, and Gnostics, and Nicolaitans, and others, who dare to say of blessed David, a that he was not a prophet of Christ, nor a teacher and interpreter of all the divine Scriptures, but that he was a composer of human song and secular matter: whereas he merited to proclaim before many the mysteries of the heavenly grace and of the saving secret of Christ the Lord to the human race. For just as Christ the Lord granted diverse grace to other Saints, so he granted to this one a greater knowledge, as the Lord says: I will give you the holy and faithful things of David (from). And: I have found David the son of Jesse, a man who will do all things that are in my heart, saith the Lord (from).

They are therefore ignorant that this one was a swift and most powerful interpreter of the divine Scriptures, David the king and prophet sent forth by the Lord; so that what had been said before, and seemed present, all these things gathered briefly might be proclaimed to the human race by him, and in three verses of the first psalm he might expound the whole power of truth of things past, present, and future; and announcing all the errors of every people and their diverse crimes, when he says: Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, that is of the Pagans: and hath not stood in the way of sinners, namely of the Jews: and hath not sat in the chair of pestilence, that is of the heretics.

And from this point, as it were from abundant springs and sources, he would teach the diverse seeds of iniquity that were to come upon the human race, so that with these three evils—Paganism, Judaism, and every heresy—despised and condemned, the one true faith, that is, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, might be believed and worshipped by all. For blessed David, led by divine zeal at that time, when he saw men sacrificing to demons, not to God, placed in the city of Jerusalem four choirs according to the four quarters of the world, each of seventy-two, with four men also placed from among those singing and guarding the ark of God, with countless others also outside on every side.

But in the midst, with the ark placed there, the most blessed David himself, patriarch, sang with the people, and as so great a witness and one predestined by the Lord of the incarnation of Christ the Lord, he returned the diverse joys and praises of the psalms in song to none other than Christ the Lord himself; and three times daily he delighted with the people in the singing of psalms together with prayers, with the singer sounding, proclaiming the divine presence of Christ, and concerning that matter, promising future joys to the age. Concerning whom the Lord also deigned to say that there had been many prophets and wise men who had desired to see and hear what the apostles merited to hear and see. For that even the wisdom of the Greeks themselves, which seems to be wisdom, is derived from the Law and the Prophets, and especially from David, is manifest to all in due time.

And therefore also the poets and other wise men endeavored to express in verse what they wished to say, imitating him. Since they took these arguments from the Law and the Prophets, hastening to violate the rights of truth with altered names, they sowed from of old the diverse lies of their own perfidy in the world. Hence very many secular men and the unlearned, ignorant of these things, desire rather to cultivate and follow the temporal pagan lies than the ancient and true mysteries of the saving Christian law and its foundations. From their own vanities, that is from the Greek historians, one can recognize how temporal and vain is the wisdom of the Greeks, which when it is gradually recognized by its own adherents, is without doubt despised, trampled upon, and daily condemned.

There are other heretics who suffer no small error concerning the inequality of the Psalter, supposing that the whole book of the Psalter is not David's, and when they seek the history in order, they find an inequality, that is, when they perceive that what is last is placed first, and what is first is placed last, they suffer no small scandal. For in the third psalm he suffers persecution from his son, and in the hundredth more is discussed concerning fighting against the Allophylus: whereas we find that he first fought with Goliath in his youth, but afterwards in his old age endured war from his own son. And although these things are to be understood spiritually of Christ, yet those who diligently inquire also into the history of the same prophet are troubled by no small stumbling-block.

Because, therefore, Scripture of the psalms says that the hymns of David ceased after seventy-two psalms, and afterwards again the title of the same is announced in many psalms; and concerning this they ask why it is so placed, not knowing that diverse joys of psalms were rightly imparted to the blessed king and prophet by the Lord. If therefore the titles of others are also found in the psalms, yet afterwards the sum of praise was granted to this author and founder by Christ, as to prophet, king, and patriarch. Concerning the inequality of the psalms according to history, those who have most diligently interpreted them have said this: that when captivity often befell the people of the Jews at the hands of the Gentiles on account of idolatry, because the Jews worshipped idols along with them, and in these circumstances even the divine Scriptures were sought out and burned by the Gentiles.

But if anyone had hidden something of the psalms, when peace afterwards came, those same divine Scriptures were sought out by a few holy persons; and when they were found, those who were wise in that time, receiving them—for there were no longer prophets, but priests held back by fear—arranged both the text of the psalms as best they could from what they received from certain persons, and ordered them to be set forth in that order. Thus therefore, according to history, this appears to be the cause of the inequality, as many have said. For that there is a spiritual equality within that very inequality of the psalms, to be known by the knowledge of Christ, is manifest to the diligent; so that what is in the first parts, the same is also in the middle concerning Christ likewise; and what was to come afterwards, the same was said beforehand of him everywhere. And therefore the Apostle says: Christ yesterday and today, the same also for ever and ever.

For that the psalms were spoken by spiritual power is not in doubt, so that what was done before by the devil through the impiety of idols, the same crime committed under the Jews by his seduction is shown; and that the perversity of heretics also, springing up daily at the end, belongs to him, the catholic Church does not ignore.

There are heretics holding a view contrary to the book of Genesis, where the Lord said to Cain: You have sinned; be still; your turning is toward you, and you shall have dominion over it. For when he says: You yourself shall have dominion over it; they suppose that he said to him: you shall be lord of your brother. And although if anyone should so understand it, because Cain was older by birth than his brother Abel, since also in the Law the elder by birth were also in honor, that is, the firstborn; yet he does not say here: You shall have dominion over him, as though you shall be his lord, which is in all respects contrary. For if it were so, how did the Lord pronounce upon him the sentence of death, because he had killed his own brother, as it is written?

Scripture therefore does not say that he was to have dominion over his brother so as to kill him; but: you shall have dominion over your evil thought, which is certainly in your own free choice, as it is in the free choice and will of every man, either to cast out from his heart the evil thought sent in by the devil, or by not casting it out to incur perpetual guilt. For as the searcher of the heart and mind of man, Christ the Lord, perceiving his hidden thoughts, rebuked what he had thought, and warned him not to do that wicked deed, and thereby sow in the world the way of fratricide. Which is also said in the Gospel: If you have something against your brother, go and be reconciled, and then afterwards offer your gift. And David likewise says: Be angry, and sin not. And what manner it is, be angry and sin not, he himself follows up by discussing: What you say in your hearts, and in your beds be compunctious.

Solomon also: If the spirit of one who has dominion over you rises up against you, give him no place to dwell in you. And the Lord: Whoever is angry with his brother without cause shall be in danger of judgment. And therefore the Lord taught that the thought arising from the suggestion of the enemy must be driven out at once, lest by dwelling long in a man it provoke him more readily to the committing of a wicked deed.

There is a heresy which does not rightly understand concerning Cain, that after the fratricide which he had committed, he asks the Lord to die rather than to be let go, saying thus: The cause is too great if I am let go, and everyone who finds me will kill me. But the Lord, through him alone, as if teaching a general lesson to all the human race, was granting through patience the abundant indulgence of his goodness; so that, with wickedness now ceasing, they might follow the fruitfulness of good works, and all might know from him that a certain path was to be embraced, the Lord saying: I desire not the death of a sinner, but that he should turn and live; so that through him the repentance for so great a crime might become known to all, and in it likewise abundant indulgence; so that the good fruitfulness of the penitent might now be shown to men by the exhortation of God, whereby, perceiving it, they might desire to acquire salvation rather than death for themselves.

Wherefore, as his own accuser and judge, when Cain is in part brought forth, saying that he had committed fratricide, he deserved to hear from the Lord that if the fruit of good works were henceforth to follow him, he would without doubt receive remission of so great a crime, and would no longer suspect that any fear of death being inflicted upon him by anyone was to come. Moreover also he had received a sign lest he be killed by anyone; and it was determined by heavenly sentence that seven punishments would be suffered by whoever of men had dared to lay hands upon him. For that very repentance was found to be feigned and not true, when he hears from the Lord: Whoever shall kill Cain shall pay seven penalties. Wherefore he also deserved to receive a sign on account of his penitence, if at least a worthy fruitfulness of good works were now to follow him.

But we do not find that the fruit of good repentance was in him to any degree; how much more did all impiety rather spring up from his race; who after him, being heirs of their father's impiety and of the enormity of so great a crime, since they were unwilling to bear repentance for their evils, with the blessed Noah announcing it to them, persisting in wickedness, perished by the dreadful destruction of death through the flood, except only eight souls at that time, who were born of the race of the holy ones, who alone deserved to escape the storm of so great a peril.

There is a heresy which supposes that the stars are fixed in the sky, and not that they proceed suddenly in the evening from hidden treasuries and places disposed by God at divine command, and at their appointed hours recognize their ordained course and ministry: which is found to be contrary and alien to the catholic Faith if anyone so thinks, and will be shown to have more in common with pagan vanity and the empty opinion of philosophers than with Christian knowledge.

For Scripture teaches the omnipotence of God in such a way as to have announced that the stars converge and disperse in a short time from diverse treasuries; and that they are provided and lent by God as an ornament of the sky and of the night, to be in part a cause of light, and are appointed to return again to their own places at diverse intervals of hours, so that from whatever places they are commanded to go forth each day, they can in no way pass beyond their due course of returning again to those places, driven and compelled by the presiding angel: and thereby the outpoured clemency of Christ might be made manifest to all the human race, who has granted to the just and unjust in this world an equal grace of goodness, announcing, who makes his sun rise upon the just and the unjust, and rains upon the good and the evil. And: The stars, he says, have known their treasuries and their course disposed daily.

There are certain heretics who reject many things from the Old Testament, that is, the Ecclesiastes of Solomon, written indeed in few sentences, yet containing for those who seek it the whole treasury of heavenly knowledge: for that he is wiser than all those before him, the Saviour himself has testified. When therefore they read: All is vanity of vanities, which are under heaven; and: I desired to have, as it is said, diverse things; and: God gave me, he says, and behold all is vanity of vanities; yet he adds only this afterwards as being from God, that if anyone eat and drink and do good to his soul. But if he spoke of this food alone, or of this drink, as being useful and carnal for this age, and announced nothing else of the future immortal life, then the labor of men is spent in vain.

Therefore what the Apostle says of certain persons: Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die, which is certainly the heresy of Pagans and Epicureans, which is compared to the life of cattle. And therefore man when he was in honor did not understand; he is compared to senseless cattle. Solomon therefore both announced the carnal life of men granted by God in many riches, and likewise proclaimed the future glory of angels to be present in the few who are diligent in desiring and believing. For if even a rich man in this age shall have worked well, it is necessary that he also attain there the fellowship of the future life: for just as this earthly food is given by God, so also that heavenly food is to be desired all the more from the Law.

For the faith of Christ the Lord, coming gloriously from the Law and the Prophets to those who desire it, which Mary rather than Martha had chosen, the Lord saying: That Mary had chosen the better part, which shall not be taken from her. Therefore if he said, vanity of vanities is what is in the world, he certainly proclaimed these things as passing, on account of that future glory which is eminent and perpetual, as the Apostle says: For the figure of this world and its glory passes away. But if the figure, and life, and honor, and dignity of this world shall cease and be destroyed: that heavenly and angelic dignity will certainly be the one to be desired, which is to come to believers through the incarnation, passion, and resurrection of Christ; which will not be temporal, carnal, and perishable, as that of the Jews according to the letter, and of others such as perish, expecting nothing hereafter.

On account of which the Lord says: Work for the food which does not perish; that is, that you believe in me, whom my Father has sent. Therefore Solomon was not speaking only of this carnal food while passing over that other; but he was announcing the diverse food and glory of holy men: first the carnal life of men in the present age, and after death that heavenly and angelic dignity coming to the just and faithful. And this carnal life, as vain and temporal, the justification of the Jews and of others such as perish, he announced as a life destined to perish, so that they might know it to be a shadow, and might not be ignorant that the temporal life of the body, soon to fall away, is as nothing in comparison with that heavenly and perpetual dignity. Of which food the Prophet says: Taste and see, for the Lord is sweet.

There is a heresy which doubts concerning the Song of Songs, likewise supposing that it was proclaimed to men not by the divine Spirit but on account of human affairs and pleasures; whereas the truth of heavenly things, compared by likeness to human things, has instructed the human race, as it is written in the Gospels and everywhere. Thus the divine presence of Christ in the flesh taught all in such a way as to stir them with divine love, to soothe them with admonition, to move them with mercy, to bend them with goodness. For as God, he showed the way; as a father, he admonished; as a shepherd, he pointed out pastures; as a king, he showed by conquering the enemy that his footsteps were to be followed, so that those who follow their fraternal Lord, that is, the Lord Christ coming in the flesh, may together with him rejoice in the triumph of immortal glory and heavenly merit.

And therefore the Songs are called the Song of Songs; so that what had previously been spoken in the Law only in shadow and in part might, now that Christ's presence had arrived and the consummation of the mystery had been celebrated through his passion, be opened up in fullness, so that, the shadow ceasing, the truth of the heavenly light might shine forth for every age, to kindle the body and soul of man and to rouse the mind of man with heavenly love. Those vain men, therefore, who serve the lusts of the flesh, and pretend that they cannot understand, or if it is expounded to them disdain to learn, and are unwilling to acknowledge the power of the Law, are to be judged as no less Jews or Pagans.

There is another heresy which says that the Commandment which Adam our Father had received is not to be accepted, and they suppose it to be of no virtue or usefulness; whereas without that Commandment, neither can the Law of Moses be received, nor the perpetual, outpoured, and abundant Grace of Christ be acknowledged. For every man, constituted in the body with a threefold power, is to be taught and instructed from the divine Law: so that in the first age he is under the Commandment, in the second under the Law, in the third under the Grace of the Saviour. And therefore the Law is rather an admonition on account of the forgetting of the original Commandment, which our father Adam first received from God in Paradise; for thus it is written in the Law: Lest, forgetting the commandment of the Lord your God, you depart from him and perish. Therefore the Law is an admonition of the Commandment and a confirmation of that first one.

Again, the Commandment and the Law proclaim the full goodness of Christ's Grace and his saving presence. And therefore the Lord says: Behold, I who spoke in the Prophets am present. Greater therefore are those ancients who were under the Commandment, since, not forgetting even Christ the Saviour, they announced his mystery also to their posterity: and because forgetfulness of it arose among the Jews, the admonition of the letter followed again, so that even in the letter the spiritual knowledge of Christ and his bodily presence illuminating the age might be hoped for. And therefore the Law of Moses, containing one thing in the sound of its voice and another in the hidden saving mystery of Christ, made proclamation. Therefore neither the Commandment without the Law, nor the Law without the Commandment, nor the Grace of Christ without the Law and the Commandment, ought to be received or believed by anyone.

There are certain heretics who, when they read the Scripture where the Lord says: Let us make man in our image and likeness, fall into no small madness; not knowing first what the image is, and what the likeness of God is. And since they do not know what the image of God is by nature of property, and what is the grace of position, they presume for themselves no small pride of dignity. For the image of God, that is, the soul of every man, is made from nothing: but the likeness, unless it has been recognized by God in faith and life, cannot be called the likeness of the image of God. And when someone esteems himself to be more, he incurs the guilt of presumption rather than acquires for himself the merit of dignity. For when this soul is found sinning and is known to be held liable to judgment, how can it be the natural image of God, which is recognized as serving diverse sins?

Since there can be no other natural image of God, divine and proper to the Father, not of angel or of man, but of Christ the Son of God, who by nature of indivisible property is the image begotten properly of the paternal and eternal substance, not created by position of servitude from nothing, as man and angel are. And therefore the Scripture declared that the image, that is the soul of pagan men, of Jews, of heretics, and of all, can be spoken of in the common generation and the nature of one quality, and announced the substance. But the likeness it declared to belong not to all, but only to the saints and Christians, who, persevering in faith, life, and good work, are promised to attain in the future the heavenly merits of the angels; such as the patriarchs, prophets, priests, judges, apostles, and evangelists, and Martyrs, who, believing in the Trinity and persevering in an illustrious life, are announced by the Lord to be joined to the glory of the angels.

For the likeness is recognized as true from the teaching of the Law, faith, life, zeal, and work, so that what has been made by God, consenting to his divine law by fulfilling its appointed precepts, may hope to be able to obtain from him fellowship in the heavenly kingdom, as the Apostle says: But our citizenship is in heaven. And the Lord again: Rejoice, because your names are written in heaven. And what the Lord says of the heavenly kingdom, that on the day of judgment he showed them to be as angels: Come, receive the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the World. The likeness therefore is shown to be present from faith in the holy Trinity, and good life, and the work that follows, so that those departing may receive the promised fellowship of angelic dignity, as John says: Then we shall be like him. And the Lord: Be like your Father.

There are certain heretics who say: why did God not always speak in one way, but proclaimed to the human race in diverse ways and tongues? Whereas according to the capacity of men seeing, and desiring to see and hear, he so spoke and appeared to men. When man was cast out of paradise and clothed with death, he no longer appeared as before, but spoke from heaven, his voice being heard and heeded: but as time went on, he deigned also to appear, as to Abraham the most blessed patriarch, and to others in order. Under Moses, however, appearing in diverse things, he showed what was of fear and terror on Mount Sinai, after having in the figure of an angel and in the form of a man, with forerunning signs of his future incarnation, announced the general vision of clemency, by which the Lord now showed himself to the just through dreams, as it is written. But afterwards, appearing in the incarnation, he bore witness, announcing to the Jews what he had previously said through the prophets.

Because therefore the capacity for seeing the Lord was diverse, like a good physician he applied diverse remedies to the infirmities of men as the infirmity required; and therefore to the languishing age at the end he brought more medicine, so that both the mighty power of those first ones might be shown, and the perilous infirmity of our race might be known, the Lord saying: The healthy have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Greater therefore are those earlier ones who, hearing, believed—such as Seth, Enoch, Noah, and the rest—than we; who, both hearing and reading the mercy of Christ the Lord, despise his abundant goodness: for both on account of the Jews and in other tongues he spoke, that it might be fulfilled: In other tongues and lips I will speak to this people, and not even so will they believe, says the Lord; for through Isaiah he says: My word I will send into Achaia.

There is another heresy which, when it reads of the four living creatures in the prophets, falls into no small error, supposing that living creatures endowed with diverse forms praised God; not knowing that irrational creatures, that is, those not capable of reason, cannot render praise to God as men can. For God does not seek the praise of cattle, because cattle were not made in the image of God, but rational men were created by God and appointed for this purpose. But because it is a vision of the prophets proclaimed by the divine Spirit, hence the four diverse virtues and diverse struggles of holy peoples were announced as coming to the age in diverse teachings and virtues, in diverse sublimity of eminence: that of the Lion, the Calf, the Man, and the Eagle, whose diverse teachings and shining merits ran before.

First, in the patriarchs, royal authority; then in the prophets, the fruitfulness of heavenly knowledge; in the priests, strong labor and persistent striving might be discerned; in the apostles, lofty flight toward heaven and eminent dignity might be shown. And as the diversity of forms announced beforehand, the heavenly merits of the diverse virtues were to be made manifest in the age in the presence of Christ, granted indeed by the Lord Saviour: for in the Lion is recognized the kingdom of strength, in the Calf abundant labor, in the Man unceasing passion, in the Eagle lofty flight, of those who strive and shine, as the Apostle says: Our citizenship is in heaven; and: we shall be caught up into heaven, and we shall always be with Christ. And the Lord deigned to say: Father, where I am, I will that they also be.

There are certain doubting heretics concerning the day of the Epiphany of the Lord Saviour which is celebrated on the eighth day before the Ides of January, saying that they ought to celebrate only the Nativity of the Lord on the eighth day before the Kalends of January, but not the day of the Epiphany, not knowing that according to the Law and in order the Saviour fulfilled all things carnally in himself and concerning himself, so that he was both born on the eighth day before the Kalends of January and appeared on the sixth. He appeared to the Magi after twelve days in the temple.

Lest therefore the shadow should seem to be what was true and so be adored by the Magi, in order indeed for our salvation these greater annual days of festivity were appointed: first, that on which he was born; then that on which he appeared, that is twelve days later; that on which he suffered at Easter; and finally that on which he ascended into heaven, around Pentecost, which is indeed the consummation of the victor: whoever therefore ignores one, passes it by. One may also have doubts about other days, not possessing the fullness of truth, that according to the four seasons of each year diverse joys have thus sprung up for us from Christ the Lord, namely that on which he was born, then that on which he appeared, thirdly that on which he suffered and rose again and was seen, fourthly that on which he ascended into heaven; and let us celebrate these throughout the year without interruption, rejoicing in general, and holding them whole and inviolate.

But some think the day of the Epiphany to be that of baptism, others that of the transfiguration on the mountain which took place.

There are other heretics who, being ignorant of the precepts of the Law which were spoken through Moses in Leviticus carnally to the Jews, and in our time have been revealed spiritually, pass over the sum of the feasts and their number of heavenly benefit, not knowing what they celebrate; thinking that Moses commanded only concerning the Sabbaths, and the Passover, and the Unleavened Bread, and not concerning the eight feasts which the Catholic Church knows and holds.

For Moses speaks thus to the people of the Jews: first concerning the New Moon and the Sabbaths, second concerning the Passover, third concerning the Unleavened Bread, fourth concerning the Sheaves; fifth concerning the Trumpeting, which in Greek is called σάλπιγξ, which the Jews celebrate solemnly through the year; sixth the Fast, seventh the construction of Tabernacles: the eighth, which is the fullness of fruits, and the vintage of apples of the month of October, the last gathering of all things, and the consummation; which both according to the letter is celebrated by the Jews with diversity according to eight months, and according to spiritual knowledge, beginning in the month of March, in the eighth month, that is October, all things consummated in order are conferred by Christ the Lord, which are full pledges of eternal salvation to be consummated and confirmed in the faith and work of Christianity.

For even if at that time the Jews were commanded to offer to God diverse gifts of these months, so that, withdrawing from idols, they might know that all these things were to be offered to God: nevertheless those things had indications of spiritual oblation, which in the eighth perfection of virtues, that is of the Lord's Day, with full grace of fruits in faith of the resurrection of the Lord, men becoming angelic will obtain as an immortal reward and pledge of the divinity to be assumed; no longer offering gifts of earthly oblation, that is sacrifices of carnal life, but hoping to obtain from Christ the Lord the Saviour participation in heavenly glory.

For offering gifts annually eight times, and knowing the fullness of the eighth day, and girded with the strength of the divine Spirit, that is endowed with the highest perfection of things, departing from this world, they do not despair of being able to obtain there the promised glory of the resurrection, and to be joined in fellowship of heavenly dignity, which the Lord deigned to say: Then you shall be as angels. Proclaiming this to all the just and perfect, which David also said, announcing it for the Eighth.

There are heretics who, just as the Jews, rejecting the translation of the seventy-two holy and most wise men, receive the edition of a certain Aquila, a single man of Pontus, who translated after many years; who, since they were compelled by the pressure of necessity at that time to have omitted certain things, are thought to have dictated discordant things. He is praised by certain Jews as having understood more, as it were, since concerning the Father and the Son he did not dictate as those earlier ones did from the Law. For the seventy-two said: Against the Lord, and against his Christ; but Aquila: Against the Lord, and against his anointed. And again: Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bear a Son. The seventy-two said, and his name is God with us; but Aquila said: Behold, a young woman shall conceive, and bear a Son, and his name is mighty with men.

Which indeed, if they are received with a devout sense of reading, whereby no one is strong and mighty except Christ, God the Son of God, one understands rightly; but if one doubts concerning him, such an edition is to be rejected and spurned. Hence the Jews do not have the translations of the seventy-two, who, thinking rightly concerning the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, proclaimed one substance, divinity, and majesty; but that of Aquila, who does not think so rightly concerning the Son of God, but has announced him as though concerning a Prophet. Hence his translations are never placed in the middle of the books, but are assigned to the right and to the left; and as things contrary and not full of truth they are thus read by many. But the decrees and decisions of the seventy-two, the Catholic Church, reading them, always holds and retains without hesitation; but those of Aquila it thus esteems and judges to be superfluous.

For this, that is the translation of the seventy-two, was published for all under Ptolemy king of the Egyptians, after Alexander the Macedonian, and was given to the Jewish people in Jerusalem, when not many Jews were dwelling there, as already placed under the subjection of the king of Egypt, and being asked by Ptolemy himself that interpreters be sent to Alexandria. When the seventy-two wise and prudent men, interpreters, had come thither, according to the command of the king they translated the Hebrew tongue into the Greek language and published it in Greek letters, as indeed was done.

And when Ptolemy king of Egypt had received them, wishing to test whether their divine Scripture, which the Jews read, was genuine, he ordered each one separately to be shut up in a chamber, and to see no other, save only the one who received the dictating interpreter: and afterwards receiving the translation of all of them daily, when he found them agreeing into one, he ordered the edition of all to be written out and placed in the temple, so that to philosophers, poets, and historiographers coming from Achaia and other provinces, desiring it, the abundance of reading might not be denied.

Hence also philosophers, poets, orators, and historiographers, taking arguments especially therefrom, transferred them as they wished to the falsehoods of their paganism, and teaching the unformed minds of boys under other names, hastened to make the divine law of God void in the world, and confirmed seeds of impiety in the sound of words, in dangerous opinions, on account of whom the Lord also said that they were thieves and robbers, to be known in all things and by all.

There is a heresy which again after Aquila receives the translation of thirty men, not that of those most blessed seventy-two, who, thinking wholly and inviolably concerning the Trinity, handed down most certain foundations to the Catholic Church in translating the Scriptures. These thirty followed Aquila in many things, wherefore the translation of these also is not received by the Catholic Church, which is contained in the authentic books.

There is a heresy which again wishes to follow the translation of six men afterwards published, not that of those earlier holy ones, who desire to translate the seventy-two in other ways, and incurs no small error, likewise holding diverse things concerning the catholic faith.

There are other heretics who likewise follow the translation of Theodotion and Symmachus, set forth in a different manner, not that of the most blessed earlier ones, which the Catholic Church venerates and proclaims.

There is another heresy which wishes to follow books found in a jar after the captivity, brought forth after the burning, and not agreeing with the first translation of the holy Men, whereas the Catholic Church reads, venerates, and proclaims the translation of the seventy-two; but other things that are superfluous and contrary to so great an edition it despises and rejects.

There are certain heretics who do not understand what Scripture says: You shall not speak evil of foreign gods. And they observe this so, thinking that it was said concerning the vanity of the pagans, and thus thinking they sustain no small harm to their salvation. For when Moses says: You shall destroy their temples, you shall break their idols; and the most blessed Abraham, breaking idols, was justified; and Gideon, burning idols by night and breaking them, merited to obtain so great a virtue from God that with a few he conquered countless enemies; and all the just, as Elias, and others likewise. How then does this imprudent man think that it was said concerning the vanity of idols, and that one must not speak evil of them? Since David says: Let those who worship them become like them.

He therefore who says that one must not speak evil of foreign gods means that one must not speak evil of the just from the beginning of the world who cultivate true piety, that is the angels, and other saints dedicated to the true faith. For all the just spoke evil of idols and broke them, and thereby merited grace, as Moses did descending from the mountain; apart from the fact that the heralds of Christ, these are gods, as Moses was to Pharaoh and the Egyptians, since Scripture cries out: I said, you are gods.

Namely those who, venerating the holy and adorable Trinity, proclaim it with strong faith, who are also all truly blessed and holy just men, and are recognized as gods of the unbelievers, so to speak, because the Lord says: those to whom the word of God came, and through whom it was preached, are themselves called gods of the unbelievers, as Paul, Barnabas, and Moses to Pharaoh; who are not to be spoken evil of, but are to be praised in all ways, and honored and glorified, as David said: But those who fear the Lord he glorified. And the Lord: Those who glorify me I will glorify. Therefore those who do not understand the power of the Scriptures from the letter consent to paganism, and are found to be strangers to Christianity. Because therefore the Jews did not believe the just prophets and others such, these also, like the pagans, were judged strangers by the Lord through Scripture; and thus it was announced, lest they should speak evil of their Teachers, and Prophets, and other just men.

There are certain heretics who, reading in Genesis concerning Melchisedech the priest and king, who was in the city of Salem, so named at that time, under Abraham the most blessed patriarch—concerning whom Scripture says: that he was born without father, without mother—hold this view, though it is contrary to right understanding. For Scripture did not deny that he was brought forth by carnal generation, but declared that he was not born of righteous parents; who by natural inclination from the primordial Commandment merited attaining to so great a knowledge of Christ, that what he had not heard from his parents, he nonetheless by his own diligence, through the Commandment, came to recognize the greater mysteries of Christ as things to be offered, since the Lord says through the prophets: Behold, I do new things. And: Before they come to pass, they are announced to you. And: Do not remember the former things, which were spoken carnally in the Law.

And the Saviour says: That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. For when Scripture says of him: born without father, without mother, it announced that he was an inquirer without the tradition and teaching of parents, and declared him by nature capable of the bread of heavenly wisdom, that is, of the mystery of Christ, through the Commandment, for those who take heed: which the Apostle knowing, proclaimed that the nature of men is capable of heavenly knowledge and piety in all things, saying thus: For when the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, and so forth. Which also the Lord said to Peter: That flesh and blood had not revealed it to him, but the Father who is in heaven; showing indeed the faith of the Lord Saviour.

And therefore the Lord himself again: If any man be not born again of water and the spirit, he shall not enter, he says, into the kingdom of heaven. And again in the Law: They who said to their father and mother, we know you not, these have kept my commandment, says the Lord. He commended in every way not that the birth from parents was to be hated, but that their pagan impiety was to be spurned and condemned in every manner, since he says: If any man renounce not all that he has, he shall not be worthy of the kingdom of heaven. This blessed Melchisedech therefore, having been born of foreigners, that is, of the impious Canaanites, despising the impiety of his parents, since he was capable of the divine and heavenly law, and by his own diligence, as the image of God, having sought out the mystery of God, despising his impious parents, not only merited knowing Christ the Lord beforehand in the Commandment, but moreover merited beholding and understanding his heavenly mystery and celebrating it.

And therefore the Apostle also said to the baptized: But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. Of two peoples therefore, Melchisedech and Abraham, there was then a joining together in one fellowship; the precepts indeed, and the fitting rationale of circumcision, so that Melchisedech bore the person of Christians, that we might so live and be celebrated in all things: but the figure of the Jews was Abraham's circumcision, subject indeed to the Faith of Christ and serving his heavenly and saving mystery, so that blessed Abraham was subject to Melchisedech the great priest, to whom he did not hesitate moreover to offer tithes from his own possessions as to a king and priest of God; which now the docility of the Jews is subject to us when it wishes to learn, and to come to know gradually from us the mysteries of Christ from the Law and the Prophets, and to hope in his passion for heavenly knowledge alike from the Law and the Prophets.

There are certain persons who read in Zechariah, where he says: The fast of the fourth, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Israel for exultation and joy. What then, if anyone should wish to fast the whole week, or many months, will he incur prejudice? God forbid: nay rather he will have greater praise, as many prophets did, and very many just men do daily. But when it speaks of four fasts, it decrees as it were four days to be fasted. It did not tell us, however, of any particular month or year, but proclaimed it thus absolutely, so that we might recognize the mysteries of Christianity announced in those four fasts themselves. For throughout the year four fasts are celebrated in the Church: the first at the Nativity, then at Pascha, the third at Epiphany, the fourth at Pentecost.

For at the Nativity of the Lord Saviour there must be fasting, then in the Quadragesima of Pascha, and likewise at the ascension into heaven on the fortieth day after Pascha, and thence to Pentecost for ten days: which the blessed apostles afterwards did after the Ascension, persisting in fasts and prayers, as it is written, so that they merited at Pentecost to obtain the fullness of the divine Spirit and the perfection of power; so that, with the irrigation of the divine Spirit flowing abundantly, now equipped with heavenly arms, all doubt laid aside in which they had been before, but afterwards becoming invincible teachers and glorious martyrs of the Lord himself, they hastened daily; teaching Jews and Pagans, and everywhere proving to them from the Law and the Prophets Christ the Lord, coeternal with the Father, by the testimonies of the prophets, and announcing his most salutary bodily presence to the world. Others however think that Scripture spoke according to the four seasons of each year.

Others spoke of Noah, when he heard and believed; then when he built the ark; afterwards when he entered into it; fourthly when he came out of the ark. Others among the Jews think that Scripture spoke of Israel, because when the people first heard in Egypt through Moses at that time and believed, they were freed from Pharaoh and the Egyptians; then because they went out of Egypt; thirdly because they went up to the mountain and received the Law from the Lord Saviour; fourthly because they entered into the land of promise: but not all entered, as it is written, save two alone, Jesus and Caleb, as Scripture said. Others moreover said that the four fasts of the Church are these in the four books of Moses; because first God made all things in Genesis, and man, as it is written. Secondly in Exodus, whereby every man who believes in Christ God, freed from darkness, goes forth. Thirdly whereby in Leviticus he offers diverse sacrifices, which are all the mysteries of Christianity.

Fourthly, after the offering of spiritual gifts, in the book of Numbers every faithful person may merit to be enrolled, which the Lord also says: Rejoice, because your names are written in the book of the heavens. Therefore also David says of the Jews: Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and with the just let them not be written. And he himself again: And in your book those who believe in you shall be enrolled. These fasts also we ought to receive in the four Gospels, concerning the patriarchs, prophets, priests, and apostles, which are to be fulfilled in us. For first the faith of the patriarchs, then the virtue of the prophets, thirdly the labor of the priests, fourthly the perfection of the apostles' invincible contest are announced; which diverse virtues flourish in turn, joined together with their own seasons, and teaching men they supply diverse joys of gladness to those who desire and receive them.

There are heretics who, when they read in Solomon, sixty queens and eighty concubines, and young maidens of whom there is no number, think that he spoke of the number of women and maidens and concubines for their own sake. And when they think thus, they judge as the unfruitful, nay rather as impious pagans and unlearned and untaught Jews; not knowing that these things are rational and intelligible, announced by him, which in the majesty and power of Christ were shown as diverse gifts of graces about to come to the human race, and imparted to it by him at diverse times according to the will of men and the capacity of those who desire them; he not denying equal grace, but according to what the will of men might be known to be able to receive, the Lord himself granting and conferring upon those who seek diligently, since the blessed apostle Peter says: In truth I perceive that God is not a respecter of persons.

And the apostle Paul likewise: God, he says, does not accept the person of man. According to the will therefore, and according to what each one desires, so also is it granted and imparted to him daily by God Christ. Diverse dignities therefore, and diverse glories have been announced to us by Solomon. In the Commandment indeed, the Law, and the grace of Christ, all things which both in the first, and second, and last time have been bestowed upon peoples through diverse gifts of the dignity of merits—as upon the former people, then that of the Jews, thirdly that of the Christians, who are taught by those former ones who were before the Jews—we likewise perceive the diverse grace poured out to be flowing daily upon those who receive and seek it in the presence of Christ.

For that some souls are called to governance, others to union, others to the increase of the perfection of age in union with the future Faith of Christ the Lord, is manifest, the Apostle saying: He who cleaves to Christ the Lord is one body with him. For where the name of queens is spoken, the excellent sublimity of nobility of the heavenly kingdom is made manifest, which the Lord also, proclaiming the calling of many, announces that the election of few is to come. Among whom a threefold dignity of virtue shines forth also in the Gospel, the Lord saying to that man: If you wish to be perfect, go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and come, follow me; and you shall have treasure in heaven. But he went away sad, it says, as it is written.

Therefore even if formerly it was done generally according to the division of time and of peoples, yet in the presence of Christ a threefold grace and dignity shines forth, so that some are shown to be perfect, others following, others afterwards to follow: not finding the one manner of dignity, that is of the heavenly kingdom, but according to their faith and labor and diverse contests, they shall obtain a fitting reward, the Lord saying: There are many mansions with my Father. Therefore also David commends in every way the soul called to governance, teaching: The queen stood at your right hand. He also exhorts another to follow: Hear, daughter, and see, and forget the house of your father, and the king shall desire your beauty.

That therefore, as reason requires, it is fitting to know that some shall be assigned in the future to the kingdom, others to paradise, others to life, and the remission of sins, is not denied to those who run and are willing now as is fitting; but to those who are negligent and do not run rightly, these things shall not be conferred by the Lord.

There is a heresy which supposes that Jesus son of Nave circumcised the people of the Jews with stone knives, which neither the nature of things, nor power or reason persuades: for the Jews could more easily have been endangered than healed, even if according to the power of God nothing is impossible, yet nature does not suffer it, nor does reason persuade it. Lest therefore they say that the Jews were circumcised with stone knives—meaning, from the hardest pagan minds and stony hearts which had formerly been given over to impiety, but afterwards believing in the Lord deserved to lose their stony mind, that is, to be circumcised in mind by the word of God—and that those now capable of heavenly teaching deserved to circumcise the Jews, that is, to instill in them the saving knowledge of Christ from the law and the prophets, proclaiming and confirming it on every side.

For indeed even daily the Jews are circumcised by those who were formerly Gentiles, that is, they are taught from the law and the prophets, concerning faith in Christ the Lord, namely the Saviour, who, if they too shall have believed, are to receive the remedy of salvation: but persisting in the hardness of their stony mind, they shall be held under eternal judgment. And therefore the Lord also said in their stubborn contradiction that their children, that is the pagans, would themselves be their judges and teachers, that is, the people of the Gentiles, who formerly dwelt in a stony mind, but afterwards through faith in Christ deserved to arrive at saving knowledge. But Israel, running according to the law as it is written, could not arrive at the power of the law, because it hastened to run not from faith but from works. For Jacob says that he himself will be the hope of the Gentiles, not of the Jews.

It is necessary therefore that all the Gentiles believe first, and then at last learn from those very Gentiles about the Jews, and hear the teaching of Christ the Lord from the law and the prophets, and so acquiesce, that it may be fulfilled, until the fullness of the Gentiles enter in, and so all Israel shall be saved, as it is written. And another prophet says: Take away from them the heart of stone, O Lord, and give them a heart of flesh. And the Lord: If these shall be silent, the stones will cry out.

There is another heresy, which supposes that the breath which Adam received is only as great as that which was granted by Christ after the Resurrection to the Apostles; not knowing that the breath is a grace of modest power, first for the many in hearing the Law of God. But the Spirit is the fullness of perfection. The breath therefore is given from infancy and to catechumens. The Spirit however is given in the growth of teaching and Faith, and the full grace of God in saving baptism, so that one may understand and arrive at a greater knowledge. Therefore after baptism, he who is baptized in the Trinity receives not the Spirit as the Apostles did, but the breath. For the breath is common to all.

The Spirit however belongs to the few who are faithful and believing and learning; and as it were advancing from honour to honour, and from glory to greater glory, and arriving at heavenly knowledge and grace, as the Apostle says, that we proceed from faith to faith, and we hasten to go from glory to glory. And therefore he himself says: The first man from the earth is earthly, the second man from heaven is heavenly, so that even nature may not be found wholly alien and without share in the gift of Christ, that is, not even the catechumen; and that faith and teaching, and zeal and an excellent life, might be known to abound in the will of the few faithful and those who desire it, the Lord saying: To him who has, it shall be given, and more shall be added to him; but from him who has not, even what he seems to have shall be taken away from him. Which happened to the Jew, and likewise to many others.

There is a heresy which, when it hears in the prophet Zechariah of the surveyor's line, concerning which David also had declared, that an angel holding it went to measure Jerusalem, supposes that Scripture spoke thus according to the letter: whereas it was not the measuring of Jerusalem, which was to be handed over to enemies, but the election of believers rightly, and of the few perfectly, that was announced through the angel as about to come; as it was said: Many are called, few are chosen. Jerusalem therefore was being measured with the surveyor's line, that is, first under the few, and after the faith of Christ the election of the few for the bringing forth of the catholic faith was proclaimed in the age. Which the Apostle also says: There must be heresies, that those who are approved may be made manifest.

Because therefore the threefold cord of inheritance is bound together with a triple power, that is, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; this union, when it is received in one and the same Faith and belief—for the unity of equality and power is to be joined and the might to be venerated, when it is acknowledged by the catholic Church—is not proclaimed as something to be believed in a diverse substance of majesty or quality, as certain heretics suppose. Which the Lord also deigned to say: Dost thou think that the Son of Man, when he comes, will find Faith upon the earth? Because both what was then among the few was foretold by the Prophet beforehand, and after the presence, passion, and resurrection of Christ, and his divine sentence that they would be transgressors, this was so announced, that there are heretics today who, departing from the Holy Spirit or from the Son, daily proclaim a diverse inequality of majesty and power in their wandering.

In this therefore we ought to acknowledge that the cord, as Solomon says, being threefold is not broken, which also ought to be believed by us; that both the Son and likewise the Holy Spirit are of the divine and proper substance, joined to the Father in all things, who both ought to be known and worshipped by all. In this conjunction of Baptism the Saviour also deigned to confirm us, commanding: Go, baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. In which, joining the Son to the Father, and the Spirit with the Son and the Father, we are known to be about to obtain this salvation, because we know that the remedy of salvation for the human race will come from no other source than from this faith.

Wherefore also in this conjunction of the holy and adorable Trinity we rejoice, in which before us our father Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and the prophets, priests, judges, and apostles alike, and evangelists proclaiming, deserved to obtain angelic dignity; in which also the catholic Church exults, proclaiming and teaching this daily, and destroying all this pagan impiety and Jewish iniquity, it exults daily in all joy. For even if the threefold cord ought to be understood first as Commandment, then as Law in the middle time, then as the Grace of the Saviour: it is of no small usefulness, or if one wishes to take it as faith, hope, and charity, as the blessed Apostle said; and in this there is no small understanding for the more prudent and for the many who desire spiritual things.

There are certain heretics who hold the opinion concerning the blessed Elijah that ravens brought him flesh in the evening for food, and bread in the morning, not attending to the fact that the holy and most blessed prophet never at any time ate flesh, he who had despised all such food by voluntary abstinence, for which reason also he deserved to obtain from God the honour of so great a dignity, that he was caught up on high into paradise, where he was placed together with all the saints.

For if someone should say something about bread, it is sometimes reasonable that ravens brought it to him: but concerning flesh it is found to be incongruous; for in this the bestial cruelty of men pursuing the most blessed prophet was shown: but in the birds, that is the ravens, so great a gentleness and mildness was displayed, that in those birds from which human reason was absent, which were not rational images of God, but birds created as cattle only with sensation, yet in those birds, to the reproach of the Jewish men and of the king pursuing the prophet with the worst will, a recognition and an inborn mildness of senses was shown to be displayed in the work of so great a ministry which was daily shown to the blessed prophet, so that in those birds there was found to be a certain reason of gentleness granted as it were by some rational impulse.

For all things of this kind created by the Lord are subject to man as to a king and rational lord of cities, of cattle, of fowl, and of serpents, as it is written in the book of Genesis.

There is also a heresy which, when it reads in the prophet Isaiah that the Cherubim and Seraphim, two living creatures endowed with six wings, covered the face of God with two, and His feet with two, and with two cried out with a sublime voice praising God, is exceedingly troubled; and now seeking the historical sense, now scrutinizing the intelligible reason, it is wearied by various uncertainty. Whereas both according to the letter there is no small profit, and according to the intelligible reason, the heavenly knowledge of Christ resounds. For according to the letter, first, because Scripture, by teaching that God is invisible, condemned pagan impiety everywhere—in which their impious scriptures proclaim a visible and composite deity. Then also that of the Jews, lest they too, beset with equal blindness, should perish corrupted in their senses like the impious Gentiles; this it taught in such a manner.

But here also was to be announced the future unbelief of the Jews in the presence of Christ, and the covering of the mystery: that, covered with excessive blindness, they would afterwards believe neither the prophet nor the Lord Himself, when He, sent to the people, openly proclaims: You will hear with the ear, and see with the eye, and you will not attend. Covered indeed with darkness, they were not going to recognize the light of eternal salvation, that is, the bodily presence of Christ, as indeed came to pass; which the Apostle, teaching, affirmed that a veil is placed even to this day upon their hearts, which will not be removed until they believe in Christ as Saviour. But when they shall have been converted, that is, shall have believed in Christ the Lord, the veil will be taken away from their hearts. Moreover, that the two living creatures announced are the Cherubim and Seraphim—namely the Law and the prophets, witnesses of Christ and teachers of the age—is not in doubt.

They covered the face and feet of the Lord; either because the mystery was taught in parables and likenesses and enigmas, as it is written: I will open my mouth in parables. And David: Open my eyes, and I will consider the wonders of thy law. And the Apostle: The Father, he says, revealed His Son to me; that is, showing from the Law and the Prophets.

Now they had six wings, and with two they covered the face, and with two the feet; but with two they cried out—lest perchance, when he says the face and feet of the Lord are covered, what is above and below, and the length and breadth of God, should be shown, because neither the height, nor the depth, nor the breadth, nor the length of God can be worthily known or found by any creature, and especially by men, or comprehended by the human senses of any; He who also, by creating, accomplished so great and immeasurable a nature of the elements—how much more does He who is known to have made such things excel in all ways! He is known only through Faith; because virtue, he says, is perfected and found in weakness, in likeness and enigmas. And when so great an immensity of God is spoken of and announced, it is sung and proclaimed by two wings, that is, by the Cherubim and Seraphim, by the Law and the Prophets.

The crying out of the two wings also, by day and by night, that is both here and in the future, is found to be the belief of men's hearts and the unceasing confession of the mouth, resounding daily—which was then also sung by Angels and proclaimed by men in the world; so that what they could not see in the height, the depth, the breadth, and the length, believing in the heart and confessing with the mouth, singing with unceasing voice at all times, they might rejoice. For that the nature and substance of the divine quality is invisible and incomprehensible is shown in the Law and the Prophets, John saying: No one has ever seen God. He did not say, has not believed, but, has not seen.

Therefore the Lord grants the power of believing and only the confidence of confessing, so that His virtue might be known as manifest in the telling of carnal frailty: which the Lord everywhere holds out His faith to men, which He had Himself first given, and afterwards confirmed in His own presence.

The Cherubim and Seraphim, moreover, fourfold—that is, of the Lion, the Calf, the Man, and the Eagle—are the diverse and likewise stronger contests of the Saints and of the virtues, of their surpassing and varied dignity, namely of the patriarchs and prophets, priests and apostles, likewise joined with the martyrs; so that in those in whom so great a faith and overflowing love of Christ was formerly known, but an unequal teaching was in some afterwards sung as the compulsion of the time required, yet an unequal glory of faith and of contest in the joining of diverse virtue might not be shown—granted and bestowed by Christ, and known in the whole people of Christians; so that what we cannot see, nor worthily define by human senses, believing in the heart and confessing with the mouth, we may not cease by these virtues of the two wings to proclaim this joy to Jews and Gentiles, and to fly aloft by these sublime virtues; hoping for heavenly things, where Christ is Lord, as the Apostle says, and not doubting that in this conviction perpetual salvation can be attained, the same teaching: For if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Christ the Lord and Saviour, crucified in body, rose again, you will be saved.

For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Whence he says of Christ the Lord, that the divine substance of His quality does not consist in any vision or measure or composition, but overflowing in the faith of our virtue and confession is consummated; what the breadth and length, the height and depth is to know, he says, the most excellent and incomprehensible grace of Christ God—and it is not within the power of human frailty to express it mightily, but he taught that through faith and by faith it can easily be attained, what the mind of men has not the power to recount.

There are some who suppose that after the confession of the sinful people and the prayer which Isaiah had poured out as a suppliant to God, one of the Cherubim came, sent by God to the prophet, and took a coal with tongs, and touched his lips, and said to him: Behold, you are now cleansed. They suppose that one of the angels came to him, or one of the living creatures, and took fire with tongs and cleansed the prophet—which is not so much of saving knowledge; since when he says one living creature of the Cherubim or Seraphim, he speaks of the two Testaments: from which the patriarchs, prophets, priests have declared, and the apostles, who showed to the whole world the grace that was to come, ministering fourfold shining gifts to those taking up heavenly contests. For Cherubim is said to mean fullness of knowledge, Seraphim is called a fiery power passing through.

These therefore, possessing the fullness of spiritual knowledge and holding the riches of Christ's mystery, send and bring to us diverse teachings by the Lord's command, and likewise announcing to every age without any intermission; of whom one was sent to the prophet Isaiah, announcing this doctrine of Christ, that the Saviour was to come in the flesh and would bring to believers the abundant grace of the divine Spirit. Isaiah therefore had received from the patriarchs and the Law and his earlier prophets a stronger grace, that is, a fuller power of the divine Spirit; from the earlier ones, namely, so that he might announce to the world the mystery of Christ, that is, of His incarnation, the grace. Therefore also the Lord said to certain ones: O hard of heart and slow of mind, why do you not perceive that all things which the Law and the prophets had foretold beforehand concerning the Son of man as things to come, it was necessary should be fulfilled?

For it was fitting that blessed Isaiah should receive from the patriarchs and the Law, so that, taught by them, he might with strong spirit proclaim the bodily presence of Christ. Also that he says the angel took fire and purged his lips, this showed the grace of the divine Spirit granted to him by the Lord, as He says: I came to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! Concerning the tongs, however, that is, the iron—he spoke of its unconquered nature and divine power, namely that the body of Christ was created and perfected by the divine Spirit and divine power in the womb of the holy Virgin, as it is written: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of God will overshadow you. Appearing in that body He would conquer all things, yet would be overcome by none.

For just as all things are tamed and subjected by iron, from which also the sword is produced, as it was said: The Word of the Lord is a two-edged sword, which can tame testimonies but cannot itself be tamed by anything: and after the passion He was to give to the blessed apostles in the resurrection the unconquered power of the divine Spirit, as it is written: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and the rest. And Peter, having received the promise from the Father, speaking to the Jews, poured out this grace, which you see and hear today. And just as we know that tongs are formed by fire, so also we know that the body of the Lord was perfected by the divine Spirit. And so He gave to His own in the body that promised grace and unconquered power, as He says: I have given you power to tread upon all the power of the enemy; and the Apostle: Who will separate us from the love of Christ?

Through which things, to all now believing in this age, as was said, through the laying on of the hands of the apostles the divine Spirit was given to those believing in Christ the Lord as Saviour. And just as the two living creatures are taken to be the two Testaments, of the Law and the prophets, standing before the Lord, as the apostles saw on the mountain; yet it will be a matter of reason that the two living creatures are also to be understood as the first Commandment which was given, which can also be understood spiritually, as it is written, which the Saviour also did not abolish but rather confirmed. The second living creature, however, contained the teaching of Christ, that is, His faith and the grace of His incarnation, and the mystery of the Testament and of His passion and resurrection.

Whence the Law of the letter is placed in the middle between the Commandment and Grace, which if it is understood concerning Christ, is received as consonant in many things; but if anyone supposes he is to be saved by carnal justification, it is decreed to be rejected; since concerning the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit before the Law, that is, before three thousand seven hundred years, those earlier just men living under the Commandment and venerating the blessed Trinity and handing it on to their sons and kinsmen, proclaimed it to the world, and the mystery of Christ the Lord was announced from that most ancient Commandment. The Law therefore is an admonition of the Commandment, which is also joined according to the faith of venerating the Trinity, and again certain things of it are separated on account of Jewish and carnal justification; since both the prophets had previously destroyed those things, and the Saviour rejected them, and the apostles forbade men to be circumcised.

The Law therefore descended from the Commandment for a time under the compulsion of carnal necessity. But the grace of Christ, that is, the mystery of the incarnation and passion and resurrection, and of His faith and ascension into heaven, was known before the Law by all the just, and was not hidden from those seeking and receiving it; as to Enoch, Noah, and Melchisedech, and Jacob, and other just and most blessed Patriarchs, and the rest who had lived before the Law of Moses, established namely under the Commandment and justified in all things by the Lord. The Law moreover is also called the Faith of Christ, as the Apostle says: through the law of the faith of Christ. The carnal justification of the Jews is the Law.

The Commandment, even if it is not thought to be the Law, yet because it is said and decreed by the Lord to a servant, it is of the nature of Law, so that what He wills, one may choose either to keep as a friend and faithful one, or to despise as a servant subject under the Law. Whence also the Saviour gave a commandment to the apostles as to friends and faithful ones, which He had likewise given to Adam our father before he sinned. But after the sin it was no longer a commandment of fellowship and nearness and love and brotherhood; but it decreed the judgment of fearful severity, in the contemning of the sentences of the Law, namely, as Moses also says: Cursed is everyone who has not remained in the ordinances of this book.

Therefore also the Saviour admonished what had been said in the Law, and confirmed what had been given before the Law under those most blessed ones; so that He might join His teaching to that of those earlier ones, and might thus unite the many who believed and were circumcised alike, and might also associate the natural ones, that is, the believing Gentiles; and might condemn the unwillingness of the Jews and of others, and the joined unbelief and ignorance of both.