PAZSCR. 476 Recklessness, mutual tolerance, and disorders of Heretics. De imagine another God in opposition to the Creator, or if they confess One Creator, they argue Him to be other than He XIV. 41. really is. Wherefore every falsehood which they utter concerning God, is, in some sort, a kind of idolatry'. 6. HÆR. XLI. I will not omit a description also of the very conversation of heretics, how foolish it is, how earthly, how human: without seriousness, without authority, without discipline, as according with their faith. In the first place, it is doubtful who is a catechumen, who a believer: they have all access alike, they hear alike, they pray alike. Even Mat. 7, if heathens come in upon them, they will cast that which is holy unto dogs, and pearls, false though they be, before swine. They will have the overthrow of discipline to be simplicity; and the care of it amongst us they call pandering. They huddle up a peace also with all every where. For it maketh no matter to them, although they hold different doctrines, so long as they conspire together in their siege against the one thing, Truth. All are puffed up: all promise knowledge. Their Catechumens are perfected before they are taught. Even the heretic women, how wanton are they! they who dare to teach, to dispute, to enact exorcisms, to promise cures, perchance also to baptize'! Their ordinations are careless, capricious, inconsistent. At one time they place in office novices, at another men tied to the world', at another apostates from us, that they may bind them to themselves by vain-glory, since they cannot by truth. No where is promotion readier than in the camp of rebels, where, even to be there, is a merit. Wherefore one man is Bishop to-day, another to-morrow; to-day Deacon, who to-morrow will be Reader to-day Presbyter, who to-morrow will be Layman; for even to laymen they commit the priestly offices. 1 Tim. 3, 6. "omne mendacium, quod de Deo dicunt, quodammodo genus est idololatriæ." This is the reading not of the cod. Ag. only, but "partly of the Vat. partly of the MS. Angl." in Pam. Gel. also has "genus est idol." Rhen. had de Deo, vel natio quodammodo sexus est idol. (only in ed. 4. variatio for vel natio.) It is thought that "sexus" may have reference to the male and female Eons. [? "even that classing, in a manner, of the kinds of sex is of idolatry." Tr.] 8 adv. Valent. c. 1. " it hath no terror of discipline." h see S. Hil. de Trin. vii. 4. 1 See de Bapt. c. 1. and not. f. and c. 17. and not. g. k Can. Ap. c. 71. al. 80. "It is not right to choose presently for a Bishop, one who hath come from the Heathen and been baptized, or from a disgraceful life." S. Jerome, Ep. ad Ocean. fin. Innocent. 1. Ep. 12. ad Aurel. 1 i. e. having secular employments. Heresies destroy,cannot build; self-destructive in principle.477 XLII. But what shall I say concerning the ministry of the word, seeing that their business is, not to convert the heathens, but to subvert our own people? This is the glory which they rather catch at, if perchance they may work the fall of those that stand, not the raising up of those that are fallen since their very work cometh not of the building up of their own, but of the pulling down of the truth. They undermine ours that they may build their own. Take away from them their railing against1 the law of Moses, and the 1 in leProphets, and God the Creator, they have not a word to gem utter. So it cometh to pass that they more easily effect the ruin of standing buildings, than the building of fallen ruins. In these works alone do they act humbly, and smoothly, and submissively. But they feel no reverence even towards their own chiefs. And this is why there are commonly no schisms amongst heretics, because, when there are any, they appear not: for schism is their very unity. I speak falsely, if they do not differ among themselves even from their own rules, seeing that each forthwith mouldeth, according to his own pleasure, the things which he hath received, even as he, who delivered them to him, framed them according to his own pleasure'. The progress of the matter is a confession of its nature, and of the manner of its birth. The same thing was allowed to the Valentinians as to Valentinus, the same to the Marcionites as to Marcion, namely, to change the faith according to their own pleasure. Finally, all heresies, when thoroughly examined, are found in many things to differ from their own founders. Most of these have not even Churches" without a mother, without a settlement, destitute of a belief, outcasts, they all for themselves as it were", they wander far and wide2. : 2 quasi sibi, late XLIII. Infamous also are the dealings of the heretics vagantur with sorcerers very many, with mountebanks, with astro- restored logers, with philosophers, to wit, such as are given to curious 1 S. Iren. 1. 21. 1. and 5. 28. (30.) S. Athan. de Synod. §. 35. m Hence the saying "Wasps too form tribes, Marcionites too form Churches," describing the strangeness and uselessness, not (as Gibbon) their number. n "As though he had said them selves are their all;'" [Tr.] and so, • Iren. 1. 13. 23. 24. 5. 25. 3. Epiph. PRESCR. 478 Church-order a fruit of awe to God and sense of His Presence. DE questions. They every where remember, Seek, and ye shall HR find. Thus the quality of their faith may be judged even from XIV. 44. the nature of their conversation: their discipline is the index of their doctrine. They deny that God is to be feared": therefore all things are free to them, and without control. But where is God not feared, save where He is not? Where God is not, neither is there any truth. Where there is no truth, with good reason is there such discipline as theirs. But where God is, there is fear towards God, which is the Ps. 111, beginning of wisdom. Where there is fear towards God, there is a goodly gravity, and an awe-stricken diligence, and an anxious carefulness, and admission' well-considered, and communion well-advised', and promotion well-deserved', and religious submission', and devotion in attendance", and modesty in going-forth, and union in the Church, and God in every thing. 10. XLIV. Hence these proofs of a closer discipline amongst us are additional evidence of truth, to turn aside from which befitteth none who remembereth that judgment to come, 2 Cor. 5, when we must all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, to give an account, in the first place, of our faith itself. ib. 11, 2. What then will they say, who have defiled with the adultery of heresy the virgin committed unto them by Christ? 10. "When they [the heretics] see any The licentiousness of Marcion, the to the holy order of Priesthood, of to the Episcopal office, coll. Cypr. [Ep 40. ad Cler.] of the Confessor Numidicus, "promovebitur ad ampliorem locum religionis suæ," [Lac.] see Apol. c. 39. de Bapt. c. 17. of the inferior on the elder Clergy, (Rig.) x processio, see ad Ux. ii. 4. p. 426. and note m. It seems to denote the solemn staid way of going forth of one on an earnest purpose, not the " procession" of many together. Thus in the de Cult. Fem. ii. 11. occasions are mentioned in which there would be no "procession" (which also in T.'s time would probably have brought persecution). "But to you be there no ground for going forth, which is not solemn. (tetrica.) Either one sick among the brethren is visited, or the sacrifice is offered, or the word of God is ministered. Any of these is matter of gravity and sanctity, for which there is no need of any remarkable dress, at once studied and unrestrained." (The modesta processio of this place.) T. goes on to use the same words of objects not religious. "And if any claim of friendship or of offices towards heathens call you, why not go forth (procedatis) clad in your own armour, the more as going to women alien from the faith." Heresy irreverent to our Lord; its peril in the Judgment. 479 They will allege, I trow, that no warning was ever given them by Him, or by His Apostles, about adverse' and perverse doctrines, nor any rule about avoiding and abhorring them! Let them acknowledge that the fault is with themselves rather than with those, who prepared us so long beforehand. They will add moreover divers things touching the authority of each particular heretical teacher: that these more than any confirmed the truth of their doctrine, that they raised the dead, healed the sick, foretold things to come, so that they deserved to be thought Apostles! As if this also were not written, that many should come who should work even the greatest miracles, in defence of the deceit Mat. 24, of their corrupt preaching. These therefore shall deserve pardon! while those who, remembering the warnings of the Lord and the Apostles, have stood fast, entire in the faith, will, I suppose, be in danger respecting their pardon, when the Lord answereth, I plainly foretold that there should be teachers of false doctrine in My name, and in that of the Prophets and Apostles likewise; and I charged My disciples also to preach the same thing to you. To My Apostles I committed once for all the Gospel, and the doctrine according to that same rule: but when ye believed it not, it was My pleasure afterwards to change some things therein. I had promised the resurrection of the flesh also, but I afterwards considered that I might not be able to fulfil it. I had shewn that I was born of a virgin, but this afterwards was a base thing in My sight. I had called Him My Father, Who maketh the sun and the rain, but another and a better Father hath adopted Me. I had forbidden you to lend your ear to heretics, but I was in the wrong.' Such may be the thoughts of those who go out of the right course, and guard not against the danger whereby the true faith is perilled. XLV. And now indeed I have argued against all heresies in general, that they ought to be forbidden by fixed, and just, and necessary rules, to bring Scripture into their dis PRESCR. 480 General harmony of the Apostles' Creed wherever found. DE putes. For the rest, if the grace of God shall permit, I will make answer also to certain of them in particular. To those XIV. 45. who, in belief of the truth, read these things. . . ., be peace and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ for ever. HÆR. On the early traces and variations of the Apostles' Creed. The apparent variations in the Apostles' Creed as recited or alluded to by different Fathers or Churches, has been made a ground for denying its Apostolicity, and even the identity of the Creed in the different Churches. Thus Vossius regards the Apostles', as the Roman, Creed; and seems to look upon the Eastern Creed as formed independently of it. Yet, on comparing the several forms of the Creed, it seems impossible that they could have harmonized as they do, unless they had had some common original; the variation is in words, not in the articles of faith selected; mostly it is apparent, not real; the Creed being recited more or less fully according to the object of the father who recites it, so that in different places it is recited differently by the same father, supplying in one place what he omits in another. The utmost, which these variations prove, is, that we know not in which form and precise words the Creed was verbally delivered by the Apostles; but the very variations, amid the general agreement, the more establish that the substance and general form and outline is Apostolic. The variations imply that the Churches adapted the Creed to their different conditions and the heresies wherewith they were surrounded, and did not borrow from any one a fixed form; or in some subordinate points the wording may have varied as the Creed was handed down; the substantial agreement in the articles selected shews that it was every where formed on the same basis. When then we find at an early period, that this Creed is called "the faith, which the Church received from the Apostles and their disciples," (S. Iren. 1. 10. 1.) the "ancient tradition," "the tradition of truth,” “delivered by the Apostles to those to whom they committed the Churches,' ," "written without paper and ink through the Spirit upon the hearts," (ib. 3. 4. 2.) in which way the Creed is especially spoken of, see S. Aug. Serm. 212. in Trad. Symb. fin. Sacr. Gelas. (Ass. cod. Lit. i. p. 11. Sacr. Gall. Vet. ib. p. 11. Chrysol. Serm. 56-61.)" the Apostolic tradition," adv. Marc. i. 23. "the Ecclesiastical preaching delivered through the course of succession from the Apostles, and to this day remaining in the Churches," (Orig. de Princ. init. see above, c. xii. p. 446. and note c.) and find that it was handed down continually in Baptism, it cannot be thought that a formula used thus publicly, continually, solemnly, as the terms of the 1 |