Note R, On P. 455.

Note R, On P. 455.

ON PRESCRIPTION AGAINST HERETICS

[The whole tenor of the “de Præscriptione Hæreticorum” certainly is such, as makes it difficult to think that it could have been written by one, who had himself separated from the Church. The force of this argument can hardly be represented by particular expressions; the colour cast over the whole is a yet stronger indication. Besides this general ground, however, there is the distinct declaration that the promise of the Comforter was fulfilled at the day of Pentecost, and so, that no further revelation was to be expected, (c. 22.) which is directly opposed to Montanism. Certainly the language here and in the Monog. c. 2. is very different: here, he says, “The Lord had indeed once said, ‘I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now,’ yet when He adds, ‘When He, the Spirit of truth, shall come, He shall lead you into all truth,’ He shews that they were ignorant of nothing who He promised should attain all truth through the Spirit of truth, and accordingly He fulfilled the promise, the Acts of the Apostles proving the descent of the Holy Spirit:” there, “Is it admissible that the Paraclete should have taught any thing which can either be accounted new against Catholic tradition, or burthensome against the light load of the Lord? The Lord Himself has pronounced as to both. For when He says, ‘I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now; when the Holy Spirit shall come, He shall lead you into all truth,’ He sufficiently sets forth that He will guide to things which may both be accounted new, as never before published, and in a degree burthensome, as being on that account not published.—The Paraclete, having many things to teach, which the Lord deferred for Him, as before defined,” &c. Tertullian makes out his consistency to himself, in that as a Montanist, he still contended that the “rule of faith” is to be retained, that the Paraclete would teach nothing against it, and that the heretical and “opposed spirit appears from the difference of teaching, first adulterating the rule of faith, and so the order of discipline.” But it still remains, that quoting the same two texts, he here, without any restriction, declares them to have been completely fulfilled at the Day of Pentecost, while, as a Montanist, he looks chiefly to a fulfilment after two hundred years, in his own time. 2) Then, he does not argue simply from the priority of Catholic truth, but appeals to it, as embodied in the Church, and adduces the Apostolic succession in proof of it. (c. 20. 26–30. 32. 36. 37.) He would hardly have framed his rule thus, when he had declared against the Church. 3) Then, he so connects revelation with the Incarnation as to require that they who claimed to be instruments of a fresh revelation, should shew that our Lord had again been manifest in the flesh, and had conferred on them power to work the same miracles as Himself; (c. 30.) yet Montanus did not claim to work miracles, only to have ecstatic visions. 4) Again, he here explains the continued office of the Holy Ghost, as “Christi Vicarius,” to be to retain the truth which He had taught through the Apostles (c. 28.) in the de Virg. Vel. c. 1. using the same title, he declares it to be, gradually to enlarge the truth so delivered. “Since the Lord therefore sent the Comforter, that inasmuch as human infirmity could not receive all things at once, the discipline might gradually be guided and ordered and brought to perfection by that Vicegerent of the Lord, The Holy Spirit.” 5) It is remarked (Bp. Kaye’s Tertullian, p. 51.) that “some mention of the Paraclete would probably have been introduced into the short summary of the faith given, c. 13. as is the case in the de Virg. Vel. c. 1.” Whereas the mention here is only of the ordinary guidance of believers, (“He sent the vicarious power of the Holy Spirit, who should lead believers;”) there he speaks only of His developing guidance of the Church. 6) It is supposed that S. Augustine refers to the Appendix to this book, (adv. omnes Hæreses, c. 52.) “Tertullian went over to the Phrygians whom he had before overthrown.” (de Hær. 86.) This seems to me also probable, and the adv. omnes Hæreses, though an imperfect sketch, bears, I think, here and there, the stamp of Tertullian’s vivid way of characterizing principles. In this case, the work itself must, of course, be written before his Montanism, since in the Appendix he condemns it. The only ground, on the other side, of any account, is that in the first book against Marcion, which he certainly wrote as a Montanist, (c. 29.) he is thought to refer to this tract as not yet written. His words (c. 1.) are, “In so far will that which is brought in subsequently be accounted heresy, in as far as what was delivered in times past and from the beginning will be held to be truth. But another brief treatise will maintain this position against heretics, that they may be confuted even without considering their doctrines, as being ruled to be such, through their novelty. Now, so far as any trial of strength is to be admitted, I will, for the time (interdum), lest the uniform calling-in of this compendious argument from prescription should be imputed to want of confidence—first set forth the rule of the opponent, &c.” In itself, this language might equally apply to a work written or unwritten; the words “for the time” may mean as well, “waiving this ground for the present.” On the other hand, the passage implies that the argument from prescription had been already urged (as some would think) to satiety, and so it seems probable that this book had been already written. He fears lest the continuance of the same line of defence might be misinterpreted, (he makes the same apology here, c. 16.) and so waiving this vantage-ground for the time, he takes the lower ground of entering into the details of the actual heretical system. Then also the obvious meaning of the close of this book is, that this was a general introduction to all the treatises against particular heresies; as indeed they all, probably, (except the adv. Hermogenem, as to which there is no proof either way, but which was subsequent to this,) were written while he was a Montanist.]

I. THE state of the present times calleth for this admonition also from us, that we ought not to wonder about these heresies, either that they are, for they were foretold as about to be, or that they overturn the faith of some, for to this end are they, in order that Faith, by having wherewithal it may be tried, may have also wherewithal it may be proved. Vainly therefore and without due thought are very many offended by this very thing, namely, that heresies have so much power. How much would they have, if they were not? When a thing hath attained to this, that in any case it is, it hath a final cause, on account of which it is: this obtaineth a power through the means of which it is, so that it is not possible that it should not be.

II. To instance briefly, we do not wonder as touching fever, which, among other deadly and painful ends, is appointed for the destruction of man, either that it existeth, for it doth exist, or that it destroyeth a man, for to this end it existeth. Wherefore, as touching heresies, which are brought into being for the weakening and destruction of Faith, if we are alarmed because they have this power, we must first be alarmed because they have this being; for in that they have a being, they have a power, and in that they have a power, they have a being. But again a fever, as being, what it is known to be, an evil both as respecteth its final cause, and as respecteth its power, we rather detest than wonder at; and, as much as in us lieth, we guard against it, not having the abolition of it in our power. But as to heresies, which bring upon men eternal death, and the burning of a mightier fire, some would rather wonder that they have this power than avoid their having it, though they have the power of avoiding it. But they would have no force, if men would not wonder that they have so much force. For either in that they wonder, they become subjects for the stumbling-block, or because they stumble they therefore wonder, as though it came from some truth in them, that they have so much force. It is forsooth a wonder that evil hath its proper power! unless it be that heresies are very strong with those who are not strong in Faith. In a contest of boxers and gladiators, a man for the most part conquereth, not because he is strong, or cannot be conquered, but because he, who is conquered, was a man of no strength: and so this very conqueror, being afterwards matched against a right lusty man, is also conquered and retreateth. In like manner heresies derive what strength they have from the weaknesses of certain men; having no strength, if they encounter a faith of right good strength.

III. This weaker sort of men indeed are wont to build themselves up unto their fall, by means of certain individuals who have been caught by heresy. How cometh it (say they) that such and such a man, the most faithful, the most prudent, and the most practised in the Church, have gone over to that side? Who, when he sayeth this, doth not himself make answer to himself, that they ought not to be accounted prudent, or faithful, or practised men, whom heresies have been able to change? This too is a wonder, I suppose, that one, who hath in time past been approved, should afterwards fall away! Why, Saul, a good man above others, is afterwards subverted by envy. David, a good man after the Lord’s heart, is afterwards guilty of murder and adultery. Solomon, gifted by the Lord with all grace and wisdom, is enticed to idolatry by women. For to the Son of God alone was it reserved to continue to the end without sin. Why then, if a bishop, if a deacon, if a widow, if a virgin, if a doctor, if even a martyr shall have fallen from the right rule, shall heresies on that account be thought to have truth on their side? Do we test the creed by the persons, or the persons by the creed? None is wise save a believer; none is great save a Christian; but none is a Christian, save he who endureth even to the end. Thou, as a man, knowest each man outwardly: thou thinkest that to be which thou seest: and thou seest, so far as thou hast eyes. But, saith the Scripture, The eyes of the Lord are high. Man looketh on the outward appearance, the Lord on the heart. And therefore the Lord knoweth them that are His. And the plant, which He hath not planted, He rooteth up; and He sheweth that of the first there are that shall be last; and He carrieth His fan in His hand to purge His threshing-floor. Let the chaff of a light faith flee as much as it will with every wind of temptation; the more pure will the mass of wheat be laid up in the garner of the Lord. Did not some of the disciples, being offended, turn aside from the Lord Himself? and yet the rest did not think on that account that they also ought to depart from His footsteps: but those who knew that He was the Word of life, and that He had come forth from God, continued stedfastly in His company even to the end, after that He had mildly put the question, whether “they also would go away.” It is a less matter, if certain, as Phygellus, and Hermogenes, and Philetus, and Hymenæus left His Apostle also: the betrayer of Christ was himself of the number of the Apostles. Do we wonder concerning His Churches, if they be forsaken by some, seeing that those things shew us to be Christians, which we suffer after the example of Christ Himself? They went out from us, saith he, but they were not of us. If they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us.

IV. But rather let us remember, as well the declarations of the Lord, as the letters of the Apostles, which have both declared to us that heresies should be, and determined beforehand that they must be avoided: and as we are not alarmed at their existence, so let us not wonder that they have power to do that, on account of which they are to be avoided. The Lord teacheth that many ravening wolves shall come in sheep’s clothing. What are these sheep’s clothings, but the outward surface of the Christian name? What are these ravening wolves, but those thoughts and deceitful spirits, which lurk within to infest the flock of Christ? Who are false prophets, but false preachers? Who false apostles, but spurious evangelists? Who Antichrists now and ever, but rebels against Christ? At this day there are heresies not less attacking the Church through perversity of doctrines, than Antichrist will in that day pursue her with cruelty of persecutions; save that persecution maketh martyrs besides, heresy apostates only. And therefore need was that there should be heresies, that all such as were approved might be made manifest, as well those who were stedfast in persecutions, as those who did not fly off unto heresies. For he doth not direct that those should be accounted approved, who change the faith into heresy, as they perversely interpret it in their own favour, because he hath said in another place, Prove all things; hold fast that which is good; as if it were not possible, after proving all things ill, to fall, through error, upon the choice of some ill.

V. Moreover, if he chideth dissensions and divisions, which without controversy are evils, he immediately addeth heresies also. That which he joineth with evils, he doubtless confesseth to be an evil, and indeed the greater, since he saith that he believed as touching divisions and dissensions for this reason, because he knew that there must be also heresies. For he sheweth that, in beholding a more grievous evil, he easily believed as touching lighter ones: not surely that he believed as touching those evils, because heresies were good, but because he would forewarn them, that they ought not to wonder concerning temptations even of a more serious stamp, which he said tended to make manifest all those who were approved, that is, those, whom they were not able to pervert to ill. Finally, if the sense of the whole section point to the keeping of unity, and the restraining of divisions, and if heresies separate men from unity no less than divisions and dissensions, without doubt he placeth heresies also in the same predicament of reproach, in which he placeth divisions and dissensions. And by this he maketh not those to be approved, who have turned aside unto heresies, seeing that he specially rebuketh them that they may turn aside from such sort, teaching that all speak the same thing, and be in the same mind, which also heresies allow not.

VI. And of this no more, if this be the same Paul, who elsewhere also, writing to the Galatians, numbereth heresies among the wicked works of the flesh; and who adviseth Titus that a man that is an heretic, after the first rebuke must be rejected, seeing that he that is such, is perverted and sinneth, as being condemned of himself. But in almost every Epistle besides, when he urgeth them about avoiding false doctrines, he censureth heresies, the works whereof are false doctrines. They are named by a Greek word ‘heresies’ in the sense of ‘choice,’ which a man exerciseth either to establish or to adopt them: wherefore also he hath called the heretic condemned of himself, because he hath chosen for himself even that wherein he is condemned. But for us it is not lawful to bring in any doctrine of our own choice, as neither is it to choose that which any one hath brought in of his own choice. We have for our authority the Apostles of the Lord, who did not even themselves choose any thing of their own will to bring in, but faithfully delivered over to the nations the Religion which they had received from Christ. Wherefore, though an angel from heaven should preach any other Gospel, he would be called by us accursed. The Holy Spirit had even then foreseen that there should be in a certain virgin, Philumene, an angel of deceit, transforming himself into an angel of light; induced by whose miracles and tricks, Apelles induced a new heresy.

VII. These are the doctrines of men and of devils, gendered, for itching ears, of the spirit of the wisdom of this world, which the Lord calling foolishness, hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound even Philosophy itself. For such is the material of the wisdom of this world, the rash interpreter of the Nature of God, and of the order by Him established. Finally, heresies themselves are tricked out by Philosophy. Hence the Æons, and I know not what infinite ‘forms,’ and ‘the trinity of man’ according to Valentinus: he was of the school of Plato. Hence the god of Marcion, more excellent by reason of his indolence: he came of the Stoics. And the doctrine that the soul dieth is maintained from the Epicureans. And the denial of the restoration of the body is taken from the united school of all the Philosophers. And where matter is made equal with God, there is the doctrine of Zeno: and where ought is alleged concerning a god consisting of fire, there cometh in Heraclitus. The same matter is turned and twisted by the heretics and by the philosophers, the same questions are involved: Whence cometh evil? and wherefore? and whence man? and how? and, what Valentinus hath lately propounded, whence God? to wit, from an exercise of Mind and from an abortive birth. Wretched Aristotle! who hath taught them the dialectic art, cunning in building up and pulling down, using many shifts in sentences, making forced guesses at truth, stiff in arguments, busy in raising contentions, contrary even to itself, dealing backwards and forwards with every subject, so as really to deal with none. Hence those fables and endless genealogies, and unprofitable questions, and words that spread like canker, from which the Apostle restraining us, testifieth of philosophy by name, that it ought to be shunned; writing to the Colossians, Beware lest any one beguile you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, beside the providence of the Holy Spirit. He had been at Athens, and had, through his conflicts therewith, become acquainted with that wisdom of man, which affecteth the Truth and corrupteth it, itself also being divided many ways into its own heresies by the variety of sects opposing each other. What then hath Athens to do with Jerusalem? What the Academy with the Church? What heretics with Christians? Our School is of the porch of Solomon, who himself also hath delivered unto us, that we must in simplicity of heart seek the Lord. Away with those who have brought forward a Stoic, and a Platonic, and a Dialectic Christianity!

VIII. To us there is no need of curious questioning now that we have Christ Jesus, nor of enquiry now that we have the Gospel. In that we believe this, we desire to believe nothing besides. For this we believe first, that there is nothing which we ought to believe besides. I come therefore to that point, which even our own brethren put forward as a reason for entering upon curious enquiry, and which heretics urge for bringing in curious doubt. It is written, say they, seek, and ye shall find. Let us remember when it was that the Lord uttered this saying: in the first beginning, I trow, of His teaching, when it was yet doubted by all men whether He were the Christ; when as yet not even Peter had declared Him to be the Son of God; when even John had ceased to be assured concerning Him. With good cause therefore was it then said, Seek, and ye shall find, seeing that He was yet to be sought, Who was not yet acknowledged. And this with reference to the Jews: for to them pertaineth the whole speech of this reproach, who had wherein they might seek Christ. They have, saith he, Moses and Elias, that is, the Law and the Prophets, which preach Christ: as also openly in another place, Search the Scriptures, in which ye hope for salvation, for they speak of Me. This will be the meaning of, Seek, and ye shall find: for that the words which follow, also pertain to the Jews is manifest: Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. The Jews had been in past times in the presence of God: afterwards, being cast out because of their sins, they began to be shut out from God. But the Gentiles never were in the presence of God, except as a drop from a bucket, and as dust from the threshing-floor, and were ever without the door. How then shall he, who was ever without the door, knock at the place where he never was? what door doth he know, where he was never either received or cast out? Doth not he rather knock, and doth not he rather know the door, who knoweth that he was once within, and that he hath been cast out of doors? Again, Ask, and ye shall receive, pertaineth to him who knew from Whom he must ask, from Whom also something had been promised, to wit, from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of Whom the nations knew no more than they did of any promise from Him. And therefore He spake to Israel: I am not sent, saith He, but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He had not as yet cast to dogs the children’s bread. He had not as yet commanded them to go into the way of the Gentiles; for it was in the end that He taught them to go and teach and baptize the nations, and that they should presently receive the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, Who should guide them into all truth. And this therefore tendeth hitherwards. But if the Apostles, appointed the teachers of the Gentiles, were themselves to obtain a Teacher in the Comforter, the saying, Seek, and ye shall find, was much more out of place as respecteth us, to whom the doctrine was to present itself, of itself, through the Apostles, as it did to the Apostles through the Holy Spirit. All the sayings indeed of the Lord were set forth for all: they have passed down to us through the ears of the Jews; but most of them, being directed towards particular persons, form for us not a special admonition but an example.

IX. I now of my own accord quit this ground. Be it that the precept, Seek, and ye shall find, was spoken to all. Yet even then it is right to set the meaning of the words against the rule of their literal construction. No Divine saying is so loose and vague, that the words only are insisted on, while the true bearing of the words is not determined. But in the outset I lay down this: that there is some one definite thing taught by Christ, which the Gentiles are by all means bound to believe, and therefore to seek, that they may be able, when they have found, to believe it. Moreover, the search after a thing taught, which is one and definite, cannot be indefinite. Thou must seek until thou findest, and believe when thou hast found: and there is nothing more, save to keep that, in which thou hast believed; so that thou believest this moreover, that any thing besides is not to be believed, and therefore not to be sought after; seeing that thou hast found, and hast believed, that which was taught by Him, Who doth not command thee to seek any thing, besides that which He hath taught. If any one doubteth what this is, it will be proved that that, which was taught by Christ, is in our hands. Meanwhile, relying on my proof, I anticipate it, in warning certain persons that they must seek nothing beyond the things which they have believed: that this is that which they were bound to seek: lest they interpret, Seek, and ye shall find, without regard to the rule of reason.

X. Now the reason of this saying lieth in three points: in the matter, in the time, in the measure. In the matter, for the question ‘what’ thou must seek? in the time, for the question ‘when?’ in the measure, for the question ‘how long?’ Thou must seek then ‘that’ which Christ hath taught; of course, at the time ‘when’ thou dost not find it; of course, ‘till’ thou dost find it. But thou hast found it as soon as thou hast believed; for thou wouldest not have believed, if thou hadst not found, as neither wouldest thou have sought, except that thou mightest find. To this end therefore thou seekest, that thou mayest find; and to this end thou findest, that thou mayest believe. Thou hast, by believing, put a stop to all farther protraction of seeking and finding. The very fruit of thy search hath set thee these bounds. He Who willeth that thou shouldest not believe, and therefore shouldest not seek, any thing besides what He hath taught, hath Himself determined for thee this line of entrenchment. But if, because so many other things also have been taught by others, we are on that account bound to seek so far as we are able to find, we shall ever be seeking, and shall never believe at all. For where will be the end of seeking? where the resting point in believing? where the completion of finding? With Marcion? But Valentinus also propoundeth seek, and ye shall find. With Valentinus? But Apelles also will press me with this maxim: and Hebion, and Simon, and all in their turn have no other means whereby they may worm themselves into my good graces, and join me to their party. I shall therefore be no where, while I every where meet with Seek, and ye shall find; and I would I were thus no where, as though I had never apprehended that which Christ hath taught, which ought to be sought, which is necessary to be believed.

XI. A man may safely go wrong, unless he goeth from what is right, although to go wrong is to go from what is right: a man, I say, goeth astray safely, who goeth away from nothing. But if I have believed that which I ought to believe, and think that there is something else to be sought anew, I expect, surely, that there is something else also to be found: and this I could in no wise expect, unless I either had not from the first believed, though I seemed to believe, or had ceased to believe. Thus going away from my Creed, I am found to be a denier of it. Let me say once for all, no man seeketh a thing, save he who either hath never had it, or hath lost it. The old woman had lost one of ten pieces of silver, and therefore sought it; but when she found it, she ceased to seek it. The neighbour had no bread, and therefore knocked; but as soon as it was opened unto him, and he received the bread, he ceased to knock. The widow asked to be heard by the judge, because she was not received; but as soon as she was heard, she persisted no farther. There is therefore a limit both to seeking and to knocking and to asking. He saith, For to every one that asketh it shall be given, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened, and by him that seeketh it shall be found. No matter for him, who is ever seeking because he findeth not, for he seeketh there where it shall not be found. No matter for him, who is ever knocking, because none will ever open to him, for he knocketh there where there is no one. No matter for him, who is ever asking, because none will ever hear, for he asketh from one who heareth not.

XII. For ourselves, even though we ought to be seeking up to this time and at all times, yet where ought we seek? Among the heretics? where all is foreign and opposite to our truth? whom we are forbidden to come nigh? What servant looketh for food from a stranger, not to say an enemy, to his lord? What soldier seeketh to obtain bounty and pay from unallied, not to say hostile, kings, unless he be altogether a deserter, and a runaway, and a rebel? Even that old woman sought for the piece of silver in her own house: even that knocker at the door knocked at his neighbour’s door: even that widow appealed to not an adverse, though a hard judge. No man can be built up by that whereby he is pulled down. No man is enlightened by that whereby he is darkened. Let us “seek” therefore in our own, and from our own, and concerning our own: and that only, which can be brought into question without touching the rule of faith.

XIII. Now the rule of faith—that we may at this point confess what it is that we maintain—is that whereby it is believed that there is in any wise but One God, and no other than the Creator of the world, Who, by His own Word first of all sent forth, brought all things out of nothing: that this Word is called His Son, Who, with the Name of God, was in divers manners seen by the Patriarchs, ever heard in the Prophets, brought down at last by the Spirit and the Power of God the Father into the Virgin Mary, made flesh in her womb, and, being born of her, appeared under the character of Jesus Christ: that thenceforth He preached a new law, and a new promise of the Kingdom of Heaven; worked miracles; was nailed to the cross; rose again the third day; was taken up to Heaven, and sat down at the right hand of the Father; sent in His stead the power of the Holy Spirit, to work upon believers; and that He shall come with glory to take the saints to the enjoyment of eternal life, and of the heavenly promises, and to condemn the ungodly to everlasting fire, having caused the resurrection of both classes to take place, with the restoration of their bodies.

XIV. This rule, taught, as will be proved, by Christ, hath no questions raised upon it amongst us, save those which heresies introduce, and which make men heretics. But so long as its form remaineth in its own proper order, thou mayest seek as much as thou listest, and discuss, and exhaust all thy longing after curious enquiry; if any thing seem to thee either to hang in doubt or to be dimly seen through darkness, there is doubtless some brother, a doctor endowed with the grace of knowledge; there is some one familiar with those who are well-practised, some one curiously, with thee, enquiring, yet with thee seeking. Thou newest of novices, it is better for thee to be ignorant, lest thou know what thou oughtest not, for, what thou oughtest to know, thou knowest. Thy faith, saith He, hath saved thee, not thy exercises in the Scriptures. Faith is fixed in a rule. It hath a law, and, in the keeping of that law, salvation: but this exercising of thyself consisteth in curious enquiry, having glory only in a zeal for skilfulness. Let curious enquiry yield to Faith; let glory yield to salvation. At least let them either not clamour in opposition, or let them be still. To know nothing contrary to the rule is to know every thing. Even though heretics were not enemies of the truth, even though we were not forewarned to avoid them, what sort of act is it to confer with men, who themselves profess that they themselves also are still seeking? For if they are still really seeking, they have as yet found nothing certain; and therefore whatsoever they seem in the mean while to hold, they shew their own doubtfulness as long as they are seeking. Thou, therefore, who art likewise seeking, looking to those who are themselves also seeking, thyself in doubt being led by those who are in doubt, thyself unassured by those who are unassured, thyself blind by those who are blind, must needs be led into the ditch. But when, for the sake of deceiving, they pretend that they are still seeking, that they may, by instilling an anxiety into us, palm their conceits upon us, and when moreover, as soon as they have gained access to us, they directly maintain those points, which they said ought to be questions, then ought we so to account of them, that they may know that we deny, not Christ, but them. For in that they are yet seeking, they have not as yet laid hold; and in that they have not laid hold, they have not as yet believed; and in that they have not as yet believed, they are not Christians. But when they do indeed hold a thing and believe it, and yet, in order that they may maintain it, say that it must be enquired into,—before they maintain it, they deny that which, by making it matter of enquiry, they confess that they do not as yet believe. Those therefore who are not Christians even in their own eyes, how much less in ours! What must the faith be, which those argue for, who come to us by means of deceit? What the truth, which those support who introduce it with a lie?

XV. But ‘these very persons treat of the Scriptures, and argue out of the Scriptures.’ Why! could they possibly speak of the things of the Faith, except from the records of the Faith? We come therefore to the question before us. For this we were ordering, and this we were preparing, in this prefatory discourse, that we might henceforward begin to battle the point on which the adversaries challenge us. They put forth the Scriptures, and by this their boldness they forthwith move some: but in the actual battle they weary the strong, catch the weak, send away the wavering with a doubt. The first and chief step, therefore, which we take against them, is that of not admitting them to any discussion touching the Scriptures. If in these be that strength of theirs, in order that they may be able to possess it, it ought to be considered to whom the possession of the Scriptures belongeth, that he may not be admitted to it, to whom it doth in no wise belong.

XVI. It might be that I advanced this, prompted by distrust of my cause, or from a desire of entering on the debate in some other way, were there not a clear reason for it; first and chiefly this, that our Faith oweth obedience to the Apostle, when he forbiddeth us to enter upon questions, to lend our ears to new sayings, to deal with an heretic after the first admonition, not after disputation. Thus hath he forbidden disputation, in noting admonition as the cause for dealing with an heretic, and the first, for this reason, namely, because he is not a Christian; that it may not be thought that he should be reproved, like a Christian, once and again, and before two or three witnesses, seeing that he ought to be reproved for the very cause for which he ought not to be questioned with. The next reason is because a discussion of the Scriptures can avail nothing except to lead, in some sort, to a sheer turning of the stomach or of the brain.

XVII. This heresy doth not receive certain of the Scriptures, and whatever it doth receive, by adding to them and diminishing from them, it turneth about according to the plan of its own purpose: and if it receiveth, it doth not in fact receive them, and if, to a certain extent, it furnisheth them entire, nevertheless, by devising different expositions it perverteth them. An adulteration by the sense imposed is as much opposed to the truth as a corruption by the pen. Their various presumptions must needs be loth to recognise those things whereby they are refuted. They rely on what they have falsely trumped up, or have derived from some ambiguity. What wilt thou gain, O man most practised in the Scriptures, when, if thou affirmest any thing, it is denied, and, on the other hand, if thou deniest any thing, it is affirmed? And thou indeed wilt lose nothing, but thy breath in the dispute, gain nothing, but vexation from their blasphemy.

XVIII. But he, if any such there be, for whose sake thou enterest into a discussion of the Scriptures, that thou mayest strengthen him when wavering, will he incline the more to the truth or to heresies? Being moved by the very fact that he seeth that thou hast advanced not a whit, being on an equal footing in denying and affirming, on a different side, yet, questionless, in a like position, he will depart, rendered more uncertain by the contest, not knowing which to judge the heresy. It is their part, too, surely to retort these things upon us. For they also, who in like manner affirm that the truth is with them, must needs say that the corruptions of the Scriptures and the falsities in the expositions of them have been rather introduced by us.

XIX. To the Scriptures therefore we must not appeal; nor must we try the issue on points, on which the victory is either none, or doubtful, or too little doubtful. For though the debate on the Scriptures should not so turn out, as to place each party on an equal footing, the order of things would require that this question should be first proposed, which is now the only one to be discussed, ‘To whom belongeth the very Faith; whose are the Scriptures; by whom, and through whom, and when, and to whom was that rule delivered whereby men become Christians.’ For whereever both the true Christian rule and Faith shall be shewn to be, there will be the true Scriptures, and the true expositions, and all the true Christian traditions.

XX. Christ Jesus our Lord, (may He suffer me for the moment so to speak,) Whosoever He be, of Whatsoever God the Son, of whatsoever substance both Man and God, of whatsoever faith the Teacher, of whatsoever reward the Promiser, did Himself while He lived in the world, declare what He was, what He had been, of what will of His Father He was the Minister, what He determined should be done by man, either openly to the people, or privately to His disciples, out of whom He had chosen to be attached to His person twelve principal ones, the destined teachers of the nations. Wherefore, one of them being struck off, He, when departing to the Father after His resurrection, commanded the other eleven to go and teach all nations, who were to be baptized into the Father, and into the Son, and into the Holy Ghost. Immediately therefore the Apostles, (whom this title intendeth to denote as ‘sent,’) having chosen by lot a twelfth, Matthias, into the room of Judas, on the authority of a prophecy, which is in a Psalm of David, having obtained the promised power of the Holy Spirit, for the working of miracles and for utterance, first having throughout Judæa borne witness to the faith in Jesus Christ, and established Churches, next went forth into the world, and preached the same doctrine of the same Faith to the nations, and forthwith founded Churches in every city, from whence the other Churches thenceforward borrowed the tradition of the Faith and the seeds of doctrine, and are daily borrowing them, that they may become Churches. And for this cause they are themselves also accounted Apostolical, as being the offspring of Apostolical Churches. The whole kind must needs be classed under their original. Wherefore these Churches, so many and so great, are but that one primitive Church from the Apostles, whence they all spring. Thus all are the primitive, and all Apostolical, while all are one. The communication of peace, the title of brotherhood, and the token of hospitality prove this unity, which rights no other principle directeth than the unity of the tradition of the same mystery.

XXI. On this principle therefore we shape our rule: that, if Lord Jesus Christ sent the Apostles to preach, no others ought to be received as preachers than those whom Christ appointed: for no man knoweth the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son hath revealed Him. Neither doth the Son seem to have revealed Him to any other than to the Apostles, whom He sent to preach, to wit that which He revealed unto them. Now what they did preach, that is, what Christ did reveal unto them, I will here also rule, must be proved in no other way than by those same Churches which the Apostles themselves founded; themselves, I say, by preaching to them as well vivâ voce (as men say), as afterwards by Epistles. If these things be so, it becometh forthwith manifest that all doctrine, which agreeth with these Apostolic Churches, the wombs and originals of the faith, must be accounted true, as without doubt containing that which the Churches have received from the Apostles, the Apostles from Christ, Christ from God: and that all other doctrine must be judged at once to be false, which savoureth things contrary to the truth of the Churches, and of the Apostles, and of Christ, and of God. It remaineth therefore that we shew whether this our doctrine, the rule of which we have above declared, be derived from the tradition of the Apostles, and, from this very fact, whether the other doctrines come of falsehood. We have communion with the Apostolic Churches, because we have no doctrine differing from them. This is evidence of truth.

XXII. But since the proof of this is so short, that, if it be brought forward at once, there would be no farther question to be treated of, let us for a while, as though it were not brought forward by us, give place to the other party, if they think that they can do any thing towards invalidating this rule. They are wont to say that ‘the Apostles did not know all things,’ being moved by the same madness whereby they turn about again and say that ‘the Apostles did indeed know all things, but did not deliver all things to all:’ in either case subjecting Christ to reproach, in that He sent Apostles with either too little instruction or too little simplicity. Who then of sound mind can believe that they were ignorant of any thing, whom the Lord appointed as masters, keeping them undivided in attendance, in discipleship, in companionship; to whom when they were alone, He expounded all things that were dark, saying that to them it was given to know the mysteries, which the people were not permitted to understand? Was any thing hidden from Peter, who was called the rock whereon the Church should be built, who obtained the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and the power of loosing and binding in heaven and on earth? Was any thing moreover hidden from John, the most beloved of the Lord, who leaned upon His breast, to whom alone the Lord pointed out beforehand Judas that should betray Him, whom He commended unto Mary as a son in His own stead? Of what would He have those be ignorant to whom He even manifested His glory, and Moses and Elias, and moreover the voice of the Father from Heaven, not as casting a reproach upon the rest, but because in three witnesses shall every word be established? Therefore they also were ignorant, to whom even after His resurrection He deigned to expound all the Scriptures as they journeyed! Certainly He had once said, I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now: yet by adding, when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth, He sheweth that they were ignorant of nothing, who He had promised should attain unto all truth, through the Spirit of truth: and verily He fulfilled the promise, seeing that the Acts of the Apostles prove the descent of the Holy Spirit: the which Scripture they who receive not, can neither be of the Holy Spirit, seeing that they cannot acknowledge that the Holy Spirit hath yet been sent to the disciples; nor can they even maintain themselves to be the Church, seeing that they have not wherewithal to prove when and with what beginnings this body was established. For they are well content to have no proofs of those things which they do maintain, lest there be let in at the same time exposures of those things which they speak falsely.

XXIII. They allege, therefore, in order to fix some charge of ignorance on the Apostles, that Peter, and they who were with him, were rebuked by Paul. ‘Something therefore,’ say they, ‘was wanting in them;’ that they may build hereupon this also, that a fuller knowledge might have been afterwards added, such as came to Paul, who rebuked those who went before him. Here also I may say to those who set aside the Acts of the Apostles, ‘You must first shew who this Paul was, and what before he was an Apostle, and how an Apostle,’ inasmuch as they make the greatest use of him in other questions also. For though he himself declares that he became from a persecutor an Apostle, this sufficeth not for any that believeth only on examination, seeing that even the Lord Himself did not bear witness of Himself. But let them believe without the Scriptures, in order that they may believe against the Scriptures; still let them shew from that which they allege, the rebuking namely of Peter by Paul, that another form of Gospel was introduced by Paul besides that which Peter and the rest had put forth before. But when, changed from a persecutor to a preacher, he is presented to the brethren by brethren as one of the brethren, and presented to them by those who had been clothed with faith at the Apostles’ hands,—then, as he himself relateth, he went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, to wit, because of his office, and by right of a common faith and preaching. For they too would not have wondered at his becoming a preacher from being a persecutor, if he had preached any thing contrary to them, nor would they have moreover glorified God, for the coming of His enemy Paul unto them. Wherefore also they gave the right hand to him, the sign of concord and fellowship, and appointed among themselves a distribution of office, not a division of the Gospel; that each should preach, not a different Gospel, but to different persons, Peter to the circumcision, Paul to the heathen. But if Peter was reproved because, after having lived with the Gentiles, he separated himself from their company out of respect for persons, surely this was a fault in his conversation, not in his preaching. For no other God was hereby preached than the Creator, no other Christ than the Son of Mary, no other hope than the Resurrection.

XXIV. I am not good enough, or rather I am not bad man enough, to set the Apostles the one against the other. But since these most perverse persons put forward this rebuke to the end that they may render suspected the doctrine before delivered, I will make answer as it were for Peter, that Paul himself said that he was made all things to all men, to the Jews a Jew, to those who were not Jews not a Jew, that he might gain all. And so they were wont, according to the times, persons, and reasons concerned, to reprove certain things, which they themselves as much approved according to the times, persons, and reasons concerned. It is as though Peter too should reprove Paul, because, forbidding circumcision, he himself circumcised Timothy. Away with those who pass judgment on Apostles. Well that Peter is made equal to Paul even in his martyrdom! But although Paul was caught up to the third Heaven, and, carried into Paradise, there heard certain things, these cannot be thought to be such as to make him more fully instructed to teach some other doctrine, seeing that such was the nature of them, that they might be disclosed to no man. But if a something transpired so as to be known of any one, and any heresy declareth that it followeth this, either Paul is guilty of betraying his secret, or it must be shewn that some other also was afterwards caught up into Paradise, to whom it was permitted to speak out those things, which for Paul it was not lawful to utter.

XXV. But, as we have said, there is the same senselessness, when they confess indeed that the Apostles were ignorant of nothing, and did not preach doctrines differing the one from the other, but yet will have it that they did not reveal all things to all men, for that they committed some things openly and to all the world, other some secretly and to a few, because Paul used this expression also to Timothy, O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust; and again, that good thing, which was committed unto thee, keep. What was this secret committed to him, that it should be accounted another doctrine? Was it a part of that charge of which he said, This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy? and of that commandment, of which he saith, I give thee charge in the sight of God, Who quickeneth all things, and Jesus Christ, Who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession, keep the commandment? But what was the commandment and what the charge? From that which is written before and after, it is plainly seen, not that some dark hint touching a more secret doctrine was given in these words, but rather that it was urged upon him not to admit any other doctrine than that which he had heard from the Apostle himself, and (as I think) openly, before many witnesses, as he saith. By which many witnesses if they will not have it that the Church is meant, it mattereth nothing, since nothing can be secret, which was brought forward before many witnesses. Nor again, because he would have him commit these things to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also, is this to be understood as a proof of any hidden Gospel. For when he saith, these things, he speaketh of things concerning which he was at the time writing: but of hidden things, as being absent in the thoughts within, he would have said, not ‘these’ but ‘those.’

XXVI. Moreover it followed that to whom he committed the ministration of the Gospel he would give this command besides, that it should not be ministered every where nor without discretion, according to the word of the Lord, that he should not cast a pearl before swine, nor that which is holy unto dogs. The Lord spake openly, without any hint of any hidden mystery. He had Himself commanded that what they heard in darkness and in secret, they should preach in the light and on the housetops. He had Himself foreshewn, by a parable, that they should not keep back and hide without usury one pound, that is, one word of His. He Himself taught that a candle was not wont to be thrust away under a bushel, but to be placed on a candlestick, that it may give light unto all that are in the house. These things the Apostles either neglected, or very ill understood, if they fulfilled them not, hiding somewhat of the light, that is, of the word of God, and the mystery of Christ. They feared, I am well assured, no one; neither the violence of the Jews nor of the Gentiles. Much more then would they, who were not silent in the synagogues and in the public places, preach freely in the Church. Yea they would not have been able either to convert the Jews, or to bring in the Gentiles, if they had not set forth in order the things which they wished should be believed of them. Much less would they have kept back any thing from Churches already believing, that they might commit it privately to a few other persons. Although, even if they did discourse of certain things among their household friends, so to speak, yet it is not to be believed that they were such things as would bring in another rule of faith, differing from and contrary to that which the Catholic Churches published to the world: so that they should speak of one God in the Church, another in the private house; and should describe one substance of Christ openly, another in secret; should declare one hope of the resurrection before all, another before the few: seeing that they themselves, in their own Epistles, besought men that they would all speak one and the same thing, and that there should be no divisions and dissensions in the Church, because they, whether Paul or others, preached the same things. And besides, they remembered, Let your communication be yea, yea; nay, nay; whatsoever is more than this cometh of evil; to wit, that they should not handle the Gospel in different ways.

XXVII. If therefore it is not to be believed either that the Apostles were ignorant of the fulness of the doctrine, or that they did not make known to all the whole order of the rule of faith, let us see whether perchance the Apostles taught it simply and fully, but the Churches, through their own fault, received it otherwise than the Apostles set it forth. All these incentives to curious doubt thou mayest find put forward by the heretics. They remember that the Churches were rebuked by the Apostle, O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you? and, ye did run so well: who hindereth you? And the very commencement of the Epistle, I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him, that called His own in grace, unto another Gospel. Likewise that which was written to the Corinthians, that they were yet carnal, and to be fed with milk, not being yet able to bear meat; who thought that they knew somewhat, when they knew nothing yet as they ought to know. When they object to us that the Churches were reproved, let them believe that they were amended: and let them also remember those, concerning whose faith and knowledge and conversation the Apostle rejoiceth, and giveth God thanks, which nevertheless at this day join with those which were reproved, in the privileges of one instituted body.

XXVIII. Well then: be it that all have erred; that the Apostle also was deceived in the testimony he gave in favour of some; that the Holy Spirit had regard to no one of them so as to guide it into truth, although for this sent by Christ, asked of the Father, that He might be the Teacher of truth; that He, the Steward of God, the Deputy of Christ, neglected His office, suffering the Churches the while to understand differently, to believe differently, that which He Himself preached by the Apostles—is it probable that so many Churches, and so great, should have gone astray into the same Faith? Never is there one result among many chances: the error in the doctrine of the Churches must needs have varied. But where one and the same thing is found amongst many, this is not error but tradition. Let any one then dare to say that those were in error who delivered it.

XXIX. In whatever way the error came, error, I suppose, reigned as long as there were no heresies. Truth waited for certain Marcionites and Valentinians that it might be set free. Meanwhile the Gospel was wrongly preached; men wrongly believed; so many thousands of thousands were wrongly baptized; so many works of faith were wrongly wrought; so many miracles, so many gifts wrongly in operation; so many priesthoods, so many mysteries wrongly executed: finally, so many martyrdoms wrongly crowned! Or if it were not wrongly and to no purpose, what shall we say of this, that the things of God were going forward before it was known of what God they were? that there were Christians before Christ was found? heresy before true doctrine? Whereas in all things the truth goeth before its copy, the likeness cometh after the reality. But it is sufficiently absurd that what came first in doctrine should be accounted the heresy, were it only that it is this which declared beforehand that men must beware of heresies which should be hereafter. It was written to a Church of this doctrine, yea the doctrine itself writeth to its own Church, Though an angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel than that which we have preached, let him be accursed.

XXX. Where then was Marcion, the ship-owner of Pontus, the zealous disciple of Stoicism? where was Valentinus, the follower of Platonism? for it is agreed that they lived, not so long ago, in the reign, speaking generally, of Antoninus, and that at first they believed in the doctrine of the Catholic Church, in the Church of Rome, under the episcopate of the blessed Eleutherus, until, by reason of their ever restless curiosity, with which they infected even the brethren, being once and again expelled, (Marcion indeed with the 200 sesterces which he had brought into the Church,) and being at last condemned to the banishment of a perpetual separation, they sowed abroad the poisons of their doctrines. Afterwards, when Marcion, having professed penitence, agreed to the terms offered him, that he should receive reconciliation, on condition that he brought back to the Church the rest also whom he had trained up for perdition, he was prevented by death. For it must needs be that there should be heresies; and yet heresies are not on that account a good, because it was necessary that they should exist. As if it were not necessary that evil also should exist! For it was necessary even that the Lord should be betrayed, but woe to the betrayer! lest any one should on this ground also defend heresies. If we must needs examine the genealogy of Apelles also, he is as far from being an ancient as Marcion his instructor and trainer; but going back from the continency of a Marcionite, and falling away to a woman, he retired from the presence of his most holy master to Alexandria. Thence returning after certain years in no wise improved, save only that he was no longer a Marcionite, he offended another woman, that Philumene, (whom we have before introduced to notice,) a virgin, but afterwards herself also a monstrous prostitute, by the workings of whose evil spirit being beguiled, he wrote “the revelations” which he learned from her. There are yet living in the world those who remember them, even their own disciples and successors, so that they may not deny that they were of a later date. Although, besides this, they are convicted by their works as the Lord hath said. For if Marcion separated the New Testament from the Old, he is later than that which he separated, because he could not separate save that which was united. Being therefore united before that it was separated, when it was afterwards separated, it shews that the separater was later. So also Valentinus, differently expounding, and amending doubtless, for this very reason sheweth that whatsoever he amendeth, as being faulty before, was before. These men we name as the most remarkable and the most frequent corrupters of the truth. But Nigidius (who he be I know not) and Hermogenes, and many others, still walk perverting the ways of God. I wish they would shew me by what authority they have come forward. If they preach another God, why use they the things, and the books, and the names of that God, against Whom they preach? if the same God, why in another way? Let them prove themselves to be new Apostles, let them say that Christ came down a second time, that He taught in person a second time, was a second time crucified, a second time dead, a second time raised again: for thus is He wont to make Apostles, and besides to give them the power of working the same miracles, which Himself also worked. I would therefore that their mighty works also should be brought forward; though I acknowledge their mightiest work, whereby they vie with the Apostle by contraries: for those raised men to life from the dead, these make men dead from being alive.

XXXI. But from this digression let me return to putting the prior date to the account of truth, the later to that of falsehood, with the support too of that parable, which placeth first the sowing of the good seed of the wheat by the Lord, and bringeth in afterwards the mixture of the barren weed, the wild oats, by His enemy the devil. For it properly representeth the distinction of doctrines, because in other places also the word of God is compared unto seed: so from the very order it is made manifest, that what was first delivered is of the Lord and true, but what was afterwards introduced, foreign and false. This sentence will stand good against all the latter heresies, which have no conscientious ground of confidence, whereon to claim the truth for their own side.

XXXII. But if there be any heresies, which venture to plant themselves in the midst of the age of the Apostles, that they may therefore be thought to have been handed down from the Apostles, because they existed under the Apostles, we may say, let them then make known the originals of their Churches; let them unfold the roll of their Bishops so coming down in succession from the beginning, that their first Bishop had for his ordainer and predecessor some one of the Apostles, or of Apostolic men, so he were one that continued stedfast with the Apostles. For in this manner do the Apostolic Churches reckon their origin: as the Church of Smyrna recounteth that Polycarp was placed there by John; as that of Rome doth that Clement was in like manner ordained by Peter. Just so can the rest also shew those, whom, being appointed by the Apostles to the Episcopate, they have as transmitters of the Apostolic seed. Let the heretics invent something of the same sort; for after blasphemy what is withholden from them? But even though they invent it, they will advance never a step: for their doctrine, when compared with that of the Apostles, will of itself declare, by the difference and contrariety between them, that it had neither any Apostle for its author, nor any Apostolic man: because, as the Apostles would not have taught things differing from each other, so neither would Apostolic men have set forth things contrary to the Apostles, unless those who learned from Apostles preached a different doctrine! To this test then they will be challenged by those Churches, which although they can bring forward as their founder no one of the Apostles or of Apostolic men, as being of much later date, and indeed being founded daily, nevertheless, since they agree in the same faith, are by reason of their consanguinity in doctrine counted not the less Apostolical. So let all heresies, when challenged by our Churches to both these tests, prove themselves apostolical in whatever way they think themselves so to be. But in truth they neither are so, nor can they prove themselves to be what they are not, nor are they received into union and communion by Churches in any way apostolical, to wit, because they are in no way apostolical, by reason of the difference of the sacred mystery which they teach.

XXXIII. To these arguments I add the review of the doctrines themselves, which existed at that time under the Apostles, and were by the same Apostles both brought to light and denounced. For so too will they be the more easily exposed, when they are proved either to have existed at that very time, or to have derived their origin from those, which at that very time did exist. Paul, in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, noteth some that denied and doubted of the resurrection. This opinion belongeth properly to the Sadducees, Marcion adopteth a part of it, and Apelles, and Valentinus, and whoever else there be that interfere with the resurrection of the flesh. In writing also to the Galatians, he inveigheth against those, who observe and maintain circumcision and the law: this is the heresy of Hebion. In instructing Timothy, he setteth a reproach likewise upon such as forbid to marry: so teach Marcion and Apelles his followers. In the same manner he toucheth those, who said, that the resurrection was past already: this the Valentinians assert of themselves. But besides, when he speaketh of endless genealogies, we recognise Valentinus, according to whom that Æon, whoever he be, of a new name, and not of one name, generateth of his own Grace Sense and Truth: and these in like manner produce two, Discourse and Life: next, these again generate Man and Church: and these are the first four pairs of Æons. Thence arise ten other Æons, and twelve besides them of strange names, to make up the entire fable of thirty Æons. The same Apostle, when he upbraideth those who were in bondage to elements, pointeth at something of Hermogenes, who, introducing matter as having no beginning, compareth it unto God, Who hath no beginning; and so making the mother of the elements a goddess, may well be in bondage to her, whom he compareth unto God. But John in the Revelation is commanded to chastise them which eat things sacrificed unto idols, and commit fornication. There are at this day also other Nicolaitans: it is called the Caian heresy. But in his Epistle he calleth those especially antichrists, who denied that Christ was come in the flesh, and who thought not that Jesus was the Son of God: Marcion maintained the one point, Hebion the other. But the system of the sorcery of Simon, which doeth service to angels, was of course itself also counted among idolatries, and was condemned in Simon himself by the Apostle Peter.

XXXIV. These are, as I think, the different kinds of corrupt doctrines, which, we learn from the Apostles themselves, existed under the Apostles: and yet we find, among so many varieties of perverse teachings, no one school, which mooted any controversy respecting God as the Creator of all things. No one ventured to surmise a second God. Men doubted more readily concerning the Son than concerning the Father, until Marcion introduced, besides the Creator, another God of goodness only; and Apelles made some glorious angel of the higher God, the Creator, the God of the law and of Israel, affirming that he consisted of fire; and Valentinus scattered about his Æons, and traced the fault of one Æon down to the first production of God the Creator. To these alone, and to these first, was the truth of the Divine Nature revealed, who obtained forsooth greater privilege and larger grace from the Devil, who in this also wished to rival God, that he might by poisonous doctrines make (what the Lord hath said cannot be) the disciples above their Master. Let therefore the whole body of heresies choose their times for themselves,—which were when,—so the unimportance be granted of the ‘which were when,’ they being not of the truth! Surely those which were not named by the Apostles could not have existed under the Apostles: for if they had, they too would have been named, that they too might be repressed. But those which did exist under the Apostles, are, in being named, condemned. Whether therefore those same heresies, which under the Apostles were in a rough form, be now somewhat more polished, they draw thence their condemnation: or whether those indeed were different, but others rising up afterwards adopted a portion of opinion from them, in sharing with these their doctrine they must needs share also their condemnation, according to the precedent of that definite rule, which was before laid down, touching ‘the later date,’ whereby, although they had no part in the condemned doctrines, they would be condemned at once on the ground of their age alone, being so much the more corrupt, as not being even named by the Apostles. Whereby it doth the more certainly appear that they are those, which even then were announced as about to come.

XXXV. Challenged by us according to these rules and refuted, let all heresies—whether those which are after, or those which are coeval with the Apostles, so long as they differ from them; whether generally or specially noted by them, so long as they are fore-condemned by them—dare themselves also to allege in answer any rules of this kind against our Religion. For if they deny its truth, they are bound to prove that it also is heresy, refuted by the same rule whereby they themselves also are refuted; and at the same time to shew where that truth must be sought, which it is already proved is not with them. Our system is not later, nay, it is earlier than all. This will be evidence of truth, which every where holdeth the first place. It is certainly not condemned, nay, is advocated by the Apostles: this will be proof that it is their own. For that doctrine which they do not condemn, who have condemned every one foreign to them, they shew to be their own, and therefore also advocate it.

XXXVI. Come now, thou that wilt exercise thy curiosity to better purpose in the business of thy salvation, go through the Apostolic Churches, in which the very seats of the Apostles, at this very day, preside over their own places; in which their own authentic writings are read, speaking with the voice of each, and making the face of each present to the eye. Is Achaia near to thee? thou hast Corinth. If thou art not far from Macedonia, thou hast Philippi, thou hast the Thessalonians. If thou canst travel into Asia, thou hast Ephesus. But if thou art near to Italy, thou hast Rome, where we also have an authority close at hand. What an happy Church is that! on which the Apostles poured out all their doctrine, with their blood: where Peter had a like Passion with the Lord; where Paul hath for his crown the same death with John; where the Apostle John was plunged into boiling oil, and suffered nothing, and was afterwards banished to an island. Let us see what she hath learned, what taught, what fellowship she hath had with the Churches of Africa likewise. She acknowledgeth one God the Lord, the Creator of the universe, and Christ Jesus the Son of God the Creator, born of the Virgin Mary, and the resurrection of the flesh. She joineth the Law and the Prophets with the writings of the Evangelists and Apostles, and thence drinketh in her faith. That faith she sealeth with water, clotheth with the Holy Spirit, feedeth with the Eucharist, exhorteth to martyrdom, and so receiveth no one in opposition to this teaching. This is that teaching, which I do not now say foretold that heresies should come, but from which heresies proceeded forth. But these were not of her, from the time when they began to be against her. Even from the seed of the cultivated, rich, necessary olive, the rough wild-olive ariseth: even from the kernel of the most delightful and most sweet fig springeth the empty and useless wild-fig. So also heresies are of our fruit, not of our kind, of the seed of truth, but, through falsehood, wild.

XXXVII. If these things be so, so that the truth be adjudged to belong to us as many as walk according to this rule, which the Churches have handed down from the Apostles, the Apostles from Christ, Christ from God, the reasonableness of our proposition is manifest, which determineth that heretics are not to be allowed to enter upon an appeal to the Scriptures, whom we prove, without the Scriptures, to have no concern with the Scriptures. For if they be heretics, they cannot be Christians, in that they have not from Christ that, which following according to their own choosing, they admit the name of heretics. Therefore, not being Christians, they can have no right to Christian writings. To such it may be justly said, who are ye? when and whence came ye? not being mine, what do ye in that which is mine? In brief, by what right dost thou, Marcion, cut down my wood? by what licence dost thou, Valentinus, turn the course of my waters? by what power dost thou, Apelles, remove my landmarks? This is my possession. Why do ye the rest sow and feed here at your own pleasure? It is my possession; I have held it of old; I held it first: I have a sure title down from the first owners themselves, whose the estate was. I am the heir of the Apostles. As they provided by their own testament, as they committed it in trust, as they have adjured, so I hold it. You, assuredly, they have ever disinherited and renounced, as aliens, as enemies. But why are heretics aliens and enemies to the Apostles, if not from the difference of doctrine, which each at his own pleasure hath either brought forward or received in contradiction to the Apostles?

XXXVIII. The corruption therefore both of the Scriptures and of the expositions of them must be thither referred, where difference of doctrine is found. Those, who had the purpose of teaching differently, necessity compelled to dispose differently the means of teaching. For they could not otherwise have taught in a different way, unless they held in a different way the means whereby they taught. As they could not have succeeded in corrupting the doctrine without corrupting its instruments, so the genuine doctrine could not have come to us, and from us, without the genuineness of those means whereby the doctrine is handled. For what is there in our Scriptures contradictory to ourselves? What have we introduced of our own that we should, by taking away, or adding, or changing, remedy any detected contrariety to what was in the Scriptures? What we are, that are the Scriptures from their beginning: of them were we, before that any thing existed contrary to that which we are. For, in a word, what was there in being before that these were interpolated by us? But since every interpolation must be believed to be the later,—as coming of rivalry, its essential cause, which is never either prior to, or of one household with, that which it rivalleth,—it is quite as incredible to any man of sense that we should be thought to have introduced a corrupt text into the Scriptures, who are from the first, and the first, as it is that they have not introduced it, who are both later and adverse to them. One man altereth the Scriptures with his hand, another their meaning by his exposition. For though Valentinus seemeth to make use of the entire document, he doth not less lay hands upon the truth, though with more cunning skill than Marcion. For Marcion nakedly and openly used the knife not the pen, since he made havoc of the Scriptures to suit his own matter. But Valentinus spared them, because he did not invent Scriptures to fit his matter, but matter to fit the Scriptures: and yet he took away more and added more, in taking away the proper meanings of each particular word, and in adding systems of things not to be found therein.

XXXIX. These are the arts of spiritual wickednesses with which we, brethren, may well look to wrestle, necessary for faith, that the elect may be made manifest, the reprobate discovered. And therefore they have power, and a success in inventing and building up errors, not so much to be wondered at as though difficult and inexplicable, seeing that we have ready to hand the case of the same facility even in the writings of this world. Thou seest in our own day a totally different poem composed out of Virgil, the matter being made to harmonize with the verse, and the verse with the matter. In a word, Hosidius Geta hath most completely extracted from Virgil the Tragedy of Medea. A certain near relative of mine, among the other idle sallies of his pen, hath made out from the same poet the Table of Cebes. They too, who out of verses of Homer stitch, patchwork-like, works of their own into one piece out of many scraps brought together from all parts, are wont to be called Homeric centones. And surely the Divine writings are more fruitful in resources for every kind of subject. Nor am I afraid to say that the Scriptures themselves were so disposed by the will of God as to supply matter for heretics, when I read that there must be heresies, which there cannot be without the Scriptures.

XL. The next question will be, from whom is the interpretation of the sense of those words which contribute to heresies? Why, from the Devil, whose province it is to pervert the truth, who in the mysteries of idols, rivalleth even the very things of the mysteries of God. He too baptizeth some, to wit, his own believing and faithful people; he promiseth a putting away of sin by washing: and, if I yet remember right, Mithra there sealeth his soldiers in their foreheads: he celebrateth also the oblation of bread, and introduceth a representation of the resurrection, and purchaseth a crown under the sword. What shall we say also of his confining the chief priest to marriage with one only? He too hath his virgins: he too hath his self-restraining ones. But if we turn over in our minds the superstitions of Numa Pompilius, if we consider his priestly offices, badges, and privileges, if his sacrificial services, and the instruments and vessels of the sacrifices themselves, and the curious niceties of the expiations and vows, hath not the Devil manifestly imitated that strictness which is in the Jewish Law? He therefore that hath so emulously pretended to set forth, in the concerns of idolatry, the very things wherewith the mysteries of Christ are ministered, that same being surely, and in the same spirit, hath longed and hath been able to adapt to a profane and rival faith the documents also of divine things and of the holy things of Christians, interpretation from interpretation, words from words, parables from parables. And therefore none ought to doubt either that spiritual wickednesses, from whence also come heresies, were brought in by the devil, or that heresies are nothing distant from idolatry, seeing that they are of the same author and of the same work as idolatry. They either imagine another God in opposition to the Creator, or if they confess One Creator, they argue Him to be other than He really is. Wherefore every falsehood which they utter concerning God, is, in some sort, a kind of idolatry.

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 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.

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 against the law of Moses, and the Prophets, and God the Creator, they have not a word to 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 wide.

XLIII. Infamous also are the dealings of the heretics with sorcerers very many, with mountebanks, with astrologers, with philosophers, to wit, such as are given to curious questions. They every where remember, Seek, and ye shall find. Thus the quality of their faith may be judged even from 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 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.

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, when we must all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, to give an account, in the first place, of our faith itself. What then will they say, who have defiled with the adultery of heresy the virgin committed unto them by Christ? 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 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 disputes. For the rest, if the grace of God shall permit, I will make answer also to certain of them in particular. To those who, in belief of the truth, read these things …, be peace and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ for ever.

NOTE P, P. 446.

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 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 Christian Faith, whereby persons were received into it, could have had its beginning at any subsequent period. The very silence about it, from which its non-existence has been inferred, (Voss. Diss. 1. §. 28.) the rather proves that what did exist so early, always existed, and so there was no occasion to notice what was known to all, as that confession, upon which themselves had been made members of Christ.

But the variations, on the one hand, do not in many cases exist at all, in others they are expansions only, evolving the meaning of the original Creed, as does the Nicene itself. The correspondence, often verbal, in what seem to be additions to the original form of the Creed, seems to imply that even these were not added by the particular Churches in which they appear, of their own mind, but were a part of a larger traditionary Creed, which the Church had every where, but did not at once embody. And, in the first instance, it must be observed, 1) that scarcely any of what remain were formal statements of the whole Creed, but recitals of it with a view to existing heresies. The expositions of that of Jerusalem by S. Cyril, that of Aquileia by Ruffinus, and that of Africa by S. Augustine, alone have the appearance of formal Creeds. That of Asia Minor as recited by Eusebius at Nicæa, (Sozom. i. 8.) ends with the article on The Holy Ghost, his only object being to give the received confession of the Trinity. Marcellus of Ancyra, rehearsing, as it seems, the Creed of Galatia, (“this faith having both received from Holy Scriptures, and been taught by our forefathers in God,”) has the last clauses, but omits the words “The Father,” (“I believe in God Almighty.”) Epiph. Hær. 72. c. 3. Arius and Euzoius (ap. Socr. 1. 26.) interweave the last clauses, and have even the word “Catholic,” but omit “The forgiveness of sins.” The same is the case as to the Creed of Origen, though, in parts, much expanded, (de Princ. init.) the full Ante-Nicene Creed of Gregory Thaumaturgus, (Bingh. 10. 5. 5.) that of Lucian, (if his,) (ib. §. 6.) and of Eustathius, &c. (Socr. iv. 12.) of Sirmium, (ib. ii. 30.) of S. Basil, (de Fide, c. 4.) Cassian, (de Incarn. 1. 6.) reciting the Creed of Antioch, rehearses only the two first divisions of the Creed. The Author of the Dial. c. Marc. ap. Orig. though probably posterior to the Council of Nice, (see Præf. Bened.) gives a compendium, containing the ὁμοούσιος of the Nicene Creed, yet else presenting only certain chief Articles of the Faith, presupposing the rest. “I believe there is One God, the Creator and Maker of all things, and God the Word, Who is of Him, Consubstantial, Coeternal, Who in the last times took man of Mary, Who was also crucified and rose from the dead. I believe also in the Holy Ghost, Coeternal.” (init.) The Nicene Creed itself closes with the words, “I believe in the Holy Ghost,” not, certainly as not having the other articles, but the fathers of the Nicene Council, having for their object to oppose heresy as to the Son only, stop short with the words which complete the confession of the Trinity. The remaining part is left to be supplied out of the existing Creeds, as it occurred in the contemporary Arian Creeds. (Bingham, 10. 6. 14.) S. Irenæus and Tertullian give in great measure the words, but still are incorporating the Creed into their own discourse. 2) Not only in these cases, but even in more formal professions of faith at Holy Baptism, it was, long after, the practice to recite the Creed in an abridged form. Thus the Gelasian Sacramentary in a MS. at the end of the eighth century, (Ass. Cod. Lit. ii. 5.) the Gregorian (ib. 9. from MS. of the middle of the ninth century,) and the Ordo Romanus, (ib. 17.) run thus; “Dost thou believe in God The Father Almighty? I believe. Dost thou believe also in Jesus Christ His Only Son our Lord, that He was born and suffered? I believe. Dost thou believe in The Holy Ghost; the Holy Church; remission of sins; resurrection of the flesh? I believe.” In the Ambrosian Ritual, (ib. ii. 46.) the first and third interrogatories are as full as at present; but the second remains equally abridged. In the Coptic (ib. i. 159.) it is rehearsed thus, “Let the deacon tell him the faith and say thus, ‘I believe in One God, the Father Almighty, and His Only-Begotten Son Jesus Christ our Lord, and the Holy Ghost, the Giver of life, the resurrection of the flesh, and in one only Holy Catholic, Apostolic Church, which is His. Amen.’ “ In the Armenian, (ib. 172.) the faith is thus professed, “I believe in the All-holy Trinity, in The Father, and in The Son, and in the All-holy Ghost,” and then after the three-fold interrogation, “Believest thou?” there follows the direction, “They recite the whole (Nicene) Creed,” but in another form (ii. 203.) instead of that abridged form, there occurs one altogether paraphrastic, “We believe in the All-holy Trinity, in The Father and The Son and The Holy Ghost, in the Annunciation of Gabriel, in the conception by Mary, in the Nativity of Christ, in the Baptism, in the feast, in the voluntary Passion, in the Session at the right hand of The Father, in the Crucifixion, the three-days Burial, the blessed Resurrection, the Ascension into the form of God, His terrible and glorious coming.” The abridged form occurs also in S. Cyril Jer. and that, in the same place as in the Ordo Romanus, the Coptic, and Armenian, just after the renunciation of Satan; and, a second time, in the same place as in the Gelasian and Ambrosian, just before the act of Baptism. (Cat. 19. §. 9.) “I believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, and one Baptism of repentance,” “each of you was asked, whether he believeth in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.” Vigil. Taps. de Trin. xii. p. 799. “that great and blessed confession of faith, yea, the very faith of the Saints, and that covenant wherein we engaged to The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, coming to the sacred washing of regeneration, confessing thus; “I believe in God, The Father Almighty; and in Jesus Christ His Only-begotten Son, and in The Holy Ghost.” The heretic Eunomius gives “a holy tradition which was in force, from of old, from the fathers,” the form, “We believe in One God, the Father Almighty, from Whom are all things, And in One Only-Begotten Son of God, God the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, and in One Holy Spirit, The Comforter, in Whom the distribution of all grace is given to each of the Saints, according to the proportion, to profit withal.” Apol. ap. Fabric. B. G. v. 23. t. 8. p. 267. There is then such evidence of the Creed being rehearsed in an abridged form, that its so occurring elsewhere, cannot in itself furnish any proof, that it did not exist in a fuller. This must weigh much in examining the following evidence.

The first supposed omission is that of the clause “Maker of heaven and earth.” This is inferred to have been wanting in the Roman Creed, because S. Leo recites it thus, (Ep. 28. [ol. 10.] c. 2.) [Eutyches] “ought at least to have listened thoughtfully to the common and unvarying confession, which the whole multitude of believers confesseth, that it ‘believes in God the Father Almighty, and in Christ Jesus, His Only-begotten Son, our Lord, Who was born of The Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary,’ by which three enunciations the devices of almost all heretics are undone.” Yet since S. Leo was not reciting the whole Creed, but only so much as in itself refuted the heresy of Eutyches, it is as likely that he omitted what did not bear upon his immediate object, thus bringing together more vividly that wherein the doctrine impugned was contained. Again, the same has been inferred because Novatian begins thus, “The Rule of Truth requires that, first of all, we believe in God the Father and Lord Almighty, i.e. the All-perfect Creator of all things, Who hung the heaven in its glorious height, and compacted the earth,” &c. as though he would not have added it, as an explanation, if it had been part of the original Creed. But neither is Novatian reciting the Creed in a formal, but rather in a paraphrastic, way, and on the contrary it would appear that mention of the Creation was made in the Creed to which he was referring (the Roman), in that he mentions it thus, and sums up this part, “This God then we acknowledge and know the Creator of all things.” (c. 3.)

It seems more probable that the clause was wanting in the Creed of Aquileia, since Ruffinus is professing to explain the Creed, “following that order which we received in the Church of Aquileia in the grace of Baptism.” He certainly neither mentions nor comments on the words; yet on the other hand, neither does he remark any difference herein from the Eastern Church, with which he does compare this article; and yet we know from S. Cyril Jerus. from whom he took much of his commentary, that there was a clause here speaking of the Creation. Further we know that there was such a clause in the African Creed, since Tertullian alludes to it here and in the de Vel. Virg. c. 1. “mundi conditorem;” and he asserts more largely, (adv. Marc. 1. 21.) “You will find no Church of Apostolic origin, which doth not make Christians in the Name of the Creator,” (quæ non in Creatore Christianizet.): S. Cyprian also, referring to the formula of Baptism, asks, “Does he [Marcion] maintain the Same Father, the Creator, as we?” (Ep. 73. ad Jubaian.) S. Augustine equally, who himself has, in one place, (Serm. 215.) “Creator of all things,” in two others (Serm. 212. 214.) does not mention any such clause formally as part of the Creed, but presently adds, “Creator of things visible and invisible,” “made all creatures visible and invisible,” &c. as he afterwards often introduces the articles of the Creed which he is explaining, not formally, but blended with his own Comment. Again, in the statement of “the Catholic faith” prefixed to the Lib. Imp. de Gen. ad lit. (c. 1.) he begins, “It” [the Catholic Faith] “is this, that God The Father Almighty made and formed all creation [there follows “visible and invisible”] through His Only-begotten Son,” &c. But in a fifth place, (de Fid. et Symb.) though he speaks of the Creation, he uses no words of the Creed, which yet it is clear he had. In like way Chrysologus omits it in every place, (Serm. 57–62. B. P. vii. 889 sqq.) and takes no notice of it in his comment, yet the ground manifestly was to connect more closely the Doctrine of the Coeternal Existence of The Father and The Son. Among the heretics, having been mentioned in the 5 Antioch Confessions, and the 1st of Sirmium, it is omitted in Sirm. 2. and at Nice, inserted at Seleuc. (S. Ath. de Syn. §. 23. p. 106 sqq. Oxf. Tr.) and by Acacius, (Socr. ii. 40.) and Pseudo-Sard. S. Hil. de Syn. §. 34.

The Creation is distinctly mentioned in the Gallican Creed, (S. Iren. i. 10. “in One God the Father Almighty, Who made heaven and earth and the sea, and all things therein,”) by Origen (de Princ. Præf.) Adamant. (Dial. c. Marc. ap. Orig. T. 1 init.) the Apost. Constitt. (vii. 41.) the Jerusalem, (S. Cyril Jer. “Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things both visible and invisible,”) Epiph. (Anc. fin.) and more concisely in the Asiatic Ante-Nicene Creed rehearsed in the Council by Eusebius as that “received from the Bishops, before him, both in the Catechising, and when he received Baptism,” (Socr. 1. 10. “Maker of all things both visible and invisible.”) In the Church of Antioch, (as recited by Cassian,) “Maker of all creatures visible and invisible.” S. Basil has simply “of Whom are all things,” (Serm. de Fid. §. 4.) and Eustathius, &c. (ap. Socr. iv. 12.) By Arius and Euzoius, Eus., Ant. 4., Macrost., it is mentioned in the second place in the Nicene Creed, of the Son: with respect to Whom the creation of “things visible and invisible” is confessed in Ant. 1. 4. “all things in heaven and earth, visible and invisible,” Macr. Pseudo-Sard. Sirm. 1. And so S. Basil, “by Whom all things were made, visible and invisible, and in Whom all things subsist.”

There being then distinct mention of the Creation in the Creeds of Gaul, Africa, Asia Minor, Jerusalem, it is probable that it occurred also in the others, although it might be considered to be involved in the word “Almighty,” which as S. Augustine remarks (de Fid. et Symb. §. 2.) contains more than the confession of a creation, since some who admitted this, yet denied that God could have created out of nothing.

In like way, another clause “DEAD” occurs in Tertullian, adv. Prax. (c. 2. “suffered, dead, and buried,”) yet here and in the de Vel. Virg. c. 1. the Death and Burial are included in the Crucifixion, as also in S. Irenæus (i. 10. “and the Passion,”) the Creed of Asia Minor (“Who suffered,”) Jerusalem, (“He was crucified.”) Venantius Fortunatus, (who was yet copying from Ruffinus, and from him has the “descent into hell.”) “Death” only is so included in that of Aquileia, Marcellus, Acacius, Eustathius, Eus., Ruffinus, S. Augustine, Antioch. ap. Cassian., Maximus Taur., Chrysol., Old Saxon Creed, Ancient Latin ap. Blanch. Enarr. (which yet has the “descent into hell.”) Pseudo-Ath. (see Walch, p. 74.) Facund. (Def. 3 Capp.) Ruff. “crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried.” S. Aug. “crucified and buried,” Lib. Imp. de Gen. ad lit. c. 1. Serm. 212. add S. 214. c. 7. de Fid. et Symb. §. 11. and in one place and in commenting, Serm. 213. 3. in commenting, Serm. 215. c. 5. (where the word “mortuus” seems to have been added to the text,) yet Chrysologus while the words were not in his text, introduces in his brief commentary the word Passion in five discourses, (Serm. 57–60, 62.) So also in the Gallican Sacramentary, (Ass. ii. 42.) “suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified and buried.”

A yet more remarkable instance perhaps is S. Jerome’s apparent assertion, that the Creed ended with “the Resurrection of the Flesh,” omitting consequently “the Life Everlasting.” adv. Joann. Jeros. §. 28. “In the creed of our faith and hope, which, delivered by the Apostles, is not written with paper and ink, but on the fleshy tables of the heart, after the confession of the Trinity and the unity of the Church, the whole mystery of Christian doctrine is concluded in the Resurrection of the Flesh;” and Ruffinus in commenting on the Creed of Aquileia does not mention this same article, but says in the like way, “But these last words, which declare the resurrection of the flesh, closes with a succinct brevity the sum of all perfection,” and proceeds to vindicate that doctrine against the cavils of philosophy, dwelling entirely upon it.

Yet we know that this clause formed part of the Creed of Jerusalem, where S. Jerome was writing, (“And in the life Everlasting,” S. Cyril. Lect. 18. §. 28.) as also in that of S. Irenæus, an Asiatic Creed, (i. 10.) Marcellus, Bp. of Ancyra, (l. c.) the Apostolic Constitutions, (vii. 41.) the African in Tertullian in this place, and S. Cyprian, Ep. 69. ad Magn. “When they say, Believest thou in remission of sins and life eternal through the holy Church?” and Ep. 70. Synod. ad Januar. where the two first clauses are transposed. In S. Augustine, Serm. 214. fin. they are interwoven in the discourse, “How shall we doubt that He will give our soul and flesh eternal life, &c.?” and (according to the formula preserved in S. Cyprian,) Serm. 215. fin. “that you may be able to attain remission of sins, and resurrection of the flesh, and life everlasting, through the One true and holy Catholic Church, in which is known Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, One God.” In the Op. Imp. de Gen. ad lit. c. 1. it is blended differently, the Article of the Resurrection being combined (as in S. Irenæus) with that of the Judgment, Eternal life with “Forgiveness of sins.” Yet in the de Fid. et Symb. fin. and Serm. 212. it is implied only, in Serm. 213. it is omitted, as it is by Tertullian in the de Vel. Virg., though he had mentioned it here. It occurs also in the commentary of Pet. Chrysologus, Hom. 58. which assigns a reason why it may have been the less dwelt upon, being so evidently involved in the preceding; “This article is evident, for when death itself dieth, eternal life succeedeth,” and Serm. 59. “He who rises again must needs live for ever, for if he lived not for ever, he would rise again not to life but to death,” yet he himself omits it, and does not comment on it, Serm. 61.

The mere omission of an article on any occasion does not imply its absence from the Creed: and with regard to the statement of S. Jerome, it seems most probable that he looked upon the articles of the Resurrection and Life Eternal, as one, since it is a Resurrection to life eternal, and singled out that part for which he was contending, “the Resurrection of the Flesh,” as the concluding article of the same faith with that in the Ever-blessed Trinity. Ruffinus again, dwells on that which was chiefly disputed, and on which S. Cyril, from whom he borrowed, most dwelt, yet also speaks subsequently of the “life everlasting:” “But that the just shall ever abide with Christ our Lord, we have both already taught above,” §. 46. “There shall be given to sinners also, as we said above, a state of incorruption and immortality from the resurrection, that as to the just it ministers to a perpetuity of glory, so to sinners to a lengthened confusion and punishment;” (§. 47.) and after the recapitulation of the Creed, he concludes with the mention of “resurrection to eternal life.” This certainly seems the most probable solution as to S. Jerome, writing where the article certainly existed. As to the Church of Aquileia there may be the more doubt, since the article is wanting in a Greek Creed in Saxon characters, said to be of the seventh century, and an old MS. of King Ethelstan, containing the Psalter and the Creed, (Fell on S. Cypr. Ep. 70.) by Max. Taur. using nearly the same words, (“ ‘resurrection of the flesh.’ This is the end of our religion, this the sum of believing,”) yet interweaving the mention of life in his comment, and a Sacramentary of Gelasius at the end of eighth century. (Ass. ii. 5.) Yet in the same Sacramentary, the words “God of God” are omitted in the Nicene Creed, both in the Greek and Latin forms. (ib. i. 11, 12.) If the clause “eternal life” were really wanting in these Creeds, it only illustrates the more how the Creed was yet substantially the same, amid these apparent variations; if in any case this article was not set down, it was only as being in reality one with that of the Resurrection, as indeed is evinced by the way in which the Fathers interweave the two clauses.

This agreement in doctrine amid apparent variation is the more illustrated by the agreement in omitting two clauses, which are later insertions in our Western Creed, and which have never been enounced in the Eastern, “the descent into Hell,” and “the Communion of Saints.” The doctrine, of course, was known to the Ancient Church, else it could not have been admitted at all into the Creed; it is mentioned in the summary of teaching attributed to Thaddæus, which is cast in the mould of the Apostles’ Creed; (Eus. H. E. i. fin.) it is mentioned by S. Cyril of Jer. both in his summary of the Creed, (iv. 8. p. 39. Oxf. Tr.) and on the article of His Resurrection, (xiv. 10. p. 175.) as also by S. Epiphanius, (Anaceph. 9. t. ii. p. 155.) is alluded to in Chrysol. Serm. 57. and S. Augustine asks, “Who but an infidel would deny that Christ was in hell?” (Ep. 99. c. 2.) Yet it does not appear in any ancient Creed except that of Aquileia, and is directly stated by Ruffinus to have been wanting in the Roman and Oriental Creeds. Where not enounced, it was regarded as involved in the Article “buried,” as appears from the remarkable substitution in the third Creed, drawn up in Latin at Sirmium, and produced at Ariminum, in which in place of “The Burial,” there occurs, “And descended into the lower parts,” where however as Bp. Pearson remarks (Art. 5. not. t.) more is meant than the Burial, since there follows, “and ordered the things there, Whom the porters of hell seeing, were affrighted.” This then we have, expressed in two Latin Creeds only, and in that which subsequently formed the basis of the latter part of the Athanasian; in the Greek we have the doctrine, not the formal expression. The Article of “the communion of saints,” lying implicitly in “the Holy Church,” is not found in any very ancient Greek Creed, and hence not incorporated into the Nicene, nor into the Athanasian. The earliest place in which it occurs is in the Gallican Sacramentary of the end of the seventh century.

It seems altogether improbable that there should have been no evidence of the formal admission of the one of these articles into any early Creed except that of Aquileia, of the other into any Creed, and so much evidence of the existence of the other clauses, had they equally been present in it or absent from it. Together, they evidence the existence of a distinct universal Creed.

The identity of the original Creeds is the more illustrated, again, by their verbal variations. The substance and order being, according to the statement of Ruffinus, arranged by the Apostles before their separation, the words would yet naturally be varied as they passed into different languages. Thus in the Creed of Aquileia, the ancient Roman Creed, (ap. Leo M. l. c. see p. 483. Vigil. l. c. Chrysol. Serm. 57.) probably in that of Origen, it stands, “born of the Holy Ghost from the Virgin Mary,” in that of Galatia and others, “born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary,” in S. Augustine both; Epiphanius, “incarnate of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary,” the modern form occurs in the Gallican Sacramentary. In the Creed of Antioch, “Who came and was born of the Virgin Mary,” and the Dial. c. Marc. “took human nature upon Him of Mary,” expressing the same doctrine, (see above, Note H. p. 323.) S. Irenæus, in his summary, gives the two parts of the doctrine, the Incarnation and the Nativity, without express mention of the Holy Ghost, “Who was incarnate for our Salvation—the Nativity of a Virgin;” Tertullian expresses the whole in different places, “born of the Virgin Mary,” “brought down from the Spirit and Power of the Father into the Virgin Mary,” “sent by the Father to be born of a Virgin;” Lucian, “Who in the last days descended from on high, and was born of a Virgin according to the Scriptures;” the Apostolic Constitutions, in nearly the same words, “Who in the last times came down from Heaven, and taking flesh upon Him, was born of the Holy Virgin Mary;” in the Creed of Jerusalem and Cæsarea, this is expressed more generally by the words, “Who was incarnate and made man.” This variation, though in part owing to the mode of quotation, is such as one would expect, when the same substance was handed down by oral tradition, not being written, as is said, “with paper and ink, but through the Spirit on the hearts.”

Remarkable, in the same way, is the agreement of the Eastern and Western Churches severally within themselves. Had the words received by the Eastern Churches been incorporated into the original Creed, they would have been expressed probably in the Western; had they not formed part of the original traditional Creed, they would not, previously to General Councils, have been found with such uniformity in the Eastern. Thus in the beginning, the Unity of God denied by the Marcionites is declared “in almost all the Eastern Creeds,” and thence in that of Gaul, in those also of Africa, Sardica, that of Origen, Adamantius, Lucian, Greg. Thaumaturgus, the Apostolic Constitutions, Jerusalem, in S. James’ Liturgy, Antioch, Facundus, that of Arius and Euzoius, that recited at Nice, and hence in the Nicene itself, “I believe in ONE God.” Against Cerinthus again and the Gnostics, who separated JESUS from the CHRIST, and in the language of Eph. 4:5. there is added, “And in ONE Lord.” So in “the Oriental Creeds,” (as quoted by Ruffinus,) in S. Irenæus, and in that of Jerusalem, Cæsarea, and thence in the Nicene; and also in the Dial. c. Marc., Greg. Thaum., Lucian, the Apost. Constitutions, Facundus.

The word “Catholic” again occurs in the Eastern, where the first heresies arose, not originally in the Western. Until heretics also claimed to be Churches, there was no occasion for that body, which held the one Faith, to designate itself as “the Holy Church spread throughout all the world.” Yet it was no new term, but in the Greek Church occurs from the first; S. Ignatius (Ep. ad Smyrn. §. 8.) the Church of Smyrna of the time of S. Polycarp, (Eus. H. E. iv. 15.) S. Clem. Al. (Strom. vii. 17. p. 325. Sylb. “we affirm that the ancient and Catholic Church is one only, collecting into the unity of one faith according to her own testaments, or rather one testament in different dispensations, by the will of The One God, through The One Lord;”) the Creed of Jerusalem, of Alexandria, (Theod. H. E. i. 4.) that of Arius and Euzoius, (see Bp. Pearson, Art. 9. not. e.g.) the Apostolic Constitutions. The Creed of S. Epiphanius has the fuller and later form of the Nicene Creed, “One Catholic and Apostolic Church.” In the Latin Creeds, on the other hand, it is so uniformly omitted that it hardly seems likely that it formed part of the original. So in Tert. (adv. Marc. v. 4.) S. Cyprian, (see above, p. 485.) S. Jerome, (adv. Lucif. §. 12.) “Believest thou the Holy Church? Believest thou the remission of sins?” S. Augustine Serm. 213. c. 7. 214. In Serm. 215 it is added in the second place, in the de Fid. et Symb. §. 21. as an explanation, “utique catholicam;” in the de Ag. Christ. c. 29. “sancta Ecclesia quæ una Catholica est,” and de Gen. ad lit. “that by Him was constituted our mother the Church, which is called Catholic, because, &c.” It is omitted in the Creed of Aquileia, by Maximus, Bishop of Tours, the Gelasian Liturgy, (Ass. ii. 5.) and the Anglo-Saxon, (ap. Usher,) occurs in the Gallican, (perhaps from the Greek, Ass. ii. 42.) and the Ambrosian, (ib. 46.) in Chrysol. (Serm. 58–62. It occurs in the text Serm. 57. but not in the Comment, and is probably an addition,) in Marcellus of Ancyra, in the baptismal Creed of the Spanish Church in the 8th cent., Etherius and Beatus adv. Elip.

The identity of the Creed, even in its more enlarged form, may perhaps become the more apparent, by setting down those clauses which were incorporated into the Universal Creed by the Council of Nice, and noting the traces of them in the earlier Creeds. It will thus appear that in no case was any new language adopted, and that, with the exception of the word ὁμοούσιος, which was itself a received and ancient word, no word was introduced which was not found in the earlier forms of the Creed.

The only-begotten Son of God,

Begotten of the Father before all worlds,

God of God,

Light of Light,

Very God of Very God,

Begotten, not made,

Being of one Substance with the Father,

By Whom all things were made,

Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven,

And was made man,

And was crucified also for us,—

Rose again according to the Scriptures,—

Whose kingdom shall have no end.

With regard to the clauses in the third division of the Creed, which relate directly to the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, the traces of their existence before the Council of Constantinople are necessarily less distinct, because the object of adducing the traditional Creeds being the true doctrine as to The Son, they are closed mostly with the simple Confession “And in the Holy Ghost,” to complete the Faith in the Trinity. Even the Council of Nice adds no more, (see above, p. 481.) In setting down then what remains, passages have been added from Doxologies, or such formal statements, or such reiterated phrases, as seem to come from Creeds.

The Lord, and Giver of life,

Who proceedeth from The Father

and The Son,

Who with The Father and The Son together

is worshipped and glorified,

Who spake by the prophets.

NOTE Q, ON P. 455.

The various bearings of the title “Rock” in St. Matt. 16:18.

Tertullian interprets the “rock” of St. Peter’s person, de Monog. c. 8. de Pudic. c. 21. (but, in the latter, in an heretical sense, as denying the transmission of the authority of binding and loosing to the Church). S. Cyprian also explains it of St. Peter personally, (Ep. 71. ad Quint. Ep. 43. Pleb. Univ. 40. Pam.) as a type of unity, (Ep. 73. ad Jubaian. add Firmil. Ep. 75. §. 11.) as representing the Church and speaking in her name, (Ep. 59. ad Cornel.) but the authority he speaks of as derived through him to all Bishops, (de Unit. Eccl. §. 3. p. 133. Oxf. Tr. Ep. 73. ad Jubaian. §. 6. Ep. 66. ad Flor. Pup. v. fin.) so that the Church is placed on the Bishops. (Ep. 33. ad Laps. 27. Pam.) S. Greg. Naz. interprets it of him individually, Orat. 32. de Moderat. §. 18. so also S. Epiphan. Ancorat. §. 9. yet with reference to his faith, (adv. Hær. lix.) so that he says at once that it was built upon him and upon the Faith which he confessed, on him, as the organ of, and by virtue of That Faith, whereon it is indeed built. “And he was received by the Lord, who for a time denied, the holy Peter, and very chief of the Apostles, who became to us in truth a firm rock, founding the faith in the Lord, whereon the Church was every way built. First, because he confessed Christ The Son of The Living God, and was told, ‘upon this rock of the solid Faith will I build My Church,’ because he had openly confessed the True Son.” S. Augustine at first explained the rock of St. Peter personally, following the hymn of S. Ambrose, “Æterne rerum conditor,” then “very frequently explained it of Christ Whom Simon confessed, as the whole Church since confesses Him.” Retr. 1. 21. “i.e. on Myself, The Son of The Living God, will I build My Church. On Me, will I build thee, not Me on thee,” Serm. 76. in Matt. 14. as does Tertullian, adv. Marc. iv. 13. Again, Theodoret. in 1 Cor. 3. S. Cnrysostom (ad loc.) Theodoret (Ep. 77. ad Eulal.) Greg. M. (Ep. iv. 38. ad Theodelind.) Felix iii. Ep. 2. (Conc. t. 10. p. 12. ed. Reg.) Johann. viii. Ep. 76. ad Pet. t. 24. p. 99. (quoted by Barrow on the Pope’s Supremacy, Supp. i. iv. 20. p. 99. 100. Oxf.) Auct. Testim. de advent. Dom. fin. ap. Greg. Nyss. t. 2. p. 162. Ambrosiaster in Eph. ii. 20. Acacius Melitenes, Hom. in Conc. Eph. c. 7. p. 3. Juvenalis Hieros. litt. Synod. Isid. Hispal. Orig. L. vii. (quoted by Du Pin de Ant. Eccl. Discipl. iv. 1. 1.) interpret the “rock” of the Faith which St. Peter confessed. These expositions, however, in no way exclude each other. The words were pronounced to St. Peter, by virtue of the true Faith in Christ, which he had just confessed; he was a rock, by reason of his union with the Rock; that Faith in Christ as the Son of God, was his stability and that of the Church afterwards and of those who at any time were pillars in the Church. Thus Origen who (if the Latin Translation be in this case faithful) says that “on St. Peter, as on the earth, the Church was founded,” (in Rom. L. v. fin.) argues at length (in loc. tom. xii. §. 10, 11.) that the title is not to be confined to St. Peter alone, (as neither were the keys given to him alone,) but belongs to the other Apostles, and that “every disciple of Christ, of Whom they drank who were of the spiritual Rock Which followed them, is a rock,” “all imitators of Christ becoming a rock, as He is a Rock,” (Hom 16. in Joann. §. 3.) Again, S. Hilary says generally “the blessed Simon who, after the confession of the mystery, lay as a foundation for the building-up of the Church,” (de Trin. vi. 20.) and “Peter upon whom He was about to build His Church,” (in Ps. 131. §. 4.) yet elsewhere speaks of the Church as built on the Faith (the doctrine) which he confessed. “On this rock then of the confession [of Christ as The Son of God] is the Church built.—This Faith is the foundation of the Church. Through this Faith are the gates of Hell unavailing against her. This Faith hath the keys of the kingdom of Heaven.” (de Trin. vi. 36, 37.) and, “This is the one immoveable foundation, this the one blessed rock of the Faith, confessed by the mouth of Peter, ‘Thou art the Son of the living God,’ “ (de Trin. ii. 23.) so probably ad loc. §. 7. “O blessed foundation of the Church on the naming of the new Name.”) S. Ambrose, who in one place (de Fide iv. 5. §. 56.) applies the term simply to St. Peter, elsewhere implies that he is the representative of the Church, (de bono Mort. c. 12. §. fin. in Ps. 40. §. 30.) or explains it of “the Flesh Which redeemed the heaven and the whole world,” Ep. 43. ad Horont. §. 9. In another place, he combines these meanings, that “the Rock” is Christ, that to the Church and the individuals in it, it is the Faith which confesseth Christ, that St. Peter was so called, our Lord vouchsafing to impart to him His own Name, and (as Origen) that individuals, strong in faith, are also rocks. “Great is the grace of Christ, Who hath imparted to His disciples almost all His Names—Christ is the Rock (1 Cor. 10:4.); to His disciple also He denied not the grace of this name, that he also should be Peter, because from the ‘petra’ he hath the solidity of stedfastness, the firmness of faith. Strive therefore thou too to be a rock. Seek thou the rock not without thee, but within thee. Thy rock is in act; thy rock is the mind. On this rock thy house is built, that no storms of spiritual wickedness have power to overthrow it. Thy rock is Faith; the foundation of the Church is Faith. If thou art a rock, thou wilt be in the Church, for the Church is on the Rock. If thou art in the Church, the gates of hell shall not prevail against thee.” L. vi. §. 97, 98. in Luc. 9, 20. and in another place, although calling S. Peter a “foundation” he directly denies that “the rock” is to be understood of his person. “This then is that Peter, who answered for the rest of the Apostles, yea, above the rest, and is therefore entitled a ‘foundation,’ because he could steady others, not himself only.—Him Christ approved; to him the Father revealed. For he who speaketh of the true Generation of The Father, hath received it of The Father, not of the flesh. Faith then is the foundation of the Church; for not of the human person of Peter, but of Faith is it said that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; but Confession [of the true Faith] hath overcome hell. And this confession hath shut out more than one heresy; for whereas the Church, like a goodly vessel, is oft beaten on by many waves, the foundation of the Church must hold good against all heresies.” de Incarnat. Dom. Sacram. c. 4. 5. §. 33. 34. S. Augustine combines these same meanings, Serm. 76. “This name, that he should be called Peter, was given him by the Lord, and that in a figure, to signify the Church. For since Christ is the rock, Peter is the Christian people. For Petra (rock) is the chief name. Peter then is called from petra, not petra from Peter, as not Christ from Christian, but Christian from Christ. ‘Thou,’ then, He saith, ‘art Peter, and on This Rock’ which thou hast confessed, on This Rock which thou hast known, saying, ‘Thou art The Christ, The Son of The Living God,’ ‘I will build My Church,’ “ &c. as above. S. Jerome applies it generally, Ep. 41. ad. Marc. §. 2. yet regards Christ as really the Rock, in that he combines this passage with St. Matt. 7:25. “on whom the Church of the Lord was solidly founded, which is shaken by no beating of the flood, nor by any tempest.” (c. Pel. i. 14. comp. in Matt. 7:25.) and ad loc. “As He, being the Light, gave to the Apostles to be called the light of the world, and they obtained their other names from the Lord, so also to Simon, who believed in the Rock (petra) Christ, He gave the name Petros. And after the metaphor of a rock, it is rightly said to him, ‘I will build My Church upon thee.’ Elsewhere, following S. Cyprian, he regards it as a symbol of unity, but belonging equally to all the Apostles. “ ‘But,’ sayest thou, ‘the Church is founded on Peter,’ although in another place it is on all the Apostles, and all receive the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and the strength of the Church is consolidated upon all, yet therefore is one chosen among the twelve, that, a head being constituted, occasion of division might be done away,’ “ (comp. S. Cypr. de Unit. Eccl. l. c.) and (in Is. 2:2.) “This house is built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, who themselves also are mountains, as imitators of Christ.—Whence also Christ foundeth the Church on one of the mountains, &c.” and in Am. 6:12–13. “The Rock is Christ, Who gave to His Apostles [not St. Peter only] to be called rocks.” S. Cyril of Alexandria, (L. ii. in Joann. 1, 40.) speaks generally of the Church being built on St. Peter, but when he explains himself, it is the faith which he confessed, not his personal faith, but the object of Faith, the Eternal Sonship of our Lord. “By ‘the Rock,’ in reference to which He gives the name, He means, I deem, nothing else than the unshaken and most settled faith of the disciple, on which Faith the Church of Christ is founded and fixed, so that it cannot fall, abiding for ever, unsubdued even by the gates of hell,” whence he infers the wretchedness of forsaking that Faith. (de Trin. iv. init.) Hence on Is. 33:16. (L. iii. p. 460.) “It suits, that our Lord Jesus Christ be here entitled the Rock, in Whom the Church, as some cave or sheepfold, is conceived as having a safe and unshaken abiding-place. For He saith, Thou art Peter, and on this Rock, &c.” and these meanings he harmonizes on Is. 44:23. (L. iv. Or. ii. p. 593.) “Why do we call them (the preachers of the Gospel) the ‘foundations of the earth?’ For The Foundation and unshaken resting-place of all things is Christ, Who holdeth all things together, giving well-being to the things which rest on Him. For ‘on Him are we all built, a spiritual house, being through the Spirit compacted together into a holy temple, for His dwelling-place.’ For He ‘dwelleth in our hearts through Faith.’ But as foundations nearer to us, may be conceived the Apostles and Evangelists, who were ‘eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word,’ and who were set for the confirmation of the faith. For, knowing that we ought to follow their traditions, we shall keep our faith to Christ unwarped. For He said to the blessed Peter, ‘Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church,’ meaning, I deem, by ‘rock’ immoveableness in the Faith of His disciple. But it is said by the voice of the Psalmist, ‘Its foundations are upon the holy mountains.’ Exceeding well are the holy Apostles and Evangelists likened to mountains, in that their knowledge [of God] is established as a foundation to those after them, suffering not those caught in their nets, to fall into a reprobate faith.” Here, in one passage, we have Christ as The Rock, or Foundation; the Apostles and Evangelists, (and among them St. Peter) as foundations upon which we proximately rest, and that, as depositories of the saving Faith, by cleaving to whose doctrine and teaching we are kept from falling from that Faith. This is remarkably developed by S. Leo, who had the more occasion to dwell upon it, in that, as S. Athanasius formerly, so, in his own person, the see of Rome then was the great bulwark of the Apostolic Faith. It was not then all faith, but the transmitted Faith in the Person of Christ, as God and man, which was the “Rock” upon which the Church, being founded, remained unshaken. Thus, having given a summary of that part of the Apostles’ Creed, which relates to our Lord, as “the rule of Faith,” he says; “Deservedly was the Blessed Apostle Peter praised for the confession of this Unity [of the two Natures in Christ] who, when the Lord enquired what the disciples thought of Him, with greatest speed forecoming all their words, said, ‘Thou art Christ, The Son of the Living God.’ Which truly he saw, not by revelation of ‘flesh and blood,’ by whose intervention the inward eyes might be hindered, but through the Spirit of ‘The Father,’ Himself operating in the heart of the believer, so that he, who was being formed for the rule of the whole Church, should first learn what he was to teach, and for the stayedness of the Faith which he was to Preach, was told, ‘Thou art Peter, and on this rock, &c.’ The strength then of the Christian Faith, which, built upon an impregnable rock, fears not the gates of death, confesses One Lord JESUS CHRIST, both very God and very man, believing the Same to be the Son of the Virgin, Who gave being to the Virgin; the Same born in the end of time, Who is the Creator of time; the Same the Lord of all power, and one of our dying race; the Same ‘who knew no sin,’ and ‘in the likeness of sinful flesh’ was offered for sinners.” (Serm. xi. de Pass. Dom. c. 2.) In like way, when exhorting Maximus, Bp. of Antioch, to watch over the purity of the Faith in the Eastern Churches, against the Nestorian and Eutychian heresies, he appeals to the deposit of Faith, which St. Peter had committed to that Church. “So then, brother best-beloved, thou hast need to contemplate with thy whole heart, over the rule of what Church the Lord has willed that thou shouldest preside, and remember that doctrine which the most blessed Peter, the chief of all the Apostles, laid as a foundation, by one uniform preaching, through the whole world, but yet with special authority in the city of Antioch and of Rome; understanding that he, preeminent in the abode where he is glorified, requireth [at our hands] those forms of doctrine which he delivered, as he received them from the Truth Whom he confessed. And permit not that in any wise, in the Eastern Churches, and specially in those which the Canons of the most holy fathers of Nice assigned to the See of Antioch, the Gospel should be assailed by ungodly heretics, and the doctrine either of Nestorius or Eutyches be maintained by any. For, as I said, the rock of the Catholic Faith, whence was derived the name which the blessed Apostle Peter received from the Lord, admitteth no trace from either ungodliness.” (Ep. 119. c. 2.) Here again the rock is the Confession of Faith, not of individual faith, nor belief generally, nor new decrees as to faith, but the one deposit of the Faith in the Object of faith, which was delivered alike to the keeping of Antioch and of Rome. This Faith S. Leo elsewhere describes as the sum of saving Faith, the ‘right Faith in the Son of God,’ John 20:31. “The firmness of the foundation, whereon the heighth of the whole Church is built, is shaken by no massiveness of the temple built thereon. For the solidity of that Faith, which was praised in the chief of the Apostles, is everlasting, and as That abideth which Peter believed in Christ, so abideth that which Christ established in Peter.” Then after quoting Matt. 16. and speaking of the present dignity of St. Peter, and that he “abode in the transfused strength of The Rock,” that he was “called a rock, declared to be a foundation,” he adds, “This, dearly beloved, hath that Confession obtained, which, inspired by God the Father into the Apostle’s heart, transcended all uncertainties of human opinion, and received the firmness of a rock, unshaken by any shocks. For in the whole Church, doth Peter daily say, ‘Thou art Christ, The Son of The Living God;’ and every tongue which confesses the Lord, is instructed by the teaching of that his voice. This Faith conquereth the devil, and looseth the bands of his captives. This conveys to heaven those snatched from the world; and against it the gates of hell cannot prevail. For with such solid strength was it fortified by God, that neither could heretical perverseness ever corrupt it, nor pagan treachery overcome it.” (Serm. 3. de Nat. ips. §. 2, 3.) In reference to the same truth, he paraphrases our Lord’s words, “ ‘And I,’ He saith, ‘say unto thee,’ i.e. as My Father has manifested to thee My Divinity, so do I also make known to thee thy eminence, ‘that thou art Peter,’ i.e. whereas I am the unassailable Rock, I the Corner-stone Who made both one, I the ‘Foundation, other than which can no man lay,’ yet thou also art a rock, because thou art strengthened by My might, so that what of right belongs alone to Me, by My communication should be shared by thee, ‘And on this rock, &c.’ He saith, On this strength I will build an everlasting temple, and the height of My Church, which shall reach to heaven, shall rise upon the firmness of this Faith.” S. Leo subjoins, “This confession the gates of hell shall not master, the bands of death shall not bind; for that word is the word of life. And as it advances those who confess it, to the heavens, so it sinks those who deny it, to hell; whence it is said to the most blessed Peter, ‘I will give thee the keys, &c.’ The right of this authority passed to the other Apostles, [see S. Cypr. de unit. Eccl. l. c.] and what this decree decided, became common to all the heads of the Church, yet not without reason is that entrusted to one, which was to be conveyed to all. For this is therefore committed to Peter individually, because Peter is the common type of all the rulers of the Church. The privilege of Peter then abides, wherever sentence is passed with his equity.” (Serm. 4. §. 2, 3.) The “rock” then according to S. Leo, was the revealed Faith in the Rock, the Ever-Blessed Son of God, which whosoever confessed. partook of the solidity of that Rock, Which St. Peter confessed, which Faith St. Peter first, in the name of the other Apostles, confessed, and for them received the blessing, himself possessing it first in order and dignity, which Faith also he preached, and delivered it, as the title-deeds of the Church, especially to the Churches over which he himself presided, to Antioch as to Rome, yet not in any other sense to Rome than to Antioch, nor as though new doctrine might be added, or as though doctrine, not virtually contained in the Apostles’ Creed, formed a part of it.

NOTE R, ON P. 455.

The keys (Matt. 16:19.) given to the Church in the person of St. Peter.

Tertullian, as a Montanist, confines this gift of the keys to St. Peter’s first preaching the Gospel, excluding the authority of the Church. de Pudic. c. 21. “He saith, ‘I will give thee the keys,’ not, the Church. And so the event shews. He first applied the key. Observe, what key. ‘Ye men of Israel, hear what I say, Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved by God unto you and the rest.’ And this was what was peculiar to St. Peter. The rest he shared with the other Apostles, and with them, transmitted to the Church.” See S. Cyprian de Unit. Eccl. §. 3. p. 133. Oxf. Tr. Ep. 33. (27.) ad lapsos. Ep. (73.) ad Jubaian. Orig. ad loc. “Are then the keys of the kingdom of heaven given to Peter alone, and shall no other of the blessed receive them?” (Afterwards, Tom. 13. in Matt. fin., he contrasts this authority given to S. Peter, not with that given to the Apostles or the Church, but with that which he supposed they have who thrice rebuke a brother.) Firmilian ap. S. Cypr. Ep. 75. c. 11. S. Ambr. in Ps. 38. §. 37. “This Novatian hath not heard, the Church of God hath heard—What is said to Peter, is said to the Apostles. We do not usurp power, we obey a command, &c.” de Pœn. i. 7. §. 33. S. Hil. de Trin. vi. 33. “O blessed and holy men, [the Apostles,] and who for the reward of your faith obtained the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and the power of binding and loosing in heaven and in earth.” (comp. c. 16. in loc.) S. Aug. Tr. 22. in Joh. §. 7. explaining xi. 44. “It is said to the attendants, the Apostles, whatsoever ye loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven.” (comp. Tr. 49. §. 24.) Serm. 295. de nat. Pet. et Pauli §. 2. “Among these [disciples] to Peter every where almost alone was it vouchsafed to represent the Church. On account of this very character, which he alone bore, of representing the whole Church, was it granted him to hear the words, ‘To thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven.’ For these keys not one man, but the unity of the Church received. Hereby then is the excellence of Peter set forth, that he was an emblem of the Church, in its universality and its unity, when it was said to him, ‘I give to thee’ what was given to all. For that ye may know that the Church did receive the keys of the kingdom of heaven, hear in another place what the Lord saith to all His Apostles, ‘Receive the Holy Ghost,’ and then instantly, ‘whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained,’ (Joh. 20:22, 23.) appertaineth to the keys of which it was said, ‘Whatsoever ye shall loose on earth, shall be loosed also in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven.’ (Matt. 16:19.) But this He said to Peter, that thou mayest know that Peter was then representing the whole Church.” Tr. 118. in Joh. §, 4. “In that he returned that answer for all [the Apostles] and with all received that saying, [‘I will give thee, &c.’] representing, as it were, the very character of unity itself, therefore was he one for all, because unity is in all.” Tr. 124. §. 5. “As relates to himself properly, he was by nature one man, by grace one Christian, by more abundant grace, one and the same the first Apostle; but when that was said to him, ‘I will give thee, &c.’ he represented the whole Church, which in this world is beat upon by divers temptations, wind, floods, storms, and falleth not, for it is founded on the Rock, whence Peter had his name.—The Church then which is founded on Christ, received from Him, in Peter, the keys of the kingdom of heaven, i.e. the power of binding and loosing sins.” Tr. 51. §. 12. “Were not Peter a type of the Church, the Lord would not say to him, ‘I will give thee, &c.’ If this was said to Peter only, the Church doth it not. But if it is wrought in the Church also, that what are bound on earth are bound in heaven, what loosed on earth loosed in heaven, because, when the Church excommunicates, the excommunicate is bound in heaven, where he is reconciled by the Church, the reconciled is loosed in heaven—if this is wrought in the Church, Peter, when he received the keys, signified the holy Church.” add de doctr. Christ. i. 18. c. advers. leg. i. 17. in Ps. 108 init. as a type of the Church, de ag. Christ. c. 30. “for to this Church [the Church Catholic] were the keys of the kingdom of heaven given, when they were given to Peter.” add c. 31. de Bapt. iii. 17. as a type of unity, add vii. 51. Pacian. ad Sympr. Ep. 3. p. 311. Ep. i. p. 106. “What is that which He saith to the Apostles—Was this permitted to the Apostles alone?” S. Jerome adv. Jov. i. 14. (quoted Note Q.) Opt. vii. 3. “To him it was vouchsafed to be preferred to all the Apostles, and he alone received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, which were to be communicated to the rest” [by Christ, Rig. ad Cypr. de Unit. Eccl. Du Pin Diss. iv. 1. 1.] S. Leo Serm. 4. (quoted Note Q.) Fulgent. de Rem. Pecc. i. 19. 24. ii. 20. de Fide ad Pet. c. 3. Johann. Hieros. et Synod. Palæst. (ap. Launoy p. 32.) Pseudo-Eucherius Hom. de Nat. S. Pet. (ib.) Gaudentius Tract. in dic. Ordinat. suæ. (Du Pin iv. 1. 1.) Theoph. in loc. “Although the ‘I will give thee’ was said to Peter alone, still it is given to all the Apostles,” Phot. cod. 280. ap. Barrow on the Supremacy of the Pope, Supp. i. 20. c. 16. S. Chrys. among the titles of S. John, adds “who hath the keys of the kingdom of heaven,” (Hom. 1. in Joh. §. 1. quoted ib.) See the Gallican Divines, Launoy Ep. ii. 5. Du Pin Diss. iv. 1. 1. vi. 6.

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