Arianism and Other Heresies
HERESIES
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Introduction
Saint Augustine wrote his work, Heresies, during the years 428 and 429, while he was working on the Revisions and the Unfinished Work in Answer to Julian. Like both of these works, Heresies remained incomplete due to Augustine's death in 430, for the original plan of the work was meant to include, besides the list of heresies, a refutation of the individual heresies and a discussion of the nature of heresy. In the Epilogue Augustine tells Quodvultdeus that there is no need for him to state what the Catholic Church holds in opposition to each of the heresies, since it suffices to know that the Church is opposed to them. But he admits that he should still investigate what it is that makes one a heretic in a second part of the work. †1 The work, as we have it, is a catalogue of eighty-three heresies of the Christian era, from that of Simon Magus to the Pelagians. For the vast majority of these, Augustine gives a very brief description of their errors and practices, though for the Manichees, Donatists, Abeloim, and Pelagians—heresies of which Augustine had extensive personal knowledge—he gives considerable details. The account of the Manichees, for example, takes up approximately one sixth of the work, while the Donatists, Abeloim, and Pelagians, taken together, account for at least another sixth of the total text.
The Occasion of the Work
In 427 or 428 Augustine received a letter from Quodvultdeus, a deacon of Carthage, begging Augustine to write a treatise on heresies for the use of the clergy. It is generally agreed that he is the same Quodvultdeus who became bishop of Carthage in 437 and was exiled two years later when Genseric conquered Carthage. For the identification of Quodvultdeus the deacon with the later bishop of Carthage, as well as the life and works of Quodvultdeus, see V. Grossi on Quodvultdeus in Patrology: Volume IV: The Golden Age of Latin Patristic Literature from the Council of Nicaea to the Council of Chalcedon, ed. A. Di Berardino, tr. P. Solari (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1991), 501-503 (hereafter Patrology). Also see V. Saxer, “Quodvultdeus,” in The Encyclopedia of the Early Church, ed. A. Di Berardino, tr. A. Walford (New York: Oxford University Press), 728 (hereafter EEC). †2 The correspondence between Quodvultdeus and Augustine has been included in this volume. In Letter 221 Quodvultdeus asks Augustine for a handbook which would contain a list of all the heresies that have existed or still exist from the time the gospel was first preached, along with their errors and the doctrines they hold on “the faith, the Trinity, baptism, penance, Christ as man, Christ as God, the resurrection, the Old and New Testaments, and absolutely every point on which they disagree with the truth.” See Letter 221, 2. †3 Furthermore, Quodvultdeus wants to know which heresies have baptism and which do not, as well as those after which the Church baptizes, and also how she receives those who come to her. Peter Brown takes Quodvultdeus' request as indicative of the state of the African clergy who were all too content to rely on Augustine to solve their intellectual problems, though his description of the requested work as “a mere potboiler” is—to say the least—an odd phrase to use in describing a manual for the clergy. In his Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 412, P. Brown says, in describing the clergy of Africa, “Worst of all, the new generation of African clergy were content merely to turn to Augustine. In 428 Quodvultdeus, a deacon (and, later, a bishop) of Carthage, could turn to Augustine to extract from him a mere potboiler, a brief handbook of heresies.” †4
Replying in Letter 222, Augustine attempts to excuse himself from complying with Quodvultdeus' request. The beginning of this letter mentions a previous letter of Augustine's to Quodvultdeus; Letter 223 indicates that the letter was never delivered. †5 He points out that Philaster of Brescia and
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Epiphanius of Salamis have already written works that contain the sort of information that the deacon of Carthage is asking Augustine to supply. He also indicates the difficulty of the task Quodvultdeus wants him to undertake, since the lack of agreement about what makes one a heretic had led Philaster to list one hundred and twenty-eight heresies after the coming of Christ, while the more learned Epiphanius has discovered only sixty. Hence, Augustine suggests that it might be best for him to send Epiphanius' work to Quodvultdeus, since it is a better work than that of Philaster and could be more easily translated into Latin in Carthage than in Hippo. See Letter 222, 2.
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Quodvultdeus, however, will not be put off. In Letter 223 he raises a series of objections to Augustine's proposal that a translation of Epiphanius' work be done at Carthage. Without having seen the work, Quodvultdeus mentions the seemingly contradictory complaints that it may not contain the responses to the various heresies, as well as their various practices, and that it is probably not brief enough. Moreover, he pleads that he cannot handle the Greek, that the available translators are undependable, and that Epiphanius and Philaster cannot in any case have included the more recent heresies that have arisen since they wrote their works. Quodvultdeus seems to want the sort of manual of theology that could provide the clergy with all the information one needed to know in a form that demanded the least intellectual effort and interest on the part of the reader. †7
Augustine's reply in Letter 224 indicates that he plans to undertake the work on heresies that Quodvultdeus has requested, but that he is already busy with the Revisions and with an answer to the first five of the eight books of Julian of Eclanum's Ad Florum. Augustine explains that Alypius, a friend from Augustine's youth and now a fellow bishop, has sent him the first five books of Julian's work and is having the remaining three copied in Rome. †8 Augustine mentions that he has already reviewed his two hundred and thirty-two books—he himself seems surprised at their number—and has completed two books of his Revisions, a work in which he intended to include revisions of his letters and homilies. He tells Quodvultdeus that he has read through his letters, though he has not yet written anything on them, but that he has not even begun to read his homilies. Augustine informs Quodvultdeus that he plans to continue the reply to Julian, while starting on Heresies, working on one by day and the other by night.
In the preface to Heresies, Augustine says that he is sending Quodvultdeus the first part of the work in which he has attempted to comply with the deacon's request to explain “briefly, succinctly, and summarily” the heresies which have arisen since the coming of Christ. He stresses the difficulty of the work which Quodvultdeus has requested and explains that he has taken as his model the work of Epiphanius—or rather the work which he believed to be that of Epiphanius. Finally, he promises a second part to the work which will discuss what it is that makes one a heretic. Unfortunately, this second part was never completed.
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Augustine's Sources for Heresies
The principal sources that Augustine used are (1) the Anacephalaiosis, or “Recapitulation,” a summary of the Panarion, a much larger work of Epiphanius of Salamis, (2) The Book of Diverse Heresies (Diversarum haeresion liber) by Philaster of Brescia, (3) the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius of Caesarea, and (4) the Catalogue of Heresies (Indiculus de haeresibus) of Pseudo-Jerome.
The first fifty-seven chapters of Heresies are heavily dependent, both for information on the individual heresies and for their historical order, upon the Anacephalaiosis which Augustine took to be the work of Epiphanius, though Augustine frequently adds further information from Philaster, Eusebius, and other sources.
Epiphanius (315-403) was born in Palestine and died as bishop of Salamis on Cyprus. His principal work was the Panarion, that is, a “medicine chest” of antidotes against the poisons of heresy. The Greek text for the Anacephalaiosis can be found in PG 42, 853-873. The critical edition is found in Die griechischen christlichen Schriftstellers in Epiphanius I: Panarion haeres. 1-33, ed. K. Holl (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1915), Epiphanius II: Panarion haeres. 34-64, ed. K. Holl; 2nd ed. J. Dummer (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1980) 1-4 and 211-214 and Epiphanius III: Panarion haeres. 65-80, ed. K. Holl; 2nd ed. J. Dummer (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1985), 1-2, 230-232, and 415. Subsequent references will be to H I or HD II or III. For an English translation of selections from the Panarion, see The Panarion of Saint Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis: Selected Passages, tr. by P. R. Amidon, S.J. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). See also The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis: Book I (Sects 1-46), tr. by Frank Williams (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1987) for a translation of the first forty-six entries. I have made a translation of the relevant parts of the Anacephalaiosis in the notes to the translation. †9 Augustine seems not to have known the Panarion, but he did have a Greek copy of the Anacephalaiosis at hand, which he took to be the work of Epiphanius, though it is now recognized to be the work of someone else. For a discussion of the question of the authorship of the Anacephalaiosis, see L. G. Müller, The De Haeresibus of Saint Augustine: A Translation with an Introduction and Commentary (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1956), 23-25. Contemporary scholars are generally in agreement that the Anacephalaiosis is not the work of Epiphanius. See K. Holl, “Die Unechtheit der Anakephalaiosis,” Texte und Untersuchungen 36.2 (Leipzig, 1910) 95-98. †10 At times Augustine did little more than translate the appropriate paragraph of the Anacephalaiosis into Latin. In Heresies XLII and XLIII, Augustine mentions Epiphanius by name and gives a verbatim translation of the text of the Anacephalaiosis, but many other chapters of the first fifty-seven reveal a clear dependence upon the work. Bardy, for example, points to the chapters on the Archontics, the Tessarescedecatites, the Adamians, the Melchizedekians, the Bardesanists, the Angelics, and the Hieracites. See G. Bardy, “Le De haeresibus et ses sources,” in Miscellanea Agostiniana II (Rome: Vatican, 1931) 403. †11 Augustine mentions Epiphanius by name twenty-seven times in nineteen chapters. Furthermore, he openly admits his dependence upon the bishop of Salamis.
In dealing with the heretics I have followed not his manner, but his order, for I have from other sources added some things that he did not have, and I have omitted some things that he did have. Hence, I have explained some more fully than he, and I have also explained others more briefly, and in some cases I showed the same brevity, governing all according to the demands of the plan I had in mind. Heresies LVII. †12
Augustine had, it seems, by this time in his life acquired enough facility in Greek to be able to translate the text of the Anacephalaiosis. See the discussion of this question in Müller, The De Haeresibus of Saint Augustine, 30-37; also see B. Altaner, “Augustinus und die grieschische Sprache,” in Kleine Patristische Schriften, ed. G. Glockmann (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1967) 150. †13
Although Augustine clearly regarded Epiphanius as a holy and learned man—certainly more learned than Philaster, he did not, nonetheless, uncritically accept everything he found in Epiphanius. See Heresies LVII and Letter 223, 2 for Augustine's views of the relative merits of Epiphanius and Philaster as heresiologists. †14 He omits, for example, from Epiphanius' list Lucian, the disciple of Marcion, as well as the Marcellians and the Colyridians. He puzzles over the fact that Epiphanius lists the Sabellians as a distinct heresy from that of Noetus; yet, Augustine keeps them as separate entries in Heresies. See Heresies XLI. †15 He combines the Tatians and the Encratites, though Epiphanius listed them separately. On the other hand, he devotes a separate
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chapter to the Artotyrites, though Epiphanius had included them with the Pepuzians. Finally, he follows Philaster in listing the Photinians immediately after the Paulians, because they hold the same doctrine.
Augustine at times expresses his reserve with regard to things that Epiphanius reports, for example, concerning the shameful practice of the Saturnians, the link between the Nicolaitans and the deacon Nicholas, Carpocrates' belief that Jesus was a mere man and the son of two human parents, the claim that Marcellina worshipped images of Jesus, Paul, Homer, and Pythagoras, the teachings of the Apostolics, and the relation of the Melitians to the Arians. See Heresies III, V, VII, XL, and XLVIII, where Augustine uses expressions such as “it is reported” and “they are said” to distance himself from what Epiphanius reports. †16
As his principal source for chapters fifty-eight to eighty, Augustine takes Philaster, the bishop of Brescia, who wrote his Book of Diverse Heresies between 380 and 390. Philaster had resisted the Arian bishop, Auxentius, at Milan and attended the Council of Aquileia (381) as bishop of Brescia. For a brief appraisal of Philaster's work, see M. Simonetti, “Filaster (Philaster, Philastrius)” in EEC, 323-324. †17 This work lists twenty-eight heresies before and one hundred and twenty-eight heresies after the coming of Christ. The account of the heresies of the Christian era contains two lists, one in which Philaster names various heresiarchs and their followers, the other in which he lists various heretical opinions. See G. Bardy, “Le 'De haeresibus' et ses sources,” 404-405. As Bardy notes, Philaster apparently tried to get two lists of sixty-four. Thus, the second list often repeats the doctrines of the heretics in the first list. †18 From Philaster's work Augustine takes twenty-three heresies which he adds to those he has already found in Epiphanius. He draws relatively few from Philaster's second list, partially, it would seem, because Augustine realizes that the bishop of Brescia is padding his work, partially because he has a clearer criterion than Philaster of what is to count as heresy. Augustine refers to Philaster's book as “the very long (prolixissimus) book which he wrote on heresies” (Heresies XLI). So too, Augustine states that Philaster “mentions others as well, but it does not seem to me that they should be called heresies” (Heresies LXXX). †19
With the eighty-first heresy Augustine begins to draw on other sources and on his personal experience. His treatment on the Luciferians raises interesting questions about his sources. After noting that neither Epiphanius nor Philaster listed them as heretics, he mentions an anonymous work in which he found the following statement:
Though the Luciferians hold the Catholic truth in all respects, they fall into this most foolish error. They say that the soul is generated from one's parents, and they say that it comes from the flesh and has the substance of the flesh. Heresies LXXXI. †20
Augustine indicates that he does not know whether the author thought them to be heretics because of this view regarding the soul or whether they really held that view. He suggests that they may be heretics, not because of the view they held, but because of the stubbornness with which they held it, but dismisses the question for discussion elsewhere.
The words Augustine cited are found in the Indiculus de haeresibus XXVI, an anonymous work once incorrectly attributed to Jerome and, hence, now ascribed to Pseudo-Jerome. G. Bardy has argued that the work was the source for Augustine, though others have argued for a much later date for the work. See G. Bardy, “Le 'De Haeresibus' et ses sources,” 408-411, for the arguments pointing to a much later date, as well as Bardy's arguments to the contrary. †21 Scholars are agreed that the Indiculus is not the work of Jerome. Augustine did write to Jerome in 398, suggesting that he write a work on heresies. See Letter 40, 6, where Augustine suggests to Jerome that he indicate those writers in his De uiris illustribus whom he knows to be heretics or that he write a separate volume in which he lists all the known heresies. †22 And in Heresies, Augustine states, “I have heard that the saintly Jerome has written
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something on heresies, but we could not find his work in our library and we do not know where to get it.” Heresies LXXXVIII.
†23 He adds that he has it on the authority of someone quite well informed that Jerome did not write such a book; yet he does not rule out its existence or give any indication that he suspects that the anonymous work from which he cites might have been the work ascribed to Jerome.
In any case, a comparison of Heresies XXVI with Indiculus XX and of Heresies XXVIII with Indiculus XXI reveals an all but verbatim correspondence between the two works. Given the direct quotation in Heresies LXXXI and the other points of contact between the two works, Bardy argued:
Is it not much more in accord with probability to believe that Saint Augustine has, as he said, taken the information of the Luciferians from an earlier work than to imagine a later writer drawing from De haeresibus the idea for a new catalogue of heresies? G. Bardy, “Le 'De Haeresibus' et ses sources,” 410 (my translation). †24
Müller, on the other hand, suggests the possibility of a common source for both Augustine and the author of the Indiculus and claims, “Without positive evidence, it would be extremely hazardous to claim that Augustine had used the Indiculus.” L. Müller, The De Haeresibus of Saint Augustine, 28. †25 B. Altaner has, nonetheless, accepted Bardy's study as a proof that Augustine used the Indiculus; hence, that work must be dated before 427. See B. Altaner, “Augustinus und Epiphanius von Salamis,” in Kleine Patristische Schriften, ed. G. Glockmann (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1967), 286, n. 2. †26
For his report on the Arabian heretics, Augustine relies upon the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, See Eusebius of Caesarea, Eusebius Pamphili: Ecclesiastical History, tr. R. J. Deferarri. The Fathers of the Church 19 and 29 (New York: Fathers of the Church, 1953 and 1955); here VI, 37. †27 and for the Helvidians he had Jerome's work against these heretics. See Jerome, Aduersus Helvidium de Mariae uirginitate perpetua: PL 23, 193-216. †28 Though the Helvidians emerged around 380, Augustine expresses surprise that Epiphanius, who died in 374 or 375, called them Antidicomarites and failed to mention Helvidius by name. See Heresies LXXXIV. Bardy remarks that Augustine “forgets or does not know that the work of Epiphanius was produced in 374 or 375, and he does not take into account the fact that the Antidicomarites of the bishop of Salamis are an oriental error” (Bardy, “Le 'De Haeresibus' et ses sources,” 411 (my translation). †29 Augustine indicates no source for his information on the Paternians, though he mentions that “certain people” call them Venustians and has preserved in his Answer to Julian a passage in which Julian refers to them as Venustians. See Answer to Julian V, 7, 26. An English translation of the text is given in a note on the Paternians. See E. Amann, “Paterniens,” in DTC IX, 2246-2247 for the claim that Augustine derived his information from Julian's statement. †30 For the Tertullianists, the Abeloim, and the Pelagians, the last three heresies he listed, Augustine relies on his own personal knowledge of these groups.
Augustine's Conception of Schism and Heresy
In the projected second part of Heresies, which Augustine never wrote, he intended to provided a definition of heresy, though he was well aware of the difficulty of such an undertaking. In the Preface to Heresies, he says that every heresy involves error, but that not every error is a heresy. He adds, “What it is, then, that makes one a heretic, in my opinion, either cannot at all, or can only with difficulty, be grasped in a definition in accord with the rules.” Heresies, Preface, 7. †31
A definition formed according to the rules of a good definition should not be negative; hence, to define heresy as a departure from the rule of faith is unsatisfactory, precisely because one can err in an endless number of ways. The problem is analogous to that of defining an informal fallacy in logic or, what
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comes to the much same thing, making a complete list of informal fallacies. If, however, one is satisfied with something less than a strict definition, one can find in Augustine at least a good approximation.
In True Religion Augustine writes to Honoratus whom he had led into Manichaeism and would now convert to the Catholic Church. He distinguishes between a heretic and one who follows a heretic, stating that the two differ significantly, since “a heretic is, in my opinion, one who either brings forth or follows false and new opinions for the sake of some temporal advantage and especially for his own glory and power,” while one who puts his faith in such men is simply “deceived by a certain image of truth and piety.” True Religion I, 1. †32 Similarly, he refuses to count as heretics “those who do not defend their false and wicked view with a spirit of stubbornness, especially one that is not the fruit of their own bold presumption, but inherited from parents who were led astray and fell into error.” Letter 43 1. †33
In Faith and the Creed, which Augustine wrote while still a presbyter, he distinguished between heretics and schismatics. They both
call their congregations churches. But in thinking about God what is false, heretics violate the faith. Schismatics, however, separate themselves from fraternal charity by their wicked divisions. Hence, heretics do not belong to the Catholic Church, because she loves God, and schismatics do not belong, because she loves the neighbor. Faith and the Creed X, 21. †34
Similarly, in commenting on Matthew's parable of the weeds sown by the enemy, he suggests that heretics are those who, “after having been born from the seed of the gospel and the name of Christ, are converted to false doctrine by evil opinions.” Seventeen Questions on Matthew XI, 1. †35 He notes that heretics do not share the unity of the one church or the one faith, but of only the Christian name. Ibid. †36 As for schismatics, he adds, “It is not a difference in faith that makes schismatics, but a break in community.” Ibid. †37
In confronting Cresconius, who argued that the Donatists were a schism, not a heresy, Augustine was presented with the Donatist's distinction between heresy and schism: “A heresy is a sect of people holding different doctrines, but a schism is a separation of people holding the same doctrine.” Answer to Cresconius II, 2, 3. †38 The definition is obviously intended to allow Cresconius to maintain that the Donatists were not heretics. Later in the same work, Augustine expresses his preference for a different distinction between schism and heresy, in accord with which “a recent division of a congregation on the basis of different opinions is called a schism—for a schism cannot come about unless those who cause it hold different views—while a schism that has grow old is called a heresy.” Ibid. II, 7, 9. †39
Another distinction found in Augustine's works between a schism and a sect is worth mentioning. In his Answer to Faustus, we find the statement:
A schism, if I am not mistaken, occurs when one who holds the same
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belief and worships with the same rite as the rest decides in favor of the mere division of the congregation, but a sect occurs when one holds quite different beliefs than the others and establishes for himself the worship of the divinity by a far different rite. Answer to Faustus XX, 3. †40
The text is interesting, because the definition of schism it contains carried with it the authority of Augustine in the medieval period. See Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae VIII, 3, 5, as well as Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 39, a. 1, sed contra, where the text is cited as giving Augustine's distinction between schism and heresy, though only the definition of schism is found verbatim in Augustine. †41 These words, however, were not spoken by Augustine, but by Faustus the Manichee. The introduction to the BAC edition of Heresies cites this passage as though it contained the words of Augustine. †42
In The Proceedings against Pelagius, in which he is still taking the measure of Pelagius, Augustine points out that an erroneous view should not be called heretical, if it is irrelevant to the faith, neither harming it nor helping it, if believed. Moreover, even if one does hold a view that is harmful to the faith, one need not be judged heretical, if one corrects his view when admonished and does not stubbornly insist upon the view, turning an opinion into a dogma. The Proceedings Against Pelagius VI, 18. †43 Later, however, Augustine came to a harsher and more accurate assessment of the views of Pelagius and saw that he was clearly heretical. After all, he did not err “in some question about which one can doubt without harm to the faith, but he is shown to be an enemy of the grace of God in the very rule of faith by which we are Christians.” The Grace of Christ and Original Sin II, 29. †44
In Heresies itself, Augustine makes it clear that every heresy involves an error. Heresies, Preface, 7. †45 Moreover, the error or errors in a heresy involve “teachings which are contrary to the Christian faith and which, nevertheless, deceive others, because they bear the Christian name.” Heresies, Preface, 1. †46 Hence, unlike Epiphanius and Philaster who included in their lists of heresies erroneous doctrines of the Jewish people and even of various philosophical sects among the Greeks, Augustine includes only those who claim to be Christian.
Although Augustine clearly distinguishes between schism and heresy, See Heresies L. †47 the transition from schism to heresy is an easy and perhaps an almost inevitable one, since a stubborn persistence in a schism soon amounts to heresy. Thus the Donatists became heretics “when their stubborn dissent grew strong” (Heresies LXIX, 1), and the Luciferians may have been heretics “because they clung to their dissenting position with a spirit of stubbornness” (Heresies LXXXI). †48 As Jerome said, “there is no schism which does not frame for itself some heresy so that it seems to have been correct in leaving the Church.” Jerome, In epistulam ad Titum III, 11. †49
The Text and Other Translations
The translation is based upon the critical edition by R. Vander Plaetse and C. Beukers in CCL 46. There are at least four other translations:
In German: Corpus Haeresiologicum I, tr. F. Oehler (Berlin, 1856).
In French: Oeuvres complètes de saint Augustin, tr. M. Aubert (Bar-le-Duc, 1864), XIV, 1-21.
In English: The De Haeresibus of Saint Augustine: A Translation with an Introduction and Commentary, tr. L. G. Müller (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America, 1956).
In Spanish: Obras completas de San Agustín, tr. T. C. Madrid (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1990), volume XXXVIII, 38-113.
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Notes
†1 In the Epilogue Augustine tells Quodvultdeus that there is no need for him to state what the Catholic Church holds in opposition to each of the heresies, since it suffices to know that the Church is opposed to them. But he admits that he should still investigate what it is that makes one a heretic in a second part of the work.
†2 For the identification of Quodvultdeus the deacon with the later bishop of Carthage, as well as the life and works of Quodvultdeus, see V. Grossi on Quodvultdeus in Patrology: Volume IV: The Golden Age of Latin Patristic Literature from the Council of Nicaea to the Council of Chalcedon, ed. A. Di Berardino, tr. P. Solari (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1991), 501-503 (hereafter Patrology). Also see V. Saxer, “Quodvultdeus,” in The Encyclopedia of the Early Church, ed. A. Di Berardino, tr. A. Walford (New York: Oxford University Press), 728 (hereafter EEC).
†3 See Letter 221, 2.
†4 In his Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 412, P. Brown says, in describing the clergy of Africa, “Worst of all, the new generation of African clergy were content merely to turn to Augustine. In 428 Quodvultdeus, a deacon (and, later, a bishop) of Carthage, could turn to Augustine to extract from him a mere potboiler, a brief handbook of heresies.”
†5 The beginning of this letter mentions a previous letter of Augustine's to Quodvultdeus; Letter 223 indicates that the letter was never delivered.
†6 See Letter 222, 2.
†7 Quodvultdeus seems to want the sort of manual of theology that could provide the clergy with all the information one needed to know in a form that demanded the least intellectual effort and interest on the part of the reader.
†8 Augustine explains that Alypius, a friend from Augustine's youth and now a fellow bishop, has sent him the first five books of Julian's work and is having the remaining three copied in Rome.
†9 The Greek text for the Anacephalaiosis can be found in PG 42, 853-873. The critical edition is found in Die griechischen christlichen Schriftstellers in Epiphanius I: Panarion haeres. 1-33, ed. K. Holl (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1915), Epiphanius II: Panarion haeres. 34-64, ed. K. Holl; 2nd ed. J. Dummer (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1980) 1-4 and 211-214 and Epiphanius III: Panarion haeres. 65-80, ed. K. Holl; 2nd ed. J. Dummer (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1985), 1-2, 230-232, and 415. Subsequent references will be to H I or HD II or III. For an English translation of selections from the Panarion, see The Panarion of Saint Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis: Selected Passages, tr. by P. R. Amidon, S.J. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). See also The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis: Book I (Sects 1-46), tr. by Frank Williams (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1987) for a translation of the first forty-six entries. I have made a translation of the relevant parts of the Anacephalaiosis in the notes to the translation.
†10 For a discussion of the question of the authorship of the Anacephalaiosis, see L. G. Müller, The De Haeresibus of Saint Augustine: A Translation with an Introduction and Commentary (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1956), 23-25. Contemporary scholars are generally in agreement that the Anacephalaiosis is not the work of Epiphanius. See K. Holl, “Die Unechtheit der Anakephalaiosis,” Texte und Untersuchungen 36.2 (Leipzig, 1910) 95-98.
†11 See G. Bardy, “Le De haeresibus et ses sources,” in Miscellanea Agostiniana II (Rome: Vatican, 1931) 403.
†12 Heresies LVII.
†13 See the discussion of this question in Müller, The De Haeresibus of Saint Augustine, 30-37; also see B. Altaner, “Augustinus und die grieschische Sprache,” in Kleine Patristische Schriften, ed. G. Glockmann (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1967) 150.
†14 See Heresies LVII and Letter 223, 2 for Augustine's views of the relative merits of Epiphanius and Philaster as heresiologists.
†15 See Heresies XLI.
†16 See Heresies III, V, VII, XL, and XLVIII, where Augustine uses expressions such as “it is reported” and “they are said” to distance himself from what Epiphanius reports.
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†17 Philaster had resisted the Arian bishop, Auxentius, at Milan and attended the Council of Aquileia (381) as bishop of Brescia. For a brief appraisal of Philaster's work, see M. Simonetti, “Filaster (Philaster, Philastrius)” in EEC, 323-324.
†18 See G. Bardy, “Le 'De haeresibus' et ses sources,” 404-405. As Bardy notes, Philaster apparently tried to get two lists of sixty-four. Thus, the second list often repeats the doctrines of the heretics in the first list.
†19 Augustine refers to Philaster's book as “the very long (prolixissimus) book which he wrote on heresies” (Heresies XLI). So too, Augustine states that Philaster “mentions others as well, but it does not seem to me that they should be called heresies” (Heresies LXXX).
†20 Heresies LXXXI.
†21 See G. Bardy, “Le 'De Haeresibus' et ses sources,” 408-411, for the arguments pointing to a much later date, as well as Bardy's arguments to the contrary.
†22 See Letter 40, 6, where Augustine suggests to Jerome that he indicate those writers in his De uiris illustribus whom he knows to be heretics or that he write a separate volume in which he lists all the known heresies.
†23 Heresies LXXXVIII.
†24 G. Bardy, “Le 'De Haeresibus' et ses sources,” 410 (my translation).
†25 L. Müller, The De Haeresibus of Saint Augustine, 28.
†26 See B. Altaner, “Augustinus und Epiphanius von Salamis,” in Kleine Patristische Schriften, ed. G. Glockmann (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1967), 286, n. 2.
†27 See Eusebius of Caesarea, Eusebius Pamphili: Ecclesiastical History, tr. R. J. Deferarri. The Fathers of the Church 19 and 29 (New York: Fathers of the Church, 1953 and 1955); here VI, 37.
†28 See Jerome, Aduersus Helvidium de Mariae uirginitate perpetua: PL 23, 193-216.
†29 See Heresies LXXXIV. Bardy remarks that Augustine “forgets or does not know that the work of Epiphanius was produced in 374 or 375, and he does not take into account the fact that the Antidicomarites of the bishop of Salamis are an oriental error” (Bardy, “Le 'De Haeresibus' et ses sources,” 411 (my translation).
†30 See Answer to Julian V, 7, 26. An English translation of the text is given in a note on the Paternians. See E. Amann, “Paterniens,” in DTC IX, 2246-2247 for the claim that Augustine derived his information from Julian's statement.
†31 Heresies, Preface, 7.
†32 True Religion I, 1.
†33 Letter 43 1.
†34 Faith and the Creed X, 21.
†35 Seventeen Questions on Matthew XI, 1.
†36 Ibid.
†37 Ibid.
†38 Answer to Cresconius II, 2, 3.
†39 Ibid. II, 7, 9.
†40 Answer to Faustus XX, 3.
†41 See Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae VIII, 3, 5, as well as Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 39, a. 1, sed contra, where the text is cited as giving Augustine's distinction between schism and heresy, though only the definition of schism is found verbatim in Augustine.
†42 The introduction to the BAC edition of Heresies cites this passage as though it contained the words of Augustine.
†43 The Proceedings Against Pelagius VI, 18.
†44 The Grace of Christ and Original Sin II, 29.
†45 Heresies, Preface, 7.
†46 Heresies, Preface, 1.
†47 See Heresies L.
†48 Thus the Donatists became heretics “when their stubborn dissent grew strong” (Heresies LXIX, 1), and the Luciferians may have been heretics “because they clung to their dissenting position with a spirit of stubbornness” (Heresies LXXXI).
†49 Jerome, In epistulam ad Titum III, 11.
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Correspondence between Augustine and Quodvultdeus: Letters 221 to 224
Letter 221
Quodvultdeus Quodvultdeus later became the bishop of Carthage. See the introduction for the a sketch of his life and for further sources. †1 the Deacon to Bishop Augustine, my rightly venerable lord and truly blessed father.
1. I long hesitated, and several times I postponed these bold requests of mine. But the good will of Your Beatitude, which is so well known to all, has been, as the expression goes, my principal source of confidence. As long as I bear it in mind, I am more afraid that the Lord would judge me proud for not asking, idle for not seeking, and lazy for not knocking. See Mt 7:7. †2 For myself I believe that the mere desire of my will would be enough, even if I were unable to attain its reward. But I am certain that your holy mind, which Christ holds in his possession, is ready not merely to open the door of God's word See Col 4:3. †3 for all those who desire it, as heavenly grace has opened it for Your Reverence, but that it is also ready to persuade the reluctant so that they do not hesitate to enter. Hence, I will not interrupt Your Reverence's work with a long and unnecessary plea, but will briefly indicate the heart of my request.
2. From my own experience I know that some of the clergy, even in this great city, are uneducated, and I offer for the consideration of Your Holiness the great benefit that will come to the whole of that order from what I ask. For I am confident, my rightly venerable lord and truly blessed father, that I, though unworthy, will gain this privilege for all who have a claim upon your spiritual labors. I, therefore, beseech Your Goodness to deign to explain, from the time that the Christian religion received the name of the heritage promised it, what heresies existed and now exist, what errors they introduced and now introduce, what they have held and now hold in opposition to the Catholic Church concerning the faith, the Trinity, baptism, penance, Christ as man, Christ as God, the resurrection, the Old and New Testaments, and absolutely every point on which they disagree with the truth. Explain those heresies which have baptism and those which do not, and those after which the Church baptizes, though she does not rebaptize; how she receives those who come to her, and what response she makes to each of them in terms of law, authority, and reason.
3. Let Your Beatitude not suppose that I am so foolish as not to see how many
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large volumes would be needed to take care of all these questions. I am not asking you to do all this now for the first time, for I have no doubt that it has already been done many times. I ask that you briefly, succinctly, and summarily set forth the opinions of each heresy and add what the Catholic Church holds in opposition to them, in a single handbook, as it were, drawn from all of them, to the extent that suffices for instruction. If anyone wishes to know some objection or refutation more at length, more fully, and more clearly, he might be referred to the extensive and magnificent volumes in which others, and especially Your Reverence, have done this, as we all know. Such an admonition will, I think, suffice for both the learned and the uneducated, for those with leisure and for those who are busy, as well as for those who have been raised from whatever background to some level of ministry in the Church. Someone who has read many books will have them briefly called to mind, and someone ignorant will be instructed by the compendium. Thus they will know what to hold and what to reject, what to avoid doing and what to go ahead and do. Perhaps, if I am correct, even this small work against the evil minds and the deceitful tongues of slanderers See Ps 11:3-4; 16:1; 30:19.
†4 will not fail, despite your other great works, to be a jewel in your crown. Thus, those who had an open field for slander will be fenced in on all sides by the strong boundaries of the faith and herded with all kinds of prods by the truth. They may even suddenly be brought down by this one versatile spear so that they no longer dare to breathe forth their deadly breath.
4. I see what a burden I am to a holy old man who has better things to think of and more important affairs to arrange, while suffering the body's complaints. But I beg you through Christ the Lord, who has granted you a generous share in his wisdom, that you grant this favor to the unlearned of the Church. For you admit that you owe it both to the wise and to the foolish. After all, you rightly and justly will say, See, I have not toiled for myself alone, but for all who seek the truth (Sir 24:47 and 33:18). I could still offer many suppliant entreaties and summon the unlettered masses to my support, but I prefer to enjoy your answer rather than to keep you busy reading my letter.
Letter 222
Augustine to his beloved son and fellow deacon, Quodvultdeus.
1. I received the letter of Your Charity in which you asked me with ardent zeal to write something brief on all the heresies that have emerged against the teaching of the Lord since his coming. As soon as I found the opportunity, I wrote back through Philocalus, my son, a prominent citizen of Hippo, explaining how difficult this would be. Augustine alludes to a previous letter sent to Quodvultdeus by Philocalus. That letter, as Quodvultdeus notes in Letter 223, 1, did not arrive. †5 Once again I have the opportunity to write you, and I am going briefly to explain the difficulty of such a work.
2. A certain Philaster, For Philaster of Brescia, see the introduction. Philaster's Book of Diverse Heresies was one of the principal sources for Augustine's Heresies. †6 the bishop of Brescia, whom I myself saw with the
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saintly Ambrose of Milan, wrote a book on this subject. In it he included those heresies which existed in the Jewish people before the Lord's coming. He listed twenty-eight of them and one hundred and twenty-eight after the Lord's coming. Epiphanius, Epiphanius, the bishop of Salamis, wrote the Panarion, a work against heresies, which was summarized in the Anacephalaiosis, which in turn was Augustine's principal source for the first fifty-seven heresies he lists. For more on Epiphanius, see the introduction.
†7 the bishop of Cyprus, who was highly esteemed for his teaching of the Catholic faith, also wrote on this subject in Greek. He too gathered heresies from both periods and put together eighty. Although both of them intended to do what you ask of me, you see how widely they differ on the number of the sects during these times. That, of course, would not have happened if they had not disagreed about the definition of heresy. After all, one should not suppose that Epiphanius was ignorant of some heresies that Philaster knew, since Epiphanius was by far the more eminent scholar. One should, rather, say that Philaster had missed many, if Epiphanius had gathered more and Philaster fewer. Of course, both did not have the same view on the question under discussion, namely, what heresy is. Indeed, it is very difficult to define it, and we should, therefore, be cautious, when we try to count them all so that we do not omit some, though they are heresies, and include others, though they are not. Consider, then, whether I ought not send you the book of the saintly Epiphanius; after all, I think that he spoke with more learning than Philaster. It could be more easily and suitably translated into Latin at Carthage, and thus you would rather be able to present to us what you are asking from us.
3. I highly commend the bearer of this letter. He is a subdeacon of our diocese, but from the estate of Orontus, a respected man and a dear friend of ours. On behalf of the bearer and of behalf of his father, by whom he has been adopted, I have written to Orontus. When you have read this letter, I beg you, in your kindness as a Christian, to help them by your intercession before the man I have mentioned. I have also sent with him a man of the Church lest he have difficulty in approaching Your Holiness. For I have been quite worried about him, and the Lord will free me, I hope, from this worry by the help of Your Charity. I also ask that you do not delay in writing back concerning the status in the faith of that Theodosius, who turned in some Manichees, and of those who we thought were corrected, after having been turned in by him. Also, if you have perchance heard of the passing of any holy bishops, let me know about it. God keep you.
Letter 223
Quodvultdeus, the Deacon, to his rightly venerable lord and truly blessed and holy father, Augustine.
1. I received one memorandum from Your Reverence which you deigned to send me through the hands of a cleric. That letter which Your Beatitude indicated had been sent earlier through the honorable man, Philocalus, has not yet arrived here. Although I have always been aware of my own sins, I now,
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nonetheless, clearly acknowledge that my person is an obstacle to the whole Church for acquiring the favor I have asked. I have followed the punctuation of the BAC edition instead of the CCL, since I can make no sense of the latter.
†8 But I am utterly confident, my rightly venerable lord and truly blessed holy father, that he who has deigned to wipe out the sins of the human race by the grace of his only Son will not allow my sins to cause the destruction of all. Rather, he will make his grace superabundant where sin has abounded. See Rom 5:20.
†9 I did not speak before without knowledge of the difficulty of the work which I humbly asked Your Beneficence to offer us for instructing the unlearned; rather, I counted in all honesty upon the richness of the divine source that the Lord has given you.
2. For, even if we find that the venerable bishops, Philaster and Epiphanius, have written something of the sort—a fact which has, among other things, in fact like everything, escaped my notice—still I do not think that they have observed such care and diligence that they added responses and included the practices contrary to each and every opinion. Moreover, each of their works, such as it may be, probably does not have the brevity that I want. It is also useless to offer Greek eloquence to a man like me who am not learned in Latin. I have, after all, asked not merely for advice, but also for help. But why should I remind Your Reverence about not only the difficulty, but also the obscurity of translators, since you yourself can judge this better and fully? Added to this is the fact that some heresies are found to have arisen after their deaths, and they could make no mention of these.
3. For these reasons, I take refuge in the special patronage of Your Piety, and I appeal in my own words, but with the desire of all, to your holy and pious heart that is ready to be merciful. Having considered the text of my earlier letter, do not refuse me the bread of Africa pure of any foreign flavors. Though I am knocking late, I hunger for this bread flavored with the heavenly manna, which our province has come to regard as outstanding. For I will not stop knocking until you grant it. Thus tireless persistence may win what special privilege cannot, for I have none of the latter. See Lk 11:5-8. †10
Letter 224
Augustine to his sincerely beloved lord and brother and fellow servant, Quodvultdeus.
1. Since this opportunity for writing has been afforded me by a priest of Fussala, whom I commend to Your Charity, I reviewed the letter in which you ask that I write something on the heresies which have arisen from the time that the Lord's coming in the flesh was first preached. I did this in order to see whether I ought now to begin this work and send you a part of it so that you might see that its difficulty is greater in proportion to the brevity with which you want me to carry it out. But I was not able to do even this, since I was
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prevented by the sort of unexpected worries that I could not ignore, for they distracted me even from the work that I had in hand. Augustine offers no clue as to the nature of these worries; the work he has in hand is clearly the answer to Julian of Eclanum.
†11
2. I am referring to my response to the eight books of Julian which he published after the four to which I have already responded. Augustine refers to Julian of Eclanum's Ad Florum. Death prevented Augustine from completing his Unfinished Work in Answer to Julian. Augustine had already answered Julian's four books Ad Turbantium in the six books of his Answer to Julian. †12 Our brother, Alypius, Alypius was Augustine's friend from even prior to their conversion and was at this point bishop of Thagaste and also active in Rome. †13 obtained them when he was in Rome, but had not yet copied them all. He did not want to pass up the chance of sending me five books, promising that he would soon send me the other three. He was most insistent that I not delay in answering them, and because of his insistence I was forced to go more slowly with the work I was doing. In order not to neglect either task, I worked at one during the day and at the other at night, to the extent that I was spared from other tasks which continue to come to me from all sides.
I was engaged upon a task that was quite necessary, for I was reviewing my writings. And if there was anything in them that I found offensive or that might offend others, I at times corrected them and at other times defended them, explaining how they can or should be read. I had already completed two volumes in which I reviewed all my books. I was unaware of their number and have found there are two hundred and thirty-two. The letters remain, and then the sermons for the people, which the Greeks call “homilies.” Augustine reveals that he intended that his Revisions include his letters and his homilies so that they would have contained more than the two books we now have. †14 I have already read the majority of the letters, but I have still not dictated anything on them, for these books of Julian have begun to keep me busy. I have begun to answer the fourth. When I shall have finished it and answered the fifth, if the other three have not arrived, I plan, if God wills, to begin what you ask for. I will work on both of these projects together, this work and the revision of my writings, devoting the night to one and the day to the other.
3. I am communicating this to Your Holiness so that you will beg the Lord's help for me with an ardor that is as great as your desire to receive what you ask of me. Thus I may satisfy your desire, my lord and dearly beloved brother, and benefit those whom you think it will help. Again I commend to you the bearer of this letter and the business which has led him to make the journey. Since you know the person with whom he must deal, I beg you not to be slow to help. We cannot, after all, abandon such people in their troubles, for they are not only our tenants, but—what is more—our brothers and come under our care in the love of Christ. May God keep you.
Notes
†1 Quodvultdeus later became the bishop of Carthage. See the introduction for the a sketch of his life and for further sources.
†2 See Mt 7:7.
†3 See Col 4:3.
†4 See Ps 11:3-4; 16:1; 30:19.
†5 Augustine alludes to a previous letter sent to Quodvultdeus by Philocalus. That letter, as Quodvultdeus notes in Letter 223, 1, did not arrive.
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†6 For Philaster of Brescia, see the introduction. Philaster's Book of Diverse Heresies was one of the principal sources for Augustine's Heresies.
†7 Epiphanius, the bishop of Salamis, wrote the Panarion, a work against heresies, which was summarized in the Anacephalaiosis, which in turn was Augustine's principal source for the first fifty-seven heresies he lists. For more on Epiphanius, see the introduction.
†8 I have followed the punctuation of the BAC edition instead of the CCL, since I can make no sense of the latter.
†9 See Rom 5:20.
†10 See Lk 11:5-8.
†11 Augustine offers no clue as to the nature of these worries; the work he has in hand is clearly the answer to Julian of Eclanum.
†12 Augustine refers to Julian of Eclanum's Ad Florum. Death prevented Augustine from completing his Unfinished Work in Answer to Julian. Augustine had already answered Julian's four books Ad Turbantium in the six books of his Answer to Julian.
†13 Alypius was Augustine's friend from even prior to their conversion and was at this point bishop of Thagaste and also active in Rome.
†14 Augustine reveals that he intended that his Revisions include his letters and his homilies so that they would have contained more than the two books we now have.
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The Chapters
I. The Simonians.
II. The Menandrians.
III. The Saturninians.
IV. The Basilidians.
V. The Nicolaites.
VI. The Gnostics.
VII. The Carpocratians.
VIII. The Cerinthians.
IX. The Nazaraeans.
X. The Ebionites.
XI. The Valentinians.
XII. The Secundians.
XIII. The Ptolomaeans.
XIV. The Markians.
XV. The Colorbasians.
XVI. The Heracleonites.
XVII. The Ophites.
XVIII. The Cainites.
XIX. The Sethians.
XX. The Archontics.
XXI. The Cerdonians.
XXII. The Marcionites.
XXIII. The Apellites.
XXIV. The Severians.
XXV. The Tatians.
XXVI. The Cataphrygians.
XXVII. The Pepudians.
XXVIII. The Artotyrites.
XXIX. The Tessarescedecatites.
XXX. The Alogi.
XXXI. The Adamians.
XXXII. The Elcesaeites.
XXXIII. The Theodotians.
XXXIV. The Melchizedekians.
XXXV. The Bardesanists.
XXXVI. The Noetians.
XXXVII. The Valesians.
XXXVIII. The Cathari.
XXXIX. The Angelics.
XL. The Apostolics.
XLI. The Sabellians.
XLII. The Origenists.
XLIII. Other Origenists.
XLIV. The Paulians.
XLV. The Photinians.
XLVI. The Manichaeans.
XLVII. The Hieracites.
XLVIII. The Meletians.
XLIX. The Arians.
L. The Audians.
LI. The Semiarians.
LII. The Macedonians.
LIII. The Aerians.
LIV. The Aetians.
LV. The Apollinarists.
LVI. The Antidicomarites.
LVII. The Massalians.
LVIII. The Metangismonites.
LIX. The Seleucians.
LX. The Proclianites.
LXI. The Patricians.
LXII. The Ascites.
LXIII. The Passalorynchites.
LXIV. The Aquarians.
LXV. The Coluthians.
LXVI. The Florinians.
LXVII. Those who disagree about the state of the world.
LXVIII. Those who walk barefoot.
LXIX. The Donatians.
LXX. The Priscillianists.
LXXI. Those who do not eat with human beings.
LXXII. The Rhetorians.
LXXIII. Those who maintain that Christ's divinity could suffer.
LXXIV. Those who believe that God has three forms.
LXXV. Those who maintain that water is coeternal with God.
LXXVI. Those who maintain that the soul is not the image of God.
LXXVII. Those who believe that there are innumerable worlds.
LXXVIII. Those who believe that souls are changed into demons and all sorts of animals.
LXXIX. Those who believe in the liberation of all souls in hell by the descent of Christ.
LXXX. Those who ascribe a temporal beginning to the birth of Christ from the Father.
LXXXI. The Luciferians.
LXXXII. The Jovinianists.
LXXXIII. The Arabics.
LXXXIV. The Helvidians.
LXXXV. The Paternians.
LXXXVI. The Tertullianists.
LXXXVII. The Abeloites.
LXXXVIII. The Pelagians.
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Preface
1. You should know, my holy son, Quodvultdeus, that, long before you asked, I had already thought of doing, and would have done, what you very often and persistently ask that I do, namely, that I write something on heresies that is worth reading for those who desire to avoid teachings which are contrary to the Christian faith and which, nonetheless, deceive others, because they bear the Christian name. Yet, when I carefully considered the character and magnitude of the task, I thought that it was beyond my powers. I admit that no one has pressed me with demands as much as you. Hence, amid such bothersome persistence from you, Augustine's reference to the “bothersome persistence” of Quodvultdeus is not rudeness on the part of Augustine, but an allusion to the parable of Lk 11:5-8, which Quodvultdeus had applied to himself in Letter 223. †1 I have given heed to your name and said, “I will make a beginning and do what God wills.” Augustine puns on Quodvultdeus' name, which means: What God wills. †2 For I am confident that this is God's will. In his merciful kindness, may he bring me to the end of this work so that the ministry of my words may either at least reveal the great difficulty of this task or, with his fuller help, remove it. Of these two, I have long reflected and meditated upon what I mentioned first. But I admit that I have not yet received what I mentioned second. That is, Augustine sees the difficulty of this work, but he has not yet received the grace to overcome the difficulty and complete what Quodvultdeus has asked him to do. †3 I do not know whether or not I will receive it, though I work, pray, seek, and knock that I may do so. I know, nonetheless, that I will not pray, or seek, or knock enough, if I have not also received this desire as a gift of God's inspiration.
2. In this work, then, that I have undertaken, with your strong encouragement, as something that God wills, you see that I should not so much be driven to complete it by your frequent requests as helped by pious prayers to God, not only by yours, but also by those of the other brothers who will be your loyal allies in this matter. And for that purpose, I have taken care to have these first parts of this labor of mine, including this introduction, swiftly sent to Your Charity. Thus you may know how much all of you must pray for me on account of what remains, now that you know that I have undertaken this great task that you desire me to complete. Augustine intended that Heresies have a second book in which he clarified the nature of heresy. Hence, the work is incomplete in terms of what Augustine meant it to be. †4
3. You ask, then, as the letters indicate which you sent me when you first began to ask these things of me, that I explain: “Briefly, succinctly, and summarily, from the time that the Christian religion received the name of the heritage promised it, what heresies have existed and now exist, what errors they introduced and now introduce, what they have held and now hold in opposition to the Catholic Church concerning the faith, the Trinity, Baptism, penance, Christ as man, Christ as God, the resurrection, the New and Old Testaments.” The quotation is a composite from Letter 221, 3 and 2. †5 Since you saw that these questions of yours led to an immense undertaking, you thought that you should sum it up with a sweeping generalization and said, “And
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absolutely every point on which they disagree with the truth.” Then you added, “those heresies which have Baptism and those which do not, and those after which the Church baptizes, though she does not rebaptize; how she receives those who come to her, and what response she makes to each of them in terms of law, authority and reason.” Both citations are from Letter 221, 2.
†6
4. You ask me to explain all these things, and I am amazed that your brilliant mind both thirsts for the truth about so many important things and insists upon brevity out of fear of a surfeit. You yourself saw what I might well think about this passage in your letter and you were on guard, as it were, to counter my thoughts with the words. “Let Your Beatitude not suppose that I am so foolish as not to see how many large volumes would be needed in order to take care of all these questions. But I am not asking you to do this now for the first time, for I have no doubt that it has already been done many times.” Moreover, you gave me advice as to how I could both be brief and set forth the truth, adding the words which I mentioned before and saying, “I ask that you briefly, succinctly, and summarily set forth the opinions of each heresy and add what the Catholic Church holds in opposition to them, to the extent that suffices for instruction.” Notice that you again set us a long task, not because these things either cannot or should not be stated briefly, but because they are so many that they demand many pages, even if they are to be stated briefly. But you say, “If anyone wishes to know some objection or refutation more at length, more fully, and more clearly, he might be referred by a single handbook, as it were, drawn from all of them to the extensive and magnificent volumes where others, and especially Your Reverence, have, as we all know, done this.” The three quotations in this paragraph are from Letter 221, 3. †7 When you say this, you indicate that you desire a single handbook, as it were, concerning all these matters. Listen, then, to the sort of handbook for which you are asking.
5. A certain Celsus treated the opinions of all the philosophers who founded various sects up to his own times—he could not, after all, go further—in six large volumes. The identity of this Celsus is disputed. Some scholars have suggested Aulus Cornelius Celsus, who lived at the time of Tiberius and wrote an encyclopedia, of which the medical part survives. See L. Müller, The De Haeresibus of Saint Augustine, 131-132 for a survey of the scholarly opinion on the matter. Müller favors the opionion of P. Courcelle that this Celsus is the same person as the Celsinus whom Augustine mentions in his Answer to the Skeptics II, 2. Courcelle argues that Augustine relied on this same Celsinus for his survey of philosophers in The City of God VIII, 2. See P. Courcelle, Les lettres grecques en Occident de Macrobe à Cassiodore (Paris, 1943) 179-181. †8 He did not refute anyone, but only explained what they thought with such brevity of language that he used only as many words as sufficed, not for praising or blaming, not for affirming or defending, but for setting forth and explaining them. After all, he mentioned almost one hundred philosophers, not all of whom founded their own heresies, since he did not think that he should pass over in silence those who followed their teachers without any disagreement.
6. Our own Epiphanius, the bishop of Cyprus, who was taken from this life not long ago, wrote six books and spoke of eighty heresies. He mentions them all in an historical account, without fighting against error on behalf of the truth with any arguments. His booklets are, of course, short, and if they were edited as one book, it would not be comparable in length to some books of ours or to those of others. Augustine's description of this work shows that he did not have Epiphanius' Panarion, but the much shorter summary of it, the Anacephalaiosis, which we know is not the work of Epiphanius himself, though dependent upon the Panarion. †9 If I have succeeded in imitating his brevity in my account of the heresies, you will have no reason to ask for or expect anything shorter from
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me. But the whole of my effort is not being spent on brevity, as will be obvious to you, if I point it out or if you look ahead, once I shall have completed it. For, you will see how much the work produced by the above-mentioned bishop falls short in comparison to the work that you want me to produce and that I want even more. After all, you still want me to respond to the heresies mentioned, even if “briefly, succintly and summarily,” and he did not do that.
7. I especially want to produce this work, if it is God's will, so that through it every heresy—both known and unknown—may be avoided and so that any that may become known can be correctly assessed. After all, not every error is a heresy; yet, since every heresy involves a defect, a heresy could only be a heresy by reason of some error. What it is, then, that makes one a heretic, in my opinion, either cannot at all, or can only with difficulty, be grasped in a definition in accord with the rules. The problem is that error involves a falling short of the truth and there are an endless number of ways in which one can fall short of the truth. Thus, a definition by genus and species is impossible. †10 This point will be explained in the course of this work, if God guides and brings my plan to the goal I intend. But in its own place we must look into and state the value of this investigation, even if we cannot grasp how a heretic should be defined. After all, who would not see its great value, if we could grasp it? The first part of this work will be about the heresies which arose against the teaching of Christ after his coming and ascension, insofar as we could get knowledge of them. But in the second part there will be a discussion of what makes one a heretic. After the Lord ascended into heaven, the following heretics emerged.
Notes
†1 Augustine's reference to the “bothersome persistence” of Quodvultdeus is not rudeness on the part of Augustine, but an allusion to the parable of Lk 11:5-8, which Quodvultdeus had applied to himself in Letter 223.
†2 Augustine puns on Quodvultdeus' name, which means: What God wills.
†3 That is, Augustine sees the difficulty of this work, but he has not yet received the grace to overcome the difficulty and complete what Quodvultdeus has asked him to do.
†4 Augustine intended that Heresies have a second book in which he clarified the nature of heresy. Hence, the work is incomplete in terms of what Augustine meant it to be.
†5 The quotation is a composite from Letter 221, 3 and 2.
†6 Both citations are from Letter 221, 2.
†7 The three quotations in this paragraph are from Letter 221, 3.
†8 The identity of this Celsus is disputed. Some scholars have suggested Aulus Cornelius Celsus, who lived at the time of Tiberius and wrote an encyclopedia, of which the medical part survives. See L. Müller, The De Haeresibus of Saint Augustine, 131-132 for a survey of the scholarly opinion on the matter. Müller favors the opionion of P. Courcelle that this Celsus is the same person as the Celsinus whom Augustine mentions in his Answer to the Skeptics II, 2. Courcelle argues that Augustine relied on this same Celsinus for his survey of philosophers in The City of God VIII, 2. See P. Courcelle, Les lettres grecques en Occident de Macrobe à Cassiodore (Paris, 1943) 179-181.
†9 Augustine's description of this work shows that he did not have Epiphanius' Panarion, but the much shorter summary of it, the Anacephalaiosis, which we know is not the work of Epiphanius himself, though dependent upon the Panarion.
†10 The problem is that error involves a falling short of the truth and there are an endless number of ways in which one can fall short of the truth. Thus, a definition by genus and species is impossible.
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The Heresies
I. The Simonians Simon Magus was a contemporary of the apostles. For his baptism, spectacular deeds, and break with Peter, see Acts 8. The Simonians, who are said to have derived from him, were in some of their teachings forerunners of Judaeo-Christian gnosticism. See E. Peretto, “Simon Magus—Simonians” in EEC, 780. †1 are named after Simon Magus. After he was baptized by Philip the deacon, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, he tried to purchase from the apostles the power to be able also to bestow the Holy Spirit by the imposition of his hands. See Acts 8:9-24. †2 This man deceived many by tricks of magic. In Diuersarum haeresion liber XXIX, 1: CCL 9, 229, Philaster mentions that “through use of the arts of magic, he deceived many.” †3 He taught the detestable and shameful practice of having intercourse with women promiscuously. He also said that God did not make the world, and he denied the resurrection of the flesh. He claimed that he was Christ; so too, he wanted people to believe that he was Jupiter and that a certain prostitute, Helen, Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XXIX, 8: CCL IX, 229: “It is clear that the Helen who was with the magician was a prostitute from Tyre….” †4 whom he had made his companion in crime, was Minerva. He presented images of himself and of that prostitute to his disciples as objects of adoration. Epiphanius, Anaceph I, ii, 1: PG 42, 853-856: H I, 234: “21. The Simonians are those stemming from Simon the magician, who lived at the time of Peter the apostle and came from a village of the Gethites in Samaria. He left the Samarians, but became a Christian in name only. He taught that a shameful practice, namely, having intercourse to defile women, was morally indifferent. He rejected the resurrection of bodies and said that the world did not come from God. He gave to his disciples for adoration an image of himself as Zeus and a statue of Helen, a prostitute who was with him, as Minerva. He told the the Samaritans that he was the Father, but the Jews that he was Christ.” †5 By public authority he also set up those images at Rome as likenesses of gods. See Irenaeus, Adversus haereses I, xxiii, 1 and 4: PG 6, 670 and 672. †6 In the same city the apostle Peter destroyed him by the true power of the almighty God. See Augustine, Letter 36, 9. †7
II. The Menandrians Menander was an early gnostic, probably born in Samaria at the end of the first century; he became a disciple of Simon Magus and won many followers by his magic arts. He proclaimed that he was the redeemer of mankind sent by invisible powers and promised his followers immortality through baptism. See A. Monaci Castagno, “Menander,” in EEC, p. 553. †8 are named after Menander, also a magician, a disciple of the previous one. He claimed that the world was not made by God, but by the angels. Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, ii, 2: PG 42, 856: H I, 234: “22. The Menandrians are those who arose from this Simon through a certain Menander. They differed in some respect from the Simonians. He said that the world was produced by angels.” See also Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XXX: CCL 9, 229: “After him there was a certain Menander. Having become his disciple, he followed his wickedness in all respects.” †9
III. The Saturninians Satorinus, or Satornilus, a gnostic disciple of Menander, taught in Antioch during the first half of the second century. He is known especially from the writings of Irenaeus and Hippolytus. He taught that the invisible Father created the angels and that the angels created the visible world. See A. Monaci Castagno, “Satornilus (or Saturninus),” in EEC, 758. †10 are named after a certain Saturninus who is held to have established the shameful teaching of the Simonians in Syria. He also said that seven angels made the world by themselves without the knowledge of God the Father. Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, ii, 3: PG 42, 856: H I, 235: “23. The Satornilians are those who spread the shameful doctrine of the Simonians in Syria and preached other things beyond the Simonians to cause greater shock. They stemmed from Satornilus, who in agreement with Menander said that the world was produced by angels, but by only seven of them and against the judgment of the Father above.” †11
IV. The Basilidians According to Clement of Alexandria, Basilides taught a version of gnosticism in Alexandria under the emperors Hadrian (117-138) and Antoninus Pius (138-161); he may also have taught in Persia. His teachings are diversely reported by Hippolytus, Irenaeus, Clement, and Hegemonius. See A. Monaci Castagno, “Basilides, Basilideans,” in EEC, 113. †12 are named after Basilides. He differed from the Simonians in that he believed that there were three hundred and sixty-five heavens, the number of days that make up a year. For this reason he taught that the name, ἀβρασαξ was holy. According to the Greek manner of reckoning, the letters of this name make up the same number; for they are seven: α and β and ρ and α and ς and α and ξ, that is, one and two and one hundred and one and two hundred and one and sixty. Added together, they make three hundred and sixty-five. See Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, ii, 4: PG 42, 856: H I, 235: “24. The Basilidians, who engaged in the same shameful practice, are named after Basilides. He was a follower, along with Satornilus, of the Simonians and Menandrians. He held the same views, though he differed in some respect. He said that there are three hundred and sixty-five heavens and gave them names of the angels. He said that the year has that many days for this reason. He said that Abrasax is the name for its number and that it means three hundred and sixty-five; he said that it is a holy name.” †13
V. The Nicolaites The references to Nicolaitans in Rv 2:6.14.16.20 provide little help toward identifying the sect or its origins; these texts suggest that they were a pre-gnostic sect that taught and practiced a moral laxism in the name of Christian freedom. The patristic tradition is divided with regard to the sect's connection with the deacon Nicholas. See E. Peretto, “Nicolaïtans,” in EEC, p. 596. †14 are named after Nicolaus. He is said to have been one of those seven deacons whom the apostles ordained. See Acts 6:5. †15 It is reported that, because he was accused of being jealous with regard to his beautiful wife, he allowed anyone who wished to have intercourse with her as a means of purifying himself. This deed of his was transformed into a most shameful sect in which promiscuous intercourse with women is permitted. Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, ii, 5: PG 42, 856: H I, 235: “25. The Nicolaites came from Nicolaus who was given care of the widows by the apostles. On account of jealousy over his own wife, along with the others, he taught his disciples to carry out a shameful practice. He introduced Caulacaac and Prunicus and other barbaric names.” Eusebius cites from Clement of Alexandria (Stromata III, 25-26): “They say that this man had a beautiful wife, and when, after the ascension of the Savior, he was accused of jealousy by the apostles, he brought her forth and gave permission to any who wished to mate with her” (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History III, 29: FOTC 29, 187). †16 These people also do not keep their foods separate from those that are sacrificed to idols, nor do they reject other superstitious rites of the Gentiles. See Rv 2:14-15; Irenaeus, Adversus haereses. I, xxvi, 3: PG 7, 687; Pseudo-Jerome, Indiculus III, 8: PL 81, 637. †17 They also tell some mythical tales about the world, mixing some barbarian names of archons into their discourses to terrify their listeners. These names provoke laughter rather than fear in the wise. Besides Epiphanius, who is cited above, Pseudo-Jerome, Indiculus III, 8: PL 81, 637: “For he gave them the names Barbalo, Prunica, Ialdabaoth, and Caulacan.” †18
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These people are also understood to attribute creation, not to God, but to certain powers which they imagine or believe in with an amazing foolishness.
VI. The Gnostics Following Epiphanius, Augustine lists the Gnostics as a distinct heresy rather than as a genus embracing other heretical groups, many of which he lists separately. Gnosticism was a religious movement that flourished mainly in the second century and taught a form of esoteric knowledge which was supposed of itself to provide salvation to its initiates. See G. Filoramo, “Gnosis—Gnosticism,” in EEC, 352-354. †19 boast that they are called, or ought to be called, by that name on account of their excellent knowledge, although they are more foolish and more shameful than all the above. See Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XXXIII, 2: CCL 9, 231: [Nicolaus] himself said there were many powers; from him especially there arose the Gnostics, “who think they know something.” †20 They are called different names by different people in different parts of the world. Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, ii, 6: PG 42, 856-857: H I, 235: “26. The Gnostics were the successors of these heresies; they more than all the others insanely engaged in shameful practices. In Egypt they are called Stratiotics and Phibionites; in the upper regions they are called the Secundians; elsewhere Socratics. By others they are called Zachaeans. Still others call them Coddians, while others call them Borborites. They boast of Barbelo or Barbaro.” †21 Thus some also call them Borborites, as if they are full of filth, Philaster lists the Borborians as a distinct heresy. Diuersarum haeresion liber LXXIII, 2: CCL 9, 247: “Another is the heresy of the Borborians. They are trapped in the sins of the world and serve their evil desires with no expectation of a future judgment. Hence, these people, getting into filth and smeared with it, defile their faces and members with it, showing by this that one should blame God's creation….” †22 on account of the great shamefulness which they are said to practice in their mysteries. Some think that they have come from the Nicolaites; Philaster and Epiphanius both say this; see the first two notes on this chapter. †23 others that they have come from Carpocrates, of whom we will speak later. See Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History IV, 7: FOTC 19, 216: “Irenaeus also writes that Carpocrates was a contemporary of these men [i.e., Saturninus, Menander, and Basilides], the father of another heresy called that of the Gnostics.” †24 They teach doctrines filled with fantastic fictions. They too ensnare weak souls by the terrifying names of archons or angels, and they weave together many fantastic myths about God and the nature of reality that are opposed to the sound truth. They say that the substance of souls is the divine nature, and they teach the coming of souls into these bodies and their return to God in those same long, foolish myths of theirs. They do not make those who believe them to excel in knowledge, as they suppose, but to become foolishly filled, so to speak, with fables. They are also said to hold a good god and an evil god in their teachings.
VII. The Carpocratians Carpocrates came from Alexandria and taught in the first half of the second century. His pupil, Marcellina, taught in Rome around 150. Carpocrates taught that the angels created the world and that souls held prisoner by the archons of the world return to the ingenerate God. This God sent Jesus, a mere man, to help souls escape from the archons through a series of transmigrations into other bodies. See A. Monaci Castagno, “Carpocrates, Carpocratians,” in EEC, 145. †25 are derived from Carpocrates. He taught every shameful action and every sinful practice and claimed that there is no other way to escape and pass by the principalities and powers, which are pleased by these actions, so as to be able to arrive at the higher heaven. He also is said to have thought that Jesus was only a man and had both a father and a mother, but that he had received a soul that enabled him to know and preach heavenly things. He rejected the resurrection of the body along with the Law. He said that the world was not made by God, but by some powers. It is reported that a certain woman, Marcellina, belonged to this sect and that she worshipped images of Jesus, Paul, Homer, and Pythagoras, adoring them and offering incense to them. Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, ii, 7: PG 42, 857: H I, 236: “27. The Carpocratians are named after a certain Carpocrates from Asia. He taught people to perform every shameful action and every sinful practice. He said that, unless one does all of them and performs the will of the demons and angels, he cannot enter into highest heaven or pass beyond the principalities and powers. He said that Jesus had received an intellectual soul and that, knowing heavenly things, he preached here below. He said that, if one performed actions like those of Jesus, he would be his equal. He rejected the Law along with the resurrection of the dead, as did the heresies from Simon on. Marcellina was a follower of his in Rome. She secretly made images of Jesus, Paul, Homer, and Pythagoras and burned incense to them and worshipped them.” †26
VIII. The Cerinthians An early second century document links Cerinthus with Simon Magus. Eusebius was the first to make Cerinthus the head of a group named after him. See A. F. J. Klijn, “Cerinthus, Cerinthians,” in EEC, 158-159. †27 were named after Cerinthus, and the same people are called Merinthians after Merinthus. They said that the world was made by angels and that it was necessary to be circumcised in the flesh and to observe other such precepts of the Law. Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, ii, 8: PG 42, 857: H I, 236: “28. The Cerinthians, or the Merinthians, are Jews named after Cerinthus or Merinthus. They boasted of their circumcision and said that the world was produced by angels. He said that Jesus came to be called Christ when he grew up.” †28 They claimed that Jesus was only a man and that he had not risen, but that he would rise. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XXXVI, 2: CCL 9, 233: “He taught circumcision and the observance of the Sabbath, and he preached that Christ had not yet risen, but would rise.” †29 They tell the tale that for a thousand years after the resurrection they will live in the earthly kingdom of Christ, enjoying the carnal pleasures of food and sex. See The City of God XX, 7. †30 For this reason they are also called Chiliasts. See Pseudo-Jerome, Indiculus XXXI, 43: PL 81, 643: “The Chiliasts say that the kingdom of the saints will be carnal in the flesh. They are unwilling to admit our flesh will be renewed as spiritual, but claim that we are to eat the carnal goods of the earth in a carnal manner for a thousand years.” †31
IX. Though the Nazoraeans Epiphanius is the first to mention this Judaeo-Christian sect which lived in Beroea, having fled from Jerusalem after its fall. See A. F. J. Klijn, “Nazoraei,” in EEC, 584. †32 admit that Christ is the Son of God, they still observe all the precepts of the Old Law, Epiphanius, Anaceph I, ii, 9: PG 42, 857: H I, 236: “29. The Nazoraeans profess that Jesus is the Son of God, but they live entirely in accord with the Law.” †33 which Christians have learned from the tradition of the apostles not to observe carnally, but to understand spiritually.
X. The Ebionites The term “Ebionites” was applied to a number of Judaeo-Christian groups which accepted Jesus as a mere man, lived according to the Jewish Law, and rejected Saint Paul. See A. F. J. Klijn, “Ebionites,” in EEC, 258-259. †34 also say that Christ was only a man. They observe the
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carnal commandments of the Law, namely, circumcision of the flesh and the rest of the burdens from which we have been freed by the New Testament. Epiphanius joins the Sampsaeans and Elcesaites to this heresy so that he lists them under one number as if they were one heresy, though he indicates that there was some difference. Epiphanius is mistaken in supposing that the Ebionites were influenced by the Elcesaites. The latter group came from Parthia and was influenced by Judaeo-Christian writings unknown to Epiphanius. See A. F. J. Klijn, “Ebionites,” in EEC, 259.
†35 Still, when he speaks of these others later on, he lists them under their own number. See Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, ii, 10: PG 42, 857: H I, 236: “30. The Ebionites are similar to the previously mentioned Cerinthians and Nazoraeans. The heresy of the Sampsaeans and Elcaesans agrees with them in a certain respect. They say that Christ and the Holy Spirit were created in heaven and that Christ was first present in Adam, for a time putting Adam aside and then donning him again. They say that he did this during his presence in the flesh. Although they are Jews, they use the gospels. They despise the eating of meat and regard water as God. As I said, they claim that Christ donned a man by his presence in the flesh. They bathe in water during both summer and winter for sanctification, as do the Samaritans.”
†36 When Eusebius mentions the sect of the Elcesaites, he says that they taught that in a persecution one should deny the faith, but keep it in one's heart. Speaking of the Elcesaite heresy, Eusebius says, “It says that to deny is a matter of indifference and that he is wise who will deny under necessity with his mouth but not with the heart.” Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, VI, 38: FOTC 29, 63.
†37
XI. The Valentinians Valentinus was an Egyptian gnostic who came to Rome around 140, abandoned orthodoxy and founded a school. He died in Rome sometime after 160. From what remains of his writings, Valentinus himself seems to have been “a biblical theologian, influenced by Platonism but straying little from the—as yet ill-defined—borders of Christian orthodoxy” (C. Gianotto, “Valentinus the Gnostic,” in EEC, 859-860). His followers were divided into an Italic school, including Heracleon, Ptolemy, and Florinus, and an Eastern school, including Theodotus and Mark. See C. Gianotto, “Valentinus the Gnostic,” in EEC, 859-860. †38 are named after Valentinus who composed many myths about the nature of reality, claiming that there existed thirty aeons, that is, ages, and that they originated from Depth and Silence. He also called Depth the Father. He holds that from these two, as from a marriage, there came forth Intellect and Truth and that they brought forth eight aeons in honor of the Father. But from Intellect and Truth there came forth Word and Life, and they brought forth ten aeons. Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, ii, 10: PG 42, 857: H I, 237: “31. The Valentinians deny the resurrection of the flesh and reject the Old Testament and the prophets, though they read them and accept whatever they can figuratively interpret as a likeness of their heresy. They introduced certain myths and mentioned thirty aeons, both male and female together, which were produced by the Father of the universe. They regard them as gods and aeons. They say that Christ brought his body from heaven and passed through Mary as through a tube.” †39 Moreover, from Word and Life there came forth Man and Church, and they brought forth twelve aeons. Thus eight and ten and twelve become thirty aeons that have their first origin, as we said, from the Depth and Silence. Christ, who was sent by the Father, that is, by the Depth, brought with him a spiritual or heavenly body and took nothing from the virgin Mary, but passed through her as through a conduit or a pipe without taking any flesh from her. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XXXVIII, 3-6: CCL 9, 234: “There was, he says, nothing else in the world but the Depth of the Sea and Silence, which the foolish poets call Chaos in their teaching, and from this Depth and Silence Intellect and Truth have come forth. But from Intellect and Truth have come Word and Life, and from Word and Life have come Man and Church. From Man and Church there have come forth twelve aeons, that is, ages; from Word and Life there have come forth ten aeons, and from Intellect and Truth eight aeons. And this makes thirty Ages, that is, thirty aeons of aeons. He holds that from the Eight, the Ten, and the Twelve there are thirty aeons. He says that Christ was sent for the salvation of the whole world by the Father, whom he calls by the name Depth, and that he brought his flesh down from heaven and took nothing from the Virgin Mary. Rather he says that he passed through her like water through a channel. He thought that the soul alone is saved, but that the human body was not saved.” †40 He also denies the resurrection of the flesh, stating that only the spirit and soul attain salvation through Christ.
XII. The Secundians Secundus was one of the earliest disciples of Valentinus. See G. Salmon, “Secundus,” in DCB IV, 596-597. †41 are said to differ from the Valentinians insofar as they also admitted shameful actions. Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, ii, 12: PG 42, 860: H I, 237: “32. The Secundians, whose followers included Epiphanes and Isidore, used the same pairs of aeons and held views similar to Valentinus, but stated other things somewhat differently from him. In addition, they taught shameful practices; they also deny the flesh [of Christ].” †42
XIII. Ptolemy, Ptolemy was a gnostic disciple of Valentinus belonging to the Italic or Western Valentinian school. See G. Filoramo, “Ptolemy the Gnostic,” in EEC, 724. †43 who was also a disciple of Valentinus, desired to found a new heresy and preferred to profess four aeons and a different four. Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, ii, 13: PG 42, 860: H I, 237: “33. The Ptolemaeans were also disciples of Valentinus. Flora joined them. They also say concerning the pairs of aeons the same things as Valentinus and the Secundians, but they also differ in a certain respect.” Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XXXIX: CCL 9, 234: “There are other followers of [Valentinus]. Ptolaemus introduced an equally foolish doctrine, saying that there are four aeons and a different four. He wanted to teach something new with his false scheme from what Valentinus, his teacher, had made up.” †44
XIV. A certain Mark Mark taught in Asia and belonged to the Eastern branch of the Valentinian school, though his followers, the Marcosians, reached as far West as the Rhone valley where Irenaeus came to know them. See C. Gianotto, “Mark,” in EEC, 526. †45 founded a heresy, denying the resurrection of the flesh and stating that Christ did not truly suffer, but was merely thought to have suffered. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XLII, 4: CCL 9, 235: “He said that Christ had not appeared in a real body; he thought that he had suffered like a shadow, but had not truly suffered in a body.” †46 He also supposed that there are two principles opposed to each other and maintained concerning the aeons something like what Valentinus held. Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, iii, 1: PG 42, 860: HD II, 1: “34. The Marcosians. A certain Mark emerged as a fellow student with Colorbasus. He also taught two principles. He rejected the resurrection of the dead…. He, like Valentinus, wanted to derive everything from twenty-four elements.” †47
XV. Colorbasus Colorbasus was a second century gnostic who taught in Egypt. Along with Ptolemy, he belonged to the Italic branch of Valentianism. See H. Rahner, “Kolorbasus,” in LTK VI, 399-400. †48 followed these men with much the same ideas, stating that the life and generation of all human beings depend upon the seven stars. Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, iii, 4: PG 42, 860: HD II, 1: “35. The Colorbasians. This Colorbasus held, though with a slight difference, almost the same opinions as the other heresies, I mean, those of Mark and Valentinus. He taught something different regarding the emanations and the ogdoads.” Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XLIII: CCL 9, 235: “After [Mark] there came Colorbasus. He stated that the life and generation of all human beings depended on the letters and the number of the seven elements and the stars, not on the majesty and power of Christ. And he did not recognize that the hope for the true salvation of human beings rests upon his presence in the flesh.” †49
XVI. The Heracleonites, Heracleon is a gnostic disciple of Valentinus who belonged to the Italic branch of Valentinianism. See C. Gianotto, “Heracleon,” in EEC, 374. †50 named after Heracleon, a disciple of the above men, asserted two principles, one arising from the other, and many more from these two. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XLI: CCL 9, 235: “After [Secundus] there came Heracleon, his disciple. He said that there is one principle which he called God and that from it another was born. He asserted the generation of many principles from these two, raving on with his teachers so many times.” †51 They are said to redeem, as it were, their dying members in a new way, that is, by oil, balsam, and water and by invocations which they say over their heads in Hebrew. Epiphanius, Anaceph I, iii, 3: PG 42, 860: HD II, 1: “36. The Heracleonites. These people were also caught up in the myths of the ogdoads, but differed from Mark, Ptolemy, Valentinus, and the others. Like Mark, they redeem their dying members at the end of their life with oil, balsam, and water, while reciting some invocations in Hebrew over the head of the one being redeemed in that way.” †52
XVII. The Ophites The Ophites, or Naassenes, were a second century gnostic group whose names are derived from the Greek or Hebrew words for the serpent. They were strongly opposed to the God of the Old Testament and venerated the serpent as a source of gnosis. See C. Gianotto, “Ophites — Naassenes,” in EEC, 612. †53 are named after the serpent, for in Greek a serpent is called ὄφις. They believe that this serpent is Christ, but they also have a real serpent trained to lick their bread and thus sanctify it for them like a eucharist. Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, iii, 4: PG 42, 860: HD II, 2: “37. The Ophites are those who worship the serpent; they consider it to be Christ, but keep this reptile, a real serpent, in a box.” †54 Some maintain that these Ophites have emerged from the Nicolaites or the
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Gnostics and that they came to worship the serpent through the mythical fictions of those people. In Indiculus IV, 9: PL 81, 637-638, Pseudo-Jerome mentions the Ophites under the Gnostics: “The Ophites are those who worship and adore this serpent [who seduced Eve]. They say that he brought knowledge of virtue. He sanctifies their Eucharist. When the breads are made, they call him forth from his cave, and he winds himself around the breads, and touching each of the offerings with his tongue, he consecrates for them the bread of perdition.”
†55
XVIII. The Cainites The Cainites were a second century gnostic group who were strongly opposed to the God of the Old Testament. As a result they exalted his enemies, including Cain, Esau, and Judas. See E. Prinzivalli, “Cainites,” in EEC, 139. †56 are so called, because they honor Cain and say that he was a man of mighty power. They also regard Judas, the traitor, as a divine being and count his crime as a benefit. They say that he knew beforehand how much Christ's suffering would benefit the human race and, for that reason, handed him over to the Jews to be killed. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XXXIV, 1-2: CCL 9, 232: “Others have begun a heresy from Judas, the traitor. They say that Judas did a good deed in betraying the Savior. For Judas, they say, turned out to be the source of all our good knowledge; through him the heavenly mysteries have been disclosed to us. The powers in heaven, they say, did not want Christ to suffer and knew that, if he suffered, he would give life to human beings. Knowing, they say, that, if Christ suffered, he would bring salvation to human beings, Judas betrayed him.” See Pseudo-Jerome, Indiculus IX: PL 81, 640: “The Cainites say… that Judas, the betrayer of Christ, was more learned than all the apostles. For, since he knew the hidden plan of God and knew that his suffering would mean salvation for all human beings, though the earthly powers denied this, he saved the whole human race by betraying him.” †57 They are also said to worship those who made a schism in the first people of God and perished when the earth opened up, See Nm 16:31. †58 as well as the people of Sodom. They blaspheme against the Law and against God, the author of the Law, and they deny the resurrection of the flesh. Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, iii, 5: PG 42, 860: HD II, 2: “38. The Caianites, like the previous heretics, reject the Law and him who spoke in the Law. They deny the resurrection of the flesh and praise Cain, saying that he came from a mightier power. They also pay divine honors to Judas, as well as to the followers of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and even to the Sodomites.” †59
XIX. The Sethians The Sethians were gnostics who had a special veneration for Seth. The discovery of the Nag Hammadi texts, which contain references to the Sethians, has stirred new interest in Sethian sects and their doctrinal system, though some scholars have remained skeptical about the existence of such groups and such doctrinal systems. See C. Gianotto, “Sethians,” in EEC, 771. †60 received their name from Adam's son who was called Seth. They honor him, but they do so with a mythical and heretical foolishness. For they say that he was born from a heavenly mother whom they hold had united with a heavenly father so that from them there was born other divine offspring, namely, the children of God. These people also have many foolish myths about the principalities and powers. Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, iii, 6: PG 42, 860: HD II, 2: “39. The Sethians. These people glorify Seth and say that he was born of the heavenly mother who repented of having brought forth those with Cain. After Cain was rejected and Abel was slain, she had intercourse with the heavenly father and produced Seth as a pure offspring, and from him the rest of the human race came forth. These people also hold that there are principles and powers and the other things which other groups hold.” See also Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber III, 1-3: CCL 9, 218-219: “Another is the heresy of the Sethians which venerates Seth, the son of Adam, who was born later and called by this name. He was born after the slaying of blessed Abel. The Sethians are named after him; they worship him and say that, after the two human beings were created in the beginning and after the angels rebelled, a feminine power held sway in heaven, for they think there are male and female gods and goddesses. Seeing that Abel the just was killed, she decided to bear the just Seth, and she gave him a spirit of great power so that he could destroy, they say, the enemy powers. They say that Christ, our God, drew his lineage from Seth. Some of them assert and believe not only that he drew his lineage from him, but that Seth himself is Christ.” See also Pseudo-Jerome, Indiculus XVII, 29: PL 81, 641. †61 Some say that they suppose that Sem, the son of Noah, is Christ. With regard to this surprising claim that the Sethians regarded Sem as Christ, G. Bardy comments that Augustine must have used sources unknown to us. He notes that the addition “the Son of Noah,” if authentic, removes all doubt about the person to whom Augustine refers. In the Panarion 55, Epiphanius mentions that Sem was an object of veneration among the Melchizedekians. See G. Bardy, “Le 'De haeresibus' et ses sources,” 401. †62
XX. The Archontics, The Archontics were a gnostic sect of the third and fourth centuries related to the Sethians. They derive their name from the seven archons or lords of the planetary spheres. See G. Filoramo, “Arcontici,” in EEC, 71. †63 who are named after the archons, say that the universe that God created is the work of the archons. They also perform a shameful action. They deny the resurrection of the flesh. See Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, iii, 7: PG 42, 860-861: HD II, 2: “40. The Archontics. These people also attribute the universe to many archons and state that whatever has come to be has arisen from them. They are found to engage in a shameful practice. They reject the resurrection of the flesh and speak ill of the Old Testament, though they make use of the Old and the New Testaments, interpreting each expression in favor of their position.” †64
XXI. The Cerdonians Cerdo was a gnostic who taught in Rome in the middle of the second century. Hippolytus mistakenly, it seems, attributes to Cerdo the main doctrines of Marcion whom he sees as merely the disciple of Cerdo. See C. Gianotto, “Cerdo,” in EEC, 158. †65 were named after Cerdon who taught that there are two opposing principles. Epiphanius, Anaceph I, iii, 8: PG 42, 861: HD II, 2-3: “41. The Cerdonians, named after Cerdon, inherited a share of the error of Heracleon, but added to it. Cerdon came to Rome from Syria and set forth his teaching in the time of Bishop Hyginus. He preached two opposing principles. He denied that Christ was born, and rejected the resurrection of the dead as well as the Old Testament.” †66 He held that the God of the Law and the Prophets is not the Father of Christ and is not the good God, but a just one, while the Father of Christ is good. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History IV, xi: FOTC 19, 224: Quoting Irenaeus, Adversus haereses I, xxvii, 1-2, Eusebius says that he “taught that the God preached by the Law and the Prophets was not the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for the one was known, the other unknown; the one was righteous, the other good.” †67 He held that Christ himself was not born of a woman, that he did not have flesh, and that he did not truly die or suffer at all, but pretended to suffer. Some say that, in holding his two principles, he held that there were two gods so that one of them was good and the other was evil. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XLIV, 1-2: CCL 9 IX, 235-236: “A certain Cerdon arose after these, proclaiming a worse doctrine than his teachers. After he had come from Syria to Rome, he dared to say that there are two principles, that is, one the good God and the other the evil one, and that the good God produces good things and the evil one produces evil things. He said that Jesus the Savior was not born of Mary, did not appear in the flesh, and had not come down from heaven, but rather was only thought to be seen by human beings. He was not really seen, he says, but was a shadow. Hence, he was thought to suffer by some people, but he did not really suffer.” †68 He denies the resurrection of the dead and rejects the Old Testament as well.
XXII. Marcion, Marcion was an important heretic of the second century. For a discussion of Marcion's life and teachings, see the introduction to Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets. Also see B. Aland, “Marcion—Marcionites—Marcionism,” in EEC, 523-524. †69 from whom the Marcionites received their name, also followed the teachings of Cerdon about the two principles, Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XLV, 3: CCL 9, 236: “But [Marcion] rather affirmed the false doctrine of his teacher, Cerdon. He likewise proclaimed one good God and one evil.” †70 though Epiphanius says that he maintained three principles: the good, the just, and the evil. Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, iii, 9: PG 42, 861: HD II, 3: “42. The Marcionites. This Marcion came from Pontus. He was the son of the bishop; having violated a virgin, he fled because he was thrown out of the church by his own father. Having come to Rome, he asked the leaders at that time for penance, but did not obtain it. He rose up and taught against the faith, introducing three principles: the good, the just, and the evil. He said that the New Testament is completely foreign to the Old and to the one who spoke in it. He rejected the resurrection of the flesh. He administered baptism not once, but two and three times after one sinned. He baptized other persons on behalf of dead catechumens, and he readily permitted women to administer baptism.” †71 Eusebius, however, writes that a certain Synerus, not Marcion, was the source of the three principles or natures. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History V, 13: FOTC 19, 309: Quoting from Tatian, Eusebius says, “Others… supposed not only two but even three Natures. Of these the chief and leader is Syneros, as those who put forth his teaching say.” †72
XXIII. The Apellites Apelles was a disciple of Marcion at Rome. He later lived for a time in Alexandria. He dissociated himself from Marcion's dualism and eliminated his docetist Christology, but went beyond Marcion in his opposition to the Old Testament. See C. Gianotto, “Apelles,” in ECC, 54. †73 are those whose leader is Apelles. He proposed two gods, one good, the other evil. He did not hold that they existed in two diverse and mutually opposed principles, but that there was one principle, namely, the good God, and that the other was made by him. And since the other one was found to be evil, he made the world in his wickedness. Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, iii, 11: PG 42, 861: HD II, 3: “44. The Apellians. This Apelles, like Marcion and Lucian, regarded the whole of creation and the creator as evil. Unlike them, he did not teach three principles, but one principle and one God, who is supreme and unnamed. He said that he, the One, made another. When this other one came to be and was found to be evil, he made the world in his malice.” Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XLVII, 1-2: CCL 9, 237; Philaster quotes Apelles as saying that he does not hold with Marcion “two coeternal principles. I preach that there is one principle whom I acknowledge as God. This God made the angels; he also made another power, whom I know to be a second God. He is the power of God and made the world. This God who made the world, he says, is not good, as he is who made him. But he is subject to that God by whom he was made, and he obeys his will, command, and orders in all things.” †74 Some say that this Apelles also had such false ideas about Christ that he said that he did not bring down his flesh from heaven, but took it from the elements of world and that he returned it to the world when he rose without flesh and ascended into heaven. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XLVII, 4-6: CCL, 237: “[Apelles] said that Christ appeared in the flesh, but not that he brought his flesh down from heaven, as Valentinus held. He also said that his flesh was not raised up after his Passion. He said that Christ drew his flesh from the four elements, that is, the dry, the warm, the moist, and the cold, and that at the resurrection he returned it to the elements he had taken from the world and left them on the earth. He stated that Christ ascended into heaven without flesh.” †75
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XXIV. The Severians Severus was an Encratite heretic. Eusebius more correctly lists him after Tatian. See E. Prinzivalli, “Severus,” in EEC, 773. †76 originated from Severus; they abstain from wine, because they claim in their foolish myths that the vine grew out of the land of Satan. A variant reading has: from the land and Satan. †77 They too inflate their unsound teaching with whatever names they want of archons and reject the resurrection of the flesh along with the Old Testament. Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, iii, 12: PG 42, 861: HD II, 3-4: “45. The Severians. A certain Severus, a follower of Apelles, rejected wine, making up the story that the vine came forth from the snake-like Satan and the earth, when they had intercourse. He rejects woman, claiming that she came from the evil power. He introduced certain names of archons and certain apocryphal books. Like the others, he rejected the resurrection of the flesh and the Old Testament.” †78
XXV. The Tatians Tatian was a second century Christian writer originally from Assyria; he is listed among the Apologists. According to the heresiological tradition, he left the church after the martyrdom of Justin and tended toward encratism. See F. Bolgiani, “Tatian,” in EEC, 815. †79 were started by a certain Tatian; Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, iii, 13: PG 42, 861: HD II, 4: “46. The Tatians. Tatian first lived with Justin, the holy martyr. After the death of Justin, the martyr and philosopher, he was corrupted by the teachings of Marcion and became his disciple, holding the same doctrines as he did, but adding some others beyond them. He is said to have come from Mesopotamia.” †80 they are also called Encratites. Their name comes from the Greek term for continence; they practiced an extreme asceticism which implied a rejection of many of the good things of God's creation. See F. Bolgiani, “Encratism,” in EEC, 271-272. †81 They condemn marriages and hold them to be wholly on a par with fornication and other foul deeds; they do not admit into their number anyone, whether man or woman, who is living a married life. They do not eat meat and utterly despise it. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LXXII, 2: CCL 9, 247: In speaking of the Aerians, Philaster mentions, “They are also called Encratites, that is, people who abstain. They own nothing; they detest foods which God gave to the human race with a blessing. They also condemn lawful marriage, claiming that it was not instituted by God.” †82 They too hold certain mythical processions of the ages. They are opposed to the salvation of the first man. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XLVIII, 1-2: CCL 9, 237: “After the persecution under Decius, there was a certain Tatian, a disciple of Saint Justin, the martyr. After Justin's death, he withdrew from the truth and held the teaching of that holy and blessed martyr in contempt. He said that certain aeons were brought forth from heaven. He also added that our father Adam, the first human being, was not saved. In preaching the aeons, he raved like Marcion. He abhorred human generation, rejected the lawful right of marriage, and did not admit that that right was established by God.” See also Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History IV, 29: FOTC 19, 267-269. †83 Epiphanius distinguishes the Tatians and the Encratites, calling the Encratites schismatics from Tatian. Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 1: PG 42, 864: HD II, 211: “47. The Encratites, who were a splinter group from Tatian, rejected marriage, saying that it comes from Satan, and they forbade all eating of meat.” †84
XXVI. The Cataphrygians The followers of Montanus were called Cataphrygians after their place of origin between Mysia and Phrygia. See E. Peretto, “Cataphrygians,” in EEC, 150. †85 are those who were begun by Montanus, Montanus emerged as a prophet in Phrygia in the years 155-60, claiming to be the spokesman of the Holy Spirit. See B. Aland, “Montanus—Montanism,” in EEC, 570-571. †86 under the pretext that he was the Paraclete, and by two prophetesses of his, Prisca and Maximilla. Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 2; PG 42, 864: HD II, 211: “48. The Cataphrygians. These heretics are also called Montanists and Tascodrugites. They accept the Old and New Testaments. They add other prophets to the prophets, and boast of a certain Montanus and Priscilla.” See also Pseudo-Jerome, Indiculus XX, 32: PL 81, 641: “The originators of the heresy of the Cataphrygians are Montanus, Prisca and Maximilla; in them the most foolish error of deceived human beings recognizes Montanus as the Holy Spirit and Prisca and Maximilla as prophetesses.” †87 They got their name from the province of Phrygia, since they arose there and lived there, and even now they have followers in these same parts. They claim that the coming of the Holy Spirit promised by the Lord was realized in them rather than in the apostles. They regard second marriages as fornication, and they say that the apostle Paul permitted them because, He had knowledge in part and he prophesied in part, for there had not yet come what is perfect (1 Cor 9:10). They say in their madness that this perfection has come to Montanus and his prophetesses. See Augustine, Answer to Faustus XXXII, 17; The Excellence of Widowhood IV, 6 and V, 7; The Christian Combat XXVIII, 30; Letter 237, 2. †88
They are reported to have gruesome sacraments, for they are said to confect their eucharist from the blood of a year-old infant which they squeeze from tiny punctures all over its body; they mix it with wheat and make bread from it. If the child dies, he is regarded by them as a martyr, but if he lives, he is regarded as a great priest. See Epiphanius, Panarion 48, 14, 6 and 15, 7 (tr. P. Amidon): “In one of their feasts they pierce a very young boy in every part of his body with brass needles and take his blood to use at sacrifice…. They pierce through the body of an innocent boy and take away the blood to partake of it, pretending that this is an initiation into the name of Christ….” See also Pseudo-Jerome, Indiculus XXXII, 20: PL 81, 641: “This heresy, or rather perdition, has unspeakable rites. For every year they offer a single perfect infant of one year; they pierce his little body with wounds and catch his blood in flour. In that way they make bread from the mixture of this criminal grain and eat the diabolical sacrament of this savage eucharist. If the infant dies from the piercing wounds, he is worshipped as a martyr, but if he lives, he is venerated as a high priest.” †89
XXVII. The Pepuzians Among the companions of Montanus, Epiphanius mentions, along with Priscilla and Maximilla, a certain Quintilla, after whom the Quintillians are named. He also refers to them as Pepuzians, Artotyrites, and Priscillians. See “Quintilliens,” in DTC XIII, 1598. †90 got their name from a certain locale, which Epiphanius says is an abandoned city. Regarding it as something divine, they call it Jerusalem. They give such great positions of leadership to women that women even receive the honor of the priesthood among them, for they say that, in the same city of Pepuza, Christ was revealed to Quintilla and Priscilla in the form of a woman. For this reason, they are also called Quintillians. They too do the same thing with the blood of an infant that we just said that the Cataphrygians do, for they are said to have originated from them. Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 3: PG 42, 864: HD II, 211: “49. The Pepuzians are also called Quintillians, and the Artotyrites are linked to them. They came from the Cataphrygians, but taught some doctrines different from theirs. They pay divine honors to Pepuza, a deserted city between Galatia, Cappadocia, and Phrygia, and regard it as Jerusalem. But there is also another Pepuza. They allow women to hold positions of authority and the priesthood. They are initiated by certain rites in which they stab a young child. They tell the story that Christ once appeared there in Pepuza to Quintilla and Priscilla in the form of a woman. They also use the Old and New Testaments, adapting them as they see fit.” †91 Others, finally, say that this Pepuza is not a city, but that it was the villa of Montanus and his prophetesses, Priscilla and Maximilla, and that, because they lived there, the place deserved to be called Jerusalem. In his Ecclesiastical History V, 18: FOTC 19, 322, Eusebius says that Montanus “gave the name of Jerusalem to Pepuza and Tymion, (these are small towns in Phrygia)….” †92
XXVIII. The name of the Artotyrites Augustine distinguishes the Artotyrites from the Pepuzians or Quintillians, claiming that Epiphanius confused them. Their name is composed of the Greek words for bread and cheese. See F. Cocchini, “Artotyritae,” in EEC, 83. †93 is derived from their sacrificial offering, for they offer bread and cheese. They claim that the first humans made offerings from the products of the earth and of sheep. Epiphanius links them with the Pepuzians. Pseudo-Jerome, Indiculus XXI, 33: PL 81, 641: “The Artotyrites use bread and cheese in their holy rites, saying that the first humans made offerings from the products of the earth and from the products of sheep.” Epiphanius mentions these people in connection with the Pepuzians; see Anaceph. II, i, 3: PG 42, 864: HD II, 211. In the Panarion 49, 2, 6, he mentions, “They call [the Quintillians or Pepuzians] Artotyrites from the fact that in their rites they set out bread and cheese and thus celebrate their rites….” †94
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XXIX. The Tessarescedecatites The Tessarescedecatites or Quartodecimans, as they are more commonly known, followed Saint John's chronology of the Passion and celebrated Easter on the date of the Jewish Passover, the 14th day of Nisan, breaking their fast on that day. In the second century Pope Victor threatened to excommunicate the Quartodecimans in the Eastern churches. The Council of Nicaea decided upon the Sunday celebration of Easter. See V. Loi, “Quartodecimans,” in EEC, 728. †95 are so called because they celebrate Easter only on the fourteenth day of the lunar month, no matter what day of the week it might be. Even if it should be a Sunday, they fast and keep vigil on that day. Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 4: PG 42, 864: HD II, 211-212: “50. The Tessarescedecatites are those who celebrate the Paschal Feast on a fixed day of the year, on whichever day the fourteenth day of the lunar month falls. Whether it is on the Sabbath or on the Lord's day, they fast and keep vigil on that day.” †96
XXX. The Alogi Epiphanius labelled various opponents of the writings of Saint John as the Alogi; they were probably to be found in the West rather than in Asia Minor. See A. Grillmeier, “Aloger,” in LTK I, 363. †97 are so called on the grounds that they are “the Word-less,” λόγος being Greek for the Word, since they refuse to accept God the Word. They reject the Gospel of John and do not accept his Apocalypse either; they deny that these are his writings. Epiphanius, Anaceph II, i, 5: PG 42, 864: HD II, 212: “51. The Alogi are called that by us; they reject the Gospel of John and in it God the Word who is always born from the Father above. They reject not merely the gospel according to John, but also the Apocalypse.” See also Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LX, 2: CCL 9, 242. †98
XXXI. The Adamians The Adamians or Adamites were an heretic sect that believed that they were the true Adam and Eve and that their church was paradise. See F. Cocchini, “Adamitae (Adamiani),” in EEC, 10. †99 are named after Adam. They imitate the naked state which was his in paradise before the sin. In accord with this, they are opposed to marriages, because Adam did not have relations with his wife before he sinned or before he was dismissed from paradise. Hence, they believe that there would not have been marriages, if no one had sinned. Accordingly, men and women assemble naked; they listen to the readings naked; they celebrate the sacraments naked. And for this reason they think their church is paradise. Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 6: PG 42, 864-865: HD II, 212: “52. The Adamians are called Adamizers by some. Their doctrine is more of a joke than the truth, for men and women come together as naked as they came from their mothers' wombs, and in that condition they do the readings and prayers and the rest. They live as monks and practice continence, and they do not admit marriage. Hence, they regard their church as paradise.” †100
XXXII. At this point in the order he follows, Epiphanius mentions the Elcesaeans and the Sampsaeans. The Elkesaites were a Judaeo-Christian gnostic sect whose origin goes back to the early years of the second century. Though a man named Elxai (Elci) is often mentioned in connection with a book of revelations, the name is generally interpreted as referring to that book as the book of hidden power. Other sources indicate that Mani, the founder of the Manichaeans, had been an Elkesaite and even their head. See A. F. J. Klijn, “Elkesaites,” in EEC, 269-270. †101 He says that they were deceived by a certain false prophet named Elci. Epiphanius claims that they adored as goddesses two women from Elci's family. They held other doctrines like those of the Ebionites. Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 7: PG 42, 865: HD II, 212: “53. The Sampsaeans, who are also called Elcesaeans, still live in Arabia, the land situated beyond the Dead Sea. They were deceived by Elcesaeus, a certain false prophet, from whose family there now exist two women, Marthous and Marthana, whom that heresy worships as goddesses. They hold almost the same doctrines as the Ebionites.” †102
XXXIII. The Theodotians, founded by a certain Theodotion, Theodotus of Byzantium, called the Tanner, came to Rome around 190, where he taught a version of adoptionism. He held that Christ was merely a man, in order to mitigate the gravity of his apostasy. See “Theodotus of Byzantium,” in EEC, 830. †103 claimed that Christ was a mere man. It is said that Theodotion taught this, because he fell away in the persecution and thought that he could in this way avoid the disgrace of his fall, if he were thought to have denied not God, but a man. Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 8: PG 42, 865: HD II, 212: “54. The Theodotians are named after Theodotion, the tanner from Byzantium. He was outstanding for his Greek education. He was with others during the time of the persecution, but he alone fell away, when the rest were martyrs. Because he was reproached, he came up with the idea of saying that Christ was a mere man so that he might not be subject to the charge of denying God. He taught this.” †104
XXXIV. The Melchizedekians The Melchizedekians were a sect or group of sects which developed from heterodox speculations portraying Melchizedek as a heavenly power superior to Christ or even identifying him with the Holy Spirit. See C. Gianotto, “Melchiczedek, Melchizedekians,” in EEC, 550. †105 think that Melchizedek, the priest of God on high, See Gn 14:18. †106 was not a man, but is a power of God. Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 9: PG 42, 865: HD II, 212: “55. The Melchizedekians venerate Melchizedek and say that he was a power and not a mere man; they have ventured to refer everything to the name of this man.” See also Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LII: CCL 9, 239: “After these [i.e., the Theodotians], others who withdrew from them said similar things. They also say that Melchizedek, the priest, is a great power of God….” †107
XXXV. The Bardesanists The Bardesanists were heretical followers of Bardesanes (154-222), a poet and philosopher in Edessa, who is considered to be the creator of Syriac Christian literature. What heretical doctrines he held, if any, is at present an open question. See R. Lavenant, “Bardesanes,” in EEC, 110. †108 are named after a certain Bardesanes. He is said to have first been outstanding in Christian doctrine, but then later he fell into the heresy of Valentinus, though not in all respects. Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 10: PG 42, 865: HD II, 212-213: “56. Bardesanists. This Bardesanes came from Mesopotamia; he first belonged to the true faith and was distinguished in wisdom. Having left the truth, he taught almost the same thing as Valentinus, except for some few things on which he differed from Valentinus.” †109
XXXVI. The Noetians Noetus of Smyrna was the first to teach the doctrine of the Patripassians at the end of the second century. See M. Simonetti, “Noetus of Smyrna,” in EEC, p. 599. †110 are named after a certain Noetus who said that Christ is identical with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 11: PG 42, 865: HD II, 213: “57. The Noetians. This Noetus was from Smyrna in Asia. Exalted with pride along with certain others, he taught that Christ is the Father-Son and that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are the same. He claimed that he himself was Moses and that his brother was Aaron.” †111
XXXVII. The Valesians The Valesians, named after their unknown founder, Valesius, were first mentioned by Epiphanius, who is the sole source of information on them. See G. Bareille, “Eunuques ou Valésians,” in DTC V, 1516-1521. †112 castrate themselves and their guests, supposing that they ought to serve God in this manner. They are also said to teach other heretical and shameful doctrines, though Epiphanius himself did not mention what these might be, nor have I been able to find out elsewhere. Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 12: PG 42, 865: HD II, 213: “58. The Valesians. These, as we understand, live in Bacatha which is the principal town of Philadelphia in Arabia. They castrate those who arrive there and stay with them. Most of them are eunuchs, having been castrated. They teach other things full of heresy, rejecting the Law and the Prophets and introducing certain other shameful practices.” †113
XXXVIII. The Cathari The Cathari, or “the pure” from the Greek katharoi, were the followers of Novatian, a third century Roman priest, who denied reconciliation under any condition to those who had fallen away in the time of persecution. His schismatic church continued to exist in Rome until almost the middle of the fifth century and in Africa even later. See H. J. Vogt, “Novatian,” and R. J. De Simone, “Novatianists,” in EEC, 603-604. †114 call themselves by that name with hateful pride on the pretext of their purity. They do not allow second marriages and reject penance. They follow the heretical Novatus, and for this reason they are also called Novatians. Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 13: PG 42, 868: HD II, 213: “59. The Carthari are those who joined Novatus of Rome. They completely forbid second marriages, and they do not allow penance.” †115
XXXIX. The Angelics Apart from the mention of these heretics by Epiphanius, virtually nothing is known about them. In his Panarion 60, Epiphanius himself admits to knowing almost nothing about them; there he also suggests that they may have received their name from a belief that the angels created the world. See A. Lehaut, “Angeliques,” in DTC II, 58. †116 are those who turned to the worship of angels. Epiphanius states that they have now completely ceased to exist. Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 14: PG 42, 868: HD II, 213: “60. The Angelics. These have completely died out. But they boasted that they had an angelic rank or that they were named after the angels.” †117
XL. The Apostolics The Apostolics were a heretical group in Asia Minor during the fourth century; Epiphanius links them with the Encratites, Cathars, and Novatianists. See G. Ladocsi, “Apostolici,” in EEC, 63. †118 are those who call themselves by this name with great
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arrogance, because they do not admit into their communion those living a married life and those possessing private property. The Catholic Church has many monks and clerics who live like that. But these people are heretics, because they separate themselves from the Church and think that those who make use of the things they forgo have no hope. They are like the Encratites, for they too are called Apotactites. Like the Encratites, they were called Apotactites, because they renounced marriage and all property.
†119 But they are also said to teach some other heretical doctrines of their own. Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 15: PG 42, 868: HD II, 213: “61. The Apostolics, who are also called Apotactites, are found near Pisidia. They admit only Apotactites, and they pray by themselves. They are very much like the Encratites, but they hold some views different from theirs.”
†120
XLI. The Sabellians The Sabellians are named after Sabellius who was condemned around 220 at Rome by Callistus for teaching patripassian monarchism. See M. Simonetti, “Patripassians” and “Sabellius—Sabellianism,” in EEC, 653-654 and 748-749. †121 are said to be derived from that Noetus we mentioned above. Some hold that Sabellius was even his disciple. I fail to see why Epiphanius counts them as two heresies, since we see that it was possible that this Sabellius was better known and, for that reason, the heresy took its more common name from him. It is difficult for one to get knowledge about the Noetians, but many speak about the Sabellians. Some also call them Praxeans after Praxeas, and they could be named Hermogenians from Hermogenes; Praxeas and Hermogenes are said to have held the same views in Africa. Augustine is following Philaster on this point; see note 124 for the text. †122 Still these are not many sects, but many names for one sect, derived from those who were best known in it, just as the Donatists are the same as the Parmenianists and the Pelagians the same as the Caelestians.
I have not been able to discover with clarity why it is that the above-mentioned bishop, Epiphanius, has listed the Noetians and the Sabellians, not as two names of one heresy, but as two heresies. If they differ in any way from each other, he stated it so obscurely, perhaps out of the desire for brevity, that I miss the point. Here in the same place as we do, he mentions the Sabellians quite far apart from the Noetians. He says, “The Sabellians held views similar to Noetus except that they say that the Father did not suffer.” Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 16: PG 42, 868: HD II, 213: “62. The Sabellians held views similar to Noetus except that they say that the Father did not suffer.” †123 How can one make sense of this in the case of the Sabellians? After all, they were known to say that the Father suffered so that they are more frequently called the Patripassians than the Sabellians. He may have wanted us to understand the words, “except that they say that the Father did not suffer,” as referring to the Noetians. But who can differentiate between them, given such ambiguity? Or how can we understand any of them to say that the Father did not suffer, since they say that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one and the same?
Philaster, the bishop of Brescia, in the very long book which he wrote on heresies, judged the number of heresies to be one hundred and twenty-eight, and he put the Sabellians immediately after the Noetians. He says, “Sabellius, his disciple, exactly followed the pattern of his teacher; hence, they were later called Sabellians as well as Patripassians. They were called Praxeans after Praxeas and Hermogenians after Hermogenes; these latter lived in Africa and were expelled from the Catholic Church for holding such beliefs.” Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LIV: CCL 9, 239-240: “After him [i.e., Noetus], Sabellius from Lybia, his disciple, exactly followed the pattern and error of his teacher. Hence, they were afterward called Sabellians as well as Patripassians. They were also called Praxeans after Praxeas and Hermogenes; these latter lived in Africa and were expelled from the Catholic Church for holding such views.” †124 Certainly, Philaster said that those who held the same positions as Noetus were later called Sabellians, and he mentioned other names of the same sect. And yet he listed the Noetians
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and the Sabellians under two numbers as if they were two heresies; whatever his reason for doing so, it is his concern.
XLII. The Origenists Epiphanius is the sole authority for the existence of this sect, and he seems skeptical about the reports on it which he has received. See his Panarion 63. †125 were named after a certain Origen, not the one who is known by almost everyone, but someone else. Speaking of him or his followers, Epiphanius says, “The Origenists, followers of a certain Origen, perform a shameful action; they do unspeakable things and hand their bodies over to corruption.” Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 17: PG 42, 868: HD II, 213: “63. The Origenists, followers of a certain Origen, perform a shameful action; they do unspeakable things and hand their bodies over to corruption.” †126
XLIII. But immediately adding the other Origenists, The second group of Origenists are the followers of the great exegete, theologian, teacher of the Eastern church, Origen of Alexandria. Origen himself was certainly not a heretic, though his injudicious followers and systematizers did find in his writings theses which were objectionable and which led to the first Origenist controversy at the end of the fourth century. For more on Origenism and the first Origenist controversy, see the introduction to Augustine's To Orosius in Refutation of the Priscillianists and Origenists. See also H. Crouzel, “Origen” and “Origenism” in EEC, 619-624. †127 he says, “The other Origenists, who follow the Adamantine Commentator, reject the resurrection of the dead. They make Christ and the Holy Spirit creatures and treat as allegories paradise, the heavens, and everything else.” Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 18: PG XLII, 868: HD II, 214: “64. The other Origenians, who follow the Adamantine Commentator, reject the resurrection of the dead. They make Christ and the Holy Spirit creatures and treat as allegories paradise, the heavens, and everything else. They say in their madness that the kingdom of Christ will have an end.” Epiphanius was strongly opposed to Origen's teaching in the first Origenist controversy at the end of the fourth century; hence, he is hardly an unbiased witness. †128 That is what Epiphanius says of Origen. But those who defend him say that he taught that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit have one and the same substance and that he did not reject the resurrection of the dead, although those who have read many of his works strive to prove him wrong even on these points.
But there are other teachings of this Origen which the Catholic Church does not accept at all. On these matters, the Church does not accuse him falsely, nor can she be deceived by his defenders, especially concerning the rational creature's purification, liberation, and return to the same evils again after a long time. What Catholic Christian, whether learned or unlearned, would not deeply abhor what he calls the purification of the evil? For, he claims that those who have ended this life in the greatest possible outrages, crimes, sacrileges, and impieties—even the devil and his angels—are restored to the kingdom of God and to the light, having been purified and liberated after a very long time. And he also holds that, again after a very long time, all those who were liberated fall back and return to these evils. He held that these alternating states of beatitude and misery always have been and always will be the lot of the rational creature. With regard to this most foolish impiety I have carefully argued in the books, The City of God, against the philosophers from whom Origen learned these things. See The City of God XXI, 17. Though Jerome attributed to Origen the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, there is no textual evidence in Origen that he actually held such a position. Indeed, there is evidence that he did not. †129
XLIV. The Paulians, The Paulinians were followers of Paul of Samosata in Syria. See F. Cocchini, “Paulinians,” in EEC, 660. Paul of Samosata was a bishop of Antioch deposed by the Council of Antioch in 268. He taught a monarchianism of an adoptionist sort. See M. Simonetti, “Paul of Samosata,” in EEC, 663. †130 after Paul of Samosata, say that Christ did not always exist. Rather, they claim that he began to be when he was born of Mary. They do not think that he is anything more than a man. Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, 1: PG 42, 868: HD III, 1: “65. Paul of Samosata was bishop of Antioch the Great. He all but said that Christ did not subsist, claiming that he was the sort of word that is uttered orally and that he began to be from Mary. He said that Christ had things spoken prophetically about him in the holy scriptures, when he did not exist, but that he began to be from Mary and from the time of his presence in the flesh.” †131 This heresy at one time was held by a certain Artemon, Artemon was an adoptionist heretic in Rome around 235. See E. Prinzivalli, “Artemon or Artemas,” in EEC, 83. †132 but when he died, it was taken up by Paul and then afterward strengthened by Photinus For Photinus, see the following number. †133 so that they are more frequently called Photinians than Paulians. The Council of Nicaea decreed that these Paulians must definitely be baptized in the Catholic Church. The nineteenth canon of the Council of Nicaea rejected their baptisms and ordinations and ordered that they be repeated for those who returned to the Catholic Church; see DS 128. †134 Hence, one must believe that they do not have the correct form of baptism which many heretics took with them when they left the Catholic Church and which they still observe.
XLV. Epiphanius did not list Photinus Photinus, bishop of Sirmium (Pannonia), was a disciple of Marcellus of Ancyra. He was deposed from his bishopric in 351, returned in 362, and was later expelled again. He held a rigid monarchianism and adoptionism and was linked, on those grounds, with Paul of Samosata. See M. Simonetti, “Photinus of Sirmium,” in EEC, 685-686. †135 immediately after Paul or with Paul, but after having mentioned some others. He, of course, does not fail to mention
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that he held beliefs similar to those of Paul. Still, he says that he was opposed to him on some point, without mentioning what that point was. Epiphanius, Anaceph. III, i, 2: PG 42, 869: HD III, 230: “71. The Photinians. This Photinus, who was born in Sirmium, has survived up to the present time. He held the same positions as Paul of Samosata, They differ from him in some respect. They also claim that Christ began to be from Mary.”
†136 Philaster, on the other hand, lists both of them, one after the other, under their own individual numbers as if they were two heresies, though he says that Photinus followed the teaching of Paul in every respect. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LV: CCL 9, 244: “After him [i.e., Paul], Photinus, following his teaching in every respect, preached similar views. Because he persevered in this misrepresentation, he was thrown out of the church of the city of Sirmium, after he lost out to the holy bishops.”
†137
XLVI. 1. The Manichees Saint Augustine was himself a “hearer” in the Manichaean sect for some nine years prior to his conversion and baptism in 386. Hence, his knowledge of the beliefs and practices of the Manichees is direct and not dependent upon Epiphanius. For a general introduction to Mani and Manichaeism, see C. Riggi and A. Di Berardino, “Mani—Manichees—Manichaeism,” in EEC, 519-520. †138 were started by a Persian called Manis. When his insane teaching began to be preached in Greece, his disciples, preferred to call him Manichaeus to avoid the word for insanity. The Greek manis or mania means wrath or madness. †139 Hence, some of them, pretending to be more learned and, thereby, greater liars, call him Mannicheus with a double N, as if he were one pouring forth manna. That is, they allegedly derived the name from the Greek words for “manna” (manna) and “pour” (cheo). †140
2. This fellow devised two principles different from and opposed to each other and said that they are eternal and coeternal, that is, always existing. Following other older heretics, Though many moderns view Manichaeism as a distinct world religion, Augustine always took it to be a Christian heresy. The syncretist tendencies of Manichaeism led them to incorporate many Christian elements into their beliefs and worship; moreover, Mani himself seems to have come from a Judaeo-Christian Elkesaite family. †141 he thought that there were two natures or substances, namely, the good and the evil. In accord with their teachings, they held that there was a battle between the good and the evil, a mutual mingling of them, a purification of the good from the evil, and the eternal damnation, along with the evil, of the good that could not be purified. They composed many myths, and it would take too long to include all of them in this work.
3. As a result of these foolish and wicked myths of theirs, they are forced to say that the good souls are of the same nature as God, and they think that they need to be freed from being mixed with the bad souls that are, of course, of the opposite nature.
4. Accordingly, they admit that the world was made by the nature of the good, that is, by the nature of God, but out of that mixture of good and evil that was produced when the two natures fought each other.
5. They say that this purification and liberation of good from evil is produced not only by the powers of God through the whole world and out of all its elements, but also by their Elect through the foods they consume. They hold that the substance of God is mixed in with those foods, as it is with the whole world. They think that the substance of God is purified in their Elect by the kind of life the Manichaean Elect live, as though they lived more holily and excellently than their Hearers. For they wanted their church to be composed of these two ranks, that is, the Elect and the Hearers.
6. They think that the part of the good and divine substance that is held mixed with and bound in food and drink is bound more tightly and with greater defilement in other human beings, even in their Hearers, and especially in those who generate offspring. But they think that whatever light is fully purified is returned to the kingdom of God, as if to its proper abode, by certain ships which they maintain are the sun and the moon. They hold that these ships are likewise made from the pure substance of God.
7. They say that this bodily light that lies before the eyes of mortal animals
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is the nature of God, not only in these ships where they believe it is most pure, but also in certain other bright things where, according to them, it is held mixed up and in need of purification. They assign to the nation of darkness five elements that have generated their own rulers, and they call those elements by these names: smoke, darkness, fire, water and wind. In smoke there were born the two-footed animals, from whom they suppose human beings drew their origin; in darkness the reptiles; in fire the quadrupeds; in water the swimming things; and in the wind the things that fly. To subdue these five evil elements another five elements were sent from the kingdom and substance of God, and in that battle air was mixed with smoke, light with darkness, good fire with bad fire, good water with bad water, and good wind with bad wind. They distinguish those ships, that is, the two luminaries of the sky, so that they say that the moon is made from the good water and that the sun is made from the good fire.
8. They hold that there are in those ships holy powers that transform themselves into males in order to attract females of the opposing nation and also into females to attract males from the same opposing nation. And when their desire is aroused through this enticement, it puts to flight from them the light which they held commingled with their members, and it is taken up to be purified by the angels of light. Once it has been purified, it is placed on those ships to be carried to the proper kingdoms.
9. On this account, or rather as a requisite of the detestable superstition, their elect are forced to eat a eucharist of sorts, sprinkled with human seed so that the divine substance might also be purified from it as from the other foods they take. They deny that they do this and claim that others do it under the name of the Manichees. Nonetheless, when you were already a deacon, they were found out in a church in Carthage, as you know. At the insistence of Ursus the tribune, who was then in charge of the imperial court, some were charged. Then a girl, by the name of Margarite, exposed this wicked shamefulness; although she was not yet twelve years old, she said that she was violated on account of this wicked ritual. Then he compelled with difficulty a certain Eusebia, a Manichaean nun, as it were, to confess that she had suffered the same thing for this reason, for she had initially claimed that she was intact and demanded to be examined by a midwife. After she was examined and the facts were discovered, even though she was absent and did not hear the charges brought by Margarite, she likewise brought charges against the whole shameful wickedness in which wheat was spread underneath to catch and mingle with the seed of those having intercourse. And in recent times some of those who were discovered and brought to the church, as the episcopal records which you sent us reveal, confessed, under careful interrogation, this outrageous rite, not a sacred one. The pun in Latin of exsecramentum with sacramentum cannot be reproduced in English. †142
10. One of them, Viator by name, said that those who do this are properly called Catharists. He claimed that other parts of this Manichaean sect are divided
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into Mattarians See Answer to Faustus V, 5; “Hence, those who were determined to persist in the [Manichaean ascetical practices] separated themselves from your company, and because they sleep on mats (in mattis), they are called mattarii. Far different from these were the feathers and goat-skinned blankets of Faustus, and with the abundance of such luxuries he showed his aversion not only for the Mattarii, but also for the home of his own father, a poor citizen of Milevis.”
†143 and Manichaeans in the narrower sense. But he could not deny that all three of these forms were started by one founder and that all are Manichaeans in the wider sense. Certainly those books are, beyond any doubt, common to all Manichaeans, and in those books all those monstrous tales have been written about the transformation of males into females and of females into males for attracting and releasing through lust the princes and princesses of darkness so that the divine substance held captive in them might be set free and escape from them. This is the source from which has stemmed that shameful practice which some of them have denied has anything to do with them. For they think that they imitate the divine powers as far as possible in order to purify part of their God, and they suppose that part of God is held defiled in human seed just as it is in all heavenly and earthly bodies and in the seeds of all things. And thus it follows that they are obliged to purify part of their god from human seed by eating it, just as from the other seeds which they consume in foods. As a result, they are called Catharists, on the grounds that they are purifiers, since they purify part of God with such great diligence that they are not kept back from the horrid shamefulness of such food.
11. They do not eat meat on the grounds that the divine substance has fled from what has died or has been killed and there remains the sort of stuff that is no longer worth purifying in the belly of the Elect. They do not even consume eggs on the grounds that, when they are broken, they die, and they are not supposed to eat any lifeless bodies. Only that product of flesh is alive which is picked up by flour so that it does not die. They do not even use milk as nourishment, although it is squeezed or sucked from the living body of an animal, not because they think that there is nothing of the divine substance mingled in it, but because their error is not consistent with itself. For they also do not drink wine, claiming that it is the bile of the princes of darkness, though they eat grapes. Nor do they take any unfermented or very new wine.
12. They think that the souls of their Hearers return in the Elect or, by a happier shortcut, in the food of their Elect so that, purified from it, they do not return in any bodies. But they think that other souls return in cattle and in all the things which are rooted in and draw their food from the earth. They suppose that plants and trees are alive. They believe that the life which is in them has sensations and feels pain when it is injured, and they suppose that nothing can be plucked or picked without its suffering pain. For this reason, they regard it as a terrible wrong to clear a field of thorns. Hence, in their madness they accuse agriculture, which is the most innocent of all the arts, of being guilty of multiple murders. They think that their Hearers are forgiven these murders, because they offer nourishment to their Elect so that the divine substance, once purified in their bellies, might obtain pardon for those who by their offering hand it over for purification. And so, the Elect do no work in the fields, neither picking fruit
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nor plucking any greens, and they wait for these things to be brought by their Hearers for their use, living by means of so many great murders, according to their vain teaching. They also warn those same Hearers of theirs that, if they eat meat, they should not kill the animals, lest they offend the princes of darkness bound up in the heavenly beings, from whom they say all flesh draws its origin.
13. If they have intercourse with their wives, they avoid conception and generation so that the divine substance, which enters into them through food, is not tied by carnal bonds in their offspring. They believe that souls enter all flesh in that way, that is, through food and drink. For this reason, they condemn marriages without any hesitation and forbid them to the extent that they can, when they forbid generation, which is the reason why spouses are joined in marriage.
14. They claim that Adam and Eve had the princes of smoke as their parents. Their father, Saclas by name, devoured the offspring of all his companions, and the mixture of the divine substance that resulted, he bound in the flesh of his children, as if by the tightest bond, when he slept with his wife.
15. They state that Christ was the one whom our scripture calls the serpent, and they say that they were enlightened by him so that they opened their eyes of knowledge and distinguished good and evil. They say that Christ came in recent times to liberate souls, not bodies, and that he did not come in real flesh, but bore a simulated appearance of flesh to deceive human senses. Thus he made a lie not only of his death, but also of his resurrection. They say that the God who gave the Law through Moses and spoke through the Hebrew prophets was not the true God, but one of the princes of darkness. They even read the scriptures of the New Testament as if they were falsified, accepting what they like from them and rejecting what they do not like. They also prefer some apocryphal writings to them on the pretext that they contained the whole truth.
16. They say that the promise of our Lord Jesus Christ concerning the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, See Jn 16:7. †144 was fulfilled in the founder of their heresy, Manichaeus. Hence, he calls himself in his letters an apostle of Jesus Christ, on the grounds that Jesus Christ promised that he would send the Holy Spirit and has sent the Holy Spirit in him. For this reason, Manichaeus himself had twelve disciples to match the number of the apostles. Even today the Manichees preserve that number, for they have twelve of their Elect whom they call teachers and a thirteenth whom they call their leader. They have seventy-two bishops who are ordained by the teachers, and they have an indefinite number of priests who are ordained by the bishops. The bishops also have deacons. The rest are merely called the Elect. But they too are sent, if they seem suited, to preserve and increase this error, where it exists, or to sow its seeds where it does not yet exist.
17. They claim that baptism in water brings salvation to no one, nor do they think that any of those whom they deceive should be baptized.
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18. They make their prayers to the sun by day, wherever it is in its course, and to the moon by night, if it appears. If it does not appear, they pray toward the north by which the sun returns to the east when it has set. They pray standing.
19. They attribute the origin of sins, not to the free choice of the will, but to the substance of the opposing nation which they teach was mingled with human beings. They hold that all flesh is the work, not of God, but of the evil mind which is coeternal with God, but from the contrary principle. They say that the concupiscence of the flesh, by which the flesh lusts against the spirit, See Gal 5:17. †145 is not a weakness present in us as a result of the nature that was vitiated in the first man. Rather, they insist that it is the contrary substance adhering to us in such a way that, when we are set free and purified, it is separated from us and it too lives immortally in its own nature. They say that these two souls, or two minds, one good, the other bad, are in conflict in a single human being, when the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. This defect is not, as we say, healed in us as something that will not exist at all. Rather, when this age has come to an end and the world has been destroyed in fire, this evil substance, once removed and separated from us, will live forever in a globular mass, as if in an everlasting prison. They claim there will always come and adhere to this mass, like a cloak and cover, some of the souls that are good by nature, but which could not, nonetheless, be cleansed from the contamination of the evil nature.
XLVII. The Hieracites, The Hieracites were followers of Hieracas of Leontopolis, one of the founders of Egyptian monasticism in the late third and fourth centuries. He was accused of holding Origenist views on the pre-existence of souls and the resurrection of the body. See P. Nautin, “Hieracas of Leontopolis,” in EEC, 380. †146 whose author is called Hieracas, deny the resurrection of the flesh. They admit into their communion only monks and nuns and those without spouses. They say that little children do not belong to the kingdom of heaven, because they do not have any merits from the struggle of overcoming vices. Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, ii, 3: PG 42, 868-869: HD III, 1-2: “67. The Hieracites stem from Hieracas, a teacher from Leontopolis, a city in Egypt. They reject the resurrection of the flesh, but use the Old and the New Testaments. They absolutely forbid marriage. They admit monks and virgins and the continent and widows. They say that children who are not yet grown up have no share in the kingdom, since they have not yet faced the struggle.” †147
XLVIII. The Melitians, The Melitians were a schismatic group formed in Alexandria after the last persecution in Egypt (303-312). In response to the moderation shown by Peter of Alexandria with regard to those who fell away during the persecution of Diocletian, Melitius advocated a more rigorous approach and began to ordain bishops to fill the sees left vacant as a result of the persecution. See M. Simonetti, “Melitius of Lycopolis, Melitian schism,” in EEC, 551. †148 named after Melitus, were unwilling to pray with those who have returned to the faith, that is, with those who had fallen away in the persecution, and thus created a schism. Now, however, they are said to have joined the Arians. Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, ii, 4: PG 42, 869: HD III, 2: “68. The Melitians were a schism in Egypt, not a heresy. They did not pray together with those who fell away in the persecution; now they have joined the Arians.” †149
XLIX. The Arians, Arius was an Alexandrian priest whose ideas about the Trinity gave rise to Arianism, one of the most important heresies of the early Church. For Arius and Arianism, see the introduction to the Debate with Maximinus, as well as M. Simonetti, “Arius—Arians—Arianism,” in EEC, 76-78. †150 named after Arius, are well known for their error of denying that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are of one and the same nature and substance or, to be more precise, essence, which is called οὐσία in Greek. Rather, they maintain that the Son is a creature and that the Holy Spirit is a creature of a creature. They are less well known, however, for having thought that Christ assumed flesh alone without a soul, nor have I found that anyone has ever opposed them on this point. But Epiphanius has not failed to mention that this is the case, and I myself have certainly found it in various of their writings and discussions. We know that they rebaptize Catholics; I do not know whether they rebaptize non-Catholics as well. Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, ii, 5: PG 42, 869: HD III, 2: “69. The Arians, or Areiomanites, say that the Son of God is a creature and that the Holy Spirit is a creature of a creature. They claim that Christ the Savior received only flesh from Mary and not a soul. This Arius was a priest of Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria.” †151
L. Those whom Epiphanius calls Audians The Audians were a rigorist monastic sect founded by Audius of Edessa. The group seems to have been confined to Syria and Scythia; though there were anthropomorphite monks in Egypt, they should not be confused with the Audians, as Augustine seems to have done. See T. Orlandi, “Audiani,” in EEC, p. 97, as well as B. Studer, “Anthropomorphism,” in EEC, 46. †152 and whom he prefers to regard as schismatics, not heretics, others call anthropomorphites, because they picture
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for themselves in their carnal thinking God in the likeness The CCL edition has “in similitudinem imaginis corruptibilis hominis.” I have followed several manuscripts which omit “imaginis.”
†153 of a corruptible human being. Epiphanius, Anaceph. III, i, 1: PG 42, 869: HD III, 230: “70. The Audians are a rebellion and a schism, but not a heresy. They have a well-ordered manner of living. In every respect they have the same faith as the Catholic Church, but most of them live in monasteries. They make excessive use of many apocryphal books. They do not join us in prayer; they blame our bishops, calling them rich men and calling others different names. They celebrate Easter in their own way at the time when the Jews celebrate it. They have one peculiar point of contention, namely, they interpret 'in God's image' rigidly.” See also Pseudo-Jerome, Indiculus XXIV, 36: PL 81, 642: “The Anthropomorphites say that God is marked off with the same shapes of the members as those which make up a human being, and they think that God is like a human being in terms of this image which we bear” (see Gn 1:26).
†154 Epiphanius attributes this to their lack of sophistication, sparing them from being called heretics. But he says that they withdrew from communion with us, because they found fault with wealthy bishops and celebrated Easter with the Jews. Still, there are some who claim that they are in communion with the Catholic Church in Egypt. I have already said enough above concerning the Photinians that Epiphanius mentions at this point.
LI. Epiphanius calls those who say the Son is of a like essence with the Father Semiarians, Epiphanius and, after him, Philaster and Augustine, refer to those who preferred the term homoiousios to the Nicene homoousios as Semiarians. M. Simonetti calls the term “tendentious” and claims that it rests upon “a too simplistic identification of anti-Arian orthodoxy with the Nicene theology” (see M. Simonetti, “Semiarians,” in EEC, 767). †155 on the grounds that they are not full Arians. After all, the Arians do not want him even to be like the Father, though the Eunomians are reputed to say this. Epiphanius, Anaceph. III, i, 4: PG 42,872: HD III, 230-231: “73. The Semiarians profess that Christ is a creature, but dissemble and say that he is not a creature like one of the other creatures. Rather, they say, 'We state that he is the Son, but we say that he is created, because no change touched the Father as a result of having generated him.' With regard to the Holy Spirit, they also profess that he is merely a creature. They reject with regard to the Son homoousios, but are willing to say homoiousios. Some of them also reject homoiousios.” †156
LII. The Macedonians The name, Macedonians, was first used to refer to the followers of Macedonius, a priest at Constantinople around 335, who became bishop in 344 when Paul was expelled. Upon Paul's return in 346 Macedonius was deprived of power until Paul was definitively banished in 350. Macedonius favored the Homoiousian group and refused to recognize the divinity of the Holy Spirit when the question arose around 360. After 380, the term came to refer to those who, while not Arians, refused to acknowledge the divinity of the Holy Spirit. See M. Simonetti, “Macedonius, Macedonians,” in EEC, 516. †157 are named after Macedonius; the Greeks call them Πνευματομάχοι: “enemies of the Spirit,” because they argue against the Holy Spirit. Pseudo-Jerome, Indiculus XXX, 42: PL 81, 642: “The Pneumatomachians are the Macedonians… they say that the Holy Spirit is not God's substance, but a creature, better than other creatures and the servant of the Father and the Son….” †158 They correctly think that the Father and the Son are of one and the same substance or essence, but they refuse to believe this concerning the Holy Spirit, since they say he is a creature. Epiphanius, Anaceph. III, i, 6: PG 42, 872: HD III, 231: “74. The Pneumatomachians. These people speak correctly of Christ, but they blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, claiming that he is a creature and not divine. Rather, through a misuse of language, they say that he was created for an activity and claim that he is merely a sanctifying power.” †159 Some prefer to call them Semiarians, because on this question they agree in part with them and in part with us, although some claim that they say that the Holy Spirit is not God, but the deity of the Father and the Son and that he has no substance of his own.
LIII. The Aerians Aerius was a priest in Pontus; he quarrelled with Eustathius when the latter was made bishop of Sebaste around 357. See F. Cocchini, “Aerius,” in EEC, 13. †160 are named after a certain Aerius. He was a priest, but he is said to have been deeply hurt, because he could not be ordained a bishop. He fell into the Arian heresy and also added some teachings of his own. He said that the sacrifice ought not to be offered for the dead and that the solemnly prescribed fasts should not be observed, but that each one should fast as he wishes so that he does not seem to be under the law. He also said that a priest should not be distinguished from a bishop in any respect. Some claim that these people, like the Encratites or Apotactites, admit to their communion only those who practice continence and those who have so renounced the world that they have no possessions of their own. Epiphanius says that they do not abstain from eating meat, but Philaster credits them with such abstinence. Epiphanius, Anaceph. III, i, 6: PG 42, 872: HD III, 231: “75. The Aerians. This Aerius was born in Pontus and still survives as a trial for this life. He was a priest of bishop Eustathius who was accused of being an Arian. When this Aerius was not made bishop, he taught many things against the Church. In terms of his faith, he was a complete Arian, but he also taught other opinions. He says that one should not offer sacrifice for the dead; he forbids fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, during Lent, and on Good Friday. He preaches renunciation, but indulges in eating meat and every luxury. If one of his disciples wants to fast, he says that he should not do this on the appointed days, but whenever he wishes. For you are not under the law (See Rom 6:14). He claims that a bishop is no better than a priest.” See also Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LXXII, 1-2: CCL 9, 247: “The Aerians are other heretics; they are named after a certain Aerius. They practice abstinence, and most of them live in the province of Pamphilia. They do not own anything and hate the foods which God gave to the human race with a blessing. They also condemn lawful marriages, saying that they were not instituted by God.” †161
LIV. The Aetians were named after Aetius, Aetius of Antioch, a Syria-born proponent of radical Arianism, was condemned by the Council of Constantinople in 360 and died around 365. See M. Simonetti, “Aetius of Antioch,” in EEC, 13. †162 and the same people were called Eunomians after Eunomius, Aetius' disciple. Eunomius of Cyzicus, a native of Cappadocia and disciple of Aetius, was the greatest proponent of radical Arianism. He died around 394, after being exiled in 383. See M. Simonetti, “Eunomius of Cyzicus,” in EEC, 297. †163 They are better known by the latter name. For Eunomius, who was a powerful dialectician, defended this heresy with greater cleverness and popularity, claiming that the Son was unlike the Father in every respect and that the Holy Spirit was unlike the Son. He is also said to have been hostile to good morals to such an extent that he asserted that the commission of and perseverance in any sins whatever were no obstacle to anyone, if he shared the faith which Eunomius stated. Epiphanius, Anaceph. III, i, 7: PG 42, 873: HD III, 231-232: “76. The Aetians. These people began with Aetius, a Cilician, who was ordained a deacon by George, the Arian bishop of Alexandria. They are called Anomoians, but some call them Eunomians on account of Eunomus, who was a disciple of Aetius and is still living. Eudoxius was teaching Arian doctrines along with them, but then out of fear of the emperor Constantius, he withdrew from them, and Aetius alone was exiled. Eudoxius continued to teach Arian doctrines, but not as a follower of Aetius. These Anomoians, or Aetians, completely separate Christ and the Holy Spirit from God. They say that Christ is created and bears no likeness to God. With Aristotelian and geometrical syllogisms, they try to arrive at God the Father and in the same way to show that Christ cannot come from God. Those called Eunomians after him baptize again all those who join them, even the Arians. But they baptize only the head, having turned those who are baptized upside down, as the reports have it. They say it is nothing if someone falls through fornication or some other sin. For they say that God only asks that one remain in their faith alone.” †164
LV. Apollinaris Apollinaris of Laodicea was an outstanding theologian, exegete, polemicist, and man of letters in the fourth century. Though originally a defender of the Council of Nicaea, he broke with the Church in 375 and founded his own. See C. Kannengiesser, “Apollinaris of Laodicea, Apollinarianism,” in EEC, 58-59. †165 founded the Apollinarists who disagreed with the Catholic faith regarding the soul of Christ. They said, as did the Arians, that God in Christ assumed flesh alone without a soul. When they were refuted on this point by
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testimonies from the gospel, they said that the soul of Christ was lacking a mind which makes the human soul rational and that the Word itself took its place in the soul. They are reported to have differed from the true faith concerning his flesh so that they said that the flesh and the Word were of one and the same substance. They claimed in their contentiousness that the Word became flesh, that is, that the Word itself was converted and changed into flesh, but not flesh taken from the flesh of Mary. Epiphanius, Anaceph. III, ii, 1: PG 42, 873: HD III, 415: “77. The Dimoerites are also called Apollinarists; they do not profess the complete incarnation of Christ. Some of them dared to say that the body is of the same substance as the divinity. Others of them denied that Christ ever assumed a soul. Still others, relying on the words, 'The Word became flesh,' said that he did not take his fleshly existence from created flesh, that is, from Mary. Merely out of contentiousness, they said that the Word had been changed into flesh. Later, they said that he did not assume a mind, though I do not know what they were thinking of.” The name, Dimoerites, refers to the fact that they admitted only two of the three elements in Christ.
†166
LVI. Those heretics were called Antidicomarites The Antidicomarianites, that is, the opponents of Mary, were found in Arabia according to Epiphanius; see his Panarion 78. See also F. Cocchini, “Antidicomarianitae,” in EEC, 47. †167 who denied the virginity of Mary to the point that they claim that after the birth of Christ she had intercourse with her husband. Epiphanius, Anaceph. III, ii, 2: PG 42, 873: HD III, 415: “78. The Antidicomarianites are those who say that the holy and ever-virgin Mary had relations with Joseph after she had given birth to the Savior.” †168
LVII. In last place, Epiphanius lists the heresy of the Massalinans; The Euchites, or the Messalians, whose names mean “men of prayer” in Greek and Syrian respectively, were denounced around 360 and 374 for their rejection of work and discipline. See J. Gribomont, “Messalians,” in EEC, p. 556. †169 this name is derived from the Syrian language. In Greek they are called the Εὐχίτλι; thus they get their name from praying. For they pray so much that it seems incredible to those who hear this of them. The Lord said, It is necessary to pray always and not to stop (Lk 18:1), and the apostle said, Pray without ceasing (1 Thes 5:7). A sound interpretation of this means that we should not omit certain times of prayer on any day. But these people pray to such an excess that people have judged that they should, on this account, be included among the heretics.
Some also say that they tell fantastic and ridiculous tales about the purification of souls, such as, that a sow along with piglets are seen to leave the mouth of a man when he is purified and that fire which does not burn enters into him with a visible form as well. Epiphanius links the Euphemites, Martyrians and Satanians with these and sets them all down with them as one heresy. The Euchites are said to believe that monks may not do any work to support themselves and thus profess to be monks so that they may be completely free from work. Epiphanius, Anaceph. III, ii, 4: PG XLII, 873: HD III, 415: “80. The Massalinians. In translation, their name means: those who pray. Those called the Euphemites, Martyrians, and Satanians from the heresies practiced by the pagans are linked with them.” The editor of the CCL edition points out that Augustine's source for the information not contained in Epiphanius is unknown. †170
The aforementioned Epiphanius, bishop of Cyprus, a man regarded as a teacher among the Greeks and praised by many for his holiness in the Catholic faith, carried his work on heresies up to these people. In listing the heretics, I have not followed his manner, but his order, for I have from other sources added some things that he did not have, and I have omitted some things that he did have. Hence, I have explained some points more fully than he, and I have also explained others more briefly, and in some cases I kept to the same brevity, governing everything according the demands of the plan I had in mind.
Accordingly, if from the eighty heresies he listed we set aside the twenty which he believed arose before the coming of the Lord, he put the sixty remaining after the ascension of the Lord in five short books, making a total of six books for that work of his. In accord with your request I began to list these heresies which arose after Christ was glorified against the doctrine of Christ and under the cloak of Christ's name. Hence, I have incorporated fifty-seven from Epiphanius' work into my own. I listed two as one where I could find no
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difference. Again, where he wanted to make one out of two, I listed each of them under their own numbers. But I ought also to mention those heresies I found in other authors or which I myself recall. And so, I now add those which Philaster listed and Epiphanius did not.
LVIII. Those who hold “metangismos” can be called Metangismonites. There is no other evidence apart from Philaster for the existence of such a sect. †171 They say that the Son is in the Father as one vessel is in another, as though they were carnally thinking of two bodies, so that the Son enters the Father as a smaller vessel into a larger one. Hence, this error received its name and is called μεταγγισμός in Greek. For ἀγγεῖον means “vessel” in that language, but the insertion of one vessel into another cannot be expressed by a Latin word, as it can by μεταγγισμός in Greek. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LI, 1: CCL 9, 238-239: “There are other heretics who hold 'metangismos,' that is, that the Son enters into the Father and is present like one vessel in another. They do not know what they are saying, for the Savior did not say that the Son enters into the Father, but taught on the basis of equality in divinity and power, not that he entered into or is contained by the Father… [but] that the Son is as great as the Father….” †172
LIX. The Seleucians or Hermians The Seleucians were a gnostic sect in Galatia in the second and third centuries. Apart from what Philaster and Augustine report, little is known of these heretics. See J. P. Steffes, “Seleukianer,” in LTK IX, 633. In “Hermogenes” (LTK V, 261), J. Kraus identifies the Hermias, of whom Philaster and Augustine speak, with the Hermogenes against whom Tertullian wrote. See the discussion of this question in L. G. Müller, The De Haeresibus of Saint Augustine, 188. †173 are derived from their founders, Seleucus or Hermias. They say that the matter of the elements from which the world was made was not made by God, but is coeternal with God. Nor do they attribute the soul to God as Creator, but maintain that the angels are the creators of souls out of fire and spirit. They claim that evil is at times from God, at times from matter. They deny that the Savior is seated in the flesh at the right hand of the Father, but state that he stripped himself of it and placed it on the sun, taking their clue from the Psalm: On the sun he placed his tent (Ps 18:6). They also deny a visible paradise; they do not accept baptism in water; they do not think that the resurrection is in the future, but that it occurs daily in the generation of offspring. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LV, 1.2-4.5: CCL 9, 240. In his somewhat lengthy entry, Philaster says that “they state that hyle, that is, the matter of the world is coeternal with God…. they say that the human spirit, that is, the soul was not made by God through the Son, but comes from the earth. They claim that evil is at times from God, at times from matter. They deny that the Savior is seated in the flesh at the right hand of the Father, but that he stripped himself of it and placed it on the sun, because the prophet said, In the sun he placed his tent, although they do not know what he meant. They deny a visible paradise…. They do not use baptism…. They preach that the resurrection consists in the procreation of children that takes place every day in the human race….” †174
LX. The Proclianites Apart from the information we have from Philaster, nothing is known of the Proclianites. Philastrius, Diuersarum haeresion liber LVI, 1.2: CCL 9, 240-241: “Other heretics are the disciples of these men; they are called the Proclianites and the Hermeonites…. They deny that Christ came in the flesh; they have no hope of resurrection and judgment; they do not believe that he was born of a virgin.” †175 followed these people and added that Christ had not come in the flesh.
LXI. The Patricians, The Patricians were most probably a gnostic sect founded by a Roman named Patricius. See the introduction to Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets for Harnack's suggestion that the Fabricius mentioned in that work is actually the Patricius Augustine mentions here. See also A. Di Berardino, “Patriciani,” in EEC, 653. †176 named after Patricius, say that the substance of human flesh was not created by God, but by the devil, and they think that it should be shunned and detested to the point that some of them are reported to have wanted to be set free from the flesh, even by inflicting death upon themselves. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LXII, 1-2: CCL 9, 243: “Still other heretics are the Patricians, named after a certain Patricius, who lived in the city of Rome. They claim that human flesh was not made by God, but suppose that it was made by the devil. They decree that it should even be despised and rejected in every way to the point that some of them have not hesitated deliberately to bring about their own death.” †177
LXII. The Ascitae Augustine derives the name of the Ascitae from the Greek word for wine skin. Philaster attributes similar customs to a sect that flourished in Galatia whom he calls the Ascodrugitae. Epiphanius refers to them as Tascodrugitae—a name which he explains means the same as that of the Passalorynchites; see Panarion 48.14.4 cited in the following note. See F. Cocchini, “Ascitae—Ascodrugitae,” in EEC, 84. †178 are named after wine skins, for ἀσκός means wine skin in Greek. They are reported to carry one around, inflated and open, reveling as if they were the new wine skins of the gospel filled with new wine. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LXXV, 1: CCL 9, 248: “Still others are the Ascodrugites in Galatia. They inflate a wine skin, set it down, veil it, and circle round it in their church, raving and reveling, like those pagan followers of Father Liber. They rage in their unhealthy mind like the pagans and do not understand what the Savior said, 'One should take new wine skins and put new wine in them, not in old ones'” (see Lk 5:38). †179
LXIII. The Passalorynchites The Passalorynchites may be another name for the Cataphrygians, though Philaster lists them as a separate group. In his Panarion 48.14.4, Epiphanius mentions that the Cataphrygians “are also called Tascodrugites for this reason: taskos in their language means 'peg,' and drougos means 'nostril' or 'snout,' so that from their putting their forefinger on their nostril while praying in order to display their downcast spirit and affected rectitude, they have been called by some people Tascodrugites, that is, 'peg snouts.' ”The translation is from The Panarion of Saint Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis: Selected Passages, tr. and ed. by Philip R. Amidon, S.J. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 172. †180 pursue silence to the point that they place a finger on their nose and lips so that they do not even prescribe silence with a sound, when they think that they should be silent. For that reason, this name has been given them. For πάτταλος in Greek means a stick, and ῥυγχος nose. But I do not know why they preferred to indicate the finger by “stick,” from which this name is made up, since in Greek a finger is called δάκτυλος and they could more clearly be named Dactylorynchites. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LXXVI, 1: CCL 9, 248-249: “Other heretics are the Passalorynchites. By placing a finger on their noses, mouths and lips, they practice silence at all times, devoting their energy to nothing but quiet.” Philaster adds that they do this in imitation of the prophets and cites the words of the psalmist, “Lord, put a guard on my mouth and a gate around my lips” (Ps 140:3). †181
LXIV. The Aquarians Those who used water instead of wine in the Eucharist were called Aquarians by Augustine and Philaster. Others attribute the practice to the Ebionites (Irenaeus), the Encratites (Clement), or the Tatians (Theodoret). See F. Cocchini, “Aquarii,” in EEC, 64. †182 are so named because in the cup of the sacrament they offer water instead of that which the whole Church offers. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LXXVII: CCL 9, 249: “Others are those called the Aquarians; they offer water in the heavenly sacraments, not what the catholic and apostolic church customarily offers.” †183
LXV. The Coluthians The Coluthians were a sect founded by the fourth century priest, Colluthus of Alexandria; Epiphanius mentions Colluthus in his Panarion 69, 2, 5-7 as a contemporary of Arius who taught some unspecified errors and founded a sect that did not last. Later heresiologists follow Philaster in attributing to him the doctrine that God did not create evil. See F. Scorza Barcellona, “Colluthus of Alexandria,” in EEC, 185-186. †184 were named after a certain Coluthus who, contrary
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to the words of scripture,
I am God creating evils (Is 45:7), said that God did not produce evils. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LXXIX, 1: CCL 9, 249: “Others are the Coluthians named after an Egyptian called Coluthus. They say that God is not the maker of evils.”
†185
LXVI. The Florinians Florinus was a contemporary of Irenaeus, a student with him under Polycarp at Smyrna, and later a priest in Rome, where he joined the Valentinians. Irenaeus wrote against him a letter, “On the monarchy, or that God is not the author of evil,” and asked Pope Victor to take action against him, because his writings were a threat to the faith in Gaul. See C. Gianotto, “Florinus,” in EEC, 328. Augustine follows Philaster and makes it sound as though Florinus had been a contemporary of the Coluthus mentioned in the previous entry. †186 were named after Florinus who, in opposition to those just mentioned, said that God created evils, contrary to the words of scripture, God made all things, and behold they are very good (Gn 1:31). Thus, though they said things mutually contradictory, they both were in opposition to the words of God. For God creates evil by inflicting just punishments—something that Coluthus did not see—but not by creating evil natures and substances insofar as they are natures and substances, on which point Florinus erred. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LXXIX, 1: CCL 9, 249: “On the other hand, another person opposed him and said that God is the maker of evils. And he too was a heretic as well, and as the two of them were carried away by their foolish argument, they had no knowledge of the power of reason.” Philaster does not mention Florinus, but goes on to show that Amos says, “If there is evil in the city, God did not make it” (Am 3:6) and then explains in what sense God produces evils and in what sense he does not. See also Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History V, 20: FOTC 19, 327-330, where he mentions that Irenaeus wrote a letter to Florinus who was defending the view that God is not the author of evil. †187
LXVII. Philaster mentions a certain heresy without a founder and without a name; Philaster is the sole source of information on this heresy. See G. Bareille, “Eternels,” in DTC V, 911-912. †188 it says that this world, even after the resurrection of the dead, will remain in the same state in which it is now and that it will, thus, not be changed so that there is a new heaven and a new earth (Is 65:17; Rv 21:1), as the holy scripture promises. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LXXX, 1-2: CCL 9, 250-251: “There is another heresy which says that the world does not change, but forever remains in the same state, even after the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ from the heavens, although he says, All things will pass away and be changed (Mt 24:35). They do not understand that the Lord said this on account of the change of the elements so that, when they are changed, a new creation may be formed. David too teaches this: They will perish, he says, but you are the self-same for eternity (Ps 101:27).” †189
LXVIII. There is another heresy of those who always walk with bare feet, because the Lord said to Moses, Remove the sandals from your feet (Ex 3:5; Jos 5:16) and because the prophet Isaiah is said to have walked barefoot. See Is 20:2. †190 It is a heresy because they do not walk that way in order to afflict their body, but because they interpret the words of God in that manner. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LXXXI: CCL 9, 252: “There is another heresy that states that human beings ought to walk barefoot, because, they say, Moses was told, Remove your sandals (Ex 3:5) and because blessed Isaiah walked that way for three years (see Is 20:3). These are rather human matters and stem from foolish superstition, not from the tradition of the saints and from the order, command, and power of our Lord Jesus Christ.” †191
LXIX. 1. The Donatians or Donatists The Donatists were a schismatic group inspired and led by Donatus of Carthage (270-355). The schism arose following the persecution of 303-305, when many of the clergy handed over the scriptures. Those who resisted regarded these “traitors” (traditores) as unworthy of their clerical rank. For the history and doctrine of Donatism, see W. H. C. Frend, “Donatism—Donatists” and “Donatus of Carthage,” in EEC, 246-249 and 250. For the Donatist writings, see Patrology IV, 114-122; for Augustine's anti-Donatist writings, see Patrology IV, 383-386. †192 are those who first created a schism because Caecilian was ordained the bishop of Carthage contrary to their wishes. They raised as objections to him charges that were not proved, especially the charge that he was ordained by those who had handed over the divine scriptures. But they were found guilty of false testimony after the case against him was heard and ended. When their stubborn dissent had grown strong, they turned their schism into heresy. On account of the charges against Caecilian, whether they were true or, as seemed more likely to the judges, were false, they claimed that the Church of Christ had perished from the whole face of the earth where God promised that it would be. They said that it remained in Donatus' part of Africa, though in the other parts of the earth it had died out as though by the contagion of the communion of those parts. They even dare to rebaptize Catholics, and thus they give further proof that they are heretics, since the universal Catholic Church has decreed not to reject the baptism they shared, even in the case of these heretics.
2. We understand that Donatus was the leader of this heresy. He came from Numidia and divided the Christian people against Caecilian; he ordained Majorinus bishop at Carthage after having united to himself the bishops of this faction. Another Donatus succeeded this Majorinus in this schism, and by his eloquence he strengthened this heresy so that many think that these people are called Donatists after him. Up to 411 Augustine knew of only one Donatus, though he had already debated issues with the Donatists for fifteen years. Modern historians generally agree that there was but one Donatus. See Y. Congar, “Introduction générale” in BA 28, 14-15. See also W. H. C. Frend, “Donatus of Carthage,” in EEC, 250, as well as J. S. Alexander, “The Motive for a Distinction between Donatus of Carthage and Donatus of Casae Nigrae,” Journal of Theological Studies n.s. 31 (1980), 540-547. †193 There exist writings of his which make it clear that he did not hold the Catholic position on the Trinity, but thought that, though they are of the same substance, the Son was inferior to the Father and the Holy
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Spirit inferior to the Son. But the vast majority of the Donatists did not take note of this erroneous view which he held concerning the Trinity, nor is it easy to find anyone among them who knows that he held this position.
3. In the city of Rome, these heretics are called Montenses. They usually send a bishop to them from here in Africa, or African bishops of theirs go from here to Rome, if they have decided to ordain a bishop there.
4. There also pertain to this heresy in Africa those who are called Circumcellions, a wild kind of human being whose boldness is known far and wide, not only because they perpetrate terrible crimes on others, but because they do not spare even their own members in their mad fury. For they are accustomed to kill themselves in various ways, especially by hurling themselves off cliffs or into water or fire, and they lead others whom they can of both sexes into this madness, at times in order that they might be killed by others, threatening them with death, unless they kill them. Nonetheless, such persons do not find favor with most Donatists, nor do they think that they are contaminated by communion with them, but in their madness they charge the Christian world with the crime of these unknown Africans.
5. Many schisms have also arisen among them, and various groups have separated themselves from them in different congregations, though the remaining large group takes no account of their separation. At Carthage Maximianus was ordained in opposition to Primianus by almost one hundred bishops of this same error and condemned with the fiercest accusations by the remaining three hundred, along with twelve who were even physically present at his ordination. He forced them to recognize that the baptism of Christ can also be administered outside their church. After all, they readmitted some of them, along with those whom they had baptized outside their church, to their positions of honor without in any case repeating baptism. They neither stopped trying to correct them through public powers, nor did they have any fear of contaminating their communion by the crimes of these persons which the sentence of their own council strongly denounced.
LXX. 1. The Priscillianists, The Priscillianists were founded by Priscillian, a layman of high position and great talent, who began to preach a rigid asceticism in Spain around 370-375. He was ordained bishop of Avilla in 380 and was executed as a heretic in 385 or 386. Augustine first came to know of Priscillianism from Orosius who arrived in Africa from Spain in 415. For a fuller account of Priscillian's life, writings, and teachings, see the introduction to Augustine's To Orosius in Refutation of the Priscillianists and Origenists. Also see M. Simonetti, “Priscillian—Priscillianism,” in EEC, 711-712. †194 whom Priscillian founded in Spain, follow a mixture of teachings, especially those of the Gnostics and the Manichees, though filth from other heresies as well has flowed into them in horrible confusion as if into a sewer. For the sake of concealing their foul and shameful practices, they even have in their teachings these words, “Swear, commit perjury, never betray a secret.”
These people say that souls have the same nature and substance as God, that they come down by stages through the seven heavens and their various principalities to enter into a certain voluntary contest on earth, that they came upon the evil prince who, they claim, made the world, and that they are sown by this prince in different bodies of flesh.
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They also claim that human beings are controlled by the stars that govern their fate and that our body has been composed in accord with the twelve signs of the zodiac, as those who are commonly called astrologists claim. They locate Aries in the head, Taurus in the neck, the Gemini in the shoulders, Cancer in the chest, and they run through the rest of the signs by name until they come to the feet which they assign to Pisces, which the astrologers call the last sign. This heresy has put together these and other mythical, vain and sacrilegious things, which it would take a long time to spell out.
2. This heresy also shuns meat as unclean food. And if it can persuade them to this evil, it separates spouses, both husbands from unwilling wives and wives from unwilling husbands. They assign the production of all flesh, not to the good and true God, but to the wicked angels. They are more clever than the Manichees, insofar as they repudiate none of the canonical scriptures. They read them all, along with apocryphal writings and take them as authorities, but twist to their own meanings by the use of allegory whatever there is in the holy books that overthrows their error. With regard to Christ they follow the Sabellian sect, saying that not only the Son, but the Father and the Holy Spirit are one and the same.
LXXI. Philaster says that there are other heretics who do not eat with other human beings. These people have been identified as a sect that emerged in Ephesus around 350. Philaster is the first to mention them. They held the position that Christians must eat unobserved by others; hence, they have been called the “Adelophagoi” (from ἀδηλῶς φαγείν: to eat unobserved). See H. J. Rieckenberg, “Adelophagen,” in LTK I, 143. †195 But he does not state whether they avoid eating with others who are not of the same sect or whether they do not eat even with their own people. He also says that they have the correct doctrine regarding the Father and the Son, but do not hold the Catholic position regarding the Holy Spirit, because they regard him as a creature. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LXXXVI: CCL 9, 254-255: “There are others who do not eat with other human beings. Led on by their foolish belief, they think that they do something better, because, as they say, the prophets did this (see 1 Kgs 13:19). They are unaware that a different plan of salvation was established for human beings by the decision of the Lord. They have the correct doctrine regarding the Father and the Son, but have not received the correct doctrine regarding the Spirit. They believe that he was created and made and that he is not God, as the scriptures proclaim and the Catholic Church preaches.” †196
LXXII. He says that from Rhetorius The author of Praedestinatus (around 72: PL 53, 91) calls these people the Rhetorians. They may have been a heretical sect in Alexandria and the neighboring region; Rhetorius may have been the name of their founder, though it has been suggested that it is not a proper name, but refers to the rhetor Themistius. For a possible reference to Rhetorius in the Contra Apollinarium (I, 6: PG XXVI, 1101) of Pseudo-Athanasius, see E. Aman, “Rhétoriens,” in DTC XIII, 2654-2655. †197 there arose a heresy of amazing stupidity which claims that all heretics lived correctly and spoke the truth. That is so absurd that it seems incredible to me. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XCI: CCL 9, 257: “There are other heretics in Egypt and Alexandria named after a certain Rhetorius. He praised all the heresies, saying that they all thought correctly and that none of them was in error, but that they all lived well, and he thought that they did not hold incorrect beliefs.” †198
LXXIII. There is another heresy Praedestinatus gives the name Theoponitae to these heretics whom Philaster and Augustine leave unnamed. See George Salmon, “Theoponitae,” in DCB IV, 1010. †199 which says that the divinity felt pain in Christ, when his flesh was nailed to the cross. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XCII: CCL 9, 258-259: “There is another heresy that says that the divinity felt pain, when the flesh united with the divinity suffered on the cross.” †200
LXXIV. There is another heresy The author of Praedestinatus (around 74: PL 53, 612) calls these heretics the Triscelidae. See G. Salmon, “Triscelidae,” in DCB IV, 1054. †201 which states that God is tripartite so that the Father is one part, the Son another, and the Holy Spirit a third. That is, they are parts of the one God and make up the Trinity, as though God were composed of these three parts, and neither the Father nor the Son nor the Holy Spirit is complete in himself. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XCIII: CCL 9, 259: “There is another heresy which says that God is tripartite and composite so that the Father is one part, the Son another, and the Holy Spirit a third. And they claim that one has to believe this, and in saying this, they do not know, nor do they understand, the meaning of the divine scripture.” †202
LXXV. There is another heresy which says that water was not created by God, but was always coeternal with him. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XCVI: CCL 9, 261-262: “There is another heresy that argues that water was not created by God. They claim that it always existed from itself. They do not realize that, if a greater element, that is, earth, was made, the lesser element, that is, water which is contained by earth, ought all the more to have been made. After all the prophet Jonah says, I am a servant of God who made the sea and the earth” (Jon 1:9). The author of Praedestinatus (around 75: PL 53, 612) called these heretics the Hydrotheitae. See G. Salmon, “Hydrotheitae,” in DCB III, 183. †203
LXXVI. Another heresy says that the human body, not the soul, is the image of God. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XCVII: CCL 9, 262-263: “There is another heresy which says that the body of man was made first, not the soul, and that the body, not the soul of man, is the image of God.” The author of Praedestinatus (around 76: PL 53, 613) calls these heretics the Homunionitae. See T. Davids, “Homuncionitae,” in DCB II, 137. †204
LXXVII. Another heresy says that there are innumerable worlds, as some of the pagan philosophers have supposed. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber CXIV: CCL 9, 279-280: “There is another heresy that says that there are infinite and innumerable worlds, in accord with the foolish opinion of certain philosophers. Scripture, however, spoke of one world and has taught us about one world. They also derive this from the apocryphal, that is, the secret writings of the prophets.” The author of Praedestinatus (around 77: PL 53, 614) calls these heretics the Ametritae. See F. Hort, “Ametritae,” in DCB I, 99. †205
LXXVIII. Another heresy The author of Praedestinatus (around 78: PL 53, 614) calls these heretics the Psychopneumones. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber CXXIV: CCL 9, 287-288: “There is another heresy that says that the souls of lechers, criminals, murderers, and other such people pass into demons, cattle, wild animals, and serpents. They do not know that, when the soul of a human being leaves the world, whether it is good or bad, that is, devout or wicked, it is led by an angel to the place decided, so that it may receive in the future what it has merited by its actions in this world.” †206 says that the souls of the wicked turn into demons and into certain animals according to their merits. I have translated meritis instead of meritus, which I take to be a mistake in the CCL edition. †207
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LXXIX. Another heresy Later writers have given the followers of this heresy various names, but have not identified them with any historical group. †208 holds that, when Christ descended into hell, those who had not believed came to believe and were all delivered from there. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber CXXV: CCL 9, 288: “There are other heretics who say that the Lord descended into hell and proclaimed to all in that same place after death that those who believed would be saved….” †209
LXXX. Another heresy fails to understand that the Son was born eternally and thinks that his birth had its beginning in time. Nonetheless, wanting to profess that the Son is coeternal with the Father, it holds that he was with the Father before he was born from him, that is, that he always existed. Still, it claims that he was not always the Son, but began to be the Son from the time when he was born from him. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber CXXVII: CCL 9, 289-290: “There is another heresy that says that the Savior was first with the Father and then he was born. When they profess this without qualification, they give scandal to people. For that he first existed and later was born is contrary [to the faith] in every way.” †210
I thought that I should incorporate these heresies into my work from Philaster's. He mentions others as well, but I do not think that they should be called heresies. He himself does not mention the names of those I have listed without names.
LXXXI. Neither Epiphanius nor Philaster includes among the heretics the Luciferians The Luciferians are named after Lucifer, the bishop of Cagliari, who was exiled under Constantius. After 362, he supported an intransigent pro-Nicene group at Antioch and aggravated a local schism by ordaining Paulinus in opposition to the legitimate bishop. Paulinus' followers were called Luciferians; the name was also given to some Romans who were rigorous partisans of Nicene theology. See M. Simonetti, “Lucifer (Luciferians),” in EEC, 508. †211 who began with Lucifer, the bishop of Calaris, to whom they owe their most common name. I am convinced that Epiphanius and Philaster believed that they began only a schism, not a heresy. In a certain author, whose work does not bear his name, I have read that the Luciferians were numbered among the heretics in the following words. He says, “Though the Luciferians hold the Catholic truth in all respects, they fall into this most foolish error. They say that the soul is generated from one's parents, and they say that it comes from the flesh and has the substance of the flesh.” Augustine's words are exactly the same as those found in Pseudo-Jerome, Indiculus XXVI: PL 81, 642; see the introduction for a discussion of the question of the date of the Indiculus. †212 Whether, then, this writer believed and correctly believed that they should be counted among the heretics on account of the position they held regarding the soul—if they actually held this view—or whether, even if they did not hold that position or do not hold it, they are still heretics, because they clung to their dissenting position with a spirit of stubbornness, that is another question, and I do not believe that I should deal with it here.
LXXXII. I also found in this author the Jovinianists The Jovinianists were followers of the monk, Jovinian, who denied that virginity merited any special reward and urged consecrated virgins to marry. Both Jerome and Augustine wrote against his views. Pope Siricius condemned Jovinian's error in 390. See J. Gribmont, “Jovinian,” in EEC, 454. †213 with whom I was already familiar. This heresy was begun by the monk, Jovinian, in our own lifetime, while we were still young. Like the Stoic philosophers, he said that all sins are equal. He said that, once one has received the bath of regeneration, one cannot sin and that fasting and abstinence from certain foods is of no benefit. He tried to destroy the virginity of Mary, claiming that it was lost when she gave birth. He even considered the life of chaste and faithful married couples of equal merit with the virginity of nuns and the chastity of the men in those holy people who choose the celibate life. Pseudo-Jerome, Indiculus XXIII: PL 81, 641: “Jovinian and Auxentius planted the perversity of their new doctrine at Rome. They said there was no difference between married women and virgins, and no distinction between those who practiced abstinence and those who simply feasted. They brought forth as an example the fact that in the Old Testament holy men were married and had children. They say that virginity cannot be preferred, lest the union which produced the glorious prophets be disparaged.” †214 As a result, in Rome, where he taught these doctrines, some holy virgins of an advanced age are said to have married, after hearing him. He himself neither had nor wanted to have a wife; he argued that his way of living would not be beneficial in terms of some greater merit before God in the kingdom of everlasting life, but that it is beneficial in terms of the present difficulty, that is, so that a person does not suffer the troubles of
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marriage. This heresy was, nonetheless, quickly suppressed and wiped out, and it was not even capable of deceiving any priests.
LXXXIII. I examined Eusebius' history, Eusebius' history covered the years down to 324; Rufinus' two books brought the history to 395. †215 to which Rufinus, who translated it into the Latin language, added two books concerning the following ages, but I did not find any heresy which I had not met in these authors, except that which Eusebius puts in the sixth book, stating that it arose in Arabia. Hence, we can call these heretics the Arabians, The Arabians were a heretical group that existed in Arabia from 244-249. See F. Cocchini, “Arabian Heresy,” in EEC, 67. †216 since he does not mention their founder. They said that souls die and are destroyed with bodies and that at the end of the world both of them rise. But Eusebius says that these heretics were quickly corrected by the arguments of Origen who was present and addressed them. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History VI, 37: FOTC 29, 62: “Again in Arabia… others arose to introduce a doctrine foreign to the truth, who stated that human souls at the determined time perish for a while together with the bodies at their death, but that at the time of the resurrection will be revived with them…. [Origen] was of such influence that the opinions of those who had formerly been deceived were changed.” †217
At this point, we should mention those heresies which we have not found in these authors, but which have somehow or other come to our attention.
LXXXIV. The Helvidians, Helvidius was probably a Roman layman and a disciple of the Arian Auxentius of Milan. In a dispute with the monk, Carterius, who spoke of Mary's perpetual virginity, Helvidius claimed that Mary gave birth to other children after Jesus. Jerome wrote in response Adversus Helvidium de perpetua virginitate beatae Mariae around 383. See S. Zincone, “Helvidius,” in EEC, 374. †218 who arose from Helvidius, are so hostile to the virginity of Mary that they claim that she also bore other children for her husband, Joseph. It is puzzling why Epiphanius called them Antidicomarites, without any mention of the name of Helvidius. Jerome used the term “Antidicomarites” in referring to the followers of Helvidius. Daur notes that the name, Helvidius, may be derived from the Indiculus of Pseudo-Jerome (XXII: PL 81, 641) or from Jerome's De perpetua uirginitate adversus Helvidium. Augustine seems to confuse these fourth century heretics with the earlier Antidicomarianites whom Epiphanius mentions in Anaceph. III, ii, 2: PG 42, 873: HD III, 415; see above LVI. †219
LXXXV. The Paternians The Paternians were an ancient sect, though Augustine seems to consider them as his contemporaries. In Answer to Julian V, 7, 26, Augustine has preserved a passage from Julian of Eclanum which is most probably his source of information with regard to the Paternians. “The Paternians,” Julian said, “who are the same as the Venustian heretics, are similar to the Manichees. They say that the devil made the human body from the loins to the feet, but that God set the upper parts on them as on a foundation. They add that no human effort is required that the soul which they say dwells in the stomach and head be kept pure, but they say that, if the genitals are involved in the foulest of deeds, it is of no concern to them.” Julian may well be correct in linking them to the Manichees. Epiphanius ascribes a similar view of the creation of man to the Severians in Panarion 45, 2, though they drew the opposite moral conclusion. Praedestinatus adds the information that Pope Damasus (366-384) discovered some Venustians in Rome and reported them to Valentinian I. See E. Amann, “Paterniens,” in DTC IX, 2246-47. †220 thought that the lower parts of the human body were made, not by God, but by the devil. They live very impure lives, giving free rein to the sins arising from those parts. Some also call these heretics the Venustians.
LXXXVI. The Tertullianists are named after Tertullian, Tertullian was born in Carthage between 150 and 160 and become a convert to the faith. A man of considerable learning, he wrote many works covering a wide range of theological concerns. Sometime between 203 and 212, Tertullian's rigorism and independence led him to become a Montanist. He died around 220. The Tertullianists, of whom Augustine writes, were a heretical group that Tertullian founded after he left the Montanists and that survived in Carthage until Augustine's time. See P. Siniscalco, “Tertullian,” in EEC, 818-820. †221 whose many eloquently written works are still read. These people were gradually dying out toward our time, but were able to survive in their last remaining members in Carthage. When I was present there a few years ago, as I think you too remember, they were completely gone. The remaining few entered the Catholic Church and handed over their basilica, which is now quite famous, to the Catholic Church.
Tertullian, then, as his writings indicate, says that the soul is certainly immortal, but he argues that it is a body. He holds not only that the soul is a body, but also that God himself is. He is not said to have become a heretic on these grounds. For we can suppose that he called the divine nature and substance a body, but not the sort of body with some parts that we can or must think of as larger and other parts that we can or must think of as smaller. Such bodies we call bodies in the proper sense. And yet, he held something of that sort regarding the soul. But he could, as I said, be thought to say that God is a body, because he is not nothing, because he is not emptiness, because he is not a quality of body or of soul, but is whole everywhere and not divided by any stretches of space, remaining without any change in his nature and substance. Hence, Tertullian did not become a heretic on those grounds, but because he joined the Cataphrygians, whom he had earlier attacked, and began to condemn second marriages as immoral, contrary to apostolic teaching. Afterward, he withdrew
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from them and founded his own small congregations. He also said that the worst souls of human beings were turned into demons after death.
LXXXVII. There is, or rather there was, an unsophisticated heresy in our countryside, that is, around Hippo. It gradually diminished, but continued to exist in a single small village, in which only a few people, but the whole population, were its members. Now all of these have been corrected and have become Catholics, and no one from that error survives. They were called the Abeloim The Abelites, or Abeloim, were a heretical sect existing in the vicinity of Hippo. See F. Cocchini, “Abelites,” in EEC, p. 2, as well as O. Wermelinger, “Abeloim,” Augustinus-Lexikon I, 1/2, 6. †222 in the Punic form of the name. Some say that they were named after the son of Adam who was called Abel; hence, we can also call them Abelians or Abeloites.
They did not have intercourse with their wives, and they were, nonetheless, not permitted by the teaching of this sect to live without wives. Husbands and wives, therefore, lived together under the vow of chastity and, by the agreement of their union, adopted for themselves a boy and a girl to be their successors. If any of these died, others were chosen to take their place, provided, of course, that two of the opposite sex took the place of the other two in the same household. If either of the parents died, the children served the one remaining until he or she also died. After that parent's death, they likewise adopted a boy and a girl. There was never a lack of children for them to adopt, since their neighbors on all sides bore children and gladly gave them their poor children in the hope that they would become their heirs.
LXXXVIII. 1. The heresy of the Pelagians, Pelagius was born in Britain around 354 and came to Rome around 380-384. After 410 he came to Africa and then continued on to Jerusalem, where he was befriended by John of Jerusalem. Augustine opposed Pelagianism from 411 until his death in 430. For Pelagius' life and writings, as well as for Coelestius, see V. Grossi's account in Patrology IV, 465-487. Also see V. Grossi, “Pelagius—Pelagians—Pelagianism,” in EEC, 665-666. †223 the most recent of all, began in our time with the monk, Pelagius. Caelestius so closely followed his teacher, Pelagius, that their followers are also called Caelestians.
2. These people are enemies of the grace of God, by which we have been predestined for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ (Eph 1:5). By that grace we are snatched from the power of darkness (Col 1:13) so that we might believe in him and be brought into his kingdom. For this reason, he says, No one comes to me unless it has been given to him by my Father (Jn 6:65). And by that same grace charity is poured forth in our hearts. See Rom 5:5 and Gal 5:6. †224 They are enemies of this grace of God to such an extent that they believe that a human being can observe all of God's commandments without it. Yet, if this were true, there would have been no point in the Lord's saying, Without me you can do nothing (Jn 15:5). Moreover, when Pelagius was rebuked by the brethren, because he gave no credit to the help of God's grace for observing the commandments, he yielded to their admonition only to a point. Thus he did not rank grace above free choice, but subordinated it to free choice in his unbelieving cleverness. He said that grace was given to human beings so that they could more easily accomplish by grace what they are commanded to do by free choice. In saying, “That they could more easily,” he intended for us to believe that human beings can carry out the commands of God without grace, though with greater
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difficulty. But they say that the grace without which we can do nothing good amounts to free choice alone. They think that our nature received this free choice, without any antecedent merits on our part, and that its sole purpose is that, with God's help through the Law and through instruction, we might learn what we ought to do and hope for, but not so that, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, we might do what we have learned that we ought to do.
3. In this sense they admit that God gives us knowledge which dispels ignorance, but they deny that he gives us the charity by which one lives a good life. Hence, they hold that the knowledge, which without charity causes pride, is a gift of God, but that the charity which does not cause pride, as knowledge does, but edification, is not a gift of God. See 1 Cor 8:1. †225
4. They also render meaningless the prayers which the Church offers, either that non-believers and those resisting the teaching of God might be converted to God or that believers might grow in faith and that they might persevere in him. They claim that human beings do not receive faith and perseverance from him, but have them from themselves, for they say that the grace of God by which we are freed from sinfulness is given in accord with our merits. Because he feared being condemned by a council of bishops in Palestine, Pelagius was forced to condemn this doctrine, but he is found to state it again in his later writings.
5. They also go so far as to say that the life of just persons in this world is utterly without sin and that from these persons the Church of Christ is made perfect in this mortal life so that it is completely without spot or wrinkle, as if the Church of Christ does not cry out to God throughout the whole world, Forgive us our debts (Mt 6:12).
6. They also deny that little children born of Adam according to the flesh contract by their first birth the infection of that ancient death. Thus they state that they are born without any bond of original sin with the result that there is nothing that needs to be forgiven them by their second birth. They say, rather, that they are baptized so that, having been made adopted children by regeneration, they may be admitted to the kingdom of God. These children, then, are changed from a good to a better state, not set free by that renewal from some evil stemming from that ancient debt. For, they promise that, even if they are not baptized, they will have an eternal and happy life, though outside the kingdom of God.
7. They say that, if Adam himself had not sinned, he would have died a bodily death and that he did not die as a punishment for sin, but as a result of the condition of nature. They object to some other things, but these are the points of doctrine upon which all the rest or nearly all the rest are understood to depend.
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Epilogue
1. You see how many heresies we have mentioned, and we have still not fulfilled your request. How could I mention all “the heresies which have arisen,” to use your words, “from the time that the Christian religion received the name of the inheritance promised it,” since I could not get knowledge of all of them? I think that the reason is that no one of those whose writings I have read has recorded them all. At times I found in one author heresies that I did not find in another. I have listed more than they did, because I have gathered heresies from all of them, though I did not find all of them in each author. Moreover, I added those which I myself recall, but could not find in any of those authors. Hence, I am right in believing that I could not record all the heresies, both because I could not read all the authors who have written on this topic and because I do not see that any of them whom I have read have recorded them all. Finally, even if I did perhaps record all of them, which I do not think is the case, I certainly do not know that these are all of them. Hence, what you want me to put down in my writing I cannot even grasp with my mind, for I cannot know them all.
2. I have heard that the saintly Jerome has written something on heresies, but we could not find his work in our library and we do not know where to get it. A scholarly man familiar with his books said with great certitude, when asked about this, that the individual who spread this rumor did not know what he was talking about. For, he says, the saintly Jerome was not the author of a work on heresies. But if you know that work, make use of it, and you may find something better than our work, although I do not think that even he, though a very learned man, could track down all the heresies. I should think that he surely did not know of the Abeloites, heretics of our region, and in the same way he probably did not know of others elsewhere who were concealed in obscure places and escaped his attention by reason of the obscurity of their location.
3. Even if I knew all of them, I still could not fulfill that request in your letter, “that we state all those points on which the heretics dissented from the truth.” Far less can I do so, since I do not know all of them. After all, there are, we must admit, heretics who are opposed to the rule of faith on single doctrines or on just a few more, such as the Macedonians or the Photinians and whatever others of this sort there may be. But those myth-makers, if I may use that word, that is, those who compose empty tales that are long and complicated, are so full of many false teachings that they themselves could not count them or could do so only with great difficulty. Nor can any heresy be so readily known to any outsider as it is by its members; hence, I admit that I did not state or had not learned all the teachings of those heresies which I mentioned. Who can fail to see the amount of work and the number of books this request would demand? It is, then, no small benefit to read about and come to know and to avoid these
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errors which I have incorporated in this book. After all, your request for what the Catholic Church holds in opposition to them—something which you thought I should state—is not necessary, since for the present purpose it is sufficient to know that she is opposed to them and that no one should accept any of them as part of the faith. That we should state and defend what the truth holds against these teachings goes beyond the limits of this work. It is a big help for the heart of the believer to know what one should not believe, even if one cannot refute it with skillful argumentation. Every Catholic Christian, then, ought not to believe these teachings. But not everyone who does not believe them should, therefore, think or say that he or she is a Catholic Christian. After all, other heresies which are not mentioned in this book of ours can exist or come to exist, and whoever holds one of them is not a Catholic Christian. We should, finally, inquire into what it is that makes one a heretic so that, in avoiding that with the Lord's help, we may avoid the poison of heresies, not only of those which we know, but also of those we do not know, whether they already actually exist or merely could exist. Let this volume come to an end. I thought that I should send it to you before I completed this whole work so that whoever reads it may help me with prayers to complete what remains. As you see, there is a great deal to do. Augustine's work ends at this point. The majority of the manuscripts, however, add the Nestorians and Eutychians. Some manuscripts also add the Timotheans. The CCL edition contains these three heresies in an appendix.
†226
Appendix
I. The Timotheans For a possible identification of the founder of this group, see E. Cavalcanti, “Timothy the Apollinarist,” in EEC, 841-842. Among the disciples of Apollinaris, Timothy, bishop of Berytus, taught the incarnate Christ's consubstantiality with human nature, which seems to be the doctrine in question here. See also C. Kannengiesser, “Apollinaris of Laodicea, Apollinarism,” in EEC, 58-59. †227 say that the Son of God was born a true man of the Virgin Mary, but that he constituted one person only by being reduced to a single nature. They would have the womb of the Virgin to be a furnace by which the two natures, that is, God and man, were melted down and molded into a single mass, presenting one form of God and man, by having changed the proper character of the natures producing the union. In confirmation of this impiety that claims that God was changed in his nature, they seize upon the testimony of the Evangelist who said, And the Word became flesh (Jn 1:14). They interpret this to mean that the divine nature was changed into human nature. What destruction they wreak upon that inviolable substance! The Timothy of this impiety, a man now in exile at Biza in Bithynia, dupes many by the temperate and religious appearance of his life.
II. The Nestorians Nestorius was born in 381 and was patriarch of Constantinople from 428 to 431. He was condemned by the Council of Ephesus in 431 and died in 451. See M. Simonetti, “Nestorius—Nestorianism,” in EEC, 594. †228 began with Nestorius, a bishop, who dared to teach, contrary to the Catholic faith, that Christ, the Lord our God, was conceived in the womb of the Virgin of the Holy Spirit only as man and not as he who became the mediator of God and man. He said that God was later mingled with the man. He denied that the God-Man suffered and was buried. He strove to undo the whole of our salvation by which the Word of God deigned to assume a man in the womb of the Virgin in such a way that there came to be one person of God
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and the man. For this reason, the God-Man was born in a singular and marvelous way, and he also died for our sins, paying in full the debt he had not contracted; finally, he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven.
IIA. The heresy of the Nestorian is named after its author, Nestorius, a bishop of the Church of Constantinople. He was so perverse that he preached that a mere man was born of the blessed virgin, Mary, and that the Word of God did not take that man into the unity of the person and into an inseparable union. On this account, the virgin mother was not to be understood as theotokos, but anthropotokos. The Greek term, theotokos, means “mother of God,” while anthropotokos means “mother of man.” Because there is in Christ a single person who is both divine and human, Mary is correctly said to be the mother of God. †229 In no sense could Catholics tolerate hearing that, because such a birth claimed that there was not one Christ in true flesh and divinity, but a twofold Christ. And that is outrageous.
III. The Eutychians Eutyches (378-454), a monk of Constantinople, while combating Nestorianism, fell into the opposite error of denying two natures. He was condemned by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. See A. Di Berardino, “Eutyches,” in EEC, 304-305. †230 arose from a certain Eutyches, a priest of the church of Constantinople. While he thought that he was refuting Nestorius, he went over to the side of Apollinaris and Manichaeus. Denying a true human nature in Christ, he ascribed to the divine essence alone whatever the Word assumed that belonged to us. Thus, by denying our nature in Christ, he destroyed the sacrament of our salvation which is constituted by each of the two substances. In his foolish impiety, he did not perceive that he removed from the whole body what was lacking to the head.
IIIA. The Eutychians came from the priest Eutyches. While trying to acquire patronage for himself by courting imperial favor, he dared to teach that there were two natures in Christ before the incarnation, but that, after the Word was made flesh, there was one nature, namely, the divine. He claimed that the whole man was transformed into God, that a true man was not conceived in the womb of the Virgin, and that true flesh was not taken from the body of Mary. I do not know where he imagines so subtle a body was formed that it could enter the inviolate virginal womb of his mother. He claimed that Christ's whole being is one nature, God, and that it was not the God-Man, but the divinity that underwent the Passion and went to heaven. But the Catholic faith states, and all the authority of the divine scriptures proclaims, that he who was born of the Virgin Mary and formed from the seed of David according to the flesh was crucified, died, and was buried, that he rose from the dead and was raised to heaven, a complete man, and that we await his coming to judge the living and the dead.
The previously mentioned Eutyches rebelled against this faith; when the Council of Ephesus was dominated by imperial power and especially when Dioscurus, the bishop of Alexandria, followed his errors, Eutyches not merely deprived the bishop of the people of Constantinople of his position of honor, but also had him driven from his homeland and sent into exile by Flavian, despite the presence and opposition of Hilary, a deacon of the venerable Apostolic See. In the second session, they removed other absent priests from their positions of honor, but the providence of the divine majesty undid this fellow with a
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judgment that was both swift and just. For, the emperor Theodosius was taken and removed from this life, as well as Crysafius, under whose patronage this Eutyches, whom we have mentioned so often, attacked the Catholic faith and spread his previously mentioned error. Moreover, the holy bishop and confessor, Flavian, went before him to God so that they were buried at the same time, as the judgment of God, the just judge, has been recorded. By the authority, then, of the aforementioned Apostolic See, the strength of the faith was expressed and the error of this unspeakable teaching was destroyed. At the same time a fitting place in the holy church received with honors the body of the confessor that was returned, while the priests were released from their penalties and restored to the priesthood, since they were found acceptable before God and pleasing to men by reason of their worthy confession. After Eutyches, the source of the unspeakable error, was driven from the province, the aforementioned synod expressed in its decree its hatred for his ill-conceived errors against sound doctrine, and the peace of holy mother, the Church, called back her priests.
Notes
†1 Simon Magus was a contemporary of the apostles. For his baptism, spectacular deeds, and break with Peter, see Acts 8. The Simonians, who are said to have derived from him, were in some of their teachings forerunners of Judaeo-Christian gnosticism. See E. Peretto, “Simon Magus—Simonians” in EEC, 780.
†2 See Acts 8:9-24.
†3 In Diuersarum haeresion liber XXIX, 1: CCL 9, 229, Philaster mentions that “through use of the arts of magic, he deceived many.”
†4 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XXIX, 8: CCL IX, 229: “It is clear that the Helen who was with the magician was a prostitute from Tyre….”
†5 Epiphanius, Anaceph I, ii, 1: PG 42, 853-856: H I, 234: “21. The Simonians are those stemming from Simon the magician, who lived at the time of Peter the apostle and came from a village of the Gethites in Samaria. He left the Samarians, but became a Christian in name only. He taught that a shameful practice, namely, having intercourse to defile women, was morally indifferent. He rejected the resurrection of bodies and said that the world did not come from God. He gave to his disciples for adoration an image of himself as Zeus and a statue of Helen, a prostitute who was with him, as Minerva. He told the the Samaritans that he was the Father, but the Jews that he was Christ.”
†6 See Irenaeus, Adversus haereses I, xxiii, 1 and 4: PG 6, 670 and 672.
†7 See Augustine, Letter 36, 9.
†8 Menander was an early gnostic, probably born in Samaria at the end of the first century; he became a disciple of Simon Magus and won many followers by his magic arts. He proclaimed that he was the redeemer of mankind sent by invisible powers and promised his followers immortality through baptism. See A. Monaci Castagno, “Menander,” in EEC, p. 553.
†9 Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, ii, 2: PG 42, 856: H I, 234: “22. The Menandrians are those who arose from this Simon through a certain Menander. They differed in some respect from the Simonians. He said that the world was produced by angels.” See also Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XXX: CCL 9, 229: “After him there was a certain Menander. Having become his disciple, he followed his wickedness in all respects.”
†10 Satorinus, or Satornilus, a gnostic disciple of Menander, taught in Antioch during the first half of the second century. He is known especially from the writings of Irenaeus and Hippolytus.
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He taught that the invisible Father created the angels and that the angels created the visible world. See A. Monaci Castagno, “Satornilus (or Saturninus),” in EEC, 758.
†11 Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, ii, 3: PG 42, 856: H I, 235: “23. The Satornilians are those who spread the shameful doctrine of the Simonians in Syria and preached other things beyond the Simonians to cause greater shock. They stemmed from Satornilus, who in agreement with Menander said that the world was produced by angels, but by only seven of them and against the judgment of the Father above.”
†12 According to Clement of Alexandria, Basilides taught a version of gnosticism in Alexandria under the emperors Hadrian (117-138) and Antoninus Pius (138-161); he may also have taught in Persia. His teachings are diversely reported by Hippolytus, Irenaeus, Clement, and Hegemonius. See A. Monaci Castagno, “Basilides, Basilideans,” in EEC, 113.
†13 See Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, ii, 4: PG 42, 856: H I, 235: “24. The Basilidians, who engaged in the same shameful practice, are named after Basilides. He was a follower, along with Satornilus, of the Simonians and Menandrians. He held the same views, though he differed in some respect. He said that there are three hundred and sixty-five heavens and gave them names of the angels. He said that the year has that many days for this reason. He said that Abrasax is the name for its number and that it means three hundred and sixty-five; he said that it is a holy name.”
†14 The references to Nicolaitans in Rv 2:6.14.16.20 provide little help toward identifying the sect or its origins; these texts suggest that they were a pre-gnostic sect that taught and practiced a moral laxism in the name of Christian freedom. The patristic tradition is divided with regard to the sect's connection with the deacon Nicholas. See E. Peretto, “Nicolaïtans,” in EEC, p. 596.
†15 See Acts 6:5.
†16 Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, ii, 5: PG 42, 856: H I, 235: “25. The Nicolaites came from Nicolaus who was given care of the widows by the apostles. On account of jealousy over his own wife, along with the others, he taught his disciples to carry out a shameful practice. He introduced Caulacaac and Prunicus and other barbaric names.” Eusebius cites from Clement of Alexandria (Stromata III, 25-26): “They say that this man had a beautiful wife, and when, after the ascension of the Savior, he was accused of jealousy by the apostles, he brought her forth and gave permission to any who wished to mate with her” (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History III, 29: FOTC 29, 187).
†17 See Rv 2:14-15; Irenaeus, Adversus haereses. I, xxvi, 3: PG 7, 687; Pseudo-Jerome, Indiculus III, 8: PL 81, 637.
†18 Besides Epiphanius, who is cited above, Pseudo-Jerome, Indiculus III, 8: PL 81, 637: “For he gave them the names Barbalo, Prunica, Ialdabaoth, and Caulacan.”
†19 Following Epiphanius, Augustine lists the Gnostics as a distinct heresy rather than as a genus embracing other heretical groups, many of which he lists separately. Gnosticism was a religious movement that flourished mainly in the second century and taught a form of esoteric knowledge which was supposed of itself to provide salvation to its initiates. See G. Filoramo, “Gnosis—Gnosticism,” in EEC, 352-354.
†20 See Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XXXIII, 2: CCL 9, 231: [Nicolaus] himself said there were many powers; from him especially there arose the Gnostics, “who think they know something.”
†21 Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, ii, 6: PG 42, 856-857: H I, 235: “26. The Gnostics were the successors of these heresies; they more than all the others insanely engaged in shameful practices. In Egypt they are called Stratiotics and Phibionites; in the upper regions they are called the Secundians; elsewhere Socratics. By others they are called Zachaeans. Still others call them Coddians, while others call them Borborites. They boast of Barbelo or Barbaro.”
†22 Philaster lists the Borborians as a distinct heresy. Diuersarum haeresion liber LXXIII, 2: CCL 9, 247: “Another is the heresy of the Borborians. They are trapped in the sins of the world and serve their evil desires with no expectation of a future judgment. Hence, these people, getting into filth and smeared with it, defile their faces and members with it, showing by this that one should blame God's creation….”
†23 Philaster and Epiphanius both say this; see the first two notes on this chapter.
†24 See Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History IV, 7: FOTC 19, 216: “Irenaeus also writes that Carpocrates was a contemporary of these men [i.e., Saturninus, Menander, and Basilides], the father of another heresy called that of the Gnostics.”
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†25 Carpocrates came from Alexandria and taught in the first half of the second century. His pupil, Marcellina, taught in Rome around 150. Carpocrates taught that the angels created the world and that souls held prisoner by the archons of the world return to the ingenerate God. This God sent Jesus, a mere man, to help souls escape from the archons through a series of transmigrations into other bodies. See A. Monaci Castagno, “Carpocrates, Carpocratians,” in EEC, 145.
†26 Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, ii, 7: PG 42, 857: H I, 236: “27. The Carpocratians are named after a certain Carpocrates from Asia. He taught people to perform every shameful action and every sinful practice. He said that, unless one does all of them and performs the will of the demons and angels, he cannot enter into highest heaven or pass beyond the principalities and powers. He said that Jesus had received an intellectual soul and that, knowing heavenly things, he preached here below. He said that, if one performed actions like those of Jesus, he would be his equal. He rejected the Law along with the resurrection of the dead, as did the heresies from Simon on. Marcellina was a follower of his in Rome. She secretly made images of Jesus, Paul, Homer, and Pythagoras and burned incense to them and worshipped them.”
†27 An early second century document links Cerinthus with Simon Magus. Eusebius was the first to make Cerinthus the head of a group named after him. See A. F. J. Klijn, “Cerinthus, Cerinthians,” in EEC, 158-159.
†28 Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, ii, 8: PG 42, 857: H I, 236: “28. The Cerinthians, or the Merinthians, are Jews named after Cerinthus or Merinthus. They boasted of their circumcision and said that the world was produced by angels. He said that Jesus came to be called Christ when he grew up.”
†29 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XXXVI, 2: CCL 9, 233: “He taught circumcision and the observance of the Sabbath, and he preached that Christ had not yet risen, but would rise.”
†30 See The City of God XX, 7.
†31 See Pseudo-Jerome, Indiculus XXXI, 43: PL 81, 643: “The Chiliasts say that the kingdom of the saints will be carnal in the flesh. They are unwilling to admit our flesh will be renewed as spiritual, but claim that we are to eat the carnal goods of the earth in a carnal manner for a thousand years.”
†32 Epiphanius is the first to mention this Judaeo-Christian sect which lived in Beroea, having fled from Jerusalem after its fall. See A. F. J. Klijn, “Nazoraei,” in EEC, 584.
†33 Epiphanius, Anaceph I, ii, 9: PG 42, 857: H I, 236: “29. The Nazoraeans profess that Jesus is the Son of God, but they live entirely in accord with the Law.”
†34 The term “Ebionites” was applied to a number of Judaeo-Christian groups which accepted Jesus as a mere man, lived according to the Jewish Law, and rejected Saint Paul. See A. F. J. Klijn, “Ebionites,” in EEC, 258-259.
†35 Epiphanius is mistaken in supposing that the Ebionites were influenced by the Elcesaites. The latter group came from Parthia and was influenced by Judaeo-Christian writings unknown to Epiphanius. See A. F. J. Klijn, “Ebionites,” in EEC, 259.
†36 See Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, ii, 10: PG 42, 857: H I, 236: “30. The Ebionites are similar to the previously mentioned Cerinthians and Nazoraeans. The heresy of the Sampsaeans and Elcaesans agrees with them in a certain respect. They say that Christ and the Holy Spirit were created in heaven and that Christ was first present in Adam, for a time putting Adam aside and then donning him again. They say that he did this during his presence in the flesh. Although they are Jews, they use the gospels. They despise the eating of meat and regard water as God. As I said, they claim that Christ donned a man by his presence in the flesh. They bathe in water during both summer and winter for sanctification, as do the Samaritans.”
†37 Speaking of the Elcesaite heresy, Eusebius says, “It says that to deny is a matter of indifference and that he is wise who will deny under necessity with his mouth but not with the heart.” Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, VI, 38: FOTC 29, 63.
†38 Valentinus was an Egyptian gnostic who came to Rome around 140, abandoned orthodoxy and founded a school. He died in Rome sometime after 160. From what remains of his writings, Valentinus himself seems to have been “a biblical theologian, influenced by Platonism but straying little from the—as yet ill-defined—borders of Christian orthodoxy” (C. Gianotto, “Valentinus the Gnostic,” in EEC, 859-860). His followers were divided into an Italic school, including Heracleon, Ptolemy, and Florinus, and an Eastern school, including Theodotus and Mark. See C. Gianotto, “Valentinus the Gnostic,” in EEC, 859-860.
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†39 Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, ii, 10: PG 42, 857: H I, 237: “31. The Valentinians deny the resurrection of the flesh and reject the Old Testament and the prophets, though they read them and accept whatever they can figuratively interpret as a likeness of their heresy. They introduced certain myths and mentioned thirty aeons, both male and female together, which were produced by the Father of the universe. They regard them as gods and aeons. They say that Christ brought his body from heaven and passed through Mary as through a tube.”
†40 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XXXVIII, 3-6: CCL 9, 234: “There was, he says, nothing else in the world but the Depth of the Sea and Silence, which the foolish poets call Chaos in their teaching, and from this Depth and Silence Intellect and Truth have come forth. But from Intellect and Truth have come Word and Life, and from Word and Life have come Man and Church. From Man and Church there have come forth twelve aeons, that is, ages; from Word and Life there have come forth ten aeons, and from Intellect and Truth eight aeons. And this makes thirty Ages, that is, thirty aeons of aeons. He holds that from the Eight, the Ten, and the Twelve there are thirty aeons. He says that Christ was sent for the salvation of the whole world by the Father, whom he calls by the name Depth, and that he brought his flesh down from heaven and took nothing from the Virgin Mary. Rather he says that he passed through her like water through a channel. He thought that the soul alone is saved, but that the human body was not saved.”
†41 Secundus was one of the earliest disciples of Valentinus. See G. Salmon, “Secundus,” in DCB IV, 596-597.
†42 Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, ii, 12: PG 42, 860: H I, 237: “32. The Secundians, whose followers included Epiphanes and Isidore, used the same pairs of aeons and held views similar to Valentinus, but stated other things somewhat differently from him. In addition, they taught shameful practices; they also deny the flesh [of Christ].”
†43 Ptolemy was a gnostic disciple of Valentinus belonging to the Italic or Western Valentinian school. See G. Filoramo, “Ptolemy the Gnostic,” in EEC, 724.
†44 Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, ii, 13: PG 42, 860: H I, 237: “33. The Ptolemaeans were also disciples of Valentinus. Flora joined them. They also say concerning the pairs of aeons the same things as Valentinus and the Secundians, but they also differ in a certain respect.” Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XXXIX: CCL 9, 234: “There are other followers of [Valentinus]. Ptolaemus introduced an equally foolish doctrine, saying that there are four aeons and a different four. He wanted to teach something new with his false scheme from what Valentinus, his teacher, had made up.”
†45 Mark taught in Asia and belonged to the Eastern branch of the Valentinian school, though his followers, the Marcosians, reached as far West as the Rhone valley where Irenaeus came to know them. See C. Gianotto, “Mark,” in EEC, 526.
†46 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XLII, 4: CCL 9, 235: “He said that Christ had not appeared in a real body; he thought that he had suffered like a shadow, but had not truly suffered in a body.”
†47 Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, iii, 1: PG 42, 860: HD II, 1: “34. The Marcosians. A certain Mark emerged as a fellow student with Colorbasus. He also taught two principles. He rejected the resurrection of the dead…. He, like Valentinus, wanted to derive everything from twenty-four elements.”
†48 Colorbasus was a second century gnostic who taught in Egypt. Along with Ptolemy, he belonged to the Italic branch of Valentianism. See H. Rahner, “Kolorbasus,” in LTK VI, 399-400.
†49 Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, iii, 4: PG 42, 860: HD II, 1: “35. The Colorbasians. This Colorbasus held, though with a slight difference, almost the same opinions as the other heresies, I mean, those of Mark and Valentinus. He taught something different regarding the emanations and the ogdoads.” Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XLIII: CCL 9, 235: “After [Mark] there came Colorbasus. He stated that the life and generation of all human beings depended on the letters and the number of the seven elements and the stars, not on the majesty and power of Christ. And he did not recognize that the hope for the true salvation of human beings rests upon his presence in the flesh.”
†50 Heracleon is a gnostic disciple of Valentinus who belonged to the Italic branch of Valentinianism. See C. Gianotto, “Heracleon,” in EEC, 374.
†51 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XLI: CCL 9, 235: “After [Secundus] there came Heracleon, his disciple. He said that there is one principle which he called God and that from it
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another was born. He asserted the generation of many principles from these two, raving on with his teachers so many times.”
†52 Epiphanius, Anaceph I, iii, 3: PG 42, 860: HD II, 1: “36. The Heracleonites. These people were also caught up in the myths of the ogdoads, but differed from Mark, Ptolemy, Valentinus, and the others. Like Mark, they redeem their dying members at the end of their life with oil, balsam, and water, while reciting some invocations in Hebrew over the head of the one being redeemed in that way.”
†53 The Ophites, or Naassenes, were a second century gnostic group whose names are derived from the Greek or Hebrew words for the serpent. They were strongly opposed to the God of the Old Testament and venerated the serpent as a source of gnosis. See C. Gianotto, “Ophites — Naassenes,” in EEC, 612.
†54 Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, iii, 4: PG 42, 860: HD II, 2: “37. The Ophites are those who worship the serpent; they consider it to be Christ, but keep this reptile, a real serpent, in a box.”
†55 In Indiculus IV, 9: PL 81, 637-638, Pseudo-Jerome mentions the Ophites under the Gnostics: “The Ophites are those who worship and adore this serpent [who seduced Eve]. They say that he brought knowledge of virtue. He sanctifies their Eucharist. When the breads are made, they call him forth from his cave, and he winds himself around the breads, and touching each of the offerings with his tongue, he consecrates for them the bread of perdition.”
†56 The Cainites were a second century gnostic group who were strongly opposed to the God of the Old Testament. As a result they exalted his enemies, including Cain, Esau, and Judas. See E. Prinzivalli, “Cainites,” in EEC, 139.
†57 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XXXIV, 1-2: CCL 9, 232: “Others have begun a heresy from Judas, the traitor. They say that Judas did a good deed in betraying the Savior. For Judas, they say, turned out to be the source of all our good knowledge; through him the heavenly mysteries have been disclosed to us. The powers in heaven, they say, did not want Christ to suffer and knew that, if he suffered, he would give life to human beings. Knowing, they say, that, if Christ suffered, he would bring salvation to human beings, Judas betrayed him.” See Pseudo-Jerome, Indiculus IX: PL 81, 640: “The Cainites say… that Judas, the betrayer of Christ, was more learned than all the apostles. For, since he knew the hidden plan of God and knew that his suffering would mean salvation for all human beings, though the earthly powers denied this, he saved the whole human race by betraying him.”
†58 See Nm 16:31.
†59 Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, iii, 5: PG 42, 860: HD II, 2: “38. The Caianites, like the previous heretics, reject the Law and him who spoke in the Law. They deny the resurrection of the flesh and praise Cain, saying that he came from a mightier power. They also pay divine honors to Judas, as well as to the followers of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and even to the Sodomites.”
†60 The Sethians were gnostics who had a special veneration for Seth. The discovery of the Nag Hammadi texts, which contain references to the Sethians, has stirred new interest in Sethian sects and their doctrinal system, though some scholars have remained skeptical about the existence of such groups and such doctrinal systems. See C. Gianotto, “Sethians,” in EEC, 771.
†61 Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, iii, 6: PG 42, 860: HD II, 2: “39. The Sethians. These people glorify Seth and say that he was born of the heavenly mother who repented of having brought forth those with Cain. After Cain was rejected and Abel was slain, she had intercourse with the heavenly father and produced Seth as a pure offspring, and from him the rest of the human race came forth. These people also hold that there are principles and powers and the other things which other groups hold.” See also Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber III, 1-3: CCL 9, 218-219: “Another is the heresy of the Sethians which venerates Seth, the son of Adam, who was born later and called by this name. He was born after the slaying of blessed Abel. The Sethians are named after him; they worship him and say that, after the two human beings were created in the beginning and after the angels rebelled, a feminine power held sway in heaven, for they think there are male and female gods and goddesses. Seeing that Abel the just was killed, she decided to bear the just Seth, and she gave him a spirit of great power so that he could destroy, they say, the enemy powers. They say that Christ, our God, drew his lineage from Seth. Some of them assert and believe not only that he drew his lineage from him, but that Seth himself is Christ.” See also Pseudo-Jerome, Indiculus XVII, 29: PL 81, 641.
†62 With regard to this surprising claim that the Sethians regarded Sem as Christ, G. Bardy
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comments that Augustine must have used sources unknown to us. He notes that the addition “the Son of Noah,” if authentic, removes all doubt about the person to whom Augustine refers. In the
Panarion 55, Epiphanius mentions that Sem was an object of veneration among the Melchizedekians. See G. Bardy, “Le 'De haeresibus' et ses sources,” 401.
†63 The Archontics were a gnostic sect of the third and fourth centuries related to the Sethians. They derive their name from the seven archons or lords of the planetary spheres. See G. Filoramo, “Arcontici,” in EEC, 71.
†64 See Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, iii, 7: PG 42, 860-861: HD II, 2: “40. The Archontics. These people also attribute the universe to many archons and state that whatever has come to be has arisen from them. They are found to engage in a shameful practice. They reject the resurrection of the flesh and speak ill of the Old Testament, though they make use of the Old and the New Testaments, interpreting each expression in favor of their position.”
†65 Cerdo was a gnostic who taught in Rome in the middle of the second century. Hippolytus mistakenly, it seems, attributes to Cerdo the main doctrines of Marcion whom he sees as merely the disciple of Cerdo. See C. Gianotto, “Cerdo,” in EEC, 158.
†66 Epiphanius, Anaceph I, iii, 8: PG 42, 861: HD II, 2-3: “41. The Cerdonians, named after Cerdon, inherited a share of the error of Heracleon, but added to it. Cerdon came to Rome from Syria and set forth his teaching in the time of Bishop Hyginus. He preached two opposing principles. He denied that Christ was born, and rejected the resurrection of the dead as well as the Old Testament.”
†67 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History IV, xi: FOTC 19, 224: Quoting Irenaeus, Adversus haereses I, xxvii, 1-2, Eusebius says that he “taught that the God preached by the Law and the Prophets was not the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for the one was known, the other unknown; the one was righteous, the other good.”
†68 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XLIV, 1-2: CCL 9 IX, 235-236: “A certain Cerdon arose after these, proclaiming a worse doctrine than his teachers. After he had come from Syria to Rome, he dared to say that there are two principles, that is, one the good God and the other the evil one, and that the good God produces good things and the evil one produces evil things. He said that Jesus the Savior was not born of Mary, did not appear in the flesh, and had not come down from heaven, but rather was only thought to be seen by human beings. He was not really seen, he says, but was a shadow. Hence, he was thought to suffer by some people, but he did not really suffer.”
†69 Marcion was an important heretic of the second century. For a discussion of Marcion's life and teachings, see the introduction to Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets. Also see B. Aland, “Marcion—Marcionites—Marcionism,” in EEC, 523-524.
†70 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XLV, 3: CCL 9, 236: “But [Marcion] rather affirmed the false doctrine of his teacher, Cerdon. He likewise proclaimed one good God and one evil.”
†71 Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, iii, 9: PG 42, 861: HD II, 3: “42. The Marcionites. This Marcion came from Pontus. He was the son of the bishop; having violated a virgin, he fled because he was thrown out of the church by his own father. Having come to Rome, he asked the leaders at that time for penance, but did not obtain it. He rose up and taught against the faith, introducing three principles: the good, the just, and the evil. He said that the New Testament is completely foreign to the Old and to the one who spoke in it. He rejected the resurrection of the flesh. He administered baptism not once, but two and three times after one sinned. He baptized other persons on behalf of dead catechumens, and he readily permitted women to administer baptism.”
†72 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History V, 13: FOTC 19, 309: Quoting from Tatian, Eusebius says, “Others… supposed not only two but even three Natures. Of these the chief and leader is Syneros, as those who put forth his teaching say.”
†73 Apelles was a disciple of Marcion at Rome. He later lived for a time in Alexandria. He dissociated himself from Marcion's dualism and eliminated his docetist Christology, but went beyond Marcion in his opposition to the Old Testament. See C. Gianotto, “Apelles,” in ECC, 54.
†74 Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, iii, 11: PG 42, 861: HD II, 3: “44. The Apellians. This Apelles, like Marcion and Lucian, regarded the whole of creation and the creator as evil. Unlike them, he did not teach three principles, but one principle and one God, who is supreme and unnamed. He said that he, the One, made another. When this other one came to be and was found to be evil, he made the world in his malice.” Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XLVII, 1-2: CCL 9, 237; Philaster
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quotes Apelles as saying that he does not hold with Marcion “two coeternal principles. I preach that there is one principle whom I acknowledge as God. This God made the angels; he also made another power, whom I know to be a second God. He is the power of God and made the world. This God who made the world, he says, is not good, as he is who made him. But he is subject to that God by whom he was made, and he obeys his will, command, and orders in all things.”
†75 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XLVII, 4-6: CCL, 237: “[Apelles] said that Christ appeared in the flesh, but not that he brought his flesh down from heaven, as Valentinus held. He also said that his flesh was not raised up after his Passion. He said that Christ drew his flesh from the four elements, that is, the dry, the warm, the moist, and the cold, and that at the resurrection he returned it to the elements he had taken from the world and left them on the earth. He stated that Christ ascended into heaven without flesh.”
†76 Severus was an Encratite heretic. Eusebius more correctly lists him after Tatian. See E. Prinzivalli, “Severus,” in EEC, 773.
†77 A variant reading has: from the land and Satan.
†78 Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, iii, 12: PG 42, 861: HD II, 3-4: “45. The Severians. A certain Severus, a follower of Apelles, rejected wine, making up the story that the vine came forth from the snake-like Satan and the earth, when they had intercourse. He rejects woman, claiming that she came from the evil power. He introduced certain names of archons and certain apocryphal books. Like the others, he rejected the resurrection of the flesh and the Old Testament.”
†79 Tatian was a second century Christian writer originally from Assyria; he is listed among the Apologists. According to the heresiological tradition, he left the church after the martyrdom of Justin and tended toward encratism. See F. Bolgiani, “Tatian,” in EEC, 815.
†80 Epiphanius, Anaceph. I, iii, 13: PG 42, 861: HD II, 4: “46. The Tatians. Tatian first lived with Justin, the holy martyr. After the death of Justin, the martyr and philosopher, he was corrupted by the teachings of Marcion and became his disciple, holding the same doctrines as he did, but adding some others beyond them. He is said to have come from Mesopotamia.”
†81 Their name comes from the Greek term for continence; they practiced an extreme asceticism which implied a rejection of many of the good things of God's creation. See F. Bolgiani, “Encratism,” in EEC, 271-272.
†82 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LXXII, 2: CCL 9, 247: In speaking of the Aerians, Philaster mentions, “They are also called Encratites, that is, people who abstain. They own nothing; they detest foods which God gave to the human race with a blessing. They also condemn lawful marriage, claiming that it was not instituted by God.”
†83 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XLVIII, 1-2: CCL 9, 237: “After the persecution under Decius, there was a certain Tatian, a disciple of Saint Justin, the martyr. After Justin's death, he withdrew from the truth and held the teaching of that holy and blessed martyr in contempt. He said that certain aeons were brought forth from heaven. He also added that our father Adam, the first human being, was not saved. In preaching the aeons, he raved like Marcion. He abhorred human generation, rejected the lawful right of marriage, and did not admit that that right was established by God.” See also Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History IV, 29: FOTC 19, 267-269.
†84 Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 1: PG 42, 864: HD II, 211: “47. The Encratites, who were a splinter group from Tatian, rejected marriage, saying that it comes from Satan, and they forbade all eating of meat.”
†85 The followers of Montanus were called Cataphrygians after their place of origin between Mysia and Phrygia. See E. Peretto, “Cataphrygians,” in EEC, 150.
†86 Montanus emerged as a prophet in Phrygia in the years 155-60, claiming to be the spokesman of the Holy Spirit. See B. Aland, “Montanus—Montanism,” in EEC, 570-571.
†87 Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 2; PG 42, 864: HD II, 211: “48. The Cataphrygians. These heretics are also called Montanists and Tascodrugites. They accept the Old and New Testaments. They add other prophets to the prophets, and boast of a certain Montanus and Priscilla.” See also Pseudo-Jerome, Indiculus XX, 32: PL 81, 641: “The originators of the heresy of the Cataphrygians are Montanus, Prisca and Maximilla; in them the most foolish error of deceived human beings recognizes Montanus as the Holy Spirit and Prisca and Maximilla as prophetesses.”
†88 See Augustine, Answer to Faustus XXXII, 17; The Excellence of Widowhood IV, 6 and V, 7; The Christian Combat XXVIII, 30; Letter 237, 2.
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†89 See Epiphanius, Panarion 48, 14, 6 and 15, 7 (tr. P. Amidon): “In one of their feasts they pierce a very young boy in every part of his body with brass needles and take his blood to use at sacrifice…. They pierce through the body of an innocent boy and take away the blood to partake of it, pretending that this is an initiation into the name of Christ….” See also Pseudo-Jerome, Indiculus XXXII, 20: PL 81, 641: “This heresy, or rather perdition, has unspeakable rites. For every year they offer a single perfect infant of one year; they pierce his little body with wounds and catch his blood in flour. In that way they make bread from the mixture of this criminal grain and eat the diabolical sacrament of this savage eucharist. If the infant dies from the piercing wounds, he is worshipped as a martyr, but if he lives, he is venerated as a high priest.”
†90 Among the companions of Montanus, Epiphanius mentions, along with Priscilla and Maximilla, a certain Quintilla, after whom the Quintillians are named. He also refers to them as Pepuzians, Artotyrites, and Priscillians. See “Quintilliens,” in DTC XIII, 1598.
†91 Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 3: PG 42, 864: HD II, 211: “49. The Pepuzians are also called Quintillians, and the Artotyrites are linked to them. They came from the Cataphrygians, but taught some doctrines different from theirs. They pay divine honors to Pepuza, a deserted city between Galatia, Cappadocia, and Phrygia, and regard it as Jerusalem. But there is also another Pepuza. They allow women to hold positions of authority and the priesthood. They are initiated by certain rites in which they stab a young child. They tell the story that Christ once appeared there in Pepuza to Quintilla and Priscilla in the form of a woman. They also use the Old and New Testaments, adapting them as they see fit.”
†92 In his Ecclesiastical History V, 18: FOTC 19, 322, Eusebius says that Montanus “gave the name of Jerusalem to Pepuza and Tymion, (these are small towns in Phrygia)….”
†93 Augustine distinguishes the Artotyrites from the Pepuzians or Quintillians, claiming that Epiphanius confused them. Their name is composed of the Greek words for bread and cheese. See F. Cocchini, “Artotyritae,” in EEC, 83.
†94 Pseudo-Jerome, Indiculus XXI, 33: PL 81, 641: “The Artotyrites use bread and cheese in their holy rites, saying that the first humans made offerings from the products of the earth and from the products of sheep.” Epiphanius mentions these people in connection with the Pepuzians; see Anaceph. II, i, 3: PG 42, 864: HD II, 211. In the Panarion 49, 2, 6, he mentions, “They call [the Quintillians or Pepuzians] Artotyrites from the fact that in their rites they set out bread and cheese and thus celebrate their rites….”
†95 The Tessarescedecatites or Quartodecimans, as they are more commonly known, followed Saint John's chronology of the Passion and celebrated Easter on the date of the Jewish Passover, the 14th day of Nisan, breaking their fast on that day. In the second century Pope Victor threatened to excommunicate the Quartodecimans in the Eastern churches. The Council of Nicaea decided upon the Sunday celebration of Easter. See V. Loi, “Quartodecimans,” in EEC, 728.
†96 Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 4: PG 42, 864: HD II, 211-212: “50. The Tessarescedecatites are those who celebrate the Paschal Feast on a fixed day of the year, on whichever day the fourteenth day of the lunar month falls. Whether it is on the Sabbath or on the Lord's day, they fast and keep vigil on that day.”
†97 Epiphanius labelled various opponents of the writings of Saint John as the Alogi; they were probably to be found in the West rather than in Asia Minor. See A. Grillmeier, “Aloger,” in LTK I, 363.
†98 Epiphanius, Anaceph II, i, 5: PG 42, 864: HD II, 212: “51. The Alogi are called that by us; they reject the Gospel of John and in it God the Word who is always born from the Father above. They reject not merely the gospel according to John, but also the Apocalypse.” See also Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LX, 2: CCL 9, 242.
†99 The Adamians or Adamites were an heretic sect that believed that they were the true Adam and Eve and that their church was paradise. See F. Cocchini, “Adamitae (Adamiani),” in EEC, 10.
†100 Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 6: PG 42, 864-865: HD II, 212: “52. The Adamians are called Adamizers by some. Their doctrine is more of a joke than the truth, for men and women come together as naked as they came from their mothers' wombs, and in that condition they do the readings and prayers and the rest. They live as monks and practice continence, and they do not admit marriage. Hence, they regard their church as paradise.”
†101 The Elkesaites were a Judaeo-Christian gnostic sect whose origin goes back to the early
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years of the second century. Though a man named Elxai (Elci) is often mentioned in connection with a book of revelations, the name is generally interpreted as referring to that book as the book of hidden power. Other sources indicate that Mani, the founder of the Manichaeans, had been an Elkesaite and even their head. See A. F. J. Klijn, “Elkesaites,” in EEC, 269-270.
†102 Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 7: PG 42, 865: HD II, 212: “53. The Sampsaeans, who are also called Elcesaeans, still live in Arabia, the land situated beyond the Dead Sea. They were deceived by Elcesaeus, a certain false prophet, from whose family there now exist two women, Marthous and Marthana, whom that heresy worships as goddesses. They hold almost the same doctrines as the Ebionites.”
†103 Theodotus of Byzantium, called the Tanner, came to Rome around 190, where he taught a version of adoptionism. He held that Christ was merely a man, in order to mitigate the gravity of his apostasy. See “Theodotus of Byzantium,” in EEC, 830.
†104 Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 8: PG 42, 865: HD II, 212: “54. The Theodotians are named after Theodotion, the tanner from Byzantium. He was outstanding for his Greek education. He was with others during the time of the persecution, but he alone fell away, when the rest were martyrs. Because he was reproached, he came up with the idea of saying that Christ was a mere man so that he might not be subject to the charge of denying God. He taught this.”
†105 The Melchizedekians were a sect or group of sects which developed from heterodox speculations portraying Melchizedek as a heavenly power superior to Christ or even identifying him with the Holy Spirit. See C. Gianotto, “Melchiczedek, Melchizedekians,” in EEC, 550.
†106 See Gn 14:18.
†107 Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 9: PG 42, 865: HD II, 212: “55. The Melchizedekians venerate Melchizedek and say that he was a power and not a mere man; they have ventured to refer everything to the name of this man.” See also Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LII: CCL 9, 239: “After these [i.e., the Theodotians], others who withdrew from them said similar things. They also say that Melchizedek, the priest, is a great power of God….”
†108 The Bardesanists were heretical followers of Bardesanes (154-222), a poet and philosopher in Edessa, who is considered to be the creator of Syriac Christian literature. What heretical doctrines he held, if any, is at present an open question. See R. Lavenant, “Bardesanes,” in EEC, 110.
†109 Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 10: PG 42, 865: HD II, 212-213: “56. Bardesanists. This Bardesanes came from Mesopotamia; he first belonged to the true faith and was distinguished in wisdom. Having left the truth, he taught almost the same thing as Valentinus, except for some few things on which he differed from Valentinus.”
†110 Noetus of Smyrna was the first to teach the doctrine of the Patripassians at the end of the second century. See M. Simonetti, “Noetus of Smyrna,” in EEC, p. 599.
†111 Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 11: PG 42, 865: HD II, 213: “57. The Noetians. This Noetus was from Smyrna in Asia. Exalted with pride along with certain others, he taught that Christ is the Father-Son and that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are the same. He claimed that he himself was Moses and that his brother was Aaron.”
†112 The Valesians, named after their unknown founder, Valesius, were first mentioned by Epiphanius, who is the sole source of information on them. See G. Bareille, “Eunuques ou Valésians,” in DTC V, 1516-1521.
†113 Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 12: PG 42, 865: HD II, 213: “58. The Valesians. These, as we understand, live in Bacatha which is the principal town of Philadelphia in Arabia. They castrate those who arrive there and stay with them. Most of them are eunuchs, having been castrated. They teach other things full of heresy, rejecting the Law and the Prophets and introducing certain other shameful practices.”
†114 The Cathari, or “the pure” from the Greek katharoi, were the followers of Novatian, a third century Roman priest, who denied reconciliation under any condition to those who had fallen away in the time of persecution. His schismatic church continued to exist in Rome until almost the middle of the fifth century and in Africa even later. See H. J. Vogt, “Novatian,” and R. J. De Simone, “Novatianists,” in EEC, 603-604.
†115 Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 13: PG 42, 868: HD II, 213: “59. The Carthari are those who joined Novatus of Rome. They completely forbid second marriages, and they do not allow penance.”
†116 Apart from the mention of these heretics by Epiphanius, virtually nothing is known about
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them. In his
Panarion 60, Epiphanius himself admits to knowing almost nothing about them; there he also suggests that they may have received their name from a belief that the angels created the world. See A. Lehaut, “Angeliques,” in DTC II, 58.
†117 Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 14: PG 42, 868: HD II, 213: “60. The Angelics. These have completely died out. But they boasted that they had an angelic rank or that they were named after the angels.”
†118 The Apostolics were a heretical group in Asia Minor during the fourth century; Epiphanius links them with the Encratites, Cathars, and Novatianists. See G. Ladocsi, “Apostolici,” in EEC, 63.
†119 Like the Encratites, they were called Apotactites, because they renounced marriage and all property.
†120 Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 15: PG 42, 868: HD II, 213: “61. The Apostolics, who are also called Apotactites, are found near Pisidia. They admit only Apotactites, and they pray by themselves. They are very much like the Encratites, but they hold some views different from theirs.”
†121 The Sabellians are named after Sabellius who was condemned around 220 at Rome by Callistus for teaching patripassian monarchism. See M. Simonetti, “Patripassians” and “Sabellius—Sabellianism,” in EEC, 653-654 and 748-749.
†122 Augustine is following Philaster on this point; see note 124 for the text.
†123 Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 16: PG 42, 868: HD II, 213: “62. The Sabellians held views similar to Noetus except that they say that the Father did not suffer.”
†124 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LIV: CCL 9, 239-240: “After him [i.e., Noetus], Sabellius from Lybia, his disciple, exactly followed the pattern and error of his teacher. Hence, they were afterward called Sabellians as well as Patripassians. They were also called Praxeans after Praxeas and Hermogenes; these latter lived in Africa and were expelled from the Catholic Church for holding such views.”
†125 Epiphanius is the sole authority for the existence of this sect, and he seems skeptical about the reports on it which he has received. See his Panarion 63.
†126 Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 17: PG 42, 868: HD II, 213: “63. The Origenists, followers of a certain Origen, perform a shameful action; they do unspeakable things and hand their bodies over to corruption.”
†127 The second group of Origenists are the followers of the great exegete, theologian, teacher of the Eastern church, Origen of Alexandria. Origen himself was certainly not a heretic, though his injudicious followers and systematizers did find in his writings theses which were objectionable and which led to the first Origenist controversy at the end of the fourth century. For more on Origenism and the first Origenist controversy, see the introduction to Augustine's To Orosius in Refutation of the Priscillianists and Origenists. See also H. Crouzel, “Origen” and “Origenism” in EEC, 619-624.
†128 Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, i, 18: PG XLII, 868: HD II, 214: “64. The other Origenians, who follow the Adamantine Commentator, reject the resurrection of the dead. They make Christ and the Holy Spirit creatures and treat as allegories paradise, the heavens, and everything else. They say in their madness that the kingdom of Christ will have an end.” Epiphanius was strongly opposed to Origen's teaching in the first Origenist controversy at the end of the fourth century; hence, he is hardly an unbiased witness.
†129 See The City of God XXI, 17. Though Jerome attributed to Origen the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, there is no textual evidence in Origen that he actually held such a position. Indeed, there is evidence that he did not.
†130 The Paulinians were followers of Paul of Samosata in Syria. See F. Cocchini, “Paulinians,” in EEC, 660. Paul of Samosata was a bishop of Antioch deposed by the Council of Antioch in 268. He taught a monarchianism of an adoptionist sort. See M. Simonetti, “Paul of Samosata,” in EEC, 663.
†131 Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, 1: PG 42, 868: HD III, 1: “65. Paul of Samosata was bishop of Antioch the Great. He all but said that Christ did not subsist, claiming that he was the sort of word that is uttered orally and that he began to be from Mary. He said that Christ had things spoken prophetically about him in the holy scriptures, when he did not exist, but that he began to be from Mary and from the time of his presence in the flesh.”
†132 Artemon was an adoptionist heretic in Rome around 235. See E. Prinzivalli, “Artemon or Artemas,” in EEC, 83.
†133 For Photinus, see the following number.
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†134 The nineteenth canon of the Council of Nicaea rejected their baptisms and ordinations and ordered that they be repeated for those who returned to the Catholic Church; see DS 128.
†135 Photinus, bishop of Sirmium (Pannonia), was a disciple of Marcellus of Ancyra. He was deposed from his bishopric in 351, returned in 362, and was later expelled again. He held a rigid monarchianism and adoptionism and was linked, on those grounds, with Paul of Samosata. See M. Simonetti, “Photinus of Sirmium,” in EEC, 685-686.
†136 Epiphanius, Anaceph. III, i, 2: PG 42, 869: HD III, 230: “71. The Photinians. This Photinus, who was born in Sirmium, has survived up to the present time. He held the same positions as Paul of Samosata, They differ from him in some respect. They also claim that Christ began to be from Mary.”
†137 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LV: CCL 9, 244: “After him [i.e., Paul], Photinus, following his teaching in every respect, preached similar views. Because he persevered in this misrepresentation, he was thrown out of the church of the city of Sirmium, after he lost out to the holy bishops.”
†138 Saint Augustine was himself a “hearer” in the Manichaean sect for some nine years prior to his conversion and baptism in 386. Hence, his knowledge of the beliefs and practices of the Manichees is direct and not dependent upon Epiphanius. For a general introduction to Mani and Manichaeism, see C. Riggi and A. Di Berardino, “Mani—Manichees—Manichaeism,” in EEC, 519-520.
†139 The Greek manis or mania means wrath or madness.
†140 That is, they allegedly derived the name from the Greek words for “manna” (manna) and “pour” (cheo).
†141 Though many moderns view Manichaeism as a distinct world religion, Augustine always took it to be a Christian heresy. The syncretist tendencies of Manichaeism led them to incorporate many Christian elements into their beliefs and worship; moreover, Mani himself seems to have come from a Judaeo-Christian Elkesaite family.
†142 The pun in Latin of exsecramentum with sacramentum cannot be reproduced in English.
†143 See Answer to Faustus V, 5; “Hence, those who were determined to persist in the [Manichaean ascetical practices] separated themselves from your company, and because they sleep on mats (in mattis), they are called mattarii. Far different from these were the feathers and goat-skinned blankets of Faustus, and with the abundance of such luxuries he showed his aversion not only for the Mattarii, but also for the home of his own father, a poor citizen of Milevis.”
†144 See Jn 16:7.
†145 See Gal 5:17.
†146 The Hieracites were followers of Hieracas of Leontopolis, one of the founders of Egyptian monasticism in the late third and fourth centuries. He was accused of holding Origenist views on the pre-existence of souls and the resurrection of the body. See P. Nautin, “Hieracas of Leontopolis,” in EEC, 380.
†147 Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, ii, 3: PG 42, 868-869: HD III, 1-2: “67. The Hieracites stem from Hieracas, a teacher from Leontopolis, a city in Egypt. They reject the resurrection of the flesh, but use the Old and the New Testaments. They absolutely forbid marriage. They admit monks and virgins and the continent and widows. They say that children who are not yet grown up have no share in the kingdom, since they have not yet faced the struggle.”
†148 The Melitians were a schismatic group formed in Alexandria after the last persecution in Egypt (303-312). In response to the moderation shown by Peter of Alexandria with regard to those who fell away during the persecution of Diocletian, Melitius advocated a more rigorous approach and began to ordain bishops to fill the sees left vacant as a result of the persecution. See M. Simonetti, “Melitius of Lycopolis, Melitian schism,” in EEC, 551.
†149 Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, ii, 4: PG 42, 869: HD III, 2: “68. The Melitians were a schism in Egypt, not a heresy. They did not pray together with those who fell away in the persecution; now they have joined the Arians.”
†150 Arius was an Alexandrian priest whose ideas about the Trinity gave rise to Arianism, one of the most important heresies of the early Church. For Arius and Arianism, see the introduction to the Debate with Maximinus, as well as M. Simonetti, “Arius—Arians—Arianism,” in EEC, 76-78.
†151 Epiphanius, Anaceph. II, ii, 5: PG 42, 869: HD III, 2: “69. The Arians, or Areiomanites,
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say that the Son of God is a creature and that the Holy Spirit is a creature of a creature. They claim that Christ the Savior received only flesh from Mary and not a soul. This Arius was a priest of Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria.”
†152 The Audians were a rigorist monastic sect founded by Audius of Edessa. The group seems to have been confined to Syria and Scythia; though there were anthropomorphite monks in Egypt, they should not be confused with the Audians, as Augustine seems to have done. See T. Orlandi, “Audiani,” in EEC, p. 97, as well as B. Studer, “Anthropomorphism,” in EEC, 46.
†153 The CCL edition has “in similitudinem imaginis corruptibilis hominis.” I have followed several manuscripts which omit “imaginis.”
†154 Epiphanius, Anaceph. III, i, 1: PG 42, 869: HD III, 230: “70. The Audians are a rebellion and a schism, but not a heresy. They have a well-ordered manner of living. In every respect they have the same faith as the Catholic Church, but most of them live in monasteries. They make excessive use of many apocryphal books. They do not join us in prayer; they blame our bishops, calling them rich men and calling others different names. They celebrate Easter in their own way at the time when the Jews celebrate it. They have one peculiar point of contention, namely, they interpret 'in God's image' rigidly.” See also Pseudo-Jerome, Indiculus XXIV, 36: PL 81, 642: “The Anthropomorphites say that God is marked off with the same shapes of the members as those which make up a human being, and they think that God is like a human being in terms of this image which we bear” (see Gn 1:26).
†155 Epiphanius and, after him, Philaster and Augustine, refer to those who preferred the term homoiousios to the Nicene homoousios as Semiarians. M. Simonetti calls the term “tendentious” and claims that it rests upon “a too simplistic identification of anti-Arian orthodoxy with the Nicene theology” (see M. Simonetti, “Semiarians,” in EEC, 767).
†156 Epiphanius, Anaceph. III, i, 4: PG 42,872: HD III, 230-231: “73. The Semiarians profess that Christ is a creature, but dissemble and say that he is not a creature like one of the other creatures. Rather, they say, 'We state that he is the Son, but we say that he is created, because no change touched the Father as a result of having generated him.' With regard to the Holy Spirit, they also profess that he is merely a creature. They reject with regard to the Son homoousios, but are willing to say homoiousios. Some of them also reject homoiousios.”
†157 The name, Macedonians, was first used to refer to the followers of Macedonius, a priest at Constantinople around 335, who became bishop in 344 when Paul was expelled. Upon Paul's return in 346 Macedonius was deprived of power until Paul was definitively banished in 350. Macedonius favored the Homoiousian group and refused to recognize the divinity of the Holy Spirit when the question arose around 360. After 380, the term came to refer to those who, while not Arians, refused to acknowledge the divinity of the Holy Spirit. See M. Simonetti, “Macedonius, Macedonians,” in EEC, 516.
†158 Pseudo-Jerome, Indiculus XXX, 42: PL 81, 642: “The Pneumatomachians are the Macedonians… they say that the Holy Spirit is not God's substance, but a creature, better than other creatures and the servant of the Father and the Son….”
†159 Epiphanius, Anaceph. III, i, 6: PG 42, 872: HD III, 231: “74. The Pneumatomachians. These people speak correctly of Christ, but they blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, claiming that he is a creature and not divine. Rather, through a misuse of language, they say that he was created for an activity and claim that he is merely a sanctifying power.”
†160 Aerius was a priest in Pontus; he quarrelled with Eustathius when the latter was made bishop of Sebaste around 357. See F. Cocchini, “Aerius,” in EEC, 13.
†161 Epiphanius, Anaceph. III, i, 6: PG 42, 872: HD III, 231: “75. The Aerians. This Aerius was born in Pontus and still survives as a trial for this life. He was a priest of bishop Eustathius who was accused of being an Arian. When this Aerius was not made bishop, he taught many things against the Church. In terms of his faith, he was a complete Arian, but he also taught other opinions. He says that one should not offer sacrifice for the dead; he forbids fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, during Lent, and on Good Friday. He preaches renunciation, but indulges in eating meat and every luxury. If one of his disciples wants to fast, he says that he should not do this on the appointed days, but whenever he wishes. For you are not under the law (See Rom 6:14). He claims that a bishop is no better than a priest.” See also Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LXXII, 1-2: CCL 9, 247: “The Aerians are other heretics; they are named after a certain Aerius. They
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practice abstinence, and most of them live in the province of Pamphilia. They do not own anything and hate the foods which God gave to the human race with a blessing. They also condemn lawful marriages, saying that they were not instituted by God.”
†162 Aetius of Antioch, a Syria-born proponent of radical Arianism, was condemned by the Council of Constantinople in 360 and died around 365. See M. Simonetti, “Aetius of Antioch,” in EEC, 13.
†163 Eunomius of Cyzicus, a native of Cappadocia and disciple of Aetius, was the greatest proponent of radical Arianism. He died around 394, after being exiled in 383. See M. Simonetti, “Eunomius of Cyzicus,” in EEC, 297.
†164 Epiphanius, Anaceph. III, i, 7: PG 42, 873: HD III, 231-232: “76. The Aetians. These people began with Aetius, a Cilician, who was ordained a deacon by George, the Arian bishop of Alexandria. They are called Anomoians, but some call them Eunomians on account of Eunomus, who was a disciple of Aetius and is still living. Eudoxius was teaching Arian doctrines along with them, but then out of fear of the emperor Constantius, he withdrew from them, and Aetius alone was exiled. Eudoxius continued to teach Arian doctrines, but not as a follower of Aetius. These Anomoians, or Aetians, completely separate Christ and the Holy Spirit from God. They say that Christ is created and bears no likeness to God. With Aristotelian and geometrical syllogisms, they try to arrive at God the Father and in the same way to show that Christ cannot come from God. Those called Eunomians after him baptize again all those who join them, even the Arians. But they baptize only the head, having turned those who are baptized upside down, as the reports have it. They say it is nothing if someone falls through fornication or some other sin. For they say that God only asks that one remain in their faith alone.”
†165 Apollinaris of Laodicea was an outstanding theologian, exegete, polemicist, and man of letters in the fourth century. Though originally a defender of the Council of Nicaea, he broke with the Church in 375 and founded his own. See C. Kannengiesser, “Apollinaris of Laodicea, Apollinarianism,” in EEC, 58-59.
†166 Epiphanius, Anaceph. III, ii, 1: PG 42, 873: HD III, 415: “77. The Dimoerites are also called Apollinarists; they do not profess the complete incarnation of Christ. Some of them dared to say that the body is of the same substance as the divinity. Others of them denied that Christ ever assumed a soul. Still others, relying on the words, 'The Word became flesh,' said that he did not take his fleshly existence from created flesh, that is, from Mary. Merely out of contentiousness, they said that the Word had been changed into flesh. Later, they said that he did not assume a mind, though I do not know what they were thinking of.” The name, Dimoerites, refers to the fact that they admitted only two of the three elements in Christ.
†167 The Antidicomarianites, that is, the opponents of Mary, were found in Arabia according to Epiphanius; see his Panarion 78. See also F. Cocchini, “Antidicomarianitae,” in EEC, 47.
†168 Epiphanius, Anaceph. III, ii, 2: PG 42, 873: HD III, 415: “78. The Antidicomarianites are those who say that the holy and ever-virgin Mary had relations with Joseph after she had given birth to the Savior.”
†169 The Euchites, or the Messalians, whose names mean “men of prayer” in Greek and Syrian respectively, were denounced around 360 and 374 for their rejection of work and discipline. See J. Gribomont, “Messalians,” in EEC, p. 556.
†170 Epiphanius, Anaceph. III, ii, 4: PG XLII, 873: HD III, 415: “80. The Massalinians. In translation, their name means: those who pray. Those called the Euphemites, Martyrians, and Satanians from the heresies practiced by the pagans are linked with them.” The editor of the CCL edition points out that Augustine's source for the information not contained in Epiphanius is unknown.
†171 There is no other evidence apart from Philaster for the existence of such a sect.
†172 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LI, 1: CCL 9, 238-239: “There are other heretics who hold 'metangismos,' that is, that the Son enters into the Father and is present like one vessel in another. They do not know what they are saying, for the Savior did not say that the Son enters into the Father, but taught on the basis of equality in divinity and power, not that he entered into or is contained by the Father… [but] that the Son is as great as the Father….”
†173 The Seleucians were a gnostic sect in Galatia in the second and third centuries. Apart from what Philaster and Augustine report, little is known of these heretics. See J. P. Steffes,
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“Seleukianer,” in LTK IX, 633. In “Hermogenes” (LTK V, 261), J. Kraus identifies the Hermias, of whom Philaster and Augustine speak, with the Hermogenes against whom Tertullian wrote. See the discussion of this question in L. G. Müller,
The De Haeresibus of Saint Augustine, 188.
†174 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LV, 1.2-4.5: CCL 9, 240. In his somewhat lengthy entry, Philaster says that “they state that hyle, that is, the matter of the world is coeternal with God…. they say that the human spirit, that is, the soul was not made by God through the Son, but comes from the earth. They claim that evil is at times from God, at times from matter. They deny that the Savior is seated in the flesh at the right hand of the Father, but that he stripped himself of it and placed it on the sun, because the prophet said, In the sun he placed his tent, although they do not know what he meant. They deny a visible paradise…. They do not use baptism…. They preach that the resurrection consists in the procreation of children that takes place every day in the human race….”
†175 Apart from the information we have from Philaster, nothing is known of the Proclianites. Philastrius, Diuersarum haeresion liber LVI, 1.2: CCL 9, 240-241: “Other heretics are the disciples of these men; they are called the Proclianites and the Hermeonites…. They deny that Christ came in the flesh; they have no hope of resurrection and judgment; they do not believe that he was born of a virgin.”
†176 The Patricians were most probably a gnostic sect founded by a Roman named Patricius. See the introduction to Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets for Harnack's suggestion that the Fabricius mentioned in that work is actually the Patricius Augustine mentions here. See also A. Di Berardino, “Patriciani,” in EEC, 653.
†177 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LXII, 1-2: CCL 9, 243: “Still other heretics are the Patricians, named after a certain Patricius, who lived in the city of Rome. They claim that human flesh was not made by God, but suppose that it was made by the devil. They decree that it should even be despised and rejected in every way to the point that some of them have not hesitated deliberately to bring about their own death.”
†178 Augustine derives the name of the Ascitae from the Greek word for wine skin. Philaster attributes similar customs to a sect that flourished in Galatia whom he calls the Ascodrugitae. Epiphanius refers to them as Tascodrugitae—a name which he explains means the same as that of the Passalorynchites; see Panarion 48.14.4 cited in the following note. See F. Cocchini, “Ascitae—Ascodrugitae,” in EEC, 84.
†179 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LXXV, 1: CCL 9, 248: “Still others are the Ascodrugites in Galatia. They inflate a wine skin, set it down, veil it, and circle round it in their church, raving and reveling, like those pagan followers of Father Liber. They rage in their unhealthy mind like the pagans and do not understand what the Savior said, 'One should take new wine skins and put new wine in them, not in old ones'” (see Lk 5:38).
†180 The Passalorynchites may be another name for the Cataphrygians, though Philaster lists them as a separate group. In his Panarion 48.14.4, Epiphanius mentions that the Cataphrygians “are also called Tascodrugites for this reason: taskos in their language means 'peg,' and drougos means 'nostril' or 'snout,' so that from their putting their forefinger on their nostril while praying in order to display their downcast spirit and affected rectitude, they have been called by some people Tascodrugites, that is, 'peg snouts.' ”The translation is from The Panarion of Saint Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis: Selected Passages, tr. and ed. by Philip R. Amidon, S.J. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 172.
†181 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LXXVI, 1: CCL 9, 248-249: “Other heretics are the Passalorynchites. By placing a finger on their noses, mouths and lips, they practice silence at all times, devoting their energy to nothing but quiet.” Philaster adds that they do this in imitation of the prophets and cites the words of the psalmist, “Lord, put a guard on my mouth and a gate around my lips” (Ps 140:3).
†182 Those who used water instead of wine in the Eucharist were called Aquarians by Augustine and Philaster. Others attribute the practice to the Ebionites (Irenaeus), the Encratites (Clement), or the Tatians (Theodoret). See F. Cocchini, “Aquarii,” in EEC, 64.
†183 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LXXVII: CCL 9, 249: “Others are those called the Aquarians; they offer water in the heavenly sacraments, not what the catholic and apostolic church customarily offers.”
†184 The Coluthians were a sect founded by the fourth century priest, Colluthus of Alexandria;
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Epiphanius mentions Colluthus in his
Panarion 69, 2, 5-7 as a contemporary of Arius who taught some unspecified errors and founded a sect that did not last. Later heresiologists follow Philaster in attributing to him the doctrine that God did not create evil. See F. Scorza Barcellona, “Colluthus of Alexandria,” in EEC, 185-186.
†185 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LXXIX, 1: CCL 9, 249: “Others are the Coluthians named after an Egyptian called Coluthus. They say that God is not the maker of evils.”
†186 Florinus was a contemporary of Irenaeus, a student with him under Polycarp at Smyrna, and later a priest in Rome, where he joined the Valentinians. Irenaeus wrote against him a letter, “On the monarchy, or that God is not the author of evil,” and asked Pope Victor to take action against him, because his writings were a threat to the faith in Gaul. See C. Gianotto, “Florinus,” in EEC, 328. Augustine follows Philaster and makes it sound as though Florinus had been a contemporary of the Coluthus mentioned in the previous entry.
†187 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LXXIX, 1: CCL 9, 249: “On the other hand, another person opposed him and said that God is the maker of evils. And he too was a heretic as well, and as the two of them were carried away by their foolish argument, they had no knowledge of the power of reason.” Philaster does not mention Florinus, but goes on to show that Amos says, “If there is evil in the city, God did not make it” (Am 3:6) and then explains in what sense God produces evils and in what sense he does not. See also Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History V, 20: FOTC 19, 327-330, where he mentions that Irenaeus wrote a letter to Florinus who was defending the view that God is not the author of evil.
†188 Philaster is the sole source of information on this heresy. See G. Bareille, “Eternels,” in DTC V, 911-912.
†189 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LXXX, 1-2: CCL 9, 250-251: “There is another heresy which says that the world does not change, but forever remains in the same state, even after the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ from the heavens, although he says, All things will pass away and be changed (Mt 24:35). They do not understand that the Lord said this on account of the change of the elements so that, when they are changed, a new creation may be formed. David too teaches this: They will perish, he says, but you are the self-same for eternity (Ps 101:27).”
†190 See Is 20:2.
†191 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LXXXI: CCL 9, 252: “There is another heresy that states that human beings ought to walk barefoot, because, they say, Moses was told, Remove your sandals (Ex 3:5) and because blessed Isaiah walked that way for three years (see Is 20:3). These are rather human matters and stem from foolish superstition, not from the tradition of the saints and from the order, command, and power of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
†192 The Donatists were a schismatic group inspired and led by Donatus of Carthage (270-355). The schism arose following the persecution of 303-305, when many of the clergy handed over the scriptures. Those who resisted regarded these “traitors” (traditores) as unworthy of their clerical rank. For the history and doctrine of Donatism, see W. H. C. Frend, “Donatism—Donatists” and “Donatus of Carthage,” in EEC, 246-249 and 250. For the Donatist writings, see Patrology IV, 114-122; for Augustine's anti-Donatist writings, see Patrology IV, 383-386.
†193 Up to 411 Augustine knew of only one Donatus, though he had already debated issues with the Donatists for fifteen years. Modern historians generally agree that there was but one Donatus. See Y. Congar, “Introduction générale” in BA 28, 14-15. See also W. H. C. Frend, “Donatus of Carthage,” in EEC, 250, as well as J. S. Alexander, “The Motive for a Distinction between Donatus of Carthage and Donatus of Casae Nigrae,” Journal of Theological Studies n.s. 31 (1980), 540-547.
†194 The Priscillianists were founded by Priscillian, a layman of high position and great talent, who began to preach a rigid asceticism in Spain around 370-375. He was ordained bishop of Avilla in 380 and was executed as a heretic in 385 or 386. Augustine first came to know of Priscillianism from Orosius who arrived in Africa from Spain in 415. For a fuller account of Priscillian's life, writings, and teachings, see the introduction to Augustine's To Orosius in Refutation of the Priscillianists and Origenists. Also see M. Simonetti, “Priscillian—Priscillianism,” in EEC, 711-712.
†195 These people have been identified as a sect that emerged in Ephesus around 350. Philaster is the first to mention them. They held the position that Christians must eat unobserved by others; hence, they have been called the “Adelophagoi” (from ἀδηλῶς φαγείν: to eat unobserved). See H. J. Rieckenberg, “Adelophagen,” in LTK I, 143.
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†196 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber LXXXVI: CCL 9, 254-255: “There are others who do not eat with other human beings. Led on by their foolish belief, they think that they do something better, because, as they say, the prophets did this (see 1 Kgs 13:19). They are unaware that a different plan of salvation was established for human beings by the decision of the Lord. They have the correct doctrine regarding the Father and the Son, but have not received the correct doctrine regarding the Spirit. They believe that he was created and made and that he is not God, as the scriptures proclaim and the Catholic Church preaches.”
†197 The author of Praedestinatus (around 72: PL 53, 91) calls these people the Rhetorians. They may have been a heretical sect in Alexandria and the neighboring region; Rhetorius may have been the name of their founder, though it has been suggested that it is not a proper name, but refers to the rhetor Themistius. For a possible reference to Rhetorius in the Contra Apollinarium (I, 6: PG XXVI, 1101) of Pseudo-Athanasius, see E. Aman, “Rhétoriens,” in DTC XIII, 2654-2655.
†198 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XCI: CCL 9, 257: “There are other heretics in Egypt and Alexandria named after a certain Rhetorius. He praised all the heresies, saying that they all thought correctly and that none of them was in error, but that they all lived well, and he thought that they did not hold incorrect beliefs.”
†199 Praedestinatus gives the name Theoponitae to these heretics whom Philaster and Augustine leave unnamed. See George Salmon, “Theoponitae,” in DCB IV, 1010.
†200 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XCII: CCL 9, 258-259: “There is another heresy that says that the divinity felt pain, when the flesh united with the divinity suffered on the cross.”
†201 The author of Praedestinatus (around 74: PL 53, 612) calls these heretics the Triscelidae. See G. Salmon, “Triscelidae,” in DCB IV, 1054.
†202 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XCIII: CCL 9, 259: “There is another heresy which says that God is tripartite and composite so that the Father is one part, the Son another, and the Holy Spirit a third. And they claim that one has to believe this, and in saying this, they do not know, nor do they understand, the meaning of the divine scripture.”
†203 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XCVI: CCL 9, 261-262: “There is another heresy that argues that water was not created by God. They claim that it always existed from itself. They do not realize that, if a greater element, that is, earth, was made, the lesser element, that is, water which is contained by earth, ought all the more to have been made. After all the prophet Jonah says, I am a servant of God who made the sea and the earth” (Jon 1:9). The author of Praedestinatus (around 75: PL 53, 612) called these heretics the Hydrotheitae. See G. Salmon, “Hydrotheitae,” in DCB III, 183.
†204 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber XCVII: CCL 9, 262-263: “There is another heresy which says that the body of man was made first, not the soul, and that the body, not the soul of man, is the image of God.” The author of Praedestinatus (around 76: PL 53, 613) calls these heretics the Homunionitae. See T. Davids, “Homuncionitae,” in DCB II, 137.
†205 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber CXIV: CCL 9, 279-280: “There is another heresy that says that there are infinite and innumerable worlds, in accord with the foolish opinion of certain philosophers. Scripture, however, spoke of one world and has taught us about one world. They also derive this from the apocryphal, that is, the secret writings of the prophets.” The author of Praedestinatus (around 77: PL 53, 614) calls these heretics the Ametritae. See F. Hort, “Ametritae,” in DCB I, 99.
†206 The author of Praedestinatus (around 78: PL 53, 614) calls these heretics the Psychopneumones. Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber CXXIV: CCL 9, 287-288: “There is another heresy that says that the souls of lechers, criminals, murderers, and other such people pass into demons, cattle, wild animals, and serpents. They do not know that, when the soul of a human being leaves the world, whether it is good or bad, that is, devout or wicked, it is led by an angel to the place decided, so that it may receive in the future what it has merited by its actions in this world.”
†207 I have translated meritis instead of meritus, which I take to be a mistake in the CCL edition.
†208 Later writers have given the followers of this heresy various names, but have not identified them with any historical group.
†209 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber CXXV: CCL 9, 288: “There are other heretics who say that the Lord descended into hell and proclaimed to all in that same place after death that those who believed would be saved….”
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†210 Philaster, Diuersarum haeresion liber CXXVII: CCL 9, 289-290: “There is another heresy that says that the Savior was first with the Father and then he was born. When they profess this without qualification, they give scandal to people. For that he first existed and later was born is contrary [to the faith] in every way.”
†211 The Luciferians are named after Lucifer, the bishop of Cagliari, who was exiled under Constantius. After 362, he supported an intransigent pro-Nicene group at Antioch and aggravated a local schism by ordaining Paulinus in opposition to the legitimate bishop. Paulinus' followers were called Luciferians; the name was also given to some Romans who were rigorous partisans of Nicene theology. See M. Simonetti, “Lucifer (Luciferians),” in EEC, 508.
†212 Augustine's words are exactly the same as those found in Pseudo-Jerome, Indiculus XXVI: PL 81, 642; see the introduction for a discussion of the question of the date of the Indiculus.
†213 The Jovinianists were followers of the monk, Jovinian, who denied that virginity merited any special reward and urged consecrated virgins to marry. Both Jerome and Augustine wrote against his views. Pope Siricius condemned Jovinian's error in 390. See J. Gribmont, “Jovinian,” in EEC, 454.
†214 Pseudo-Jerome, Indiculus XXIII: PL 81, 641: “Jovinian and Auxentius planted the perversity of their new doctrine at Rome. They said there was no difference between married women and virgins, and no distinction between those who practiced abstinence and those who simply feasted. They brought forth as an example the fact that in the Old Testament holy men were married and had children. They say that virginity cannot be preferred, lest the union which produced the glorious prophets be disparaged.”
†215 Eusebius' history covered the years down to 324; Rufinus' two books brought the history to 395.
†216 The Arabians were a heretical group that existed in Arabia from 244-249. See F. Cocchini, “Arabian Heresy,” in EEC, 67.
†217 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History VI, 37: FOTC 29, 62: “Again in Arabia… others arose to introduce a doctrine foreign to the truth, who stated that human souls at the determined time perish for a while together with the bodies at their death, but that at the time of the resurrection will be revived with them…. [Origen] was of such influence that the opinions of those who had formerly been deceived were changed.”
†218 Helvidius was probably a Roman layman and a disciple of the Arian Auxentius of Milan. In a dispute with the monk, Carterius, who spoke of Mary's perpetual virginity, Helvidius claimed that Mary gave birth to other children after Jesus. Jerome wrote in response Adversus Helvidium de perpetua virginitate beatae Mariae around 383. See S. Zincone, “Helvidius,” in EEC, 374.
†219 Jerome used the term “Antidicomarites” in referring to the followers of Helvidius. Daur notes that the name, Helvidius, may be derived from the Indiculus of Pseudo-Jerome (XXII: PL 81, 641) or from Jerome's De perpetua uirginitate adversus Helvidium. Augustine seems to confuse these fourth century heretics with the earlier Antidicomarianites whom Epiphanius mentions in Anaceph. III, ii, 2: PG 42, 873: HD III, 415; see above LVI.
†220 The Paternians were an ancient sect, though Augustine seems to consider them as his contemporaries. In Answer to Julian V, 7, 26, Augustine has preserved a passage from Julian of Eclanum which is most probably his source of information with regard to the Paternians. “The Paternians,” Julian said, “who are the same as the Venustian heretics, are similar to the Manichees. They say that the devil made the human body from the loins to the feet, but that God set the upper parts on them as on a foundation. They add that no human effort is required that the soul which they say dwells in the stomach and head be kept pure, but they say that, if the genitals are involved in the foulest of deeds, it is of no concern to them.” Julian may well be correct in linking them to the Manichees. Epiphanius ascribes a similar view of the creation of man to the Severians in Panarion 45, 2, though they drew the opposite moral conclusion. Praedestinatus adds the information that Pope Damasus (366-384) discovered some Venustians in Rome and reported them to Valentinian I. See E. Amann, “Paterniens,” in DTC IX, 2246-47.
†221 Tertullian was born in Carthage between 150 and 160 and become a convert to the faith. A man of considerable learning, he wrote many works covering a wide range of theological concerns. Sometime between 203 and 212, Tertullian's rigorism and independence led him to become a Montanist. He died around 220. The Tertullianists, of whom Augustine writes, were a heretical
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group that Tertullian founded after he left the Montanists and that survived in Carthage until Augustine's time. See P. Siniscalco, “Tertullian,” in EEC, 818-820.
†222 The Abelites, or Abeloim, were a heretical sect existing in the vicinity of Hippo. See F. Cocchini, “Abelites,” in EEC, p. 2, as well as O. Wermelinger, “Abeloim,” Augustinus-Lexikon I, 1/2, 6.
†223 Pelagius was born in Britain around 354 and came to Rome around 380-384. After 410 he came to Africa and then continued on to Jerusalem, where he was befriended by John of Jerusalem. Augustine opposed Pelagianism from 411 until his death in 430. For Pelagius' life and writings, as well as for Coelestius, see V. Grossi's account in Patrology IV, 465-487. Also see V. Grossi, “Pelagius—Pelagians—Pelagianism,” in EEC, 665-666.
†224 See Rom 5:5 and Gal 5:6.
†225 See 1 Cor 8:1.
†226 Augustine's work ends at this point. The majority of the manuscripts, however, add the Nestorians and Eutychians. Some manuscripts also add the Timotheans. The CCL edition contains these three heresies in an appendix.
†227 For a possible identification of the founder of this group, see E. Cavalcanti, “Timothy the Apollinarist,” in EEC, 841-842. Among the disciples of Apollinaris, Timothy, bishop of Berytus, taught the incarnate Christ's consubstantiality with human nature, which seems to be the doctrine in question here. See also C. Kannengiesser, “Apollinaris of Laodicea, Apollinarism,” in EEC, 58-59.
†228 Nestorius was born in 381 and was patriarch of Constantinople from 428 to 431. He was condemned by the Council of Ephesus in 431 and died in 451. See M. Simonetti, “Nestorius—Nestorianism,” in EEC, 594.
†229 The Greek term, theotokos, means “mother of God,” while anthropotokos means “mother of man.” Because there is in Christ a single person who is both divine and human, Mary is correctly said to be the mother of God.
†230 Eutyches (378-454), a monk of Constantinople, while combating Nestorianism, fell into the opposite error of denying two natures. He was condemned by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. See A. Di Berardino, “Eutyches,” in EEC, 304-305.
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MEMORANDUM TO AUGUSTINE AND TO OROSIUS
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Revisions II, 44 (70)
At that time I responded with as much brevity and clarity as I could to a consultation of a certain Orosius, a Spanish priest, concerning the Priscillianists and certain opinions of Origen which the Catholic faith rejects. The title of this small work is To Orosius in Refutation of the Priscillianists and Origenists. His consulation is placed before my reply. The book begins as follows: “Respondere tibi quaerenti, dilectissime fili Orosi.”
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Introduction
Saint Augustine and Orosius
Augustine had been bishop of Hippo for nearly two decades when Orosius arrived from Spain in 414 with his plea for help with the heresy of Priscillian and the errors of Origen. For the life of Augustine, see the excellent volume by Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969). On Augustine as bishop and pastor, see F. Van der Meer, Augustine the Bishop: Religion and Society at the Dawn of the Middle Ages, tr. B. Battershaw and G. R. Lamb (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1961). †1 By that time the Donatist controversy was all but ended; Rome had fallen to Alaric; Augustine had begun The City of God; and the first skirmishes of the Pelagian controversy had already taken place.
In writing to his fellow bishop and long-time friend, Evodius, Augustine describes in Letter 169 the many works that he has under way in 415. He has finished the first five books of The City of God and is struggling with the difficult questions posed by The Trinity. He has finished commentaries on Psalms 67, 71 and 77. Moreover, he has written to Jerome the long Letter 166, also known as The Origin of the Human Soul, in which he consults him about the doctrine that individual souls are newly created for everyone that is born and its compatibility with the faith. He has also written a second letter to Jerome asking for his interpretation of James 2:10: Whoever keeps the whole law, but sins on one point, has become guilty of all counts, See Letter 167. †2 in which he explains his own understanding of the text. Augustine has also, he tells us, written a large book against the Pelagians, probably The Punishment and Forgiveness of Sins and the Baptism of Little Ones. See Robert J. O'Connell, The Origin of the Soul in St. Augustine's Later Works (New York: Fordham University Press, 1987), 13-14, for this dating of the work. †3
Augustine reports that he sent the letters on to Jerome with Orosius, “a holy and studious young priest who came to us from the farthest reaches of Spain, that is, from the shore of the ocean, ablaze with a love of the holy scriptures alone” (Letter 169, 4, 13). After the misunderstandings between Augustine and Jerome due at least in part to letters that had gone astray, it is easy to understand why Augustine was eager to have Orosius continue on to visit Jerome and carry his letter. On the heated exchange between Augustine and Jerome, see Robert J. O'Connell, “When Saintly Fathers Feuded: The Correspondence between Augustine and Jerome,” Thought 54 (1979), 344-364. †4 Augustine mentions,
I also answered for this same Orosius in a single small book with as much brevity and clarity as I could certain questions which were upsetting him concerning the Priscillianist heresy and some opinions of Origen that the Church has not accepted. See Letter 169, 4, 13. †5
Little is known of the life of Orosius apart from the years 414 to 418. He seems to have come from Bracara in Galicia, the present-day Braga, Portugal. For brief introductions to Orosius and good bibliographies, see “Orose,” by Aimé Solignac, in Dictionnaire de spiritualité XI, 965-969, and “Orosius,” by S. J. McKenna, in the New Catholic Encyclopedia 10, 783. †6 He left his native land both to avoid the disturbances caused by the barbarian invasions and to consult Augustine about the doctrines of Origen and Priscillian. Orosius arrived in Hippo in 414 and was sent on to Jerome in Bethlehem early in 415,
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carrying Letter 166 from Augustine to Jerome. Augustine's reference to him as “a young man” (
juvenis) suggests that Orosius was then between 30 and 40 so that he was probably born around 380. See Letter 166, 1, 2.
†7
Of his activities in Palestine we know that he attended a synod of bishops and accused Pelagius, thus earning the hostility of John of Jerusalem. He was still in Jerusalem at the end of 415, and then returned to Hippo where he wrote his Seven Books of History against the Pagans, after briefly stopping to visit Augustine's friend, Evodius, then bishop of Uzalis. He completed his history in 417/418 and then attempted to return to Spain, but was forced to turn back to Africa. At this point he disappears from history.
The most important of Orosius' works is his Historiarum adversus paganos libri VII. See PL 31, 663-1174 or CSEL 5, 1-600. For an English translation, see Seven Books of History against the Pagans, tr. and ed. by I. W. Raymond (New York, 1936). †8 The work enjoyed considerable popularity during the Middle Ages and was translated into Anglo-Saxon by King Alfred and into Arabic for the Calif of Cordoba. Orosius claimed to have been commissioned by Augustine to write the work to respond to the pagans who attributed the fall of Rome to the spread of Christianity and the abandonment of the religion of Rome. The history runs from the beginning of the world to the peace between the Visigoths and Rome in 416. During the Middle Ages, Orosius' work rivaled Augustine's The City of God in popularity and contributed to a theology of history and political philosophy marked by the dominance of divine providence and the close interrelationship between the Church and society. In fact, it is Orosius rather than Augustine who is largely responsible for the political Augustinism of the Middle Ages.
A second work of Orosius, Liber apologeticus contra Pelagianos, addressed to the bishops of Palestine, justifies Orosius' accusation against Pelagius and defends his claim that, even with God's grace, man cannot be free from sin. See PL 31, 1173-1212, or CSEL 5, 601-644. †9 Finally, we have Orosius' memorandum to Augustine translated here. The short work is valuable for having provoked Augustine's response and for providing a view of the state of theological reflection in Spain at the beginning of the fifth century. In his memorandum, Orosius describes the Priscillianist error that had pervaded his country and cites a passage allegedly from a letter of Priscillian. He reports that the heresy of Priscillian has been removed from his homeland, but that it has been replaced by the errors of Origen. He explains that two of his fellow citizens, each named Avitus, had gone abroad to Rome and Jerusalem respectively and that they brought back the theologies of Victorinus and of Origen. The Origenian Avitus soon won over the disciple of Victorinus, and the two spread various doctrines of Origenism.
The Victorinus in question is most probably Marius Victorinus, though some have held that it was Victorinus of Pettau. See note 21 to Memorandum. †10 In any case, the disciple of Victorinus was, according to Orosius, soon converted to Origenism, and from Orosius' memorandum we know nothing further about the Victorinus in
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question or the character of his thought. It seems safe to presume that Augustine and Orosius discussed the errors of Priscillianism and of Origenism in more detail during the time of Orosius' stay in Africa. In the memorandum, Orosius asked for a written reply that he could take back to his own province as an aid in combating these dangers to the faith, and Augustine's reply addresses the points that still troubled the people of the Iberian peninsula.
An understanding of Orosius' memorandum and Augustine's answer to Orosius requires some background knowledge of Priscillianism and Origenism and their respective authors. Hence, we will turn first to Priscillian and his teaching and to the errors of Priscillianism reported to Augustine along with his response to them. Then we will turn to Origen and Origenism and to the errors of Origenism reported to Augustine along with his response to them.
Priscillian and Priscillianism
Priscillian was born around 340 in Spain; he began an ascetical movement in Spain and the south of France and was accused of holding a heretical dualism because of his interest in the study of the Apocrypha and his encouragement of various ascetic practices, especially celibacy and fasts, along with spiritual retreats for men and women together. For brief introductions to Priscillian and Priscillianism, see the articles on these topics by J. N. Hillgarth in the New Catholic Encyclopedia 11, 790-791. For a more recent and extensive appraisal of Priscillian, his influence as well as for a recent bibliography, see “Priscillien,” in Dictionnaire de spiritualité XII, 2353-2369, by Henry Chadwick. Chadwick's book, Priscillian of Avila. The Occult and the Charismatic in the Early Church (Oxford, 1976) is the best study in English. †11 Priscillian and his followers first aimed at reforming the clergy and then turned to the laity among whom they met with greater success. The group soon aroused strong opposition, perhaps for drawing members of the laity away from regular church services, for turning their followers from the pastoral ministry, and for blaming the lifestyles of the bishops.
In October of 380, twelve bishops met in council at Saragossa, debated the question of reading of the Apocrypha, and issued several canons touching upon Priscillianist practices. Priscillian, who was still a layman, was not condemned. One of the bishops, Ithacus of Ossonuba, wrote a pamphlet in which he accused Priscillian of sorcery, Manichaeism, sexual orgies, and doctrinal errors. On the other hand, two of the other bishops, Instantius and Salvianus, supporters of Priscillian, consecrated him bishop of Avila within a few months after the council. Priscillian soon alienated the worldly bishop of Mérida, Hydatius, who joined Ithacus in opposition to Priscillian and secured an edict from the emperor Gratian that banished Priscillian and the bishops supporting him from Spain.
After settling near Bordeaux in the home of the wealthy widow, Euchrotia, the group traveled to Rome, where Pope Damasus refused to hear their appeal. Salvianus died in Rome, while Priscillian and his followers went on to Milan, where with the aid of Ambrose Priscillian and Instantius were restored to their sees. The death of Gratian in August of 383 and his replacement by the usurper Maximus prevented Priscillian from regaining his influence in Spain. Ithacus
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appealed to Maximus who determined that the question should be dealt with by an episcopal council at Bordeaux in 384. The council deposed Instantius, and Priscillian fled to Trier to appeal to Maximus, with Ithacus and Hydatius in pursuit. Ithacus accused Priscillian before the emperor of sorcery, Manichaeism, and sexual misconduct; under torture, Priscillian and several of his followers confessed and were executed in 385 or 386. He and his followers were the first Christians to be put to death for heresy. After the death of Maximus in 388, the followers of Priscillian transferred the remains of those executed to Spain, where their place of interment was visited by pilgrims looking for a cure or for the answer to their prayers. H. Chadwick suggests that Priscillian and his fellow martyrs may have been buried at Compostella, where the shrine of St. James was later built. See Priscillian of Avila, 233.
†12
After a period during which Priscillian was revered as a martyr, the bishops of Aquitaine and Spain came to see that there was some truth in the accusations of Manichaean dualism. The Council of Toledo (400) also found heretical the statement in Priscillian's second treatise that the Son of God is “innascible.” With the barbarian invasions of Spain in 411, Priscillianism met with less repression and managed to survive, though Orosius speaks of it as having been removed from his native land by 415.
Priscillian's extant works are: (1) the Würzburg treatises, (2) the canons on the Letters of St. Paul, (3) the Monarchian prologues to the gospels, (4) a treatise on the Trinity, and (5) a part of a letter of Priscillian cited in Orosius' Memorandum. The eleven treatises, discovered in the library of the University of Würzburg, were identified as the work of Priscillian and edited at the end of the last century. See Priscilliani quae supersunt, ed. C. Schepps, CSEL 18. †13 The first treatise is a defense of the orthodoxy of the group; the second is a letter submitted to Pope Damasus; the third argues that it is legitimate for instructed Christians to read the Apocrypha with discretion. The remaining treatises represent a series of Lenten sermons.
The canons on the Letters of Paul, which survive only in a version edited by a bishop Peregrinus, attempt to sum up the theology of St. Paul in ninety statements grouped under various headings. The extant version contains nothing heretical, though some of the main themes may reveal something of the true character of Priscillian with their strong moral, if not metaphysical, dualism between God and the world and their calls to celibacy, poverty, almsgiving, and abstinence from meat and alcohol.
The treatise on the Trinity, discovered early in the present century, is very probably the work of Priscillian or someone from the Priscillianist group. See De trinitate fidei catholicae, in PL Suppl. II, 1487-1507. †14 It bears a strongly Monarchian character, as do the prologues to the gospels. See D. de Bryne, Préfaces de la Bible latine (Namur, 1920) or K. Aland, Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum (Stuttgart, 1964), for the text of the prologues. †15 The citation of the letter of Priscillian by Orosius along with Orosius' description of Priscillianist doctrine is clearly the most damaging evidence against Priscillian. It is not, however, certain that Orosius had quoted a passage from a genuine
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work of Priscillian or that, if he has done so, the passage is a statement of what Priscillian himself held. See Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila, 202.
†16 Chadwick argues that Orosius derived his information in the
Commonitorium from the pamphlet written by Priscillian's bitter enemy, Ithacus, a work which is mentioned by Isidore of Seville. See De viris illustribus 123: PL 81, 1081-1106.
†17
The Priscillianist Doctrine Reported to Augustine
Orosius begins his report on Priscillian by noting that he differed from the Manichees in defending his views from the Old Testament as well as the New. Orosius describes him as “more wretched” (miserior) in this respect, perhaps because he should have known better, given the fact that he accepted the creation account of Genesis. Orosius then turns to an account of the Priscillianist myth with its explanation of the presence of divine souls in bodies. He notes that souls were born from God, went forth to do battle with the evil principalities, and were captured and placed in bodies by the victorious evil prince. A decree was written against these souls, but knowledge prevails against it—the knowledge that Christ has destroyed the decree by nailing it to the cross. The myth bears striking resemblances to the Manichaean myth and its account of how souls came to be in bodies. If, as Chadwick suggests, the source of Orosius' knowledge of Priscillianism is the pamphlet of Ithacus who accused Priscillian of Manichaeism among other things, the resemblance should come as no surprise, though it certainly need not be taken as a true picture of Priscillian's teaching. See Confessions VII, 2, 3, for the Manichaean version of the myth and its refutation. †18
Orosius cites a passage allegedly from a letter of Priscillian in which he explains that wisdom
consists in understanding in the kinds of souls the natures of the divine powers and the arrangement of the body. In it heaven and earth are seen to be bound, and all the principalities of the world are seen to be drawn up to overcome the ranks of the saints. For the patriarchs, who have the task of formal warfare against them, hold the first circle of God and the divine decree, made by the agreement of the angels and God and all souls, concerning the souls to be sent in the flesh. Memorandum 2. For Chadwick's translation of this difficult passage, see note 15 to Orosius' Memorandum. †19
The author of the text clearly viewed human beings as a cosmic battleground in which heaven and earth are joined in combat with the powers of the world arrayed in opposition to the saints. The patriarchs, who have the task of waging war against the evil powers, have their names inscribed on the members of the soul, while the signs of the zodiac are inscribed on the members of the body. Thus the principalities of this world, the stars, rule over the body, while the patriarchs lead the saints in the battle against them. The signs of the zodiac represent the eternal darkness from which the prince of the world has come forth. See Memorandum 2. †20
It is this evil prince who carelessly sowed souls in bodies, according to the interpretation of the parable of the sower in the apocryphal book, “The Memory of the Apostles.” See note 5 to Memorandum. †21 Orosius further mentions that this book claims that all the good things in this world are done, not by God, but by art. He recounts, as an example of this, the Priscillianist myth explaining the origin of rain as the passionate perspiration of the prince of wetness when confronted with a certain
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virgin, namely, light, and the origin of thunder in his roar when he is deprived of her. Finally, Orosius mentions that Priscillian held with regard to the Trinity that they were three in name alone and that “this Father, Son, Holy Spirit—with the 'and' removed—is Christ alone.” See Memorandum 2.
†22
Augustine's Rejection of Priscillianism
Augustine begins by excusing himself from replying to every point that Orosius has raised and refers him to his Anti-Manichaean works where he had long before refuted the thesis that the soul is divine. Now that he has learned from Orosius what the Priscillianists hold, he sees that thesis as the root of the Priscillianist position and opts for uprooting the Priscillianist tree rather than merely trimming its branches.
Augustine's decision to dig out the root of Priscillianism rather than to lop off the individual branches has deprived us of any detailed refutation of the Priscillianist myth. His procedure is, however, not merely aimed at an economical use of time and energy during this busy period in his career; it also reveals an intellectual clarity that allows him to grasp the heart of an heretical position, isolate its basic weakness, and move in for the kill. Thus, he appeals to the soul's changeableness, whether for better or for worse, as a decisive proof that the soul is not consubstantial with God, that is, is not “a particle of or an emanation from God.” See To Orosius 1, 1-2, 2. †23 Once this foundational doctrine of Priscillianism has been removed, Augustine turns to the problem the people of Spain continued to have with the statement that the soul is created from nothing, because they took it to mean that the will of God was nothing. Augustine patiently explains that to make something out of nothing means that there is no matter out of which the maker makes whatever he makes, but that it does not mean that the maker's will is nothing. Indeed, it is precisely the greatness of God's will that allows him to make something out of nothing. See To Orosius 2, 2-3, 3. †24
While mentioning the soundness of Origenist teaching on the Trinity, Augustine points out that the Priscillianists had not merely returned to the doctrine of Sabellius, identifying the Father with the Son and the Holy Spirit, but had compounded the error by claiming that the soul too was originally divine in its nature. See To Orosius 4, 4. †25
Origen and Origenism
Origen, one of the greatest theologians of the early Church, was born in 185 or 186 in Alexandria. In 231 or 233 he left Alexandria and settled in Caesarea where he died in 254 or 255. For the life and theology of Origen, see H. Crouzel, Origen, tr. A. S. Worrall (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989). †26 Origen's many works in apologetics, in systematic theology, and in exegesis have nourished the theological and spiritual life of the
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Church for centuries. See the chapter on the works of Origen in Crouzel's Origen, 37-49, for a list of all his works, a list of those that have survived, and some indication of the problems in the extant texts, especially in the De principiis.
†27 Orosius'
Commonitorium does not concern the theological work of the great Father of the Church, but rather the distortion of it at the hands of Origen's injudicious followers and bitter opponents that has been labeled Origenism. Hence, this introduction will be concerned, not with the theological doctrine of Origen, but with Origenism.
While Origen's theological reflection, scriptural exegesis, and spiritual doctrine, often without being known as Origen's, permeated the thought of the Fathers of the fourth century, opposition to various points of Origen's speculative theology, drawn chiefly from the De principiis, grew and led to the first Origenist controversy at the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth century. For the presence of Origen's ideas in the West during the last decades of the fourth century, see B. Altaner, “Augustinus und Origenes,” in Kleine patristische Schriften. Texte und Untersuchungen 83, ed. G. Glockmann (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1967), 224-252, as well as B. Studer, “Zur Frage des westlichen Origenismus,” in Studia Patristica, vol. X, part 3, in Texte und Untersuchungen 94, ed. F. L. Cross (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1966), 270-287. See also my “Origen and St. Augustine's First Commentaries on Genesis,” in Origeniana Quinta, ed. Robert J. Daley, S.J. (Leuven: Peeters, 1992), 180-186. For a good account of the Origenist controversy, see J. N. D. Kelly, Jerome: His Life, Writings and Controversies (New York: Harper and Row, 1975). †28
The first Origenist dispute resulted from a one-sided reading and systematization of Origen's thought, often by unfriendly successors, who separated off certain speculations from the whole and ignored their hypothetical and antithetical character. See H. Crouzel, “Origen and Origenism,” in the New Catholic Encyclopedia 10, 771. †29 As early as 374-376, Epiphanius of Salamis listed Origenism as a heresy in his “medicine chest” against heresies, the Panarion. See Panarion 64.4.3 in The Panarion of St. Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis: Selected Passages, tr. and ed. by P. R. Amidon, S.J. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 215-216. †30 Jerome, who had once been an ardent admirer of Origen, changed his position in 393 and denounced the errors of Origen. See his Liber contra Johannem Hierusalymitanum: PL 23, 355-398; his Epistula LXXXIV: CSEL 55, 121-134 and Epistula CXXIV: CSEL 56, 96-117; and his Apologia adversus libros Rufini: PL 13, 397-492. †31 The dispute, in which Epiphanius of Salamis, Jerome, and Theolophilus of Alexandria were pitted against John of Jerusalem and Rufinus, quieted down when Rufinus, the translator of Origen's De principiis into Latin, fell silent in 402 and died in 411. It is, in any case, the sort of Origenism that Jerome had attacked that was brought back to Spain by the Origenian Avitus and that Orosius, in turn, called to Augustine's attention in his memorandum. Cf. Henri Crouzel's article on “Origen and Origenism” in the New Catholic Encyclopedia X, 767-774 for a balanced assessment of the various theses of Origenism. †32
The Origenist Errors and Augustine's Response
Orosius reported to Augustine a list of erroneous doctrines taught by the two Aviti that had, according to Orosius, originated with Origen and Basil of Caesarea. See J. A. Davids, De Orosio et Sancto Augustino Priscillianistarum Adversariis: Commentatio Historica et Philologica (The Hague: A. N. Govers, 1930), 250, for this construal of the relationship between the Aviti, Origen, and Basil. I have also followed David's count of seven errors, though the number could be arguably reduced or increased. See notes 20 and 27 to the Memorandum for the identity of the Aviti and of Basil. †33 Each of the errors that Orosius reports will be examined in terms of its original context in Origen as a means of understanding the doctrine, and then Augustine's response to it will be indicated.
I. Before all the things that were made became visible, they had always remained as made in the wisdom of God. They said, “God did not begin to make whatever he made.”
Origen had come close to such a view. He considered it “absurd and impious to think that even for an instant the powers of God remained idle,” that is, the powers to create and to exercise his providence. Hence, “it seems that there never was a moment when God was not creator and beneficent and provident.” De principiis I, 4, 3. The translations from Origen are mine. See Origène: Traité des principes, ed. Henri Crouzel and Manlio Simonetti. 4 vols. Sources chrétiennes 252, 253, 268, 269 (Paris: du Cerf, 1978-1980), for the Latin of Rufinus's translation and abundant notes. †34
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Accordingly, Origen concludes that “in this Wisdom of God, who was always with the Father, creation was already present as described and formed, and there never was a moment when this prefiguration of what was going to be did not exist in his Wisdom.” De principiis I, 4, 4.
†35 Origen seems both to say that God always exercised his creative power and that creatures always existed in the Wisdom of God. Without a concept of eternity as non-temporal duration, Origen could not answer, as Augustine would, that there was no time when God did not create anything. See Confessions XI, 14, 17. The ancient philosophers and the Gnostics objected to the Judaeo-Christian doctrine of a creation in time as implying that God was idle for ages before he woke up and made the world; see E. Peters, “What Was God Doing Before He Created the Heavens and the Earth?” Augustiniana 34 (1984), 53-74.
†36 It is interesting to note that in
On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manichees II, 8, 10, Augustine himself had once entertained a similar view with regard to the soul, namely, that “it had already been made, but was as if in the mouth of God, that is, in his truth and wisdom.” In his reply to Orosius, however, he is clear that, though God knows creatures before they are made, they do not exist in his wisdom as made, before they were made. Augustine finds this view “lacking in sobriety,” since it implies that things were made before they were made. All things were made through God's wisdom, and he knew their ideas in his wisdom before he made them. But in God's wisdom, in which he knew them before they were made, all things were not yet made. To Orosus 8, 9.
†37
II. The angels, principalities, powers, souls, and demons have one principle and one substance, …
II. The angels, principalities, powers, souls, and demons have one principle and one substance, and an archangel or a soul or a demon was given a place in accord with the quality of its merits. They used these words, “A lesser sin merits a larger place.”
There are two points of doctrine here: one, the sameness of principle or substance for angels, principalities, powers, souls, and demons; two, their location in a larger or smaller place in accord with the degree of their sinfulness. The first teaching implies that human souls were originally created as spiritual beings and, hence, existed as such prior to embodiment; the second teaching accounts for the embodiment of such spiritual beings and for the quality of their bodies in terms of sins committed before they were embodied.
As for the first point, Origen did hold against the Gnostics that all rational beings were initially created equal and that their diverse ranks and functions arose as a result of the free exercise of their wills. See De principiis I, 6, 2. Crouzel and Simonetti say in a note to this text, “L'égalité initiale de tous les êtes raisonables est une réaction contre les différentes natures d'âmes des valentinines” (Origène: Traité des principes II, p. 93, n. 9). †38 In De principiis II, 9, 6, he explicitly states that, “since [God] is the cause of those things which were to be created and in him there is no difference or change or lack of power, he created all the beings he created equal and like, since there was in him no ground of difference and diversity.” Here Origen must be speaking of the creation of spiritual beings, since the beings of the sensible world were obviously not created equal to those of the spiritual world.
Augustine too seems to have held the view that human souls, angels, and demons were originally created as spiritual creatures. For instance, in his discussion of “the heaven of heaven” in Confessions XII, he speaks of “some kind of intellectual creature” from which the angel fell away and man's soul fell
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away, though part of that spiritual creation remains fixed in contemplation of God. See Confessions XII, 9, 9-10, 10 and XIII, 8, 9.
†39 In fact, it is far from clear that Augustine rejects in
To Orosius the doctrine of the initial equality of all spiritual creatures and the view that human souls existed as spiritual creatures prior to their fall into bodies. See Robert O'Connell, “St. Augustine's Criticism of Origen in the To Orosus,” Revue des Études Augustiniennes 30 (1984), 84-99. See O'Connell's The Origin of the Soul in St. Augustine's Later Works (New York: Fordham University Press, 1987), for a detailed account of Augustine's changing views on the fall of the soul in his mature works.
†40
As for the second point, Origen did attribute it to free will that “we either are good and blessed or, through remissness and negligence, turn from beatitude to wickedness and perdition to the point that an excessive progress in wickedness, if I may speak this way… should result in that state in which it becomes a contrary power.” De principiis I, 5, 5. †41 The Origenist view that Orosius reports to Augustine does not refer to crasser bodies for a graver sin, but to a larger place for a lesser sin. Crouzel points out that the doctrine that rational creatures merited crasser bodies in proportion to the gravity of their sinfulness is not found prior to the writings of Jerome, such as his Liber contra Johannem Hierosolymitanum 16-17. See “Origen and Origenism,” in the New Catholic Encyclopedia 10, 767-774, especially 771-772. †42 In To Orosius, Augustine takes the second part of this error to imply that God was induced to create this sensible world by the sins of rational spirits. He argues that it was the goodness of God that led to the creation of the full hierarchy of good creatures, some better than others. Whereas Origen viewed God's justice as leading him to create at least all spiritual beings equal, Augustine insisted that it was better to have the full panoply of creatures from highest to lowest than to have just the highest creatures. †43 Augustine also points out the absurdity that would follow from the position attributed to Origen, namely, there would have to be two or three or however many suns, if so many rational creatures incurred precisely the amount of guilt that merited being enclosed in a sun. In The City of God, Augustine asks,
What could be more foolish than to say that, in order that there should be this single sun in the one world, God the Creator did not take into consideration the beauty of the world or even the benefit to bodily things, but that this came about because one soul sinned in such a way that it merited to be enclosed in such a body? And if it had happened that not one, but two, indeed not two, but ten or a hundred souls had likewise sinned to an equal degree, would this world have a hundred suns? The City of God XI, 23. †44
III. The world was made last of all so that souls, which had previously sinned, might be purified in it.
The world here obviously means the sensible world. The doctrine ascribed to Origen implies that God's motive for making the sensible world was to purify souls that had sinned prior to the creation of the sensible world and that the sensible world would not have existed at all, if there were no need to purify fallen spirits.
In their notes to the De principiis, Crouzel and Simonetti state, “For Origen, God created the sensible world as a means of redemption for creatures that have fallen: it is both a consequence of their fall, yet resulting from the creative action
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of God, and the means of their restoration. It is considered, on the one hand, as a prison and a source of imperfection… on the other hand, as full of beauty and order….” Origène: Traité des principes II, 132, number 7 (my translation).
†45
In his response Augustine focuses upon the idea that the sensible world would not exist at all, had spiritual beings not sinned. He points to the scriptural promise of a new heaven and a new earth and asks what possible need there might be for such a new heaven and new earth, once we have been purified from our sins and have become like the angels. Even if it is true that the destiny of rational creatures is to be restored to that initial state in which they existed before this heaven and earth were created, we should now place our hope in what scripture promises, that is, in a new heaven and a new earth, and if there is to be some further transformation, it is more reasonable to learn of it when we have attained the new heaven and new earth that scripture promises. See O'Connell's “St. Augustine's Criticism of Origen in the To Orosius,” 84-99, especially 90. †46
IV. The eternal fire by which sinners are to be punished is neither true fire nor eternal.…
IV. The eternal fire by which sinners are to be punished is neither true fire nor eternal. They said that the punishment in one's own conscience was called fire and that “eternal” according to its Greek etymology does not mean “everlasting.” They even added a Latin proof, for in saying for eternity and for age upon age (Ps 9:6) something is added to eternity. And thus they say that all the souls of sinners will return to the unity of the body of Christ after the purification of their conscience.
V. Since the substance in the devil was made good, it cannot perish, …
V. Since the substance in the devil was made good, it cannot perish, and once all of the devil's malice has been completely burned away, his substance will at some point be saved.
The fourth view ascribed to Origen involves a twofold error, namely, that the fire of hell is neither true nor eternal, along with a corollary, namely, that all the souls of sinners will eventually be saved and restored to the body of Christ. The fifth error reported by Orosius is merely a further specification of the corollary so as to include even the devil in the ultimate salvation in Christ.
On the basis of St. Paul's words in 1 Cor 15:25, Origen spoke of the ultimate subjection of all things to Christ. See De principiis I, 6, 1. †47 As Crouzel and Simonetti note, it is not clear whether Origen regarded this doctrine of the Apokatastasis as a certainty or as a fond hope and whether he regarded it as absolutely universal so as to include the final salvation of even the devil. See Origène: Traité des principes, II, p. 91. †48 Origen specifically raises the question of the restoration of the fallen angels, when he asks,
Moreover, would not some of those orders, which act under the dominion of the devil and are obedient to his malice, be able at some time to return to goodness, because there remains in them the power of free choice? Or has their lasting and ingrained malice, on the contrary, been changed into a sort of nature through habituation? De principiis I, 6, 3. †49
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One should, however, note that Origen does no more than raise the possibility of the ultimate salvation of the fallen angels and does so in a question that is paralleled by another question that leans in the opposite direction. Furthermore, there are texts in which Origen explicitly rejects the view that the devil will be saved. See Origène: Traité des principes II, pp. 99-100.
†50
Though Augustine says nothing about whether the fire of hell is true or not, he strongly rejects and warns Orosius against the view that the devil and his angels can be corrected and restored to their original state. He argues first from the meaning of the Greek word for “eternal,” as found in Matthew 25:41, Depart into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, See To Orosius 5, 5. †51 answers an objection based on two scriptural counter-instances, See To Orosius 5, 6. †52 and points out that the denial of the unending fires of punishment opens the door to the denial of the unending happiness of the blessed. See To Orosius 6, 7. †53 In The City of God Augustine discusses at length the views of “those compassionate Christians” who like Origen, “the most compassionate of all,” held that all sinners and even the devil will ultimately be saved. See The City of God XXI, 17-27. †54 There he points out that the Church has rejected Origen's teaching on this point and on others.
VI. Since the Son of God, who came to us after so many thousands of years, could not have been idle up to that time, …
VI. Since the Son of God, who came to us after so many thousands of years, could not have been idle up to that time, he assumed the quality of the form of those he visited, while preaching forgiveness to the angels, powers, and all the higher beings. His body became dense to the point that he could be touched in the form of the flesh he assumed, and bringing this to an end by his passion and resurrection, the body became rarified again by ascending until he came to the Father. Thus the body was never laid aside, and God in his reign is not enveloped in any body.
Under this number there are once again several points of doctrine, all of them having to do with the Incarnation of the Son. First, the Son of God is said to have taken on the form of those he visited prior to his birth as a man, when he preached forgiveness to various angelic beings. Part of Orosius' difficulty with this teaching may have had to do with the implicit subordination of the Son as the God who could appear to creatures, while the Father is alone invisible. See Maximinus the Arian's claim that the Son and not the Father appeared in the Old Testament theophanies in Debate with Maximus 15, 26. †55 Second, the alleged error claims that the Incarnation meant that the body of Christ became dense to the point that it was palpable and that after his death and resurrection his body again became rarified. Third, in his kingdom the risen body of Christ has become rarified to the point that it no longer exists as a body.
Origen's Christology with its emphasis upon Christ as the first-born of all creation and with his doctrine of the preexistent soul of Christ could have led to such an interpretation of the Incarnation, though what Orosius reports is much more a matter of inference from various things that Origen said than a matter of
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any explicit teaching on his part. See Col 1:15 and De principiis II, 6.
†56 It was Jerome who believed that he discovered in the
De principiis the view that risen bodies will disappear. H. Crouzel, “Origen and Origenism,” New Catholic Encyclopedia 10, 772.
†57
Augustine's response focuses upon the kingdom of Christ, stressing that he is king of all ages not merely as the Word of God who is equal to the Father, but also as the incarnate mediator who was born of Mary. To Orosius 7, 8. †58 It may be that Augustine says nothing about the doctrine that the Son of God assumed other forms prior to the Incarnation because Orosius has assured him that his province has learned sound Trinitarian doctrine from the Origenists. See Memorandum 3. †59 It is surprising, however, that he says nothing about the explanation of the Incarnation in terms of the Son of God becoming more dense.
VII. Creation subject to corruption against its will should be understood as the sun and moon and stars, …
VII. Creation subject to corruption against its will should be understood as the sun and moon and stars, and these are not elementary brightnesses, but rational powers and offer service to corruption, on account of him who subjected it in hope (Rom 8:20).
The alleged error here is that Origen held that the heavenly bodies had rational souls. See De principiis I, 7, 2; see also De principiis I, 7, 5, where Origen uses Rom 8:20 to prove his claim. See Jerome's Contra Johannem 17, where he spells out the error he finds in Origen: “The sun itself and the whole choir of the stars were once the souls of rational and incorporeal creatures. They are now subjected to vanity, namely, to the bodies of fire, which we in our ignorance and crassness call the luminaries of the world, and they will be freed from the servitude of corruption for the freedom of the glory of the sons of God” (Rom 8:20-21). †60 Crouzel and Simonetti note that Origen did indeed hold this view under the influence of Platonic philosophy, but that he did not hold the objectionable doctrines that the stars controlled human affairs or were objects of worship. See Origène: Traité des principes II, 106, number 12. †61 Augustine devotes considerable space to his reply to this error, claiming that the sun and the moon and the stars are obviously bodies, but that it is not clear that they have souls. He offers an interpretation of the Pauline text that all creation groans while awaiting its deliverance from corruption in the sense that all the kinds of creatures are present in each human being. See To Orosius 8, 11. †62 Secondly, he challenges the Origenists to produce a scripture text in support of this view, while pointing out that an appeal to Job 25:4-6 does not suffice as a proof, since the words are not spoken by Job, but by one of his evil friends. See To Orosius 9, 12. †63 He also suggests that the passage can be taken as referring to the angels and counsels “cautious ignorance” about matters that God has not demanded that we know, humbly admitting that he does not know the difference between thrones, dominations, principalities and powers, though he admits their existence on the basis of Colossians 1:16. See To Orosius 10, 13 and 11, 14. †64 Augustine gently chides Orosius for looking down on him for his lack of knowledge regarding the distinctions of the angelic beings and offers an explanation of why the scripture mentions their existence without providing further knowledge of them. I do not find any place in the Memorandum where Orosius indicates his disappointment with Augustine's lack of knowledge on the distinction of the angelic orders. Perhaps we have here a confirmation that Orosius and Augustine discussed the question of Origenism more fully than the written text reveals. †65
Augustine's To Orosius presents a tantalizing picture of the greatest of the Western Fathers encountering the allegedly heretical doctrine of Priscillian, the first heretic to be executed for his beliefs, and alleged errors of Origen, one of the greatest theologians of the Eastern Church. With regard to Priscillianism Augustine has little to say beyond pointing out its basic mistake in claiming that
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the soul is divine and rectifying the confused idea that the will of God must be nothing, if God made the world out of nothing by his will. With regard to Origen, Augustine is, all in all, quite circumspect, firm in rejecting what he finds erroneous in the doctrines reported to him, but ready to accept as sound Origen's teaching on the triune God, an area in which, if one errs, one errs most seriously. See To Orosius 4, 4.
†66 In speaking of Augustine's attitude toward Origen, A. Trapè stresses his respect for Origen as “
ille uir tantus: that great man.” See Letter 40 VI, 9. See A. Trapè, “Nota sul giudizio di s. Agostino su Origene,” Augustinianum 26 (1986) 223-227, for Augustine's appraisal of Origen.
†67 One can only wonder what Augustine's reaction would have been, if he had the opportunity to come to know Origen's works, especially the
De principiis, directly and without the distortions of Origenism and the first Origenist controversy. After all, these two great Fathers shared not only the Christian faith and scriptures, but the spiritualism of Platonic philosophy and a deep appreciation for an intellectual grasp of the faith. Moreover, Origen's thought exerted considerable influence upon Augustine, especially through the preaching of Ambrose of Milan, whose spiritual exegesis of the Old Testament paved the way for Augustine's baptism in 386.
The Text Translated
The translation is based on the critical edition of the works by Klaus-D. Daur in CCL 49. The works have never previously been translated into English. There are at least two translations into other languages:
In French: Oeuvres complètes de Saint Augustin, tr. M. l'abbé Bardot (Bar-le-Duc, 1869), volume 14, 531-538.
In Spanish: Obras completas de San Agustín, tr. José María Ozaeta (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1990), volume XXXVIII, 631-633.
Notes to the Introduction
†1 For the life of Augustine, see the excellent volume by Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969). On Augustine as bishop and pastor, see F. Van der Meer, Augustine the Bishop: Religion and Society at the Dawn of the Middle Ages, tr. B. Battershaw and G. R. Lamb (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1961).
†2 See Letter 167.
†3 See Robert J. O'Connell, The Origin of the Soul in St. Augustine's Later Works (New York: Fordham University Press, 1987), 13-14, for this dating of the work.
†4 On the heated exchange between Augustine and Jerome, see Robert J. O'Connell, “When Saintly Fathers Feuded: The Correspondence between Augustine and Jerome,” Thought 54 (1979), 344-364.
†5 See Letter 169, 4, 13.
†6 For brief introductions to Orosius and good bibliographies, see “Orose,” by Aimé Solignac, in Dictionnaire de spiritualité XI, 965-969, and “Orosius,” by S. J. McKenna, in the New Catholic Encyclopedia 10, 783.
†7 See Letter 166, 1, 2.
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†8 See PL 31, 663-1174 or CSEL 5, 1-600. For an English translation, see Seven Books of History against the Pagans, tr. and ed. by I. W. Raymond (New York, 1936).
†9 See PL 31, 1173-1212, or CSEL 5, 601-644.
†10 See note 21 to Memorandum.
†11 For brief introductions to Priscillian and Priscillianism, see the articles on these topics by J. N. Hillgarth in the New Catholic Encyclopedia 11, 790-791. For a more recent and extensive appraisal of Priscillian, his influence as well as for a recent bibliography, see “Priscillien,” in Dictionnaire de spiritualité XII, 2353-2369, by Henry Chadwick. Chadwick's book, Priscillian of Avila. The Occult and the Charismatic in the Early Church (Oxford, 1976) is the best study in English.
†12 See Priscillian of Avila, 233.
†13 See Priscilliani quae supersunt, ed. C. Schepps, CSEL 18.
†14 See De trinitate fidei catholicae, in PL Suppl. II, 1487-1507.
†15 See D. de Bryne, Préfaces de la Bible latine (Namur, 1920) or K. Aland, Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum (Stuttgart, 1964), for the text of the prologues.
†16 See Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila, 202.
†17 See De viris illustribus 123: PL 81, 1081-1106.
†18 The myth bears striking resemblances to the Manichaean myth and its account of how souls came to be in bodies. If, as Chadwick suggests, the source of Orosius' knowledge of Priscillianism is the pamphlet of Ithacus who accused Priscillian of Manichaeism among other things, the resemblance should come as no surprise, though it certainly need not be taken as a true picture of Priscillian's teaching. See Confessions VII, 2, 3, for the Manichaean version of the myth and its refutation.
†19 Memorandum 2. For Chadwick's translation of this difficult passage, see note 15 to Orosius' Memorandum.
†20 See Memorandum 2.
†21 See note 5 to Memorandum.
†22 See Memorandum 2.
†23 See To Orosius 1, 1-2, 2.
†24 See To Orosius 2, 2-3, 3.
†25 See To Orosius 4, 4.
†26 For the life and theology of Origen, see H. Crouzel, Origen, tr. A. S. Worrall (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989).
†27 See the chapter on the works of Origen in Crouzel's Origen, 37-49, for a list of all his works, a list of those that have survived, and some indication of the problems in the extant texts, especially in the De principiis.
†28 For the presence of Origen's ideas in the West during the last decades of the fourth century, see B. Altaner, “Augustinus und Origenes,” in Kleine patristische Schriften. Texte und Untersuchungen 83, ed. G. Glockmann (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1967), 224-252, as well as B. Studer, “Zur Frage des westlichen Origenismus,” in Studia Patristica, vol. X, part 3, in Texte und Untersuchungen 94, ed. F. L. Cross (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1966), 270-287. See also my “Origen and St. Augustine's First Commentaries on Genesis,” in Origeniana Quinta, ed. Robert J. Daley, S.J. (Leuven: Peeters, 1992), 180-186. For a good account of the Origenist controversy, see J. N. D. Kelly, Jerome: His Life, Writings and Controversies (New York: Harper and Row, 1975).
†29 See H. Crouzel, “Origen and Origenism,” in the New Catholic Encyclopedia 10, 771.
†30 See Panarion 64.4.3 in The Panarion of St. Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis: Selected Passages, tr. and ed. by P. R. Amidon, S.J. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 215-216.
†31 See his Liber contra Johannem Hierusalymitanum: PL 23, 355-398; his Epistula LXXXIV: CSEL 55, 121-134 and Epistula CXXIV: CSEL 56, 96-117; and his Apologia adversus libros Rufini: PL 13, 397-492.
†32 Cf. Henri Crouzel's article on “Origen and Origenism” in the New Catholic Encyclopedia X, 767-774 for a balanced assessment of the various theses of Origenism.
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†33 See J. A. Davids, De Orosio et Sancto Augustino Priscillianistarum Adversariis: Commentatio Historica et Philologica (The Hague: A. N. Govers, 1930), 250, for this construal of the relationship between the Aviti, Origen, and Basil. I have also followed David's count of seven errors, though the number could be arguably reduced or increased. See notes 20 and 27 to the Memorandum for the identity of the Aviti and of Basil.
†34 De principiis I, 4, 3. The translations from Origen are mine. See Origène: Traité des principes, ed. Henri Crouzel and Manlio Simonetti. 4 vols. Sources chrétiennes 252, 253, 268, 269 (Paris: du Cerf, 1978-1980), for the Latin of Rufinus's translation and abundant notes.
†35 De principiis I, 4, 4.
†36 Without a concept of eternity as non-temporal duration, Origen could not answer, as Augustine would, that there was no time when God did not create anything. See Confessions XI, 14, 17. The ancient philosophers and the Gnostics objected to the Judaeo-Christian doctrine of a creation in time as implying that God was idle for ages before he woke up and made the world; see E. Peters, “What Was God Doing Before He Created the Heavens and the Earth?” Augustiniana 34 (1984), 53-74.
†37 To Orosus 8, 9.
†38 See De principiis I, 6, 2. Crouzel and Simonetti say in a note to this text, “L'égalité initiale de tous les êtes raisonables est une réaction contre les différentes natures d'âmes des valentinines” (Origène: Traité des principes II, p. 93, n. 9).
†39 See Confessions XII, 9, 9-10, 10 and XIII, 8, 9.
†40 See Robert O'Connell, “St. Augustine's Criticism of Origen in the To Orosus,” Revue des Études Augustiniennes 30 (1984), 84-99. See O'Connell's The Origin of the Soul in St. Augustine's Later Works (New York: Fordham University Press, 1987), for a detailed account of Augustine's changing views on the fall of the soul in his mature works.
†41 De principiis I, 5, 5.
†42 See “Origen and Origenism,” in the New Catholic Encyclopedia 10, 767-774, especially 771-772.
†43 Whereas Origen viewed God's justice as leading him to create at least all spiritual beings equal, Augustine insisted that it was better to have the full panoply of creatures from highest to lowest than to have just the highest creatures.
†44 The City of God XI, 23.
†45 Origène: Traité des principes II, 132, number 7 (my translation).
†46 See O'Connell's “St. Augustine's Criticism of Origen in the To Orosius,” 84-99, especially 90.
†47 See De principiis I, 6, 1.
†48 See Origène: Traité des principes, II, p. 91.
†49 De principiis I, 6, 3.
†50 See Origène: Traité des principes II, pp. 99-100.
†51 See To Orosius 5, 5.
†52 See To Orosius 5, 6.
†53 See To Orosius 6, 7.
†54 See The City of God XXI, 17-27.
†55 See Maximinus the Arian's claim that the Son and not the Father appeared in the Old Testament theophanies in Debate with Maximus 15, 26.
†56 See Col 1:15 and De principiis II, 6.
†57 H. Crouzel, “Origen and Origenism,” New Catholic Encyclopedia 10, 772.
†58 To Orosius 7, 8.
†59 See Memorandum 3.
†60 See De principiis I, 7, 2; see also De principiis I, 7, 5, where Origen uses Rom 8:20 to prove his claim. See Jerome's Contra Johannem 17, where he spells out the error he finds in Origen: “The sun itself and the whole choir of the stars were once the souls of rational and incorporeal creatures. They are now subjected to vanity, namely, to the bodies of fire, which we in our ignorance and crassness call the luminaries of the world, and they will be freed from the servitude of corruption for the freedom of the glory of the sons of God” (Rom 8:20-21).
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†61 See Origène: Traité des principes II, 106, number 12.
†62 See To Orosius 8, 11.
†63 See To Orosius 9, 12.
†64 See To Orosius 10, 13 and 11, 14.
†65 I do not find any place in the Memorandum where Orosius indicates his disappointment with Augustine's lack of knowledge on the distinction of the angelic orders. Perhaps we have here a confirmation that Orosius and Augustine discussed the question of Origenism more fully than the written text reveals.
†66 See To Orosius 4, 4.
†67 See Letter 40 VI, 9. See A. Trapè, “Nota sul giudizio di s. Agostino su Origene,” Augustinianum 26 (1986) 223-227, for Augustine's appraisal of Origen.
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Memorandum to Augustine on the Error of the Priscillianists and Origenists
Orosius to Blessed Father, Augustine, Bishop.
1. I had earlier reported the matter to Your Holiness, but I was even then pondering a memorandum Orosius uses the term Commonitorium which I have translated as “memorandum.” In Revisions II, 70, 44, Augustine refers to the work as “consultatio” which I have translated “consultation.” Daur reports that, while Commonitorium is found in the manuscript tradition instead of “consultatio,” the early editions use both terms in the title. †1 on the matter I reported, when I would see that your mind was free from other demands of writing. What Orosius says here does not preclude, but rather implies that he has discussed the teachings of Priscillian and Origen more fully with Augustine. What Orosius is asking from Augustine is a written reply to the remnants of Priscillianism and the errors of Origen that he can take back to his native land. This was a particularly busy period in Augustine's writing career. In Letter 169, 1, 1, he mentions to Evodius the works he has just completed or has in progress; see the Introduction, page 81. †2 My masters, your sons, the bishops Eutropius and Paul, Daur refers to the Eutropius who authored various works, including Epistola de contemnanda hereditate. The identification seems doubtful, since the Eutropius to whom Orosius refers was a bishop, while the other was not. It is much more probable that Eutropius and Paul are the two bishops who gave to Augustine a tract allegedly written by Caelestius, the disciple of Pelagius, and for whom Augustine wrote The Perfection of Human Righteousness. If so, it is probable that they were Spaniards, like Orosius. †3 were moved by the same good of the salvation of all, as I, your servant, am. They have already sent you a memorandum concerning some heresies, though they did not mention them all. Hence, I had to hurry to bring forth and heap up all the trees of destruction with their roots and branches and present them to your burning spirit. See Mt 3:10; 7:19. †4 Thus, once you have seen their array and inspected their wickedness, you may take their measure to apply what disposition of virtue you can. I ask you, blessed Father, only that you remove and cut off the evil plantings See Mt 15:13. †5 or grafts of others and sow the true seeds for us. We will water them from your fountains. See 1 Cor 3:7. †6 I call God as my witness and hope for the increase of your work. After all, that land now produces fruits of poor quality, because of its improper care. But if you bestow upon it that hidden manna, See Rv 2:17; 2 Mc 2:4-8. †7 entrusting it to me and restoring it, the land will bring forth fruit up to a hundredfold, See Mt 13:8; 13:23. †8 once your richness has been poured out upon it more abundantly. With his florid style filled with a mixture of metaphors, Orosius manages to imply that Augustine's reply will manure his native Spain so that it brings forth a rich harvest. †9
Through you may our Lord God, through you, I say, may he correct by the word those whom he has punished by the sword. Orosius is referring to the suffering his province has undergone as the result of the barbarian invasions that began in 409. †10 God has sent me to you; God now gives me hope in you, as I consider how it came about that I have come here. I recognize why I have come here; it was not by my will, not by necessity, not by the agreement of others that I left my homeland. Despite Orosius' protestation that it is providence alone that has brought him from his homeland to Augustine, Orosius was probably fleeing the troubles caused by the barbarians in Galicia; see A. Solignac, “Orose,” in Dictionnaire de spiritualité XI, 965-970, here 966. †11 I was driven by some hidden force until I was brought to the shore of this region. Here I finally came to understand that I was commanded to come to you. Do not think me impudent, but receive me as I make this confession. Allow me to return to my beloved lady a good merchant who has found the lost pearl, not a runaway servant who has squandered his money. See Gn 16:9; Mt 13:45-46. †12 We have been more seriously wounded by evil teachers than by the bloodiest of enemies. We admit the harm; you see the wound; all that remains is that you apply the remedy with the help of the Lord. Hence, I will briefly reveal what has first been wrongly planted and has grown strong and what has been grafted on later and grown even stronger.
2. First of all, Priscillian is more wretched than the Manichees insofar as he supported his heresy from the Old Testament as well. The Manichees rejected the Old Testament, whereas the Priscillianists used the Old Testament to support their views. In Heresies LXX, Augustine says, “They are more cunning than the Manichees insofar as they reject none of the canonical scriptures. They read all of them along with the Apocrypha and take them as authoritative. By the use of allegory they turn to their own meaning whatever there is in the Holy Books that overthrows their error.” †13 He taught that the soul which is born from God proceeds from a certain storehouse, announces before
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God that it will do battle, and is instructed by the exhortation of angels. Descending from there through various circles, it is captured by the evil principalities and according to the will of the victorious prince is thrust into diverse bodies, and a decree is written against them. See Col 2:14. In Heresies LXX, Augustine says, “These people say that souls are the same nature and substance as God and descend by stages through seven heavens and through certain principalities to engage in a spontaneous contest. These souls attack the malicious prince by whom they claim that the world was made, and they are sown in bodies of flesh by this prince.”
†14 He said that knowledge prevails against this, stating that Christ destroyed this decree and fixed it to the cross by his passion, as Priscillian himself says in a letter of his,
The first wisdom consists in understanding in the kinds of souls the natures of the divine powers and the disposition of the body. In it heaven and earth are seen to be bound, and all the principalities of the world are seen to be drawn up to overcome the ranks of the saints. For the patriarchs have the task of formal warfare against them. They hold the first circle of God and the divine decree made by the agreement of the angels and God and all souls concerning the souls to be sent into the flesh, and so on. H. Chadwick notes that the vocabulary of this difficult citation “abounds in words that occur in the Würzburg tracts such as obligatum, adstricti, dispositiones, chirographum, militia, and no case could easily be made against Priscillian's authorship on mere ground of style” (p. 192). Chadwick offers a slightly different translation that follows the punctuation of the CSEL edition, whereas I have followed that of the newer CCL edition. Chadwick's translation reads: The first wisdom consists in recognizing in the types of souls the natures of the divine powers and the arrangement of the body, in which the heaven and the earth are bound and all the powers of the world are gripped; but the dispositions of the holy ones overcome. For the first circle and the divine record of souls to be sent into the flesh are made by the co-operation of the angels and of God and of all souls, and are in control of the patriarchs. Those on the opposite side who control the force of the zodiacal host. One difference between the translations lies in the fact that he interprets the phrase I have translated as “have the task of formal warfare” as “control the force of the zodiacal host.” Here he argues that militia can refer to the heavenly host and that formalis can refer to the signs of the zodiac (see 193-194). He may very well have interpreted the passage correctly; I prefer the more literal translation which leaves the interpretation open. †15
He taught that the names of the patriarchs are members of the soul, because Reuben was in the head, Judah in the chest, Levi in the heart, Benjamin in the thighs, and so on. On the other hand, in the members of the body the signs of the heaven were set forth, that is, Aries in the head, Taurus in the neck, Gemini in the arms, Cancer in the chest, and so on. In Heresies LXX, Augustine says, “They also assert that men are bound by stars controlling their fate and that our very body is composed in accord with the twelve signs of the sky, as those who are commonly called mathematicians set Aries in the head,… and running through the remaining signs until they come to the feet which they attribute to Pisces, which is called the last sign by the astrologers.” †16 They want us to interpret these as eternal darkness and understand that from them the prince of the world has come forth. And he confirms this from some book entitled, “The Memory of the Apostles.” Theodoret of Cyr cites a passage from Irenaeus that speaks of certain heretics who said that Jesus taught his disciples and apostles in private and asked them to hand on this secret teaching to those worthy of it; see Haereticarum fabularum compendium I, 5. B. Vollmann, however, questions whether this allusion is to the same work; see Realencyklopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, Suppl. XIV, 531. †17 In it we see the Savior being questioned by the disciples in secret and showing with regard to the gospel parable which begins, A sower went out to sow (Mt 13:3), that the sower was not good. It maintains that, if he were good, he would not have been careless and that the seed would not lie either beside the path or in rocky soil or on uncultivated land. See Mt 13:3. †18 It wants us to understand that this sower is the one who scatters captured souls in different bodies as he wants. In this book there are also many things said about the prince of wetness and the prince of fire; it wants us to understand that all the good things in this world are done by art, not by the power of God. For it says that light was a certain virgin and that, when God wanted to give rain to men, he showed her to the prince of wetness. When he wanted to take her, he perspired in his passion and produced rain, and when he was deprived of her, he stirred up thunder by his roar. Priscillian, however, spoke of the Trinity in words only; for he affirmed the union without any existence or property. Existence or property in this context refers to the person or the characteristic that distinguishes one person of the Trinity from another. Chadwick notes that Orosius' translation of hypostasis as existentia echoes the terminology of Marius Victorinus; see Priscillian of Avila, 199, number 1, where he refers to Adversus Arium I, xviii: PL 8, 1052. M. Simonetti finds some confirmation of the Monarchian tendencies of which Priscillian has been accused and suggests that “his prevailing ascetic interests were responsible for his neglect of advancement in the Trinitarian question” (Patrology IV, 142). †19 He taught that this Father, Son, Holy Spirit—with the “and” removed—is Christ alone. In Heresies LXX, Augustine says, “With regard to Christ they agree with the Sabellian sect, saying that he is not only the Son, but also the Father and Holy Spirit.” Although it remains a matter of dispute whether or not Priscillian was himself a heretic, his third tract, De fide, De apocryphis, contains the statement “the name of the Father is Son and the name of the Son is Father” (see CSEL 18, 49). In his De trinitate fidei catholicae, Priscillian presents this formula as a quotation from the apostle, perhaps on the basis of a lost apocryphal text, as Chadwick suggests (Priscillian of Avila, 87). In the latter work, the Monarchian character of Priscillianist beliefs is clearly evident. See A. Orbe, “Doctrina trinataria del anónimo priscilianista De Trinitate fidei catholicae,” Gregorianum 49 (1968) 510-562, for an analysis of the Trinitarian doctrine of Priscillian. †20
3. Then two fellow citizens of mine, Avitus and another Avitus, looked for ideas from abroad, although the truth alone had by itself already exposed such shameful confusion. One set off for Jerusalem, the other for Rome. In “Avitus von Braga. Ein Beitrag zur altchristlichen Literaturgeschichte,” Kleine patristische Schriften. Texte und Untersuchungen 83, ed. G. Glockmann (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1967) 450-466, B. Altaner has argued convincingly that the Avitus who went to Jerusalem and returned with the work of Origen cannot be the Avitus of Braga with whom Jerome corresponded; also see H. Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila, 191. †21 On their return the one brought back Origen, the other Victorinus. For Origen, see the Introduction, 86-87. The Victorinus in question may have been either Victorinus of Pettau (d. 304) or Marius Victorinus, who was born around 280/285 and died sometime after 362. The latter, who translated a number of Greek philosophical works, including the Enneads of Plotinus, was, through these translations as well as by his example, instrumental in the conversion of Augustine; see the Confessions VIII, 2, 3-5. He was also the author of several theological works; see Marius Victorinus: Theological Treatises on the Trinity, tr. by Mary T. Clark, R.S.C.J. FOTC 69 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1981), for an excellent introduction to the theological writings of Victorinus. Also see Patrology IV, 69-80. In a note on the two Aviti, the BA edition presents a good review of the literature and argues that the Victorinus in question was Marius Victorinus. See this same note for a discussion of the Aviti and of whether one of them can be identified with Avitus of Braga (Obras completas de San Agustín XXXVIII, 895-896). †22 Of these two one yielded to the other. Both, nonetheless, condemned Priscillian. We hardly know
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anything of Victorinus, because the follower of Victorinus turned to Origen almost before he had written anything. Thus they began to propose many marvelous things from Origen which the truth itself would cut off, given a little chance. After all, we have learned a sufficiently sound teaching on the Trinity, that all things which have been made were made by God, and that they are all very good See Jn 1:3; Gn 1:31.
†23 and made out of nothing, as well as fairly solid explanations of the scriptures. Orosius admits that his people have derived from Origen solid doctrine on the Trinity, on the creation of the world and its goodness, and good expositions of the scriptures.
†24 All these things were accepted by the wise after a faithful removal of the earlier teachings. There remained as a stumbling block “out of nothing.” They were persuaded that there is a soul, but they could not be persuaded that it was made out of nothing, That is, there remained as a stumbling block one point of Priscillianist doctrine that they could not bring themselves to give up, namely, that the soul was not made out of nothing. Presumably, they held with Priscillian that the soul was a particle of or emanation from God. See The Literal Meaning of Genesis VII, 2, 3-4, where Augustine speaks of “certain persons” who held that the soul is the same nature as God because it was generated from him or proceeded from him in some way. Unlike the Manichees, these persons supported their position with Gn 2:7, interpreting God's breathing forth the soul as his producing the soul from his substance. See the note by Agaësse and A. Solignac, in the BA edition of De Genesi ad litteram, 698-699. In his Tractatus Exodi (CSEL XVIII, 70 and 74), Priscillian speaks of the “divine stock of the soul” (diuinum animae genus).
†25 arguing that the will of God could not be nothing. See 2 Mc 7:28.
†26 This concern remains almost right up to the present. Because Orosius presents the problem about creation ex nihilo as one that is still troubling his fellow citizens, Augustine focuses upon the question in his answer. The question is important because the people of Orosius' homeland seem to have held that the soul had to be made out of God, if it was made by his will.
†27
These two Aviti and, along with them, Saint Basil the Greek were teaching these things quite happily, and they handed on some things from the books of Origen which, I now see, were not correct. Orosius makes it sound as though this Basil was a contemporary of the Aviti and with them in Galicia; Saint Basil the Great, however, had died in 379 and elsewhere. Perhaps he merely means that Basil's theology, like that of the Aviti, propounded some theses of Origen's that Orosius now finds incorrect. †28 First, they said that before all the things that were made became visible, they had always remained as made in the wisdom of God. They said, “God did not begin to make whatever he made.” See the Introduction, 87-88. In De principiis I, 4, 3 Origen claims that it would be “absurd and impious” to maintain that God's power to create was “ever idle even for a moment.” Hence, there must always have been creatures. As a solution to the apparent conflict between holding that creatures always existed and yet were created by God, Origen tentatively suggests that creation was ever sketched and prefigured in the Wisdom of God (De principiis I, 4, 4). Finally, in De principiis I, 4, 6, he adds, “And if all things were made in wisdom, since wisdom always has been, those things which were later substantially made were always in wisdom according to their prefiguration and preformation.” Of this co-eternal creation, Crouzel and Simonetti say, “la création co-éternelle à Dieu c'est le Monde Intelligible, contenant les plans de la création et les germes des êtres à venir, et s'identifiant avec le Fils en tant qu'il est Sagesse” (Origène: Traité des Principes II, 80). While one certainly does well to emphasize the tentative nature of Origen's speculations here, it is also easy to see how his readers, especially those who came after the precisions introduced as the result of the controversy with Arianism, could find difficulty with this solution. †29 Second, they said that the angels, principalities, powers, See Col 1:16. †30 souls, and demons have one principle and one substance and that an archangel or a soul or a demon was given a place in accord with the quality of its merits. They used these words, “A lesser sin merits a larger place.” See the Introduction, 12-14, as well as H. Crouzel's, “Origen and Origenism,” in New Catholic Encyclopedia 10, 767-774, especially 771-772. †31 They said that the world was made last of all so that souls, which had sinned previously, might be purified in it. The world in this context must mean this visible world, not the world of spiritual beings. In The City of God XI, 23, Augustine attributed to Origen the view that “the world was made so that souls might receive bodies as prison cells in which they would be enclosed as a punishment for what their sins deserved, higher and lighter bodies if they sinned less, but lower and heavier bodies if they sinned more.” †32 They preached that the eternal fire by which sinners are to be punished is neither true nor eternal fire, saying that the punishment in one's own conscience was called fire. There are two charges involved here: one that the fire of purification is not true fire, two that it is not eternal fire. As for the first, in De principiis II, 10, 4, Origen does argue for an interpretation of the pains of fire as the pain one experiences in one's conscience over one's own sins. In Letter 124 7, Jerome writes, “He does not locate the fire of hell and the torments which scripture threatens for sinners in punishments, but in the conscience of sinners, when by the might and power of God the whole memory of sins is set before our eyes.” Jerome oddly implies that the suffering in one's conscience is not a punishment. As for the second point, Origen, as Crouzel states, “certainly preferred to speak of purgatory, of a baptism of eschatological fire, of which he is one of the earliest proponents, rather than of the eternity of punishment” (“Origen and Origenism,” New Catholic Encyclopedia 10, 772). †33 They said that “eternal” according to its Greek etymology does not mean “everlasting.” They even added a Latin proof, for in saying, “for eternity and for age upon age” (Ps 9:6; 10:16), something is added to eternity. And thus they say that all the souls of sinners will return to the unity of the body of Christ after the purification of their conscience. The idea of the Apokatastasis, or the universal restoration of all things in Christ at the end of time, certainly appears in Origen, though he may have viewed it as a fond hope rather than a doctrinal certitude; see De principiis I, 6. Also see De principiis II, 8, 3, for Origen's view that souls may return to their original state. †34 They also tried to maintain the same thing even about the devil, but they were not successful. They argued that, since the substance in him was made good, it cannot perish and that, once all of the devil's malice has been completely burned away, his substance will at some point be saved. Though Origen favored the idea of the Apokatastasis based on 1 Cor 15:25, there is no text that clearly states that the devil will be saved; in fact, he explicitly rejects this view in a letter to friends in Alexandria. See Origène: Traité des principes II, 99-100, where Crouzel points to other texts against the salvation of the devil. †35 They taught concerning the Lord's body that, since the Son of God, who came to us after so many thousands of years, could not have been idle up to that time, he assumed the quality of the form of those he visited, See De principiis II, 6, where Origen develops his Christology. Given Origen's position that God always created and the Pauline title of Christ as the first-born of all creation (Col 1:15), one can see how one could hold that Christ preexisted the Incarnation and appeared to the patriarchs of the Old Testament. †36 while preaching forgiveness to the angels, powers and all the higher beings. They held that his body became dense I have translated crassuisse in accord with the CCL edition; the BAC edition has translated transivisse, following the Maurists and the Louvain edition. †37 to the point that he could be touched in the form of flesh he assumed This seems to be an inference from various things that Origen said rather than any explicit teaching of his. †38 and that, bringing this to an end by his passion and resurrection, the body became rarified again by ascending until he came to the Father. Thus the body was never laid aside, and God in his reign is not enveloped in any body. Crouzel says, “Jerome thought he discovered in the Peri Archon the final disappearance of the 'risen' bodies that were absorbed in this [divine] henad or unity” (“Origen and Origenism,” New Catholic Encyclopedia 10, 772). Jerome appeals to De principiis II, 3, 3, where Origen says, “If then this is well argued, we are left with the belief that we will one day be in an incorporeal state.” As Crouzel points out, however, Origen is here considering one hypothesis among several; see Origène: Traité des principes II, 128-129. †39 They said that the creation subject to corruption against its will should be understood as the sun and the moon and the stars and that these are
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not elementary brightnesses, but rational powers and offer service to corruption,
on account of him who subjected it in hope (Rom 8:20). Origen, under the influence of Platonism, held that the stars had rational souls, but denied that they governed human affairs; see De principiis I, 7, 5, as well as Crouzel's note 12 in Origène: Traité des principes II, 106.
†40
4. I have explained all this briefly, as well as I could remember it, in order that you might hurry to apply a remedy, once you have seen all these diseases. The truth of Christ is in me (2 Cor 11:10) that, on account of the venerable reverence of Your Holiness, I would not dare to be so bold, if I did not recognize that I was sent to you as one whom the clear judgment and providence of God has chosen to produce the remedies of that great and good people. See Ex 9:14. †41 After all, a sinner who has been severely punished deserves to be cured after he has suffered the penalty. Please be mindful of me, blessed Father, and of the many, who along with me await your words like the dew which descends upon them. See Dt 32:2. †42
Notes
†1 Orosius uses the term Commonitorium which I have translated as “memorandum.” In Revisions II, 70, 44, Augustine refers to the work as “consultatio” which I have translated “consultation.” Daur reports that, while Commonitorium is found in the manuscript tradition instead of “consultatio,” the early editions use both terms in the title.
†2 What Orosius says here does not preclude, but rather implies that he has discussed the teachings of Priscillian and Origen more fully with Augustine. What Orosius is asking from Augustine is a written reply to the remnants of Priscillianism and the errors of Origen that he can take back to his native land. This was a particularly busy period in Augustine's writing career. In Letter 169, 1, 1, he mentions to Evodius the works he has just completed or has in progress; see the Introduction, page 81.
†3 Daur refers to the Eutropius who authored various works, including Epistola de contemnanda hereditate. The identification seems doubtful, since the Eutropius to whom Orosius refers was a bishop, while the other was not. It is much more probable that Eutropius and Paul are the two bishops who gave to Augustine a tract allegedly written by Caelestius, the disciple of Pelagius, and for whom Augustine wrote The Perfection of Human Righteousness. If so, it is probable that they were Spaniards, like Orosius.
†4 See Mt 3:10; 7:19.
†5 See Mt 15:13.
†6 See 1 Cor 3:7.
†7 See Rv 2:17; 2 Mc 2:4-8.
†8 See Mt 13:8; 13:23.
†9 With his florid style filled with a mixture of metaphors, Orosius manages to imply that Augustine's reply will manure his native Spain so that it brings forth a rich harvest.
†10 Orosius is referring to the suffering his province has undergone as the result of the barbarian invasions that began in 409.
†11 Despite Orosius' protestation that it is providence alone that has brought him from his homeland to Augustine, Orosius was probably fleeing the troubles caused by the barbarians in Galicia; see A. Solignac, “Orose,” in Dictionnaire de spiritualité XI, 965-970, here 966.
†12 See Gn 16:9; Mt 13:45-46.
†13 The Manichees rejected the Old Testament, whereas the Priscillianists used the Old Testament to support their views. In Heresies LXX, Augustine says, “They are more cunning than the Manichees insofar as they reject none of the canonical scriptures. They read all of them along with the Apocrypha and take them as authoritative. By the use of allegory they turn to their own meaning whatever there is in the Holy Books that overthrows their error.”
†14 See Col 2:14. In Heresies LXX, Augustine says, “These people say that souls are the same
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nature and substance as God and descend by stages through seven heavens and through certain principalities to engage in a spontaneous contest. These souls attack the malicious prince by whom they claim that the world was made, and they are sown in bodies of flesh by this prince.”
†15 H. Chadwick notes that the vocabulary of this difficult citation “abounds in words that occur in the Würzburg tracts such as obligatum, adstricti, dispositiones, chirographum, militia, and no case could easily be made against Priscillian's authorship on mere ground of style” (p. 192). Chadwick offers a slightly different translation that follows the punctuation of the CSEL edition, whereas I have followed that of the newer CCL edition. Chadwick's translation reads:
The first wisdom consists in recognizing in the types of souls the natures of the divine powers and the arrangement of the body, in which the heaven and the earth are bound and all the powers of the world are gripped; but the dispositions of the holy ones overcome. For the first circle and the divine record of souls to be sent into the flesh are made by the co-operation of the angels and of God and of all souls, and are in control of the patriarchs. Those on the opposite side who control the force of the zodiacal host.
One difference between the translations lies in the fact that he interprets the phrase I have translated as “have the task of formal warfare” as “control the force of the zodiacal host.” Here he argues that militia can refer to the heavenly host and that formalis can refer to the signs of the zodiac (see 193-194). He may very well have interpreted the passage correctly; I prefer the more literal translation which leaves the interpretation open.
†16 In Heresies LXX, Augustine says, “They also assert that men are bound by stars controlling their fate and that our very body is composed in accord with the twelve signs of the sky, as those who are commonly called mathematicians set Aries in the head,… and running through the remaining signs until they come to the feet which they attribute to Pisces, which is called the last sign by the astrologers.”
†17 Theodoret of Cyr cites a passage from Irenaeus that speaks of certain heretics who said that Jesus taught his disciples and apostles in private and asked them to hand on this secret teaching to those worthy of it; see Haereticarum fabularum compendium I, 5. B. Vollmann, however, questions whether this allusion is to the same work; see Realencyklopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, Suppl. XIV, 531.
†18 See Mt 13:3.
†19 Existence or property in this context refers to the person or the characteristic that distinguishes one person of the Trinity from another. Chadwick notes that Orosius' translation of hypostasis as existentia echoes the terminology of Marius Victorinus; see Priscillian of Avila, 199, number 1, where he refers to Adversus Arium I, xviii: PL 8, 1052. M. Simonetti finds some confirmation of the Monarchian tendencies of which Priscillian has been accused and suggests that “his prevailing ascetic interests were responsible for his neglect of advancement in the Trinitarian question” (Patrology IV, 142).
†20 In Heresies LXX, Augustine says, “With regard to Christ they agree with the Sabellian sect, saying that he is not only the Son, but also the Father and Holy Spirit.” Although it remains a matter of dispute whether or not Priscillian was himself a heretic, his third tract, De fide, De apocryphis, contains the statement “the name of the Father is Son and the name of the Son is Father” (see CSEL 18, 49). In his De trinitate fidei catholicae, Priscillian presents this formula as a quotation from the apostle, perhaps on the basis of a lost apocryphal text, as Chadwick suggests (Priscillian of Avila, 87). In the latter work, the Monarchian character of Priscillianist beliefs is clearly evident. See A. Orbe, “Doctrina trinataria del anónimo priscilianista De Trinitate fidei catholicae,” Gregorianum 49 (1968) 510-562, for an analysis of the Trinitarian doctrine of Priscillian.
†21 In “Avitus von Braga. Ein Beitrag zur altchristlichen Literaturgeschichte,” Kleine patristische Schriften. Texte und Untersuchungen 83, ed. G. Glockmann (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1967) 450-466, B. Altaner has argued convincingly that the Avitus who went to Jerusalem and returned with the work of Origen cannot be the Avitus of Braga with whom Jerome corresponded; also see H. Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila, 191.
†22 For Origen, see the Introduction, 86-87. The Victorinus in question may have been either Victorinus of Pettau (d. 304) or Marius Victorinus, who was born around 280/285 and died sometime after 362. The latter, who translated a number of Greek philosophical works, including the Enneads
― 102 ―
of Plotinus, was, through these translations as well as by his example, instrumental in the conversion of Augustine; see the
Confessions VIII, 2, 3-5. He was also the author of several theological works; see
Marius Victorinus: Theological Treatises on the Trinity, tr. by Mary T. Clark, R.S.C.J. FOTC 69 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1981), for an excellent introduction to the theological writings of Victorinus. Also see
Patrology IV, 69-80. In a note on the two Aviti, the BA edition presents a good review of the literature and argues that the Victorinus in question was Marius Victorinus. See this same note for a discussion of the Aviti and of whether one of them can be identified with Avitus of Braga (
Obras completas de San Agustín XXXVIII, 895-896).
†23 See Jn 1:3; Gn 1:31.
†24 Orosius admits that his people have derived from Origen solid doctrine on the Trinity, on the creation of the world and its goodness, and good expositions of the scriptures.
†25 That is, there remained as a stumbling block one point of Priscillianist doctrine that they could not bring themselves to give up, namely, that the soul was not made out of nothing. Presumably, they held with Priscillian that the soul was a particle of or emanation from God. See The Literal Meaning of Genesis VII, 2, 3-4, where Augustine speaks of “certain persons” who held that the soul is the same nature as God because it was generated from him or proceeded from him in some way. Unlike the Manichees, these persons supported their position with Gn 2:7, interpreting God's breathing forth the soul as his producing the soul from his substance. See the note by Agaësse and A. Solignac, in the BA edition of De Genesi ad litteram, 698-699. In his Tractatus Exodi (CSEL XVIII, 70 and 74), Priscillian speaks of the “divine stock of the soul” (diuinum animae genus).
†26 See 2 Mc 7:28.
†27 Because Orosius presents the problem about creation ex nihilo as one that is still troubling his fellow citizens, Augustine focuses upon the question in his answer. The question is important because the people of Orosius' homeland seem to have held that the soul had to be made out of God, if it was made by his will.
†28 Orosius makes it sound as though this Basil was a contemporary of the Aviti and with them in Galicia; Saint Basil the Great, however, had died in 379 and elsewhere. Perhaps he merely means that Basil's theology, like that of the Aviti, propounded some theses of Origen's that Orosius now finds incorrect.
†29 See the Introduction, 87-88. In De principiis I, 4, 3 Origen claims that it would be “absurd and impious” to maintain that God's power to create was “ever idle even for a moment.” Hence, there must always have been creatures. As a solution to the apparent conflict between holding that creatures always existed and yet were created by God, Origen tentatively suggests that creation was ever sketched and prefigured in the Wisdom of God (De principiis I, 4, 4). Finally, in De principiis I, 4, 6, he adds, “And if all things were made in wisdom, since wisdom always has been, those things which were later substantially made were always in wisdom according to their prefiguration and preformation.” Of this co-eternal creation, Crouzel and Simonetti say, “la création co-éternelle à Dieu c'est le Monde Intelligible, contenant les plans de la création et les germes des êtres à venir, et s'identifiant avec le Fils en tant qu'il est Sagesse” (Origène: Traité des Principes II, 80). While one certainly does well to emphasize the tentative nature of Origen's speculations here, it is also easy to see how his readers, especially those who came after the precisions introduced as the result of the controversy with Arianism, could find difficulty with this solution.
†30 See Col 1:16.
†31 See the Introduction, 12-14, as well as H. Crouzel's, “Origen and Origenism,” in New Catholic Encyclopedia 10, 767-774, especially 771-772.
†32 The world in this context must mean this visible world, not the world of spiritual beings. In The City of God XI, 23, Augustine attributed to Origen the view that “the world was made so that souls might receive bodies as prison cells in which they would be enclosed as a punishment for what their sins deserved, higher and lighter bodies if they sinned less, but lower and heavier bodies if they sinned more.”
†33 There are two charges involved here: one that the fire of purification is not true fire, two that it is not eternal fire. As for the first, in De principiis II, 10, 4, Origen does argue for an interpretation of the pains of fire as the pain one experiences in one's conscience over one's own sins. In Letter 124 7, Jerome writes, “He does not locate the fire of hell and the torments which scripture threatens
― 103 ―
for sinners in punishments, but in the conscience of sinners, when by the might and power of God the whole memory of sins is set before our eyes.” Jerome oddly implies that the suffering in one's conscience is not a punishment. As for the second point, Origen, as Crouzel states, “certainly preferred to speak of purgatory, of a baptism of eschatological fire, of which he is one of the earliest proponents, rather than of the eternity of punishment” (“Origen and Origenism,”
New Catholic Encyclopedia 10, 772).
†34 The idea of the Apokatastasis, or the universal restoration of all things in Christ at the end of time, certainly appears in Origen, though he may have viewed it as a fond hope rather than a doctrinal certitude; see De principiis I, 6. Also see De principiis II, 8, 3, for Origen's view that souls may return to their original state.
†35 Though Origen favored the idea of the Apokatastasis based on 1 Cor 15:25, there is no text that clearly states that the devil will be saved; in fact, he explicitly rejects this view in a letter to friends in Alexandria. See Origène: Traité des principes II, 99-100, where Crouzel points to other texts against the salvation of the devil.
†36 See De principiis II, 6, where Origen develops his Christology. Given Origen's position that God always created and the Pauline title of Christ as the first-born of all creation (Col 1:15), one can see how one could hold that Christ preexisted the Incarnation and appeared to the patriarchs of the Old Testament.
†37 I have translated crassuisse in accord with the CCL edition; the BAC edition has translated transivisse, following the Maurists and the Louvain edition.
†38 This seems to be an inference from various things that Origen said rather than any explicit teaching of his.
†39 Crouzel says, “Jerome thought he discovered in the Peri Archon the final disappearance of the 'risen' bodies that were absorbed in this [divine] henad or unity” (“Origen and Origenism,” New Catholic Encyclopedia 10, 772). Jerome appeals to De principiis II, 3, 3, where Origen says, “If then this is well argued, we are left with the belief that we will one day be in an incorporeal state.” As Crouzel points out, however, Origen is here considering one hypothesis among several; see Origène: Traité des principes II, 128-129.
†40 Origen, under the influence of Platonism, held that the stars had rational souls, but denied that they governed human affairs; see De principiis I, 7, 5, as well as Crouzel's note 12 in Origène: Traité des principes II, 106.
†41 See Ex 9:14.
†42 See Dt 32:2.
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To Orosius in Refutation of the Priscillianists and Origenists
1, 1. Even though it is you who are asking, my dear son, Orosius, I ought not to answer everything that you have set forth in your memorandum. On the other hand, I ought not make no answer at all. After all, I am quite pleased by your zeal, and I do not want to appear not to value it and, for this reason, offend you in a way you do not deserve. You either have read or can read some of my shorter works, in which I have said many things that apply to the heresy of the Priscillianists. Although I had not set out to refute them, now that I hear from you what they hold, I see that I have already done so in doing something else. Augustine is referring to his many anti-Manichaean writings. His statement here indicates that he had not previously heard of the Priscillianists. †1 After all, I have argued many times against the Manichees that, although the soul is immortal in its own way, it is proved to be changeable for the worse by its failure and for the better by its progress. This argument shows with utter clarity that the soul is not the substance of God, and at the same time it uproots the teaching of Priscillian as well. That God is utterly immutable is one of Augustine's most basic convictions. See Confessions VII, 1, 1, where he comes to see that “what can be corrupted is inferior to what cannot be corrupted, and what cannot be violated I unhesitatingly place above what is violable, and what suffers no change I saw to be better than what can be changed.” From the facts that we grow more or less wise and that we sin and repent, it immediately follows that our souls are not part of the divine substance. See The Literal Meaning of Genesis VII, 2, 3 and The City of God XI, 22. †2 This point is perfectly true, and everyone can, when it is called to his attention, easily recognize it in himself. Once it has been established, neither the Manichees nor the Priscillianists can find the material from which to compose their myths. Why should we go about cutting off the branches of this wordiest of errors, when it saves time to dig out and destroy its root? Augustine wisely sets aside as unnecessary Orosius' request that he cut off all the branches of the Priscillianist error and focuses his attention upon the root. Thus he avoids any need to reply to the elements of the Priscillianist mythology. †3 Moreover, you will be especially pleased that you already have at hand the refutation of those fanciful ravings.
2, 2. It has already been shown that the soul is not a particle of or a emanation from God. Hence, it no longer pertains to the refutation of the sacrilegious foolishness of Priscillian further to pursue the question about the soul, namely, whether we should say that God created the soul from nothing, on the grounds that it would seem harsh and impious to say that the will of God is that nothing and that by its willing the soul was created. Whether the soul was made from nothing or whether we should not say this, since it was made by the will of God, whose will is certainly not nothing, that heresy is clearly refuted, because the soul was made and is not the nature of God. That heresy maintains that the soul was originally the nature of God and holds this as the foundation upon which it builds whatever other falsehood it adds. Although the proof that the soul is not divine in nature destroys the root of Priscillianism, Augustine undertakes the clarification of how the soul is created out of nothing and by the will of God, a point that led Orosius' compatriots to suppose that the will of God was, by implication, nothing. †4
Still, it is not right to reject this question and leave it untouched. We must ask those men who do not want to believe that the soul was made from nothing lest, in doing so, they assert that the will of God by which it was made is nothing; we must ask them whether they say that no creature was made out of nothing. The fact that these people had difficulty only with the soul's being made from nothing may indicate that their view rested on Gn 2:7, which they took to mean that God produced the soul out of himself. †5 If that is what they think, we have reason to fear that they are trying to introduce
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some other nature, which is not God and yet not nothing and which, if God did not have it like matter subject to him, he could not find anything out of which to make whatever he made. If these people hold the generalized thesis that God did not make any creature out of nothing, they would have to hold that he needed some matter out of which to make whatever he would make. Since God would not have made that matter, they would be denying that God created the world.
†6 When one asks out of what God made his creation, one asks for some matter. In this sense, a craftsman has wood or some other body, and unless he had it, he simply could not make the things that we look for from his art. Hence, when one answers, “Out of nothing,” what else does one say but that God had no matter before him that he had not made? He did not need any matter in order to have that out of which he might make something, if he wanted, and without which he would not be able to make it. The matter of the world, which we find everywhere in changeable things, was produced by him who produced the world. Matter for Augustine is the principle of mutability; see Confessions XII, 6, 6. Thus there is matter in every creature, in souls as well as in bodies, since only God is immutable. Hence, only God is immaterial, though souls are non-bodily or incorporeal.
†7 Hence, even if God made or makes something from something else, he still did not make or does not make it from something that he has not made. On the basis of Wis 11:18, LXX, “You made the world from unformed matter,” Augustine held that God made all creatures out of unformed matter, but insisted that God made the unformed matter as well, though not temporally prior to the formation of the matter. The Literal Meaning of Genesis I, 15, 29, and Confessions XII, 29, 40.
†8
Thus, having set aside for a moment the nature of the soul, if they admit that God made something from nothing, let them look and see that he made whatever that may be by his will, for he would not have made anything unwillingly. Yet, it does not follow that his will is nothing, simply because he made something from nothing by his will. Why then are they afraid to say in the case of the soul what they do not hesitate to say in the case of any other things? Or, if they allege that only the soul was made by the will of God and claim that he did not make the other things by his will, what could they say that is more absurd, more insane? But if he made all that he made by his will, we still do not mean, when we say this, that his will is nothing. Let them admit this with regard to the soul as well.
3, 3. The words, God made [the heaven and the earth] out of nothing (2 Mc 7:28), only mean that there was nothing out of which he might make them, and yet he made them because he willed to. In saying that he made them out of nothing, it says that the will is something; in fact, it gives the will a special emphasis. After all, we say to him, The power is yours when you will (Wis 12:18), whether or not there is something present out of which he might make them. The will alone is sufficient when the power is supreme. Unlike the philosophers of the ancient world, who maintained that matter was a prerequisite for any making, Augustine sets forth the principle that God's supreme power does not require any material out of which God might make the world; rather, he can by the power of his will bring something into existence without any material cause. †9 How then can they claim that, because he creates out of nothing, the will of the creator is nothing? After all, something can be made out of nothing, precisely because the will of the creator is sufficient by itself even without matter.
Perhaps they want to say that not only the soul, but no creature at all was made from nothing, on the grounds that God made whatever he made by his will, a will that is certainly not nothing. Let them recall that out of which the human body was made, for God certainly made it, as scripture bears witness, out of the mud or out of the dust of the earth, See Gn 2:7. †10 and he undoubtedly made it by his will. Still, the will of God is not dust or mud. The fact that something was made out of mud and was yet made by the will does not mean that the will is
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mud. So too, the fact that something was made out of nothing and was yet made by the will does not mean that the will is nothing. In later scholastic terminology Augustine is distinguishing between the material cause out of which the maker makes something and the instrumental cause by which he makes something. To make something out of nothing means to make something without any material cause, but the denial of a material cause does not entail that there is no instrumental cause, in this case, the divine will, which is identical with the efficient cause, namely, God.
†11
4, 4. You added as a reason for sorrow that some among you had slipped from the heresy of Priscillian into the error of Origen and that they could not be healed from the former plague without the treatment inducing some disease. That sorrow is not something blameworthy, for the truth, and not falsity, ought to drive out falsity. Otherwise, one changes the evil, but does not escape from it. Still, you mention that those who brought you the books of Origen handed on the true doctrine concerning God himself, the creator of all creatures, that is, concerning the coeternal and immutable Trinity. In opposition to this truth, Priscillian revived the ancient doctrine of Sabellius who held that the Father is the same as the Son and the Holy Spirit. Sabellius (fl. around 220) was a Trinitarian heretic who so emphasized the divine unity that he denied any real distinction between the Father and the Son. Sabellianism was also called Patripassionism, because, given the identity between the Father and the Son, the Father suffered on the cross; it is called modalism because the names of the three were merely different modes or aspects of the divine unity. The names, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, indicated different activities of the one God in the world. See Heresies XLI. †12 He was worse than Sabellius because he also thought that the soul did not have its own nature, but dared to say with the Manichees that a particle, as it were, flowed down out of God and was deformed with evil and changed for the worse. See the Introduction, 85, for discussion of this typical charge against Priscillian. †13 Your province received no small amount of good from those books, especially in the area in which the most serious errors are made, for such false and wicked opinions have to do with the Creator, not with creatures. Hence, whether those who went astray have been restored to this faith or whether those who had not known it have learned it by the reading of those treatises, they should rejoice that they have learned sound doctrine. Augustine accepts Orosius' statement that Origen's doctrine on God is fully orthodox. In the Origenist controversy, however, Origen was accused of subordinationism, that is, of teaching that the Son was inferior to the Father and that the Holy Spirit was inferior to the Son. The charge is most probably false; it certainly measures his theology anachronistically by the standards set by the Council of Nicaea (325). †14 I see that you already know of the error that is found in them, but you will be better able to learn how to speak against such views, in a case where the error arose some time back, though it has only recently come to your attention. Presumably, an older error will have been already dealt with by others so that Orosius will find help in opposing it. Augustine seems unaware of the virulence of the recent Origenist controversy that had embroiled such giants as Jerome, Rufinus, Epiphanius, John of Jerusalem, and John Chrysostom. †15
5, 5. Nonetheless, I also warn you, to the extent of my abilities, not to hold any daring belief about the correction of the devil and his angels and their restoration to their original state. Augustine stands firm against the idea that the devil and his angels may still find mercy before God. He argues that it is not that we hate the devil for his attempted harm to us, but that we do not dare to undo the judgment of God. Furthermore, if the status of the devil is changeable, the status of the blessed too would seem to be open to change and thus the happiness of paradise would be jeopardized. See Heresies XLI and The City of God XXI, 17. †16 It is not that we hate the devil and the demons and thus repay them for their bad will, since they are driven only by the goads of hatred and try to disturb the journeys by which we make our way to God. It is rather that we should not presume to add anything to the final sentence of the sovereign and veracious judge. After all, he foretold that he would say to the likes of them: Depart into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels (Mt 25:41).
What scripture says elsewhere, For eternity and for age upon age (Ps 9:6; 10:16), should not move us to take “eternal” in this passage to mean “long.” The Latin translator did not want to say, “For eternity and for eternity upon eternity.” Since αἰών in Greek can be translated as “age” (saeculum) and “eternity” (aeternum), other translators have put it more gracefully: For the age and for age upon age (Ps 9:5; 10:16). But scripture did not use this word, when it said, Depart into eternal fire (Mt 25:41). It did not say αἰῶνα, but αἰώνιον. If it were derived from “age” (saeculum), the Latin would read “of the present age” (saeculare), but no translator has dared to say that. That is, no translator has said, “Depart into the fire of the present age,” since it would imply that the fire was less than eternal. Saeculum can mean “age,” “the present age,” “generation,” “lifetime,” “century.” †17 Hence, though in Latin
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an age is understood as having an end, we are accustomed to call “eternal” only what has no end. In Greek
αἰών is understood to mean at times “eternity,” at times “age.” Nonetheless, even the Greeks—to the best of my knowledge—usually understand by the adjective derived from this noun, namely,
αἰώνιον, only what has no end. We usually translate either
αἰῶνα or
αἰώνιον as eternal (
aeternum), but we also translate
αἰῶνα as “age” (
saeculum). We translate
αἰώνιον as “eternal” (
aeternum), although some venture at times to say “eternal” (
aeternale) so that the Latin tongue does not seem to be without an adjective derived from the same noun.
6. Perhaps they will find in the language of scripture that something which comes to an end is said to be aiwnion. In this way God frequently says in the books of the Old Testament: This will be an eternal law (Ex 28:43; Lv 16:19; 16:34), where the Greek has αἰῶνιον, though it often gave such commands regarding sacred rites that were to come to an end. And yet, if we understand these words more carefully, perhaps what was signified by those sacred rites was not to come to an end. After all, there is no need to wander far off for an example. We speak of God as eternal in this way—not this one short syllable, but what it signifies. In English usage, we would distinguish: “God is eternal” from “'God' has one syllable,” by the use of single quotes to show that we are speaking of the sign as having a single syllable and not of what is signified by the sign. So too, the rites of the Old Testament are signs; though the signs ceased to be, what the signs signified could well be eternal. †18 The apostle called prior times in the distant past eternal; in Greek it says: Πρὸ χρόνων αἰωνίων (2 Tm 1:9). When writing to Titus he says, The hope of eternal life which God who cannot lie promised before eternal times (Ti 1:2). Since, however, we see that previous times had a beginning with the creation of the world, how can they be eternal, unless he called eternal those times which have no time before them? Augustine insists that time is a creature; hence, there was no time before God created the world. God preceded the world, not by some time, but by eternity; see Confessions XI, 13, 16. †19
6, 7. On the other hand, whoever wisely notes that the words, Depart into eternal fire, speak of what has no end, proves the same point from that same gospel passage concerning the eternal life that the just will receive, for it too will not have an end. Thus the passage concludes, And so they will go into eternal burning, but the just into eternal life (Mt 25:46). In each case, the Greek has αἰώνιον. If mercy leads us to believe that the punishment of the wicked will come to an end, what are we to believe concerning the reward of the just, when in each case eternity is mentioned in the same passage, in the same sentence, by the same word? See The City of God XXI, 17-27, where Augustine examines the views of those he refers to as “the compassionate,” who want to extend salvation to all or almost all rational creatures. †20 Are we to say that even the just will fall back from that holiness and eternal life into the uncleanness of sins and into death? See 1 Thes 4:7. The idea that the salvation of the just would not be secure or that we might have to repeat this life again with all its risks and pains was something that Augustine found quite horrifying; see The City of God X, 31. †21 Heaven keep that from sound Christian faith! Each then is said to be eternal without end, that is, αἰώνιον, so that, while grieving over the punishment of the devil, we have no doubt about the kingdom of Christ. Finally, if “eternity” and “eternal,” that is, αἰών and αἰώνιον, are to be found in scripture with each of these meanings, at times without an end, at times with an end, what shall we say about those words of the prophet, where it is written, Their worm will not die, and their fire will not be extinguished? (Is 66:24). Whatever sort of punishment is signified by the nouns “worm” and “fire,” if it will not die and
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will not be extinguished, we are surely told that it will be without end, and the prophet was doing nothing else, when he said this, but foretelling that it would be without end.
7, 8. Also, with regard to the kingdom of Christ, no one ever raised any doubts that he is the king of all ages See Rv 1:32-33. †22 insofar as in the beginning he was the Word, God with God. See Jn 1:1. †23 But in terms of his assumption of a human nature and the sacrament of the mediator See 1 Tm 2:5. †24 and his becoming flesh of the Virgin, scripture says most clearly that his kingdom will have no end. Augustine says that Christ as the Word of God is beyond any doubt king of the ages, but Christ as having assumed a human nature, that is, Christ as mediator, also has a kingdom that will not end. Marcellus of Ancyra had denied the eternality of Christ's kingdom; of his account there was added to the Creed, “And of his kingdom there will be no end.” †25 In speaking to Mary who was to be his mother, while remaining a virgin, the angel says among other things, He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord will give him the throne of David his father, and he will reign in the house of David for eternity, and of his kingdom there will be no end (Lk 1:32-33). In what respect will his kingdom have no end, if not insofar as he will reign in the house of Jacob? After all, he explains the expression, for eternity, on account of its ambiguity, by adding, of his kingdom there will be no end (Lk 1:32-33), so that no one would understand “eternity” here as the age which will one day come to an end. Can we understand the kingdom in the house of Jacob and on the throne of David otherwise than as in the Church and in that people which is his kingdom? The apostle also says of it, When he shall have handed over the kingdom to his God and Father (1 Cor 15:24), that is, when he shall have brought his holy ones to the contemplation of the Father and, of course, of himself, insofar as he is God equal to the Father. He does not hand it over so that he loses it. After all, the Father gave it to the Son that he should have life in himself (Jn 5:26), and he, of course, did not lose it. And thus, if his kingdom will have no end (Lk 1:33), then his holy ones, who are his kingdom, will reign with him without end. See Rv 22:5. †26 The words of the apostle in that passage, Then will come the end, when he shall have handed over the kingdom to his God and Father (1 Cor 15:24), signify there not an end that destroys, but one that perfects. In the same sense scripture said, The end of the Law is Christ unto justice for everyone who believes (Rom 10:4). By that end the Law is made perfect, not destroyed. He also made that point in the passage where he says, I have not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it (Mt 5:17).
8, 9. I cannot fathom the impudence with which they try to persuade the Church of Christ of what they say concerning rational creatures, that is, concerning the holy angels and the unclean demons and the souls of human beings. They say that a lesser guilt merited a greater place. Origen had maintained that God created all rational creatures equal and that their inequality arose as a result of their free choice. See the Introduction, 88-89, for a discussion of this doctrine. †27 We are better off believing that God was not brought to make the world by the sins of rational creatures lest the absurd consequence follow that we would have to have two or three—or however many—suns if through free choice a large number of spirits had first committed a sin of such a degree of greatness that they would have to be enclosed in similar spheres of heavenly bodies. Augustine here uses the comparatively mild expression, “we are better off believing” that God did not create the sensible world as a place of punishment for the sins of rational souls. He focuses upon the absurd consequences that would follow from the principle that a lesser sin merits a larger body. Augustine himself held a doctrine of the fall of the soul that did not entail that the sensible world was created as a place of punishment or that the size of the body is proportionate to the magnitude of the sin. On this passage, see Robert J. O'Connell, “Criticism of Origen in the 'To Orosius,'” 84-99. †28
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We should rather believe that the world was made great by the goodness of God, made great and good by the sovereign and unmade good, and that all the things in the world were made very good according to their nature. Some are better than others, and from the highest creatures to the lowest they are ordered in distinct levels. In that way all of them exist and not just the better ones, and they have as their limit that number, which God, the creator of all the natures of creatures, saw in himself should be produced. Augustine insisted against the Manichees that, though each level of creation is good, the whole panoply of all creatures, the omnia, was not merely good, but very good (see Gn 1:31). See on this point, O'Connell's Imagination and Metaphysics in Saint Augustine (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1986), 26-27. See also O'Connell's “Criticism of Origen in the 'To Orosius,'” 87-88, for Augustine's problems with Origen's position. †29 God did not come to know them when they were made, but knew them before they were made.
The statement that they make, namely, that they had been already made in his wisdom before they were brought forth in their own forms and kinds and appeared in their orders, is not spoken with sobriety. Augustine had himself held a similar position earlier, perhaps under the influence of Origen's thought, though without knowing that Origen held such a position. See above, Introduction 87-88. †30 When were they made before they were made? The ideas of all the things that were to be made could preexist in the wisdom of God, but not the things that were made. All things were made through that wisdom, but it was not itself made, because it is the Word of which scripture said, All things were made through it (Jn 1:3). Thus God knew all the things which he made before he made them. After all, we cannot say that he made things he did not know and came to know them only after they were made or that he did not know what he would do, but knew what he did. If we were to say this of some human craftsman, we would be thinking something quite foolish. See Question 46, “On the Ideas,” in Miscellany of Eighty-three Questions, where Augustine defends the doctrine of Platonic Ideas, placing them in the mind of God. Without such Ideas (rationes), God would have, according to Augustine, acted irrationally in creating the world. †31 Hence, God knew things he was going to make, not things he had made; he knew them in order to make them, not because he made them. They were already known, since they would not be made except by one who knew them. Yet, the things which were known in order that they might be made only began to have been made after there were made those things which were known before they were made in order that they might be made correctly. Augustine's point is stated with greater complexity than seems necessary. God foreknew what he was going to make, and such foreknowledge was a condition of this making things correctly. Those things, however, which he knew before they were made only began to be made when they were made. †32
10. The truth, which neither holds opinions about what is unknown nor deceives anyone, promises that our purification and See Heb 1:3. †33 even more our perfection will, after the resurrection of spiritual bodies, attain equality with the angels. See Lk 20:35-36; Phil 3:11. Augustine, unlike Thomas Aquinas, held that angels had bodies, though not mortal ones like those we now have. Hence, he is not implying that, when we attain equality with the angels, we will no longer have bodies. Our risen bodies, like those of the angels, will be free from corruption and death. †34 How then are the holy angels themselves, whose equals we will be when we are perfectly purified, said still to need purification from their sins? God promises a new heaven and a new earth as the dwelling place of those who are holy and purified from every stain of this world. See 2 Pt 3:13; Is 65:17; 66:22; Rv 21:1. †35 How can they dare to say that there would not have been a world, that is, heaven and earth, if there were no need to purify rational spirits who would not be either in heaven or on earth, if it were not for what their sins deserve? What need do those who have been purified have of a new heaven and a new earth, if once they have been purified they are restored to the state in which they were without heaven and earth before heaven and earth? Scripture promises a new heaven and a new earth. The Origenist doctrine that the corporeal world was created to punish sin and purify sinful souls from embodiment runs counter to the promise of a new heaven and a new earth. †36
Even if this claim were utterly true, we should direct our hope toward what scripture promises. If we are to be transformed from that state into something better, it is much more reasonable that we should learn about it when we have
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arrived at that state than that we now not only believe it rashly, but try to teach it with audacity. See O'Connell's “Criticism of Origen in the 'To Orosius,'” 90, where he argues that Augustine leaves the Origenist position an open possibility.
†37 What is more absurd than to say: Heaven and earth would not exist if the structure of the world were not needed to purify rational spirits, although scripture promises another heaven and another earth to such spirits once they have been purified? See 2 Pt 3:13; Is 65:17; 66:22; Rv 21:1.
†38
11. Furthermore, we see that the sun and moon and the other stars are heavenly bodies, but we do not see that they have souls. Let someone find this in the sacred books, and we will believe it. The testimony from the letter of the apostle that you said that they generally use can also be understood as referring merely to human beings. See Rom 8:20. †39 After all, in each human being all creation is present—not taken all together, that is, heaven and earth and all the things in them, but taken in a generic sense. In each human being there is rational creation, which we have proved or believe that the angels possess. There is also, if I may use that term, sensual creation, which even the other animals do not lack. After all, they use the senses and sensual movements to seek what is useful and to avoid the opposite. And there is vital creation without sensation, such as can be found in trees. In us bodily growth comes about without our being aware of it, and hairs have no awareness, even when they are cut, and still they grow. Bodily creation is even more obviously apparent in us.
Though the body has been made and formed from earth, it contains some particles of all the elements of this bodily world for a balanced state of health. Our members thrive upon heat, which comes from fire, and its light shines forth from our eyes. The passages of the tubes called windpipes and the breathing spaces of the lungs are filled with air. And if there was no moisture, none of the fluids would flow, and dryness would destroy life. After all, the blood fills other passages with its wet flow and is spread about through all the parts as if by streams and rivers.
Thus there is no kind of creature that we cannot recognize in a human being, and in that sense all of creation groans and suffers pain in us, awaiting the resurrection of the sons of God. See Rom 8:22-23. †40 Through the resurrection of the body all creation, even though not in all human beings, will be set free from the servitude of corruption, See Rom 8:21. †41 because all of creation is in each individual. Even if the same passage from the letter of the apostle can be better understood in another way, it still does not follow from these words that we should believe that the sun and the moon and the stars groan until they are set free from the servitude of corruption.
9, 12. I said, “Let someone find this in the sacred books, and we will believe it,” but do not be deceived by the text that those who hold this position often produce from the book of holy Job, where scripture says, When will a human being be just before the Lord, or when will one born of a woman be clean? If he commands the moon and it does not shine and if even the stars are not clean before him, how much more is a human being filth and the child of a human
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being a worm? (Jb 25:4-6). From this text they want you to understand that the stars have a rational spirit and that they are not clean from sin, but are in the heavens because a lesser guilt has merited a larger and better place. See the Introduction, 88-89, for a discussion of this claim.
†42
I do not think that this opinion should be accepted on divine authority. After all, Job himself did not say this; God bears witness to him with a testimony that is quite remarkable that he did not sin with his lips (Jb 1:22) before the Lord. Rather, one of his friends made that statement, See Jb 2:11. †43 and they were all said to be evil comforters (Jb 16:2) and rejected by God's judgment. Not all the things that were said in the gospel are believed to be true, though it is utterly true that they were said. Though scripture is the word of God, Augustine points out that not everything said in scripture need be taken as the word of God and, therefore, as true. †44 The true gospel writings testify that many false and wicked things were said by the Jews. So too, in this book where the narrative has many people speaking, we have to consider not only what is said, but also by whom it is said. Otherwise, accepting at random what has been written in any sacred book, we might be forced to say—heaven forbid!—that those things were true and right that his foolish wife suggested to her holy husband, namely, that he should curse God and, by dying, be freed from his unbearable pain. See Jb 2:9. †45
My reason for saying this is not that those friends, men rejected by God and rightly deserving blame from this holy servant of God, were unable to say anything true, See Jb 42:7. †46 but that we should not regard as true everything that they have said. Although they said nothing true against Job, one who knows how to discern with wisdom what has been said can still derive even from their words some sound opinion in support of the truth. But when in the course of our investigation we want something proved to us by the testimony of the sacred writings, do not tell us that we should believe something written in the gospel, if the evangelist mentions that it was said by someone whom we should not believe. It is one thing to find in the words of persons like Job's friends a statement that is true; it is something quite different to prove something from scripture. For the latter purpose, one needs a statement by Christ or by someone of solid faith. Even Saint Peter is recorded as saying things which merited a severe rebuke. †47 After all, in the gospel the Jews said to Christ the Lord, Do we not speak the truth that you are a Samaritan and have a devil? (Jn 8:48). The more we love Christ, the more we hate that statement. Yet we who believe that the gospel narrative is completely true cannot doubt that the Jews said it. And so, we do not deny the trustworthiness of the evangelist writing it, while we are horrified at the utterance of the Jew speaking such irreverence.
We adapt the belief owed to canonical authority, not only in the case of impious and wicked persons, but also in the case of the little ones in the faith, who are still beginners and unlearned, when they are recorded as speaking in the gospel. The man born blind, whose eyes the Lord opened, said, We know that God does not hear sinners (Jn 9:31), but we ought not to accept that statement on the authority of the gospel. Otherwise, we would be in opposition to the words of the Lord in the gospel, for he affirmed with divine authority that the man who said, Lord, be merciful to me a sinner, left the temple more justified than the Pharisee who recounted and boasted of his justice. See Lk 18:10-14. †48 That man who had just been made to see the light with his bodily eyes should not become angry,
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because we said that, in the beginnings of his faith, when he still did not know who it was who healed him, he uttered the statement with insufficient care
that God does not hear sinners. Even the apostles, men who were chosen before the rest and who clung to the Lord's side and hung upon his words, are found to have said many things that we should not approve. It would take too long to list them. But blessed Peter deserved not only to be rebuked because of some of his words, but even to be called Satan. See Mt 16:23.
†49
10, 13. In comparison with the justice of God not even the holy angels in heaven are called just. That statement does not seem to me inappropriate, not because they fell from justice and became such, but because they were made and are not God and cannot have as much spiritual light as he has by whom they were made. The statement to which Augustine refers is the passage from Job in the beginning of the previous paragraph, which he takes as referring to the angels. †50 After all, the highest justice is found where there is the highest wisdom, and this is God to whom scripture said, To God who alone is wise (Rom 16:27). How much of his justice the angels receive and how much they do not receive is another question. In comparison with him, they are not just; yet by participation in him, they are just.
11, 14. As I said, this question is distinct from the question about whether the stars and sun and moon have rational spirits in these bright bodies in clear view. Anyone who doubts that they are bodies is utterly ignorant of what a body is. These matters are distant from our senses and from our weak human understanding, and they are not set forth in the scriptures in such a way that we are commanded to have knowledge of them. Hence, they do not much pertain to us so that we should be concerned to investigate them with great eagerness. Indeed, so that we do not rush into sacrilegious myths with precipitous belief, the divine scripture cries out, Do not seek matters higher than yourself, and do not search out matters mightier than yourself, but always ponder those things which the Lord has commanded you (Sir 3:22). In these matters rash presumption seems more blameworthy than cautious ignorance.
The apostle, of course, says, Thrones or dominations or principalities or powers (Col 1:16). And so, I firmly believe that there are thrones, dominations, principalities, and powers in the heavenly array and that they differ from one another in some way. But as for the point because of which you look down on me, whom you suppose to be a great teacher, I do not know what they are or how they differ from one another. I certainly do not think that I am in danger because of that ignorance as I would be by disobedience, if I neglected the commandments of the Lord. I believe that these matters were not fully explained by the Spirit of God through our authors, the writers of the sacred scriptures, but that they were touched upon in passing and briefly mentioned. Even a cursory glance at the De principiis reveals that Origen devoted considerable space to the angelic ranks. Given his view that all rational spirits were originally created equal, the differentiation of angels and human souls and of the various angelic orders was bound to play a more central role in his theological reflection. Augustine himself devotes considerable space to the discussion of the original condition and sin of the angels; see The City of God XI, 33—XII, 9. †51 Thus, if something of this sort were disclosed through a more profound revelation to someone such as we are, he would not believe that those men who gave us the holy message of the canonical scriptures were inferior to himself.
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After all, however far anyone advances in knowledge, he will find that he stands beneath those writings which God has set as a firmament over all human hearts. And so, there is need not to know more, but to know in moderation, as the Lord has granted to each one a measure of faith (Rom 12:13). Perhaps more learned men will teach you these things if you bring to them a knowledge of how to learn as great as your concern to know. Thus you will not suppose that you know what you do not, and you will not believe what you should not or fail to believe what you should. Indeed, that one and true teacher See Mt 23:10. †52 will teach you either through those persons or by whatever means he wants. From the time of his early writings Augustine held that Christ is the one and only true teacher who teaches us interiorly, while human teachers can at most admonish us exteriorly by words that sound and pass. See his The Teacher XI, 38. †53 For he sees you laboring for his Church in your inner self where he has also given you this gift. He will open the door to the truth more widely as he sees that charity knocking, which is also his gift.
Notes
†1 Augustine is referring to his many anti-Manichaean writings. His statement here indicates that he had not previously heard of the Priscillianists.
†2 That God is utterly immutable is one of Augustine's most basic convictions. See Confessions VII, 1, 1, where he comes to see that “what can be corrupted is inferior to what cannot be corrupted, and what cannot be violated I unhesitatingly place above what is violable, and what suffers no change I saw to be better than what can be changed.” From the facts that we grow more or less wise and that we sin and repent, it immediately follows that our souls are not part of the divine substance. See The Literal Meaning of Genesis VII, 2, 3 and The City of God XI, 22.
†3 Augustine wisely sets aside as unnecessary Orosius' request that he cut off all the branches of the Priscillianist error and focuses his attention upon the root. Thus he avoids any need to reply to the elements of the Priscillianist mythology.
†4 Although the proof that the soul is not divine in nature destroys the root of Priscillianism, Augustine undertakes the clarification of how the soul is created out of nothing and by the will of God, a point that led Orosius' compatriots to suppose that the will of God was, by implication, nothing.
†5 The fact that these people had difficulty only with the soul's being made from nothing may indicate that their view rested on Gn 2:7, which they took to mean that God produced the soul out of himself.
†6 If these people hold the generalized thesis that God did not make any creature out of nothing, they would have to hold that he needed some matter out of which to make whatever he would make. Since God would not have made that matter, they would be denying that God created the world.
†7 Matter for Augustine is the principle of mutability; see Confessions XII, 6, 6. Thus there is matter in every creature, in souls as well as in bodies, since only God is immutable. Hence, only God is immaterial, though souls are non-bodily or incorporeal.
†8 On the basis of Wis 11:18, LXX, “You made the world from unformed matter,” Augustine held that God made all creatures out of unformed matter, but insisted that God made the unformed matter as well, though not temporally prior to the formation of the matter. The Literal Meaning of Genesis I, 15, 29, and Confessions XII, 29, 40.
†9 Unlike the philosophers of the ancient world, who maintained that matter was a prerequisite for any making, Augustine sets forth the principle that God's supreme power does not require any material out of which God might make the world; rather, he can by the power of his will bring something into existence without any material cause.
†10 See Gn 2:7.
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†11 In later scholastic terminology Augustine is distinguishing between the material cause out of which the maker makes something and the instrumental cause by which he makes something. To make something out of nothing means to make something without any material cause, but the denial of a material cause does not entail that there is no instrumental cause, in this case, the divine will, which is identical with the efficient cause, namely, God.
†12 Sabellius (fl. around 220) was a Trinitarian heretic who so emphasized the divine unity that he denied any real distinction between the Father and the Son. Sabellianism was also called Patripassionism, because, given the identity between the Father and the Son, the Father suffered on the cross; it is called modalism because the names of the three were merely different modes or aspects of the divine unity. The names, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, indicated different activities of the one God in the world. See Heresies XLI.
†13 See the Introduction, 85, for discussion of this typical charge against Priscillian.
†14 Augustine accepts Orosius' statement that Origen's doctrine on God is fully orthodox. In the Origenist controversy, however, Origen was accused of subordinationism, that is, of teaching that the Son was inferior to the Father and that the Holy Spirit was inferior to the Son. The charge is most probably false; it certainly measures his theology anachronistically by the standards set by the Council of Nicaea (325).
†15 Presumably, an older error will have been already dealt with by others so that Orosius will find help in opposing it. Augustine seems unaware of the virulence of the recent Origenist controversy that had embroiled such giants as Jerome, Rufinus, Epiphanius, John of Jerusalem, and John Chrysostom.
†16 Augustine stands firm against the idea that the devil and his angels may still find mercy before God. He argues that it is not that we hate the devil for his attempted harm to us, but that we do not dare to undo the judgment of God. Furthermore, if the status of the devil is changeable, the status of the blessed too would seem to be open to change and thus the happiness of paradise would be jeopardized. See Heresies XLI and The City of God XXI, 17.
†17 That is, no translator has said, “Depart into the fire of the present age,” since it would imply that the fire was less than eternal. Saeculum can mean “age,” “the present age,” “generation,” “lifetime,” “century.”
†18 In English usage, we would distinguish: “God is eternal” from “'God' has one syllable,” by the use of single quotes to show that we are speaking of the sign as having a single syllable and not of what is signified by the sign. So too, the rites of the Old Testament are signs; though the signs ceased to be, what the signs signified could well be eternal.
†19 Augustine insists that time is a creature; hence, there was no time before God created the world. God preceded the world, not by some time, but by eternity; see Confessions XI, 13, 16.
†20 See The City of God XXI, 17-27, where Augustine examines the views of those he refers to as “the compassionate,” who want to extend salvation to all or almost all rational creatures.
†21 See 1 Thes 4:7. The idea that the salvation of the just would not be secure or that we might have to repeat this life again with all its risks and pains was something that Augustine found quite horrifying; see The City of God X, 31.
†22 See Rv 1:32-33.
†23 See Jn 1:1.
†24 See 1 Tm 2:5.
†25 Augustine says that Christ as the Word of God is beyond any doubt king of the ages, but Christ as having assumed a human nature, that is, Christ as mediator, also has a kingdom that will not end. Marcellus of Ancyra had denied the eternality of Christ's kingdom; of his account there was added to the Creed, “And of his kingdom there will be no end.”
†26 See Rv 22:5.
†27 Origen had maintained that God created all rational creatures equal and that their inequality arose as a result of their free choice. See the Introduction, 88-89, for a discussion of this doctrine.
†28 Augustine here uses the comparatively mild expression, “we are better off believing” that God did not create the sensible world as a place of punishment for the sins of rational souls. He focuses upon the absurd consequences that would follow from the principle that a lesser sin merits a larger body. Augustine himself held a doctrine of the fall of the soul that did not entail that the sensible world was created as a place of punishment or that the size of the body is proportionate to
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the magnitude of the sin. On this passage, see Robert J. O'Connell, “Criticism of Origen in the 'To Orosius,'” 84-99.
†29 Augustine insisted against the Manichees that, though each level of creation is good, the whole panoply of all creatures, the omnia, was not merely good, but very good (see Gn 1:31). See on this point, O'Connell's Imagination and Metaphysics in Saint Augustine (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1986), 26-27. See also O'Connell's “Criticism of Origen in the 'To Orosius,'” 87-88, for Augustine's problems with Origen's position.
†30 Augustine had himself held a similar position earlier, perhaps under the influence of Origen's thought, though without knowing that Origen held such a position. See above, Introduction 87-88.
†31 See Question 46, “On the Ideas,” in Miscellany of Eighty-three Questions, where Augustine defends the doctrine of Platonic Ideas, placing them in the mind of God. Without such Ideas (rationes), God would have, according to Augustine, acted irrationally in creating the world.
†32 Augustine's point is stated with greater complexity than seems necessary. God foreknew what he was going to make, and such foreknowledge was a condition of this making things correctly. Those things, however, which he knew before they were made only began to be made when they were made.
†33 See Heb 1:3.
†34 See Lk 20:35-36; Phil 3:11. Augustine, unlike Thomas Aquinas, held that angels had bodies, though not mortal ones like those we now have. Hence, he is not implying that, when we attain equality with the angels, we will no longer have bodies. Our risen bodies, like those of the angels, will be free from corruption and death.
†35 See 2 Pt 3:13; Is 65:17; 66:22; Rv 21:1.
†36 Scripture promises a new heaven and a new earth. The Origenist doctrine that the corporeal world was created to punish sin and purify sinful souls from embodiment runs counter to the promise of a new heaven and a new earth.
†37 See O'Connell's “Criticism of Origen in the 'To Orosius,'” 90, where he argues that Augustine leaves the Origenist position an open possibility.
†38 See 2 Pt 3:13; Is 65:17; 66:22; Rv 21:1.
†39 See Rom 8:20.
†40 See Rom 8:22-23.
†41 See Rom 8:21.
†42 See the Introduction, 88-89, for a discussion of this claim.
†43 See Jb 2:11.
†44 Though scripture is the word of God, Augustine points out that not everything said in scripture need be taken as the word of God and, therefore, as true.
†45 See Jb 2:9.
†46 See Jb 42:7.
†47 It is one thing to find in the words of persons like Job's friends a statement that is true; it is something quite different to prove something from scripture. For the latter purpose, one needs a statement by Christ or by someone of solid faith. Even Saint Peter is recorded as saying things which merited a severe rebuke.
†48 See Lk 18:10-14.
†49 See Mt 16:23.
†50 The statement to which Augustine refers is the passage from Job in the beginning of the previous paragraph, which he takes as referring to the angels.
†51 Even a cursory glance at the De principiis reveals that Origen devoted considerable space to the angelic ranks. Given his view that all rational spirits were originally created equal, the differentiation of angels and human souls and of the various angelic orders was bound to play a more central role in his theological reflection. Augustine himself devotes considerable space to the discussion of the original condition and sin of the angels; see The City of God XI, 33—XII, 9.
†52 See Mt 23:10.
†53 From the time of his early writings Augustine held that Christ is the one and only true teacher who teaches us interiorly, while human teachers can at most admonish us exteriorly by words that sound and pass. See his The Teacher XI, 38.
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THE ARIAN SERMON AND ANSWER TO THE ARIAN SERMON
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Revisions II, 52 (78)
At that time there came into my hands an anonymous Arian sermon. At the insistent pleas of the person who sent it to me, I replied to it with as much brevity and speed as I could. That same sermon was set at the beginning of my reply, and the individual points were numbered so that one could, by looking at them, readily see the reply I was making to each point. This book, which is appended to their sermon, begins as follows: “Eorum praecedenti disputationi, hac disputatione respondeo.”
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Introduction
The Arian Sermon: Its Sources and Character
The Arian Sermon is an anonymous work which Augustine calls both a “sermon” (sermo) and a “discourse” (disputatio) in his reply to it. At the end of his reply, he states that the work was sent to him “by certain brethren,” while in the Revisions he mentions the insistent pleas of a single person who had sent the work to him and demanded an answer. See Revisions II, 52 [78] and Answer to the Arian Sermon XXXIX, 34. †1 If, as seems likely, Augustine was referring to the Arian Sermon in the recently discovered Letter 22*A, the work was sent to him by a certain Dionysius who lived in Vicus Juliani, a town about twenty-five miles from Hippo. In Letter 23*A, Augustine mentions that he “dictated a work against the Arians in reply to that which our Dionysius had sent me from Vicus Juliani.” See the note of Robert B. Eno in Saint Augustine: Letters VI (1*-29*) in The Fathers of the Church 81 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1989), 167, number 7. †2 Moreover, if Letter 23*A is referring to Augustine's Answer to an Arian Sermon, that work was written during the busy months of the fall of 419 rather than in 418, the date usually given. See B. E. Daley, S.J., “The Giant's Twin Substances: Ambrose and the Christology of Augustine's Contra sermonem Arianorum,” in Augustine: Presbyter Factus Sum (New York: Peter Lang, 1993), 477-495, especially 478-479, for a summary of the argument for this later dating of the work. I am indebted to this article for many points of this introduction and of the notes. †3
The Arian Sermon is neither a sermon in the ordinary sense nor an organized treatise. B. Daley describes it as
a set of propositions or theses arranged in the general order of the ancient baptismal creeds and explaining in detail the anti-homoousian understanding of the relationship of the Son and the Spirit to each other and to the eternal Father. B. E. Daley, “The Giant's Twin Substances,” 479. †4
M. Simonetti, on the other hand, describes it as “a complete exposition of the Arian doctrine in a schematic and compact form which gives the text the appearance of a genuine catechism.” See Patrology. IV. The Golden Age of Latin Patristic Literature from the Council of Nicaea to the Council of Chalcedon, ed. by Angelo Di Berardino, tr. by Placid Solari (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1986), 106. †5 M. Meslin has argued that the Arian Sermon is a series of extracts from the works of the Arian bishop, Palladius of Ratiaria, See M. Meslin, Les Ariens d'Occident 335-440 (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1967), 120-121. †6 but Simonetti considers his argument not to be well founded. See Patrology IV, 106. †7
The theology it presents is, nonetheless, the Homoian Arianism defended by Palladius of Ratiaria and Maximinus, the Arian bishop who arrived in Africa with Count Sigisvult almost twenty years after Augustine's reply to the Arian Sermon and who publicly debated the elderly Augustine at Hippo. The Debate with Maximinus, a stenographic record of this encounter, and the two books of the Answer to Maximinus the Arian, Augustine's reply to Maximinus' long speech that deprived Augustine of the chance for an answer on the day of the debate, are included in this volume.
The Arianism Augustine Encountered
Arianism is a Trinitarian doctrine named after the Alexandrian priest, Arius, who was probably born about 256 in Libya. R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy 318-381 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988), 3. †8 According to Hanson, Arianism
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“arose out of the difficulty of conceiving an eternal generation in God in which the Son, while remaining distinct from the Father, will nevertheless remain equal to him.” Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 84 (commas added).
†9 Of Arius' own writings only three letters, a few fragments of another, and what appear to be quotations from his work, the
Thalia, remain. Hence, it is difficult to determine exactly what he taught that so stirred the Christian world. See Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 5-6. For further background on Arius and Arianism, see Rowan Williams, Arius: Heresy and Tradition (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1987) and Arianism: Historical and Theological Reassessments. Papers from The Ninth International Conference of Patristic Studies. September 5-10, 1983. Oxford, England. Ed. by Robert C. Gregg (Philadelphia: The Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1985). Recent interest in Arianism owes much to the following works: Thomas A. Kopecek, A History of Neo-Arianism. 2 vols. Patristics Monograph Series 8 (Cambridge, MA.: Philadelphia Patristics Foundation, 1979); Robert C. Gregg and Dennis E. Groh, Early Arianism: A View of Salvation (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981); and Rudolf Lorenz, Arius Judaizans? Untersuchungen zur dogmengeschichtlichen Einordnung des Arius (Gottingen: Vanderhoeck and Ruprecht, 1980).
†10 What is clear is that the Council of Nicaea condemned as the position of Arius the following propositions: “that the Son of God came to be from nothing, that there was a time when he did not exist, and that by reason of free choice he was capable of virtue and of vice.” The Council goes on to say that Arius called the Son “a creature and something made” (
creaturam…
atque facturam). Enchiridion Symbolorum Definitionum et Declarationum de rebus fidei et morum. 21st. edition by H. Denzinger and A. Schönmetzer (Freiburg im Bresgau: Herder, 1963), 130 (my translation); hereafter cited as DS.
†11 The Council also framed the Creed that added to the Christological clause the specifically anti-Arian phrases, the meaning of which was to become clearly understood only after decades more of dispute:
We believe… in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, born from the Father, that is, from the substance (ousia) of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, born, not made, consubstantial (homoousios) to the Father…. DS 125. †12
Thus the Council of Nicaea incorporated into the Creed the terminology that remains even today in the Creed said each Sunday at Mass. Though the Creed said in Sunday Mass is usually referred to as the Nicene Creed, it is actually the Creed of the Council of Constantinople (381) which added to the Creed of Nicaea the clause which acknowledges the Holy Spirit as “Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, who is adored and glorified with the Father and the Son, and who spoke through the prophets” (DS 150). †13
The Arian controversy was, however, far from being ended at the time of Nicaea. For one thing, the Council's status as authoritative for the whole Church was not immediately evident, and the Creed of Nicaea was not widely known and accepted until much later in the century. In fact, it was apparently unknown in the West until after 350. See J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds (New York: David McKay, 1950), 258. Hilary of Poitiers said in his De synodis 91, which dates from 359, “I heard of the Nicene Creed only when I was about to go into exile”—an event which occurred in 356. †14 Furthermore, the technical terminology introduced by the Council of Nicaea was far from clear. For instance, in the condemnation appended to the Creed, we read that “the Catholic Church condemns those who say that the Son of God… was from another substance (hypostasis) or essence (ousia)” than the Father. DS 125. †15 The implicit identification of hypostasis with ousia will—to say the least—pose problems for later orthodoxy which maintains three hypostaseis in one ousia, or three persons in one essence. Hence, the Creed of Nicaea has been not unfairly described as “a mine of potential confusion and consequently most unlikely to be a means of ending the Arian controversy.” Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 168. †16 Even Augustine recognized, with a backhanded sort of compliment, the debt that orthodox Christianity owed to Arianism for the articulation of the correct doctrine on God, when he asked, “Did anyone ever correctly discuss the Trinity before the Arians barked?” See Expositions of the Psalms LIV, 22. †17 It is mistaken to suppose that, once the fathers at Nicaea had spoken, the orthodox doctrine of God was readily discernible from heresy so that only good will was needed to embrace the doctrine that the Son was “of one substance” with the Father. Almost fifty years were to pass before the homoousian theology of Nicaea was understood with a fair amount of clarity and widely accepted.
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Augustine had undoubtedly gained some familiarity with Arianism even prior to his conversion. During Easter week of 386, just a year before his baptism, the Arian empress, Justina Augusta, the wife of Valentinian II, had her troops besiege Ambrose along with his congregation in one of Ambrose's churches in an endeavor to get him to surrender the church to the Arians. Augustine recalls the event in his Confessions, indicating that Monica was among the besieged congregation and that Ambrose had at that time introduced the singing of hymns in order to bolster the spirit of the people. See Confessions IX, 7, 15. †18 Since Augustine reports that the whole city was disturbed by the controversy and that his mother was involved, he surely had some idea of the issues at stake. In Augustine: Confessions. II Commentary on Books 1-7 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992) 468, James O'Donnell makes the interesting suggestion that Alypius' belief that the Catholics held that Christ did not have a human soul may indicate that he had been listening to some Arian sources; see Confessions VII, 19, 25. †19
Though Augustine dealt with some questions central to the Arian controversy in his Miscellany of Eighty-three Questions, See questions 16, 23, 37, 50, 60 and 69 in CCL 44A 21, 27-28, 59, 77, and 184-196. I am indebted to B. Daley's article for the contents of this note and of notes 22 and 23. †20 he did not explicitly confront the Arian position until the years after 410 when, subsequent to the fall of Rome, there arrived in Africa men and women fleeing before the barbarian invaders and bringing with them a form of Arian theology. B. Daley notes that “Augustine's public controversy with Arian Christians may have begun as early as 406, in a discussion held by the bishop and his friend Alypius with Count Pascentius who was also an enthusiastic but somewhat confused Arian. After a single meeting, the dialogue was interrupted, and sputtered out in a series of increasingly petulant letters from both sides” (“The Giant's Twin Substances,” 477-478). The correspondence with Pascentius is found in Letters 238-241. †21 Apart from the Answer to an Arian Sermon, the Debate with Maximinus, and the Answer to Maximinus the Arian, there are also a number of anti-Arian passages in Augustine's Homilies on the Gospel of John that date from 413 to after 418. The most important of these homilies are 18 and 20, which date from 413, and 26 and 71, which are dated after 418. †22 Augustine's The Trinity, which was written over a long period from 400 to 420, has little explicitly anti-Arian polemic, but a number of Augustine's Sermons contain important anti-Arian passages. See Sermon 117 [418], Sermon 135 [417], Sermon 139 [416-418], Sermon 140 against Maximinus [427 or 428], Sermon 183 [after 416], Sermon 126 [416-417], Sermon 341 [418], Sermon 330 [417], Sermon 229N [421-423]. †23
The form of Arianism represented by the Arian Sermon is the Homoian Arianism that was ratified by the Council of Ariminum (Rimini) as the standard of the true faith. M. Simonetti has argued that the Arianism of the Arian Sermon is the same as that of Maximinus in the Debate. See M. Simonetti, “S. Agostino et gli Ariani,” Revue des études augustiniennes 13 (1967) 55-84, here 72. †24 It is the form of Arianism taught by Ulfila, the apostle of the Goths, whose profession of faith Maximinus preserved for us in his Dissertatio contra Ambrosium. R. Gryson, Scolies ariennes sur le Concile d'Aquilée. Sources chrétiennes 267 (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1980), 251. †25 In 359 the emperor Constantius convoked two councils, one for the Western bishops in Ariminum, the other for the Eastern bishops in Seleucia. Together with the Council of Nicê in 360, they marked the high point of Arianism and, in particular, of the form of Arianism that is referred to as Homoian Arianism as distinct from Neo-Arianism. See Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 557-558, for this distinction. †26 According to Hanson, the latter is found principally in the Greek-speaking world; it is the Arianism of Aetius and Eunomius—the form of Arianism combatted by the Cappadocian Fathers. It is characterized by a careful use of philosophical language, by the tendency to maintain that the Son was created rather than begotten, by the conviction that knowledge of God was readily accessible to all, and by the emphasis upon the term agennesia—ingenerateness.
Homoian Arianism, on the other hand, is found in both the Greek- and Latin-speaking worlds. It takes as its standard of the faith the Second Creed of Sirmium (357) and the Creed of Nicê-Constantinople (360), the latter being an expanded form of the Creed of Ariminum to which Maximinus appeals in the debate. For more on these creedal formulae, see J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds (New York: David McKay, 1950), 283-295. The Creed of Ariminum is found in Bibliothek der Symbole und Glaubensregeln der alten Kirche, ed. A. Hahn and G. L. Hahn (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1962), 208. See also Hanson's chapters on attempts at creedal formulation. †27 Homoian Arianism shuns the use of any philosophical language,
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especially the terms “substance” (
ousia) and “consubstantial” (
homoousios) and insists upon remaining with the language of scripture. The Son was professed to be “like the Father according to the scriptures.” See Hahn, Bibliothek der Symbole, 208: “similem genitori suo patri secundum scripturas.”
†28 Yet one of the hallmarks of Homoian Arianism is the incomparability of God the Father and the insistence that no one can know how the Father generates the Son. Though Homoian Arians hold that the Son is radically subordinated to the Father, they readily admit that the Son is born, even stress that he is the only-begotten God, and deny that he was made “out of nothing.” See Debate 15, 13, where Maximinus cites a canon from the Council of Ariminum.
†29
The Theology of the Arian Sermon
The focus of the Arian Sermon is Christological rather than Trinitarian. From its opening statement that “Our Lord, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten God, the firstborn of all creation, was established before all ages by the will of his God and Father,” to the concluding reflections on the Father's subjection of all things to his Son, it is Jesus Christ who holds center stage with the Father and the Spirit entering only in terms of their superiority and inferiority to Christ. For the Father is the unbegotten God, and the Spirit, who is advocate, comforter, and sanctifier, is never called God at all.
The first nine numbers of the work parallel the first clauses of the baptismal creeds, though with significant differences, for it is the Son who is the creator of all things visible and invisible by his own power, but at the will and command of the Father. See Arian Sermon 3. The Arian emphasis upon the transcendence of the one God the Father led them to view the Son as a lesser God who could create the world and reveal the Father. †30 The phrase, “at the will and command of the Father,” either whole or in part, is repeated for each of the principal actions of Christ's life. Thus at the will and command of the Father, he came down from heaven, lived in the body, was baptized at thirty years of age, preached the good news, hurried toward his suffering and death, abandoned his human flesh into the hands of men, fulfilled the whole plan of salvation, raised his own body, ascended into heaven, was seated at the Father's right hand, and will come at the end of the world as judge. The phrase, “at the will and command of the Father,” which occurs at least a dozen times, emphasizes the full obedience of the Son to the Father, an obedience which the anonymous author clearly takes as proof of the subordination of the Son to the Father.
As Augustine is quick to point out, the Arians agree with the Apollinarists in denying the presence of a human soul in the incarnate Word. See Answer to an Arian Sermon V, 5. †31 Thus, the author of the Arian Sermon understands the incarnation as the Son's assuming flesh and living in a body, but not as taking to himself a human soul. See Arian Sermon 6, 7, and 8. †32 The Son took human flesh from Mary who gave birth to a body destined to die. On the cross Christ commended his divinity, not a human soul, into the hands of his Father, and his death was merely the divinity's laying aside the body. See Arian Sermon 7, where Lk 23:46 is cited. †33
Given the scripturally well-founded role of the Son as judge, the anonymous
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author assigns to the Father the role of emperor and legislator and to the Spirit the role of advocate, roles which also have some basis in scripture. The scriptural texts cited in support of the Son's role as judge are 1 Thes 4:15, Jn 5:22, and Jn 5:30. Later Jn 14:16 is cited in support of the Spirit as advocate. No textual support is offered for the Father's role as imperial legislator, though a case could surely be made for it.
†34 The differences in power are obviously taken as indicative of the subordination of the Son to the Father and of the Spirit to the Son.
The work moves to a series of conclusions that briefly summarize the hierarchy among the three. Arian Sermon 10 begins with ergo: “hence,” or “therefore,” as if to indicate that following numbers represent inferences from the Son's obedience to the Father. Following Simonetti (“Arianesimo Latino,” 742), I have set forth some of these numbers as if they were verses of a poem, perhaps on the order of Augustine's Psalmus contra partem Donati. †35
Hence, the Son was born of the Father; the Holy Spirit was made through the Son.
The Son proclaims the Father; the Holy Spirit makes known the Son….
The Son is witness to the Father; the Spirit is witness to the Son.
The Son is sent by the Father; the Spirit is sent by the Son.
The Son is the minister of the Father; the Holy Spirit is the minister of the Son.
The Son receives orders from the Father; the Holy Spirit receives orders from the Son.
The Son is subject to the Father; the Holy Spirit is subject to the Son.
The Son does what the Father orders; the Holy Spirit speaks what the Son commands.
The Son adores and honors the Father; the Spirit adores and honors the Son….
The Son pleads for us with the Father; the Spirit petitions the Son on our behalf….
The Father is greater than the Son; the Son is incomparably greater than the Spirit.
The Father is God and Lord for the Son; the Son is God and Lord for the Spirit.
In contrast with the Catholic doctrine of one God who is three persons, the Arian Sermon clearly teaches that there are “three substances, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” and “three realities, the unbegotten God, the only-begotten God, and the advocate Spirit.” See Arian Sermon 27. Augustine will urge against the Arians the scriptural texts which clearly assert the oneness of God, for example, Dt 6:4 and 6:13. †36 Simonetti has described the Arian Trinity as an heterogenous one
whose generic and scarcely emphasized harmony of willing and acting does not assure any unity: if the Son shares in the divinity, though on a radically weakened basis, that prerogative is immediately denied to the Holy Spirit, insofar as he is part of the created world. From this it follows that the Arians cannot speak of the Trinity as God, and in fact they never do so. For them the Trinity is only a concept inherited from the tradition, but lacking in valid content. M. Simonetti, “Arianesimo Latino,” Studi Medievali 8 (1967) 663-744, here 743 (my translation). †37
The Arian author was apparently unable to understand the Catholic belief in one God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit otherwise than as implying that the Son was a part of the Father and the Spirit a part of the Son. See Arian Sermon 23. †38 He is, hence,
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adamant that, as the Spirit “is different from the Son in nature and condition, rank and will, dignity and power, virtue and activity,” so “the Son, the only-begotten God, is different in nature and condition, rank and will, divine dignity and power.” See Arian Sermon 31. Note that, while the Father and Son differ in divine dignity and power, the Spirit and the Son differ in dignity and power.
†39 While the Arian author rightly insists that the Son is other than the Father, the otherness he maintains involves the subordination of the Son to the Father as the only-begotten God to his unbegotten God. See Arian Sermon 32.
†40
The treatise maintains that God had foreknowledge that he would be the Father of the only-begotten God, but did not have any such foreknowledge that he himself would be God—a view which clearly implies that the unbegotten God existed prior to his begetting his only-begotten Son. See Arian Sermon 33. In the following number the Arian author indicates that the belief that God foreknew that he would be the Father is based on words of the Savior, but no source is indicated. †41 The Arian author takes the Homoousians as claiming that the Savior's language about the Father's foreknowledge and about his own subjection was uttered out of humility rather than truth. Against this position attributed to the Nicaean party, the Arian author insists that Christ's humility was not a pretense, but the truth and that his humble obedience revealed his inferiority to the Father. See Arian Sermon 34. †42 Against the Nicaean claim that the scriptural passages speaking of the Son's inferiority to the Father are to be interpreted as referring to his assumed human nature, the Arian position points to Christ's obedience to the Father in becoming man and his continued subjection to the Father in heaven. See Arian Sermon 34 and 1 Cor 15:28. †43
Augustine's Answer to an Arian Position
Augustine's Answer to an Arian Sermon replies to each numbered line or paragraph of the Arian Sermon. Hence, his response follows the structure of the Arian work rather than a structure that Augustine himself might have imposed on his reply. The disproportionately greater length of his replies to particular numbers indicates topics or areas that Augustine found to need lengthier comment or refutation. For instance, his reply to paragraph nine runs seven and a half columns in Migne—almost a quarter of the whole reply. Augustine's reply to numbers six through nine of the Arian Sermon, which deal with Christ's life, death, resurrection, seated at the Father's right, and his coming as judge, takes up more than eleven of the work's twenty-four columns. †44 Moreover, since the Arian Sermon focuses upon Christ, his relations to the Father and to the Holy Spirit, along with an Apollinarist view of the incarnation and a trinity in which the Son is subordinated to the Father and the Holy Spirit to the Son, Augustine's reply to the Arian work provides us with a key work for coming to an understanding of Augustine's mature Christology. B. Daley describes Augustine's work as marking “a turning point in his Christological thought and in a new assimilation of the anti-Arian polemic of his old mentor, Ambrose of Milan.” B. Daley, “The Giant's Twin Substances,” 478. †45
Augustine begins by challenging the Arians to explain how they can maintain the monotheism proclaimed in God's words to his people, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one (Dt 6:4), since they hold that Christ is God, but a lesser God than the Father, thus presenting us not with one God, but with
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two who are unequal in nature. See Answer to an Arian Sermon I, 1.
†46 So too, he challenges them to explain how Christ “was established before all ages” and yet is, according to them, not coeternal with the Father. After all, if he was established before all time, he cannot but be eternal, though the Arians wanted to maintain that the Son could not be both begotten and eternal. The standard Arian dilemma argued that the Father begot the Son either willingly or unwillingly. Since he surely did not do so unwillingly, he did so willingly. Hence, the Arians claimed that the Father's will was temporally prior to the Son. Augustine shrewdly retorts by asking them whether the Father is God willingly or unwillingly. See Answer to an Arian Sermon I, 2.
†47
Given the Arian claim that the Son created all things out of nothing at the will and command of the Father, Augustine asks whether the Son himself was created out of nothing. For if he was not made out of nothing, it follows that he is God from God. But if he was made out of nothing, then it is false that through him all things were made (Jn 1:3). See Answer to an Arian Sermon II, 3. †48 Augustine insists that there is but one Creator, the Trinity, and accuses the Arians of imagining the Father and Son as two human persons, the one giving orders and the other obeying, and of failing to realize that the Father's order is his Word through whom all things were made.
It is not the use of images to which Augustine objects, since he goes on to use the image of a flame and its brightness to provide an example of one thing originating from another without the latter being temporally prior. Rather, Augustine objects to the fact that the Arians allow imagery to control their thinking about the Trinity. Augustine, moreover, indicates the limitations of his own image of the flame sending forth its brightness as exemplifying the Father's sending forth his Son. Appealing to the words of the Son that the Father is with me (Jn 16:32), he shows how imagining must be transcended, pointing out that, if the brightness on the wall could speak, it could not say that the flame which has sent me is with me. In any case, the fact that the Father sends the Son does not prove a difference in nature between the Father and the Son, since a human father can send his son without any implication that the son is of a nature inferior to the father. See Answer to an Arian Sermon III, 4. †49
On the other hand, the Son's being sent by the Father can refer to the incarnation of the Son—not that the omnipresent Son came to be in a place where he had not previously been, but that he appeared in human flesh in a way he had not previously appeared. Moreover, the Holy Spirit was also sent, though without assuming a human nature, and he was sent by both the Father and the Son. Thus the Father alone was not sent, since he has no one from whom he is begotten or from whom he proceeds. See Answer to an Arian Sermon IV, 4. Augustine cites Jn 16:26 and 16:7 to show that the Holy Spirit is sent by both the Father and the Son. †50
In response to the Arian account of why the Lord Jesus assumed human flesh, Augustine notes in passing that the Arians hold the Apollinarist view that excludes a human soul from the person of Christ. He goes on to interpret scriptural passages that state Christ's inferiority to the angels or to his Father as
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referring to the form of the servant, not to the form of God in which he was equal to the Father. See Answer to an Arian Sermon V, 5. Augustine points to Ps 8:6 as interpreted by Heb 2:7 and to Jn 16:28.
†51 To the Arian battery of proof texts pointing to the Son's obedience to the Father, Augustine replies by pointing out that human sons too obey their fathers, though such obedience is no proof that such sons have a different nature from their fathers. See Answer to an Arian Sermon VI, 6.
†52
Jesus' words that he came not to do his own will, but the will of the Father leads Augustine to a lengthy reflection on the sense in which Jesus did not do his own will, since he certainly willingly obeyed the Father. He interprets “not to do my own will” (Jn 6:38) as referring to the will of human nature corrupted by Adam's sin, that is, to a will opposed to the will of God. “Adam had such a will and, as a result, we died in him. Christ did not have such a will so that we might have life in him.” Answer to an Arian Sermon VII, 6. †53 In terms of his divinity, the Son has the same will as the Father, but in the mediator of God and man, the man Jesus Christ, human nature could exist without sin, only because he was not merely man, but God, for the human nature Christ assumed is precisely that human nature which was wounded through Adam's sin. Thus, in contrast with Adam who did his own will, Christ, “a twofold substance, but one person,” did the will of his Father and taught us obedience to the Father. Augustine alludes to Ambrose's Christmas hymn, “Veni, redemptor gentium,” with the phrase: gemina substantia. For Augustine's dependence upon Ambrose's Christology, see B. Daley, “The Giant's Twin Substances.” †54
Augustine emphasizes the unity of the person of Christ in the two natures, illustrating from Paul's hymn in Philippians how each of the natures shares with the other its attributes in what later theologians will call the communicatio idiomatum. For one and the same Christ is “a twin-substanced giant,” in the words of Ambrose's hymn, who is obedient in one, equal to God in the other; Son of Man in one, Son of God in the other. The citation from Ambrose's hymn, geminae gigas substantiae, clearly indicates Augustine's dependence upon Ambrose who had battled the Homoian Arians in the 380's. See B. Daley, “The Giant's Twin Substances,” 481. †55
The Arian Sermon clearly indicates that Christ did not, in the Arian view, have a human soul, a view which the Arians shared with the Apollinarist heresy. For the Arian text states that Christ on the cross commended his divinity into the hands of his Father, that Mary gave birth to Christ's mortal body, and that Christ's death was the laying aside of that body, just as in the incarnation he assumed a body. Against such an Apollinarist Christology, Augustine musters four scriptural texts which speaks of Christ's soul. See Answer to an Arian Sermon IX, 7. Augustine cites Mt 26:38, Jn 10:18, and Jn 14:13, as well as Ps 15:10 as interpreted by Acts 2:31 and 13:35. †56 He also shows how in the Word was made flesh (Jn 1:14), the term “flesh” should be interpreted to mean “man,” and he points out that, if what was taken up into glory was a body without a soul, such lifeless flesh could not even express its thanks to the Father. See Answer to an Arian Sermon X, 8. †57
To the Arian claim that the Son will be inferior to the Father even at the judgment when he will obediently judge according to the imperial laws of his Father, Augustine argues that the Son will come to judge the world in the servant form in which he is indeed inferior to the Father, though in the form of God he is equal to the Father. Hence, as Son of Man he received the power to judge from the Father, but as Son of God he gave to himself the power to judge, since the works of the Trinity are inseparable. See Answer to an Arian Sermon XI, 9. †58
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Again Augustine warns the Arians against allowing imagination to control their thinking. For unless they understand Christ's being seated at the Father's right hand in a spiritual sense, the Father will hold the less honorable place at the Son's left. Thus Augustine takes the hand of the Father as his power to create, namely, the Word through whom all things were made. See Answer to an Arian Sermon XII, 9. †59 While the Arians take the Son's coming to judge at the word of command (1 Thes 4:15) as proof of the Son's inferior power, Augustine asks them “by what temporal words the Father orders his eternal Word to come down from heaven.” Answer to an Arian Sermon XIII, 9. †60 Moreover, the words, at the word of the archangel, in same verse from Thessalonians would by like argument prove that Christ is inferior even to the angels, if the Arian argument were sound. Hence, the words of the Son, As I hear, so I judge (Jn 5:30) indicate either his subjection to the Father as man or his having received his divine nature from the Father.
Augustine warns the Arians against a “carnal” interpretation of the Son's claim that he can do nothing he has not seen the Father doing and urges them to make their thinking “disincarnate,” that is, free from bodily images. See Answer to an Arian Sermon XIV, 9. Elsewhere Augustine twice claims that Arianism arises from a carnal interpretation of the words, The Son cannot do anything on his own, except what he sees the Father doing (Jn 5:19). See Homilies on The Gospel of John 23, 23: and Sermon 136, 8: †61 While the Arians picture the Son watching his Father, like an apprentice son watching his carpenter father, Augustine insists upon the claim in Jn 5:19 that the Son does the same things that the Father does and does them in a like manner, that is, with the same power and ease. See Answer to an Arian Sermon XIV, 9, as well as Homilies on The Gospel of John 18, where Augustine spells out the image of the carpenter and his son. †62
Moreover, he argues that the Holy Spirit is not to be excluded from the works of the Father and the Son. Thus, though only the Father spoke the words, You are my beloved Son (Mt 3:16), and only the Son was born of the virgin and only the Holy Spirit appeared in the form of a dove, the whole Trinity produced the words of the Father, the flesh of the Son, and the form of the dove. See Answer to an Arian Sermon XV, 9. †63 To illustrate how the three persons perform all their works in common, Augustine employs a single psychological analogy: that of human memory, intelligence, and will, to show that whatever each of them does, all of them do together. See Answer to an Arian Sermon XVI, 9. †64
Augustine again accuses the Arians of carnal or image-controlled thinking in their ranking the Father as emperor, the Son as judge, and the Spirit as advocate, but points out that the Arian hierarchy of emperor, judge, and advocate fails to establish a difference in nature between the three, since all three are human beings. Moreover, the Arians overlook the fact that a human son of an emperor can succeed to imperial power and that human advocates often attain judgeships. See Answer to an Arian Sermon XVIII, 9. †65
Against the Arian position that the Holy Spirit is inferior to the Son who is in turn inferior to the Father, Augustine points out that scripture calls the Son an advocate and the Father a comforter, though the Arians regard these as proper functions of the Spirit and marks of his inferiority. See Answer to an Arian Sermon XIX, 9, where Augustine cites 1 Jn 2:1, Jn 14:16, and 2 Cor 7:6. †66 Moreover, he cites the text, The Lord has sent me, and his Spirit also (Is 48:16), to show that the Father and the Holy Spirit both send the Son, thus countering the Arian position that being sent by another entails being inferior to that other. Finally, in the light of
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scriptural passages which speak of human beings as judges, either in the present or at the judgment to come, Augustine asks his opponents whether the Holy Spirit will serve as an advocate subordinate to these judges as well. See Answer to an Arian Sermon XX, 9. Augustine cites Mt 19:28 and 1 Cor 2:15.
†67 After all, he insists, if our bodies are members of Christ and temples of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit should receive the same worship as the God to whom Solomon built a temple. See Answer to an Arian Sermon XX, 9, where Augustine cites 1 Cor 6:15 and 19 as well as Dt 6:13.
†68
To numbers ten through twenty-one of the Arian Sermon which present a series of conclusions embodying the Arian hierarchy in which the Son is subordinated to the Father and the Holy Spirit to the Son, Augustine often replies with great brevity, simply pointing out that what the Arians claim is not found in scripture or that they fail to realize the implications of what they state. In this section, Augustine also turns his attention to the Holy Spirit, arguing that the scripture texts cited in the Arian Sermon fail to prove that the Spirit is subject to the Son, adores the Son, or awaits the command of Christ. See Answer to an Arian Sermon XXII, 18—XXIII, 20. †69 So too, Augustine interprets the Spirit's pleading on our behalf with ineffable groans in the sense that he makes us plead with such groans. See Answer to an Arian Sermon XXV, 21. †70
While the Arians spoke of the Son as the “image of the whole goodness and wisdom and power of God,” Augustine points out that Paul stated that the Son is the power and wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24). He explains that the Son is the perfect image of the Father and that as begotten of him, not made by him, he is like the Father in every respect. See Answer to an Arian Sermon XXVI, 22. †71 Augustine goes on to dismiss the Arian supposition that Catholics hold that the Son is a part of the Father and the Holy Spirit a part of the Son and rejects the Arian claim that the Father is greater than the Word, though he admits that he is greater than the servant form and that he is the God of Christ as man. See Answer to an Arian Sermon XXVII, 23—XXVIII, 25. †72
Augustine appeals to the command, You shall serve him alone (Dt 6:13), to show that one can fulfill this command to worship the Lord our God alone, only if the God we worship is the whole Trinity. For, if one interprets the command as referring to the Father, then one may not offer the service of latria to Christ, and if one interprets the command as referring to Christ, we may not offer such worship to the Father. See Answer to an Arian Sermon XXIX, 27. †73 Since we ourselves are temples of the Holy Spirit, we cannot exclude him from the worship we are commanded to offer. Hence, “the one and only Lord our God is the Trinity.” Answer to an Arian Sermon XXIX, 27. †74 Augustine produces texts from scripture to justify worshipping the Holy Spirit and shows that the works that Arians assign to the Holy Spirit are not proper to the Spirit, but common to the three persons. See Answer to an Arian Sermon XXIX, 27—XXXII, 30. †75 Augustine grants that the Arians are correct in claiming that the Father is not the Son, but urges them to address their argument to the Sabellians rather than to the Catholics who distinguish the persons, while rejecting a difference in their nature. See Answer to an Arian Sermon XXXIV, 32. †76 He again argues from scripture to show that the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the one God to whom we owe the worship called latria. See Answer to an Arian Sermon XXXIV, 32—XXXV, 33. †77
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Finally, Augustine expresses his horror at the Arian idea that the Son's acknowledgement of his subjection to the Father was an act of humility, as though the Son were not truly less than the Father insofar as he assumed a human nature. He goes on to accept and defend the title, “Homoousians,” with which the Arians sought to reproach the Catholics and to insist that the Son's subjection to the Father will continue in the age to come, since the Son will remain in his human form even then. See Answer to an Arian Sermon XXXVI—XXXVII, 34. †78 He points out that the Son's being sent by the Father to assume flesh did not mean that the Father gave a verbal command to his only Word and insists that the Son was obedient unto death in the flesh he has already assumed. See Answer to an Arian Sermon XXXVIII, 34. †79 And with the stipulation that the Arian Sermon be written out prior to his reply in future copies of the work, Augustine brings the work to an end.
The Text Translated and Other Translations
The translation of the Arian Sermon and the Answer to an Arian Sermon is based on the text edited by the Benedictines of Saint Maur and reproduced in the edition of J. Migne in PL 42, 677-708. There are at least two other translations:
In French: Oeuvres complètes de saint Augustin, tr. M. l'abbé Bardot (Bar-le-Duc, 1869), volume XIV, 539-564.
In Spanish: Obras completas de San Agustín, tr. José María Ozaeta (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1990), volume XXXVIII, 263-343.
Notes to the Introduction
†1 See Revisions II, 52 [78] and Answer to the Arian Sermon XXXIX, 34.
†2 In Letter 23*A, Augustine mentions that he “dictated a work against the Arians in reply to that which our Dionysius had sent me from Vicus Juliani.” See the note of Robert B. Eno in Saint Augustine: Letters VI (1*-29*) in The Fathers of the Church 81 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1989), 167, number 7.
†3 See B. E. Daley, S.J., “The Giant's Twin Substances: Ambrose and the Christology of Augustine's Contra sermonem Arianorum,” in Augustine: Presbyter Factus Sum (New York: Peter Lang, 1993), 477-495, especially 478-479, for a summary of the argument for this later dating of the work. I am indebted to this article for many points of this introduction and of the notes.
†4 B. E. Daley, “The Giant's Twin Substances,” 479.
†5 See Patrology. IV. The Golden Age of Latin Patristic Literature from the Council of Nicaea to the Council of Chalcedon, ed. by Angelo Di Berardino, tr. by Placid Solari (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1986), 106.
†6 See M. Meslin, Les Ariens d'Occident 335-440 (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1967), 120-121.
†7 See Patrology IV, 106.
†8 R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy 318-381 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988), 3.
†9 Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 84 (commas added).
†10 See Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 5-6. For further background
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on Arius and Arianism, see Rowan Williams,
Arius: Heresy and Tradition (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1987) and
Arianism: Historical and Theological Reassessments. Papers from The Ninth International Conference of Patristic Studies. September 5-10, 1983. Oxford, England. Ed. by Robert C. Gregg (Philadelphia: The Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1985). Recent interest in Arianism owes much to the following works: Thomas A. Kopecek,
A History of Neo-Arianism. 2 vols. Patristics Monograph Series 8 (Cambridge, MA.: Philadelphia Patristics Foundation, 1979); Robert C. Gregg and Dennis E. Groh,
Early Arianism: A View of Salvation (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981); and Rudolf Lorenz,
Arius Judaizans? Untersuchungen zur dogmengeschichtlichen Einordnung des Arius (Gottingen: Vanderhoeck and Ruprecht, 1980).
†11 Enchiridion Symbolorum Definitionum et Declarationum de rebus fidei et morum. 21st. edition by H. Denzinger and A. Schönmetzer (Freiburg im Bresgau: Herder, 1963), 130 (my translation); hereafter cited as DS.
†12 DS 125.
†13 Though the Creed said in Sunday Mass is usually referred to as the Nicene Creed, it is actually the Creed of the Council of Constantinople (381) which added to the Creed of Nicaea the clause which acknowledges the Holy Spirit as “Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, who is adored and glorified with the Father and the Son, and who spoke through the prophets” (DS 150).
†14 See J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds (New York: David McKay, 1950), 258. Hilary of Poitiers said in his De synodis 91, which dates from 359, “I heard of the Nicene Creed only when I was about to go into exile”—an event which occurred in 356.
†15 DS 125.
†16 Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 168.
†17 See Expositions of the Psalms LIV, 22.
†18 See Confessions IX, 7, 15.
†19 In Augustine: Confessions. II Commentary on Books 1-7 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992) 468, James O'Donnell makes the interesting suggestion that Alypius' belief that the Catholics held that Christ did not have a human soul may indicate that he had been listening to some Arian sources; see Confessions VII, 19, 25.
†20 See questions 16, 23, 37, 50, 60 and 69 in CCL 44A 21, 27-28, 59, 77, and 184-196. I am indebted to B. Daley's article for the contents of this note and of notes 22 and 23.
†21 B. Daley notes that “Augustine's public controversy with Arian Christians may have begun as early as 406, in a discussion held by the bishop and his friend Alypius with Count Pascentius who was also an enthusiastic but somewhat confused Arian. After a single meeting, the dialogue was interrupted, and sputtered out in a series of increasingly petulant letters from both sides” (“The Giant's Twin Substances,” 477-478). The correspondence with Pascentius is found in Letters 238-241.
†22 The most important of these homilies are 18 and 20, which date from 413, and 26 and 71, which are dated after 418.
†23 See Sermon 117 [418], Sermon 135 [417], Sermon 139 [416-418], Sermon 140 against Maximinus [427 or 428], Sermon 183 [after 416], Sermon 126 [416-417], Sermon 341 [418], Sermon 330 [417], Sermon 229N [421-423].
†24 M. Simonetti has argued that the Arianism of the Arian Sermon is the same as that of Maximinus in the Debate. See M. Simonetti, “S. Agostino et gli Ariani,” Revue des études augustiniennes 13 (1967) 55-84, here 72.
†25 R. Gryson, Scolies ariennes sur le Concile d'Aquilée. Sources chrétiennes 267 (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1980), 251.
†26 See Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 557-558, for this distinction.
†27 For more on these creedal formulae, see J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds (New York: David McKay, 1950), 283-295. The Creed of Ariminum is found in Bibliothek der Symbole und Glaubensregeln der alten Kirche, ed. A. Hahn and G. L. Hahn (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1962), 208. See also Hanson's chapters on attempts at creedal formulation.
†28 See Hahn, Bibliothek der Symbole, 208: “similem genitori suo patri secundum scripturas.”
†29 See Debate 15, 13, where Maximinus cites a canon from the Council of Ariminum.
†30 See Arian Sermon 3. The Arian emphasis upon the transcendence of the one God the Father led them to view the Son as a lesser God who could create the world and reveal the Father.
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†31 See Answer to an Arian Sermon V, 5.
†32 See Arian Sermon 6, 7, and 8.
†33 See Arian Sermon 7, where Lk 23:46 is cited.
†34 The scriptural texts cited in support of the Son's role as judge are 1 Thes 4:15, Jn 5:22, and Jn 5:30. Later Jn 14:16 is cited in support of the Spirit as advocate. No textual support is offered for the Father's role as imperial legislator, though a case could surely be made for it.
†35 Arian Sermon 10 begins with ergo: “hence,” or “therefore,” as if to indicate that following numbers represent inferences from the Son's obedience to the Father. Following Simonetti (“Arianesimo Latino,” 742), I have set forth some of these numbers as if they were verses of a poem, perhaps on the order of Augustine's Psalmus contra partem Donati.
†36 See Arian Sermon 27. Augustine will urge against the Arians the scriptural texts which clearly assert the oneness of God, for example, Dt 6:4 and 6:13.
†37 M. Simonetti, “Arianesimo Latino,” Studi Medievali 8 (1967) 663-744, here 743 (my translation).
†38 See Arian Sermon 23.
†39 See Arian Sermon 31. Note that, while the Father and Son differ in divine dignity and power, the Spirit and the Son differ in dignity and power.
†40 See Arian Sermon 32.
†41 See Arian Sermon 33. In the following number the Arian author indicates that the belief that God foreknew that he would be the Father is based on words of the Savior, but no source is indicated.
†42 See Arian Sermon 34.
†43 See Arian Sermon 34 and 1 Cor 15:28.
†44 Augustine's reply to numbers six through nine of the Arian Sermon, which deal with Christ's life, death, resurrection, seated at the Father's right, and his coming as judge, takes up more than eleven of the work's twenty-four columns.
†45 B. Daley, “The Giant's Twin Substances,” 478.
†46 See Answer to an Arian Sermon I, 1.
†47 See Answer to an Arian Sermon I, 2.
†48 See Answer to an Arian Sermon II, 3.
†49 See Answer to an Arian Sermon III, 4.
†50 See Answer to an Arian Sermon IV, 4. Augustine cites Jn 16:26 and 16:7 to show that the Holy Spirit is sent by both the Father and the Son.
†51 See Answer to an Arian Sermon V, 5. Augustine points to Ps 8:6 as interpreted by Heb 2:7 and to Jn 16:28.
†52 See Answer to an Arian Sermon VI, 6.
†53 Answer to an Arian Sermon VII, 6.
†54 Augustine alludes to Ambrose's Christmas hymn, “Veni, redemptor gentium,” with the phrase: gemina substantia. For Augustine's dependence upon Ambrose's Christology, see B. Daley, “The Giant's Twin Substances.”
†55 The citation from Ambrose's hymn, geminae gigas substantiae, clearly indicates Augustine's dependence upon Ambrose who had battled the Homoian Arians in the 380's. See B. Daley, “The Giant's Twin Substances,” 481.
†56 See Answer to an Arian Sermon IX, 7. Augustine cites Mt 26:38, Jn 10:18, and Jn 14:13, as well as Ps 15:10 as interpreted by Acts 2:31 and 13:35.
†57 See Answer to an Arian Sermon X, 8.
†58 See Answer to an Arian Sermon XI, 9.
†59 See Answer to an Arian Sermon XII, 9.
†60 Answer to an Arian Sermon XIII, 9.
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†61 See Answer to an Arian Sermon XIV, 9. Elsewhere Augustine twice claims that Arianism arises from a carnal interpretation of the words, The Son cannot do anything on his own, except what he sees the Father doing (Jn 5:19). See Homilies on The Gospel of John 23, 23: and Sermon 136, 8:
†62 See Answer to an Arian Sermon XIV, 9, as well as Homilies on The Gospel of John 18, where Augustine spells out the image of the carpenter and his son.
†63 See Answer to an Arian Sermon XV, 9.
†64 See Answer to an Arian Sermon XVI, 9.
†65 See Answer to an Arian Sermon XVIII, 9.
†66 See Answer to an Arian Sermon XIX, 9, where Augustine cites 1 Jn 2:1, Jn 14:16, and 2 Cor 7:6.
†67 See Answer to an Arian Sermon XX, 9. Augustine cites Mt 19:28 and 1 Cor 2:15.
†68 See Answer to an Arian Sermon XX, 9, where Augustine cites 1 Cor 6:15 and 19 as well as Dt 6:13.
†69 See Answer to an Arian Sermon XXII, 18—XXIII, 20.
†70 See Answer to an Arian Sermon XXV, 21.
†71 See Answer to an Arian Sermon XXVI, 22.
†72 See Answer to an Arian Sermon XXVII, 23—XXVIII, 25.
†73 See Answer to an Arian Sermon XXIX, 27.
†74 Answer to an Arian Sermon XXIX, 27.
†75 See Answer to an Arian Sermon XXIX, 27—XXXII, 30.
†76 See Answer to an Arian Sermon XXXIV, 32.
†77 See Answer to an Arian Sermon XXXIV, 32—XXXV, 33.
†78 See Answer to an Arian Sermon XXXVI—XXXVII, 34.
†79 See Answer to an Arian Sermon XXXVIII, 34.
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The Arian Sermon
1. Our Lord, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten God, “Only-begotten God” is a favorite title for the Son among the Homoian Arians. It clearly distinguishes the Son from the Father who is “the unbegotten God”; see below 27. †1 the firstborn of all creation
2. was established “Established” (constitutus) is used here, though the treatise clearly states that the Son is begotten of the Father (see below 10 and 26). Simonetti points out that the nature of that generation is never explained, though Ulfila, to whose school the Sermon belongs, had clearly stated that “the Father is creator of the creator, but the Son is creator of all creation” (PLS 1, 702); see “S. Agostino e gli Ariani,” Revue des études augustiniennes 13 (1967) 55-84, here 57. Simonetti suggests that the generation of the Son amounts to no more than his being directly created by the Father, while all other creatures, the Holy Spirit included, were created by the will of the Father, but through the Son. †2 before all ages by the will of his God and Father.
3. At the Father's will and command, but by his own power, he made heavenly and earthly things, visible and invisible things, bodies and spirits, to exist out of non-existing things. The frequently repeated phrase “at the will and command of the Father” is meant to indicate the complete subjection of the Son to the Father. The ontological distance between the unbegotten God and creatures requires a mediator to undertake the work of creation. †3
4. Before he made all things, he was established as God and Lord, King and Creator of all things that were going to be. In his nature, he had foreknowledge of all things that were going to be, and awaited the order of the Father for every detail in making them. At the will and command of the Father, he came down from heaven and came into this world. As he said, I have not come on my own, but he has sent me (Jn 8:42).
5. Among all the spiritual and rational grades of being, human beings were obviously inferior, on account of the fragile condition of their body, The editions have: infirmitatem instead of qualitatem which is found in the manuscripts. †4 for they were made a little less than the angels. See Ps 8:6. †5 So that they would not regard themselves as without value and despair of their salvation, The manuscripts have: sanitate instead of salute. †6 the Lord Jesus honored what he had made and deigned to assume human flesh In the Arian account of the incarnation, the Word assumed only human flesh or a human body; see below 6, 7, and 8. Simonetti explains, “The concept according to which the Word holds in Christ the man the place of the human soul for all its functions assures the true and indivisible unity of the man and God and does so in such a way that one can say that on the cross God suffered in the body, though only in an indirect manner” (“Arianesimo Latino,” Studi Mediaveli 8 [1967], 663-744, here 729, my translation). Augustine notes in his reply (V, 5) that the Arians too hold this view which is characteristic of the Apollinarist heresy; see Heresies LV for the Apollinarists. †7 and show that human beings are not without value, but precious. As scripture says, A human being is great, and a man precious (Prv 20:6 LXX). The Septuagint has “A human being is something great, and a merciful man something precious.” †8 And therefore, he deigned to make human beings alone heirs to his Father and his coheirs so that they might have more in honor, though they had received less in their nature.
6. When the fullness of time came, it says, God sent his Son born of a woman (Gal 4:4). He, who at the will of the Father assumed flesh, lived in the body at the will and command of the Father. As he said, I came down from heaven, not to do my will, but to do the will of him who sent me (Jn 6:38). At the will of the Father he was baptized at thirty years of age, and he was revealed by the voice and testimony of the Father. See Lk 3:21-23. †9 At the will and command of the Father, he preached the good news of the kingdom of heaven. As he said, I must preach the good news to other cities, since I was sent for this purpose (Lk 4:43), and He gave me a command as to what I should say or what I should speak (Jn 12:49). Thus, at the will and the command of the Father, he hurried toward his suffering and death. As he said, Father, let this chalice pass from me, but not what I want, but what you want (Mt 26:39). Augustine will point out in his reply (IX, 7) that the author of the Arian Sermon refused to cite the immediately preceding verse in which Jesus says, My soul is sad even unto death (Mt 26:38). †10 And as the apostle states, He became obedient to the Father even to death, death upon the cross (Phil 2:8). The version of Saint Paul that the Arian Sermon cites adds: “to the Father.” †11
7. While hanging upon the cross, at the will and command of the Father, he also abandoned into the hands of men the human flesh which he assumed from the holy virgin, Mary, and commended his divinity into the hands of his Father,
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saying,
Father, into your hands I commend my spirit (Lk 23:46). For Mary gave birth to the body which was destined to die, but the immortal God begot the immortal Son. Hence, the death of Christ is not a lessening of his divinity, but the laying aside of the body. For, just as his generation from the virgin did not mean the corruption of his divinity, but the assumption of a body, so in his death his divinity did not suffer and fail, but was only separated from his flesh. For, just as one who tears a garment injures its wearer, so those who crucified his flesh offended his divinity. The comparison of Christ's body with a garment is ostensibly meant to protect the divinity from suffering and corruption. The subject of Christ's sufferings in the Arian view has received various interpretations. Simonetti has, as we have seen above in note 7, maintained that “on the cross God has suffered in the body, though only in an indirect manner” (“Arianesimo Latino,” p. 729). So too, Hanson claims that “it was a central part of Arian theology that God suffered” (Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 109). On the other hand, C. Basevi has said that “the subject of the sufferings was not the divinity of the Son… but his body or flesh…. The comparison with the garment is illuminating. Once again we are faced with an adoptionist modalism with a docetist flavor” (Basevi, “Los textos de la Sagrada Escritura sobre la Pasión de Cristo en la exégesis arriana y agustiniana,” in Cristo, Hijo de Dios y Redentor del hombre (Pamplona, 1982), 359-385, here 375.
†12
8. He, who at the will and command of the Father fulfilled the whole plan of salvation, raised his own body from the dead at the will and command of the Father, and he was taken up by the Father into glory with his body, as a shepherd with his sheep, as a priest with his sacrifice, as a king with his purple, as God with his temple. The four images of the relation of the Son to his body, namely, of the shepherd to his sheep, of the priest to his sacrifice, of the king to his purple, and of God to his temple, all emphasize the extrinsic character of the union of the body to the Word. †13
9. He, who at the will and command of the Father came down and ascended, at the will and command of the Father is seated at his right hand. He hears the Father saying to him, Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies as a stool for your feet (Ps 109:1). He, who at the will and command of the Father is seated at his right hand, will come at the end of the world at the will and command of the Father. As the apostle cries out and says, At the word of command, at the word of an archangel, and at the trumpet of God, the Lord will come down from heaven (1 Thes 4:15). He, who will come at the will and command of the Father, will judge the whole world with justice at the will and command of the Father. And he will repay individuals in accord with their faith and works. As he says, The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son (Jn 5:22). So too, he says, As I hear, so I judge, and my judgment is true, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of him who sent me (Jn 5:30). Hence, in judging he gives first place to the Father and ranks his own divine honor and power second, when he says, Come, blessed ones of my Father (Mt 25:34). Hence, the Son is the just judge. Honor and authority belong to the one who judges; the imperial laws belong to the Father. Just as solicitous intercession and consolation belong to the Holy Spirit, so the dignity of the just judge belongs to the only-begotten God. The author of the Arian Sermon indicates that he thinks of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as imperial legislator, judge, and advocate—an image meant to convey the subordination of the Son to the Father and of the Holy Spirit to the Son. †14
10. Hence, the Son was born of the Father; the Holy Spirit was made through the Son. The text makes it clear that the Holy Spirit is made by the Son and is, hence, a creature. Though the Son is said to be born of the Father, his generation from the Father most probably amounts to no more than his being directly created by the Father; see above note 2. †15
11. The Son proclaims the Father; the Holy Spirit makes known the Son.
12. The first and principal work of the Son is to reveal the glory of the Father; the first and principal work of the Holy Spirit is to disclose the dignity of Christ to the souls of human beings.
13. The Son is witness to the Father; the Spirit is witness to the Son.
14. The Son is sent by the Father; the Spirit is sent by the Son.
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15. The Son is the minister of the Father; the Holy Spirit is the minister of the Son.
16. The Son receives orders from the Father; the Holy Spirit receives orders from the Son.
17. The Son is subject to the Father; the Holy Spirit is subject to the Son.
18. The Son does what the Father orders; the Holy Spirit speaks what the Son commands.
19. The Son adores and honors the Father; the Holy Spirit adores and honors the Son. The Son himself says, Father, I have honored you on earth; I have completed the task you gave me (Jn 17:4). Of the Holy Spirit he says, He will honor me, because he will receive from what is mine and announce it to you (Jn 16:14).
20. The Son can do nothing by himself, See Jn 5:19. †16 but awaits a sign from the Father for every detail. The Spirit does not speak on his own, but awaits the Son's command for everything. He will not speak on his own, he says, but will speak whatever he will hear, and he will announce to you what is to come (Jn 16:13).
21. The Son pleads for us with the Father; the Spirit petitions the Son on our behalf.
22. The Son is the living and true, proper and worthy image of the whole goodness and wisdom and power of God; The author of the treatise combines two Pauline titles for Christ, namely, the image of the Father (see Col 1:15) and the wisdom and power of God (see 1 Cor 1:24) in such a way that Christ is not the wisdom and power of God, but the image of the wisdom and power of the Father. So too, the Holy Spirit is the manifestation of the wisdom and power of the Son. †17 the Spirit is the manifestation of the whole wisdom and power of the Son.
23. The Son is not a part or portion of the Father, In denying that the Son is a part or portion of the Father, the author of the Arian Sermon indicates that he understands the Nicene claim that the Son is of the same substance as the Father to imply that the Son is a part or portion of the Father. Simonetti comments, “Arius had excluded most categorically that the Son could have his origin from the ousia of the Father, because such a derivation would have implied the division of the divine monad into two parts” (“Arianesimo Latino,” 716). †18 but the proper and beloved, perfect and full, only-begotten Son. Nor is the Spirit a part or portion of the Son, but the first and principal work of the Son before all the others.
24. The Father is greater than his Son; the Son is incomparably greater and better than the Spirit.
25. The Father is God and Lord for his Son; the Son is God and Lord for the Spirit. The author of the treatise indicates that he holds two Gods, the Father and the Son, and implies that the Holy Spirit is not God at all. †19
26. The Father by his will begot the Son without changing or being changed; the Son made the Spirit by his power alone without toil or weariness. The treatise insists upon the Father's generating the Son by an act of the will and removes from such generation the sort of physical interaction that occurs in human generation. So too, the treatise excludes from the Son's production of the Holy Spirit the sort of toil and weariness involved in human making. †20
27. As priest, the Son adores his God, and he is adored by all as God and Creator of all. The Father alone adores no one, because he has no one greater or equal to adore; he thanks no one, because he has received a benefit from no one. Out of his goodness he has given being to all things; he has received his being from no one. There is, then, a distinction of the three substances, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and there is a difference of three realities, the unbegotten God, the only-begotten God, and the advocate Spirit. The Father is God and Lord for his Son and over all the things which by his will have been made through the power of the Son. The Son is the minister and high priest of his Father, but he is Lord and God of all his works, because that is what the Father wills.
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28. As no one can pass to the Father without the Son, so no one can adore the Son in truth without the Holy Spirit. Hence, the Son is adored in the Holy Spirit.
29. The Father is glorified through the Son.
30. The work and concern of the Holy Spirit is to make holy and protect the holy—to make holy, not merely rational beings, as some suppose, but also many beings lacking reason. Augustine does not respond to this curious idea, presumably because he found in it nothing incorrect. The Arian author may have simply meant that the Holy Spirit sanctifies such non-rational things as churches, temples, sacrificial animals, and sacramental elements. On the other hand, the flesh or body which Christ assumed would also count as a being without reason, given the Arian view that the Word did not assume a human soul. †21 It is to recall those who have fallen through their own negligence to their former state, to teach the ignorant, to admonish the forgetful, to rebuke sinners, to rouse the lazy to think of and to have concern for their salvation, to bring back the straying to the path of truth, to cure the sick, to check bodily weakness with strength of soul, to strengthen all in the love of piety and chastity, and to enlighten all. It is, above all, to bestow faith and charity on individuals in accord with their desire and concern, in accord with their simplicity and sincerity of mind, in accord with their measure of faith and the merit of their way of life; it is to distribute grace as it is needed and to place each individual in the work and vocation for which he is suited.
31. He is different The anonymous author uses “another” (alius), which by itself could merely indicate the distinction between two persons, were it not for the rest of the sentence which makes the implications of the term explicit. Simonetti says, “alius,” considered in the whole context, has the strong sense of “diverse, or alien,” and not merely that of “distinct, or numerically other” (“S. Agostino e gli Ariani,” 56). †22 from the Son in nature and condition, rank and will, dignity and power, virtue and activity, just as the Son, the only-begotten God, is different from the Unbegotten in nature and condition, rank and will, divine dignity and power.
32. Hence, the same one cannot be the Father and the Son, the one who generates and the one who is born, the one to whom witness is given and the one who gives witness, the greater and the one who confesses that he is greater. The Arian author of the treatise insists upon the distinction of the Father and the Son, because he understands the Nicene doctrine of one divine substance to amount to Sabellianism. †23 The same one cannot be the one who sits or stands at the right and the one who bestows the honor of that place, the one who was sent and the one who sent. The same one cannot be disciple and teacher, as he himself taught when he said, As the Father has taught me, so I speak (Jn 8:28). The same one cannot be both like and the one to whom he is like, the imitator and the one whom he imitates, the one who prays and the one who hears prayers, the one who gives thanks and the one who blesses, the one who receives the command and the one who gave the command, the minister and the commander, the supplicant and the sovereign, the subject and the superior, the only-begotten and the unbegotten, the priest and God.
33. But God without beginning had foreknowledge that he was going to be the Father of the only-begotten God, his Son. Though the Father is God without beginning, he began to be the Father of the Son. He foreknew that he would be the Father of the only-begotten God, but did not foreknow that he would be God. Simonetti notes with regard to this passage, “Here the titles 'Father' and 'God' are distinguished by the implicit admission of the priority of the second with respect to the first.” He adds that the introduction of the idea of foreknowledge fails to lessen the difference. “God is Father ab aeterno, only intentionally, in the will and anticipated knowledge of his fatherhood” (“Arianesimo Latino,” 712). †24 He never had foreknowledge that he himself was going to be God, because he is unbegotten and never began to have foreknowledge or knowledge. What is foreknowledge but knowledge of what is going to be? Because he generated the Son, he was called Father by the Son, and because the Son has revealed him, he is known by all Christians as the God and Father of the only-begotten God, and he had been revealed as greater than the great and better than the good God.
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34. The Homoousians The Arians used “Homoousians” as a term of disparagement for those who professed the Nicene doctrine of the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son. The Catholics claimed that the scripture texts in which Christ acknowledged his inferiority with respect to the Father were to be taken as referring to the human nature he assumed. The Arians apparently understood the Catholic position as involving a false humility on the part of Christ, while they viewed Christ's humbling himself in obedience to the Father as indicating his true inferiority to the Father. See Simonetti, “Arianesimo Latino,” 715-716. †25 say that it was out of humility that our Savior said all these things concerning the foreknowledge of the Father and concerning his own subjection. We Christians believe that he said all these things because the Father commanded him and the Son obeyed. We state and prove that the heretics are refuted and trapped by their own statements. For if he humbled himself, this humility of his proves his obedience, while the obedience shows that the one towers above and that the other stands beneath and in subjection. As the apostle says, He humbled himself, having become obedient even to death (Phil 2:8). His humility is the truth, not a pretense. Is any wise man ever content to humble himself, unless he has someone greater and better whom he is anxious to please by his humility? He says, I always do the things that are pleasing to him (Jn 8:29). He was born once before all ages by the will of the Father and does all things at his will. Heaven forbid that he humbled himself and lied! If the Truth lied—which is impossible—where may one look for the truth? But the Truth neither lied, nor does he change who came for the purpose of teaching the truth. He is not an instructor in ignorance, but the teacher of truth, as he said, Do not allow yourselves to be called teachers on earth; you have one teacher, Christ (Mt 23:10). But if they say that, in humbling himself on earth on account of his incarnation, he spoke these things on account of human beings, we shall show them that there are testimonies found in the scriptures concerning the subjection of the Son that are greater and stronger than those found in the gospel. After all, if he humbled himself on earth on account of human beings and did not, as the obedient and submissive Son, obey his Father with incomparable love and thanksgiving, why did he obey when commanded before he assumed flesh? The Arian author appeals to Christ's obedience to the Father sending him into the world, that is, to his obedience prior to the incarnation, as proof of his inferiority to the Father prior to his assuming the form of the servant. †26 After all, he is as humble in obedience as he is lofty in power. Why, now that he is sitting at the right hand of God, does he make intercession on our behalf? See Rom 8:34. So too, Christ's prayers to the Father now that he is seated at the Father's right hand indicate to the Arian the continued inferiority of the Son to the Father after there has ceased to be need for humble good example. †27 And why, when he was in the body on earth did he promise that he would in heaven ask the Father, saying, I will ask the Father and he will give you another advocate (Jn 14:16)? And if on all these points, on account of the hardness and blindness of their heart, they are still unwilling to believe, but dare to say that all these things were done out of humility, why would he humble himself after the end of the world when humility is not necessary on account of human beings, unless he knew that he was subject and obedient by nature and by will? After the end of the world, all things will be subject to him, See 1 Cor 15:28. †28 since even now all things are subject to him by nature, as creation is subject to the Creator, but we see that all things are not subject to him on account of free choice. Then, however, on the day of judgment, when at the name of Jesus every knee will bend of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue will confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father, See Phil 2:10-11. †29 all things will without end be subject to him both by will and by nature. And after all things are subject to him, he himself will remain in that subjection and love in which he always
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is, and as the Son he will be subject to him who has made all things subject to him. No Christian who hears this can fail to know it, because faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. See Rom 10:17.
†30 Thus God will be all things in all things, ever having monarchy and power over all. To him be glory and honor, praise and thanksgiving through his only-begotten Son, our Lord and Savior, in the Holy Spirit, now and for age upon age. The closing doxology, though in itself certainly open to orthodox interpretation, reflects the Arian subordination of the Son to the Father and of the Holy Spirit to the Son.
†31 Amen.
Notes
†1 “Only-begotten God” is a favorite title for the Son among the Homoian Arians. It clearly distinguishes the Son from the Father who is “the unbegotten God”; see below 27.
†2 “Established” (constitutus) is used here, though the treatise clearly states that the Son is begotten of the Father (see below 10 and 26). Simonetti points out that the nature of that generation is never explained, though Ulfila, to whose school the Sermon belongs, had clearly stated that “the Father is creator of the creator, but the Son is creator of all creation” (PLS 1, 702); see “S. Agostino e gli Ariani,” Revue des études augustiniennes 13 (1967) 55-84, here 57. Simonetti suggests that the generation of the Son amounts to no more than his being directly created by the Father, while all other creatures, the Holy Spirit included, were created by the will of the Father, but through the Son.
†3 The frequently repeated phrase “at the will and command of the Father” is meant to indicate the complete subjection of the Son to the Father. The ontological distance between the unbegotten God and creatures requires a mediator to undertake the work of creation.
†4 The editions have: infirmitatem instead of qualitatem which is found in the manuscripts.
†5 See Ps 8:6.
†6 The manuscripts have: sanitate instead of salute.
†7 In the Arian account of the incarnation, the Word assumed only human flesh or a human body; see below 6, 7, and 8. Simonetti explains, “The concept according to which the Word holds in Christ the man the place of the human soul for all its functions assures the true and indivisible unity of the man and God and does so in such a way that one can say that on the cross God suffered in the body, though only in an indirect manner” (“Arianesimo Latino,” Studi Mediaveli 8 [1967], 663-744, here 729, my translation). Augustine notes in his reply (V, 5) that the Arians too hold this view which is characteristic of the Apollinarist heresy; see Heresies LV for the Apollinarists.
†8 The Septuagint has “A human being is something great, and a merciful man something precious.”
†9 See Lk 3:21-23.
†10 Augustine will point out in his reply (IX, 7) that the author of the Arian Sermon refused to cite the immediately preceding verse in which Jesus says, My soul is sad even unto death (Mt 26:38).
†11 The version of Saint Paul that the Arian Sermon cites adds: “to the Father.”
†12 The comparison of Christ's body with a garment is ostensibly meant to protect the divinity from suffering and corruption. The subject of Christ's sufferings in the Arian view has received various interpretations. Simonetti has, as we have seen above in note 7, maintained that “on the cross God has suffered in the body, though only in an indirect manner” (“Arianesimo Latino,” p. 729). So too, Hanson claims that “it was a central part of Arian theology that God suffered” (Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 109). On the other hand, C. Basevi has said that “the subject of the sufferings was not the divinity of the Son… but his body or flesh…. The comparison with the garment is illuminating. Once again we are faced with an adoptionist modalism with a docetist flavor” (Basevi, “Los textos de la Sagrada Escritura sobre la Pasión de Cristo en la exégesis arriana y agustiniana,” in Cristo, Hijo de Dios y Redentor del hombre (Pamplona, 1982), 359-385, here 375.
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†13 The four images of the relation of the Son to his body, namely, of the shepherd to his sheep, of the priest to his sacrifice, of the king to his purple, and of God to his temple, all emphasize the extrinsic character of the union of the body to the Word.
†14 The author of the Arian Sermon indicates that he thinks of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as imperial legislator, judge, and advocate—an image meant to convey the subordination of the Son to the Father and of the Holy Spirit to the Son.
†15 The text makes it clear that the Holy Spirit is made by the Son and is, hence, a creature. Though the Son is said to be born of the Father, his generation from the Father most probably amounts to no more than his being directly created by the Father; see above note 2.
†16 See Jn 5:19.
†17 The author of the treatise combines two Pauline titles for Christ, namely, the image of the Father (see Col 1:15) and the wisdom and power of God (see 1 Cor 1:24) in such a way that Christ is not the wisdom and power of God, but the image of the wisdom and power of the Father. So too, the Holy Spirit is the manifestation of the wisdom and power of the Son.
†18 In denying that the Son is a part or portion of the Father, the author of the Arian Sermon indicates that he understands the Nicene claim that the Son is of the same substance as the Father to imply that the Son is a part or portion of the Father. Simonetti comments, “Arius had excluded most categorically that the Son could have his origin from the ousia of the Father, because such a derivation would have implied the division of the divine monad into two parts” (“Arianesimo Latino,” 716).
†19 The author of the treatise indicates that he holds two Gods, the Father and the Son, and implies that the Holy Spirit is not God at all.
†20 The treatise insists upon the Father's generating the Son by an act of the will and removes from such generation the sort of physical interaction that occurs in human generation. So too, the treatise excludes from the Son's production of the Holy Spirit the sort of toil and weariness involved in human making.
†21 Augustine does not respond to this curious idea, presumably because he found in it nothing incorrect. The Arian author may have simply meant that the Holy Spirit sanctifies such non-rational things as churches, temples, sacrificial animals, and sacramental elements. On the other hand, the flesh or body which Christ assumed would also count as a being without reason, given the Arian view that the Word did not assume a human soul.
†22 The anonymous author uses “another” (alius), which by itself could merely indicate the distinction between two persons, were it not for the rest of the sentence which makes the implications of the term explicit. Simonetti says, “alius,” considered in the whole context, has the strong sense of “diverse, or alien,” and not merely that of “distinct, or numerically other” (“S. Agostino e gli Ariani,” 56).
†23 The Arian author of the treatise insists upon the distinction of the Father and the Son, because he understands the Nicene doctrine of one divine substance to amount to Sabellianism.
†24 Though the Father is God without beginning, he began to be the Father of the Son. He foreknew that he would be the Father of the only-begotten God, but did not foreknow that he would be God. Simonetti notes with regard to this passage, “Here the titles 'Father' and 'God' are distinguished by the implicit admission of the priority of the second with respect to the first.” He adds that the introduction of the idea of foreknowledge fails to lessen the difference. “God is Father ab aeterno, only intentionally, in the will and anticipated knowledge of his fatherhood” (“Arianesimo Latino,” 712).
†25 The Arians used “Homoousians” as a term of disparagement for those who professed the Nicene doctrine of the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son. The Catholics claimed that the scripture texts in which Christ acknowledged his inferiority with respect to the Father were to be taken as referring to the human nature he assumed. The Arians apparently understood the Catholic position as involving a false humility on the part of Christ, while they viewed Christ's humbling himself in obedience to the Father as indicating his true inferiority to the Father. See Simonetti, “Arianesimo Latino,” 715-716.
†26 The Arian author appeals to Christ's obedience to the Father sending him into the world, that is, to his obedience prior to the incarnation, as proof of his inferiority to the Father prior to his assuming the form of the servant.
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†27 See Rom 8:34. So too, Christ's prayers to the Father now that he is seated at the Father's right hand indicate to the Arian the continued inferiority of the Son to the Father after there has ceased to be need for humble good example.
†28 See 1 Cor 15:28.
†29 See Phil 2:10-11.
†30 See Rom 10:17.
†31 The closing doxology, though in itself certainly open to orthodox interpretation, reflects the Arian subordination of the Son to the Father and of the Holy Spirit to the Son.
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Answer to the Arian Sermon
I, 1. This work is my reply to the preceding Arian sermon. The Arians admit that our Lord, Jesus Christ, is God, but in refusing to say that he is the true God and one God with the Father, they present us with two gods who are different and unequal in nature, the one the true God, the other not true. The Arian position which holds a hierarchy of the Father as true God and the Son as the only-begotten God can maintain a monotheism only to the extent that it denies that Jesus Christ is also God. Hence, Augustine confronts them with the dilemma of either admitting many gods or denying that Christ is God. †1 This is opposed to the words of scripture, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one (Dt 6:4). If they want to interpret this as referring to the Father, it follows that Christ is not the Lord our God. If they want to interpret this as referring to the Son, the Father will not be the Lord our God. But if they are willing to interpret this as referring to both, then the Father and the Son are the one Lord our God. In accord with this, we must take Christ's words in the gospel, That they may know you the one true God and Jesus Christ whom you sent (Jn 17:3), to mean: That they may know the one true God, you and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. While Jn 17:3 does not exclude the interpretation that Augustine proposes, it is certainly much more natural to take “the one true God” as referring to the Father. †2 After all, John the apostle said of Christ, He is true God and eternal life (1 Jn 5:20).
2. Likewise, when they say that Christ “was established before all ages by the will of his God and Father,” The Arabic numbers in the Reply to an Arian Sermon correspond to those in the Arian Sermon. Hence, there seems to be no need to give references to the numbers of the Arian Sermon for passages cited in this work. Revisions II, 52, 78 indicates that this numbering goes back to Augustine. †3 they are forced to admit that the Son is coeternal to the Father. Though the Arian Sermon states that Jesus Christ “was established before all ages,” the Arians did not admit that the Son was coeternal with the Father. Simonetti points out that the Arians took the Nicene claim that the Son is coeternal with the Father to mean that the Son has no principle from which he derives his being, since they equated “eternal” with “unbegotten” (see “Arianesimo Latino,” 737-738). Indeed, one of the doctrines condemned by the Council of Nicaea was the Arian claim that there was a time when the Son did not exist. †4 For, if the Father were ever without the Son, there was some time before the Son, when the Father existed alone without him. How did the Son exist before all ages, if there was before him some time during which the Father existed without him? Moreover, if the Son existed before all time, the Son is beyond any doubt coeternal with the Father. For there is no other way to understand, In the beginning was the Word and Through him all things were made (Jn 1:1.3). After all, there can be no time without the motions of creatures, and for that reason we profess that time was made through him, through whom all things were made.
They say that he “was established by the will of the Father,” because they are unwilling to say that he is God begotten from God, equal and coeternal to the Father. Nowhere in scripture do they find that “the Son was established before all ages by the will of the Father.” They say this so that the will of the Father, by which they claim that he was established, might seem to be prior to him. Their argumentation usually runs as follows: They ask whether the Father begot the Son willingly or unwillingly. If the answer is that he begot him willingly, they would say: Then the will of the Father is prior. Who, on the other hand, can say that he begot him unwillingly? In order that they may realize what nonsense they speak, we must also ask them whether God the Father is God willingly or unwillingly. After all, they will not dare to say that he is unwilling
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to be God. If, then, they answer that he is willingly God, we have to make them see the folly of their position, since in accord with it his will can be said to be prior to him. Can there be anything sillier than that?
II, 3. Then they say, that “at the Father's will and command, but by his own power, he made heavenly and earthly things, visible and invisible things, bodies and spirits, to exist out of non-existing things.” On this point we ask them whether he himself was made by the Father out of non-existing things, that is, out of nothing. If they do not dare to say that, then he is God from God, not made by God out of nothing. The Catholic position insists that the Son is either true God or a creature, either the consubstantial Son of the Father or a creature made out of nothing, while the Arians hold that he is not the true God and not a creature, but a lesser God and creator of all creatures. †5 That means that the Father and the Son have one and the same nature. It surely cannot be that human beings, birds, animals, and fish can generate offspring of the same nature and that God cannot. But if they are going to dare to rush headlong over the precipice of such impiety as to say that even the only-begotten Son was established by the Father out of nothing, let them look for the one through whom the Son was made out of nothing by the Father. After all, he could not be made through himself. That would mean that he existed before he was made so that he himself might be the one through whom he was made. What need was there for him who already existed to be made? Or how was he made to exist, if he already existed before he was made? Moreover, if he was made by the Father through someone else, who is that someone else? After all, through him all things were made (Jn 1:3). But if he was made by the Father through no one, how could something have been made by the Father through no one, since all things were made through the Son, that is, through his Word?
III, 4. “Before he made all things,” they say, “he was established as God and Lord, King and Creator of all things that were going to be. In his nature, he had foreknowledge of all things that were going to be, and awaited the order of the Father for every detail in making them. At the will of the Father, he came down from heaven and came into this world. As he said, I have not come on my own, but he has sent me” (Jn 8:42). I would like them to state whether they hold two creators. But they do not dare. After all, there is only one, since from him and through him and in him are all things. See Rom 11:36. †6 The one God is, of course, the Trinity, and as there is one God, so there is one Creator.
What do they mean when they say that the Son created all things at the Father's order, as if the Father did not create them, but gave the order that the Son create them? Let those carnal-minded persons ask themselves by what other words the Father gave orders to the only Word. They picture for themselves in the imagination of their heart two persons, as it were, the one next to the other, yet each in his own place, the one giving orders, the other obeying. Augustine frequently accuses the Arians of thinking of God in carnal terms, that is, of imagining the Father and the Son as two human beings and allowing such imagery to control their thinking. See my “Heresy and Imagination in Saint Augustine,” Studia Patristica XXVII, 400-404. †7 They do not understand that the order of the Father that all things be made is nothing but the Word of the Father through whom all things were made.
No one can deny that the Father sent the Son. But they should consider, if they can, how the Father sent him and yet came along with him. Was he not
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speaking the truth when he said,
I am not alone, because the Father is with me? (Jn 16:32). But however they may understand his being sent, is their nature different because the Father sends and the Son is sent? Or can a human father send a human son of one and the same nature, and God cannot do so? Yet a human being sent by a human being is separated from him—something that is impossible in case of God.
A flame sends forth its brightness, and the brightness it sends forth cannot be separated from the flame sending it forth. Though Augustine accuses the Arians of thinking of the Trinity in imaginative terms, it is not their use of imagery by itself that is at fault, but the fact that it is imagery rather than the rule of faith that controls their theology. †8 But, because this is a visible creature, it is not comparable in every respect to the case at hand. After all, when a flame sends forth its brightness, the brightness reaches out further than the flame. Hence, if the brightness sent forth by the flame of a lamp could speak, it could not truthfully say on the wall to which it has come without the flame of the lamp, “The flame which has sent me is with me.” But the Son sent by the Father could say, The Father is with me (Jn 16:32).
Moreover, since this mission of the Son by the Father is ineffable and cannot be grasped by the thought of anyone, how can they show from it that the Son has a distinct and inferior essence? After all, even the example of a human being sent by a human being does not prove that there is a difference of nature between the sender and the one sent. Thus far Augustine takes the mission of the Son in the sense of God the Son having his origin from God the Father. Hence, “mission” in this sense is the same as his generation from the Father. The Homoian Arians had invoked the text from Isaiah, “Who will tell of his generation?” (Is 53:8) to justify their refusal to accept the Nicene homoousios, and Augustine turns their agnostic stance against them. †9
IV. One can also understand that the Son is said to have been sent by the Father by reason of the fact that the Son, and not the Father, appeared to human beings in the flesh. After all, who is sent to a place where he is already present? And where is the Wisdom of God, which is Christ, not present? Of that Wisdom scripture says, He reaches from end to end mightily and arranges all things gently (Wis 8:1). Since the Son was present everywhere, to what place was he going to be sent where he was not already present? Rather, he appeared in a way he had not previously appeared. If one does not interpret the mission of the Son as referring to the Incarnation, one is faced with the oddity of the omnipresent Son being sent somewhere by the Father, as if there were some place in which he was not already present. Throughout this section Augustine is implicitly arguing that one must transcend images in thinking of the relation of the Father and the Son. †10 And yet, we also read that the Holy Spirit was sent, and he certainly did not take up a human nature into the unity of his person. Nor was he sent by the Son alone, in accord with the text, When I leave, I will send him to you (Jn 16:7); he was also sent by the Father, in accord with the text, The Father will send him in my name (Jn 16:26). There we are shown that the Father does not send the Holy Spirit without the Son and that the Son does not send him without the Father. Rather, they both send him equally. For the works of the Trinity are, of course, inseparable. We find that the Father alone was not sent, since he alone has no origin from whom he is begotten or from whom he proceeds. Hence, the Father alone is not said to have been sent, not on account of a difference of nature, which is not found in the Trinity, but on account of his being the origin. For the brightness or warmth does not send forth the flame, but the flame sends forth the brightness or the warmth. And yet, these examples are very unlike the Trinity, nor is there anything found in either spiritual or bodily creatures that is truly comparable to the Trinity which is God.
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V, 5. They also say, “Human beings were obviously inferior, on account of the fragile condition of their bodies, for they were made a little less than the angels. See Ps 8:6 and Heb 2:7. †11 So that they would not regard themselves as without value and despair of their salvation, the Lord Jesus honored what he had made and deigned to assume human flesh and show that human beings are not without value, but precious. As scripture says, A human being is great, and a man precious (Prv 20:6, LXX). And therefore, he deigned to make human beings alone heirs to his Father and his coheirs so that they might have more in honor, though they had received less in their nature.” When they say this, they want us to understand that Christ assumed human flesh without a human soul. This view is characteristic of the Apollinarian heresy. See also Heresies XLIX and LV. †12 But we find in their writings that these persons, that is, the Arians, hold not only that there are different natures in the Trinity, but also that Christ does not have a human soul. This will be seen more clearly later in this reply. See below IX, 7. †13
Now we are responding with regard to their words we have cited. Let them bear in mind that the words of scripture in the Letter to the Hebrews, You have made him a little less than the angels (Ps 8:6 and Heb 2:7), refer to Christ. Moreover, let them see that Christ's words, The Father is greater than I (Jn 16:28), do not indicate a difference and inequality of nature in the Father and the Son. Rather, they indicate that he was also made less than the angels in the form of the servant, on account of the weakness which made it possible for him to suffer and die.
VI, 6. So too, they say, “When the fullness of time came, scripture says, God sent his Son born of a woman (Gal 4:4). He, who by the will of the Father assumed flesh, lived in the body at the will and command of the Father. As he said, I came down from heaven, not to do my
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will, but to do the will of him who sent me (Jn 6:38). At the will of the Father he was baptized at thirty years of age and was revealed by the voice and testimony of the Father. See Lk 3:21-23.
†14 At the will and command of the Father he preached the good news of the kingdom of heaven. As he said,
I must preach the good news to other cities, since I was sent for this purpose (Lk 4:43), and
He gave me a command as to what I should say or what I should speak (Jn 12:49). Thus, at the will and command of the Father he hurried toward his suffering and death. As he said,
Father, let this chalice pass from me, but not what I want, but what you want (Mt 26:39). And as the apostle states,
He became obedient to the Father even to death, death upon the cross” (Phil 2:8). Of what else are they trying to convince us by these testimonies of the sacred scriptures but that the Father and the Son have different natures, because the Son is shown to be obedient to the Father? They would not, of course, say this in the case of human beings. After all, if a human son is obedient to his human father, it does not follow that the two of them have different natures.
VII. The statement that Jesus makes, I came down from heaven, not to do my will, but to do the will of him who sent me (Jn 6:38), can refer to the fact that, by doing his own will, not the will of his Creator, the first man, Adam, made the whole human race subject to sin and punishment through corrupting our lineage. The apostle says of him, Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death, and thus it has passed to all human beings inasmuch as all have sinned (Rom 5:12). On the contrary, he, through whom we were to be set free, did not do his own will, but the will of him by whom he was sent. Thus, this passage speaks of his own will so that it is understood to be his own as opposed to the will of God. After all, when we obey God and are said to do his will by that obedience, we do not do it unwillingly, but willingly. Hence, if we do it willingly, in what sense do we not do our own will, unless in the language of scripture that will is called ours, which is understood to be our own as opposed to the will of God?
Adam had such a will and, as a result, we died in him. Christ did not have such a will so that we might have life in him. This can be correctly said of the human nature in which there existed as the result of disobedience a will of its own which is opposed to the will of God. In terms of the Son's divinity, the Father and the Son have one and the same will, nor can it be different in any way where the nature of the Trinity as a whole is immutable. But so that the mediator of God and man, the man Jesus Christ, See 1 Tm 2:5. †15 would not do his own will, which is opposed to God, he was not only man, but God and man. And through this marvelous and singular grace human nature could exist in him without any sin. Augustine clearly affirms that Christ could not sin by reason of the union of the assumed human nature to the person of the Word. On the other hand, the human nature he assumed is able to be free from sin only by reason of that grace, since he assumed fallen human nature. When Augustine spoke of “human nature,” he distinguished nature in the sense in which human beings were originally created and nature in the sense in which human beings are now born; see Free Will III, 19, 54. †16 For this reason, then, he said, I came down from heaven, not to do my will, but to do the will of him who sent me (Jn 6:38). Thus, because he came down from heaven, he was the cause in the man he assumed of such great obedience which would be utterly without any sin. Augustine seems to imply that the human nature of Christ could have and would have sinned, if it were not for its union with the person of the Word. It is, however, a person who can sin, not a nature. †17 That is, he was not merely man, but also God. He showed that there was one person in the two natures, that is, God's and man's. For, if he were two persons, there would begin to be a foursome instead of a trinity. Thus he is a twofold substance, Literally Augustine says that he is a twin substance: gemina substantia—a phrase which echoes the fourth stanza of Ambrose's Christmas hymn Veni, redemptor gentium, where Ambrose speaks of Christ as “a twin-substanced giant: geminae gigas substantiae”—a phrase which Augustine cites in VIII, 6. See B. Daley, “The Giant's Twin Substances,” 477-495, where the author points out Augustine's dependence upon Ambrose in this work. †18 but one person. Hence, the words, I came down from heaven, refer to the excellence of God, but the next words, not to do my will, refer to the obedience of the man on account of Adam who did his own will. Christ is both, that is, God and man. Yet, in him, insofar as he is man, we are taught the obedience which is just the opposite of the disobedience of the first man. Hence, the apostle says, For, as through the disobedience of one man, many were made sinners, so through the obedience of one man many were made just (Rom 5:19).
VIII. In saying man, he did not exclude God who assumed the man, since, as I have said, he is one person—a point upon which we must insist. After all, the one Christ is always by nature the Son of God, and he is by grace the Son of Man who was assumed in time. The concreteness of Augustine's language in speaking of the assumption of the Son of Man rather than of human nature can give the impression that a human person was assumed, though he clearly denies two persons in Christ. †19 Nor was he assumed in such a way that he was first created and then assumed; rather, he was created in being assumed.
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And thus on account of the unity of the person that we must understand in the two natures, the Son of Man is said to have come down from heaven, although he was assumed from the Virgin who was already on earth. So too, the Son of God is said to have been crucified and buried, although he did not suffer this in the divinity by which he is the Only-Begotten, coeternal with the Father, but in the weakness of human nature. After all, we read that he said that the Son of Man has come down from heaven,
No one has gone up into heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven (Jn 3:13). We all also profess in the Creed that the only-begotten Son of God was crucified and was buried. Thus the apostle wrote,
If they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory (1 Cor 2:8). The blessed apostle teaches this unity of the person of Christ Jesus, our Lord, including both natures, namely, the divine and the human, so that each of them shares its attributes with the other, the divine with the human, and the human with the divine. This interchange of attributes and activities is later referred to as the communication of properties: communicatio idiomatum.
†20 When he exhorts us to merciful humility through the example of Christ, he says,
Have this attitude in you which was also in Christ Jesus. Since he was in the form of God, he did not think it robbery to be equal to God, but he emptied himself, taking the form of the servant and having appeared in the likeness of men and found to be a man in appearance. He humbled himself, having become obedient even to death, death upon the cross (Phil 2:5-8). Thus he has the name, Christ, on the basis of what scripture says in prophecy,
God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness before your companions (Ps 44:8). Hence, the words,
taking the form of the servant and found to be a man in appearance, pertain to the fact that he became man. This appearance, of course, began in time. It said, nonetheless, of this same Christ,
Since he was in the form of God, for in the form of God, before he assumed the form of the servant, he was not yet the Son of Man, but the Son of God, for whom equality with God was not robbery, but his nature. He was not exalted because he took something not his own, but was born such and is, thus, the truth. He was not then Christ; he began to be Christ, when
he emptied himself, not through the loss of the form of God, but through
taking the form of the servant. But if we ask: Who is that one
who, since he was in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal to God? the voice of the apostle answers us,
Christ Jesus. Therefore, the divinity took the name of this humanity. So too, if we ask who
became obedient even to death, death upon the cross, the correct answer is: He
who, since he was in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal to God. Hence, the humanity has received the name of that divinity. Thus we have the same Christ, a twin-substanced giant, Augustine quotes the phrase geminae gigas substantiae from Ambrose's Christmas hymn, Veni, redemptor gentium. Brian Daley finds in this reference to the Ambrosian hymn the most obvious clue to the dependence of Augustine upon the Christology of Ambrose's De fide and De incarnationis dominicae sacramento. See B. Daley, “The Giant's Twin Substances,” 481.
†21 in the one obedient, in the other equal to God, in the one the Son of Man, in the other the Son of God. See B. Daley, “The Giant's Twin Substances,” 477-498, for an excellent discussion of this passage.
†22 In the one he says,
The Father is greater than I (Jn 14:28); in the other he says,
The Father and I are one (Jn 10:30). In the one he does not do The editions of Erasmus, Lyons, Venice, and Louvain have the subjunctive faciat instead of facit.
†23 his own will, but the will of the one who sent him; See Jn 6:38.
†24 in the other, he says,
As the
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Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to those he wants (Jn 5:21).
IX, 7. They go on to say, “While hanging upon the cross, at the will and command of the Father, he also abandoned into the hands of men the human flesh which he assumed from the holy virgin, Mary, and commended his divinity into the hands of his Father, saying, Father, into your hands I commend my spirit (Lk 23:46). For Mary gave birth to the body which was destined to die, but the immortal God begot the immortal Son. Hence, the death of Christ is not a lessening of his divinity, The early editions have deitatis here and in the following sentence, as well as in the Arian Sermon, but the manuscripts have dealitatis. †25 but the laying aside of the body. For, just as his generation from the virgin did not mean the corruption of his divinity, but the assumption of a body, so in his death his divinity did not suffer and fail, but was only separated from his flesh. For, just as one who tears a garment injures its wearer, so those who crucified his flesh offended his divinity.” See how clear they make it by their own words that they deny that a human soul pertains to the unity of the person of Christ and that they admit in Christ only flesh and divinity. By the words he uttered as he hung upon the cross, Father, into your hands I commend my spirit (Lk 23:46), they would have us understand that he commended his divinity to the Father, not his human spirit which is the soul. Earlier in this same sermon, when they wanted us to understand that Christ did the will of the Father, not his own will, they were right to recall the passage, Father, let this chalice pass from me; yet not what I want, but what you want (Mt 26:39). And they took this text as a proof that he was of an inferior and different nature. But they are unwilling to cite his words, My soul is sad even unto death (Mt 26:38). Augustine points out that the Arians ignore the immediately preceding verse in which Jesus clearly speaks of his soul. Since his soul is said to be sad to the point of death, Augustine takes Jesus' words as referring to his human soul. The Arians, on the other hand, wanted a God who really suffered as God. See Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 109. So too, in the words of an anonymous Arian, “The faithful [that is, the Arians] are saved by understanding that Christ did not incur death on account of the weakness of his nature as man, but that he drew death to himself on account of his power as God, so that he was not consumed by death, but so that he consumed death” (Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum in PG 56, 788c). †26 Let them listen to these passages we quote, My soul is sad even unto death (Mt 26:38), I have the power to lay down my life (Jn 10:18), and No man has greater love than this, that he lay down his life for his friends (Jn 14:13). The Latin of the last two texts has the word “soul” (anima), though in the English, it seems, one has to say “life.” †27 Moreover, the apostle understood, You will not abandon my soul in the underworld (Ps 15:10; Acts 2:31 and 13:35) as a prophecy about him. Let them not resist these testimonies from the sacred scriptures and others like them. Rather, let them admit that Christ united not merely flesh, but also a human soul to the only-begotten Word. Thus the one person who is Christ is the Word and man, but man is soul and flesh; hence, Christ is Word, soul, and flesh. Therefore, we should understand that he has two substances, namely, divine and human, with the human substance composed of soul and flesh.
If they are troubled by the words of scripture, The Word became flesh (Jn 1:14), where the soul is not mentioned, they should realize that “flesh” here stands for “man” in accord with the figure of speech by which the part signifies the whole. Augustine appeals to the figure of metonymy to account for the use of “flesh” instead of “man.” In this example of this figure of speech, a part stands for the whole. In other cases of metonymy a cause stands for an effect, or a property of a cause is attributed to an effect, or the other way around. See, for example, below, XXV, 21. †28 That is the case with: To you all flesh will come (Ps 64:3); so too, On the basis of the
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works of the Law no flesh will be declared just (Rom 3:20). Elsewhere he stated this more clearly,
On the basis of the Law no one will be declared just (Gal 3:11); so too, he said in another passage,
On the basis of the works of the Law no man will be declared just (Gal 2:16). Hence, he said,
no flesh and meant, “no man.” Similarly, scripture said,
The Word became flesh (Jn 1:14), and it meant, “The Word became man.”
Even though these people want us to understand the man, Christ, as his human flesh alone, still they will not deny that he is a man. For scripture says of him with utter clarity, The one mediator of God and men, the man, Christ Jesus (1 Tm 2:5). I am surprised that they are unwilling to agree that he could have said, The Father is greater than I (Jn 14:28) on account of this human nature—however they understand it—and not on account of that nature of which he said, The Father and I are one (Jn 10:30). After all, who is going to put up with a human being, however great he may be, saying, “God and I are one”? And who will not accept a human being saying, “God is greater than I”? That is what blessed John said, God is greater than our heart (1 Jn 3:20).
X, 8. They also say, “He, who at the will and command of the Father fulfilled the whole plan of salvation, raised his own body from the dead at the will and command of the Father, and he was taken up by the Father into glory with his body, as a shepherd with his sheep, as a priest with his sacrifice, as a king with his purple, as God with his temple.” We must ask these people who say such things what sort of sheep the shepherd brought back to the Father. After all, if it is flesh without a soul that he brought back, what is this sheep but mindless earth that cannot even offer thanks? For what can the flesh do without soul?
XI, 9. So too, they go on to say, “He, who at the will of the Father came down and ascended, at the will and command of the Father is seated at his right hand. He hears the Father saying to him, Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies as a stool for your feet (Ps 109:1). He, who at the will and command of the Father is seated at his right hand, will come at the end of the world at the will and command of the Father. As the apostle cries out and says, At the word of command, at the word of an archangel, and at the trumpet of God, the Lord will come down from heaven (1 Thes 4:15). He, who will come at the will and command of the Father, will judge the whole world with justice at the will and command of the Father. And he will repay individuals in accord with their faith and works. As he says, The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son (Jn 5:22). So too, he says, As I hear, so I judge, and my judgment is true, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of him who sent me (Jn 5:30). Hence, in judging he gives first place to the Father and ranks his own divine honor and power second, when he says, Come, blessed ones of my Father (Mt 25:34). Hence, the Son is the just judge. Honor and authority belong to the one who judges; the imperial laws belong to the Father. Just as solicitous intercession and consolation belong to the Holy Spirit, so the dignity of the just judge belongs to the only-begotten God.” The answers that we have already given above are also valid against these statements as well. After all, the fact that a
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son is obedient to the will and command of his father does not prove, even in the case of human beings, a difference and inequality of nature between the father who commands and the son who obeys. In addition to this, Christ is not only God and by that nature equal to the Father; he is also man. The Father is greater than the human nature of Christ, and he is not only his Father, but also his Lord. After all, the words of the prophet say this,
The Lord said to me, “You are my Son” (Ps 2:7). There you have the lesser substance than which the Father is greater and the form of the servant over which he is Lord. He took this form of his humanity, while the form of the divinity remained, so that he might come to be in the likeness of men and be found in appearance as a man. See Phil 2:6-7.
†29 This form of his humanity will also be seen at the judgment when he will judge the living and the dead. Thus scripture says of the Father that he will not judge anyone,
but he has given all judgment to the Son (Jn 5:22). For the wicked about to be judged by him will then see the form of the Son of Man in Christ. Scripture says of them,
They will look upon him whom they have pierced (Zec 12:10; Jn 19:37). They certainly will not see in the same Christ the form in which he is equal to the Father. For this reason it has been foretold in prophecy,
Let the wicked one be removed so that he does not see the glory of the Lord (Is 26:10). The words,
Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God (Mt 5:8), are pertinent here as well. Finally, he testifies to this with great clarity when he says,
He has given him the power to judge, because he is the Son of Man (Jn 5:27). This power, then, was not given, because he is the Son of God. For, as such, he has one and the same power coeternal with the Father. It was given, because he is the Son of Man, and he began to be the Son of Man in time. Hence, that power was given to him in time. This was not meant to imply that he did not give it to himself, that is, that the divine nature in him did not give the power to his human nature. Heaven forbid that we believe that. After all, how would the Father do anything except through the only-begotten Son? Nor would he do it without the Holy Spirit, since the works of the Trinity are inseparable. And while he gave the power to the Son, because he is the Son of Man, he gave that power to him through the same Son, because he is the Son of God. After all,
Through him all things were made, and without him nothing was made (Jn 1:3). But the Son attributed to the Father as an appropriate honor that which he himself does as God, because he is God from the Father. After all, he is himself God from God, while the Father is God, but not from God.
XII. They say, “He heard from the Father, Sit at my right hand, and thus he sat at the right hand of the Father,” as if he did this at the Father's order and not by his own power as well. Unless this is interpreted spiritually, the Father will be to the left of the Son. Once again Augustine points out the picture-thinking that leads the Arians to think of the Father and the Son as two gods, a greater and a lesser. Spiritual interpretation involves understanding bodily members as incorporeal powers; see On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans I, 17, 27, where Augustine says that “all those who understand the scriptures spiritually have learned to understand by those terms [for God's bodily parts] not bodily members, but spiritual powers….” †30 What does the right hand of the Father mean but that eternal and ineffable blessedness which the Son of Man has attained now that his flesh has also become immortal? After all, if with wisdom and faith we think
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of the hand of God the Father, not in terms of bodily shape which is not found in God, but in terms of his power to create, what will we understand but the only-begotten Word by whom all things were made? The prophet said with regard to him,
To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? (Is 53:1). Moreover, how does the Son hear the Father? How does the Father speak many words to the only Word? How does he speak in passing to him to whom he constantly speaks? How does he say something in time to him in whom, as in one coeternal to him, there already were all the things which he says at their appropriate times? Who will be bold enough to look into this? Who will be able to find it out? And yet,
The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand” (Ps 109:1), and since he said it, it has come about. This had already been in the Word, and
the Word became flesh (Jn 1:14). Because it was truly present in the Word before he became flesh, it has become an accomplished fact in his flesh. Because it had already existed in the Word before time, it has been carried out in the flesh at its proper time. In that flesh he ascended into heaven, though he did not depart from heaven, even when he came down from there. From the Neoplatonists in Milan, Augustine learned after a long intellectual struggle to think of God as a spiritual substance that is present as a whole everywhere. Thus, in assuming a human nature, the Word did not leave heaven, nor did he begin to be somewhere he previously had not been. So too, in ascending into heaven, he did not, as the Word, leave the earth and return to heaven, as if he had not been in heaven. Augustine uses the omnipresence theme to lead the Arians to overcome their image-dominated thinking about the Son taking his seat at the right hand of the Father.
†31 In that flesh the arm of the Father is seated at the right hand of the Father, and in that flesh he will come down for the judgment
at the word of command, at the word of the archangel, and at the sound of God's trumpet (1 Thes 4:15).
XIII. Here they want us to think that the Son's power is inferior, because it is said that he will come down at the word of command. But one must ask them at whose word of command he will come down? If at the Father's word of command, we must again ask them by what temporal words the Father orders his eternal Word to come down from heaven? After all, the very order of God, which will be carried out at its time, was already present in the Word of God before all time. But if the Son of God came down from heaven insofar as he is the Son of Man, then insofar as he is the Word, the Father gave the order through him that he come down from heaven. For, if the Father does not give the order through him, the Father does not give the order through his Word—or there will be another word through which he gives the order to the only Word. I wonder how he can be the only Word, if there is another word.
There were, of course, some words of the Father to the Son that were produced in time. Thus, there sounded forth from the cloud, You are my beloved Son (Mt 3:17). These words were not uttered so that the only-begotten Son might learn something through them, but so that the people, who needed to hear them, might learn something through them. Thus, even that sound of passing words was not made for the Son without the Son; otherwise, all things were not made through him. But, when he will be given the order to come down from heaven, will there be need of such sounding words for the Son to know the will of the Father? Heaven forbid that we believe that! Whatever sign, then, it might be that the Father will have to make for the Son, the Father will not make it except
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through the same Son. It will be made for him, because he is the Son of Man and is among all the things that were made. But it will be made through him, because he is the Son of God and all things are made through him by the Father.
But the text reads, at the word of command, at the word of the archangel. If they mean to interpret the command of the archangel as the words themselves seem to indicate, Augustine's phrase, “as the words themselves seem to indicate; sicut verba ipsa videntur sonare,” refers to the literal meaning of the text. See On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans II, 2, 3. †32 what else can they say but that the only-begotten Son is also inferior to the angels whose commands he is said to obey? What else can they say, at least if they hold that the one to whom an order is given is inferior to the one who gives the order? And yet, the text, at the word of command, at the word of the archangel, could also be interpreted so that one understands that the word of the archangel is produced at the command of God. That is, the angel, who should be interpreted as the trumpet of God, is ordered by the Lord God to send forth his word, because lesser creatures will have to hear it, when the Son of God comes down from heaven. This is, after all, the trumpet of which scripture says in another passage, The trumpet will sound, and the dead will rise without corruption (1 Cor 15:52).
XIV. The Son, therefore, said, As I hear, so I judge (Jn 5:30), either because of his subjection as a man, since he is the Son of Man, or in accord with that immutable and simple nature which the Son has, though he has received it from the Father. In that nature there is no distinction between hearing, seeing, and being. Divine simplicity means that whatever God is said to have is identical with God or whatever is said of God—apart from the relations of the persons and relations to creatures—is said of God in accord with substance, that is, as signifying the divine substance. See The City of God XI, 10. †33 Rather, to be is the same thing as to hear and to see. Hence, he has hearing and seeing from the same source from which he has being.
The words he spoke elsewhere, The Son cannot do anything on his own, except what he sees the Father doing (Jn 5:19), are much more difficult to interpret than the words they cited, where he said, As I hear, so I judge. After all, if the Son cannot do anything on his own, except what he sees the Father doing, how will he be able to judge, if he does not see the Father judging? But the Father judges no one; he has, of course, given all judgment to the Son. The Son, then, judges, since he has received from the Father, not some, but all judgment, although he does not see the Father judging, since he judges no one. How, then, is it possible that the Son cannot do anything on his own, except what he sees the Father doing, though he judges and does not see the Father judging? He did not say, The Son cannot do anything on his own, except what he hears the Father ordering, but what he sees the Father doing. Let them pay attention to these things; let them think about them; let them consider them, and let those who in their carnal thinking attempt to separate the one and identical nature of the Trinity by a distance between substances and rank them in an order of their powers make their intention somehow disincarnate. Augustine uses the passive of the verb excarnare, a verb he uses only on one other occasion, but in the same context. As he accuses the Arians of being carnal-minded in their imaginative thinking about the Trinity, he urges them to free their mind's intention from the flesh. †34 Scripture said that the Son does nothing on his own, because he does not have his origin from himself. Hence, he sees the Father doing whatever he does, because he sees that he has the power of doing it from him from whom he sees that he has the nature by
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which he exists. His saying that he cannot do anything on his own does not indicate a lack of power, but that he remains in the condition of having been born from the Father. As it is a mark of excellence that the omnipotent cannot die, so it is a mark of excellence that the omnipotent cannot undergo change. After all, the Son could do something he had not seen the Father doing, if he could do something the Father does not do through him, that is, if he could sin and not be in accord with that immutably good nature which was begotten from the Father. But that he cannot do this is not due to any deficiency, but due to his power.
XV. The Father and the Son have the same works, not because the Son is the same as the Father, but because the Son has no work that the Father does not do through him. Nor does the Father have any work that he does not do through the Son who does it as well. Whatever the Father does, these same things the Son does in a like manner (Jn 5:19). That statement comes from the gospel, uttered, moreover, by the lips of the Son himself. Hence, the works of the Son are not other than those of the Father, but the same, and they are not done by the Son in an unlike, but in a like manner. Since the Son does not do other similar works, but these same things which are done by the Father, what does in a like manner mean but: with a similar ease The early editions have facultate, but the manuscripts have facilitate. †35 and power? After all, if both do these same things, but one does them with greater ease or greater power than the other, the Son does not do them in a like manner. But since they both do these same things and do them in a like manner, the works of the Son are not other than the works of the Father, and they do not work with different power.
Moreover, they do nothing without the Holy Spirit. After all, the Spirit of both of them will never be excluded from the works that both of them have to do. In the same marvelous and divine manner, the works of all are done by all, and the works of each one are done by all. Thus the heaven, the earth, and all creation are the works of all of them. Scripture says of the Son, Through him all things were made (Jn 1:3). But who would dare to exclude the Holy Spirit from the production of any creatures, since we see that he produces the gifts of the saints? Scripture says of them, One and the same Spirit produces all these things, distributing them to each one as he wills (1 Cor 12:11)
Finally, since Christ is the Lord of all things See 1 Cor 8:6. †36 and God blessed above all things for all ages, See Rom 9:5. †37 which from among all these things can we deny to be a work of the Holy Spirit who produced Christ himself in the womb of the Virgin? When the Virgin said to the angel bringing her the news that she would give birth, How can this be, since I have no husband, she received the answer, The Holy Spirit will come over you (Lk 1:34-35). Those works which clearly pertain to a single person among them are called works of the individual persons. Thus only the Son was born of the Virgin, See Mt 1:20-25. †38 and the voice from the cloud, You are my beloved Son (Mt 3:16), pertains to the person of the Father alone, while the Holy
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Spirit alone appeared in bodily form as a dove. See Mt 3:17.
†39 Yet the whole Trinity produced that flesh belonging to the Son alone as well as that voice which was the Father's alone and that form in which Holy Spirit alone appeared. It is not that each of them is unable to accomplish without the others what he does; rather, they cannot work separately in a case where their nature is not only equal, but also undivided. Although they are three, each one of them is God. Thus the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, but the Son is not the Father, and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son. The Father is always the Father, and the Son is always the Son, and the Spirit of both of them is never either father or son of either of them, but the Spirit of each of them. The whole Trinity, nonetheless, is one God.
Who would say that it was not the Son, but the Father or the Holy Spirit who walked on the waters? See Mt 14:25. †40 Only the Son The word, filii, is not found in the manuscripts. †41 had flesh, and it was feet of that flesh that rested upon and moved over the waters. But heaven forbid that we believe that he did this without the Father, since he says of all his deeds, The Father, who remains in me, does his works (Jn 14:10). And heaven forbid that we believe that he did this without the Holy Spirit. For it was likewise the work of the Son to cast out demons; it was the tongue of that flesh which belongs to the Son alone by which he commanded the demons to depart. And yet he says, In the Holy Spirit I cast out demons (Mt 12:28). So too, it was the Son alone who rose from the dead, since only he who had flesh was able to die. And yet the Father was not excluded from this work by which the Son alone rose. Scripture said of him, He raised Jesus from the dead (Gal 1:1). Or did Jesus perhaps not raise himself? What about his words, Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up in three days? (Jn 2:19). What about his statement that he has the power to lay down his life and take it up again? See Jn 10:18. †42 Who would be so foolish as to think that the Holy Spirit was not also at work in the resurrection of Christ as man, since he had caused the same Christ to exist as man?
XVI. There is in human beings a likeness, but one in no way comparable to the excellence of the Trinity which is God. After all, the latter is God; the former a creature. This created trinity has, nonetheless, something that allows us to understand in some slight way what we say of that ineffable nature of God. Scripture had a point in saying, Let us make man to our image and likeness (Gn 1:26), instead of “to your image,” as though the Father were speaking to the Son, or “to my image.” We correctly interpret this as spoken in the name of the Trinity. Augustine uses the expression, ex persona ipsius Trinitatis, which should not be taken to mean that the Trinity is a person in addition to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Rather, he means that to our image and likeness is spoken in the name of the Trinity. †43
Accordingly, let us reflect on these three powers in the human soul: memory, intelligence, and will; all that we do
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is done by these three. When these three operate well and correctly, everything we do is good and correct, without forgetfulness misleading the memory, or error the intelligence, or evil the will. Thus we are formed anew to the image of God. Every work of ours, therefore, is done by these three, for we do nothing that these three do not do together. Moreover, when we speak of them singly, even what pertains to one of them is done by all. After all, memory alone does not produce a speech which we produce from memory; rather, intelligence and will cooperate in producing it, though it pertains only to memory. It is quite easy to see this with regard to the other two as well. For whatever intelligence of itself speaks, it does not speak without memory and will, and whatever the will of itself says or writes, it does not do without intelligence and memory.
The extent to which these are like and the extent to which they are unlike that immutable Trinity would take a long time to explain with clarity. But I thought that I should mention this point only to provide an example drawn from a creature by which they might understand, if they can, how what we say of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is not absurd, namely, that the works which pertain not only to all the persons, but also those which pertain to single persons, are done by all of them inseparably.
XVII. Therefore, as the Son hears, so he judges, See Jn 5:30. †44 either because he is the Son of Man, or because he does not have his origin from himself, but is the Word of the Father. After all, what is for us to receive a word, when we hear, is for him to be the Word from the Father. For the Father can be said to have given the Word to the Son, that is, so that he is the Word, in the same way he is said to have given life to the Son, that is, so that he is life. He said, As the Father has life in himself, so he gave it to the Son that he has life in himself (Jn 5:26). This does not mean that the Son is something other than the life that is in him, but rather that he himself is that life. So too, the Father is not something other than the life that is in him, but the Son did not give it to the Father, because he did not beget the Father. But the Father did give life to the Son by begetting him as life, just as he himself is life. He did not, however, beget the Word, as if he himself were a word. We can speak of a life which does not have its origin from any other. Such is the Father's life. Or, to speak more precisely, the Father is life which does not have its being from another. But we cannot speak of a word without understanding it as the word of someone and of that one from whom it originates. The Son is God from God, light from light, life from life, but he cannot be said to be word from word, because he alone is the Word. Just as it is proper to the Father to generate the Word, so it is proper to the Son to be the Word. Thus, as he hears, so he judges, because, as the Word was begotten so that he is the truth, so he judges according to the truth.
XVIII. And his judgment is indeed just, because he does not seek his own will, but the will of the one who sent him. See Jn 5:30. †45 In saying this, he wanted to turn our attention to the man who, by seeking his own
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will, instead of the will of his maker, did not have a just judgment about himself, although he received a just judgment upon himself. He did not believe that he would die in doing his own will, instead of God's, but this judgment of his was not just. Hence, he did his own will and he died, because the judgment of God is just. The Son of God makes such a just judgment in not seeking his own will, although he is the Son of Man. It is not that his will is not involved in judging. Who would be so foolish as to say that? It is rather that his will is not his own in such a way that it is opposed to the Father's.
If they would ponder these matters, they would not in their carnal thoughts rank the powers or functions of the Trinity at unequal levels, as if they were dealing with three human beings unequal and unlike in dignity: the Father as emperor, the Son as judge, and the Holy Spirit as advocate. They claim that the imperial laws in accord with which the Son judges are the Father's. In those laws they locate the honor and authority of the Son who judges. But they hold that the solicitous advocacy and consolation of the Holy Spirit pertains to the dignity of the judge, that is, of the only-begotten God. Thus the dignity of the judge lies in his having an advocate, just as the dignity of the emperor lies in his sending the just judge who will judge in accord with his imperial laws. By such carnal thinking they cannot, nonetheless, prove a difference of nature in these three persons, and that is the major point at issue between them and us. After all, they make a comparison with human practices and do not withdraw from familiar human affairs which they can grasp in their thinking, for the natural person is unable to perceive what pertains to the Spirit of God. See 1 Cor 2:14. †46 But in doing this, what else do they point out to us but that the emperor, the judge, and the advocate are human beings?
Thus, even if the judge is inferior in power to the emperor, The manuscripts have ad imperatorem instead of imperatore. †47 he is no less a human being. Nor is the advocate less a human being than the judge, even if he seems subordinate to the judge in his function. Hence, even if they think that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are unequal in power, they should at least admit that their nature is equal. Why is it that they imagine them in a condition inferior to that of human beings? After all, it is possible in human affairs that the one who was judge becomes emperor. In the case of the Trinity, these people refuse to grant this, even to the only Son of the emperor. Perhaps they fear to offend the majesty of God in the case of the Son on the basis of some provision of human law or custom, but I certainly think that they ought to admit that the advocate might at some point attain judicial power. Yet they do not agree to this either. Hence, the situation in the Trinity is worse—heaven forbid!—than in the mortality of the human race.
XIX. Holy scripture does not gauge these divine acts in terms of a difference in powers, but in terms of the ineffability of the works. Moreover, it recognizes that our judge is also our advocate. The apostle John says, If anyone has sinned, we have an advocate before the Father, Jesus Christ, the just one (1 Jn 2:1). Jesus too implied this when he said, I will ask the Father, and he will give you
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another advocate (Jn 14:16). After all, the Holy Spirit would not be another advocate, unless the Son was one too. To show that his works and the works of the Father are inseparable, he said,
When I go, I will send him to you (Jn 16: 7), although in another passage he says,
The Father will send him in my name (Jn 14:26). There we are shown that both the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit, just as we are shown by the prophet that both the Father and the Holy Spirit would send the Son. Who but the Son foretold his coming through Isaiah with the words,
Hear me, Jacob, and Israel whom I shall call. I am the first, and I last forever. My hands have laid the foundations of the earth; my right hand has made the heavens firm. I will call them, and they will come at once. All will gather and will listen. Who has announced these things to them? Because I love you, I have done your will regarding Babylon so that the offspring of the Chaldeans might be destroyed. I have spoken; I have called. I brought him forth, and I made his path prosperous. Come to me and hear these things. Even from the beginning, I have not spoken unclearly. When they were made, I was there. The Lord The PL edition has: ei nunc Dominus misit me, while the Vulgate and the BAC edition have: et nunc Dominus misit me.
†48 has now sent me, and his Spirit also (Is 48:12-16). What could be clearer? See, he says that he who laid the foundations of the earth and framed the heavens was sent by the Holy Spirit. There we recognize the Only-Begotten through whom all things were made.
The apostle calls God the comforter, though these people assign this function to the Holy Spirit as the least person in the Trinity. In his Second Letter to the Corinthians, we read, God who comforts the lowly has comforted us with the presence of Titus (2 Cor 7:6). God, then, is the comforter of the saints. They are, of course, the lowly. Thus the three men in the furnace say, You saints and lowly of heart, bless the Lord (Dn 3:87). The Holy Spirit who comforts the lowly is, therefore, God. Hence, either let these people admit that the Holy Spirit is God—something which they do not want to do—or, if they prefer to interpret the words of the apostle as referring to the Father and the Son, let them cease to hold the person of the Holy Spirit separate from the Father and the Son on the grounds that comforting is his proper function.
XX. Their attempt to show that the Holy Spirit is inferior to the Son, because the Spirit is the advocate, while the Son is judge, entails the amazing blindness of ranking saintly human beings above the Spirit. The same Lord said of such human beings, You will be seated upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Mt 19:28). Let them answer what function the Holy Spirit will have there. Will he be a judge along with the Son, or will he also be an advocate for the human judges? Heaven keep from the hearts of the faithful the madness of thinking that the Holy Spirit is inferior to such judges! After all, they are filled with the Holy Spirit so that they might be judges, and by living in accord with the Holy Spirit they become spiritual. For the spiritual person judges all things (1 Cor 2:15). How can he who makes them judges be inferior to the judge, when he makes them to
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be members of that judge and to be his own temple? The apostle says,
Your bodies are members of Christ, and in the same passage he says,
Your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit who is present in you The editions of Amerbach and Erasmus, as well as the manuscripts, have templum in vobis est Spiritus sanctus with qui in vobis est omitted.
†49 (1 Cor 6:15.19). If they clearly found in the holy scriptures that, at the command of God, King Solomon built a temple for the Holy Spirit out of wood and stone, they could have no doubt but that the Holy Spirit is God. And the people of God would lawfully render to the Holy Spirit the religious service called “worship” (
latria) by having built a temple for him, even though the Lord says,
You shall adore the Lord your God, and you shall serve him alone (Dt 6:13). Here the Greek word is
λατρεύσεις. They dare to say that he who has as his temple, not wood and stones, but the members of Christ, is not God! For they subordinate the Holy Spirit to the power of Christ, though the members of Christ are his temple. So too, they subordinate the Son to the imperial laws of God, though he is the Word of God, and the word of the emperor is in no sense subject to the laws, but makes the laws. See the Debate with Maximinus 14.
†50
XXI, 10. These people, whose sermon I have received and to whom I am replying, do not dare to say that to be made is the same as to be born. They distinguish these two so that they say that the Son was born from the Father, but that the Holy Spirit was made by the Son. Here and in some of the following numbers, Augustine does not directly quote the words of the Arian Sermon. Hence, I have omitted the quotation marks, even though the Migne edition has them. †51 They find that nowhere in the holy scriptures, though the Son himself says that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. See Jn 15:26. †52
11. They say, “The Son proclaims the Father; the Holy Spirit makes known the Son.” They say this, as if the Son did not make it known that the Holy Spirit would come or as if the Father did not proclaim the Son, when he said, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased (Mt 17:5).
12. And thus not only does the Son reveal the glory of the Father, but the Father reveals the glory of the Son. Not only does the Holy Spirit disclose the dignity of the Son, but the Son discloses the dignity of the Holy Spirit.
13. And thus, as the Son bears witness to the Father, so the Father bears witness to the Son; as the Holy Spirit bears witness to the Son, the Son bears witness to the Holy Spirit.
14. But the Holy Spirit has been sent by the Father and by the Son, and the Son has been sent by the Father and by the Spirit.
XXII, 15. They say, “The Son is the minister of the Father; the Holy Spirit is the minister of the Son.” They do not see that by this move they make the holy apostles better than the Holy Spirit. When the apostles call themselves ministers of God, these heretics are not going to deny that they are ministers of God the Father. They became the ministers of the God in whose name they baptized, that is, ministers of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Thus, according to the foolish statements of these people, the ministers of the holy Trinity will be better than the Holy Spirit, if the Holy Spirit is inferior to the Son, precisely because he is the minister of only the Son.
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16. They say, “The Son receives orders from the Father; the Holy Spirit receives orders from the Son.” Nowhere do they find this in the holy scriptures. We do find there that the Son was obedient according to the form of the servant than which the Father is greater, but not according to the form of God in which the Father and he are one.
17. We read in the holy scriptures that “the Son is subject to the Father.” After all, there we see the form of the servant in which he was subject even to his human parents. As the gospel says, He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject to them (Lk 2:51). But the holy scripture nowhere says that “the Holy Spirit is subject to the Son.”
18. Accordingly, “the Son does what the Father orders” on account of the form of the servant, and the Son does what the Father does on account of the form of God. After all, he does not say, “Whatever the Father orders, these things the Son does.” Rather, he says, Whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in a like manner (Jn 5:19). Moreover, if they say that the Holy Spirit speaks what the Son commands, because scripture says, He will receive from what is mine and make it known to you (Jn 16:14), why does the Son not also speak what the Holy Spirit commands? For the apostle says, No one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:11). And Jesus himself states that these words of scripture were fulfilled in him, The Spirit of the Lord is over me, because he has anointed me to bring the good news to the poor (Lk 4:21). See Lk 4:18. †53 If he was anointed to bring the good news to the poor, because the Spirit of the Lord was over him, what good news did he bring to the poor save the good news of the Spirit of the Lord with whom he was filled? For scripture also says of him that he was filled with the Holy Spirit. See Lk 4:1. †54
XXIII, 19. They say, “The Son adores and honors the Father; the Holy Spirit adores and honors the Son.” There is no need here to draw a fine distinction between honoring and adoring. This was said of the Son on account of the form of the servant. Let them say, if they can, where they find that the Son is adored by the Holy Spirit. What they offer as evidence in an attempt to prove this is not relevant to the point at issue. They cite the passages, Father, I have honored you on earth; I have completed the work you gave me (Jn 17:4), and with regard to the Holy Spirit, He will honor me, because he will receive from what is mine and make it known to you (Jn 16:14). Everyone who adores honors, but not everyone who honors adores. According to the apostle, even brothers anticipate one another in showing honor, See Rom 12:10. †55 but they do not adore one another. Otherwise, if to honor is the same as to adore, let them say, if they want, that the Father also adores the Son and does so at the bidding of the Son who says to him, Honor me (Jn 17:5).
But as for the words he spoke about the Holy Spirit, He will receive from what is mine, he himself resolves the problem. He did not want them to think
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that he himself was derived from the Father and that the Holy Spirit was derived from him in different levels of descent. For they are both from the Father; the one is born, while the other proceeds, and in that sublime nature it is extremely difficult to distinguish these two. And so that they would not make the mistake I just mentioned, he immediately adds,
All the things which the Father has are mine; for that reason I said, “He will receive from what is mine” (Jn 16:15). Thus, beyond any doubt, he wanted us to understand that the Holy Spirit receives from the Father. But the Holy Spirit also receives from him, because all things which the Father has are his. This does not teach us that there is a difference in nature, but rather that there is a single principle.
20. In accord with this, “the Holy Spirit does not speak on his own,” because he does not come from himself, but proceeds from the Father. So too, the reason that the Son can do nothing of himself is that he too does not come from himself, as I have already explained above; it is not that “he awaits a sign from the Father for every detail.” After all, he did not say, “Except what he sees the Father indicating,” but except what he sees the Father doing (Jn 5:19), in accord with the explanation I have already given. But as for their claim that “the Holy Spirit awaits in all things the command of Christ,” let them find that in scripture, if they can. It says there, He will not speak on his own; it does not say there, “Whatever he will hear from me,” but whatever he will hear, he will speak (Jn 16:13). Why he said this was already made clear a little earlier from the Lord's own explanation which I mentioned. He said there, All the things which the Father has are mine; for this reason I said, “He will receive from what is mine” (Jn 16:15). What he will speak will undoubtedly come from the same source from which he will receive, because he hears from the same source from which he proceeds. After all, he knows the Word, because he proceeds from the same source from which the Word is born. Thus, he is the common Spirit of the Father and of the Word.
XXIV. Do not be troubled because the verb, he will receive, is in the future tense, as if he did not yet have it. The tenses of verbs are used without regard for their differences, although we know that eternity lasts without time. Thus, he received, because he proceeded from the Father, and he receives, because he proceeds from the Father, and he will receive, because he will never cease to proceed from the Father. So too, God is and was and will be, and yet he does not have, nor has he had, nor will he have a temporal beginning or end.
XXV, 21. They say, “The Son pleads for us with the Father, and the Holy Spirit petitions the Son on our behalf.” They read in scripture that the Son pleads with the Father, and we have mentioned that text and discussed it above. But let them find a passage from which they can show that the Spirit petitions the Son. The apostle said, We do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit pleads for us with ineffable groans. He who searches hearts knows what the Spirit
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thinks, because he pleads for the saints as God wills (Rom 8:26-27). However these people may interpret this passage—and it is very much in their interest to interpret it as it should be interpreted—it did not say, “He pleads with Christ,” or “He pleads with the Son.”
The reason why scripture said, The Holy Spirit pleads, is that he makes us to plead. Similarly, God said, Now I know (Gn 22:12), as if he did not already know. What does that mean but “I have made you know.” In accord with this, the apostle said, Now knowing God, rather known by God (Gal 4:9) so that they would not take credit for knowing God. He said, known by God, so that they would understand that God made them know him by his grace. With this figure of speech, scripture said, Do not sadden the Holy Spirit of God (Eph 4:30). That means: Do not sadden us who are saddened over you in accord with the Spirit of God. They were saddened because of the love which the Holy Spirit poured out in their hearts, See Rom 5:5. †56 and thus he made them sad over the sins of their brethren.
Finally, the same apostle said, You have received the Spirit who made you adopted sons and in whom you cry out, “Abba, Father” (Rom 8:15). Elsewhere, he makes the same point with the words, God sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father” (Gal 4:6). How can it say in one passage, in whom we cry out and in another crying out, unless crying out here means “making them cry out”? But if we interpret crying out the way they want, as if he does not make us cry out, but he himself cries out, then you see that, in saying, Abba, Father, he does not plead with the Son, but with the Father. They will not dare to say that the Holy Spirit is Christ's son, and in order to avoid saying this, they have preferred to say that he was made by the Son rather than born from him. We do not, therefore, know by ourselves what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself pleads, that is, makes us plead with the prayers God wants. If he does not do this, we only pray in a worldly fashion to accomplish the desire of the flesh, and the desire of the eyes, and worldly ambition. See 1 Jn 2:16. †57 Such things do not come from the Father, but from the world. Some people, on the other hand, believe that the words, The Spirit pleads with groans, should be understood as referring to the human spirit.
XXVI, 22. These heretics say that the Son is the living and true, proper and worthy image of the whole goodness and wisdom and power of God. But the apostle Paul does not say that he is the image of the power and wisdom of God, but that he is God: the power and wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24). By the very fact that the Son is the image of the Father, he is his power and wisdom. A full and perfect image, that is, one that is not made by him out of nothing, but that is begotten of him, has nothing less than the one whose image he is. The highest image of the Father, that is, one so like the Father that there is nothing unlike in it, is the only-begotten Son. They have not, nonetheless, been so bold as to say that the Holy Spirit is the image of the Son, but that he is his manifestation. For
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this reason, they said that he is not begotten, but made by him. But they do not find that in the scriptures. The editions have non intelligunt instead of non legunt, which is found in the manuscripts.
†58
XXVII, 23. Would any Catholic say that the Son is a part of the Father and the Holy Spirit part of the Son? They thought that they ought to deny this, as though we differed with them on this point. We say that the Trinity is of the same nature; we do not call one person a part of any other. They deny that the Son is a part of the Father and call him the proper and beloved, perfect and full, only-begotten Son. We must ask them about those whom God makes sons by his will, begetting them by the word of truth. See Jas 1:18. †59 When they reach such a perfection that they cannot become more perfect, will they too be proper and beloved, perfect and full sons of God? If they will be, then he will not be the Only-Begotten, but only the Firstborn, since he will have many equals. But if they will not be, how are we to understand his fullness and perfection save in the sense that he is equal to the one who begets him and in no respect unlike him? Or, to put the matter more briefly and more clearly, One manuscript has pleniusque. †60 they are sons by grace; he is a son by nature. For they participate in divinity, while he is the fullness of divinity. Nonetheless, that he assumed the man, and the Word became flesh (Jn 1:14), while the nature of the Word, which is equal to the Father, remained, is not nature, but grace. Let them answer then whether those sons whom the Father willed to beget by the word of truth (Jas 1:18) will be better than the Holy Spirit, since they say that the Holy Spirit is not a son, but the first and principal work of the Son before all the others. After all, how are they not forced to say this, since it is undoubtedly better to be sons of the Father rather than a work of the Son? Let them consider these points and correct their foolish and wicked blasphemies; let them admit that in the Trinity no person is in any sense a creature or something that God has made, except for the Son who, while remaining God, became man. Rather, the whole of that Trinity is the highest, true, and immutable God.
24. Heaven forbid that we think, as they do, that the Father is greater than his Son insofar as he is his only-begotten Word. Rather, he is greater insofar as the Word became flesh (Jn 1:14). But why should that be a surprise, when in that same flesh he became even less than the angels? Heaven forbid that, as they say in their blasphemy, the Son is incomparably greater and better than the Holy Spirit and—what is most insane to believe—that the members of the Son, who is the greater, are the temple of the Spirit, who is the lesser.
XXVIII, 25. The Father is “God and Lord for his Son,” because there is in him the servant form. It was foretold in prophecy when scripture said, The Lord said to me, “You are my Son” (Ps 2:7). The same Son says to him in the same prophecy, From the womb of my mother you are my God (Ps 21:11). From the womb of his mother where he assumed the man, the Lord is his God. Because he begot him, not merely before the womb of his mother, but before all ages as
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coeternal with him, he is his Father. But where, even in their wildest dreams, have they heard the holy scripture say that the Son is God and Lord of the Holy Spirit?
26. They say, “The Father by his will begot the Son without changing or being changed; the Son made the Holy Spirit by his power alone without toil or weariness.” What great praise they offer to the Son and the Holy Spirit! They imply that the Father, who willed to beget us by the word of truth, See Jas 1:18. †61 begot us against his will, while changing and being changed. Or they imply that the Son created heaven and earth with toil and weariness! Let these works, then, in their view, be regarded as equal to the Son and the Holy Spirit. Or, if they are in no way equal to them, what was the point of making this statement, namely, that the Father begets and the Son makes without any toil or weariness. We have no disagreement with that. They should, of course, examine what they mean when they say that by his power alone the Son made the Holy Spirit. After all, in that way they are forced to say that the Son made something that he did not see the Father making. Or are they willing to say that the Father also made the Holy Spirit? In that case, the Son will not have made The editions of Erasmus, Lyons, Venice, and Louvain have fecit instead of fecerit. †62 him by his own power. Or did the Father first make another Spirit so that the Son, who can make nothing that he has not seen the Father making, might be able to make the one he made? What does it mean that whatever the Father does, these same things—and not other similar things—the Son does in a like manner? (Jn 5:19). If they try to think of these things, all the products of their carnal thinking will be thrown into confusion for them.
XXIX, 27. It is true that “the Father gave being to all things that are, and that he received being from no one.” But he gave equality with himself to no one except to the Son who was born from him and to the Holy Spirit who proceeds from him. Since that is the case, there is not the difference in the Trinity that these people claim. In the Trinity there is no difference in nature; there is no difference in power, so that all might honor the Son as they honor the Father (Jn 5:19.23), as the Son himself said. Thus those who want to live piously should adore the Lord their God and serve him alone, as the patriarchs of old were commanded by the law of God. Nor can we in any other way serve the Lord our God alone with the service we owe to God. This is, after all, the service which in Greek is called λατρεία. That is the word which was used when scripture said, You shall serve him alone (Dt 6:13). In no way, I say, can we do this, unless the Lord our God is the whole Trinity. The service called latria is not what servants owe to those who are their lords according to the flesh, but what all human beings owe to the Lord their God alone. Accordingly, we are not to render this service to the Son, if scripture said with reference to the Father, You shall serve him alone, and we are not to render it to the Father, if scripture said with reference to the Son, You shall serve him alone.
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Moreover, if we were to build for the Holy Spirit a temple from various earthly materials, who would have any doubt that we were serving him with latria, that is, with the service I am now discussing? How, then, do we not render to him the service called latria, if we do not make a temple for him, but we ourselves are his temple? How can he not be our God, when the apostle says of him, Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you? A little later he says, Glorify God, then, in your bodies (1 Cor 6:19.20). He means that our bodies are the temple in us of the Holy Spirit. Since, then, we serve the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit with that service called latria, let us heed the law of God commanding that we render this service to none other than the Lord our God alone. Beyond all doubt, the one and only Lord our God is the Trinity, and to the one Trinity alone we owe such service on the grounds of piety.
XXX, 28. They say, “As no one can pass to the Father without the Son, so no one can adore the Son in truth without the Holy Spirit.” They say this, as if one could come to the Son without the Father, though he says, No one comes to me unless the Father who sent me draws him (Jn 6:44). Or they say this, as if we could come to the Holy Spirit without the Father and the Son who give him to us by their gift. What does it mean to come to them but to have them dwelling in us? They come to us in this way, although God is everywhere and contained in no bodily place. The Savior says of himself and of the Father, We will come to him and make our dwelling with him (Jn 14:25), and he says of the Holy Spirit, If I do not go away, the advocate will not come to you (Jn 16:7).
What, then, does their statement mean, when they say, “As no one can go to the Father without the Son, so no one can adore the Son in truth without the Holy Spirit”? They add to this, “Hence, the Son is adored in the Holy Spirit.” Does this prove a difference of natures? That, after all, is the point at issue between us. For, if no one can adore the Son in truth without the Holy Spirit and the Son is adored in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is obviously the truth. After all, when the Son is adored in him, as they have said, he is adored in truth. But the Son himself said, I am the truth (Jn 14:6). Hence, he is adored in himself, when he is adored in the truth. And thus, the Son is adored both in himself and in the Holy Spirit. But would anyone be so lacking in piety as to exclude the Father from this? After all, how can we fail also to adore in him The editions of Amerbach and Erasmus, as well as the better manuscripts, have the reading: in illo adoramus. The Louvain edition and other manuscripts have the inferior reading: illum adoramus. †63 in whom we live and move and have our being? See Acts 17:28. †64 Finally, we too say that the Son is adored in the Holy Spirit, but let them find in scripture, if they can, that the Son is adored by the Holy Spirit.
XXXI, 29. Who is going to deny that “the Father is given glory through the Son”? But who would dare to deny that the Son is given glory through the Father? The Son himself says to him, Give glory to me; he also says to him, I have given glory to you (Jn 17:5.4). To give glory, to honor, to glorify are three
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words, but a single reality. In Greek it is expressed by
δοξάζειν, but different translators have translated it into Latin in different ways.
XXXII, 30. “The work and concern of the Holy Spirit,” they say, “is to make holy and protect the holy—to make holy, not merely rational beings, as some suppose, but also many beings lacking reason. It is to recall those who have fallen through their own negligence to their former state, to teach the ignorant, to admonish the forgetful, to rebuke sinners, to rouse the lazy to think of and to have concern for their salvation, to bring back the straying to the path of truth, to cure the sick, to check bodily weakness with strength of soul, to strengthen all in the love of piety and chastity, and to enlighten all. It is, above all, to bestow faith and charity on individuals in accord with their desire and concern, in accord with their simplicity and sincerity of mind, in accord with their measure of faith and the merit of their way of life; it is to distribute grace The editions add donationis, but it is not found in the manuscripts. †65 as it is needed and to place each individual in the work and vocation for which he is suited.” The Holy Spirit does these works, but heaven forbid that one think that he does them without the Son. After all, who is going so to stray from the path of the truth that he denies that Christ protects the holy, restores the fallen to their former state, teaches the ignorant, admonishes the forgetful, rebukes sinners, rouses the lazy, brings back the straying to the path of truth, cures the sick, enlightens the blind, and all those other things which they thought should be ascribed to the Holy Spirit as if he alone did them? I will not mention the rest lest I take too much time, but how are they going to deny that Christ teaches the holy, when he says to them, Do not allow people to call you, “Rabbi,” for your one teacher is Christ (Mt 23:8). How are they going to deny that Christ enlightens the blind, when they read that scripture says of him, He was the true light that enlightens every man (Jn 1:9)? As the Holy Spirit, then, does not teach or enlighten anyone without Christ, so he does not make anyone holy without Christ.
God spoke these words through the prophet, That they may know that it is I who make them holy (Ex 31:13). Let them choose by whom they would believe they were spoken. If the Father said them, why do they exclude him from the works of the Holy Spirit, The Louvain edition has sanctificatoris Spiritus sancti. †66 supposing that it is the proper task of the Holy Spirit and of him alone to make the saints holy? If the Son spoke them, they should not exclude him at least from the works of the sanctifying Holy Spirit. If, however, the Holy Spirit spoke them, the Holy Spirit also is God—something they refuse to admit—who said through the prophet, That they may know that it is I who make them holy (Ex 31:13). But the best interpretation is that it was the Trinity itself that spoke through the prophet. And thus, beyond any doubt, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are the one God, from whom are all things, through whom are all things, and in whom are all things; to him be glory forever and ever. Amen. See Rom 11:36. †67
XXXIII, 31. Although we admit that the Holy Spirit does what they said he
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does, what they go on to say does not follow from that admission: “The Holy Spirit is distinct from the Son in nature and condition, rank and will, dignity and power, virtue and activity.” After all, the nature of human beings is not different, because their works can be separated—something that is not possible in the case of the Trinity. Rather, the difference in order, rank, and will, which is found in unequal and weak creatures, is not to be found at all in that coeternal, equal and unchangeable Trinity. But how can the dignity, power and virtue not be equal in all of them, since they all do the same things and do them in a like manner? For we reject as completely false their claim that they are different in their activities.
XXXIV, 32. They go on to say in that sermon, “The same one cannot be the Father and the Son, the one who generates and the one who is born, the one to whom witness is given and the one who gives witness, the greater and the one who confesses that he is greater. The same one cannot be the one who sits or stands at the right and the one who bestows the honor of that place, the one who was sent and the one who sent. The same one cannot be disciple and teacher, as he himself taught when he said, As the Father has taught me, so I speak (Jn 8:28). The same one cannot be both like and the one to whom he is like and both imitator and the one whom he imitates, the one who prays and the one who hears, the one who gives thanks and the one who blesses, the one who receives the command and the one who gave the command, the minister and the commander, the supplicant and the sovereign, the subject and the superior, the only-begotten and the unbegotten, the priest and God.” Part of what they say is quite true, but they should make those statements against the Sabellians, not against the Catholics. The Sabellians say that the Son is the same one as the Father; we say that the Father who begets and the Son who is born are two persons, but not two different natures. Hence, the same one is not the Father and the Son, but the Father and the Son are one.
The statement that the Father is greater does not refer to the nature of the one who begets and of the one who is born, but to the natures of God and man. According to the form of the man he assumed, he sits or stands at the right hand of the Father, prays, and gives thanks; in that form he is priest, minister, suppliant, and subject. But according to the form of God, in which he is equal to the Father, he is the Only-Begotten coeternal with his begetter. Though he is the firstborn of all creation, because all things were created in him (Col 15:16), and he was born before they were created, he is everlasting like the Father and did not begin to be in time. For we say with complete correctness that the Father is before all the things which he created, although he is not born. After all, there is nothing as first as that which has nothing before it. But just as there is nothing before the Father, so there is nothing before the only-begotten Son who is, of course, coeternal with the Father. The Father is not temporally prior, because
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he begot and the Son is begotten. For, if there is some time between the Father who begets and the Son who is begotten, there is, of course, some time before the Son, and then the Son is no longer
the firstborn of all creation, because time is certainly a creature. Nor would all things be through him, if time is before him. But
all things are through him (Col 1:16). Hence, there is no time before him.
Thus, just as a flame and the brightness that is born of it and that spreads out in every direction begin to be simultaneously, without that which begets preceding the begotten, so God the Father and the Son, who is God from God, begin to be simultaneously, because they are equally without any temporal beginning and the one who begets does not precede the one who is born. And just as the flame which begets and the brightness which is born have the same age, so the Father who begets and the Son who is begotten have the same eternity. But because the Son has his origin from the Father and the Father does not have his origin from the Son, the Son receives the Father's command, because he himself is the command of the Father. So too, the Father teaches him, because he is the teaching of the Father. Thus, just as he receives life from the Father, though he himself is life, as the Father is, so he is like the Father to such a degree that he is unlike him in no respect.
But since the Father and the Son give witness to each other, I fail to see how these people hold that one of them gives witness and the other has witness given to him. Does the Father not say, This is my beloved Son? (Mt 3:17). Does the Son not say, The Father who sent me gives witness concerning me? (Jn 8:18). Why then do they distinguish them so that they claim that it is the Father to whom witness is given and the Son who gives witness? Why are they so foolish, so deaf, and so blind about this? With regard to the Father as sending and the Son as sent, we have already dealt more than sufficiently in the earlier parts of this reply.
XXXV, 33. It was, of course, never the case, as they rave with impiety, that “the Father foreknew that he would be the Father of the only-begotten God,” because he was always the Father with his coeternal Son and he was always generating apart from time the Son through whom he created time. Just as he did not foreknow that he would be God, since he always was God, so he did not foreknow that he would be the Father, since he always had the Son. He was “neither greater than the great Son nor better than the good Son,” because it was not said to the Father alone, but to the whole Trinity, You alone are the great God (Ps 85:20). Nor is it correct to understand as referring to the Father alone rather than to the whole Trinity the words of the same Son, No one is good save the one God (Mk 10:18). When the man who did not yet understand that he was God called him a good teacher, he as much as said, “If you call me good, understand that I am God, for no one is good save the one God.” The Trinity,
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then, is one God, alone great and good, and we serve that one God alone with that service called
latria.
XXXVI, 34. Heaven forbid that we should say that it was on account of humility, not on account of the truth, that the Son at times spoke so that he made himself subject to the Father and bore witness to the Father's being greater. We certainly know that the form of the servant in the Son was not a false pretense, but true. On account of that human condition and because he is God from the Father, while the Father is not God from him, he said all these things which they take as grounds for believing and preaching that the Father and the Son have different natures. And though they are sucked down into such a whirlpool of impiety, they call us Homoousians, as if the new name were a reason for embarrassment. The ancient Catholic faith is such that every group of heretics gives it a different name, while each of them has its own name by which everyone calls them. For instance, the Arians and the Eunomians, but not other heretics, call us Homoousians, because we use that Greek term to defend against their error the doctrine that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are ὁμοούσιος. That is, they are of one and the same substance or, to speak more precisely, essence, which in Greek is οὐσία. “Of one and the same nature” puts it more clearly. And yet if one of these people who call us Homoousians would say that his own son is not of the same nature as he is, but of a different nature, the son would prefer that his father disinherit him rather than regard him as such. What great impiety has blinded these people! Though they admit that he is the only-begotten Son of God, they do not want to admit that he is of the same nature as the Father; rather, they say that he is of a nature that is different from, unequal to, and in many ways unlike the Father's, as if he was not born of God, but created by him out of nothing. And thus he would be a creature, a son by grace and not by nature. There you have these people who call us Homoousians, as if the novel The word, novi, is not found in the manuscripts. †68 name tarnished our reputation, while they are blind to the insanity of their own views.
XXXVII. But since they admit that the Son was born before all ages, how can they avoid contradicting themselves? They say that he was born before all ages and admit a time prior to his birth, as if all times were not ages or parts of ages. The apostle, however, says that the Son will be subject to the Father in the age to come, when he says, Then even he himself will be subject to him who has subjected all things to him (1 Cor 15:28). But why should this cause surprise, since that human form will remain in the Son, and the Father is always greater than it? There were some people who thought that the future subjection of the Son should be interpreted as the changing of his human form into the divine substance, as if being subject to something meant being changed or turned into it. But here is what we think on this point. The apostle said that the Son would then be subject to the Father so that no one would think that his human spirit and body were going to perish by some change. Thus God might be all things,
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not merely in his human form, but
in all things (1 Cor 15:28), that is, so that the divine nature would suffice for our having life and for satisfying our desire with good things. For God will then be all things in all things, when we begin to want to have nothing at all besides him. He will be all things for us, when we will lack nothing, since he will be sufficient.
XXXVIII. I do not know where they get the idea that “the Son obeyed” a command “before he assumed flesh.” Was he ordered to assume flesh so that he seems to have done under command what he did in being sent? Let them return again to our previous discussion, and let them seek and find, if they are able, by what other word the Father gave orders to his only Word. Let them investigate whether it would it be right for the eternal Word to be subject to a temporal word of one commanding him. From this let them understand that it was not the order of the Father that emptied him, as if he were not under his own control, but he emptied himself, taking the form of the servant. But when he humbled himself, having become obedient even to death (Phil 2:7.8), he had, of course, already assumed flesh.
XXXIX. I believe that I have answered everything contained in the Arian sermon which certain brethren sent me for refutation. In order that it might be available to those who read my reply and who want to see whether I have answered every point, I thought that the sermon should be written out before my reply. Thus people can read it first and then read my reply. For I have not in every case included the words of that text lest I make my reply too long. In any case I finally bring it to an end here.
Notes
†1 The Arian position which holds a hierarchy of the Father as true God and the Son as the only-begotten God can maintain a monotheism only to the extent that it denies that Jesus Christ is also God. Hence, Augustine confronts them with the dilemma of either admitting many gods or denying that Christ is God.
†2 While Jn 17:3 does not exclude the interpretation that Augustine proposes, it is certainly much more natural to take “the one true God” as referring to the Father.
†3 The Arabic numbers in the Reply to an Arian Sermon correspond to those in the Arian Sermon. Hence, there seems to be no need to give references to the numbers of the Arian Sermon for passages cited in this work. Revisions II, 52, 78 indicates that this numbering goes back to Augustine.
†4 Though the Arian Sermon states that Jesus Christ “was established before all ages,” the Arians did not admit that the Son was coeternal with the Father. Simonetti points out that the Arians took the Nicene claim that the Son is coeternal with the Father to mean that the Son has no principle from which he derives his being, since they equated “eternal” with “unbegotten” (see “Arianesimo Latino,” 737-738). Indeed, one of the doctrines condemned by the Council of Nicaea was the Arian claim that there was a time when the Son did not exist.
†5 The Catholic position insists that the Son is either true God or a creature, either the consubstantial Son of the Father or a creature made out of nothing, while the Arians hold that he is not the true God and not a creature, but a lesser God and creator of all creatures.
†6 See Rom 11:36.
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†7 Augustine frequently accuses the Arians of thinking of God in carnal terms, that is, of imagining the Father and the Son as two human beings and allowing such imagery to control their thinking. See my “Heresy and Imagination in Saint Augustine,” Studia Patristica XXVII, 400-404.
†8 Though Augustine accuses the Arians of thinking of the Trinity in imaginative terms, it is not their use of imagery by itself that is at fault, but the fact that it is imagery rather than the rule of faith that controls their theology.
†9 Thus far Augustine takes the mission of the Son in the sense of God the Son having his origin from God the Father. Hence, “mission” in this sense is the same as his generation from the Father. The Homoian Arians had invoked the text from Isaiah, “Who will tell of his generation?” (Is 53:8) to justify their refusal to accept the Nicene homoousios, and Augustine turns their agnostic stance against them.
†10 If one does not interpret the mission of the Son as referring to the Incarnation, one is faced with the oddity of the omnipresent Son being sent somewhere by the Father, as if there were some place in which he was not already present. Throughout this section Augustine is implicitly arguing that one must transcend images in thinking of the relation of the Father and the Son.
†11 See Ps 8:6 and Heb 2:7.
†12 See also Heresies XLIX and LV.
†13 See below IX, 7.
†14 See Lk 3:21-23.
†15 See 1 Tm 2:5.
†16 Augustine clearly affirms that Christ could not sin by reason of the union of the assumed human nature to the person of the Word. On the other hand, the human nature he assumed is able to be free from sin only by reason of that grace, since he assumed fallen human nature. When Augustine spoke of “human nature,” he distinguished nature in the sense in which human beings were originally created and nature in the sense in which human beings are now born; see Free Will III, 19, 54.
†17 Augustine seems to imply that the human nature of Christ could have and would have sinned, if it were not for its union with the person of the Word. It is, however, a person who can sin, not a nature.
†18 Literally Augustine says that he is a twin substance: gemina substantia—a phrase which echoes the fourth stanza of Ambrose's Christmas hymn Veni, redemptor gentium, where Ambrose speaks of Christ as “a twin-substanced giant: geminae gigas substantiae”—a phrase which Augustine cites in VIII, 6. See B. Daley, “The Giant's Twin Substances,” 477-495, where the author points out Augustine's dependence upon Ambrose in this work.
†19 The concreteness of Augustine's language in speaking of the assumption of the Son of Man rather than of human nature can give the impression that a human person was assumed, though he clearly denies two persons in Christ.
†20 This interchange of attributes and activities is later referred to as the communication of properties: communicatio idiomatum.
†21 Augustine quotes the phrase geminae gigas substantiae from Ambrose's Christmas hymn, Veni, redemptor gentium. Brian Daley finds in this reference to the Ambrosian hymn the most obvious clue to the dependence of Augustine upon the Christology of Ambrose's De fide and De incarnationis dominicae sacramento. See B. Daley, “The Giant's Twin Substances,” 481.
†22 See B. Daley, “The Giant's Twin Substances,” 477-498, for an excellent discussion of this passage.
†23 The editions of Erasmus, Lyons, Venice, and Louvain have the subjunctive faciat instead of facit.
†24 See Jn 6:38.
†25 The early editions have deitatis here and in the following sentence, as well as in the Arian Sermon, but the manuscripts have dealitatis.
†26 Augustine points out that the Arians ignore the immediately preceding verse in which Jesus clearly speaks of his soul. Since his soul is said to be sad to the point of death, Augustine takes Jesus' words as referring to his human soul. The Arians, on the other hand, wanted a God who really suffered as God. See Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 109. So too, in the words of an anonymous Arian, “The faithful [that is, the Arians] are saved by understanding that
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Christ did not incur death on account of the weakness of his nature as man, but that he drew death to himself on account of his power as God, so that he was not consumed by death, but so that he consumed death” (
Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum in PG 56, 788c).
†27 The Latin of the last two texts has the word “soul” (anima), though in the English, it seems, one has to say “life.”
†28 Augustine appeals to the figure of metonymy to account for the use of “flesh” instead of “man.” In this example of this figure of speech, a part stands for the whole. In other cases of metonymy a cause stands for an effect, or a property of a cause is attributed to an effect, or the other way around. See, for example, below, XXV, 21.
†29 See Phil 2:6-7.
†30 Once again Augustine points out the picture-thinking that leads the Arians to think of the Father and the Son as two gods, a greater and a lesser. Spiritual interpretation involves understanding bodily members as incorporeal powers; see On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans I, 17, 27, where Augustine says that “all those who understand the scriptures spiritually have learned to understand by those terms [for God's bodily parts] not bodily members, but spiritual powers….”
†31 From the Neoplatonists in Milan, Augustine learned after a long intellectual struggle to think of God as a spiritual substance that is present as a whole everywhere. Thus, in assuming a human nature, the Word did not leave heaven, nor did he begin to be somewhere he previously had not been. So too, in ascending into heaven, he did not, as the Word, leave the earth and return to heaven, as if he had not been in heaven. Augustine uses the omnipresence theme to lead the Arians to overcome their image-dominated thinking about the Son taking his seat at the right hand of the Father.
†32 Augustine's phrase, “as the words themselves seem to indicate; sicut verba ipsa videntur sonare,” refers to the literal meaning of the text. See On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans II, 2, 3.
†33 Divine simplicity means that whatever God is said to have is identical with God or whatever is said of God—apart from the relations of the persons and relations to creatures—is said of God in accord with substance, that is, as signifying the divine substance. See The City of God XI, 10.
†34 Augustine uses the passive of the verb excarnare, a verb he uses only on one other occasion, but in the same context. As he accuses the Arians of being carnal-minded in their imaginative thinking about the Trinity, he urges them to free their mind's intention from the flesh.
†35 The early editions have facultate, but the manuscripts have facilitate.
†36 See 1 Cor 8:6.
†37 See Rom 9:5.
†38 See Mt 1:20-25.
†39 See Mt 3:17.
†40 See Mt 14:25.
†41 The word, filii, is not found in the manuscripts.
†42 See Jn 10:18.
†43 Augustine uses the expression, ex persona ipsius Trinitatis, which should not be taken to mean that the Trinity is a person in addition to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Rather, he means that to our image and likeness is spoken in the name of the Trinity.
†44 See Jn 5:30.
†45 See Jn 5:30.
†46 See 1 Cor 2:14.
†47 The manuscripts have ad imperatorem instead of imperatore.
†48 The PL edition has: ei nunc Dominus misit me, while the Vulgate and the BAC edition have: et nunc Dominus misit me.
†49 The editions of Amerbach and Erasmus, as well as the manuscripts, have templum in vobis est Spiritus sanctus with qui in vobis est omitted.
†50 See the Debate with Maximinus 14.
†51 Here and in some of the following numbers, Augustine does not directly quote the words of the Arian Sermon. Hence, I have omitted the quotation marks, even though the Migne edition has them.
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†52 See Jn 15:26.
†53 See Lk 4:18.
†54 See Lk 4:1.
†55 See Rom 12:10.
†56 See Rom 5:5.
†57 See 1 Jn 2:16.
†58 The editions have non intelligunt instead of non legunt, which is found in the manuscripts.
†59 See Jas 1:18.
†60 One manuscript has pleniusque.
†61 See Jas 1:18.
†62 The editions of Erasmus, Lyons, Venice, and Louvain have fecit instead of fecerit.
†63 The editions of Amerbach and Erasmus, as well as the better manuscripts, have the reading: in illo adoramus. The Louvain edition and other manuscripts have the inferior reading: illum adoramus.
†64 See Acts 17:28.
†65 The editions add donationis, but it is not found in the manuscripts.
†66 The Louvain edition has sanctificatoris Spiritus sancti.
†67 See Rom 11:36.
†68 The word, novi, is not found in the manuscripts.
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DEBATE WITH MAXIMINUS
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Introduction
The Place of the Debate in the Works of Augustine
The Debate with Maximinus and the two books of Augustine's Answer to Maximinus the Arian are among the last works of Augustine's long series of writings. These works came too late in Augustine's career to be mentioned in his Revisions. †1 The Debate with Maximinus is a stenographic record of the encounter between Augustine and Maximinus held in Hippo in 427 or 428. Augustine's biographer, Possidius, tells us that
at the desire and request of very many and in the presence of important persons, Augustine debated at Hippo a certain Arian bishop, Maximinus, who came to Africa with the Goths. And there was recorded the statements of each side…. Possidius, Life of Augustine 17. †2
The debate presents an interesting portrait of the elderly Augustine entering into a public debate in defense of the Catholic faith against a somewhat younger and more vigorous Arian bishop well trained in the scriptures and deeply committed to his Arian beliefs. The record of the debate provides a fascinating insight into the Homoian Arianism that still had in Maximinus an intelligent spokesman over a century after Arianism was condemned in the first Ecumenical Council held at Nicaea in 325.
The Participants and the Occasion of the Debate
Augustine was already a bishop for over thirty years and a man whose powers of debate had been finely honed in extensive controversies with the Manichees, the Donatists, the Pelagians, and the Arians, when he came to debate Maximinus, the Arian bishop, in 427 or 428. In fact, Augustine had by that time retired from the routine administration of his diocese, having delegated that work to the priest, Heraclius, who was to succeed him upon his death. See ibid. †3 It was most probably this same Heraclius with whom Maximinus first debated and by whom Augustine himself was summoned out of retirement to take up the debate with the Arian. See Vita sancti Aurelii Augustini ex ejus potissimum scriptis concinnata VIII, vi, 3: as well as Debate with Maximinus 1. †4 For Maximinus was indeed, as Augustine would soon discover, a formidable adversary whose command of the scriptures and theological as well as oratorical skill made him more than a match for Heraclius and—some might say—even for the elderly Augustine. See Debate with Maximinus 1. Although Maximinus disparages such merely human instruments as literary skill and philosophy and admits that he was untrained in the liberal arts, he was hardly an uneducated bumpkin. Moreover, his command of the scriptures is quite impressive—so much so that it seems that he at times overwhelms the elderly bishop of Hippo, not merely with the length of his discourses, but with his well-stocked arsenal of Arian “proof texts.” †5 In 427, when Augustine was in his early 70's, Count Sigiswulf (Segisvultus), a Goth, led a Roman army to Africa in order to suppress the rebellion of Bonifacius. With Sigiswulf there came Maximinus, an Arian bishop, a man somewhat younger than Augustine. Maximinus refers to himself as younger than Augustine; see Debate with Maximinus 11. M. Simonetti suggests as Maximinus' date of birth 360-365; see Patrology. Vol. IV. The Golden Age of Latin Patristic Literature from the Council of Nicaea to the Council of Chalcedon, ed. Angelo Di Berardino, tr. by Placid Solari (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1991) 98. †6
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According to Maximinus, it was Sigiswulf who had sent him to Hippo “with a view to peace” between the Arians and the Catholics. Debate with Maximinus 1.
†7 Apart from the public debate with Augustine held at Hippo in 427 or 428, little is known of his life. The fact that he accompanied Sigiswulf suggests that he may have been a Goth, though Meslin has argued that he was Roman by birth. M. Meslin, Les Ariens d'Occident 335-430 (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1967).
†8 Maximinus' relationship with the Arian bishops, Palladius and Secundinus, who were condemned at Aquileia in 381, suggests that he may have come from Illyria and have presided over the Arian community there. See Patrology IV, 98.
†9 After the debate with Augustine, Maximinus disappears from the scene.
Apart from the debate, which will be discussed in more detail, a number of other works have been attributed to Maximinus. The Dissertatio Maximini contra Ambrosium was compiled by Maximinus probably around 395. It contains a number of works, including the Acts of the Council of Aquileia (381) with various annotations by Maximinus; a letter on the faith, life and death of Ulfila (Wulfila); a critical exposition of the council by Palladius of Ratiaria, an Arian bishop condemned by that council; and an appeal by Ulfila, Palladius, and Secundinus to the emperor Theodosius against the council.
Another cluster of works, previously attributed to Maximus of Turin, has been in this century shown to be writings of Maximinus. Included among these are three treatises: one against the heretics, that is, the followers of the Council of Nicaea; another against the Jews; and a third against the pagans. There are also fifteen sermons and twenty-four brief explanations of various gospel passages. Meslin has argued in favor of attributing to Maximinus two large anonymous works: the Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum and a commentary on Job, though other scholars remain dubious about attributing them to Maximinus. See Patrology IV, 101. †10
In appealing to the Council of Ariminum, Maximinus clearly aligns himself with the form of Arianism taught by Ulfila, the apostle of the Goths. So too, he clearly sides with the Arian bishops, Palladius and Secundinus, against Ambrose of Milan, though Maximinus was surely too young to have attended the Council of Aquileia. He compiled his Dissertatio contra Ambrosium around 395, parts of which date from shortly after the 381. Almost forty years later, we find him defending the faith of Ariminum in debate with Augustine of Hippo.
The Theology of Maximinus
The Debate with Maximinus contains one of the fullest extant presentations of the theology of Homoian Arianism. M. Simonetti says of the work, “This text has great importance not only from an historical, but also from a doctrinal perspective; in fact, in the words of Maximinus we have the most detailed exposition of the Arian doctrine that has come from a Latin source” (“Arianesimo latino,” Studi Medievali 8 (1967), 663-774, here 688; my translation). †11 The work falls into two parts, each of which has been separately numbered in the PL edition, and a conclusion. In the PL edition, the sections of the first part are numbered from one to fourteen, and those of the second part from one to twenty-six. Since this duplication of numbers makes references to the work confusing, I have followed the convention adopted in the BAC edition and have numbered the sections of the second part under fifteen, for example, 15, 10 or 15, 25. †12 In the first part Augustine and Maximinus begin vigorously to debate various points with relatively short questions and answers, but then move to more
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extended discourses in which each speaker outdoes the other in length until we come to Augustine's final intervention which amounts to approximately one sixth of the work. Then, in the second part, Maximinus delivers one long discourse which amounts to slightly more than half of the work. Though Augustine complains about Maximinus' having used up the available time, it is clearly Augustine who first resorted to longer answers in the first part so that Maximinus can, as he begins his long final discourse, reasonably ask Augustine to show some patience in turn. In the conclusion, Augustine and Maximinus sign the record of the debate, and Augustine promises to respond in writing to Maximinus who, in turn, promises to respond to whatever Augustine sends him. In the two books of the
Answer to Maximinus the Arian, we have Augustine's response to Maximinus. There is no evidence that Maximinus replied to Augustine.
Early in the debate, when Maximinus appeals to the Council of Ariminum, Augustine insists that both parties leave aside appeals to councils and carry on the debate on the basis of the scripture which they both accept rather than on the basis of conciliar authorities over which they are divided. Maximinus had appealed to the Council of Ariminum (Rimini), where in 359 an Arian creed was ratified by 330 Western bishops. See Debate with Maximinus 2. The emperor Constantius convened the Western bishops in Ariminum and the Eastern bishops at Seleucia. See Hahn, Bibliothek der Symbole, 208, for the Creed of Ariminum. †13 It was of this council that Jerome wrote: “The world groaned and was astonished to find itself Arian.” Dialogus contra Luciferianos 19: PL XXIII, 181. †14 Accordingly, Augustine agrees not to appeal to the Council of Nicaea, as Maximinus gives up appealing to that of Ariminum, so that the debate proceeds on the basis of the scripture common to both parties.
This section of the introduction will sketch the chief characteristics of the Arian doctrine that Maximinus presents in the debate, first looking at some general features of the Arian position, then examining Maximinus' views regarding the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and regarding their unity.
Maximinus, first of all, grounds his profession of faith upon the scriptures. Having stated what he believes, he immediately adds that he holds this “on the basis of the scriptures.” Debate with Maximinus 3. †15 He not merely accepts the authority of the scriptures, but refuses under any circumstance to accept “those words which are not found in the scriptures,” Debate with Maximinus 1. †16 apparently intending thereby to exclude all non-biblical terms and not just ousia and homoousios from the Creed of Nicaea. Moreover, he insists that the use of testimonies from the scriptures is the only acceptable means of proof. “The truth is not attained by argumentation, but is proved by certain testimonies.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 21. †17 Accordingly, he objects to the use of the art of philosophy. Debate with Maximinus 15, 5. †18 When Augustine explains the groanings of the Holy Spirit by invoking the figure of metonomy, Maximinus warns Augustine about the dangers of using “some literary skill or cleverness of mind.” Debate with Maximinus 13. †19 One can quote scripture “all day long” without being guilty of wordiness, but to use words not contained in the holy scriptures is to use idle words for which one will have to account on the
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day of judgment, according to Matthew 12:36. See Debate with Maximinus 13. Thus Maximinus holds a very strong form of the “sola scriptura” principle.
†20 Though Maximinus appeals to the Council of Ariminum, the authority of that Council, as he sees it, is derived from the fact that the fathers at Ariminum declared “in accord with the divine scriptures the faith they learned from the divine scriptures.” Debate with Maximinus 4.
†21 Maximinus insists, “We believe the scriptures, and we venerate the scriptures. We do not want a single particle of a letter to perish, for we fear the threat that is stated in these scriptures,
Woe to those who take away or add” (Dt 4:2). Debate with Maximinus 15, 13.
†22 Proper veneration of the scriptures entails accepting everything in them. “The divine scripture has not come as a source of our instruction so that we might correct it.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 20.
†23 Maximinus professes what he reads in scripture. He reads there that Christ is the firstborn and the only-begotten. “Even if I am tortured on the rack,” he says, “I will not say otherwise.” Debate with Maximinus 13.
†24 In that sense Maximinus prays that he might be a worthy disciple of the scriptures. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 26.
†25
Secondly, Maximinus not merely holds a hierarchy in which the Son is subordinated to the Father and the Holy Spirit to the Son and creation to the Son and Holy Spirit, but also holds, at least implicitly, a principle that entails this subordination. Though not formulated with any philosophical precision, Maximinus again and again implies that to have one's origin from another or to have received something from another means to be inferior to that other. Thus “the Father alone truly has immortality, since he has not obtained it from someone else, since he has no father, since he has no origin.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 14. †26 Maximinus says to Augustine, “You often claim that the Son is equal to the Father, though the only-begotten God always and everywhere proclaims the Father as his author….” Debate with Maximinus 15, 14. †27 As Christ was subject to his human parents, he was even more subject to the Father who begot him, who gave him life. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 18. †28 The Son, moreover, has received from the Father not only life, but immortality, wisdom, and power. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 14. †29 In explaining the text, No one is good save the one God (Mk 10:18), Maximinus admits that the Son is good and that creatures are good. “But whether it is the Son or those who were made through him, each has drawn his goodness from that one source of goodness…. But the Father has received his goodness from no one.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 23. †30 In fact, the incomparability of the Father lies precisely in his having received his goodness from no one. For, in commenting on the abbreviated text, “No one is good save the One” (Mt 10:18), Maximinus adds, “In that way, then, the One is God, because the One is incomparable, because the One is immense….” Debate with Maximinus 15, 23. †31
The One God, the Father
Maximinus begins his profession of faith with the words, “I believe that there is one God the Father, who has received life from no one….” Debate with Maximinus 4. See Gryson's chapter on the theology of the scolia in Scolies ariennes, 173-200, which provides an excellent introduction to the Arian theology for which Maximinus is a principal spokesman. Gryson notes that Maximinus uses the same words to profess his faith as Ulfila, the apostle of the Goths, had used, according to Auxentius; see Gryson, 179-180. †32 The Father is the one author from whom all light and goodness descend by stages. See Debate with Maximinus 5. †33 The Father
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is “the omnipotent God… the one author of all things.” Debate with Maximinus 11.
†34 Using a series of negative predicates to emphasize the otherness of the Father, Maximinus says that he is “the one God, incomparable, immense, infinite, unborn and invisible.” Debate with Maximinus 12.
†35 He is the Father precisely “because he is unborn” and “has received his life from no one.” Debate with Maximinus 13.
†36 He is the one God who is adored by Christ and by the Holy Spirit and by every creature. Maximinus adds, “This is the reason we profess one God.” Debate with Maximinus 13.
†37 The Father is “the one perfect God,” and he is above all, unborn and unmade. Debate with Maximinus 13.
†38 The Father is alone invisible, because he has no superior who might look down upon him. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 9.
†39 The Father is infinite, “neither limited by words nor grasped by the mind.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 9.
†40 He is ineffable both for angels and for humans; he is incomprehensible and immense. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 9.
†41 The Father alone is God and not one God along with a second and a third. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 10.
†42
Hanson finds “the main pillar” of Homoian Arianism to be “the incomparability of God the Father….” Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God 563. †43 The Father is incomparable in power, because he has begotten a Son who is so powerful, because he has begotten the Creator, because no one is comparable to him. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 13. †44 In any comparison we draw between God and creatures words fail us. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 14. †45 Though no comparison is adequate, Maximinus clearly finds some comparisons unworthy of God, for instance, when Augustine compares human or animal generation with the Father's generation of the Son. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 9; 15, 6 and 15, 14. †46 The incomparability of the Father means that he is alone invisible, alone powerful, alone true, alone good, alone wise. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 13 and 15, 15. †47 Once again, it is not that the Son and creatures do not have some or all of these attributes. They do, but they have them as derived, at least ultimately, from the one source who has them from no one. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 13. †48 The one God the Father, like the One of Middle Platonism, is so remote from creation that he is ineffable, scarcely knowable, and beyond compare. Accordingly, Maximinus says that the Father “has not come down to human contacts (contagia) and human flesh.” Debate with Maximinus 13. †49 Thus the Father is not only preserved from becoming incarnate, but also kept from creating this world and from appearing to the patriarchs. For that there was needed a lesser God.
The Only-Begotten God
Maximinus' profession of faith continues, “And there is one Son who has received from the Father his being and his life so that he exists.” Debate with Maximinus 4. †50 Maximinus has no problem with calling the Son God. Appealing to Titus 2:13, he insists that “the Son is not a small, but a great God….” Debate with Maximinus 13. †51 However, the Son, having received all he has from the Father, is clearly “subject to the Father as the beloved, as the obedient, as the good Son born of the good Father.” Debate with Maximinus 10. †52 After all, he always does what is pleasing to the Father. See Debate with Maximinus 10 and Jn 8:29. †53 Maximinus points to the facts that the Son prayed to the Father during his life on earth and continues to pray to him on our behalf now that he is in heaven as proof of his continued
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subordination to the Father. See Debate with Maximinus 12.
†54 Along with the Holy Spirit, Christ worshipped the one God. See Debate with Maximinus 13.
†55 The Son is “the firstborn, not unborn.” He is “the only-begotten God”—a favorite Arian title—“since he is before all.” Debate with Maximinus 13.
†56 He is “the God of every creature” who is adored and worshipped by human beings and heavenly powers. The Father has given him the name above every name and has made everything subject to him. But Maximinus stresses that “the Father gave him this.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 2.
†57 Christ is adored and worshipped as God, as our God. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 3 and 15, 23.
†58 Unlike the Father, the Son has “come down to human contacts (
contagia) and human flesh,” Debate with Maximinus 13.
†59 though Maximinus is careful to exclude any sinfulness from Christ. Debate with Maximinus 15, 5.
†60 Twice Maximinus speaks of the substance of the Son's divinity. Debate with Maximinus 15, 5 and 15, 9.
†61 Christ had the blessed substance of his divinity before the creation of the world, before all time; “he was born from the Father as God in that blessed nature.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 5.
†62 The Son has a nature because he is born (
natus), while the Father does not have a nature because he is unborn. Hence, the nature or substance of the Son's divinity, as derivative from the Father, is less than the Father. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 15.
†63 The Son is powerful, but the Father is omnipotent. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 9.
†64 Maximinus clearly states that the Father did not make the Son out of some material or use an assistant. “Rather, in the way he knew, he begot the Son by his power and his wisdom.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 13. See the Fourth Creed of Sirmium (359) which says of the Son “whose generation no one knows save only the Father who begot him” (Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 289).
†65 Maximinus implies, of course, that only the Father knows how he generated the Son and that any use of the Nicene terminology to spell it out is illegitimate. He denies, nonetheless, that the Son was made from nothing like a creature, appealing to a canon of the Council of Ariminum that condemned the position that “the Son is from nothing and not from God the Father.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 13.
†66 Maximinus finds Augustine's comparison of the Father's generation of the Son to human or animal generation undignified and prefers to draw the comparison with the soul's generating, though it is not clear what it is that the soul generates. Debate with Maximinus 15, 14. See Answer to Maximinus II, xiv, 4, where Augustine points out this ambiguity.
†67 Though Maximinus admits that Christ is born of the substance of the Father, when it comes to spelling out the significance of this generation, he appeals to the Isaian text, “Who will tell of his generation?” (Is 53:8), to justify an agnostic stance with regard to any non-biblical specification of the nature of this generation. Thus he precludes the Nicene interpretation of the Son's generation whereby he is
homoousios with the Father. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 14.
†68
Maximinus invoked the many New Testament texts in which Jesus addresses the Father as his God and which speak of the God of Jesus Christ. See Jn 20:17, Eph 1:17, 2 Cor 11:31, Rom 15:6, and 2 Cor 1:3—all of which appear in Debate with Maximinus 15, 16. †69 Augustine interpreted such texts as referring to the human nature which Christ has assumed and in which he adored the Father as his God. Thus he maintained that in the form of God the Son was equal to the Father, while in the form of the servant he adored the Father as his God.
Maximinus finds it “quite foolish” to maintain that the Father is greater than the Son on account of the form of the servant. Maximinus holds that it is true without qualification that “the Father is greater than the Son and greater than this Son who is the great God.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 25. †70 Moreover, by “the form of the servant,”
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Maximinus does not understand a complete human nature, but merely a body or merely flesh. See Debate with Maximinus 12, where, according to Maximinus, Augustine attributes Christ's prayers “to the body,” and also Debate with Maximinus 13, where, according to Maximinus, Augustine takes the statement that the Father is greater than the Son (Jn 14:28) as referring “to the flesh.” In Debate with Maximinus 15, 14, Maximinus speaks of “the body he assumed for our salvation,” and in Debate with Maximinus 15, 16, he says that Christ “humbled himself while he was in a human body.”
†71 At the Council of Aquileia Palladius had interpreted Christ's statement,
The Father is greater than I (Jn 14:28), in the same way. As Hanson has remarked, it is characteristic of Arianism to maintain that the Word was united with a human body or human flesh without a human soul. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 110. See also Answer to an Arian Sermon V, 5, where Augustine mentions that it is characteristic of the Apollinarists to hold that Christ assumed human flesh without a human soul, but that the Arians also hold this doctrine.
†72 Thus, according to Hanson, the Arian theology can have in Christ a God who suffered. “We perceive the reason for this determined subordination of the Son to the Father when we realize that it was a central part of Arian theology that God
suffered.” Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 109.
†73
As the Son is the God of creation who humbled himself in becoming incarnate, so it is the Son who appeared to the Patriarchs of the Old Testament, while the Father remained invisible. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 26. †74 The Father, of whom scripture says, I am who I am and I have not changed (Ex 3:14 and Mal 3:6), “never turned himself into any forms,” that is, into the form of a man or of a dove, as the Son and the Holy Spirit did. Debate with Maximinus 15, 26. †75 But the Son did, Maximinus implies, change himself into the form of a man when the Word was united with a human body or human flesh. The mutability and passivity of the Son—not merely in the servant form, but in the form of God—was central to Arian Christology, providing as it did a God who suffered and not just in the human form he assumed.
And One Holy Spirit
Maximinus continues his profession of faith “that there is one Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, who enlightens and sanctifies our souls.” Debate with Maximinus 4. †76 Augustine opened the dialogue, asking why the Holy Spirit is singled out as the one who enlightens us. Maximinus explains that he enlightens insofar as he teaches. If Paul was the light of the nations (Acts 13:47), the Holy Spirit was so even more. See Debate with Maximinus 5. †77 Ultimately, all light comes from the one source through the Son, through the Holy Spirit, and through the saints. See Debate with Maximinus 5. †78 Everything that the Holy Spirit has he has received from the Son. “If the Holy Spirit enlightens, or teaches, or instructs, he has obtained it all from Christ….” Debate with Maximinus 9. †79 Thus the Holy Spirit is subject to the Son, as the Son is subject to the Father.
Maximinus honors “the Holy Spirit as teacher, as guide, as enlightener, as sanctifier.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 5. †80 As the Father is simple power and the Son is the power of God, so the Holy Spirit is power in accord with Christ's promise that his disciples would be clothed with power from on high (Lk 24:49). Debate with Maximinus 15, 10. †81 Maximinus takes Augustine's claim that the Holy Spirit has the same substance as the Father to entail that the Holy Spirit ought to be a son and heir as well. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 14. †82 If the Holy Spirit is equal to the Son, then the Son is, he argues, not the only-begotten, since the Holy Spirit would also be begotten and begotten of the same substance as the Son. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 14. †83 Though scripture clearly says that all things were created through the Son, Maximinus
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insists that those words cannot be understood of the Holy Spirit and that there is no scriptural support for the claim that he is equal to the Son. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 17.
†84 That the Holy Spirit intercedes on our behalf with groans does not indicate his unhappiness, but his glory. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 19 and Rom 8:26-27.
†85 Maximinus interprets 1 Corinthians 3:16 in the sense that “God does not dwell in a human being that the Holy Spirit has not first sanctified and cleansed.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 21.
†86 Thus Mary was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit in order that Christ might become incarnate in her womb. See Lk 1:35 and Debate with Maximinus 15, 21.
†87 Maximinus challenges Augustine to produce the texts of scripture that show the Holy Spirit is God, Lord, King, Creator, Maker, seated with the Father and Son and adored with the Father and Son. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 21.
†88 On the other hand, Maximinus is quite willing to follow the scriptures and state that
no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:3) and that we cry out,
Abba, Father, in the Holy Spirit (Rom 8:15). He admits that the Holy Spirit is present wherever people confess the Lordship of Jesus and wherever anyone is baptized. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 21.
†89 Thus the Holy Spirit has great power, and to take anything away from the Holy Spirit is to take it away from the Son, just as to fail to honor the Son means to fail to honor the Father. See Jn 5:23.
†90 Yet, the Holy Spirit is not to be called God and not to be adored and worshipped.
The Unity of the Three
Maximinus clearly proclaims the threeness of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit: “The Father is the Father and was never the Son; the Son is the Son and always remains the Son; and the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit.” Debate with Maximinus 12. †91 Moreover, he clearly takes the Nicene claim that the three are equal and the same to imply a denial of a real threeness. See Debate with Maximinus 12. †92 Hence, he holds that they are “one in agreement, in harmony, in charity, in unanimity.” Debate with Maximinus 12. †93 He interprets, “The Father and I are one” (Jn 10:30), in accord with the preceding verses as meaning that they are one “for defending and enlightening the sheep,” that is, one in a unity of harmonious activity. Debate with Maximinus 6. †94 Maximinus insists that the unity of the Father and the Son can only be established by scriptural proofs and appeals to Mark 14:36 and John 6:38 to show that “the will of the Son is in agreement and harmony with the will of the Father.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 20. †95 Indeed, the Son clings to the Father “in love and affection and unity and agreement and harmony,” thus becoming one spirit with the Father. Debate with Maximinus 15, 20; see 1 Cor 6:17. †96 Of Christ's prayer that his followers may be one, as he and the Father are one, Maximinus says, “I believe what I read; he speaks
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of love, not of substance.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 22.
†97 Maximinus apparently sees only two possibilities. Either the Father and Son are one in harmony, or they are one in number. He thinks that the latter alternative, which he takes to be the Nicene view, denies any real threeness and amounts to the Sabellian position that the three are merely different names for the same reality. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 22.
†98 Hence, for Maximinus, the Son is one with the Father in the same way that the apostles and the saints are one with the Father and the Son, in a unity of love, not in a unity of one divine substance. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 22.
†99 Ultimately, Maximinus holds that there are two Gods: the Father alone is God, while his only-begotten Son, Christ, is our God. To deny this amounts for Maximinus to the denial of the Christian faith in favor of the Jewish belief in the oneness of God. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 23.
†100
The orthodox Christian faith in the Trinitarian mystery attained clear articulation only through the long controversy that followed the Council of Nicaea. The Homoian Arianism vigorously defended by Maximinus more than a century after Nicaea bears witness to the difficulty of coming to a clear understanding of the mystery of the triune God. Maximinus tried faithfully to cling to the words of scripture, and he clearly professed the oneness of God and the threeness of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. However, the unity he professed was not a unity of three persons in one substance, but a moral unity of three: the God who is alone God, the Son who is the only-begotten God and our God, and the Holy Spirit who is not God at all. The radical subordination of the Son to the Father and of the Holy Spirit to the Father and Son in Homoian Arianism successfully preserved the threeness of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but failed sufficiently to account for the equality of the three and of the oneness of God proclaimed in the texts that Augustine will cite again and again: Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one (Dt 6:4) and There is no God save the one (1 Cor 8:4).
The Debate with Maximinus is a splendid example of theological controversy, but a complete failure as a dialogue and exchange of theological perspectives. Augustine and Maximinus both give the impression of being so firmly committed to their respective creedal formulae and theological positions, each bolstered by batteries of proof texts from the scriptures, that neither quite hears the other or takes into account the possibility that the other has some legitimate theological concerns. Simonetti remarks that the length of the Arian controversy resulted in both sides having become entrenched in their own radically divergent views so that it was “very difficult, if not impossible, to find the common basis indispensable for carrying on a debate that could hope to be constructive, even in part….” Simonetti, “S. Agostino e gli Ariani,” pp. 83-84 (my translation). †101 He adds regarding the debate between Augustine and Maximinus that the each of the opponents “did not so much aim at convincing his rival as at overwhelming him, at least in the eyes of the crowd that was present at the debate.” Ibid., p. 84 (my translation). †102
Hanson has very plausibly argued that the real theological concern behind Arianism was the soteriological demand for a God who suffered for us as God and not merely in the humanity he assumed. Yet Augustine—and for that matter, the whole Nicene side—showed no awareness that such a Christological concern might have some legitimacy. So too, Arianism approached the doctrine of the Trinity from the Eastern perspective that began with the Father, moved to the Son and the Holy Spirit and, finally, to an account of their unity, while
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Augustine began with the oneness of the divine substance within which there are the three persons. See Th. de Régnon, Etudes de théologie positive sur la trinité Vol. 4 (Paris, 1892-1898), for the distinction between the Greek-Antiochene and the Alexandrian-Western representation of the Trinity which M. Schmaus has declared a permanent acquisition of the history of dogma; see M. Schmaus, “Die Spannung von Metaphysik und Heilsgeschichte in der Trinitätslehre Augustins,” Studia Patristica VI, pt. 4. Texte und Untersuchungen 81 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1962), 503-518, here 503-504.
†103 Thus Arianism begins with God the Father—much more in the spirit of the New Testament—while Augustine begins with the one God, who is shown to be Father, Son and Holy Spirit. On the other hand, in claiming that “the real difficulties of the specifically Western doctrine of the Trinity” stem from his beginning “from the unity of the divine nature” and that “in this respect Augustine had against him not only the Greeks… but also the New Testament,” Hans Küng goes too far and fails to appreciate the lasting value of Augustine's contribution to the understanding of the mystery in the context of the Arian dispute. See H. Küng, On Being a Christian, trans. by E. Quinn (New York: Doubleday, 1976), 475. I have omitted some italics from the quote.
†104
The Text Translated
The translation of the Debate with Maximinus the Arian is based on the text in Migne's PL 42, 709-740. Since there is no modern critical edition, I have reproduced the alternative readings from the PL edition in the notes. The work has never been previously translated into English. There are at least two translations into other languages.
In French: Oeuvres complètes de Saint Augustin, tr. M. l'abbé Bardot, (Bar-le-Duc, 1869), volume 14, 564-592.
In Spanish: Obras completas de San Agustìn, tr. by José Maria Ozaeta (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1990), volume XXXVIII, 349-451.
Notes
†1 These works came too late in Augustine's career to be mentioned in his Revisions.
†2 Possidius, Life of Augustine 17.
†3 See ibid.
†4 See Vita sancti Aurelii Augustini ex ejus potissimum scriptis concinnata VIII, vi, 3: as well as Debate with Maximinus 1.
†5 See Debate with Maximinus 1. Although Maximinus disparages such merely human instruments as literary skill and philosophy and admits that he was untrained in the liberal arts, he was hardly an uneducated bumpkin. Moreover, his command of the scriptures is quite impressive—so much so that it seems that he at times overwhelms the elderly bishop of Hippo, not merely with the length of his discourses, but with his well-stocked arsenal of Arian “proof texts.”
†6 Maximinus refers to himself as younger than Augustine; see Debate with Maximinus 11. M. Simonetti suggests as Maximinus' date of birth 360-365; see Patrology. Vol. IV. The Golden Age of Latin Patristic Literature from the Council of Nicaea to the Council of Chalcedon, ed. Angelo Di Berardino, tr. by Placid Solari (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1991) 98.
†7 Debate with Maximinus 1.
†8 M. Meslin, Les Ariens d'Occident 335-430 (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1967).
†9 See Patrology IV, 98.
†10 See Patrology IV, 101.
†11 M. Simonetti says of the work, “This text has great importance not only from an historical,
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but also from a doctrinal perspective; in fact, in the words of Maximinus we have the most detailed exposition of the Arian doctrine that has come from a Latin source” (“Arianesimo latino,”
Studi Medievali 8 (1967), 663-774, here 688; my translation).
†12 In the PL edition, the sections of the first part are numbered from one to fourteen, and those of the second part from one to twenty-six. Since this duplication of numbers makes references to the work confusing, I have followed the convention adopted in the BAC edition and have numbered the sections of the second part under fifteen, for example, 15, 10 or 15, 25.
†13 See Debate with Maximinus 2. The emperor Constantius convened the Western bishops in Ariminum and the Eastern bishops at Seleucia. See Hahn, Bibliothek der Symbole, 208, for the Creed of Ariminum.
†14 Dialogus contra Luciferianos 19: PL XXIII, 181.
†15 Debate with Maximinus 3.
†16 Debate with Maximinus 1.
†17 Debate with Maximinus 15, 21.
†18 Debate with Maximinus 15, 5.
†19 Debate with Maximinus 13.
†20 See Debate with Maximinus 13. Thus Maximinus holds a very strong form of the “sola scriptura” principle.
†21 Debate with Maximinus 4.
†22 Debate with Maximinus 15, 13.
†23 Debate with Maximinus 15, 20.
†24 Debate with Maximinus 13.
†25 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 26.
†26 Debate with Maximinus 15, 14.
†27 Debate with Maximinus 15, 14.
†28 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 18.
†29 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 14.
†30 Debate with Maximinus 15, 23.
†31 Debate with Maximinus 15, 23.
†32 Debate with Maximinus 4. See Gryson's chapter on the theology of the scolia in Scolies ariennes, 173-200, which provides an excellent introduction to the Arian theology for which Maximinus is a principal spokesman. Gryson notes that Maximinus uses the same words to profess his faith as Ulfila, the apostle of the Goths, had used, according to Auxentius; see Gryson, 179-180.
†33 See Debate with Maximinus 5.
†34 Debate with Maximinus 11.
†35 Debate with Maximinus 12.
†36 Debate with Maximinus 13.
†37 Debate with Maximinus 13.
†38 Debate with Maximinus 13.
†39 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 9.
†40 Debate with Maximinus 15, 9.
†41 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 9.
†42 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 10.
†43 Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God 563.
†44 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 13.
†45 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 14.
†46 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 9; 15, 6 and 15, 14.
†47 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 13 and 15, 15.
†48 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 13.
†49 Debate with Maximinus 13.
†50 Debate with Maximinus 4.
†51 Debate with Maximinus 13.
†52 Debate with Maximinus 10.
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†53 See Debate with Maximinus 10 and Jn 8:29.
†54 See Debate with Maximinus 12.
†55 See Debate with Maximinus 13.
†56 Debate with Maximinus 13.
†57 Debate with Maximinus 15, 2.
†58 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 3 and 15, 23.
†59 Debate with Maximinus 13.
†60 Debate with Maximinus 15, 5.
†61 Debate with Maximinus 15, 5 and 15, 9.
†62 Debate with Maximinus 15, 5.
†63 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 15.
†64 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 9.
†65 Debate with Maximinus 15, 13. See the Fourth Creed of Sirmium (359) which says of the Son “whose generation no one knows save only the Father who begot him” (Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 289).
†66 Debate with Maximinus 15, 13.
†67 Debate with Maximinus 15, 14. See Answer to Maximinus II, xiv, 4, where Augustine points out this ambiguity.
†68 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 14.
†69 See Jn 20:17, Eph 1:17, 2 Cor 11:31, Rom 15:6, and 2 Cor 1:3—all of which appear in Debate with Maximinus 15, 16.
†70 Debate with Maximinus 15, 25.
†71 See Debate with Maximinus 12, where, according to Maximinus, Augustine attributes Christ's prayers “to the body,” and also Debate with Maximinus 13, where, according to Maximinus, Augustine takes the statement that the Father is greater than the Son (Jn 14:28) as referring “to the flesh.” In Debate with Maximinus 15, 14, Maximinus speaks of “the body he assumed for our salvation,” and in Debate with Maximinus 15, 16, he says that Christ “humbled himself while he was in a human body.”
†72 Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 110. See also Answer to an Arian Sermon V, 5, where Augustine mentions that it is characteristic of the Apollinarists to hold that Christ assumed human flesh without a human soul, but that the Arians also hold this doctrine.
†73 Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 109.
†74 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 26.
†75 Debate with Maximinus 15, 26.
†76 Debate with Maximinus 4.
†77 See Debate with Maximinus 5.
†78 See Debate with Maximinus 5.
†79 Debate with Maximinus 9.
†80 Debate with Maximinus 15, 5.
†81 Debate with Maximinus 15, 10.
†82 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 14.
†83 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 14.
†84 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 17.
†85 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 19 and Rom 8:26-27.
†86 Debate with Maximinus 15, 21.
†87 See Lk 1:35 and Debate with Maximinus 15, 21.
†88 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 21.
†89 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 21.
†90 See Jn 5:23.
†91 Debate with Maximinus 12.
†92 See Debate with Maximinus 12.
†93 Debate with Maximinus 12.
†94 Debate with Maximinus 6.
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†95 Debate with Maximinus 15, 20.
†96 Debate with Maximinus 15, 20; see 1 Cor 6:17.
†97 Debate with Maximinus 15, 22.
†98 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 22.
†99 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 22.
†100 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 23.
†101 Simonetti, “S. Agostino e gli Ariani,” pp. 83-84 (my translation).
†102 Ibid., p. 84 (my translation).
†103 See Th. de Régnon, Etudes de théologie positive sur la trinité Vol. 4 (Paris, 1892-1898), for the distinction between the Greek-Antiochene and the Alexandrian-Western representation of the Trinity which M. Schmaus has declared a permanent acquisition of the history of dogma; see M. Schmaus, “Die Spannung von Metaphysik und Heilsgeschichte in der Trinitätslehre Augustins,” Studia Patristica VI, pt. 4. Texte und Untersuchungen 81 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1962), 503-518, here 503-504.
†104 See H. Küng, On Being a Christian, trans. by E. Quinn (New York: Doubleday, 1976), 475. I have omitted some italics from the quote.
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Debate with Maximinus
1. Augustine and Maximinus met together in Hippo Regius, with many present, both clerics and lay persons. The debate occurred in 427 or 428. In his Life of Augustine 17, Possidius tells us that Maximinus came to Africa with the Goths. Maximinus mentions that he was sent to Hippo by Count Segisvult who came to Africa against Boniface during the consulate of Hierius and Arduber, that is, in 427, according to Prosper's Epitoma chronicae. †1
Maximinus said, “I did not come to this city in order to stage a debate with Your Holiness. Rather, I am here, sent by Count Segisvult Comite Segisvulto. The earlier editions: comite regis multa. In some manuscripts: comite Fegisvulto, but in others more correctly: comite Segisvulto. †2 with a view to peace. In fact, though I had been challenged by him, I responded as well as I could to Heraclius, Augustine had appointed the priest, Heraclius, to take over some of the episcopal administration and to succeed him upon his death. It was probably this same Heraclius who first debated Maximinus and who summoned Augustine to his assistance; see Vita sancti Aurelii Augustini ex ejus potissimum scriptis concinnata VIII, vi, 3. †3 a priest who was holding a discussion with me under friendly conditions, but he became so angry that he summoned you to face me. Since Your Holiness has deigned to do yourself this injury, Manuscripts: sibi injuriam facere; editions: mihi injuriam facere. †4 if you ask questions, I will answer on the points where I can. If you say something reasonable, I shall have to agree. If you produce from the divine scriptures something that we all share, we shall have to listen. But those words which are not found in the scriptures are under no circumstance accepted by us, especially since the Lord warns us, saying, In vain they worship me, teaching human commandments and precepts” (Mt 15:9). Maximinus' refusal to use terms not found in scripture bears in particular upon the terms used by the Council of Nicaea (325): “from the substance of the Father” and “of the same substance (homoousios).” See below 13; 15, 13; and 15, 21 for further examples of Maximinus' insistence upon scripture alone. †5
2. Augustine said, “If I wanted to reply to all these items, I too would seem to be trying to avoid the point at issue. Hence, in order that we may quickly come to the point, state for me your faith concerning the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
Maximinus answered, “If you ask for my faith, I hold that faith which was not only stated, but was also ratified at Ariminum Mss: Arimino; Migne: Arimini. †6 by the signatures of three hundred and thirty bishops.” The Council of Ariminum was convoked in 359 by the Arian Emperor Constantius. The Western bishops met at Ariminum (modern Rimini, in northeastern Italy), while the Eastern bishops met at Seleucia. It was of Ariminum that Saint Jerome wrote that “the world groaned and was astonished to find itself Arian” (Dialogus contra Luciferianos 19). †7
3. Augustine said, “I have already said this, but I repeat it, because you have refused to answer: State for me your faith concerning the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
Maximinus answered, “Since I have not refused to answer, why am I accused by Your Holiness as though I made no response.”
4. Augustine said, “I said that you refused to answer, because when I asked you to tell me your faith concerning the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit—and I ask this now too—you did not tell me your faith, but mentioned the Council of Ariminum. I want to know your faith, what you believe, what you think concerning the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. If you are willing, I will listen to what you say. Do not send me to those writings. They are not now at hand, nor I am bound by their authority. State what you believe concerning the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
Maximinus answered, “I wanted the decree of the Council of Ariminum to be present, not to excuse myself, but to show the authority of those fathers who
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handed on to us in accord with the divine scriptures the faith which they learned from the divine scriptures. For Maximinus the authority of the fathers at Ariminum is derived from the fact that they handed on the faith contained in the scriptures and in the way it is found in the scriptures.
†8 But have it your way, since
with the heart it is believed unto justice, but with the lips confession is made unto salvation (Rom 10:10). We are, indeed, instructed and prepared to make answer to everyone who demands an account of the faith and hope which is in us. See 1 Pt 3:15.
†9 Moreover, the Lord Jesus himself says,
He who shall have confessed me before men, I will confess him before my Father who is in heaven, and he who shall have denied me before men, I will deny him before my Father who is in heaven (Mt 10:32-33). This is the danger I fear, though I am not unaware of the imperial laws. Arianism had been outlawed by imperial decree, but survived, especially among the barbarian tribes, so that it was reintroduced to Italy and Africa with the invasion of the Goths.
†10 Still, I have been taught by the command of the Savior, who warned us with the words,
Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul (Mt 10:28). My reply is clear: I believe that there is one God the Father who has received life from no one and that there is one Son who has received from the Father his being and his life so that he exists and that there is one Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, who enlightens and sanctifies our souls. I state this on the basis of the scriptures. At your bidding, I will follow up with testimonies. If Your Holiness finds fault on some point, I will make answer on those points on which I am thought to be at fault.”
5. Augustine said, “It bothers me that you state that the Holy Spirit enlightens us by himself, as if Christ did not enlighten us. The Arian position attributed different external operations to different persons of the Trinity. Thus the Son was the creator of this world, and the Holy Spirit was the enlightener of souls. This doctrine, of course, implies an inequality among the persons. †11 I want, first of all, to hear what you think on this point.”
Maximinus answered, “We acknowledge one author, God the Father, from whom all enlightenment comes down by stages. Here we see operative one of the basic principles of Arian thought, namely, that everything derivative is less than that from which it is derived. Though Augustine's question might seem tangential, it provokes from Maximinus a clear statement of the subordination of the Son to the Father and of the Holy Spirit to the Son. †12 Even Paul, the apostle, bears witness concerning himself in the Acts of the Apostles. There he says, Thus God has commanded us, and adds among other things, I have made you the light of the nations (Acts 13:47). If the apostle was made the light of the nations insofar as he was their teacher, how much more is the Holy Spirit the light of the nations, since he enlightened the apostle? In him the apostle spoke, according to the words of the apostle himself, that no one can say that Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:3). Certainly the Holy Spirit enlightens, for he enlightened the apostle. But the Holy Spirit received this from Christ, according to the testimony of Christ himself. Christ says in the gospel, I have many things to tell you, but you cannot bear them now. But when the Spirit of truth shall have come, he will lead you to all the truth. He will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he will hear, and he will make known to you what is to come. He will glorify me, because he will receive from what is mine and will make it known to you (Jn 16:12-14). Hence, the Holy Spirit has received from Christ, according to the testimony of Christ. Beyond all doubt, Christ himself confesses that my teaching is not mine, but comes from the Father who sent me (Jn 7:16) and I speak what I have seen and heard with my Father (Jn 8:38). Hence, if Christ in teaching enlightens us, the Father who has sent him enlightens us. If
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the Holy Spirit enlightens us, the enlightenment stems from the author who is the source of goodness. From him the blessed apostle and all the saints as well have obtained this. They enlighten the believers, but this enlightenment stems from the one author. And for that reason, the prophet said,
The Lord is my enlightenment and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” (Ps 26:1).
6. Augustine said, “I do not deny that the Holy Spirit enlightens, but does Christ also enlighten by himself and does the Father enlighten by himself or do they enlighten only through the Holy Spirit? This is in brief what I have asked and what I now ask.”
Maximinus answered, “I believe that Your Holiness is aware that the blessed apostle Paul said, But when the kindness and humanity of the Savior our God appeared, he saved us, not because of the works of justice which we have done, but according to his mercy through the bath of regeneration and of renewal by the Holy Spirit whom he poured out upon us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior (Ti 3:4-6). In accord with this rule, I say and profess that the Holy Spirit enlightens us through the Son. The sense of the preposition “through” shifts during this discussion. Here the preposition seems to mean that the Holy Spirit enlightens us in virtue of the light received from the Son. Above it seems to have meant that the Son uses the Holy Spirit as a means of enlightening us. †13 As we said above, he poured out the Holy Spirit upon us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior. Now I have given my response: if Paul enlightens, this enlightenment stems from the author, God the Father, and if the Holy Spirit enlightens, the enlightenment stems from the author, and if Christ enlightens, the enlightenment stems from the author. Instructed by this teaching of Christ, I continue, as Christ himself says, My sheep hear my voice and follow me, and I give eternal life to them. They will not perish forever, and no one will take them from my hand. What my Father has given to me is greater than all, and no one can take that from the hand of my Father. Again he speaks as follows, The Father and I are one (Jn 10:27-30). Hence, for defending and enlightening the sheep, the Father and the Son are one, of one heart and one soul, in accord with the account which you have heard, for no one can take from my hand the sheep which the Father has given me, and this holds for the hand of the Father as well.” According to Maximinus, the union of the Father and the Son is a dynamic or moral unity, not a unity of substance. †14
7. Augustine said, “You say things that are important, but not for the topic at hand. You have not answered my question, though you have spoken at length. If you want to set aside the point of dispute between us and recite the whole gospel, how many days will suffice, how much time will we need? Tell me in a few words what I have asked you: Does Christ enlighten by himself or only enlighten through the Holy Spirit? Not only have you refused to answer this question, but unless my hearing has deceived me, you said rather that the Holy Spirit enlightens through Christ.” See above, the preceding paragraph. †15
Maximinus answered, “It is not proper in a matter of religion, especially when we are talking about God, to make false accusations. I have given a response, and if what we have said is not enough, we will add testimonies that the Holy Spirit is poured out upon all believers through Jesus Christ. We read
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that blessed Peter spoke in this way,
God has raised up this Jesus, and we are all witnesses of this. Therefore, exalted at the right hand of God, after he had received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father, he poured out this gift that you now see and hear (Acts 2:32-33). I said that everything which the Holy Spirit suggests to us he has obtained from Christ. Go back to the testimonies I gave before, and you will find that to be the case.” See above, 5.
†16
8. Augustine said, “When you try to prove what I do not deny, you use up valuable time on needless matters. I do not deny that the Holy Spirit was poured out upon believers through Christ. There is no point in your trying with so much delay to prove by testimonies what I admit. This is what I said; this is what I asked for; I say it again: Does Christ enlighten through the Holy Spirit or does the Holy Spirit enlighten through Christ? You said before that the Holy Spirit enlightens through Christ. If you do not remember, let your words be read from the proceedings. Let it be noted that we ordered them to be read, and I will prove that you said what I am after.”
Maximinus answered, “The proof was needed, if you were not satisfied. Now you have followed the testimonies I offered or the argument I gave so that you have it too. Since this question is at an end, raise another on which I may reply to you. After all, you have already declared that you were satisfied on this question.”
9. Augustine said, “Did you say that the Holy Spirit enlightens through Christ, or did you not say this? I ask you to be so kind as to give me in a few words one answer or the other. Did you say it, or not?”
Maximinus replied, “I have professed the Holy Spirit according to the teaching of the Savior. If he enlightens, he has received this from Christ; if he teaches, he has received this from Christ. Everything whatsoever that the Holy Spirit does, he has obtained from the only-begotten God, “The only-begotten God” is one of the favorite titles for Christ among the Homoian Arians. The fact that the Holy Spirit has received from Christ whatever he has indicates for Maximinus the inferiority of the Holy Spirit to the only-begotten God. †17 and if the testimonies are insufficient, I will add to them.”
10. Augustine said, “Lest he say that we are falsely accusing him, let his words be read from a little before.”
Antony, the notary, read the passage: “I say and profess that the Holy Spirit enlightens us through the Son. As we said above, he poured out the Holy Spirit upon us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior.” See above, 6. †18
After it had been read, Maximinus answered, “It seems that you yourself would prefer to delay so that we do not get back to the main point. Rather, you want to detain us with arguments on one question for the whole day. We repeat that the Holy Spirit has been poured out through the Son, and we have produced as witnesses not only blessed Paul, but also Peter, the first of the apostles. Our stated position maintains that the Holy Spirit received from Christ in accord with the preceding testimony, He will glorify me, because he will receive from what is mine and will make it known to you (Jn 16:14). I am compelled to say the same thing again: if the Holy Spirit enlightens, or teaches, or instructs, he
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has obtained it all from Christ, because through Christ
all things were made, and without him nothing was made (Jn 1:3). Maximinus' words imply that the Holy Spirit has been “made,” that is, that he is a creature. Throughout this part of the debate Maximinus appeals implicitly to the principle that to have received something from another entails being inferior to that other.
†19 Christ says that he obtained all these things from his Father, and he lives on account of the Father, and
every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord in the glory of God the Father (Phil 2:11). And Et quia; manuscripts: Quid est et quia.
†20 Christ is the head of every man, while the man is head of the woman, but God is the head of Christ (1 Cor 11:3). The Holy Spirit was subject to the Son, and the Son was subject to the Father as the beloved, as the obedient, as the good Son born of the good Father. The Father did not beget a son opposed to him; he begot one who also cried out and said,
I always do those things which are pleasing to the Father” (Jn 8:29).
11. Augustine said, “If Christ enlightens through the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit enlightens through Christ, their power is equal. Here we have the point that Augustine has been seeking to establish. Maximinus' claim, however, that the Spirit is subject to the Son starts him off on another line of argumentation. †21 But read me the passage in which the Holy Spirit was subject to Christ, as you said a little before. See above, the previous paragraph. †22 What you claim the Lord said of the Holy Spirit, He will receive from what is mine, was said that way, because the Son received from the Father and everything which belongs to the Father without a doubt belongs to the Son. After all, when he said this, he added, For this reason, I said, he will receive from what is mine, because all the things which the Father has are mine (Jn 16:15.14). State then what I have asked, and prove by testimonies that the Holy Spirit was subject to Christ. Instead, we read that he says, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, Augustine appeals to the force of the preposition “upon” or “above” (super) to show that the Spirit is not inferior to the Son. †23 because he has anointed me The editions add: misit me, which is missing from the manuscripts and from Answer to An Arian Sermon XXII, 18. †24 to bring the good news to the poor (Lk 4:18). If he said that the Holy Spirit was upon him, how can you say that the Holy Spirit was subject to Christ? Christ said that the Holy Spirit was upon him, not because he is above the Word of God, who is God, but because he is above the man, because the Word became flesh. When scripture says, The Word became flesh (Jn 1:14), it means the same thing as that the Word became man. Arian doctrine denied the presence of a human soul in Christ, a view which seemed to derive support from a literal reading of Jn 1:14. Hence, Augustine points out that the scriptural uses of “flesh” where it is synonymous with “man” or “human being.” †25 After all, all flesh will see the salvation of God (Is 40:5) means the same thing as that every human being will see it. And, In the Law no flesh is justified (Rom 3:20) means the same thing as that no human being is justified. Because, then, the Word became flesh and because he emptied himself, taking the form of the servant (Phil 2:7), he said in the form of the servant, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. The power is equal, the substance is one, the divinity is the same. Hence, we worship the Trinity, because the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but we still worship one God, because the ineffable and lofty union of the Trinity Trinitatis; some manuscripts: Trinitas. †26 reveals that there is one God, one Lord. Thus scripture said, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one (Dt 6:4). Why do you want to make two gods and two lords for us? You say that the Father is Lord and the Father is God; you say that Christ is Lord and Christ is God. I ask you whether both of them together are one. You answer that they are two gods. Maximinus admits that the Son is God, but by having made the Son inferior to the Father, he winds up with two gods—a position that runs counter to Dt 6:4, as Augustine points out again and again. †27 All that remains for you is to make temples and idols for them.”
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Maximinus answered, “The authors of religion never resort to false accusations. You asked for testimonies in order that I might show by testimonies what I have professed, and you yourself have professed three that are the same and equal, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And, though you professed that the three are equal, you now turn around and produce the testimony of the divine scriptures that pertains not to their equality, but to the singleness of the omnipotent God, that there is one author of all things. Maximinus does not accept the equality of the three, namely, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and understands the singleness of the omnipotent God as referring to the Father, the one author of all else. †28 You take precedence by your age and have greater authority; hence, go first and show by testimonies that there are three equals, three omnipotents, three unbegottens, three invisibles, three incomprehensibles. Then we would have to yield to these testimonies. But if you cannot give an account of this from the divine scriptures, then I must produce testimonies to the extent that you want for everything I have said in the foregoing: either that the Father alone receives his life from no one or that the Son Sive Filium; manuscripts: sive Filius. †29 has received his life from the Father, as I have professed, or what I have said of the Holy Spirit.”
12. Augustine said, “You have not said what I asked that you be so kind as to say, namely, by what testimony you would prove that the Holy Spirit was subject to Christ. I am, nonetheless, going to answer the questions that you have set forth. We do not say that there are three omnipotents, just as we do not say there are three gods. If someone asks us about them singly: Is the Father God? We say that he is God. Is the Son God? We say that he is God. Is the Holy Spirit God? We say that he is God. But when someone asks us about all of them: Are they three gods? We appeal to the divine scriptures which say, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one (Dt 6:4). In Et in; editions: Et ex. †30 that divine commandment we learn that the same Trinity is one God. In the same way, if someone asks about each of them: Is the Father omnipotent? We answer that he is omnipotent. Is the Son omnipotent? We make the same answer about him. Is the Holy Spirit omnipotent? We do not deny that he is omnipotent. But we do not say that there are three omnipotents, just as we do not say that there are three gods. Rather, as those three are one God, so those three are one omnipotent, and the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one invisible God. You have no grounds for thinking that we are trapped by arithmetic, since the power of the divinity goes beyond even the meaning of number. Augustine's statement might seem to imply that God's power extends to principles of arithmetic, though he is merely arguing that, if the charity of the Holy Spirit could make many human beings one, then the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can, a fortiori, be one God, given their love for one another. Augustine's argument, on the other hand, is not entirely felicitous, since the analogy with the unity of the faithful implies that the unity of the three persons is a merely moral unity—the sort of unity of the three persons that the Arians readily admitted; see M. Simonetti, “S. Agostino et gli Ariani,” 70. †31 After all, the souls of many humans were somehow melted together by the reception of the Holy Spirit and the fire of charity, and they became one soul. As the apostle states, They had one soul and one heart (Acts 4:32). The charity of the Holy Spirit made so many hearts, so many thousands of hearts, one heart. The Holy Spirit called so many thousands of souls one soul, because he made them one soul. How much more do we call the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit one God, since they always cling to one another inseparably and with ineffable charity?”
Maximinus answered, “You said that they are the same and equal, a point
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you were not able to show by testimonies, and for this reason you turned to another topic. We do not disbelieve, but know with certain faith that all the faithful had one heart and soul. That is not against, but rather in accord with our religion. If, beyond any doubt, all the faithful had one heart and soul, why should we not say that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one in agreement, in harmony, in charity, in unanimity? Maximinus picks up Augustine's argument in the previous paragraph and takes him to imply that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are merely a moral unity, not one in substance.
†32 After all, what did the Son do that did not please the Father? What did the Father command and the Son not obey? When did the Holy Spirit command anything contrary to Christ or the Father? From the statement of the Savior that says,
The Father and I are one (Jn 10:30), it is clear that they are one in harmony and agreement.
“As you yourself have professed, the Father is the Father and was never the Son; the Son is the Son and always remains the Son; and the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit. We profess that this Holy Spirit is also what we read, that this Holy Spirit is so great and so good that even the angels desire to gaze upon him. See 1 Pt 1:12. †33 This Holy Spirit is so great that he is everywhere able to hear the prayers of all and act as an advocate. Et advocatione fungi; manuscripts: et advocationem fungi. †34 I offer blessed Paul as a witness to this. He says, We do not know what we should ask for in a fitting manner, but the Spirit himself pleads on our behalf with indescribable groans (Rom 8:26). I believe what I read, namely, that the Holy Spirit pleads on our behalf with indescribable groans. And so, instructed by this teaching, I say that the Holy Spirit was subject to the extent that he pleads on our behalf with groans.
“I profess one God, not that the three are one; rather, there is one God, incomparable, immense, infinite, unborn, and invisible. Maximinus holds that the Father is the one God and characterizes him by the series of negative attributes; he rejects the view that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the one God. †35 The Son himself prayed to him and prays to him. With him the Holy Spirit also acts as an advocate. After all, the Son prays to the Father, though you usually apply all these testimonies that we read in the gospel to the body. Maximinus implies that Christ does not have a human soul when he understands Augustine as attributing Christ's prayer to his body. †36 Our goal is to show by searching the divine scriptures that, even now while he is seated at the right hand of the Father, he intercedes for us. For that reason, I said that he prayed and he prays, because even now he intercedes for us, as the apostle says, Who will make accusations against God's chosen ones? God who justifies? Who is it who will condemn them? Christ who has died, and what is more, who rose, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes on our behalf? (Rom 8:33-34). Likewise, when he was with his disciples, Christ promised that he would make requests in that way. He said, If you love me, keep my commandments, and I will ask the Father and he will give you another advocate that he may be with you forever, the Spirit of Truth, whom this world cannot receive, because it does not see him or know him. But you see him and know Cognoscitis; Louvain edition: cognoscetis. †37 him, because he remains with you and is in you (Jn 14:15-17). If these testimonies are sufficient, fine; if they are not, Si sufficiunt haec, bene est: si quominus; Amerbach, Erasmus and manuscripts: Si sufficiunt? si quo non. †38 I will add as many as you want.”
13. Augustine said, “You should not prove to us what we admit. In doing so, you merely waste valuable time, as I said before. We know that the Son of God
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is the Son of God; we know that he does not come from himself, but is begotten by the Father, though the Father is unbegotten, comes from no one, and has received life from no one. We know that the Son has received life from the Father, but not in such a way that he was once without life and then received it. The Father gave him life by begetting life; by begetting him as life, he gave him life. He reveals his equality, when he says,
As the Father has life in himself, so he gave it to the Son that he has life in himself (Jn 5:26). The Father has life in himself; the Son has life in himself equal to the life of the Father. Still, the Son did not receive life from himself, because he was not born from himself, but born from the Father. The Father gave by begetting; the Son did not first exist without life and then the Father gave him life, as we were once sinners without life and then received life through pardon and grace. He received life from the Father, because he was born from the Father as life.
“So too, you could only say that the Holy Spirit was subject to the Son, because he pleads on our behalf with groans. That perfect holiness is, to your mind, always filled with groans and never ceases to groan. Imagine the eternal unhappiness! Understand the figure of speech, and you will avoid such irreverence. Scripture says, He pleads with groans, so that we might understand that he makes us to plead with groans. After all, he is with us and, by pouring charity into us, he makes us plead with groans. The Arian position takes such a text in its literal sense in order to show that the Spirit is subordinate to the Father and Son. Augustine appeals to the figure of metonomy to avoid the interpretation which would make the Holy Spirit literally groan. In accord with this figure what properly belongs to the effect is attributed to the cause. In the same way, we call a day happy day because it makes us happy. †39 Moreover, in one passage the apostle speaks of the Holy Spirit as crying out, “Abba, Father” (Gal 4:6), and in another he says, In him we cry out, “Abba, Father” (Rom 8:15). He explained the meaning of the Holy Spirit's crying out, “Abba, Father,” when he said, In him we cry out. Thus, what does crying out mean but: making us cry out.
“I will give another example of this sort of figure of speech. Does not God foreknow all future events? Who will be insane enough to say that he does not? Still, the apostle says, But now knowing God, even known by God (Gal 4:9). If God comes to know them now, he did not know them, he did not choose them, he did not predestine them before the creation of the world. He said, But now knowing God, even known by God, so that they would understand that God brought about in them a knowledge of him. Knowing God. What does knowing God mean? Do not credit it to yourself, do not be proud. You have been known by God. What does You have been known by God mean? God has made you know himself; God has granted that you know him. What do the words of the Lord, Now I know, mean? The Lord said to Abraham, Now I know that you fear the Lord (Gn 22:12). When Abraham brought his son for the sacrifice, God said to him, Now I know. Is this what God's foreknowledge amounts to? Did he come to know at that moment when he said, Now I know? What does, Now I know, mean? It means: Now I have made you know.
“If you recognized these figures of speech like a man learned in the divine books, you would not ascribe unhappiness to the Holy Spirit on account of those
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groans with which he is said to plead. What does it mean always to groan but always to be unhappy? Thus we groan because we are unhappy. And thanks be to the Holy Spirit, because he makes us groan for love of the eternal world; for this reason, he was said to groan. He makes us cry out, and for this reason, he was said to cry out. He makes us to know God, and for this reason scripture said,
Even known by God. God made Abraham know, and for this reason he said,
Now I know.”
Maximinus answered, “You yourself are caught doing what you blamed in us. It is certain, as the divine scripture warns us, that with much talking you will not escape sin, but that you will be wise, if you spare your lips. See Prv 10:19. †40 Even if one produces testimonies from the divine scriptures all day long, it will not be truly Revera; some manuscripts: res vera. †41 counted against one as wordiness. But if one uses some literary skill or cleverness Expressione; Louvain: expositione. †42 of mind and makes up words which the holy scriptures do not contain, they are both idle and superfluous. Maximinus' position is not merely that one does well to cite scripture, but that one does wrong in using human skills to formulate idle and superfluous words, that is, those not found in scripture. See Mt 12:36. The prime examples of such words would, of course, be those used by the Council of Nicaea. †43
“Having brought you to this rule, I am satisfied if you profess that the Father is the Father because he is unborn, because he has received life from no one, and that the Son received life from the Father, and that the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit. But in saying one God, you would do well if, in confessing the one God, you would not say that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God, thus going against your position. As Maximinus sees it, one cannot maintain both that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three and that they are one God. For him, the one God is the Father, while the Son is a lesser God and the Holy Spirit not God at all. †44
“We worship one God, unborn, unmade, invisible, who has not come down to human contacts and human flesh. Maximinus uses “contagium” in the plural; it can mean “contact” in a neutral sense or “infection” and “pollution”—that is, contact in a pejorative sense. Later, Augustine points out that the word carries a pejorative connotation and implies some contamination; see below 14. Hanson finds at the core of the Arian view the belief that the one God cannot himself create or come into contact with the world; thus, there is needed a lesser God who can create and become incarnate. See Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 100-106. †45 The Son is not a small, but a great God, as blessed Paul says, Awaiting the blessed hope and coming of the glory of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ (Ti 2:13). This great God, Christ, says, I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God (Jn 20:17). Jn 20:17 in which Jesus calls the Father his God was one of the Arian trump cards to prove that the Father is the God of the Son. †46 By his own subjection he acknowledged that there is one God. This is the one God, then, as we have already shown by testimonies, whom Christ and the Holy Spirit adore and every creature venerates and worships. According to Maximinus, the Son and the Holy Spirit adore the one God, the Father. Though the Son is a great God and the only-begotten God, he reveals his inferiority to the Father by adoring the Father. So too, Maximinus claims that the Holy Spirit adores the Father. †47 This is the reason we profess one God. It is not that a union or mixture of the Son with the Father—and certainly not a union or mixture of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son—makes one God. Maximinus indicates what he takes as the Nicene position regarding the oneness of God, namely, that the one God is a union or mixture of the three. †48 Rather, he alone is the one perfect God who, as you go on to say, See above, 13. †49 received life from no one and who granted to the Son his revelation, that he has life in himself. Maximinus speaks of the Son as the exemplum of the Father. That is, the Son is the expression or revelation of the Father. As the Arians held that a lesser God was needed for creation, so they held such a God was needed for revelation. †50 We say they are united in charity and in harmony.
“As we have already explained above, See above, 12. †51 the Father is other than and is not the Son; the Son himself taught us this when he said, If I bear witness to myself, my witness is not true; there is another who bears witness concerning me. And lest some presume to think that he said another, referring to John the Baptist or perhaps the apostle Peter or Paul, he went on to say, You consulted John, and he bore witness to the truth. But I do not accept testimony from any human being. Rather I say this that you might be saved. He says, He was a lamp burning and giving light, and you were willing to rejoice in its light for a time. But I have
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testimony greater than John's. The works which the Father gave me to do, the works which I do, bear witness that the Father has sent me. And the Father who has sent me himself bears witness concerning me (Jn 5:31-37). Who is so foolish as not to understand that one bears witness about another, the Father about the Son?
“The Father, of course, said, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased; hear him (Mt 17:5). I read beloved, and I believe that it is the Father who loves and the Son who is loved. I hear that Christ is the Only-Begotten, and I do not doubt that one has been begotten by the other. Paul cries out firstborn, saying, He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. And I profess in accord with the statement of the divine scriptures that the Son is firstborn, not unborn, and that in him were created all the things which are in the heavens and which are on the earth, those visible and those invisible, whether Thrones or Dominations or Principalities or Powers; all things were made through him and were created in him, and all things were established in him (Col 1:15-17). This Son of God is the only-begotten God, since he is before all. Though the Son is the Only-Begotten and the only-begotten God, his being born from the Father entails for Maximinus his being less than the Father. †52 He says, I speak what I have seen with my Father (Jn 8:38).
“This Son also says in the holy gospel the words that you attribute to the flesh, Once again Maximinus reveals that he thinks of Christ in the Word-flesh (Verbum-caro) scheme to the point that he does not admit a human soul in him. †53 If you loved me, you would surely be glad, because I go to the Father, because the Father is greater than I (Jn 14:28). When we read these words, we believe and profess according to the apostle that all things have been made subject to him as to a great God. See 1 Cor 15:28. †54 This great God whom the Father begot as such, as you yourself go on to say, See above, at the beginning of this section. †55 certainly admitted that the Father is greater, and he acknowledged him as the one God in whose embrace John the Evangelist describes him as being. Later Augustine goes after Maximinus for understanding the Son's being in the Father's embrace or bosom in a carnal, that is, bodily sense. See Answer to Maximinus II, 9, 2. †56
“Hear Audi utique; manuscripts: Audivi utique. †57 him as he cries out, speaking of the invisibility of the omnipotent God, that no one has ever seen God; the only-begotten Son who is in the embrace of the Father has revealed him (Jn 1:18). Instructed by this, Paul cries out and says, The blessed and alone powerful, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, who alone has immortality and dwells in inaccessible light. No human has seen or can see him; to him be honor and power forever. Amen (1 Tm 6:15-16). Again he says of him, To God who alone is wise, through Jesus Christ, to him be glory forever. Amen (Rom 16:27). And so, we speak of one God, because there is one God above all, unborn, unmade, as we went on to say. See above, 13. †58 But if you do not believe Paul when he calls the Son born, the firstborn of all creation, at least believe the Son when he speaks to Pilate who asked him, Are you then a king? Christ says, For this was I born (Jn 18:37). I read born; I profess what I read. I read firstborn; I do not disbelieve. Discredo with Amerbach, Erasmus and manuscripts; Louvain: discrepo. †59 I read only-begotten; even if I am tortured on the rack, I will not say otherwise. I profess what the holy scriptures teach us.
“But you say that the Father and the Son are one; call the Father only-begotten, call him firstborn. Say of the Son what belongs to the Father; call the Son
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unbegotten, The Migne text reads: only-begotten (unigenitum), though the sense requires unbegotten (ingenitum), which Maximinus above contrasts with only-begotten.
†60 call him unborn, say that no one has ever seen him or can see him. Go on to say of the Holy Spirit the sort of things we read of the Father in order to show that the Holy Spirit is equal to the Father. Say that, please; let me be your disciple. Go on to say concerning the Son that he is unborn, that he is without origin. If he is equal to the Father, he is surely the same as he is; if he is the same as the Father, then he is surely unborn; if he is unborn, then certainly no human has seen him. The Arian position argues that, if the Son is equal to the Father, one can say of the Son whatever one says of the Father. Thus, if the Father is unbegotten, the Son too is unbegotten. Or, if the Son is born, then the Father is born. In The Trinity Augustine distinguished between absolute and relative predicates and insisted that whatever is said of one person non-relatively is said of each of the other persons; see The Trinity VI, 2, 3. Augustine also points out that “begotten” is a relative term; hence, its negative is also relative; see The Trinity V, 7, 8. The Arian objection goes back to the Greek in which “unbegotten: agennetos” and “unmade: agenetos” were used interchangeably prior to the Arian controversy.
†61 Produce the testimonies, and instruct me, teach me, and you will have me as your disciple.”
14. Augustine said, “You said that you worshipped one God, as far as I could tell from what you said. It follows that either you do not worship Christ or you do not worship one God, but two. You also said of the Father that he did not come down to human contacts and to human flesh. Perhaps you do not know, but when one says 'contact,' that implies some contamination. See above, 13. Later Maximinus complains that Augustine should not have attacked him so harshly because of his ignorance of the connotation of the word; see below, 15, 8. Augustine's correction of his usage, however, does not seem particularly harsh. Furthermore, in using “contacts: contagia,” Maximinus has departed from the language of scripture and thus has violated his own rule, while revealing the need for human knowledge to provide a hermeneutic for the meaning of scripture. †62 Hence, you implied that Christ came down to human contamination. Thus, you have professed that Christ was defiled by human flesh. But I say—indeed, the Catholic faith which I hold with the Church of Christ says—that our Lord Jesus Christ became flesh in such a way that he suffered no contamination from the human race and from human flesh. He came to cleanse, not to be soiled. Hence, he took up a human soul and human flesh without any harmful contamination, and he deigned to save both of them, that is, both the human soul and human flesh, in himself. In Sermon 237, 4, Augustine insists, “He who created the whole redeemed the whole; the Word assumed the whole and liberated the whole. In him was the mind and intellect of a man; in him a soul giving life to the flesh; in him true and integral flesh; only sin was not in him.” †63
“Since you are not willing, as far as I can see, to yield to the truth concerning his invisibility, I ask that you think of Christ as visible in his flesh and as man. Insofar as the Word is God with God, he too is invisible. Christ is the wisdom of God. Even human wisdom is invisible. Will the wisdom of God, then, be visible? In what pertains to that nature in which he is equal to the Father, he is equally God, equally omnipotent, equally invisible, equally immortal. You also said, insofar as I could tell, that we should interpret the words of the apostle, Who alone has immortality (1 Tm 6:16), so that we understand the Father alone in that statement. Do you mean, then, that the Word of God is mortal? The wisdom of God is, according to you, not immortal! Do you not understand that the Son could in no sense have died if he had not taken from us human flesh? Finally, the flesh died in him; he himself did not die insofar as he is God, in the divinity in which he is equal to the Father. Hanson argues that at the heart of the Arian position is the claim that God himself truly suffered and died for us and not merely the human flesh that the Word assumed. See Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 121-122. †64 He said to human beings, Do not fear those who kill the body and then have nothing they can do (Lk 12:4), because the soul cannot die. Can the Word of God die? Can the Wisdom of God die? Could the Only-Begotten die, if he had not assumed flesh? But he did assume flesh in becoming man. Just as he knew that he was equal when he said, The Father and I are one (Jn 10:30), so he knew that he was inferior, because the Word became flesh and dwelled among us (Jn 1:14). In The Trinity II, 1, 2, Augustine speaks of the “canonical rule” by which “one understands that the Son of God is equal to the Father in accord with the form of God in which he exists and less than the Father in accord with the form of the servant that he has received….” See Jaroslav Pelikan, “Canonica regula: The Trinitarian Hermeneutics of Augustine,” Collectanea Augustiniana. Augustine: The Second Founder of the Faith. Ed. by Joseph A. Schnaubelt, O.S.A. and Frederick Van Fleteren (New York: Peter Lang, 1990), 327-341. Augustine cannot, of course, appeal to such a rule against Maximinus; he does, however, argue that all those passages in which the Son is described as less than or inferior to the Father are to be interpreted as referring to the assumed humanity. †65 He did not think it robbery to be equal to God. It was his nature, not robbery. He did not take it by
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theft; he was born such. Nonetheless,
he emptied himself, taking the form of the servant. You have acknowledged him as equal; now begin to acknowledge him as lesser:
taking the form of the servant, having come to be in the likeness of men and found in appearance as a man (Phil 2:6-7). Recognize the form in comparison with which the Father is greater; distinguish the saving history of the assumed man from the divinity that remains immortal, and you will not be mistaken in the words which you love so much to say, but refuse to understand.
“I profess, as you say, that the Father is unborn and that the Son is born. See above, 13. †66 But they are not of a different nature and substance, just because the one was not born and the other was born. If he was born, he is the Son; if he is the Son, he is the true Son, because he is the Only-Begotten. We too are called sons, but we are surely not all only-begotten sons, are we? He is the only-begotten Son in another way; he is a son by nature; we are by grace. He is the Only-Begotten, born of the Father; he is the same as the Father in nature, in substance. One who says that he has another nature, because he was born, denies that he is a true son. But we have the words of scripture, That we may be in his true Son Jesus Christ; he is true God and eternal life (1 Jn 5:20). Why is he true God? Because he is the true Son of God.
“He gave animals the power to generate the same kind of beings that they are; thus a human being generates a human being, a dog a dog. Does God not generate God? If, then, he has the same substance, why do you say that he is inferior? Is it perhaps because, when a human parent generates a child, even though a human generates a human, an adult parent generates a younger child? Let us wait, then, for Christ to grow up, just as humans generated by other humans grow up. But if Christ is what he is from his birth—which is not in time, but from eternity—and is still inferior, the human condition is better, for a human being can grow up and at some point come to the age of the parent and to the strength of the parent. How can he be a true son, though he never does this? See Sermon 139, 3, where Augustine argues that, if the Son is not of the same substance as the Father, then the Father has given birth to a monster, just as much as if a human mother gave birth to a non-human being. †67
“We acknowledge the Son as so great a God that we say that he is equal to the Father. Therefore, it was pointless for you to want to prove to us with testimonies and many words what we firmly profess. He said, My God and your God (Jn 20:17), in view of the human form in which he was. But in light of the words of John, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (Jn 1:1), the Father is not the God of God, but he is the God of Christ, because Christ became man. Thus he explained in the Psalms why the Father is his God: From the womb of my mother you are my God (Ps 21:11). When he said that he was his God from the womb of his mother, he showed that the Father is God for the Son, because the Son is man, and in that respect the Father is greater than the Son. Hence, he said, My God and your God. For this reason, we should not be surprised at the subjection which, as man, he shows to
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the Father, since, as scripture says, he was subject even to his parents. See Lk 2:51.
†68 Scripture says of him,
You have made him a little less than the angels (Ps 8:6).
“I would like you to show us by some testimonies from the scriptures where we can read that the Father is adored by the Holy Spirit. Although you do not offer testimonies, I admit that the Son adores the Father, because as man he adores God. Quoniam homo adorat Deum, with the manuscripts. The editions: quoniam hic adorat Deum. †69 I readily admit this was said of him as man, though you do not find this either in scripture. But I specifically ask you to read to us the passage or to mention a divine testimony where the Father was adored by the Holy Spirit. Perhaps there is one, but it escapes my mind. If you find one, I will answer how it should be interpreted, just as I answered concerning the groans in terms of the customary expression of the scriptures. See above, 13. †70
“You said that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are not one God by reason of that ineffable union; See above, 13. †71 do you want to know the force of that union? It is certainly clear, not from our expressions, but from the words of God, that the human spirit is distinct from the Spirit, the Lord. Spiritum Dominum, with the manuscripts. The editions: Spiritum Dei. †72 Hence, it says, The Lord is Spirit (2 Cor 3:17), that is, he is not a body, and yet the apostle says, He who clings to a prostitute is one body; but he who clings to the Lord is one spirit (1 Cor 6:16-17). If, then, this clinging of different spiritual natures—for man's spirit is different from God's—makes one spirit, are you unwilling to admit that the Son clings to the Father to such an extent that there is one God? Admit this also of the Holy Spirit, for he is God.
“If the Holy Spirit were not God, we would not be his temple. The apostle has written, Do you not know that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you? (1 Cor 3:16). And again, Do you not know that your bodies are the temple in your midst of the Holy Spirit which you have from God? (1 Cor 6:19). If we made a temple to some holy and excellent angel out of wood and stone, would we not be condemned by the truth of Christ and by the Church of God, because we paid to a creature that worship that we owe to the one God alone? If, then, it would be sacrilegious for us to make a temple to any creature, how can he fail to be the true God to whom we do not make a temple, but whose temple we ourselves are?
“I have given my answer above regarding the sense in which Christ said, As the Father has life in himself, so he gave it to the Son that he has life in himself (Jn 5:26). See above, 13. †73 You say Quia dicis. Louvain: qua dicit. †74 that the Father and the Son were made one by harmony and charity. See above, 13. †75 When you have shown me that things of a different substance are said to be one, then I will think about what I ought to respond. We read, He who plants and he who waters are one (1 Cor 3:8), but both were human beings; they were of the same, not a different, substance. Likewise, we read where Christ says, That they may be one, as we also are one (Jn 17:11). He did not say, 'That we and they may be one,' but That they may be one in their nature and in their substance, united and joined together somehow in harmonious equality, as the
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Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one on account of the same undivided nature. After all, 'they are one (
unum)' The manuscripts add: et aliud unum sumus.
†76 is not the same as 'he is one (
unus).' When we say, 'they are one,' even if we do not say, 'one of a certain kind,' we understand one substance. When we say, 'is one,' of two different substances, we have to ask 'one what?' For example, body and soul are different substances, but one man. The human spirit and the spirit of God are different substances. Still when it
clings to the Lord, it
is one spirit (1 Cor 6:17); it added
spirit, and did not say: 'They are one.' But where it says, 'They are one,' it signifies one substance. For Augustine “they are one (unum)” indicates a substantial unity, while “they are one (unus)” indicates a unity that may or may not be substantial and that needs to be specified.
†77 You do not accept this, and you dare to say that you hold that Christ is the true Son of God.
“The Father is not greater because he bore witness to the Son. After all, the prophets too bore witness to the Son. He who bears witness is distinct from him to whom witness is given, because the Father is the Father and the Son is the Son—not that they are not one or are not one God, when clinging and joined together, as they always are. You say that there is a difference between the Father and the Son, because the Father loves and the Son is loved, as if you could deny that the Son also loves the Father. See above, 13. †78 If each of them loves the other, why do you deny that they have one nature? The explanation I gave why the Father was said to be greater is that scripture said this on account of the form of the servant. See above, 14. †79
“I say the same thing about his invisibility. The Son was said to be visible because of the same form of the servant. But the divine substance of the Father or of the Son or of the Holy Spirit is utterly invisible. When the divinity was manifested to the patriarchs, it revealed itself as visible through a creature that was subject to it. Through its own nature it was invisible to the point that Moses said to him, when he was speaking to him face to face, If I have found favor before you, show me yourself clearly (Ex 33:13). He wanted to see him as God is seen with the eyes of the heart. After all, blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God (Mt 5:8). Moses wanted to see him to whom he said, Show me yourself clearly, in the way that even the invisible reality of God is seen through those things that have been made. The apostle speaks this way, His invisible reality, having been understood, is seen through those things that have been made, even his everlasting power and divinity (Rom 1:20). Look, though the invisible reality of God is seen by understanding, it is still called invisible. In The Literal Meaning of Genesis XII, 6, 15-7, 16, Augustine distinguishes three kinds of vision: intellectual, spiritual, and corporeal, that is, with the mind, with the imagination, and with bodily eyes. Though God is invisible to the eyes of the body, he can be seen through the eyes of the mind by the mediation of creatures. †80 All things were made through Christ, both the visible and the invisible. Can we believe that he is visible?
“For the same reason, you say that we should understand the words of the apostle, God who alone is wise (Rom 16:27), as applying to the Father alone. See above, 13. †81 Hence, God the Father alone is the wise God, and the very Wisdom of God, which is Christ, is not wise, though the apostle said of him, Christ the power of God and wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24)! It only remains for you to say—for what limit is there to your daring?—that the Wisdom of God is not wise. You say
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that the Father is unmade, as if the Son were made, though all things were made through him. See above, 13.
†82 Acknowledge, then, that the Son was made, but in the form of the servant. In the form of God he was so far from being made that all things were made through him. After all, if he was made, not all things, but only the other things, were made through him. Hence, I do not call the Son unbegotten, but the Father the begetter and the Son the begotten. Still, the Father begot what he is; otherwise, the Son is not a true son, if he is not what the Father is, just as we said above concerning the offspring of animals. See above, 14.
†83 For true children are substantially the same as their parents.
“Why do you demand that I show you that the Holy Spirit is equal to the Father, See above, 13. †84 as though you have shown that the Father is greater than the Holy Spirit, as you were able to show concerning the Son on account of the form of the servant? We know that the Father was said to be greater than the Son because the Son was in the form of the servant, and the Son is still in the human form which he took up into heaven. For this reason scripture says of him that even now he intercedes on our behalf (Rom 8:34). This same immortal form will last forever in the kingdom. Thus scripture said, Then even the Son will be subject to him who has subjected all things to him (1 Cor 15:28).
“Scripture never said that the Father was greater than the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit took no creature into the unity of his person, although he too deigned to show himself visibly through a creature subject to him, whether through the form of a dove or through fiery tongues. See Mt 3:16 and Acts 2:3. Though the Holy Spirit appeared in the forms of fire and of the dove, the dove or the fire is called the Spirit only because they are signs of the Spirit. Augustine points out that “we cannot say that the Holy Spirit is both God and dove or both God and fire, as we say that the Son is both God and man” (The Trinity II, 6, 11). For the forms of the dove and of the fire were not assumed into the unity of the person of the Holy Spirit in the way Christ's humanity was assumed. †85 Scripture never said that the Holy Spirit adored the Father and never said that he was less than the Father. But you say of the Son, 'If he is equal to the Father, he is surely the same as he is,' See above, 13. †86 that is, because the Son is not unbegotten, he does not seem to be the same as the Father. You could just as well say that Adam did not beget a human being, because Adam himself was not begotten, but made by God. But if Adam could exist Esse, missing in Erasmus. †87 without having been born and could still generate what he was, why do you refuse to admit that God could generate God equal to himself? I think that I have answered you on every point. But if you do not want to be a disciple, do not be so wordy.”
15, 1. Maximinus said, “As a man protected by the power of princes, you speak not a word with the fear of God. I have waited many hours; you have explained your point of view. With God as our help, we will answer each point. After all, we are protected not by mere talk, but by the testimonies of the divine scriptures. But just as we were patient while Your Holiness gave your explanation, now be as patient as you were wordy, and we will give our answer to each of your claims, just as you answered what you wanted to ours. Augustine has, as Maximinus points out, been the first to resort to a lengthy discourse. From this point on, Maximinus speaks without interruption and uses up the remaining time, thus forcing Augustine to write the two books against Maximinus in order to have the last word. †88
15, 2. “We worship Christ as the God of every creature. For he is adored and worshipped, not only by human nature, but also by all the heavenly powers. Listen to blessed Paul as he cries out, Have this attitude in you which was also
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in Christ Jesus. Since he was in the form of God, he did not think it robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of the servant, having come to be in the likeness of men and found in appearance as a man. He humbled himself, having become obedient even to death, death upon the cross. For this reason God has exalted him and has given him the name that is above every name. You thought, in any case, that you should slip that passage into your discourse, though you knew that it was opposed to what you profess, though you knew the passage would refute you. Maximinus takes this passage as opposed to Augustine's view. The fact that the Father has exalted the Son and given him the name above every name entails for Maximinus that the Son is inferior to the Father. Maximinus ignores Augustine's attempt to distinguish what is said of Christ in accord with the form of God from what is said of him in accord with the form of the servant. For Maximinus' interpretation of he did not think it robbery, see below, 15, 15.
†89 Paul goes on to say that every knee is bent to Christ. After he had said,
He gave him the name that is above every name, he adds,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee is bent, of those in heaven, on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord in the glory of God the Father (Phil 2:5-11). In saying,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee is bent, of those in heaven, on earth and under the earth, he includes everything. There is nothing in heaven that does not bend the knee to Christ; there is nothing remaining on earth that does not bend the knee to Christ; there is nothing under the earth that does not bend the knee to Christ. And the Father gave him this. Those who read can test whether I made this point on my own authority and with many words, as you charge, or whether I have answered with the authority of the divine scriptures. Maximinus offers this as proof that the Holy Spirit adores the Father and is, therefore, less than the Father. If everything, apart from the Father, bends its knee to Christ, then the Holy Spirit too bends his knee to Christ and thus to the Father.
†90
15, 3. “You say that the Holy Spirit is equal to the Son. See above, 12. †91 Provide the scripture passages in which the Holy Spirit is adored, in which those beings in heaven and on earth and under the earth bend their knee to him. We have learned that God the Father is to be adored from the exclamation of blessed Paul, Therefore, I bend my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom all fatherhood in the heavens and on earth has its name (Eph 3:14-15). By the authority of the holy scriptures we adore the Father; likewise, taught by these divine scriptures we worship and adore Christ as God. Do the scriptures anywhere say that the Holy Spirit should be adored? If the Father bore witness to him to that effect, if the Son did so, if he himself has made such claims concerning himself, read it from the scriptures against what we have said. Augustine's claim that the Holy Spirit is God is not found in scripture with anything like the clarity with which the divinity of Christ is found there. Maximinus demands Scriptural evidence that the Holy Spirit is adored as Christ was adored. †92
15, 4. “Paul also goes on to say in another passage that Christ is at the right hand of God and that he makes intercession on our behalf. See Rom 8:34. †93 He says, Seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God (Col 3:1). He writes to the Hebrews as follows, After he accomplished the purification from sins, he took his seat at the right hand of the greatness on high (Heb 1:3). In any case, the Holy Spirit had also foretold this through the prophet, when he said, The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand” (Ps 109:1). The Son himself claimed this in the gospel. See Mt 22:44. †94 Moreover, to that official who questioned him, saying, Tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of the blessed God, he said, I am, or at least, You say it, and Soon you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the power of God (Mk 14:61-62 and Mt 26:63-64). In Answer to Maximinus II, 4, Augustine asks Maximinus the point of this passage. Maximinus' point seems to be that, while Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father, the Holy Spirit is not. †95
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15, 5. “We properly honor the Holy Spirit as teacher, as guide, Ducatorem; Louvain: ductorem. †96 as enlightener, as sanctifier. We worship Christ as creator; we adore the Father with sincere devotion as author, and we proclaim everywhere to all that he is the one author. Your false accusations stem from instruction in the art of philosophy. I do not believe that you have failed to read Non puto te minus legisse with Erasmus, Lyons, and Venice: Louvain: Nam puto te legisse. †97 what the apostle says, though Christ was certainly not a sinner, he committed sin for us, Maximinus' text seems to say that Christ committed sin. Augustine certainly takes this to be Maximinus' intent, though he could have interpreted even Maximinus' text in a more orthodox sense. See Answer to Maximinus I, 2, where Augustine calls him on this point. †98 that we might be made the justice of God in him (2 Cor 5:21). Perhaps these words of scripture have not come to your attention, Cursed is everyone who hangs on the tree (Dt 21:23). When he interpreted this, the blessed apostle Paul said, He became a curse for us so that the blessing upon the nations might be brought to fulfillment (Gal 3:13). And, of course, these words escaped your attention, where Paul himself says, The first man, Adam, was earthly from the earth; the second man, the Lord, as heavenly, came from heaven (1 Cor 15:47). And so, Christ has assumed a man, as you yourself have explained. See above, 14. †99 For that reason, we said that he came down to earthly contacts. See above, 13. †100 We are not unaware of the passage where we read, He committed no sin, nor was guile found on his lips. When he was cursed, he did not curse in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but he entrusted himself to him who judges justly (1 Pt 2:22-23). Juste with Erasmus and the better manuscripts; Amerbach and Louvain: se judicanti injuste. †101 Nor are we unaware of what John the Baptist said, Behold the Lamb of God; behold him who takes away the sin of the world (Jn 1:29). We agree with what you go on to say. After all, we should not oppose everything and fail to praise what you say well. What you go on to say is quite correct. Christ came rather to cleanse us from sins and iniquities and not to be soiled, as you went on to say. See above, 14. †102 It is certain that, in accord with that blessed substance of his divinity which he had before creation of the world, before the ages, before time, before days, before months, before years, before anything existed, Antequam quidquam esset; manuscripts: ante ut quidquid esset. †103 before any thought, he was born from the Father Natus a Patre est; most manuscripts: tantus a Patre est; Corbei: tantum. As Simonetti has pointed out, none of these expressions admits that the Son is coeternal with the Father; they merely assert his priority to all creatures; see “Arianesimo Latino,” 710. †104 as God in that blessed nature. Maximinus here ascribes to the Son the substance and nature of divinity. On the other hand, he does not want to admit that the Son has the same substance and nature as the Father. Thus, he leaves himself open to Augustine's claim that he has introduced a second God. †105
15, 6. “In the case of God you should use a worthy comparison. I am, of course, displeased and pained at heart over what you go on to say, namely, that a human being generates a human being, a dog a dog. You should not use so foul a comparison for such greatness. See above, 14. †106
15, 7. “Who does not know that God begot God, that the Lord begot the Lord, that the King begot the King, that the Creator begot the Creator, that the Good begot the Good, that the Wise begot the Wise, that the Merciful begot the Merciful, and that the Powerful begot the Powerful? In generating the Son, the Father took nothing away from the Son. He is not envious, but as the source of goodness he begot this great good. Augustine will turn this argument back on Maximinus, insisting that the Father would have been envious or grudging, if he could generate a Son who was his equal and did not. See Answer to Maximinus II, 7. For Augustine's use of the Platonic theme that the good is without envy, see O. du Roy, L'intelligence de la foi en la Trinité selon saint Augustin: Genèse de sa théologie trinitaire jusqu'en 391 (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1966), 474-475. †107 All of creation bears witness to his goodness, in accord with your statement, which I highly praise. All of creation bears witness to the goodness of the Son, who is, after all, the God of all creation. Thus, Maximinus interprets Rom 1:20 as referring to the Son's invisible reality. †108 You drew from the divine scriptures the words, From the creation of the world his invisible reality, having been understood, is seen through those things that have been made, even his everlasting power and divinity (Rom 1:20). See above, 14. †109
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15, 8. “I say nothing in opposition to what has been well said, but simply add my agreement. I say that from the greatness of their beauty their Creator is known and worshipped. In my opinion, we have given a response to these points, for blessed Paul again continues as follows, Since Christ removed from our midst the charge which was against us, nailing it to the cross, and stripping himself of the flesh, he boldly made an example of the powers and principalities, triumphing over them in himself (Col 2:14-15). If, as a man not trained in the liberal arts and rhetoric, I have committed any fault in speaking, you ought to have looked to the meaning and, without focusing on the fault in our speech, refrained from leveling an accusation against us. Maximinus is referring to Augustine's claim that he had misused “contagium” in referring to the incarnation. Here Maximinus pleads ignorance of the liberal arts and rhetoric; elsewhere he prides himself on having kept himself free from philosophy. †110 Heaven forbid, heaven forbid! The only-begotten God is God of all creation, clean, unstained, holy, secure, without any impurity. After all, one who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him (Jn 5:23).
“The evangelist bears witness that the Word became flesh and dwelled among us. He says, And we have seen his glory, the glory as if of the Only-Begotten by the Father, full of grace and of truth (Jn 1:14). The Old Testament had sung Praecinuerat; older editions: praecanuerat. †111 of him even before, saying, He will wash his mantle in wine and his cloak in the blood of the grape (Gn 49:11). I believe what I read, for the Word was made flesh and dwelled among us. Again, I read that blessed Paul said, He who transformed our lowly body to become conformed to the image of his glorious body (Phil 3:21). I believe that Christ, God born of the Father before all ages, built for himself, according to Solomon, a perfect Perfectam; Amerbach, Erasmus and manuscripts: prophetam. †112 home. We read, Wisdom has built a home for itself (Prv 9:1), and he took this home in place of a temple.
15, 9. “You yourself have explained the sense in which he is visible and the sense in which he is invisible. See above, 14. †113 In my opinion, Your Holiness has not just recently heard this objection. After all, in the rest of your argument that followed, you used the comparison with the soul. You showed that there is a pious and just reason for us to believe and know that, if the human soul located in a body cannot be seen by bodily eyes, the Creator of the soul is far less able to be seen by bodily eyes. If the angels are invisible in accord with the substance of their nature, how much more invisible is the creator of the angels who made them so great and so good: Angels, Archangels, Thrones, Dominations, Principalities, Powers, Cherubim and Seraphim? As we read in the gospel, he said that in comparison to their multitude the whole human race was one sheep, when he said, Having left the ninety-nine in the mountains, he came to seek the one that was lost. Later he added, Thus there will be more joy in heaven over the one sinner who does penance than over ninety-nine just ones who have no need of penance (Lk 15:4.7). Who are those who have no need of penance but those heavenly powers who have nothing in common with human nature? We should consider the power of the only-begotten God, and in him we should marvel at
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the greatness of the omnipotence of God the Father. Omnipotentiae, omitted by some manuscripts. Others, as well as Amerbach and Erasmus: omnipotentis.
†114 He has begotten a Son so great and so good, so powerful, so wise, so full, who has made such good and such great heavenly powers. The Arian subordination of the Son to the Father is seen in the claim that the Father has begotten the Son, while the Son has created the heavenly powers.
†115
“I do not want to be found guilty of the wordiness of which you have already accused us. And yet I wish that would happen so that we could Possimus with Erasmus, Lyons, Venice and Louvain. †116 say, We have become fools for the sake of Christ, and We have become like the refuse of this world (1 Cor 4:10.13) and whatever else Your Holiness might want to judge us to be. We know him who said, Because of you I have borne insults all the day (Ps 68:8). Paul stirs us by his example, when he says, Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ (1 Cor 4:16). And Peter said, Christ has suffered for us, leaving us an example that we might follow his footsteps (1 Pt 2:21).
“According to the substance of his divinity, the Son is seen neither by the angels nor by the heavenly powers. For an archangel can see an angel, Angelum; manuscripts: archangelum. †117 and an angel can see and penetrate our spiritual souls. That means, of course, that the greater can see and penetrate the inferior. The Savior said to the man who boasted that he was rich, Fool, this night your soul will be demanded of you A te omitted by Amerbach, Erasmus, and the manuscripts. †118 (Lk 12:20). In accord with this statement of the Savior, it is the function of an angel to present the soul before the sight of the Lord. But a soul cannot see or reveal an angel. In this order ascend higher, and you will find that God the Father alone is invisible, because he does not have a superior who can see him. He is so great that he is infinite; he can be neither limited by words nor grasped by the mind. Not only the human tongue, but also all the heavenly powers joined together speak as they can of his greatness; still they do not explain it as it is. He is the fullness of everything that can be said.
“The Son alone worthily honors and praises him to the extent that he has obtained incomparably more from his Father. The four gospels bear witness that he honors and praises and glorifies his Father. Nonetheless, I will save time by leaving aside all those passages which you usually attribute to the flesh, Once again, Maximinus understands the texts which Augustine interprets as referring to the form of the servant that the Son assumed to refer to the flesh, thus implying the absence of a human soul in Christ. †119 and I will now produce testimonies where he adores his Father in heaven. Does not Paul speak as follows to the Hebrews, For Christ, the representation of the truth, has entered, not into temples made by hand; rather, he now appears in heaven before the face of God on our behalf? (Heb 9:24). In the Latin text that Maximinus uses, “representation of the truth” must be in apposition to Christ, though in the Greek and the Vulgate the expression is contrasted with the “temples made by hand,” that is, he entered not into a temple made by hand, but into the representation of the true temple. †120 He says this after Christ's return to heaven. Afterwards he spoke from heaven, saying, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? (Acts 9:4). Later the Holy Spirit said, Set aside for me Barnabas and Paul for the work of ministry to which I have called them (Acts 13:2). Once he had been called, Paul said, Jesus, the representation of the truth, has entered, not into temples made by hand; rather, he now appears in heaven before the face of God on our behalf.
“Your Holiness suggested that we answer whether the Son sees the Father. We read in the gospel, Not that anyone has seen the Father, but he who has come from God has seen the Father (Jn 6:46). Hence, he saw the Father, but he
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saw the incomprehensible. But the Father, who holds and keeps the Son in his embrace, sees him according to the testimony I previously produced, that
No one has ever seen God; the only-begotten Son who is in the embrace of the Father has revealed him (Jn 1:18). The Father sees the Son as the Son; the Son sees the Father as the immense Father.
“Your Holiness has declared that human wisdom is invisible. In my opinion, the words of Isaiah suffice, when he says, Is it a slight thing for you to do battle with men? How then will you do battle with God? (Is 7:13). It is certainly not a slight thing to do battle with men, since however wise anyone is, he has someone wiser who sees him. Is his wisdom, then, not seen in his action? Is it not tested in his disciples? Hence, human wisdom is not invisible; it can be comprehended, seen and grasped. Maximinus argues that human wisdom is seen in its effects; so too, the wisdom of Christ should be visible in creation. †121
“Moreover, it is proper and a mark of order that you employ worthy comparisons. After all, you are speaking of God, of that immensity, to which, even if one draws a comparison as great as possible in terms of human thought or even in accord with the authority of the divine scriptures, one finds that the comparison is inadequate in every respect to him who is incomparable.
15, 10. “In accord with the testimonies that I have produced, I say that the Father alone is the one God, not one along with a second and a third, but that he alone is the one God. If he alone is not the one God, he is a part. Note that for Maximinus to say that there is one God and that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are that one God implies that the three are parts of the one God. As Augustine points out, especially in Answer to Maximinus II, 10, 2-3, Maximinus thinks of God in bodily terms. Maximinus' innocence of any philosophy leaves him without any concept of incorporeal or spiritual reality. One can be a good Christian, albeit a “little one” in the faith, without such a concept, but then one must believe without understanding. On the “little ones,” see my, “A Decisive Admonition for Augustine?” Augustinian Studies 19 (1988), 85-92. †122 I deny, after all, that the one God is composed of parts; rather, his nature is unbegotten, simple power. The Son before all ages is himself begotten Genitus; others genita. †123 as power. The apostle spoke of this power of the Son, When you and my spirit are gathered together with the power of the Lord Jesus (1 Cor 5:4). I state and profess what the holy gospels teach us. I state and profess that the Holy Spirit is also power in his proper character. The Lord bore witness concerning him, when he said to his disciples, Remain in the city of Jerusalem, until you are clothed from on high with power (Lk 24:49).
15, 11. “If you claim that the Son is invisible, because he cannot be looked upon by human eyes, why do you not claim that the heavenly powers are also equally invisible, since they too cannot be seen by human sight? I have offered a testimony without any interpretation of my words, when I said, The blessed and alone powerful, the King of kings and the Lord of lords (1 Tm 6:15). See above, 13. †124 If I have cited the scripture, I should not to be blamed. But if you are looking for the meaning of the scripture, I will add an explanation.
15, 12. “The apostle says, The blessed and alone powerful, the King of kings. He calls the Father alone powerful, not because the Son is not powerful. Listen to the Holy Spirit crying out and bearing testimony to the Son, Lift up the gates, you Following the editions with vestras instead of vestri. †125 princes; be raised up, eternal gates, and the king of glory will enter. He continues, Who is this king of glory? Listen to the answer, The Lord strong and powerful (Ps 23:7-8). How can he fail to be powerful, when every creature proclaims his power?
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15, 13. “How can he fail to be wise, when the Holy Spirit cries out in praise of his wisdom and says, How magnificent are your works, O Lord! You have made all things in wisdom (Ps 103:24). Since all things were made through Christ, the Holy Spirit undoubtedly praises him when he says, You have made all things in wisdom. Since that is so, we must ask how blessed Paul can say, The blessed and alone powerful. In my opinion, he calls him alone powerful, because he is alone incomparable in power. In awe before his incomparability, the prophet said, O God, who is like you? (Ps 82:2). Do you want to know that he alone is powerful? Look at the Son and admire the power of the Son. Recognize in the Son that the Father is alone powerful, because he has begotten one so powerful. In his immense power the Father begot the powerful creator. Creatorem omitted by Louvain. †126 In his power that he received from the Father, the Son did not create the creator, but established creation. He says, All things have been handed over to me by my Father (Mt 11:27). In awe of this power of God the Father, Paul said, The blessed and alone powerful. Job was a powerful and true man. We read, That man was a true and just worshipper of God, and in further describing his region, it says that he was powerful and great among all those in the East (Jb 1:1.3). How then can the Father alone be powerful? It says alone, because no one is comparable to him, because he alone has such greatness, such might, such power.
“In the same way, the blessed apostle Paul proclaims that the Father alone is wise, when he says, God who alone is wise (Rom 16:27). But we must look for an explanation of why he alone is wise, since Christ is also wise. You have already cited Christ the power of God and wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24). We too have given testimonies that he created all things in wisdom. But the Father alone is truly wise. We believe the scriptures, and we venerate the divine scriptures. We do not want a single particle of a letter to perish, for we fear the threat that is stated in these divine scriptures, Woe to those who take away or add! (Dt 4:2). Do you want to know how great is the wisdom of the Father? Look at the Son, and you will see the wisdom of the Father. For this reason Christ himself said, One who has seen me has also seen the Father (Jn 14:9). That is, in me he sees his wisdom; he praises his might; he glorifies the Father who, one and alone, has begotten me, one and alone, so great and so good before all ages. He did not look for material out of which to make him, nor did he take someone as an assistant. Rather, in the way he knew, he begot the Son by his power and his wisdom. In saying that the Father begot the Son in the way the Father knew, Maximinus implies that only the Father has such knowledge and that, since we lack that knowledge, we should not attempt to specify the nature of such generation. †127 We do not profess, as you say when you falsely accuse us, that, just as the rest of creation was made from nothing, so the Son was made from nothing like a creature. Listen to the authority of statement of the Synod; for our fathers in Ariminum said this among other things, 'If anyone says that the Son is from nothing and not from God the Father, let him be anathema.' For the canons of the Council of Ariminum, see Jerome, Dialogus contra Luciferianos 18. †128 If you want, I will offer testimonies. For the blessed apostle John speaks as follows, One who loves the Father also loves him who was born from him (1 Jn 5:1).
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15, 14. “I am amazed, my friend. You say that the Holy Spirit has the same substance as the Father. See above, 14. †129 If the Son has the same substance as the Father and the Holy Spirit also has the same substance as the Father, why is the one a son and the other not a son? What else can you say, since he has the same substance, since, as you say, he is equal to the Son? Why has he not been made the heir to all things? Why is he not a son as well? Why does he not have the same title as Christ, the firstborn of all creation? (Col 1:15). If he is equal, there is no longer just one only-begotten, since he has another besides himself who has been begotten—and begotten, moreover, from the same substance of the Father from which you say that the Son has come.
“This is painful to hear, for you do not compare that great magnificence to the nobility of the soul, but to the fragility of the body. Flesh is, of course, born from the body, a bodily offspring. But the soul is not born from a soul. If, then, our soul generates without corruption and passion, not experiencing any lessening or any defilement, but lawfully in accordance with God-given rights generates an offspring, in wisdom giving its consent to the body, Generat filium, sapientia consensum accomodans corpori. Amerbach: filium sapientiam. Louvain: et sapientia. See Answer to Maximinus II, 14, 4. Erasmus: generatum filium, sapientium consensu. Lyons and Venice: generat filium sapientium consensu; others: et sapientiam consensum. The BAC translation follows the text in Erasmus, while retaining the Latin of Migne. †130 it itself remains whole. How much more will the omnipotent God do so? Aside from the difficulties of establishing the text, Maximinus' talk about the soul generating is quite vague; he may be thinking of the soul as generating wisdom or good works. Augustine later takes him literally as though he meant that one soul generates another, though he says here that the soul is not born from a soul. See Answer to Maximinus II, 14, 4. †131 I said just before that words fail us in every human comparison with God, See above, 15, 9. †132 though we try to put it as best we can. How much more incorruptibly has the incorruptible God the Father begotten the Son? He has, however, begotten him. Note my carefulness, for I have the testimonies of the holy scriptures, Who will tell of his generation? (Is 53:8). He begot as he willed, as one with power, Genuit ut voluit, ut potens; many manuscripts: Generat ut voluit, voluit ut potens. †133 taking nothing away; he begot one with power without any envy entering in.
“I have said: It is not proper for religious persons to make false accusations. See above, 7. †134 I profess the Word of God, the Word of God, not mortal, not corruptible. Scripture cries out concerning the body he assumed for our salvation, My flesh will rest in hope, that is, in the hope of resurrection, because you will not leave my soul in the underworld and you will not permit your holy one to see corruption (Ps 15:9-10). If he who is called the holy one is the Son of God, he has not seen corruption, because he rose from the dead on the third day. How much more does the divinity that assumed the body remain incorruptible! Why do you say what you do not understand? If I have not given you an answer on all these points, I shall rightly be judged to lack understanding; still, it is not the mark of religion to attack someone unjustly.
“I not merely claim that the wisdom of the Son of God is immortal, but I also will prove that the wisdom of the saints of God is immortal. If they, that is, their bodies, are called back to immortality, how much more will that living wisdom of theirs, which flourishes in all believers until the end of the world, remain immortal? Though I have in this long discourse passed over any discussion of the immortality of the omnipotent God, of whom the blessed apostle Paul spoke, Who alone has immortality (1 Tm 6:16), I will repeat the text and offer an
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interpretation with God's help and grace. He is described as alone having immortality just as he is described as alone powerful and alone wise. That is, the Father is alone immortal, because he is incomparable in his immortality, just as he is incomparable in his power and wisdom; see above, 15, 13. Or, as Maximinus says just below, the Father is alone immortal, because he has received his immortality from no one.
†135 What spiritual person does not know that the human soul is immortal? After all, we have the statement of the Lord saying,
Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul (Mt 10:28), for it is immortal. Since, then, the soul is immortal, we see that the heavenly powers are much more immortal. The Savior said,
He who keeps my word will not see death forever (Jn 8:51). If one who keeps the word of Christ
will not see death forever, how much more immortal is he according to the power of his divinity, whose word has such force? We have already given an explanation of the words,
Who alone has immortality. The Son has immortality, but receives it from the Father. All the heavenly powers have immortality, but they receive it through the Son, because all things are through him. But the Father alone truly has immortality, since he has not obtained it from someone else, since he has no father, since he has no origin.
“The Son, however, as you went on to say, was begotten from the Father. You often claim that the Son is equal to the Father, although the only-begotten God always and everywhere proclaims the Father as his author, and from him, as I said just before, he professed that he obtained life. He said, Just as the Father has life in himself, so he gave it to the Son that he has life in himself (Jn 5:26). See, then, how he also received immortality and incorruptibility and inaccessibility along with life from the Father. The Father has life in himself and does not receive it from another. Thus he is truly the blessed and alone powerful. Who has emptied himself? (Phil 2:7). The Father or the Son? Who pleased whom? Who was more anxious to please than he who said, I always do those things which are pleasing to him? (Jn 8:29). Who is it who, when he came to the tomb of Lazarus, said, Father, I thank you, because you have heard me. I know that you always hear me, but I said this because of those who are present so that they may believe that you sent me (Jn 11:41-42). When his disciples asked him about the eyes of the man born blind, Who sinned? This man or his parents? who was it who answered, Neither this man nor his parents sinned. Rather it was that the works of God might be made manifest in him. I must do the works of him who sent me? (Jn 9:2-4). This is, of course, the beloved Son of the Father who, when he took bread, did not first break it, but first looked up to heaven and thanked his Father. Then he broke it and distributed it. So too, in his passion, or rather just before his passion, as the evangelist reports, See Mt 26:26. †136 The Lord Jesus, on the night on which he was betrayed, took bread and, giving thanks, broke it (1 Cor 11:23-24).
“In order not to overwhelm you with eloquent discourse and abundant testimonies, by producing very many, Ut jam non obtundam eloquentia sermonis vel copia testimoniorum proferens plurima, with some manuscripts. Other manuscripts: ut sancti non obtundam… proferens plurima. Amerbach and Erasmus: ut sanctum non obtundam eloquentia… proferens plurima. Louvain: ut jam non ob tantam eloquentiam sermonis, vel copiam testimoniorum proferam plurima. †137 I will finish up quickly. This is the Son who proclaimed that nothing happened without the permission of the Father, not even the death of a sparrow. He said, Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?
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Yet not one of them falls to the earth apart from the will of the Father (Mt 10:29). He, of course, spoke of the power he received from the Father,
I have the power to lay down my life, and I have the power to take it up again. After all, I have this command from my Father (Jn 10:18). If this is what the gospels report, let us hold what we read. But if they say something else, or I have left something out in forgetfulness, I ask to be corrected. I am not the sort of person who will not accept correction, especially since blessed Paul commanded that a bishop be docile. See 1 Tm 3:2.
†138 But one is docile who learns every day and makes progress by teaching what is better. We do not reject something better, if it is offered; we are ready for everything, even though we are treated unjustly. Nonetheless, in order not to be an obstacle to the truth, we do not complain of our injuries, but proclaim the glory of God.
15, 15. “The words of the apostle are certain: Since he was in the form of God. Who denies that the Son is in the form of God? We have already, I think, amply explained that he is God, that he is Lord, that he is King. See above, 15, 7. †139 Because he did not think it robbery to be equal to God, the blessed apostle Paul has taught that he did not steal it, nor do we say that he stole it. Maximinus seems to interpret Paul as saying that Christ did not think that he should steal equality with God; see Answer to Maximinus II, 15, 1, where Augustine argues against such an interpretation. †140 But we preach with all our might that he emptied himself, having become obedient to the Father even to death, death upon the cross (Phil 2:6-8). We are called sons by grace; we were not born such by nature. Hence, the Son is the only-begotten, because the Son was born what he is according to the nature of his divinity. You should apply the term 'brother' to the Holy Spirit, since you claim that he is on a par with and equal to the Son and profess that he is equally of the substance of the Father. And if that is the case, then the Son is not the only-begotten, since there is another of the same substance. Maximinus uses the Nicene expression “of the same substance,” but takes the Holy Spirit's being of the same substance as the Son to imply that the Holy Spirit is another son, that is, a brother of Christ. †141
“We have not admitted a nature in God, the unborn Father. Accepimus. Lyons, Venice, Louvain: accipimus. Maximinus has no problem in speaking of the nature of the Son who is born (natus). The Father, however, is unborn (innatus), and for that reason, it seems, the Father does not have a nature. †142 We believe Christ's words, God is spirit (Jn 4:24). The Son was born, as we said; we too profess the true Son and do not deny that he is like the Father, as we have also been taught by the scriptures. That the Son is like the Father according to the scriptures is one of the hallmarks of Homoian Arianism. †143 Since we are accused of holding different natures, know what it is that we say, namely, that the Father who is spirit begot a spirit Louvain: Spiritum filium genuit. †144 before all ages, that God begot God, and everything else that was said above. See above, 15, 7. †145 The true and unborn Father begot the true Son. But when the Lord says in the gospel, That they may know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent (Jn 17:3), he says that the Father is alone true, as he is alone good, alone powerful, and alone wise.
“In my opinion, not even the devil has dared to say that the Father did not beget a perfect Son before all else. Ante omnia; Louvain: ante omnia saecula. †146 For he did not beget one in the process of becoming perfect. Maximinus holds that the Father begot a perfect or completely developed Son, not a Son who would grow to his full or complete stature. He was not, however, willing to admit that the Son was equal to the Father. †147 You have accepted the comparison with a human being. If human beings could generate an offspring that was perfect at the start, they would not generate a child that would eventually with the increase of years fulfill the parents' desire. But the Father, who is truly blessed and alone powerful,
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begot the Son such as he is now and remains forever, not in the process of becoming perfect, but perfect. Both Maximinus and Augustine hold the view that parents would generate, if they could, an adult rather than an infant that has to grow into adulthood—a view of infancy and childhood that surely strikes us as very odd.
†148 He received his perfection, of course, from his Father from whom he also obtained life.
“The Savior made the statement, By the words of two or three witnesses every statement will be confirmed (Mt 18:16). You have produced the testimony of the apostle, Since he was in the form of God, he did not think it robbery, and you have interpreted it according to your judgment. We, in my opinion, have answered you squarely. It will be up to the judgment of our listeners which of the two they choose. Either let them approve, in accord with the rest of the passage, the Son who obeys the Father, who emptied himself, taking the form of the servant, to whom the Father gave, as we said, the name that is above every name, or let them approve your interpretation, if anyone understands it.
15, 16. “I ascend to my God and your God (Jn 20:17). You claim, as I think you say, that the Lord said this on account of the form of the servant which he assumed. If he humbled himself while he was in a human body, still, after he had conquered death and triumphed over the devil, he continued to use this sort of language. Isto utitur sermone. Manuscripts: istos utitur sermones. †149 It was after the resurrection when he said, I ascend to my Father and your Father. Then the humility of the flesh was no longer needed, as you say, on account of the Jews, but the entire rule of the faith was handed on. In the same way, in another passage after his resurrection, when his disciples were gathered on Mount Olivet, he said, All power in heaven and on earth has been given me. Go, therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you (Mt 28:18-20).
“If the Son said this for the sake of humility and not of truth, why did the apostle dare to repeat the same thing and say, The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory? (Eph 1:17). Or why did he say, The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ knows, he who is blessed forever? (2 Cor 11:31). Why did he say, So that, united in one voice, you may honor the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? (Rom 15:6). Why does he add to this and say, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? (2 Cor 1:3). Why did even the Holy Spirit say to the Son before the Incarnation, Hence, God, your God, has anointed you? (Ps 44:8).
“Although you will want to argue the point, you will not be able to prove that it was his body that was anointed. We read that he was baptized, See Mt 3:16. †150 but not that he was anointed in the body. From that passage where it says, Hence, God, your God, anointed you with the oil of gladness before your companions (Ps 44:8), we are shown that the oil of gladness refers by the word 'oil' to that joy of which Solomon spoke, I was the one with whom he was delighted every day. I rejoiced before his face always, when he rejoiced over the world he had made and rejoiced over the sons of men (Prv 8:30-31). We read in the Book of Genesis
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that
God the Father, as it says,
saw all the works of the Son,
and behold, they were all very good (Gn 1:31). Praising the work of the Son, he was glad and rejoiced in the Son, and the Son rejoiced equally in the sight of his Father, when the will of the Father had been accomplished.
All divinely inspired scripture is useful for teaching (2 Tm 3:16). For that reason,
not one least letter or one particle of a letter will pass away (Mt 5:18). The Lord said,
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away (Mt 24:35).
15, 17. “It is agreed that the Son was in the beginning and was with the Father and was God, and he was in the beginning with God as the firstborn of all creation, and all things were made through him, and without him nothing has been made. See Jn 1:1-3. †151 That cannot be interpreted as referring to the Holy Spirit. You will not find words reported in the divine scriptures to support the claim that he is equal to the Son. If the Son was in the beginning, the Father was before the beginning and without beginning, insofar as he is unbegotten and unborn. The Son, however, was in the beginning as the firstborn of all creation. See Col 1:15. Maximinus seems to understand “the beginning” as the beginning of creation; thus the Father alone is before the beginning and without beginning. †152 He was before all creation, before anything was, and he was with God and he was God, and he was in the beginning with God.
15, 18. “What if you should hear the Father saying, The beginning with you, in the day of your power, in the splendors of the saints, from the womb I begot you before the morning star (Ps 109:3)? You profess that he was born from the womb of his mother according to the flesh—something even the Jews believe. Why do you not produce those testimonies that show his birth in the beginning, just as you instructed us by the previous testimony? He regarded himself as indebted to his Father on account of the body in which he emptied himself. He who, though he was rich, became poor for our sake (2 Cor 8:9), as the apostle says. It is much more necessary that, as the beloved Son, he always offers to his Father the reverence and service he owes to him who has begotten one so great and so good.
“You did very well, when you said that he was subject even to his parents on account of the form of the servant. See Lk 2:51 and above, 14. †153 We find that he was subject to the parents he created, for all things were made through him, and we know that the Son was begotten by the Father, not after some time, but before all time. And if he was subject to his parents, as the authority of divine scripture proclaims more clearly than light, how much the more was he subject to his Father who begot him as one so great and so good! In accord with this the apostle Paul says, When all things have been subjected to the Son, then even the Son will be subject to him who has subjected all things to him (1 Cor 15:28). You want us to say that we profess that all things will be subject to the body, or rather to the saving history that he assumed on our behalf, that the body will be subject to the Father, not the Son the only-begotten God. Again Maximinus seems to exclude from Christ a human soul. As Maximinus sees it, Christ's subjection to the Father means either that the body is subject to the Father or that the only-begotten God is subject to the Father. He takes the former to be the Nicene position, which entails the absurd consequence that all else is subject to Christ's body. †154 For we know and believe that the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son that all might honor the
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Son, just as they also honor the Father (Jn 5:22-23). We profess this, because in the resurrection when all things will be subject to the Son, when all will honor and venerate and adore him, then the Son will certainly not exalt himself. Rather, he will be found subject to the Father along with all the things that are subject to him so that he may say,
Come, blessed of my Father, take possession of the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world (Mt 25:34).
15, 19. “We have already mentioned the passage that you seem to have, in your judgment, taken as favoring your side. Still, the words of the apostle remain, that we do not know how to ask in a fitting manner, but the Spirit himself pleads on our behalf with indescribable groans. You thought you prevailed against our argument, when you said, 'Hence, the Holy Spirit is so unhappy that he groans?' See above, 13. †155 We do not say that the Holy Spirit is unhappy. Rather, the passage reveals the glory of the Holy Spirit. After all, he does not groan on his own behalf. Listen to the passage, Sed audi lectionem, with most mss; others: sed aut dilectione; the editions: sed pro dilectione. †156 for he groans on behalf of the saints (Rom 8:26-27). Nor does the Son plead and make intercession on his own behalf, but on our behalf, as I have already shown in the foregoing. See above, 12. †157 He who is faithful in a small matter is found faithful also in the greater (Lk 16:10).
15, 20. “Nor can anyone claim that the Father and the Son are one except in the way in which you yourself and we can prove by the very examples you used. If, as you say, the apostle affirms, He who clings to the Lord is one spirit (1 Cor 6:17), there is, of course, one spirit in agreement, fulfilling the will of God, according to the teaching of the Savior. He also taught us to pray this way so that among the rest of our prayers we say, Thy will be done on earth as in heaven (Mt 6:10). We are, of course, earth. Just as, then, the will of God is done in the heavenly beings, may it be also accomplished in us who make this prayer, and may we fulfill it with our actions so that we become one spirit with God when we want what God wants.
“When the Son himself was near to his passion, he cried out this same prayer to his Father, saying, Abba, Father, let this cup pass from me, but not as I want, but as you want (Mk 14:36). By saying, Not as I want, but as you want, he showed that his will was truly subject to his Father. For the sake of doing his will, he came down from heaven, as he says, I came down from heaven, not to do my will, but to do the will of him who sent me (Jn 6:38). Hence, the will of the Son is in agreement and harmony with the will of the Father. To the extent that the Son as God is greater than every creature, to that extent he is found to be more in agreement with the will of the Father and clings the more to his Father. I mean that, as the beloved Son, he clings to his Father in love and affection and unity and agreement and harmony. We ought to accept all the things that are brought forth from the holy scriptures with full veneration. The divine scripture has not come as a source of our instruction so that we might correct it. How I wish that we may prove to be worthy disciples of the scriptures!
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15, 21. “I accept the words you brought forth, Do you not know that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you? (1 Cor 3:16). God does not dwell in a human being that the Holy Spirit has not first sanctified and cleansed. So too, it was said to Mary, the blessed virgin, The Holy Spirit will come over you, that is, to sanctify and cleanse. Then it continues, And the power of the most high will overshadow you (Lk 1:35). You yourself have already said that Christ is the power of the most high. The truth is not obtained by argumentation, but is proved by certain testimonies. Once again Maximinus rejects any role for rational argumentation and insists that scriptural proofs are alone acceptable. †158 For this reason you ought to produce testimonies that the Holy Spirit is God, that he is Lord, that he is King, that he is the Creator, that he is the Maker, that he is seated with the Father and the Son, that he is adored, if not by heavenly beings, at least by earthly ones. Perhaps, if I may say so, you are going to show that he is adored at least by those beneath the earth.
“We say these things, not to take anything away from the Holy Spirit. After all, it is the Holy Spirit, as we have said above, without whom no one can say that Jesus is Lord (1 Cor 12:3). It is in the Holy Spirit that we cry out, 'Abba, Father' (Rom 8:15). It is the great and good Holy Spirit upon whom even the angels desire to gaze (1 Pt 1:12). He is so good and so powerful that everywhere in all creation, whether in the east or in the west, in the north or in the south, no one can say that Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit. His nature is such that he is present everywhere to all who call upon God in the truth. See Ps 144:18. †159 He is so good and so great that, wherever anyone is baptized, whether in the east or in the west or wherever, the Holy Spirit is present there at the same time. See how great is the power of the Holy Spirit. If anyone takes anything away from the Holy Spirit, he certainly takes it away from the only-begotten God, through whom all things were made, and without him nothing has been made (Jn 1:3), just as one who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him (Jn 5:23).
15, 22. “You claim that Christ, our Savior, did not say, 'that we and they may be one,' but 'That they may be one in their nature and their substance, united and joined together in harmonious equality, Concordi aequalitate. Some manuscripts: concordia, aequalitate; others concordiae aequalitate. †160 as the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one on account of the same undivided nature.' See above, 14. †161 I quote the passage again, and the readers can see for themselves what Christ said. He says in the gospel, praying to his Father for his disciples, Father, make them one, as we also are one, as I in you and you in me, that they may also be one in us, that this world may know that you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me (Jn 17:21-23). I believe what I read; he speaks of love, not of substance. It is certain, however, that the Savior said, He who hears my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me. But he who loves me is loved by my Father, and I will love him, and we will come and make our abode with him (Jn 14:21.23). If that great loftiness and majesty of the Father and of the Son is received within the one humble dwelling of our mind, how much more certain
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is it that the Son is and will undoubtedly be in the Father. He is there as the Son, as an other than the Father, though the Father and the Son are, as you have explained, Ut ipse exposuisti; Erasmus, Lyons and Louvain: quod quidem exposuisti. Venice: quod quid est exposuisti.
†162 one in harmony (
unum), not one in number (
unus). Literally: “one (unum), not one (unus).” It is difficult to translate the neuter (unum) and masculine (unus) of “one” in different ways so as to convey the basis for the disagreement. “One nature, but not one person” would be acceptable to Augustine, but not to Maximinus. “One in harmony, not one in number” seems to indicate what Maximinus understands.
†163 The first 'one' pertains to harmony; the second to the singular number.
“You also brought forth the testimony of blessed Paul which we gladly accepted, for it is a solid form of truth that is brought forth even by its opponents. You cited Paul's words, I have planted, Apollo watered, but God has given the increase. Therefore, neither is he who plants something nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. He who plants and he who waters are one; each, however, will receive his reward according to his labor (1 Cor 3:6-8). See above, 14. †164 Notice, then, that, though they are one in harmony, nonetheless, each will receive his reward according to his labor. Look, then, at what the Lord says, The Father and I are one (Jn 10:30), which we believe and accept with certain faith. He who says, 'I,' is the Son; in saying, 'the Father,' he indicates that the Father is another. He says, 'one in harmony (unum),' not one in number (unus). I have often said that one (unum) pertains to harmony. How could the Father and the Son not be one, when the Son cries out, I always do those things which are pleasing to the Father (Jn 8:29)? He would not be one with the Father, if on occasion he acted in opposition to the Father. Even the apostles are one in this sense with the Father and the Son, insofar as in all things they aim at the will of God the Father and are themselves found to be subject to the one God the Father in imitation of the Son. See Sermon 140, 4, where Augustine accuses Maximinus of blasphemy for saying that the apostles are one (unum) with the Father and the Son. †165 We do not read that the Savior prayed only for the apostles that they might be one, but also for those who would believe through their word. He said, I do not ask for these alone, but for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may be one, just as you, Father, in me and I in you, that they may be one in us, that this world may know that you have sent me and have loved them just as you have loved me. He speaks of love, as we said, not of divinity. Who does not know that Paul is Paul and that Apollo is Apollo, though Paul himself says, I have labored more than all these; not I, but the grace of God with me (1 Cor 15:10)? He who labors the more, gains the more. But they are one in agreement, in harmony, in love, when they do what God wants.
15, 23. “You say that God is one. Show me whether the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God or whether we should call the Father alone God, whose Son, Christ, is our God. Are you urging us to profess one God the way the Jews do? From the subjection of the Son, are we not shown, as the Christian faith holds, that there is one God whose Son is our God, as we have said? Believe Paul that the Father and the Son are not a single one (unus), as he proclaims in nearly every letter. He says, Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 1:7; 1 Cor 1:3; 2 Cor 1:2; Gal 1:3 and Eph 1:2). He also says, One is God the Father, from whom are all things, and we are in him,
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and one is the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we are in him In ipso with manuscripts. Editions: per ipsum.
†166 (1 Cor 8:6). This is the one whom we Christians preach as the one God, and the Son proclaims that he is good, when he says,
No one is good save the one God (Mk 10:18). It is not that Christ is not good, for he says,
I am the good shepherd (Jn 10:11). It is not that the Holy Spirit is not good; hear the prophet as he cries out,
Your good Spirit will lead me in the right path (Ps 142:10). Hear too the witness of the Savior who says,
A good man brings forth good things from the treasure of his heart (Lk 6:45). Moreover, every creature of God is very good. If a creature is good, if man is good, if the Holy Spirit is good, if Christ is good, we must investigate how there is one who is good. The Savior, of course, said,
No one is good save the one God, because he is the source of goodness and has received his goodness from no one. Christ has received his goodness from his Father so that he is good, and every good creature of God has received through Christ its goodness. But whether it is the Son or those who were made through him, each has drawn his goodness from that one source of goodness in accord with the measure of his faith. But the Father has received his goodness from no one. Thus Christ says,
No one is good save the one. In that way, then, there is one God, because there is one who is incomparable, because there is one who is immense, as we have already stated. See above, 12.
†167
15, 24. “We do not deny that the Son loves the Father, for we read the scripture, So that this world may know that I love the Father, and I do just as he has commanded me (Jn 14:31). It is clear that the Son is loved and loves and that he carries out the commandment of the Father, as he says. Thus they are one, in accord with his words, The Father and I are one (Jn 10:30). Insofar as he says, He who has seen me has also seen the Father (Jn 14:9), we must believe with certain faith that he who sees the Son sees and understands the Father through the Son.
15, 25. “You professed that the Father is greater on account of the form of the servant. See above, 14. †168 That strikes me as quite foolish. We know that you also said that he was made less than the angels in the form of the servant. See above, 14. †169 You have not sufficiently proclaimed Profusus es; Erasmus, Lyons and Venice: provectus es. †170 the glory of God in professing that the Father is greater than the form of the servant. Even the angels are greater than the form of the servant. Christ did not come to teach us that the Father is greater than the form of the servant. Rather, the Truth came to us to teach and instruct us that the Father is greater than the Son and greater than this Son who is the great God. We glorify the Father and profess that he is greater than the great God; we proclaim that he is higher than the high God. Is this the honor we owe to God that the Father is greater than the servant form?
15, 26. “You say that the divinity showed itself to the Patriarchs, and just before that you said that the divinity was invisible. See above, 14. †171 The Father, who is invisible, surely did not show himself. Otherwise, if we say that the Father was
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seen, we make a liar of the apostle, who says,
No human being has seen him or can see him (1 Tm 6:16). Moreover, we find ourselves not only in opposition to the New Testament, but we are equally in opposition to the Old Testament as well. After all, Moses speaks this way too,
No one can see God and live (Ex 33:20).
“This same Moses wrote in the Book of Genesis that from that first man up to the incarnation it was always the Son who was seen. If you demand testimonies, you have, of course, the passage in which the Father speaks to the Son, Let us make man to our image and likeness. There follows, And God made man (Gn 1:26-27). Which God made him if not the Son? You yourself have explained this in your treatises. See below, in this section, where Maximinus refers to a treatise that Augustine gave him on the invisibility of God. It is not clear to which treatises Maximinus is referring. Augustine never interprets God made man in the sense that it was the Son who made man, though he does understand the plural in Let us make and the singular in God made as referring to the three persons and the one God; see The Literal Meaning of Genesis III, 19, 29. †172 This Son, then, who is the prophet of his Father, also said, It is not good that man be alone; let us make a helper for him like him (Gn 2:18). This Son appeared to Adam in accord with what we read that Adam said, I heard your voice as you walked in paradise, and I hid myself because I was naked. You certainly have what God said to him, And who told you that you were naked unless you have eaten from that tree about which I commanded you that you not eat? (Gn 3:10-11). This God was seen by Abraham; See Gn 18:1. †173 if you are willing to believe, the only-begotten God himself declared in the gospel that the Son was seen by Abraham. He said, Abraham, your father, rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and he was glad (Jn 8:56). This Son was also seen by Jacob in the form in which he was to come, that is, in the form of a man; he is found to have wrestled with Jacob as a foreshadowing of what was to come. Jacob said, I have seen the Lord face to face, and my life has been preserved, and the name of this place was called The Vision of God. The God, who wrestled with Jacob, foreshadowing what we see fulfilled in the passion of Christ, attested to this. He said to Jacob, Your name will no longer be called Jacob, but your name will be Israel (Gn 32:28), that is, one who sees God. We prove that he was seen in the New Testament as well. The apostles said of him, And we have seen his glory, the glory as if of the Only-Begotten by the Father (Jn 1:14). But, if you claim, as you try to do, that the Father was seen, all the scriptures are for you Apud vos; editions: apud nos. †174 filled with lies. Paul proclaims that the Father is invisible, See 1 Tm 6:16. †175 and in the gospel the Lord affirms it. See Jn 1:18. †176
“You often make the accusation against us that we boldly and presumptuously say things that we should not say. That will be up to the judgment of the reader to test. After all, we do not speak to obtain praise from someone, The manuscripts: ut a tuis laudem consequamur. †177 but out of the desire to strengthen the brotherhood we have. Nobiscum; Amerbach and Erasmus: vobiscum. †178 Perhaps you wanted to challenge us to make an answer so that those you have observed to belong to us might agree, as I said, with what you profess. For this reason, I had to answer you on account of the fear of God. It was not only by your words that you tried to take from me the discipleship of these men; you also gave me your treatise Neither Augustine nor Maximinus indicate to which treatise Maximinus is referring. One possibility is the second book of The Trinity where Augustine deals with the missions of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, though nowhere does Augustine say that the Son and the Holy Spirit were changed into the forms in which they appeared. †179 to which I had to answer those things which you have professed concerning the invisibility of the omnipotent God. Though Louvain adds occupatus. †180 with another intention, still in your
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own words, you stated that the Holy Spirit was seen in the form of a dove as well as in the form of fire and See Mt 3:16 and Acts 2:3.
†181 that the Son was seen in the form of man, but that the Father was seen neither in the form of a dove nor in the form of a man. He never turned himself into any forms and is never changed. Scripture says of him,
I am who I am, and
I have not changed (Ex 3:14 and Mal 3:6). The Son who, of course, had already been established in the form of God has, as you have stated, taken the form of the servant, but the Father has not. Likewise, the Holy Spirit took the form of the dove, but the Father did not. Acknowledge, then, that there is one who is invisible; there is one who is incomprehensible and immense. I pray and desire to be a disciple of the divine scriptures; I believe that Your Holiness recalls that I earlier gave the response that, if you produced the evidence that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit have one power, one substance, one deity, one majesty, one glory, that, if you state this from the divine scriptures, if you produce any passage of scripture, we are eager to be found disciples of the divine scriptures.” See above, 11.
†182
“I, Maximinus, bishop, have signed this.” Subscripsi; Louvain: subscripsit. †183
After the debate with both parties present, Augustine dictated the following words, “You said that, as a man protected by the power of princes, I say not a word with the fear of God. See above, 15, 1. †184 Those to whom God gives understanding see clearly enough who speaks with the fear of God: whether it is he who obediently hears the Lord saying, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one (Dt 6:4), which we hear in obedience and preach with faith, or whether it is he who refuses to understand it this way and argues that there are two lords, two gods and, by introducing two gods and two lords, shows that he does not fear the one Lord God who says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one.
“You know that your verbose speech has taken up the time in which we might have replied and that there does not remain enough of the day for us even to reread what you have said. You should realize that all those things that you brought forth to prove that the Son of God is God and the great God, that he was born from the Father, that he is distinct from the Father, because the Father is not the Son, have involved long delays in which you wasted the time we needed, as if you had to prove to us what we admit is true. We do not say that the Father is the Son or that he who is the Holy Spirit in the Trinity is the Father or the Son. Each of the three are distinct, but all together they are the one Lord God. We have not said that there are two lord gods, one great and the other greater, one good and the other better, one wise and the other wiser, one merciful and the other more merciful, one powerful and the other more powerful, one invisible and the other more invisible, one true and the other more true, and whatever else you have shown that you think in order to persuade us to hold two lord gods. If we had said this, God himself would refute us with the words I mentioned, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one.
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“It is as if he should say to us, Men and women, how long will you be heavy of heart? Why do you love vanity and go after a lie? (Ps 4:3). Why do you make two lord gods? Why do you not listen to me as I cry out, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one? Instead, you cry out against me, “The lords are our gods, the lords are two.” Would you do this if you wanted to be Israel? After all, this name is translated as one who sees God. I beg you, pardon me, if you do not want to be Israel. I want to be Israel; I want to be counted among those who are permitted to see God. We thank him who makes us see now in a mirror in a dark manner, but then face to face, as the apostle says (1 Cor 13:12). We see by his gift, even though we still see in a mirror in a dark manner; we see, nonetheless, how these two things are not contradictory: that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinct and that these three together are still one Lord God.
“I have done the best I could to make you see this as well, but you have preferred to resist, because you did not want to be Israel. If perhaps you still cannot see this, believe and you will see it. These things are seen by understanding, not by looking with the eyes of the flesh. You certainly know that the prophet said, Unless you shall believe, you will not understand (Is 7:9). You hear, The Lord is your God, the Lord is one. Do not make the Father and the Son two gods. You hear, Do you not know that your bodies are the temple in your midst of the Holy Spirit which you have from God? In the same Eodem; manuscripts: alio. †185 passage you hear, Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? (1 Cor 6:19.15). When you hear these words, do not deny that the Holy Spirit is God; do not make the members of the Creator the temple of a creature. First, believe that these three are and are three in their individual persons and that they are, nonetheless, not, taken together, three lord gods, but one Lord God. Then, the Lord God will grant understanding to you who believe and pray that you may deserve also to see, that is, to understand what you believe. In accord with the Old Latin version of Is 7:9 (“Unless you believe, you will not understand”), Augustine insists upon the need to believe first in order that one may deserve to understand what he has believed. †186
“Now consider carefully all the things that you have said in your long discourse, and you will see that they all stem from this error by which you make two lord gods in opposition to the clear words of the Lord God who says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one, and deny the Holy Spirit is God, though you cannot deny his holy temple. Meanwhile, let this suffice as a warning to you subsequent to the debate in which we were both present and spoke one after the other. If the Lord is willing—for it would take a long time and you are in a hurry to depart—I will, with as much clarity as I can, set our discussion before the eyes of those who want to read it. And I will show, whether you like it or not, that you have tried to prove by true divine testimonies your own false teachings.”
In a different hand: “I, Augustine, bishop, have signed this.”
Again, in another hand: “Maximinus. If I do not reply to every thing, once you have completed this book and sent it to me, I will then deserve to be blamed.”
The acts are completed. I have collected them. Louvain: Antonius vera Gesta contuli. Amerbach and Erasmus have culpa explicaberis. Antonius Gesta contuli. Corbei: Explicata Gesta contuli. All manuscripts lack the name: Antonius. †187
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Notes
†1 The debate occurred in 427 or 428. In his Life of Augustine 17, Possidius tells us that Maximinus came to Africa with the Goths. Maximinus mentions that he was sent to Hippo by Count Segisvult who came to Africa against Boniface during the consulate of Hierius and Arduber, that is, in 427, according to Prosper's Epitoma chronicae.
†2 Comite Segisvulto. The earlier editions: comite regis multa. In some manuscripts: comite Fegisvulto, but in others more correctly: comite Segisvulto.
†3 Augustine had appointed the priest, Heraclius, to take over some of the episcopal administration and to succeed him upon his death. It was probably this same Heraclius who first debated Maximinus and who summoned Augustine to his assistance; see Vita sancti Aurelii Augustini ex ejus potissimum scriptis concinnata VIII, vi, 3.
†4 Manuscripts: sibi injuriam facere; editions: mihi injuriam facere.
†5 Maximinus' refusal to use terms not found in scripture bears in particular upon the terms used by the Council of Nicaea (325): “from the substance of the Father” and “of the same substance (homoousios).” See below 13; 15, 13; and 15, 21 for further examples of Maximinus' insistence upon scripture alone.
†6 Mss: Arimino; Migne: Arimini.
†7 The Council of Ariminum was convoked in 359 by the Arian Emperor Constantius. The Western bishops met at Ariminum (modern Rimini, in northeastern Italy), while the Eastern bishops met at Seleucia. It was of Ariminum that Saint Jerome wrote that “the world groaned and was astonished to find itself Arian” (Dialogus contra Luciferianos 19).
†8 For Maximinus the authority of the fathers at Ariminum is derived from the fact that they handed on the faith contained in the scriptures and in the way it is found in the scriptures.
†9 See 1 Pt 3:15.
†10 Arianism had been outlawed by imperial decree, but survived, especially among the barbarian tribes, so that it was reintroduced to Italy and Africa with the invasion of the Goths.
†11 The Arian position attributed different external operations to different persons of the Trinity. Thus the Son was the creator of this world, and the Holy Spirit was the enlightener of souls. This doctrine, of course, implies an inequality among the persons.
†12 Here we see operative one of the basic principles of Arian thought, namely, that everything derivative is less than that from which it is derived. Though Augustine's question might seem tangential, it provokes from Maximinus a clear statement of the subordination of the Son to the Father and of the Holy Spirit to the Son.
†13 The sense of the preposition “through” shifts during this discussion. Here the preposition seems to mean that the Holy Spirit enlightens us in virtue of the light received from the Son. Above it seems to have meant that the Son uses the Holy Spirit as a means of enlightening us.
†14 According to Maximinus, the union of the Father and the Son is a dynamic or moral unity, not a unity of substance.
†15 See above, the preceding paragraph.
†16 See above, 5.
†17 “The only-begotten God” is one of the favorite titles for Christ among the Homoian Arians. The fact that the Holy Spirit has received from Christ whatever he has indicates for Maximinus the inferiority of the Holy Spirit to the only-begotten God.
†18 See above, 6.
†19 Maximinus' words imply that the Holy Spirit has been “made,” that is, that he is a creature. Throughout this part of the debate Maximinus appeals implicitly to the principle that to have received something from another entails being inferior to that other.
†20 Et quia; manuscripts: Quid est et quia.
†21 Here we have the point that Augustine has been seeking to establish. Maximinus' claim, however, that the Spirit is subject to the Son starts him off on another line of argumentation.
†22 See above, the previous paragraph.
†23 Augustine appeals to the force of the preposition “upon” or “above” (super) to show that the Spirit is not inferior to the Son.
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†24 The editions add: misit me, which is missing from the manuscripts and from Answer to An Arian Sermon XXII, 18.
†25 Arian doctrine denied the presence of a human soul in Christ, a view which seemed to derive support from a literal reading of Jn 1:14. Hence, Augustine points out that the scriptural uses of “flesh” where it is synonymous with “man” or “human being.”
†26 Trinitatis; some manuscripts: Trinitas.
†27 Maximinus admits that the Son is God, but by having made the Son inferior to the Father, he winds up with two gods—a position that runs counter to Dt 6:4, as Augustine points out again and again.
†28 Maximinus does not accept the equality of the three, namely, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and understands the singleness of the omnipotent God as referring to the Father, the one author of all else.
†29 Sive Filium; manuscripts: sive Filius.
†30 Et in; editions: Et ex.
†31 Augustine's statement might seem to imply that God's power extends to principles of arithmetic, though he is merely arguing that, if the charity of the Holy Spirit could make many human beings one, then the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can, a fortiori, be one God, given their love for one another. Augustine's argument, on the other hand, is not entirely felicitous, since the analogy with the unity of the faithful implies that the unity of the three persons is a merely moral unity—the sort of unity of the three persons that the Arians readily admitted; see M. Simonetti, “S. Agostino et gli Ariani,” 70.
†32 Maximinus picks up Augustine's argument in the previous paragraph and takes him to imply that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are merely a moral unity, not one in substance.
†33 See 1 Pt 1:12.
†34 Et advocatione fungi; manuscripts: et advocationem fungi.
†35 Maximinus holds that the Father is the one God and characterizes him by the series of negative attributes; he rejects the view that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the one God.
†36 Maximinus implies that Christ does not have a human soul when he understands Augustine as attributing Christ's prayer to his body.
†37 Cognoscitis; Louvain edition: cognoscetis.
†38 Si sufficiunt haec, bene est: si quominus; Amerbach, Erasmus and manuscripts: Si sufficiunt? si quo non.
†39 The Arian position takes such a text in its literal sense in order to show that the Spirit is subordinate to the Father and Son. Augustine appeals to the figure of metonomy to avoid the interpretation which would make the Holy Spirit literally groan. In accord with this figure what properly belongs to the effect is attributed to the cause. In the same way, we call a day happy day because it makes us happy.
†40 See Prv 10:19.
†41 Revera; some manuscripts: res vera.
†42 Expressione; Louvain: expositione.
†43 Maximinus' position is not merely that one does well to cite scripture, but that one does wrong in using human skills to formulate idle and superfluous words, that is, those not found in scripture. See Mt 12:36. The prime examples of such words would, of course, be those used by the Council of Nicaea.
†44 As Maximinus sees it, one cannot maintain both that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three and that they are one God. For him, the one God is the Father, while the Son is a lesser God and the Holy Spirit not God at all.
†45 Maximinus uses “contagium” in the plural; it can mean “contact” in a neutral sense or “infection” and “pollution”—that is, contact in a pejorative sense. Later, Augustine points out that the word carries a pejorative connotation and implies some contamination; see below 14. Hanson finds at the core of the Arian view the belief that the one God cannot himself create or come into contact with the world; thus, there is needed a lesser God who can create and become incarnate. See Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 100-106.
†46 Jn 20:17 in which Jesus calls the Father his God was one of the Arian trump cards to prove that the Father is the God of the Son.
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†47 According to Maximinus, the Son and the Holy Spirit adore the one God, the Father. Though the Son is a great God and the only-begotten God, he reveals his inferiority to the Father by adoring the Father. So too, Maximinus claims that the Holy Spirit adores the Father.
†48 Maximinus indicates what he takes as the Nicene position regarding the oneness of God, namely, that the one God is a union or mixture of the three.
†49 See above, 13.
†50 Maximinus speaks of the Son as the exemplum of the Father. That is, the Son is the expression or revelation of the Father. As the Arians held that a lesser God was needed for creation, so they held such a God was needed for revelation.
†51 See above, 12.
†52 Though the Son is the Only-Begotten and the only-begotten God, his being born from the Father entails for Maximinus his being less than the Father.
†53 Once again Maximinus reveals that he thinks of Christ in the Word-flesh (Verbum-caro) scheme to the point that he does not admit a human soul in him.
†54 See 1 Cor 15:28.
†55 See above, at the beginning of this section.
†56 Later Augustine goes after Maximinus for understanding the Son's being in the Father's embrace or bosom in a carnal, that is, bodily sense. See Answer to Maximinus II, 9, 2.
†57 Audi utique; manuscripts: Audivi utique.
†58 See above, 13.
†59 Discredo with Amerbach, Erasmus and manuscripts; Louvain: discrepo.
†60 The Migne text reads: only-begotten (unigenitum), though the sense requires unbegotten (ingenitum), which Maximinus above contrasts with only-begotten.
†61 The Arian position argues that, if the Son is equal to the Father, one can say of the Son whatever one says of the Father. Thus, if the Father is unbegotten, the Son too is unbegotten. Or, if the Son is born, then the Father is born. In The Trinity Augustine distinguished between absolute and relative predicates and insisted that whatever is said of one person non-relatively is said of each of the other persons; see The Trinity VI, 2, 3. Augustine also points out that “begotten” is a relative term; hence, its negative is also relative; see The Trinity V, 7, 8. The Arian objection goes back to the Greek in which “unbegotten: agennetos” and “unmade: agenetos” were used interchangeably prior to the Arian controversy.
†62 See above, 13. Later Maximinus complains that Augustine should not have attacked him so harshly because of his ignorance of the connotation of the word; see below, 15, 8. Augustine's correction of his usage, however, does not seem particularly harsh. Furthermore, in using “contacts: contagia,” Maximinus has departed from the language of scripture and thus has violated his own rule, while revealing the need for human knowledge to provide a hermeneutic for the meaning of scripture.
†63 In Sermon 237, 4, Augustine insists, “He who created the whole redeemed the whole; the Word assumed the whole and liberated the whole. In him was the mind and intellect of a man; in him a soul giving life to the flesh; in him true and integral flesh; only sin was not in him.”
†64 Hanson argues that at the heart of the Arian position is the claim that God himself truly suffered and died for us and not merely the human flesh that the Word assumed. See Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 121-122.
†65 In The Trinity II, 1, 2, Augustine speaks of the “canonical rule” by which “one understands that the Son of God is equal to the Father in accord with the form of God in which he exists and less than the Father in accord with the form of the servant that he has received….” See Jaroslav Pelikan, “Canonica regula: The Trinitarian Hermeneutics of Augustine,” Collectanea Augustiniana. Augustine: The Second Founder of the Faith. Ed. by Joseph A. Schnaubelt, O.S.A. and Frederick Van Fleteren (New York: Peter Lang, 1990), 327-341. Augustine cannot, of course, appeal to such a rule against Maximinus; he does, however, argue that all those passages in which the Son is described as less than or inferior to the Father are to be interpreted as referring to the assumed humanity.
†66 See above, 13.
†67 See Sermon 139, 3, where Augustine argues that, if the Son is not of the same substance as the Father, then the Father has given birth to a monster, just as much as if a human mother gave birth to a non-human being.
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†68 See Lk 2:51.
†69 Quoniam homo adorat Deum, with the manuscripts. The editions: quoniam hic adorat Deum.
†70 See above, 13.
†71 See above, 13.
†72 Spiritum Dominum, with the manuscripts. The editions: Spiritum Dei.
†73 See above, 13.
†74 Quia dicis. Louvain: qua dicit.
†75 See above, 13.
†76 The manuscripts add: et aliud unum sumus.
†77 For Augustine “they are one (unum)” indicates a substantial unity, while “they are one (unus)” indicates a unity that may or may not be substantial and that needs to be specified.
†78 See above, 13.
†79 See above, 14.
†80 In The Literal Meaning of Genesis XII, 6, 15-7, 16, Augustine distinguishes three kinds of vision: intellectual, spiritual, and corporeal, that is, with the mind, with the imagination, and with bodily eyes. Though God is invisible to the eyes of the body, he can be seen through the eyes of the mind by the mediation of creatures.
†81 See above, 13.
†82 See above, 13.
†83 See above, 14.
†84 See above, 13.
†85 See Mt 3:16 and Acts 2:3. Though the Holy Spirit appeared in the forms of fire and of the dove, the dove or the fire is called the Spirit only because they are signs of the Spirit. Augustine points out that “we cannot say that the Holy Spirit is both God and dove or both God and fire, as we say that the Son is both God and man” (The Trinity II, 6, 11). For the forms of the dove and of the fire were not assumed into the unity of the person of the Holy Spirit in the way Christ's humanity was assumed.
†86 See above, 13.
†87 Esse, missing in Erasmus.
†88 Augustine has, as Maximinus points out, been the first to resort to a lengthy discourse. From this point on, Maximinus speaks without interruption and uses up the remaining time, thus forcing Augustine to write the two books against Maximinus in order to have the last word.
†89 Maximinus takes this passage as opposed to Augustine's view. The fact that the Father has exalted the Son and given him the name above every name entails for Maximinus that the Son is inferior to the Father. Maximinus ignores Augustine's attempt to distinguish what is said of Christ in accord with the form of God from what is said of him in accord with the form of the servant. For Maximinus' interpretation of he did not think it robbery, see below, 15, 15.
†90 Maximinus offers this as proof that the Holy Spirit adores the Father and is, therefore, less than the Father. If everything, apart from the Father, bends its knee to Christ, then the Holy Spirit too bends his knee to Christ and thus to the Father.
†91 See above, 12.
†92 Augustine's claim that the Holy Spirit is God is not found in scripture with anything like the clarity with which the divinity of Christ is found there. Maximinus demands Scriptural evidence that the Holy Spirit is adored as Christ was adored.
†93 See Rom 8:34.
†94 See Mt 22:44.
†95 In Answer to Maximinus II, 4, Augustine asks Maximinus the point of this passage. Maximinus' point seems to be that, while Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father, the Holy Spirit is not.
†96 Ducatorem; Louvain: ductorem.
†97 Non puto te minus legisse with Erasmus, Lyons, and Venice: Louvain: Nam puto te legisse.
†98 Maximinus' text seems to say that Christ committed sin. Augustine certainly takes this to be Maximinus' intent, though he could have interpreted even Maximinus' text in a more orthodox sense. See Answer to Maximinus I, 2, where Augustine calls him on this point.
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†99 See above, 14.
†100 See above, 13.
†101 Juste with Erasmus and the better manuscripts; Amerbach and Louvain: se judicanti injuste.
†102 See above, 14.
†103 Antequam quidquam esset; manuscripts: ante ut quidquid esset.
†104 Natus a Patre est; most manuscripts: tantus a Patre est; Corbei: tantum. As Simonetti has pointed out, none of these expressions admits that the Son is coeternal with the Father; they merely assert his priority to all creatures; see “Arianesimo Latino,” 710.
†105 Maximinus here ascribes to the Son the substance and nature of divinity. On the other hand, he does not want to admit that the Son has the same substance and nature as the Father. Thus, he leaves himself open to Augustine's claim that he has introduced a second God.
†106 See above, 14.
†107 Augustine will turn this argument back on Maximinus, insisting that the Father would have been envious or grudging, if he could generate a Son who was his equal and did not. See Answer to Maximinus II, 7. For Augustine's use of the Platonic theme that the good is without envy, see O. du Roy, L'intelligence de la foi en la Trinité selon saint Augustin: Genèse de sa théologie trinitaire jusqu'en 391 (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1966), 474-475.
†108 All of creation bears witness to the goodness of the Son, who is, after all, the God of all creation. Thus, Maximinus interprets Rom 1:20 as referring to the Son's invisible reality.
†109 See above, 14.
†110 Maximinus is referring to Augustine's claim that he had misused “contagium” in referring to the incarnation. Here Maximinus pleads ignorance of the liberal arts and rhetoric; elsewhere he prides himself on having kept himself free from philosophy.
†111 Praecinuerat; older editions: praecanuerat.
†112 Perfectam; Amerbach, Erasmus and manuscripts: prophetam.
†113 See above, 14.
†114 Omnipotentiae, omitted by some manuscripts. Others, as well as Amerbach and Erasmus: omnipotentis.
†115 The Arian subordination of the Son to the Father is seen in the claim that the Father has begotten the Son, while the Son has created the heavenly powers.
†116 Possimus with Erasmus, Lyons, Venice and Louvain.
†117 Angelum; manuscripts: archangelum.
†118 A te omitted by Amerbach, Erasmus, and the manuscripts.
†119 Once again, Maximinus understands the texts which Augustine interprets as referring to the form of the servant that the Son assumed to refer to the flesh, thus implying the absence of a human soul in Christ.
†120 In the Latin text that Maximinus uses, “representation of the truth” must be in apposition to Christ, though in the Greek and the Vulgate the expression is contrasted with the “temples made by hand,” that is, he entered not into a temple made by hand, but into the representation of the true temple.
†121 Maximinus argues that human wisdom is seen in its effects; so too, the wisdom of Christ should be visible in creation.
†122 Note that for Maximinus to say that there is one God and that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are that one God implies that the three are parts of the one God. As Augustine points out, especially in Answer to Maximinus II, 10, 2-3, Maximinus thinks of God in bodily terms. Maximinus' innocence of any philosophy leaves him without any concept of incorporeal or spiritual reality. One can be a good Christian, albeit a “little one” in the faith, without such a concept, but then one must believe without understanding. On the “little ones,” see my, “A Decisive Admonition for Augustine?” Augustinian Studies 19 (1988), 85-92.
†123 Genitus; others genita.
†124 See above, 13.
†125 Following the editions with vestras instead of vestri.
†126 Creatorem omitted by Louvain.
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†127 In saying that the Father begot the Son in the way the Father knew, Maximinus implies that only the Father has such knowledge and that, since we lack that knowledge, we should not attempt to specify the nature of such generation.
†128 For the canons of the Council of Ariminum, see Jerome, Dialogus contra Luciferianos 18.
†129 See above, 14.
†130 Generat filium, sapientia consensum accomodans corpori. Amerbach: filium sapientiam. Louvain: et sapientia. See Answer to Maximinus II, 14, 4. Erasmus: generatum filium, sapientium consensu. Lyons and Venice: generat filium sapientium consensu; others: et sapientiam consensum. The BAC translation follows the text in Erasmus, while retaining the Latin of Migne.
†131 Aside from the difficulties of establishing the text, Maximinus' talk about the soul generating is quite vague; he may be thinking of the soul as generating wisdom or good works. Augustine later takes him literally as though he meant that one soul generates another, though he says here that the soul is not born from a soul. See Answer to Maximinus II, 14, 4.
†132 See above, 15, 9.
†133 Genuit ut voluit, ut potens; many manuscripts: Generat ut voluit, voluit ut potens.
†134 See above, 7.
†135 That is, the Father is alone immortal, because he is incomparable in his immortality, just as he is incomparable in his power and wisdom; see above, 15, 13. Or, as Maximinus says just below, the Father is alone immortal, because he has received his immortality from no one.
†136 See Mt 26:26.
†137 Ut jam non obtundam eloquentia sermonis vel copia testimoniorum proferens plurima, with some manuscripts. Other manuscripts: ut sancti non obtundam… proferens plurima. Amerbach and Erasmus: ut sanctum non obtundam eloquentia… proferens plurima. Louvain: ut jam non ob tantam eloquentiam sermonis, vel copiam testimoniorum proferam plurima.
†138 See 1 Tm 3:2.
†139 See above, 15, 7.
†140 Maximinus seems to interpret Paul as saying that Christ did not think that he should steal equality with God; see Answer to Maximinus II, 15, 1, where Augustine argues against such an interpretation.
†141 Maximinus uses the Nicene expression “of the same substance,” but takes the Holy Spirit's being of the same substance as the Son to imply that the Holy Spirit is another son, that is, a brother of Christ.
†142 Accepimus. Lyons, Venice, Louvain: accipimus. Maximinus has no problem in speaking of the nature of the Son who is born (natus). The Father, however, is unborn (innatus), and for that reason, it seems, the Father does not have a nature.
†143 That the Son is like the Father according to the scriptures is one of the hallmarks of Homoian Arianism.
†144 Louvain: Spiritum filium genuit.
†145 See above, 15, 7.
†146 Ante omnia; Louvain: ante omnia saecula.
†147 Maximinus holds that the Father begot a perfect or completely developed Son, not a Son who would grow to his full or complete stature. He was not, however, willing to admit that the Son was equal to the Father.
†148 Both Maximinus and Augustine hold the view that parents would generate, if they could, an adult rather than an infant that has to grow into adulthood—a view of infancy and childhood that surely strikes us as very odd.
†149 Isto utitur sermone. Manuscripts: istos utitur sermones.
†150 See Mt 3:16.
†151 See Jn 1:1-3.
†152 See Col 1:15. Maximinus seems to understand “the beginning” as the beginning of creation; thus the Father alone is before the beginning and without beginning.
†153 See Lk 2:51 and above, 14.
†154 Again Maximinus seems to exclude from Christ a human soul. As Maximinus sees it, Christ's subjection to the Father means either that the body is subject to the Father or that the
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only-begotten God is subject to the Father. He takes the former to be the Nicene position, which entails the absurd consequence that all else is subject to Christ's body.
†155 See above, 13.
†156 Sed audi lectionem, with most mss; others: sed aut dilectione; the editions: sed pro dilectione.
†157 See above, 12.
†158 Once again Maximinus rejects any role for rational argumentation and insists that scriptural proofs are alone acceptable.
†159 See Ps 144:18.
†160 Concordi aequalitate. Some manuscripts: concordia, aequalitate; others concordiae aequalitate.
†161 See above, 14.
†162 Ut ipse exposuisti; Erasmus, Lyons and Louvain: quod quidem exposuisti. Venice: quod quid est exposuisti.
†163 Literally: “one (unum), not one (unus).” It is difficult to translate the neuter (unum) and masculine (unus) of “one” in different ways so as to convey the basis for the disagreement. “One nature, but not one person” would be acceptable to Augustine, but not to Maximinus. “One in harmony, not one in number” seems to indicate what Maximinus understands.
†164 See above, 14.
†165 See Sermon 140, 4, where Augustine accuses Maximinus of blasphemy for saying that the apostles are one (unum) with the Father and the Son.
†166 In ipso with manuscripts. Editions: per ipsum.
†167 See above, 12.
†168 See above, 14.
†169 See above, 14.
†170 Profusus es; Erasmus, Lyons and Venice: provectus es.
†171 See above, 14.
†172 See below, in this section, where Maximinus refers to a treatise that Augustine gave him on the invisibility of God. It is not clear to which treatises Maximinus is referring. Augustine never interprets God made man in the sense that it was the Son who made man, though he does understand the plural in Let us make and the singular in God made as referring to the three persons and the one God; see The Literal Meaning of Genesis III, 19, 29.
†173 See Gn 18:1.
†174 Apud vos; editions: apud nos.
†175 See 1 Tm 6:16.
†176 See Jn 1:18.
†177 The manuscripts: ut a tuis laudem consequamur.
†178 Nobiscum; Amerbach and Erasmus: vobiscum.
†179 Neither Augustine nor Maximinus indicate to which treatise Maximinus is referring. One possibility is the second book of The Trinity where Augustine deals with the missions of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, though nowhere does Augustine say that the Son and the Holy Spirit were changed into the forms in which they appeared.
†180 Louvain adds occupatus.
†181 See Mt 3:16 and Acts 2:3.
†182 See above, 11.
†183 Subscripsi; Louvain: subscripsit.
†184 See above, 15, 1.
†185 Eodem; manuscripts: alio.
†186 In accord with the Old Latin version of Is 7:9 (“Unless you believe, you will not understand”), Augustine insists upon the need to believe first in order that one may deserve to understand what he has believed.
†187 Louvain: Antonius vera Gesta contuli. Amerbach and Erasmus have culpa explicaberis. Antonius Gesta contuli. Corbei: Explicata Gesta contuli. All manuscripts lack the name: Antonius.
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ANSWER TO MAXIMINUS THE ARIAN
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Introduction
Augustine's Response to Maximinus in the First Book
According to Possidius, Augustine's friend and biographer, Maximinus returned to Carthage after the debate and “boasted that he had won the debate on the basis of the length of his discourse during the debate.” Possidius, Life of Augustine 17. †1 Loyal friend that he was, Possidius added, “And he lied!” Yet, in looking back on the debate from the vantage point of many centuries in which the faith of Nicaea has prevailed, we must remember that the winner in a public debate is determined on other grounds than who has the truth. Possidius may provide a clue as to whom the large and interested audience considered to be the winner with his remark that “these matters are not easily examined and decided by those who are ignorant of the divine law.” The fact that Augustine wrote the two books of the Answer to Maximinus the Arian may also indicate that he did not come out of the debate as a winner in the eyes of all.
The two books of Augustine's Answer to Maximinus the Arian take up point by point the claims of the Arian bishop that Augustine did not have sufficient time to address on the day of the debate. Augustine tells his readers that in the first of the two books he will show that Maximinus was not able to refute his claims, while in the second Augustine undertakes a refutation of what Maximinus said—a plan of action that is not carried out with quite that precision in the two books that follow. See Answer to Maximinus, beginning. †2 It would be more accurate to say that the second book deals with Maximinus' long final discourse, while the first book goes over the first part of the debate to which Augustine already had some chance to respond.
The second book is by far the longer—over three times the length of the first. The first book contains a brief introduction and then twenty chapters in which Augustine reviews the arguments where he claims that Maximinus either had to yield to Augustine or was unable to make any answer or, at least, not an adequate answer.
Augustine points out, first of all, that Maximinus did not provide an adequate response to Augustine's claim that the Arians either do not worship Christ or worship two gods. Secondly, Augustine takes up Maximinus' claim that the Father did not come down to human contacts (contagia) and his implicit claim that the Son did come down to such defilements. Augustine points out Maximinus' mistaken version of 2 Corinthians 5:20-21 which had Christ committing sin for us, but since Maximinus has already made it clear that he held that Christ
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was sinless, Augustine drops the issue. Thirdly, Augustine takes up the question of God's invisibility, pointing out that, when Maximinus admitted that the Son was invisible in his divinity, he destroyed his claim that the Father alone is invisible. Maximinus' claim that greater beings cannot be seen by lesser ones, Augustine points out, runs counter to the text of John 6:64 that says that the Son has seen the Father—at least for one who holds that the Father is greater than the Son. Simonetti notes that Augustine could have turned his opponent's argument against him into an explicit proof of the equality of the Son; see “S. Agostino et gli Ariani,” 77.
†3 Augustine also notes that Maximinus' ploy in saying that the Son saw the incomprehensible affords no escape.
Fourthly, Maximinus tried to interpret the Pauline verse, “Who alone has immortality” (1 Tm 6:16), as referring only to the Father. Maximinus granted that the Son is immortal in his divinity, but tried to maintain that the Son does not have true immortality, since he received it from the Father. Augustine points out that the question at issue is whether the Son has immortality, not where he gets it. Hence, Augustine insists that it is not the Father alone who has immortality. Rather, all the three persons are immortal, as well as the human soul and other spiritual creatures.
Fifthly, Augustine recalls that he explained that the Father is greater than the Son, because the Son became a man in time. Maximinus had interpreted Philippians 2:6 as implying that the Son refused to steal and, therefore, did not have equality with God. Augustine replies with a careful exegesis of the whole passage in which he shows that the Son did not regard equality with God as something that did not belong to him so that he might steal it, but as something that belonged to him. Moreover, in emptying himself and taking the form of the servant, he did not lose what he had, namely, equality with God.
Sixthly, Augustine had used the example of animal generation to show that even the offspring of animals have the same nature as their parents, while the Arians deny that the true Son of the Father has the same nature as the Father. He had also pointed out that, while human offspring are born younger and smaller than their parents, they can grow up and attain the age and stature of their parents; the Son of the Father is, according to Maximinus, born inferior to his Father and cannot grow up to his Father's stature. Maximinus had objected to Augustine's comparison of the generation of the Son to that of animals. Augustine defends the legitimacy of the comparison and points out that, on the Arian view, animals and humans are superior since they can generate offspring that are of the same nature as their parents.
Augustine points out in the seventh chapter that Maximinus has not responded satisfactorily to what he had said with regard to the sense in which the Son calls the Father his God. Similarly, in the eighth chapter Augustine repeats his claim that the Son was subject to his Father in the form of the servant, but not in the form of God. In the ninth chapter Augustine points out that Maximinus has never offered a scripture text to show that the Holy Spirit adores the Father.
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He explains again how one should understand the groaning of the Holy Spirit in Romans 8:26, adding that to intercede with the Father is, in any case, not the same as to adore the Father.
Tenthly, Augustine complains that Maximinus has not answered his argument that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God. Leaving aside the manner of their union, he argues that, if one who clings to the Lord is one spirit, See 1 Cor 6:17. †4 then the Father and the Son are surely one God. In the eleventh chapter he reiterates his argument that, if we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, then the Holy Spirit must be our God.
In chapter twelve Augustine points out that Maximinus failed to produce a scripture text in which “they are one (unum)” is said of different substances, showing that the texts Maximinus did produce were insufficient. Next Augustine argues that the Father's having borne witness to the Son shows that the Father is not the Son, but does not show that the Father is greater than the Son.
Maximinus had originally said that “the Father loves and the Son is loved.” Debate with Maximinus 14. †5 In the fourteenth chapter, Augustine acknowledges that Maximinus later admitted that the Son also loves the Father, but that he still held that the Son loves the Father “as a creature loves his Creator.” Answer to Maximinus I, 14. †6
Augustine returns to the invisibility of God in the fifteenth chapter, claiming once again that Maximinus did not answer him. Maximinus had interpreted the text, God who alone is wise (Rom 16:27), as referring to the Father and then conceded that the Son also is wise, maintaining that the Father alone is truly wise. To this Augustine retorts that his Arian opponent is surely not going to maintain that Christ, the wisdom of God, is not truly wise.
To Maximinus' claim that the Father is unmade, Augustine had answered that the Son too, insofar as he is God, is unmade, but that in the form of the servant he was made. Augustine reminds Maximinus that he had nothing to say on this point, just as Maximinus had nothing to say to Augustine's claim that “the Son is not a true Son, if he is not what the Father is.” Answer to Maximinus I, 18. †7
The nineteenth chapter—the longest in the book—deals with Maximinus' claim that the Father is greater than the Holy Spirit. Augustine had conceded that the Father is greater than the Son on account of the form of the servant that the Son assumed; Maximinus pointed to the Holy Spirit's having appeared in the forms of a dove or of fire. Augustine explains the difference between the Son's assuming a human nature so that the Word and the human nature were one person in a union that will remain forever and the Holy Spirit's briefly taking on visible forms, whether of a dove or of fire, that passed away once they had served their purpose as signs. Moreover, Augustine attacks Maximinus' implication that the Son and the Holy Spirit changed themselves into bodily forms.
Maximinus had argued that, if the Son is the same as the Father, then the Son must be unborn as the Father is unborn, and Augustine had answered that Adam
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was not born and still was able to generate human beings like himself. Hence, why could not God the Father, though unborn, not generate a Son who was the same as he. Once again Augustine points out that Maximinus had nothing to say and thus brings the first book to a close.
While the Debate with Maximinus is at times fairly lively, the first book of the Answer to Maximinus the Arian is a rather dull repetition of a series of points on which Maximinus did not, in Augustine's view, prove him wrong. Augustine's position is certainly correct in terms of Nicene orthodoxy, but he again and again simply hammers home the point that Maximinus did not adequately answer him. While this procedure might convince the Catholic reader that Augustine did not lose the debate, it was not likely to win over the hearts and minds of Maximinus and his followers. From our twentieth century perspective we can hardly avoid the feeling that Augustine surely could have and should have gone farther toward a sympathetic understanding of Maximinus' theological concerns instead of simply striving to emerge as the winner.
Augustine's Answer to Maximinus' Final Discourse
The second book of the Answer to Maximinus the Arian contains a preface and twenty-six chapters. In the preface Augustine announces his intention to focus upon Maximinus' long final discourse. He says that he will concentrate upon the question at issue between them, namely, whether the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have the same or a different substance and whether the one God is the Trinity. Augustine, of course, points out the irrelevant issues that Maximinus had introduced and that deprived Augustine of the time he needed for a response—obviously a sore point for Augustine, especially in the light of Maximinus' later claim at Carthage that he had won the debate. See Possidius, Life of Augustine 17. †8
Augustine's decision to reply point by point to Maximinus' final discourse has the obvious advantage of thoroughness; he trounces Maximinus line by line. But this plan of action also means that Augustine does not impose his own order upon the book, but follows the rather disorganized approach of Maximinus' discourse, repeatedly returning to the same topics.
Augustine, first of all, recalls that Maximinus had claimed that Augustine enjoyed the protection of the state, as the Nicene side did, and spoke “not a word with the fear of God.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 1. †9 Augustine retorts that scripture has commanded us to pray that those in authority might come to the knowledge of the truth and adds that some rulers have done so. See 1 Tm 2:2-4. †10 He then asks which of them speaks more with the fear of God: the Catholic who praises the Father for having generated a Son who is his equal, or the Arian who says that the Father could not generate a Son as his equal and that the Son was born inferior and always remained inferior to the Father.
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Secondly, Augustine recalls that Maximinus had rejected the Son's equality with the Father on the grounds that the Father gave him the name that is above every name (Phil 2:9). See Debate with Maximinus 15, 2. †11 He points out that the Father gave him this name precisely because, as man, he was obedient unto death, though he already had this name as the Son of God.
Thirdly, Augustine takes up the question of the equality of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son. Maximinus had demanded that Augustine provide proof texts to show that the Holy Spirit should receive adoration. Augustine points to the Pauline text that the Spirit gives life (2 Cor 3:6) and to the fact that Abraham adored or paid homage even to mere humans, See Gn 23:2-7. †12 while the Arians refuse to adore the life-giving Spirit of God.
Moreover, Augustine insists that Catholics and Arians alike understand from the scriptures more than they read in them. For instance, they both understand that the Father is unbegotten and unborn, though these terms are not found in scripture. So too, in claiming that the Father is incomparable to the Son, the Arians—in this case erroneously—go beyond what they read in scripture. See Answer to Maximinus II, 3. †13 Augustine implies that neither side can avoid going beyond a literal repetition of the biblical text if the meaning of the text is to be understood. His basic point is that one not only can legitimately, but even must at times use reason and non-biblical concepts and truths to infer from the words of scripture a truth that is only implicitly contained there. That is, one cannot do biblical theology without a philosophy, whether one recognizes the fact or not. In this case, Augustine infers from the scriptural statement that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and members of Christ that the Holy Spirit is God. Ibid. †14
Fourthly, Maximinus' appeal to the fact that Christ even now makes intercession on our behalf See Rom 8:34. †15 is dismissed with an appeal to the principle that whatever scripture says that indicates the Son's inferiority to the Father is based upon the humanity assumed by the Son—a principle that Augustine had articulated years earlier in The Trinity. See The Trinity II, 1, 2-3 and Answer to Maximinus II, 14, 8, where Augustine articulates this “rule of faith.” †16
Fifthly, Augustine shows how Maximinus might correct his profession of faith in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and bring it into conformity with the Christian faith. Specifically, Augustine mentions that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, since the Father, in generating the Son, gave to the Son the power so that the Holy Spirit proceeds from him as well. Augustine treats the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son as a matter of Christian faith, though the doctrine that the Spirit also proceeds from the Son (filioque) was not endorsed by an Ecumenical Council until Lateran IV in 1215 (see DS 800). This Augustinian doctrine, which remains a point of division between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, had, of course, appeared much earlier in creedal formulae, for example, in the Creed of the Third Council of Toledo (589) from which it was retroactively inserted in the Creed of Constantinople I (381); see DS 470. †17 He also stresses that all three create, teach, sanctify and enlighten and that all three are equal and are the one God.
Augustine accuses Maximinus, in the sixth chapter, of feigning horror over the example of animal generation to avoid the inference that, if the Father begot the Son, the Son must have the nature of the Father. And in the seventh chapter Augustine continues to hammer away at the insufficiency of Maximinus' position that “the Lord begot the Lord; God begot God,” and so on. Though
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Maximinus holds that the Powerful begot the Powerful, he will not admit that the Omnipotent begot the Omnipotent or that the Father begot the Son as his equal. Augustine challenges Maximinus openly to admit that the Son is a lesser God born of a greater God. He takes Maximinus' claim that the Father, like the Good of Platonism, is not envious and formulates the dilemma: See Plato's Timaeus 29E, as well as Plotinus, Enneads II, 9, 17; IV, 8, 6; V, 4, 1-2; V, 5, 12.
†18 On the Arian view, “God the Father either could not or would not beget a Son equal to himself.” Answer to Maximinus II, 7.
†19 If he could not, he was not omnipotent; if he would not, he is not good. Since Maximinus holds that the Father is both omnipotent and good, he should draw the conclusion that the Son is equal to the Father.
Augustine passes over what Maximinus said about the incarnation and cross of Christ and turns in chapter ten to Maximinus' interpretation of Paul's words, To the immortal God alone invisible (1 Tm 1:17), which Maximinus took as referring to the Father. Augustine shows that it is not only the Father who is invisible, but also the Son and the Holy Spirit. Moreover, there are invisible creatures, since Paul tells us that both visible and invisible things were created in Christ. See Col 1:16. †20 Augustine explains that God is said to be invisible, because false gods are visible, and we owe honor and glory to the true God alone, who is invisible.
Augustine takes the opportunity to show that the Son has seen the Father, See Jn 6:46. †21 that the angels see the face of the Father, See Mt 18:10. †22 and human beings will see God as he is. See 1 Jn 3:2. †23 Though no human being has ever seen God, See 1 Tm 6:16. †24 human beings will see him when they become like the angels in heaven. Thus he shows how the various texts can be rendered consistent. In 413 or 414 Augustine wrote the long Letter 147 to Paulina, which has been called, “The Book on Seeing God.” In it he presented a much more detailed interpretation of the various biblical texts on the vision of God. †25 Moreover, he points out that, even if the Son saw the incomprehensible, as Maximinus claimed, it was, nonetheless, not the invisible that he saw, since he did see it.
Augustine accuses Maximinus of understanding the Father's comprehension of the Son in a physical sense, for instance, in the way a human father might hold and embrace his infant son in his arms. Augustine implies that Maximinus takes “in the embrace (in sinu) of the Father” (Jn 1:18) in a physical sense. Elsewhere, he claims that the whole Arian position arises from such image-thinking. See Homilies on the Gospel of John 18, 3-5, and Sermon 136, 8. †26 Hence, Augustine urges Maximinus to banish “such childish or old-womanish images” and to interpret the Son's being in the Father's embrace in the sense that the Son is born of the Father. Finally, Augustine uses the Johannine text, All the things which the Father has are mine (Jn 16:15), to argue that, if the Father is incomprehensible, then the Son must be so as well.
In chapter ten Augustine returns to the oneness of God. Citing the standard texts, 1 Corinthians 8:4 and Deuteronomy 6:4 and 13, Augustine urges the inconsistency of the Arian position that holds that the Father is the one Lord God whom alone we should serve, while also holding that we should serve Christ as Lord and God. Augustine, moreover, tackles the Arian supposition that the Nicene view entails the division of the one God into parts, insisting that the greatness of the three persons is spiritual and not corporeal. See Answer to Maximinus II, 10, 2. †27 Hence, each of the three persons is God; all together they are one God. “One is not a third of the
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Trinity, nor are two of them a greater part than one, and all of them are not something greater than each of them.” Ibid.
†28 Similarly, Christ is one person who is both God and man, but God is not a part of the person who is Christ. Otherwise, the Son would not have been whole before the Incarnation.
Maximinus had denied that the one God is made up of parts and insisted that he is unbegotten simple power. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 10. †29 But he apparently saw only two alternatives: Either the Son was not of the same substance as the Father, or the Father and the Son were physical parts of the one divine substance. The Homoian Arians prided themselves on professing their faith untainted by any philosophy. In doing so, they embraced—unwittingly, but perhaps inevitably—the common philosophical outlook of the West, at least prior to Augustine, that whatever is real is bodily. See F. Masai, “Les conversions de saint Augustin et les débuts de spiritualisme en Occident,” Moyen Age 67 (1961) 1-40. †30 Thus they lacked any concept of spiritual or non-bodily reality—the sort of spiritualist Neoplatonic metaphysics that Augustine discovered when he came into contact with the books of the Platonists in the Church of Milan. See Confessions VII, 9, 13-13, 19, for Augustine's account of his encounter with the books of the Platonists. †31 For this reason, Augustine accuses the Arians, as well as all heretics, of being “carnal persons,” that is, persons who could not think of God in spiritual terms. See Expositions of the Psalms 130, 9 and 11. †32 Against the Arian position, Augustine argues that, if a multiplicity of attributes, such as goodness, wisdom, mercy, powerfulness, are not, on Maximinus' view, parts of the Father, then the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit need not be taken as parts of the one God either. See The Trinity XV, 6, 9, where Augustine uses a similar argument to show that not every multiplicity said of God destroys the divine simplicity. The parallel between many attributes and many persons should not be misunderstood, since, though God's goodness is his wisdom, the Father is not the Son. Hence, in The City of God XI, 10, Augustine says, “That is simple which is what it has, except for what each person is said to be relatively to another.” That is, God is simple because he is the goodness he has; yet, though the Father has a Son, the Father is not the Son, because God is said to be the Father in relation to his Son. †33
In chapter eleven Augustine briefly returns to the topic of invisibility and introduces the text, All the things which the Father has are mine (Jn 16:15), to show that the Father cannot be more invisible than the Son. The same text, as well as, Whatever the Father does, these same things the Son does in a like manner (Jn 5:19), is used in the following chapter to show that the Son has the same power as the Father. While Maximinus interpreted “blessed and alone powerful” (1 Tm 6:15) as referring to the Father, Augustine sees “nothing that is said here that does not fit the Trinity.” Answer to Maximinus II, 12, 2. †34
In chapter thirteen, Augustine shows that Maximinus makes the same mistake in interpreting, God who alone is wise (Rom 16:27), as referring to the Father. The text does not say that it is the Father who alone is wise, but God. Hence, Augustine interprets it in the same way as he interpreted the previous text on God's power.
Faced with Maximinus' question why the Holy Spirit is not another son, since he is also from the Father's substance, Augustine—somewhat impatiently—explains in chapter fourteen that the Son is born, while the Holy Spirit proceeds, and that the Son is born of the Father, while the Holy Spirit proceeds from both. Augustine admits that he cannot distinguish the generation of the Son from the procession of the Spirit and applies Is 53:8, “Who will tell of his generation?” to the procession of the Holy Spirit as well. See Answer to Maximinus II, 14, 1. Maximinus had used the same text from Isaiah to justify his refusal to accept the Nicene understanding of the generation of the Son; see Debate with Maximinus 15, 14. †35 Augustine then argues that the Trinity is one and the same substance. Maximinus had admitted that the Son
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does not come from nothing; Augustine asks from what substance he comes. He must either come from the substance of the Father or from some other substance. But he cannot be the true Son of the Father in accord with 1 John 5:20, if he is not born from the substance of the Father. Augustine explains that this is the meaning of “
homoousios” which the Council of Nicaea affirmed. “After all, what does
homoousios mean but 'of one and the same substance'? What does
homoousios mean, I ask, but 'The Father and I are one' (Jn 10:30)?” Once again, Augustine appeals to the examples of animal and human generation and urges Maximinus to remove from the images any carnal corruption and to see the invisible reality of God through his creatures. See Rom 1:20.
†36 Maximinus rejected in horror the comparison between bodily generation and the generation of the Son and seemed to suggest that the comparison would have better been drawn with the generation of the soul, though he had also said that souls do not beget souls. Augustine continues to hammer home the equality of the Son with the Father, arguing that, if all the things which the Father has are the Son's, then the Son has everything the Father has, including equality with the Father. Augustine then takes up the texts used by the Arians to show the inferiority of the Son and urges Maximinus to adopt the rule: whenever you read in the scriptures a passage in which the Son seems to be less than the Father, interpret it as spoken in the form of the servant or as indicating that the Son has his origin from the Father. See Answer to Maximinus II, 14, 8.
†37
In chapter fifteen Augustine continues to argue that the Son is equal to the Father. He points out that Maximinus introduces two gods when he admits that the Son is in the form of God, but is not equal to the Father. He urges Maximinus to acknowledge that the Son is inferior to the Father in the form of the servant without denying that he is equal to the Father in the form of God. To Maximinus' rejection of the Father's having a nature, Augustine points out that “nature” means the same as “substance” and cites the Pauline text referring to false gods as “those who by nature were not gods” in order to show that the Father is God by nature. The true Son of the Father must have the same substance or nature as the Father. In denying that the Son has the same substance as the Father, Maximinus makes the Son “more unlike than like” the Father and denies that he is a true son. See Answer to Maximinus II, 15, 2. †38 That is, Augustine tries to get Maximinus to see that, in denying that the Son is of the same substance as the Father, he has surrendered the Homoian Arian position that the Son is like the Father and has taken up the Anomoian position that the Son is unlike the Father. On the other hand, Augustine indicates that in the case of the Father and the Son he regards “like in every respect” is equivalent to “of the same substance,” though a human child can be of the same substance as his parents, while not being like them in every respect. See Answer to Maximinus II, 15, 3. †39
Though Maximinus admits that God begot God and that Spirit begot Spirit, Augustine points out that “God” and “Spirit” can be applied to different natures
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so that the correct statement of the faith demands that one say that God begot God and that Spirit begot Spirit of the same nature. Augustine argues that Jesus' words,
that they may know you the only true God and him whom you have sent, Jesus Christ (Jn 17:3), have to be interpreted so that the Father alone is not understood to be the only true God. Finally, he argues that Maximinus' position that the Son was born perfect, but not equal to the Father, entails that he must remain forever inferior to the Father, whereas a human child is at least able to grow up and attain the stature of the parents.
In chapter sixteen, Augustine denies Maximinus' claim that he had said that the Son called the Father his God out of humility and not out of the truth. He makes that sage remark that humility without truth is useless. Maximinus maintained that Christ did not say the words, My God and your God (Jn 20:17), in the form of the servant because he said them after the resurrection. Against this view Augustine insists that it is in the form of the servant that Christ is seated at the Father's right hand and that it is in the form of the servant that he will come again. See Acts 1:11. †40 Moreover, Augustine dismisses as irrelevant Maximinus' citation of the text, All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me (Mt 28:18). If this power was given to the Son as God, the Father gave it by begetting him; if it was given to him as man, no problem remains. Against Maximinus' claim, on the basis of the text, God, your God has anointed you (Ps 44:8), that Christ called the Father his God before the Incarnation, Augustine argues that the scripture often uses the past tense prophetically to foretell what is yet to come. He cites, for example, They have pierced my hands and feet (Ps 21:18).
Maximinus argued that Through him all things were made (Jn 1:3) cannot refer to the Holy Spirit and that the Holy Spirit, therefore, was not the Creator. In chapter seventeen Augustine argues that, though the Holy Spirit is not mentioned there, we should not think that he is excluded from the activity of creation. Indeed, he points to the words, By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their power (Ps 32:6), to show that one might find grounds for believing that the Holy Spirit is greater, if piety did not restrain one to confess his equality. Moreover, if Mary conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, See Mt 1:18. †41 then the flesh of the Son, through whom the world was made, was made through the Holy Spirit.
In chapter eighteen Augustine explains that for one who confesses the generation of Christ from his Father before all time and the generation of Christ from his mother in time, the words, From the womb I begot you (Ps 109:3), afford no problem. If we understand that the Father speaks these words, then we should understand that the Son has the same substance as the Father. Augustine further points out that he had taken the words, From the womb of my mother you are my God (Ps 21:11), to mean that the Father is God of the nature the Son took from the womb of his mother and that Maximinus had no answer
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to this. While Maximinus tried to prove from the Son's obedience to the Father that his nature was inferior to the Father's, Augustine insists that a true son must have the same nature as his father and argues that a human child's obedience is no sign that the child has a different nature than his parents. To Maximinus' claim that the Father is greater precisely because he has begotten the Son, Augustine insists that the Father begot an equal and that the question of origin is distinct from the question of equality.
Maximinus had taken Augustine to say that the human body of Christ was subject to the Father; Augustine, well aware of the Apollinarian tendencies in Arian thought, insists that the human spirit of Christ was also subject to the Father. Maximinus cited the text, The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son (Jn 5:22). Augustine explains that the Son will come to judge the living and the dead in his human form, but that the Father and the Holy Spirit will be with him as he judges.
In chapter nineteen Augustine again points out that Maximinus had no reply to what he had said about the groans of the Holy Spirit. In the following chapter, Augustine returns to the text, The Father and I are one (Jn 10:30), and argues that scripture never says of two persons or things that they are one—without mentioning the sort of thing they are—unless they are of the same substance. If scripture specifies that the two are one of a certain sort, for example, one spirit, the two can have different substances, See 1 Cor 6:17. †42 since the human spirit that clings to the Lord is a different substance from that of the Lord. Maximinus, on the other hand, admits that the Son clings to God, but does not want to admit that the Father and Son are one God.
Augustine then turns to the texts from scripture that indicate that the will of the Son is distinguished from that of the Father. Augustine sees Jesus' words, Not as I want, but as you want (Mk 14:26), as clearly referring to the human will of Christ. But the words, I came down from heaven, not to do my will, but to do the will of him who sent me (Jn 6:38), he interprets as spoken by the Word of God. With regard to the latter text Augustine indicates that things that properly belong to Son of God, for example, that he came down from heaven, and things that properly belong to the Son of Man, for example, that he was crucified, can be interchanged, by reason of the unity of the person, so that we say the Son of Man came down from heaven and the Son of God was crucified. This interchanging of the divine and human attributes on the basis of the unity of Christ's person (communicatio idiomatum) is the basis for Mary's title of Mother of God; see the Council of Ephesus (431) in DS 251. †43 Finally, Augustine argues that the Son was sent not merely by the Father, but also by the Holy Spirit and by himself.
In chapter twenty-one Augustine again takes up the question of the divinity of the Holy Spirit, arguing against Maximinus' view that the Holy Spirit first cleanses and sanctifies a human being so that God might then dwell in that person. Maximinus had, Augustine points out, relied on 1 Corinthians 3:16, where Paul mentions the temple of God, and ignored 1 Corinthians 6:15.19,
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where Paul calls the human body a member of Christ and a temple of the Holy Spirit. From the latter text and from Romans 12:1, where Paul calls our bodies a living sacrifice, Augustine argues that the Holy Spirit is God, adding a further proof from Acts 5:3-4, where Ananias is said to have lied to the Holy Spirit, not to human beings, but to God. Augustine also argues that the Holy Spirit is Lord and Creator and that he is seated with the Father and the Son, warning Maximinus, however, that he must not understand their being seated in a “carnal” fashion as though the Son were physically seated to the right of the Father.
Augustine returns again in chapter twenty-two to the unity of the Father and the Son and shows the difference between the oneness of the Father and the Son and the oneness that Christ prayed that his followers might have. Maximinus had argued that the Father and the Son were one in harmony, not one in number. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 22. †44 Augustine again argues that, when scripture says of two or more that they “are one” without specifying the sort of thing they are, for example, one spirit or one God, we are to understand oneness of substance. Augustine challenges Maximinus to find an exception to this rule; he admits that 1 John 5:8, where John says of the spirit, the water, and the blood, “These three are one,” might pose a problem. However, he declares that “these are mysteries in which one always looks not to what they are, but to what they reveal.” Answer to Maximinus II, 22, 3. †45 He argues that, though spirit, water, and blood are clearly not the same substance, we must take these as signs and that what they signify, namely, the persons of the Trinity, are one substance—an ingenious bit of exegesis, but one unlikely to satisfy his opponent or to secure Augustine's rule which rests upon so few examples.
Maximinus had asked that Augustine prove that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 23. †46 In chapter twenty-three, Augustine again appeals to the classical proof texts, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one (Dt 6:4) and See that I am God, and there is no other besides me (Dt 32:39). He argues that, if Maximinus does not understand Christ in the first text, he must hold that Christ is a second God and go against the second text. If, as Maximinus holds, the Father is a greater God and the Son a lesser God, there are two gods. Hence, Maximinus, who wants to profess that Christ is God, must either admit that the Father and Christ are one God—the Nicene position—or admit that Christ is another God besides the Father, thus clearly going against the texts from Deuteronomy, to which Augustine adds the words of Paul, “There is no God save the one” (1 Cor 8:4). Maximinus had used, in support of his position, the salutation from many of Paul's Letters, Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 1:7; 1 Cor 1:3; 2 Cor 1:2; Gal 1:3 and Eph 1:2). Augustine admits that Paul distinguished two persons, but insists that there is but one God and that God is the Trinity. He also points out that the Pauline text works against Maximinus, since Paul refers to Jesus as the Lord.
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Thus, on Maximinus' view that the Father is the one Lord God, these Pauline texts imply that there is another lord besides the Father, which runs counter to the claim of Deuteronomy 32:39.
In the Debate Augustine brought Maximinus to see that the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 24. †47 In chapter twenty-four he argues that their love for each other is equal, because they are equally divine. In the following chapter Augustine argues against Maximinus' position that the Father was greater than the Son “in the very form of God.” Answer to Maximinus II, 25. †48 Maximinus has said that even the angels are greater than the form of the servant. Debate with Maximinus 15, 25. †49 Augustine points out that, though the angels are greater than the human body and greater than the human mind as it is now as the result of original sin, the angels are not greater than the nature of the human mind that Christ assumed. According to Augustine, God alone is superior to “human nature which takes precedence over all other creatures by reason of its rational and intellectual mind.” Answer to Maximinus II, 25. †50 Hence, Christ was said to be a little less than the angels, See Heb 2:9. †51 not because of the human nature he assumed, but because he suffered death.
In the final long chapter on the theophanies of the Old Testament Augustine argues against the Arian position that it was not the Father, but the Son who appeared to human sight from Adam up to the incarnation. Maximinus interpreted the words, Let us make man to our image and likeness… and God made man (Gn 1:26-27), in the sense that the Father told the Son what to do and the Son then made man. Augustine argues against this interpretation, which seems to rest upon the Arian thesis that only a lesser god could come into contact with creation rather than upon the biblical text. Maximinus claims that Augustine explained this in his treatises, presumably the treatise that Augustine sent to Maximinus, which according to Maximinus contained some teaching concerning the invisibility of God. See Answer to Maximinus II, 26, 2 and Debate with Maximinus 15, 26. Augustine did comment on Gn 1:26 in this vein in his Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis XVI, 56. However, his words there do not really support Maximinus' view, and it is difficult to suppose that Augustine sent Maximinus that unfinished treatise rather than The Trinity or his Answers to an Arian Sermon, though the latter do not throw any light on this question either. †52
In any case, even if it was, as Maximinus claimed, the Son who made Adam, Augustine insists that it does not follow that Adam saw his maker. After all, God even now creates beings with the power of sight, and they do not see him. Maximinus had pointed out that, upon hearing God's voice as he walked in paradise, Adam hid himself, See Gn 3:10. †53 but it does not say, Augustine argues, that Adam saw God. Augustine's discussion of the Old Testament theophanies in The Trinity II, 10, 17-18, where Augustine suggests that God walked about in paradise in bodily form, may provide a clue as to the treatises of Augustine to which Maximinus referred. See the previous note. †54 On the other hand, Abraham did see God at the oak of Mambre; See Gn 18:1. †55 here Augustine goes into a lengthy explanation of how in the three men or angels Abraham recognized one God. He maintains that Abraham did not see God in the substance by which he is God, but in a creature subject to God which served as a sign to present God to human senses. Answer to Maximinus II, 26, 10. †56 After discussing the appearances to Jacob and to Moses in the burning bush, Augustine brings this long book to a close with a plea to Maximinus to become a true student of the scriptures and acknowledge that there is but one God, who is the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Augustine's Answer to Maximinus the Arian is a solid defense of Nicene orthodoxy against an able Arian bishop who may well have bested the elderly bishop of Hippo in the face-to-face debate. Augustine musters and presents an
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impressive battery of scriptural proof-texts in favor of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity and skillfully, if somewhat dully, defends the faith of the Catholic Church against a well-trained Arian adversary. Augustine's arguments are often
ad hominem and all too often force the biblical texts to say more than a contemporary exegete is likely to find in them. On the other hand, the
Answer to Maximinus the Arian provided the Western Church with an armory of proof-texts favoring the faith of Nicaea that would be exploited throughout the middle ages and that would be put to use in theological manuals of dogmatic theology up to and into the present century.
The Text Translated
The text translated is that found in PL XLII, 743-814. As in the case of the translation of the Debate with Maximinus, the textual variants listed by Migne have been reproduced in the notes. The Answer to Maximinus the Arian has never been previously translated into English. There are at least two translations into other languages.
In French: Oeuvres complètes de saint Augustin, tr. by M. l'abbé Pognan (Bar-le-Duc: L. Guérin, 1869), volume 14, 593-656.
In Spanish: Obras completas de San Agustín, tr. José Maria Ozaeta and Teodoro C. Madrid (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1990), volume XXXVIII, 427-598.
Notes
†1 Possidius, Life of Augustine 17.
†2 See Answer to Maximinus, beginning.
†3 Simonetti notes that Augustine could have turned his opponent's argument against him into an explicit proof of the equality of the Son; see “S. Agostino et gli Ariani,” 77.
†4 See 1 Cor 6:17.
†5 Debate with Maximinus 14.
†6 Answer to Maximinus I, 14.
†7 Answer to Maximinus I, 18.
†8 See Possidius, Life of Augustine 17.
†9 Debate with Maximinus 15, 1.
†10 See 1 Tm 2:2-4.
†11 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 2.
†12 See Gn 23:2-7.
†13 See Answer to Maximinus II, 3.
†14 Ibid.
†15 See Rom 8:34.
†16 See The Trinity II, 1, 2-3 and Answer to Maximinus II, 14, 8, where Augustine articulates this “rule of faith.”
†17 Augustine treats the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son as a matter
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of Christian faith, though the doctrine that the Spirit also proceeds from the Son (
filioque) was not endorsed by an Ecumenical Council until Lateran IV in 1215 (see DS 800). This Augustinian doctrine, which remains a point of division between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, had, of course, appeared much earlier in creedal formulae, for example, in the Creed of the Third Council of Toledo (589) from which it was retroactively inserted in the Creed of Constantinople I (381); see DS 470.
†18 See Plato's Timaeus 29E, as well as Plotinus, Enneads II, 9, 17; IV, 8, 6; V, 4, 1-2; V, 5, 12.
†19 Answer to Maximinus II, 7.
†20 See Col 1:16.
†21 See Jn 6:46.
†22 See Mt 18:10.
†23 See 1 Jn 3:2.
†24 See 1 Tm 6:16.
†25 In 413 or 414 Augustine wrote the long Letter 147 to Paulina, which has been called, “The Book on Seeing God.” In it he presented a much more detailed interpretation of the various biblical texts on the vision of God.
†26 Augustine implies that Maximinus takes “in the embrace (in sinu) of the Father” (Jn 1:18) in a physical sense. Elsewhere, he claims that the whole Arian position arises from such image-thinking. See Homilies on the Gospel of John 18, 3-5, and Sermon 136, 8.
†27 See Answer to Maximinus II, 10, 2.
†28 Ibid.
†29 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 10.
†30 See F. Masai, “Les conversions de saint Augustin et les débuts de spiritualisme en Occident,” Moyen Age 67 (1961) 1-40.
†31 See Confessions VII, 9, 13-13, 19, for Augustine's account of his encounter with the books of the Platonists.
†32 See Expositions of the Psalms 130, 9 and 11.
†33 See The Trinity XV, 6, 9, where Augustine uses a similar argument to show that not every multiplicity said of God destroys the divine simplicity. The parallel between many attributes and many persons should not be misunderstood, since, though God's goodness is his wisdom, the Father is not the Son. Hence, in The City of God XI, 10, Augustine says, “That is simple which is what it has, except for what each person is said to be relatively to another.” That is, God is simple because he is the goodness he has; yet, though the Father has a Son, the Father is not the Son, because God is said to be the Father in relation to his Son.
†34 Answer to Maximinus II, 12, 2.
†35 See Answer to Maximinus II, 14, 1. Maximinus had used the same text from Isaiah to justify his refusal to accept the Nicene understanding of the generation of the Son; see Debate with Maximinus 15, 14.
†36 See Rom 1:20.
†37 See Answer to Maximinus II, 14, 8.
†38 See Answer to Maximinus II, 15, 2.
†39 See Answer to Maximinus II, 15, 3.
†40 See Acts 1:11.
†41 See Mt 1:18.
†42 See 1 Cor 6:17.
†43 This interchanging of the divine and human attributes on the basis of the unity of Christ's person (communicatio idiomatum) is the basis for Mary's title of Mother of God; see the Council of Ephesus (431) in DS 251.
†44 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 22.
†45 Answer to Maximinus II, 22, 3.
†46 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 23.
†47 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 24.
†48 Answer to Maximinus II, 25.
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†49 Debate with Maximinus 15, 25.
†50 Answer to Maximinus II, 25.
†51 See Heb 2:9.
†52 Maximinus claims that Augustine explained this in his treatises, presumably the treatise that Augustine sent to Maximinus, which according to Maximinus contained some teaching concerning the invisibility of God. See Answer to Maximinus II, 26, 2 and Debate with Maximinus 15, 26. Augustine did comment on Gn 1:26 in this vein in his Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis XVI, 56. However, his words there do not really support Maximinus' view, and it is difficult to suppose that Augustine sent Maximinus that unfinished treatise rather than The Trinity or his Answers to an Arian Sermon, though the latter do not throw any light on this question either.
†53 See Gn 3:10.
†54 Augustine's discussion of the Old Testament theophanies in The Trinity II, 10, 17-18, where Augustine suggests that God walked about in paradise in bodily form, may provide a clue as to the treatises of Augustine to which Maximinus referred. See the previous note.
†55 See Gn 18:1.
†56 Answer to Maximinus II, 26, 10.
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Book I
Augustine Shows That Maximinus Could Not Refute What He Said in the Debate
Maximinus, the Arian bishop, used up the whole day with his endless talking on the day we met face to face. In giving the response I promised, I ought in any case address him. Perhaps he will still think that he should reject it when he reads it. Or maybe he will yield to the truth when it has been explained, Manifestatae; Erasmus, Lyons, Venice and Louvain: manifestae. †1 as the Lord works marvels in his heart. Why did you, my Arian opponent, think it good to say so much without saying anything relevant to the dispute between us? You seem to have thought that the ability to answer was the same as the inability to keep silence? First, I will show that you could not refute what I said; then, I will refute what you said to the extent that it seems necessary. Augustine announces the plan of his work. In the first book he will argue that Maximinus could not refute what Augustine said, while in the second book he will undertake the refutation of Maximinus' claims. †2
On Two Gods
I. With regard to what you said about two gods, I said in response to your words where you said that you worship one God, “It follows that either you do not worship Christ or you do not worship one God, but two.” Debate with Maximinus 14. †3 In an attempt to respond to this, you spoke at length, claiming that you also worship Christ as God. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 2. †4 Although you did not deny that you worship two gods, you did not dare to admit it. You were well aware that Christians could not tolerate hearing that they should worship two gods. How close you would be to correcting yourself, if you were afraid to believe what you were afraid to say! The apostle cries out, Clamat with Erasmus, Lyons, Venice and Louvain; Migne: clamet. †5 With the heart it is believed unto justice, but with the lips confession is made unto salvation (Rom 10:10). If you think that what you believe is a matter of justice, why do you not also confess this with your lips unto salvation? But if it has nothing to do with salvation to confess that we should worship two gods, then beyond any doubt it has nothing to do with justice to believe it. You do not want your lips to be found guilty of such a confession; why, then, do you not cleanse your heart of such a belief? Hold with the Catholic Church the correct faith; do not be ashamed to correct the incorrect faith. Hold with the Catholic Church that the Father is not the Son and that the Son is not the Father, but that the Father is God and the Son is God, though the two together are not two gods, but one. Only in this way will you be able to worship the Father and the Son and avoid saying that we should worship two gods rather than one. Otherwise, your conscience will be pierced with guilt for impiety when the words of God
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echo in your ears,
There is no God save the one (1 Cor 8:4), and
Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one and when you hear,
You shall adore the Lord your God, and you shall serve him alone (Dt 6:4.13). Only in the way I said, can you serve, without fear, not only the Father, but also the Son with that service which we owe to the one God. Remember, then, that you did not answer my objection that you do not worship one God, but two.
On Human Contacts
II. Secondly, I dealt with you concerning your words where you said that God the Father “did not come down to human contacts,” See Debate with Maximinus 13. †6 as if Christ suffered such contacts in the flesh. I warned you that “contacts (contagia)” is usually interpreted only in the sense of a defect, and we know that Christ was free from every defect. See Debate with Maximinus 14. †7 You were unable to make any response to that. The divine testimonies that you mentioned could not help you in the least. You could not prove by them that Christ was contaminated by human contact. You mention that the apostle says that “though Christ was certainly not a sinner, he committed sin for us.” See Debate with Maximinus 15, 5. Maximinus' text for 2 Cor 5:20-21 is at least ambiguous. It could be taken to mean that the Father made Christ to be sin, or that Christ himself committed sin. Augustine understands what Maximinus says in the latter sense, though he could have read it in a more orthodox sense. †8 Read carefully, and look at the Greek in case you have come upon a faulty manuscript or the Latin translator has made a mistake. You will not find that Christ has committed sin for us, but that the Father made Christ to be sin for us, that is, a sacrifice for sin. The apostle says, We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled Reconciliamini; Amerbach, Erasmus and the manuscripts: reconciliari. †9 to God; him who did not know sin, he made to be sin for us (2 Cor 5:20-21). Hence, he did not commit sin, but God made him to be sin on our behalf, that is, a sacrifice for sin, as I said. If you recall or reread the Old Testament, you will find there that sacrifices for sin are called sins. Also, the likeness of the flesh of sin, in which he came to us, is called sin; it says, God sent his Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin, and by sin he condemned sin in the flesh (Rom 8:3), that is, by the likeness of the flesh of sin, which was his, he condemned sin in the flesh of sin, which is ours. For this reason it also says of him, For insofar as he died to sin, he died once; insofar as he lives, he lives for God (Rom 6:10). He died to sin once, because he died to the likeness Similitudini; Louvain alone: in similitudine; some manuscripts: similitudine. †10 of the flesh of sin, when by his death he was stripped of the flesh. Through this mystery he signified that those who are baptized in his death die to sin so that they may live for God. In the same way, through the cross he became a curse for us (Gal 3:13). Hanging on the tree, he nailed to the tree the death which came from the curse of God, and so our old human nature was also nailed to the cross (Rom 6:6). Thus we can understand that the words of the Law, Cursed is everyone who hangs on the tree (Dt 21:23), were not a lie. What does cursed mean but You are earth, and you shall return to earth (Gn 3:19)? And what does everyone mean but that Christ himself, since he is the way, has truly died and did not pretend to die. If you understand these mysteries, you will also understand that
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these are not defilements. But what difference does it make to us, if you speak in your fashion and want to call contact with mortals defilement, since you hold along with us that the Lord Jesus had no sin either in the spirit or in the flesh?
On the Invisible God
III. I discussed with you in the third place the invisible God, and I warned that you should believe not only that the Father is invisible, but also that the Son is invisible according to his divinity, though not according to his flesh. See Debate with Maximinus 14. †11 Who would deny that in the flesh he appeared as visible to mortals? Hence, I also argued this point in another place later. See Debate with Maximinus 14. †12 You yielded to the clear truth and agreed that the Son is invisible; in doing so, you undid your claim that “the Father alone is invisible.” See Debate with Maximinus 15, 9. †13 Once again troubled by your admission, because you agreed that the Son is also invisible, you dared to say that lesser things are seen by greater ones, but that greater things cannot be seen by lesser ones. You said that the angels are seen by the archangels and souls by angels, but that angels are not seen by souls. Hence, you said that Christ too, according to the substance of his divinity, is not seen either by human beings or by the heavenly powers. Thus you said that “the Father alone is invisible, because he does not have a superior who can see him.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 9. †14 Tell us, I beg you, when the archangels informed you that they can see the angels, but that they are not seen by the angels? Which angels informed you that they see souls, but that souls do not see them? From whom have you heard this? Where have you learned it? Where did you read it? See Peri archôn I, 1, 8, where Origen says, “If you ask me my opinion about the only-begotten Son, namely, whether the nature of God which is invisible by nature is visible to him, let this not immediately seem to you to be impious or absurd; we will give the reason next.” Origen then distinguishes “seeing” from “knowing” and maintains that only bodies are seen. From the extant text of the Peri archôn one has no reason to suppose that Origen taught the doctrine that we find Maximinus to hold. Nonetheless, Hanson says that “Origen taught in the Peri Archôn that the Son cannot see the Father nor the Spirit the Son nor angels the Spirit nor men angels” (p. 61). He offers no reference to the text of Origen, but points to Panarion 64.4.4, where Epiphanius, who was anything but a fan of Origen's, attributes this teaching to Origen. P. Amidon, however, reads “at the outset” (kata tên archên) instead of “in the Peri Archôn” (peri tôn archôn). See The Panarion of Saint Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis. Selected Passages. Trans. and edited by Philip R. Amidon, S.J. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 215. Epiphanius says much the same thing about Origen in his Ancoratus 63. See also Henri Crouzel and Manlio Simonetti, Origène: Traité des principes II, 27-29, note 36. †15 Would you not do better to turn your mind to the books of God? Since Maximinus has rejected the use of non-biblical sources, he is particularly vulnerable on a point like this one, where he has introduced a claim that runs counter to scripture. †16 There we read that angels were seen by men when they wished and as they wished to be seen, at the command or with the permission of the Creator of all. You said, nonetheless, that we should say that “the Father is alone invisible, because he does not have a superior who can see him.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 9. †17 You admitted later that he is visible to the Son and cited against yourself the passage of the gospel, where the Son himself says, Not that anyone has seen the Father, but he who has come from God has seen the Father (Jn 6:46). Debate with Maximinus 15, 9. †18 There the truth clearly defeats you, but since you did not want to be freed from error, you would not let it defeat you for your benefit. You cited against yourself the testimony of the gospel according to which the Father is clearly seen by the Son, since the Son says, But he who has come from God has seen the Father. But then you added on your own, “But he saw the incomprehensible.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 9. †19 In doing so, you destroyed your claim, namely, that “the Father alone is invisible, because he does not have a superior.” Defeated by the truth, you admitted that he is seen by his inferior. After all, you say that the Son is inferior, and you said that the Father is seen by him, as the testimony of the Son Louvain adds: veritate. †20 forces you to do. Later we will examine his incomprehensibility so that the truth may defeat you on this point too. See, below XI. †21 The
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question under discussion between us is not about comprehensibility and incomprehensibility, but about visibility and invisibility. On this question, if you can see yourself, you will see that you have been defeated.
On the Immortal God
IV. Fourthly, I also dealt with you concerning the Son as immortal God. You wanted the words of the apostle, Who alone has immortality (1 Tm 6:16), to be understood as if they referred to the Father alone. See Debate with Maximinus 13. †22 And yet he did not say this of the Father, but of God, who is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Hence, I showed that the Son has immortality according to the substance of his divinity. See Debate with Maximinus 14. †23 After all, who would deny that he was mortal according to the flesh? When you wanted to answer me about this text, you admitted, trapped as you were by the clear truth, that God the Son has immortality. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 14. †24 You were defeated, then, on the claim you were making, that the apostle said of the Father alone that he had immortality. You do not escape the constraints of the truth by saying, “The Son has immortality, but receives it from the Father.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 14. †25 The question is not where he gets it, but whether he has it. You want the scripture text, Who alone has immortality, to refer to the Father alone. Of course, the Father has immortality that he has received from no one, and the Son has immortality that he has received from the Father. Nonetheless, both the Father and the Son have immortality. On the other hand, if the Son does not have it, the Father did not give it to the Son, or the Son received it and then lost it. But the Father gave it to the Son, and the Son did not lose it, nor did the Father lose what he gave by generating the Son. Hence, both the Father and the Son have immortality and not the Father alone. Therefore, you are forced to admit that Who alone has immortality was not said of the Father alone, since you have already been forced to admit that the Son also has immortality. He alone, that is, God, has it. God is not the Father alone, since there is also the Son, and both of them along with the Holy Spirit are one God. Later we will see why God alone is said to have immortality, although the soul too is immortal in its own fashion, as well as the other spiritual and heavenly creatures. See below, XIII. †26 For the moment I am satisfied that you were unable to make any answer to what I said and that you were forced to admit that not only the Father, but also the Son has immortality, even though the Son has it from the Father.
Why the Father Is Greater
V. Fifthly, I explained why the Father is greater than the Son. He is not greater than God, for the Son is coeternal with him; he is greater than man, because the Son became man in time. See Debate with Maximinus 14. †27 There I recalled the testimony of the apostle that,
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since he was in the form of God, he did not think it robbery to be equal to God. He had equality with God by nature, not by theft. See Debate with Maximinus 14.
†28 In answer to this you said, “Who denies that the Son is in the form of God? We have already, I think, amply explained that he is God, that he is Lord, that he is King. The blessed apostle Paul has taught us that
he did not think it robbery to be equal to God, nor do we say that he stole it.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 15.
†29 These words of yours not only have nothing opposed to us, but rather seem to favor our side. If you acknowledge the form of God, why do you not plainly admit that the Son of God is equal to God? Especially since you were unable to find anything to say for your side in the words of the apostle where he says,
He did not think it robbery to be equal to God. Since you could not deny that the apostle said this, you said, “Nor do we say that he stole it,” as if “he did not steal” is the same as “he did not have” equality with God. On your view, the apostle said,
He did not think it robbery to be equal to God, as if he meant to say, “He did not think that he should steal equality with God,” because it was something that did not belong to him. After all, one who steals another's property is a robber, and you imply that the Son was unwilling to steal equality, though he was able to do so. You see how foolish this idea is. Hence, understand that the apostle said,
He did not think it robbery to be equal to God, because he did not think it something other than what he was born to be. Nonetheless, though he did not regard equality with God as something belonging to another, but to himself,
he emptied himself, not looking out for his interests, but for ours. So that you may know that this is true, pay attention to how the apostle came to this point. He was teaching Christians the humility present in love. He said,
Each regarding the other as his superior, not having regard for what is his own, but also for that of others. Sed et quae aliorum, with the manuscripts; Louvain: sed ea quae aliorum.
†30 Then, to urge them by the example of Christ not to seek or aim only at what is their own, but also at that of others, he says,
Each one of you, have this attitude in you which was also in Christ Jesus. Since he was in the form of God, which was what belonged to him,
he did not think it robbery, that is, he did not regard
to be equal to God, as something belonging to another. But looking out for what is ours, not his,
he emptied himself, not losing the form of God, but
taking the form of the servant. That nature is not changeable. Hence, he did not empty himself by losing what he was, but by taking what he was not. Nor did he empty himself by destroying what belonged to him, but by assuming what belonged to us and by being obedient as man in the form of the servant
even to death upon the cross. Because of this God has exalted him and given him the name that is above every name (Phil 2:6-9), and so on. He gave this to the man, not to God. It is not that, when he was in the form of God, he was not exalted, or that knees in heaven, on earth, and beneath the earth did not bend before him. But when it says,
For this reason he exalted him, we clearly see why he exalted him, that is, because of the obedience
even to death upon the cross. The form, then, in which he was crucified, has been exalted; that form
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has been given the name that is above every name, so that with the very form of the servant he is called the only-begotten Son of God. Do not, then, make the form of God unequal to God; even in human beings we cannot say that. When we say, “This man is in the form of that man,” everyone understands that they are equal. Aequales; Amerbach, Erasmus and manuscripts: aequalis.
†31 Perhaps you do not want to interpret the words,
Since he was in the form of God, so that you understand that the Son is in the form of God the Father, where we find only the equality of the two. Rather, you want us to understand
in the form of God in the sense that the Son was in his own form, since he too was certainly God. I do not much care whether you understand it this way too. In this instance, an increase in age does not bring about the fullness of form; rather, the Son was born perfect when the Father begot him. Beyond any doubt, if the form of the Son is not equal to the form of the Father, the Son is not a true son. But scripture says,
That we might be in his true Son Jesus Christ (1 Jn 5:20). The form, then, of the true Son cannot be unequal to the form of God the Father. Hence, you were unable to make any response in favor of your position at this point in the debate, where I proved from the words of the apostle that the Son is equal to the Father.
On the True Offspring of Animals
VI. Sixthly, in order to show that the Son is of the same nature as the Father, I raised as an objection to your huge error the offspring of even mortal animals. I chided you for denying that God the Son is of the same nature as the Father, although you do not deny that he is a true son. See Debate with Maximinus 14. †32 After all, God gave even to animals the ability to generate what they are. At that point I mentioned not merely that the offspring of a human is a human, but that the offspring of a dog is a dog, not to provide a likeness of God, but to throw into confusion those who would make the Son of God less than God. Although they see that corruptible and mortal natures still have a natural oneness with their parents, they refuse to admit that the Son of God shares one nature with the Father, even though he is inseparable from the Father and incorruptible and eternal along with the Father. Hence, I also said that, on your view, the human condition is better, for in that case you admit that there is growth and that offspring can at least attain the strength of their parents by growing up. See Debate with Maximinus 14. †33 But the Son of God, in accord with what you say and teach, was born inferior to the Father and remained so without growing up. Thus he could not attain the form of the Father. Here you made no response at all to this point so that everyone could see that you were being crushed by the weight of the truth. Gasping as if from lack of breath, Deficienti flatu; manuscripts: deficientis flatus. †34 you thought that you should rebuke me. You said, “You should not use so foul a comparison,” that is, with the offspring of a human or of a dog, “for such greatness.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 6. †35 Is that an answer, or is it rather proof that you have no answer?
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You act as if I produced these examples of earthly natures precisely to equate corruption with incorruption, mortality with immortality, visible things with invisible ones, temporal things with eternal ones. I meant rather to refute you by small things of minor importance, though you are in error about matters of the greatest importance. You do not see the goodness that the supremely good Creator bestowed upon even the least and lowest creatures. Although they are far different from what he is, they generate beings the same as they are. Nor do you notice the evil you utter when you say that, though humans and dogs and other such beings have true offspring which the Truth creates when they bring forth their young, the Truth itself is not the true Son of God. Or, if under pressure from the holy scripture you allow that he is a true son, we beg you, admit that he does not have a lesser nature. In what sense does he not have a lesser nature? Let the Catholics hear the source of the heretics' embarrassment. If the son of a brave man is not brave, we say he has a lesser nature; still, he is a human being just as his father is, and though his manner of life is different, his substance is not. You would have the only-begotten Son of God have a lesser nature to the point that you would deny him the substance of the Father. You boast that he was born inferior and remained inferior. You do not admit any age so that he could grow up, and you do not admit the same form so that he could be equal. You take so much away from his nature that I am amazed at your boldness in calling him a true son. But as a result of your most unfortunate error, you think that you can only maintain the glory of the one Father through disparaging the only Son. See Sermons 139 3, 4 and 5, where Augustine points out that to say the Son is inferior to the Father is an insult to both the Father and the Son.
†36
On the Greatness of the Son
VII. Seventhly, I said, “We acknowledge the Son as so great a God that we say that he is equal to the Father. Therefore,” I said, “it was pointless for you to want to prove to us with testimonies and many words what we firmly profess.” Debate with Maximinus 14. †37 To these words of mine I added an argument in which I explained why, though the Son is equal to the Father, he still calls him his God, where he says, I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God (Jn 20:17). You had introduced this testimony from the gospel by which you thought that you proved that the Son was not equal to the Father. See Debate with Maximinus 13. †38 Hence, in my response to you on this point, I said that the Father is also God for the only-begotten Son, because the latter became man and was born of a woman. This is what he says in the Psalm in which he foretold what was to come, From the womb of my mother you are my God (Ps 21:11). See Debate with Maximinus 14. †39 Thus the Son showed that the Father is his God because the Son became man. As a man, he is born from the womb of his mother, and God was born of the virgin insofar as he is man. And so he who begot the Son out of himself is not only his Father; he is also his God, since he
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created him from the womb of his mother. When you wanted to respond to this, you spoke at length and produced many testimonies which gave you no help. You were, nonetheless, utterly unable to find a way to interpret the words,
From the womb of my mother you are my God, although you mentioned these same words of holy scripture. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 18.
†40 I utterly fail to see why you quoted in that place the testimony of another Psalm where it says,
The beginning with you, in the day of your power, in the splendors of the saints, from the womb I begot you before the morning star (Ps 109:3). After all, it is not the person of the Son who says, “From your womb,” or, “From your belly” you are my God. Even if we understand here that ineffable generation from the womb of the Father, what it says is that from out of himself, that is, from his substance God begot God, just as, when he was born from the womb of his mother, a human being begot a human being. In each act of generation we see that the substance of the one born is not different from the substance of the parents. The substance is different in the cases of God the Father and of the human mother, but the substance is not different in the case of God the Father and God the Son, just as there is not a different substance in the case of the human mother and the human son. Listen to what the Son says in prophecy. He says,
From the womb of my mother you are my God. Do not try to obscure with many irrelevant words matters that are perfectly clear. He who fathered the Son out of his own womb is also his God from the womb of his mother, not from his own. You were, of course, unable to make any response to this.
On the Subjection of the Son
VIII. Eighthly, I answered you about the subjection of the Son by which he is subject to the Father. You had said, “By his own subjection he acknowledged that there is one God.” Debate with Maximinus 13. †41 I answered that the statement that the Son is subject to the Father is also correctly understood insofar as he is man. We should not be surprised at this, since we certainly read that he was subject even to his parents according to the form of the servant. See Debate with Maximinus 14; see Lk 2:51. †42 Scripture also says of him, You have made him a little less than the angels (Ps 8:6). As if you were making a response to this, you said that “I did very well,” when I said “that he was subject even to his parents on account of the form of the servant.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 18. †43 Then you wanted to show that the text which you clearly saw was against you was really supportive of your position. And for careless and less attentive persons who might read these accounts, you wanted to pretend that you were making a response, where you had nothing to say. Thus you went on to say, “If we find that he was subject to the parents he created—for all things were made through him, and we know that the Son was begotten by the Father, not after some time, but before time—if then,” you say, “he was subject to his parents, as the authority of the divine
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scriptures proclaims more clearly than light, how much more was he subject to that Father of his who begot him as one so great and so good! In accord with this Paul says,
When all things shall have been subjected to the Son, then even the Son will be subject to him who has subjected all things to him” (1 Cor 15:28). Debate with Maximinus 15, 18.
†44 One might suppose that these words of yours were said by me and were really mine, were it not for the fact that those who heard you when they were spoken and those who later read these things would clearly see that you said them. Who would believe that you could agree with us that Christ was subject according to the form of the servant and, hence, not subject according to the form of God?
Whether the Holy Spirit Adores the Father
IX. In the ninth place, I asked you to show, if you can, from the divine scriptures that the Holy Spirit adores the Father. See Debate with Maximinus 14. †45 After all, you did say that, See Debate with Maximinus 13. †46 but as your statement, to which I responded, clearly shows, you did not prove this point. Look at the answer you made in the rest of your speech to this question of mine. First, you said as much as you wanted about the Son's role as judge, which we too believe with complete faith, and about the subjection, which we do not deny the Son showed to the Father according to the form of the servant. Then you came to prove that the Father is adored by the Holy Spirit. At that point you returned to those groans. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 19. †47 I had already given you my answer about them in accord with the usage of the holy scriptures regarding the figure of speech by which it said, The Spirit himself pleads on our behalf with indescribable groans (Rom 8:26). See Debate with Maximinus 13. †48 We should believe that the Holy Spirit can never be free from groans, because there is no day, no hour, no moment of time when prayers are not poured out everywhere by the saints, by some here, by others elsewhere. No time is without the prayers of the saints, since day and night, while some are refreshed by food and drink, others do something else, and still others sleep, there are still some whom a holy desire moves to pray. And thus the Holy Spirit, who is present everywhere to all of them, is not permitted to stop groaning even for a little while. This is a mark of extreme unhappiness, since he is forced to groan on behalf of everyone who is praying, unless we understand, as I said, that he pleads with indescribable groans in the sense that he makes the saints plead with the groans of holy desires, when he pours into them a pious love filled with spiritual grace. I mentioned similar modes of expression in which the result produced is attributed to the cause. Augustine refers to the figure of metonomy and provides other examples of this common figure of speech. †49 Thus we call the cold sluggish because it makes us sluggish, the day sad or happy because it makes us sad or happy. I have even mentioned an example from the holy scripture when God says to Abraham, Now I know (Gn 22:12). See Debate with Maximinus 13. †50 This expression simply means: “Now I have made you know.” After all, we should not say that
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God came to know at that time something he could never fail to know before it happened. You found no other way of interpreting these modes of expression that I drew from the words of God. You ought in no case to have appealed to these groans. No one thinks that way of the Holy Spirit unless he thinks of him according to the flesh and not according to the spirit.
Even if we were to concede that the Holy Spirit pleads for the saints in the way you think, it is one thing to plead or pray, quite another to adore. Everyone who prays asks; not everyone who adores asks, nor does everyone who asks adore. Augustine is playing upon the difference between praying (orare) and adoring or doing homage (adorare). †51 Recall how we deal with kings. Men often do them homage without asking for anything; at times they ask and do not do them homage. Thus you were in no sense able to show that the Father is adored by the Holy Spirit.
How One God Is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
X. In the tenth place, I tried to get you to understand how the Trinity, which we say is of one and the same substance, is by an ineffable union one God. See Debate with Maximinus 14. †52 We also find that different substances, for example, the human spirit and the Spirit of the Lord, Domini; some manuscripts: Dominus. †53 are said to be one spirit by reason of that union by which a human being clings to the Lord. The apostle says, He who clings to the Lord is one spirit (1 Cor 6:17). On this point you answered, or rather you were not silent; you tried to show how the Father and the Son are one, not by a unity of nature, but of will. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 20. †54 This is what you usually say, but you usually say it when someone raises the objection that the Lord said, The Father and I are one (Jn 10:30). I did not at this point want to prove that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one, though we certainly believe that with full faith on account of the unity of substance. What I wanted to prove is that the same Trinity is one God. “Are one” is not the same as “is one God.” Distinguish “is” and “are.” The apostle did not say, “Those who cling to the Lord are one”; he said, He who clings to the Lord is one spirit. You think that it is all the same when a person says of two, “is one,” and says what the one is, as the apostle says, is one spirit, and when one says of two, “are one,” and does not say what the one is, as the Savior says, The Father and I are one. Why do you not say, “The Father and the Son are one God”? Why, when you hear, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one (Dt 6:4), do you want to understand this of the Father alone? The Father is the Lord God, and the Son is the Lord God. Why, in your view, is not each of the two one Lord God, just as for the apostle the human spirit and the Spirit of God is one spirit? How does it help your side to say that this comes about through agreement of the will? Such a union comes about, but it comes about where there is a difference in nature, as human nature and the nature of the Lord are different. And still, He who clings to the Lord, through agreement of the will, is one spirit. If, then, you reject “through unity of substance,” at least
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say, “through agreement of the will.” At some point say, however you say it, that the Father and the Son are one God. But you do not say this so that you will not be forced to admit something that you have always refused to admit, namely, that scripture says of each of them and not of the Father alone,
Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. You do not want to admit that the Holy Spirit is God; you do not want to admit that he is Lord. State, I tell you, however you want, that the Father and the Son are one Lord God so that, in serving the Father and the Son, you are not serving Sed Domino uni serviatis; Amerbach, Erasmus and manuscripts: et Domini unius serviatis.
†55 two gods and two lords against the commandment of God, but one Lord. I have now said enough on this point. I think that, when you read these things, you were unable to make any answer to the words I cited from the apostle,
He who clings to the Lord is one spirit. If you would stop being so obstinate, you would admit it.
On the Temple of the Holy Spirit
XI. In the eleventh place, I showed that the Holy Spirit is God from the fact that we are his temple, as the apostle testifies when he says, Do you not know that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you? (1 Cor 3:16) and again, Do you not know that your bodies are the temple in your midst of the Holy Spirit whom you have from God? (1 Cor 6:19). See Debate with Maximinus 14. †56 You made no answer to these passages. You said, “I accept the words you brought forth, Do you not know that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you?” “God,” you say, “does not dwell in a human being that the Holy Spirit has not first sanctified and cleansed.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 21. †57 And in that way you wanted us to understand that scripture did not say that the Holy Spirit is God and that we Nos is not found in manuscripts. †58 are the temple of the Holy Spirit, but that we are the temple of God. Scripture said, You are the temple of God. We were to understand that it added, And the Spirit of God dwells in you, because the Holy Spirit cleanses God's temple, not his own. Thus, once he has cleansed it, God may then dwell there. I do not now intend to say how much absurdity follows upon your interpretation. What I ought to show at this point is that you said nothing relevant to the topic, though you said a great deal. You abandoned the point at issue and went on in praise of the Holy Spirit, and you carried that on at great length in opposition to your view. I said, “in opposition to your view,” because you do not want to call him God, though you were forced to admit in your praise of him his great divinity: that he is one, that he is present everywhere and always present to one who is becoming holy. He offers himself to all at the same time, wherever anyone wants to be a Christian and to pray to God, whether they are baptized in Christ in the East or in the West. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 21. †59 This is what we say as well. But heaven forbid that we deny that he is God whom we call so great and so good. This is most certainly and easily shown by the fact that we ourselves are his temple. After all, if he were not our God,
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we could not be his temple. In order to conceal this and turn the minds of men away from the light of the truth by your discourse, you refused to understand the Holy Spirit whenever you spoke about the temple of God, and you were utterly silent about what has been clearly proven about the temple of the Holy Spirit. I set two testimonies from the apostle Paul before you, one where he says,
Do you not know that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you? and the other where he says,
Do you not know that your bodies are the temple in your midst of the Holy Spirit? Why did you act so deceitfully that you mentioned the one of these which said,
You are the temple of God, and suppressed the other which said,
Your bodies are the temple in your midst of the Holy Spirit? Why did you do this, I ask you, except that you were utterly unable to argue that he was not our God if we were his temple? We would without a doubt acknowledge him as God, if we were commanded by the divine scripture to build him a temple of wood and stones.
That the Father and the Son Are One
XII. In the twelfth place, I advised you to produce, if you could, the divine authority by which “they are one” is said of different substances. See Debate with Maximinus 14. †60 You wanted to make an answer to this, but you could not produce anything of the sort. Rather, you found yourself in great difficulties and dared to say that the apostles are one with the Father and the Son. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 22. †61 This is not at all what Christ said. You stated this as though the Father and the Son and the apostles were to be one. But Christ did not say, “That we and they may be one.” He said, That they may be one, as we also are one. To use the very words of the gospel, he says, Holy Father, keep in your name those whom you have given me, that they may be one, as we also are one (Jn 17:11). He did not say, did he, “That they may be one with us,” or “That we and they may be one”? Likewise, he says after a bit, I do not ask for them alone, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one (Jn 17:20-21). He did not say here either, “That they may be one with us.” Then he continues, As you, Father, in me and I in you, that they may also be one in us (Jn 17:21). Here too he did not say, “That we may be one,” or “That they may be one with us,” but, That they may be one in us, so that those who are one by nature, because they are human, may also be one in the Father and the Son, not one with them, that is, not that they and the Father and the Son may be one. He goes on to add, That the world may believe that you sent me. I have given to them the glory you gave me, that they may be one, as we also are one: I in them and you in me, that they may be made perfect in unity (Jn 17:21-23). He said many times, That they may be one. He nowhere said, “That we and they may be one,” that is, that they may be one with us. Rather, he said either in us or as we are, that is, they in accord with their nature, we in
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accord with our nature. He wanted those who were one in nature to be perfect in the way they were one. He did not want to join them to God in a unity of nature so that he and they might have one and the same nature, just because he said,
Be therefore perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect (Mt 5:48). Rather, he wanted them to be perfect in their own nature, as God is perfect in his, which is not the same as, but different from theirs. We cannot be perfect at all unless we are in him, not in the way all people are in him, because he contains everything which he created. For this reason he is said
not to be at a distance from anyone of us, because in him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:27-28). By reason of God's omnipresence all people are at all times in God; hence, Christ could not have prayed that we might be in God in that sense. Augustine points to two other texts which indicate another sense of being in God.
†62 Rather, we are to be in him in the way those are in him to whom it was said,
For you were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord (Eph 5:8). Along the same lines, we have the text,
Let her marry whom she will, provided it is in the Lord (1 Cor 7:39). Therefore, you were not able to produce a text where it said, “They are one,” of those whose substance was not one, but different. Nonetheless, Tamen; Amerbach, Erasmus, and manuscripts.: tamquam.
†63 you wanted to sneak up on us with an obscure passage so that you might say that the apostles are one with the Father and the Son, as if the apostles and the Father and the Son were one, even though the substance of the apostles is clearly different from the Father and the Son. But it is clear that Christ nowhere said, “That we and they might be one,” or “That they might be one with us.” Hence, it is clear that you could make no answer to us and that you wanted to perpetrate a fraud.
On the Witness That the Father Gave to the Son
XIII. In the thirteenth place, I warned you that the Father is not greater than the Son because the Father bore witness to the Son. I recalled that the prophets bore witness to him, and you cannot claim that they are greater than he. See Debate with Maximinus 14. †64 You had said that the Father bore witness to the Son. See Debate with Maximinus 13. †65 I interpreted it in the sense that you wanted to prove from this that he is greater than the one to whom he bore witness. Since you said nothing at all about this later in your discourse, I took your silence as agreement. Still, it is possible that you mentioned that the Father bore witness to the Son in order to prove from this that one is distinct from the other and not that one is greater than the other. That the Father is distinct from the Son, because the Father is not the same as the Son, is a doctrine both of us hold in common against the Sabellians. The Sabellians, or Patripassians, held that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were but three different names for one and the same reality. The Nicene insistence upon “one substance” led the Arians to suspect the presence of Sabellianism. See Heresies XLI. †66 They say that the Son is not distinct from, but the same as the Father, but we say that the Father is distinct from the Son, though we say that what the Father is, that the Son is too.
On the Love of the Father and the Son
XIV. In the fourteenth place, you said, “I read beloved, and I believe that it is the Father who loves and the Son who is loved.” Debate with Maximinus 13. †67 I said in response, “You
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say that there is a difference between the Father and the Son because the Father loves and the Son is loved, as if you could deny that the Son also loves the Father.” Then I added, “If each of them loves the other, why do you deny that they have one nature?” Debate with Maximinus 14.
†68 Of course, I said this precisely so that you would not deny that the two of them have one nature, because you said that one loves and the other is loved. In response to this, you agreed that the Son loves the Father, but you were unwilling to agree that they have one nature, as if the Son loves the Father, as a creature loves his Creator, not as the Only-Begotten loves his Father, for you want the Son to be of a lesser nature by reason of a difference of substance.
On the Invisibility of the Trinity
XV. In the fifteenth place, I said that the Trinity is equally invisible and not just the Father, but that the Son appeared as visible in the form of the servant. See Debate with Maximinus 14. †69 For this reason he said, The Father is greater than I (Jn 14:28). But because the divinity showed itself to the Patriarchs, I said that this was done though a creature that was subject to him, not through the divine nature by which the Trinity is invisible. To prove this, I mentioned Moses who said to him with whom he was speaking face to face, If I have found favor before you, show me yourself clearly (Ex 33:13), so that you might understand how he saw God and yet wanted God to show himself to him. See Debate with Maximinus 14. †70 After all, if he were seeing God in the substance by which he is God, he certainly would not ask that God show himself to him. I also said that Christ is the creator of visible and invisible things to prove that he who had the power to create not only visible things, but also invisible ones, is not visible through his substance. See Debate with Maximinus 14. †71 You tried to make an answer to this, and you said many things that were not to the point, as those who read may see for themselves. You have, of course, not dared to say why Moses wanted the God with whom he was speaking to show himself to him, if he saw his nature and substance. But you have not stopped saying that the Son of God is the creator of invisible things and was visible in the form of God, before he took the form of the servant. Yet, you had admitted before that he could be seen in the form of the servant, but was invisible in the substance of his divinity. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 9. †72
On God Who Alone Is Wise
XVI. In the sixteenth place you mentioned that the apostle said of the Father alone, God who alone is wise (Rom 16:27). See Debate with Maximinus 13. †73 I said, “Hence, the Father alone is the wise God, and the very wisdom of God, which is Christ, is not wise, though the apostle said of him, Christ the power of God and wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:24). Then I added, “It only remains for you to say—for what limit is there to
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your daring?—that the wisdom of God is not wise.” Debate with Maximinus 14.
†74 To this you said, “The blessed apostle Paul proclaims that the Father alone is wise, when he says,
God who alone is wise. But we must look for an explanation,” you said, “of why he alone is wise, since Christ is also wise.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 13.
†75 Then you go on and add how you admit that Christ too is wise. For after some things not pertinent to the matter at hand that you strung together to prolong the time of your speech, you inserted this too in your words and said, “But the Father alone is truly wise,” as if the apostle had said, “The Father who alone is wise.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 13.
†76 He said,
God who alone is wise, because the Son is also God—something you too are willing to admit—and the Holy Spirit is also God, even if you would not have it so. This Trinity is the God who alone is wise and could never have been or could be unwise in any way. The Trinity does not participate in wisdom through grace, but is wise by the unchangingness and unchangeableness of its nature. If I say to you, “You, a man who boasts of the Christian name, tell me, is Christ wise in such a way that he is not truly wise? Is Christ, then, who is true God, not truly wise?” Are you not troubled by that line of questioning so that you immediately answer that Christ is truly wise? What then do your words mean, “But the Father alone is truly wise”? Now you see to what point you have come and from what great irreverence you ought to flee.
On God as Unmade
XVII. In the seventeenth place, I discussed with you how the Son also, and not just the Father, is unmade, that is, was not made. You said that you profess one God, because “there is one above all, unborn and unmade.” Debate with Maximinus 13. †77 In response to your bold statement, I said, “You say that the Father is unmade, as if the Son were made, though all things were made through him.” Then I added, “Acknowledge, then, that the Son was made, but in the form of the servant. In the form of God he is so far from being made that all things were made through him. If he was made,” I said, “not all things, but only the other things, were made through him.” Debate with Maximinus 14. †78 Despite all the wordiness of your whole discourse, you found nothing to say to this, and you were utterly silent at this point as if you had not heard it.
On the Father as Unbegotten
XVIII. In the eighteenth place, I thought that I should deal with you also concerning the Father as unborn, that is, as unbegotten, because you had said this too. See Debate with Maximinus 13. †79 I said, “Hence, I do not call the Son unbegotten, but the Father the begetter and the Son the begotten. Still, the Father begot what he is; otherwise, the Son is not a true son, if he is not what the Father is, just as we said above
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concerning the offspring of animals.” Debate with Maximinus 14.
†80 On this point too, you offered nothing either true or false.
On the Equality of the Holy Spirit with the Father
XIX. In the nineteenth place, you asked me to show that the Holy Spirit was equal to the Father. See Debate with Maximinus 13. †81 I answered you as follows, “Why do you demand that I show you that the Holy Spirit is equal to the Father, as though you have shown that the Father is greater than the Holy Spirit, as you were able to show concerning the Son on account of the form of the servant? We know,” I said, “that the Father was said to be greater than the Son, because the Son was in the form of the servant, and the Son is still in the human form which he took up into heaven. For this reason scripture said of him that even now he pleads on our behalf (Rom 8:34). This same immortal form will last forever in the kingdom. For this reason scripture said, Then even the Son will be subject to him who has subjected everything to him (1 Cor 15:28). Scripture never said that the Father was greater than the Holy Spirit, who took no creature into the unity of his person, although he too deigned to show himself visibly through a creature subject to him, whether through the form of a dove or through fiery tongues. See Mt 3:16 and Acts 2:3. †82 Scripture never said that the Holy Spirit adored the Father and never said that he was less than the Father.” Debate with Maximinus 14. †83 You acted as if you were making an answer to these points, but in fact you gave no answer. You could not show that scripture anywhere said that the Father was greater than the Holy Spirit as, on account of the form of the servant, the Son said, The Father is greater than I (Jn 14:28). When I said that the Holy Spirit did not take any creature into the unity of his person, you said that the Holy Spirit appeared in the dove and fire, as Christ appeared in the man. You said this, as if the dove and the Spirit or the fire and the Spirit were one person, just as the Word and the man are one person. See Debate with Maximinus 14 and 15, 26. †84 For a brief time there were seen those things which, as signs, visibly manifested the invisible Spirit: the dove on account of holy love and the fire on account of the light and warmth of charity. After having served their functions as signs, those corporeal forms passed away and ceased to be anymore, just as the pillar of cloud passed away that was dark by day and bright by night. See Ex 13:21. †85 Finally, lest someone think that the dove or the flame belong to the substance of the Holy Spirit or that a nature of such great majesty transformed itself into these visible things or took them to the unity of its person, scripture never says that the Holy Spirit later appeared in this way. Christ did not assume for only a brief time the human form in which he appeared to men, with that form later passing away. Rather, he took the visible form of the man to the unity of his person, while the invisible form of God remained. Manente invisibili Dei forma; Louvain: sed unitate personae manente, invisibilis Dei forma. †86 Not only was he born from a human mother in the visible form of a man, but he also grew up in it, and ate and drank and
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slept in it. He was killed in it, rose in it and ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father in it. He will come in it to judge the living and the dead, and in his kingdom he will be subject in it to him who has subjected all things to him. You were unwilling to pay attention to and consider these points which I briefly mentioned in my response and have explained here more fully so that you might understand. You rushed into such irreverence that you say that the divine nature of God and of the Holy Spirit is subject to change and is mutable—what an outrage! These are your words. You said, “What I have set forth concerning the invisibility of the omnipotent Omnipotentis: Amerbach, Erasmus and manuscripts: omnitenentis.
†87 God, you yourself have stated.” Though your intention was different, still the words are your own. “Though the Holy Spirit was seen in the form of a dove as well as in the form of fire and the Son was seen in the form of man, the Father was seen neither in the form of a dove nor in the form of man. He never turned himself into any forms and is never changed. Scripture says of him,
I am who I am, and
I am not changed” (Ex 3:14 and Mal 3:6). Debate with Maximinus 15, 26.
†88 Then you go on to say, “The Son who, of course, had already been established in the form of God has, as you have stated, taken the form of the servant, but the Father has not. Likewise, the Holy Spirit took the form of the dove, but the Father did not. Acknowledge then,” you said, “that there is one who is invisible, there is one who is incomprehensible and immense.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 26.
†89 Would you say these things if you could weigh your words according to the spirit and not according to the flesh? After all, you are a man who reads in the scriptures,
I am who I am, and
I am not changed (Ex 3:14 and Mal 3:6). Those words are not the words of the Father alone, but of the Trinity which is one God, but you attribute them only to the Father and believe that the Son is subject to change! You believe that the Only-Begotten through whom all things were made is subject to change! The gospel says of him,
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and
Through him all things were made (Jn 1:1.3), and you believe that he is subject to change! What shall I say of the Holy Spirit, when you believe that he whom you admit is the true Son of God and true God is subject to change? Of course, you would not believe this, if as a Catholic you believed that the form of the servant was assumed by the form of God and not that the form of God was changed into the form of the servant. You would not say this, if you thought spiritually and not carnally that he remained the invisible God when he assumed the visible man. You would not fail to believe by being obstinate, but would see by understanding. You would be able to consider with faith that the Holy Spirit too appeared visibly, as he wanted, through a creature subject to him, while his nature remained invisible, in no sense changed or transformed into the form of fire or the dove. See Acts 2:3 and Mt 3:16.
†90 Remember also that you could not prove against my claim by any testimonies of God that the Father is greater than the Holy Spirit or that the Father was adored by the Holy Spirit.
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Though the Father Is Unbegotten, the Son Is Still Equal
XX. In the twentieth place, you said, “If he is equal to the Father, he is surely the same as he is. If he is the same as he is, then he is surely unborn.” Debate with Maximinus 13. †91 I said in answer to you, “But you say of the Son, 'If he is equal to the Father, he is surely the same as he is,' that is, because the Son is not unbegotten, he does not seem to be the same as the Father. You could just as well say that Adam did not beget a human being, because Adam himself was not begotten, but made by God. But if Adam could exist without having been born and could still generate what he was, why do you refuse to admit that God could generate God equal to himself?” Debate with Maximinus 14. †92 I am not surprised that you found no answer to these points, and I commend you for not having tried to make an answer. I wish that you had done the same in every case! You could never find a correct answer to give during our debate, and you were almost Pene; Louvain: plene. †93 never willing to remain silent. But since at other points you said very much that was not relevant to the topic we were discussing, you used up the time. I am grateful to you that, where you saw you could not refute some items, you preferred to pass them over in silence.
Notes
†1 Manifestatae; Erasmus, Lyons, Venice and Louvain: manifestae.
†2 Augustine announces the plan of his work. In the first book he will argue that Maximinus could not refute what Augustine said, while in the second book he will undertake the refutation of Maximinus' claims.
†3 Debate with Maximinus 14.
†4 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 2.
†5 Clamat with Erasmus, Lyons, Venice and Louvain; Migne: clamet.
†6 See Debate with Maximinus 13.
†7 See Debate with Maximinus 14.
†8 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 5. Maximinus' text for 2 Cor 5:20-21 is at least ambiguous. It could be taken to mean that the Father made Christ to be sin, or that Christ himself committed sin. Augustine understands what Maximinus says in the latter sense, though he could have read it in a more orthodox sense.
†9 Reconciliamini; Amerbach, Erasmus and the manuscripts: reconciliari.
†10 Similitudini; Louvain alone: in similitudine; some manuscripts: similitudine.
†11 See Debate with Maximinus 14.
†12 See Debate with Maximinus 14.
†13 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 9.
†14 Debate with Maximinus 15, 9.
†15 See Peri archôn I, 1, 8, where Origen says, “If you ask me my opinion about the only-begotten Son, namely, whether the nature of God which is invisible by nature is visible to him, let this not immediately seem to you to be impious or absurd; we will give the reason next.” Origen then distinguishes “seeing” from “knowing” and maintains that only bodies are seen. From the extant text of the Peri archôn one has no reason to suppose that Origen taught the doctrine that we find Maximinus to hold. Nonetheless, Hanson says that “Origen taught in the Peri Archôn that the Son cannot see the Father nor the Spirit the Son nor angels the Spirit nor men angels” (p. 61). He
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offers no reference to the text of Origen, but points to
Panarion 64.4.4, where Epiphanius, who was anything but a fan of Origen's, attributes this teaching to Origen. P. Amidon, however, reads “at the outset” (
kata tên archên) instead of “in the
Peri Archôn” (peri tôn archôn). See
The Panarion of Saint Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis. Selected Passages. Trans. and edited by Philip R. Amidon, S.J. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 215. Epiphanius says much the same thing about Origen in his
Ancoratus 63. See also Henri Crouzel and Manlio Simonetti,
Origène: Traité des principes II, 27-29, note 36.
†16 Since Maximinus has rejected the use of non-biblical sources, he is particularly vulnerable on a point like this one, where he has introduced a claim that runs counter to scripture.
†17 Debate with Maximinus 15, 9.
†18 Debate with Maximinus 15, 9.
†19 Debate with Maximinus 15, 9.
†20 Louvain adds: veritate.
†21 See, below XI.
†22 See Debate with Maximinus 13.
†23 See Debate with Maximinus 14.
†24 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 14.
†25 Debate with Maximinus 15, 14.
†26 See below, XIII.
†27 See Debate with Maximinus 14.
†28 See Debate with Maximinus 14.
†29 Debate with Maximinus 15, 15.
†30 Sed et quae aliorum, with the manuscripts; Louvain: sed ea quae aliorum.
†31 Aequales; Amerbach, Erasmus and manuscripts: aequalis.
†32 See Debate with Maximinus 14.
†33 See Debate with Maximinus 14.
†34 Deficienti flatu; manuscripts: deficientis flatus.
†35 Debate with Maximinus 15, 6.
†36 See Sermons 139 3, 4 and 5, where Augustine points out that to say the Son is inferior to the Father is an insult to both the Father and the Son.
†37 Debate with Maximinus 14.
†38 See Debate with Maximinus 13.
†39 See Debate with Maximinus 14.
†40 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 18.
†41 Debate with Maximinus 13.
†42 See Debate with Maximinus 14; see Lk 2:51.
†43 Debate with Maximinus 15, 18.
†44 Debate with Maximinus 15, 18.
†45 See Debate with Maximinus 14.
†46 See Debate with Maximinus 13.
†47 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 19.
†48 See Debate with Maximinus 13.
†49 Augustine refers to the figure of metonomy and provides other examples of this common figure of speech.
†50 See Debate with Maximinus 13.
†51 Augustine is playing upon the difference between praying (orare) and adoring or doing homage (adorare).
†52 See Debate with Maximinus 14.
†53 Domini; some manuscripts: Dominus.
†54 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 20.
†55 Sed Domino uni serviatis; Amerbach, Erasmus and manuscripts: et Domini unius serviatis.
†56 See Debate with Maximinus 14.
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†57 Debate with Maximinus 15, 21.
†58 Nos is not found in manuscripts.
†59 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 21.
†60 See Debate with Maximinus 14.
†61 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 22.
†62 By reason of God's omnipresence all people are at all times in God; hence, Christ could not have prayed that we might be in God in that sense. Augustine points to two other texts which indicate another sense of being in God.
†63 Tamen; Amerbach, Erasmus, and manuscripts.: tamquam.
†64 See Debate with Maximinus 14.
†65 See Debate with Maximinus 13.
†66 The Sabellians, or Patripassians, held that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were but three different names for one and the same reality. The Nicene insistence upon “one substance” led the Arians to suspect the presence of Sabellianism. See Heresies XLI.
†67 Debate with Maximinus 13.
†68 Debate with Maximinus 14.
†69 See Debate with Maximinus 14.
†70 See Debate with Maximinus 14.
†71 See Debate with Maximinus 14.
†72 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 9.
†73 See Debate with Maximinus 13.
†74 Debate with Maximinus 14.
†75 Debate with Maximinus 15, 13.
†76 Debate with Maximinus 15, 13.
†77 Debate with Maximinus 13.
†78 Debate with Maximinus 14.
†79 See Debate with Maximinus 13.
†80 Debate with Maximinus 14.
†81 See Debate with Maximinus 13.
†82 See Mt 3:16 and Acts 2:3.
†83 Debate with Maximinus 14.
†84 See Debate with Maximinus 14 and 15, 26.
†85 See Ex 13:21.
†86 Manente invisibili Dei forma; Louvain: sed unitate personae manente, invisibilis Dei forma.
†87 Omnipotentis: Amerbach, Erasmus and manuscripts: omnitenentis.
†88 Debate with Maximinus 15, 26.
†89 Debate with Maximinus 15, 26.
†90 See Acts 2:3 and Mt 3:16.
†91 Debate with Maximinus 13.
†92 Debate with Maximinus 14.
†93 Pene; Louvain: plene.
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Book II
The item-by-item refutation of the things Maximinus said in his last speech in the debate. By his lengthy discourse he had deprived Augustine of the time for a response.
Preface
As things now stand, I must fulfill the rest of my promise, with the help of the Lord. In the beginning of this work, I said, “First, I will show that you could not refute what I said; then I will refute what you said to the extent that it seems necessary.” See Debate with Maximinus I. †1 I have, with God's help, shown as well as I could that you were unable to refute what I said. There remains for me to refute what you said as well as I can, with God's help. In this argument that I have now taken up, I will not go over again your earlier statements to which I immediately replied. Rather, I will argue against your final discourse that was so long that it deprived me of time for an answer on that day. The chapter numbers of the second book correspond to the paragraph numbers in Maximinus's long final discourse. †2 Thus, if God, who rules over us, wishes, you may yield to the light of the truth, if you do not prefer the darkness of strife. First of all, then, I will set aside what you said that was off the topic as not needing my response. The question at issue between us is whether the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit have a different substance, as you say, or rather, as we say, have one and the same substance and whether the one God is the Trinity. We agree that the Father is not the Son and that the Son is not the Father and that neither the Father nor the Son is the Holy Spirit. Recognize, then, that whatever you said in your long discourse to show that the Father is one, the Son another, and the Holy Spirit a third is beside the point, when you are dealing with us. But if you should come across some Sabellians For Sabellians, or Patripassions, see Heresies XLI. †3 in need of refutation, turn against them, if you want, those weapons that both of us hold in common. You spoke at length to prove that the Lord Jesus Christ is the great God. Why prove that to us? We say that too. You also said many true things in praise of the Holy Spirit; we can add to them, but cannot deny them. There was no need for you to say against us what we say along with you. Do we not also admit that Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father? Still, you wanted to prove this from the testimonies of the words of God, as if we would ever deny it. We both know and hold that Christ came in the flesh. You used the testimonies of God to teach us this, as if we rejected it. I will point out in their proper place these and other things upon which you wasted your effort in creating delays and using
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up time. I ought to touch upon them by mentioning them, but not argue against them by refuting them.
On the Proper Fear of God
I. You say that I am “protected by the help of princes” and “say not a word with the fear of God.” See Debate with Maximinus 15, 1. †4 Yet, you know that we are commanded to pray for kings so that they may come to the knowledge of the truth. See 1 Tm 2:2.4. †5 We offer thanks to God that some of them have done so, though you are distressed by it. But let our words indicate to those who understand correctly which of us speaks with the fear of God. Is it the one who so praises God the Father that he counts it as his praise that he has generated a Son equal to himself? Or is it the one who dishonors the Father and the Son by saying that the former could not generate a Son like himself in every respect and that the latter did not become inferior once he was born, but was born inferior?
On Christ's Exaltation by the Father
II. You say that you “worship Christ as the God of every creature,” to whom “every knee is bent, of those in heaven, on earth and under the earth.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 2. †6 You reject his equality to God the Father, because “the Father gave him this.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 2. †7 The apostle says, For this reason God has also exalted him and has given him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee might bend, and so on. You do not ask to whom he gave it, whether to man or to God. It is clear when Quando with manuscripts; Migne: Quomodo. †8 he gave it. He says, He humbled himself even to death, death upon the cross. For this reason God has exalted him and has given him the name that is above every name (Phil 2:8-9). If, then, he gave him the name that is above every name, precisely because he became obedient unto death upon the cross, was he, then, before this took place, not God, the high Son of God, the Word of God, God with God? Did he then begin to be the high Son of God, the only Son of God, and God, after he was exalted because he became obedient unto the death of the cross? Did he then begin to have the name that is above every name? Who would be so foolish as to say this? Insofar, then, as the Son became obedient unto the death of the cross, there was given to him as man what the same Son of God, equal God born from God, already had.
On the Adoration of the Holy Spirit
III. You object to my saying that the Holy Spirit is equal to the Son. I certainly do say that. You say, “Provide the testimonies in which the Holy Spirit is adored.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 3. †9 As I see it, you intend to show that he is equal to Christ, if he is adored
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as Christ is. Admit, then, that Christ is equal to the Father, since you admit that he is adored as the Father is. What sort of men are you, what sort of religious humility do you have? You do not want to adore the Holy Spirit, although you read,
The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Cor 3:6). You refuse to adore him whom you do not deny gives life to souls, although Father Abraham adored men because they granted him a tomb where he might lay the dead body of his wife. Scripture says,
Abraham came to mourn Sarah and grieve. And Abraham arose after her death and said to the sons of Heth. “I am a wanderer and stranger among you; grant me the possession of a tomb where I may bury my dead.” The sons of Heth answered Abraham with the words, “Please, sir; listen to us. Among us you are a king from God. Bury your dead in our choicest tomb. No one of us is going to keep you from burying your dead in his tomb.” Abraham rose and adored the people of the sons of Heth (Gn 23:2-7). And you refuse to adore the Holy Spirit, and thus you remain ungrateful for the gift of God! You say, “Provide the testimonies in which the Holy Spirit is adored,” as if from what we read we do not understand other things which we do not read. Augustine implies that from the text of scripture the Catholic understands other things than those explicitly stated in the text. That is, he is quite opposed to one's remaining with the literal reading of the text of scripture. Augustine immediately provides as examples, “unbegotten,” “unborn,” and “incomparable,” which Maximinus uses to speak of the Father, though the terms are not found in scripture.
†10 To avoid being forced to seek many examples, where have you read that God the Father is unbegotten and unborn? Still, it is true. You said several times that the Father is incomparable even to the Son; you do not read that anywhere, and it is not true. But if you would bear in mind, as you ought, the religion by which God is worshipped, you would see that it is much more significant that the Holy Spirit has a temple than that you read that he is adored. After all, we know that the saints have adored other human beings, as I showed you above, but people have not made a temple except for the true God, as Solomon did, or for those who are thought to be gods, as did the nations who did not know God. The Holy Spirit, however,
does not dwell in temples made by human hands (Acts 17:24)—words scripture said of God as a great honor. Rather, our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not hold our bodies in contempt, for they are members of Christ. See 1 Cor 6:19.15.
†11 What a great God is it to whom a temple is built both by God and out of the members of God!
On Christ's Being Seated at the Father's Right Hand
IV. You say that “Christ is on the right hand of God and that he makes intercession on our behalf.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 4. See Rom 8:34. †12 Why do you raise this as an objection to us if you recognize that he is not only God, but also man? How does it help your case that we constantly read that he is seated at the right hand of the Father? Why do you strive to prove to us not merely by inane proofs, but in an inane manner, what we admit?
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On the Three as One God and Creator
V. You say that you “properly honor the Holy Spirit as teacher, as guide, as enlightener, as sanctifier,” that you “worship Christ as Creator,” and that you “adore the Father with sincere devotion as author.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 5. †13 Call the Father the author, because the Son is from him, though he is not from the Son and because the Holy Spirit proceeds from him and from the Son. By giving birth to the Son, he gave it to him that the Holy Spirit proceeds from him as well. Call the Son the Creator in such a way that you do not deny that the Father and the Holy Spirit are the Creator. Finally, say that the Holy Spirit is teacher, guide, enlightener, and sanctifier so that you do not dare to deprive the Father and the Son of these works. Then these words of yours will be ours as well. But if you erect in your heart idols so that you have two gods, one greater, that is, the Father, the other lesser, that is, the Son, and if you imagine the Holy Spirit as the least of all three so that you refuse to call him God, this is not our faith, because it is not the Christian faith and, hence, not faith at all. We even excuse you for having used words incorrectly and for having implied that Christ came down to earthly contacts. See Debate with Maximinus 13. †14 Because I wanted to correct you on this point so that you would know how we ought to use “contacts” (contagia), you accuse me of slanderous attacks and suppose that “they come from instruction in the art of philosophy.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 5. †15 I am satisfied if you think that Christ came down to earthly contacts in such a way that you admit that he was without sin.
On the Analogy with Human and Animal Generation
VI. I mentioned the birth of animals; though they are earthly and mortal, they still give birth to what they are. For example, a human gives birth to a human, a dog to a dog. See Debate with Maximinus 14. †16 I suspect that you did not reject this out of horror, but that you pretended to reject it and to be horrified, when you said, “You should not use so foul a comparison for such greatness.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 6. †17 Why did you say this? Was it not so that, by the example of such corruptible offspring, the truth would not choke you and cut off your breath, as, in fact, it does? You see that a corruptible creature gives birth to an offspring the same as it is, but you believe that God, the omnipotent Father, could not give birth to his only Son unless the Son's nature was something inferior.
On the Son as God Equal to the Father
VII. You say, “The Lord begot the Lord; God begot God; the King begot the King; the Creator begot the Creator; the Good begot the Good; the Wise begot the Wise; the Merciful the Merciful; the Powerful the Powerful.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 7. †18 Do you think
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that by these words you avoid the objection raised against you that you do not believe that God could beget what he is? Do you, for that reason, say “The Lord begot the Lord; God begot God,” and the rest? Why do you not say, “The Omnipotent begot the Omnipotent,” just as you said “The Powerful begot the Powerful”? If you want to say what you think, say, “The greater Lord begot the lesser Lord; the greater God begot the lesser God; the greater King begot the lesser King; the greater Creator begot the lesser Creator; the Better the Good, the Wiser the Wise; the More Merciful the Merciful; the More Powerful the Powerful.” But if you do not say these things and if you agree that the Son has nothing less than the Father has, why do you not say that he is equal? And why do you not run through that list and say, “The Lord begot one who is equally Lord; God begot one equally God; the King begot one equally King; the Creator one equally Creator; the Good one equally Good; the Wise one equally Wise; the Merciful one equally Merciful; the Powerful one equally Powerful”?
But if you deny that he is equal, say openly that he has an inferior nature. After all, you do not even allow that he, whom you say is a lesser God born from a greater God, can at least grow like an infant so that he might at some time be equal to his Father. You say that he was born perfect, not so that his praise might be increased on this account, but so that his nature might remain less. And though you think this, you still go on to say, “In generating the Son the Father took nothing away [from the Son].” See Debate with Maximinus 15, 7. †19 How could he have taken nothing away in generating the Son when he did not beget his equal, but someone inferior? Or did he take nothing away, because he did not take away from the Son any of those things he gave by begetting him? Of course, he took nothing away in that sense, but neither does the Creator take anything away from human children born in good condition, once they are born. Rather, he adds something more so that, as they grow up, they receive what was lacking at birth. Have you, then, said anything special about the Father with regard to his only Son, who was not made out of nothing or from some matter, but born of him? What is so great about his not taking away what he gave, if, by not giving it, he took away what he could have given? What happens to your claim that he is not envious? Or was he perhaps unable to give? Where then is the omnipotence of God the Father? Really the matter comes to this: God the Father either could not or would not beget a Son equal to himself. If he could not, he was weak; if he would not, he is found envious. But each of these is false. Therefore, the true Son is equal to God the Father. Augustine turns Maximinus's argument into a dilemma against him. It is effective as an ad hominem response, but it would seem to be open to less desirable uses, for example, that the Father was either envious or impotent if he did not produce more sons than the one. †20
As your praise indicates, you are pleased with the words I called to mind, His invisible reality, having been understood, is seen through those things that have been made (Rom 1:20). Through what occurs in the visible creation, namely, that parents generate what they themselves are, understand the invisible birth of the true Son of God. Then you will not say that God the Father begot
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what he is not. But if he begot what he is, then do not refuse to say that the Father and the Son have one substance.
On Points of No Disagreement
VIII. You have strung together the next items in order to prove to us what we also believe concerning the cross or incarnation of Christ. You kept to your usual practice, and in making no answer to you regarding these things, I also am keeping my promise. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 8. †21
On the Invisibility of God
IX, 1. When we dealt with the invisible Son, you agreed that he is invisible according to his divinity, though you had earlier presumed that the Father alone was invisible. You said many things about invisible creatures that did not pertain to the topic, as those who read can judge for themselves. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 9. †22 The point at issue between us concerns the invisible God; the source of the problem is that you think that scripture said that only the Father is invisible, where the apostle says, To the immortal God alone invisible (1 Tm 1:17). If he had said, “The Father alone,” the problem would be more difficult to solve. But because he said, God alone, the passage is certainly not against us. Both the Only-Begotten in the form of God and the Holy Spirit in his nature are invisible. We proclaim the one and only God, the Trinity. We have already shown in other places that we are correct in holding this, and we will give further proof, if there is still need.
Now, on this question one can rightly wonder how scripture could say of God alone, the Trinity, God alone invisible, since there are also invisible creatures. For this reason, scripture said of Christ, In him were created all things visible and invisible (Col 1:16). Because, then, false gods are visible, scripture said, To God alone invisible be honor and glory. After all, even if a creature is invisible, it is not our God. And if it had not said, To God alone, but had said, “To the King of the ages alone, immortal, invisible, be honor and glory,” who would this be but God? Honor and glory, then, to God alone who is the invisible God, not who is alone invisible, since, as we said, there is also an invisible creature.
One can likewise ask in what sense scripture said, No one has ever seen God (Jn 1:18), since the same Lord also said, Do you not know that their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven? (Mt 18:10). This statement is an argument against you who do not know in what sense you say that the Father is invisible. His words, Not that anyone has seen the Father, but he who has come from God has seen the Father (Jn 6:46), can refer to human beings, because it said, Anyone. Because he was a man who was then speaking in his human condition, he said it in this way as if to say, “Not that any man has seen
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the Father except me.” In the same way scripture said,
Who is wise and will understand these things? (Ps 106:43). After all, we cannot interpret that as applying to the holy angels. Hence, the apostle put it more clearly with regard to the invisible God,
No human being has seen or can see him (1 Tm 6:16). He did not say, “No one,” but
No human being. There he showed how we should interpret the words,
No one has ever seen God, that is, no human being. In the same sense,
No one has gone up into heaven (Jn 3:13), though the angels often ascend there as they often descend from there.
Still, the apostle did not say, “No human being will be able to see God,” but No one can. After all, human beings will be able to see God, when that will be the eternal reward of the faithful. For this reason, the apostle John said, Beloved, we are children of God, and it has not yet been disclosed what we shall be. We know that when he shall appear, we will be like him, for we shall see him as he is (1 Jn 3:2). Where then is your claim that the Father alone is invisible? You would have no reason to say that, even if he were seen only by the Son. But now that the words of God bear witness that he is seen by the angels and will be seen by human beings when they have become equal to the angels, See Mt 22:30. †23 what happens to your claim? Where is that statement that you dared to make that “lesser things are seen by greater ones, but greater ones cannot be seen by lesser ones”? Answer to Maximinus I, 3; Augustine quotes himself here rather than Maximinus; see Debate with Maximinus 15, 9, for Maximinus's words. †24 You gave up that point later when you admitted that the Father is seen by the Son, even though you say that the Son is lesser and the Father greater in the very substance of the divinity. But what are you going to say about the angels who always see the face of God the Father? According to the rule which you made up without thinking, do you not have to suppose that the angels are greater than God the Father?
2. You think that you found something elegant to say when you said of the Son, “He saw the Father, but he saw the incomprehensible.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 9. †25 You fail to notice that, even if he saw the incomprehensible, whom he could not, as you suppose, comprehend, he still did not see the invisible, since he did see him. You were not, however, arguing with us about comprehensibility and incomprehensibility, but about visibility and invisibility, when you said these things. The apostle did not say, “incomprehensible”; he said, God alone invisible. Hence, you thought that you should use this testimony on your behalf as a way of dishonoring the Son as if he were not invisible in the form of God. But you were proved wrong by the truth, and you admitted that the Son is invisible. Hence, you were ready, I believe, to say to yourself, “The Invisible begot the Invisible,” just as you said, “The Powerful begot the Powerful.” Then, if you would go on to explain in what sense you said this, you would answer, “The More Invisible begot the Invisible,” just as the More Powerful begot the Powerful, the More Wise the Wise, and so on.
But how cleverly you showed that the Father cannot be comprehended by
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the Son, though the Son can be comprehended by the Father! For you said, “Then he saw the Father, but he saw the incomprehensible. But the Father,” you said, “sees the Son, as one who holds him and keeps him in his embrace.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 9.
†26 Such wisdom is found only in those who are wise in a very human sense. That is, Maximinus thinks of God in a very human, or “carnal,” manner and pictures him in human form. True wisdom involves being able to think of God without such bodily imagery.
†27 You imagine for yourself an embrace, as I see it, some capacity of the greater Father by which he grasps and contains the smaller Son, as a home holds a human being in a bodily fashion or as a nurse's bosom holds an infant. Hence, this too will be counted among the marvelous things about Christ, that he grew up in the form of the servant and became greater than he had been in the form of God so that, though he was earlier carried in his Father's embrace, he is now seated at the right hand of the Father. Cast from your heart these childish or old-womanish images, and interpret the embrace of the Father in such a way that you understand that the one is born and the other is the begetter, not that the one is smaller and the other greater. If the Father is incomprehensible and the Son is not incomprehensible, the Son did not say with truth,
All the things which the Father has are mine (Jn 16:15), since one can reply to this, “Look, the Father has an incomprehensibility which you do not have.” But since what the Truth has said has been said with truth, all the things which the Father has are also the Son's. The Son cannot fail to have whatever incomprehensibility the Father has.
We ought often to use this statement of the Lord where he says, All the things which the Father has are mine, as a most correct rule either to refute you or—what we desire more—to correct you. Thus wherever you attribute something to the Father that you deny to the Son, we can bring forth this most trustworthy testimony against your errors or lies. What need is there to oppose you on your claim that human wisdom is visible, See Debate with Maximinus 15, 9. †28 since you grant that the human soul is invisible, in which, of course, human wisdom is found? But whatever you may think about the whole invisible creation, in what pertains to God, which is the point at issue between us, I have sufficiently shown you that the Father is not alone invisible.
On the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as One God
X, 1. You think that the Father with the Son and the Holy Spirit cannot be one God. You are afraid that the Father alone would not be the one God, but a part of the one God, who is made up of the three. Have no fear; the unity of the godhead is not divided into parts. The one God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that is, the Trinity. It is the one God of whom scripture says, There is no God save the one (1 Cor 8:4). He said, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one. We acknowledge without any hesitation that we serve this one and only God, when we hear and read, You shall adore the Lord your God, and you shall serve him alone (Dt 6:4.13). Nor are we, on account of these words,
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unwilling to serve Christ, whose members we are, or the Holy Spirit, whose temple we are. We do not interpret the words,
You shall serve the Lord your God alone, as if they referred to the Father and not to the Trinity. But when you are asked of whom you believe that scripture says,
The Lord is your God, the Lord is one, you answer, “It is God the Father.” Likewise, when you are asked of which Lord God it said,
You shall adore the Lord your God, and you shall serve him alone, you again answer, “God the Father.” Then we say to you, If the Lord our God is one God and he is the Father, why do you make two lord gods by saying that Christ is also Lord God? Likewise, if it is the Father who is the one and only Lord God whom we should serve, how do you obey this commandment, if you also serve Christ as Lord God? One who also serves Christ does not serve the other alone. But whoever of us has learned according to the correct faith that the Trinity is our one Lord God has every confidence that we serve the Lord God alone, when we serve the Trinity alone with the service we owe to God.
2. You say, “Then God the Father is part of God.” See Debate with Maximinus 15, 10. Though not a direct quote, it is clearly implied by what Maximinus says. †29 Heaven forbid! The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are three persons, and because these three have one substance, they are supremely one without any difference of natures or of wills. If they were one in nature and not in agreement, they would not be supremely one. If, however, they were unlike in nature, they would not be one. These three, then, who are one on account of the ineffable union of the godhead, by which they are ineffably united, are the one God. Christ is one person with a twofold substance, because he is both God and man. Still, God cannot be said to be a part of this person; otherwise, before the Son of God took the form of the servant, he was not whole, but was made greater, when the human nature was added to his divinity. If it is absurd to say this in the case of one person, because God cannot be a part of anything, how much the more is it true that no one of the three can be called a part of the Trinity? Secondly, when the apostle says, “He who clings to the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor 6:17), is the Lord a part of this one spirit? If we say this, what else are we found to be saying but that he is increased by man's clinging to him and lessened by man's withdrawal? In the Trinity, then, which is God, the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and these three are all together one God. One is not a third of this Trinity, nor are two of them a greater part than one, and all of them are not something greater than each of them, because their greatness is spiritual, not corporeal. Let him who can grasp it grasp it, See Mt 19:12. †30 but let him who cannot grasp it believe and pray that he may understand what he believes. For the words of the prophet are true, Unless you believe, you will not understand (Is 7:9). Attaining some understanding of the mystery of the Trinity is not something that everyone can do or is obliged to do, but everyone is obliged to believe the word of God. The Arian position seems to rest in part upon a failure to grasp God's incorporeal nature. Augustine accuses Maximinus of thinking of God in images and even suggests that the heresy arises from such image thinking. See my “Heresy and Imagination in St. Augustine,” Studia Patristica XXVII (Leuven: Peters, 1993), 400-404. †31
3. You denied, of course, that “the one God is composed of parts.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 10. †32 And because you want us to understand this about the Father, you say, “His nature is unbegotten, simple power.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 10. †33 And yet see how many things you mention in
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this simple power. See The Trinity XV 6, 9, where Augustine shows that the multiplicity of attributes is compatible with divine simplicity.
†34 You previously said, “God begot God, the Lord begot the Lord, the King begot the King, the Creator begot the Creator, the Good begot the Good, the Wise begot the Wise, the Merciful the Merciful, the Powerful the Powerful.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 7, as well as above, II, 7.
†35 Why then were you not afraid to mention so many powers in the simple power that is God? Let me omit the first four that you set forth in the passage above and mention the other four which we can call by familiar names. Are not goodness and wisdom and mercy and powerfulness parts of this one power which you said was simple? If you say they are parts, then the simple power is composed of parts, and this simple power is, as you stated, the one God. Do you, then, say that the one God is composed of parts? You say, “I do not say so.” They are, then, not parts, and yet they are four, and there is one power, and it is simple. If you find many attributes in the one person of the Father and they are not parts, how much the more is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit one God on account of the undivided godhead and three persons on account of the proper character of each of them. And yet the persons are not parts of the one God on account of the perfection of each of them. The Father is power, the Son power, the Holy Spirit power. Here what you say is true. But when you do not want the power born of the power and the power proceeding from the power to have the same nature, you say what is false, you say what is against the correct and Catholic faith.
On the Invisibility of the Son
XI. You come back and ask me how the Son can be invisible, though I had already said above that we should say that he was visible. But you say, “If you claim that the Son is invisible because he cannot be looked upon by human eyes, why do you not claim that the heavenly powers are also equally invisible, since they too cannot be seen by human sight?” Debate with Maximinus 15, 11. †36 You say this as if a human being could comprehend the way in which the heavenly powers are invisible. But for the purposes of investigating this question, let us heed the words of scripture, Do not seek what is above you (Sir 3:22). You yourself have ignored this command and have dared to say that an archangel can see an angel, but that an angel cannot see an archangel. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 9. †37 Let it suffice that I have shown that it does not follow that we should believe that the Son is visible in the form of God, because scripture says, God alone invisible (1 Tm 1:17). You showed that you understood this as referring to the Father, as if the Son were not invisible, though scripture bears witness that he is also the Creator of invisible things. You might still say, “They are both invisible, that is, the Father and the Son, but the Father is more invisible.” But then, by giving something to the Father that the Son does not have, you make the same Son a liar, when he says, All the things which the Father has are mine (Jn 16:15).
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On the Power of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
XII, 1. You hold the same thing regarding their power, namely, that the Son is, of course, powerful, but that the Father is more powerful than the Son. According to your authorities and teachings, the Powerful could beget the Powerful, but the Omnipotent could not beget the Omnipotent. Hence, if the Father has an omnipotence that the Son does not have, the Son's words are false, All the things which the Father has are mine (Jn 16:15). Moreover, if the Father does something that the Son cannot do, the Father is correctly said to be more powerful than the Son, although he says, Whatever the Father does, these things the Son does in a like manner (Jn 5:19). Is it not better for us to listen to him rather than to you? Is it not better to believe his teaching than your deception?
“But the Father,” you say, “receives his power from no one, while the Son receives it from the Father.” See Debate with Maximinus 11, where Maximinus speaks of the Son's receiving his life from the Father, while the Father receives his life from no one. †38 We too admit that the Son has received his power from him from whom he was born as one who is powerful. No one gave the Father power, because no one begot him. By begetting the Son, the Father gave power to the Son, just as by begetting him, he gave everything he had in his substance to him whom he begot from out of his substance. But the question is whether the Father gave to the Son as much power as he had or less. If he gave as much as he had, we should say, we should believe, we should understand not only that the Powerful begot the Powerful, but also that the Omnipotent begot the Omnipotent. If he gave less power, how can it be true that all the things that the Father has are the Son's? If the omnipotence of the Father does not belong to the Son, how can it be that whatever the Father does, these things the Son does in a like manner? He, of course, cannot, if he is not omnipotent.
2. Hence, I am not forced to understand the words of the apostle, The blessed and alone powerful, as referring only to the Father, but as referring to God, that is, to the Trinity. Speaking to Timothy, he says, I command you in the presence of God who gives life to all things and Jesus Christ who gave witness before Pontius Pilate, a noble confession, that you observe the commandment without stain, without reproach, until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will reveal at the proper time, who is the blessed and alone powerful, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, who alone has immortality and dwells in inaccessible light, whom no human being has seen or can see, to whom is honor and glory for age after age. Amen (1 Tm 6:13-16). I see nothing that is said here that does not fit the Trinity. I will not mention here the Holy Spirit. You would not even allow that he was a lesser God than the Son, because you would not have him to be God at all. It is enough that I prove you wrong about the Father and the Son.
The apostle said, I bear witness to you in the presence of God who gives life to all things. Does it follow that the Father alone, and not the Son, gives life to all things? If you say that the Father alone gives life to all things, how is it
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possible that
whatever the Father does, these things the Son does in a like manner? According to you, the Father gives life to all things, though the Son does not. Moreover, he says,
As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to those he wants (Jn 5:21). How can that be true, if the Father gives life to all things without the Son? He wanted to say the next words specifically of the Son,
And Jesus Christ who gave witness before Pontius Pilate, a noble confession. The Son gives life to all things just as the Father does, but we know that the Son, and not the Father, suffered under Pontius Pilate in the form of the servant. Finally, there is added,
That you observe the commandment without stain, without reproach, until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will reveal at the proper time, who is the blessed and alone powerful:
which, namely, the coming of the Lord Christ,
he, that is, God,
will reveal. He is not the Father alone, because according to the truth, and not according to your error, the Trinity is the one God:
who is the blessed and alone powerful, the King of kings and the Lord of lords.
Even you do not dare to say, do you, that the Son is not the King of kings and the Lord of lords? Among other things scripture says of him in the Revelation of John, He treads the winepress full of strong wine, and on his tunic and on his thigh he has the name written: the King of kings and the Lord of lords (Rv 19:15-16). You might perhaps say that the Son has the name of the Father written on his clothing and his thigh, but earlier in another passage of the same book we read, The Lamb will conquer them, because he is the Lord of lords and the King of kings (Rv 17:14). According to you, then, there are two kings of kings and lords of lords. On the other hand, it is against you if the apostle said of the Father alone, who is the blessed and alone powerful, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. According to the correct faith, the Trinity is the one God, who is the blessed and alone powerful, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, who alone has immortality and dwells in inaccessible light. How then can the verse be true, Approach him and be enlightened (Ps 33:6), except in the sense that no one can do this if he relies upon himself, but only if God grants the gift?
God alone is said to have immortality, because he alone is immutable. After all, in every changeable nature, change itself is a sort of death, because it causes something that was there to be no more. Hence, though the human soul is said to be immortal, because in some way it never ceases to live in its own manner, it still has a kind of death appropriate to its being. If it was living and sins, it dies to justice; if it was a sinner and becomes just, it dies to sin. I pass over its other changes which it would take too long to discuss. The nature of heavenly creatures could die, because it could sin. After all, the angels too sinned and became the demons, whose leader is the devil. Those who did not sin could sin. Any rational creature that is given the gift of not being able to sin owes this not to its own nature, but to the grace of God. Thus God alone has immortality, for
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it is not by another's gift, but by his own nature that he neither can nor could change in any way, that he neither can nor could sin through any change.
No man has seen or can see (1 Tm 6:16) him in that nature by which he is God, but we will be able to see him at some time, if we belong to that number of human beings of whom scripture says,
Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God (Mt 5:8). To this God, that is, to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, which is the one God, let there be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
3. Heaven forbid that the Father is more powerful than the Son, as you suppose, because the Father begot the Creator, while the Son did not beget the Creator. After all, it was not that he could not, but that it was not fitting. Neque enim non potuit; many of the better manuscripts: Neque enim potuit. The Maurists point out, however, that in the Sentences I, d. 7, a. 2, Peter Lombard cites the text as translated above. They explain that it comes not from the weakness of the Son, but from the nature of things that the Son did not generate and that we do not have to think that the Son could have generated another son, as Petavius believes that Augustine thought (see Petavius, Theologia dogmatica de Trinitate VII, ch. 13, n. 69). †39 The divine generation would have no limit, if the Son, once born, begot a grandson for his Father, because the grandson would be termed impotent, according to your wonderful wisdom, if he did not beget a great-grandson for his grandfather. Likewise, if the Son did not beget a grandson for his grandfather and a great-grandson for his great-grandfather, he would not be termed omnipotent by you, and the series of generations would never be completed if one were always being born from another, and no son would ever bring it to an end, if one were not enough. Hence, the Omnipotent begot an omnipotent Son, since whatever the Father does, these things the Son does in a like manner (Jn 5:19). But the nature of the Father begot and did not make the Son. The omnipotent Father begot an omnipotent Son, because, according to Jn 5:19, the Son's power for creating is coextensive with the Father's. But Jn 5:19 does not imply that the Son begot a son of his own. †40
On the Wisdom of God
XIII, 1. You make much the same mistake with that testimony in which the apostle says, God who alone is wise (Rom 16:27). I will make the same answer to you regarding wisdom that I made regarding power. Even if the apostle had said, “The Father who alone is wise,” he would not thereby exclude the Son. After all, we read in Revelation that the Son has a name in writing that he alone knows (Rv 19:12). It surely does not follow, does it, that the Father, from whom the Son is inseparable, does not know this name? The Father, then, also knows what no one was said to know except the Son, because they are inseparable. So too, if scripture had said, “The Father who alone is wise,” the Son would have to be understood as well, because they are inseparable. But it did not say, “The Father who alone is wise,” but God who alone is wise, and the one God is the Trinity. Hence, this question is much easier for us to solve.
We understand that God alone is wise in the same way that we understand that he alone is powerful, that is, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, who is the one and only God. Him alone we are commanded to serve. Otherwise, if we understand this commandment incorrectly or rather do not understand it, we will think that we violate it, because we serve Christ the Lord with that
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service that is owed to God. It did not say, “You shall adore your Lord, God the Father, and serve him more,” so that we might be permitted to serve the Son as well, though serving the Father more as the greater and the Son less as the inferior. It said,
You shall adore the Lord your God, and you shall serve him alone (Dt 6:13), that is, God who alone is all-powerful, alone wise. Thus you are foiled, for you are unwilling to accept the one and only God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and you say that the one Lord God whom we should serve is God the Father alone. Yet you also admit that the Son is God and Lord. It is perfectly clear that you hold two gods and two lords, one greater, the other lesser, and you show that, because of your error, you are guilty of violating this commandment, because you serve not only the greater, but also the lesser with the service that is owed to the Lord God.
2. Where the apostle said, God who alone is wise, in writing to the Romans, he speaks as follows at the end of the Letter. He says, But to him who is able to strengthen you in accord with my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, in accord with the revelation of the mystery concealed for endless ages, but manifested now through the writings of the prophets, in accord with the commandment of the eternal God made known to all nations for the obedience of faith, to God who alone is wise through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever (Rom 16:25-27). That is, “To him who is able to strengthen you, to God who alone is wise be glory forever and ever.” Regarding the intervening words, through Jesus Christ, it is not clear whether we should understand to God who alone is wise through Jesus Christ so that God who alone is wise is wise through Jesus Christ, not by participating in wisdom, but by begetting the wisdom which is Christ Jesus, or whether we should understand not, “Who is wise through Jesus Christ,” but, “To God who alone is wise be glory through Jesus Christ.” That is, the word order itself does not make it clear which way the text should be understood, but the sense of the text demands that it be understood in the second way. †41 Who would dare to say that through Jesus Christ it comes about that God the Father is wise? No one should have any doubt that he is wise according to his substance and that the substance of the Son comes from the Father who begets rather than that the substance of the Father comes through the Son who is begotten. There remains, then, that to God who alone is wise glory should be given through Jesus Christ, that is, the clear knowledge with praise by which God the Trinity has become known to the nations. He said, through Jesus Christ, because, to omit other reasons, Christ commanded that the nations be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Mt 28:19), where the glory of this undivided Trinity is especially commended. God, then, that is, the Trinity, is correctly said to be alone wise, because he is alone wise according to his substance, not according to an accident or a participation in wisdom coming to him, as any rational creature is wise. God is wise “according to substance,” because wisdom is not a quality that God can gain or lose, but is the very substance of God. For God to be wise “according to accident” would mean that his wisdom is an accident and that he was subject to change, that is, that he could gain or lose his wisdom. See The Trinity V, 4, 5-5, 6. †42 The addition, to whom, so that it said, to whom be glory, although it would have been enough if it had said, “To him be glory,” reveals an expression unfamiliar
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to our language, but does not imply a meaning we need investigate or about which we are unclear. After all, what would be lost to the meaning, if it said, “To him be glory, to whom through Christ be glory.”
Through Jesus Christ to whom be glory means the same as, “To him be glory through Jesus Christ.” But one of these word orders is less usual, the other more usual.
On the Sameness of Substance in the Trinity
XIV, 1. You ask me, “If the Son has the substance of the Father and the Holy Spirit also has the substance of the Father, why is one a son and the other not a son?” Debate with Maximinus 15, 14. †43 Look, here is my answer whether you get it or not. The Son comes from the Father; the Holy Spirit comes from the Father. The former is born; the latter proceeds. Hence, the former is the Son of the Father from whom he is born, but the latter is the Spirit of both because he proceeds from both. When the Son spoke of the Spirit, he said, He proceeds from the Father (Jn 15:26), because the Father is the author of his procession. The Father begot a Son and, by begetting him, gave it to him that the Holy Spirit proceeds from him as well. If he did not proceed from him, he would not say to his disciples, Receive the Holy Spirit (Jn 20:22), and give the Spirit by breathing on them. He signified that the Holy Spirit also proceeds from him and showed outwardly by blowing what he was giving inwardly by breathing. From the verb, “to breathe (spirare),” there was later formed the technical term for the procession of the Holy Spirit, namely, spiration, just as from the verb, “to generate (generare),” there was formed the technical term for the procession of the Son. †44 If he were born, he would be born not from the Father alone or from the Son alone, but from both of them; he would beyond any doubt be the son of both of them. But because he is in no sense the son of both of them, it was necessary that he not be born from both. He is, therefore, the Spirit of both, by proceeding from both.
In speaking of that most excellent nature, who can explain the difference between being born and proceeding? Not everything that proceeds is born, though everything that is born proceeds, just as not every biped is a human, though every human is a biped. These things I know; I do not know, I cannot, I am unable to distinguish that generation and this procession. The reason is that both of them are ineffable. The prophet says, speaking of the Son, Who will tell of his generation? (Is 53:8). The Arians appealed to Is 53:8 as grounds for agnosticism about the manner of the Son's generation. Augustine turns their argument against them to justify his ignorance of the nature of the procession of the Spirit. †45 So too, it is truly said of the Holy Spirit: Who will tell of his procession? It is enough, then, for us that the Son does not come from himself, but from him from whom he is born; the Holy Spirit does not come from himself, but from him from whom he proceeds. Since he proceeds from both of them, as we have already shown, he is called the Spirit of the Father where we read, If the Spirit of him who has raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, and the Spirit of the Son where we read, He who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him (Rom 8:11.9). There are not two holy spirits, as if there were one for each, one of the Father, the other of the Son, but rather one of the Father and the Son. Scripture says of the one Spirit, We were all
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baptized in one Spirit into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we have all drunk of the one Spirit (1 Cor 12:13). In another passage it says,
One body and one Spirit (Eph 4:4).
2. What then is this Trinity but one and the same substance? The Son does not come from some matter or out of nothing, but from whom he is born; likewise, the Holy Spirit does not come from some matter or out of nothing, but he comes from him from whom he proceeds. You reject that the Son is born from the substance of the Father, and yet you concede that he does not come out of nothing or from some matter, but from the Father. You do not see how it is necessary that one who does not come from nothing, who does not come from something else, but from God, can only come from the substance of God and be what God is, from whom he comes, that is, God from God. Hence, he is God born of God, because he was not previously something else, but he is the coeternal nature from God; he is not something other than him from whom he comes; that is, he is of one and the same nature, or of one and the same substance.
I do not know how your heart reacts when you hear this. You think that we say that the Son is born from the Father in the way that bodies are born from bodies. And because they are born in a corruptible manner, you accuse us of attributing passion and corruption to the generation of the Son from the Father. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 14. †46 Filled with carnal thoughts, you think that the substance of the Father could not beget the Son out of itself without undergoing what the substance of the flesh undergoes when it begets. You are mistaken, because you do not know the scriptures or the power of God. See Mt 22:29. †47
When you read, That we may be in his true Son, Jesus Christ (1 Jn 5:20), think of him as the true Son of God. In no sense do you think that this Son is the true Son of God, if you deny that he is born from the substance of the Father. After all, he was not, was he, already a human son and then by God's gift became the Son of God, born of God but by grace, not by nature? Or, if he was not a human son, was he some other creature and transformed by God's activity into the Son of God? If none of these was the case, then he was born either out of nothing or out of some substance. But you have already freed us from the worry of believing that you think the Son of God was born from nothing. You stated that you do not say that the Son of God comes from nothing. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 13, where Maximinus cites the canon from the Council of Ariminum. †48 He comes, then, from some substance. If he does not come from the substance of the Father, from what substance does he come? Tell me. You cannot find any. Therefore, do not be ashamed to admit with us that the only-begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ our Lord, comes from the substance of the Father.
3. The Father and the Son are, then, of one and the same substance. This is the meaning of that “homoousios” that was confirmed against the Arian heretics in the Council of Nicaea by the Catholic fathers with the authority of the truth and the truth of authority. Afterward, in the Council of Ariminum it was
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understood less than it should have been Minus quam oportuit intellectum, quod tamen; manuscripts.: minus quam potuit intellectam, quam tamen.
†49 because of the novelty of the word, even though the ancient faith had given rise to it. There the impiety of the heretics under the heretical Emperor Constantius tried to weaken its force, when many were deceived by the fraudulence of a few. But not long after that, the freedom of the Catholic faith prevailed, and after the meaning of the word was understood as it should be, that “homoousios” was defended far and wide by the soundness of the Catholic faith. Augustine is in fact correct. The credal formula of the Council of Ariminum (359) and of Nicê (360) clarified for those who were hesitant to embrace the formula of Nicaea what was at stake in the controversy and led them to accept the non-biblical homoousios as what was needed to safeguard the Christian doctrine of God.
†50 After all, what does “homoousios” mean but “of one and the same substance”? What does
“ homoousios” mean, I ask, but
The Father and I are one (Jn 10:30)? I should not, however, introduce the Council of Nicaea to prejudice the case in my favor, nor should you introduce the Council of Ariminum that way. I am not bound by the authority of Ariminum, and you are not bound by that of Nicaea. By the authority of the scriptures that are not the property of anyone, but the common witnesses for both of us, let position do battle with position, case with case, reason with reason.
Each of us reads, That we may be in his true Son, Jesus Christ; he is true God and eternal life (1 Jn 5:20). Let each of us yield to the massive weight of such evidence. Tell us, then, whether this true Son of God, distinguished by the proper sense of this name from those who are sons by grace, comes from no substance or from some substance. You say, “I do not say: from no substance to avoid saying: from nothing.” Hence, he comes from some substance. I ask: From what substance? If not from the Father's, find another. If you do not find another, then, since you find no other at all, acknowledge the substance of the Father and admit that the Son is homoousios with the Father.
Flesh is born of flesh; an offspring of the flesh is born of the substance of flesh. Remove from the discussion any corruption; cast aside from the light of the mind any carnal passions, and see the invisible reality of God through those things that have been made. See Rom 1:20. †51 The Creator gave to the flesh the ability to generate flesh, gave to parents the ability to generate true offspring from the substance of the flesh so that the offspring have one substance with their parents. Believe that he could, all the more, have begotten a true Son from his substance and could have one substance with his true Son, without any loss of spiritual incorruption and utterly removed from carnal corruption.
4. I do not know what you hold about the soul. These are your words, “You do not compare that great magnificence to the nobility of the soul, but to the fragility of the body.” “Flesh is, of course,” you say, “born from the body, a bodily offspring. But the soul is not born from a soul.” See Debate with Maximinus 15, 14. †52 After apparently having settled the question, you then state that the soul generates offspring. You add, “If, then, our soul generates without corruption and passion, not experiencing any lessening or any defilement, but lawfully in accordance with God-given rights, begets an offspring, with wisdom adapting its consent to the body, Generat filium, sapientia consensum accommodans corpori; Erasmus, here and in the Debate: generatum filium, sapientium consensu, accommodans corpori. Louvain, less correctly: et sapientia; the word et is missing from the manuscripts. The BAC translation here follows the reading in Erasmus, while retaining the Latin of Migne. †53 it itself remains whole; how much the more will the omnipotent God do so?” Debate with Maximinus 15, 14. †54 A
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little later you say, “How much the more incorruptibly has the incorruptible God the Father begotten the Son?” Debate with Maximinus 15, 14.
†55
I already said above that I do not know what you want us to understand about the soul. You first said that a soul is not born from a soul, and afterward you said that the soul incorruptibly begets an offspring? If the soul begets a soul, how is it possible that a soul is not born from a soul? If it begets flesh, explain how the flesh is the true offspring of the soul. After all, you thought that you should use this comparison on account of Christ, for he is the true Son of God. But if you want us to interpret the soul's incorruptibly begetting an offspring in the sense that the apostle said, In Christ Jesus I begot you through the gospel (1 Cor 4:15), why do you not see that those souls whom the apostle begot by renewing them through the gospel had been living the old life? But the Word of God, the only-begotten Son, was not previously something else, as we have already argued, and then generated by the Father through being renewed. Rather, he was always with the Father, just as he always has been and will be begotten in a marvelous and ineffable way, the coeternal from the eternal. But if you have introduced this inept comparison in order to claim that God the Father has begotten in an incorruptible manner, save your effort. I fully admit that God the Father has begotten in an incorruptible manner, but he has begotten what he himself is.
I repeat here what one must repeatedly say to you: Either the Son of God was born from some substance, or he was born from none. If from none, then from nothing. We already have your admission that you do not say this. If he was born from some substance, but not from the Father's, he is not a true son. If he is from the Father's substance, the Father and the Son have one and the same substance. But how can the Father have taken nothing away from the Son, as you say, See Debate with Maximinus 15, 14. †56 if he is of the same substance and is yet lesser and without the possibility of growing up as an infant does?
5. I have already sufficiently discussed the immortality of God. See above, II, 12, 2, as well as I, 4. †57 The apostle did not say that the Father alone has immortality, but that God alone, who is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, has immortality. There I set forth and explained the whole testimony of the apostle.
6. You are displeased with our claim that the Son is equal to the Father, as if he, who is the true Son, could be unequal. He is not born in time, but coeternal to him who begets him, just as the brightness born of the fire is clearly of equal duration with the fire that begets it. In Sermon 116, 11, Augustine uses this example to illustrate that things can be of equal duration (coaeva), though the one arises from the other. Since only God is eternal, he cannot produce created examples of eternal realities. †58 You say, “The Son of God has the Father as his author.” See Debate with Maximinus 15, 14; it is not a direct quotation. †59 If you mean that God the Father is the author of God the Son because the former begot and the latter is begotten, because the Son comes from the Father and the Father does not come from the Son, I say this too and grant it. But if by the term, “author,” you want to make the Son lesser and the Father greater and the Son not of the same substance as the Father, I detest and reject what you say.
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After all, a human child, as an offspring, has as an author the parent from whom he is begotten, and the child is, nonetheless, of the same substance as the parent. Though the child is smaller and the parent larger, the child can by growing up come to the form and strength of the parent. Yet, the child does not attain exactly the same form as the parent, since the parent has diminished through growing old. After all, mortals necessarily change with age, since their birth is temporal, not eternal. Such is not the case where the Son does not grow up and the Father does not age. And so, the two of them do not have an unequal age, because where there is eternity, there is no age. Thus, the two of them do not have an unequal form, because the true Son, who was not born so that he could grow up, was born equal so that he would not be inferior. Because of this incorruptible and inviolable generation, let the divine birth be far better and more excellent than a human birth; let it not be inferior because of a difference of nature.
7. You say, “The Son received life from the Father.” Debate with Maximinus 11. †60 He received it from his begetter as one begotten. He says, All the things which the Father has are mine (Jn 16:15). All the things, then, which the Father has he gave by begetting, and the Son received them by being born. The Father did not lose what he had by giving, and the Son did not first exist without having it and then receive it. Rather, as the Father remained in possession of all things, though he gave all that he had to the Son, so the Son never was without all those things which he received as a son. He received them, not because he was lacking them, but because he was born. He never could be without being born, and he always had those things with which he was born and born immutable, because he was always born. If the Father did not give some of the things he had to the Son, the Son's statement is false, All the things which the Father has are mine. But since it is true, the Father certainly gave him all the things he had; he gave, as we said, by begetting, and the Son received by being born. Thus he gave him life, because he begot life, while the Son received life, because he was born as life.
If it was less, inferior, or different, then the Father did not give the life he had to the Son. How, in that case, could it be true that All the things which the Father has are mine? Who would dare to say, “What the Truth said is not true”? Hence, Just as the Father has life in himself, so he has also granted the Son to have life in himself (Jn 5:26). As he had, so he gave; what he had, he gave; he gave the same kind he had; he gave as much as he had. All the things which the Father has are the Son's. Therefore, the Father gave to the Son nothing less than the Father has. The Father did not lose the life he gave to the Son. By living, he retains the life he gave by begetting. The Father himself is life, and the Son himself is life. Each of them has what he is, but the one is life from no one, while the other is life from life. In The Trinity VI, 2, 3, Augustine states the rule that only characteristics that both of them do not have cannot be used in the formula “that from that.” Since the Father and the Son are each life, wisdom, light, etc., the Son is life from life, wisdom from wisdom, light from light, etc. †61 The one's life is the same kind as the other's; the one's life is as great as the other's; the one's life is identical with the other's.
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Because he is the true Son, because he is the perfect Son, because God the only Son is not inferior to God the Father, he is equal to the Father.
Whatever you say he received from the Father, we say as well; of course, the Father gave, and the Son received. But since the Father gave all he has by begetting, he surely begot an equal, since he did not give anything less. How then can you say that, because the one gave and the other received, the Son is not equal to the Father, since you see that he to whom the Father gave all things received equality as well?
Scripture, of course, says, It is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 22:35). That is true of this life where there is scarcity, but abundance is surely better than scarcity. After all, it is better to have than to be in need, and it is better to give than to receive, to give alms than to beg. But where he who gave gave by begetting and he who received received by being born, help was not given to one in need, but abundance itself was generated. He who received cannot be unequal to him who gave, because he received equality as well. He has nothing less than the Father, if he says, All the things which the Father has are mine. Therefore, he is equal. But because he emptied himself, taking the form of the servant, without losing the form of God, he became obedient even to the death of the cross (Phil 2:7-8) in the same form of the servant in which he was made a little less than the angels See Ps 8:6. †62 so that he remained equal to the Father in the form of God, for that form is not subject to change.
8. Why then is it surprising that he says those things which you mention? He says, I always do those things which are pleasing to the Father (Jn 8:29), and at the tomb of Lazarus, Father, I thank you because you have heard me. I know that you always hear me, but I said this because of those who are present so that they may believe that you sent me (Jn 11:41-42), and again, I must do the works of him who sent me (Jn 9:4), and before he broke bread, he thanked the Father. See Mt 26:26, Mk 8:6, Jn 6:11; see also Debate with Maximinus 15, 14. †63 If you had wanted to show by these and similar testimonies that the Son is less than the Father in the form of the servant and that in the form of God the Son came from the Father and not the Father from the Son, you would hold the correct rule of faith and would not be opposed to the truth. Then, by such testimonies you would not be attacking the gospel, but teaching it. After all, he often taught this and, in doing so, said many things so that those who did not understand him thought that he was less than the Father in his very divinity.
What things are pleasing to the Father that are not pleasing to the Son? Or how could the Son do anything but what is pleasing to the Father from whom he has all those things by which he is equal to the Father? How could he fail to thank the Father from whom he has his origin, especially in the form of the servant in which he is less than the Father? How could he as man fail to ask things of the Father, though as God he hears prayers along with the Father? What Christian does not know that the Father sent and that the Son was sent? It was
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not fitting that the Begetter be sent by his Son, but that the Son be sent by his Begetter. This is not inequality of substance, but the order of nature; it does not mean that one existed before the other, but that the one has his origin from the other. Hence, the one who was sent had to do the works of the one who sent him, but what works does the Father have that the Son does not have as well? After all, the same Son said,
Whatever the Father does, these things the Son does in a like manner (Jn 5:19). He says that they are the works of the Father, for he is mindful of him from whom he has his origin. He has it from the Father that he does such works. But you interpret this so that you think that the Father is also greater than the Son, because he said that a sparrow does not fall to the ground apart from the will of the Father, See Mt 10:29.
†64 as if one might fall apart from the will of the Son. Or, do you want the Son to be less to such a point that he does not even have swallows in his power?
Stay with this rule: whenever you read in the authoritative words of God a passage in which Quo with manuscripts; editions: quibus. †65 it seems that the Son is shown to be less than the Father, interpret it as spoken in the form of the servant, in which the Son is truly less than the Father, or as spoken not to show that one is greater or less than the other, but to show that one has his origin from the other. But if you are unwilling to stay with this correct rule, you will certainly have no reason to say that he is the true Son of God, unless you say that he is of the same substance as the Father.
Let me use a human example for the sake of the weakness of those who think in bodily terms. Augustine speaks of “carnal persons” (carnales), an expression which he derives from Paul (see 1 Cor 3:1-3) who contrasts “carnal” and “animal” with “spiritual” persons. Augustine holds that one mark of the “carnal” and “animal” persons is their inability to think of incorporeal realities. †66 Take two human beings, a parent and a child. If the child is obedient to the parent and for some reason asks the parent for something and thanks the parent and, finally, is sent somewhere by the parent where the child says that he has not come to do his own will, but that of the one who sent him, does this show that the child is not of the same substance as the parent? Why, then, when you say such things about the Son of God, do you rush into such a great sacrilege with your heart and lips that you believe and say that the Son of God does not have one and the same substance with the Father?
9. Why did you think that you should call to mind those words that he obviously speaks as man, I have the power to lay down my life, and I have the power to take it up again. I have this command from my Father? See Debate with Maximinus 15, 14. †67 How does this help your cause? Did he say anything else than “I have the power to die and to rise”? Hence, he also said, No one takes it from me, but I lay it down by myself, and I take it up again (Jn 10:18). What did he want us to understand but that he was not be going to die unless he wanted to? Would he have been able to die and to rise, if he were not a man? You introduced this testimony in this way, “He was, of course, speaking of the power he received from the Father, I have the power to lay down my life, and I have the power to take it up again.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 14. †68 You implied that he was going to lay down his life even if he were not a man. He received this power, then, as man, not as God.
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And yet, he said, I have this command from my Father, and not: this power. Augustine points out that Christ did not say that he has received the power to lay down his life from the Father, but the command to do so. He goes on to point out that one is commanded to do what is already in his power. Hence, Christ who had the power to die as a man received the command to lay down his life as a man. †69 Who does not know that a command is different from a power? We have in our power what we can do when we want to. But a command tells us that we should do what we already have in our power or, if it is not already in our power, that we should pray that the power be given us to fulfill what is commanded. That is, we are at times commanded to do something which we do not have the power to do without the grace of God. In that case, we must first pray that we receive the power to do what we are commanded to do. †70 Hence, if you are willing to see what is obvious, he had received this power as man. But for the sake of those who love an argument, I will end with a dilemma. If he received this power as man, even you see that this testimony helps you in no way. If you want to prove from the power that the Son received from the Father that he is less than the Father, we too have no doubt that, insofar as he is man, Christ is less than the Father. But if you mean that he received this power as God, by begetting him as equal to himself, the Father gave him as great a power over all things as he himself has. Quanta ipsi Patri est; manuscripts.: quanta ipsius est Patris. †71 If he has any less power than the Father, he does not have all the things the Father has. But because he does have them, he has as great a power as the Father. Also he received the command either as man or as God. If he received it as man, there is no question that, as man, he is less than the Father. If he received it as God, this does not show that he is less, because he received insofar as he was born, not insofar as he had been without something. All of God's commands are contained in the only Word of God. He gave them to the Son when he begot him; he did not give them later after he had begotten him as one who needed them. Thus he begot one as great as he himself is, because he begot the true Son out of himself and begot him perfect in the fullness of divinity, not as one to be made perfect by an increase of age. Et perfectum genuit plenitudine divinitatis, non perficiendum aetatis accessu, with Amerbach, Erasmus and manuscripts. Louvain: et perfectam genuit plenitudinem divinitatis, non perficiendam aetatis accesu. †72
I ask you even more humbly why you do not say that a human offspring, any human being, is of a different substance from his parent, if he receives from the parent a command. Yet you dare to say that God, the Son of God, is not of his Father's substance, because he received a command from his Father. Of course, he received a command from his Father, but he is of the same substance as he who gave it. Who would put up with your denying this, if parents and their children should gather to hear you? They are all of the same substance, without the children being of an inferior nature, because their parents gave them commands? You might say that the parents had knowledge and gave commands to their children who lacked that knowledge. Return then to the Son of God, who is God born from God the Father. He certainly was born imperfect, if he received a command as one who lacked knowledge. But since he was born perfect, the Father gave the command by begetting him, and the Son received it by being born. The true Son of God never lacked knowledge, and he was never not the Son.
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On the Son's Equality to the Father
XV, 1. You do not deny that the Son is in the form of God, but you deny that he is equal to the Father. You suppose that the form of the Father is greater than that of the Son, as if the Father did not have the ability to bring his form to its fullness in the Son, though he begot him out of himself and did not make him out of nothing or out of something else. If he could beget his full form in his only Son, but did not beget it in its fullness, but as inferior, notice what follows and return to the right path lest you be forced to call the Father envious. Once again Augustine appeals to the argument that, if the Father did not generate the Son as his equal, he must have been either envious or impotent. †73
You call the Son God, you call him Lord, but in such a way that you have two gods and two lords in opposition to the scripture that cries out, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one (Dt 6:4). What do you gain from this sacrilege of not giving to the Son as a great a form as you give to the Father? If the one is greater and the other lesser, are there not two gods and two lords? If you want to avoid this error, say that the Father is distinct from the Son in such a way that you do not call them two lords and gods, but one Lord and God. You say that the Son, a king, is born from the Father, a king, but you do not see that in the human race the sons of kings, even if they are not kings born from kings, are still human beings born from human beings. They do not have the same royal power as their fathers, but they still have the same nature. You grant to the Son of God the King a kingdom with his Father, but by your wicked nonsense you deny him the Father's nature.
You say that he is not equal to God, though he did not think it robbery, that is, something not his own, to be equal to God,. Still, not looking out for his own interests, but for ours, he emptied himself, not losing the form of God, but taking the form of the servant, in which he became obedient to the Father even to the death of the cross (Phil 2:6-8). You are unwilling to acknowledge him as inferior to God the Father in this form in such a way that you do not deny that he is equal to the Father in the form of God.
You say, “We are called sons by grace; we have not been born such by nature. Hence, the Son is the only-begotten, because the Son was born what he is according to the nature of his divinity.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 15. †74 These are not just your words, but ours as well. Why then do you not maintain that he whom you admit is the Son of God by nature, not by grace, is of the same nature as the Father? Why do you not notice the evil in what you say? Would it not be more tolerable if you deprived the Son of God the King of his Father's kingdom than if you deprived him of his nature?
2. I have above already argued sufficiently, I believe, that the Holy Spirit comes from God, but is still not a son, because we read that he comes from God by procession and not by birth. See Jn 15:26, as well as above, II, xiv, 1. †75 You say, “We did not admit a nature in God, the unborn Father.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 15. The Latin “natura: nature” is etymologically tied with “born: natum.” Indeed, its first meaning is given as “the conditions of birth.” Maximinus, however, seems to argue that God does not have a nature, because he is spirit. That does not work, since he admits that the Son has a nature, and the Son is certainly spirit. Hence, Augustine suggests that Maximinus denies the Father a nature, because the Father is unborn (innatum). †76 As if you were giving a reason why you say that God the Father has no nature, you soon go on to say, “We believe Christ's words, God
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is spirit” (Jn 4:24), Debate with Maximinus 15, 15.
†77 as if Christ, whom you said was the Son by nature, was not spirit insofar as he is God. It is not the case, then, that the Father is not a nature because he is spirit. Perhaps you want to say that he is not a nature, because he was not born, for you think that “nature” is derived from “being born.” You must realize that each thing is said to be by reason of its substance, that is, of course, by reason of its nature. If you do not think that we should say that the Son is of the same nature as the Father, at least say that he is of the same substance as the Father. For the question we are debating, that is enough.
I must, nonetheless, warn you to look at the words of the apostle, You have served those who by nature were not gods (Gal 4:8). Here he certainly showed that we serve a God who is God by nature. Notice, then, where you put God the Father if you believe he is not God by nature. If you have any sense of shame, you should be embarrassed. Look, we say to you, we do not serve a God who is not God by nature so that we do not become the sort of people to whom Paul said, You have served those who by nature were not gods. If you want to be that sort of person, we beg you not to want this; we beg you to say that God the Father is God by nature. Do not deny that his Son, whom you say is the Son, not by grace, but by nature, is of the same nature as the Father so that you do not say that he is anything other than a true son.
How can you claim to profess that he is a true son and to maintain that he is like the Father, when you deny that he is of one substance with the Father? As oneness of substance proves that he is a true son, so a difference in substance proves that he is not a true son. How can you say that the Son is like the Father and refuse to grant him the substance of the Father? Is not a picture or a statue like a human being? Still, it cannot be called a son, because its substance is different. Man was made to the likeness of God; yet, because he is not of one and the same substance, he is not a true son. He becomes a son by grace because he is not a son by nature. If you wish, then, to confess the true Son of God, first and foremost, say that he is of one and the same substance so that you speak of him as a true son and say that the Son of God is like the Father in every respect. The formula “like in every respect” had appeared in the fourth Creed of Sirmium (359). Augustine indicates his willingness to accept this formula as equivalent to homoousios. The Creed of Ariminum which Maximinus accepts has only the ambiguous phrase: “like the Father according to the scriptures.” †78 In thinking that he has a different substance, you make him more unlike than like, and you utterly deny that he is a true son.
You want Nam vultis; Louvain alone: Nec vultis. †79 to know what force “one and the same substance” has for revealing a true son? A human son may be a man like his father in certain respects, while he is unlike him in others. But we still cannot deny that he is a true son, since he is of the same substance, and because he is a true son, we cannot deny that he is of the same substance. But you say that the true Son of God is like the Father in such a way that you would have him to be of a different substance, even though he can be shown to be a true son only through his substance. Even though neither of them is the son of the other, two true men are still of one and the same substance, but a man cannot be said to be the true son
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of another man if he is not of the same substance as his father, even if he is like his father in every respect.
Hence, the true Son of God is also of one substance with the Father, because he is a true son, and he is like the Father in every respect, because he is the Son of God. We may not say that the true Son of God is of one substance with his Father, but not like him in every respect, as happens in the offspring of men and of some animals. Hold with us then the Council of Nicaea, if you want to say that Christ is the true Son of God.
3. You say, “We are accused of holding different natures.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 15. †80 What else do you say of God the Father and God the Son? What else do you say? Do you think that you are free from that accusation because you immediately go on to say, “Know what it is that we say, namely, that the Father who is spirit begot a spirit before all ages, that God begot God”? Debate with Maximinus 15, 15. †81 You do say this, and you speak the truth. But you have suppressed what you say that is false and detestable. You speak the truth, “Spirit begot a spirit,” but you state this truth with the idea that “spirit” is said of different natures. After all, the Spirit of God, or God the Spirit, and the human spirit are different natures, and yet each of them is called spirit. Similarly, the human spirit and the spirit of an animal are different natures, and yet each of them is called spirit. Likewise, God is called God, and man is called god. As scripture says, You are gods (Ps 81:6). So too, Moses was appointed Datus est with the manuscripts; editions: dictus est. †82 a god for Pharaoh. See Ex 7:1. †83 Though the substance of God and of man is different, each of them is still called god.
Although you say of God the Father and God the Son, “Spirit begot a spirit,” you are, nonetheless, rightly accused of speaking of different natures. Though you say, “God begot God,” you do not, even so, abandon a difference of nature, for you do not say that the Son is like the Father in every respect. If you said that he is like him in every respect, you would, as a result, be understood to say that they have one and the same nature or substance. If, then, you aim to free yourselves from the charge raised against you, namely, that you say the Father and the Son have different natures, say that spirit begot a spirit of the same nature or substance, just as you say, “Spirit begot a spirit.” So too, just as you say, “God begot God,” say that God begot God of the same nature or substance. If you believe this and say it, you will be accused of nothing further on this point. But if you do not say this, what point is there in saying, “The true and unborn Father begot the true Son,” Debate with Maximinus 15, 15. †84 since he certainly is not the true Son, if he is not of one and the same substance with the one who begot him.
4. The Son says to the Father, This is eternal life, that they may know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent (Jn 17:3), that is, that they may know the only true God, you and him whom you have sent. Augustine's change in the word order is ingenious, but it is surely not the obvious way to read the text. On the other hand, John certainly need not be taken as denying that Jesus Christ is the one true God. †85 When you interpret these words so that the Father alone, without the Son, is the true God, what else do you do but deny that the Son is true God? Because the Father and
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the Son are not two gods, but one God, the Son is, beyond any doubt, true God and, along with the Holy Spirit, is the only God.
It should not bother us that the Holy Spirit is not mentioned in this passage, as though he were not God or not the true God. It is much the same as if someone said that Christ does not know the things that are God's, because the apostle said, No one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:11). No one knows except the Spirit of God means the same as, “The Spirit of God alone knows those things.” As Christ, then, is not excluded from the knowledge that the Spirit alone is said to have, so the Holy Spirit is not excluded, because the Father and Christ alone are said to be the true God. So too, the Father also knows that name which, in Revelation, no one is said to know except the one who has it in writing, See Rv 19:12. †86 that is, Christ, and you cannot deny this. The Holy Spirit also knows it, even if you deny it. Maximinus cannot deny that the Father knows the name, because he admits that the Father is God; since he does not admit that the Spirit is God, he might well deny that the Spirit knows that name. †87 The Spirit searches out all things, even the depths of God (1 Cor 2:10). Does the fact that he is said to search imply that he does not know? Then it implies that God does not know the hearts and loins of men, for scripture says, God searches hearts and loins (Ps 7:10). Therefore, the Father and Jesus Christ are said to be the only true God so that the Holy Spirit is not excluded from this true divinity. The Son does not say, as you think, that God the Father is alone powerful, alone wise, alone good. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 15. †88 The one and only God is the Trinity, as is shown by what we have often said above.
5. You speak the truth in saying that God the Father begot God the Son as perfect, not in the process of becoming perfect. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 15. †89 But you say something false, when you deny that the perfection of the Son is equal to the perfection of the Father, and you contradict the truth that he is the true Son. You say, “If human beings could generate an offspring that was perfect at the start, they would not generate a child that would eventually with the increase of years fulfill the parents' desire.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 15. †90 With complete truth Verissime, with the manuscripts; editions: Veritatem verissime. †91 you speak directly against your own position. In order that what you say might not be against your position, recognize the equality of the Father and the Son. If they could, even human parents would at the start generate an offspring equal to themselves and would not wait for years for the form of the child to fulfill their desire. Augustine views childhood and adolescence as mere means by which parents get a mature offspring and not as stages in the child's life that the parents might desire for their own sake. †92 Why then did God not beget a son equal to himself? He did not need years to accomplish this, and he did not lack omnipotence. Was he perhaps unwilling? Then, heaven forbid, he was envious. But he was not envious. Therefore, he begot an equal. And, for that reason, he begot one of the same substance. Because humans cannot beget an equal, they beget a child of the same substance as they are. But if the child were not of the same substance, it certainly could not be a true offspring.
What then is your point in saying, “The Father begot the Son such as he is now and remains forever”? See Debate with Maximinus 15, 15. †93 What you say would be correct, if you did not deny that he is a true Son equal to the Father. But when you say “perfect” and reject “equal” and say that he remains forever as he was born, you certainly claim that
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the Son remains forever inferior to the Father. Human children are born inferior to their parents, because they are born imperfect and attain the form of their parents by growing up. The Son of God was born inferior to the Father, and because he was born perfect and immortal, he admits no growth. Rather, that perfection makes him eternally different from the form of the Father. See what you believe; see what you say; see—even worse—what you teach.
But you say, “It will be up to the judgment of our listeners which of the two they choose: either the Son who obeys the Father, who emptied himself, taking the form of the servant, to whom the Father gave the name that is above every name (Phil 2:7.9), or your interpretation.” See Debate with Maximinus 15, 15. †94 The listeners to whom the Lord grants understanding do not, of course, choose one of these two, but both of them, that is, the Son who obeys the Father and my interpretation or, rather, explanation. By it I showed that he was obedient in the form of the servant in such a way that he did not lose the form of God in which he was equal to the Father. But look at the insult with which you attribute obedience to the Son of God, when you make his nature less divine.
On the Father as God for the Son on Account of the Form of the Servant
XVI, 1. When did you hear me say that, on account of the Jews, the Son said that his Father is his God, out of humility, not out of truth? See Debate with Maximinus 15, 16. †95 You could never have heard me put it that way, because I never said that. I clearly stated that he said this on account of the form of the servant. Just as the form of the servant is true and not false, so he truly said that his Father is also his God on account of that form; he did not make this up out of humility. What is the use of humility when the truth is lost? Augustine certainly did not fail to value humility, but his emphasis upon God as the Truth would never allow him to view any humility divorced from truth as a virtue. †96 But you tried to refute this certain truth; you say that the words of the Lord, My God and your God, do not belong to the form of the servant, because the Lord used these words after the resurrection. You imply that, by rising from the dead, he did away with the form of the servant rather than changed it into something better. You imply that it was not the same one who died that rose, that it was not the form which was slain that came back to life, that this form was not taken up into heaven, that the Son of God does not sit at the right hand of the Father in that form, that he will not in that form come to judge the living and the dead. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 16. †97
Is the testimony of the angels not perfectly clear? They say, He will come just as you have seen him going into heaven (Acts 1:11)? Why then should he not say after the resurrection, I will ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God (Jn 20:17), since he was going to ascend in the same form. Because of that form, he who is his Father apart from time is his God in time. Because of that form, not only after the resurrection, but even after the judgment,
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he
will be subject to him who has subjected all things to him (1 Cor 15:28). Hence, I consider it superfluous to examine the sense of all the many texts you set forth to show that he, who is Christ's Father, is called his God. I think that you mentioned them to no purpose, as you very well ought to know.
2. I have no idea why you mentioned that passage in which the Lord, restored to that same flesh which he raised up and bearing the same human nature, Augustine uses the more concrete expression, “the same man,” which I have translated as “the same human nature.” †98 said to his disciples, All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you (Mt 28:18-20), and I have no idea what you wanted to prove from it. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 16. Maximinus probably takes the fact that the power was given to Jesus by the Father as indicating that it is less than the power of the Father. †99 He did not say, “All power has been given to me by my God,” did he? Even if he had said it, it should be clear that he said it because of the human form. But since he did not say this, I do not understand what you were up to with this text. Rather, I understand that you did this so that you might speak longer. If this power was given to him as God, the Father gave it to him when he was born; the Son did not lack it, for the Father gave it by begetting him, not by adding something to him. But if this power was given to him as man, what question remains? Did you perhaps want to call our attention to the fact that the Lord commanded that the nations be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit? There you hear one name; yet you refuse to understand one godhead.
3. You say that even before the incarnation the Father was called his God, because scripture said, God, your God, has anointed you (Ps 44:8), long before Christ came in the flesh. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 16. †100 Do you not understand that it was foretold in prophecy as if what was to come had already happened? Did not the Lord himself say in prophecy, They have pierced my hands and feet (Ps 21:18), and the other passages by which he foretold his passion so long before and expressed what was to come as if it had already happened? Hence, scripture spoke in prophecy of things to come as if it were speaking of past events, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness before your companions; it calls his companions those who were to be his servants, his associates, his friends, his brothers, his members. It foretold what was to come: that the God of Christ would anoint Christ the man, who became man, nonetheless, without ceasing to be God. He would anoint him, not with a visible and corporeal oil, but with the Holy Spirit, to whom scripture referred in a figurative expression, as it often does, by the term oil of gladness. But it said, Has anointed, and not, “Is going to anoint,” because what would take place in its own time was already done in God's predestination.
Here you were afraid that the Holy Spirit by whom Christ was anointed might seem greater than Christ. He is really greater than Christ the man. He who sanctifies is greater than he who is sanctified. Hence, because you were afraid of this, you wanted the oil of gladness to be thought to signify the joy with which
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the Son rejoiced with the Father when the creation took place. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 16.
†101 You mentioned, as you usually do, texts not relevant to your case about the joy of the Father and the Son. But what are you up to? Where are you heading? How are you going to deny what is clearer than light, or how are you going to twist it to mean something else? You hear that blessed Peter says in the Acts of the Apostles,
This Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:38). See what was prophesied when scripture said,
God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness, or
the oil of joy, before your companions. The same Psalm said to God,
Your throne, O God, is forever; the staff of righteousness is the staff of your kingdom. You have loved justice, and you have hated iniquity. Hence, God, your God, has anointed you (Ps 44:7-8). The Son was anointed by God the Father. The Son became man in such a way that he remained God, and he was filled with that anointing, that is, the Holy Spirit. For this reason scripture said of him,
But Jesus returned from the Jordan, filled with the Holy Spirit (Lk 4:1).
On the Holy Spirit as Creator
XVII, 1. You say that what scripture says of the Son, Through him all things were made, and without him nothing was made (Jn 1:3), cannot be interpreted as referring to the Holy Spirit. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 17. †102 You say this in order to convince those you can of what you are wrongly convinced, namely, that the Holy Spirit is not the Creator, as if you read, “Through him all things were made without the Holy Spirit,” or, “Through no one but him all things were made.” And yet, even if you read something of the sort, we still ought not to believe that the Holy Spirit was excluded from that activity by which creation was brought about, just as the Son is not excluded from the knowledge of which scripture says, No one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:11). If you think that the Spirit of God is not the Creator because scripture did not specifically say of him that creation was also made through him, when it said of the Son, Through him all things were made, then you certainly cannot say that those people were baptized in his name to whom Peter said, Do penance, and let each of you be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus (Acts 2:38). He did not say, “And also of the Holy Spirit”—or “In the name of the Father,” for he is not named there either. But they were ordered to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ without any mention of the Father and the Holy Spirit, and they are, nonetheless, understood to have been baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Why do you not listen to the words spoken of the Son, Through him all things were made, so that you understand the Holy Spirit there as well, even though he is not mentioned?
2. What is more excellent in creation than the powers of the heavens? And
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yet scripture says,
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their power (Ps 32:6). You said that I did not find in the scriptures of God words to support my claim that the Holy Spirit was equal to the Son. Look, I have found one where he could even be thought to be greater, if one were not restrained by the piety that truly confesses his equality. After all, the powers of the heavens which were made firm by the Spirit of the mouth of the Lord, that is, by the Holy Spirit, are surely something greater than the heavens which were made firm by the Word of the Lord, that is, by his only-begotten Son. But if you listen to the truth, each of them is made firm by each, and what is said of one without mention of the other is understood of each. What is more thoughtless than to deny that the Spirit of God is the Creator, when the Psalm says to the Lord,
You will take away their spirit, and they will fail and return to their dust. You will send forth Emittes with the manuscripts.; the editions: emitte.
†103 your Spirit, and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth (Ps 103:29-30)? Unless perhaps the Holy Spirit was less suited for creating things which would fail, since he was suited for creating things that would remain forever.
I said shortly before, “What is more excellent among creatures than the powers of the heavens?” See above, the beginning of this paragraph. †104 What shall I say of the flesh of the Creator? The Creator himself, through whom all things were made, says, The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world (Jn 6:52). What shall I say? The world was made through the Son, and the Son is the Creator. But his flesh, which was given for the life of the world, was made through the Holy Spirit, and yet the Holy Spirit is not the Creator? After all, when the Virgin Mary said to the angel who promised her a son, How will this come about, since I do not know a man? the angel answered, The Holy Spirit will come over you, and the power of the most high will overshadow you. Therefore, the holy one who will be born of you will be called the Son of God (Lk 1:34-35). Here you tried, as I noticed at a certain point later on in your discourse, See Debate with Maximinus 15, 21. †105 to claim that the Holy Spirit first came to cleanse and sanctify the Virgin Mary, and that then there came the power of the most high, that is, the wisdom of God, which is Christ. See 1 Cor 1:24. †106 And you tried to claim that wisdom built, as scripture says, a home for itself, See Prv 9:1. †107 that is, wisdom, and not the Holy Spirit, created flesh for itself. What then does the holy gospel mean when it says, She was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit (Mt 1:18)? The mouth of those speaking iniquity has been closed. See Ps 62:12. †108 If then you plan to open your mouth in truth, admit that not only the Son, but also the Holy Spirit is the Creator of the flesh of the Son.
3. Or are you perhaps going to say that those things I mentioned above were brought about through the Holy Spirit? That is, that every power of the heavens was made firm through him, that through him human beings, who were first created so that they returned to dust, were created anew, and that he produced the flesh of Christ and whatever else we find to have been created through the
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Holy Spirit. I do not want to say anything about his soul, for that is a very difficult question. The question of the origin of human souls is one that troubled Augustine throughout his life. In Free Will III, 20, 56-21, 59, Augustine lists four hypotheses about the origin of human souls: (1) that individual souls are generated by parents (traducianism), (2) that souls are individually created by God as human beings are born (creationism), (3) that souls preexisted their embodiment and were sent into bodies by God, and (4) that souls preexisted their embodiment and fell into bodies as the result of sin. See Robert O'Connell's books, Saint Augustine's Early Theory of Man, A.D. 386-391 (Cambridge: Harvard, 1968) and The Origin of the Soul in Saint Augustine's Later Works (New York: Fordham, 1987). With regard to the soul of Christ, Augustine is quite clear that traducianism cannot be the correct explanation, since it would entail Christ's having contracted original sin in Adam; see Letter 164 7, 19, as well as The Literal Meaning of Genesis X, 18, 32.
†109 Are you still going to say that not everything was made through him, as it was through the Son, of whom scripture says,
Through him all things were made? If you say this, are you not afraid that someone might say to you that the Holy Spirit is more powerful than the Son because he chose the better things for himself to make and did not deign to make inferior things? Who but a fool thinks this? Hence, all things were made through the Son, and heaven forbid that the Holy Spirit was excluded from that work. So too, scripture says of those great works,
One and the same Spirit produces all these things (1 Cor 12:11), and yet the Son is not excluded from that work.
4. You think that you say something important when you say, “The Son was in the beginning before anything existed, but the Father was before the beginning.” See Debate with Maximinus 15, 17. †110 Where did you read such things so that you have come to believe them? On what grounds have you presumed to say these things for which there is no authority, no reason? What is before the beginning? The Latin principium can mean “beginning” and also “principle” or “source.” Both senses are involved in this section. The Father is the source without source, while the Son is the source that has a source. Both the Father and the Son are the one source of the Holy Spirit who proceeds from both. †111 Whatever might be before it would itself be the beginning? If, then, the Father is before the beginning, he is before himself, because he is the beginning. What does, In the beginning was the Word (Jn 1:1), mean except, “The Son was in the Father”? And when the Son was asked who he was by the Jews, he answered, The beginning, because I also speak to you (Jn 8:25). The Father then is the beginning without beginning, and the Son the beginning from the beginning. Both together are not two, but one beginning, just as God the Father and God the Son are both not two gods, but one God. Nor will I deny that the Holy Spirit who proceeds from each of them is the beginning. Rather I say that these three together are one beginning just as they are one God.
On the Two Generations of Christ
XVIII, 1. You say, “What if you should hear the Father saying, The beginning with you, in the day of your power, in the splendors of the saints, from the womb I begot you before the morning star” (Ps 109:3)? Debate with Maximinus 15, 18. †112 What do you promise or what do you threaten, if I should hear what I often hear and faithfully believe? I am very surprised that you do not see that this passage does not help you at all. Since I accept, reverence, and preach both generations of Christ—that from God the Father apart from time and that from his human mother in the fullness of time—whether the prophet is speaking in his own person to the Lord Jesus or in the person of the Father to the Son, this testimony is not against me. Rather, it proves that you wanted to cause delays, while I, on the other hand, understand why he said, From the womb I begot you. You also interpret this as spoken in the person of the Father. God, after all, does not have a womb in terms of the arrangement of the members of the human body; rather, the word has been
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transferred from a bodily to an incorporeal substance so that we might understand that the only-begotten Son was born out of the substance of God. Hence, what else does this mean than “of one and the same substance”? It is I, then, who ought to cite this testimony against you. I am, nonetheless, grateful that you mentioned it. Consider then the magnitude of the evil in your denying that the Son, whom you admit was born out of the womb of the Father, has the same substance. You do grave injury to God, as if he could beget from his womb something different from himself. Do you not see that you believe God's generation to be defective, that you preach it as monstrous, when you dare to say that a different nature has come forth from the womb of God? But if you shrink from this, as you ought, and reject it with us, then at last praise and hold with us the Council of Nicaea and
homoousios.
2. I mentioned that Christ said to his Father in prophecy, From the womb of my mother you are my God (Ps 21:11). Debate with Maximinus 14 and Answer to Maximinus I, 7. †113 Who can fail to see what a loss you were at when you heard that we understand that the Father is God of that nature which the Son took from the womb of his mother in time and that he is the Father of that nature which he generated out of himself? You did not find any answer, but to avoid saying nothing you said, “You profess that Christ was born from the womb of his mother according to the flesh,” and you added, “something even the Jews believe.” And then you asked, “Why do you not produce those testimonies that show his birth in the beginning, just as you instructed us by the previous testimony?” Debate with Maximinus 15, 18. †114 As if I do not believe, do not preach, do not embrace that birth of Christ that is not temporal, but eternal, but only say that Christ was born from the womb of his mother! Because of his eternal birth scripture says, In the beginning was the Word. Look, I say that God the Son was born from God the Father apart from time. I have shown how he who is his Father is also his God on account of the human nature which he has assumed and in which he was born from the womb of his mother without intercourse with a human father.
To prove this I provided a testimony in which he says to his Father in prophecy, From the womb of my mother you are my God. You say that I confess that Christ was born from the womb of his mother according to the flesh, something even the Jews believe, as if I confess only this birth of Christ. Do not try to escape through silliness. Rather, tell me why you did not give me an answer regarding the passage where Christ says to his Father, From the womb of my mother you are my God. Because you saw that you had nothing to say to this, you thought that you should interject another birth, that of God from God, as a means of escape. Please, when you have no answer, how much better it would be if you kept silent.
3. You say, “If he regarded himself as indebted to his Father on account of the body in which he emptied himself, it is much more necessary that he always offer reverence and service to him who has begotten one so great and so
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good.” See Debate with Maximinus 15, 18.
†115 Whatever your carnal thoughts might be concerning the reverence and service of the Son to his Father, his Father is his God only insofar as he is born from the womb of his mother. I see that you do not understand how great is the equality of the Begetter and the Begotten in that generation. But however much God the Son obeys God the Father, is the nature of a human father and human son different, because the son obeys the father? It is something utterly intolerable on your part that you want to prove from the obedience of the Son a difference of nature between the Father and the Son. Moreover, it is one question whether the Father and the Son have one and the same substance; it is another question whether the Son obeys the Father. Meanwhile, let us not deny that he is a true Son, and he is in no way a true Son if his and the Father's nature are not one and the same. State, then, that God the Father and God the Son have one and the same substance.
May the divine nature force you to admit what the divine nature has given to human nature. A human child obeys his parent from whom it was born as human, and yet it does not cease to be human by obeying. And if the child were not equally honored, but more honored, the parent would rejoice and not be envious; still the child would honor its parent, even though it was born, not a little one that would grow up with the coming of age, but one equal to its parent. If human parents could have begotten a child equal to them, they would undoubtedly have done so. Who then would dare to say, “Even the Omnipotent could not do this”? I even say that, if human parents could, they would beget a child greater and better than themselves, but nothing can be greater or better than God. Therefore, let us believe that his true Son is equal to him. But if you say, “The Father is greater than the Son because he is begotten of no one, but has begotten an equal,” I will immediately reply: The Father is not greater than the Son, precisely because he begot an equal, not an inferior. After all, who comes from whom is a question of origin; of what kind or how great he is is a question of equality. Hence, if true reasoning admits that the equal Son obeys his equal Father, we do not deny the obedience, but if you want to believe that he is inferior in nature Minorem natura; Amerbach and Erasmus: minorem natum; many manuscripts: minorem naturam. †116 by reason of this obedience, we forbid it. In no way would God the Father, in order to have the obedience of the only Son, want to deprive him of his nature.
4. That Christ was subject to his parents was not due to his divine majesty, but to his human age. You said, then, to no point, “If he was subject to the parents he created, See Lk 2:51. †117 how much the more was he subject to his Father who begot him as one so great and so good!” See Debate with Maximinus 15, 18. †118 Here is your answer: If he was subject to his parents on account of his being a child, how much the more was he subject to God on account of his having the form of a man! He did not lose that form by death, but made it immortal. Why are you surprised that, even after the end of this world, he will be subject in it to him who has subjected all things to him? You say that the Son is subject to the Father, not on account of the form of the
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servant, but because the Father begot him as one so great and so good, that is, a great God, though inferior to God the Father. Here you disparage God the Father who either could not or would not beget his only Son as his equal, and you disparage the Son who, though the only Son of the Father, was not generated as his equal, but was born so perfect that he would never become, even by growing up, what he could not be by birth.
5. We say not only, as you suppose, that the body of the Son, that is, the human body, but also that the human spirit was subject to the Father. We understand that scripture said of him insofar as he became man, But when all things shall have been subjected to him, then even the Son himself will be subject to him who has subjected all things to him (1 Cor 15:28). This was said of him insofar as Christ is head and body. He is the head, that is, the Savior who has risen from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he is the Church which is his body, his fullness, as the apostle says most clearly. See Col 1:18. †119 Thus, when all things shall have been subjected to Christ, they will beyond any doubt be subjected to both the head and the body. After all, insofar as he was born as God apart from time, nothing could ever fail to be subject to him.
6. We know that you thought that we should be reminded that the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son (Jn 5:22). But I would like you to tell us how the Father judges no one, since the very same Son says, I do not seek my glory; there is one who seeks it and judges (Jn 8:50). You should realize that he said, The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, because, for judging the living and the dead, he will appear in the human form that the Father does not have. For this reason the prophet says, They will look upon him whom they have pierced (Zec 12:10). But the Father will also be with him invisibly, because he is inseparable from him. If he said when he was about to die, I am not alone, because the Father is with me (Jn 16:32), how much the more will he have the Father with him when he is about to judge the living and the dead? The Holy Spirit will also be with him. How could the Holy Spirit abandon him on his royal throne, if he returned from the Jordan, filled with him? See Lk 4:1. †120
The words written to the Hebrews, We do not now see all things already subjected to him, but we have seen Jesus who has been made a little less than the angels in order that he might suffer death (Heb 2:8-9), ought to teach us how we should interpret the words written to the Corinthians, But when all things shall have been subjected to him. This was said of him insofar as he became man, not insofar as he is God. Thus, he will appear in the human nature, in which he was made a little less than the angels through his suffering death, and he will judge the living and the dead, when he will say, Come, blessed of my Father, take possession of the kingdom (Mt 25:34). You wanted to prove by that testimony that he was inferior to his Father, not as man, but as God. But you have not proved it, as those with understanding see.
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On the Groaning of the Holy Spirit
XIX. Regarding the groans of the Holy Spirit I think that I have already given you a sufficient answer that he does not himself groan, but by inspiring a holy desire in us he makes us groan as long as we are pilgrims away from the Lord. See Debate with Maximinus 13. †121 Regarding such expressions from the holy scriptures, I have shown to the extent that I thought it sufficient that the Holy Spirit is said to groan, because he makes us groan, just as God said, “Now I know” (Gn 22:12), when he made a man know. For he did not then come to know what he said that he knew at that point, because he knows all things before they come about. What good does it do you that you know that you could make no answer to this, when you do not agree with us?
On the Words, “The Father and I Are One”
XX, 1. I have already shown that you were unable to make any response concerning the words of the Lord, when he says, The Father and I are one (Jn 10:30). Here too I will explain the meaning of the words, The Father and I are one, if you want to prove it by the examples that I used, as you said. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 20. †122 For this purpose you call to mind the testimony from the apostle that I set forth, where he says, He who clings to the Lord is one spirit (1 Cor 6:17). Admit then that when the Son clings to the Father, he is one God. After all, the apostle does not say, He who clings to the Lord is one (unum), as scripture says, The Father and I are one, but says, is one spirit. But since you do not say, “When the Son clings to the Father, he is one God,” why do you use this testimony from the apostle, where he says, He who clings to the Lord is one spirit, unless it is so that I can refute you even by the testimony you have produced?
Now at least distinguish these two things which you were not able to distinguish when we were together for our debate. Pay careful attention, then, to what I say. When one says of two or more things, they are one (unus or una) and adds that they are one of this sort or that, he can say this of things which have a different substance or of things which have the same substance. After all, the human spirit and the Spirit of the Lord have a different substance, and yet scripture said, He who clings to the Lord is one spirit. Human souls and human hearts have one substance; scripture says of them, They had one soul and one heart (Acts 4:32). But when one says of two or more things, they are one (unum) and does not add what kind of thing they are, they are understood to have not a different substance, but one substance. Thus scripture says, He who plants and he who waters are one (1 Cor 3:8), and The Father and I are one. You want the Father and the Son to have different substances, though you could not find where scripture says of different substances that they are one. You do not want to say, “When the Son clings to the Father, he is one God,” and yet
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you used the testimony from the apostle that I used. But you used against yourself the passage when he said,
He who clings to the Lord is one spirit. After all, if one can correctly say this of those who have a different substance, how much more correctly can one say of those who have one substance that they are one God? If you understand this, you see that you did not respond to these things, and you recognize that you have said much to no point concerning the agreement of the will. We too admit an incomparable agreement of will and of undivided charity in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, because we say that this Trinity is one God. But, on account of one and the same nature and substance, we also say what you do not say,
These three are one (1 Jn 5:7). If you make these distinctions and stop being so contentious, you will see that you made no answer here, and you will remain silent on this question.
2. The Son said to the Father, But not as I want, but as you want (Mk 14:36). Why does it help you to add your words and say, “He showed that his will was truly subject to his Father,” Debate with Maximinus 15, 20. †123 as if we denied that the human will ought to be subject to the will of God? One who looks a bit attentively at this passage of the holy gospel quickly sees that the Lord said this in his human nature. He said, My soul is sad even unto death (Mk 14:34). Could this have been said in the nature of the only Word? Why should you, who think that the nature of the Holy Spirit groans, not also say that the nature of the only-begotten Word of God could be sad? Still, lest someone should say something of the sort, he did not say, “I am sad,” although, even if he had said that, it ought to have been understood only of his human nature. He said, My soul is sad, and as a man he had a human soul. Maximinus has frequently implied that Christ did not have a human soul. Augustine points out that Christ explicitly spoke of his soul being sad so that there is no grounds for saying that the Word was sad in his divine nature. †124 Nonetheless, in saying, Not as I want, he showed that he wanted something other than the Father wanted, something that he could only do with his human heart, when he changed our weakness, not into his divine, but into his human love. If he had not assumed human nature, the only-begotten Word would in no sense say to the Father, Not as I want. That immutable nature could never want something other than what the Father wanted. If you would draw these distinctions, you would not be Arian heretics.
3. His words, I came down from heaven, not to do my will, but to do the will of him who sent me (Jn 6:38), can also be interpreted as spoken insofar as he is the only-begotten Word. Thus he said that it was not his will, but his Father's, because whatever the Son is comes from the Father, though whatever the Father is does not come from the Son. In this sense he also said, My teaching is not mine, but comes from him who sent me (Jn 7:16), because he who is the Word of the Father is also the teaching of the Father and certainly does not come from himself, but from the Father. Again, when he says, All the things which the Father has are mine (Jn 16:15), he shows that he is equal to the Father. Still, it is not absurd to understand that, insofar as he became man, he said, I came down from heaven, not to do my will, but to do the will of him who sent me. The second
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Adam, who took away the sin of the world, distinguished himself in this way from the first Adam, through whom sin came into the world, See Rom 5:12.
†125 because the second Adam did not do his own will, but the will of him who sent him, while the first Adam did his own will, not the will of him who created him. You should not be troubled about how Christ came down from heaven insofar as he is man, since he became man from his mother who was living on earth. This was said by reason of the unity of the person, because Christ, God and man, is one person. For this reason he also says,
No one has gone up into heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven (Jn 3:13). If you pay attention to the distinction of substances, the Son of God came down from heaven, the Son of Man was crucified; if you pay attention to the unity of the person, both the Son of Man came down from heaven and the Son of God was crucified. Augustine points to the doctrine of the exchanging of the properties of the two natures in Christ (communicatio idiomatum). In view of the unity of the person, one can say that the Son of God was born of Mary or that Mary's son is God.
†126 After all, he is the Lord of glory; the apostle says of him,
If they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory (1 Cor 2:8). Because of this unity of the person, the Son of Man not only said that he had come down from heaven, but also said that he was in heaven, though he was speaking on earth. Hence, he did not do his own will, because he committed no sin, but he did the will of him who sent him. A man does the will of God when he does the justice which comes from God.
4. Let us not think that the Son was sent by the Father in such a way that he was not sent by the Holy Spirit, for his voice speaks through the prophet, The Lord has now sent me, and his Spirit has also. The preceding text shows that the Son had said this. This is how those words are introduced; he says, Hear me, Jacob, and Israel whom I shall call. I am the first, and I last forever. My hand laid the foundation of the earth; my right hand made the heaven firm. I will call them, and they will come at once. All will gather and will listen. Who has announced these things to them? Because I love you, I have done your will regarding Babylon so that the offspring of the Chaldeans might be destroyed. I have spoken; I have called. I brought him forth, and I made his path prosperous. Come to me and hear these things. Even from the beginning I have not spoken unclearly, and when they were being made, I was there. The Lord has now sent me, and his Spirit has also (Is 48:12-16). What could be clearer? Moreover, he was not sent by the Father and by the Holy Spirit in such a way that he did not send himself. Just as we see that he was handed over by the Father, where we read, He did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for all of us (Rom 8:32), so in another passage, it says of the Son, He loved me and handed himself over for me (Gal 2:20). But how could he not do his own will? After all, he said, As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to those he wants (Jn 5:21), and when someone said to him, If you want, you can make me clean, he answered, I want this; be made clean (Mt 8:2-3). And at his word there immediately occurred what he said he wanted. But just as the Son
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does the will of the Father, so the Father does the will of the Son. The Son says,
Father, I want that where I am they may also be with me (Jn 17:24). He did not say, “I ask,” or, “I beg,” but,
I want, so that the Father would do what he wants, just as he was doing what the Father wanted. And he did not want other things than the Father wanted; rather, he wanted exactly what the Father wanted.
Whatever the Father does, these things the Son does in a like manner (Jn 5:19). These are his words, the words of Truth; they cannot be false.
On the Divinity of the Holy Spirit
XXI, 1. You say that you accept the words I cited, Do you not know that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you? (1 Cor 3:16). You suggested Proposuisti with some manuscripts.; editions: potuisti. †127 that scripture said this because “God does not dwell in a human being that the Holy Spirit has not first sanctified and cleansed,” Debate with Maximinus 15, 21. †128 as if the Holy Spirit made the temple holy and cleansed it for God to dwell there, not for himself. And yet the apostle showed from this passage that the Holy Spirit is God, when he said that we were his temple. He did not say that the Spirit of God will sanctify you and cleanse you so that God may dwell in you. Rather, he said, The Spirit of God dwells in you. God, of course, dwells in his temple. After all, what is the temple of God but the dwelling of God?
You saw that it follows that, if we are his temple, he is our God, and you refused to mention the other testimony that I cited, Do you not know that your body is the temple in your midst of the Holy Spirit whom you have from God? Now then, admit that the Holy Spirit is God. If he were not God, he would not have a temple—and a temple not made by hand, but built up of the members of God, for Christ is God blessed above all for all ages (Rom 9:5), and our bodies are his members. He said, Do you not know that your body is the temple in your midst of the Holy Spirit? and he also said, Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? (1 Cor 6:19.15). Is he, then, God for whom Solomon built a temple from wood and stones, though he is not God for whom a temple is built from the members of Christ, that is, from the members of God? The blessed martyr Stephen said, when he spoke of God, Solomon built a home for him, but the Most High does not dwell in temples made by hand (Acts 7:47-48). And yet the members of Christ, whose head is above all the heavens, are the temple of the Holy Spirit who, we agree, came from heaven. What does it mean to deny that he is God but not to be and not to want to be his temple? The apostle speaks to us and says, But I beg you, brothers, by the mercy of God to offer your bodies to God as a living sacrifice that is holy and pleasing (Rom 12:1). The bodies, then, of the faithful are a sacrifice to God, the members of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit, and yet the Holy Spirit is not God! What sort of person says this but one in whom he does not dwell?
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After all, one in whom he dwells is certainly his temple. When the apostle said, Do you not know that your body is the temple in your midst of the Holy Spirit whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a great price, he immediately goes on to say, Glorify God, then, in your body (1 Cor 6:19-20). There he showed with utter clarity that the Holy Spirit is God and that he should be glorified in our body as if in his temple. The apostle Peter said to Ananias, Have you dared to lie to the Holy Spirit? And to show that the Holy Spirit is God, he said, You have not lied to men, but to God (Acts 5:3-4).
2. I am amazed at the disposition of your heart more than I can explain in words. Though you praise the Holy Spirit and say that he is present everywhere to sanctify the faithful, you still dare to say that he is not God. Is he who filled the whole world not God? Scripture says, The Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole world (Wis 1:7). But why should we mention that he filled the whole world, when he filled even the Redeemer of the world? The Lord Jesus returned from the Jordan, filled with the Holy Spirit (Lk 4:1), and you presume to say that the Lord Jesus was God and that the Holy Spirit with whom he was filled was not God. You think so little of the Holy Spirit that you do not say of him what scripture said of Moses, the servant of God. Moses brought upon the Egyptians not gracious gifts, but terrible plagues by the same Holy Spirit, because he was the finger of God (Ex 8:19), and yet he was made a god for Pharaoh. In a single place he was present to afflict the Egyptians, and yet he was Pharaoh's god. See Ex 7:1. †129 The Holy Spirit is everywhere present to regenerate humans unto eternal life, and he is not their God! Indeed he is, and he is the true God, because the members of the true God are his temple. The temple, of course, is subject to him whose temple it is; how then is he not God if God's members are subject to him? For this reason he is also the Lord of his temple. Who would deny this? Who would be so foolish as to say that someone is not lord of his own house? How then is the Holy Spirit not the Lord when he is the Lord of the members of the Lord? He is, of course, the Spirit of the Lord. In one and the same passage scripture said of him, But when [Israel] shall have been converted to the Lord, the veil will be removed. The Lord is Spirit; where there is the Spirit of the Lord, there is freedom (2 Cor 3:16-17).
3. I have already shown above that the Holy Spirit is the Creator. See above, II, 17, 1-3. †130 How can he fail to be the king, when those who are members of the king are his temple? How can he not be seated with the Father and the Son when he filled the Son, when he has the members of the Son as his home? Or are you going to say that, when the Son returned from the Jordan, he was filled with the Holy Spirit and that, when he was seated at the right hand of the Father, he kept the Holy Spirit out of himself? Moreover, since he proceeds from the Father, how can he possibly not be seated with the Father? Augustine is responding to the demands for scriptural proof that Maximinus made in Debate with Maximinus 15, 21. †131 After all, we should not think of his
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being seated in a carnal fashion. Otherwise, we are going to suppose that the Son is seated in a more honorable position than the Father. One is seated in a more honorable position at the right hand, and thus it will seem to follow that the Father is seated at his left hand.
Finally, you will see what sort of spirit has persuaded you to deny to the Holy Spirit what the holy scripture grants to the saints. The apostle said, When we were dead by our sins, he brought us to life with Christ, by whose grace we have been saved, and he raised us up with him and has made us to be seated with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus (Eph 2:5-6). The saints, then, whom the Holy Spirit makes holy, have been brought to life with Christ and have been predestined to be seated along with him. The apostle speaks there of what is certain to occur as having already occurred. See On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans I, 7, 11, where Augustine explains by this same figure of speech that unformed matter was called heaven and earth, because it was certain that heaven and earth would come to be from it. †132 But you deprive the Holy Spirit of being seated with the Father and the Son—regardless of how that is understood—as if he were unworthy to be seated with them, though he makes us worthy to be seated there. You raise with regard to him the objection that he is not adored, and you do this by a similar error, since you read, as I have shown above, that even human beings have been adored by the saints. See above, II, 3. †133 Nonetheless, to avoid the hatred a blasphemer deserves, you praise the Holy Spirit and attribute to him what no creature has, though you take away from him what even the human creature attains.
On the Prayer of Jesus for the Unity of His Followers
XXII, 1. I admit, and I say it again now, that I said what you mentioned, namely, that “our Savior did not say, 'That we and they may be one,' but, That they may be one.” Debate with Maximinus 14 and 15, 22. †134 Concerning these words of the gospel I recall that I have already given a sufficient answer, when I showed that you could not refute what I said. See Answer to Maximinus I, 10. †135 I asked that you produce testimonies where you read that, “They are one,” was said of things which did not have one and the same substance, and you were unable to do so. How does it help you to claim that scripture says of Paul and Apollo on the grounds of their agreement in love, He who plants and he who waters are one (1 Cor 3:8), though you do not show that they have a different substance? They were, of course, both men. If they did not love each other, they would still be one by nature, though not one by love. But if they were not one by nature, they could not be said to be one by love. Augustine implies that oneness by nature is a condition of oneness by love. Such a view would seem to rule out love between God and creatures, were it not for the fact that, in loving God, we become God (see Homilies on the First Letter of John II, 14: “Each person is such as his love. Do you love the earth? You will be earth. Do you love God? What shall I say? You will be God? I do not dare to say it on my own; let us listen to the scriptures: I said, You are gods and children of the Most High….”). And we can, of course, only love God because he has first loved us. †136 The Son, then, asks that they may be one as he and the Father are one, that is, not only by nature, as they already were, but also by the perfection of charity and justice, in accord with the capacity of their nature, to the extent that they will able to be in the kingdom of God. He asks that they too may be supremely one in their nature, as the Father and the Son are supremely one in their nature, which is, however, more excellent and incomparably better. Hence, the Son said to the Father, Holy
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Father, keep in your name those whom you have given me, that they may be one, as we also are one. He did not say, “That they may be one with us,” or, “That we and they may be one.”
Likewise, he says a little later, I do not ask for them only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, as you, Father, in me and as I in you, that they may also be one in us. He did not say here, “That we and they may be one,” but “that they may also be one in us.” Human beings, who are one by nature, cannot be supremely and perfectly one in their own manner in the fullness of justice unless they are made perfect in God so that they are one in the Father and the Son, that is, one in them, not one with them. He goes on to add, That the world may believe that you sent me, I have also given them the glory that you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them, and you in me, so that they may be made perfect in one. He does not say here, “That they may be one with us,” or “That we and they may be one.” Moreover, when he added, That the world may know that you sent me and have loved them as you have loved me, he went on to add, Father, I want that where I am they may also be with me (Jn 17:11-24). He says, That where I am they may also be with me; he does not say, “That they may be one with me.” Louvain and some manuscripts omit: Non ait, unum mecum sint. †137 What he wanted was that they might be with him, not that he and they might be one.
What is the point that you wanted to make with the words, “He speaks of love, not of substance”? See Debate with Maximinus 15, 22. †138 You did not cite the words of the Lord in that passage as he stated them? But what difference does that make to us, since he did not say that he and they, or that the Father and they, are one or that he wanted them to be one. Rather, he wanted those to be one whom he knew to have one substance. He says, As we also are one, of those whom he knew had one substance.
2. If you want to make some answer, show that the holy scripture says of some things whose substance is different that they are one. Christ did not say what you have dared to say, that is, that “even the apostles are one in this sense with the Father and the Son, insofar as in all things they aim at the will of God the Father and are themselves found to be subject to the one God, the Father, in imitation of the Son.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 22. See Sermon 140, 4, where Augustine preaches against the “horrifying blasphemy” of Maximinus in saying that the apostles are one with the Father and the Son. †139 In saying this, you made God and holy human beings one. Could, then, any of the saints say, “God and I are one”? Heaven keep this from saintly hearts and lips! I suspect that even you shrink from anyone you hear saying this and that you do not tolerate any human—however outstanding in the gift of holiness—who says, “God and I are one.” It might seem arrogant for someone to say this of himself. But even if none of your people dares to say, “God and I are one,” will he dare to say, “Paul and God are one,” just as we say without hesitation that Paul and Apollo are one and that God the Father and God the Son are one? However, if you do not dare to say, “Any holy human being, any prophet, any apostle and God are one,” who was urging you, who was
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pushing you, who was rushing you Quis te urgebat, quis te impingebat, quis te praecipitabat; Erasmus, Lyons and Venice: quis te urgebat, quis te praecipitabat.
†140 to say that “even the apostles are in this way one with the Father and the Son”?
You say, “The Father and the Son are one in harmony (unum), but not one in number (unus),” and you immediately add, “The first 'one' pertains to harmony; the second to the singular number.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 22. †141 You wanted to say, “Are one (unum),” pertains to harmony and, “Is one (unus),” pertains to the singular number, but the force of the debate distracted you from weighing your words. Both one [in the neuter] and one [in the masculine] pertain to the singular number. The truth Verum; Louvain, and some manuscripts: verbum. †142 is that “Are one” indicates, because of the addition “Are,” the plural number linked in a certain singularity. But “Is one” is clearly the singular number. Would the apostle say, “He who clings to the Lord is one [in the neuter]”? If he said this, what would he be saying but that “A holy man and God are one”? May God keep such a thought away from the wisdom of the apostle! Still he said, He who clings to the Lord is one spirit (1 Cor 6:17) so that you might know that “Are one” is said of things that have one and the same substance. Thus scripture said of certain men, You are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:28), and Christ himself said, The Father and I are one (Jn 10:30). But when scripture says, “one” [in the masculine] and specifies one of this sort or that, Cum autem unus dicitur, et quid unus dicitur with manuscripts; editions: et quid unus natura, et quid unus adjicitur. †143 it can be speaking of different substances. Thus scripture said, Theirs was one soul and heart (Acts 4:32). It said, “was,” not “were,” because it also specified what was one, namely, soul and heart. So too, we say, of the Father and the Son, “They are one,” because the two have one substance, and we say, “He is one,” but we add, “one of this sort or that,” that is, one God, one Lord, one Omnipotent, and whatever else. I think that I have sufficiently instructed you about the difference of these two expressions. Search, then, the canonical scriptures, both old and new, and find, if you can, where it said that some things that have a different nature and substance are one.
3. Of course, I do not want you to be misled by the Letter of John the apostle, where he says, There are three witnesses: the spirit and the water and the blood, and the three are one (1 Jn 5:8). You might say that the spirit and the water and the blood are different substances and yet scripture said, The three are one. For that reason I have warned you not to be misled. These are mysteries in which one always looks not to what they are, but to what they reveal. They are signs of things; what they are is one thing, what they signify another. If, then, we understand what they signify, we find that they have one substance. It is as if we said, “The rock and the water are one,” because we wanted to signify Christ by the rock and the Holy Spirit by the water. Who can doubt that a rock and water are different natures? But because Christ and the Holy Spirit have one and the same nature, the words, “The rock and the water are one,” can be correctly interpreted in this way. Those two things whose natures are different are signs of other things whose nature is one.
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We know that three things came forth from the body of the Lord, when he hung upon the cross: first, spirit. Thus scripture says, And bowing his head, he handed over his spirit (Jn 19:30). Then, when his side was pierced with a lance, there came forth blood and water. See Jn 19:34. †144 If we look at these things in themselves, each of them has a different substance, and thus they are not one. But if we are willing to examine the things that they signify, it is not absurd that the Trinity comes to mind, which is the one, only, true and supreme God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Of them it could most truly be said, There are three witnesses, and the three are one. Thus we understand that God the Father was signified by the term “spirit.” The Lord was speaking of adoring him, when he said, God is spirit (Jn 4:24). But the Son was signified by the term “blood,” because The Word was made flesh (Jn 1:14), and the Holy Spirit by the term “water.” After all, when Jesus was speaking of the water he would give to the thirsty, the Evangelist said, He said this of the Spirit which those who believed in him would receive (Jn 7:39).
Who believes the Evangelist and has any doubt that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are witnesses? The Son says, It is I who give witness concerning myself, and the Father who sent me gives witness concerning me? (Jn 8:18). Although the Holy Spirit is not mentioned here, he is still not understood to be excluded. The Son was not silent about him elsewhere, but showed clearly enough that he is a witness. When he promised him, he said, He will bear witness concerning me (Jn 15:26). These are three witnesses, and the three are one, because they have one substance. Because the signs by which they were signified have come forth from the body of Christ, they were figures of the Church that preaches that the Trinity is one and the same nature, because these three, who were signified in the three ways, are one. But the Church that preaches them is the body of Christ. Thus the three things by which they were signified came forth from the body of the Lord, just as we heard from the body of the Lord that the nations should be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Mt 28:19). In the name, not, “In the names”; for these three are one, and these three are one God.
If the depth of this great mystery which we read in the Letter of John can be explained and understood in some other way in accord with the Catholic faith, that neither confuses nor divides the Trinity, neither denies the persons, nor believes they are different substances, we should on no account reject it. We should be delighted if what is stated obscurely in the holy scriptures to exercise the minds of the faithful is explained in many ways, provided it is not done foolishly.
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On the Father and the Son as the One God
XXIII, 1. Why do you ask that I prove that “the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God”? Debate with Maximinus 15, 23. †145 The divine scripture establishes this as clearly as possible, when it says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one? (Dt 6:4). You too would hear this, if you wanted to be Israel, not carnally as the Jews, but spiritually as the Christians. One who does not want to hear with faith the words, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one, is left with believing that he who said this is a liar. But if he is not a liar, then those words are true, and if those words are true, the question is ended. Beyond any doubt, the truth forces you to admit that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are the one Lord God. You deny that the Holy Spirit is God, though his temple is not something made by hand, but our body, though his temple is not wood and stones, but the members of Christ. What are you going to say of Christ himself whom you admit is Lord and God? Answer us whether the Father and the Son are the one Lord God. If they are not one, there are two, and if there are two, he lies when he says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one. He lies when he says, See that I am God, and there is no other besides me (Dt 32:39).
But since you do not dare to call him a liar, why do you hesitate to correct yourselves and come, or return, to the Catholic faith which believes that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are not three lord gods, but one Lord God and hears him crying out to his people, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one, and See that I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me? Here and in the following citations of Dt 32:39, Augustine has “the Lord” in place of “God.” †146 If I call you deaf and blind because you neither hear nor see these things, you will undoubtedly think me insulting. Look, I do not say: Explain to us how you interpret, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one. Should one understand Christ there or not? If you say, “He is included there,” you will admit with me that the Father and the Son are the one Lord God. But if you answer that one should not understand Christ there, you are going to introduce two lord gods against the words of God, since you do not deny that Christ is Lord God. Likewise, I ask you how you interpret, See that I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me. Is Christ also included there, or is he not? If he is, certainly the Father and the Son are the one Lord God. But if he is not included there and is, nonetheless, Lord, he is a liar who says, And there is no other besides me. After all, the Son is another lord, if the Father and the Son are not the one Lord.
To the extent that you praise the Father as more excellent and subordinate the Son to him, you make them unequal, but you do not keep them from being two. Shout as much as you want that the Father is greater and the Son is lesser. I answer you that the greater and the lesser are two. Scripture did not say, “The greater Lord your God is the one Lord.” It said, The Lord is your God, the Lord is one. It did not say, “There is none other equal to me.” It said, There is no other Lord besides me. Either, then, admit that the Father and the Son are the
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one Lord God, or clearly deny that Christ is the Lord God, just as you clearly deny that the Holy Spirit is the Lord God. If you do that, I will not press you with these words of God, but I will muster other divine testimonies against you by which I will refute you, for you are more detestable in this error. Destestabiliorem convincam with Erasmus, Lyons and Venice.
†147 For the present, even if you deny that the Holy Spirit is the Lord God, it is enough that you admit that Christ is the Lord God for you to be crushed by these words of God. If he is not the one Lord God along with the Father, there will be two lord gods, and these words of God will be false,
The Lord is your God, the Lord is one, and
There is no other besides me. How much better it would be to correct your words than to regard God's words as lies!
2. You ask me whether I urge you “to profess one God the way the Jews do” or whether “from the subjection of the Son,” I will show, “as the Christian faith holds, that there is one God whose Son is our God.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 23. †148 You say this as if Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one, or I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me were the words of the Jews. God himself said this; acknowledge that and be silent, or rather explain how he spoke the truth, for neither of us dares to say he has lied. Explain, I say, how it is true that The Lord is your God, the Lord is one. If our lord gods, as you say, are two, the one greater, the other lesser, explain how it is true that I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me. I ask who said this, the Father or the Son. If the Father said, I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me, he did not speak the truth, because the Son is another lord. If the Son said this, he did not speak the truth either, because the Father is another lord. But if the Trinity said this, God certainly spoke the truth and shows that what you say is false. The Trinity, of course, according to the correct faith, that is, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, in whose name we are baptized, is our one Lord God, and besides him there is no other. He is the God of whom the apostle says, There is no God save the one (1 Cor 8:4). If you interpret this as said about the Father, Christ will not be God for you, because the scripture text, There is no God save the one, cannot be explained away.
Here I pass over in silence the Holy Spirit whom we have shown above to be the Lord God, despite your denials. The Macedonian heretics refuse to agree with the Catholic faith only concerning the Holy Spirit, Augustine says of these heretics in his Heresies LII that they agreed with the Catholics about the Father and the Son, but with the Arians about the Holy Spirit. Hence, they were called Semi-Arians and also Pneumatomachians (pneumatomachoi), that is, opponents of the Spirit. Macedonius was bishop of Constantinople from 342-360. The second Ecumenical Council at Constantinople in 381 condemned the Pneumatomachians and asserted the full divinity of the Holy Spirit. †149 but agree that the Father and the Son are two, that is, one the Father, the other the Son, and that they are equal and of one and the same substance, not two lord gods, but both together the one Lord God. If then your error went only this far, you would not be pressed by these words of God. You would hold that the Father and the Son, the one Lord God, said, There is no other besides me. Would that there were nothing left to debate with you except that you add the Holy Spirit and say that the one Lord God is a trinity, not a duality. But as it is, you say that the Father is the Lord God and that the Son is the Lord God in such a way that you do not
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say that the two together are one Lord God, but two, the one greater, the other lesser. Thus you are assuredly pierced by the sword of the Truth, who says,
Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one, who cries out,
I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me.
After all, God the Father would not want to recall the Israelites from the worship of many false gods by lying to them about the one God and Lord, saying that there was no other besides himself, though he knew that his Son was God and Lord. Heaven forbid that the Truth and the Father of the Truth should deceive his people with a lie; it is heretics and not Catholics who utter such shocking and detestable blasphemy. Of course, God speaks the truth when he says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one, because the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are not three gods, but one God, not three lords, but one Lord. Of course, he speaks the truth, I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me, because it is not the Father alone, but the Trinity that says this. This is the one Lord, and there is no other besides the Trinity. If the Father said, I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me, he would, of course, deny that the only-begotten Son is the Lord. Who of us would dare to proclaim that he is Lord, when the Father contradicts this with the words, I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me?
Hence, according to the correct faith, these are the words, not of the Father, but of the Trinity, and, therefore, the words of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Let those who are ignorant of the truth shut their mouths. This Trinity is the one God. Of this one God scripture says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one. This one God says, I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me. The Son is indeed subject to the Father according to the form of man, but there are not two gods or two lords according to the form of God. Rather both are, along with the Holy Spirit, the one Lord.
3. The texts which you produced from the apostle Paul testify against you, without your realizing it. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 23. †150 He says, Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 1:7; 1 Cor 1:3; 2 Cor 1:2; Gal 1:3; Eph 1:2). How can Jesus Christ be the Lord, if the Father says, I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me? As I said, these are not the words of the Father alone, but of the Trinity. You use another testimony, and that one too is against you. The apostle says, One is God the Father, from whom are all things, and we are in him, and one is the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we are in him, as you put it. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 23. †151 The apostle said, And
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we are through him; he did not say, “in him.” But what difference does that make to our debate? Such things often happen when people cite a passage from memory instead of reading it from a book. Rather, look at what is pertinent to our discussion. Notice that the apostle said,
One is God the Father, from whom are all things, and we are in him, and one is the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we are through him (1 Cor 8:6). He certainly distinguished two persons, the one of the Father, the other of the Son, without any confusion and without any mistake. There are not two gods the father, but one God the Father, and there are not two lords Jesus Christ, but one Lord Jesus Christ. In that Trinity which is God, there is one Father, not two or three, and one Son, not two or three, and one Spirit of them both, not two or three. That one Father is, of course, God, and the one Son is also God, as you admit, and the one Spirit of them both is also God, despite your denials. And thus if you ask for the Lord, I answer that each one is the Lord, but I say that all together they are not three lord gods, but one Lord God. This is our faith, because this is the true faith, the faith which is also called Catholic.
I ask you who oppose this faith to explain to us how Jesus Christ can also be the Lord, if you claim that these are the words, not of the Trinity, but of the Father alone, I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me. You are, of course, disturbed; naturally, you find no answer to make, but you do not want to be silent when you are proved wrong. If it was not God the Trinity, but only the Father who said, I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me, he denied, beyond any doubt, that the Son is Lord. If the Son is also Lord, it was false to say, There is no other Lord besides me.
We are not dealing with a lord like men who are lords of human servants. These the apostle calls lords according to the flesh; See Eph 6:5. †152 we are dealing with the Lord to whom we owe that service which is called in Greek λατρεία. In reference to it, scripture said, You shall adore the Lord your God, and you shall serve him alone (Dt 6:13). If this Lord God is not the Trinity, but the Father alone, we are, of course, forbidden to serve Christ the Lord with such service by the words, You shall serve him alone, that is, if they are taken to mean, “You shall serve God the Father alone.” If the Father alone, and not the Trinity, said, I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me, he has denied that the Son is a lord to whom we owe that service which the true religion offers only to God. He did not say, “I am the greater or better Lord, and there is no other as great or as good besides me.” Because he wanted us to serve him alone with that service that is owed to the Lord God, he said, I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me. If those are the words of the one God, which is the Trinity, as the Catholic faith says, we should without any doubt serve him alone with that service which we owe only to the Lord God, because he is the Lord and there is no other besides him.
4. Next I ask how you interpret the words of scripture, One is God the Father, from whom are all things, and we are in him, and one is the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we are through him (1 Cor 8:6). Are not all things also from the Son, since he says, Whatever the Father does, these things the Son does in a like manner? (Jn 5:19). If you make a distinction so that all
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things are not through the Father, but from the Father, and all things are not from the Son, but through the Son, of which of them, in your opinion, was the apostle speaking, when he said,
Oh the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments, and unsearchable his ways! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who first has given anything to him so that he will be repaid? For from him and through him and in him are all things, to him be glory forever and ever. Amen? (Rom 9:33-36). Are we to understand the Father or the Son? He first mentioned God, when he said,
Oh the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! Then he called him Lord, when he said,
Who has known the mind of the Lord? There is no controversy about this; you attribute each of these names both to the Father and to the Son. You do not call the Father God in such a way as to deny that the Son is God, nor do you call the Son God in such a way that you deny that the Father is God. But in that apostolic testimony that you used, the Father is called God and the Son Lord, that is,
One is God the Father, from whom are all things, and one is the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.
Note, however, the text where it said, Oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. Whether it is speaking of the Father or of the Son, from him and through him and in him are all things. How then can all things be from the Father and not from the Son and all things through the Son and not through the Father? Because the apostle wanted us to understand each of them in this passage, he said, From him and through him and in him are all things. If, then, he said most truly either of the Father or of the Son that from him and through him and in him are all things, he shows beyond any doubt the equality of the Father and the Son. He did not mention the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, but the God and Lord which we can call the Trinity. If, then, he intended that each of these three expressions refer to them singly, saying, from him on account of the Father, and through him on account of the Son, and in him on account of the Holy Spirit, why do you refuse to recognize this Trinity as the one Lord God? After all, he did not say, “From them and through them and in them.” He said, From him and through him and in him are all things. And he did not say, “To them be glory,” but To him be glory forever and ever. Amen.
5. You are certainly mistaken if you think that No one is good save the one God (Mk 10:18) was said of the Father alone. Even if he had said, “No one is good save the one Father,” he would not have wanted us to understand that the Son and the Holy Spirit were excluded from this one goodness. After all, by a similar expression scripture said, as I mentioned above, See above, II, 15, 4 and 17, 1. †153 No one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:11), and yet it does not exclude from that knowledge the Son of God. Here we have much more room for interpretation, since he did not say, “No one is good save the one Father,” but No one is good save the one God, which is the Trinity. The person to whom
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Jesus gave this answer was not asking about just any good, but about the good that brings us happiness. In fact, he was longing for true happiness, that is, eternal life, and he appealed to Christ as a man, not knowing that he was also God. He said,
Good teacher, what should I do to obtain eternal life? Then Jesus said,
Why do you call me good? No one is good save the one God (Mk 10:17-18). Or, as we read in another gospel, which amounts to the same thing,
No one is good save God alone (Lk 18:19). It is as if he said, “You will be correct in calling me good, if you know that I am God. But since you think that I am only a man, why do you call me good? Only the immutable good, which is God alone, makes you both good and happy.” No good angel or good human being or any good creature is so good that we become happy by possessing one of them, and the only happy life is eternal. How could the Son of God fail to be such a good, seeing that he is true God and the eternal life which that questioner desired to attain?
6. Moreover, I said that No one is good save the one God referred to the Trinity which is the one and only God, but you claimed that it referred to God the Father alone, because he is God from no one else and is good from no one else, while the Son is God from the Father and has his greatness and goodness from the Father. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 23. †154 Note carefully which of us thinks well of God the Father and God the Son. Is it I? For I say, “God the Father is not God from another God, but God the Son is God from God the Father. Yet the Son who comes from the Father is as great as he who comes from no one. The good Father is not good from any other good, but the Son is good from the good Father. Yet the Son is as good as he who is good from no one.” Or is it you who say that God the Father alone is good, because he is not God from another God and not good from another good, and that the Son should not be made equal to the Father, because he is God from him and is good from him? With that claim you insult them both: the Father, because he did not beget one as great as himself or as good as himself, and the Son, because he did not deserve to be born as good and as great as he who begot him. Finally, because scripture said, No one is good save the one God, we have been discussing divinity and goodness, and on your view they turn out to be defective. After all, if he could not beget one as great as he is and as good as he is, how can he be God? And if he did not want to do so, how can he be good?
7. You say, “The Father is the source of goodness and has received his goodness from no one.” See Debate with Maximinus 15, 23. †155 Is the Son less good, then, because he has received his goodness from that Father? Because the Father was God, he was able to give to the Son as he was born as much goodness as he had, and he gave it, because one who is good cannot be envious? If he gave to his only Son less goodness than he had, he himself is less good than he ought to be. But it is madness to think that. Hence, he gave to the Son as much goodness as he had. Because he is a son by nature, not by grace, he gave this to him as he was born, not because
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he was lacking it. Fullness begot fullness; the source of goodness begot the source of goodness. Thus the one did not intrinsically increase because he received, and the other did not intrinsically decrease because he gave. After all, immutability cannot decrease, and fullness cannot increase.
What is goodness itself but life that gives life? Hence, because the source begot the source, As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to those he wants (Jn 5:21). This is what the Son himself said, not I. Hence, we correctly say to God the Father, With you is the source of life. Who is this source of life with the Father but he of whom scripture says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. It was in the beginning with God? Of him it also said a little later, And the life was the light of men (Jn 1:1-2.4). This life is the source of life, and this light is the light of light. Hence, after scripture said, With you is the source of life, it immediately added, In your light we shall see the light (Ps 35:10), that is, in your Son we shall see the Holy Spirit. You stated in the first part of our debate that he is also our enlightener. See Debate with Maximinus 5. †156 Hence, source comes from source, the Son from the Father, and yet the two of them together are one God, just as God comes from God, and the two together are, of course, one God. And these two are not without the Spirit of both. From this source of goodness, from this source of life, from this immutable light, from this unfailing plenitude, that is, from the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the one and only Lord God, all those who truly believe receive, in accord with the measure of their faith, and become good, are enlivened, enlightened, and filled.
You have included among these believers the only-begotten Son with, if I may say so, an incredible rashness. These are your words: “But whether it is the Son or those who were made through him, from that one source of goodness each has drawn his goodness in accord with the measure of his faith.” See Debate with Maximinus 15, 23. †157 What, then, has happened to your previous confession that he is the Son by nature, not by grace? Look, you have contradicted your own statement. See, you betray the wicked secret of your heresy, because you profess that the true, only-begotten Son of God, true God, is a son not by nature, but by grace. After all, if, as your words proclaim, he too received his goodness in accord with the measure of his faith, then he is a son by grace, not by nature, and he was once not good and, by believing, he became good. For, as you say, he received his goodness from that source of goodness, which is the Father, in accord with the measure of his faith. We read that Jesus advanced in age and wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him (Lk 2:52), but this was according to the form of man which he took from us and for us, not according to the form of God in which he did not think it robbery to be equal to God. See Phil 2:6. †158 We also read that in the form of man he advanced in age and wisdom, but not that, by believing, he merited to become good after not being good. The question between us now does not concern the
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nature of the Son of Man in which the Son of God is less than the Father, but the nature of the Son of God. We say that he is equal to the Father in that nature, though you deny it. The true Son, the only Son, the Son who is true God from true God, is in no way inferior to the Father.
Moreover, you cannot have read anywhere in the holy scriptures that the Father is incomparable to the Son. Nor have you said with sound faith that the Father is beyond measure; you say this in such a way that you think that the Son is not equally beyond measure, but limited by a measure. Take your own measure by which you measure your false lord, while you speak falsely of the true Lord. Augustine uses at least a triple pun: “your measure (mensuram tuam),” “you measure (metiaris)” and “you speak falsely or lie (mentiaris)” and “beyond measure (immensus).” †159
On the Mutual Love of the Father and the Son
XXIV. You are right to admit both that the Father loves the Son and that the Son loves the Father, See Debate with Maximinus 15, 24. †160 but you should also admit that the Father's love is no greater than the Son's. Because they are equal in the nature of their divinity, they love each other equally. As man, the Son carries out the commandment of the Father. As God, the Son is the commandment of the Father, because he is the Word of the Father. Hence, in another passage he says of the commandment of the Father, that is, of himself, I know that his commandment is eternal life (Jn 12:50). The divine scripture bears witness that the Son of God himself is eternal life. Scripture says, He who has seen me has also seen the Father (Jn 14:9). Who does not know that those words mean that whoever sees the Son with intelligence sees that he is certainly equal to the Father? You reject this, because you do not see the Son with the eyes of the heart to the extent that he can be seen in this life. See Homilies on the Gospel of John 70, 3, where Augustine interprets Philip's request to see the Father as implying that he thought the Father was better than the Son and interprets Christ's answer as asserting their equality. †161
On the Father as Greater than the Son
XXV. You think that I was incorrect in saying that the Father is greater on account of the form of the servant that the Son assumed. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 25, as well as Phil 2:7. †162 According to your heresy you want the Father to be greater than the Son in the very form of God. You begrudge him the Father's form to the point that you would have the Son to have been born fully and eternally developed so that he cannot attain to the Father's form even by growing up. It is foolish for a man to begrudge the form of the Father to the Son of God, when the Father does not begrudge it to him, for he begot his only Son as one equal to himself. You say that it is no great glory for the Father if he is greater than the form of the servant, since even the angels are greater than it. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 25. †163 Look, are you are trying to do anything else than glorify the one Father by belittling the only Son, that is, so that the Father's glory is not increased unless the Son's nature is diminished. Get a hold of yourself.
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Do you not realize that you belittle both the Father and the Son, if the Father was either unable or unwilling to beget one equal to himself and if the Son was either unable or unwilling to be born equal to the Father? God does not want to be praised as Father in such a way that he is said to have generated from himself a son of an inferior nature. The good Father who loves the Son does not want his own form to be proclaimed as something that his only Son could neither receive by being born nor attain by growing up.
You suppose that we say nothing great of God the Father if we say that he is greater than the form of the servant, than which even the angels are greater. You misunderstand the place that human nature, which is made to the image of God, occupies among things that exist. The angels can be said to be greater than human beings, because they are greater than the human body; they are also greater than the mind in the form in which the corruptible body weighs it down as a result of original sin. But only God is greater than human nature, that is, the nature of a human mind of the sort Christ assumed which could suffer no loss through sin. Augustine holds that there is nothing superior to the rational human mind except God, at least if one understands the human mind as it was without sin in Christ and in Adam. Angels have a function different from the human soul, but not a different nature. †164
Moreover, scripture disclosed why it said, You have made him a little less than the angels (Ps 8:6), where it says, But we have seen Jesus who was made a little less than the angels in order that he might suffer death (Heb 2:9). Hence, he was not said to be less than the angels on account of human nature, but on account of his suffering death. Only God is greater than human nature which takes precedence over all other creatures by reason of its rational and intellectual mind. Certainly no injury is done to God, when scripture says, God is greater than our heart (1 Jn 3:20). Hence, when the Son was about to raise up the man he has assumed to the Father, he said, If you loved me, you would surely be glad, because I go to the Father, because the Father is greater than I (Jn 14:28); he surely placed God the Father above not only his flesh, but also above the human mind he had. The whole of human nature is acknowledged as the form of the servant, because the whole creature serves its Creator.
On the God Who Was Seen in the Old Testament
XXVI, 1. Finally, you raised a discussion concerning how God was seen by the patriarchs when Christ had not yet assumed a human body in which he might be seen, for the divine nature is by itself invisible. You admitted this, and you said, among other things, that not merely the Father, but also the Son was invisible in the substance of his divinity both to human beings and to the heavenly powers. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 9. †165 But you later changed your position and said that, even before his incarnation, he appeared to the sight of mortals. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 26. †166 You stated that the words of the apostle, No human being has seen or can see him (1 Tm 6:16), were spoken of God the Father alone, while the Son was often seen by human beings from the beginning of the human race.
When you wanted to prove this, you brought forth many testimonies from
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the holy scriptures that could offer you no help at all. You cannot find anywhere that Moses wrote, as you claim, that “from that first man,” Adam, “until the incarnation it was always the Son who was seen.” See Debate with Maximinus 15, 26.
†167 You say that he wrote this in the Book of Genesis—a claim so false that it is ridiculous. Does the Book of Genesis contain what happened from Adam up to the incarnation? Or did Moses himself remain alive or write what happened up to the time of the incarnation? You say this and think that you are saying something, or you are thought to be saying something by those who cannot see that these things are clearly false.
2. Next you mention the Father saying to the Son, Let us make man to our image and likeness. See Debate with Maximinus 15, 26. †168 How is this to the point? I ask you: How is this to the point? Did you have so much time to speak that you forgot what you set out to prove and mouthed for us from memory and to no point the words of Genesis? Have you proved that, before he assumed flesh, Christ was seen by human beings from the fact that the Father said to the Son, Let us make man to our image and likeness?
Then you add the words, And God made man (Gn 1:26-27), and say, “Which God if not the Son?” And as if to give me guidance from my work, you say, “You yourself have explained this in your treatises.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 26. Unfortunately, Augustine give no hint as to the identity of the treatises to which Maximinus refers. †169 On this point I have no desire to examine whether you are speaking the truth, since I see that what you say is utterly irrelevant. We are debating whether Christ appeared to human sight through the substance of his divinity. You say, God made man, and add, “Which God if not the Son?” as if it was necessary that man see his maker with the eyes of the flesh. If this were so, all human beings would see God. After all, who else made them in the wombs of their mothers?
You add more things of this sort and say, “This Son, then, who is the prophet of his Father, said, It is not good that man be alone; let us make a helper for him like him” (Gn 2:18). Debate with Maximinus 15, 26. †170 If I ask who told you that the Son said this, you will find yourself in great difficulties. Scripture said, In the beginning God made heaven and earth, without stating whether the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit or the Trinity itself, which is the one God, made it. For the other works, it also mentions God and says, And God made, And God said, for each of the works of which scripture declares him the creator. Hence, by a similar mode of expression it says, And God said, Let us make man to our image and likeness. And God made the man. It did not speak any differently when it said, It is not good for man to be alone; let us make a helper for him like him. Why, then, are you convinced that the Father said those other things, but the Son said this? On what basis, I ask you, do you make this distinction? On what basis do you decide that the Father said, Let there be light and the rest (Gn 1:1-27), and that the Father said, Let us make man, but that the Son said, Let us make a helper for him, when in all these cases scripture tells you only, God said? How rash this is! How presumptuous!
Moreover, you often claim that the Father is greater, because he said, “Let
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there be this or that,” as if he were giving orders to the Son, and that the Son is less because he carried out the orders. See the Arian Sermon 4, where it says that the Son “in making awaits the Father's command in all things.” In his Answer to the Arian Sermon III, 4, Augustine accuses the Arians of imagining two persons next to each other, “the one ordering, the other obeying.”
†171 What are you going to say where scripture says,
Let us make man? It does not say, as in the previous passages, “Let man be made,” as if he were giving orders to the Son. Rather it says,
Let us make man. I do not ask who you think said this; we have your words that the Father said this to the Son. Why then did he not say, “Let there be made,” or “Make,” instead of saying,
Let us make? Did God command that the other things be made and the Son make them, while both of them made the man, the Father giving the order and working with the Son, though the Son did not give the order, but only carried out the commands? Filio autem non jubente; editions: et cooperante Filio, Filio autem non jubente.
†172 If you understand that the Father gave a command, because scripture says,
God said, Let us make man, then the Son also gave a command, because you yourself understand that it was not the Father, but the Son who said,
Let us make for him a helper. Where scripture says,
And God made man, you would have us see the Son obeying the command of the Father, because the Father said,
Let us make man. In the same way, where we read,
And the Lord sent a sleep upon Adam and took one of his ribs (Gn 2:21) and the rest, where we are shown that a helper was made for man, let us follow your lead and understand that the Father obeyed the Son's command. After all, you claim that it was not the Father, but the Son who said,
Let us make a helper for him.
3. I am saying these things as if some of them were pertinent to the matter we are debating, whatever it might be that you want to believe or hold on the basis of them. Granted that the Father commanded, as you say, when it said, Let us make man, and that the Son obeyed when it said, God made man. Granted, as you would have it, that the Son said, It is not good that man be alone; let us make a helper for him, and that, when he said this, he did not command, because that is what you want. How are you going to show that the Son who made the man was seen by the man? How are you going to show that the Son who said, It is not good that man is alone; let us make a helper for him, was seen by the man or by the woman? You do not want her to have been made by the Father lest the Father seem to obey the Son; rather, the Son said that she should be made and made her, as if he commanded himself and obeyed himself. Show me that the Son was seen by the man or that he was seen by the woman. You promised that you would show me that, even before he became flesh, the Son was seen by human eyes. Show what you promised. Why do you go on without evidence? Why do you raise false hopes and leave your promise unfulfilled? You multiply words needlessly to fill up valuable time. If the Son was seen by the man because he made the man and was seen by the woman because he made the woman, state, if you dare, that God the Son cannot produce beings with sight unless the beings he produces are able to see him and not merely other things. But if God the Son can do this—for he even now produces all beings with sight
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and is, nonetheless, not seen by the eyes of those he has created—what happens to your statement? Why have you cited in your discourse those words from the Book of Genesis? Why have you used up the time we needed with your useless chatter?
4. “This Son,” you say, “appeared to Adam in accord with what we read that Adam said, I heard your voice as you walked in paradise, and I hid myself because I was naked” (Gn 3:10). Debate with Maximinus 15, 26. †173 I wish that you had said that first and then, my good man, had begun to show what you promised. And yet Adam says here, I heard your voice. He does not say, “I saw your face or your appearance.” And his words, I hid myself, because I was naked, show that he was afraid to be seen by God; they do not show that God was seen by him. After all, if when a voice is heard, vision follows, God the Father too was seen as often as he bore witness to the Son with his voice. We, of course, know from the gospel the words of the Father who spoke and said, You are my beloved Son and so on (Mk 1:11). Human beings heard him, but did not see him. Similarly, in the case of those words which you cite, when he says, Who told you that you were naked? and the rest, God could be heard, but not seen. See, then, that you have not yet said anything of what you have promised, and finally say something that we ought to examine and that we might admit favors your position.
5. “This God,” you say, “was seen by Abraham.” Debate with Maximinus 15, 26. †174 We cannot deny that God was seen by Abraham. Scripture, which is most worthy of our belief, states this clearly, when it says, God was seen by Abraham at the oak of Mambre. See Gn 18:1. †175 Even here it is not clearly stated whether it is the Father or the Son. But when scripture recounts how God was seen by him, it says that three men appeared to him, and in them we can more correctly understand the Trinity itself, which is the one God. Indeed, he sees three, and yet he calls them not three lords, but the Lord, because the Trinity is three persons, though the one Lord God.
Scripture recounts what Abraham saw as follows, Looking up, he saw with his eyes, and behold three men were standing near him. When he saw them, he ran to meet them from the door of his tent, and he prostrated himself on the earth and said, “Lord, if I have found favor with you, do not pass your servant by.” Here we see that three men appeared, and Abraham called them one Lord and asked the one Lord not to pass his servant by, for it was fitting that God visit his servants. Then he addresses the three persons in the plural, when he says, Let water be drawn now, and let me wash your feet. Refresh yourselves under the tree. I will prepare a meal. Eat, and then you will continue on your way, for you have come to your servant. It is clear that he invited them as if they were men, for he would not offer them such a service to refresh their weary bodies if he did not think they were human. Scripture mentions that they answered in the plural; it says, And they said, “Do as you have said.” It did not say, “And he said,” but “they said.” Then, when the meal was prepared, scripture says, And
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he set it before them and they ate. It does not say, “He set it before him and he ate.”
But when it comes to the point where a son is promised to Abraham from Sarah, it was a gift of God that was being offered, and it was not human service that was being paid to human beings. There scripture mentions one who said, Where is your wife, Sarah? It did not say, “They said to him,” but it said, But he said to him, “Where is your wife, Sarah?” Afterward it makes it clear who said this. When Sarah laughed, the same scripture said, And the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh to herself?” and the rest to the end, as if the one Lord is speaking in the singular. After this it recounts the departure of the men in the plural and says, But the men rose up from there and looked in the direction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham walked with them as their guide. Scripture again returns to the singular number and says, But the Lord said, “Shall I conceal from my servant, Abraham, what I am going to do?” Then he promises to Abraham a renowned and abundant posterity and announces the destruction of Sodom. The following part of the scripture says, Having left there, the men came to Sodom. Abraham was still standing before the Lord. Abraham approached him and said, “Do not destroy the just with the wicked,” and “Will the just be treated the same as the wicked?”
After this conversation between the Lord and Abraham, scripture goes on to say, The Lord went off so that he ceased speaking with Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place. The two angels, however, came to Sodom in the evening. These are the ones of whom scripture said a little before, Having left there, the men came to Sodom. But it had not stated that there were two, though it had said in the beginning that three men had appeared to Abraham and that, after having welcomed them as guests, he guided them as they left, walking along with them.
6. Perhaps you are now in a hurry to claim that the Lord Christ was the one among them who made the promises and replied to Abraham in the singular, while the other two, his angels, came to Sodom like angels sent by their Lord. But wait a minute. Why the rush? Let us consider everything with care and first look at the words of the Lord as he spoke to Abraham. The cry of Sodom and of Gomorrah, he says, has increased, and their sins are very great. I will go down, then, and see whether they act according to their cry that comes to me. Here he said that he would go down to Sodom, though he did not go there, but the two angels did. Augustine says that the Lord did not go to Sodom, but that the two angels did, following the interpretation that he is attributing to Maximinus. †176 He himself went off so that he ceased speaking with Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place. The two angels, however, came, as has been said, to Sodom in the evening. What if we find in those two angels the Lord who, according to his word, went down to Sodom in the angels? Will it not be clear that the one Lord was seen in those three men? What else besides the Trinity does that prefigure?
But let us see whether the holy scripture will show us that the one Lord is
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also found, as I said, in those two angels, so that you do not think that we said this because that is what our heart desired.
The two angels, then,
came to Sodom in the evening. Lot was seated, as scripture says,
at the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he arose to meet them and prostrated himself on the earth. Do you see that here the just man adored the angels, while you object to the Holy Spirit being adored, though you too clearly rank him ahead of all the angels? Angelis missing in Louvain only.
†177 You might say, “He believed they were men, for he offered them hospitality as men.” That is even more against you since you say the Holy Spirit, who should be preferred to all the angels, is not adored, though you see that men, who are inferior to the angels, are adored by just men. You might say, “He adored the Lord; he recognized that he was in those two whom he thought to be men, as he is in the prophets.” Then I have proved what I promised to prove through holy scripture, namely, that the same Lord who was said to have left so that he ceased speaking to Abraham went down to Sodom in the two angels, as he said, and was recognized in them by the just man. Thus Lot showed them hospitality as holy men of God in whom he recognized that God was present, though he did not know any more than Abraham did that they were angels. These patriarchs were referred to in the Letter to the Hebrews when it says, speaking of hospitality,
By it some have welcomed angels without knowing it (Heb 13:2). Thus, when he welcomed them, Lot did not know that they were angels, but he recognized who was present in them, as he was able to, because the Lord showed him, and he left Sodom with them.
I pass over the intervening events. But before they left, as scripture says, The men said to Lot, “Do you have sons-in-law or sons or daughters here? Or if you have someone else in the city, take him from this place, because we are going to destroy Perdimus with the manuscripts; editions: perdemus. †178 this place. For their cry has risen up before the Lord, and the Lord sent us to destroy it.” See how it is clear that the burning of Sodom was done by angels whom the Lord sent, and yet he was present in them. He did not send them so that he withdrew from them. Hence, he went down to Sodom in them, as he foretold that he would do when he spoke with Abraham. And after he spoke with Abraham, scripture said that he went away and that the angels came to Sodom in the evening. Then, shortly afterward, as soon as they brought Lot out, they also said, as the same scripture tells us, Save your life; do not look back or remain in the whole area. Save yourself on the mountain so that you are not trapped. Lot said to them, I
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beg you, Lord, because your servant has found mercy before you, and so on. When he had finished saying these things and had chosen a small town for himself where he might be safe, the scripture continues and says that he received the answer,
Behold, I have respected Miratus sum with the manuscripts, as in The City of God 16, 29, following the Septuagint: ἐθαύμασα, that is., reveritus sum, suspexi. Editions: miseratus sum.
†179 your person in this matter so that I will not destroy the town you mentioned. Hurry, then, that you may be safe there. I will not be able to do this deed until you arrive there (Gn 18 and 19). Who gave him this response but he to whom he said,
I beg you, Lord? He said this to both, not to one of them, as scripture clearly says,
Lot said to them, “I beg you, Lord.” Lot, then, recognized Agnovit ergo; but manuscripts: Agnovisti ergo.
†180 the one Lord in the two angels, just as Abraham recognized the one Lord in three.
7. There is no reason to say, “The one who was the Lord and who had spoken with Abraham went away, but it was two of his angels who came to Sodom, when he went away.” Abeunte; Louvain only: jubente. †181 All three who appeared to Abraham were called men in the way that scripture often calls angels men. Abraham did not serve any one of them more quickly and more humbly than the other two. Rather, he washed the feet of them all alike and served food to them all alike. Hence, he saw God in all of them. For that reason scripture said that God was seen by Abraham at the oak of Mambre and that in the shade of the tree he gave food to the three men. He saw men with the eyes of the body, though he saw God in them with the eyes, not of the body, but of the heart. That is, he understood and recognized God in them. In the same way Lot saw God in the two to whom he spoke, not in the plural, but in the singular, and God answered him, as one. At first Abraham heard him through the three men, but afterward through the one who, when the two went to Sodom, remained and spoke with him. Lot heard him through the two, though he also heard the one Lord whom he asked for his deliverance and who answered him. Though both of them, that is, Abraham and Lot, considered those who were angels to be humans, they still understood that God was present in them, as he was; they did not think that he was present when he was not. What, then, is the point of this visible trinity and intelligible unity but to teach us that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are three in such a way that all together they are not three gods or three lords, but one Lord God?
You said, “This God was seen by Abraham.” See Debate with Maximinus 15, 26. †182 You knew that you read the words of scripture that say that God was seen by Abraham at the oak of Mambre. And wanting to prove that the Lord, the Son, was seen by that Patriarch, you ignored those three men and said absolutely nothing about them, though scripture tells us that Abraham saw God in them. You did this so as not to remind us that God the Trinity is of one substance, just as those three men that Abraham saw were of one substance. When scripture said, God was seen by Abraham, it did not say that there were three gods, because it said, God was seen, not “gods were seen,” and Abraham saw three and adored one. From the one whom he did not want to pass him by, he received the answer of the divinity. He did not think the other two of them were two gods, but that there was one in all of them. Lot saw two and still recognized one Lord. There I think that the Son and the Holy Spirit are signified by the angels, because those angels said that they were sent, and of the Trinity which is God, the Father alone is not said to have been sent, while the Son and the Holy Spirit are said to have been sent. Their nature is not different, for those men by whom they were signified were of one and the same nature. Thus you avoided with shrewd silence this passage which could refute
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you. When you said, “This God was seen by Abraham,” you wanted us to think that only the Son was seen where we read in Genesis that God was seen by Abraham. Hence, you would not say how he was seen lest we recognize there, not the Son alone, but God the Trinity.
8. You said, “If you want to believe that the Son was seen by Abraham, the Only-Begotten himself declared in the holy gospel as follows, Abraham, your father, rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and he was glad” (Jn 8:56). See Debate with Maximinus 15, 26. †183 Come on, argue; prove what you have promised! You imply that the Son of God said, “Abraham, your father, desired to see me, and he saw me and he was glad.” Still we could understand even this in the sense that the holy Patriarch saw the Son of God with the eyes of the heart, not with the eyes of the flesh upon which our argument is centered. Augustine reminds his readers that the issue concerns whether the Son was seen by bodily eyes in the Old Testament theophanies; he has no problem with admitting that the Son was seen with the eyes of the heart or with the intellect. †184 When Christ said, Abraham desired Augustine uses concupivit here instead of exsultavit as above. †185 to see my day, and he saw it and he was glad, why do we not understand the day of Christ to be the time of Christ when he was to come in the flesh? Abraham as well as the other prophets could see this in spirit and rejoice. To see “in the spirit” is not to see with the eyes of the body or with the eyes of the mind, but to see with the imagination, at times under influence of God or the angels. See The Literal Meaning of Genesis XII, 9, 20, where Augustine takes the dream of Pharaoh as an example of spiritual vision, while Joseph, who understood and interpreted the dream, deserved to be called a prophet. “He is less a prophet, then, who sees in the spirit only the signs of the realities signified by the images of the bodily realities, and he is more the prophet who excels in both so that he sees in the spirit the likenesses signifying the bodily things and understands them with the vigor of his mind.” †186 Here too, then, you were unable to prove what you set out to prove and promised to prove.
9. After this, you came to Jacob who wrestled with the angel, whom the passage of Genesis calls both a man and God. We read as follows, But Jacob remained alone, and a man wrestled with him until the morning. He saw, however, that he could not defeat him, and he touched the breadth of his thigh, and the breadth of his thigh became numb Obstupuit; manuscripts: obstipuit. †187 as he wrestled with him. And he said to him, “Let me go, for the dawn is coming.” But he said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” But he said, “What is your name?” He said, “Jacob.” And he said to him, “Your name will no longer be called Jacob, but your name will be Israel, because you have struggled with God and are powerful among men.” But Jacob asked him, saying, “Tell me your name.” And he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And he blessed him there, and Jacob called the name of the place: The Vision of God. “For I have seen God face to face, and my life has been preserved” (Gn 32:24-30).
From that passage you try to show that the only Son of God appeared visibly, even before he came in the flesh. Still, it is not absurd to understand that Christ is prefigured there by reason of the prophecy announcing what was to come. It was going to come about that, in his offspring who crucified Christ, Jacob would seem to prevail over Christ. And in his offspring he would see Christ face to face, and the soul of the Israelites who saw this with faith would be saved. Nonetheless, Hosea the prophet clearly says that the man who wrestled with Jacob was an angel. In the womb he usurped the place of this brother, and mightily he fought with God. He struggled with an angel and prevailed (Hos 12:3-4). Just as in Genesis the one who wrestled with Jacob is called Et Deus dicitur; the manuscripts: et Deus scitur. †188 both man and God, so he is called by this prophet both God and an angel. The one who was an angel was called a man, just as those who appeared to Abraham were
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called men, when he and Lot welcomed angels without knowing it. God, then, was present in the angel, just as he is in the man, especially when he speaks through the man. Thus Christ was prefigured by this angel, just as he was by the man. What did Isaac, the son of Abraham, prefigure but Christ? He was led as a sheep to sacrifice, See Is 53:7.
†189 and he carried the wood upon which he was to be placed, just as Christ carried his cross.
Finally, why should we be surprised that Jesus is prefigured by an angel, if he was prefigured not only by a man, but even by an animal? After all, who else was that ram whose horns were caught in the thorn bush save Christ crucified or even crowned with thorns. Abraham sacrificed this ram in place of his son whom he was ordered to spare. See Gn 22:6-13. †190 God ordered that the human being be spared, but he did so in such a way that the animal served to complete the mystery of the sacred blood on account of the passion of Christ which was foretold in that way. If, then, you think that Christ was properly, and not figuratively, the angel that wrestled with Jacob, you can say that Christ was properly, and not figuratively, the ram that the patriarch Abraham sacrificed, and you can, finally, say that Christ was properly, and not figuratively, the rock that, when struck by the staff, poured forth abundant drink for the thirsty people. See Ex 17:6. Augustine, of course, regards it as absurd to suppose that Christ was the rock or the ram or the angel in the proper sense. In Teaching Christianity II, 10, 15, he explains that the term “ox” is used in the proper sense when it is used for the animal and that it is used in a metaphorical sense when it is used for the minister of the gospel (1 Cor 9:9). The rock, the ram, and the angel were signs that prefigured Christ, not Christ himself. Hence, the angel with whom Jacob wrestled was not Christ, but a creature who prefigured Christ. †191 After all, the apostle speaks this way: They drank from the spiritual rock that followed them. But the rock was Christ (1 Cor 10:4). These figures were not the things themselves; rather, the figures came first and signified the things that were to come. These figures were presented to the sight of mortals by some creature that was subject to God and especially by the ministry of angels; God's power did this, though there remained hidden the nature of the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit.
10. It is pointless, then, for you to claim that the Son of God was seen by humans and that the Father was not seen, since the Father too could be seen through the creature subject to him as well as the Son and the Holy Spirit. But none of them was seen through their substance. Maximinus argued that the Son is inferior to the Father, because the Son was visible and the Father was invisible. Augustine claims that none of the three persons was visible in the very substance of God, but that each of them could be “seen” through some creature which the person used as a sign of himself. Thus, as Augustine adds, God is signified rather than displayed to human senses. †192 Hence, God was rather signified than shown to the weak senses of human beings. Therefore, he was not seen as he is; that is promised, of course, to the saints in the life to come. For this reason the apostle John says, Beloved, we are now children of God, and it has not yet been disclosed what we shall be. We know that, when he shall appear, we will be like him, for we shall see him as he is (1 Jn 3:2). The apostles, then, saw the Lord in this world; they saw him, but not as he is. The apostles saw the Lord with their bodily eyes; they also understood, at least eventually, with the eyes of faith that he was the Son of the Father. They did not, however, see the Son in the form of God, that is, “as he is.” In Letter 147, 29, Augustine cites Ambrose's words, “Not all the apostles saw Christ” (Expositio Euangelii secundum Lucam I, 27). In explanation, he quotes Jn 14:9: “Have I been with you so long, and you still have not known me?” and adds, “See how God was present and was not seen.” †193
Finally, Moses desired that God be revealed to him, although he was speaking to him face to face, as scripture indicates. See Ex 33:13.11. †194 When I said this earlier in my discourse, See Debate with Maximinus 14. †195 you passed it over as if you had not heard, though I was willing that the whole of that same discourse of mine be read from the tablets. Because you have not distinguished between God's being seen through his substance and God's being seen through a creature subject to him, you have fallen into such great irreverence that you say that the only-begotten Son of God is changeable
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insofar as he is God. You think that the words which you say are found in scripture, “I am who I am, and I have not changed,” should be attributed to the Father alone. You imply that the Son and the Holy Spirit were changed when they appeared visibly, the one, because he was born of a woman, the other, because he revealed himself to human sight in the form of a dove or in fiery tongues. On that point I have already answered you in my discourse where I showed that you did not refute what I said. See Debate with Maximinus I, 15.
†196
Now I will help you to understand in what sense God said, I am who I am, and I have not changed, or rather what we find in scripture, I am the Lord, and I do not change (Mal 3:6). Maximinus's text conflates Ex 3:14 with Mal 3:6 and has mutatus sum instead of mutor. Augustine interprets the name, “I am who I am,” as signifying God's immutability. In Sermon 7, 7, he comments on Ex 3:14, “Being is the name of immutability. After all, all things which change cease to be what they were and begin to be what they were not. Only he who does not change has true being, pure being, genuine being.” See E. Zum Brunn, Saint Augustine: Being and Nothingness (New York: Paragon House, 1988), for her appendix on Augustine's exegesis of Ex 3:14. †197 It was not the Father alone, but the one God, who is the Trinity, that said this; pay attention to the Psalm which reads, You, Lord, in the beginning established the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands; they will perish, but you will remain. Like clothing, they will grow old, and you will change them like a cloak, and they will be changed. But you are the selfsame, and your years will not fail (Ps 101:26-28). Augustine takes “the selfsame: idipsum” as a divine name signifying the immutable and eternal being of God. In Exposition of the Psalms 121, 5, Augustine says, “What is 'the selfsame'? That which is always the same way; that which is not now one thing, now another. What is it that is? That which is eternal. For what is ever one way and then another is not, because it does not last; it is not utterly non-existent, but is not in the highest degree.” See J. Swetnam, “A Note on In Idipsum in Saint Augustine,” The Modern Schoolman 30 (1953), 328-331. †198 Now the holy scripture testifies in the Letter to the Hebrews that this was said to the Son. See Heb 1:10-12. †199 Who can fail to understand that the words, The heavens will be changed, but you are the selfsame, means nothing else than, “You are not changed”? Hence, it is proper for God the Son as well to say, I am who I am, and I have not changed, or I am the Lord, and I am not changed. You have attributed this to the Father alone so that you believe that the Son is changeable in his substance, as if he assumed the man in such a way that he was changed into the man. You will not undo that irreverence unless you believe that, in the assumption of the man, the Son acquired what he was not, but he did not lose or cease to have what he was.
11. Next I ask who appeared to Moses in the fire when the bush was in flames though not consumed. Scripture states that an angel appeared in that case too, when it says, But an angel of the Lord appeared to him in the flame of fire from the bush (Ex 3:2). Who is going to doubt that God was in the angel? But who was this God—the Father or the Son? You are going to say, “The Son.” After all, you do not want the Father to have appeared to mortal eyes in any way, even through a creature that was subject to him. But whichever of these you choose, I will respond to each of them. If it was the Father, then the Father too appeared to human beings; if it was the Son, then the Son too is not changed. When Moses asked who it was that was sending him, he answered, I am who I am. What does this mean but, I am not changed, just as you yourself set forth the testimony of the prophet, I am who I am, and I have not changed. He also said to Moses, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob (Ex 3:14-15). Deny, if you dare, that God the Father is the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, if it was not he, but the Son who spoke from the bush. If it was the Father, admit that the Father too was seen by human beings. But if each of them is the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, as you
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concede, why do you avoid saying that each is the one God? Jacob is that Israel to whose offspring it is said,
Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one (Dt 6:4).
12. Recognize, then, that what I have said is true, that the divinity appeared to the eyes of mortals, when it wanted, not through its substance in which it is invisible and immutable, but through a creature that was subject to it. I did not say that the divinity showed itself to the patriarchs, Patribus; many manuscripts: patris. †200 as you wanted to interpret my words or wanted that they be interpreted, as if I wanted people to believe that it was visible, though I had said earlier that it was invisible. Rather, I said that, “when the divinity was manifested to the patriarchs, it revealed itself as visible through a creature that was subject to it. Through its own nature it was invisible to the point that Moses said to him, when he was speaking to him face to face, If I have found favor before you, show me yourself clearly” (Ex 33:11.13). See Debate with Maximinus 14. †201 This is what I said; reread it and you will find that I am telling the truth and that you either did not want to understand what I said or could not. Listen to me, then, as I say the very same thing a bit more clearly. I say that the divinity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is invisible to mortal eyes in its nature and substance. Heaven forbid that I should say that it transforms itself into visible forms, for I maintain that it is immutable. There remains, then, that when it showed itself to human sight as it willed, we should understand that it did this through a creature subject to it, which can appear to mortal eyes.
13. Why is it that, when you said of the Father, “There is one who is invisible,” which we have amply discussed, you added, “There is one who is incomprehensible and immense”? Debate with Maximinus 15, 26. †202 We do not find in scripture that God is incomprehensible. Since Maximinus professed to remain with the language of the Bible, his introduction of a term not found in scripture has him hoist with his own petard. †203 I certainly do not know why you call him incomprehensible. If he cannot be comprehended, how can not only the Son, but also the Father come to a human being and make their abode in him, as the Son himself says? See Jn 14:23. Augustine takes “comprehend” in the literal sense in which a house contains one who dwells in it in order to show that, in accord with the scripture, God is comprehended in some sense. †204 I think that the one in whom they make their abode comprehends them. Do you perhaps say, “They are comprehended not wholly, but in part”? Say what you want; for my answer to you is, “They are, then, not incomprehensible, if they are even in part able to be comprehended.” Was it not enough for you to call him incomprehensible so that you added, “immense,” to explain why you say, “incomprehensible,” that is, because human nature is not able to comprehend the whole of him, since he is immense? But this can be said of the Son. After all, no one comprehends the only-begotten Word in such a way that he dares to claim that he is capable of comprehending him in every respect. Moreover, we have no doubt that he is immense.
I ask you to whom you think these words of scripture refer: He is great and has no limit; he is lofty and immense. It says of him a little further on, This is our God; no other is compared to him. He has discovered every path of learning
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and has given it to Jacob, his servant, and to Israel, his chosen one. Afterwards he appeared on earth and lived among human beings (Bar 3:26.36-38). Who is this? Answer me. Who, I ask, is
great and has no limit,
lofty and immense, who
appeared on earth and lived among human beings? I see the turmoil and the difficulties you are suffering. You are afraid to say, “It is the Father,” when you hear,
He appeared on earth and lived among human beings. For you want the Father to be truly invisible in his substance, and you do not want him to have been seen by humans even through a creature subject to him. You are afraid to say, “It is the Son,” when you hear,
He has no limit; he is lofty and immense. After all, you contend that the Father alone is immense. You are afraid to say, “It is the Holy Spirit,” when you hear,
This is our God. For you do not want the Holy Spirit to be God. What are you going to do? What answer are you going to make, you, a man who does not want to be a Catholic? As a Catholic, you would understand that Christ was seen on earth and lived among human beings in the form of the servant, while you would confess that he is immense in the form of God in which he remained invisible.
This is our God; no other is compared to him. Who is this other save the Antichrist whom the true faith does not acknowledge as the true Christ, though the awful error of the Jews awaits him instead of the true Christ?
14. If you pray and beg, as you say, to be a disciple of the divine scriptures, consider the testimonies of God that pertain to the point at issue. Do not wander off through many texts that offer you no help. Choose to be wisely silent rather than to speak foolishly, when you fail to find some answer to make to the clear truth. You show that you are afraid that I will expose you before your disciples. I wish that you would put on Christ so that you would want your disciples to be his disciples rather than yours. I do not regret working, to the extent that the Lord gives me the grace, that you and your disciples might be fellow disciples with me under the one teacher. You still promise after all this time that you will make an answer to my treatise. If you answer in the way you have answered my questions or discourses, you will clearly make no answer. But in order somehow or other to deceive the less intelligent, you will not be silent.
From all these points, then, which I have argued as best I could, it is clear enough that there is one power, one substance, one deity, one majesty, one glory of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, because the Trinity is the one Lord, our God, of whom scripture says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is one (Dt 6:4). That was said, when the Lord alone was leading them and there was no foreign god among them. And Christ was also leading them, since the apostle says, Let us not tempt Christ as some of them tempted him (1 Cor 10:9). Either Christ is not God, or Christ is a foreign god. This God, then, is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, one God; we are commanded to serve this one God with that service that we owe only to God,
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when we hear,
You shall adore the Lord your God, and you shall serve him alone (Dt 6:13). With that service we do not fail to serve Christ, whose members we are, or the Holy Spirit, whose temple we are. This Trinity, one God, says,
I am the Lord, and there is no other besides me (Dt 32:39). Christ is, of course, the Lord; you yourself admit that he is God and Lord, and the Holy Spirit is Lord of his house, that is, of his temple. This is the Spirit of the Lord, of which scripture says,
The Lord is Spirit; where there is the Spirit of the Lord, there is freedom (2 Cor 3:17). This Trinity is the one God of whom the apostle says,
There is no God save the one (1 Cor 8:4). When you hear these words, you do not dare to say that the Only-Begotten is not God. This God, the Trinity, says,
I am who I am, and
I have not changed (Ex 3:14; Mal 3:6). For Christ was not changed; to him scripture says,
You shall change the heavens, and they will be changed, but you are the selfsame (Ps 101:27-28). The Spirit of truth will not be changed, because the truth is immutable; Christ himself pays him such great honor that he says,
It is to your advantage that I go; for unless I go, the Paraclete will not come to you (Jn 16:7), and
Whoever blasphemes against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but one who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven (Mt 12:32). And though he said of himself,
Behold, I will be with you until the end of the world (Mt 28:20), he said of the Holy Spirit
that he will be with you forever (Jn 14:16). It would take a long time to find and gather together these testimonies and others like them. But if you peacefully accept them, you will be what you say that you pray and long to be, a disciple of the divine scriptures so that we may enjoy your brotherhood.
Notes
†1 See Debate with Maximinus I.
†2 The chapter numbers of the second book correspond to the paragraph numbers in Maximinus's long final discourse.
†3 For Sabellians, or Patripassions, see Heresies XLI.
†4 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 1.
†5 See 1 Tm 2:2.4.
†6 Debate with Maximinus 15, 2.
†7 Debate with Maximinus 15, 2.
†8 Quando with manuscripts; Migne: Quomodo.
†9 Debate with Maximinus 15, 3.
†10 Augustine implies that from the text of scripture the Catholic understands other things than those explicitly stated in the text. That is, he is quite opposed to one's remaining with the literal reading of the text of scripture. Augustine immediately provides as examples, “unbegotten,” “unborn,” and “incomparable,” which Maximinus uses to speak of the Father, though the terms are not found in scripture.
†11 See 1 Cor 6:19.15.
†12 Debate with Maximinus 15, 4. See Rom 8:34.
†13 Debate with Maximinus 15, 5.
†14 See Debate with Maximinus 13.
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†15 Debate with Maximinus 15, 5.
†16 See Debate with Maximinus 14.
†17 Debate with Maximinus 15, 6.
†18 Debate with Maximinus 15, 7.
†19 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 7.
†20 Augustine turns Maximinus's argument into a dilemma against him. It is effective as an ad hominem response, but it would seem to be open to less desirable uses, for example, that the Father was either envious or impotent if he did not produce more sons than the one.
†21 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 8.
†22 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 9.
†23 See Mt 22:30.
†24 Answer to Maximinus I, 3; Augustine quotes himself here rather than Maximinus; see Debate with Maximinus 15, 9, for Maximinus's words.
†25 Debate with Maximinus 15, 9.
†26 Debate with Maximinus 15, 9.
†27 That is, Maximinus thinks of God in a very human, or “carnal,” manner and pictures him in human form. True wisdom involves being able to think of God without such bodily imagery.
†28 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 9.
†29 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 10. Though not a direct quote, it is clearly implied by what Maximinus says.
†30 See Mt 19:12.
†31 Attaining some understanding of the mystery of the Trinity is not something that everyone can do or is obliged to do, but everyone is obliged to believe the word of God. The Arian position seems to rest in part upon a failure to grasp God's incorporeal nature. Augustine accuses Maximinus of thinking of God in images and even suggests that the heresy arises from such image thinking. See my “Heresy and Imagination in St. Augustine,” Studia Patristica XXVII (Leuven: Peters, 1993), 400-404.
†32 Debate with Maximinus 15, 10.
†33 Debate with Maximinus 15, 10.
†34 See The Trinity XV 6, 9, where Augustine shows that the multiplicity of attributes is compatible with divine simplicity.
†35 Debate with Maximinus 15, 7, as well as above, II, 7.
†36 Debate with Maximinus 15, 11.
†37 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 9.
†38 See Debate with Maximinus 11, where Maximinus speaks of the Son's receiving his life from the Father, while the Father receives his life from no one.
†39 Neque enim non potuit; many of the better manuscripts: Neque enim potuit. The Maurists point out, however, that in the Sentences I, d. 7, a. 2, Peter Lombard cites the text as translated above. They explain that it comes not from the weakness of the Son, but from the nature of things that the Son did not generate and that we do not have to think that the Son could have generated another son, as Petavius believes that Augustine thought (see Petavius, Theologia dogmatica de Trinitate VII, ch. 13, n. 69).
†40 The omnipotent Father begot an omnipotent Son, because, according to Jn 5:19, the Son's power for creating is coextensive with the Father's. But Jn 5:19 does not imply that the Son begot a son of his own.
†41 That is, the word order itself does not make it clear which way the text should be understood, but the sense of the text demands that it be understood in the second way.
†42 God is wise “according to substance,” because wisdom is not a quality that God can gain or lose, but is the very substance of God. For God to be wise “according to accident” would mean that his wisdom is an accident and that he was subject to change, that is, that he could gain or lose his wisdom. See The Trinity V, 4, 5-5, 6.
†43 Debate with Maximinus 15, 14.
†44 From the verb, “to breathe (spirare),” there was later formed the technical term for the procession of the Holy Spirit, namely, spiration, just as from the verb, “to generate (generare),” there was formed the technical term for the procession of the Son.
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†45 The Arians appealed to Is 53:8 as grounds for agnosticism about the manner of the Son's generation. Augustine turns their argument against them to justify his ignorance of the nature of the procession of the Spirit.
†46 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 14.
†47 See Mt 22:29.
†48 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 13, where Maximinus cites the canon from the Council of Ariminum.
†49 Minus quam oportuit intellectum, quod tamen; manuscripts.: minus quam potuit intellectam, quam tamen.
†50 Augustine is in fact correct. The credal formula of the Council of Ariminum (359) and of Nicê (360) clarified for those who were hesitant to embrace the formula of Nicaea what was at stake in the controversy and led them to accept the non-biblical homoousios as what was needed to safeguard the Christian doctrine of God.
†51 See Rom 1:20.
†52 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 14.
†53 Generat filium, sapientia consensum accommodans corpori; Erasmus, here and in the Debate: generatum filium, sapientium consensu, accommodans corpori. Louvain, less correctly: et sapientia; the word et is missing from the manuscripts. The BAC translation here follows the reading in Erasmus, while retaining the Latin of Migne.
†54 Debate with Maximinus 15, 14.
†55 Debate with Maximinus 15, 14.
†56 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 14.
†57 See above, II, 12, 2, as well as I, 4.
†58 In Sermon 116, 11, Augustine uses this example to illustrate that things can be of equal duration (coaeva), though the one arises from the other. Since only God is eternal, he cannot produce created examples of eternal realities.
†59 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 14; it is not a direct quotation.
†60 Debate with Maximinus 11.
†61 In The Trinity VI, 2, 3, Augustine states the rule that only characteristics that both of them do not have cannot be used in the formula “that from that.” Since the Father and the Son are each life, wisdom, light, etc., the Son is life from life, wisdom from wisdom, light from light, etc.
†62 See Ps 8:6.
†63 See Mt 26:26, Mk 8:6, Jn 6:11; see also Debate with Maximinus 15, 14.
†64 See Mt 10:29.
†65 Quo with manuscripts; editions: quibus.
†66 Augustine speaks of “carnal persons” (carnales), an expression which he derives from Paul (see 1 Cor 3:1-3) who contrasts “carnal” and “animal” with “spiritual” persons. Augustine holds that one mark of the “carnal” and “animal” persons is their inability to think of incorporeal realities.
†67 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 14.
†68 Debate with Maximinus 15, 14.
†69 Augustine points out that Christ did not say that he has received the power to lay down his life from the Father, but the command to do so. He goes on to point out that one is commanded to do what is already in his power. Hence, Christ who had the power to die as a man received the command to lay down his life as a man.
†70 That is, we are at times commanded to do something which we do not have the power to do without the grace of God. In that case, we must first pray that we receive the power to do what we are commanded to do.
†71 Quanta ipsi Patri est; manuscripts.: quanta ipsius est Patris.
†72 Et perfectum genuit plenitudine divinitatis, non perficiendum aetatis accessu, with Amerbach, Erasmus and manuscripts. Louvain: et perfectam genuit plenitudinem divinitatis, non perficiendam aetatis accesu.
†73 Once again Augustine appeals to the argument that, if the Father did not generate the Son as his equal, he must have been either envious or impotent.
†74 Debate with Maximinus 15, 15.
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†75 See Jn 15:26, as well as above, II, xiv, 1.
†76 Debate with Maximinus 15, 15. The Latin “natura: nature” is etymologically tied with “born: natum.” Indeed, its first meaning is given as “the conditions of birth.” Maximinus, however, seems to argue that God does not have a nature, because he is spirit. That does not work, since he admits that the Son has a nature, and the Son is certainly spirit. Hence, Augustine suggests that Maximinus denies the Father a nature, because the Father is unborn (innatum).
†77 Debate with Maximinus 15, 15.
†78 The formula “like in every respect” had appeared in the fourth Creed of Sirmium (359). Augustine indicates his willingness to accept this formula as equivalent to homoousios. The Creed of Ariminum which Maximinus accepts has only the ambiguous phrase: “like the Father according to the scriptures.”
†79 Nam vultis; Louvain alone: Nec vultis.
†80 Debate with Maximinus 15, 15.
†81 Debate with Maximinus 15, 15.
†82 Datus est with the manuscripts; editions: dictus est.
†83 See Ex 7:1.
†84 Debate with Maximinus 15, 15.
†85 Augustine's change in the word order is ingenious, but it is surely not the obvious way to read the text. On the other hand, John certainly need not be taken as denying that Jesus Christ is the one true God.
†86 See Rv 19:12.
†87 Maximinus cannot deny that the Father knows the name, because he admits that the Father is God; since he does not admit that the Spirit is God, he might well deny that the Spirit knows that name.
†88 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 15.
†89 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 15.
†90 Debate with Maximinus 15, 15.
†91 Verissime, with the manuscripts; editions: Veritatem verissime.
†92 Augustine views childhood and adolescence as mere means by which parents get a mature offspring and not as stages in the child's life that the parents might desire for their own sake.
†93 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 15.
†94 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 15.
†95 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 16.
†96 Augustine certainly did not fail to value humility, but his emphasis upon God as the Truth would never allow him to view any humility divorced from truth as a virtue.
†97 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 16.
†98 Augustine uses the more concrete expression, “the same man,” which I have translated as “the same human nature.”
†99 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 16. Maximinus probably takes the fact that the power was given to Jesus by the Father as indicating that it is less than the power of the Father.
†100 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 16.
†101 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 16.
†102 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 17.
†103 Emittes with the manuscripts.; the editions: emitte.
†104 See above, the beginning of this paragraph.
†105 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 21.
†106 See 1 Cor 1:24.
†107 See Prv 9:1.
†108 See Ps 62:12.
†109 The question of the origin of human souls is one that troubled Augustine throughout his life. In Free Will III, 20, 56-21, 59, Augustine lists four hypotheses about the origin of human souls: (1) that individual souls are generated by parents (traducianism), (2) that souls are individually created by God as human beings are born (creationism), (3) that souls preexisted their embodiment and were sent into bodies by God, and (4) that souls preexisted their embodiment and fell into bodies
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as the result of sin. See Robert O'Connell's books,
Saint Augustine's Early Theory of Man, A.D. 386-391 (Cambridge: Harvard, 1968) and
The Origin of the Soul in Saint Augustine's Later Works (New York: Fordham, 1987). With regard to the soul of Christ, Augustine is quite clear that traducianism cannot be the correct explanation, since it would entail Christ's having contracted original sin in Adam; see Letter 164 7, 19, as well as
The Literal Meaning of Genesis X, 18, 32.
†110 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 17.
†111 The Latin principium can mean “beginning” and also “principle” or “source.” Both senses are involved in this section. The Father is the source without source, while the Son is the source that has a source. Both the Father and the Son are the one source of the Holy Spirit who proceeds from both.
†112 Debate with Maximinus 15, 18.
†113 Debate with Maximinus 14 and Answer to Maximinus I, 7.
†114 Debate with Maximinus 15, 18.
†115 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 18.
†116 Minorem natura; Amerbach and Erasmus: minorem natum; many manuscripts: minorem naturam.
†117 See Lk 2:51.
†118 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 18.
†119 See Col 1:18.
†120 See Lk 4:1.
†121 See Debate with Maximinus 13.
†122 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 20.
†123 Debate with Maximinus 15, 20.
†124 Maximinus has frequently implied that Christ did not have a human soul. Augustine points out that Christ explicitly spoke of his soul being sad so that there is no grounds for saying that the Word was sad in his divine nature.
†125 See Rom 5:12.
†126 Augustine points to the doctrine of the exchanging of the properties of the two natures in Christ (communicatio idiomatum). In view of the unity of the person, one can say that the Son of God was born of Mary or that Mary's son is God.
†127 Proposuisti with some manuscripts.; editions: potuisti.
†128 Debate with Maximinus 15, 21.
†129 See Ex 7:1.
†130 See above, II, 17, 1-3.
†131 Augustine is responding to the demands for scriptural proof that Maximinus made in Debate with Maximinus 15, 21.
†132 See On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans I, 7, 11, where Augustine explains by this same figure of speech that unformed matter was called heaven and earth, because it was certain that heaven and earth would come to be from it.
†133 See above, II, 3.
†134 Debate with Maximinus 14 and 15, 22.
†135 See Answer to Maximinus I, 10.
†136 Augustine implies that oneness by nature is a condition of oneness by love. Such a view would seem to rule out love between God and creatures, were it not for the fact that, in loving God, we become God (see Homilies on the First Letter of John II, 14: “Each person is such as his love. Do you love the earth? You will be earth. Do you love God? What shall I say? You will be God? I do not dare to say it on my own; let us listen to the scriptures: I said, You are gods and children of the Most High….”). And we can, of course, only love God because he has first loved us.
†137 Louvain and some manuscripts omit: Non ait, unum mecum sint.
†138 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 22.
†139 Debate with Maximinus 15, 22. See Sermon 140, 4, where Augustine preaches against the “horrifying blasphemy” of Maximinus in saying that the apostles are one with the Father and the Son.
†140 Quis te urgebat, quis te impingebat, quis te praecipitabat; Erasmus, Lyons and Venice: quis te urgebat, quis te praecipitabat.
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†141 Debate with Maximinus 15, 22.
†142 Verum; Louvain, and some manuscripts: verbum.
†143 Cum autem unus dicitur, et quid unus dicitur with manuscripts; editions: et quid unus natura, et quid unus adjicitur.
†144 See Jn 19:34.
†145 Debate with Maximinus 15, 23.
†146 Here and in the following citations of Dt 32:39, Augustine has “the Lord” in place of “God.”
†147 Destestabiliorem convincam with Erasmus, Lyons and Venice.
†148 Debate with Maximinus 15, 23.
†149 Augustine says of these heretics in his Heresies LII that they agreed with the Catholics about the Father and the Son, but with the Arians about the Holy Spirit. Hence, they were called Semi-Arians and also Pneumatomachians (pneumatomachoi), that is, opponents of the Spirit. Macedonius was bishop of Constantinople from 342-360. The second Ecumenical Council at Constantinople in 381 condemned the Pneumatomachians and asserted the full divinity of the Holy Spirit.
†150 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 23.
†151 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 23.
†152 See Eph 6:5.
†153 See above, II, 15, 4 and 17, 1.
†154 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 23.
†155 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 23.
†156 See Debate with Maximinus 5.
†157 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 23.
†158 See Phil 2:6.
†159 Augustine uses at least a triple pun: “your measure (mensuram tuam),” “you measure (metiaris)” and “you speak falsely or lie (mentiaris)” and “beyond measure (immensus).”
†160 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 24.
†161 See Homilies on the Gospel of John 70, 3, where Augustine interprets Philip's request to see the Father as implying that he thought the Father was better than the Son and interprets Christ's answer as asserting their equality.
†162 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 25, as well as Phil 2:7.
†163 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 25.
†164 Augustine holds that there is nothing superior to the rational human mind except God, at least if one understands the human mind as it was without sin in Christ and in Adam. Angels have a function different from the human soul, but not a different nature.
†165 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 9.
†166 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 26.
†167 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 26.
†168 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 26.
†169 Debate with Maximinus 15, 26. Unfortunately, Augustine give no hint as to the identity of the treatises to which Maximinus refers.
†170 Debate with Maximinus 15, 26.
†171 See the Arian Sermon 4, where it says that the Son “in making awaits the Father's command in all things.” In his Answer to the Arian Sermon III, 4, Augustine accuses the Arians of imagining two persons next to each other, “the one ordering, the other obeying.”
†172 Filio autem non jubente; editions: et cooperante Filio, Filio autem non jubente.
†173 Debate with Maximinus 15, 26.
†174 Debate with Maximinus 15, 26.
†175 See Gn 18:1.
†176 Augustine says that the Lord did not go to Sodom, but that the two angels did, following the interpretation that he is attributing to Maximinus.
†177 Angelis missing in Louvain only.
†178 Perdimus with the manuscripts; editions: perdemus.
†179 Miratus sum with the manuscripts, as in The City of God 16, 29, following the Septuagint: ἐθαύμασα, that is., reveritus sum, suspexi. Editions: miseratus sum.
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†180 Agnovit ergo; but manuscripts: Agnovisti ergo.
†181 Abeunte; Louvain only: jubente.
†182 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 26.
†183 See Debate with Maximinus 15, 26.
†184 Augustine reminds his readers that the issue concerns whether the Son was seen by bodily eyes in the Old Testament theophanies; he has no problem with admitting that the Son was seen with the eyes of the heart or with the intellect.
†185 Augustine uses concupivit here instead of exsultavit as above.
†186 To see “in the spirit” is not to see with the eyes of the body or with the eyes of the mind, but to see with the imagination, at times under influence of God or the angels. See The Literal Meaning of Genesis XII, 9, 20, where Augustine takes the dream of Pharaoh as an example of spiritual vision, while Joseph, who understood and interpreted the dream, deserved to be called a prophet. “He is less a prophet, then, who sees in the spirit only the signs of the realities signified by the images of the bodily realities, and he is more the prophet who excels in both so that he sees in the spirit the likenesses signifying the bodily things and understands them with the vigor of his mind.”
†187 Obstupuit; manuscripts: obstipuit.
†188 Et Deus dicitur; the manuscripts: et Deus scitur.
†189 See Is 53:7.
†190 See Gn 22:6-13.
†191 See Ex 17:6. Augustine, of course, regards it as absurd to suppose that Christ was the rock or the ram or the angel in the proper sense. In Teaching Christianity II, 10, 15, he explains that the term “ox” is used in the proper sense when it is used for the animal and that it is used in a metaphorical sense when it is used for the minister of the gospel (1 Cor 9:9). The rock, the ram, and the angel were signs that prefigured Christ, not Christ himself. Hence, the angel with whom Jacob wrestled was not Christ, but a creature who prefigured Christ.
†192 Maximinus argued that the Son is inferior to the Father, because the Son was visible and the Father was invisible. Augustine claims that none of the three persons was visible in the very substance of God, but that each of them could be “seen” through some creature which the person used as a sign of himself. Thus, as Augustine adds, God is signified rather than displayed to human senses.
†193 The apostles saw the Lord with their bodily eyes; they also understood, at least eventually, with the eyes of faith that he was the Son of the Father. They did not, however, see the Son in the form of God, that is, “as he is.” In Letter 147, 29, Augustine cites Ambrose's words, “Not all the apostles saw Christ” (Expositio Euangelii secundum Lucam I, 27). In explanation, he quotes Jn 14:9: “Have I been with you so long, and you still have not known me?” and adds, “See how God was present and was not seen.”
†194 See Ex 33:13.11.
†195 See Debate with Maximinus 14.
†196 See Debate with Maximinus I, 15.
†197 Maximinus's text conflates Ex 3:14 with Mal 3:6 and has mutatus sum instead of mutor. Augustine interprets the name, “I am who I am,” as signifying God's immutability. In Sermon 7, 7, he comments on Ex 3:14, “Being is the name of immutability. After all, all things which change cease to be what they were and begin to be what they were not. Only he who does not change has true being, pure being, genuine being.” See E. Zum Brunn, Saint Augustine: Being and Nothingness (New York: Paragon House, 1988), for her appendix on Augustine's exegesis of Ex 3:14.
†198 Augustine takes “the selfsame: idipsum” as a divine name signifying the immutable and eternal being of God. In Exposition of the Psalms 121, 5, Augustine says, “What is 'the selfsame'? That which is always the same way; that which is not now one thing, now another. What is it that is? That which is eternal. For what is ever one way and then another is not, because it does not last; it is not utterly non-existent, but is not in the highest degree.” See J. Swetnam, “A Note on In Idipsum in Saint Augustine,” The Modern Schoolman 30 (1953), 328-331.
†199 See Heb 1:10-12.
†200 Patribus; many manuscripts: patris.
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†201 See Debate with Maximinus 14.
†202 Debate with Maximinus 15, 26.
†203 Since Maximinus professed to remain with the language of the Bible, his introduction of a term not found in scripture has him hoist with his own petard.
†204 See Jn 14:23. Augustine takes “comprehend” in the literal sense in which a house contains one who dwells in it in order to show that, in accord with the scripture, God is comprehended in some sense.
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ANSWER TO AN ENEMY OF THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS
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Introduction
The Anonymous Author and His Heresy
In his Revisions Augustine reports that the book of the anonymous Enemy of the Law and the Prophets was sent to him by some Christians of Carthage who had come upon the volume in a street near the harbor where it was being read aloud to interested crowds. These Christians asked Augustine to refute the work and pleaded with him to do so without delay. See Revisions II, 84, 58. †1 Augustine wrote the two books of his work in response to this anonymous volume in 419 or 420. See G. Bardy's note in BA 12, 549, for the dating. †2 In the Revisions he refers to the volume as
the book of some heretic, whether a Marcionite or someone else whose error supposes that God did not make this world and that the God of the law given through Moses and of the prophets pertaining to that same law is not the true God, but an evil demon…. Revisions loc. cit. †3
At the beginning of his response to the volume, Augustine had likewise attempted to identify the heresy to which the author belonged. He recognized that the anonymous author, like the Manichees, rejected the law and the prophets, but that, unlike them, he detested the God who made this world. The Manichees held that the good God made this world out of some matter he did not make. In Heresies XLVI, 4, Augustine says that the Manichees hold that “the world was made by the nature of the good, that is, by the nature of God, but out of the mixture of good and evil that came to be when these two natures fought each other.” †4 The Marcionites and others held that it was an evil demon who made the world, gave the Mosaic law, and spoke through the prophets of the Old Testament. See Answer to an Enemy of the Law and of the Prophets I, 1, 1. †5
Again, toward the end of the second book, Augustine provides a list of heretics who were opposed to the books of the Old Testament and the God of the law and the prophets, who made the world. He mentions Basilides, Carpocrates, Cerdon, Marcion, Apelles, and Patricius For more information on each of these, see Augustine's Heresies. †6 and then adds, “This fellow belongs to some heresy of theirs, for I do not think that he is a Manichee.” Answer to an Enemy of the Law and of the Prophets, II, 12, 40. †7 Twice Augustine mentions “a certain Fabricius” whom the anonymous heretic boasted “to have discovered at Rome as a teacher of the truth” and whose disciple he claimed to be. Answer to an Enemy II, 2, 3 and II, 12, 41. †8 Harnack has made the plausible suggestion that this Fabricius was actually the Patricius whom Augustine mentions in this work and in his Heresies LXI. See A. von Harnack, Marcion: Das Evangelum vom fremdem Gott, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1924; repr. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1985), Beilage X, 424*-433*. There is an English translation of this book, but without the appendices; see Marcion: The Gospel of the Alien God, tr. J. E. Steely and L. D. Bierma (Durham, NC: Labryrinth Press, 1990). †9 Little, however, is known of the Patricians and their founder, apart from Augustine's brief account in Heresies derived from Philaster's work on heresies and the additional information in Philaster that Patricius was active in the city of Rome. See Philaster, De diuersis haeresibus LXII. There is further mention of the Patricians in the sixth century work, Praedestinatus I, 61, which indicates that there were Patricians in North Africa in the fourth and fifth centuries. †10 Of the Patricians Augustine says only that they held that “the substance of human flesh was created, not by God, but by the devil” and that they thought the flesh should be hated and shunned to the point that they killed themselves. Augustine, Heresies LXI. For further information on the question of the Patricians and the identification of Fabricius with Patricius, see Thomas Raveaux, Augustinus: Contra Adversarium Legis et Prophetarum. Analyse des Inhalts und Untersuchung des geistesgeschichtlichen Hintergrunds (Würzburg: Augustinus Verlag, 1987) 28-31. †11
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For his history of the heresies in the Church, Augustine depended upon sources that at times counted diverse heresies by their differing names rather than by divergent doctrines and that often reported only the peculiar doctrines or practices of a given sect without the common ground that various groups shared with one another. See, for example, Heresies XLI, where Augustine complains that he cannot see why Epiphanius distinguishes the Sabellians and the Noetians as two heresies. Also see Heresies XII, where he says that the Secundians differ from the Valentinians by their having added shameful deeds. †12 Thus, in the case of the Patricians, we are left in doubt about the origin of the human soul and the rest of the material world, as well as about any other elements of their theology. Since so little is known about the Patricians, it is not very enlightening to classify the anonymous heretic as a follower of Patricius. Hence, even if Harnack is correct in identifying the Fabricius mentioned by the anonymous author as the founder of the Patricians, it is more informative to attempt to situate the author of the attack on the Law and the Prophets in relation to the Marcionite tradition, of which the Patricians may well have formed a part.
Harnack tagged the anonymous author as a Neo-Marcionite, though others have viewed him as a Manichaean, a Gnostic, or a some combination of these. See T. Raveaux, “Aduersarium legis et prophetarum (Contra —),” in Augustinus-Lexikon, vol. I, 1/2, 107-122, for a summary of the scholarly opinion. †13 There are good reasons for finding a strong Marcionite influence upon the work of the anonymous heretic. For example, as Harnack has pointed out, the citation from the work under the title, “The discernment of the spirits of wickedness and goodness,” most probably reflects the Antitheses of Marcion. See Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 11, 36, and Harnack, Marcion: Das Evangelium, 426*. †14 Harnack also singles out the words of the anonymous heretic, “The father of peace and charity is distinct from the author of war and fury; the former is Christ; the latter the God of the law and the prophets,” as taken verbatim from Marcion. See Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 12, 38, as well as Harnack, Marcion: Das Evangelium, 433*. Harnack also notes the Monarchian character of the citation, which is also characteristic of Marcion's view of the relation between Christ and the Father. †15 Hence, this introduction will turn to Marcion and Marcionism in an attempt to situate the anonymous heretic and his work in relation to the teaching of Marcion. As we shall see, the anonymous author's theological position does not fully square with that of Marcion, though it stands closer to Marcionism than to Manchaeism or to other heretical groups so that Harnack's label of “Neo-Marcionite” may be as satisfactory a tag as one can find. If the anonymous author along with Fabricius can be classed as disciples of Marcion at least in a wide sense, then Marcionism or Neo-Marcionism still presented a challenge to the Church well into the fifth century and a challenge of sufficient caliber to provoke a lengthy response from Augustine of Hippo.
Marcion and Marcionism
Marcion was born at Sinope in Pontus on the south shore of the Black Sea around 85. Epiphanius claims that he was excommunicated by his father, the bishop, for violating a virgin, though Harnack would understand the incident figuratively as referring to the violation of the faith of the Church. See Epiphanius, Panarion 42.1.3; in English translation: The Panarion of Saint Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis: Selected Passages, tr. P. R. Amidon (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 144. For the life of Marcion, see “Marcion,” by Gilles Pelland in Dictionnaire de spiritualité X, 311-321, especially 311-313, as well as Marcion: The Gospel, 15-20. Though scholars disagree with Harnack's thesis on many points, his work remains fundamental to Marcion studies. †16 Marcion arrived in Rome in 138. According to Tertullian, he made a generous gift to the Christian community and only subsequently became a heretic under the
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influence of the Gnosticism of Cerdon. Harnack, on the other hand, believes that Marcion had developed his theology prior to coming to Rome and was only superficially influenced by the Gnostics. In 144 Marcion broke decisively with the Roman church and proceeded to found his own, after a debate that focused either, according to Epiphanius, on Luke 6:43 (a good tree does not bear bad fruit) or, according to Tertullian, on Luke 5:36-37 (the new patch on an old garment and the new wine in old wineskins). He died around 160.
Basic to Marcion's position is the radical opposition between the Old Testament and the New, or between the law and the gospel. For an excellent and brief statement of Marcion's doctrine, see the article by G. Pelland in Dictionnaire de Spiritualité X, 311-321. See also Marcion: The Gospel, 21-24. †17 The God of the Old Testament, the creator of this world and the God of the law and the prophets, is completely other than the God of Jesus Christ. The former is a God of terrifying justice, anger, and cruelty; he is jealous, petty, forgetful, and vengeful, inflicting punishment upon the guilty and innocent alike. The God of the New Testament is a total stranger to this world and to the creator of this world. Jesus' message of salvation announced the good and loving God of the gospel who was completely unknown and unexpected, since neither creation nor the Jewish scriptures did or could reveal him or predict his coming in Jesus. Hence, the subtitle of Harnack's volume: Das Evangelium vom den fremden Gott, the gospel of the strange, alien, unexpected God; see Marcion: The Gospel, 1-3, for the sense of the subtitle. †18 The good God revealed himself in his Son in a way that was completely unexpected and gratuitous.
Even the apostles of Jesus failed to grasp this new message in its purity and transformed the gospel by incorporating elements from Judaism. Paul alone understood the message of Jesus which he learned directly from God; Paul alone proclaimed the good news free from Jewish traditions. Accordingly, the gospels written by Matthew, Mark and John were rejected, while that written by Luke, Paul's disciple, was accepted with, of course, the removal of various Judaizing accretions. The letters to Timothy, Titus, and the Hebrews were not accepted as authentic. In his Apostolicon, Marcion used the Letters of Paul as the criterion to determine the original gospel of Jesus. None of Marcion's works survive except in fragments cited by his opponents. Harnack has used the criticisms of Tertullian and Epiphanius to reconstitute the Marcionite version of the gospel; see Marcion: Das Evangelium, Beilage IV, 177*-255*. He has similarly attempted a reconstruction of the Antitheses; see Marcion: Das Evangelium, Beilage V, 256*-313*. †19
For Marcion, the God of the gospel was the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation (2 Cor 1:3); he came in Jesus Christ to announce the good news of love for all human beings. He was not the God of a particular people or the Messiah awaited by the Jews. Jesus is the manifestation of the Father and is distinct from the Father only by reason of his human nature. He was not born of the virgin and did not grow into manhood, but appeared on earth as an adult when he began his mission in the city of Capharnaum. He chose to die upon the cross, though his body was not made of the same stuff as ours, but was “putative flesh,” “a fleshly phantasm,” or “a saving spirit.” By his death he purchased us from the evil demon; he did not buy us back or redeem us, since we had never been his. He descended into hell where he rescued those who accepted him, but not those who had submitted to the God of the Old Testament. So too, he will share eternal life with those who are justified by faith, but will condemn to the fire of the creator those who fall under the yoke of the law.
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Though the teaching of Marcion rests upon the opposition between the law and the gospel found in Paul, Marcion links that opposition to his doctrine of two gods, a doctrine which is hardly Pauline. While Harnack sees only a superficial influence of Gnosticism upon Marcion's thought, others view his doctrine of the two gods as stemming from Gnostic sources. See G. Pelland's article in the Dictionnaire de spiritualité X, 315-317, for an appraisal of Harnack's theses. †20 Despite a number of points on which Marcionism resembles Gnostic doctrines, his position is clearly distinct from them on others. Noteworthy among these is the point that he saw no divine element or even a creature of the good God in human beings that accounted for the Savior's interest in coming to their rescue. In this way, he again emphasizes the utter gratuity of salvation. See Barbara Aland, “Marcion: Versuch einer neuen Interpretation,” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 70 (1973) 420-447, especially 433-434. †21
The Theological Position of the Anonymous Heretic
Though Augustine frequently cites the words of the anonymous heretic whose work he is refuting, he admits that he has taken up the various topics, “not in the order found in his book, but as the coherent sequence of our discussion demanded”. Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 10, 35. †22 Hence, what we know of the anonymous heretic's work is only what can be gathered from Augustine's quotations, which may reflect little of the original structure of the work and reveal little of the author's theological views apart from his opposition to the Law and the Prophets. In “Un testo gnostico confutato da Agostino,” Vetera Christianorum 15 (1978) 23-44, M. P. Ciccarese has attempted a reconstruction of the text of the anonymous heretic. See Raveaux, Augustinus: Contra Adversarium Legis et Prophetarum, 135-136, for an appraisal of her reconstruction of the text. †23 Moreover, Augustine often leaves the position of his opponent unstated so that one has to infer what he said from Augustine's response. Furthermore, the quotations in Augustine are removed from their original context within which they may have had a sense different from that which they have when they are cited alone.
Augustine mentions that at the end of the book he is refuting there is the beginning of another, “perhaps by the same author, but certainly of the same error,” Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 12, 42. †24 in which the author briefly argues that God is not the author of flesh. Augustine goes on to point out, “Now that second work which began to be transcribed in the same volume belongs to Adimantus, that disciple of Mani, who is called by the proper name, Addas.” The Latin leaves it ambiguous as to whether there were fragments of two works appended to Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets, one of the same error and the other the work of Adimantus, or whether there was only one work whose author Augustine first fails to identify and then a few lines later recognizes as Adimantus. See M. P. Ciccarese, “Un testo gnostico confutato da Agostino,” 26-28 for the view that there was appended the fragment of one work by Adimantus; see T. Raveaux, Augustinus: Contra adversarium legis et prophetarum, 133-134, for the view that there were fragments of two works appended to Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets. †25 Augustine refers his readers to his Answer to Faustus, a Manichaean and his Answer to Adimantus, a Disciple of Mani. The fact that the work of the anonymous author was contained in the same codex with a Manichaean work provides some evidence that the author may have been Manichaean. On the other hand, Augustine stated at least three times that he did not think the author of the present work was a Manichee. See Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets I, 1, 1; I, 3, 5; and II, 12, 40. See also Retractationes II, 84 (58). †26 In fact, Augustine admits at the end of his two books of response that, if his writings against Faustus the Manichee and Adimantus were read, it would have perhaps been unnecessary for him to have written these two books, An Answer to the Enemy of the Law and the Prophets. See Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 12, 41. †27 His reason for this statement is not that the doctrine of the anonymous heretic and that of the Manichees is identical, but that they both reject the scriptures of the Old Testament so that a vast majority of the texts of the anonymous author to which Augustine replies involve a defense of an Old Testament passage or a proof that the two Testaments are not in disagreement.
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Basic to the theology of the anonymous heretic is his view that there are two gods, the creator God of the Old Testament and the savior God of the New. The God of Israel is a demon, in fact the worst of demons (II, 2, 4). I have here inserted the references to Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets into the text in parentheses and have dispensed with quotation marks. †28 He is the evil god of this world mentioned by Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:4 (II, 7, 29), the prince of this age and the maker of this world (II, 11, 36). He is the one who, according to the Jewish scriptures, gave us an earthly beginning and thus indicated our earthly end (II, 11, 36). He is the author of war and fury and has incest and adultery on his conscience (II, 11, 38). This God of the prophets of Israel is the Antichrist of whom John spoke (II, 12, 40).
According to the Old Testament scriptures, the anonymous author claims, the creator either had a beginning of his existence or began to be bored with his idleness and created the world (I, 2, 2 and I, 3, 4). The heretic's view that “there is no beginning without an end” (I, 3, 3) indicates that the work of the Creator will perish in its entirety. See T. Raveaux, Augustinus: Contra Adversarium Legis et Prophetarum, 14-19, for a discussion of this principle. †29 The Creator did not know what light was until he created it (I, 7, 10). He begrudged human beings knowledge of good and evil and wanted them to be like the animals (I, 14, 18-19). The serpent was better off than this God, since he could deceive the human beings God made (I, 15, 23). God's ignorance led to the failure of his plans for human beings and to his having recourse to a curse (I, 16, 27). He stupidly made the tree of life which served no purpose, and he employed the punishment of the flood with no good result (I, 15, 26 and I, 21, 45). The God of the Law and the Prophets resorted to punishments of extreme cruelty for slight offenses (I, 16, 30) and even admitted to and boasted of his cruelty and bloodthirstiness (I, 16, 33). He vengefully stores up the punishments of the wicked in himself until their foot slips (I, 17, 34); he demands sacrifices of animals before he will answer prayers (I, 17, 37), though, as Paul taught, sacrifices are offered only to demons (I, 19, 38). God changes his mind (I, 20, 40), is forgetful, and needs reminders (I, 20, 43). He proclaims that he is the father of evil human beings (I, 22, 46); as Christ put it, he is the bad tree that produces bad fruit (I, 22, 47). He creates evil, that is, generates evil out of himself as its source (I, 23, 48 and 49).
The Jewish scriptures themselves contain much foolishness and immorality. Their foolishness is shown by the claims that darkness had no beginning, while light came from darkness (I, 8, 11) and that there were days before the sun existed (I, 12, 16). So too, they say that, though the waters covered everything, they were gathered into one place (I, 13, 17). Their immorality is evidenced by the foul and disgusting language (I, 24, 50) and by the lustfulness of Abraham, who took a second wife after Sarah's death (II, 8, 32).
Christ, on the other hand, is the true and sovereign God; he is the meek and pious one (II, 11, 36), the father of peace and charity, and the lord of modest chastity and purity (II, 11, 38). He is the supreme God, the incomparable splendor of incomprehensible light (I, 11, 14). Though the evidence is limited,
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it all indicates that the author held a Monarchian view of Christ as simply another name for the true and sovereign God. As Harnack has pointed out, this trait affords evidence that the anonymous author stands close to Marcionite tradition. See above note 15.
†30 The coming of the Savior was not announced by the prophets of the Jews, since the holy and divine Spirit was not on the earth before the coming of the Savior (II, 3, 9), probably because the Savior is the Spirit, not because he had not yet sent the Spirit. In contrast with Moses who gave the law, Jesus Christ brought the truth (II, 3, 10). Christ called us the light of the world, because we are of his kinship, for we do not have an earthly origin or end (II, 11, 36). Our life does not stem from the Jewish creator God, but from the Savior (I, 15, 25). Moreover, the soul is not the blood, as Moses taught, but will possess the kingdom of God (II, 6, 21 and 22).
Since the anonymous author holds that the human soul is a divine element in us, he clearly distances himself from Marcion in this respect. Though the heretic insists that there is no beginning without an end (I, 3, 3), a view which dooms the work of the Creator to destruction, the human soul has kinship with Christ, that is, a divine status, presumably without beginning and, hence, without end. Thus he indicates that for him the Savior is not the utterly alien God whom Marcion preached and that his salvation is not utterly gratuitous. After all, if we are of his kinship, he has reason to come to our rescue. See T. Raveaux, Augustinus: Contra Adversarium Legis et Prophetarum, 14-19 for a discussion of the principle that there is no beginning without an end. Raveaux does not see the importance of the heretic's statement that we have a kinship with Christ. Augustine, moreover, replies that we are Christ's brothers by grace, not by nature, and that God created both body and soul and did not generate one of them (II, 11, 37), indicating that he took that heretic to mean that the human soul was divine in its nature. †31
The true God wanted us to be vigilant and wise concerning God and to have a discerning mind. The Savior commanded that no one return evil for evil, but that we forgive our brothers (I, 17, 36). Christ taught his disciples that he was the living one, while the Jewish prophets were dead (II, 4, 14). Here the anonymous heretic cited an apocryphal work, and in 1, 20, 39 Augustine mentions that he drew proofs from other apocryphal writings. The appeal to such apocryphal works may also be taken to count against the Marcionite character of the anonymous author. †32 He promised that he would say to Moses and the other prophets of the Jews on the day of judgment that they should depart from him because he never knew them (II, 4, 15). The Lord proclaimed himself as the door of the sheep and denounced all who came before him, namely, the Old Testament patriarchs and prophets, as thieves and robbers (II, 4, 16). He showed that none of the Jewish patriarchs belonged to the Lord, but that death had dominion over them, when he said that they ate the manna and died (II, 5, 17). He indicated that even John the Baptist did not belong to the kingdom of heaven (II, 5, 20). Paul taught that Moses ministered to death, that is, to the author of death, the evil spirit who created this world (II, 7, 24). So too, Paul regarded the law and the prophets as old wives' tales and endless genealogies (II, 1, 1), and he claimed that the Jewish prophets always lied (II, 4, 12). Faced with Christ's and Paul's citation of the verse, The stone which the builders rejected has been made into the cornerstone (Ps 117:22) in Matthew 21:42 and Ephesians 2:20, the anonymous heretic did not shrink from admitting that Christ and the apostles lied to the weak who were not ready for the solid truth (II, 2, 5). Indeed, the anonymous Enemy of the Law and the Prophets divided Paul's hearers into five classes and claimed that he lied to all of them except the perfect (II, 2, 3). Even where Paul says that he speaks the truth in Christ (Rom 9:1), the anonymous author bluntly claims that
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Paul lied, deceiving the weak, nourishing the little ones with poison (II, 2, 7). With other problematic texts, for example, that concerning Christ's being born from
the offspring of David (Rom 1:3) or that concerning Israel as the true olive tree upon which the Gentiles
have been grafted (Rom 11:16.20), the heretic simply declares them to be interpolations, not the words of God, but those of some very evil demon (II, 2, 5). To the extent that the anonymous heretic maintains that Jesus and Paul lied to all save the perfect, he seems once again to have distanced himself from the position of Marcion who readily admitted that the gospels and Letters of Paul contained Judaizing accretions, but not that Jesus and Paul knowingly said what is false.
Hence, though the anonymous heretic fits the Marcionite position in terms of his doctrine of the two Gods and of the opposition between the Old and the New Testaments, he clearly stands apart from Marcionism in viewing the human soul as divine and in holding that Christ and Paul lied to all save the perfect. Harnack listed five points that formed the unifying basis for Marcionism: (1) the recognition of the Marcionite Bible, including the Antitheses, (2) the rejection of the Creator and the Old Testament, (3) the preaching of the alien God who appeared in Christ for our salvation, (4) strict asceticism, and (5) esteem for Marcion; see Marcion: The Gospel, 104. Raveaux states that at least three of these do not fit the anonymous heretic; see Augustinus: Contra Adversarium Legis et Prophetarum, 139. He concludes that the anonymous author does not represent a pure Marcionism, but rather a blend of elements drawn from Marcionism, Manichaeism, and Gnosticism (ibid., 139-140). †33 Though the anonymous author seems to hold with the Manichees the view that the human soul is divine and shares with them the rejection of the Old Testament, there is insufficient evidence to show that he was influenced by Manichaeism rather than by some other form of gnosticism.
The Words of the Anonymous Heretic
Harnack, Ciccarese, and Daur provide lists of direct or implicit quotations from the anonymous heretic. See Harnack, Marcion: Das Evangelium, 426*-433*; Ciccarese, “Un testo gnostico confutato da Agostino,” 36-44, and Sancti Aurelii Augustini contra aduersarium legis et prophetarum. Commonitorium Orosii et Sancti Aurelii Augustini Contra Priscillianistas et Origenistas, ed. Klaus-D. Daur. CCL 49 (Turnholt: Brepols, 1985), 31-34. †34 The following list is drawn basically from Daur's edition. Harnack's comments on the statements are often included in the notes to the translation.
Book I
2, 2: I ask how we should understand the words of scripture: In the beginning God made heaven. From what beginning? That in which God himself began to be, or that from which he was bored with being idle?
2, 3: There is no beginning without an end. Both Harnack and Daur omit this statement from their lists, though Raveaux places considerable weight on this principle; see Augustinus: Contra Adversarium Legis et Prophetarum, 14-19. †35
3, 4: If this world is something good, why did he not make something better back at the start?
7, 10: And so he previously did not know what light was, and now when he first sees it, he judges it very good.
8, 11: It is a mark of the author's foolishness that he said that the darkness always was without any beginning, but that the light had its beginning from darkness.
11, 14: The supreme God is the incomparable splendor of incomprehensible light.
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12, 16: The hours mark the day, but the sun distinguishes and separates the hours. Moses did not know this and, hence, mentioned the day before the sun was made.
13, 17: It was not correctly said of the gathering of the waters, Let the waters be gathered into one gathering, and let the dry land appear, because everything was covered with water.
14, 18: We should find fault with man's creator, because he forbade him to eat the food of the discernment of good and evil, as if he wanted him to be on a par with cattle who do not know how to discern between them, and denied to man, to whom he gave power over the other animals, this ability.
14, 19: Man's maker kept the man he had made from a great good, when he wanted him to be like an animal without the discernment of good and evil.
15, 23: The serpent is found to be better off than God, because he was able to deceive the man God made.
15, 24: How could man before the curse live forever without death, if he had not already partaken of the food from this tree?
15, 25: How did he begin to die as a result of God's curse, since life itself never took its beginning from him?
15, 26: Who benefited from this tree which bore the fruit of life in paradise?
16, 27: God did not know beforehand what happened; then, he was not able to accomplish his great plans; thirdly, when he was foiled, he had recourse to a curse.
16, 30: The God of the Law and the Prophets should be charged with the crime of cruelty, since he inflicted the punishment of bodily death for grounds that were slight or even embarassingly trivial, because David counted the people and because the infant sons of Heli the priest tasted something from the dishes or cooking pots prepared for God.
16, 33: God has admitted his cruelty, because he said through the prophet, I will sharpen my sword like lightning. I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword will eat the flesh along with the blood of the wounded. I accuse God of being one who is always hungering for human blood. I am horrified at the threat of God as if he were eager for crime and did nothing but boast of cruelty toward the wicked.
17, 34: God says that he holds the punishments of the wicked, that are signified by the sour grapes and the bitter bunch and the wrath of serpents and vipers, gathered within himself and marked in his treasury, to be dealt out at the time when their foot shall slip.
17, 36: Is this the way we have understood the commands of the Savior who orders, Return no one evil for evil, but if anyone should strike you on
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one cheek, offer him the other as well, and Forgive your brothers their injuries? Heaven forbid that I should say this, for I am a Christian.
17, 37: David asked God that he spare the people who had not sinned, and his prayer was only heard after he offered a sacrifice. Hence, we should not believe that he is the true God, since he is pleased by sacrifices.
19, 38: David, who obtained those things by sacrifices, obviously served demons. “See, is it not in a fleshly manner that Israel eats the victims and partakes of the altar? What then? Do I say that the idol is something? But those who sacrifice sacrifice to demons.”
20, 39: (Augustine reports that the heretic set forth proofs from the apocryphal writings written under the names of Andrew and John.)
20, 40: (Augustine says that he has attacked the repentance of God with all that talk.)
20, 43: God is forgetful, and because his memory was dead, he set in the clouds the bow called Iris to remind himself never again to destroy the human race by flood. He does not know what he is doing at all, if he really needed such a lasting reminder. No one asks a question unless he is without knowledge.
21, 45: If we suppose that human beings received the sentence of the flood as punishment for their way of life and that Noah, the just man, was saved to restore a better creation, why were worse human beings born after that and why is the birth of the human race still bound up with the same activity of filthy life?
22, 46: The Lord said, I have fathered children and raised them up, but they have rejected me, and he called the same ones a little later bad seed, as if to show that he was the father of evil men and that his sons were bad seed.
22, 47: Christ the Lord called this God a bad tree producing bad fruit.
23, 48-49: God himself speaks through the same prophet and says, I am God making good and creating evil. He does not make evil, but creates it. For if he made it, it would be different from him and would come to him from outside of him, but when he creates, he generates it from himself as from its root.
24, 50: I am horrified at certain words from the Book of Deuteronomy because of their foulness, The most tender and delicate woman among you, whose foot has not known what it is to walk upon the earth because of her tenderness and delicateness, will begrudge her husband and her son and her daughter even her afterbirth, and she will eat what comes forth from her loins.
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Book II
1, 1: I think that the apostle called the words of the law and the prophets profane tales of old wives and endless genealogies, because he said, Avoid profane tales of old wives; pay no attention to the tales of the Jews and endless genealogies which provide questions rather than edification.
2, 3: The apostle has spoken in five different characters in accord with the quality of various natural abilities. In teaching the things of God to a people still uneducated, he says that he ought not to begin with the more perfect matters and, in removing from them the habit of their old way of life, that he ought not start with the more difficult things lest the perfect teaching disturb those still new in the faith. To add this [fifth] character, he had already said in another passage, We speak wisdom among the perfect, so that the fifth character emerges as that of the perfect.
2, 4: The God of Israel is not only a demon, but also worse than the rest of the demons.
2, 5: All these things from the law and the prophets (Eph 2:20 and Mt 21:42) were brought forth as lies by Christ, as lies by the apostles, because the weak were not yet capable of receiving the solid truth.
2, 6: They (Rom 1:3; 11:16.20) are not the words of God, but those of some very evil demon.
2, 7: What the apostle says here is not true; he deceives the weak, because they cannot grasp the truth; he nurses the little ones with foolishness and pours out the venom of devilish lies in order to nourish the hungry children.
3, 9: It was impossible that the coming of our Savior was announced by the prophets of the Jews. But before the coming of the Savior, the holy and divine Spirit was not upon the earth.
3, 10: The law was given through Moses, but the truth is from Jesus Christ.
3, 12: There were no prophets before the apostles.
4, 13: The apostle spoke of the prophets of the Jews, when he said, One of their own, a prophet, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” This testimony is true. Abraham did not believe his God when he promised offspring to him.
4, 14: When the apostles asked him what they should think of the prophets of the Jews who were thought to have in the past prophesied something about his coming, our Lord was disturbed that they should still have such ideas and answered them, “You have abandoned the living one who is before you, and you tell stories about the dead.”
4, 15: The Lord again accused Moses, when he said, Many will say to me on
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that day: Lord, in your name we have cast out demons and in your name we have prophesied and in your name we have done miracles. And I will say to them: Depart from me, because I have never known you, for you have acted wickedly.
4, 16: The Lord also said the following, I am the door of the sheep; all the others who came before me are thieves and robbers.
5, 17: But the Lord said to them, Your fathers ate the manna and have died, thus teaching that none of them belonged to the Lord, since death had dominion over them.
5, 20: (He also draws an argument) from John the Baptist, (because) the Lord said, Among those born of women there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist. But he who is the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. (He as much as implies that) John does not belong to the kingdom of heaven and, for that reason, the rest of the prophets of that people, than whom John is greater, belong to it even less.
6, 21: Moses extinguished all hope of a future resurrection for human beings, since he declared that the soul was mortal when he said that it was the blood. I say that the soul is not the blood.
6, 22: I also set forth the words of the apostle as a proof, Flesh and blood will not possess the kingdom of God.
7, 24: (On the basis of 2 Cor 3:7) I think that Moses ministered to death, that is, to the author of death, namely, the evil spirit, whom I believe to be the author of this world.
7, 29: (In 2 Cor 4:4) I understand the God of this world as the evil one.
8, 32: I raise the charge of fornication against Abraham even in advanced old age, precisely because he took another wife even after the death of Sarah.
11, 36: The discernment of the spirits of wickedness and of goodness. (And with many short and contrasting statements he begins to praise Christ and to accuse the God of the law.) Hence, brother, let us withdraw from the wickedness of past error and look to Christ, the true and sovereign God, not to the prince of this age and the maker of this world in which, it has often been explained, we are on pilgrimage from our home. Let us, I say, look to that pious and meek one who called us the light of the world, showing that we are of his kinship, not to the one who, according to the Jewish scriptures, assigned to us an earthly beginning and indicated, thereby, our end in the earth. Let us look to him who called us brothers and urged us to be vigilant and wise concerning what is divine, not to the one who did not permit us to have a discerning mind. (And in this way he has woven together many other ideas.)
11, 38: The father of peace and charity is distinct from the author of war and
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fury; the former is Christ, the latter is the God of the
Law and the Prophets. The one has incest and adultery on his conscience; the other is the lord of modest chastity and purity.
12, 40: From the words of the apostle concerning the coming and wicked exaltation of the Antichrist, we should understand that he is the God of the prophets.
The Character and Significance of the Work
The Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets is a mature pastoral work in which Augustine proves himself a master of the text of scripture and of doctrinal controversy. In the beginning of the first book, he often draws upon the repertoire of arguments that he had developed in his controversies with the Manichees and used in previous commentaries on Genesis. Here he reveals the steady hand of the master who has no need to resort to the allegories of On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans or to the aporematic approach of the Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis. Otherwise than in his great work on Genesis, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, Augustine here takes up only those passages from Genesis that the anonymous author criticized. But he also comments on many texts from other books of the Old Testament which the anonymous heretic found offensive and which can often trouble even modern readers of the scriptures.
Augustine's two books are a defense of the integrity of the Bible against an anonymous heretic, probably a Neo-Marcionite, who rejected the Old Testament and maintained that the God of the Law and the Prophets was not the true God, but an evil demon. In arguing for the continuity of the revelation of the one God through the two Testaments, Augustine stresses the continuity of the divine plan for our salvation. As early as his second commentary on Genesis, Augustine said that he has received from others four ways of explaining the scriptures: as history, as allegory, as analogy, and as etiology. He added:
It is a matter of history when deeds done—whether by men or by God—are reported. It is a matter of allegory when things spoken in figures are understood. It it is a matter of analogy, when the conformity of the Old and New Testaments is shown. It is a matter of etiology when the causes of what is said or done are reported. Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis II, 5. Also see The Advantage of Believing III, 5-9 and The Literal Meaning of Genesis I, 1, 1. †36
In terms of this scheme, the present work is principally a matter of analogical exposition of the scriptures showing the conformity and harmony of the two Testaments. In that respect, it is akin to his anti-Manichaean works, Answer to Adimantus, a Disciple of Mani and Answer to Faustus, a Manichaean, those very works of which Augustine said at the end of his answer to the anonymous heretic that, if they had been read, there would have been little or no need for him to have written this work. See Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 12, 41. †37
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In the first book of his Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets, Augustine takes on the objections raised by the anonymous author that are based on the Old Testament. He has arranged the objections so that he proceeds with his response, beginning with the first chapters of Genesis; he moves from there through many of the historical books of the Old Testament and touches upon a few objections from the prophetic books as well.
After dealing with the problems raised concerning the creation of the world and the fall of mankind, Augustine turns to the anonymous author's charges that the God of the Old Testament is cruel, bloodthirsty, vengeful, ignorant, forgetful, petty, foul-mouthed, repentant, and given to cursing when his plans are frustrated.
Augustine devotes considerable time to a discussion of the sacrifices of the old law as prefiguring the sacrifice of Christ and to texts in which God is said to have repented or in which he seems forgetful and in need of reminders. See Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets I, 18, 37-19, 38. †38 His discussion of the relation of the sacrifices of the old law to the one sacrifice of Christ and to the sacrifice of the Church is a gem-like treatise on sacrifice and the continuity between the prefiguring sacrifices of the Old Testament and their realization in the New. So too, Augustine's discussion of God's repentance leads him to a short treatise on the meaning of the divine attributes and our knowledge of God, especially of the ineffability of God. See Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets I, 20, 40-42. †39
In the second book, Augustine turns to the New Testament texts that the Enemy of the Law and the Prophets cites as favoring his cause against the prophetic writings of the Old Testament. He begins with the heretic's claim that Paul referred to the prophecies of the Old Testament as tales of old wives and endless genealogies (1 Tm 4:7 and 1:4) and points out that the Jewish people had their own traditions and observances, besides the law and the prophets, in which other genealogies abounded. He moves to the heretic's interpretation of 1 Corinthians 9:19-22 in which he claims that Paul assumed, depending upon his audience, five different characters. Thus, if he seemed to say something favorable to the law and the prophets, he could be interpreted as speaking to the Jews as a Jew, or to those under the law as one of them, or to the weak as someone weak. So too, if he spoke to people who were not Jewish, he could be interpreted as speaking to those without the law as one without the law. Only when Paul spoke wisdom among the perfect (1 Cor 2:6), was he to be taken as speaking the truth.
Augustine had himself frequently made use of the Pauline distinction between spiritual, animal, and carnal persons, as well as between the little ones and the adults in Christ, though he had maintained from the time of his first commentary on Genesis the difference between concealing what the little ones cannot as yet understand and lying. See On Genesis, A Refutation of the Manicheans II, 21, 32. †40 Against this hermeneutical scheme of the anonymous heretic, Augustine is adamant that Paul gave to the little ones “a
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small portion, not a false one, milk, not poison, nourishing, not lethal food.” Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 12, 41.
†41 There is no opposition between the milk of the little ones and the solid food of the adults in Christ, precisely because Christ himself is both of these. “Our milk is the humble Christ; our solid food is the very same Christ equal to the Father.” Homilies on the First Letter of John III, 1.
†42 Hence, it is one and the same Christ, the Truth, who, as the Word of God, is the wisdom and the solid food of the perfect and who, as incarnate, is the object of faith and the milk of the little ones. See T. J. Van Bavel, O.S.A., “L'humanité du Christ comme lac parvulorum et comme via dans la spiritualité de saint Augustin,” Augustiniana 7 (1957) 245-281.
†43
It is not surprising that Augustine, who by preference thought of God as the Truth, should be horrified at the word of God in scripture containing any lies. See Free Will II, 13, 35-36, for Augustine's ascent to God, the immutable Truth, who is the source of happiness, in whom he knows and embraces the highest good. †44 In fact, the clash between Augustine and Jerome over the interpretation of Galatians 2:14 centered upon whether Paul had told a well-meaning lie. Augustine insisted, “If such well-meaning lies are admitted in the holy scriptures, what authority will they retain?” Epistula XL III, 3: CSEL XXXIV, 71-72. Augustine goes on in the next paragraph of this letter to explain that 1 Cor 9:20 should be taken as a sign of Paul's compassion, not of his making a false pretense. †45 On the other hand, Augustine approached the biblical text with considerable sophistication. He points out, for example, that not everything said in the scriptures is true, even though it is true that it was said. One must note not only what is said, but by whom it is said. See To Orosius 9, 12, where Augustine points out that we need not accept as true the words of Job's friends or of his wife; so too, in the gospel we do not accept as true the things the Jews said against Christ or even the words of the man whose eyes were healed and who said, We know that God does not hear sinners (Jn 9:31). †46 Moreover, scripture must be interpreted in accord with the “rule of faith.” See Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis I, 2-4, where Augustine presents an expanded form of the Creed as the norm for the interpretation of Genesis. †47 And where the biblical books seem to say something unworthy of God or contrary to the Catholic faith, one must have recourse to a figurative or spiritual interpretation of the text. See On Genesis, A Refutation of the Manicheans, II, 2, 3. †48 Indeed, Augustine formulated a law of spiritual interpretation that “whatever in the word of God cannot in the proper sense be referred to the goodness of morals or the truth of faith is figurative.” Christian Instruction III, 10, 14. See my “Criteria for Figurative Interpretation in Saint Augustine,” in Augustine's De Doctrina Christiana: A Classic of Western Culture, ed. Duane Arnold and Pamela Bright (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1995) 190-122. †49 Furthermore, Augustine insisted that “for those who understand correctly, the Old Testament is a prophecy of the New Testament.” Answer to Faustus XV, 2. †50 Just as “everything that Moses wrote is about Christ,” so too everything in the prophetic books “was said about him or on account of him.” Answer to Faustus XXVI, 9 and XII, 7. †51 Hence, the idea that Paul spoke what he knew to be false to all but the perfect is a horror that Augustine rightly could not abide.
Augustine then turns to a series of specific arguments drawn from the New Testament to show the opposition between the Old and the New Testaments. Against the anonymous heretic's claim that the Old Testament prophets could not have announced the coming of the Savior, because the divine Spirit was not on earth before the Savior came, Augustine points to opening lines of the Letter to the Romans, where Paul says that Jesus Christ was promised by God's prophets in the holy scriptures. Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 3, 9. †52 Augustine takes up passage after passage that the anonymous heretic used to show that Paul or Jesus had rejected the patriarchs and prophets of the old law, including John the Baptist. Against the heretic's use of Paul's claim that flesh and blood will not possess the kingdom of God (1 Cor 15:50), Augustine defends Moses, who had identified the soul with blood, See Lv 17:14. †53 from the charge of having destroyed any hope for the soul's immortality. So too, Augustine takes up the difficult Pauline language concerning the ministry of
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death (2 Cor 3:7) and explains the sense in which the law brings death and yet is holy, just, and good. Augustine shows that Paul stresses the opposition between the law and the promises made to Abraham so that there is in Paul a greater opposition between the law and the promises than between the law and the gospel. He defends Abraham from charges of fornication for having taken a second wife after Sarah's death, and he turns against the heretic's hermeneutical scheme the words of the Lord to the Jews,
If you are Abraham's children, do the deeds of Abraham (Jn 8:39).
Augustine defends the Pauline comparison of the relation of Christ and the church with the union of husband and wife, pointing out that the words in which Christ spoke of our eating his flesh and drinking his blood are more shocking, if they are not correctly understood. He notes the heretic discourses about proper and improper figures of speech without attending to the distinction between the sign and what it signifies. In a final thrust, Augustine points out that, if someone used the heretic's hermeneutical scheme and said that the comparisions that he finds offensive in the Old Testament were false, but stated that way for the sake of the weak or imperfect, the heretic would have no reply to make, but would be hoist with his own petard.
Toward the end of the second book, Augustine runs through a list of topics on which he has answered the anonymous heretic. See Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 10, 35. †54 Then he cites part of the heretic's work that bore the title, “The discernment of the spirits of evil and of goodness,” Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 11, 36. †55 in which the heretic had praised Christ and accused the God of the law with a series of antithetical statements, which Harnack recognizes as the Antitheses of Marcion, though Raveaux points to a Manichaean background as well. Harnack, Marcion: Das Evangelium, 433*, and Raveaux, Augustininus: Contra Adversarium Legis et Prophetarum, 128-132. †56 After a brief sample of the antitheses of the heretic, Augustine turns the tables on his opponent and, in a long series of statements, proclaims the identity of the God of the law and the prophets with the God of the gospel. Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 11, 37-12, 38. †57 Finally, he answers the heretic's claim that the devil is the source of defects in human bodies and that the God of the law and the prophets is the Antichrist. Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 12, 39-40. †58 He brings the book to a close with an attempt to situate the anonymous author among the various heretics who were clearly opposed to the God of the law and the prophets, once again stating that he does not believe him to be a Manichee. In what is almost a postscript he mentions the two other works, parts of which are contained in the codex, one in which the author argues that God did not make the flesh and then abruptly comes to an end, the other which Augustine recognizes as the work of Adimantus, a disciple of Mani. Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 12, 42. †59
The Text Translated
The translation is based on the critical edition of the work by Klaus-D. Daur in Corpus Christianorum Latinorum 49. I have not noted variant readings,
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because I found the text that Daur gives quite satisfactory. I have followed Daur's numbering of the chapters and paragraphs of each book, partly because uniformity in numbering is valuable for scholarly reference to the work and partly because the divisions into chapters reflect at least to some degree the content of the work. I have added titles for the chapters and, on occasion, for paragraphs to break up the text and indicate their content.
Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets has never been previously translated into English. There are at least two translations in other languages.
In French: Oeuvres complètes de san Augustin, tr. M. Burlereaux, (Bar-le-Duc, 1864), vol. 14, 479-530.
In Spanish: Obras completas de San Agustín, tr. Teodoro C. Madrid (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1990), volume XXXVIII, 666-832.
Notes
†1 See Revisions II, 84, 58.
†2 See G. Bardy's note in BA 12, 549, for the dating.
†3 Revisions loc. cit.
†4 In Heresies XLVI, 4, Augustine says that the Manichees hold that “the world was made by the nature of the good, that is, by the nature of God, but out of the mixture of good and evil that came to be when these two natures fought each other.”
†5 See Answer to an Enemy of the Law and of the Prophets I, 1, 1.
†6 For more information on each of these, see Augustine's Heresies.
†7 Answer to an Enemy of the Law and of the Prophets, II, 12, 40.
†8 Answer to an Enemy II, 2, 3 and II, 12, 41.
†9 See A. von Harnack, Marcion: Das Evangelum vom fremdem Gott, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1924; repr. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1985), Beilage X, 424*-433*. There is an English translation of this book, but without the appendices; see Marcion: The Gospel of the Alien God, tr. J. E. Steely and L. D. Bierma (Durham, NC: Labryrinth Press, 1990).
†10 See Philaster, De diuersis haeresibus LXII. There is further mention of the Patricians in the sixth century work, Praedestinatus I, 61, which indicates that there were Patricians in North Africa in the fourth and fifth centuries.
†11 Augustine, Heresies LXI. For further information on the question of the Patricians and the identification of Fabricius with Patricius, see Thomas Raveaux, Augustinus: Contra Adversarium Legis et Prophetarum. Analyse des Inhalts und Untersuchung des geistesgeschichtlichen Hintergrunds (Würzburg: Augustinus Verlag, 1987) 28-31.
†12 See, for example, Heresies XLI, where Augustine complains that he cannot see why Epiphanius distinguishes the Sabellians and the Noetians as two heresies. Also see Heresies XII, where he says that the Secundians differ from the Valentinians by their having added shameful deeds.
†13 See T. Raveaux, “Aduersarium legis et prophetarum (Contra —),” in Augustinus-Lexikon, vol. I, 1/2, 107-122, for a summary of the scholarly opinion.
†14 See Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 11, 36, and Harnack, Marcion: Das Evangelium, 426*.
†15 See Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 12, 38, as well as Harnack, Marcion: Das Evangelium, 433*. Harnack also notes the Monarchian character of the citation, which is also characteristic of Marcion's view of the relation between Christ and the Father.
†16 See Epiphanius, Panarion 42.1.3; in English translation: The Panarion of Saint Epiphanius,
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Bishop of Salamis: Selected Passages, tr. P. R. Amidon (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 144. For the life of Marcion, see “Marcion,” by Gilles Pelland in
Dictionnaire de spiritualité X, 311-321, especially 311-313, as well as
Marcion: The Gospel, 15-20. Though scholars disagree with Harnack's thesis on many points, his work remains fundamental to Marcion studies.
†17 For an excellent and brief statement of Marcion's doctrine, see the article by G. Pelland in Dictionnaire de Spiritualité X, 311-321. See also Marcion: The Gospel, 21-24.
†18 Hence, the subtitle of Harnack's volume: Das Evangelium vom den fremden Gott, the gospel of the strange, alien, unexpected God; see Marcion: The Gospel, 1-3, for the sense of the subtitle.
†19 None of Marcion's works survive except in fragments cited by his opponents. Harnack has used the criticisms of Tertullian and Epiphanius to reconstitute the Marcionite version of the gospel; see Marcion: Das Evangelium, Beilage IV, 177*-255*. He has similarly attempted a reconstruction of the Antitheses; see Marcion: Das Evangelium, Beilage V, 256*-313*.
†20 See G. Pelland's article in the Dictionnaire de spiritualité X, 315-317, for an appraisal of Harnack's theses.
†21 See Barbara Aland, “Marcion: Versuch einer neuen Interpretation,” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 70 (1973) 420-447, especially 433-434.
†22 Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 10, 35.
†23 In “Un testo gnostico confutato da Agostino,” Vetera Christianorum 15 (1978) 23-44, M. P. Ciccarese has attempted a reconstruction of the text of the anonymous heretic. See Raveaux, Augustinus: Contra Adversarium Legis et Prophetarum, 135-136, for an appraisal of her reconstruction of the text.
†24 Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 12, 42.
†25 The Latin leaves it ambiguous as to whether there were fragments of two works appended to Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets, one of the same error and the other the work of Adimantus, or whether there was only one work whose author Augustine first fails to identify and then a few lines later recognizes as Adimantus. See M. P. Ciccarese, “Un testo gnostico confutato da Agostino,” 26-28 for the view that there was appended the fragment of one work by Adimantus; see T. Raveaux, Augustinus: Contra adversarium legis et prophetarum, 133-134, for the view that there were fragments of two works appended to Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets.
†26 The fact that the work of the anonymous author was contained in the same codex with a Manichaean work provides some evidence that the author may have been Manichaean. On the other hand, Augustine stated at least three times that he did not think the author of the present work was a Manichee. See Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets I, 1, 1; I, 3, 5; and II, 12, 40. See also Retractationes II, 84 (58).
†27 See Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 12, 41.
†28 I have here inserted the references to Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets into the text in parentheses and have dispensed with quotation marks.
†29 See T. Raveaux, Augustinus: Contra Adversarium Legis et Prophetarum, 14-19, for a discussion of this principle.
†30 As Harnack has pointed out, this trait affords evidence that the anonymous author stands close to Marcionite tradition. See above note 15.
†31 See T. Raveaux, Augustinus: Contra Adversarium Legis et Prophetarum, 14-19 for a discussion of the principle that there is no beginning without an end. Raveaux does not see the importance of the heretic's statement that we have a kinship with Christ. Augustine, moreover, replies that we are Christ's brothers by grace, not by nature, and that God created both body and soul and did not generate one of them (II, 11, 37), indicating that he took that heretic to mean that the human soul was divine in its nature.
†32 Here the anonymous heretic cited an apocryphal work, and in 1, 20, 39 Augustine mentions that he drew proofs from other apocryphal writings. The appeal to such apocryphal works may also be taken to count against the Marcionite character of the anonymous author.
†33 Harnack listed five points that formed the unifying basis for Marcionism: (1) the recognition
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of the Marcionite Bible, including the
Antitheses, (2) the rejection of the Creator and the Old Testament, (3) the preaching of the alien God who appeared in Christ for our salvation, (4) strict asceticism, and (5) esteem for Marcion; see
Marcion: The Gospel, 104. Raveaux states that at least three of these do not fit the anonymous heretic; see
Augustinus: Contra Adversarium Legis et Prophetarum, 139. He concludes that the anonymous author does not represent a pure Marcionism, but rather a blend of elements drawn from Marcionism, Manichaeism, and Gnosticism (
ibid., 139-140).
†34 See Harnack, Marcion: Das Evangelium, 426*-433*; Ciccarese, “Un testo gnostico confutato da Agostino,” 36-44, and Sancti Aurelii Augustini contra aduersarium legis et prophetarum. Commonitorium Orosii et Sancti Aurelii Augustini Contra Priscillianistas et Origenistas, ed. Klaus-D. Daur. CCL 49 (Turnholt: Brepols, 1985), 31-34.
†35 Both Harnack and Daur omit this statement from their lists, though Raveaux places considerable weight on this principle; see Augustinus: Contra Adversarium Legis et Prophetarum, 14-19.
†36 Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis II, 5. Also see The Advantage of Believing III, 5-9 and The Literal Meaning of Genesis I, 1, 1.
†37 See Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 12, 41.
†38 See Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets I, 18, 37-19, 38.
†39 See Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets I, 20, 40-42.
†40 See On Genesis, A Refutation of the Manicheans II, 21, 32.
†41 Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 12, 41.
†42 Homilies on the First Letter of John III, 1.
†43 See T. J. Van Bavel, O.S.A., “L'humanité du Christ comme lac parvulorum et comme via dans la spiritualité de saint Augustin,” Augustiniana 7 (1957) 245-281.
†44 See Free Will II, 13, 35-36, for Augustine's ascent to God, the immutable Truth, who is the source of happiness, in whom he knows and embraces the highest good.
†45 Epistula XL III, 3: CSEL XXXIV, 71-72. Augustine goes on in the next paragraph of this letter to explain that 1 Cor 9:20 should be taken as a sign of Paul's compassion, not of his making a false pretense.
†46 See To Orosius 9, 12, where Augustine points out that we need not accept as true the words of Job's friends or of his wife; so too, in the gospel we do not accept as true the things the Jews said against Christ or even the words of the man whose eyes were healed and who said, We know that God does not hear sinners (Jn 9:31).
†47 See Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis I, 2-4, where Augustine presents an expanded form of the Creed as the norm for the interpretation of Genesis.
†48 See On Genesis, A Refutation of the Manicheans, II, 2, 3.
†49 Christian Instruction III, 10, 14. See my “Criteria for Figurative Interpretation in Saint Augustine,” in Augustine's De Doctrina Christiana: A Classic of Western Culture, ed. Duane Arnold and Pamela Bright (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1995) 190-122.
†50 Answer to Faustus XV, 2.
†51 Answer to Faustus XXVI, 9 and XII, 7.
†52 Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 3, 9.
†53 See Lv 17:14.
†54 See Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 10, 35.
†55 Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 11, 36.
†56 Harnack, Marcion: Das Evangelium, 433*, and Raveaux, Augustininus: Contra Adversarium Legis et Prophetarum, 128-132.
†57 Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 11, 37-12, 38.
†58 Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 12, 39-40.
†59 Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 12, 42.
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Book I
A Preliminary Attempt To Identify the Author
1, 1. My dear brothers, I first examined the sort of error found in the book you sent me so that I might make my reply as brief as possible. This book of some unknown heretic was discovered, as you wrote, in a street near the harbor where the volume was offered for sale, and it was being read with dangerous curiosity and delight to the gathering crowds. From the Revisions II, 84 (58), we learn that it was at Carthage that these crowds assembled to listen to the reading of this book and that, when some zealous Christians came upon it there, they promptly sent it on to Augustine to be refuted without delay. In the same passage in the Revisions, Augustine also suggests that the author may have been a Marcionite or some other heretic who held the following errors: that God did not make this world and that the God of the law and the prophets is not the true God, but an evil demon. †1 After all, the Manichees are not alone in condemning the law and the prophets. The Manichees were followers of Mani who was born in 216 and died in either 270 or 276. Mani founded Manichaeism, a distinct world religion that taught a universal dualistic gnosis, explaining the human situation in terms of a metaphysical dualism of good and evil presented in a highly imaginative myth. It taught a doctrine of salvation and prescribed a strict ethics. Augustine, nonetheless, always regarded Manichaeism as a Christian sect. For more on Manichaeism, see Heresies XLVI. For a good introduction to the topic, see J. Ries' “Manichaeism,” in the New Catholic Encyclopedia 7, 153-160, or J. Lienhard's briefer article in The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Spirituality (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983), 256-257, or “Mani, Manichaeism” by Pheme Perkins in the EEC (New York: Garland, 1990), 562-563. †2 The Marcionites and some other sects not so well known to the Christian people also do this. The Marcionites were a Christian Gnostic heresy of the second century originating with Marcion who died around 160. See the Introduction, 341-343. For Augustine's account of Marcionism, see Heresies XXII. For a good English introduction to Marcion, see “Marcion” in the New Catholic Encyclopedia 9, 193-194, by A. A. Stephenson. For a more current perspective on Marcion, see “Marcion,” in Dictionnaire de spiritualité X, 311-322, by Giles Pelland. Pelland indicates that the two fundamental points of Marcion's theology were the opposition between the law and the gospel and the perfect gratuity of salvation in Christ. †3 But this fellow, whose name I did not find in this book, detests the God who made the world. Augustine points out that the author of the work he has been asked to refute has in common with the Manichees the rejection of the Old Testament, but also differs from them insofar as he holds that the world was not created by the good God. Augustine notes that the author is closer to Marcion than to Mani. In Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 2, 3 and II, 12, 41, Augustine reports that the anonymous author boasts of being the disciple of a certain Fabricius at Rome. Harnack suggested that this Fabricius is the Patricius whom Augustine mentions in his Heresies LXI and in Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 12, 40, and who rejected the God of the law and the prophets; see A. von Harnack, Marcion: Das Evangelium vom fremden Gott, Beilage X, 424*-433*. In his introduction to the Corpus christianorum Latinorum edition, Klaus-D. Daur agrees with Harnack's suggestion; see page 5. For a good summary of the state of scholarly opinion on the heresy to which the anonymous author belonged, see Thomas Raveaux, Augustinus: Contra Adversarium Legis et Prophetarum and id., “Adversarium legis et prophetarum (Contra —),” in Augustinus-Lexikon vol. I, 1/2, 107-112. †4 Although the Manichees do not accept, but speak irreverently against the Book of Genesis, they admit that the good God made the world, even if he made it from another nature and material. The Manichees did not hold that God created the world out of nothing, but out of matter which was evil and which he was not able to overcome completely. Beginning with the problem of evil as we confront it in the present age, they devised a simple solution with the postulation of an initial and radical dualism of good and evil, or of light and darkness. See the general introduction to Augustine's anti-Manichaean works, by Pio de Luis in Obras Completas de San Agustín XXX (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1986), 3-174, especially 46-47. †5 Though I am not clear about the sect to which this blasphemer belongs, the divine scripture, which he attacks with his slanderous disputations, must be defended against his tongue. Since he wants to appear in some sense as a Christian and thus sets forth some proofs from the gospel and from the apostle, he must also be refuted from the writings that belong to the New Testament so that he might be shown to rave in blaming the Old more out of a lack of judgment than out of cleverness. The anonymous author draws arguments for his position from both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Augustine structures his response in two books. In the first, he answers the charges against the Old Testament that were drawn from the Old Testament; in the second, he deals with the author's arguments against the Old Testament drawn from the New. †6
The Beginning in Which God Created Heaven and Earth
2, 2. First, this impious fellow asks sacrilegiously what a pious man could have asked religiously, “How should we understand the words of scripture: In the beginning God made heaven and earth?” (Gn 1:1). Though he did not add “earth,” he mentions it later. He asks, “From what beginning? That in which God himself began to be, or that from which he was bored with being idle?” To him we answer that God neither began to be nor did he become bored with his idleness. The Jewish and Christian belief in a temporal creation, that is, at a moment in the past finitely distant from the present, raised the questions for believers and non-believers as to why God created when he did, or why he did not create earlier than he did, and what he was doing before he created the world. The Gnostics and Manichees both raised such questions as objections to the Judaeo-Christian account of creation. See E. Peters, “What was God doing before He created the Heavens and the Earth?” Augustiniana 34 (1984) 53-74. See the Confessions XI, 12, 14, where Augustine argues that, since time is a creature, there was no time when God made nothing. Augustine's position requires a distinction between the non-temporal duration of God's eternity and the temporal duration of creatures. †7 After all, there was no point when he was not, and he did not become sluggish when he stopped work, nor did he labor when he worked. Augustine points out that there is no change in God whether he is producing something or is not producing something. Whatever we truly say of God at one time that we do not truly say of him at another indicates a change, not in God, but in some creature; see The Trinity V, 16, 17, for Augustine's articulation of this principle. †8 He was not lacking a dwelling before heaven was made, and he did not find a dwelling like a traveler at the end of his journey when heaven was made. He was able to abide quite happily in himself; he bestows his presence upon his temple, that is, upon all the holy angels and human beings, so that they have from him a good by which they can be happy, See 1 Cor 3:16-17 and Eph 2:21-22. †9 not so that he has from them a dwelling without which he could not be happy. Therefore, either we should understand the words of
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scripture,
In the beginning God made heaven and earth (Gn 1:1), so that the beginning is that from which they began to be. After all, they did not always exist from eternity like God, but were made and received a starting point from which they began to be. Or, we should understand by these words that God made heaven and earth in a beginning coeternal to himself, that is, in his only-begotten Son. See Jn 3:16-18. In all of his commentaries on Genesis Augustine interprets “the beginning” in Gn 1:1 as Christ, though he is willing to accept another interpretation as he does here. See, for example, On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans I, 2, 3; Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis III, 6; The Literal Meaning of Genesis I, i, 3; and Confessions XI, 3, 5. This interpretation is inspired by Origen; see Homiliae in Genesim I, 1 and B. Altaner, “Augustinus und Origenes,” in Kleine patristische Schriften. Texte und Untersuchungen 83 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1967), 234-236.
†10 After all, he is the wisdom of which the apostle says,
Christ the power and wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24). Thus the Psalm says to God who made heaven and earth,
You have made all things in wisdom (Ps 103:24). Or, if he is unwilling to accept a proof from a Psalm, let him listen to the apostle as he speaks of Christ,
In him were created all things in heaven and on earth, things visible and invisible (Col 1:16).
Not Everything That Begins To Be Ceases To Be
3. God then neither begins to be nor ceases to be. Not merely does God have no beginning and no end; he begins to be and ceases to be in no way, that is, he is without any change. Divine immutability is basic to Augustine's whole view of reality. See Confessions VII, 1, 1, for Augustine's coming to realize that God is immutable. In Letter 18, 2, Augustine sketches the hierarchy of being which includes bodies that change in time and place, souls that change only in time, and God who is utterly changeless. Thus, all creatures are changeable, while God is absolutely immutable. †11 Some of his works begin and cease to be at a certain point, such as times and temporal things; others begin to be and will last, such as the eternal life that the saints will attain. This fellow did not see that; he thought that we must state definitively that there is no beginning without an end. For possible sources of this idea, which seems to have been almost a commonplace among the ancients, see Plato, Republic VIII, 546A. See also Aristotle, De caelo I, around 10, 279b21, 280a 12-13, where he says that everything that begins to be comes to an end. In Letter 166, 5, 14, Augustine rejects with regard to the human soul the claim “that everything that begins in time cannot be immortal,” a claim supported by Sallust's words that “all things that come to be fail and age once they are grown” (Bellum Jugurthinum 2, 3). Raveaux sees in the words of the anonymous heretic an indication that he regarded the work of the creator God as doomed to extinction and as completely divorced from the work of the Savior. He thus takes it as a sign of the Marcionite character of the work; see Raveaux, Augustinus: Contra Adversarium Legis et Prophetarum, 14-19. †12 He must not have noticed that number begins with one and never ends. No matter how great a number is said to be or, if it cannot be said, is thought to be, another number can be added to it so that it becomes greater. Moreover, I suspect that, whatever heresy this fellow holds under the name of Christ in opposition to Christ, he promises himself a truly happy life in Christ that will begin when this life ends. Let him answer, then, whether that happy life, which he does not deny will have or has a beginning, will or will not have an end. If he says that it will have an end, how will he dare to claim to be Christian? If he says that it will not have an end, what happens to the claim he dared to make, namely, that there is no beginning without an end?
Why Did God Not Make the World Back at the Start?
3, 4. He also asks, “If this world is something good, why did he not make something better back at the start?” The anonymous author uses “start” (initium) instead of “beginning” (principium). The Latin terms are virtually synonymous in meaning, just as the English terms are, though the anonymous author implies a distinction between the two. A possible basis for such a distinction is the Gnostic and Manichaean division of all of time into starting, middle, and end times (initium, medium, and finis). See Answer to Felix I, 6, 9 and 12. If such is his meaning, the anonymous author is asking why God did not make the world in the starting times, that is, before this present age. He may also be implying that he has secret knowledge of what God was doing in those times. †13 He says this, as if God should have made the world something better than it is, or as if this good world should not have been made, because it is not equal to its maker. That is, Augustine takes the anonymous opponent of the Law and the Prophets as implying one of two things: either that, if the existence of the world is good, its earlier and, hence, longer existence would have been better, or that, since it does not have a duration equal to God's, it is not good at all. †14 But let his question about why this world was not made back at the start have its answer. In all truth, it was made back at the start, at its start, not at God's, for he has no start. But if the words, In the beginning God made (Gn 1:1), can refer to this start, with what does he find fault, when he pretends to ask in what beginning he made it? After all, he turns around and asks why God did not make it back at the start. Hence, his words should be turned against him. Because of the words, In the beginning God made heaven and
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earth (Gn 1:1), he argues, “In what beginning then? That in which God himself began to be, or that from which he was bored with being idle?” So to his words, “Why did he not make this back at the start?” we should reply to him: “From what start? That in which God himself began to be, or that from which he was bored with being idle?” He is displeased that God did not make heaven back at the start when he says, “Why did he not make it back at the start?” He says this, as if he should have made it from the start of its maker's existence. Why was he not afraid that, if he said that God should have made heaven from the start of his existence, he would be told, “Then God has a start and so, according to your position, he will also have an end? After all, you said that there is no start without an end.” But if God does not have a start, how could he make something from the start of his own existence? Or did he, then, make it from the start of his making, that is, when there began to be what he made? Either, then, their God never made any good, or according to this fellow he made whatever good he made from that start of his existence. And then we must fear that he will have an end, because he has a start. Or, he should yield to the words of holy scripture and understand that God, who began to be from no beginning, made heaven in the beginning, either when heaven began to be or in the Son. After all, he answered the Jews, when they asked him who he was, that he was the beginning. See Jn 8:25. The Latin admits this interpretation, though the preferable translation of the Greek text is, “What I have told you from the beginning.”
†15
5. Perhaps he will say that a start (initium) is different from a beginning (principium). See above note 13, for a possible basis for the author's distinction between initium and principium. Augustine's argument takes the two terms as synonymous. †16 If then scripture said, “At the start (initio) God made heaven and earth,” this fellow who said, “Why was it not made back at the start?” would not be upset if he should read: “At the start God made.” For he would not think it impious to believe that God has a start (initium), provided he does not have a beginning. But if this is so, let this author correct the gospel where it says, In the beginning (principio) was the Word (Jn 1:1). The heretic's attempt to draw a distinction between start and beginning runs into problems with the parallelism between the initial verse of Genesis and that of the Gospel of John. If Gn 1:1 implies that God had a beginning, then Jn 1:1 implies that the Word had a beginning. †17 Why does this fellow not ask here, “In what beginning then? That in which the Word itself began to be?” And since the Word was God, he can also say, as he says in this book, “That in which God himself began to be?” Let him state here, if he wants, that decisive position of his, when he hears, In the beginning was the Word (Jn 1:1). Let him state here, if he dares, that there is no beginning without an end. Then he will be judged insane even by the Manichees, who may read him with pleasure because they find in him an enemy of the law and the prophets. If the heretic applied his claim that there is no beginning without an end to the Word of God as he had applied it to the creator God of Genesis, then even the Manichees would regard him as insane, since even the Manichees did not think that Christ had an end. †18 Since he is displeased with God who made the world, why is he not displeased with him through whom God made the world? After all, scripture says of Christ, He was in the world, and the world was made through him (Jn 1:10).
Why God Created All Good Things, Both the Higher and the Lower
4, 6. Let him understand that God could make good things, but that he could not need the good things he made. In The Trinity V, 1, 2, Augustine declares that God is “creator without need” (creatorem sine indigentia). See Expositions of the Psalms 134 10, where Augustine contrasts our making things out of need or necessity with God's making by his free will and out of his goodness. “God made out of goodness; he needed nothing which he made; thus, he made whatever he willed” (Ps 55:12). †19 He did not need those things before they
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were made, since he did not need them once they were made. He who is supremely good made all things, unequal to one another, but still good. Augustine's standard defense of the goodness of the whole of creation against the Manichees who had contempt for the visible world ran as follows: to have a full panoply of creatures from the highest to the lowest is better than to have a world in which there are only the higher creatures. For Augustine's use of this sort of aesthetic defense of the goodness of all things (omnia), see Robert J. O'Connell, Imagination and Metaphysics in Saint Augustine (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1986), 28-33.
†20 Something good, even if not the highest good, indeed even the lowest good, can only come from the highest good. Augustine's claim is based upon a doctrine of participation, which he derived from the Platonists, but understood in terms of what we could call both formal and efficient causality. Thus, he speaks the language of participation in some texts, such as Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis XVI, 57-58, and in others he speaks the language of causation, such as Confessions VII, 12, 18-13, 19.
†21 He thinks very incorrectly about God, if he says that something is not good because he sees that it is not equal to God. After all, he will not be the highest good, but the lowest good, if whatever is less than him is not good. If no creature is good on the grounds that no creature is equal to God, then God is the only good and will be the lowest good just as much as the highest good.
†22 Indeed, among the things which he created, the first goods are far from equal to their creator, because he made them and they were made. We should believe that he, who did not need such goods to increase his happiness, had far less need for lesser goods and no need at all for the least goods. Yet as the creator of all good things, he made them. For the Lord Jesus, through whom the world was made, See Jn 1:10.
†23 indicates that God created and creates not only heavenly good, but also earthly goods and those of the earthly goods that seem least. After all, he says,
If then God so clothes the grass of the field, which exists today and is tomorrow thrown into the furnace, how much more you of little faith? (Mt 6:30). One and the same God is the creator of heaven and earth, of the stars and the plants, of whatever in heaven and on earth has measure, form, and order, of whatever lives in heaven and on earth, of whatever has awareness in heaven and earth, and of whatever has understanding in heaven and earth. The triad, “measure, form, and order,” is a variation on Wis 11:21, “You have arranged everything in measure, number, and weight.” See Free Will II, 20, 54, where Augustine says, “Do not hestitate to attribute to God's artistry every reality in which you see measure, number and order.” In Free Will II, 16, 42, Augustine links number and form, where he says of creatures, “They have forms, because they have numbers.” So too, in Free Will III, 12, 35, he speaks of natures that are “measured, formed, and ordered,” and in III, 21, 60, he calls God “author, former, and orderer.” See W. Bierwaltes, “Augustins Interpretation von Sapientia 11,21,” Revue des études augustiniennes 15 (1969) 51-61; O. du Roy, L'intelligence de la foi en la Trinité selon saint Augustin (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1966), 279-297 and 421-424; A.-M. La Bonnardière, Biblia augustiniana. Le livre de la sagesse (Paris: Etudes augustiniennes, 1970), 90-98.
†24 They had to be not only unequal to him by whom they were created, but unequal to one another, and thus they form a universe. For if they were equal, they would be one kind of good and not all kinds. But they are now all kinds of goods, because some are better than others, and the goodness of the lesser adds to the praises of the better. In the inequality of good things, there is a pleasing gradation in which a comparison with the lesser is a commendation of the better. See above note 20.
†25
Augustine Explains That Evil Is Merely a Privation of Good
5, 7. Those things which we call evil are either the defects of good things, which cannot exist anywhere by themselves outside of good things, or they are the punishments of sins, which arise from the beauty of justice. There are two things we call evils: defects and punishments. A defect (vitium) can be either a physical or a moral failing, though Augustine is chiefly concerned in this context with non-moral defects. Augustine insists that all natures are good. In Free Will III, 13, 38, he says, “What is there in reality that one blames except the defect of something? But the defect of something is not blamed unless its nature is praised.” †26 Even the defects bear witness to the goodness of the natures. For what is evil by reason of its defect is good by reason of its nature. A defect is against nature, because it harms a nature, and it would not harm it if it did not lessen its goodness. Therefore, evil is only a privation of good. A privation is not merely a negation or an absence of good, but a lack of a good that a nature ought to have. Thus, a lack of sight is a mere negation of a good in a tree, but a privation in an animal or human being. †27 Thus it never exists except in some good thing, which is not supremely good, for something supremely good, such as God, lasts without corruption or change. Still, evil exists only in something good, because it does harm only by diminishing what is good. Thus good things can exist without evil, as God himself and any loftier beings of heaven, but evils cannot exist without something good. After all, if they do no harm, they are not evil; if, however, they
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do harm, they diminish a good. Even if they do more harm, they still have the good which they diminish, and if they totally destroy it, there will remain no nature for them to harm. Thus there will be no evil that does harm, when there is no nature whose goodness is diminished by the harm done. Hence, evil is always parasitic upon what is good; there cannot be anything whose nature or substance is itself evil.
†28
There Is Beauty Even in Changing and Mortal Creatures
6, 8. Whether any nature, that is, any substance, is reduced to nothing is a very subtle question. See The Catholic Way of Life and the Manichean Way of Life II, 2, 2: “Evil itself, then, is… to fall away from being (essentia) and tend toward not being.” Augustine argued that, though the soul tends toward nothingness by sinning, it can never cease to be; see the chapter, “The Fall towards Impossible Nothingness,” in E. zum Brunn, Saint Augustine: Being and Nothingness (New York: Paragon House, 1988). †29 But our faith sings most truly to God, You change them, and they are changed, but you are the selfsame (Ps 101:27-28). Therefore, only the immutable good that is God made and rules changeable goods. Moreover, changeable goods are good precisely because they were made by the highest good; they are changeable precisely because they were made, not out of God, but out of nothing. To be made out of God would entail that they were of the same nature or substance as God; hence, they would be immutable. To be made out of nothing does not imply that nothing is some material cause out of which things are made, but that there is no material cause out of which they are made. †30 Hence, although mortal things are in part a punishment for those for whom only the immortality of perfect beatitude can provide the full measure, they still have their own place that they adorn in the beauty of times. Yet the mind that can perceive this beauty is greater than human. Augustine's aesthetic defense of the beauty of things that pass might easily be subjected to the ridicule that Voltaire poured out on the Leibnizian optimism in Candide. On the other hand, Augustine clearly claims that the beauty found in passing things is not visible to the human eye. †31 That faith, nonetheless, which says to its God, You have established all things in measure and number and weight (Ws 11:21), praises the creator of all good things even for mortal goods, though it finds the condition of death abhorrent because of its love for life. This fellow finds fault with and does not believe that those earthly works which he sees are mortal are God's works; yet, he could not complete this very speech of his, in which he finds so much pleasure that he has committed it to writing and memory, except by the sounds attached to each of his words that come to be and pass away. Augustine often compares the beauty of passing things to the words of a poem or of a discourse whose beauty lies not in the individual words, but in the whole poem or discourse. See True Religion XXII, 42-43, where Augustine draws an analogy between the beauty of passing syllables of a poem and of passing temporal beings and argues that, as no one would reasonably want a single syllable of a poem to sound forever so that the whole poem could not be heard, so we should not want temporal things to last forever and not pass away. But then he adds that “no human being can perceive the whole order of the ages. Moreover, we are not parts of the poem, but we were made parts of the ages by reason of our condemnation.” †32 Thus he could not display the beauty of his discourse, by which he wants to persuade us that whatever comes to be and dies cannot be good, save by syllables that come to be and die. Why should we be surprised if in so great a natural universe there is some lowest good in the temporal order that is beautiful, not by the enduring reality we find in some sublime spiritual beings, but by its low and earthly origin and demise proportioned to a beauty of its own kind?
Even Sinners Have Many Sorts of Goodness
9. Since this is so, let him not viciously attack the scripture when it says, God saw that the light was good (Gn 1:4). After all, the supremely good God created not only the light which he called day and the firmament which he called heaven and the sun and the moon and the other stars, but also the trees and plants and whatever mortal things are in the water and on the land, and he saw that they were good in their kind and order. Nor did the author, who wrote this book by the revelation of God's Spirit, have any fear of those wicked persons to come
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who would find fault with it in their foolish words and who would lead astray, first, their own mind and, then, the minds of others who take pleasure in such irreverent blather. That is, even in wicked persons like the anonymous author, who would in the future centuries find fault with the words of Genesis and lead others from the truth, God saw much good. Hence, the author of Genesis had no reason to fear that such persons constituted a refutation of his declaration that God saw all things were good. The long sentence that follows points to the great good to be found even in such wicked human beings.
†33 For God saw that they are good insofar as they are human beings, insofar as they are composed of a body and a rational soul, insofar as the members of their bodies have their distinct functions and work together in harmonious difference toward a peaceful unity in a wonderful order, See 1 Cor 12:12.
†34 insofar as the soul presides and rules over them by its natural excellence, insofar as it fills and enlivens the fivefold senses of the flesh See Gn 9:15.
†35 with differing powers, but mutual cooperation, and insofar as it can, unlike the soul of a beast, have wisdom and understanding by its mind and reason. Because he saw they were good, he created them. After all, he did not see them only after he had created them, but he saw them before when they were still to be created. God's knowledge of things is causally prior to the existence of things. Augustine puts it crisply: We know things because they exist; things exist because God knows them. See Confessions XIII, 16, 19, as well as The City of God XI, 21 and To Orosius in Refutation of Priscillianists and Origenists 7, 8.
†36 He did not see that, because they are wicked by perversion of the will and the blindness of error, they were not to be created; he foresaw how they were going to be ordered. Augustine says that God does not create evil, but orders evil by punishing it. See Confessiones I, 10, 16, where Augustine calls God “the creator and orderer of all natural things, but only the orderer of sins.” In Letter 140, 2, he says, “One who orders himself unjustly in sins is justly ordered in punishments.”
†37 And thus from that same mass of the first transgression, he made them vessels of wrath that are rightly condemned if they persevere in this wickedness to the end. In that way they are of profit to the vessels of mercy, See Rom 9:22-23.
†38 insofar as their heights of foolishness seek out more carefully the recesses of the truth. Augustine juxtaposes acumina vanitatis and arcana veritatis.
†39 Indeed,
Great are the works of the Lord sought in all he wills (Ps 110:2). But why should we be surprised that human folly is displeased that divine wisdom is pleased by its works? What else does,
He saw that the light was good (Gn 1:4), mean but that he was pleased with it?
How God Saw That the Light He Made Was Good
7, 10. See what this blaspheming mouther of foolishness, who wrote this book full of sacrilegious charges, has said. How I wish that he would be displeased with his work and would not think that it is good, but would see that it is bad! He says, “And so he previously did not know what light was, and now when he first sees it, he judges it very good.” This passage provides a good example of how Augustine draws material from his repertoire. The Manichees had used the same attack against the Old Testament, and Augustine used the same counter-argument in his first commentary on Genesis. See On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans I, 8, 13-14 †40 And so, when the Lord Jesus was amazed at the words he heard from the centurion and said to his disciples, Amen, I say to you, I have not found such faith in Israel (Mt 8:10), he did not previously know what faith was, and when he first saw it, he judged it very good. Or did someone else than he who was amazed at it produce that faith in the heart of the centurion? Though at the time of his very early writings Augustine had thought that “it is up to us to believe and to will, but it is up to [God] to give to those who believe and will the power to act well by the Holy Spirit,” he came to realize, when answering the questions of Simplician in 396, that faith by which we believe in God is a gift of God. See The Predestination of the Saint III, 7, where Augustine admits that he was mistaken in what he wrote in Commentary on Some Statements in the Letter to the Romans 53 (61). †41 There are in fact better grounds for the foolish and the non-believers to blaspheme because Jesus was amazed at the greatness of the man's faith than because God saw that the light was good. After all, one can see that even familiar things are good, that is, acknowledge to oneself that they are pleasing, but one who is amazed, at least according to the way human beings usually speak, indicates that the object of amazement is something unexpected or unforeseen. Jesus, however, who foresaw all things, praised by his
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amazement what he wanted others to be amazed at. Which of the things God made did he not first, in the light that he himself is, see that he was going to make? And what did holy scripture repeat so often and with such necessity as that God saw that what he made was good? Thus the pious faithful are taught not to make judgments about the visible and invisible creation in terms of the human senses, which are often offended even by good things whose causes and order they do not know, but to believe God who praises them and learn? See On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans I, 16, 25, where Augustine draws an analogy between someone who is offended by things he finds in God's creation and an ignorant person who enters a workshop, fails to understand the purpose of various tools, and injures himself on some of them, which he then regards as dangerous and harmful.
†42 After all, one more easily makes progress in knowing something to the extent that one believes God more religiously before knowing it. See Is 7:9. Augustine's Old Latin version reads, “Unless you believe, you will not understand,” a verse which represents one of the major themes in his thought. After his many years as a “hearer” among the Manichees, who had promised knowledge without the yoke of belief, Augustine became convinced that the humility of faith was the necessary prerequisite for attaining knowledge of things divine and that the more profound one's faith is, the more easy will be one's progress in knowledge.
†43 God, then, saw that the light he made was good, because when it was still to be made he was pleased that it should be made. And when it had been made, he was pleased that it should remain for as long a time as such a great maker had determined was to be the measure for each thing to exist or remain. But the light which God is is not the light which God made. Being an incomparably better light, he who made the light would have no need of the light he made. See Confessions VII, 10, 16, where Augustine recounts how he found God, the unchangeable light, above his mind. It was not this common light that is seen by bodily eyes, but a light far different from all other lights. Though we might be tempted to regard Augustine's describing God as light as a metaphor, he states clearly that it is proper, not metaphorical predication. See The Literal Meaning of Genesis IV, 28, 45, where Augustine says that his interpretation of the light as angelic knowledge is not figurative, but proper; he says, “Where the light is better and more evident, there the day is more true.”
†44 This fellow's complains, asking why God did not make these good things back as far as God goes back. We should rather understand that he did not make them as one in need of them, but that he could do without them in his perfect happiness, everlasting and without beginning. Hence, the only cause of their being made was the goodness of God, because he had no necessity. Thus, in The City of God XI, 24, Augustine says that “the words, God saw that it was good, show sufficiently that God made what has been made by no necessity, by no need of any benefit, but by goodness alone, that is, because it is good.” For a discussion of God's freedom in creation, see R.-H. Cousineau, “Creation and Freedom: An Augustinian Problem: 'Quia voluit'? and/or 'Quia bonus'?” Recherches Augustiniennes 2 (1963) 253-271, as well as my “The Motive of Creation according to Saint Augustine,” The Modern Schoolman 65 (1988) 245-253.
†45 Therefore, whatever accusation this fellow makes against God that he at that point, as it were, first saw the light after being previously unaware of it, he would see how foolish and vain it is, if he himself had some light within. The light here might be the light of one's understanding or the light of faith. In either case this light within has its source in the divine light. See the Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis V, 20-25, where Augustine distinguishes uncreated light from the various created lights, namely, bodily light, the light in the senses of animals, and the light of human minds.
†46
The Meaning of the Darkness That Was upon the Deep
8, 11. He even attributes it “to the author's foolishness that he said that the darkness always was without any beginning, but that the light had its beginning from darkness,” as if he read “eternal darkness” in the book he slanders, when it said, In the beginning God made heaven and earth. But the earth was invisible and without order, and darkness was upon the deep (Gn 1:1-2). See Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis IV, 11, where Augustine deals with a similar argument of the Manichees who interpreted the imperfect tenses in Gn 1:2 to mean that the earth and the darkness already existed when God made heaven and earth. †47 The darkness began to be, then, from the time the confused mass of heaven and earth began to be, before the light was made which enlightened what without light was dark. But what problem is there if the first beginnings of earthly matter were dark and, when light came, what had been made became better? In this way it could signify what was to come later, namely, the growth of man's love. Augustine suggests a prophetic sense of the text so that the darkness followed by light signified the fact that we were once darkness and are now light in the Lord; see Eph 5:8. †48 And yet one who by God's gift can search out these things more clearly will perhaps find a marvelously differentiated order of things in the creation which is reported to have been made without any intervals of temporal periods. Augustine is alluding to Sir 18:1: “He who remains forever created everything at once.” In the Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis VII, 28, Augustine cites Sir 18:1 and then says, while commenting on the morning and evening of the first day, that in Genesis “the story of the things God made is most conveniently divided into different stages so that the order that could not be seen in steady contemplation by weaker minds could be made out through the order of such a narrative as though it were set before these eyes.” That is, for the minds not strong enough to grasp the simultaneous creation of all things, the Genesis narrative spreads it out over six days and presents it in a fashion they can see. †49 The matter of which the Book of Wisdom says, You made the world from unformed matter (Wis 2:18), is not absolutely nothing. It is not absolutely nothing, just because it is said to be unformed, and it is not coeternal with God, as if it were made by no
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one. Nor did someone else make it so that God had the material to make the world. Augustine thus holds that matter is not absolutely nothing, that it is not coeternal with God, and that it was made by God. The Manichees had denied that matter was made by God; the ancient philosophers had held that matter always existed and, hence, was in some sense coeternal with God. See Confessions XII, 5, 5-6, 6, where Augustine tells of his struggle to conceive of matter.
†50 Heaven forbid that the Almighty should be said not to have been able to make anything unless he found something out of which to make it. Hence, God made matter. And we should not think that it is evil because it is unformed; rather, we should understand that it is good, formable, that is, capable of formation. For, if form is something good, it is something good to have the capacity for good. As a confused cry is a wordless shout, so a sound becomes articulated when it is formed into words. The former, then, is formable; the latter formed; the former is what receives form; the latter what has form. That from which any of these is made is already there. After all, no one would say that the vocal sound is made out of the word; rather, everyone realizes that words are made audible out of sounds. Augustine is arguing that matter, though in itself formless, is good, since it is capable of being formed. Hence, he clearly stands opposed to not merely the Manichees, but also to the Neoplatonists who at least at times regarded matter as evil.
†51
Unformed Matter Did Not Temporally Precede Its Formation
9, 12. We should not think that God first made unformed matter and then after an interval of time formed what he had previously made unformed. Rather, just as audible words are produced by a speaker, in which case the initially unformed sound does not afterward receive form, but is brought forth formed, so we should understand that God made the world from unformed matter, but created it at the same time together with the world. In Confessions XII, 29, 40, Augustine distinguished four kinds of priority: by eternity, in time, by choice, and in origin. Thus, God precedes the world by eternity, a flower precedes the fruit in time, while the fruit precedes the flower by choice, and the sound precedes the melody in origin. He concedes that the first and the last are difficult to understand. As a melody is formed out of sounds, though the sounds do not come first in time, so the created world is formed out of matter, though the unformed matter did not come first in time. †52 Still, it is not without benefit that we are first told about that out of which something is made and afterward about what was made from it. For, though both of them can be made at the same time, both cannot be talked about at the same time. Augustine's mature position is that God created everything at once and that the narrative of creation was spread out over six days because we cannot be told everything at once. See above note 49. †53
Various Meanings of “Heaven and Earth”
10, 13. Either, then, the names of heaven and earth or of the earth invisible and without order and of the darksome abyss first signified the unformed matter by the words for familiar things. After all, matter is, of course, not known to the human senses and is scarcely understood at all when things are changed for the worse. It is as if something more deformed approaches, but still does not attain, that state of formlessness, as long as some slight amount of either visible or intelligible form remains. Matter is, for Augustine, the principle of mutability; see Confessions XII, 3, 3-6, 6, where he speaks of his struggle to think of matter in a correct philosophical manner. As he could not think of either God or the soul as an incorporeal substance, so he could not think of matter as lacking all form. In both cases, he had to learn to transcend the imagination. For Augustine, matter is present in anything mutable; hence, there is matter in both bodies and in souls; that is, there is both corporeal and spiritual matter. †54 Or, “heaven and earth” first conveyed to us the spiritual and the corporeal nature in general, or something else which can be understood here without harm to the rule of faith. Here Augustine is content to have his readers find some interpretation in accord with the rule of faith. In his previous commentaries on the beginning of Genesis, he strongly favors the first interpretation; see On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans I, 5, 9, and Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis IV, 11. †55 In any case we may not doubt that the true, supreme and good God made all the things we see and the better things we do not see, even though the human mind cannot comprehend the way he made them. But we should not deal with these uneducated blasphemers by using the same subtle reasonings with which we should investigate and discuss these matters among the peaceful sons of God. See Mt 5:9. †56
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The God of Both Testaments Is Incomprehensible Light
11, 14. If this fellow thinks that he knows, in opposition to the books of the law and the prophets, what he says he knows, namely, that “the supreme God is the incomparable splendor of incomprehensible light,” I would like, first of all, to hear from him of which light he thinks that the supreme God is the splendor and whether the light is God and whether he understands the Father as light and his only-begotten Son, whom he admitted is the supreme God, as his splendor. Augustine uses the image of light and its splendor to provide an image of the Father and the Son. Though they are both temporal, not eternal, light and its splendor are of equal duration; yet, the splendor is derived from the light. See Sermon 117, 10, 14. Here Augustine puts the most favorable interpretation on the words of the anonymous author, who in accord with his Monarchian views more likely took “of incomprehensible light,” not as signifying the source of the splendor, but as indicating its nature. †57 If this is what he thinks, I approve and applaud. But I disapprove and blame his not believing that he, whom he believes to be light from light or the incomparable splendor of incomprehensible light, is the maker of this world. The anonymous heretic held that it was not the true God, but an evil demon who made the world. Hence, Christ, who is Light from Light in the words of the Nicene Creed, is not the maker of this world. The phrase, “Light from Light,” in the Nicene Creed, is intended to express in language closer to biblical imagery what is expressed in the more technical language of consubstantiality. †58 After all, he can read, The world was made through him, (Jn 1:10), right where he reads, He was the true light that enlightens every man coming into this world (Jn 1:9). If he does not know what was previously written in the old scriptures of God, I also disapprove, and if he does know and plots to deceive those who do not know, I disapprove even more and despise him. There it says, Approach him and be enlightened (Ps 33:6), and The command of the Lord is bright, enlightening the eyes (Ps 18:9), and Enlighten my eyes lest I ever fall asleep unto death (Ps 12:4). That man, who is surely mortal, was not praying that he never die in the body, nor was he wishing that sleep not come to the eyes of the body. Rather, he was asking that those eyes of his be enlightened, of which the apostle speaks, the eyes of your heart having been enlightened (Eph 1:18). Augustine first takes the psalmist's words very literally and then claims that he could not have been praying for what the Psalm literally says, namely, that he would never die or never fall asleep. Hence, the figurative interpretation is justified by the absurdity of the literal sense. †59
15. On top of that, he is displeased that the light had its beginning from darkness, and he stirs up this question too with his endless and foolish words. Let him say this to the same apostle, who in writing to the faithful says, You were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord (Eph 5:8). After all, who brought about this transformation but he who, when darkness was above the abyss, said, Let there be light, and light was made? (Gn 1:3). The same apostle expresses this more clearly in another passage, when he says, God, who commanded that light shine forth from darkness, has shone in our hearts (2 Cor 4:6). If he thinks that the prophetic writings do not say that the Son is light from light or the splendor of light, let him read what is found in these same writings concerning wisdom, It is the brightness of eternal light (Wis 7:26), or the words of the prophetic psalm, Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth; sing to the Lord and bless his name; proclaim well the day from the day, his salvation (Ps 95:1-2). Augustine's comments on the text demand the very literal translation I have given. The more natural rendering of the last clause would be simply: “Proclaim well from day to day his salvation.” †60 Who is this day from the day, if not the Son, light from light? Let him read in the gospel that Christ is God's salvation, where old Simeon recognized him in his mother's hands, tiny in the flesh, but very great in spirit. After having taken him in his hands, he said, Now you dismiss your servant, Lord, in peace according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation (Lk 2:29-30).
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God as Uncreated Light and Various Created Lights
12, 16. He might answer that the light spoken of in, You were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord (Eph 5:8), is different from the light of which scripture says, The Lord said, Let there be light, and light was made (Gn 1:3), for the former is the spiritual light of the mind, not of the flesh, while the latter belongs to the eyes of the body. First, let him admit that the highest light, which is God, could have made a light, however inferior, but still good. That is, if the anonymous author is going to plead that the light Paul spoke of is spiritual, while the light mentioned in Genesis is bodily, Augustine asks that he at least admit that the God of Genesis could have produced a created light that was good. †61 Second, how does he know what kind and how great the light is? Finally, is it spiritual or corporeal? Or can believers who, while they are in the body, are on pilgrimage away from the Lord See 2 Cor 5:6. †62 be called light by reason of their faith, and yet the angels cannot, though they always see the face of the Father? See Mt 18:10. In Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis V, 19, Augustine suggests that the light mentioned in Gn 1:3 might be the ordinary visible light, or a more hidden, but bodily light, or the light found in the animal soul or a higher light. But in The Literal Meaning of Genesis I, 19, 38, he indicates that the light could be the spiritual creation, that is, the angels whose knowledge of things in God is signified by morning and whose knowledge of things in creation is signified by evening; see The Literal Meaning of Genesis V, 18, 36. †63 How does he know whether this sort of light was made first? How does he know that morning and evening can be understood in that light? See Gn 1:5. †64 Finally, how was the light presented by God's works under the number six, and how did God rest on the seventh day so that a pattern of the number seven has been transferred to these days familiar to us which pass with the orbiting of the sun? But even if a corporeal light was made, where does he get his knowledge of how, before the sun and before the firmament, which is later called heaven, See Gn 1:8. †65 the light could have been removed from the gaze of earthly beings in the loftier parts of the world, so that only God divided it from the darkness? After all, he commanded that the lights visible to us divide between this darkness which makes our familiar night and this light which makes our familiar day. See Gn 1:4-5.14-16. The anonymous heretic apparently understood the light in question to be a corporeal light removed from the gaze of earthly creatures so that only God distinguished it from darkness. †66 Though we should rather laugh at him than be angry with him, who is going to tolerate this fellow when he tells us that “the hours mark the day, but the sun distinguishes and separates the hours” and wants us to believe “that Moses did not know this and, hence, mentioned the day before the sun was made”? See Gn 1:5. The anonymous heretic had apparently argued that the author of the Genesis account was ignorant of the fact that one could not have days and hours in the ordinary sense before the creation of the sun. The point of Augustine's battery of questions was to show that there are more questions that an inquiring believer can ask than those raised by the opponent of the Old Testament (see On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans II, 2, 3) and to indicate that his opponent simply does not know of the sort of light about which Genesis was speaking. †67 Let the people assemble to hear this fellow's book, and let it be proposed to them which is more believable: that this fellow does not know a light and a day that Moses knew or that Moses did not know this light and day that not only this fellow, but even those who do not understand his words know.
How the Waters Were Gathered into One Place
13, 17. What are we to say of the question some utterly uneducated person raises “concerning the gathering of the waters”? In fact, he does not raise a question, but makes an accusation, as if “it was not correct to say, Let the waters be gathered into one gathering, and let the dry land appear (Gn 1:9), because everything was covered with water.” The Manichees raised the same objection; see On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans I, 12, 28. There Augustine explains the gathering of the waters as the formation of matter into the water we can see. If one takes quite literally the statement that water covered the whole earth, then it, of course, becomes difficult to imagine how the water could be gathered so that the dry land could emerge. †68 He does not know that water becomes less dense when it is reduced to airy vapors and occupies much space with its cloudy fog, but only a small space, if it is gathered and condensed. Then it no
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longer blows about in its light form, but flows about in its heavy form. Why, then, should we be surprised that, in its rarefied form, it covered the earth and, when it was condensed, it laid it bare? Augustine, first, takes water in its proper sense and explains the gathering of the waters in terms of their condensation from a misty or steamy form to a liquid form.
†69 Why should we be surprised, if at a sign from God the earth too subsided in valleys. Thus everything of a moist nature that was lying over the whole of it flowed together, withdrawing from the other places into these low-lying ones, and there appeared what it had covered, as the water was gathered together, settling into the lower areas where the sea flowed back and forth and abandoning the ground where the earth emerged. I pass over the fact that one could understand this passage to mean that the unformed matter was referred to by the term for water or the abyss and that it received the forms of these two heavier elements, water and earth. Augustine uses the figure of preterition to introduce another interpretation, namely, that water and the abyss refer to unformed matter, which was formed into water and earth by the gathering of the waters. This interpretation is found in all three of Augustine's commentaries on Genesis. See On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans I, 7, 11; Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis IV, 11; and The Literal Meaning of Genesis I, 1, 2-3.
†70 And thus scripture said,
Let the water be gathered, because it was given a flowing and mobile form. But it said,
Let the dry land appear (Gn 1:9), because it was fixed and stationary. After all, what the prophet, the author of this book, especially intended, namely, that his account of the things that were made might be also a foreshadowing of things to come, is not to be taught to contentious and unbelieving minds. Augustine holds that not merely the divine author of scripture, but the human author intended the account as prophetic and not merely as historical. See On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans I, 23, 35-25, 43 and II, 24, 37, where Augustine gives a prophetic interpretation of the seven days of the account of creation and of Genesis 2 and 3. Though Augustine would not teach to everyone the prophetic content of these books, he would not teach anything false. Compare Augustine's approach to that of the anonymous author; see Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 2, 3-8, where the latter interprets the Pauline texts as meaning that Paul endorsed not merely not teaching everything to everyone, but even teaching what is false.
†71 Since, then, for those who seek them with piety there are so many ways available to avoid rashly finding fault with such a great authority, why does this fellow choose to employ slander in these matters he is not fit to investigate, unless the devil is prompting him to do so?
Why God Did Not Want Adam and Eve To Have the Knowledge of the Discernment of Good and Evil
14, 18. This blind ingrate attacks “God, man's creator,” and dares to say to him who formed him, “Why did you make me this way?” The anonymous heretic did not, of course, hold that God was the creator of this world; hence, he must be read as arguing against the God of the Genesis account who made human beings as they are. †72 although he is utterly ignorant of how he was made. Thus he reveals the bold mind of a very rash person. The vessels of wrath are permitted to prate such nonsense so that the vessels of mercy See Rom 9:22-23. †73 might be roused from the sleep of negligence and, out of a desire to answer these destructive curses, might pay careful attention to the words of salvation. God permits heretics to misinterpret the text of scripture in order to stir the faithful exegete to a more attentive study of the word of God. †74 Look how this fellow finds fault with “man's creator, because he forbade him to eat the food of the discernment of good and evil, See Gn 2:17. †75 as if he wanted him to be on a par with cattle who do not know how to discern between them, and denied to man, to whom he gave power over the other animals, that ability,” See Gn 1:26. †76 by which alone humans surpass the other animals. How necessary it is for leading a good life to learn that it is our misfortune to learn some things and that it is our advantage not to know others. Augustine is here speaking of experiential knowledge as becomes clear further on when he contrasts experiential knowledge with sapiential knowledge. †77 How much better off we would be not to know diseases and pains. Suppose that a physician should forbid us some food that he knows would make us ill and, for this reason, calls it the food of the discernment of health and illness, because by experience human beings would discern through it, when they began to be ill, the difference
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between the poor health they have acquired and the good health they have lost. They would surely have been better off not to know this and to have remained in the health they lost, believing the physician by obedience, not the disease by experience. Would we say that such a physician begrudged us such knowledge? Who has any doubt that sin is an evil? And yet the Lord Jesus Christ is praised, because
he knew not sin (2 Cor 5:21). He did not, then, know this evil and, therefore, he did not have that discernment of good and evil that Adam was forbidden. Augustine produces two examples in which a lack of knowledge is better than knowledge, namely, when we do not know what it is like to be ill and when Christ did not know what it was like to sin. Yet, as he goes on to show, Christ did have knowledge of sin, since one cannot blame what one does not know.
†78 Here one might ask, “How did he blame what he did not know?” After all, he did blame sins,
But all things which are blamed, as the apostle says,
will be made manifest by the light (Eph 5:13). How then could he who blamed them not know them? Is not the right answer that he both knew them and did not know them? It certainly is! He knew them through wisdom, but he did not know them through experience. Adam should have believed this divine wisdom so that, by obeying the commandment of God, he held himself back from that knowledge of evil which comes from experience. Thus he would not have known evil, if he did not do evil. But he did evil to himself, not to God, for he could bring about by his disobedient will only what he would suffer by the law of justice. This is the punishment that the disobedient man suffers in himself that he, in turn, is not obeyed even by himself. Through committing sin, we human beings lose control over ourselves so that we are no longer able fully to control our appetites and emotions. This internal disorder resulting from sin is itself a punishment of sin. Augustine held that the right order of things placed human beings under God, but over bodies. See On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans II, 9, 12 and II, 15, 22, for the middle rank of human beings subject to God and holding their bodies in subjection.
†79 On this topic we have written extensively in other works and especially in the fourteenth book of the
City of God. See The City of God XIV, 2.
†80
19. Now we will briefly answer this fellow's claim that “man's maker kept the man he had made from a great good, when he wanted him to be like an animal without the discernment of good and evil.” This discernment is not the wisdom of a happy man, but the experience of an unhappy one. The tree, whose fruit man was forbidden to eat, got its name from this experience. Thus obedience, which is a very great virtue and, so to speak, the origin and mother of all the virtues, was commended in our nature. After all, we were given free choice in such a way that we have to live under the power of a better nature. Human freedom is not absolute, but subject to God. Thus a human being should be ruled by God and should rule his body. See On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans II, 15, 22. †81 Still, there would be some who considered that discernment of good and evil a great good of which human beings were not yet capable, since they used it contrary to what was forbidden by obedience and sinned. Augustine mentions that there were some who interpreted the knowledge of good and evil as a great boon which they were forbidden because they were not sufficiently mature. Though he does not identify these persons, he does not seem to regard the view as heretical. †82
Why God Made Human Beings Who Were Able To Sin
20. Those who think that man ought to have been made so that he did not want to sin should not be displeased that he was made so that he was able not to sin if he did not want to. In Free Will II, 18, 48-19, 52, Augustine argues that free choice is an intermediate good without which we cannot live well, but which we can use badly. Thus, it is inferior to a great good, like justice, by which we live rightly and which we cannot use badly, but it is superior to the lower goods, such as limbs of the body which we can use badly and without which we can live well. Here Augustine is speaking of the condition in which Adam was created; after the Fall human beings are no longer able not to sin unless they are helped by the grace of Christ; see Correction and Grace XII, 34, where Augustine contrasts Adam's being able not to sin (posse non peccare) with the inability to sin of the blessed in heaven (non posse peccare). †83 After all, if he would be better if he were unable to sin, was he not well made if he could avoid sin? Or are we supposed to be so stupid as to think that a human being saw that something better should have been made and think that God did not see this or think that God saw it and believe
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that he did not want to make it, or that he wanted to, but could not? In The Literal Meaning of Genesis IV, 16, 27, Augustine says, “But if he could not make good things, there would be no power; if, however, he could and did not, there would be great enviousness. Hence, because he is almighty and good, he made all things very good.” In their commentary on this passage Agaësse and Solignac point out that Augustine has turned back on Epicurus his dilemma that God either wants to remove evils and cannot or can remove them and does not want to do so (see BA 48, 644).
†84 May God keep this from the hearts of the faithful. If then right reason proves that the rational creature who never abandoned God by any disobedience is better than this one that has abandoned him in this way, let whoever thinks this know that the creature who never abandoned God has always been in the heavenly places and that this one was not made so that he was forced to abandon God by some necessity. See Free Will III, 5, 13, where Augustine says, “There can be something in the nature of reality that you do not think of with your reason. But there cannot fail to be what you think of with true reason, for you cannot think of something better in creation that has escaped the artisan of creation.” Hence, if we can see with right reason that there should be such creatures as the angels who never fell, we should know that such creatures have been made by God. Moreover, those creatures that fell were not made so that they abandoned God by necessity.
†85 And because it abandoned him willingly, nothing has thereby been lessened in the most wise plans of God. He uses evils well and bad men rightly, and he promises that, from out of the human race that has been justly and deservedly condemned, he will transfer into the eternal kingdom his holy and numerous family that has been made, not by its merit, but by his grace. See Col 1:13, as well as Jn 5:24 and 1 Jn 3:14. As a result of the sin of the first parents, the whole human race has been condemned; out of that justly condemned humanity God saves those whom he chooses not because of any human merit, but because of his free gift of grace.
†86
21. Since this is the case, God had no need to hide the tree. He called it the tree of the discernment of good and evil (Gn 2:9), on account of the misery of man that would follow, if he discerned from the use of it, contrary to the prohibition, the good from which he fell and the evil into which he fell. Why should he hide the tree about which he gave the commandment and by which he commended obedience? The anonymous heretic apparently said that God should have hidden from the first couple the tree of the discernment of good and evil. Augustine argues that there was no reason why God should have hidden the tree from them, even though he foreknew that they would be disobedient, since he also foreknew the good he would draw from their sin. †87 He was not unaware that man was going to sin, but at the very same time he foreknew by his sovereign divinity what justice and goodness he was going to produce from the sinner. He did not create what would be a hindrance to man, if man did not will to be a hindrance to himself; rather, he created what would be advantageous. For man would not have preserved obedience without receiving a good reward and would not have paid the penalty of disobedience without setting a beneficial example so that his holy offspring would preserve obedience. God did not will what he was unable to do; he willed that man would either be obedient or would not go unpunished if he were disobedient. His willing to give the commandment was not pointless because man was not going to keep it, for the punishment of man's contempt for God taught others to obey. Augustine illustrates how divine providence orders the evil of sin through punishment, thus bringing good out of evil. †88 Nor did part of God resist God in man, because if the soul of man were a part of God, it could be deceived neither by itself nor by anyone else; it could not be compelled by any necessity to do or to suffer something wrong or be changed at all for the better or worse. The Manichees had held that the human soul was divine and a particle of God. Augustine's argument against them from early on rested on God's immutability. See Confessions VII, 1, 1 and VII, 2, 3. †89
The Life-Giving Breath of God Was Not Itself Divine
22. That breath of God which gave life to man See Gn 2:7. †90 was made by God, not made out of him. Augustine uses the preposition “out of” (de) to refer to a production out of the substance of the one producing. Thus the Father generates the Son out of himself. He uses the preposition “by” (ab) to refer to an agent who makes or creates something. If the soul were out of God, it would be divine, of the same nature as God. †91 After all, man's breath too is not a part of man, and a man does not make it from out of himself, but from the air he inhales and exhales. But God was able to make man living and rational out of nothing, something man cannot do. Yet, some think that the first man was not made to be alive, when God breathed into his face and he became a living soul, See Gn 2:7. †92 but that he then received the Holy Spirit. The identification of these exegetes with the Manichees does not seem correct. In On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans II, 8, 11, Augustine warns that we should not interpret Gn 2:7 to mean that “a part of the nature of God was changed into the soul of man,” as the Manichees had held. But in the present passage Augustine indicates in the next lines that the view he is presently considering is not out of question as one worthy of belief. In Questions on the Heptateuch I, 9, 4, he points out that Gn 7:15 speaks of the spirit of life in cattle as well as in humans. He makes this point because of those who interpret Gn 2:7 as referring to the Holy Spirit, but there is no reason to think that these exegetes are Manichees. See also the long discussion of this point in The City of God XIII, 24, where Augustine again fails to identify these exegetes with whom he clearly disagrees, though he does not brand them as heretical. See the note in BA 48, 698-699. †93 Whichever of these views might prove to be more worthy of
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belief—and it would take a long time to discuss this now—we may not doubt that the soul is not a part of God and was not created or brought forth out of his substance and nature, but was made out of nothing.
The Serpent, Though Man's Deceiver, Is Not Better Than God
15, 23. Therefore, it is not true, despite what this blasphemous fellow says, that “the serpent is found to be better off than God, because he was able to deceive the man God made.” Man would never be deceived if he had not withdrawn into himself in the pride of his heart. God's statement is true, The heart is proud before its fall (Prv 16:18). But when one is proud in opposition to God, he is abandoned by him and made dark. Why should we be surprised if, when he is made dark, See Rom 1:21. †94 he does not know what will follow, since the light does not come from himself, but he is enlightened by God. See Jn 1:9. †95 Even when man is overcome, he shows that God is never overcome, because he would not have been overcome, if he had not withdrawn from him who is never overcome. But how can man's deceiver be the victor, when he was deceived even by himself? Thus both the one who deceived and the one whom he deceived were both deceived in drawing back from him who cannot be deceived, and both were defeated by withdrawing from him who cannot be defeated. One who withdraws from him more is the more defeated, because he is inferior to the degree he is worse. Thus it is necessary that he who seems to be the victor by first bringing evil to the other be himself more defeated by losing the good, and it is impossible that he be better off since his situation is worse. And though the devil seemed to prevail for a time by man's defeat, he has been eternally defeated by man's restoration. See Rv 20:2. †96 And, Behold, Adam has become as one of us (Gn 3:22) are not words by which God admits this to be true; they are, rather, words of accusation. So too, when the apostle says, Pardon me this injury (2 Cor 12:13), he clearly wants it understood ironically, if there is present someone to proclaim it with learning and not slander it in ignorance. The Latin pronuntiator doctus, non calamniator indoctus has the sort of rhetorical flourish that cannot be echoed in translation. †97
Already Dead through Sin, Man Is Kept from the Tree of Life
24. Furthermore, when he is displeased that the sinner is forbidden access to the tree of life, what does he want but to live a bad life with impunity? It was no problem for God to take life away from man by any other means, if he did not want him to live. But rational souls live from wisdom and their death is folly, and it was to signify this that by its fruit the tree of life in paradise did not allow man to die, even in the body. His being removed from there and handed over to death, when he would be worn down by age, See Jb 13:28. †98 something that would never have happened to him if he always enjoyed the same food, signified that his soul was
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first excluded from the spiritual tree of life because of sin and was already dead by an interior death of its own. After all, scripture says of wisdom,
It is the tree of life for those who embrace it (Prv 3:18). In his ignorance this fellow says, “How could man before God's curse live forever without death, if he had not already partaken of the food from this tree?” As if someone said to him or he had read somewhere in that book that Adam had not yet partaken of the food from this tree. Rather, we should understand that he received from it enduring life in the body so that he would not be worn down by old age and that he was forbidden access to it so that he now faced the necessity of death as a penalty of sin.
25. He says, “How did he begin to die as a result of God's curse, since life itself never took its beginning from him?” As if God wanted his death, as one man wants another's, and as if God's words did not belong to the sentence of one imposing punishment, but to the anger of one cursing. To punish him with bodily death was to remove him from the tree of life, since he was already spiritually dead and separated in his mind from the food of wisdom. Hence, God wanted to signify what had happened to him in his mind by separating him from the tree of life, which signified wisdom.
The Tree of Life Was Not without Its Purpose, Even after the Fall
26. He says, “Who benefited from this tree which bore the fruit of life in paradise?” Who else but those first humans, male and female, who were placed in paradise? See Gn 2:15 and 2:22. †99 Later, when they had been cast out of paradise as the recompense for their iniquity, it remained as a reminder to signify the spiritual tree of life, which is, as we said, wisdom itself, the unchangeable food of the blessed souls. Augustine distinguishes the physical tree of paradise from the spiritual tree of paradise, the former signifying the latter. While Enoch and Elijah may eat the fruit of the physical tree, the good thief eats from the spiritual tree, which is wisdom—and wisdom is, of course, Christ. †100 I do not think that one should rashly claim that anyone now eats that other food, unless maybe Enoch and Elijah. See Gn 5:21-24; 1 Sm 17; and 2 Sm 2. Since scripture implies that Enoch and Elijah have not died a bodily death, Augustine suggests that they may still be fed from the tree of life that the first couple enjoyed in paradise. If so, the existence of this tree benefited some people, despite the heretic's claim that it benefited no one. †101 But unless the blessed souls were being fed by that tree of life, which is in the spiritual paradise, we would not read that paradise had been granted on the same day as a reward for piety and a faith-filled confession to the soul of the thief who believed in Christ. He said, Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise (Lk 23:43). But to be there with Christ is to be with the tree of life. For he is the wisdom, of which, as I mentioned above, scripture says, It is the tree of life for those who embrace it (Prv 3:18).
God Knew That Adam Would Sin Before He Sinned
16, 27. Must we also refute this mockery which he proposes as something he regards as clever? He says first that “God did not know beforehand what happened,” second that “he was not able to accomplish his great plans,” and
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third that “when he was foiled, he had recourse to a curse.” How does he know that God did not know beforehand what happened? Was it because it happened? Indeed, if it had not happened, he certainly would not have known beforehand that it would, because it was not going to happen. Since knowledge of what is going to happen would not be knowledge if it were not true, God's foreknowledge, which cannot be false, entails the occurrence of what he foreknows. See Free Will III, 3, 8, where Augustine says, “Since he has foreknowledge of our willing, that which he foreknows will be. Hence, our willing will occur, because he foreknew our willing.” Though Augustine speaks of foreknowledge, he holds that God's knowledge is eternal and that his knowledge does not temporally precede events in time. See Confessions XI, 13, 16.
†102 Or, if he thinks that he did not know it beforehand, because, if he had known it beforehand, he would have taken care that it did not happen, the same thing can be said of Christ who gave the talent to the man who was not going to earn anything. See Mt 25:14-18.
†103 He gave the talent, of course, in order that his money might increase, whatever it is that the money signifies. Hence, did he who gave the talent not know this beforehand, because it turned out that the man earned nothing due to his laziness? This fellow can also say that Christ was not able to accomplish his great plans concerning that money. He can also apply to Christ the third point that, when he was foiled, he turned to a curse, since he said,
Bind his hands and feet, and cast him forth into external darkness (Mt 22:13; 25:30). In the same way scripture says of Adam that he was removed from the tree of life and held in the grasp of bodily death. See Gn 3:17.
†104 This clever fellow thinks that the command given with power is a curse uttered in failure. Let him, then, call Christ powerless, because he was not able to bring about what he wanted in the earning of spiritual money. Let him call Christ jealous and malicious because he begrudged his servant light and salvation, when he ordered that he be cast forth into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. See Mt 25:30.
†105 He does not say these things of Christ lest, by doing so, he prove that he is not a Christian. Why does he dare to say of man's creator and, by sin's desert, his condemning judge what he does not dare to say of man's redeemer? See Ps 18:15.
†106 Moreover, if he ignores his commands, it is the same one who will also exact the penalty of eternal death. Against whom else but Christ does this fellow in his ignorance hurl these curses? For he said,
If you believed Moses, you would believe me as well; for he wrote concerning me (Jn 5:46). What did the Father do then or what does he do now without the Son? The holy scripture mentions for our salvation both God's goodness and his severity, since it is good for us both to love God and to fear him. Thus the apostle mentions both of them in the same text, when he says,
You see then the goodness and the severity of God (Rom 11:22). Why is it that this headstrong madman blames in the God of the prophets what he finds in the God of the apostles, though he boasts that he is a Christian? After all, the same one is the God of the former and the latter.
God's Punishments Indicate Neither His Ignorance Nor His Malice
28. I have mentioned the man whom God's severity sent into external darkness for being a lazy servant. See Mt 25:30. †107 There God is not said to have failed to foresee the future, because he entrusted his money to him, and he is not said to
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have been without power, because he did not rule him so that he acted well. He corrected him with neither jealousy nor malice because he separated him from the light and sent him into darkness. The believing reader should note that this is true of all the punishments of human beings which we read were inflicted upon sinners in the prophetic books. Augustine points out that, with regard to all the punishments God inflicts, God never lacks knowledge or power and never corrects human beings with jealousy or malice.
†108 This, then, is true of the flood. The Lord Jesus even predicted that something of that sort would occur at his coming, when he said,
As in the days of Noah they ate and drank and planted new vines and built homes and were married and took wives; the flood came and destroyed them all. So too will be the coming of the Son of Man (Lk 17:26-27). This is true of the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. See Ex 7:13.
†109 And the writings of the New Testament say of some,
God delivered them to an evil frame of mind so that they might do what was not right (Rom 1:28). This is true of the deceitful spirit that God, who puts the evil to good use, sent by his just judgment to deceive the wicked king, as Micaiah the prophet testifies was shown him in a prophetic vision. See 1 Kgs 22:19-23.
†110 The apostle Paul had no hesitation to say something of the sort, and he knew that he was speaking most truly, when he said,
God will send them a misleading influence so that they believe a lie and so that all will be judged who did not believe the truth, but have consented to iniquity (2 Thes 2:11-12). This is true of what Moses did, when God told him,
Take all the leaders of the people, and sacrifice them to the Lord before the sun (Nm 25:4), that is, publicly during the day. And this holds for the vengeance that Moses took for the idol they made so that, in slaying the wicked by the sword, one did not even spare his neighbor. See Ex 32:25-28.
†111 The Lord Jesus himself said,
But those who were unwilling that I should reign over them, bring them here and kill them before me (Lk 19:27). Here, of course, because it signifies the death of souls, it should be more a source of horror and fear for the faithful than the death of bodies. Thus the same Lord says,
Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear him who can destroy body and soul in hell (Mt 10:28).
The Fires of Hell Are Worse Than the Most Terrible Death
29. If one considers with a believing mind, as one should, deaths of this kind by which souls are sent to hell, he will regard as quite insignificant that slaughter, however great it might be, and those rivers of blood from mortal bodies that were eventually going to die sooner or later. This fellow exaggerates those killings and describes them with rhetorical foolishness in order to blaspheme against God who afflicted with such deaths those for whom such terror was beneficial. He arouses horror in mortal minds and supposes that he is doing something by kicking against the goad. Terence, Phormio 77. †112 As a result, while he accuses the providence of God for the death of the flesh, he is being sent to hell by the death of the heart. What person of either sex would not prefer to be slain by the sword,
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even in the way Phinehas the priest slayed the fornicators in the very embrace of their wicked pleasure, when he made them a terrifying example of vengeance against detestable lust? See Nm 25:8.
†113 In so doing he greatly pleased God. Who, I say, would not prefer to be killed by that sort of death, who would not prefer to be consumed by fire or to have his private parts torn away by the bites of wild beasts than to be sent into the eternal fire of hell? See Mt 25:41.
†114 Why then would the God of the Christians punish sinners with such deaths that, after the passing destruction of the body, there follows punishment without end in hell, unless he is the one God of the two Testaments? After all, the Jews could say in answer to this man's impiety—no matter how much he exaggerates the wars, the slaughters, the wounds, the deaths, and the blood—that, by far, their God acts with an incomparably greater gentleness than our God, since their God punishes in a far more gentle way by the passing deaths of the body than by the everlasting flames of hell. In undoing the charge that the God of the Old Testament is cruel and bloodthirsty, Augustine comes perilously close to proving that the God of the New Testament is even worse.
†115
The God of the Law and the Prophets Is Not Cruel
30. This man “thinks that the God of the law and the prophets,” who is the one and true God, “should be charged with the crime of cruelty, since he inflicted the punishment of bodily death for grounds that were slight or even embarrassingly trivial, because David counted the people See 2 Sm 24. †116 and because,” as he says, “the infant sons of Heli the priest tasted something from the dishes or cooking pots prepared for God.” See 1 Sm 2-4. †117 On this question, I am not going to argue how great and how harmful was the vice of pride that came over this holy man, leading him to want to count the people of God, so that he was punished by the deaths of the very multitude in which he took pride. He was, in any case, punished, not by their eternal deaths, but by deaths that were bound to come because of the human condition and that would swiftly pass. Augustine again uses the figure of preterition to introduce points that he says he is not going to argue. †118 Nor am I going to say that the sons of Heli were infants, as this fellow claims, without knowing what he says. Rather, they were of such an age that they could and should have been restrained by a proper self-control from the sacrilegious crime by which they preferred themselves to God in the sacrifices. God punished this lack of reverence by war, not looking out for his own interests, but for those of the people whom religious piety would have benefitted. Though they could have increased the fear of God by continuing to live, God punished their lack of reverence through the deaths of those men who were going to die after a relatively short time, even if they lived to old age. Augustine stresses that the sons of Heli were of an age at which they should have known better and should have controlled their appetite. He also points out that, in punishing the people, God was not protecting his own interests, but the interests of the people who were deprived of the good example Heli's sons should have given. In any case, compared to eternity, human lives in this world are relatively short, even if one lives to a ripe old age. †119 We read that others died bodily deaths, not because of their own sins, but because of the sins of others. Here the wound is greater in the anguished heart of the living than is the punishment in the bodily dissolution of the dying. Souls leaving their bodies have their own reasons either good or bad, but they are not burdened because they laid aside the body. As a good Platonist, Augustine is confident that whatever the reason for the soul's leaving the body, the soul does not suffer simply as the result of having set aside the body. In any case Augustine regarded this present life as “a deathly life or living death”; see Confessions I, 6, 7. Also see H.-I. Marrou's L'ambivalence du temps de l'histoire chez saint Augustine (Montreal: Institut d'études médiévales, 1950), for further texts on Augustine's view of the present age in its ambiguity, as well as my “'Vocans Temporales, Faciens Aeternos': Saint Augustine on Liberation from Time,” Traditio 41 (1985), 29-47, especially 33-35. †120 But no one is punished by the death of the soul in
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place of another. Augustine admits that God punished human beings with bodily death for the sins of others, but points out that no one loses the life of the soul, namely, God, because of the sin of another. Even though we are punished for the sin of Adam, we were not punished unjustly, according to Augustine, because “all were that man” (see Marriage and Desire II, 5, 15).
†121 I say this: No matter how great a sin this fellow thinks it was that the man was found at the wedding feast without a wedding garment, See Mt 22:11.
†122 I think that, if we measure these things in human terms, it ought to have been enough that the man be somewhat embarrassed and, if the outrage of the host were carried to the limit, that he be forced to change his garment. But scripture says,
Bind his hands and feet, and cast him forth into external darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mt 22:13; 25:30). He will say, “The lack of a wedding garment does not signify a slight fault, since these little matters are signs of great things.” So too, then, though the visible sacrifices are small matters among earthly things, they are signs of great and divine things, and in them the sons of the priest preferred themselves to God, to whom honor is paid in sacrifices. But that guest did not prefer himself to the groom; he was merely unsuitable because he lacked a wedding garment. Nonetheless, let him note the difference between the punishments by which each of them was punished; let him see that the latter punishment surpasses the former beyond comparison, if he values spiritual and everlasting things over those which are bodily and temporal.
The New Law Did Not Declare the Old Law Evil, But Perfected It
31. Why should we want to teach carnal minds a language unsuited to them concerning the mystical meanings of the sacrifices and the wedding garment? Recognizing the futility of trying to teach carnal-minded persons, the mystical significance of the Old Testament sacrifices or of the wedding garment, Augustine limits himself to pointing out that Christ clearly intended that the new law perfect, not destroy, the old law. †123 Look, we shall set forth what is quite clear. When the Lord compared the gospel to the old law, he did not teach that what people previously learned was evil, but stated that what he was teaching was more perfect. He said, You have heard that it was said to the people of old: You shall not kill, but one who has killed will be subject to judgment. I tell you: Whoever is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. One who says, Racha, will be subject to the council, and one who says, Fool, will be subject to the fire of hell (Mt 5:21-22). What sin is as slight as calling a brother or sister a fool? What punishment is as great as the hell of fire? If this fellow found in the law and the prophets that someone was ordered by God to be stoned because he called his brother a fool, of what great cruelty would he accuse God! But who would not prefer, I will not say to be stoned, but to be torn apart limb from limb, even piece by piece, slowly and bit by bit, while alive and conscious, rather than to be given up to the fire of hell? Heaven forbid that anyone should say that the God of the gospel is more cruel than the God of the law, since he knows that it is one and the same God for both of them, who strikes terror in the law with carnal punishments, but in the gospel with spiritual ones, in one and the other faithful and never cruel. Again Augustine ends with a rhetorical florish: “fidelem, nusquam crudelem.” †124
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The Heretic's Objections Can Be Turned against Christ as Well
32. This fellow is angry over the bodily and temporal punishment inflicted for sacrilege because of the food tasted from the sacrifice. But suppose we found someone else who was as estranged from Christ and as blasphemous against him and as worthy of condemnation for his wicked prating as this man is. Would he not be more vigorously and bitterly disturbed than this fellow is, at the passage where the Lord threatens that he will come and will say to the nations placed to his left, Go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels? (Mt 25:41). Do you want to know the reason for this great punishment? He says, I was hungry, and you did not give me to eat (Mt 25:42). Look, not for taking away temporal food, but for not giving it, he threatens an eternal and terrible punishment. And rightly so, if you look to the truth. After all, what is given in alms is very little, but it wins an eternal reward when it is given with piety. And, since what is given is little, not giving is, rather, a great impiety. Hence, we should not be surprised that the punishment of eternal fire is prepared for such sterile trees that, as it were, bear no fruit. But if you look to a man so that he might answer you from what is his own, every man is a liar (Ps 114:2), making light of the sin and exaggerating the punishment. The former he does not see because of his carnal mind; the latter he shrinks from because of his mortal flesh. This fellow is such a one with regard to the bodily punishments of all those punished or chastised in the Old Testament, for those punishments were far more gentle than the ones we read of in the gospel. After all, what flood can be compared with eternal fire? What slaughter, what wounds, or what deaths of the body can be compared with eternal tortures? This madman bombastically shouts about twenty-four thousand dying, See Nm 25:9. †125 as if countless thousands do not die each day in the whole world. Still, this death of the body is passing, but who can estimate how many thousands from all the nations will stand to the left and will be condemned to everlasting fires? See Mt 25:41. †126
Christ Threatens Greater Punishments Than the God of the Old Testament
33. Let him go ahead and shout with his mouth open and eyes closed, that “God has admitted his cruelty, because he said through the prophet: I will sharpen my sword like lightning. I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword will eat the flesh along with the blood of the wounded” (Dt 32:41-42). Because of these words he accuses “God” of being “one who is always hungering for human blood,” as if he said: I will make myself drunk with blood, or I will eat the flesh with the blood of the wounded. But no matter how much this foolish and sick man is horrified at this useful “threat of God as if he were
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eager for crime and did nothing but boast of cruelty toward the wicked,” what does it all amount to, compared to the words of him who says,
Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels? (Mt 25:41). There the arrows will not have their fill of blood, and the flames will not be satisfied with all the members. Nor will the sword devour the flesh, taking away the awareness of pain from the dead more quickly than it brings it to the wounded; rather, no one will be removed from torture even by dying lest the punishment itself die at the same time as he dies. Why does he not say here, “Are we going to say that we should worship this God or, rather, that we should curse him and flee from him?” Or is he afraid to say this of Christ lest he not escape the punishment of eternal fire into which he is preparing to send the wicked? Is this wretch unaware that, in saying these things of the God of the prophets, he is saying them of him whose awesome severity in the gospel he is afraid to offend?
The God of the Law and the Prophets Is Not a God of Vengeance
17, 34. He also finds fault with the idea that “God says that he holds the punishments of the wicked, that are signified by the sour grapes and the bitter bunch and the wrath of serpents and vipers, gathered within himself and marked in his treasury, to be dealt out at the time, when their foot shall slip.” See Dt 32:32-35. †127 He is unaware that treasures here refer to the hidden dispositions of God who arranges to repay each one according to his works. Hence, the apostle says, In accord with your hard heart and your impenitent heart, you store up for yourself, like a treasure, wrath on the day of wrath and of the revelation of the just judgment of God, who repays each one according to his works (Rom 2:5-6). With whom does the impenitent heart store up wrath as a treasure but with him who will judge the living and the dead? (2 Tm 4:1). The anonymous heretic thinks that the text of Deuteronomy means that God bottles up within himself the punishments that he is going to unleash against the wicked when they are most helpless. Augustine points out that it is the sinner who stores up for himself, like a treasure, the wrath of God, just as the good store up with God the treasures of justice. †128 After all, those old books are not without a knowledge of a treasure worth desiring, See Prv 21:20. †129 which scripture says abides in the mouth of the wise man. And Proverbs says that, for those who love him, God stores up salvation as a treasure, See Prv 8:21. †130 and Isaiah the prophet says, In treasures is our salvation; there are wisdom and discipline and piety toward the Lord. These are the treasures of justice (Is 33:6). Augustine's Latin Bible here follows the Septuagint version. †131 But those speakers of foolishness and seducers of the mind, who abhor the sacred scriptures which they refuse to understand, select from them the harsh passages that we read in them to remind us of God's severity and the gentle words that we read in the gospels and writings of the apostles to remind us of God's goodness. With the former, then, they stir up terror among the uneducated, and with the latter they seek their favor. It would not be difficult for anyone as blasphemous and impious as they are to abhor the New Testament as he abhors the Old, taking from the Old the passages revealing God's goodness and, on the contrary, taking from the New Testament
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passages that reveal God's severity. Such a person could shout with hateful venom: See what sort of God we should worship:
merciful and showing pity, long-suffering and abounding in mercy, who
will not be angry unto the end nor be outraged for eternity; who
has not treated us in accord with our sins, nor repaid us in accord with our wickedness. Rather, as far as the east is from the west, he has removed our sins from us; he
shows mercy to those who fear him as a father shows mercy to his children (Ps 102:8-13); he says,
I do not want the death of the wicked as much as that they be converted and live (Ez 18:23; 33:11). We should not worship the God who, on account of his greed for money, ordered that even the servant who did not lose the talent he received be bound hand and foot and be cast forth into external darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, See Mt 25:14-30.
†132 merely because he did not earn more. Nor should we worship the God who removes the man without a wedding garment from his dinner, binds him in the same way, and subjects him to the same punishment. See Mt 22:11-13.
†133 Nor the one who answers those who come to him, knock, and say,
Lord, open for us, with
I do not know you, See Mt 25:11-12.
†134 merely because they have not brought oil with them to pour into their lamps. See Mt 25:3.
†135 Nor the one who sends a man to hell for one harmful word, See Mt 5:22.
†136 nor the one who condemns a person to eternal fire, because he did not receive temporal food. See Mt 25:41-42.
†137 Any sacrilegious person with a sick mind could gather these and other similar passages, harsh ones from the New Testament and gentle ones from the Old. Suppose that he, then, tries to turn away from Christ people untrained in both scriptures on the grounds that Christ is savage and cruel and tries to turn them to the merciful and mild God of the prophets. Will he not seem impure and wicked to this fellow who treats the Old Testament in the same way that the other equally sacrilegious person could treat the New Testament? A person who correctly worships God finds that the God of both Testaments is one and loves the goodness of one and the same God in each Testament; he fears his severity in each Testament, finding that Christ was promised in the former, acknowledging that he has come in the latter. Thus it is Christ who links the two Testaments. Ultimately, one cannot reject the Old Testament without rejecting Christ. Against the Manichees, who also rejected the Old Testament, Augustine had insisted that “everything that Moses wrote is about Christ” (Answer to Faustus XVI, 9) and said that everything contained in the prophetic books was said about Christ or on account of him (see Answer to Faustus XII, 7).
†138
The Old Testament First Commanded That We Repay Evil with Good
35. Was it not those old books that first said that we should not return evil for evil? There we are commanded that, if anyone finds that his enemy's animal has wandered off, he should return it to its owner, and, if it should fall on the way, he should not pass by, but help him raise it up? See Ex 23:4-5. †139 Did scripture not say there first what the apostle says, If your enemy is hungry, give him food, and if he is thirsty, give him drink? (Prv 25:21; Rom 12:20). Does not the man of God first say there to his God what he, of course, knows is pleasing to him, Lord, my God, if I have done this, if there is wickedness in my hands, if I have returned
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evil to those who have paid me back? (Ps 7:4-5). Does not Jeremiah the prophet first describe the patience of the saint offering his
cheek to the one striking him? (Lam 3:30). Were we not first commanded there by another prophet that no one should remember the wickedness of his brother? See Lv 19:18.
†140 Why, then, does this blasphemer gather these things from the New Testament as if they were opposed to the Old? The opponent of the Law and the Prophets seems to have held that the New Testament differed from the Old insofar as the New Testament forbade returning evil for evil. Augustine points out that there are many Old Testament passages that teach this doctrine and that God of the New Testament repays evil with evil in punishing with eternal fire.
†141 He is either ignorant of both scriptures or is pretending he does not know them in order to deceive the uneducated. Still, if we ask him whether he who sends someone into eternal fire for some food he did not receive See Mt 25:41-42.
†142 does not return evil for evil, he will, of course, be upset and admonished that to take a man's eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth See Ex 21:24.
†143 is incomparably more gentle than to have recourse to such great severity on account of a kindness that was omitted. After all, in the former case the measure of the vengeance does not exceed the bounds of the injury, while in the latter the sin is passing and the punishment is without end. And so, let him learn, if he is not obstinate, that in each Testament we should love the goodness of the one God and fear his severity. Admittedly, in the Old Testament the temporal Jerusalem gives birth to slaves because of the promises of temporal goods and the threat of temporal evils, and in the New Testament, where faith obtains the charity See Gal 5:6.
†144 by which the law can be fulfilled as much by love of justice as by the fear of punishment, the eternal Jerusalem gives birth to free men and women. See Gal 4:22-31.
†145 Nonetheless, there were in those former times just and spiritual persons, whom the letter did not kill with its command, but to whom the Spirit gave life by his help. See 2 Cor 3:6.
†146 Hence, faith in Christ, who was yet to come, dwelled in the prophets who announced that Christ would come. See Hb 2:3 (Heb 10:37); Hg 2:8. Persons of the Old Testament were able to be saved through faith in Christ and through the life-giving Spirit. The anonymous heretic, on the other hand, insisted that the prophets of the Jews could not have spoken of Christ, because the Spirit was not on earth before Christ's coming; see Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets 2, 3, 9.
†147 Now there are many carnal persons. The expression, “carnal persons,” is taken from Saint Paul and is used by Augustine to refer both to heretics and to certain people in the Church. These latter are either the little ones who will be nourished by milk until they become adults in Christ or those who will remain as the chaff on the threshing floor to be burned on the day of judgment. For Augustine, the Church in the present age always includes sinners as well as saints.
†148 Some create heresies by failing to understand the scriptures; others in the Catholic Church are either nourished by milk since they are still little ones or, remaining like chaff, are prepared for the fires to come. See Mt 3:12 and Lk 3:17.
†149 As the one and true God is the creator of both temporal and eternal goods, so the same God is the author of both Testaments, because the New is prefigured in the Old and the Old is revealed in the New.
Christ's Mercy Does Not Mean That Sins Will Go Unpunished
36. The merciful kindness in pardoning, on account of which scripture said that we should forgive our brother's sins not only seven times, but seventy times seven times, See Mt 18:21-23. †150 does not mean that wickedness will go unpunished or that discipline will be sluggish and sleepy. That would do more harm than diligently and vigilantly exacting punishment. Christ gave to the Church the keys of the kingdom of heaven See Mt 16:19. †151 in such a manner that he said not only, What you shall have loosed on earth will be loosed in heaven as well (Mt 16:19), where the Church clearly returns good, not evil, for evil, but he also added, What you shall have bound on earth will be bound in heaven, (Mt 16:19), because justice in
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punishment is also good. And the words he spoke,
And if he will not hear the Church either, let him be to you like a Gentile and a tax collector (Mt 18:17), are more severe than if such a person were struck by the sword, consumed by the flames, or handed over to the wild animals. After all, he added there,
Amen, I say to you, what you shall have bound on earth will be bound in heaven as well (Mt 18:18), so that we might understand how severely a person is punished who is left as if he were unpunished. Let this fellow say if he wants, “Is this the way we have understood the commands of the Savior who orders,
Return no one evil for evil, but if anyone should strike you on one cheek, offer him the other as well (Mt 5:39), and Forgive your brothers their injuries?” See Mt 18:35 and Mk 11:25.
†152 Look, those who are not returning evil for evil bind a person more harshly and miserably by the keys of the Church than by any heavy and hard bonds of iron or steel. He says, “Heaven forbid that I should say this, for I am a Christian.” If he were truly a Christian, he would not have said those other things, since the God of the prophets, whose writings he blasphemes, is the God of the apostles, whose writings he fears to blaspheme.
The Many Sacrifices of the Old Law Foreshadowed the One True Sacrifice of Christ and the Church
18, 37. “David,” he says, “asked God that he spare the people who had not sinned, and his prayer was only heard after he offered a sacrifice. Hence, we should not believe that he is the true God, since he is pleased by sacrifices.” See 2 Sm 24. The anonymous heretic obviously found the animal sacrifices of the old law repugnant. They constituted for him a proof that one who found such sacrifices pleasing or who made them a condition for answering prayers could not be the true God. †153 We have already given our answer concerning the punishment of the people who were killed. That death did them no injustice, since they were going to die at some point, and yet the heart of the king, who acted out of pride, rightly bewailed their deaths. This fellow, however, knows nothing at all about sacrifice, and for this reason he is mistaken, since the people of God does not offer such sacrifices to God, now that the one sacrifice has come which all those sacrifices foreshadowed. See Heb 8:5. †154 The former sacrifices did not discredit this one, but signified it. Just as one reality can be signified by many expressions and in many languages, so the one true and only sacrifice was previously signified by many symbolic sacrifices. Just as many words can signify a single reality, so the many sacrifices of the old law signified the one true sacrifice of Christ. The just of the Old Testament were saved, not by the reality of the old sacrifices, but by the sacrifice of Christ which the sacrifices of the old law signified. †155 You see how long it would take to discuss each of them here. Still, let those foolish men, so slow to understand and so quick to find fault, bear in mind one point: a demon would not demand sacrifice for himself if he did not know that it should be offered only to the true God. See Mt 4:10. †156 After all, a false god wants to be honored by those whom he deceives as the true God is honored by those for whom he cares, and it is, above all, sacrifice that we especially owe to God. See The City of God X, 4-6, where Augustine discusses sacrifice in some length, distinguishing between the sign, that is, the visible sacrifice, and what it signifies, that is, the true sacrifice, namely, love of God and love of neighbor. †157 Even human beings have dared, in the contemptuous disdain of pride, to claim for themselves the other forms of worship that are paid to the divinity. Most rarely is it recorded, however, that those who had the kingly power to do
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so have dared to command that sacrifice be offered to themselves. Still, those who have been so bold have wanted, in doing so, to be regarded as gods. Who is unaware that God does not need sacrifices? Nor does he need our praises. But as it benefits us, not him, when we praise him, so too it benefits us, not him, when we offer sacrifice to God. The blood of Christ has been poured out for us in the one and only true sacrifice. See Mt 26:28 and Mk 14:24. Since the sacrifice of Christ is the one and only true sacrifice, any sacrifice we offer to God must be a sharing in the sacrifice of Christ, which we, as the body of Christ, can offer to the Father, because the Spirit of Christ has been poured out in our hearts.
†158 Hence, God commanded that the sacrifices of animals without blemish be offered to him See Lv 1:3.
†159 in previous times to foretell this sacrifice by what they signified. Thus, as those victims were without any blemishes from bodily defects, the people were to hope that he, who alone was without any blemish from sins, See Heb 8:1-10 and 1 Pt 1:19.
†160 would be offered for us. These times were foretold by the prophet,
The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken and has called the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting; from Sion goes forth the radiance of his beauty (Ps 49:1-2). And a little later in the same psalm, he says,
Hear, my people, and I shall speak to you; Israel, I shall bear witness to you. For I, God, am your God. I shall not blame you for your sacrifices; your holocausts are ever before my sight. I shall not accept calves from your house nor goats from your herds. Mine are all the animals of the forest, the flocks on the mountains, and cattle. I know all the birds of the sky, and the beauty of the field lies before me. If I am hungry, I shall not tell you. Mine is the world and all it contains. Shall I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the most high (Ps 49:7-14). And again at the end of that psalm it says,
A sacrifice of praise will honor me, and there is the path by which I will show him the salvation of God (Ps 49:23). I have already mentioned and shown above that this salvation of God is Christ. See above, I, 11, 15.
†161 What sacrifice of praise is more sacred than that of thanksgiving? The sacrifice of thanksgiving is, of course, the Eucharist, as becomes clear in the following lines where Augustine speaks of the sacrifice of the Church.
†162 And for what should we offer more thanksgiving to God than for his love through Jesus Christ our Lord? See Jn 1:17.
†163 The faithful know that all of this is found in the sacrifice of the Church, which all the kinds of previous sacrifices foreshadowed. Augustine previously said that all the sacrifices of the old law foreshadowed the one true sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Here he says that those same sacrifices foreshadowed the sacrifice of the Church, the thanksgiving, or Eucharist, that the faithful know. Thus he teaches the identity of the sacrifice of the Church with that of Christ.
†164 But even if those jabbering critics of the Old Testament show less understanding about the other things I have said regarding this psalm, it will suffice for our present question that they be clear on this: the God of the prophets, who is, of course, also the God of the apostles, neither eats the flesh of bulls nor drinks the blood of goats. The holy men who said these things, filled with his Spirit, knew that he was not such a god. And so, that sacrifice which David offered that God might show mercy regarding the lives of the people was a foreshadowing of the future sacrifice. David's sacrifice signified that God shows mercy regarding the salvation of the people through the one sacrifice, of which David's was the symbol. After all, it is Christ Jesus,
who was handed over, as the apostle says,
on account of our sins and rose on account of our justification (Rom 4:25). For this reason, he also says,
Christ our Passover has been sacrificed (1 Cor 5:7).
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Augustine Corrects the Bible of the Anonymous Heretic and Interprets Paul's Statements on Sacrifice
19, 38. This fellow has tried to prove from this text that “David, who obtained those things by sacrifices, obviously served demons.” In wanting us to interpret David's action in this way, he shows all too clearly the deceptions he is prepared to practice on the minds of the uneducated. He uses the apostle as a witness in the passage where he said, “See, is it not in a fleshly manner that Israel eats the victims and partakes of the altar? What then? Do I say that the idol is something? But those who sacrifice sacrifice to demons.” See 1 Cor 10:18-20. †165 That is not how scripture reads; it reads this way, Look at Israel according to the flesh. Do not those who eat from the sacrifices partake of the altar? What then? Am I saying that what has been offered to idols is something or that the idol is something? Rather, what they offer they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to have anything to do with demons (1 Cor 10:18-20). It could happen, since translations differ verbally, though not in the reality they express, that where I said, according to the flesh, other manuscripts have in a fleshly manner and that where I said, who eat from the sacrifices, others have eat the victims. Where this fellow and I both have partake of the altar, some might have are partakers of the altar. And where I said, What then? Am I saying that what has been offered to idols is something? he may have had less, or his manuscript may have had less, and thus he said only, Do I say that an idol is something? But the next phrase is crucial, because he quotes it quite differently. The apostle said, Rather, what they offer, they offer to demons and not to God, but this fellow said, “But those who sacrifice sacrifice to demons,” as if all who sacrifice sacrifice only to demons. The apostle did not say, “Those who sacrifice,” but what they sacrifice, or, as I put it, what they offer. That is, what those who worship idols sacrifice, they sacrifice, or offer to demons and not to God. Therefore, he added, I do not want you to have anything to do with demons. He was, of course, forbidding them to practice idolatry. For that reason, he wanted to show them that they were in union with demons, if they ate the sacrifices offered to idols (1 Cor 8:7), as Israel according to the flesh, that ate from the sacrifices, was in union with the altar in the temple. Hence, he added, in a fleshly manner or according to the flesh, because it is Israel in a spiritual manner or according to the spirit that no longer follows the old shadows, but the truth coming afterward that was signified by those preceding shadows. After all, in order to make this point he began, For this reason, my dear friends, flee from all worship of idols (1 Cor 10:14). Then he went on to show to which sacrifice they should belong, when he said, I speak to you as intelligent people; judge what I say. Is not the cup of blessing that we bless a sharing of the blood of Christ? Is not the bread we break a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread we who are many are one body, because we share in the one bread
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(1 Cor 10:15-17). Hence, he added,
Look at Israel according to the flesh. Do not those who eat from the sacrifices partake of the altar? (1 Cor 10:18), so that they might understand that they are now in union with the body of Christ as those others were in union with the altar. In order to make this point, he forbade them to practice idolatry, and thus this passage of his Letter began, as I have mentioned: They should not think that, since an idol is nothing, they need not be concerned whether they eat from the sacrifices to idols, on the supposition that these things, like superfluous ones, do them no harm. And so, he reaffirmed that an idol is nothing and that he did not forbid these things, because they are offered to mindless idols, but because
what they, that is, the worshippers of idols,
offer, they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to have anything to do with demons (1 Cor 10:20). The truth itself makes this meaning clear, since no idol was worshipped in the temple that Israel was serving in a carnal manner. After all, if the sacrifices, which were offered to God in that temple according to the old law, were condemned as sacrifices to idols or as offered to demons, Christ the Lord would certainly not have said to the leper he had cleansed,
Go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded to them as a proof (Mt 8:4). He had not yet given the sacrifice of his body in place of all those sacrifices; he had not yet raised up the temple of his body. See Jn 2:21. The Latin has several double meanings. First, the sacrifice of his body can mean the sacrifice on Calvary in which Christ offered his body, but it can also mean the sacrifice which the Church, his body, offers to God. So too, the resurrection was both the raising of the body of Christ and the erection of the temple of his body, which is the Church.
†166 Nor would he have said, when he was casting out from that temple those who were selling cows and doves,
My house shall be called a house of prayer; you have made it a den of thieves (Mt 21:13).
As the Spiritual Israel, the Church Now Offers the Sacrifice of Praise throughout the Earth
20, 39. This fellow, of course, set forth proofs from the apocryphal writings written under the names of Andrew and John. See Homilies on the Gospel of John 124, 2, where Augustine mentions an apocryphal account of the death of Saint John, as well as Answer to Felix II, 6, where Augustine refers to an apocryphal work modeled after the Acts of the Apostles. Perhaps Augustine is referring to Acts of Saint Andrew and Acts of Saint John, both probably written in the third century. †167 If they were theirs, they would have been accepted by the Church, See Agreement among the Evangelists I, 1, 2, where Augustine mentions that “others, who have attempted or dared to write something about the actions of the Lord or of the apostles, were not such persons in their own times that the Church placed its faith in them and accepted their writings into the canonical authority of the sacred books… they also added deceitfully to their writings certain things which the Catholic and apostolic rule of faith condemns.” See also Answer to Faustus XI, 2, where Augustine appeals to “the authority of the Catholic Church which is confirmed by the succesion of bishops and the consent of so many peoples from the time of the sees founded by the apostles down to the present day.” Augustine even goes so far as to say, “I would not believe the gospel, if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me” (Answer to the Letter of Mani known as “The Foundation” 5). †168 which continues from their times right up to ours and beyond through the certain succession of bishops and offers to God in the body of Christ the sacrifice of praise, See Ps 19:14. The unity of the Church through time is guaranteed not merely by the unbroken succession of bishops, but by the celebration of the Eucharist in which the Church offers the sacrifice of the body of Christ. †169 ever since the God of gods has spoken and has called the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting (Ps 49:1). This Church is Israel according to the spirit; from it is distinguished that Israel according to the flesh, which was serving in the foreshadowing sacrifices that signified the one sacrifice that Israel according to the spirit now offers. To this latter Israel God said and foretold, Hear, my people, and I shall speak to you; Israel, I shall bear witness to you (Ps 49:7), and the other things I mentioned above. He does not accept calves from the house of this Israel nor goats from its herds. See Ps 49:9. †170 This Israel offers to God a sacrifice of praise, not according to the order of Aaron, but according to the order of Melchizedek. See Ps 109:4-6 and Heb 5:6. †171 This is stated in that psalm which the Lord Jesus testifies in the gospel was written about himself.
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When the Jews answered that the Christ is the Son of David, which they understood of him only in terms of the flesh, he asked how in the spirit David called him Lord. Then he recalled the beginning of this Psalm,
The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies as a stool for your feet (Mt 22:44; Ps 109:1). It also says there,
The Lord has sworn, and he will not repent. You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek (Ps 109:4; Heb 5:6). Those who read the scripture know what Melchizedek offered when he blessed Abraham, See Gn 14:18.
†172 and if they are already partakers of it, they see that such a sacrifice is now offered to God through the whole world. Melchizedek offered a sacrifice of bread and wine; so too, the Church offers a sacrifice in which bread and wine are the visible signs of the one true sacrifice of Christ.
†173 God's oath is a rebuke to those who do not believe. And the meaning of God's not repenting is that he will not change this priesthood. He did change the priesthood according to the order of Aaron. Thus another prophet says to Israel according to the flesh,
I am not pleased with you, says the Lord Almighty, and I shall not accept a victim from your hands (Mal 1:10). There you have the priesthood according to the order of Aaron. He adds why he will not accept it, when he says,
Because from the rising of the sun to its setting my name has been glorified among the nations, and in every place incense and a pure victim is offered to my name, because my name is great among the nations, says the Lord Almighty (Mal 1:11). There you have the priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek. Incense, which in Greek is
θυμίαμα, stands for the prayers of the saints, as John explains in the Apocalyse. See Rv 5:8.
†174 That God who, as we sing in the Psalm,
has called the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting (Ps 49:1), would say to the earth, that is, to the people who stretch from the rising of the sun to its setting,
I shall not accept calves from your house; offer to God a sacrifice of praise (Ps 49:9; 49:14). Through this prophet he foretells what most certainly will happen as if it already has happened, when he says,
From the rising of the sun to its setting my name has been glorified among the nations, and in every place incense and a pure victim is offered to my name, because my name is great among the nations (Mal 1:11).
How and Why the Bible Speaks about the Ineffable God
40. God does not repent as a human being does, but as God. The mention of God's not repenting in the previous paragraph leads Augustine into a discussion of various ways of speaking about God which seem to imply a change or an emotional state in God. †175 So too, he is not angry as a human being is or merciful as a human being is or jealous as a human being is, but does all things as God. God's repentance does not follow upon a mistake, and the wrath of God does not include the agitation of a mind in turmoil. The mercy of God does not involve the unhappiness of heart of one who is compassionate, as the Latin etymology would have it, The Latin word “mercy” (misericordia) is derived from “sadness of heart” (miseria cordis). †176 and the jealousy of God does not imply a mind full of spite. Rather, God's repentance is what we call the humanly unexpected change of those things that lie in his power. The wrath of God is the punishment of sin; the mercy of God is his goodness in
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providing help. The jealousy of God is his providence in accord with which he does not allow his subjects to love without penalty what he forbids. Augustine carefully excludes from the meaning of “repentance,” “wrath,” “mercy,” and “jealousy,” when they are applied to God, the sort of change or emotion that we ordinarily mean when we speak of human repentance, wrath, mercy, or jealousy. When such attributes signify a change, the change occurs in some creature, not in God. Thus, Augustine maintains that God is said to be angry because he punishes sin, not because of any change or emotion in himself. See The City of God XV, 25.
†177 Hence, let this fellow who has attacked the repentance of God with all that talk learn, first of all, that hardly anything is found that can be said worthily of God, and that we say most things and almost everything about him out of the need for saying something. See The Trinity V, I, I, where Augustine says that we ought at all times speak well of God (benedictio), though no speech (dictio) is able to express him. So too, in The Trinity VII, 4, 7, Augustine indicates that we speak about what is ineffable “in order that we might somehow say what we can in no way say.” See T. J. Van Bavel, “God In Between Affirmation and Negation According to Saint Augustine,” in Augustine: Presbyter Factus Sum (New York: Peter Lang, 1993), 73-97.
†178 And human beings judge these things by human standards; scarcely a few spiritual persons understand them, as they should be understood of God. The few spirituals in the Church, unlike carnal persons or the little ones, are characterized by their ability to understand the incorporeal and immutable nature of God; see my “Spirituals and Spiritual Interpretation in Augustine,” Augustinian Studies 15 (1984), 65-81.
†179 For this reason, when the holy scripture speaks of the Ineffable, it most providentially descends to certain words that seem absurd and unworthy, even to human beings and carnal ones at that, for speaking of God. In their fear of understanding these words as human beings usually understand them, they investigate how they can be properly understood of God. Then, they learn that even those things which seem to human minds worthy of God in those scriptures must not be understood or believed in the way people usually do. After all, we quickly see that repentance as it occurs in human beings does not pertain to God, but we do not so quickly see that mercy does not pertain to God in the way that human beings are merciful. Thus, from something that admittedly needs to be looked into, one also learns to look into something else that one already considered quite adequate. A principal concern of the process theologians of the twentieth century has focused upon the idea that an utterly immutable God is unaffected by anything we do or say and, hence, cannot truly be merciful or loving. Even ordinary believers are likely to take “merciful” and “compassionate” in a quite literal sense, while Augustine and other classical theists insist that such attributes are said of God, not on the basis of any change or emotion in him, but on the basis of what he produces in us.
†180 And so when God repents, he is not changed, but changes; just as when he is angry, he is not moved, but punishes; and when he is merciful, he does not feel sorrow, but sets free; and when he is jealous, he is not tormented, but torments.
The Language of the New Testament Also Demands Careful Understanding
41. Surely, the books of the New Testament do not lack, do they, such words which, if they are understood as human beings usually understand them, are completely unsuited to the divinity and give rise to serious offense? Augustine points out that the objection, if there is one, rests upon New Testament texts just as much as upon those from the Old Testament. †181 For example, the evangelist says with complete truth that Christ had no need that anyone should bear witness to him about man, for he knew what was in man (Jn 2:25). Why then does he say to some people, I know you not? (Mt 25:12). Since he foreknew and chose his holy ones before the creation of the world, See Rom 8:29. †182 why does the apostle say, But now knowing God, nay more known by God (Gal 4:9), as if God now knows those whom he previously did not know? He says, Do not extinguish the spirit (1 Thes 5:19), as if the Spirit could be extinguished. Who can tolerate this, unless he understands it with wisdom? Further on, Augustine explains that the Spirit is extinguished by those who deny him. That is, the life of the Spirit in us is extinguished by our denying him; the Spirit in himself is, of course, inextinguishable. †183 Does the gospel not say, He who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not believe in the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains over him? (Jn 3:36). This blasphemer, then, will find fault with these words and ask, What kind of God is this who is angry, since scripture says, Man's anger does not work God's justice
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(Jas 1:20). In the same way, let him also find fault with the apostle when he says,
Is then God wicked when he shows his anger? (Rom 3:5). But if someone should say, Christ will be confused and will be so at the very time when he will judge the living and the dead, what Christian would have patience enough to listen to him? Still, we have in the gospel,
If anyone will be ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be confused over him when he shall have come in the glory of his Father with his holy angels (Mk 8:38). The same Latin verb, “confundere,” is used to express the human person's being ashamed of Christ and to express Christ's confusion with regard to that person at the time of judgment.
†184 Why do we pray,
Let your name be made holy (Mt 6:9), if it is always holy, unless what scripture says of some is true, that
they have polluted the name of the Lord their God? (Ez 43:8). And why was it said to the Lord,
Remember me, when you shall have come into your kingdom (Lk 23:42), if nothing is forgotten, unless it is not foolish, but intelligent to say to him,
Will you forget our poverty and our tribulation? (Ps 43:24). Hence, God knows and does not know, and he comes to know at a certain time what he always knew. When he is extinguished by those who deny him, he remains inextinguishable. He is angry in tranquility, and cannot be confused, even when he is confused. His name cannot be polluted, even when it is polluted. He cannot forget, even when he forgets, and he remembers, even when he is reminded. Thus he is ineffable. In Teaching Christianity I, 6, 6, Augustine says, “Have we said or uttered anything worthy of God? Indeed I know that I wanted nothing else but to say something, but if I have said it, it is not what I wanted to say. How do I know this, if it is not because God is ineffable? But what I have said would not have been said, if it were ineffable. Hence, we should not even say that God is ineffable….”
†185 These things are said of him, of whom nothing can be said worthily enough or fittingly enough by a human being or to a human being. Since this is so, what religious person will not blow this fellow away like
the dust that the wind drives from the face of the earth? (Ps 1:4). He is swollen and puffed up with pride, and he attacks and confuses the eyes of the weak. He thinks that he is saying something when he rejects the language in the Old Testament that he does not understand and does not see what he understands in the New.
42. The reason we said all this about the repentance of God is that we mentioned the prophecy about Christ where it said, The Lord has sworn, and he will not repent. You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek (Ps 109:4), in order to commend the saving sacrifice in which the sacred blood was spilled for us. The sacrifices of cattle without blemish which God commanded his people to offer See Lv 1:3. †186 were foreshadowings of this sacrifice. See Heb 8:5. †187 We said this concerning God's repentance so that this fellow does not think that it should be interpreted in such a way that, as a result of what he does not understand, he rages, like a mad dog, in blasphemous barking. Rather, it contains something that could warn him about the next passage. This fellow mentions that God said, I repent that I anointed Saul as king (1 Sm 15:11). According to scripture, these words were said to holy Samuel by whom God rebuked Saul, because he had spared a man whom God ordered to be killed. Saul practiced what looked like mercy, while showing contempt for obedience, as if he knew what should be done with the man better than did the man's maker. Here we learn something that is most salutary, namely, that God's commandment should always
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overcome human affection in us. Nonetheless, the same Samuel, to whom God had said,
I repent that I anointed Saul as king (1 Sm 15:11), clearly says that God does not repent. Scripture says,
And the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying, I repent that I made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not kept my words (1 Sm 15:10-11), and a little later Samuel himself says to Saul,
The Lord has taken the kingdom from your hand today, and he will give it to your successor, a man better than you. He will divide Israel in two, and he will not change and will not repent, because he is not like a man so that he should repent (1 Sm 15:28-29). See Nm 23:19.
†188 There you have someone who knew how to understand God as merciful without misery, as angry without wrath, as jealous without jealousy, as forgetful without forgetfulness, as not knowing without ignorance, as repentant without repentance. Augustine's use of affirmative and negative predication about God at times seems to permit the ascription of an attribute to God followed by the denial of the human limitations in what we ordinarily mean by the attribute. At other times, it seems as though the affirmation and denial bear upon the same attribute in the same respect so that in speaking about God we fall into contradiction, thus showing that God is ineffable. See above I, 20, 41.
†189 But this fellow has become a mute barker, a blind reader, a deaf listener by not speaking according to the word of God and not considering the words and not attending to their sounds.
Why God Wanted the Rainbow as a Reminder
43. He says, “God is forgetful, and because his memory was dead, he set in the clouds the bow called Iris Though Iris was the goddess of the rainbow, according to Latin and Greek mythology (see Vergil's Aeneid 5.606), the use of the name does not here imply a belief in the gods of Rome. †190 to remind himself never again to destroy the human race by flood. He does not know what he is doing at all, if he really needed such a lasting reminder.” See Gn 9:13-15. †191 This fellow does not know what he is saying at all, not because his memory is dead, but because his soul is dead. If he finds fault with comparatively clear matters, how much more will he be in the dark and forced to rave in cloudy ones? Still, I will give him a quick answer. I maintain that God wanted to be reminded in this way, even though he was not forgetful, in the same way that Christ wanted to be informed where Lazarus had been laid, even though he was not unaware of this. See Jn 11:34. That is, the same objection can be raised about Christ, who apparently lacked knowledge of the place where Lazarus was buried. Hence, the objection tells against the New Testament as much as it does against the Old. †192 I do not intend to say which people that bow signifies as it shines in the clouds and, with its bright rays of light, enlightens the dewy darkness that, in turn, answers with a pleasing confession. Nor do I intend to explain in what sense God does not destroy the world with a spiritual flood, while he is mindful of those whom the bright clouds symbolize. Their names are written in heaven, See Lk 10:20 and Rv 20:12. †193 so that their Father who is in heaven might be mindful of them. Augustine uses the figure of preterition to introduce a figurative interpretation of the text, while saying that he is going to pass over such an interpretation. †194 They know that they are not bright from their own light, but from the sun of justice, just as those clouds are bright from the visible sun. From his earliest writings, Augustine viewed God as the intelligible light of minds that is the source of intelligible truth; see Soliloquies I, 1, 3 and I, 8, 15. †195 But because of the text I mentioned we must ask him how he interprets our Lord's words about Lazarus, Where have you laid him? (Jn 11:34), for he is shown the place as if he did not know it. Unless we admit that he was telling us something by that question that seemed to indicate his ignorance, how are we going to proclaim that Christ knew not only the present, but also the future? Especially since this fellow has, with remarkable blindness, fallen into the position where he says, “No one asks a question unless he is without
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knowledge.” He must not have thought how often Christ asked questions. Did he not ask a question when he said,
What do you think of Christ? Whose son is he? (Mt 22:42). What evidence is clearer than this? But if he is really stubborn, will he also deny that Christ asked a question where he testifies that he asks a question and says,
I will ask you one question: If you answer it for me, then I will tell you by what power I do these things. From where did John's baptism come? From heaven or from men? (Mt 21:24-25). Where is he going to hide now, this man who argues against God with all these words and without a shred of hope? What happens now to his statement, “No one asks a question unless he is without knowledge”? Look, Christ is not without knowledge, and yet he asks a question. This man finds fault with the God of the prophets with the same eyes with which he fails to see Christ. In such questions, Christ is clearly acting as a teacher. In these questions, when he says,
Where have you laid him? (Jn 11:34), and
Who touched me? (Lk 8:45), and whatever others of the sort we find, he seems to want to be taught what he does not know, and yet he knows it. In the same way, then, God is also reminded in those books of the Old Testament as if he had forgotten, but heaven forbid that he should ever forget anything.
44. What about the Lord's words to his disciples, Rejoice because your names have been written in heaven? (Lk 10:20). See Rv 21:12. †196 Does God not seem to be reminded as if by writing in heaven in the same way as by that bow that shines in the clouds? Unless these words are understood with piety until faith gains for us an understanding of them, will they not be laughed at as filled with fables? Here we have another example of the need for the pious acceptance of something in faith until we merit to understand what we believe; see Is 7:9. †197 Who is going to laugh at them save those who lack wisdom and are more and more out of their minds by the very fact that they think they are wise? Is there anyone who thinks that, as the Lord's followers are written in heaven to remind God, so those who abandon him are written in the earth? Of these latter, Jeremiah the prophet says, Let all those who abandon you be confused; as they withdraw, let them be written upon the earth (Jer 17:13). We do well to understand that Jesus meant these people, when the Jews withdrew, defeated and confused, one after the other, when they had heard, Let him who is without sin cast a stone at her first (Jn 8:7-9). Then he wrote on the earth with his finger, showing the number to which they belonged. Jesus wrote their names on the earth, not as a reminder to himself, but as a sign that these people, like those Jeremiah mentions, had withdrawn from God. †198
The Punishment of the Flood as History and as Prophecy
21, 45. He says, “If we suppose that human beings received the sentence of the flood as punishment for their way of life and that Noah, the just man, was saved to restore a better creation, See Gn 6—9. †199 why were worse human beings born after that and why is the birth of the human race still bound up with the same activity of filthy life?” The anonymous author seems to allude to the activity of sexual intercourse which he implies should not be present in a better creation. Augustine ignores this sense and interprets the claim in terms of greater or lesser moral goodness. †200 He speaks as if he lived with those who perished in the flood and, as a result, knows that worse people are born now. But whether our human
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race is involved in worse or the same or better activity after the flood, I think should be left to the judgment of God who knows how to reward each one according to his merits See Sir 16:15 and Rom 2:6.
†201 and not to this mad dog barking at his master or to this silly ass kicking against the goad. See Acts 9:5; 26:14, as well as Plautus, The Phoenician 1234 and Terence, Phormio 77.
†202 The apostle cries out,
Oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and unsearchable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor? (Rom 11:33-34). This fellow dares to be the opponent of him who had no counselor. What does it matter to human beings, who are all going to die the death of the body, whether they die individually or all die together and in the same way? The only difference is that, when they die individually, all suffer death and all grieve over those who have died, but when one destruction carries them all off, at least no one is left to grieve. But God's plan in that flood was deeper than the hearts of unbelievers either know or can grasp. I do not want him to listen to me; let him listen, rather, to the apostle Peter who said,
In the days of Noah, when the ark was made, eight souls were saved amid the waters, but baptism, he says,
has also saved you in a similar fashion. It is not the removal of the dirt of the flesh, but the inquiry of a good conscience after God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Pt 3:20-21). See 2 Pt 2:5.
†203 See, he has an explanation of the mystery of the flood. There he added,
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, so that we might understand the eighth day, because the number of human beings in the ark signified that the Lord rose on the eighth day, that is, after the seventh day, the Sabbath. Thus, if one has understanding, those events which are recalled as history were prophecies as well. The Old Testament contains spoken or written prophecies, but the events of the Old Testament are themselves prophetic, if they are understood as prefiguring the events of the New Testament. Here Augustine sees that the eighth person in the ark signifies the day after the Sabbath on which Christ rose from the dead—an interpretation that is bound to strike moderns as farfetched. Augustine was convinced that the unit of meaning in scripture was not just the paragraph or sentence, but the individual words. Hence, the eight persons in the ark could not be without signification.
†204 But this fellow situated outside the ark, that is, outside the Church, was drowned, not washed, in the flood.
The God of Isaiah Did Not Father Evil Human Beings
22, 46. He also makes slanderous accusations and blasphemes against the words found in the prophet Isaiah, because God said, “I have fathered children and raised them up, but they have rejected me (Is 1:2), and he called the same ones a little later bad seed (Is 1:4), as if to show that he was the father of evil persons and that his children were bad seed.” The anonymous heretic interprets the words of God in Isaiah as proving that the God of the Old Testament is evil, because he has fathered evil offspring. Augustine points out that the children of God became evil by reason of their own sins and thereby ceased to be God's children. †205 This fellow did not know that they were called bad seed, because by sinning they became unworthy of the grace of God by which they had been made his children and became instead the children of those they wanted to imitate. Hence, in another passage they are told, Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite (Ez 16:3), because they imitated the impious wickedness of those nations, though they did not draw their fleshly origin from them. Let this fellow solve the question in the gospel, where the Lord says, If you, evil as you are, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much the more will your Father who is in heaven give good things
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to those who ask him? (Lk 11:13). Let him explain how the good God is the father of evil men, for the truth says both of these things. Were they not evil to whom he said,
If you, evil as you are? (Lk 11:13). Did they not have the good God as their father to whom he said,
How much the more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? (Lk 11:13). Once again, Augustine produces a New Testament text that raises the same problem as the Old Testament text introduced by the Enemy of the Law and the Prophets.
†206 Moreover, if people are called evil on account of the sins without which no mortals, not even the just, live in the weakness of this life, how much more appropriate would it be to call evil seed what is born of a wicked will and nurtured by hateful conduct.
The Meaning of the Bad Tree Bearing Bad Fruit
47. He says, “Christ the Lord called this God a bad tree producing bad fruit.” See Mt 7:20. The anonymous heretic took Christ's words as referring to the God of the Old Testament; hence, Augustine insists that Christ was speaking of human persons who bring forth either good or bad fruit and make themselves either good or bad by their wills. †207 This blasphemous language itself is rather the bad fruit of this fellow who, like a bad tree, thinks such things. After all, scripture states quite clearly that the Lord called a bad person a bad tree, whose bad fruits were bad deeds. And he called a good person a good tree, whose good fruits were good deeds; that is, human wills, whether the bad will of a bad person or the good will of a good person, are different trees bearing different fruits. Thus, it says, A good man brings forth good things from the good treasure of his heart, and the bad man brings forth bad things from the bad treasure of his heart (Mt 12:35). But how could it say, Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, (Mt 12:33), unless a man could turn, now this way, now that way, by changing his will?
Augustine Responds to the Heretic's Charge That the God of the Old Testament Brings Forth Evil from Himself
23, 48. He says, “God himself speaks through the same prophet and says, I am God making good and creating evil” (Is 45:7). And so he does, for he is the God of whom the apostle says, You see then the goodness and the severity of God (Rom 11:22). His severity is evil for those worthy of damnation, because it inflicts the evil of damnation upon them. Since it is just, it is found to be good in another sense, for everything just is good. How elegantly this fellow thinks he weighs and distinguishes words, though he does not know what he is saying! He wants to turn into an accusation the very fact that this text phrases it so that it does not say, “making good and evil,” or “creating good and evil,” or “creating good and making evil,” but making good and creating evil (Is 45:7). He tries to show that what is made is made outside the maker, but what is created is made within the creator and proceeds from him. Thus the God of the prophets would seem to have been at some time the maker of a good external to himself, but the creator of evil, as if he were evil by nature and brought forth from out
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of himself what he created. If we consider these words in terms of the usual way human beings speak, not only the children that one generates from oneself, but also magistrates and cities and other things which do not proceed from a parent, but are made outside the agent are said both to be made and to be created. Augustine points out that ordinary Latin usage allows one to say that parents make or create their offspring and that people make or create magistrates and cities. So too, we speak of making babies in English, as well as of creating a new cardinal or a work of art, though we would be less inclined to speak of creating a child or a city.
†208 If we carefully examine how the holy scriptures that he is attacking usually speak, “to make” is the same as “to create,” though “to give birth to” is distinguished from them. For the sake of verbal variety and not for any real difference, one could say,
making good and creating evil (Is 45:7), though one could also say, “creating good and making evil.” Or, if the prophetic spirit had wanted there to be some distinction here, these words would be much more aptly interpreted, if we understood that for something to be made means that, if it were not made, it would not exist at all. On the other hand, for something to be created means that something that already existed is erected or constituted. Thus we say that magistrates and cities are created. After all, when magistrates are created, those who were already counted among the ranks of human beings are raised to positions of honor, and the wood and stones, from which cities are constructed, surely were already in existence, but had not yet, by their arrangement and assemblage, taken on that appearance of things which we see in cities. And when this happens, we say that cities are created. What the Greeks call “create:
κτίζειν,” our writers translate at times as “create:
creare,” at times as “set up:
constituere,” and at times as “establish:
condere,” which most often has the same meaning as “make:
facere” in our literature. We find both that
God made man to the image of God, and God created man imperishable (Wis 2:23). And if at times some difference is expressed, the difference I mentioned is more correctly found there. That is, one makes what previously did not exist at all; whereas, to create is to erect something from things that already existed by setting them in order. In later theology “create” becomes the technical term to refer to God's producing something out of nothing, though we still speak of creating someone or something that already exists, e.g., a new cardinal or a new diocese.
†209 Therefore, this passage speaks of God
creating evil (Is 45:7), because by the disposition of his severity he changes into evil for sinners what was made good by the bounteousness of his goodness. Augustine interprets God's creating evil as referring to his using good creatures to punish sinners. Though the creature is good, it becomes evil for the sinner; in another sense, punishment is good, because everything just is good.
†210 Hence, the apostle Paul says,
We are the good odor of Christ in every place, both for those who were being saved and for those who were perishing, to the one group the odor of life unto life, but to others the odor of death unto death. Even the good news of Christ preached by the apostles is death for those who reject it, though in itself it is obviously good.
†211 But since he immediately follows this up and says,
And who is suited for these things? (2 Cor 2:15-16), are we not out of place in a sense to present these things to carnal people who are not eager to learn, but argumentative and in no way suited to grasp those things? Yet, I wish they would at least stop carping at them. Augustine follows Saint Paul's distinction between those who are spiritual (pneumatikoi), animal, or natural (psychikoi), and carnal (sarkikoi). Often those who are carnal are heretics, though he also speaks of carnal Christians in the Church. Despite these distinctions Augustine is insistent that the same truth is presented to all, though the carnal or animal members of the Church may be unable to understand the truth presented for their belief. See the Introduction, 352, as well as above—where Augustine speaks of carnal persons and where he mentions that they should not be taught everything.
†212
49. Perhaps this fellow is unaware of the great battle that was stirred up against the Arians so that they would not say that the only-begotten Son was a creature, thinking, as they did, that to have been created is the same as to have been born. Arius was an Alexandrian priest and heresiarch; he was born around 250 and died in 336. He was condemned by the Council of Nicaea (325) for having held that there was a time when the Son was not. See DS 126. For a brief biography of Arius and sketch of his doctrine and its history, see the articles, “Arius” and “Arianism,” by V. C. DeClercq, in the New Catholic Encyclopedia 1, 814-815 and 791-794. See Augustine, Heresies XLIX and the Introduction to the Debate with Maximinus and Answer to Maximinus the Arian. The Arian heresy was largely responsible for the formation of a more precise theological vocabulary so that the distinction between creating and generating became precise and mandatory. For the Word is generated, but not created, while the world is created, not generated. †213 But let us strike and break his deceptive and perverse rule with the same testimony that he cited from the prophet and the gospel. God says through
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the prophet,
It is I creating light and making darkness, making peace and creating evil (Is 45:7). He cited the passage neither as a whole nor as we read it there. It is easy to overlook the fact that he put “good” in place of “peace,” since peace is good. But we should not pass over the fact that he could well have omitted the first part of the sentence out of deceit so that he did not say,
creating light (Is 45:7). After all, since light is, by his own admission, certainly good, he did not want to admit that it was created by him whom he would have create only evil. Hence, we should preferably take “create” and “make” as used without any difference, but the rule which this fellow made for their distinction has been shattered, since we read there that the God of the prophets, whom he blames because of any expression he does not understand, is the creator of good, something he denies. The same thing follows from the gospel. He cited against us, as if it greatly favored his own side, the statement of the Lord,
A good tree makes good fruit, and a bad tree makes bad fruit (Mt 7:17-18). Why, then, did he not say “creates” and not “makes” in accord with this fellow, if the distinction is really correct by which he distinguishes a maker from a creator. After all, he says that what is made is something different from the maker, because it comes from outside of him, but what is born is something belonging to him who generates it. On this basis, he thinks that God generates evil, because the text reads,
creating evil (Is 45:7). He thinks, as the Arians did, that those scriptures make no distinction between saying that something is created or that something is generated. But from the words of the Lord that a good tree makes and does not create good fruit and that a bad tree makes and does not create bad fruit, let him see that his rule has been shattered, and let him hold his tongue. After all, what is more stupid than to say that the God of the prophets is the bad tree and that our Lord wants us to understand that, when he says,
A bad tree makes bad fruit (Mt 7:18), and then say, “He does not make evil, but creates it. For if he made it, it would be different from him and would come to him from outside of him, but when he creates, he generates it from himself as if from its root.” Hence, the Lord does not say of this God,
A bad tree makes bad fruit (Mt 7:18), since this God creates and does not make evil. There you have the man who dares to accuse the prophets and who is shattered by the witnesses he himself has produced from the gospel.
Augustine Responds to the Heretic's Objection to the Old Testament on the Basis of Indecent Language
24, 50. In the same way this foul fellow drags in some words from the Book of Deuteronomy, horrified at their foulness, as if God ought to be ashamed to inflict shameful things upon the wicked or to foretell their torments and as if he ought not to threaten them by saying, The most tender and delicate woman among you,
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whose foot has not known what it is to walk upon the earth because of her tenderness and delicateness, will begrudge her husband and her son and her daughter even her afterbirth, and she will eat what comes forth from her loins (Dt 28:56-57). Indeed, the more ghastly it is, the more it will strike terror. After all, the prophet said this, not as advice, but as a threat, not that men should act this way, but that they should not do the things that a perverse mind practices and come to the things which the human mind finds horrible. But who can adequately express how much more detestable is the filthiness of a mind that is horrified at the punishments it deserves and does not avoid what deserves such punishments? Let the inviolate and inviolable Holy Spirit clearly say these things, because the soul refuses to hear unclean things and does not refuse to be unclean. Indeed, it turns away in horror from uncleanness of the flesh, because the senses of the flesh are offended, and loves its own uncleanness, because the senses of the heart have been killed. Let the Holy Spirit say these things, and let him strike them with the fear of doing wrong through their horror at suffering such evils.
51. The same Spirit, even when speaking through the apostle, was not ashamed to offend wicked minds, when he wanted to instruct pious ones. Having called to mind the wickedness of some, by which they worshipped and served a creature rather than the Creator (Rom 1:25), he added, On this account God delivered them to shameful passions. For their women exchanged natural intercourse for that which is against nature. Likewise, the men abandoning natural intercourse with a woman have burned with their desire for one another, men working upon men that perversity and receiving in themselves the reward corresponding to their sin, as was fitting (Rom 1:26-27). If, because of these words, some enemy of the apostle wanted to say such things as this blasphemer says because of some passages of the old books, would he not have ample material over which he could rave with many words? And the more he thinks that he is speaking learnedly, so much the more hateful would be the curses he throws about, especially since scripture said, receiving in themselves the reward corresponding to their sin, as was fitting! (Rom 1:27). The apostle was not afraid to say that it was fitting that those who served a creature rather than the Creator would receive the reward of their sin (Rom 1:25.27), not by suffering these shameful things unwillingly, but by doing them willingly. As a result of the sin of idolatry, God punished the people in question, not by penalties they suffered unwillingly, but by further sins which they did willingly. †214 This was not the judgment of some unclean man, whom such things might please, but the judgment of the just God, who delivered them to shameful passions (Rom 1:26). Thus crimes are punished by crimes, and the punishments of sinners are not torments, but increments in their vices. When a wise man hears these things, he has more fear in this life of the anger of God by which a man does not suffer what is sharply painful, but does what he shamefully pleases. And he despises the unsound words of the one who is displeased by such judgments, because he recognizes in him the punishment of Pharaoh, that is, of a hardened heart. See Ex 7:13. The worst punishment of sin in this life is, according to Augustine, not some physical pain or even death, but the increase in sinfulness, which is often something we find pleasant rather than painful. Such pleasure in sinning hardens the heart against repentance. †215
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After all, if
God delivered some who
did not see fit to acknowledge God to an evil frame of mind so that they might do what was not right (Rom 1:28), why should we be surprised if God hands over to an evil frame of mind this fellow who blasphemes against the words of God so that he says what is not right? After all,
it was necessary that there be heresies, the apostle says,
that those who are approved might be made known among you (1 Cor 11:19). Thus the vessels of wrath are arranged in suitable times and places so that God might make known even from them
the riches of his glory in the vessels of mercy (Rom 9:23). From that mass of the same condemnation, the latter were made honorable by his grace, not by their merits. Augustine follows Saint Paul in thinking of the whole human race as a single mass of clay. As offspring of Adam, the whole human race is a single mass of humanity condemned to punishment. By God's grace, not by any merits of theirs, some are saved.
†216 He grants that we derive benefit not only from what the truth teaches, but also from what foolishness shouts out. Thus, when restless foolishness receives its answer, the pure truth can be heard.
Shocking Language in Scripture Serves a Legitimate Purpose
52. Foolishness accuses it of being a shameful curse, but merciful truth indicates that it is not shameful to show by the mention of some shameful things that we should avoid shamefulness, and thus senseless foolishness is overcome. Those wordy and evil men can blame the apostle Paul for a shameful curse, when he says, May those who disturb you castrate themselves (Gal 5:12), even though those who understand correctly see it rather as a blessing, See Wis 3:14. †217 so that they might become eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of God. Still, garrulous blindness can find fault even with this statement in the apostle and contend that he should not have spoken of something decent with a shameful term. Paul was speaking of those who wanted to impose circumcision upon Gentile Christians, that is, those who maintained that the Jewish law remained in force, and thus were upsetting the Galatians. He is hardly praying that such persons become celibates for the sake of the kingdom, but rather that the hand of those performing the circumcision slip. †218 They can find fault even with the Lord, who said in commending the same gift of continence, “There are those who have castrated themselves for the sake of the kingdom of the heavens” (Mt 19:12). Augustine's Latin text did not soften the gospel language as modern translations do. For example, The New American Bible reads, some there are who have freely renounced sex for the sake of God's reign. †219 We should call persons who have gained no wisdom from reading men of letters “literalists” rather than “literate.” Augustine uses “litteriones” in contrast with “litterati.” The former term was used in contempt for people who taught the language, but had absorbed none of the culture. †220 They read something of the same sort in Cicero, on account of which they suppose that they, lost men rather than learned, Augustine puns on “lost” (perditi) and learned (periti). †221 learnedly find fault with the words of Christ. Though Cicero was teaching that indecency should be avoided in metaphorical expressions, he says, “I do not want to say that by the death of Africanus the republic was castrated.” Cicero, De oratore 3, 41, 164. †222 To show that it should be avoided, he did not avoid the very word that he wanted to avoid, but was forced to say what he did not want to say. How much more should the reality, that is correctly signified by the same word, be expressed by its word so that it might be understood by one who hears it! Augustine distinguishes between words (verba) and reality (res). If one does not blame Cicero for using a bad word in order to express the sort of word that he wanted us to avoid, then one should not blame scripture for using a bad word to express the reality it wants us to understand and to avoid. †223 But let us return to that which he finds fault with in Deuteronomy (Dt 28:56-57). If Cicero, a most eloquent man who most carefully weighed and measured his words, said what he did not want to say so that people might not say it, how much the better is it that God, who seeks the beauty and cleanliness of moral conduct rather than of words, said something
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shameful, not in a shameful way, but as a threat, so that people would be horrified at it and not do the sort of things that would result in their experiencing what they are horrified to hear? And yet when they read it, their lack of faith closes the ears, turns aside the face, hardens the countenance, wiggles the tongue, and hurls blasphemies. See whether these people do not belong to the kind of person who, when Christ spoke of the sacrament of his body and blood, said,
This is a hard saying; who can listen to it? (Jn 6:60). Those who found Christ's words objectionable, Augustine suggests, thought that he was referring to cannibalism. See Expositions of the Psalms, 98, where Augustine says that these persons understood Christ carnally, that is, “they thought that the Lord was about to cut off and give them pieces of his body to eat….”
†224 Yet those people may have more of an excuse for not bearing the the terrifying words of God, which they did not understand, in the case of a curse rather than in that of a blessing. After all, it is no surprise that a curse strikes terror when we hear it, and we should not demand that it be spoken with words that do not strike terror, since it is spoken precisely so that it might be feared by the one it terrifies. But the Lord was saying the sort of things that he was commanding us to love, not to fear. Augustine suggests that people who found the curse in Deuteronomy unbearable may be more excusable than those who found the Lord's words intolerable, since a curse is meant to be terrifying, while Christ's words were not meant to cause fear.
†225 Still, what person lacking faith could bear,
My flesh is really food, and my blood is really drink (Jn 6:55), and
Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will not have life in you? (Jn 6:53). The Wisdom of God, while feeding the believing soul with words appropriate to the sacrament, did not cure the folly that found them disgusting. All the more, then, did the same Wisdom, while wanting to strike salutary terror, when it was the time and place for fear and not for love, not cure the error of the fool, even though he foresaw his horror? Which of these men knows how to be horrified at the spiritual filth of the soul, when it is forced as if by its hunger and need to eat what proceeds from its carnal thoughts as if from its loins? See Dt 28:56-57 and above 24, 50. Augustine suggests a spiritual interpretation of the passage according to which the sinful soul, hungry for the truth, is forced to feed off the carnal thoughts to which it gives birth.
†226 After all, it is rare that the curse which he blames as shameful is carried out. Hardly ever is the scourge of famine so great that it drives people to such unspeakable deeds. But the world is full of that famine in which the souls of wretched persons destitute of the truth eat instead of the truth the offspring of their carnal minds, and they are more unhappy to the extent that the harm is greater and the horror is less. In his earliest work, The Happy Life, Augustine argued that wisdom is the food of souls and that souls lacking in wisdom were wretched and needy. See The Happy Life IV, 33.
†227
The First Book of Augustine's Answer Is Brought to an End
53. I do not think that I should answer that man's one book that you sent me with a single book lest mine be too long. Hence, let us at this point draw this one to a close so that we can begin another with the matters that remain to be discussed. After all, somehow or other a reader's attention is refreshed by the end of a book, as the weary traveler is by an inn.
Notes
†1 From the Revisions II, 84 (58), we learn that it was at Carthage that these crowds assembled to listen to the reading of this book and that, when some zealous Christians came upon it there, they
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promptly sent it on to Augustine to be refuted without delay. In the same passage in the
Revisions, Augustine also suggests that the author may have been a Marcionite or some other heretic who held the following errors: that God did not make this world and that the God of the law and the prophets is not the true God, but an evil demon.
†2 The Manichees were followers of Mani who was born in 216 and died in either 270 or 276. Mani founded Manichaeism, a distinct world religion that taught a universal dualistic gnosis, explaining the human situation in terms of a metaphysical dualism of good and evil presented in a highly imaginative myth. It taught a doctrine of salvation and prescribed a strict ethics. Augustine, nonetheless, always regarded Manichaeism as a Christian sect. For more on Manichaeism, see Heresies XLVI. For a good introduction to the topic, see J. Ries' “Manichaeism,” in the New Catholic Encyclopedia 7, 153-160, or J. Lienhard's briefer article in The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Spirituality (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983), 256-257, or “Mani, Manichaeism” by Pheme Perkins in the EEC (New York: Garland, 1990), 562-563.
†3 The Marcionites were a Christian Gnostic heresy of the second century originating with Marcion who died around 160. See the Introduction, 341-343. For Augustine's account of Marcionism, see Heresies XXII. For a good English introduction to Marcion, see “Marcion” in the New Catholic Encyclopedia 9, 193-194, by A. A. Stephenson. For a more current perspective on Marcion, see “Marcion,” in Dictionnaire de spiritualité X, 311-322, by Giles Pelland. Pelland indicates that the two fundamental points of Marcion's theology were the opposition between the law and the gospel and the perfect gratuity of salvation in Christ.
†4 Augustine points out that the author of the work he has been asked to refute has in common with the Manichees the rejection of the Old Testament, but also differs from them insofar as he holds that the world was not created by the good God. Augustine notes that the author is closer to Marcion than to Mani. In Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 2, 3 and II, 12, 41, Augustine reports that the anonymous author boasts of being the disciple of a certain Fabricius at Rome. Harnack suggested that this Fabricius is the Patricius whom Augustine mentions in his Heresies LXI and in Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 12, 40, and who rejected the God of the law and the prophets; see A. von Harnack, Marcion: Das Evangelium vom fremden Gott, Beilage X, 424*-433*. In his introduction to the Corpus christianorum Latinorum edition, Klaus-D. Daur agrees with Harnack's suggestion; see page 5. For a good summary of the state of scholarly opinion on the heresy to which the anonymous author belonged, see Thomas Raveaux, Augustinus: Contra Adversarium Legis et Prophetarum and id., “Adversarium legis et prophetarum (Contra —),” in Augustinus-Lexikon vol. I, 1/2, 107-112.
†5 The Manichees did not hold that God created the world out of nothing, but out of matter which was evil and which he was not able to overcome completely. Beginning with the problem of evil as we confront it in the present age, they devised a simple solution with the postulation of an initial and radical dualism of good and evil, or of light and darkness. See the general introduction to Augustine's anti-Manichaean works, by Pio de Luis in Obras Completas de San Agustín XXX (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1986), 3-174, especially 46-47.
†6 The anonymous author draws arguments for his position from both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Augustine structures his response in two books. In the first, he answers the charges against the Old Testament that were drawn from the Old Testament; in the second, he deals with the author's arguments against the Old Testament drawn from the New.
†7 The Jewish and Christian belief in a temporal creation, that is, at a moment in the past finitely distant from the present, raised the questions for believers and non-believers as to why God created when he did, or why he did not create earlier than he did, and what he was doing before he created the world. The Gnostics and Manichees both raised such questions as objections to the Judaeo-Christian account of creation. See E. Peters, “What was God doing before He created the Heavens and the Earth?” Augustiniana 34 (1984) 53-74. See the Confessions XI, 12, 14, where Augustine argues that, since time is a creature, there was no time when God made nothing. Augustine's position requires a distinction between the non-temporal duration of God's eternity and the temporal duration of creatures.
†8 Augustine points out that there is no change in God whether he is producing something or is not producing something. Whatever we truly say of God at one time that we do not truly say of him at another indicates a change, not in God, but in some creature; see The Trinity V, 16, 17, for Augustine's articulation of this principle.
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†9 See 1 Cor 3:16-17 and Eph 2:21-22.
†10 See Jn 3:16-18. In all of his commentaries on Genesis Augustine interprets “the beginning” in Gn 1:1 as Christ, though he is willing to accept another interpretation as he does here. See, for example, On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans I, 2, 3; Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis III, 6; The Literal Meaning of Genesis I, i, 3; and Confessions XI, 3, 5. This interpretation is inspired by Origen; see Homiliae in Genesim I, 1 and B. Altaner, “Augustinus und Origenes,” in Kleine patristische Schriften. Texte und Untersuchungen 83 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1967), 234-236.
†11 Not merely does God have no beginning and no end; he begins to be and ceases to be in no way, that is, he is without any change. Divine immutability is basic to Augustine's whole view of reality. See Confessions VII, 1, 1, for Augustine's coming to realize that God is immutable. In Letter 18, 2, Augustine sketches the hierarchy of being which includes bodies that change in time and place, souls that change only in time, and God who is utterly changeless. Thus, all creatures are changeable, while God is absolutely immutable.
†12 For possible sources of this idea, which seems to have been almost a commonplace among the ancients, see Plato, Republic VIII, 546A. See also Aristotle, De caelo I, around 10, 279b21, 280a 12-13, where he says that everything that begins to be comes to an end. In Letter 166, 5, 14, Augustine rejects with regard to the human soul the claim “that everything that begins in time cannot be immortal,” a claim supported by Sallust's words that “all things that come to be fail and age once they are grown” (Bellum Jugurthinum 2, 3). Raveaux sees in the words of the anonymous heretic an indication that he regarded the work of the creator God as doomed to extinction and as completely divorced from the work of the Savior. He thus takes it as a sign of the Marcionite character of the work; see Raveaux, Augustinus: Contra Adversarium Legis et Prophetarum, 14-19.
†13 The anonymous author uses “start” (initium) instead of “beginning” (principium). The Latin terms are virtually synonymous in meaning, just as the English terms are, though the anonymous author implies a distinction between the two. A possible basis for such a distinction is the Gnostic and Manichaean division of all of time into starting, middle, and end times (initium, medium, and finis). See Answer to Felix I, 6, 9 and 12. If such is his meaning, the anonymous author is asking why God did not make the world in the starting times, that is, before this present age. He may also be implying that he has secret knowledge of what God was doing in those times.
†14 That is, Augustine takes the anonymous opponent of the Law and the Prophets as implying one of two things: either that, if the existence of the world is good, its earlier and, hence, longer existence would have been better, or that, since it does not have a duration equal to God's, it is not good at all.
†15 See Jn 8:25. The Latin admits this interpretation, though the preferable translation of the Greek text is, “What I have told you from the beginning.”
†16 See above note 13, for a possible basis for the author's distinction between initium and principium. Augustine's argument takes the two terms as synonymous.
†17 The heretic's attempt to draw a distinction between start and beginning runs into problems with the parallelism between the initial verse of Genesis and that of the Gospel of John. If Gn 1:1 implies that God had a beginning, then Jn 1:1 implies that the Word had a beginning.
†18 If the heretic applied his claim that there is no beginning without an end to the Word of God as he had applied it to the creator God of Genesis, then even the Manichees would regard him as insane, since even the Manichees did not think that Christ had an end.
†19 In The Trinity V, 1, 2, Augustine declares that God is “creator without need” (creatorem sine indigentia). See Expositions of the Psalms 134 10, where Augustine contrasts our making things out of need or necessity with God's making by his free will and out of his goodness. “God made out of goodness; he needed nothing which he made; thus, he made whatever he willed” (Ps 55:12).
†20 Augustine's standard defense of the goodness of the whole of creation against the Manichees who had contempt for the visible world ran as follows: to have a full panoply of creatures from the highest to the lowest is better than to have a world in which there are only the higher creatures. For Augustine's use of this sort of aesthetic defense of the goodness of all things (omnia), see Robert J. O'Connell, Imagination and Metaphysics in Saint Augustine (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1986), 28-33.
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†21 Augustine's claim is based upon a doctrine of participation, which he derived from the Platonists, but understood in terms of what we could call both formal and efficient causality. Thus, he speaks the language of participation in some texts, such as Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis XVI, 57-58, and in others he speaks the language of causation, such as Confessions VII, 12, 18-13, 19.
†22 If no creature is good on the grounds that no creature is equal to God, then God is the only good and will be the lowest good just as much as the highest good.
†23 See Jn 1:10.
†24 The triad, “measure, form, and order,” is a variation on Wis 11:21, “You have arranged everything in measure, number, and weight.” See Free Will II, 20, 54, where Augustine says, “Do not hestitate to attribute to God's artistry every reality in which you see measure, number and order.” In Free Will II, 16, 42, Augustine links number and form, where he says of creatures, “They have forms, because they have numbers.” So too, in Free Will III, 12, 35, he speaks of natures that are “measured, formed, and ordered,” and in III, 21, 60, he calls God “author, former, and orderer.” See W. Bierwaltes, “Augustins Interpretation von Sapientia 11,21,” Revue des études augustiniennes 15 (1969) 51-61; O. du Roy, L'intelligence de la foi en la Trinité selon saint Augustin (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1966), 279-297 and 421-424; A.-M. La Bonnardière, Biblia augustiniana. Le livre de la sagesse (Paris: Etudes augustiniennes, 1970), 90-98.
†25 See above note 20.
†26 There are two things we call evils: defects and punishments. A defect (vitium) can be either a physical or a moral failing, though Augustine is chiefly concerned in this context with non-moral defects. Augustine insists that all natures are good. In Free Will III, 13, 38, he says, “What is there in reality that one blames except the defect of something? But the defect of something is not blamed unless its nature is praised.”
†27 A privation is not merely a negation or an absence of good, but a lack of a good that a nature ought to have. Thus, a lack of sight is a mere negation of a good in a tree, but a privation in an animal or human being.
†28 Hence, evil is always parasitic upon what is good; there cannot be anything whose nature or substance is itself evil.
†29 See The Catholic Way of Life and the Manichean Way of Life II, 2, 2: “Evil itself, then, is… to fall away from being (essentia) and tend toward not being.” Augustine argued that, though the soul tends toward nothingness by sinning, it can never cease to be; see the chapter, “The Fall towards Impossible Nothingness,” in E. zum Brunn, Saint Augustine: Being and Nothingness (New York: Paragon House, 1988).
†30 To be made out of God would entail that they were of the same nature or substance as God; hence, they would be immutable. To be made out of nothing does not imply that nothing is some material cause out of which things are made, but that there is no material cause out of which they are made.
†31 Augustine's aesthetic defense of the beauty of things that pass might easily be subjected to the ridicule that Voltaire poured out on the Leibnizian optimism in Candide. On the other hand, Augustine clearly claims that the beauty found in passing things is not visible to the human eye.
†32 Augustine often compares the beauty of passing things to the words of a poem or of a discourse whose beauty lies not in the individual words, but in the whole poem or discourse. See True Religion XXII, 42-43, where Augustine draws an analogy between the beauty of passing syllables of a poem and of passing temporal beings and argues that, as no one would reasonably want a single syllable of a poem to sound forever so that the whole poem could not be heard, so we should not want temporal things to last forever and not pass away. But then he adds that “no human being can perceive the whole order of the ages. Moreover, we are not parts of the poem, but we were made parts of the ages by reason of our condemnation.”
†33 That is, even in wicked persons like the anonymous author, who would in the future centuries find fault with the words of Genesis and lead others from the truth, God saw much good. Hence, the author of Genesis had no reason to fear that such persons constituted a refutation of his declaration that God saw all things were good. The long sentence that follows points to the great good to be found even in such wicked human beings.
†34 See 1 Cor 12:12.
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†35 See Gn 9:15.
†36 God's knowledge of things is causally prior to the existence of things. Augustine puts it crisply: We know things because they exist; things exist because God knows them. See Confessions XIII, 16, 19, as well as The City of God XI, 21 and To Orosius in Refutation of Priscillianists and Origenists 7, 8.
†37 Augustine says that God does not create evil, but orders evil by punishing it. See Confessiones I, 10, 16, where Augustine calls God “the creator and orderer of all natural things, but only the orderer of sins.” In Letter 140, 2, he says, “One who orders himself unjustly in sins is justly ordered in punishments.”
†38 See Rom 9:22-23.
†39 Augustine juxtaposes acumina vanitatis and arcana veritatis.
†40 This passage provides a good example of how Augustine draws material from his repertoire. The Manichees had used the same attack against the Old Testament, and Augustine used the same counter-argument in his first commentary on Genesis. See On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans I, 8, 13-14
†41 Though at the time of his very early writings Augustine had thought that “it is up to us to believe and to will, but it is up to [God] to give to those who believe and will the power to act well by the Holy Spirit,” he came to realize, when answering the questions of Simplician in 396, that faith by which we believe in God is a gift of God. See The Predestination of the Saint III, 7, where Augustine admits that he was mistaken in what he wrote in Commentary on Some Statements in the Letter to the Romans 53 (61).
†42 See On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans I, 16, 25, where Augustine draws an analogy between someone who is offended by things he finds in God's creation and an ignorant person who enters a workshop, fails to understand the purpose of various tools, and injures himself on some of them, which he then regards as dangerous and harmful.
†43 See Is 7:9. Augustine's Old Latin version reads, “Unless you believe, you will not understand,” a verse which represents one of the major themes in his thought. After his many years as a “hearer” among the Manichees, who had promised knowledge without the yoke of belief, Augustine became convinced that the humility of faith was the necessary prerequisite for attaining knowledge of things divine and that the more profound one's faith is, the more easy will be one's progress in knowledge.
†44 See Confessions VII, 10, 16, where Augustine recounts how he found God, the unchangeable light, above his mind. It was not this common light that is seen by bodily eyes, but a light far different from all other lights. Though we might be tempted to regard Augustine's describing God as light as a metaphor, he states clearly that it is proper, not metaphorical predication. See The Literal Meaning of Genesis IV, 28, 45, where Augustine says that his interpretation of the light as angelic knowledge is not figurative, but proper; he says, “Where the light is better and more evident, there the day is more true.”
†45 Thus, in The City of God XI, 24, Augustine says that “the words, God saw that it was good, show sufficiently that God made what has been made by no necessity, by no need of any benefit, but by goodness alone, that is, because it is good.” For a discussion of God's freedom in creation, see R.-H. Cousineau, “Creation and Freedom: An Augustinian Problem: 'Quia voluit'? and/or 'Quia bonus'?” Recherches Augustiniennes 2 (1963) 253-271, as well as my “The Motive of Creation according to Saint Augustine,” The Modern Schoolman 65 (1988) 245-253.
†46 The light here might be the light of one's understanding or the light of faith. In either case this light within has its source in the divine light. See the Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis V, 20-25, where Augustine distinguishes uncreated light from the various created lights, namely, bodily light, the light in the senses of animals, and the light of human minds.
†47 See Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis IV, 11, where Augustine deals with a similar argument of the Manichees who interpreted the imperfect tenses in Gn 1:2 to mean that the earth and the darkness already existed when God made heaven and earth.
†48 Augustine suggests a prophetic sense of the text so that the darkness followed by light signified the fact that we were once darkness and are now light in the Lord; see Eph 5:8.
†49 Augustine is alluding to Sir 18:1: “He who remains forever created everything at once.” In
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the
Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis VII, 28, Augustine cites Sir 18:1 and then says, while commenting on the morning and evening of the first day, that in Genesis “the story of the things God made is most conveniently divided into different stages so that the order that could not be seen in steady contemplation by weaker minds could be made out through the order of such a narrative as though it were set before these eyes.” That is, for the minds not strong enough to grasp the simultaneous creation of all things, the Genesis narrative spreads it out over six days and presents it in a fashion they can see.
†50 Augustine thus holds that matter is not absolutely nothing, that it is not coeternal with God, and that it was made by God. The Manichees had denied that matter was made by God; the ancient philosophers had held that matter always existed and, hence, was in some sense coeternal with God. See Confessions XII, 5, 5-6, 6, where Augustine tells of his struggle to conceive of matter.
†51 Augustine is arguing that matter, though in itself formless, is good, since it is capable of being formed. Hence, he clearly stands opposed to not merely the Manichees, but also to the Neoplatonists who at least at times regarded matter as evil.
†52 In Confessions XII, 29, 40, Augustine distinguished four kinds of priority: by eternity, in time, by choice, and in origin. Thus, God precedes the world by eternity, a flower precedes the fruit in time, while the fruit precedes the flower by choice, and the sound precedes the melody in origin. He concedes that the first and the last are difficult to understand. As a melody is formed out of sounds, though the sounds do not come first in time, so the created world is formed out of matter, though the unformed matter did not come first in time.
†53 Augustine's mature position is that God created everything at once and that the narrative of creation was spread out over six days because we cannot be told everything at once. See above note 49.
†54 Matter is, for Augustine, the principle of mutability; see Confessions XII, 3, 3-6, 6, where he speaks of his struggle to think of matter in a correct philosophical manner. As he could not think of either God or the soul as an incorporeal substance, so he could not think of matter as lacking all form. In both cases, he had to learn to transcend the imagination. For Augustine, matter is present in anything mutable; hence, there is matter in both bodies and in souls; that is, there is both corporeal and spiritual matter.
†55 Here Augustine is content to have his readers find some interpretation in accord with the rule of faith. In his previous commentaries on the beginning of Genesis, he strongly favors the first interpretation; see On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans I, 5, 9, and Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis IV, 11.
†56 See Mt 5:9.
†57 Augustine uses the image of light and its splendor to provide an image of the Father and the Son. Though they are both temporal, not eternal, light and its splendor are of equal duration; yet, the splendor is derived from the light. See Sermon 117, 10, 14. Here Augustine puts the most favorable interpretation on the words of the anonymous author, who in accord with his Monarchian views more likely took “of incomprehensible light,” not as signifying the source of the splendor, but as indicating its nature.
†58 The anonymous heretic held that it was not the true God, but an evil demon who made the world. Hence, Christ, who is Light from Light in the words of the Nicene Creed, is not the maker of this world. The phrase, “Light from Light,” in the Nicene Creed, is intended to express in language closer to biblical imagery what is expressed in the more technical language of consubstantiality.
†59 Augustine first takes the psalmist's words very literally and then claims that he could not have been praying for what the Psalm literally says, namely, that he would never die or never fall asleep. Hence, the figurative interpretation is justified by the absurdity of the literal sense.
†60 Augustine's comments on the text demand the very literal translation I have given. The more natural rendering of the last clause would be simply: “Proclaim well from day to day his salvation.”
†61 That is, if the anonymous author is going to plead that the light Paul spoke of is spiritual, while the light mentioned in Genesis is bodily, Augustine asks that he at least admit that the God of Genesis could have produced a created light that was good.
†62 See 2 Cor 5:6.
†63 See Mt 18:10. In Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis V, 19, Augustine suggests
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that the light mentioned in Gn 1:3 might be the ordinary visible light, or a more hidden, but bodily light, or the light found in the animal soul or a higher light. But in
The Literal Meaning of Genesis I, 19, 38, he indicates that the light could be the spiritual creation, that is, the angels whose knowledge of things in God is signified by morning and whose knowledge of things in creation is signified by evening; see
The Literal Meaning of Genesis V, 18, 36.
†64 See Gn 1:5.
†65 See Gn 1:8.
†66 See Gn 1:4-5.14-16. The anonymous heretic apparently understood the light in question to be a corporeal light removed from the gaze of earthly creatures so that only God distinguished it from darkness.
†67 See Gn 1:5. The anonymous heretic had apparently argued that the author of the Genesis account was ignorant of the fact that one could not have days and hours in the ordinary sense before the creation of the sun. The point of Augustine's battery of questions was to show that there are more questions that an inquiring believer can ask than those raised by the opponent of the Old Testament (see On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans II, 2, 3) and to indicate that his opponent simply does not know of the sort of light about which Genesis was speaking.
†68 The Manichees raised the same objection; see On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans I, 12, 28. There Augustine explains the gathering of the waters as the formation of matter into the water we can see. If one takes quite literally the statement that water covered the whole earth, then it, of course, becomes difficult to imagine how the water could be gathered so that the dry land could emerge.
†69 Augustine, first, takes water in its proper sense and explains the gathering of the waters in terms of their condensation from a misty or steamy form to a liquid form.
†70 Augustine uses the figure of preterition to introduce another interpretation, namely, that water and the abyss refer to unformed matter, which was formed into water and earth by the gathering of the waters. This interpretation is found in all three of Augustine's commentaries on Genesis. See On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans I, 7, 11; Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis IV, 11; and The Literal Meaning of Genesis I, 1, 2-3.
†71 Augustine holds that not merely the divine author of scripture, but the human author intended the account as prophetic and not merely as historical. See On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans I, 23, 35-25, 43 and II, 24, 37, where Augustine gives a prophetic interpretation of the seven days of the account of creation and of Genesis 2 and 3. Though Augustine would not teach to everyone the prophetic content of these books, he would not teach anything false. Compare Augustine's approach to that of the anonymous author; see Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets II, 2, 3-8, where the latter interprets the Pauline texts as meaning that Paul endorsed not merely not teaching everything to everyone, but even teaching what is false.
†72 The anonymous heretic did not, of course, hold that God was the creator of this world; hence, he must be read as arguing against the God of the Genesis account who made human beings as they are.
†73 See Rom 9:22-23.
†74 God permits heretics to misinterpret the text of scripture in order to stir the faithful exegete to a more attentive study of the word of God.
†75 See Gn 2:17.
†76 See Gn 1:26.
†77 Augustine is here speaking of experiential knowledge as becomes clear further on when he contrasts experiential knowledge with sapiential knowledge.
†78 Augustine produces two examples in which a lack of knowledge is better than knowledge, namely, when we do not know what it is like to be ill and when Christ did not know what it was like to sin. Yet, as he goes on to show, Christ did have knowledge of sin, since one cannot blame what one does not know.
†79 Through committing sin, we human beings lose control over ourselves so that we are no longer able fully to control our appetites and emotions. This internal disorder resulting from sin is itself a punishment of sin. Augustine held that the right order of things placed human beings under God, but over bodies. See On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans II, 9, 12 and II, 15, 22, for the middle rank of human beings subject to God and holding their bodies in subjection.
†80 See The City of God XIV, 2.
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†81 Human freedom is not absolute, but subject to God. Thus a human being should be ruled by God and should rule his body. See On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans II, 15, 22.
†82 Augustine mentions that there were some who interpreted the knowledge of good and evil as a great boon which they were forbidden because they were not sufficiently mature. Though he does not identify these persons, he does not seem to regard the view as heretical.
†83 In Free Will II, 18, 48-19, 52, Augustine argues that free choice is an intermediate good without which we cannot live well, but which we can use badly. Thus, it is inferior to a great good, like justice, by which we live rightly and which we cannot use badly, but it is superior to the lower goods, such as limbs of the body which we can use badly and without which we can live well. Here Augustine is speaking of the condition in which Adam was created; after the Fall human beings are no longer able not to sin unless they are helped by the grace of Christ; see Correction and Grace XII, 34, where Augustine contrasts Adam's being able not to sin (posse non peccare) with the inability to sin of the blessed in heaven (non posse peccare).
†84 In The Literal Meaning of Genesis IV, 16, 27, Augustine says, “But if he could not make good things, there would be no power; if, however, he could and did not, there would be great enviousness. Hence, because he is almighty and good, he made all things very good.” In their commentary on this passage Agaësse and Solignac point out that Augustine has turned back on Epicurus his dilemma that God either wants to remove evils and cannot or can remove them and does not want to do so (see BA 48, 644).
†85 See Free Will III, 5, 13, where Augustine says, “There can be something in the nature of reality that you do not think of with your reason. But there cannot fail to be what you think of with true reason, for you cannot think of something better in creation that has escaped the artisan of creation.” Hence, if we can see with right reason that there should be such creatures as the angels who never fell, we should know that such creatures have been made by God. Moreover, those creatures that fell were not made so that they abandoned God by necessity.
†86 See Col 1:13, as well as Jn 5:24 and 1 Jn 3:14. As a result of the sin of the first parents, the whole human race has been condemned; out of that justly condemned humanity God saves those whom he chooses not because of any human merit, but because of his free gift of grace.
†87 The anonymous heretic apparently said that God should have hidden from the first couple the tree of the discernment of good and evil. Augustine argues that there was no reason why God should have hidden the tree from them, even though he foreknew that they would be disobedient, since he also foreknew the good he would draw from their sin.
†88 Augustine illustrates how divine providence orders the evil of sin through punishment, thus bringing good out of evil.
†89 The Manichees had held that the human soul was divine and a particle of God. Augustine's argument against them from early on rested on God's immutability. See Confessions VII, 1, 1 and VII, 2, 3.
†90 See Gn 2:7.
†91 Augustine uses the preposition “out of” (de) to refer to a production out of the substance of the one producing. Thus the Father generates the Son out of himself. He uses the preposition “by” (ab) to refer to an agent who makes or creates something. If the soul were out of God, it would be divine, of the same nature as God.
†92 See Gn 2:7.
†93 The identification of these exegetes with the Manichees does not seem correct. In On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans II, 8, 11, Augustine warns that we should not interpret Gn 2:7 to mean that “a part of the nature of God was changed into the soul of man,” as the Manichees had held. But in the present passage Augustine indicates in the next lines that the view he is presently considering is not out of question as one worthy of belief. In Questions on the Heptateuch I, 9, 4, he points out that Gn 7:15 speaks of the spirit of life in cattle as well as in humans. He makes this point because of those who interpret Gn 2:7 as referring to the Holy Spirit, but there is no reason to think that these exegetes are Manichees. See also the long discussion of this point in The City of God XIII, 24, where Augustine again fails to identify these exegetes with whom he clearly disagrees, though he does not brand them as heretical. See the note in BA 48, 698-699.
†94 See Rom 1:21.
†95 See Jn 1:9.
― 403 ―
†96 See Rv 20:2.
†97 The Latin pronuntiator doctus, non calamniator indoctus has the sort of rhetorical flourish that cannot be echoed in translation.
†98 See Jb 13:28.
†99 See Gn 2:15 and 2:22.
†100 Augustine distinguishes the physical tree of paradise from the spiritual tree of paradise, the former signifying the latter. While Enoch and Elijah may eat the fruit of the physical tree, the good thief eats from the spiritual tree, which is wisdom—and wisdom is, of course, Christ.
†101 See Gn 5:21-24; 1 Sm 17; and 2 Sm 2. Since scripture implies that Enoch and Elijah have not died a bodily death, Augustine suggests that they may still be fed from the tree of life that the first couple enjoyed in paradise. If so, the existence of this tree benefited some people, despite the heretic's claim that it benefited no one.
†102 Since knowledge of what is going to happen would not be knowledge if it were not true, God's foreknowledge, which cannot be false, entails the occurrence of what he foreknows. See Free Will III, 3, 8, where Augustine says, “Since he has foreknowledge of our willing, that which he foreknows will be. Hence, our willing will occur, because he foreknew our willing.” Though Augustine speaks of foreknowledge, he holds that God's knowledge is eternal and that his knowledge does not temporally precede events in time. See Confessions XI, 13, 16.
†103 See Mt 25:14-18.
†104 See Gn 3:17.
†105 See Mt 25:30.
†106 See Ps 18:15.
†107 See Mt 25:30.
†108 Augustine points out that, with regard to all the punishments God inflicts, God never lacks knowledge or power and never corrects human beings with jealousy or malice.
†109 See Ex 7:13.
†110 See 1 Kgs 22:19-23.
†111 See Ex 32:25-28.
†112 Terence, Phormio 77.
†113 See Nm 25:8.
†114 See Mt 25:41.
†115 In undoing the charge that the God of the Old Testament is cruel and bloodthirsty, Augustine comes perilously close to proving that the God of the New Testament is even worse.
†116 See 2 Sm 24.
†117 See 1 Sm 2-4.
†118 Augustine again uses the figure of preterition to introduce points that he says he is not going to argue.
†119 Augustine stresses that the sons of Heli were of an age at which they should have known better and should have controlled their appetite. He also points out that, in punishing the people, God was not protecting his own interests, but the interests of the people who were deprived of the good example Heli's sons should have given. In any case, compared to eternity, human lives in this world are relatively short, even if one lives to a ripe old age.
†120 As a good Platonist, Augustine is confident that whatever the reason for the soul's leaving the body, the soul does not suffer simply as the result of having set aside the body. In any case Augustine regarded this present life as “a deathly life or living death”; see Confessions I, 6, 7. Also see H.-I. Marrou's L'ambivalence du temps de l'histoire chez saint Augustine (Montreal: Institut d'études médiévales, 1950), for further texts on Augustine's view of the present age in its ambiguity, as well as my “'Vocans Temporales, Faciens Aeternos': Saint Augustine on Liberation from Time,” Traditio 41 (1985), 29-47, especially 33-35.
†121 Augustine admits that God punished human beings with bodily death for the sins of others, but points out that no one loses the life of the soul, namely, God, because of the sin of another. Even though we are punished for the sin of Adam, we were not punished unjustly, according to Augustine, because “all were that man” (see Marriage and Desire II, 5, 15).
†122 See Mt 22:11.
†123 Recognizing the futility of trying to teach carnal-minded persons, the mystical significance
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of the Old Testament sacrifices or of the wedding garment, Augustine limits himself to pointing out that Christ clearly intended that the new law perfect, not destroy, the old law.
†124 Again Augustine ends with a rhetorical florish: “fidelem, nusquam crudelem.”
†125 See Nm 25:9.
†126 See Mt 25:41.
†127 See Dt 32:32-35.
†128 The anonymous heretic thinks that the text of Deuteronomy means that God bottles up within himself the punishments that he is going to unleash against the wicked when they are most helpless. Augustine points out that it is the sinner who stores up for himself, like a treasure, the wrath of God, just as the good store up with God the treasures of justice.
†129 See Prv 21:20.
†130 See Prv 8:21.
†131 Augustine's Latin Bible here follows the Septuagint version.
†132 See Mt 25:14-30.
†133 See Mt 22:11-13.
†134 See Mt 25:11-12.
†135 See Mt 25:3.
†136 See Mt 5:22.
†137 See Mt 25:41-42.
†138 Thus it is Christ who links the two Testaments. Ultimately, one cannot reject the Old Testament without rejecting Christ. Against the Manichees, who also rejected the Old Testament, Augustine had insisted that “everything that Moses wrote is about Christ” (Answer to Faustus XVI, 9) and said that everything contained in the prophetic books was said about Christ or on account of him (see Answer to Faustus XII, 7).
†139 See Ex 23:4-5.
†140 See Lv 19:18.
†141 The opponent of the Law and the Prophets seems to have held that the New Testament differed from the Old insofar as the New Testament forbade returning evil for evil. Augustine points out that there are many Old Testament passages that teach this doctrine and that God of the New Testament repays evil with evil in punishing with eternal fire.
†142 See Mt 25:41-42.
†143 See Ex 21:24.
†144 See Gal 5:6.
†145 See Gal 4:22-31.
†146 See 2 Cor 3:6.
†147 See Hb 2:3 (Heb 10:37); Hg 2:8. Persons of the Old Testament were able to be saved through faith in Christ and through the life-giving Spirit. The anonymous heretic, on the other hand, insisted that the prophets of the Jews could not have spoken of Christ, because the Spirit was not on earth before Christ's coming; see Answer to an Enemy of the Law and the Prophets 2, 3, 9.
†148 The expression, “carnal persons,” is taken from Saint Paul and is used by Augustine to refer both to heretics and to certain people in the Church. These latter are either the little ones who will be nourished by milk until they become adults in Christ or those who will remain as the chaff on the threshing floor to be burned on the day of judgment. For Augustine, the Church in the present age always includes sinners as well as saints.
†149 See Mt 3:12 and Lk 3:17.
†150 See Mt 18:21-23.
†151 See Mt 16:19.
†152 See Mt 18:35 and Mk 11:25.
†153 See 2 Sm 24. The anonymous heretic obviously found the animal sacrifices of the old law repugnant. They constituted for him a proof that one who found such sacrifices pleasing or who made them a condition for answering prayers could not be the true God.
†154 See Heb 8:5.
†155 Just as many words can signify a single reality, so the many sacrifices of the old law signified the one true sacrifice of Christ. The just of the Old Testament were saved, not by the reality of the old sacrifices, but by the sacrifice of Christ which the sacrifices of the old law signified.
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†156 See Mt 4:10.
†157 See The City of God X, 4-6, where Augustine discusses sacrifice in some length, distinguishing between the sign, that is, the visible sacrifice, and what it signifies, that is, the true sacrifice, namely, love of God and love of neighbor.
†158 See Mt 26:28 and Mk 14:24. Since the sacrifice of Christ is the one and only true sacrifice, any sacrifice we offer to God must be a sharing in the sacrifice of Christ, which we, as the body of Christ, can offer to the Father, because the Spirit of Christ has been poured out in our hearts.
†159 See Lv 1:3.
†160 See Heb 8:1-10 and 1 Pt 1:19.
†161 See above, I, 11, 15.
†162 The sacrifice of thanksgiving is, of course, the Eucharist, as becomes clear in the following lines where Augustine speaks of the sacrifice of the Church.
†163 See Jn 1:17.
†164 Augustine previously said that all the sacrifices of the old law foreshadowed the one true sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Here he says that those same sacrifices foreshadowed the sacrifice of the Church, the thanksgiving, or Eucharist, that the faithful know. Thus he teaches the identity of the sacrifice of the Church with that of Christ.
†165 See 1 Cor 10:18-20.
†166 See Jn 2:21. The Latin has several double meanings. First, the sacrifice of his body can mean the sacrifice on Calvary in which Christ offered his body, but it can also mean the sacrifice which the Church, his body, offers to God. So too, the resurrection was both the raising of the body of Christ and the erection of the temple of his body, which is the Church.
†167 See Homilies on the Gospel of John 124, 2, where Augustine mentions an apocryphal account of the death of Saint John, as well as Answer to Felix II, 6, where Augustine refers to an apocryphal work modeled after the Acts of the Apostles. Perhaps Augustine is referring to Acts of Saint Andrew and Acts of Saint John, both probably written in the third century.
†168 See Agreement among the Evangelists I, 1, 2, where Augustine mentions that “others, who have attempted or dared to write something about the actions of the Lord or of the apostles, were not such persons in their own times that the Church placed its faith in them and accepted their writings into the canonical authority of the sacred books… they also added deceitfully to their writings certain things which the Catholic and apostolic rule of faith condemns.” See also Answer to Faustus XI, 2, where Augustine appeals to “the authority of the Catholic Church which is confirmed by the succesion of bishops and the consent of so many peoples from the time of the sees founded by the apostles down to the present day.” Augustine even goes so far as to say, “I would not believe the gospel, if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me” (Answer to the Letter of Mani known as “The Foundation” 5).
†169 See Ps 19:14. The unity of the Church through time is guaranteed not merely by the unbroken succession of bishops, but by the celebration of the Eucharist in which the Church offers the sacrifice of the body of Christ.
†170 See Ps 49:9.
†171 See Ps 109:4-6 and Heb 5:6.
†172 See Gn 14:18.
†173 Melchizedek offered a sacrifice of bread and wine; so too, the Church offers a sacrifice in which bread and wine are the visible signs of the one true sacrifice of Christ.
†174 See Rv 5:8.
†175 The mention of God's not repenting in the previous paragraph leads Augustine into a discussion of various ways of speaking about God which seem to imply a change or an emotional state in God.
†176 The Latin word “mercy” (misericordia) is derived from “sadness of heart” (miseria cordis).
†177 Augustine carefully excludes from the meaning of “repentance,” “wrath,” “mercy,” and “jealousy,” when they are applied to God, the sort of change or emotion that we ordinarily mean when we speak of human repentance, wrath, mercy, or jealousy. When such attributes signify a change, the change occurs in some creature, not in God. Thus, Augustine maintains that God is said to be angry because he punishes sin, not because of any change or emotion in himself. See The City of God XV, 25.
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†178 See The Trinity V, I, I, where Augustine says that we ought at all times speak well of God (benedictio), though no speech (dictio) is able to express him. So too, in The Trinity VII, 4, 7, Augustine indicates that we speak about what is ineffable “in order that we might somehow say what we can in no way say.” See T. J. Van Bavel, “God In Between Affirmation and Negation According to Saint Augustine,” in Augustine: Presbyter Factus Sum (New York: Peter Lang, 1993), 73-97.
†179 The few spirituals in the Church, unlike carnal persons or the little ones, are characterized by their ability to understand the incorporeal and immutable nature of God; see my “Spirituals and Spiritual Interpretation in Augustine,” Augustinian Studies 15 (1984), 65-81.
†180 A principal concern of the process theologians of the twentieth century has focused upon the idea that an utterly immutable God is unaffected by anything we do or say and, hence, cannot truly be merciful or loving. Even ordinary believers are likely to take “merciful” and “compassionate” in a quite literal sense, while Augustine and other classical theists insist that such attributes are said of God, not on the basis of any change or emotion in him, but on the basis of what he produces in us.
†181 Augustine points out that the objection, if there is one, rests upon New Testament texts just as much as upon those from the Old Testament.
†182 See Rom 8:29.
†183 Further on, Augustine explains that the Spirit is extinguished by those who deny him. That is, the life of the Spirit in us is extinguished by our denying him; the Spirit in himself is, of course, inextinguishable.
†184 The same Latin verb, “confundere,” is used to express the human person's being ashamed of Christ and to express Christ's confusion with regard to that person at the time of judgment.
†185 In Teaching Christianity I, 6, 6, Augustine says, “Have we said or uttered anything worthy of God? Indeed I know that I wanted nothing else but to say something, but if I have said it, it is not what I wanted to say. How do I know this, if it is not because God is ineffable? But what I have said would not have been said, if it were ineffable. Hence, we should not even say that God is ineffable….”
†186 See Lv 1:3.
†187 See Heb 8:5.
†188 See Nm 23:19.
†189 Augustine's use of affirmative and negative predication about God at times seems to permit the ascription of an attribute to God followed by the denial of the human limitations in what we ordinarily mean by the attribute. At other times, it seems as though the affirmation and denial bear upon the same attribute in the same respect so that in speaking about God we fall into contradiction, thus showing that God is ineffable. See above I, 20, 41.
†190 Though Iris was the goddess of the rainbow, according to Latin and Greek mythology (see Vergil's Aeneid 5.606), the use of the name does not here imply a belief in the gods of Rome.
†191 See Gn 9:13-15.
†192 See Jn 11:34. That is, the same objection can be raised about Christ, who apparently lacked knowledge of the place where Lazarus was buried. Hence, the objection tells against the New Testament as much as it does against the Old.
†193 See Lk 10:20 and Rv 20:12.
†194 Augustine uses the figure of preterition to introduce a figurative interpretation of the text, while saying that he is going to pass over such an interpretation.
†195 From his earliest writings, Augustine viewed God as the intelligible light of minds that is the source of intelligible truth; see Soliloquies I, 1, 3 and I, 8, 15.
†196 See Rv 21:12.
†197 Here we have another example of the need for the pious acceptance of something in faith until we merit to understand what we believe; see Is 7:9.
†198 Jesus wrote their names on the earth, not as a reminder to himself, but as a sign that these people, like those Jeremiah mentions, had withdrawn from God.
†199 See Gn 6—9.
†200 The anonymous author seems to allude to the activity of sexual intercourse which he implies should not be present in a better creation. Augustine ignores this sense and interprets the claim in terms of greater or lesser moral goodness.
†201 See Sir 16:15 and Rom 2:6.
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†202 See Acts 9:5; 26:14, as well as Plautus, The Phoenician 1234 and Terence, Phormio 77.
†203 See 2 Pt 2:5.
†204 The Old Testament contains spoken or written prophecies, but the events of the Old Testament are themselves prophetic, if they are understood as prefiguring the events of the New Testament. Here Augustine sees that the eighth person in the ark signifies the day after the Sabbath on which Christ rose from the dead—an interpretation that is bound to strike moderns as farfetched. Augustine was convinced that the unit of meaning in scripture was not just the paragraph or sentence, but the individual words. Hence, the eight persons in the ark could not be without signification.
†205 The anonymous heretic interprets the words of God in Isaiah as proving that the God of the Old Testament is evil, because he has fathered evil offspring. Augustine points out that the children of God became evil by reason of their own sins and thereby ceased to be God's children.
†206 Once again, Augustine produces a New Testament text that raises the same problem as the Old Testament text introduced by the Enemy of the Law and the Prophets.
†207 See Mt 7:20. The anonymous heretic took Christ's words as referring to the God of the Old Testament; hence, Augustine insists that Christ was speaking of human persons who bring forth either good or bad fruit and make themselves either good or bad by their wills.
†208 Augustine points out that ordinary Latin usage allows one to say that parents make or create their offspring and that people make or create magistrates and cities. So too, we speak of making babies in English, as well as of creating a new cardinal or a work of art, though we would be less inclined to speak of creating a child or a city.
†209 In later theology “create” becomes the technical term to refer to God's producing something out of nothing, though we still speak of creating someone or something that already exists, e.g., a new cardinal or a new diocese.
†210 Augustine interprets God's creating evil as referring to his using good creatures to punish sinners. Though the creature is good, it becomes evil for the sinner; in another sense, punishment is good, because everything just is good.
†211 Even the good news of Christ preached by the apostles is death for those who reject it, though in itself it is obviously good.
†212 Augustine follows Saint Paul's distinction between those who are spiritual (pneumatikoi), animal, or natural (psychikoi), and carnal (sarkikoi). Often those who are carnal are heretics, though he also speaks of carnal Christians in the Church. Despite these distinctions Augustine is insistent that the same truth is presented to all, though the carnal or animal members of the Church may be unable to understand the truth presented for their belief. See the Introduction, 352, as well as above—where Augustine speaks of carnal persons and where he mentions that they should not be taught everything.
†213 Arius was an Alexandrian priest and heresiarch; he was born around 250 and died in 336. He was condemned by the Council of Nicaea (325) for having held that there was a time when the Son was not. See DS 126. For a brief biography of Arius and sketch of his doctrine and its history, see the articles, “Arius” and “Arianism,” by V. C. DeClercq, in the New Catholic Encyclopedia 1, 814-815 and 791-794. See Augustine, Heresies XLIX and the Introduction to the Debate with Maximinus and Answer to Maximinus the Arian. The Arian heresy was largely responsible for the formation of a more precise theological vocabulary so that the distinction between creating and generating became precise and mandatory. For the Word is generated, but not created, while the world is created, not generated.
†214 As a result of the sin of idolatry, God punished the people in question, not by penalties they suffered unwillingly, but by further sins which they did willingly.
†215 See Ex 7:13. The worst punishment of sin in this life is, according to Augustine, not some physical pain or even death, but the increase in sinfulness, which is often something we find pleasant rather than painful. Such pleasure in sinning hardens the heart against repentance.
†216 Augustine follows Saint Paul in thinking of the whole human race as a single mass of clay. As offspring of Adam, the whole human race is a single mass of humanity condemned to punishment. By God's grace, not by any merits of theirs, some are saved.
†217 See Wis 3:14.
†218 Paul was speaking of those who wanted to impose circumcision upon Gentile Christians, that is, those who maintained that the Jewish law remained in force, and thus were upsetting the
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Galatians. He is hardly praying that such persons become celibates for the sake of the kingdom, but rather that the hand of those performing the circumcision slip.
†219 Augustine's Latin text did not soften the gospel language as modern translations do. For example, The New American Bible reads, some there are who have freely renounced sex for the sake of God's reign.
†220 Augustine uses “litteriones” in contrast with “litterati.” The former term was used in contempt for people who taught the language, but had absorbed none of the culture.
†221 Augustine puns on “lost” (perditi) and learned (periti).
†222 Cicero, De oratore 3, 41, 164.
†223 Augustine distinguishes between words (verba) and reality (res). If one does not blame Cicero for using a bad word in order to express the sort of word that he wanted us to avoid, then one should not blame scripture for using a bad word to express the reality it wants us to understand and to avoid.
†224 Those who found Christ's words objectionable, Augustine suggests, thought that he was referring to cannibalism. See Expositions of the Psalms, 98, where Augustine says that these persons understood Christ carnally, that is, “they thought that the Lord was about to cut off and give them pieces of his body to eat….”
†225 Augustine suggests that people who found the curse in Deuteronomy unbearable may be more excusable than those who found the Lord's words intolerable, since a curse is meant to be terrifying, while Christ's words were not meant to cause fear.
†226 See Dt 28:56-57 and above 24, 50. Augustine suggests a spiritual interpretation of the passage according to which the sinful soul, hungry for the truth, is forced to feed off the carnal thoughts to which it gives birth.
†227 In his earliest work, The Happy Life, Augustine argued that wisdom is the food of souls and that souls lacking in wisdom were wretched and needy. See The Happy Life IV, 33.
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Book II
The Jewish Scriptures Are Not Endless Genealogies and Old Wives' Tales
1, 1. Now we have to examine those passages from the books of the New Testament which this fellow thinks are in his favor against the prophetic writings, as if the apostles of Christ condemned them by their own judgment. He thinks that “the apostle called the” divine “words of the law and the prophets profane tales of old wives and endless genealogies, because he said, Avoid profane tales of old wives” (1 Tm 4:7) and said in another passage, “Pay no attention to the tales of the Jews and endless genealogies which provide questions rather than edification” (1 Tm 1:4). Only a heretic could be so mistaken! Why did the apostle himself not act this way, if he judged them to be old wives' tales? Why does he say to the Galatians: Tell me, you who want to be under the law, have you not heard the law? Scripture says that Abraham had two sons, one from a slave girl, the other from a free woman. These things are spoken in allegory, for they are the two testaments (Gal 4:21-24). In Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis II, 5, Augustine says that scripture is interpreted allegorically when one understands what is stated in figures or symbols. The figures or symbols can, as in this case, refer to future events or realities which they prefigure or refer to present spiritual realities which they symbolize, as the tree of life, for example, symbolizes wisdom. †1 He also said to the Corinthians, I do not want you to be ignorant, my brothers, that all our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea and all were baptized by Moses in the cloud and the sea and all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, but the rock was Christ (1 Cor 10:1-4). These two Pauline texts provide Augustine with a biblical justification of an allegorical and figurative interpretation of the Old Testament, though his principal point here is that Paul did not treat the events of the Old Testament as profane tales to be avoided. †2
2. This fellow is not aware that besides the legal and prophetic writings the Jews have various traditions of their own which were not written down, but were preserved in memory and handed on from one to another orally. They call these The Repetition. Augustine uses the Greek deuterôsis, which means repetition; it is probably a translation of the Hebrew mishnah. Though the oldest part and core of the Talmud was called The Mishnah, which was compiled by Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi in the beginning of the third century of the Christian era, Augustine appears to be referring to oral traditions and practices rather than to any written text. Apart from this work, Augustine uses the term in Expositions of the Psalms 118, XX, 5, where he says that “the Deuterosis of the Jews contains thousands of tales apart from the canon of the divine Scriptures.” Jerome also uses the term and says that it means the traditions and practices of the Pharisees (see In Matthaeum XXII, 23) which, they claim, contains all knowledge (see his Letter 18B). †3 In them they dare to say and to believe that God created two women for the first man. From these women they develop genealogies that are, as the apostle says, truly without end and that give rise to fruitless questions. See 1 Tm 1:4. See The Book of Jubilees, around 4, in The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English, ed. R. H. Charles et al. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), 2 vols., here II, 17-19, for such non-biblical genealogies. I have not been able to locate any written source for Adam's having had two wives. †4 But if he happens never to have heard of such things, should he have been so deaf toward the gospel that he does not notice the words of Christ the Lord with which he rebukes the Jews because they teach their children the wickedness of not honoring their parents? There he mentions and bears witness to the commandment of God written in the law. He rebukes them precisely because they rejected God's commandment in order to establish their own traditions. When the Pharisees and scribes asked, Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders, but eat food with unwashed hands? he answered them, Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as scripture says, This people honors me
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with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain they worship me, while teaching human doctrines and precepts (Is 29:13).
Abandoning the commandment of God, you cling to human tradition, the washing of pitchers and cups, and you do many other things like this. And he said to them, You render the commandment of God quite pointless in order to preserve your tradition. Moses said, Honor your father and your mother (Ex 20:12),
and, One who has cursed his father or mother should be put to death (Ex 21:17; Lv 20:9). See also Dt 5:16.
†5 But you say, If a man says to his father or mother, Whatever of mine might be of help to you is “corban” (which means “gift”), you will not allow him to do anything further for his father or mother, revoking the word of God by your tradition that you hand on, and you do many other things like this (Mk 7:5-13). Here Christ clearly shows that it is God's law against which this profane fellow blasphemes and that the Jews have their own traditions differing from the prophetic and legal books. It is the Catholic and not the heretical reader who understands that the apostle called these traditions profane tales of old wives and endless genealogies. See 1 Tm 4:7 and 1:4.
†6 But if I wanted to gather all the proofs by which I might show how the Lord himself and the apostles used the law and the prophets, which he imagines to be old wives' tales, when will I ever have enough, or to whom will what we have already said not already be enough?
The Five Personages of the Heretic's Exegetical Ruse
2, 3. Not even this fellow is so blind to the light and deaf to the words of the Lord or the apostles that he is unaware of how Christ and the apostles confirm and commend the authority of the law and the prophets in the books belonging to the New Testament. And so, he imagines that he has thought up a way of escaping the mass of evidence set forth in the gospels and apostolic writings concerning the old books, by which his stubborn tongue is being worn away, whether he likes it or not. He says, “The apostle has spoken in five different characters in accord with the quality of various natural abilities. In teaching the things of God to a people still uneducated, he says that he ought not to begin with the more perfect matters and, in removing from them the habit of their old way of life, that he ought not start with the more difficult things lest the perfect teaching disturb those still new to the faith.” So far, the words of the anonymous author are compatible with what Paul said to the Corinthians and with Augustine's understanding of the “little ones” as opposed to the adult Christians. †7 Then, wanting to prove, as it were, what he said, he cites the same apostle saying, Though I am free from all, I have made myself subject to all
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in order to gain more souls, and I have become to the Jews like a Jew in order to gain the Jews, and to those under the law as if I were under the law, though I am not under the law, in order to gain those who are under the law. And to those who are without the law, I have become as if I were without the law, though I am not without the law, but am in the law of Christ, in order to gain those who are without the law. To the weak I have become weak in order to gain the weak; I have become all things to all men in order to gain all (1 Cor 9:19-22). He wants us to understand four different characters in which he supposes that the apostle spoke: one of the Jews, another of those who were under the law, a third of those who were without the law, a fourth of those who are weak. He needs a fifth, because he had promised five. “To add this,” he says, Paul “had already said in another passage,
We speak wisdom among the perfect (1 Cor 2:6), so that the fifth character emerges as that of the perfect.” He has devised all this so that, if someone ever quotes something from a letter of the apostle, where the gospel bears witness to the law and the prophets, he can say that the apostle has said this, not to the wise and the perfect, but to the Jews as a Jew, or to those who are under the law, as if he himself were under the law, See 1 Cor 9:20.
†8 and that in this way he builds up among the imperfect, with treacherous and deceitful pretense, what he would destroy among the perfect, not by lying, but by speaking the truth. Augustine's objection is that the anonymous heretic would have Saint Paul speaking lies to all but the perfect. Augustine himself made considerable use of the Pauline distinctions between the little ones and the adults in Christ and between the carnal, animal, and spiritual persons in the Church; see 1 Cor 2:13—3:3. Augustine differentiated these kinds of persons in terms of their ability to understand the Christian message, but insisted that one must never speak what is false, though he certainly did not hold that one had to present the spiritual meaning of a text to those unable to grasp it.
†9 This erroneous idea was devised for him by some Fabricius, whom he boasts to have discovered at Rome as a teacher of the truth. Harnack has suggested that this Fabricius is the Patricius from whom the Patricians, a minor Marcionite heretical sect, derived their name. See A. von Harnack, Marcion: Das Evangelium, 430* and 433*; also see Augustine's Heresies LXI for more on the Patricians.
†10 What mind is not horrified at this monster, and I do not mean just the mind of a Christian, but any human mind?
Paul Did Not Become All Things to All in Order To Deceive
4. We must first consider how fraudulent and deceitful he proves himself to be, when he supposes that the apostle is lying and yet praises him. The apostle said this, not with deceitful cunning, but with compassionate love, because he cared for the various diseases of souls with as merciful a heart as he would have wanted to be cared for, if he were suffering from a like infirmity, but this fellow turns it into a detestable deceitfulness. Augustine first explains Paul's “becoming all things to all” in terms of his compassionate love and care for them. Paul's compassionate care did not, of course, entail lying to them. †11 Next, I ask how the apostle spoke to the Romans, to the Corinthians, to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Colossians, to the Philippians, to the Thessalonians. In which of those five classes of people did he place them, especially since they were uncircumcised Gentiles, not circumcised Israelites? See Col 3:11. Since these peoples were obviously not Jews, Paul should not have appealed to the law and the prophets in presenting Christ to them, if the anonymous heretic's theory was correct. †12 He states that the ministry to these people was assigned to him, when he says, that Peter and James and John gave the handshake of fellowship to him and Barnabas so that he would go with Barnabas to the Gentiles, while they went to the circumcision. See Gal 2:9. †13 Elsewhere he clearly says, I am the apostle of the Gentiles (Rom 11:13). In many other passages, he claims that being the teacher of the Gentiles is his personal task. Since, then, so many nations to which he preached the gospel were without the law, what need was there for him to introduce to them the law and the prophets as witnesses concerning Christ and to impose upon them in their ignorance the bondage of error, as this menace supposes, when he ought rather to have congratulated them for having been free from it? What need was there for him to have begun his Letter to the Romans in this way, Paul, the servant of Christ Jesus, called to be
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an apostle, chosen for the good news of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures concerning his Son, who was born for him from the offspring of David according to the flesh? (Rom 1:1-3). Why does he not, rather, take upon himself their character? Why does he make himself like one under the law to those who were without the law? Why does he say to them,
I speak to you, Gentiles; since I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I will boast of my ministry, if somehow I can stir my own flesh to rivalry, so that I might bring some of them to salvation. After all, if their rejection means the world's reconciliation, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? If a sample is holy, the mass of dough is holy, and if the root is holy, the branches are holy (Rom 11:13-16). He says this of the Israelites, about whom he had already said,
What advantage, then, is there for the Jew or what is the benefit of circumcision? Much in every way! First, because the words of God were entrusted to them. For what does it matter if some of them did not believe? Did their lack of belief nullify God's fidelity? (Rom 3:1-3). Second, in the passage which I began to cite, he continues and says,
But if some of the branches were broken off and if, though you are a wild olive tree, you have been grafted in among the others and have been made to share the root and the richness of the olive tree, do not boast about yourself before the branches. But if you do boast, remember it is not you who bear the root, but the root that bears you. You say then, The branches were broken off in order that I might be grafted on. Fine, they were broken off by infidelity. You stand because of your fidelity; do not be proud, but fear. After all, if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either. You see then the goodness and the severity of God, his severity toward those who have fallen, his goodness to you, if you remain in his goodness. Otherwise, you too will be cut away. And if they do not remain in their infidelity, they will be grafted on. For God is able to graft them on again. After all, if you have been cut away from your natural wild olive tree and, against your nature, been grafted on to the good olive tree, how much more will they who are the natural branches be grafted back onto their own olive tree? I do not want you, brethren, to be in ignorance of this mystery so that you are not wise for yourselves. For the blindness in Israel has been brought about in part, until the fullness of the nations has entered, and then all Israel will be saved, as scripture says, There will come from Sion he who will take away and remove wickedness from Jacob, and this is my covenant with them when I shall take away their sins (Rom 11:17-27; Is 59:20-21). It would take too long to run through all the texts or, since they are scattered everywhere in the writings of the apostle, to gather them in one place. What need was there to say these things to the Gentiles? Why did he not rather make himself without the law for them, as they were without the law? Why did he not rather praise their gods and preach their sacrifices, if, as this fellow says, both this scripture that the people of Israel accepts and those
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rites of the Gentiles pertain to demons? See above 1, 19, 38.
†14 After all, this poor wretch dares to say that the God of Israel is not only a demon, but also worse than the rest of the demons. See Mt 9:34.
†15 If the apostle became all things to all men, See 1 Cor 9:22.
†16 not out of compassionate mercy, as the truth reveals, but out of deceitful cunning, as this fellow foolishly says, why did he not rather pretend that he was the servant of those demons that the Romans worshipped and that this fellow supposes were more gentle? See The City of God VII, 33, where Augustine claims that the true religion was able to prove that the gods of the nations were demons.
†17 In doing so, he might become like the Romans and so gain them? See 1 Cor 9:19.
†18
Paul Used the Law and the Prophets in Preaching to the Gentiles
5. Does he not speak in the same way to the Ephesians? For this reason, be mindful that you were once Gentiles in the flesh, you who are called the uncircumcised by those who are called the circumcision that is made by hand in the flesh. You were at that time without Christ, separated from the company of Israel and strangers to the covenants and the promise, without hope and without God in this world. Now you are in Christ Jesus; you who were once distant have become near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; he made both one, tearing down the separating wall of stone, the enmity, in his flesh. He nullified the law of the commandments in its decrees, in order that in himself he might establish the two in one new man, bringing peace in order to transform both of them in one body for God, slaying in himself through the cross the enmities. He came and brought the good news, peace to you who were distant and peace to these who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. Therefore, you are no longer wanderers and sojourners, but you are citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, and Christ Jesus is himself the cornerstone (Eph 2:11-20). Let this blasphemer explain how the apostle says that the Israelites were found to be near, though they were serving, as this blasphemer claims, a worse demon and that the Gentiles were distant, though they were subject to gentler demons. How can he say that they were separated from the company of Israel and strangers to the covenants and the promise and that they were without hope and without God in this world, unless Israel was the people of God and of Christ? Against this loud and splendid trumpet of truth, this madman makes noises and casts insults, saying that the apostle spoke in five characters See 1 Cor 9:19. †19 in order to deceive one group while posing as a representative of another. Yet he sees that Paul proclaims the same God, the same law, the same prophets, and the same covenants to the Gentiles, who were far from the God of the Israelites. Who first spoke of the cornerstone? Was it not a the prophet full of the Spirit of God, against whom this menace blasphemes? For he says, See, I set in Sion a cornerstone, chosen and precious, and he who believes in him will not be ashamed (Is 28:16). See Rom 9:33 and 10:11. †20 The apostle Peter also mentions this text. See 1 Pt 2:6. †21
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Was it not first said in a Psalm belonging to the sacred scriptures of the previous people,
The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone? (Ps 117:22). See Acts 4:11.
†22 Paul, the apostle, a man learned in these writings, referred to the text I just mentioned,
Christ Jesus is himself the cornerstone (Eph 2:20). Hence, the Lord rebuked the Jews, who had become partially blind, and he threw them into confusion, when he said,
Have you never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord this has been done, and it is marvelous in our eyes? (Mt 21:42). This fellows says in blasphemy, “All these things from the law and the prophets were brought forth as lies by Christ, as lies by the apostles, because the weak were not yet capable of receiving the solid truth.” Is he so blind that he does not know that it is one thing to nourish the little ones, quite another to deceive them, that it is one thing to feed them so that they grow, quite another to cause them not to live. This fellow says and thinks such things about the God of the law and the prophets and about those writings. In accord with his opinion of them, when the apostles preached to believers the God of the law and the prophets and confirmed the authority of such scriptures, he thinks that they gave to the little ones, not milk, See 1 Cor 3:1 and Heb 5:12.
†23 but poison to drink. Whoever believes that of them is foolish, empty-headed, out of his mind.
Paul Fed the Little Ones in the Church with Milk, Not Poison
6. Hence, someone might say, the apostle said to no purpose, I could not speak to you as spiritual men, but as carnal men. I gave you, as little ones in Christ, milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet capable of it (1 Cor 3:1-2), and, We speak wisdom among the perfect (1 Cor 2:6), and A natural man does not perceive what belongs to the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:14). Heaven forbid that we should believe that he said these things to no purpose or did not speak the truth. Are we then to believe that he wanted to deceive any of those who believed him? To the little ones he gave a small, not a false portion of milk, not poison, nourishing, not lethal food. But, if what he said is not true, namely, that the Son of God was born from the offspring of David according to the flesh (Rom 1:3), if it is not true that the natural branches were broken off because of their lack of faith so that the believing wild olive tree coming from the Gentiles might be grafted onto the holy root of the Israelites and come to share in the richness of the olive tree, See Rom 11:16-20. †24 if “they are not the words of God, but those of some very evil demon,” as this blasphemer says, The anonymous heretic apparently regarded these passages from Romans as interpolations of the evil demon. On the other hand, see below II, 3, 9, where he seems to cite Rom 1:1-3 with approval. †25 though the apostle says of them, First, because the words of God were entrusted to them (Rom 3:2), then, of course, one who gave these to the little ones, who preached these as if they were the truth, who wanted to be believed, was destroying, not nourishing those poor people. Since we know that this is foreign to the faith and teaching of the truthful
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apostles of Christ, it remains that we should strongly detest this fellow as a menace to and enemy of the Christian faith. He has been blinded and hurled headlong by such great madness that he does not see that Timothy at least, whom he thinks was commanded by apostolic authority to avoid the old law and the prophets like old wives' tales, See 1 Tm 4:7.
†26 should not have been deceived by the same apostle. Rather, he should have been ranked in that fifth class of the perfect so that he did not speak a lie to him. Yet, he said,
Be mindful that Jesus Christ from the offspring of David has risen from the dead according to my gospel (2 Tm 2:8). After all, if Christ is preached as being from the offspring of David in the tales of old wives, how can Timothy be ordered to avoid them, when he is ordered to be mindful of them and believe them? But if Christ is truthfully preached as being from the offspring of David, there is the root on which the wild olive tree is grafted. There are no old wives' tales except those ravings of the Jews pertaining to what they call
The Repetition, which is quite distinct from the scriptures. See above II, 1, 2.
†27 These are not the words of God which were entrusted to the circumcision. See Rom 3:2.
†28 In those words, even the carnal Jews learned that Christ would come from the offspring of David, for they answered the Lord's question, See Mt 22:42.
†29 although they were not able to understand that he was David's Lord, not according to the flesh, but according to his divinity. Still, there are found in those words both what they believed and what they did not understand: both
I will set upon your throne the fruit of your loins (Ps 131:11), because Christ is from David's seed, and
The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand (Ps 109:1; Mk 12:36), because Christ is also David's Lord. Augustine says that the Jews believed correctly that the Messiah would come from the line of David, but they did not understand that he was also David's lord, since he was God.
†30
7. Did the apostle, then, say with deceit, I speak the truth in Christ; I am not lying, for my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit, that it is a great sadness for me and a continuous sorrow for my heart. For I would even wish to be separated from Christ for the sake of my brothers, relatives according to the flesh, who are Israelites. To them belong the adoption and glory and testaments and legislation and worship and promises; to them belong the patriarchs and from them has come Christ according to the flesh, who is God above
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all things blessed forever. Amen (Rom 9:1-5). The apostle proclaims that he is speaking the truth in the beginning of this statement and that he is doing so in Christ, who is the Truth, for his conscience bears witness with him in the Holy Spirit, and he concludes this statement with, “Amen,” at the end. “Amen,” as in the present liturgy, is used to affirm the truth of what has just been said.
†31 But this fellow says, “What the apostle says here is not true; he deceives the weak, because they cannot grasp the truth; he nurses the little ones with foolishness and pours out the venom of devilish lies in order to nourish the hungry children.” Here we have what Augustine found most objectionable in the anonymous heretic's interpretation of Paul, namely, the view that Paul presented to the weak and little ones false doctrine, because they could not grasp the truth.
†32 What a monster! He should be driven away not merely out of the hearing of Christians, but even from the borders of the Christian world. Is it true that this adoption, this glory, these testaments, this legislation, this worship, these promises, these patriarchs from whom has come Christ according to the flesh, who is God above all things blessed forever, See Rom 9:1-5.
†33 are all old wives' tales? Are they old wives' tales that he, who is commanded to avoid old wives' tales, is explicitly ordered to hold onto?
Paul Taught That the Law Is Good, If Used Rightly
8. Why should we be surprised if one who wants to be the destroyer of the law raves with such impiety, since the same apostle says that some who want to be not destroyers, but teachers of the law do not understand either what they say or about what they speak? (1 Tm 1:7). See Rom 3:31. †34 Let us hold onto that which he went on to say against both of them. For, lest anyone think that those persons do not understand either what they say or about what they speak, because they want to be teachers of an evil law, he immediately says, We know that the law is good, if anyone uses it rightly (1 Tm 1:8). This statement refutes both those who use the law badly and those who think that it is bad. But if it is good, what madness it is to deny that the God who gave a good law is good. What punishment can possibly be thought sufficient for those men who accuse the law of being old wives' tales, when the apostle praises it this way? And they think that they do this by reason of the testimony of the same letter in which the apostle praises it this way! They do not want to be teachers of the law, but to blaspheme against it by not understanding what they say or about what they speak.
The Prophets of Israel Foretold the Coming of the Savior
3, 9. “It was impossible,” he says, “that the coming of our Savior was announced by the prophets of the Jews.” Why was it impossible? After all, the apostle says, The words of God were entrusted to them (Rom 3:2). “But before the coming of the Savior,” he says, “the holy and divine Spirit was not upon the earth.” The anonymous author could perhaps appeal to Jn 7:39 which says that the Spirit was not yet, since Christ had not yet been glorified. †35 It is foolishness, not the truth that says this. Augustine's play upon vanitas, non veritas might be transliterated as: vanity, not verity. †36 With what did the Lord fill his prophets if it was not with the Holy Spirit? In the beginning of the Letter to the Romans, there were said of them the words I cited above, See above, II, 2, 4. †37 Paul, the servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, chosen for the good news of God, which he had promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures concerning his Son, who was born for him from the offspring of David according to the flesh (Rom 1:1-3). This fellow even sets forth this testimony and forbids him to whom he is writing to believe other prophets concerning Christ besides those whom the apostle calls his prophets in speaking to the Romans. Here the anonymous heretic apparently cites as authoritative the text which he earlier called the words of an evil demon; see above II, 2, 6. †38 And he does not, I believe, think that these were the prophets of the Jews. But regardless of the nation to which he thinks they belong, why does he not notice there the words: which he had promised beforehand through his prophets? (Rom 1:2). After all, if he had promised beforehand the good news
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concerning his own Son through any of his prophets at all, how can this fellow say that the holy and divine Spirit was not upon the earth before the coming of the Savior? Nonetheless, how could they be prophets announcing Christ from the offspring of David according to the flesh, unless they belonged to the same nation as David, from whose offspring the prophets of God promised that Christ would come?
The Law Became Grace through the Charity Given by the Spirit
10. He says, “The law was given through Moses, but the truth is from Jesus Christ.” The anonymous author contrasts the Mosaic law with the Christian truth, implying that the law is false. Augustine immediately corrects the textual error and, then, offers his own interpretation of why the law has become grace and truth through Christ. †39 Scripture does not say that; it says this: The law was given through Moses, but it became grace and truth through Jesus Christ (Jn 1:17). The Latin text is open to this translation which takes the law as the subject of both clauses, and Augustine's comments presuppose this interpretation, though the Greek text does not admit it. †40 The law, then, was given through Moses, but it became grace through Jesus Christ when, by the charity that was poured out in our hearts through his Spirit, See Rom 5:5. †41 there is fulfilled what the law commands. After all, what the letter commands is fulfilled not by the letter, but by the Spirit. See 2 Cor 3:6. †42 Scripture says, You shall not desire (Ex 20:17). Through Moses it is law, because it is commanded, but through Christ it becomes grace when what is commanded is fulfilled. Augustine plays with the double rhyme: jubetur impletur. †43 It became truth through Christ because those things which were promised in the prophecy of the law are seen to be realized in Christ. For Augustine, the law summed up in the command, “You shall not desire,” becomes grace through Christ because the law is fulfilled by the charity poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. The law, in the sense of the whole Old Testament, becomes the truth through Christ, because Christ is the fulfillment of the promises of the Old Testament. Hence, for Augustine, the contrast is not between falsity and truth, but between the promise and its realization. †44
3, 11. The apostle says to the Romans, How will they call upon him in whom they have not believed? Or how will they believe him whom they have not heard? (Rom 10:14). He was speaking of the Gentiles, not of the Jews, as this dreamer thinks. That is, the anonymous author implies that Paul was here speaking of the Jewish people as unable to call upon God, because they had not heard the words of God in the Old Testament. †45 After all, the teacher of the Gentiles wanted to refute those who thought that the gospel should be preached only to the nation of the Jews and not also to the uncircumcised Gentiles. It was only with difficulty that the apostles came to realize that the message of salvation was meant for all human beings and not just for the Jewish people. †46 Since he wanted to show that it belonged not to the Jews only, but to all peoples, he first set forth the testimony from the prophet: Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved (Jl 3:5; Rom 10:13). And then when he had said, How will they call upon him in whom they have not believed? Or how will they believe him whom they have not heard? (Rom 10:14), he immediately added, But how will they hear without someone to preach? Or how will they preach if they are not sent? (Rom 10:14-15). In this way he refutes those who said that preachers should not be sent to the uncircumcised peoples.
Paul Did Not Teach There Were No Prophets before the Apostles
12. He is so uneducated that he does not understand the words of scripture, First apostles, then prophets (1 Cor 12:28). Paul is listing ministries within the Church in order of importance. The anonymous heretic infers from this text that there were no prophets before the apostles. His view here seems inconsistent with his appeal to Rom 1:2, which Augustine reports that he had cited and interpreted as referring to other prophets than those of the Old Testament; see above II, 3, 9. †47 He thinks that there were no prophets before the apostles and does not see that in this text the apostle referred to the prophets who came after the coming of Christ. If some people want to
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know who they are, they should read the Acts of the Apostles See Acts 11:27 and 13:1.
†48 and Paul's words to the Corinthians,
Let two or three prophets speak (2 Cor 14:29). If there were no prophets before the apostles, who were those through whom God first promised the good news
concerning his Son, who was born for him from the offspring of David according to the flesh? (Rom 1:3). Who was it that said,
The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone? (Ps 117:22). Who was it that said,
Your throne, O God, remains forever; the staff of righteousness is the staff of your kingdom. You have loved justice and hated iniquity; therefore, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of exultation before your companions? (Ps 44:7-8). How is the God, whose throne remains forever, anointed by God, unless he is Jesus Christ who received the name of Christ from that anointing? After all, “
chrisma” means anointing, and Christ the anointed one. The title “Christ” is the translation of the Hebrew “Messiah,” the Anointed One.
†49 Who was it that said those words which Christ testified had been foretold concerning himself, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies beneath your feet? (Ps 109:1; Mk 12:36). He also confirmed that David said this in the Spirit, though this fellow denies that the Spirit was upon the earth before the coming of Christ. What about the apostle's words,
Isaiah says, He will be the root of Jesse and one who will rise up to reign over the nations; the nations will hope in him? (Rom 15:12; Is 11:10). What Spirit was it that foretold so far in advance through the same Isaiah:
He bears our sins and suffers for us, and we have thought him to be in suffering, pain, and affliction. He was wounded on account of our sins and weakened because of our iniquities. The discipline of our peace was upon him, and we were healed by his wounds. We all wandered off like sheep; each followed his own path. The Lord handed him over on account of our iniquities, and he did not open his mouth because of his affliction. Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before the shearer, he did not open his mouth. His judgment has been removed in lowliness, and who will tell of his generation, because his life will be taken from the earth? By the iniquities of my people he was led to death? (Is 53:4-8). See 1 Pt 2:24-25.
†50 And all the other passages, which it would take too long to pull together. Where was there foretold about the Church so long in advance the words that we read were mentioned by the apostle and that we now see fulfilled,
Rejoice, you who are sterile and barren; break forth and shout, you who do not give birth, for the many sons of the abandoned woman are more than those of her who has a husband (Gal 4:27).
For the Lord said, Enlarge the space of your tent and of your tent cloths; fix unsparingly and stretch out the ropes, and strengthen the stakes. Spread out still more to the right and to the left; your offspring will possess nations, and you will make deserted cities to be inhabited. Do not fear because you are confused, and do not be frightened because you have been reproached. For you will forget your endless confusion, and you will not be mindful of the opprobrium of your widowhood. For the Lord who made
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you, the Lord of Hosts is his name, and he who rescues you, the God of Israel, will be called the God of all the earth (Is 54:1-5). Who is it that said,
I saw in a vision at night, and behold, he was coming as a son of man on the clouds of the sky, and he arrived at the ancient of days and was carried into his presence. And to him was given principality and honor and kingdom, and all peoples, tribes, and languages will serve him. His power is an everlasting power which will not pass away, and his kingdom will not be destroyed? (Dn 7:13-14). These and many other clear things have been foretold about Christ and the Church. We now see that they have been fulfilled, and we hope they will be fulfilled in accord with the words of the gospels and the apostles. But how were they foretold, if the Spirit of God was not on the earth before the coming of Christ, or if the coming of Christ was not foretold by the prophets of Israel, as this fool thinks? Since he denies that Christ was promised beforehand, what grounds does he have for saying that he was sent? The Latin for “promised” (promissus) and for “sent” (missus) lies at the basis of this argument that, if Christ was not promised, there is no grounds for saying that he has been sent.
†51 And since the Christ he preaches was neither promised nor sent, he is not the true, but the false Christ. That is, the true Christ is the one who fulfills the prophecies that promised him.
†52
“All Cretans Are Liars” Does Not Refer to the Prophets of Israel
4, 13. I am not surprised that an uneducated man thinks that the apostle spoke of the prophets of the Jews, when he said, One of their own, a prophet, said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. This testimony is true (Ti 1:12-13). The anonymous heretic apparently interpreted the Cretans mentioned in a figurative sense as representing the Hebrew prophets. †53 He is unaware that this was said by a certain Epimenides, who was a Cretan and in whose books this is found. In pointing to the actual Cretan source of the saying, Augustine undercuts the heretic's appeal to a figurative interpretation. Epimenides was a Cretan poet from the sixth century B.C. The citation is known as the “liar's paradox.” Since Epimenides was a Cretan, he must have lied in saying that Cretans are always liars. Or, if he didn't lie, it is not true that Cretans always lie. †54 This man is not counted among the prophets of God, nor does this saying belong to the words of God which God, who does not lie, entrusted to the Jews. For this reason, the apostle does not mention his name, as he usually refers to the prophets of God, saying at times, As David said (Rom 4:6), But Isaiah dared to say (Rom 10:20), As Hosea says (Rom 9:25), or, without mentioning their names, saying, As scripture says (Rom 1:17). And he means that scripture in which is found the authority of God. In Answer to Adimantus 7, Augustine says that “both Testaments agree and fit together with each other insofar as they were both written by the one God.” †55 At other times, he clearly states that God is speaking, when he uses a proof from the law or the prophets of God, such as, You shall not muzzle the ox as it treads the grain. Is God concerned about cattle? he asks. Or does scripture say this for our sake? (1 Cor 9:9-10). See Dt 25:4. †56 Thus he shows in the same scripture that it is God speaking. Or, as another example, Foreseeing that God justifies the Gentiles by faith, scripture foretold this to Abraham, when he said, In your offspring all nations will be blessed (Gal 3:8). He said “scripture” instead of “God,” because it is God's scripture. Concerning Abraham he says, At the promise of God he did not hesitate with unbelief, but he was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God and wholeheartedly believing that he is able to bring about what he promised (Rom 4:20-21). Against this statement of God and the apostle, this mad dog dared to bark and say, “Abraham did not believe his God
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when he promised offspring to him.” This fellow did not understand that Abraham's words,
Shall a son be born to me who am one hundred years old? (Gn 17:17), expressed joyful wonder, not a doubting disbelief. As still another example,
The word of God cannot fail. For not all who were from Israel belonged to Israel, nor are all sons, because they are the offspring of Abraham. Rather, in Isaac will your offspring be counted. That is, it is not the sons according to the flesh who are sons of God, but the sons of the promise will be reckoned as the offspring (Rom 9:6-7). Or, take the passage concerning Elijah,
What does God's response to him say? There remain for me seven thousand men who have not knelt before Baal (Rom 11:4). By this and similar testimonies, the authority of the apostle affirms that those scriptures which this fellow blasphemes are from the true and good God. But where the apostle says something about the authors of the Gentiles, he does not call them prophets of God, nor does he say that God is the author of their writings, although he finds in them some true statements. Thus he says of this Cretan,
One of their own, a prophet, said, Cretans are always liars (Ti 1:12). Hence, he did not belong to the Jews, but to the Cretans. This was stated precisely so that one would not think that he was a prophet of God. In the Acts of the Apostles, when he was speaking to the Athenians, he said of God,
For we live and move and exist in him, as certain among you have said (Acts 17:28). Augustine takes “as certain among you have said” as going with the preceding text, though it refers to what follows: “For we too are his offspring,” which is a citation from the Stoic poet Aratos. Scholars have shown that Ennead VI, 9, 9, ll. 7-11, bears a striking resemblance to Acts 17:28 so that Augustine may have intended a reference to the Neoplatonists. See Courcelle, Recherches sur les Confessions de Saint Augustin (Paris: de Boccard, 1950) 130-131.
†57
The Heretic Used the Apocrypha against the Jewish Prophets
14. He says, “When the apostles asked him what they should think of the prophets of the Jews who were thought to have in the past prophesied something about his coming, our Lord was disturbed that they should still have such ideas and answered them, 'You have abandoned the living one who is before you, and you tell stories about the dead.'” The Gospel of Thomas, Saying 53; see The Secret Sayings of Jesus, by Robert M. Grant, with David N. Freedman (New York: Garden City, 1960), 162, for the full saying and commentary. The heretic regards the Old Testament prophets as not having been prophets of God because they are dead; see below II, 5, 17-20. †58 He has taken this testimony from some apocryphal writings. Why should we be surprised, if the heretics, who do not accept the same scriptures, have made up such things about the prophets of God? In the gospel, which is not apocryphal, but known to all in the light of the truth, the Lord had, even after the resurrection, accompanied the disciples on a journey, and beginning from Moses, he showed them that all the prophets had foretold of him the events that had just occurred. See Lk 24:27. †59
The Heretic Turned Christ's Words against Moses and the Prophets
15. He says, “The Lord again accused Moses, when he said, Many will say to me on that day, Lord, in your name we have cast out demons and in your name we have prophesied and in your name we have done many miracles. And then I will say to them, Depart from me, because I have never known you, for
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you have acted wickedly” (Mt 7:22-23). The heretic interprets Christ's words as referring to the prophets of the Old Testament. He takes Christ's words to them as implying that their claim to have prophesied in the name of Christ is false.
†60 Heaven forbid that the Lord said that of the holy prophets, among whom were Moses and the others. Rather, he said this of those who, after the preaching of his gospel, thought they were saying something in his name, though they did not know what they were saying. Among these, this fellow, who is on the way to perdition, has found a place for himself.
16. He says, “The Lord also said the following, I am the door of the sheep; all the others who came before me are thieves and robbers” (Jn 10:7-8). Scripture does not say that; it says this: All who came are thieves and robbers. In fact, there are many manuscripts that have “before me,” though Augustine's interpretation is unaffected. Again the anonymous heretic takes Christ's words as referring to the prophets of the Old Testament. †61 Scripture wants us to understand in this passage those who came without being sent, and Jeremiah accuses them, when he says, The Lord says this of the prophets who prophesy in my name, though I did not send them (Jer 14:15). But those against whom this madman blasphemes were sent by the Lord; they did not come of their own accord. The Lord refers to these in a parable, though his meaning is perfectly clear, when he says, Listen to another parable. There was a head of a household who planted a vineyard and fenced it in and dug in it a winepress and built a tower and rented it to laborers, while he set out on a journey. When the harvest time arrived, he sent his servants to the laborers to receive its fruits. But the laborers seized his servants and struck down one, killed another, and stoned a third. Again, he sent other servants, more than before, and they treated them in a similar fashion. Finally, however, he sent to them his own son, saying, They will respect my son. But when the laborers saw the son, they said to themselves, Here is the heir; come, let us kill him, and we will have his inheritance. They seized and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. When the lord of the vineyard comes, what will he do to these laborers? They said, He will destroy these evil men as they deserve and rent his vineyard to other laborers who will return to him its fruits at their times. Jesus said to them, Have you never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord this has been done, and it is marvelous in our eyes? (Ps 117:22-23). Therefore, I say to you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and will be given to a nation that produces its fruits (Mt 21:33-43). What could be plainer, clearer, more evident than this? But this fellow belongs with those who stoned the servants of this head of the household. He does this, not by the blows from rocks, but by hard curses. For this parable proves that the vineyard of the Lord was first planted in the people of the Jews and that prophets were sent before the coming of the Savior. And when it says, The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and will be given to a nation that produces its fruits (Mt 21:43), what kingdom does it refer to but that which they hoped for, but did not receive, that is, the kingdom of eternal life? Hence, it says in another place, You search the scriptures in which you think that you have eternal life; they bear testimony concerning me (Jn 5:39). And elsewhere, Woe to you, lawyers, who have carried the key to knowledge. You yourselves
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have not entered, and you have prevented those who were entering (Lk 11:52). Is his impudent foolishness not worn down by these masses of proofs? Who listens to this man except one who does not listen to the holy scriptures or who listens to them as badly as this blind fellow attacks them.
The Heretic Used the Lord's Words against the Patriarchs
5, 17. He says, “But the Lord said to them, Your fathers ate the manna and have died (Jn 6:49), thus teaching that none of them belonged to the Lord, since death had dominion over them.” The heretic takes the death of the forebears of the Jews in the desert as proof that they did not belong to the true God. †62 He obviously meant none of the forebears of those to whom he said such things, namely, the forebears of unbelievers, and he wants us to understand them to be unbelievers. That is, those who ate the manna and died were those who did not believe. They are the ancestors of contemporary unbelievers, who are their offspring, not by physical generation, but by reason of imitating their sinfulness. In the same sense, Jesus speaks of the children of those who killed the prophets. I have construed the sentence as a statement, though the text in the CCL edition has a question. †63 Hence, in another passage the Lord says, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you who build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of just men and say, If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not be their companions in the blood of the prophets. Therefore, you are yourselves a proof that you are the children of those who have killed the prophets (Mt 23:29-31). He called them “children,” because they imitated their crime, not because they were of the same lineage. After all, the fact that they were born from them according to the flesh could not count as an accusation against them, but the fact that they proved themselves like them by their unbelieving cruelty could. Therefore, he adds the words, Fill up the measure of your fathers. Serpents, brood of vipers, how will you flee from the judgment of hell? See, I send to you prophets and wise men and scribes, and you will kill and crucify some of them and you will scourge some of them in your synagogues and persecute them from city to city. Thus there will come upon you all the just blood which has been shed upon the earth, from the blood of Abel the just up to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the temple and the altar. Amen, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation (Mt 23:32-36). It is, of course, clear; it is, of course, obvious that they are these sons of evil men by imitating those who impiously and wickedly persecuted the just prophets, from Abel, whom his brother killed, See Gn 4:8. †64 up to Zechariah, whom they killed. See 2 Chr 24:20-22. †65 How did blood of those who lived long before these men were even born come upon these men, unless there is one race, one lump of dough, one mass of wicked men bound together by imitation? Again Augustine uses the Pauline image of a lump of dough to symbolize the mass of sinful humanity formed by its sinful love of creatures in preference to the Creator. See The City of God XIV, 28, where Augustine speaks of the two loves that produce the two cities or societies of human beings. †66 At the same time it is made clear that there were in the same people just men and prophets of God. Those, to whom the Lord speaks these words, were building their tombs and adorning their monuments. This fellow, then, who slashes with his accursed tongue those dead men to whom even the impious pay honor, is worse and more savage. Cruelly raging against his own soul, he utters blasphemy against those whom Christ declared to be prophets and just men, though he wants to be thought a Christian.
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18. He wants to include the holy patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, among those to whom the Lord said, Your fathers ate the manna in the desert and have died (Jn 6:49), because these fathers have also died. Here it is uncertain whether we should judge him to be fraudulent or, rather, blind. But whichever of these he chooses, we should detest him. For he wanted to show this from the fact that, in reference to the same fathers, the Lord said, He is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Mt 22:32; Lk 20:38), though he said that they are living rather than dead. The anonymous heretic apparently argued that the patriarchs are dead and that Jesus said that God is not the God of the dead. Thus he could conclude that God is not the God of the patriarchs. As Augustine points out, Jesus' argument showed that the patriarchs are living, because God is their God and he is God of the living. †67 Using the testimony of the law, where it says, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob (Ex 3:6), the Lord adds, He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, and also, For all are alive for him (Mt 22:32; Lk 20:37-38). He is the true life by which the just live even if they die in the body. But would this fellow ever say these things, if he were alive?
19. He also wants us to interpret in this sense what the Lord said to the Jews, You have known neither me nor my Father (Jn 8:19), and You do not have the word of God remaining in you (Jn 5:38). This, of course, is not contrary to his words, You have carried the key to knowledge; you yourselves have not entered, and you have stopped those who were entering (Lk 11:52). For they did not have the word of God in themselves, but they had it in the scriptures which they read. If they had the word of God in themselves, they themselves would enter and they would permit others to enter. Not to enter is not to understand. See why they knew neither him nor his Father. Because they did not understand what they read, See Acts 8:30. †68 not because the books they read did not preach God and Christ. This, then, is what it means to enter: not to be content with the surface of the letter, but to come to an understanding of the interior. Augustine plays upon the words “reading” (legere) and “understanding” (intellegere). Reading remains content with the superficiality of the letter and does not enter into an understanding of the interior meaning. Insofar as the Jews have the word of God in the scriptures, they have the key to knowledge, but because the word is not in their hearts, they do not enter within to understand the scriptures. †69
How the Least in the Kingdom of Heaven Is Greater than John
20. He also draws an argument “from John the Baptist,” because “the Lord said, Among those born of women there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist. But he who is the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he (Mt 11:11). The heretic takes Christ's words as proof that John the Baptist, and a fortiori the other prophets of the Old Testament, did not belong to the kingdom of heaven. The Latin “minor,” like the Greek “mikroteros,” is a comparative, though probably with superlative force, meaning “the least” rather than “the lesser.” However, the word can also mean “the younger,” as Augustine's second interpretation would have it. †70 He as much as implies that John does not belong to the kingdom of heaven and, for that reason, the rest of the prophets of that people, than whom John is greater, belong to it even less.” These words of the Lord have two correct interpretations. On the first, the Lord called the kingdom of God in that passage the kingdom which we have not yet attained and in which we do not now exist. In this sense, he will say in the end, Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom (Mt 25:34). And since the angels are there now, the least among them is surely greater than any holy and just person who bears a body that is corruptible and weighs down the soul (Wis 9:15). That is, if the kingdom refers to the eternal life of heaven, then the least angel, who already enjoys that life, is greater than any human being who is still in this mortal life. Augustine did not view the angels as disembodied spirits; rather, angels differed from human beings in having immortal bodies. See The City of God XI, 16, and Expositions of the Psalms 144, 13. †71 In the second interpretation, he wanted us to understand the kingdom of God in that statement as referring
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to the Church of this time, whose children include all those who attained holiness and justice from the beginning of the human race up until now. In that case, the Lord was referring to himself, since by reason of the time of his birth he was younger than John, though he was greater by reason of the eternity of his divinity and by his power as Lord. According to the second interpretation we have to read, “he who is younger is greater than he in the kingdom of heaven,” as Augustine goes on to explain.
†72 Hence, according to the first interpretation the text is divided in this way,
Among those born of women there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist; he who is the least in the kingdom of heaven, and then there is added,
is greater than he. But according to the second interpretation the text is divided in this way:
Among those born of women there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist; he who is younger, and then is added,
is greater than he in the kingdom of heaven. That is, the Latin does not settle whether “in the kingdom of heaven” goes with “lesser” or with “greater.” English settles by its word order what in Latin would be left for the lector to determine by a pause in his reading. Since the literal meaning of a text is simply how the text sounds (see On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans II, 3), Mt 11:11 would, in the Augustinian sense, have either of two literal meanings, depending upon how it is read. See Teaching Christianity III, 2, 2-4, where Augustine speaks of ambiguities arising from the way the text is divided or pronounced.
†73
Moses' Words That the Soul Is the Blood Are Figurative
6, 21. He says, “Moses extinguished all hope of a future resurrection for human beings, since he declared that the soul was mortal when he said that it was the blood.” The anonymous heretic claims that, by identifying the soul with the blood, Moses eliminated any possibility of the soul's surviving death and of the resurrection of its body. †74 Then, reasoning with his mighty powers, he tries to show that “the soul is not the blood,” and he spends great effort on an obvious point, because he fails to understand the law. After all, scripture said, The soul of all flesh is the blood (Lv 17:14), The Hebrew word “nephesh,” which was translated into Latin as “soul” (anima), would be more accurately translated as “life” or “source of life.” Moses was hardly making a philosophical statement or using the philosophical concept of soul, which has its source in Greek philosophy rather than in scripture. †75 in the same way as it said, Christ is the rock (1 Cor 1:4), not because that is what he was, but because it signified him. One reason for having recourse to a figurative interpretation of a text is that the literal interpretation involves something absurd or unworthy of God. See Jean Pépin, “A propos de l'histoire de l'exégèse allégorique: l'absurdité, signe de l'allégorie,” Studia Patristica in Texte und Untersuchungen 63 (1955), 395-413. Here, if one takes the soul to be blood in the proper sense of the term, its immortality is, of course, destroyed. †76 There was a point to the law's wanting to signify the soul by the blood, an invisible reality by a visible one. After all, the blood diffused by the heart through all the passages in our body presides over all the other humors so that, when a wound is inflicted anywhere, blood and not some other humor flows out. Augustine is presupposing the doctrine of the four humors from ancient physiology: blood, yellow bile, phlegm, and black bile. From the Latin and Greek terms for these we have the English words supposedly descriptive of different temperaments: sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, melancholy. †77 Thus, since the soul invisibly presides over all those things of which we are composed, it is better signified by the blood, which presides over all those visible things of which we are composed. Augustine's argument showing that there is a good reason for taking blood as symbolic of the soul turns upon the presence of blood throughout the body and its supposed rule over the other humors. †78
Why Flesh and Blood Will Not Possess the Kingdom of God
22. He uses these words of the apostle as a proof: Flesh and blood will not possess the kingdom of God (1 Cor 15:50), but these words pose a question, not about the soul, but about the resurrection of the body. Presumably, the anonymous author linked this Pauline text with the text from Leviticus to show that blood, which Moses took to be the soul, will not attain the kingdom of God. Augustine points out that the text raises a question about the resurrection of the body rather than about the immortality of the soul. †79 After all, by the expression flesh and blood, Paul either referred to the corruption of the flesh and blood, which will not exist in the resurrection, or he called flesh and blood persons given over to flesh and blood, that is, to all the snares of worldly pleasures, who will not possess the kingdom of God. Though Augustine sees two interpretations that are possible, the context of the verse leads him to take the first interpretation as that which Paul intended. †80 If we consider more carefully the whole passage of the apostle's writing where he said, Flesh and blood will not possess the kingdom of God (1 Cor 15:50), it will convince us that he wanted to call the corruption of the flesh as it now exists by these terms
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and that he added to explain what he said,
Nor will corruption possess incorruption (1 Cor 15:50). For when that change has taken place which we hope for in the resurrection, no corruption will remain anymore. See 1 Cor 15:51-53.
†81 The Lord said to his disciples after the resurrection,
Touch and see, because a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have (Lk 24:39); hence, there will be the substance of flesh, but there will not be the corruption that now gives the flesh its name. In this sense, the prophet said,
All flesh is grass (Is 40:6). Was he speaking even of the Lord's flesh which he took up into heaven? In what sense, then, did the prophet mean flesh when he said,
All flesh is grass? After all, he would go on to say,
Grass dries up (Is 40:7), just as the apostle says,
Flesh and blood will not possess the kingdom of God (1 Cor 15:50). For then there will be no corruption by which the nature of the flesh now dries up like grass. The words,
Nor will corruption possess incorruption (1 Cor 15:50), do not make a new statement; rather, they repeat and explain the previous statement. Thus we understand the
flesh and blood mentioned there as the corruption of the flesh, not its substance, and we understand
the kingdom of God mentioned there as incorruption. Hence, we should not think that
Flesh and blood will not possess the kingdom of God says anything else than
Corruption will not possess incorruption (1 Cor 15:50). That is, the corruption of flesh and blood will not exist in the incorruption of that kingdom because of the freedom from change that he soon mentions, when he says,
It is necessary that this corruption put on incorruption (1 Cor 15:53). Thus corruption which is signified by the terms, flesh and blood, will not exist in the incorruption of that kingdom, because the flesh which is now corruptible will then have been changed and will be incorruptible.
23. If Moses, a man of God, had believed that the soul was mortal, as he would have believed if he had said that it was blood in the proper sense and not because of what it signified, he would not have said in another passage, Everyone who touches a dead body without any human soul and dies without being purified has defiled the tabernacle of the Lord; that soul will be cut off from Israel. Because the water of cleansing was not sprinkled over him, he is unclean, and his uncleanness is still upon him (Nm 19:13). It said, still, that is, even after death, because he was not purified. Here Augustine emphasizes the force of the one word “still” (adhuc) to bring out the implication that the soul of one who dies without purification still has its uncleanness and, consequently, cannot have perished with the blood. Though Augustine is often accused of indulging in excessively allegorical interpretations of the text, he can also read the text with a most detailed attention to the letter. †82 Whoever hears with faith, If you believed Moses, you would believe me as well; for he wrote concerning me (Jn 5:46), understands that this passage foreshadows the bath of regeneration (Ti 3:5), which they receive who are baptized in Christ. Augustine sees the passage from Numbers as prefiguring baptism in Christ. He thus provides an illustration of his exegetical principle that “everything that Moses wrote is about Christ; that is, it is completely concerned with Christ, either because it foretells him figuratively in deeds done or in words spoken or because it commends his grace and glory” (Answer to Faustus XVI, 9). †83
In What Sense the Old Testament Was the Ministry of Death
7, 24. This unhappy fellow is turned away from the light of truth and is, for that reason, opposed to the light of the truth. Why should we be surprised, then,
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that he raises as objections to the Old Testament what he does not understand in the New Testament. “The Truth” (veritas) was one of Augustine's favorite names for God; hence, it may well be that we should read “the truth” with a capital T.
†84 This is true of the words of the apostle Paul when he speaks to the Corinthians,
But if the ministry of death written in letters of stone was begun in such glory that the children of Israel could not look upon the face of Moses on account of the glory of his countenance, though it was a glory that would perish, will the ministry of the Spirit not be in greater glory? After all, if the ministry of condemnation had glory, much more will the ministry of justice abound in glory. For what was then revealed was not glorified at all in comparison with this surpassing brightness. For if that which was destined to perish was glorious, much more glorious is that which remains (2 Cor 3:7-11). This fellow sets forth the words of the apostle in this way, and he is not very far from a better interpretation. One would have expected Augustine to say that he is far from a better interpretation. A variant reading and a marginal note indicate that copyists tried to improve the text, but without success. Augustine apparently meant that the heretic was correct in taking the law as the ministry of death, but failed to understand what this meant.
†85 Because scripture said,
The ministry of death written in letters of stone (2 Cor 3:7), he thinks that “Moses ministered to death, that is, to the author of death, namely, the evil spirit, whom” this fellow supposes “is the author of this world.” The anonymous heretic's belief that the maker of this world was an evil spirit and not God differentiates him from the Manichees and links him with the Marcionites, as Augustine pointed out at the beginning of the work; see I, 1, 1.
†86 He does not know that the apostle called the law the ministry of death in the same sense in which he elsewhere says,
The letter kills, but the spirit gives life (2 Cor 3:6). For the law, though just and holy and good, brought death to its transgressors, See Rom 5:14.
†87 unless the grace of God helped them to fulfill the justice of the law. It was necessary that in the Old Testament the law be imposed upon the proud and those trusting in the power of their will. The law did not bestow justice, but commanded it. Thus, after having become ensnared by the death of transgression, they had to take refuge in the grace revealed in the New Testament that not merely gives commands, but assists in fulfilling them. Augustine plays on the verbs iubentem and iuuantem, commanding and helping.
†88 Hence, these blasphemers against the words of God think that the law given through Moses was evil, because it was called,
the ministry of death written in letters of stone (2 Cor 3:7). They do not see that this was said on account of those who thought that the law was all that their free choice needed and who were held guilty of transgression under the letter of the same law, since they were not helped by the Spirit of grace. Though it might sound as though Augustine is referring to the Pelagians here, the allusion is more general. While the Pelagians trusted in the power of their own free will and claimed that the gospel was only needed as instruction, Augustine insisted against them that grace was needed not merely to inform the mind of what was to be done, but to help the will to do it. What Augustine found particularly objectionable in the Pelagians was generally true of those who trusted in the law apart from the grace of Christ.
†89 Hence, he says in another place,
The law produces wrath. For where the law does not exist, there is no transgression (Rom 4:15). Here he reveals why he said,
The law produces wrath, for the transgression of the law would not be evil, if the law itself were not good. Augustine explains Paul's difficult statements about the law, showing that it its both good and the source of transgression and wrath.
†90
25. It would be a major and time-consuming task to gather all the things which the blessed apostle said to this effect, distinguishing the law from grace insofar as under the former the proud are cast down and under the latter the downcast are raised up. See Ps 144:14 and 145:8. †91 The former is good insofar as it commands what is good, while the latter is good insofar as it bestows what is good. The former makes one a hearer of justice, the latter makes one a doer of justice. See Rom 2:13. †92 And thus under the former, one lies convicted as a sinner and even as a transgressor, having lost the excuse of ignorance. But under the latter which spares and assists, one's flame is not extinguished because he did evil, but rather kindled to do
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good. Why, then, should we be surprised if the former is called
the ministry of death (2 Cor 3:6), in which the letter kills by forbidding the evil which is done and by commanding the good which is not done? Why should we be surprised that the latter is called the
ministry of the Spirit (2 Cor 3:8) that gives life in order that we might rise up from the death of transgression and that we might not, as guilty persons, read of justice in the tablets, but, as free persons, possess justice in our hearts and actions? The latter is the New Testament differing from the Old, because there the old man is tightly constrained by fear, while here the new man is freely expanded in charity. See Eph 3:18-19.
†93
Christ Is the Perfection of the Law
26. Scripture said about Moses, the minister of the Old Testament, that the children of Israel could not look upon his face on account of the glory of his countenance (2 Cor 3:7); this was a sign that they were not going to understand Christ in the law. And, therefore, a veil was placed between Moses' face and them so that the children of Israel would not, as scripture says, look at the end (2 Cor 3:13). See Ex 34:29-35. Augustine's Latin version of 2 Cor 3:14 has: usque in finem, while the Vulgate has: in faciem ejus quod evacuatur. The Greek might be literally translated: “the end of that which is passing away.” Augustine understands “end” as “goal” or “fulfilment,” so that the children of Israel could not see Christ, who is the end or fulfilment of the Mosaic law. †94 But what is the end of the law? It is not I, but the apostle who answers. The end of the law, he says, is Christ unto justice for everyone who believes (Rom 10:4). He is an end that makes perfect, not one that brings death. Again Augustine plays on the words: perficiens, non interficiens: perfecting, not killing. †95 That on account of which we do everything that is done as a duty is called an end. For the difference between a duty and an end is that a duty is one of those things which we ought to do, while an end is that on account of which we do them. See Cicero, De inventione 1, 5, 6. †96 Therefore, everything was done on account of Christ, but the children of Israel did not understand him in the things which were being done; this was signified by the veil, because it did not allow them to look at the end, that is, the face of Moses, which signified Christ. Thus scripture said that this glory is done away with, See 2 Cor 3:7. †97 because all the foreshadowings signifying it were done away with, when the reality which was signified had come. For, just as the knowledge that presently exists will be done away with, as the same apostle says, when that knowledge has come which he calls “face to face,” See 1 Cor 13:10-12. †98 so these things in the Old Testament which were handed on to the Jews in foreshadowings had to be done away with by the revelation of the New Testament.
27. Of course, not everyone in that people failed to understand that Christ was prefigured by those foreshadowings of the Old Testament. Moses himself and the rest of the prophets who foretold him to their successors did not fail to understand these things. The apostle mentioned in the Letter to the Corinthians the things which this fellow in his ignorance cited as opposed and hostile to the Old Testament. Why does he say in the same Letter, Having the same Spirit of faith, in accord with which scripture says, I believed;
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hence, I have spoken, we too have believed; hence we have spoken? Where did scripture say,
I believe; hence, I have spoken? In the Psalms, of course, which belong to those words of God that were entrusted to the Jews. He says,
Having the same Spirit of faith. What does
the same mean but the one which they also had, by whom this ministry was carried out (2 Cor 4:13; Ps 115:10). Also, why did he in the same Letter set forth a testimony from the law? After he had said,
In order that your abundance might supply their privation and their abundance also might make up for your lack so that there might be equality, he added,
As scripture said, He who had much did not have an excess, and he who had little was not lacking (2 Cor 8:14-15; Ex 16:18). Why does he bring before them the authority of the law, which he calls the ministry of death, See 2 Cor 3:6.
†99 if he understood it in the way that this menace understands it?
The Letter of the Law Kills, But the Spirit of Christ Gives Life
28. To remove all ambiguity about how the law is correctly called the ministry of death and is, nonetheless, holy, just, and good, let us recall what he said in the Letter to the Romans. There Paul said, So that we might serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter (Rom 7:6), a statement that is very much like the one this fellow cites without understanding it. Paul immediately thereafter foresaw those future loudmouths and blasphemers who were going to think that the law was proved blameworthy on this basis. Hence, he adds, What then shall we say? That the law is sin? Heaven forbid! But I only knew sin through the law. For I was unaware of desire, were it not for the law saying, You shall not desire. Having received the occasion through the commandment, sin produced in me every desire. For without the law sin was dead. I was living at one time without the law, but when the
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commandment came, sin came to life again. I was dead, and I found that the commandment which was meant for life led to death. For having received the occasion through the commandment, sin deceived me and killed me through it. Therefore, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good. Did then what is good become death for me? Heaven forbid! But that sin might appear as sin, it produced death for me through what is good (Rom 7:7-13). See what
the ministry of death (2 Cor 3:7) means; see what
the letter kills means (2 Cor 3:6). See how
the law is not sin, how
the commandment was meant for life, how
the law is holy and how
the commandment is holy and just and good. Nonetheless, since the disobedient soul is slain by this good when the grace of God does not help it, the law became the ministry of death in the Old Testament because of the letter that kills. And grace became the ministry of life in the New Testament because of the Spirit that gives life. Augustine points out that Paul cited Exodus and Psalms, that is, the law and the prophets, in the very letter in which, as the heretic claimed, he called the Old Testament the ministry of death, because the God of the Old Testament was an evil demon.
†100 The ministry of death and
the ministry of condemnation (2 Cor 3:7; 3:9) mean that
having received the occasion through the commandment, sin produced in me every desire; they mean,
When the commandment came, sin came to life again; they mean,
I found that the commandment which was meant for life led to death (Rom 7:8-10). They mean,
having received the occasion through the commandment, sin deceived me and killed me through it (Rom 7:12); they mean,
the law entered in so that sin might abound (Rom 5:20). They mean,
the law produces wrath (Rom 4:15) and,
the power of sin is the law (1 Cor 15:56). For the prohibition of sin, which is the law, certainly increases the desire to sin, which is not extinguished save by the contrary desire to do what is right, when
faith works through love (Gal 5:6). But this is not given by the command of the letter, but by the help of the Spirit; See 2 Cor 3:6.
†101 it is not given by the law, then, but by grace, not by the Old Testament
giving birth to slaves, which is Hagar, but by the New Testament, in which there are not
the children of the servant, but of the free woman, in which freedom Christ has made us free (Gal 4:24.31). See Gal 5:1.
†102 And still the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good. Through this holy and just and good commandment, sin produces every desire in those who do not have the Spirit of Christ. The apostle himself shows that he was also such a one in the Old Testament, when he says,
Having received the occasion through the commandment, sin produced in me every desire (Rom 7:8). Through what commandment was this but that which says,
I was unaware of desire, were it not for the law saying, You shall not desire? (Rom 7:7). Not to desire is not evil, is it? No indeed, but a great good. Therefore, the law is good that commands this, but when the Spirit that gives life is not present, See 2 Cor 3:6.
†103 this law kills, though it commands something good. For it is the power of sin, since sin produces through it every lust, inflaming lust by its prohibition. And it is not extinguished by the command of the letter out of fear of punishment, but by the help of the Spirit out of the love of justice. Thus he says,
But that sin might appear as sin, it produced death for me through what is good (Rom 7:13). He did not say, “through what is evil,” but
through what is good. Let those wake up who blame the law of God and his servant, Moses, in the blindness and madness of their heart. It is
the ministry of death, because
sin produced death through what is good (Rom 7:17). Thus, it is
the ministry of condemnation (2 Cor 3:9), because sin produced condemnation through what is good.
The Gospel Remains Veiled for Some Called Christians
29. Not all who are called Christians
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cross over to Christ, but those for whom the veil is removed, which remains in the reading of the Old Testament. The veil remains for those who do not read the Old Testament through the New. Some, such as the anonymous heretic, call themselves Christians, but read the Old Testament with the veil still in place.
†104 After all, those who are in the Old Testament with the veil as an impediment understand neither the Old nor the New. Those, however, who cross over to Christ with the veil removed understand through the New both the Old and the New. Just as “for those who understand correctly, the Old Testament is a prophecy of the New Testament” (Answer to Faustus XV, 2), so the New Testament is the key to understanding the Old.
†105 How I wish that these blind assailants of the law and the prophets would cross over to Christ so that they would not be among those for whom the gospel itself is veiled! See 2 Cor 3:14-16.
†106 After all, the apostle says that it is veiled for those who are perishing,
in whom the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that there might not shine forth the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (2 Cor 4:4). Here this wretched fellow wants us “to understand
the God of this world as the evil one,” as if Moses served him in the Old Testament and as if that is what the apostle said. As Augustine indicates further on, he would divide the text so that it reads: “in whom God has blinded the minds of the unbelievers of this world.” Such a reading is possible, though not the more obvious way to read the passage. The Latin text was not punctuated, and it was the task of the lector to interpret the text by making proper divisions.
†107 If it were necessary to understand
the God of this world in this passage as the god of the wicked, that is, the devil,
since all the gods of the nations are demons (Ps 95:5), and all the more so the prince of demons, this should come as no surprise, for the god of certain men is called the belly. The apostle says,
Their god is the belly (Phil 3:19), but that does not mean that God is the belly. So too, if the god of this world can be said to be the devil, that does not mean that the devil is God. After all, the demons are not gods, though the gods of the nations are demons.
The world can, of course, be understood as evil; in that sense the apostle Peter The manuscripts, early editions, and the Maurists have “Peter” here; Daur brackets it, since the citation does not seem to be from Peter.
†108 says,
He will snatch you from the present evil world. See Gal 1:4; Rom 12:2; or possibly 2 Pt 1:4.
†109 But when another interpretation is obvious, why is it necessary to think that the text was referring to the devil and not rather to the true, just, and good God who blinded the minds of the unbelievers of this world. Thus there would not be a break between
in whom the God of this world, and the remaining phrase,
has blinded the minds of unbelievers. Rather, it would read
in whom God, and then the later addition,
blinded the minds of the unbelievers of this world, that is, he blinded the minds of the unbelievers of this world. What sounds like mere repetition involves quite a different word order in the Latin. The Latin could be read in the second manner, though it is hardly the natural way to read the text. Paul is fairly clearly referring to Satan as the god of this world; see Jn 12:31.
†110
In What Sense God Blinds the Minds of Some Persons
8, 30. They are not pleased with the idea that the good God blinds the minds of some human beings. The heretic claims that the God of the Old Testament, whom he identified with “the god of this world” who “blinded the minds of unbelievers” (2 Cor 4:4), cannot be the good God. †111 They do not pay attention to the words of the Savior, who said, For judgment I came into this world in order that those who do not see might see and that those who do see might become blind (Jn 9:39). Hence, God, who in accord with the statement of the apostle has mercy on whom he wills and hardens whom he wills (Rom 9:18). See Ex 33:19. †112 certainly enlightens whom he wills and blinds whom he wills. See above I, 11, 14. †113 And there is no iniquity in God See Rom 9:14. †114 to whom the Church says, I shall sing to you, Lord, of mercy and judgment (Ps 100:1). He enlightens, then, by mercy and blinds by judgment and by a perfectly just, though hidden, judgment, for his judgments are inscrutable (Rom 11:33). Scripture, nonetheless, says to him, You who judge with justice have taken your seat upon the throne (Ps 9:5).
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Paul Saw More Opposition between the Promises and the Law Than between the Gospel and the Law
8, 31. This was the God whom Moses and the other prophets served, and the Lord himself testifies that they were just beyond any doubt. The Jews built their tombs and adorned their monuments, and the Lord says to them, You have built the tombs of the prophets and adorned the monuments of the just (Mt 23:29). But even if all those men worshipped in figures by reason of the temporal dispensation of the Old Testament, they still pertained to the New Testament, to which Abraham belonged, even though it was not yet revealed by the grace of God. Hence, if they read the Old Testament with the veil removed, See 2 Cor 3:14-16. †115 they would understand that the New Testament is not opposed to the law that was given through Moses, just as Abraham and Moses are not opposed to each other. These men admit that Abraham and Moses worshipped the same God, though they utter blasphemies against him to the point of denying that he is God. And yet the apostle opposes the promises, which were made to Abraham, to the law given through Moses, because the promises signified the New Testament. Thus the promises and the law might seem to be opposed to each other. After all, what else does he say to the Romans? For the promise to Abraham and his son that he would be heir to the world See Gn 12:7. †116 did not come through the law, but through the justice of faith. For if any are heirs through the law, faith is wiped out, and the promise is done away with. The law produces wrath, for where there is no law, there is no transgression (Rom 4:13-15). Let them note how he argues as if against the law in order to convince them by that earlier promise made to Abraham that those who are God's heirs are not heirs by reason of the law, but by reason of the promise. Similarly, he says to the Galatians, Brothers, I speak in human terms; no one invalidates or sets aside a man's will that has been ratified. The promises were spoken to Abraham and his son. It does not say, to his sons, as if to many, but as if to one, and to your son, who is Christ. But I tell you this: the law which was established four hundred and thirty years later does not invalidate a will ratified by God so as to do away with the promise. For if the inheritance comes from the law, then it does not come from the promise. But God gave it to Abraham by the promise. What then is the law? It was given for the sake of transgression until there should come the son to whom the promise was made (Gal 3:15-19). I do not know whether these fellows who attack the law in their ignorance find anything in the gospel or the letters of the apostles that seems as opposed and contrary to the same law as that which the apostle opposes to it on the basis of the promises made to Abraham. If, then, they hate the law, let them love Abraham. Augustine argues that there is greater opposition in Saint Paul between the promises made to Abraham and the law given to Moses than between the New Testament and the Old Testament, so that an enemy of the law ought to love Abraham. Thus he sets a trap for the anonymous author, who, as the following paragraph reveals, accused Abraham of sexual immorality. †117
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The Gospel Holds Abraham in Great Honor
9, 32. But they do not want to do this. For they raise the charge of fornication against the father of the nations to whom the promises were made, promises which we now see are being fulfilled in all the nations. This fellow whom we are answering shows, of course, that he belongs to the number of those whom the apostle predicted, when he said, The Spirit clearly says that in the last days certain persons will fall away from the faith, listening to seductive spirits and the teachings of demons who speak lies in hypocrisy; they will have their conscience seared and prohibit marriage (1 Tm 4:1-3). We do not find that Abraham was defiled with adultery, for he did not make love to the handmaid with the impulsiveness of lust. Rather, he received her from his wife when his wife did as she wanted with what was rightfully hers. She wanted to have children from her husband, even if from another's womb. See Gn 16:2-4. †118 In that case, no thought at all was given to lustful pleasure, but only to producing offspring. Perhaps Augustine's statement that “the good and correct use of libido is not libido” (Revisions II, 22, 2) can render Abraham's purity of intention more plausible. †119 But this fellow “raises the charge of fornication against Abraham even in advanced old age, precisely because he took another wife even after the death of Sarah.” In this case, even if we did not understand here the sign of a hidden reality, Abraham ought to have done what he did for the sole reason that heretics might not think, contrary to the apostle, that it is wrong to take another wife after one's wife has died, a point on which Tertullian agrees with them. See Tertullian, De exhortatione castatis, passim, as well as Augustine's Heresies LXXXVI. †120 This fellow thinks he finds in the Letters of the apostles the things that he says against the law given through Moses or against the Old Testament. Let him find something of the sort that seems to be said against Abraham in the gospel writings; he will find nothing of the sort. Wherever Abraham is mentioned in the books of the New Testament, he is mentioned with due honor. For example, the Lord said to the Jews, If you are Abraham's children, do the deeds of Abraham (Jn 8:39). And thus, this fellow who utters blasphemy against Abraham utters blasphemy against Christ who offers such testimony to Abraham.
The Heretic's Exegetical Ruse Is Turned against Him
33. Let him say, if he can, which of those five characters the apostle donned, when he proclaimed Abraham in this way. See above II, 2, 3. †121 After all, if toward those who were without the law, Paul became as if he himself were without the law, they did not know Abraham. Hence, he should have found some leader of either the Romans or the Greeks or some philosopher whom he might proclaim to such men so that he might adapt himself to them, as this fellow supposes, by pretending that he is like them. He should not have proclaimed Abraham, a foreign patriarch of the Hebrew nation, far removed from their ways of acting, far from their religious practices, and far from any relationship to them. Augustine first asks why Saint Paul spoke highly of Abraham, if he was speaking to those who were without the law; then he asks why he spoke so harshly of the law, if he were speaking to the Jews and to those under the law. †122 But
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if with the Jews he acted as if he were a Jew and with those who were under the law as if he himself were under the law, See 1 Cor 9:20.
†123 why did he say that the heirs do not come from the law? See Gal 3:18.
†124 Why did he say,
The law produces wrath? (Rom 4:15). Why did he say,
The law was given for the sake of transgression? (Gal 3:19). See Rom 4:15.
†125 Those who boasted of the law See Rom 2:23.
†126 could not calmly put up with such statements. But if as someone who is weak he spoke to the weak See 1 Cor 9:22.
†127 and provided them with milk by deceiving them, as the deceitful would have it, why did he drive them out of the old shadows in which they were resting in their weakness. Augustine uses “shadows” (umbris) which conveys both the idea that the rites of the Old Testament foreshadowed those of the New and the idea that they were mere shadows compared to the reality of the New Testament. If Saint Paul was speaking to the weak, why did he not tolerate, Augustine asks, the weakness of those who clung to the practices of the old law?
†128 After all, he said,
See, I, Paul, tell you that, if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing (Gal 5:2). Or perhaps Paul was speaking wisdom to the perfect in that fifth sort of person, the only one that this fellow thinks deserved not to be deceived by the apostle. But then why does this fellow, on the contrary, want to be perfect in order to blaspheme against Abraham when the apostle so highly praises him to the perfect, especially in those two sons of his, one by the handmaid, the other by the free woman? See Gal 4:22-28. If Saint Paul was speaking to the perfect, why, Augustine asks, did he praise Abraham so highly?
†129 If he is displeased over the Old Testament with Ishmael, let him be pleased over the New Testament with Isaac. See The City of God XVI, 31.
†130
Augustine Defends the Bible's Use of Sexual Imagery
34. Or is he also going to set against the apostle the chair of insolence (Ps 1:1) and argue about the quality of figures and say that he ought not to draw figures for good things from shameful ones. For he finds something shameful in the marital intercourse with Sarah. The teacher of the Gentiles affirms that she signifies our free mother, the eternal Jerusalem, See Gal 4:26. †131 although this teacher of the insolent turns up his nose, wrinkles his forehead, and shrinks back from this comparison with trembling countenance. He does this even more, and more objectionably, when he hears the same teacher of the Gentiles add to the words of scripture, And they will be two in one flesh, the further words, This is a great sacrament, I mean, of Christ and the Church (Eph 5:31-32). Did this fellow then know and the blessed apostle not know where we should recognize sacraments, that is, sacred signs, of such a great reality? Did he know and the apostle not know that we should neither recognize them in shameful things nor speak of them in words we should be ashamed to use? As the anonymous heretic finds objectionable Abraham's union with Sarah, so he objects to Saint Paul's use of the marital union of husband and wife to symbolize the union of Christ and his church. Augustine insists that these signs are well chosen to signify the reality and goes on to compare the heretic to those who were repelled by Christ's promise of the Eucharist. †132 Let this fellow withdraw with those companions like him who said, This is a hard saying; who can listen to it? (Jn 6:60). But let us listen to and understand the two testaments in the two sons of Abraham and the two women impregnated by their union with him. So too, we recognize, despite the unwillingness of those persons, two in one flesh, Christ and the Church, without anything indecent. In the same way, we receive with a believing heart and mouth the mediator of God and man, the man, Christ Jesus, See 1 Tm 2:5. †133 who gives us his flesh to eat and his blood to drink, See Jn 6:53-58. †134 even though it
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seems more horrible to eat human flesh than to destroy it and to drink human blood than to spill it. If in all the holy scriptures something is explained as done or as said figuratively in accord with the rule of sound faith, from whatever realities or words contained in those sacred pages the explanation might be drawn, let us listen not contemptuously, but wisely. Let us abandon this fellow who mouths inanities and, while not knowing what he is saying, discourses on the quality of the figures with, if one can say this, an ignorant knowledge. Augustine uses “imperita peritia”: a knowledge or skill that is ignorant or unskilled.
†135 When he says that something should be signified by suitable, not unsuitable things, he can say in his folly that “God” must always be written in shining gold, never in black ink, See 2 Cor 3:3.
†136 since
God is light, and there is no darkness in him (1 Jn 1:5). Augustine's point is that, if one does not distinguish the sign and the reality, one will think that the letters of the word, “God,” have no darkness in them rather than that the reality that God is has no darkness in it.
†137 This is the man who thinks that the apostle said many false and blameworthy things, in order that he might adapt himself to weak and imperfect persons. The respect with which the apostle receives those scriptures is clear in his Letters from the passages he cites from the law and the prophets. In his twisted mind this fellow never supposes that one can defend what he, an unclean and impious person, finds horrifying in God's old books, as if he were clean and pious. After all, if someone like him should say, “Those things that offend you in the law and the prophets are false, but the Holy Spirit wanted those things to be stated that way on account of the weak and imperfect,” he will have nothing to answer to this person, his equal in foolishness. That is, the heretic's principle of exegesis that allows him to deal with passages in the New Testament that he finds objectionable can be applied to passages of the Old Testament as well.
†138 For he is refuted by a false rule, though his own, and he has his throat cut, not by the hand of a wise and learned man, but by that of foolish and uneducated one, as he himself is, and with his own sword as well.
Augustine Sums Up What He Has Done So Far
10, 35. At this point I think that I have made a sufficient response to the sacrilegious mouthings of that foolish and sacrilegious man on the following topics: the beginning of Genesis, See Gn 1:1. †139 the making of light, See Gn 1:3. †140 the day and the sun, See Gn 1:5. †141 the reason for making man and woman, See Gn 1:26-28 and 2:15. †142 the sin of Adam, See Gn 3:1-7. †143 the making of man, See Gn 2:7. †144 the enticement of the serpent, See Gn 3:1-5. †145 the curse upon the man and woman See Gn 3:16-19. †146 and the tree of life, See Gn 3:22. †147 the repentance of God, See Gn 6:6. †148 the flood, See Gn 7. †149 the rainbow in the clouds, See Gn 9:13. †150 the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, See Ex 4:21. †151 and the lying spirit mentioned by Micaiah the prophet. See 1 Kgs 22:22. †152 I have dealt with the testimony of Isaiah the prophet, where he says, I have fathered children and raised them up (Is 1:2), to whom he says again, Wicked sons, bad seed (Is 1:4), and with the words he attributed to the same prophet, I am God making good and creating evil (Is 45:7). I have dealt with the destruction of the people that Moses was ordered to carry out, See Ex 32:27. †153 with the curse that this fellow regards as shameful, See Gn 2:16-19. †154 with the admitted, as he thinks, cruelty of God, See 1 Sm 2:25; Dt 32:41-42. †155 with the devotion that he attributed to wickedness on the part of King David, See 2 Sm 24. †156 and with the words, I repent that I made Saul the king
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(1 Sm 15:11). I have dealt with the spirit of Moses whose writing he thinks the apostle called old wives' tales, See 1 Tm 4:7.
†157 with the quality of figures, with Abraham, See Gn 12-25.
†158 with the sons of Eli, the priest, See 1 Sm 2.
†159 with the sacrifices that he thinks are offered only to demons, See Dt 32:17.
†160 and with the prophets of God whom he thinks did not exist before the coming of Christ. See Rom 1:1-3.
†161 I have dealt with the statement in the law that the soul is blood, See Lv 17:11.
†162 with the God that Moses served and that this fellow does not regard as the true God, and with the variety of characters in which he thinks that the apostle spoke deceptively. See 1 Cor 9:19-22.
†163 I have dealt with all these things, not in the order found in his book, but as the coherent sequence of our discussion demanded.
The Heretic's Antitheses between Christ and the God of the Law
11, 36. After all these topics, then, he sets forth a title which reads as follows: “The discernment of the spirits of wickedness and of goodness.” And with many short and contrasting statements he begins to praise Christ and to accuse the God of the law, exhorting in this way, as it were, the one to whom he is writing. Harnack says that these are very probably the Antitheses of Marcion; see Marcion: Das Evangelium, 426*. †164 “Hence, brother,” he says, “let us withdraw from the wickedness of past error and look to Christ, the true and sovereign God, not to the prince of this age and the maker of this world in which, it has often been explained, we are on pilgrimage from our home. Let us, I say, look to that pious and meek one who called us the light of the world, showing that we are of his kinship, not to the one who, according to the Jewish scriptures, assigned to us an earthly beginning and indicated, thereby, our end in the earth. Let us look to him who called us brothers and urged us to be vigilant and wise concerning what is divine, not to the one who did not permit us to have a discerning mind.” And in this way he has woven together many other ideas.
Augustine's Reply to the Antitheses of the Heretic
37. I thought I should respond to this passage of his book so that I also provide you with an exhortation: “Let us look to Christ, the true and sovereign God, the only Son of the true and sovereign God, who is not the evil prince of this age, but the maker of the world, that is, of heaven and earth. He has commanded that we lead our temporal lives as pilgrims in this mortality. See Heb 11:13. †165 Let us look, I say, to Christ merciful and mild, who made us his brothers by grace, See Heb 2:11. †166 not by nature.” For it is he, not some other god, as this man supposes, who, according to the scriptures, gave us an earthly body, but a soul by his breath, See Gn 2:7. †167 making both, not generating one of them. He commanded and made us to be vigilant and wise concerning things divine. For it is he, not some other god, as this fellow supposes, who warned us against experiencing the discernment of good and evil by sinning. See Gn 2:16-17. †168 It is he who
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called us to immortality and promised us the kingdom of heaven. See 1 Cor 15:47-49.
†169 It is he, not some other god, as this fellow thinks, who after the sin removed us in our guilt from the happiness of eternal life and punished us by earthly labor. See Gn 3:17; 3:22-23.
†170 He did not command, as this fellow thinks, that we be ignorant of nothing, but that we know what is useful. See Is 48:17.
†171 He did not, as this fellow thinks in his disagreement with the truth, condemn in us the knowledge that comes from knowing justice, but that which comes from experiencing sin. He had pity on us because we were dying from our error. It is he, and not some other god, as this fellow thinks, who sentenced us to death, not from the moment when we began to be wise, as this fellow thinks, but from the moment when we sinned. See 1 Cor 4:9.
†172 He urges us to disregard our own powers, or rather to hide them away in a safer place. See Lk 12:33.
†173 For it is he, and not someone else, as this fellow thinks, who has shown that he is lord, not only of heavenly things, but also of earthly things, See Mt 11:25.
†174 for he either commanded or permitted that his own, for whom this was fitting for the time, take and hold the possessions of the wicked who were to be deprived of them by plunder. See Mt 21:43.
†175
He pardons the sins of those who turn to him, though it is he and not some other god, as this fellow thinks, who repays those who turn away from him with just punishments to the third and fourth generation. See Ex 20:5. †176 He forgives the sins, not of all, as this fellow thinks, but of those whom he foreknew and predestined. See Rom 8:29-30. †177 It is he and not some other god, as this fellow thinks, who avenged the offenses of certain ones with bodily, not spiritual deaths that resulted in mental suffering as a punishment and in increased terror even for those who did not commit them. Thus the condition of mortals, in virtue of which they would die after a short while, also served in this way the providence of God and was turned to the benefit of discipline. He did not forbid that we ever be angry, for he himself was angry when it was necessary; rather, he commanded that we be angry without sinning. See Ps 4:5 and Eph 4:26. †178 It is he and not some other god who, without looking for grounds for vengeance, as this fellow claims, sees that some cases should be avenged at the time he knows. He warned us that we should never swear so that, by not swearing, we might be further removed from swearing falsely, for we can be mistaken. See Mt 5:33-34 and Sir 23:9. †179 It is he and not some other god, as this fellow thinks, who confirmed the truth of his statement even by an oath See Heb 3:18. †180 to arouse those who did not believe, when he thought it necessary. As a man by an oath calls God as his witness, so God calls himself. See Jer 29:23. †181 He commanded that we stand in the faith of his true word. See Jn 8:31-32. †182 For it is he and not some other god, as this fellow thinks, who did not change his will, as this fellow blasphemes, but changed the things he willed to change without any change of his will. See Dn 2:21. †183 He taught us the path of truth. See Jn 14:6-7. †184 For he is also the God of the prophets who has never deceived his own, as this fellow's slander claims, with false promises. He commanded that we be without reproach. See Col 1:22. †185 For he is also the God of the prophets who never blamed himself, as this fellow charges, and did not repent of anything as a man does; See 1 Sm 15:29 and Nm 23:19. †186 rather, he foretold as
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if in a human manner of speaking the change of future things which he foreknew from eternity he would change without any change in himself. See 1 Cor 15:50-52.
†187 He showed that we should fear the wrath of God even in the gospel. For he is also the God of the prophets who used the term “wrath” or “indignation” to name, not his mental upset, but his just and severe punishment. See Ps 47:49.
†188 He was not opposed to anyone being harmed by another in any way, but to anyone being harmed unjustly. See Ps 102:6.
†189 For he is the God of the prophets who—whether by men or by the holy angels—punished or frightened to their benefit those whom he wanted to, even by the temporal deaths of their bodies. See Ex 12:23 et al.
†190
He taught that we should not look at a woman out of lust. See Mt 5:28. †191 For it is he who said in the law, You shall not desire (Ex 20:17), and he did not, as this fellow charges, enjoin seven marriages upon individuals, but permitted chaste marriages for the sake of children. See Heb 13:4. †192 He not only did not make fathers the husbands of their daughters, but even forbade that this, as well as other lewdness, should occur. See Lv 18:6ff and Gn 19:31ff. †193 He taught us that there is neither male nor female in accord with the interior renewal in the spirit of the mind See Gal 3:28. †194 and promised that we would be with him as angels for eternity. See Mt 22:30; Mk 12:25; and Lk 20:36. †195 For he is also the God of the prophets who joined male and female in marital chastity for the sake of propagating the race See Gn 1:28. †196 and showed that second marriages, which are also permitted in the New Testament, are licit. See 1 Cor 7:39. †197 He commanded that the wife of a brother who died without offspring be joined in marriage to another brother in order to raise up a posterity for the deceased out of a pious, not a lustful love. See Dt 25:5-6 and Mk 12:19. †198 But he completely forbade that fathers be married to their daughters. See Lv 18:6. †199 He commanded that we spiritually tread upon every kind of serpent. See Lk 10:19. †200 For he is the God of the prophets who sent visible serpents to the unfaithful people to signify the sins by whose venom they were invisibly dying. See Nm 21:6-7. †201 He did this as a warning and, through this corrective scourge, he prefigured the deaths of their souls by the deaths of their bodies. He said, Give alms, and, see, all things are clean for you (Lk 11:41). For he is also the God of the prophets who gave such commands by the voice of the prophets as well. He did not want the firstborn sons of human beings to be sacrificed, See Ex 13:13 and Nm 18:15. †202 but to be consecrated to him, thus signifying the firstborn from the dead, See Col 1:18. †203 in whom we all had to be freed from endless death. See Rom 8:2. †204 He preferred incorruptible to corruptible food. See Jn 6:28. †205 For he is also the God of the prophets who willed that sacrifices, of which he had no need, should come first in order to signify the true sacrifice by their foreshadowing what was to come; See Col 2:17 and Heb 10:1. †206 with his severe discipline he punished the commission of sacrileges by bodily deaths far milder than the eternal punishments of hell. He did not command that we condemn earthly wealth, as this fellow says, but he ranked spiritual and heavenly wealth before it. See Mt 6:19-20. †207 For he is also the God of the prophets who makes men rich when he gives in accord with his goodness and makes men poor when he does not give or takes away in accord with his justice. See 1 Kg 2:7. †208
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He commanded us to pray for our enemies. See Mt 5:44. †209 For he is also the God of the prophets who not only never wanted children to be sacrificed to him by their parents' hands, as this fellow charges, but even set it down in the law that such a thing should not be done. See Lv 18:21 and Nm 18:15. †210 He taught that we should do good to all without regard for the persons involved. See 2 Chr 19:7. †211 For he is also the God of the prophets, and when he commanded that human beings be killed without regard for age or sex, See Nm 25:8. †212 how does this fellow or anyone know what he gave as a good compensation after death to those by whose deaths he corrected or terrified the living? He commanded that we bear injuries with equanimity and forgive them. See Eph 4:2. †213 For he is the God of the prophets who set as a limit to punishment an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth (Ex 21:24) so that no one should think that he has a right to inflict more punishment than he has endured injury. Thus scripture said of the wisdom of God that it bears the law and mercy on the tongue. See Prv 3:17 LXX. †214 For we would not know how to forgive our debtors their debts through mercy, if we did not come to know their debts through the law. He who with such great power humbled himself in having become man to strengthen us See Phil 2:8-9. †215 spoke with men. For he is also the God of the prophets who spoke with the earliest fathers and said that there is no other God besides him, See Ex 20:2-3. †216 because even the sovereign Trinity is one God, despite the proper character of the persons. He commanded his apostles to give freely what they freely received; nonetheless, he determined that they not take with them even a second tunic for their maintenance. See Mt 10:8-10. †217 For he went on to add, The worker is worthy of his reward (Mt 10:10) so that those who preach the good news might live from the good news (1 Cor 9:14). He showed, nonetheless, that we should offer gifts to God, though he needs nothing and gives us more by receiving our gifts. For he is also the God of the prophets who forbade his own to receive gifts which might blind the eyes of those who judge, See Ex 23:9 and Dt 16:19. †218 while he himself accepted gifts, though he did not need them, in order to make rich in piety the souls of those who offered them. He cured a man on the Sabbath, showing that the time has come that, according to the prophecy of the Song of Songs, the day should break and the shadows withdraw (Sg 2:17; 4:6).
For he is also the God of the prophets who commanded that a man gathering wood on the Sabbath should be stoned. This man was not then distinguishing the times of the two Testaments, but was despising the law of God in his proud and wicked mind. By his bodily death, which we all know will soon be the lot of every man, God taught through fear the obedience that would profit the rest of us. See Nm 15:32-36. †219 He said that he came in order to save human beings. See Jn 3:17. †220 For he is also the God of the prophets who by his just judgment hardens those whom he will, just as in the gospel, he came for judgment, not only that those who do not see might see, but that those who do see might become blind (Jn 9:39). He gave us the commandments of eternal life. See Jn 12:49-50. †221 For he is also the God of the prophets who
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gave the holy and just and good commandments See Rom 7:12.
†222 to the proud who trusted, not in his grace, but in their own power, not so that they might live by them, but so that they might die by them and might be proved guilty. In the same way the apostles, as one of them said, were
the good odor of Christ, both for those who were being saved and for those who were perishing, to the one group the odor of life unto life, but to the others the odor of death unto death (2 Cor 2:15-16). He appeared as healing for those with defects, giving to the lame the ability to walk, to the mute speech, to the deaf hearing, to the blind sight. See Is 35:5-6.
†223 For he is also the God of the prophets who not only mercifully heals, but also justly brings about the same defects. No one ought with the same impious vanity to think the contrary of Christ and say that this God is good, while Christ is evil, because this one made the dry wood in Aaron's staff, though supported by no root, flower and bear fruit, See Nm 17:16-25.
†224 while with a curse Christ dried up a tree, because he found on it no fruit, though it was not yet the season for fruit. See Mt 21:19.
†225
The God of the Law and the Prophets Is the Lord of Chastity
12, 38. He says, “The father of peace and charity is distinct from the author of war and fury.” He wants “the former to be interpreted as Christ, the latter as the God of the law and the prophets.” This foolish man can maintain that Christ himself is opposed to himself or that there were two, not one, in disagreement with each other: the one who said, Peace I leave you (Jn 14:27), and the other who said, I did not come to bring peace to the earth but the sword (Mt 10:34). This is especially true, because he is displeased that some good things are foreshadowed by the names of bad ones. But when he says that “the one has incest and adultery on his conscience; the other is the lord of modest chastity and purity,” let him understand that the former is the devil. For he should know that the God of the law and the prophets is no less than Christ the lord of chastity and purity. The God of the apostles is the same as that of the prophets who preceded them in time, but shared their faith. In both testaments he is the God of just action and of pious prayers; in both he is the author of religious sacrifices.
The Devil Has Only the Power That God Gives Him
39. Look how he wants to show that the defects of human bodies do not have God as their author, but rather the devil. For in the gospel our Lord said of the woman whom he healed that Satan had bound her for eighteen years, so that she was bent and could not stand erect. See Lk 13:11-16. †226 He says this as if, since Satan always has the desire to do harm, he can harm anyone without having received the power from the Almighty. For what else does it say, not only in the Book of Job, See Jb 1:6. †227 which he does not accept, of course, but even more clearly in the gospel? There
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the unclean spirits would not go into the pigs if the good Savior himself did not grant them their request, See Mt 8:31-32; Mk 5:12-13; and Lk 8:32-33.
†228 though he could certainly have bound them in the abyss. He wanted to teach us something necessary, namely, that we should know that they were far from being able to harm human beings by their power, if they could not harm even any other animal. The good God can grant this power by a justice hidden from us; he cannot do so unjustly.
The God of the Prophets Is Not the Antichrist
40. Next, this fellow wants to twist the words of the apostle “concerning the coming and wicked exaltation of the Antichrist,” See 1 Jn 2:18; 2:22; and 4:3. †229 so that “we understand that he is the God of the prophets.” Thereby, he rather proves that it is the temple of God where, as the apostle foretold, the man of sin, the son of destruction, would sit, raising himself above every god and object of worship. See 2 Thes 2:3-4. †230 After all, he is the true God in whose temple that false god will sit. This fellow belongs to the false god, for, while wanting to seem to be under the name of Christ, which is the name of God, that is, Christian, he proves himself to be an antichrist, not that one greater than the rest, but one of those of whom John the Evangelist speaks, Now there are many antichrists among us (1 Jn 2:18). For that is what he called the heretics who began to exist already in the days of the apostles. But these began to exist only after the ascension into heaven of the Lord Jesus Christ, starting with Simon Magus, of whose baptism we read in the Acts of the Apostles. See Acts 8:13; see also Augustine, Heresies I. †231 After him there were some later disciples of his, taking the place of the earlier ones, in the same impiety. In their succesion Basilides came forth; he was the first to dare to say openly that the God whom the Jewish people worshipped was not the true God. See Augustine, Heresies IV. †232 After these there was a certain Carpocrates who said that this visible world was not created by the highest God, but by certain powers of the demons. See Augustine, Heresies VI and VII. †233 He also denied that God gave the law which was given through Moses. Later there came Cerdon who was the first to say that there were two gods, one good and the other bad, long before the heresy of the Manichees developed, whose error in this mad raving is better known. See Augustine, Heresies XXI. †234 Marcion was a disciple of this Cerdon. See Augustine, Heresies XXII. †235 Appeles also taught such things. See Augustine, Heresies XXIII. †236 There were also some Patricians, followers of a certain Patricius, who were likewise opposed to the ancient books of God. See Augustine, Heresies LXI. †237 All of these were openly opposed to the God of the law and the prophets, that is, the true God by whom the world was made. This fellow belongs to some heresy of theirs, for I do not think that he is a Manichee.
Augustine Draws the Second Book to a Close
41. Whatever heretical error either this fellow or some Fabricius or other, whose disciple he boasts to be, might hold, I think that I have made sufficient
― 441 ―
answer to him with regard to the book that you sent me. The mighty trunk of that madness has been cut down from which there grew all the wicked blasphemies that he wrote in that book, branching out in impious curses and accusations against God with all sorts of chatter. To cut away all the branches one by one would be an exceedingly long task, but the roots themselves had to be cut off. If you review what we wrote against Faustus the Manichee and against Adimantus, who boasted that he was a follower of Mani, when Mani was still living, you will find many points that are equally valid against this fellow. And perhaps, if those writings were read, it would not have been very necessary or necesary at all to write this response.
12, 42. At the end of the book he calls attention to the small number of people in his error, because wisdom, of course, belongs to the few. Here is a point that, despite the foolishness proper to each of them, is common to all heretical opponents of the Catholic Church which has spread through all lands in its abundant fertility. All of these heretics boast of their small numbers and seek to lead astray the many. After the end of this book, there is the beginning of another, perhaps by the same author, but certainly of the same error. He begins to argue that the flesh has another maker than God. After saying a few things on this topic, he ends what he had begun in the very beginning. Whether the author himself or the copier of this volume could not finish what he had begun, I do not know. We have, in any case, already written a great deal against the Manichees concerning this madness of people who do not consider what they say. And in the beginning of this work I have, in my opinion, laid suitable foundations from which a prudent and pious reader may understand that we should not remove the flesh from the works of God, because the nature of spirit is better. Nor are these temporal things evil, because eternal things are rightly preferred to them, and earthly goods should not be despised, because the heavenly ones are better. For God, who is great in the great goods and not small in the small ones, has created all good things. Now the second work which began to be transcribed in the same volume belongs to Adimantus, that disciple of Mani, who is called by the proper name, Addas. In that work he brings forth with subtle deceitfulness texts from the two testaments, as if they were in opposition to each other, in order to show that the two cannot come from one God, but that each comes from its own. We have long ago written against this evil ploy, as I mentioned just before, and I believe that you have our book. There are a few things of Adimantus' at the end of this work to which I have made no response. As al often happens, some other things that seemed more urgent intervened, and thus those matters were left unfinished. There are, as I said, at the end a few things, which, if it is the Lord's will, I will take care to explain as soon as possible.
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Notes
†1 In Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis II, 5, Augustine says that scripture is interpreted allegorically when one understands what is stated in figures or symbols. The figures or symbols can, as in this case, refer to future events or realities which they prefigure or refer to present spiritual realities which they symbolize, as the tree of life, for example, symbolizes wisdom.
†2 These two Pauline texts provide Augustine with a biblical justification of an allegorical and figurative interpretation of the Old Testament, though his principal point here is that Paul did not treat the events of the Old Testament as profane tales to be avoided.
†3 Augustine uses the Greek deuterôsis, which means repetition; it is probably a translation of the Hebrew mishnah. Though the oldest part and core of the Talmud was called The Mishnah, which was compiled by Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi in the beginning of the third century of the Christian era, Augustine appears to be referring to oral traditions and practices rather than to any written text. Apart from this work, Augustine uses the term in Expositions of the Psalms 118, XX, 5, where he says that “the Deuterosis of the Jews contains thousands of tales apart from the canon of the divine Scriptures.” Jerome also uses the term and says that it means the traditions and practices of the Pharisees (see In Matthaeum XXII, 23) which, they claim, contains all knowledge (see his Letter 18B).
†4 See 1 Tm 1:4. See The Book of Jubilees, around 4, in The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English, ed. R. H. Charles et al. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), 2 vols., here II, 17-19, for such non-biblical genealogies. I have not been able to locate any written source for Adam's having had two wives.
†5 See also Dt 5:16.
†6 See 1 Tm 4:7 and 1:4.
†7 So far, the words of the anonymous author are compatible with what Paul said to the Corinthians and with Augustine's understanding of the “little ones” as opposed to the adult Christians.
†8 See 1 Cor 9:20.
†9 Augustine's objection is that the anonymous heretic would have Saint Paul speaking lies to all but the perfect. Augustine himself made considerable use of the Pauline distinctions between the little ones and the adults in Christ and between the carnal, animal, and spiritual persons in the Church; see 1 Cor 2:13—3:3. Augustine differentiated these kinds of persons in terms of their ability to understand the Christian message, but insisted that one must never speak what is false, though he certainly did not hold that one had to present the spiritual meaning of a text to those unable to grasp it.
†10 Harnack has suggested that this Fabricius is the Patricius from whom the Patricians, a minor Marcionite heretical sect, derived their name. See A. von Harnack, Marcion: Das Evangelium, 430* and 433*; also see Augustine's Heresies LXI for more on the Patricians.
†11 Augustine first explains Paul's “becoming all things to all” in terms of his compassionate love and care for them. Paul's compassionate care did not, of course, entail lying to them.
†12 See Col 3:11. Since these peoples were obviously not Jews, Paul should not have appealed to the law and the prophets in presenting Christ to them, if the anonymous heretic's theory was correct.
†13 See Gal 2:9.
†14 See above 1, 19, 38.
†15 See Mt 9:34.
†16 See 1 Cor 9:22.
†17 See The City of God VII, 33, where Augustine claims that the true religion was able to prove that the gods of the nations were demons.
†18 See 1 Cor 9:19.
†19 See 1 Cor 9:19.
†20 See Rom 9:33 and 10:11.
†21 See 1 Pt 2:6.
†22 See Acts 4:11.
― 443 ―
†23 See 1 Cor 3:1 and Heb 5:12.
†24 See Rom 11:16-20.
†25 The anonymous heretic apparently regarded these passages from Romans as interpolations of the evil demon. On the other hand, see below II, 3, 9, where he seems to cite Rom 1:1-3 with approval.
†26 See 1 Tm 4:7.
†27 See above II, 1, 2.
†28 See Rom 3:2.
†29 See Mt 22:42.
†30 Augustine says that the Jews believed correctly that the Messiah would come from the line of David, but they did not understand that he was also David's lord, since he was God.
†31 “Amen,” as in the present liturgy, is used to affirm the truth of what has just been said.
†32 Here we have what Augustine found most objectionable in the anonymous heretic's interpretation of Paul, namely, the view that Paul presented to the weak and little ones false doctrine, because they could not grasp the truth.
†33 See Rom 9:1-5.
†34 See Rom 3:31.
†35 The anonymous author could perhaps appeal to Jn 7:39 which says that the Spirit was not yet, since Christ had not yet been glorified.
†36 Augustine's play upon vanitas, non veritas might be transliterated as: vanity, not verity.
†37 See above, II, 2, 4.
†38 Here the anonymous heretic apparently cites as authoritative the text which he earlier called the words of an evil demon; see above II, 2, 6.
†39 The anonymous author contrasts the Mosaic law with the Christian truth, implying that the law is false. Augustine immediately corrects the textual error and, then, offers his own interpretation of why the law has become grace and truth through Christ.
†40 The Latin text is open to this translation which takes the law as the subject of both clauses, and Augustine's comments presuppose this interpretation, though the Greek text does not admit it.
†41 See Rom 5:5.
†42 See 2 Cor 3:6.
†43 Augustine plays with the double rhyme: jubetur impletur.
†44 For Augustine, the law summed up in the command, “You shall not desire,” becomes grace through Christ because the law is fulfilled by the charity poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. The law, in the sense of the whole Old Testament, becomes the truth through Christ, because Christ is the fulfillment of the promises of the Old Testament. Hence, for Augustine, the contrast is not between falsity and truth, but between the promise and its realization.
†45 That is, the anonymous author implies that Paul was here speaking of the Jewish people as unable to call upon God, because they had not heard the words of God in the Old Testament.
†46 It was only with difficulty that the apostles came to realize that the message of salvation was meant for all human beings and not just for the Jewish people.
†47 Paul is listing ministries within the Church in order of importance. The anonymous heretic infers from this text that there were no prophets before the apostles. His view here seems inconsistent with his appeal to Rom 1:2, which Augustine reports that he had cited and interpreted as referring to other prophets than those of the Old Testament; see above II, 3, 9.
†48 See Acts 11:27 and 13:1.
†49 The title “Christ” is the translation of the Hebrew “Messiah,” the Anointed One.
†50 See 1 Pt 2:24-25.
†51 The Latin for “promised” (promissus) and for “sent” (missus) lies at the basis of this argument that, if Christ was not promised, there is no grounds for saying that he has been sent.
†52 That is, the true Christ is the one who fulfills the prophecies that promised him.
†53 The anonymous heretic apparently interpreted the Cretans mentioned in a figurative sense as representing the Hebrew prophets.
†54 In pointing to the actual Cretan source of the saying, Augustine undercuts the heretic's appeal to a figurative interpretation. Epimenides was a Cretan poet from the sixth century B.C. The citation is known as the “liar's paradox.” Since Epimenides was a Cretan, he must have lied in saying that Cretans are always liars. Or, if he didn't lie, it is not true that Cretans always lie.
― 444 ―
†55 In Answer to Adimantus 7, Augustine says that “both Testaments agree and fit together with each other insofar as they were both written by the one God.”
†56 See Dt 25:4.
†57 Augustine takes “as certain among you have said” as going with the preceding text, though it refers to what follows: “For we too are his offspring,” which is a citation from the Stoic poet Aratos. Scholars have shown that Ennead VI, 9, 9, ll. 7-11, bears a striking resemblance to Acts 17:28 so that Augustine may have intended a reference to the Neoplatonists. See Courcelle, Recherches sur les Confessions de Saint Augustin (Paris: de Boccard, 1950) 130-131.
†58 The Gospel of Thomas, Saying 53; see The Secret Sayings of Jesus, by Robert M. Grant, with David N. Freedman (New York: Garden City, 1960), 162, for the full saying and commentary. The heretic regards the Old Testament prophets as not having been prophets of God because they are dead; see below II, 5, 17-20.
†59 See Lk 24:27.
†60 The heretic interprets Christ's words as referring to the prophets of the Old Testament. He takes Christ's words to them as implying that their claim to have prophesied in the name of Christ is false.
†61 In fact, there are many manuscripts that have “before me,” though Augustine's interpretation is unaffected. Again the anonymous heretic takes Christ's words as referring to the prophets of the Old Testament.
†62 The heretic takes the death of the forebears of the Jews in the desert as proof that they did not belong to the true God.
†63 That is, those who ate the manna and died were those who did not believe. They are the ancestors of contemporary unbelievers, who are their offspring, not by physical generation, but by reason of imitating their sinfulness. In the same sense, Jesus speaks of the children of those who killed the prophets. I have construed the sentence as a statement, though the text in the CCL edition has a question.
†64 See Gn 4:8.
†65 See 2 Chr 24:20-22.
†66 Again Augustine uses the Pauline image of a lump of dough to symbolize the mass of sinful humanity formed by its sinful love of creatures in preference to the Creator. See The City of God XIV, 28, where Augustine speaks of the two loves that produce the two cities or societies of human beings.
†67 The anonymous heretic apparently argued that the patriarchs are dead and that Jesus said that God is not the God of the dead. Thus he could conclude that God is not the God of the patriarchs. As Augustine points out, Jesus' argument showed that the patriarchs are living, because God is their God and he is God of the living.
†68 See Acts 8:30.
†69 Augustine plays upon the words “reading” (legere) and “understanding” (intellegere). Reading remains content with the superficiality of the letter and does not enter into an understanding of the interior meaning. Insofar as the Jews have the word of God in the scriptures, they have the key to knowledge, but because the word is not in their hearts, they do not enter within to understand the scriptures.
†70 The heretic takes Christ's words as proof that John the Baptist, and a fortiori the other prophets of the Old Testament, did not belong to the kingdom of heaven. The Latin “minor,” like the Greek “mikroteros,” is a comparative, though probably with superlative force, meaning “the least” rather than “the lesser.” However, the word can also mean “the younger,” as Augustine's second interpretation would have it.
†71 That is, if the kingdom refers to the eternal life of heaven, then the least angel, who already enjoys that life, is greater than any human being who is still in this mortal life. Augustine did not view the angels as disembodied spirits; rather, angels differed from human beings in having immortal bodies. See The City of God XI, 16, and Expositions of the Psalms 144, 13.
†72 According to the second interpretation we have to read, “he who is younger is greater than he in the kingdom of heaven,” as Augustine goes on to explain.
†73 That is, the Latin does not settle whether “in the kingdom of heaven” goes with “lesser” or with “greater.” English settles by its word order what in Latin would be left for the lector to
― 445 ―
determine by a pause in his reading. Since the literal meaning of a text is simply how the text sounds (see
On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheans II, 3), Mt 11:11 would, in the Augustinian sense, have either of two literal meanings, depending upon how it is read. See
Teaching Christianity III, 2, 2-4, where Augustine speaks of ambiguities arising from the way the text is divided or pronounced.
†74 The anonymous heretic claims that, by identifying the soul with the blood, Moses eliminated any possibility of the soul's surviving death and of the resurrection of its body.
†75 The Hebrew word “nephesh,” which was translated into Latin as “soul” (anima), would be more accurately translated as “life” or “source of life.” Moses was hardly making a philosophical statement or using the philosophical concept of soul, which has its source in Greek philosophy rather than in scripture.
†76 One reason for having recourse to a figurative interpretation of a text is that the literal interpretation involves something absurd or unworthy of God. See Jean Pépin, “A propos de l'histoire de l'exégèse allégorique: l'absurdité, signe de l'allégorie,” Studia Patristica in Texte und Untersuchungen 63 (1955), 395-413. Here, if one takes the soul to be blood in the proper sense of the term, its immortality is, of course, destroyed.
†77 Augustine is presupposing the doctrine of the four humors from ancient physiology: blood, yellow bile, phlegm, and black bile. From the Latin and Greek terms for these we have the English words supposedly descriptive of different temperaments: sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, melancholy.
†78 Augustine's argument showing that there is a good reason for taking blood as symbolic of the soul turns upon the presence of blood throughout the body and its supposed rule over the other humors.
†79 Presumably, the anonymous author linked this Pauline text with the text from Leviticus to show that blood, which Moses took to be the soul, will not attain the kingdom of God. Augustine points out that the text raises a question about the resurrection of the body rather than about the immortality of the soul.
†80 Though Augustine sees two interpretations that are possible, the context of the verse leads him to take the first interpretation as that which Paul intended.
†81 See 1 Cor 15:51-53.
†82 Here Augustine emphasizes the force of the one word “still” (adhuc) to bring out the implication that the soul of one who dies without purification still has its uncleanness and, consequently, cannot have perished with the blood. Though Augustine is often accused of indulging in excessively allegorical interpretations of the text, he can also read the text with a most detailed attention to the letter.
†83 Augustine sees the passage from Numbers as prefiguring baptism in Christ. He thus provides an illustration of his exegetical principle that “everything that Moses wrote is about Christ; that is, it is completely concerned with Christ, either because it foretells him figuratively in deeds done or in words spoken or because it commends his grace and glory” (Answer to Faustus XVI, 9).
†84 “The Truth” (veritas) was one of Augustine's favorite names for God; hence, it may well be that we should read “the truth” with a capital T.
†85 One would have expected Augustine to say that he is far from a better interpretation. A variant reading and a marginal note indicate that copyists tried to improve the text, but without success. Augustine apparently meant that the heretic was correct in taking the law as the ministry of death, but failed to understand what this meant.
†86 The anonymous heretic's belief that the maker of this world was an evil spirit and not God differentiates him from the Manichees and links him with the Marcionites, as Augustine pointed out at the beginning of the work; see I, 1, 1.
†87 See Rom 5:14.
†88 Augustine plays on the verbs iubentem and iuuantem, commanding and helping.
†89 Though it might sound as though Augustine is referring to the Pelagians here, the allusion is more general. While the Pelagians trusted in the power of their own free will and claimed that the gospel was only needed as instruction, Augustine insisted against them that grace was needed not merely to inform the mind of what was to be done, but to help the will to do it. What Augustine found particularly objectionable in the Pelagians was generally true of those who trusted in the law apart from the grace of Christ.
― 446 ―
†90 Augustine explains Paul's difficult statements about the law, showing that it its both good and the source of transgression and wrath.
†91 See Ps 144:14 and 145:8.
†92 See Rom 2:13.
†93 See Eph 3:18-19.
†94 See Ex 34:29-35. Augustine's Latin version of 2 Cor 3:14 has: usque in finem, while the Vulgate has: in faciem ejus quod evacuatur. The Greek might be literally translated: “the end of that which is passing away.” Augustine understands “end” as “goal” or “fulfilment,” so that the children of Israel could not see Christ, who is the end or fulfilment of the Mosaic law.
†95 Again Augustine plays on the words: perficiens, non interficiens: perfecting, not killing.
†96 See Cicero, De inventione 1, 5, 6.
†97 See 2 Cor 3:7.
†98 See 1 Cor 13:10-12.
†99 See 2 Cor 3:6.
†100 Augustine points out that Paul cited Exodus and Psalms, that is, the law and the prophets, in the very letter in which, as the heretic claimed, he called the Old Testament the ministry of death, because the God of the Old Testament was an evil demon.
†101 See 2 Cor 3:6.
†102 See Gal 5:1.
†103 See 2 Cor 3:6.
†104 The veil remains for those who do not read the Old Testament through the New. Some, such as the anonymous heretic, call themselves Christians, but read the Old Testament with the veil still in place.
†105 Just as “for those who understand correctly, the Old Testament is a prophecy of the New Testament” (Answer to Faustus XV, 2), so the New Testament is the key to understanding the Old.
†106 See 2 Cor 3:14-16.
†107 As Augustine indicates further on, he would divide the text so that it reads: “in whom God has blinded the minds of the unbelievers of this world.” Such a reading is possible, though not the more obvious way to read the passage. The Latin text was not punctuated, and it was the task of the lector to interpret the text by making proper divisions.
†108 The manuscripts, early editions, and the Maurists have “Peter” here; Daur brackets it, since the citation does not seem to be from Peter.
†109 See Gal 1:4; Rom 12:2; or possibly 2 Pt 1:4.
†110 What sounds like mere repetition involves quite a different word order in the Latin. The Latin could be read in the second manner, though it is hardly the natural way to read the text. Paul is fairly clearly referring to Satan as the god of this world; see Jn 12:31.
†111 The heretic claims that the God of the Old Testament, whom he identified with “the god of this world” who “blinded the minds of unbelievers” (2 Cor 4:4), cannot be the good God.
†112 See Ex 33:19.
†113 See above I, 11, 14.
†114 See Rom 9:14.
†115 See 2 Cor 3:14-16.
†116 See Gn 12:7.
†117 Augustine argues that there is greater opposition in Saint Paul between the promises made to Abraham and the law given to Moses than between the New Testament and the Old Testament, so that an enemy of the law ought to love Abraham. Thus he sets a trap for the anonymous author, who, as the following paragraph reveals, accused Abraham of sexual immorality.
†118 See Gn 16:2-4.
†119 Perhaps Augustine's statement that “the good and correct use of libido is not libido” (Revisions II, 22, 2) can render Abraham's purity of intention more plausible.
†120 See Tertullian, De exhortatione castatis, passim, as well as Augustine's Heresies LXXXVI.
†121 See above II, 2, 3.
†122 Augustine first asks why Saint Paul spoke highly of Abraham, if he was speaking to those who were without the law; then he asks why he spoke so harshly of the law, if he were speaking to the Jews and to those under the law.
― 447 ―
†123 See 1 Cor 9:20.
†124 See Gal 3:18.
†125 See Rom 4:15.
†126 See Rom 2:23.
†127 See 1 Cor 9:22.
†128 Augustine uses “shadows” (umbris) which conveys both the idea that the rites of the Old Testament foreshadowed those of the New and the idea that they were mere shadows compared to the reality of the New Testament. If Saint Paul was speaking to the weak, why did he not tolerate, Augustine asks, the weakness of those who clung to the practices of the old law?
†129 See Gal 4:22-28. If Saint Paul was speaking to the perfect, why, Augustine asks, did he praise Abraham so highly?
†130 See The City of God XVI, 31.
†131 See Gal 4:26.
†132 As the anonymous heretic finds objectionable Abraham's union with Sarah, so he objects to Saint Paul's use of the marital union of husband and wife to symbolize the union of Christ and his church. Augustine insists that these signs are well chosen to signify the reality and goes on to compare the heretic to those who were repelled by Christ's promise of the Eucharist.
†133 See 1 Tm 2:5.
†134 See Jn 6:53-58.
†135 Augustine uses “imperita peritia”: a knowledge or skill that is ignorant or unskilled.
†136 See 2 Cor 3:3.
†137 Augustine's point is that, if one does not distinguish the sign and the reality, one will think that the letters of the word, “God,” have no darkness in them rather than that the reality that God is has no darkness in it.
†138 That is, the heretic's principle of exegesis that allows him to deal with passages in the New Testament that he finds objectionable can be applied to passages of the Old Testament as well.
†139 See Gn 1:1.
†140 See Gn 1:3.
†141 See Gn 1:5.
†142 See Gn 1:26-28 and 2:15.
†143 See Gn 3:1-7.
†144 See Gn 2:7.
†145 See Gn 3:1-5.
†146 See Gn 3:16-19.
†147 See Gn 3:22.
†148 See Gn 6:6.
†149 See Gn 7.
†150 See Gn 9:13.
†151 See Ex 4:21.
†152 See 1 Kgs 22:22.
†153 See Ex 32:27.
†154 See Gn 2:16-19.
†155 See 1 Sm 2:25; Dt 32:41-42.
†156 See 2 Sm 24.
†157 See 1 Tm 4:7.
†158 See Gn 12-25.
†159 See 1 Sm 2.
†160 See Dt 32:17.
†161 See Rom 1:1-3.
†162 See Lv 17:11.
†163 See 1 Cor 9:19-22.
†164 Harnack says that these are very probably the Antitheses of Marcion; see Marcion: Das Evangelium, 426*.
†165 See Heb 11:13.
†166 See Heb 2:11.
― 448 ―
†167 See Gn 2:7.
†168 See Gn 2:16-17.
†169 See 1 Cor 15:47-49.
†170 See Gn 3:17; 3:22-23.
†171 See Is 48:17.
†172 See 1 Cor 4:9.
†173 See Lk 12:33.
†174 See Mt 11:25.
†175 See Mt 21:43.
†176 See Ex 20:5.
†177 See Rom 8:29-30.
†178 See Ps 4:5 and Eph 4:26.
†179 See Mt 5:33-34 and Sir 23:9.
†180 See Heb 3:18.
†181 See Jer 29:23.
†182 See Jn 8:31-32.
†183 See Dn 2:21.
†184 See Jn 14:6-7.
†185 See Col 1:22.
†186 See 1 Sm 15:29 and Nm 23:19.
†187 See 1 Cor 15:50-52.
†188 See Ps 47:49.
†189 See Ps 102:6.
†190 See Ex 12:23 et al.
†191 See Mt 5:28.
†192 See Heb 13:4.
†193 See Lv 18:6ff and Gn 19:31ff.
†194 See Gal 3:28.
†195 See Mt 22:30; Mk 12:25; and Lk 20:36.
†196 See Gn 1:28.
†197 See 1 Cor 7:39.
†198 See Dt 25:5-6 and Mk 12:19.
†199 See Lv 18:6.
†200 See Lk 10:19.
†201 See Nm 21:6-7.
†202 See Ex 13:13 and Nm 18:15.
†203 See Col 1:18.
†204 See Rom 8:2.
†205 See Jn 6:28.
†206 See Col 2:17 and Heb 10:1.
†207 See Mt 6:19-20.
†208 See 1 Kg 2:7.
†209 See Mt 5:44.
†210 See Lv 18:21 and Nm 18:15.
†211 See 2 Chr 19:7.
†212 See Nm 25:8.
†213 See Eph 4:2.
†214 See Prv 3:17 LXX.
†215 See Phil 2:8-9.
†216 See Ex 20:2-3.
†217 See Mt 10:8-10.
†218 See Ex 23:9 and Dt 16:19.
†219 See Nm 15:32-36.
†220 See Jn 3:17.
†221 See Jn 12:49-50.
― 449 ―
†222 See Rom 7:12.
†223 See Is 35:5-6.
†224 See Nm 17:16-25.
†225 See Mt 21:19.
†226 See Lk 13:11-16.
†227 See Jb 1:6.
†228 See Mt 8:31-32; Mk 5:12-13; and Lk 8:32-33.
†229 See 1 Jn 2:18; 2:22; and 4:3.
†230 See 2 Thes 2:3-4.
†231 See Acts 8:13; see also Augustine, Heresies I.
†232 See Augustine, Heresies IV.
†233 See Augustine, Heresies VI and VII.
†234 See Augustine, Heresies XXI.
†235 See Augustine, Heresies XXII.
†236 See Augustine, Heresies XXIII.
†237 See Augustine, Heresies LXI.
― 450 ―
― 451 ―