Chapter 18.—40. Petilianus said: "Nor is it, after all, so strange that you assume to yourself the name of bishop without authority. This is the true custom of the devil, to choose in preference a mode of deceiving by which he usurps to himself a word of holy meaning, as the apostle declares to us: ‘And no marvel,’ he says: ‘for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great
thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness.’2019
Nor is it therefore a
marvel if you falsely call yourself a
bishop. For even those fallen
angels,
lovers of the maidens of the
world, who were
corrupted by the
corruption of their
flesh, though, from having stripped themselves of
divine excellence, they have ceased to be
angels, yet retain the name of
angels, and always esteem themselves as
angels, though, being
released from the service of
God, they have passed from the likeness of their
character into the
army of the
devil, as the great
God declares, ‘My spirit shall not always
strive with man, for that he also is
flesh.’
2020
To those
guilty ones and to you the
Lord Christ will say, ‘Depart from me, ye
cursed, into
everlasting fire, prepared for the
devil and his
angels.’
2021
If there were no
evil angels, the
devil would have no
angels; of whom the
apostle says, that in the
judgment of the resurrection they shall be
condemned by the
saints: ‘Know ye not,’ says he, ‘that we shall
judge angels?’
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If they were true
angels, men would not have
authority to
judge the
angels of
God. So too those sixty
apostles, who, when the twelve were left alone with the
Lord Christ, departed in
apostasy from the
faith, are so
far yet considered among
wretched men to be
apostles, that from them Manichæus and the
rest entangle many
souls in many devilish
sects which they
destroyed2023
| 2023 "Perdiderunt," which the Benedictines think may be a confusion for "perierunt."
|
that they might take them in their
snares. For indeed the fallen Manichæus, if fallen he was, is not to be reckoned among those sixty, if it be that we can find his name as an
apostle among the twelve, or if he was
ordained by the voice of
Christ when
Matthias was elected into the place of the
traitor Judas, or another thirteenth like
Paul, who calls himself the last
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of the
apostles, expressly that any one who was later than himself might not be held to be an
apostle. For these are his words: ‘For I am the last of the
apostles, that am not meet to be called an
apostle, because I
persecuted the
Church of
God.’
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And do not flatter yourselves in this: he was a
Jew that had done this. You too, as Gentiles, may
work destruction upon us. For you carry on
war without license, against whom we may not
fight in turn. For you desire to
live when you have
murdered us; but our
victory is either to
escape or to be slain."
41. Augustin answered: See how you have quoted the testimony of holy Scripture, or how you have understood it, when it has no bearing at all upon the present point at issue. For all that you have brought forward was simply said to prove that there are false bishops, just as there are false angels and false apostles. Now we too know quite well that there are false angels and false apostles, and false bishops, and, as the true apostle
says, false brethren also;2026
but, seeing that charges such as yours may be brought by either side against the other, what is required is a certain degree of
proof, and not mere empty words. But if you would see to which of us the charge of falseness more truly applies, recall to
mind what we have said before, and you will see it there set forth, that we may not become tedious to our readers by repeating the same thing over and over again. And yet how is the
Church dispersed throughout the
world
affected either by what you may have found to say about its
chaff, which is mixed with it throughout the whole
world; or by what you said of Manichæus and the other devilish
sects? For if the
wheat is not affected by anything which is said even about the chaff which is still mingled with it, how much less are the members of Christ dispersed throughout the whole world affected by monstrosities
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which have been so long and so openly separated from it?
2028
| 2028 Down to this point Augustin had already answered Petilianus in the First Book, as he says himself below, III. 50, 61.
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