Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| To Pammachius against John of Jerusalem.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
To Pammachius Against John of Jerusalem.
————————————
Introduction.
The letter against John of Jerusalem was written about
the year 398 or 399, and was a product of the Origenistic controversy.
Its immediate occasion was the visit of Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis
in Cyprus, at Jerusalem, in 394. The bishop preached, in the Church of
the Resurrection (§11), a pointed sermon against Origenism, which
was thought to be so directly aimed at John that the latter sent his
archdeacon to remonstrate with the preacher (§14). After many
unseemly scenes, Epiphanius advised Jerome and his friends to separate
from their bishop (§39). But how were they to have the
ministrations of the Church? This difficulty was surmounted by
Epiphanius, who took Jerome’s brother to the monastery which he
had founded at Ad, in the diocese of Eleutheropolis, and there ordained
him against his will, even using force to overcome his opposition
(Jerome, Letter LI. 1). Epiphanius attempted to defend his action
(Jerome, Letter LI. 2), but John, after some time, appealed to
Alexandria against Jerome and his supporters as schismatics. The
bishop, Theophilus, at once took the side of John: but a letter,
written by his emissary Isidore and intended for John, fell into the
hands of Jerome (§37). The letter showed that Isidore was coming
as a mere partisan of John, and Jerome, therefore, treated both it and
the bearer with secret contempt. The dispute was thus prolonged for
about four years, and, after some attempts at reconciliation, and the
exhibition of much bitterness, amounting to the practical
excommunication of Jerome and his friends, the dispute was stopped,
perhaps by Theophilus, perhaps through the influence of Melania. The
letter written to Pammachius at Rome, in 397 or 398, against John, was
abruptly broken off, and it is almost certain that it was never
published during Jerome’s lifetime. Jerome afterwards had so much
influence with Theophilus that we find him interceding for John, who
had fallen under the Pontiff’s displeasure (Letter LXXXVI.
1).
The date of this treatise is the subject of controversy.
In §1 Jerome says that he wrote “after three years,”
that is, three years from the visit of Epiphanius to Jerusalem, which
was in 394. This would give the date 397. At §14, also, he says
that Epiphanius had been brooding over his wrongs for three years.
Another note of time is found in the words of §43, that John had
“lately” sought to obtain a sentence of exile against
Jerome from “that wild beast who threatened the necks of the
whole world,” that is, the Prefect Rufinus, who died at the end
of 395. All these statements point to the year 397. On the other hand,
at §17, he speaks of his “Commentaries” on
Ecclesiastes and Ephesians as having been written “about
(ferme) ten years ago”; and the preface to Ecclesiastes
says that he had read Ecclesiastes with Blesilla at Rome “about
(ferme) five years ago,” consequently, fifteen years
before the writing of this treatise. Blesilla’s death was in 384.
The reading of Ecclesiastes may, therefore, have been in 383. And the
fifteen years would bring us to 398. Also, at §41, Jerome says,
addressing John. “You seem to have slept for thirteen
years,” implying that it was for thirteen years that the state of
things complained of by John had existed, that is, the presence of the
monks in his diocese, or, at least, their leaving their own dioceses.
Jerome left Antioch, the diocese of his ordination, at the end of 385
or beginning of 386; these thirteen years, therefore, bring us to 399,
the date adopted by Vallarsi. There is, however, an intimation in
“Pallad. Hist. Laus.,” c. 117, that Melania, the friend of
Rufinus, gave assistance in the matter of “the schism of nearly
400 monks who followed Paulinus,” which is admitted to relate to
the schism at Bethlehem, caused by the question of the ordination of
Paulinianus. We know that Melania and Rufinus left Jerusalem early in
397, and that, before their departure, Jerome and Rufinus were
reconciled. It would, therefore, seem most probable that the treatise,
which is written with so much animosity against John, Rufinus’s
fellow-worker, and contains invidious allusions to Rufinus himself
(§11, “your friends, who grin like dogs and turn up their
noses,” Jerome’s constant description of Rufinus), was
written before the reconciliation of Rufinus and Jerome, that is, in
the end of 386 or the beginning of 387, and that it was broken off and
kept unpublished because the situation had changed. Vallarsi places it
in 399. He quotes the passages which make for the later date, but
strangely omits the more definite statements which make for the
earlier. It should be added that the letter of Jerome (LXXXII.) to
Theophilus is evidently written at the same time, and under the same
feelings, as this treatise. and, if the arguments above given are
valid, that letter must be placed in 397, not in 399, as stated in the
note prefixed to it. The short letter (LXXXVI.) to Theophilus is, in
that case, probably to be placed in 398 or 399, rather than 401, as
there stated.
The treatise is a letter to Pammachius, who had been
disturbed by the complaints of Bishop John to Siricius, bishop of Rome,
against Jerome. Jerome begins (1) by pleading necessity for his attack
on the bishop. Epiphanius has accused him of heresy (2). Let him answer
plainly (3), for it is pride alone (4) which prevents this. It is said
that John’s letter of explanation or apology was approved by
Theophilus (5); but it did not touch the point, that is, the accusation
of Origenism. Only three points are treated (6), and Epiphanius adduced
eight—namely (7) Origen’s opinions (i.) that the Son does
not see the Father; (ii.) that souls are confined in earthly bodies, as
in a prison; (iii.) that the devil may be saved; (iv.) that the skins
with which God clothed Adam and Eve were human bodies; (v.) that the
body in the resurrection will be without sex; (vi.) that the
descriptions of Paradise are allegorical: trees meaning angels, and
rivers the heavenly virtues; (vii) that the waters above and below the
firmament are angels and devils; (viii.) that the image of God was
altogether lost at the Fall. John, instead of answering on the first
head, merely expressed his faith in the Trinity (8, 9), and all through
tries to make out (10) that the question between him and Epiphanius
relates merely to the ordination of Paulinianus. Jerome then relates
the extraordinary scenes of the altercation between Epiphanius and John
(11–14). He then turns to the Origenistic notions that angels are
cast down into human souls (15, 16), that the spirits of men pass into
the heavenly bodies (17) and that the souls of men had a previous
existence (18), and pass up and down in the scale of creation (19, 20).
John, instead of answering on these points, contents himself with
protesting against Manichæism
(21.) Jerome presses him on the question of the origin of souls (22),
pronouncing rashly for creationism. He then passes to the question of
the state of the body after the resurrection (23), asserting the
restoration of the flesh as it now is (24–27), both in the
case of Christ (28) and in our own, adducing testimonies from the Old
Testament (29–32), and discussing the appearances of our Lord
after His resurrection (34–36). He then passes to a detailed
examination of John’s letter or “Apology” to
Theophilus (37), quoting its words, and telling the story of the
mission of Isidore (37, 38), and the attempts of the Count Archelaus to
make peace (39). The ordination of Paulinianus, on which John lays
stress, is a subterfuge (40, 41). The schism is due to the heretical
tendencies of the bishop, who is everywhere denounced by Epiphanius
(42, 43).
The letter is, throughout, violent and contemptuous in
its tone, with an arrogant assumption that the writer is in possession
of the whole truth on the difficult subject on which he writes, and
that he has a right to demand from his bishop a confession of faith on
each point on which he chooses to catechise him. Its importance lies in
the fact that it, to a large extent, fixed the belief of churchmen on
the points it deals with, and the mode of dealing with supposed heresy,
for more than a thousand years.
1. If, according to the4986
Apostle Paul, we cannot pray as we
feel, and speech does not express the thoughts of our own minds, how
much more dangerous is it to judge of another man’s heart, and to
trace and explain the meaning of the particular words and expressions
which he uses? The nature of man is prone to mercy, and in considering
another’s sin, every one commiserates himself. Accordingly, if
you blame one who offends in word, a man will say it was only
simplicity; if you tax a man with craft, he to whom you speak will not
admit that there is anything more in it than ignorance, so that he may
avoid the suspicion of malice. And it will thus come to pass that you,
the accuser, are made a slanderer, and the censured party is regarded,
not as a heretic, but merely as a man without culture. You know,
Pammachius, you know that it is not enmity or the lust of glory which
leads me to engage in this work, but that I have been stimulated by
your letters and that I act out of the fervour of my faith; and, if
possible, I would have all understand that I cannot be blamed for
impatience and rashness, seeing that I speak only after the lapse of
three years. In fact, if you had not told me that the minds of many are
troubled at the “Apology” which I am about to discuss, and
are tossing to and fro on a sea of doubt, I had determined to persist
in silence.
2. So away with4987
| 4987 Novatus the
Carthaginian was the chief ally of Novatian, who, about the middle of
the third century, founded the sect of the Cathari, or
pure. The allusion is to the severity with which they treated
the lapsed. | Novatus, who would not hold out a
hand to the erring! perish4988
| 4988 Maximilla
and Priscilla, who forsook their husbands and followed him, professing
to be inspired prophetesses. Circ. a.d. 150.
Montanus, like Novatian, refused to re-admit the lapsed. | Montanus
and his mad women! Montanus, who would hurl the fallen into the abyss
that they may never rise again. Every day we all sin and make some slip
or other. Being then merciful to ourselves, we are not rigorous towards
others; nay, rather, we pray and beseech4989
him either to simply tell us our own
faults, or to openly defend those of other men. I dislike ambiguities;
I dislike to be told what is capable of two meanings. Let us
contemplate with4990
unveiled face
the glory of the Lord. Once upon a time the people of Israel halted4991
| 4991 In Jerome’s
text, “limped in both its feet.” It seemed better to give
the accepted meaning. | between two opinions. But, said Elias,
which is by interpretation the strong one of the Lord,4992
“How long halt ye between two
opinions? If the Lord be God, go after him; but if Baal, follow
him.” And the Lord himself says concerning the Jews,4993
“the strange children lied unto
me; the strange children became feeble, and limped out of their
by-paths.” If there really is no ground for suspecting him of
heresy (as I wish and believe), why does he not speak out my opinion in
my own words? He calls it simplicity; I interpret it as artfulness. He
wishes to convince me that his belief is sound; let his speech, then,
also be sound. And, indeed, if the ambiguity attached to a single word,
or a single statement, or two or three, I could be indulgent on the
score of ignorance; nor would I judge what is obscure or doubtful by
the standard of what is certain and clear. But, as things are, this
“simplicity” is nothing but a platform trick, like walking
on tiptoe over eggs or standing corn; there is doubt and suspicion
everywhere. You might suppose he was not writing an exposition of the
faith, but was writing a disputation on some imaginary theme. What he
is now so keen upon, we learnt long ago in the schools. He puts on our
own armour to fight against us. Even if his faith be correct, and he
speaks with circumspection and reserve, his extreme care rouses my
suspicions.4994
“He that walketh uprightly,
walketh boldly.” It is folly to bear a bad name for nothing. A
charge is brought against him of which he is not conscious. Let him
confidently deny the charge which hangs upon a single word, and freely
turn the tables against his adversary. Let the one exhibit the same
boldness in repelling the charge which the other shows in advancing it.
And when he has said all that he
wishes and purposes to say, and such things as are above suspicion, if
his opponent persists in slander, let him try conclusions in open
court. I wish no one to sit still under an imputation of heresy, lest,
if he say nothing, his want of openness be interpreted, amongst those
who are not aware of his innocence, as the consciousness of guilt,
although there is no need to demand the presence of a man and to reduce
him to silence when you have his letters in your possession.
3. We all know what4995
| 4995 That is,
Epiphanius. See Jerome, Letter LI. c. 6. Epiphanius prays that God
would free John and Rufinus and all their flock from all heresies. | he wrote
to you, what charge he brought against you, wherein (as you maintain)
he has slandered you. Answer the points, one by one; follow the
footsteps of this letter; leave not a single jot or tittle of the
slander unnoticed. For if you are careless, and accidentally pass over
any thing as I believe you on your oath to have done, he will
immediately cry out: “Now, now, you have got the worst of it, the
whole thing turns upon this.” Words do not sound the same in the
ears of friends and enemies. An enemy looks for a knot even in a
bulrush; a friend judges even crooked to be straight. It is a saying of
secular writers that lovers are blind in their judgments, though,
perhaps, you are too busy with the sacred books to pay any attention to
such literature. You should never boast of what your friends think of
you. That is true testimony which comes from the lips of foes. On the
contrary, if a friend speaks in your behalf he will be considered not
as a witness but a judge or a partisan. This is the sort of thing your
enemies will say, who perhaps give no credit to you, and only wish to
vex you. But I, whom you say you have never willingly injured, yet
whose name you are always bound to bandy about in your letters, advise
you either to openly proclaim the faith of the Church, or to speak as
you believe. For that cautious mincing and weighing of words may, no
doubt, deceive the unlearned; but a careful hearer and reader will
quickly detect the snare, and will show in open daylight the
subterranean mines by which truth is overthrown. The Arians (no one
knows more about them than you) for a long time pretended that they
condemned the4996
| 4996 The doctrine
that the Son is of “one substance with the Father.” More
correctly of one essence, etc. | Homoousion on account of the
offence it gave, and they besmeared poisonous error with honeyed words.
But at last the snake uncoiled itself, and its deadly head, which lay
concealed under all its folds, was pierced by the sword of the Spirit.
The Church, as you know, welcomes penitents, and is so overwhelmed by
the multitude of sinners that it is forced, in the interests of the
misguided flocks, to be lenient to the wounds of the shepherds.4997
| 4997 The meaning is
that, where error is widespread, the Church authorities are forced to
wink at speciously expressed error in the pastors. | Ancient and modern heresy observes
the same rule—the people hear one thing, the priests preach
another.
4. And first, before I translate and insert in this book
the letter which you wrote to Bishop Theophilus, and show you that I
understand your excessive care and circumspection, I should like a word
of expostulation with you. What is the meaning of this towering
arrogance which makes you refuse to reply to those who question you
respecting the faith? How is it that you regard almost as public
enemies the vast multitude of brethren, and the bands of monks, who
refuse to communicate with you in Palestine? The Son of God, for the
sake of one sick sheep, leaving the ninety and nine on the mountains,
endured the buffeting, the cross, the scourge; He took up the burden,
and patiently carried on His shoulders to heaven the voluptuous woman
that was a sinner. Is it for you to act the “most reverend father
in God,” the fastidious prelate; to stand apart in your wealth
and wisdom, in your grandeur and your learning; to frown superciliously
upon your fellow servants, and scarce vouchsafe a glance to those who
have been redeemed with the blood of your Lord? Is this what you have
learnt from the Apostles’ precept to be4998
“ready always to give answer
to every man that asketh you a reason concerning the hope that is in
you”? Suppose we do, as you pretend, seek occasion, and that,
under the pretext of zeal for the faith, we are sowing strife, framing
a schism, and fomenting quarrels. Then take away the occasion from
those who wish for an occasion; so that having given satisfaction on
the point of faith, and solved all the difficulties in which you are
involved, you may show clearly to all that the dispute is not one of
doctrine, but of4999
| 4999 John complained
of the ordination of Paulinianus, Jerome’s brother, to the
priesthood by Epiphanius, for the monastery of Bethlehem. | order. But
perhaps when questioned concerning the faith, you say that it is from
wise forethought that you hold your tongue, so that it may not be said
that you have proved yourself a heretic—in as much as you make
satisfaction to your accusers. If that be so, then men ought not to
refute any charges of which they are accused, lest, having denied them,
they may be held to be guilty. The accusations of the laity, deacons,
and presbyters, are, I suppose, beneath your notice. For you can, as
you are perpetually boasting, make
a thousand clerics in an hour. But you have to answer Epiphanius, our
father in God, who, in the letters which he sent, openly calls you a
heretic. Certainly you are not his superior in respect of years, of
learning, of his exemplary life, or of the judgment of the whole world.
If it is a question of age, you are a young man writing to an old one.
If it is one of knowledge, you are a person not so very accomplished
writing to a learned man, although your partisans maintain that you are
a more finished speaker than Demosthenes, more sharp-witted than
Chrysippus, wiser than Plato, and perhaps have persuaded you that they
are right. As regards his life and devotion to the faith, I will say no
more, that I may not seem to be seeking to wound you. At the time when
the whole East (except our fathers in God Athanasius and Paulinus) was
overrun by the Arian and Eunomian heresies; when you did not hold
communion with the Westerns; then, in the very worst of the exile which
made them confessors, he, though a simple convent priest, gained the
ear of Eutychius, and afterwards as bishop of Cyprus was unmolested by
Valens. For he was always so highly venerated that heretics on the
throne thought it would redound to their own disgrace if they
persecuted such a man. Write therefore to him. Answer his letter. So
let the rest understand your purpose and judge of your eloquence and
wisdom; do not keep all your accomplishments to yourself. Why, when you
are challenged in one quarter, do you turn your arms towards another? A
question is put to you in Palestine, your answer is given in Egypt.
When some are blear-eyed, you anoint the eyes of others who are not
affected. If you tell another what is meant to give us satisfaction,
such action springs entirely from pride; if you tell him what we do not
ask for, it is entirely uncalled for.
5. But you say “the bishop of Alexandria approved
of my letter.” What did he approve of? Your correct utterances
against Arius, Photinus, and Manichæus. For who, at this time of
day, accuses you of being an Arian? Who now fastens on you the guilt of
Photinus and Manichæus? Those faults were long ago corrected,
those enemies were shattered. You were not so foolish as to openly
defend a heresy which you knew was offensive to the whole Church. You
knew that if you had done this, you must have been immediately removed,
and your heart was upon the pleasures of your episcopal throne. You so
tuned your expressions as to neither displease the simple, nor offend
your own incontestably marked by deceit and slipperiness; what, then,
are we to do with the remaining five, with regard to which, because no
opportunity was afforded for ambiguity, supporters. You wrote well, but
nothing to the purpose. How was the bishop of Alexandria to know of
what you were accused, or what things they were of which a confession
was demanded from you? You ought to have set forth in detail the
charges brought against you, and then have met them one by one. There
is an old story which tells how a certain man, who, when he was
speaking fluently, was carried along by a torrent of words, without
touching the question before the court, and thus drew the wise remark
from the judge, “Excellent! excellent! but to what purpose is all
this excellence?” Quacks have but one lotion for all affections
of the eyes. He who is accused of many things, and in dissipating the
charges passes over some, confesses all that he omits to mention. Did
you not reply to the letter of Epiphanius, and yourself choose the
points for refutation? No doubt, in replying, you rested on the axiom,
that no man is so brave as to put the sword to his own throat. Choose
which alternative you like. You shall have your choice: you either
replied to the letter of Epiphanius, or you did not. If you did reply,
why did you take no notice of the most important, and the most
numerous, of the charges brought against you? If you did not reply,
what becomes of your “Apology,” of which you boast amongst
the simple, and which you are scattering broadcast amongst those who do
not understand the matter?
6. The questions for you to answer were arranged, as I
shall presently show, under eight heads. You touch only three, and pass
on. As regards the rest, you maintain a magnificent silence. If you had
with perfect frankness replied to seven, I should still cling to the
charge which remained; and what you said nothing about, that I should
hold to be the truth. But as things are, you have caught the wolf by
the ears; you can neither hold fast, nor dare let go. With a sort of
careless security and an air of abstraction, you skim over and touch
the surface of three in which there is nothing or but little of
importance. And your procedure is so dark and close that you confess
more by your silence than you rebut by your arguments. Every one has
the right forthwith to say to you,5000
“If the
light that is in thee be darkness, how great is the darkness.”
Even in answering three little questions, respecting which you seemed
to say something, you are not clear from suspicion and from blame, but
your replies are and you were
therefore unable to cheat your hearers, you preferred to maintain
unbroken silence rather than openly confess what had been covered in
obscurity?
7. The questions relate to the passages in the5001
Περὶ
Αρχῶν. The first is this, “for
as it is unfitting to say that the Son can see the Father, so neither
is it meet to think that the Holy Spirit can see the Son.” The
second point is the statement that souls are tied up in the body as in
a prison; and that before man was made in Paradise they dwelt amongst
rational creatures in the heavens. Wherefore, afterwards to console
itself, the soul says in the Psalms,5002
“Before I was humbled, I went wrong”; and5003
“Return, my soul, to thy
rest”; and5004
“Lead my
soul out of prison”; and similarly elsewhere. Thirdly, he says
that both the devil and demons will some time or other repent, and
ultimately reign with the saints. Fourthly, he interprets the coats of
skin, with which Adam and Eve were clothed after their fall and
ejection from Paradise, to be human bodies, and we are to suppose of
course that previously, in Paradise, they had neither flesh, sinews,
nor bones. Fifthly, he most openly denies the resurrection of the flesh
and the bodily structure, and the distinction of senses, both in his
explanation of the first Psalm, and in many other of his treatises.
Sixthly, he so allegorises Paradise as to destroy historical truth,
understanding angels instead of trees, heavenly virtues instead of
rivers, and he overthrows all that is contained in the history of
Paradise by his figurative interpretation. Seventhly, he thinks that
the waters which are said in Scripture to be above the heavens are holy
and supernal essences, while those which are above the earth and
beneath the earth are, on the contrary, demoniacal essences. The eighth
is Origen’s cavil that the image and likeness of God, in which
man was created, was lost, and was no longer in man after he was
expelled from Paradise.
8. These are the arrows with which you are pierced;
these the weapons with which throughout the whole letter you are
wounded; or I should rather say Epiphanius throws himself as a
suppliant at your knees, and casts his hoary locks beneath your feet,
and, for a time laying aside his episcopal dignity, prays for your
salvation in words such as these: “Grant to me and to yourself
the favour of your salvation; save yourself, as it is written, from
this crooked generation,5005
and forsake the
heresy of Origen, and all heresies, dearly beloved.” And lower
down, “In the defence of heresy you kindle hatred against me, and
destroy that love which I had towards you; insomuch that you would make
us even repent of holding communion with you who so resolutely defend
the errors and doctrines of Origen.” Tell me, prince of arguers,
to which, out of the eight sections, you have replied. For the present,
I say nothing of the rest. Take the first blasphemy—that the Son
cannot see the Father, nor the Holy Spirit the Son. By what weapons of
yours has it been pierced? the answer we get is, “We believe that
the Holy and Adorable Trinity are of the same substance; that they are
co-eternal, and of the same glory and Godhead, and we anathematize
those who say that there is any greatness, smallness, inequality, or
aught that is visible in the Godhead of the Trinity. But as we say the
Father is incorporeal, invisible, and eternal; so we say the Son and
Holy Spirit are incorporeal, invisible, and eternal.” If you did
not say this, you would not hold to the Church. I do not ask whether
there was not a time when you refused to say this. I will not discuss
the question, whether you were fond of those who preached such
doctrines; on whose side you were when, for expressing those
sentiments, they underwent banishment; or who the man was that, when
the presbyter Theo preached in the Church that the Holy Spirit is God,
closed his ears, and excitedly rushed out of doors that he might not so
much as hear the impiety. I recognize a man, as one may say, as one of
the faithful, even though his repentance comes late.5006
| 5006 Vettius Agorius
Prætextatus, one of the most virtuous of the heathen. Jerome
writes of him to Marcella (Letter XXIII. 2): “I wish you to know
that the consul designate is now in Tartarus.” | That unhappy man Prætextatus, who
died after he had been chosen consul, a profane person and an idolater,
was wont in sport to say to blessed Pope Damascus, “Make me
bishop of Rome, and I will at once be a Christian.” Why do you,
with many words and intricate periods, take the trouble to show me that
you are not an Arian? Either deny that the accused said what is imputed
to him, or, if he did give utterance to such sentiments, condemn him
for so speaking. You have still to learn how intense is the zeal of the
orthodox. Listen to the Apostle:5007
“If I
or an angel from heaven bring you another gospel than that we have
declared, let him be anathema.” You would extenuate the fault and
hide the name of the guilty party: as though everything were right and
no one were accused of blasphemy, you frame, in artificial language, an
uncalled-for profession of your faith. Speak out at once, and let your letter thus begin: “Let him be
accursed who has dared to write such things.” Pure faith is
impatient of delay. As soon as the scorpion appears, he must be crushed
under foot. David, who was proved to be a man after God’s own
heart, says:5008
“Do not I
hate those that hate thee, O Lord, and did not I pine away over thine
enemies? I hated them with a perfect hatred.” Had I heard my
father, or mother, or brother say such things against my Master Christ,
I would have broken their blasphemous jaws like those of a mad dog, and
my hand should have been amongst the first lifted up against them. They
who said to father and mother,5009
“We know
you not,” these men fulfilled the will of the Lord.5010
He that loveth father or mother more than
Christ, is not worthy of Him.
9. It is alleged that your master, whom you call a
Catholic, and whom you resolutely defend, said, “the Son sees not
the Father, and the Holy Spirit sees not the Son.” And you tell
me that the Father is invisible, the Son invisible, the Holy Ghost
invisible, as though the angels, both cherubim and seraphim, were not
also, in accordance with their nature, invisible to our eyes. David was
certainly in doubt even as regards the appearance of the heavens:5011
“I shall see,” he says,
“the heavens, the works of Thy fingers.” I shall see, not I
see. I shall see when with unveiled face I shall behold the glory of
the Lord: but5012
now we see in
part, and we know in part. The question is whether the Son sees the
Father, and you say “The Father is invisible.” It is
disputed whether the Holy Spirit sees the Son, and you answer
“The Son is invisible.” The point at issue is, whether the
Trinity have mutually the vision of one another; human ears cannot
endure such blasphemy, and you say the Trinity is invisible. You wander
in the realms of praise in all other directions; you spend your
eloquence on things which no one wants to hear about. You put your
hearer off the scent, to avoid telling us what we ask for. But granted
that all this is superfluous. We make you a present of the fact that
you are not an Arian; nay, even more, that you never have been. We
allow that in the explanation of the first section no suspicion rests
upon you, and that all that you said was frank and free from error. We
speak to you with equal frankness. Did our father in God, Epiphanius,
accuse you of being an Arian? Did he fasten upon you the heresy of5013
| 5013 Eunomius held
that the Son “resembles the Father in nothing but his
working,” and similar doctrines. | Eunomius, the Godless, or that of5014
| 5014 Of Sebaste, in the
Lesser Armenia. Epiphanius described him as an Arian. He asserted that
Bishops and Presbyters were equal. | Aerius? The point of the whole letter is
that you follow the erroneous doctrines of Origen, and are associated
with others in this heresy. Why, when a question is put to you on one
point, do you give an answer about another; and, as if you were
speaking to fools, hide the charges contained in the letters, and tell
us what you said in the church in the presence of Epiphanius? A
confession of faith is demanded of you, and you inflict upon us your
very eloquent dissertations. I beseech my readers to remember the
judgment seat of the Lord, and as you know that you must be judged for
the judgment you give, favour neither me nor my opponent, and consider
not the persons of the arguers, but the case itself. Let us then
continue what we began.
10. You write in your letter that, before Paulinianus
was made a presbyter, the pope Epiphanius never took you to task in
connection with Origen’s errors. To begin with, this is doubtful,
and I have to consider which of the two men I should believe. He says
that he did object, you deny it; he brings forward witnesses, you will
not listen to them when they are produced; he even relates that5015
| 5015 This probably
relates to Rufinus, whose name was mentioned by Epiphanius in his
letter to John. | another besides yourself was arraigned by
him: you refuse to admit this in the case of either; he sends a letter
to you by one of his clergy, and demands an answer: you are silent,
dare not open your lips, and, challenged in Palestine, speak at
Alexandria. Which of you is to be believed is not for me to say. I
suppose that you yourself would not, in the face of so distinguished a
man, venture to claim truth for yourself, and impute falsehood to him.
But it is possible that each speaks from his own point of view. I will
call a witness against you, and that witness is yourself. For if there
were no dispute about doctrines, if you had not roused the anger of an
old man, if he had given you no reply, what need was there for you, who
do not excel in gifts of speech, to discuss in a single sermon in the
church the whole circle of doctrine—the Trinity, the assumption
of our Lord’s body, the cross, hell, the nature of angels, the
condition of souls, the Saviour’s resurrection and our own, and
this as taking place on this earth (topics perhaps omitted in your
manuscript) in the presence of the masses, in the presence, too, of a
man of such distinction? and to speak with such perfect assurance and
to gallop through it all without stopping to draw breath? What shall we
say of the ancient writers of the Church, who were scarce able to
explain single difficulties in many volumes? What of the vessel of
election, the Gospel trumpet, the
roaring of our lion, the thunderer of the Gentiles, the river of
Christian eloquence, who, when confronted by the5016
mystery concealed from ages and
generations, and by5017
the depth of
the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, rather marvels at it
than discusses it? What of Isaiah, who pointed beforehand to the
Virgin? That single thing was too much for him, and he says,5018
“Who shall declare his
generation?” In our age a poor mannikin has been found, who, with
one turn of the tongue, and a brilliancy exceeding that of the sun,
discourses on all ecclesiastical questions. If no one asked you for the
display, and everything was quiet, you were foolish to enter
voluntarily upon so hazardous a discussion. If, on the other hand, the
object of your speaking was the satisfaction you owed to the faith, it
follows that the cause of strife was not the ordination of a5019
priest, who, it is certain, was ordained
long after. You have deceived only those who were not on the spot, and
your letters flatter the ears of strangers only.
11. We were present (we know the whole case) when the
bishop Epiphanius spoke against Origen in your church, and he was the
ostensible, you the real object of attack. You and your crew grinned
like dogs, drew in your nostrils, scratched your heads, nodded to one
another, and talked of the “silly old man.” Did you not, in
front of the Lord’s tomb, send your archdeacon to tell him to
cease discussing such matters? What bishop ever gave such a command to
one of his own presbyters in the presence of the people? When you were
going from the Church of the Resurrection to the Church of the Holy
Cross, and a crowd of all ages, and both sexes, was flowing to meet
him, presenting to him their little ones, kissing his feet, plucking
the fringes of his garments, and when he could not stir a step forward,
and could hardly stand against the waves of the surging crowd, were not
you so tortured by envy as to exclaim against “the vainglorious
old man”? And you were not ashamed to tell him to his face that
his stopping was of set purpose and design. Pray recall that day when
the people who had been called together were kept waiting until the
seventh hour by the mere hope of hearing Epiphanius, and the subject of
the harangue you then delivered. You spoke, forsooth, with indignant
rage against the Anthropomorphites, who, with rustic simplicity, think
that God has actually the members of which we read in Scripture; and
showed by your eyes, hands, and every gesture that you had the old man
in view, and wished him to be suspected of that most foolish heresy.
When through sheer fatigue, with dry month, head thrown back, and
quivering lips, to the satisfaction of the whole people, who had longed
for the end, you at last wound up, how did the crazy and “silly
old man” treat you? He rose to indicate that he would say a few
words, and after saluting the assembly with voice and hand proceeded
thus: “All that has been said by one who is my brother in the
episcopate, but my son in point of years, against the heresy of the
Anthropomorphites, has been well and faithfully spoken, and my voice,
too, condemns that heresy. But it is fair that, as we condemn this
heresy so we should also condemn the perverse doctrines of
Origen.” You cannot, I think, have forgotten what a burst of
laughter, what shouts of applause ensued. This is what you call in your
letter his speaking to the people anything he chose, no matter what it
might be. He, forsooth, was mad because he contradicted you in your own
kingdom. “Anything he chose, no matter what.” Either give
him praise, or blame. Why, here as well as elsewhere, do you move with
so uncertain a step? If what he said was good, why not openly proclaim
it? if evil, why not boldly censure it? And yet, let us note with what
wisdom, modesty, and humility this pillar of truth and faith, who dares
to say that so illustrious a man speaks to the people what he chooses,
alludes to himself. “One day I was speaking in his presence; and,
taking occasion from some words in the lesson for the day, I expressed,
in his hearing and in that of the whole Church, such views respecting
the faith and all the doctrines of the Church as by the grace of God I
unceasingly teach in the Church, and in my catechetical
lectures.”
12. What, I ask, is the meaning of this effrontery and
bombast? All philosophers and orators attack Gorgias of Leontini for
daring openly to pledge himself to answer any question which any person
might choose to put to him. If the honour of the priesthood and respect
for your title did not restrain me, and if I did not know what the
Apostle says,5020
“I wist
not, brethren, that he was the high priest: for it is written, Thou
shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people,” how loudly and
indignantly might I complain of what you relate! You, on the contrary,
disparage the dignity of your title by the contempt which you throw,
both in word and deed, on one who is almost the father of the whole
episcopate, and a monument of the sanctity of former days. You say that
on a certain day, when something in the lesson for the day stirred you up, you made a discourse in
his hearing, and in that of the whole Church, concerning the faith and
all the doctrines of the Church. After this we cannot but wonder at the
weakness of Demosthenes; for we are told that he spent a long time in
elaborating his splendid oration against Æschines. We are quite
mistaken in looking up to Tully; for his merit, according to Cornelius
Nepos, who was present, was nothing but this, that he delivered his
famous defence of the seditious tribune Cornelius, almost word for word
as it was published. Behold a Lysias5021
| 5021 A celebrated
orator of Athens, many of whose orations are extant. B. 458, d. 378
b.c. | and a
Gracchus raised up for us! or, to name one of more modern days, Quintus
Aterius,5022
| 5022 This story is
from the 4th Declamation of Seneca. | the man who had all his powers at
hand like a stock of ready money, so that he needed some one to tell
him when to stop, and of whom Cæsar Augustus said very well,
“Our friend Quintus must have the break put on.”
13. Is there any man in his right senses who would
declare that in a single sermon he had discussed the faith and all the
doctrines of the Church? Pray show me what that lesson is which is so
seasoned with the whole savour of Scripture that its occurrence in the
service induced you to enter the arena and put your wit to the hazard.
And if you had not been overwhelmed by the torrent of your eloquence,
you might have been convinced that it was impossible for you to speak
upon the whole circle of doctrines without any deliberation. But how
stands the case? You promise one thing and present another. Our custom
is, for the space of forty days, to deliver public lectures to those
who are to be baptized on the doctrine of the Holy and Adorable
Trinity. If the lesson for the day stimulated you to discuss all
doctrines in a single hour, what necessity was there to repeat the
instruction of the previous forty days? But if you meant to
recapitulate what you had been saying during the whole of Lent, how
could one lesson on a certain day “stir you up” to speak of
all these doctrines? But even here his language is ambiguous; for
possibly he took occasion, from the particular lesson, to go over
summarily what he was accustomed to deliver in church to the candidates
for baptism during the forty days of Lent. For it is eloquence all the
same whether few things are said in many words, or many things in few
words. There is another permissible meaning, that, as soon as the one
lesson gave him the spur, he was fired with such oratorical zeal that
for forty days he never ceased speaking. But, then, even the easy-going
old man, who was hanging upon his lips, and longing to know what he had
never heard before, must have almost fallen from his seat asleep.
However, we must put up with it; perhaps this, also, is a case of the
simplicity which we know to be his manner.
14. Let us quote the rest, in which, after the
labyrinths of his perplexing discussion, he expresses himself by no
means ambiguously but openly, and thus concludes his wonderful
homilies: “When we had thus spoken in his presence, and when out
of the extreme honour which we paid him we invited him to speak after
us, he praised our preaching, and said that he marvelled at it, and
declared to all that it was the Catholic faith.” The extreme
honour you paid him is evidenced by the extreme insults offered to him,
when through the archdeacon you bade him be silent, and loudly
proclaimed that it was the love of praise which made him linger among
the crowd. The present is the key to the past. For three whole years
from that time he has brooded in silence5023
| 5023 Literally
“devours his wrongs.” | over the wrongs he suffered, and,
spurning all personal strife, has only asked for a more correct
expression of your faith. You, with your endless resources, and making
a profit out of the religion of the whole world, have been sending
those very dignified envoys of yours hither and thither, and have been
trying to awake the old man out of his sleep that he might answer you.
And in truth it was right that as you had conferred such signal honour
upon him he should praise your utterances, particularly such as were
ex tempore. But as men have a way of sometimes praising what
they do not approve, and of nourishing another’s folly by
meaningless commendation, he not only praised your utterances, but
praised and marvelled at them as well; and what is more, to magnify the
marvel, he declared to the whole people that they were in harmony with
the Catholic faith. Whether he really said all this, we ourselves are
witnesses. The fact is, he came to us half dead with dismay at your
words, and saying that he had been too precipitate in communicating
with you. And further, when he was much entreated by the whole
monastery to return to you from Bethlehem, and was unable to resist the
entreaties of so many, he did indeed return in the evening, but only to
escape again at midnight. His letters to the pope Siricius prove the
same thing, and if you read them you will see clearly in what sense he
marvelled at your utterances and acknowledged them Catholic. But we are
threshing chaff, and have spent many words in refuting gratuitous nonsense and
old wives’ fables.
15. Let us pass on to the second point. Here, as though
there were nothing for his consideration, he vapours, and vents himself
unconcernedly, pretending to be asleep, so that he may lull his readers
also into slumber. “But we were speaking of the other matters
pertaining to the faith, that is to say, that all things visible and
invisible, the heavenly powers and terrestrial creatures have one and
the same creator, even God, that is, the Holy Trinity, as the blessed
David says,5024
‘By the word of the Lord
were the heavens established, and all the host of them by the breath of
His mouth’; and the creation of man is a simple proof of the
same; for it was God Himself who took slime from the earth, and through
the grace of His own inspiration bestowed on it a reasonable soul, and
one endowed with free will; not a part of His own nature (as some
impiously teach), but His own workmanship. And concerning the holy
angels, the belief of Christians similarly follows Holy Scripture,
which says of God,5025
“Who
maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flaming fire.”
Holy Scripture does not allow us to believe that their nature is
unchangeable, for it says,5026
“And
angels which kept not their own principality, but left their proper
habitation, He hath kept in everlasting bonds under darkness unto the
judgment of the great day”; we know, therefore, that they have
changed, and having lost their own dignity and glory have become more
like demons. But that the souls of men are caused by the fall of the
angels, or by their conversion, we never believed, nor have we so
taught (God forbid!), and we confess that the view is at variance with
the teaching of the Church.”
16. We want to know whether souls, before man was made
in paradise, and Adam was fashioned out of the earth, were among
reasonable creatures; whether they had their own rank, lived,
continued, subsisted; and whether the doctrine of Origen is true, who
said that all reasonable creatures, incorporeal and invisible, if they
grow remiss, little by little sink to a lower level, and, according to
the character of the places to which they descend, take to themselves
bodies. (For instance, that they may be at first ethereal, afterward
aërial.) And that when they reach the neighbourhood of earth they
are invested with grossest bodies, and last of all are tied to human
flesh; and that the demons themselves who, of their own choice,
together with their leader the devil, have forsaken the service of God,
if they begin to amend a little, are clothed with human flesh, so that,
when they have undergone a process of repentance after the
resurrection, and after passing through the same circuit by which they
reached the flesh, they may return to proximity to God, being released
even from aërial and ethereal bodies; and that then every knee
will bow to God, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things
under the earth, and that God may be all to all. When these are the
real questions, why do you pass over the points at issue, and, leaving
the arena, fix yourself in the region of remote and utterly irrelevant
discussion?
17. You believe that one God made all creatures, visible
and invisible. Arius, who says that all things were created through the
Son, would also confess this. If you had been accused of holding
Marcion’s heresy, which introduces two Gods, the one the God of
goodness, the other of justice, and asserts that the former is the
Creator of things invisible, the latter of things visible, your answer
would have been well adapted to satisfy me on a question of that sort.
You believe it is the Trinity which creates the universe. Arians and
Semi-Arians deny that, blasphemously maintaining that the Holy Spirit
is not the Creator, but is Himself created. But who now lays it to your
charge that you are an Arian? You say that the souls of men are not a
part of the nature of God, as though you were now called a
Manichæan by Epiphanius. You protest against those who assert that
souls are made out of angels, and say that their nature, in its fall,
becomes the substance of humanity. Don’t conceal what you know,
nor feign a simplicity which you do not possess. Origen never said that
souls are made out of angels, since he teaches that the term
angels describes an office, not a nature. For in his book Περὶ
᾽Αρχῶν he says that angels, and
thrones, and dominions, powers and rulers of the world, and of
darkness, and5027
every name
which is named, not only in this world, but in that which is to come,
become the souls of those bodies which they have taken on either
through their own desire or for the sake of their appointed duties;
that the sun also, himself, and the moon, and the company of all the
stars, are the souls of what were once reasonable and incorporeal
creatures; and that though now subject to vanity, that is to say, to
fiery bodies which we, in our ignorance and inexperience, call
luminaries of the world, they shall be delivered from the bondage of
corruption and brought to the liberty of the glory of the sons of God. Wherefore every creature groaneth
and travaileth in pain together. And the Apostle laments, saying,5028
“Wretched man that I am! who
shall deliver me from the body of this death?” This is not the
time to controvert this doctrine, which is partly heathen, and partly
Platonic. About ten years ago in my “Commentary” on
Ecclesiastes, and in my explanation of the Epistle to the Ephesians, I
think my own views were made clear to thoughtful men.
18. I now beg you, whose eloquence is so exuberant, and
who expound the truth concerning all topics in the course of one
sermon, to give an answer to your interrogators in concise and clear
terms. When God formed man out of slime, and through the grace of His
own inspiration gave him a soul, had that soul previously existed and
subsisted which was afterwards bestowed by the inspiration of God, and
where was it? or did it gain its capacity both to exist and to live
from the power of God, on the sixth day, when the body was formed out
of the slime? You are silent regarding this, and pretend you do not
know what is wanted, and busy yourself with irrelevant questions. You
leave Origen untouched, and rave against the absurdities of Marcion,
Apollinaris, Eunomius, Manichæus, and the other heretics. You are
asked for a hand and you put out a foot, and all the while covertly
insinuate the doctrine to which you hold. You speak smooth things to
plain men like us, but in such a way as in no degree to displease those
of your own party.
19. You say that demons rather than souls are made out
of angels, as though you did not know that, according to Origen, the
demons themselves are souls belonging to aërial bodies, and, after
being demons, destined to become human souls if they repent. You write
that the angels are mutable; and, under cover of a pious opinion,
introduce an impiety by maintaining that, after the lapse of many ages,
souls are produced not from the angels, but from whatever it was into
which the angels were first changed. I wish to make my meaning clearer;
suppose a person of the rank of tribune to be degraded through his own
misconduct, and to pass through the several steps of the cavalry
service until he becomes a private, does he all at once cease to be a
tribune5029
| 5029 The names of the
officers of the Roman Legion (some of them of doubtful meaning), viz.,
tribunes, primicerius, senator, ducenarius, centenarius, biarchus,
circitor, eques, have been rendered approximately by these English
equivalents. | and become a recruit? No; but he
is first colonel, then, successively, major officer of two hundred,
captain, commissary, patrol, trooper, and, lastly, a recruit; and
although our tribune eventually becomes a common soldier, still he did
not pass from the rank of tribune to that of recruit, but to that of
colonel. Origen uses Jacob’s ladder to teach that reasonable
creatures by slow degrees sink to the lowest step, that is to flesh and
blood; and that it is impossible for any one to be suddenly
precipitated from number one hundred to number one without reaching the
last by passing through the successive numbers, as in descending the
rounds of a ladder; and that they change their bodies as often as they
change their resting-places in going from heaven to earth. These are
the tricks and artifices by which you make us out to be5030
| 5030 That is,
apparently, with a play upon the word, Men of Mud. | “Pelusiots” and “beasts
of burden” and “animal men” who do “not receive
the things pertaining to the Spirit.”5031
You are the “people of
Jerusalem,” and can make a mock even of the angels. But your
mysteries are being dragged into the light, and your doctrine, which is
a mere conglomerate of heathen fables, is publicly exposed in the ears
of Christians. What you so much admire we long ago despised when we
found it in Plato. And we despised it because we received the
foolishness of Christ. And we received the foolishness of Christ
because5032
the weakness of God is wiser
than men. And is it not a shame for us, who are Christians and priests
of God, to entangle ourselves in words of doubtful meaning, as though
we were merely jesting; to keep our phrases balanced between two
meanings, in a way which deceives the speaker himself more than his
hearers?
20. One of your company, when pressed by me to say what
he thought concerning the soul, whether it had existed before the
flesh, or not, replied that soul and body had existed together. I knew
the man was a heretic, and was seeking to entangle me in my speech. At
last I caught him saying that the soul gained that name from the time
when it began to animate a body, whereas it was formerly called a
demon, or angel of Satan, or spirit of fornication, or, on the other
hand, dominion, power, agent of the spirit, or messenger. Well, but if
the soul existed before Adam was made in Paradise (in any rank and
condition), and lived and acted (for we cannot think that what is
incorporeal and eternal is dull and torpid like a dormouse), there must
have been some precedent cause to account for the soul, which at first
had no body, being afterwards invested with a body. And if it is
natural to the soul to be without a body, it must be contrary to nature
for it to be in a body. If it is contrary to nature to be in a body, it
follows that the resurrection of the body is contrary to nature. But
the resurrection will not be contrary to nature; therefore, according to you, the body,
which is contrary to nature, when it rises again will be without a
soul.
21. You say that the soul is not of the essence of God.
Well! This is what we might expect, for you condemn the impious
Manichæus, to make mention of whose name is pollution. You say
that angels are not turned into souls. I agree to some extent, although
I know what meaning you give to the words. But, now that we have learnt
what you deny, we wish to know what you believe. “Having taken
slime of the earth,” you say, “God fashioned man, and
through the grace of His own inbreathing bestowed upon him a rational
soul, and through the grace of free will, not a portion of His own
divine nature (as some impiously maintain), but His own
handiwork.” See how he goes out of his way to be eloquent about
what we did not ask for. We know that God fashioned man out of the
earth; we are aware that He breathed into his face, and man became a
living soul; we are not ignorant that the soul is characterized by
reason and free choice, and we know that it is the workmanship of God.
No one doubts that Manichæus errs in saying that the soul is the
essence of God. I now ask: When was that soul made, which is the work
of God, which is distinguished by free will and reason, and is not of
the essence of the Creator? Was it made at the same time that man was
made out of the slime, and the breath of life was breathed into his
face? Or, having previously existed, and having associated with
reasonable and incorporeal creatures as well as lived, was it
afterwards gifted with the inbreathing of God? Here you are silent;
here you feign a rustic simplicity, and make scriptural words a cloak
for unscriptural tenets. Where you affirm what no one wants to know,
that the soul is not a part of God’s own nature (as some
impiously maintain), you ought rather to have declared (and this is
what we all want to know) that it is not that which previously existed,
which He had before created, which had long dwelt among rational,
incorporeal, and invisible creatures. You say none of these things; you
bring forward Manichæus, and keep Origen out of sight, and, just
as when children ask for something to eat their nursemaids put them off
with some little joke, so you direct the thoughts of us poor rustics to
other matters, so that we may be taken up with the fresh character on
the stage, and may not ask for what we want.
22. But suppose the fact to be that you merely omit
this, and that your simplicity does not mean something you are shrewd
enough to conceal. Having once begun to speak of the soul, and to
deduce arguments on such an important topic from man’s first
creation, why do you leave the discussion in mid-air, and suddenly pass
to the angels, and the conditions under which the body of our Lord
existed? Why do you pass by such a vast slough of difficulty, and leave
us to stick in the mire? If the inbreathing of God (a view for which
you have no liking, and a point which you now leave unsettled) is the
creating of the human soul; whence had Eve her soul, seeing that God
did not breathe into her face? But I will not dwell upon Eve, since
she, as a type of the Church, was made out of one of her
husband’s ribs, and ought not, after so many ages, to be
subjected to the calumnies of her descendants. I ask whence Cain and
Abel, who were the firstborn of our first parents, had their souls? And
the whole human race downwards, what, are we to think, was the origin
of their souls? Did they come by propagation, like brute beasts? So
that, as body springs from body, so soul from soul. Or is it the case
that rational creatures, longing for bodily existence, sink by degrees
to earth, and at last are tied even to human bodies? Surely (as the
Church teaches in accordance with the Saviour’s words,5033
“My Father worketh hitherto and
I work”; and the passage in Isaiah,5034
“Who maketh the spirit of man in
him”; and in the Psalms,5035
“Who
fashioneth one by one the hearts of them”) God is daily making
souls—He, with whom to will is to do, and who never ceases to be
a Creator. I know what you are accustomed to say in opposition to this,
and how you confront us with adultery and incest. But the dispute about
these is a tedious one, and would exceed the narrow limits of the time
at our disposal. The same argument may be retorted upon you, and
whatever seems unworthy in the Creator of the present dispensation is
again not unworthy, since it is His gift. Birth from adultery imputes
no blame to the child, but to the father. As in the case of seeds, the
earth which cherishes does not sin, nor the seed which is thrown into
the furrows, nor the heat and moisture, under whose influence the grain
bursts into bud, but some man, as for example, the thief and robber,
who, by fraud and violence, plucks up the seed: so in the begetting of
men, the womb, which corresponds to the earth, receives its own, and
nourishes what it has received, and then gives a body to that which it
nourishes, and divides into the several members the body it has formed.
And among those secret recesses of the belly the hand of God is always
working, and there is the same Creator of body and soul. Do not despise
the goodness of your Maker, who
fashioned you and made you as He chose. He Himself is the virtue of God
and the wisdom of God, who, in the womb of the Virgin, built a house
for Himself. Jephthah, who is reckoned by the Apostle among the saints,
is the son of a harlot. But listen: Esau, born of Rebecca had Isaac, a
“hairy man,” both in mind and body, like good wheat,
degenerates into darnel and wild oats; because the cause of vice and
virtue does not lie in the seed, but in the will of him who is born. If
it is an offence to be born with a human body, how is it that Isaac,
Samson, John Baptist, are the children of promise? You see, I trust,
what it is to have the courage of one’s convictions. Suppose I am
wrong, I openly say what I think. Do you, then, likewise either freely
profess our opinions, or firmly maintain your own. Do not set yourself
in my line of battle, so that, by feigning simplicity, you may be safe,
and may be able, when you choose, to stab your opponent in the back. It
is impossible for me, at the present moment, to write a book against
the opinions of Origen. If Christ gives us life, we will devote another
work to them. The point now is, whether the accused has answered the
questions put to him, and whether his reply be clear and open.
23. Let us pass from this to the most notorious point,
that relating to the resurrection of the flesh and of the body; and
here, my reader, I would admonish you that you may know I speak under a
sense of fear and of the judgment of God, and that you ought so to
hear. For, if the pure faith is to be found in his exposition, and
there is no suspicion of unfaithfulness, I am not so foolish as to seek
an occasion of accusing him, and while I wish to censure another for
his fault be myself censured as a slanderer. I will ask you, therefore,
to read what follows on the resurrection of the flesh; and, having read
it, if it satisfies you (I know it is well calculated to please the
ignorant), suspend your judgment, wait a while, refrain from expressing
an opinion until I have finished my reply; and if after that it
satisfies you, then you shall fix on us the brand of slander.
“His passion also on the cross, His death and burial, which was
the saving of the world, and His resurrection in a true and not an
imaginary sense, we confess; and that5036
being the firstborn from the dead, He
conveyed to heaven the firstfruits of our bodily substance which, after
being laid in the tomb, He raised to life, thus giving us the hope of
resurrection in the resurrection of His own body; wherefore we all hope
so to rise from the dead, as He rose again; not in any foreign and
strange bodies, which are but phantom shapes assumed for the moment;
but as He Himself rose again in that body which was laid in the holy
sepulchre at our very doors, so we, in the very bodies with which we
are now clothed, and in which we are now buried, hope to rise again for
the same reason and by the same5037
| 5037 Jussione.
Another reading, “Eâdem ratione et visione,” might be
rendered, “In the same condition and the same
appearance.” |
command. For the bodies which, as the Apostle says, are sown in
corruption, shall rise in incorruption; being sown in dishonour, they
shall rise in glory.5038
‘It
is sown an animal body, it shall rise a spiritual body’; and of
them the Saviour said in his teaching:5039
‘For they who shall be worthy of
that world, and of the resurrection from the dead, shall neither marry
nor be given in marriage, for they can die no more, but shall be as the
angels of God, since they are the sons of the
resurrection.’”
24. Again, in another part of his letter, that is,
towards the end of his own homilies, that he might cheat the ear of the
ignorant, he makes a grand parade and noise about the Resurrection, but
in ambiguous and balanced language. He says: “We have not omitted
the second glorious advent of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall come in
His own glory to judge the quick and the dead; for He shall awake all
the dead, and cause them to stand before His own judgment-seat; and
shall render to every one according to what he has done in the body,
whether it be good or bad; for every one shall either be crowned in the
body because he lived a pure and righteous life, or be condemned,
because he was the slave alike of pleasure and iniquity.” What we
read in the Gospel, that at the end of the world,5040
if it were possible, even the elect are
to be seduced, we see verified in this passage. The ignorant crowd
hears of the dead and buried, hears of the resurrection of the dead in
a true and not an imaginary sense, hears that the firstfruits of our
bodily substance in our Lord’s body have reached the heavenly
regions, hears that we shall rise again not in foreign and strange
bodies, which are mere phantom shapes, but, as our Lord rose in the
body which lay amongst us in the holy sepulchre, so we also in the very
bodies with which we are now clothed and buried shall rise again in the
day of judgment. And that no one might think this too little, he adds
in the last section: “And He shall render to every one according
to what he did in the body, whether it were good or bad: for every one
shall either be crowned in the body for his pure and righteous life, or
shall be condemned, because he was
the slave of pleasure and iniquity.” Hearing these things the
ignorant crowd suspects no artifice, no snares in all this noise about
the dead, the burial of the body, and the resurrection. It believes
things are as they are said to be. For there is more devotion in the
ears of the people than in the priest’s heart.
25. Again and again, my reader, I admonish you to be
patient, and to learn what I also have learnt through patience; and
yet, before I take the veil off the dragon’s face, and briefly
explain Origen’s views respecting the resurrection (for you
cannot know the efficacy of the antidote unless you see clearly what
the poison is), I beg you to read his statements with caution, and to
go over them again and again. Mark well that, though he nine times
speaks of the resurrection of the body, he has not once introduced the
resurrection of the flesh, and you may fairly suspect that he left it
out on purpose. Well, Origen says in several places, and especially in
his fourth book “Of the Resurrection,” and in the
“Exposition of the First Psalm,” and in the
“Miscellanies,” that there is a double error common in the
Church, in which both we and the heretics are implicated: “We, in
our simplicity and fondness for the flesh, say that the same bones, and
blood, and flesh, in a word, limbs and features, and the whole bodily
structure, rise again at the last day: so that, forsooth, we shall walk
with our feet, work with our hands, see with our eyes, hear with our
ears, and carry about with us a belly never satisfied, and a stomach
which digests our food. Consequently, believing this, we say that we
must eat, drink, perform the offices of nature, marry wives, beget
children. For what is the use of organs of generation, if there is to
be no marriage? For what purpose are teeth, if the food is not to be
masticated? What is the good of a belly and of meats, if, according to
the Apostle, both it and they are to be destroyed? And the same Apostle
again exclaims,5041
‘Flesh
and blood shall not inherit the Kingdom of God, nor shall corruption
inherit incorruption.’” This, according to him, is what we
in our rustic innocence maintain. But as for the heretics, amongst whom
are Marcion, Apelles, Valentinus, Manes (a synonym for Mania), he says
that they utterly deny the resurrection of the flesh and of the body,
and allow salvation only to the soul, and hold that it is futile for us
to say that we shall rise after the pattern of our Lord, since our Lord
also Himself rose again in a phantom body, and not only His
resurrection, but His very nativity was docetic or imaginary;
that is, more apparent than real. Origen himself is dissatisfied with
both opinions. He says that he shuns both errors, that of the flesh,
which our party maintain, and that of the phantoms, maintained by the
heretics, because both sides go to the opposite extremes, some wishing
to be the same that they have been, others denying altogether the
resurrection of the body. “There are four elements,” he
says, “known to philosophers and physicians: earth, water, air,
and fire, and out of these all things and human bodies are compacted.
We find earth in flesh, air in the breath, water in the moisture of the
body, fire in its heat. When, then, the soul, at the command of God,
lets go this perishing and feeble body, little by little all things
return to their parent substances: flesh is again absorbed into the
earth, the breath is mingled with the air, the moisture returns to the
depths, the heat escapes to the ether. And as if you throw into the sea
a pint of milk and wine, and wish again to separate what is mixed
together, although the wine and milk which you threw in is not lost,
and yet it is impossible to keep separate what was poured out; so the
substance of flesh and blood does not perish, indeed, so far as
concerns the original matter, yet they cannot again become the former
structure, nor can they be altogether the same that they were.”
Observe that when such things are said, the firmness of the flesh, the
fluidity of the blood, the density of the sinews, the interlacing of
the veins, and the hardness of the bones is denied.
26. “For another reason,” he says, “we
confess the resurrection of our bodies, those which have been laid in
the grave and have turned to dust; Paul’s body will be that of
Paul, Peter’s that of Peter, and each will have his own; for it
is not right that souls should sin in one body and be tormented in
another, nor is it worthy of the Righteous Judge that one body should
shed its blood for Christ and another be crowned.” Who, hearing
this, would think he denied the resurrection of the flesh?
“And,” he says, “every seed has its own law of being
inherent in it by the gift of God, the Creator, which law contains in
embryonic form the future growth. The bulky tree, with its trunk,
boughs, fruit, leaves, is not seen in the seed, but nevertheless exists
in the seed by implication or, according to the Greek expression, by
the spermatikos logos.5042
| 5042 That is, the
reason of the seed. | There is
within the grain of corn a marrow, or vein, which, when it has been
dissolved in the earth, attracts to itself the surrounding materials,
and rises again in the shape of
stalk, leaves, and ear; and thus, while it is one thing when it dies,
it is another thing when it rises from the dead; for in the grain of
wheat, roots, stalk, leaves, ears, trunk are as yet unseparated. In the
same manner, in human bodies, according to the law of their being,
certain original principles remain which ensure their resurrection, and
a sort of marrow, that is a seed-plot of the dead, is fostered in the
bosom of the earth. But when the day of judgment shall have come, and
at the voice of the archangel, and the sound of the last trumpet, the
earth shall totter, immediately the seeds will be instinct with life,
and in a moment of time will cause the dead to burst into life; yet the
flesh which they will reconstitute will not be the same flesh, nor will
it be in the old forms. To give you the assurance that we speak the
truth, let me quote the words of the Apostle:5043
‘But some one says, How shall
the dead rise? and with what body will they come? Thou fool, that which
thou sowest, thou sowest not that body which shall be, but a bare
grain, it may be of wheat, or the seed of a vine and a tree.’ And
as we have already made the grain of wheat, and to some extent the
planting of trees, the subject of our reasoning, let us now take the
grape-stone as an example. It is a mere granule, so small that you can
scarcely hold it between your two fingers. Where are the roots? where
the tortuous interlacing of roots, of trunk and off-shoots? where the
shade of the leaves, and the lovely clusters teeming with coming wine?
What you have in your fingers is parched and scarcely discernible;
nevertheless, in that dry granule, by the power of God and the secret
law of propagation, the foaming new wine must have its origin. You will
allow all this in the case of a tree; will you not admit such things to
be possible in the case of a man? The plant which perishes is thus
decked with beauty; why should we think that man, who abides, will
receive back his former meanness? Do you demand that there should be
flesh, bones, blood, limbs, so that you must have the barber to cut
your hair, that your nose may run, your nails must be trimmed, your
lower parts may gender filth or minister to lust? If you introduce
these foolish and gross notions, you forget what is told us of the
flesh, namely, that in it we cannot please God, and that it is an
enemy; you forget, also, what is told us of the resurrection of the
dead:5044
‘It is sown in corruption, it
shall rise in incorruption. It is sown in dishonour, it shall rise in
glory. It is sown in weakness, it shall rise in power. It is sown a
natural body, it shall rise a spiritual body.’ Now we see with
our eyes, hear with our ears, act with our hands, walk with our feet.
But in that spiritual body we shall be all sight, all hearing, all
action, all movement. The Lord shall transfigure5045
the body of our humiliation and fashion
it according to His own glorious body. In saying transfigure he
affirms identity with the members which we now have. But a
different body, spiritual and ethereal, is promised to us, which
is neither tangible, nor perceptible to the eye, nor ponderable; and
the change it undergoes will be suitable to the difference in its
future abode. Otherwise, if there is to be the same flesh and if our
bodies are to be the same, there will again be males and females, there
will again be marriage; men will have the shaggy eyebrow and the
flowing beard; women will have their smooth cheeks and narrow chests,
and their bodies must adapt themselves to conception and parturition.
Even tiny infants will rise again; old men will also rise; the former
to be nursed, the latter to be supported by the staff. And, simple
ones, be not deceived by the resurrection of our Lord, because He
showed His side and His hands, stood on the shore, went for a walk with
Cleophas, and said that He had flesh and bones. That body, because it
was not born of the seed of man and the pleasure of the flesh, has its
peculiar prerogatives. He ate and drank after His resurrection, and
appeared in clothing, and allowed Himself to be touched, that He might
make His doubting Apostles believe in His resurrection. But still He
does not fail to manifest the nature of an aërial and spiritual
body. For He enters when the doors are shut, and in the breaking of
bread vanishes out of sight. Does it follow then that after our
resurrection we shall eat and drink, and perform the offices of nature?
If so, what becomes of the promise,5046
‘The mortal must put on immortality.’”
27. Here we have the complete explanation of the fact
that in your exposition of the faith, to deceive the ears of the
ignorant, you nine times make mention of the body, and not even once of
the flesh, and all the while men think that you confess the body of
flesh, and that the flesh is identical with the body. If it is the same
as the body, it means nothing different. I say this, for I know your
answer: “I thought the body was the same as the flesh; I spoke
with all simplicity.” Why do you not rather call it flesh to
signify the body, and speak indifferently at one time of the flesh, at
another of the body, that the body may be shown to consist of flesh,
and the flesh to be the body. But
believe me, your silence is not the silence of simplicity. For flesh is
defined one way, the body another; all flesh is body, but not every
body is flesh. Flesh is properly what is comprised in blood, veins,
bones, and sinews. Although the body is also called flesh, yet
sometimes it is designated ethereal or aërial, because it is not
subject to touch and sight; and yet it is frequently both visible and
tangible. A wall is a body, but is not flesh; a stone is a body, but it
is not said to be flesh. Wherefore the Apostle calls some bodies
celestial, some terrestrial. A celestial body is that of the sun, moon,
stars; a terrestrial body is that of fire, air, water, and the rest,
which bodies being inanimate are known as consisting of material
elements. You see we understand your subtleties, and publish abroad the
mysteries which you utter in the bedchamber and amongst the perfect,
mysteries which may not reach the ears of outsiders. You smile, and
with hand uplifted and a snap of the fingers retort,5047
“All the glory of the
king’s daughter is within.” And,5048
“The king led me into his
bedchamber.” It is clear why you spoke of the resurrection of the
body and not of that of the flesh; of course it was that we in our
ignorance might think that when body was spoken of flesh was meant;
while yet the perfect would understand that, when body was spoken of,
flesh was denied. Lastly, the Apostle, in his Epistle to the
Colossians, wishing to show that the body of Christ was made of flesh,
and was not spiritual, aërial, attenuated, said significantly,5049
“And you, when you were some time
alienated from Christ and enemies of His spirit in evil works, He has
reconciled in the body of His flesh through death.” And again in
the same Epistle:5050
“In whom ye
were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands in the putting
off of the body of the flesh.” If by body is meant flesh only,
and the word is not ambiguous, nor capable of diverse significations,
it was quite superfluous to use both expressions—bodily
and of flesh—as though body did not imply flesh.
28. In the symbol of our faith and hope, which was
delivered by the Apostles, and is not written with paper and ink, but
on fleshy tables of the heart, after the confession of the Trinity and
the unity of the Church, the whole symbol of Christian dogma concludes
with the resurrection of the flesh. You dwell so exclusively upon the
subject of the body, harping upon it in your discourse, repeating first
the body, and secondly the body, and again the body, and nine times
over the body, that you do not even once name the flesh; whereas they
always speak of the flesh, but say nothing of the body. I would have
you know that we see through what you craftily add, and with wise
precaution seek to conceal. For you make use of the same passages to
prove the reality of the resurrection by means of which Origen denies
it; you support questionable positions with doubtful arguments, and
thus raise a storm which in a moment overthrows the settled fabric of
faith. You quote the words,5051
| 5051 1 Cor. xv. 44; Matt. xxii. 30; Luke xx.
35. | “It is
sown an animal body: it shall rise a spiritual body.” “For
they shall neither marry, nor be given in marriage, but shall be as the
angels in heaven.” What other instances would you take if you
were denying the resurrection? You intend to confess the resurrection
of the flesh, you say, in a real and not an imaginary sense. After the
remarks with which you smooth things over to the ears of the ignorant,
to the effect that we rise again with the very bodies with which we
died and were buried, why do you not go on and speak thus: “The
Lord after His resurrection showed the prints of the nails in His
hands, pointed to the wound of the spear in His side, and when the
Apostles doubted because they thought they saw a phantom, gave them
reply,5052
‘Handle Me and see, for a
spirit hath not flesh and blood as ye see Me have’; and specially
to Thomas,5053
‘Put thy finger into My
hands, and thy hand into My side, and be not faithless, but
believing.’ Similarly after the resurrection we shall have the
same members which we now use, the same flesh and blood and bones, for
it is not the nature of these which is condemned in Holy Scripture, but
their works. Then again, it is written in Genesis:5054
‘My Spirit shall not abide in
those men, because they are flesh.’ And the Apostle Paul,
speaking of the corrupt doctrine and works of the Jews, says:5055
‘I rested not in flesh and
blood.’ And to the Saints, who, of course, were in the flesh, he
says:5056
‘But ye are not in the flesh, but
in the spirit, if the Spirit of God dwells in you.’ For by
denying that they were in the flesh who clearly were in the flesh, he
condemned not the substance of the flesh but its sins.”
29. The true confession of the resurrection declares
that the flesh will be glorious, but without destroying its reality.
And when the Apostle says,5057
“This is
corruptible and mortal,” his words denote this very body,
that is to say, the flesh which was then seen. But when he adds that it
puts on incorruption and immortality, he does not say that that which
is put on, that is the clothing, does away with the body which it adorns in glory,
but that it makes that body glorious, which before lacked glory; so
that the more worthless robe of mortality and weakness being laid
aside, we may be clothed with the gold of immortality, and, so to
speak, with the blessedness of strength as well as virtue; since we
wish not to be stripped of the flesh, but to put on over it the vesture
of glory, and desire to be clothed upon with our house, which is from
heaven, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Certainly, no one
is clothed upon who was not previously clothed. Accordingly, our Lord
was not so transfigured on the mountain that He lost His hands and feet
and other members, and suddenly began to roll along in a round shape
like that of the sun or a ball; but the same members glowed with the
brightness of the sun and blinded the eyes of the Apostles. Hence,
also, His garments were changed, but so as to become white and
glistening, not aërial, for I suppose you do not intend to
maintain that His clothes also were spiritual.5058
The Evangelist adds that His face shone
like the sun; but when mention is made of His face, I reckon that His
other members were beheld as well. Enoch was translated in the flesh;
Elias was carried up to heaven in the flesh. They are not dead, they
are inhabitants of Paradise, and even there retain the members with
which they were rapt away and translated. What we aim at in fasting,
they have through fellowship with God. They feed on heavenly bread, and
are satisfied with every word of God, having Him as their food who is
also their Lord. Listen to the Saviour saying:5059
“And my flesh rests in hope.”
And elsewhere,5060
“His flesh
saw not corruption.” And again,5061
“All flesh shall see the salvation
of God.” And must you be for ever making the body a twofold
thing? Rather quote the vision of5062
Ezekiel,
who joins bones to bones and brings them forth from their sepulchres,
and then, making them to stand on their feet, binds them together with
flesh and sinews, and clothes them with skin.
30. Listen to those words of thunder which fall from
Job, the vanquisher of torments, who, as he scrapes away the filth of
his decaying flesh with a potsherd, solaces his miseries with the hope
and the reality of the resurrection:5063
“Oh, that,” he says,
“my words were written! Oh, that they were inscribed in a book
with an iron pen, and on a sheet of lead, that they were graven in the
rock for ever! For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that in the last
day I shall rise from the earth, and again be clothed with my skin, and
in my flesh shall see God, Whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes
shall behold, and not another. This my hope is laid up in my
bosom.” What can be clearer than this prophecy? No one since the
days of Christ speaks so openly concerning the resurrection as he did
before Christ. He wishes his words to last for ever; and that they
might never be obliterated by age, he would have them inscribed on a
sheet of lead, and graven on the rock. He hopes for a resurrection;
nay, rather he knew and saw that Christ, his Redeemer, was alive, and
at the last day would rise again from the earth. The Lord had not yet
died, and the athlete of the Church saw his Redeemer rising from the
grave. When he says, “And I shall again be clothed with my skin,
and in my flesh see God,” I suppose he does not speak as if he
loved his flesh, for it was decaying and putrifying before his eyes;
but in the confidence of rising again, and through the consolation of
the future, he makes light of his present misery. Again he says:
“I shall be clothed with my skin.” What mention do we find
here of an ethereal body? What of an aërial body, like to breath
and wind? Where there is skin and flesh, where there are bones and
sinews, and blood and veins, there assuredly is fleshy tissue and
distinction of sex. “And in my flesh,” he says, “I
shall see God.” When all flesh shall see the salvation of God,
and Jesus as God, then I, also, shall see the Redeemer and Saviour, and
my God. But I shall see him in that flesh which now tortures me, which
now melts away for pain. Therefore, in my flesh shall I behold God,
because by His own resurrection He has healed all my
infirmities.” Does it not seem to you that Job was then writing
against Origen, and was holding a controversy similar to ours against
the heretics, for the reality of the flesh in which he underwent
tortures? For he could not bear to think that all his sufferings would
be in vain; while the flesh he actually bore was tortured as flesh
indeed, it would be some other and spiritual kind of flesh that would
rise again. Wherefore he presses home and emphasizes the truth, and
puts a stop to all that might lie hid in an artful confession, by
speaking out plainly: “Whom I shall see for myself and my eyes
shall behold and not another.” If he is not to rise again in his
own sex, if he is not to have the same members which were then lying on
the dunghill, if he does not open the same eyes to see God with which
he was then looking at the worms, where will Job then be? You do away
with what constituted Job, and give me the hollow phrase, Job shall
rise again; it is as if you were to order a ship to be restored after
shipwreck, and then were to refuse each particular thing of which a
ship is made.
31. I will speak freely, and although you screw your
mouths, pull your hair, stamp your feet, and take up stones like the
Jews, I will openly confess the faith of the Church. The reality of a
resurrection without flesh and bones, without blood and members, is
unintelligible. Where there are flesh and bones, where there are blood
and members, there must of necessity be diversity of sex. Where there
is diversity of sex, there John is John, Mary is Mary. You need not
fear the marriage of those who, even before death, lived in their own
sex without discharging the functions of sex. When it is said,
“In that day they shall neither marry, nor be given in
marriage,” the words refer to those who can marry, and yet will
not do so. For no one says of the angels, “They shall not marry,
nor be given in marriage.” I never heard of a marriage being
celebrated among the spiritual virtues in heaven: but where there is
sex, there you have man and woman. Hence it is that, although you were
reluctant, you were compelled by the truth to confess that, “A
man must either be crowned in the body because he lived a pure and
upright life, or be condemned in the body, because he was the slave of
pleasure and iniquity.” Substitute flesh for body,
and you have not denied the existence of male and female. Who can have
any glory from a life of chastity if we have no sex which would make
unchastity possible? Who ever crowned a stone for continuing a virgin?
Likeness to the angels is promised us, that is, the blessedness of
their angelic existence without flesh and sex will be bestowed on us in
our flesh and with our sex. I am simple enough so to believe, and so
know how to confess that sex can exist without the functions of the
senses; that it is thus that men rise, and that it is thus that they
are made equal to the angels. Nor will the resurrection of the members
all at once seem superfluous, because they are to have no office,
since, while we are still in this life, we strive not to perform the
works of the members. Moreover, likeness to the angels does not imply a
changing of men into angels, but their growth in immortality and
glory.
32. But as for the arguments drawn from boys, and
infants, and old men, and meats, and excrements, which you employ
against the Church, they are not your own; they flow from a heathen
source. For the heathen mock us with the same. You say you are a
Christian; lay aside the weapons of the heathen. It is for them to
learn from you to confess the resurrection of the dead, not for you to
learn from them to deny it. Or if you belong to the enemy’s camp,
show yourself openly as an adversary, that you may share the wounds we
inflict on the heathen. I will allow you your jest about the necessity
of nursemaids to stop the infants from crying; of the decrepit old men,
who, you fear, would be shrivelled with winter’s cold. I will
admit also that the barbers have learnt their craft for nothing, for do
we not know that the people of Israel for forty years experienced no
growth of either nails or hair; and, still more, their clothes were not
worn out, nor did their shoes wax old? Enoch and Elias, concerning whom
we spoke a while ago, abide all this time in the same state in which
they were carried away. They have teeth, belly, organs of generation,
and yet have no need of meats, or wives. Why do you slander the power
of God, who can from that5064
| 5064 Besides
medulla and seminarium Jerome has ὀντερίωνη =
inward part, or pith. | marrow
and seed-plot of which you speak, not only produce flesh from
flesh, but also make one body from another; and change water, that is
worthless flesh, into the precious wine of an aërial body? the
same power by which He created all things out of nothing can give back
what has existed, because it is a much smaller thing to restore what
has been, than to make what never was. Do you wonder that there is a
resurrection from the condition of infancy and old age to that of
mature manhood, seeing that a perfect man was made out of the slime of
the earth without having gone through successive stages of growth? A
rib is changed into a woman; and by the third mode of creating man, the
poor elements of our birth which put us to the blush are changed into
flesh, bound together by the members, run into veins, harden into
bones. There is a fourth sort of human generation of which I can tell
you. “The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the
Highest shall overshadow thee. Wherefore that5065
holy thing which shall be born of thee
shall be called the Son of God.” Adam was created one way, Eve
another, Abel another, the man Jesus Christ another. And yet, different
as are all these beginnings, the nature of man remains one and the
same.
33. If I wished to prove the resurrection of the flesh
and of all the members, and to give the meaning of the several
passages, many books would be required; but the matter in hand does not
call for this. For I purposed not to reply to Origen in every detail,
but to disclose the mysteries of your insincere “Apology.” I have, however, tarried long in
maintaining the opposite to your position, and am afraid that, in my
eagerness to expose fraud, I may leave a stumbling-block in the way of
the reader. I will, therefore, mass together the evidence, and glance
at the proofs in passing, so that we may bring all the weight of
Scripture to bear upon your poisonous argument. He who has not a
wedding garment, and has not kept that command,5066
“Let your garments be always
white,” is bound hand and foot that he may not recline at the
banquet, or sit on a throne, or stand at the right hand of God;5067
he is sent to Gehenna, where there is
weeping and gnashing of teeth.5068
“The hairs of your head are
numbered.” If the hairs, I suppose the teeth would be more easily
numbered. But there is no object in numbering them if they are some day
to perish.5069
“The hour will come in which
all who are in the tombs shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and
shall come forth.” They shall hear with ears, come forth with
feet. This Lazarus had already done. They shall, moreover, come forth
from the tombs; that is, they who had been laid in the tombs, the dead,
shall come, and shall rise again from their graves. For the dew which
God gives is5070
| 5070 Sept. “The
dew which comes from thee is healing to them.” | healing to their bones. Then shall
be fulfilled what God says by the prophet,5071
“Go, my people, into thy closets
for a little while, until mine anger pass.” The closets signify
the graves, out of which that, of course, is brought forth which had
been laid therein. And they shall come out of the graves like young
mules free from the halter. Their heart shall rejoice, and their bones
shall rise like the sun; all flesh shall come into the presence of the
Lord, and He shall command the fishes of the sea; and they shall give
up the bones which they had eaten; and He shall bring joint to joint,
and bone to bone; and5072
they who slept
in the dust of the earth shall arise, some to life eternal, others to
shame and everlasting confusion. Then shall the just see the punishment
and tortures of the wicked, for5073
their
worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be extinguished, and they
shall be beheld by all flesh. As many of us, therefore, as have this
hope, as we have yielded our members servants to uncleanness, and to
iniquity unto iniquity, so let us yield them servants to righteousness
unto holiness, that5074
we may rise
from the dead and walk in newness of life. As also the life of the Lord
Jesus is manifested in our mortal body, so5075
also He who raised up Jesus Christ from
the dead shall quicken our mortal bodies on account of His Spirit Who
dwelleth in us. For it is right that as we have always borne about the
putting to death of Christ in our body, so the life, also, of Jesus,
should be manifested in our mortal body, that is, in our flesh, which
is mortal according to nature, but eternal according to grace. Stephen
also5076
saw Jesus standing on the right hand of
the Father, and the5077
hand of Moses
became snowy white, and was afterwards restored to its original colour.
There was still a hand, though the two states were different. The
potter in5078
Jeremiah, whose vessel, which
he had made, was broken through the roughness of the stone, restored
from the same lump and from the same clay that which had fallen to
pieces; and, if we look at the word resurrection itself, it does
not mean that one thing is destroyed, another raised up; and the
addition of the word dead, points to our own flesh, for that
which in man dies, that is also brought to life.5079
The wounded man on the road to Jericho
is taken to the inn with all his limbs complete, and the stripes of his
offences are healed with immortality.
34. Even the graves were opened5080
at our Lord’s passion when the
sun fled, the earth trembled, and many of the bodies of the saints
arose, and were seen in the holy city.5081
“Who is this,” says Isaiah,
“that cometh up from Edom, with shining raiment from Bozrah, so
beautiful in his glistening robe?” Edom is by interpretation
either earthy or bloody; Bosor either flesh, or
in tribulation. In few words he shows the whole mystery of the
resurrection, that is, both the reality of the flesh and the growth in
glory. And the meaning is: Who is he that cometh up from the earth,
cometh up from blood? According to the5082
prophecy of Jacob, He has bound His
foal to the vine, and has trodden the wine-press alone, and His
garments are red with new wine from Bosor, that is from flesh, or from
the tribulation of the world: for He Himself5083
has conquered the world. And,
therefore, His garments are red and shining, because He is5084
beauteous in form more than the sons
of men, and on account of the glory of His triumph they have been
changed into a white robe; and then, in truth, as concerns
Christ’s flesh, were fulfilled the words,5085
“Who is this that cometh up all
in white, leaning upon her beloved?” And that which is written in
the same book:5086
“My
beloved is white and ruddy.” These men are his true followers who
have not5087
defiled their garments with women, for they have continued
virgins, who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of
heaven’s sake. And so they shall be in white clothing. Then shall
the saying of our Lord appear perfectly realised:5088
“All that my Father has given
me, I shall not lose aught thereof, but I will raise it up again at the
last day;” the whole of His humanity, forsooth, which He had
taken upon Him in its entirety at His birth. Then shall the sheep which
was5089
lost, and was wandering in the lower
world, be carried whole on the Saviour’s shoulders, and the sheep
which was sick with sin shall be supported by the mercy of the Judge.
Then shall they see him who pierced Him, who shouted,5090
“Crucify Him, crucify Him.”
Again and again shall they beat their breasts, they and their women,
those women to whom our Lord said, as He carried His cross,5091
“Ye daughters of Jerusalem, weep
not for me but weep for yourselves, and for your children.” Then
shall be fulfilled the prophecy of the angels, who said to the
stupefied Apostles,5092
“Ye men
of Galilee, why stand ye looking with astonishment into heaven? This
Jesus who is taken from you into heaven, shall come in like manner as
ye have seen Him go into heaven.” But what are we to think of a
man saying that our Lord5093
ate with the
Apostles for forty days after His resurrection in order that they might
not think Him to be a phantom, and then asserting that it was a phantom
which did this very thing, which ate and which was seen by many in the
flesh. That which was seen is either real, or false. If it is real, it
follows that He really ate, and really had members. But if it is false,
how could He be willing to give false impressions in order to prove the
truth of His resurrection? For no one proves what is true by means of
what is false. You will say, are we then going to eat after our
resurrection? I know not. Scripture does not tell us; and yet, if the
question be asked, I do not think we shall eat. For I have read that
the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, while it promises5094
such things as eye hath not seen, nor
ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man. Moses fasted forty
days and forty nights. Human nature does not allow of this, but what is
impossible with men is not impossible with God. Just as, in foretelling
the future, it matters not whether a person announces what will take
place after ten years or after a hundred, since the knowledge of
futurity is all one; so he who can fast for forty days and yet
live,—not, indeed, that he can of himself fast, but that he lives
by the power of God,—will also be able to live for ever without
food and drink. Why did our Lord eat an honeycomb? To prove the
resurrection: not to give your palate the pleasure of tasting of honey.
He asked for a fish broiled on the coals that He might5095
confirm the doubting Apostles, who did
not dare approach Him because they thought they saw not a body, but a
spirit.5096
The daughter of the ruler of the
synagogue was raised to life and took food.5097
Lazarus, who had been four days dead,
rose again, and comes before us at a dinner; not because he was
accustomed to eat in the lower world, but because a case which
presented such difficulties challenged the believer’s criticism.
As He showed them real hands and a real side, so He really ate with His
disciples; really walked with Cleophas; conversed with men with a real
tongue; really reclined at supper; with real hands took bread, blessed
and brake it, and was offering it to them. And as for His suddenly
vanishing out of their sight, that is the power of God, not of a
shadowy phantom. Besides, even before His resurrection, when they had
led Him out from Nazareth that they might cast Him down headlong from
the brow of the hill, He passed through the midst of them, that is,
escaped out of their hands. Can we follow Marcion, and say that
because, when He was held fast, He escaped in a manner contrary to
nature, therefore His birth must have been only apparent? Has not the
Lord a privilege which is conceded to magicians? It is related of
Apollonius of Tyana that, when standing in court before Domitian, he
all at once disappeared. Do not put the power of the Lord on a level
with the tricks of magicians, so that He may appear to have been what
He was not, and may be thought to have eaten without teeth, walked
without feet, broken bread without hands, spoken without a tongue, and
showed a side which had no ribs.
35. And how was it, you will say, that they did not
recognize Him on the road if He had the same body which He had before?
Let me recall what Scripture says:5098
“Their eyes were holden, that
they might not know Him.” And again, “Their eyes were
opened, and they knew Him.” Was He one person when He was not
known, and another when He was known? He was surely one and the same.
Whether, therefore, they knew Him, or not, depended on their sight; it
did not depend upon Him Who was seen; and yet it did depend on Him in
this sense, that He held their eyes that they might not know Him.
Lastly, that you may see that the mistake which held them was not to be
attributed to the Lord’s body, but to the fact that their eyes
were closed, we are told:5099
“Their
eyes were opened, and they knew Him.” Wherefore, also, Mary
Magdalene so long as she did not recognize Jesus, and sought the living
among the dead, thought He was the gardener. Afterwards she recognized
Him and then she called Him Lord. After His resurrection Jesus was
standing on the shore, His disciples were in the ship. When the others
did not know Him, the disciple whom Jesus loved5100
said to Peter, “It is the Lord.” For virginity is the first
to recognize a virgin body. He was the same, yet was not seen alike by
all as the same. And immediately it is added,5101
“And no one durst ask Him, Who art
Thou? for they knew that He was the Lord.” No one durst, because
they knew that He was God. They ate with Him at dinner because they saw
He was a man and had flesh; not that He was one person as God, another
as man: but, being one and the same Son of God, He was known as man,
adored as God. I suppose I must now air my philosophy, and say that our
senses are not to be relied on, and especially sight. A5102
| 5102 Born at Cyrene
about b.c. 213. He maintained that we can be
sure of nothing, neither through the senses, nor through the
understanding. | Carneades must be awaked from the dead to
tell us the truth—that an oar seems broken in the water, porticos
afar off look more magnificent, the angles of towers seem rounded in
the distance, that the backs of pigeons change their colours with every
movement. When Rhoda5103
announced
Peter, and told the Apostles, they did not believe that he had escaped,
on account of the greatness of the danger, but suspected it was a
phantom. Moreover, in passing through closed doors, He exhibited the
same power as in vanishing out of sight.5104
| 5104 One of the
Argonauts. | Lynceus, as fable relates, used to see
through a wall. Could not the Lord enter when the doors were shut,
unless He were a phantom? Eagles and vultures perceive dead bodies
across the sea. Shall not the Saviour see His Apostles without opening
the door? Tell me, sharpest of disputants, which is greater, to hang
the vast weight of the earth on nothing, and to balance it on the
changing surface of the waves; or that God should pass through a closed
door, and the creature yield to the Creator? You allow the greater; you
object to the less. Peter5105
walked upon the
waters with his heavy and solid body. The soft water does not yield:
his faith doubts a little, and immediately his body understands its own
nature; that we may know that it was not his body that walked on the
water, but his faith.
36. I pray you, who use such elaborate arguments against
the resurrection, let us have some simple talk together. Do you believe
that our Lord really rose again in the same body in which He died and
was buried, or do you not believe it? If you believe it, why do you
make propositions which lead to the denial of the resurrection? If you
do not believe, you who thus try to deceive the minds of the ignorant,
and parade the word resurrection, though you mean nothing by it, listen
to me. Not long ago, a certain disciple of Marcion said: “Woe to
him who rises again with this flesh and these bones!” Our heart
at once with joy replied,5106
“We are
buried together, and we shall rise together with Christ through
baptism.” “Do you speak of the resurrection of the soul, or
of the flesh?” I answered, “Not that of the soul alone, but
that of the flesh, which, together with the soul, is born again in the
laver. And how shall that perish which has been born again in
Christ?” “Because it is written,” said he,5107
“‘Flesh and blood shall not
inherit the kingdom of God.’” “I intreat you to mind
what is said—‘Flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom
of God.’” “It is said that they shall not rise
again.” “Not at all, but only ‘they shall not inherit
the kingdom.’” “How so?”
“‘Because,’ it follows,5108
‘neither shall corruption
inherit incorruption.’ So long then as they remain mere flesh and
blood, they shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But when the5109
corruptible shall have put on
incorruption, and the mortal shall have put on immortality, and the
clay of the flesh shall have been made into a vessel, then that flesh
which was formerly kept down by a heavy weight upon the earth, when
once it has received the wings of the spirit—wings which imply
its change, not its destruction—shall fly with fresh glory to
heaven; and then shall be fulfilled that which is written,5110
‘Death is swallowed up in victory.
Where, O death, is thy boasting? O death, where is thy
sting?’”
37. Reversing the order, we have given our answer
respecting the state of souls and the resurrection of the flesh; and,
leaving out the opening portions of the letter, we have confined
ourselves to the refutation of this most remarkable treatise. For we
preferred to speak of the things of God rather than of our own wrongs.5111
“If one man sin against another,
they shall pray for him to the Lord. But if he sin against God, who
shall pray for him?” In these days, on the contrary, we make it
our first business to pursue with undying hate those who have injured us—to those
who blaspheme God we indulgently hold out the hand. John writes to
Bishop Theophilus an apology, of which the introduction runs thus:
“You, indeed, as a man of God, adorned with apostolic grace, have
upon you the care of all the Churches, especially of that which is at
Jerusalem, though you yourself are distracted with countless anxieties
for the Church of God, which is under you.” This is barefaced
adulation, and an attempt to concentrate5112
| 5112 Laudat faciem, ad
personam principum trahit. Literally, He praises the face (i.e.
the person of Theophilus) and draws him on to act the part of (only fit
for) princes. | authority in the hands of an
individual. You, who ask for ecclesiastical rules, and make use of
the5113
canons of the Council of Nicæa,
and claim authority over clerics who belong to another diocese and are5114
| 5114 This relates to
Paulinianus, who was ordained by Epiphanius, and was then living with
him in Cyprus. | actually living with their own bishop,
answer my question, What has Palestine to do with the bishop of
Alexandria? Unless I am deceived, it is decreed in those canons that
Cæsarea is the metropolis of Palestine, and Antioch of the whole
of the East. You ought therefore either to appeal to the bishop of
Cæsarea, with whom you know that we have communion while we
disdain to communicate with you, or, if judgment were to be sought at a
distance, letters ought rather to be addressed to Antioch. But I know
why you were unwilling to send to Cæsarea, or to Antioch. You knew
what to flee from, what to avoid. You preferred to assail with your
complaints ears that were preoccupied rather than pay due honour to
your metropolitan. And I do not say this because I have anything to
blame in the mission itself, except certain partialities which beget
suspicion, but because you ought rather to clear yourself in the actual
presence of your questioners. You begin with the words, “You have
sent a most devoted servant of God, the presbyter Isidore, a man of
influence no less from the dignity of his very gait and dress than from
that of his divine understanding, to heal those whose souls are
grievously sick; would that they had any sense of their illness! A man
of God sends a man of God.” No difference is made between a
priest and a bishop; the same dignity belongs to the sender and the
sent; this is lame enough; the ship, as the saying goes, is wrecked in
harbour. That Isidore, whom you extol to the sky by your praises, lies
under the same imputation of heresy5115
| 5115 Theophilus, whose
sympathies had suddenly changed, turned violently against Isidore, who
had previously been his confidential friend, accused him of Origenism,
and, on his taking refuge with Chrysostom at Constantinople, pursued
both him and Chrysostom with unrelenting animosity. | at
Alexandria as you at Jerusalem; wherefore he appears to have come to
you not as an envoy, but as a confederate. Besides, the letters in his
own handwriting, which, three months before the sending of the embassy,
had been sent to us5116
| 5116 Reading
portantes errorem. Another reading is, “Through the error
of the bearer.” | through an
error in the address, were delivered to the presbyter Vincentius, and
to this day they are in his keeping. In these letters the writer
encourages the leader of his army5117
| 5117 John, to whom
the letters were really written. | to plant
his foot firmly upon the rock of the faith, and not to be terrified by
our Jeremiads. He promises, before we had any suspicion of his mission,
that he will come to Jerusalem, and that on his arrival the ranks of
his adversaries will be instantly crushed. And amongst the rest he uses
these words: “As smoke vanishes in the air, and wax melts beside
the fire, so shall they be scattered who are for ever resisting the
faith of the Church, and are now through simple men endeavouring to
disturb that faith.”
38. I ask you, my reader, what does a man, who writes
these things before he comes, appear to you to be? An adversary, or an
envoy? This is the man whom we may, indeed, call most pious, or most
religious, and, to give the exact equivalent of the word, one devoted
to the worship of God. This is the man of divine understanding, so
influential, and of such dignity in gait and dress, that, like a
spiritual Hippocrates, he is able by his presence to relieve the
sickness of our souls, provided, however, we are willing to submit to
his treatment. If such is his medicine, let him heal himself, since he
is accustomed to heal others. To us, that divine understanding of his
is folly for the sake of Christ. We willingly remain in the sickness of
our simplicity, rather than, by using your eye-salve, learn an impious
abuse of sight. Next come the words: “The excellent intentions of
your Holiness compel our prayers to the Lord night and day; and, as
though those intentions were already perfectly realised, we offer our
prayers to Him in the holy places, that He may give you a perfect
reward, and bestow on you the crown of life.” You do right in
giving thanks; for, if Isidore had not come you would not now have
found in the whole of Palestine such a faithful associate. If he had
not brought you the aid he had promised beforehand, you would find
yourself surrounded by a crowd of rustics incapable of understanding your wisdom. This very apology of
which we are now speaking was dictated in the presence and, to a great
extent, with the assistance of Isidore, so that the same person both
composed the letter and carried it to its destination.
39. Your letter goes on to relate that “though he
had come hither and had had three separate interviews with us, and had
applied to the matter the healing language no less of your divine
wisdom than of his own understanding, he found that he could be of no
use to any one, nor could any one be of use to him.” The fact is
that he who is said to have had “three separate interviews with
us,” so that in his coming he might maintain the mystic number,
and who talked to us about the command issued by Bishop Theophilus, did
not choose to deliver the letters sent to us by him. And when we said:
If you are an envoy, produce your credentials; if you have no letters,
how can you prove to us that you are an envoy? he replied that he had,
indeed, letters to us but he had been adjured by the bishop of
Jerusalem not to give them to us. You see here the true envoy
consistent with his proper character; you see how impartial he shows
himself to both sides, that he may make peace, and exclude the
suspicion of favouring either party. At all events, he had come without
a plaster, and had not the physician’s instruments at his
command, and therefore his medicine was of no avail. “Jerome and
those associated with him,” you continue, “both secretly,
and in the presence of all, again and again and with the attestation of
an oath, satisfied him that they never had any doubts of our orthodoxy,
saying: We have now just the same feeling toward him, as regards
matters of faith, that we had when we used to communicate with
him.” See what dogmatic agreement can do. Isidore, in order that
he might make such a report as this, is taken into close fellowship,
and is spoken of as a man of God, and a most devout priest, a man of
influence, of holy and venerable gait, and of divine understanding, the
Hippocrates of the Christians. I, a poor wretch, hiding away in
solitude, suddenly cut off by this mighty pontiff, have lost the name
of priest. This “Jerome,” then, with his ragged herd and
shabby following, did he dare to give any answer to Isidore and his
thunderbolts? Of course not; and doubtless for no other motive than
fear that the envoy would never yield, and might overwhelm them by his
presence and5118
| 5118 Isidore was
closely associated with the three brothers known as the Long Monks from
their great size, and seems to have shared the appellation with
them. | gigantic
stature. “Not once, nor thrice, but again and again5119
| 5119 i.e.
Jerome and his friends. This was Isidore’s report, incorporated
probably into John’s letter. | they swore that they knew the individual
in question to be orthodox, and that they had never suspected him of
heresy.” What undisguised and shameless lying! A witness borne by
a man to himself! Such witness as is not believed even in the mouth of
a Cato, for5120
| 5120 Numb. xxxv. 30; Deut. xvii. 6; 2 Cor.
xiii. 1. | in the mouth of two or three
witnesses shall every word be established. Was there ever a word said,
or a message sent to you, to the effect that, without being satisfied
as to your orthodoxy, we would endure communion with you? When, through
the instrumentality of the Count Archelaus, a most accomplished as well
as a most Christian man, who tried to negotiate a peace between us, a
place had been appointed where we were to meet, was not one of the
first things postulated that the faith should form the basis of future
agreement? He promised to come. Easter was approaching; a great
multitude of monks had assembled; you were expected at the appointed
place; what to do you did not know. All at once you sent word that some
one or other was sick, you could not come that day. Is it a
stage-player or a bishop who thus speaks? Suppose what you said was
true, to suit the pleasure of one feeble woman who fears that she may
have a headache, or may feel sick, or haste a pain in the stomach,
while you are away, do you neglect the interests of the Church? Do you
despise so many men, Christians and monks assembled together? We were
unwilling to give occasion for breaking off the negotiation; we saw
through the artifice of your procrastination, and sought to overcome
the wrong you did us by patience. Archelaus wrote again, advising him
that he was staying on for two days, in case he should be willing to
come. But he was busy; his dear little woman had not ceased to vomit,
he could not bestow a thought upon us until she should have escaped
from her nausea. Well, after two months, at last the long-looked for
Isidore arrived, and what he heard from us was not as you pretend, a
testimony in your behalf, but the reason why we demanded satisfaction.
For when he raised the point, “Why, if he were a heretic, did you
communicate with him?” he was answered by us all that we
communicated without any suspicion of his heresy; but that, after he
had been summoned by the Most Reverend Epiphanius, both by word and by
letter, and had disdained to answer, documents were addressed to the
monks by Epiphanius himself, to the effect that, unless he gave
satisfaction respecting the faith, no one should rashly communicate
with him. The letters are in our hands; there can be no doubt about the
matter. This, then, was the reply
made by the whole body of the brethren: not, as you maintain, that you
were not an heretic, because at a former time you were not said to be
one. For upon that showing, a man must be said not to be sick, because
previous to his sickness he was in good health.
40. To proceed with the letter. “But when the
ordination of Paulinianus, and the others associated with him, was
brought forward, they began to feel that they themselves were in the
wrong. For the sake of charity and concord every concession was made to
them, and the only point insisted on was that, though they had been
ordained contrary to the rules, yet they should be subject to the
authority of the Church of God, that they should not rend it, and set
up an authority of their own. But they, not agreeing to this, began to
raise questions concerning the faith; and thus they made it evident to
all that if the presbyter Jerome and his friends were not accused, they
had no charge to bring against us, but that they only betook themselves
to doctrinal questions because, when charges of error and misconduct
were brought against them, they were utterly unable to reply to us on
matters of that sort, or to give any satisfactory explanation of their
wrong-doing: not that they had any hope that we could be convicted of
heresy, but they were striving to injure our reputation.”
41. No one must blame the translator for this verbiage:
the Greek is the same. Meanwhile I rejoice that whereas I thought I was
beheaded I find my presbyterial head on my shoulders again. He says
that we are utterly incapable of conviction, and he draws back from the
encounter. If the cause of discord is not due to discussions about the
faith, but springs from the ordination of Paulinianus, is it not the
extreme of folly to give occasion to those who seek occasion by
refusing to answer? Confess the faith; but do it so as to answer the
question put to you, that it may be clear to all that the dispute is
not one of faith, but of order. For so long as you are silent when
questioned concerning the faith, your adversary has a right to say to
you: “The matter is not one of order but of faith.” If it
is a question of order, you act foolishly in saying nothing when
questioned concerning the faith. If it is one of faith, it is foolish
of you to make a pretext of the question of order. Moreover, when you
say your aim was that they might be subject to the Church, that they
might not rend it, nor set up an authority of their own; who they are
of whom you speak I do not well understand. If you are speaking of me
and the presbyter Vincentius, you have been asleep long enough, if you
only wake up now, after thirteen years,5121
| 5121 Dating probably
from Jerome’s coming to Palestine. See Prefatory Note. | to say these things. For the reason why
I forsook Antioch and he Constantinople,5122
both famous cities, was, not that we
might praise your popular eloquence, but that, in the country and in
solitude, we might weep over the sins of our youth, and draw down upon
us the mercy of Christ. But if Paulinianus is the subject of your
remarks, he, as you see, is subject to his5123
| 5123 That is, Jerome
argues, Epiphanius, who ordained him. | bishop, and lives at Cyprus: he
sometimes comes to visit us, not as one of your clergy, but as
another’s, his, namely, by whom he was ordained. But if he wished
even to stay here, and to live a quiet, solitary life sharing our
exile, what does he owe you except the respect which we owe to all
bishops? Suppose that he had been ordained by you; he would only tell
you the same that I, a poor wretch of a man, told Bishop Paulinus of
blessed memory. “Did I ask to be ordained by you?” I said.
“If in bestowing the rank of presbyter you do not strip us of the
monastic state, you can bestow or withhold ordination as you think
best. But if your intention in giving the name presbyter was to take
from me that for which I forsook the world, I must still claim to be
what I always was; you have suffered no loss by ordaining me.”5124
| 5124 This perhaps
means, “No virtue has gone out of you—you have conferred
nothing upon me.” |
42. “That they might not rend the Church,”
he says, “and set up an authority of their own.” Who rends
the Church? Do we, who as a complete household at Bethlehem communicate
in the Church? Or is it you, who either being orthodox refuse through
pride to speak concerning the faith, or else being heterodox are the
real render of the Church? Do we rend the Church, who, a few months
ago, about the day of Pentecost, when the sun was darkened and all the
world dreaded the immediate coming of the Judge, presented forty
candidates of different ages and sexes to your presbyter for baptism?
There were certainly five presbyters in the monastery who had the right
to baptize; but they were unwilling to do anything to move you to
anger, for fear you might make this a pretext for reticence concerning
the faith. Is it not you, on the contrary, who rend the Church, you who
commanded your presbyters at Bethlehem not to give baptism to our
candidates at Easter, so that we sent them to5125
Diospolis to the Confessor and Bishop
Dionysius for baptism? Are we said to rend the Church, who, outside our
cells, hold no position in the Church? Or do not you rather rend the
Church, who issue an order to your clergy that if any one says Paulinianus was
consecrated presbyter by Epiphanius, he is to be forbidden to enter the
Church. Ever since that time to this day we can only look from without
on the cave of the Saviour, and, while heretics enter, we stand afar
off and sigh.
43. Are we schismatics? Is not he the schismatic who
refuses a habitation to the living, a grave to the dead, and demands
the exile of his brethren? Who was it that set at our throats, with
special fury, that wild beast who constantly menaced the throats of the
whole world?5126
| 5126 The allusion is
believed to be to the Prefect Rufinus, who was at the head of the
government under the young Arcadius, and whose intrigues with Alaric
with a view to obtain the empire for himself led to his death in the
end of 395.—Comp. Letter LXXXII. 10. | Who is it that permits the rain
to beat upon the bones of the saints, and their harmless ashes, up to
the present hour? These are the endearments with which the good
shepherd invites us to reconciliation, and at the same time accuses us
of setting up an authority of our own—us who are united in
communion and charity with all the bishops, so long, at least, as they
are orthodox. Do you yourself constitute the Church, and is whosoever
offends you shut out from Christ? If we defend our own
authority—prove that we have a bishop in your diocese. The reason
that we have not had communion with you is the question of faith;
answer our questions, and it will become one of order.
44. “They,” you go on, “also take
advantage of other letters which they say Epiphanius wrote to them. But
he, too shall give account for all his doings before the judgment seat
of Christ, where great and small shall be judged without respect of
persons. Still, how can they rely on his letter which he wrote only
because we took him to task on the matter of the unlawful ordination of
Paulinianus and his associates; as in the opening of that very letter
he intimates?” What, I ask, is the meaning of this blindness? how
is it that he is immersed, as the saying goes, in Cimmerian darkness?
He says that we make a pretext, and that we have no letters from
Epiphanius against him, and he immediately adds, “How can they
rely on his letter, which he only wrote because he was taken to task by
us, in the matter of the unlawful ordination of Paulinianus and his
associates; as in the opening of that very letter he intimates?”
We have no such letter! And what letter then is that, which in its
opening sentence speaks of Paulinianus? There is something in the body
of the letter of which you are afraid to make mention. Well! He was
taken to task, you say, by you because of the age of Paulinianus. But
you yourself ordain a man presbyter, and send him out as an envoy and a
colleague. You have the boldness falsely to call Paulinianus a boy, and
then to send out your own boy presbyter. You likewise take Theoseca, a
deacon of the church of Thiria, and make him presbyter, and put weapons
into his hands against us, and make a misuse of his eloquence for our
injury. You alone are at liberty to trample on the rights of the
Church; whatever you do, is the standard of teaching; and you do not
blush to challenge Epiphanius to stand with you before the judgment
seat of Christ. The sequel of this passage is to the following effect:5127
| 5127 See Letter LI.,
which begins as John says, though Jerome denies it. | he throws it in the teeth of
Epiphanius that he was the partner of his table and an inmate of his
house, and declares that they never had any talk together concerning
the views of Origen, and he supports what he says with the attestation
of an oath, saying: “He never showed, as God is witness, that he
had even the suspicion that our faith was not correct?” I am
unwilling to answer and argue acrimoniously, lest I seem to be
convicting a bishop of perjury. There are several letters of Epiphanius
in our possession. One to John himself, others to the bishops of
Palestine, and one of recent date to the pontiff of Rome; and in these
he speaks of himself as impugning his views in the presence of many,
and says that he was not thought worthy of a reply, “and the
whole Monastery,” he says, “is witness to what we in our
insignificance assert.”E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
