Letters 188

… came. For the ancients judged it right to accept that baptism which in no way departs from the faith. Hence they named some things heresies, some schisms, and some unlawful assemblies: heresies, those who have broken off completely and become alienated in the faith itself; schisms, those who have separated from one another for certain ecclesiastical reasons and over questions that admit of a cure; unlawful assemblies, gatherings held by insubordinate presbyters or bishops and by uninstructed peoples. For example, if someone found guilty of a fault was suspended from his ministry and did not submit to the canons, but claimed the presidency and the ministry for himself, and some went off with him, leaving the catholic church, that is an unlawful assembly. A schism is holding a different view about repentance from those of the church. Heresies are, for example, that of the Manichaeans, of the Valentinians, of the Marcionites, and of these very Pepuzenes; for the difference concerns faith in God itself. It seemed good, then, to those at the beginning to reject altogether the baptism of the heretics, but to accept that of the schismatics, as still being of the church; and that those in unlawful assemblies, having been bettered by worthy repentance and conversion, should be joined to the church again, so that often even those in orders who went off with the insubordinate are received into the same rank when they repent. Now the Pepuzenes are plainly heretics; for they blasphemed against the Holy Spirit, unlawfully and shamelessly giving the title of the Paraclete to Montanus and Priscilla. Whether, then, as making men into gods, they stand condemned, or as insulting the Holy Spirit by comparing him with men, and so liable to eternal condemnation, because blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is unpardonable, what reason is there for approving the baptism of these men, who baptize into the Father and the Son and Montanus or Priscilla? For those baptized into what has not been handed down to us have not been baptized. So, even if this escaped the great Dionysius, we must not keep the imitation of the error. For the absurdity is obvious at once and plain to all who have even a little share of reasoning. The Cathari too are among the schismatics. Yet it seemed good to the ancients, I mean Cyprian and our Firmilian, to subject all these to one vote, Cathari, Encratites, and Hydroparastatae; because the beginning of the separation came about through schism, but those who withdrew from the church no longer had the grace of the Holy Spirit upon them; for the imparting of it failed because the succession was broken. For those who first departed had their ordinations from the fathers, and through the laying on of their hands they had the spiritual gift; but those broken off, having become laymen, had authority neither to baptize nor to ordain, being no longer able to impart to others the grace of the Holy Spirit from which they themselves had fallen. Therefore they ordered that those baptized by them, as baptized by laymen, should, when they come to the church, be purified by the church's true baptism. But since it seemed good altogether to some of those in Asia, for the sake of economy toward the many, that their baptism be accepted, let it be accepted. But we must perceive the villainy of the Encratites: that, to make themselves unacceptable to the church, they have now undertaken to forestall it with a baptism of their own; so they have even counterfeited their own custom. I think, then, that since nothing has been expressly laid down about them, it is fitting for us to reject their baptism, and if anyone has received it from them, to baptize him when he comes to the church. If, however, this is going to be a hindrance to the general economy, we must use the custom again and follow the fathers who ordered our affairs. For I fear lest, while we wish to make them slow to baptize, we may hinder those being saved by the severity of our decision. And if they keep our baptism, let this not move us. For we are not bound to return the favour to them, but to serve the exactness of the canons. But in any case let it be laid down that those who come from their baptism be anointed, clearly in the presence of the faithful, and so approach the mysteries. I know that we received into the episcopal chair the brothers with Izois and Saturninus, who were of that order. So we can no longer separate from the church those who have joined their company, having laid down a kind of canon of communion with them through our acceptance of the bishops. 2. A woman who has deliberately destroyed the fetus is liable to the penalty for murder. Among us there is no fine distinction between one formed and unformed. For here not only the child that would have been born is avenged, but also the woman herself who plotted against herself, because for the most part women die in such attempts. And to this is added the destruction of the embryo, another murder, at least in the intention of those who dare such things. However, their penance should not be extended until their departure; they should accept the measure of ten years, and the treatment should be determined not by time but by the manner of their repentance. 3. A deacon who commits sexual immorality after entering the diaconate shall be removed from the diaconate, but, thrust down to the place of the laity, shall not be excluded from communion. For it is an ancient canon that those fallen from a rank are subjected to this kind of punishment only; those of the beginning following, I think, that law, 'You shall not punish twice for the same thing'; and for another reason too: that those in the lay order, when cast out of the place of the faithful, are received back into the place from which they fell; but the deacon has once for all the lasting penalty of deposition. Since, then, the diaconate is not given back to him, they stopped at this one punishment. These things come from the rules. But in general the truer cure is withdrawal from sin. So he who has rejected grace for the pleasure of the flesh, if by contrition of the flesh and every bondage of self-control he withdraws from the pleasures by which he was overthrown, will give us complete proof of his cure. We must therefore know both what belongs to strictness and what belongs to custom; and in the case of those who do not accept the severity, follow the pattern handed down. 4. Concerning those married three times and many times, they laid down the same canon, in proportion, as for those married twice: one year for the twice-married (others say two years); those married three times they often exclude for three and four years. They no longer call such a thing marriage, but polygamy, or rather sexual immorality kept within limits. That is why the Lord too said to the Samaritan woman, who had gone through five husbands, 'He whom you now have is not your husband', as though those who exceed the measure of a second marriage were no longer worthy to be called by the name of husband or wife. We have received the custom of five years' exclusion for the thrice-married, not from canons but from the practice of our predecessors. They should not be shut out of the church altogether, but should be allowed to be hearers for perhaps two or three years; and after that be permitted to stand with the others but to abstain from communion of the good; and so, having shown some fruit of repentance, be restored to the place of communion. 5. Heretics who repent at their departure from life must be received; received, clearly, not without discernment, but by testing whether they show true repentance and have fruits that testify to their zeal to be saved. 6. The sexual immoralities of canonical women are not to be reckoned as marriage, but their union is to be broken up by every means. For this is both profitable to the church for its safety and will give the heretics no handle against us, as though we drew people to ourselves by licence to sin. 7. Corrupters of males and of animals, murderers, poisoners, adulterers, and idolaters have been judged worthy of the same condemnation. So keep for these too the pattern you hold for the others. But those who have repented for thirty years of the impurity they committed in ignorance there should be no hesitation to receive. For both their ignorance makes them worthy of pardon, and the voluntary nature of their confession, and its extension over so long a time. For they have been handed over to Satan for almost a whole generation of man, that they may be trained not to behave indecently. So order them to be received now without delay, especially if they have tears that move your compassion and show a life worthy of sympathy. 8. He who used an axe against his own wife in anger is a murderer. But you did well to remind me, and worthily of your intelligence, to speak more fully about these things, because there are many differences among voluntary and involuntary acts. Wholly involuntary and far from the intention of the doer is the case of one who throws a stone at a dog or a tree and hits a man. For the impulse was to drive off the beast or to shake down the fruit, but the one who happened to pass by came under the blow of himself; so such a thing is involuntary. Involuntary too is the case of one who, wishing to correct someone, strikes him with a strap or a rod that is not hard, and the one struck dies. For the intention is considered, that he wished to improve the sinner, not to kill him. Among the involuntary is also this: one who defends himself in a fight with a stick or his hand strikes unsparingly at vital parts, so as to hurt the other, not to kill him altogether. But this already comes close to the voluntary; for one who used such an instrument for defence, or did not strike with restraint, plainly did not spare the man because he was mastered by passion. Likewise one who uses a heavy stick, or a stone too large for human strength, is counted among the involuntary, having intended one thing and done another. For in anger he struck such a blow as to kill the one struck, though his aim was perhaps to bruise him, not to kill him outright. But one who uses a sword or anything of that kind has no excuse, and especially one who has thrown the axe. For he plainly did not strike from the hand, so as to keep the measure of the blow in his own control, but threw it, so that by the weight of the iron, its edge, and its long flight the blow was necessarily deadly. Wholly voluntary, again, and admitting no doubt, are the deeds of robbers and attacks in war. For the former kill for money, avoiding conviction; and those in wars go to slaughter neither to frighten nor to chasten, but openly choosing to kill their opponents. And again, if someone mixes a magical potion for some other purpose and kills, we reckon such a thing voluntary; as women often do, trying to draw some to love of themselves by incantations and love-knots, and giving them drugs that bring darkness on their minds. Such women, then, when they kill, even if they intended one thing and did another, are nonetheless counted among voluntary murderers because of the magical and forbidden nature of the practice. And women who give drugs that cause abortion are themselves murderers, and so are those who take the poisons that kill the fetus. So much for this. 9. The Lord's pronouncement, according to the logic of its sense, applies equally to men and women, that it is not lawful to depart from a marriage except on the ground of sexual immorality. But custom does not hold so; rather, in the case of women we find much strictness, since the apostle says, 'He who joins himself to a prostitute is one body', and Jeremiah, 'If a woman becomes another man's, she shall not return to her husband, but being defiled she shall be defiled'; and again, 'He who keeps an adulteress is foolish and impious.' But custom orders that even men who commit adultery and live in sexual immorality be kept by their wives. So I do not know whether the woman who lives with the man who has been left can be called an adulteress. For the charge here attaches to the woman who put away her husband, according to the reason for which she departed from the marriage. If, being beaten, she did not bear the blows, she ought rather to have endured than to be separated from her husband; or if she did not bear the loss of property, not even this pretext is worth considering. And if it was because he lives in sexual immorality, we do not have this rule in the church's custom; rather, a wife was not even commanded to separate from an unbelieving husband, but to remain, because of the uncertainty of the outcome: 'For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband?' So the woman who has left her husband is an adulteress if she went to another man. But the man who has been left is pardonable, and the woman who lives with such a man is not condemned. If, however, the husband, having departed from his wife, went to another, he too is an adulterer, because he makes her commit adultery; and the woman who lives with him is an adulteress, because she has drawn another's husband to herself. 10. Those who swear that they will not accept ordination, swearing it off, are not to be compelled to break their oath. For even if there seems to be some canon that makes allowance for such people, yet we have learned by experience that those who break their oaths do not prosper. One must consider the form of the oath, its words, the disposition in which they swore, and the fine additions in the words; so that if there is no relief from any quarter, such people must be let alone altogether. However, the affair of Severus, that is, of the presbyter ordained by him, seems to me to have some such remedy as this, if you also agree. Order that the farm subject to Mestia, to which the man was assigned, be placed under Vasoda. For in this way he will not break his oath by not leaving the place; and Longinus, having Cyriacus with him, will neither leave his church desolate nor condemn his own soul through idleness. And we shall seem to do nothing against the canons in accommodating Cyriacus, who swore to remain with the people of Mindana but accepted the transfer; for his return will be the keeping of his oath. And his yielding to the arrangement will not be reckoned to him as perjury, because it was not added to the oath that he would not leave Mindana even for a short time, but that he would remain there for the future. And to Severus, who pleads forgetfulness, we shall grant pardon, saying that the knower of secrets will not overlook his own church being harmed by such a man, who from the start acted against the canons, bound a man with an oath contrary to the Gospels, taught perjury by the transfer, and now lies in pretending forgetfulness. But since we are not judges of hearts, but judge from what we hear, let us give the vengeance to the Lord, and ourselves receive him without distinction, pardoning a human weakness, forgetfulness. 11. He who has committed involuntary murder has sufficiently fulfilled the penalty in eleven years. For it is clear that in the case of those struck we shall observe the rules of Moses; and one who took to his bed from the blows he received, but walked again upon his staff, we shall not reckon murdered. And even if he did not rise after the blows, yet because the one who struck him did not intend to kill him, he is a murderer, but an involuntary one because of his intention. 12. The canon has excluded the twice-married from the ministry altogether. 13. Our fathers did not reckon killings in wars as murders, granting pardon, it seems to me, to those who defend chastity and godliness. But perhaps it is well to advise that, since their hands are not clean, they abstain from communion alone for three years. 14. One who takes interest, if he agrees to spend the unjust gain on the poor and to be freed henceforth from the disease of love of money, may be received into the priesthood. 15. I am surprised that you require grammatical exactness of Scripture and reckon the expression forced, since the translation gives its own clear sense and does not alter what is properly signified by the Hebrew word. But since a problem raised by an inquiring man should not be passed over lightly, the birds of the air and the fish … [Letter 189] … devising the correction of the sicknesses of souls. I say this not only following the reports of the many, but taught by my own experience, both in many other things and especially now in the indescribable wickedness of our enemies, which, flowing over our life like an evil flood, you have skilfully dispersed, dissipating this grievous inflammation of our heart by pouring on it consoling words. For I, looking at the successive and varied attempts of our enemies against us, thought I ought to keep silent and accept quietly what was brought on us, and not to answer those armed with falsehood, that evil weapon which often drives its point even through the truth. But you, doing well, urged me not to betray the truth, but to refute the slanderers, so that many might not be harmed by falsehood prevailing over truth. 2. Those who have taken up their groundless hatred against us seemed to me, then, to do something like Aesop's fable. For as he made the wolf bring certain charges against the lamb, being ashamed, forsooth, to seem to kill without just pretext one who had done him no harm, and when the lamb easily refuted every charge brought by calumny, the wolf did not slacken his attack at all, but was beaten in justice and won with his teeth: so these, by whom hatred against us has been pursued as though it were a good thing, blushing perhaps to seem to hate without cause, invent causes and charges against us, and abide by none of their statements to the end, but now say that this, a little later that another, and again that something else is the cause of their hostility to us. Their wickedness stands on nothing; but when they are shaken off this charge they fasten on another, and from that again they seize on another; and if all the charges are resolved, they do not cease from hating. They accuse us of preaching three gods, and they fill the ears of the many, and do not cease building up this slander persuasively. But the truth fights for us, as we show both publicly to all and privately to those who meet us that everyone who speaks of three gods is anathematized by us and is not even judged to be a Christian. But when they hear this, Sabellius is ready to hand against us, and the disease that comes from him is noised abroad as our teaching. Against this too, again, we put forward our usual weapon, the truth, showing that we shudder at such a heresy as much as at Judaism. 3. What then? After so many attempts did they grow tired and become quiet? Not so. But they charge us with innovation, framing the accusation against us thus: that, while we confess three hypostases, we are accused of speaking of one goodness, one power, and one godhead. And this is not outside the truth, for we do say it. But they bring this as a charge, that their custom does not have it, and Scripture does not agree. What, then, do we say to this? We do not think it right to make the custom prevailing among them a law and rule of right doctrine. For if custom is strong for the proof of correctness, we too may surely put forward in turn the custom prevailing among us. And if they reject this, we too are surely not bound to follow them. Let the God-inspired Scripture, then, decide between us; and with those whose doctrines are found in harmony with the divine words the vote of the truth will surely rest. What, then, is the charge? Two things are brought forward together in the accusation against us: one, that we divide the hypostases; the other, that we no longer count any of the names befitting God in the plural, but proclaim in the singular, as was said, one goodness, one power, one godhead, and all such things. As to the division of the hypostases, those who teach a difference of essences in the divine nature could not object. For it is not likely that those who speak of three essences do not also speak of three hypostases. So this alone is in the charge: that we proclaim in the singular the names applied to the divine nature. 4. But our answer to this is ready and clear. For he who condemns those who speak of one godhead must necessarily agree either with him who speaks of many or with him who speaks of none. For it is not possible to conceive anything besides what has been said. But the God-inspired teaching does not allow us to speak of many, since wherever it mentions the godhead it mentions it in the singular: 'In him dwells all the fullness of the godhead'; and elsewhere, 'For his invisible things are clearly seen from the creation of the world, being understood by the things that are made, both his eternal power and divinity.' If, then, to extend the number of godheads to a multitude belongs only to those sick with the error of many gods, and to deny the godhead altogether would belong to the godless, what reason is there for slandering us for confessing one godhead? But they reveal the aim of their argument more plainly: they accept that the Father is God, and agree likewise that the Son is honoured with the name of godhead; but the Spirit, though numbered with Father and Son, they no longer include in the concept of godhead, but, making the power of the godhead stop at the Son, starting from the Father, they separate the nature of the Spirit from the divine glory. So we too must make a defence, as far as we are able, briefly against this notion as well. 5. What, then, is our argument? The Lord, handing on the saving faith to those who are made disciples to the Word, joins the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son. And what is once joined, we say, has the conjunction throughout. For it is not ranked with them in one thing and cut off in others. But in the life-giving power, by which our nature is transformed from perishable life to immortality, the power of the Spirit is taken together with Father and Son; and in many other things, such as the notion of the good, and the holy and eternal, wise, upright, sovereign, powerful, and everywhere plainly it is inseparable in all the names taken in the higher sense. So we think it right to hold that what is joined with Father and Son in so many lofty conceptions befitting God is separated from them in none. For we know of no difference of better and worse among the names conceived about the divine nature, so that it would be pious to grant the Spirit communion in the lesser names and to judge him unworthy of the higher. For all the conceptions and names befitting God are of equal honour with one another, since they do not differ in their signification of the subject. For the name 'good' does not lead the mind to one subject, and 'wise', 'powerful', and 'just' to another; but whatever names you say, what is signified through all of them is one. And if you say 'God', you have indicated the same one whom you understood through the other names. If, then, all the names applied to the divine nature are of equal force with one another in indicating the subject, leading our mind to the same thing by different emphases, what reason is there, granting the Spirit communion with Father and Son in the other names, to cut him off from the godhead alone? For it is wholly necessary either to grant communion in this too, or not to allow it in the others either. For if he is worthy in those, he is surely not unworthy in this. But if he is too small, by their argument, for communion with Father and Son in the name of godhead, he is not worthy to share in any other of the names befitting God either. For the names, examined and compared with one another by the emphasis seen in each, will be found to have nothing less than the appellation 'God'. Evidence of this: many even of lower things are called by this name; or rather, divine Scripture does not spare this homonymy even in incongruous cases, as when it calls idols by the name of God. For 'The gods,' it says, 'who did not make the heaven and the earth, let them be taken away and cast beneath the earth'; and 'All the gods of the nations are demons.' And the woman with a familiar spirit, calling up for Saul by her sorceries the souls he sought, says that she saw gods. And Balaam, an augur and diviner, carrying the means of divination in his hand, as Scripture says, and having obtained the teaching of demons through the meddling art of augury, is recorded by Scripture to take counsel from God. And many such things can be collected from the divine Scriptures and set forth: that this name holds no primacy over the other names befitting God, since, as was said, we find it used homonymously even of incongruous things. But the names holy, incorruptible, upright, and good, we have been taught by Scripture, are nowhere shared with things unfitting. If, then, they do not dispute that the Holy Spirit shares with the Son and the Father in the names piously said exclusively of the divine nature alone, what reason is there to make out that he has no share in this one only, in which, as has been shown, even demons and idols share by a homonymous use? 6. But they say that this appellation indicates nature, and that the nature of the Spirit has no communion with Father and Son, and therefore he has no share in communion in this name. Let them show, then, by what means they recognized the difference of nature. For if it were possible for the divine nature itself to be contemplated in itself, and to find through what appears what is proper to it and what is alien, we would surely need no arguments or other evidence for grasping what is sought; but since it is higher than the understanding of those who seek, and we reason from certain evidences about things that escape our knowledge, it is wholly necessary for us to be guided by the operations to the investigation of the divine nature. If, then, we see the operations performed by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit differing from one another, we shall conjecture from the difference of the operations that the natures that operate are different too. For things that differ in nature cannot coincide in the form of their operations: fire does not chill, nor does ice warm; but with the difference of natures the operations that come from them are separated from one another too. But if we understand the operation of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to be one, differing or varying in nothing, we must necessarily infer the unity of the nature from the identity of the operation. 7. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit alike sanctify, give life, enlighten, comfort, and do all such things. And let no one assign the power of sanctifying exclusively to the operation of the Spirit, when he hears the Saviour in the Gospel saying to the Father about the disciples, 'Father, sanctify them in your name.' Likewise all the other things are operated equally in the worthy by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: every grace and power, guidance, life, comfort, the change to immortality, the passage to freedom, and whatever other good comes down to us. And the dispensation above us, in the intelligible and the sensible creation, if one must conjecture through what is known to us about what lies above us, is not itself outside the operation and power of the Holy Spirit, each receiving the benefit according to his own worth and need. For even if the ordering and governance of the things above our nature is hidden from our perception, yet one would more reasonably conclude from consistency, through what is known to us, that the power of the Spirit is active in those things too, than that it is estranged from the dispensation of the higher beings. For he who says the latter puts forward a bare and unsupported blasphemy, building up the absurdity by no reasoning; but he who agrees that the things above us too are ordered by the power of the Spirit together with Father and Son maintains it relying on clear evidence from his own life. So the identity of operation in the case of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit clearly shows the unvarying nature. So, even if the name of godhead signifies nature, the commonness of essence agrees that this appellation is properly applied to the Holy Spirit as well. 8. But I do not know how those who contrive everything bring the appellation of godhead to the indication of nature, as though they had not heard from Scripture that a nature does not come by appointment. But Moses was appointed god of the Egyptians, when the one who gave him oracles said to him, 'I have given you as a god to Pharaoh.' So the appellation carries the indication of some authority, either of oversight or of operation. But the divine nature, as it is in itself, remains unsignified in all the names conceived, as our argument holds. For in learning 'benefactor' and 'judge', 'good' and 'just', and all such things, we have been taught differences of operations; but we can know the nature of the one who operates no better through understanding the operations. For when one gives the definition of each of these names and of the nature itself to which the names belong, he will not give the same definition of both. And things whose definition is different have a different nature too. So the essence, for which no word that reveals it has yet been found, is one thing, and the signification of the names about it, which are named from some operation or dignity, is another. That there is no difference in the operations we find from the communion of the names; but we grasp no clear proof of a variation in nature, since, as was said, the identity of the operations indicates the community of the nature. Whether, then, 'godhead' is a name of operation, then, as there is one operation of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so we say that the godhead is one; or whether, according to the opinions of the many, the name of godhead indicates nature, then, because no variation is found in the nature, we not unreasonably define the holy Trinity as of one godhead … whenever there was occasion, and privately to those who readily ask …