Eleven Tractates 1.26–1.40

"Put your hands into the clefts of the wounds of my hands"; and we read written in the gospel: "And they took a sponge full of vinegar and gall and gave him to drink, and he said: It is finished." All these things the schismatics or heretics, interpolating the Scriptures according to their own scheme and inserting the sense of their own wretchedness into the divine words, have mixed—falsehoods with truths and lies with catholic things. Anathema be he who does not condemn Mani and his works, doctrines, and institutions; pursuing their shameful deeds in particular, we would send them, if it were possible, with the sword to the underworld, or to anything worse than hell and its sleepless torment, where neither the fire is quenched nor the worm dies. So that their impurity might not escape the divine judgment, their evils have been exposed even by the courts of the world. For apart from the fact that, asserting things with wandering minds, they thought the Sun and Moon to be gods, rulers of the world—although it is written: "What is brighter than the sun? And yet it will fail"—they so enlarged the follies of their wretched sacrileges that they claimed that the minds weighed down with blindness, the more wickedly they bound them, the more religiously they consecrated themselves. Anathema be he who does not condemn the acts of sexual immorality of the Nicolaitans and the manifold

demons shown in the Scriptures, together with their disciples and teachers, or those who follow their works. Let those perish who have received into themselves the faithlessness of the Ophites and, having become sons of vipers, confess as their god and lord one like themselves. And because it is long to go through each one: all heresies, which men corrupted in mind and shipwrecked from the faith have fabricated for themselves, whether from the canonical Scriptures or from the apocrypha, beyond what is written, each puffed up for one against another—and whatever the Saturninian heresy introduced, or the Novatian put forward, or Basilides showed in his teaching, or the Arian collected, or the Patripassian taught, or the Homuncionite falsely declared, or the Cataphrygian persuaded, or the Borborite seized on—we condemn with a catholic mouth that believes in Christ, God, together with all who follow or teach these things or wish to assert them. All their doctrines we refute among ourselves by the light of the divine testimonies, not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God. Among these, however, a new saying, damnable I will not say in deed but even in the telling, and put forward by no

heretical author before this: the outrage of sacrilege that Ithacius brought to our ears, reading that the tasting of first fruits ought to be either expiated or consecrated by magical incantations, and that an ointment of malediction should be consecrated to the Sun and the Moon, with which it will fail. Whoever has read, put forward, believed, done, possessed, or introduced this is not only anathema maranatha but is also to be pursued with the sword, since it is written: "You shall not allow sorcerers to live." So let them keep for themselves the wicked inventions of the heretics and their interpretations worthy of hell; let the calumnies of the schismatics keep their manifold wishes: no one will tear down the tabernacle of Christ, God, and the temple that is in us. Let them, reading the Scriptures, think God to be made of rock, of horn, of stone: for us, in all Scripture, as it is written, God is the unicorn; for us, Christ is the rock; for us, Jesus is the cornerstone; for us, Christ is the man of men. Let them, as sons of perdition and of the devil, believe that they are filled with the devil's rain: for us there is the almighty God, who calls the water of the sea and pours it on the face of the whole earth, and grants the early and the late rain.

And if these wretched people wish to know what kind of god it is in whom they believe: he is, as it is written in the prophet, the beast that sleeps under every tree, by the forest and the papyrus and the reed; he is, according to what is written in Job, where the Lord says: "Terror is around his teeth; his entrails are shields of bronze, and his bond is like the smyrite stone; no breath passes through him; at his sneezing light will break forth; his eyes are like the morning star; from his mouth go burning lamps and a ball of fire; his nostrils breathe out the smoke of a furnace of burning fire; his breath is flames of coals, and blazes go forth from his tongue; in his neck power dwells, and destruction runs before him"; he is, as the prophet says elsewhere, the one who counts rock as stubble and laughs at the earthquake; his bed is sharp stakes, and all the gold that is like the sea is like mud beneath him; he makes the deep boil like a bronze cauldron and reckons the strait like a mirror, and the underworld of the abyss as his eternal captive; nothing has been made like him on earth

"to be mocked by my angels; he sees every high thing, and he is king of all that are in the waters." But for us God is Christ Jesus, who said: "All that is under heaven is mine," and, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, appeared in the midst of the golden lampstands like a son of man, clothed in a robe to the feet and girded at the breasts with a golden sash; and the hairs of his head were white as wool and as snow, and, as it is written, his eyes were like a flame of fire, and his feet like burnished bronze from a furnace, and his voice like the sound of many waters, and in his right hand he holds seven stars, and from his mouth comes a sharp two-edged sword, and his face is like the sun shining in its strength. This is he who has the keys of death and of hell; this is he whose name is written on a new white stone, which no one has except him who has received it. For we give no offence to the schismatics in reading that the name of God is inscribed on a new stone—he who in every letter, Hebrew, Latin, or Greek, in everything that is seen or said, is King of kings and Lord of lords.

In these languages, though the title of the cross was set up, the divine testimony is nevertheless written in letters for God, as also in the prophets of God: in which Jeremiah, setting out the character of the Hebrew letters, wept in his lamentations, and David exulted in his psalms, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess to God. For he is the one of whom it is written: "The lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered"; but for us God is not a lion, but, as it is written: "What is sweeter than honey, and what is stronger than a lion?" He is the one of whom it is written: "Let the stag of friendship and the foal of graces converse with you"; but for us God is not a stag or a foal, but, as it is written: "Before you say, Lord, Lord, he says, Here I am"; and as elsewhere: "Out of the mouth of nursing infants you have prepared praise." He is the one who, as it is written in the prophet, alone is able to gather the bond of the Pleiades and open the enclosure of Orion; knowing the changes of the firmament and destroying the wheel of birth, he has overcome the day of our birth by the renewal of baptism. He is the one whose name made a way in the sea and a most firm path in the waves,

to whose name the conquered blaze of the furnace gave way. Him even Balaam, worshipper of idols and demons, prophesied in testimony against his own wretchedness, saying: "A man shall come forth from the seed of Judah and shall rule over many nations, and his kingdom shall be exalted; for the Lord God brought him out of Egypt; like the glory of the unicorn are his horns; he shall devour the nations of his enemies and has drained the marrow of their elbows and will shake his enemies with his darts; and resting he will lie down like a lion and like a lion's whelp; who has roused him? Those who bless him are blessed, and those who curse him are cursed." Although no one would receive his words, because he was himself not among the prophecies of the righteous, yet Scripture thought it wrong that whatever such men too prophesied in testimony to Christ, God, should be barred from the Scriptures of the Lord and condemned, as it is written: "Wickedness, being cowardly, gives testimony to God when condemned"; and elsewhere: "You believe that God is one; the demons also do this and shudder." And if they wish to know what is the name that has given the work of its power to every virtue and every tongue,

it is that which is Christ Jesus, as it is written: "Gold and silver I have none, but what I have I give you: in the name of Jesus, rise and walk"; as also elsewhere: "I am the Lord God; this is my name; my glory I will not give to another"; and elsewhere, John saying: "And his garment was sprinkled with blood, and his name was called the Word of God"; and elsewhere: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb and bear a son, and his name shall be called Immanuel, which is interpreted, God with us." Be converted, therefore, at last, wretched schismatic, be converted, and dread the name of the Lord, which every nature even of wild beasts and animals has feared, for it is written: "Offences must indeed come, but woe to him through whom they come"; "would that you were either hot or cold; but because you are lukewarm, you will be vomited out of the mouth of the Lord"; but, as it is written, take counsel for yourself and do penance, and buy for yourself gold refined by fire, so that, made like gold purged by fire through what you yourself have bought, the name of the Lord, which is Jesus, may be written on you, when, repenting of what you are doing, you show the name of the Lord the Saviour, because through him you will have been saved, for it is written:

"And his name shall be called Jesus, for he it is who will save all the people"; and understand parables and obscure words and the sayings of the wise and their riddles, for he is mighty who said: "When you turn and groan, then you will be saved"; since our God, who in many and various ways saving his people from the beginning showed it in deed to our fathers, coming in the flesh showed it in his name, being called Jesus. But if anyone thinks otherwise, he will bear his judgment, whoever he is. For to them, as the wretched say, God may be thought to be male-female: but for us the Spirit of God is in males and in females, as it is written: "God made man in his image and likeness, male and female he made them, and blessed them"; as the apostle also says of him: "Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God"; since we are his men and he is our husband and head, the apostle promised that he would present us, betrothed in faith, to one husband as a chaste virgin, for there is neither male nor female, but we are all one in Christ Jesus. For them, then, let all that they read be confusion; for us let it be instruction, to understand what is written and to know the power of the living word.

It is needful not to judge the nature of the divine word by a wandering, fleshly mind and by the shameful figures of fleshly luxuries, but, as it is written, that the invisible things of God can be known from the creation of the world through the things that have been made. For these are they who, wearing the tunic stained by the flesh, have turned the grace of the divine word into lusts, and despise lordships, blaspheme dignities, scorn prophecies, deny the resurrection; as it is written: going more and more after the desires of the flesh, they despise godliness, hardened in audacity, and because of their unanimity … they do not fear to blaspheme; their destruction will not slumber. But we know that there is no other name under heaven given among men, besides Christ Jesus, by which we must be saved; neither Armaziel nor Mariame nor Joel nor Balsamus nor Barbilon is God, but Christ Jesus, of whom it is written: "And let all the angels of God worship him"; and he is the one who makes his angels spirits and his ministers a burning fire, and is filled in all things, and he is the seed that was promised, ordained through angels

in the hand of a mediator; he is the one who is above every principality and power and might and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come; he is our God, and no other will be reckoned beside him, who is head over the whole church, which is his body and his fullness, who fills all things in all. Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come: all are ours, and we are Christ's, and Christ is God's. And this is the one judgment of us all: that whether it is prophets or apostles or angels, if something said by anyone under any name is put forward, if it prophesies or preaches Christ as God, and, condemning worldly vices according to Moses and the prophets and the gospels, speaks of God—if it agrees with the catholic faith—we embrace it; but if, which is wicked, it denies Jesus as God and, disagreeing with Moses, the gospels, or the prophets, urges the sacrileges of wretched doctrines, which is not permitted, it is held by us to be neither prophet nor apostle nor angel, even if it puts forward a holy name, but as anathema and a renegade,

as it is written that no one in the Holy Spirit says "Jesus is anathema," and no one except in the Holy Spirit says "Lord Jesus"; as John too says: "Every spirit that confesses that Christ Jesus has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that dissolves Jesus is not from God, and this is antichrist"; as he also says elsewhere: "Those who do not confess that Christ Jesus has come in the flesh, these are deceivers and antichrists." So too Joshua son of Nun, prophet of the Lord and leader in Israel, when an angel appeared to him, believing not the appearance alone but the confession of his words, cried out to the angel: "Are you ours or our enemies'?" And he, so that faith might be given to his words, confessed that he was the prince of the army of the Lord; and so it came about that Joshua, who believed in nothing apart from God, then gave faith to the words of the angel speaking to him, when he did not deny that he was of the army of the Lord. So too it was shown to the apostle John in the Apocalypse, when he wished to worship the angel speaking to him, that God, not angels, is to be worshipped, the angel saying to him: "Do not do it, John; for I am your fellow servant and your brothers' who have the testimony; worship Jesus, God!"

"For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy"; as Isaiah too says: "Neither messenger nor angel, but the Lord himself will come and save us." But if some are puffed up, knowing nothing, and beyond the four gospels either invent or confess some fifth gospel, why is this brought forward to stir ill will against us, who reject the wretchedness of such people? For these are they in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not shine in them; and may the whole wrath of the Lord come upon him who either writes this in titles or confesses or believes it. But we, having entered the body of the venerable church of God through the creed, have come to know the indissoluble faith, watered by one threefold font, in the arrangement of the four gospels, believing that there is no other God except Christ, God, the Son of God, who, crucified for us, showed baptism of forgiveness in his name, predestining from the beginning of the world his elect in prophecy, from whom Christ came according to the flesh, as the generation of the Lord too is kept, arranged and declared through them in the gospel; through whom the Lord, prophesying himself, prepared the road of his coming, as it is written: "I will pour out of my

Spirit on all flesh, and their sons and daughters will prophesy, and their young men will see visions, and their old men will dream dreams; and on my servants and my handmaids I will pour out of my Spirit, and I will give wonders in heaven above and signs below; the sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the great day of the Lord comes; and it shall be: whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." In this we too do not despair of speaking about him, because, forbidding or cutting off no one's spirit, he did not close prophecy at a fixed end, but granted that all who believe in him may speak freely about him; as it is also written in the gospel: "Blessed be God, who has visited and wrought redemption for his people and raised up a horn in the house of David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets who are from of old"; as the prophet Tobit too says to his son: "We are sons of the prophets: Noah was a prophet, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all our fathers who prophesied from the beginning of the world"; as the apostle Jude too says: "Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying: Behold, the Lord comes with his holy thousands to execute judgment"; as the apostle too, closing to no one the road of speaking about God, when he wrote to the peoples to whom he preached:

"You can all prophesy one by one," he says, "so that all may learn and all be exhorted"; and elsewhere: "The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets"; so that whoever believes in Christ, God, should not despair of prophesying about God in what he had promised to all his own. And therefore, most blessed bishops, if you think that satisfaction has been given both to God and to you, now that the heresies and doctrines have been condemned and the assertion of our faith set out, bear witness to the truth and absolve us from the ill will of malicious slander, and, reporting to your brothers, heal what has been troubled by the words of slanderers; for it is the fruit of life to be approved by those who seek the faith of truth, not by those who, under the name of religious men, pursue private enmities.