Eleven Tractates 2.41–2.55

Although the catholic faith, keeping to the road of the creed given by God, seeks the glory of believing rather than of speaking—since things that have been brought forth by their own truth need no talent for interpreting, as the apostle says: "Avoid quarrels about the law"—yet, since the necessity of the time compels us, which the injury inflicted on us by bishop Hydatius has imposed, although we have always followed the part of patience and our endeavour was rather to bear with someone than to provoke him, we rejoice that matters have come about in such a way that before you, who are the senior of us all and who came to the glory of the apostolic see nourished by the experiences of life, with blessed Peter as your encourager, we may also say what we believe, fulfilling before you the faith of the apostle's saying: "With the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." In this we too, baptized in Christ and putting on Christ, confess the faith of the truth—sublime indeed in its manifold arrangement but venerable in the united power of one God—as we believe it in the heart, for the salvation of all who have been made to stumble by the false talk of others. For when, many years ago, renewed by the regeneration of the living washing and rejecting the filthy darkness of worldly

deeds, we had given ourselves wholly to God, reading that whoever loved anyone more than God could not be his disciple, some of us already chosen for God in the churches, others labouring in our life so that we might be chosen, we were following the quiet of catholic peace. But when suddenly—whether by necessary rebuke, or by rivalry over our way of life, or by the power of the last time—quarrels arose, we, desiring the love of Christ, God, and peace, although we were confident in our conscience, nevertheless feared that, as has happened, the contention of minds might bring about what church peace would not hold. Yet thanks be to God, who alone is true and true in all, amid these things, that none of us who have handed over this pamphlet has up to this time been able to have an accuser or a judge of a blameworthy life, although to be slandered is not always the lot of the guilty but sometimes of the peaceable. Indeed, at the assembly of bishops held at Saragossa, none of us was held as a defendant, none accused, none convicted, none condemned; no crime was charged against our name, our way of life, or our conduct; no one had any need—I will not say to be summoned—not even any anxiety about it.

A memorandum of some kind was issued there by Hy[datius], which was to lay down, as it were, a discipline for leading one's life: none of us was censured among those points, your letter in particular prevailing against the wicked, in which, according to the commands of the gospel, you had directed that nothing be decreed against the absent and unheard. Yet even though we were absent there, we have always urged in the churches, and still urge, that wicked morals and unseemly ways of living, or things that fight against the faith of Christ, God, be condemned out of love for an upright and Christian life; and that no one should be forbidden, if, scorning parents, children, wealth, rank, and even his own life, he prefers to love God rather than the world; nor should hope of pardon be taken from those who, if they cannot attain what is first, stand among the middle or the third ranks, since, there being many mansions with God the Father, if the faith of the creed is kept uncorrupted, the hope set before us in Christ must be held, even if they lack the means to fulfil the perfect work. We follow the apostle Paul, who said that he commanded some by authority, admonished others by concession, and instructed others by counsel without the authority of a command, so that he might win all who had come to the faith of Christ by the varied calling of mercy.

The faith, as we received it, so we hold and hand on, believing in one God the Father almighty, as it is written: "from whom are all things, and we through him"; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, as it is written: "through whom are all things, and we through him"; born of the virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit, as it is written: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel, which is interpreted, God with us"; and again of him: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and therefore the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God"; suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, as it is written: "And he will be reckoned among the lawless"; buried; rose on the third day, as it is written in the prophets: "Wait for me on the day of my resurrection"; ascended into the heavens; sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty, as it is written: "Behold, I saw the heavens opened and the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of God"; thence he will come and judge the living and the dead, as it is written: "He will come in the same way as you saw him going into heaven"; believing in the holy church, the Holy Spirit, saving baptism, as it is written: "Unless one is reborn of water and the Holy Spirit, he will not ascend into the kingdom of heaven";

believing in the forgiveness of sins, as it is written: "I say to you, little children, that your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake"; believing in the resurrection of the flesh, as it is written: "And Moses too announced the future resurrection, the Lord saying: I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob; he is not God of the dead but of the living; for all live to him." Keeping to the road of this creed, we condemn with a catholic mouth all heresies, doctrines, institutions, or dogmas that not talent but partisanship has made into wrangling for itself—we who were baptized, as it is written, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; and it does not say "in the names," as of many, but "in one," because one God, venerable in threefold power, is all things, and Christ is in all, as it is written: "The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed; it does not say 'and to seeds,' as of many, but as of one, 'and to your seed,' which is Christ"; speaking of which the prophet says: "This is our God, and no other will be reckoned beside him, who received the law and gave it to Jacob his servant and to Israel his beloved; afterward he was seen on earth and lived among men."

And although it is long to go through each point, and it is distasteful to Christian minds even to repeat the doctrines of such miserable people, yet we say these things before your venerable crown so that, if we fall into the things we condemn, we may be condemned by the very profession of our pamphlet. For who, with catholic ears, can believe the wickedness of the Arian heresy, whose adherents, dividing what is one and wanting many gods, defile the light of the prophetic word, not reading what Moses says: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one God"—to which the Lord bore testimony in the gospel, saying: "What Moses wrote, he wrote of me"? Photinus, akin to their wretchedness, does not want to hold what has been read: "Cursed is the man who puts his hope in man"; of which our God himself, speaking to the man he had healed of infirmity, showed what he wanted to be believed of him, saying: "Go and tell how much God has done for you"; and this testimony is true. Who would put up with the Patripassian heretics, when Scripture says: "He who believes in the Son has life; he who does not believe in the Son does not have life"? Their wretchedness is so great that they are condemned even by the confession of a demon, who in the gospel says to God: "What have we to do with you,

Jesus, Son of the living God? Why have you come before the time to destroy us?" Who, even a fool, would fall in with the Ophites, wanting to have a serpent as god, when it is written: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods besides me; you shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of the things that are in heaven above or on earth below or under the waters or under the earth"? Who would want the repeated baptisms of the Novatians, when it is written: "One faith, one baptism, one God"? The wretchedness of these sects—God, Christ, is witness—we know from the tales of the common people, not from any engagement in dispute, because even to have disputed with them is a sin, knowing this one thing, that those who give themselves the names of sects lose the name of Christian. Among all of these we condemn the Manichaeans, no longer heretics but idolaters and sorcerers, slaves of the Sun and Moon, invincible demons, together with all their authors, sects, morals, institutions, books, teachers, and disciples, because of such it is written: "With such a one do not even eat." For us, Christ, God, the Son of God, who suffered in the flesh according to the faith of the creed—we who have been baptized and chosen for the priesthood in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit—is our whole faith,

our whole life, our whole worship. While we were living in this truth of faith and in this simplicity, Hydatius returned from the synod of Saragossa, reporting nothing against us—indeed, he himself had left us in our churches, even in communion with him, and no one had condemned us, not even in our absence, by any presumptuous accusation. But so that the crown of your venerability may know where the pain of his rage came from, and where the fury came from that has raged through the whole world and even into the churches: having returned from the synod and sitting in the middle of the church, he was arraigned as a defendant by his own presbyter in church proceedings; a few days later a pamphlet was also given by certain people in our churches, and charges worse than those the presbyter had raised before were brought against him; very many of his clergy separated themselves from him, declaring that they would not communicate except with a bishop who had been cleared. At this point, being approached, we sent to the bishops Hyginus and Symposius, whose lives you yourself know, a letter of this kind: that everything had suddenly been thrown into confusion, and that provision should be made for how the settled peace of the churches might last. The reply was, to quote its very words: as far as the laity were concerned,

if Hydatius was suspect to them, a testimony of catholic profession before us would suffice; as to the rest, a council should be granted for the peace of the churches; but no one had been condemned at the synod of Saragossa. Who would not believe his fellow bishops, especially since Symposius, the religious man who wrote this, had been present at that same synod? Meanwhile we took counsel to go to the city of Emerita and to see Hydatius in person, as authors—God is witness—of peace rather than of strife. For if it was an injury and not a courtesy to wish to consult him in person as a brother rather than to summon him as a defendant, then we are guilty; but if, when we came and were entering the church, the crowds and people were stirred up, and we were not only not admitted to the presbytery but even afflicted with blows, we think that it was the one who struck, not those who were struck, who did the injury.

Yet we, who cared for peace, accepted the profession of the laity, which we could not reject because it was catholic, and wrote to nearly all our fellow bishops about what episcopal reverence had suffered, sending also the record of events and the faith of the professions, and not keeping silent about the fact that many of them, after their profession, were being asked for the priesthood. The reply to us was that a council should be granted on these matters; that the profession made should be believed; and that, as the consecration of a bishop rests with the bishop, so the election rests with the petition of the people. Then he, more afraid than he need have been, contrives petitions with falsehood and, weaving a tale of what had happened while concealing our names, seeks and of course obtains a rescript against pseudo-bishops and Manichaeans, since no one who heard "pseudo-bishops and Manichaeans" would not hate them. To that eminent man, your brother bishop Ambrose, he also lied about everything, and when, with the rescript brought back to him, under the pretext of a sect that every one of us condemns, he

rushed against all Christians, calling even Hyginus a heretic along with us, as his letters sent to the churches declare—acting, no doubt, so that he would have no judges if he had defamed everyone with various slanders—we commended our churches to God (their letters of communion to you, sent with the signatures of the whole clergy and people, we have brought), and those of us who could came to you. We wished indeed, while absent, to beg that, if Hydatius had anything to charge, we might ask for a hearing before bishops, though not refusing a public trial either, if he preferred it. No one who wishes to be proved fears being heard on any matter; but whether it was done by partisanship or by ill will God will judge, that the quaestor, when he was presenting just petitions, delayed to answer. We, however, not neglecting to prefer the judgment of the saints to that of the world in a cause of faith, came to Rome, burdensome to no one, desiring only this: to come first to you, so that our silence might not be judged as the fear of a guilty conscience,

but rather that, handing over a pamphlet, we might set out the order of events and, what is greater than all, the catholic faith in which we live. For if our opinion is also sought about certain writings which Hydatius, bringing them out of his own cupboard, has sent forth into slanderous tales, this is and always has been our conviction: that everything in writings put forward under the authority of any apostle, prophet, or bishop, which prophesies or preaches Christ, God, the Son of God, and agrees with the canon, the gospels, or the prophets, cannot be condemned; but whatever thinks or speaks against the canon and against the catholic faith is to be condemned together with all its teachers and disciples, for it is written: "Every spirit that confesses Christ is from God, but whoever does not confess is not from God"; and elsewhere: "No one speaking in the Holy Spirit says 'Jesus is anathema,' and no one except in the Holy Spirit says 'Lord Jesus.'" For we who are catholics ought not to be condemned if heretics have falsified for their own purposes writings that speak of God;

about which Hydatius himself, who, clearing himself too little, prefers to defame through these things those he fears to have heard, said at the council of Saragossa: "Let what is to be condemned be condemned; let what is superfluous not be read." In this your crown perceives that it is his habit, not our crime, if the faith of those who hold one judgment is said to be different. For this reason we ask your venerable mind that, if the faith of our profession, according to what you hand on as left to you by the apostles, stands firm in God; if the testimonies of our churches written in letters of peace are not lacking; if we neither can nor should hold any other view about the writings; if none of us was made a defendant, none heard, none deposed in council, none—even while still a layman—condemned by proof of a charge laid against him (though the priesthood profits a guilty man nothing, and a bishop can be deposed who deserved to be condemned before, as a layman): grant us a hearing, we beg, since you are senior to all and first;

have Hydatius summoned, and if he is confident of proving anything about us, let him not lose the crown of the eternal priesthood, if he has pursued the zeal of the Lord to the end. Or if, by the affection of your innate kindness, you wish to inflict on no one the injury he has inflicted on us, give letters, we beg, to your brothers the Spanish bishops. For we all ask—so that we may do injury to no one—that, a council having been convened and Hydatius summoned, they not hear unheard those whom they read have been made defendants in their absence. Yet let no one condemn in such a way that Hydatius need prove all that he alleged in the letters he sent, and let him have only the necessity of proving the accusation; let him put aside fear of being found guilty, since no one accuses him concerning us; for we readily forgive a sin against us, if we are proved right, since we know and learn from ourselves what befits bishops—only that, our faith and life being proved, with the rescript that was issued against the Manichaeans,

and with the testimony of the bishops who attended the council, we may resist, lest in your days—which you know to be wicked—under the name of the guilty either churches be widowed of catholic bishops or bishops of their churches.