Prescription against Heretics 41

I will not omit a description of the heretics' way of life too: how futile, how earthly, how merely human it is, without seriousness, without authority, without discipline, as befits their faith. To begin with, it is uncertain who is a catechumen and who a believer; they come in alike, listen alike, pray alike, even heathen, if any happen to come in; they will throw what is holy to the dogs, and pearls, though not real ones, to the swine. They want the overthrow of discipline to be simplicity, and our care for it they call pandering. They make peace indiscriminately with everyone. For it makes no difference to them, though they hold different views, provided they conspire together to storm the one truth. All are puffed up; all promise knowledge. Their catechumens are perfect before they are taught. And the heretical women themselves, how forward they are! They dare to teach, to dispute, to perform exorcisms, to promise cures, perhaps even to baptize. Their ordinations are rash, careless, inconstant. Now they appoint novices, now men bound to the world, now our apostates, to bind them by honor, since they cannot by truth. Nowhere is promotion easier than in the camp of rebels, where merely to be there is a merit. So one man is bishop today, another tomorrow; he is a deacon today who is a reader tomorrow; he is a presbyter today who is a layman tomorrow. For they impose priestly functions even on laymen.