The History of Heresies and Their Refuta

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THE

HISTORY OF HERESIES ,
AND

THEIR REFUTATION ,

&c . , &c .
SH
TI
RI
5 SE 57
WH Lizars sc

ST ALPHONSUS MARIA DE LIGUORI


BISHOP OF S AGATHA , AND FOUNDER OF THE CONGREGATION
OF THE MOST HOLY REDEEMER,

DUBLIN,JAMES DUFFY, 7 WELLINGTON QUAY


THE

HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

AND

THEIR REFUTATION ;

OR,

THE TRIUMPH OF THE CHURCH .

TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN OF

ST. ALPHONSUS M. LIGUORI .

BY THE RIGHT REV. DR. MULLOCK ,

Bishop of Newfoundland.

SECOND EDITION .
REDEMPTI

EVM
O

JS

DUBLIN :

PUBLISHED BY JAMES DUFFY ,


7, WELLINGTON-QUAY.
1857.
Dublin:
PRINTED BY J. M. O'TOOLE,
H 13, Hawkins'-street.
IS MU
IT SE
BR
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

THE ardent wish manifested by the Faithful for an


acquaintance with the valuable writings of ST. Liguori ,
induced me to undertake the Translation of his History of
Heresies, one of his greatest works. The Holy Author was
induced to write this work, to meet the numbers of infidel
publications with which Europe was deluged in the latter

half of the last century. Men's minds were then totally


unsettled ; dazzled by the glare of a false philosophy, they
turned away from the light of the Gospel. The heart of the
Saint was filled with sorrow, and he laboured to avert the
scourge he saw impending over the unfaithful people . He
implored the Ministers of his Sovereign to put the laws in
force, preventing the introduction of irreligious publica-
tions into the Kingdom of Naples ; and he published this
work, among others, to prove, as he says, that the Holy
Catholic Church is the only true one-the Mistress of
Truth-the Church, founded by Jesus Christ himself,
which would last till the end of time, notwithstanding the
persecutions of the infidel, and the rebellion of her own
heretical children. He dedicates the book to the Marquis
Tanucci, the Prime Minister of the Kingdom , whom he
praises for his zeal for religion , and his vigorous execution
of the laws against the venders of infidel publications. He
4 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE .

brings down the History from the days of the Apostles to


his own time, concluding with the refutation of the Here-
sies of Father Berruyer. I have added a Supplementary
Chapter, giving a succinct account of the Heretics and
Fanatics of the last eighty years. It was, at first, my
intention to make it more diffuse ; but, then, I considered
that it would be out of proportion with the remainder of
the work. This book may be safely consulted as a work
of reference : the Author constantly quotes his authorities ;
and the student of Ecclesiastical History can at once
compare his statements with the sources from which he

draws. In the latter portion of the work, and especially


in that portion of it the most interesting to us, the History
of the English Reformation , the student may perceive some
slight variations between the original text and my trans-
lation. I have collated the work with the writings of

modern historians-the English portion , especially, with


Hume and Lingard — and wherever I have seen the state-
ments of the Holy Author not borne out by the authority
of our own historians, I have considered it more prudent
to state the facts, as they really took place ; for our own
writers must naturally be supposed to be better acquainted
with our history, than the foreign authorities quoted by
the Saint. The reader will also find the circumstances,
and the names of the actors, when I considered it neces-

sary, frequently given more in detail than in the original .


In the style, I have endeavoured, as closely as the genius
of our language would allow, to keep to the original. ST.

ALPHONSUS never sought for ornament ; a clear, lucid


statement of facts is what he aimed at ; there is nothing
inflated in his writings ; he wrote for the people ; and that
is the principal reason, I imagine, why not only his Devo-
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 5

tional works, but his Historical and Theological writings,

also, have been in such request : but, while he wrote for the
people, we are not to imagine that he did not also please
the learned . His mind was richly stored with various
knowledge ; he was one of the first Jurists of his day ; his
Theological science elicited the express approbation of the
greatest Theologian of his age - Benedict XIV.; he was
not only a perfect master of his own beautiful language,
but profoundly read in both Greek and Latin literature

also, and a long life constantly employed in studies, chiefly


ecclesiastical, qualified him, above any man of his time, to
become an Ecclesiastical Historian , which no one should
attempt unless he be a general- I might almost say a
universal, scholar : so much for the Historical portion of
the work.

In the Second Part, the Refutation of Heresies , the Holy


Author comprises, in a small space, a vast amount of
Theological information ; in fact, there is no Heresy which
cannot be refuted from it. Not alone are the usual Here-

sies, which we have daily to combat-such as those opposed


to the Real Presence , the Authority of the Church, the
doctrine of Justification , clearly and diffusely refuted , but
those abstruse heretical opinions concerning Grace, Free
Will, the Procession of the Holy Ghost, the Mystery of the
Incarnation, and the two Natures of Christ, and soforth,
are also clearly and copiously confuted ; the intricacies of
Pelagianism, Calvinism, and Jansenism, are unravelled,
and the true Doctrine of the Church triumphantly vindi-
cated . The reader will find, in general, the quotations
from the Fathers in the original, but those unacquainted
with Latin will easily learn their sentiments from the text.
The Scripture quotations are from the Douay version .
6 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE .

Every Theologian will be aware of the difficulty of giving


scholastic terms in an English dress . In the language of
the Schools, the most abstract ideas, which would require a
sentence to explain them in our tongue, are most appro-
priately expressed by a single word ; all the Romance

languages, daughters of the Latin, have very nearly the


same facility ; but our Northern tongue has not, I imagine,
flexibility enough for the purpose. I have, however,
endeavoured, as far as I could , to preserve the very terms

of the original, knowing how easy it is to give a heteredox


sense to a passage, by even the most trivial deviation from

the very expression of the writer. The Theological Student


will thus, I hope, find the work a compact Manual of
Polemic Theology ; the Catholic who, while he firmly
believes all that the Church teaches, wishes to be able to
give an account of the faith that is in him, will here find
it explained and defended ; while those not of the " fold,"

but for whom we ardently pray, that they may hear the
voice of the " one Shepherd," may see, by its attentive
perusal, that they inhabit a house " built upon the sand,"
and not the house " on the rock." They will behold the
mighty tree of Faith, sprung from the grain of mustard-
seed planted by our Redeemer, always flourishing, always
extending, neither uprooted by the storms of persecution ,
nor withered by the sun of worldly prosperity. Nay more,
the very persecution the Church of God has suffered, and

is daily enduring, only extends it more and more ; the


Faithful, persecuted in " one city," fly elsewhere, bearing
with them the treasure of Faith , and communicating it to
those among whom they settle, as the seeds of fertility are

frequently borne on the wings of the tempest to the remote


desert, which would otherwise be cursed with perpetual
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE .

barrenness. The persecution of the Church in Ireland, for


example, " has turned the desert into fruitfulness," in
America, in Australia, in England itself, and the grey
mouldering ruins of our fanes on the hill sides are compen-
sated for by the Cathedral Churches across the ocean.
The reader will see Heresy in every age, from the days of
the Apostles themselves down to our own time, rising up,
and vanishing after a while, but the Church of God is
always the same, her Chief Pastors speaking with the same
authority, and teaching the same doctrine to the trembling
Neophites in the Catacombs, and to the Cæsars on the
throne of the world . Empires are broken into fragments

and perish- nations die away, and are only known to the
historian-languages spoken by millions disappear - every-
thing that is man's work dies like man ; heresies, like the
rest, have their rise, their progress, their decay, but Faith
alone is eternal and unchangeable, " yesterday, to-day, and
the same for ever."
CONTENTS .

WITH REFERENCES TO THE MARGINAL NUMBERS IN EACH CHAPTER.

PAOF.
CHAPTER I.

Heresies of the First Century, 33


1. Simon Magus. 2. Menander. 3. Cerinthus. 4. Ebion. 5. Saturninus
and Basilides. 6. The Nicholites.
CHAPTER II.
Heresies of the Second Century, . 37
1. Corpocrates. 2. Valentine. 3. Epiphanes. 4. Prodicus. 5. Tatian.
6. Severus. 7. Cerdonius. 8. Marcion. 9. Apelles. 10. Montanus.
11. Cataphrigians, Artotirites, Peputians, Ascodrogites, Pattalorinchites.
12. Bardesanes. 13. Theodotus the Currier, Artemon, and Theodotus Argen-
tarius. 14. Hermogenes.
CHAPTER III.
Heresies ofthe Third Century, 42
1. Praxeas. 2. Sabellius. 3. Paul of Samosata. 4. Manes. 5. Tertullian.
6. Origen. 7. Novatus and Novatian. 8. Nepos- The Angelicals and the
Apostolicals .
CHAPTER IV.
Heresies of the Fourth Century,. 50
ARTICLE I.- Schism and Heresy of the Donatists.
1, 2. Schism. 3. Heresy. 4, 5. Confutation of St. Augustin. Circumcel-
lionists. Conference commanded by Honorius. 7. Death of St. Marcellinus,
and Council ofCarthage.
ARTICLE II.- The Arian Heresy, 55
§ I.-Progress of Arius, and his Condemnation by the Council of
Nice.
8. Origin of Arius. 9. His Errors and Supporters. 10. Synod of Bythinia.
11. Synod of Osius in Alexandria. 12. General Council of Nice. 13. Con-
demnation of Arius. 14-16. Profession of Faith. 17. Exile of Eusebius of
Nicomedia, and insidious Letter of Eusebius of Cesarea. 18. Banishment of
Arius. 19. Decree for the Meletians. 20. Decree for the Quartodecimans.
21. Canons. 22. End of the Council.
10 CONTENTS .
PAGE.
§ II. -Occurrences up to the Death of Constantine, 64

23. St. Athanasius is made Bishop of Alexandria ; Eusebius is recalled ;


St. Eustasius exiled, and Arius again taken into Favour. 24. Council of Tyre.
25. St. Athanasius accused and exiled. 26. Arius banished from Alexandria.
27. His Perjury and horrible Death. 28. Constantine's Baptism and Death ;
Division of the Empire.

§ III.-The Emperor Constantius persecutes the Catholics, . 71


30. Eusebius of Nicomedia is translated to the See of Constantinople ; Synods
in Alexandria and Antioch. 31. Council of Sardis. 32. Council of Arles.
33. Council of Milan and Exile of Liberius. 34. Exile of Osius. 35. Fall of
Osius. 36. Fall of Liberius. 37. First Formula of Sirmium. 38. Second
Formula of Sirmium. 39. Third Formula of Sirmium. 40. Liberius signs
the Formula, &c. 41 , 42. He signs the First Formula. 43. Return of
Liberius to Rome, and Death of Felix. 44. Division among the Arians.
45-48. Council of Rimini. 49. Death of Constantius. 50. The Empire
descends to Julian. The Schism of Lucifer.

§ IV. -Persecution of Valens, of Genseric, of Hunneric, and other


Arian Kings, · 83
51. Julian is made Emperor, and dies. 52. Jovian Emperor ; his Death.
53. Valentinian and Valens Emperors. 54. Death of Liberius. 55, 56. Valens
puts eighty Ecclesiastics to Death- his other Cruelties. 57. Lucius persecutes
the Solitaries. 58. Dreadful Death of Valens. 59-61 . Persecution of Genseric.
62-64. Persecution of Hunneric. 65. Persecution of Theodoric. 67, 68. Per-
secution of Leovigild.
ARTICLE III. 95
69-74. Heresy of Macedonius. 75-77. Of Apollinares. 78. Of Elvidius.
79. Of Aetius. 80, 81. The Messalians. 82. The Priscillianists. 83. Jovinians.
84. Other Heretics. 85. Of Audæus, in particular.

CHAPTER V.

Heresies of the Fifth Century, . 104

ARTICLE I.-The Heresies of Elvidius, Jovinianus, and Vigilantius.


1. Heresy of Elvidius. 2. Errors of Jovinian. 3. Adverse Opinions of
Basnage refuted. 4. Vigilantius and his Errors.

ARTICLE II.-On the Heresy of Pelagius, 109


5. Origin of the Heresy of Pelagius. 6. His Errors and Subterfuges. 7. Ce-
lestius and his Condemnation. 8. Perversity of Pelagius. 9. Council of
Diospolis. 10, 11. He is condemned by St. Innocent, Pope. 12. Again
condemned by Sozymus. 13. Julian, a Follower of Pelagius. 14. Semi-
Pelagians. 15. Predestination. 16-19. Godeschalcus.

ARTICLE III. The Nestorian Heresy, . 119


20. Errors of Nestorius, and his Elevation to the Episcopacy. 21. He
approves of the Errors preached by his Priest, Anastasius ; his Cruelty. 22. He
is contradicted, and other Acts of Cruelty. 23. St. Cyril's Letter to him, and his
Answer. 24. The Catholics separate from him. 25. Letters to St. Celestine,
CONTENTS. 11
PAGE.
and his Answer. 26. He is admonished ; Anathemas of St. Cyril. 27. The
Sentence of the Pope is intimated to him. 28. He is cited to the Council.
29. He is condemned. 30. The Sentence of the Council is intimated to him.
31. Cabal of John of Antioch. 32. Confirmation of the Council by the Legates,
in the Name of the Pope. 33. The Pelagians are condemned. 34. Disagreeable
Affair with the Emperor Theodosius. 35. Theodosius approves of the Con- ,
demnation of Nestorius, and sends him into Banishment, where he dies. 36. Laws
against the Nestorians. 37. Efforts of the Nestorians. 38. The same Subject
continued. 39. It is condemned as heretical to assert that Jesus Christ is the
adopted Son of God. 40-43. Answer to Basnage, who has unjustly undertaken
the Defence of Nestorius.
ARTICLE IV. The Heresy of Eutyches, . 136

§ 1.-The Synod of St. Flavian .- The Council or Cabal of Ephesus,


called the " Latrocinium," or Council of Robbers.
44. Beginning of Eutyches ; he is accused by Eusebius of Dorileum. 45. St.
Flavian receives the Charge. 46. Synod of St. Flavian. 47. Confession of
Eutyches in the Synod. 48. Sentence of the Synod against Eutyches. 49. Com-
plaints of Eutyches. 50. Eutyches writes to St. Peter Chrysologus, and to
St. Leo. 51. Character of Dioscorus. 52, 53. Cabal at Ephesus. 54. St.
Flavian is deposed, and Eusebius of Dorileum. 55. The Errors of Theodore of
Mopsuestia. 56. Death of St. Flavian. 57. Character of Theodoret. 58, 59. Wri-
tings of Theodoret against St. Cyril ; Defence of Theodoret. 60. Dioscorus
excommunicates St. Leo. 61. Theodosius approved the Council or Cabal, and
dies. 62. Reign of St. Pulcheria and Marcian.
§ II. The Council of Chalcedon, 150
62. A Council is assembled in Chalcedon, under the Emperor Marcian, and
the Pope St. Leo. 63. The Cause of Dioscorus is tried in the first Session.
64. He is condemned. 65. Articles of Faith defined in Opposition to the
Eutychian Heresy, according to the Letter of St. Leo. 66. Privileges granted
by the Council to the Patriarch of Constantinople. 67. Refused by St. Leo.
68. Eutyches and Dioscorus die in their Obstinacy. 69. Theodosius, Head of the
Eutychians in Jerusalem . 70. His Cruelty. 71. Death of St. Pulcheria and
of Marcian. 72. Timothy Eleurus intruded into the See of Alexandria.
73. Martyrdom of St. Proterius, the true Bishop. 74. Leo succeeds Marcian
in the Empire. 75. Eleurus is expelled from the See of Alexandria, and
Timothy Salofacialus is elected. 76. Zeno is made Emperor ; he puts Basiliscus
to Death ; Eleurus commits Suicide. 77. St. Simon Stilites. 78. His happy
Death. 79. Peter the Stammerer intruded into the See of Alexandria.

§ III.-The Henoticon of the Emperor Zeno, . 163


80. The Emperor Zeno publishes his Henoticon. 81. Mongos anathematizes
Pope St. Leo and the Council of Chalcedon. 82. Peter the Fuller intrusted
with the See of Antioch. 83. Adventures and Death of the Fuller. 84. Acacius,
Patriarch of Constantinople, dies excommunicated.

CHAPTER VI.

Heresies ofthe Sixth Century, 166

ARTICLE I. Of the Acephali, and the different Sects they split into.
1. Regulation made by the new Emperor Anastasius, to the great
Detriment of the Church. 2. Anastasius persecutes the Catholics ; his awful
Death 3. The Acephali, and their Chief, Severus. 4. The Sect of the
12 CONTENTS .
PAGE.
Jacobites. 5. The Agnoites. 6. The Tritheists. 7. The Corruptibilists .
8. The Incorruptibilists. 9. Justinian falls into this Error. 10. Good and bad
Actions of the Emperor. 11 , 12. The Acemetic Monks; their Obstinacy.
ARTICLE II. -The Three Chapters, . 174
13. The Condemnation of the Three Chapters of Theodore, Ibas, and
Theodoret. 14, 15. Defended by Vigilius. 16. Answer to the Objection of a
Heretic who asserts that one Council contradicts another.

CHAPTER VII. .

The Heresies of the Seventh Century, · . 177


ARTICLE I.- Of Mahometanism .
1. Birth of Mahomet, and Beginning of his false Religion. 2. The Alcoran
filled with Blasphemy and Nonsense.
ARTICLE II.- Heresy of the Monothelites, . 179
4. Commencement of the Monothelites ; their Chiefs, Sergius and Cyrus.
5. Opposed by Sophronius. 6. Letter of Sergius to Pope Honorius, and his
Answer. 7. Defence of Honorius. 8. Honorius erred, but did not fall into any
Error against Faith. 9. The Ecthesis of Heraclius afterwards condemned by Pope
John IV. 10. The Type of the Emperor Constans. 11. Condemnation of Paul and
Pyrrhus. 12. Dispute of St. Maximus with Pyrrhus. 13. Cruelty of Constans ; his
violent Death. 14. Condemnation of the Monothelites in the Sixth Council.
15. Honorius condemned in that Council, not for Heresy, but for his Negligence
in repressing Heresy.

CHAPTER VIII.

Heresies of the Eighth Century, . 188


The Heresy of the Iconoclasts.
1. Beginning of the Iconoclasts. 2 , 3. St. Germanus opposes the Emperor
Leo. 4. He resigns the See of Constantinople. 5. Anastasius is put in his
Place ; Resistance of the Women. 6. Cruelty of Leo. 7. Leo endeavours to
put the Pope to Death ; Opposition of the Romans. 8. Letter of the Pope. 9. A
Council is held in Rome in Support of the Sacred Images, but Leo continues his
Persecution. 10. His Hand is miraculously restored to St. John of Damascus.
11. Leo dies, and is succeeded by Constantine Copronymus, a greater Perse-
cutor ; Death of the impious Patriarch Anastasius. 12. Council held by
Constantine. 13. Martyrs in Honour of the Images. 14. Other tyrannical
Acts of Constantine, and his horrible Death. 15. Leo IV. succeeds to the
Empire, and is succeeded by his Son, Constantine. 16. The Empress Irene,
in her Son's Name, demands a Council. 17. Seditions against the Council.
18. The Council is held, and the Veneration of Images established. 19. Erroneous
Opinion of the Council of Frankfort, regarding the Eighth General Council.
20. Persecution again renewed by the Iconoclasts.

CHAPTER IX.
Heresies of the Ninth Century, . . 201
ARTICLE I.-The Greek Schism commenced by Photius.
1. St. Ignatius, by means of Bardas, Uncle to the Emperor Michael, is expelled
from the See of Constantinople. 2. He is replaced by Photius. 3. Photius
CONTENTS . 13
PAGE.
is consecrated. 4. Wrongs inflicted on St. Ignatius and on the Bishops who
defended him. 5. The Pope sends Legates to investigate the Affair. 6. St.
Ignatius appeals from the Judgment of the Legates to the Pope himself.
7. He is deposed in a False Council. 8. The Pope defends St. Ignatius. 9. The
Pope deposes the Legates and Photius, and confirms St. Ignatius in his See.
10. Bardas is put to Death by the Emperor and he associates Basil in the
Empire. 11. Photius condemns and deposes Pope Nicholas II., and after-
wards promulgates his Error concerning the Holy Ghost. 12. The Emperor
Michael killed, and Basil is elected and banishes Photius.
ARTICLE II.- The Errors of the Greeks condemned in Three
General Councils, 210
13, 14, 15. The Eighth General Council against Photius, under Pope Adrian
and the Emperor Basil. 16. Photius gains over Basil, and in the mean time
St. Ignatius dies. 17. Photius again gets Possession of the See. 18. The
Council held by Photius rejected by the Pope ; unhappy Death of Photius.
19. The Patriarch, Cerularius, revives and adds to the Errors of Photius.
20. Unhappy Death of Cerularius. 21 , 22. Gregory X. convokes the Council of
Lyons at the instance of the Emperor Michael ; it is assembled. 23. Profession
of Faith written by Michael, and approved of by the Council. 24. The Greeks
confess and swear to the Decisions of the Council. 25. They separate again.
26. Council of Florence under Eugenius IV.; the Errors are again discussed
and rejected ; Definition of the Procession of the Holy Ghost. 27. Of the
Consecration in Leavened Bread. 28. Of the Pains of Purgatory. 29. Of
the Glory of the Blessed. 30. Of the Primacy of the Pope. 31. Instructions
given to the Armenians, Jacobites, and Ethiopians ; the Greeks relapse into
Schism.

CHAPTER X.

The Heresies which sprung up from the Eleventh to the Fifteenth


Century, . 223
ARTICLE I.- Heresies of the Eleventh Century.
1. Stephen and Lisosius burned for their Errors. 2. The new Nicholites
and the Incestuosists. 3. Berengarius, and the Principles of his Heresy. 4. His
Condemnation and Relapse. 5. His Conversion and Death.
ARTICLE II. - Heresies of the Twelfth Century, . .226
6. The Petrobrussians. 7. Henry, and his Disciples. 8. Their Condemna-
tion. 9. Peter Abelard, and his Errors concerning the Trinity. 10. His
Condemnation. 11. His Conversion and Death. 12. His particular Errors.
13. Arnold of Brescia ; his Errors and Condemnation. 14. Causes a Sedition,
and is burned alive. 15. Gilbert de la Poree ; his Errors and Conversion.
16. Folmar, Tanquelinus, and the Abbot Joachim ; the Apostolicals and the
Bogomiles. 17. Peter Waldo and his Followers under different Denominations
-Waldenses, Poor Men of Lyons, &c. 18. Their particular Errors, and Con-
demnation.
ARTICLE III.- Heresies of the Thirteenth Century, . 234

19. The Albigenses and their Errors. 20. The Corruption of their Morals.
21. Conferences held with them, and their Obstinacy. 22. They create an
Anti-Pope. 23. Glorious Labours of St. Dominick, and his stupendous Miracles.
24. Crusade under the Command of Count Montfort, in which he is victorious.
25. Glorious Death of the Count, and Destruction of the Albigenses. 26. Sen-
tence of the Fourth Council of Lateran, in which the Dogma is defined in
14 CONTENTS .
PAGE.
Opposition to their Tenets. 27. Amalric and his Heresy ; the Errors added by
his Disciples ; they are condemned. 28. William de St. Amour and his Errors.
29. The Flagellants and their Errors. 30. The Fratricelli and their Errors,
condemned by John XXII.
ARTICLE IV.- Heresies of the Fourteenth Century, 243
31. The Beghards and Beguines ; their Errors condemned by Clement V.
32. Marsilius of Padua, and John Jandunus ; their Writings condemned as here-
tical by John XXII. 83. John Wickliffe, and the Beginning of his Heresy.
34. Is assisted by John Ball ; Death of the Archbishop of Canterbury. 35. The
Council of Constance condemns forty-five Articles of Wickliffe. 36, 37. Mira-
culous Confirmation of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist.
38. Death of Wickliffe.
ARTICLE V. - Heresies of the Fifteenth Century-The Heresy of
John Huss, and Jerome of Prague, . 250
39. John Huss's Character, and the Commencement of his Heresy. 40. His
Errors. 41. He is condemned in a Synod. 42. Council of Constance he is
obliged to appear at it. 43. He comes to Constance, and endeavours to escape.
44, 45. He presents himself before the Council, and continues obstinate. 46. He
is condemned to death, and burned. 47. Jerome of Prague is also burned alive
for his Obstinacy. 48. Wars of the Hussites-they are conquered and converted.

CHAPTER XI.

Heresies of the Sixteenth Century, . 256


ARTICLE I. Of the Heresies of Luther.

§ I.-The Beginning and Progress of the Lutheran Heresy .


1. Erasmus of Rotterdam, called by some the Precursor of Luther ; his
Literature. 2. His Doctrine was not sound, nor could it be called heretical.
3. Principles of Luther ; his Familiarity with the Devil, who persuades him to
abolish Private Masses. 4. He joins the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustin.
5. Doctrines and Vices of Luther. 6. Publication of Indulgences, and his
Theses on that Subject. 7. He is called to Rome, and clears himself ; the Pope
sends Cardinal Cajetan as his Legate to Germany. 8. Meeting between the
Legate and Luther. 9. Luther perseveres and appeals to the Pope. 10, 11. Con-
ference of Ecchius with the Heretics. 12. Bull of Leo X., condemning forty-one
Errors of Luther, who burns the Bull and the Decretals.

§ II. The Diets and principal Congresses held concerning the


Heresy of Luther, . 264
13. Diet of Worms, where Luther appeared before Charles V., and remains
obstinate. 14. Edict of the Emperor against Luther, who is concealed by the
Elector in one of his Castles. 15. Diet of Spire, where the Emperor publishes
a Decree, against which the Heretics protest. 16. Conference with the Zuing-
lians ; Marriage of Luther with an Abbess. 17. Diet of Augsburg, and
Melancthon's Profession of Faith ; Melancthon's Treatise, in Favour of the
Authority of the Pope, rejected by Luther. 18. Another Edict of the Emperor
in Favour of Religion. 19. League of Smalkald broken up by the Emperor.
20. Dispensation given by the Lutherans to the Landgrave to have two Wives.
21. Council of Trent, to which Luther refuses to come ; he dies, cursing the
Council. 22. The Lutherans divided into fifty-six Sects. 23. The Second
Diet of Augsburg, in which Charles V. published the injurious Formula of the
Interim. 24, 25. The Heresy of Luther takes Possession of Sweden, Denmark,
Norway, and other Kingdoms.
CONTENTS. 15

PAGE.
§ III.-Errors of Luther, . 273

26. Forty-one Errors of Luther condemned by Leo X. 27. Other Errors


taken from his Books. 28. Luther's Remorse of Conscience. 29. His Abuse
of Henry VIII.; his erroneous Translation of the New Testament ; the Books
he rejected. 30. His Method of celebrating Mass. 31. His Book against the
Sacramentarians, who denied the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
§ IV. The Disciples of Luther,. . 279
32. Melancthon and his Character. 33. His Faith, and the Augsburg Con-
fession composed by him. 34. Matthias Flaccus, Author of the Centuries.
35. John Agricola, Chief of the Antinomians ; Atheists. 36. Andrew Osiander,
Francis Stancaro, and Andrew Musculus. 37. John Brenzius, Chief of the
Ubiquists. 38. Gaspar Sneckenfield abhorred even by Luther for his Impiety.
39. Martin Chemnitz, the Prince of Protestant Theologians, and Opponent of
the Council of Trent.
SV.- The Anabaptists , 284
40. The Anabaptists ; they refuse Baptism to Children. 41. Their Leaders-
Seditions and Defeat. 42. Are again defeated under their Chief, Munzer,
who is converted at his Death. 43. They rebel again under John of Leyden,
who causes himself to be crowned King, is condemned to a cruel Death, and dies
penitent. 44. Errors of the Anabaptists. 45. They are split into various Sects .
ARTICLE II.-The Sacramentarians, .288
§ I.-Carlostad.
48. Carlostad, Father of the Sacramentarians. 49. He is reduced to live by
his Labour in the Field ; he gets married, and composed a Mass on that Subject.
50. He dies suddenly.
§ II.-Zuinglius, .290
51. Zuinglius, and the Beginning of his Heresy. 52. His Errors. 53. Con-
gress held before the Senate of Zurich ; the Decree of the Senate rejected by the
other Cantons. 54. Zuinglius sells his Canonry, and gets married ; Victory
of the Catholics ; and his Death.

§ III.-Ecolampadius ; Bucer ; Peter Martyr, . 293


55. Ecolampadius. 56. Bucer. 57. Peter Martyr.
ARTICLE III .-The Heresies of Calvin , 296

§ I.-The Beginning and Progress of the Heresy of Calvin.


58. Birth and Studies of Calvin. 59. He begins to broach his Heresy ; they
seek to imprison him, and he makes his Escape through a Window. 60. He
commences to disseminate his Impieties in Angouleme. 61. He goes to Germany
to see Bucer, and meets Erasmus. 62. He returns to France, makes some
Followers, and introduces the " Supper ;" he afterwards goes to Basle, and
finishes his " Instructions. " 63. He goes to Italy, but is obliged to fly ; arrives
in Geneva, and is made Master of Theology. 64. He is embarrassed there.
65. He flies from Geneva, and returns to Germany, where he marries a Widow.
66. He returns to Geneva, and is put at the Head of the Republic ; the impious
Works he publishes there ; his Dispute with Bolsec. 67. He causes Michael
Servetus to be burned alive. 68. Unhappy End of the Calvinistic Mission to
Brazil. 69. Seditions and Disturbances in France on Calvin's Account ; Confe-
rence of Poissy. 70. Melancholy Death of Calvin. 71. His personal Qualities
and depraved Manners.
16 CONTENTS .

PAGE.
§ II.-Theodore Beza, the Huguenots, and other Calvinists, who
disturbed France, Scotland, and England, · . 306
72. Theodore Beza ; his Character and Vices. 73. His Learning, Employ-
ments, and Death. 74. Conference of St. Francis de Sales with Beza.
75. Continuation of the same Subject. 76, 77. Disorders of the Huguenots in
France. 78. Horrors committed by them ; they are proscribed in France.
79. Their Disorders in Flanders. 80. And in Scotland. 81. Mary Stuart is
married to Francis II. 82. She returns to Scotland and marries Darnley, next
Bothwell ; is driven by Violence to make a fatal Renunciation of her Crown in
favour of her Son. 83. She takes Refuge in England, and is imprisoned by
Elizabeth, and afterwards condemned to Death by her. 84. Edifying Death of
Mary Stuart. 85. James I., the Son of Mary, succeeds Elizabeth ; he is suc-
ceeded by his Son, Charles I. , who was beheaded. 86. He is succeeded by his
Son, Charles II. , who is succeeded by his Brother, James II., a Catholic, who
died in France.

§ III. The Errors of Calvin, • . 317


87. Calvin adopts the Errors of Luther. 88. Calvin's Errors regarding the
Scriptures. 89. The Trinity. 90. Jesus Christ. 91. The Divine Law.
92. Justification. 93. Good Works and Free Will. 94. That God predestines
Man to Sin and to Hell, and Faith alone in Jesus Christ is sufficient for
Salvation. 95. The Sacraments, and especially Baptism. 96. Penance.
97. The Eucharist and the Mass. 98. He denies Purgatory and Indulgences ;
other Errors.

§ IV. The different Sects of Calvinists, . 323


99. The Sects into which Calvinism was divided. 100. The Puritans.
101. The Independents and Presbyterians. 102. The Difference between
these Sects. 103. The Quakers and Tremblers. 104. The Anglo- Calvinists.
105. The Piscatorians. 106. The Arminians and Gomarists.

CHAPTER XII.
Heresies ofthe Sixteenth Century (continued),. .327

ARTICLE I.- The Schism of England.

§ I.-The Reign of Henry VIII .


1. Religion of England previous to the Reformation. 2. Henry VIII. marries
Catherine of Arragon, but becomes enamoured of Anna Boleyn. 3. The wicked
Wolsey suggests the Invalidity of the Marriage ; Incontinence of Anna Boleyn ;
Suspicion that she was the Daughter of Henry. 4. Catherine refuses to have
her Cause tried by English Judges ; Wolsey is made Prisoner and dies at Lei-
cester. 5. Henry seizes on the Property of the Church, and marries Anna
Boleyn. 6. He obliges the Clergy to swear Obedience to him, and Cranmer
declares the Marriage of Catherine invalid. 7. The Pope declares Anna Boleyn's
Marriage invalid, and excommunicates Henry, who declares himself Head of
the Church. 8. He persecutes Pole, and puts More and Fisher to Death.
9. The Pope declares Henry unworthy of the Kingdom ; the King puts Anna
Boleyn to Death, and marries Jane Seymour. 10. The Parliament decides on
six Articles of Faith ; the Bones of St. Thomas of Canterbury are burned ; Jane
Seymour dies in giving Birth to Edward VI. 11. The Pope endeavours to
bring Henry to a Sense of his Duty, but does not succeed. 12. He marries
Anne of Cleves ; Cromwell is put to Death. 13. Henry marries Catherine
Howard, whom he afterwards put to Death, and then marries Catherine
Parr. 14. His Remorse in his last Sickness . 15. He makes his Will and dies.
CONTENTS . 17
PAGE.
§ II.-Reign of Edward VI . • . 339
16. The Duke of Somerset, as Guardian of Edward VI. , governs the Kingdom.
17. He declares himself a Heretic, and gives leave to the Heretics to preach ;
invites Bucer, Vermigli, and Ochino to England, and abolishes the Roman
Catholic Religion. 18. He beheads his Brother, the Lord High-Admiral.
19. He is beheaded himself. 20. Death of Edward ; the Earl of Warwick
makes an attempt to get possession of the Kingdom, and is beheaded, but is
converted, and dies an edifying Death.
§ III.-Mary's Reign, . 343
21. Mary refuses the title of Head of the Church ; repeals her Father's and
Brother's Laws ; Cranmer is condemned to be burned, and dies a Heretic :
Mary sends off all Heretics from her Court. 22. Cardinal Pole reconciles
England with the Church ; her Marriage with Philip II., and Death.
§ IV. The Reign of Elizabeth, 344
23. Elizabeth proclaimed Queen ; the Pope is dissatisfied, and she declares
herself a Protestant. 24. She gains over the Parliament through the Influence
of three of the Nobility, and is proclaimed Head of the Church. 25. She esta-
blishes the Form of Church Government, and, though her Belief is Calvinistic,
she retains Episcopacy, &c. 26. Appropriates Church Property ; abolishes the
Mass ; the Oath of Allegiance ; Persecution of the Catholics. 27. Death of
Edmund Campion for the Faith. 28. The Pope's Bull against Elizabeth.
29. She dies out of Communion with the Church. 30. Her Successors on the
Throne of England ; Deplorable State of the English Church. 31. The English
Reformation refutes itself.

ARTICLE II.-The Anti-Trinitarians and Socinians, 350

§ I.-Michael Servetus.
32. Character of Servetus ; his Studies, Travels, and False Doctrine.
32. He goes to Geneva ; disputes with Calvin, who has him burned to Death.
§ II.-Valentine Gentilis, George Blandrata, and Bernard Ochino, 351
34. Valentine Gentilis ; his impious Doctrine. 35. He is punished in
Geneva, and retracts. 36. Relapses, and is beheaded. 37. George Blandrata
perverts the Prince of Transylvania ; disputes with the Reformers ; is mur-
dered. 38. Bernard Ochino ; his Life while a Friar ; his Perversion, and
Flight to Geneva. 39. He goes to Strasbourg, and afterwards to England,
with Bucer : his unfortunate Death in Poland.

§ III.-The Socinians, . 356


40. Perverse Doctrine of Lelius Socinus. 41. Faustus Socinus ; his Travels,
Writings, and Death. 42. Errors of the Socinians.

CHAPTER XIII.

Heresies of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, . 359

ARTICLE I.- Isaac Perieres, Mark Anthony de Dominis, William


Postellus, and Benedict Spinosa.
1. Isaac Perieres, Chief of the Preadamites, abjures his Heresy. 2. Mark
Anthony de Dominis ; his Errors and Death. 3. William Postellus ; his
Errors, and Conversion. 4. Benedict Spinosa, Author of a new Sort of Atheism.
5. Plan of his impious System ; his unhappy Death.
B
18 CONTENTS .
PAGE
ARTICLE II.-The Errors of Michael Baius, . 362
6. Michael Baius disseminates his unsound Doctrine, and is opposed.
7. St. Pius V. condemns seventy-nine Propositions of Baius, and he abjures
them. 8. Retractation written by Baius, and confirmed by Pope Urban VIII.
ARTICLE III.-The Errors of Cornelius Jansenius, . 365
9. Cornelius, Bishop of Ghent, and Cornelius, Bishop of Ipres ; his Studies
and Degrees. 10. Notice of the condemned Work of Jansenius. 11. Urban
VIII. condemns the Book of Jansenius in the Bull " In eminenti ;" the Bishops
of France present the Five Propositions to Innocent X. 12. Innocent con-
demns them in the Bull " Cum occasione ;" Notice of the Propositions.
13. Opposition of the Jansenists ; but Alexander VIII. declares that the Five
Propositions are extracted from the Book, and condemned in the sense of
Jansenius ; Two Propositions of Arnold condemned. 14. Form of Subscription
commanded by the Pope to be made. 15. The Religious Silence. 16. The
Case of Conscience condemned by Clement XI. in the Bull Vineam Domini.
17. The opinion, that the Pontificate of St. Paul was equal to that of St. Peter,
condemned.
ARTICLE IV . . 371
18. Quesnel is dismissed from the Congregation of the Oratory. 19. He
publishes several unsound Works in Brussels. 20. Is imprisoned, escapes to
Amsterdam, and dies excommunicated. 21. The Book he wrote. 22. The
Bull "Unigenitus," condemning the Book. 23. The Bull is accepted by the
King, the Clergy, and the Sorbonne ; the Followers of Quesnel appeal to a
future Council. 24. Several Bishops, also, and Cardinal de Noailles, appeal
to a future Council, likewise ; but the Council of Embrun declares that the
Appeal should not be entertained. 25. The Consultation of the Advocates
rejected by the Assembly of the Bishops ; Cardinal de Noailles retracts, and
accepts the Bull ; the Bull is declared Dogmatical by the Sorbonne and the
Bishops. 26. Three Principles of the System of Quesnel.
ARTICLE V. -The Errors of Michael Molinos, . 377
29. The unsound Book of Molinos called the " Spiritual Guide." 30. His im-
pious Doctrine, and the Consequences deduced from it. 31. His affected Sanc-
tity ; he is found out and imprisoned, with two of his Disciples. 32. He is
condemned himself, as well as his Works ; he publicly abjures his Errors and
dies penitent. 33. Condemnation of the Book entitled "The Maxims of the
Saints."

SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER.

Heresies of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, . 379


1. Introductory Matter. 2. Rationalists. 3. Hernhutters, or Moravians.
4. Swedenborgians, or New Jerusalemites. 5. Methodism ; Wesley. 6, 7. Doc-
trines and Practices of the Methodists. 8. Johanna Southcott. 9. Mormonism,
10. German Catholics.
CONTENTS. 19

1
REFUTATION OF HERESIES.

REFUTATION I.
PAGE.
The Heresy of Sabellius, who denied the Distinction of Persons in the
Trinity, 391

§ I.-The real Distinction of the Three Divine Persons is proved, 391


§ II.-Objections answered, • € 396

REFUTATION II.

The Heresy of Arius, who denied the Divinity ofthe Word, • . 400

§ I. The Divinity of the Word proved from the Scriptures, . 400

§ II. The Divinity of the Word proved by the Authority of


Holy Fathers and Councils, · 411

§ III.- Objections answered, 415

REFUTATION III.

Of the Heresy of Macedonius, who denied the Divinity of the Holy


Ghost, · 420

§ I.-The Divinity of the Holy Ghost proved from Scriptures,


from the Traditions of the Fathers, and from General Councils, 421

§ II.-Answer to Objections, • 430

REFUTATION IV.

The Heresy of the Greeks, who assert that the Holy Ghost proceeds
from the Father alone, and not from the Father and the Son, · 433

§ I. It is proved that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father


and the Son, · • 433

§ II.-Objections answered, " 440

REFUTATION V.

Refutation of the Heresy of Pelagius, 443

§ I. Of the Necessity of Grace, 443

§ II. Of the Gratuity of Grace, 446


20 CONTENTS .
PAGE.
§ III.-The Necessity and the Gratuity of Grace is proved by
Tradition ; confirmed by the Decrees of Councils and Popes, 447
§ IV.-Objections answered, • 449

REFUTATION VI.

Ofthe Semi-Pelagian Heresy, 451

§ I.-The Commencement of Faith and every good Desire is not


from ourselves, but from God, • 451

§ II.-Objections answered, · • 453

REFUTATION VII.

Refutation of the Heresy of Nestorius, who taught that in Christ


there are two Persons, • 457

§ I.-In Jesus Christ there is but the one Person of the Word
alone, which terminates the two Natures, Divine and Human,
which both subsist in the same Person of the Word, and,
therefore, this one Person is, at the same time, true God and
true Man, · 458

Objections answered, . 464

§ II.-Mary is the real and true Mother of God, . 466

The Objections of the Nestorians answered, . 469

REFUTATION VIII.

Refutation ofthe Heresy of Eutyches, who asserted that there was


only one Nature in Christ, • 470

§ I.-In Christ there are two Natures-the Divine and the


Human Nature-distinct, unmixed, unconfused, and entire,
subsisting inseparably in the one Hypostasis, or Person of the
Word, 470

Objections answered, . 477

REFUTATION IX.

Ofthe Monothelite Heresy, that there is but one Nature and one
Operation only in Christ, • · 481

§ I.-It is proved that there are two distinct Wills in Christ,


Divine and Human, according to the two Natures, and two
Operations, according to the two Wills, · 481

§ II -Objections answered, · 484


CONTENTS. 21
PAGE.
REFUTATION X.

The Heresy ofBerengarius, and the pretended Reformers, concerning


the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, · 487

§ I. Of the Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ


in the Eucharist, 489

Objections against the Real Presence answered, 496

§ II.-Of Transubstantiation—that is, the Conversion of the Sub-


stance of the Bread and of the Wine into the Substance of the
Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, . 498

Objections against Transubstantiation answered, . 501

§ III. Of the Manner in which Jesus Christ is in the Eucharist ;


the philosophical Objections of the Sacramentarians answered, 503

§ IV.-The Matter and Form of the Sacrament of the Eucharist, 509

REFUTATION XI.

Errors of Luther and Calvin, • 514


Summary ofthe principal Points, viz.:-1. Free Will exists. 2. The Divine
Law is not impossible. 3. Works are necessary. 4. Faith alone does not
justify us. 5. Of the Uncertainty of Justification, Perseverance, and Eternal
Salvation. 6. God is not the Author of Sin. 7. God predestines no one to
Hell. 8. Infallibility of General Councils.
§ I.-Of Free Will, · 514

§ II. That it is not impossible to observe the Divine Law, • 516

§ III.- That Good Works are necessary for Salvation, and that
Faith alone is not sufficient, · 520

§ IV. The Sinner is not justified by Faith alone, . 527

§ V.-Faith alone cannot render us secure of Justice, or Per-


severance, or Eternal Life, 531

§ VI.-God cannot be the Author of Sin, 537

§ VII.- God never predestined any one to Eternal Damnation,


without regard to his Sins, · 543

§ VIII. The Authority of General Councils, . 553

REFUTATION XII.

The Errors of Michael Baius, 563

REFUTATION XIII.

The Errors of Cornelius Jansenius, . 576


22 CONTENTS .
PAGE.
REFUTATION XIV.

The Heresy of Michael Molinos, . 591

REFUTATION XV.

Berruyer's Errors, • 597

§ I.-Berruyer says that Jesus Christ was made in time, by an


operation ad extra, the natural Son of God, one subsisting
in three Persons, who united the Humanity of Christ with a
Divine Person, . 599

§ II.—Berruyer says that Jesus Christ, during the three days he


was in the Sepulchre, ceased to be a living Man, and, con-
sequently, was no longer the Son of God . And when God
again raised him from the dead, he once more generated him,
and again made him the Son of God , 1 610

§ III.-Berruyer says that it was the Humanity alone of Christ


that obeyed, prayed, and suffered, and that his Oblations,
Prayers, and Meditations, were not Operations proceeding from
the Word, as a physical and efficient Principle, but that, in
this sense, they were actions merely of his Humanity, . . 613
--
§ IV. The Miracles wrought by Jesus Christ were not performed
by his own Powers, but obtained from his Father, by his
Prayers, • 623

§ V. The Holy Ghost was not sent to the Apostles by Jesus


Christ, but by the Father alone, at the Prayer of Christ, . 625

§ VI.- Other Errors of Berruyer on different Subjects, . 626


Exhortation to Catholics, . 634
AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

1. My object in writing this work is to prove that the Roman


Catholic Church is the only true one among so many other
Churches, and to show how carefully the Almighty guarded her ,
and brought her victoriously through all the persecutions of her
enemies. Hence, as St. Iræneus says (Lib. 3, cap. 3, n. 2) , all
should depend on the Roman Church as on their fountain and
head. This is the Church founded by Jesus Christ, and propa-

gated by the Apostles ; and although in the commencement


persecuted and contradicted by all, as the Jews said to St. Paul
in Rome : " For as concerning this sect (thus they called the
Church) , we know that it is gainsayed everywhere" (Acts , xxviii.
22) ; still she always remained firm, not like the other false
Churches which in the beginning numbered many followers, but
perished in the end , as we shall see in the course of this history,
when we speak of the Arians, Nestorians, Eutychians , and Pe-
lagians ; and if any sect still reckons many followers , as the
Mahometans, Lutherans, or Calvinists, it is easy to see that they
are upheld, not by the love of truth, but either by popular
ignorance, or relaxation of morals. St. Augustin says that
heresies are only embraced by those who, had they persevered in
the faith, would be lost by the irregularity of their lives. (St.
Aug. de Va. Rel . c. 8. )
24 AUTHOR'S PREFACE .

2. Our Church, on the contrary, notwithstanding that she


teaches her children a law opposed to the corrupt inclinations of
human nature, not only never failed in the midst of persecutions,
but even gained strength from them ; as Tertullian ( Apol. cap.
ult. ) says, —the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians, and
the more we are mown down the more numerous we become ;
and in the 20th chapter of the same work he says,—the kingdom
of Christ and his reign is believed, and he is worshipped by all
nations. Pliny the Younger confirms this in his celebrated Letter
to Trajan, in which he says that in Asia the temples of the gods
were deserted, because the Christian religion had overrun not
only the cities but even the villages.
3. This, certainly, never could have taken place without the
power of the Almighty, who intended to establish, in the midst of
idolatry, a new religion, to destroy all the superstitions of the
false religion, and the ancient belief in a multitude of false gods
adored by the Gentiles, by their ancestors, by the magistrates,
and by the emperors themselves, who made use of all their power
to protect it, and still the Christian faith was embraced by many
nations who forsook a relaxed law for a hard and difficult one,

forbidding them to pamper their sensual appetites. What but the


power of God could accomplish this ?
4. Great as the persecutions were which the Church suffered
from idolatry, still greater were those she had to endure from the
heretics which sprang from her own bosom, by means of wicked
men, who, either through pride or ambition, or the desire of sen-
sual license, endeavoured to rend the bowels of their parent.
Heresy has been called a canker : " It spreadeth like a canker"
(2 Tim. ii. 17) ; for as a canker infects the whole body, so
heresy infects the whole soul, the mind, the heart, the intellect,
and the will. It is also called a plague, for it not only infects the
person contaminated with it, but those who associate with him ,
and the fact is, that the spread of this plague in the world has
AUTHOR'S PREFACE . 25

injured the Church more than idolatry, and this good mother has
suffered more from her own children than from her enemies.

Still she has never perished in any of the tempests which the
heretics raised against her ; she appeared about to perish at one
time through the heresy of Arius, when the faith of the Council
of Nice, through the intrigues of the wicked Bishops , Valens and
Ursacius, was condemned , and, as St. Jerome says, the world
groaned at finding itself Arian (1 ) ; and the Eastern Church
appeared in the same danger during the time of the heresies of
Nestorius and Eutyches. But it is wonderful, and at the same time
consoling, to read the end of all those heresies, and behold the
bark of the Church, which appeared completely wrecked and sunk
through the force of those persecutions, in a little while floating
more gloriously and triumphantly than before.
5. St. Paul says : " There must be heresies, that they also who
are reproved may be made manifest among you" (1 Cor. ii. 19).
St. Augustin, explaining this text, says that as fire is necessary to
purify silver, and separate it from the dross, so heresies are neces-
sary to prove the good Christians among the bad, and to separate
the true from the false doctrine. The pride of the heretics makes
them presume that they know the true faith , and that the Catholic
Church is in error, but here is the mistake : our reason is not
sufficient to tell us the true faith, since the truths of Divine Faith
are above reason ; we should, therefore , hold by that faith which
God has revealed to his Church, and which the Church teaches,

which is, as the Apostle says, " the pillar and the ground of truth "
(1 Tim. iii. 15) . Hence, as St. Iræneus says, " It is necessary

that all should depend on the Roman Church as their head and
fountain ; all Churches should agree with this Church on account

ofher priority of principality, for there the traditions delivered


bythe Apostles have always been preserved" (St. Iræn. lib. 3, c. 3) ;

( 1 ) St. Hieron. Dial. adversus Lucifer.


26 AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

and by the tradition derived from the Apostles, which the Church
founded at Rome preserves, and the Faith preserved by the suc-
cession of the Bishops, we confound those who through blindness
or an evil conscience draw false conclusions (Ibid .) “ Do you
wish to know," says St. Augustin, " which is the Church of
Christ? Count those priests who , in a regular succession , have
succeeded St. Peter, who is the Rock, against which the gates of
hell will not prevail" (St. Aug. in Ps. contra part. Donat.) : and
the holy Doctor alleges as one of the reasons which detain him in
the Catholic Church, the succession of Bishops to the present time

in the See of St. Peter" (Epis. fund . c. 4 , n . 5) ; for in truth the


uninterrupted succession from the Apostles and disciples is cha-
racteristic of the Catholic Church, and of no other.
6. It was the will of the Almighty that the Church in which
the true faith was preserved should be one, that all the faithful

might profess the one faith, but the devil, St. Cyprian says (2),
invented heresies to destroy faith, and divide unity . The enemy
has caused mankind to establish many different churches, so that
each, following the faith of his own particular one, in opposition
to that of others, the true faith might be confused, and as many
false faiths formed as there are different churches, or rather dif

ferent individuals. This is especially the case in England, where


we see as many religions as families, and even families themselves
divided in faith, each individual following his own. St. Cyprian ,
then, justly says that God has disposed that the true faith should
be preserved in the Roman Church alone, so that there being but
one Church there should be but one faith and one doctrine for all
the faithful. St. Optatus Milevitanus, writing to Parmenianus,
says, also : " You cannot be ignorant that the Episcopal Chair of
St. Peter was first placed in the city of Rome, in which one chair
unity is observed by all" ( St. Opt. l. 2, cont. Parmen.)

(2) St. Cyprian de Unitate Ecclesiæ .


AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 27

7. The heretics, too, boast of the unity of their Churches, but


St. Augustin says that it is unity against unity. " What unity ,"
says the Saint, " can all those Churches have which are divided from
the Catholic Church, which is the only true one ; they are but as so
many useless branches cut off from the Vine, the Catholic Church,

which is always firmly rooted . This is the One Holy, True, and
Catholic Church, opposing all heresies ; it may be opposed, but
cannot be conquered . All heresies come forth from it, like use-
less shoots cut off from the vine, but it still remains firmly rooted
in charity, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" ( St.
Aug. lib. 1 , de Symbol. ad Cath. c. 6) . St. Jerome says that the
very fact of the heretics forming a church apart from the Roman
Church is a proof, of itself, that they are followers of error, and
disciples of the devil, described by the Apostle as " giving heed
to spirits of error and doctrines of devils" ( 1 Tim. iv. 1).

8. The Lutherans and Calvinists say, just as the Donatists did


before them , that the Catholic Church preserved the true faith
down to a certain period-some say to the third, some to the
fourth, some to the fifth century-but that after that the true
doctrine was corrupted, and the spouse of Christ became an adul-
teress. This supposition, however, refutes itself; for, granting

that the Roman Catholic Church was the Church first founded by
Christ, it could never fail, for our Saviour himself promised that
the gates of hell never should prevail against it : " I say unto you
that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. xviii . 18 ). It
being certain, then, that the Roman Catholic Church was the
true one, as Gerard, one of the first ministers of Luther, admits
(Gerard de Eccles. cap. 11 , sec . 6) it to have been for the first
five hundred years, and to have preserved the Apostolic doctrine
during that period, it follows that it must always have remained
so, for the spouse of Christ, as St. Cyprian says, could never
become an adulteress .
28 AUTHOR'S PREFACE .

9. The heretics, however, who, instead of learning from the


Church the dogmas they should believe, wish to teach her false
and perverse dogmas of their own , say that they have the Scrip-
tures on their side , which are the fountain of truth , not considering,
as a learned author (3) justly remarks, that it is not by reading,
but by understanding, them , that the truth can be found.
Heretics of every sort avail themselves of the Scriptures to prove
their errors, but we should not interpret the Scripture according
to our own private opinions, which frequently lead us astray,
but according to the teaching of the Holy Church which is
appointed the Mistress of true doctrine, and to whom God has
manifested the true sense of the Divine books. This is the
Church, as the Apostle tells us, which has been appointed the
pillar and the ground of truth : " that thou mayest know how
thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is
the Church of the living God, the pillar and the ground of truth."
(1 Tim. iii. 15.) Hence St. Leo says, that the Catholic faith
despises the errors of heretics barking against the Church, who,
deceived by the vanity of worldly wisdom, have departed from
the truth of the Gospel.-(St. Leo. Ser. 8 de Nat. Dim.)
10. I think the History of Heresies is a most useful study, for
it shows the truth of our Faith more pure and resplendent, by
showing how it has never changed ; and if, at all times, this is
useful, it must be particularly so at present, when the most holy
maxims and the principal dogmas of religion are put in doubt :
it shows, besides, the care God always took to sustain the Church
in the midst of the tempests which were unceasingly raised
against it, and the admirable manner in which all the enemies who
attacked it were confounded. The History of Heresies is also
useful to preserve in us the spirit of humility and subjection to
the Church, and to make us grateful to God for giving us the

(3) Danes, Gen. Temp. Nat. in Epil.


AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 29

grace of being born in Christian countries ; and it shows how the

most learned men have fallen into the most grievous errors, by
not subjecting themselves to the Church's teaching.
11. I will now state my reasons for writing this Work ; some
may think this labour of mine superfluous, especially as so many
learned authors have written expressly and extensively the his-
tory of various heresies, as Tertullian, St. Iræneus, St. Epiphanius,
St. Augustin, St. Vincent of Lerins , Socrates, Sozymen , St Phil-
astrius, Theodoret, Nicephorus, and many others, both in ancient
and modern times. This, however, is the very reason which
prompted me to write this Work ; for as so many authors have
written, and so extensively, and as it is impossible for many per-
sons either to procure so many and such expensive works, or to
find time to read them, if they had them, I , therefore, judged it
better to collect in a small compass the commencement and the
progress of all heresies, so that in a little time, and at little
expense, any one may have a sufficient knowledge of the heresies
and schisms which infected the Church. I have said in a small
compass, but still, not with such brevity as some others have
done, who barely give an outline of the facts, and leave the reader
dissatisfied, and ignorant of many of the most important circum-
stances. I, therefore, have studied brevity ; but I wish , at the
same time, that my readers may be fully informed of every nota-
ble fact connected with the rise and progress of, at all events, the
principal heresies that disturbed the Church.

12. Another reason I had for publishing this Work was, that
as modern authors , who have paid most attention to historical
facts, have spoken of heresies only as a component part of Eccle-
siastical History, as Baronius, Fleury, Noel Alexander, Tillemont,
Orsi, Spondanus, Raynaldus, Graveson, and others, and so have
spoken of each heresy chronologically, either in its beginning,
progress, or decay, and, therefore, the reader must turn over to

different parts of the works to find out the rise, progress, and dis-
30 AUTHOR'S PREFACE .

appearance of each heresy ; I , on the contrary, give all at once


the facts connected with each heresy in particular.
13. Besides, these writers have not given the Refutation of
Heresies, and I give this in the second part ofthe Work ; I do
not mean the refutation of every heresy, but only of the principal
ones, as these of Sabellius, Arius, Pelagius , Macedonius, Nestorius ,
Eutyches, the Monothelites, the Iconoclasts, the Greeks , and the
like. I will merely speak of the authors of other heresies of less
note, and their falsity will be apparent, either from their evident
weakness, or from the proofs I bring forward against the more
celebrated heresies I have mentioned .

14. We ought, then, dear reader, unceasingly to thank our


Lord for giving us the grace of being born and brought up in
the bosom of the Catholic Church. St. Francis de Sales exclaims :

" O good God ! many and great are the benefits thou hast heaped
on me, and I thank thee for them ; but how shall I be ever able

to thank thee for enlightening me with thy holy Faith ?" And
writing to one of his friends, he says : " O God! the beauty ofthy
holy Faith appears to me so enchanting, that I am dying with
love of it, and I imagine I ought to enshrine this precious gift in
a heart all perfumed with devotion." St. Teresa never ceased to
thank God for having made her a daughter of the Holy Church :
her consolation at the hour of death was to cry out : " I die a
child of the Holy Church-I die a child of the Holy Church."
We, likewise, should never cease praising Jesus Christ for
this grace bestowed on us- one of the greatest conferred on
us-one distinguishing us from so many millions of mankind,
who are born and die among infidels and heretics : " He has not
done in like manner to every nation" (Psalm , cxlvii . 9 ) . With
our minds filled with gratitude for so great a favour , we shall
now see the triumph the Church has obtained through so many
ages, over so many heresies opposed to her. I wish to remark,
however, before I begin, that I have written this Work amidst
AUTHOR'S PREface. 31

the cares of my Bishoprick, so that I could not give a critical


examination, many times, to the facts I state, and , in such case , I
give the various opinions of different authors, without deciding
myself on one side or the other. I have endeavoured, however,
to collect all that could be found in the most correct and notable

writers on the subject ; but it is not impossible that some learned


persons may be better acquainted with some facts than I am.
THE

HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

AND

THEIR REFUTATION .

CHAPTER I.

HERESIES OF THE FIRST CENTURY.

1. Simon Magus. 2. Menander. 3. Cerinthus. 4. Ebion. 5. Saturninus and Basilides.


6. The Nicholites.

1. SIMON MAGUS (1 ) , the first heretic who disturbed the Church,


was born in a part of Samaria called Githon or Gitthis . He was
called Magus, or the Magician, because he made use of spells to
deceive the multitude ; and hence he acquired among his country-
men the extraordinary name of " The Great Power of God " (Acts,19
viii. 10) . " This man is the power of God which is called great.'
Seeing that those on whom the Apostles Peter and John laid hands
received the Holy Ghost, he offered them money to give to him
the power of communicating the Holy Ghost in like manner ; and
on that account the detestable crime of selling holy things is called
Simony. He went to Rome, and there was a statue erected to
him in that city, a fact which St. Justin , in his first Apology,
flings in the face of the Romans : " In your royal city," he says,
" he (Simon) was esteemed a god, and a statue was erected to
him in the Island of the Tyber, between the two bridges, bearing
this Latin inscription- SIMONI, DEO SANCTO." Samuel Basnage,
Petavius, Valesius, and many others, deny this fact ; but Tille-
mont, Grotius, Fleury, and Cardinal Orsi defend it, and adduce in
favour of it the authority of Tertullian, St. Irenæus, St. Cyril of
Jerusalem, St. Augustin, Eusebius, and Theodoret, who even says
the statue was a bronze one. Simon broached many errors, which
Noel Alexander enumerates and refutes (2) . The principal ones

(1) Baron. Annal . 35, d. 23 ; N. Alex. Hist. Ecclesias. t. 5, c. 11, n. 1 ; Hermant.


His. Con. 56, 1 , c. 7 ; Van Ranst, His. Her. n. 1. (2) Nat. Alex. t. 5, in fin. Dis. 24.
C
34 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

were that the world was created by angels ; that when the soul
leaves the body it enters into another body, which, if true, says
St. Irenæus (3), it would recollect all that happened when it inha-
bited the former body, for memory, being a spiritual quality, it
could not be separated from the soul . Another of his errors was
one which has been brought to light by the heretics of our own
days, that man had no free will, and, consequently, that good
works are not necessary for salvation . Baronius and Fleury
relate (4) , that, by force of magic spells, he one day caused the
devil to elevate him in the air ; but St. Peter and St. Paul being
present, and invoking the name of Jesus Christ, he fell down and
broke both his legs. He was carried away by his friends ; but his
corporeal and mental sufferings preyed so much on him, that, in
despair, he cast himself out of a high window ; and thus perished
the first heretic who ever disturbed the Church of Christ (5) .
Basnage, who endeavours to prove that St. Peter never was in
Rome, and never filled the pontifical chair of that city, says that
this is all a fabrication ; but we have the testimony of St. Ambrose ,
St. Isidore of Pelusium, St. Augustin , St. Maximus, St. Philastrius ,
St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Severus Sulpicius, Theodoret, and many
others, in our favour. We have, besides, a passage in Suetonius ,
which corroborates their testimony, for he says (lib . VI., cap . xii.) ,
that, while Nero assisted at the public sports, a man endeavoured
to fly, but, after elevating himself for a while, he fell down , and
the Emperor's pavilion was sprinkled with his blood.
2. Menander was a Samaritan likewise , and a disciple of Simon
Magus ; he made his appearance in the year of our Lord 73. He
announced himself a messenger from the " Unknown Power," for
the salvation of mankind. No one, according to him, could be
saved, unless he was baptized in his name, and his baptism, he
said, was the true resurrection , so that his disciples would enjoy
immortality even in this life (6). Cardinal Orsi adds, that Menan-
der was the first who invented the doctrine of " Eons," and that he
taught that Jesus Christ exercised human functions in appearance
alone.
3. Cerinthus was the next after Menander, but he began to
broach his doctrine in the same year (7) . His errors can be reduced
to four heads : he denied that God was the creator ofthe world ;
he asserted that the law of Moses was necessary for salvation ; he
also taught that after the resurrection Jesus Christ would establish
a terrestrial kingdom in Jerusalem, where the just would spend a
thousand years in the enjoyment of every sensual pleasure ; and ,

(3) St. Irenæus, de Heresi. l. 2, c. 58. (4) Baron. Ann. 35, n. 14, ad 17 ; Fleury,
His. Eccl. t. 1, l. 2, n. 23 ; St. Augus.; St. Joan. Chris. (5) Baron. n. 17 ; Nat.
Alex. t. 5, c. 11 ; Orsi, Istor. Eccl . l. 1 , n. 20 , and l. 2, n. 19 ; Berti. Brev. Histor. t. 1,
c. 3. (6) Fleury, loc. cit. n. 42 ; N. Alex. loc. cit. art. 2. (7) N. Alex. t. 5, c. 11,
ar. 5 ; Fleury, t. 1, l. 2 , n. 42 ; Berti, loc. cit.; Orsi, t. 1, l. 2, n. 43.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 35

finally, he denied the divinity of Jesus Christ. The account Ber-


nini gives of his death is singular (8) . The Apostle St. John, he
says, met him going into a bath, when, turning to those along
with him, he said, let us hasten out of this, lest we be buried alive,
and they had scarcely gone outside when the whole building fell
with a sudden crash, and the unfortunate Cerinthus was over-
whelmed in the ruins. One ofthe impious doctrines of this heretic
was, that Jesus was a mere man, born as all other men are , and
that, when he was baptized in the river Jordan, Christ descended
on him, that is, a virtue or power, in form of a dove , or a spirit
sent by God to fill him with knowledge, and communicate it to
mankind ; but after Jesus had fulfilled his mission , by instructing
mankind and working miracles, he was deserted by Christ, who
returned to heaven , and left him to darkness and death. Alas !
what impiety men fall into when they desert the light of faith, and
follow their own weak imaginations.
4. Ebion prided himself in being a disciple of St. Peter, and
could not even bear to hear St. Paul's name mentioned. He admitted
the sacrament of baptism ; but in the consecration of the Eucharist
he used nothing but water in the chalice ; he, however, consecrated
the host in unleavened bread , and Eusebius says he performed this
every Sunday. According to St. Jerome, the baptism of the
Ebionites was admitted by the Catholics. He endeavoured to
unite the Mosaic and Christian law, and admitted no part of the
New Testament, unless the Gospel of St. Matthew, and even that
mutilated, as he left out two chapters, and altered the others in
many places. The ancient writers say that St. John wrote his
Gospel to refute the errors of Ebion. The most impious of his
blasphemies was, that Jesus Christ was the son of Joseph and
Mary, born as the rest of men are ; that he was but a mere man,
but that, on account of his great virtue, the Almighty adopted him
as his Son (9).
5. Saturninus and Basilides were disciples of Menander, whose
history we have already seen ; and they made some additions to
the heresy of their master. Saturninus, a native of Antioch, taught,
with Menander, as Fleury tells us ( 10) , that there was one only
Father, unknown to all, who created the angels, and that seven
angels created the world and man. The God of the Jews, he said,
was one of these rebellious angels, and it was to destroy him that
Christ appeared in the form of man, though he never had a real
body. He condemned matrimony and procreation as an invention
of the devil. He attributed the Prophecies partly to the angels ,
partly to the devil, and partly to the God ofthe Jews . He also said,
according to St. Augustin (Heres. iii. ) , that the Supreme Virtue-
(8) Bernin. Istor. del Eresia, t. 1 , c. 1 ; St. Iren. l. 3, c. 4, de S. (9) N. Alex. loc.
cit. art. 6 ; Fleury, loc. cit. n. 42. [N.B.- Fleury puts Ebion first, next Cerinthus, and
lastly Menander. ] (10) Fleury, n. 19.
36 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

that is, the Sovereign Father- having created the angels, seven of
them rebelled against him, created man, and for this reason :-
Seeing a celestial light, they wished to retain it, but it vanished
from them ; and they then created man to resemble it, saying,
" Let us make man to the image and likeness." Man being thus
created , was like a mere worm, incapable of doing anything, till
the Sovereign Virtue, pitying his image, placed in him a spark
of himself, and gave him life. This is the spark which, at the dis-
solution of the body, flies to heaven. Those of his sect alone, he
said , had this spark ; all the others were deprived of it, and, conse-
quently, were reprobate.
6. Basilides, according to Fleury, was a native of Alexandria,
and even exceeded Saturninus in fanaticism . He said that the
Father, whom he called Abrasax, produced Nous, that is, In-
telligence ; who produced Logos, or the Word ; the Word pro-
duced Phronesis, that is, Prudence ; and Prudence, Sophia and
Dunamis, that is, Wisdom and Power. These created the angels,
who formed the first heaven and other angels ; and these, in their
turn, produced a second heaven, and so on , till there were three
hundred and sixty-five heavens produced, according to the number
of days in the year. The God of the Jews, he said, was the head
of the second order of angels , and because he wished to rule all
nations, the other princes rose up against him, and, on that account,
God sent his first-born , Nous, to free mankind from the dominion
of the angels who created the world. This Nous, who , according
to him, was Jesus Christ, was an incorporeal virtue, who put on
whatever form pleased him. Hence, when the Jews wished to
crucify him, he took the form of Simon the Cyrenean , and gave
his form to Simon , so that it was Simon, and not Jesus, was
crucified. Jesus, at the same time, was laughing at the folly of the
Jews, and afterwards ascended invisibly to heaven. Ön that
account, he said, we should not venerate the crucifix , otherwise
we would incur the danger of being subject to the angels who
created the world . He broached many other errors ; but these are
sufficient to show his fanaticism and impiety. Both Saturninus
and Basilides fled from martyrdom, and always cloaked their faith
with this maxim-" Know others, but let no one know you."
Cardinal Orsi says( 11 ) they practised magic , and were addicted to
every species of incontinence, but that they were careful in avoiding
observation. They promulgated their doctrines before Menander,
in the year 125 ; but, because they were disciples of his , we have
mentioned them after him.
7. The Nicholites admitted promiscuous intercourse with mar-
ried and single, and, also, the use of meats offered to idols. They
also said that the Father of Jesus Christ was not the creator ofthe

(11) Orsi, t. 2, l. 3, n. 23.


AND THEIR REFUTATION . 37

world. Among the other foolish doctrines they held, was one,
that darkness, uniting with the Holy Ghost, produced a matrix
or womb, which brought forth four Eons ; that from these four
Eons sprung the evil Eon, who created the Gods, the angels ,
men, and seven demoniacal spirits . This heresy was of short dura-
tion ; but some new Nicholites sprung up afterwards in the Milanese
territory, who were condemned by Pope Nicholas II . The
Nicholites called themselves disciples of Nicholas the Deacon ,
who, according to Noel Alexander, was esteemed a heresiarch by
St. Eusebius, St. Hilarion , and St. Jerome. However, Clement
of Alexandria, Eusebius, Theodoret, Baronius, St. Ignatius the
Martyr, Orsi, St. Augustin , Fleury, and Berti, acquit him of this
charge (12) .

CHAPTER II.

HERESIES OF THE SECOND CENTURY.


1. Corpocrates. 2. Valentine. 3. Epiphanes. 4. Prodicus. 5. Tatian. 6. Severus.
7. Cerdonius. 8. Marcion. 9. Apelles. 10. Montanus. 11. Cataphrigians, Ar-
totirites, Peputians, Ascodrogites, Pattalornichites. 12. Bardesanes. 13. Theodotus
the Currier, Artemon, and Theodotus Argentarius. 14. Hermogenes.

1. CORPOCRATES was a native of Alexandria, or, as others say, of


Samosata. His followers were called Gnostics — that is, learned or
enlightened. He said that Jesus Christ was the son of Joseph ,
born as other men are, and distinguished from them by his virtue
alone, and that the world was created by angels. Another blas-
phemous doctrine of his was, that, to unite ourselves with God, we
should practise all the unclean works of concupiscence ; our evil
propensities should be followed in everything, for this , he said , was
the enemy spoken of in the Gospel ( 1 ) , to which we should yield,
and, by this means, we show our contempt for the laws of the
wicked angels, and acquire the summit of perfection ; and the soul ,
he said, would pass from one body to another, till it had committed
all sorts of unclean actions. Another of his doctrines was, that
every one had two souls, for without the second, he said, the first
would be subject to the rebellious angels. The followers of this
hellish monster called themselves Christians, and , as a distinctive
mark, they branded the lower part of the ear with a red iron.
They paid the same veneration to the images of Pythagoras, Plato ,
and the other philosophers, as to that of Jesus Christ. Corpocrates
lived in the year 160.

(12) Nat. Alex. t. 5, diss. 9 ; Baron. An. 68, n. 9 ; Orsi, t. 1 , n. 64 ; Fleury, t. 1 ,


7. 2, n. 21 ; Berti, loc. cit. ( 1 ) N. Alex. t. 6, c. 3, ar. 2 ; Fleury, l. 3, n. 20 ; Berti,
t. 1, c. 3 ; Bernin. t. 1 , c. 2.
38 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

2. Valentine, who, it was supposed, was an Egyptian, separated


himself from the Church, because he was disappointed in obtaining
a bishopric. He came to Rome in 141 , and abjured his errors , but
soon again embraced them, and persevered in them till his death (2) .
He invented a fabulous genealogy of Eons or Gods ; and another
of his errors was, that Jesus Christ did not become incarnate in the
womb of the Virgin Mary, but brought his body from heaven.
He admitted in man a continual exercise of spirit, which, uniting
with the flesh , rendered lawful every sensual pleasure ; and he
divided mankind into three classes-the carnal, the animal, and the
spiritual. His followers, he said, were the spiritualists, and, on
that account, were exempt from the necessity of good works,
because, having arrived at the apex of perfection , and being certain
of eternal felicity, it was useless for them to suffer, or observe the
law. The carnal, he said, were excluded from eternal salvation
and predestined to hell (3).
Three sects take their origin from Valentine. The first were
called Sethites : These paid such honour to Seth , that they said
Jesus Christ was born of him , and some went so far as to say that
Jesus Christ and Seth were one and the same person . The second
sect were called Cainites : These venerated as saints all those who
the Scripture tells us were damned- as Cain , Core , the inhabitants
of Sodom , and especially Judas Iscariot. The third were called
Ophites : These said that Wisdom became a serpent, and on that
account, they adored Jesus Christ as a serpent ; they trained one of
these reptiles to come out of a cave when called , and creep up on
the table where the bread for sacrifice was placed ; they kissed him
while he crept round the bread, and, considering it then sanctified
by the reptile, whom they blasphemously called Christ, they broke
it to the people, who received it as the Eucharist (4) .
Ptolemy and Saturninus were disciples of Valentine ; but their
master admitted thirty Eons, and they added eight more. He also
had other disciples :-Heraclion , whose followers invoked over the
dead certain names of principalities, and anointed them with oil
and water ; Marcus and Colarbasus taught that all truth was shut
up in the Greek alphabet, and on that account, they called Christ
Alpha and Omega ( 5) ; and Van Ranst adds to the list the Arcon-
ticites, who rejected the sacraments-Florinus, who said that God
was the author of sin- and Blastus (6) , who insisted that Easter
should be celebrated after the Jewish fashion . The disciples of
Valentine made a new Gospel, and added various books to the
Canon of the Scriptures, as " The Parables of the Lord," " The

(2) Van Ranst, His. p. 20. (3) Fleury, t. 1, l. 3. n. 26-27 ; Bernin. t. 1, c. 5 ;


Graveson, t. 3, p. 49 ; N. Alex. t. 6, c. 3, ar. 6. (4) Fleury, t. 1 , l. 3 , n. 30 ; Bernin.
t. 1, c. 2 ; Van Ranst, p. 20. (5) Fleury, l. 3, n. 30, l. 4, n. 9 & 10. (6) Van
Ranst, p. 22.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 39

Prophetic Sayings and the Sermons of the Apostles." It is need-


less to add that all these were according to their own doctrines.
3. Epiphanes, the son of Corpocrates, besides defending the
damnable opinions of his father, openly rejected the law of Moses ,
and especially the two last precepts of the Decalogue. He also
rejected the Gospel, though he pretended to follow it (7) .
4. Prodicus taught that it was lawful to deny the faith to avoid
death ; he rejected the worship of an invisible God , and adored the
four elements and the sun and the moon ; he condemned all prayers
to God as superstitious, but he prayed to the elements and the
planets to be propitious to mankind ( 8) . This impious worship he
always performed naked . Noel Alexander and Theodoret assign to
this heretic the institution of the sect called Adamites ; these always
performed their religious exercises in their churches, or rather bro-
thels, as St. Epiphanius calls them, naked, pretending by this to
imitate the innocence of Adam, but, in reality, practising every
abomination (9).
5. Tatian was born in Assyria, and was a disciple of St. Justin
Martyr. He was the founder of the sect called Encratics, or Con-
tinent; he taught, with Valentine, that matter was uncreated and
eternal ; he attributed the Creation to God, but through the instru-
mentality of an inferior Eon , who said let there be light, not by
way of command, but of supplication , and thus light was created.
He denied, with Valentine, the resurrection of the dead, and human
flesh he said was too unworthy to be united with the divinity in
the person of Christ. He deprived man of free will, saying he was
good and spiritual , or bad and carnal, by necessity, according as
the seed of divine grace was infused or not into him ; and he
rejected the law of Moses, as not instituted by God , but by the Eon
who created the world. Finally, he condemned matrimony, pro-
hibited the use of flesh-meat and wine, and, because he used nothing
but water in the consecration of the chalice, his disciples were
called Hydroparastati , or Aquarii (10).
6. Severus was a disciple of Tatian ; but differed from his master
in some essential points, especially in admitting the law of Moses,
the Prophets, and the Gospels. Julius Capianus, a disciple of Va-
lentine, joined with Severus, and was the founder of the heresy of
the Doceti, who said that Jesus had not a real, but an apparent,
body. He wrote a book on continence, in which he quoted a passage
of the spurious gospel used by the Egyptians, in which Jesus Christ
is made to curse matrimony. In his commentaries on Genesis he
says marriage was the forbidden fruit ( 11 ) .
7. Cerdonius followed the doctrines of Simon, Menander, and

(7) Fleury, l. 3, n. 20 ; Bern . t. 1 , c. 2. (8) Bern. loc. cit. (9) N. Alex. t. 6, c.


3, ar. 12 ; Gotti, Ver. Rel. t. 2, c. 27, s. 1 ; Bernin. loc. cit. (10) Orsi, t. 2, l. 4, n.
11 ; Fleury, t. 1, l. 4, n. 8 ; Baron. An. 174, n. 3, 4 ; N. Alex. t. 6, c. 3, ar. 7.
(11) Fleury, loc. cit. n. 8 ; Orsi, loc. cit. n. 12.
40 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Saturninus ; besides , he taught, with Manes, the existence of two


first principles, or Gods, a good and a bad one, and admitted the
resurrection of the soul, but not of the body. He rejected all the
gospels, except St. Luke's, and mutilated that in several places ( 12) .
8. Marcion was a native of the city of Sinope, in the province
of Pontus, and the son of a Catholic bishop . In his early days he
led a life of continence and retirement ; but for an act of immorality
he was cut off from the Church by his own father. He then went
to Rome, and endeavoured to accomplish his restoration ; but not
being able to succeed , he, in a fit of rage, said " I will cause an
eternal division in your Church." He then united himself to
Cerdonius, admitting two principles, and founding his doctrine on
the sixth chapter of St. Luke, where it is said, a good tree cannot
bring forth bad fruits. The good principle, he said, was the author
of good, and the bad one of evil ; and the good principle was the
father of Jesus Christ, the giver of grace, and the bad one, the
creator of matter and the founder of the law. He denied the in-
carnation of the Son of God, saying it was repugnant to a good
God to unite himself with the filthiness of flesh , and that his soul
should have for a companion a body infected and corrupt by nature.
He also taught the existence of two Gods-one, the good God ;
the other, an evil one , the God of the Jews, and the creator of the
world. Each of these Gods promised to send a Christ. Our
Christ appeared in the reign of Tiberius, and was the good Christ ;
the Jewish Christ did not yet come. The Old Testament he
rejected, because it was given by the bad principle, or God of the
Jews. Among other errors , he said , that when Jesus descended
into hell, he did not save Abel, or Henoc, or Noah, or any other
of the just of the old law, because they were friends of the God of
the Jews ; but that he saved Cain, the Sodomites, and the Egyptians,
because they were the enemies of this God (13).
9. Apelles, the most famous disciple of Marcion, was excom-
municated by his master for committing a crime against chastity,
and felt his disgrace so much that he fled to Alexandria. This
heretic, among other errors, said that God created a number of
angels and powers, and among the rest a power called the Lord ,
who created this world to resemble the world above, but not being
able to bring it to perfection , he repented him of having created
it (14) . Van Ranst says that he rejected the Prophecies, and said
the Son of God took a body of air which, at his ascension , dissolved
into air again
10. Montanus, as Cardinal Orsi tells us (15) , was born in
Ardraba, an obscure village of Mysia. He first led such a mortified
life that he was esteemed a saint ; but, possessed by the demon of

( 12) Fleury, 7 3, n. 30 ; Nat. Alex. t. 6, c. 3 , ar. 4; Orsi, t. 2, l. 3, n . 44.


(13) Orsi, t. 2, l. 3, n . 45 ; N. Alex. t. 6, c. 3, ar. 5 ; Baron. Ann . 146, n. 9, &c.; Fleury,
t. 1 , l. 3, n. 34. (14) Fleury, loc. cit. n. 35. (15) Orsi, t. 2, l. 4, n. 17.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 41

ambition, his head was turned . He began to speak in an extra-


ordinary manner, make use of unknown words, and utter prophecies
in contradiction to the traditions of the Church . Some thought
him possessed by a spirit of error ; others looked on him as a saint
and prophet . He soon acquired a number of followers, and carried
his madness to the utmost excess ; among others who joined him
were two loose women of the names of Prisca or Priscilla and
Maximilla, and, seemingly possessed by the same spirit as himself,
they uttered the most extraordinary rhodomontades . Montanus
said that he and his prophetesses received the plenitude ofthe Holy
Ghost, which was only partially communicated to others, and he
quoted in his favour that text of St. Paul ( 1 Corinthians, xiii . 9) ,
" By part we know, and by part we prophesy ;" and they had the
madness to esteem themselves greater than the apostles, since they
had received the Holy Ghost promised by Jesus Christ in perfection.
They also said that God wished, at first, to save the world, by
means of Moses and the prophets ; when he saw that these were not
able to accomplish it, he himself became incarnate ; but even this
not sufficing, he descended in the Holy Ghost into Montanus and
his prophetesses. He established nine fasting-days and three Lents
in the year. Among other errors, he prohibited his disciples to fly
from persecution, and refused to admit sinners to repentance, and
prohibited second marriages (16) . Eusebius tells us that he died.
miserably, having hanged himself ( 17) .
11. The heresy of Montanus shot forth different branches, as
the Cataphrigians , Artotirites, Peputians, Ascodrogites , and Patta-
lorinchites. The Cataphrigians were called from the nation to
which Montanus belonged . The Eucharistic bread they used was
made of flour and blood taken from the body of an infant by punc-
turing it all over ; if the infant died he was considered a martyr,
but if he survived he was regarded as high priest. This we learn
from Noel Alexander (18). The Artotirites were so called, because ,
in the sacrifice of the Eucharist, they offered up bread and cheese .
The Peputians took their name from an obscure village of Phrygia,
where they held their solemn meetings ; they ordained women
priests and bishops, saying there was no difference between them
and men . The Ascodrogites were no better than the ancient
Bacchanalians ; they used bottles which they filled with wine near
the altars, saying that these were the new bottles Jesus Christ
spoke of " They shall put new wine into new bottles, and both
are preserved ." The Pattalorinchites were so called, because they
wore a small stick in the mouth or nose , a sign of strict silence ; they
were so called, from pattalos, a stick, and rinchos, the nose (19).

(16) Euseb. Hist. Eccl. l. 5, c. 15. (17) Baron. An. 173, n. 20 ; N. Alex. t. 6, sec.
2. c. 3, ar. 8 ; Fleury, t. 1 , . 4, n. 5 ; Bernin. t. 1, c. 8 ; Orsi, t. 2, l. 4, n. 18.
( 18 ) Nat. Alex. cit. ar. 8, n. 11 ; St. Augus. & St. Cyril. [ St. Epiphanius says it is the
Peputians. ] (19) Van Ranst, His. Heres. p. 24 ; Vedia anche Nat. Alex. loc. cit.
42 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

12. Bardesanes, a native of Edessa, in Syria, lived in this age


also. He was celebrated in the time of Marcus Aurelius for his
learning and constancy in defending the faith. He told the Phi-
losopher Apollonius, the favourite ofthe Emperor, who endeavoured
to pervert him, that he was ready to seal his belief with his blood.
He opposed the errors of Valentine ; but, being educated in his
school, he was infected with some of them, especially disbelieving
the resurrection of the dead. He wrote many works in refutation
of the heresies of his day, especially an excellent treatise on fate,
which St. Jerome , in his catalogue of ecclesiastical writers, praises
highly. We may truly say, with Noel Alexander, that the fall of
so great a man is to be lamented ( 20) .
13. Theodotus the Currier, so called on account of his trade ,
was a native of Byzantium , and he, along with Artemon , asserted,
like Ebion and Cerinthus, that Christ was mere man. Besides
this there was another Theodotus, called Argentarius, or the
Banker, who taught that Melchisadech was Christ, or even greater
than Christ, on account of that verse of the Psalms-" Thou art
a priest for ever, according to the order of Melchisadech ;" and his
followers were afterwards called Melchisadechites ( 21 ) .
14. Hermogenes said that matter was uncreated and eternal.
Tertullian, Eusebius, and Lactantius refuted this error. He also
taught that the devils would hereafter be united with matter, and
that the body of Jesus Christ was in the sun ( 22 ) .

CHAPTER III

HERESIES OF THE THIRD CENTURY.

1. Praxeas. 2. Sabellius. 3. Paul of Samosata. 4. Manes. 5. Tertullian. 6. Origen.


7. Novatus and Novatian. 8. Nipos. The Angelicals and the Apostolicals.

1. PRAXEAS, a native of Phrygia, was at first a Montanist, but


afterwards becoming an enemy of Montanus, he caused him to be
condemned by Pope Zepherinus, concealing his own heresy at the
same time. Being soon discovered, he retracted his opinions, but
soon afterwards openly proclaimed them. He denied the mystery
of the Trinity, saying that in God there was but one person and
one nature, whom he called the Father. This sole person, he said,
descended into the womb of the Virgin, and being born of her by
means of the incarnation , was called Jesus Christ . According to
this impious doctrine, then , it was the Father who suffered death ,

(20) Nat. Alex. t. 6, c. 3, ar. 9 ; Van Ranst, p. 24. (21 ) N. Alex. loc. cit. ar. 10 ;
Fleury, t. 1 , l. 4, n. 33, 34. (22) Fleury, loc. cit. n. 21 ; Alex. loc. cit. ar. 15.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 43

and on that account his followers were called Patripassionists.


The most remarkable among his disciples were Berillus, Noetus,
and Sabellius . Berillus was Bishop of Bostris in Arabia ; he said
that Christ, before his incarnation, had no divinity, and in his
incarnation had no divinity of his own , but only that of the Father.
Noel Alexander says that Origen refuted him, and brought him
back to the Catholic faith (1 ). Noetus, more obstinate in error,
said that the Father , the Son , and the Holy Ghost were but one
person and one God ; he and his followers were cut off from the
Church, and, as he died impenitent, he was refused Christian
burial (2 ) . The most celebrated promoter of this error was Sabel-
lius.
2. Sabellius was born in the Ptolemais in Africa, and lived in
the year 227. He shed a greater lustre, if we may say so , on the
heresy of his master, and on that account this impious sect was
called Sabellians. He denied the distinction of the three persons
in the Trinity, and said they were but three names to distinguish
the different operations of the Divinity. The Trinity, he said, was
like the sun, in which we distinguish the light, the heat, and the
form , though the sun be but one and the same. The light repre-
sents the Son, the heat the Holy Ghost, and the figure or substance
of the sun itself the Father, who, in one person alone, contained the
Son and the Holy Ghost (3) . This error we will refute in the last
part of the work .
3. Paul of Samosata was Bishop of Antioch. Before his ap-
pointment to the see he was poor, but afterwards, by extortion and
sacrilege, by selling justice, and making false promises, he amassed
a great deal of wealth . He was so vain and proud that he never
appeared in public without a crowd of courtiers ; he was always
preceded by one hundred servants , and followed by a like number,
and his own praises were the only subjects of his sermons ; he not
only abused those who did not flatter him, but frequently also
offered them personal violence ; and at length his vanity arrived at
such a pitch that he had a choir of courtezans to sing hymns in his
praise in the church ; he was so dissolute in his morals that he had
always a number of ladies of lax morals in his train. In fine , this
impious prelate crowned all his crimes with heresy. The first of
his blasphemies was, that Jesus Christ never existed until he was
born of the Virgin, and hence he said he was a mere man ; he also
said that in Jesus there were two persons and two sons of God, one
by nature and the other by adoption ; he also denied the Trinity
of the Divine persons, and although he admitted the names of the
Father, and of the Son , and of the Holy Ghost, not, however, de-

(1) Nat. Alex. t. 7, s. 3, c. 3, ar. 1 , ex Euseb.; Van Ranst, p. 65. (2) Nat. Alex.
ibid. c. 3, ar. 7 ; Van Ranst, p. 48. (3) Nat. Alex. t. 7, c. 3, ar. 7 ; Orsi, t. 2, l. 5,
n. 14 ; Hermant, l. 1 , c. 60 ; Fleury, l. 7, n. 35.
44 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

nying, as Orsi thinks, personal existence to the Son and the Holy
Ghost, yet he did not recognize either one or the other as persons
of the Trinity, attributing to the Father alone the incarnation and
passion (4). His disciples inserted those errors in their profession
offaith, and in the formula of Baptism , but Noel Alexander says that
it is uncertain whether Paul was the author of this heresy.
4. Manes was the founder of the Manicheans, and he adopted
this name on account of taking to himself the title of the Paraclete ,
and to conceal the lowliness of his condition , since he was at first
only a slave in Persia, but was liberated and adopted by an old
lady of that country. She sent him to the public academy to be
educated, but he made little progress in learning. Whatever he
wanted in learning, he made up in impudence, and on that account
he endeavoured to institute a new sect ; and, to enlist the peasantry
under the banner of his heresy, he studied magic with particular
attention. To acquire a name for himself he undertook to cure
the King of Persia's son , who was despaired of by the physicians.
Unfortunately for him, however, the child died, notwithstanding
all his endeavours to save him, and he was thrown into prison , and
would have been put to death only he bribed the guards to let
him escape. Misfortune, however, pursued him ; after travelling
through various countries, he fell again into the King's hands, who
ordered him to be flayed alive with a sharp-pointed reed ; his body
was thrown to the beasts, and his skin hung up in the city gate ,
many
and thus the impious Manes closed his career. He left
followers after him, among whom was St. Augustin , in his youth ,
but, enlightened by the Almighty, he abandoned his errors, and
became one of his most strenuous opponents (5) .
The errors of Manes can be classed under the following heads :
1st. He admitted the plurality of Gods , alleging that there were
two principles, one of good and the other of evil. Another of his
errors was, that man had two souls—one bad , which the evil prin-
ciple created together with the body ; and another, good, created
by the good principle, which was co-eternal , and of the same nature
with God . All the good actions which man performs he attributes
to the good soul, and all the evil ones he commits to the bad soul.
He deprived man of free will , saying that he was always carried
irresistibly forward by a force which his will could not resist. He
denied the necessity of baptism , and entirely abolished that sacra-
ment. Among many other errors, the Manicheans detested the
flesh, as being created by the evil principle, and, therefore , denied
that Jesus Christ ever took a body like ours, and they were ad-
dicted to every sort of impurity (6) . They spread almost over the

(4) Orsi, t. 3, l. 8, n. 15 ; Gotti de Vera Rel. t. 2, c. 11 , s. 2 ; N. Alex . t. 7, c. 3, ar.


8, sec. 2 ; Hermant, t. 1, c. 63 ; Fleury, t. 2, l. 8, n. 1. (5) Baron. Ann. 277, ex n.
1 ; Nat. Alex. t. 7, c. 3, ar. 9 , sec. 1. (6) Nat. Alex. ibid. vide sec. 2 ; Hermant, t. 1,
c. 65 ; Fleury, t. 2, l. 8 , n . 10—12 ; Baron. Ann. 277 , n. 1, & seq.; Graves in sec. 3.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 45

entire world, and though condemned by many Popes, and perse-


cuted by many Emperors, as Dioclesian , Gratian , and Theodosius ,
but especially by Justin and Justinian, who caused many of them
to be burned alive in Armenia, still they were not annihilated till
the year 1052 , when , as Baronius relates , Henry II., finding some
of them lurking in France, caused them to be hanged . The refu-
tation of this heresy we have written in the book called the Truth
ofthe Faith (7).
5. Tertullian was born, as Fleury ( 8) relates, in Carthage, and
his father was a centurion in the Pretorian Bands. He was at
first a Pagan, but was converted about the year 197 , and was a
priest for forty years , and died at a very advanced age . He wrote
many works of the highest utility to the Church, on Baptism ,
Penance, Idolatry, on the Soul, on Proscriptions, and an Apology
for the Christians, which has acquired great celebrity. Although
in his book on Proscriptions he calls Montanus a heretic , still ,
according to the general opinion of authors, he fell into Montanism
himself. Baronius says that he was cut off from the Church, and
excommunicated by Pope Zepherinus (9). Tertullian was a man
of the greatest austerity ; he had the greatest veneration for con-
tinence ; he practised extraordinary watchings , and on account of
a dispute he had with the clergy of Rome, he attached himself to
the Montanists, who, to the most rigid mortification, joined the
beliefthat Montanus was the Holy Ghost. Noel Alexander proves,
on the authority of St. Jerome, St. Hilary, St. Pacianus, St. Opta-
tus, and St. Augustin, that he asserted the Church could not
absolve adulterers, that those who married a second time were
adulterers, and that it was not lawful to fly from persecution . He
called the Catholics, Psichici, or Animals. Fleury says ( 10) , that
Tertullian taught that the soul was a body, of a palpable form, but
transparent, because one of the Prophetesses heard so in a vision .
Both Fleury and Noel Alexander say (11 ) , that he forsook the
Montanists before his death, but a sect, who called themselves
Tertullianists after him, remained in Carthage for two hundred
years, until the time of St. Augustin , when they once more
returned to the bosom of the Church.
6. Origen was an Egyptian, and his early days were spent in
Alexandria. His father was St. Leonidas the Martyr, who had
him educated in every branch of sacred and profane literature ( 12) .
It is said his own father held him in the highest veneration, and
that often while he slept he used to kiss his bosom, as the temple
where the Holy Ghost dwelt ( 13). At the age of eighteen he was

(7) Verità della Fede, part 3, c. 2 , sec. 2. (8) Fleury, t. 1, l. 4, n. 47.


(9) Baron. Ann. 201 , n. 3, & seq. ad 11 ; Fleury, t. 1, 7. 25 & 26 ; Orsi, t. 3 ; l. 8, n.
28. (10) Fleury, t. 1 , l. 5, n. 25. (11) Fleury, t. 1, l. 6, n. 3, cum St. Augus. &
Nat. Alex. t. 6, c. 3, ar. 8, n. 9. ( 12) Nat. Alex. t. 7, ar. 12. (13) Fleury, l. 5,
n. 2 ; Orsi, l. 5, n. 27.
46 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

made Catechist of the Church of Alexandria, and he discharged


his duties so well that the very pagans flocked to hear him.
Plutarch, who afterwards became an illustrious martyr of the faith
of Christ, was one of his disciples . In the height of the perse-
cution he never ceased to assist the confessors of Christ, despising
both torments and death. He had the greatest horror of sensual
pleasures, and it is related of him that for fear of offending against
chastity, and to avoid temptation , he mutilated himself, interpreting
the 12th verse of the 19th chapter of St. Matthew in a wrong
sense (14). He refuted the Arabians, who denied the immortality
of the soul, and converted Berrillus, as we have already seen, who
denied the divinity of Jesus Christ. He also converted Ambrose
from the errors of the Valentinians. He was so desirous of mar-
tyrdom, that his mother was obliged to take away his clothes, to
prevent him from going to his father, who was in prison for the
faith . All this, however, was to no purpose ; he avoided her
vigilance, flew to his father, and when he would not be allowed to
speak to him, he exhorted him by letter to persevere in the faith .
At the age of eighteen he was Prefect of the studies of Alexandria.
When he was composing his Commentaries on the Scriptures, he
dictated to seven or eight amanuenses at the same time. He
edited different editions of the Scriptures, compiling the Tetrapla,
the Hexapla, and the Octapla. The Tetrapla had four columns in
each page; in the first was the version of the Seventy, or Sep-
tuagint, in the second that of Aquila, in the third that of Sim-
machus, and the fourth that of Theodotian. The Hexapla had six
columns, and , besides the former, contained the Hebrew text and
a Greek translation . Finally, the Octapla contained , besides the
former, two other versions, compiled by some Hebrews. His name
was so famous at that time that all the priests and doctors consulted
him in any difficult matter. Presuming too much on his wisdom ,
he fell into different errors , by wishing to interpret many texts of
Scripture in a mystical, rejecting the literal, sense. Those , he
says, who adhere to the letter of the Scripture will never see the
kingdom of God ( 15 ) , hence we should seek the spirit of the word,
which is hidden and mysterious. He is defended by some ; but
the majority condemn him, although he endeavoured to clear him-
self by saying that he wrote his sentiments merely as opinions, and
subjected them to the judgment of his readers ( 16) .
He was obliged to go into Achaia, a country at that time dis-
tracted by various heresies. In his journey he persuaded two
bishops of Palestine whom he visited, that it would be of great ser-
vice to the Church if he was ordained priest (17) . Yielding to his
suggestions they ordained him, and this so displeased Demetrius,

(14) Nat. Alex. t. 7, ar. 12. (15) Origen, Stromata, 7. 10. (16) Orsi, l. 6,
n. 61. (17) Nat. Alex. ibid.; Orsi, n. 30.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 47

Bishop of Alexandria, that in a council he deposed and excom-


municated him. Several other bishops, however, received him in
his misfortunes , and entertained him honourably. Orsi, on the
authority of Eusebius, tells us (18 ) , that in the persecution of
Decius he was imprisoned a long time, loaded with irons, and a
great iron ring on his neck ; and that he was not only tortured in
the legs in a horrible manner, but was likewise put on the rack.
Dionisius, Eusebius says ( 19) , wrote him a letter, or rather a small
treatise, to animate and console him ; and from that circumstance,
Cardinal Orsi (20) proves the fallacy of Du Pin's conjecture, that
the sentence passed against him by Demetrius was enforced under
his successors Aracla and Dionisius. Origen did not long survive
the torments he endured in that persecution . He died in Tyre, in
the year 253, the sixty-ninth of his age (21 ) .
Bernini tells us, on the authority of St. Epiphanius (22) , (think-
ing, however, that this was foisted into St. Epiphanius's works by
the enemies of Origen) , that he denied the faith by offering incense
to idols, to avoid the indignities and insults inflicted on him by an
Ethiopian, and that he was then freed from prison , and his life
spared. After that he went from Alexandria to Jerusalem , and at
the request of the clergy and people went into the pulpit to preach.
It happened, however, that opening the book of the Psalms, to
explain them, the first words he read were those of the 49th
Psalm : " God said to the sinner, why dost thou declare my justices
and take my covenant into thy mouth ?" Struck dumb with
sorrow, he began to weep bitterly, and left the pulpit without
saying a word. Not only St. Epiphanius, but Eusebius (23) before
him , bear witness to Origen's fall. Although Bernini ( 24) says
this story is quite fabulous, yet Petavius, Daniel Huet , Pagi , and
especially Noel Alexander (25), say it is a fact. Roncaglia ( 26) is
of opinion that Noel Alexander's arguments are groundless, and
that Baronius's opinion carries more weight with it. We can
decide nothing as to the salvation of Origen, though Baronius says
that St. Simeon Salus saw him in hell ; still , all is a mystery known
to God alone. We know, however, on the authority of Baronius,
that his doctrine was condemned by Pope Anastasius and Pope
Gelasius, and afterwards by the fifth general council (27) .
The substance of the errors of Origen, as well as I could collect
from the works of Noel Alexander, Fleury, Hermant, Orsi , Van
Ranst (who gives a great deal of information in a small space) , and

(18) Orsi, t. 3, l. 7, n. 33. (19) Euseb. His. Eccl. l. 6. (20) Orsi, t. 3, l. 7,


n. 33. (21) Orsi, loc. cit.; Hermant, t. 1 , c. 68 ; Bar. Ann. 204, n. 8 ; V. Ranst,
p. 42 ; Graves, s. 3. (22) Bernin. Istor. t. 1 , c. 1, p. 125. (23) Euseb. 1. 6 ;
Hist. Eccl. c. 59. (24) Baron. Ann. 253, n. 117, & seq. cum Graves, loc. cit.
(25) Petav. in Animadv. in St. Epiph. Heres. 64 ; Huetius, l. 1 ; Orig. c. 4 ; Pagius ad
an. 251, n. 19 ; Nat. Alex. t. 7, diss. 15, q. 2, art. unic. (26) Ronc. not. in Natal.
loc. cit. (27) Baron. Ann. 400, &c.
48 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

others, was all included in his Periarchon, or Treatise on Prin-


ciples. This treatise, Fleury says, was translated by Rufinus, who
endeavoured to correct it as much as possible. The intent of
Origen in this work was to refute Valentine , Marcion , and Ebion,
who taught that men are either essentially good or essentially
wicked. He said that God alone was good and immutable , but
that his creatures were capable of either good or evil, by making
use of their free will for a good purpose, or perverting it for a
wicked one. Another of his opinions was that the souls of men
were of the same nature as the celestial spirits, that is, composed
of spirit and matter ; that they were all created before the begin-
ning of the world, but that, as a punishment for some crimes com-
mitted, they were shut up in the sun, moon , and other planets, and
even in human bodies, as it were in a prison , to punish them for a
time ; after which, being freed from their slavery by death, they
went to heaven to receive the reward of their virtues, or to
hell to suffer the punishment of their sins, but such rewards and
punishments were not eternal . Hence, he said , the blessed in
heaven could be banished from that abode of happiness for faults
committed there, and that the punishment of the devils and the
damned would not last for all eternity , because at the end of the
world Jesus Christ would be again crucified, and they would par-
ticipate in the general redemption . He also said that before the
creation of this world there existed many others, and that after this
had ceased to exist many more would be created, for, as God was
never idle, so he never was without a world. He taught many
other erroneous opinions ; in fact his doctrine is entirely infected
with the maxims of Plato, Pythagoras, and the Manicheans. Cas-
siodorus, speaking of Origen , says, I wonder how the same man
could contradict himself so much ; for since the days of the Apos-
tles he had no equal in that part of his doctrine which was
approved of, and no one ever erred more grossly in the part which
was condemned. Cabassutius ( 28) says , that Pope Gelasius, follow-
ing the example of Anastatius, gave this sentence relative to
Origen in the Roman council : -" We declare that those works of
Origen which the blessed Jerome does not reject can be read, but
we condemn all others with their author."
After the death of Origen his followers disturbed the Church very
much by maintaining and propagating his errors. Hermant (29)
relates that Pope Anastatius had a great deal of difficulty in putting
down the troubles occasioned by the Origenists in Rome, who got
footing there under the auspices of Melania, by means of the priest
Rufinus. The author of the notes on Fleury says, that Anastasius
wrote to John of Jerusalem to inform him of how matters were

(28) Cabassut. Notit. Hist. Conc. Constan. II. an. 553 , n. 14, in fin. (22) Her-
mant, t. 1 , c. 132.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 49

going on, and that he, on that account, cut off Rufinus from the
Church. In the reign of the Emperor Justinian, some Origenist
monks who lived in a laura founded by St. Saba, under the abbot
Nonnus, began to disseminate their errors among this brethren , and
in a short time infected the principal laura, but were expelled by
the abbot Gelasius. Favoured, however, by Theodore of Cesarea,
they got possession of the great laura again, and expelled the
greater part of the monks who disagreed with them . Inthe mean-
time, Nonnus died, and his successor George being deposed for im-
morality by his own party, the Catholic monks again got possession
of the laura, and elected Conon , one of this party, abbot (30) .
Finally, in the twelfth canon of the second council of Constantino-
ple, both Origen and all those who would persist in defending his
doctrine were condemned (31 ) .
7. Novatus and Novatian. Novatus was a priest of the Church
of Carthage. St. Cyprian relates that he was a man of a turbulent
disposition , seditious and avaricious, and that his faith was suspected
by the bishops. He was accused of robbing the orphans and
widows, and appropriating to his own use the money given him for
the use of the Church. It is said he allowed his father to die of
starvation, and afterwards refused to bury him ; and that he caused
the death of his wife by giving her a kick, and causing premature
labour. He was also one of the principal agents in getting the
deacon Felicissimus ordained priest without the leave or knowledge
of St. Cyprian, his bishop , and was one of the principal leaders of
the schism ofNovatian, exciting as many as he could to oppose the
lawful Pope, Cornelius ( 32) .
We now come to speak ofthe character and errors of Novatian .
Being possessed by an evil spirit he was baptized in bed during a
dangerous fit of sickness , and when he recovered he neglected get-
ting the ceremonies of baptism supplied, and never received confir-
mation, which, according to the discipline of the Church in those
days, he ought to have received after baptism, and his followers, for
that reason, afterwards rejected this sacrament. He was afterwards
ordained priest, the bishop dispensing in the irregularity he incurred
by being baptized in bed. Hence his ordination gave great umbrage
both to the clergy and people. While the persecution was raging,
the deacons begged of him to leave his place of concealment, and
assist the faithful, who were dragged to the place of punishment ;
but he answered , that he did not henceforward intend to discharge
the duties of a priest ; that he had his mind made up for other
objects. This was nothing less than the Popedom, which he had the
ambition to pretend to, puffed up by the applause he received for
his oratorical powers. At this time, Cornelius was elected Pope,
and he, by intrigue, got himself consecrated privately by three
(30) Orsi, t. 18, 7. 41 , n. 1 & 5, ad 7. (31) Orsi, al luogo, cit. n. 70. (32) Baron.
An. 254, n. 50 ; Nat. t. 7, c. 3, ar. 3, 4 ; Fleury, t. 1, l. 6, n. 51 .
D
50 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

ignorant bishops whom he made intoxicated . Thus he was the first


anti-Pope who ever raised a schism in the Church of Rome. But
what will not ambition do ? While he administered the Eucharist
to his partizans, he exacted an oath from each of them , saying,
" Swear to me, by the blood of Jesus Christ, that you will never
leave my party and join Cornelius" (33).
The errors of Novatus and Novatian were the following :-they
denied that the Church could use any indulgence with those who
became idolaters through fear of persecution, or that she could grant
pardon for any mortal sin committed after baptism, and they denied
the sacrament of confirmation. Like the Montanists, they con-
demned second marriages, and refused communion on the point of
death to those who contracted them (34) .
8. These were not the only heretics who disturbed the Church
during this century. Nipos, an Egyptian bishop, about the year
284, again raked up the errors of the Millenarians, taking the
promise of the Apocalypse in a literal sense, that Jesus Christ would
reign on earth for the space of a thousand years, and that the saints
should enjoy all manner of sensual delights. The Angelicals offered
the supreme adoration , which should be given to God alone, to the
angels ; adored them as the creators of the world, and pretended to
lead angelic lives themselves. The Apostolicals said it was not
lawful for any one to possess property of any sort, and that the
riches of this life were an insurmountable obstacle to salvation.
These heretics received no married persons into this sect (35).

CHAPTER IV.

HERESIES OF THE FOURTH CENTURY.

ARTICLE I.

SCHISM AND HERESY OF THE DONATISTS.

1, 2. Schism. 3. Heresy. 4, 5. Confutation of St. Augustin. Circumcellionists.


6. Conference commanded by Honorius. 7. Death of St. Marcellinus, and Council
of Carthage.

1. In order properly to understand the history of the Donatists,


we must separate the schism from the heresy, for they were at first
schismatics before they were heretics. Donatus the first was the
author of the schism ; a second Donatus was the father of the heresy,
and he was called by his followers Donatus the Great. In the

(33) Nat. loc. cit.; Baron. n. 61, &c. ´(34) Nat. Alex. ibid.; Van Ranst, p. 45, 46 ;
Fleury, cit. n. 51 ; Hermant, t. 1, c. 48, 51. (35) Nat. Alex. t. 7, c. 3, ar. 6, 9 ; Van
Ranst, p. 47 & 64 ; Berti, t. 1, s. 3, c. 3.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 51

beginning of the fourth century, Mensurius, Bishop of Carthage,


was cited before the tyrant Maxentius on the charge of concealing
in his house a deacon of the name of Felix , the author of a libel
on the Emperor. Mensurius went to Rome to defend himself, and
died on his way home. Cecilianus was elected by the general
voice of the people to fill the vacant see, and was consecrated by
Felix, Bishop of Aphthongum, and other prelates. His opponents
immediately began to question the validity of his consecration ,
because it was performed by those bishops called traitors (traditores),
who delivered up the Scriptures to the pagans. Another charge
made against him was that he prohibited the faithful from supplying
the confessors in the prisons with food . At the head of this con-
spiracy was a bishop of an African city, called " the Black Houses ,"
whose name was Donatus ; and it was very much strengthened by
the intrigues of Lucilla, a Spanish lady then residing in Carthage.
Cecilianus happened to come into collision with her while he was
yet a deacon, because he reprimanded her for paying the veneration
due to a holy martyr to a certain dead man, whose sanctity was
never recognized by the Church . To revenge herself on him for
this, she became the soul of the conspiracy, and by the influence
of her wealth brought over to her party many of the bishops of
Africa, who, uniting together in council, under the presidency of
the secondary primate of Numidia, deposed Cecilianus in his
absence, and elected a domestic of Lucilla's in his place , of the
name of Majorinus, who was consecrated by Donatus ( 1 ) .
2. Notwithstanding all this persecution, Cecilianus remained
steadfast in the faith, which obliged the Donatists to have recourse
to the Emperor Constantine. He referred the entire matter to
St. Melchiades, the reigning Pope, who, in the year 315 , or, accord-
ing to others, in 316 , assembled a council of nineteen bishops , and
declared both the innocence of Cecilianus and the validity of his
consecration. The Donatists were discontented with this decision ,
and again appealed to the Emperor ; he used every means to
pacify them, but seeing them determined to keep up the schism ,
he ordered Elianus, pro-consul of Africa, to investigate the matter,
and find out whether the crime laid to the charge of Felix who
consecrated Cecilianus (that of delivering up the Scriptures to the
idolaters) was true. The conspirators, aware that this investiga-
tion was to take place, bribed a notary of the name of Ingentius
to prove a falsehood ; but, in his examination before the Pro-
consul, he acquitted both Felix and Cecilianus. The Emperor
being informed of this was satisfied as to their innocence ; but in
order to appease the Donatists, and give them no cause of com-
plaint, he caused another council to be convoked at Arles, to which

(1) Baron. Ann. 303, n. 29, & Ann. 306, n. 74 & 75 ; vide Fleury, Nat. Alex. Orsi,
Van Ranst, & Hermant.
52 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

St. Silvester, who succeeded St. Melchiades in the year 314, sent
his legate to preside in his name ; and in that and the follow-
ing year, Felix and Cecilianus were again acquitted by the
council (2 ) .
3. Nothing, however, could satisfy the Donatists ; they even, ac-
cording to Fleury ( 3 ), extended themselves as far as Rome . Heresy
now was added to schism . The second Donatus, called by them
Donatus the Great, put himself at their head ; and although tinc-
tured with the Arian heresy, as St. Augustin says (4) , intruded
himself into the See of Carthage, as successor to Majorinus. He
was the first who began to disseminate the errors of the Donatists
in Africa (5 ) . Those consisted in the adoption of one false prin-
ciple, which was the source of many others. This was, that the
Church was composed of the just alone, and that all the wicked
were excluded from it ; founding this belief on that text of St.
Paul, where he says that the Church of Christ is free from all
stain : " Christ loved his Church , and delivered himself up for it,
that he might present it to himself a glorious Church, not having
spot or wrinkle" ( Ephesians, v . 27). They also professed to find
this doctrine in the twenty-seventh verse of the twenty-first chapter
of the Apocalypse : " There shall not enter into it anything de-
filed." The adoption of this erroneous principle led them into many
heretical consequences :-First, believing that the Church was com-
posed ofthe good alone, they inferred that the Church of Rome
was lost, because the Pope and bishops having admitted to their
communion traitors, or those who delivered up the holy books into
the hands of the Pagans, as they alleged Felix and Cecilianus to
have done, and as the sour leaven corrupteth the entire mass, then
the Church, being corrupted and stained by the admission of those,
was lost, -it only remained pure in that part of Africa where the
Donatists dwelt ; and to such a pitch did their infatuation arrive ,
that they quoted Scripture for this also, interpreting that expres-
sion of the Canticles : " Shew me, O thou whom my soul loveth ,
where thou feedest, where thou liest in the mid-day" (the south) ,
as relating to Africa, which lies in the southern part of the world.
Another heretical inference of theirs was, that the sacrament of
baptism was null and void if administered out of their Church ,
because a Church that was lost had not the power of administering
the sacrament, and on that account they re-baptized all proselytes.
4. These two heretical opinions fall to the ground at once, by
proving the falsity of the first proposition , that the Church consists
of the good alone. St. Augustin proves clearly that these texts of
St. Paul and St. John refer to the triumphant, and not to the
militant Church, for our Redeemer, speaking of the militant

(2) Hermant, c. 78, &c. (3) Fleury, t. 2, l. 10, n. 26. (4) St. Augus. 1. de
Heres. c. 69. (5) Orsi, t. 4, l. 11 , n. 51 & 52.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 53

Church, says, in many places, it contains both good and bad ; in


one place he likens it to a threshing floor, which contains both
straw and grain : " He will thoroughly cleanse his floor , and
gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with
unquenchable fire" ( Matt. iii. 12 ) . In another place he compares
it to a field sown with good seed, and cockle growing amongst it :
" Let both grow," he says, " till the time of the harvest, and then I
will say to the reapers, Gather up first the cockle and bind it into
bundles to burn, but gather the wheat into my barn " (Matt. xiii.
3) (6).
5. The Donatists were not content with the crime of heresy,
but committed a thousand others, if possible of a deeper dye. They
destroyed the altars of the Catholics, broke the chalices, spilled the
holy Chrism on the ground, and threw the holy Eucharist to the
dogs. But St. Optatus Milevitanus ( 7) informs us that God did not
suffer the indignity to his sacred body and blood to go unpunished,
for the dogs getting mad turned on their own masters, and tore
them, as if in revenge for the insult offered to the body of Jesus
Christ. Not satisfied with tormenting the living, they outraged the
dead, whom they dragged out of their graves, and exposed to the
most unheard-of indignities. About this time, also, the Circumcel-
lionists sprung from the Donatists. Their chiefs were Faber and
Maxidus, and they were called Circumcellionists from running about
from town to town and house to house . They were called by
Donatus the chiefs of the saints ; they boasted that they were the
redressers of all wrong and injustice through the world, though no-
thing could be more unjust than their own proceedings. They gave
liberty to slaves, and commanded debtors not to pay their debts,
telling them they were freed from all obligation . Their cruelty
equalled their fanaticism, for they went about in armed bands, and
put to death those who did not become proselytes to their doctrine ;
but what was more astonishing than all was to see this fury turned
against themselves, for many of them committed suicide by throw-
ing themselves over precipices , some cast themselves into the fire,
others drowned themselves or cut their throats , and endeavoured to
induce others to follow their example, telling them that all who died
so were martyrs ; even women followed the example of their hus-
bands in this madness, and St. Augustin tells us that even some, in
a state of pregnancy, threw themselves down precipices. It is true
that even the Donatist bishops endeavoured by every means to put
a stop to such frightful fanaticism, and even called in the authority
of the secular power to aid them, but they could not deny that they
were their own disciples, and that they became the victims of such
perverse doctrines from following their own example ( 8 ) .

(6) Nat. Alex. t. 9, diss. 31. (7) St. Opt. l. 2, de Donatis. (8) Baron. An. 857,
n. 15 ; V. Ranst ; Fleury, t. 2, l. 11 , n. 46 ; Hermant, c. 81 .
54 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

6. The Emperors Constantine and Constans, sons of Constan-


tine the Great and Valentinian, issued several edicts against the
Donatists, but all was of little avail. In the reign of Honorius an
edict was published, giving liberty to all sects to profess publicly
their doctrines, but about the year 410 the Donatists, taking advan-
tage of this, broke out into several acts of violence, which so exas-
perated Honorius that, at the suggestion of the Catholic bishops of
Africa, he revoked the edict . He then published that law ( L. 51 ,
Codex Theodosianus), which punishes with confiscation of property
the practice of any religion except the Catholic, and even with pain
of death if the professors of any heretical doctrines should publicly
assemble in their conventicles. In order, however, entirely to
extinguish the heresy of Donatus, he sent the Imperial Tribune,
Marcellinus, a man of the greatest learning and prudence, into
Africa, with orders to assemble all the African bishops , both Catho-
lics and Donatists, in Carthage , to proceed to a conference to see
who was right and who was wrong, that peace should be established
between them. The Donatists at first refused to come , but the
edicts of Honorius were too strict to be avoided, and they consented ,
and the conference was held in the Baths of Gazilian. Two hun-
dred and eighty-six Catholics and two hundred and seventy-nine
Donatists assembled, but Marcellinus, to avoid confusion, would
allow only thirty-six, eighteen on each side, to hold the conference ,
these eighteen to be chosen from among all the rest . The schis-
matics refused to obey the regulations of Marcellinus, and used
every stratagem to avoid coming to the point ; especially they
endeavoured to cushion the question concerning the true Church,
but, with all their art, they were, one day, drawn into it, and, seeing
themselves caught, they could not help lamenting, saying, see how
insensibly we have got into the bottom of the case. Then it was
that St. Augustin, as we have already shown , proved clearer than
the noon-day sun that the Church is not composed of the good
alone, as the Donatists would have it, but of the good and the bad,
as the threshing-floor contains both corn and chaff. Finally, after
many disputations, Marcellinus gave his decision in favour of the
Catholics (9).
7. Many were united to the Church, but many more persisted
in their errors , and appealed to Honorius, who would not even
admit them to an audience, but condemned to a heavy fine all
those who would not join the Catholic Church, and threatened to
banish all the Donatist bishops and priests who would persist in
their opposition to his decree. Nothing could exceed their malice
against the Catholics after that ; they murdered the defender ofthe
Church, Restitutus (10) , and plotted with the Count Marinus the

(9) Orsi, t. 11 , Z. 25 , n . 1, 24 ; Baron. Ann. 411 , n. 24. (10) Baron. An. 412 , n. 1 ,
&c.; Orsi, n. 28, 29.
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 55

destruction of Marcellinus. The means by which Marinus accom-


plished this were horrible. He caused St. Marcellinus to be im-
prisoned on a charge of high treason , alleging that he was one of
the chief promoters of the rebellion of Heraclian, which he was
most innocent of, and although he swore to his friend Cecilianus
that he would liberate both St. Marcellinus and his brother Aprinus
from prison, he ordered him the next day to be taken out to a
lonesome place, and beheaded. Cardinal Örsi proves this on the
authority of Orosius, St. Jerome, and St. Augustin. Thus Mar-
cellinus died a martyr, but Marinus was punished for his injustice,
being shortly after recalled by Honorius, and stripped of all his
honours. In the Council of Carthage, in 348, or, as Hermant (11 )
has it, in 349 , the Catholic bishops of Africa assembled in great
numbers to thank the Almighty for putting an end to this sect,
and the schismatical bishops then joined them. In this council it
was prohibited to re-baptize those who were baptized in the faith of
the Trinity, in opposition to the erroneous opinion of the Donatists,
who declared the baptism administered out of their communion
invalid. It was also forbidden to honour as martyrs those who
killed themselves, and they were allowed the rites of burial through
compassion alone . Cardinal Baronius says that this sect lasted
till the time of Gregory the Great, who endeavoured to put an end
to it altogether, and he also says that those heretics were the cause
of the ruin of the Church of Africa ( 12 ) .

ARTICLE II.

THE ARIAN HERESY.

SEC. L. - PROgress of arIUS, AND HIS CONDEMNATION BY THE COUNCIL OF NICE.


8. Origin of Arius. 9. His Errors and Supporters. 10. Synod of Bythinia. 11. Synod
of Osius in Alexandria. 12. General Council of Nice. 13. Condemnation of Arius.
14-16. Profession of Faith. 17. Exile of Eusebius of Nicomedia, and insidious
Letter of Eusebius of Cesarea. 18. Banishment of Arius. 19. Decree for the Mele-
tians. 20. Decree for the Quartodecimans. 21. Canons. 22. End of the Council.

8. ARIUS was an African, born in that part of it called Lybia


Cirenaica, and he went to Alexandria in the expectation of ob-
taining some ecclesiastical dignity. He was, as Baronius tells us,
a man of great learning and science of polished manners, but of a
forbidding appearance-ambitious of glory, and fond of novelty (1).
At first he was a follower of Meletius, Bishop of Lycopolis, in
Upper Egypt. This bishop, in the beginning of the fourth cen-
tury, though he taught nothing contrary to faith, still was deposed

(11) Hermant, c. 99. (12) Baron. An. 591 , &c. ( 1) Baron. An. 319 ; Van
Ranst, p. 70 ; Nat. Alex. t. 8, c. 3, ar. 3 ; Fleury, l. 10 ; Hermant, t. 1, c. 85 ; Orsi,
1. 12, n. 2.
56 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

by St. Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, on account of many grievous


crimes, one of which even was idolatry ( 2) ; and he then raised a
great schism in Egypt against St. Peter, and went so far as to ad-
minister the ordination belonging by right to the Saint. Arius
judged that he would have no great chance of advancing himself
according to his wishes, by continuing a partizan of Meletius, so
he made his submission to St. Peter, and was ordained deacon by
him ; but he, finding that he still continued to correspond with
Meletius, turned him out of Alexandria. St. Peter was soon after
put in prison for the faith , and about to be martyred . Arius endea-
voured again to be received by him ; and it was then, as Baronius (3)
tells us, on the authority of the Acts of the martyrdom of St.
Peter, that Christ appeared to the Saint with a torn garment, and
said to him : Arius has torn this ; take heed lest you receive
him into your communion ." Alexander has strong doubts of the
truth of this vision (4) : but his arguments are not convincing, and
it has been admitted into the Roman Breviary on the 26th of No-
vember, the feast of St. Peter. Arius, for all that, was promoted
to the priesthood by Achilla, who succeeded St. Peter, martyred
in 311 , and got the charge of a parochial church called Baucal (5) ,
in Alexandria. On the death of Achilla, Arius, who was now, as
Fleury tells us , advanced in years, expected to succeed him ; but
St. Alexander was chosen, a man of great knowledge and most
exemplary life. Arius began immediately to censure his conduct
and condemn his doctrine, saying that he falsely taught that the
Word, the Son of God, was equal to the Father, begotten by him
from all eternity, and of the same nature and substance as the
Father, which, he said , was the heresy of Sabellius. He then
began to promulgate the following blasphemies : -1 . That the
Word was not from all eternity, but was brought forth out of
nothing by the Father, and created, the same as one of ourselves ;
and, 2ndly, that Christ, according to his free will, was of a mutable
nature, and that he might have followed vice, but that, as he em-
braced goodness, God , as a reward for his good works, made him
a participator in the divine nature, and honoured him with the title
of the Word, the Son, and of Wisdom (6) . Noel Alexander
says that these errors are taken from an impious work he wrote,
called Thalia, and from an epistle of his to St. Alexander, referred
to by St. Athanasius, and from the Synodical Epistle ofthe Council
of Nice, quoted by Socrates, St. Epiphanius, and Theodoret.
Noel Alexander also says, on the authority of St. Athanasius and
Theodoret, that he taught that the Word in the Incarnation took a
body without a soul, and that the soul was part of the divinity.

(2) Nat. Alex. ibid. ar. 2 ; St. Athan. cum. Socrat. & Theodoret ; Orsi, l. 12, n. 41 ;
Fleury, l. 11, n. 15. (3) Baron. An. 310, n . 4 & 5. (4) N. Alex. t. 8, diss. 9.
(5) St.Epip. Her. 69, Theod. &c. (6) Nat. Alex. ar. 3, sec. 2 ; Fleury, cit. n. 28 ;
Baron. An. 315, n. 19 & 20 ; Hermant, c. 84.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 57

9. Arius began at first privately to teach his errors ; but he soon


became so bold that he publicly preached them in his parish. St.
Alexander at first tried to bring him back by admonition, but,
finding that of no avail, he had recourse to more rigorous measures ;
and as some bishops were even then tainted with his heresy-espe-
cially Secundus of Ptolemais, and Theonas of Marmorica - he
convokeda synod in Alexandria, in 320 , at which nearly one hundred
bishops from Lybia and Egypt assembled, besides a great number
of priests. Arius was called before them , and publicly professed
his errors ; so the assembled Fathers excommunicated him and his
adherents, and St. Alexander wrote from the synod an encyclical
letter, giving an account of it to all the bishops of the Church (7).
Notwithstanding this, Arius only became more obstinate , and made
many proselytes, both men and women ; and Theodoret says (8)
he seduced several of his female followers. He then put himself
under the protection of Eusebius of Nicomedia, a powerful and
learned, but wicked man , who left his own bishopric of Beyrout,
and intruded himself into the see of Nicomedia, through the in-
fluence of Constantia, the sister of Constantine. He wrote to St.
Alexander, requesting him to receive Arius again into his com-
munion ; but the Holy Patriarch not only refused his request, but
obliged Arius and all his followers to quit Alexandria ( 9) .
10. Arius then went to Palestine, and succeeded in seducing
several bishops of that and the neighbouring provinces, especially
Eusebius of Cesarea, Aezius of Lidda or Hospolis, Paulinus of
Tyre, Gregory of Beyrout, Athanasius of Anazarbus, and Theo-
dotus of Laodicea. When St. Alexander heard of this, he com-
plained very much of it, and wrote to several of the bishops of
Palestine, who yielded to his advice, and forsook Arius . He then
took refuge with his friend Eusebius of Nicomedia, and there he
wrote his book called Thalia, interlarding it with low jests, to take
the common people, and with all his blasphemies against the faith ,
to instil into the minds of every class the poison of his heresy ( 10) .
Eusebius called together a synod in Bythinia of bishops favourable
to Arius, who wrote to several other bishops to interfere with St.
Alexander to receive him again into his communion, but the saint
was inflexible ( 11) .
11. About this time Constantine gained the victory over
Licinius, which gave him peaceable possession of the empire ; but
when he came to Nicomedia he was afflicted to hear of the dissen-
sions between St. Alexander and Arius and the bishops of the
East. Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had the first story for the
Emperor, told him it was a matter of no great importance alto-
gether, and did not touch on the integrity of the faith, and that all

(7) N. Alex. ar. 4, s. 1 ; Fleury, ibid.; Hermant, c. 86 ; Orsi. (8) Theodoret,


1. 1, c. 4. (9) Socrat. l. 1 , c. 6 ; Orsi, n. 9 ; Fleury, loc. cit. (10) St. Athan.
Apol. 15 . (11) Orsi, l. 12, n. 16 ; Fleury, l. 10, n. 37.
58 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

that was requisite was that both sides should be silent . So , to


believe that Jesus Christ was either God or a simple creature was
a matter of trifling importance ; but this has always been the aim
of heretics , to make it appear that the dogmas they impugned were
of no great consequence. The Emperor being thus deceived , wrote
to St. Alexander ( 12 ) , telling him it was unwise to disturb the
Church after this manner, and that the wisest way would be to
hold his tongue, and leave every one to follow his own opinions.
The disturbance in the East, however, only increased ; so that, at
length , Osius, Bishop of Cordova in Spain, for thirty years, a man
of the greatest merit and learning, and who suffered a great deal
in the persecution of Maximilian , was sent to put an end to it.
Baronius and Van Ranst say he was sent by St. Sylvester ; but the
general opinion, which Fleury and Noel Alexander, on the autho-
rity of Socrates, Eusebius, Sozymen, and Theodoret, adopt, is that
he was sent by the Emperor ( 13). When Osius arrived in Alex-
andria, and saw that the evil was greater than he imagined , he
summoned a synod of bishops in concert with St. Alexander , and
Arius and his followers were again excommunicated , and his errors
condemned ( 14).
12. After this new condemnation , Arius wrote to the Emperor
in his defence ; but Constantine, now informed of his errors, an-
swered him in a long letter, in which, after refuting his errors, he
proved him to be a malicious fool, and he also ordered that this letter
should be made public. The Arians were so annoyed at this that
they pelted the Emperor's statue, and disfigured the face of it ; but
he showed his good sense, and proved himself a man of great mo-
deration, on the occasion, for when his ministers urged him to
punish them, he, laughing, put his hand to his face, and said, " I
don't perceive they have hurt me," and took no more notice of the
matter ( 15) . The fire of discord was not, however , extinguished ,
but rather burned more violently every day. The Emperor then
judged it best to call together a general council, to put an end to
it ; and appointed Nice, in Bythinia, not Nice, in Thrace, as the
place of meeting, and invited all bishops- both those of the Em-
pire, and those beyond its borders - to assemble there , and provided
for all their expenses (16). The bishops of Asia, Africa, and
Europe were rejoiced at this, and came to the council ; so that, in
the year 325 , three hundred and eighteen bishops were assembled
in Nice, as Noel Alexander asserts, on the authority of St. Ambrose,
in contradiction to Eusebius, who reduces the number to two hun-
dred and fifty (17) . Oh, how glorious it was for the Church to
see so many pastors assembled in this council ! Among them were

(12) Euseb. in Vit. Constant. c. 63. (13) Baron. An. 518, n. 88 ; Fleury, n. 42 ;
Van Ranst, p. 71. (14) N. Alex. ar. 4, sec. 1 ; Fleury, l. 10, n. 43 ; Orsi, l. 12, n.
21 ; Hermant, l. 1, c. 86. ( 15) Orsi, l. 12, n. 24. ( 16) Fleury, l. 11 , n. 1 ; Orsi, l. 12,
n. 25. (17) Baron. Ann. 325 ; Nat. Alex. , Fleury, Ruf. Soc. St. Athanasius, & Soz.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 59

many prelates bearing on their persons the marks of persecution


suffered for the faith, especially St. Paphnutius, Bishop in the The-
baid, whose right eye was plucked out, and his left hand burned,
in the persecution of Maximilian ; St. Paul, Bishop of Neoceserea,
who, by order of Licinius, lost the use of both his hands , the
sinews being burned with a red iron ; St. Potamon , Bishop of
Thrace, whose right eye also was torn out for the faith ; and many
other ecclesiastics, who were tortured by the idolaters ( 18 ) .
13. St. Sylvester seconded the pious intention of the Emperor,
and assented to the council ; and as his advanced age did not permit
him to attend in person , he sent, as his legates, Vito and Vincentius ,
Roman priests, and Osius, Bishop of Cordova, to preside in his
place, and regulate the sessions ( 19). Tillemont, in his history, at
the year 325 , doubts if Osius presided at this council ; but not alone
all the authors cited speak of him as president, but Maclaine, the
English, annotator of Mosheim, allows the fact. St. Athanasius
calls Osius the chief and leader of the synod (20) ; and Gelasius
Cizicenus, the historian of the fifth century, speaking of the Nicene
Council, says Osius held the place of Sylvester, and, along with
Vito and Vincentius, was present at that meeting . On the 19th
of June, 325 , the synod was opened in the great church of Nice,
as Cardinal Orsi (21 ) , following the general opinion , relates . The
session , he says, held in the palace, in presence of Constantine, was
not, as Fleury believes, the first, but the last one (22) . The first
examination that was made was of the errors of Arius, who, by
Constantine's orders, was present in Nice ; and being called on to
give an account of his faith, he vomited forth, with the greatest
audacity, those blasphemies he before preached, saying that the Son
of God did not exist from all eternity, but was created from nothing,
just like any other man, and was mutable, and capable of virtue or
vice. The holy bishops hearing such blasphemies- for all were
against him with the exception of twenty-two, friends of his, which
number was afterwards reduced to five, and finally to two- stopped
their ears with horror, and, full of holy zeal, exclaimed against
him (23) . Notwithstanding this, the council wished that his pro-
positions should be separately examined ; and it was then that St.
Athanasius-brought from Alexandria by his bishop , St. Alexander
-showed forth his prowess against the enemies of the faith, who
marked him from that out, and persecuted him for the rest of his
life . A letter of Eusebius of Nicomedia was read in the council,
from which it appeared that he coincided in his opinions with
Arius. The letter was publicly torn in his presence, and he was
covered with confusion. The Eusebian party, notwithstanding,
ceased not to defend the docrine of Arius ; but they contradicted
(18) Theodoret, l. 1, c. 7 ; Fleury & Orsi. (19) Socrat. . 1, c. 3 ; N. Alex. Orsi,
Fleury. (20) St. Athan. Apol. de Fuga. (21 ) Orsi, n. 22, infra. (22) Fleury,
l. 11 , n. 10. (23) Ibid.
60 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

one another, and, by their very answers, showed the inconsistency


of their opinions ( 24) .
14. The Arians were asked by the Catholics : If they admitted
that the Son of God was in everything like the Father-if he was
his image-if he always existed -if he was unchangeable- if he
was subsistent in the Father- if he was the power of God- if he
was true God. At first the Arian party were undecided , whether
they should admit all or only part of these terms ; but the Eusebians,
having whispered a while among themselves, agreed to admit them
all. They could grant he was like the Father, they argued, and
his image, since it is written in St. Paul ( 1 Cor. ii. 7) , " that man
is the image and glory of God ;" they might say he was subsistent
in the Father, since, in the Acts, xvii. 28, it is written, " in him
we live, and move, and be ;" that he always existed , since it is
written of us (2 Cor. iv. 11) , " For we who live are always
delivered unto death for Jesus's sake," so that even we have always
existed in the power and mind of God ; that he was immutable ,
since it is written that nothing could separate us from the charity
of God, " Nor life nor death shall be able to separate us from the
love of God" -the power of God, for even soothsayers are called
the power of God-the true God , for the Son of God, by his merits,
he was made God, a name sometimes given unto men : " I said you
are Gods" (John , x. 34) (25) .
15. The Fathers of the Council, seeing how they thus distorted
the Scriptures , and gave their own meaning to the texts , judged it
necessary to avail themselves of a word which would remove all
doubts, and could not be explained away by their adversaries , and
this word was " consubstantial," which they considered as necessary
to be introduced into the profession of faith, using the Greek word
" omousion," the meaning of which is, that the Son is not only
like, but is the very thing, the very substance, with the Father, as
our Saviour himself says " I and the Father are one" (John , x. 30) .
The Arians stoutly refused to admit this expression, for that one
word did away with all subterfuges, and knocked away the last
prop on which this heresy rested ; they made, therefore, many objec-
tions, but all were overruled . We shall treat more fully of this in
the third part of the work, The Theological Refutation of Errors.
16. The Emperor, Cardinal Orsi says, was anxious to be pre-
sent at the last session of this synod , and wished it to be held in
his palace, and came from Nicomedia to Nice for that purpose.
When he entered the assembly, some discontented bishops handed
him memorials, accusing their colleagues, and appealing to his judg-
ment; but he ordered them to be burnt, making use of those re-
markable expressions quoted by Noel Alexander ( 26 ) , " God has
made you priests, and has given you power even to judge ourselves ,
(24) Socrat. l. 2, c. 8. (25) Fleury, al. loc. cit. con. St. Athan. (26 ) N. Alex.
ar. 4, sec. 2 ; Rufin.; Theodoret, His. Eccles.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 61

and we are properly judged by you, for you are given to us by God
as Gods on this earth, and it is not meet that man should judge
Gods ." He refused to sit down on the low seat he had prepared
for himself in the council until the bishops desired him ; he then
sat down, and all the bishops with his permission also took their
seats (27) . One of the fathers of the council- it is generally sup-
posed Eustachius, Bishop of Antioch ( 28) -then arose and de-
livered an oration, in which he praised the Emperor's zeal, and
gave God thanks for his victories. Constantine then spoke (29) :
It afforded him, he said, the greatest consolation to see so many
fathers thus united in the same sentiments ; he recommended peace
to them, and gave every one liberty to speak his mind ; he praised
the defenders of the faith, and reproved the temerity of the Arians.
The fathers then framed the decree in the following form, as Cabas-
sutius gives it (30) : -" We believe in one God , the Father Almighty,
Creator of all things visible and invisible ; and in One Lord, Jesus
Christ, the Son of God , the only begotten Son of the Father ; God
of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, born , not made,
consubstantial to the Father by whom all things were made in
heaven and in earth ; who for us died, for our salvation descended,
became incarnate and was made man ; he suffered and rose again
the third day, and ascended into heaven, and again shall come to
judge the quick and the dead ; and in the Holy Ghost." This
symbol, St. Athanasius says (31 ), was composed by Osius, and was
recited in the synod . The council then fulminated an anathema
against any one who should say there was a time when the Son of
God did not exist, or that he did not exist before he was born, or
that he was made of those things that exist not ; or should assert
that he was of any other substance or essence , or created , or mutable ,
or convertible. All who speak thus of the Son of God, the Catholic
and Apostolic Church anathematizes.
Baronius says ( 32 ), that the council then added to the hymn ,
"Glory be to the Father, &c.," the words, " As it was in the be-
ginning, is now, and ever shall be, for ever, and ever. Amen."
17. The bishops of the opposite side were, as we have already
seen, twenty-two at first, but they were reduced , as Sozymen ( 33)
says, to seventeen ; and even these, terrified by the threats of Con-
stantine, and fearing to lose their sees, and be banished , all gave in
with the exception of five ( 34) ; these were Eusebius of Nicomedia ;
Theognis of Nice ; Maris of Chalcedon ; Theonas of Marmorica ; and
Secundus of Ptolemais ; and of these, three finally yielded , and
the two first alone remained obstinate, and were deposed and

(27) Fleury l. 11, n. 10. (28) Theod. l. 1, c. 7. (29) Euseb. in vita Const.
c. 12. (30) Cabass. Not. Concil. p. 88, ex St. Athan. Socrat. Rufin. & Theod.
(31) St. Athan. Hist. Arian. n. 42. (32) Baron. Ann. 325, n. 173. (33) Sozy-
men, l. 1, c. 28. (34) Socrat. l. 1, c. 8.
62 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

banished ( 35 ) . But while we condemn the temerity of those, we


must acknowledge that they were more sincere than their colleagues,
who subscribed the decrees, but were afterwards persecutors ofthe
council and the Catholics. Eusebius of Cesarea especially merits
reprobation on this score, for writing to his diocesans, as Socrates
tells us (36) , and publishing the formula of faith promulgated by the
council, he says that he subscribed it merely for peace sake, and
states, among other falsehoods, that the council approved the formula
handed in by Eusebius of Nicomedia, when the fact was that it was
not only rejected , but torn to pieces ; that the word " consubstantial"
was inserted to please the Emperor, when it was inserted by the
fathers after the most mature deliberation , as a touchstone to dis-
tinguish the Catholics from the Arians. The fathers, he adds, in
adopting this word intended merely to signify that the Son was of
the Father, and not as a substantial part of him ; and that the words ,
born and not made, merely meant that he was not made like other
creatures, who were afterwards created by him, but of a more ex-
cellent nature. He concludes by saying that the council anathe-
matized any one who would assert that the Son was made from
nothing, and that he did not exist before he was born, in as far as
such expressions are not found to be used in the Scriptures, and
likewise because the Son, before he was generated, though he did
not exist, was nevertheless existing potentialiter, as theologians say,
in the Father, who was potentialiter from all eternity the creator
of all things . Besides the proof afforded by this letter of his opi-
nion , St. Jerome ( 37 ) says , that every one knows that Eusebius was
an Arian . The fathers of the seventh synod , in the sixth Actio,
declare 66 no one is ignorant that Eusebius Pamphilius, given over
to a reprobate cause, holds the same opinions as those who follow
the impiety of Arius." Valois remarks that this may have been
said incidentally by the fathers, but Juenin ( 38) on the contrary
proves that the synod came to this decision , after a strict examina-
tion of the arguments taken from his works.
18. Though Arius was abandoned by all except the two obsti-
nate bishops, he still continued to defend his errors, so he was ex-
communicated by the council, and banished to Illiria, together with
his partisans, by Constantine. All his writings, and especially the
infamous Thalia , were likewise condemned by the Emperor and the
council, and the Emperor published a circular or decree through
the entire empire, ordering the writings of Arius to be everywhere
burned, and denouncing the punishment of death against any one
who would controvert this order (39) .
19. The council having disposed of Arius, next suspended Me-
(35) Fleury, l. 11 , n. 24 ; Orsi, t. 5, l. 12, n. 54. (36) Orsi, ibid. (37) St. Hieron.
Epist. ad Ctesiphont. (38) Juenin, Theol. t. 3, ar. 4, sec. 1. (39) Fleury, t. 2,
7. 11 , n. 24 ; Orsi, t. 5, l. 12, n. 42.
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 63

letius, Bishop of Lycopolis, from all his episcopal functions, and espe-
cially from ordaining any one ; but ordered, at the same time, that
all his followers should be admitted to the communion ofthe Church
on condition of renouncing his schism and doctrine (40) .
20. The council likewise arranged the question of the celebration
of Easter, which then made a great noise in Asia, by ordering that
in future it should be celebrated not in the Jewish style, on the
fourteenth day of the moon, but according to the Roman style, on
the Sunday after the fourteenth day of the moon, which falls after
the vernal equinox. This the council declared was not a matter of
faith, but discipline (41 ) ; for whenever it speaks of articles offaith as
opposed to the errors ofArius, the words, " This the Church believes,"
are used, but in making this order, the words arc, " We have de-
creed," & c. This decree met with no opposition, but as we learn from
the circular of Constantine, was embraced by all the Churches (42 ) ,
and it is thought that the council then adopted the cycle of nineteen
years invented by Meto, an Athenian astronomer, for fixing the
lunations of each year, as every nineteenth year the new moon falls
on the same day of the solar year as it did nineteen years before (43).
21. The council next decreed twenty canons of discipline ; we
shall mention some ofthe principal ones. 1st. The council ex-
cludes from the clergy, and deposes, all those who have voluntarily
made themselves eunuchs, in opposition to the heresy ofthe Vale.
rians, who were all eunuchs ; but more especially to condemn those
who justified and followed the example of Origen, through love
of chastity (44). By the third canon, the clergy are prohibited from
keeping in their houses any woman unless a mother, a sister, an
aunt, or some person from whom no suspicion can arise. It was the
wish of the council to establish the celibacy of bishops, priests, and
deacons, and sub-deacons even, according to Sozymen , but they
were turned from this by St. Paphnutius, who forcibly contended
that it was quite enough to decree that those already in holy orders
should not be allowed to marry, but that it would be laying too
heavy an obligation on those who were married before they were
admitted to ordination , to oblige them to separate themselves from
their wives. Cardinal Orsi , however, says (45) , that the authority
of Socrates is not sufficient to establish this fact, since both St.
Epiphanius, who lived in the time of the council , and St. Jerome
(46) , who was born a few years after, attest that no one was admitted
to orders unless unmarried , or if married , who separated himself
from his wife. It was ordained in the fourth canon that bishops
should be ordained by all the co- provincial bishops, or at least by
three with consent of the rest, and that the right of confirmation
appertaining to the Metropolitan , should be strictly preserved . The

(40) N. Alex, ar. 4, sec. 2. (41) St. Athan. de Synod, n. 5 ; Nat. Alex. ar. 4,
sec. 2. (42) Euseb. His. l. 3, c. 18, & Socrat. 1, c. 9. (43) Orsi, t. 5, l. 12, n. 42.
(44 ) Ibid.; N. Alex. ibid. (45) Orsi, ibid.; Soc. l. 1. (46) Epiphan. Her. 59, &
St. Hier. adv. Vigilan.
64 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

sixth canon says that the rights of the Patriarchal Sees shall be
preserved, especially those of the See of Alexandria, over the
Churches of Egypt, of Lybia, and of Pentopolis, after the example
of the Bishop of Rome, who enjoys a similar authority over the
Churches subject to his Patriarchate. Noel Alexander (47 ) has
written a special dissertation to prove that the primacy ofthe Roman
See is not weakened by this cañon, and among other proofs adduces
the sixth canon of the great council of Chalcedon : " The Roman
Church always had the primacy ;" and it is proved, he says, that
after this canon was passed, the Bishop of Rome judged the persons
of the other patriarchs, and took cognizance ofthe sentences passed
by them, and no one ever complained that he usurped an authority
which did not belong to him, or violated the sixth canon of the
council of Nice.
22. Finally, the fathers wrote a circular letter addressed to all
churches, giving them notice of the condemnation of Arius, and
the regulation concerning the celebration of Easter. The Council
was then dissolved, but before the bishops separated, Constantine
had them all to dine with him , and had those who suffered for the
faith placed near himself, and frequently kissed the scars of their
wounds ; he then made presents to each of them, and again recom-
mending them to live in peace, he affectionately took leave of
them (48) . The sentence of exile against Eusebius and Theognis
was then carried into execution ; they were banished to Gaul, and
Amphion succeeded Eusebius in the Bishopric of Nicomedia, and
Chrestus, Theognis, in the See of Nice . It was not long, however,
till the bishops of their party shewed that they accepted the decrees
of the council through fear alone (49).

SEC. II.- OCCURRENCES UP TO THE DEATH OF CONSTANTINE.


23. St. Athanasius is made Bishop of Alexandria ; Eusebius is recalled ; St. Eustasius
exiled, and Arius again taken into favour. 24. Council ofTyre. 25. St. Athanasius
accused and exiled. 26. Arius banished from Alexandria. 27. His Perjury and
horrible Death. 28. Constantine's Baptism and Death ; Division of the Empire.

23. IN the following year, 326 , St. Alexander, Patriarch of


Alexandria, died , and St. Athanasius was elected his successor, with
the unanimous consent of the bishops of Egypt and the people ;
when he heard of it he fled out of the way, but was discovered and
obliged to yield to the wishes of the people and clergy. He was,
therefore, placed on the episcopal throne of Alexandria ( 1 ) , to
the great joy of his fellow-citizens ; but the Arians were highly
discontented, and disseminated many calumnious reports regarding
his elevation (2) . About the same time Eusebius and Theognis
pretended to be sorry for their errors, and having sent in writing a

(47) N. Alex. t. 8 ; Diss. 20. (48) Orsi, t. 5, l. 12. (49) Ibid. (1) Fleury,
Z. 11 , n. 29. (2) Orsi, n. 80.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 65

feigned retraction of their opinions to the principal bishops ofthe


East, they were recalled by Constantine, and re-established in their
sees. This conversion was only feigned, and they left no stone
unturned to promote the interests of Arius. Among the rest ,
Eusebius succeeded , in a caballing council, at Antioch ( 3) , in
getting St. Eustatius, Arius's greatest opponent, deposed from that
see, on a charge of adultery, got up against him by an infamous
woman, the only witness in the case ; but the calumny was soon
after discovered, for the woman , falling sick, contradicted all she
had previously charged him with (4) . He, however, was banished
and deposed, and Paulinus of Tyre, first, and, next, Eularius, were
intruded into his see . Eularius dying soon after his intrusion ,
Eusebius of Cesarea, who previously had intruded himself into that
church, was elected to succeed him ; but he, having ulterior objects
now in view, refused to go to Antioch, so Euphronius, a native of
Cesarea, was first appointed , and after him Flacillus, both Arians ;
but many of the Catholics of Antioch would never hold communion
with those intruded bishops (5). Eusebius of Nicomedia next
intrigued successfully to establish Arius in the good graces of
Constantine, and obtain permission for him to return to Alexan-
dria. This he accomplished by means of an Arian priest, who was
a great friend of Constantia, the Emperor's sister ; and he induced.
her, when she was on the point of death, to request this favour
from the Emperor. She did so, and Constantine said that, if Arius
subscribed the decrees of the Council of Nice, he would pardon
him . In fact, Arius was recalled , and came to Constantinople,
and presented to the Emperor a profession of faith, in which he
professed to believe, according to the Scriptures, that Jesus Christ
was the Son of God, produced before all ages-that he was the
Word by which all things were made (6) . Constantine, believing
that Arius had in reality now embraced the decisions of the
Council, was satisfied with this profession ; but he never adverted
to the fact, that in this document the word " consubstantial" was
omitted, and that the introduction of these words, " according to
the Scriptures," was only a pretext of Arius to distort to his own .
meaning the clearest expression of the Scriptures, proving the
divinity of the Son of God. He would not receive him, neverthe-
less, to his communion on his own authority, but sent him to Tyre,
where a council was sitting, of which we shall treat presently, to
undergo the scrutiny of the bishops ; he wrote to the assembled
prelates to examine Arius's profession of faith, and to see whether
his retraction was sincere . The partizans of Eusebius were in
great force in the Council of Tyre, so Arius, on his arrival , was
immediately again received into communion (7).

(3 ) Orsi, n. 84 ; Nat. Alex. a. 4, t. 4 ; Fleury, ibid. , n. 11. (4) Theodoret, 7. 1,


t. 22. (5) Orsi, t. 5, l. 12, n. 87, & 90. (6) Ibid. (7) Socrat. l. 1, c. 33 ;
Sozom. Rufin. Nat. Alex. & Fleury.
E
66 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

24. We have now to speak of the cabal of Tyre, in which the


Eusebians contrived to banish St. Athanasius from the see of
Alexandria. Before, however, giving the history of this unjust
expulsion, we should remark, that previously the Arians had
plotted the destruction of the holy bishop, and charged him before
the Emperor with many crimes (8) . They accused him of having
violated a virgin-of having killed Arsenius, the Bishop of Ipsele,
in the Thebaid- of casting down an altar, and breaking a con-
secrated chalice ; and they now renewed the same charges in the
Council of Tyre (9) . Constantine, at the request of his mother, St.
Helen, had built the great Church of the Resurrection in Jeru-
salem, and had invited a great number of bishops to consecrate it
with all solemnity ; it was on this occasion that Eusebius of
Nicomedia suggested to him that it would be well to collect all
the bishops, before the consecration , into a council , to establish a
general peace. The Emperor was most anxious for peace above
all things ; so he at once agreed, and selected Tyre as the most
convenient place for the bishops to meet on their way to Jeru-
salem. Eusebius, who had planned the scheme, now got together
all the bishops of his party, so that there were sixty bishops in all ;
but many of these were Čatholics, and this number was increased
soon after by the arrival of St. Athanasius , accompanied by Paphun-
tius, Potamon, and several other Egyptian bishops. St. Athanasius,
seeing the storm he had to encounter, refused to come at first, but
was constrained by Constantine, who threatened him with banish-
ment in case of refusal (10) . Eusebius next contrived that the
Count Flavius should be present, to preserve order, as he said, and
keep down any disturbance ; but, in reality, to crush St. Athana-
sius and his friends. Flavius, accordingly, came, accompanied by
a large body of troops, ready to seize on any one who opposed
Eusebius's party (11).
25. The impious synod was now opened , and St. Athanasius, who ,
in right of his dignity, should preside, was obliged to stand as a
criminal, to be tried for crimes he never was guilty of. When
St. Potamon saw him in this position he was highly indignant with
Eusebius of Cesarea, who was seated among the judges (12) .
" Tell me, Eusebius," said he, " how did it happen that, when we
were both prisoners, in the daysof persecution for the faith, my
right eye was plucked out, but you left the prison safe and sound,
without any mark of constancy; how could that have happened,
unless you yielded to the will of the tyrant ?" Eusebius, enraged
at the charge, instead of making any defence, got up, and left the
council, and the synod was dissolved for that day (13) . St. Atha-
nasius protested that he did not wish to submit himself to the

(8) Orsi, l. 12 , n. 92. (9) Ibid. (10) Socrat. l. 1 , n. 28. (11) Orsi, l. 12,
n. 96. (12) Epiph. Her. 69. (13) Orsi, l. 12, n. 97.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 67

judgment of his enemies, but in vain . He was first accused by


two bishops of Meletius's party ; and the principal charges they
brought against him were the violation of the virgin , the murder
of the bishop, and the desecration of the altar and chalice. This
last charge they could not bring any proof of, so they confined
themselves to the two former ; and, to prove the crime of vio-
lation ( 14 ) , they introduced into the synod a prostitute, who
declared that St. Athanasius had robbed her of her honour. The
Saint, however, knowing the plot beforehand , made one of his
priests, of the name of Timothy, stand forward ; and he said to
the woman : " Do you mean to charge me with having violated
you?" " Yes," said the unfortunate wretch, thinking he was St.
Athanasius, " you have violated me-you have robbed me of my
virginity, which I dedicated to God." Thus this first calumny
was most triumphantly refuted, and the other charge was equally
proved to be unfounded. Among the other proofs they adduced
of the murder of Arsenius, they exhibited a hand which was cut
off from his dead body, they said, by St. Athanasius. But the fact
was thus (15) :-When the Saint was first accused of the crime,
Arsenius lent himself to the Arian party, and concealed himself,
that his death might be proved. But he soon repented of such
wickedness, and, to clear St. Athanasius , he came to Tyre, and
confronted the Saint's accusers in the council ; for while the
accusers were making the charge, and showing the dead hand as a
proof, Athanasius asked them, did they know Arsenius ? They
answered, that they did . He then called forth the man they said
was dead, and told him to hold up his head, that all might recog
nize him. But even this would not stop their mouths, for they
then said, that he did not kill him, but cut off his hand only;
but Athanasius opened Arsenius's mantle, and showed that both
his hands were perfect. Beaten out of this last accusation, they
then said that it was all accomplished by magic, and that the Saint
was a magician . Finally, they said, that St. Athanasius (16 )
forced persons to hold communion with him, by imprisoning some,
flogging and tormenting others, and that he even deposed and
flogged some bishops ; and the winding up of the matter was , that
he was condemned and deposed . When St. Athanasius saw that
he was so unjustly deposed, he appealed to the Emperor in Con-
stantinople, and acquainted him with all he suffered in the Council
of Tyre ; and Constantine wrote to the bishops, who were yet
remaining in Jerusalem, reproving them for tumultuously smother-
ing the truth, and ordering them to come immediately to Con-
stantinople, and account for their conduct (17) . The Eusebians
obeyed the imperial order , and, saying nothing more about the

(14) Ibid., n. 93. (15) Orsi, l. 12 , n. 24, ex St. Athan. Apol. contra Ar. n. 65.
(16) Nat. Alex. t. 8, c. 3 ; Hermant, t. 1 , c. 92, & Fleury. (17) Orsi, cit.
68 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

murder of Arsenius, or the broken chalice, they invented a new


charge against Athanasius- that he threatened to prevent the usual
supply of grain from being sent from Alexandria to Constanti-
nople. This was just the charge calculated to ruin him with the
Emperor, who was so enraged , that he even threatened to put him
to death ; and, though the Saint refuted the accusation, he was
condemned to banishment ( 18) .
26. In the year 336 there was another council held in Con-
stantinople, and the bishop of that city, St. Alexander, seeing that
the Eusebians would have it all their own way, did everything in
his power to prevent it, but could not succeed . The Eusebians
then tried Marcellus of Ancira, the defender of St. Athanasius in
the Council of Tyre, for some heresies alleged to have been written
by him in a book, published in opposition to Asterius the Sophist,
who composed a treatise filled with Arian errors. They, therefore,
excommunicated and deposed Marcellus, as he was not one of their
party, and elected, in his place, Basil, a partisan of Arius. This
was only a secondary consideration , however. The principal reason
the Arians had in assembling this council was to re- establish Arius
in his place again, and confirm his doctrine. After Arius was
received in Jerusalem to the communion of the bishops, he returned
to Alexandria, hoping , in the absence of St. Athanasius, banished
by Constantine, to be there received by the Catholics. In this he
was disappointed-they would have nothing to do with him ; but,
as he had many partisans in the city, his residence there excited
some commotion. When the Emperor was informed of this, he
ordered him to come to Constantinople. It is said that the Eusebi-
ans induced the Emperor to give this order, hoping to have Arius
received into the communion of the Church , in the imperial city ;
but in this they were most strenuously opposed by St. Alexander,
and they, in consequence, threatened him that unless he received
Arius into his communion on a certain day, they would have
himself deposed. St. James, Bishop of Nisibis, then in Constanti-
nople, said that prayers and penance alone could remedy these
evils, and St. Alexander, taking his advice , gave up both preaching
and disputing, and shut himself up alone in the Church of Peace,
and remained there many nights , weeping and praying (19) .
27. The Eusebians persuaded the Emperor that Arius held the
doctrine of the Church , and it was, therefore, regulated that he
should, the next Sunday, be received to the communion . The
Saturday previous, however, Constantine, that he might be quite
certain of the faith of Arius, ordered him to be called into his pre-
sence, asked him did he profess the faith of Nice, and insisted that
he should give him a written profession of faith, and swear to it.
Arius gave him the written profession , but a fraudulent one, and

(18) Orsi, cit. (19) Fleury, Orsi, Socr. Sozymen, St. Epiphan. loc. cit.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 69

swore that he neither then nor at any other time believed differently ;
some say that he had another profession of faith under his arm , and
that it was to that one he intended to swear. However, the affair
was arranged ; it is certain that the Emperor, trusting to his oath,
told St. Alexander that it was a matter of duty to assist a man who
wished for nothing but his salvation . St. Alexander endeavoured
to undeceive him, but finding he only irritated him more and more,
held his tongue, and retired ; he soon after met Eusebius of Nico-
media, who said to him, If you don't wish to receive Arius to-mor-
row, I will myself bring him along with me to the church . St.
Alexander, grieved to the heart, went to the church accompanied
by only two persons, and prostrating himself on the floor , with
tears in his eyes, prayed to the Lord : O my God, either take me
out of the world, or take Arius, that he may not ruin your Church.
Thus St. Alexander prayed , and on the same day, Saturday , at
three o'clock, the Eusebians were triumphantly conducting Arius
through the city, and he went along, boasting of his re- establish-
ment, but when he came to the great square the vengeance of God
overtook him ; he got a terrible spasin in the bowels, and was
obliged to seek a place of retirement ; a private place near the square
was pointed out to him ; he went in and left a servant at the door ;
he immediately burst open like Judas , his intestines , his spleen , and
his liver all fell out, and thus his guilty soul took her flight to her
Creator, deprived of the communion of the Church. When he
delayed too long, his friends came to the door , and on opening it,
they found him stretched on the floor in a pool of blood in that
horrible state . This event took place in the year 336 (20) .
28. In the following year, 337, Constantine died . He was then
64 years of age. He fell sick, and took baths in Constantinople at
first, but receiving no benefit from them, he tried the baths of He-
lenopolis . He daily got worse, so went to Nicomedia , and finding
himself near death, he was baptized in the Church of St. Lucian.
Authors vary regarding the time and place of Constantine's baptism .
Eusebius says that he was baptized in Nicomedia, a few hours before
his death, but other writers assert that he was baptized in Rome by
St. Sylvester, thirteen years before, in the year 324. Cardinal
Baronius holds this opinion, and quotes many authorities in favour
of it, and Schelestratus brings forward many Greek and Latin
authorities to prove the same . The generality of authors, however ,
follow Eusebius , Socrates, Sozymen, Theodoret, and St. Jerome ,
Fleury, and Orsi , and especially Noel Alexander, who answers the
arguments of Baronius, and cites for his own opinion St. Ambrose,
St. Isidore, Papebrock, and the fathers of St. Maur. These last say
that Constantine, being near his end, in Nicomedia, wished to
receive from the bishops, in the church of St. Lucian , the imposi

(20) Baron. Soc. Sozymen, Libellus, Marcel. & Fausti, p. 19 ; St. Epiphan. loc. cit.
70 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

tion of hands-a ceremony then in use previous to baptism, and


practised with every catechumen . He was then carried to a castle ,
called Aquirion , a little distant from Nicomedia, and, having sum-
moned the bishops, he received baptism with the greatest devotion.
" Now," said he, " I feel myself truly happy." His officers then
came to him, and, with tears in their eyes, expressed the wish they
had for his restoration to health and long life ; but he said, " I have
now received the true life, and I have no other wish but to go and
enjoy God." St. Jerome, in his Chronicle, says that he lapsed into
Arian errors, but his festival is commemorated in the Greek Me-
nalogy, according to Noel Alexander, on the 21st of May, and the
same author wrote a dissertation to prove that he died a good Ca-
tholic, and all the ancients, he says, agree in that opinion with St.
Athanasius, St. Hilary, St. Epiphanius, and St. Ambrose ; and we
have, likewise , the authority of the Council of Rimini , in the
synodal epistle written to the Emperor Constantius, and quoted by
Socrates, Theodoret, Sozymen , and St. Athanasius. Cardinal Orsi
remarks that the baptism of Constantine, by Eusebius , ought not to
render his faith suspected, and that this is no proof of a leaning to
Arianism, as St. Jerome suspects, since we see how strenuously he
defended the Council and doctrine of Nice, and especially since he
recalled St. Athanasius from exile immediately after his baptism ,
notwithstanding the opposition of Eusebius of Nicomedia. Sozy-
men says that the Emperor left this order in his will, and that
Constantine the Younger, when he sent back St. Athanasius to his
see, declared that, in doing so, he was fulfilling the will of his
father ; and St. Athanasius attests that, at the same time, all the
other Catholic bishops were reinstated in their sees ( 21) .
29. Constantine died on the feast of Pentecost, the 23rd of May,
337, and divided the empire among his children and nephews.
To Constantius the Elder he left all that was possessed by his
father, Constans, and Gaul, Spain, and Britain besides ; to Con-
stantius the Second , Asia, Assyria, and Egypt ; and to Constantius
the Youngest, Africa , Italy, and Illyria ; and to his nephews,
Dalmatius and Hannibalianus, some provinces of less note. It was
the will of the Almighty, however, that Constantine the Younger
and Constans died , so the whole empire fell into the sway of Con-
stantius, a great misfortune for the Church , for he was a violent
persecutor, and Constantine and Constans were its friends (22) .

(21) Socrates ; Baron. An. 336 ; Auctores, cit.; Euseb. Vita Constant.; Schelestr. in
Antiquit. &c. (22) Auctores, cit. ibid.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 71

SEC. III.- THE EMPEROR CONSTANTIUS PERSECUTES THE CATHOLICS.

30. Eusebius of Nicomedia is translated to the See of Constantinople ; Synods in Alex-


andria and Antioch. 31. Council of Sardis. 32. Council of Arles. 33. Council
of Milan, and Exile of Liberius. 34. Exile of Osius. 35. Fall of Osius. 36. Fall
of Liberius. 37. First Formula of Sirmium. 38. Second Formula of Sirmium.
39. Third Formula of Sirmium. 40. Liberius signs the Formula, &c. 41, 42. He
signs the first Formula. 43. Return of Liberius to Rome, and Death of Felix.
44. Division among the Arians. 45-48. Council of Rimini. 49. Death of Con-
stantius. 50. The Empire descends to Julian. The Schism of Lucifer.

30. ST. ALEXANDER, Patriarch of Constantinople, died about the


year 340, at the age of ninety-eight, and Paul of Thessalonica was
chosen his successor ; but Constantius, who now publicly professed
himself an Arian, being absent during the election , was highly
indignant on his return to Constantinople, and, pretending that
Paul was unworthy of the bishopric , joined with the Arian party,
and had a council convoked, in which he procured the deposition
of Paul and the appointment of Eusebius of Nicomedia, now, for
the second time, translated to a new see, in opposition to the laws
of the Church. About the same time another council was assem-
bled in Alexandria, consisting of about a hundred bishops from
Egypt, the Thebaid, Lybia, and Pentapolis, in favour of St. Atha-
nasius, in which he was declared innocent of the calumnies laid to
his charge by the Eusebians ; but again , the following year, 341 , a
council was assembled in Antioch on the occasion of the dedication
of the church of that city commenced by Constantine and finished
by Constantius, consisting of ninety bishops ; this was planned by
Eusebius of Nicomedia and his partisans, and St. Athanasius was
again deposed, and Gregory of Cappadocia, infected with the Arian
heresy, was intruded into his place (1).
31. In the year 357 , another council , consisting of many bishops,
was assembled in Sardis, the metropolitan city of Dacia in Illyria,
in which the Nicene Creed was confirmed, and St. Athanasius was
again declared innocent, and restored to his see. There is no doubt
but that this was a general council, as (in opposition to Peter of
Marca) Baronius, Noel Alexander, Peter Annatus, Battaglini, and
many others prove. St. Athanasius says that one hundred and
seventy bishops were assembled , but among them were more than
fifty orientals, and as these left Sardis to avoid the condemnation
which they knew awaited them for their excesses, only about one
hundred remained . It had , besides, all the requisites for a general
council, for the convocation was general , as appears from the circular
letters, and Archimides and Philosenus, priests , together with Osius,
who was before president ofthe Council of Nice , presided as legates
of Pope Julius. The Arians being aware that many well founded

(1 ) Fleury, N. Alex. & Bar. loc. cou.


72 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

charges would be brought against them in the council , demanded


that the bishops condemned in their synod should be expelled from
the assembly of the prelates, otherwise they said they would go
away themselves. This audacious proposal was universally rejected,
so they fled to Philipopolis, and drew up a formula of faith, adapted
to their errors, and this was afterwards promulgated as the formula
of the Council of Sardis . Eight bishops of the Eusebian party
were convicted of the crimes they were charged with, by the true
Council of Sardis, and were deposed and condemned, for it is but
just, said the fathers, that those should be separated from the Church ·
who wish to separate the Son from the Father ( 2) .
32. Constantius showed himself more favourable to the Catholic
bishops after this council, and permitted them to return to their
churches ; he received St. Athanasius most graciously in Antioch ,
and gave an order in his favour, and allowed him to return to
Alexandria, where he was received by the bishops of Egypt and
by the people and clergy with the greatest demonstrations of joy.
The Arians soon again , however, obtained the favour of Constantius,
and St. Hilarion relates that Pope Liberius, who succeeded St.
Julius in 342 , wrote to him that the Eusebians wished to cheat him
out of a condemnation of St. Athanasius, but that he, having re-
ceived letters signed by eighty bishops, defending the saint, and,
as he would not conscientiously act in opposition to the Council of
Sardis, had declared him innocent. In the meantime, he sent to
Constantius, who held his court at Arles, two legates, Vincentius
of Capua and Marcellus, bishop in the Campagna , to implore of
him to summon a synod in Aquileia to settle finally the cause of
St. Athanasius, finally determine the articles of faith, and establish
the peace of the Church. Constantius, we know not why, was
highly offended at this request, and convoked a synod in Arles,
and when the legates arrived there, they found that St. Athanasius
had been already condemned by the synod, and that Constantius
had published a decree of banishment against the bishops who
refused to sign the condemnation. He then insisted that the
legates should sign it likewise . Vincentius of Capua refused at
first to do so , but he was beaten and threatened , so he yielded, and
his colleague followed his example, and both promised to hold no
more communication with St. Athanasius (3).
33. The Emperor now intended to crush the Catholic party for
ever, and with this intention , assembled a council in Milan. Pope
Liberius was anxious for the celebration of this council, as he
thought it would unite the Church in the profession of the faith of
Nice, but the Arians worked hard also to have it assembled , as they
expected to obtain a general sentence of condemnation on St.

(2) Orsi, Fleury, St. Ath. Apol. loc. cit. (3) Orsi, cit. St. Hilar. Fragm. 5.
Severus, Sulpici. His. 7. 2 & seq.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 73

Athanasius, and to establish their heresy ; so, in the year 355 , there
were assembled over three hundred bishops in Milan . St. Eusebius
of Vercelli was also summoned, but endeavoured to absent himself,
knowing the plans of the Eusebians ; he was, however, constrained
to attend, and the Pope's legates themselves, Lucifer, Pancratius,
and the Deacon Hilary, solicited him to come to Milan . On his
arrival, the Arians endeavoured to induce him to sign the condem-
nation of St. Athanasius, having again renewed the fable of the
broken chalice, &c . But St. Eusebius said, the first thing to be
done was, that all should subscribe the formula of the Council of
Nice, and then that other matters could be taken into consideration.
St. Dionisius , Bishop of Milan , immediately prepared to subscribe
to it, but Valens of Murcia snatched the pen and paper out of his
hands, and said , that nothing ever would be concluded if that
course was followed . When this came to the knowledge of the
people, they murmured loudly, and complained that the bishops
themselves were betraying the faith ; so the Emperor, dreading a
popular tumult, transferred the council to the church of his own
palace, and told the assembled bishops that they should obey his
edict in the affair, and sign a profession filled with all the errors of
Arianism. He called especially on the Legate Lucifer, St. Eusebius,
and St. Dionisius, and ordered them to subscribe the condemnation
of St. Athanasius, and when they determinedly refused to do so, as
being against the laws of the Church, he answered : " Whatever is
my will is law, obey me or you shall be banished." The bishops
then told him that he would have to answer to the Almighty if he
used any violence towards them ; but he became so indignant at
being remonstrated with in this manner, that he actually drew his
sword on them , and gave orders that they should be put to death,
but when his passion cooled a little , he was satisfied with sending
them into banishment, and they were sent off from the council,
loaded with chains, under a guard of soldiers , to the place of their
exile, where they had to endure a great deal of harsh treatment
from the heretics. At the same time, Hilary , one of the legates,
was stripped naked and cruelly flogged on the back, the Arians
all the while crying out to him: " Why did you not oppose
Liberius ?" Constantius then appointed Ausentius in the place of
St. Dionisius, and obliged Liberius to come to Milan. The
Emperor, on Liberius's arrival, ordered him to condemn St. Atha-
nasius, and, on his refusal to do so, gave him three days for con-
sideration , and told him that if he refused he would also be sent
into exile. Liberius persevered in his refusal , and was accordingly
banished to Berea, in Thrace, of which Demophilus, a perfidious
Arian, was bishop (4) .
34. The great Osius was , next to Liberius, the great prop of the

(4) Sozymen, l. 4 ; Soc. l. 2 ; Fleury, Orsi, Ser. Sulp. I. 2.


74 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Faith in the West, both on account of the holiness of his life, and
his learning ; he was at this time sixty years Bishop of Cordova, in
Spain, and he showed his constancy in the persecution of Maximilian,
by publicly confessing the faith . Constantius had him brought
before him, and advised him to communicate with the Arians, and
condemn St. Athanasius, but he resolutely refused to do either one
or the other. Constantius allowed him to go away for that time ;
but soon after wrote to him , and threatened to punish him if he
refused any longer to obey his will. Osius answered him with even
greater firmness : If you are resolved to persecute me , said he, I
am prepared to shed my blood sooner than betray the truth ; you
may then save yourself the trouble of writing to me on the subject
again. Tremble at the last judgment, and do not intermeddle with
the affairs of the Church ; God has given you the Empire, the
government ofthe Church he has committed to us. Constantius
sent for him once more, to induce him to yield, but, finding him
inflexible, he banished him to Sirmium ; he was then nearly in the
hundredth year of his age.
35. We now have to treat of, first, the fall of Osius, and next of
Liberius. The principal author of Osius's fall was Potamius, Bishop
of Lisbon ; he was at first a defender of the Faith, but Constantius
gained him over by giving him possession of an estate of the
Chancery ; he, therefore, joined the Eusebians, and Osius, burning
with zeal, denounced his impiety through all Spain. Potamius,
thirsting for revenge, first got him banished to Sirmium, and then
finding the Emperor there, he induced him to use such violent
measures with him , that he broke down his resolution, and caused
him to fall. The poor old man was weakened with torments ; he
was beaten so violently that his flesh was all torn, and he endured
a long and violent torture ; his strength failed him, he could suffer
no more, and he unfortunately signed the second formula of Sir-
mium , condemning St. Athanasius, and holding communion with
the Arians. Sozymen particularly mentions that Eudosius saw the
letter ofOsius, in which he disapproves of both the word consubstan-
tial, and the words like in substance. He now was permitted to return
again to Spain, but Gregory, Bishop of Alvira, refused to com-
municate with him on account of his prevarication . Two authors,
followers of Lucifer, Faustus and Marcellinus, write that Osius
died an unhappy death ; but St. Athanasius, who , as Cardinal Orsi
justly remarks, deserves more credit, says that at his death he de-
clared he was subdued by violence, and thus fell into error, and
that he anathematized the heresy of the Arians, and besought all
who heard him to hold it in horror (5) .
36. We now come to speak of the fall of Liberius. It is said

(5) Socrates, Sozymen, St. Hilary, Fragm. 2 ; St. Athanasius, His. Arian.; St. Augus,
I. con.; Parmen. Nat. Alex. Fleury, loc. cit.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 75

by some that Osius subscribed the second formula of Sirmium ; now,


to understand the fall of Liberius, it is necessary to have a know-
ledge of the three formulas of faith composed in Sirmium . Noel
Alexander says that there was but one formula of Sirmium, and
that the others were published elsewhere ; but Baronius, and the
generality of writers, hold that the whole three formulas were pro-
mulgated in the councils, or rather cabals, of Sirmium. There is
no probability of the truth of what Socrates says, that the whole
three formulas were promulgated in one and the same council.
The Arians, when they got Liberius to sign one of the formulas,
boasted, as Orsi says, that there was a union of faith between them,
and that Liberius professed their faith . On the other hand, Orsi
persuades himself that Liberius was innocent altogether, and
supposes that he was liberated and allowed to return to Rome, on
account of a promise made by Constantius to the Roman ladies, or
to put an end to the disturbances which at that time distracted the
city. The most generally received opinion , however, is that
Liberius committed a great error, but that he did not fall into
heresy. To make the matter clear we must investigate the Sir-
mium formula which he subscribed (6) .
37. The first formula of Sirmium was adopted in the year 351 ,
and in this, Photinus, Bishop of Sirmium, was again condemned ,
for he denied to Jesus Christ not only consubstantiality with the
Father, but his Divinity, likewise ; asserting, with Cerinthus , Ebion ,
and Paul of Samosata, that the Son of God had no existence before
Mary. Photinus was previously condemned in the Council of
Sardis ; but he obtained from the Emperor the right of appeal to
this Council of Sirmium, at which Constantius himself was present.
Here his doctrine was condemned a second time, even by the
Arians themselves, and the first formula , relating to the Arian
heresy, was drawn up in Greek, and two anathemas were attached
to it, as Noel Alexander tells us , on the authority of St. Athanasius
and St. Hilary. The first was to this effect : " The Holy and
Catholic Church does not recognize as belonging to her, those who
say that the Son existed from any creation or substance, and not
from God, or that there was a time when he did not exist." The
second was that " if any one denied that Christ-God , the Son of
God, was before all ages, and by whom all things were made, and
that it was only from the time he was born of Mary that he was
called Christ and the Son, and that it was only then his Deity
commenced, let him be anathema." Noel Alexander thus Latinises
the original Greek. "Eos qui dicunt : ex non ente, aut ex alio
subsistente, et non ex Deo Filium extitisse, aut quod tempus, aut
ætas fuit, quando ille non erat, alienos a se censet Sancta et Catho-
lica Ecclesia . Si quis Christum Deum, Filium Dei ante secula,

(6) Socrates, Orsi, Sozymen ; Nat. Alex. St. Athan . His. Arian.
76 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

administrumque ad universitatis opificium fuisse neget ; sed ex quo


tempore e Maria genitus est, Christum , et Filium appellatum fuisse ,
et principium suæ Deitatis tum accepisse dicat, anathema esto."
Thus in this formula, it is laid down that the Son is God to all
eternity, and that his Divinity is from eternity. St. Athanasius
looked on this formula as impious. St. Hilary considered it
Catholic ; the truth is that, if it be considered absolutely in itself,
it is Catholic, but, taken in the sense of the Arians, it is Arian (7) .
38. The second formula was published also in Sirmium, but in
the year 357, and it was written in Latin , and was subscribed by
Potamius and Osius . This was totally Arian, for the words con-
substantial, and like in substance, were rejected, as there was nothing
about them in the Scriptures, and they were unintelligible to the
human intellect. This was not the only blasphemous error intro-
duced into this profession ; for it was, besides, asserted , that the
Father was, without any doubt, greater than the Son in honour,
dignity, and Godship, and that the Son was subject to the Father,
together with all, things which the Father subjected to the Son.
This formula St. Hilary calls blasphemous, and, in his Book of
Synods, he thus describes it :-" Exemplum blasphemiæ apud
Sirmium, par Osium et Potamium, conscriptæ (8)."
39. The third formula was likewise composed in Sirmium, but
not for eight years after, that is in 359 , and this was also in Latin,
and St. Athanasius informs us, in his book on Synods, that it was
this one which was presented to the Council of Rimini, by Valens
and Ursacius. In this the word substance is rejected , but the Son
is recognized as equal to the Father in all things :-" Vocabulum
porro substantiæ, quia simplicius a Patribus positum est, et a populis
ignoratur, et scandalum affert, eo quod in Scripturis non contineatur ,
placuit ut de medio tolleretur . Filium autem Patri per omnia
similem dicimus , quemadmodum sacræ Litteræ dicunt, et docent."
In the first formula , then, the word consubstantial is omitted, but
the word substantial is retained . In the second, no mention is
made of either word, nor even of the words like unto ; and , in the
third, the words like unto are retained and explained .
40. We now come to the case of Liberius. Constantius had
promised the ladies of Rome that he would restore him again to
his see ; but had also promised the Eusebians that he would not
liberate him till he communicated with them. He , therefore , laid
his commands on Demophilus, Bishop of Berea, where Liberius
was exiled, and on Fortunatus, Bishop of Aquileia , another apostate,
to leave no means untried to make Liberius sign the formula of
Sirmium, and the condemnation of St. Athanasius. Liberius was
now three years in exile, broken down by solitude and flogging,
and, above all , deeply afflicted at seeing the See of Rome occupied

(7) Auctores citati ; Nat. Alex. 1. cit. (8) Nat. Alex.; Fleury, l. 13.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 77

by an anti-Pope, the Deacon Felix , and thus he had the weakness


to yield, and subscribed the formula, condemning at the same time
St. Athanasius, and communicating with the Arian bishops.
41. It is a question among authors, which of the three formulas
was subscribed by Liberius. Valesius says it was the third ; but
this has no foundation , for the third was not drawn up till 359,
and St. Athanasius tells us that Liberius was then after returning
to Rome. Blondel and Petavius say that it was the second hesigned,
and this is the general opinion followed by heretics, who strive thus
to prove that the Catholic Church may fail. The Protestant
Danæus numbers Liberius among the bishops who joined the Arians,
and says that all historians are agreed that he signed this formula ,
and after that, he says, no one can deny that the Roman Church
can err. But the general opinion held by Catholics , and which is ,
also, the most probable, and in which Baronius, N. Alexander ,
Graveson, Fleury, Juenin, Tournelly , Berninus, Orsi, Hermant,
and Selvaggi, the learned annotator of Mosheim, join with Gotti,
who gives it as the general opinion of Catholic authors , is, that it
was the first formula he signed. There are very weighty reasons to
prove that this opinion is founded on fact : -First-The formula
subscribed by Liberius was the one drawn up at the time Photinus
was condemned , and this was, indubitably, the first and not the
second. Secondly- The formula he signed, and which was laid
before him by Demophilus, was not drawn up by the Anomeans,
or pure Arians, but by the Semi-Arians, to which sect Demophilus ,
Basil of Ancira, Valens, and Ursacius belonged. These did not
admit that the Son was consubstantial with the Father, because
they would not approve of the Nicene Creed , but said he was of
the substance of the Father ; and this was expressed in the first
formula alone, but not in the second, in which both the words
substance and like unto were omitted . These very bishops even
who subscribed the first rejected the second in a synod purposely
convoked in Ancira. Nor does it militate against this opinion ,
that the formula subscribed by Liberius was also subscribed by the
Anomeans, for Constantine, who, as Socrates informs us, favoured
the Semi-Arian party, obliged them to subscribe to it. Another
proof is from Sozymen , who quotes a letter of Liberius, written to
the Semi-Arians, in which he declares, that those who assert that
the Son is not like to the Father in all things, and of the same
substance, do not belong to the Church. From all this it is proved
that Liberius signed the formula, from which the word consubstan-
tiality was omitted, but which approved ofthe words substantiality
and like unto (9).

(9) Tournelly, Theol. t. 2 ; Blondell. de Primatu, p. 48 ; Petav. in observ. St. Epi-


phan.; Danæus, Opus. de Her.; Baron. An. 357 ; Nat. Alex., Fleury, Graveson ;
Juenin, Theol. 40, 3 ques.; Bernin.; Hermant, t. 1 ; Orsi, l. 14 ; Gotti, de Ver. Rel.;
Selvaggi, not. 52, ad Mosh.
78 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

42. Because St. Hilary calls the formula signed by Liberius a


perfidy, the argument is not weakened , for Noel Alexander sup-
poses that these words and the anathema hurled against Liberius,
in St. Hilary's fragments, were foisted in by some other hand , for
these fragments were written after the return of Liberius to Rome,
when he most strenuously refused to approve of the formula ofthe
Council of Rimini ; others again , as Juenin , imagined that St. Hilary
called the formula perfidious, taking it in the perverse sense as
understood by the Arians, since speaking of it before (considered
absolutely in itself ) , he called it a Catholic formula. Another argu-
ment is deduced from the Chronicle of St. Jerome, for he writes,
that Liberius, conquered by a weary exile, subscribed to heretical
pravity, and entered Rome almost like a conqueror. Noel Alex-
ander says, that St. Jerome means by this, not that he signed a
formula in itself heretical, but that he communicated with heretics,
and although the communion with heretics was an error, it was not
heresy itself. Another answer is, that St. Jerome might have
written this under the belief that it was true, since , as Sozymen
informs us, the heretics spread everywhere abroad , that Liberius,
in subscribing the formula, not only denied the consubstantiality,
but even the likeness of the Son to the Father ; but, withal, we do
not justify Liberius for condemning St. Athanasius and communi-
cating with heretics. He afterwards refused to sign the formula of
Rimini, and was, in consequence, obliged to conceal himself in the
catacombs till the death of Constantius ( 10) .
43. When Liberius returned to Rome, in the year 358, or the
following year, according to Baronius, he was received, Orsi
with the liveliest demonstrations of joy by the clergy and people ;
but Baronius says, that there was a large section of the people
opposed to him on account of his fall, and that they adhered to
Felix II. , who, in the commencement, was a schismatic, and un-
lawfully ordained by three Arian bishops, to whose sect he belonged
at the time. Nevertheless, when he learned the lapse of Liberius,
he joined the Catholics, and excommunicated the Emperor ; and he
was thenceforth looked on as the lawful Pope, and Liberius as fallen
from his office. However, as Baronius tells us, it appears from the
Book of the Pontiffs, that he was taken and conveyed by the
Imperial Ministers to Ceri, seventeen miles from Rome, and
beheaded . The schismatic Marcellinus, quoted by Fleury, says,
that Felix lived eight years after the return of Liberius ; but Sozymen,
on the contrary, tells us he died almost immediately after that event.
Benedict XIV. says, that there is no doubt about the sanctity and
martyrdom of Felix , but the learned are divided as to whether he
died by the sword or by the sufferings he endured for Christ.
Baronius says, that there was a doubt in the time of Gregory XIII.

(10 ) Nat. Alex. & cit.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 79

9
as to whether the name of Felix II . should be expunged or not
from the Martyrology, in which he was enumerated among the
saints, and he was himself, he confesses, of the opinion that it should
be done, on account of his illegal intrusion into the Popedom ; but
soon after he says, a marble sarcophagus was casually discovered
buried in the earth, with some relics of saints on one side , and the
body of St. Felix on the other, with this inscription , " The body of
St. Felix, Pope and Martyr, who condemned Constantius ;" and
this discovery was made on the 19th of July, 1582 , the day pre-
ceding the festival of St. Felix, and, on that account, his name was
left undisturbed in the Martyrology . Baronius is opposed by
N. Alexander, who denies that Felix II . ever was a true Pope ; but
Roncaglia, in his notes, and both the Pagi, contend for the contrary,
and the Pagi prove, in opposition to Noel Alexander, that the
Pope Felix commemorated in the Martyrology must necessarily be
Felix II., not Felix I. (11 ) .
44. We now come back once more to the Arians. When Osius
and Liberius fell, they were already split up into a great many
sects : some who followed the party of Acasius, Eudoxius, Eunomius ,
and Acsius, were called Anomeans-those were pure Arians, and
they not alone rejected consubstantiality, but even the likeness of
the Son to the Father ; but the followers of Ursacius and Valens,
though called Arians, did not follow the opinions of Arius in
everything. Finally, those who followed the opinions of Basil of
Ancyra, and Eustatius of Sebaste, were called Semi-Arians ; these
condemned the blasphemies of Arius , but did not admit the con-
substantiality of the divine persons (12).
45. We have now to relate the events ofthe Council of Rimini ,
ofsorrowful celebrity, in which , as St. Jerome says, the Nicene faith
was condemned, and the whole world groaned , finding itself Arian .
When the whole Church was in confusion about the articles of the
faith , it was considered that the best way of arranging everything
quietly, would be to hold two councils, one in Rimini in Italy, the
other at Seleucia in the East. The Council of Rimini was held in
359, and was attended by more than four hundred bishops from
Illyria, Italy, Africa , Spain,Gaul, and Britain , and among those there
were eighty Arians, but the rest were Catholic . When they came to
treat of matters of faith , Ursacius, Valens, and other heads of the
Arian party produced a writing, and proposed that all should be
satisfied with signing that, in which was laid down the last formula
of Sirmium of the same year, in which, it is true, the word sub-
stance was rejected , but it was allowed that the Son was like unto
the Father in all things. But the Catholic bishops unanimously

(11) Nat. Alex., Diss. 32 ; Sozymen, loc. cit.; Theolog. l. 2, c. 2 ; Baron. An. 359 ;
Orsi, t. 6, l. 14 ; Baron. An. 357 , & seq.; Sozymen, Bened. XIV., de Canon. S.S. t. 4.
(12) N. Alex. t. 9 ; Hermant. t. 1, c. 102.
80 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

answered that there was no necessity for any other formula , but
that of the Council of Nice , and decreed that there should be no
addition to or subtraction from that formula ; that the word substance
should be retained, and they again condemned the doctrine of Arius,
and published ten anathemas against the errors of Arius, Sabellius,
and Photinus. All the Catholics subscribed to this, but Ursacius.
Valens and the Arians refused , so they themselves were judged
heretics, and Ursacius, Valens, Caius, and Germinius were con-
demned and deposed by a formal act (13).
46. Ten bishops were now sent as legates from the council tothe
Emperor, bearers of the letters of the council, giving him notice
that the fathers had decided that there should be nothing added to
or taken from the Council of Nice, and that they regretted to find
that Ursacius and Valens wished to establish another formula of
faith , according to the document they presented to the council. The
ten legates accordingly went, but the Arians sent ten likewise, along
with Ursacius and Valens, and these arrived first and prejudiced the
Emperor against the council, and presented him with the formula
of Sirmium, which was rejected by the Council of Rimini . When
the legates sent by the council arrived , they could not obtain an
audience from the Emperor, and it was only after a long delay,
that he sent an answer to the council, that he was about to proceed
against the barbarians, and that he had given orders to the legates
to wait for him in Adrianople, where he would see them on his
return, and give them his final answer . The fathers of the council
wrote again to Constantius, telling him that nothing would ever
change them, and begging therefore that he would give an audience
to the legates and let them depart. When the Emperor came to
Adrianople, the legates followed him, and were taken to the small
town of Nice, in the neighbourhood ; and there they began to treat
with the Arians against the express orders of the council, which
particularly restricted them on this point. Partly by deception ,
and partly by threats, they were induced to sign a formula, worse
even than the third formula of Sirmium ; for not only was the
word substance omitted, but the Son was said to be like unto the
Father, but leaving out in all things, which was admitted in the
Sirmium formula. They were, likewise, induced to revoke the
deposition of Ursacius, and his companions, condemned by the
council ; and they signed the formula with their own hands (14) .
47. The legates having put things in this state returned to Rimini ,
and Constantius then gave orders to his Prefect Taurus , not to permit
the council to be dissolved, till the bishops had signed the last
formula of Nice, and to send into banishment any bishops refusing
their signature, if their number did not exceed fifteen . He likewise
wrote a letter to the fathers of the council, prohibiting them from
(13) S. Hieron. , Dialog., ad Lucifer. Fleury, t. 2. Orsi, cit. S. Athan. de Synod.
Sozymen, l. 2. (14) Theod. l. 2, c. 19 ; Soz. l. 4 ; Soc. l. 2.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 81

using the words substantial and consubstantial. Ursacius and Valens


now returned to Rimini , and as their party was now in the ascendant,
they seized on the church, and wrote to the Emperor that he
was obeyed, and that the expressions he objected to were not allowed
to be used any more. The Catholics, at first, made a show of
constancy, and refused to communicate with the legates , who
excused their error by alleging all they suffered at the Court
of the Emperor ; but by degrees they were tired out, their con-
stancy failed, and they subscribed the same formula as the
legates (15).
48. We cannot deny but that the bishops of Rimini committed
a great error, but they are not so much to be blamed for bad faith,
as for not being more guarded against the wiles of the Arians.
This was the snare that was laid for them :-They were wavering
as to whether they should sign the formula or not, and when they
were all assembled in the church, and the errors attributed to
Valens, who drew up the formula, were read out, he protested
that he was not an Arian. " Let him be excommunicated," he
exclaimed, " who asserts that Jesus Christ is not the Son of God ,
born of the Father before all ages. Let him be excommunicated
who says that he is not like unto the Father, according to the
Scriptures ; or, he who says he is a creature like all other creatures
- (how he conceals the poison, for he taught that Christ was a
creature, but more perfect than all the others) ;-or that he is from
nothing, and not from the Father ; or that there was a time when
he was not ; or that anything was before him ;-he who teaches
any of those things let him be excommunicated ." And all an-
swered :- " Let him be excommunicated." These denunciations
of anathema, so fraudulently put forward, threw the Catholics off
their guard. They persuaded themselves that Valens was not an
Arian, and were induced to sign the formula ; and thus the Council
of Rimini, which opened so gloriously, was ignominiously termi-
nated, and the bishops got leave to return to their homes. They
were not long, St. Jerome tells us, till they discovered their error ;
for the Arians, immediately on the dissolution of the council, began
to boast of their victory. The word substantial, said they, is now
abolished, and along with it the Nicene faith ; and when it was
said, that the Son was not a creature, the meaning was, that he
was not like the other created beings , but of a higher order, and
then it was that the world , St. Jerome says, groaning, found itself
Arian. Noel Alexander proves, from St. Jerome, St. Ambrose,
and others, and with very convincing arguments, too, that the
bishops of Rimini, in subscribing that formula, did not violate the
faith ; for, taken in its obvious sense, it contained nothing heretical.
While the Council of Rimini was in progress, there was another

(15) St. Hila. Fragmen. p. 453, Sulp. Ser. 1. 2.


F
82 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

council held in Seleucia, at which many Arian bishops were pre-


sent ; but it was soon dismissed , for the bishops were so divided,
that they could not agree to any formula (16) .
49. After the Council of Rimini was dissolved, the Arians of
Antioch, in the year 361 , not satisfied with the formula adopted
at the council, drew up another in which they said, that the Son
was in everything unlike the Father, not alone in substance, but
also in will, and that he was formed out of nothing, as Arius had
already taught. Fleury counts sixteen formulas published by the
Arians. Liberius, however, after his first error in subscribing the
formula of Sirmium , as we have already related (No. 41 ) , constantly
refused, after his liberation in 360, to sign the formula of Rimini,
and, as Baronius relates in his Acts of Pope Liberius, he was
obliged to leave Rome and hide himself in the catacombs, where
Damasus and the rest of his clergy went to see him, and he remained
there until the death of Constantius in 361. St. Gregory of Nazi-
anzen says that Constantius, just before his death, repented, but in
vain, of three things :-Of the murder of his relatives ; of having
made Julian, Cæsar ; and of causing such confusion in the Church.
He died, however, in the arms of the Arians, whom he protected
with such zeal, and Euzoius, whom he had made Bishop of Antioch,
administered him baptism just before his death. His death put an
end to the synods, and for a time restored peace to the Church ; as
St. Jerome says, " The beast dies and the calm returns " (17).
50. On the death of Constantius, the impious Julian the Apostate
took the reins of empire, and , professing idolatry, commenced a
most fierce persecution against the Church, not out of any liking
for the Arians, but through hatred of Christianity itself. Before
we speak of the other persecutions the Catholics had to endure
from the Arians, we will relate the schism caused by the wretched
Lucifer, Bishop of Cagliari, who, after all his labours and fortitude
in defence of the Catholic Church, vexed because St. Eusebius
would not approve of his having consecrated Paulinus Bishop
of Antioch, separated himself from the communion , not only of
St. Eusebius, but also of St. Athanasius and Pope Liberius ; he
was thus the founder of a new schism, and , in despite, retired
to his see in Sardinia, where he died in 370 , without giving any
proof of returning once more to ecclesiastical unity. He was fol-
lowed in his secession by some people in Sardinia and other
kingdoms, and these added error to schism, by re-baptizing those
who had been baptized by the Arians. It is worthy of remark,
that Calmet, in his Sacred and Profane History (Book 65 , No. 110),
tells us that the Church of Cagliari celebrated the feast of Lucifer

(16) S. Hieron. ad. Lucif. n. 17 ; Nat., Fleury, & Orsi, loc. con.; N. Alex. Dis. 33, t. 9.
(17) Baron. An . 359 ; St. Athan. de Synod.; Fleury, l. 14, n. 33 ; St. Greg. Naz. Orat.
21 ; Soc. l. 2, c. 47.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 83

as a saint or holy personage, on the 20th of May. Benedict XIV. ,


in his work de Sanctor. Canon . tome 1 , lib. 1 , cap. 40, says, that
two archbishops of Sardinia having written for and against the
sanctity of Lucifer, the Sacred Congregation of the Roman In-
quisition, in the year 1641 , imposed silence on both parties, under
severe penalties, and decreed that the veneration of Lucifer should
stand as it was. The Bollandists (die 20 Maii p . 207 ) strenuously
defend this decree of the Sacred Congregation. Noel Alexander
(sec. 4, cap. 3, art. 13). and D. Baillet (in vita Luciferi, 20 Maii)
maintain, that the Lucifer whose feast is celebrated in the Church
of Cagliari is not the personage we speak of, but another of the
same name, who suffered martyrdom in the persecution of the
Vandals.

SEC. IV. PERSECUTION OF VALENS, OF GENNERIC, OF HUNNERIC, AND OTHER ARIAN


KINGS.

51. Julian is made Emperor, and dies. 52. Jovian Emperor ; his Death. 53. Valen-
tinian and Valens Emperors. 54. Death of Liberius. 55, 56. Valens puts eighty
Ecclesiastics to Death-his other Cruelties. 57. Lucius persecutes the Solitaries.
58. Dreadful Death of Valens. 59-61. Persecution of Genseric. 62-64. Per-
secution of Hunneric. 65. Persecution of Theodoric. 67, 68. Persecution of
Leovigild.

51. On the death of Constantius, the impious Julian the Apostate


succeeded to the Empire. At first he restored the Catholic
bishops to their sees, but he soon began to persecute not only the
bishops but the faithful in general, not because they were Catholics,
but because they were Christians, for he declared himself an
idolater and an enemy of Christ. He perished in the Persian war
in the year 363. He was engaged in the heat of battle, when,
beholding the Persians flying before his troops, he raised his arm
to cheer on his own soldiers to the pursuit, when just at the
moment, as Fleury relates, a Persian horseman let fly an arrow,
which went through his arm , his ribs, and deep into the liver ; he
tried to pull it out, and even wounded his fingers in the attempt,
but could not succeed , and fell over his horse. He was borne off
the field and some remedies applied, and he felt himself so much
better that he called for his horse and arms again to renew the
fight, but his strength failed him, and he died on the same night,
the 26th of June, being only thirty-one years and six months old,
and having reigned but one year and eight months after the death
of Constantius. Theodoret and Sozymen relate that when he felt
himself wounded he filled his hand with blood, and threw it up
towards heaven, exclaiming, " O Galilean, thou hast conquered !"
Theodoret likewise relates, that St. Julian Saba the Solitary, while
lamenting the threats uttered by Julian against the Church,
suddenly turned to his disciples , with a serene and smiling coun-
84 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

tenance, and said to them, The wild boar which wasted the vine-
yard of the Lord is dead ! and when the news of Julian's death
afterwards reached them they found that he died at the very hour
the holy sage announced the fact to them. Cardinal Orsi quotes
the authority of the Chronicle of Alexander, which says that the
horseman who executed the Divine vengeance on Julian was the
martyr St. Mercurius, who, a hundred years previously, suffered in
the persecution of Decius, and that this was revealed in a heavenly
vision to St. Basil ( 1) .
52. On the very day of Julian's death, the soldiers assembled
and elected Jovian, the first among the Imperial guards, though he
was not general ofthe army ; he was much beloved for his fine
appearance and for his great valour, of which he gave frequent
proofs during the war. When Jovian was elected Emperor, he
said, As I am a Christian I cannot command idolaters, for the army
cannot conquer without the assistance of God. Then all the
soldiers cried out, Fear not, Emperor, you command Christians.
Jovian was delighted with this answer. He accepted the truce for
thirty years offered by the Persians, and was most zealous in favour-
ing the Catholics, opposing both the Arians and Semi-Arians. He
restored peace to the Church, but it was of but short duration, for
he died eight months after his elevation to the Empire, in the 33rd
year of his age. The generality of authors, following St. Jerome,
attribute his death to want of caution in sleeping in a room in which
a large quantity of charcoal was burned , to dry the walls which
were newly plastered, and thus died one of the greatest champions
of the Church (2) .
53. On the death of Jovian, Valentinian was elected by the
army in 364. He was the son of Gratian, Prefect of the Pretorium ,
and he was banished by Julian , because, being a Christian, he had
struck the minister of the idols, who sprinkled him with lustral
water. He was solicited by the army to elect a colleague, as the
Empire was attacked in various points by the barbarians, so he
chose his brother Valens, declared him Emperor, and divided the
Empire with him. Valentinian governed the West, when the
Church enjoyed a profound peace, and Valens governed the East,
where he kept up and even increased the dissensions already too
rife there, and treated the Catholics with the greatest cruelty, as we
shall shortly see.
54. Pope Liberius died in the year 366 , and before his death
had the consolation of receiving a deputation in Rome of several
Oriental bishops , who were anxious to return to the unity of the
Church. Liberius sat for fourteen years, and notwithstanding the
error he fell into by signing the formula of Sirmium , he is called

(1) Fleury, t. 2, l. 14 & 15 ; Theod. l. 3 ; Philost. c. 2. (2) Orsi, cit. Theod. Fleury,
loc. cit.; St. Hieron. Ep. 60.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 85

a pontiff whose memory is in benediction by St. Basil, St. Epipha-


nius, and St. Ambrose. Orsi says that his name is found in some
Greek Martyrologies, and that he was venerated by that Church as
a saint, and Sandinus says that his name is still in the Martyrologies
of Bede and of Wandelbert. St. Damasus, a man of great learning
and sanctity, was elected Pope, at his death, but he was troubled
for many years by the schism of Ursinus, commonly called Ursicinus ,
who sacrilegiously got himself elected Pope at the same time ( 3) .
55. We now come to the reign of Valens, who was even a
greater persecutor of the Church than Constantius. Eudosius, an
Arian bishop, had a great influence over him, and , from his extra-
ordinary anxiety to protect this bishop, he became a persecutor of
the Catholics. Before he set out to undertake the war against the
Goths , he was baptized by Eudosius, and, just as he was receiv-
ing the Sacrament, the bishop made him swear that he would per-
secute and banish from the country all the defenders of the Catho-
lic faith ; and Valens fulfilled this impious oath with dreadful ex-
actness. The Arians, now strong in the Emperor's favour, began
to maltreat the Catholics, and these, not being able to endure any
longer the persecutions they were subjected to , deputed eighty
ecclesiastics of great piety to go to Nicomedia, and implore Valens
to put a stop to the violent measures of their enemies. Valens was
outrageous at this proceeding, and commanded Modestes, Prefect
of the Pretorium, to put them all privately to death . This impious
order was barbarously obeyed by Modestes. He gave out that he
was only sending them into banishment, lest the people should be
incited to break out ; and he had them all put on board a ship, and
the sailors were ordered , when they were a good distance from the
land , so that no one could observe them, to set fire to the vessel,
and leave them to perish. The order, cruel as it was, was obeyed-
the vessel was fired ; but the Almighty deranged all their plans,
for a strong wind immediately sprung up, and blew the vessel on
shore while it was still burning, and it was then finally consumed (4).
56. Valens next sent many ecclesiastics of the Church of Edessa
into exile. It is well known how he strove to banish St. Basil ;
but the hand of the Lord miraculously prevented it, for when he
was about to sign the sentence, the pen was broken in his hand,
and his arm was paralyzed . He, likewise , persecuted the Catholic
followers of St. Meletius, and banished them from the churches ; but
these faithful Christians used to assemble at the foot of a mountain ,
and there, exposed to the winter's snow and rain, and the summer's
sun, they praised God ; but even then he dispersed them, and few
cities in the empire but had to deplore the tyranny of Valens, and
the loss of their pastors. St. Gregory of Nyssa gives a sad descrip-

(3) Sulpicius, l. 5 ; Fleury & Orsi, cit.; Sandinus, Vit. Pon. t. 1. (4) Fleury, ibid. ;
Theod. . 4, c. 24 ; Soz. l. 6, c. 14 ; Soc. l. 4, c. 15.
86 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

tion of the desolation caused by the tyrant in many provinces.


When he came to Antioch he put a great many to the torture, and
ordered a great many to be drowned, and sent off a very great mul-
titude into exile, into Palestine, Arabia, Lybia, and many other
provinces (5).
57. The holy solitaries of Syria and Egypt, by their lives and
miracles , were the great upholders of the faith of the people, and
were, on that account, particularly odious to Valens. He, therefore ,
issued a decree, directed against those champions of the faith ,
obliging them to enrol themselves among his troops, intending to
punish them severely in case of disobedience, and knowing well
that they would not do as he ordained . Full scope was given by
this to the Arians, to gratify their malignity, at the expense of these
innocent men, and especially against the monks of St. Basil. Phon-
tonius, who usurped the see of Nicomedia, exercised horrible
cruelties against the Catholics ; but even he was surpassed by
Lucius, the pretended Bishop of Alexandria, who obtained posses-
sion of that see by cruelty, and retained it by the same means.
When the law of Valens- that the monks should bear arms— was
promulgated, Lucius left Alexandria, and, accompanied by the
commander of the troops in Egypt, placed himself at the head of
three thousand soldiers, and went to the deserts of Nitria, where
he found the monks, not, indeed , prepared to fight, but to die for
the love of Jesus Christ, and he put whole companies of them
to death ; but five thousand of them escaped his fury, and fled to a
place of safety, and concealed themselves. Wearied out with
killing and torturing these holy men, Lucius now seized on their
chiefs, Isidore, Heraclides, Macarius of Alexandria, and Macarius
of Egypt, and banished them to a marshy island in Egypt, where
all the inhabitants were idolaters ; but when they arrived at the
shore, a child possessed by the devil was thrown at their feet, and
the devil cried out-" Ö, servants of the true God, why do you
come to drive us from this place, which we have possessed so long ?"
They prayed over the child, cast forth the devil, and restored the
infant to his parents, and were received with the greatest joy by the
people, who threw down the old temple of the idols they previously
adored, and began to build a church in honour of the true God.
When the news of this transaction was told in Alexandria, the
people all cried out against their impious bishop, Lucius, who, they
said, was warring, not against man, but against God, and he was
so terrified with the popular excitement, that he gave the solitaries
permission to return again to their deserts (6).
58. Valens was overtaken by the Divine vengeance in 378.
The Goths extended their ravages to the very gates of Constanti-
nople, and he was so lost to shame, that he thought of nothing all

(5) Auctor. cit. (6) St. Hieron. Chron.; St. Paulin. Ep. 29 ; Auctor. antea cit.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 87

the while but enjoying himself in his capital. The people began
to murmur loudly at this state of inaction, and he, at last, roused
himself, and marched against the enemy. Theodoret relates, that,
as he was leaving the city, a holy monk , called Isaac, who lived in
the neighbourhood , thus addressed him:- " Where are you going
to, Emperor, after having made war against God ? Cease to war
with the Almighty, and he will put an end to the war raging
against you ; but should you not do so, mark my words, you will
go to battle, but the vengeance of God will pursue you-you will
lose your army, and never return here again." " I will return ,"
said Valens, in a rage, " and your life shall pay for your audacity ;"
and he immediately ordered that he should be sent to prison. The
hermit's prophecy turned out too true. When Valens arrived in
presence of the Goths, their king, Fritigern, sent him an embassy,
asking for peace, and leave to establish himself and his people in
Thrace. The Emperor rejected his offer ; and, on the 9th of
August, 378, both armies were drawn up in front of each other,
and Fritigern again made proposals of peace. But while the Romans
were deliberating on their answer, the division of Bacurius, Prince
of the Iberians, was attacked, and the battle became general ; and
never, since the slaughter at Canne, did the Romans suffer such
losses as on that day. When the night closed, Valens mixed
himself up with some of his soldiers and fled , thinking thus to
conceal himself; but he was wounded with an arrow, and fell from
his horse, and was brought by his soldiers into the hut of a peasant
by the way-side. He was scarcely there when a troop of Goths,
looking for plunder , arrived, and , without knowing who was inside,
endeavoured to break open the door ; but when they could not
succeed at once in doing so, they set fire to the hut, and went
away, and the unhappy Valens was burned alive in the fifteenth
year of his reign and the fiftieth of his age. This was, as Orosius
writes , a just judgment of God : The Goths asked Valens for some
bishops, to instruct them in the Christian religion, and he sent them
Arians, to infect the poor people with their impious heresy ; and
so they were justly appointed afterwards, as ministers of the Divine
justice, to punish him. On the death of Valens, Gratian became
master of the whole empire, and this good prince gave liberty to
the Catholics of the East, and peace to the Church (7).
59. We now have to treat of the persecution of the Catholics
of Africa by Genseric , the Arian King of the Vandals. He com-
menced persecuting the Catholics in the year 437 , with the inten-
tion of making Arianism the religion of all Africa, as St. Prosper
writes. Immediately after conquering Carthage, he commenced a
most cruel war against the Catholics, plundered the churches, and
gave them as habitations to his vassals, after banishing the priests ,

(7) Orsi, cit.; St. Pros. in Chron.


88 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

and taking away the sacred vessels ; and, intending to have no


religion but Arianism, he drove the bishops, not alone out of their
churches, but out of the cities, and put many to death. He would
not permit the Catholics, on the death of St. Deogratias, to elect
another Bishop of Carthage, and he prohibited all ordinations in
the province of Zeugitania, and in the Pro-consulate, where there
were sixty-four bishoprics ; the effect of this order was, that, at the
end of thirty years, there were only three bishops in the province,
and two of these were banished, and the third fled to Edessa.
Cardinal Orsi, following the historian of the Vandalic persecution ,
says that the number of martyrs was very great. The history of
four brothers, in particular, slaves of one of Genseric's officers, is
very interesting :-These martyrs, finding it impossible to serve
God according to their wishes in the house of their Vandal master,
fled, and took refuge in a monastery near the city of Trabacca ; but
their master never ceased till he found them out, and brought them
back to his house, where he loaded them with chains, put them in
prison, and never ceased to torture them. When Genseric heard
of it, instead of blaming the master for his cruelty, he only encou-
raged him to continue it, and the tyrant beat them with branches of
the palm tree to that pitch, that their bones and entrails were laid
bare; but, though this was done many days in succession , the fol-
lowing days they were always found miraculously healed. He next
shut them up in a narrow prison , with their feet in stocks made of
heavy timber ; but the beams of the instrument were broken in
pieces, like twigs, the next day. When this was told to Genseric,
he banished them to the territories of a Pagan king, in the deserts
of Africa. The inhabitants of their place of exile were all Pagans,
but these holy brothers became apostles among them, and converted
a great number ; but, as they had no priest, some of them made
their way to Rome, and the Pope yielded to their wishes, and sent
a priest among them, who baptized a great number. When Gen-
seric heard this, he ordered that each of the brothers should be tied
to a car by the feet, and dragged through the woods till dead, and
the barbarous sentence was executed . The very barbarians wept
when they saw these innocent men thus torn to pieces, but they
expired praying and praising God in the midst of their torments.
They are commemorated in the Roman Martyrology , on the 14th
of October (8).
60. Genseric was daily becoming more inimical to the Church,
and he sent a person called Proculus into the province of Zeugi-
tania, to force the bishops to deliver up the holy Books and all the
sacred vessels, with the intention of more easily undermining their
faith, when deprived , as it were, of their arms. The bishops refused
to give them up, and so the Vandals took everything by force,

(8) Fleury, t. 4 ; Baron. An. 437 & 456 ; Orsi, cit.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 89

and even stripped the cloths off the altars, and made shirts of them,
but the Divine vengeance soon overtook Proculus, for he died raving
mad, after eating away his own tongue. The Arians even fre-
quently trampled the Holy Sacrament under their feet in the
Catholic church. When the Catholics were deprived of their
church they secretly opened another in a retired place, but the
Arians soon heard of it, and collecting a body of armed men under
the leadership of one of their priests, they attacked the faithful in
their church ; some rushed in at the door, sword in hand , others
mounted to the roof with arrows , and killed a great many before
the altar ; a great many took to flight, but they were afterwards
put to death in various ways by order of Genseric.
61. Genseric next issued a decree, that no one should be ad-
mitted into his palace or that of his son , unless he was an Arian,
and then, as Victor Vitensis informs us, a person called Armogastes,
who was in the court of Theodoric, one of the sons of Genseric ,
signalized himself for his constancy in the faith. Theodoric tried
every means to make him apostatize, but in vain ; he first made
him promises of preferment ; he next threatened him , and he then
subjected him to the most cruel torments. He had his head and
legs bound with cords twisted with the greatest possible force ; he
then was hung up in the air by one leg, with his head down , and
when all this could not shake his constancy, he ordered him to be
beheaded . He knew, however, that Armogastes would be venerated
as a martyr by the Catholics, if this sentence were carried into exe-
cution, so he changed the sentence, and compelled him to dig the
earth, and tend a herd of cows. While Armogastes was one day
engaged in this humble employment under a tree, he begged a
friend, a Christian of the name of Felix , to bury him after his death
at the foot of that tree ; he died in a few days after ; and when his
friend, in compliance with his request, set about digging his grave,
he found in the spot a marble tomb, beautifully finished , and there
he buried him. The name of St. Armogastes is marked in the Ro-
man Martyrology on the 29th of March, and Archiminus and
Saturus, who suffered likewise, are commemorated with him. Gen-
seric used every artifice with Archiminus to cause him to apostatize,
but when he could not shake his faith , he gave orders that he
should be beheaded ; but there was a private condition annexed ;
that was, that if he showed any symptoms of fear, the sentence
should be executed ; but if no terror could be remarked on him at
the moment, that his life should be spared , lest he should be vene-
rated as a martyr by the Catholics. He awaited death with the
greatest intrepidity, and he was, consequently, spared. Saturus
was in the service of Hunneric, the king's eldest son, and he was
threatened with confiscation of his entire property, if he did hot
become an Arian ; he yielded neither to the threats of the tyrant,
nor to the tears of his wife, who came to see him one day with his
90 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

four children ; and threw herself weeping at his feet, and embracing
his knees, besought him to have pity on her and her poor children ;
but Saturus, unmoved, said : My dear wife, if you loved me you
would not tempt me to send myself to hell ; they may do with me
as they please, but I will never forget the words of my Divine
Master, that no one can be his disciple, unless he leaves all things
to follow him. He thus remained firm , and he was despoiled of
everything. Genseric died at length , in the year 477 , the fiftieth
of his reign over the Vandals, and forty-nine years after his landing
in Africa. He made Hunneric heir to his kingdom, and settled
the succession so that the oldest descendant of his, in the male line ,
should always be king.
62. Hunneric, in the beginning of his reign, reigned with cle-
mency , but he soon showed the innate cruelty of his disposition,
and he commenced with his own relatives. He put to death his
brother Theodoric, and his young child , and he would likewise
have put his other brother, Genton , out of the way, only he had
the good fortune to be forewarned , and saved himself. He now
began to persecute the Catholics ; he commanded the holy bishop
Eugenius, that he should not preach any more, and that he should
allow no one, either man or woman , into the church. The saint
answered that the church was open for all, and that he had no
power to prohibit any one from entering. Hunneric then placed
executioners at the door of the church, with clubs stuck over with
spikes , and these tore off not only the hair but even the scalp of
the persons who went in, and such violence was used that some lost
their sight, and even some lost their lives. He sent away noblemen
into the fields to reap the corn ; one of these had a withered hand,
so that he could not work, but he was still obliged to go, and by
the prayers of his companions, the Almighty restored him the use
of it. He published a decree that no one should be allowed to
serve in the palace, or hold any public employment, if he were
not an Arian; and those who refused obedience to this iniquitous
order were despoiled of their properties, and banished into Italy
and Sardinia ; he likewise ordered that all the property of the
Catholic bishops should go to the Crown after their death , and that
no successor could be consecrated to any deceased bishop , until he
paid five hundred golden crowns. He had all the nuns collected
together, and caused them to be tormented with burning plates of
iron, and to be hung up with great weights to their feet , to force
them to accuse the bishops and priests of having had criminal inter-
course with them ; many of them died in these torments, and those
who survived , having their skin burned up , were crooked all their
lives after (9).
63. He banished to the desert, between bishops, priests, deacons ,

(9) Orsi, t. 15 ; Fleury, t. 5, l. 30 ; N. Alex. t. 10.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 91

and lay people, altogether four thousand nine hundred and seventy-
six Catholics, and many among them were afflicted with gout, and
many blind with age ; Felix, of Abbitirus, a bishop, was for forty-
four years paralyzed , and deprived of all power of moving, and even
speechless. The Catholic bishops, not knowing how to bring him
along with them, begged of the King to allow him to wear out the
few days he had to live, in Carthage ; but the barbarian answered :
If he cannot go on horseback let him be tied with a rope, and
dragged on by oxen ; and they were obliged to carry him, thrown
across a mule, like a log of wood . In the commencement of their
journey they had some little liberty, but in a little while they were
treated with the greatest cruelty ; they were shut up together in a
very narrow prison , no one allowed to visit them, crowded together
one almost over the other, and no egress allowed for a moment, so
that the state of the prison soon became horribly infectious ; and, as
Victor the historian relates, no torment could equal what they
suffered-up to their knees in the most horrible filth, and there
alone could they sit down, sleep, and eat the little quantity of
barley given to them for food, without any preparation , as if they
were horses. At length they were taken out of that prison, or
rather sink, and conveyed to their destination ; the aged, and those
who were too weak to walk, were driven on with blows of stones,
and prodded with lances, and when nature failed them, and they
could not move on any longer, the Moors tied them by the feet,
and dragged them on through stones and briars, as if they were
carcases of beasts, and thus an immense number of them died,
leaving the road covered with their blood.
64. In the year 483, according to Fleury and N. Alexander,
Hunneric, wishing to destroy Catholicity altogether in Africa, com-
manded that there should be a conference held in Carthage between
the Catholics and the Arians. The bishops, not alone of Africa,
but of the Islands subject to the Vandals, assembled there , but as
Cyril, the Arian Patriarch, dreaded that his sect would be ruined
by the conference, it did not take place. The King was now
highly incensed against the Catholics, and he privately sent an edict
to all the provinces, while he had the bishops in Carthage, and on
one and the same day all the churches of Africa were closed, and
all the property belonging both to the churches and the Catholic bi-
shops was given over to the Arians, following in that the decree laid
down for the punishment of heretics in the laws of the Emperors.
This barbarous decree was put into execution , and the bishops ,
despoiled of all they possessed, were driven out of Carthage, and all
persons were ordered to give them neither food nor shelter, under
pain of being burned themselves, and their houses along with them.
Hunneric, at last, in the year 484, after committing so many acts
of tyranny, and killing so many Catholics, closed his reign and his
life by a most horrible death- he died rotten , and eaten up alive
92 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

by a swarm of worms ; all his entrails fell out, and he tore his own
flesh in a rage with his teeth , so that he was even buried in pieces.
He was not altogether eight years on the throne when he died,
and he had not even the satisfaction to leave the throne to his son
Hilderic, for whom he had committed such slaughter in his family,
because, according to the will of his father, Genseric, the crown
descended to Guntamond, the son of his brother Genton ; and he
was succeeded, in 496 , by Trasamond, who endeavoured to extir-
pate Catholicity totally in Africa, about the year 504. Among his
other acts, he banished two hundred and twenty-four bishops, and
among them was the glorious St. Fulgentius. On the death of
Trasamond, in 523, he was succeeded by Hilderic, a prince , as
Procopius writes, affable to his subjects, and of a mild disposition .
This good King, Graveson tells us, was favourable to the Catholic
religion, and he recalled St. Fulgentius and the other exiled
bishops, and granted the free exercise of their religion to all the
Catholics of his kingdom ; but in the year 530, he was driven out
of his kingdom by Glimere, an Arian, and then it was that the
Emperor Justinian, to revenge his intimate friend, Hilderic , declared
war against Glimere ; and his general, Belisarius, having conquered
Carthage and the principal cities, and subjected all Africa once
more to the Roman Emperor, the Arians were banished , and the
churches restored to the Catholics ( 10) .
65. There were other persecutions by the Arians, after the death
of Hunneric. Theodoric, King of Italy, and son of Theodomire,
King of the Ostrogoths, was also an Arian, and persecuted the
Catholics till his death, in the year 526. He ought, however, to
be lauded for always keeping in his employment honest and learned
ministers. One of them was the great Boetius, a man of profound
learning, and a true Christian ; but through the envy of his calum-
niators, he was cast into prison by his sovereign, and after being
kept there a long time, was, at last, without being giving an oppor-
tunity of defending himself, put to death in horrible torments, his
head being tied round with a cord , and that twisted till his eyes
leaped out of their sockets. Thus died Boetius, the great prop of
the faith in that age, in the year 524 , and the fifty-fifth of his age .
Theodoric likewise put to death Symmachus, a man of the highest
character, in a most barbarous manner ; and his crime was, that he
was son-in-law to Boetius, and the tyrant dreaded that he would
conspire against his kingdom. He also caused the death of the
holy Pope John, in prison, by privations and starvation , and this
holy man is venerated since in the Church as a martyr. Some
inculpate this pontiff, for having induced the pious Emperor,
Justin, to restore the churches to the Arians, but others deny his
having done so. Cardinal Orsi says, that a great deal of obscurity
(10) Fleury, Orsi, Nal. I. con.; Graveson, His. Eccles . t. 3, Procopius, l. 1, de Bellow.
Vand.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 93

hangs over the transactions of this age ; but, taking the anonymous
commentator on Valesius as a guide, he does not think that the
Pope obtained the restitution to the Arians of all their churches,
but only of such as they were already in possession of, or such as
were deserted , and not consecrated ; and that he did this only that
Theodoric might rest satisfied with this arrangement, and leave the
Catholics in possession of their churches, and not turn them out,
and give them up to the Arians, as it was feared he would. But
Noel Alexander, Baronius, and Orsi himself—and with these Berti
agrees- say, with more likelihood, that St. John refused to solicit
the Emperor, at all, for the restitution of the churches to the Arians,
and that this is proved from his second epistle to the Italian bishops,
in which he tells them, that he consecrated , and caused to be
restored to the Catholics in the East, all the churches in possession
of the Arians ; and it was on that account that he was put into
prison by Theodoric, on his return to Italy, and died there on the
27th of May, 526 , worn out with sufferings.
66. Theodoric, not satisfied with those acts of tyranny, as the
above-mentioned anonymous writer informs us, published an edict
on the 26th of August, giving to the Arians all the Catholic
churches ; but God, at length, had pity on the faithful, and he
removed him by a sudden death. A dreadful flux brought him
to death's door in three days ; and on the very Sunday in which
his decree was to be put into execution, he lost his power and his
life. A cotemporaneous historian gives a curious account of the
beginning of his sickness. He was going to supper, and the head
of a big fish was placed before him ; he immediately imagined that
he saw the head of Symmachus, whom he had a little before put
to death, and that it threatened him with eyes of fury. He was
dreadfully alarmed ; and, seized with sudden terror, he took to his
bed, and told his physician, Elpidius, what he imagined ; he then
regretted sincerely his cruelty to Boetius and Symmachus, and
between agitation of mind, and the racking of his bowels, he was
soon dead. St. Gregory writes, that a certain hermit, in the island
of Lipari, saw him in a vision after his death, barefooted , and
stripped of all his ornaments, between St. John and Symmachus ,
and that they brought him to the neighbouring volcano, and cast
him into the burning crater.
67. Leovigild , King of the Visigoths, in Spain , was likewise an
Arian ; he had two sons by his first wife, Hermengild and Recca-
rede, and he married a second time, Goswind , the widow of another
King of the Visigoths . He married his son Hermengild to In-
gonda, who was a Catholic, and refused to allow herself to be
baptized by the Arians, as her mother-in-law Goswind , herself an
Arian, wished. Not being able to induce her, by fair means, to
consent, Goswind seized her one day by the hair, threw her on the
ground, kicked her, and covered her over with blood , and then
94 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

stripped her violently, and threw her into a fountain of water, to


re-baptize her by force ; but nothing could induce her to change
her faith, and she even converted her husband Hermengild. When
Leovigild heard this, he commenced a persecution against the Ca-
tholics ; many were exiled , and their properties confiscated ; others
were beaten, imprisoned , and stoned to death, or put out of the way
by other cruelties. Seven bishops were also banished , and the
churches were deprived of their possessions. Hermengild was cast
into prison by his father, and, at the festival of Easter, an Arian
bishop came to give him communion , but he refused to receive it
from his hand , and sent him off as a heretic ; his father then sent
the executioners to put him to death, and one of them split open
his head with a hatchet. This took place in the year 586 , and this
holy prince has been since venerated as a martyr.
68. The impious Leovigild did not long survive his son ; he
deeply regretted having put him to death ; and, as St. Gregory tells
us, was convinced of the truth of the Catholic religion , but had not
the grace to embrace it, as he dreaded the vengeance of his people.
Fleury, nevertheless, quotes many authorities to prove that Leovi-
gild spent a week before his death deploring the crimes he com-
mitted, and that he died a Catholic in the year 587 , the eighteenth
of his reign. He left the kingdom to his son Reccarede, who be-
came a Catholic, and received the sacrament of Confirmation in the
Catholic church; and such was his zeal for the faith, that he in-
duced the Arian bishops, and the whole nation of the Visigoths, to
embrace it, and deposed from his employment, and cashiered from
his army, all heretics. The beginning of his reign was thus the
end of the Arian heresy in Spain, where it reigned from the con-
quest of that country by the barbarians, an hundred and eighty
years before, in the beginning of the fifth century ; and when the
Emperor Justinian, by the victories of Belisarius, became master of
Africa, about the year 535 (chap. 4, No. 64) , the Catholic faith
was also re-established . The Burgundians, in Gaul, forsook the
Arian heresy under the reign of Sigismund , the son and successor
of King Gontaband, who died in 516. Sigismund was converted
to the faith in 515, by St. Avitus, Bishop of Vienne . The Lom-
bards in Italy abandoned Arianism, and embraced the Catholic
faith under their King, Rimbert, in 660, and have since remained
faithful to the Church. Danæus thus concludes his essay on the
heresy of the Arians : " This dreadful hydra, the fruitful parent of
so many evils, was then extinguished, but after the lapse of about
nine hundred years, in about the year 1530, was again revived in
Poland and Transylvania, by modern Arians and Antitrinitarians,
who, falling from bad to worse, have become far worse than the an-
cient Arians, and are confounded with Deists and Socinians" ( 11 ) .

(11) Fleury, t. 5 ; Gregor. Jur. 9, t. 15 ; Daneus, Gen. Temp. not. p. 237.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 95

ARTICLE III.

69-74. Heresy of Macedonius. 75-77. Of Apollinaris. 78. Of Elvidius. 79. Of


Aetius. 80,81 . The Messalians. 82. The Priscillianists. 83. Jovinians. 84. Other
Heretics. 85. Of Audeus, in particular.

69. As Arius uttered blasphemies against the Son, so Macedonius


had the temerity to speak blasphemously of the Holy Ghost . He
was, at first, an Arian, and was deputed to the Council or Cabal
of Tyre, as legate of the Emperor Constantius. He was then in-
truded by the Arians into the See of Constantinople , as Socrates
informs us, though Paul, the lawful bishop, was then alive, and he
received ordination at the hands of the Arians. A horrible circum-
stance occurred at his induction into the Metropolitan See. He
went to take possession in a splendid chariot, accompanied , not by
his clergy, but with the imperial Prefect by his side, and sur-
rounded by a powerful body of armed troops , to strike terror into
the people. An immense multitude was assembled, out of curiosity
to see the pageant, and the throng was so great, that the church,
streets, and squares were all choked up , and the new bishop could
not proceed. The soldiers set about clearing the way ; they first
struck the people with the shafts of their spears, and whether it was
by orders of the bishop , or through their own ferocity, they soon
began to wound and kill the people, and trampled on the slain and
fallen ; the consequence was, that three thousand one hundred and
fifty dead bodies lay stretched in gore in the street ; the bishop
passed through, and as his entrance to the episcopal throne was
marked by blood and slaughter, so his future government of the
See was distinguished for vengeance and cruelty. In the first place,
he began to persecute the friends of Paul, his competitor in the
See ; he caused some of them to be publicly flogged, confiscated the
property of others, more he banished, and he marked his hatred of
one in particular by causing him to be branded on the forehead , to
stamp him through life with a mark of infamy. Several authors
even say that, after he had banished Paul from the See, he caused
him to be strangled at Cucusus, the place of his exile ( 1 ) .
70. His rage was not alone directed against the friends of Paul,
but against all who professed the faith of the Council of Nice ; the
wretch made use of atrocious torments to oblige them to receive
communion from him. He used, as Socrates informs us, to have
their mouths forced open with a wooden tongs, and the consecrated
particle forced on them, -a punishment greater than death to the
faithful. He used to take the children from their mothers , and
have them most cruelly flogged in their mothers' presence ; and the
mothers themselves he used to torture by squeezing both their
breasts under the lid of a heavy chest, and then caused them to be
cut off with a sharp razor, or burned them with red coals, or with

(1) Bernin. t. 1 ; Coc. l. 1, c. 25 ; Danæus & Theod.


96 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

red-hot balls, and left them to die in prolonged tortures. As if it


was not enough to torture and destroy the Catholics themselves in
this manner, he vented his rage on their churches, which he de-
stroyed to the very foundations, and the ruins he had scattered
abroad.
71. One would think that these sacrilegious excesses were quite
enough. But he was determined to do something more, and this
was the last act he was permitted to perform as bishop . He had
the audacity to disinter the body of Constantine, and transfer it
from one tomb to another ; but Constans could not stand this, so
he ignominiously deposed him from the bishopric. While he was
Bishop of Constantinople, he was only remarked for being a very
bad man, and a Semi-Arian ; but after his deposition , the diabolical
ambition seized him, of becoming great in impiety, and the chief
of a heresy ; so, in the year 360 , considering that preceding heresi-
archs had directed their attacks against the Father and the Son , he
determined to blaspheme the Third Person , the Holy Ghost. He,
therefore, denied that the Holy Ghost was God, and taught that
he was only a creature like the angels, but of a higher order.
72. Lambert Danæus says that Macedonius was deposed in the
year 360, and was exiled to a place called Pila, where, in his old
age, he paid the penalty of his crimes. But his heresy survived
him : he had many followers, and the chief among them was Maran-
tonius, Bishop of Nicomedia, and formerly his disciple, and , what
was remarkable, he was distinguished for the regularity of his life,
and was held in high esteem by the people. This heresy had
many adherents in the monasteries of Monks, and among the people
of Constantinople, but neither bishops nor churches till the reign
of Arcadius, in the Arian domination . The Macedonians were
principally scattered about Thrace, in Bithynia, along the Helles-
pont, and in all the cities of Cizica. They were, in general, people
of moral lives , and observers of almost monastic regularity ; they
were usually called Pneumatomachi, from the Greek word signify-
ing enemies ofthe Spirit (2)、
73. The Macedonian heresy was condemned in several particular
Councils. In the year 362, after the return of St. Athanasius, it
was condemned in the Council of Alexandria ; in 367 , in a Council
in Illyria ; and in 373 , in a Council held in Rome, by St. Damasus ,
for the condemnation of Apollinaris, whose heresy will be discussed
presently. In the year 381 , Macedonius was again condemned , in
the Council of Constantinople (the first Constantinopolitan) , and
though only an hundred and fifty bishops were present, and these
were all Orientals, this Council was recognized as a general one ,
by the authority of St. Damasus, and another Council of Bishops
assembled in Rome immediately after, in 382. N. Alexander says :

(2) N. Alex. Bernin. t. 1, &c.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 97

" This was a Council of the Oriental Church alone, and was only,
ex post facto, Ecumenical, inasmuch as the Western Church, con-
gregated in the Synod of Rome, under Pope Damasus, held the
same doctrine, and condemned the same heresy, as the Oriental
Church." And Graveson says : " This Council of Constantinople
was afterwards reckoned a general one, for Pope Damasus, and the
whole Church of the West, gave it this dignity and authority."
An anonymous author says the same thing (Auctor Lib. Apparat.
brev. ad Theol. & Jus Canon.) This Council is considered a
General one, because it followed in everything what was previously
defined in the Roman Council, to which the Eastern bishops were
convoked, by letters of St. Damasus, presented to the bishops
assembled in Constantinople, and what was decreed in that Coun-
cil was confirmed in the other Synod , held in Rome, in 382. The
Fathers of the Council wrote to St. Damasus, that he had, by his
fraternal charity, invited them, by letters of the Emperor, to assist
as members of the Council, to be held in Rome. The reader will
find in the third volume the refutation of the heresy of Macedonius.
74. In this Council of Constantinople , besides the condemnation
ofthe heresy of Macedonius, the heresies of Apollinaris and Euno-
mius were also condemned ; and Maximus Cinicus, who seized on
the See of Constantinople, was deposed , and St. Gregory of Nazian-
zen was confirmed in possession of it, but he, through love of peace,
afterwards resigned it, and Neptarius was chosen in his place by
the Council. Several canons, regarding the discipline of the
Church, were passed , and the Nicene Creed was confirmed by the
Council, and some few words were added to it concerning the mys
tery of the Incarnation , on account of the Apollinarists and other
heretics, and a more ample explanation of the article regarding the
Holy Ghost was added, on account of the heresies of the Mace-
donians, who denied his Divinity. The Nicene Creed says, ofthe
incarnation of Jesus Christ, these words alone : " Qui propter nos
homines, et propter nostram salutem descendit, et incarnatus est, et
homo factus. Passus est, et resurrexit tertia die ; et ascendit in
cælos ; et iterum venturus est judicare vivos, et mortuos ; et in
Spiritum Sanctum , &c." But the Symbol of Constantinople goes
on thus: " Descendit de cœlis , et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex
Maria Virgine, et homo factus est. Crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub
Pontio Pilato, passus, et sepultus est; tertia die resurrexit a mortuis
secundum Scripturas, &c. Et in Spiritum Sanctum Dominum et
vivificantem, ex Patre procedentem, et cum Patre et Filio adoran-
dum et conglorificandum qui locutus est per Prophetas, &c." (3).
Nicephorus (4) relates, that St. Gregory of Nyssa laid down the
declaration of the Council in these words : " Et in Spiritum Sanctum

(3) Cabassutius, Not. Concil. p. 136 ; Orsi, t. 8, l. 18, n. 71, & seq.; Fleury, l. 18, n.
1, & seq.; Nat. Alex. t. 1 , diss. 37, ar. 2. (4) Niceph. l. 12, c. 2.
G
98 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Dominum et vivificantem, ex Patre procedentem, cum Patre et


Filio coadorandum et conglorificandum, qui locutus est per Pro-
phetas" (Act. Conc. Const.) When this was read in the Council ,
all the bishops cried out : " This is the faith of all ; this is the
orthodox faith ; this we all believe" (5) .
75. We have now to speak of Apollinaris, who was condemned
in the same Council of Constantinople. He was Bishop of
Laodicea, and St. Jerome's master in sacred literature ; but he
broached another heresy, concerning the person of Jesus Christ.
His principal error, as Noel Alexander tells us, and on the authority
of St. Epiphanius, St. Leo, St. Augustin , and Socrates (6) , was,
that he supposed the human nature of Jesus Christ only half human
nature- he supposed that Christ had no soul , but that, in place of
one , the Word made flesh answered as a soul to his body. He
softened down this doctrine a little after, for then he admitted that
Christ was not without a soul altogether, for he possessed that part
of the sensitive soul, with which we see and feel in common with
all other sensitive beings ; but that he had not the reasoning part,
or the mind, and the Word , he said , supplied that in the Person of
Christ . This error is founded on the false philosophy of Plato, who
wished to establish in man three substances, to wit -the body, the
soul, and the mind .
76. The Apollinarists added three other errors ; First, that the
body of Christ, born of Mary, was consubstantial with the Divinity
of the Word, and hence it followed that the Divinity of the Word
was passible , and suffered , in reality, torments and death . Eranistes ,
an Apollinarist, contended that the Divine Nature suffered in the
flesh , just as the soul suffers, conjoined with the body, in the suffer-
ings of the body. But even in this illustration he was in error,
because the body without the soul is not capable of suffering, and,
when the body is hurt, it is the soul that suffers in reality, by the
communication it has with the body ; so that, according to their
system, the Divine Nature would suffer, if the flesh , supposed to be
consubstantial to the Divinity, was hurt. The second error was,
that the Divine Word did not take flesh from the Virgin, but
brought it down from heaven, and , on that account, they called the
Catholics, who believed that the body of Christ was taken from
Mary, Homicolists, and accused them of establishing, not a Trinity,
but a Quaternity, of Persons, because, besides the three Divine
Persons, they admitted a fourth substance, entirely distinct, Christ-
God, and Man. Thirdly-Thelast error was, that the Divine sub-
stance of the Word was converted into flesh ; but these three errors,
N. Alexander says, were not taught by Apollinaris, but by his
disciples (7) . Apollinaris erred also in the doctrine of the Trinity,

(5) Bernini, t. 1, p. 316. (6) Nat. t. 8, ar. 3, ex St. Ephiph. Her. 77 ; St. Leo,
Ser. de Nat. Dom.; St. Aug. de Her. c. 55 ; Socrat. l. 2, c. 36. (7) Nat. ibid.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 99

by teaching that there were different degrees of dignity in the


Trinity itself. He calls the Holy Ghost great, the Son greater, and
the Father greatest. He, likewise, taught the errors of the Mille-
narians, and said that the Jewish rites ought to be resumed (8 ) .
Fleury and Orsi, likewise, give an account of his heresy (9).
77. The heresy of Apollinaris, especially that part of it referring
to the Mystery of the Incarnation , was already condemned , in the
year 362, by St. Athanasius, in the Council of Alexandria ; it
was also condemned, in 373, by St. Damasus in the Roman
Council, and the same year Bernini tells us that Apollinaris died,
the laughing-stock of the people , even of the children (10) . An
author, quoted by St. Gregory of Nyssa ( 11 ) , relates, that Apol
linaris, being in his dotage, gave the book containing his doctrines
to a lady of Antioch, a disciple of his, to keep for him ; this came
to the knowledge of St. Ephraim the Syrian, who was then at
Antioch, and he borrowed the book for a few days, from the lady:
he took it home and pasted the leaves one to the other, so that
nothing could open them, folded up the book, and sent it back again
to the lady. Soon after this he had a Conference with Apollinaris,
and they began to dispute about the doctrines of his book, in pre-
sence of a great many persons. Apollinaris, weakened in his in-
tellect, on account of his great age, said that the answers to St.
Ephraim's arguments would be all found in his book, and he sent
to the lady for it ; but when he tried to open the first page he
found it pasted up, and the whole book just like a log of wood ; he
was so enraged that he dashed it violently to the ground and
trampled on it, and ran out of the place as fast as ever he could,
amid the laughter of the bystanders, who continued hooting after
him as long as he was in sight. It is said that the poor old man
took it so much to heart, that he fell sick and died . Finally, this
heresy was condemned in the Second General Council (the first of
Constantinople) , as appears in the Synodical letters : " Nos præterea
doctrinam Dominica Incarnationis integram & perfectam tenemus,
neque dispensationem carnis Christi vel animæ, vel mentis expertem ,
vel imperfectam esse asserimus ; sed agnoscimus Verbum Dei ante
secula omnino perfectum hominem in novissimis diebus pro nostra
salute factum esse" (12).
78. Among the followers of Apollinaris were the Antidico-
marianites or adversaries of Mary. These said, following Elvidius,
that she did not remain a virgin, but after the birth of Christ had
other children by St. Joseph. St. Epiphanius ( 13) , hearing that
this error was prevalent in Arabia, refuted it in a long letter directed
to all the faithful of that region. At the same time, and in the

(8) Nat. ibid. (9) Fleury, t. 3, l. 17, n. 2-25 ; Orsi, t. 7, l. 16, n. 115.
(10) Bernin. t. 2, s. 4, c. 8. (11 ) St. Greg. Niss. Serm. de St. Ephrem. ( 12) N.
Alex. t. 8, c. 3, a. 1481. (13) St. Epip. Her. 77 , n. 26 & 78.
100 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

same country, another error altogether opposed to this was broached,


that the Blessed Virgin was a sort of Deity. The followers of this
sect were called Collyridians ( 14), because they worshipped the
Virgin by offering her a certain sort of cakes called , in Greek,
Collyrides. This superstition came from Thrace and Upper
Sythica, and passed into Arabia. The women, especially, were
almost all followers of this sect. On certain fast days every year
they ornamented a car, and placed on it a square bench covered
with a cloth ; on this a loaf was placed , and, being offered to the
Virgin, was then divided among the worshippers. St. Epiphanius,
in combating this superstition , showed that women can never take
any part in the priesthood, and that the worship they offered to the
Virgin was idolatrous ; for, although the most perfect of all crea-
tures, she was still but a creature, and should not be honored like
God with that oblation (15).
79. Aerius was ambitious of becoming Bishop of Antioch, and
when Eustasius was elected to that See, he was devoured with envy.
Eustasius did all in his power to gratify him ; he ordained him
priest, gave him the government of his hospital, and when , with
all this, he could not prevent him from talking badly of him, he
admonished him , tried to gain him over by more kindness, then
threatened him, but all in vain. Aerius threw up the government
of the hospital, and began to teach his errors to a number of fol-
lowers, and when these were turned out not only of the churches ,
but even out of the towns and villages, they assembled in the woods
and caverns, and even in the open fields, though sometimes covered
with snow . This heresy sprung up in 370, but was never very
extensive . Aerius was an Arian all out ; but he added other errors
of his own to the pre-existing heresy. These can be easily reduced
to three heads : First-That there is no difference beween priests
and bishops ; Second- That prayers for the dead are useless ; and ,
Third-That the observance of fasts and festivals, even of Easter,
is only a Jewish rite , and useless ( 16 ) .
80. The fourth century was also infested by the Messalians ;
these were wandering monks, who professed to abandon the world ,
though they were not properly monks at all. They were called
Messalinians , or Messalians, from a Syriac word signifying prayer,
and the Greeks called them Euchitians, for the same reason ; they
said that the whole essence of religion consisted in prayer (17) .
They were of two classes : the most ancient were Pagans, and had
no connexion with Christians or Jews ; they believed in a plurality
of Gods, though they adored but one alone, whom they called
the Almighty. It is supposed that these were the people called
Hypsisteri, or adorers, of the Most High ( 18). Their oratories
(14) St. Epip. Her. 79. ( 15) Fleury, t. 3, l. 17, n. 26 ; Orsi, t. 7, l. 7 , n. 50.
(16) Nat. Alex. t. 8, c. 3, art. 15 ; Fleury, t. 3, l. 19, n. 36. (17) St. Epip. Her.
88, n. 1. (18) Supplem. t. 11 , n. 30.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 101

were large buildings , surrounded with porticos, but open to the


sky ; and they assembled there morning and evening, and, by the
light of numerous lamps, sang hymns of praise to God, and they
were called by the Greeks, Eusemites on that account (19) . Those
who called themselves Christians began to appear about the reign
of Constans, but their origin is doubtful ; they came from Mesopo-
tamia, but they were established in Antioch, in 376, when St.
Epiphanius wrote his Treatise on Heresies. St. Epiphanius says,
that they took in too literal a sense the command of Jesus Christ ,
to leave everything and follow him , and they literally observed it ;
but they led an idle, vagabond life, begging and living in common,
both men and women, so that, in the summer time, they used even
to sleep together in the streets. They refused to do work of any
kind, as they considered it wicked ; they never fasted, and used to
eat at an early hour in the morning-a practice totally opposed to
the Oriental manner of fasting (20).
81. The following errors were taught and practised by them (21 ) ;
they said that every man had, from his birth, a devil attached to
him, who prompted him to all evil, and that the only remedy
against him was prayer, which banished the devil, and destroyed
the root of sin. They looked on the sacraments with indifference ,
and said the Eucharist did neither good nor harm, and that baptism
takes away sin, just like a razor, which leaves the roots . They
said the domestic devil is expelled by spitting and blowing the
nose, and when they purified themselves in this manner, that they
saw a sow and a number of little pigs come out of their mouths ,
and a fire that did not burn, enter into them (22) . Their princi-
pal error consisted in taking the precept, to pray continually, in
the literal sense ; they did so to excess, and it was the parent of a
thousand follies in this case ; they slept the greater part of the day ,
and then began to say they had revelations, and prophesied things
which never happened. They boasted that they saw the Trinity
with the eyes of the flesh, and that they visibly received the Holy
Ghost ; they did very extraordinary things while praying ; they
would frequently jump forward with violence, and then say that
they were dancing on the devil, and this folly became so glaring
that they acquired the name of the Enthusiasts (23) . They said
that man's science and virtue could be made equal to that of God,
so that those who once arrived at perfection, never could afterwards
sin, even through ignorance. They never formed a separate com-
munity from the faithful, always denying their heresy, and con-
demning it as strongly as any one else, when they were convicted
of it. Their founder was Adelphius, a native of Mesopotamia, and
from him they were called Adelphians. The Messalians were con-

(19) St. Epiph. n. 3. (20) Theod. t. 4, c. 11. (21) Theod. Her. Fab. l. 4, c. 2 ;
Nat. Alex. t. 8, c. 3, act 16 ; Fleury, t. 3, l. 19, n. 35. (22) St. Aug. Her. l. 5, c. 7.
(23) St. Epip. Her. n. 3.
102 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

demned in a council, held in 387 , by Flavian , Bishop of Antioch,


and also in another council, held about the same time by St. Am-
philochius, Bishop of Iconium, the Metropolis of Pamphilia (24).
They were finally condemned in the first Council of Ephesus,
especially in the seventh session, and they were proscribed by the
Emperor Theodosius, in the year 428. It was a long time before
this heresy was finally extinct in the East, and in 1018, during the
reign of the Emperor Alexius Comnenus, another heresy sprung
out of it, the followers of which were called Bonomilists, which
signifies, in the Bulgarian language, the beloved of God. Their
founder was Basil, a physician, or monk, who, after practising his
errors for fifty-two years, and deluding a great number, was burned
alive, with all his followers, by order of the Emperor. This unfor-
tunate man promulgated many blasphemous opinions, principally
taken from the Messalians and Manicheans ; he said that we should
use no prayer, except the " Our Father," and rejected every other
prayer but that which, he said , was the true Eucharist ; that we
ought to pray to the devil even , that he might not injure us, and
that we should never pray in churches, for our Lord says : " When
you pray, enter into your chamber ;" he denied the books of Moses,
and the existence of the Trinity, and it was not, he said , the Son
of God, who became incarnate, but the Archangel Michael. He
published many other like opinions, so that there is little doubt
but that he lost, not alone the faith, but his senses likewise (25) .
82. About the year 380, the heresy of the Priscillianists first
appeared in the East. The founder of this sect was an Egyptian
of Memphis, of the name of Mark ; he went to Spain, and his first
disciples were, a lady of the name of Agapa, and Elpidius, a rhe-
torician, invited to join him by the lady. These two next wheedled
Priscillian to join them, and from him the sect took its name.
Priscillian was both noble and rich ; he had a great facility of
speech, but was unsettled, vain, and proud of his knowledge of
profane literature . By his affable manners he gained a great num-
ber of followers, both noble and plebeian, and had a great number
of women, especially, adherents, and soon the heresy spread like a
plague over great part of Spain, and even some bishops, as Instan-
tius and Salvianus, were infected by it. The foundation of this
doctrine was Manicheism, but mixed up with the Gnostic, and
other heresies. The soul , they said, was of the substance of God
himself, and of its own will came on earth, passing through the
seven heavens, to combat the evil principle, which was sown in the
body of the flesh . They taught that we depended altogether on
the stars, which decided our fate, and that our bodies depended on
the signs of the zodiac, the ram presiding over the head, the bull

(24) Fleury, t. 3, l. 19, n. 25 ; Nat. Alex. t. 8, c. 3, ar. 16 ; Orsi, t. 8 , l. 12, n. 78.


(25) Graveson, Hist. Eccl. t. 3, col. 2 ; Nat. Alex. t. 8, c. 4, ar. 5 ; Gotti. Ver. Rel. t. 2,
c. 88, s. 2 ; Van Ranst, Hist. sec. xii. p. 195 ; Bernini, t. 2, c. 1.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 103

over the neck, the twins over the back, and so on with the re-
mainder of the Twelve Signs. They made merely a verbal pro-
fession of the doctrine of the Trinity, but they believed , with
Sabellius, that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, were
one and the same thing, and that there was no real distinction of
persons. They did not reject the Old Testament, like the Mani-
cheans, but they explained everything in it allegorically, and they
added many apocryphal books to the canonical ones. They abstained
from meat, as an unclean thing, and separated married people, not-
withstanding the repugnance manifested by those who were not
followers of their sect, and this they did through hatred of pro-
creation ; for the flesh , they said, was not the work of God, but of
the devil ; but they used to assemble by night for prayer, and the
lights being extinguished , indulged in revolting and promiscuous
licentiousness ; however, they denied all this when caught, and
they taught their followers to practise the doctrine contained in
the Latin distich : " Jura perjura, secretum prodere noli ” —“ Swear
away, but never tell the secret." They used to fast on every Sun-
day, and even on Easter Sunday and Christmas-day, and on these
days they used to hide themselves, and not appear at church ; their
reason for this conduct was their hatred of the flesh, as they believed
that Christ was not really born or arose in the flesh, but only in
appearance. They used to receive the Eucharist in the church,
like other Christians, but they did not consume the species. They
were condemned in the Council of Saragossa, by St. Damasus, and
in several particular synods. Finally, Priscillian was condemned
to death, at the instance of Ithacius, Bishop of Ossobona, in the
year 383, by Evodius, appointed Prefect of the Pretorium by the
tyrant Maximus (26) .
83. St. Augustin (27) speaks of some heretics who lived about
this time, and always went barefooted , and taught that all Chris-
tians were bound to do likewise ( 28 ) .
84. Audæus, chief of the Audæans, was born in Mesopotamia,
and was at first a man of exemplary life , and a strict observer of
ecclesiastical discipline, but afterwards separated from the Church,
and became founder of a sect. He celebrated Easter after the
Jewish rite, and said that man was like to God corporeally ; inter-
preting, in the plainest literal sense, that passage of Genesis, where
the Lord says : " Let us make man in our own image and likeness ;"
and he and his followers were Antropomorphites. Noel Alexander
says that the only error of the Audæans was in separating them-
selves from the Church, but as for the rest, they never deviated .
from the faith ; but Petavius (29 ) , and others, attribute to them the

(26) Nat. Alex. t. 8, c. 3 , ar. 17 ; Fleury, t. 3, l. 17 , n. 56, & l. 18, n. 30 ; Orsi, t. 8,


7. 18, n. 44 & 100. (27) St. Augus. I. de Her. c. 68. (28) Nat. Alex. ibid. ar. 20.
(29) App. Roncag. Nota, ad N. Alex. t. 8, c. 3, ar. 9 ; Diz. Portat. t. 1, Ver. Audæo ;
Berti, t. 1, sec. 4, c. 3.
104 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

errors of the Antropomorphites , since they attributed to God , lite-


rally, the corporeal members the Scripture mystically speaks of.
He also taught some errors concerning the administration of the
sacrament of penance, and died in the country of the Goths, in
370 (30).

CHAPTER V.

HERESIES OF THE FIFTH CENTURY.

ARTICLE I.

THE HERESIES OF ELVIDIUS , JOVINIANUS, AND VIGILANTIUS.

1. Heresy of Elvidius. 2. Errors of Jovinian. 3. Adverse Opinions of Basnage re-


futed. 4. Vigilantius and his Errors.

1. ELVIDIUS was a disciple of the Arian Ausentius, who was in-


truded into the See of Milan by the Emperor Constans , when he
banished St. Dionisius. St. Jerome says he was a turbulent cha-
racter, both as priest and layman ; but, notwithstanding this high
authority, it is doubtful whether he ever was a priest, because, as
Noel Alexander says, he was a poor peasant, who scarcely knew
his letters. He began to disseminate his heretical doctrines in the
year 382. He said that the Blessed Virgin had other children by
St. Joseph, besides our Lord, and he relied on the authority of
Tertullian for this blasphemy ; but St. Jerome proves that Ter-
tullian never held such doctrine. St. Ambrose, St. Epiphanius,
and especially St. Jerome refuted the errors of Elvidius. He drew
three arguments from the Scriptures in support of his heresy :
First. That text of St. Matthew: " Before they came together
she was found with child of the Holy Ghost" (Matt. i. 18) . He ,
therefore, argued, as the text says " before they came together," it
is a proof that they afterwards did so . Next he adduced the twenty-
fifth verse of the same chapter : " And he knew her not until she
brought forth her first-born son." Therefore, he argues he knew
her after. St. Jerome, in his answer, says : " Should I grieve or
smile at this folly ?" He then asks, in derision : If any one should
say that Elvidius was seized on by death before he did penance, is
that a proof that he did penance after death ? He then brings
other texts of Scripture to refute him. Our Lord says to his apostles,
" Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the
world" (Matt. xxviii. 20) ; does that prove, says St. Jerome, that
Jesus Christ will not be with his elect any more after the end of

(30) Nat. Alex. loc. cit.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 105

the world ? St. Paul says of Christ, " For he must reign until he
hath put all his enemies under his feet" (Cor. xv. 25) ; so, when
our Lord has conquered his enemies, he will reign no longer. In
the book of Genesis it is said of the crow that left the ark,
" That it did not return till the waters were dried up" (Gen. viii. 7) ;
does it then follow that it returned to the ark when the waters were
dried up ? Away, then, with arguments of this sort, says St.
Jerome (1 ) ; the Scripture here tells, not what was done, but what
was not done- not what took place, but what did not. The second
proof Elvidius adduces is taken from the text already mentioned
( Matt. i. 25) : " She brought forth her first-born son ;" therefore,
if he was her first-born , she must have had others after. St. Jerome
answers this : The Lord commanded, that for every first-born a
certain ransom should be paid a month after the birth (Numbers,
xviii. 15 , 16 ). Here, then, says St. Jerome, according to Elvidius,
one might say : " How can I be obliged to pay a price for my first-
born after a month ; how can I tell whether I shall ever have a
second ? I must wait till a second is born to me, and then I can
pay for the first-born." But the Scripture says itself, that the first-
born is that which first " openeth the womb." The same is declared
in Exodus, where it says : " The Lord slew every first-born in the
land of Egypt" (Exod . xii. 29 ) . Here there is no doubt, but that
the text speaks of only-born as well as first-born. His third argu-
ment is from the text of St. Luke ( viii, 19) : " His mother and
brethren came to him." Therefore, he had brothers ; but St. Jerome
proves, from a great many passages in the Scriptures, that first-
cousins are also called brothers, and the brothers referred to in that
text are St. James and St. John, the children of the other Mary,
the sister of the Mother of God.
2. Jovinian shall now occupy our attention. He was a monk in
Milan ; and after spending the early years of his life in the austere
practices of monastic life -fasting on bread and water, going bare-
footed, and labouring with his hands-he forsook his monastery ,
and went to Rome, where , as St. Ambrose (2) informs us, he began
to disseminate his errors. After falling into this impiety he aban-
doned his mortified manner of living-went shod, and clothed in
silk and linen garments- nourished and dressed his hair-frequented
taverns, and indulged in play, banquets, delicate dishes, and ex-
quisite wines- and still professed all along to be a monk, and led a
life of celibacy, to avoid the responsibility of marriage. Preach-
ing a doctrine pleasing to the senses, he soon had many followers
of both sexes in Rome, who, having previously led chaste and mor-
tified lives, now abandoned themselves to luxury, and got married.
Jovinian was first condemned by Pope Siricus, in a Council, held
in Rome, in the year 390 , and soon after, in another Council, held

(1) St. Hieron. l. 1 , Comment. in cap. ii, Matt. (2) St. Ambrose, Ep. 41 , n. 9.
106 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

by St. Ambrose, in Milan . In the end he was exiled by the Ein-


peror Theodosius, and afterwards by Honorius, to Boas, a maritime
town of Dalmatia, and died there in misery , in the year 412 (3 ) .
He taught many errors : First, that marriage and virginity were
equally meritorious ; secondly, that those once baptized can sin no
more ; thirdly, that those who fast and those who eat have equal
merit, if they praise God ; fourthly, that all have an equal reward
in heaven ; fifthly, that all sins are equal ; sixthly, that the Blessed
Virgin was not a virgin after giving birth to our Lord (4). This
last error was followed by Hinckmar, Wickliffe, Bucer, Peter
Martyr, Molineus, and Basnage (5), but has been ably refuted by
St. Jerome, and condemned in a Synod by St. Ambrose . Petavius
says, that all the Fathers unanimously profess the belief in the vir-
ginity of the Blessed Virgin, as fixed by a decree of the Catholic
faith. St. Gregory says, that, as Jesus Christ entered into the
house, where the apostles were assembled , with the doors shut, in
the same manner, at his nativity, he left the inviolated cloister of
Mary. The letter of Theodotus of Ancira was approved of by the
General Council of Ephesus, in which, speaking of the Blessed
Virgin, he says : the birth of Jesus Christ makes her a mother
without injury to her virginity. The third canon of the Lateran
Council, celebrated in the year 649 , under Martin I., says : that he
should be condemned , who does not confess that the Mother of
God was always a virgin. A similar declaration was made in the
Council of Trullus, in 692 , and in the eleventh Council of Toledo ,
in 675 (6). He was also condemned by St. Gregory of Nyssa, St.
Isidore Pelusiot, St. Proclus, St. John Chrysostom, St. John Da-
mascenus, St. Augustin , St. Ambrose, St. Siricus Pope (who excom-
municated him and his followers, in a synod held in Rome) , St. Peter
Chrysologus, St. Hilary, St. Prosper, St. Fulgentius, St. Eucherius,
St. Paulinus, St. Anselm, St. Bernard, St. Peter Damian, and many
others ; and any one who wishes to see the opinions expressed by
the Fathers , has only to look to Petavius's Theology (7) . The text
of Ezechiel : " This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened,"
(Ezechiel, xliv. 2), is generally understood to refer to the per-
petual virginity of the Mother of God, and St. Leo ( 8) , Pope Hor-
misdas, Pelagius I., and the Council of Chalcedon, in the discourse
addressed to the Emperor Marcion, all understood it thus.
3. Let us now hear what Basnage, and the heretics who hold
the contrary opinion , have to say. Their first argument is founded
on that text of Isaias : " Behold a virgin shall conceive , and shall
bring forth a son" ( Isaias, vii. 14), which St. Matthew, speaking of
the Incarnation ofthe Divine Word, quotes (Matthew, i. 13). Bas-
nage then argues on this text : The prophet says, that Mary con-

(3) Nat. Alex. t. 8, c. 3, ar. 19 ; Orsi, t. 9, l. 20 , n. 27 ; Fleury, t. 3, l. 19.


(4) Nat. Alex. t. 8, ar. 19. (5) Basnage, ad an. 5, ante Dom. n. 25. (6) Col.
Con. t. 1 , col. t. 10, col. 1151. (7) Petav. Theol. Dog. 6, l. 14 , c. 3. (8) St. Leo, Epist .
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 107

ceived as a virgin ; but he does not say that she brought forth her
son as a virgin. But what sort of argument is this ? Because the
text does not say that she was a virgin in the birth ofher son, there-
fore, it is a proof that she did not bring him forth a virgin ; whereas,
the universal tradition of the Church, as we have seen, explains the
text in its true sense, that she conceived a virgin, and brought forth
our Lord a virgin. Basnage brings forth another argument, which
he deems unanswerable. We read in St. Luke , he says : " After
the days of her purification , according to the law of Moses , were
accomplished, they carried him to Jerusalem, to present him to the
Lord : as it is written in the law of the Lord, every male opening
the womb shall be called holy to the Lord" (Luke, ii . 22 ) . Now,
says Basnage (and it is worthy of remark, with what temerity he
threw overboard the doctrine of the Fathers, as opposed to Scrip-
ture, and the opinion of the learned), the opinion of the perpetual
virginity of the Mother of God is generally held , and still it is op-
posed, both to Scripture and the opinions of the ancients. The
narrative of St. Luke is quite plain : " When the days of her puri-
fication, &c." Mary was then subjected to the usual law of women
after birth , not alone to avoid scandal, but as a matter of duty ; and
she was compelled, by the general discipline of the law, to offer a
sacrifice for her purification. The days of her purification could
not be accomplished if she had no necessity of purification. All
his argument, then , is reduced to this, that Mary ought not to fulfil
the days of her purification, ifthere was no necessity of purification ;
and, for all that, she was obliged (coacta sit) to fulfil the rite. This
argument he took from Origen (9 ) ; but, as the Fathers of St. Maur
say, truly, this was a blasphemy uttered by that Father ( 10 ) ; and
justly, for all the Fathers have said with St. Basil ( 11 ), this virgin
never was obliged to the law of purification ; and this is clear, says
the Saint, from the Scriptures ; for in Leviticus, xii . 2 , it is clearly
proved that this law applies to ordinary mothers, but not to one
who conceived by the Holy Ghost. " Scriptum est enim ," says
the holy Father, " mulier quæ conceperit semen, et peperit mas-
culum, immunda erit septem diebus ; hæc autem cum facta sit
Emmanuelis Mater sine semine, pura, et intemerata est ; imo post-
quam effecta est Mater, adhuc virgo permansit." Even Melancthon,
Agricola, and the other Lutherans, as we read in Canisius ( 12 ), all
say Mary had no necessity of purification . St. Cyril of Alexandria,
the same author states, teaches that to assert the contrary is rank
heresy. With all that, Basnage is not convinced , and he quotes a
passage of St. Fulgentius, where he says : " Vulvam Matris Omni-
potentia Filii nascentis aperuit. " But we have another passage, in
St. Fulgentius himself, in which he declares that the Mother of

(9) Origen, Hom. 14, in Luc. (10) Patres. S. Maur. apud S. Hieron. t. 7, p. 285.
(11 ) St. Basil, in cap. 7 ; Isa. n. 201. (12) Canis. l. 4, c. 10 , de Virg. Deip.
108 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Christ was the only one who remained immaculate after giving birth
to a son ( 13 ) . But how are we then to understand " he opened
the womb ?"-this is to be understood, as St. Gregory of Nyssa ex-
plains it ( 14 ) : " Solus ille haud ante patefactam virginalem aperuit
vulvam ;" that he preserved the virginity of his holy Mother. This
is what St. Ambrose likewise says : " Hic ( Christus ) solus aperuit
sibi vulvam” ( 15 ) . And treating ofthe Mysteries against Jovinian,
he says: " Why do you seek the order of nature in the body of
Christ, when setting aside the order of nature, he was born of a
virgin ?" Basnage lauds St. Jerome as being of his opinion ; but
the passage he adduces is not to be found in St. Jerome's writings ;
besides, St. Jerome ( 16) says, in his Dialogues : " Christ alone
opened the closed doors of the virginal womb, which , nevertheless ,
remained ever and always closed ; " so that the very Fathers Basnage
quotes in his favour, most expressly condemn the impious error he
attempts to defend.
4. Vigilantius was a native of Comminges, near the foot of the
Pyrenees, and of very low origin, having been a tavern-keeper for
some time ; somehow or other, he found leisure to study, and lead
a pious life at the same time, so that he acquired the friendship of
St. Paulinus, of Nola, who gave him a letter of recommendation to
St. Jerome, and he undertook a journey to the Holy Land . This
letter was so far useful to him, that St. Jerome , who knew him to
be a man of relaxed morals, did not treat him as his hypocrisy
deserved (17) . He had the audacity to treat St. Jerome as a here-
tic, of the sect of Origen , because he saw him reading Origen's
work ; but the Saint, in the year 397 , wrote to him ( 18), that he
read these works, not to follow all their doctrine, but to take what-
ever was good out of them, and he exhorts him either to learn or
be silent. Some years after, about the year 404, Riparius, a priest,
wrote to St. Jerome, that Vigilantius began to dogmatize, speaking
against the Relics of Martyrs and Vigils in churches . St. Jerome
gave a summary answer, and promised to return again to the sub-
ject, and treat it more amply, when he would have read Vigilantius'
work (19) ; and having soon after seen the production, be gave it
a short but strong answer, because the monk Sisinius , who brought
it to him, was in a hurry to return to Egypt ( 20) . The following
are the errors of Vigilantius, refuted by St. Jerome. First.- Like
Jovinian, he condemned the practice of celibacy. Second. - He
condemned the veneration of the relics of the martyrs ; and called
those who honoured them Cinerists and idolaters. Third.- He said
it was a pagan superstition to light candles by day in their honor.
Fourth. He maintained that the faithful after death could no lon-

(13) St. Fulgent. l. 1 , de vere Protest. n. 5. (14) St. Greg. Nys. Orat. de Occursu.
(15) St. Ambrose, l. 2, in Luc. n. 57. (16) St. Jerome, l. 2, Dial. contra Pelag. n. 4.
(17) St. Hier. Epis. 61. (18) St. Hier. Epis. 75. (19) Idem. Epis. ad Ripar. 55.
(20, St. Hier. l. con. Vigilan. c. 2.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 109

ger pray for one another, and he founded this opinion on the
apocryphal book of Esdras. Fifth .- He condemned public Vigils
in the churches. Sixth.- He reprobated the custom of sending
alms to Jerusalem . Seventh .- He totally condemned monastic life,
and said that it was only making ourselves useless to our neighbours,
if we embraced it. This sect was not condemned by any council,
it had but few followers, and soon became extinct (21 ) .

ARTICLE II.

ON THE HERESY OF PELAGIUS .


3. Origin of the Heresy of Pelagius. 6. His Errors and Subterfuges. 7. Celestius
and his Condemnation. 8. Perversity of Pelagius. 9. Council of Diospolis.
10 & 11. He is condemned by St. Innocent, Pope. 12. Again condemned by Sozy-
mus. 13. Julian, a follower of Pelagius. 14. Semi-Pelagians. 15. Predestination.
16 & 17. Godeschalcus.

5. PELAGIUS was born in Great Britain , and his parents were so


poor, that in his youth he scarcely received any instruction in
letters ; he became a monk, but nothing more than a mere lay
monk, and that was all the dignity he ever arrived at. He lived a
long time in Rome, and was respected for his virtues by very many
persons ; he was loved by St. Paulinus ( 1 ) ; and esteemed by St.
Augustin. He was looked on as a learned man , as he composed
some useful books ( 2 ) , to wit, three books on the Trinity, and a col-
lection of passages of the Scripture on Christian Morality. He,
unhappily, however, fell into heresy, while he sojourned at Rome,
in regard to grace : and he took his doctrines from a Syrian priest,
called Rufinus, (not Rufinus of Aquilea who disputed with St.
Jerome). This error was already spread through the East (3) ; for
Theodore, Bishop of Mopsuestia , had already taught the same errors
as Pelagius ; and deduced them from the same sources, the principles
of Origen (4). This Rufinus, then coming to Rome, about the year
400 , in the reign of Pope Anastasius, was the first introducer
there of that heresy ; but, as he was a cautious man , he did not
publicly promulgate it himself, not to bring himself into trouble,
but availed himself of Pelagius, who, about the year 405, began
to dispute against the Grace of Jesus Christ. One day in par-
ticular, a bishop having quoted the words of St. Augustin, in
his Confessions : " Lord, grant us what thou orderest, and order
what thou wishest : " Pelagius could not contain himself, and in-
veighed against the author. He concealed his errors for a time,
however, and only communicated them to his disciples to see how
they would be received , and to approve or reject them afterwards,
(21 ) Fleury, t. 3, l. 22, n. 5 ; Orsi, t. 10, l. 25, n. 62 ; Nat. Alex. t. 10, c. 3, art. 1 ;
Dict. Portatif. 4, ver. Vigilan. ( 1) St. Aug. de Gestis Pelagian. c. 52. (2 ) Gennad
de Scriptur. c. 42. (3) Orsi, t. 11 , l. 25, n. 42 ; Fleury, t. 4 , l. 23, Nos. 1 & 2.
(4) Orsi, ibid.
110 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

as suited his convenience (5). He afterwards became himself the


disseminator of his heresy. We shall now review his errors.
6. The errors of Pelagius were the following : First.- That
Adam and Eve were created mortal, and that their sin only hurt
themselves, and not their posterity. Second.- Infants are
born in the same state that Adam was before his fall. Third.-
Children dying without baptism , do not indeed go to heaven, but
they possess eternal life. Such, St. Augustin testifies, were the
errors of Pelagius (6). The principal error of Pelagius and his
followers was, concerning Grace and Free-Will , for he asserted ,
that man, by the natural force of his free-will, could fulfil all the
Divine precepts, conquer all temptations and passions, and arrive
at perfection without the assistance of grace (7). When he first
began to disseminate this pernicious error, which saps the whole
system of our Faith, St. Augustin says, that the Catholics were
horrified, and loudly exclaimed against him, so he and his disci-
ples searched every way, for a loop-hole to escape from the conse-
quences, and to mitigate the horror excited by so dreadful a
blasphemy. The first subterfuge was this : Pelagius said that he
did not deny the necessity of Grace, but that Grace was Free-Will
itself, granted gratuitously by God, to men , without any merit on
their part. These are his words, quoted by St. Augustin ( 8) :
" Free-Will is sufficient that I may be just, I say not without
Grace ;" but the Catholics said, that it was necessary to distinguish
between Grace and Free-Will . To this Pelagius answered (and
here is the second subterfuge) , that by the name of Grace is under-
stood the law or doctrine by which the Lord gave us the Grace to
teach us how we are to live. " They say," St. Augustin
writes (9) , " God created man with Free-Will, and giving him
precepts, teaches him how he should live, and in that assists
him, inasmuch, as by teaching him, he removes ignorance." But
the Catholics answered, that if Grace consisted in the Law alone
given to man, the Passion of Jesus Christ would be useless. The
Pelagians answered, that the Grace of Christ consisted in giving
us the good example of his life, that we might imitate him; (and
this was the third subterfuge, ) and as Adam injured us by bad
example, so our Saviour assisted us by his good example. Christ
affords a help to us, not to sin, since he left us an example by liv-
ing holily (10 ) ; but this example given by Christ, St. Augustin
answers, was not distinct from his doctrine, for our Lord taught
both by precept and example. The Pelagians seeing that their
position regarding these three points was untenable, added a fourth
subterfuge, that was, the fourth species ofgrace-the grace of the

(5) Fleury, ibid. n. 1 , ex Mereat. (6) St. Aug. de Gestis Pelagian. c. 34 & 35.
(7) Nat. Alex. t. 10, c. 3. art. 3 ; St. Fleury, . e. n. 48 ; Tournelly, Comp. Theolog.
t. 5, pt. 1, Disp. 1, a. 3. (8) St. August. Serm. 26, al. 11, de Verb. Apost. (9) Idem.
1. de Spir. & littas. c. 2. (10) Apud St. Augus. 7. de Gratia Christi, c. 2.
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 111

remission of sins. They say, says St. Augustin (11 ) , that the Grace
of God is only valuable for the remission of sins, and not for avoid-
ing future ones : and they say, therefore, the coming of Jesus
Christ is not without its utility, since the grace of pardon is of
value for the remission of past sins, and the example of Christ for
avoiding future ones. The fifth subterfuge of the Pelagians was
this : They admitted , as St. Augustin ( 12) tells us, the internal
grace of illustration ; but we should admit, with the holy doctor,
that they admitted this illustration , solely ex parte objecti, that is,
the internal grace to know the value of good and the deformity of
bad works, but not ex parte intellectus, so that this grace would
give a man strength to embrace the good and avoid the evil. We
now come to the sixth and last shift : He finally admitted internal
grace, not only on the part of the object, but on the part of human
ability, strengthened by grace to do well ; but he did not admit it
as necessary according to our belief, but only as useful to accom-
plish more easily what is good, as St. Augustin explains it (13) .
Pelagius asserts, that Grace is given to us, that what is commanded
to us by God should be more easily accomplished ; but Faith
teaches us that Grace is not only useful, but absolutely necessary to
do good and avoid evil.
7. The Pelagian heresy was very widely extended in a little
time. His chief disciple was Celestius, a man of noble family, and
a eunuch from his birth. He practised as a lawyer for a time, and
then went into a monastery ; he then became a disciple of Pelagius,
and began to deny Original Sin . Pelagius was reserved, but
Celestius was free-spoken and ardent. They both left Rome a
little before it was taken by the Goths, in 409. They went
together, it is believed , first to Sicily, and afterwards to Africa,
where Celestius thought to get himself ordained priest, in Car-
thage ; but when the heresy he was teaching was discovered, he
was condemned, and excommunicated by the Bishop Aurelius, and
a Council summoned by him, in Carthage ; he appealed from the
Council to the Apostolic See, but, instead of going to Rome to
prosecute his appeal, he went to Ephesus, where he was raised to
the priesthood without sufficient caution ; but when his heresy
became manifest, he was banished from the city with all his follow-
ers ( 14). Notwithstanding all this, after the lapse of five years, he
went to Rome to prosecute the appeal, but he was then condemned
again, as we shall now see.
8. Pelagius, instead of repenting after the condemnation of Ce-
lestius, only became more obstinate in his errors, and began to teach
them more openly. About this time the noble virgin , Demetriades,
of the ancient Roman family of the Anicii , put into execution a
(11) St. Augns. de Gratia Christi. s. lib. arb. c. 13. (12) Idem. lib. de Gratia, cap.
7 & 10. (13) St. Augus. de Gratia Christi, c. 26. (14) Orsi, t. 11 , l. 25, n. 44 ;
Fleury, 1. 3, n. 3.
112 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

glorious resolution she had made. She had taken refuge in Africa
when the Goths desolated Rome, and when her parents were about
to marry her to a nobleman, she forsook the world, and, clothing
herself in mean garments, as St. Jerome ( 15 ) tells us, consecrated
her virginity to Christ. St. Jerome, St. Augustin, and even the
Pope St. Innocent, congratulated this devout lady on the good
choice she made . Pelagius also wrote a letter to her, in which ,
while he praises her, he endeavours to insinuate his poison. He
used these words : In hic merito cæteris præferenda es, quæ nisi ex
te, et in te esse non possunt ( 16 ) . St. Augustin at once recognized
the poison disseminated in this letter, and, explaining the words,
Nisi ex te et in te, he says, as far as the second expression , Nisi in
te ( 17) , it is very well said ; but all the poison is in the first part,
he says, Nisi ex te, for the error of Pelagius is, that all that man
does of good he does altogether of himself, without the assistance
of grace. At the same time, when St. Jerome got notice of this
letter of Pelagius , he also wrote to the lady ( 18), cautioning her
against his doctrine, and from that out began to combat his heresy
in several books, and especially in that of " The Dialogue of Atticus
and Critobulus." St. Augustin likewise never ceased for ten years
to combat the errors of Pelagius ; and his books, " De Natura et
Gratia," " De Gratia Christi," " De Peccato Originali ," &c. , prove
how successfully he refuted them.
9. When Pelagius saw that he was not cordially received in
Africa, he went to Palestine, where John , Bishop of Jerusalem, re-
ceived him ; and in a Council held with his clergy, instead of con-
demning him, as he ought, he only imposed silence on both par-
ties (19) . In the year 415 , a council of fourteen bishops was held in
Diospolis, a city of Palestine ; and here Pelagius , as Cardinal Ba-
ronius (20) tells us, induced the bishops to agree to the following
propositions, all Catholic, indeed, and opposed to the errors pro-
mulgated by him and Celestius : First.-Adam would not have
died had he not sinned . Second .- The sin of Adam is transfused
into the whole human race. Third. - Infants are not such as Adam
was previous to his fault. Fourth.-As in Adam all die, according
to the Apostle, so in Christ all will be vivified . Fifth .-Unbaptized
infants cannot obtain eternal life. Sixth. - God gives us assistance
to do good, according to St. Paul ( 1 Tim. vi. 17) . Seventh.- It is
God that gives us grace to do every good work, and this grace is
not given to us according to our merits. Eighth.- Grace comes to
us, given gratuitously by God, according to his mercy. Ninth.—
The children of God are those who daily say, " forgive us our sins,"
which we could not say if we were entirely without sin. Tenth.—
Free-will exists, but it must be assisted by Divine help . Eleventh .
(15) St. Hier. Ep. 8, ad Demetr. ( 16) Apud St. Augus. Ep. 143. (17) St. Aug.
ibid. (18) St. Hier. Ep. 8, ad Demetr. (19) Orsi, t. 25, n. 111 ; Fleury, l. 23,
n. 18, & seq. (20) Baron. Ann. a. 415, n. 23.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 113

-The victory over temptations does not come from our own will ,
but from the grace of God. Twelfth. The pardon of sins is not
given according to the merits of those who ask it, but according to
the Divine Mercy. Pelagius confessed all these truths, and the
council of bishops, deceived by his hypocrisy, admitted him to the
communion of the Church (21) ; but in this they acted imprudently,
for, although his errors were condemned , he was personally justi-
fied, which gave him a far greater facility of disseminating his
errors afterwards, and, on this account, St. Jerome , speaking of this
Synod, calls it a miserable one (22) , and St. Innocent the Pope
refused to admit him to his communion , although he was informed
of the retraction of his errors in that Synod, for he truly suspected
that his confession was only feigned . The subsequent conduct of
Pelagius proved the penetration of the holy Pontiff, for, as soon as
he was freed from the obedience of those bishops, he returned to
his vomit, and rejected the truths he had then professed , and
especially on the point of grace, as St. Augustin remarks ( 23 ) , he
said , that Divine grace was necessary to do what was right more
easily , but the good depended directly on our own free will , and this
grace he called the grace of possibility. St. Augustin ( 24 ) , writing
against this false novelty, indites this great sentence : " God, by co-
operating in us, perfects that which he began by operating : for we
are worth nothing for any pious work without him operating, that we
may wish it, or co-operating when we do wish it." Pelagius , hoping
that the proceedings of the Council of Diospolis would be buried in
darkness , wrote four books afterwards against the " Dialogue" of St.
Jerome, and entitled his work " De Libero Arbitrio" ( 25).
10. The affairs of Pelagius did not take such a favourable turn
in Africa as they did in Palestine , for in the following year, 416 ,
the Bishop Aurelius summoned another Council in Carthage, in
which both he and Celestius were again condemned ; and it was
decided to send a Synodal letter to the Pope St. Innocent, that
he might confirm the decree of the Council by Pontifical autho-
rity (26) ; and, about the same time, another Council of sixty-one
Numidian Bishops was held in Milevis, and a letter was likewise
written to the Pope, calling on him to condemn the heresy (27) .
Pope Innocent answered both Synodal letters in 417 ; confirmed
the Christian doctrine held by the councils concerning grace (28 ) ;
and condemned Pelagius and Celestius, with all their adherents ,
and declared them separated from the communion of the Church .
He answered, at the same time, and in the same strain, the letters
of five other bishops, who had written to him on the same subject ;

(21 ) Fleury, 1. 23, n. 20. (22) St. Hier. Ep. 79. (23) St. Aug. de Her. c. 88 .
(24) St. Aug. de Grat. & lib. arb. c. 17. (25) Orsi, l. 25, n. 117, ex St. Aug 1. de
Gest. Pel. c. 33. (26) Nat. Alex. t. 10, c. 3, ar. 4, s. 4 ; Fleury, ibid. n. 20 ; Orsi,
t. 11, l. 25, n. 121. (27) Nat. Alex. ibid. s. 5 ; Fleury, loc. cit.; Orsi, n. 122.
(28 ) St. Innoc. Ep. 181 , n. 8 & 9, & Ep. 182, n. 6.
H
114 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

and, among other remarks, says, that he found nothing in Pelagius's


book which pleased him, and scarcely anything which did not dis-
please him, and which was not deserving of universal reproba-
tion ( 29) . It was then that St. Augustin, as he himself men-
tions (30) , when Pope Innocent's answer arrived, said : " Two Coun-
cils have referred this matter to the Apostolic See . Rescripts
have been sent in answer ; the cause is decided."
11. We should remark that St. Prosper (31 ) writes, that St. Inno-
cent the Pope was the first to condemn the heresy of Pelagius :

Pestem subeuntem prima recidit


Sedes Roma Petri, quæ pastoralis honoris
Facta caput mundi, quidquid non possidet armis,
Religione tenet.

But how can St. Prosper say that St. Innocent was the first to con-
demn this heresy, when it was already condemned in 412 by the
first Council of Carthage, and by the second in 416 , and by the
Council of Milevis ? Graveson ( 32) answers, that these Councils
considered it their duty to refer the condemnation of Celestius and
Pelagius to the Apostolic See, and, on that account , St. Prosper
writes , that the first condemnation proceeded from the Pope. Gar-
ner (33) says that the Pelagian heresy was condemned by twenty-
four Councils, and, finally, by the General Council of Ephesus, in
431 (34), for up to that time the Pelagians had not ceased to dis-
turb the Church.
12. When Pelagius and Celestius heard of the sentence pro-
nounced against them by St. Innocent, they wrote him a letter
filled with lies and equivocations, appealing to his supreme tribunal
from the sentence passed on them by the bishops of Africa ; and,
as St. Innocent had died, and St. Zozymus was elected in his place,
Celestius went to Rome himself to endeavour to gain his favour.
St. Zozymus was, at first, doubtful how he ought to act in the
matter ; but the African bishops suggested to him that he ought
not to interfere with a sentence passed by his predecessor, and when
the holy Pontiff was better informed of the deceits of Pelagius and
Celestius , and especially of the flight ofthe latter from Rome, when
he heard that the Pope was about to examine the cause more nar-
rowly, he was convinced of their bad faith, and condemned their
doctrine (35) .
13. The author of the Portable Dictionary (36) writes, that Pe-
lagius , after his condemnation by Pope Zozymus, and the procla-
mation subsequent, issued against him by the Emperor Honorius
from Rome, went to his beloved Palestine, where he was before so
well received ; but as his impiety and hypocrisy were now well
(29) Fleury, t. 4, l. 23, n. 34 ; Orsi, t. 11 , l. 25, n. 129. (30) St. Aug. Serm. 181 ,
n. 10. (31) St. Prosp. In Carm. de Ingratis. (32) Graveson, t. 3, col. 2.
(33) Garner. ap. Danes Temp. not. p. 240. (84) Act. 5 & 7, can. 1 & 4, ap. Danes,
ibid. p 241 ; & vide Fleury , l. 25, n. 53. (35) Hermant, t. 1 , c. 124 ; Orsi, l. 26,
n. 16 & 17. (36) Diz. Port. verb. Pelagio .
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 115

known, he was driven out of that province. We do not know


afterwards what became of him , but it is probable that he returned
to Britain to disseminate his doctrines, and that it was this which
induced the bishops of Gaul to send St. Germain de Auxerre there
to refute him. The Pelagian heresy was finally extinguished in a
short time, and no one was bold enough openly to declare himself
its protector, with the exception of Julian, son and successor to
Memorius, in the See of Capua. He was a man of talent, but of
no steadiness, and the great liveliness of his understanding served to
ruin him, by inducing him to declare himself an avowed professor
of the heresy of Pelagius. His name is celebrated on account of
his famous disputes with St. Augustin, who at first was his friend,
but afterwards, in defence of religion , was obliged to declare him-
self his adversary, and pursued him as a heretic. He was afterwards
banished out of Italy, and went to the East, and after wandering
in poverty for a long time through various regions, he at last was
obliged to support himself by teaching school. It is said he died in
Sicily in the reign of the Emperor Valentinian (37) . The refuta-
tion of the Pelagian heresy will be found in the last volume of this
work.
14. Several years had rolled by since St. Augustin had success-
fully combated the Pelagian heresy, when, in the very bosom of
the Church, a sort of conspiracy was formed against the Saint,
including many persons remarkable for their learning and piety ;
this happened about the year 428 , and they were called Semi-
Pelagians. The chief of this party was John Cassianus, who was
born, as Genadius informs us, in the Lesser Scythia, and spent part
of his time in the monastery of Bethlehem. From that he came
first to Rome, and then to Marseilles, where he founded two monas-
teries, one of men and one of women, and took the government of
them according to the rules he had practised , or seen observed, in
the monasteries of Palestine and Egypt ; these rules he wrote in
the first four books of twelve he published under the title of Mo-
nastic Instructions. What is more to the purpose we treat of, he
endeavoured to bring into notice and establish his erroneous senti-
ments on the necessity of Grace, in his thirteenth Collation or
Conference ; and to give more weight to his errors, he puts them
into the mouth of Cheremon, one of the solitaries of Panefisum, a
place in Egypt, who, he said, was well instructed in all the disputes
about Grace, but which, as Orsi says (38) , were never spoken of
at all when Cassianus was in Egypt ; nor could any one, in any
human probability, ever imagine that such a dispute would be
raised in the Church. Nevertheless, he, as it were, constituted
that holy monk as a sort of judge between Pelagius and St. Au-
gustin, and puts into his mouth a condemnation, more or less of
both, as if St. Augustin had erred in attributing too much to Grace,
(37) Hermant, t. 1, c. 124. (38) Orsi, t. 12, l. 17, n. 59.
116 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

by attributing to it even the first movements of the will to do what


is right, and that Pelagius erred in attributing too much to Free-
Will, by denying the necessity of Grace to carry out good works.
Cassianus thought, in the meanwhile, that he had found out a
means of reconciling both parties, Catholics and heretics ; but it
was only combating one error by another, and his erroneous doc-
trine was followed by many persons of the greatest piety in Gaul,
and especially in Marseilles, who willingly imbibed the poison,
because mixed with many Catholic truths in his works. The
Semi- Pelagians then admitted the necessity of Grace, but they were
guilty of a most pernicious error, in saying, that the beginning of
salvation often comes to us from ourselves without it. They added
other errors to this, by saying that perseverance and election to
glory could be acquired by our own natural strength and merits.
They said, likewise, that some children die before baptism, and
others after, on account of the foreknowledge God possesses of the
good or evil they would do if they lived ( 39) .
15. Cassianus died in 433 , and was considered a saint (40) ; but
the Semi- Pelagians were condemned in the year 432 , at the request
of St. Prosper, and St. Hilary, by Pope Celestine I., in a letter
written by him to the bishops of Italy. They were also condemned
in 529 , by Pope Felix IV., in the Synod of Orange, and, imme-
diately after, in the Synod of Valence ; and both these councils, as
Noel Alexander testifies ( 41 ) , were confirmed by Pope Boniface II.
At the end of the work will be found the refutation of this heresy.
16. In the year 417, according to Prosper of Tyre , or in the
year 415, according to Sigisbert, arose the heresy of the Predesti-
narians (42) ; these said that good works were of no use to those,
for salvation, whom God foreknows will be lost ; and that if the
wicked are predestined to glory, their sins are of no harm to them .
Sigisbert's words are (43) : " Asserebant nec pie viventibus prodesse
bonorum operum laborem, si a Deo ad damnationem præsciti essent :
nec impiis obesse, etiamsi improbe viverent." Noel Alexander says
that a certain priest of the name of Lucidus (44) , having fallen
into the errors of the Predestinarians, and his opinions becoming
notorious, he was obliged to retract them by Faustus de Ries, on
the authority of a council held at Arles, in 475 ; he obeyed, and
signed a retraction of the following errors : First.- The labour of
human obedience is not to be joined to Divine Grace. Second.-
He should be condemned who says, that after the fall of the first
man, the freedom of the will is entirely extinct. Third.- Or who
says that Christ did not die for all men. Fourth . Or who says
that the foreknowledge of God violently drives men to death , or
that those who perish, perish by the will of God . Fifth.- Or who

(39) Nat. Alex. t. 10, c. 3, a. 7 & 8 ; Orsi, loc. cit. n. 60 & 61 ; Fleury, t. 4, l. 24 , n. 56
& seq. (40) Nat. l. cit. ar. 7, s. 4. (41 ) Nat. Al. l. cit. ar. 10 , in fin. (42) Nat.
Al. t. 10, c. 3, ar. 5. (43) Sigisbert in Cron. an. 415. (44 ) Nat. loco cit.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 117

says that whoever sins, dies in Adam , after lawfully receiving bap-
tism. Sixth. - Or who says that some are deputed to death eternal,
and others predestined to life . This heresy, or these errors, were
condemned in the Council of Lyons, in the year 475. It is a
question among the learned, whether the Predestinarians ever
existed as a heretical body. Cardinal Orsi and Berti ( 45 ) , with
Contenson, Cabassutius and Jansenius deny it ; but Tournelly (46) ,
with Baronius, Spondanus, and Sirmond, held the contrary opinion,
and Graveson quotes Cardinal Norris (47 ) in their favour, and Noel
Alexander thinks his opinion probable (48 ) .
17. In the ninth century , Godeschalcus, a German Benedictine
monk, lived, who is generally considered a real Predestinarian. He
was a man of a turbulent and troublesome disposition . He went to
Rome through a motive of piety, without leave of his superiors,
and usurping the office of a preacher without lawful mission, dis-
seminated his maxims in several places, on which account he was
condemned in a Synod, held on his account, in Mayence, in 848 ,
by the Archbishop Rabanus, and sent to Hincmar, Archbishop of
Rheims, his superior. Hincmar, in another, held in Quercy, again
condemned him , deprived him of the sacerdotal dignity, and after
obliging him to throw his writings into the fire with his own hand ,
shut him up in close confinement in the monastery of Haut Villiers,
in the diocese of Rheims. Two Councils were held in Quercy on
this affair ; one in 849, in which Godeschalcus was condemned, and
the other in the year 853, in which four canons were established
against his doctrine, and which we shall hereafter quote . Finally,
Hincmar being at Haut Villiers, the monks of the monastery told
him that Godeschalcus was near his end , and anxious for his eter-
nal welfare, he sent him a formula of Faith to sign , that he might
receive Absolution and the Viaticum, but he rejected it with dis-
dain. Hincmar could then do no more, but after his departure, he
wrote to the monks, telling them that in case of the conversion of
Godeschalcus, they should treat him as he had given them verbal
directions to do ; but if he persevered in his errors, that they should
not give him the sacraments, or ecclesiastical burial. He died
unchanged , and without sacraments, and he was deprived of Chris-
tian burial (49) .
18. His errors, Van Ranst informs us, were these following:
First.-As God has predestined some to eternal life, so he predestines
others to everlasting death, and forces man to perish. Second.-
God does not wish the salvation of all men , but only of those who
are saved. Third . - Christ died for the salvation of the elect alone,
and not for the redemption of all men . These three propositions of

(45) Orsi, t. 15, 7. 35 , n. 83 ; Berti, Hist. t. 1, s. 5, c. 4. (46) Tour. t. 4, p. 1, D. 3,


concl. 3. (47) Graves. Hist. t. 3, coll. 2, p. 19. (48) Nat. Alex. t. 10, c. 3, a. 2,
p. 144, and Dis . Prop. p. 461. (49) Fleury, t. 7, l. 41 , n. 41 & 49, & l. 50, n. 48 ; Van
Ranst, s. 9, p. 153.
118 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Godeschalcus are also contained in a letter written by Hincmar to


Nicholas I. " He says," writes Hincmar, " that the old Predesti-
narians said, that as God predestined some to eternal life , so he pre-
destined others to everlasting death" (50) ; and Rabanus, in his
Synodical letter to Hincmar, says : " He (Godeschalcus ) taught that
there are some in this world, who, on account of the predestination
of God, who forces them to go to death, cannot correct themselves
from sin ; as if God, from the beginning, made them incorrigible
and deserving of punishment to go to destruction . Second.- He
says that God does not wish all men to be saved, but only those who
are saved. Third.-He says that our Lord Jesus Christ was not
crucified and died for the salvation of all , but only for these who
are saved" (51 ) . The four canons established in the Council of
Quercy against Godeschalcus, as Cardinal Gotti (52) writes, were
these following : First.-There is only one predestination by God,
that is to eternal life . Second.- The free will of man is healed by
means of Grace. Third.- God wishes all men to be saved. Fourth.
-Jesus Christ has suffered for all.
19. As to the judgment we should pass on the faith of Godes-
chalcus, some modern writers, as Christian Lupus, Berti, Contenson,
and Roncaglia (53) , defend it, by thus explaining his three propo
sitions : As to the first, the predestination to death ; they say that
it can be understood of the predestination to punishment, which
God makes after the prevision of sin. As to the second , that God
does not wish the salvation of all ; it can be understood of his not
wishing it efficaciously. And, as to the third, that Jesus Christ
had not died for the salvation of all ; it can, likewise, be under-
stood that he did not die efficaciously. But on the other hand, as
Tournelly writes , all Catholic doctors previous to Jansenius (with
the exception of some few, as Prudentius, Bishop of Troyes, in
France ; Pandal, Bishop of Lyons ; and Loup, Abbot of Ferrieres),
condemned them as heretical, and, with very good reason ; many
modern authors, of the greatest weight, as Sirmond, Cardinal
de Norris, Mabillon, Tournelly, and Noel Alexander, are of the
same opinion (54). As far as our judgment on the matter goes, we
say, that if Godeschalcus intended to express himself, as his defend-
ers have afterwards explained his words, he was not a heretic ;
but, at all events, he was culpable in not explaining himself more
clearly; but, as Van Ranst very well remarks, his propositions, as
they are laid before us, and taking them in their plain, obvious
sense, are marked with heresy. As he did not explain himself

(50) Tournelly, Theol. Comp. t. 5, p. 1, Disp. 4, ar. 3. (51) Tourn. loc. cit.
(52) Gotti. t. 2, Vict. adv. Her. c. 84, s. 2. (53) Lupus Not. ad conc. 1 Rom.; Berti,
Theol. l. 6, c. 14, prop. 3, & Hist. s. 9, c. 4 ; Contens. Theol. 7. 8 ; De Prædest. app. 1, s.
3; Roncaglia, Animad. ap. N. Alex. t. 13, diss. 5. (54) Sirmond. Tract. de Præd.
Har. Card. de Noris, l. 2 ; Hist. Pelag. c. 15 ; Mabillon, ad sec. iv. Bened. Tournelly,
Theol. t. 5, loc. cit. p. 142 ; Gotti, loc. supra cit. c. 84, s. 2 ; Nat. Alex. loc. cit. t. 13,
diss. 5.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 119

according as his friends do who defend him, and he showed so


much obstinacy in refusing to accommodate himself to his superiors,
and as he died so unhappily, as we have already related , we may
reasonably doubt of his good faith, and have fears for his eternal
salvation.

ARTICLE III.

THE NESTORIAN HERESY .

20. Errors of Nestorius, and his Elevation to the Episcopacy. 21. He approves of the
Errors preached by his Priest, Anastasius ; his Cruelty. 22. He is contradicted , and
other Acts of Cruelty. 23. St. Cyril's Letter to him, and his Answer. 24. 'The
Catholics separate from him. 25. Letters to St. Celestine, and his Answer. 26. He is
admonished ; Anathemas of St. Cyril. 27. The Sentence of the Pope is intimated to
him. 28. He is cited to the Council. 29. He is condemned. 30. The Sentence of
the Council is intimated to him. 31. Cabal of John of Antioch. 32. Confirmation
of the Council by the Legates, in the Name of the Pope. 33. The Pelagians are
condemned. 34. Disagreeable Affair with the Emperor Theodosius. 35. Theodosius
approves of the Condemnation of Nestorius, and sends him into Banishment, where he
dies. 36. Laws against the Nestorians. 37. Efforts of the Nestorians. 38. The
same Subject continued. 39. It is condemned as heretical to assert that Jesus
Christ is the adopted Son of God. 40-43. Answer to Basnage, who has unjustly
undertaken the Defence of Nestorius.

20. THE heresy of Pelagius was scarcely condemned by the


African Councils , when the Church had to assemble again to
oppose the heresy of Nestorius, who had the temerity to impugn
the maternity of the Mother of God, calling her the Mother, not
of God, but of Christ, who, he blasphemously taught, was a mere
man, as, with a similar impiety, Ebion, Paul of Samosata, and
Photinus, had done before, by asserting that the Word was not hy-
postatically united with Christ, but only extrinsically, so that God
dwelled in Christ as in his temple. Nestorius was born in Ger-
manicia, a small city of Syria, and, as Suidas, quoted by Baronius,
informs us, was a nephew of Paul of Samosata, and was brought up
in the monastery of St. Euprepius, in the suburbs of Antioch (1) .
He was ordained priest by Theodotus (2) , and appointed his cate-
chist, to explain the faith to the catechumens, and defend it against
heretics ; and, in fact, he was most zealous in combating the heretics
who then disturbed the Eastern Church-the Arians, the Apolli-
narists, and the Origenists-and professed himself a great admirer
and imitator of St. John Chrysostom. He was so distinguished for
his eloquence, though it was only of a vain and popularity-hunting
sort, and his apparent piety, for he was worn, pale, and always
poorly clad, that he was placed in the See of Constantinople, in
place of Sisinnius, in the year 427, according to N. Alexander, or

(1) Nat. Alex. t. 10, c. 3, a. 12, s. 1 ; Baron. Ann. 428, n. 1 , & seq.; Orsi, t. 12, l. 28 ,
ex n. 1, & Fleury, t. 4 , l. 24, n. 54. (2) Evagr. Hist. l. 1, c. 5.
120 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

428, according to Hermant and Cardinal Orsi . His elevation , how-


ever, was not only legitimate, but highly creditable to him, for
after the death of the Patriarch Sisinnius, the Church of Constan-
tinople was split into factions about who should succeed him , which
induced the Emperor Theodosius the Younger to put an end to it
all, by selecting a bishop himself; and , that no one should complain
of his choice, he summoned Nestorius from Antioch , and had him
consecrated Bishop, and his choice was highly pleasing to the
people (3) . It is said, also, that at the first sermon he preached (4),
he turned round to the Emperor, and thus addressed him : " Give
me, my Lord, the earth purged from heretics, and I will give you
heaven ; exterminate the heretics with me, and I will exterminate
the Persians with you."
21. Theodosius hoped that his new Patriarch would in all things
follow in the steps of his predecessor , Chrysostom ; but he was de-
ceived in his hopes. His virtue was altogether Pharisaical, for,
under an exterior of mortification, he concealed a great fund of
pride. In the beginning of his reign, it is true, he was a most
ardent persecutor of the Arians, the Novatians, and the Quartode-
cimans ; but, as St. Vincent of Lerins tells us, his chief aim in this
was only to prepare the way for teaching his own errors (5 ) . " He
declared war against all heresies, to make way for his own." He
brought a priest from Antioch with him , ofthe name of Anastasius,
and he, at the instigation of the Bishop , preached one day the blas-
phemous doctrine that no one should call Mary the Mother ofGod,
because she was only a creature, and it was impossible that a human
creature could be the Mother of God . The people ran to Nestorius,
to call on him to punish the temerity of the preacher ; but he not
only approved of what was said, but unblushingly went into the
pulpit himself, and publicly defended the doctrine preached by
Anastasius. In that sermon, called afterwards by St. Cyril (6 ) the
Compendium of all Blasphemy, he called those Čatholics blind and
ignorant, who were scandalized by Anastasius preaching , that the
Holy Virgin should not be called the Mother of God. The people
were most anxiously waiting to hear what the Bishop would say in
the pulpit, when, to their astonishment, he cried out : " How can God,
then, have a mother? The Gentiles ought to be excused , who bring
forward on the stage the mothers of their Gods ; and the Apostle is
a liar, when, speaking of the Divinity of Christ, he says that he is
without father, without mother, without generation : no, Mary has not
brought forth a God . What is born of the flesh is nothing but
flesh ; what is born of the spirit is spiritual. The creature does not
bring forth the Creator, but only a man , the instrument of the Di-
vinity."

(3 ) Orsi, t. 12, l. 28, n . 1. (4) Fleury, t. 4, l. 24, n. 54 ; Nat. loc. cit. (5) Apud.
Nat. Alex. t. 10, c. 3, art. 12 . (6) Orsi, loc. cit. n. 8 ; Serm. 1 , ap. More.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 121

22. It has always been the plan with heretics to sustain this
error by accusing the Catholics of heresy . Arius called the Ca-
tholics Sabellians, because they professed that the Son was God , like
unto the Father. Pelagius called them Manicheans, because they
insisted on the necessity of Grace . Eutyches called them Nestorians,
because they believed that there were two distinct natures in
Christ-the Divine and the human nature ; and so , in like manner,
Nestorius called them Arians and Apollinarists, because they con-
fessed in Christ one Person , true God and true man. When Nes-
torius thus continued to preach, not alone once , but frequently,
and when the whole burden of his sermons was nothing but a blas-
phemous attack on the doctrine of the Church, the people of Con-
stantinople became so excited , that, beholding their shepherd
turned into a wolf, they threatened to tear him in pieces , and throw
him into the sea. He was not, however, without partisans, and
although these were but very few, they had, for all that , the support
of the Court and the Magistracy, and the contests even in the
church became so violent, that there was frequently danger of blood
being spilled there ( 7). Withal, there was one person who, while
Nestorius was publicly preaching in the church( 8 ) , and denying the
two generations of the Word , the Eternal and the Temporal, boldly
stood forward, and said to his face : " It is so, nevertheless ; it is the
same Word, who, before all ages, was born of the Father, and was
afterwards born anew of a virgin, according to the flesh." Nestorius
was irritated at the interruption, and called the speaker a miserable ,
ribald wretch ; but as he could not take vengeance as he wished on
him,-for, though but then a layman (he was afterwards made Bishop
of Dorileum, and was a most strenuous opponent of Eutyches, as
we shall see in the next chapter), he was an advocate of great
learning , and one of the agents for the affairs of his Sovereign ,-he
discharged all the venom of his rage on some good Archimandrites
of monks, who came to inquire of him whether what was said of
his teaching was true- that he preached that Mary brought forth
only a man that nothing could be born of the flesh but flesh alone
-and suggested to him that such doctrine was opposed to Faith.
Nestorius, without giving them any reply, had them confined in
the ecclesiastical prison, and his myrmidons, after stripping them
of their habits, and kicking and beating them, tied them to a post,
and lacerated their backs with the greatest cruelty, and then,
stretching them on the ground, beat them on the belly.
23. The sermons of Nestorius were scattered through all the
provinces of the East and West, and through the monasteries of
Egypt, likewise, where they excited great disputes . St. Cyril,
Bishop of Alexandria, hearing of this, and fearing lest the heresy

(7) Orsi, l. 28, n. 9. (8) Orsi, n. 10 ; Fleury, t. 4 , l. 25 , n . 6.


122 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

should take root, wrote a letter to all the monks of Egypt ( 9) , in


which he instructs them not to intermeddle in such questions at
all, and, at the same time, gives them excellent instructions in the
true Faith . This letter was taken to Constantinople, and St.
Cyril was thanked by several of the magistrates ; but Nestorius
was highly indignant, and got a person named Photius to answer
it, and sought every means to be revenged on St. Cyril. When
this came to the knowledge of the Saint, he wrote to Nesto-
rius (10) : " This disturbance," he says, " did not commence on
account of my letter, but on account of writings scattered
abroad (whether they are yours or not is another thing) , and
which have been the cause of so many disorders, that I was
obliged to provide a remedy. You have, therefore, no reason to
complain of me. You, rather, who have occasioned this disturb-
ance, amend your discourses, and put an end to this universal
scandal, and call the Holy Virgin the Mother of God. Be assured,
in the meantime, that I am prepared to suffer everything, even
imprisonment and death, for the Faith of Jesus Christ." Nestorius
answered, but his reply was only a threatening tirade (11) : " Ex-
perience," said he, " will shew what fruit this will produce ; for my
part, I am full of patience and charity, though you have not prac-
tised either towards me, not to speak more harshly to you." This
letter proved to St. Cyril that nothing more was to be expected
from Nestorius, and what followed proved the truth of his con-
jecture.
24. There was a bishop of the name of Dorotheus in Constanti-
nople, who was such a sycophant to Nestorius, that while the
Patriarch was one day in full assembly, seated on his throne, he
rose up and cried out : " If any one says that Mary is the Mother
of God, let him be excommunicated." When the people heard
this blasphemy so openly proclaimed, they set up a loud shout and
left the church ( 12 ), determined to hold no more communion with
the proclaimers of such an impious heresy ( 13) ; for, in fact, to
excommunicate all those who said that Mary was the Mother of
God, would be to excommunicate the whole Church- all the
bishops, and all the departed saints, who professed the Catholic
doctrine. There is not the least doubt but that Nestorius approved
of the excommunication announced by Dorotheus, for he not only
held his peace on the occasion, but admitted him to the participa-
tion ofthe Sacred Mysteries. Some of his priests, on the contrary,
after having publicly given him notice in the assembly, and seeing
that he still persisted in not calling the Holy Virgin the Mother of
God, and Jesus Christ, by his nature, true God (14) , now openly

(9) St. Cyril, Ep. ad Mon. n. 3, apud.; Fleury, t. 4, l. 25, n. 3 ; Orsi, l. 28, n. 14.
(10) Epis. ad Nestor. c. 6, ap.; Fleury, ibid. (11) Fleury, ibid. (12) St. Cyril,
Ep. ad Nest. c. 10, ap.; Fleury, l. 25. (13) St. Cyril, ad Acac. c. 22. (14) Libell
Basil. c. 30, n. 2.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 123

forsook his communion ; but he prohibited not only those, but all
who previously had preached against his opinion, from preaching ;
so that the people , deprived of their usual instructions, said : " We
have an Emperor, but we have not a Bishop." A monk, burning
with zeal, stepped forward while Nestorius was going into the
church, and thought to prevent him, calling him a heretic, but
the poor man was immediately knocked down, and given into the
hands of the Prefect, who first caused him publicly to be flogged,
and then sent him into exile (15).
25. St. Cyril wrote again to Nestorius, but seeing his obstinacy,
and that the heresy was spreading in Constantinople, through favour
of the Court, he wrote several letters, or, rather, treatises, to the
Emperor Theodosius, and to the Princesses, his sisters, concerning
the true Faith ( 16). He wrote likewise to Pope Celestine, giving
him an account of all that took place , and explaining to him the
necessity there was that he should oppose the errors of Nesto-
rius (17) . Nestorius himself, at the same time, had the boldness
to write a letter to St. Celestine, likewise, in which he exaggerates
his great labours against the heretics, and requires also to know
why some bishops of the Pelagian party were deprived of their
Sees ; he thus wrote, because he had kindly received those bishops
in Constantinople, and the Pelagians were not included in an edict
he procured from Theodosius against the heretics ; for, as Cardinal
Orsi remarks, he adhered to the Pelagian opinion, that Grace is
given to us by God, according to our own merits. He also wrote
that some called the Blessed Virgin the Mother of God, when she
should only be called the Mother of Christ, and on that account he
sent him some of his books ; this letter is quoted by Baronius (18).
St. Celestine having read both letters, summoned a Council in
Rome, in the month of August, 430, for the examination of the
writings of Nestorius, and not only were his blasphemies condemned,
but he was even deposed from his bishopric , if, ten days after the
publication of his sentence, he did not retract his errors, and the
Pope charged St. Cyril with the execution of the sentence (19) .
26. St. Cyril, in discharge of the commission to which he was
appointed by the Pope, convoked a Council, in Alexandria, of all
the bishops in Egypt, and then in the name of the Council wrote
a Synodical letter to Nestorius, as the third and last admonition ;
telling him that if, in the term of ten days after the receipt of that
letter, he did not retract what he had preached, those Fathers would
have no more communication with him, that they would no longer
consider him as a bishop , and that they would hold communion with
all clergymen and laymen deposed or excommunicated by him (20) .

(15) Nat. Alex. t. 10, c. 3, a. 12, s. 2 ; Fleury, l. 25, n. 3 ; Orsi, t. 12, l. 28, n. 37,
& seq. (16) Con. Ephes. p. 1 , c. 3, n. 6. (17) Conc. Ephes. p. 1 , c. 14.
(18) Baron. An. 430, n. 7. (19) Fleury, t. 4, l. 25, n. 10, & seq ; Nat. Alex. cit. ar.
12 & 3. (20) Conc. Ephes. p. 1, c. 26.
124 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

The Synodical letter also contained the profession of Faith and the
anathemas decreed against the Nestorian errors ( 21 ) . These , in
substance , are an anathema against those who deny that the
Holy Virgin is Mother of the Incarnate Word, or deny that Jesus
Christ is the only Son of God, true God and true Man , not alone
according to his dignity, but through the hypostatic union of the
Person of the Word with his most Holy Humanity. These ana-
themas are fully and distinctly expressed in the letter.
27. St. Cyril appointed four Egyptian bishops to certify to
Nestorius the authenticity of this letter, and two others— one to the
people of Constantinople, and another to the abbots of the mo-
nasteries, to give them notice likewise of the letter having been
expedited . These prelates arrived in Constantinople on the 7th
of the following month of December, 430 ( 22 ), and intimated to
Nestorius the sentence of deposition passed by the Pope , if he did
not retract in ten days ; but the Emperor Theodosius , previous to their
arrival, had given orders for the convocation of a General Council, at
the solicitation- both of the Catholics, induced to ask for it by the
monks, so cruelly treated by Nestorius, and of Nestorius himself, who
hoped to carry his point by means of the bishops of his party, and
through the favour of the Court. St. Cyril, therefore, wrote anew
to St. Celestine, asking him (23) , whether, in case of the retractation
of Nestorius, the Council should receive him, as bishop, into com-
munion, and pardon his past faults, or put into execution the sen-
tence of deposition already published against him. St. Celestine
answered, that, notwithstanding the prescribed time had passed, he
was satisfied that the sentence of deposition should be kept in
abeyance, to give time to Nestorius to change his conduct. Nesto-
rius thus remained in possession of his See till the decision of the
Council. This condescension of St. Celestine was praised in the
Council afterwards, by the Legates, and was contrasted with the
irreligious obstinacy of Nestorius ( 24).
28. As St. Celestine could not personally attend the Council, he
sent Arcadius and Projectus, Bishops, and Philip, a priest, to pre-
side in his place, with St. Cyril appointed President in chief. He
gave them positive orders that they should not allow his sentence
against Nestorius to be debated in the Council (25) , but to endea-
vour to have it put into execution . He wrote to the Council to
the same effect, and notified the directions he had given to his Le-
gates, and that he had no doubt but that the Fathers would adhere
to the decision he had given, and not canvass what he already had
decided , and , as we shall see , everything turned out most happily ,
according to his wishes. When the celebration of Easter was con-
cluded , the bishops all hastened to Ephesus, where the Council

(21 ) Apud Bernini, t. 1 , sec. 5, c. 4, p. 452, & Orsi, t. 12, l. 28, n. 48. (22) Orsi,
t. 13, l. 29, n. 1, ar. 2. (23) Celest. Ep. 161. (24) Orsi, loc. cit. n. 1 , in fin.
(25) Celest. Epis. 17, apud ; Orsi, ibid. n. 2 .
AND THEIR REFUTATION 125

was convoked for the 7th of June. Nestorius, accompanied by a


great train, was one of the first to arrive, and soon after, St. Cyril,
accompanied by fifty Egyptian bishops, arrived, and in a little time.
two hundred bishops, most of them Metropolitans and men of great
learning, were assembled . There was no doubt about St. Cyril
presiding as Vicar of Pope Celestine, in the Council of Ephesus ;
for, in several acts of the Synod itself, he is entitled President,
even after the arrival of the Apostolic Legates, as is manifest from
the fourth act of the Council, in which the Legates are mentioned
by name after St. Cyril, and before all the other bishops . It ap-
pears, even from the opening act of the Council , before the arrival
of the Legates, that he presided in place of Celestine, as delegate
of his Holiness the Archbishop of Rome. Graveson (26 ) , there-
fore, justly says : " That they are far from the truth, who deny that
Cyril presided at the Council of Ephesus, as Vicar of Pope Celes-
tine." St. Cyril, therefore , as President ( 27) , gave notice that the
first Session of the Synod would be held on the 22nd of June , in
St. Mary's Church, the principal one of Ephesus, and, on the day
before, four bishops were appointed to wait on Nestorius, and cite
him to appear next day at the Council. He answered , that if his
presence was necessary , he would have no objection to present him-
self; but then , in the course of the same day, he forwarded a pro-
test, signed by sixty-eight bishops, against the opening of the
Council , until the arrival of other bishops who were expected (28) .
St. Cyril and his colleagues paid no attention to the remonstrance,
but assembled the next day.
29. On the appointed day the Council was opened ; the Count
Candidianus, sent by Theodosius, endeavoured to put it off, but
the Fathers having ascertained that he was sent by the Emperor
solely with authority to keep order and put down disturbance, de-
termined at once to open the Session , and the Count, accordingly,
made no further opposition. Before they began, however, they
judged it better to cite Nestorius a second and third time, accord-
ing to the Canons, and sent other bishops to him in the name of
the Council, but they were insulted and maltreated by the soldiers
he had with him as a body-guard . The Fathers , therefore, on the
day appointed, the 22nd of June, held the first Session , in which,
first of all, the second letter of St. Cyril to Nestorius was read, and
the answer of Nestorius to St. Cyril , and they called out imme-
diately, with one accord (29) : " Whoever does not anathematize
Nestorius , let him be anathema. Whoever communicates with
Nestorius let him be anathema. The true faith anathematizes him.
We anathematize all the letters and dogmas of Nestorius." St.
Celestine's letter was next read, in which he fulminates a sentence

(26) Graveson, t. 3. sec. 5, col. 4. (27) Orsi, l. 29, n. 12. (28) Orsi, loc. cit.
n. 12. (29) In actis Con. Ephes. ap. Bernin. sec. 4, c. 4 , p. 458.
126 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

of deposition against Nestorius, unless he retracts in ten days ( 30).


Finally, the sentence of the Council was pronounced against him:
It begins, by quoting the examination, by the Fathers, of his im-
pious doctrines, extracted from his own writings and sermons, and
then proceeds: " Obliged by the Sacred Canons, and the Epistle
of our Holy Father and Colleague, Celestine , Bishop of the Roman
Church, we have been necessarily driven , not without tears, to
pronounce this melancholy sentence against him. Therefore, our
Lord Jesus Christ, whom he has insulted by his blasphemies, de-
prives him, through this Holy Council, of the Episcopal dignity,
and declares him excluded from every Assembly and College of
Priests (31 )." This sentence was subscribed by one hundred and
eighty- eight bishops. The Session lasted from the morning till
dark night (32) , though the days were long at that season, the
22nd June, and the sun did not set in the latitude of Ephesus, till
seven o'clock in the evening. The people of the city were wait-
ing from morning till night, expecting the decision of the Coun-
cil, and when they heard that Nestorius was condemned and
deposed, and his doctrine prohibited, and that the Holy Vir-
gin was declared to be the Mother of God in reality, they all, with
one voice, began to bless the Council and praise God, who cast
down the enemy of the Faith, and of his Holy Mother. When
the bishops left the church, they were accompanied to their lodg
ings by the people with lighted torches. Women went before them ,
bearing vases of burning perfume, and a general illumination of
the whole city manifested the universal joy (33) .
30. The following day, the foregoing sentence was intimated to
Nestorius, and a letter sent to him as follows : " The Holy Synod,
assembled in the Metropolis of Ephesus, to Nestorius, the new
Judas. Know that you, on account of your many discourses, and
your obstinate contumacy against the Sacred Canons , have been
deprived, on the 22nd of this month, of all Ecclesiastical dignity,
according to the Ecclesiastical Decrees sanctioned by the Holy
Synod " (34). The sentence was published the same day through
the streets of Ephesus, by sound of trumpet, and was posted up in
the public places ; but Candidianus ordered it to be taken down,
and published an edict, declaring the Session of the Council cele-
brated null and void. He also wrote to the Emperor, that the
decision of the Council was obtained by sedition and violence ; and
the perfidious Nestorius wrote another letter to Theodosius to the
same effect, complaining of the injustice done to him in the Coun-
cil, and requiring that another General Council should be convened,
and all the bishops inimical to him excluded (35) .

(30) Orsi, t. 13, l. 29, n. 18. (31) Orsi, n. 21 ; Fleury, t. 4, l. 25, n. 42.
(32) Epis. Cyr. t. 3, Conc. (33) Fleury & Orsi, loc. cit. (34) Apud Bernin.
ser. 5, c. 4; Nat. Alex. t. 10, c. 3, ar. 12, s. 6. (35) Orsi, L. 29, n. 23, & seq.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 127

"
· 31. Several bishops of the Nestorian party, who had signed the
protest, were even shocked at his impiety, and convinced of the
justice of the sentence passed against him, joined the Council (36) .
But when everything appeared to be about to settle down peace-
ably, John, Bishop of Antioch, raised another storm ( 37) , in con-
junction with other schismatical bishops, to the number of forty ;
and, either to please Chrisaphius, Prime Minister of the Emperor,
and a great friend of Nestorius, or because it went to his heart to
see his friend and fellow-citizen (Nestorius was a citizen of Antioch)
condemned, he had the hardihood to summon a Cabal in the very
city of Ephesus, and then to depose St. Cyril, and St. Mennon ,
Bishop of Ephesus, and to excommunicate all the other bishops of
the Synod, because, as they said, they trampled on and despised
the orders of the Emperor. St. Cyril and the other bishops took
no notice of such rash attempts, but, on the contrary, the Council
put forth its authority, and deputed three bishops to cite John,
as chief of the Cabal , to account for his insolence, and after being
twice more cited, and not appearing , the Council, in the fifth Session,
declared John and his colleagues suspended from ecclesiastical
communion, till such time as they would repent of their fault ,
and that, if they obstinately persevered, they would be proceeded
against, according to the Canons, to the last extremity ( 38). Finally,
in the year 433, John, and the other bishops of his party, subscribed
the condemnation of Nestorius, and St. Cyril received him to his
communion, and thus peace was re-established between the Metro-
politans of Alexandria and Antioch (39).
32. We will, however, return to the Council , and see what was
decided on in the subsequent Sessions, and , which we have post-
poned, the end of the Cabal of John of Antioch. Shortly after the
first Session, the three Legates of St. Celestine arrived at Ephesus
-Philip, Arcadius, and Projectus- and they came not alone in the
Pope's name, but also of all the bishops of the West. The second
Session was then held in the palace of St. Mennon , Bishop of the
See, and the Legates took the first place (40) . First of all, they
wished that the letter of St. Celestine, sent by them to the Council,
should be read. And when the Fathers heard it, they all agreed
to the sentiments expressed in it by the Pope. Philip then thanked
the Council, and said : " You, by these acclamations, have united
yourselves as holy members with your head, and have manifested
that you well know that the Blessed Apostle, Peter, is the head of
all the faithful, and chief of the Apostles ." Projectus then moved
that the Council would put into execution what was mentioned in
the letter of the Pope. Fermus, Bishop of Cesarea, in Cappadocia,
answered, that the holy Synod, guided by the antecedent letters of
the Pope, to St. Cyril, and to the Churches of Constantinople and
(36) Orsi, n. 25. (37) Cabassu. not. Con. sec. 5, n. 17, & Orsi, n. 33. (38) Orsi,
1. cit. n. 49. (39) Orsi, t. 13, l. 30, n. 28. (40) Orsi, n. 42.
128 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Antioch, had already put it into execution, and pronounced a


canonical judgment against the contumacious Nestorius. The next
day, therefore, all the acts of the Council, and the sentence of the
deposition of Nestorius, were read, and then the Priest Philip thus
spoke : " No one doubts that St. Peter is the chief of the Apostles ,
the column of the Faith , and the foundation of the Catholic Church ,
and that he received the keys of the kingdom from Jesus Christ,
and He lives even to-day , and exercises, in his successor, this judg
ment. Therefore , his Holiness Pope Celestine, who holds the place
of St. Peter, having sent us to this Council to supply his place, we,
in his name, confirm the Decree pronounced by the Synod against
the impious Nestorius ; and we declare him deposed from the priest-
hood and the communion of the Catholic Church ; and, as he has
contemned correction , let his part be with him, of whom it is
6
written, another shall receive his Bishopric." " The Bishops Ar-
cadius and Projectus then did the same, and the Council expressing
a wish that all the acts of the two Sessions should be joined with
those of the first preceding one, that the assent of all the Fathers
might be shown to all the acts of the Council, it was done so , and
the Legates subscribed the whole (41 ) .
33. This being done, the Fathers of the Council wrote a Synodi-
cal epistle to the Emperor, giving him an account of the sentence
fulminated against Nestorius and his adherents, as the Pope, St.
Celestine, had already decided, and charged his Legates with the
execution of it in their name. They then subjoined the confirma-
tion of the sentence by the Papal Legates, both in their own name
and the name of the Council of the Western Bishops, held in
Rome (42) . The Council, besides, wrote another letter to St. Ce-
lestine, giving him an account of all that had been done, both against
Nestorius, and against John , Patriarch of Antioch. They also
notified to him the condemnation of the Pelagians and Celestians ,
and explained to him how the Pelagians disturbed the East, look-
ing for a General Council to examine their cause ; but that, as the
Fathers had read in the Synod the Commentaries of the Acts ofthe
deposition of these bishops, they considered that the Pontifical
Decrees passed against them should retain all their force . Cardinal
Orsi (43) writes, that there is a great deal of confusion regarding
the Synod of Ephesus , but there is no doubt but that the Pelagians
were condemned in this Council as heretics, by the assembled
bishops of the world. The symbol composed by Theodore of
Mopsuestia was also condemned in this Council , and every other
formula, except that of the Council of Nice, was prohibited (44 ) .
Here, however, Cardinal Orsi justly remarks ( 45 ) , that that does not
prohibit the Church , when she condemns any heresy not formally
condemned by the Council of Nice , from making additions neces-
(41) Orsi, l. 29, n. 42, & seq. (42) Orsi, loc. cit. (43) Orsi, l. 29, n. 52.
(44) Baron. Ann. 431 , n. 98 & 99. (45) Orsi, n. 58.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 129

sary for clearing up the truth, as the Council of Constantinople had


done already, and other Councils did since that of Ephesus. The
heresy of the Messalians ( Art. 3, chap. 4, n. 80) was also condemned
in this Council , and a book, entitled The Ascetic, was anathematized
at the same time (46) .
34. When all was concluded, the Fathers wrote to Theodosius,
requesting leave to return to their Churches ; but the letter con-
taining this request, as well as all the former ones they wrote to
Constantinople, was intercepted by Count Candinianus, who placed
guards on the roads for that purpose ( 47 ) ; while , at the same time,
the letters of John of Antioch , and the schismatical bishops of his
party, stuffed with lies and calumnies regarding the proceedings of
the Council, had already arrived some time at Constantinople ; and
thus it happened, that the Emperor, poisoned , on the one side, by
the false accounts furnished him, and vexed, on the other, with the
Fathers of the Council, for, as he believed, not having written to
him, and informed him of what they had done in the affair of Nes-
torius, wrote to them that all the acts of the Synod , as done against
his orders, were to be considered invalid , and that everything should
be examined anew ; and therefore , Palladius, the bearer of the Em-
peror's letter to Ephesus, commanded , on his arrival, that none of
the Fathers should be permitted to leave the city (48 ) . The
Fathers were confounded when they discovered how they were
calumniated, and prevented from giving the Emperor a faithful
account of all that had been done in the case of Nestorius, and the
Patriarch of Antioch ; they, therefore, devised a plan to send a
trusty messenger (49) , disguised as a beggar, with copies of all the
letters they had already written, but which were intercepted , en-
closed in a hollow cane, such as poor pilgrims usually carried .
They wrote, likewise, to several other persons in Constantinople, so
that when the good people of that city discovered the intrigues of
the enemies of the Council, they went in a crowd along with the
Monk St. Dalmatius, who, for forty- eight years previously, had
never left his monastery (50) , and all the Archimandrites, singing
hymns and psalms, to address the Emperor in favour of the Catho-
lics. Theodosius gave them audience in the Church of St. Mocius,
and St. Dalmatius, ascending the pulpit, said : " O Cæsar, put an
end, at length, to the miserable imposture of heresy ; let the just
cause of the Catholics prevail for ever." He then proceeded to ex-
plain the rectitude of the acts of the Council , and the insolence of
the schismatics. Theodosius, moved by the reasons adduced , re-
voked his orders (51 ), and, concerning the dispute between St. Cyril
and the Patriarch of Antioch, he said he wished to try the cause

(46) Baron. n. 101 ; Orsi, n. 61. (47) Baron. Ann. 451, n. 104. (48) Baron.
n. 105 & 107. (49) Baron. Ann. 451 , n. 108 ; Cabass. sec. v. 17 ; Fleury, t. 4, l. 26,
76. 6. (50) Orsi, t. 13, l. 30, n. 28. (51) Baron. Ann. 431, n. 113.
I
130 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

himself, and commanded , therefore, that each of them should send


some of his bishops to Constantinople.
35. The Legates had now left the Council for Constantinople ,
but, when matters were just settling down , another storm arose, for
the Count Ireneus, a great patron of the schismatics, came to
Ephesus, and informed the Emperor that Nestorius was no more a
heretic than Cyril and Mennon , and that the only way to pacify the
Church of the East was to depose the whole three of them together.
At the same time, Acacius, Bishop of Berea , an honest and righteous
man, but who , deceived by Paul, Bishop of Emisenum , joined the
party of John of Antioch, wrote to the Emperor, likewise , against
St. Cyril and St. Mennon ; so Theodosius thought it better to
send (52) his almoner, the Count John , to Ephesus, to pacify both
parties. When the Count came to Ephesus, he ordered that Nesto-
rius, Cyril, and Mennon should be put into prison : but the Catholie
bishops immediately wrote to the Emperor, praying him to liberate
the Catholic bishops, and protesting that nothing would induce
them ever to communicate with the schismatics . In the meanwhile,
the concerns of the Empire all went wrong ; the Roman army was
cut to pieces by the Goths, in Africa, and the few survivors were
reduced to slavery. The clergy of Constantinople clamoured in
favour ofthe Catholics, and they were assisted in their zealous ex-
ertions by St. Pulcheria , who opened the eyes of her brother to the
impositions of the Nestorians (53) . The Emperor, at length, as-
sured of the wickedness of the schismatics, and the virtue of the
Catholics, ordered St. Cyril and St. Mennon to be liberated , and
gave leave to the bishops to return home to their Sees ; he confirmed
the deposition of Nestorius, and ordered him to shut himself up
once more in his old monastery of St. Euprepius, and there learn
to repent ; but as he, instead of exhibiting any symptoms of sorrow
for his past conduct, only continued to infect the monks of the mo-
nastery with his heretical opinions, he was banished to the Oasis
between Egypt and Lybia (54), and soon after, as Fleury informs
us, was transferred to Panapolis, and from Panapolis to Elephantina,
and, from thence, back again to another place near Panapolis,
where, at last, he died in misery , worn out by years and infirmities.
Some say that, through desperation , he dashed his brains out ;
others, that the ground opened under him and swallowed him ; and
others, again, that he died of a cancer, which rotted his tongue, and
that it was consumed by worms engendered by the disease-a fit
punishment for that tongue which had uttered so many blasphemies
against Jesus Christ and his Holy Mother (55).
36. Nestorius was succeeded in the See of Constantinople by
Maximinian, a monk untainted in the Faith, and Theodosius
(52) Baron. n. 126 & 127. (53 ) Baron. n. 159. (54) Fleury, t. 4, l. 26, n. 34.
(55) Baron. Ann. 520, n. 67 ; Cabass, sec. 5, n. 18 ; Orsi, t. 18, l. 30, n. 74 ; Nat. t. 10,
c. 3, ar. 12, n. 18, s. 10 ; Hermant, t. 1, c. 148 .
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 131

deprived Count Ireneus of his dignity (56) . The Emperor next, in


the year 435 , made a most rigorous law against the Nestorians. He
ordered that they should be called Simonians, and prohibited them
from having any conventicle, either within or without the city ;
that if any one gave them a place of meeting, all his property
should be confiscated, and he prohibited all the books of Nestorius
treating of Religion . Danaus (57 ) says, that the heresy of Nes-
torius did not end with his life ; it was spread over various regions
of the East, and, even in our own days, there are whole congrega-
tions of Nestorians on the Malabar coast, in India.
37. When the Nestorians saw their chief rejected by all the
world, and his works condemned by the Council of Ephesus and
the Emperor, they set about disseminating the writings of the
Bishops Theodore and Diodorus, who died in communion with the
Church, and left a great character after them in the East (58) .
The Nestorians endeavoured to turn the writings of those prelates
to their own advantage, and pretended to prove that Nestorius
had taught nothing new, but only followed the teaching of the an-
cients , and they translated those works into various languages (59) ;
but many zealous Catholic bishops, as Theodosia of Ancyra, Aca-
cius of Meretina, and Rabbola of Edessa , bestirred themselves against
the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia. When St. Cyril heard of
the matter, he also wrote against those books, and purposely com-
posed a declaration of the Symbol of Nice, in which, with great
particularity and diffuseness , he explains the doctrine of the Incar-
nation (60).
38. We should also remark, that Theodoret being soon after
re-established in his See, by the Council of Chalcedon , after sub-
scribing the condemnation of Nestorius and of his errors ; and Ibas
being likewise reinstated, after retracting the errors imputed to him,
and anathematizing Nestorius, the Nestorians made a handle of that,
to insinuate that their doctrines were approved of by the Council of
Chalcedon, and thus they seduced a great many persons, and formed
a numerous party. God sent them, however, a powerful opponent,
in the person of Theodore, Bishop of Cesarea, who prevailed on the
Emperor Justinian to cause the writings of Theodore against St.
Cyril, and the letter of Ibas, on the same subject, to be condemned .
Justinian, in fact, condemned the works of these bishops, and of
Theodore of Mopsuestia, and requested Pope Vigilius to condemn
them also, which he did , after mature examination in his Constitu-
tion, and approved of all that was decided in the fifth General
Council, the second of Constantinople, held in the year 533 (61 ) ,
as we shall see in the next chapter. The condemnation of these

(56) Baron. n. 177 & 181. (57) Dan. temp. not. p. 241 . (58) Liberat. Brev.
c. 10. (59) Coll. Sup. c. 199. (60) Fleury, t. 4, l. 26, n. 36. (61) Berti, t. 1,
sec. vi. c. 2.
132 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

works, afterwards called The Three Chapters, put an effectual stop


to the progress of Nestorianism (62) ; but still there were, ever
since, many, both in the East and West, who endeavoured to
uphold this impious heresy.
39. The most remarkable among the supporters of Nestorianism
were two Spanish bishops-Felix , Bishop of Urgel, and Elipandus,
Archbishop of Toledo ; these maintained that Jesus Christ, accord-
ing to his human nature, was not the natural, but only the adopted,
Son of God, or, as they said, the nuncupative, or Son in name
alone. This heresy had its origin about the year 780. Elipandus
preached this heresy in the Asturias and Gallicia, and Felix in Sep-
timania, a part of Narbonic Gaul , called at a later period, Langue-
doc. Elipandus brought over to his side Ascarieus, Archbishop of
Braga, and some persons from Cordova (63) . This error had many
opponents, the principal were Paulinus, Patriarch of Aquilea ;
Beatus, a priest and monk in the mountains of Asturias ; Etherius,
his disciple, and afterwards Bishop of Osma ; but its chief impugner
was Alcuinus, who wrote seven books against Felix, and four
against Elipandus. Felix was first condemned in Narbonne, in the
year 788, next in Ratisbon, in 792, and in 794, in a Synod held at
Frankfort, by the bishops of France, who , as Noel Alexander tells us ,
condemned him with this reservation (64) : " Reservato per omnia
juris privilegio Summi Pontificis Domini et Patris nostri Adriani
Primæ Sædis Beatissimi Papæ." This error was finally twice con-
demned in 799, in Rome, under Adrian and Leo III . (65) . Felix
abjured his errors in the Council of Ratisbon , in 792 ; but it ap-
pears he was not sincere, as he taught the same doctrine afterwards.
In the year 799, he was charged with relapsing by Alcuinus, in
a Synod held at Aix-la-Chapelle ; he confessed his error, and gave
every sign of having truly returned to the Church, but some writings
of his, discovered after his death, leave us in doubt of the sincerity
of his conversion, and of his eternal happiness. This was not the
case with Elipandus, for, though he resisted the truth a long time,
he at length bowed to the decision of the Roman Church, and died
in her communion , as many authors, quoted by Noel Alexander ,
testify (66).
40. Who would believe that, after seeing Nestorius condemned
by a General Council, celebrated by such a multitude of bishops,
conducted with such solemnity and accuracy, and afterwards ac-
cepted by the whole Catholic Church, persons would be found to
defend him, as innocent, and charge his condemnation as invalid
and unjust. Those who do this are surely heretics, whose chief
study has always been to reject the authority of Councils and the

(62) Hermant. t. 1 , c. 202. (63) Fleury, t. 6, l. 44, n. 50. (64) N. Alex. t. 12 ,


s. 8, c. 2, a. 3, f. 2. (65) Graves, t. 3 ; Colloq. 3, p. 55. (66) Nat. Alex. loc.
cit. c. 2, a. 3,f. 1.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 133

Pope, and thus sustain their own errors. The history of Nestorian-
ism would be incomplete without a knowledge of the modern de-
fenders of the heresy, and the arguments made use of by them.
Calvin was the first to raise the standard , and he was followed by
his disciples, Albertin, Giles Gaillard, John Croye, and David de
Roden. This band was joined by another Calvinistic writer, in
1645 , who printed a work, but did not put his name to it, in which
he endeavours to show that Nestorius should not be ranked with
the heretics, but with the doctors of the Church, and venerated as
a martyr, and that the Fathers of the Council of Ephesus ought to
be considered Eutychians, as well as St. Cyril, St. Gregory Thau-
maturgus, St. Dionisius of Alexandria , St. John Chrysostom, and
St. Hilary, who give it such praise. This book was refuted by the
learned Petavius, in the year 1646 , in the sixth book of his work
on Theological Dogmas. Finally, Samuel Basnage , in his An-
nals (67) , has joined with Calvin and the other authors above-
named, and has taken up the defence of Nestorius ; he has even
the hardihood to declare, that the Council of Ephesus had filled
the world with tears.
41. We shall let Basnage speak for himself. He says, first, the
Council of Ephesus was not a General one, but only a particular
Synod, as the bishops refused to wait either for the Pope's Legates,
or for the other bishops of the East. As far as the Legates are
concerned, we see (No. 28. ) that St. Cyril assisted at the Council
from the beginning, and that he had been already nominated by
the Pope as President ; that a few days after, the other Legates
arrived, and that they confirmed the Council. It is true all the
bishops of the East did not attend it, for eighty-nine bishops
seceded, and formed a cabal apart, in the very city of Ephesus, in
which they deposed St. Cyril ; but a few days after, the eighty-nine
were reduced to thirty-seven, among whom were the Pelagian
bishops, and several others already deposed ; and the rest, when
their eyes were opened to the truth , united themselves to the Fathers
of the Council , so that Theodoret, who at first adhered to the party
of John of Antioch, wrote to Andrew of Samosata : " Pars maxima
Israelis consentit inimicis, pauci vero valde sunt salvi, ac sustinent
pro pietate certamen :" but John himself, afterwards, together with
Theodoret and the rest who repented , subscribed to the Council,
which then was recognized as Ecumenical by the whole Church.
With what face, then , can Basnage say that it was a particular , and
not a General Council?
42. Basnage says next ( 68), that it is a false supposition of Noel
Alexander, that Nestorius taught that there were two persons in
Christ, or denied that Mary was the true Mother of God, and he
was condemned , he says, only because he was not well understood ;

(67) Basnage, ad an. 441, n. 13. (68) Basnage, l. cit. ad an. 430.
134 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

but how does he prove this as to the maternity of the Blessed


Virgin ? By saying that Nestorius, in a certain letter he wrote to
John of Antioch, admits, that as far as the words of the Gospel go ,
he has no objection that the Virgin should be piously called the
Mother of God, but these words he afterwards interpreted in his
own way. But why should we lose time in trying to interpret
these obscure and equivocal expressions of his, when he expressly
declares more than once, that Mary was not the Mother of God,
otherwise the Gentiles ought to be excused for adoring the mothers
of their gods. " Has God," he says , " a Mother ?-therefore Pa-
ganism is excusable. Mary brought not forth God , but she brought
forth a man, the instrument of the Divinity." These are his own
words, quoted by Basnage himself, and he also relates that the
monks of the Archimandrite Basil, in their petition to the Emperor
Theodosius, stated that Nestorius (69 ) said , that Mary only brought
forth a man , and that nothing but flesh could be born of the flesh,
and, therefore, they required, that in a General Council, the foun-
dation of the Faith should be left intact , that is, that the Word
with the flesh , taken from Mary, suffered and died for the Re-
demption of mankind . We have, besides, a letter written by Nes-
torius to the Pope St. Celestine ( 70) , in which he complains that
the clergy, " aperte blasphemant, Deum Verbum tamquam originis
initium de Christotocho Virgine sumsisse . Sed hanc Virginem
Christotochon ausi sunt cum modo quodam Theotocon dicere, cum
Ss. illi Patres per Nicæam nihil amplius de S. Virgine dixissent,
nisi quia Jesus Christus incarnatus est ex Spiritu Sancto de Maria
Virgine ;" and he adds, " Verbum Theotocon ferri potest propter
inseparabile Templum Dei Verbi ex ipsa, non quia ipsa Mater sit
Verbi Dei, nemo enim antiquiorem se parit :" thus, he denies in the
plainest terms, that the Blessed Virgin is Theotocon, the Mother
of the Word of God, but only allows her to be Christotocon , the
Mother of Christ ; but St. Celestine answers him (71) : " We have
received your letters containing open blasphemy," and he adds that
this truth, that the only Son of God was born of Mary, is the pro-
mise to us of life and salvation .
43. Let us now see what Nestorius says of Jesus Christ. No
nature, he says , can subsist without its proper subsistence , and this
is the origin of his error, for he therefore gives two persons to
Christ , Divine and human, as he had two natures, and he therefore
said that the Divine Word was united to Christ after he was
formed a perfect man with appropriate human subsistence and per-
sonality. He says : " Si Christus perfectus Deus, idemque perfectus
homo intelligitur, ubi naturæ est perfectio, si hominis natura non
subsistit" ( 72 ) ? He also said that the union of the two natures was

(69) Habetur in Sess. 4 ; Con . Col. 1103. (70) Sess. 4 ; Con. Col. 1021. (71 ) Tom.
4; Con. Col. 1023. (72) Tom. 5 ; Con. Col. 1004.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 135

according to grace, or by the dignity or honor of Filiation given to


the Person of Christ, and he, therefore , in general, did not call the
union of the two natures a union at all, but propinquity , or inhabi-
tation ; he thus admits two united , or more properly speaking, con-
joined natures, but not a true unity of person , and by two natures
understands two personalities, and therefore could not bear to hear
it said in speaking of Jesus Christ, that God was born , or suffered ,
or died . In his letter to St. Cyril, quoted by Basnage, he says :
" My brother, to ascribe birth, or suffering, or death, to the Divine
Word by reason of this appropriation , is to follow the Pagans or
the insane Apollinares." These expressions prove that he did not
believe that the two natures were united in one Person. When
his priest Anastasius, preaching to the people, said : " Let no one
call Mary the Mother of God, it is not possible that God should be
born of man, " and the people, horrified with the blasphemy , called
on Nestorius to remove the scandal given by Anastasius , he went
up into the pulpit, and said : " I never would call him God , who
has been formed only two or three months ," and he never called
Jesus Christ God, but only the temple or habitation of God, as he
wrote to St. Cyril. It is proper, he said, and conformable to ec-
clesiastical tradition, to confess that the body of Christ is the temple
of Divinity, and that it is joined by so sublime a connexion to his
Divine self, that we may say his Divine nature appropriates to
itself something which otherwise would belong to the body alone.
Here, then, are the very words of Nestorius himself, and nothing
can be more clear than that he means to say that Christ is only the
temple of God, but united to God in such a manner by Grace, that
it might be said that the Divine nature appropriated the qualities
proper to humanity. Now, Basnage does not deny that these are
the letters and expressions of Nestorius, and how then can he say
that he spoke in a pious and Catholic sense, and that the Council
of Ephesus, by his condemnation , filled the world with tears, when
Sixtus III. , St. Leo the Great, and the fifth General Council, together
with so many other doctors and learned writers, received the Council
of Ephesus as most certainly Ecumenical , and all have called and
considered Nestorius a heretic. Basnage, however, prefers following
Calvin and his adherents, instead of the Council of Ephesus, the
fifth Council, the Pope, and all the Catholic doctors. Selvaggi ,
the annotator of Mosheim, is well worthy of being read on this
question ( 73) ; he has six very excellent reflections, and makes
several useful remarks about Luther and the other modern
heretics, who seek to discredit St. Cyril and the Council of
Ephesus . It is the interest of all heretics to weaken the authority
of Councils, that there may be no power to condemn them, and
expose their errors to the world . But I remark that the devil has

(73 ) Selvag. in Mosheim, Part II. n. 82, p. 729.


136 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

made it a particular study to ruin, by his partisans, the credit of the


Council of Ephesus , to remove from our sight the immense love
which our God has shown us, by becoming man and dying for our
love. Men do not love God, because they do not reflect that he has
died for love of them , and the devil endeavours not only to remove
this thought from our minds, but to prevent us from thinking it
even possible.

ARTICLE IV .

THE HERESY OF EUTYCHES.

SEC. I. THE SYNOD OF ST. FLAVIAN. THE COUNCIL OR CABAL OF EPHESUS, CALLED
THE 66 LATROCINIUM," OR COUNCIL OF ROBBERS.
44. Beginning of Eutyches ; he is accused by Eusebius of Dorileum. 45. St. Flavian
receives the Charge. 46. Synod of St. Flavian. 47. Confession of Eutyches in the
Synod. 48. Sentence of the Synod against Eutyches. 49. Complaints of Eutyches.
50. Eutyches writes to St. Peter Chrysologus, and to St. Leo. 51. Character of
Dioscorus. 52 & 53. Cabal at Ephesus. 54. St. Flavian is deposed, and Eusebius
of Dorileum. 55. The Errors of Theodore of Mopsuestia. 56. Death of St. Flavian.
57. Character of Theodoret. 58 & 59. Writings of Theodoret against St. Cyril.
Defence of Theodoret. 60. Dioscorus excommunicates St. Leo. 61. Theodosius
approved the Council or Cabal, and dies. 62. Reign of St. Pulcheria and Marcian.

44. THE heresy of Eutyches sprung up ( 1) in the year 448 ,


eighteen years after the Council of Ephesus. Eutyches was a
monk and priest ; he was also the abbot of a monastery near Con-
stantinople, containing three hundred monks ; he was a violent op-
ponent of his Archbishop, Nestorius, and accused him at the Council
of Ephesus, where he went in person to testify to his prevarications,
so that he was considered by the friends of St. Cyril as one of the
staunchest defenders of the Faith (2 ) . St. Leo having received a
letter from him, informing him that Nestorianism was again raising
its head (3 ), answered him, approving of his zeal, and encouraging
him to defend the Church ; imagining that he was writing at the
time against the real Nestorians, while he, in that letter, meant all
the while the Catholics, whom he looked upon as infected with
Nestorian principles (4) . Eusebius, Bishop of Dorileum , in Phry-
gia, was also one of the most zealous opponents of Nestorius , for,
while yet only a layman, in the year 429, he had the courage to
stand up and reprove him publicly for his errors (5) . (No. 22. supra.)
The conformity of their opinions, therefore, made him a friend of
Eutyches , but in the course of their intimacy he, at length,
perceived that he ( Eutyches) went too far and fell into heretical
propositions (6). He endeavoured then for a long time, by reasoning

(1) Nat. Alex. t. 10, c. 3, ar. 13, s. 1 ; Baron. An. 448, ex. n. 19 ; Hermant, t. 1,
c. 155 ; Fleury, t. 4, l. 27 , n. 23. (2 ) Liberat. Brev. c. 11. (3) St. Leo, Ep. 19 , l. 6.
(4) Fleury, t. 4, l. 27, n. 23. (5) Sulp. l. 25 , n. 2, ap. Fleury, cit. n. 23. (6) Orsi,
ibid. n. 16 ; Fleury, cit. n. 23 ; Nat. Alex. t. 10, ar. 13, s. 2.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 137

with him, to bring him round ; but, when he saw it was all in vain,
he gave up his friendship and became his accuser. Even before
that the Orientals ( 7) had already denounced the errors of Euty-
ches to the Emperor Theodosius ; but he so adroitly turned aside
the charge, that, instead of being arraigned , he became the accuser.
The bishops of the East exclaimed , that Eutyches was infected
with the errors of Apollinares, but as it was an old trick to charge
with the profession of this false doctrine the adversaries of Nesto-
rius, and especially all who defended the anathemas of St. Cyril ;
and as those same bishops had before defended Nestorius , and even
still upheld the doctrine of Theodore of Mopsuestia , no one took
any notice of their accusation of Eutyches on the present occasion.
The unfortunate man had then nothing to fear from the charges of
those bishops, but when Eusebius of Dorileum took up the matter
it wore a more serious aspect. Eusebius then, having frequently
admonished him privately, and seeing that this had no effect on
him, considered himself now bound by the Gospel to denounce him
to the Church, and , accordingly, laid the matter before St. Flavian ,
Archbishop of Constantinople (8).
45. St. Flavian foresaw, that a judicial process and condemnation
of Eutyches would occasion a great deal of tumult , for he was
venerated by the people, and respected by the Court, as a man
who, having dedicated himself to God from his infancy, had now
grown grey in monastic solitude, and never went outside of his
cloister for a day, only when he joined with St. Dalmatius, to
defend the Council of Ephesus ; the Archbishop, therefore, advised
Eusebius to act with the greatest caution . Eutyches was also
protected by the Eunuch Chrisaphius, whose godfather he was,
and joined with Dioscorus, Bishop of Alexandria, in opposing the
Oriental bishops, who were the first to accuse him of heresy ; it
would appear, then, in intermeddling at all with the matter, that
St. Flavian and Eusebius were joining the enemy, and opposing
both the Court and Dioscorus, and thus occasioning a great dis-
turbance in the Church ; but neither this, nor any other considera-
tion, could restrain the zeal of Eusebius, so St. Flavian was obliged
to receive the charge, and let justice take its course.
46. While this was going on , St. Flavian held a Synod for the
adjustment of some disputes between Florens of Sardis, the Me-
tropolitan of Lydia, and two bishops of the same province. When
this case was concluded ( 9 ) , the Bishop of Dorileum arose, and
presented a document to the Council, requiring that it should be
read and inserted in the Acts. The document was read, and in it
Eusebius charged Eutyches with blaspheming Jesus Christ, with
speaking with disrespect of the Holy Fathers, and with accusing

(7) Orsi, t. 14, l. 32, n. 9. (8) Orsi, ibid. n. 16 ; Fleury, l. c. (9) Orsi, loc. cit.
n. 17 ; Fleury, l. 27, n. 24.
138 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

himself, whose whole study it was to make war with heresy, with
being a heretic ; he demanded , therefore, that Eutyches should be
cited to appear before the Council, to give an account of his ex-
pressions, and he promised that he would be prepared to convict
him of heresy, and thus, those whom he had perverted could see
the evil of their ways and repent. When the paper was read
through, St. Flavian besought Eusebius to see Eutyches once more
in private, and try to bring him to a better sense. Eusebius an-
swered, that he had done so over and over already, and could bring
many witnesses to prove it, but all in vain , and he, therefore, again
begged of the Council, at any cost, to summon Eutyches, that he
might not lead others astray, as he had already perverted a great
number. Still, however, St. Flavian wished that Eusebius should
try once more the effect of a private remonstrance, but he refused ,
as he had so often made the attempt already and could not succeed.
The Synod, at length, received the charge against Eutyches, and
deputed a priest and deacon to wait on him, and summon him to
appear at the ensuing Session of the Council to clear himself. The
second Session was then held , and in that, the two principal letters
of St. Cyril, on the Incarnation of the Word, were read, that is,
his second letter to Nestorius, approved by the Council of Ephesus,
and the other to the Council of John of Antioch, after the conclu-
sion of the peace. When these letters were read, St. Flavian said ,
that his Faith was, that Jesus Christ is perfect God and perfect
man, composed of body and soul, consubstantial to his Father,
according to his Divinity, and consubstantial to his Mother, accord-
ing to his humanity, and that from the union of the two natures-
Divine and human, in one sole hypostasis or person , there results
but one Jesus Christ, after the Incarnation of the Word ; and all
the other bishops made the same profession . Other Sessions were
held, and other citations were sent to Eutyches, calling on him to
appear and justify himself, but he refused, and alleged as an excuse,
that he never left his convent, and, besides, that he was then
sick (10).
47. Towards the close of the seventh Session , Eutyches presented
himselfbefore the Council, for he could no longer refuse the repeated
citations he received , but the Fathers were surprised to see him enter,
accompanied by a great troop of soldiers (11 ) , of monks, and of officers
of the Prefect of the Pretorium, who would not allow him to enter
the Council, till the Fathers promised to send him back safe again.
He came into the Council hall, and he was followed by the " Great
Silenciary" (an officer so called among the Romans, whose duty it
was to preserve the peace of the Imperial Palace), who presented,
and read an order from the Emperor, commanding that the Patrician

(10) Orsi, n. 18. (11) Fleury, 7. 27 , n. 28 ; Orsi, t. 14, l. 32, n. 23 ; Baron. Ann.
448, n. 48 ; Hermant, t. 1 , c 155.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 139

Florentius should attend the Council for the conservation of the


Faith . Florentius came, and then Eusebius of Dorileum the
accuser, and Eutyches the accused , were placed both standing in
the midst of the Council . The letter of St. Cyril to the Orientals,
in which the distinction of the two natures is expressed, was then
read . Eusebius then said : Eutyches does not agree to this , but
teaches the contrary. When the reading of the Acts was con-
cluded, St. Flavian said to Eutyches : You have heard what your
accuser has said ; declare, then , if you confess the union of the two
natures in Christ ? Eutyches answered that he did. But, replied
Eusebius, do you confess the two natures, after the Incarnation ;
and do you believe that Jesus Christ is consubstantial to us, accord-
ing to the flesh or not ? Eutyches, turning to St. Flavian, answered :
I came not here to dispute, but to declare what my opinion is ; I
have written it in this paper, let it be read. St. Flavian said , Read
it yourself. I cannot read it, said Eutyches. He then made this
confession : " I adore the Father with the Son, and the Son with
the Father, and the Holy Ghost with the Father and the Son. I
confess his coming in the flesh , taken from the flesh of the Holy
Virgin, and that he has been made perfect man for our salvation."
Flavian again asked him : Do you now confess, here present, that
Jesus Christ has two natures ? 66 Hitherto, I have not said so,"
said he, “ now I confess it." Florentius asked him : If he professed
that there are two natures in Christ, and that Jesus Christ is con-
substantial to us ? Eutyches answered : " I have read in Cyril and
Athanasius, that Christ was of two natures, and I , therefore, con-
fess that our Lord was, before his Incarnation, of two natures, but
after these were united , they do not say any longer that he had two
natures, but only one ; let St. Athanasius be read, and you will see
that he does not say two natures." Eutyches did not advert, that
both his propositions were open heresy, as St. Leo well remarks in
his letter : The second proposition , that is, that Christ, after the
union of the two natures, was of only one nature. The human
nature, as Eutyches said, being absorbed in and confounded with
the Divine nature, would prove, that the Divinity itself in Christ
had suffered and died , and , that the sufferings and death of Christ
were only a mere fable . The first proposition was no less heretical
than the second, that Christ, previous to his Incarnation , had two
natures -for this could only be sustained by upholding the heresy
of Origen, that the souls of men were all created before the begin-
ning of the world, and then , from time to time, sent to inhabit the
bodies of men.
48. When Eutyches spoke thus, Basil of Seleucia said to him:
"If you do not say that there were two natures after the union ,
you admit a mixture or confusion." Florentius replied : " He who
does not admit two natures in Christ , does not believe as he ought ."
Then the Council exclaimed : " Faith ought not to be forced . He
140 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

will not submit ; what do you exhort him for ?" St. Flavian then ,
with consent of the bishops, pronounced the sentence in these
terms : " Eutyches, Priest, and Archimandrite, is fully convicted,
both by his past acts, and his present confessions, to hold the errors
of Valentine and Apollinares, and more so, as he has had no regard
to our admonitions : therefore, weeping and sighing for his total
loss, we declare, on the part of Jesus Christ, whom he blasphemes,
that he is deprived of every priestly grade, of our communion, and
of the government of his monastery ; and we make known this,
that all those who hold any conversation or communication with
him shall be excommunicated" ( 12) . Here are the words of the
decree, as quoted by Noel Alexander (13) : " Per omnia Eutiches,
quondam Presbyter et Archimandrita, Valentini et Apollinaris
perversitatibus compertus est ægrotare, et eorum blasphemias in-
commutabiliter sequi ; qui nec nostram reveritus persuasionem , atque
doctrinam, rectis noluit consentire dogmatibus. Unde illacrymati ,
et gementes perfectam ejus perditionem , decrevimus per Dominum
N. Jesum Christum , quem blasphematus est, extraneum eum esse
ab omni officio sacerdotali, et a nostra communione, et primatu
monasterii ; scientibus hoc omnibus, qui cum eo exinde collo-
quentur, aut eum convenerint, quoniam rei erunt et ipsi pœne
excommunicationis." This sentence was subscribed by thirty-two
bishops, and twenty-three abbots, of whom eighteen were priests,
one a deacon, and four laymen. When the Council was termi-
nated, Eutyches said to the Patrician Florentius, in a low voice,
that he appealed to the Council of the Most Holy Bishop of Rome,
and of the Bishops of Alexandria , of Jerusalem, and of Thessa-
lonica, and Florentius immediately communicated it to St. Flavian,
as he was leaving the hall to go to his own apartment. This ex-
pression , thus privately dropped (14) , gave a handle to Eutyches
afterwards to boast that he had appealed to the Pope, to whom he
wrote , as we shall soon see.
49. This pretended appeal did not prevent St. Flavian from
publishing the sentence of excommunication, but Eutyches made
use of it, to publish a great many false charges against the Synod,
which he accused of trampling on all the rules of justice in his
regard. The sentence of the Council was published, by order of
St. Flavian, in all the monasteries, and subscribed by their Archi-
mandrites ; but the monks of the monastery Eutyches governed,
instead of separating themselves from his communion, preferred to
remain without sacraments, and some of them even died without
the viaticum, sooner than forsake their impious master. Eutyches
complained very much of St. Flavian , for calling on the heads of
the other monasteries to subscribe his sentence, as a novelty never

(12) Fleury, t. 4, 1. 27, n. 28 ; Orsi, † 14, l. 52 , n . 23. ( 13) Nat. Alex. f. 10, c. 8,
art. 13, sec. 4. (14) St. Leo, Epis. 20, al. 8.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 141

before used in the Church, not even against heretics ; but, on the
other hand, it was a new thing to find an Abbot chief of a heretical
sect, and disseminating his pestilent errors in the monasteries.
He also complained that St. Flavian had removed his protests,
posted up in Constantinople, against the Council, and which were
a tissue of abuse and calumny , as if he had any right to stir up the
people against a Council now closed, or to defend his pretended
innocence by calumnious libels ( 15 ) .
50. He next wrote to St. Peter Chrysologus, Bishop of Ravenna ,
complaining of the judgment of St. Flavian, with the intention of
gaining the favour of this holy bishop, who had great influence
with the Emperor Valentinian and his mother Placida, who in
general resided at Ravenna. St. Peter answered him, that, as he
had not received any letter from Flavian, nor heard what that
bishop had to say in the matter, he could give no opinion on
the controversy, and he exhorts him to read and obey whatever
the Pontiff, St. Leo, would write to him: " Above all things we
advise you , honourable brother, obediently to attend to whatever is
written by his Holiness the Pope, since St. Peter, who lives and
presides in his See, affords to those who seek it the truth of Faith ."
This letter is found in Bernini and Peter Annatus ( 16) . Both
Eutyches and St. Flavian wrote afterwards to St. Leo ; Eutyches,
to complain of the grievances he asserted were inflicted on him by
the Council of Constantinople, and St. Flavian , to explain the just
cause he had to depose and excommunicate Eutyches . St. Leo
having received the letter of Eutyches before that of St. Flavian,
wrote to him (17), wondering that he had not already written to
him what he thought of the matter, for he could not make out from
the letter of Eutyches the reason of his excommunication. He ,
therefore, ordered him to inform him immediately of the whole
transaction, and especially of the erroneous doctrine for which he
was condemned, that, as the Emperor wished, an end might be put
to this discord and peace restored, especially as Eutyches professed
his willingness to be corrected , if it was proved he had erred. St.
Flavian answered the Pope, giving him a full account of everything,
and, among the rest, that Eutyches, in place of repenting, was only
endeavouring to disturb the Church of Constantinople, by wicked
libels and petitions to the Emperor, for a revision of the Acts of
the Synod at which he was condemned , and making charges to the
effect that the Acts were falsified . In fact, on the 8th of April,
449 , another assembly was held in Constantinople, by order of the
Emperor, and St. Flavian ( 18 ) was obliged to present his profession
of Faith, in which he declares, that he recognizes in Jesus Christ
two natures after the Incarnation , in one Person, and that he did

(15) Orsi, cit. n. 33. (16) Bernin. t. 1, sec. 5, c. 6, p. 510 ; Petr. Anat. Ap. par
ad Theol. 7. 4, de Script. Eccl. art. 30. (17) St. Leo, Epis. 20, ap. Orsi, ibid. n. 24, 25 ;
Fleury, n. 31 , 32. (18) Liberat. Brevia. c. 11.
142 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

not also refuse to say one nature of the Divine Word , if the words
incarnate and humanized were also used, and he excommunicated
Nestorius and all who divided Jesus Christ into two persons ( 19).
No other matter of importance was decided in that meeting.
51. In the meantime, Dioscorus , Patriarch of Alexandria , at the
instigation of Eutyches, and urged on by Chrysaphius, his pro-
tector, wrote to the Emperor, that it was necessary to convoke a
General Council, and he obtained an order for it through the
influence of Chrysaphius. Before we proceed , however, it will be
necessary to give an insight into the character of Dioscorus, as we
shall have to speak frequently of his wickedness hereafter . He
concealed his vices under an exterior of virtue, to obtain the
bishopric of Alexandria ( 20), in which, for his own misfortune, he
was successful ; he was avaricious, immoral, and furiously violent.
When placed on the Episcopal throne of Alexandria, he threw
aside all restraint ; treated most cruelly those ecclesiastics who
were honoured by St. Cyril ; some he reduced to beggary, and even
burned their houses, and tortured them in prison ; others he sent
into banishment. He kept improper women in his palace, and
publicly bathed with them, to the insufferable scandal of the people .
He so persecuted the nephews of St. Cyril, deprived them of all
their property, that he drove them as wanderers through the world ,
while he made a show with their property, distributing it among
the bakers and tavern-keepers of the city, that they might sell
better bread and wine (21 ). He was charged with many homicides ,
and with causing a famine in Egypt by his insatiable avarice. It is
even told of him, that a lady having left her property to the hospi-
tals and the monasteries, he ordered it to be distributed among the
actors and prostitutes of Alexandria. Hermant asserts ( 22) that he
followed the errors of the Origenists and the Arians : such was the
protector of Eutyches. Now to the subject.
52. Theodosius convoked the Council , in Ephesus , for the 1st
of August, 449 (it was not held , however, till the 8th) , and sent
his diploma to Dioscorus , appointing him President, with power
to assemble whatever bishops he pleased to try the case of Eutyches.
Never, perhaps, before was the world disgraced by such acts of in-
justice as were committed by Dioscorus in that Synod , which has
been justly called , by ecclesiastical writers , the Latrocinium Ephe-
sinium, or meeting of robbers at Ephesus ; for he, abandoning him-
self to his innate ferocity, used horrible violence towards the Catho-
lic bishops, and even towards the two Legates, Hilary, Deacon of
the Roman Church, and Julius, Bishop of Pozzuoli , sent by St. Leo
to represent him at the Council. When these saw the Holy See
excluded from the presidency of the Council, in their persons, for

(19) Fleury, t. 4, l. 97 , n. 31 ; Nat. Alex. c. 3, art. 13, sec. 6, 7. (20) Hermaut,


. 1, c. 156. (21) Baron. Ann. 444 , n. 33 , ex. Lib. (22 ) Hermant, loc. cit.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 143

Dioscorus, who usurped the first place, they judged it better to take
the last place, and to appear no longer as Legates of the Pope,
when they saw his authority slighted. Lucretius, the Pope's Le-
gate in the Council of Chalcedon , charged Dioscorus with this after ,
and called him to answer for his audacity, in holding a Synod in
Ephesus , without the authority of the Apostolic See, which never,
he said, has been lawful, nor has ever been done ; and he could not
have made this charge, if Hilary and Julius had been received in
the Council as Legates of the Pope (23) . Nevertheless, they seve-
ral times requested that the letter of l'ope Leo should be read ( 24) ;
but Dioscorus would never allow it, calling for other documents
to be read, according to his own pleasure ; neither would he allow
any examination of Articles of Faith, fulminating anathemas against
any one who would allude to it. It was quite enough, he said , to
hold by what was decided in the Councils of Nice and Ephesus,
and, since they had decided that, no novelty should now be intro-
duced to interfere with their decisions (25) .
53. Dioscorus now called on Eutyches to read his profession of
Faith, and the impious heresiarch anathematized Apollinares and
Nestorius, or any one that would assert that the flesh of Jesus Christ
came down from heaven. When he came to this passage, Basil of
Seleucia interrupted him, and asked him to explain the manner in
which he believed the Word had taken human flesh ? but he gave
him no answer, nor did the heads of the Synod, as they ought to
have done, oblige him to explain himself, for this was the principal
point of the whole question ; for , if the Divine nature destroyed the
human nature in the Incarnation , or the human nature was con-
founded with the Divine nature, as the Eutychians asserted, how
could it be said that the Word of God took human flesh ? How-
ever, without waiting for the answer to the question of Basil, the
notary was ordered to proceed with the reading of the document
of Eutyches, in which he complained of the sentence passed on
him, and concluded by requiring that his persecutors should be
punished (26) . When this statement of Eutyches was read, St.
Flavian said that it was but just that his accuser, Eusebius of Dori-
leum, should be heard likewise , but not only this was refused , but
St. Flavian himself was told that he was not allowed to speak, as
the Emperor had given positive orders that none of those who had
passed judgment on Eutyches before should be allowed to say a
word without leave of the Synod (27) .
54. The Acts of the Synod, held by St. Flavian, were then
read , and also the two letters of St. Cyril to Nestorius and John of
Antioch, in which St. Cyril approved of the expression of the two
natures. Eustatius of Beyroot, a partisan of Eutyches, then re-

(23 ) Liberat. Brevia. c. 12. (24) Orsi, n. 41. (25 ) Orsi, n. 52. (26) Orsi,
n. 53. (27) Orsi, n. 14, l. 32, n. 54.
144 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

marked to the Council that St. Cyril, in two other letters written
to Acacius of Melitis and Valerian of Iconium, did not use the
words, two natures, but the one nature of the Divine Word Incar-
nate, and thus this Eutychian bishop wished to make it appear that
St. Cyril held the same faith as Eutyches ; but this was all a
calumny against St. Cyril, for the saint, in a thousand passages of
his writings, had expressly spoken of the two natures of Christ, and
besides the expression, the one nature of the Incarnate Word only
meant the union in Christ of two distinct natures, the Divine and
human . And this was most clearly expressed soon after, in the
Council of Chalcedon , in which it was laid down that these words,
used first by St. Cyril, and afterwards by St. Flavian , were only
used in that sense, and an anathema was pronounced against any
one using the expression , " the one nature," with the intention of
denying that the flesh of Christ was consubstantial with ours. The
votes given in the Council held by St. Flavian were next read, and
when the vote of Basil of Seleucia, that_two natures should be re-
quired in Christ, was read out, all the Egyptians and the monks ,
followers of Barsuma, cried out : " Let him be cut in two who
speaks of two natures in Christ ; he is a Nestorian heretic ." It was
then read out that Eusebius of Dorileum had pressed Eutyches to
confess two natures in Christ, and when the same party heard this,
they cried out with all their force ; " To the pile with Eusebius,
let him be burned alive ; as he has divided Jesus Christ, let him be
cut in two halves himself" (28). Dioscorus being now assured of
the suffrages ofthe bishops, for some adhered to him through liking,
and more through terror, called on every one to give his sentence ;
and thus the faith of Eutyches was approved of, and he was re-
established in his dignity, and the monks, his adherents, who were
excommunicated , by St. Flavian, were again received into com-
munion (29).
55. The great object which Dioscorus had in view, however,
was the deposition of St. Flavian and of Eusebius of Dorileum , and
he therefore ordered the decree of the Synod antecedent to that of
Ephesus to be read , prohibiting, under pain of anathema and deposi-
tion, any other Symbol but that of Nice to be used . The intention of
the Council, in passing this law, was to reject the malignant Sym-
bol of Theodore of Mopsuestia, in which, as Rabbula, Bishop of
Edessa (30) , relates , the Nestorian blasphemy was introduced , and
it was professed : First. That the Holy Virgin was not the real
Mother of God. Second. That man was not united to the Word
according to the substance, but through good will. Third .- That
Jesus Christ ought to be adored but only as the image of God.
Fourth. That the flesh of Jesus Christ availeth nothing. Theodore ,

(28) Orsi, n. 55. (29) Orsi, n. 56 ; Baron. Ann. 448, n. 91 , ad 93.


(30) Fleury, t. 4, 7, 26, n. 36, in fine.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 145

besides, denied original sin, and on that account, when Julian and
his fellow-Pelagians were banished out of Italy by the Pope St.
Celestine, they went to Theodore, who, as Marius Mercator in-
forms us, received them kindly. Cassianus (31 ) also tells us that
the Pelagians taught the same errors as Nestorius and Theodore,
that is, that Christ was but a mere man, and they meant to prove
by that proposition that it was possible for a man to be without
original sin , as he was so ; and hence they deduced as an inference,
that other men might be without sin, likewise, if they wished to be
So. But to the point ; the intention of the Council then was to re-
ject the Symbol of the impious Theodore, as it was afterwards de-
clared in the fifth Ecumenical Council, in which, as we shall see
in the following chapter, the Three Chapters were condemned, as
was also Theodore and his writings ; but it was not the intention of
the Council of Ephesus, nor did it ever prohibit the use of other
words, besides those used in the Council of Nice, when these ex-
pressions are only used to express more clearly the sense of any
Catholic dogma, impugned by some new heresy not taken into
consideration by the Council of Nice. Still, Dioscorus, intent on
the condemnation of St. Flavian and Eusebius, ordered that the
Decree of the Council of Ephesus should be read, and then imme-
diately called on the notaries , and without any form of trial, or
giving St. Flavian any time to defend himself, ordered one of the
notaries to read the sentence of deposition against these two bishops,
on the false charge that they had introduced novelties in Faith, and
had not adhered to the words of the Symbol of Nice ( 32 ). St.
Flavian instantly put into the hands of the Legates of the Pope an
appeal against the sentence ( 33). Several bishops, horrified at such
a glaring act of injustice, endeavoured to soothe Dioscorus ; some of
them even throwing themselves at his feet, and embracing his knees,
besought him to revoke the sentence, but all to no avail, for he
told them he would sooner cut out his own tongue than revoke it ;
and when they still, in the most pressing manner, continued to im-
plore him to change his mind, he stood up on the steps of the
throne and cried out : " Are you then determined to create a sedi-
tion ; where then are the Counts ?" The Counts at once came into
the church with a strong body of soldiers, and were joined by the
partisans of Dioscorus and the monks of Barsumas, so that the
church became a scene of tumult and confusion. The bishops all
fled, some to one part of the edifice, some to another, but the doors
were all bolted , and guarded, so that no one could escape. Dios-
corus then, to give a finishing stroke to this villany, presented a
blank paper to the bishops, that they might subscribe the sentence,
and those who showed any disposition to refuse, were threatened

(31 Cassian. 7. 1, de Incar. contra Nestor. c. 2 & 3. (32) Fleury, 7. 27, n. 41 .


(33) Orsi, l. 33, n. 58 ; Baron. Ann. 499, n. 92.
K
146 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

with deposition , banishment, and even with death , as partisans of


the Nestorian heresy. On all sides shouts arose : " Cut them in
pieces if they say there are two natures ." The soldiers obliged
them to sign their names, and if they refused , beat them with clubs,
threatened them with drawn swords, and even wounded some of
them, so that the church was sprinkled with their blood. The
bishops, thus constrained , finally all signed the sentence of deposi-
tion, but said, when the Synod was dissolved, that it was not they,
but the soldiers, who deposed St. Flavian ; but this excuse went but
a little way to justify them, for no Christian , let alone a bishop , should ,
through fear, condemn an innocent man, or betray the truth (34).
56. The wretch Dioscorus was so enraged at the appeal of St.
Flavian, that, not satisfied with having deposed and banished
this holy bishop , he laid violent hands on him, and became his
executioner, or, at all events, the cause of his death, for he was so
blinded with passion , that he struck him on the face , kicked him
in the stomach, and throwing him on the ground , trampled on his
belly. Timothy Eleurus, and Peter Mongus, who afterwards dis-
graced the episcopal throne of Alexandria, and the impious Bar-
sumas, who cried out in the Synod : " Kill him, kill him,” were
also parties to his death, and it is on that account, that when Bar-
sumas presented himself afterwards in the Council of Chalcedon,
they cried out : " Turn out the murderer Barsumas ; cast the mur-
derer to the beasts." St. Flavian did not die on the spot, but being
dragged to prison, and given in the hands of the guards the next
day to be conveyed to the place of his banishment, after three days'
weary travelling, he arrived at Epipa, a city of Lydia, and then
gave up his holy soul into the hands of his Maker. This is the
account Cardinal Orsi gives of his death (35) , and Fleury and
Hermant agree with him in the particulars ; and it is on this account
the Fathers of the Council of Chalcedon did not scruple to give
him the title of Martyr (36). Eusebius of Dorileum escaped , be-
cause he was not allowed admission into this impious meeting; he
was deposed and condemned to exile, but escaped to Rome, where
St. Leo received him into his communion, and retained him with
himself, till his departure for the Council of Chalcedon . In the
meanwhile, Dioscorus continued to publish anathemas and suspen-
sions against those bishops who he any ways suspected were op-
posed to the doctrines of Eutyches ; he condemned Theodoret,
Bishop of Cyrus , as a heretic, in his absence, and proscribed his
works, on account of his having written against the anathemas of
St. Cyril (37) . It is necessary, in order to explain the injustice
of condemning Theodoret as a heretic , to give some account of this
learned and remarkable man.

(34) Orsi, n. 59 & 60. (35) Orsi, t. 14, l. 32, n. 62 ; Fleury, t. 4, l. 27, n. 41 ;
Hermant, t. 1, c. 157. (36) Orsi, t. 14, l. 33, n. 62 ; vide Fleury, t. 4, l. 67, n. 41, t. 1 ;
Ber. p. 552. (37) Orsi, n. 68.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 147

57. Cardinal Orsi ( 38) very justly remarks, that if Theodoret


never was so unfortunate as to oppose for some time St. Cyril, the
great defender of the Faith, against Nestorius, his name, at the
present day, would be venerated like the venerable names of St.
Basil, St. Chrystostom, and St. Gregory, whose equal, perhaps, he
was both in virtue and learning. He was born in Antioch (39 ),
about the end of the fourth century. After the death of his
parents, who were both rich and noble, he sold all his property,
and gave it to the poor, reserving nothing for himself. He retired
to the solitude of a monastery, and spent the greater part of the
day in prayer, and the remainder in the study of literature, both
sacred and profane. His master, unfortunately, was Theodore of
Mopsuestia, of whose errors we have already spoken (n . 48) , but he
did not infect his disciple with them . He was forced from his
solitude, and against his will made Bishop of Cyrus, a small, but
very populous See, with eight hundred churches. The desire of
assisting the many poor souls in his diocese infected with heresy,
overcame his attachment to his solitude, and his repugnance to
accept of any dignity, so he gave up his whole soul to the dis-
charge of his pastoral duties, nourishing the piety of his people,
and combating the heresies which infected part of his diocese ; and
he succeeded in rescuing eight villages from the darkness of the
heresy of Marcion .
58. On reading the anathematisms of St. Cyril (40) , he wrote
against them , and in no measured terms, and appeared rather to
favour Nestorius than St. Cyril, who laboured to convince him of
his mistake. Although he appeared to recognize only one Christ
alone, and called the Holy Virgin the Mother of God , still, his
arguments would lead us to believe, that he divided Christ into
two persons, and gave Mary the title of Mother of God, in the sense
of Nestorius, that is, mother of him who was the temple of God.
St. Cyril, withal, justified him, and said , that though his mode of
expressing himself was rash, that they agreed in Faith, and he
therefore writes (41 ) , that he did not wish to fall out with Theo-
doret, as long as he confessed that God was not separated from
human nature, and that Christ was not separated from the Divinity,
but was both God and man. On the other hand , Theodoret (42),
being in Antioch when the letters of Pope St. Celestine and St.
Cyril were received , joined with John, Patriarch of Antioch, and
wrote to Nestorius, that he should not disturb the Church, by deny-
ing to Mary the title of the Mother of God, because, said he, that
cannot be denied without corrupting the truth of the Incarnation
of the Word. It cannot be doubted, but that Theodoret was some-
what reprehensible in his writings against the anathematisms of

(38) Orsi, t. 12, l. 28, n. 49. (39) Nat. Alex. t. 10, c. 4, n. 28 ; Orsi, loc. cit. n. 50.
(40) Orsi, l. 28, n. 62. (41 ) St. Cyril, Apol. cap. (42) Orsi, t. 13, l. 30, n. 66
& seq.
148 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

St. Cyril, and the Cabal of Ephesus, and in his defence of Theo-
dore and Nestorius, and those productions were condemned in the
second Council of Constantinople ; but we should not forget, that
he erred, not in holding the doctrines of Nestorius, but in believing
that St. Cyril was an upholder of the doctrines of Apollinares ; so
that when he read (43) St. Cyril's letter to Acacius of Berea, in
which the saint clears himself from the imputation of being a
favourer of the doctrines of Apollinares, and professes, that he
firmly believes that the body of Christ was animated by a reason-
ing soul, and expresses his detestation of the confusion of the two
natures, and declares that he holds the nature of the Word to be
impassable, but that Christ suffered according to the flesh ; he at
once, thinking that St. Cyril had now forsaken the doctrine of
Apollinares (44 ), and no longer believed in the confusion of the
two natures, felt quite happy, and said, that St. Cyril now followed
the pure doctrine of the Fathers, and wrote him a loving letter,
because, as he said, he now recognized in the Incarnation of the
Word, one Son alone, and one Christ alone, with the distinction
of the two natures ; St. Cyril cordially answered him, and this was
the commencement of a friendly correspondence between them (45) .
59. Theodoret next wrote his work Eranistes (the Beggar),
against the Eutychians (46) , and, on that account, through the
calumnies of Eutyches, he was first confined by the Emperor to
his Diocese of Cyrus, and was afterwards deposed by Dioscorus,
in the Cabal of Ephesus, but he appealed from this sentence to
St. Leo, and subsequently retired to his old monastery, near
Apamea (47). He was afterwards recalled from exile , by Mar-
cian (48), and St. Leo declared him innocent, and reinstated him
in the See of Cyrus (49) . Finally, in the Council of Chalcedon ,
after publicly anathematizing Nestorius, and all who did not call
the Virgin Mary the Mother of God, and divided Jesus Christ into
two Sons, he was received by all the Fathers, and declared worthy
of being restored to his See (50). It is supposed that he lived to
the year 458 , and that, towards the end of his life, he composed
the treatise on Heretical Fables (51) .
60. We now come back to the impious Synod of Ephesus. The
majority of the bishops having now subscribed the condemnation
of St. Flavian, the few, who refused to lend themselves to this
iniquity, were sent into banishment by Dioscorus. These few
confessors alone, and Hilary, the Pope's Legate, were the only
members who had the courage to protest, and declared that a cabal
like that would never be approved of by the Pope, or be received,
as it undermined the Apostles' Creed, and that they never would,

(43) Orsi, t. 13, l. 30, n. 12. (44) Orsi, n. 13. (45) Orsi, t. 13 , l. 30, n. 67.
(46) Orsi, t. 14, l. 32, n. 10 & 11. (47) Orsi, t. 14, l. 32, n. 68 & seq. ad 85.
(48) Orsi, t. 14, l. 33, n. 3. (49) Orsi, ibid. n. 20. (50) Orsi, ibid. n. 70.
(51) Orsi, ibid. n. 20.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 149

through terror, give up the Faith they professed (52) . Dioscorus,


in the meanwhile, having now closed the meeting, returned in joy
and triumph to Alexandria, and to such a pitch did his arrogance
then arrive, that he solemnly published a sentence of excommuni-
cation against St. Leo, and partly by cajolery, and partly by terror,
obliged about ten bishops, who returned with him to Egypt, to
subscribe to it, though they did it weeping, and lamenting the
horrible impiety they were called on to perform (53 ) . Orsi (54)
says, on the authority of the statement made to the Council of
Chalcedon by Theodore, a deacon of Alexandria, that Dioscorus
was guilty of this act of madness in Nice, beyond the bounds of
Egypt (55 ) .
61. When St. Leo heard of these atrocious proceedings , he wrote
to Theodosius, explaining to him the deplorable state to which
religion was reduced by Dioscorus, but all in vain, for the Emperor,
gained over by his courtiers, in favour of Eutyches, and regardless
of the prayer of the Pope, and the sage advices of the Princess
Pulcheria, instead of punishing the efforts the Eutychians were
making, re-established Eutyches himself in all his honours , con-
demned the memory of St. Flavian, and approved of all that was
done in Ephesus (56 ) . He, therefore, wrote to St. Leo, that as
the Council of Ephesus had examined everything according to the
rules of justice and of the Faith, and as those unworthy of the
dignity of the priesthood were deprived of it, so those who were
worthy were re- established in the grade they before held (57) .
Such was the answer of Theodosius ; but God , who always watches
over his flock, though he sometimes appears to sleep, soon after
removed this prince out of the world , in the year 450, the 59th of
his age ; previous to his death, however, as Orsi remarks ( 58 ) , he
listened to the remonstrances of his holy sister, and gave several
proofs of his sorrow for having favoured Eutyches. As he died
without issue he left the Empire to his sister, St. Pulcheria, whose
piety and wisdom soon healed the disorders caused by the weak-
ness of her brother, in allowing himself to be governed by his
courtiers. Though no one could be found more worthy to govern
the Empire alone than she was , still her subjects were anxious that
she should marry, and give them a new Emperor. She was, how-
ever, now advanced in years, and besides, had made a vow of per-
petual virginity ; anxious, therefore, to please her subjects, and at
the same time remain faithful to her promises to God, she gave her
hand to the Senator Marcian , of whose probity and regard for her-
self, personally, she was perfectly convinced, and who , she well
knew, was better qualified than any other to govern the Empire ;
and his subsequent conduct proved, that her opinion of his good-

(52) Orsi, t. 14, l. 13, n. 61 . (53, Hermant, t. 1, c. 157 ; Fleury, t. 4, l. 27, n. 41.
(54) Orsi, t. 14, l. 32 , n. 97. (55) Libel. Theo. æt Con. Chal. v. Fleury, 7. cit.
(56) Hermant, t. 1 , c. 157. (57) Orsi, l. 32, n. 90. (58) Orsi, loc. cit. n.101.
150 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

ness was not unfounded. In the beginning of his career, this


great man was only a private soldier, but his wisdom and prudence
elevated him to the senatorial rank (59).

SEC. II. THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON.


62. A Council is assembled in Chalcedon, under the Emperor Marcian and the Pope St.
Leo. 63. The cause of Dioscorus is tried in the first Session. 64. He is condemned.
65. Articles of Faith defined, in opposition to the Eutychian Heresy, according to the
Letter of St. Leo. 66. Privileges granted by the Council to the Patriarch of Con-
stantinople. 67. Refused by St. Leo. 68. Eutyches and Dioscorus die in their ob-
stinacy. 69. Theodosius, Head of the Eutychians in Jerusalem. 70. His Cruelty.
71. Death of St. Pulcheria and of Marcian. 72. Timothy Eleurus intruded into the
See ofAlexandria. 73. Martyrdom of St. Proterius, the true Bishop. 74. Leo suc-
ceeds Marcian in the Empire. 75. Eleurus is expelled from the See of Alexandria,
and Timothy Salofacialus is elected. 76. Zeno is made Emperor ; he puts Basiliscus
to Death. Eleurus commits Suicide. 77. St. Simon Stilites. 78. His happy Death.
79. Peter the Stammerer intruded into the See of Alexandria.

62. MARCIAN was proclaimed Emperor on the 24th of August, in


the year 450 , and on assuming the imperial power, recognizing in
his elevation the work of God, he at once began to advance His
glory, and try every means to banish heresy from his dominions.
With that intention he wrote two letters to Pope Leo , praying him
to convoke a Council, and preside at it in person, or, at all events,
to send his Legates, and strive to give peace to the Church. St.
Pulcheria wrote to St. Leo likewise, and informed him of the trans-
lation of the body of St. Flavian to Constantinople , and also that
Anatolius, the Patriarch of that city, had already subscribed the
letter he (the Pope) had sent to St. Flavian, against the heresy of
Eutyches ; that all who had been banished were now recalled ; and
she prayed him to do what was in his power to have the Council
celebrated ( 1 ) . The Pope was highly delighted that what he sought
for so anxiously, during the reign of Theodosius, was now in his
power, but he requested that the Council should be put off for a
time, for the Huns, under Attila, overran Italy, and the bishops
could not, with safety, proceed to the place of meeting . The bar-
barians were soon after defeated by the Franks, and St. Leo now
set about convening the Council, and at once sent as his Legates to
Constantinople, Pascasinus, Bishop of Lillibeum, in Sicily ; Julian ,
of Cos ; Lucentius, of Ascoli ; and Basil, and Boniface, priests of the
Roman Church (2). The Emperor, at first, was desirous that the
Council should be held in Nice, but for just reasons he was satisfied
afterwards that it should be transferred to Chalcedon . This Council
wascelebrated , in the year 451 , in the great Church of St. Euphemia,
Virgin and Martyr ; and St. Leo (3) says, it was attended by six
hundred bishops ; but Liberatus and Marcellinus (4 ) tell us the

(59) Hermant, t. 1, c. 158. (1 ) Fleury, t. 4, l. 27, n. 48, in fin. (2) Orsi, t. 14,
1. 35, n. 28 & 29. (3) St. Leo, Epis. 52. (4) Lib. Brev. c. 13, & Mar. in Chron.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 151

number was six hundred and thirty ; and Nicephorus (5) raises it to
six hundred and thirty- six.
63. The first matter the Council deliberated on in the first Ses-
sion, held on the 8th of October, 451 , was the examination of the
conduct ofthe impious Dioscorus. He went to the Synod with the
hope that his party would be still all-powerful through the bishops
who subscribed the acts of the Cabal of Ephesus, but Pascasinus,
standing up, said that Dioscorus should not take his seat in the
Council, but should present himself as a criminal, to be judged :
and seeing him then seated among the bishops, he called on the
judges and the Senate to have him expelled , otherwise he and his
colleagues would leave the Council. The imperial ministers de-
manded from the Legate his reasons for calling for the expulsion of
Dioscorus, and then Lucentius, another of the Legates, answered
that he had dared to summon a Synod , without the authority of the
Apostolic See, which never was lawful, nor ever before done (6) .
Dioscorus then took his seat in the middle of the church , and
Eusebius, of Dorileum, likewise, as his accuser , on account of the
sentence pronounced against himself and against St. Flavian , and
he demanded that the Acts of the Council of Ephesus should be
read . The letter of the Emperor for the convocation of the Coun-
cil was first read , and Theodoret, on account of his writings against
St. Cyril, was at first prevented from taking his place among the
Fathers ; but as St. Leo and the Emperor Marcian had re-established
him in his See, he was introduced as one of the members . His
enemies, however, immediately began tumultuously to oppose his
admission, so the imperial officers ordered him to sit also in the
middle as an accuser, but without prejudice to his rights, and he
was afterwards re-established in his See by the Council itself, after
anathematizing the errors of Nestorius, and subscribing the defini-
tion of Faith , and the Epistle of the Pope, St. Leo (7) . The Acts
of the Latrocinium of Ephesus were next read, and the Profession
of Faith of St. Flavian , and the imperial judges asked the Council
if it was Catholic . The Legates answered in the affirmative , as it
coincided with the letter of St. Leo. Many of the bishops then ,
who sat with Dioscorus's party, went over to the other side, but he,
though left alone almost, as only a few Egyptian bishops held on to
him , still persevered in maintaining the Eutychian errors, and assert-
ing that after the union of the Divinity with the humanity of Christ
we should not say those were two natures, but only one in the In-
carnate Word. When the reading of the Acts was finished , the
imperial minister declared that the innocence of St. Flavian and
Eusebius of Dorileum was fully established, and that those bishops
who had caused them to be deposed should undergo the same sen-
tence themselves ; and thus the first Synod was concluded (8).
(5) Vide Nat. Alex. t. 10, c. 4, a. 13, s. 17. (6) Acta, Con. Chal. (7) Orsi,
1. 23, n. 45, 47 & 70. (8) Orsi, ibid.n. 49.
152 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

64: The second Synod was held on the 10th of October, to decide
on the Faith that should be held ; the two creeds of Nice and Con-
stantinople, the letter of St. Leo, and the two letters of St. Cyril
were read, and the bishops then exclaimed : " We all believe the
same. Peter has spoken by the mouth of Leo ; anathema to him
who does not believe likewise." A petition , presented by Eusebius,
against the injustice practised by Dioscorus was then read, but he
had left the church. Three bishops were sent to summon him be-
fore the Council, but on various false pretences he refused to appear,
though cited three times. The Legates then, in the name of the
Pope, declared him excommunicated and deposed from his bishopric,
and all the bishops, both verbally and in writing, confirmed the
sentence, which was sanctioned, likewise, by Marcian and St.
Pulcheria (9). Some monks ofthe Eutychian party now presented
themselves before the Synod ; the principal among them were
Carosus, Dorotheus , and Maximus. When these and their party
entered the church (and among them was Barsumas, at whose ap-
pearance the bishops all cried out : " Out with the murderer of St.
Flavian"), they impudently demanded that Dioscorus and the other
bishops who came with him from Egypt, should be admitted as
members of the assembly, and in case this demand was rejected, they
would separate themselves, they said, from the communion of the
Council. They received for answer, that in that case they would
be deposed, and that if they persevered in disturbing the Church ,
they would be punished, as creators of sedition, by the secular
power ; but, as they pertinaciously persevered, the Council gave
them thirty days for consideration, at the expiration ofwhich they
would be punished as they deserved (10) .
65. After this the bishops subscribed the Dogmatical Epistle of
St. Leo, and set about definitively arranging the articles of Faith
in opposition to the heresy of Eutyches ; a formula composed by
Anatolius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and some other bishops,
was read, but was not received by the Pope's Legates ( 11 ) , for it
said that Christ was in two natures, but it did not say that he was
of two natures. The bishops, who pertinaciously declared that
nothing should be added to the ancient symbols, were thus reasoned
with by the judges ; Dioscorus , said they , is satisfied that it should be
declared that Christ is in two natures, but will not allow that he is
oftwo natures ; on the other hand, St. Leo says that there are in
Christ two natures united, without confusion or divisibility, whom ,
then, will you follow, Leo or Dioscorus ? Then all cried out : " We
believe as Leo believes ; he has properly expounded the Faith ;
whosoever contradicts it is a Eutychian." The judges then added :
" So you agree to the definition , according to the judgment of our

(9) Nat. Alex. t. 10, c. 3, ar. 13, s. 17 ; Orsi, ibid. n. 50 & 55. (10) Orsi, t. 14,
1. 33, n. 59, 60. (11) Orsi, t. 14, l. 33, n. 62.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 153

Holy Father, that there are in Christ two natures, united without
confusion or division ." Thus the clamours were finally stopped ,
and a formula adopted ( 12 ) , in which it was declared, that the
Fathers took for the rule of their definition the symbols of the two
Councils of Nice and Constantinople, which were also the rule for
that adopted in the Council of Ephesus, in which Pope Celestine
and St. Cyril presided ; in continuation it was said , that although
the forementioned symbols were sufficient for the full knowledge
of the Faith, nevertheless, as the inventors of new heresies had
adopted new expressions , and corrupting the doctrine ofthe Mystery
of the Incarnation, some of them denied to the Virgin the title of
the Mother ofGod, and others taught that the nature of the Divinity
and of the humanity were one and the same, and that the Divine
nature was passible in Christ, therefore the holy Council confirmed
both the Faith of the three hundred and eighteen Fathers of Nice ,
and of the one hundred and fifty Fathers of Constantinople ; and,
as the Council of Constantinople has added some words to the
Creed of Nice, not because it was deficient in anything essential,
but more clearly to explain the doctrine regarding the Holy Ghost,
in opposition to those who denied the Divinity of the third Person
of the Trinity, thus, with a similar intention, the Council of Chal-
cedon, in opposition to those who wish to corrupt the doctrine of
the Incarnation , and say, that one nature alone was born of the
Virgin, or deny two natures to Christ, besides the two forenamed
symbols admits the synodical letter of the Blessed Cyril, and lastly,
the letter of St. Flavian, against the errors of Eutyches , which cor-
responds with the letter of St. Leo, in which these are condemned,
who divide the " Only-begotten" into two Sons ; and those who
attribute the Passion to his Divine nature ; and those who, of the
Divinity and the humanity, make one nature alone ; and those who
say the flesh of Christ is celestial, or of any other substance than
flesh ; and those who blasphemously teach, that before the union
there were two natures in Christ, but only one after the union.
The Council, therefore , teaches that there is only one Lord Jesus
Christ in two natures, without division , without change, and with-
out confusion ; that the difference of the two natures was never
removed on account of the union , but that each remains properly
the same, both one and the other concurring in one person alone,
and in one substance, so that Jesus Christ is not divided into two
persons, but is always the same, only Son , and only-begotten Word,
God. The Council finally prohibited the teaching or holding of
any other Faith, or any other symbol to be composed for the use of
the Catechumens, renewing after this manner the order of the
Council of Ephesus, notwithstanding the abuse Dioscorus made of
it. When the definitive decree was read, it was uniformly received

(12) Fleury, t. 4, l. 28, n. 21 ; & Orsi, loc. cit. n. 61.


154 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

by all the Fathers, and first the Legates, and next all the Metropo-
litans, put their signatures to it ( 13) .
66. When all these matters had been defined , the Council made
other regulations, and especially in the sixteenth and last Session,
by the twenty-eighth Canon, the privilege of ordaining the Metro-
politans of Pontus, of Asia, and of Thrace, who were before subject
to the Patriarch of Antioch, was confirmed to Anatolius, Patriarch
of Constantinople. This privilege was already granted to the
Bishop of Constantinople by a Council of one hundred and fifty
bishops, held in that city, in the time of Theodosius the Great, on
the plea that as Constantinople had become the seat of empire,
and the second Rome in the East, it was only proper that it should
be decorated with the primacy of honour, second only to Rome
itself, especially as it was already in possession ofthe honour for
sixty or seventy years past. The Legate Pascasinus, Bishop of Li-
libeum, opposed this Canon . It was, he said, contrary to the
ancient Canons of the Church, and especially to the sixth Canon of
the Council of Nice , in which it was recognized that the Church of
Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem , took precedence of Constan-
tinople, not to speak of the Church of Rome, which always enjoyed
the primacy ; but notwithstanding the opposition, the Fathers re-
mained firm to the arrangement they decreed (14).
67. The bishops then wrote to St. Leo, giving him a statement
of all that was done in the Council, and asking for his confirmation
of their proceedings. In their Synodical epistle they recognize the
Pope as the faithful interpreter of St. Peter, and acknowledge that
he presided at the Synod as head over the members. They first
praise his epistle, and next inform him of the sentence fulminated
against Dioscorus , on account of his obstinacy, and the re-union of
the repentant bishops, and all these things, they said, were effected
with the assistance of the Pontifical Vicars. They made some other
regulations, they said, on the presumption that his Holiness would
confirm them, and especially they confirmed the primacy of ho-
nour to the Archbishop of Constantinople, for the reasons already
stated (15) . Besides this Synodical letter, the Emperor Marcian ,
St. Pulcheria, and Anatolius, wrote without the least delay to St.
Leo, begging him, notwithstanding the opposition of the Legate, to
confirm the twenty-eighth Canon of the Council in favour of the
See of Constantinople ( 16) ; but, although he was extremely de-
sirous of obliging Marcian and St. Pulcheria , still he never would
agree to the violation of the Canons of the Council of Nice, and he
answered them that the prerogatives of the See of Antioch should
be preserved (17) .
68. Before we go any further we shall relate the fate ofEutyches
(13) Orsi, t. 14, l. 33, n. 66. (14) Orsi, t. 14, l. 33, n. 78 & 79. (15) Orsi, l.
cit. n. 84. (16) Orsi, l. cit. n. 82 & 83. (17 ) Fleury, t. 14, l. 28, n . 33 ; Orsi,
2. 86.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 155

and Dioscorus. Eutyches was banished by order of the Emperor,


in 450, but being confined in the vicinity of the city of Constanti-
nople, St. Leo (Ep . 75 , edit. Rom . ) wrote to St. Pulcheria (18) , and
afterwards to Marcian (Epis. 107), that he heard from Julian of
Cos, that even in his exile he continued to infect the people with
his pestilent doctrines, and continued to disseminate his errors ; he
therefore besought the Emperor to banish him to some deserted
neighbourhood. The Emperor complied with this request of the
Pope ; Eutyches was banished to a distant place, and there died as
he lived in sinful obstinacy (19) . Dioscorus was banished to Gan-
gres, in Paphlagonia, and soon after died without repentance , on
the 4th of September, 454, leaving some impious writings, composed
by him, in favour of the Eutychian heresy, which were afterwards
condemned to be burnt by the Emperor Marcian ( 20) .
69. The followers of Eutyches and Dioscorus continued for many
ages to disturb the Church, and there were several among these
leaders of perdition who excited others, and caused a great deal of
harm . The Council of Chalcedon was scarcely over, when some
monks from Palestine, who refused submission to the decree of the
Council, excited several other monks of that country to join them,
proclaiming that the Council had taken the part of Nestorius,
obliging the faithful to adore two persons in Christ, as they had
decided on two natures. The chief of these was a monk of the
name of Theodosius ( 21 ) , who was expelled by his bishop from his
monastery on account of his vices, but still retained the monastic
habit. He succeeded in gaining over to his side a great many
monks in Palestine, through favour of Eudoxia, the widow of the
Emperor Theodosius, who after his death retired to that country,
to spend the remainder of her days ( 22 ) . I have said he gained
over a great many monks, but not all of them, for, as Evagrius (23 )
relates , there were very many among those solitaries who led a most
holy life, and we cannot, therefore, believe that all followed the im-
pious Theodosius. When Juvenal returned from the Council to
his See of Jerusalem he strove in vain to bring these blinded men
to reason, but instead of succeeding they not only did not repent,
but had the audacity to attempt to force him to anathematize the
Council and St. Leo, and, on his refusal, collected a mob of the
most depraved characters and took possession of Jerusalem ; they
burned several houses, killed a number of persons, opened the
prisons, and closed the gates of the city to prevent the escape of
Juvenal, and then proceeded to elect the wretch Theodosius
Bishop of the See (24) .
70. When Theodosius was thus so iniquitously placed in the epis-
copal throne of Jerusalem he endeavoured to have Juvenal assassi-

(18) Orsi, t. 14, l. 33, n. 4 ; Fleury, ibid. l. 28 , n. 55. (19) Berni, t. 1 , c. 6, p. 534.
(20) Orsi, t. 14, l. 33, n. 55, in fin. 133. (21 ) Evag. 2, c. 5. (22) Ap. Orsi,
t. 14, l. 35, n. 91. (23) Evag. 1, c. 31. (24) Orsi, . cit. n. 90.
156 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

nated, and employed a wretch for that purpose ; but this assassin ,
as he could not come at Juvenal, who escaped to Constantinople,
joined some other wretches along with him, and killed St. Save-
rianus, Bishop of Schytopolis (commemorated in the Roman
Martyrology, on the 21st of February) , and some of his adherents.
He next set about establishing himself in his usurped See, by per-
secuting all who opposed his tyranny ; some he caused to be cruelly
tormented, he burned the houses of others, and , in particular, he put
to death a deacon of the name of Athanasius, and not satisfied with
his murder had his body dragged through the city and cast to the
dogs. Athanasius is commemorated in the Martyrology, on the
5th of July (25 ) . He next set out on a visitation through the
Dioceses of the Patriarchate, accompanied by the monks of his
party, and many others of dissipated characters, who spread deso-
lation and destruction wherever they went. He drove several
bishops from their churches, and he even had some of them killed ,
and put his own partisans in their Sees ; one of these, Theodotus ,
he ordained Bishop of Joppa, and another, Peter of Iberia, Bishop
of Majuma ; and it was from one of these afterwards that the im-
pious Eleurus, the usurper of the See of Alexandria, received con-
secration (26) . When Marcian was informed of the tyranny and
insolence of Theodosius and his monks he appeased the sedition
by proclaiming a pardon to all who would return to the obedience
of the Church, and when he saw himself abandoned by his followers
he privately fled. After various wanderings he came to the con-
vent of Sinai and begged the monks to receive him , but they re-
fused, so he fled on to Arabia, and concealed himself in the solitudes
of that region . His usurpation lasted only a year and eight months,
from the beginning of the year 452, till August, 453, when Juvenal
returned to Jerusalem, and again took possession of his See (27) .
71. About this time, that is in the year 453, St. Pulcheria died ;
though the learned have agreed as to the year, they have not as to
the day of her death ; but the Greeks in their Menelogues, and the
Latins in their Martyrologies, celebrate her festival on the 10th of
September. St. Leo, in one of his Epistles (Ep . 90) , says in her
praise, that she was possessed of the royal power, and the sacer-
dotal learning and spirit, with which she offered to God a perpetual
sacrifice ofpraise : and to the zeal of this holy Empress he ascribed the
stability of the Faith against the heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches.
She preserved her virginity in marriage , and by her example induced
her sisters also to consecrate themselves to God. She built many
hospitals, founded several monasteries, and erected a great number
of churches, especially in honour of the Divine Mother, and the
Church soon venerated her as a saint ( 28) . Four years after, in

(25) Orsi, t. 14, l. 33, n. 94. (26) Orsi, n. 111. (27) Orsi, cit. loc. 33, n. 131.
(28) Orsi, t. 15, l. 34, n. 12 & 13.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 157

the year 467 , the Emperor Marcian died . St. Leo calls him a
prince of blessed memory, and the Greeks celebrate his festival on
the 17th of February . We have already seen how great was his
piety, and with what fervour he opposed every enemy of the
Faith (29).
72. We shall now speak of the principal followers of Eutyches .
The second hero of iniquity was Timothy Eleurus, a priest, but
who before his ordination wore the monastic habit, though merely
as a mask of piety. He was of a most ambitious character, so that
scarcely had he heard of the deposition of Dioscorus, when he con-
sidered he had pretensions to the Diocese of Alexandria, but when
St. Proterius was elected in place of Dioscorus, he was filled with
rage, and began to declaim against the Council of Chalcedon. He
succeeded in getting over to his side four or five bishops and some
monks, infected like himself with the errors of Apollinares, and
thus had the boldness to separate himself from the communion of
Proterius. When Marcian was informed of this schism he endea-
voured to extinguish it, but could not succeed, so St. Proterius
assembled a Synod of all Egypt, and condemned Eleurus, Peter
Mongos his companion, and those few bishops and monks who
adhered to him. With all that St. Proterius was obliged to be
constantly on his guard against him, although he was sent into
banishment by the Emperor, and only with difficulty saved his life
during the reign of the Emperor Marcian (30). At the Emperor's
death he renewed his pretensions, set at nought the decree of
banishment he laboured under, returned to Egypt, and endeavoured
to drive St. Proterius from the Church of Alexandria. He con-
cealed himself in a monastery of Alexandria, and to induce the
monks to join his party he used to go about their cells in the night
time, telling them in a feigned voice that he was an angel sent from
heaven to admonish them to separate themselves from Proterius,
and elect Timothy Eleurus for their bishop. Having by these
schemes gained over many monks to his side, he sent them into
Alexandria to excite the people against St. Proterius and the
Council of Chalcedon . When all was prepared, and the people
sufficiently excited , he came forth into the city, accompanied by
his schismatical bishops, Peter Mongos, his monks , and several
other monks, accomplices of his schism, and caused himself to be
proclaimed bishop in the church. He immediately got himself
consecrated by two bishops of his party, and at once began to ordain
deacons, priests, and bishops for the Egyptian churches, and gave
orders that all those ordained by St. Proterius should be expelled,
unless they attached themselves to his party (31 ) .
73. Count Dionisius, the military commander of the province,

(29) Orsi, t. 15, 7. 34, n. 12 & 13, (30) Orsi, t. 14 , 7. 33, n. 105. (31 ) Orsi,
t. 15, l. 34, n. 15 ; Fleury, t. 4, l. 29, n. 2.
158 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

on hearing this came to Alexandria, and finding that Timothy had


left the city, took measures to prevent his return. His partisans
were outrageous at hearing this, and sought St. Proterius to take
away his life ; this was on Good Friday, the 29th of March, in the
year 457. When Proterius saw the outbreak he took refuge in the
baptistery of the church , but the schismatics, regardless both of the
sanctity of the day and the age of this sainted pastor, broke into
the baptistery, and finding St. Proterius there in prayer, gave him
several wounds and killed him with a blow of a sword. They
were not even satisfied with his death ; they tied a rope to his body
and exposed it in the street before all the people, proclaiming that
that was the body of Proterius. They next dragged the body
through the whole city, and tore it in pieces, then tore out the
entrails and devoured them, and the remainder of the body they
burned and cast the ashes to the wind. Eleurus, who in all pro-
bability was the mover of this tragic occurrence, now more proud
than ever, gave a public festival in rejoicing for the death of St.
Proterius, and prohibited the sacrifice of the Mass to be offered up
for him ; and even to manifest more strongly the hatred he had for
the holy bishop, he caused all the episcopal chairs in which he had
sat to be broken and burned, and all the altars on which he had
celebrated to be washed with sea-water ; he persecuted all his
family and relations, and even seized on his paternal property ; he
took his name out of the dyptichs of the church, and substituted
his own name and that of Dioscorus, but with all that he could not
prevent the entire Church from venerating Proterius as a saint and
martyr (32). The Greek Church has enrolled him among the
Martyrs on the 28th of February. Eleurus now began to exercise
all the episcopal functions ; he distributed the property of the
Church just as his fancy led him among his partisans, and he even
had the temerity to anathematize the sacred Council of Chalcedon,
together with all those who received it, and especially the Pope
St. Leo, Anatolius, and the other Catholic bishops, declaring that
this Council had favoured Nestorius. He also persecuted the mo-
nasteries of monks and nuns who adhered to the Council . In the
commencement of his career he had but few bishops partisans , but
he quickly ordained others, and sent them abroad to drive the Ca-
tholic bishops out of their churches (33), but he made an unhappy
end of it, as we shall see hereafter (n. 76) , committing suicide.
74. Marcian was succeeded in the Empire by Leo, in the year
459 , who followed his predecessor's example in vigorous opposi-
tion to the heretics, especially the Eutychians : he therefore pro-
mulgated an edict through all the East, confirming all the laws
passed by his predecessors, and especially the law of Marcian in de-

(32) Orsi, n. 16, &c.; Baron. An. 457, n. 28. (33) Orsi, t. 15, l. 33, n. 17, &
Fleury, t. 4, 29, n. 2.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 159

fence of the Council of Chalcedon . As he found that the followers


of Eutyches were the most troublesome to the Church, he consi-
dered, acting on the advice of some of his councillors, that it would
be well to convoke a new Synod to put a final stop to all contro-
versy. He therefore wrote to the Pope that he considered it would be
advantageous to the Church and satisfactory to the recusants, if the
Decrees of the Council of Chalcedon were re-examined ( 34) . St.
Leo, however, enlightened him on the point, and besought him in
the name of the whole Church not to allow the authority of the
Council to be called in doubt, or that to be re-examined which had
already been decided with such exactitude ; there never would be
wanting persons, he said, to cavil at the decisions of any Synod ,
for it is always the practice of heretics to re-examine dogmas of
Faith already established, with the intention of obscuring the truth.
The Emperor, convinced of the truth of the Pontiff's reasons,
thought no more of a new Council. In the following year, 453 , he
wrote again to the Pope that a great many Eutychians were de-
sirous of being instructed in the truth of the Faith, and were dis-
posed to retract their errors as soon as they would be convinced
of their falsehood, and they therefore prayed that at least a con-
ference might be held between them and the Catholics, to which
the Pope's own Legates might come. St. Leo in answer promised
to send his Legates for the good of religion , but he besought the
Emperor totally to set his face against the conference, for he again
explained to him that the only intention the heretics had was to
throw doubt on what was already definitively settled (35 ).
75. Leo, in fact, sent Legates to urge on the Emperor to banish
Eleurus from Alexandria, where he impiously persevered in per-
secuting the Church, and he succeeded at last, for the Emperor
published an edict against Eleurus, and gave orders to Stila, com-
mander of the troops in Egypt, to drive him out of the city and
banish him to Gangres in Paphlagonia, where Dioscorus had been
banished before, and ended his days. Eleurus remained there for
some time, but as he continued to excite disturbances by holding
schismatical meetings, the Emperor confined him in the Crimea,
where he was kept till the year 476 , when Basiliscus usurped the
Empire. Before he was sent to exile he obtained permission ,
through some of his friends, to come to Constantinople, and feign-
ing himself a Catholic, obtained pardon , and was restored to the See
of Alexandria. When St. Leo was informed of this he wrote to
the Emperor (36) that although the profession of Faith made by
Eleurus might be sincere, yet the horrible crimes he committed
would render him eternally unworthy of the bishopric ( 37) . The
Emperor then gave orders that no matter what took place, he should

(34) Orsi, t. 15 , l. 34, n. 18 & 19. (35 ) Orsi, loc. cit. n. 48. (36 ) St. Leo,
Epis. 137, al. 99. (37) Fleury, t. 4, l. 29, n. 13 ; Orsi, n. 61 & 62.
160 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

be banished out of Alexandria, and another bishop elected in his


place. This order was executed, and by common consent of the
clergy and people, Timothy Salofacialus was chosen, a man of
sound faith and virtuous life, and totally different from his prede-
cessor.
76. The Emperor Leo died in 474, and was succeeded by his
nephew Leo the Younger. He was crowned, but dying soon after,
was succeeded by his father Zeno ; but during Zeno's reign Basi-
liscus, a relation of Leo Augustus, and a Roman general, seized on
the Empire in the year 476. He was a follower of the Arian heresy,
and he therefore recalled Eleurus from exile , in which he had now
spent eighteen years, and sent him back to Alexandria, to take
possession of that See (38) . Zeno, however, regained his throne ,
by means of the generals who before betrayed him, and banished
Basiliscus, who held the Empire a year and a half, into Cappadocia,
and there shut him up in a tower with his wife, Zenonida, and his
child , and starved him to death , and sent orders , at the same time,
that Eleurus should be again banished ; but it was told him that
the unfortunate man was now decrepit with years, so he allowed
him to die in his native place , Alexandria. He gave orders, how-
ever, that he should be deprived of the government of the Church,
and that Salofacialus should be reinstated ( 39 ) , but before these
commands were received in Egypt, Eleurus had ceased to live, for
he cut short his days by poison, under the dread of being again
banished from Alexandria. His followers said that he had foretold
the day of his death (40) , but there is nothing wonderful in that ,
when he died by his own hand (41 ).
77. In this same year, 459 , died that great saint, Simon Stilites,
the wonder of the world. The Innovators deride the life of this
great saint, especially the Protestant Mosheim and his annotator ,
Archibald M Lain (42 ) . They say that St. Simon Stilites, to get
nearer to heaven, even in the flesh, built his column ; and they
assert, that the whole story of his life is nothing but a romance in-
vented by certain ecclesiastical writers. But, in the erudite works
of the learned priest Julius Selvaggi, whom I before lauded , it is
proved ( Note 75) , that the life of St. Simon is not nonsense, but a
prodigy of holiness. There can be no doubt of the authenticity of
his history, as Cardinal Orsi (43 ) proves by many authorities,
both ancient and modern, as Evagrius (44) , Theodoret (45), the
ancient writers of the lives of St. Theodosius, St. Ausentius, and of
Eutinius, Fleury (46) , the erudite Canon Mazzocchi (47) , and seve-
ral others ; so that it would be mere rashness to doubt it. As St.

(38) Fleury, t. 4, l. 29, n. 45. (39) Orsi, t. 15, l. 35, n. 66 & 68. (40) Liberat.
Breviar. c. 16. (41 ) Fleury, . 29, n. 49 ; cum Gennad. de Scrip. Ecclesias. n. 80.
(42) Mosheim, Hist. Ecclesias. cen. v. p. 2, c. 5, n. 12 ; M'Lain, ibid. (43) Orsi,
t. 12, l. 27, n. 14. (44) Evagrius, l. 1 , c. 33. (45) Theod. Philoch. c. 26 .
(46) Fleury, t. 4, l. 29, n. 7. (47) Mazzocchi, t. 3, in Com. in Cal.; Neop. p. 585.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 161

Simon was a great defender of the Church against the errors of the
Eutychians, it will not be irrelevant to give here a short account
of his life. He was born in the village of Sisan, on the frontiers of
Syria, or, as Theodoret says, of Aria. Up to the age of thirteen,
he kept his father's sheep, but after that he gave himself entirely
up to God, and lived in several monasteries ; but even the austere
lives ofthe monks did not satisfy him, so he accustomed himself to
live alone on the top of a column he had built. Moved by a par-
ticular divine instinct, he several times changed from one pillar to
another, but the last one was forty cubits high, and on that he lived
for thirty years till his death, exposed to the sun of summer and
the snows of winter. This pillar was so narrow at the top, that he
had scarcely room on it. He only ate once a-week, and spent several
Lents in the year without any food at all. His only employment was
prayer. Besides other exercises of piety, he made a thousand in-
clinations every day, so performed that he touched his feet with
his head, and this caused a great ulcer on his belly, and three of
the vertebræ of his spine were displaced, and he had painful ulcers
in his thighs, which bled a great deal . The holy monks of Egypt,
dreading lest a life of such penance might be dictated only by some
extravagant notions, and wishing to test his obedience, and see by
that whether it was pleasing to God , sent him a command to come
down from his pillar. When the saint heard the word obedience ,
he immediately prepared himself to descend, but the messen-
ger then said, as he had been instructed : Stop where you are ,
Simon, for we now know that it is the will of God that you should
live on this pillar (48 ). I pass over many wonderful things in his
holy and penitential life, but the most wonderful thing of all was
to see the thousands of conversions this unlettered saint wrought
from this pillar,-not alone of sinners and heretics, but even of the
pagans themselves. People from the most remote regions came to
the foot of his column , for his fame had extended through the
world . Some he brought out of the darkness of infidelity to the
light of faith,-others he led from the ruin of their sins to a holy
life ; many he saved from the pestilence of heresy -especially of that
of Eutyches, which then infested the Church to a great extent. He
wrote a most powerful letter to the Emperor Theodosius (49 ) ,
praying him to labour with all his might for the defence of the
Council of Chalcedon.
78. The death of St. Simon was just as stupendous as his life (50).
He died in the year 449 , and the time of his death was revealed
to him forty years previously. Just before his death, a dreadful
earthquake took place at Antioch ; so the people all crowded round
the pillar of the servant of God to beg his prayers in that awful

(48) Orsi, t. 12, l. 17, n. 14, infra ex Theod. exc. l. 2. (49) Evagrius, l. 2, c. 20.
(50) Orsi, t. 15, l. 34 & 57.
162 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

calamity, and it would appear as if God had purposely collected


so many persons together, that they might be witnesses of his holy
death, and honour his remains. His last sickness lasted five days ;
and, on the day of his death , the 2nd of September, he recom-
mended to God all his disciples then present. He then made three
genuflections, and raised his eyes in ecstasy three times to heaven.
The immense multitude, who surrounded him and came to witness
his happy transit, all cried out with a loud voice for his benedic-
tion. The saint then looked round to the four parts of the world,
raised up his hands , recommended them to God, and blessed them.
He again raised his eyes to heaven, struck his breast three times,
laid his head on the shoulder of one of his disciples, and calmly
expired. His sacred body was brought to Antioch, which was
four miles distant. The coffin was borne by bishops and priests,
and innumerable torches blazed and censors burned around.
Martirius, Bishop of Antioch, and several other bishops, were in
the procession. The General Ardaburius, at the head of 6,000
soldiers, twenty-one counts, and many tribunes, and the magistracy
of the city, also attended. When the sacred remains were brought
into the city, they were buried in the great church commenced by
Constantine and finished by Constans, and his was the first body
laid there. A magnificent church, described by Evagrius, was
afterwards built near his pillar (51 ) . St. Simon had a perfect
imitator in St. Daniel, who also lived on a pillar, and was a power-
ful defender of the Church against the partisans of Eutyches ( 52) .
These are miracles which the Catholic faith alone produces, and
which are never seen among heretics. Plants of this sort cannot
grow in a soil cursed by God ;-they can only take root in that
Church where the true faith is professed.
79. We will now revert to the impious heroes of the Eutychian
heresy. When Timothy Eleurus died , the heretical bishops of the
province, by their own authority, chose in his place Peter Mongos,
or Moggos, that is, the " Stammerer" (53) . He was before arch-
deacon, and he was consecrated at night by one schismatical bishop
alone. The Emperor Zeno, when informed of this, determined
not to let it pass unpunished ; he therefore wrote to Antemius,
Governor of Egypt, to punish the bishop who ordained Mongos,
and to drive Mongos himself out of Alexandria, and to restore
Timothy Salofacialus to his See. This was in 477 , and the Em-
peror's orders were immediately executed (54). Salofacialus having
died in the year 482 , John Thalaia was elected in his place ; but as
he was not on terms with Acacius, Bishop of Constantinople, that
prelate worked on the Emperor to banish him, and place Mongos
once more in the See of Alexandria. He succeeded in his plans ,

(51) Orsi, cit., n. 57. (52) Orsi, t. 15, l. 35, n. 62. (53) Orsi, t. 15, l. 35,
2. 66, 68. (54) Fleury, 7. 29, n. 49, ex Gennad. de Scrip. Eccles. n. 80.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 163

by representing to the Emperor that Mongos was a favourite with


the people of Alexandria, and that, by placing him in that See, it
would not be difficult to unite in one Faith all the people of that
Patriarchate. The Emperor was taken with the suggestion, and
wrote to the Pope Simplicius to re-establish Mongos in the Alex-
andrian See ; but the Pope told him he never would put his hand
to such an arrangement. The Emperor was very angry at this
refusal, and wrote to Pergamius, Duke of Egypt, and to Apollonius,
the Governor, to drive John out of the See of Alexandria , which
he held at the time, and to replace him by Peter Mongos (55).

SEC. III.- THE HENOTICON OF THE EMPEROR ZENO.


80. The Emperor Zeno publishes his Henoticon. 81. Mongos anathematizes Pope St.
Leo and the Council of Chalcedon. 82. Peter the Fuller intrusted with the See of
Antioch. 83. Adventures and Death of the Fuller. 84. Acacius, Patriarch of Con-
stantinople, dies excommunicated.

80. ACACIUS, with the assistance of the protectors of Mongos,


induced the Emperor to publish his famous Henoticon , or Decree
of Union, which Peter was to sign as agreed on in resuming pos-
session of the See of Alexandria. This decree was afterwards sent
to all the bishops and people, not only of Alexandria, but of all
Egypt, Lybia, and Pentapolis ( 1) . This is the substance of the
edict : " The abbots, and many other venerable personages , having
asked for the re-union of the Christians, to put an end to the sad
effects of division, by which many have remained deprived of
baptism and the holy communion , and numberless other disorders
have taken place. On this account we make known to you that
we receive no other creed , but that of the three hundred and
eighteen Fathers of Nice, confirmed by the one hundred and fifty
Fathers of Constantinople, and followed by the Fathers of Ephesus,
who condemned Nestorius and Eutyches. We likewise receive
the Twelve Articles of Cyril, and we confess that our Lord Jesus
Christ is God, the only Son of God, who has become incarnate in
truth, is consubstantial to the Father, according to his Divinity, and
consubstantial to us according to his humanity ; he descended and
is incarnate from the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary- (Noel
Alexander thus transcribes it : ' ex Spiritu Sancto de Maria Vir-
gine ;' but it would be better to have said, as in the first Council
"
of Constantinople, de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine ,'—chap. iv.
n. 74) , Mother of God , and is one Son alone, and not two Sons.
We say that it is the same Son of God who wrought miracles , and
voluntarily suffered in the flesh ; and we receive not those who
divide or confound the two natures, or who only admit a simple
appearance of Incarnation. We excommunicate whoever believes,
or at any other time has believed differently, either in Chalcedon,

(55) Fleury, ad cit. n. 49. (1 ) Evagr. l. 3, c. 14.


164 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

or in any other Council, and especially Nestorius, Eutyches, and


their followers. Unite yourself to the Church, our Spiritual
Mother, for she holds the same sentiments." This is the copy
Fleury (2 ) gives, and the one adduced by N. Alexander corres-
ponds with it, in every respect ( 3). Cardinal Baronius rejects the
Henoticon, as heretical (4) ; but N. Alexander justly remarks, that
it does not deserve to be stamped as heretical, for it does not esta-
blish the Eutychian heresy, but, on the contrary, impugns and
condemns it ; but he wisely adds, that it injured the cause of the
Faith, and favoured the Eutychian heresy, inasmuch as it said
nothing about St. Leo's Epistle or the definition of the Council of
Chalcedon on the words of two and in two natures, which is the
touchstone against the perfidy of the Eutychian heresy (5) .
81. Let us now return to Peter Mongos , who was placed on the
throne of Alexandria, received the Henoticon, and caused it to be
received not only by his own party, but by the friends of St. Pro-
terius likewise, with whom he did not refuse to communicate, not
to give cause to suspect his bad faith ; and on the celebration of a
festival in Alexandria, he spoke to the people in the church in favour
of it, and caused it to be publicly read. While he was acting thus,
however, he excommunicated the Council of Chalcedon and the
Epistle of St. Leo, he removed from the Dyptichs the names of St.
Proterius and of Timothy Salofacialus, and substituted those ofDios-
corus and Eleurus ( 6 ) . Finally, this faithful companion and imitator
of Eleurus, after persecuting the Catholics in various ways, ended
his days in the year 490 (7).
82. We have now to speak of another perfidious Eutychian
priest, who, in the same century, about the year 469 , caused a great
deal of harm to the Church of Antioch. This was Peter the Fuller.
At first he was a monk in the monastery of Acemeti, in Bythinia,
opposite Constantinople, and was by trade a fuller, from which he
took his name . He then went to Constantinople, and, under the
appearance of piety, gained the favour of the great, and, in parti-
cular, of Zeno, the son-in-law of the Emperor Leo, who began to
look on him with a favourable eye. Zeno brought him with him-
self to Antioch, and he set his eye on that See, and induced Zeno
to protect him. He commenced by calumniating Martyrius, Bishop
of Antioch , and accused him of being a Nestorian. Having thus,
by means of a great number of friends of his, Appollinarists, got up
a disturbance in the city, he persuaded Zeno that the only way to
re-establish peace was to drive Martyrius out of the city, and then
he stepped into his place. The first way he showed himself was,
by adding to the Trisagion of the Mass, Holy, Holy, Holy, the
words " who was crucified for us," to show that he believed that the

(2) Fleury, t. 4, l. 29, n. 53. (3) Nat. Alex. t. 10, c. 3, a. 15, s. 4. (4) Baron.
Ann. 428. (5) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. (6) Fleury, t. 4, l. 29, n. 54. (7) Nat.
Alex. t. 10, c. 3, ar. 14, s. 5 ; Fleury, t. 5 , l. 30 , n. 21 .
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 165

Divinity was crucified in the person of Christ ( 8 ) . Martyrius went


to Constantinople, and appealed to the Emperor, and Peter did the
same, and brought with him a bill of calumnious charges against
the bishop ; but Leo condemned the usurpation of the fuller, and
sent Martyrius back with honour to his See. On his arival in An-
tioch, Martyrius found a large party opposed to him, and though
he tried, he could not bring them to terms ; he therefore resolved
to withdraw, and said publicly in the church : " I reserve to myself
the dignity of the priesthood, but I renounce a disobedient people
and a rebellious clergy. When the Fuller thus saw the See again
vacated, he took possession of it once more, and was recognized as
Patriarch of Antioch. When this was told to St. Gennadius, he (9)
informed the Emperor, and he at once gave orders that Peter should
be sent in exile to the Oasis ; but he had knowledge of the sentence
beforehand, and saved himself by flight ( 10).
83. On the death ofthe Emperor Leo, in the year 474 , Zeno was
declared his successor ; but as Basiliscus had seized on the sovereign
power in 476, as we have already seen (he was brother to the Em-
press Verina), the Fuller was reinstated by him in the See of An-
tioch. In the following year, 477, Zeno recovered his dominions,
and had him deposed in a Council of the East, and John, Bishop of
Apamea, was elected in his place ( 11 ) . John only held the See
three months ; he was driven out also, and Stephen, a pious man ,
was chosen in his place ; but he had governed only a year when the
heretics rose up against him, stabbed him to death in his own church
with sharp-pointed reeds, and afterwards dragged his body through
the steets, and threw it into the river ( 12) . Another bishop of the
name of Stephen was now ordained, and Peter the Fuller was sent
in banishment to Pitiontum , on the frontiers of the empire, in Pontus ;
but he deceived his guards, and fled to another place ( 13 ) , and in
the year 484 was a third time re-established in the See of Antioch,
with the consent of Acacius, who had himself so often condemned
him ( 14). At length , after committing a great many acts of in-
justice against several churches, and stained with cruelty, he died
in 488 , having retained his See since his last usurpation little more
than three years. Thus, in the end of the fifth century, the Divine
justice overtook the chiefs and principal supporters ofthe Eutychian
heresy , for the Fuller died in 488 , Acacius in 489 , Mongos in 490,
and Zeno in 491 .
84. Speaking of Acacius, it would be well if those who are am-
bitious for a bishopric would reflect on the miserable end of this
unhappy prelate. He succeeded a saint, St. Gennadius, on the
throne ofConstantinople in 472 ; but he did an immensity of injury

(8) Fleury, t. 4, l. 29, n . 30 ; Orsi, t. 15, l. 35, n. 18 ; Nat. Alex. t. 10, c. 3, art. 17.
(9) Liberat. Breviar His. Eutych. (10) Orsi, loc. cit. (11) Orsi, ibid. n. 64 & 69.
(12) Orsi, vide ibid.; Fleury, loc. cit . n. 49, in fin. ex Evagr. l. 3, c. 10. (13) Fleury,
ibid. n. 50. (14) Fleury, t. 5, l. 30 , n. 17 ; Nat. Alex. loc. cit.
166 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

to the Church, for, although not infected with the heresy of the
Eutychians, he was their great protector, and, by his bad prac-
tices, kept alive a great schism, which was not extinguished till
thirty years or more after his death ( 15 ) . He was accused to the
Pontiff, St. Felix , of many negligences of duty, and especially of
communicating with the impious Mongos, who had anathematized
the Council of Chalcedon and the Epistle of St. Leo. The Pope
admonished him to repent ; but, taking no notice of his remon-
strances, he deposed and excommunicated him, and in that state he
lived for the remainder of his life, and died so (16).
( 16 ). At his death,
in fine, we are horrified at reading of the ruin of religion all over
the East, for the churches were either in possession of heretics, or
of those who communicated with heretics, or, at least, of those who,
by communicating with heretics, were separated from the commu-
nion of Rome ; and almost all this evil originated in the protection
given by Acacius to the enemies of the Church. While I write
this I tremble. A bishop myself, and considering how many, on
account of being exalted to that dignity, have prevaricated and
lost their souls - many, I say, who, ifthey had remained in a private
condition, would be more easily saved. I abstract altogether from
the question , whether he who looks for a mitre is in a state of mortal
sin, but I cannot understand how any one, anxious to secure his
salvation, can wish to be a bishop, and thus voluntarily expose him-
self to the many dangers of losing their souls, to which bishops are
subject.

CHAPTER VI.

HERESIES OF THE SIXTH CENTURY.

ARTICLE I.

OF THE ACEPHALI, AND the differENT SECTS THEY SPLIT INTO.

1. Regulation made by the new Emperor, Anastasius, to the great Detriment of the
Church. 2. Anastasius persecutes the Catholics ; his awful Death. 3. The Acephali,
and their Chief, Severus. 4. The Sect of the Jacobites. 5. The Agnoites. 6. The
Tritheists. 7. The Corruptibilists. 8. The Incorruptibilists. 9. Justinian falls
into this Error. 10. Good and bad Actions of the Emperor. 11 , 12. The Acemetic
Monks ; their Obstinacy.

1. WHEN Zeno died, the Catholics hoped for peace : but, in 491 ,
Anastasius was elected Emperor, and he commenced a long and
fierce persecution against the Church (1) . In his private life he
appeared a pious man ; but when he was raised to the Empire, and

(15) Orsi, 15, l. 35, n. 27. (16) Orsi, t. 16, l. 36, n. 27, 28. (1) Orsi, t. 16, l. 36,
n. 57.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 167

saw all the Churches of the world split into different factions, so
that the Western bishops would not communicate with the Eastern ,
nor even the Easterns among themselves, and wishing to see no
novelty introduced , as he said, he gave orders ( 2 ) that all the
Churches should remain in the same state he found them , and
banished from their Sees any bishops who introduced novelties.
Nothing could be better than this, if all the Churches were united
in the profession of the true Faith ; but as there were several at
that time which did not adhere to the Council of Chalcedon, to
make a law, that no Church should change its ancient usage, was
the best possible means of perpetuating discord, and this was pre-
cisely the effect it produced.
2. Although Anastasius had shown some signs of piety, still
Euphemius, Patriarch of Constantinople , who had narrowly watched
his sentiments in regard of the Faith, considered him a heretic, and
opposed his exaltation with all his might (3) ; he never even would
consent to it, till he had from him a sworn promise, and signed ,
besides, with his own hand , binding him to defend the Council of
Chalcedon. All this Anastasius did ; but he not only broke his
promise afterwards, but endeavoured (4) to destroy all proof of it,
by requiring the restoration of the paper he had signed and sworn
to , which was kept in the treasury of the Church ; for the reten-
tion of such a document, he said, was an insult to the Empire, as
ifthe word of a Prince was not worthy of faith by itself. He favoured
the heretics, and persecuted the Catholics, especially the Patriarch
Euphemius, whom he succeeded in deposing (5) . He favoured ,
above all others, the Eutychians, who principally infested the
Church at that time. He could not, however, be called an Euty-
chian himself; he was rather one of the sect of Existants or Tolera-
tors, who permitted every religion except the Catholic (6 ) . He
died at last, in the year 518, on the 9th of July, and in the ninetieth,
or, at all events, the eighty-eighth year of his age, having constantly
persecuted the Church during the twenty-seven years he reigned .
According to the account of Cyril, Bishop of Scythopolis, in the
life of St. Saba, quoted by Orsi and Fleury (7) , he had an unhappy
end. St. Saba, he says, came to Aila, where St. Elias, Patriarch
of Jerusalem, was banished. They used to take their meals together,
at the hour of noon every day ; but on the 9th of June, the
Patriarch did not make his appearance till midnight, and, when he
entered, he said , Do you eat, for I will not nor cannot eat any more.
He then told St. Saba, that, at that very hour, the Emperor was
dead, and that he should follow him before ten days, to meet him
at the bar of Divine justice, and, in fact, on the 20th of July , he
slept in the Lord, in the eighty-eighth year ofhis age, having taken

(2) Orsi, n. 68. (3) Evagr . 3, c. 32 ; Orsi, t. 16, l. 35 , n. 37, con . Theodoret.
(4) Orsi, loc. cit. n. 70. (5) Orsi, n. 112. (6) Orsi, t. 19, l. 37, n. 21. (7) Orsi,
. 17, L. 38, n. 34 ; Fleury, t. 5, Z. 31 , n. 33.
168 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

no food for eight days previously. St. Elias, and St. Flavian,
Patriarch of Constantinople, who also died in exile, banished by
Anastasius for defending the Council of Chalcedon, are comme-
morated in the Roman Martyrology, on the 4th of July ( 8 ) . The
circumstances of the Emperor's death were remarkable : On the
night of the 9th and 10th of July a dreadful thunder-storm raged
over his palace. Terrified with the frequent flashes of lightning,
but much more on account of his sins, he imagined that God was now
about to chastise him for his inquities, and he fled wandering from
chamber to chamber ; he, at last, retired into a private cabinet, and
was there found dead, whether from the effects of terror, or struck
by lightning, authors are undecided . This was the end of this bad
man, after twenty-seven years' persecution of the Church of God.
On the day of Anastasius's death, Justin was invested with the Im-
perial dignity ; he was a prince ( 9) always obsequious to the Apos-
tolic See, and zealous in combating heresies, and establishing unity
and peace in the Church . He reigned nine years, and was suc-
ceeded by Justinian , of whom we shall speak by-and-by, and he was
succeeded, in 565 , by his nephew, Justin II ., who began his reign
well, but soon fell into dreadful excesses, though he never lost the
Faith, and died, at last, with sentiments of Christian piety ( 10) .
3. The heresies which disturbed the Church in this century were
almost all offshoots from the stock of Eutychianism. Those from
whom the Catholics suffered most were the Acephali, who were
also Eutychians. They were called Monophysites, as they believed
only one nature in Christ ( 11 ) ; but as they separated themselves
from Mongos, the pretended Bishop of Alexandria, and refused to
adhere, either to the Catholic party, or to their bishop, Mongos,
they were called Acephali , or Headless. They were not without a
chief, withal-one Severus, from the city of Sozopolis, in Pisidia.
He was a Pagan in the beginning of his days, and it is thought he
never sincerely renounced his errors ; he went to Beyroot to study
law, and was convicted there of idolatry and magical practices, so,
to escape the punishment his infamies deserved, he pretended to
embrace Christianity. He was baptized in Tripoli , in Phenicia ( 12) ,
but he was not eight days a Christian, when he forsook the Catholic
communion, and threw himself into the arms of the party who had
separated from Mongos, and he rejected from that out both the
Council of Chalcedon and the Henoticon of Zeno. He was a man
of corrupt morals, but to gain credit with the monks he professed
the monastic life in the monastery of the abbot Nefarius, in Egypt ;
but he was there discovered to be a heretic and expelled, and he
then went to Constantinople, where he some time after found
himself at the head of two hundred monks, and of many other

(8) Orsi, t. 19, 7 42, n. 89. (9) Orsi, t. 19, l. 39, n. 37, in fin. (10) Orsi, t. 19,
l. 43, n. 67. (11) Orsi, loc cit. n. 68. (12) Orsi, t. 16, l. 37 , n. 62, cum Evagr.
1. 3 , n. 33.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 169

heretics ( 13), and with them committed many excesses, without


regard to either the laws or the judges. Anastasius, who then
reigned, desirous of upsetting the Council of Chalcedon, winked at
his crimes, and thus, under favour of that impious sovereign, he
succeeded in driving out of Constantinople the bishop of the See,
Macedonius, and substituting Timothy, treasurer of the city, in his
place, who had the hardihood to cause the Trisagion, composed by
Peter the Fuller, to favour the Eutychian doctrines, to be publicly
sung in the Church ( 14) . Timothy, likewise, through favour of
the Emperor, got Severus elected Bishop of Antioch , and Flavian
banished ( 15) ; and he, on the very day he took possession of
his See, anathematized the Council of Chalcedon and the Epistle
of St. Leo.
4. The Acephali were split into several sects. The Jacobites
are among the most remarkable ; these took their name from a
Syrian monk of the name of James, a disciple of Severus. He
preached the Eutychian heresy in Armenia and Mesopotamia ;
and from that time the Syrian Catholics, who received the Council
of Chalcedon, were called Melchites, or Royalists, from the Syrian
word Melk, a King, because they followed the religion of the Em-
perors, that is of the Emperors who received the Council of Chalce-
don. The Jacobites professed the error of Eutyches, that Christ
suffered in the flesh, and they added other errors to this, especially
in Armenia, for there they denied that the Word had taken flesh
from the Virgin, but taught that the Word itself was changed into
flesh and merely passed through the Virgin ; they do not mix
water with the wine in the celebration of Mass ; celebrate Easter
the same time as the Jews ; do not venerate the cross until it is
baptized the same as a human being ; when they make the sign of
the cross they do it with one finger alone, to signify that they believe
in one nature ; they observe singular fasts, and during the Lent they
cannot eat eggs or cheese unless on Holy Saturday.
5. The Agnoites or Ignorants were founded by Themistius, a
deacon of Alexandria . This Eutychian taught that Christ, being
of one nature alone, composed out of, or confounded rather, between
the Divinity and humanity, was, even according to the Divinity,
ignorant of many things, as he in particular himself alludes to his
ignorance of the day of judgment : " But of that day or hour no
man knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the
Father" (Mark , xiii . 32 ) ; and this ignorance, he said, was just as
natural to him as the other inconveniences, hunger, thirst, and pain,
which he suffered in this life (16). St. Gregory (17) , however,
explains the text by saying that Christ did not know it as far as
his humanity was concerned, but that he knew it by the union of

(13) Orsi, n. 63. (14) Orsi, n. 71. (15) Orsi, n. 72. (16) Fleury, t. 5, l. 33,
n. 2 ; Nat. Alex. t. 11, c. 3, a. 3 ; Gotti, loc. cit. (17) St. Greg. l. 10, Ep. 39 , a. 42.
170 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

the humanity with the Divinity. God made man, he says, know
the day and the hour by the power of his Divinity.
6. The chief of the Tritheists was John , a grammarian of
Alexandria ; he was known by the name of Philoponos the labourer.
He objected to the Catholics , that if they recognized two natures
in Christ they should admit two persons ; but he was answered that
nature was one thing and person another : for , if nature and per-
sonality were one and the same thing , we should admit three na-
tures in the Trinity as there are three persons . This reasoning was
so convincing to Philoponos that he at once admitted its force , but
it led him into a much greater error , for he recognized three distinct
natures in the Trinity , and , therefore , admitted three distinct Gods ,
and hence his followers were called Tritheists (18) . He wrote
likewise against the resurrection of the flesh ( 19) . With these
exceptions he believed in Christianity , and defended it against
Proclus of Licia , a Platonic philosopher who attacked it at the
time .
7. From this hot-hed of error two other sects sprung up, the
Corruptibilists and the Incorruptibilists . Theodosius, a monk,
founded the Corruptibilists , who believed that Christ had a cor-
ruptible body. These erred, not because they said that the Word
had in Christ taken a corruptible body by its nature, and subject to
hunger and thirst and sufferings, but because they asserted that Christ
by necessity was subject to these sufferings , in the same manner as all
of us were subject to them, so that he should undergo them whether
he willed or not ( 20) . The Catholic doctrine is that the Word had
in the body of Christ put on the common sufferings of mankind,
hunger, weariness , pain, and death, not through necessity , as they
are of necessity with us, the punishment of original sin, but of his
own free will on account of his unbounded charity which induced
him to come " in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Romans, viii . 3), to
condemn and punish sin in the flesh. And in the same manner,
says St. Thomas (21 ), our Saviour wished to assume the passions of
the mind, sorrow, fear, weariness, not in the same way as they are
in us, opposed to reason , for all the motions of the sensitive appetites
in Christ were ordered according to reason, and were on that
account called in him propassions ; for passion in itself, says the
angelic doctor, is so called when it rules over reason, but it is pro-
passion when it remains in and does not extend beyond the sensitive
appetite.
8. St. Julian of Halicarnassus was the head of the Phantasiasts
or Incorruptibilists. These taught that the body of Christ was
by its nature incorruptible and free from all passions, so that he
suffered neither hunger nor thirst, nor weariness nor pain, but that

( 18) Fleury & Nat. Alex. 7. cit. Berti, Brev. His. t. 1 , s. 6, c. 3. (19) Niceph.
7. 18, c. 47, 48. (20) Gotti, l. cit. c. 76, s. 6, n. 7. (21) St. Thomas, p. 2.
7. 15 , a. 4.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 171

is directly opposed to the words of the Gospel : " When he had


fasted ........he was hungry" (Matt. iv. 2) ; " Fatigued from his
journey, he sat down" (John, iv. 6). The Eutychians were favour-
able to this doctrine, for it corresponded with their own, that there
was only one, an impassable, nature in Christ (22) . Julian wrote
in favour of the Incorruptibilists and Themistius of the Corrupti-
bilists, and they both stirred up such a commotion among the
people of Alexandria, that they burned each other's houses, and
murdered each other on account of their difference of opinion (23 ).
9. We should here remark that the Emperor Justinian fell into
the error of the Incorruptibilists. Who could have imagined that
this prince, who showed himself so zealous against heretics, and,
above all, against the Eutychians, should have died, as many sup-
pose he did, a heretic himself, and infected with the pestilential
dogmas of Eutyches. Fleury and Orsi ( 24) both attribute his fall
to his overweening desire of meddling by his edicts in matters of
Faith which God has committed to the heads of his Church. He
had the misfortune to have as a most intimate confidant, Theodore,
Bishop of Cesarea, a concealed enemy of the Council of Chalcedon ,
and a friend of the Acephali, and at his instigation he promulgated
an edict in the year 564, in which he declared that the body of
Christ was incorruptible, so that after it was formed in the Virgin's
womb, it was no longer capable of any change or natural passion,
no matter how innocent, as hunger and thirst, so that although he
ate before his death, he only did so in the same manner as after his
Resurrection, without having any necessity of food . If the body
of Christ, therefore, was not capable of any natural passion, he
suffered nothing in the flesh, neither in life nor death, and his
passion was merely an appearance without any reality. Isaias,
therefore, uttered a falsehood when he said, " Surely he hath borne
our infirmities, and carried our sorrows" (Isaias, liii . 4) . So did
St. Peter, where he says, "Who his own self bore our sins in his
body upon the tree" ( 1 Peter, ii . 24) . Even Christ himself stated
what was false when he said, " My soul is sorrowful unto death"
(Matt. xxvi. 38) ; and then exclaiming on the cross, " My God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?" (Matt. xxvii. 46) . All this
would be false if Christ was insensible to internal and external
sufferings. O ingratitude of mankind . Christ died of pain on a
cross for the love of man, and men say that he suffered nothing in
reality, only in appearance. Justinian required that this doctrine
should be approved of by all the bishops, and he was particularly
anxious to induce six learned African bishops to give it their
approbation, but they resisted, and were accordingly separated ,
and shut up in six different churches in Constantinople (25 ) . St.

(22) Gotti, l. cit. ex Liberat. in Brev. c. 20. (23 ) Gotti, ibid. (24) Fleury, t. 5,
l. 34, n. 8, cum Evagr. l. 4, n. 30 ; Orsi, t. 19, l. 42, n. 78. (25 ) Fleury, 7. cit.
172 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Eutychius, Patriarch of Constantinople, opposed it likewise, and


laboured in vain to undeceive the Emperor. He was driven from
his See and another put in his place, and all the patriarchs and
many other bishops refused to sign their approbation ( 26 ) . When
the Oriental bishops were required to subscribe, they said they
would follow the example of Anastasius, Patriarch of Antioch, and
Justinian, therefore, used every effort to induce him to agree to it,
but he sent the Emperor an answer in which he learnedly proved
that the body of Christ, as to the natural and innocent passions,
was corruptible, and when informed that it was the Emperor's
intention to banish him , he prepared a sermon to take leave of his
people, but he never published it, as Justinian died at midnight,
the 13th of November, 566, the eighty-fourth year of his age, after
a reign of thirty-nine years and eight months (27).
10. Cardinal Baronius ( 28) says that the Emperor's death was
sudden and unexpected , but it was most serviceable to the Empire,
which was daily falling from bad to worse, God revenging the
injuries inflicted on the bishops of his Church, and preventing, by
his death, that fire from spreading, which he enkindled . Evagrius
and Nicephorus ( 29 ) remark, that he died just at the time he had
decreed the exile of St. Anastasius and other Catholic priests,
although the order had not been yet promulgated. This Evagrius,
a contemporaneous author, as Orsi ( 30) remarks, gave it as his
deliberate opinion that Justinian, having filled the world and the
Church with tumult and confusion, only received from God, in
the end, that condign punishment his crimes deserved . Baronius
adds ( 31 ) , that although the name of Justinian was not removed
from the Ecclesiastical Registers, like that of other heretics, and
though the sixth Council and several Pontiffs had entitled him
Pious and Catholic, we should not be surprised if his falling off
from the Faith was not published in any public decree . However,
his other crimes, the banishment of so many bishops, his cruelties
to so many innocent persons, his acts of injustice in depriving so
many of their properties, prove that he was, at all events, unjust
and sacrilegious, if not a heretic.
11. Besides these sects of the Acephali, another sect of the
Acemetic monks sprung up in this century. This was another
sprout of Nestorianism , and it was thus discovered. During the
reign of Pope Hormisdas, the Scythian monks took on themselves

(26) Evagr. l. 4, n. 33. (27) Fleury, l. c. n. 11. (28 ) Baron. Ann. 565, n. 1.
(29) Evagr. l. 4, c. 40 ; Niceph. Z. 16, c. 31. (30) Orsi, t. 19, l. 42, n. 84. (31) Baron.
loc cit. n. 3.

* Acemetic, or sleepless monks, were a celebrated order in the East. They were called
the sleepless, because night and day they kept up Divine psalmody without intermission ;
the community was divided into three sections, and each spent eight hours out of the
twenty-four singing the praises of God. - TRANS.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 173

to sustain, as a necessary article of Faith, that one of the Trinity was


made flesh, and they sent a deputation to Rome to get a decree
from the Pope to that effect ; he , however ( 32 ) , refused to accede to
their wishes, dreading that some leaven of Eutychianism might be
concealed in the proposition , and that they wished besides to throw
discredit on the Council of Chalcedon and the Epistle of St. Leo, as
deficient in the definition of the expressions necessary to condemn
the Nestorian and Eutychian heresy. On the other hand, that pro-
position was embraced by all the Oriental Churches as a touchstone
against the Nestorian heresy, and was impugned by the Acemetic
monks alone, who, it is true, in the time of Zeno and Anastasius ,
had fought strenuously against the heresy of Eutyches, but becom-
ing too warm against the Eutychians, began to agree with the Nes-
torians, not alone denying that one of the Trinity was made flesh,
but also that the Son of God suffered in his flesh , and that the
Blessed Virgin was really and truly the Mother of God (33) .
12. The Emperor Justinian undertook the defence of the propo
sition upheld by the monks of Scythia, and wrote to Pope John II.
for his approbation, and gave his letter in charge to two bishops-
Ignatius, Archbishop of Ephesus, and Demetrius of Philippi.
When the Acemetic monks got a knowledge of this proceeding,
they sent two of their body to Rome-Cyrus and Eulogius- to de-
fend their cause (34) ; so Pope John had the matter most particu-
larly examined. We know, for certain, that Anatolius, deacon of
the Roman Church , wrote to Ferrandus, a deacon in Africa, a man
of most profound learning and of great sanctity, who, having
previously expressed a doubt as to whether this proposition was
admissible or not, now, after a rigorous examination , answered that
there should be no hesitation in admitting it. Among other proofs ,
he adduces the words of St. Paul : " Take heed to yourselves and
to the whole flock wherein the Holy Ghost hath placed you bishops,
to rule the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own
blood" (Acts, xx . 28) . Now when the Apostle says that God hath
shed his blood, every one must understand that he shed the blood
of the flesh he had taken from the Virgin, and that it is not God
the Father, nor God the Holy Ghost, but God the Son, who has
done so, as the Scripture declares in several places : " For God so
loved the world as to give his only begotten Son" (John, iii . 16 ) :
"He hath spared not even his own Son, but delivered him up for
us all" ( Rom. viii . 32 ) : if, therefore, we can say that God has shed
his blood for us, we can also say that one of the Persons of the
Trinity shed his blood and suffered in the flesh. After a rigorous
examination, therefore, Pope John answered the Emperor, and
authentically gave his approbation to the proposition, that one of

(32) Orsi, t. 17, l. 39, n. 123. (33) Orsi, loc. cit. (34) Fleury, t. 5, l. 32, n. 35 ;
Orsi, ibid. n. 24.
174 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

the Trinity suffered in the flesh. He then strove to get the Aceme-
tic monks who had come to Rome, to accept his definition , but they
obstinately refused, and he was obliged to separate them from the
communion of the Church (35 ) . We should remark that the letter
of Pope John did not contradict the letter of Pope Hormisdas, for
this Pope did not condemn the proposition, but only withheld his
approbation for just causes, lest , as Roncaglia says, a hasty defini-
tion at thetime might divide some from the unity ofthe Church (36).

ARTICLE II.

THE THREE CHAPTERS.


13. Condemnation of the Three Chapters of Theodore, Ibas, and Theodoret. 14, 15. De-
fended by Vigilius. 16. Answer to the Objection of a Heretic, who asserts that one
Council contradicts another.

13. It was during this sixth century that the controversy about
the Three Chapters was carried on. These were : First.- The
books of Theodore of Mopsuestia, in which it was clear he taught
the heresy of Nestorius (supra, cap. v. n. 48) ; Second. —The letter
of Ibas to Maris of Persia, in which he condemned alike St. Cyril
and Nestorius, and praised Theodore of Mopsuestia : and, Thirdly.
-The writings of Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, against the twelve
anathematisms of St. Cyril. This controversy grievously disturbed
the Church, but it was put at rest by the condemnation of these
Three Chapters, in the year 553 , in the fifth General Council, the
second of Constantinople. The Emperor Justinian hurried on the
condemnation of Theodore and his writings, the letter of Ibas to
Maris the Persian, and the writings of Theodoret against St. Cyril,
and finally, the sentence received the approbation of Pope Vigilius,
in his famous Constitutum. Danæus (1) says that Vigilius was op-
posed to the celebration of this Council, but as he had not the power
to prevent it, and foresaw that a ruinous schism would spring from
his objection, he gave his assent, and , confirmed by the assent ofthe
Holy See, it now ranks among the Ecumenical Councils.
14. Pope Vigilius was blamed for his conduct in regard to this
Council, and for so frequently changing his judgment regarding the
condemnation of the Three Chapters, but Cardinal Norris ( 2 ) , after
relating all his changes, defends him- as does Peter of Marca-
and says that his inconstancy was not weakness but prudence .
" Vigilius ," he says, " was a most tenacious upholder of Pontifical
authority, even setting at defiance the Sovereign himself, as appears
from his actions. He is reproached with inconstancy of mind, and
too great a facility in changing his opinions, for in the case of the

(35) Fleury, t. 5 , l. 32, n. 39 ; Gotti, t. 2, loc. cit. c. 77, l. t. 3 ; Orsi, loc. cit. n. 128.
(36) Roncaglia, Not. apud.; Nat. Alex. t. 11, c. 3, ar. 2. (1) Danes.; Nat. Temp.
p. 255. (2) De Norris ; Diss. Histor. de Syn. v. c. d.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 175

Three Chapters he was often inconsistent, and more than once was
opposed to his previous opinions. In the beginning, while he was
yet in Sicily, he defended the Three Chapters ; but, if we are to
believe Victor, he had already promised to Theodora Augusta that
he would condemn them. When he came to Constantinople he
suspended Menna for condemning the Three Chapters ; but he was
soon after reconciled to him, and juridically condemned them him-
self. Three years after he revoked his judgment, published a new
Constitution , and denied that they could be condemned ; but he
held this opinion for only a few months, for he forwarded an epistle
to Eutyches, declaring the Constitution of no effect, and coming to
the Synod, he proscribed the Three Chapters." That most learned
man, Peter of Marca ( lib. iii., De Concordia Sacerdotii & Imperii ,
cap. 13), testifies that this inconstancy of Vigilius has been consi-
dered prudence by the learned ; he calls it dispensation , for at one
time he acted up to the rigour of law and canons, and then again
dispensed with them for the sake of Faith and public tranquillity.
15. Peter of Marca, therefore, says that the Popes at all times,
in questions relating to discipline, have acted according to the rules
of prudence ; sometimes, when necessary , using all the rigour of the
canon, at other times the dispensing power-called by the Greeks,
Economy, by the Latins , Dispensation - to preserve the union of the
faithful and the peace of the Church. Cardinal Orsi ( 3) remarks,
besides, that it was the last Constitution or Judgment alone that was
proposed to the Church by Vigilius as a peremptory decree, and, as
theologians say, pronounced ex Cathedra . He was unwilling, at
first, to condemn the Three Chapters, because he feared to give a
handle to the Nestorians to throw discredit on the Council of Chal-
cedon, which, it was said, approved of the Three Chapters ; but
when, on one hand, he perceived that the Eutychians more vigo-
rously attacked the Council of Chalcedon , which they said (though
it was not the case) had approved of these Chapters ; and, on the
other, the Nestorians, laying hold of that, boasted that this Council
was favourable to the doctrine of Nestorius ; then, indeed , he was
convinced that it was necessary to condemn them absolutely, and he
accordingly gave a decree to that effect, in unison with the Fathers
of the Council of Constantinople, which is, therefore, as Tournelly
says (4), considered one of the Ecumenical Councils, as it was ap-
proved of by Vigilius, and also by some of his successors, as Pela-
gius II., Leo II., &c. , and Photius, according to Orsi , mentions the
same thing in his writings.
16. How does it happen though, says Maclain , the annotator
of Mosheim (5) , that in the Council of Chalcedon the writings of
Ibas and Theodoret were not condemned, and they themselves were

(3) Orsi, t. 7, l. 39, n. 84. (4) Tournelly, Theol. Comp. t. 3 ; append. a. 2, de Con.
Constan. 2, p. 998. (5) Mosheim, Hist. Eccles. Centur. 6, par. 2, c. 3, p. 839.
176 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

praised for the purity of their Faith , and, for all that, the Council
of Constantinople condemns their writings ? the decision of the
Council of Constantinople then is, he says, opposed to that of
Chalcedon, and is a proof that both the Councils and the Doctors
differ among themselves. Thus, he endeavours to prove the falli-
bility of General Councils of the Catholic Church, as these two
Councils were opposed to each other. But as Selvaggi, in his
sixteenth note, very fairly remarks, this is altogether false, for the
Three Chapters were not approved of by the Council of Chalcedon ;
in fact, as Tournelly also remarks, they were neither approved nor
rejected ; they were altogether passed over in that Council, lest,
by condemning them, more disturbance would be raised in the
Church, already distracted by the Nestorians. Peter of Marca
explains the omission of the condemnation , on the authority of St.
Cyril (6) . Cyril, he says, prudently teaches that rigorous rules
must sometimes be tempered by dispensation , as people at sea
frequently throw some of their merchandise overboard to preserve
the rest ; and in his Epistle to Proclus of Constantinople, he tells
him that the Council of Ephesus acted in this manner, for the
Synod, indeed, condemned the heretical impiety , but in this con-
demnation prudently abstained from mentioning the name of Theo-
dorus, lest many, led away by their respect for his person , would
forsake the Church itself.
17. Juenin (7 ) tells us that the books of Origen were con-
demned in this Council, and the following errors of his especially
were noted : First.-That the souls of men are created before they
are united to their bodies, and that they are joined to the body as
a place of punishment. Second. - That the heavens, the sun, the
moon, the stars, and the waters above the heavens, are animated
and reasoning powers. Third.-That in the general resurrection ,
our bodies will arise all in a round form, and that the pains of the
damned and of the devils will have an end some time or other.
Fourth . That in some future ages Jesus Christ will be again
crucified for the devils, and that the wicked spirits who are in
heaven will inflict this suffering on him. Juenin also remarks
that the condemnation of these erroneous doctrines does not ap-
pear clearly, from the original Acts of the second Council of
Constantinople, as in the edition of L'Abbe, but that Cardinal
Norris clearly shows that they were condemned there, though
Garner maintains that it was not in this Council they were con-
demned at all, but in the Constantinopolitan Council, celebrated
under Menna .

(6) Mos. loc. cit. (7) Juenin, Theol. t. 1 , ar. 5, s. 2, ver. Quinto.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 177

CHAPTER VII .

THE HERESIES OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY.

ARTICLE I.

OF MAHOMETANISM.

1. Birth of Mahomet, and Beginning of his False Religion. 2. The Alcoran filled with
Blasphemy aud Nonsense.

1. THE impious sect of Mahometanism sprung up in this cen-


tury. I have already written the history of Mahomet in my work
on the " Truth of the Faith" (1) , but I consider it necessary to
give a short sketch of it here. Mahomet, the founder of this
destroying sect, which has spread over the greater- perhaps, the
greatest part of the Christian world, was born in Arabia, in 568,
according to Fleury ( 2 ) , and his family was amongst the most illus-
trious of that peninsula . His uncle put him to trade on the death
of his father, and when twenty-eight years of age, he became, at
first the factor, and, soon after, the husband of a rich and noble
widow, called Cadijah (3). He was brought up an idolater ; but,
as he grew old, he determined , not alone to change his own reli-
gion, but that of his countrymen, who, for the greater part, were
idolaters also, and to teach them, as he said, the ancient religion of
Adam , of Abraham, of Noah, and of the Prophets, among whom
he reckoned Jesus Christ. He pretended to have long conver-
sations with the Archangel Gabriel, in the cave of Hera, three
miles from Mecca, where he frequently retired. In the year 608 ,
being then forty years of age (4) , he began to give out that he
was a Prophet, inspired by God, and he persuaded his relatives
and domestics of this first, and then began publicly to preach in
Mecca, and attack idolatry. At first, the people did not very
willingly listen to him , and asked him to prove his mission by a
miracle ; but he told them that God sent him to preach the truth,
and not to work miracles. The impostor, however, boasts of hav-
ing wrought one, though ridiculous in the extreme : a piece, he
says, fell off from the moon once into his sleeve, and he fixed it
on again ; and it is said that this is the reason for the Mahometans
adopting the half moon as the device of their Empire . He gave
out, in the commencement of his career, that God commanded
him not to force any one to embrace his religion , but the people
of Mecca having risen up against him , and driven him from their
city, he then declared that God commanded him to pursue the

(1) Ver. del Fede, part 3, c. 4, nota a. (2) Fleury, t. 7, l. 38, n. 1. (3) Nat.
Alex. t. 12, c. 12, a. 2. (4) Fleury, loco cit.
M
178 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

infidels with arms, and thus propagate the Faith ; and from that
till his death he was always at war. Now Lord of Mecca, he
made it the Metropolis of the Faithful , and before his death he saw
almost all the tribes of the Arabian peninsula subject to his spiri-
tual and temporal sway.
2. He composed the Koran (Al Koran — the book) , assisted, as
some think, by Sergius, a monk. It is a collection of precepts,
taken from the Mosaic and Christian Law, together with many of
his own, and interspersed with fables and ridiculous revelations.
He recognizes the Divine mission of Moses and Jesus Christ , and
admits many parts of the Scriptures ; but his law, he says, is the
perfection of the Jewish and Christian law, and he is the reformer
of these codes, though, in truth, it is totally different from both
one and the other. He professes that there is but one God ; but
in his Alcoran he relates many trivialities unworthy of the Supreme
Being, and the whole work is, in fact, filled with contradictions, as
I have shown in my book on the " Truth of the Faith ." Jews or
Christians, he says, may be saved by the observance of their respec-
tive laws, and it is indifferent if they exchange one for the other ;
but hell will be for ever the portion ofthe infidels ; those who
believe in one God alone will be sent there for a period not ex-
ceeding, at most, a thousand years, and then all will be received
into the House of Peace, or Paradise. The Mahometan Paradise ,
however, is only fit for beasts ; for filthy sensual pleasure is all the
believer has to expect there. I pass over all the other extrava-
gances of the Koran , having already , in the " Truth of the Faith,"
treated the subject more fully.
3. The Mahometans shave the head, and leave only a lock of
hair on the crown, by which they hope Mahomet will take them
up to heaven, even out of hell itself. They are permitted to have
four wives by their law, and they ought, at least, to have one ;
they may divorce each wife twice. It is prohibited to dispute on
the Alcoran and the Scriptures ; and the devil appears to have
dictated this precept himself, for, by keeping those poor people in
ignorance, he keeps them in darkness. Mahomet died in 631 , in
the sixty-third year of his age, and nine years after he was recog-
nized as sovereign of Arabia. He saw almost the whole peninsula
subject to his sway, and for four hundred leagues to the North and
South of Medina no other sovereign was known . He was suc-
ceeded by Aboubeker, one of his earliest disciples , and a great
conqueror likewise. A long line of caliphs united in their own
persons the spiritual and royal power of the Arabian Empire.
They destroyed the Empire of Persia ; and Egypt, and Syria, and
the rich provinces and kingdoms of the East yielded to their
arms (5) .

(5) Fleury, 6, l. 38, n. 4, 5.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 179

ARTICLE II.

HERESY OF THE MONOTHELITES.


4. Commencement of the Monothelites ; their Chiefs, Sergius and Cyrus. 5. Opposed
by Sophronius. 6. Letter of Sergius to Pope Honorius, and his Answer. 7. De-
fence of Honorius. 8, Honorius erred, but did not fall into any Error against
Faith. 9. The Ecthesis of Heraclius, afterwards condemned by Pope John IV.
10. The Type of the Emperor Constans. 11. Condemnation of Paul and Pyrrhus.
12. Dispute of St. Maximus with Pyrrhus. 13. Cruelty of Constans ; his violent
Death. 14. Condemnation of the Monothelites in the Sixth Council. 15. Hono-
rius condemned in that Council, not for Heresy, but for his Negligence in repressing
Heresy.

4. In the year 622 , according to Noel Alexander ( 1 ) , or 630,


according to Fleury (2), the Monothelite heresy sprang up ; and
this was its origin : some bishops who had received the Council
of Chalcedon , recognizing two natures in Christ, still asserted that
as both natures were but one person , we should only recognize in
him one operation ( 3) . N. Alexander (loco cit .) says, that the
founder of this error was Sergius, Patriarch of Constantinople ; he
communicated his opinions to Theodore, Bishop of Pharan, in
Arabia, and he answered him that his sentiments were the same.
It happened also about this time that the Emperor Heraclius was
in Gerapolis in Upper Syria, when he was visited by Athanasius,
Patriarch of the Jacobites, a crafty and wicked man ; he gained the
Emperor's confidence, who promised to make him Patriarch of
Antioch, if he would receive the Council of Chalcedon . Atha-
nasius pretended to receive it, and confessed the two natures ; he
then asked the Emperor, if, having received the two natures, it
was necessary to recognize in the person of Christ two wills and two
operations , or one alone. This question posed him, and he wrote
to Sergius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and asked also the opinion
of Cyrus, Bishop of Phasis, and both persuaded him that he should
confess in Christ one will alone, and only one operation , as he was
only one person. The Eutychian Athanasius was quite satisfied
with this false doctrine, because if we recognize in Christ only one
operation, we should, according to the Eutychian system, only re-
cognize one nature also. Thus, Sergius, Theodore, Bishop of
Pharan, Athanasius, and Cyrus, joined together, and as, on the
death of George, Patriarch of Alexandria, Cyrus was raised to that
dignity, and Athanasius was immediately appointed Patriarch of
Antioch, three of the Eastern Patriarchs embraced the heretical doc-
trine, that there was but one will in Jesus Christ ; and on that
account, this sect was called the Monothelites, from the two Greek
terms composing the word, and signifying one will ( 4) . Sophronius ,

(1) Baron . Ann. 168, n. 4 ; Nat. Alex. t. 12, c. 2, a. 1, sec. 2. (2 ) Fleury, t. 6,


1. 37, n. 41. (3) Fleury, al luogo cit. (4) Fleury, loc. cit.; Van Ranst. sec. 6 ,
p. 125 ; Herm. Hist. t. 1, c. 235.
180 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Patriarch ofJerusalem, remained faithful to the Church, and never


could be induced to embrace the heresy.
5. Cyrus, being now Patriarch of Alexandria, formed a union
there of all the Theodosians, a very numerous Eutychian sect.
This act of union was concluded in 633 , and contains nine articles ;
but the seventh is the one that contains all the poison of heresy.
This asserts that Christ is the Son himself, who produces the divine
and human operations by means of one theandric operation alone ;
that is, we may say, a human-divine operation, both divine and
human at the same time-so that the distinction exists not in
reality, but is only drawn by our understandings (5) . Cyrus gave
these articles to be examined by the monk Sophronius ; but when he
read them, he threw himself at the bishop's feet, and, with tears,
implored of him not to promulgate them, as they were contrary to
Faith, and conformable to the doctrine of Apollinares. Cyrus,
however, would not listen to him, but published the act of union ,
and Sophronius, seeing he could make no impression in Alexandria,
betook himself to Constantinople, to lay the affair before Sergius ;
but he being one of the firmest supporters of the error, refused to
see him , and, under pretext of re-uniting all the heretics of Egypt,
approved the doctrine of Cyrus (6 ).
6. Sophronius returned again to the East, and was elected this
same year, 633, Patriarch of Jerusalem, much to the displea-
sure of Sergius, who endeavoured to blacken him in the estimation
of Pope Honorius, to whom he wrote a long letter filled with de-
ceit and lies. He pretends to have been ignorant altogether ofthe
question of two wills, until Cyrus of Phasis wrote to him, and laid
great stress on a pretended work of Menas, formerly Bishop of Con-
stantinople, written to support Monothelism. Some of the Fathers,
he says, teach one operation in Christ, but not one of them ever
speaks of two, and he then falsely reports that St. Sophronius, when
he was made Patriarch of Jerusalem, entered into an agreement with
him not to say anything about the controversy at all. The Pope,
ignorant of the artifices of Sergius , answered him, and commended
him for putting a stop to this novel doctrine (the two operations in
Christ , maintained by Sophronius) , as only calculated to scandalize
the simple, and he then adds : " We confess one will alone in Jesus
Christ, for the Divinity did not assume our sin, but our nature, as
it was created before it was corrupted by sin. We do not see that
either the Sacred Scriptures or the Councils teach one or two ope-
rations. That Jesus Christ is one alone, operating by the Divinity
and humanity, the Scriptures prove in many places ; but it is ofno
consequence to know whether by the operation ofthe Divinity or
of the humanity we should admit one or two operations. We should
leave this dispute to the grammarians. We ought to reject these

(5) Epist. Cyri, p. 952, ap. Fleury, loc. cit. n. 42. (6) Fleury, cit. n. 42.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 181

new expressions, lest the simple, hearing of two operations, might


consider us Nestorians , or perhaps might count us Eutychians, if
we recognize one operation alone in Christ" (7).
7. Not alone the heretical, but even some Catholic writers, have
judged, from these expressions of Pope Honorius, that he fell into
the Monothelite heresy ; but they are certainly deceived ; because
when he says that there is only one will in Christ, he intends to
speak of Christ as man alone, and in that sense, as a Catholic , he
properly denies that there are two wills in Christ opposed to each
other, as in us the flesh is opposed to the spirit ; and if we consider
the very words of his letter, we will see that such is his meaning.
"We confess one will alone in Jesus Christ , for the Divinity did not
assume our sin, but our nature , as it was created before it was cor-
rupted by sin." This is what Pope John IV. writes to the Emperor
Constantine II., in his apology for Honorius : " Some," said he,
" admitted two contrary wills in Jesus Christ, and Honorius
answers that by saying that Christ -perfect God and perfect man-
having come to heal human nature, was conceived and born without
sin, and therefore, never had two opposite wills, nor in him the
will of the flesh ever combated the will of the spirit, as it does in
us, on account of the sin contracted from Adam." He therefore
concludes that those who imagine that Honorius taught that there
was in Christ but one will alone of the Divinity and ofthe humanity,
are at fault (8 ). St. Maximus, in his dialogue with Pyrrhus (9) ,
and St. Anastasius Bibliothecarius ( 10) , make a similar defence for
Honorius. Graveson, in confirmation ofthis ( 11 ) , very properly
remarks, that as St. Cyril, in his dispute with Nestorius, said, in a
Catholic sense, that the nature of the Incarnate Word was one, and
the Eutychians seized on the expression as favourable to them, in
the same manner, Honorius saying that Christ had one will (that
is, that he had not, like us, two opposite wills-one defective, the will
of the flesh, and one correct, the will of the Spirit), the Monothelites
availed themselves of it to defend their errors .
8. We do not, by any means, deny that Honorius was in error,
when he imposed silence on those who discussed the question of
one or two wills in Christ, because when the matter in dispute is
erroneous, it is only favouring error to impose silence. Wherever
there is error it ought to be exposed and combated , and it was here
that Honorius was wrong ; but it is a fact beyond contradiction,
that Honorius never fell into the Monothelite heresy , notwithstand-
ing what heretical writers assert, and especially William Cave ( 12),
who says it is labour in vain to try and defend him from his charge.
The learned Noel Alexander clearly proves that it cannot be laid

(7) Fleury, t. 6, l. 37, n. 43, 44. (8) Fleury, loc. cit. l. 28, n. 25. (9) Nat. Alex.
t. 12 , dis. p. 3. (10) Anasta. Præf. ad Joan. Diacon. (11 ) Graveson, Hist. Ecclesi,
t. 3, p. 48, c. 3. (12 ) Cave, Hist. St. Leo, Monoth.
182 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

to his charge (13 ) , and in answer to the great argument adduced


by our adversaries, that in the Thirteenth Act of the Sixth Council
it was declared that he was anathematized-" Anathematizari præ-
vidimus, et Honorium eo quod invenimus per scripta, quæ ab eo
facto sunt ad Sergium, quia in omnibus ejus mentem secutus est,
et impia dogmata confirmavit"-replies that the Synod condemned
Honorius, not because he formally embraced the heresy , but on
account of the favour he showed the heretics, as Leo II . ( Optimo
Concilii Interprete, as N. Alex. calls him) writes to Constantine
Pogonatus in his Epistle, requesting the confirmation of the Synod.
In this letter Leo enumerates the heretics condemned , the fathers
of the heresy, Theodore of Pharan , Cyrus of Alexandria , Sergius,
Pyrrhus, Paul and Peter, successors in the See of Constantinople ;
he also anathematizes Honorius, not for embracing the error, but
for permitting it to go on unmolested : " Qui hanc Apostolicam
Ecclesiam non Apostolicæ Traditionis doctrina lustravit, sed profana
proditione immaculatam maculari permisit." He also writes to
the Spanish bishops , and tells them that Theodore, Cyrus, and the
others are condemned, together with Honorius, who did not, as
befitted his Apostolical authority, extinguish the flame of heretical
doctrine in the beginning, but cherished it by negligence. From
these and several other sources, then , Noel Alexander proves that
Honorius was not condemned by the Sixth Council as a heretic ,
but as a favourer of heretics, and for his negligence in putting them
down, and that he was very properly condemned , for the favourers
of heresy and the authors of it are both equally culpable. He adds
that the common opinion of the Sorbonne was, that although Hono-
rius, in his letters, may have written some erroneous opinions, still
he only wrote them as a private doctor , and in no wise stained the
purity of the faith of the Apostolic See ; and his letters to Sergius,
which we quoted in the last paragraph, prove how different his
opinions were from those of the Monothelites.
9. On the death of Honorius, in 638, the Monothelite heresy
was very much extended by the publication of the Ecthesis of the
Emperor Heraclius . This was an edict drawn up by Sergius him-
self, and published in the name of Heraclius. It was called Ecthesis ,
the Greek word for exposition, as it contained an exposition of the
Faith regarding the question of one or two operations in Jesus
Christ . It commences by an exposition of the Faith regarding the
Trinity, speaks of the Incarnation , and distinguishes two natures in
the single person of Christ, and it then proceeds : " We attribute
all the operations of Christ, Divine and human, to the Incarnate
Word, and we do not permit it to be said or taught that there are
one or two operations, but rather, according to the doctrines of the
Ecumenical Councils, we declare that there is one Jesus Christ

(13) Nat. Alex. t. 11 , Hist. Ecclesias. Diss. II . Prop. 3.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 183

alone, who operates things both Divine and human, and that both one
and the other operations proceed from the same Incarnate Word,
without division or confusion ; for although the expression of one
or two natures has been made use of by some of the Fathers , still
others look on it as strange, and dread lest some may avail them-
selves of it to destroy the doctrine of the two natures in Christ. On
the other hand, the expression of two operations scandalises many,
as it was never made use of by any of the principal Doctors of the
Church, and because it appears to be the same thing to admit two
contrary wills in Christ, as to admit two Persons. And if the im-
pious Nestorius, although he admitted two Sons, did not dare to
say that there were two wills-nay, more , he declared that in the two
Persons supposed by him, there was only one will-how then can Ca-
tholics, who recognize one Jesus Christ alone, admit in him two wills,
and even one will contrary to the other ? We, therefore, following
in all things the Holy Fathers , confess in Christ one will alone,
and we believe that his flesh, animated with a rational soul , never
of itself made any movement contrary to the Spirit of the Word
which was united in one Person." Such was the famous Ecthesis
of Heraclius, confirmed afterwards by its author, Sergius, in a Cabal
or Council held by him in Constantinople ; we perceive that in the
commencement it prohibits the expression of one or two operations,
to deceive the people, but afterwards the dogma of one will, the
formal heresy of the Monothelites, is maintained (14) . This Ecthesis
was sent to Pope Severinus, but, either because it did not come to
hand, or that he died before it reached Rome, we hear nothing of
its condemnation then, but it was subsequently condemned by Pope
John IV. (15 ) .
10. Notwithstanding the condemnation of the Ecthesis, the
Monothelite heresy still continued to flourish , through the malice
of Pyrrhus and Paul, the successors of Sergius in the See of Con-
stantinople. Paul pretended, for a long time, to be a Catholic ,
but at length he threw off the mask, and induced the Emperor
Constans to publish , in 648 , an edict called the " Type," or for-
mula, imposing silence on both parties. In this formula there is a
summary review of the reasons on both sides, and it then proceeds :
" Wherefore, for the future , we forbid all our Catholic subjects to
dispute about one or two wills or operations, without prejudice,
however, to what was decided by the approved Fathers , relative
to the Incarnation of the Word. We wish , therefore, that they
should hold by the Holy Scriptures, the five General Councils, and
the simple expressions of the Fathers, which doctrine is the rule of
the Church, without either adding to, or diminishing, anything,
nor explaining anything by the private opinions of others, but let

(14) Nat. Alex. t. 12, c. 2, s, 2, n. 4 ; Fleury, t. 6, l. 38 , n. 21 . (15) Fleury, loc.


cit. n. 22.
184 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

everything be in the same state as it was before this controversy


sprung up at all , and as if it had never taken place. Those who
will dare to contravene this decree, if they are bishops or clergy-
men, they shall be deposed ; if monks, excommunicated and ban-
ished from their monasteries ; if in public employments, cashiered ;
if private individuals, their property shall be confiscated ; and all
others shall suffer corporal punishment, and be transported." Such
is the " Type" of Constans (16) .
11. We should here remark, that on the death of Sergius, he
was succeeded by Pyrrhus, and he resigned the See, of his own
free-will, afterwards, on account of disputes he had with his
people, and Paul, the Econome of the Cathedral Church, was
elected in his place ( 17 ) , and he followed the heretical doctrines
of both his predecessors. Pope Theodore laboured hard, both by
writing to him and through his Legates, to bring him back to the
Catholic Faith, but finding it all in vain, at length, by a formal
sentence, deposed him (18 ). It is supposed that this took place
in the same Council in which Theodore condemned Pyrrhus, for
after he had made his retractation in Rome at the Pope's own feet,
as he had promised St. Maximus he would do, when he disputed
with him in Africa (as we shall see hereafter), he went to Ravenna ,
and again relapsed into Monothelitism . It is probable he was
induced by the Exarch, who was a heretic himself, to take this
step , hoping to regain his See of Constantinople, and in fact he
again got possession of it in the year 655. When Pope Theodore
heard of his relapse, he convoked a partial Synod of bishops and
the Roman clergy, and pronounced an anathema and sentence of
deposition against him, and not only that, but he had the chalice
with the consecrated blood of the Redeemer brought to him, dipped
the pen in it, and thus signed the awful sentence with the precious
Blood of Christ (19) .
12. We have spoken of the dispute of Pyrrhus with St. Maxi-
mus the Abbot, in Africa. The controversy was about the one or
two wills and operations, and it is worthy of remark how forcibly
the learned St. Maximus refuted him. If Christ is one, said Pyr-
rhus, he should only will as one person, and, consequently, he has
but one will. Tell me, Pyrrhus, said St. Maximus, Christ is cer-
tainly only one, but he is, at the same time, both God and man .
If, then, he is true God and true man, he must will as God and as
man in two different manners, though but one person all the time ,
for as he is of two natures, he must certainly will and operate
according to the two natures, for neither of these natures is devoid
of will, nor devoid of operation. Now, if Jesus Christ willed and
operated according to the two natures, he had, as they were, two,

(16) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 6 ; Fleury, loc. cit. n. 45. (17) Fleury, t. 6, l. 38, n. 24,
in tine. ( 18) Anast. in Theod. Con. Lat. s. 2, p . 116. (19) Fleury, loc. cit.
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 185

we must admit that he had two natural wills and two essential
operations, and as the two natures did not divide him, so the two
wills and operations essentially attached to the two natures did not
actually divide him, and being united in Christ did not prevent
him from being one alone. But, Pyrrhus replied , it is not possible,
for as there are several wills there should be several persons. Then
you assert, said St. Maximus, that as there are many wills there
must be many persons to wish ; but if you go by this rule, you must
also admit, reciprocally, that as many persons as there are, so many
wills must there be ; but if you admit this, you must grant that
there is but one Person, as Sabellius teaches, for in God and in the
three Divine Persons there is but one will alone, or, you must
grant that as there are in God three persons , so there are three
wills, and consequently three natures, as Arius taught, if according
to the doctrine of the Fathers the number of wills must correspond
to the number of persons. It is, therefore (concludes St. Maxi-
mus) , not true that wherever there are many wills, there are many
persons, but the real truth is that when several natures are united
in the same person, as in Jesus Christ, there are several wills and
operations, though only one person . Pyrrhus raised more diffi-
culties, but St. Maximus answered them all so clearly that he was
at last convinced, and promised him that he would go to Rome,
and retract his errors at the feet of the Pope, which he soon after
did, and presented to his Holiness the instrument of his retracta-
tion (20) ; but again , as we have seen, relapsed.
13. But to return to the Type of Constans ; that, together with
all the Monothelite doctrine, was condemned in Rome in a Synod
held by Pope Martin ; and in consequence, the holy Pontiff was
bitterly persecuted by Constans, and ended his days in the Cri-
mea, in 654, where he was banished (21 ) . Constans himself, after
practising so many cruelties against the Pope and the faithful,
especially in Syracuse, was called away by God, in the year 668,
the twenty-seventh year of his reign, and met an unhappy end.
He went into the bath along with an attendant, who killed him
with a blow on the head, inflicted with the vessel used for pouring
out water, and instantly took to flight ; his attendants, astonished
at his long delay in the bath, at last went in to see what was the
matter, and found him dead (22) . Cardinal Gotti ( 23) says, he
also put St. Maximus to death ; and among his other acts of cruelty
related by Noel Alexander (24 ) , on the authority of Theophanes,
Cedrenus, Paul the deacon, &c. , is the murder of his brother Theo-
dosius. He first got him ordained a deacon through envy , by the
Patriarch Paul, but he never after enjoyed peace of mind, for
he frequently dreamed he saw his brother clad in the diaconal

(20) Fleury, t. 6, l. 38, n. 36 & 40. (21 ) Danaus, Temp. Natio. p. 158. (22) Fleury,
t. 6, l. 39, n. 42. (23) Gotti, Vic. adver. Her. c. 68, ƒ. 4, n. 41. (24) Nat. Alex.
t. 12, c. 5, ar. 3.
186 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

robes, and holding a chalice filled with blood in his hand , and cry-
ing out to him, " Drink, brother, drink."
14. The scene was changed. Constantine Pogonatus, son to
Constans, mounted the Imperial throne ; he was a lover of faith
and justice, and lost no time in procuring the assembly ofthe
Sixth General Council in Constantinople, in 680 ( 25) , which was
presided over by the Legates of Pope Agatho. Noel Alexander
informs us that authors are not agreed as to the number of bishops
who attended ; Theophanes and Cedrenus reckoned two hundred
and nineteen, while Photius only counts one hundred and seventy.
This Council was happily brought to a conclusion in eighteen
Sessions, and on the 18th of October, the definition of the Faith,
in opposition to the heresy of the Monothelites, was thus worded :
"We proclaim . that there are in Christ two natural
operations, invisibly, inconvertibly, inseparably, and unconfu-
sedly, according to the doctrine of the Fathers." This definition
was subscribed by all the Fathers (26) . Thus was concluded the
Sixth General Council ; the zeal of the prelates was seconded by
the approbation and authority of the Emperor, whose faith was
lauded by the assembled Fathers, and he was decorated with the
title of the Pious Restorer of Religion. The Pope , St. Leo II .,
the successor of Agatho, who died during the celebration of the
Council, confirmed its decisions and decrees, and as Graveson (27)
says, confirmed by his Apostolic authority this Sixth Council, and
ordained that it should be numbered among the other General
Councils.
15. We should here remark, that Cardinal Baronius (28) , to
wipe off the stain of heresy from Pope Honorius, says, that the
Acts of this Council have not been handed down to us fairly, but
were corrupted through the artifice of Theodore, the Bishop of
Constantinople. But Graveson properly remarks, that this conjec-
ture is not borne out by the learned men of our age, because
(as he says) Christian Lupus, Noel Alexander , Anthony Pagi,
Combesis and Garner, clearly prove the authenticity of the Acts.
Graveson (29) , besides, remarks that several follow Cardinal Bel-
larmine's opinion , and endeavour to clear Honorius, by saying,
that the Fathers of the Council were in error in the examination and
judgment of Honorius ; but, he adds, it is very hard to believe that
all the Fathers, not alone of this Council, but also of the Seventh
and Eighth General Councils, who also condemned Honorius,
were in error, when condemning his doctrine. I think it better,
then, to keep on the highway, and conclude , that Honorius can, by
every right, be cleared from the Monothelite heresy, but still was

(25 ) Nat. Alexander, t. 12, c. 2, a. 1 , s. 4 ; Herm. c. 240 ; Fleury, t. 6, l. 4, n. 11 ;


Berti, t. 1 , sec. 7, c. a. (26) Tournely. Theol. Cor . t. 3, in appen. p. 304 .
(27) Graveson, Hist. Ecclesias. t. 3, p. 60 ; Collog. 4. (28) Baron. ap. Grav.
(29) Grav. loc. cit. p. 27.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 187

justly condemned by the Council , as a favourer of heretics, and for


his negligence in repressing error. Danæus (30) says the same
thing ; there is no open heresy in the private letter of Honorius to
Sergius, but he is worthy of condemnation for his pusillanimity in
using ambiguous words to please and keep on terms with heretics,
when it was his duty to oppose them strenuously in the beginning.
Hermant says (31 ) , that Honorius was condemned , because he
allowed himself to be imposed on by the artifices of Sergius, and
did not maintain the interests of the Church with the constancy he
should have done. It is dreadful to see the blindness and obstinacy
of so many prelates of the Church poisoned by this heresy.
Among the rest, Noel Alexander tells us, was Macarias, Patriarch
of Antioch, who was present at the Council ( 32) , who , when the
Emperor and the Fathers asked him if he confessed two natural
wills, and two natural operations in Christ, answered that he would
sooner allow himself to be torn limb from limb, and thrown into
the sea ; he was very properly deposed, and excommunicated by
the Synod . The same author informs us ( 33, ) that the heresy con-
tinued to flourish among the Chaldeans, even since the Council
(but they abandoned it in the Pontificate of Paul V.) , and among
the Maronites and Armenians, likewise ; among these last another
sect, called Paulicians, from one Paul of Samosata, took root in 653.
They admitted the two principles of the Manicheans , denied that
Mary was the Mother of God, and taught several other extrava-
gances enumerated by Noel Alexander (34) . Before I conclude
this chapter, I wish to make one reflection ; we see how it dis-
pleases the powers of hell , that mankind should be grateful to our
Redeemer, and return him love for love ; for the devil is con-
stantly labouring to sow amongst Christians, by means of wicked
men, so many heresies, all tending to destroy the belief of the
Incarnation of the Son of God, and, in consequence , to diminish
our love for Jesus Christ, who, by the assumption of the flesh of
man, has constituted himself our Saviour. Such were the heresies
of Sabellius, of Photinus, of Arius , of Nestorius, of Eutyches, and
of the Monothelites ; some of these have made of Christ an ima-
ginary personage, some deprived him of the Divinity, others again
of his humanity, but the Church has always been victorious against
them .

(30) Danæus Temp. Not. p. 259. (31) Hermant, t. 5, c. 242. (32) Nat. Alex-
ander, t. 12, ar. 1, s. 4. (33) Nat. Alexander, t. 12, c. 2, ar. 12, s. 2, in fine.
(34) Nat. Alexander, loc. cit. a. 3.
188 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

CHAPTER VIII.
HERESIES OF THE EIGHTH CENTURY.

THE HERESY OF THE ICONOCLASTS.

1. Beginning of the Iconoclasts. 2, 3. St. Germanus opposes the Emperor Leo. 4. He


resigns the See of Constantinople. 5. Anastasius is put in his place ; Resistance of
the Women. 6. Cruelty of Leo. 7. Leo endeavours to put the Pope to Death ;
Opposition ofthe Romans. 8. Leiter of the Pope. 9. A Council is held in Rome in
Support of the Sacred Images, but Leo continues his Persecution. 10. His Hand is
miraculously restored to St. John of Damascus. 11. Leo dies, and is succeeded by
Constantine Copronymus, a greater Persecutor ; Death of the impious Patriarch
Anastasius. 12. Council held by Constantine. 13. Martyrs in Honour of the
Images. 14. Other tyrannical Acts of Constantine, and his horrible Death.
15. Leo IV. succeeds to the Empire, and is succeeded by his Son, Constantine.
16. The Empress Irene, in her Son's Name, demands a Council. 17. Seditions
against the Council. 18. The Council is held, and the Veneration of Images
established. 19. Erroneous Opinion of the Council of Frankfort, regarding the
Eighth General Council. 20. Persecution again renewed by the Iconoclasts.

1. THE first and fifth Acts of the Eighth General Council attest
that the Gentiles , the Jews, the Marcionites, and the Manicheans ,
had previously declared war against sacred images, and it again
broke out in the year 723, in the reign of Leo Isaurus. About
this period, a captain of the Jews, called Sarantapechis ( or four
cubits) , induced the Caliph Jezzid to commence a destructive war
against the sacred images in the Christian churches, promising him
a long and happy reign as his reward. He, accordingly, published
an edict, commanding the removal of all images ; but the Christians
refused to obey him, and six months afterwards God removed him
out of the way. Constantius, Bishop of Nacolia, in Phrygia, intro-
duced this Jewish doctrine among Christians. He was expelled
from his See, in punishment of his perfidy, by his own diocesans,
and ingratiated himself into the Emperor's favour, and induced him
to declare war against images (1 ) .
2. Leo had already reigned ten years, when, in the year 727 ,
he declared publicly to the people, that it was not right to venerate
images. The people, however, all cried out against him ; and he
then said, he did not mean ( 2 ) to say that images should be done
away with altogether, but that they should be placed high up , out
of the reach, that they should not be soiled by the people kissing
them. It was manifest his intention was to do away with them
altogether ; but he met the most determined resistance from St.
Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, who proclaimed his wil-
lingness to lay down his life for the sacred images, which were
always venerated in the Church. The holy pontiff wrote many

(1 ) Nat. Alex. t. 12, sec. 8, c. 2, a. 1 ; Hermant, t. 1, p. 283 ; Fleury, t. 6, l. 42, n. 1 ;


Baron. Ann. 723, n. 17, & vide Ann. 726, n. 3. (2) Nat. Alex. loc. cit.; Fleury,
loc. cit.
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 189

letters to those bishops who held on to the Emperor's opinion , to


turn them from their evil ways, and he also wrote to Pope Gregory
II., who answered him in a long letter, approving of his zeal , and
stating what was the doctrine of the Catholic Church in the vene-
ration of the sacred images which he was contending for (3) .
3. The Emperor continued his rage against images, and the dis-
pleasure of the people of Continental Greece and the islands of the
Cyclades at length broke out into open rebellion . Zeal for religion
was the motive assigned for this outbreak, and one Cosimus was
elected as their Emperor, and they marched to Constantinople to
have him crowned . They fought a battle near Constantinople,
under the leadership of Cosimus, Agallianus, and Stephanus, but
were totally defeated ; so Agallianus threw himself into the sea ,
and Stephanus and Cosimus were taken and beheaded. Leo was
emboldened by this victory to persecute the Catholics with greater
violence . He sent for the Patriarch, St. Germanus, and strove to
bring him over to his way of thinking ; but (4) the saint told him
openly, that whoever would strive to abolish the veneration of images
was a precursor of Antichrist, and that such doctrine had a ten-
dency to upset the mystery of the Incarnation ; and he reminded
him of his coronation oath, not to make any change in the tradi-
tions of the Church. All this had no effect on the Emperor ; he
continued to press the Patriarch , and strove to entrap him into
some unguarded expression, which he might consider seditious,
and thus have a reason for deposing him. He was urged on to
adopt this course by Anastasius, a disciple of the Patriarch, but
who joined the Emperor's party, and was promised the See of
Constantinople, on the deposition of St. Germanus . The saint,
knowing the evil designs of Anastasius, gave him many friendly
admonitions. One day, in particular, he was going in to see the
Emperor, and Anastasius followed him so closely that he trod on
his robe: " Do not be in a hurry," said the saint ; " you will be soon
enough in the hyppodrome" (the public circus), alluding to his
disgrace fifteen years afterwards, when the Emperor Constantine,
who placed him in the See of Constantinople, had his eyes plucked
out, and conducted round the hyppodrome, riding on an ass, with
his face to the tail ; but, for all that, kept him in the See, because
he was an enemy to the sacred images. The Emperor, in the
meanwhile, continued a bitter enemy of the Patriarch St. Germanus,
and persecuted, not alone the Catholics who venerated the sacred
images, but those also who honoured the relics of the saints, and
invoked their intercession , not knowing, or, perhaps, not wishing to
learn, the difference between the supreme worship, which we

(3) Fleury, t. 6, l. 42, n. 3. (4) Fleury, loc. cit. n. 4, ex Theophil.


190 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Catholics pay to God, and that veneration which we pay to relics


and holy images (5).
4. The Emperor convoked a Council in the early part ofthe
year 730 (6) , in which he made a decree against sacred images,
and wanted the Patriarch to subscribe it, but he firmly refused , and
preferred resigning his dignity ; he threw off his pallium, and said :
" It is impossible, my Lord, that I can sanction any novelty against
the Faith ; I can do nothing without a General Council ;" and he
left the meeting. The Emperor was enraged, and sent some armed
officials to eject him from the archiepiscopal palace, which they did
with blows and outrages, not even respecting his venerable age of
eighty years. He went to the house of his family, and lived there
as a monk, and left the See of Constantinople, which he had go-
verned for fourteen years , in a state of the greatest desolation . He
then died a holy death, and the Church venerates his memory on
the 12th ofMay (7).
5. A few days after the banishment of St. Germanus, Anastasius
was appointed Patriarch of Constantinople, and, by force of arms,
was put in possession ofthe See. The impious usurper at once
gave up all power over the churches to the Emperor, and he having
now no one to contradict him, began vigorously to enforce his de-
cree against the holy images. In the vestibule of the imperial pa-
lace at Constantinople, there was an image of our Redeemer cruci-
fied, held in extraordinary veneration by the people, as it was be-
lieved to have been erected by Constantine, in memory of the cross
that appeared to him in the heavens. Leo intended to begin with
this most sacred image, and he ordered Jovinus, one of his guards,
to throw it down ; a number of women , who were present, endea-
voured to dissuade him from the sacrilegious attempt, but he de-
spised their supplications, mounted on a ladder , and gave three
blows with an axe on the face of it. When the women saw this,
they dragged back the ladder, threw him on the ground , killed
him, and tore him in pieces. Withal, the holy image was cast to
the earth and burned , and the Emperor put in its place a plain
cross, with an inscription telling that the image was removed, for
the Iconoclasts venerated the cross, and only did away with images
representing the human figure. The women , after killing Jovinus,
ran off to the bishop's palace , hurled stones against it, and poured
out all sorts of abuse on Anastasius : " Wretch that you are,” said
they, " you have usurped the priesthood only to destroy everything
sacred." Anastasius, outrageous at the insult, went at once to the
Emperor, and had the women all put to death ; ten more suffered
along with them, and the Greek Church honours them as martyrs on
the 9th of August (8) .
6. The Emperor Leo, a man of no learning himself, was a bitter
(5) Fleury, t. 6, l. 42, n. 4. (6) Theoph. Ann. 10, p. 340, ap. Fleury, loc. cit.
Baron. Ann. 754, n. 42. (7) Fleury, loc. cit. (8) Fleury, t. 6, l. 42, n. 5.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 191

persecutor of learned men , and abolished the schools of sacred lite-


rature, which flourished from the time of Constantine. There was
a library founded by the ancient Emperors near the imperial palace
of Constantine, containing over three thousand volumes. The li
brarian, Lecumenicus, was a man of great merit, and he superin-
tended the labours of twelve professors, who taught gratuitously
both the sacred and the profane sciences. This learned corporation
had so high a character, that even the Emperor himself could not
make any unusual ordinance without consulting them . Leo used
every means in his power, both threats and promises , to induce these
professors to give their sanction to his proceedings ; but when he
found it was all in vain, he surrounded the library with faggots and
dry wood, and burned both the professors and the literary treasures
together. Partly by threat, and partly by seduction , he got all the
inhabitants of Constantinople to bring together into the middle of
the city all the images ofthe Redeemer, the Blessed Virgin, and the
saints, and burn them , and the paintings in the churches were all
destroyed and covered over with whitewash . Many refused obe-
dience, and he beheaded some , and mutilated others, so that many
clergy, monks, and even lay people suffered martyrdom (9) .
7. When the news of this persecution reached Italy, the images
of the Emperor were thrown down and trampled ( 10 ) , and when
he sent his impious decree against holy images to Rome, and
threatened Pope Gregory II. to depose him, if he resisted its exe-
cution, the Pontiff rejected the impious command, and prepared to
resist him as an enemy to the Church, and wrote to the faithful in
all parts, to put them on their guard against this new error. The
people of the Pentapolis, and the army quartered in the Venetian
territory, refused obedience to the Imperial decree, and proclaimed
that they would fight in defence of the Pope Paul the Exarch
of Ravenna, the Emperor, who sent him his orders, and all who
would obey them, were anathematized , and Chiefs were elected .
All Italy, at last, in a general agreement, resolved to elect another
Emperor, and conduct him to Constantinople ; but the Pope having
still some hopes of the conversion of Leo, used all his influence to
prevent this plan being put into execution. While things were in
this state, Exilaratus, Duke of Naples, and his son Adrian, Lord of
Campania, persuaded the people of that province to obey the Em-
peror, and kill the Pope, but both father and son were taken by the
Romans, and killed by them, and as it was reported that Peter, the
Duke of Rome, had written to the Emperor against the Pope, he
was driven out of the city by the people. The people of Ravenna
were divided into two factions, one party for the Pope, another for
the Emperor ; they broke out at last into open warfare, and the

(9) Baron. An. 754, n. 37 ; Fleury, loc. cit. n. 5, con. Anas. in Greg. II. & Theophil.
15, p. 543, &c. (10) Fleury, loc. cit. n. 6.
192 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Patrician Paul, Exarch of Ravenna , was killed . While all this


was going on, the Lombards conquered several strong places of
Emilia and Auxumum , in the Pentapolis, and finally took Ravenna
itself. Gregory II., therefore, wrote to Ursus, Duke of Venice, or
rather of the Province of Ravenna, called Venice , to unite with
the Exarch , then in Venice, and recover the city for the Emperor.
But the Emperor was only more outrageous, and sent the Patrician
Eutychius, à eunuch , to Naples, who sent one of his creatures to
Rome, to procure the Pope's death, and the death of the chief
people of the city likewise ; when this was discovered, the people
wanted to kill the Patrician, but the Pope saved his life. The
whole people then , rich and poor, swore that they would die before
they would allow the Pope, the defender of the Faith, to be in-
jured. The ungrateful Patrician sent messengers to the Lombard
Dukes, and offered them the most tempting bribes if they would
desert the Pope, but they, already acquainted with his perfidy,
joined with the Romans, and took the same oath as they did to
defend the Pope (11).
8. Anastasius , the newly-elected Patriarch of Constantinople,
sent his Synodical letter to Pope Gregory II ., but the Pope knowing
him to be a supporter of the Iconoclasts, refused to recognize him as
a brother, and gave him notice that if he did not return to the Ca-
tholic Faith, he would be degraded from the priesthood (12 ).
Gregory did not long survive this ; he died in the February of
731 , and was succeeded by Gregory III ., who , in the beginning of
his reign, wrote to the Emperor an answer to a letter sent to his
predecessor, rather than to him. In this able production he thus
speaks : " You confess a holy Faith in your letters, in all its purity,
and declare accursed all who dare to contradict the decisions of the
Fathers. What , therefore, induces you to turn back, after having
walked in the right road for ten years ? During all that time, you
never spoke of the holy images, and now, you say that they are the
same as the idols, and that those who venerate them are idolaters.
You are endeavouring to destroy them, and do not you dread the
judgment of God ; scandalising, not alone the faithful, but the very
infidels ? Why have you not, as Emperor and chief of the Chris-
tian people, sought the advice of learned men ? they would have
taught you why God prohibited the adoration of idols made by
men . The Fathers, our masters, and the six Councils, have handed
down as a tradition, the veneration of holy images, and you refuse
to receive their testimony. We implore of you to lay aside this
presumption. " He then speaks of the doctrine of the Church re-
garding the veneration of images, and thus concludes : " You think
to terrify me by saying : I will send to Rome, and will break the
statue of St. Peter, and I will drag away Pope Gregory in chains ,

(11) Fleury, t. 6. l. 42, n. 6. (12) Theoph. ar. 13, p. 343, apud ; Fleur. loc. cit. n. 7.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 193

as Constans did Martin . Know, then, that the Popes are the
arbiters of peace between the East and the West, and as to your
threats, we fear them not" ( 13).
9. He wrote a second letter to Leo soon after, but neither the
first nor second reached him, for a priest ofthe name ofGeorge, to
whom they were entrusted, was afraid to present them, so the
Pope put him under penance for his negligence , and sent him
again with the same letters, but the Emperor had the letters
detained in Sicily, and banished the priest for a year, and would
not allow him to come to Constantinople ( 14). The Pope was
highly indignant that his letters were despised, and his Legate ,
George, detained, so he felt himself called on to summon a Council
in Rome, in 732 ( 15 ) , which was attended by ninety-three bishops ,
and by the consuls, the nobility, the clergy, and people of Rome,
and in this assembly it was ordained that all those who showed dis-
respect to holy images should be excluded from the communion of
the Church, and this decree was solemnly subscribed by all who
attended. The Pope again wrote to the Emperor, but his letters
were detained a second time, and the messengers kept in prison.
for a year, at the termination of which, the letters were forcibly
taken from him, and he was threatened and maltreated, and sent
back to Rome. All Italy joined in a petition to the Emperor to
re-establish the veneration ofthe holy images, but even this petition
was taken from the messengers by the patrician Sergius, governor
of Sicily, and they, after a detention of eight months, were sent
back, after having received cruel treatment. The Pope, however,
again wrote to the Emperor, and to the Patriarch Anastasius , but
all in vain, and Leo, enraged with the Pope and his rebellious
subjects in Italy, sent a great fleet against them, but it was ship-
wrecked in the Adriatic. This increased his fury , so he raised to a
third higher the capitation tax in Calabria and Sicily, and obliged
a strict registry to be kept of all the male children that were born,
and confiscated in all the countries where his power reached in the
East, the estates belonging to the patrimony of St. Peter. He
continued to persecute all who still venerated the holy images ; he
no longer, indeed, put them to death , lest they should be honoured
as martyrs, but he imprisoned them, and tortured them first, and
then banished them (16) .
10. About this time the cruel persecution of St. John of Da-
mascus took place. This saint defended , in Syria, the honour due
to the sacred images, so Leo endeavoured to ruin him by an in-
famous calumny ; he had him accused as a traitor to the Saracen
Caliph Hiokam, and the false charge proved by a forged letter ;
the caliph called his council together, and the saint was con-

(13) Fleury, t. 6, l. 42, n. 7 & 8. (14) Fleury, loc. cit. n. 9. (15 ) Anast. in
Greg. III., n. 8 & 9 apud ; Fleury, 7. 42, n. 16. (16 ) Fleury, t. 6, l. 42, n. 16 & 17.
N
194 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

demned, and sentenced to have his hand cut off as a traitor. His
innocence was, however, miraculously proved ; animated with a
lively faith, he went before an image of the Blessed Virgin, whose
honour he constantly defended , placed his amputated hand in con-
nexion with the stump of his arm, prayed to the Holy Mother that
his hand might be again united to his body, that he might be able
to write again in her defence ; his prayer was heard, and he was
miraculously healed ( 17) . Noel Alexander says ( 18 ) , that the
wonderful things related of St. John of Damascus are proved from
th book of the Life of St. John of Jerusalem .
11. The Almighty, in the end, took vengeance on the crimes
of the Emperor, and evils from all sides fell thick upon him ; pesti-
lence and famine ravaged both the city and country, and the
fairest provinces of Asia were laid waste by the Saracens. He
became a prey to the most direful and tormenting maladies him-
self, and died miserably in 741 , leaving the Empire to his son
Constantine Copronimus. He surpassed his father in wickedness,
his morals were most debased, and he had no principle of
religion ; not alone satisfied with destroying the images and
relics of the saints, he prohibited all from invoking their
intercession . His subjects could no longer bear with his vices, so
they rose up against him, and proclaimed his relative, Artavesdes,
Pretor of Armenia, Emperor. This prince, brought up in the
Catholic Faith, re-established the veneration of sacred images ; and
Religion began to hope once more for happy days, but Constan-
tine recovered the Empire, took Constantinople, and Artavesdes
fell into his hands with his two sons, Nicephorus and Nicetus, and
he deprived all three of sight. The justice of God now over-
took the false Patriarch , Anastasius ; he ordered him to be led
through the city, as we have already remarked , mounted on an ass ,
with his face to the tail, and to be severely flogged ; but as he
could find no one wicked enough to carry out his designs, he con-
tinued him in the Patriarchate ; he enjoyed the dignity but a short
time after this disgrace ; he was attacked by a horrible cholic, in
which the functions of nature were disgustingly reversed, and he
left the world without any signs of repentance ( 19) .
12. Constantine, raging more furiously against sacred images
every day, wished to have the sanction of ecclesiastical authority
for his impiety ; he accordingly convoked a General Council, as
Danæus tells us, in 754 , in Constantinople , and three hundred and
thirty-eight bishops assembled , but the Legates of the Apostolic
See, or the bishops of the other Patriarchates, were not present.
Theodore, Bishop of Ephesus, and Palla, or Pastilla, Bishop of
Perga, at first presided , but the Emperor afterwards appointed

(17) Hermant, t. 1, c. 187 ; Gotti, t. 2. c. 80, s . 1 , n. 15, 16, 17. (18) Natal. t. 12,
c. 2, a. 1 , s. 1. (19) Hermant, t. 1, c. 289 ; Baron. 763, n. 19.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 195

Constantine, a monk, President, a man whose only law was the


Emperor's will, and who, having been a bishop, was degraded and
banished from his see, on acconnt of his scandalous vices. In the
Cabal which they had the hardihood to call the Seventh General
Council, all honour shown to the images and saints was condemned
as idolatry, and all who approved of recurring to the intercession
of the Blessed Virgin were anathematized . We find no decision
against relics, or against the Cross, which they held in great vene-
ration, for they obliged every one to swear on the Cross to receive
the decree of their Council, and to do away with the veneration of
images. Thus, we always remark, as a particular characteristic of
heresy, the spirit of contradiction .
13. When this Council was brought to a close, the Emperor
redoubled his persecutions against the Catholics. Several bishops
and several solitaries, who forsook their cells to defend the Faith,
received the crown of martyrdom. Among these, three holy
Abbots are particularly remembered ; the first was St. Andrew
Calabita ; he had the courage to charge the Emperor to his face
with impiety ; he called him another Valens, a second Julian, and
he was ordered to be flogged to death : he suffered in 761 , and
the Church honours his memory on the 17th of October ( 20) . The
second was the Abbot Paul ; he was taken by Lardotirus, Gover-
nor of the Island of Theophanus. This wretch placed on the
ground an image of Jesus Christ on one side, and the rack on the
other. " Now, Paul," said he, " choose whichever you like ; trample
on that image, or you shall be put on the rack." " O Jesus Christ,
my Lord," said the Saint, " may God never permit me to trample
on your holy image," and throwing himself on the ground , he most
devoutly kissed it. The Governor was furious, and commanded
that he should be stripped ; -he was stretched on the rack ; the
executioners squeezed him from head to heels, and bored all his
limbs with iron nails ; he wasthen suspended by his feet, his head down ,
and roasted alive, in that posture, with a great fire (21 ). The third
was St. Stephen, Abbot of Mount Auxentium ; he was first of all ex-
iled to the Island of Proconesus, near the Hellespont, for two years ;
afterwards brought to Constantinople, and put into prison , with chains
on his hands, and his feet in the stocks. There he had the consolation
to meet three hundred and forty-two monks from different countries
-some had their noses cut off ; some their eyes pulled out, or their
hands or ears cut off ; some were covered all over with scars, from the
floggings they had received ; and many were afterwards put to
death, and all this because they would not subscribe the decree
against holy images. After being detained forty days in prison ,
a number of the imperial satellites came there one day, furiously
calling on the guards to bring out Stephen of Auxentium. The

(20) Fleury, t. 6, l. 43, n. 32. (21 ) Fleury, loc. cit. n. 46.


196 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

saint came boldly forward, and said : " I am he whom you seek ; ”
they immediately threw him on the ground, tied a rope to the
irons on his legs, and dragged him through the streets , kicking
and trampling him on the head and body, and striking him with
clubs and stones all the way. When they dragged him as far as
the Oratory of St. Theodore the Martyr, just outside the first gate
of the Pretorium , he raised up his head and recommended himself
to the intercession of the Martyr. " See," said Philomatus, one of
his tormentors, " the scoundrel wishes to die a martyr," and he at
once struck him on the head with a heavy club , and killed him .
The murderer immediately fell to the ground , the devil entered
into him , and took possession of him, and he died a death of tor-
ment. They still withal continued dragging along the body of St.
Stephen ; the ground was covered with his blood , and his limbs
were torn from his body. If any one refused to insult the sacred
remains , he was looked on as an enemy to the Emperor. They
came at last to a convent of nuns, and the saint's sister was one of
the community ; they thought to make her come out and throw a
stone at the remains of her brother, with her own hand ; but she
concealed herself in a tomb, and they were foiled in their savage
intent. Finally, they threw the bodyof the saint into a pit, at the
Church of the Martyr St. Pelagia , where the Emperor commanded
that the bodies of malefactors and Pagans should be buried . This
saint was martyred in the year 767 (22) .
14. The churches themselves did not escape the fury ofConstan-
tine ; numberless sacrileges were committed in them by his soldiers.
When the decree of the Council was promulgated in the provinces,
the heretics at once commenced the destruction of all pictorial and
sculptural ornaments ; the images were burned or broken, the
painted walls whitewashed, the frames of the paintings were
burned (23) ; in a word, more barbarity was exercised in the name
of a Christian Emperor than under any of his Pagan predecessors .
Michael, the Governor of Anatolia ( 24) , collected together, by order
of the Emperor, in the year 770, all the religious men of the pro-
vince of Thrace in a plain near Ephesus, and then addressed them :
"Whosoever wishes to obey the Emperor, let him dress himself in
white , and take a wife immediately ; but those who refuse it shall
lose their eyes, and be banished to Cyprus." The order was im-
mediately put into execution . Many underwent the punishment
(though some apostatized) , and were numbered among the Martyrs.
The next year the governor sold out all the monasteries , both male
and female, with all the sacred vessels, stock, and entire property,
and sent the proceeds to the Emperor ; he burned all their books
and pictures, burned also whatever reliquaries he could lay hands

(22) Fleury, t. 6, l. 43, n. 36. (23) Fleury, n. 8. (24) Nat. Alex. t. 12, c. 2,
art. 1 , s. 2 ; Fleury, t. 6, l. 44, n. 7.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 197

on, and punished those who had them in their possession as guilty
of idolatry. Some he put to death by the sword, more expired
under the lash ; he deprived an immense multitude of sight ; he
ordered the beards of others to be anointed with oil and melted wax,
and then set on fire ; and more he banished , after subjecting them
to various tortures. Such was the furious persecution by Constan-
tine ofthe venerators of holy images ; but with all his cruelty, he
could not destroy religion , and in the end God destroyed him, by
an extraordinary sickness, in the year 775. According to Danæus,
his death was like that of Antiochus, and his repentance ofthe same
sort as that of his prototype (25) . Fleury says ( 26 ), that Constan-
tine having cast his eye on a crown of gems presented to the Pa-
triarchal Church by the Emperor Heraclius, seized it ; but he had
scarcely put it on his head, when he was covered with carbuncles,
and tortured besides with a violent fever, and that he died in the
most excruciating agony. Van Ranst adds ( 27) , that he died con-
sumed by an internal fire, and crying out that he was burning alive
as a penalty for the irreverence he showed to the images of the
Mother of God.
15. Constantine Copronimus was succeeded by his son, Leo IV.;
he pretended to be a Catholic in the commencement of his reign ,
with the intention of cementing his authority , and more especially
he expressed his wishes that the Mother of God should be treated
with the greatest respect ; he permitted the Religious scattered in
the late persecution to inhabit their monasteries once more, and
assisted them to do so, and he appointed Catholic bishops to the
Sees ; but when he felt himself firmly established on the throne he
threw off the mask and renewed the persecution with all his father's
fury : he even banished the Empress Irene, his wife , because he
suspected that in private she venerated the holy images, and no-
thing would induce him to see her again . His reign, however,
was short ; he was attacked by a strange disorder like his father's,
and died, having only reigned about five years. He had associated
his son Constantine in the Empire with him, but as he was only ten
years old at his father's death, his mother, the Empress Irene , took
the reins of government, and under her pious care the Christian
religion flourished once more. Paul , then Patriarch of Constanti-
nople, was attacked with a severe sickness and took the sudden re-
solution of retiring into a monastery, and declared to the Empress
that against his conscience he condemned the veneration of images
to please the Emperor Copronimus. Withal , he was a virtuous
man, and the Empress endeavoured to force him to resume the
government of his Church, but he was firm in his refusal, and said
he would spend the remainder of his days weeping for his sins (28).

(25) Hermant, t. 1 , c. 299, 300. (26 ) Fleury, 7. 44 , n. 16. (27) Van Ranst,
sc. 8. p. 147. (28) Hermant, f. 1, c. 304, 305.
198 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

16. Tarasius, as yet a layman , and who had been Secretary of


State, was, with the good will of all, appointed to succeed Paul ;
but as the See was separated from the communion of the other
patriarchates, he accepted it solely on condition that as soon as
possible a General Council should be convoked, to re-unite all the
Churches in one faith . This condition was agreed to by all, and
he was consecrated Patriarch, and immediately sent his professsion
of faith to Pope Adrian, and at the same time the Empress also
wrote to the Holy Father, both in her own and her son's name,
imploring him to consent to the convocation of a General Council,
and to assist at it himself in person to re-establish the ancient tradition
in regard to the veneration of holy images, and if he could not
attend himself, at least to send his Legates. The Pope answered
this letter of the Empress, and besought her to use all her influence
to get the Greeks to pay the same veneration to holy images as did
the Romans, following the tradition of the Fathers ; and should it be
found impossible, he says , to re-establish this point without a General
Council, the first thing of all to be done should be, to declare the
nullity of the false Council, held in the reign of the Emperor Leo.
He besides required that the Emperor should send a declaration
sworn in his own name, and in the names of the Empress his mother,
of the Patriarch, and of the whole Senate, that the Council should
enjoy full and perfect liberty ( 29) .
17. The Pope then sent two Legates to Constantinople- Peter,
Archpriest ofthe Roman Church, and Peter , Abbot of the Monastery
of St. Saba, and they arrived at their destination while the Emperor
and Empress were in Thrace . The Iconoclast bishops, who were
more numerous and supported by a great number of the laity, took
courage from this, and insisted that it was necessary to maintain
the condemnation of images, and not allow a new Council. The
Emperor and Empress returned to Constantinople, and the 1st of
August of the year 786 was appointed for opening the Council in the
Church of the Apostles. The evening before, however, the soldiers
went to the baptistery of the church, crying out that they would
have no Council. The Patriarch notified this to the Empress ; but,
notwithstanding the disturbance, it was determined not to postpone
the Council, and it was opened the following day. When the
bishops were assembled , and while the Synodical letters were being
read, the soldiers, urged on by the schismatical bishops, came round
the church, and, thundering at the doors, told the assembled prelates
that they would never allow what was decreed under the Emperor
Constantine to be revoked, and they then burst into the church
with drawn swords, and threatened the Patriarch and bishops with
death. The Emperor sent his own body-guards to restrain them,
but they could not succeed , and the schismatical bishops sung the

(29) Fleury, t. 6, l. 44, n. 25.


AND THEIR REFUTATION . 199

song of victory. The Patriarch and the Catholic bishops went


into the Sanctuary, in the meantime, and celebrated the Holy
Mysteries, without showing any signs of fear ; but the Empress sent
him word to retire for that time, and avoid the extremity the schis-
matics might be led to . Every one then went to his own lodging,
and the disturbance was quelled. The Empress then, in the ensuing
month, brought in a reinforcement of new troops from Thrace, and
sent out of the city all those, together with their families, who had
served under her father-in- law, Constantine, and were tainted with
his errors (30).
18. Being thus secured against the violence of the soldiery and
the intrigues of the chiefs of the sedition, on the May following, in
the year 787 , the bishops were again called on to hold the Council
in Nice, in Bythynia ; and, on the 24th of September ( 31 ), the
same year, the first Session was held in the Church of St. Sophia,
in that city. Three hundred and fifty bishops, the Legates of the
Apostolic See, and of the three Patriarchal Sees, and a great num-
ber of monks and Archimandrites, attended. The Legates of Pope
Adrian presided in this Council, as we gather from the Acts, in
which they are named before the Patriarch Tarasius, and before
the Legates ofthe other Patriarchal Sees. Graveson remarks that the
statement of Photius, that Tarasius presided in the Seventh Council ,
is as false as what he asserts in another place, that the Patriarchs
of Constantinople presided at all the former General Councils.
Seven Sessions were held in this Council. In the first Session the
petition of a great many bishops was read , condemning the heresy
of the Iconoclasts, and asking pardon at the same time for having
subscribed the false Council of Copronimus. The Council having
examined their case admitted them to mercy, and re-established
them in their dignity ; but deferred the admission of those bishops
who had lived for a long period in heresy. In the Second Session
the letter of Pope Adrian to the Emperor, and to Tarasius, was
read , and several other bishops were re-established in their Sees.
In the Fourth Session , several proofs of the veneration of holy
images were read from the Scriptures and from the Holy Fathers.
In the Fifth, it was proved that the Iconoclasts had drawn their
erroneous doctrines from the Gentiles, the Jews , the Manicheans,
and the Saracens . In the Sixth , chapter by chapter of everything
that was defined in the late Cabal of Constantinople was refuted (32 ) ;
and, in the Seventh Session , the veneration of sacred images was
defined. Cardinal Gotti ( 33) gives the Decree in full ; this is the
substance of it : " Following the tradition of the Catholic Church,
we define that, in the same manner as the image of the precious
cross , so should be likewise venerated, and placed in churches, on

(30) Fleury, t. 6, 7. 44. 28. (31 ) Fleury, n. 39 ; Nat. Alex. t. 11 , c. 3, d. 3;


Graves, t. 3, col. 4. (32) Fleury, t. 6, l. 44, n. 29. (33) Gotti, Ver. Rel. t. 2,
c. 80, 8. 4.
200 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

walls in houses, and streets, the images of our Lord Jesus Christ,
of the Holy Mother of God, of the Angels, and of all the Saints.
For those who frequently have before their eyes, and contemplate
those sacred images, are more deeply impressed with the memory
of those they represent, and give them an honorary adoration, but
do not, indeed, offer them that real adoration which Faith teaches
should be given to God alone ; for the honour paid to the image is
referred to the principal, and he who venerates an image venerates
the person it represents." It then anathematizes all those who pro-
fess or teach otherwise , and who reject the images, crosses, pictures,
or relics, which the Church honours. This Decree was subscribed
by all the bishops.
19. When the Acts of this Council were brought to France, the
bishops of that nation (34 ), assembled in a Synod , in Frankfort,
absolutely rejected them ; and so did Charlemagne, in the " Four
Books," either composed by him, or more properly published in his
name, in the year 790 , and called the Four Caroline Books . But
as Selvaggi, in his notes on Mosheim, remarks (35), all this was
caused by an error of fact, as the Frankfort Fathers believed that
the Fathers of Nice decided that images should be absolutely wor-
shipped, and this he proves from the Second Canon of the Council
of Frankfort itself. " A question has been submitted to us," it says,
"concerning the new Synod the Greeks have holden in Constanti-
nople, relative to the worship of images, in which it is reported to
have been decided , that those should be anathematized who would
not worship them. This doctrine we totally reject :" " Allata est
in medium quæstio de nova Græcorum Synodo, quam de adorandis
Imaginibus Constantinopoli fecerunt, in qua scriptum habebatur, ut
qui Imaginibus Sanctorum, ita ut Deificæ Trinitatis servitium , aut
adorationem non impenderent, anathema judicarentur. Qui supra
sanctissimi Patres nostri omnimodis adorationem renuentes con-
tempserunt atque consentientes condemnaverunt." This mistake
occurred, as Danæus says, on account of the unfaithful version of
the Acts of the Council of Nice received in France, and translated
from the Greek ; whereas the Council of Nice itself, as we have
already seen, makes the distinction between honorary reverence
and absolute adoration very clearly.
20. Besides, Graveson informs us, that the French bishops did
not consider this Council of Nice as a General one at all, but
merely a Greek national Synod , since it was almost altogether com-
posed of Eastern bishops, and they did not see the customary letter
of confirmation from the Pope to the Emperor and to the whole
Church ; but, as Danæus says , as soon as the matter was cleared up,
there was no longer any disagreement. Still, he says, in the ninth
century, several Emperors, adherents of the Iconoclasts , renewed

(34) Graves. Hist. Eccl. t. 3, col. 4. (36 ) Selvag. nota, 65, ad t. 10, Mosh. p. 1063.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 201

the persecution of the Catholics, and especially Nicephorus, Leo the


Armenian , Michael the Stammerer, and , above all, Theophilus, who
surpassed all the rest in cruelty. He died, however, in 842 , and
the Empress Theodora, his wife, a pious and Catholie lady, admi-
nistered the empire for her son , Michael, and restored peace to the
Church, so that the Iconoclasts never after disturbed the peace of
the Eastern Church . This erroneous doctrine began to spring up
in the West in the twelfth century-the Petrobrussians first, and
then the Henricians and Albigenses followed it. Two hundred
years after, the same error was preached by the followers of Wick-
liffe ; by the Hussites, in Bohemia ; by Carlostad , in Wittemburg,
though against Luther's will ; and by the disciples of Zuinglius and
Calvin, the faithful imitators of Leo and Copronimus ; and those , as
Danæus says , who boast of following the above-named masters ,
should add to their patrons both the Jews and the Saracens. I have
explained the doctrine of the veneration of holy images in my dog-
matic work on the Council of Trent (sess. 25, sec. 4, n. 35) , in
which this matter is discussed, and the veneration due to the holy
images of the Trinity, of the Cross , of Jesus Christ , of his Divine
Mother, and the Saints, is proved from tradition, and from the
authority of Fathers, and ancient history ; and the objections made
by heretics are there answered likewise.

CHAPTER IX .
HERESIES OF THE NINTH CENTURY.
ARTICLE I.
THE GREEK SCHISM COMMENCED BY PHOTIUS.
1. St. Ignatius, by means of Bardas, Uncle to the Emperor Michael, is expelled from the
See of Constantinople. 2. He is replaced by Photius. 3. Photius is consecrated.
4. Wrongs inflicted on St. Ignatius and on the Bishops who defended him. 5. The
Pope sends Legates to investigate the Affair. 6. St. Ignatius appeals from the Juȧg-
ment of the Legates to the Pope himself. 7. He is deposed in a False Council.
8. The Pope defends St. Ignatius. 9. The Pope deposes the Legates and Photius,
and confirms St. Ignatius in his See. 10. Bardas is put to Death by the Emperor,
and he associates Basil in the Empire. 11. Photius condemns and deposes Pope
Nicholas II., and afterwards promulgates his Error concerning the Holy Ghost.
12. The Emperor Michael is killed, and Basil is elected and banishes Photius.

GODESCHALCUS, of whom we have already spoken (chap. 5 , art. 2 ,


n. 17) , was charged with Predestinarianism in this century ; but, as
we have already heard his history, we now pass on to the great
Greek schism.
1. In the reign of the Emperor Michael, the Church of Constan-
tinople was governed by the Patriarch, St. Ignatius. This great
prelate was son to the Emperor Michael Curopalates ; and when his
202 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

father was dethroned, he was banished to a monastery, and there


brought up in all the penitential austerities of monastic life. His
virtues were so great, that, on the death of Methodius, Bishop of
Constantinople, he was placed in the vacant See, and his appoint-
ment gave universal satisfaction ; but his fortitude in defence ofthe
Faith and of the rights of his Church, raised up for him many
powerful enemies, and among them, three wretches who were un-
ceasing in their persecution of him- Bardas, uncle to the Emperor,
Photius, and Gregory Asbestas, Bishop of Syracuse . Bardas, wish-
ing to be sole master in the Empire of his nephew, Michael, had
either procured the death or banishment of all who stood in his way
at court. He even shut up in a monastery his own sister, the
Empress Theodora, because he could not bend her in all things to
his wishes, and then began a persecution against St. Ignatius,
because he refused to give her the veil ( 1 ). What irritated him,
above all, against the saint was, he had repudiated his wife, and lived
publicly with his step-daughter, a widow. St. Ignatius admonished
him of the scandal he was giving ; but he took so little note ofthis
that he presented himself one day in the church to partake of the
holy mysteries, and the saint then excommunicated him. Bardas
threatened to run him through with his sword, and from that out
never ceased misrepresenting him to the Emperor, and at last, on the
23rd of November, in the year 858 , got him banished out of the
patriarchal palace, and exiled to the island of Terebintum (2) , and
sent after him several bishops, patricians, and some of the most
esteemed judges , to induce him to renounce the bishopric . Their
journey was all in vain ; and Bardas then promised to each of the
bishops the See of Constantinople if they deposed St. Ignatius, and
these unfortunate prelates lent themselves to the nefarious scheme,
though every one of them had previously taken an oath that he
would not vote for the Patriarch's deposition, unless he was con-
victed of a canonical fault ; but they were all deceived in the end,
for Bardas, after promising that the Emperor would give the bishop-
ric to each of them , persuaded them that it would be most grateful
to the Emperor if each one, when called , would at first, through
humility, as it were , refuse it ; and they took his advice. The Em-
peror sent for each of them, and proffered the bishopric ; every one
declined at first, and was not asked a second time, so that their
villany was of no use to them (3) .
2. The Patriarch chosen by the Court was the impious Photius ,
a eunuch of illustrious birth, but of the most inordinate ambition .
He was a man of great talent, cultivated by the most arduous study,
in which he frequently spent the whole night long, and as he was
wealthy he could procure whatever books he wanted ; he thus be-
came one of the most learned men of his own or of any former age .

(1 ) Hermant, t. 1 , c. 344. (2) Van Ranst, p. 162. (3) Fleury, t. 7, l. 50 , n. 2.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 203

He was a perfect master of grammar, poetry, rhetoric, philosophy,


medicine, and all the profane sciences ; he had not paid much atten-
tion to ecclesiastical learning, but became a most profound theolo-
gian when he was made Patriarch. He was only a mere layman ,
and held some of the highest offices in the Court ; he was Protospa-
thaire and Protosecretes, or Captain of the Guards, and Chief Secre-
tary. We cannot say much for his religious character, for he was
already a schismatic, as he joined Gregory, Bishop of Syracuse, a
man convicted of several crimes, and whose character was so bad,
that when St. Ignatius was elected Bishop of Constantinople , he
would not permit him to attend at his consecration , and Gregory
was so mortified at the insult that he dashed to the ground the wax
candle he held in his hand as an attendant at the consecration , and
publicly abused Ignatius, telling him that he entered into the
Church, not as a shepherd but as a wolf. He got others to join
with him, and formed a schism against the Patriarch, so that the
saint was in the end obliged, in the year 854, to pass sentence of
deposition against him in a Council (4) . Noel Alexander remarks
that St. Ignatius deposed Gregory from the See of Syracuse, because
the churches of that province were subject to the Patriarch of Con-
stantinople, as Sicily then formed part of the Empire of the East,
but, in order to confirm the sentence, he appealed to Benedict III . ,
who, having again examined the affair, confirmed what was
decided , as Nicholas I. attests in his sixth epistle to Photius, and his
tenth epistle to the clergy of Constantinople (5) .
3. Such was Gregory, with whom Photius was leagued , and as
this last was elected Bishop of Constantinople, not according to the
canons, but solely by the authority of Bardas, he was at first re-
jected by all the bishops, and another was elected by common con-
sent. They adhered to their resolutions for many days, but Bardas
by degrees gained them over. Five still held out, but at length
went with the stream , and joined the rest, but only on condition
that Photius would swear to it, and sign a paper, promising to
renounce the schism of Gregory, and to receive Ignatius into his
communion, honouring him as a father, and to do nothing contrary
to his opinion. Photius promised everything, and was accordingly
consecrated, but by the very same Gregory, and took possession of
the See (6 ).
4. Six months had not yet passed over, since his consecration ,
and he had broken all his oaths and promises ; he persecuted St.
Ignatius, and all the ecclesiastics who adhered to him ; he even got
some ofthem flogged , and by promises and threats induced several
to sign documents, intended for the ruin of his sainted predecessors .
Not being able to accomplish his design , he laid a plot, with the

(4) Fleury, loc. cit. n. 3. (5) Nat. Alex. t. 13, Dis. 4, s. 2. (6) Nat. Alex. loc.
cit. s. 2 ; Fleury, t. 7, l. 50, n. 3 ; Baron. An. 858 , n. 25.
204 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

assistance of Bardas, that the Emperor should send persons to take


informations, to prove that St. Ignatius was privately conspiring
against the state. Magistrates and soldiers were immediately sent
to the island of Terebintum, where St. Ignatius dwelt, and endea-
voured by every means, even resorting to torture , to prove the
charge, but as nothing came out to inculpate him , they conveyed
him to another island , called Jerium , and put him in a place where
goats were kept, and, in a little time after, brought him to Prome-
tum, near Constantinople, where he underwent cruel sufferings,
for they shut him up in a confined prison, and his feet were fas-
tened to the stocks by two iron bars, and the captain of his guard
struck him so brutally with his clenched fist, that he knocked two
of his teeth out. He was treated in this brutal manner, to induce
him to sign a renunciation of his See, to make it appear, that of
his own free will he gave up the patriarchate. When the bishops
of the province of Constantinople were informed of this barbarous
proceeding, they held a meeting in the Church of Peace , in that
city, declared Photius deposed , and anathematized him and all his
adherents ; but he, supported by Bardas, called together a Council
in the Church of the Apostles, in which he deposed and anathe-
matized St. Ignatius, and, as several bishops complained loudly of
this injustice, he deposed them likewise, and put them in prison
along with Ignatius. Finally, in the month of August of the year
859 , St. Ignatius was banished to Mytilene , in the island of Lesbos ,
and all his adherents were banished from Constantinople, many of
them severely beaten, and one, who complained against this act of
injustice, had his tongue cut out ( 7 ) .
5. Photius could not but see that he was very much censured
for all this, so he sent some of his partisans to Rome, to Pope
Nicholas, to request that he would send his Legates to the East ,
under the pretext of extinguishing the remains of the Iconoclastic
heresy, but in reality, to sanction the expulsion of St. Ignatius by
their presence, and the Emperor wrote to the Pope on the same
subject, at the same time (8) . When the Imperial Ambassador
and the Legates of Photius arrived in Rome, the Pope deputed two
Legates, Rodaldus, Bishop of Porto, and Zacchary, Bishop of
Anagni, to arrange the affairs of the Iconoclasts , by holding a
Council, and deciding any supplementary matters necessary to carry
out the provisions of the Seventh Council, and regarding the affair
of Photius himself, as he received neither a letter nor messenger from
St. Ignatius (for his enemies deprived him of all intercourse with
the Holy See), he directed his Legates to take juridical informa-
tions on the spot, and forward them to him. On the arrival of the
Legates in Constantinople ( 9) , they were kept three months by the
(7) Bar. An. 859 , n. 54 ; Fleury, loc. cit. n. 3 & 4 ; Nat. Alex. loc. cit. (8) Fleury,
loc. cit. n. 4, cum Anas. in Nic. 4. (9) Nat. Alex. t. 13 ; Diss. 4, s. 3, ex Epis. 6 ;
Nichol.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 205

Emperor and Photius, and even not permitted to speak with any
one, except those appointed to visit them, lest they might be
informed of the true state of things regarding the deposition of
St. Ignatius. They were made to understand that if they did not
bend, in all things, to the Emperor's will ( 10) , they would be
banished to a place where nothing but a miserable death awaited
them. At first they resisted, but finally, after spending there eight
months, yielded , and soon after, Photius called together a Council
in Constantinople, which was attended by them and three hundred
and eighteen bishops, but, as Noel Alexander remarks ( 11 ) , they
were merely the nominal Legates of the Pope, for that meeting did
not even preserve the forms of a General Council, as it was the
Emperor himself who presided, and everything was done accord-
ing as he wished, at the instigation of Photius.
6. When the Council was assembled , a message was sent to St.
Ignatius , to appear and defend his cause ; he at once put on his
Pontifical ornaments, and went on foot, accompanied by bishops
and priests, and a great number of the monks and the laity , but
on his way he was met by the patrician , John , who, on the part
of the Emperor, prohibited him, under pain of death , from appear-
ing in the Pontifical robes, but merely in the habit of a simple
monk. He obeyed, and presented himself in this garb in the
Church of the Apostles ; he was there separated from the friends
who accompanied him, and brought alone into the Emperor's pre-
sence, who loaded him with abuse. Ignatius asked leave to speak,
and then asked the Pope's Legates what brought them to Constan-
tinople. They answered, that they came to try his case . The
Saint asked them if they brought letters for him from the Pope,
and was told they had not, as he was no longer considered as
Patriarch, having been deposed by a Council of his province, and
that, therefore, they were there to judge him. " Then banish the
adulterer Photius, first of all," said St. Ignatius, " and if you cannot
do that, you are no longer judges." The Emperor, said they, wishes
us to be judges ; but the Saint peremptorily refused to recognize
them as such, and appealed to the Pope, on the authority of the
fourth Canon of the Council of Sardis, which decrees, that, " If a
bishop be deposed , and he declares that he has a defence to make,
no one must be elected in his place till the Pontiff of the Roman
Church decides his case."
7. Notwithstanding this, seventy-two false and bribed witnesses
were examined, and deposed that the Saint had been guilty of
tyranny in the government of his church, and that he was intruded
into the See by the secular power, and that, therefore , he should ,
according to the Apostolical Canon, be deposed : " If any bishop
obtain his See by secular powers , let him be deposed." On this

(10) Nichol. Ep. 9. (11) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. s. 4.


206 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

testimony, the bishops of the Council, if it could be called such


(with the exception of Theodulus of Ancira, who hated the injus-
tice) , and the Legates, deposed St. Ignatius, all crying out, un-
worthy, unworthy (12) . He was then handed over to the execu-
tioners, to be tormented till he would sign his own deposition ;
they first nearly starved him for a fortnight, and afterwards hung
him up by the feet over a deep pit, which was the tomb of Copro-
nimus, and dashed him from side to side till the marble lining of
the tomb was stained with his blood . When he was thus reduced
to the last extremity, and scarcely breathing, one Theodore, a bravo
employed by Photius , took hold of his hand and forcibly made him
sign a cross on a sheet ofpaper, which he brought to Photius, who
then wrote on it himself: " I , Ignatius, unworthy Bishop of Con-
stantinople, confess that I have not been lawfully appointed, but
have usurped the throne of the Church, which I have tyrannically
governed." But even after this act of villainy, Photius did not
consider himself safe, so he laid a plot with Bardas, and sent sol-
diers to take St. Ignatius, who, after his liberation from prison,
lived at home with his mother, but he escaped in the disguise of a
poor man, carrying two baskets slung on a pole over his shoulder.
Six light horsemen were sent after him , with directions to kill him
wherever he was found, but God delivered him out of their hands.
For forty days, Constantinople was shaken by earthquakes, and so
Bardas and the Emperor gave him leave to retire to his monastery,
and live in peace ( 13) , though he was again banished.
8. In the meantime the Legates returned to Rome loaded with
presents by Photius, and merely told the Pope verbally that Igna-
tius was deposed by the Council, and Photius confirmed . Two
days after, Leo, Secretary to the Emperor, arrived in Rome, and
presented a letter to the Pope from the Emperor, containing a
long defence of the acts of the Council, and of Photius. Nicholas
began then to suspect that his Legates had betrayed him, and so
he immediately summoned together all the bishops then present in
Rome, and publicly declared in presence of the secretary Leo
himself, that he never had sent his Legates either to depose
Ignatius or confirm Photius, and that he never had, nor ever would
consent to either one or the other (14) . He wrote both to the
Emperor and to Photius to the same effect ( Epis. 9 ) and wrote
likewise another letter to all the faithful of the East (Epis. 4) , in
which, by his apostolic authority, he particularly commands the
other patriarchs of the East to hold the like sentiments regarding
Ignatius and Photius, and to give all possible publicity to this
letter of his. Photius, in the meantime, without taking any notice
of this letter of his Holiness , planned that a certain monk, of the

(12) Baron. Ann. 861, n. 1 ; Nat. Alex. cit. s. 4, & Bernin. s. 9, c. 9, ex Niceta in Vit.
St. Ig. Nat. (13 ) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. s. 4 ; Fleury, t. 7, c. 53, n. 12 , 13, 14, 18, 19,
& Nat. Alex. t. 14 ; diss. 14, s. 6. ( 14) Nichol. Epis. 13 .
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 207

name of Eustrates, should present himself in Constantinople , pre-


tending that he had been sent to the Pope by Ignatius as the
bearer of a letter, complaining of all he had suffered ; but he said
the Pope did not even deign to receive him, but on the contrary,
sent a letter by him to Photius, assuring him of his friendship .
Photius immediately brought these two letters to the Emperor
and to Bardas ; but when the whole matter was sifted , it was dis-
covered that it was all a scheme got up by Photius, and Bardas
felt so indignant at the imposition, that he commanded that the
monk Eustrates should receive a severe flogging (15) .
9. The Pope convoked a Council of several provinces , which
was held in the beginning of the year 863, first in St. Peter's, and
then in the Lateran Church, to try the Legates for betraying the
Roman Church. One alone of them, the Bishop Zacchary, made
his appearance (Rodoaldus being in France), and he being con-
victed, on his own confession , of having signed the deposition of
Ignatius, contrary to the orders of the Pope, was excommunicated
and deposed by the Council, and the following year the same was
decreed in regard to Rodoaldus, in another Council held in the
Lateran, and he was threatened with anathema, if he ever com-
municated with Photius, or opposed St. Ignatius. Besides, in
this first Lateran Council, Photius was deprived of all sacerdotal
offices and honours, on account of his many crimes, and especially
for having got himself ordained , he being a layman, by Gregory,
the schismatical Bishop of Syracuse, and for having usurped the
See of Ignatius, and daring to depose and anathematize him in a
Council ; besides, for having bribed the Legates of the Holy See
to contravene the orders of the Pope, for having banished the
bishops who refused to communicate with him, and , finally, for
having persecuted, and continuing to persecute, the Church . It was
then decreed, that if Photius should continue to hold possession of
the See of Constantinople, or prevent Ignatius from governing it, or
should exercise any sacerdotal function , that he should be anathe-
matized, and deprived of all hope of communion, unless at the
hour of death alone. Gregory, Bishop of Syracuse, was con-
demned in the same manner, for having dared to exercise ecclesi-
astical functions after his deposition , and for consecrating Photius
Bishop . It was finally decreed that Ignatius never was deposed ,
from his See, and that for the future every cleric should be deposed,
and every layman anathematized , who would show him any oppo-
sition (16).
10. When the Emperor Michael heard of the decrees of the
Roman Council , he wrote a most abusive letter to Pope Nicholas ,
threatening him with his displeasure if he did not revoke his judg-
ment (17). The Pope answered him (Epis. 70) , that the Pagan
(15) Fleury, loc. cit. n, 15, 18, 19, & Nat. Alex. t. 13, diss. 14, s. 6. (16) Baron.
Ann. 663, n. 3 ; Fleury, t, 7, l. 50, n. 19 , 26. ( 17) Nichol. Epis. 8.
208 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Emperors were princes and pontiffs, but that after the coming of
Jesus Christ the two powers were divided, as temporal things were
different from spiritual things, and Noel Alexander particularly
calls attention to these expressions in the Pope's letter : " It is
plain that as there is no higher authority than the Apostolic See,
that no one can revoke its judgments ; nor is it lawful for any
one to pass judgment on its judgments, since, according to the
canons, appeals come to it from all parts of the world ; but from it
no one is permitted to appeal." He then says, that the case of
Ignatius and Photius can only be decided by appearing in person ,
or by deputy, in Rome, when both can state their causes of com-
plaint, and defend themselves ( 18 ) . Some time after the Emperor
took the field to conquer Crete, and was accompanied by his
uncle , Bardas, who was so strongly suspected of being a traitor, that
he resolved to put him to death. He was in the Emperor's tent
when he saw the soldiers come to take him, and he threw himself at
his nephew's feet, imploring mercy, but his prayer was in vain ; he
was dragged out and cut to pieces, and a piece of his flesh was
carried round the camp in mockery, fixed on a spear, and thus, in
the year 886 , the unfortunate Bardas closed his mortal career.
The Emperor immediately returned to Constantinople, and ap-
pointed Basil, the Macedonian, who was one ofthe chief instigators
of the death of Bardas, prime minister, and as he was aware of his
incapacity in governing by himself, he soon after associated him
in the Empire, and had him solemnly crowned (19) .
11. Although Photius lost his protector, he did not lose heart ;
he continued to retain the Emperor's friendship, and ingratiated
himself with Basil. He was abandoned by many of his adherents
after he incurred the censure of the Pope, and he then bitterly per-
secuted them whenever he could ; some he deprived of their digni-
ties, some he imprisoned , and he banished the hermits from Mount
Olympus, and burned their cells ( 20) . On the 13th of October, 866 ,
the Pope sent three Legates to Constantinople to appease the Em-
peror and put an end to the discord caused by Photius ; but they
were arrested in Bulgaria by an imperial officer, who treated them.
very disrespectfully, and told them that the Emperor would have
nothing to say to them, so when they perceived the treatment they
were likely to receive if they proceeded to Constantinople, they
returned to Rome ( 21 ) . It came to the knowledge of Photius at
the same time that the Pope had sent other Legates to the Bul-
garians to protest against the new mode of unction introduced by
him ( Photius) among them, in the administration of the sacrament
of Confirmation, and he felt so indignant at this interference, that
he summoned a Council which he called an Ecumenical one , in

(18) Fleury, loc. cit. n. 41 ; Nat. Alex. cit. s. 6. (19) Fleury, n. 42.
20) Fleury, loc. cit. n. 41 . (21 ) Nat. Alex. t. 13, diss. 4, s. 7 ; Fleury, n. 52 , 53 .
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 209

which he got the two Emperors, Basil and Michael , to preside, and
had it attended by the Legates of the other patriarchal Sees, and by
many bishops ofthe patriarchate of Constantinople, to revenge him-
self on the Pope. Persons came forward there and made several
charges against Pope Nicholas. Photius received the accusations ,
and tried the cause, and finally condemned the Pope for many sup-
posed crimes, and deposed and excommunicated him and all who
would hold communion with him. Twenty-one bishops were mad
enough to approve of and subscribe this sacrilegious sentence, and
Photius afterwards forged nearly a thousand other signatures to the
same document (22) . He had now lost all respect for the Pope,
and his insolence arrived at such a pitch, that he sent a circular
letter of his composition to the Patriarch of Alexandria , condem-
natory of several practices and doctrines of the Roman Church, as
the fast on Saturdays, the celibacy of the clergy, but, above all ,
the doctrine ofthe procession ofthe Holy Ghost not from the Father
alone, but from the Father and Son (23) . Baronius (24) even
says, that he taught that every man had two souls. He obtained
the Emperor's permission to summon a second Council in Constan-
tinople, and having done so, he again excommunicated and deposed
the Pope (25) .
12. In the year 867 , the Emperor Michael was killed , while
drunk, by his own guards, at the instigation of Basil, whose life he
sought on account of some disagreements they had. When Basil
thus obtained the undivided sovereignty ofthe Empire, he banished
Photius from the See ofConstantinople, and exiled him to a distant
monastery (26), and the next day he sent the imperial galley to the
island where the Patriarch, St. Ignatius, was confined, to convey
him back to Constantinople, and received him with the highest
honours on his arrival, and solemnly put him in possession of his
See once more (27) . He sent orders then to Photius to restore all
the documents with the Emperor's signature he had in his posses-
sion ; but he sent back word, that as he left the palace by the Em-
peror's command in a hurry, he left all his papers behind him ;
but while he was making this excuse to the prefect sent to him by
Basil, his officers perceived the servants of Photius busy in hiding
several bags filled with documents, with leaden seals appended to
them ; these were immediately seized on and brought to the Em-
peror, and among other papers, two books beautifully written were
found, one containing the Acts of the imaginary Council condemning
Ignatius, and the other the Synodical letter against Pope Nicholas,
filled with calumnies and abuse (28) . Basil then wrote to Pope
Nicholas, giving him an account of the expulsion of Photius and

(22) Baron. Ann. 663, n. 13 ; Nat. Alex. cit. s. 7. (23) Fleury, t. 7, l. 52, n. 55,
56. (24) Baron. Ann. 869, n. 49. (25) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. & Grav. t. 3, s. 9, coll. 4.
(26) Baron. Ann. 367, n. 92 ; Nicetas in Vita St. Ignatii, p. 1226. (27) Fleury, t. 7,
1. 51 , n. 1 , 2. (28) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. s. 9, & Fleury, loc. sit.
210 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

the re-establishment of Ignatius ; but this letter was delivered into


the hands of Adrian II . , in 868 , the successor of Nicholas, who died
in 867. Adrian answered the Emperor, and said that he would
put into execution , in regard to Photius and Ignatius, whatever
was decided by his predecessor (29), and the same year he con-
demned the Council of Photius in a Council held at Rome, and the
book we mentioned was burned there, being first thrown on the
ground with this anathema : " Cursed at Constantinople, be again
cursed at Rome " (30) .

ARTICLE II.

THE ERRORS OF THE GREEKS CONDEMNED IN THREE GENERAL


COUNCILS .

13, 14, 15. The Eighth General Council against Photius, under Pope Adrian and the Em-
peror Basil. 16. Photius gains over Basil, and in the mean time St. Ignatius dies.
17. Photius again gets Possession of the See. 18. The Council held by Photius re-
jected bythe Pope ; unhappy Death of Photius. 19. The Patriarch, Cerularius, revives
and adds to the Errors of Photius. 20. Unhappy Death of Cerularius. 21 , 22. Gre-
gory X. convokes the Council of Lyons at the instance of the Emperor Michael ;
it is assembled. 23. Profession of Faith written by Michael, and approved of by the
Council. 24. The Greeks confess and swear tothe Decisions of the Council. 25. They
separate again. 26. Council of Florence under Eugenius IV.; the Errors are again
discussed and rejected ; Definition of the Procession of the Holy Ghost. 27. Of
the Consecration in Leavened Bread. 28. Of the Pains of Purgatory. 29. Of
the Glory of the Blessed. 30. Of the Primacy of the Pope. 31. Instructions given
to the Armenians, Jacobites, and Ethiopians ; the Greeks relapse into Schism.

13. POPE ADRIAN (1) made arrangements to celebrate a General


Council in Constantinople, which was accomplished in the year
869, in the reign of the Emperor Basil ; he sent three Legates to
preside in his name : Donatus, Bishop of Ostia, Stephen of Nepi ,
and Marinus, one of the seven deacons of the Roman Church , who
was afterwards Pope. The Legates proceeded to Constantinople,
and were most honourably received by the Emperor ; he sent all
the officers of the palace to meet them at the gate of the city, and
they were received there by the clergy in their robes likewise.
They were then presented to the Emperor in his palace, and he
received them with all honour and reverence, kissed the Pope's
letters when presented to him, and told them that he, as well as all
the bishops of the East, were for two years waiting for the decision
of the Roman Church, their mother, and he therefore most earnestly
besought them to make every endeavour to re-establish union and
peace. The day for the opening of the Council was then ap-
pointed.

(29) Fleury, loc. cit. n. 18. (30) Baron. Ann. 868 , n. 38 ; Nat. Alex. loc. cit. s. 9,
& Fleury, cit. n. 19. (1) Nat. Alex. s. 11 , & Graveson, t. 3, coll. 3, p. 153 .
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 211

14. The Legates presided in this Council in the name of the


Pope ; although in the eighth and tenth Act Basil and his two sons,
Constantine and Leo, are called Presidents, still, as Noel Alex-
ander (2) remarks, the Emperor is called the President, not because
of any authority he held in the Synod, but because he was ho-
noured as the protector of the Church, but not as the judge of
ecclesiastical affairs . The first Session was held on the 5th of
October, in the year 869, and eight others were held, the last in
the February of 870. The bishops and priests who had joined the
schism presented themselves in the fifth Session, and were merci-
fully received again. Photius also came forward, but when he was
asked by the Legates whether he received the exposition of Pope
Nicholas, and of his successor Pope Adrian , he refused to answer (3).
He was pressed for a reply, but he only said : " God understands
what I mean, though I do not speak." " But," said the Legates,
" your silence will not preserve you from condemnation." "Jesus
Christ," said he, " was silent, likewise, and was condemned ." They
told him that if he wished to be reconciled to the Church, he should
confess his crimes, and all the wrongs he had inflicted on Ignatius,
and promise to recognize him as his pastor for the future , still he
contínued silent ; then the patrician Baanes addressed him, and said :
" My Lord Photius, your mind is now confused , so the Council
gives you time to think on your salvation ; go, you shall be again
recalled." He made his appearance again in the seventh Session ,
with the crozier in his hand, but it was taken from him, for the
Council said he was a wolf, and not a shepherd ; he was again
asked if he was willing to retract his errors, but he answered, that
he did not recognize the Legates as his judges. Several other
questions were put to him, but he answered them in a haughty
manner, so he was anathematized in these words : " Anathema to
Photius the invader, the schismatical tyrant, the new Judas , the
inventor of perverse dogmas." In these and such like terms was he
condemned, and, together with him, Gregory of Syracuse, and all
their followers, who persevered in their obstinacy (4) .
15. Twenty-seven Canons were promulgated in this the Eighth
General Council . Among the rest it was decreed , that all the
orders conferred by Photius were invalid, and that the churches
and altars he consecrated should be consecrated again. All bishops
and clerks who continued to hold by his party were deposed , and
all who held with him that man had two souls were anathematized.
It was prohibited, under pain of deposition , to consecrate bishops ,
at the command of the Sovereign (5) . All the works of Photius
were burned in the midst of the Assembly ; the definitions of the
other seven General Councils were received , and the Council was

(2) Nat. Alex. t. 13 ; Diss. 4, s. 12. (3) Baron. Ann. 869 , n. 28. (4) Baron.
Ann. 869, n. 37, & Fleury, t. 7, l. 51 , n. 29 , & seq. (5) N. Alex. sec. 22, & Fleury,
L. 51 , n. 55.
212 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

closed . It was afterwards confirmed by Pope Adrian, at the re-


quest of the Fathers ( 6) , who besought him to confirm the decrees
of this General Synod as his own, that the words of truth and the
decrees ofjustice should be received through the whole world con-
firmed by his authority. It is worthy of remembrance what
Nicetas tells us of this Council ( 7), that the Fathers signed the
decree with a pen dipped in the sacred blood of Jesus Christ . The
Emperor Basil did not look sufficiently to the safety of the Legates
on their return to Rome ; and the consequence was , that they were
seized by the Sclavonians, and robbed of all they had, the original
Acts of the Council among the rest, with the autograph signatures
of the Fathers. They were freed from captivity by the joint exer-
tions of the Pope and the Emperor, and , on the 22nd of December,
870, arrived in Rome. The Pope received through another channel
the authentic copy of the Synodical Acts, and confirmed the
Council ( 8 ) . The cause of the Emperor's displeasure with the
Legates was, because they refused to accede to the wishes of the
ambassadors of the King of Bulgaria , in Constantinople, who wished
to be subjected, not to the Roman Church, but to the See of Con-
stantinople, and the Legates of the other oriental patriarchates
seconded this request (9).
16. Photius, in the meantime, never ceased to asperse the
Council. He wrote several letters to that effect to his friends, and
one, especially to a monk of the name of Theodosius ( 10), in which
he says ; " Why do you wonder that those who have been them-
selves condemned presume to judge the innocent ? Have you not
examples ? Caiphas and Pilate were judges ; my God Jesus was
the accused." He then alludes to the examples of St. Stephen,
St. James, St. Paul, and so many martyrs, who had to appear be-
fore judges worthy of being put to death a thousand times. " God, "
said the impious Photius, " disposes of everything for our advan-
tage." Noel Alexander and Fleury tell us, that, during the whole
ten years of his exile, he never ceased plotting and scheming to
injure the holy Patriarch, St. Ignatius, and to get back to the See
himself, and he left no means untried to accomplish his purpose .
He laid one plan , in particular, to ingratiate himself into the Em-
peror's favour : he wrote a genealogy and prophecy on a piece of
old parchment, and in the antique Alexandrian character. This
was called " Beclas," the name of Basil's father. In this he pre-
tended that Basil , though his father was but a man of low birth ,
was descended from Tiridates, King of Armenia, and that his reign
would be longer and happier than that of any of his predecessors.
He got this bound up in an old cover, and privately conveyed into
the Imperial library. He then got one of his friends, as great a
(6) N. Alex. loc. cit. (7) Nicep. ap. Fleury, loc. cit. 46. (8) Hermant, t. 1, c. 374.
(9) Fleury, t. 7, l. 31 , n. 44, 49. ( 10) Fleury, loc. cit. n. 41. (11) Nat. Alex.
t. 7, diss. 4, sec. 25 ; Fleury, t. 8, l. 53, n . 1 , ex Nicet.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 213

schemer as himself, to suggest to the Emperor, that there was not


a man in the Empire who could interpret that but Photius. The
Emperor took the bait, and recalled him, and he soon ingratiated
himself into his good graces, and endeavoured to obtain permission
from St. Ignatius, through the sovereign's influence , to exercise
episcopal functions ; but the saint never would permit him, for, as
he was excommunicated by a Council , he said he could not be re-
habilited, unless by another Council ; but, notwithstanding, he
administered orders, and exercised other episcopal duties (12) .
The holy Patriarch, Ignatius, died in the year 878, the eightieth
year of his age, and there are strong suspicions, according to Noel
Alexander, and Van Ranst, that Photius was the author of his
death. Fleury says ( 13) , that Stilianus, the Metropolitan of Neo-
cesarea, wrote to Pope Stephen, and openly charged Photius with
employing some wretches to take away the holy Patriarch's life.
Both the Greek and Latin Churches honour the memory of St.
Ignatius on the 23rd of October.
17. Three days had not elapsed since the death of St. Ignatius,
and Photius managed to mount the Patriarchal throne once more,
and at once began to banish, flog, and incarcerate the servants of
his holy predecessor. He restored some of the deposed bishops ;
and those who rejected his communion , and adhered to the Council,
he delivered into the hands of his relative, Leo Catacalus, who
gained over many of the weak by torments, and punished the con-
stancy of many more with death ( 14 ) . He was most desirous of
having the sanction of Pontifical authority for his re-establishment,
and tried numberless schemes to accomplish it. Among the rest,
he sent a letter to the Pope then reigning, John VIII. , telling him
that he was forced to resume the See, and he surreptitiously obtained
the signatures of the other Oriental Patriarchs to this, by pretend-
ing that it was a contract for purchase to be secretly made. He
sent another letter, forged in the name of St. Ignatius (then dead) ,
and several other bishops, begging of the Pope to receive Photius,
and he sent along with those, letters from the Emperor, which he
obtained in his favour ( 15) . When the Pope received those letters,
in Rome, in the year 879 - desirous of not displeasing the Em-
peror, especially-he answered , that, for the good of the Church,
and for peace sake, he was willing to dispense with the Decrees
of the Eighth Council , and of his predecessors, and receive Photius
into his communion , but only on condition of giving public proofs
of penance, in a Council, to be held in presence of his Legates,
then in Constantinople, and he, accordingly, sent Peter, a Cardinal,
as his Legate, to preside at a Council in his name. Cardinal Baro-

( 12 ) Nat. Alex. sec. 25 ; Baron. Ann. 878, n. 53 ; Fleury, t. 8, l. 53 , n. 1, & seq.;


Van Ranst, p. 154. (13) Fleury, cit. l. 53, n. 52. (14) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. sec. 25.
(15) Fleury, loc. cit. n. 3, 4 ; N. Alex. eod. sec. 25.
214 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

nius, Noel Alexander, Fleury (16) , and several others, severely


censure this condescension of the Pope ; but Peter de la Marca ex-
cuses him ( 17) , for, solicited as he was by the Emperor, and having
the authority of his predecessors, Leo, Gelasius, and Felix , and of
the Council of Africa, all which teach that the rigour of the law
must be dispensed with in time of necessity, he naturally considered
that the good of the Church required he should yield the point, and
thus, with the consent of the other Patriarchs, he consented that
Photius should retain possession of the See.
18. Photius put the finishing stroke to his plans on the arrival of
the Legate in Constantinople ; he deceived him, by asking for the
Pope's letter that he might translate it into Greek, and when he
got it into his hands, he curtailed it, and interpolated it to suit his
own purpose, as Cardinal Baronius shows, and on the strength
of this deception , a Council was held , called the Eighth General
Council by the schismatic Greeks, though it was nothing more
than a Cabal , for though it was attended by four hundred and eighty
bishops, they were all adherents of Photius, and he presided himself
and carried everything just as he liked , in opposition to the senti-
ments of the Legate and the Pope. This Council was closed after
five Acts, and the impious Photius was re-established, in the Pope's
name, in the See of Constantinople. When Pope John learned
what passed in Constantinople, as Noel Alexander ( 18 ) relates , he
had sent anew his Legate, Maximus, to Constantinople, to annul
by Apostolical authority all that had been done in that wicked .
Council ; and the Legate proceeded with courage, and confirmed ,
in the Pope's name, the condemnation of Photius, decided by the
General Council ; this so displeased the Emperor, that he cast the
Legate into prison, and kept him there for thirty days, but, withal ,
the Pope confirmed the decrees passed against Photius by his pre-
decessors, Nicholas I. and Adrian II. , and again solemnly excom-
municated him. Cardinal Gotti ( 19 ) adds, that this sentence of
John VIII. was, after the death of Basil, which took place in 886 ,
put into execution by his son and successor, Leo VI. , the philoso-
pher. Fleury tells us ( 20) that the Emperor sent two of his principal
officers to the Church of Sancta Sophia, and they went into the
gallery, and publicly read all the crimes of Photius, and then
banished him from the Metropolitan See, and sent him to an
Armenian monastery, where he died , but we do not know how or
when. Cedrenus (21 ), in his annals, however, says, that the Emperor
ordered his eyes to be put out, as suspected of rebellion ; and Noel
Alexander says he died obstinately in his schism, and separated
from the communion of the Church.

( 16) Baron. Ann . 879, t. 10 ; N. Alex. t. 13, diss. 4, sec. 26 ; Fleury, t. 8, l. 53, n. 7.
(17) De Marc. de Concordia, Sac. & Imp. l. 3 , c. 14. (18) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. sec. 28.
(19) Gotti, Ver. Relig. t. 2, c. 85 , sec. 1. (20) Fleury, t. 53, n. 51. (21) Apud
Gotti, loc. cit.
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 215

19. Noel Alexander (22) says that the schism was extinguished
on the death of Photius, but that it broke out again ; but
Danæus (23) says, that, on the contrary, his death left it as it was,
and that it broke out with more violence in the time of Nicholas
Chrisobergus, Patriarch , in 981 , of Sisinnius, his successor, in 995 ,
and, more than all, in the reign of Sergius, also Patriarch , who
sent, in his own name, to the bishops of the East, the encyclical
letter written by Photius against the Pope. It gained new strength
in the eleventh century, under the Patriarch Michael Cerularius.
This prelate was of noble birth, but proud and intriguing ; and he
was imprisoned in a monastery, by the Emperor Michael Pophla-
ganius, and was not released till the reign of the Emperor Constan-
tine Monomachus, in the year 1043 ; he uncanonically seized on the
See of Constantinople, but naturally fearing the censures of the
Pope for this act of violence, he laboured to bring to maturity the
seeds of division, previously sown between the two Churches. He
commenced the attack, by writing a letter to John , Bishop of Trani,
in Apulia, charging the Roman See with holding erroneous doctrines
regarding the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and
the Son ; that the soul, after leaving purgatory, went directly to
enjoy beatitude before the General Resurrection ; that the Pope
usurped the authority of Universal Pastor, without having any
authority to do so, and more, that the Latins, by consecrating the
Eucharist in unleavened bread, followed the Jewish practice of
celebrating the Pasch in unleavened bread. In making a charge
of this sort against the Roman Church, he was most surely astray,
for our Lord celebrated the Pasch on the first day of the feast of
the unleavened bread ; and then , according to the precept of God
himself, in Exodus, it was unlawful to have even in the house
leavened bread : " Seven days there shall not be found any leaven
in your houses" (Exod . xii . ) ; and , besides, there was a most ancient
tradition handed down direct from St. Peter himself, as Christian
Lupus (24) says, that Christ offered up the Sacrifice in unleavened
bread, and such was indubitably the universal practice, during the
first centuries in the West, unless, for a short time, when the dis-
cipline was changed , lest the Christians should be scandalised, as if
they were Judaising . It is true, the Greeks have always made
use of leavened bread ; and by doing so, never offended against
Faith, for one Church has never reprobated the custom of another ;
but Cerularius was altogether astray in accusing the Latin Church
of heresy, for using unleavened bread .
20. Pope Leo, to extinguish the fire of schism which was every
day spreading more widely, sent as his Legates to the East, Umbert,
Bishop of Silva Candida, the Cardinal Archdeacon of Rome, and

(22) Nat. Alex. s. 29. (23) Danæus tem. net. p. 271. (24) Chris. Lupus. p. 3,
Couc. Diss. de Act. St. Leo VII.
216 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Peter, Archbishop of Amalphi ; they brought letters from the Pope


to the Emperor Constantine , threatening to excommunicate Ceru-
larius, unless he desisted from censuring the Roman Church, on
account of the custom of celebrating with unleavened bread. The
question then was discussed in Constantinople itself, and the Latin
practice was justified ; but Cerularius refused all along to meet the
Legates, and continued to give them every opposition in his power.
The Legates, despairing of any change in him, after celebrating
Mass one day in St. Sophia, publicly laid the letter of excommuni-
cation on the altar. This only exasperated him more , and he re-
moved the Pope's name from the Diptychs , and following the
Legates' example, he excommunicated them, and sent letters through
all Asia and Italy, filled with calumnies and abuse of the Roman
Church. He lived and died obstinately in schism ; he was banished >
to Proconesus by the Emperor, Isaac Comnemus, who deposed him
from the patriarchate , and he there ended his days (25) .
21. The schism was not extinguished at his death, but spread
more widely ; and though several Greek Churches in the eleventh
and following centuries continued in communion with the Roman
Church, still the breach was every day becoming wider, till Con-
stantinople was conquered by the Latins. Union was again restored
under the Frankish monarchy, from the reign of Baldwin , the first
Latin Emperor of Constantinople, in 1204, till 1261 ; but when
Constantinople was re-taken by Michael Paleologus, the Greeks
renewed the schism , which, to all appearance, they had eternally
forsaken, and for the four subsequent centuries the Churches were
disunited, till the chastisement of God bore heavily on the sinful
Empire. Michael Paleologus (26 ) sent a Franciscan doctor to Gre-
gory X., the bearer of letters requesting a union between the Greek
and Roman Churches once more , and he wrote to St. Louis, King of
France, also, to induce him to co-operate to the same end. The
Pope was most desirous to accede to his wishes, and he sent four
friars of the Order of St. Francis (or according to others, two ofthe
Franciscan and two of the Dominican Order) , as his Legates, to
conclude a peace. This happened in 1272 , and he convoked a
General Council at the same time to meet in two years after in
Lyons, to concert with the Christian Sovereigns for the conquest of
the Holy Land ; to reform some matters of discipline ; but princi-
pally to re-unite the Greek and Latin Churches ; and to facilitate
this object, so dear to his heart, he sent a formula of Faith to the
Emperor by the four religious delegates , which the Greek bishops
were called on to sanction . He prayed the Emperor to come to
the Council himself, or, at all events, to send his Legates, and he
also invited the Patriarch of Constantinople and the other Greek
bishops to the Council.
(25) Bernin. t. 3, sec. xi. c. 6 ; Van Ranst, sec. 10, p. 171 ; Bask. t. 2, sec. 11, c. 3.
(26) Nat. Alex. t. 17. diss. 7, de Con. Lug. 11 , a. 1 ; Graveson, t. 4, coll. 4, p. 116.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 217

22. At the appointed time the Council assembled in Lyons, and


besides the Latin prelates, two of the Greek Patriarchs- Pantaleon,
of Constantinople, and Opizio, of Antioch , and several other Greek
bishops, attended. Five hundred bishops altogether, seventy ab-
bots, and about one thousand inferior prelates, were assembled. St.
Bonaventure was also present, and took the first place after the
Pope, and to him was committed , by his Holiness , the whole
arrangement of the Council. The Pope had summoned St. Thomas
of Aquin, likewise, but he died on his way thither , in the convent
of Fossa Nova. The ambassadors of the Kings of France, England,
and Sicily were also in attendance. Several authors, among others
Trithemius and Platina, assert that the Emperor Michael was pre-
sent, but Noel Alexander proves (27) indubitably, that he was not,
but only his ambassadors, and it is on that account that his letter
was read in the Council, and approved of, because the ambassadors,
in his name, took an oath assenting to the union , and besides, Pope
Gregory, immediately on the conclusion of the Council, wrote to
him an account of all that had taken place there, which he assuredly
would not have done had he been present in person.
25. In the fourth Session , the letter of the Emperor Michael
Paleologus was read, professing the Faith taught by the Roman
Church, as laid down in the formula sent to him by the Pope. In
this, he professes that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father
and the Son, the existence of Purgatory, the validity of conse-
cration with unleavened bread , and finally the Primacy of the Pope.
Noel Alexander ( 28 ) , and Raynaldus ( 29 ) , quote his words : " That
the Holy Roman Church has full and plenary primacy and prin-
cipality over the whole Catholic Church, and that it received the
plenitude of power in the Apostle St. Peter, whose successor the
Roman Pontiff is, through Christ himself; and, as it is bound,
above all others, to defend the truth of the Faith, so its judgment
should be definitive, in all controversies regarding faith. That all
persons having any ecclesiastical business can appeal to it, and
that it can examine and judge all ecclesiastical cases, and all other
churches owe it reverential obedience. The plenitude of power
consists in this , that it admits the other Church to a part of its soli-
citudes, and it honours others, but above all the Patriarchal
Churches, with divers privileges, never, however, giving up its
prerogatives, both in General Councils and elsewhere, but always
keeping the purity of the Faith , as faithfully explained ;" and then
he adds : " We, of our own free will, confess and receive the Pri-
macy of the Holy Roman Church." He then begs of the Pope to
allow the Symbol or Creed to be sung in the Greek Church, as it
was before the schism , and to permit the Greeks to observe the

(27) Nat. Alex. cit. a. 2, n . 1. (28) Nat. Alex. cit. n. 2. (29) Raynal. Ann.
1274, n. 14.
218 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

same rites as before, when not opposed to Faith , to the Divine


Commandments, to the Old or New Testament, to the Doctrines
laid down by General Councils or Holy Fathers, and received by
the Councils, celebrated under the spiritual power of the Roman
Church . The letters of the several Greek bishops were then read,
submitting themselves to the power of the Roman Church, and
professing in all things the same episcopal obedience to the Apos-
tolic See as their fathers did before the schism.
24. When these letters were read, George Acripolita, the great
Logothete, or High Chancellor, the Emperor's Ambassador , re-
nounced the schism in his name, professed the Faith of the Roman
Church, and recognized the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff; he also
took an oath, promising that the Emperor never would depart from
his faith and obedience . The Legates of the Greek bishops did
the same, and now the Council having approved and accepted the
profession of Faith, the Synodical Constitution was promulgated :
" We confess," said the Fathers, " with a faithful and devout profes-
sion , that the Holy Ghost proceeds eternally from the Father and
the Son, not as from two principles, but, as from one principle, not
from two spirations, but one spiration. The Holy Roman Church,
the Mother and Mistress of all Churches, has always professed , and
firmly holds and teaches this Doctrine, and this is also the true
and unchangeable opinion of the orthodox Fathers and Doctors,
both of the Latin and Greek Churches. But as some, on account
of not knowing this undoubted truth, have fallen into various
errors, we, wishing to prevent any from going the same false way,
in future, with the approbation of the Sacred Council, condemn
and hand over to reprobation all who presume to deny, that the
Holy Ghost eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son ,
or who dare to assert that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the
Father and the Son as from two principles and not from one." The
Council closed at last, and Gregory sent back the Greeks to their
own country, loaded with presents, and wrote to the Emperor
Michael , and to his son , Andronicus, congratulating them on the
completion of the Synod. The Emperor was so highly pleased
that all was so happily concluded , and as Joseph, the Patriarch of
Constantinople, who was always opposed to the union , would not
now give his consent to it, he obliged him to renounce his dignity,
and retire to a monastery, and had John Veccus elected in his
place, and he imprisoned , banished , and even put to death, some
ecclesiastics and nobles, who refused to receive the decrees of the
Council (30).
25. Two Synods were held in Constantinople in the year 1276 ,
under Pope John XXI., in which the Patriarch Veccus, and the
other Greek bishops, professed the Faith, according to the rule

(30) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. a. 2 , n. 6, ex Nicephor. l. 5, & aliis.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 219

laid down by the Roman Church ; and the Emperor Michael and
his son Andronicus wrote to the Pope, that all that the Roman
Church believes and teaches was confirmed by these Synods. The
Emperor wrote another letter in 1278 to Nicholas III . , the suc-
cessor of John, informing him that he used every means in his
power to consolidate the union, but that so many outbreaks oc-
curred, and so many plots were laid against him, that he feared he
would be deposed if he tried any further, and he begged of his
Holiness not to be angry if he appeared to yield a little in so deli-
cate an affair. The end of the matter was, that the Greeks, with
few exceptions, every day more and more separated themselves
from the union they had sworn to, and at last Martin IV. , the
successor of Nicholas III ., excommunicated the Emperor, Michael
Paleologus, in 1281 , as a supporter of the Greek schism and heresy,
and forbade all princes, lords, and universities, and the authorities
of all cities and towns, under pain of personal excommunication
and local interdict, from having any connexion with him, as long
as he was under ban of excommunication. Noel Alexander, on the
authority of two authors, says that the Pope excommunicated the
Emperor at the instigation of Charles, King of Sicily, who hoped
that when Michael was by this measure deprived of assistance,
he could easily banish him from the throne, and place his son-in-law
on it; but Roncaglia, in his notes on Alexander, shows that Martin
having renewed the excommunication the following year (as Ray-
naldus relates, Ann . 1281 , N. 8) , proves that the only reason he
could have for doing it was, that the Emperor broke faith, and
gave up the union he had sworn to maintain ( 31 ) .
26. This schism continued for about a hundred and twenty
years longer, from the Council ofLyons, till the year 1439 , when the
Greeks were reduced almost to the last extremity , for the Almighty
permitted the Turks to punish them, and, after conquering the
greater part of their Empire, now threatened their total destruction.
In their distress, they now made overtures for a re-union with the
Roman Church once more, and Pope Eugenius IV. , who was ex-
tremely desirous of acceding to their wishes, convoked a Council
principally for this object, in Ferrara ; and when the plague broke
out in that city, afterwards in Florence , and invited the Emperor,
the Patriarchs, and the other Greek bishops, to attend. The Em-
peror John Paleologus accepted the invitation , and the Patriarch of
Constantinople, the two chief Metropolitans, Basil Bessarion , Arch-
bishop of Nice, and Mark, Archbishop of Ephesus, several other
Greek bishops, seven hundred other distinguished personages, and a
hundred and sixty Latin bishops, assembled in Florence. The points
of disagreement, which were the same as those decided on in the
Council of Lyons ( 32 ) , were again examined . The word , Filioque,

(31) Nat. Alex. t. 17, diss. 7, a. 2, per totum. (32) Spondan. ad Ann. 1438, n . 28.
220 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

" and from the Son," which was added to the Creed by the Latin
Church, to explain that the Holy Ghost proceeds both from the
Father and the Son, as from one principle, was again debated .
Mark, the Greek Archbishop of Ephesus, was the most strenuous
opposer of this addition ; it was unlawful , he said , to add anything
to the ancient Symbols of the Church, but our Theologians replied ,
that the promise made by Jesus Christ to assist his Church was
66
not confined to any period, but lasts till the end of time : “ Behold,
I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world "
(Matt. xxviii . 20) . The word Consubstantial was not, said they,
in the Creed at first ; and for all that the Council of Nice thought it
necessary to add it, to put an end to the subterfuges of the Arians,
and explain that the Word was of the same substance as, and in all
things equal to, the Father. The Councils of Ephesus and Chalce-
don , also, made an addition to the Nicene Creed , to explain the two
natures of Christ, Divine and human , against Nestorius, who taught
that he was a mere man ; and against Eutyches, who asserted that the
human was absorbed by the Divine nature. Hence they argued
that the words, " and from the Son," were added to the Symbol ;
not to prove that the ancient Symbols were imperfect, but to declare
more clearly the truth of the Faith, and that the declaration of the
truth ought not to be called an addition , but rather an explanation .
The Council, therefore , defined : " That this truth should be believed
by all Christians ; that the Holy Ghost is eternally from the Father
and the Son, and that his essence and being is both from the Father
and the Son, and that he proceeds eternally from both, as from one
principle, and by one spiration ; and that this is what the Holy
Fathers mean by saying that he proceeds from the Father by the
Son ; and when the Greeks speak of the Son as the cause , and the
Latins the principle, together with the Father, of the subsistence of
the Holy Ghost, they both mean the same thing." Here are the
words : " Diffinimus, ut hæc fidei veritas ab omnibus Christianis
credatur, quod Spiritus Sanctus ex Patre , et Filio æternaliter est ;
et essentiam suam , suumque esse subsistens habet ex Patre simul et
Filio ; et ex utroque æternaliter tanquam ab uno principio , et unica
spiratione procedit, declarantes, quod id quod SS . Patres dicunt ex
Patre per Filium precedentem Spiritum Sanctum ; ad hanc intel-
ligentiam tendit, ut per hoc significetur, Filium quoque esse secun-
dum Græcos quidem causam, secundum Latinos vero principium sub-
sistentiæ Spiritus Sancti, sicut et Patrem . Et quoniam omnia quæ
Patris sunt, Pater ipse unigenito Filio suo gignendo dedit, præter
esse Patrem, hoc ipsum quod Spiritus Sanctus procedit ex Filio ,
ipse Filius a Patre æternaliter habet, a quo etiam æternaliter genitus
est. Diffinimus insuper, explicationem verborum illorum Filioque,
veritatis declarandæ gratiæ, et imminente tunc necessitate, ac ra-
tionabiliter Symbolo fuisse appositam ."
27. The question of the validity of the consecration of the Eucha-
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 221

rist in unleavened bread was then discussed, but the parties soon.
agreed on this, as there was no doubt that wheaten bread was the
essential matter of the Sacrament, and it was but a matter of dis-
cipline, whether it was leavened or unleavened ; and it was then
defined that each priest should follow the custom of his own Church,
whether of the East or the West.
28. Purgatory, and the state of beatitude the just enjoy, pre-
vious tothe General Resurrection, was then discussed . Both parties
soon agreed on these points, for as to Purgatory, the Greeks never
denied its existence, but they taught that the stains of sin are there
purged away by the penalty of sorrow, and not of fire ; and they,
accordingly, at once agreed to the definition of the Council, which
decided that the souls are purged from the stain of sin , in the next
life, by punishment, and that they are relieved by the suffrages of
the faithful, and especially by the sacrifice of the Mass, but does not
specify either the penalty of sorrow or of fire ; and the Council of
Trent, in the Twenty-fifth Session , in the Decree on Purgatory, de-
cided the same, though many ofthe Holy Fathers, as St. Ambrose,
St. Augustin, St. Gregory, Bede, and the Angelic Doctor, St.
Thomas, particularly mention the penalty of fire, as I have remarked
in my Dogmatic Work on the Council of Trent, in opposition to the
Innovators (33) ; and they found their opinion on the text of St.
Paul (1 Cor. iii. 12) . The following is the decree of the Council :
" Item (definimus) si vere pœnitentes in Dei charitate decesserint,
antequam dignis poenitentiæ fructibus de commissis satisfecerint, et
omissis, eorum animas pœnis purgatoriis post mortem purgari, et ut
a pœnis hujusmodi releventur, prodesse eis Fidelium vivorum suf-
fragia, missarum scil . sacrificia, orationes, et eleemosynas, et alia
pietatis officia, secundum Ecclesia instituta."
29. The Greeks also accepted the definition of the Council, that
the just enjoy the beatific vision previous to the General Resurrec-
tion. This is the Decree : " Illas (Animas) etiam, quæ post con-
tractam peccati maculam, vel in suis corporibus, vel eisdem exutæ
corporibus (prout superius dictum est) , sunt purgatæ , in Colum
mox recipi, et intueri clare ipsum Deum trinum , et unum sicuti est,
pro meritorum tamen diversitate, alium alio perfectius ; illorum
autem animas, qui in actuali mortali peccato , vel solo originali de-
cedunt mox in infernum descendere , pœnis tamen disparibus puni-
endas." Theologians commonly teach that the blessed will not have
the fulness of beatitude till after the General Judgment, when their
souls will be united with their bodies. This St. Bernard (34), speak-
ing of the two stoles of the blessed , says : " The first stole is the
happiness itself, and the rest of the soul ; but the second is immor-
tality and the glory of the body."

(33) In cit. Sogg. 25, n. 7, & 27. (34) S. Bernard, t. 1 , q. 1033 ; Serm. 3, om. SS.
n. 1.
222 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

30. The greatest dispute was concerning the primacy of the


Pope, and Mark of Ephesus not only obstinately opposed this doc-
trine to the end of the Council, but after its conclusion, as we shall
see, succeeded in again perverting the Greeks. The Greeks, indeed ,
admitted that the Pope was the head of the Church, but would not
allow that he could receive appeals from sentences passed by the
four Patriarchal Sees of the East, or convoke a General Council
without their assent. They were so firm on this point especially,
that there would be no hope of agreement had not Basil Bassarion,
the Archbishop of Nice, suggested a mode of reconciling both
parties, by putting in the clause : " Saving the rights and privileges
of the Greeks ;" and to this the Greeks at last consented , for they
then maintained their privilege, and at the same time confessed their
subjection to the Roman Church; for the very word privilege im-
plies a concession from a superior power, and thus the power ofthe
Pope over all Christian Churches is confirmed. " We define ," says
the Council, " that the Holy Apostolic See, and the Roman Pontiff,
has the primacy over the whole world , and that the Pope is the
successor of St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles , and our Father
and Doctor ; and that full power has been given him by our Lord
Jesus Christ, in St. Peter, to feed, rule, and govern the Universal
Church, as is contained in the Acts ofthe Universal Councils and
the Sacred Canons. We also renew the order laid down by the
Sacred Canons, in regard to the other venerable patriarchs, that the
Patriarch of Constantinople should have the second place after the
Holy Roman Pontiff, the Patriarch of Alexandria the third, of An-
tioch the fourth, and of Jerusalem the fifth , saving all their rights
and privileges ."
31. When all this was concluded , and before the Council was
dismissed , the Armenians arrived in Florence, on the invitation of
the Pope, as their provinces were infected with errors. The Ar-
menian Patriarch sent four delegates , who were most kindly received
by the Pope, and as they were extremely ignorant, his Holiness
judged it proper to cause a compendium of the whole Christian
doctrine to be drawn up, which they should swear to profess, and
take with them as a rule for their countrymen. This Instruction
or Decree was accepted and sworn to by the Armenians, and is
quoted at length by Cardinal Justinian and Berninus (35). The
Jacobites also, on the invitation of the Pope, were represented in
the Council by the Abbot of St. Anthony, sent by the Armenian
Patriarch. The ambassadors ofthe sovereign of Ethiopia, the Prester
John of that age, presented themselves at the Council likewise, and
promised obedience to the Roman Church, and a book of instruc-
tions was given them by the Pope, when he transferred the Council
from Florence to Rome ( 36). This peace, however, was but of
(35) Card. Justin. in Concil. Floren. par. 3, p. 263, & ap. Bernin. t. 4, s. 5 , 6, p. 134 .
(36) Rainal. Ann. 1442, n. 1 & 2.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 223

short duration, for the Greeks, on their return home, again fell back
into their former errors, principally at the instigation of the wicked
Mark of Ephesus. The chastisement of God soon overtook that
fickle people ; in 1453 , Mahomet II . took Constantinople by assault,
and gave it up to sack and slaughter ; the infuriated soldiery slew
all who came in their way, cast down the altars, profaned the mo-
nasteries, and despoiled the wretched inhabitants of all their pro-
perty. Thus fell the Empire of the East, after eleven centuries of
a glorious existence . The Greeks continue, to the present day,
obstinately attached to their errors ; they are the slaves of the Turks
in their ancient capital . That noble Church, that gave to the world
Athanasius, Gregory , Basil, and so many other learned and holy
doctors, now lies trampled under foot, vice usurping the place of
virtue, and ignorance seated in the chair of learning. The Greek
Church, in a word, the mother of many saints and doctors of
the Church, has, on account of its separation from the Roman See,
fallen into a state of deplorable barbarity and wretched slavery (37) .

CHAPTER X.

THE HERESIES WHICH SPRUNG UP FROM THE ELEVENTH TO THE


FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

WE pass over the tenth century, because in that age no new heresy
sprung up in the Church ; but Danæus (1) says, that there was
both great ignorance aud great disunion in the West, so that even
the Apostolic See was not exempt from intrusions and expulsions.
Graveson (2) states the same, and says, that it was a great mark of
Divine protection, that, amid so many evils, a schism did not arise
in the Church.

ARTICLE I.

HERESIES OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY .

1. Stephen and Lisosius burned for their Errors. 2. The new Nicholites and the Inces-
tuosists. 3. Berengarius, and the Principles of his Heresy. 4. His Condemnation
and Relapse. 5. His Conversion and Death.

1. THE first heresy of this century was an offshoot of Mani-


cheism , or, rather, a collection of errors, which may be called
Atheism itself. It was first discovered in Orleans, in France, where
it was introduced by an Italian lady, and was embraced by many
persons , but especially by two ecclesiastics, of the name of Stephen

(37) Hermant. t. 2, c. 201 ; Berti, Br. H. t. 2, s. 16, c. 5. (1) Danes, gen. tem.
not. p. 275. (2) Graveson, Hist. Ecclesias. t. 3, sec. 10, coll. 2.
224 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

and Lisosius, who were considered both holy and learned men .
They taught, that all that the Scriptures say about the Trinity and
the creation of the world is mere nonsense, as the heavens and the
earth are from all eternity, and never had a beginning. They
denied the Incarnation and the Passion of Christ, and , conse-
quently, the value of baptism. They condemned matrimony, and
denied that good works were rewarded, or evil ones punished , in the
next life. They used to burn an infant eight days old , and pre-
served his ashes for the viaticum of the sick. A Norman gentle-
man, called Arefastus, informed Robert, King of France, of the
practices and doctrines of those wretches, and he, at once, went to
Orleans himself, accompanied by the queen, and a number of
bishops. These prelates finding Stephen and Lisosius obstinate in
their errors, held a Synod , and deposed and degraded them , and
they were then, by the king's orders, brought outside the city, shut
up in a cabin with several of their followers, and burned alive ( 1 ).
2. The new Nicholites also made their appearance in this century.
These were some clergymen in holy orders, who preached that it
was lawful for them to marry. The sect, called Incestuosists, also
then disturbed the Church . These taught that it was lawful to
contract marriage within the four prohibited degrees of consan-
guinity (2).
3. The remarkable heresy of Berengarius also sprung up in this
century, and it is one of the prodigies of Divine mercy, to see that
this heretic , after so many relapses, in the end died a true penitent
and in communion with the Church. Berenges, or Berengarius,
was born in the early part of this century, in Tours ; he first
studied in the school of St. Martin , and then went to prosecute
his studies at Chartres, under Fulbert, the bishop of that city. A
certain author (3) , speaking of his haughtiness, says, that while only
a scholar he cared but very little for his master's opinions, and des-
pised altogether anything coming from his fellow-students ; he was
not, however, deeply grounded in the abstruse questions of philo-
sophy, but took great pride in quibbles, and strange interpretations
of plain words. His master, Fulbert, well aware of his petulant
genius, and his desire of novelty, frequently advised him to follow .
in everything the doctrine of the Fathers, and to reject all new
doctrines. He returned to Tours, and was received among the
chapter of the church of St. Martin , and was appointed a dignitary,
the master of the school, as it was called. He next became trea-
surer of the church, and then went to Angers, and was appointed
archdeacon by the Bishop Eusebius Bruno, one of his own scholars.
It was in Angers, according to Noel Alexander and Graveson (4) ,

(1 ) Fleury, t. 8, l. 58, n. 53 & 55 ; Graves. t. 3, sec. 11, coll. 5 ; Gotti, Ver. Relig.
t. 2, c. 86, sec. 1 ; Berti, sec. 11, c. 3 ; Van Ranst, sec. 11, p. 173, & seq. (2) Van
Ranst, sec. 11 , p. 167 ; Berti, Brev. Hist. sec. 11, c. 3. (3) Quidmond. Z. 1, de Corp.
Xti. ver. in Euch. (4) Nat. Alex. t. 14, sec. 11 , c. 4, art. 2 ; Graves. , t. 3, sec. 11, col. 3.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 225

that he first began , about the year 1047 , to disseminate his errors ;
and Baronius says, that the Bishop Eusebius connived at it, though
Noel Alexander acquits him (5) . At first, he attacked the sacra-
ment of matrimony, the baptism of infants, and other dogmas
of the Faith ; but he soon gave up all other questions , and confined
himself to one alone-the denial of the Real Presence of the Body
and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist . He attacked Paschasius
Radbert, who, in 831 , wrote a learned treatise on the Eucharist,
aud held up to admiration John Scotus Erigena, who flourished in
the ninth century, and is believed to have been the first who
attacked the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist.
Cardinal Gotti, however, remarks , that Berenger is looked on as
the founder of this heresy, as the Church was obliged to summon
several Councils to condemn it, as we shall see hereafter (6) .
4. Berengarius was first condemned in the year 1050, in a Roman
Council, held under Pope St. Leo IX. , but he took so little notice
of this, that he called it the Council of Vanity. He was condemned ,
likewise, in the Council of Vercelli , held the same year, and that
Council also condemned the book of John Scotus. He was again
condemned in a Council held in Paris , under the reign of King
Henry I.; and Victor II., the successor of St. Leo, condemned him
in a Synod, held in Florence, in the year 1055. In the same year
he abjured his errors-convinced by Lanfranc that he was wrong-
in a Council held at Tours, and swore never again to separate him-
self from the Faith of the Catholic Church ; but his subsequent
conduct proved that he was not sincere in this recantation . In the
year 1059, therefore, Pope Nicholas II. convoked a Council in
Rome of 113 bishops, and then Berengarius again made his profes-
sion of Faith, according to the form prescribed to him, and swore
again never to deviate from it, and threw his own works and those
of John Scotus into a great fire, which was lighted in the midst of
the Council . Still he was unchanged ; on his return to France he
again relapsed, and even wrote a book in defence of his heresy, and
in defiance of the Church of Rome . Alexander II., the successor
of Nicholas, paternally admonished him by letter ; but he not only
obstinately held out, but even sent him a disrespectful answer.
Maurilius, Archbishop of Rouen, therefore, considered himself
obliged to adopt extreme measures, and in a Council, held in 1063,
excommunicated him and all his followers, and the Decrees of this
Council were confirmed by another, held in Poictiers, in 1075 .
Finally, St. Gregory VII . , to put an end to the scandal altogether,
convoked a Council, in Rome, of one hundred and fifty bishops, in
1079, in which the Catholic doctrine was confirmed , and Berenga-
rius, confessing himself convinced, took an oath to the following

(5) Nat. Alex . t. 14, diss. 1 , art. 4. (6) Gotti, Ver. Rel. t. 2, c. 87, sec. 1 & 2 ;
Fleury, t. 8, l. 59, n. 65 ; Graves. loc. cit.
P
226 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

effect : " I confess that the bread and wine placed on the altar are
substantially converted into the true flesh and blood of Jesus Christ,
by the mystery of sacred prayer and the words of our Redeemer,
not alone by the sign and virtue of a Sacrament, but by the truth
of substance, &c." (7)
5. Notwithstanding all this, when Berengarius returned to France,
he again retracted his confession by another writing (8) ; but in the
year following, 1080, he obtained from the Divine Mercy the grace
of a true conversion, and in a Council, held at Bordeaux , retracted
this last work of his, and confirmed the profession of Faith he made
at Rome ; and he survived this last retraction for nearly eight years,
and in the year 1088 , at the age of nearly ninety years, he died a
true penitent, in communion with the Church, after spending these
eight years in retirement in the island of St. Cosmas, near Tours,
doing penance for his sins ( 9 ). William of Malmesbury (10) says,
that when just about to die, Berengarius exclaimed, remembering
all the perversions his heresy had caused : " To-day Jesus Christ
shall appear to me-either to show me mercy on account of my re-
pentance, or, perhaps, to punish me, I fear, for having led others
astray." St. Antoninus, De Bellay, Mabillon , Anthony Pagi, Noel
Alexander, Graveson, and several other authors, assert that his re-
pentance was sincere , and that he never relapsed during the last
years of his life-a remarkable exception to so many other heresi-
archs, who died in their sins.

ARTICLE II.

HERESIES OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY.

6. The Petrobrussians. 7. Henry, and his Disciples. 8. Their Condemnation. 9. Peter


Abelard, and his Errors concerning the Trinity. 10. His Condemnation. 11. His
Conversion and Death. 12. His particular Errors. 13. Arnold of Brescia ; his
Errors and Condemnation. 14. Causes a Sedition, and is burned alive. 15. Gilbert
de la Poree ; his Errors and Conversion. 16. Folmar, Tanquelinus, and the Abbot
Joachim ; the Apostolicals and the Bogomiles. 17. Peter Waldo and his Followers
under different Denominations-Waldenses, Poor Men of Lyons, &c. 18. Their par-
ticular Errors, and Condemnation.

6. THE Petrobrussians made their appearance at this time ; they


were followers of a monk, Peter of Bruis, who, tired of the restraint
of the cloister, apostatized , and fled to the province of Arles, and,
about the year 1118, began to preach his errors in that neighbour-
hood. These may be reduced to five heads, as Peter, Abbot of
Cluny (1 ), tells us : First.-He rejected the baptism of infants till
they came to the use of reason. Second.- He rejected altars and
churches, and said they should be destroyed. Third.- He prohi-

(7) Fleury, t. 9, l. 62, n. 60 ; N. Alex. loc. cit. art. 17 ; Gotti, loc. cit. s. 3. (8) Ma-
billon, pref. 2, sec. 6, n. 31. (9) Fleury, t. 9, 1. 63, n. 40. (10) Villel. Malmesb.
de Rebus Angl. l. 3. (1) Bibli. Cum. p. 1120.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 227

bited the veneration of the Cross . Fourth.- He rejected the sacri-


fice of the Mass, and the sacrament of the Eucharist. Fifth .-He
rejected prayers and suffrages for the dead . It is very likely,
Graveson says (2) , that these errors were condemned in the Third
Canon of the Council of Toulouse, in the year 1119 , at which Pope
Celestine II. presided , and that they were again condemned in the
Second Council of Lateran , under Innocent II . It is the opinion
of some, that Peter of Bruis was a follower, of the Manichean doc-
trine ; but Noel Alexander and Cardinal Gotti (3) are of the contrary
opinion, because he baptized with water, made use of flesh-meat,
and venerated both the Old and New Testaments, all which the
Manicheans rejected . He had a horrible death. He collected
together a great number of crosses on Good Friday, in the town of
St. Giles, in the diocese of Nismes, and making a great fire with
them, he caused a great quantity of meat to be roasted at it, and
distributed it to his followers, but the Archbishop of Arles got him
into his power some time after, and sentenced him to be burned
alive (4).
7. After the death ofthis unfortunate man, another monk, named
Henry, some say an Italian, others a Provenceal (5 ) , took his place,
and about the year 1142 increased the numbers of the sect, and
added new errors to those of his master. He was highly esteemed
for his learning and piety, and on that account disseminated his
errors most extensively in several places, especially in the diocese
of Mans ; but before he proceeded to that city himself, he sent two
of his disciples, bearing, like himself, a cane with an iron cross on
the top, and they obtained leave for him to preach in that city,
from the Bishop İldebert. When he began to preach, his eloquence
soon drew crowds after him, and he so excited the fury of the po-
pulace against the priests that they looked on them as excommuni-
cated, and would have burned down their dwellings, robbed them
of their property, and even stoned them to death, if the principal
people of the city had not opposed these violent proceedings. The
Bishop Ildebert himself was not allowed to pass free by Henry's
followers, so he banished him from his diocese, and received two of
his disciples, whose eyes were opened to his errors, and abandoned
him (6). After his banishment from Mans, he first went to Poitiers ,
and next to Toulouse, where he principally added to his followers.
St. Bernard describes (Epis. 241 ) the ruinous consequences that
ensued from his preaching in that city ; the priests, the churches,
the festivals, the sacraments, and all holy things, were treated with
supreme contempt ; people died without confession , and without
the Viaticum ; and baptism was refused to children . He even adds,

(2) Graves. Hist. t. 3, sec. 12, coll. 2. (3) Nat. Alex. t. 14, sec. 12, c. 4, art. 4 ;
Gotti, Ver. Rel. t. 2, c. 89, s. 1. (4) Gotti, loc. cit. n. 10, l. 69, n. 24 ; N. Alex. loc.
cit.; Graves. loc. cit. (5) Gotti, c. 79, sec. 2. (6) Nat. Alex. cit. art. 7 ; Fleury,
cit. n. 24.
228 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

that Henry himself shamelessly spent what he got at his sermons


at the gaming-table, and that so great was his depravity, that he
frequently, after preaching in the day, spent the night in houses of
ill fame. When the Pope, Eugene III. , learned that the number
of the heretics was daily increasing in Toulouse, he sent thither, as
Legate, the Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, Alberic, and he took along
with him, Godfrey, Bishop of Chartres, and St. Bernard , who, by
his sermons, conferences, and miracles, converted many from their
evil ways, and accordingly, in his epistle to the people of Toulouse,
in 1147 ( Ep . 242 ) , he says : " We thank God that our sojourn
among you was not an idle one, and although we tarried but a short
time with you, still our presence was not unprofitable."
8. The Legate, Alberic, published a sentence of excommunica-
tion against all holding any communication with the Henricians, or
with their protectors . St. Bernard promised Henry himself that he
would receive him as a monk into Clairvaux , in case it was his wish
to retire and do penance ( 7 ) ; but the unfortunate man always
shunned him. The saint still continued to follow his traces, and
wherever he went and preached, went after him and preached like-
wise, and generally re-converted those who had fallen by him. He
was taken at last, and put in chains into the hands of the bishop,
and he, as Noel Alexander tells us, delivered him up to the Legate
Apostolic, and it is supposed that he was by him condemned to
perpetual imprisonment, that he might not have any longer an
opportunity of preaching his heresy (8 ).
9. Peter Abelard was born in 1079 , in the village of Palais, three
leagues from Nantes. At first he taught philosophy and theology
with great credit, but the disastrous consequences of an intrigue
with Heloise , the niece of Fulbert, a canon of Paris, drove him from
the world, and he retired, to bury his shame and regret in the
Abbey of St. Denis, and took the monastic habit at the age offorty
years (9) . He soon got tired of the life ofthe cloister, and went to
the territories of the Count of Champagne, and opened a school
which soon became celebrated, and it was there he published his
book, filled with several errors concerning the Trinity. His work
was condemned by Conon, Bishop of Palestrina, the Pope's Legate,
in a Council held in Soissons in 1121 , and Abelard was summoned
there, and obliged to cast the book into the fire with his own hands ,
and was then given into the keeping of the Abbot of St. Medard
of Soissons, who received orders to keep him in close custody in a
monastery (10).
10. Notwithstanding all this , Abelard continued for eighteen
years teaching theology and writing works tainted with various
errors. St. Bernard, when this came to his knowledge, endeavoured

(7) Fleury, n. 25. (8 ) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. (9) Fleury, t. 10, l. 67, n. 22.
(10) Fleury, loc. cit. n. 21 ; Nat. Alex. t. 15, diss. 7, a. 7.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 229

to get him to change his sentiments, without giving him any pain ;
but though Abelard promised amendment, there was no change,
and knowing that there was soon to be a Council at Sens, he called
on the archbishop, and complained that St. Bernard was privately
speaking against his works, and begged the archbishop to summon
the saint to the Council, promising publicly to defend his writings.
St. Bernard at first refused ; but finally conquered his repugnance,
and although not prepared for the dispute, attended on the ap-
pointed day, the 2nd of June, 1140. He produced Abelard's book
in the assembly, and quoted the errors he marked in it ; but Abe-
lard, instead of answering, judging that the Council would be op-
posed to him , appealed to the Pope previous to the delivery of the
sentence, and left the meeting. Though the bishops did not con-
sider his appeal canonical, still, out of respect for the Pope, they did
not condemn Abelard in person ; but St. Bernard having proved
that many propositions in the book were false and heretical, they
condemned these, and then forwarded an account of the whole pro-
ceedings to Innocent II., requesting him to confirm their condem-
natory sentence by his authority, and to punish all who would pre-
sume to contravene it (11 ) . St. Bernard wrote to the same effect
to Innocent, and the Pope not only condemned the writings of
Abelard, but his person likewise, imposing perpetual silence on him
as a heretic, and excommunicating all who would attempt to defend
him ( 12).
11. Ábelard was on his way to Rome to prosecute his appeal,
but happening to pass by Clugni , he had a meeting with Peter the
Venerable, the Abbot of that monastery, and with the Abbot of
Citeaux, who came on purpose to reconcile him with St. Bernard .
The Abbot of Clugni joined his entreaties to those of his brother
of Citeaux , and persuaded him to go and see St. Bernard, and retract
the errors this holy doctor charged him with. Abelard yielded at
last ; he went to Citeaux , became reconciled to St. Bernard and
returned to Clugni, and being there informed that the condemna-
tion of the Council was confirmed by the Pope, he ' resolved to aban-
don his appeal, and to remain in that abbey for the remainder of
his life. The abbot offered to receive him with all his heart, if the
Pope had no objection . Abelard wrote to the Pope, and obtained
his consent, and then became an inmate of the Abbey of Clugni .
He lived there for two years, wearing the habit of the convent, and
leading a life of edification , and even gave lessons to the monks ;
but he was obliged , on account of a heavy fit of sickness , to go for
change of air to the Priory of St. Marcellus, in Burgundy , and he
died there on the 21st of April , in the year 1142 , the 63rd of his
age, and went to enjoy, we hope, eternal happiness ( 13 ) .

(11) Fleury, t. 10, l. 68, n. 61 , 62 ; Nat. Alex. c. 1 . (12) Fleury, loc. cit. n. 67 ;
Nat. Alex. art. 8 in fine. ( 13 ) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. art. 12, & Fleury, loc. cit.
230 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

12. The following errors were attributed to Peter Abelard :


First. He said that the names of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
are improperly attributed to God, and that they only describe the
plenitude of the Supreme Good. Second. - That the Father has a
plenary power, the Son a certain power, but that the Holy Ghost
has not any power. Third. - That the Son is of the substance of
the Father, but that the Holy Ghost is not of the substance of the
Father and the Son. Fourth. - That we can do good without the as-
sistance of grace. Fifth.-That Jesus Christ, as God and man, is not
a third Person of the Trinity. Sixth.-That mankind derives from
Adam the penalty alone, but not the fault of original sin. Seventh.-
That no sin is committed with desire or with delectation, or with
ignorance (14). Graveson (15) says that Abelard asserted in his
Apology that these errors were falsely attributed to him by the
ignorance or malice of others, and Berenger, Bishop of Poictiers, one
of his disciples, also wrote an Apology in defence of his master. But
then the authority of St. Bernard , the Decrees of the Council, and
the condemnation of Innocent II., should have more weight with
us than these Apologies. Graveson and Alexander justly remark ,
that although Abelard may undoubtedly have been the author of
these heretical propositions, still, that he cannot be called a heretic,
as he repented and abjured them. Cardinal Gotti ( 16) , speaking of
him , says : " There is no doubt but that he rendered himself sus-
pected in explaining the Articles of the Faith, so that at one time
he seems an Arian, then a Sabellian , next a Macedonian, now a
Pelagian, and frequently a founder of a new heresy altogether ; but
he finally wiped away all stains by his retractation."
13. Arnold, of the city of Brescia, in Italy, lived also in this
century. He went to study in Paris under Abelard , and was in-
fected with his master's errors. He then returned to Brescia, and
to gain an opinion of sanctity, took the monastic habit, and, about
the year 1138 ( 17) , began to preach and dogmatise against the
truth of the Faith. He was more flippant than profound, and
always attached to new opinions. His sentiments regarding Bap-
tism and the Eucharist were not Catholic, but his principal decla-
mations were against monks, priests, bishops, and the Pope. Those
monks, he said, would be damned who possessed estated property-
the priests who held property also -and the bishops who were in
possession of lordships or feudalties would share the same fate ; the
clergy, he said, should live on the tithes and oblations of the people
alone. The effect of his sermons of this nature was to cause the
clergy of Brescia and the neighbouring cities to be despised and
contemned by the people, and he was, therefore, charged by his

(14) Fleury, n. 61, Alex. art. 5, ex Ep. St. Bernar. (15) Graveson, t. 3, sec. 12,
coll. 3. (16 ) Gotti, Ver. Rel. t. 2, c. 90, s. 3, cum Baron. Ann. 1140, n. 11, & seq.
(17) Nat. Alex. t. 14, s. 12 , c. 3, art. 8.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 231

bishop and others, before the Second Council of Lateran , held in


1139, by Pope Innocent II.; and the Council condemned and im-
posed perpetual silence on him (18) . When Arnold heard of this
sentence, he fled to Zurich, in the diocese of Constance , and did a
great deal of harm there, as the austerity of his life gave authority
to his words, and he was, besides that, supported by the nobles of
the country. When St. Bernard heard this, he wrote to the Bishop
of Zurich (Epis. 195) , exhorting him to be on his guard against so
dangerous a character, and to put him in prison, as the Pope had
commanded, because if he rested satisfied with only banishing him
out of his own diocese, he would be allowing the plague to infect
some other place. He also wrote to Guido, the Pope's Legate, with
whom it was said Arnold had taken refuge (Epis. 146) , putting
him on his guard in like manner.
14. In the first year of the Pontificate of Eugenius III. , 1145 ,
Arnold went to Rome, and blew up the coals of a sedition already
enkindled . He went about saying that the dignity of the Senate
and the Order of Knights should be re-established , and that the
Pope had no right to the government of Rome, as his power was
spiritual alone. The Romans, excited by these discourses, rose
up against the authority of the Prefect of Rome, tore down some
of the houses of the nobility and cardinals, and maltreated, and
even wounded, some of them ( 19) . While Arnold was stirring
up this sedition, he was taken prisoner by Gerard , Cardinal of St.
Nicholas, but was rescued by the Viscounts of the Campagna, and
fell into the hands of Frederic Barbarossa, then King of the Romans,
and when he went to Rome he was met by three cardinals, sent to
him by Adrian IV. , and they, in the Pope's name, demanded that
Arnold should be delivered up to them. Frederic gave him up at
once, and he was brought back to Rome, and according to the
sentence passed on him by his judges, was burned to death in pub-
lic, and his ashes cast into the Tiber. Such was the end of this
disturber of Rome and of the world, as Van Ranst calls him, in
1155 (20).
15. Gilbert de la Poree, a native of Poictiers, was at first a
canon of that city, and afterwards its bishop, in 1141. From the
very first day he began to study philosophy, he was so taken with
logical subtleties, that when he afterwards applied himself to
scholastic theology, which was then just beginning to be developed,
he wished to judge everything by the rules of philosophy, and to
use them as a standard for the articles of the Faith ; and hence the
origin of his errors. He said that the Divine Essence was not God,
and that the proprietates of the Persons are not the Persons them-
selves ; that the Divine Nature did not become incarnate, but only

(18) Fleury, t. 10, l. 68, n. 55 ; Gotti, loc. cit. s. 1 ; Nat. Alex. loc. cit. (19) Nat.
Alex. loc. cit.; Fleury, t. 10, l. 69, n. 10 ; Gotti, loc. cit. (20) Van Ranst, Hist. p. 148 ;
Fleury, t. 10, . 70, n. 1 ; Nat. Alex. & Gotti, loc. cit.
232 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

the person of the Son, and that baptism is received alone by those
predestined to glory. He was charged with these errors in the
year 1145, and Pope Eugenius III. , to whom the complaint was
made, ordered his accusers to have the whole affair investigated in
a Council in Paris. The Synod was accordingly held, and St.
Bernard attended, and strenuously combated his errors ; but nothing
was decided till the following year, in which a Council was held
in Rheims, at which the Pope himself attended, and condemned
Gilbert's doctrine. He at once bowed to the decision of the
Pontiff, abjured his errors, was reconciled to his accusers, who
were two of his own archdeacons, and returned with honour to his
diocese (21 ).
16. Other heretics disturbed the peace of the Church in this
century. One of these was Folmar, Principal of the Church of
Trieffenstein, in Franconia ; he said that in the Eucharist the blood
alone of Jesus Christ was received under the appearance of wine,
and the flesh alone, not the bones or the members, under the
appearance of bread, and that it was not the Son of Man that was
received, but the flesh alone of the Son of Man . He , however,
soon retracted, and abjured his errors in a letter he wrote to the
bishops of Bavaria and Austria ( 22 ). Tanquelinus taught that the
reception of the Holy Eucharist was of no avail for salvation, and
that the ministry of priests and bishops was of no value, and was
not instituted by Christ. He infected the city of Antwerp, but it
was afterwards purged from this heresy by St. Norbert, founder
of the Premonstratensians and Archbishop of Magdeburg ( 23) .
Joachim, an abbot in Calabria , lived also in this century ; he fell
into some errors regarding the Trinity, in a treatise he wrote
against Peter Lombard ; he denied that the three Divine Persons
are one and the same as the Divine Nature, and he also said that
in the mystery of the Trinity, essence generates essence, insinuat-
ing by that, that each Divine Person has a particular essence.
This was a renewal of the Tritheism of John Philiponus, infected
with the Eutychian heresy, who taught that there are three natures
in the Trinity, confounding the three Persons with the three natures.
This treatise was condemned in the Fourth Council of Lateran,
celebrated by Innocent III., in 1215. Joachim, however, had
previously died in 1201 , and submitted all his writings to the
judgment of the Church, so Honorius III. , the successor of Inno-
cent, would not have him considered as a heretic ( 24). The
Apostolicals also infested the Church about this time ;. among
other errors, they condemned marriage , and even bound themselves
by a vow of chastity, though the licentiousness of their lives showed

(21 ) Nat. Alex. t. 14, s. 12, c. 4, a. 9 ; Graveson, His. Eccl. t. 3, sec. 12, coll. 3;
Fleury, t. 10, l. 69, n. 23. (22) Nat. Alex. t. 14, s. 12 , c. 4, ar. 12. (23) Nat. loc.
cit. ar. 6. (24) Graves. t. 3, s. 12, Coll. 3 ; Fleury, t. 11, l. 77, n. 46 ; Berti, s. 12,
c. 3 ; Van Ranst, p. 214.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 233

what little regard they had for that angelic virtue (25) . We have
already spoken of the Bogomiles ( Chap. iv. N. 81 ), treating of the
heresy of the Messalians . We have now to investigate the history
of the Waldenses
17. Peter Waldo, the founder of the sect of the Waldenses,
began to preach his heresy in the year 1160, on the occasion of the
sudden death of a great personage in Lyons, who dropped dead in
the presence of a great many people. He was so terrified at the
occurrence, that he immediately distributed a large sum of money
to the poor, and a great many people joined him out of devotion,
and became his followers. He was a man of some learning , and
began to explain the New Testament to his followers, and taught
several errors . The clergy immediately took up arms against him,
but he set them at defiance, telling his followers that they (the
clergy) were both ignorant and corrupt, and that they were envious
of his exemplary life and learning. Such is the origin of the
Waldenses, according to Fleury, Alexander, and Gotti ( 26) ; but
Graveson gives another account ( 27) ; he says, that Peter Waldo ,
having either heard or read the 19th chapter of the Gospel of St.
Matthew, in which our Lord tells us that we should sell our goods,
and give the price to the poor, persuaded himself that he was called
on to renew the Apostolic life, and accordingly sold his property,
gave all to the poor, and led a life of poverty himself. A person
of the name of John , terrified at the sudden death already spoken
of, sold his patrimony, likewise , and joined him ; many others fol-
lowed their example, and in a little time the sect became so
numerous, that in the diocese of Poictiers alone they had forty-one
schools . From these seats of iniquity sprung several sects, enu-
merated by Rainer ( 28 ) , who for seventeen years was a Waldensian ,
but his eyes at length being opened to their impiety, he forsook
them, joined the Catholic Church, and became a distinguished
member of the Order of St. Dominick . The different sects that
sprouted out from the parent stock took various names ; they were
called Waldenses, from Peter Waldo ; Lyonists, or poor men of
Lyons, from the city whence they originated ; Picards, Lombards,
Bohemians, Bulgarians, from the provinces they overran ; Arnaldists,
Josepeists, and Lollards, from Doctors of the sect ; Cathari , from
the purity of heart they boasted of; Bons Hommes , or good men,
from their apparent sanctity and regularity of life ; Sabbatists, or
Insabatists, either from the peculiar shoe or sandal, with a cross
cut on the top, which they wore, or because they rejected the
celebration of the Sabbath and other festivals ( 29 ) .
18. The Waldenses fell into very many errors, which Rainer,
quoted by Noel Alexander, enumerates (30). We will only men-

(25) N. Alex. loc. cit. ar. 11. (26) Fleury, t. 11, l. 73, n. 55 ; Nat. Alex . t. 14,
c. 4, ar. 13 ; Gotti, t. 2, c. 93, s. 1. (27) Graves. t. 3, s. 12, Coll. 3. (28 ) Rainer,
Opusc. de Hæret. (29) Graves. loc. cit. & Nat. Alex. loc. cit. (30) Nat. Alex.
loc. cit. ar. 13, s. 2, & seq.
234 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

tion the principal ones here. The Roman Church, they said, failed
in the time of Pope St. Sylvester, when it entered into the posses-
sion of temporal property, and that they alone were the true
Church, as they followed the Apostles and the Gospel in holding
no possessions. The Pope, they said, was the head of all errors,
the bishops, Scribes, and the religious, Pharisees. Tithes ought
not to be paid, as they were not paid in the primitive Church.
They only believed in two sacraments, Baptism and the Eucharist,
and baptism, they said, was of no use to infants. A priest falling
into mortal sin, according to them, lost the power of absolving and
consecrating, and, on the contrary, a good layman has the power
of giving absolution. They rejected indulgences, and the dispen-
sations of the Church, the fasts commanded to be observed , and all
the ceremonies of the Roman Church. They abhorred holy images
and the sign of the Cross even ; denied the distinction between
mortal and venial sin , and said it was unlawful to take an oath,
even in judgment. These heretics were first condemned by Alex-
ander III., in 1163 ; in the Synod of Tours, in 1175 or 1176 ; in
the Synod of Lombes, in 1178 ; in one held in Toulouse by Peter,
Cardinal and Legate of the Pope ; in the Third General Council
of Lateran, in 1179 ; in the Fourth General Council of Lateran, in
1215 ; and finally, in the Constitution of Gregory IX., " Cap.
Excommunicamus, 15 de Herat." in which all the heretics of all
the above-named sects are anathematized ( 31 ) .

ARTICLE III.

HERESIES OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.

19. The Albigenses and their Errors. 20. The Corruption of their Morals. 21. Con-
ferences held with them, and their Obstinacy. 22. They create an Anti-Pope.
23. Glorious Labours of St. Dominick, and his stupendous Miracles. 24. Crusade
under the Command of Count Montfort, in which he is victorious. 25. Glorious
Death ofthe Count, and Destruction of the Albigenses. 26. Sentence of the Fourth
Council of Lateran, in which the Dogma is defined in Opposition to their Tenets.
27. Amalric and his Heresy ; the Errors added by his Disciples ; they are condemned.
28. William de St. Amour and his Errors. 29. The Flagellants and their Errors.
30. The Fratricelli and their Errors, condemned by John XXII.

19. THE heretics called the Albigenses , sprung from the Wal-
denses, made their appearance in this century, and were so called ,
because they first spread themselves in the territory of the city of
Albi , or that part of Narbonic Gaul called Albigensum, and sub-
sequently inthe province of Toulouse ( 1 ) . Graveson (2) says that
the impurities of all other heresies were joined in this one sect.
This sect was in existence previous to the reign of Innocent III.,
but it was so strong in the year 1198 , that Cesarius ( 3 ) , a contem-

(31 ) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. s. 7. (1) Nat. Alex. t. 16, c. 3, ar. 1. (2) Graves. t. 3,
s. 12, Coll. 3. (3) Cæsar Heisterb. Dial. Mirac. Diss. 5, c. 2.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 235

poraneous author, says, that almost all the pure grain of the Faith
of the people was turned into tares. Spondanus gives the following
list of their errors (4) : First.-They received the New Testament
alone, rejecting the Old, with the exception of the passages quoted
by our Lord, and his Apostles ; they, likewise renounced all Catholic
Doctors, and when asked for an account of their Faith , they said
they were not bound to answer. Second. They taught that there
were two Gods, a good and a bad one ; the good one, the author of
the New Testament, and the Creator of all invisible things ; the
bad one, the author of the Old Testament, the Creator of man , and
of all visible things. Third.-They said that baptism was useless
to infants. Fourth.-That an unworthy priest had not power to
consecrate the Eucharist. Fifth.- That matrimony was nothing
more than concubinage, and that no one could be saved in that
state, and still their morals were most corrupt. Sixth . That no
one should obey either bishops or priests, unless they have acquired
the qualities required by the Apostles ; and that they have no power
in the Sacraments or in Divine things, and that no one, therefore,
should pay tithes to them . Seventh. That churches should not
be dedicated to God or the Saints, and that the faithful are not
bound to pray or to give alms, either to the poor or to churches,
and that it was quite sufficient to confess to any one at all, and that
penance was of no use. Noel Alexander (5) , besides these errors,
enumerates several others, as that the Fathers of the Old Testament
were all damned ; that St. John the Baptist was a demon ; that the
Roman Church is the harlot ofthe Apocalypse ; that the resurrection
of the body is all a lie ; that the Sacraments are all false , and that
the Eucharist, Confirmation , Orders, and the Mass are nothing
more than superstitions ; that the souls of men are no other than
the rebellious spirits who fell from heaven ; that there was no pur-
gatory, and they blasphemously applied to the Virgin Mother of
God a term we dread to make use of.
20. They led most horribly immoral lives. Lucas Tudensis (6) hor-
rifies us by recounting what he heard from some of them who forsook
the sect, and joined the Catholic Church . Murder, cheating, theft,
and usury were quite common among them, but their impurities
were above all of the most horrible description ; the nearest relatives
had no regard to the decencies of life, or the very laws of nature
itself. The old people, he says, are blasphemous and cruel ; the
young ripe for every wickedness ; the children, from the universal
depravity, belonging to no father in particular, are depraved from
their childhood ; and the infants imbibe the most pernicious errors
with their mothers' milk ; the women, without shame or modesty,
go about among their neighbours, making others as bad as them-

(4) Spondan. Epit. Baron. ad Ann. 1181 . (5) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. s. 2.
(6 ) Lucas Tuden. 7. 3, adv. Albig.
236 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

selves . Among the other proofs of their impiety, Cesarius (7) tells
us, that when they were besieged by the Catholics in Bessiers, they
indecently defiled a book of the Gospels, and threw it from the
walls into the ranks of the besiegers, amidst a shower of arrows,
crying out : " Behold your law, wretches."
21. The Albigenses laboured to gain proselytes not alone by
persuasion, but by force of arms likewise ; and the Catholics , there-
fore, found it necessary to have recourse not alone to preaching,
but were obliged to summon the power of the Prince to their aid.
Peter of Castlenau and Rodulph, Cistercian monks, together with
their Abbot, Arnold , appointed Apostolic Legates by Innocent III. ,
were the first to oppose them. The holy Bishop of Osma joined
them, and without attendance or money, like the Apostles , they
proceeded on foot to preach to the heretics, and their first conference
was held in Montreal, in the diocese of Carcasonne. They disputed
for fifteen days in presence of judges chosen for the purpose, and
the heretics were convinced, but the judges being favourable to the
heretical party , suppressed the sentence, and would not even give
up the Acts of the disputation. The preachers remained in the city
to instruct the people, and supported themselves by begging from
door to door. The Abbot of Citeaux and twelve of his monks,
together with the Bishop of Osma, spread themselves through the
country, preaching and disputing with the heretics. The Bishop
of Osma and some other prelates held another conference with the
Albigenses in Pamiers, and the heretics were so confounded that
the judge of the Conference, a nobleman of the city, abjured
his errors , and more followed his example every day (8) . The
Cistercian, Peter of Castlenau , the Pope's Legate, having found it
necessary to excommunicate Raymond, Count of Toulouse, the
chief favourer of the heretics, was summoned before him to clear
himself from charges laid against him; he went accordingly, but
nothing was decided on in the interview ; the Count even uttered
threats against him when he was about to take his departure, and
sent two of his servants to accompany him. One of them, while
the Legate was passing the Rhone, ran him through with a lance.
Peter at once felt that the wound was mortal. " God pardon me ,"
said he, " as I pardon you ," and died shortly after. Pope Innocent,
when informed of his death, declared him a martyr, and excommu-
nicated his murderers and all their accomplices, and gave orders to
the bishops of the provinces of Arles and Narbonne and the neigh-
bouring territories again to excommunicate the Count of Tou-
louse (9).
22. A few years after the Albigenses elected a person of the name
of Bartolomew, an anti- Pope. He resided on the borders of Dal-

(7) Cæsar. l. 5, de Demon. (8) Gotti, Ver. Rel. t. 2, c. 94, s. 3. ( 9) Fleury,


t. 11, l. 76, n. 36 ; Gotti, loc. cit.; Nat. Alex. loc. cit.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 237

matia and Bulgaria , and was the chief adviser of the heretics. He
appointed another person ofthe same name as his vicar, and he took
up his residence in the territory of Toulouse, and sent round to all
the neighbouring cities his principal's letters, headed , " Bartholomew,
servant of the servants of the holy Faith, to N. N. health ." This
vicar pretended to consecrate bishops and regulate the Church ( 10),
but the Almighty soon put a stop to all by the death of the anti-
Pope ( 11 ).
23. It is now time to speak of the glorious labours of St. Domi-
nick, who may justly be called the exterminator of the Albigenses
He was engaged nine years, according to Graveson, or seven, ac-
cording to Van Ranst, in battling with them, and finally he insti-
tuted the Order of Preachers, to bring back the strayed sheep to the
fold of the Catholic Church. He attended the Bishop of Osma at
the conference he held with the heretics, and was a most strenuous
opponent of their errors, both by preaching and writing, and God
confirmed his exertions by miracles. Peter de Valle Sernai , a Cis-
tercian monk (12 ) , relates the following miracle, and says he had it
from the man himself in whose possession the paper was. After the
conference of Montreal, St. Dominick wrote down the texts he cited
on a sheet of paper, and gave it to one ofthe heretics to peruse them
at his leisure. The next evening several Albigenses were seated
round a fire considering it, when one of them proposed to throw
the paper into the fire, and if it burn, said he, that is a proof
that our faith is the true one, but should that not be the case, we
must believe the Catholic faith. All agreed, the paper was cast
into the flames, and , after lying there some time, it leaped out un-
scorched . All were surprised ; but one ofthe most incredulous
among them suggested that the experiment should be tried again ;
it was done so, and the result was the same. Try it a third, said
the heretic ; a third time it was tried , and with the same effect. But
for all that they agreed to keep the whole affair a secret, and re-
mained as obstinate as before. There was a soldier present, however,
somewhat inclined to the Catholic faith, and he told it to a great
many persons ( 13) . God wrought another more public miracle
through his servant in Fois, near Carcasonne ; he challenged the
heretics, in one of his sermons, to a formal disputation , and each
party agreed to bring, in writing, to the Conference, their profes-
sion of Faith , and the principal arguments in support of it. The
saint laid down his document, the heretics did the same ; they then
proposed that each paper should be thrown into the fire, to leave
the judgment to God. St. Dominick, inspired by the Almighty,
immediately cast his paper into the flames ; the heretics also threw
in theirs, which was immediately burned to ashes, while the saint's
(10) Parisius, Hist. Anglic. an. 1223. (11 ) Fleury, t. 11 , Z. 78, n. 60 ; Gotti, loc.
cit.; Nat. Alex. loc. cit. s. 2. (12) Pat. Vallis. Ser. His. Albig. c. 7. (13) Nat.
Alex. t. 16, c. 3 ; Gotti, Ver. Rel. t. 2, c. 94, cap. 3.
238 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

remained intact on top of the burning coals. Three times it


was cast into the fire , and always came forth untouched by the
flames (14).
24. Neither miracles nor missions had any effect on the Albi-
genses, however, who every day became more powerful, under the
protection of several princes, and especially of Raymond , Count of
Toulouse. Pope Innocent III. , therefore, considered it necessary
at last to call on the Catholic princes to free the Church from these
enemies, and therefore wrote to Philip, King of France, and to the
otherprinces ofthat kingdom, and likewise to the bishops and faithful,
calling on them to take up arms for the extermination of these here-
tics, and granting them the same indulgences as were granted to
those who put on the cross for the liberation of the Holy Land.
This Bull was published in 1210, and immediately a great number
of soldiers, not only from France but elsewhere, enrolled themselves
in this crusade under the command of Count Simon of Montfort.
The Albigenses numbered a hundred thousand , the Crusaders only
twelve hundred, and Count Montfort was advised not to risk an
engagement ; but he said : " We are numerous enough , for we fight
for God and God for us." He divided his small army into three
bodies, and made a feint, as if about to march on Toulouse, but
turned on the vanguard of the enemy, and attacked them with such
fury, that at first they wavered, and finally took to flight. Mont-
fort, encouraged by this success, gave orders to his three small
divisions to unite, and , without loss of time , attacked the main body
of the enemy, among whom was the King of Arragon . The Count
broke through the ranks, and singled out the King ; he charged
him with his lance, but Montfort, parrying the blow with one hand,
seized the King with the other, and unhorsed him, and his esquire
immediately dispatched the fallen monarch. The enemy was panic-
struck with the King's death , and fled in every direction , and the
Crusaders cut them down almost without opposition. It is said that
between the Albigenses and the Arragonese twenty thousand fell
that day, with only a loss of six or seven persons to the Catho-
lics (15) . The letters written by the French bishops to all the
churches of Christendom , on the occasion of this glorious and stu-
pendous victory, are still extant ( 16 ).
25. Count Montfort, after so many glorious actions in defence of
the Faith , died gloriously, like Judas Maccabeus, at the second
siege of Toulouse. He was told that the enemy were concealed in
the trenches ; but he armed, and went to the church to hear Mass,
and recommended himself and his cause to God. While he was
hearing Mass, he was informed that the people of Toulouse were
attacking the troops who had charge of the besieging engines ; but
he refused to move until, as he said, he had heard Mass, and seen
(14) Gotti, loc. cit. (15) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. s. 4 ; Gotti, loc. cit. s. 4 ; Bernin. t. 3;
ec. 13, c. 1 ; Graveson, t. 4, sec. 33 ; Coll. 3. (16) Rainald. Ann. 1213, n. 60.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 239

his God on the altar. Another messenger came in haste to tell him
his troops were giving way, but he dismissed him, saying : " I want
to see my Redeemer." After adoring the Sacred Host, he raised
up his hands to heaven, and exclaimed : " Now thou dost dismiss
thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word, in peace, because mine
eyes have seen thy salvation. Now," said he, "let us proceed, and
die, if necessary, for him who died for us." His soldiers rallied at
once when he appeared among them; but he approached too near
to the engines, and a stone from one of them struck him in the head,
and he had barely time to recommend himself to God and the
Blessed Virgin, when his spirit fled. This was on the 25th of
June, 1218 (17 ) . After the death of this great champion of the
Lord, and martyr of Christ, as Peter de Valle Sernai ( 18) calls him,
Louis VIII., King of France, prosecuted the war, and in the year
1236 took Avignon from the enemy, after a siege of three months,
and several other strong places besides. St. Louis IX. , by the ad-
vice of Pope Gregory IX. , prosecuted the war, and having taken
the city of Toulouse, the young Count Raymond-for his wicked
father met with a sudden death- signed a treaty of peace, on the
conditions prescribed to him by the King and the Pope's Legate,
the principal one of which was, that he would use all his power to
extirpate the Albigensian heresy in his territory. The heretics,
thus deprived of all assistance, dwindled away by degrees, and
totally disappeared, as Graveson tells us ( 19 ), though Noel Alexan-
der and Cardinal Gotti say that they were not totally put down (20).
26. These heretics having been previously condemned in parti-
cular Synods, at Montilly, Avignon, Montpelier, Paris, and Nar-
bonne, were finally condemned in the Fourth General Council of
Lateran, celebrated and presided over by Pope Innocent III., in
1215. In the first Chapter of this Council it was decreed , in oppo-
sition to these heretics, " that there was one universal principle, the
Creator of all, visible and invisible, corporeal and spiritual things,
who by his Almighty power, in the beginning of time, created from
nothing both spiritual and corporeal, angelic and earthly beings,
and man likewise, as consisting of body and spirit. The devil, and
all other evil spirits, were created by God good , according to their
nature, but became bad of themselves, and man sinned at the sug-
gestion of the devil. The Holy Trinity, undivided, as to its com-
mon essence- divided, as to its personal proprietates- gave saving
doctrine to mankind, by Moses and the Holy Prophets, and other
servants, according to the properly-ordained disposition of time ;
and, at length, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, by the
whole Trinity in common , incarnate of Mary, ever Virgin, con-
ceived by the co-operation of the Holy Ghost, and made true man,

(17) Fleury, t. 11, l. 78, n. 18 ; Nat. and Gotti, loc. cit. (18) Pet. Vallises. Ilis.
Albig. c. 86. (19) Grav. loc. cit. (20) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. sec. 4, & Gotti, loc. cit.
240 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

composed of a rational soul and a real body, one person in two na-
tures, more clearly pointed out to us the way of life ; who, accord-
ing to his Divinity, being impassible and immortal, was made
passible and mortal, according to his humanity, and suffered and
died on the wood of the Cross for the salvation of mankind , de-
scended into hell, arose from the dead , and ascended into heaven ;
but he descended in the spirit, arose in the flesh, and in both ascended
into heaven, and shall come in the end of the world to judge both
the living and the dead, and shall render to each- both the repro-
bate and the elect-according to their works. For all shall arise in
the same bodies they now have , to receive, according to their de-
serts, either rewards or punishment—the wicked , eternal punish-
ment with the devil-the good , eternal glory with Christ. There
is one universal Church of all the faithful, out of which there is no
salvation, in which Jesus Christ is, at the same time, priest and
sacrifice , and his body and blood is truly contained under the ap-
pearance of bread and wine, the bread being, by the Divine power,
transubstantiated into the body, and the wine into the blood, that
we might receive from him what he received from us to perfect the
mystery of Unity; and no one but a priest rightly ordained accord-
ing to the keys of the Church, which Jesus Christ himself granted
to the apostles, and to their successors, can consecrate this holy Sa-
crament. The Sacrament of Baptism, consecrated to the invocation
of the undivided Trinity, Father, Son , and Holy Ghost, properly
administered in water, both to infants and adults , by any person ,
according to the form of the Church , is available to salvation . And
should any one, after receiving baptism, fall into sin, he can be
always healed by true repentance. Not virgins alone, and those
who observe continence, but married persons, likewise, pleasing
God by true faith and good works, shall deservedly obtain eternal
happiness (21 ).
27. In this century also lived Amalric, or Amaury, a priest, a
native of Bene , near Chartres. He studied in Paris, and was a
great logician, and taught this science with great applause. He
then applied himself to the study of Sacred Scripture and theology,
and as he was fond of newfangled opinions, he had the rashness to
teach that every Christian ought to believe himself a natural mem-
ber of Christ, and that no one could be saved unless he so believed.
The University of Paris condemned this opinion in 1204 , but
Amalric refused to submit to the sentence, and appealed to Inno-
cent III., and went to Rome to prosecute his appeal in person ;
the Pope, however, confirmed the sentence, and obliged him to
make a public abjuration in the presence of the University. He
obeyed the Pope's orders in 1207, but his heart belied what his
lips uttered, and so great was his chagrin that he soon after died .

(21) Nat. Alex. t. 16, c. 3, s. 5 ; Gotti, t. 2 , c. 94.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 241

His disciples added new errors to those taught by their master.


The power of the Fathers, they said, lasted only during the period
of the Mosaic Law ; the New Law lasted from that till their own
times that is, twelve hundred years ; and then the Law of the
Holy Ghost began, when all sacraments, and all other assistances
to salvation ceased , and every one could be saved by the grace of
the Holy Ghost alone, without any act of his own. The virtue of
charity, they said, caused that that which before was sinful, if
done through charity was sinful no longer, and thus, under the
pretext of charity, they committed the most impure actions. They
asserted that the body of Christ was only in the Consecrated Host
as in any other bread, and that God spoke as much through Ovid
as through St. Augustin, and they denied the Resurrection , heaven,
and hell, for those who thought about God as they did had heaven
in themselves, and those who fell into mortal sin had hell in their
own bosoms (22) . Raul of Nemours, and another priest, laboured
assiduously to discover these heretics in several dioceses, not only
many of the laity, but also some priests, being infected with it, and,
when they discovered them, had them conveyed to Paris, and put
in the bishop's prison. A Council of Bishops and Doctors was held
in 1209 , in which some of those unfortunate people retracted ; but
others obstinately refused , and were degraded, and handed over to
the royal power, and were, by orders of the King, burned outside
the gates of Paris ; and the bones of Amalric were exhumed at the
same time, and burned , and thrown on the dunghill. It was also
ordered, that Aristotle's Metaphysics, which was the fountain of
this heresy, should be burned likewise, and all persons were pro-
hibited, under pain of excommunication , from reading or keeping
the work in their possession . In this Council were , likewise , con-
demned the books of David of Nantz, who asserted that God was
the Materia Prima. St. Thomas wrote against him in 1215 ( 23 ) .
The heresy of Amalric was condemned in express terms, in the
Fourth General Council of Lateran, cap. ii. (24).
28. William de St. Amour, a doctor of Sorbonne, and canon of
Beauvais, lived in this century also . He wrote a work, entitled ,
" De Periculis adversus Mendicantes Ordines," in opposition to the
friars, who made a vow of poverty, in which he asserted that it
was not a work of perfection to follow Christ in poverty and men-
dicancy, and that, in order to be perfect, it was necessary , after
giving up all we had, either to live by manual labour, or to enter
into a monastery, which would afford all the necessaries of life ;
that the Mendicant Friars, by begging, acted contrary to the Holy
Scriptures, and that it was not lawful for them to teach the laity,
to preach, to be enrolled as Masters in Colleges, or to hear the

(22) Fleury, t. 11 , l. 67, n. 59 ; Nat. Alex. c. 16, 1. 3, a. 2 ; Graveson, f. 4, sec. 13,


coll. 3. (23 ) St. Thomas, 1 , p. 9, 3, ar. 8. (24) Fleury, Nat. Alex. Graveson,
loc. cit.
Q
242 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

confessions of the laity. This work was condemned by Pope


Alexander IV., in the year 1252, and publicly burned, and the
following year the author was banished from all the dominions of
France, and a few years after, died a miserable exile (25) .
29. In the year 1274 , the sect of the Flagellants sprung up, and
first made its appearance in Perugia, and thence spread on, even
to Rome itself. A torrent of vice had overspread the Italian
Peninsula about that time, and a violent spirit of reaction com-
menced. All were seized on by a new sort of devotion , and old and
young, rich and poor, nobles, and plebeians-not alone men, but
even ladies -terrified with the dread of Divine judgments, went
about the streets, in procession , nearly naked, or, at least, with
bared shoulders, beating themselves with scourges, and imploring
mercy. Even the darkness of the night, and the rigors of winter,
could not subdue their enthusiasm . Numerous bodies of penitents
-sometimes even as many as twelve thousand- marched in pro-
cession , preceded by priests, and crosses, and banners ; and the
towns, and villages, and plains, resounded with their cries for
mercy. A great change for the better in the morals of the people
was the first fruit of this wonderful movement- enemies were
reconciled, thieves restored their ill-gotten wealth, and all were
reconciled to God, by confession. They used to scourge them-
selves twice a day, it is said, for thirty-three days, in honour of the
thirty-three years of our Lord's life, and sung, at the same time,
some canticles in honour of his Sacred Passion. From Italy this
practice spread into Germany, Poland , and other kingdoms ; but, as
neither the Pope nor the bishops approved of this public form of
penance, it speedily degenerated into superstition. They said that
no one could be saved unless by adopting this practice for a month ;
they used to hear the confessions of each other, and give absolu-
tion, though only lay people ; and they had the madness to pretend
that even the damned were served by their penance. Pope Cle-
ment VI . formally condemned this heresy, and wrote to the bishops
of Germany, Poland, Switzerland , England , and France , on the
subject, which proves how widely it was spread ; he also wrote to
all secular princes, calling on them to scatter these hypocrites, to
disperse their conventicles, and, above all , to imprison their lead-
ers (26) .
30. Another sect-the offspring of an ill-judged piety also-
sprung up in this century, that of the Fratricelli . This sect
originated with Peter of Macerata and Peter of Fossombrone, two
apostate Franciscan friars, who, playing on the simplicity of Pope
Celestine V. , got permission from him to lead an eremetical life,
and observe the rule of St. Francis to the very letter. Boni-

(25) Fleury, t. 12, l. 84, n. 30 ; Nat. Alex. t. 16, c. 3, ar. 7 ; Berti, Brev. Histor. sec.
13, c. 3. (26) Nat. Alex. t. 16, sec. 13, art. 5 ; Fleury, t. 13, l. 84, n. 62.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 243

face VIII., Celestine's successor, soon saw that this institute was a
source of error, which was spreading every day more widely, and
he, accordingly, in express terms, condemned it ; but , notwithstand-
ing this sentence, the Fratricelli every day increased in numbers, and
openly preached their tenets. John XXII . , therefore, found it
necessary to publish a Bull against them in 1318, and, as Noel
Alexander relates, condemned the following errors adopted by
them -First.- They taught that there were two churches, one
carnal, abounding in delights, and stained with crime, governed
by the Roman Pontiff and his prelates ; the other spiritual, adorned
with virtue, clothed in poverty, to which they alone, and those
who held with them, belonged, and of which they, on account
of their spiritual lives, were justly the head. Second.- That the
venerable churches, priests, and other ministers, were so deprived
both of the power of order and jurisdiction, that they could neither
administer the sacraments, nor instruct the people, as all who did
not join their apostacy were deprived of all spiritual power, for
(as they imagined) , as with them alone holiness of life was found,
so with them alone authority resided. Third.-That in them alone
was the Gospel of Christ fulfilled, which hitherto was either thrown
aside or totally lost among men (27).

ARTICLE IV .
HERESIES OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

31. The Beghards and Beguines ; their Errors condemned by Clement V. 32. Marsilius
of Padua, and John Jandunus ; their Writings condemned as heretical by John XXII.
83. John Wickliffe, and the Beginning of his Heresy. 34. Is assisted by John Ball ;
Death of the Archbishop of Canterbury. 35. The Council of Constance condemns
forty-five Articles of Wickliffe. 36, 37. Miraculous Confirmation of the Real Pre-
sence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist. 38. Death of Wickliffe.

31. THE Beghards and Beguines sprung up in Germany in this


century. Van Ranst (1 ) draws a distinction between the good
Beghards, who, in Flanders, especially, professed the third rule of
the Order of St. Francis, and the heretics ; and also between the
Beguines, ladies, who led a religious life, though not bound by vows,
and the heretical Beguines, whose conduct was not remarkable for
purity. The religious Beguines deduce their origin either from St.
Begghe, Duchess of Brabant, and daughter of Pepin , Mayor of the
Palace to the King of Austrasia, or from Lambert le Begue, a pious
priest, who lived in 1170. The origin of the name adopted by the
heretics is uncertain ; but the followers of the Fratricelli were called
by that name in Germany and the Low Countries, as were also the
followers of Gerard Segarelli and Dulcinus, who both were burned
alive for their errors. The doctrines professed by the Beghards was
as absurd as it was impious. Man, said they, might arrive at such

(27) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. (1 ) Van Ranst, Hist. Heres. p. 221.
244 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

a degree of perfection , even in this life, as to become totally impec-


cable, and even incapable of advancing any more in grace , and when
he arrives at this state, he should no longer fast or pray, for sensu-
ality is then so entirely subjected to reason and the spirit, that any-
thing the body desires may be freely granted to it. Those who
have arrived at that pitch of perfection are no longer subject to
human obedience , or bound by the precepts of the Church. Man
can, even in the present life , being thus perfect, obtain final beati-
tude, as well as he shall obtain it hereafter in the realms of the
blessed , for every intellectual nature is in itself blessed, and the soul
does not require the light of glory to see God. It is only imperfect
men who practise acts of virtue, for the perfect soul throws off virtue
altogether. " Mulieris osculum (cum ad hoc natura non inclinet) est
mortale peccatum , actus autem carnalis (cum ad hoc natura inclinet)
peccatum non est maxime cum tentatur exercens ." When the body
of Christ is elevated , a perfect man should not show any reverence,
for it would be an imperfection to descend from the summit of his
contemplation, to think on the Eucharist or on the humanity of
Christ. It is remarkable that many of their opinions were adopted
by the Quietists in a subsequent century. Clement V. condemned
these heretics in a General Council, held in Vienne, in Dauphiny,
in 1311.
32. Marsilius Menandrinus, of Padua, and John Jandunus, of
Perugia, also lived in this century. Marsilius published a book,
called " Defensorum Pacis," and Jandunus contributed some addi-
tions to it. The errors scattered through the work were condemned
by Pope John XXII ., as heretical, and refuted by several theolo-
gians, especially by Noel Alexander, who gives the following
account of them (2 ) . When Christ paid tribute to Cæsar, he did it
as matter of obligation and not of piety, and when he ascended
into heaven he appointed no visible head in the Church , left no
Vicar, nor had St. Peter more authority than the rest of the
Apostles. It is the Emperor's right to appoint, remove, and punish
prelates, and when the Papal See is vacant he has the right of go-
verning the Church. All priests, not even excepting bishops and
the Pope, have, by the institution of Christ, equal authority and
jurisdiction , unless the Emperor wishes that one should have more
power than another. The whole united Church has not the power
to punish any man, and no bishop or meeting of bishops can inflict
a sentence of excommunication or interdict, unless by authority of
the Prince. Bishops, collectively or individually, can no more ex-
communicate the Pope than he can them. The dispensation for
marriages, prohibited by human law alone, and not by Divine law,
belongs, of right, to the Prince. To the Prince, by right, it belongs
to give a definitive judgment, in regard to persons about to be

(2) Nat. Alex. t. 16, c. 3, ar. 13, p. 193.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 245

ordained, and bishops should not ordain any one without his autho-
rity. We will now speak of Wickliffe, the leader of all the so-called
Reformers.
33. John Wickliffe began to preach his heresy in 1374, some
say because he was disappointed in the bishopric of Winchester.*
He was learned in scholastic theology, which he taught at Oxford,
and was a favourite preacher, always followed by the people. He
led an austere life, was meanly clothed, and even went barefooted.
Edward III. died, and was succeeded by his grandson, Richard,
the son of Edward, the Black Prince, who was then only eleven
years of age ; and his uncle, the Duke of Lancaster, was a man of
very lax sentiments in regard to religion , and extended his protec-
tion to Wickliffe, who openly preached his heresy (3) . Gregory IX.,
who then governed the Church , complained to the Archbishop of
Canterbury and the Bishop of London, that they were not active
enough in putting a stop to this plague, and he wrote on the same
subject to the King and the University of Oxford (4) . A Synod
of Bishops and Doctors was accordingly summoned, and Wickliffe
was cited to appear and account for himself; he obeyed the sum-
mons, and excused himself by explaining away, as well as he
could, the obnoxious sense of his doctrine, and putting another
meaning on it. He was then only admonished to be more prudent
for the future was absolved , and commanded to be silent from
thenceforward (5 ) .
34. Wickliffe was assisted by a wicked priest of the name of
John Ball, who escaped from the prison where his bishop had con-
fined him for his crimes, and joined the Reformers, who gladly re-
ceived him. The subject of his discourses to the people was, that
all ranks should be levelled , and the nobility and magistracy done
away with, and he was joined by over an hundred thousand
levellers. They laid their demands before the sovereign, but
could not obtain what they desired ; they considered that the
Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Sudbury, a good man in the
main, but too weak a disposition to cope with the troubles of the
times, influenced the sovereign's mind against them ; they re-
solved on his death, therefore, and stormed the tower, where he
had taken refuge, and found him praying, and recommending his
soul to God. He addressed them mildly, and tried to calm their
rage, but his executioner, John Sterling, stepped forward , and told
him to prepare for death. The good bishop then confessed that

(3) Nat. Alex. s. 6, n. 1 ; Gotti, loc. cit. n. 2. (4) Gotti, ib. n. 3 ; Nat. Alex. 6,
n. 1; Grav. loc. cit. (5) Nat. Alex. s. 6, n. 1 ; Gotti, ibid. n. 5, & Grav. loc. cit.

I believe the holy author was misled in this fact ; it is generally supposed that the
primary cause of his rancour against the monastic orders and the Court of Kome were his
expulsion from the wardenship of Canterbury Hall, into which he had illegally intruded
himself. See LINGARD, vol. iv. c. 2.
246 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

he deserved that punishment for not being more vigorous in the


discharge of his duties, perhaps, and stretched forth his neck to
receive the fatal stroke ; but whether it was that the sword was
blunt, or the executioner awkward, his head was not cut off till he
received eight blows (6). Berninus, quoting Walsingham (7), says,
that the executioner was immediately possessed by the devil, and that
he ran through the streets with the sword hanging round his neck,
boasting that he had killed the archbishop , and entered the city of
London to receive his reward ; this was, however, different from what
he expected, for he was condemned to death, and Ball was hanged
and quartered, at the same time, together with his accomplices.
35. William of Courtenay being appointed archbishop, in place
of Sudbury, held a Synod in London, and condemned twenty-four
propositions of Wickliffe -ten of them, especially-as heretical.
These were afterwards condemned by the University of Paris, and
by John XXIII ., in a Council held at Rome, and, finally, in the
eighth Session of the Council of Constance, in 1415 , in which
forty-five articles of Wickliffe were condemned- the greater part
as heretical, the rest as erroneous, rash, &c.— and among these the
twenty-four condemned previously were included. The following
are the errors condemned by the Council, as Noel Alexander
quotes them (8) : The material substance of bread and wine remains
in the Sacrament of the Altar, and the accidence of the bread is not
without the substance in the Eucharist. Christ is not identically
and really there in his proper presence . If a bishop or priest be in
mortal sin he cannot consecrate, nor ordain , nor baptize. There
is nothing in Scripture to prove that Christ instituted the Mass.
God ought to obey the devil. If one be truly contrite, all external
confession is superfluous and useless . If the Pope is foreknown
and wicked, and, consequently, a member of the devil , he has no
power over the faithful. After Urban VI . no other Pope should
be elected , but, like the Greeks, we should live under our own laws.
It is opposed to the Holy Scriptures that ecclesiastics should have
possessions. No prelate should excommunicate any one, unless he
knows him to be already excommunicated by God, and he who
excommunicates otherwise is, by the act, a heretic, or excommuni-
cated himself. A prelate excommunicating a clergyman who
appeals to the King, or to the Supreme Council of the realm , is,
by the fact, a traitor to the King and the realm . Those who cease
to preach, or to listen to the Word of God , on account of the ex-
communication of man, are excommunicated , and in the judgment
of God are traitors to Christ. Every deacon and priest has the
power of preaching the Word of God, without any authority from
the Holy See or a Catholic Bishop . No one is a civil lord- no
(6) Gotti, loc. cit. n. 5 ; Van Ranst, dicto, n. 241 ; Bernin. t. 3, c. 9. (7) Bernin.
loc. cit. c. 9, con . Richard, Ann. 1381, ex Walsingh. (8) Nat. Alex . t. 16, sec. 14,
c. 3, art. 22, s. 6 ; Gotti, ibid.; Van Ranst.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 247

one a prelate- no one a bishop, while he is in mortal sin. Tem-


poral lords can, whenever they please, take temporal goods from
the Church. Possessionatis habitualiter delinquentibus id est ex
habitu non solum actu delinquentibus. The people can, whenever
they please, punish their delinquent lords. Tithes are merely
eleemosynary offerings, and the parishioners have the right, when-
ever they please, of keeping them from their prelates on account
of their sins. Special prayers applied by prelates or religious to
any one individual, are of no more value to him than general ones
cæteris paribus. Any one giving charity to friars is excommuni-
cated by the fact . Any one entering a religious order, either men-
dicant or endowed, becomes weaker, and less able to observe the
commandments of God. The Saints who founded religious orders
sinned by doing so. Religious living in orders do not belong to
the Christian religion . Friars are obliged to live by the labour of
their hands, and not by receiving the oblations of the faithful.
Those who oblige themselves to pray for others, who provide them
with the things of this life, are guilty of simony. The prayer of
the foreknown availeth nothing. All things happen through abso-
lute necessity. The confirmation of youth , the ordination of priests,
and the consecration of places, are reserved to the Pope and bishops,
on account of the temporal gain and honour they bring. Univer-
sities and the studies, colleges, degrees and masterships in them,
are only vain things introduced from paganism, and are of no more
utility to the Church than the devil himself. The excommunica-
tion of the Pope, or of any other prelate, is not to be feared, be-
cause it is the censure of the devil. Those who found convents
sin, and those who enter them are servants of the devil. It is
against the law of Christ to endow a clergyman . Pope Sylvester
and the Emperor Constantine erred by endowing the Church .
All members of the mendicant orders are heretics, and those who
give them alins are excommunicated. Those who become mem-
bers of any religious order are by the fact incapable of observing
the Divine commandments, and, consequently, can never enter the
kingdom of heaven till they apostatize from their institute. The
Pope, and all his clergy having possessions, are heretics, by hold-
ing these possessions ; and temporal lords, and the rest of the laity
who consent to their holding them, are heretics also. The Roman
Church is the synagogue of Satan, and the Pope is not the proxi-
mate and immediate Vicar of Christ. The Decretal Epistles (canon
law) are apocryphal, and seduce from the faith of Christ, and the
clergymen are fools who study them . The Emperor and secular
lords have been seduced by the devil to endow the Church with
temporalities. It is the devil who introduced the election of the
Pope by the cardinals. It is not necessary for salvation to believe
that the Roman Church is supreme among all other Churches . It
is folly to believe in the indulgences of the Pope and bishops.
248 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

The oaths which are taken to corroborate contracts and civil affairs
are unlawful. Augustin, Benedict, and Bernard are damned,
unless they repented of having possessions, and of instituting and
entering into religious orders ; and so from the Pope to the lowest
religious they are all heretics. All religious orders altogether are
invented by the devil.
36. Enumerating these errors, I cannot help remarking that
Wickliffe, the Patriarch of all the modern heretics, attacks especially
the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, as we see in
his first three propositions, and in this he was followed by all
the modern heresiarchs ; but God at the same time confirmed the
faith of his people by extraordinary miracles ; and I will just men-
tion three of them (among a great number), on the authority of
authors of the first character. Nicholas Serrarius (9) relates, that
when the Wickliffites first began to attack this dogma of the Faith
in 1408, the following miracle took place : a priest, called Henry
Otho, was one day saying Mass in Durn, in the diocese of Wurtz-
burg, and through his want of caution upset the chalice, and the
Sacred Blood was spilled all over the corporal . It appeared at
once of the real colour of blood , and in the middle of the corporal
was an image of the Crucifix, surrounded with several other images
of the head of the Redeemer crowned with thorns. The priest
was terrified, and although some other persons had already noticed
the accident, he took up the corporal and laid it under the altar-
stone, that it might decay in some time and nothing more would
be known about it. God , however , did not wish that such a miracle
should be concealed. The priest was at the point of death , and
remorse of conscience troubled him even more than the agony he
was suffering ; he could bear it no longer, but confessed all, told
where the corporal was concealed , and then died immediately. All
was found to be as he stated, and God wrought other miracles to
confirm its truth. The magistrates investigated the whole affair
with the greatest caution and deliberation , and sent an authentic
account of it to the Pope, and he published a brief, dated the
31st of March, 1445, inviting all the devout faithful to ornament
and enlarge the church honoured by so stupendous a miracle.
37. Thomas Treter ( 10 ) relates the next miracle. Some Jews
bribed an unfortunate Christian servant woman to procure a con-
secrated Host for them, and when they got it they brought it into
a cavern, and cut it in little bits on a table with their knives, in
contempt ofthe Christian Faith. The fragments immediately began
to bleed, but instead of being converted by the miracle, they buried
them in a field near the city of Posen , and went home. A Christian
child soon after , who was taking care of some oxen, came into the
field, and saw the consecrated particles elevated in the air, and

(9) Serar. Moguntinar. Rerum, 7. 5 . (10) Treter. de Mirac. Eucharis.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 249

shining as if made of fire, and the oxen all on their knees, as if in


adoration. He ran off at once, and told his father, and when he found
the fact to be as the child stated, he gave notice to the magistrates
and the people. Crowds immediately followed him to the place, and
all saw the particles of the Sacred Host shining in the air, and the
oxen kneeling in adoration . The bishop and clergy came at once
in procession, and collecting the holy particles into the pixis, they
brought them to the church. A little chapel was built on the spot
soon after, which Wenceslaus , King of Poland, converted into a
sumptuous church, where Stephen Damaleniski , Archbishop of
Gnesen, attests that he saw the sacred fragments stained with blood.
Tilman Bredembach ( 11 ) relates that there lived in England, in
1384, a nobleman of the name of Oswald Mulfer ; he went to his
village church one Easter, to receive his Paschal Communion , and
insisted on being communicated with a large Host . The priest,
fearful of his power, if he denied him, placed the large Host on his
tongue, but in the very act the ground opened under his feet, as if
to swallow him, and he had already sunk down to his knees, when
he seized the altar, but that yielded like wax to his hand. He
now, seeing the vengeance of God overtaking him, repented of his
pride, and prayed for mercy, and as he could not swallowthe Host
-for God would not permit him- the priest removed it, and re-
placed it in the Tabernacle ; but it was all of the colour of blood.
Tilman went on purpose to visit the place where this miracle
happened : he saw, he says, the Host tinged with blood , the altar
with the marks of Oswald's hands, and the ground into which he
was sinking still hollow, and covered with iron bars. Oswald
himself, he says, now perfectly cured of his pride, fell sick soon
after, and died with sentiments of true penance.
38. We now come back to Wickliffe , and see his unhappy end.
On the feast of St. Thomas of Canterbury, in 1385 , he prepared to
preach a sermon, not in honour of, but reprobating the saint ; but
God would no longer permit him to ravage his Church, for a few
days after, on St. Sylvester's day, he was struck down by a dread-
ful palsy, which convulsed him all over, and his mouth , with which
he had preached so many blasphemies, was most frightfully dis-
torted, so that he could not speak even a word, and as Walsing-
ham ( 12 ) informs us, he died in despair. King Richard prohibited
all his works, and ordered them to be burned. He wrote a great
deal, but his principal work was the Trialogue between Alithia ,
Pseudes, and Phronesis- Folly, Falsehood, and Wisdom . Several
authors wrote in refutation of this work, but its own contradic-
tions are a sufficient refutation, for the general characteristic of
heretical writers is to contradict themselves ( 13) . The University

(11) Bredembach in Collat. 7. 1, c. 35. (12) Walsingham, ap. Bernin. t. 3, c. 9 ;


Van Ranst, p. 241 ; Varillas, t. 1, l. 1, & Gotti, loc. cit. (13) Graveson, t. 4, sec. 15,
coll. 31 ; Bernin. t. 3, l. 9, p. 609, c. 8.
250 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

of Oxford condemned two hundred and sixty propositions extracted


from Wickliffe's works ; but the Council of Constance included all
his errors in the one hundred and forty-five articles of his it con-
demned .

ARTICLE V.

HERESIES OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

THE HERESY OF JOHN HUSS, AND JEROME OF PRAGUE.


39. John Huss's Character, and the Commencement of his Heresy. 40. His Errors.
41. He is condemned in a Synod. 42. Council of Constance--he is obliged to
appear at it. 43. He comes to Constance, and endeavours to escape. 44, 45. He
presents himself before the Council, and continues obstinate. 46. He is condemned
to death, and burned. 47. Jerome of Prague is also burned alive for his Obstinacy.
48. Wars of the Hussites-they are conquered and converted.

39. In the reign of Wenceslaus, King of Bohemia, and son of


the Emperor Charles IV., about the beginning of the fifteenth cen-
tury, the pestilence of the heresy of Wickliffe first made its appear-
ance in Bohemia. The University of Prague was then in a most
flourishing condition ; but the professors who had the management
of it kept up a very lax system of discipline. They were of four
nations, each of which enjoyed equal privileges in that seat of learn-
ing-Bohemians, Saxons, Bavarians, and Poles ; but mutual jea-
lousies blinded them to the danger the Catholic faith was exposed
to, for want of due vigilance. Such was the state of things when
John Huss, one of the Bohemian professors, obtained a privilege
from the King, that in all deliberations of the University the
vote of the Bohemian nation alone should count as much as the
three others together. The German professors were so much
offended at this ordinance, that they left Prague in a body, and
settled in Leipsic, where they contributed to establish that famous
University, and thus the government of the whole University of
Prague, we may say, fell into the hands of John Huss (1 ) . This
remarkable man was born in a village of Bohemia, called Huss , and
from which he took his name, and his parents were so poor, that at
first the only means of learning he had was by accompanying a
gentleman's son to school as attendant ; but being a man of power-
ful mind, he by degrees worked himself on, until he became the
chief professor of the University of Prague, which he infected , un-
fortunately, with heresy. Having, as we have seen, ousted the
German professors, and become almost supreme in his college, it
unfortunately happened that one of Wickliffe's disciples, Peter
Payne, who had to fly from England, arrived in Prague, and
brought along with him the works of his master. These works fell

(1) Coclæus, Hist. Hussit. Æneas Silv. Hist. Bohem. c. 35 ; Bernin. t. 4, sec. 15, c. 2,
p. 9; Graves. t. 4, coll. 8, p. 75 ; Gotti, Ver. &c. c. 105.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 251

into the hands of Huss, and though filled with blasphemy, pleased
him by the bold novelty of their doctrines, and he imagined that
they were well calculated to make an impression on the ardent minds
ofthe youth ofthe University. He could not at once begin to teach
them, for he was one of the doctors who, a little while before , had
subscribed the condemnation of Wickliffe's errors (2 ) , so he con-
tented himself, for the present, with merely making them subjects
of discussion with his pupils ; but little by little he became more
bold, and not alone among the students of the University, but
even among the people in the churches, he disseminated the pes-
tilence . At length, he threw off the mask altogether, and preach-
ing one day in the Church of SS. Matthias and Matthew, in Prague,
he publicly lauded the works of Wickliffe , and said , if he were
dying, all he would desire is to be assured of the same glory that
Wickliffe was then enjoying in heaven.
40. He next translated some of Wickliffe's works into Bohe-
mian, especially the Trialogue, the worst of them all. He was
joined at once by several priests of relaxed morals , and also by
several doctors, discontented with the unjust distribution of church
patronage, which was too often conferred on persons whose only
qualification was nobility of birth, while humble virtue and learn-
ing was neglected. Among the doctors who joined him was Jerome
of Prague, who, in the year 1408, had , like Huss, condemned the
errors of Wickliffe, but now turned round, and even accused the
Council of Constance of injustice for condemning them . Shinko ,
Archbishop of Prague, summoned a Synod, which was attended by
the most famous doctors, and condemned the propositions broached
by Huss, and he was so enraged at this, that he endeavoured to stir
up the people to oppose it ; the archbishop, accordingly , excom-
municated him, and sent a copy of the condemnation of his doctrine
to Pope Alexander V., but Huss appealed to the Pope , who was
badly informed, he said, of the matter, and in the meantime, the
archbishop died, and thus Bohemia became a prey to heresy. Huss
was now joined by Jacobellus of Misnia, and Peter of Dresden ,
who went about preaching to the people against the error the Church
was guilty of, as they said, in refusing the people communion under
both kinds, and proclaimed that all who received under one kind
were damned . John Huss and his followers took up this new doc-
trine, and so deeply was the error implanted in the minds of the
Bohemian Hussites, that even all the power of the imperial arms
could scarcely eradicate it.
41. Noel Alexander enumerates the errors of Huss under thirty
heads (3) . We will only take a succinct view of the most impor-
tant ones. The Church, he said , was composed of the predestined

(2) Nat. Alex. sec. 14, c. 3, a. 22, sec. 6 ; Eneas Silv. Hist. Bohem. c. 35. (3) Nat.
Alex. sec. 15, c. 2, a. 1 , sec. 2.
252 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

alone ( Art. 1 , 3 , 5 , 6 ) ; and the two natures, the Divinity and the
humanity, are one Christ ( Art. 4) . Peter neither was nor is the
head of the Catholic Chureh ( Art. 7 , 10 , 11 ) ; and civil and eccle-
siastical lords, as prelates and bishops, are no longer so while in
mortal sin (Art. 30) ; and he says the sameof the Pope (Art.
20, 22 , 24, 26 ) . The Papal dignity is derived from the power of
the Emperor (Art. 9) ; and ecclesiastical obedience is an invention
of the priests (Art. 15). Everything the wicked man does is
wicked, and everything the virtuous man does is virtuous (Art. 16).
Good priests ought to preach, though they be excommunicated
(Art. 17 , 18) ; and in Art. 19 , he reprobates ecclesiastical censures.
It was an act of iniquity to condemn the forty-five articles of
Wickliffe ( Art. 25) . There is no necessity of a head to rule the
Church, for the apostles and other priests governed it very well
before the office of Pope was introduced ( Art. 27, 28, 29 ) . These
are, in substance, the errors of John Huss. Van Ranst (p. 275)
remarks, that it appears from his own works, that he always held
the belief of the Real Presence, and when, in the fifteenth Session
of the Council, he was accused of teaching that, after the consecra-
tion, the substance of bread remained in the Eucharist, he denied
that he ever either taught or believed so. He also admitted sacra-
mental confession, with its three parts, as we do -Extreme Unction ,
and all the other sacraments- prayers for the dead —the invocation
and intercession of saints. How unjustly, then, says the same
author, do the Lutherans and Calvinists condemn in the Church of
Rome these dogmas held by Huss himself, whom they venerate as
a witness of the truth, and through whom they boast that they have
derived the original succession of their churches !
42. We now come to speak of the sad end the obstinacy of Huss
brought him to . The Pope condemned Wickliffe and his errors,
in a Synod held in Rome, in 1413. When this came to the know-
ledge of Huss, he published several invectives against the Fathers
composing the Synod , so the Pope found himself obliged to suspend
him from all ecclesiastical functions, the more especially as he had
been cited to Rome, but refused to come. In the year 1414, a
General Council was held in the city of Constance , at which twenty-
nine Cardinals, four Patriarchs, and two hundred and seven prelates
assisted, andthe Emperor Sigismund attended there in person also (4).
John Huss was summoned by the Emperor to present himself be-
fore the Council and defend his doctrine, but he refused to leave
Prague until he was furnished by him with a safe conduct. The
Emperor gave him the protection he demanded, and he, accord-
ingly, came to Constance, puffed up with the idea, that he would,
by his reasoning, convince the Fathers of the Council that he was
right. He was quite satisfied , also, that in case even the Council

(4) Labbe, t. 12, conc.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 253

should condemn him, he was quite safe, on account of the Imperial


safe conduct ; but it is extraordinary that he never adverted to the
clause inserted in it, granting him security as far as he was charged
with crimes, but not in regard to errors against the Church (5) ;
for it was stated that he would be exempt from all penalty in regard
to his faith, if he would obey the decisions of the Council, after
being heard in his defence , but not if he still obstinately remained
attached to his errors. But, as we shall see, he refused to obey
these conditions. The Lutherans, therefore, are unjust in charging
us with upholding that maxim, that faith is not to be kept with
heretics, and alleging that as their excuse for not coming to the
Council ofTrent. Our Church, on the contrary, teaches that faith
must be observed with even infidels or Jews, and the Council of
Basil faithfully observed the guarantee given to the Hussites, though
they remained obstinately attached to their errors.
43. When Huss arrived in Constance, before he presented him-
self to the Council he fixed his safe conduct to the door of the
Church ; and while he remained at his lodging, never ceased to
praise Wickliffe , and disseminate his doctrines ; and, although he
was excommunicated by his bishop in Prague, he used to say Mass
in a chapel ; but when the archbishop heard of this, he prohibited
him from celebrating, and his subjects from hearing his Mass (6) .
This frightened him, and when he saw the charges that would be
made against him, and received an order from the Council not to
quit the city, he trembled for his safety, and attempted to escape ;
he, accordingly, disguised himself as a peasant , and concealed him-
self in a cart load of hay, but was discovered by a spy, who was
privately placed to watch him, and notice being given to the
magistrates of the · city, he was taken . This took place on the
third Sunday of Lent. He was asked , why he disguised himself
in this way, and hid himself in the hay ? He said it was because
he was cold. He was put on a horse, and taken to prison, and he
then appealed to the safe conduct given him by the Emperor ; but
his attention was directed to the clause giving him security only
as far as he was charged with certain crimes, but not for any erro-
neous doctrines concerning the Faith, and he was told, that it was
decided that he should prove his cause not to be heretical, and if
not able to do that, either retract, or suffer death ( 7) . He was
now truly terrified ; but seeing several Bohemians around him ,
who accompanied him to the Council, he threw himself from
the horse among them, and thus thought to escape, but was imme-
diately seized again, and confined in the Dominican Convent, but
attempting to escape from that, he was transferred to a more secure
prison (8).
(5) Varillas His. &c., t. 1, l. 11 , p. 25 ; Gotti, Ver. Rel. 105, s. 3, n. 1. (6 ) Cɔelæus,
His. Huss. t. 2 ; Varillas, loc. cit.; Gotti, cit. (7) Gotti, loc. cit. sec. 3, n. 3.
(8) Gotti, ibid.; Van Ranst, p. 279 ; Varillas, loc. cit.; Bernin. t. 4 ; Rainaldus, Ann.
1415 , n. 32.
254 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

45. He was summoned from his prison to appear before the


Council, and defend himself, and as the Council had already con-
demned the forty-five articles of Wickliffe, he trembled for his own
fate. Witnesses were formally examined to prove the errors he
had both preached and written, and a form of abjuration was
drawn up by the Council for him to sign, for it was decided by
the Fathers, that he should not alone retract verbally, but also
subscribe the abjuration of his heresy in the Bohemian language.
This he refused to do ; but he presented a paper himself, in which
he declared that he could not conscientiously retract what he was
asked to do, but the Council refused to receive it. The Cardinal
of Cambray endeavoured to induce him to sign a general retracta-
tion, as everything charged against him had been proved ; and
he promised him , in that case, the Council would treat him most
indulgently. Huss then made an humble answer : he came, he
said, to be taught by the Council, and that he was willing to obey
its decrees. A pen was handed to him, accordingly, to sign his
retractation, in Bohemian, as was commanded in the beginning ; but
he said that the fear of signing a lie prevented him. The Empe-
ror himself even tried to bend his obstinacy ; but all in vain. The
Council, accordingly, appointed the 6th of July to give the final
decision ; but before they came to extremities , the Fathers deputed
four bishops and four Bohemian gentlemen to strive and bring
him round, but they never could get a direct retractation from
him. The appointed day at last arrived. He was brought to the
Church, in presence of the Council, and asked, if he would anathe-
matize the errors of Wickliffe ; he made a long speech, the upshot
of which was that his conscience would not allow him to do so.
46. Sentence was now pronounced on him ; he was declared
obstinately guilty of heresy, and the Council degraded him from
the priesthood, and handed him over to the secular power. He
made no remark while the sentence was read, intending, after the
reading was finished, to say what he intended, but he only com-
menced to speak, when he was ordered to be silent . He was now
clothed in the sacerdotal vestments, which were immediately after
stripped off him, and a paper cap was put on his head , inscribed :
" Behold the Heresiarch !" Louis, Duke of Bavaria, then took
him , and handed him over to the ministers of justice, who cut off
his hair in the very place where the pile was prepared to burn
him . He was now tied to the stake, but before fire was put to the
pile, the Duke of Bavaria again besought him to retract, but he
answered, that the Scriptures tell us we should obey God, and not
man. The Duke then turned his back on him, and the execu-
tioner applied the torch ; when the pile began to light, the hypo-
crite was heard to exclaim : " Jesus Christ, Son of the living God,
have mercy on me ;" words inspired by the vainglorious desire of
being considered to have died a martyr's death, but we should not
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 255

forget that the devil has martyrs, and infuses into them a false con-
stancy, and as St. Augustin says : " It is not the punishment, but
the cause, that makes a martyr ;" that is, the confession of the true
Faith. The flames burned so fiercely, that it is thought he was
immediately suffocated, for he gave no other signs of life. His
ashes were cast into the lake, and thus the scene closed on John
Huss (9).
47. We have now to speak of Jerome of Prague, who having
joined Huss in his errors, was his companion in a disgraceful death
and perdition. He was a layman, and joined Huss in all his
endeavours to disseminate his errors, led astray himself, first by
Wickliffe's works, and next by the preaching of his master. He
came to Constance to try and be of some assistance to Huss, but
was taken and obliged to appear before the Council, together with
his patron, but he was not finally tried for a year after the death of
Huss. A lengthened process was instituted against him, and it
was proved, as Raynaldus tells us ( 10), that he preached the same
errors as Wickliffe and Huss, that he was guilty of several excesses,
and had caused several seditious movements in divers kingdoms
and cities. When first brought before the Council in 1414 , he
confessed that he was wrong, and said that he was satisfied to
abjure his heresy, even according to the formula required by the
Council. He, therefore, got permission to speak with whom he
pleased, and he then was so imprudent as to tell his friends that
his retractation was extorted from him, not by conscience, but be-
cause he was afraid of being condemned to be burned alive, but
that now he should defend his doctrines to the death. When he
was discovered, he was obliged to appear again before the Council ,
in 1415 , and when the Patriarch of Constantinople called on him
to clear himself from the new charges laid against him, he spoke
out plainly, and said that his former abjuration was extorted by the
dread of being burned alive ; that he now held as true all the
articles of Wickliffe, and that he was anxious to expiate at the
stake the fault of his former retractation. The Fathers ofthe Council
still charitably gave him time to repent, but, at last, in the twenty-
fifth Session , after the Bishop of Lodi endeavoured by every means
in his power to induce him to retract, he was declared an obstinate
heretic , and handed over to the civil magistrate, who had him led
to the pile. Even then, several persons endeavoured to get him
to retract, but he said that his conscience would not allow him ; he
took off his clothes without any assistance, was tied to the stake,
and the pile was fired . His agony was much longer than that of
John Huss, but , like him, he died without any signs of repent-
ance (11 ).
48. The unhappy end of John Huss and Jerome of Prague did
not put a stop to the progress of their doctrines ; on the contrary,
(9) Varill. loc. cit. p. 48 ; Gotti, loc. cit. s. 3, n. 8 ; Van Ranst, 279. (13) Rainal
Ann. 1415, n. 13 & seq. (11) Varil. p. 51 , 1 ; Gotti, c. 105 ; Bern. t. 4, c. 4.
256 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

as Varillas writes ( 12) , the Hussites, irritated at the punishment of


their leader, united together in Bohemia, ruined the churches,
seized on the properties of the monasteries, and attempted the life
of their king, Wenceslaus ; and though they desisted at the time,
they were sorry they did not accomplish it after, and they would
have done so even then had Wenceslaus not died in the meantime.
They then elected Zisca as Commander-in-Chief, and declared war
against the Emperor Sigismund, who succeeded his brother Wences-
laus on the throne of Bohemia, and, having gained four victories , they
forced him toquit his kingdom. Although Zisca lost both his eyes in
battle, he still commanded his countrymen , but was attacked by the
plague and died, having previously ordered that his skin should be
tanned and converted into the covering of a drum, that even after
his death he might terrify his enemies. After Zisca's death the
sect was divided into Orphans, Orebites, and Thaborites, who,
though disagreeing among themselves, all united against the Catho-
lics. When those heretics got a Catholic priest into their power,
they used to burn him alive, or cut him in two halves. When the
Council of Basil was assembled, they sent delegates there to make
peace with the Church, having previously obtained a safe conduct,
but all to no purpose, as on their return into Bohemia the war
raged with greater fury, and, having collected a powerful army,
they laid siege to the capital, but were encountered by Mainard , a
noble Bohemian , and totally routed. Sigismund then again got
possession of his kingdom, and made peace with the Hussites , who
abjured their heresy, promised obedience to the Pope, and were
absolved by him from all censures, on the 5th of July, 1436 ( 13) .

CHAPTER XI.

THE HERESIES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.


ARTICLE I.
OF THE HERESIES OF LUTHER.
SEC. I. THE BEGINNING AND PROGRESS OF THE LUTHERAN HERESY.
1. Erasmus of Rotterdam, called by some the Precursor of Luther; his Literature.
2. His Doctrine was not sound, nor could it be called heretical. 3. Principles of
Luther ; his Familiarity with the Devil, who persuades himto abolish Private Masses.
4. He joins the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustin. 5. Doctrines and Vices of
Luther. 6. Publication of Indulgences, and his Theses on that Subject. 7. He is
called to Rome, and clears himself ; the Pope sends Cardinal Cajetan as his Legate to
Germany. 8. Meeting between the Legate and Luther. 9. Luther perseveres and
appeals to the Pope. 10, 11. Conference of Ecchius with the Heretics. 12. Bull of
Leo X., condemning forty-one Errors of Luther, who burns the Bull and the Decretals.

1. We have now arrived at the sixteenth century, in which, as


in a sink, all the former heresies meet. The great heresiarch of
(12) Varil. Dis. t. 1, t. 2 ; Gotti, c. 105 ; Van Ranst, p. 281. (13) Van Ranst,
p. 382 ; Bernini, loc. cit.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 257

this age was Luther ; but many writers assert that Erasmus was his
predecessor, and there was a common saying in Germany that Eras-
mus ( 1) laid the egg, and Luther hatched it (2) . Erasmus was born
in Holland ; his birth was illegitimate, and he was baptized by the
name of Gerard, which he afterwards changed to the Greek name
Erasmus -in Latin , Desiderius ( 3) . At an early age he was received
among the Regular Canons of St. Augustin, and made his religious
profession ; but, weary of a religious life, and regretting having
made his vows, he left the cloister and lived in the world , having,
it is supposed, obtained a Papal dispensation . He would certainly
have conferred a benefit on the age he lived in, had he confined
himself to literature alone ; but he was not satisfied without writing
on theological matters, interpreting the Scriptures, and finding fault
with the Fathers ; hence , as Noel Alexander says of him, the more
works he wrote the more errors he published. He travelled to many
Universities, and was always honourably received , on account of his
learning; but a great many doubted of his faith, on account of the
obscure way he wrote concerning the dogmas of religion ; hence,
some of the Innovators, friends of Erasmus , often availed themselves
of his authority, though he frequently endeavoured to clear himself
from the imputation of favouring them, especially in a letter he
wrote to Cardinal Campeggio (4) .
2. A great contest at that time was going on in Germany,
between the Rhetoricians and Theologians. The Rhetoricians
upbraided the Theologians with their ignorance, and the barbarism
of the terms they used . The Theologians , on the other hand,
abused the Rhetoricians for the impropriety and profaneness of the
language they used in the explanation of the Divine Mysteries.
Erasmus, who took the lead among the Rhetoricians, began by
deriding, first, the style, and , next, the arguments of the Theo-
logians ; he called their theology Judaism , and said that the proper
understanding of ecclesiastical science depended altogether on eru-
dition and the knowledge of languages. Many writers openly
charge Erasmus with heresy : he explained everything just as it
pleased himself, says Victorinus (5) , and vitiatedeverything he
explained. Albert Pico , Prince of Carpi , a man ofgreat learning (6),
and a strenuous opponent of the errors of Erasmus, assures us that
he called the Invocation ofthe Blessed Virgin and the saints idolatry ;
condemned monasteries and ridiculed the Religious, calling them
actors and cheats, and condemned their vows and rules ; was opposed
to the celibacy of the clergy, and turned into mockery Papal
indulgences, relics of saints, feasts and fasts, and auricular confes-
sion ; asserts that by Faith alone man is justified (7) , and even

(1) Rainald. Ann. 1516, n. 91 ; Bernin. t. 4. sec. 26, c. 2, p. 255. (2) Gotti, Ver.
Rel. c. 108, sec. 2 , n. 6. (3) Nat. Alex. t. 19, sec. 15, c. 5, art. 1 , n. 12.
(4) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. (5) Victor. in Scholiis ad Epist. Hier. Ep. 30.
(6) Rainald. & Bernin. loc. cit. (7) Alberto Pico, l. 20.
R
258 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

throws a doubt on the authority of the Scripture and Councils (8) .


In the preface to one of his works he says (9 ) , it is rash to call the
Holy Ghost God. " Audemus Spiritum Sanctum appellare Deum,
quod veteres ausi non sunt." Noel Alexander informs us ( 10) ,
that in 1527 the Faculty of Paris condemned several propositions
taken from his works, and that at the Council of Trent the Cardinals
appointed by Paul III. to report on the abuses which needed refor-
mation, called on him to prohibit in the schools the reading ofthe
Colloquies of Erasmus, in which are many things that lead the
ignorant to impiety. He was, however, esteemed by several Popes,
who invited him to Rome, to write against Luther, and it was even
reported that Paul III. intended him for the Cardinalship . We
may conclude with Bernini , that he died with the character of an
unsound Catholic , but not a heretic, as he submitted his writings to
the judgment of the Church, and Varillas ( 11 ) says he always re-
mained firm in the Faith, notwithstanding all the endeavours of
Luther and Zuinglius to draw him to their side. He died in Basle
in 1536 , at the age of 70 (12 ).
3. While Germany was thus agitated with this dispute , the famous
brief of Leo X. arrived there in 1613 ; and here we must introduce
Luther. Martin Luther (13) was born in Eisleben, in Saxony, in
1483. His parents were poor, and when he afterwards acquired such
a sad notoriety, some were not satisfied without tracing his birth to
the agency ofthe devil (14) , a report to which his own extraordinary
assertions gave some colour at the time , since he said in one of his ser-
mons to the people, that he had eaten a peck of salt ( 15) with the devil,
and in his work " De Missa Privata," or low Mass, he says he dis-
puted with the devil on this subject, and was convinced by him that
private Masses should be abolished ( 16). " Luther," said the devil,
" it is now fifteen years that you are saying private Masses ;-what
would the consequence be, ifon the altar you were adoring bread and
wine ? would you not be guilty of idolatry ?" " I am a priest," said
Luther, " ordained by my bishop, and I have done everything
through obedience ." 66 But," added the devil, " Turks and Gentiles
also sacrifice through obedience, and what say you if your ordination
be false ?" Such are the powerful reasons which convinced Luther.
Frederick Staphil (17) relates a curious anecdote concerning this
matter. Luther at one time, he says, endeavoured to exorcise a
girl in Wittemberg, possessed by an evil spirit, but was so terrified
that he tried to escape, both by the door and window, which to his
great consternation were both made fast ;-finally one of his com-
panions broke open the door with a hatchet, and they escaped (18 ) .
(8) Alberto, l. 11 , 12. (9) Erasm. advers. Hil. t. 12 ; Bernin. loc. cit. (10) Nat.
Alex. cit. art. 10, n. 12. (11) Varill. t. 1, l. 7, p. 322. (12) Nat. Alex. loc. cit.
(13) Gotti, Ver. Rel. t. 2, c. 108, sec. 2 ; Baron. Ann. 1517, n. 56 ; Varillas Istor. &c.
t. 1, l. 3, p. 129 ; Hermant, Histor. Concili, t. 2, c. 227. (14) Gotti, cit. sec. 2, n. 3.
(15) Nat. Alex. loc. cit.; Gotti, loc. cit. sec. 2, n. 2. (16) Gotti, sec. 5, n. 2.
(17) Staphil. Resp. contra Jac. Smidelin, p. 404. (18) Varillas loc. cit. l. 14, p. 31.
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 259

4. If Luther was not the child of Satan, however, few laboured


so strenuously in his service. His name originally was Luder;
but as the vulgar meaning of that word was not the most elegant,
he changed it to Luther. Applying himself at an early age to
literature, he went to Erfurt, in Thuringia, and at the age of
twenty years graduated as a Master of Philosophy. While pursu-
ing his legal and philosophical studies in that University, he hap-
pened to take a walk in the country with a fellow-student, who
was struck dead by lightning at his side. Under the influence of
terror, and not moved by devotion, he made a vow to enter into
religion, and became an Augustinian Friar, in the Convent of
Erfurt ( 19 ). " It was not," he says, " by my own free will I
became a monk, but terrified by a sudden death , I made a vow to
that effect." This took place in 1504, in the 22nd year of his age,
and was a matter of great surprise to his father and friends, who
previously never perceived in him any tendency to piety (20).
5. After his profession and ordination he was commanded by his
superiors, as an exercise of humility, to beg through the streets, as
was the custom of the Order at that period. He refused , and in
the year 1508 left the Convent and Academy of Erfurt, in which
he was employed, greatly to the satisfaction of his colleagues in
that University, who could not bear his violent temper, and went
to Wittemberg, where Duke Frederick, Elector of Saxony, had a
little before founded a University, in which he obtained the chair
of Philosophy. He was soon after sent to Rome, to settle some
dispute raised in his Order, and having satisfactorily arranged
everything, he returned to Wittemberg, and received from Andrew
Carlostad, Dean of the University, the dignity of Doctor of The-
ology. The entire expense of taking his degree was borne by the
Elector, who conceived a very great liking for him (21 ) . He was
certainly a man of fine genius, a subtle reasoner, deeply read in
the Schoolmen and Holy Fathers, but, even then, as Cochleus tells
us, filled with vices -proud, ambitious , petulant, seditious, evil-
tongued and even his moral character was tainted (22) ; he was
a man of great eloquence, both in speaking and writing, but so
rude and rugged, that in all his works we scarcely find a polished
period ; he was so vain of himself, that he despised the most
learned writers of the Church, and he especially attacked the doc-
trines of St. Thomas, so much esteemed by the Council of Trent.
6. Leo X., wishing, as Hermant tells us ( 23) , to raise a fund for
the recovery of the Holy Land, or, according to the more generally
received opinion (24), to finish the building of St. Peter's Church,
commenced by Julius II., committed to Cardinal Albert, Arch-
(19) Luther Præfat. ad lib. de Vot. Mon. (20) Nat. Alex. ibid. sec. 1, n. 1 ; Gotti,
loc. cit. sec. 2. (21) Hermant, Histor. Conc. t. 1, c. 228 ; Nat. Alex . t. 19, art. 11,
sec. 1, n. 1 ; Van Ranst, Hær. p. 298 ; Gotti, Ver. Rel. c. 108, sec. 2, n. 6. (22) Nat.
Alex. sec. 1, n. 3 ; Hermant, loc. cit.; Van Ranst, loc. cit. (23) Hermant, loc. cit.
c. 227. (24) Nat. Alex. , Gotti, Van Ranst, Bernino, &c.
260 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

bishop and Elector of Mayence, the promulgation of a brief, grant-


ing many indulgences to those who contributed alms for this
purpose. The archbishop committed the publication of these in-
dulgences to a Dominican Doctor, John Tetzel, who had already
discharged a similar commission in aid of the Teutonic Knights,
when they were attacked by the Duke of Muscovy, and who was
reputed an eloquent preacher. This was highly displeasing to
John Staupitz, Vicar- General of the Augustinians , and a great
favourite of the Duke of Saxony ; he, therefore, with the Duke's
permission, charged Luther with the duty of preaching against the
abuse of these indulgences. He immediately began to attack these
abuses, and truth compels us to admit that abuses had crept into
the mode of collecting these alms, which scandalized the people.
He, however, not only preached against the abuses which existed ,
but against the validity of indulgences altogether, and immediately
wrote a long letter to the Archbishop of Mayence, in which he
gave an exaggerated account of the errors preached in their
distribution, such as, that whoever took an indulgence was certain
of salvation, and was absolved from all punishment and penalties
of sin, and to this letter he tacked ninety-five propositions, in which
he asserted that the doctrine of indulgences altogether was a very
doubtful matter. He did not rest satisfied with sending them to
the archbishop ; he posted them on the doors of the Church of All
Saints in Wittemberg, sent printed copies of them through all
Germany, and had them publicly sustained by his scholars in the
University. He was answered by Father Tetzel in Frankfort, who
proved the doctrine of the Church , and as he was armed with
inquisitorial powers, condemned these propositions as heretical .
When this came to Luther's ears, he retorted in the most insolent
manner, and from these few sparks, that fire was kindled which not
only ran through Germany, but through Denmark, Norway, Sweden ,
and the most remote countries of the North ( 25 ) .
7. In the year 1518 , Luther sent his conclusions to the Pope in
a pamphlet, entitled " Resolutiones Disputationum de Indulgenti-
arum virtute ;" and in the preface he thus addresses him: "Holy
Father, prostrate at your Holiness ' feet I offer myself with all I
possess ; vivify or destroy, call , revoke, reject as you will, I recog-
nize your voice as the voice of Christ, presiding and speaking in
you; if I deserve death, I refuse not to die" (26). With such pro-
testations of submission did he endeavour to deceive the Pope, but
as Cardinal Gotti ( 27) remarks, in this very letter he protests that
he adopts no other sentiments than those of the Scriptures, and in-
tends merely to oppose the schoolmen. Leo X. having now re-
ceived both Luther's and Tetzel's writings, clearly saw the poison

(25) Hermant, c. 228 ; Van Ranst, p. 299 ; Gotti, c. 108, sec. 3, n. 3. (26) Ap. Van
Ranst, Hist. p. 300. (26) Gotti, sec. 2, n. 8.
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 261

which flowed from the pen of the former, and accordingly sum-
moned him to Rome to defend himself. Luther excused himself
on the plea of delicate health, and the want of means to undertake
long a journey, and added, that he had strong suspicions ofthe
Roman judges ; he also induced the Duke of Saxony , and the Uni-
versity of Wittemberg, to write to his Holiness to the same effect,
and to request him to appoint judges in Germany to try the
cause ( 28) . The Pope dreaded to entrust the case to the decision
of the Germans, as Luther already had a powerful party in his own .
country ; he therefore sent as his Legate a latere, Thomas Vio, called
Cardinal Cajetan, commissioning him to call on the secular power
to have Luther arrested, and to absolve him from all censures in
case he retracted his errors, but should he obstinately persist in
maintaining them , to excommunicate him ( 29 ) .
8. On the Legate's arrival in Augsburg, he summoned Luther
before him, and imposed three commandments on him : First.—
That he should retract the propositions asserted by him. Secondly.-
That he should cease from publishing them ; and finally, that he
should reject all doctrines censured by the Church . Luther
answered that he never broached any doctrine in opposition to the
Church ; but Cajetan reminded him that he denied the treasure of
the merits ofJesus Christ and his saints, in virtue ofwhich the Pope
dispensed indulgences , as Clement VI . declared in the Constitution
Unigenitus ; that he also asserted that to obtain the fruit of the sa-
craments it was only required to have the faith of obtaining them.
Luther made some reply , but the cardinal, smiling, said he did not
come to argue with him, but to receive his submission , as he had
been appointed (30) . Luther was alarmed at finding himself in
Augsburg, then totally Catholic , without a safe conduct (although
Noel Alexander ( 31 ) says he obtained one from Maximilian ; Her-
mant, Van Ranst, and Gotti deny it ( 32) , and Varillas wonders at
his boldness in presenting himself without it), and asked time for
reflection, which was granted him, and on the following day he
presented himself before the Legate, together with a notary public,
and four senators ofAugsburg, and presented a writing signed with
his own hand, saying that he followed and revered the Roman
Church in all her acts and sayings , past, present, and to come, and
that if ever he said anything against her, he now revoked and un-
said it. The cardinal, well aware that he had written several things
which were not in accordance with the Catholic Faith , wished to
have a still more ample retractation , but still he flattered himself
that the one obtained was so much gained . Luther, however, soon
slipped through his fingers, for he then persisted that he had neither

(28) Gotti, ibid. n. 9, & Van Ranst, loc. cit. (29) Nat. Alex. t. 19, ar. 11, sec. 4;
Gotti, loc. cit. sec. 2, n. 20 ; Hermant, t. 2, c. 229. (30) Hermant, c. 230. (31 ) Nat.
Alex. loc. cit. sec. 4. (32) Hermant, cit. c. 230 ; Van Ranst, p. 302 ; Gotti, sec. 3,
n. 10.
262 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

said nor written anything repugnant to the Scriptures, Fathers,


Councils, Decretals, or reason ; that his propositions were true, and
that he was prepared to defend them, but, nevertheless, that he
would submit them to the judgment of the three Imperial Acade-
mies of Basle, Fribourg, and Louvain, or of Paris ( 33).
9. The Cardinal still insisted on the three primary conditions.
Luther asked time to answer in writing, and the next day presented
a document, in which he advanced many opinions, not only against
the value of indulgences, but also against the merits of the saints,
and good works, propping up his opinions by false reasoning.
Cardinal Cajetan heard him out, and then told him not again to
appear before him, unless he came prepared to retract his heresy.
Luther then left Augsburg, and wrote to the Cardinal, saying, that
his opinions were founded on truth, and supported by reason and
Scripture, but, notwithstanding, it was his wish still to subject him-
self to the Church, and to keep silence regarding indulgences, if
his adversaries were commanded to keep silent, likewise (34). The
Cardinal gave him no answer, so Luther, fearing sentence would be
passed against him, appealed from the Cardinal to the Pope, and
had the appeal posted on the Church doors (35). Van Ranst cen-
sures Cajetan for not imprisoning Luther, when he had him in
Augsburg without a safe conduct, knowing him to be a man of such
deceitful cunning, and so extinguishing, in its commencement, that
great fire, which consumed so great a part of Europe, by intro-
ducing to the people a religion so much the more pernicious, as it
was so favourable to sensual license. Luther himself, afterwards,
deriding the whole transaction , says (36) : " I there heard that new
Latin language, that teaching the truth was disturbing the Church,
and that denying Christ was exalting the Church." It is then he
appealed, first to the Pope, and afterwards from the Pope to the
Council (37 ).
10. The Legate, seeing the obstinacy of Luther, wrote to the
Elector Frederick, telling him that this friar was a heretic, un-
worthy of his protection, and that he should send him to Rome, or
at all events banish him from his States . The Elector immediately
transmitted the letter to Luther, who, on his escape from the power
of the Legate, began to make the most rabid attacks on the Pope,
calling him tyrant and Antichrist : " He (the Pope) has refused
peace," said he, " then let it be war, and we shall see whether Luther
or the Pope shall be first hurt." Notwithstanding his boasting, the
Legate's letter to the Elector terrified him, and he indited a most
humble letter, declaring himself guiltless of any crime against Faith ,
and praying for a continuance of his protection (38) . Hermant says

(33) Nat. Alex. ar. 11 , sec. 4, n. 1 ; Gotti, c. 108 , sec. 3, n. 10. (34) Nat. Alex.
loc. cit.; Van Ranst, p. 302. (35) Van Ranst, p. 302. (36) Luther, t. 1 ; Oper.
p. 208. (37) Gotti, sec. 3, n. 11. (38) Gotti, c. 108, sec. 3, n. 12 ; Van Ranst,
p. 302 ; Nat. Alex. sec. 4, n. 1 ; Hermant, c. 229.
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 263

the Elector protected Luther, not only on account of his affection


for his newly founded University of Wittemberg, on which he shed
so much lustre, but also through hatred to the Elector Albert, of
Mayence, Luther's most determined enemy (39). This protector
of Luther, however, met with a dreadful death, as if to mark the
judgment ofGod. While hunting, he was attacked with apoplexy ,
accompanied with dreadful convulsions ; Luther and Melancthon
immediately posted off to assist, or rather to ruin him , in his last
agony, but they could not obtain from him a single word ; he had
lost the use of all his senses, the most dreadful convulsions racked
every one of his limbs, his cries were like the roar of a lion, and he
died without sacraments , or without any signs of repentance.
11. On the 9th of November, 1518, Leo X. published a Bull, on
the validity of indulgences, in which he declared that the Supreme
Pontiff alone had the right of granting them without limitation,
from the treasures of the merits of Jesus Christ ; that this was an
article of Faith, and that whoever refused to believe it should be
excluded from the communion of the Church. Ecchius, a man of
great learning, and Pro-Chancellor of Ingoldstad, began to write
about this time, and subsequently, in 1519 , he had a conference
with Luther, through the instrumentality of Duke George, uncle of
the Elector Frederick, a good Catholic. This conference took place
in Duke George's city of Leipsic, and in his own palace . After de-
bating on many questions there, they agreed to leave the whole
matter to the decision of the Universities of Erfurt and Paris. The
University of Paris, after an examination of the writings on each
side, received the doctrine of Ecchius, and condemned that of
Luther. One hundred and four of his propositions were censured ,
which excited his ire to a great pitch against that University.
The following year there was another conference between Luther,
accompanied by Carlostad and Ecchius, in which, in six discussions,
the doctrines of free-will, of grace, and of good works, were argued
by Carlostad. Luther followed, and disputed on Purgatory, the
power of absolving sins, reserving cases, the primacy of the Pope ,
and indulgences. In this conference, his doctrines were not so
heretical as soon after the dispute, for then the force of truth obliged
him to admit the Papal primacy, though he said it was of human,
not divine right ; he also acknowledged a Purgatory, and did not
altogether reject indulgences, solely condemning the abuse of them.
The same year his doctrines were condemned by the Universities
of Cologne and Louvain (40) .
12. In the year 1519, the Emperor Maximilian I. died, and
there was an interregnum of six months, during which Luther
gained many adherents in Wittemberg, not only among the youth

(39) Hermant, c. 229 ; Nat. Alex. sec. 4, n. 1 ; Van Ranst, p. 302. (40) Van Ranst,
p. 303 ; Varillas, 1. 3, p. 48.
264 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

of the University , who afterwards scattered themselves through all


Saxony, but some of the Professors, and even some of the clergy,
secular and regular, became his disciples. Leo X. seeing his
party every day gaining strength, and no hope of his retractation,
then published in Rome his famous Bull , " Exurge Domine," in
which he condemned forty-one of his principal errors as heretical
(see Third Part of this history) , and sent his Commissaries to pub-
lish it in Germany , ordering, at the same time, his books to be
publicly burned in Rome. His Holiness, however, even then
exhorts Luther and his followers to return to the fold, and promises
to receive with clemency whoever returns before the expiration
of two months, at the expiration of which, he orders his Commis-
saries to excommunicate the perverse, and hand them over to the
secular power. The two months being passed, he published ano-
ther Bull, declaring Luther a heretic, and also that all who followed
or favoured him incurred all the penalties and censures fulminated
against heretics (41 ). Luther, as soon as he heard of the publi
cation of the first Bull of 1520 , and the burning of his books in
Rome, burned in the public square of Wittemberg the Bull, and
the Book of the Decretals of the Canon Law, saying: " As you
have opposed the saints of the Lord, so may eternal fire destroy
you ;" and then, in a voice of fury, exclaimed : " Let us fight with
all our strength against that son of perdition , the Pope, the Cardi-
nals, and all the Roman sink of corruption ; let us wash our hands
in their blood (42) ." From that day to the day of his death, he
never ceased writing against the Pope and the Catholic Church,
and from the year 1521 to 1546, when he died, he brought to
light again, in his works, almost every heresy of former ages.
Cochleus, speaking of Luther's writings, says (43) : " He thus de-
filed everything holy ; he preaches Christ, and tramples on his
servants ; magnifies faith, and denies good works, and opens a
license to sin ; elevates mercy, depresses justice, and throws upon
God the cause of all evil ; finally, destroys all law, takes the power
out of the hands of the magistrate, stirs up the laity against
the clergy, the impious against the Pope, the people against
princes."
SEC. II.- THE DIETS AND PRINCIPAL CONGRESSES HELD CONCERNING THE
HERESY OF LUTHER.
13. Diet of Worms, where Luther appeared before Charles V. , and remains obstinate.
14. Edict of the Emperor against Luther, who is concealed by the Elector in one of
his Castles. 15. Diet of Spire, where the Emperor publishes a Decree, against
which the Heretics protest. 16. Conference with the Zuinglians ; Marriage of Luther
with an Abbess. 17. Diet of Augsburg, and Melancthon's Profession of Faith ;
Melancthon's Treatise, in Favour of the Authority of the Pope, rejected by Luther.
18. Another Edict of the Emperor in Favour of Religion. 19. League of Smalkald

(41) Hermant, t. 1 , c. 230. (42) Gotti, c. 108, n. 13. (43) Cochleus de Act. &
Script. Luth. Ann. 1523.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 265

broken up by the Emperor. 20. Dispensation given by the Lutherans to the Land-
grave to have two Wives. 21. Council of Trent, to which Luther refuses to come ;
he dies, cursing the Council. 22. The Lutherans divided into fifty-six Sects.
23. The Second Diet of Augsburg, in which Charles V. published the injurious For-
mula of the Interim . 24, 25. The Heresy of Luther takes Possession of Sweden,
Denmark, Norway, and other Kingdoms.

13. THE first Conference was in the Imperial Diet , assembled in


Worms. Luther still continued augmenting his party, and pour-
ing forth calumnies and vituperations against the Holy See. At
the request of the Pope, Charles V. then wrote to the Elector of
Saxony, to deliver up Luther, or, at all events, to banish him from
his territories. The Elector, on receipt of the letter, said that as
the Diet was now so near, it would be better to refer the whole
matter to its decision. Luther was most anxious to appear in this
illustrious assembly, hoping, by his harangue, to obtain a favour-
able reception for his doctrine, especially as at the request of his
patron, the Elector, he obtained not only permission to attend, but
also a safe conduct from the Emperor himself. The Diet assembled
in 1521 , and Luther arrived in Worms, on the 17th of April .
Ecchius asked him, in the name of the Emperor, ifhe acknowledged
himself the author of the books published in his name, and if it
was his intention to defend them. He admitted the books were
his ; but as to defending them, he said , as that was an affair of
importance to the Word of God, and the salvation of souls, he
required time to give an answer. The Emperor gave him a day for
consideration, and he next day said, that among his books some
contained arguments on religion, and these he could not consci-
entiously retract ; others were written in his own defence, and he
confessed that he was guilty of excess in his attacks on his adver-
saries, the slaves of the Pope, but that they first provoked him to
it. Ecchius required a more lucid answer. He then turned to the
Emperor, and said he could not absolutely retract anything he had
taught in his lectures , his sermons, or his writings, until convinced
by Scripture and reason , and that both Pope and Councils were
fallible judges in this matter ( 1).
14. The Emperor, perceiving his obstinacy, after some conver-
sation with him, dismissed him. He might then have arrested him,
as he was in his power, but he disdained violating the safe conduct
he himself had given him. Notwithstanding, he published, on the
26th of May, an edict, with consent of the Princes of the Empire,
and of its Orders and States, in which he declared Luther a no-
torious and obstinate heretic, and prohibited any one to receive or
protect him, under the severest penalties. He moreover ordained ,
that, after the term of the safe conduct expired, which was twenty
days , he should be proceeded against wherever found (2) ; and he

(1) Nat. Alex. sec. 14, n. 4 ; Varill. t. 1 , 7. 4, dalla, p. 175 ; Van Ranst, p. 304.
(2) Nat. Alex. loc. cit.; Van Ranst, p. 205.
266 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

would not have escaped, were it not for the Elector Frederick, who
bribed the soldiers who escorted him, and had him conveyed to a
place of security. A report was then spread abroad, that Luther
was imprisoned before the expiration of the safe conduct , but the
Elector had him conveyed to the Castle of Watzberg, near Alstad,
in Thuringia, a place which Luther afterwards called his Patmos.
He remained there nearly ten months, well concealed and guarded,
and there he finished the plan of his heresy, and wrote many of his
works. In the works written here, Luther principally attacked the
scholastic Theologians, especially St. Thomas, whose works , he said,
were filled up with heresies. We should not wonder he called the
works of St. Thomas heretical, who centuries before had confuted
his own pestilential errors (3) .
15. In the year 1529, another Diet was held in the city of
Spire, by the Emperor's orders, in which it was decided, that in
these places in which the edict of Worms was accepted, it should
be observed ; but that wherever the ancient religion was changed,
and its restoration could not be effected without public disturb-
ances, matters should remain as they were until the celebration of
a General Council. It was, besides, decided that Mass should freely
be celebrated in the places infected with Lutheranism , and that the
Gospel should be explained , according to the interpretation of the
Fathers approved by the Church. The Elector Frederick of
Saxony, George of Branderburg, Ernest and Francis, Dukes of
Luneburg, Wolfgang of Anhalt, and fourteen confederate cities
(thirteen, according to Protestant historians) , protested against this
Decree, as contrary to the truth of the Gospel, and appealed to a
future Council, or to some judge not suspected , and from this pro-
test arose the famous designation of Protestant (4) .
16. The same year another Conference, composed of Lutherans
and Zuinglians, or Sacramentarians, was held in Marpurg, under
the patronage of the Landgrave of Hesse, to endeavour to establish
a union between their respective sects. Luther, Melancthon, Jonas,
Osiander, Brenzius, and Agricola appeared on one side, and Zuin-
glius, Ecolampadius, Bucer, and Hedio , on the other. They agreed
on all points, with the exception of the Eucharist, as the Zuinglians
totally denied the Real Presence of Christ. Several other Con-
ferences were held to remove , if possible, the discussion of doctrine
objected to then by the Catholics, but all ended without coming to
any agreement. In this the Providence of God is apparent ; the
Roman Church could thus oppose to the innovators that unity of
doctrine she always possessed, and the heretics were always con-
founded on this point (5) . About this period Luther married an
abbess of a convent. His fellow-heresiarch Zuinglius , also a priest,

(3) Hermant, c. 230, 231 ; Van Ranst, loc. cit. (4) Nat. Alex. t. 9, sec. 4, n. 9 ,
ex Sleidano, l. 6 ; Van Ranst, p. 306 ; Hermant, t. 2, c. 244. (5) Van Ranst, p. 806 ;
Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 10.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 267

had already violated his vows, by a sacrilegious marriage, and


Luther would have done the same long before, only he was restrained
by the Elector of Saxony , who, though a heretic, shuddered at the
marriage of a religious , and protested he would oppose it by every
means in his power. On the other hand, Luther was now quite
taken with Catherine Bora, a lady of noble family, but poor, and
who, forced by poverty, embraced a religious life, without any
vocation for that state, in a convent at Misnia, and finally became
abbess. Reading one of Luther's works, she came across his treatise
on the nullity of religious vows, and requested him to visit her.
He called on her frequently, and finally induced her to leave her
convent, and come to Wittemberg with him, where, devoid of all
shame, he married her with great solemnity, the Elector Frederick,
who constantly opposed it, being now dead ; and such was the force
of his example and discourses, that he soon after induced the Grand
Master of the Teutonic Order (6) to celebrate his sacrilegious
nuptials, likewise. Those marriages provoked that witticism of
Erasmus, who said that the heresies of his day all ended , like a
comedy, in marriage.
17. In the July of 1530, the famous Diet of Augsburgh was
held. The Emperor and all the princes being assembled at the
Diet, and the feast of Corpus Christi falling at the same time, an
order was given to the princes to attend the procession . The
Protestants refused , on the plea that this was one ofthe Roman
superstitions ; the Elector of Saxony, nevertheless, whose duty it
was to carry the sword of state before the Emperor (7) , consulted
his theologians, who gave it as their opinion, that in this case he
might consider it a mere human ceremony, and that, like Naam ,
the Syrian, who bowed down before the idol, when the king
leaned on his arm in the temple , he might attend . In this Diet
the Catholic party was represented by John Ecchius, Conrad
Wimpin, and John Cochleus, and the Lutheran by Melancthon,
Brenzius, and Schnapsius. The Lutheran princes presented to
the Emperor the Profession of Faith, drawn up by Philip Melanc-
thon, who endeavoured as much as possible to soften down the
opinions opposed to Catholicity. This is the famous Confession
of Augsburg, afterwards the creed of the majority of Lutherans.
In those Articles they admitted : First.-That we are not justified
by faith alone, but by faith and grace. Second. - That in good
works not only grace alone concurs , but our co-operation likewise.
Third. That the Church contains not only the elect, but also the
reprobate . Fourth.-That free-will exists in man, though without
Divine grace he cannot be justified. Fifth.- That the saints pray
to God for us, and that it is a pious practice to venerate their me-
mories on certain days, abstracting, however, from either approving
(6) Varillas, t. 1, p. 306 ; Hermant, t. 2, c. 243. (7) Nat. Alex. loc. cit, sec. 4,
n. 11 ; Van Ranst, p. 307.
268 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

or condemning their invocation . In ten other chapters of less


importance they agree with Catholics. They agreed, likewise, in
saying that Jesus Christ is present in the Eucharist , in each species,
and did not condemn the laity who communicated in one kind
only. They allowed the jurisdiction of bishops, and that obedience
was due to them by pastors, preachers, and priests, in spiritual
matters, and that censures published by them, according to the rule
of Scripture, are of avail. The Emperor, hoping it would render
easier the establishment of peace, joined to the commissions two
jurists for each side , along with Ecchius and Melancthon ; but this
Conference never was closed, because, as Sleidan tells us, Melanc-
thon was not permitted by Luther to sign the treaty, although he
was most anxious for the establishment of peace, as he declares in
his letter to the Legate Campeggio : " We have no dogma," he
says, " different from the Roman Church ; we are ready to yield her
obedience, if, in her clemency, she will relax or wink at some little
matters. We still profess obedience to the Roman Pontiff, if he
does not cast us off " (8). Varillas (9) mentions a curious fact rela-
tive to this. When Francis I. , King of France, invited Melancthon
to Paris, to teach in the University (in which he did not succeed) ,
he received from him a pamphlet, in which he laid it down as a
principle, that it was necessary to preserve the pre-eminence and
authority of the Roman Pontiff, to preserve the unity of doctrine.
Nothing could exceed Luther's rage when he heard of this, and he
told Melancthon that he had a mind to break with him altogether,
and that he was now about to ruin the religion it cost him twenty
years' labour to establish , by destroying the authority of the Pope.
18. The Zuinglians presented their Confession of Faith at the
same Diet, in the name of the four cities of Strasburg, Constance,
Meningen, and Lindau, which differed from the Lutheran only in
the doctrine of the Eucharist. At the breaking up of the Diet, the
Emperor promulgated an edict, in which the Lutheran Princes and
cities were allowed , until the 15th of April following, to wait for a
General Council, and again become united with the Catholic Church,
and the rest of the Empire. It was forbidden them to allow any
innovations in religious matters, or any works contrary to religion
to be published in their respective territories, and ordained that all
should unite in opposition to the Anabaptists and Zuinglians . The
Lutherans refused to accept these articles, and all hopes of peace
being at an end, asked leave to depart. Before they left, however,
the Emperor published an edict, subscribed by the remaining
Princes and Orders of the Empire, that all should persevere in the
ancient religion, condemning the sects of the Anabaptists, Zuin-
glians, and Lutherans, and commanding all to hold themselves in

(8) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 11 ; Hermant, c. 244. (9) Varillas, t. 1 , l. 10, p. 445,
coll. 1.
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 269

readiness to attend at the Council, which he promised he would


induce the Pope to summon in six months ( 10) .
19. The Protestants refused obedience to this Decree, and met
in Smalcald, a city of Franconia, and there, in 1531 , formed the
famous League of Smalcald, to defend with force of arms the doc-
trines they professed ; but they refused the admission of the Zuin-
glians into this League, on account of their errors regarding the Holy
Sacrament. This was the cause of the famous battle of Mulberg,
on the Elbe, in 1547 , in which Charles V. was victorious, and John ,
Elector of Saxony, and Philip, the Landgrave, the two chiefs of the
heretical party in Germany, were made prisoners (11) . The whole
power of Protestantism would have been broken by this defeat, had
not Maurice of Saxony, the nephew of the imprisoned Elector,
taken up arms against Charles (12 ). The Landgrave obtained his
liberty, but was obliged to beg pardon of the Emperor prostrate at
his feet, and surrender his States into his hands (13 ) .
20. This Philip is the same who obtained , in 1539 , from Luther
and other faithful Ministers of the Gospel, as they called themselves,
that remarkable dispensation to marry two wives at the same time.
Varillas says (14) , that the Landgrave, though previous to his mar-
riage he always led a moral life, could not, after the loss of his faith ,
content himself with one wife, and persuaded himself that Luther
and the theologians of his sect would grant him a dispensation to
marry another. He well knew whom he had to deal with ; he
assembled them in Wittemberg, and though they well knew the
difficult position in which they were placed, and the scandal they
would give by yielding to his wishes, still his influence had greater
weight with them than the laws of Christ or the dictates of their
consciences. Varillas (P. 531 ) gives the rescript in full by which
they dispense with him. They say they could not introduce into
the New Testament the provisions of the Old Law, which permitted
a plurality of wives, as Christ says they shall be two in one flesh,
but they likewise say that there are certain cases in which the New
Law can be dispensed with ; that the case of the Prince was one of
these ; but that, in order to avoid scandal, it would be necessary
that the second marriage should be celebrated privately, in the pre-
sence of few witnesses ; and this document is subscribed by Luther,
Melancthon, Bucer, and five other Lutheran Doctors. The marriage
was soon after privately celebrated in presence of Luther, Melanc-
thon , and six other persons. The Landgrave died, according to
De Thou, in 1567.
21. The Council of Trent was opened on the 13th of December,
1545 , under Paul III., was continued under Julius III., and being

(10) Nat. Alex. sec. 4, n. 10, in fin. ex Cochlæo in Act. Lutheri & Sleidano, l. 7 ; Van
Ranst, p. 307. (11) Nat. Alex. sec. 4, n. 13 ; Hermant, t. 2, c. 245. (12) Van
Ranst, p. 307 ; Nat. Alex. t. 19, c. 10, sec. 4, n. 1. (13) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. (14) Va-
rillas, t. 1, l. 7, p. 530, c. 2.
270 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

many times suspended for various causes, was formally concluded


under Pius IV. , in December, 1563. Luther frequently called on
the Pope to summon a General Council, but now that it was as-
sembled, he would not attend it, knowing full well his doctrines
would be there condemned. First, he appealed from the Legate to
the Pope, then from the Pope not sufficiently informed to the Pope
better informed, then from the Pope to a Council, and now from the
Council to himself. Such has been the invariable practice of here-
siarchs ; to refute the decisions ofthe Pope they appeal to a Council,
condemned by a Council, they reject the decisions of both. Thus
Luther refused to attend the Council, and after his death his ex-
ample was followed by the other Protestants, who refused even to
avail themselves of the safe conduct given to them for that effect.
While the Fathers were making preparations for the Fourth Session,
news of Luther's death was brought to Trent ; he went to Eisleben
towards the end of January, at the invitation ofsome of his friends , to
arrange some differences, when he was then told he was invited to
the Council. He exclaimed in a rage : " I will go, and may I lose
my head if I do not defend my opinions against all the world ; that
which comes forth from my mouth is not my anger but the anger of
God" (15). A longer journey, however, was before him ; he died
in the sixty-third year of his age, on the 17th of February, 1546.
After eating a hearty supper and enjoying himself, jesting as usual,
he was a few hours after attacked with dreadful pains, and thus he
died . Raging against the Council a little before his death , he said
to Justus Jonas, one of his followers : " Pray for our Lord God and
his Gospel, that it may turn out well, for the Council of Trent and
the abominable Pope are grievously opposed to him." Saying this
he died, and went to receive the reward ofall his blasphemies against
the Faith, and of the thousands of souls he led to perdition. His
body was placed in a tin coffin, and borne on a triumphal car to
Wittemberg, followed by his concubine, Catherine, and his three
sons, John, Martin , and Paul, in a coach, and a great multitude both
on foot and horseback. Philip Melancthon preached his funeral
oration in Latin, and Pomeranius in German . Pomeranius also
composed that inscription for his tomb, worthy alike of the master
and the disciple : " Pestis eram vivus, moriens ero mors tua Papa"-
" I was the plague of the Pope while living , dying I will be his
death" (16).
22. The Lutherans were invited to the Council by various briefs
of the Popes, but always refused to attend (17) . They were after-
wards summoned by the Emperor Ferdinand, on the re-opening of
the Council ; but they required conditions which could not be
granted ( 18 ). They at first split into two sects, Rigorous and Re-

(15) Cochleus in Actis Lutheri. (16) Gotti, c. 105, s. 5, n. 7 ; Van Ranst, p. 308 ;
Bernin. t. 4, sec. 16, c. 5 , p. 454 ; Varillas, t. 2, l. 14, p. 34. (17) Varillas, t. 2, l. 24,
p. 366. (18) Varillas, L. 25, p. 393.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 271

laxed Lutherans ( 19) , and these two, as Lindan afterwards informs


us, were divided into fifty-six sects (20) .
23. In another Diet, celebrated in Augsburg , in 1547, the
Emperor Charles V. restored the Catholic religion in that city ;
but in the following year, as Noel Alexander ( 21 ) tells us, he
tarnished his glory by publishing the famous Interim, thus usurp-
ing the authority to decide on questions of Faith and ecclesiastical
discipline. We should , says Noel Alexander, hold this Interim in
the same detestation as the Enoticon of Zeno , the Ecthesis of
Heraclius, and the Tiphos of Constans. In the year 1552 , he
again tarnished his honour, for after routing Maurice of Saxony,
he made peace with him, and granted freedom of worship in his
states to the professors of the Confession of Augsburg. In the
year 1556 he gave up the government of the Empire to his brother
Ferdinand, King of the Romans, and retired to the Jeromite Mo-
nastery of St. Justus, in Estremadura, in Spain, giving himself up
to God alone, and preparing for death , which overtook him on the
21st of September, 1558, in the fifty-eighth year of his age (22).
24. Luther's heresy, through the instrumentality of his disciples,
soon spread from Germany into the neighbouring kingdoms, and
first of all it infected Sweden . This kingdom, at first idolatrous,
received the Catholic Faith in 1155 , which was finally established
in 1416, and continued the Faith of the nation till the reign of
Gustavus Erickson . Lutheranism was introduced into this coun-
try in 1523 by Olaus Petri, who imbibed it in the University of
Wittemberg; along with many others, he gained over King Gus-
tavus, who gave leave to the preachers to propound, and to all
leave to follow, their doctrines, and also permitted the religious to
marry. It was his wish that the old ceremonies should be kept up,
to deceive the people ; but he caused all the ancient books to be
burned, and introduced new ones, written by heretics ; thus in four
years Lutheranism was established in Sweden. Gustavus, at his
death, left the crown to his son, Eric XIV.; but his reign was but
short, for his younger brother, John , declared war against him, and
dethroned him in 1569. Before John came to the crown, he was a
good Catholic, and desired to re- unite Sweden to the Church ,
especially as the Pope sent him an excellent missioner to strengthen
him in the Faith. He commenced the good work by publishing a
liturgy opposed to the Lutheran, and intending gradually to abolish
the heresy. He then wrote to the Pope, saying, he hoped to gain
Sweden altogether to the Faith, if his Holiness would grant four
conditions : First.- That the nobility should not be disturbed in
the possession of the ecclesiastical property they held. Second.-
That the married bishops and priests should have liberty to retain

(19) Varill. t. 2, l. 17, p. 122 , & l. 24, p. 364 . (20) Lindan, Epist., Roram in Luther.
(21) Ńat. Alex. t. 19, c. 10, art. 5, p. 321. (22) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. c. 10, art. 5.
272 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

their wives. Third .- That communion should be given in both


kinds. Fourth.-That the Church service should be celebrated in
the vulgar tongue. The Pope consulted the cardinals, but refused
his request, as he could not well grant him what he refused to so
many other princes. When this answer arrived, the King was
already wavering in his determination to support the true Faith ,
fearful of causing a revolt with which he was threatened ; this
unfavourable answer decided him, and he gave up all hopes, and
followed the religion of his States. His Queen, a zealous Catholic,
a sister of Sigismund Augustus, King of Poland , was so much
affected by the change in her husband's dispositions, that she sur-
vived but a short time. In twelve months after the King followed
her, and left the throne to his son Sigismund, then King of Poland.
Charles of Sudermania, who governed the kingdom in the Sove-
reign's absence, usurped the crown, and his crime was sanctioned
by the States, who declared Sigismund's right to the crown null
and void, on account of his religion . Charles, therefore, being
settled on the throne, established Lutheranism in Sweden. He
was succeeded by his son, Gustavus Adolphus, one of the greatest
enemies Catholicity had either in Sweden or Germany ; but his
daughter Christina renounced the throne, sooner than give up the
faith she embraced, and lived and died in the Catholic Church.
She left the kingdom to Charles Gustavus, her cousin, who reigned
for six years, and transmitted it to his son , Charles V. , and to the
present day no other religion but Lutheranism is publicly pro-
fessed in Sweden ( 23) .
25. Denmark and Norway underwent a similar misfortune
with Sweden. Idolatry was predominant in Denmark till the
year 826, when the Catholic religion was established by Regnor I. ,
and continued to be the only religion of the kingdom , till in 1523
Lutheranism was introduced by Christian II. The judgment of
God, however, soon fell on him, as he was dethroned by his sub-
jects, and banished with all his family. His uncle, Frederick,
was chosen to succeed him. He gave liberty to the Protestants
to preach their doctrine, and to his subjects to follow it . Not,
however, content with this , he soon began a cruel persecution
against the bishops, and against every Catholic who defended his
religion, and many sealed their religion with their blood . This
impious monarch met an awfully sudden death while he was
banqueting on Good Friday, and was succeeded by Christian III .,
who completed the final separation of Denmark from the Catholic
Church. Thus, in a short time, Lutheranism became dominant in
these kingdoms, and continues to hold its sway there . There are
many Calvinistic congregations in Denmark, as Christian per-
mitted the Scotch Presbyterians to found churches there . There

(23) Historia Relig. Jovet, t. 2, p. 324.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 273

are also some Catholics, but they were obliged to assemble pri-
vately for the Holy Sacrifice, and even now, though the spirit of
the age is opposed to persecution, they labour under many re-
straints and disabilities. Norway, till lately , and Iceland at the
present day, belongs to Denmark, and Lutheranism is likewise the
religion of these countries, though the people, especially in the
country parts, preserve many Catholic traditions, but they were
till lately destitute of priests aud sacrifice.* In Lapland, some
Pagans remain as yet, who adore the spirits ofthe woods, and fire ,
and water ; they have no Catholic missioner to instruct them.
There are, indeed, but few Catholics altogether in the Northern
kingdoms. Formerly, the Dominicans, Franciscans, Carthusians,
Cistercians, and Brigittines, had convents there, but now all have
disappeared (24) .

SEC. III.- ERRORS OF LUTHER.


26. Forty- one Errors of Luther condemned by Leo X. 27. Other Errors taken from his
Books. 28. Luther's Remorse of Conscience. 29. His Abuse of Henry VIII. ;
his erroneous Translation of the New Testament ; the Books he rejected. 30. His
Method of celebrating Mass. 31. His Book against the Sacramentarians, who denied
the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

96. FIRST in order, come the forty- one propositions of Luther,


condemned by Leo X. in his Bull, Exurge Domine, published in
1520 , which is found in the Bullarium of Leo X. (Constit. 40) ,
in Cochleus's account of Luther's proceedings , and also in Ber-
nini's (1 ) works . They are as follows : First. It is a usual, but
a heretical opinion, that the Sacraments of the New Law give
justifying grace to those who place no hindrance in the way.
Second. To deny that sin remains in a child after baptism is,
through the mouth of Paul, to trample both on Christ and Paul.
Third. The tendency to sin (Fomes peccati) , although there is
no actual sin, delays the soul, after leaving the body, from enter-
ing into heaven. Fourth .- The imperfect charity of one about
to die necessarily induces a great fear, which of itself is enough
to make the pains of purgatory, and excludes from the kingdom .
Fifth. That the parts of penance are three -contrition , con-
fession, and satisfaction ; is founded neither in Scripture, nor in
the ancient Holy Christian Doctors. Sixth. -Contrition , which
is obtained by examination , recollection , and detestation of sins, by
which a person recollects his years in the bitterness of his soul,
pondering on the grievousness , the multitude, and the foulness of

(24) Joves, cit. p. 343. (1) Bernin. t. 4, sec. 16, c. 2 , p. 285.

* N.B. - A Vicar Apostolic has been appointed to Sweden and Norway. In 1856 , a
Prefect Apostolic, Abbé Djonvoski, has been appointed for Iceland, Lapland, Greenland,
and the Arctic Regions of America.
S
274 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

his sins, the loss of eternal beatitude, and the incurring eternal
damnation ; this contrition only makes a man a hypocrite, and a
greater sinner. Seventh. -That proverb is most true, and better
than all the doctrine about conditions given as yet : the highest
penance is not to act so again , and the best penance is a new life.
Eighth Presume not by any means to confess venial sins, and not
even every wicked sin ; for it is impossible that you should know
all your mortal sins, and hence, in the primitive Church only
these manifestly mortal were confessed. Ninth.- When we wish
clearly to confess everything, we act as if we wished to leave nothing
to the mercy of God to pardon. Tenth.- Sins are not remitted
to any one, unless (the priest remitting them) he believes they
are remitted-yea, the sin remains unless he believes it remitted ;
for the remission of sin and the donation of grace is not enough,
but we must also believe it is remitted. Eleventh. You should
on no account trust you are absolved on account of your contrition ,
but because ofthe words of Christ : " Whatsoever thou shalt loose."
Hence, I say, trust, ifyou obtain the priest's absolution, and believe.
strongly you are absolved, and you will be truly absolved, no matter
about contrition. Twelfth.-If by impossibility you should con-
fess without contrition , or the priest should absolve you only in
joke, and you, nevertheless, believe you are absolved , you are most
certainly absolved. Thirteenth . - In the Sacraments of Penance
and the Remission of Sins, the Pope or bishop does no more than
the lowest priest- nay, if a priest cannot be had, any Christian ,
even woman or child , has the same power. Fourteenth . - No one
ought to answer a priest that he is contrite, nor ought a priest to ask
such a question . Fifteenth . They are in great error who approach
the Sacrament of the Eucharist with trust, because they have con-
fessed, are not conscious to themselves of any mortal sins, have said
the prayers and preparations for Communion-all these eat and
drink unto themselves judgment ; but if they believe and trust,
they will then obtain grace : this faith alone makes them pure and
worthy. Sixteenth .- It seems advisable that the Church, in a
General Council, should declare that the laity should communicate
under both kinds, and the Bohemians who do so are not heretics
but schismatics. Seventeenth .- The treasures of the Church, from
which the Pope grants indulgences, are not the merits of Christ or
his saints. Eighteenth. Indulgences are pious frauds of the
faithful, and remission of good works, and are of the number of
those things that are lawful, but not expedient. Nineteenth.-
Indulgences are of no value to those who truly obtain them for the
remission of the punishment due to the Divine justice for their
actual sins. Twentieth. -They are seduced who believe indul-
gences are salutary and useful for the fruit of the spirit. Twenty-
first.-Indulgences are necessary only for public crimes, and should
be granted only to the hardened and impatient. Twenty-second .--
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 275

For six classes of persons indulgences are neither useful nor neces-
sary-to wit, the dead, those on the point of death, the sick, those
who are lawfully impeded, those who have not committed crimes ,
those who have committed crimes, but not public ones, and those
who mend their lives. Twenty-third.- Excommunications are
merely external penalties, and do not deprive a man of the common
spiritual prayers of the Church. Twenty-fourth. - Christians should
be taught rather to love excommunication than to fear it. Twenty-
fifth. The Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter , is not the Vicar
of Christ instituted by Christ himself in St. Peter, Vicar over all
the Churches of the world. Twenty-sixth. -The word of Christ to
St. Peter, "Whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth ," & c . , extended
but to what St. Peter himself alone had bound . Twenty-seventh .
-It is not certainly in the power of the Pope or the Church by
any means to lay down articles of faith nor laws of morals, nor good
works. Twenty-eighth.-If the Pope with a great part of the
Church should think so and so , although not in error, it is, never-
theless, neither sin nor heresy to think the contrary, especially in a
matter not necessary to salvation , until by a General Council one
thing is rejected and the other approved. Twenty-ninth .- We
have a way open to us for weakening the authority of Councils ,
and freely contradicting their acts, and judging their decrees, by
freely confessing whatever appears true, no matter whether approved
or condemned by any Council . Thirtieth.- Some of the articles
of John Huss , condemned in the Council of Constance, are most
Christian, most true , and most evangelical , such as not even the
universal Church could condemn . Thirty-first.-The just man sins
in every good work. Thirty-second. -A good work, be it never
so well performed , is a venial sin. Thirty-third.-It is against the
will of the spirit to burn heretics. Thirty-fourth.- To fight against
the Turks is to oppose the will ofGod , who punishes our iniquities
through them. Thirty-fifth . - No man can be certain that he is not
in a constant state of mortal sin on account of the most hidden vice
of pride. Thirty-sixth.- Free will after sin is a matter of name
alone, and while one does what is in him he sins mortally. Thirty-
seventh . - Purgatory cannot be proved from the Holy Scriptures
contained in the Canon of Scripture. Thirty-eighth .- The souls
in purgatory are not sure of their salvation - at least all of them ;
nor is it proved by reason or Scripture that they are beyond the
state of merit or of increasing charity. Thirty-ninth -The souls
in purgatory continually sin, as long as they seek relief and dread
their punishment. Fortieth . - Souls freed from purgatory by the
suffrages of the living, enjoy a less share of beatitude than if they
satisfied the Divine justice themselves . Forty-first.- Ecclesiastical
prelates and secular princes would do no wrong if they abolished
the medicant orders.
27. Besides the errors here enumerated and condemned by the
276 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Bull, there are many others mentioned and enumerated by Noel


Alexander, and Cardinal Gotti (2 ) , extracted from various works of
Luther, as from the treatise " De Indulgentiis," " De Reformatione,"
" Respon. ad lib. Catharini ," " De Captivitate Babilonica," " Contra
Latomum," " De Missa privata," " Contra Episc. Ordinem," " Contra
Henricum VIII . Regem," " Novi Testamenti Translatio," " De
Formula Missæ et Communionis," 66" Ad Waldenses, &c. ," " Contra
Carlostadium," " De Servo arbitro," " Contra Anabaptistas," and
other works, printed in Wittemberg, in several volumes. Here are
some of his most remarkable errors : First.-A priest, though he
does it in mockery or in jest, still both validly baptizes and absolves.
Second. It is a foul error for any one to imagine he can make
satisfaction for his sins, which God gratuitously pardons . Three.-
Baptism does not take away all sin . Fourth.-Led astray by wicked
doctors, we think we are free from sin, by baptism and contrition ;
also that good works are available for increasing merit, and satis-
fying for sin. Fifth . Those who have made it a precept, obliging
under mortal sin to communicate at Easter, have sinned grievously
themselves. Sixth.-It is not God, but the Pope, who commands
auricular confession to a priest. Whoever wishes to receive the
Holy Sacrament, should receive it entire (that is under both kinds),
or abstain from it altogether. Seventh.-The right of interpreting
Scriptures is equal in the laity as in the learned. Eighth -The
Roman Church in the time of St. Gregory was not above other
churches. Ninth .- God commands impossibilities to man . Tenth.-
God requires supreme perfection from every Christian. Eleventh.—
There are no such things as Evangelical Counsels ; they are all
precepts. Twelfth .-We should give greater faith to a layman ,
having the authority of Scripture, than to a Pope, a Council, or
even to the Church. Thirteenth .-Peter was not the Prince ofthe
Apostles. Fourteenth.-The Pope is the Vicar of Christ by human
right alone. Fifteenth.-A sin is venial, not by its own nature,
but by the mercy of God. Sixteenth.- I believe a Council and
the Church never err in matters of Faith, but as to the rest, it is
not necessary they should be infallible. Seventeenth. The pri-
macy of the Roman Pontiff is not of Divine right. Eighteenth.
There are not Seven Sacraments , and for the present there should
only be established Baptism, Penance, and the Bread . Nineteenth.-
We can believe, without heresy, that real bread is present on the
altar. Twentieth. The Gospel does not permit the Mass to be
a sacrifice . Twenty-first. -The Mass is nothing else but the
words of Christ : " Take and eat, &c.," the promise of Christ.
Twenty-second.- It is a dangerous error to call Penance , and
believe it to be, the plank after shipwreck. Twenty-third.-
It is impious to assert that the sacraments are efficacious signs of
(2) Nat. Alex. t. 19, art. 11 , sec. 2 ; Gotti, c. 108, sec. 4 ; Tournelly, Comp. Thol.
t. 5, p. 1, diss. 5, art. 2.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 277

grace, unless we should say that when there is undoubted faith,


they confer grace. Twenty- fourth.- All vows, both of religious
orders and of good works, should be abolished. Twenty-fifth.-
It is sufficient for a brother to confess to a brother, for to all
Christians that were , has been addressed : " Whatsoever ye shall
bind on earth." Twenty-sixth.-Bishops have not the right of
reserving cases. Twenty-seventh.-A change of life is true satis-
faction. Twenty- eighth.-There is no reason why Confirmation
should be reckoned among the sacraments. Twenty-ninth . - Matri-
mony is not a sacrament. Thirtieth.-Impediments of spiritual
affinity, of crime, and of order, are but human comments. Thirty-
first. The Sacrament of Orders was invented by the Pope's Church.
Thirty-second.- The Council of Constance erred , and many things
were rashly determined on , such as, that the Divine essence neither
generates nor is generated, that the soul is the substantial form of
the human body. Thirty-third.- All Christians are priests, and
have the same power in the words and sacraments. Thirty-fourth.-
Extreme Unction is not a sacrament ; there are only two sacraments,
Baptism and the Bread . Thirty-fifth. - The Sacrament of Penance
is nothing also, but a way and return to Baptism . Thirty-sixth.-
Antecedent grace is that movement which is made in us without
us, not without our active and vital concurrence (as a stone which
is merely passive to physical acts) , but without our free and indif-
ferent action . It was thus Luther explained efficacious grace , and
on this he founded his system, that the will of a man, both for good
and evil, is operated upon by necessity ; saying, that by grace a
necessity is induced into the will , not by coaction, for the will acts
spontaneously, but by necessity ; and in another place, he says, that
by sin the will has lost its liberty, not that liberty which theo-
logians call a coactione, but a necessitate, it has lost its indifference.
28. In his book on the Sacrifice of the Mass, we may perceive
how remorse torments him. " How often," he says, " has my heart
beat, reprehending me-Are you always wise ? Do all others err?
Have so many centuries passed in ignorance ? How will it be if
you are in error, and you lead so many along with you to damna-
tion ? But at length Christ (the devil he should have said) con-
firmed me."
29. In the year 1522 , Henry VIII . wrote a book in defence of
the Seven Sacraments. Luther, answering him, calls him a fool ,
says he will trample on the crowned blasphemer, and that his own
doctrines are from heaven. In the same year he published his Ger-
man translation of the New Testament, in which learned Catholics
discover a thousand errors ; he rejects altogether the Epistle of St.
Paul to the Hebrews , the Epistles of St. James and St. Jude, and the
Apocalypse ; he made many changes after the first edition, no less
than thirty-three in the Gospel of St. Matthew alone. In the words.
of St. Paul, chap. iii . v. 3 , " For we account a man to be justified by
278 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Faith without the works of the law, " he adds the word alone, " by
Faith alone." In the Diet of Augsburg, some one said to him, that
the Catholics spoke very loudly of this interpretation , when he made
that arrogant answer : " If your Papist prattles any more about this
word alone, tell him that Doctor Martin Luther wishes it to be so ;
sic volo, sic jubeo , sit pro ratione voluntas- I wish so , I order so,
let my will be sufficient reason for it."
30. In the year 1523 he composed his book, " De Formula
Missæ et Cominunionis ;" he abolished the Introits of the Sundays,
all the festivals of saints, with the exception of the Purification and
Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin ; he retained the Kyrie, the
Gloria, and one Collect, the Epistle, the Gospel, and the Nicene
Creed , but all in the vulgar tongue ; he then passed on to the Pre-
face, omitting all the rest ; he then says: " Who, the day before
he suffered," &c. , as in the Catholic Sacrifice of the Mass, but the
words of the Consecration are chaunted as loud as the Pater Noster,
that they may be heard by the people. After the Consecration , the
Sanctus is sung, and the Benedictus qui venit said ; the bread and
the chalice is elevated immediately after the Pater Noster is said,
without any other prayer, then the Pax Domini, &c. The Commu-
nion follows, and while that is going on, the Agnus Dei is sung ; he
approves of the Orationes Domine Jesu , &c. , and Corpus D. N. J. C.
custodiat, &c. He allows the Communion to be sung, but in place
of the last Collect, chaunts the prayer, Quod ore sumpsimus, &c .,
and instead of the Ita Missa est, says Benedicamus Domine. He
gives the chalice to all, permits the use of vestments, but without
any blessing, and prohibits private Masses . To prepare for Com-
munion , he says confession may be permitted as useful, but it is not
necessary. He allows Matins to be said, with three lessons , the
Hours, Vespers , and Complin.
31. In the year 1525 , Carlostad attacked the doctrine of the Real
Presence of Christ in the Holy Sacrament , saying that the word this
did not refer to the bread, but to the body of Christ crucified .
66
Luther opposed him in his book, " Contra Prophetas seu Fanaticos ;"
in this he first speaks of images, and says that in the law of Moses
it was images of the Deity alone which were prohibited ; he before
admitted the images of the saints and the cross. Speaking of the
Sacrament he says, by the word hoc, this , the bread is pointed out,
and that Christ is truly and carnally in the supper. The bread and
the body are united in the bread , and (speaking of the Incarnation)
as man is God , so the bread is called his body and the body bread.
Thus Luther falsely constitutes a second hypostatic union between
the bread and the body of Christ. Hospinian quotes a sermon
Luther preached against the Sacramentarians, where , speaking of
the peace they wished to have established , if the Lutherans would
grant them the liberty to deny the Real Presence , he says : " Cursed
be such concord which tears asunder and despises the Church .” He
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 279

then derides their false interpretation ofthe words , " This is my body."
He commences with Zuinglius, who says the word is is the same as
signifies. " We have the Scripture," says Luther, " which says, This
is my body; but is there any place in the Scriptures where it is
written , This signifies my body.' He then ridicules the interpre-
tation of the others. " Carlostad," he says, " distorts the word this;
Ecolampadius tortures the word body; others transpose the word this;
and say, my body which shall be delivered for you is this ; others say,
that which is given for you, this is my body ; others maintain the text ,
this is my body, for my commemoration ; and others again say, this
is not an article of Faith." Returning , then , on Ecolampadius, who
said it was blasphemous to assert that God was kneaded, baked,
and made of bread, he retorts : " It would also, I suppose, be blas-
phemous to say God was made man , that it was most insulting to
the Divine Majesty to be crucified by wicked men, and concludes
by saying: " The Sacramentarians prepare the way for denial of all
the articles of Faith , and they already begin to believe nothing."
Speaking of Transubstantiation, he says : " It makes but little dif
ference for any one to believe the bread to remain or not to remain
in the Eucharist, if he believe in Transubstantiation." In an agree
ment made with Bucer, at Wittemberg, in 1526 , he granted that
the body and blood of Christ remained in the Sacrament only while
it was received.

SEC. IV. THE DISCIPLES OF LUTHER.

32. Melancthon and his Character. 33. His Faith, and the Augsburg Confession com-
posed by him. 34. Matthias Flaccus, Author of the Centuries. 35. John Agricola,
Chief of the Antinomians ; Atheists. 36. Andrew Osiander, Francis Stancaro, and
Andrew Musculus. 37. John Brenzius, Chief of the Ubiquists. 38. Gaspar
Sneckenfield abhorred even by Luther for his Impiety. 39. Martin Chemnitz, the
Prince of Protestant Theologians, and Opponent of the Council of Trent.

32. PHILIP MELANCTHON, Luther's chief and best beloved disciple ,


was a German, born in Britten , in the Palatinate, of a very poor
family, in the year 1497. He was a man of profound learning,
and, at the age of twenty-four, was appointed one of the professors
of Wittemberg by the Duke of Saxony. There he became imbued
with Lutheran opinions, but as he was a man of the greatest mild-
ness of manner, and so opposed to strife that he never spoke a harsh
word against any one, he was anxious to bring about a union be-
tween all the religions of Germany ; and on that account in many
points smoothened down the harsh doctrines of Luther, and fre-
quently, in writing to his friends, as Bossuet, in his History of the
Variations, tells us, he complained that Luther was going too far.
He was a man of great genius, but undecided in his opinions, and
so fond of indifference that his disciples formed themselves into a
sect called Indifferentists, or Adiaphorists. The famous Confession
280 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

of Augsburg was drawn up by him at the Diet, and his followers.


were on that account sometimes called Confessionists (1 ) .
33. He divided his Confession into twenty -one articles, and
stated his opinions with such moderation , that Luther afterwards
complained that Philip, in endeavouring to smoothen down his doc-
trine, destroyed it ( 2) . He admitted the liberty of human will, re-
jected the opinion of Luther, that God is the author of sin, and
approved of the Mass. All these points were opposed to Luther's
system . He was at length so tired with the way matters went on
among the Reformers, that he intended to leave them altogether,
and retire into Poland, there to wait the decision of the Council,
whatever it should be (3) . His opinions were very unsteady re-
garding matters of Faith ; thus, he says, man can be justified by
Faith alone ; and his rival, Osiander, says he changed his mind
fourteen times on this one subject. He was selected to arrange a
treaty of peace with the Sacramentarians, but notwithstanding all
his endeavours he never could succeed (4). Gotti, quoting Coch-
leus ( 5) , says, that with all his anxiety to smoothen down any harsh
points in the system, he only threw oil and not water on the flames.
He died in Wittemberg in 1556 , according to Van Ranst, or in
1560, according to Gotti, at the age of sixty-one. Many authors
relate that, being at the point of death, his mother said to him :
66
My son, I was a Catholic ; you have caused me to forsake that
Faith ; you are now about to appear before God, and tell me truly,
I charge you, which is the better Faith, the Catholic or the
Lutheran ?" He answered : " The Lutheran is an easier religion ,
but the Catholic is more secure for salvation" (6). Berti relates (7)
that he himself composed his own epitaph, as follows :-
" Iste brevis tumulus miseri tenet ossa Philippi,
Qui qualis fuerit nescio, talis erat."
These are not the words of Faith, and would imply that he much
doubted of his eternal salvation .
34. Matthias Flaccus Illiricus, born in Albona in Istria, had the
misfortune to study in Wittemberg, under Luther, and became
afterwards the Chief of the Rigid Lutherans. He was the princi-
pal of the compilers of the Centuries of Magdeburg, an Ecclesi-
astical History, published in 1560, and to refute which Cardinal
Baronius published his celebrated Annals. Flaccus died in Frank-
fort, in 1575 , at the age of fifty-five. He disagreed in many
things with Luther. Striger ( 8) sustained an erroneous opinion ,
bordering on Pelagianism, that original sin was but a slight acci-
dent, which did not substantially corrupt the whole human race ;

(1) Nat. Alex. t. 19, a. 11 ; s. 3, n. 4 ; Gotti, Ver. Rel. s. 109, sec. 3 ; Van Ranst,
p. 308 ; Hermant, c. 241. (2 ) Hermant, loc. cit. (3) Varillas Hist. 20, 2, l. 24,
p. 363 . (4) Varillas, s. 1 , l. 8, p. 364. (5) Gotti, loc. cit. n. 2. (6 ) Flore-
mund. l. 2, c. 9 ; Van Ranst, & Gotti, loc. cit.; & Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 10. (7) Berti,
Hist. sec. 16, c. 3. (8) Ap. Spondam. ad an. 1560, n. 32.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 281

and Flaccus, on the contrary, renewing the blasphemous errors of


the Manicheans , said that original sin was the substance itself of
man, which deprived him of free will, and of every good move-
ment, and drove him necessarily on to evil, from which faith in
Jesus Christ alone could save him. On that account, he denied
the necessity of good works for salvation, and his followers were
called Substantialists (9).
35. John Agricola was a townsman of Luther, and was for a
time his disciple, but became afterwards the founder of a sect,
called Antinomians, or Law Opposers, for he rejected all authority
of law, and taught that you may become a sensualist , a thief, a
robber, but if you believe you will be saved (10). Varillas says
that Luther brought the errors of Agricola before the University
of Wittemberg, as subversive of all the value of good works, and,
on their condemnation, he retracted them ; but after Luther's death
he went to Berlin, and again commenced teaching his blasphemies ,
where he died, without any sign of repentance, at the age of se-
venty-four (11). Florimundus calls the Antinomians Atheists,
who believe in neither God nor the devil.
36. Andrew Osiander was the son of a smith in the Mark of
Brandenburg. He taught that Christ was the justifier of mankind ,
not according to the human, but according to the Divine nature (12) ;
and opposed to him was Francis Stancaro, of Mantua, who taught
that Christ saved man by the human nature, not by the Divine
nature ( 13) . Thus Osiander taught the errors of Eutyches, and
Stancaro those of Nestorius ( 14) . In answer to the first, we have
to remark that, although it is God that justifies, still he wishes to
avail himself of the humanity of Christ (which was alone capable
of suffering and making atonement), as of an instrument for the
salvation of mankind . The Passion of Christ, says St. Thomas ( 15 ) ,
is the cause of our justification, not, indeed, as a principal agent,
but as an instrument, inasmuch as the humanity is the instrument
of his Divinity, and hence the Council of Trent has declared ( Sess .
6, Cap. 7) the efficient cause of this justification is God-the meri-
torious cause is Jesus Christ, who , on the wood of the Cross, merited
for us justification ( 16) , and satisfied for us to God the Father. In
answer to Stancaro , who teaches that Christ saved mankind , as man
alone, but not as God, we have but to consider what is already
said, because if Christ, according to the flesh , deserved for man
the grace of salvation , nevertheless, it was the Divinity, and not

(9) Gotti, c. 109, sec. 7, n. 1, 2 ; Van Ranst, p. 310 ; Varillas, t. 1 , l. 17, p. 122, &
t. 2, l. 24, p. 363 ; Nat. Alex. t. 19, a. 11 , sec. 3, n. 10. (10 ) Nat. Alex. t. 19, a. 11 ,
sec. 3, n. 7 ; Gotti, c. 109 , sec. 5, n. 7 ; Van Ranst, p. 310. (11) Varillas, t. 1, l. 11,
p. 512. (12) Remund. in Synopsi, l. 2, c. 16. (13) Gotti, loc. cit. sec. 6, n. 1 ad
6 ; N. Alex. loc. cit. n. 8 ; Van Ranst, cit. p. 310 . (14) Gotti, sec. 7, n. 8 ; Van
Ranst, loc. cit.; Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 11. (15) St. Thomas, p. 3, q. 64, ar. 1 .
(16 ) Gotti, sec. 7 , n. 8 ; Van Ranst, p. 310.
282 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

the humanity, which granted this grace to man. Andrew Mus-


culus, of Lorraine, opposed both Osiander and Stancaro, but with
just as great a heresy, for he taught that the Divine nature of
Christ, as well as the human nature, died on the Cross. This was
nothing else but the blasphemy of Eutyches, that the Divinity
suffered for the salvation of mankind (17) . Remund ( 18 ) tells
us, that at that period new churches were every day forming in
every corner of Germany, and changing as quickly as the moon ,
and that two hundred sects existed at one time among the Reform-
ers. No wonder that Duke George of Saxony said that the people
of Wittemberg could not tell to-day what their faith would be
to-morrow .
37. John Brenzius, a Suabian, and Canon of Wittemberg, was
already a priest, when he became the disciple of Luther, and imitated
his master in taking a wife. He taught that the concupiscence
which remains in the soul after Baptism is a sin, .contrary to the
Council of Trent, which declares that the Catholic Church never
understood that concupiscence should be called a sin, but that it is
from sin, and inclines to sin . He also said that the body of Christ,
by the personal union with the Word, is everywhere , and , conse-
quently, that Jesus Christ is in the Host before consecration ; and,
explaining the words, "This is my body," he says that denotes that
the body of Christ is already present. Hence the sect who ac-
knowledged him as their chief was called Ubiquists ( 19 ) , and even
Luther was one of his adherents ( 20) .
38. Gaspar Schwenkfeldt, a noble Silesian , and a man of learn-
ing , while Luther was attacking the Church, took up arms also
against her, and attacked the Lutherans as well. We should not
mind the Scriptures, he says, as they are not the word of God,
only a dead letter, and , therefore , should only obey the private in-
spirations of the Holy Ghost ; he condemns sermons and spiritual
lectures, for, in the Gospel of St. Matthew, we are told that we
have but one Master, and he is in heaven . He taught, at the
same time, the errors of the Manicheans, of Sabellius, of Photius,
and also of Zuinglius, denying the Real Presence of Christ in the
Eucharist. Osius says the devil's gospel commenced with Luther,
but was brought to perfection by this monster of hell , who had
more followers in many parts of Germany and Switzerland than
the arch-heretic himself (21 ) . Gotti informs us, that he sent a
messenger to Luther, with his writings, begging of him to correct
them ; but he, seeing them filled with abominable heresies, returned
him the following answer : " May your spirit, and all those who
participate with Sacramentarians and Eutychians, fall into perdi-

(17) Gotti, loc. cit. sec. 6. (18) Remund. in Synopsi, l. 2, c. 14, n. 2. (19) Nat.
Alex. t. 1, sec. 3, n. 8, 9 ; Gotti, sec. 6, n. 8 ad 10 ; Van Ranst, p. 293. (20) Bossuet,
Istor. l. 2, n. 41. (21) Gotti, c. 109, sec. 5 , n. 6 ; Van Ranst, p. 311.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 283

tion. " After Luther's death , this sect increased somewhat ; but in
a Synod, held at Naumburg, in 1554, by Bucer , Melancthon, and
some others, all the author's works were condemned ( 22 ) .
39. Martin Chemnitz was a poor woolcomber's son, in the Mark
of Brandenburg. He was born in 1522 , and followed his father's
business until the age of fourteen , when he commenced his studies
in Wittemberg. His Theological Professor was Melancthon, who
was so well satisfied with the progress he made, that he called him
the Prince of Protestant Theologians. He taught Theology in
Brunswick, for thirty years, and died in 1586 , the sixty-fourth
year of his age. Chemnitz laboured strenuously along with Bucer,
to bring about an agreement between the Lutherans and Sacramen-
tarians, but without effect. He published many works , but his
principal one is the " Examen Con . Tridentini ," in which he en-
deavours to upset the decisions of the Council . He does not admit,
as Canonical, any books of Scripture only those approved of by
all the Churches, not those approved of by Councils alone ; he
praises the Greek and Hebrew text, and rejects the Vulgate
wherever it disagrees with them ; he rejects tradition, but believes
in free will, and thinks that, with the assistance of grace, it can
accomplish something good. He says that man is justified by Faith
alone, through medium of which the merits of Christ are applied
to him, and that good works are necessary to salvation, but still
have no merit. Baptism and the Eucharist, he says, are properly
the only sacraments-the rest are but pious rites ; and in the
Eucharist he rejects both the Transubstantiation of the Catholics ,
and the Impanation of the Lutherans, but does not decide whether
the body of Christ is really present in the bread and wine ; he
merely says it is not a carnal presence, that Christ is there alone
in the actual use of the Communion and that it must always be
taken under both kinds. He admits that the Mass may be called
a sacrifice, but not a true sacrifice, only under the general deno-
mination of a good work. It is not necessary, he says, speaking of
the sacrament of Penance , to confess all our sins, but he allows the
absolution of the Minister, though not as coming from the Minis-
ter himself, but from Christ, through his promise . Purgatory,
according to him, cannot be proved from Scripture . We should
honour the saints, their images, and relics, but not have recourse
to their intercession , and we should observe the Sundays , but no
other festival (23).

(22) Gotti, loc. cit. (23) Apud, Gotti, c. 109, sec. 7, n. 1 ad 7.


284 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

SEC. V. THE ANABAPTISTS.

40. The Anabaptists ; they refuse Baptism to Children. 41. Their Leaders- Seditions
and Defeat. 42. Are again defeated under their Chief, Munzer, who is converted
at his Death. 43. They rebel again under John of Leyden, who causes himself to be
crowned King, is condemned to a cruel Death, and dies penitent. 44. Errors of the
Anabaptists. 45. They are split into various Sects.

40. THE Anabaptists were likewise the spawn of Lutheranism.


The chief doctrine of those heretics was, that children should not
be baptized in infancy, as, not having come to the use of reason, they
were incapable of real belief and salvation , according to the words
of the Gospel : " He that believeth , and is baptized , shall be saved ;
he that believeth not shall be condemned" (Mark, xvi. 16 ) ; hence
they were called Anabaptists, as they taught that those who were
baptized in infancy should be re-baptized. Now this error sprung
from Luther himself, who asserted it was better to leave infants
without baptism than to baptize them when they had no Faith of
their own ( 1 ) . These unfortunate persons, however, should re-
member, that in the text ofthe Gospel quoted it is adults that are
meant, who are capable of actual Faith, for infants, who are inca-
pable of it, receive the grace of the Sacrament through the Faith of
the Church in which they are baptized,
baptized , and as, without any actual
fault of theirs, they contract original sin, it is but just that they
should receive the grace of Jesus Christ without actual Faith, for,
as St. Augustin writes (2), as they are sick with the weight of
another's sin, they are healed by another's confession , and are saved.
Our Lord says in St. Matthew, xix. 14 : " Suffer little children to
come to me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." As , therefore,
little children can acquire the kingdom of heaven , so can they re-
ceive baptism, without which no one can enter into heaven. The
Church has received it as a tradition from the Apostles, so says
Origen (3) , to give baptism to infants, and St. Irenæus, Tertullian ,
St. Gregory of Nazianzen, St. Ambrose, St. Cyprian , and St. Au-
gustin, all bear witness to the same practice. Hence, the Council
of Trent, anathematizing those who asserted that persons baptized
before they came to the use of reason should be re-baptized, uses
the following words : " If any one should say that children having
received baptism should not be numbered among the faithful, be-
cause they have not actual Faith , and therefore when they come to
the years of discretion , that they should be re-baptized , or that it
is better to omit baptism than to baptize in the Faith of the Church
alone those who have not actual Faith, let him be anathema."

(1) Gotti, Ver. Rel. t. 2, c. 110, sec. 1 , n. 1. (2) August. Serm. 176 , alias 10, de
Verb. Apost. (3) Orig. t. 2, p. 35, St. Iren. p. 147, n. 4 ; Tertul. p. 231 ; St. Greg.
Naz. t. 1, p. 658 ; St. Amb. t. 1, p. 349 ; St. Cypr. Epist. ad Fidum, n. 59 ; St. Aug.
Serm. 10, de Verb. Apost. alias 177.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 285

This Canon condemns most clearly both the Anabaptist and Lu-
theran heresies.
41. The chief of the Anabaptists was Nicholas Stork, or Storchius ,
sometimes also called Pelargus. He was at first a disciple of Luther,
but soon the head of a new heresy, which he preached in 1522,
saying it was revealed to him from heaven. Being banished from
Wittemberg, he went to Thuringia, where, together with his first
error, he preached many others, such as that all men enjoy universal
freedom from restraint, that all property is common , and should be
equally divided, and that all bishops, magistrates, and princes who
opposed his true Church should be put to death (4). Here he was
joined by Thomas Munzer, a priest, a follower of Luther, also, who
pretended to lead a most mortified life, and boasted of having frequent
ecstacies and extraordinary communications from the Deity. He
abused the Pope for teaching too severe a doctrine, and Luther for
promulgating too lax a one. He everywhere censured Luther's
morals and conduct, accused him of debauchery and lasciviousness,
and said it was impossible to believe God would make use of so
wicked a man to reform his Church. Through Luther's influence ,
he and all his followers were banished from Saxony (5). He then
went to Thuringia, and preached the same errors as Storchius ,
especially in Munster, teaching the country people that they should
not obey either prelates or princes. In a short time he rallied
round him the great body of the Anabaptists, and led forth three
hundred thousand ignorant peasants (6), causing them to forsake
their spades for the sword, and promising them the assistance of
God in their battles . These poor deluded creatures at first did a
great deal of harm , but when regular troops were brought against
them, they were soon , notwithstanding their immense numbers,
completely routed , not being trained to the use of arms. Those
who escaped the slaughter marched towards Lorrain, with the in-
tention of devastating that province ; but the Count Claude of Guise,
brother to the Duke of Lorrain , slaughtered twenty thousand of
them in three victories which he gained (7 ). Sleidan ( 8 ) says that
these poor peasants, when they were attacked by the troops, ap-
peared quite demented, and neither defended themselves nor fled ,
but began to sing a popular hymn, imploring the assistance of the
Holy Ghost, whose protection, according to Munzer's promises, they
expected.
44. In the meantime, while Munzer, with his Anabaptist fol-
lowers , were ravaging Thuringia, they were encountered by an
army commanded by Duke George of Saxony, who promised them
peace if they laid down their arms ; but Munzer, thinking himself
fost if the conditions were accepted , encouraged them to refuse all

(4) Nat. Alex. t. 18, art. 11 , sec. 12 ; Gotti, loc. cit. n. 2. (5) Varillas, t. 1, 7. 6,
p. 266. (6) Varillas, p. 270 ; Hermant, Hist. t. 2, c. 239. (7) Hermant, loc. cit.;
Varill. P 267. (8) Ap. Gotti, ibid . n. 7, ex Sleidan, l. 5.
286 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

accommodation, and to kill the officer who bore a flag of truce to


them . This treachery infuriated the soldiers, who immediately at-
tacked them ; they made a stout resistance at first, encouraged by
Munzer, who told them he would catch the balls of the enemy in
his sleeve, and such was the effect this promise had on them, that
many of them stood firm before the cannon of the enemy. This
did not, however, last long ; the greater part fled, and the rest were
taken prisoners. Munzer fled with the rest, and, without being
recognized, hid himself in Franchausen, pretending to be sick ; he
was there discovered , taken and condemned , along with Pfeiffer,
an apostate Premonstratensian Canon , to have his head cut offin
Mulhausen. This war lasted five months , and it is said .cost
the lives of a hundred and thirty-five thousand peasants ( 9) . Pfeiffer
died an obstinate heretic. Munzer's death is related in different
ways-some say he died with the greatest boldness , and challenged
the Judges and Princes, telling them to read the Bible, the word
of God ; and these were his last words. But the more general opi-
nion is, and Noel Alexander says it can be relied on as fact, that
previous to his death he retracted his errors, confessed to a priest ,
received the Viaticum, and after offering up some devout prayers,
bared his neck to the executioner's sword (10 ) .
45. Munzer's death, and the slaughter ofso many ofthe peasantry,
did not put an end to this sect. In the year 1534 , nearly nine
years after his death, a number of people in Westphalia rebelled
against their Princes, and seized the city of Munster, when they
elected , as their chief, John of Leyden , the son of a Dutch tailor.
His first act was to banish the bishop and all the Catholics of the
city, and then pretending to have a revelation from heaven, he
caused his followers to crown him King, saying he was elected to
that dignity by God himself, and he called himself Rex Justitiæ
hujus Mundi ; he preached polygamy, and put it in practice by
marrying sixteen wives, at the same time ; he rejected the Eucharist,
but, sitting at a table, distributed bits of bread to his followers, say-
ing : " Take, and eat, and ye shall announce the death of the Lord ;"
and at the same time the Queen, that is, one of his wives , dis-
pensed the chalice, saying : " Drink, and you shall announce the
death of the Lord." He next selected twenty disciples , and sent
them as Apostles of God , to preach his doctrine , but all these un-
fortunates were taken and condemned to death , along with himself,
in the year 1535 ( 11 ) . The mercy of the Lord be praised for ever,
since he extended it to John of Leyden ; he shewed himself a sin-
cere penitent, and bore, with the most admirable patience , the cruel
death and torments inflicted on him ; he was three times tortured

(9) Nat. Alex. t. 29, cit. sec. 12, Gotti, cit. cap. 110, sec. 1 , n. 7. (10) Nat. Alex.
loc. cit.; Gotti, n. 8 ; Varill. p. 288 ; Van Ranst, sec. 16, p. 313 ; Hermant, c. 239.
(11) N. Alex. cit. a. 12 , n. 2 ; Varill. p. 427 ; V. Ranst, p. 315 ; Her. c. 241.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 287

with pincers by two executioners for two hours, and he bore it all
without a murmur, saying he deserved it for his sins, and imploring
the Divine Mercy ; his companions died in their obstinacy ( 12 ) ,
and Hermant says, that his sect has spread its roots into many
Christian kingdoms (13).
46. The errors of the Anabaptists were : First. That children
should not be baptized , but only adults capable of reason. Second.-
That no Christian could be a civil magistrate. Third. It is in no
case lawful for Christians to swear. Fourth.-War is unlawful to
Christians .
47. The Anabaptists soon split into several sects- some say four-
teen, some, even seventy. Some were called Munzerites, after
Thomas Munzer ; some who preferred voluntary poverty, Huttites,
from John Hut ; others , Augustins, from Augustin Boehem, who
taught that heaven would not be opened till after the day of judg-
ment ; others, Buholdians, from John ( Buhold) of Leyden, whose
history we have just given- these preached polygamy, and wished
to destroy all the wicked ; some Melchiorists, from Melchior Hoff-
man, who taught that Christ had but one nature, that he was not
born ofMary, and various other errors ; some were called Mennonites ,
from Mennon - these held heretical opinions regarding the Trinity ;
some Davidians, the followersof one George, who called himself
the Third David, the true Messiah, the beloved Son of God , born
of the Spirit, not of the flesh, the pardoner of sins ; he died in 1556 ,
and promised to rise again in three years. This vain prophecy had
some truth in it, for three years afterwards, the Senate of Basle
caused him to be disinterred , and his remains burned along with
his writings. The Clancularists, when asked if they were Anabap-
tists, denied it ; they had no churches, but preached in private
houses and gardens. The Demonists , following the errors of Origen,
said the devils would be saved in the end of the world . The
Adamites appeared naked in public, having, as they asserted , re-
covered the pristine innocence of Adam. The Servetians, followers
of Michael Servetus, joined to the errors of the Anabaptists blas-
phemies against the Trinity and Jesus Christ. The Condormientes
slept together without distinction of sex, and called this indecency
the new Christian Charity. The Ejulants, or Weepers , said there
was no devotion so pleasing to God as weeping and wailing. Noel
Alexander and Van Ranst enumerate many other classes of these
fanatics ( 14).

(12) Varill. p. 436. (13) Her. loc. cit.; V. Ranst, p. 314. (14 ) Nat. Alex.
t. 19, art. 11, n. 4 ; Van Ranst, p. 315, & seq.
288 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

ARTICLE II.

THE SACRAMENTARIANS.

SEC. L. - CARLOSTAD.
48. Carlostad, Father of the Sacramentarians. 49. He is reduced to live by his Labour
in the Field ; he gets married, and composed a Mass on that Subject. 53. He dies
suddenly.

48. THE father of the Sacramentarians was, as Van Ranst in-


forms us, Andrew Carlostad ; he was born in the village from
which he took his name, in Franconia , and was Archdeacon of the
church of Wittemberg. He was, it is said, the most learned man
in Saxony, and was, on that account, a great favourite with the
Elector Frederick ; he it was who admitted Luther to the Doctor-
ship, and afterwards became his follower in heresy. His pride, how-
ever, would not allow him to remain a disciple of Luther, and thus
he became chief of the Sacramentarians, teaching, in opposition to
Luther, that Christ was not really present in the Eucharist, and,
therefore, that the word this (this is my body) did not refer to the
bread, but to Christ himself, who was about to sacrifice his body
for us, as if he were to say : " This is my body which I am about
to deliver up for you." Another error he taught in opposition
to Luther, was the doctrine of the Iconoclasts, that all crucifixes
and images of the saints should be destroyed, and he carried his
infidelity to such a pitch in Wittemberg that he abolished the
Mass, trampled on the consecrated Host, and broke the altars and
images (1 ). When this came to Luther's ears, who was then con-
cealed in his Patmos ofWatzberg, he could restrain himself no longer,
and even against the will of the Elector, went to Wittemberg, and
caused the altars and images to be restored ; and not being able to
convince Carlostad of his errors , he deprived him of his benefices
and dignities by authority of the Elector, who had him seized , and
banished from his territories along with the woman he married .
Carlostad went to Orlemond in Thuringia, and there wrote that
wicked treatise, De Coena Domini ( 2 ) , which contains in full his
heretical opinions. It happened one day, as Berti tells us (3) ,
that Luther came to this town, and Carlostad, in revenge for the
treatment he received from him, caused him to be pelted with
stones, and to fly from the place . It may be as well here to give
Bossuet's account of the war between Luther and Carlostad : In
the year 1524 , Luther preached in Jena, in presence of Carlostad,
who went to visit him after the sermon , and blamed him for the

(1 ) Nat. Alex. t. 19, s. 3 ; Gotti, Ver. Rel. c. 109, s. 1 ; Van Ranst, s. 16, p. 217 ;
Hermant, t. 1 , c. 231 ; Varillas, t. 1, l. 3, p. 148. (2 ) Hermant, c. 234 ; Gotti, s. 1,
n. 2 ; Varillas, t. 1 , l. 3, p. 211. (3) Berti, Brev. Hist. s. 3.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 289

opinion he held regarding the Real Presence. Luther, in a tone of


mockery, told him he would give him a gold florin if he would write
against him, and took out a florin and handed it to Carlostad , who
pocketed it, and they then drank together to cement the bargain ;
thus the war66 commenced. Carlostad's parting benediction to
Luther was : May I see you broken on the wheel !" " And may
you break your neck before you quit the town !" rejoined Luther.
Behold, says Bossuet, the acts of the new apostles of the Gospel (4) .
48. Notwithstanding all that had passed , Carlostad's friends
interfered, and finally induced Luther to permit him to return to
Wittemberg, but he agreed to this only on condition that he would
not oppose his doctrine for the future. Carlostad , however,
ashamed to appear in Wittemberg in the poor state he was
reduced to, chose rather to live in another town, where he was
reduced to such poverty, that he was obliged to become a porter,
and afterwards to turn to field labour along with his wife for sub-
sistence ( 8). We may here remark, that Carlostad was the first
of all the priests of the new Gospel who married. In the year
1525, he married a young lady of good family, and he composed a
sacrilegious service of Mass , on the occasion of his abominable
nuptials. Octavius Lavert and Raynaldus have preserved some
parts of it* (6).
50. The just chastisement of God, however, always pursues the
impious, and thus we see him and his wife, who, being a lady, was
ashamed to beg, obliged to earn a scanty subsistence, which they
could not always obtain, by working as common field labourers (7) .
Some time afterwards he went to Switzerland , hoping to get a kind
reception from the heretics of that country, whose doctrine regard-
ing the Sacrament of the Altar coincided with his own. But
Zuinglius or Zuingle, wishing to have no competitor, gave him a
very cool reception ; he then went to Basle, where he was appointed
preacher, and where a sudden death overtook him in the midst of
his sins (8). Varillas says, that he was seized with apoplexy , com-
ing down from the pulpit, after declaiming against the Real Pre-
sence, and dropped dead (9). It was also told at the time, that
whilst he was preaching a man of fearful mien appeared to him, and

(4) Bos. Stor. del Variaz. l. 2, n. 12. (5) Gotti, c. 109, n. 3, ex Cochleo, ad an.
15, 25 ; V. Ranst, p. 217 ; Var. 242. (6) Octavius Lavert. p. 117. (7) Rinal.
an. 1523, n. 74. (8) Varillas, l. 8, p. 359. (9) Lancis. t. 4, Ist. s. 16, c..3 ; Var.
loc. cit.

* Deus qui post tam longam et impiam Sacerdotum tuorum cæcitatem Beatum An-
dream Carlostadium ea gratia donare dignatus es, ut primus, nulla habita Papistici
Juris ratione, uxorem ducere ausus fuerit, da quæsumus ut omnes Sacerdotes recepta
sana mente, ejus vestigia sequentes ejectis concubinis aut eisdem ductis ad legitimum
consortium thori convertantur.
Oremus- Nos ergo concubinis nostris gravati, te Deus poscimus, ut illius, qui Patres
nostros sectatus antiquos tibi placet, nos imitatione gaudeamus in æternum .
T
290 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

that immediately one of his children ran to him telling him that he
had seen the same vision, and that it said to him : " Tell your
father that in three days I will deprive him of life , breaking his
head." All that is known for certain is that he died suddenly, and
died, as he had lived , without any signs of repentance.

SEC. II.- ZUINGLIUS.


51. Zuinglius, and the Beginning of his Heresy. 52. His Errors. 53. Congress held
before the Senate of Zurich ; the Decree of the Senate rejected by the other Cantons.
54. Zuinglius sells his Canonry, and gets married ; Victory of the Catholics ; and
his Death.

51. ULRIC ZUINGLIUS was born of an obscure family in a poor vil-


lage of Switzerland , called Mildenhausen, some say in Moggi ; he
was at first parish priest of two rural parishes, and was afterwards
promoted to a parish in Zurich (1 ) . In his early days he was a
soldier, but hoping to better his condition , he changed the sword
for the gown, and being a man of talent, became a most eloquent
preacher. Hearing, in 1519, that indulgences were to be published
in Switzerland, as had been done in Germany, he hoped that would
be a favourable occasion for him to acquire notoriety, and advance
himself in the estimation of the Court of Rome. But in this he
was disappointed ; a Franciscan, Father Sampson , was sent by the
Pope to publish the Swiss indulgences, and with power to prohibit
any one else from doing so, unless with his permission . Zuinglius,
seeing his hopes frustrated, imitated the example of Luther in
Saxony, and began to preach, first, against indulgences- then
against the power of the Pope-and from that passed on to other
errors against the Faith ( 2) .
52. The following were his principal tenets : First .— The Mass
is not a sacrifice, but only a commemoration of the sacrifice once
offered on the Cross . Second.- We have no necessity of any inter-
cessor but Christ. Third. - Christ is our justificator ; and here he
deduced, that our works are no good as ours, but only as the works
of Christ. Fourth.-Marriage is fitted for all. Fifth. - Those who
make a vow of chastity are held by presumption . Sixth .- The
power which the Pope and bishops arrogate to themselves has no
foundation in Holy Writ. Seventh.-The confession made to a
priest is not for remission of sin, but should be made solely to obtain
advice. Eighth.- The Holy Scripture recognizes no Purgatory.
Ninth . The Scripture knows no other priests but those who
announce the Word of God. He preached other errors regarding
free will. Luther attributed everything to grace for salvation ;
Zuinglius, on the contrary, following the Pelagians , to free will and
the force of nature. He broached many other errors regarding

(1) Nat. Alex. t. 19, sec. 16, art. 11, c. 3, n. 2 ; Gotti, Ver. Rel. c. 100, s. 2, n. 1 ;
Varillas, t. 1 , . 4, p. 155. (2) Apud. Nat. Alex. s. 8, n. 2 ; Gotti, loc. cit. n. 1.
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 291

the sacraments, original sin, and other points, but his chief blasphe-
mies were against the Holy Eucharist, which turned even Luther
against him, who at first called him the strong champion of Christen-
dom , but ended by calling him a heretic. He first said that the
Eucharist was a remembrance of the passion of Christ, but, as
Varillas remarks, then came the difficulty, that the Apostle says
the Eucharist is to be eaten, but not the remembrance, and he five
times changed his mode of explaining the communion ; he rejected
the Transubstantiation of the Catholics, the Impanation of the
Lutherans, and the explanation given by Carlostad ( N. 48) . He
then began to teach, that in the words, " This is my body," the
word is has the same meaning as signifies, that is, this bread signifies
the body of Christ ; but still the difficulty was not solved , for he
could nowhere find that the word est was used for significat (3) ,
when one morning, at break of day, a spirit, whether a black or
white one he does not remember, spoke to him , and said : " Ignorant
man, read the twelfth chapter of Exodus, where it is said, For it
is the phase, that is the passage, of the Lord." Behold, said he,
here the word is stands for the word signifies ; and thus he began
to teach , that as the Pasch ofthe Jews was but a mere figure of the
passing of the Lord, so the Eucharist was the figure of Christ
sacrificed on the Cross . To authenticate this discovery of his, he
got the translation of the New Testament printed, and where the
text says, " This is my body," he inserted, this " signifies my
body" (4) . Nothing, however, can be more foolish than this
argument, for in Exodus the explanation is annexed : This is the
Phase, that is the passage, of the Lord ; but surely the text of the
Gospel does not give any explanation , that the words " this is my
body," refer not to the body, but to the figure of Jesus Christ (5) .
This error we refute at length in the Confutation X., No. 11 .
53. Zuinglius printed sixty-seven propositions, by way of doubt,
and placarded them in all the towns of the diocese of Constance.
The Dominicans preached against them as heretical, and offered to
convince Zuinglius of his errors in a public disputation . Zuinglius
accepted the challenge, but the Dominicans understood that it was
to take place inthe presence of the judges appointed by the Bishop
of Constance, while he, on the other hand, insisted it should be
held in presence of the Senate of Zurich, composed of two hundred
laymen, the majority of whom knew not how to read or write ; in
this move he was successful, for the Senate thought themselves
competent judges in religious matters, and would not yield their
pretended right to any one ; in effect, the Congress took place in
their presence, and the bishop not being able to prevent it, sent his
Vicar- General to try and bring matters to some rational arrangement.

(2) Zuinglius, 1. de Subsid. Euch. (4) Hermant, t. 1, c. 237. (5) Gotti, loc.
cit. n. 4 ; Varill. 7. 7, p. 304 ; Nat. Alex. loc. cit.
292 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

This took place, according to Varillas, in 1524 , and the Senate com-
manded all the ecclesiastics of Zurich to attend . Zuinglius first read
his Theses , and explained them without meeting with any interrup-
tion ; he then asked if any one had any reply to make ; the Vicar-
General answered, that a great deal of what he set forth was an ab-
surdity. Zuinglius replied in his defence . TheVicar-General answered
that he was sent by his bishop neither to dispute nor give decisions,
that it was a Council alone should decide, and then was silent ; the
other ecclesiastics were asked if they had anything to say ; they
followed the Vicar-General's example, and were silent also ; the
Senate, therefore, gave the palm of victory to Zuinglius, and made
a Decree, that thenceforward the pure Gospel (according to
Zuinglius) should be preached in all Zurich, that no more notice
should be taken of traditions, and that the Mass and the adoration
of the Eucharist should be abolished ( 6 ). This decree was opposed
by the other Cantons, and in the year 1526 another public dispu-
tation was held in Swiss Baden ( 7) , between Zuinglius and Eco-
lampadius, on the one side, and Ecchius and some others, on the
Catholic side, in which the arguments of Ecchius were so con-
vincing, that by a formal Decree, the Swiss recognized the Real
Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the invocation of saints, and
veneration of sacred images, and purgatory , and condemned the
doctrine of Luther and Zuinglius.
54. In the year 1528 , Zuinglius sold his prebend, and married,
shamelessly asserting that he had not sufficient confidence in him-
self to resist the vice of incontinence (8) , and in the same year the
Canton of Berne united with Zurich in embracing his doctrine.
Basle, Schaffhausen , St. Gall , and three others, soon followed this
example ; Lucerne , Switz , Zug, Uri , and Underwalden, remained
Catholic, and were soon after obliged to go to war with the heretical
cantons, for the following reason (9) . The Catholic party deposed
two officers who embraced the Zuinglian doctrines ; they were
received by the Zuinglians, who provided them with places, and
through revenge, prevented the merchants who supplied the
Catholic cantons with corn, as they do not produce enough for
their own consumption, from passing through their territories.
The Catholics complained of this, as an infraction of the Confede-
ration League, but were told they were only treated as they
deserved, for insulting the new religion. Eight thousand Catholics
took the field in October, 1532 ; fifteen hundred of the Zurich
troops were entrenched outside the city ; the Catholics assaulted
them in that position and put them to flight. Twenty thousand
of the Zurich troops then marched out to attack the Catholics, and
Zuinglius, against the advice of his friends, insisted on marching

(6) Varill. t. 1, l. 5, p. 214. (7) Gotti, c. 109, s. 2, n. 11. (8) Varill. l. 7,


p. 304; Hermant, c. 237 ; Nat. Alex. c. 19, art. 12, s. 3, n. 2. (9) Varill. . 8,
p. 354 ; Gotti, loc. cit. n. 13.
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 293

at their head. The Catholics, with their small number, would


have no chance against this army in the open field, so they posted
themselves in a narrow pass ; they were here assaulted by the
Zuinglians, and victory was for some time doubtful , till Zuinglius ,
while valiantly leading on his troops, was struck to the earth ; his
followers, thinking he was killed , immediately took to flight, and
were pursued by the Catholics with great slaughter, who are said
to have killed five thousand Zuinglians, with only the loss of fifteen
on their own side ( 10) . Zuinglius was found by two Catholics,
who did not know him, among a heap of the slain, prostrate on his
face, but still breathing ; they asked him if he wished for a con-
fessor, but got no answer ; another now came up, who immediately
killed him , and told their commanders ; by their orders he was
quartered and burned, and some of his followers collected his ashes,
and kept it as a relic ( 11) . He was killed on the 11th of October,
1532, in the forty-fourth year of his age , according to Hermant,
but Natalis, Gotti, and Van Ranst, say he was forty years old.
The war was not yet ended ; five other battles were fought, and
the Catholics were always victorious ; peace was at length concluded ,
on condition that each canton should freely profess its own religion,
and thus, with few interruptions, it has continued to the present
day (12 ) . Before I dismiss this subject, I will mention a few words
of a sermon, or letter, of his, to Francis I. of France, in which he
speaks of the glory that Kings are to expect in heaven : " There,"
he says, " you will see the Redeemer and the redeemed ; there you
will behold Abel, Noe , Abraham, Isaac ; there you will see Her-
cules, Theseus, Numa, the Catos, the Scipios, &c." This was the
language of this new Church Reformer after his apostacy ; he places,
along with Christ and the holy patriarchs, in heaven, the idolaters ,
and the Pagan gods. Bossuet , in his History of the Variations ( 13 ),
gives a large extract from this letter.

SEC. III.- ECOLAMPADIUS ; BUCER ; PETER MARTYR.


55. Ecolampadius. 56. Bucer. 57. Peter Martyr.

55. JOHN ECOLAMPADIUS, a faithful follower of Zuinglius, was a


Greek linguist, and held the situation of tutor to the Prince Pala-
tine's children ; his friends injudiciously importuned him to become
a monk, so he entered into the Order of St. Brigit, and made his
profession ( 1 ) ; but we may judge of his intentions, when we are
told that he said : " If I make six hundred vows, I will not observe
66
one of them, unless I like it." " Why," says Florimund (2 ) , “ should
we wonder at his leaving the cloister, when such were his senti-
ments on entering it ? In a few years he laid aside the cowl, and

(10) Varill. t. 1, l. 4, p. 355. (11) Nat. Alex. loc. cit.; Gotti, n. 13, & Van Ranst,
p. 318. (12) Varill. loc. cit. p. 358, & seq. (13) Bossuet, Hist. de Variat. 1. 2,
n. 19. (1) Nat. Alex. t. 19, s. 3, n. 3. (2) Florimund in Synopsi. l. 2, c. 8, n. 9.
294 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

married , as he said, by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and


became a follower of Zuinglius, who appointed him Superintendent
of Basle (3 ) . He followed Zuinglius's doctrine regarding the Real
Presence, but not his explanation of est by significat (see N. 48) ,
as he explained the text, " this is my body," by " this is the figure
of my body" (4) . How strange that not one of the new apostles
of the Gospel could agree with the other ! He died in the year
1532 , at the age of forty-nine, only a month after Zuinglius's death,
to him a source of the most poignant grief. Luther said he was
found dead in his bed, strangled by the devil , a generally received
opinion at that time, according to Noel Alexander ; others say he died
of an ulcer in the os sacrum; the general opinion , however, is, that he
was found dead in his bed. Many writers, Varillas says (5) , tell
us that he several times attempted to take away his own life, and
that he poisoned himself. Cardinal Gotti quotes others (6 ), who
assert, that a short time previous to his death, he was heard to
exclaim : " Alas , I shall soon be in hell ;" and also that, just before
his death , he said : " I , uncertain and fluctuating in the Faith, have
to give an account before the Tribunal of God , and see whether
my doctrine is true or false" ( 7). Foolish man , he had the Church ,
the pillar and the ground of truth , which condemned his doctrine,
and he wished to have it tried at that Tribunal, where, if he found
it false (as it was), there would be no remedy to ward off eternal
perdition .
56. Martin Bucer was the son of a poor Jew in Strasbourg, who
left him, at his death , on the world without any one to look to him,
and only seven years of age. He was taken in by the Dominicans
to serve Mass and assist the servants of the Convent ; but finding
him endowed with great talents, they gave him the habit of the
Order, and put him to study (8 ) . He soon became a great proficient
in sacred and profane literature, and received Holy Orders, Cardi-
nal Gotti says (9), without being baptized . He was so taken with
Luther's doctrine on celibacy, that he apostatized, and not only
married once, but three times successively, saying, that as a divorce
was allowed to the Jews on account of the hardness of their hearts,
it was also permitted to Christians of an extraordinary tempera-
ment (10). To the errors of Luther he added others : First.- That
Baptism is necessary as a positive precept, but that it is not neces-
sary for salvation . Second. That there is no Church which does
not err in morals and faith . Third .--That before we are justified
by God we sin in every good work we do , but that after our justifi-
cation the good we perform we do through necessity. Fourth.-
That some are so formed by God for the marriage state, that they
cannot be forbidden to marry. Fifth.- That usury is not contrary

(3) Gotti, loc. cit. n. 15. (4) Gotti, n. 16, & Nat. Alex. loc. cit. (5) Varill. 7. 8,
p. 356. (6) Gotti, n. 17. (7) Gotti, c. 109, s. 2, in fine. (8) Gotti, t. 2, c. 109,
s. 4; Varil. t. 1 , l. 8, p. 363. (9) Gotti, loc. cit. n. 1. (10) Varil. loc. cit.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 295

to the Divine command. Sixth.-He admitted the Presence of


Christ in the Holy Sacrament, but said it was not real, but took
place solely by faith. On this account he passed over to the sect of
the Sacramentarians, and quarrelled with Luther, and it was in de-
fence of that sect he wrote his dialogue, " Arbogastus" (11) . He
was selected by the Landgrave as the most likely person to unite
the Zuinglians and Lutherans ; but though he held many confer
ences, he never could succeed , for Luther never would give up the
Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament. He left Strasbourg,
where he lived and taught a long time, and in 1549, in the reign of
Edward VI. , went to England to join Peter Vermigli , commonly
called Peter Martyr, who, two years previously, was appointed
Professor of Theology in Oxford. He had not been three years in
England when he died, at the age of sixty-one, in Cambridge, in
1551 ; and Cardinal Gotti says (12) , he was tormented with remorse
of conscience in his last moments. His bones were exhumed and
burned, by order of Queen Mary , in 1556 .
57. The other celebrated disciple of Zuinglius who, especially in
England , endeavoured to disseminate his errors, was Peter Vermigli,
a Florentine, commonly called Peter Martyr. He was born in
Florence, in 1500, of a noble, but reduced family . His mother,
who was acquainted with the Latin language, taught him till he
was eighteen years of age, when, according to some authors , he took
the Carthusian habit, but the general opinion is, that he became a
Canon Regular ( 13) of St. Augustin, in the Monastery of Fiesole .
In his novitiate he gave indications of great talent, and was, after
his profession, sent to Padua, where he was taught Greek, Hebrew,
and Philosophy. He thence went to Bologna to study theology,
and returned with a great stock of learning (14). He next turned
his attention to the pulpit, and preached several Lents in the prin-
cipal cities of Italy. While preaching in the Cathedral of Naples,
he had the misfortune to become acquainted with a Spanish lawyer
of the name of Valdes, who, by reading Luther's and Calvin's
works, became infected with their heresies, and fearing to be dis-
covered in Spain , where the stake awaited him, went to Germany,
but the climate not agreeing with him, he came to Naples, and con-
tracted a friendship with Peter Martyr, and then made him a Sacra-
mentarian. As soon as he tasted the poison himself he began to
communicate it to others who used to meet him in a church . This
had not gone on long when he was charged with his errors before
the Nuncio, and immediately called to Rome. His brethren in
religion , with whom he always lived on the best terms , and who
certainly believed him innocent, took up his defence most warmly,
and he was most fully acquitted and dismissed . From Rome he
(11) Gotti, loc. cit. n. 2, 3 ; Varil. t. 1 , l. 8, p. 364. (12) Varil. 7. 11, p. 297.
(13) Gotti, loc. cit. n. 5. (14) Varillas, t. 2, l. 17, p. 106 ; Dizion. Port. alla parola
Vermigli.
296 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

went to Lucca, where he thought he could establish a Zuinglian


congregation, with less risk to himself than in Naples, and he suc-
ceeded so far, that among others he made four proselytes among the
Professors of the University. They were in a little while discovered
and obliged to fly to the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland , where
they soon became ministers. Peter being discovered also, and not
knowing where to fly, turned his steps likewise to Switzerland,
hoping that his disciples there would procure a Professorship for
him. He went first to Zurich, and afterwards to Basle ; but as he
wished to make himself the master of all, he met but a cool recep-
tion in either place. He then went to Bucer, in Strasbourg, who
received every heretic, and procured him immediately a Professor-
ship of Theology. He remained there till called to England , where
he went with a nun he married , and was received with great honour
in London, and was appointed to a Chair in Oxford, with double
the salary that was promised to him. He returned to Strasbourg ,
in 1553, and finally went to teach his blasphemies in Zurich, where
he died in 1562 , loaded with fruits of perdition, for besides the
many years he taught his errors in all these places, he composed and
left after him also a number of works to sustain them (15) .

ARTICLE III .

THE HERESIES OF CALVIN.

SEC. II. THE BEGINNING AND PROGRESS OF THE HERESY OF CALVIN.

58. Birth and Studies of Calvin. 59. He begins to broach his Heresy ; they seek to im-
prison him, and he makes his Escape through a Window. 60. He commences to
disseminate his Impieties in Angouleme. 61. He goes to Germany to see Bucer, and
meets Erasmus. 62. He returns to France, makes some Followers, and introduces
the " Supper ;" he afterwards goes to Basle, and finishes his " Instructions. " 63. He
goes to Italy, but is obliged to fly ; arrives in Geneva, and is made Master of The-
ology. 64. He is embarrassed there. 65. He flies from Geneva, and returns to
Germany, where he marries a Widow. 66. He returns to Geneva, and is put at the
Head of the Republic ; the impious Works he publishes there ; his Dispute with Bolsec.
67. He causes Michael Servetus to be burned alive. 68. Unhappy End of the Cal-
vinistic Mission to Brazil. 69. Seditions and Disturbances in France on Calvin's
Account ; Conference of Poissy. 70. Melancholy Death of Calvin. 71. His personal
Qualities and depraved Manners .

58. JOHN CALVIN was born on the 10th ofJuly, 1509 , in Noyon ,
in the ancient province of Picardy, some say he was born in Bourg
de Pont ; but the almost universal opinion is, that he was born in
the city itself, and Varillas ( 1 ) says that the house in which he first
saw the light was afterwards razed to the ground by the people, and
that a person who subsequently rebuilt it was hanged at the door.
He was the third son ofGerard Caudin (he afterwards changed his

(15) Varillas, l. 17, p. 106 ; Berti, Hist. sec. 16, c. 3 ; Van Ranst, sec. 16, p. 391 ;
Dizion. Portat. loc. cit. (1) Varillas, Istor. della Rel. t. 1, l. 12, p. 450.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 297

name to Calvin) , the son of a Flemish saddler, and Fiscal Procurator


to the Bishop of Noyon , and receiver to the chapter. He obtained
a chaplaincy for his son when he was twelve years old, and after-
wards a country curacy in the village of Martville , which he some
time after exchanged for the living of Pont l'Elveque ( 2) . Endowed
with those benefices, he at an early age applied himself with the
greatest diligence to study, and was soon distinguished for talents,
which God gave him for his service, but which he perverted to his
own ruin, and to the ruin of many nations infected with his heresy.
When he had gone through his preliminary studies, his father sent
him to Bourges to study law under Andrew Alciati ; but wishing
to learn Greek, he commenced the study of that language under
Melchior Walmer, a concealed Lutheran, and a native of Germany,
who, perceiving the acute genius of his scholar, by degrees instilled
the poison of heresy into his mind, and induced him to give up the
study of law, and apply himself to theology ( 3 ) ; but Beza confesses
that he never studied theology deeply, and that he could not be
called a theologian .
59. In the meantime Calvin's father died, and he returned home,
and without scruple sold his benefices, and went to Paris, where, at
the age of twenty-three, he first began to disseminate his heresy (4) .
He then published a little treatise on " Constancy," in which he ad-
vised all to suffer for the truth as he called his errors. This little
work was highly lauded by his friends, but it is only worthy of
contempt, as it contains nothing but scraps oflearning badly digested ,
injurious invectives against the Catholic Church, great praises of those
heretics condemned by the Church , whom he calls martyrs of the
truth, and numberless errors besides. The publication ofthis work,
and the many indications Calvin had given of using his talents
against the Church, aroused the attention ofthe Criminal Lieutenant,
John Morin, who gave orders to arrest him in the College of Car-
dinal de Moyne, where he then lodged. Calvin, however, suspected
what was intended, and while the officers of justice were knocking
at the door, he let himself down from the window (5) by the bed-
clothes, and took refuge in the house of a vine-dresser, as Varillas
informs us (6 , ) with whom he changed clothes, and left his house
with a spade on his shoulder. In this disguise he was met by a
canon of Noyon, who recognized him, and inquired the meaning of
this masquerade . Calvin told him everything, and when his friend
advised him to return , and retract his errors, and not cast himself
away, he, it is said, answered : " If I had to begin again, I would

(2) Varillas, al. loc. cit.; Nat. Alex. t. 19, a. 13, sec. 1, n. 1 ; Gotti, Ver. Rel. t. 2,
c. 111 , sec. 1, n. 1 ; Hermant, Hist. de Conc. t. 2, c. 271 ; Van Ranst, Hist. Hær. p. 119 ;
Berti, Hist. sec. 16, c. 3, p. 161 ; Lancist, Hist. t. 4, sec. 16, c. 5. (3) Nat. loc. cit. n. 1 ;
Gotti, ibid. n. 3 ; Hermant, cit. c. 271 ; Varil. al. loc. cit. p. 451. (4) Gotti, cit. c. 111 ,
n. 5; Van Ranst, p. 320 ; Varill. t. 1, l. 10, p. 452. (5) Van Ranst, p. 330 ; Gotti,
loc. cit. n. 5 ; N. Alex . loc. cit. s. 1 , n. 1. (6 ) Varillas, 10, p. 345.
298 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

not forsake the Faith of my fathers ; but now I am pledged to my


doctrines, and I will defend them till death ;" and an awful and ter-
rible death awaited him, as we shall see hereafter. Varillas adds ,
that while he resided afterwards in Geneva, a nephew of his asked
him if salvation could be obtained in the Catholic Church, and that
Calvin could not find it in his heart to deny it, but told him he might
be saved in that Church.
60. He escaped into Angouleme, and for three years taught
Greek, as well as he could from the little he learned from Walmar,
and his friends procured him lodgings in the house of the parish
priest of Claix, Louis de Tillet, a very studious person, and pos-
sessor of a library of 4,000 volumes, mostly manuscripts. It was
here he composed almost the entire of the four books of his pesti-
lent Institutes, the greater part of which he took from the works of
Melancthon, Ecolampadius, and other sectaries, but he adopted a
more lucid arrangement, and a more elegant style of Latinity ( 7)-
As he finished each chapter he used to read it for Tillet, who at
first refused his assent to such wicked doctrine ; but by degrees his
Faith was undermined , and he became a disciple of Calvin, who
offered to accompany him to Germany, where a Conference with
the reforming doctors, he assured him, would confirm him in the
course he was adopting. They, accordingly, left for Germany, but
had not gone further than Geneva when Tillet's brother, a good
Catholic, and Chief Registrar of the Parliament of Paris, joined
them, and prevailed on his brother to retrace his steps and renounce
his Calvinistic errors . In this he happily succeeded ; the priest
returned, and was afterwards the first in his district to raise his
voice publicly against Calvinism (8).
61. Calvin continued his route to Germany, and arrived at
Strasbourg, where Bucer was labouring to unite the Lutherans
and Zuinglians in doctrine, but never could succeed , as neither
would consent to give up their peculiar tenets on the Real Presence
of Christ in the Eucharist. Calvin , seeing the difficulties he was
in, suggested to him a middle way to reconcile both parties- that
is, to propose as a doctrine that in the reception of the Eucharist it
is not the flesh, but the substance or power of Jesus Christ that is
received ; this, he imagined , would reconcile both parties . Bucer,
however, either because he thought Luther never would give up
his own particular views, or, perhaps , jealous that the idea did not
originate with himself, refused to adopt it. Calvin next visited
Erasmus with a letter of recommendation from Bucer, in which he
told Erasmus to pay particular attention to what would drop from
him ; he did so , and after some conversation with him , told his

(7) Nat. Alex. t. 19, a. 13, s. 1 ; Gotti, c. 3, s. 1, n. 3 ; Van Ranst, p. 330 ; Varil.
7. 30, p. 454. (8) Varil. cit. p. 454 ; Gotti, loc. cit. n. 6.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 299

friends that he saw in that young man one who would be a great
plague to the Church (9) .
62. Calvin, finding it difficult to make many proselytes to his Sa-
cramentarian doctrines in Germany, returned to France in 1535 , and
went to Poictiers , where at first , in the privacy ofa garden , he began
to expound his tenets to a few, but his followers increasing, he trans-
ferred his chair to a hall of the University, called Ministerium , and
here the Calvinistic teachers took the name of ministers, as the Lu-
therans called themselves preachers. Calvin sent out from this several
ministers to the neighbouring towns and villages, and, by this means,
made a great many proselytes ( 10) . Itwas there he first published the
forty articles of his heresy, and it was there also he introduced the
Supper, or Manducation , as he called it, which was privately cele-
brated in the following manner : First, some part of the Testament
relative to the Last Supper was read, then the minister made a few
observations on it, but in general the burden of these discourses
was the abuse of the Pope and of the Mass, Calvin always saying
that in the New Testament no mention is made of any other sacri-
fice than that of the Cross . Bread and wine were then set on the
table , and the minister, instead of the words of consecration , said :
66
My brethren, let us eat of the bread and drink of the wine of the
Lord, in memory of his passion and death." The congregation
were seated round a table, and the minister, breaking off a small
portion of bread, gave it to each, and they ate it in silence ; the wine
was dispensed in like manner. The Supper was finished by a
prayer, thanking God for enlightening them, and freeing them from
Papistical errors ; the Our Father and the Creed was said , and they
swore not to betray anything that was there done . It was, how-
ever, impossible to conceal the existence of this new Church of
Poictiers, and as the Royal Ordinances were very rigorous against
innovators, and Calvin felt that he could not be safe in Pictou , he
went to Nerac in Aquitaine, the residence of Margaret, Queen of
Navarre, a patroness of the new doctrine. Even here he was not
in safety, as Royal edicts were every day published against heretics,
so he went to Basle, where he employed himself in preparing his
four books of the Institutes for the press. He was twenty-six years
of age when he published this work, with the motto, " I came not
to send peace, but a sword ;" showing, like a true prophet , the great
evils this work would bring on France, and every other country
where its pestilential doctrines would be embraced (11) .
63. While Calvin was at Basle he felt a great desire to propa-
gate his doctrine in Italy, where Luther could make no way; and
understanding that Renee, daughter of Louis XII . of France, and
wife of Hercules of Este , Duke of Ferrara , was a woman fond of
(9) Van Ranst, s. 16. p. 323 ; Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 1 ; Varill. p. 459. (10)Varill.
1. 10, p. 457 ; Hermant, t. 2, c. 271 ; Nat. Alex. s. 1 , n. 1 ; Gotti, c. 111, s. 2, n. 1 .
( 11 ) Nat. Alex. t. 19, a. 13, n . 2 ; Van Ranst, p. 321 ; Gotti, c. 111 , s. 2, n. 4.
300 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

novelties, and a proficient not only in philosophy and mathematics,


but also fond of dabbling in theology , he went to visit her, and, after
some time, succeeded in making her one of his followers, so that
he held privately in her chamber several conferences with her and
others of the party. When this came to the Duke's ears, he was
very angry, and bitterly reproved the Duchess, obliging her to give
up the practice of the new religion, and all the favour Calvin could
obtain was leave to quit his States. He then at once fled from
Ferrara to France, for fear of the Inquisition , which was very active
just then, on account of the disturbed state of religious opinions in
Europe ( 12) . In the year 1536 he went to Geneva, which the
year before rebelled against the Duke of Turin, and cast off, along
with its allegiance, the Catholic religion , at the instigation of Wil-
liam Farrell ; and the Genevese, to commemorate their infamy,
placed a public inscription on a bronze tablet, as follows : " Quum
anno Domini MDXXXV. profligata Romani Antichristi tyrannide,
abrogatisque ejus superstitionibus, sacrosancta Christi Religio hic
in suam puritatem, Ecclesia in meliorem ordinem singulari beneficio
reposita, et simul pulsis fugatisque hostibus, Urbs ipsa in suam liber-
tatem non sine insigni miraculo restituta fuerit ; S. P. Q. G. Monu-
mentum hoc perpetuæ memoriæ causa fieri, atque hoc loco erigi
curavit, quo suam erga Deum gratitudinem testatem faceret."
Farrell, perceiving that Calvin would be of great assistance to him
in maintaining the new doctrines he had introduced into Geneva,
used every means in his power to induce him to stay, and got the
magistrates to appoint him Preacher and Professor of Theology ( 13) .
One of his first acts after his appointment was to burn the images
of the saints which adorned the Cathedral, and to break the altars.
The table of the high altar was formed of a slab of very precious
marble, which a wretch called Perrin caused to be fitted up in the
place of public execution, to serve as a table for cutting off the
heads of the criminals ; but by the just judgment of God, and at
Calvin's instigation , though the cause is not known, it so hap-
pened that in a short time he was beheaded on the same stone him-
self (14).
64. Calvin fixed his residence in Geneva, but he and Farrell
were accused, in 1537 , of holding erroneous opinions concerning
the Trinity and the Divinity of Jesus Christ ( 15). Their accuser was
Peter de Charles, a Doctor of Sorbonne, who had been a Sacramen-
tarian , and Minister of Geneva ; he charged Calvin , who said the
word Trinity was a barbarism, with denying the Unity of God in
three Persons ; besides, he had stated in his Catechism, that the
Saviour on the cross was abandoned by his Father, and driven into

(12) Varill. t. 1, l. 10, p. 465 ; Van Ranst, p. 321. (13) Apud Berti, Brev. Hist.
t. 2, s. 16, c. 2, p. 162. (14) Nat. Alex . loc. cit. n. 2 ; Van Ranst, p. 221 ; Gotti,
c. 111, s. 1 , n. 6. (15) Gotti, ibid.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 301

despair, and that he was condemned to suffer the pains of hell, but
his detention, unlike that of the reprobate, which endures for eter-
nity, only lasted for a short time ; from this Charles argued that
Calvin denied the Divinity of Christ. Calvin cleared himself
and Farrell from these charges, and his accuser was banished from
Geneva, a most fortunate circumstance for him, as it opened his eyes
to Divine grace. He went to Rome, and obtained absolution for
his errors, and died in the Catholic Church. This affair concluded,
Calvin had a serious dispute with his confrere Farrell, who , follow-
ing the custom of Berne, used unleavened bread for the Supper ,
while Calvin insisted on using leavened bread, saying it was an
abuse introduced by the scholastic Papists, to use the other. The
magistrates , however, were in favour of the use of unleavened
bread. Calvin, anxious to differ as much as possible from Zuin-
glius ( 16 ), preached to the people, and got them to declare in his
favour, so much so that Easter being now nigh they said they would
not communicate unless with leavened bread ( 17) . The magis-
trates, jealous of their authority, appointed a minister called Maré
to administer the Sacrament, with unleavened bread, in St. Peter's
Church ; but Calvin frightened him so much that he hid himself,
and the magistrates then commanded that there should be no com-
munion that day, and banished both Calvin and Farrell from the
city (18 ).
65. Calvin went to Berne to plead his cause, but met with
another adventure there. A Flemish Catholic, of the name of
Zachary, was at that time before the Council of Berne ; he held a
disputation about matters of Faith with Calvin ; in the midst of it
he took out a letter, and asked him if he knew the writing. Calvin
acknowledged it was written with his own hand ; the letter was
then read, and found to contain a great deal of abuse of Zuing-
lins ( 19). The meeting immediately broke up, and he, seeing
Berne was no longer a place for him, went to Strasbourg, where
he was again received by his friend Bucer, and appointed Pro-
fessor of Theology, and minister of a new church, in which he col-
lected together all the French and Flemings who embraced his
doctrine ; here also, in the year 1538 , he married one Ideletta, the
widow of an Anabaptist, with whom he lived fourteen years, but
had no children, though Varillas says he had one, but it only
lived two days (20 ).
66. Calvin sighed to return to Geneva, and in 1541 was re-
called . He was received with every demonstration of joy and
respect, and was appointed Chief of the Republic . He then esta-
blished the discipline of his sect, and the Senate decreed that

(16) Varill. l. 12, p. 512 , & Nat. Alex. a. 13 ; s. 1, n. 1. (17) Nat. cit. n. in fin. ;
Gotti, s. 2, n. 7. (18 ) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 3 ; Varill. p. 513 ; Van Ranst, p. 121 ;
Gotti, c. 111 , s. 2, n. 8. (19) Varill. 7. 11 , p. 514. (20) Gotti, s. 2, n. 9 ; Varill.
loc. cit. Nat. Alex. ibid.
302 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

thenceforward the ministers or citizens could never change the


statutes promulgated by him. He then also published his great
French Catechism , which his followers afterwards translated into
various languages, German, English , Flemish, Erse, Spanish, and
even Hebrew. He then also published his pestilent books, entitled
Defensio Sacra Doctrinæ, De Disciplina, De Necessitate Refor-
mandæ Ecclesiæ, one against the Interim of Charles V. , and an-
other against the Council of Trent, called Antidotum adversus Conc.
Tridentinum (21 ) . In the year 1542 , the Faculty of Sorbonne ,
by way of checking the errors then published almost daily, put
forth twenty-five Chapters on the Dogmas of Faith we are bound
to believe ; and Calvin seeing all his impious novelties condemned
by these chapters , attacked the venerable University in the grossest
manner, so as to call the Professors a herd of swine (22 ) . In the
year 1543, he procured a union between his sect and the Zuing-
lians, and being thus safe in Geneva , which he was cautious not to
leave, he encouraged his followers in France to lay down their lives
for the Faith, as he called his doctrines ; and these deluded crea-
tures, while Francis I. and Henry II . were lighting fires to burn
heretics , deceived by Calvin and his ministers, set at nought all
punishments, even death itself-nay, some of them cast them-
selves into the flames, and Calvin called their ashes the ashes of
Martyıs ( 23) . In the year 1551 , he had a great dispute in Geneva
with Jerome Bolsec, who, though an apostate Carmelite , neverthe-
less could not tolerate the opinions of Luther and Calvin concern-
ing free will, who denied it altogether, and said, that as God
predestined some to grace and paradise, so he predestined others to
sin and hell. He could not agree with Calvin in this, and he
accordingly induced the magistrates to banish Bolsec from Geneva
and its territories as a Pelagian , and with a threat of having him
flogged, if he made his appearance there again. Happily for
Bolsec , this sentence was put in execution : he then began to reflect
on the evil step he had taken, again returned to the Catholic
Church, and wrote a great deal against Calvin's doctrine, who
answered him in his impious work De Eterna Dei Prædes-
tinatione (24).
67. About the year 1553 , Calvin caused Michael Servetus to be
burned, and thus he, who, in the dedication of his work to Francis
I., called the magistrates who burned heretics Diocletians, became,
in the case of Servetus, a Diocletian himself. These are the facts
of the case (25) : Calvin procured from the Fair of Frankfort the
dialogues of Servetus, in which he denied the Trinity, and pub-
lished several other errors we shall see hereafter. When he read
this, he immediately marked his prey, as he had an old grudge

(21) Nat. Alex . t. 19, ar. 13, sec. 1 ; n. 4, & seq.; Gotti, c. 111 , sec. 2, n. 10.
(22) Gotti, n. 11. (23) Gotti, n. 11-14. (24) Nat. Alex. cit. sec. 1 , n. 8 ; Gotti,
loc. cit. n. 14. (25) Varillas, t . 2, l. 20.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 303

against him, since once he proved him in a disputation to have


made a false quotation. Servetus was passing through Geneva, on
his way to Italy, and as it was Sunday, Calvin was to preach that
evening after dinner. Servetus was curious to hear him, and
expected to escape observation . He was betrayed, however, to
Calvin, who was just going into the pulpit, and he immediately
ran to the house of one of the Consuls to get an order for his arrest ,
on a charge of heresy. By the laws of Geneva it was ordered,
that no one should be imprisoned , unless his accuser would consent to
go to prison also. Calvin , accordingly, got a servant of his to
make the charge, and go to prison, and in the servant's name, forty
charges were brought against Servetus. Undergoing an exami-
nation, he asserted that the Divine Word was not a person subsist-
ing, and hence it followed , that Jesus Christ was but a mere man .
Calvin was then summoned , and seeing that Servetus was con-
demned by that avowal of his opinions, he proposed that his
condemnation should be sanctioned, not by the Church of Geneva
alone, but by the Churches of Zurich, Basle, and Berne, likewise .
They all agreed in condemning him to be burned to death by a
slow fire, and the sentence was carried into execution on the 17th
of October, 1553 (26 ) . Varillas quotes a writer who asserts, that
when Servetus was led to punishment he cried out : " O God , save
my soul ; Jesus, Son of the Eternal God, have pity on me." It is
worthy of remark, that he did not say, Eternal Son of God, and
hence it appears that he died obstinately in his errors, by a most
horrible death, for being fastened to the stake by an iron chain,
when the pile was lighted , a violent wind blew the flames on one
side, so that the unhappy wretch was burning for two or three
hours before death put an end to his torment, and he was heard to
cry out : "Wo is me, I can neither live nor die. " Thus he perished
at the age of thirty-six ( 27) . In the following year Calvin , to defend
himself from the charge of being called a Diocletian, published a
treatise to prove that by Scripture and Tradition , and the custom
ofthe first ages, it was lawful to put obstinate heretics to death . This
was answered by Martin Bellius ; but Theodore Beza wrote a long
rejoinder in defence of Calvin , and thus we see how inconsistently
heretics act in blaming the Catholic Church at that time, for making
use of the secular arm to punish heresy, when in theory and prac-
tice they did the same themselves.
68. In the year 1555 , the Calvinists had the vanity to send a
mission to America, to endeavour to introduce their poisonous
doctrines among these simple people. For this purpose , Nicholas
Durant, a zealous French Calvinist, equipped three vessels, with
consent of the King, in which he and many other Calvinists , some

(26) Varillas, t. 2, l. 20, p. 219 ; Gotti, c. 111 , sec. 3, n. 1 ; Nat. Alex. loc. cit. sec. 1,
n. 9. (27) Varillas, l. 20, p. 221 .
304 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

of them noblemen , embarked for Brazil, under the pretext of a com-


mercial speculation ; but their primary object was to introduce
Calvinism. When Calvin heard of this, he sent two ministers to
accompany them— one of the name of Peter Richer , an apostate
Carmelite ; the other a young aspirant of the name of William
Carter. In the month of November this impious mission arrived in
Brazil, but turned out a total failure , as the two ministers could not
agree on the doctrine of the Eucharist, for Richer said that the
Word made flesh should not be adored, according to the words
of St. John, " the Spirit quickeneth, the flesh availeth nothing,"
and hence he deduced, that the Eucharist was of no use to those
who received it. This dispute put an end to the mission, and
Durant himself, in the year 1558, publicly abjured Calvinism ,
and returned to the Church, which he afterwards defended by his
writings (28).
69. In the year 1557 , a number of Calvinists were discovered
in Paris clandestinely celebrating the Supper by night in a private
house, contrary to the Royal Ordinances. One hundred and
twenty were taken and imprisoned, and a rumour was abroad, that
many enormities were committed in these nocturnal meetings. They
were all punished, and even some of them were burned alive ( 29) .
In the year 1560, the Calvinistic heresy having now become strong
in France, the conspiracy of Amboise was discovered. This was
principally directed against the princes of the House of Guise, and
Francis II., King of France, and Louis, Prince of Conde, and
brother of the King of Navarre, was at the head of it. Calvin
mentioned this conspiracy in a letter to his friends Bullenger and
Blauret, in which he admits that he was acquainted with it, but
says he endeavoured to prevent it. It is easy to see, however, his
disappointment at its failure. It is said by some authors that this
was the time when the French Calvinists first adopted the name of
Huguenots (30). The Conference of Poissy was also held at this
time. Calvin expected that his party would have the victory ; in
this he was disappointed ; but the heretics, thus beaten, remained
as obstinate as ever, and began to put on such a bold face that
they preached publicly in the streets of Paris. A scandalous trans-
action took place on this account : A minister, named Malois, was
preaching near the church of St. Medard ; when the bell rang for
vespers, the heretics sent to have it stopped, as it prevented them
from hearing the preacher. The people in the church continued
to ring on, when the Calvinists , leaving the sermon , rushed furiously
into the church, broke the images, cast down the altars, trampled
on the Most Holy Sacrament , wounded several ecclesiastics , and

(28) Nat. Alex. t. 19, ar. 13, sec. 1, n. 10 ; Varillas, l. 21 , p. 256 ; Gotti, c. 111,
sec. 3, n. 5. (29) Gotti, loc. cit. n. 6. (30) Varillas, l. 23, n. 331 ; Gotti, loc. cit.
n. 8.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 305

then dragged thirty-six of them, tied with ropes, and covered with
blood, through the streets of the city to prison. Beza wrote a
flaming account of this victory of the Faith, as he called it, to
Calvin.
70. At length the day of Divine vengeance for the wretched
Calvin drew nigh ; he died in Geneva, in 1564, on the 26th day
of May, in the 54th year of his age. Beza says he died calmly ;
but William Bolsec, the writer of his life , and others, quoted by
Noel Alexander and Gotti ( 31 ) , assert that he died calling on the
devil, and cursing his life, his studies, his writings, and , at the same
time, exhaling a horrible stench from his ulcers , and thus he
appeared before Christ, the Judge, to answer for all the souls lost,
or to be lost, through his means.
71. Varillas, in his account of Calvin's character and personal
qualities, says (32) he was endowed by God with a prodigious
memory, so that he never forgot what he once read , and that his
intellect was so acute, especially in logical and theological sub-
tleties , that he at once discovered the point on which everything
hinged in the doubts proposed to him. He was indefatigable in
studying, in preaching, in writing, and in teaching, and it is
wonderful how any man could write so many works during the
time he lived, and, besides, he preached almost every day, gave a
theological lecture every week, on every Friday, held a long con-
ference with his followers on doubts of faith, and almost all his
remaining time was taken up in clearing up and answering the
knotty questions of his friends. He was very temperate both in
eating and drinking, not so much through any love of the virtue
of abstinence, as from a weakness of stomach, so that he was some-
times two days without eating. He suffered also from hypochon-
dria, and frequent headachs, and hence his delicate health made
him melancholy. He was very emaciated, and his colour was so
bad, that he appeared as if bronzed all over. He was fond of soli-
tude, and spoke but little. He was graceless in his delivery , and
frequently, in his sermons, used to break out in invectives against
the Catholic Church and people. He was prompt in giving advice
or answers, but proud and rash, and so rude and intractable, that
he easily fell out with all who were obliged to have any commu-
nication with him ( 33). He was very vain of himself, and on that
account affected extreme gravity. He was the slave of almost
every vice, but especially hatred, anger, and vindictiveness, and
on that account Bucer, though his friend , in a letter of admonition
to him, says he is a mad dog, and as a writer inclined to speak
badly of every one. He was addicted to immorality, at all events
in his youth , and Spondanus says ( 34 ) , he was charged even with
(31 ) Nat. Alex. sec. 1 , n. 16 ; Gotti, ibid. n. 9. (82) Varillas, t. 1 , l. 10, p. 459.
(33) Spondan. ad an. 1564 ; Nat. Alex. ar. 13, sec. n. 16 ; Gotti, loc. cit. sec. 3, n. 10 ;
Varillas, l. 12, t. 1, l. 10, p. 450. (34) Spondan. ad an. 1534.
U
306 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

an unnameable offence, and Bolsee even says in his life of him,


that he was condemned to death for it in Noyon, but that, through
the intercession of the bishop, the punishment was changed to
branding with a red-hot iron . Varillas says (35) , that in the
registry of Noyon a leaf is marked with this condemnation , but
without mentioning the offence : but Noel Alexander says ( 36 )
positively, that both the certificate of the condemnation and the
offence was preserved in Noyon, and that it was shown to , and read
by, Berteler, Secretary to the Republic of Geneva, sent on purpose
to verify the fact . Cardinal Gotti says (37) , that when he taught
Greek in Angouleme the same charge was brought against him by
his scholars, and that he was condemned there likewise. Such
are the virtues attributed to the pretended Reformers of the
Church ( 38 ).

SEC. II. — THEODORE BEZA, THE HUGUENOTS, AND OTHER CALVINISTS WHO DISTURBED
FRANCE, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND.

72. Theodore Beza ; his Character and Vices. 73. His Learning, Employments, and
Death. 74. Conference of St. Francis de Sales with Beza. 75. Continuation ofthe
same Subject. 76, 77. Disorders of the Huguenots in France. 78. Horrors com-
mitted by them ; they are proscribed in France. 79. Their Disorders in Flanders.
80. And in Scotland. 81. Mary Stuart is married to Francis II. 82. She returns
to Scotland and marries Darnley, next Bothwell ; is driven by Violence to make a
fatal Renunciation of her Crown in favour of her Son. 83. She takes Refuge in Eng-
land, and is imprisoned by Elizabeth, and afterwards condemned to Death by her.
81. Edifying Death of Mary Stuart. 85. James I., the Son of Mary, succeeds Eliza-
beth ; he is succeeded by his Son, Charles I. , who was beheaded. 86. He is succeeded
by his Son, Charles II., who is succeeded by his Brother, James II. , a Catholic, who
died in France.

72. AT Calvin's death, he left the direction of the unfortunate


city of Geneva to Theodore Beza , a worthy successor of his, both
in life and doctrines . He was born on the 24th of June, 1519 , in
Vezelais, in Burgundy, of a noble family, and was educated by his
uncle, who sent him to Paris to study humanity, and afterwards to
Orleans to learn Greek under Melchior Wolmar, Calvin's master,
first in Greek and next in heresy. His appearance was agreeable,
his manners polished, and he was a great favourite with all his ac-
quaintance. He led, when young, an immoral life, and wrote several
amatory poems ; he had an intrigue with a tailor's wife in Paris, of
the name of Claudia, and he has been charged with even more
abominable crimes. His uncle resigned a priorate, which he held ,
in his favour, and likewise made him his heir ; but he spent not
only that and his paternal property, but even stole the chalices and
ornaments of a church belonging to the natives of Burgundy, in
Orleans, of which he was procurator. For this he was imprisoned,

(35) Varillas, loc. cit. (36) Nat. Alex. cit. n. 16, in fin. (37) Gotti, sec. 1, n. 6.
(38) Remundus, l. 1 , c. 9, n. 3.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 307

but soon liberated, and soon after he published in Paris a shocking


epigram regarding a person named Audabert, which induced the
Court of Paris to order his imprisonment. This terrified him , for
if convicted of the crime he was charged with, the penalty was
burning alive . He was reduced to the greatest poverty, for he not
only ran through his property, but also sold his priorate for twelve
hundred crowns, and even in this transaction he was guilty of dis-
honesty, for he prevailed on the agents of his benefice to pay him
the revenue of it before it came due. Covered with infamy, he
changed his name to Theobald May, and fled to Geneva, taking
Claudia with him , whom he then married, though her husband was
still living. He presented himself to Calvin , who, finding he studied
under Wolmar, received him , and procured him a professorship of
Greek, and from that he was promoted to a professorship of Theology
in Lausanne. The ministers of that city, though apostates, yet
having a knowledge of the crimes already committed by Beza, and
seeing the debauched life he led , refused to admit him to the
ministry, but he was sustained by Calvin , whom he venerated
almost to adoration , so that he was called Calvinolator, the adorer
of Calvin (1).
73. In his teaching he surpassed even Calvin in impiety , for the
one admitted, though obscurely, the body of Christ in the Eucharist,
but the other said, in the Conference of Poissy, that the body of
Christ was as far from the Eucharist as heaven is from the earth ;
and although he was obliged to retract, nevertheless, in a letter of
his, he again repeats the same sentiment (2) ; and one of his com-
panions, as Spondanus tells us, said, what wonder is it that Beza
does not believe that, when he scarcely believes in the existence of
God (3) ? On the occasion of the outbreak of the Calvinists against
the priests ofthe Church of St. Medard ( N. 69) , he boasted not only
of the insult to the Church and the priests, but especially of the
horrible profanation of the Holy Eucharist. He wrote a letter of
congratulation to the Queen of England, praising her for assisting
to plant the Faith in France by blood and slaughter ; and when he
went to the Congress of Worms, where Calvin sent him to try and
gain friends for his sect, and Melancthon asked him, " Why the
French caused so many disasters in France ?" He said , " They only
did what the Apostles had done before them. ” " Why, then," said
Melancthon, do you not suffer stripes as the Apostles did ?" Beza
made him no answer, but turned his back on him. Although nearly
seventy years old when his wife Claudia died , he married a very
young widow, of whom we shall have occasion to speak hereafter.
Florimund (4) says that a nobleman of Guienne returning from
Rome in the year 1600 , called on Beza , and found him a venerable

(1) Gotti, c. 114, sec. 4, n. 1 , 6 ; Varillas, t. 2, l. 18, 137. (2 ) Berti, Brev. Hist.
t. 2, sec. 16, c. 1. (3) Spondan. ad An. 1561 , n. 19. (4) Florimund, Remund.
l. 8 , c. 17, n. 6.
308 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

old man, with a long white beard, and in his hand a beautifully
bound little volume. When the gentleman asked him what it con-
tained, he showed him that it was a book of sonnets , and said : " Sic
tempus fallo"-" I thus cheat time." " Oh," said the gentleman to
a friend of his, " is it thus this holy man , with one foot already in
Charon's bark, passes his time ?" Beza continued for forty-one
years after Calvin's death to govern the Church of Geneva, or rather
to poison it by his bad example and doctrine ; he was, however,
called to account for all before God, in the year 1605 , the eighty-
fifth of his age ( 5 ) Let not the reader wonder that I have said so
much about the vices of Luther, Calvin , and Beza . I have done so
on purpose, that every one may understand that God did not send
such men to reform his Church , but rather the devil to destroy it.
In this, however, no heresiarch ever can or ever has succeeded , for
our Lord has promised to protect it to the end of the world , “ and
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
74. I will here relate a conference St. Francis de Sales had with
Beza, about the year 1597 , as we find it in the saint's life (6 ) .
Clement VIII . desired St. Francis to see Beza and try could he
convert him. The saint made his way into Geneva, at the risk of
his life, and called on Beza, whom he found alone. He commenced
by begging Beza not to believe all he heard of him from his
enemies. Beza answered that he always considered St. Francis a
man of learning and merit, but that he regretted seeing him devote
his energies to prop up anything so weak as the Catholic religion .
St. Francis then asked him if it was his opinion that a man could
be saved in the Catholic Church ? Beza demanded a little time.
before he would give his answer ; he went into his study, remained
walking about for a quarter of an hour, and then coming out said :
66
Yes ; I believe that a man may be saved in the Catholic Church."
" Why, then," said St. Francis, " have you established your Refor-
mation with so much bloodshed and destruction , since, without any
danger, a man may be saved, and never leave the Catholic Church ?"
" You have put obstacles in the way of salvation ," said Beza , " in
the Catholic Church, by inculcating the necessity of good works ;
but we, by teaching salvation by faith alone, have smoothened the
way to heaven." " But you ," said St. Francis, " by denying the
necessity of good works, destroy all human and divine laws, which
threaten punishment to the wicked, and promise rewards to the
good ; and Christ says, in the Gospel, that not only those who do
evil, but, likewise, those who omit to do the good commanded to
be done, shall suffer eternal punishment. It is necessary, also ," said
he, " in order to know the true Faith, that there should be some
judge from whom there is no appeal, and to whose judgment all

(5) Gotti, loc. cit. n. 7, 10. (6) Vita di St. Francesco di Sales, da Pietro Gallo,
1. 2, c. 21 , 22.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 309

should submit ; for otherwise disputes never would have an end ,


and the truth never could be found." Beza then began talking
about the Council of Trent, and said that the only rule of Faith
was the Scriptures, and that the Council did not follow them. St.
Francis answered that the Scriptures had different meanings , and
that it was necessary that their true sense should be decided by the
Church . " But," said Beza, " the Scriptures are clear, and the
Holy Ghost gives to every one the internal understanding of their
true sense." 66 How, then, does it happen," said St. Francis , " ifthe
Scripture be clear, and the Holy Ghost inspires the true sense of it
to every one, that Luther and Calvin , both, in the opinion of the
Reformers, inspired by God, held the most opposite opinions in the
most important questions of religion. Luther says that the real
body of Christ is in the Eucharist ; Calvin , on the other hand , that
it is only the virtue of Christ. How, then, can we know, when so
great a difference exists, to which of the two, Luther or Calvin, the
Holy Ghost has revealed the truth ? Besides , Luther denies the
Canonicity of the Epistle of St. James, and of some other books of
the Holy Scriptures ; Calvin admits it. Whom are we to believe ?"
They had now been disputing for three hours , and when Beza saw
himself thus hemmed up in a corner, he lost his temper, and only
answered the saint's arguments by abuse. St. Francis then, with
his accustomed meekness, said he did not come to give him any
annoyance, and took his leave.
75. Some time after, again at the request of the Pope , St. Francis
paid him a second visit, and, among many things then discussed,
they argued specially concerning Free Will, for Calvin blasphem-
ously asserted , that whatever man does , he does through necessity
-that if he is predestined he does what is good-if he is not, he
does what is evil. The saint proved the doctrine of Free Will so
clearly, both from the Old and the New Testament, that Beza was
convinced of its truth, and, cordially taking St. Francis by the
hand, said that he daily prayed to God, that if he was not in the
right way, he might lead him to it. This shows the doubts he en-
tertained of his new Faith ; for those who are certain that they pro-
fess the true Faith, never pray to God to enlighten them to adopt
another, but to confirm and preserve them in the Faith they profess.
Finally, St. Francis, thinking him now better disposed after this
acknowledgment, spoke to him plainly, and told him, that now his
years should lead him to reflect whether he was not letting the time
ofmercy pass by, and preparing himself for the day of justice-
that, as he was now near the close of life, he should defer his con-
version no longer, but return immediately to the Church he had
forsaken-that if he feared the persecution he would suffer from the
Calvinists , he should remember he ought to suffer everything for
his eternal salvation ; but as Luther himself remarked , it is hard to
expect that the head of any sect will forsake the doctrines he has
310 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

taught others, and become a convert. Beza said that he did not
despair of salvation in his own Church . The saint then , seeing that
his heart was made of stone, left him, under a promise of returning
soon again to visit him ; but this was not in his power, for the Ge-
nevese put guards to watch their minister, and determined to put
St. Francis to death if he ever came again. Some say that Beza
was anxious to see him again, and that he retracted his errors, and
that on that account his friends gave out that the violence of his
sickness deranged his mind ; but we know nothing of this for cer-
tain, and it is most probable that he died as he lived. The writer
of St. Francis's life says, also , that Des Hayes, Governor of Montar-
gis, being in Geneva, and conversing familiarly one day with Beza,
asked him why he remained in his new sect? He pointed out to
him a young woman in his house, and said, this is what retains me ;
and it is supposed that this was his second wife , whom he married
when he was seventy years old.
76. We have now to speak of the French Calvinists, or Hu-
guenots, as they are generally called , as is supposed , from the Castle
of Hugon, near Toulouse, close by which they had their first con-
venticle, and of the desolation they caused in France. Volumes
would not suffice to relate all the destruction caused by Calvin and
his followers, not only in France, but in many other countries. I
will only then give a sketch of them, to show how much harm one
perverse heresiarch may occasion. During the reigns of Francis I.
and his son, Henry II ., though both zealous Catholics, and ever
prosecuting the Calvinists with the utmost rigour, even condemn-
ing many of them to the stake, still this heresy was so spread
through every province of the kingdom, that there was not a city
or town but had its temple or ministers of the new sect. In the
year 1559 , however, when Henry was succeeded by his son,
Francis II., only sixteen years of age, it broke forth like a torrent,
and overwhelmed the whole kingdom with errors, sacrileges, sedi-
tion, and bloodshed (7) . Jeane, Queen of Navarre, was the chief
promoter of all this ; she used all her endeavours to extinguish the
Faith ; she encouraged the heretics to take up arms, and when they
were worsted, she was always ready to assist them. She encouraged
Louis Bourbon , Prince of Conde, too, at his first presentation to
her, to take up arms in the cause of the Reformation , and she was
the head of the conspiracy of Amboise, which, however, did not
succeed according to her wishes (8 ) . The Huguenots, however,
are blamed for the death of the young King, Francis II., who , it
is said, was poisoned by a Huguenot surgeon, at the age of seven-
teen, by putting poison into his ear while treating him for an
abscess (9).

(7) Van Ranst, Hist. sec. 16, p. 322. (8) Van Ranst, loc. cit. vide Her. t. 2 , c. 272.
(9) Spondan. ad an. 1560, n. 7.
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 311

77. A royal decree was published in the reign of Charles IX. ,


granting leave to the Calvinists to hold meetings, and preach out-
side the cities , and on this occasion , nothing could equal the distur-
bances they caused . The first outbreak took place in Vassey, in
Champagne, where seventy Calvinists were killed ; the Prince of
Conde immediately put himself at the head of the Calvinistic
party, and they declared war against their king and country. They
took several cities, and destroyed the churches , broke open the
tombs of saints, and burned their relics. Many battles were subse-
quently fought, in which the rebels were beaten, though not con-
quered. The first was fought in Dreux, in the Venassain , in which
Conde was taken prisoner by Francis of Guise , who commanded the
Catholics, and Anthony, King of Navarre, who commanded the
royal army, was so severely wounded, that he died shortly after,
leaving an only son Henry, who was afterwards the famous
Henry IV., King of France. In the following year, 1563, while
the Duke of Guise, commander of the royal troops, was besieging
Orleans, he was treacherously wounded by one John Poltroze ,
employed by Beza ; the wound proved mortal, and the Queen-
Mother made a treaty of peace with the heretics , most hurtful to
the Catholic interests, but which was subsequently modified by
another edict ( 10).
78. The Calvinists went to war again in 1567 , and were again
beaten, and in the year 1569 , the Catholics gained the battle of
Jarnac, in which the Prince of Conde, leader of the Calvinists, was
killed ( 11 ) . In the year 1572 , a great number of Calvinists were
killed on St. Bartholomew's day, and it is thought that not less than
a hundred thousand Calvinists perished in this war ; such were the
hellish fruits of the doctrines Calvin taught. It is terrifying to read
the details of the excesses committed by the Calvinists against the
churches, the priests, the sacred images, and especially the Holy
Eucharist. It is related in the Annals of France, in the year 1563,
( 12), that a Huguenot went into the Church of St. Genevieve , and,
possessed by a diabolical spirit, snatched the Sacred Host out of
the hands of the officiating priest ; he paid dearly, however, for the
sacrilege, as he was immediately taken, his hand was cut off, he
was then hanged, and his body burned. As an atonement for this
irreverence, the same month, the king, his mother, the princes of
the blood, and the Parliament, went in procession from the Chapel
Royal to the Church of St. Genevieve, bearing lighted torches in
their hands. About this time, also, the Huguenots burned the body
of St. Francis a Paula, which was preserved incorrupt for fifty
years, in the Church of St. Gregory of Tours, in the suburbs of
Tours. Louis XIV . used every means, by sending preachers

(10) Nat. Alex. t. 19, c. 11, art. 9, n. 3, & 4. (11) Nat. Alex. n. 5 ; Hermant, t. 2,
c. 306. (12) Apud Gotti, c. 111, s. 4, n. 15.
312 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

among these sectaries , to convert them, and finally adopted such


rigorous measures against them, that a great many returned to the
Faith , and those who refused compliance left the kingdom. Inno-
cent XI . , in the year 1685 , wrote him a letter, praising his zeal ( 13).
79. Would to God , however, that the plague never spread further
than France, and never tainted any other kingdom . The Low
Countries were likewise infected by it, and the chief reason of its
spreading there was on account of the Lutheran and Calvinistic
troops, maintained by the house of Austria to oppose France ; both
sects rivalled each other in making proselytes there, but Calvin sent
many of his disciples to Flanders, and the Calvinists, therefore,
remained the most numerous. The Flemings, also, felt themselves
aggrieved by the Spanish Governors, and succeeded with Philip II.,
in obtaining the recall of Cardinal Granville , who had been sent as
Counsellor of Mary, Queen of Hungary, and sister of Charles V. ,
Regent of the Low Countries. This was a most fatal blow to the
Catholic cause, for this great prelate, by his vigorous measures, and
his zealous administration of his Inquisitorial powers, kept the
heretics in check, but after his departure, in 1556, they broke out
into open insurrection, wrecked the churches of Antwerp, broke the
altars and images, and left the monasteries heaps of ruins, and this
sedition spread through Brabant and other provinces, already
infected with heresy , so that the Regent felt herself obliged to grant
them a provisional license for the exercise of their false religion.
King Philip refused to ratify this concession , and the heretics again
took up arms ; the King then sent the Duke of Alva with a powerful
army to chastise them, but the Prince of Orange, though under
many obligations to the King of Spain, proclaimed himself chief of
the rebels and Calvinists, and led an army of thirty thousand
Germans into the Low Countries ( 14) . The scale of victory inclined
sometimes to one side, sometimes to another, but the whole province
was in rebellion against the King of Spain and the authority of the
Catholic Church . The best authority to consult regarding this
war of the Netherlands is Cardinal Bentivoglio. Although the
Calvinists were most numerous in Holland, it is now divided
between a thousand sects-Calvinists, Lutherans, Anabaptists,
Socinians, Arians, and the like. There are, likewise, a great num-
ber of Catholics ; and , although they do not enjoy the free exercise
of their religion, still they are tolerated , and allowed to have private
chapels in the cities, and in the country towns and villages they
enjoy greater freedom (15).

(13) Gotti, loc. cit. n. 16, c. 17. (14) Varillas, t. 2, l. 27, dalla p. 441, Jovet
Storia della Relia, t. 1, p. 95. (15) Jovet, loc. cit. p. 105.

N.B.-This was written in 1770. At present the Catholic Hierarchy is re-


established.
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 313

80. Calvinism spread itself also into Scotland , and totally infected
that kingdom. Varillas (16) gives the whole history of its intro-
duction there ; we will give a sketch of it. The perversion of this
kingdom commenced with John Knox, an apostate priest of disso-
lute morals, who was at first a Lutheran , but afterwards residing
some time in Geneva, and being intimate with Calvin , became
one of his followers, and so ardent was he in his new religion, that
he promised Calvin that he would risk everything to plant it in
Scotland ; soon after he quitted Geneva and came to Scotland to put
his design into execution. The opportunity was not long wanting.
Henry VIII. , King of England , strove to induce his nephew,
James V., King of Scotland, to follow his example, and establish a
schism and separate himself from the Roman Church, and invited
him to meet him at some place where they could hold a conference
and discuss the matter. King James excused himself under various
pretexts, and the upshot of the matter was that Henry went to war
with him. James gave the command of his army to a favourite of
his, Oliver Sinclair, whom the nobility obeyed with the greatest
reluctance, as he was not of noble birth, and the consequence was
that the Scots were beaten, and James died of grief (17) , leaving
an infant, only eight days old , to inherit his throne, Mary Stuart.
Now this was exactly what Knox wanted ; a long regency was just
the thing to give him an opportunity to establish his opinions, and
he unfortunately succeeded so well that he substituted Calvinism
for Catholicity. The infant Mary, being now Queen of Scotland ,
Henry VIII . asked her in marriage for his son Edward, afterwards
the sixth of that name, and then only five years old. This demand
raised two parties in the kingdom. James Hamilton , Earl of
Arran, then all-powerful in Scotland , and Governor of the kingdom ,
favoured Henry's wishes, gained over by Knox, who had already
instilled heretical opinions into his mind ; and one great reason he
alleged was, that it would establish a perpetual peace between the
two kingdoms. On the contrary, the Archbishop of St. Andrew's,
David Beatoun ( 18) , afterwards Cardinal, and the Catholics, gave
it all the opposition in their power, as tending to make Scotland a
province of England , but the chief cause of their opposition to it
was the injury to religion , for this marriage would draw Scotland
into schism .
81. Meanwhile , the Regent, who was a friend of the heretics,
permitted the Calvinists to disseminate their doctrines, and gave
liberty to every one in private or in public to pray as he liked, or,
in other words, to choose whatever religion he pleased . The arch-
bishop opposed this concession , but the Calvinists rose in arms
against him, and imprisoned him, and made him promise to favour

(16) Varillas, Hist . Her. t. 2, l. 28, dalla p. 471 ; Hermant, Histor. de Concil. t. 2 , c. 265.
(17) Varillas, p. 475. (18) Varillas, loc. cit.
314 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

the English alliance . In this, however, they did not succeed, for
previous to her departure for England, the cardinal, with consent
of the Queen-Mother, Mary of Lorrain , sister to the Prince of
Guise, proposed to Francis I., King of France , to marry Mary to
the Dauphin, son of Henry II . The King of France was very well
pleased with the proposal, and sent a large body of troops into
Scotland, which kept the Calvinists in check, and enabled the
Queen Regent to send her daughter to France, and so Mary was
sent, before she completed her seventh year, to be brought up in
the family of Henry II ., and in time to be married to his son,
Francis II. On the death of Francis I. and Henry II ., Mary was
married to Francis II., but was soon left a widow, and the marriage
was not blessed with children . Queen Mary then returned to
Scotland, where she found religious affairs in the greatest confusion .
The Calvinists assassinated the archbishop in his very chamber,
and afterwards hanged his body out of the window ( 19 ).
82. The rebels, likewise, in this sedition , destroyed the churches,
and obliged the Queen-Mother to grant them the free exercise of
Calvinism . Such was the miserable state of the kingdom when
the Queen returned to it from France ; and she immediately set
about remedying these religious disorders. About the year 1568
she married Henry Darnley (20) , who was afterwards assassinated
in the King's house by Earl Bothwell, leaving one son , afterwards
James VI . (21 ) . Bothwell, blinded with love of the Queen , en-
gaged a body of conspirators, seized her as she was returning from
visiting her son at Stirling, brought her to a castle, and obliged
her to marry him. On hearing this the Calvinists immediately
broke out into rebellion against her, and accused her of being privy
to the murder of her former husband, since she married his mur-
derer, but the principal cause of their hatred to her was her religion.
Bothwell himself, however, who had to fly to Denmark from this
outbreak, declared before his death that the Queen was perfectly
innocent of Henry Darnley's murder. The Calvinists , however,
glad of a pretext to persecute the Queen, became so bold at last ,
that they took her prisoner and confined her in a castle, and the
perfidious Knox advised that she should be put to death . The
rebels did not go so far as that, but they told her that she should
consent to be banished either into France or England , and should
renounce the crown in favour of her son , and on her refusal they
threatened to throw her into the lake, and one of them had the
cowardice to hold a dagger to her breast. Under fear of death she
then took the pen and signed the deed making over the kingdom
to her son, then thirteen months old (22 ).
83. The poor Queen was still detained in prison , notwithstand-

(19) Varill. t. 28, 1. 2, p. 426. (20) Varill. p. 479. (21 ) Varill. p. 500.
(22) Varill. p. 502, 503.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 315

ing her renunciation, so some of her friends planned and accom-


plished her liberation , but not knowing where to seek a place of
security, she unfortunately sought it in England from Queen Eliza-
beth, who promised to aid and assist her as a sister Sovereign.
Thus she threw herself into the power of the very woman of all
others most anxious to deprive her of life and kingdom, for Mary
was her only rival, and the greatest difficulty the Pope had in
recognizing Elizabeth was, that while Mary lived she was the
lawful inheritor of the English throne. When Mary arrived in
England, Elizabeth pretended to receive (23) her ; but she impri-
soned her first, at Carlisle, and afterwards in Bolton- under pre-
tence that her enemies wished to make away with her. The
national pride of the Scotch was raised when they learned their
Queen was a prisoner, and they invaded England with six thou-
sand men. Elizabeth, then unprepared for war, had recourse to
craft to avert the blow, and she therefore promised Mary that if
she used her authority to make the Scotch retire from England ,
she would assist her to recover her kingdom, but otherwise that
there would be no chance of her liberation till the war was at an
end . Mary yielded, and ordered the Scotch to disband themselves ,
under pain of high treason ; the chiefs of the party were thus con-
strained to obey, but she was still kept in prison, and Elizabeth , to
have another pretext for detaining her, induced Murray, a natural
brother of Mary, and the Countess of Lennox, mother of the mur-
dered Darnley, to accuse her of procuring her husband's murder.
Elizabeth appointed a commission to try her, and though many
persons of the greatest weight took up her defence, still, after being
imprisoned nineteen years, and having changed from prison to
prison, sixteen times in England alone, she was condemned to be
beheaded . She received the news of her sentence with the greatest
courage, and an entire resignation to the divine will. She asked
for a pen, and wrote three requests to Elizabeth : First.-That after
her death her servants might be at liberty to go where they pleased .
Second -To allow her to be buried in consecrated ground ; and ,
Third. Not to prosecute any one who wished to follow the Ca-
tholic faith.
84. The execution of the sentence was deferred for two months ,
but on the day appointed, the 18th February, 1587 , at the dawn of
day, the officers of justice came to conduct her to the place of exe-
cution . The Queen asked for a confessor to prepare her for death,
but was refused, and a minister was sent to her whom she refused
to receive. It is said that she received the holy Communion her-
self, having, by permission of the Pope, St. Pius V. , retained a con-
secrated particle for that purpose (24) . She then dressed herself
with all the elegance of a bride, prayed for a short time in her

(23) Varill. p. 50, seq. (24) Vide P. Suar. t. 3, in St. Thom. c. 72, ar . 8, in fin.
316 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

oratory, and went to the scaffold which was prepared in the hall of
Fotheringay Castle, the last prison she inhabited. Everything was
covered with black, the hall, the scaffold, and the pulpit from which
the sentence was read . Mary entered , covered with a long veil,
which reached to her feet, a golden cross on her breast, a Rosary
pendant at her girdle, and a crucifix in one hand , the Office of
the Blessed Virgin in the other. She went forward with a majestic
gait, and calling Melvin , her Major-domo, she saluted him with a
serene countenance, and said : " My dear Melvin , when I am dead
go to my son and tell him that I die in the Catholic religion, and
tell him if he loves me or himself to follow no other ; let him put
his trust in God, and He will help him, and tell him to pardon
Elizabeth for my death , which I voluntarily embrace for the Faith ."
She then requested the Governor to allow the persons composing her
suite to be present at her death, that they might certify that she
died in the Catholic Faith. She knelt down on a cushion covered
with black, and heard the sentence signed by Elizabeth's own hand
read, she then laid her head on the block, and the executioner cut
it off at the second stroke. Her body was buried near Queen
Catherine's, the wife of Henry VIII., and it is said this inscription
was put on her tomb, but immediately after removed by order of
Elizabeth : " Maria Scotorum Regina virtutibus Regiis et animo
Regio ornata, tyrannica crudelitate ornamentum nostri seculi extin-
guitur." Mary's death filled all Europe with horror and compassion
for her fate, and even Elizabeth, when she heard it, could not con-
ceal the effect it had on her, and said it was too precipitate, but for
all that she continued to persecute the Catholics more and more,
and added many martyrs to the Church (25) .
85. James VI., King of Scotland, and the son of Queen Mary,
took little heed of his mother's advice or example , for, after Eliza-
beth's death , being then King of Scotland , he succeeded her, and
took the title of James I., King of Great Britain, and the year after
his coronation, which took place in 1603 , he ordered , under pain
of death, that all Catholic priests should quit the kingdom . In
the year 1606 he brought out that famous declaration that the
King of England was independent of the Roman Church , called
the Oath of Supremacy. He died in 1625, the fifty-ninth year of
his age, and the twenty-second of his English reign. He was the
first King who governed the three kingdoms of England , Ireland ,
and Scotland, but he lived and died a heretic, while his mother
lived forty-two years in almost continual sorrow and persecution ,
but died the death of the just. This unhappy monarch was suc-
ceeded by his son, Charles I., born in the year 1600 , and like his
father, the Sovereign of three kingdoms ; he followed his father's

(25) Varillas, sopra, t. 2, 1. 28 ; Bern. t. 4, s. 16, c. 11 ; Joves Istoria della Rel. t. 2,


p. 84; Dizion. Port.
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 317

errors in religion , and sent succours to the Calvinists in France, to


enable them to retain Rochelle then in their possession. He was
unfortunate ; for both the Scotch and English Parliamentarians
took up arms against him, and after several battles he lost the
kingdom . He took refuge with the Scotch, but they delivered
him up to the English, and they, at Cromwell's instigation, who
was then aiming at sovereign power, condemned him to be beheaded,
and he died on the scaffold on the 30th of July, 1648 , the twenty-
fifth of his reign and forty-eighth of his age.
86. He was succeeded by his son, Charles II . , born in 1630 ; at
his father's death he went to Scotland, and was proclaimed King of
that country and of England and Ireland likewise . Cromwell,
who then governed the kingdom, under title of Protector of
England, took the field against him , and put his forces to flight, so
that Charles had to make his escape in disguise, first to France and
afterwards to Cologne and Holland . He was recalled after Crom-
well's death, which took place in 1658, and was crowned King of
England in 1661 , and died in 1685 , at the age of sixty-five. He
was succeeded by his brother, James II . , born in 1633. James
was proclaimed King on the day of his brother's death, the 16th of
February, 1685 , and was soon after proclaimed King of Scotland,
though he openly declared himself a Roman Catholic, and forsook
the communion of the English Church . Ardently attached to the
Faith, he promulgated in 1687 an Edict of Toleration, granting to
the Catholics the free exercise of religion , but this lost him his
crown, for the English called in William, Prince of Orange, who ,
though James's son-in-law, took possession of the kingdom , and , in
1689 , James had to fly to France . He soon after went over to
Ireland, to keep possession of that kingdom at all events, but being
again beaten he fled back again to France, and died in St. Germains,
in 1701 , the sixty-eighth year of his age. As this sovereign did not
hesitate to sacrifice his temporal kingdom for the Faith, we have
every reason to believe that he received an eternal crown from the
Almighty. James II. left one son , James III., who died in the
Catholic Faith in Rome.

SEC. III.THE ERRORS OF CALVIN.

87. Calvin adopts the Errors of Luther. 88. Calvin's Errors regarding the Scriptures.
89. The Trinity. 90. Jesus Christ. 91. The Divine Law. 92. Justification.
93. Good Works and Free Will. 94. That God predestines Man to Sin and to
Hell, and Faith alone in Jesus Christ is sufficient for Salvation. 95. The Sacra-
ments, and especially Baptism. 96. Penance. 97. The Eucharist and the Mass.
98. He denies Purgatory and Indulgences ; other Errors.

97. CALVIN adopted almost all the principal errors of Luther, who
adopted almost all the errors of the ancient heretics, as we shall
hereafterwards show in the refutation of Luther and Calvin. Prate-
318 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

olus ( 1 ) reckons two hundred and seven heretical doctrines, pro-


mulgated by Calvin , and another author (2 ) makes the number
amount to fourteen hundred . At present I will only speak of the
principal errors of Calvin, and will give in the last part of the
work a particular treatise to refute them.
88. As regards the Holy Scriptures, Calvin, in his book against
the Council of Trent (3 ), says the Church has no right to interpret
and judge ofthe true sense of the Scriptures . Second. He refuses
to receive the Canon of the Scriptures as settled by the Council.
Third. He denies the authority of the Vulgate. Fourth. - He
denies the Canonicity of the books of Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom,
Tobias, Judith, and the Maccabees, and totally rejects Apostolical
Traditions (4).
89. Regarding the Persons of the Trinity, he does not like the
words Consubstantial, Hypostasis, or even Trinity. " I wish," he
says, " all these words were buried in oblivion, and we had this
Faith alone, that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one God" (5) .
The Church, however, has inserted in the Office of the Breviary
the Athanasian Creed, in which it is positively laid down that the
Father, and the Son , and the Holy Ghost, are not only one God,
but also three distinct Persons ; for otherwise one might fall into
the errors of Sabellius, who said that these were but simple words,
and that in the Trinity there is but one Divine Nature, and one
Person, and on that account the Holy Fathers made use of the words
Hypostatic and Consubstantial to explain both the distinction and
the equality of the Divine Persons. Second.- It is a foolish thing,
he says, to believe in the continual actual generation of the Son
from the Eternal Father (6) ; but this doctrine is not only the
general one among theologians ( 7) , but is proved by the Scriptures :
" Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee" (Ps. ii. 7) . St.
Augustin, explaining this text, says : " This day, that is, from all
eternity, and in every continuous instant, he begets me according to
my Divine Nature, as his Word and his Natural Son."
90. Speaking of Jesus Christ, he says, that he was the mediator
of mankind with his Eternal Father before he became man, and
before Adam sinned (8). "Not alone," he says in one ofhis letters,
" did Christ discharge the office of a mediator after the fall of
Adam, but as the Eternal Word of God ." This is a manifest error,
for it was when Christ took flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary
that he became the mediator of reconciliation between God and
man ; as the Apostle says, " for there is one God, and one mediator
of God and man, the man Christ Jesus" ( 1 Timothy, ii. 5 ) . He also
blasphemously taught, that when Christ descended into hell (and

(1 ) Præteol. Hær. 13 . (2) Francisc. Forfandes. in Theomach. Calv. (3) Calvin,


Antid. ad Synod. Trident. ad Sess. IV. (4) Calvin. in Antid. loc. cit. (5) Calvin.
Instit. 7. 1, c. 13, sec. (6) Calvin. vide loc. cit. (7) Calvin. Epist. ad Stancarum.
(8) Calvin, Instit. l. 2 , c. 16.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. ( 319

he understands it as the hell of the damned) , that he suffered the


pains of the damned , and this was the great price he offered to his
Eternal Father for our redemption . Cardinal Gotti says ( 9) , that
like Nestorius, he recognized two persons in Christ (10).
91. Concerning the Divine law, and the sins of mankind ( 11 ) ,
he says it is impossible for us to observe the law imposed on us by
God, and that original concupiscence , or that vicious leaning to sin
which exists in us, though we do not consent to it, is still sinful ,
since such desires arise from the wickedness which reigns in us ;
that there are no venial sins, but that all are mortal ; that every
work which even the just man performs is sinful ; that good works
have no merit with God, and that to say the contrary is pride, and
proceeds from a wish to depreciate grace ( 12 ) .
92. Concerning justification , he says that it does not consist
in the infusion of sanctifying grace, but in the imposition of the
justice of Christ, which reconciles the sinner with God. The
sinner, he says in another place, puts on the justice of Christ by
Faith, and clothed in that, appears before God not as a sinner, but
as one of the just, so that the sinner, though continuing a sinner
still, is justified by being clothed with- masked as it were - the
justice of Christ, and appears just by that means ( 13 ) . He also
says, that man, in a state of sin, is not justified by contrition , but
by Faith alone, believing in the promises and in the merits of Jesus
Christ (14) . This was the doctrine of the French Calvinists in their
celebrated profession of faith : " We believe that we are made par-
ticipators of this justification by Faith alone, and this so happens
because the promises of life offered to us in Christ are applied to
our use." He likewise said, that those who are justified should
believe with a certainty of Faith that they are in a state of grace,
and that this certainty should be understood not only of perse-
verance, but even of eternal salvation ; so that one should consider
himself as one of the elect, as St. Paul was by the special revelation
he received from God (15) . He likewise said, that Faith and jus-
tification belong to the elect alone, and that once in possession of
them, they cannot be lost, and if any one thinks he lost them , he
never had them. The Synod of Dort, however (16) , opposed this
doctrine, when it decided that in particular instances one may lose
the Divine grace . We should not at all be surprised at this dis-
agreement in the same sect, for as the heresiarchs separate from the
Church, they cannot blame their disciples for separating from them ;
as Tertullian says, when each follows his own will , the Valentinians
have the same right to their own opinions as Valentine himself ( 17) .
93. He uttered horrible blasphemies when speaking of human

(9) Gotti, Vera Chiesa, t. 1 , c. 8, sec. 1 , n. 9. (10) Calvin. Instit. 7. 1, c. 13, sec. 9,
n. 23, 24. (11) Calv. l. 3, c. 3, sec. 10. ( 12 ) Idem. Z. 3, c. 14, sec. 4. (13) Idem.
1. 3 , c. 11 , sec. 15, 16. (14) Idem, l. 3, c. 11 , sec. 3. (15) Calv. Inst. l. 3, c. 2,
sec. 16, & seq. (16) Idem, l. 3, c. 2 , sec. 11 , 12. (17) Tertull. de Script. Hærat. c. 42.
320 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

actions as meritorious to salvation or otherwise . The first is, that


man has no free will, and that this word free will is but a name
without the substance (18) . The first man alone , he said , had free
will, but he and all his posterity lost it through sin ; hence, anything
that man does he does through necessity, for God has so willed it ,
and it is God himself moves him to do it, which movement man
cannot resist. But then , it may be said, when man acts without
free will, and through necessity , both when he does what is good,
as well as when he does what is evil , how can he have merit or de-
merit ? Calvin again blasphemously answers this and says, that to
acquire merit, or deserve punishment, it is enough that man should
act spontaneously, without being driven to it by others, though all
the while he acts without liberty and through necessity. But if
God moves the will of man even to commit sin, then God is the
author of sin. 66 No," says Calvin, " because the author of sin is he
alone who commits it, not he who commands or moves the sinner
to commit it." He does not blush, then, to give utterance to a third
blasphemy, that every sin is committed by the Divine authority and
will ; and those , he says, who assert that God merely permits sins,
but does not wish them, or instigate them, oppose the Scriptures.
" They feign that he permits those things which the Scripture pro-
nounces are done, not only by his permission , but of which he is
the author" (19 ) . He bases this falsehood on that text of David ( 20) :
" Whatsoever the Lord pleased he both done in heaven and on
the earth" (Psalms, cxxxiv. 6) ; but he appears to forget what the
Psalmist says in another place : " Thou art not a God that willeth
iniquity" (Psalms, v. 5) . If God , I ask, moves man to commit
sin, how can he avoid it ? Calvin not being able to get out of
this difficulty, says, that carnal men as we are , we cannot under-
stand it (21 ).
94. It is a necessary consequence of this doctrine that the sinner
who is lost is lost by Divine ordinance, and even this horrible blas-
phemy did not affright Calvin ; monstrous as it is he agrees to it,
and concludes that God, knowing beforehand the salvation or re-
probation of each person, as he has decreed it, that some men are
predestined to eternal torment by the Almighty, solely by his will ,
and not by their evil actions (22) . Such, reader, is the fine theo-
logy of these new Reformers of the Church-Luther and Calvin ,
who make the Almighty a tyrant , a deceiver , unjust and wicked-—
a tyrant, because he creates men for the purpose of tormenting them
for all eternity ; a deceiver, because he imposes on them a law which
they never can, by any means in their power, observe ; unjust,
since he condemns men to eternal punishment, while , at the same
time, they are not at liberty to avoid sin , but constrained to commit

(18) Calv. Inst. l. 3, c. 2 sec. 16, & seq. (19) Calv. l. 2, c. 3. (20) Calvin
de Prædest. Dei, æterna. na.) Calv. Inst. l. 3, c. 23. (22) Calv. ibid.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 321

it ; and wicked, for he himself first causes a man to sin , and then
punishes him for it. Finally, they make God distribute his rewards
unjustly, since he gives his grace and heaven to the wicked , merely
because they have Faith, that they are justified, though they should
not even be sorry for their sins. Calvin says that this is the benefit
of the death of Christ ; but I answer him thus : If, according to his
system, a man may be saved , then good works are no longer neces-
sary, and Christ died to destroy every precept both of the Old and
New Law, and to give freedom and confidence to Christians to do
whatever they like, and to commit even the most enormous sins ,
since it is enough to secure their salvation without any cooperation
on their part, that they should merely believe firmly that God does
not impute to them their sins, but wishes to save them through the
merits of Christ, though they do everything in their power to gain
hell . This certain faith in our salvation, which he calls confidence ,
God, he says, gives to the elect alone.
95. Speaking of the sacraments, he says that they have effect on
the elect alone, so that those who are not predestined to eternal
happiness , though they may be in a state of grace, receive not the
efiect of the sacrament. He also says that the words of the ministers
of the sacraments are not consecrating , but only declaratory , in-
tended alone to make us understand the Divine promises (23) , and
hence he infers, that the sacraments have not the power of confer-
ring grace, but only of exciting our Faith , like the preaching of the
Divine Word (24) , and he ridicules our theological term , ex opere
operato, for explaining the power of the sacraments, as an invention
of ignorant monks ; but in this he only shows his own ignorance ,
as he understands by opus operatum, the good work of the ministers
of the sacraments (25) . We, Catholics, understand by opus opera-
tum , not the act of the minister himself, so much as the power
which the Almighty gives to the sacraments (if not hindered by
sin) , of operating in the soul ; that which the sacrament signifies, as
Baptism, to wash ; Penance, to forgive ; the Eucharist, to nourish .
He denies that there is any difference between the sacraments of
the Old and the New Law (26) ; but St. Paul says that the former
were but weak and needy elements (Gal. iv. 9), and a shadow of
things to come ( Colos . ii . 17 ) . He ridicules the sacramental cha-
racter which is impressed by Baptism, Confirmation , and Orders ( 27) ,
and Christ, he says, only instituted three sacraments Baptism, the
Supper, and Ordination ; the first two he positively asserts to be
sacraments, and the third he admits. " The imposition of hands,"
he says, " which is performed in true and lawful Ordinations, I
grant to be a sacrament ;" but he totally rejects the Sacraments of
Confirmation , Penance , Extreme Unction , and Matrimony (28) .
(23) Calvin. Instit. l. 4, c. 14, s. 4. (24) Idem, l. 4, c. 14, s. 11. (25) Idem,
1. 4, c. 14, s. 26. (26) Idem, l. 4, c. 14, s. 23. (27) Calvin, Instit. in Antid. Conc.
Trid. ad Can. 9, Sess. 7. (28) Idein, l. 4, c. 19, s. 19, 20.
X
322 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Though he admits Baptism as a sacrament, he denies that it is


necessary for salvation (29), because children, he says, snatched off
by death, though they are not baptized, are saved , for they are
members of the Church when they are born, for all children of
Christians, he says, being born in the alliance of the New Law (30) ,
are all born in grace ( 31), and he teaches that laymen and women
cannot baptize a child , even in danger of death (an error most dan-
gerous to the salvation of these poor innocents) , because , though
they die without baptism, they are saved ( 32) . Finally, he teaches
that the Baptism of John the Baptist was ofthe same efficacy as the
Baptism instituted by Jesus Christ ( 33) .
96. He not alone denies that Penance is a sacrament, but he
teaches many errors concerning it ; for the sins committed after
Baptism , he says, are remitted by the remembrance of Baptism, and
do not require the Sacrament of Penance (34 ) ; that the absolution
of the confessor has no power to remit sins, but is merely an abstrac-
tion of the remission God grants us, by the promise made to Chris-
tians ; that the confession of sins is not of Divine right, but only
ordained by Innocent III. , in the Council of Lateran ; and that it is
not necessary to make satisfaction for our sins, because God is not
to be pleased with our works, and such satisfaction would be to de-
rogate from that atonement made by Christ for our sins.
97. Regarding the Sacrament of the Eucharist, against which all
his malice is directed , as we see in his book, " De Coena Domini ,”
he says that Transubstantiation, as believed by Catholics, is nothing
but a mere invention, and that the Eucharist ought not to be pre-
served or adored , because it is a sacrament only while it is used , and
that the essence of this sacrament is eating by Faith ( 35) . He denies
(and this is the error he most furiously defends) the Real Presence
of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. The words of consecration :
" This is my body, and this is my blood ," are to be taken , he says,
not in reality, as we believe them, but figuratively, and that they
do not mean the conversion of the bread and wine into the body
and blood of Christ, but that the bread and wine in the sacrament
are merely figures of the body and blood of our Lord ( 36 ) , and that
in the communion we receive the life and substance of Jesus Christ,
but not his proper flesh and blood ; then he says, " we do and do
not receive Jesus Christ," proving that he did not believe in, or
admit, the Real Presence in the Eucharist (37) . Nothing, he says,
can be more reprehensible than dividing the Supper - in other
words, giving communion under one kind. When such is their
doctrine, we ought surely be surprised to see the Calvinists in their
famous Synod of Charenton, in 1631 , deciding that the Lutherans ,

(29) Idem, c. 19, s. 31. (30) Idem, l. 4, c. 15, s. 20. (31) Bossuet, Variat. t. 3,
7. 14, n. 37. (32) Calvin, l. 4, c. 15, s. 20 & seq. (33 ) Idem, l. 3, c. 15, s. 3 & 4.
(34 ) Vide loc. cit. (35) Calvin, loc. cit. de Cœna Dom. (36) Calvin, Instit. l. 4,
c. 17, s. 32. (37) Idem, loc. cit. s. 33, 34.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 323

who they knew believed in the Real Presence, should be admitted


to their communion , because, as they asserted , both believed in the
fundamental articles ( 38) . Daille denies (39) that there is anything
in this Decree contrary to piety or to the honour of God : but
we may ask the Calvinists : Is not idolatry contrary to the honour
of God? and are not the Lutherans idolaters, when they adore as
God mere bread ? Calvin denies, also , that the Mass is a sacrifice
instituted by Jesus Christ for the living and the dead (40), and it is,
he says, injurious to the Sacrifice of the Cross to say so , and that
private Masses are in direct opposition to the institution of Christ.
98. Calvin likewise denies purgatory (41 ), the value of indul-
gences (42) , the intercession of saints, and the veneration of
images (46) ; and St. Peter, he says, enjoyed among the apostles
merely a supremacy of honour, but not of jurisdiction (44) , and
then he rejects the primacy of St. Peter and the Pope (45) . The
Church and General Councils, he says, are not infallible in the
definition of articles of Faith , or the interpretation of the Scrip-
tures. He entirely renounces ecclesiastical laws, and the rites
appertaining to discipline (46) , such rites, as he alleges, being per-
nicious and impious, and he rejects the fast of Lent (47) , and the
celibacy of the clergy (48) ; vows to fast or to go on a pilgrimage,
and the religious vows, he says , are superstitious (49) . Usury, he
says, may be permitted , for there is no text of Scripture prohibit-
ing it. Noel Alexander and Cardinal Gotti (50) enumerate many
other errors of his, and , in a word , he preached and wrote so many
blasphemies, that it was not without reason, at his death, that he
cursed his life, his studies, and his writings, and called on the devil
to take him, as we read above ( N. 70 ) ( 51 ) .

SEC. IV. THE DIFFERENT SECTS OF CALVINISTS.


99. The Sects into which Calvinism was divided. 100. The Puritans. 101. The Inde-
pendents and Presbyterians. 102. The Difference between these Sects. 103. The
Quakers and Tremblers. 104. The Anglo-Calvinists. 105. The Piscatorians.
106. The Arminians and Gomarists.

99. THE sect of Calvin was soon divided into numerous other
sects- in fact, we may say that from every sect a thousand others
sprung, and that is the case, especially in England, where you can
scarcely find the members of the same family believing the same.
thing. We shall speak of the principal sects described by Noel
Alexander and Cardinal Gotti (1 ) . These are the Reformed, who

(38) Calvin, 7. 4, c. 17, s. 46-48. (39) Dallæus, Apol. Eccl. Reform. p. 43.
(40) Calvin, Instit. l. 4, c. 18. (41) Idem, l. 3, c. 5, s. 6, 10. (42) Calvin, Inst.
Idem, l. 3, c. 5, s. 2. (43) Idem, l. 3, c. 20. (44) Idem, I. c. II. (45) Idem,
1. 4, c. 6. (46) Idem, l. 4, c. 9. (47) Idem, l. 4, c. 20. (48) Idem, l. 4, c. 12,
8. 19 & 20. (49) Ibid. s. 23. (50) Idem, l. 4, c. 13, s. 6. (51 ) Calvin, Re-
spons. de Usur. inter Epist. p. 228 ; Nat. Alex. t. 19 , art. 13 , s. 2 ; Gotti, t. 2, c. 3, s. 5.
(1) Nat. Alex. t. 19, art. 13, s. 3 ; Gotti, Ver. Rel. c. 312, s. 1 , 2.
324 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

are found in France, in the Palatinate, in Switzerland, and Flan-


ders, and these, in general, follow the doctrine of Calvin to the
letter. In England and Scotland they are called Puritans , and,
besides, we find among his followers others called Independents,
Presbyterians, Anglo-Calvinists, Piscatorians , Arminians, and
Gomorists.
100. The most rigid of all the Calvinists are the Puritans, who
hate all who do not follow their own way of thinking, but abhor
the Catholics especially, and do not even like to pray in the churches
consecrated by them. They rejected Episcopacy-the rites, and
ceremonies, and Liturgy, both of the Catholic and Anglican
Churches, not even keeping the Lord's Prayer. They are as exact
in the observance of the Sunday as the Jews are of the Sabbath .
They are no friends to royalty, and it was through their means
that Charles I. was brought to the block (as we have seen above,
N. 85) , in 1649 .
101. The Independents and Presbyterians believe much the
same as the Puritans, but their system of church government is
different. When Oliver Cromwell became Protector of England
( N. 86) , he was an Independent. They believe just what they
like, and recognize no superior as invested with the power of
teaching them. According to them, that supreme power resides
in each sect which they would not allow to the Councils of the
Universal Church. They allow no one to preach who does not
follow their doctrine . They celebrated the " Supper" on Sundays ;
but they do not admit to the " Supper, " nor to Baptism , only those
of their own sect. They celebrated the Supper, with their hats
on, without catechism, sermon , or singing ; and they were the pro-
genitors of all the other sects that overran England, as the Ana-
baptists, the Antinomians (who rejected all law, N. 35) , disciples
of John Agricola, and the Anti- Scripturists, who totally rejected
the Scriptures, boasting that they had the spirit of the Prophets
and Apostles.
102. The Presbyterians are a powerful body in the British islands.
They separated themselves from the Independents. Their churches
are formed into classes ; the classes are subject to Provincial Synods ;
and these to a National Synod, whose decisions must be obeyed ,
as if almost of Divine authority. They are called Presbyterians,
because they adopt a form of church government by lay elders, and
they say that bishops have no more authority than presbyters.
Their elders are generally men of years, unless in the case of some
specially gifted young person ; the name is derived from the Greek
word, Presbuteroi, which means our elders.
103. There are also Quakers, or, as they were sometimes called ,
Tremblers, who considered themselves perfect in this life. They
imagined they were frequently moved by the Spirit to such a pitch,
that they trembled all over, not being able to endure the abun-
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 325

dance of the Divine light they enjoyed . They reject not only all
ecclesiastical, but even civil ceremonies, for they never uncover for
any one. They say no prayers in their meeting-houses ; they even
look on prayer as useless, for they are justified by their own justice
itself. They did believe, though it is supposed they hold those
opinions no longer, that Jesus Christ despaired on the cross , and
that he had other human defects. They held erroneous opinions
even on the first dogmas of Faith, not believing in the Trinity, or
the second coming of Christ, or in hell or heaven after this life ;
many of these opinions, which were held by the first Quakers , are
now changed or modified, and it is difficult at present to know
exactly what their creed is. Their founder was an Englishman,
John Fox, a tailor. There is another sect, called Ranters, who
believe that nothing is vile or unlawful which nature desires .
Another sect was called Levellers, enemies of all political order ;
they wished that all men should dress exactly alike, and that no one
should be honoured more than another, and they frequently were
punished for seditious conduct by the magistrates.
104. The Anglo-Calvinists are different from the Puritans, In-
dependents, and Presbyterians, both in church discipline and doc-
trine. Unlike all these sects, they have preserved the Episcopal
Order, not alone as distinct from other offices, but as superior by
Divine right ; they retain a sort of form of consecration for bishops ;
they ordain priests, and confirm those who have received Baptism,
and show some honour to the Sign ofthe Cross , which their cognate
sects reject totally. Besides bishops, there are chancellors, arch-
deacons, deans, and rectors of parishes ; they have preserved the
cathedrals , and have canons and prebends, who say morning and
evening prayers, and the surplice is used as a vestment. They
recognize both the orders of priesthood and deaconship . The King,
according to the laws of Henry and Elizabeth, is head of the
Church, and the fountain of all ecclesiastical authority. The Sove-
reign, they say, has the power of making new laws , and establish-
ing new rites, with consent of the Metropolitan and Convocation ;
and his royal tribunal decides all judgments brought before it. He
can, with his Council, decide on matters of Faith, publish ordinances
and censures. Such are the powers granted to the Sovereign , in the
work entitled , " The Policy of the Church of England ," published
in London, in the year 1683.
105. The Piscatorians were so called , from John Piscator, a
Professor of Theology, and pastor, at Herborne, a proud and vain
man. He differed in several points with the Calvinists . He divided
the justification of Christ into active and passive ; the active he
acquired by the holiness of his life -the passive, by his sufferings ;
the active justification was profitable to himself alone— the passive
to us, and it is by this we are justified. It is, on the contrary, our
doctrine, that Christ, by his labours and sufferings, gained merit
326 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

both for himself and us ; as the Apostle says : " He humbled him-
self, being made obedient unto death . .....For which God
exalted him, &c." (Philip. ii. 8, 9) . Hence God exalted him, both
for the sanctity of his life, and for his passion . He , likewise , taught
that the breaking of the bread in the " Supper" was essential ; and
the Academy of Marpurg embraced this opinion , but the other Cal-
vinists did not. The Mosaic Law, he said, should be observed, as
far as the judicial precepts go. He differed almost entirely with
Calvin, regarding predestination, the atonement, penance, and other
points, and composed a new Catechism . He likewise published a
new version of the Bible, filled with a thousand errors. Both
himself and his doctrines were unanimously condemned by the Re-
formers.
106. Two other Calvinistic sects had their origin in Holland ,
the Arminians and Gomarists. Arminius or Harmensen , and Gomar ,
were Professors of Theology in the University of Leyden . In 1619 ,
Arminius published a Remonstrance, and, on that account, his fol-
lowers were called Remonstrants. In this writing, or Catechism ,
which in several articles comes near to the Catholic doctrine, he
rejects eight errors of Calvin. The first error he attacks is , that
God gives to the predestined alone, faith, justification , and glory ;
God, he says, wishes the salvation of all men, and gives all sufficient
means of salvation , if they wish to avail themselves of them. He
rejects the second error, that God, by an absolute decree, has des-
tined many to hell before he created them ; he says, that such repro-
bation is because of the sins they commit, and die without repenting
of. Of the third error, that Christ has redeemed the elect alone,
he says that no one is excluded from the fruit of redemption , if he
is disposed to receive it as he ought. The fourth error he reproves,
is that no one can resist grace ; this, he says, is false, for man by
malice can, if he like, reject it. The fifth error is, that he who has
once received grace cannot again lose it ; but he teaches that in
this life we may both lose the grace received , and recover it again
by repentance. Gomar (2) , on the other hand, though a professor
in the same University, adopted all the dogmas of Calvin , and
opposed Arminius and his Remonstrants with the greatest violence,
and his disciples were called Anti-Remonstrants, and they accused
the Arminians of Pelagianism . The dispute, at length, became so
violent, that the States-General convoked a Synod , at Dort, to ter-
minate it, and invited deputies from England , Scotland, Geneva,
and other kingdoms. The Synod was held ; but as almost all the
deputies who attended were Calvinists, or differed but slightly from
the Calvinistic doctrines, the Arminians were condemned , and the
Gomarists got the upper hand. The States' Chancellor, Barneveldt,
and Hugo Grotius, took the part of Arminius, for which Barneveldt

(2) Nat. Alex. t. 19, c. 3, art. 11 , sec. 13, n. 6.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 327

perished on the scaffold , and Grotius was condemned to perpetual


imprisonment, but was saved by a stratagem of his wife, who ob-
tained leave to send him a chest of books, to amuse him in his soli-
tude ; after a time, the chest was sent back, and , instead of the
books, Grotius was concealed in it, and thus escaped ( 3) .

CHAPTER XII .

HERESIES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY_ (CONTINUED).

ARTICLE I.

THE SCHISM OF ENGLAND .

SEC. I.- THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII.

1. Religion of England previous to the Reformation. 2. Henry VIII. marries Catherine


of Arragon, but becomes enamoured of Anna Boleyn. 3. The wicked Wolsey sug-
gests the Invalidity of the Marriage. Incontinence of Anna Boleyn ; Suspicion that
she was the Daughter of Henry. 4. Catherine refuses to have her Cause tried by
English Judges ; Wolsey is made Prisoner and dies at Leicester. 5. Henry seizes on
the Property of the Church, and marries Anna Boleyn. 6. He obliges the Clergy to
swear Obedience to him, and Cranmer declares the Marriage of Catherine invalid.
7. The Pope declares Anna Boleyn's Marriage invalid, and excommunicates Henry ,
who declares himself Head of the Church. 8. He persecutes Pole, and puts
More and Fisher to Death. 9. The Pope declares Henry unworthy of the King-
dom ; the King puts Anna Boleyn to Death, and marries Jane Seymour. 10. The
Parliament decides on six Articles of Faith ; the Bones of St. Thomas of Canterbury
are burned ; Jane Seymour dies in giving Birth to Edward VI. 11. The Pope en-
deavours to bring Henry to a Sense of his Duty, but does not succeed. 12. He
marries Anne of Cleves ; Cromwell is put to Death. 13. Henry marries Catherine
Howard, whom he afterwards put to Death, and then marries Catherine Parr.
14. His Remorse in his last Sickness. 15. He makes his Will and dies.

1. THE history of England cannot be read without tears when


we see that nation, formerly the most zealous in Europe for Catho-
licity, now become its persecuting enemy. Whowill not be touched
with sorrow to see a kingdom so attached to the Faith , that it was
called the Land of Saints, now buried in heresy ? Fifteen English
kings, and eleven queens, renounced the world and became religious
in different convents . Twelve kings were martyrs, and ten have
been placed in the catalogue of the saints. It is said that previous
to the schism there was not a village in England which had not a
patron saint born on the spot. How dreadful it is to behold this
land the abode of schism and heresy (1 ) . England, it is said , re-
ceived the Faith of Christ in the time of Tiberius Cæsar. Joseph

(3) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. Gotti, Ver. Rel. c. 12, sec. 2, n. 40 ; Dizion. Port. alla parola
Grozio. ( 1 ) Jovet. Storia delle Relig. t. 2, dal prin.; Gotti Ver. Re. c. 113, s. 1.
328 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

of Arimathea ( 2 ), Sanders says, with twelve of his disciples, were


the first to introduce Christianity into the country which , in the
time of Pope Eleutherius, had spread so much, that, at the request
of King Lucius, he sent them Fugacius and Damian, who baptized
the King and many of his subjects, and having cast down the idols,
consecrated many churches, and established several bishoprics. Eng-
land remained firm in the Faith in the time of Diocletian , and there
were many martyrs there during his reign. Christianity increased
very much during the reign of Constantine, and though many fell
away into the errors of Arius and Pelagius, they were converted
again to the true Faith by the preaching of St. Germain and St.
Lupus, who came from France for that purpose. About the year
596 religion was almost lost by the Saxon conquest, but St. Gregory
sent over St. Austin and forty Benedictine monks, who converted
the whole Anglo-Saxon nation , and they were remarkable for nearly
a thousand years after for their zeal for the Faith and their veneration
for the Holy See. During all this long period there were no so-
vereigns in Christendom more obedient to the See of Rome than
those of England. In the year 1212 , King John and the barons
of the kingdom made England feudatory to the Holy See , holding
the kingdoms of England and Ireland as fiefs from the Pope, and
paying a thousand marks every year on the feast of St. Michael
and Peter's Pence, according to the number of hearths in these
kingdoms, which was first promised by King Ina, in the year 740,
augmented by King Etholf, and paid up to the twenty-fifth year of
Henry's reign, when he separated himself from the obedience ofthe
Holy See. Many provincial Councils were held in England during
these centuries likewise for the establishment of ecclesiastical dis-
cipline, which was always observed till Henry's reign, when, to
satisfy a debasing passion for a wicked woman , he plunged himself
into a whirlpool of crimes, and involved the nation in his ruin , and
thus this unfortunate country , the glory of the Church , became a
sink of wickedness and impiety.
.
- 12. You shall now hear the cause of England's ruin. In the
year 1501 , Henry VII. married his eldest son, Arthur, to Catherine
of Arragon (3), daughter of his Catholic Majesty Ferdinand, but
the prince died before the consummation of the matrimony ; she
was then married to his second son , Henry VIII., by a dispensa-
tion of Julius II., with the intention of preserving the peace with
Spain, and had five children by him. Before we proceed, how-
ever, it will be right to learn that Henry was so much attached to the
Catholic religion that when it was attacked by Luther he persecuted
his followers to death, and caused all his books to be burned one
day in his presence by the public executioner, and had a sermon

(2 ) Sand. de Schism. Anglic. in Pro. (3) Gotti, c. 113, s. 2 , n. 1, 2 ; Herm. Hist.


Conc. c. 166.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 329

preached on the occasion by John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester.


He then published a work defending the doctrine of Faith in the
Seven Sacraments, in opposition to Luther, though some say the
book was composed by Fisher of Rochester, and dedicated it to
Leo X. , who honoured him on the occasion with the title of De-
fender of the Faith (4). Blind to everything, however, but his
love for Anna Boleyn, he began to hold his wife, Queen Catherine ,
in the greatest aversion, though she was twenty-five years married
to him ( 5) . She was five or six years older than Henry, but Anna
Boleyn was considered the most beautiful woman in England, and
when she saw the impression she made on the king's heart, refused
to see him any more unless he married her. She subsequently
yielded to his solicitations, and cohabited for three years with
him before her marriage.
13. It was England's misfortune at that period to be almost
governed by Thomas Wolsey, a man of low birth, but whose in-
triguing disposition made him such a favourite with Henry, that
he was elevated not only to the Archbishopric of York, but was
made. Lord Chancellor of the kingdom, and Cardinal (6). This
unprincipled flatterer, seeing the King disgusted with Catherine,
his Queen, advised him to apply for a divorce, and encouraged his
scruples (if he had any) , telling him his marriage never could be
legalized, as Catherine was his brother's wife. This objection ,
however, never could stand , for Henry had the Pope's dipensation
to marry Catherine ( 7) ; the case was maturely examined at Rome,
and the impediment that existed was not imposed by the Divine
Law, but merely a canonical one. That is proved by the Scrip-
ture, for we learn from Genesis , xxxviii. , that the patriarch Juda made
his second son Onan , marry Thamar, the wife of his elder brother,
who died without children ; and in the Mosaic Law there was a
precept obliging the younger brother to take his elder brother's
widow to wife, if he had died without leaving children ; " When
brethren dwell together, and one of them died without children , the
wife of the deceased shall not marry to another, but his brother
shall take her, and raise up seed for his brother" (Deut. xxv. 5 ) .
What, therefore, was not only permitted but commanded by the
Old Law, never could be contrary to the law of nature . Neither is
the prohibition of Leviticus, xviii. 16, to be taken into account,
for that applies only to the case that the deceased brother has left
children, and not, as in the former case, where he died childless, for
then the brother is commanded to marry the widow, that his dead
brother's name should not be lost in Israel. There is, then, not
the least doubt but the dispensation of the Pope and the marriage
of Henry were both valid. Bossuet, in his History of the Varia-

(4) Gotti, loc. cit. n. 2. (5) Bossuet, Hist. des Variat. t. 2, l. 7, n. 1 . (6) Nat.
Alex. Hist. t. 19, c. 13, a. 3, n. 1 ; Gotti, c. 213, s. 2, n. 6. (7) Gotti, s. 2, n. 3.
330 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

tions (8 ) , tells us, that Henry having asked the opinion of the
Sorbonne as to the validity of his marriage, forty-five doctors gave
their opinion that it was valid, and fifty-three were of the contrary
opinion, but Molineaux says, that all these votes were purchased
on the occasion. Henry even wrote to the Lutheran doctors in
Germany, but Melancthon, having consulted others, answered him
that the law prohibiting a man to marry his brother's wife could be
dispensed with, and that his marriage with Catherine was, there-
fore, valid. This answer was far from being agreeable to Henry,
so he held on to Wolsey's opinion , and determined to marry Anna
Boleyn. It has been said that this lady was even Henry's own
daughter, and it is said that her father, who was ambassador in
France at the time, came post to England ( 9) when he heard of
the affair, and told Henry that his wife confessed to him that Anna
was Henry's daughter, but Henry made him, it is said , a rude
answer, told him to go back to his place, and hold his tongue, and
that he was determined to marry her. Mary Boleyn , her sister,
was, however, one of Henry's mistresses. It is also said, that,
from the age offifteen , Anna was of bad character, and that, during
her residence in France, her conduct was so depraved that she was
called usually by an improper name ( 10) .
4. Henry, fully determined to marry this unfortunate woman ( 11 ) ,
sent to Rome to demand of the Pope to appoint Cardinal Campeg-
gio and Cardinal Wolsey to try the case of the divorce . The
Pope consented, but the Queen appealed against these prelates as
judges, one of them being the King's subject, and the other under
obligations to him. Notwithstanding the appeal , the cause was
tried in England, and Henry was in the greatest hurry to have it
decided , being certain of a favourable issue for himself, as one of
the judges was Wolsey, the prime mover of the case. Wolsey,
however, was now afraid of the tempest he raised, which portended
the ruin of religion , so he and Campeggio tried every means to
avoid coming to a decision , seeing the dreadful scandal it would
cause if they gave a decision in the King's favour, and dreading
his displeasure if they decided against him. The Pope admitted
the justice of the Queen's appeal (12) , and prohibited the Cardinal
Legates from proceeding with the cause, which he transferred to
his own tribunal. Henry then sent Cranmer to Rome to look
after his interests. This man was a priest, but of immoral life, and
had privately embraced the Lutheran doctrines, and he was
indebted to Anna Boleyn for the King's favour. Henry likewise
endeavoured to draw to his party Reginald Pole and Thomas
More ; but these were men of too much religion to yield to him.

(8) Boss. al. cit. l. 7, n. 61 . (9) Floremund, l. 6, Synop. c. 2, n. 2 ; Gotti, c. 113,


s. 2, n. 8, 9, 10 : Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 1. (10) Gotti, n. 9. (11) Nat. Alex. cit.
n. 1 ; Varillas Ist. t. 1, l. 9, p. 412. (12) Nat. Alex. l. 19, art. c. n. 2.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 331

To frighten the Pope into compliance with his wishes, he pro-


hibited, under the severest penalties, any of his subjects from
applying for any favour or grace to Rome, without first obtaining
his consent. God made use of Henry as an instrument to punish
Wolsey now for his crimes. The King was furious with him, be-
cause he did not expedite the sentence in his favour, so he deprived
him of the bishopric of Winchester (though this is doubtful) , and
the chancellorship, and banished him to his See of York. He lived
some time at Cawood , in Yorkshire, and made himself very popular
in the neighbourhood by his splendid hospitality. Henry gave an
order for his arrest, and commanded that he should be brought to
London, but he suffered so much on the journey, both in mind
and body, that, before he could arrive, he died at Leicester, in the
month of December, 1530. A report was sent abroad that he
poisoned himself, but the fact is, that when he found he was ac-
cused of high treason, his heart broke. " Had I served God," said
he, " as faithfully as I served the King, he would not have given
me over in my grey hairs" (13).
5. In the meantime ,, Cranmer wrote from Rome that he found
it impossible to get the Pope to consent to the divorce, so he was
recalled by Henry ( 14) , and went to Germany, where he married
Osiander's sister or niece ( 15) ; and on the death of William War-
ham , Archbishop of Canterbury, was appointed to that See, but
with the express condition of doing what the Pope refused-
pronouncing a sentence of divorce between Henry and Cathe-
rine ( 16). When Henry found that the ecclesiastics of the king-
dom took up Catherine's side, he determined to punish some of
them, and prosecuted them on a præmunire, for preferring the
Legatine to the Royal authority. The clergy, terrified at this
proceeding, and having now no one to recur to, offered the King
400,000 crowns to compromise the matter, and admitted his sove-
reign power in the realm, both over the clergy and laity. Thomas
More (17) , seeing the ruin of England at hand, resigned the chan-
cellorship to the King, who accepted his resignation, and appointed
Thomas Audley, a man of little means, in his place . Pope Cle-
ment VII., seeing what imminent danger the kingdom ran, from
the blind admiration the King professed for Anna Boleyn , endea-
voured to save it , by prohibiting him, under pain of excommuni-
cation , from contracting a new marriage till the question of divorce
was settled (18) . This prohibition only exasperated Henry the
more, so, despising both the admonitions and censures of the Pope,
he was privately married to Anna Boleyn, before the break of day,
in the month of December, 1532, having previously created her

(13) Gotti, c. 113 , sec. 2 , n. 13 in fin. & Nat. Alex . loc. cit. n. 2. (14) Jovet, t. 2,
p. 29 ; Gotti, sec. 2, n. 14. (15) Bossuet, l. 7, n. 9. (16) Nat. Alex. t. 19, c. 13,
a. 3, n. 2 ; Gotti, loc. cit. (17) Gotti, c. 113, sec. 2, n. 15. (18) Nat. Alex. t. 19,
c. 13, a. 3, n. 3.
332 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Countess of Pembroke (19). Roland Lee was the officiating priest,


and it is believed by some that Henry deceived him , telling him
he had the Pope's leave for marrying again.
6. Thomas Cromwell ( 20) , under favour of Queen Anna, was
now advanced to the highest honours. He was a man of the
greatest cunning, and the most unbounded ambition , and a follower
of the Lutheran doctrine. Henry made him Knight of the Garter,
Grand Chamberlain of the Kingdom , Keeper of the Privy Seal,
and made him also his Vicar- General for Ecclesiastical Affairs (21 ) ,
which he entirely managed as he pleased, in conjunction with
Archbishop Cranmer and the Chancellor Audley. He obliged
ecclesiastics to take an oath of obedience in spirituals to the King,
paying him the same obedience as they previously did the Pope.
Every means was used to induce John Fisher, the Bishop of
Rochester, to take this oath, which he at first refused to do , but at
last consented, adding, as a condition , " inasmuch as it was not
opposed to the Divine Word."* When this pillar of the Church
fell, it was not difficult to induce the rest of the clergy to take the
oath . Cranmer was now ready to fulfil his part of the agreement
made with Henry ; he accordingly pronounced his marriage with
Catherine opposed to the Divine law, and declared him at liberty
to marry any other woman, but we have seen that he was already
married privately to his concubine, Anna Boleyn .
7. Pope Clement VII . now saw that there was no longer any
use in mild measures, and was determined to act with extreme
severity. He, accordingly, declared the marriage with Anna in-
valid ; the issue, either present or future, illegitimate ; and res-
tored Queen Catherine to her conjugal and royal rights ( 23 ) . He
likewise declared Henry excommunicated for his disobedience to
the Holy See, but this sentence was not to be enforced for a month,
to give him time for repentance. So far from showing any signs of
change, Henry prohibited , under the severest penalties, any one
from giving the title of Queen to Catherine, or styling Mary heiress
to the kingdom, though she had been already proclaimed as such
by the estates of the realm. He declared her illegitimate, and
sent her to live with her mother Catherine, appointing a certain
fixed place for their residence, and employing about them a set of
spies, or guards, rather than servants (24) . In the meantime, Anna
Boleyn had a daughter, Elizabeth , born on the 7th of September,

(19) Gotti, sec. 2, n. 16 ; Varillas, t. 1, l. 9, n. 420. (20) Gotti, sec. 2, n. 17.


(21) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 3 ; Gotti, loc. cit. (22) Nat. Alex. loc. cit.; Gotti, c. 113,
sec. 2, n. 11 ; Bossuet, Variat. l. 7, n. 21. (23) Nat. Alex. art. 3, n. 4 ; Gotti, sec. 2,
n. 20. (24) Gotti, loc. cit.

* " Of which Church and clergy (English) we acknowledge his Majesty to be the chief
protector, the only and supreme Lord, and as far as the Law of Christ will allow, the
supreme head. "-Lingard Hist. of England, vol. 6, c. 3.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 333

seven months after her marriage, and Henry continued his perse-
cution of the Catholics, by sending to prison Bishop Fisher, Sir
Thomas More , and two hundred Observantine Friars of the Order
of St. Francis ; and in the parliament convoked on the 3rd of
November, 1534, a bill was passed in both houses, declaring Mary,
the daughter of Catherine, excluded from the succession , and re-
cognizing Elizabeth, Anna's daughter, as heiress to the throne.
The power ofthe Pope in England and Ireland was rejected at the
same time, and whoever professed to believe in the primacy of the
Holy See was declared a rebel. He assumed an authority over the
bishops of the kingdom greater than the Pope ever possessed , for
he granted them their powers as if they were secular magistrates ,
only till he wished to revoke them, and it was only by his autho-
rity they were allowed to ordain priests or publish censures. Fi-
nally , it was decreed that the King was the supreme head of the
Church of England ; that to him alone it belonged to extirpate
heresies and correct abuses, and that to him, by right, belonged all
tithes and first-fruits. The name of the Pope was expunged from
the Liturgy, and among the petitions of the Litany the following
was sacrilegiously inserted : " From the tyranny and detestable
enormities of the Bishop of Rome deliver us, O Lord” ( 25) .
8. Henry knew that his assumption of the primacy was con-
demned, not alone by Catholics, but even by Luther and Calvin , so
he gave orders that it should be defended by theologians in their
writings, and many complied with this command- some willingly,
and others were forced to it. He was desirous that his relative,
Reginald Pole, should publish something in favour of it, but he not
alone most firmly refused to prostitute his pen to such a purpose,
but wrote four books, " De Unione Ecclesiastica," in opposition to
the pretended right, which so provoked the tyrant, that he declared
him guilty of high treason , and a traitor to his country, and tried
to get him into his power to put him to death , and when he could
not accomplish his wish, he had his mother, his brother, and his
uncle executed, and this noble family was almost destroyed and
brought to ruin. He, for the same reason, commenced a most
dreadful persecution of the Friars, especially the Franciscans, Car-
thusians, and Brigittines, many of whom he put to death (26), be-
sides Bishop Fisher and Thomas More, whom he sent to execution
in the year 1534 (27) . While Bishop Fisher was in prison , he was
appointed Cardinal by Paul III ., which , when Henry heard, he at
once had him condemned to death. It is related of this holy
bishop, that when he was about to be brought to the place of exe-
cution , he dressed himself in the best clothes he could procure, as
that was, he said, the day of his marriage, and as, on account of his

(25) Nat. Alex. t. 19, c. 13, a. 3, n. 5 ; Gotti, c. 113, sec. 2, n. 21. (26) Gotti,
n. 22 ; Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 5. (27) Bossuet, His. l. 7, n. 11.
334 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

age and his sufferings in prison , he was so weak that he was obliged
to lean on a staff, when he came in sight of the scaffold he cast it
away, and cried out : " Now,99 my feet, do your duty, you have now
but a little way to carry me." When he mounted the scaffold he
entoned the Te Deum, and thanked the Almighty for permitting
him to die for the Faith ; he then laid his head on the block. His
head was exposed on London Bridge, and, it is said, appeared quite
florid , and more like the head of a living than a dead person , so
that it was ordered to be taken down again (28). Sir Thomas
More also died a glorious death. When he heard that the Bishop
of Rochester was condemned to death, he exclaimed : " O Lord , I
am unworthy of such glory, but I hope thou wilt render me
worthy." His wife came to the prison to induce him to yield to the
King's wishes, but he refused , and after fourteen months' confine-
ment he was brought to trial, but never swerved , and was con-
demned to lose his head. When about to mount the scaffold , he
called to a man near him to assist him to climb the steps ; " But
when I am to come down, my friend ," said he, " I will want no one
to assist me." On the scaffold he protested before the people that
he died for the Catholic Faith . He then most devoutly recited the
Miserere, and laid his head on the block . His execution spread
general grief all over England (29 ) .
9. When Paul III. , the successor of Clement, was informed of
the turn affairs had taken, he summoned Henry and all his accom-
plices to his tribunal , and in case of contumacy, fulminated the
sentence of excommunication against him, but this was not published
at the time, as there appeared still some hope that he would change
his conduct ; but all was in vain, he only every day involved him-
self more and more in crime. He now, as head of the Church ,
issued a commission to Cromwell, a layman , to visit the convents,
both male and female, in his dominions, to dismiss all religious who
were not twenty-four years of age, and to leave the others at liberty
to go or stay, as they wished ; this, it is said, though I believe not
on sufficient foundation , threw ten thousand religious back again
into the world ( 30) . About this time Queen Catherine died ; she
always bore her affliction with the greatest patience, and just before
her death , wrote to the King in terms which would melt the hardest
heart ( 31 ). The vengeance of the Almighty was now impending
over Anna Boleyn, the first cause of so much misery and woe.
Henry's affection was now very much cooled towards her, especially
as he became enamoured of one of her maids of honour, Jane Sey-
mour. Anna still had some hopes of regaining his affection, by
presenting him with a male heir, but in this she was disappointed ,
the child was still born ; then her misfortunes commenced ; she was
(28) Sand. l. 1 , de Schis. Ang. p. 135 ; Gotti, sec. 2, n. 22. (29) Sand. & Gotti,
loc. cit. n. 23. (30) Gotti, a 113, s. 2, n. 24 ; Nat. Alex. t. 19, c. 13, art. 3, n. 6.
(31 ) Sanders, l. 1, p. 107, 112 ; Gotti, s. 3, n. 25 ; Nat. Alex. loc. cit.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 335

accused of incest with her brother, George Boleyn, and of criminal


conversation with four other gentlemen of the Court. Henry re-
fused at first to believe the charge, but his jealousy was raised, and
his love for Jane Seymour contributing, likewise , to her ruin , she
was committed to the Tower at once. Bossuet informs us, that
Henry called on Cranmer to declare now, that his marriage with
Anna was invalid from the beginning , and Elizabeth , his daughter,
illegitimate, since Anna was married to him during the lifetime of
Lord Percy, then Earl of Northumberland, between whom and
Anna, it was asserted , there was a contract of marriage. But this
charge was unfounded ; there was not even a promise between them ;
the only foundation for the assertion was, that Percy was at one
time anxious to marry her ; for all, she was condemned to death for
adultery, and the sentence was, that she should be burned or be-
headed, at the King's pleasure. She begged to be allowed to speak
to the King, but was refused ; all the favour she could obtain was,
that she should be beheaded ; this sentence was carried into execu-
tion, and her brother, likewise , and the four gentlemen accused of
being her paramours, underwent the same fate. On the day of her
execution, the Lieutenant of the Tower remarked to her, by way of
consolation, that she would not suffer much , as the executioner was
very expert ; she smilingly answered : " My neck is very slender."
The day after, Henry married Jane Seymour (32) .
10. He again convoked Parliament on the 7th of June , 1536 ,
and had the law passed in favour of Elizabeth, to the exclusion of
Mary, daughter of Queen Catherine, repealed , and the six Articles
were passed for the regulation of religious affairs in the kingdom .
The First was, that the Transubstantiation of the bread into the
body of Christ in the Eucharist was an article of Faith . Second.-
That Communion should be given under one kind . Third.-
That the celibacy of the clergy should be observed. Fourth.-
That the vow of chastity was binding. Fifth - That the celebra-
tion of the Mass was in conformity with the Divine law, and that
private Masses were not only useful, but necessary. Sixth. - That
auricular confession should be strictly practised. All these Articles
were confirmed by the King, and both houses, and the penalties
imposed on heretics applied to all who would either believe or teach
doctrines in opposition to them (33) . The primacy of the King ,
however, was left intact, so Henry , using his new power, appointed
Cromwell, though a mere layman, his Vicar-General in Spirituals
for the entire kingdom , and ordained that he should preside at all
the Synods of the bishops (34) . When Paul III . was informed of
all these sacrilegious attempts on the integrity of Faith , and especially
of the affair of St. Thomas of Canterbury, who was tried and

(32) Varill. l. 9, p. 423 ; Gotti, s. 2, n. 26 ; Hermant, c. 266 ; Nat. Alex. cit. n. 6 ;


Bossuet, Hist. l. 7, n. 21 , 22, 23. (33) Bossuet, Hist. l. 7, n. 33 ; Nat. Alex. t. 19,
art. 3, n. 7 ; Gotti, s. 2, art. 27. (34) Varill. t. 1, l. 12, p. 544. -
336 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

condemned as a traitor to his country (35) , and his sacred body


disinterred, burned, and the ashes thrown into the Thames, he
published a brief on the 1st of January, 1538 , ordering that the
sentence before passed against Henry should be published ( 36) . It
was, however, delayed on account of the melancholy death of Queen
Jane, who died in childbirth , leaving Henry an heir, afterwards
Edward VI ., under whom the ruin of England was completed, as
in his time heresy was firmly rooted in the country. It is said
(but the report does not rest, I believe , on a good foundation) , that
when Henry found that there was danger of the child being lost,
he ordered an operation to be performed on the mother, saying he
could get wives enough , but not heirs (37) .
11. On the death of Jane Seymour, Henry immediately began
to look about for his fourth wife, and Paul III., hoping to bring
him to a sense of his duty, wrote him a letter in which he told him
of the sentence of excommunication hanging over him, which he
did not promulgate , having still hopes that he would be reconciled
with the Church ; at the same time, he created Reginald Pole a
Cardinal, and sent him to France as his Legate, that he might en-
deavour to arrange a marriage between Henry and Margaret, the
daughter of Francis I. of France. Cardinal Pole accordingly went
to France, and arranged the matter with Francis, but Henry would
not agree to it, and he wrote to Francis, telling him that Pole was
a rebel, and requiring Francis to deliver him up to him. This
Francis refused to do, but he told the Cardinal the danger he was
in, and by his advice he quitted France . Henry, disappointed in
his vengeance, laid a price of fifty thousand crowns on his head (38).
12. Cromwell (not Oliver the President) now thought it a good
opportunity to induce the King to take a wife on his recommen-
dation , and bring him over to his own religion , which was Luthe-
ran (39) . He then proposed as a wife to him Anne, daughter of
the Duke of Cleves, head of one of the noblest families in Germany,
sister ofthe Electress of Saxony. Anne had a great many good
qualities which would fit her for a crown, but she was, unfortunately,
a Lutheran, and her relations were the chiefs of the League of
Smalcald . Of this League Henry was anxious to be admitted a
member, but the Lutherans had not confidence in him , and he then
imagined that by marrying a Lutheran Princess he would remove
any difficulties which previously existed to his admission . The
marriage was celebrated, to Henry's great joy, on the 3rd of Janu-
ary, 1540, and Cromwell was made High Chancellor on the
occasion, and Earl of Essex. Henry was only seven months mar-
ried when, as usual , he publicly declared himself discontented with
his Queen,, especially as she was a heretic, as if he could be called

(35) Varill. t. 1 , c. 11 , p. 315 ; Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 8. (36) Gotti, s. 2, n. 23.
(37) Varill. p. 306 ; Nat. Alex. loc. cit.; Gotti, s. 2, n. 2. (38) Varill. l. 11, p. 507,
& seq. (39) Varill. t. 1 , l. 12, p. 551.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 337

a Catholic. He now became enamoured of Catherine Howard,


niece ofthe Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of England, and one of
the maids ofhonour to Queen Anne, and seeing no hopes of obtaining
her favour unless he married her, he called on Cromwell to assist him
now again to get divorced from Anne of Cleves. Cromwell had em-
barked his fortunes in the same boat with the Queen ; he dreaded that
her divorce would be the cause of his fall, and endeavoured to pre-
vent it. Henry, displeased with his opposition, eagerly sought an
occasion to ruin him, and was not long in finding it. The
chiefs of the Protestant League sent their agents to London to
conclude with Henry the alliance he was before so desirous of, but
as he was now determined to repudiate Anne, he had no longer
any wish to league himself with the Lutherans, so he refused to
treat with the agents ; but Cromwell , confiding in his favour, took
on himself to sign the treaty. Some say that Henry was privy to
this act, but this is denied by others ; however it was, the upshot
of the affair was the disgrace of Cromwell, for when the Emperor
loudly complained of the alliance, Henry swore that he had no
cognizance of it. He sent for Cromwell one day, and in presence
of many ofthe nobility, charged him publicly with signing a treaty
for which he had no authority, and ordered him immediately to be
conducted to the Tower. Cromwell begged hard for a public
trial, to give him an opportunity of justifying his conduct in the
affair, but as, independently of that charge, he was convicted of
other crimes - heresy, peculation , and illegal impositions- he , who
was the cause of so many Catholics being condemned without a
hearing, was, by the just judgment of the Almighty, condemned
himself, and was decapitated, and his property confiscated (40 ).
Henry now had the Queen informed , that unless she consented to.
a divorce, he would have the laws against heretics put in force
against her, she being a Lutheran. Dreading the fate that awaited
her, from his known cruelty, and wishing to avoid also the shame
of a public repudiation , she confessed , it is said, that, previous to
her marriage with the King, she was promised to another ; so
Thomas Craniner, who gave the sentence of divorce in the cases of
Catherine, and of Anna Boleyn, now, for the third time, pro-
nounced a similar sentence . The decision was based on the great-
est injustice ; for the contract of marriage between Anne and the
Duke of Lorraine, on which it was founded, took place while they
wereboth children, and was never ratified . How, then, could Henry's
solemn marriage be affected by this ? But Cranmer- whom Burnet
compares to St. Athanasius and St. Cyril- decided that it was null
and void, merely to please Henry, who immediately married ano-
ther. Queen Anne accepted a pension of £3,000 a year, but never
returned to Germany again (41 ) .
(40) Varillas, t. 1 , l. 12, p. 53 ; Nat. Alex. c. 23, a. 3, n. 7 ; Bossuet, l. 7, n. 34.
(41) Varill. loc. cit. p. 575 ; Bossuet, loc. cit.
Y
338 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

13. Within a week Henry was married to Catherine Howard ,


who soon met the same fate as Anna Boleyn . She was charged
before Parliament with dissolute conduct with two individuals , be-
fore her marriage, and with adultery since , and was condemned to
be beheaded (42) . Henry then got a law passed, the like of which
was never before heard of, enacting it high treason for any lady to
marry the King, if previously she had ever offended against
chastity (43) . He then married Catherine Parr, sister to the Earl
of Essex (44) ; she survived him, but having married the brother
of the Regent Somerset, Thomas Seymour, Lord High Admiral of
England , who suffered death by the sentence of his own brother,
she died of a broken heart.
14. Death, at last, was about to put an end to Henry's crimes ;
he was now fifty-seven years of age, and had grown to such an
enormous size that he could not almost pass through the doorway
of his palace , and was obliged to be carried by servants up and
down stairs (45) . A deep-rooted sadness and remorse now seized
him ; all his crimes, sacrileges, and scandals stared him in the face.
To establish the sacrilegious doctrine of his primacy over the English
Church he had put to death two cardinals, three archbishops ,
eighteen bishops and archdeacons , five hundred priests, sixty supe-
riors of religious houses, fifty canons, twenty-nine peers, three
hundred and sixty-six knights, and an immense number both of the
gentry and people . Ulcers in one of his legs , together with fever,
now plainly told him that his end was nigh, and some writers assert
that he then spoke to some of the bishops of his intention of being
again reconciled to the Church, but not one among them had the
courage to tell him plainly the course he should take . All dreaded
his anger ; and none were willing to brave the danger of death, by
plainly telling him that his only chance of salvation was to repent
of his evil deeds-to repair the scandal he had given—and humbly
return to the Church he had abandoned. No one was courageous
enough to tell him this ; one alone suggested to him that he ought
to convoke Parliament, as he had done when about to make the
changes, to set things again to rights. He ordered , it is said, the
Secretaries of State to convoke it, but they feared they should be
obliged to disgorge the plunder of the Church, and put off the con-
vocation, and thus he left the Church in the greatest confusion ;
and soon, as we shall see, irreparable ruin overtook it (46) .
15. Just before Henry's death he opened a church belonging to
the Franciscans, and had Mass again said in it (now Christ Church
Hospital) , but this was but little reparation for so much mischief.
He then made his will, leaving his only son , Edward, heir to the
throne, then only nine years of age, appointing sixteen guardians
(42) Gotti, s. 2, n . 29 ; Hermant, t. 2, c. 266 ; Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 7. (43) Varill .
Joc. cit. p. 575. (44) Varill. t. 2, l. 13, n. 575 ; Nat. Alex. a. 3, n. 7. (45) Varill.
t. 2, l. 16, p. 98. (46) Varillas, loc. cit. p. 99.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 339

to him, ordering that he should be brought up in the Catholic Faith ,


but never resign the primacy of the English Church, so that he was
unchanged even in death . In case that Edward died without issue ,
he left the crown to Mary, daughter of Queen Catherine, and
should she likewise die without issue, to Elizabeth , daughter of
Anna Boleyn (47) . He caused Mass to be celebrated several times
in his chamber, and wished that the Viaticum should be administered
to him in the one kind alone. When the Viaticum was brought
in he received it kneeling, and when it was told, that, considering
the state he was in, that was unnecessary, he said : " If I could bury
myself under the earth , I could not show sufficient respect to the
God I am about to receive" (48) . How could he, however, expect
to please the Almighty by such acts of reverence, after trampling
on his Church, and dying out ofher communion ? He endeavoured,
by these external acts, to quiet that remorse of conscience he felt,
but, withal, he could not recover the Divine grace, nor the peace
he sought. He called for some Religious to attend him at his last
moments, after banishing them out of the kingdom (49 ) ; he next
called for something to drink, and having tasted it he said to those
around him, in a loud tone, " So this is the end of it, and all is lost
for me," and immediately expired. He died on the 1st ofFebruary,
1547 , at the age of fifty-six, according to Noel Alexander, or in
his fifty-seventh year, according to others, and in the thirty-eighth
year of his reign (50) .

SECT. II.- REIGN OF EDWARD VI.

16. The Duke of Somerset, as Guardian of Edward VI. , governs the Kingdom. 17. He
declares himself a Heretic, and gives Leave to the Heretics to preach ; invites Bucer,
Vermigli, and Ochino to England, and abolishes the Roman Catholic Religion.
18. He beheads his Brother, the Lord High- Admiral. 19. He is beheaded himself.
20. Death of Edward ; the Earl Warwick makes an Attempt to get Possession of
the Kingdom, and is beheaded, but is converted, and dies an edifying Death.

16. EDWARD SEYMOUR , Earl of Hertford, was one ofthe guardians


appointed by Henry to his son ; he was maternal uncle to the young
King, being brother to Jane Seymour, his mother. Although he
passed all along as a Catholic, he was a Zuinglian , and as the ma-
jority of Edward's guardians were Catholics, he intrigued with some
of the principal nobility of the kingdom, and pointed out how
dangerous it would be to their interests that the young King should
be left in the hands of those gentlemen ; that the consequence
would be that they should have, sooner or later, to surrender again
the ecclesiastical property given them by Henry ; that the suppressed
and ruined churches should be again repaired and rebuilt, to the
great impoverishing of the Royal treasury; and that the only way
(47) Gotti, s. 2, n. 31 ; Varillas, t. 2, p. 99. (48) Nat. Alex. a. 3, n . 9 ; Gotti,
8. 2, n. 30 ; Varillas, loc. cit. (49) Bart. Ist. d'Inghil. l. 1 , c. 1, p. 4. (50) Natal.
loc. cit.; Varill. p. 100 ; Bartol. p. 3.
340 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

to avoid such evils was that he should be made Governor of the


kingdom. He craftily suppressed Henry's will , and substituted
another, in which Edward was declared head of the Church of
England, and he was appointed Regent ; he then got himself
created Duke of Somerset, and took the title of Protector of the
Kingdom (1 ) .
17. No sooner had he got the supreme power into his hands as
Protector than he at once took off the mask, proclaimed himself a
Protestant, and appointed preachers to disseminate the heresy. He
prohibited the bishops from preaching, or ordaining, without the
King's permission , and he then refused permission to any one to
preach, unless to the Zuinglian ministers. Among the rest the
impious Cranmer, pseudo-Archbishop of Canterbury, now began
publicly to preach against the Catholic Church, and published a
Catechism filled with the most wicked doctrines against the Faith,
and was not ashamed to marry publicly, with the approbation of
the Regent, a woman who lived with him as concubine before he
was made bishop (2 ) . Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Winchester- but
deposed from his See for preaching, in London, against the Real
-
Presence was now appointed by Somerset principal preacher of
the Zuinglian errors. He invited at the same time from Strasbourg
three famous ministers of Satan, apostate Religious, well known
through all Europe : Martin Bucer, now seventy years of age, and
three times married , Peter Martyr, and Bernard Ochin , and ap-
pointed them to Professors' Chairs in the Universities of Oxford
and Cambridge, to poison the minds ofthe poor youths studying
there, and he banished every Catholic professor out of these colleges.
To complete the work of iniquity, he appointed as tutors to the
young King, Richard Crock, a priest, who violated his vows by
marrying, and John Check, a layman of debauched life-fit instruc-
tors for a young prince in vice and heresy (3) . He tried by sending
Bucer, Peter Martyr, and Ochino, to Mary, to induce her to for-
sake the Church likewise (4) ; but she showed such determined
opposition that he never tried it again. His next step was to
abolish the six Articles of Henry VIII. , and on the 5th of November,
1547 , he obtained the sanction of Parliament for abolishing the
Roman Catholic religion , the Mass , the veneration of sacred images,
and for the confiscation of the sacred vessels and ornaments of the
altar (5) ; and thus, under him, the whole plan ofreligion established
by Henry and the Parliament ( N. 10) , six Articles, and all, were
done away with. Here we naturally wonder how so many bishops.
and theologians could establish , in Henry's reign , a form of worship
of such little value as to be abolished almost immediately on his

(1) Varillas, Istor. t. 2, p. 100 ; Nat. Alex. t. 19, c. 13, a. 4 ; Hermant, Ist. t. 2,
e. 267; Gotti, Ver. Rel. c. 114, s. 1 , n. 1. (2) Varillas, loc. cit. p. 101 ; Gotti, loc.
cit. n. 2 ; Hermant, c. 267. (3 ) Varillas, t. 2, l. 17, p. 105, & seq.; Nat. Alex. art. 4.
(4 ) Varillas, 7. 17, p. 116. (5) Bossuet, n. 90.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 341

death. Burnet says, that these theologians were ignorant of the


truth. Behold, then , the reformed Faith, called by him " The
Work of Light." They sanctioned articles of Faith without having
a knowledge of the truth . The Reformation may, indeed, be called
a work of darkness, since it upset Faith , Religion , and all Divine
and human laws, in England (6 ) . Somerset next ordained , that
Communion should be administered under both kinds— that the
Scripture should be generally read in the vulgar tongue- and that
all bishops, or other ecclesiastics, refusing obedience to this order,
should be sent to prison, and deprived of their benefices, and
reformers installed in their places ( 7) . In this he followed the
advice of Calvin, who wrote him a long letter from Geneva on the
subject, advising him to abolish the Catholic religion by perse-
cution ; and the prisons of London were accordingly filled with
suspected Catholics. At this period , three- fourths of the clergy
had shaken off the law of celibacy ( 8).
18. Such were the crimes of the Duke of Somerset against the
Church ; but the Divine vengeance soon overtook him , in a most
unexpected manner (9) . He had raised his brother, Thomas Sey-
mour, to the dignity of Lord High Admiral of the kingdom , and this
nobleman had gained the affection of Henry's last Queen, Cathe-
rine Parr, and had his consent to the marriage. This was highly
displeasing, however, to the Duchess of Somerset, as, in case of his
marriage with Catherine, she should resign to her the precedence
which she enjoyed , as wife of the Protector, and, though she
yielded to the Queen Dowager, she was unwilling to take rank
beneath her sister-in-law ; and thus a quarrel was commenced
between the ladies, in which their husbands were soon engaged.
John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, was an enemy to both parties,
and bent on their destruction ; and, to accomplish it with greater
certainty, he pretended to be a mediator,while he dexterously encou-
raged the strife between them, and succeeded so well , that Somerset
engaged Sharington to accuse his brother of high treason. He
appeared to be highly displeased when the accusation was first
made ; but then he alleged that the King's life and honour were
more dear to him than his brother's life, and he gave orders to
proceed with his trial. The Admiral was condemned , and executed
on the 20th of March , 1549. His lady, Queen Catherine, accord-
ing to some, died of a broken heart ; but we believe that she had
previously died in childbirth ( 10) .
19. On the death of the Admiral, Earl Warwick was entire
master of Somerset's mind ; he wound him round as he pleased ,
and had sufficient interest to appoint friends of his own to several

(6) Bossuet, t. 2, l. 7, n. 96. (7) Gotti, loc. cit. sec. 1 , n. 3 ; Nat. Alex. loc. cit.;
Bossuet, Hist. l. 7, n. 86. (8) Varillas, l. 17, p. 126. (9) Varillas, loc. cit. p. 126 ,
coll. 2.
(10 ) Varillas, l. 17, p. 120.
342 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

important places, by which he laid the foundation of the Duke's


ruin. He strengthened his party, besides, by the adhesion of the
Catholic lords- very numerous still- who were persuaded by him
that there was no hope of re-establishing the Catholic religion
while Somerset was in power. About the same time, the English
lost Boulogne , in the ancient province of Picardy, and the Regent
was severely censured , for not having sent reinforcements in time,
to save it from the French. Several of the barons and nobility,
likewise, had enclosed commonages in different parts of the king-
dom, to the great grievance of the people , who looked to the
Regent for redress, and not obtaining it, broke out into rebellion ,
and Warwick got the Parliament convoked. He had a very strong
party in both houses, so the Regent was attainted, and sent to the
Tower, and was executed on the 22nd of January, 1552 , and both
Catholics and Protestants rejoiced at his death (11) .
20. The Earl of Warwick having now disposed of all his rivals,
took the administration of affairs, even during Edward's lifetime,
into his own hands, and got another step in the peerage, being
created Duke of Northumberland ; and not satisfied with all this,
prevailed on the King to leave his crown, by will, to his daughter-
in-law, Lady Jane Grey, daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, exclud-
ing Mary, daughter of Queen Catherine , as she was declared ille-
gitimate in the reign of Henry VIII . , and Elizabeth, as daughter
of the adultress, Anna Boleyn. Edward died soon after, in the
sixteenth year of his age, on the 7th of July, 1553, and Northum-
berland, it is said, immediately gave orders that Mary should be
secured ; but his secretary, a Catholic, thought it too bad that the
heiress of the crown should be thus deprived of her right, and he
escaped from his master, and arrived in Mary's presence two hours
sooner than the person the Duke sent to arrest her ( 12 ). Mary
immediately fled to Norfolk, where the people showed their attach-
ment to her cause, by taking up arms in her defence . She collected
an army of fifteen thousand men, and though Northumberland
marched against her with thirty thousand, he was deserted by
most of them (some say he never had more than six thousand in
the beginning) , and returned to London ; but the citizens would
not now admit him, and the fleet , likewise , declared for Mary.
When Queen Mary was settled in the government , Northumber-
land was indicted for high treason, and, as there was no doubt of
his guilt, he was condemned and executed. His sons suffered,
likewise, and his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, Henry's niece,
who wore the crown for ten days against her will, paid the penalty
of her treason on the scaffold. Elizabeth was, likewise, kept in
custody on suspicion . Northumberland had embraced Protestant-
ism merely from political motives, but now returned again to the

(11) Varillas, t. 2, l. 17, p. 131, & l. 20 , p. 1. (12) Varillas, t. 2, l. 20, p. 208.


AND THEIR REFUTATION . 343

Faith, confessed to a priest, and declared on the scaffold, that it


was merely the ambition of obtaining the crown for his family
that caused him to dissemble his Faith, and that he considered his
punishment now a grace from God to procure his salvation. His sons
and others, executed for the same crime, made a similar declaration.
It is melancholy to see in this history so many persons condemned
to death for trying to elevate themselves above their sphere, and
how England became immediately on her loss of the Faith a field
of slaughter for her children (13) .
SEC. III. MARY'S REIGN.

21. Mary refuses the Title of Head of the Church ; repeals her Father's and Brother's
Laws ; Cranmer is condemned to be burned, and dies a Heretic ; Mary sends off all
Heretics from her Court. 22. Cardinal Pole reconciles England with the Church ;
her Marriage with Philip II. , and Death.

21. THE good Queen Mary, on her accession to the throne, re-
fused to take the impious title of Head of the Church , and imme-
diately sent ambassadors to Rome, to pay obedience to the Pope.
She repealed all the decrees of her father and brother, and re-
established the public exercise of the Catholic religion ( 1 ). She
imprisoned Elizabeth, who twice conspired against her, and, it is
said, she owed her life to the intercession of King Philip . She
opened the prisons, and gave liberty to the bishops and other
Catholics who were confined ; and on the 5th of October, 1553 ,
the Parliament rescinded the iniquitous sentence of Cranmer,
Archbishop of Canterbury, by which he declared the marriage of
Catherine and Henry null and void, and he was condemned to be
burned as a heretic. When the unfortunate man found that he
was condemned to death , he twice retracted his errors ; but when
all this would not save him from being burned , he cancelled
his retractation , and died a Calvinist (2 ) . By the Queen's orders ,
the remains of Bucer and Fagius, who died heretics, were exhumed
and burned ; and thirty thousand heretics were banished the king-
dom, comprising Lutherans, Calvinists, Zuinglians, Anabaptists,
Socinians, Seekers , and such like . The Seekers are those who are
seeking the true religion, but have not yet found it, nor ever will
out of the Catholic Church alone ; because in every other religion,
if they trace it up to the author, they will find some impostor, whose
imagination furnished a mass of sophisms and errors.
22. Mary, likewise, proclaimed the innocence of Cardinal Pole,
and requested Julius III . to send him to England as his Legate a
latere. He arrived soon after, and , at the request of the Queen,
reconciled the kingdom again to the Church, and absolved it from
(13) Varillas, 20, p. 202, a. 211 ; Nat. Alex. t. 19, c. 13, art. 5 ; Gotti, c. 114, sec. 1 ,
1. 4; Hermant, c. 268. (1) Bartol. l. 1, c. 3 ; Nat. Alex . loc. cit.; Hermant, c. 269 ;
Varillas, t. 2, 1. 20, p. 212 ; Gotti, c. 114, sec. 2, a. 1. (2) Varillas, 1. 21 , p. 252 ;
Gotti, ibid. n. 4 ; Hermant, loc. cit.; Bossuet, Ist. l. 7, n. 103. (3) Nat. Alex. ibid.;
Gotti, loc. cit. n. 4.
344 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

schism, on the Vigil of St. Andrew, 1554. He next restored ecclesias-


tical discipline, reformed the Universities, and re-established the
practices of religion. He absolved all the laymen from the censures
they incurred, by laying hands on the property ofthe Church during
the time of the schism , remitted the tithes and first-fruits due to the
clergy ; confirmed in their sees the Catholic bishops, though in-
stalled in the time of the schism, and recognized the new sees estab-
lished by Henry. All this was subsequently confirmed by Paul IV .;
but, unfortunately for England, Mary died on the 15thof November,
1558, in the forty-fourth year of her age, and fifth of her reign .
She was married to Philip II., King of Spain, and at first mistook
her sickness, which was dropsy, for pregnancy. The Faithful all
over the world mourned for her death (4).

SEC. IV. THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH.

23. Elizabeth proclaimed Queen ; the Pope is dissatisfied, and she declares herself a Pro-
testant. 24. She gains over the Parliament, through the Influence of three of the
Nobility, and is proclaimed Head of the Church. 25. She establishes the Form of
Church Government, and, though her Belief is Calvinistic, she retains Episcopacy, &c.
26. Appropriates Church Property, abolishes the Mass ; the Oath of Allegiance ; Per-
secution of the Catholics. 27. Death of Edmund Campion for the Faith. 28. The
Pope's Bull against Elizabeth. 29. She dies out of Communion with the Church.
30. Her Successors onthe Throne of England ; deplorable State of the English Church.
31. The English Reformation refutes itself.

23. MARY died on the 13th of January, 1559, and Elizabeth ,


daughter of Anna Boleyn, was proclaimed Queen, according to the
iniquitous will of Henry VIII . I call it iniquitous , for the crown,
by right, appertained to Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, for Eliza-
beth's birth was spurious, as she was born during the lifetime of
Henry's first Queen and lawful wife , Catherine, and when Clement
VIII. and Paul III. had already declared his marriage with Anna
Boleyn null and void ( 1 ) . Elizabeth was then twenty-five years
of age, and highly accomplished , and learned both in science and
languages. She spoke French, Italian, and Latin . She had ,
besides, all the natural qualities requisite for a great Queen, but ob-
scured by the Lutheran heresy , of which she was a follower in pri-
vate. During the lifetime of Mary she pretended to be a Catholic,
and, perhaps, would have continued to do so when she came to
the throne, or have become a Catholic in reality , if the Pope would
recognize her as Queen , for in the beginning she allowed freedom
of religion to all, and even took the old Coronation Oath to defend
the Catholic Faith, and preserve the liberties of the Church (2) .
She commanded Sir Edward Cairne, the Ambassador in Rome from
her sister Mary, to notify her accession and coronation to Paul IV . ,
and present her duty, and ask his benediction . The Pope, how-

(4) Nat. Alex. art. 5, in fin.; Varillas, . 21 , p. 229 ; Gotti, sec. 2, n. 5, ad 7.


(1 ) Gotti, c. 114, s. 3, n. 2 ; Varillas, t. 2, l. 22, p. 284. (2) Nat. Alex. t. 19 , c. 13 ;
Berti, His. sec. 16.
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 345

ever, answered, that it was not lawful for her to have assumed the
government of the kingdom , a fief of the Holy See, without the
consent of Rome, that it would be necessary to examine the rights
which Queen Mary of Scotland had to the throne also, and there-
fore that she should place herself altogether in his hands, and that
she would experience from him paternal kindness. Elizabeth then
saw that it would be difficult to keep herself on the throne , unless
by separating from the Roman Church ; she therefore tore off the
mask, recalled her Ambassador, Cairne, from Rome, and publicly
professed the heresy she had previously embraced in private (3) .
24. All now she had to do was to get the Parliament to establish
the Reformed Religion , and this was easily accomplished . The
House of Commons being already gained over, the only difficulty
was to get the peers to agree to it. The Upper House was almost
entirely led by the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Dudley, and the Earl of
Arundel. On each of these Elizabeth exercised her influence,
and through them gained over the majority of the peers, especially
as the lay peers were more numerous than the bishops, to declare
her Head of the Church . All the regulations made in religious
affairs during the reign of Edward VI . were re-established , and those
of Mary repealed (4) . Each of these noblemen expected that Eliza-
beth, who was a most consummate intriguer, would make him the
partner of her crown (5 ) . There were sixteen thousand ecclesiastics
in England . Three-fourths, as Burnet writes, immediately joined
the Reformers. The greater part of the clergy were married at
that period, and this was the reason, as Burnet himself allows , that
they changed so easily.
25. Elizabeth, now fortified with parliamentary authority, pro-
hibited most rigorously any of her subjects from obeying the Pope,
and commanded all to recognize her as Head of the Church, both
in spirituals and temporalities. It was also ordained , at the same
time, that to the Crown alone belonged the appointment of bishops,
the convocation of Synods, the power of taking cognizance of heresy
and abuses, and the punishment of spiritual delinquencies. A
system of church government and discipline was also established,
and though the doctrine of the Anglican Church is Calvinism,
which rejects bishops, together with all the sacred ceremonies of
the Roman Church, as well as altars and images , still she wished
that the bishops should be continued , but without any other power
than what they held from herself. " Nisi ad beneplacitum Reginæ
nec aliter nisi per ipsam a Regali Majestate derivatum auctori-
tatem" (6) . Then was seen in the Church what before was unheard
of a woman arrogating to herself the supremacy of the Church.
How totally opposed this was to the Scriptures, St. Paul tells us
plainly, for he says ( 1 Cor. xiv. 34) ; " Let women keep silence
(3) Nat. Alex. loc. cit.; Gotti, c. 114 ; Varillas, t. 2 ; Hermant, c. 270. (4) Nat.
Alex. ar. 6, Gotti, s. 3. (5) Varillas, l. 22. (6) Nat. Alex. loc. cit.; Gotti, cit. n. 3.
346 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

in the churches, for it is not permitted to them to speak, but to be


subject." She wished that the priesthood, altars, and sacred cere-
monies, should be in somewise retained, for the people, she said ,
required such things (7) . Thus it would appear that she looked on
the ceremonies of the Church as mere theatrical representations, fit
to amuse the vulgar. A new hierarchy and new ceremonies were ,
accordingly, instituted, and, we may say, a new martyrology, with
Wickliffe, Huss, and Cranmer, as its martyrs ; and Luther, Peter
Martyr, Henry VIII ., Edward VI. , and Erasmus, its saints.
26. The benefices and the monastic property were now all seized
on , and part applied to government purposes, and the rest granted
to the nobility. Vicars- General in spirituals were also appointed.
All sacred images were removed from the churches, but she kept
a Crucifix in her own chamber, placed on an altar, with two can-
dles, but these were never lighted . The Mass was prohibited ,
together with all the ancient ceremonies used in preaching and
administering the Sacraments, and new ceremonies were instituted,
and a form of prayers commanded to be read in English, savouring
strongly of Calvinism , which she wished should be the leading
doctrine of the Anglican Church, but the government and disci-
pline after a plan of her own ( 8 ) . She then got the sanction of Par-
liament for all these regulations , and it was ordered that all bishops
and ecclesiastics should take the oath of supremacy, under pain of
deprivation and imprisonment for the first refusal, and of death for
the second . The oath was this : " I , A. B. , declare in my con-
science that the Queen is the sole and supreme ruler in this king-
dom of England, both in spirituals and temporals, and that no foreign
prelate or prince has any authority ecclesiastical in this kingdom ,
and I , therefore, in the plain sense of the words, reject all foreign
authority." Elizabeth hoped that an order, enforced under such
severe penalties, would be at once obeyed by all ; but all the bishops
(with the exception of the Bishop of Llandaff) refused , and were
degraded and banished , or imprisoned, and their glorious example
was followed by the better part of the clergy , by numbers of the
religious, of various orders, and by many doctors, and several of
the nobility, whose constancy in adhering to the Faith was pu-
nished by exile and imprisonment. Soon, however, these punish-
ments were looked on as too mild- many priests, friars, and
preachers were put to death for the Faith, and crowned with
martyrdom (9) . Sanders gives a diary of all the occurrences that
took place during this period in England , beginning in 1580.
27. I cannot allow this opportunity to pass without relating the
death of Edmund Campion, one of the many martyrs put to death
by Elizabeth for the Faith. While in Rome he heard of the

(7) Varillas, t. 2, l. 22 , n. 290. (8) Nat. Alex. s. 6, n. 2 ; Gotti, c. 144, s. 3, n. 5 ;


Varill. t. 2. (9) Nat. Alex. ar. 6, n. 3 ; Gotti, c. 114, s. 3, n. 6, 7.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 347

dreadful persecution the Catholics, and , above all , the missionaries


who came to their assistance, were suffering from Elizabeth . He
was a young Englishman, a scholar, and a linguist, and, burning
with zeal for the salvation of his countrymen, he determined to go
to their assistance . This was a matter of great difficulty , for seve-
ral spies were on the look-out for him, to take him on his landing,
and not only was his person described, but even his likeness was
taken ; still , disguised as a servant, he escaped all the snares laid
for him , and arrived safely in the kingdom . Night and day he
laboured, preaching, hearing confessions, and animating the faith-
ful to perseverance ; he was continually moving about from one
place to another, under different names, and in various disguises,
and so escaped , for a long time, the emissaries who were in search
of him . He was at last betrayed by an apostate priest, while he
was saying Mass, and preaching, in the house of a Catholic. He
had not time to escape, the house was surrounded, and the master
shut him up in a hiding hole , which was so well contrived, that
after a most rigorous search, he could not be discovered . The
bailiffs were going away in despair, when, at the bottom of the
staircase they accidentally broke through a wall, and discovered
him on his knees , offering up his life to God. They put him in
prison, and he was then so violently racked , that when brought to
trial, and told to raise up his arm to attest his confession , he had
not the power of doing so, and it was raised up by an assistant.
He was arraigned as a traitor, for thus they indicted the Catholic
priests, in those days, to do away with the honour of martyrdom.
They put them to death, they said, not for preaching their Faith,
but for conspiring against the Queen. When Campion was
charged with treason , he confounded his accusers by replying :
" How can you charge us with treason , and condemn us for that
alone, when all that is requisite to save ourselves is, that we go to
your preachings (thus changing their religion) ; it is, then, because
we are Catholics that we are condemned, and not because we are,
as you say, rebels." He was condemned to be drawn on a hurdle
to the place of execution and hanged. He then declared that he
never rebelled against the Queen, that it was for the Faith alone
he was put to death. He was disembowelled , his heart torn out
and cast into the fire, and his body quartered . Several other
priests underwent a like punishment for the Faith during this
reign (10) .
28. When St. Pius V. learned the cruelties practised by Eliza-
beth on the Catholics, he published a Bull against her, on the 24th
of February, 1570 ; but this was only adding fuel to the fire, and
the persecution became more furious (11 ) . It was then, as we

(10) Bartol. Istor. d'Inghil. 7. 6, c. 1. (11) Nat. Alex. t. 19, art. 3, s. 6 ; Gotti, c.
144, s. 3, n. 8.
348 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

have already related, that she, under false pretences, beheaded


Mary, Queen of Scots ( Chap. xi. art. iii . sec. ii . n. 78) . She was
desirous, if possible, even to destroy Catholicity in all Christian
kingdoms, and entered into a league with the Reformers of the
Netherlands, and the Calvinists of France, and this league never
was interrupted during her lifetime ( 12 ) , and in the wars waged by
these rebels against their Sovereigns, she sent them powerful assist-
ance ( 13 ) , and she left no stone unturned to advance the Calvinistic
Reformation in Scotland ( 14) .
29. The end of her reign and life was now at hand ; a Protestant
author has said that she died a happy death. It is worth while to
see what sort of a death it was. I find that after the death of the
Earl of Essex, whom she beheaded- though very much attached to
him for the crime of insurrection , she never more enjoyed a day's
happiness . As old age came on her, also, she was tormented by
fear and jealousy, and doubted the affectionate fidelity of her sub-
jects. She went to Richmond, where the pleasing scenery had no
effect in calming her mind ; she conceived that all her friends
abandoned her, that everything went against her, and complained
that she had no sincere attached friend. The death-sickness at last
came on her, and she refused all medical aid , and could not, her
impatience was so great, bear even the sight of a physician . When
she saw death approaching, she declared King James of Scotland
her successor, and on the 24th of March, 1603, two hours before
midnight, she breathed her last, in the seventieth year of her age,
and forty-fourth of her reign. Thus she closed her days in sorrow
and anguish, not so much through pain of body, as of mind. She
sunk into the grave without any sign of repentance, without Sacra-
ments, without the assistance of a priest ; she was attended by some
Protestant ecclesiastics, but they only exhorted her to persevere in
the heresy she embraced ( 15) . Such was the happy death of Queen
Elizabeth . It is said that she used to say: " If God gives me forty
years to reign, I will give up even heaven itself " ( 16 ) . Unhappy
woman ! not alone forty, but nearly forty-five years did she possess
the throne. She became head of the Church ; she separated the
Church of England from the Roman See ; she prohibited the exer-
cise of the Catholic religion ; how many innocent persons did she
doom to all the horrors of exile, of imprisonment, of cruel death !
She is now in eternity, and I would like to know , is she satis-
fied with all the crimes and cruelties she committed during her life.
Oh, happy would it be for her had she never sat upon a throne.
30. Elizabeth, before she died, nominated James VI., the son of
Mary Stuart, her successor . When he became King of England
(Chap. xi., art. iii . , sec. ii . , n. 85 ) , he neglected to comply with the

(12) Varil. t. 2, 1. 26, p. 437. (13) Idem, l. 29. (14) Idem, l. 28. (15 ) Nat.
Alex. art. 3 ; Gotti, c. 114, s, 3 ; Bartoli. Istor. d'Inghil, l. 6. (16) Bartoli. Istor. cit.
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 349

wishes of his good mother, never to follow any other than the
Catholic religion ; he leant, therefore, to Lutheranism - was any-
thing but a friend to the Calvinists—and was anxious that Scotland,
which kingdom he retained, should follow the Lutheran doctrine
also ; but in this he was disappointed. His son and successor,
Charles I. , endeavoured to carry out his father's intentions, and lost
his head on the scaffold. He was succeeded by his son , Charles II . ,
who died without issue, and the crown then devolved on his brother,
James II. This good Prince declared himself a Catholic, and the
consequence was, that he was obliged to fly to France, where he
died a holy death in 1701 , leaving one son, James III . , who lived
and died in Rome, in the Catholic Faith. In fine, unhappy Eng
land was, and is, separated from the Catholic Church, and groans
under the weight of various heresies . Every religion, with the ex-
ception ofthe Catholic, is tolerated , but the faithful are exposed to
all the frightful severities of the penal laws, and there are among the
sectarians almost as many religions as individuals. In fact, we may
say, that in that unhappy country there is no religion at all, for, as
St. Augustin says (17) : " The true religion99 was always one, from
the beginning, and will always be the same."
31. I have placed at the end ofthe historical portion of the
Work, the Refutation of the principal Heresies which infected the
Church, but it is impossible to take any particular hold of the Eng-
lish schism, for it is not a religion in itself, so much as a mixture
composed of every heresy, excluding Catholicity, the only true re-
ligion. This is, then, according to Burnet, " The Work of Light,"
which smooths the way to heaven. What blindness, or rather,
what impiety ! The Reformation smooths the way to heaven , by
allowing every one to live as he pleases , without law or sacraments,
and with no restraint. A foreign Protestant author even ridicules
Burnet's boast : " The English, by the Reformation," he says,
" have become so totally independent , that every one takes what-
ever road to heaven that pleases himself." Thus the English
Reformation refutes itself.

(17) St. Augus. Epis. 102, alias 49, cont. Pagan. b. 2, 3.

* This was written in the last century, but the reader will praise the Almighty that
such a state of things exists no longer. The holy Author can now look down from heaven
on a flourishing Church in England, and behold his own children, the Redemptionists,
labouring with the other faithful labourers of the Gospel, in extending the kingdom of
Christ.
350 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

ARTICLE II .

THE ANTITRINITARIANS AND SOCINIANS .

SEC. I.- MICHAEL SERVETUS.

32. Character of Servetus ; his Studies, Travels, and false Doctrine. 33. He goes to
Geneva ; disputes with Calvin, who has him burned to Death.

32. MICHAEL SERVETUS, the chief of the Antitrinitarians, was a


Spaniard, a native of Saragossa, in Catalonia . He was a man of
genius (1 ), but light-headed, and held such a presumptuous opinion
of himself, that , even before he was twenty-five years old, he
thought himself the most learned man in the world. He went to
Paris to study medicine, and there met some German Lutheran
professors, employed by Francis I. to teach in that University, as
he wished to have, at all risks, the best professors in Europe. He
learned from these doctors, not only Latin, Greek, and Hebrew ,
but at the same time imbibed their errors. He went to Dauphiny,
and, as he commenced disseminating the errors he had learned (2),
he was accused of Lutheranism , but cleared himself, and denounced
all Lutheran doctrine. He next went to Lyons, then to Germany,
and from that to Africa to learn the Alcoran of Mahomet . He
next went to Poland , and fixed himself there ; and, puffed up with
an extraordinary idea of his own learning , he disdained attaching
himself to any sect, and formed a religion of his own, composed of
the errors of all sects, and then, as Varillas tells us, he changed his
name to Revez . With Luther, he condemned all which that Re-
former condemned in the Catholic Church ; he rejected the baptism
of infants, with the Anabaptists ; with the Sacramentarians, he said
that the Eucharist was only a figure of the body and blood of
Jesus Christ. But his most awful errors were those against the
Most Holy Trinity, and especially against the Divinity of Jesus
Christ and the Holy Ghost. With Sabellius, he denied the dis-
tinction of the three Divine Persons ; with Arius, that the Word
was God ; with Macedonius, that the Holy Ghost was God, for he
said that in God there was but one nature and one person, and
that the Son and the Holy Ghost were only two emanations from
the Divine essence, and had a beginning only from the creation of
the world. Thus, as Jovet (3) says, Arianism , which was extinct
for eight hundred years, was resuscitated by Servetus in 1530 .
Europe, and the northern nations of it especially , being then all in
confusion, overrun by so many heresies, he soon found followers.
Besides the errors enumerated, the books of Servetus were filled

(1) Jovet, Hist. delle Relig. t. 2, p. 287 ; Varil. t. 1, l. 8, p. 370 ; Nat. Alex. s. 19 ;
Gotti, Ver. Rel. l. 2 , c. 115 ; Van Ranst, s. 16, p. 325. (2) Varil. loc. cit. (3) Jovet,
p. 288.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 351

with the errors of Apollinares, of Nestorius, and of Eutyches, as


the reader can see, by consulting Noel Alexander and Gotti. An-
other of his opinions was, that man did not commit mortal sin till
he passed the age of twenty ; that by sin the soul became mortal
like the body ; that polygamy might be permitted ; and to these he
added many other blasphemies.
33. Servetus left Germany and Poland , and was coming to Italy
to disseminate his doctrine. He arrived in Geneva, where Calvin
resided at the time . Calvin was at one time accused of Arianism , and
to prove the contrary, wrote some treatises against Servetus. Having
him now in his power, he thought it a good opportunity to give a
cruel proof of his sincere abhorrence of this heresy, so he had him
denounced by one of his servants to the magistrates, and imprisoned
(Chap. xi. , art. iii . , sec . i . , n . 67) . They then had a long disputa-
tion. Servetus asserted that the Scriptures alone were sufficient to
decide Articles of Faith, without reference either to Fathers or
Councils, and, in fact, that was Calvin's own doctrine also, especially
in his disputes with the Catholics . He was, therefore, very hard
pressed by Servetus, who explained the texts adduced to prove the
Trinity and the Divinity of Jesus Christ, after his own fashion ,
especially as he himself-rejecting Fathers and Councils in the
explanation of that text of St. John (x. 30) , " The Father and I
am one"-said that all were wrong in proving by this the unity of
essence between the Father and Son, as it only proved the perfect
uniformity of the will of Christ with that of his Father. When he
found , therefore, that Servetus obstinately held his Antitrinitarian
doctrines, he laid another plan to destroy him. He sent his pro-
positions to the University of the Zuinglian cantons, and, on their
condemnation, he caused him to be burned alive on the 27th of
October, 1553, as we have already narrated (Chap. xi. , art. iii. ,
sec. i., n. 67) (4) . This cursed sect, however, did not expire with
Servetus, for his writings and disciples carried it into Russia, Wal-
lachia, Moravia, and Silesia ; it was afterwards split into thirty-two
divisions , and in these provinces the Antitrinitarians are more
numerous than the Lutherans or Calvinists.

SEC. II. VALENTINE GENTILIS, GEORGE BLANDRATA, AND BERNARD OCHINO.


34. Valentine Gentilis ; his impious Doctrine. 35. He is punished in Geneva, and re-
tracts. 36. Relapses, and is beheaded. 37. George Blandrata perverts the Prince
of Transylvania ; disputes with the Reformers ; is murdered. 38. Bernard Ochino ;
his Life while a Friar ; his Perversion, and Flight to Geneva. 38. He goes to Stras-
burg, and afterwards to England, with Bucer ; his unfortunate Death in Poland.

34. VALENTINE GENTILIS was a native ofCosenza, in Calabria, and


a disciple of Servetus. He was astonished , he said ( 1 ) , that the
Reformers would trouble themselves so much in disputing with the

(4) Nat. Alex. t. 19, art. 14 ; Van Ranst, p. 326. (1) Van Ranst, p. 326.
352 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Catholics about sacraments, purgatory, fasting, &c . , matters of such


little importance, and still agree with them in the principal mystery
of their Faith, the Trinity. Although he agreed in doctrine with
Servetus , he explained it differently (2). Three things, he said ,
concur in the Trinity-the essence, which was the Father, the Son ,
and the Holy Ghost. The Father is the one only true God, the
Essenciator; the Son and the Holy Ghost are the Essenciati. He did
not call the Father a Person, because, according to his opinion, the
essence was in itself true God, and therefore he said, if we admit
the Father to be a Person, we have no longer a Trinity, but a Qua-
ternity. He thus denied that there were three Persons in the same
essence, as we believe . He recognized in God three external
Spirits ( 3) ; but of these, two were inferior to the Father, for he had
given them a Divinity indeed , but inferior to his own. In the
book which he presented to Sigismund Augustus, King of Poland (4 ),
he complains that many monstrous terms have been introduced into
the Church, as Persons, Essence, and Trinity, which are, he says,
a perversion of the Divine Mysteries. He admitted that there were
three holy and eternal essences, as the Athanasian Creed teaches,
but in all the rest he says it is " a satanical symbol."
35. Valentine , and some Antitrinitarian friends of his, being in
Geneva (5), in 1558 , and the magistracy, having a suspicion of his
opinions, obliged them to sign a profession of Faith in the Trinity.
Valentine subscribed it, and swore to it, but not sincerely, for he
immediately after began to teach his errors, so he was taken up and
imprisoned for perjury. He presented another Confession of Faith
while in prison , but as his heresy appeared through it, Calvin
strenuously opposed his release. Fear then drove him to a more
ample retractation, and from his prison he presented the following
one to the magistrates : " Confiteor Patrem, Filium et Spiritum
Sanctum esse unum Deum, id est tres Personas distinctas in una
Essentia, Pater non est Filius, nec Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus, sed
unaquæque illarum Personarum est integra illa . Essentia. Item
Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus quantum ad Divinam Naturam sunt unus
Deus cum Patre, cui sunt coæquales et coæterni. Hoc sentio, et
corde ac ore profiteor. Hæreses autem contrarias damno, et nomi-
natim blasphemias quas descripsi," &c . It would have been well
for him had he never changed again this profession ; he would not
then have made the miserable end he did .
36. Notwithstanding his retractation , the Senate of Geneva, in
1558 , condemned him to be brought forth, stripped to his shirt, to
kneel with a candle in his hand, and pray to God and the state for
pardon for his blasphemies, and then to cast his writings into the
fire with his own hands. He was led through the principal streets

(2 ) Gotti, c. 115 ; Nat. Alex. t. 19, ar. 14 ; Jovet, t. 1, p. 296. (3) Jovet, loc. cit.
4) Van Ranst, loc. cit. (5) Gotti, s. 2, 3 ; Nat. Alex. cit.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 353

of the city, and the sentence executed (6 ) . He was prohibited,


likewise, from leaving the city ; indeed, at first he was kept in
prison, but afterwards was allowed out, promising on oath that he
would not make his escape . He fled, however, at the first oppor-
tunity, and took refuge in the house of a lawyer of Padua, who lived
in Savoy, and held the same opinions as himself, and began writing
again in opposition to the Trinity. He was again put into prison ,
and escaped to Lyons, where he published a Treatise against the
Athanasian Creed. From Lyons he went to Poland , and when
Sigismund banished him from that kingdom, he took up his resi-
dence in Bearn. He was here accused by Musculus, in the year
1556, and imprisoned . He refused to retract, and was sentenced
to death. Just before laying his head on the block, he said :
"Others died martyrs for the Son ; I die a martyr for the Father."
Unfortunate man ! dying an enemy of the Son , he died an enemy
of the Father likewise (7).
37. George Blandrata was another of the disciples of Servetus.
He was born in Piedmont, and was a physician, and the writings
of Servetus having fallen in his way, he embraced his errors. The
Inquisition was very strict at that period in Piedmont, so he con-
sulted his safety by flying, first, into Poland, and, afterwards, in
1553, into Transylvania (8) . He here succeeded in getting him-
self appointed physician to the Sovereign, John Sigismund, and
to his Prime Minister, Petrowitz , a Lutheran, and by that means
endeavoured to make them Arians. There were a great many
Lutherans and Calvinists in the country , and they all joined in
opposing Blandrata's doctrine, so the Sovereign, to put an end to
the dispute, commanded that a public conference (9) should be
held in his presence, and acted himself the part of judge. The
conference took place in his presence, in Waradin , between the
Reformers and Blandrata, and several other Arian friends of his.
They began by quoting the various passages of the Scripture used
by Arius to impugn the Divinity of Christ. The Reformers
answered by quoting the interpretation of these texts by the
Council of Nice, and by the Holy Fathers, who explained them
in their proper sense. This doctrine, they said, we should hold,
otherwise every one might explain away the Scriptures just as he
pleased . One of the Arians then stepped forward and cried out :
" How is this ? When you argue with the Papists, and quote
your texts of Scripture to defend your doctrine, and they say that
the true meaning of these texts is only to be found in the Decrees
of Councils, and the works of the Fathers, you at once say that
the Holy Fathers and the Bishops composing the Councils were

(6) Gotti, loc. cit. (7) Spondan. ad Ann. 1561 , n. 34 ; Van Ranst, sec. 16, p. 327 ;
Gotti, c. 115. (8) Jovet, His. Rel. p. 291 ; Gotti, s. 2, n. 6 ; Nat. Alex. t. 19, art. 14.
(9) Jovet, p. 294.
Z
354 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

men subject to be deceived, like any one else that the Word of
God alone is sufficient for understanding the Articles of Faith-
that it is clear enough in itself, and requires no explanation ; and
now you want to make use of the same arms against us which you
blame the Catholics for having recourse to .' This answer was
applauded by the Prince and the majority of the meeting, and the
preachers were confounded, and knew not what reply to make.
Arianism then became the most numerous sect in Transylvania,
and the impious doctrine of Arius was resuscitated after a lapse
of nine hundred years. It is worthy of remark, as Jovet ( 10) tells
us, that the first who embraced it were all Lutherans or Calvinists,
and that all their chiefs came to an unhappy end. Paul Alciatus,
their companion, at last became a Mahometan , as Gotti informs us.
Francis David, as Noel Alexander tells us, was killed by a house
falling on him ; another of them, called Lismaninus , drowned him-
self in a well, and Blandrata (11) was killed by a relative of his , to
rob him.
38. Bernard Ochino was also an Antitrinitarian . He was a Ca-
puchin friar, and the heretics even make him founder of that In-
stitute ; but the Capuchin Chronicle, and the majority of writers ,
deny this and say he was only General of the Capuchins for a
while ( 12). Their real founder was Matthew de Basso , in 1525 ,
and Ochino did not enter the order until 1534 , nine years after, when
the order already had three hundred professed members. He lived as
a Religious for eight years, and threw off the habit in 1542. At
first, while a Religious, he led a most exemplary life ( 13) , wore a
very poor habit, went always barefooted , had a long beard, and ap-
peared to suffer from sickness and the mortified life he led . When-
ever he had occasion, in his journeys, to stop in the houses of the
great, he eat most sparingly, and only of one dish , and that the
plainest scarcely drank any wine-and never went to bed, but
extending his mantle on the ground, took a short repose . With all
this, he was puffed up with vanity, especially as he was a most elo-
quent preacher, though his discourses were more remarked for orna-
ment of diction than soundness of doctrine , and the churches were
always crowded when he preached . The Sacramentarian Valdez,
who perverted Peter Martyr ( Chap. xi . art. ii . sec . iii. n. 57) , was
also the cause of his fall . He perceived his weakness, he saw he
was vain of his preaching, and (14) he used frequently go to hear
him , and visit him afterwards, and under the praises he administered
to him for his eloquence, conveyed the poison of his sentiments.
Ochino had a great opinion of his own merits, and hoped, when he
was made General of his Order, that the Pope would raise him to
some higher dignity, but when he saw that neither a cardinal's hat,

(10) Jovet, cit. p. 300. (11) Nat. Alex. s. 3 ; Gotti, s. 2, n. 6 ; Jovet, cit.
(12) Varill. Hist. t. 2, p. 109 ; Gotti, 115. (13) Varill. p. 111. (14) Varill. cit.
0
p. 10 .
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 355

nor even a mitre , fell to his lot, he entertained the most rancorous
feeling against the Roman Court, and Valdez made him an easy
prey. Being now infected with the poisonous sentiments of Zuin-
glius and Calvin, he began in the pulpit to speak derogatory of the
Pope and the Roman See, and preaching in the archbishoprics of
Naples, after Peter Martyr, he began to deride the doctrines of pur-
gatory and indulgences, and sowed the first seeds of that great revo-
lution which afterwards, in 1656 , convulsed the city. When the
Pope received information of this, he commanded him to come to
Rome and account for his doctrine. His friends advised him to
go ; but, as he felt himself hurt by the order, he was unwilling to
obey. While he was thus wavering he went to Bologna , and called
on the Cardinal Legate, Contarini , to solicit his protection and in-
terest. The cardinal was then suffering from sickness, of which, in
fact, he died soon after ; so he received him coldly, hardly spoke to
him, and dismissed him. He now suspected that the cardinal knew
all, and would have him put in prison , so he threw off the habit,
and went to Florence, where he met Peter Martyr, and concerted
with him a flight to Geneva, then the general refuge of apostates.
In fact, he arrived there even before Peter Martyr himself, and
though sixty years old, he brought a young girl of sixteen along
with him, and married her there, thus giving a pledge of his per-
petual separation from the Catholic Church. He then wrote an
apology of his flight, and abused, in the most violent terms, the
Order of St. Francis and the Pope, Paul III. The Pope for a while
entertained the notion of dissolving the Capuchin Order altogether,
but relinquished it on finding that Ochino had made no perverts
among that body.
39. Calvin received Ochino most kindly on his arrival in Geneva,
but he soon perceived that the Capuchin had no great opinion of
him, and leaned more to the doctrines of Luther, and he therefore
began to treat him with coolness ; so, having no great affection for
the doctrines of either one or the other, he determined to establish
his fame by founding a new sect. He then took up the opinions
of Arius, and published some tracts in Italian, in which he con
founded the personality and properties of the Three Divine Per-
sons , so Calvin procured a sentence of banishment to be passed on
him by the Senate of Geneva. He then went to Basle, but as he
was not safe even there, he went to Strasbourg, to Bucer, who pro-
tected heretics of every shade, and received him kindly, appointed
him Professor of Theology, and took him, along with himself and
Peter Martyr, to England afterwards. They were both banished
from that kingdom by Queen Mary , on her accession, together with
thirty thousand others, so he went first to Germany and then to
Poland. Even there he had no rest, for all heretics were banished
from that country by the King, Sigismund, and so , broken down
by old age, and abandoned by every one , he concealed himself in
356 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

the house of a friend , and died of the plague in 1564, leaving two
sons and a daughter, their mother having died before. Cardinal
Gotti , Moreri , and others, say that he died an apostate and impe-
nitent ; but Zachary Boverius, in the Annals of the Capuchins,
proves on the authority of other writers, and especially of the Do-
minican, Paul Grisaldus, and of Theodore Beza himself, that he
abjured all his errors, and received the sacraments before his death .
Menochius and James Simidei follow the opinion of Boverius. I
do not give an opinion either on one side or the other, but, with
Spondanus and Graveson, leave the matter between them (15).

SEC. III.THE SOCINIANS.

40. Perverse Doctrine of Lelius Socinus. 41. Faustus Socinus ; his Travels, Writings,
and Death. 42. Errors of the Socinians.

40. LELIUS and Faustus Socinus, from whom the Socinians take
their name, were born in Sienna. Lelius was the son of Marianus
Socinus, a celebrated lawyer, and was born in 1525. His talents
were of the first order, and he surpassed all his cotemporaries at the
schools ; but he, unfortunately, became acquainted with some Pro-
testants, and they perverted him ; so, dreading to come under the
notice of the Inquisition, then extremely strict in Italy, he left it at
the age of twenty-one, and spent four years in travelling through
France, England, Flanders, Germany, and Poland, and finally came
to Switzerland, and took up his abode in Zurich. He was intimate
with Calvin, Beza, Melancthon , and several others of the same sort,
as appears from their letters to him; but he attached himself
chiefly to the Antitrinitarian doctrines of Servetus. When he
learned that Servetus was burned in Geneva, he hid himself, and
fled to Poland first, and afterwards to Bohemia, but after a time re-
turned to Zurich, where he died, in the year 1562, at the early age
of thirty-seven ( 1 ) .
41. Faustus Socinus was a nephew ofthe former ; he was born in
1539 , and was infected with his uncle's heresy. He was twenty-
three years of age when his uncle died. He at once went to Zurich
and took possession of all his manuscripts, which he afterwards
published , to the great injury of the Church . Next, pretending
that he was a true Catholic (2) , he returned to Italy, and lived for
nine years attached to the service of the Duke of Tuscany, who
treated him with honour and respect. Finding it impossible to
spread his heresy in Italy as he wished , he went to Basle, and lived

(15) Gotti, cit. sec. 2, n. 8 ; Varillas, p. 112, & seq.; Nat. Alex. t. 19, a. 14, sec. 3 ;
Van Ranst, sec. 16, p. 328 ; Bern. t. 4, sec. 16, c. 5 ; Berti, Brev. Hist. Eccl. sec. 6, c. 3 ;
Bover. in Ann. Capuccin. 1543 ; Menoch. Cent. p. 2, c. 89 ; Paulus Grisald. Decis. Fid.
Cath. in Ind. Error. & Hærat. Simid. Comp. Stor. degli Eresiarchi, sec. 16 ; Graveson, t. 4,
Hist. Eccl. coll. 3. (1) Nat. Alex. t. 19, art. 14 ; Gotti, c. 116, sec. 3, n. 1 ; Van Ranst,
sec. 16, p. 328. (2) Gotti, loc. cit. n. 2.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 357

there three years, and published his impious work on theology, in


two volumes, and spread his doctrines not only there, but in Poland
and Transylvania, both by word and writing. His writings were
very voluminous, for not only did he publish his theology, but
several treatises besides, especially Commentaries on the fifth and
sixth chapters of St. Matthew, on the first chapter of St. John , on
the seventh chapter of St. Paul to the Romans, on the first Epistle
of St. John, and many more enumerated by Noel Alexander, all of
a heretical tendency (3 ) . He was obliged to fly from Cracow (4) ,
in 1598, and went to a village, where he continued to write works
of the same tendency, and where, at last , he died in 1604 , the sixty-
fifth year of his age, leaving one daughter after him.
42. The Socinian errors are very numerous, and Noel Alexander
and Cardinal Gotti (5) give them all without curtailment. I will
only state the principal ones : They say, first, that the knowledge
of God and of Religion could not come from Nature . Second.-
That there is no necessity for Christians reading the Old Testa-
ment, since they have everything in the New. Third.- They
deny Tradition. Fourth.- They assert that in the Divine Essence
there is but one Person . Fifth. -That the Son of God is impro-
perly called God. Sixth.- That the Holy Ghost is not a Divine
Person, but merely a Divine power. Seventh. - That Jesus Christ
is true man, but not a mere man, for he was honoured by the
filiation of God, inasmuch as he was formed without the assistance
of man ; and they also blasphemously assert that he did not exist.
-
before the Blessed Virgin . Eighth. They deny that God assumed
human nature in unity of person . Ninth.- That Christ is our
Saviour, only because he showed us the way of salvation . Tenth.-
Man was not immortal, nor had he original justification before he
committed original sin. Eleventh.- Christ did not consummate
his sacrifice on the Cross, but only when he went into heaven .
Twelfth.-Christ did not rise from the dead by his own power ;
the body of Christ was annihilated after his Ascension, and it is
only a spiritual body that he has in heaven . Thirteenth.-Baptism
is not necessary for salvation, nor is grace acquired by it. Four-
teenth .---We receive mere bread and wine in the Eucharist, and
these symbols are only of use to remind us of the death of Christ.
Fifteenth. - The Socinians follow the Pelagians in the matter of
Grace, and say that our natural strength alone is sufficient to
observe the Law. Sixteenth.- God has not an infallible knowledge
of future things which depend on the free will of man. Seven-
teenth . The soul does not survive after death ; the wicked are
annihilated, with the exception of those who will be alive on the
day of judgment, and these will be condemned to everlasting fire ;

(3) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 1. (4) Gotti, cit. n. 2. (5) Nat. Alex. n. 2 ; Gotti, n. 3.
358 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

but the damned will not suffer for ever. Eighteenth .- They
teach, with Luther, that the Church failed, and did not continually
exist. Nineteenth -That Antichrist began to exist when the
Primacy of the Bishop of Rome was established . (It is remarkable
that heretics of every class attack the Primacy of the Pope. )
Twentieth. That the words, " Thou art Peter, and on this rock,"
& c. , were addressed equally to the other Apostles as to Peter.
Twenty-first. That the words, " The gates of hell shall not pre-
vail against it," do not mean that the Church can never fail.
Twenty-second.- That the keys given to St. Peter have no other
meaning but this : That he had the power of declaring who did
or did not belong to the state of those who enjoy the Divine
Grace. Twenty-third. They deny that we should have faith in
General Councils. Twenty-fourth .-They deny that it is lawful
for Christians to defend their lives by force against unjust aggres-
sors , for it is impossible, they say, that God would permit a pious
and religious man to be placed in these circumstances, so that
there would be no way of saving himself unless by shedding the
blood of another. Besides, they say, that it is even worse to kill
an aggressor than an enemy , for he who kills an enemy kills one
who has already done him an injury ; but he who kills an aggressor
kills one who has as yet done him no injury, and only desires to
injure him and kill him ; and even he cannot be sure that the
aggressor intends to kill him at all, as, perhaps, he only intends to
terrify him, and rob him then with more ease to himself. Here
are the original words of the proposition, as quoted by Noel
Alexander, error 39 : " Non licere Christianis vitam suam, suo-
rumque contra latrones, et invasores vi opposita defendere, si
possint ; quia fieri non potest, ut Deus hominem vere pium , ipsique
ex animo confidentem, tali involvi patiatur periculo, in quo ipsum
servatum velit, sed non aliter, quam sanguinis humani effusione.
Homicidium aggressoris pro graviori delicto habendum esse, quam
ipsam vindictam. Vindicando enim retribuo injuriam jam accep-
tam : at hic occido hominem , qui me forsan nondum læserat, nedum
occiderat, sed qui voluntatem tantum habuit me lædendi , aut occi-
dendi ; imo de quo certo scire non possum, an me animo occidendi ,
et non potius terrendi tantum, quo tutius me spoliari possit, aggre-
diatur." Twenty-fifth - That it is not necessary for Preceptors to
have a Mission from the Superiors of the Church, and that the
words of St. Paul, " How shall they preach if they be not sent ?"
are to be understood when they preach doctrines unheard till then,
such as the doctrine preached by the Apostles to the Gentiles, and,
therefore, a Mission was necessary for them. I omit many other
errors of less importance, and refer the reader to Noel Alexander,
who treats the subject diffusely. The worst is, that this sect still
exists in Holland and Great Britain. Modern Deists may be called
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 359

followers of Socinus, as appears from the works they are every day
publishing. * The Socinians say of their founder, Faustus :
Toto licet Babylon destruxit tecta Lutherus,
Muros Calvinus, sed fundamenta Socinus (6).

Well may this be said, for the Socinians deny the most funda-
mental articles of the faith.

CHAPTER XIII.

HERESIES OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES.

ARTICLE I.

ISAAC PERIERES, MARK ANTHONY DE DOMINIS , WILLIAM


POSTELLUS , AND BENEDICT SPINOSA.

1. Isaac Perieres, Chief of the Pre-Adamites ; abjures his Heresy. 2. Mark Anthony de
Dominis ; his Errors and Death. 3. William Postellus ; his Errors and Conversion ;
4. Benedict Spinosa, Author of a new Sort of Atheism. 5. Plan of his impious System ;
his unhappy Death.

1. ISAAC PERIERES, a native of Aquitaine, lived in this century.


He was at first a follower of Calvin, but afterwards founded the
sect of the Pre-Adamites, teaching that, previous to the creation of
Adam, God had made other men. The Old Testament , he says,
speaks only of Adam and Eve , but says nothing of the other men
who existed before them, and these, therefore, were not injured by
original sin, nor did they suffer from the Flood. He fell into this
error because he rejected tradition , and, therefore, his opinion
appeared consonant to reason, and not opposed to the Scripture.
He published a treatise in Holland on the Pre-Adamites, in 1655.
He was convinced of the fallacy of his opinions, both by Catholics
and Calvinists, and his life even was in danger from both one and
the other, so he at last recognized the authority of constant and
universal tradition, and in the Pontificate of Alexander VII . re-
nounced all his heresies, and returned to the Church ( 1 ) .
2. Mark Anthony de Dominis was another of the remarkable
heretics of this century. He joined the Jesuits at first in Verona ,
but left them , either because he did not like the restraint of disci-
pline, or was dismissed for some fault. He was afterwards elevated ,

(6) Gotti, c. 115, sec. 3, n. 15 ; Van Ranst, p. 308. (1) Berti, Brev. Hist. t. 2,
sec. 17 ; Bernini, t. 4, sec. 17, c. 5.

* N.B. This was written in 1765, or thereabouts.


360 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

we know not how, to the bishopric of Segni, by Clement VIII .,


and was subsequently translated to the archbishopric of Spalatro by
Paul V. He did not hold this diocese long, for he was sued and
condemne to pay a pension, charged on the diocese by the Pope
d
with his consent before he was appointed . He was so chagrined
with the issue of the case that he resolved to be revenged on the
Apostolic See, and went to England in 1616, and there published
a pestilent work, " De Republica Christina." In this book he has
the temerity to assert that out of the Roman Catholic religion,
Calvinis , Lutheranism, and the Anabaptist doctrines, a sound and
m
orthodox religion could be formed, and his mode of doing this- of
uniting truth and error in this impossible union-is even more
foolish than the thing itself. After residing six years in England,
agitated by remorse, he was desirous of changing his life, and
returning once more to the Catholic Church , but he was dreadfully
agitated , between the desire of repentance and the despair of par-
don ; he feared he would be lost altogether. In this perplexity he
consulted the Spanish ambassador, then resident in England, and
he offered his influence with the Holy See, and succeeded so well
that Mark Anthony went to Rome, threw himself at the Pope's
feet, and the Sovereign Pontiff was so satisfied that his repentance
was' sincere, that he once more received him into favour . Soon
after he published a document in which he solemnly and clearly
retracts all that he had ever written against the doctrine of the
Church, so that to all appearance he was a sincere penitent and a
true Catholic . Still he continued to correspond privately with the
Protestant , till God removed him from the world by a sudden
s
death . His writings and papers were then examined , and his
heresy was dproved . A process was instituted ; it was proved that
he meditate a new act of apostacy , and so his body and painted
effigy were publicly burned by the commoni hangman ineth most
reeveng e
public place in Rome-the Campo de Fior , to show th
s h
it (2).
that God will take on the enemie of the Fa
s nton er
3. William Postellu , or Postel , was born
l in Bare , in Low
a n d y ne d ph il os op her Or ie nt al traveller
Nor m ; he was a lear , and ,
remarkable as a linguist , but fell into errors of Faith .
and was ta
Some even go so far as to say, that in his work, called Virgo Vene ,
e n d e a v o u rs to ov e th at n d ma id of Ve ni ce ca ll ed M o t her
h e pr a ol ,
r minine sex
Johanna of Venice , was the Saviou of the fe .
ge
mund, however, defends him from this char , and says he Fl wrorote
i-
th is cu ri ou s w o r k me re ly to pr ai se th is la dy ,yw h o w a s a gr ea t fr ie nd
cuni ar
ly
of his , and frequent afforded him pe assistance. He lived
e
som time also in Rome, and joined the Jesu its , but they soon dis-
rdinary opinions d
missed him , on account of the extrao he professe .
e a s ch ar ge d th he re sy n d c o n d e mned pe rp et ua l impri-
H w wi , a to

(2) Van Ranst, sec. 17, p. 525 ; Bernin , t. 4, sec . 17, c. 1, 2, 3 ; Berti, loc . cit.
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 361

sonment, by the Inquisition ; but he escaped to France, and his


fame as a linguist procured him a favourable reception from King
Charles IX. , and the learned of that country. He then wrote
several works, filled with the most extravagant errors, as " De
Trinitate," " De Matrice Mundi," " De Omnibus Sectis salvandis,"
" De futura Nativitate Mediatoris," and several others of the same
stamp. He was reprimanded by the Faculty of Theology, and the
magistracy of Paris, for these writings, but as he refused to retract
them, he was confined in the monastery of St. Martin des Champes ,
and there he got the grace of repentance, for he retracted every-
thing he had written, and subjected all to the judgment of the
Church. He then led a most religious life in the monastery, and
died on the 7th of September, 1581 , being nearly a hundred years
old . Some time previously he published a very useful book, en-
titled " De Orbis Concordia," in which he defends the Catholic
religion against Jews , Gentiles, Mahometans, and heretics of every
shade (3).
4. Benedict Spinosa was born in Amsterdam, in 1632. His
parents were Jewish merchants, who were expelled from Portugal,
and, with numbers of his co-religionists, took refuge in Holland.
He preferred the Jewish religion at first ; he next became a Chris-
tian, at least nominally, for it is said he never was baptized ; and
he ended by becoming an Atheist. He studied Latin and German
under a physician, called Francis Van Dendedit, who was after-
wards invited to France, and entering into a conspiracy against
the King, ended his life on the scaffold ; and it is thought that
from this man he imbibed the first seeds of Atheism. In his youth
he studied the Rabbinical theology, but, disgusted with the pueri-
lities and nonsense which form the greater part of it, he gave it up,
and applied himself to philosophy, so he was excommunicated by
the Jews, and was even in danger of his life from them. He,
therefore, separated himself altogether from the synagogue, and
laid the foundation of his atheistical system. He was a follower
of the opinions of Des Cartes, and took his principles as a base
on which to establish his own by geometrical dissertations, and he
published a treatise to this effect, in 1664. In the following year he
published another work, " De Juribus Ecclesiasticorum ," in which,
following the opinion of Hobbes, he endeavours to prove that
priests should teach no other religion but that of the state. Not
to be interrupted in his studies, he went into retirement altogether,
and published a most pestilent work, " Tractatus Theologico-
Politicus," which was printed in Amsterdam or Hamburg, and in
which he lays down the principles of his atheistical doctrine .
4. In this work he speaks of God as the Infinite, the Eternal ,
the Creator of all things , while, in fact, he denies his existence,

(4) Gotti, loc. cit.; Van Ranst, sec. 17, p. 346.


362 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

and does away with the Divinity altogether, for he says that the
world is a mere work of nature, which necessarily produced all
creatures from all eternity. That which we call God , he says, is
nothing else but the power of nature diffused in external objects ,
which , he says, are all material . The nature of all things , he says,
is one substance alone, endowed with extension and mind, and it
is active and passive ; passive, as to itself-active, inasmuch as it
thinks. Hence he supposes that all creatures are nothing but
modifications of this substance ; the material ones modifications of
the passive substance, and the spiritual ones—that is, what we call
spiritual, for he insists that all are material- being modifications
of the active substance. Thus, according to his opinion, God is, at
the same time, Creator and Creation , active and passive, cause and
effect. Several authors, as Thomasius, Moseus, Morus, Buet, Bayle,
and several others, Protestants even, combated this impious system
by their writings . Even Bayle, though an Atheist himself, like
Spinosa, refuted it in his Dictionary. I , also, in my work on the
Truth ofthe Faith (4 ) , have endeavoured to show the incoherence
of the principles on which he founds his doctrines, and, therefore ,
I do not give it a particular refutation in this work. Notwith-
standing the monstrosity of his system, Spinosa had followers ; and
it is even said, that there are some at present in Holland , though
they do not publicly profess it, only among themselves. The
work itself was translated into several languages, but its sale was
prohibited by the States of Holland . Spinosa died at the Hague,
on the 23rd of February, 1677, in the 59th year of his age. Some
say, that his servants being all at church on a Sunday, found him
dead on their return , but others tell that he was dying of consump-
tion, and feeling death approaching, and knowing that it is natural
for every one to call on God, or some superhuman power, to assist
him, at that awful moment, he, dreading to call on God for assist-
ance, or to let it be seen that he repented of his doctrine, ordered
that no one should be allowed into his chamber, and there at last
he was found dead (5) .

ARTICLE II.

THE ERRORS OF MICHAEL BAIUS .

6. Michael Baius disseminates his unsound Doctrine, and is opposed. 7. St. Pius V.
condemns seventy-nine Propositions of Baius, and he abjures them. Retractation
written by Baius, and confirmed by Pope Urban VIII.

6. MICHAEL BAIUS was born in Malines, in Flanders, in 1513,


was made a Doctor of the University of Louvain, in 1550 , and sub-
sequently Dean of the same University. He was a man of learning,

(4) Verita della Fede, Par. 1, c. 6, s. 5. (5) Gotti, cit. in fin.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 363

and of an exemplary life, but fond of new opinions, which he


maintained in his works, published about 1560 ( 1 ) , and thus he
sowed the first seeds of that discord which disturbed the Church in
the following century. Some Franciscan Friars thought his doctrines
not sound, and submitted them, in eighteen chapters , to the Faculty
of Sorbonne, and that learned body judged them worthy of censure.
This only added fuel to the fire, and the party of Baius published
an Apology in opposition to the censures of the Parisian University.
Cardinal Commendon, who was then in the Low Countries, sent by
the Pope for some other affairs, thought himself called on to inter-
fere, as Apostolic Legate, and imposed silence on both parties, but
in vain, for one of the Superiors of the Franciscans punished some
of his subjects for defending the doctrines of Baius, and this pro-
ceeding caused a great uproar. At last the Governor of the Low
Countries was obliged to interfere to prevent the dispute from going
any further (2).
7. Some time after this Baius was sent by Philip II., as his
Theologian, to the Council of Trent, together with John Hessel,
and Cornelius, Bishop of Ghent (not Cornelius Jansenius, Bishop
of Ipres) , all Doctors of Louvain . His opinions were not examined
in the Council of Trent, though he had already printed his works
on Free Will, Justification, and Sacrifice . When he returned from
the Council he printed his Treatises on the Merit of Works , the
Power of the Wicked, on Sacraments in general, on the Form of
Baptism ; and hence his opinions were spread more exensively, and
disputes grew more violent, so that at last the Holy See was obliged
to interfere. St. Pius V. then, in a particular Bull, which begins,
" Ex omnibus affectionibus," after a rigorous examination , con-
demned seventy-nine propositions of Baius (in globo) as heretical,
erroneous , suspect, rash, scandalous, and offensive to pious ears, but
without specifying them in particular, and with this clause , “ that
some of them might, in rigour, be sustained, and in the proper
sense which the authors had," or as others explain it, “ that
although some of them might be in some way sustained , still the
Pope condemns them in the proper and rigorous sense of the
authors." Here are the words of the Bull : " Quas quidem sen-
tentias stricto coram nobis examine ponderatas, quamquam nonnullæ
aliquo pacto sustineri possent, in rigore et proprio verborum sensu
ab assertoribus intento , hæreticas, erroneas, suspectas, temerarias,
scandalosas, et in pias aures offensionem immittentes damnamus .'
The name of Baius was not inserted in the Bull in 1567 , nor did
Pius command that it should be affixed in the public places, as is
customary, but, wishing to act with mildness , consigned it to
Cardinal Granvell, Archbishop of Mechlin, then in Rome , telling
him to notify it to Baius, and to the University of Louvain , and

(1) Possevin. t. 2, in M. Bajum. (2) Gotti, Ver. Rel . t. 2, c. 116 ; Bernin. sec. 16.
364 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

to punish, by censures or other penalties, all who refused to receive


it. The Cardinal discharged his commission by his Vicar, Maxi-
milian Mabillon . The Bull was notified to the University , and
accepted by the Faculty, who promised not to defend any more
the Articles condemned in it, and Baius promised the same, though
he complained that opinions were condemned as his which were
not his at all, nor could he be pacified, but wrote to the Pope, in
1579 , in his defence. The Pope answered him in a Brief, that his
cause had already undergone sufficient examination , and exhorted
him to submit to the judgment already passed . This Brief was
presented to him by Mabillon , who reprimanded him harshly for
daring to write to the Pope after the sentence had been once given,
and intimated to him , that he incurred an Irregularity by the pro-
ceeding. Baius then humbled himself, and prayed to be dispensed
from the Irregularity. Mabillon answered that he could not do so
till Baius would abjure his errors. He asked to see the Bull, to
know what errors he was to abjure . Mabillon said he had not the
Bull by him, and prevailed on him there and then to abjure in his
hands all his errors. He was then absolved from all censures, with-
out giving any written document, and the matter was private
between them (3) .
8. After all that, there were not wanting others who defended
the opinions of Baius , so after the death of St. Pius V. , his successor,
Gregory XIII . , in his Bull Provisionis Nostra, expedited in 1579 ,
confirmed the Bull of St. Pius, and published it first in Rome, and
then had it presented to the Faculty of Louvain, and to Baius him-
self, by Father Francis Toledo, afterwards raised to the purple by
Clement VIII ., who prevailed on Baius to submit quietly, and
send a written retractation to the Pope, as follows : " Ego Michael
de Bajo agnosco, et profiteor, me ex variis colloquiis cum Rev. P.
Francisco Toledo ita motum, et perauctum esse, ut plane mihi ha-
beam persuasum, earum sententiarum damnationem jure factum
esse. Fateor insuper ex iisdem sententiis in nonnullis libellis a me
in lucem editis contineri in eo sensu , in quo reprobantur. Denique
declaro ab illis omnibus me recedere, neque posthac illas defendere
velle : Lovanii, 24 Mart. 1580." The Faculty of Louvain then
passed a law, that no one should be matriculated to the University,
unless he first promised to observe the foregoing Bulls. Urban VIII . ,
in the year 1641 , in another Bull, which begins, " In eminenti,"
confirmed the condemnation of Baius, in conformity with the two
preceding Bulls, and this Bull was received by the Sorbonne (4) .
Baius died about the year 1590, and as he was born in 1513 , he must
have been seventy-seven years of age. The system of Baius and
his errors will be seen in the Refutation XII . of this volume.

(3) Gotti, cit. s. 3, n. 1 , 2 . (4) Gotti, Ver. Rel. c. 118, s. 1, n. 1 .


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 365

ARTICLE III.

THE ERRORS OF CORNELIUS JANSENIUS.

9. Cornelius, Bishop of Ghent, and Cornelius, Bishop of Ipres ; his Studies and Degrees.
10. Notice of the condemned Work of Jansenius. 11. Urban VIII. condemns the
Book of Jansenius in the Bull " In eminenti ;" the Bishops of France present the
Five Propositions to Innocent X. 12. Innocent condemns them in the Bull " Cum
occasione ;" Notice of the Propositions. 13. Opposition of the Jansenists ; but
Alexander VIII. declares that the Five Propositions are extracted from the Book,
and condemned in the Sense of Jansenius ; Two Propositions of Arnould condemned.
14. Form of Subscription commanded by the Pope to be made. 15. The Religious
Silence. 16. The Case of Conscience condemned by Clement XI. in the Bull Vineam
Domini. 16. The Opinion, that the Pontificate of St. Paul was equal to that of St.
Peter, condemned.

9. I SHOULD remark, first of all, that there were in Flanders,


almost at the same time, two of the name of Cornelius Jansenius,
both Doctors and Professors of the renowned University of Lou-
vain. The first was born in Hulst, in the year 1510, and taught
theology to the Premonstratentian Monks for twelve years, and
during that time composed his celebrated book Concordia Evan-
gelica, and added his valuable Commentaries to it. He then
returned to Louvain , and was made Doctor. He was next sent to
the Council of Trent, by King Philip II ., together with Baius, and,
on his return, the King appointed him to the Bishopric of Ghent,
where, after a holy life, he died in 1576 , the sixty-sixth year of
his age, leaving, besides his great work, De Concordia, several
valuable Treatises on the Old Testament (1 ) . The other Jan-
senius was born in the village of Ackoy, near Leerdam, in Holland ,
in 1585. He completed his philosophical studies in Utrecht, and
his theological in Louvain , and then travelled in France , where he
became united in the closest friendship with Jean du Verger de
Hauranne, Abbot of St. Cyran. On his return to Louvain he was
appointed, at first Professor of Theology, and afterwards of Scrip-
ture. His Commentaries on the Pentateuch and Gospels were
afterwards printed , and no fault has ever been found with them.
He wrote some works of controversy also, in defence of the Catholic
Church, against the Ministers of Bois- le- Duc . Twice he went to
Spain to arrange some affairs for his University, and at last was
appointed Bishop of Ipres, in 1635 ( 2).
10. Jansenius never printed his work Augustinus, the fruit of
twenty years ' labour, during his lifetime, but charged his executors
to put it to press. In this work, at the end ofthe book De Gratia
Christi, in the Epilogue, he says that he does not mean to assert
that all that he wrote concerning the Grace of Christ should be
held as Catholic doctrine, but that it was all taken from the works
of St. Augustin ; he, however, declares that he himself is a fallible

(1) Bernin. t. 4, sec. 18, l. 3, in fine. (2) Bernin. cit.


366 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

man, subject to err, and that if the obscurity of some passages


in the Saint's works deceived him, that he would be happy to
be convinced of his error, and, therefore, he submitted it all to
the judgment of the Apostolic See-" Ut illum teneam (he says)
si tenendum , damnem si damnamdum esse judicaverit" ( 3) . He
died on the 6th of May, 1638 , and left his book to his chaplain ,
Reginald Lamée, to be printed , repeating in his will that he did
not think there was anything in his book to be corrected, but as it
was his intention to die a faithful child of the Roman Church , that
he submitted it in everything to the judgment of the Holy See-
" Si Sedes Romana aliquid mutari velit, sum obediens filius , et illius
Ecclesiæ, in qua semper vixi, usque adhunc lectum mortis obediens
sum . Ita inea suprema voluntas" (4). Would to God that the
disciples imitated their master in obedience to the Holy See, then
the disputes and heartburnings which this book caused would
never have had existence .
11. Authors are very much divided regarding the facts which
occurred after the death of Jansenius . I will then succinctly state
what I can glean from the majority of writers on the subject. It
is true he protested , both in the work itself and in his will, that he
submitted his book Augustinus in everything to the judgment of
the Apostolic See ; still his executors at once put it into the hands
of a printer, and notwithstanding the protest of the author, and the
prohibition of the Internuncio and the University of Louvain, it
was published in Flanders in 1640, and in Rouen in 1643. It was
denounced to the Roman Inquisition, and several theologians com-
posed Theses and Conclusions against it, and publicly sustained them
in the University of Louvain. An Apology in favour of the work
appeared in the name of the publisher, and soon the press groaned
with treatises in favour of, or opposed to, Jansenius, so that all the
Netherlands were disturbed by the dispute. The Congregation of
the Inquisition then published a decree forbidding the reading of
Jansenius's work, and also the Conclusions and Theses of his adver-
saries, and all publications either in favour of or opposed to him.
Still peace was not restored ; so Urban VIII. , to quiet the matter,
published a Bull renewing the constitution of Pius V. and Gregory
XIII. In this he prohibited the book of Jansenius, as containing
propositions already condemned by his predecessors , Pius V. and
Gregory XIII. The Jansenists exclaimed against this Bull ; it was,
they said, apocryphal, or at all events vitiated. Several propo-
sitions extracted from the book were presented to the Faculty of
Sorbonne in 1649 , to have judgment passed on them , but the Sor-
bonne refused to interfere, and referred the matter to the judgment
of the bishops, and these, assembled in the name of the Gallican

(3) Gotti, s. 3, n. 5. (4) Pallav. His. Con. Trid. l. 15 , c. 7, n. 13 ; Collet. Cont.


Tournel. de Grat. 4, p. 1.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 367

clergy in 1653, declined passing any sentence, but referred it alto-


gether to the judgment of the Pope . Eighty-five bishops, in 1650 ,
wrote to Pope Innocent X., the successor of Urban , thus (5) : " Bea-
tissime Pater, majores causas ad Sedem Apostolicam referre, solem-
nus Ecclesiæ mos est quem Fides Patri nunquam deficiens perpetuo
retineri pro jure suo postulat." They then lay before the Holy
Father the five famous propositions extracted from the book of Jan-
senius, and beg the judgment of the Apostolic See on them.
12. Innocent committed the examination (6) of these propositions
to a congregation of five cardinals and thirteen theologians , and they
considered them for more than two years, and held thirty-six Con-
ferences during that time, and the Pope himself assisted at the last
ten. Louis de Saint Amour and the other deputies of the Jansenist
party were frequently heard, and finally, on the 31st of May, 1563,
the Pope, in the Bull Cum occasione, declared the five propositions
which follow heretical :-
" First. Some commandments of God are impossible to just men,
even when they wish and strive to accomplish them according to
their present strength, and grace is wanting to them by which they
may be possible to them. This we condemn as rash, impious, blas-
phemous, branded with anathema, and heretical, and as such we
condemn it.
"Second. We never resist interior grace in the state of corrupt
nature. This we declare heretical, and as such condemn it.
“ Third.—To render us deserving or otherwise in the state of
corrupt nature, liberty, which excludes restraint, is sufficient . This
we declare heretical , and as such condemn it.
" Fourth. - The Semipelagians admitted the necessity of interior
preventing grace for every act in particular, even for the commence-
ment of the Faith, and in this they were heretics, inasmuch as they
wished that this grace was such that the human will could neither
resist it nor obey it. We declare this false and heretical, and as such
condemn it.
" Fifth. It is Semipelagianism to say that Jesus Christ died or
shed his blood for all men in general . This we declare false, rash,
scandalous, and understood in the sense that Christ died for the
salvation of the predestined alone, impious, blasphemous, contume-
lious, derogatory to the Divine goodness , and heretical, and as such
we condemn it ."
The Bull also prohibits all the faithful to teach or maintain the
propositions, otherwise they will incur the penalties of heretics.
Here are the original propositions :-
" Primam prædictarum Propositionum - Aliqua Dei præcepta
hominibus justis volentibus, et conantibus, secundum præsentes quas
habent vires , sunt impossibilia ; deest quoque illis gratia, qua possi-

(5) Gotti, loc. cit. c. 118. (6) Tournell. loc. cit.


368 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

bilia fiant : temerariam , impiam, blasphemam, anathemate damna-


tam , et hæreticam declaramus, et uti talem damnamus.
" Secundam.- Interiori gratiæ in statu naturæ lapsæ nunquam
resistitur : hæreticam declaramus, et uti talem damnamus.
" Tertiam.-Ad merendum, et demerendum in statu naturæ lapsæ
non requiritur in homine libertas a necessitate , sed sufficit libertas a
coactione : hæreticam declaramus, et uti talem damnamus.
66
Quartam .- Semipelagiani admittebant prævenientis gratiæ in-
terioris necessitatem ad singulos actus, etiam ad initium Fidei ; et in
hoc erant hæretici, quod vellent eam gratiam talem esse, cui posset
humana voluntas resistere, vel obtemperare : falsam et hæreticam
declaramus, et uti talem damnamus.
" Quintam .- Semipelagianum est dicere, Christum pro omnibus
omnino hominibus mortuum esse, aut Sanguinem fudisse : falsam,
temerariam , scandalosam, et intellectam eo sensu, ut Christus pro
salute dumtaxat Prædestinatorum mortuus sit, impiam, blasphemam,
contumeliosam, Divinæ pietati derogantem, hæreticam declaramus,
et uti talem damnamus (7)."
13. The whole Church accepted the Decree of Innocent, so the
partisans of Jansenius made two objections : First.-That the five
propositions were not those of Jansenius ; and secondly, that they
were not condemned in the sense of Jansenius ; and hence sprung
up the famous distinction of Law and Fact- Juris and Facti.
This sprung entirely from the just condemnation of the five propo-
sitions. Clement XI., in his Bull of 1705 , " Vineam Domini
Sabaoth," particularly on that account renews the condemnation of
the five propositions . Here are his words : " Inquieti homines
docere non sunt veriti : Ad obedientiam præfatis Apostolicis Con-
stitutionibus debitam non requiri, ut quis prædicti Janseniani libri
sensum in antedictis quinque propositionibus, sicut præmittitur,
damnatum interius, ut hæreticum damnet, sed satis esse, ut ea de re
obsequiosum (ut ipsi vocant) silentium teneatur. Quæ quidem
assertio quam absurda sit, et animabus fidelium perniciosa, satis
apparet, dum fallacis hujus doctrinæ pallio non deponitur error, sed
absconditur, vulnus tegitur, non curatur , Ecclesiæ illuditur, non
paretur, et data demum filiis inobedientiæ via sternitur ad fovendam
silentio hæresim, dum ipsam Jansenii doctrinam , quam ab Apos-
tolica Sede damnatam Ecclesia Universalis exhorruit, adhuc interius
abjicere, et corde improbare detrectent," &c . Hence, also, the
French bishops, assembled in 1654, by a general vote decided that
the five propositions were really and truly in the Book of Jansenius ,
and that they were condemned in the true and natural sense of
Jansenius, and the same was decided in six other assemblies.
Afterwards Alexander VII. , in the Bull expedited on the 16th of
October, 1656 , definitively and expressly declared : " Quinque pro-

(7) Tournelly, p. 250.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 369

positiones ex libro Cornelii Jansenii excerptas ac in sensu ab eodem


Cornelio intento damnatus fuisse." About the same time the Faculty
of Paris censured a proposition of Arnauld, who asserted (8 ),
" Duas propositiones nec esse in Jansenio nec ejus sensu damnatas
fuisse, adeoque circa partem illam Apostolicæ constitutionis sufficere
silentium Religiosum ."
14. The Gallican clergy, from 1655 used a Formula as follows :
"Quinque propositiones ex libro Jansenii extractas tanquam hæreticas
damnatas fuisse in eo ipso sensu quo illas docuit," and prescribed
that every one taking Orders should sign it. Several, however,
refused obedience , on the plea that unless the Pope commanded them ,
they could not be obliged to subscribe. A petition was, therefore ,
sent to Alexander VII. , begging him to order it to be done ; he
consented to the prayer, and issued a Bull on the 15th of February,
1656 , sanctioning the formula of an oath to which all should sub-
scribe . Here it is: " Ego N. Constitutioni Alexandri VII. , datæ
die 16. Octobr. an . 1656, me subjicio, et quinque propositiones
ex Jansenni libro, Augustinus, excerptas, et in sensu ab eodem
Auctore intento, prout illas sancta Sedes Apostolica damnavit sin-
cero animo damno, ac rejicio, et ita juro, sic me Deus adjuvet, et
hæc sancta Evangelia." The King sanctioned it also by royal
authority, and severe penalties were imposed on the disobedient (9) .
15. This put the Jansenists into a quandary ; some of them said
that the oath could not be taken without perjury, but others , of a
more hardened conscience, said that it might, for it was enough that
the person subscribing should have the intention of following the
doctrine of St. Augustine , which , they said , was that of Jansenius ,
and as to the fact externally, it was quite enough to keep a reverent
silence, and the Bishops of Alet, Pamiers, Angers, and Beauvais
were of this opinion ; but under Clement XI., the successor of
Alexander VII. , they gave in, and consented to subscribe them-
selves, and oblige their subjects to subscribe the condemnation of
the five propositions, without any restriction or limitation , and thus
peace was re-established ( 10). The Jansenists, however, would not
still yield ; the limitation of the religious silence was, they said , in-
serted in the Verbal Acts of the Diocesan Synods , and they, there-
fore, demanded that the silence should be approved by the Pope.
In this they acted unreasonably, for the four above-mentioned
bishops were admitted to peaceable communion , on condition of
signing purely, sincerely, and without any limitation whatever (11 ) .
In 1692 some other disputes arose concerning the subscription of
the Formula, and the bishops of Flanders added some other words
to it, to remove every means of deception. The Louvanians com-
plained to Innocent XII . of this addition, and he expedited two
Briefs, in 1694 and 1696, removing every means of subterfuge ( 12) .
(8) Libell. inscrip. Second Letter de M. Arnauld. (9) Tournelly, p. 253. (10) Ibid.
225. (11 ) Tournelly, ibid. (12) Ibid. p. 256.
2A
370 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

16. About the year 1702, the Jansenists again raised the point
of the religious silence, by the publication of a pamphlet, in which
it was said that Sacramental Absolution was denied to a clergyman
because he asserted that he condemned the five propositions , as far
as the law was concerned (jus) , but as to the fact that they were to
be found in Jansenius's book, that he considered it was quite enough
to preserve a religious silence on that point. This was the famous
Case of Conscience, on which forty Doctors of Paris decided that
absolution could not be refused to the clergyman. The Pope,
however, condemned this pretended silence by a formal decree,
" Ad perpetuam rei memoriam," on the 12th of January, 1703.
Many ofthe French bishops also condemned it, and more especially
Cardinal de Noailles, Archbishop of Paris, who likewise obliged the
forty doctors to retract their decision , with the exception of one
alone, who refused , and was, on that account, dismissed from the
Sorbonne, and that famous Faculty also branded their decision as
rash and scandalous, and calculated to renew the doctrines of Jan-
senius, condemned by the Church. Clement XI . expedited another
Bull , Vineam Domini, &c. , on the 16th of July, 1705 , condemning
the " Case of Conscience ," with various notes. All this was because
the distinction of Law and Fact (Juris et Facti) was put forth to
elude the just and legitimate condemnation of the five propositions
of Jansenius. This is the very reason Clement himself gives for
renewing the condemnation. His Bull was accepted by the whole
Church, and, first of all, by the assembly of the Gallican Church ;
thus the Jansenists could no longer cavil at the condemnation of the
book of their patron ( 13) . In the Refutation of the errors of Jan-
senism, we will respond to their subterfuges in particular.
17. We may as well remark here, that about this time an anony-22
mous work appeared , entitled, " De SS. Petri et Pauli Pontificatu,
in which the writer endeavoured to prove that St. Paul was,
equally with St. Peter, the Head of the Church. The author's in-
tention was not to exalt the dignity of St. Paul, but to depress the
primacy of St. Peter, and, consequently, of the Pope . The book
was referred to the Congregation of the Index, by Innocent XI.,
and its doctrine condemned as heretical by a public Decree ( 14) .
The author lays great stress on the ancient practice used in Pontifi-
cal Decrees, that of painting St. Paul on the right and St. Peter on
the left. That, however, is no proof that St. Paul was equally the
Head of the Church, and exercised equal authority with St. Peter,
for not to him but St. Peter, did Christ say, " Feed my sheep .'
Hence, St. Thomas says ( 15), " Apostolus fuit par Petro in execu-
tione, authoritatis, non in auctoritate regiminis." Again, if the
argument be allowed that, because St. Paul was painted to the
right of St. Peter, he was equal to him, would it not prove even that

(13) Jour. 257. (14) Gotti, c. 118, s. 4. (15) St. Thom. in cap.ii. ad Galatas.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 371

he was superior ? Some say that he was painted so , because, ac-


cording to the Roman custom, as is the case in the East, the left
hand place was more honourable than the right. Others, as St.
Thomas ( 16 ), give a different explanation . Bellarmine may be
consulted on this point ( 17) . The author also quotes in favour of
his opinion, the lofty praises given by the holy Fathers to St. Paul ;
but that is easily answered. He was praised, as St. Thomas says,
more than the other Apostles, on account of his special election , and
his greater labours and sufferings in preaching the Faith through
the whole world ( 18 ) . Not one of the Fathers, however, makes him
superior or equal to St. Peter, for the Church of Rome was not
founded by him but by St. Peter.

ARTICLE IV.

18. Quesnel is dismissed from the Congregation of the Oratory. 19. He publishes several
unsound Works in Brussels. 20. Is imprisoned, escapes to Amsterdam, and dies
excommunicated. 21. The Book he wrote. 22. The Bull " Unigenitus," con-
demning the Book. 23. The Bull is accepted by the King, the Clergy, and the
Sorbonne ; the Followers of Quesnel appeal to a future Council. 24. Several Bishops
also, and Cardinal de Noailles, appeal to a future Council likewise, but the Council
of Embrun declares that the Appeal should not be entertained. 25. The Consul-
tation of the Advocates rejected by the Assembly of the Bishops ; Cardinal de Noailles
retracts, and accepts the Bull ; the Bull is declared dogmatical by the Sorbonne and
the Bishops. 26. Three Principles of the System of Quesnel.

18. WHILE Clement XI . still sat on the chair of St. Peter,


Quesnel published his book, entitled , " The New Testament, with
Moral Reflections," &c. , which the Pope soon after prohibited by
the Bull Unigenitus. Quesnel was born in Paris, on the 14th of
July, 1634, and in 1657 was received by Cardinal de Berulle into
his Congregation of the Oratory. In a General Assembly of the
Oratory of France, held in 1678, it was ordained that each member
of the Congregation should sign a formula, condemnatory of the
doctrine of Baius and Jansenius, but Quesnel refused obedience,
and was consequently obliged to quit the Congregation , and left
Paris ; he then retired to Orleans (1).
19. As he was not in safety in France, he went to Brussels, in
1685 , and joined Arnauld, who had fled previously, and was con-
cealed there, and they conjointly published several works, filled
with Jansenistic opinions. They were both banished from Brus-
sels, in 1690 , and went to Delft, in Holland , first-afterwards, to
the Pais de Liege-and then again returned to Brussels . Quesnel ,
after having administered the last Sacraments, Arnauld changed his
dress, adopted a feigned name, and lived concealed in that city,
where he was elected by the Jansenists as their chief, and was
called by them the " Father Prior." From his hiding-place , he un-

(16) St. Thomas in cap. i. ad Gal. l. 1. (17) Bell, de Rom. Pontiff. c. 27. (18) St.
Thom. in 2 Cor. l. 3, c. n. (1) Tour. Comp. Theol. t. 5, p. 1, Diss. 9, p. 396.
372 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

ceasingly sent forth various pamphlets, defending and justifying his


conduct in opposing the decrees of the Popes, and the Ordinances
of the Sovereigns, condemning the appellants. This appears from
the sentence passed on his conduct, by the Archbishop of Mech-
lin (2).
20. The Archbishop of Mechlin , in 1703 , determined to extir-
pate the tares sown by the works of Quesnel, and , empowered by
the authority of the King of Spain, his Sovereign , caused a strict
search to be made for the author and his faithful friend, Gerbero-
nius, and on the 30th of May, they were both confined in the
Archiepiscopal prison . Gerberonius remained there until 1710 ,
when Cardinal de Noailles induced him to retract and sign the
formula, and he was liberated , but Quesnel was detained only
about three months, having escaped through a small hole made in
the wall by his friend (he was a very small man) , and taken refuge
in Holland, where he continued to write in favour of Jansenism.
He was called a second Paul, after his escape , by his disciples, and
he himself, writing to the Vicar of Mechlin , says, that he was
liberated from his prison by an angel like St. Peter . The differ-
ence was great, however ; St. Peter did not concert the means of
escape with his friends outside, by writing with a nail on a plate
of lead, and telling them to break a hole at night through a certain
part of the wall of his prison, as Quesnel did ( 3). A process was
instituted against him in Brussels, and on the 10th of November,
1704 , the Archbishop declared him excommunicated , guilty of
Jansenism and Baiism , and condemned him to inclusion in a mo-
nastery till the Pope would absolve him (4). Quesnel took no other
notice of the sentence than by writing several pamphlets against
the Archbishop , and even attacked the Pope himself, for the con-
demnation of his works . The unfortunate man , obstinate to the
last, died under Papal censure, in Amsterdam, on the 2nd of
December, 1719 , in the eighty-fifth year of his age (5) .
21. We should remark concerning the book of Quesnel, " The
New Testament with Moral Reflections," &c. (it was published in
French) , that in 1671 , while he still lived in France, he only pub-
lished, at first, a small work in duodecimo , containing the French
translation of the Four Gospels, and some very short reflections,
extracted principally from a collection of the words of Christ, by
Father Jourdan , Superior of the Oratory. By degrees , he added to
it, so that sixteen years after the printing ofthe first edition , in
1687 , he published another, in three small volumes, adding other
reflections on the whole of the New Testament . In 1693, he
published another larger edition in eight volumes, and another
again in 1695 , with the approbation of Cardinal de Noailles , then

(2) Tour. p. 397 ; Gotti, c. 119, s. 1 , n. 3. (3) Tour. p. 309 ; Gotti, n. 5.


(4) Tour. p. 405. (5) Tour. p. 406.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 373

Bishop of Chalons, first making some slight corrections on the


edition of 1693. He published the last edition of all in 1699 , but
this had not the approbation of the Cardinal. In a word, for
twenty-two years, that is, from 1671 to 1693 , he laboured to
perfect this work, but not correcting, but rather adding to the
errors that deformed it ; for in the first edition five errors alone
were condemned-the twelfth , thirteenth, thirtieth, sixty-second,
and sixty-fifth ; in the second , more than forty-five were published ;
and they amounted up to the number of one hundred and one in
the later editions, when they were condemned by the Bull Uni-
genitus. We should observe, that it was only the first edition of
1671 that had the approbation of the Bishop of Chalons, and the
subsequent editions, containing more than double the matter of the
first, were printed with only the approbation given in 1671 (6).
The followers of Quesnel boast, that the work was generally
approved of by all ; but Tournelly ( 7) shows that the greater part
of the Doctors and Bishops of France condemned it. They also
boast that Bossuet gave it his approval, but there are several proofs ,
on the contrary, to show that he condemned it (8) .
22. When the complete work appeared in 1693 , it was at once
censured by theologians, and prohibited by several bishops , and
was condemned by a particular Brief of Pope Clement XI . , in
1708. Three French bishops prohibited it by a formal condemna-
tion in 1711 , and Cardinal de Noailles felt so mortified at seeing
these edicts published in Paris, condemning a work marked with
his approbation, as heretical, that he condemned the three edicts.
This excited a great tempest in France, so the King, with the
consent of several bishops, and of Cardinal de Noailles himself,
requested Pope Clement XI. to cause a new examination of the
work to be made, and, by a solemn Bull , to censure any errors
it might contain. The Pope, then, after two years' examination
by Cardinals and Theologians, published in 1713, on the 8th
of September, the Bull Unigenitus Dei Filius, &c . , in which he
condemned a hundred and ten propositions , extracted from the work,
as false, captious , rash , erroneous, approximating to heresy, and in
fine, respectively heretical, and recalling the propositions of Jan-
senius, in the sense in which they were condemned. The Bull,
besides, delared that it was not the intention of his Holiness to
approve of all else contained in the work, because while marking
these hundred and ten propositions, it declares that it contains
others of a like nature, and that even the very text of the New
Testament itself was vitiated in many parts (9 ) .
23. His Most Christian Majesty, on the reception of the Bull of
Clement from the Nuncio, ordered an assembly of the bishops, to

(6) Tour. p. 409 , 310. (7) Tour. p. 412. (8) Tour. p. 419. (9) Tour.
p. 426 & seq.; Gotti, 2, n. 3, 4.
374 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

receive and promulgate it solemnly, and, in fact, after several pri-


vate conferences , the assembly was held on the 23rd of January ,
1714 , and the Bull was received , together with the condemnation
of the hundred and one propositions, in the same manner as the
Pope had condemned them , and a form of acceptation was drawn
up for all the bishops of the kingdom, that the Bull might be
everywhere promulgated, and also a formula by which the clergy
should declare their acceptance of it. The followers of Quesnel
said, that the form of acceptation was restricted and conditional,
but if we take the trouble of reading the declaration of the assembly,
given word for word by Tournelly (P. 431 ), we will clearly see
that there is neither restriction nor condition in it. This declara-
tion was subscribed by forty bishops ; eight alone refused , and the
principal among them was Cardinal de Noailles ; they had some
difficulty, they said, about some of the condemned propositions ,
and considered it would be wise to ask an explanation from the
Pope on the subject. When the acceptation of the Bull, by the
assembly, was notified to Louis XIV. , he ordered , on the 14th of
the following month of February, that it should be promulgated
and put into execution through the whole kingdom . The bishops
wrote to the Pope in the name of the assembly, that they had
received the Bull with joy , and would use all their endeavours that
it should be faithfully observed ; and the Pope, in his reply, con-
gratulated them on their vigilance , and complained of those few
bishops who refused to conform to the assembly. The Faculty of
Paris, also, accepted the Bull on the 5th of March, 1714 , imposing
a penalty, to be incurred, ipso facto, by all members of the Uni-
versity refusing its acceptance. It was received in the same way
by the other Universities, native and foreign , as Douay, Ghent,
Nantz, Louvain, Alcala, and Salamanca ( 10) . Notwithstanding
all , the partisans of Quesnel scattered pamphlets on every side
against the Bull . Two of them, especially, made the most noise,
the " Hexaplis," and the " Testimony of the Truth of the Church ;"
these were both condemned by the bishops congregated in 1715,
and those who still continued pertinaciously attached to their
erroneous opinions had only then recourse to an appeal from the
Bull of the Pope to a General Council.
24. Four bishops, to wit, those of Montpelier, Mirepoix , Sens,
and Boulogne, appealed on the 1st of March, 1717 , from the Bull
Unigenitus, to a future General Council. These four were soon
after joined by twelve others, and soon after that by eighteen dis-
sentients. This was the first time in the Catholic Church, that it
was ever known that the bishops of the very Sees where a dogma-
tical Bull was accepted, appealed against it. The appeal was,
therefore, justly rejected, both by the secular and ecclesiastical

(10) Tour. cit.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 375

authorities. In the year 1718, Cardinal de Noailles subscribed to


the appeal of the bishops, but still it was annulled by the Pope, and
towards the end of the year 1718 , about fifty of the bishops of
France published pastoral letters to their diocesans, ordering them
to yield unreserved obedience to the Bull : " Quippe quæ universa-
lis est Ecclesiæ judicium dogmaticum, a quo omnis appellatio est
nulla" ( 11 ) . The defenders of Quesnel only became more violent
in their opposition to the bishops after this, and the press groaned
with their pamphlets ; so in the year 1727, a Provincial Council
was held at Embrun, in which the Bishop of Sens was suspended
for refusing to subscribe to the Bull, which was declared to be the
dogmatical and unchangeable judgment of the Church, and it de-
cided that the appeal was, ipso jure, schismatical, and of no avail.
The whole proceeding there received the sanction of the Pope,
Benedict XIII . , and the King ( 12) .
25. The appellants then had recourse to the lawyers of Paris ,
and they published a " Consultum," in which they undertook to
invalidate the judgment of the Council, on account of several irre-
gularities. They were then joined by twelve bishops, who signed
a letter to the King, against the Council, but he strongly censured
the production, and ordered that all the bishops should be assembled
in Paris in an extraordinary assembly , and record their opinion on
the Consultum of the lawyers . On the 5th of May, 1728 , the
prelates assembled, and made a representation to the King that the
Consultum was not only not to the point, but that it smelt of heresy,
and was in fact heretical. The King, therefore, published a par-
ticular edict, ordering the Consultum to be set aside ( 13) . Soon
after this, in the same year, Cardinal de Noailles, now very far
advanced in years, yielded to the admonition of Benedict XIII . ,
and revoked his appeal, and sincerely accepted the Bull, prohibit-
ing all his diocesans from reading Quesnel's works. He sent his
retractation to the Pope, who was delighted to receive it. In about
six months after, he died ( 14 ) . In the year 1729 , the Faculty of
the Sorbonne again solemnly accepted the Bull, and revoked as far
as was necessary (quantum opus est), the appeal which appeared
under the name of the Faculty. The decree was signed by more
than six hundred masters, and was confirmed by the other Univer-
sities of the kingdom, and by the assembly of the clergy, in 1730.
Finally, the whole proceeding was approved by Clement XII . in
the same year, and the King ordered, by a solemn edict, that the
Bull should be observed as the perpetual law of the Church, and
of the kingdom . On the death of Benedict XIII ., in 1730 , his
successors, Clement XII. and Benedict XIV. , confirmed the
Bull (15 ).
26. Before we conclude Quesnel's history, we may as well see

(11) Tour. cit. (12) Tour. cit. (13) Tour. cit. (14) Tour. cit. (15) Tour. cit.
376 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

what his system was . It comprised, properly speaking, three con-


demned systems-those of Baius, of Jansenius , and of Richer .
The first condemned propositions of Quesnel agree with Jansenius's
system ofthe two delectations without deliberation , the celestial
and the terrestrial , one of which necessarily , by a relative necessity,
conquers the other. From this false principle several dreadful
consequences follow, such as that it is impossible for those persons
to observe the Divine law who have not efficacious grace ; that we
never can resist efficacious grace ; that the delectatio victrix , or
conquering delectation , drives man of necessity to consent ; and
several other maxims condemned in the five propositions of Jan-
senius. Some also , I recollect , savour of the doctrine condemned
in the second , ninth, and tenth propositions of Quesnel. In his
second proposition he says : " Jesu Christi gratia , principium efficax
boni cujuscunque generis, necessaria est ad omne opus bonum ;
absque illa (here is the error) non solum nihil fit , sed nec fieri
potest ." Hence he re-establishes the first proposition of Jansenius ,
that some ofthe Commandments of God are impossible to those
who have not efficacious grace. Arnold, as Tournelly tells us,
asserted the same thing, when he says ( 16) that Peter sinned in
denying Jesus Christ, because he wanted grace, and for this he was
condemned by the Sorbonne , and his name expunged from the list
of Doctors. Quesnel says just the same thing in his ninth proposi-
tion : " Gratia Christi est gratia suprema , sine qua confiteri Chris-
tum (mark this) nunquam possumus , et cum qua nunquam illum
abnegamus ;" and in the tenth proposition : " Gratia est operatio
manus Omnipotentis Dei, quam nihil impedire potest aut retar-
dare." Here another of the heretical dogmas of Jansenius is
renewed : " Interiori gratiæ nunquam resistitur. " In fine, if we
investigate the doctrines of both , we will find Jansenius and Quesnel
perfectly in accordance .
27. Quesnel's propositions also agree with the doctrine of Baius,
who says, that between vicious concupiscence and supernatural
charity, by which we love God above all things, there is no middle
love. Thus the forty-fourth proposition of Quesnel says : " Non
sunt nisi duo amores, unde volitiones et actiones omnes nostræ
nascuntur : amor Dei , qui omne agit propter Deum, quemque
Deus remuneratur, et amor quo nos ipsos, ac mundum diligimus,
qui quod ad Deum referendum est, non refert, et propter hoc ipsum
sit malus." The impious deductions from this system of Baius the
reader will find in the refutation of his heresy (Conf. xii .) .
28. The last propositions of Quesnel agree with the doctrine of
Richer, condemned in the Councils of Sens and Bagneres. See
his nineteenth proposition : " Ecclesia auctoritatem excommuni-
candi habet, ut eam exerceat per primos Pastores, de consensu

(16) Apud Tour. p. 745.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 377

saltem præsumpto totius Corporis." As the bishops said in the


Assembly, in 1714 , this was a most convenient doctrine for the
appellants, for as they considered themselves the purest portion of
the Church, they never would give their consent to the censures
fulminated against them, and, consequently, despised them.

ARTICLE V.

THE ERRORS OF MICHAEL MOLINOS .

29. The unsound Book of Molinos called the " Spiritual Guide." 30. His impious Doc-
trine, and the Consequences deduced from it. 31. His affected Sanctity ; he is found
out and imprisoned, with two of his Disciples. 32. He is condemned himself, as well
as his Works ; he publicly abjures his Errors and dies penitent. 33. Condemnation
of the Book entitled " The Maxims of the Saints."

29. THE heresy of the Beghards, of which we have already


treated (Chap. x . art. iv. n. 31 ) , was the source of the errors of Mo-
linos. He was born in the diocese of Saragossa, in Arragon , and
published his book, with the specious title of " The Spiritual Guide
which leads the Soul by an interior way to the acquisition of per-
fect Contemplation , and the rich treasure of internal Grace." It was
first printed in Rome, next in Madrid, then in Saragossa, and finally
in Seville, so that in a little time the poison infected Spain , Rome,
and almost all Italy. These maxims were so artfully laid down,
that they were calculated to deceive not alone persons of lax
morality, who are easily led astray, but even the purest souls, given
totally to prayer. We ought to remark, also , that the unfortu-
nate man did not, in this book, teach manifest errors, though he
opened a door by it for the introduction of the most shocking prin-
ciples (1).
30. Hence, the consequence was , that those who studied this
work were oppressed, as it were, by a mortal lethargy of contem-
plation and false quietism . Men and women used to meet together
in conventicles professing this new sort of contemplation ; they used
to go to Communion satisfied with their own spirit, without con-
fession or preparation ; they frequented the churches like idiots,
gazing on vacancy, neither looking to the altar where the Holy
Sacrament was kept, nor exciting their devotion by contemplating
the sacred images, and neither saying a prayer, nor performing any
other act of devotion . It would be all very well if they were satis-
fied with this idle contemplation and imaginary quietude of spirit,
but they constantly fell into gross acts of licentiousness, for they
believed that while the soul was united with God it was no harm to
allow the body unbridled license in sensuality, all which, they said,
proceeded solely from the violence of the devil or the animal pas-

( 1) Bernin. Hist. de Heres. t. 4, sec. 17, c. 8 ; Gotti, Ver. Rel. 120.


378 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

sions ; and they justified this by that text of Job (xvi. 18) : " These
things have I suffered without the iniquity of my hand, when I
offered pure prayers to God." Molinos, in his forty-ninth propo-
sition, gives an impious explanation to this text ; " Job ex violentia
Dæmonis se propriis manibus polluebat, " &c. ( 2 ) .
31. This hypocrite lived in Rome unfortunately for twenty-two
years, from the year 1665 till 1687 , and was courted by all, espe-
cially by the nobility, for he was universally esteemed as a holy
man, and an excellent guide in the way of spiritual life . His
serious countenance, his dress neglected, but always clerical, his
long and bushy beard, his venerably old appearance, and his slow
gait, all were calculated to inspire devotion, and his holy conversa-
tion caused him to be venerated by all who knew him. The
Almighty at length took compassion on his Church, and exposed
the author of such iniquity. Don Inigo Carracciolo , Cardinal of
St. Clement, discovered that the diocese of Naples was infected with
the poisonous error, and immediately wrote to the Pope, imploring
him to arrest the progress of the heresy by his supreme authority,
and several other bishops, not only in Italy, but even in France,
wrote to the same effect. When his Holiness was informed of this,
he published a circular letter through Italy, pointing out, not so
much the remedy as the danger of the doctrine which was extend-
ing itself privately. The Roman Inquisitors then , after taking in-
formation on the subject, drew up a secret process against Molinos,
and ordered his arrest. He was accordingly taken up, with two of
his associates, one a priest of the name of Simon Leone, and the
other a layman, called Anthony Maria, both natives of the village
of Combieglio, near Como, and all three were imprisoned in the
Holy Office (3) .
32. The Inquisition , on the 24th of November, 1685 , prohibited
the " Spiritual Guide" of Molinos, and on the 28th of August,
1687 , condemned all his works, and especially sixty-eight proposi-
tions extracted from his perfidious book " The Guide," and of
which he acknowledged himself the author, as we read in Ber-
nini (4). He was condemned himself, together with his doctrine,
and after twenty-two months' imprisonment, and the conviction of
his errors and crimes, he professed himself prepared to make the act
of abjuration . On the 3rd of September, then, in 1687 , he was
brought to the Church of " the Minerva," before an immense con-
course of people, and was placed by the officials in a pulpit, and
commenced his abjuration. While the process was read, at the
mention of every heretical proposition and every indecent action
proved against him, the people cried out with a loud voice, “fuoco ,
fuoco"-" burn him." When the reading of the process was con-
cluded, he was conducted to the feet of the Commissary of the Holy

(2) Gotti, n. 2, 3. (3) Gotti, loc. cit. n. 4, 5, (4) Bernin. loc. cit.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 379

Office, and there solemnly abjured the errors proved against him,
received absolution, was clothed with the habit of a penitent, and
received the usual strokes of a rod on the shoulders ; he was then
again conducted back to the prison of the Holy Office by the
guards, a small apartment was assigned to him, and he lived for ten
years with all the marks of a true penitent, and died with these
happy dispositions. Immediately after his abjuration , Pope Inno-
cent XI . published a Bull on the 4th of September, 1687 , again
condemning the same propositions already condemned by the Holy
Inquisition ; and on the same day the two brothers, the disciples of
Molinos, Anthony Maria and Simon Leone, already mentioned,
made their abjuration , and gave signs of sincere repentance (5).
33. About the end of the 17th century there was a certain lady
in France, Madame Guion, who, filled with false notions of spiri-
tual life, published several manuscripts, against which Bossuet, the
famous Bishop of Meaux, wrote his excellent work, entitled " De
Statibus Orationis," to crush the evil in the bud. Many, however,
deceived by this lady's writings, took up her defence, and among
these was Fenelon, the Archbishop of Cambray, who published
another work, with the title of " Explanations of the Maxims of
the Saints on Interior Life." This book was at once condemned by
Innocent XII., who declared that the doctrine of the work was like
that of Molinos. When Fenelon heard that his book was condemned
he at once not only obeyed the decision of the Pope, but even
published a public edict, commanding all his diocesans to yield
obedience to the Pontifical decree (6). The propositions con-
demned by the Pope in this book were twenty-three in number ;
they were condemned on the 12th of March, 1699, and Cardinal
Gotti gives them without curtailment.

SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER.

HERESIES OF THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES.


1. Introductory Matter. 2. Rationalists. 3. Hernhutters, or Moravians. 4. Sweden-
borgians, or New Jerusalemites. 5. Methodism ; Wesley. 6, 7. Doctrines and
Practices of the Methodists. 8. Johanna Southcott. 9. Mormonism. Table Rap-
ping. Tertullian. 10. German Catholics.

1. THE holy author, as the reader may perceive, concludes his


History of Heresies with the account of the famous Bull Unigeni-
tus, which gave the death-blow to Jansenism . He brings down
the history of this most dangerous of sects and its ramifications to
the Pontificate of Benedict XIV. A little more than a century has

(5) Bernin. 4 , c. 8. (6) Gotti, Ver. Rel. c. 5.


380 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

elapsed since, and though heresy has produced nothing new- for
every heresiarch only reproduces the errors of his predecessors-
still it will not, I hope, be ungrateful to the reader to have before
him a succinct account of the sectaries who have since appeared,
especially the Methodists, the most numerous, and, on many ac-
counts , the most remarkable body of the present day. It is a fact
which every close observer must be aware of, that heresy naturally
tends to infidelity . When once we lose hold of the anchor of Faith,
and set up our own fallible judgments in opposition to the authority
of the Church, we are led on from one false consequence to another ,
till in the end we are inclined to reject Revelation altogether. Such
is the case, especially in Germany at the present day, where Ration-
alism has usurped the place of religion, and infidelity is promul-
gated from the Theological Chair. It is true that in Catholic
countries infidelity has also not alone appeared , but subverted both
the throne and altar, and shaken society to its very foundations ;
but there it is the daughter of indifferentism . Lax morality pro-
duces unbelief, and those whose lives are totally opposed to the
austere rule of the Gospel, are naturally anxious to persuade them-
selves that religion is altogether a human invention . This madness,
however, passes away after a time. Religion is too deeply rooted
in the hearts of a truly Catholic people to be destroyed by it. The
storm strips the goodly tree of a great deal of its fruit and foliage,
the rotten branches are snapped off, and the dead and withered
leaves are borne away, but the vital principle of the trunk remains
untouched, and in due season produces again fruit a hundred-fold .
2. That free spirit of inquiry, the boast of Protestantism , which ,
rejecting all authority, professes to be guided by reason alone, pro-
duced Rationalism . Luther and Calvin rejected several of the most
important Articles of the Christian Faith. Why should not their
followers do the same ? They appealed to reason-so did their
disciples ; one mystery after another was swept away, till Revelation,
we may say, totally disappeared, and nothing but the name of
religion remained. The philosopher Kant laid down a system, by
which true and ecclesiastical religion were distinguished . True
religion is the religion of reason ; ecclesiastical, the religion of
Revelation, and this is only a vehicle for conveying the truths of
natural religion. By this rule, then, the Scriptures were inter-
preted. Nothing but what reason could measure was admitted ;
every mystery became a myth : miracles were all the effects of na-
tural causes, working on an unenlightened and wonder-loving
people. Hetzel, Eichhorn, the Rosenmüllers, promulgated these
blasphemies. Strauss, in his " Life of Christ," upsets all Revelation ;
and Becker teaches that St. John the Baptist and our Lord, with
the determination of upsetting the Jewish Hierarchy, whose pride
and tyranny they could not bear, plotted together, and agreed that
one should play the part of the precursor and the other of the
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 381

Messiah . Such is the woeful state of Continental Protestantism ,


and the worst of it is, that it is a necessary consequence of the fun-
damental principle of the Reformation, " unrestricted liberty of
opinion" (1).
3. In contra-distinction to the Rationalists, we have the Pietists in
Germany, who cannot so much be called a sect as a party. They date
their origin from Spener, who flourished in Frankfort in the sixteenth
century , and caused a great deal of disturbance in the Lutheran Church
in that and the following age. They are entitled to our notice here,
as from some of their doctrines originated some extraordinary sects.
Among these may be ranked the Hernhutters, otherwise called
Moravians, and by themselves, " United Brethren." They assert
that they are the descendants of the Bohemian and Moravian Huss-
ites of the fifteenth century ; but it is only in the last century they
appeared as a distinct and organized sect, and now they are not
only numerous and wealthy, but have formed establishments—
partly of a missionary and partly of a trading character-in many
parts of the world, from Labrador to Southern Africa. Their
founder was Count Zinzendorf, who, in 1721 , on attaining his ma-
jority, purchased an estate called Bertholsdorf, in Lusatia, and
collected round him a number of followers, enthusiasts in religion ,
like himself. A carpenter of the name of Christian David came
to join him from Moravia, and was followed by many of his country-
men, and they built a new town on the estate, which was at first,
from the name of a neighbouring village, called Huthberg, but
they changed it to Herren Huth , the Residence of the Lord, and
from that the sect took its name. They profess to follow the Con-
fession of Augsburg, but their government is totally different from
that of Lutheranism . They have both bishops and elders, but the
former have no governing power ; they are merely appointed to
ordain , and, individually, are but members of the general governing
consistory. Zinzendorf himself travelled all over Europe, to disse-
minate his doctrines, and twice visited America. He died in
1760 (2 ) . The doctrines preached by this enthusiast were of the
most revolting and horrible nature . All we read of the abominations
of the early Gnostics is nothing, compared to the revolting and
blasphemous obscenity to be found in his works. An attempt has
been made by some of his followers to defend him, but in vain,
and it is truly a melancholy feeling to behold the sacred name of
religion prostituted to such vile abominations (3) .
4. Emmanuel Swedenborg, the founder ofthe New Jerusalemites ,
was another extraordinary fanatic, and his case is most remarkable,
since he was a man of profound learning, a civil and military en-
gineer, and the whole tenor of his studies was calculated to banish

(1) Perron. de Protes. (2) Encyc. Brit. Art. Zinzendorf and United Brethren.
(3) Mosheim, Cent. XVIII.
382 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

any tendency to mystic fanaticism which might have been inter-


woven in his nature . He was born in Stockholm, in 1689 , and
was the son of the Lutheran Bishop of West Gotha. From his
earliest days he applied himself to the study of science , under the
best masters , and made such progress, that he published some works
at the age of twenty. His merit recommended him to his Sovereign ,
Charles XII., the warrior King of Sweden, and he received an
appointment as Assessor of the College of Mines. At the siege of
Frederickshall , in 1713, he accomplished an extraordinary work,
by the transmission of the siege artillery over the ridge of moun-
tains which separates Sweden from Norway. It was considered
one of the boldest attempts of military engineering ever accomplished .
His application to study was continual, and from time to time he
published works which gave him a European scientific reputation .
It would have been well for himself had he never meddled in theo-
logical speculations ; but his extravagances prove that the strongest
minds, when destitute of Faith, fall into the grossest errors. His
system was, that there is a spiritual world around us corresponding
in everything to the material world we inhabit . He used himself,
he assures us, converse with people in the most distant climes, and
was in daily communication with those who were dead for ages.
When a man dies, he says, he exchanges his material body, of
which there is no resurrection, for a substantial one, and can im-
mediately enjoy all the pleasures of this life, even the most gross,
just as if he were still in the flesh. In fact a man frequently does
not well know whether he is living or dead. Jesus Christ is God
himself, in human form , who existed from all eternity, but became
incarnate in time to bring the hells or evil spirits into subjection.
He admitted a Trinity of his own, consisting of the Divinity , the
Humanity, and the Operation. This Trinity commenced only at
the Incarnation. He travelled through a great part of Europe,
disseminating his doctrines, and finally died in London, in 1772 ,
and was buried in the Swedish Church, Ratcliffe Highway. His
followers have increased since his death, but they still only form
small and obscure congregations. They style themselves "the
Church of the New Jerusalem."
5. The Patriarch of Methodism was John Wesley, who was born
in 1703 , at Epworth, in Lincolnshire, of which place his father
was rector . At the age of seventeen he was sent to the University
of Oxford, and being more seriously inclined than the generality
of young men there, applied himself diligently to his studies. One
of his favourite books at that period was the famous work of
Thomas á Kempis, " The Imitation of Christ." During his long
and varied life this golden work was his manual, and he published
even an edition of it himself in 1735 , but, as should be expected ,
corrupted and mutilated. His brother Charles, a student like
himself, at Oxford, and a few other young men, formed themselves
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 383

into a Society for Scripture-reading and practices of piety, and , as


the state of morals was peculiarly lax in that seat of learning, they
were jeered by their fellow-students, called the Godly Club ,
and , on account of their methodical manner of living, were nick-
named " Methodists," which afterwards became the general desig-
nation of the whole sect or society in all its numerous subdivisions.
Wesley was ordained in the Anglican Church, and assisted his
father for awhile as curate, till an appointment was offered to him
in Georgia. He sailed, accordingly, for America, in company
with his brother and two others. He led quite an ascetic life at
this period, slept frequently on the bare boards, and continually
practised mortification . He remained in America till 1738 , and
then returned to England . He was disappointed in a matrimonial
speculation while there , and had a lawsuit also on hands . Like
all Protestant apostles, a comfortable settlement in life appeared
to him the first consideration. This is one ofthe principal causes
of the sterility of all their missions ; if, however, they do not seek
first the kingdom of God, they take care that all other things that
the world can afford shall be added to them, as the investigations
into the land tenures of New Zealand and the islands of the Pacific
bear witness. While in America he associated a great deal with
the Moravians, and became imbued, to a great extent, with their
peculiar doctrines of grace, the new birth , and justification , and on
his return paid a visit to Herrenhutt, to commune with Zinzendorf.
He was not at all popular in America ; he appears to have been a
proud, self-opinionated man, filled up with an extraordinary idea
of his own perfections. Indeed, it only requires a glance at his
diary, which, it would appear, he compiled, not so much for his
own self-examination as for making a display before others, to be
convinced that he was a vain, proud man. He was always a deter-
mined enemy of Catholicity, and for his bigoted attacks on Popery
he received a just castigation from the witty and eloquent Father
O'Leary. He dates the origin of Methodism himself from a meet-
ing held in Fetter-lane, London , on the 1st of May, 1738. " The
first rise of Methodism," he says, " was in November, 1729 , when
four of us met together at Oxford ; the second was in Savannah,
in April, 1736, when twenty or thirty persons met at my house ;
the last in London , when forty or fifty of us agreed to meet toge-
ther every Wednesday evening, in order to free conversation ,
begun and ended with singing and prayer." Whitfield , a fellow-
student of Wesley, began to preach at this time to numerous
congregations in the open air. He was a man of fervid eloquence ,
and the people, deserted, in a great measure, by the parsons of the
Anglican Church, flocked in crowds to hear him, and as he could
not obtain leave to preach in the churches, he adopted the system
of field-preaching. His doctrine was thoroughly Calvinistic , and
this was, ultimately, the cause of a separation between him and
384 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Wesley. Indeed , it would appear, Wesley could bear no compe-


titor. He ruled his society most absolutely ; appointed preachers ,
and removed them, according to his own will-changed them from
one station to another, or dismissed them altogether, just as he
pleased. One of the most extraordinary proceedings of his life,
however, was his ordaining a bishop for the States of America.
Both he and Whitfield planted Methodism in our Colonies in
North America, and the people, always desirous of religion ,
ardently took up with it, since no better was provided for them.
When the revolutionary war commenced, Wesley wrote a bitter
tract against " the Rebels," and were it not suppressed in time, his
name would be branded with infamy by the patriotic party. The
fate of war, however, favoured the " Rebels," and our consistent
preacher immediately veered round. He was now the apologist of
insurrection , and besought them to stand fast by the liberty God
gave them . What opinion can we hold of the principles of a man
who acts thus ? But to return to the ordination . Wesley always
professed himself not only a member of the Anglican Church , but
à faithful observer of its doctrines, articles, and homilies. His
followers in America, however, called loudly for ministers or
preachers, and then he became convinced that there was no dis-
tinction, in fact, between Presbyters and Bishops, and thus with
the 23rd and 36th Articles of his Church staring him in the face,
he not only ordained priests, as he called them, but actually con-
secrated Coke a Bishop for the North American congregations.
" God," says Coke, " raised up Wesley as a light and guide in his
Church ; he appointed to all offices, and consequently, had the
right of appointing bishops." We would wish, however, to have
some proof of the Divine mission of Wesley, such as the apostles
gave, when " they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord
working withal, and confirming the Word with the signs that
followed" (Mark, xvi. 20) . He travelled through England, Scot-
land, and Ireland , preaching in towns, hamlets, and villages , and,
as usual, giving " Popery" a blow, whenever he had an opportunity.
He married, when advanced in years, but soon separated from his
wife, by whom he had no children. He appears, on the whole,
to be a man of most unamiable character, and though God was
constantly on his lips , self was always predominant. He died in
London , in 1781 , in the eighty-eighth year of his age.
6. It is rather difficult to give a precise account of the doctrines
of Methodism. Wesley always professed himself a member of the
Church of England , and maintained that his doctrine was that of
the Anglican Church, but we see how far he deviated from it in
the ordination affair. Whitfield was a Calvinist, and some of the
first Methodists were Moravians. Salvation by Faith alone, and
sudden justification , appear to be the distinguishing marks of the
sect. Their doctrines open a wide door for the most dangerous
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 385

enthusiasm ; the poor people imagine, from the ardour of their


feelings, that they are justified, though every Christian should be
aware that he knows not whether he is worthy of love or hatred,
and this has been productive of the most serious consequences.
If only the thousandth part of all we hear of the scenes which take
place at a "Revival" in America be true, it should fill us with
compassion to see rational beings committing such extravagances
in the holy name of religion . I will not sully the page with a
description of the " Penitents' pen," the groanings in spirit, the
sighs, contortions, howlings, and faintings which accompany the
66
new birth" at these re-unions. It has been partially attempted
in these countries to get up a similar demonstration, but we hope
the sense of propriety and decorum is too strongly fixed in the
minds of our people ever to permit themselves to be thus fooled.
7. The curse of all heresies, the want of cohesion , has fallen also
on the Methodist society. They They are now divided into several
branches, Primitive Wesleyans, &c. They are governed by Con-
ferences, and there are districts, and other minor divisions, down
to classes. The form of worship consists generally of extempo-
raneous prayer and preaching. Wesley established bands, or little
companies for self-examination and confession, and it is rather
strange that sectaries who reject sacramental confession, where the
penitent pours into the ear of the priest his sins and his sorrows,
under the most inviolable secrecy, should encourage promiscuous
confession of sins , which can be productive of no good, but must
necessarily cause a great deal of harm. Hear Wesley's own words
on the subject : " Bands," he says, 66 are instituted in order to con-
fess our faults to one another, and pray for one another ; we intend
to meet once a week at least ; to come punctually at the hour
appointed ; to begin with singing or prayer ; to speak to each of
us, in order, freely and plainly , the true state of our soul , with the
faults we have committed in thought, word, or deed, and the temp-
tations we have felt since our last meeting, and to desire some
person among us (thence called a leader) to speak his own state
first, and then to ask the rest, in order, as many and as searching
questions as may be, concerning their state, sins, and temptations ."
Such a shocking practice is only calculated to make men hypocrites
and liars, for we know that it is not in human nature to confess
freely and plainly all the turpitude of their hearts, before five or
six, or more, fellow-mortals ; and did such a thing happen , society
would be shaken to its foundations, the peace of families destroyed,
and mortal hatred usurp the place of brotherly love. The Metho-
dists have another peculiar custom-of holding a love feast every
quarter. Cake and water is given to each person , and partaken of
by all, and each is at liberty to speak of his religious experience.
There certainly could not be a better nurse of spiritual pride than
2 B
386 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

a practice of this sort. Every year they have a watch-night, that


is, they continue in prayer and psalm-singing, till after midnight,
on the last night of the year ; the new year is then ushered in with
a suitable hymn and appropriate service. It is melancholy to see
so many people, of really religious dispositions, most of them irre-
proachably moral, honest, and honourable, led astray by error,
buffeted about by every wind of doctrine . Those who are mem-
bers of the holy Catholic Church are bound to praise God daily
for the inestimable blessing conferred on them ; and seeing how
little in general they correspond to the extraordinary graces they
receive by the sacraments, and the holy sacrifice, should be hum-
bled at their own unworthiness, and unceasingly pray to God, that
the strayed sheep may be brought into the fold, under the guidance
of the one Shepherd . Had Wesley, their founder, been born and
disciplined , from his youth, in the doctrines and practices of the
Catholic Faith- his self-love and spiritual pride corrected by the
holy practice of the confessional- he might have been one of the
lights of his age, and, perhaps, have carried the Gospel with effect
to the nations still sitting in darkness. But the judgments of God
are inscrutable (4) .
8. Johanna Southcott. This extraordinary woman was born in
Devonshire, in 1750, and is no less remarkable for the extravagance
of her tenets, than as a melancholy example of the credulity of her
numerous followers. She was, in the early part of her life, only a
domestic servant, and scarcely received any education . She joined
a Methodist society, and being of an excitable temperament, per-
suaded herself at first, it is supposed , that she was endowed with
extraordinary gifts. She soon found followers, and then com-
menced as a prophetess, and proclaimed herself the " woman"
spoken of in the Book of Revelations. She resided all this time
in Exeter, and it is wonderful to find that an ignorant woman could
make so many dupes. She had seals manufactured, and sold them
as passes to immortal happiness . It was impossible that any one
possessed of one of these talismen could be lost. Exeter soon
became too confined a sphere for her operations, and , at the expense
of an engraver of the name of Sharp , she came to London, where
the number of her disciples was considerably increased , and many
persons joined her, whom we would be the last to suspect of fana-
ticism. She frequently denounced unbelievers, and threatened the
unfaithful nations with chastisement. She was now sixty years of
age, and put the finishing stroke to her delusions. She proclaimed
that she was with-child of the Holy Spirit, and that she was about
to bring into the world the Shiloh promised to Jacob. This event
was to take place on the 19th of October, 1814. This we would

(4) Wesley's Journal ; Centenary Report, and Benson's Apology, &c .


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 387

imagine would be enough to shake the whole fabric of imposture


she had raised, but, on the contrary, her dupes not only believed
it, but actually prepared a gorgeous cradle for the Shiloh , and
crowded round her residence at the appointed time, in expectation
of the joyful event. Midnight passed, and they were told she fell
into a trance. She died on the 27th of the following December,
declaring that if she was deceived , it must be by some spirit , good
or bad, and was buried in Paddington churchyard. A post mortem
examination showed that she died of dropsy. Among other reve-
ries, she taught the doctrine of the Millennium. The strangest
thing of all is that the delusion did not cease at her death ; her
followers still exist as a sect, though not numerous. They are
distinguished by wearing brown coats and long beards, and by
other peculiarities. It is supposed they expect the reappearance
of their prophetess.
9. A new sect sprung up in the United States of America only
a few years since. They were called Mormons, or Latter- Day
Saints. It is very generally believed along the sea-board ofthe
States, that the buccaneers of the seventeenth century, and the
loyalists in the late revolution , buried large sums of money, and
that all traces of the place of concealment were lost by their death.
Several idle persons have taken up the trade of exploring for this
concealed treasure, and are known by the name of " Money Dig-
gers," calculating, like the alchymists of old, on the avaricious cre-
dulity of their dupes. The prophet and founder of Mormonism ,
Joe Smith, followed this profession . Not he alone , but his whole
family, were remarkable for a total absence of every quality which
constitutes honest men. Smith was well aware, from his former
profession, of the credulity of many of his countrymen, so he gave
out that he had a revelation from above, that he was received up
into the midst of a blaze of light , and saw two heavenly personages
who told him his sins were forgiven, that the world was all in error
in religious matters , and that in due season the truth would be re-
vealed through him. It was next revealed to him that the abori-
gines, the " red men" of America, were a remnant of the tribes of
Israel, whose colour was miraculously changed as a punishment for
their sins, and whose prophets deposited a book of Divine records,
engraved on plates of gold, and buried in a stone chest in a part of
the State of New York. Smith searched for the treasure and found
it, but was not allowed to remove it until he had learned the Egyp-
tian language in which it was written. In 1827 he was at last
allowed to take possession of it, and published an English version in
1830. His father and others were partners in the scheme. The
rhapsody made a deep impression on the uncultivated minds of
many-especially among the lower orders- in the States, and a
congregation was formed, usually called Mormonites, from the Book
388 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

of Mormon, as Smith called it, or, according to the name by which


they designated themselves, " The Church ofJesus Christ of Latter-
Day Saints." The book, such as it is, is supposed to have been
written by a person of the name of Spaulding as a sort of novel,
and offered to a publisher, who declined having anything to do
with it, and it eventually fell into the hands of one Rigdon , a friend
of Smith, and as it was written something in the style of the Old
Testament, and purported to be an account of the adventures of a
portion ofthe tribe of Joseph, who sailed for America under the
guidance of a Prophet called Nephi, and became the fathers of the
red Indians, they determined to pass it off as a new Revelation. It
is evidently the production of a very ignorant person, whose whole
knowledge of antiquity was acquired from the English Bible. The
sect became so numerous in a little time, that a settlement was made
in the State of Missouri ; but the sturdy people of the West rose up
against them and banished them. They next settled down in Illi-
nois, and founded a city which they called Nauvoo , near the Mis-
sissippi. A temple on a magnificent scale was commenced , and a
residence for the Prophet, who took especial care that his revelations
should all turn to his own profit . He established two orders of
priesthood-the order of Melchizedec, consisting ofhigh priests and
elders, and the order of Aaron , containing bishops, priests, and
deacons ; but " my servant, Joseph Smith," was of course the auto-
crat of the whole system , and the others were but his tools. Not
alone from the States, but even from the manufacturing districts of
England, did multitudes flock to the land of promise. Disputes,
however, arose. The prophet, Joe Smith, was killed by a mob in
1846, at Carthage, in Illinois, and most of his fanatical followers dis-
persed . Numbers have emigrated to California, and intend forming
establishments in that country, and time alone will tell whether the
delusion will have any duration . The temple remains unfinished,
like the Tower of Babel, a standing monument of human folly. The
scattered followers of Smith some time since settled down near the
great Salt Lake, in the western territory of the United States, and
founded a settlement called Utah. Here they have hitherto been
permitted to carry out, to its fullest extent, the last and most com-
plete development of Protestantism . Their proselytes are chiefly
recruited from Wales and the manufacturing towns of England ,
where the population is distinguished for profligacy. Polygamy
and divorce are most revoltingly practised, and Mahometanism is
pure, and paganism holy, compared with Mormonism , the last off-
shoot ofthe " glorious Reformation ." The late governor of Utah
had, it is said, nineteen wives at one time, and the elders a propor-
tionate number, and frequent divorces and interchanges, " sealing
and unsealing," as they call it, have made the modern Sodom a
portent of iniquity. We may hope that in a little time the central
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 389

authority of the United States will be extended over this land of


abomination, and the common law enforced against these enemies
of God and society .
Spirit-rapping and table-turning are the most melancholy proofs
of what the human intellect may come to, when losing the light
of Faith. Thousands in the United States believe, that certain
persons, called " Mediums," have the power of conversing with the
spirits of the departed, who answer the questions put to them by a
certain number of raps on a table, and by causing the table to
turn when pressed by the fingers. Numbers have become lunatic
by believing and practising this superstition. The Mediums are
well trained to cause the noises by muscular contractions, and the
table-turning is but a clumsy juggle. It is remarkable, however,
how errors repeat themselves century after century. Tertullian,
in his " Apologeticus pro Christianis," mocks the table-rappers and
turners of his day : " Per quos et capræ et mensæ divinare con-
sueverunt." (Apol. c . xxiii . ) ; and Virgil, in the second Æneid,
appears to allude to it when he says :

" Troia gaza


Incensis erepta adytis, mensæque Deorum."

10. The German Catholic Church. Such was the designation


adopted by a party raised up within the last few years in Germany ;
but the reader will perceive what little right it has to such a title,
when, at the last meeting, held at Schneidemuhl, they not only
rejected the Dogmas and Sacraments, which peculiarly distinguish
the Catholic Church from the various Protestant sects, but openly
renounced even the Apostles' Creed , denied the Divinity of Christ
and of the Holy Spirit, and, in fact, their whole creed now con-
sists, we may say, of one article- to believe in the existence of
God. The origin of this party was thus : In the cathedral of
Treves, it is piously believed, the seamless garment worn by
our Lord is preserved ; it is usually called the Holy Robe of
Treves. From time to time this is exhibited to the veneration of
the people. The Bishop of Treves, Monsigneur Arnoldi, pub-
lished to the faithful of Germany and the world, that the robe
would be exhibited for a few weeks. Hundreds of thousands re-
sponded to the pious invitation. From the snowy summits of the
Swiss mountains, to the low lands of Holland, the people came in
multitudes, to venerate the sacred relic. Ronge, an unquiet, immoral
priest, who had been previously suspended by his bishop, imagined
that it would be just the time to imitate Luther in his attack on In-
dulgences, and, accordingly, wrote a letter to the prelate Arnoldi,
which was published , not alone in the German papers, but in
several other parts of Europe besides. He then declared that he
390 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES .

renounced the Roman Catholic Church altogether, and established


what he called the German Catholic Church . He was soon joined
by another priest of the same stamp, Czerski ; and numbers of the
Rationalists of Germany, having no fixed religious principles of any
sort, ranked themselves under the banners of the new apostles, not
through any love for the new form of faith, but hoping to destroy
Catholicity. We have seen, however, at their last Conference, that
they have abolished Christianity itself, and the sect, as it is, is
already nearly extinct.

END OF THE HISTORY.


REFUTATION OF HERESIES .

REFUTATION I.

THE HERESY OF SABELLIUS, WHO DENIED THE DISTINCTION OF


PERSONS IN THE TRINITY.

THE Catholic Church teaches that there are in God one Nature and
three distinct Persons. Arius, of whose heresy we shall have to
speak in the next chapter, admits the distinction of Persons in the
Trinity, but said that the three Persons had three different natures
among themselves, or, as the latter Arians said, that the three Per-
sons were of three distinct natures. Sabellius, on the other hand,
confessed, that in God there was but one nature ; but he denied the
distinction of Persons , for God , he said , was distinguished with the
name of the Father, or the Son , or the Holy Ghost, by denomina-
tion alone, to signify the different effects of the Divinity, but that
in himself, as there is but one nature, so there is but one Person.
The Sabellian heresy was first taught by Praxeas, who was refuted
by Tertullian in a special work. In the year 257, the same heresy
was taken up by Sabellius ( 1 ) , who gave it great extension, especially
in Lybia, and he was followed by Paul of Samosata. These denied
the distinction of the Persons, and, consequently, the Divinity of
Jesus Christ, and, therefore, the Sabellians were called Patro-pas-
sionists, as St. Augustin (2 ) tells us, for as they admitted in God
only the Person of the Father alone, they should , consequently,
admit that it was the Father who became incarnate, and suffered
for the redemption of mankind . The Sabellian heresy, after being
a long time defunct, was resuscitated by Socinus , whose arguments
we shall also enumerate in this dissertation.

SEC. I. THE REAL DISTINCTION OF THE THREE DIVINE PERSONS IS PROVED .

2. In the first place, the plurality and the real distinction of the
three Persons in the Divine nature is proved from the words of
Genesis : " Let us make man to our own image and likeness"
(Gen. i . 26) ; and in chap. iii., v. 22 , it is said : " Behold , Adam is

(1) Euseb. His. Eccles. (2 ) St. Augus. trac. 26, in Jo.


392 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

become one of us ;" and again, in chap. xi., ver. 7 : " Come ye,
therefore, let us go down, and there confound their tongues." Now
these words, " let us do," " let us go down," " let us confound ,"
show the plurality of Persons, and can in no wise be understood of
the plurality of natures, for the Scripture itself declares that there is
but one God, and if there were several Divine natures, there would
be several Gods ; the words quoted, therefore, must mean the
plurality of Persons. Theodoret ( 1 ) , with Tertullian, makes a
reflection on this, that God spoke in the plural number, “ let us
make," to denote the plurality of Persons, and then uses the singu-
lar, " to our image," not images, to signify the unity of the Divine
nature.
3. To this the Socinians object :-First.- That God spoke in the
plural number, for the honour of his Person, as kings say " We"
when they give any order. But 99.66 we answer, by saying, that sove-
reigns speak thus, " we ordain," " we command," in their ordinances,
for then they represent the whole republic, but never when they
speak oftheir private and personal acts ; they never say, for example,
66 66
we are going to sleep," or we are going to walk," nor did God
speak in the way of commanding, when he said, " Behold Adam is
become as one of us." Secondly.- They object, that God did not
thus speak with the other Divine Persons, but with the Angels ;
but Tertullian, St. Basil, Theodoret, and St. Irenæus, laugh at this
foolish objection (2) , for the very words, " to our image and like-
ness," dispose of it, for man is not created to the image of the
angels, but of God himself. Thirdly. They object, that God spoke
with himself then, as if exciting himself to create man, as a sculptor
might say, “ Come, let us make a statue." St. Basil ( 3) , opposing
the Jews, disposes of this argument. " Do we ever see a smith,"
he says, " when sitting down among his tools, say to himself— Come,
let us make a sword?" The saint intends by this to prove, that,
when God said , " let us make," he could not speak so to him-
self alone, but to the other Persons : for no one, speaking to himself,
says, " let us make." It is clear, therefore, that he spoke with the
other Divine Persons.
4. It is proved, also, from the Psalms (ii. 7) : " The Lord hath
said to me, thou art my Son ; this day have I begotten thee."
Here mention is made of the Father begetting the Son, and of the
Son begotten ; and in the same Psalm the promise is made : " I will
give thee the Gentiles for thy inheritance, and the utmost parts of
the earth for thy possession ." Here a clear distinction is drawn
between the Person of the Son and the Person of the Father, for
we cannot say it is the same Person who begets and is begotten.

(1) Theod. qu. 19, in Gen. (2) Tertull. 1. contra Prax. c. 12 ; St. Basil, t. 1 ;
Hom. 9 in Hexamer.; Theod. qu. 19, in Gen.; St. Iræn. l. 4, n. 37. (3) St. Basil,
lec. cit. p. 87.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 393

And St. Paul declares that these words refer to Christ the Son of
God : " So Christ also did not glorify himself, that he might be
made a high priest, but he that said unto him : Thou art my son;
this day have I begotten thee" ( Heb. v. 5. )
5. It is also proved by the 109th Psalm : " The Lord said to my
Lord, sit thou at my right hand ;" and it was this very passage that
our Saviour made use of to convince the Jews, and make them
believe that he was the Son of God. "What think you of Christ,
said he ? Whose Son is he ? They say to him : David's. He
saith to them: How, then, doth David in spirit call him Lord,
saying , &c. If David then call him Lord, how is he his Son ?"
(Mat. xxii. 42-45) . Christ wished by this to prove that, although
the Son of David, he was still his Lord, and God , likewise, as his
Eternal Father was Lord.
6. The distinction of the Divine Persons was not expressed more
clearly in the Old Law, lest the Jews, like the Egyptians, who
adored a plurality of Gods, might imagine that in the three Divine
Persons there were three Essential Gods. In the New Testament,
however, through which the Gentiles were called to the Faith, the
distinction of the three Persons in the Divine Essence is clearly
laid down, as is proved, first from St. John , i. 1 : "In the beginning
was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God ." Now, by the expression, " the Word was with God," it is
proved that the Word was distinct from the Father, for we cannot
say of the same thing, that it is with itself and nigh itself at the
same time. Neither can we say that the Word was distinct by
Nature, for the text says, "the Word was God ;" therefore, the dis-
tinction of Persons is clearly proved, as St. Athanasius and Tertul-
lian agree (4). In the same chapter these words occur : " We saw
his glory, the glory as it were of the only-begotten of the Father."
Here no one can say, that the Son is begotten from himself; the
Son, therefore, is really distinct from the Father.
7. It is proved, also, from the command given to the Apostles :
" Go, therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father, and of the Son , and of the Holy Ghost" (Mat. xxviii.
19) . Hence the words, in the name, denote the unity of Nature,
and signify that Baptism is one sole operation of all the three
named Persons ; and the distinct appellation afterwards given to
each Person, clearly proves that they are distinct. And, again,
if these three Persons were not God, but only creatures, it would
be absurd to imagine that Christ, under the same name , would
liken creatures to God.
8. It is proved, also, by that text of St. John : " Philip, he that
seeth me seeth the Father also ......... I will ask the Father, and
he shall give you another Paraclete" (John, xiv. 9 , 16 ). By the

(4) Tert. adv. Prax. c. 26 ; St. Ath. Orat. contr. Sab. Gregal.
394 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

words, " he that seeth me seeth the Father," he proves the unity of
the Divine Nature ; and by the other expression, " I will ask ,"
&c. , the distinction of the Persons, for the same Person cannot
be at once the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. This is
even more fully explained by the words of St. John, xv. 26 :
" But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father shall send
in my name."
9. It is also proved by that text of St. John : " There are three
who give testimony in heaven- the Father, the Word, and the
Holy Ghost, and these three are one" (1 John, v. 7.) Nor is
the assertion of the adversaries of the Faith, that the Father, the
Word, and the Holy Ghost, are merely different in name, but not
in reality, of any avail, for then it would not be three testimonies
that are given, but only one alone, which is repugnant to the text.
The Socinians labour hard to oppose this text especially, which so
clearly expresses the distinction of the three Divine Persons, and
they object that this verse is wanting altogether in many manu-
scripts, or, at all events, is found only in part ; but Estius, in his
commentaries on this text of St.John , says, that Robert Stephens,
in his elegant edition of the New Testament, remarks that, having
consulted sixteen ancient copies collected in France, Spain , and
Italy, he found that, in seven of them, the words "in heaven" alone
were omitted, but that the remainder of the text existed in full.
The Doctors of Louvain collected a great number of manuscripts
for the edition of the Vulgate brought out in 1580 , and they attest
that it was in five alone that the whole text was not found (5) . It
is easy to explain how a copyist might make a mistake in writing
this verse, for the seventh and eight verses are so much alike, that
a careless copyist might easily mix up one with the other. It is
most certain that in many ancient Greek copies, and in all the Latin
ones, the seventh verse is either put down entire, or, at least, noted
in the margin ; and, besides, we find it cited by many of the
Fathers, as St. Cyprian , St. Athanasius, St. Epiphanius , St. Fulgen-
tius, Tertullian, St. Jerome, and Victor Vitensis (6 ) . The Council
of Trent, above all , in its Decree of the Canonical Scriptures, Sess .
IV. , obliges us to receive every book of the Vulgate edition, with
all its parts, as usually read in the Church : " If any one should not
receive as holy and canonical the entire books, with all their parts,
as they are accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church, and
contained in the old Vulgate edition .....let him be anathema."
The seventh verse quoted is frequently read in the Church, and
especially on Low Sunday.
10. The Socinians, however, say that it cannot be proved from

(5) Tournel. Theol. Comp. t. 2, qu. 3, p. 41 ; Juenin. Theol. t. 3, c. 2. (6) St. Cypr.
1. 1, de Unit. Eccl.; St. Ath. l. 1. ad Theoph.; St. Epiph. Hær.; St.Fulg. 1. contra Arian.;
Tertull. 1. adv. Prax. 25 ; St. Hier. (aut Auctor) Prol. ad Ep. Canon. Vitens. 7. 3, de
Pers. Afr.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 395

that text of St. John, that there are in God three distinct Persons ,
and one sole essence, because, say they, the words " these three are
one" signify no other union but the union of testimony, as the words
of the eighth verse signify, " There are three that give testimony
on earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood , and these three
are one." These words prove, according to us, that Christ is truly
the Son of God, which is what St. John is speaking about ; and
this, he says, is testified bythe water of Baptism, by the blood shed
by Jesus Christ, and by the Holy Spirit, who teaches it by his illu-
minations, and in this sense St. Augustin , St. Ambrose, and Liranus
explain it, and especially Tirinus, who rejects the explanation of
an anonymous author, who interprets the water as that which
flowed from our Lord's side ; the blood, that which flowed from his
heart when it was pierced with a spear ; and the spirit, the soul of
Jesus Christ. To return to the point, however ; I cannot conceive
any objection more futile than this. So from the words of St. John,
" the Father, the Son , and the Holy Ghost," the distinction of the
Divine Persons cannot be proved , because these Persons " are one,"
that is, make one testimony alone, and denote by that, that they
are but one essence. But we answer, that we are not here labour-
ing to prove that God is one, that is, one essence, and not three
essences ; for our adversaries themselves do not call this in doubt,
and, besides, it is proved from a thousand other texts of Scripture
adduced by themselves, as we shall soon see ; so that, granting even
that the words " are one" denote nothing else but the unity of tes-
timony, what do they gain by that ? The point is this- not whe-
ther the unity of the Divine Essence is proved by the text of St.
John, but whether the real distinction of the Divine Persons is
proved by it, and no one, I think , can deny that it is, when St.
John says , " There are three who give testimony in heaven, the
Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost." If three give testimony,
it is not one Person, but three distinct Persons, who do so, and that
is what we mean to prove. have found several other answers to
this objection in various authors, but this, I think, is the clearest
and the most convincing against the Socinians.
11. The real distinction of the Divine Persons is also proved
from the traditions of the Fathers, and from their unanimous
consent in teaching this truth. To avoid doubtful meanings,
however, it is right to premise that in the fourth century, about
the year 380, there were great contests in the Church, even
among the Holy Fathers themselves, regarding the word Hypos-
tasis, and they were split into two parties. Those who adhered
to Miletius taught that there are in God three Hypostases ; and
those who followed Paulinus, that there was only one, and so the
followers of Miletius called the followers of Paulinus Sabellians ,
and these retorted by calling the others Arians. The whole dis-
pute, however, arose from the doubtful meaning of the word
396 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Hypostasis, as some of the Fathers, the Paulinians, understood


by it the Essence or the Divine Nature, and the others, the Mile-
tians, the Person ; and the word Ousia was also of doubtful meaning,
being taken for Essence or for Person . When the words were,
therefore, explained in the Synod of Alexandria, both parties
came to an agreement, and from that to this, by the word Ousia
we understand the Essence, and by the word Hypostasis , the
Person. The doctrine , therefore, of one Essence and three Persons,
really distinct in God, is not taught alone by St. Cyprian , St.
Athanasius, St. Epiphanius, St. Basil , St. Jerome, and St. Fulgentius,
already cited (n. 9) , but also by St. Hilary, St. Gregory Nazianzan ,
St. Gregory of Nyssa , St. Chrysostom, St. Ambrose, St. Augustin,
St. John of Damascus, &c. ( 10) . Among the Fathers of the
first three centuries we have St. Clement, St. Polycarp, Athen-
agoras, St. Justin , Tertullian , St. Irenæus, St. Dionisius Alexan-
drinus, and St. Gregory Thaumaturgus ( 11 ) . Many General
Councils declare and confirm the same truth. It is taught by the
Nicene (in Symb. Fidei) ; by the first of Constantinople (in Symb.) ;
by that of Ephesus (act 6) , which confirms the Nicene Symbol ;
of Chalcedon (in Symb.) ; of the second of Constantinople (act 6) ;
third of Constantinople (act 17) ; fourth of Constantinople (act 10) ;
fourth of Lateran (cap. 1 ) ; second of Lyons (can. 1 ) ; of Florence ,
in the Decree of Union ; and finally, by the Council of Trent,
which approved the first of Constantinople, with the addition of
the word Filioque. It was so well known that the Christians
believed this dogma, that the very Gentiles charged them with
believing in three Gods, as is proved from the writings of Origen
against Celsus, and from the Apology of St. Justin. If the
Christians did not firmly believe in the Divinity of the three
Divine Persons, they would have answered the Pagans, by saying
that they only considered the Father as God, and not the other
two Persons ; but they, on the contrary, always confessed, without
fearing that by doing so they would admit a plurality of Gods, that
the Son and the Holy Ghost were God equally with the Father ;
for although with the Father they were three distinct Persons,
they had but one Essence and Nature. This proves clearly that
this was the faith of the first ages.

SEC. II. OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

12. THE Sabellians bring forward several texts of Scripture ,


to prove that God is one alone, as " I am the Lord that make
all things, that alone stretch out the heavens, that establish the

(10) St. Hilar. in 12 lib.; St. Greg. Nazian. in plur. Orat. Nyss. Orat. contra Ennom.;
St. Chrys. in 5 Hom.; St. Amb. lib. de Spir. S. St. Augus. l. 15 ; Jo. Dam. l. 1, de Fide.
(11) St. Clem. Epis. ad Corint.; St. Polycar. Orat. in suo marg. apud Euseb. l. 4 ; His.
c. 14 ; Athenagor. Leg. pro Chris.; St. Iren. in ejus oper.; Tertullian. contra Prax.
Diony. Alex. Ep. ad Paul. Samosat.; St. Gregor. Thaum. in Expos. Fid.
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 397

earth , and there is none with me" ( Isaias, xliv. 24) ; but to this
we answer, that the words " I am the Lord" refer not alone to
the Father, but to all the three Persons, who are but one God
and one Lord. Again , " I am God , and there is no other” ( Isaias,
xlv. 22. Hence, we assert that the word I does not denote the
person of the Father alone, but also the Persons of the Son and
of the Holy Ghost, because they are all but one God ; and the
words " there is no other" signify the exclusion of all other Persons
who are not God. But, say they, here is one text, in which
it is clearly laid down that the Father alone is God, " yet to us
there is but one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we
unto him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things,
and we by him" ( 1 Cor. viii. 6). To this we answer, that here
the Apostle teaches the faithful to believe one God in three
Persons, in opposition to the Gentiles, who, in many Persons,
adored many Gods. For as we believe that Christ, called by St.
Paul " one Lord," is not Lord alone, to the exclusion of the
Father, so, when the Father is called " one Lord ," we are not to
believe that he is God alone, to the exclusion of Christ and of the
Holy Ghost ; and when the Apostle speaks of " one God the
Father," we are to understand that he speaks of the unity of
Nature, and not of Person.
13. Again, they object that our natural reason alone is sufficient
to prove to us, that as among men three persons constitute three
individual humanities, so in God the three Persons, if they were
really distinct, would constitute three distinct Deities . To this we
reply, that Divine mysteries are not to be judged according to our
stunted human reason ; they are infinitely beyond the reach of our
intellect. " If," says St. Cyril of Alexandria, " there was no
difference between us and God, we might measure Divine things
by our own standard ; but if there be an incomprehensible distance
between us, why should the deficiency of our nature mark out a
rule for God ?" (12) If, therefore, we cannot arrive at the compre-
hension of Divine mysteries, we should adore and believe them ;
and it is enough to know that what we are obliged to believe is
not evidently opposed to reason. We cannot comprehend the
greatness of God, and so we cannot comprehend the mode of his
existence. But, say they, how can we believe that three Persons
really distinct are only one God, and not three Gods ? The
reason assigned by the Holy Fathers is this- because the principle
of the Divinity is one, that is, the Father, who proceeds from
nothing, while the two other Persons proceed from him, but in
such a manner that they cease not to exist in him, as Jesus Christ
says : " The Father is in me, and I in the Father" (John , x. 38 ) .
And this is the difference between the Divine Persons and human

(12) St. Cyril, Alex. l. 11, in Jo. p. 99.


398 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

persons with us three persons constitute three distinct substances,


because, though they are of the same species, they are still three
individual substances, and they are also three distinct natures, for
each person has his own particular nature. In God, however, the
Nature or the substance , is not divisible, but is in fact one- one
Divinity alone, and, therefore, the Persons, although really dis-
tinct, still having the same Nature and the same Divine substance,
constitute one Divinity alone, only one God.
14. They next object that rule received by all philosophers :
" Things equal to a third are equal to each other." Therefore, say
they, if the Divine Persons are the same thing as the Divine
Nature, they are also the same among themselves, and cannot be
really distinct. We might answer this by saying, as before , that a
philosophical axiom like this applies very well to created, but not
to Divine things. But we can even give a more distinct answer
to it. This axiom answers very well in regard to things which
correspond to a third, and correspond also among themselves.
But although the Divine Persons correspond in everything to the
Divine Essence, and are, therefore, the same among themselves as
to the substance, still, because in the personality they do not
correspond , on account of their relative opposition, for the Father
communicates his Essence to the two other Persons, and they
receive it from the Father, therefore, the Person of the Father is
really distinct from that of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost who
proceeds from the Father and the Son .
15. They object, Fourthly- that as the Divine Presence is
infinite, therefore it must be but one , for what is infinite in all
perfections, cannot have a second like itself, and that is the great
proof of the Unity of God ; for if there were many Gods, one
could not possess the perfections of the other, and would not,
therefore, be infinite, nor be God. To this we answer, that
although on account of the infinity of God, there can be no more
Gods than one, still from the infinity of the Divine Persons in
God, it does not follow that there can be only one Divine Person ;
for although in God there are three distinct Persons, still each,
through the unity of essence, contains all the perfections of the
other two. But, say they, the Son has not the perfection of the
Father to generate, and the Holy Ghost has not the perfection of
the Father and the Son to spirate, therefore the Son is not infinite
as is the Father, nor has the Holy Ghost the perfections of the
Father and the Son . We reply, that the perfection of anything
is that which properly belongs to its nature, and hence it is that
the perfection of the Father is to generate,-of the Son, to be
generated, and of the Holy Ghost to be spirated. Now, as these
perfections are relative, they cannot be the same in each Person,
for otherwise, the distinction of Persons would exist no longer,
neither would the perfection of the Divine Nature exist any longer,
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 399

for that requires that the Persons should be really distinct among
themselves, and that the Divine Essence should be common to
each. But then, say they, those four expressions , the Essence , the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are not synonymous ; they,
therefore, mean four distinct things, and that would prove not
alone a Trinity, but a Quaternity in God. The answer to this
frivolous objection is very simple . We freely admit that these
four words are not synonymous, but for all that, the Essence is
not distinct from the Persons ; the Divine Essence is an absolute
thing, but common to all the three Persons, but the three Persons,
though distinct among themselves, are not distinct from the
Essence, for that is in each of the three Persons, as the Fourth
Council of Lateran (can . 2 ) declares : " In Deo Trinitas est non
quaternitas quia qualibet trium personarum, est illa res videlicet
essentia, sive natura Divina quæ sola est universorum principium
præter quod aliud inveniri non potest."
16. The Socinians object- Fifthly. - The Father generated the
Son, either existing or not existing ; ifhe generated him already ex-
isting, he cannot be said to be generated at all , and if the Son was
not existing, then there was a time when the Son was not, therefore
they conclude that there are not in God Three Persons of the same
essence. To this we reply, that the Father has always generated
the Son, and that the Son is always existing, for he was generated
from all eternity, and will be generated for ever, and therefore we
read in the Psalms : " To-day I have begotten thee" ( Psalms, ii. 7) ,
because in eternity there is no succession oftime, and all is equally
present to God. Neither is there any use in saying that the Father
has generated the Son in vain, as the Son already existed always,
for the Divine generation is eternal, and as the Father generating
is eternal, so the Son is eternally generated ; both are eternal , but
the Father has been always the principium in the Divine nature .
17. Finally, they object that the primitive Christians did not
believe the mystery of the Trinity, for if they did, the Gentiles
would have attacked them on the great difficulties with which this
mystery, humanly speaking, was encompassed ; at all events, they
would have tried to prove from that that they believed in a plu-
rality of Gods, but we find no such charge made against the Chris-
tians by the Gentiles, nor do we find a word about it in the Apolo-
gies written by the early Fathers in defence of the Faith. To this
we answer : First. That even in these early days the pastors ofthe
Church taught the Catechumens the Apostles ' Creed, which con-
tains the mystery of the Trinity, but they did not speak openly of
it to the Gentiles, who, when their understanding could not com-
prehend Divine things, only mocked them . Secondly. - Many of
the writings ofthe Gentiles have been lost in the lapse of centuries,
and through the prohibitory decrees of the Christian Emperors, and
many of the Apologies were lost in like manner. Praxeas, how-
400 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

ever, who denied the Trinity, uses this very argument against the
Catholics : " If you admit three Persons in God," says he, " you
admit a plurality of Gods like the Gentiles." Besides, in the first
Apology of St. Justin, we read that the idolaters objected to the
Christians, that they adored Christ as the Son ofGod. The pagan
Celsus, as we find in Origen ( 13) , argued that the Christians, by
their belief in the Trinity, should admit a plurality of Gods, but
Origen answers him that the Trinity does not constitute three Gods,
but only one, for the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, though
three Persons, are still only one and the same essence. The acts
of the martyrs prove in a thousand places that the Christians be-
lieved that Jesus Christ was the true Son of God , and they could
not believe this unless they believed at the same time that there
were three Persons in God.

REFUTATION II .

THE HERESY OF ARIUS, WHO DENIED THE DIVINITY OF THE WORD.


SEC. I. THE DIVINITY OF THE WORD PROVED FROM THE SCRIPTURES.

1. THE Dogma of the Catholic Church is, that the Divine


Word, that is, the Person of the Son of God, is, by his nature,
God, as the Father is God, and in all things is equal to the Father,
is perfect and eternal, like the Father, and is consubstantial with
the Father. Arius, on the contrary, blasphemously asserted that
the Word was neither God , nor eternal, nor consubstantial, nor like
unto the Father ; but a mere creature, created in time, but of
higher excellence than all other creatures ; so that even by him, as
by an instrument, God created all other things. Several of the
followers of Arius softened down his doctrine ; some said that the
Word was like the Father, others, that he was created from eter-
nity, but none of them would ever admit that he was consubstantial
with the Father. When we prove the Catholic doctrine , however,
expressed in the proposition at the beginning of this chapter, we
shall have refuted, not alone the Arians, Anomeans, Eunomians,
and Aerians, who followed in everything the doctrine of Arius, but
also the Basilians, who were Semi -Arians. Those in the Council
of Antioch, in 341 , and in the Council of Ancyra, in 358 , admitted
that the Word was Omoiousion Patri, that is, like unto the Father,
in substance, but would not agree to the term, Omousion, or of the
same substance as the Father. The Acacians, who held a middle
place between the Arians and Semi-Arians, and admitted that the
Son was Omoion Patri, like to the Father, but not of the same sub-
stance, will all be refuted. All these will be proved to be in error ,

(13) Origen, lib. Con. Celsum.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 401

when we show that the Word in all things, not only like unto the
Father, but consubstantial to the Father, that is of the very same
substance as the Father, as likewise the Simonians, Corinthians,
Ebionites, Paulinists , and Photinians, who laid the foundations of
this heresy, by teaching that Christ was only a mere man, born .
like all others, from Joseph and Mary, and having no existence
before his birth. By proving the Catholic truth , that the Word is
true God, like the Father, all these heretics will be put down, for
as the Word in Christ assumed human nature in one person, as St.
John says : " The Word was made flesh ;" if we prove that the
Word is true God, it is manifest that Christ is not a mere man , but
man and God.
2. There are many texts of Scripture to prove this, which may
be divided into three classes. In the first class are included all
those texts in which the Word is called God , not by grace or pre-
destination, as the Socinians say, but true God in nature and sub-
stance . In the Gospel of St. John we read : " In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God , and the Word was
God. The same was in the beginning with God . All things
were made by him, and without him was made nothing that was
made" (John, i .) St. Hilary looked on this passage as proving so
clearly the Divinity of the Word , that he says ( 1), " When I hear
the Word was God, I hear it not only said but proved that the
Word is God. Here the thing signified is a substance where it is
said was God. For to be, to exist, is not accidental , but substan-
tial." The holy doctor had previously met the objection of those
who said that even Moses was called God by Pharoe (Exod. viii.)
and that judges were called Gods in the 81st Psalm, by saying :
It is one thing to be, as it were, appointed a God, another to be
God himself; in Pharoe's case a God was appointed as it were
(that is Moses) , but neither in name or nature was he a God, as the
just are also called God : " I said-you are Gods." Now the ex-
pression " I said," refers more to the person speaking than to the
name of the thing itself; it is, then, the person who speaks who
imposes the name, but it is not naturally the name of the thing
itself. But here he says the Word is God , the thing itself exists ,
in the Word, the substance of the Word is announced in the very
name : " Verbi enim appellatio in Dei Filio de Sacramento nativi-
tatis est." Thus, says the Saint, the name of God given to Pharoe
and the Judges mentioned by David in the 81st Psalm was only
given them by the Lord as a mark of their authority, but was not
their proper name ; but when St. John speaks ofthe Word, he does
not say that he was called God, but that he was in reality God :
" The Word was God."
3. The Socinians next object that the text of St. John should

(1) Hilar. 7. 7, de Trinit.


2 c
402 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

not be read with the same punctuation as we read it, but thus :
" In the beginning was the Word , and the Word was with God ,
and the Word was. God the same was in the beginning," &c . , but
this travestie of the text is totally opposed to all the copies of the
Scriptures we know, to the sense ofall the Councils, and to all anti-
quity. We never find the text cut up in this way ; it always was
written " The Word was God." Besides, if we allowed this Soci-
nian reading of the text, the whole sense would be lost, it would
be, in fact, ridiculous, as if St. John wanted to assert that God
existed, after saying already that the Word was with God . There
are, however, many other texts in which the Word is called God,
and the learned Socinians themselves are so convinced ofthe weak-
ness of this argument, as calculated only to make their cause ridi-
culous, that they tried other means of invalidating it, but, as we
shall presently see, without succeeding.
4. It is astonishing to see how numerous are the cavils of the
Arians. The Word, they say, is called God, not the God the
fountain of all nature, whose name is always written in Greek with
the article (o Theos) , such, however, is not the case in the text ;
but we may remark that in this very chapter, St. John , speaking of
the supreme God, " there was a man sent from God, whose name
was John," does not use the article, neither is it used in the 12th,
13th , or 18th verses. In many other parts of the Scriptures,
where the name of God is mentioned, the article is omitted, as
in St. Matthew, xiv. 33, and xxvii . 43 ; in St. Paul's 1st Epistle to
the Corinthians, viii . 4, 6 ; to the Romans, i . 7 ; to the Ephe-
sians, iv. 6 ; and on the other hand we see that in the Acts of the
Apostles , vii . 43 ; in the 2nd Epistle to the Corinthians, iv. 4, and
in that to the Galatians, iv. 8 , they speak of an idol as God, and
use the article, and it is most certain that neither St. Luke nor St.
Paul ever intended to speak of an idol as the supreme God. Besides,
as St. John Chrysostom teaches (2) , from whom this whole answer,
we may say, is taken , the Word is called God , sometimes even with
the addition of that article, on whose omission in St. John they lay
such stress, as is the case in the original of that text of St. Paul,
Romans, ix. 5 : " Christ, according to the flesh, who is over all
things , God blessed for ever." St. Thomas remarks, that in the
first cited passage the article is omitted in the name of God , as the
name there stands in the position not of a subject, but a predicate:
" Ratio autem quare Evangelista non apposuit articulum hinc
nomini Deus . est quod Deus ponitur hic in prædicato et
tenetur formaliter, consuetum erat autem quod nominibus in præ-
dicato positis non ponitur articulus cum discretionem importet" (3).
5. They object, fourthly, that in the text of St. John the Word
is called God, not because he is so by nature and substance, but

(2) St. Jo. Chry. in Jo. (3) St. Thom. in cap. 1, Joan. lec. 2.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 403

only by dignity and authority, just as they say the name of God is
given in the Scriptures to the angels and to judges. We have
already answered this objection by St. Hilary ( N. 2) , that it is one
thing to give to an object the name of God , another to say that he
is God. But there is, besides , another answer. It is not true that
the name ofGod is an appellative name, so that it can be positively
and absolutely applied to one who is not God by nature ; for
although some creatures are called Gods , it never happened that
any one of them was called " God," absolutely, or was called true
God , or the highest God, or singularly God , as Jesus Christ is
called by St. John : " And we know that the Son of God is come,
and he hath given us understanding, that we may know the true
God, and may be in his true Son" ( 1 John , v. 20) . And St.
Paul says, " Looking for the blessed hope and the coming of the
glory of the great God, and our Saviour, Jesus Christ" (Epis. to
Titus, ii . 13) , and to the Romans, ix . 5 : " Of whom is Christ ,
according to the flesh , who is over all things God, blessed for ever."
We likewise read in St. Luke, that Zachary, prophesying regard-
ing his Son, says, " And thou , child, shalt be called the prophet of
the Highest, for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to pre-
pare his ways" (Luke, i . 76 ) ; and again, ver. 78 : " Through the
bowels of the mercy of our God, in which the Orient from on high
has visited us."
6. Another most convincing proof of the Divinity of the Word
is deduced from the 1st chapter of St. John , already quoted. In
it these words occur : " All things were made by him , and without
him was made nothing that was made." Now any one denying
the Divinity of the Word must admit from these words that either
the Word was eternal, or that the Word was made by himself. It
is evidently repugnant to reason to say the Word made himself,
nemo dat quod non habet. Therefore, we must admit that the
Word was not made , otherwise St. John would be stating a false-
hood when he says, " Without him was made nothing that was
made." This is the argument of St. Augustin (4 ) , and from these
words he clearly proves that the Word is of the same substance as
the Father : " Neque enim dicit omnia, nisi quæ facta sunt, idest
omnem creaturam ; unde liquido apparet, si facta substantia est,
ipsum factum non esse , per quem facta sunt omnia. Et si factum
non est, creatura non est ; si autem creatura non est, ejusdem cum
Patre substantiæ cujus Pater, ergo facta substantia, quæ Deus non
est, creatura est ; et quæ creatura non est, Deus est. Et si non est
Filius ejusdem substantiæ cujus Pater, ergo facta substantia est :
non omnia per ipsum facta sunt ; et omnia per ipsum facta sunt.
Ut unius igitur ejusdemque cum Patre substantiæ est, et ideo non
tantum Deus , sed et verus Deus." Such are the words of the
Holy Father ; the passage is rather long, but most convincing.
(4) St. Aug. l. n. de Trinit. cap. 6.
404 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

7. We shall now investigate the passages of the second class , in


which the Divine Nature and the very substance of the Father is
attributed to the Word . First, the Incarnate Word , himself, says : " I
and the Father are one" (John, x. 30) . The Arians say that Christ
here does not speak of the unity of nature but of will, and Calvin ,
though he professes not to be an Arian, explains it in the same
manner. " The ancients," he says, " abused this passage, in order
to prove that Christ is omousion, consubstantial with the Father,
for here Christ does not dispute of the unity of substance, but of
the consent he had with the Father." The Holy Fathers, how-
ever, more deserving of credit than Calvin and the Arians, always
understood it of the unity of substance . Here are the words of
St. Athanasius ( 5) : " If the two are one they must be so according
to the Divinity, inasmuch as the Son is consubstantial to the
Father....they are, therefore, two, as Father and Son, but only
one as God is one." Hear, also, St. Cyprian (6 ) : " The Lord says,
I and the Father are one, and again it is written of the Father, and
the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one." St. Am-
brose takes it in the same sense as do St. Augustine and St. John
Chrysostom, as we shall see presently ; why the very Jews took it
in this sense, for they took up stones to stone him, as St. John
relates (x. 32) : " Many good works I have shown you from my
Father ; for which of those works do you stone me ? The Jews
answered him : For a good work we stone thee not , but for blas-
phemy, and because thou, being a man, makest thyself God."
" See," says St. Augustine (7), "how the Jews understood what
the Arians will not understand, for they are vexed to find that
these words-I and the Father are one, cannot be understood ,
unless the equality of the Son with the Father be admitted ." St.
John Chrysostom here remarks, that ifthe Jews erred in believing
that our Saviour wished to announce himself as equal in power to
the Father, he could immediately have explained the mistake, but
he did not do so (8 ) , but, quite the contrary, he confirms what he
before said the more he is pressed ; he does not excuse himself, but
reprehends them ; he again says he is equal to the Father : " If I
do not the works of my Father," he says , " believe me not ; but
if I do, though you will not believe me, believe the works, that
you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in the
Father" (John, x. 37, 38 ) . We have seen that Christ expressly
declared in the Council of Caiphas, that he was the true Son of
God: " Again the High Priest asked him and said to him : Art
thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed God ? and Jesus said to
him, I am" (Mark, xiv. 61 , 62 ). Who shall then dare to say that
Jesus Christ is not the Son of God, when he himself has said so ?

(5) St. Athan. Orat. con. Arian. n. 9. (6) St. Cyprian, de Unit. Eccles. (7) St.
Aug. Tract. 48 in Joan. (8) St. Joan. Chrysos. Hom. 6 in Jo.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 405

8. Again, saythe Arians, when our Saviour prayed to his Father


for all his disciples , he said : And the glory thou hast given me
I have given to them, that they may be one, as we also are one"
(John, xvii . 22). Now in this passage, say they, Christ certainly
speaks of the unity of will, and not of the unity of substance. But
we reply: It is one thing to say that 66 I and the Father are one ,"
quite another thing " that they may be one, as we are also one ;"
just as it is one thing to say, " your heavenly Father is perfect,"
and another to say, " Be ye, therefore, perfect, as your heavenly
Father is perfect" (Matthew, v. 48) . For the particle as (sicut)
denotes, as St. Athanasius ( 9) says, likeness or imitation, but not
equality of conjunction . So, as our Lord here exhorts us to imitate
the Divine perfection as far as we can, he prays that his disciples
may be united with God as far as they can, which surely cannot
be understood except as a union of the will. When he says, how-
ever : " I and the Father are one," there is no allusion to imita-
tion ; he there speaks of a union of substance ; he there positively
and absolutely asserts that he is one and the same with the Father :
66 We are one."
9. There are, besides, many other texts which most clearly
corroborate this. Our Lord says in St. John , xvi . 15 , and xvii . 10 :
" All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine." " And all
my things are thine, and thine are mine. " Now, as these expres-
sions are used by him without any limitation , they evidently prove
his consubstantiality with the Father, for when he asserts that he has
everything the Father has, who will dare to say that the Father has
something more than the Son ? And if we denied to the Son the
same substance as theFather, we would deny him everything , for then
he would be infinitely less than the Father ; but Jesus says that he
has all the Father has, without exception , consequently he is in
everything equal to the Father : " He has nothing less than the
Father," says St. Augustin, " when he says that, All things what-
soever the Father hath are mine, he is, therefore his equal" (10).
10. St. Paul proves the same when he says, " Who, being in the
form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but
emptied himself, taking the form of a servant" (Phil . ii . 6 ) . Now,
here the Apostle says Christ humbled himself " emptied himself,
taking the form of a servant," and that can only be understood of
the two Natures, in which Christ was, for he humbled himself to
take the nature of a servant, being already in the Divine Nature,
as is proved from the antecedent expressions, " who , being in the
form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal to God." If
Christ usurped nothing by declaring himself equal to God, it
cannot be denied that he is of the same substance with God , for
otherwise it would be a " robbery" to say that he was equal to God .

(9) St. Athan. Orat. 4 ad Arian. (10) St. August. lib. 1, con. Maxim. cap. 24.
406 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

St. Augustin, also , explaining that passage of St. John, xiv. 28 ,


" The Father is greater than I," says, that he is less than the
Father, according to the form of a servant, which he took by
becoming man, but that, according to the form of God, which he
had by Nature , and which he did not lose by becoming man , he
was not less than the Father, but his co-equal. " To be equal to
God in the form of God," says theSaint, " was not a robbery, but
Nature. He, therefore," says the Father, " is greater, because he
humbled himself, taking the form of a servant, but not losing the
form of God" (11).
11. Another proof is what our Saviour himself says : " For what
things soever he (the Father) doth, these the Son also doth in like
manner" (John, v. 19) . Hence, St. Hilary concludes that the
Son of God is true God, like the Father-" Filius est , quia abs se
nihil potest ; Deus est, quia quæcunque Pater facit, et ipse eadem
facit ; unum sunt, quia eadem facit, non alia" ( 12 ) . He could not
have the same individual operation with the Father, unless he
was consubstantial with the Father, for in God there is no dis-
tinction between operation and substance.
12. The third class of texts are those in which attributes are
attributed to the Word , which cannot apply unless to God by
Nature, of the same substance as the Father. First.- The Word
is eternal according to the 1st verse of the Gospel of St. John :
" In the beginning was the Word ." The verb was denotes that
the Word has always been, and even, as St. Ambrose remarks ( 13),
the Evangelist mentions the word " was" four times-" Ecce
quater erat ubi impius invenit quod non erat." Besides the word
" was," the other words, " in the beginning," confirm the truth of
the eternity of the Word : " In the beginning was the Word,"
that is to say, the Word existed before all other things. It is on
this very text that the First Council of Nice founded the condem-
nation of that proposition of the Arians, " There was a time once
when the Word had no existence."
13. The Arians, however, say that St. Augustin ( 14) interpreted
the expression " in the beginning," by saying it meant the Father
himself, and according to this interpretation, they say, that the
Word might exist in God previous to all created things, but not be
eternal at the same time. To this we reply that though we might
admit this interpretation , and that " in the beginning" meant in the
Father ; still if we admit that the Word was before all created
things, it follows that the Word was eternal , and never made, be-
cause as 66 by him all things were made," if the Word was not
eternal, but created , he should have created himself, an impossi-
bility, based on the general maxim admitted by all, and quoted

(11 ) St. August. Ep. 66. (12) St. Hilar. 7. 7, de Trin. n. 21. (13) St. Amb.
7. 1, de Fide ad Gratian, c. 5. (14) St. Aug. l. 6, de Trinit. c. 5.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 407

before : " Nemo dat quod non habet” —No one can give what he
has not.
14. They assert, secondly, that the words " in the beginning"
must be understood in the same way as in the passage in the 1st
chapter of Genesis ; " In the beginning, God created the heavens and
the earth ;" and as these were created in the beginning, so also the
Word was created . The answer to this is, that Moses says : " In
the beginning God created ;" but St. John does not say in the be-
ginning the Word was created , but the Word was , and that by him
all things were made.
15. They object, in the third place, that by the expression ,
"the Word," is not understood a person distinct from the Father,
but the internal wisdom of the Father distinct from him, and by
which all things were made. This explanation , however, cannot
stand, for St. John, speaking of the Word, says : " By him all
things were made," and towards the end of the chapter : " The
Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us;" now we cannot
understand these expressions as referring to the internal wisdom of
the Father, but indubitably to the Word , by whom all things were
made, and who , being the Son of God , became flesh , as is declared
in the same place : " And we saw his glory, the glory as it were of
the only-begotten of the Father." This is confirmed by the Apostle,
when he says, that by the Son (called by St. John the Word) the
world was created. In these days hath spoken to us by his Son,
whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made
the world" (Heb. i . 2 ) . Besides, the eternity of the Word is proved
by the text of the Apocalypse (i. 8) : " I am Alpha and Omega,
the beginning and the end, who is, and who was, and who is to
come ;" and by the Epistle to the Hebrews ( xiii . 8 ) , " Jesus Christ,
yesterday, and to-day, and the same for ever."
16. Arius always denied that the Word was eternal , but some of
his latter followers, convinced by the Scriptures, admitted that he
was eternal, but an eternal creature , and not a Divine Person. The
answer given by many theologians to this newly invented error
is, that the very existence of an eternal creature is an impos-
sibility. That a creature, they say, should be said to be created,
it is necessary that it should be produced out of nothing, so that
from a state of non-existence, it passes to a state of existence, so
that we must suppose a time in which this creature did not exist.
But this reply is not sufficient to prove the fallacy of the argument,
for St. Thomas (15 ) teaches , and the doctrine is most probable, that
in order to assert that a thing is created, it is not necessary to sup-
pose a time in which it was not, so that its non-existence preceded
its existence ; but it is quite enough to suppose a creature, as nothing

(15) St. Thomas, quas. Disp. de Potentia, art. 14, ad 7.


408 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

by its own nature, or by itself, but as having its existence altogether


from God. " It is enough ," says the Saint, " to say that a thing
has come from nothing, that its non-existence should precede its
existence, not in duration , but nature , inasmuch , as , if left to itself,
it never would have been anything, and it altogether derives its
existence from another." Supposing then that it is unnecessary to
look for a time in which the thing did not exist, to call it a creature,
God, who is eternal, might give to a creature existence from all eter-
nity, which by its own nature it never could have had . It appears
to me, then, that the fit and proper reply to this argument is, that
the Word being (as has been already proved) eternal, never could
be called a creature, for it is an article of Faith, as all the Holy
Fathers teach ( 16 ) , that there never existed , in fact, an eternal
creature, since all creatures were created in time , in the beginning,
when, as Moses says, God created the world : " In the beginning,
God created the heavens and the earth ." The creation of heaven
and earth, according to the doctrine of all Fathers and theologians,
comprises the creation of all beings, both material and spiritual.
The Word, on the contrary, had existence before there was any
creature , as we see in the book of Proverbs, where Wisdom, that
is the Word, thus speaks : " The Lord possessed me in the begin-
ning of his ways, before he made anything from the beginning"
(Prov. viii. 22). The Word , therefore, is not a created being,
since he existed before God had made anything.
17. The materialists of modern times, however, cannot infer from
this that matter is eternal of itself, for although we admit that matter
might exist from eternity, inasmuch as God could, from all eternity,
give to it existence which it had not of itself (though he did not do
so in fact) ; still , as we have proved in our book on the " Truth of
the Faith," it could not exist from itself, it should have existence
from God, for, according to the axiom so frequently repeated, Nemo
dat quod non habet, it could not give to itself that (existence) which
it had not to give. From St. John's expression regarding the Word,
66
by him all things were made," not alone his eternity is proved,
but the power of creating likewise, which can belong to none but
God ; for, in order to create , an infinite power is necessary , which,
as all theologians say, God could not communicate to a creature.
Returning, however, to the subject of the eternity of the Word, we
say, that if the Father should, by the necessity of the Divine nature
(necessitate natura) , generate the Son , the Father being eternal, the
Son should also be eternal, keeping always in mind the Father the
generator, the Son as the generated . Thus the error of the modern
materialists, the basis of whose system is, that matter is eternal, falls
to the ground.

(16) St. Thomas, 1. part. ques. 46 , art. 2, 3.


AND THEIR REFUTATION . 409

18. Now, it being admitted that by the Word all things were
made, it is a necessary consequence that the Word was not made
by himself, for otherwise there would exist a being made, but not
made by the Word , and this is opposed to the text of St. John , who
says that " by him all things were made." This is the great argu-
ment of St. Augustin against the Arians, when they assert that the
Word was made : " How," says the Saint ( 17), " can it be possible
that the Word is made, when God by the Word made all things ?
If the Word ofGod himself was made, by what other Word was
he made ? If you say it was by the Word of the Word, that, I say,
is the only Son of God ; but, if you say it is not by the Word of
the Word, then you must admit that that Word, by whom all things
were made, was not made himself, for he could not, who made all
things, be made by himself.
19. The Arians, too much pressed by this argument to answer
it, endeavour to do so by a quibble- St . John, say they, does not
tell us that all things were made by Him (ab ipso) , but rather
through Him (per ipsum), and hence they infer that the Word was
not the principal cause of the creation of the world , but only an
instrument the Father made use ofin creating it, and therefore they
agree that the Word is not God. But we answer, that the creation
of the world, as described by David and St. Paul, is attributed to
the Son of God. " In the beginning, O Lord," says David, “ thou
foundedst the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hands"
(Psalm ci . 26) ; and St. Paul, writing to the Hebrews, dictates
almost a whole chapter to prove the same thing ; see these passages :
" But to the Son, thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever" (i . 8) ;
and again, verse 13, " But to which of his angels said he at any
time, sit on my right hand till I make thy enemies thy footstool."
Here St. Paul declares that that Son of God called by St. John
" the Word" has created the heavens and the earth , and is really
God, and as God, was not a simple instrument, but the Creator-in-
Chief of the world . Neither will the quibble of the Arians on the
words per ipsum and ab ipso avail, for in many places of the Scrip-
tures we find the word per conjoined with the principal cause : Pos-
sedi hominem per Deum (Gen. iv . ) ; Per me Reges regnant (Prov.
viii .) ; Paulus vocatus Apostolus Jesu Christi per voluntatem Dei
(1 Cor. i .)
20. There is another proof of the Divinity of the Word in the
5th chapter of St. John , where the Father wills that all honour
should be given to the Son the same as to himself: " But he hath
given all judgment to the Son , that all may honour the Son as they
honour the Father" (John, v. 22 , 23 ) . The Divinity of the Word
and of the Holy Ghost is also proved by the precept given to the
Apostles : " Go ye, therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them in

(17) St. Augus. Trac. in Joan.


410 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

the name ofthe Father, and of the Son , and of the Holy Ghost"
(Matt. xxviii. 19) . The Holy Fathers, St. Athanasius, St. Hilary,
St. Fulgentius, and several others, made use of this text to convince
the Arians, for baptism being ordained in the name of the three
Divine Persons , it is clear that they have equal power and authority ,
and are God ; for if the Son and the Holy Ghost were creatures we
would be baptized in the name of the Father, who is God, and of
two creatures ; but St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, states that
this is opposed to our Faith, " Lest any should say that you are
baptized in my name" ( 1 Cor. i . 15) .
21. Finally, there are two powerful arguments, to prove the
Divinity ofthe Word. The first is taken from the power mani-
fested by the Word in the fact related in the fifth chapter of St.
Luke, where Christ, in healing the man sick of the palsy , pardoned
him his sins, saying : " Man, thy sins are forgiven thee" (Luke, v.
20) . Now, God alone has the power of forgiving sins, and the
very Pharisees knew this, for they said : " Who is this who
speaketh blasphemies ? who can forgive sins but God alone ?"
(Luke, v. 21).
22. The second proof is taken from the very words of Christ
himself, in which he declares himself to be the Son of God . He
several times spoke in this manner, but most especially when he
asked his disciples what they thought of him : " Jesus saith to them,
Whom do you think I am ? Simon Peter answered and said:
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God . And Jesus an-
swering, said to him : Blessed art thou , Simon Barjona, because
flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is
in heaven" (Matt. xvi . 15 , 17 ) . He also declared it as we have
seen above, when Caiphas asked him, " Art thou Christ, the Son
of the Blessed God ? And Jesus said to him, I am" (Mark, xiv.
61 ) . See now the argument. The Arians say that Christ is not
the true Son of God , but they never said he was a liar ; on the con-
trary, they praise him, as the most excellent of all men and
enriched, above all others, with virtues and divine gifts. Now, if
this man (according to them) called himself the Son of God, when
he was but a mere creature, or if he even permitted that others
should consider him the Son of God, and that so many should be
scandalized in hearing him called the Son of God , when he was
not so in reality , he ought at least declare the truth , otherwise he
was the most impious of men. But no ; he never said a word,
though the Jews were under the impression that he was guilty of blas-
phemy, and allowed himself to be condemned and crucified on that
charge, for this was the great crime he was accused of before Pilate,
" according to the Law he ought to die, because he made himself
the Son of God" (John , xix . 7) . In fine, we reply to all opponents,
after Jesus Christ expressly declared himself the Son of God , as we
remarked in St. Mark's Gospel, chap . xiv. 62 , " I am ," though this
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 411

declaration was what cost him his life, who will dare to deny, after
it, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?

SEC. II. THE DIVINITY OF THE WORD PROVED BY THE AUTHORITY OF HOLY
FATHERS AND COUNCILS.

23. THE unceasing opposition of the Arians to the Council of


Nice was on account of the consubstantiality attributed to the
Word. This term, consubstantiality, was never used , they said, by
the ancient Fathers of the Church ; but St. Athanasius, St. Gregory
of Nyssa, St. Hilary, and St. Augustin, attest that the Nicene
Fathers took this word from the constant tradition of the first Doc-
tors of the Church. Besides, the learned remark , that many works
of the Fathers, cited by Saint Athanasius, St. Basil, and even by
Eusebius, were lost, through the lapse of ages. We should also
remember that the ancient Fathers who wrote previous to the exis-
tence of heresy , did not always write with the same caution as the
Fathers who succeeded them , when the truths of the Faith were
confirmed by the decrees of Councils. The doubts stirred up
by our enemies, says St. Augustin , have caused us to investigate
more closely, and to establish the dogmas which we are bound to
believe. " Ab adversario mota quæstio discendi existit occasio”( 1 ) .
The Socinians do not deny that all the Fathers posterior to the
Council of Nice held the sentence of that Council, in admitting the
consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, but they say that those
who wrote previous to the Council held quite another opinion .
In order, therefore, to prove that the Socinians in this are totally
astray, we will confine our quotations to the works of the Fathers
who preceded the Council, who, if they have not made use of the
very word consubstantial, or of the same substance as the Father,
have still clearly expressed the same thing in equivalent terms.
24. The Martyr St. Ignatius, the successor of St. Peter in the
See of Antioch, who died in the year 108, attests, in several places,
the Divinity of Christ . In his Epistle ad Trallianos , he writes :
" Who was truly born of God and the Virgin, but not in the same
manner;" and afterwards ; " The true God, the Word born of the
Virgin, he who in himself contains all mankind, was truly begotten
in the womb." Again, in his Epistle to the Ephesians : " There is
one carnal and spiritual physician, made and not made , God in
man, true life in death , and both from Mary and from God ;" and
again, in his Epistle to the Magnesians : " Jesus Christ, who was
with the Father before all ages, at length appeared ," and imme-
diately after, he says : " There is but one God, who made himself
manifest by Jesus Christ, his Son, who is his eternal Word."
25. St. Polycarp was a disciple of St. John , and Bishop of
Smyrna ; he lived in the year 167. Eusebius ( 2) quotes a celebrated
(1) St. Aug. l. 16 , de Civ. c. 2. (2) Euseb. His. l. 4, c. 13.
412 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Epistle written by the Church of Smyrna to that of Pontus, giving


an account of his martyrdom, and in it we read , that just before his
death he thus expressed himself; " Wherefore in all things I praise
Thee, I bless Thee, I glorify Thee, by the eternal Pontiff, Jesus
Christ, thy beloved Son, through whom, to Thee, with him , in the
Holy Ghost, be glory, now and for evermore. Amen." First,
therefore, St. Polycarp calls Christ the eternal Pontiff, but nothing but
God alone is eternal. Second.- He glorifies the Son, together with
the Father, giving him equal glory, which he would not have done
unless . he believed that the Son was God equal to the Father. In
his letter to the Philippians he ascribes equally to the Son and to
the Father the power of giving grace and salvation. " May God
the Father," he says ...." and Jesus Christ, sanctify you in faith and
truth....and give you lot and part among his Saints."
26. St. Justin, the philosopher and martyr, who died about the
year 161 , clearly speaks ofthe Divinity of Christ . He says in his
first Apology: " Christ, the Son of God the Father, who alone is
properly called his Son and his Word , because with Him before all
creatures he existed and is begotten." Mark how the Saint calls
Christ properly the Son and the Word , existing with the Father
before all creatures, and generated by him ; the Word, therefore, is
the proper Son of God, existing with the Father before all creatures,
and is not, therefore, a creature himself. In his second Apology he
says: " When the Word is the first-born of God, he is also God."
In his Dialogue with Triphon , he proves that Christ in the Old
Testament was called the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, and he
then concludes by addressing the Jews : " If," says he, " you under-
stood the prophets, you would not deny that he is God, the Son of
the only and self-existing God." I omit many other passages of the
same tenor, and I pass on to answer the objections of the Socinians.
St. Justin, they say, in his Dialogue with Triphon, and in his Apo-
logy, asserts that the Father is the cause of the Word, and existed
before the Word. To this we answer : the Father is called the
cause of the Son, not as creator, but as generator , and the Father is
said to be before the Son, not in time, but in origin, and, therefore,
some Fathers have called the Father the cause of the Son, as being
the principle of the Son . They also object that St. Justin calls the
Son the Minister of God- " Administrum esse Deo ." We reply he
is God's Minister as man, that is, according to human nature.
They make many other captious objections of this sort, which are
refuted in Juenin's Theology (3) , but the few words of the Saint
already quoted : " Cum Verbum Deus etiam est" -When the Word
is also God, are quite enough to answer them all.
27. St. Iræneus, a disciple of St. Polycarp , and Bishop of Lyons ,
who died in the beginning of the second century , says ( 4) that the

(3) Juenin. Theol . t. 3, c. 1, s. 1. (4) St. Iræn. ad Hær. l. 3, c. 6.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 413

66
Son is true God, like the Father. Neither," he says, " the Lord
(the Father) nor the Holy Ghost would have absolutely called him
God, if he was not true God." And again (5 ) , he says, " the Father
is the measure, and he is infinite , and the Son containing him must
be infinite likewise." They object that St. Iræneus has said that
the day of judgment is known to the Father alone, and that the
Father is greater than the Son ; but this has been already answered
(vide n. 10) ; and again , in another place, where the Saint says,
66
Christ, with the Father, is the God of the living" (6).
28. Athenagoras, a Christian philosopher of Athens, in his
Apology for the Christians, writes to the Emperors Antoninus and
Commodus, that the reason why we say that all things were made
by the Son is this : " Whereas," he says, " the Father and the Son
are one and the same, and the Son is in the Father, and the Father
in the Son, by the unity and power of the Spirit, the Mind and
Word is the Son of God." In these words : " Whereas the Father
and the Son are one," he explains the unity of nature of the Son
with the Father ; and in the other, " the Son is in the Father, and
the Father in the Son ," that peculiarity of the Trinity called by
theologians Circuminsession , by which one Person is in the others.
He immediately adds : " We assert that the Son the Word is God,
as is also the Holy Ghost united in power."
29. Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, under the Emperor Marcus
Aurelius, says (7) : " We ought to know that our Lord Christ is
true God and true man- God from God the Father- man from
Mary, his human Mother." Clement of Alexandria ( 8 ) writes :
" Now the Word himself has appeared to man, who alone is both
at the same time God and man .' And again he says (9) : " God
hates nothing, nor neither does the Word, for both are one, to wit,
God, for he has said, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God." Origen ( 10) wrote against
Celsus, who objected to the Christians, that they adored Jesus
Christ as God, though he was dead, and he thus expresses himself:
"Be it known to our accusers that we believe this Jesus to be God
and the Son of God." And again he says ( 11 ) , that although Christ
suffered as man, the Word who was God did not suffer. " We
distinguish," he says, " between the nature of the Divine Word,
which is God, and the soul of Jesus." I do not quote the passage
which follows, as it is on that theologians found their doubts of the
faith of Origen, as the reader may see by consulting Nat. Alexan-
der ( 12), but there can be no doubt, from the passage already
quoted, that Origen confessed that Jesus was God and the Son of
God.

(5) St. Iræn. ad Hær. l. 4, c. 8. (6) Idem, l. 3, c. 11. (7) Theoph. l. 5 ; Allegor.
in Evang. (8) Clem. Alex . in Admon. ad Græcos. (9) Idem, l. 1 ; Pædagog. c. 8.
(10) Origen, l. 3, cont. Celsum. (11) Idem, l. 4, cont. Celsum. (12) Nat. Alex.
sec. 3, Diss. 16, art. 2.
414 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

30. Dionysius Alexandrinus, towards the end of the third cen-


tury, was accused (13) of denying the consubstantiality of the
Word with the Father, but he says : " I have shown that they
falsely charge me with saying that Christ is not consubstantial with
God." St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, one of Origen's scholars, Bishop
of Pontus, and one of the accusers of Paul of Samosata in the Synod
of Antioch, says, in his Confession of Faith ( 14) : " There is one
God, the Father of the living Word , the perfect Father of the
perfect, the Father of the only-begotten Son (solus ex solo) , God
of God. And there is one Holy Ghost from God having existence."
St. Methodius , as St. Jerome informs us (15) , Bishop of Tyre, who
suffered martyrdom under Diocletian, thusspeaks of the Word in
his book entitled De Martyribus, quoted by Theodoret ( 16 ) : “ The
Lord and the Son of God, who thought it no robbery to be equal
to God."
31. We now come to the Latin Fathers of the Western Church.
St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage ( 17 ) , proves the Divinity of the
Word with the very texts we have already quoted. " The Lord
says : I and the Father are one. " And again, it is written of the
Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, " and these three are
one." In another place he says ( 18) , “ God is mingled with man ;
this is our God- this is Christ." I omit the authority of St. Dio-
nisius Romanus, of St. Athanasius , of Arnobius, of Lactantius, of
Minutius Felix, of Zeno, and of other eminent writers, who forcibly
defend the Divinity of the Word. I will merely here quote a few
passages from Tertullian, whose authority the Socinians abuse. In
one part he says, speaking of the Word ( 19 ) , " Him have we
learned as produced from God (prolatum), and so generated, and
therefore he is said to be God , and the Son of God, from the unity
of substance....He is, therefore , Spirit from Spirit, God from God,
and light from light." Again he says ( 20) : " I and the Father are
one, in the unity of substance, and not in the singularity of number."
From these passages it clearly appears that Tertullian held that the
Word was God, like the Father, and consubstantial with the
Father. Our adversaries adduce some obscure passages from the
most obscure part of his works, which they imagine favour their
opinion ; but our authors have demolished all their quibbles, and
can consult them ( 21 ).
32. It is, however, certain , on the authority of the Fathers of
the first three centuries, that the Faith of the Church in the Divinity
and consubstantiality of the Word with the Father has been un-

(13 ) Dionys. Alex. apud St. Athan. t. 1, p. 561. (14) St. Greg. Thaum. p. 1, Oper.
apud Greg. Nyssen. in Vita Greg. Thaum. (15) St. Hier. de Scrip. Eccles. c. 34.
(16) Theodoret, Dial. 1 , p. 37. ( 17) St. Cyprian, de lib. Unit. Eccles. ( 18) Idem,
I de Idol. vanit. (19) Tertull. Apol. c. 21. (20) Idem, lib. con. Praxeam, c. 25.
(21 ) Vide Juvenin. t. 3, q. 2, c. 1 , a. 1, sec. 2 ; Tournelly, t. 2, q. 4, art. 3, sec. 2 ; An-
toin. Theol. Trac. de Trin. e. 1, art. 3.
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 415

changeable, and even Socinus himself is obliged to confess this ( 22 ) .


Guided by this tradition , the three hundred and eighteen Fathers
of the General Council of Nice, held in the year 325 , thus defined
the Faith: " We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God ,
the only-begotten Son from the Father, that is, from the substance
of the Father ; God of God , light of lights, true God of true God ,
consubstantial to the Father, by whom all things were made."
This self-same profession of Faith has been from that always pre-
served in the subsequent General Councils, and in the whole
Church.

SEC. III. OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

33. Before commencing, it would be well to remember, as St.


Ambrose ( 1 ) remarks, that the texts of Scripture adduced by our
adversaries are not always to be taken in the same sense , as some
of them refer to Christ as God, and more as man ; but the heretics
confuse one with the other, applying those which refer to him as
man, as if they referred to him as God. " The pious mind ," the
Saint says, " will distinguish between those which apply to him,
according to the flesh, and according to the Divinity ; but the
sacrilegious mind will confound them, and distort , as injurious to
the Divinity, whatever is written according to the humility of the
flesh." Now, this is exactly how the Arians proceed , in impugning
the Divinity of the Word ; they always fasten on those texts, in
which Christ is said to be less than the Father. To upset most of
their arguments, therefore, it will always be sufficient to explain,
that Jesus, as man, is less than the Father, but as God, by the
Word, to which his humanity is united , he is equal to the Father.
When we speak, therefore, of Jesus Christ, as man, we can lawfully
say that he is created, that he was made, that he obeys the Father,
is subject to the Father, and soforth.
34. We shall now review the captious objections of our oppo-
nents : First. They object to us that text of St. John (iv. 28) :
" The Father is greater than I am." But, before quoting this pas-
sage, they ought to reflect that Christ, before speaking thus, said :
"If you loved me, you would, indeed , be glad , because I go to the
Father, for the Father is greater than I." Here, then, Jesus calls
the Father greater than himself, inasmuch as he, as man, was going
to the Father in heaven ; but mark how, afterwards, speaking of
himself, according to the Divine nature, he says, " The Father and
I are one ;" and all the other texts already quoted ( Sec. I. ) , are
of the same tenor, and clearly prove the Divinity of the Word,
and of Christ. Second .- They object that Christ says : " I came

(22) Socinus, Epist. ad Radoc. in t. 1, suor. Oper. (1) St. Ambrose, l. 5, de Fide,
e. 8, n. 115.
416 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that
sent me" (John, vi. 38) ; and also that passage of St. Paul : " And
when all things shall be subdued unto him , then the Son also him-
self shall be subject unto him, that put all things under him"
( 1 Corinth. xv. 28) . The Son, therefore, obeys, and is subject
to the Father, and, therefore, is not God. In regard to the first
text, we answer that Jesus Christ then explained the two wills,
according to the two natures he had to wit, the human will, by
which he was to obey the Father, and the Divine will, which was
common both to him and the Father. As far as the second text
goes, St. Paul only says, that the Son, as man, will be always sub-
ject to the Father ; and that we do not deny. How, then, can it
interfere with our belief in his Divinity ? Third.-They object
that passage of the Acts of the Apostles (iii . 13) : " The God of
Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of
our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus , whom you , indeed , de-
livered up," &c . See here, they say, how a distinction is made
between the Son and between the Father, who is called God. We
answer, that this refers to Christ as man , and not as God ; for the
words, " he glorified his Son, " are to be understood , as referring to
Christ in his human nature. St. Ambrose, besides, gives another
answer, when he says, " that if the Father is understood by the
name of God alone , it is because from him is all authority."
35. The following objections are just of the same character as
the preceding. They object, fourthly, that text of the Proverbs :
" The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways, before he
made anything from the beginning " (Prov . viii . 22 ) . This is the
text, according to the Vulgate, and the Hebrew original is just the
same ; but in the Greek Septuagint it is thus read : " The Lord
created me in the beginning of his ways." Therefore , the Arians
say, the Divine Wisdom which is here spoken of was created, and
they strengthen their argument, by quoting from Ecclesiasticus
(xxiv. 14) : " From the beginning, and before all ages, I was
created." We answer, first of all, the true reading is that of the
Vulgate, and that alone, according to the Decree of the Council of
Trent, we are bound to obey ; but though we even take the Greek,
it is of no consequence, as the word created (here used in the text
of Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus) , as St. Jerome and St. Augustin (2)
teach us, does not exactly mean creation, for the Greeks promis-
cuously used the words created and begotten , to signify sometimes
creation, sometimes generation, as appears from Deuteronomy
(xxxii. 16) : " Thou hast forsaken the God that begot thee , and
hast forgotten the Lord that created thee." Hence generation is
taken for creation . There is a passage also in the Book of Proverbs,
which , if we consider the text, can only be understood of the

(2) St. Hieron. in Cap. 4 ; Ep. ad Eph. St. August. lib. de Fil. & Simb.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 417

generation of the Divine Wisdom : " I was set up from eternity,


and of old, before the earth was made....... Before the hills I was
brought forth " ( Proverbs , viii . 23) . We should remark here the
expression, " I was set up from eternity." That shows how we
ought to understand the word created is to be understood in the
former quotation. We might also answer, with St. Hilary, that the
word created refers to the human nature the Word assumed , and the
words, brought forth, to the eternal generation of the Word (3 ) .
Wisdom here is spoken of as created , and , immediately after, as
begotten ; but creation is to be referred , not to the immutable
nature of God, but to the human generation. " Sapientia itaque
quæ se dixit creatam , eadem in consequenti se dixit genitam :
creationem referens ad Parentis inde mutabilem naturam , quæ extra
humani partus speciem, et consuetudinem , sine imminutione aliqua ,
ac diminutione sui creavit ex seipsa quod genuit." In the text of
Ecclesiasticus , cited immediately after, it is clear that the Incarnate
Wisdom is spoken of : " He that made me rested in my taber-
nacle ; " for this by the Incarnation was verified. God, who
" created " Jesus Christ according to his humanity, " rested in his
tabernacle" —that is, reposed in that created humanity. The fol-
lowing passage is even, if possible, clearer : " Let thy dwelling be
in Jacob, and thy inheritance in Israel , and take root in my elect ."
All this surely refers to the Incarnate Wisdom , who came from the
stock of Israel and Jacob, and was then the root of all the elect.
Read on this subject St. Augustin, St. Fulgentius, and , above all ,
St. Athanasius (4).
36. They object, fifthly, that St. Paul says of Christ, in his
Epistle to the Colossians (i. 15) : " Who is the image of the invi-
sible God , the first-born of every creature." Hence, they infer that
Christ is the most excellent of creatures, but still only a creature.
We may here reply, that the Apostle speaks of Christ in this text,
according to his human nature, as St. Cyril explains it (5) . But it
is generally interpreted of the Divine Nature , and he is called the
first-born of all creatures, because by him all creatures were made,
as St. Basil explains it (6) : " Since in him were made all things in
heaven and on earth." In the same manner, he is called , in the
Apocalypse, "the first-born of the dead " (Apoc . i. 5) ; because, as
St. Basil again explains it, he was the cause of the resurrection of
the dead. Or he may be called the first-born , because he was
generated before all things, as Tertullian ( 7) explains it : " The
first-born, because he was born before all things ; the only-begotten,
as the only begotten of God." St. Ambrose ( 8) says the same
thing. We read the first-born-we read the only-begotten ; the

(3) St. Hilar. lib. de Synod. c. 5. (4) St. Aug. l. 5, de Trin. c. 12 ; St. Fulgent.
lib. contra serm. fastid. Arian. St. Athanas. Orat. contra Arian. (5) St. Cyril, 1. 25 ;
Thesaur. (6) St. Basil, l. 4, con. Eunom. (7) Tertul. con. Prax. c. 7. (8) St.
Ambrose, l. 1 , de Fide.
2D
418 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

first-born, because there was none before him- the only-begotten,


because there was none after him.
37. They object , sixthly, that expression of St. John the Baptist
(John , i . 15) : " He that shall come after me is preferred before
" (ante me factus est) ; therefore, say they, the Word was
created . St. Ambrose ( 9) answers, that all that St. John meant by
the expression, " was made before me " (ante me factus est) , was,
that he was preferred or placed before him, for he immediately
assigns the reason : " Because he was before me, " that is, because
he preceded him for all eternity, and he was, therefore , not even
worthy to " unloose the latchet of his shoe. " The same answer meets
the passage of St. Paul : " Being made so much better than the angels"
( Heb. i. 4 ) , that is, he was honoured so much more than the angels.
38. They object, seventhly, that text of St. John (xvii. 3) : " Now
this is eternal life, that they may know thee the only true God, and
Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." Hence it is declared , say they,
that the Father only is true God ; but we answer, that the word
" only" does not exclude from the Divinity, unless creatures alone,
as St. Matthew says : " No one knoweth the Son but the Father,
nor the Father but the Son " (Matt. xi. 27) . Now, it would be a
false conclusion to deduce from this that the Father does not know
himself ; and, therefore, the word " only," in the former text, is to
be taken, as in the twelfth verse of the thirty-second chapter of
Deuteronomy: " The Lord alone was his leader, and there was no
strange God with him." Another proof is that text of St. John
(xvi. 32) : “ And shall leave me alone." Here the word alone
(solum) does not mean that he is excluded from the Father, for he
immediately adds : " And yet I am not alone, for the Father is with
me." And thus, likewise, must we understand that text of St.
Paul : " We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that
there is no God but one ; for although there be that are called
gods, either in heaven or on earth, yet to us there is but one God,
the Father, of whom are all things , and we unto him, and one
Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things , and we by him "
( 1 Cor. viii. 5 , 6). Here the expression , " One God, the Father,"
is meant to exclude the false gods, but not the Divinity of Jesus
Christ, no more than saying " Our Lord Jesus Christ," excludes the
Father from being still our Lord.
39. They also adduce the sixth verse of the fifth chapter of the
Epistle to the Ephesians : " One God, and Father of all, who is
above all, and through all, and in us all." We answer that the
words: " One God, and Father of all ," do not exclude the Divinity
of the other two Persons ; for the word , Father, is not here taken
in its strict sense , as denoting the Person of the Father alone , but
in that essential sense by which the word, Father, is applied to the

(9) St. Ambrose, l. 3, de Fide.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 419

whole Trinity, which we invoke when we say: " Our Father, who
art in heaven." We thus , also, answer the other text adduced from
St. Paul to Timothy : " For there is one God and one Mediator of
God and man, the man , Christ Jesus ( 1 Tim. ii . 5) . The expres-
sion, " one God," does not exclude the Divinity of Jesus Christ ;
but, as St. Augustin remarks, the words which immediately follow,
66 one Mediator of God and man ," prove that Jesus Christ is both
God and man . " God alone," the Saint says, " could not feel death ,
nor man alone could not subdue it."
40. They object, eighthly, the text : " But of that day or time,
no man knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but
the Father " (Mark , xiii . 32) . So, say they, the Son is not omni-
scient. Some have answered this, by saying, that the Son did not
know the day of judgment as man, but only as God ; but this does
not meet the objection, since we know from the Scriptures, that to
Christ, even as man, the fulness of knowledge was given : " And
we saw the glory, the glory as it were of the only-begotten of the
Father, full of grace and truth " (John , i. 14) ; and again : " In19
whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge
(Colos. ii . 3) . And St. Ambrose ( 10) , treating of this point, says :
" How could he be ignorant of the day of judgment, who told the
hour, and the place, and the signs, and the causes of judgment."
The African Church, therefore, obliged Leporius to retract, when
he said , that Christ, as man, did not know the day ofjudgment, and
he at once obeyed . We, therefore, answer, that it is said the Son
did not know the day of judgment, as it would be of no use, nor fit
that men should know it. This is the way in which St. Augustin
explains it. We are, therefore, to conclude that the Father did not
wish that the Son should make known the day, and the Son , as his
Father's Legate, said in his name, he did not know it, not having
received a commission from his Father to make it known.
41. They object, ninthly, that the Father alone is called good ,
to the exclusion of the Son : " And Jesus said to him : Why callest
thou me good ? None is good but one, that is God" (Mark, x. 18 ).
Christ, therefore, they say, confesses that he is not God. St. Am-
brose ( 11) answers this. Christ, he says, wished to reprove the young
man , who called him good, and still would not believe he was God,
whereas, God alone is essentially good ; it is, says the Saint, as if
our Lord should say : " Either do not call me good, or believe me
to be God."
42. They object, tenthly, that Christ has not full power over all
creatures, since he said to the mother of St. James and St. John :
" To sit on my right or left hand, is not mine to give you" ( Matt.
xx. 23). We answer, it cannot be denied, according to the Scrip-
tures, that Christ received all power from his Father : " Knowing

(10) St. Ambrose, l. 5, de Fide, c. 16, n. 204. ( 11) St Ambrose, 1, 2, de Fide, c. 1.


420 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

that the Father had given him all things into his hands" (John , xiii.
3) ; " All things are delivered to me by my Father” ( Matt . xi. 27) ;
" All power is given to me in heaven , and on earth" (Matt. xxviii.
18). How, then, are we to understand his inability to give places
to the sons of Zebedee ? We have the answer from our Lord him-
self: " It is not mine," he says, "to give to you, but to them for
whom it is prepared by my Father." See, then, the answer : " It
is not mine to give you ;" not because he had not the power of
giving it, but I cannot give it to you, who think you have a right
to heaven, because you are related to me ; for heaven is the portion
of those only for whom it has been prepared by my Father ; to
them, Christ, as being equal to the Father, can give it. " As all
things," says St. Augustin (12 ), " which the Father has, are mine,
this is also mine , and I have prepared it with the Father."
43. They object, eleventhly, that text : " The Son cannot do
anything from himself, but what he sees the Father doing" ( John ,
v. 19) . St. Thomas ( 13) answers this. " When it said that the
Son cannot do anything for himself, no power is taken from the
Son, which the Father has, for it is immediately added : " For
what things soever he doth, these the Son also doth, in like man-
ner ;" but it is there that the Son has the power, from his Father,
from whom he also has his Nature." Hence, Hilary ( 14 ) says :
" This is the Unity of the Divine Nature ; ut ita per se agat Filius
quod non agat a se." The same reply will meet all the other texts
they adduce, as : " My doctrine is not mine" (John , vii . 16 ) ; “ The
Father loves the Son, and shows him all things" (John, v. 20) ;
" All things are delivered to me by my Father" ( Matt . xi. 27) . Ali
these texts, prove, they say, that the Son cannot be God by Nature
and Substance. But we answer, that the Son, being generated by
the Father, receives everything from him by communication , and
the Father, generating, communicates to him all he has, except the
Paternity ; and this is the distinction between him and the Son , for
the power, the wisdom , and the will , are all the same in the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The Arians adduce several other
texts, but the reader will find no especial difficulty in answering
them, by merely referring to what he has already read.

REFUTATION III.

OF THE HERESY OF MACEDONIUS WHO DENIED THE DIVINITY OF


THE HOLY GHOST.

1. THOUGH Arius did not deny the Divinity of the Holy Ghost,
still it was a necessary consequence of his principles, for, denying

(12) St. Augus. l. 1, de Trin. c. 12. (13) St. Thomas, 1 , p. 9, 42, a. 6, ad 1 .


(14) Hilar. de Trin. 7. 9.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 421

the Son to be God, the Holy Ghost, who proceeds from the Father
and the Son , could not be God. However, Aezius, Eunomius,
Eudoxius, and all those followers of his, who blasphemously taught
that the Son was not like unto the Father, attacked also the Divinity
of the Holy Ghost, and the chief defender and propagator of this
heresy was Macedonius. In the refutation of the heresy of Sabellius,
we will prove, in opposition to the Socinians, that the Holy Ghost
is the Third Person of the Trinity, subsisting and really distinct
from the Father and the Son ; here we will prove that the Holy
Ghost is true God, equal and consubstantial to the Father and the
Son.

SECT. I. THE DIVINITY OF THE HOLY GHOST PROVED FROM SCRIPTURES, FROM THE
TRADITIONS OF THE FATHERS, AND FROM GENERAL COUNCILS.

2. WE begin with the Scriptures. To prove that this is an


article of Faith, I do not myself think any more is necessary than
to quote the text of St. Matthew, in which is related the commission
given by Christ to his Apostles : " Go, ye , therefore, teach all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost" (Matt. xxviii . 19) . It is in this belief we
profess the Christian religion , which is founded on the mystery of
the Trinity, the principal one of our Faith ; it is by these words the
character of a Christian is impressed on every one entering into the
Church by Baptism ; this is the formula approved by all the Holy
Fathers, and used from the earliest ages of the Church : " I baptize
thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son , and of the Holy
Ghost." As the three Persons are named consecutively , and with-
out any difference, the equality of the authority and power belonging
to them is declared , and as we say, " in the name," and not " in the
names," we profess the unity of essence in them. By using the
article " and in the name of his Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost," we proclaim the real distinction that exists between
them ! for if we said , in the name of the Father, Son , and Holy
Ghost, the latter expression , Holy Ghost, might be understood , not
as a substantive , as the proper name of one of the Divine Persons ,
but as an epithet and adjective applied to the Father and the Son .
It is for this reason , Tertullian says ( 15 ) , that our Lord has com-
manded to make an ablution, in the administration of baptism , at
the name of each of the Divine Persons, that we may firmly believe
that there are three distinct Persons in the Trinity. " Mandavit ut
tingerent in Patrem et Filium, et Spiritum Sanctum ; non in unum
nec semel sed ter ad singula nomina in personas singulas tingimur."
3. St. Athanasius , in his celebrated Epistle to Serapion, says,
that we join the name of the Holy Ghost with the Father and
the Son in baptism, because, if we omitted it, the Sacrament would

(15) Tertullian, con. Praxeam, c. 26.


422 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

be invalid : " He who curtails the Trinity , and baptizes in the name
of the Father alone, or in the name of the Son alone, or omitting
the Holy Ghost, with the Father and Son , performs nothing, for
initiation consists in the whole Trinity being named ." The Saint
says that ifwe omit the name ofthe Holy Ghost the baptism is invalid,
because baptism is the Sacrament in which we profess the Faith,
and this Faith requires a belief in all the three Divine Persons
united in one essence , so that he who denies one of the Persons
denies God altogether. " And so," follows on St. Athanasius,
" Baptism would be invalid, when administered in the belief that
the Son or the Holy Ghost were mere creatures." He who divides
the Son from the Father, or lowers the Spirit to the condition of a
mere creature, has neither the Son nor the Father, and justly, for,
as it is one baptism which is conferred in the Father, and the Son,
and the Holy Ghost and it is one Faith in Him, as the Apostle says ,
so the Holy Trinity, existing in itself, and united in itself, has, in
itself, nothing of created things. Thus, as the Trinity is one and
undivided, so is the Faith of three Persons united in it, one and un-
divided . We, therefore, are bound to believe that the name of the
Holy Ghost, that is, the name of the Third Person expressed by
these two words, so frequently used in the Scriptures , is not an
imaginary name, or casually invented , but the name of the Third
Person, God, like the Father and the Son. We should remember,
likewise, that the expression, Holy Ghost, is , properly speaking, but
one word, for either of its component parts might be applied to the
Father or the Son, for both are Holy, both are Spirit, but this word
is the proper name of the Third Person of the Trinity . " Why
would Jesus Christ," adds St. Athanasius, " join the name of the
Holy Ghost with those of the Father and the Son, if he were a
mere creature ? is it to render the three Divine Persons unlike each
other ? was there anything wanting to God that he should assume a
different substance, to render it glorious like unto himself?"
4. Besides this text of St. Matthew, already quoted, in which
our Lord not only orders his disciples to baptize in the name of the
three Persons, but to teach the Faith : " Teach all nations , baptizing
them in the name of the Father," &c., we have that text of St.
John : " There are three who give testimony in heaven , the Father,
and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one "
( 1 John, v. 7) . These words ( as we have already explained
in the Refutation of Sabellianism , n. 9) , evidently prove the unity
of nature, and the distinction of the three Divine Persons (16).
The text says, " These three are one ;" if the three testimonies are
one and the same, then each of them has the same Divinity, the
same substance, for otherwise how, as St. Isidore ( 17) says, could
the text of St. John be verified ? " Nain cum tria sunt unum sunt."

( 16) St. Athan. Epis. ad Serapion, n. 6. (17) St. Isidore, l. 7 ; Etymol. c. 4.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 423

St. Paul says the same, in sending his blessing to his disciples in
Corinth : " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the charity of
God, and the communication of the Holy Ghost be with you all"
(2 Cor. xiii. 13).
5. We find the same expressions used in those passages of the
Scriptures which speak of the sending of the Holy Ghost to the
Church, as in St. John ( xiv. 16 ) : " I will ask the Father, and he
will give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for
ever. Remark how our Lord uses the words, " another Paraclete,"
to mark the equality existing between himself and the Holy Ghost.
Again, he says, in the same Gospel ( xv. 26 ) : " When the Para-
clete cometh, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of
Truth, who proceedeth from the Father, he shall give testimony of
me." Here Jesus says, " he will send" the Spirit of Truth ; now
this Spirit which he will send is not his own Spirit, for his own
Spirit he could communicate or give, but not " send ," for sending
means the transmission of something distinct from the person who
sends. He adds, " Who proceeds from the Father ;" and " proces-
sion," in respect of the Divine Persons, implies equality ; and it is
this very argument the Fathers availed themselves of against the
Arians, to prove the Divinity of the Word, as we may see in the
writings of St. Ambrose ( 18) . The reason is this : the procession
from another is to receive the same existence from the principle
from which the procession is made, and , therefore , if the Holy
Ghost proceeds from the Father, he receives the Divinity from the
Father in the same manner as the Father himself has it.
6. Another great proof is, that we see the Holy Ghost called
God in the Scriptures, like the Father, without any addition ,
restriction, or inequality. Thus Isaias, in the beginning of his 6th
chapter, thus speaks of the Supreme God : " I saw the Lord sitting
upon a throne high and elevated ; ......upon it stood the seraphim,
and they cried to one another, Holy, Holy , Holy, the Lord
God of Hosts, all the earth is full of his glory ; ..... and I heard
the voice of the Lord saying, ...... Go, and thou shalt say to this
people, hearing, hear and understand not...... Blind the heart
of this people, and make their ears heavy." Now, St. Paul informs
us that this Supreme God , of whom the Prophet speaks, is the Holy
Ghost. Here are his words : " Well did the Holy Ghost speak to
our fathers by Isaias the Prophet, saying : " Go to this people, and say
to them , with the ear you shall hear," &c. (Acts , xxviii . 25 , 26) . So
we here see that the Holy Ghost is that same God called by Isaias
the Lord God of Hosts. St. Basil (19) makes a beautiful reflection
regarding this expression, the Lord God of Hosts. Isaias, in the
prayer quoted, refers it to the Father. St. John (cap. 12 ), applies it
to the Son, as is manifest from the 37th and the following verse,

(18) St. Ambrose, l. 1 , de Spir. S. c. 4. (19) St. Basil, l. 5, con. Eunom.


424 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

where this text is referred to, and St. Paul applies it to the Holy
Ghost: " The Prophet," says the Saint, " mentions the Person of
the Father, in whom the Jews believed, the Evangelist the Son,
Paul the Holy Spirit"-" Propheta inducit Patris in quem Judei
credebant personam Evangelista Filii , Paulus Spiritus, illum ipsum
qui visus fuerat unum Dominum Sabaoth communiter nominantes.
Sermonem quem de hypostasi instituerunt distruxere indistincta
manente in eis de uno Deo sententia." How beautifully the Holy
Doctor shows that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are
three distinct Persons, but still the one and the same God, speak-
ing by the mouth of his Prophets. St. Paul, also, speaking of that
passage in the Psalms (xciv. 9) , " Your fathers tempted me," says,
that the God the Hebrews then tempted was the Holy Ghost ;
" therefore," says the Apostle, " as the Holy Ghost saith ..
yourfathers tempted me" (Heb. iii. 7 , 9) .
7. St. Peter confirms this doctrine (Acts, i. 16) , when he says.
that the God who spoke by the mouth of the Prophets is the Holy
Ghost himself: " The Scripture must be fulfilled , which the Holy
Ghost spoke before by the mouth of David." And in the second
Epistle (i. 21 ), he says : " For prophecy came not by the will of
man at any time, but the holy men of God spoke, inspired by the
Holy Ghost." St. Peter, likewise , calls the Holy Ghost God, in
contradistinction to creatures. When charging Ananias with a lie,
he says : "Why hath Satan tempted thy heart, that thou shouldst
lie to the Holy Ghost,. . . . . .thou hast not lied to man , but to God"
(Acts, v. 4) . It is most certain that St. Peter, in this passage,
intended to say that the Third Person of the Trinity was God,
and thus St. Basil , St. Ambrose , St. Gregory Nazianzen ( 20 ) , and
several other Fathers , together with St. Augustin ( 21 ), understood
it so. St. Augustin says : " Showing that the Holy Ghost is God ,
you have not lied ," he says, "to man, but to God."
8. Another strong proof of the Divinity of the Holy Ghost is,
that the Scriptures attribute to him qualities which belong alone
by nature to God : First.- Immensity, which fills the world: " Do
not I fill the heaven and the earth, saith the Lord ?" (Jer. xxiii.
24). And the Scripture then says that the Holy Ghost fills the
world : " For the Spirit of the Lord hath filled the whole world"
(Wisdom, i. 7) . Therefore the Holy Ghost is God . St. Ambrose
says (22 ) : " Of what creature can it be said what is written of the
Holy Ghost, that he filled all things ? I will pour forth my Spirit
over all flesh, &c . , for it is the Lord alone can fill all things, who
says, I fill the heaven and the earth." Besides, we read in the
Acts (ii. 4) , " They were all filled with the Holy Ghost." " Do
we ever hear," says Didimus, the " Scriptures say, filled by a
(20) St. Basil, l. 1, con. Eunom. et lib. de Sp. S. c. 16 ; St. Ambro. l. 1, de Spir. S.
c. 4 ; St. Gregor. Nazianz. Orat. 37. (21) St. Augus. 1. 2, con. Maximin. c. 21.
(22) St. Ambrose, l. 1, de S. S. c. 7.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 425

creature ? The Scriptures never speak in this way." They were,


therefore, filled with God , and this God was the Holy Spirit.
9. Secondly.- God alone knows the Divine secrets. As St.
Ambrose says, the inferior knows not the secrets of his superior.
Now, St. Paul says, " The Spirit searcheth all things , yea, the
deep things of God, for what man knoweth the things of a man,
but the spirit of a man that is in him ? So the things also that
are of God no man knoweth but the Spirit of God" ( 1 Cor.
ii. 10 , 11 ) . The Holy Ghost is, therefore, God ; for, as Paschasius
remarks, if none but God can know the heart of man, "the
searcher of hearts and reins is God" (Ps . vii. 10) . Much more so
must it be God alone who knows the secrets of God. This, then ,
he says, is a proof of the Divinity of the Holy Spirit. St. Atha-
nasius proves the consubstantiality of the Holy Ghost with the
Father and the Son from this same passage, for as the Spirit of
man , which knows the secrets of man , is nothing foreign from him ,
but is of the very substance of man , so the Holy Ghost, who knows
the secrets of God, is not different from God, but must be one and
the same substance with God. "Would it not be the height of
impiety to say that the Spirit who is in God, and who searches
the hidden things of God, is a creature ? He who holds that
opinion will be obliged to admit that the spirit of man is something
different from man himself" (23).
10. Thirdly.- God alone is omnipotent, and this attribute belongs
to the Holy Ghost. 66 By the word of the Lord the heavens were
established, and all the power of them by the Spirit of his mouth"
( Psalms, xxxii . 7) . And St. Luke is even clearer on this point, for
when the Blessed Virgin asked the Archangel how she could be-
come the mother of our Saviour, having consecrated her virginity
to God, the Archangel answered : " The Holy Ghost shall come
upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow
thee .... because no word shall be impossible with God." Hence
we see the Holy Ghost is all-powerful, that to him there is nothing
impossible. Tothe Holy Ghost, likewise, is attributed the creation
of the universe : " Send forth thy Spirit, and they shall be created"
(Psalms, ciii. 30 ) . And in Job we read : " His Spirit has adorned
the heavens" (Job, xxvi. 13) . The power of creation belongs to
the Divine Omnipotence alone . Hence, concludes St. Athana-
sius ( 24 ) , when we find this written, it is certain that the Spirit is
not a created, but a creator. The Father creates all things by the
Word in the Spirit, inasmuch as when the Word is there, the Spirit
is, and all things created by the Word have, from the Spirit, by
the Son the power of existing. For it is thus written in the 32nd
Psalm : " By the Word of the Lord the heavens were established,
and all the power of them by the Spirit of his mouth." There can,

( 23) St. Athanas. Epis. 1 , ad Serapion, n. 22. (24) St. Athanas. ibid.
426 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

therefore, be no doubt but that the Spirit is undivided from the


Son.
11. Fourthly.- It is certain that the grace of God is not given
unless by God himself : " The Lord will give grace and glory"
(Psalms, lxxxiii . 12 ) . Thus, also, it is God alone who can grant
justification. It is God " that justifieth the wicked" ( Prov. xvii. 15) .
Now both these attributes appertain to the Holy Ghost. " The
charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost,
who is given to us" (Romans, v. 5). Didimus (25 ) makes a reflec-
tion on this : The very expression , he says, " poured out," proves
the uncreated substance of the Holy Ghost ; for whenever God
sends forth an angel, he does not say, I will " pour out" my angel .
As to justification, we hear Jesus say to his disciples : " Receive
ye the Holy Ghost ; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven"
(John, xx. 22 , 23 ) . If the power of forgiving sins comes from the
Holy Ghost, he must be God. The Apostle also says that it is
God who operates in us the good we do ; " the same God who
worketh all in all" ( 1 Cor. xii. 6 ) . And then in the 11th verse of
the same chapter he says that this God is the Holy Ghost : " But
all those things one and the same Spirit worketh , dividing to
every one according as he will." Here, then, says St. Athanasius ,
the Scripture proves that the operation of God is the operation of
the Holy Ghost.
12. Fifthly.- St. Paul tells us that we are the temples of God.
" Know you not that you are the temple of God " ( 1 Cor. iii . 16 ) .
And then further on in the same epistle he says that our body is the
temple of the Holy Ghost : " Or know you not that your members
are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you" (vi. 19) . If,
therefore, we are the temples of God and of the Holy Ghost, we
must confess that the Holy Ghost is God, for if the Holy Ghost
were a creature, we would be forced to admit that the very temple
of God was the temple of a creature. Here are St. Augustin's (26 )
words on the subject : " If the Holy Ghost be not God, he would
not have us as his temple ....for if we would build a temple to
some saint or angel, we would be cut off from the truth of Christ
and the Church of God , since we would be exhibiting to a creature
that service which we owe to God alone. If, therefore, we would
be guilty of sacrilege, by erecting a temple to any creature, surely
he must be true God to whom we not only erect a temple, but even
are ourselves his temple." Hence, also , Št . Fulgentius ( 27 ) , in his
remarks on the same subject, justly reproves those who deny the
Divinity of the Holy Ghost : " Do you mean to tell me," says the
Saint, " that he who is not God could establish the power of the
heavens that he who is not God could sanctify us by the regene-

(25) Didim. l. de St. San. (26) St. Augus. in 1 Cor. c. 6 ; Coll. eum Maximin. in
Arian. (27) St. Fulgentius, l. 3 ad Trasimund c. 35.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 427

ration of Baptism that he who is not God could give us charity


-that he who is not God could give us grace- that he could
have as his temples the members of Christ, and still be not God ?
You must agree to all this, if you deny that the Holy Ghost
is true God. If any creature could do all these things attri
buted to the Holy Ghost, then he may justly be called a crea-
ture ; but if all these things are impossible to a creature, and are
attributed to the Holy Ghost , things which belong to God alone,
we should not say that he is naturally different from the Father
and the Son , when we can find no difference in his power of
operating." We must then conclude, with St. Fulgentius, that
where there is a unity of power, there is a unity of nature, and the
Divinity of the Holy Ghost follows as a necessary consequence,
13. In addition to these Scripture proofs, we have the constant
tradition of the Church, in which the Faith of the Divinity of the
Holy Ghost, and his consubstantiality with the Father and the
Son, has been always preserved , both in the formula of adminis-
tering Baptism, and in the prayers in which he is conjointly in-
voked with the Father and the Son, especially in that prayer said
at the conclusion of all the psalms and hymns : " Glory be to the
Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost," or, " Glory to the
Father, by the Son , in the Holy Ghost," or, " Glory to the Father
with the Son, and the Holy Ghost," all three formula having been
practised by the Church . St. Athanasius, St. Basil, St. Ambrose ,
St. Hilary, Didimus , Theodoret, St. Augustin, and the other Fa-
thers, laid great stress on this argument when opposing the Mace-
donians. St. Basil ( 28 ) remarks that the formula, " Glory be to
the Father, and to the Son , and to the Holy Ghost," was rarely
used in his time in the Church, but generally " Glory be to the
Father, and to the Son , with the Holy Ghost." However, it all
amounts to the same thing, for it is a general rule, in speaking of
the Trinity, to use the words " from whom," " by whom," " in
whom " (as when we say of the Father, "from whom are all
things ;" of the Son , " by whom are all things ;" of the Holy Ghost,
" in whom are all things" ) , in the same sense. There is no in-
equality of Persons marked by these expressions, since St. Paul,
speaking of God himself, says : " For of him, and by him, and in
him, are all things ; to him be glory for ever. Amen ” (Rom. xi. 36).
14. This constant faith of the Church has been preserved by the
Holy Fathers in their writings from the earliest ages. St. Basil,
one of the most strenuous defenders of the Divinity of the Holy
Ghost ( 29) , cites a passage of St. Clement of Rome, Pope : " The
ancient Clement," he says, " thus spoke : ' The Father lives,' he says,
' and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost.' " Thus, St.
Clement attributes the same life to the three Divine Persons

(28) St. Basil, l. 1, de S. Sancto, c. 25. (29) St. Basil, 7. de S. Sancto, c. 29.
428 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

equally, and therefore believed them all three to be truly and sub-
stantially God. What makes this stronger is , that St. Clement is
contrasting the three Divine Persons with the gods of the Gentiles,
who had no life , while God in the Scriptures is called " the living
God." It is of no importance either, that the words quoted are
not found in the two Epistles of St. Clement, for we have only
some fragments of the Second Epistle, and we may, therefore ,
believe for certain, that St. Basil had the whole Epistle before him,
of which we have only a part.
15. St. Justin, in his second Apology, says : " We adore and
venerate, with truth and reason, himself (the Father) , and he who
comes from him . ..... .. .the Son and the Holy Ghost." Thus
St. Justin pays the same adoration to the Son and the Holy Ghost
as to the Father. Athenagoras, in his Apology, says : "We be-
lieve in God, and his Son, the Word , and the Holy Ghost, united
in power : .For the Son is the mind, the word, and the
wisdom ofthe Father, and the Spirit is as the light flowing from
fire." St. Iræneus ( 30) teaches that God, the Father, has created
and now governs all things, both by the Word and by the Holy
Ghost. " For nothing," he says, " is wanting to God, who makes,
and disposes, and governs all things, by the Word and by the
Holy Ghost." We here see, according to St. Iræneus, that God
has no need of anything ; and he afterwards says, that he does all
things by the Word and by the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost
is, therefore, God, the same as the Father. He tells us, in another
part of his works (31 ) , that the Holy Ghost is a creator, and
eternal, unlike a created spirit. " For that which is made is,"
he says, " different from the maker ; what is made is made in
time, but the Spirit is eternal." St. Lucian , who lived about
the year 160, says, in a Dialogue, entitled Philopatris, attri-
buted to him, addressing a Gentile who interrogates him : " What,
then , shall I swear for you ?" Triphon, the Defender of the
Faith, answers : " God reigning on high.........the Son of the
Father, the Spirit proceeding from the Father, one from three,
and three from one." This passage is so clear that it requires
no explanation. Clement of Alexandria says (32) : " The Father
of all is one ; the Word of all is also one ; and the Holy Ghost
is one , who is also everywhere." In another passage he clearly
explains the Divinity and Consubstantiality of the Holy Ghost with
the Father and the Son ( 33 ) : " We return thanks to the Father
alone, and to the Son, together with the Holy Ghost, in all things
one, in whom are all things, by whom all things are in one, by
whom that is which always is." See here how he explains that the
three Persons are equal in fact, and that they are but one in essence.

(30) St. Iræn 7. 1, ad Hæres. c. 19. (31 ) St. Iræn. l. 5 , c. 12. (32 ) Clem.
Alex. Padag. l. 1 , c. 6. (38) Idem, l. 3, c. 7.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 429

Tertullian ( 34) professes his belief in the " Trinity of one Divinity,
the Father, the Son , and the Holy Ghost ;" and in another place (35),
he says : " We define, indeed , two, the Father and the Son , nay,
three, with the Holy Ghost ; but we never profess to believe in two
Gods, although the Father is God, the Son God, and the Holy
Ghost God, and each one is God," &c. St. Cyprian ( 36) , speaking
of the Trinity, says : " Whenthe three are one, how could the Holy
Ghost be agreeable to him, if he were the enemy of the Father or
the Son ?" And, in the same Epistle, he proves that Baptism ad-
ministered in the name of Christ alone is of no avail , for " Christ ,"
he says, " orders that the Gentiles should be baptized in the full and
united Trinity." St. Dionisius Romanus, in his Epistle against
Sabellius, says : " The admirable and Divine unity is not , therefore ,
to be divided into three Deities ; but we are bound to believe in
God, the Father Almighty, and in Christ Jesus, his Son , and in the
Holy Ghost." I omit the innumerable testimonies of the Fathers
of the following centuries ; but I here merely note some of those
who have purposely attacked the heresy of Macedonius , and these
are-St. Athanasius, St. Basil, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Gregory
of Nyssa, St. Epiphanius, Didimus, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St.
Cyril of Alexandria, and St. Hilary (37) . These Fathers, imme-
diately on the appearance of the Macedonian heresy, all joined in
condemning it— a clear proof that it was contrary to the Faith of
the Universal Church.
16. This heresy was condemned , besides, by several Councils,
both general and particular. First . It was condemned (two years
after Macedonius had broached it) by the Council of Alexandria ,
celebrated by St. Athanasius, in the year 372 , in which it was de-
cided that the Holy Ghost was consubstantial in the Trinity. In
the year 377, it was condemned by the Holy See, in the Synod of
Illiricum ; and about the same time, as Theodoret ( 38 ) informs us ,
it was condemned in two other Roman Synods, by the Pope , St.
Damasus. Finally, in the year 381 , it was condemned in the first
Council of Constantinople, under St. Damasus ; and this Article
was annexed to the symbol of the Faith : " We believe in the Holy
Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, proceeding from the Father, and
with the Father and the Son to be adored and glorified , who spoke
by the Prophets." He to whom the same worship is to be given
as to the Father and the Son , is surely God. Besides, this Council
has been always held as ecumenical by the whole Church, for
though composed of only one hundred and fifty Oriental bishops,
still, as the Western bishops, about the same time, defined the same

(34) Tertul. de Pudic. c. 21. (35) Idem, con. Praxeam, c. 3. (36) St. Cyp.
Ep. ad Juba. (37) St. Athan. Ep. ad Serap.; St. Basil, l. 3, 5, cont. Eunom. & l. de
Spi. S.; St. Greg. Naz. l. 5, de Theol.; St. Greg. Nys. l. ad Eust.; St. Epiphan. Hier. 74 ;
Didimus, . de S. San.; St. Cyril, Hieros. cat. 16, 17 ; St. Cyril, Alex. 7. 7, de Trin. &
1. S. Sanc.; St. Hil. de Trinit. (38) Theodoret, l. 2, Hist. c. 22.
430 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Article of the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, under St. Damasus , this
decision has been always considered as the decision of the Univer-
sal Church ; and the subsequent General Councils-that is, the
Council of Chalcedon , the second and third of Constantinople, and
the second of Nice-confirmed the same symbol. Nay more, the
fourth Council of Constantinople pronounced an anathema against
Macedonius, and defined that the Holy Ghost is consubstantial to
the Father and to the Son . Finally, the fourth Council of Lateran
thus concludes : " We define that there is but one true God alone ,
the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, three Persons indeed ,
but only one essence, substance , or simple nature .....And that all
these Persons are consubstantial, omnipotent, and co-eternal , the one
beginning of all things."

SEC. II.ANSWER TO OBJECTIONS.

17. First, the Socinians, who have revived the ancient heresies,
adduce a negative argument. They say that the Holy Ghost is
never called God in the Scriptures, nor is ever proposed to us to be
adored and invoked . But St. Augustin ( 1 ) thus answers this argu-
ment, addressing the Macedonian Maximinus : " When have you
read that the Father was not born, but self-existing ? and still it is
no less true," &c. The Saint means to say that many things in the
Scriptures are stated , not in express terms, but in equivalent ones,
which prove the truth of what is stated, just as forcibly ; and , for a
proof of that, the reader can refer to N. 4 and 6 , where the Divinity
of the Holy Ghost is incontestibly proved , if not in express, in equi-
valent terms.
18. Secondly, they object that St. Paul , in his first Epistle to the
Corinthians, speaking of the benefits conferred by God on mankind ,
mentions the Father and the Son, but not the Holy Ghost. We
answer, that it is not necessary, in speaking of God, that we should
always expressly name the three Divine Persons, for, when we speak
of one, we speak of the three, especially in speaking of the opera-
tions, ad extra, to which the three Divine Persons concur in the
same manner. "Whosoever is blessed in Christ," says St. Am-
brose (2), " is blessed in the name of the Father, and ofthe Son, and
of the Holy Ghost , because there is one name and one power ; thus,
likewise , when the operation of the Holy Ghost is pointed out, it is
referred, not only to the Holy Ghost, but also to the Father and
the Son."
19. They object, thirdly, that the primitive Christians knew
nothing ofthe Holy Ghost, as we learn from the Acts of the Apos-
tles, when St. Paul asked some newly-baptized , if they had received
the Holy Ghost, they answered : " We have not so much as heard

(1) St. Augus. 1. 2, alias 3, cont. Maxim. c. 3. (2) St. Amb. l. 1 , de Sanc. c. 3.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 431

if there be a Holy Ghost" (Acts , xix. 2) . We reply that the answer


to this is furnished by the very passage itself, for, St. Paul hearing
that they knew nothing ofthe Holy Ghost, asked them : " In what,
then, were you baptized ?" and they answered, " in John's Baptism."
No wonder, then, that they knew nothing of the Holy Ghost, when
they were not even as yet baptized with the Baptism instituted by
Christ.
20. They object, fourthly, that the Council of Constantinople ,
speaking ofthe Holy Ghost, does not call him God. We answer
that the Council does call him God, when it says he is the Lord
and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, and who , with the
Father and the Son , should be adored and glorified . And the same
answer will apply, when they object that St. Basil ( or any other
Father) has not called the Holy Ghost God, for they have defended
his Divinity, and condemned those who called him a creature.
Besides, if St. Basil , in his sermons, does not speak of the Holy
Ghost as God, it was only an act of prudence in those calamitous
times, when the heretics sought every occasion to chase the Catholic
Bishops from their Sees, and intrude wolves into their places. St.
Basil, on the other hand, defends the Divinity of the Holy Ghost
in a thousand passages. Just take one for all, where he says, in his
Fifth Book against Eunomius, tit. 1 : " What is common to the
Father and the Son is likewise so to the Holy Ghost, for wherever
we find the Father and the Son designated as God in the Scripture,
the Holy Ghost is designated as God likewise."
21. Fifthly , they found objections on some passages of the Scrip-
ture, but they are either equivocal or rather confirmatory of the
Divinity of the Holy Ghost. They lay great stress especially on
that text of St. John : " But when the Paraclete cometh, whom I
will send you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth who proceedeth
from the Father" (John, xv. 26). Now, they say, when the Holy
Spirit is sent, it is a sign that he is inferior, and in a state of sub-
jection, or dependence ; therefore, he is not God. To this we
answer, that the Holy Ghost is not sent by a command , but sent
solely by a procession from the Father, and the Son , for from these
he proceeds. Mission , or being sent, means nothing more in Divinis,
than this, the presence of the Divine Person , manifested by any
sensible effect, which is specially ascribed to the Person sent.
This, for example, was the mission of the Holy Ghost, when he
descended into the Cenaculum on the Apostles, to make them
worthy to found the Church , just as the eternal Word was sent by
the Father to take flesh for the salvation of mankind . In the same
way we explain that text of St. John : " He shall not speak of him-
self, but what things soever he shall hear, he shall speak ...... he
shall glorify me, because he shall receive of mine" (John , xvi . 14 ,
15). The Holy Ghost takes from the Father and the Son the
knowledge of all things, not by learning them , but proceeding from
432 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

them without any dependence, as a necessary requirement of his


Divine Nature. And this is the very meaning of the words : " He
shall receive of mine ;" since, through the Son, the Father commu-
nicates to the Holy Ghost, together with the Divine Essence,
wisdom, and all the attributes of the Son . " He will hear from him,"
says St. Augustin ( 3) , " from whom he proceeds. To him, to hear
is to know, to know is to exist. Because, therefore, he is not from
himself, but from him from whom he proceeds, from whom he has
his essence, from him he has his knowledge. Ab illo igitur audi-
entia, quod nihil est aliud, quam scientia." St. Ambrose expresses
the same sentiments (4) .
22. They object , sixthly , that St. Paul says : " The Spirit him-
self asketh for us with unspeakable groanings" (Rom. viii. 26) .
Therefore, the Holy Ghost groans and prays, as an inferior. But
St. Augustin thus explains the text : " He asketh with groanings
that we should understand that he causes us to ask with groan-
ings" (5 ) . Thus St. Paul wishes to instruct us, that by the grace we
receive, we become compunctious and groaning, making us pray
with " unspeakable groanings," just as God makes us triumph, when
he says that Jesus Christ triumphs in us : " Thanks be to God, who
always makes us triumph in Christ Jesus" ( 2 Cor. ii . 14) .
23. They object, seventhly, another passage of St. Paul : " The
Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God" (1 Cor. ii .
10) ; and they then say that the word, " searcheth," shows that the
Holy Ghost is ignorant of the Divine secrets ; but we answer, that
this expression does not mean seeking or inquiring , but the simple
comprehension which the Holy Ghost has of the whole of the
Divine Essence, and of all things, as it is said of God : " That he
searcheth the heart and the reins" (Psalms, vii. 10) ; which means
that God comprehends all the thoughts and affections of mankind.
Hence, St. Ambrose (6 ) concludes : " The Holy Ghost is a searcher
like the Father, he is a searcher like the Son , and this expression
is used to show that there is nothing which he does not know."
24. They object, eighthly, that passage of St. John : " All things
were made by him, and without him was made nothing that was
made" (John , i. 3) ; therefore, the Holy Ghost was made by him,
and is consequently a creature. We answer, that in this sense , it
cannot be said that all things were made by the Word, for in that
case, even the Father would be made by him. The Holy Ghost is
not made, but proceeds from the Father and the Son, as from one
principle, by the absolute necessity of the Divine Nature , and with-
out any dependence.

(3) St. Augus. Trac. 99, in Joan. (4) St. Ambrose, l. 2, de Sp. San. c. 12. (5) St.
Augus. Coll. cum Maxim. (6) St. Ambrose, l. de Sp. San. c. 11.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 433

REFUTATION IV .

THE HERESY OF THE GREEKS, WHO ASSERT THAT THE HOLY GHOST
PROCEEDS FROM THE FATHER ALONE, AND NOT FROM THE FATHER
AND THE SON.

1. Ir is necessary to remark here, in order not to confuse the


matter, that the heresy of the schismatical Greeks consists in deny-
ing the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son ;
they contend that he proceeds from the Father alone , and this is
the difference between the Greek and Latin Churches. The
learned have not yet agreed on the author of this heresy. Some
say it was Theodoret, in his refutation of the ninth anathematism
of St. Cyril, against Nestorius, but others again defend him (as
well as several others quoted by the schismatics) , and explain that
passage of his works which gave rise to this opinion , by saying that
he only meant to prove that the Holy Ghost was not a creature, as
the Arians and Macedonians asserted . There can be no doubt but that
passages from the works both of Theodoret and the other Fathers,
which the writers intended as refutations of the errors of the Arians
and Macedonians , taken in a wrong sense by the schismatics, have
confirmed them in holding on to this error. This heresy , up to the
time of Photius, was only held by a few persons, but on his intru-
sion into the See of Constantinople, in 858, and especially in 863,
when he was condemned by Pope Nicholas I., he constituted him-
self, not alone the chief of the schism , which for so many years has
separated the Greek and Latin Churches, but induced the whole
Greek Church to embrace this heresy-that the Holy Ghost pro-
ceeds from the Father alone, and not from the Son. Fourteen
times, Osius writes ( 1), up to the time of the Council of Florence,
held in 1439 , the Greeks renounced this error, and united them-
selves to the Latin Church, but always relapsed again. In the
Council of Florence, they themselves agreed in defining that the
Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son , and it was
thought that the union would be everlasting, but such was not the
case, for after they left the Council, they again (ch . ix. n. 31 )
returned to their vomit, at the instigation of Mark of Ephesus. Í
now speak of these Greeks who were under the obedience of the
Eastern Patriarchs, for the others who were not subject to them
remained united in Faith to the Roman Church.

SEC. I.- IT IS PROVED THAT THE HOLY GHOST PROCEEDS FROM THE FATHER AND
THE SON.

2. It is proved by the words of St. John : " When the Paraclete


cometh, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of
Truth who proceedeth from the Father" (John, xv. 16) . This
(1) Osius, 1. de Sac. Conjug.
2E
434 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

text not only proves the dogma decided by the Council of Con-
stantinople against the Arians and Macedonians, that the Holy
Ghost proceeds from the Father (" And in the Holy Ghost the
Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father ") ; but also
that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son, as is shown by the
words : " Whom I will send you ; " and the same expression is
repeated in St. John in other places : " For if I go not, the Para-
clete will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you "
(John, xvi. 7). " But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the
Father will send in my name " (John , xiv . 26 ) . Inthe Divinity, a Per-
son is not spoken of as sent, unless by another Person from whom
he proceeds. The Father, as he is the origin of the Divinity, is
never spoken of in the Scriptures as being sent. The Son, as he
proceeds from the Father alone, is said to be sent, but it is never
thus said of the Holy Ghost : " As the Father living, sent me, &c. ,
God sent his Son, made from a woman, &c." When, therefore , the
Holy Ghost is said to be sent from the Father and the Son, he
proceeds from the Son as well as from the Father ; especially as this
mission of one Divine Person from another cannot be understood
either in the way of command or instruction, or any other way,
for in the Divine Persons both authority and wisdom are equal.
We, therefore, understand one Person as sent by another, according
to the origin, and according to the procession of one Person from the
other, this procession implying neither inequality nor dependence. If,
therefore, the Holy Ghost is said to be sent by the Son , he proceeds
from the Son. " He is sent by him," says St. Augustin ( 1 ) , " from
whence he emanates," and he adds, " the Father is not said to be
sent, for he has not from whom to be, or from whom to proceed."
3. The Greeks say that the Son does not send the Person of
the Holy Ghost, but only his gifts of grace, which are attributed
to the Holy Spirit. But we answer that this interpretation is
wrong, for in the passage of St. John, just quoted , it is said that
this Spirit of Truth, sent by the Son, proceeds from the Father ;
therefore, the Son does not send the gifts of the Holy Ghost, but
the Spirit of Truth himself, who proceeds from the Father.
4. This dogma is proved from all those texts, in which the
Holy Ghost is called the Spirit of the Son-" God has sent the
Spirit of his Son into your hearts" ( Gal. iv. 6)—just as, in another
place, the Holy Ghost is called the Spirit of the Father ; " For it
is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh
in you" (Mat. x. 20) . If, therefore, the Holy Ghost is called the
Spirit of the Father, merely because he proceeds from the Father,
he also proceeds from the Son, when he is called the Spirit of
the Son. This is what St. Augustin says (2) : " Why should we
not believe that the Holy Ghost proceeds also from the Son,

(1) St. Augus. l. 4, de Trinit. c. 20. (2) St. Augus. Trac. 99, in Joan.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 435

when he is the Spirit of the Son ?" And the reason is evident,
since he could not be called the Holy Ghost of the Son, because
the Person of the Holy Ghost is consubstantial to the Son, as the
Greeks said : for otherwise the Son might be called the Spirit of
the Holy Ghost, as he is also consubstantial to the Holy Ghost.
Neither can he be called the Spirit of the Son, because he is the
instrument of the Son , or because he is the extrinsic holiness of
the Son, for we cannot speak thus of the Divine Persons ; there-
fore, he is called the Spirit of the Son, because he proceeds from
him. Jesus Christ explained this himself, when, after his Resur-
rection, he appeared to his disciples, and " breathed on them, and
said to them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost," &c. (John , xx. 22 ).
Remark the words, " he breathed on them, and said," to show
that, as the breath proceeds from the mouth, so the Holy Ghost
proceeds from him. Hear how beautifully St. Augustin (3)
explains this passage: " We cannot say that the Holy Ghost does
not proceed from the Son also, for it is not without a reason that
he is called the Spirit both of the Father and of the Son. I
cannot see what other meaning he had when he breathed in the
face of his disciples, and said, Receive the Holy Ghost. For that
corporeal breathing was not, indeed......the substance of the
Holy Ghost, but a demonstration, by a congruous signification ,
that the Holy Ghost did not proceed from the Father alone, but
from the Son likewise."
5. It is proved, thirdly, from all those passages of the Holy
Scripture, in which it is said that the Son has all that the Father
has, and that the Holy Ghost receives from the Son. Hear what
St. John says : " But when he, the Spirit of Truth, is come, he
will teach you all truth . For he shall not speak of himself; but
what things soever he shall hear, he shall speak, and the things
that are to come he shall show you . He shall glorify me ; because
he shall receive of mine, and shall show it to you. All things
whatsoever the Father hath are mine. Therefore, I said, that he
shall receive of mine , and show it to you" (John , xvi. 13 , &c.)
It is expressly laid down in this passage, that the Holy Ghost
receives of the Son, " shall receive of mine ;" and when we speak
of the Divine Persons, we can never say that one receives from
the other in any other sense but this, that the Person proceeds
from the Person he receives from . To receive and to proceed
is just the same thing, for it would be repugnant to sense , to say
that the Holy Ghost, who is God equal to the Son, and of the
same Nature as the Son, receives from him either knowledge or
doctrine. It is said, therefore, that he receives from the Son,
because he proceeds from him, and from him receives , by com-
munication, the Nature and all the attributes of the Son.

(3 ) St. Augus. l. 4, de Trin. c. 20.


436 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

6. The Greeks make a feeble reply to this . Christ, in this pas-


sage, they say, does not say that the Holy Ghost receives from me,
but " of mine," that is, of my Father. This reply carries no weight
with it, for Christ himself explains the text in the next passage :
" All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine ; therefore , I said,
that he shall receive of mine." Now, these words prove that the
Holy Ghost receives from the Father and the Son, because he pro-
ceeds from the Father and the Son . The reason is plain ; for if
the Son has all that the Father hath (except Paternity relatively
opposed to Filiation) , and the Father is the principium esse of the
Holy Ghost, the Son must be so likewise, for otherwise he would
not have all that the Father has. This is exactly what Eugenius IV.
says, in his Epistle of the Union : " Since all things which belong
to the Father he gave to his only-begotten Son, in begetting him,
with the exception that he did not make him the Father-for this
the Son, from all eternity, is in possession of that the Holy
Ghest proceeds from him, from whom he was eternally begotten."
Before Eugenius's time, St. Augustin said just the same thing (4) :
" Therefore, he is the Son of the Father, from whom he is begotten,
and the Spirit is the Spirit of both, since he proceeds 6 from both.
But when the Son speaks of him, he says, therefore, he proceeds
from the Father,' since the Father is the author of his procession ,
who begot such a Son , and begetting him, gave unto him that the
Spirit should also proceed from him." The holy Father, in this pas-
sage, forestalls the objection of Mark of Ephesus, who said that the
Scriptures teach that the Holy Ghost " proceeds from the Father,"
but do not mention the Son, " for," says St. Augustin, " although in
the Scripture it is said only that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the
Father, still the Father, by generating the Son , communicated to
him also to be the principium of the Holy Ghost, " gignendo ei
dedit, ut etiam de ipso procederet Spiritus Sanctus."
7. St. Anselm (5) confirms this by that principle embraced by all
theologians, that all things are one in the Divinity : " In Divinis
omnia sunt unum , et omnia unum, et idem, ubi non obviat rela-
tionis oppositio." Thus in God these things alone are really dis-
tinguished, among which there is a relative opposition of the pro-
ducing and the produced. The first producing cannot produce
himself, for otherwise he would be at the same time existent and
non-existent-existent, because he produces himself-non-existent,
because he had no existence till after he was produced . This is a
manifest absurdity. That axiom, that no one can give what he
has not-" Nemo dat, quod non habet," proves the same thing ; for
if the producer gave existence to himself before he was produced,
he would give that which he had not. But is not God self- exist-
ing ? Most certainly ; but that does not mean that he gave existence

(4) St. August. l. 2 (alias 3) , cent. Maxim. c. 14. (5) St. Ansel. 7. de Proc. Spi. S. c. 7.
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 437

to himself. God exists of necessity ; he is a necessary Being that


always did and always will exist ; he gives existence to all other
creatures ; if he ceased to exist, all other things, likewise , would
cease to exist. Let us return to the point. The Father is the
principle (principium) of the Divinity, and is distinguished from
the Son by the opposition that exists between the producer and
produced. On the other hand, those things in God, which have
no relative opposition among themselves, are in no wise distinguished,
but are one and the same thing. The Father, therefore, is the same
with the Son , in all that in which he is not opposed relatively to
the Son. And as the Father is not relatively opposed to the Son,
nor the Son to the Father, by both one and the other being the
principle in the spiration of the Holy Ghost , therefore, the Holy
Ghost is spirated , and proceeds from the Father and the Son ; and it
is an Article of Faith , defined both by the Second General Council of
Lyons, and by that of Florence , that the Holy Ghost proceeds from
one principle and from one spiration , and not from two principles
nor from two spirations. "We condemn and reprobate all ," say
the Fathers of Lyons, " who rashly dare to assert that the Holy
Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, as from two principles,
and that he does not proceed from them as from one principle."
The Fathers of the Council of Florence " define that the Holy
Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son eternally, as from one
principle, and by one spiration." The reason is this (6) : " Because
the power of spirating the Holy Ghost is found in the Son as well
as in the Father, without any relative opposition . Hence , as the
world was created by the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost,
still, because the power of creating appertains equally to the three
Persons , we say, God the Creator ; so, because the power of spirating
the Holy Ghost is equally in the Father and in the Son , therefore,
we say that the principle is one, and that the spiration of the Holy
Ghost is one. We now pass on to other proofs of the principal
point, that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son.
8. The procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the
Son is proved, fourthly, by the following argument used by the
Latins against the Greeks, in the Council of Florence. If the
Holy Ghost did not proceed from the Son also , there would be no
distinction ; the reason is, because, as we have already said, there
is no real distinction in God between those things between which
there is not a relative opposition of the producer and the produced.
If the Holy Ghost did not proceed also from the Son, there would
be no relative opposition between him and the Son , and , conse-
quently, there would be no real distinction ; one person would not
be distinct from the other. To this convincing argument the
Greeks replied that even in this case there would be a distinction ,

(6) St. Greg. Nyss. 7. ad Ablav.


438 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

because the Son would proceed from the Father by the intellect,
and the Holy Ghost by the will . But the Latins answered , justly,
that this would not be enough to form a real distinction between
the Son and the Holy Ghost, because, at the most, it would be
only a virtual distinction such as that which exists in God between
the understanding and the will, but the Catholic Faith teaches us
that the three Divine Persons, though they are of the same nature
and substance, are still really distinct among themselves . It is
true that some of the Fathers, as St. Augustin and St. Anselm ,
have said that the Son and the Holy Ghost are also distinct,
because they have a different mode of procession , one from the
will and the other from the understanding ; but when they speak
thus they only mean the remote cause of this distinction , for they
themselves have most clearly expressed, on the other hand, that
the proximate and formal cause of the real distinction of the Son
and the Holy Ghost is the relative opposition in the procession of
the Holy Ghost from the Son. Hear what St. Gregory of Nyssa (7)
says : " The Spirit is distinguished from the Son , because it is by
him he is." And St. Augustin himself, whom the Greeks consider
as favouring their party (8), says : " Hoc solo numerum insinuant,
quod ad invicem sunt." And St. John of Damascus ( 9) also says ,
that it is merely in the properties of Paternity, Filiation and Pro-
cession, that we see the difference, according to the cause and the
effect : " In solis autem proprietatibus, nimirum, Paternitatis Fili-
ationis, et Processionis secundum causam, et causatam discrimen
advertimus." The Eleventh Council of Toledo (Cap. I.) says :
" In relatione Personarum numerus cernitur ; hoc solo numerum
insinuat, quod ad invicem sunt."
9. Finally, it is proved by the tradition of all ages , as is mani-
fest from the text of those Greek Fathers whom the Greeks them-
selves consider an authority, and of some Latin Fathers who wrote
before the Greek schism. St. Epiphanius, in the Anchoratum,
thus speaks : " Christ is believed from the Father, God of God ,
and the Spirit from Christ, or from both ;" and in the Heresia he
says : " But the Holy Ghost is from both, a Spirit from a Spirit."
St Cyril ( 10) writes : " The Son, according to nature, is indeed
from God (for he is begotten of God and of the Father), but the
Spirit is properly his, and in him, and from him ;" and again ( 11 ) :
" The Spirit is of the essence of the Father and the Son, who pro-
ceeds from the Father and the Son ." St. Athanasius explains (12)
the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son in equivalent
expressions. " The Spirit," he says, " does not unite the Word
with the Father, but the Spirit receives from the Word......what-
soever the Spirit has he has from the Word." St. Basil ( 13),

(7) St. Greg. Nyss. 7. ad Ablavium. (8) St. Augus. trac. 39, in Jo. (9) Jo.
Dainase. 7. 1 , de Fide, c. 11. (19 ) St. Cyril. in Joelem, c. 2. (11 ) Idem, l. 14,
Thesaur. (12 ) St. Athan. Orat. 3, cont. Arian. n. 24. (13) St. Basil, l. 5, cont. Eunom.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 439

replying to a heretic, who asks him why the Holy Ghost is not
called the Son of the Son, says, he is not called so , " not because
he is not from God through the Son, but lest it might be imagined
that the Trinity consists of an infinite multitude of Persons, if Sons
would follow from Sons, as in mankind." Among the Latin
Fathers, Tertullian (14) writes : " The Son is deduced from the
Father, the Spirit from the Father by the Son." St. Hilary ( 15)
says : " There is no necessity to speak of Him who is to be con-
fessed as coming from the Father and the Son. " St. Ambrose
says ( 16), that " the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the
Son," and in another place ( 17) , " the Holy Ghost , truly a Spirit,
proceeding from the Father and the Son , not the Son himself."
10. I omit the authorities of the other Fathers, both Greek and
Latin, collected by the Theologian John , in his disputation with
Mark of Ephesus, in the Council of Florence , where he clearly
refuted all the cavils of that prelate. It is of more importance to
cite the decisions of the General Councils, which have finally de-
cided on this dogma , as the Council of Ephesus , the Council of
Chalcedon, the Second and Third Councils of Constantinople, by
approving the Synodical Epistle of St. Cyril of Alexandria, in which
this doctrine of the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father
and the Son is expressed in these terms : " The Spirit is called the
Spirit of Truth , and Christ is the Truth , so that he proceeds from
him as he does from the Father." In the Fourth Council of Lateran ,
celebrated in the year 1215 , under Innocent III. , both Greeks and
Latins united in defining (cap. 153), " that the Father was from
none, the Son from the Father alone, and the Holy Ghost equally
from both, always without beginning and without end." In the
Second Council of Lyons, held in 1274 , under Gregory X. , when
the Greeks again became united with the Latins, it was again agreed
on by both that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the
Son : " With a faithful and devout confession we declare that the
Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son , not as from two
principles, but as from one principle-not by two spirations, but by
one spiration."
11. Finally, in the Council of Florence, held under Eugenius
IV. , in the year 1438 , in which both Greeks and Latins were again
united , it was decided unanimously, " that this truth of Faith should
be believed and held by all Christians, and that all should then
profess that the Holy Ghost eternally proceeds from the Father and
the Son, as from one principle, and by one spiration ; we also define ,
explaining the word " Filioque" (and from the Son) , that it has been
lawfully and rationally introduced into the Creed, for the sake of
declaring the truth, and because there was a necessity for doing so

(14) Tertul. 7. cont. Praxeam, c. 4. (15) St. Hilar. 7. 2, de Trin. (16) St. Am-
brose, l. 1 , de S. S. c. 11 , art. 10. (17) Idem. de Symb. ap. c. 30.
440 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

at the time." Now, all those Councils in which the Greeks joined
with the Latins in defining the procession ofthe Holy Ghost from
the Father and the Son , supply an invincible argument to prove
that the schismatics uphold a heresy , for otherwise we should admit
that the whole united Church , both Latin and Greek, has defined
an error in three General Councils .
12. As to theological reasons , we have already given the two
principal ones : the first is, that the Son has all that the Father has,
with the exception of the Paternity alone, which is impossible, on
account of the Filiation . " All things whatsoever the Father hath
are mine" (John, xvi. 15 ) ; therefore, if the Father has the power of
spirating the Holy Ghost, the same power belongs also to the Son,
since there is no relative opposition between the Filiation and the
active spiration . The second reason is , that if the Holy Ghost did
not proceed from the Son, he would not be really distinct from the
Son , for then there would be no relative opposition or real distinc-
tion between them , and , consequently, the mystery of the Trinity
would be destroyed . The other arguments adduced by theologians
can either be reduced to these, or are arguments a congruentia, and,
therefore, we omit them.

SEC. II. OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

13. THEY object, first, that the Scripture speaks of the procession
of the Holy Ghost from the Father alone, and not from the Son,
but we have already answered this ( N. 6 ) , and we remind the reader
that though the Scripture does not express it in formal , it does in
equivalent terms, as has been already proved. But, besides , remem-
ber that the Greeks recognized , equally with the Latins, the autho-
rity of tradition , and that teaches that the Holy Ghost proceeds
from the Father and the Son.
14. They object, secondly, that in the First Council of Constan-
tinople, in which the Divinity of the Holy Ghost was defined , it
was not defined that he proceeded from the Father and the Son,
but from the Father alone ; but to this we reply , that this Council
did not declare it, because this was not the point that the Mace-
donians controverted. The Council, therefore, defined the proces-
sion from the Father alone, because the Macedonians and Euno-
mians denied the procession from the Father, and, consequently,
the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. The Church does not draw up
definitions of Faith until errors spring up, and, on that account, we
see, that in several General Councils afterwards, the Church defined
the procession of the Holy Ghost as well from the Son as from the
Father.
15. They object , thirdly, that when , in the Council of Ephesus ,
the priest Carisius publicly read a Symbol, composed by Nestorius,
in which it was asserted that the Holy Ghost was not from the Son,
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 441

nor that he had not his substance through the Son, that the Fathers
did not reject the doctrine . We reply, First.-That this can be
easily explained, by supposing that Nestorius properly denied , in a
Catholic sense, that the Holy Ghost was from the Son, in opposition
to the Macedonians, who said that he was a creature of the Son ,
and had received existence from the Son, just like any other crea
ture. Secondly.-We should not forget that in the Council of
Ephesus it was not of the procession of the Holy Ghost that they
were treating at all , and, therefore, they left it undecided , as it is
always the practice of Councils, as we have stated already, not to
turn aside to decide on incidental questions , but merely to apply
themselves to the condemnation of those errors alone on which they
are then deciding.
16. They object , fourthly, some passages of the Holy Fathers
which appear to deny the procession from the Son. St. Dionisius (1)
says, that the Father alone is the consubstantial fountain of the
Divinity : " Solum Patrem esse Divinitatis fontem consubstantia-
lem." St. Athanasius ( 2 ) says , that he is the cause of both Persons :
" Solum Patrem esse causam duorum ." St. Maximus says (3), that
the Fathers never allowed the Son to be the cause, that is , the
principle, of the Holy Ghost : " Patres concedere Filium esse
causam, id est principium, Spiritus Sancti." St. John of Damascus
says (4), We believe the Holy Ghost to be from the Father, and we
call him the Spirit of the Father : " Spiritum Sanctum et ex Patre
esse statuimus , et Patris Spiritum appellamus." They also quote
certain passages of Theodoret, and , finally, they adduce that fact
which we read of in the life of Pope Leo III., who commanded that
the word " Filioque" (and from the Son) , added by the Latins to the
Symbol of Constantinople, should be expunged, and that the Sym-
bol, with that word omitted , should be engraved on a table of
silver, for perpetual remembrance of the fact. We answer that the
preceding authorities quoted from the Holy Fathers prove nothing
for the Greeks. St. Dionisius calls the Father alone the fountain of
the Divinity, because the Father alone is the first fountain , or the
first principle, without a beginning, or without derivation from any
other Person of the Trinity. To St. Dionisius we can add St. Gre-
gory of Nazianzen (5 ) , who says, " Quidquid habet Pater, idem
Filii est, excepta causa . But all that the Saint means to say is,
that the Father is the first principle, and for this special reason he
is called the cause of the Son and the Holy Ghost, and this reason
of the first principle cannot be applied to the Son in this way, for
he has his origin from the Father ; but by this the Son is not ex-
cluded from being, together with the Father, the principle of the
Holy Ghost, as St. Basil, St. John Chrysostom, and several others,
(1) St. Dionys. l. 1, de Divin. nom. c. 2. (2) St. Athan. Quæs. de Nat. Dei. (3) St.
Maxim. Ep. ad Marin. (4) St. Damas. 7. 1 , de Fide Crth. c. 11. (5) St. Greg.
Nazian. Orat. 24, ad. Episcop.
442 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

with St. Athanasius (quoted in N. 9) , attest . The same answer


will apply to the quotation of St. Maximus, especially as the learned
Petavius remarks (6), as the word principle, or " principium,"
among the Greeks means the first fountain , or first origin , which
applies to the Father alone .
17. We can reply to the argument adduced from the quotation
from St. John ofDamascus, by remarking that the Saint here speaks
guardedly, to oppose the Macedonians , who taught that the Holy
Ghost was a creature of the Son , as he uses the same caution in not
allowing that the Blessed Virgin should be called the Mother of
Christ- Christiparam Virginem Sanctam non dicimus — to avoid the
error of Nestorius, who called her the Mother of Christ, to argue
that there were two persons in Christ. Cardinal Bessarion , how-
ever, in the Council of Florence ( 7) , answered this objection most
clearly. The Saint, he says, used the preposition ex to denote the
principle without a beginning, as is the Father alone. St. John of
Damascus himself, however, teaches the procession of the Holy
Ghost from the Son , both in the place quoted , where he calls him
the Spirit of the Son, as also in the subsequent part of the same
chapter, in which he compares the Father to the sun, the Son to
the rays, and the Holy Ghost to the light, thus showing that as the
light or splendour proceeds from the sun and the rays, so the Holy
Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son : " Quemadmodum
videlicet ex sole est radius, et splendor ; ipse enim (Pater), et radii ,
et splendoris fons est ; per radium autem splendor nobis communi-
catur, atque ipse est, qui nos collustrat, et a nobis percipitur."
18. To the objection from Theodoret we answer, that the
authority of Theodoret on this point is of no weight, because here
he is opposed to St. Cyril, or we may suppose also that he was op-
posing the Macedonians, who taught that the Holy Ghost was a
creature of the Son . Finally, as to the fact related of Leo III ., we
answer, that the Holy Father did not disapprove of the Catholic
dogma of the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, since he
agreed on this point with the Legates of the Gallican Church, and
of Charlemagne, as we see by the acts of the Legation ( Vol. II .) ;
but he disapproved of the addition of the word Filioque to the
Symbol, without absolute necessity, and without the authority of
the whole Church, and this addition was afterwards made by subse-
quent General Councils, when it was found necessary to do so , on
account of the Greeks, who so frequently relapsed , and it was thus
confirmed by the authority of the universal Church.
19. The last objection made by the Greeks is founded on these
reasons : Ifthe Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and the Son,
he would proceed not from one, but from two principles , for he
would be produced by two Persons . We have already answered

(6) Petavius, l. 7 , de Trin. c. 17, n. 12. (7) Bessar. Orat. pro. Unit.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 443

this in proving the dogma ( N. 6) , but we will explain it more


clearly. Although the Father and the Son are two Persons, really
distinct, still they neither are, nor can be, called two principles of
the Holy Ghost, but only one principle, for the power by which the
Holy Ghost is produced is but one alone, and is the same in the
Father as in the Son. Neither is the Father the principle of the
Holy Ghost by paternity , nor the Son by filiation, so that they
might be two principles ; but the Father and the Son are the prin-
ciple of the Holy Ghost by active spiration , which , as it is one
alone, and is common to both, and undivided in the Father and the
Son, therefore the Father and the Son cannot be called two princi-
ples, or two spirators , because they are but one spirator of the Holy
Ghost, and although both Persons spirate, still the spiration is but
one. All this has been expressly laid down in the Definition of the
Council of Florence.

REFUTATION V.

REFUTATION OF THE HERESY OF PELAGIUS.

1. It is not my intention here to refute all the errors of Pelagius


concerning Original Sin and Free Will, but only those concerning
grace. In the historical part of the work ( Chap. v. art. ii. n. 5) , I
have said that the principal heresy of Pelagius was, that he denied
the necessity of grace to avoid evil, or to do good , and I there men-
tioned the various subterfuges he had recourse to, to avoid the
brand of heresy, at one time saying that grace and free-will itself
was given us by God ; again, that it is the law teaching us how to
live ; now, that it is the good example of Jesus Christ ; now , that
it is the pardon of sins ; again , that it is an internal illustration , but
on the part of the intellect alone, in knowing good and evil, though
Julian , his disciple, admitted grace of the will also ; but neither
Pelagius nor his followers ever admitted the necessity of grace, and
have even scarcely allowed that grace was necessary to do what is
right more easily, and they always denied that this grace was gra-
tuitous, but said it was given us according to our natural merits.
We have, therefore, two points to establish ; first, the necessity, and
next, the gratuity ofgrace.

SECT. I.- OF THE NECESSITY OF GRACE.

2. Ir is first proved from that saying of Jesus Christ : " No man


can come to me, except the Father who hath sent me draw him"
(John, • vi . 44) . From these words alone it is clear that no one can
perform any good action in order to eternal life without internal
grace. That is confirmed by another text : " I am the vine, you
444 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

the branches : he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth
much fruit ; for without me you can do nothing" (John , xv. 5).
Therefore, Jesus Christ teaches that of ourselves we can do nothing
available to salvation , and, therefore , grace is absolutely necessary
for every good work, for otherwise, as St. Augustin says, we can
acquire no merit for eternal life : " Ne quisquam putaret parvum
aliquem fructum posse a semetipso palmitem ferre, cum dixisset hic,
fertfructum multum, non ait, sine me parum, potestis facere : sed ,
nihil potestis facere : sive ergo parum, sive multum, sine illo fieri
non potest, sine quo nihil fieri potest." It is proved , secondly, from
St. Paul (called by the Fathers the Preacher of grace), who says,
writing to the Philippians : " With fear and trembling work out
your salvation , for it is God who worketh in you both to will and
to accomplish according to his good - will" (Phil. ii . 12 , 13 ) . In
the previous part of the same chapter he exhorts them to humility :
" In humility let each esteem others better than themselves," as
Christ, who, he says, " humbled himself, becoming obedient unto
death ;" and then he tells them that it is God who works all good in
them. He confirms in that what St. Peter says : " God resisteth the
proud, but to the humble he giveth grace” ( 1 Peter, v. 5 ) . In fine ,
St. Paul wishes to show us the necessity of grace to desire or to
put in practice every good action , and shows that for that we should.
be humble, otherwise we render ourselves unworthy of it. And
lest the Pelagians may reply, that here the Apostle does not speak
of the absolute necessity of grace, but of the necessity of having it
to do good more easily, which is all the necessity they would admit,
see what he says in another text : " No man can say, the Lord
Jesus, but by the Holy Ghost" ( 1 Cor. xii. 3) . If, therefore, we
cannot even mention the name of Jesus with profit to our souls,
without the grace of the Holy Ghost, much less can we hope to
work out our salvation without grace.
3. Secondly.- St. Paul teaches us that the grace alone of the law
given to us is not, as Pelagius said, sufficient, for actual grace is
absolutely necessary to observe the law effectually : " For if justice
be by the law, then Christ died in vain" (Gal. ii . 21 ) . By justice
is understood the observance of the Commandments, as St. John
tells us : " He that doth justice is just" ( 1 John , iii . 7 ) . The
meaning ofthe Apostle, therefore, is this : If man, by the aid of the
law alone, could observe the law, then Jesus Christ died in vain ;
but such is not the case. We stand in need of grace, which Christ
procured for us by his death . Nay , so far is the law alone suffi-
cient for the observance of the commandments, that, as the Apostle
says, the very law itself is the cause of our transgressing the law,
because it is by sin that concupiscence enters into us : " But sin
taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner
of concupiscence . For without the law sin was dead. And I lived .
some time without the law, but when the commandment came , sin
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 445

revived" ( Rom . vii. 8 , 9 ) . St. Augustin , explaining how it is that


the knowledge of the law sooner renders us guilty than innocent,
says that this happens ( 1 ), because such is the condition of our
corrupt will, that, loving liberty, it is carried on with more vehe-
mence to what is prohibited than to what is permitted . Grace is,
therefore, that which causes us to love and to do what we know we
ought to do, as the second Council of Carthage declares : " Ut
quod faciendum cognovimus, per gratiam præstatur, etiam facere
dirigamus, atque valeamus." Who, without grace, could fulfil the
first and most important of all precepts, to love God ? " Charity is
from God" ( 1 John, iv. 9) . " The charity of God is poured forth into
our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us" (Rom. v. 5) .
Holy charity is a pure gift of God, and we cannot obtain it by our
own strength. " Amor Dei, quo pervenitur ad Deum , non est nisi a
Deo," as St. Augustin says (2 ) . Without grace how could we con-
quer temptations, especially grievous ones ? Hear what David says :
66
Being pushed , I was overturned, that I might fall, but the Lord
supported me" (Psalms, cxvii. 13) . And Solomon says : " No one
can be continent (that is, resist temptations to concupiscence), except
God gave it" (Wisdom, viii. 21 ) . Hence, the Apostle, speaking of
the temptations which assault us, says : " But in all these things we
overcome, because of him that hath loved us" (Rom. viii . 37) . And
again, “ Thanks be to God, who always maketh us to triumph in
Christ" (2 Cor. ii . 14) . St. Paul, therefore, thanks God for the
victory over temptations, acknowledging that he conquers them
by the power of grace. St. Augustin (3) says, that this gratitude
would be in vain if the victory was not a gift of God : " Irrisoria
est enim illa actio gratiarum, si ob hoc gratiæ aguntur Deo, quod
non donavit ipse, nec fecit." All this proves how necessary grace
is to us, either to do good or avoid evil.
4. Let us consider the theological reason for the necessity of
grace. The means should always be proportioned to the end .
Now, our eternal salvation consists in enjoying God face to face,
which is, without doubt, a supernatural end ; therefore, the means
which conduce to this end should be of a supernatural order, like-
wise . Now, everything which conduces to salvation is a means
of salvation ; and , consequently, our natural strength is not sufficient
to make us do anything, in order to eternal salvation , unless it is
elevated by grace, for nature cannot do what is beyond its
strength, and an action of a supernatural order is so . Besides
our weak natural powers, which are not able to accomplish
supernatural acts , we have the corruption of our nature, occasioned
by sin, which even is a stronger proof to us of the necessity of
grace.

(1) St. Augus. 1. de Spir. S. et litt. (2 ) St. Augus. l. 4, con. Julian. c. 3. (4) St.
Augus, loc. cit. ad Corinth.
446 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

SEC. II.- OF THE GRATUITY OF GRACE.

5. THE Apostle shows in several places that the Divine grace


is, in everything, gratuitous, and comes from the mercy of God
alone, independent of our natural merits. In one place he says :
" For unto you it is given for Christ, not only to believe in him ,
but also to suffer for him" (Phil. i. 29) . Therefore, as St. Augustin
reflects (1 ) , it is a gift of God, through the merits of Jesus Christ,
not alone to suffer for love of him, but even to believe in him,
and, if it is a gift of God, it cannot be given us through our merits.
" Utrumque ostendit Dei donum, quia utrumque dixit esse
donatum ; nec ait, ut plenius, et perfectius credatis, sed ut credatis
in eum." The Apostle writes similarly to the Corinthians, that
" he had obtained mercy of the Lord, to be faithful" ( 1 Cor. vii.
25) . It is not through any merit of ours, therefore , that we are
faithful to the mercy of God. " Non ait," says St. Augustin, in
the same place already quoted, " quia fidelis eram ; fideli ergo
datur quidem, sed datum est etiam , ut esset fidelis."
6. St. Paul next shows most clearly, that, whenever we receive
light from God, or strength to act, it is not by our own merits, but
a gratuitous gift from God. "For who distinguisheth thee," says
the Apostle, " or what hast thou , that thou hast not received ; and
if thou hast received, why dost thou glory, as if thou hast not
received it" ( 1 Cor. iv. 7 ) ? If grace was given according to our
natural merits , derived solely from the strength of our free will ,
then there would be something to distinguish a man who works
out his salvation from one who does not do so . St. Augustin
even says, that if God would give us only free will—that is, a will,
free and indifferent either to good or evil , according as we use it—
in case the good will would come from ourselves, and not from
God, then what came from ourselves would be better than what
comes from God : " Nam si nobis libera quædam voluntas ex Deo ,
quæ adhuc potest esse vel bona, vel mala ; bono vero voluntas ex
nobis est, melius est id quod a nobis, quam quod ab illo est" ( 2).
But it is not so ; for the Apostle tells us, that whatever we have
from God is all gratuitously given to us, and, therefore, we should
not pride ourselves on it.
7. Finally, the gratuity of grace is strongly confirmed by St.
Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans (xi . 5 , 6) : " Even so then at
this present time also, there is a remnant saved according to the
election ofgrace. (The Apostle means, by "the remnant," those few
Jews who were faithful among the multitude of unbelievers.) And
if by grace, it is not now by works ; otherwise grace is no more
grace." Now, the Apostle could not express in stronger terms the

(1 ) St. Aug. l. 2, de Præd. S. S. c. 2. (2) St. Aug. 1. 2, de Pec. mer. c. 18.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 447

Catholic truth , that grace is a gratuitous gift of God, and depends


not on the merits of our free will, but on the mere liberality of the
Lord.

SEC. III. THE NECESSITY AND THE GRATUITY OF GRACE IS PROVED BY TRADITION ;
CONFIRMED BY THE DECREES OF COUNCILS AND POPES.

8. ST. CYPRIAN ( 1 ) lays it down as a fundamental maxim in this


matter, that we should not glorify ourselves, as we have nothing of
ourselves : " In nullo gloriandum, quando nostrum nihil est." St.
Ambrose says ( 2) just the same thing : " Ubique Domini virtus
studiis cooperatur humanis, ut nemo possit ædificare sine Domino,
nemo custodire sine Domino, nemo quicquam incipere sine
Domino." And St. John Chrysostom expresses the same senti-
ments in several parts of his works, and in one passage , in parti-
cular, says (3) : " Gratia Dei semper in beneficiis priores sibi partes
vindicat." And again (4) : " Quia in nostra voluntate totum post
gratiam Dei relictum est, ideo et peccantibus supplicia proposita
sunt, et bene operantibus retributiones." He is even clearer in
another passage ( 5 ), saying , that all we have is not from ourselves,
but merely a gift gratuitously given us : " Igitur quod accepisti,
habes, neque hoc tantum, aut illud, sed quidquid habes ; non enim
merita tua hæc sunt, sed Dei gratia ; quamvis fidem adducas,
quamvis dona, quamvis doctrinæ sermonem, quamvis virtutem ,
omnia tibi inde provenerunt. Quid igitur habes quæso, quod
acceptum non habeas ? Num ipse per te recte operatus es ? Non
sane, sed accepisti. . . . . . ... Propterea cohibearis oportet, non enim
tuum ad munus est, sed largientis ." St. Jerome (6) says, that God
assists and sustains us in all our works, and that, without the assist-
ance of God, we can do nothing : " Dominum gratia sua nos in
singulis operibus juvare, atque sustentare." And again (7) :
66
Velle, et nolle nostrum est ; ipsumque quod nostrum est, sine Dei
miseratione nostrum non est." And in another place ( 8 ) : 66 Velle,
et currere meum est, sed ipsum meum, sine Dei semper auxilio non
erit meum." I omit innumerable other quotations from the Fathers,
which prove the same thing, and pass on to the Synodical Decrees.
9. I will not here quote all the Decrees of particular Synods
against Pelagius, but only those of some particular Councils,
approved of by the Apostolic See, and received by the whole
Church. Among these is the Synod of Carthage, of all Africa,
approved of by St. Prosper ( 9) , which says , that the grace of God,
through Jesus Christ, is not only necessary to know what is right
and to practise it, but that, without it, we can neither think, say,
or do anything conducive to salvation : " Cum 214.- Sacerdotibus
(1) St. Cypri. l. 3, ad Quir. c. 4. (2) St. Amb. 7. 7, in Luc. c. 3. (3) St.
Chrysos. Hom. 13, in Jean. (4) Idem, Hom. 22, in Gen. (5 ) St. Chrysos. Hom.
in cap. 4, 1 , ad Cor. (6) St. Hieron. l. 3, con. Pelag. (7) Idem, Ep. ad Demetri.
(8) Idem, Ep. ad Ctesiphon. (9) St. Prosp. Resp. ad c. 8, Gallor.
448 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

quorum constitutionem contra inimicos gratiæ Dei totus mundus


amplexus est, veraci professione, quemadmodum ipsorum habet
sermo, dicamus gratiam Dei per Jesum Christum Dominum , non
solum ad cognoscendam, verum ad faciendam justitiam , nos per
actus singulos adjuvari ; ita sine illa nihil veræ sanctæque pietatis
habere, cogitare, dicere, agere valeamus. "
10. The Second Synod of Orange (cap . vii.) teaches, that it is
heretical to say that, by the power of nature, we can do anything
for eternal life : " Si quis per naturæ vigorem bonum aliquod, quod
ad salutem pertinet vitæ æternæ, cogitare, aut eligere posse confir-
met, absque illuminatione, et inspiratione Spiritus Sancti hæretico
falliter spiritu." And again it defines : " Si quis sicut augmentum ,
ita etiam initium Fidei, ipsumque credulitatis affectum, quo in eum
credimus, qui judicat impium, et ad generationem sacri Baptismatis
pervenimus, non per gratiæ donum, idest per inspirationem Spiritus
Sancti corrigentem voluntatem nostram ab infidelitate ad Fidem,
ab impietate ad pietatem, sed naturaliter nobis inesse dicit , Aposto-
licis documentis adversarius approbatur."
11. Besides the Councils, we have the authority ofthe Popes, who
approved of several particular Synods celebrated to oppose the
Pelagian errors. Innocent I., in his Epistle to the Council of Milevis,
approving the Faith they professed, in opposition to Pelagius and
Celestius, says that the whole Scriptures prove the necessity of
grace : " Cum in omnibus Divinis paginis voluntati liberæ, non nisi
adjutorium Dei legimus esse nectendum, eamque nihil posse Cœles-
tibus præsidiis destitutam, quonam modo huic soli possibilitatem
hanc, pertinaciter defendentes, sibimet, imo plurimis Pelagius
Celestiusque persuadent. " Besides, Pope Zosimus, in his Encyclical
Letter to all the bishops of the world, quoted by Celestine I. , in his
Epistle to the bishops of Paul, says much the same : " In omnibus
causis, cogitationibus, motibus adjutor et protector orandus est.
Superbum est enim ut quisquam sibi humana natura_præsumat."
In the end of the Epistle we have quoted of Celestine I., there are
several chapters , taken from the definitions of other Popes, and from
the Councils of Africa, concerning grace, all proving the same
thing. The fifth chapter says : " Quod omnia studia, et omnia
opera ; ac merita sanctorum ad Dei gloriam, laudemque referenda
sunt ; quia non aliunde ei placet, nisi ex eo quod ipse donaverit."
And in the sixth chapter it says : " Quod ita Deus in cordibus.
hominum, atque in ipso libero operatur, arbitrio ut sancta cogitatio,
pium consilium , omnisque motus bona voluntatio ex Deo sit, quia
per illum aliquid boni possumus, sine quo nihil possumus. "
12. The Pelagians were formally condemned in the General
Council of Ephesus, as Cardinal Orsi tells us ( 10) . Nestorius
received the Pelagian bishops, who came to Constantinople, most

(10) C. Orsi ; Ir. Ecc. t. 13, l. 29, n. 52, cum. St. Prosp. l. con. Collat. c. 21.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 449

graciously, for he agreed with Pelagius in this, that grace is given


to us by God, not gratuitously, but according to our merits. This
erroneous doctrine was agreeable to Nestorius, as it favoured his
system, that the Word had chosen the Person of Christ as the temple
of his habitation , on account of his virtues, and therefore the Fathers
of the Council of Ephesus, knowing the obstinacy of those Pelagian
bishops, condemned them as heretics. Finally, the Council ofTrent
(Sess. vi. de Justif.) defines the same doctrine in two Canons. The
second Canon says : " Si quis dixerit Divinam gratiam ad hoc solum
dari, ut facilius homo juste vivere, ac ad vitam æternam promoveri
possit, quasi per liberum arbitrium sine gratia utrumque, sed ægre
tamen et difficulter possit ; anathema sit." And in the third Canon
the Council says : " Si quis dixerit, sine præveniente Spiritus
Sanctus inspiratione, atque ejus adjutoriis hominem credere, sperare,
diligere, aut pœnitere posse sicut oportet, ut ei justificationis gratia
conferatur ; anathema sit."

SEC. IV. OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

13. THE Pelagians object, firstly, if you admit that grace is ab-
solutely necessary to perform any act conducive to salvation, you
must confess that man has no liberty, and free will is destroyed
altogether. We answer, with St. Augustin , that man, after the fall,
is undoubtedly no longer free without grace, either to begin or bring
to perfection any act conducive to eternal life , but by the grace of
God he recovers this liberty, for the strength which he is in need
of to do what is good is subministered to him by grace, through
the merits of Jesus Christ ; this grace restores his liberty to him , and
gives him strength to work out his eternal salvation , without , how-
ever, compelling him to do so : " Peccato Adæ arbitrium liberum
de hominum natura perisse, non dicimus, sed ad peccandum valere
in homine subdito diabolo . Ad bene autem, pieque vivendum non
valere, nisi ipsa voluntas hominis Dei gratia fuerit liberata, et ad
omne bonum actionis, sermonis cogitationis adjuta." Such are St.
Augustin's sentiments (1 ).
14. They object, secondly , that God said to Cyrus : " Who say
to Cyrus, thou art my shepherd, and thou shalt perform all my
pleasure" ( Isaias, xliv. 28 ) ; and, in chap . xlvi . v. 11, he calls him,
66
a man of his will." Now, say the Pelagians, Cyrus was an idola-
ter, and, therefore , deprived of the grace which is given by Jesus
Christ, and still, according to the text of the Prophet, he observed
all the natural precepts ; therefore without grace a man may observe
all the precepts of the law of nature. We answer, that in order to
understand this, we should distinguish, with theologians, between
the will of Beneplacitum and the will called of Signum . The Bene-

(1) St. Augus. I. 2, con. 2, Epis. Pelag, c. 5.


2F
450 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

placitum is that established by God by an absolute decree, and


which God wills should be infallibly followed by us. This is
always fulfilled by the wicked. But the other will (voluntas signi)
is that which regards the Divine commandments signified to us ; but
for the fulfilment of this Divine will our co-operation is required ,
and this we cannot apply of ourselves, but require the assistance of
the Divine grace to do so ; this will the wicked do not always
fulfil. Now the Lord in Isaias does not speak of this will ( Signum) ,
in respect of Cyrus, but of the other will (Beneplacitum ) , that is,
that Cyrus should free the Jews from captivity , and permit them to
rebuild the city and temple ; that was all that was required then
from him, but, on the other hand, he was an idolater , and a san-
guinary invader of the neighbouring kingdoms, and , therefore, he
did not fulfil the precepts of the natural law.
15. They object, thirdly, that fact related by St. Mark, of the
man who was exhorted by our Redeemer to observe the command-
ments, and he answered : " Master, all these things I have observed
from my youth," and the Evangelist proves that he spoke the truth,
for " Jesus, looking on him, loved him" (Mark, x. 20 , 21 ) . See
here, say the Pelagians, is a man who, without grace , and who had
not even as yet believed in Christ, observed all the natural precepts.
We answer, first, this man was a Jew, and , as such , believed in God,
and also implicitly in Christ, and there was, therefore, nothing to
prevent him from having grace to observe the commandments of
the Decalogue. Secondly- We answer, that when he said, " All
these things I have observed from my youth," we are not to under-
stand that he observed all the Commandments, but only those which
Christ mentioned to him: " Do not commit adultery , do not kill,
do not steal," &c. Even the Gospel itself proves that he was not
ardent in the observance ofthe precept to love God above all things,
for when Christ told him to leave his wealth and follow him, he
refused to obey, and , therefore, our Lord tacitly reproved him, when
he said : " How hardly shall they who have riches enter into the
kingdom of God" (ver. 23).
16. They object, fourthly, that St. Paul, while still under the
law, and not having yet received grace, observed all the law, as he
himself attests : " According to the justice that is in the law, con-
versing without blame" (Phil. iii . 6 ) . We answer, that the Apostle,
at that time, observed the law externally, but not internally, by
loving God above all things , as he himself says : " For we ourselves,
also, were some time unwise, incredulous, erring, slaves to divers
desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hating one another"
(Tit. iii. 3) .
17. They object, fifthly, all the precepts of the Decalogue are
either possible or impossible ; if they are possible, we can observe
them by the strength of our free will alone, but ifthey are impossible,
no one is bound to observe them, for no one is obliged to do im-
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 451

possibilities. We answer, that all these precepts are impossible to


us without grace, but are quite possible with the assistance ofgrace.
This is the answer of St. Thomas (2) : " Illud quod possumus cum
auxilio Divino, non est nobis omnino impossibile ...... Unde Hiero-
nymus confitetur, sic nostrum esse liberum arbitrium, ut dicamus
nos semper indigere Dei auxilio ." Therefore, as the observance of
the Commandments is quite possible to us with the assistance ofthe
Divine grace, we are bound to observe them. We will answer the
other objections of the Pelagians in the next chapter, the Refutation
of the Semi-Pelagian heresy.

REFUTATION VI .

OF THE SEMPELAGIAN HERESY.

1. THE Semipelagians admit that the strength of the will of man


has been weakened by Original Sin , and, therefore, allow that
grace is requisite to do what is right ; but they deny that it is
necessary for the beginning of Faith, or for the desire of eternal
salvation ; for they say that as the belief of sick people in the
utility of medicine , and the wish to recover their health, are not
works for which medicine is necessary, so the commencement of
belief-or call it an affection for the Faith- and the desire of eter-
nal salvation, are not works for which grace is necessary . But we
are bound to believe with the Catholic Church, that every begin-
ning of Faith, and every good desire we entertain, is a working of
grace in us.

SEC. I. THE COMMENCEMENT OF FAITH AND EVERY GOOD DESIRE IS NOT FROM
OURSELVES, BUT FROM GOD.

2. FIRST, that it is clearly proved from St. Paul : " Not that we
are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves ; but
our sufficiency is from God" (2 Cor. iii. 5). Thus the beginning
of believing that is, not that beginning of Faith arising from the
intellect, which naturally sees the truth of the Faith , but that pious
desire of Faith, which is not yet formal faith, for it is no more than
a thought, of wishing to believe, and which, as St. Augustin says,
precedes belief-this good thought, according to St. Paul, comes
from God alone. Such is the explanation St. Augustin gives of
the text : " Attendant hic, et verba ista perpendant, qui putant ex
nobis esse Fidei coeptum, et ex Deo esse Fidei supplementum
Quis enim non videt, prius esse cogitare quam credere ? Nullus
quippe credit aliquid , nisi prius crediderit esse credendum. Quam-
vis enim rapte, quamvis celerrime credendi voluntatem quædam

(2) St Thom. 1 , 2, -9, 109, a. 4, ad. 2.


452 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

cogitationes antevolent, moxque illa ita sequatar, ut quasi conjunc-


tissima comitetur ; necesse est tamen, ut omnia quæ credentur,
præveniente cogitatione credantur.......Quod ergo pertinet ad reli-
gionem et pietatem (de qua loquebatur Apostolus) , si non sumus
idonei cogitare aliquid quasi ex nobismetipsis, quod sine cogitatione
non possumus, sed sufficientia nostra, ex Deo est ; profecto non sumus
idonei credere aliquid quasi ex nobismetipsis, quod sine cogitatione non
possumus,sed sufficientia nostra,qua credere incipiamus,ex Deo est"( 1).
3. It is proved, secondly, by another text of St. Paul, in which
he shows the reason of our proposition. He says : " For who dis-
tinguisheth thee ? or what hast thou that thou hast not received ?”
(1 Cor. iv. 7). If the beginning of that good will , which disposes
us to receive the Faith from God, or any other gift of grace , came
from ourselves , that would distinguish us from others who had not
this commencement of a wish for eternal life. But St. Paul says,
that all that we have, in which is comprised every first desire of
Faith or salvation, is received from God : " What hast thou that
thou hast not received ?" St. Augustin was of opinion, for a time,
that Faith in God was not from God , but from ourselves , and that
by that we obtain afterwards from God, the grace to lead a good
life ; but this text of the Apostle chiefly induced him to retract this
sentiment afterwards, as he himself confesses ( 2) : " Quo præcipue
testimonio etiam ipse convictus sum, cum similiter errarem : putans
Fidem, qua in Deum credimus, non esse donum Dei , sed a nobis
esse in nobis, et per illam nos impetrare Dei dona, quibus tempe-
ranter et juste, et pie vivamus in hoc sæculo."
4. That is confirmed by what the Apostle says in another place :
" For by grace you are saved, through faith, and that not of your-
selves, for it is the gift of God. Not of works that no man man
may glory " ( Ephes. ii. 8 , 9) . St. Augustin (3) says that Pelagius
himself, to escape condemnation from the Synod of Palestine, con-
demned (though only apparently) the proposition that " grace is
given to us according to our merits." Hence , the Saint says :
66
Quis autem, dicat eum, qui jam cœpit credere, ab illo inquam
credidit, nihil mereri ? Unde sit, ut jam merenti cetera dicantur
addi retributione Divina : ac per hoc gratiam Dei secundum me-
rita nostra dari : quod objectum sibi Pelagius, ne damnaretur, ipse
damnavit."
5. Our proposition is proved, thirdly, from the words of the
Incarnate Wisdom himself: " No man can come to me, except the
Father, who hath sent me, draw him " (John, vi. 44) . And in
another place he says : " Without me you can do nothing" (John,
xv. 5) . From this it is manifest that we cannot, with our own
strength, even dispose ourselves to receive from God the actual
graces which conduce to life everlasting, for actual grace is of a

(1) St. Aug. 1. de Praed. S. S. c. 2. (3) St. Aug. Ibid. c. 1. (2 ) Ibid. c. 3.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 453

supernatural order, and, therefore, a disposition morally natural


cannot dispose us to receive a supernatural grace. " If by grace
it is not now by works," says St. Paul, " otherwise grace is no more
grace" (Rom. xi. 6) . It is certain, therefore, that grace is given to
us by God, not according to our natural merits, but according to
his Divine liberality . God who makes perfect in us every good
work, He also commenced it : " He who began a good work in you
will perfect it unto the day of Christ Jesus" (Phil. i . 6 ) . And in
another place the Apostle says that every good wish has its begin-
ning from God, and is brought to a conclusion by Him. " For it
is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish, ac-
cording to his good will " (Phil . ii . 13) . And here we are called
on to advert to another error of the Semipelagians, who asserted
that grace was necessary to do what was good, but not necessary
for perseverance in goodness. But this error was condemned by
the Council of Trent ( Sess. vi. cap. 13) , which teaches that the
gift of perseverance can only be obtained from God, who alone
gives it: " Similiter de perseverantiæ munere .......quod quidem
aliunde haberi non potest nisi ab eo, qui potens est eum qui stat
statuere, ut perseveranter stet."

SEC. II. OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

6. THE Semipelagians object, first, some passages of the Scrip-


ture, from which it would appear, that a good will and the
beginning of good works are attributed to us, and the perfection
of them only to God . In the first book of Kings (vii . 3) , we
read : " Prepare your hearts for the Lord ;" and in St. Luke (iii. 4) :
" Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight his paths." We
also see in Zachary : " Be converted to me.......and I will be
converted to you ;" and St. Paul speaks even plainer to the
Romans (vii. 18) , for he says : " For to will is present with me ;
but to accomplish that which is good I find not." It would
appear also, from the Acts of the Apostles (xvii. 7) , that the Faith
which Cornelius received was to be attributed to his prayers. To
these and to similar texts we answer, that the prevenent (preveniens)
internal grace of the Holy Ghost is not excluded by them, but
they suppose it, and we are exhorted to correspond to this grace ,
to remove the impediments to the greater graces, which God has
prepared for those who correspond to him. Thus when the
Scripture says, " Prepare your hearts," " Be converted to me," &c. ,
it does not attribute to our free will the beginning of Faith or of
conversion, without preventing or prevenent grace (gratia pre-
veniens) , but admonishes us to correspond to it, and teaches us
that this preventing grace leaves us at liberty either to choose or
reject what is good for us. Thus, on the other hand, when the
Scripture says, " The will is prepared by the Lord," and when
454 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

we say, " Convert us, O God our Saviour" (Psalms , lxxxiv, 5 ) ,


we are admonished that grace prepares us to do what is good,
but does not deprive us of liberty , if we refuse to do so. This is
precisely what the Council of Trent says : " Cum dicitur : Conver-
timini ad me, et ego convertar ad vos, libertatis nostræ admonemur.
Cum respondemus : Converte ad vos nos Domine, et convertemur,
Dei nos gratia præveniri confitemur." The same answer applies
to that text of St. Paul : " For to will is present with me, but to
accomplish that which is good I find not" (Romans, vii . 18 ) . The
meaning of the Apostle is this, that he, being then justified , had
the grace to desire what was good, but to perfect it was not his
work, but the work of God ; but he does not say that he had
from himself the desire of doing good . The same answer applies
to what is said of Cornelius, because, although he obtained his
conversion to the Faith by his prayers, still these prayers were.
accompanied by preventing grace.
7. They object, secondly, what Christ says in St. Mark (xvi.
16) : " He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." Here
they say one thing is required , that is Faith ; another is promised ,
salvation. Therefore , what is required is in the power of man ;
what is promised is in the power of God. We answer with St.
Augustin ( 1 ) : " St. Paul," says the holy Doctor, " writes : " If
by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you are saved’ ”
(Rom . viii. 13 ) . Here one thing is required, the mortification of
the flesh ; another thing is promised, that is, eternal life. Now, if
the argument of the Semipelagians was worth anything, that
what is required is in our power, without the assistance of grace ,
it would follow, that without grace we have it in our power to
conquer our passions ; but this, the Saint says, " is the damnable
error of the Pelagians ." He then gives a direct answer to the
Semipelagians, and tells them that it is not in our power to give
what is required of us, without grace, but with grace it is, and
he then concludes : " Sicut ergo, quamvis donum Dei sit facta carnis
mortificare, exigitur tamen a nobis proposito præmio vitæ ; ita
donum Dei est Fides, quamvis et ipsa, dum dicitur, si credideris,
salvus eris, proposito præmio salutis exigatur a nobis. Ideo enim hæc
et nobis præcipiuntur, et dona Dei esse monstrantur, ut intelligatur,
quod et nos ea faciamus, et Deus facit ut illa faciamus."
8. They object, thirdly, that God, in a thousand passages in the
Scriptures, exhorts us to pray and seek, if we wish to receive grace ;
therefore, they say it is in our power to pray at all events, and if
the working out of our salvation and faith is not in our own hands,
still the desire of believing and being saved is in our power. St.
Augustin ( 2 ) also answers this argument. It is not the fact, he
says, that prayer (such as it ought to be) is in our own unaided
power. The gift of prayer comes from grace, as the Apostle says ;
(1) St. Aug. l. de Dono. Persev. c. 23. (2) St. Aug. de Nat. & Gratia, c. 44.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 455

" Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity. For we know not
what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself asketh
for us" (Rom. viii. 26) . Hence, St. Augustin says (3) : " Quid est ,
ipse Spiritus interpellat, nisi interpellare facit ;" and he adds: " At-
tendant quomodo falluntur, qui putant esse a nobis, non dari nobis ,
ut petamus, quæramus, pulsemus, et hoc esse dicunt, quod gratia
præceditur merito nostro ..... Nec volunt intelligere, etiam hoc
Divini muneris esse, ut oremus, hoc est petamus, quæramus, atque
pulsemus ; accepimus enim Spiritum adoptionis, in quo clamamus
Abba Pater." The same holy doctor teaches us that God gives to
all the grace to pray, and through prayer the means of obtaining
grace to fulfil the commandments ; for otherwise, if one had not.
the efficacious grace to fulfil the commandments, and had not the
grace to obtain this efficacious grace, through means of prayer
either, he would be bound to observe a law which to him was im-
possible. But such, St. Augustin says, is not the case. Our Lord
admonishes us to pray with the grace of prayer, which he gives to
all, so that by praying we may obtain efficacious grace to observe
the commandments. He says : " Eo ipso quo firmissime creditur,
Deum impossibilia non præcipere, hinc admonemur et in facilibus
(that is, in prayer) quid agamus, et in difficilibus (that is, observing
the commandments) quid petamus." This is what the Council of
Trent afterwards decreed on the same subject (Sess. vi. c. xi .) , fol-
lowing the remarkable expressions of the great Doctor : " Deus
impossibilia non jubet, sed jubendo monet, et facere quod possis , et
petere quod non possis, et adjuvat ut possis" (4). Thus by prayer
we obtain strength to do what we cannot do of ourselves ; but we
cannot even boast of praying, for our very prayer is a gift from God.
9. That God gives generally to all the grace of praying, St. Au-
gustin (independently of the passages already quoted) teaches in
almost every page of his works. In one place he says : " Nulli
enim homini ablatum est scire utilitur quærere" (5). And again :
" Quid ergo aliud ostenditur nobis, nisi quia et petere et quæ-
rere. Ille concedit , qui ut hæc faciamus, jubet" (6) . In another
place, speaking of those who do not know what to do to obtain
salvation, he says , they should make use of what they have received,
that is, of the grace of prayer, and that thus they will obtain sal-
vation ( 7) : " Sed hoc quoque accipiet, si hoc quod accipit bene
usus fuerit ; accepit autem, ut pie et diligenter quærat, si volet."
Besides, in another passage ( 8 ) , he explains all this more diffusely,
for he says it is for this reason that God commands us to pray, that
by prayer we may obtain his gifts, and that he would invite us in
vain to pray, unless he first gave us grace to be able to pray, and
by prayer to obtain grace to fulfil what we are commanded : " Pre-

(3 ) St. Aug. Ibid. (4) Ibid. (5) St. Aug. 1. de Lib. Arb. c. 19, n. 53.
( 6) Idem, l. 1, ad Simp. q. 2. (7) Idem, Trac. 26 , in Joan. c. 22, n. 65.
(8) St. Aug. de Grat. & Lib. Arb. c. 18.
456 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES , -

cepto admonitum est liberum arbitrium, ut quæreret Dei donum ;


at quidem sine suo fructu admoneretur, nisi prius acciperet aliquid
dilectionis, ut addi sibi quæreret, unde quod jubebatur, impleret."
Mark how the words, " aliquid dilectionis," that is , the grace by
which man prays, if he wishes, and by prayer obtains the actual
grace to observe the Commandments. And thus, on the day of
judgment, no one can complain that he is lost for want of grace to
co-operate to his salvation , because if he had not actual grace to
work out his salvation, at all events he had grace to pray, which is
denied to no one, and if he prayed, he would obtain salvation ac-
cording to the promises of our Lord : " Ask, and it shall be given .
unto you ; seek, and you shall find" (Matt. vii. 7).
10. They object, fourthly, and say : If even for the beginning
of Faith preventing grace is necessary, then the infidels, who do
not believe, are excusable, because the Gospel was never preached
to them, and they, therefore, never refused to hear it. Jansenius ( 9 )
says that these are not excused , but are condemned , without having
had any sufficient grace, either proximate or remote, to become
converted to the Faith, and that is, he says, in punishment of
original sin, which has deprived them of all help . And those
theologians, he says, who in general teach that these infidels have
sufficient grace for salvation, some way or other have adopted this
opinion from the Semipelagians. This sentiment of Jansenius,
however, is not in accordance with the Scripture, which says that
God " will have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge
of the truth" ( 1 Tim. ii. 4) ; “ He was the true light, which enlight-
eneth every man that cometh into the world" (John , i . 9 ) ; " Who
is the Saviour of all men, especially the faithful" ( 1 Tim. iv. 10) ;
" And he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but
also for those of the whole world" ( 1 John, ii. 2) ; " Who gave
himself a redemption for all" ( 1 Tim . ii. 6 ). From these texts
Bellarmin ( 10 ) remarks, that St. Chrysostom, St. Augustin , and St.
Prosper conclude that God never fails to give to all men sufficient
assistance to work out their salvation, if they desire it. And St.
Augustin (11 ) , especially, and St. Prosper ( 12), express this doc-
trine in several parts of their works. Besides, this sentiment of
Jansenius is in direct opposition to the condemnation pronounced
by Alexander VIII., in 1690, on that proposition, that Pagans,
Jews, &c., have no sufficient grace : " Pagani , Judæi, Hæretici ,
aliique hujus generis nullum omnino accipiunt a Jesu Christo in-
fluxum : adeoque hinc recte inferes, in illis esse voluntatem nudam
et inermem sine omni gratia sufficiente." Neither does it agree
with the condemnation pronounced by Clement XI . on two pro-
positions of Quesnel ( 26 , 29) : " That there are no graces unless
by Faith," and that " no grace is granted outside the Church."
(9) Jansen. l. 3, de Grat. Christ. c. 11. (10) Bellar. l. 2, de Grat. & Lib. Arb. c. 3.
(11) St. Aug. 7. de Spir.. & lit. c. 33, & in Ps. 11, n. 7. ( 12 ) St. Pros. de Voc. Gent. l. 2, c. 5.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 457

11. Still we answer the Semipelagians, and say, that infidels


who arrive at the use of reason , and are not converted to the Faith,
cannot be excused, because though they do not receive sufficient
proximate grace, still they are not deprived of remote grace , as a
means of becoming converted . But what is this remote grace ?
St. Thomas ( 13) explains it, when he says, that if any one was
brought up in the wilds, or even among brute beasts, and if he
followed the law of natural reason , to desire what is good, and
to avoid what is wicked , we should certainly believe either that
God, by an internal inspiration , would reveal to him what he
should believe, or would send some one to preach the Faith to
him, as he sent Peter to Cornelius. Thus, then , according to the
Angelic Doctor, God, at least remotely, gives to the infidels, who
have the use of reason , sufficient grace to obtain salvation , and this
grace consists in a certain instruction of the mind , and in a move-
ment of the will, to observe the natural law ; and if the infidel
co-operates with this movement, observing the precepts of the law
of nature, and abstaining from grievous sins, he will certainly
receive, through the merits of Jesus Christ , the grace proximately
sufficient to embrace the Faith, and save his soul.

REFUTATION VII.

REFUTATION OF THE HERESY OF NESTORIUS, WHO TAUGHT THAT


IN CHRIST THERE ARE TWO PERSONS.

1. NESTORIUS is not charged with any errors regarding the


mystery ofthe Trinity. Among the other heresies which he com-
bated in his sermons, and to punish which he implored the Emperor
Theodosius, was that of the Arians, who denied that the Word
was consubstantial to the Father. We, therefore, have no reason
to doubt that he acknowledged the Divinity of the Word, and his
consubstantiality with the Father. His heresy particularly attacked
the mystery of the Incarnation of the Divine Word, for he denied
the hypostatic or personal union of the Word with the humanity.
He maintained that the Word was only united with the humanity
of Jesus Christ, just in the same way as with the saints, only in a
more perfect manner, and from the first moment of his conception.
In his writings he explains this point over and over in different
ways, but always only as a simple moral and accidental union
between the Person of the Word and the humanity of Jesus Christ,
but he never admits a hypostatic or personal union. At one time
he said it was an union of habitation, that is, that the Word inha-

(13) St. Thom. Quæs. 14, de Verit . art. 11 , ad. 1.


458 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

bited the humanity of Christ, as his temple ; next it was, he said,


an union of affection , such as exists between two friends. He then
said it was an union of operation, inasmuch as the Word availed
himself ofthe humanity of Christ as an instrument to work miracles,
and other supernatural operations. Then that it was an union of
grace, because the Word, by means of sanctifying grace and other
Divine gifts, is united with Christ. Finally, he teaches that this
union consists in a moral communication, by which the Word
communicates his dignity and excellence to the humanity, and on
this account the humanity of Christ should, he said , be adored and
honoured, as we honour the purple of the Sovereign , or the throne
on which he sits. He always denied with the most determined
obstinacy, that the Son of God was made man , was born, suffered,
or died for the redemption of man . Finally , he denied the com-
munication of the Idioms , which follows from the Incarnation of
the Word, and, consequently, he denied that the Blessed Virgin
was truly and properly the Mother of God, blasphemously teaching
that she only conceived and brought forth a mere man.
2. This heresy saps the very foundation of the Christian religion ,
by denying the mystery of the Incarnation , and we will attack it
on its two principal points, the first of which consists in denying
the hypostatic union , that is, the union of the Person of the Word
with human nature, and, consequently, admits that there are two
Persons in Christ- the Person of the Word , which dwells in the
humanity as in a temple, and the person of man , purely human ,
and which does not ascend to a higher degree than mere humanity.
The second point consists in denying that the Blessed Virgin is
truly and properly the Mother of God. These two points we will
refute in the two following paragraphs.

SEC. I. IN JESUS CHRIST THERE IS BUT THE ONE PERSON OF THE WORD ALONE, WHICH
TERMINATES THE TWO NATURES, DIVINE AND HUMAN, WHICH BOTH SUBSIST IN THE
SAME PERSON OF THE WORD, AND, THEREFORE, THIS ONE PERSON is, at the SAME
TIME, TRUE GOD AND TRUE MAN.

3. OUR first proof is taken from all those passages in the Scrip-
ture, in which it is said that God was made flesh , that God was
born of a Virgin, that God emptied himself, taking the form of a
servant, that God has redeemed us with his blood, that God died
for us on the cross. Every one knows that God could not be con-
ceived, nor born, nor suffer, nor die , in his Divine nature , which
is eternal, impassible, and immortal ; therefore, if the Scripture
teaches us that God was born , and suffered , and died , we should
understand it according to his human nature, which had a begin-
ning, and was passible and mortal. And, therefore , if the person
in which the human nature subsists was not the Divine Word, St.
Matthew would state what is false when he says that God was con-
ceived and born of a Virgin : " Now all this was done that it might
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 459

be fulfilled which the Lord spoke by the Prophet, saying : Behold


a Virgin shall be with child and bring forth a Son, and they shall
call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted , is God with
us" (Matt. i . 22 , 23) . St. John expressly says the same thing:
" The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his
glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father, full
of grace and truth" (John, i. 14) . The Apostle also would have
stated a falsehood in saying that God humbled himself, taking the
form of a servant : " For let this mind be in you , which was also in
Christ Jesus. Who, being in the form of God, thought it not rob-
bery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of
a servant, being made in the likeness of men and in habit found as
a man" (Phil . ii. 5-7) . St. John would also state what is not the
fact, when he says that God died for us : " In this we have known
the charity of God, because he hath laid down his life for us"
( 1 John, iii. 6 ) ; and St. Paul says : " The Holy Ghost placed you
bishops to rule the Church of God, which he has purchased with
his own blood" ( Acts, xx. 18 ) ; and speaking of the death of our
Redeemer, he says: " For if they had known it, they never would
have crucified the Lord of glory" ( 1 Cor. ii. 8) .
4. Now it would be false to speak of God in that manner, if God
only inhabited the humanity of Jesus Christ accidentally, as a
temple, ormorally, through affection, or was not united hypostatically
or personally, just as it would be false to say that God was born of
St. Elizabeth , when she brought forth the Baptist, in whom God
inhabited before his birth, by sanctifying grace, and it would be
false to say that God died stoned when St. Stephen was stoned to
death, or that he died beheaded when St. Paul was beheaded,
because he was united to these saints through the medium of love,
and of the many heavenly gifts he bestowed on them , so that be-
tween them and God there existed a true moral union . When,
therefore, it is said that God was born and died, the reason is because
the person sustaining and terminating the assumed humanity is
truly God, that is the eternal Word. There is, therefore , in Christ
but one Person , in which two natures subsist , and in the unity of
the Person of the Word, which terminates the two natures, consists
the hypostatic union.
5. This truth is also proved, secondly, from those passages ofthe
Scriptures in which Christ-Man is called God , the Son of God, the
only begotten Son, the proper Son of God, for a man cannot be
called God or Son of God, unless the person who terminates the
human nature is truly God. Now Christ-Man is called the supreme
God by St. Paul : " And of whom is Christ according to the flesh,
who is over all things God blessed for ever" (Rom. xix. 5). We
read in St. Matthew that Christ himself, after calling himself the
Son of Man, asked his disciples whom do they believe him to be,
and St. Peter answers that he is the Son of the living God : “ Jesus
460 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

saith to them, but whom do you say that I am ? Simon Peter an-
swered and said : Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. And
Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou , Simon Barjona, be-
cause flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father
who is in heaven" (Matt. xvi. 15-17) . Then Jesus himself, at the
very time that he calls himself man, approves of Peter's answer,
who calls him the Son of God, and says that this answer was re-
vealed to him by his eternal Father. Besides, we read in St.
Matthew (iii. 17) , St. Luke (ix. 13), and St. Mark (i . 11 ) , that
Christ, while he was actually receiving Baptism as man from St.
John, was called by God his beloved Son : " This is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased ." St. Peter tells us that in Mount
Thabor the Eternal Father spoke the same words : " For, he received
from God the Father, honour and glory ; this voice coming down
to him from the excellent glory : This is my beloved Son , in whom
I have pleased myself, hear ye him" (2 Pet. i. 17). Christ, as man,
is called the only begotten Son of the Eternal Father, by St. John :
" The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he
hath declared him" (John , i . 18) . As man alone, he is called God's
own Son : " He spared not his own Son , but delivered him up for
us all " ( Rom. viii. 32 ) . After so many proofs from the Holy
Scriptures, who will be rash enough to deny that the man Christ is
truly God?
6. The Divinity of Jesus Christ is proved from all these passages
of the Scriptures, in which that which can only be attributed to
God is attributed to the Person of Christ-Man , and from thence we
conclude that this Person, in which the two natures subsist , is true
God. Jesus, speaking of himself, says : " I and the Father are
one " (John, x. 30) ; and in the same place he says : " The Father
is in me, and I in the Father " (ver. 38) . In another passage we
read that St. Philip , one day speaking with Jesus Christ , said :
" Lord, show us the Father," and our Lord answered : " So long a
time have I been with thee, and have you not known me ? Philip ,
he that seeth me seeth the Father also. Believe you not that I am
in the Father and the Father in me ?" (John, xiv. 8, 11 ). By
these words Christ showed he was the same God as the Father.
Christ himself said to the Jews that he was eternal : " Amen,
99
amen , I say unto you, before Abraham was I am (John, vii. 58 ) ;
and he says , also, that he works the same as the Father: " My
Father worketh until now, and I work..... for what things soever
he doth, these the Son also doth in like manner " (John , v. 17).
He also says : " All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine
(John, xvi. 15 ). Now, if Christ was not true God all these sayings
would be blasphemous, attributing to himself what belongs to God
alone.
7. The Divinity of Christ- Man is proved from those other
passages of the Scriptures, in which it is said that the Word, or the
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 461

Son of God, became incarnate : " The Word was made flesh and
dwelt among us " (John, i. 14) ; " For God so loved the world as
to give his only begotten Son " (John , iii . 16) ; " He spared not his
own Son, but delivered him up for all of us " (Rom. viii. 32). Now,
if the Person of the Word was not hypostatically united— that is,
in one Person with the humanity of Christ-it could not be said
that the Word was incarnate , and was sent by the Father to redeem
the world, because if this personal union did not exist between the
Word and the humanity of Christ, there would be only a moral
union of habitation , or affection , or grace, or gifts, or operation,
and in this sense we might say that the Father and the Holy Ghost
became incarnate also, for all these sorts of unions are not peculiar
to the Person of the Word alone, but to the Father and the Holy
Ghost, likewise , for God is united in this manner with the Angels
and Saints. God has frequently sent Angels as his ambassadors ;
but as St. Paul says, our Lord has never taken the nature of
angels : " For nowhere doth he take hold of the angels, but of the
seed of Abraham he taketh hold " ( Heb . ii . 16) . Thus, if
Nestorius means to assert that unions of this sort are sufficient to
enable us to say that the Word was incarnate, we should also say
that the Father was incarnate, for the Father, by his graces and
his heavenly gifts, was united with, and morally dwelt in , Jesus
Christ, according to what our Lord himself says : " The Father is
in me......the Father remaining in me " (John, xiv. 10) . We
should also admit that the Holy Ghost became incarnate , for Isaias,
speaking of the Messiah, says : " The Spirit of the Lord shall rest
upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding " (Isaias, xi. 2).
And in St. Luke it is said, that " Jesus was full of the Holy Ghost"
Luke , iv. 1 ) . In fine, according to this explanation , every Saint
or holy person who loves God could be called the Incarnate Word,
for our Saviour says : " If any one love me ....
.. .. my Father will
love him, and we will come to him, and will make our abode with
him" (John, xiv. 23) . Thus Nestorius should admit, either that
the Word is not incarnate, or that the Father and the Holy
Ghost are incarnate. This was the unanswerable argument of St.
Cyril (1) : " Quod unus sit Christus, ejusmodi in habitatione
Verbum non fieret caro, sed potius hominis incola ; et conveniens
fuerit illum non hominem, sed humanum vocare, quemadmodum et
qui Nazareth inhabitavit, Nazarenus dictus est, non Nazareth .
Quinimo nihil prorsus obstiterit ......hominem vocari una cum
Filio etiam Patrem, et Spiritum Sanctum, habitavit enim in nobis."
8. I might here add all those texts of Scripture in which Christ
is spoken of as only one Person subsisting in two natures, as in St.
Paul : " One Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things," &c. (1
Cor. viii. 6) , and several other texts of like import. If Nestorius

(1) St. Cyril, Dial. 9.


462 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

insisted that there were two Persons in Christ, he makes out not
one, but two Lords-one , the Person of the Word which dwells in
Christ, and the other the human Person . I will not detain the
reader, however, by quoting more Scriptural authorities, for every
proof of the Incarnation upsets the whole structure of Nestorianism.
9. We now come to Tradition , which has always taught the
Faith of the unity of the Person of Jesus Christ in the Incarnation
of the Word. In the Apostles' Creed , taught by the Apostles them-
selves, we say, we believe " in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary."
Now, the same Jesus Christ who was conceived, born, and died , is
the only Son of God, our Lord ; but that would not be the case, if
in Christ, as Nestorius taught, there was not only a Divine, but a
human Person, because he who was born and died would not have
been the only Son of God , but a mere man.
10. This profession of Faith is laid down more amply in the
Nicene Creed, in which the Fathers defined the Divinity of Jesus
Christ, and his consubstantiality with the Father, and thus con-
demned the heresy of Nestorius, even before it sprung up : " We
believe," say the Fathers, " in one Lord Jesus Christ the Son of
God, the only begotten Son of the Father, that is , of the substance
of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true God,
born, not made , consubstantial to the Father, by whom all things
were made, both those in heaven and those on the earth, who for
us men, and for our salvation , descended and was incarnate, and was
made man ; he suffered and arose the third day," &c. Behold,
therefore, how Jesus Christ alone, who is called God, the only be-
gotten of the Father, and consubstantial to the Father, is called man,
who was born, died , and rose again. This same Symbol was ap-
proved of by the second General Council, that is, the first of Con-
stantinople, which was also held before Nestorius promulgated his
blasphemies ; and according to the same Symbol of Nice, he was
condemned in the third General Council, that of Ephesus, which
was held against his errors. In the Symbol attributed to St. Atha-
nasius, the dogma is thus established in opposition to Nestorianism :
" Our Lord Jesus Christ is God and man ..... equal to the Father,
according to his Divinity ; less than the Father, according to his
humanity ; who, although he is God and man, these are not two, but
one Christ..... one altogether not by the confusion of substance,
but by Unity of the Person."' "
11. Besides those Symbols, we have the authority of the holy
Fathers who wrote before the rise of this heresy. St. Ignatius the
Martyr (2) says : " Singuli communiter omnes ex gratia nominatim
convenientes in una Fide, et uno Jesu Christo , secundum carnem
ex genere Davidis, Filio hominis, et Filio Dei ." See here how he

(2 ) St. Ignat. Epis. ad Eph. n. 20.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 463

mentions one Jesus Christ, the Son of man and the Son of God . St.
Iræneus says (3 ) : " Unum et eundem esse Verbum Dei , et hunc
esse unigenitum, et hunc incarnatum pro salute nostra Jesum Chris-
tum." St. Dionisius of Alexandria, in a Synodical Epistle, refutes
Paul of Samosata, who said that in Christ there were two Persons
and two Sons ; the one the Son of God, born before all ages ; the
other the Son of David, called Christ. St. Athanasius (4) says :
66 Homo
' una Persona , et unum animal est ex spiritu et carne com-
positum, ad cujus similitudinem intelligendum est, Christum unam
esse Personam, et non duas"-that, as soul and body make but one
person in man, so the Divine and human nature constitute but one
Person in Christ. St. Gregory of Nazianzen ( 5) says : " Id quod
non erat assumpsit, non quo factus, sed unum ex duobus fieri sub-
stinens ; Deus enim ambo sunt id quod assumpsit, et quod est
assumptum , naturæ duæ in unum concurrentes, non duo Filii." St.
John Chrysostom (6) thus writes : " Etsi enim (in Christo) duplex
natura ; verumtamen indivisibilis unio in una filiationis Persona, et
substantia." St. Ambrose ( 7) tersely explains : " Non alter ex
Patre, alter ex Virgine, sed item aliter ex Patre, aliter ex Virgine."
St. Jerome, opposing Elvidius, says , that " we believe that God was
born of a Virgin ;" and in another place he says (8) : " Anima et
caro Christo cum Verbo Dei una Persona est , unus Christus."
12. It would extend the work too much to quote more from the
holy Fathers, so I will pass on to the Decrees of Councils. The
Council of Ephesus ( 9) , after a mature examination of the Catholic
dogma, by Scripture and Tradition , condemned Nestorius, and de-
posed him from the See ofConstantinople. Here are the words of
the Decree: " Dominus noster Jesu Christus quem suis ille blas-
phemis vocibus impetivit per Ss. hunc Synodum eundem Nestorium
Episcopali dignitate privatum, et ab universo sacerdotum consortio,
et cœtu alienum esse definit." The fourth General Council , that of
Chalcedon, defined the same thing (Act. 5) : " Sequentes igitur Ss.
Patres, unum, eumdemque confiteri Filium, et Dominum nostrum
Jesum Christum consonanter omnes docemus, eundem perfectum
in Deitate, et eundem perfectum in humanitate, Deum verum, et
hominem verum ..... non in duas personas partitum, aut divisum ,
sed unum eundemque Filium, et unigenitum Deum Verbum , Do-
minum Jesum Christum." The third Council of Constantinople-
that is, the sixth General Council- defined the same doctrine in
the last Action; and the seventh General Council , that is, the se-
cond of Nice, did the same in the seventh Action.

(3) St. Iræn. 7. 3, c. 26, al. 18, n. 2. (4) St. Athan. . de Inc. Verb. n. 2.
(5) St. Greg. Naz. Orat. 31. (6) St. Joan. Chry. Ep. ad Cæsar. (7) St. Amb.
de Incar. c. 5. (8) St. Hieron. trac. 49, in Joan. (9) Concil. Ephes. t. 3 ; Con.
p. 115, & seq.
464 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

13. THEY object, first, certain passages of the Scripture, in which


the humanity of Christ is called the temple and habitation of God :
" Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up ..
But he spoke of the temple of his body" (John, ii . 19-21 ) . In
another place it is said : " For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the
Godhead corporeally" (Col. ii . 9) . We answer, that in these texts
the personal union of the Word with the human nature is not
denied, but it is even more strongly confirmed. Why should we
be surprised that the body of Christ, hypostatically united with his
soul to the Divine Word , should be called a temple ? Why, even
our body united to the soul is called a house and tabernacle : " For
we know if our earthly house of this habitation be dissolved"
(2 Cor. v. 1 ) . And again (ver. 4) : " For we also who are in this
tabernacle do groan, being burthened ." As, therefore, it is no argu-
ment against the personal union of the body and soul, to call the
body a house and tabernacle, so calling the body of Christ a temple
does not prove anything against the hypostatic union of the Word
with the humanity of Christ ; on the contrary, our Saviour even
expresses this union himself in the words which follow : " In three
days I will raise it up ;" for by that he shows that he was not only
man, but God. The Divinity of Christ is also clearly proved by
the other text, in which St. Paul says that the followers of the
Divinity dwelt bodily in him, thus declaring him to be at the same
time true God and true man, according to the words of St. John :
" The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us."
14. They object, secondly, that text of the Epistle : " Being made
in the likeness of man , and in habit formed as a man" ( Phil. ii . 7) .
According to that, they say that Christ was a man like unto all
other men . We answer that in the previous part of the text the
Apostle already answers this, for he shows that Christ was God and
equal to God: " Who being in the form of God thought it not rob-
bery to be equal with God." Therefore the words quoted only
prove that the Divine Word being God was made man like unto
other men, but that he was not a mere man like all other men.
15. They object, thirdly, that everything in nature ought to
have its own peculiar subsistentia, but the subsistentia of human
nature is a human person, therefore if in Christ there was not a
human person he was not true man . We reply that this is not ne-
cessary, if there be a higher or more noble subsistentia, as was
the case in Christ, where the Word sustained both natures, and,
therefore, though in Christ there was only the Divine person of the
Word, still he was true man, because the human nature subsisted in
the Word itself.
16. They object, fourthly, if the humanity of Christ consisted of
both soul and body, it was complete and perfect ; there was, there-
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 465

fore, in him a human Person , besides the Divine person. We answer


that the humanity of Christ was complete by reason of nature, for it
wanted nothing, but not by reason ofthe Person , because the Person
in which the nature subsisted and was comprised was not a human
but a Divine Person , and , therefore, we cannot say that there were two
Persons in Christ, for one Person alone , that of the Word, sustains
and comprises both the Divine and human nature.
17. They object, fifthly, that St. Gregory of Nyssa and St.
Athanasius have sometimes called the humanity of Christ the house,
the domicile, and the temple of God the Word. Besides that, St.
Athanasius, Eusebius of Ceserea , and St. Cyril himself, have spoken
of it as the instrument of the Divinity. St. Basil calls Christ
"Deiferous," the bearer of God. St. Epiphanius and St. Augustin,
" Hominem Dominicum," and St. Ambrose and St. Augustin , in the
" Te Deum," say that the Word assumed man. We answer, that
the Fathers, as we have already seen , have clearly expressed that
Christ is true God and true man, so that if there be any obscure
passage in these words it is easily cleared up by many others . St.
Basil calls Christ the God-bearing man, not because he admits a
human person in Christ, but to quash the error of Apollinares, who
denied that Christ had a rational soul, and the holy Father only
intended, therefore, to show by this expression that the Word
assumed both a body and soul ; when St. Ambrose and St. Augustin
say that the Word assumed man, " assumpsit hominem, " they only
use the word " hominem" for human nature.
18. We may as well also here refute the errors of the Bishops
Felix and Elipandus, who taught (ch. v. n . 39 ) , that Jesus Christ
as man was not the natural, but only the adopted Son of God.
This opinion was condemned by several Councils , and also by the
PopesAdrian and Leo X. The learned Petavius ( 1 ) says that it is
not actually heretical , but at all events it is rash , and approaching
to error, for it is more or less opposed to the unity of the Person of
Christ, who, even as man , should be called the natural , and not the .
adopted Son of God, lest we might be drawn in to admit that in
Christ there were two Sons, one natural, and the other adopted .
There are, however, two reasons to prove that Christ as man should
be called the natural Son of God ; the more simple one is found in
that passage of the Scriptures, in which the Father speaks of the
eternal and continual generation of the Son : " Thou art my Son,
this day have I begotten thee" ( Psalms , ii . 7 ) . Hence, as the
Divine Son was generated previous to his Incarnation , without
being personally united to human nature by the flesh, so when he
took flesh he was generated , and is always generated, with human
nature, hypostatically united to the Divine Person ; and hence the
Apostle, speaking of Christ as man, applies to him the text of

(1) Petav. . 7, c. 4 , n. 11 , et c. 5, n. 8.
2 G
466 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

David now quoted : " So Christ also did not glorify himself, that
he might be made a high priest, but he that said unto him , Thou
art my Son, this day have I begotten thee" (Heb. v. 5) . Jesus
Christ, therefore, even according to his humanity, is the true Natu-
ral Son of God (2) .

SEC. II.- MARY IS THE REAL AND TRUE MOTHER OF GOD.

19. THE truth of this dogma is a necessary consequence of what


we have already said on the subject of the two natures ; for if
Christ as man is true God, and if Mary be truly the Mother of
Christ as man, it necessarily follows that she must be also truly the
Mother of God. We will explain it even more clearly by Scrip-
ture and tradition . In the first place the Scripture assures us that
a Virgin (that is the Virgin Mary) has conceived and brought forth
God, as we see in Isaias (vii. 14) : " Behold a Virgin shall conceive
and shall bring forth a Son , and his name shall be called Emmanuel,
which is interpreted (says St. Matthew) , God with us." St. Luke ,
relating what the angel said to Mary , proves the same truth : " Be-
hold thou shalt conceive in the womb, and shalt bring forth a Son,
and thou shalt call his name Jesus . He shall be great, and shall
be called the Son of the Most High...... and the Holy which shall
be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Luke, i. 31-35 ) .
Mark the words : " shall be called the Son of the Most High,"
" shall be called the Son of God ," that is, shall be celebrated and
recognized by the whole world as the Son of God.
20. St. Paul proves the same truth when he says : " Which he
had promised before by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. Con-
cerning the Son who was made to him in the seed of David , accord-
ing to the flesh" ( Rom . i. 2 , 3) ; and, writing to the Galatians, he
says : " When the fulness of time was come God sent his Son made
of a woman made under the law" (Gal. iv . 4 ) . This Son , promised
by God through the Prophets, and sent in the fulness of time, is
God equal to the Father, as has been already proved, and this same
God, sprang from the seed of David, according to the flesh, was
born of Mary ; she is, therefore, the true Mother of this God.
21. Besides, St. Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Ghost, called
Mary the Mother of her Lord : " And whence is this to me that
the Mother of my Lord should come to me ?" ( Luke, i . 43) . Who
was the Lord of St. Elizabeth , unless God ? Jesus Christ himself,
also, as often as he called Mary his Mother, called himself the Son
of Man, and still the Scriptures attest that, without the operation of
man, he was born of a Virgin . He once asked his disciples :
" Whence do men say that the Son of Man is ?" (Matt. xvi. 13) ,

(2) Vide Tournelly, Comp. Theol. t. 4, p. 2, Incarn. c. 3, ar. 7, p. 800, signanter,


p. 817, vers. ter.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 467

and St. Peter answered : " Thou art Christ, the Son of the living
God ;" and our Saviour answered : " Blessed art thou, Simon
Barjona, because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but
my Father who is heaven." Therefore, the Son of Man is the true
Son of God, and, consequently, Mary is the Mother of God.
22. In the second place this truth is proved from tradition . The
Symbols or Creeds already quoted against Nestorius, proving that
Jesus Christ is true God, also prove that Mary is the true Mother
of God, since they teach, " That he was conceived of the Holy
Ghost from the Virgin Mary , and was made man." The decree of
the Second Council of Nice ( Act. VII . ) even declares, if possible ,
more clearly, that Mary is the true Mother of God : " Confitemur
autem et Dominam nostram sanctam Mariam proprie et veraciter
(properly and truly) Dei Genitricem, quoniam peperit carne unum
ex S. Trinitate Christum Deum nostrum ; secundum quod et Ephe-
sinum prius dogmatizavit Concilium , quod impium Nestorium cum
Collegis suis tanquam personalem dualitatem introducentes ab
Ecclesia pepulit."
23. Mary has been called the Mother of God by all the Fathers.
I will merely quote from a few who wrote in the early ages pre-
vious to Nestorius. St. Ignatius the martyr ( 1) says : " Deus noster
Jesus Christus ex Maria genitus est." St. Justin ( 2 ) : " Verbum
formatum est, et homo factus est ex Virgine ;" and again : " Ex
virginali utero Primogenitum omnium rerum conditarum carne
factum vere puerum nasci, id præoccupans per Spiritum Sanctum."
St. Iræneus (3 ) says : " Verbum existens ex Maria, quæ adhuc erat
Virgo, recte accipiebat generationem Adæ recapitulationis." St.
Dionisius of Alexandria writes (4) : " Quomodo ais tu , hominem
esse eximium Christum, et non revera Deum, et ab omni creatura
cum Patre, et Spiritu Sancto adorandum, incarnatum ex Virgine
Deipara Maria ?" And he adds : " Una sola Virgo filia vitæ genuit
Verbum vivens, et per se subsistens increatum, et Creatorem." St.
Athanasiuss (5) ays : " Hunc scopum, et characterem sanctæ Scrip-
turæ esse, nempe ut duo de Salvatore demonstret : illum scilicet Deum
semper fuisse, et Filium esse ........ ipsumque postea propter nos
carne ex Virgine Deipara Maria assumpta, hominem factum esse."
St.Gregory of Nazianzen (6) says : " Si quis sanctam MariamDeiparam
non credit, extra Divinitatem est." St. John Chrysostom says ( 7) :
" Admodum stupendum est audire Deum ineffabilem, inerrabilem ,
incomprehensibilem, Patri æqualem "" per virgineam venisse vulvam,
et ex muliere nasci dignatum esse .' Among the Latin Fathers
we will quote a few. Tertullian says (8) : " Ante omnia commen-
danda erit ratio quæ præfuit, ut Dei Filius de Virgine nasceretur."

(1) St. Ignat. Ep. ad Ephe. a. 14. (2) St. Justin, Apol. & Dialog. cum Triphon
n. 44. (3) Iræn. l. 3, c. 21, al. 31 , n. 10. (4) St. Dionis. Ep. & Paul, Samos
(5) St. Athan. Orat. 3, a. 4, con. Arian. (6) St. Greg. Nazian. Orat. 51
(7) St. Chrys. Hom. 2, in Matth. n. 2. (8) Tertul. I. de Cor. Chris. c. 17.
468 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

St. Ambrose says 9 : " Filium coæternum Patri suscepisse carnem


natum de Spiritu Sancto ex Virgine Maria ." St. Jerome says ( 10) ,
"Natum Deum ex Virgine credimus , quia legimus." St. Augus-
tin ( 11 ) says : " Invenisse apud Deum gratiam dicitur (Maria) ut
Domini sui, imo omnium Domini Mater esset."
24. I omit other authorities, and will confine myself to only one,
that of John, Bishop of Antioch, who wrote to Nestorius in the
name of Theodoret, and several other friends of his, on the name
of the Mother of God: " Nomen quod a multis sæpe Patribus
usurpatum, ac pronunciatum est, adjungere ne graveris ; neque
vocabulum, quod piam rectamque notionem animi exprimit, refutare
pergas ; etenim nomen hoc Theotocos nullus unquam Ecclesiasti-
corum Doctorum repudiavit. Qui enim illo usi sunt, et multi
reperiuntur, et apprime celebres ; qui vero illud non usurparunt,
nunquam erroris alicujus eos insimularunt, qui illo usi sunt ....
Etenim si ad quod nominis significatione offertur, non recipimus,
restat ut in gravissimum errorem prolabamur, imo vero ut inexpli-
cabilem illam unigeniti Filii Dei œconomiam abnegemus . Quando-
quidem nomine hoc sublato vel hujus potius nominis notione
repudiata, sequitur mox illum non esse Deum, qui admirabilem illam
dispensationem nostræ salutis causa suscepit , tum Dei Verbum
neque sese exinanivisse," &c. We may as well mention that St.
Cyril wrote to Pope St. Celestine, informing him , that so deeply
implanted was this belief in the hearts of the people of Constanti-
nople, that when they heard Dorotheus, by order of Nestorius ,
pronounce an anathema against those who asserted that she was the
Mother of God, they all rose up as one man, refused to hold any
more communication with Nestorius, and from that out would not
go to the church, a clear proof of what the universal belief of the
Church was in those days.
25. The Fathers adduced several reasons to convince Nestorius.
I will only state two : First. -It cannot be denied that she is the
Mother of God, who conceived and brought forth a Son, who , at
the time of his conception , was God. But both Scripture and
tradition prove that our Blessed Lady brought forth this Son of
God ; she is, therefore , truly the Mother of God. " Si Deus est,"
says St. Cyril , " Dominus noster Jesus Christus, quomodo Dei
Genetrix non est, quæ illum genuit, Sancta Virgo" ( 12) ? Here is
the second reason : If Mary be not the Mother of God, then the
Son whom she brought forth is not God, and, consequently, the
Son of God and the Son of Mary are not the same. Now Jesus
Christ, as we have already seen, has proclaimed himself the Son of
God, and he is the Son of Mary ; therefore, the Nestorians must
admit, either that Jesus Christ is not the Son of Mary, or that
Mary, being the Mother of Jesus Christ, is truly the Mother of God.
(9) St. Amb. Ep. 63. (10) St. Hier. l. con. Elvid. (11) St. Aug. in Enchir.
cap. 36. (12 ) St. Cyril, Ep. 1 ad Success.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 469

THE OBJECTIONS OF THE NESTORIANS ANSWERED.

26. FIRST, they object that the word Deipara , or Mother of God,
is not used either in the Scriptures or in the Symbols of the Coun-
cils ; but we answer, that neither in Scripture or Symbols do we
find the word Christotocos, Mother of Christ ; therefore, according
to that argument, she should not be called the Mother of Christ,
as Nestorius himself calls her. But we will give even a more
direct answer. It is just the same thing to say that Mary is the
Mother of God, as to say that she conceived and brought forth
God ; but both Scripture and Councils say that she brought forth
a God, they, therefore, proclaim her, in equivalent terms, the
Mother of God. Besides, the Fathers of the first centuries, as we
have quoted, constantly called her the Mother of God , and the
Scripture itself calls her Mother of our Lord, as Elizabeth, when
filled with the Holy Ghost, said: " Whence is this to me, that the
Mother of my Lord should come to me ?"
27. They object , secondly, that Mary did not generate the
Divinity, and, consequently, she cannot be called the Mother of
God. We answer, that she should be called the Mother of God,
because she was the mother of a man, who was at the same time
true God and true man,,just as we say that a woman is the mother
of a man composed both of soul and body, though she only pro-
duces the body, and not the soul, which is created by God alone.
Therefore, as Mary, though she has not generated the Divinity,
still, as she brought forth a man, according to the flesh , who was,
at the same time, God and man, she should be called the Mother
of God.
28. They object, thirdly , that the Mother ought to be consub-
stantial to the Son ; but the Virgin is not consubstantial to God,
therefore, she ought not to be called the Mother of God. We
answer, that Mary is not consubstantial to Christ as to the Divinity,
but merely in humanity alone, and because her Son is both man
and God, she is called the Mother of God . They say, besides , that
if we persist in calling her the Mother of God, we may induce the
simple to believe that she is a Goddess herself; but we answer, that
the simple are taught by us that she is only a mere creature , but
that she brought forth Christ, God and man . Besides, if Nestorius
was so scrupulous about calling her the Mother of God , lest the
simple might be led to believe that she was a Goddess , he ought to
have a greater scruple in denying her that title, lest the simple
might be led to believe, that as she was not the Mother of God,
consequently Christ was not God.
470 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES .

REFUTATION VIII.

REFUTATION OF THE HERESY OF EUTYCHES, WHO ASSERTED THAT


THERE WAS ONLY ONE NATURE IN CHRIST.

1. THE Eutychian heresy is totally opposed to the Nestorian .


Nestorius taught that there were two persons and two natures in
Christ. Eutyches , on the contrary, admitted that there was but
one Person, but he asserted that there was but one nature , likewise ,
for the Divine nature , he said , absorbed the human nature. Hence,
Nestorius denied the Divinity of Christ, Eutyches his humanity ;
so both one and the other destroyed the mystery of the incarnation
and of the redemption of man . We do not exactly know how
Eutyches explained his doctrine of only one nature in Christ. In
the Council held by St. Flavian he merely explained it in these
terms : " That our Lord was of two natures before the union, but
after the union only of one nature." And when the Fathers pressed
him to explain more clearly, he only answered , that he came not
to dispute, but only to suggest to his Holiness what his opinion
was ( 1 ) . Now, in these few words Eutyches uttered two blasphe-
mies: First.- That after the incarnation there was only one nature
in Christ, that is, the Divine nature, as he understood it ; and,
secondly - That before the incarnation of the Word there were two
natures, the Divine and the human nature. As St. Leo says ,
writing to St. Flavian : " Cum tam impie duarum naturarum ante
incarnationem Unigenitus Dei Filius fuisse dicatur, quam nefarie
postquam Verbum caro factum est, natura in eo singularis asseritur.”
2. Returning, however, to the principal error, that the two
natures became one after the incarnation, that might be asserted to
have happened in four ways : First. - That one of the natures was
changed into the other. Second.- That both natures were mixed
up and confused, and so only formed one . Third.- That without
this mixing up, the two natures in their union formed a third.
And, fourth. That the human was absorbed by the Divine nature,
and this is, most probably, the opinion of the Eutychians. Now,
the Catholic dogina is totally opposed to this unity of the natures
in Christ, no matter in what sense the Eutychians understood it.
This is what we are going to prove.

SEC. L - IN CHRIST THERE ARE TWO NATURES THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN NA-
TURE- DISTINCT, UNMIXED, UNCONFUSED, AND ENTIRE, SUBSISTING INSEPARABLY
IN THE ONE HYPOSTASIS, OR PERSON OF THE WORD.

3. THIS dogma is proved from the passages of Scripture already


quoted against Arius and Nestorius , in which Christ is proved to
Le both God and man ; for , as he could not be called God , if he

(1) Tom. 4 ; Concl. Labbri, p. 223, 226.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 471

had not perfect Divine nature, so he could not be called man , if he


had not perfect human nature. We will, however, set the matter
in a clearer light. In the Gospel of St. John (Chap. i.) after saying
that the Word is God-" Inthe beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God , and the Word was God"—it is stated in the
14th verse, that human nature was assumed by the Word : " The
Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. " Hence , St. Leo , in
his celebrated Epistle to St. Flavian , says : " Unus idemque (quod
sæpe dicendum est) vere Dei Filius, et vere hominis Filius. Deus
per id quod in principio erat Verbum , et Verbum erat apud Deum :
Homo per id quod Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis.
Deus per id quod omnia per ipsum facta sunt, et sine ipso factum est
nihil : Homo per id quod factus est ex muliere, factus sub lege."
4. The two natures in Christ are also most clearly proved by
that celebrated text of St. Paul ( Philip . ii. 6 ) , which we have so
frequently quoted : " For let this mind be in you which was also
in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God , thought it not
robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the
form of a servant, being made in the likeness of man, and in habit
formed as a man." Here the Apostle allows in Christ the form
of God, according to which he is equal to God, and the form
of a servant, according to which he emptied himself, and was
made like unto men. Now, the form of God and the form of a
servant cannot be the same form, nor the same nature ; because,
if it was the same human nature, we could not say that Christ
is equal to God ; and, on the contrary, if it was the same Divine
nature, Christ could not be said to have emptied himself, and
made himself like unto man. We must, therefore, admit that
there are two natures in Christ, the Divine nature, by which he
is equal to God, and the human nature, by which he is made like
unto man.
5. Besides, this text proves that the two natures in Christ are
unmingled and unconfused, each retaining its own properties,
because, if the Divine nature was changed in him, he would no
longer be God when he became man ; but that would contradict
what St. Paul says (Rom . ix. 5) : " Of whom is Christ according
to the flesh, who is over all things God blessed for ever." Thus
Christ is, at the same time, God and man , according to the flesh.
If the human was absorbed by the Divine nature, or even changed
into a Divine substance, as the Eutychians say, as we learn from
Theodoret in his Dialogue Inconfusus, where Eranistes, an
Eutychian, says : " Ego dico mansisse Divinitatem , ab hac vero
absorptam esse humanitatem. ....
. . . . .ut mare mellis guttam si accipiat,
statim enim gutta illa evanescit maris aquæ permixta ... . . . .Non
dicimus delatam esse naturam, quæ assumpta est , sed mutatam
esse in substantiam Divinitatis." Thus the human nature , accord-
ing to them, was absorbed in the Divine nature, like a drop of
472 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

honey in the ocean. But supposing that to be the fact, Christ


could no longer be called man as he is in the Gospels, and all
the New Testament, and as St. Paul calls him in the text already
quoted, and again , in his 1st Epistle to Timothy (ii. 6) : " The
man Christ Jesus, who gave himself in redemption for all." Neither
could we say that he emptied himself in human nature, if it was
changed into the Divinity. If the human nature, therefore, was
thus mixed up with the Divine nature, Christ would no longer
be either true God or true man , but some third sort of Person,
which is contrary to the whole teaching of the Scriptures. We
are bound, therefore, to conclude that the two natures in Christ
are unmingled and unconfused, and that each nature retains its
own properties.
6. All those other passages of the Scriptures which affirm
that Christ had a true body and a true soul united to that body,
confirm the truth of this dogma , for from this it is manifest that
the human nature remained entire and unmixed in Christ, and
was not confused with the Divine nature, which remained entire
also. That Christ had a real body is proved by St. John , against
Simon Magus, Menander, Saturninus, and others, who asserted
that his body was not a true, but only an apparent one. Hear
the words of St. John : " Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus
Christ is come in the flesh is of God , and every spirit that dissolveth
Jesus Christ (in the Greek version who does not confess that Jesus
is come in the flesh) is not of God, and this is Antichrist" ( 1 Epis.
iv. 2 , 3). St. Peter ( 1 Epis. ii . 24 ) says : " Who of his ownself
bore our sins in his body on the tree ;" and St. Paul, writing to
the Colossians (i . 22) , says : " He hath reconciled in the body of
his flesh through death ;" and again, writing to the Hebrews (x . 5) ,
he puts into the mouth of Jesus these words of the thirty-ninth
Psalm : " Sacrifice and oblation thou wouldst not, but a body thou
hast fitted to me." I omit many other passages in which the body
of Christ is mentioned . Our Lord himself speaks of his soul in
St. John (x. 15) , when he says, " I lay down my life (animam) for
my sheep ;" and again (ver. 17 ) : " I lay down my life (animam)
that I may take it again. No man taketh it away from me, but
I lay it down of myself." In St. Matthew he says (xxvi . 38 ) :
66
My soul is sorrowful unto death ." It was his blessed soul that
was separated from his body at his death , when St. John says
(xix. 30), that, " bowing his head, he gave up the ghost." Christ,
therefore, had a true body and a true soul united to each other,
and he was, therefore, a true man , and that this body and this soul
existed whole and entire after the hypostatic union , is clear from
the passages quoted , all of which refer to Christ, after this union
had taken place. There is no foundation, therefore, for asserting
that his human nature was absorbed into the Divinity, or changed
into it.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 473

7. A confirmatory proof is given by those texts in which mat-


ters are attributed to Christ which belong to the human nature
alone, and not to the Divine nature , and others, which properly
belong to the Divine nature alone, and not to the human nature .
As regards the human nature it is certain that the Divine nature
could not be conceived , could not be born, or grow up to man-
hood, or suffer hunger or thirst , or weakness, or sorrow, or tor-
ments, or death, for it is independent, impassible, and immortal ;
these feelings belong to human nature alone. Now Jesus Christ
was conceived and born of the Virgin Mary (Matt. i .) . He grew
up to manhood : " he advanced in wisdom and in age, and grace
with God and man " (Luke, ii . 52) ; he fasted and was hungry:
"When he had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterwards he
was hungry" (Matt. iv. 2 ) ; he was wearied : " Jesus therefore being
weary with his journey, sat thus on the well" (John, iv. 6) ; he
wept : " Seeing the city he wept over it" (Luke, xix. 41 ) ; he
suffered death : " He was made obedient unto death , even to the
death of the Cross" (Phil. ii. 8) ; and " saying this, he gave up the
ghost" (Luke, xxiii . 45) ; “ And crying out with a loud voice he
gave up the ghost" (Matt. xxvii . 50). It does not belong, either ,
to the Divine nature to pray, to obey, to offer sacrifice , to humble
himself, and such like actions, all of which the Scriptures attribute
to Jesus Christ . All these actions, therefore, belong to Jesus as
man, and, consequently, after the Incarnation he was true man.
8. As to the second part, it is certain that human nature cannot
be consubstantial to the Father, nor have all that the Father has,
nor operate all that the Father operates ; it cannot be eternal, nor
omnipotent, nor omniscient, nor immutable, and still all these
attributes are properly applied to Jesus Christ, as we have proved
against Arius and Nestorius ; therefore in Jesus Christ there is not
alone the human , but also the Divine nature . St. Leo, in his
Epistle to St. Flavian , states this so forcibly that I cannot omit
quoting the original : " Nativitas carnis manifestatio est humanæ
naturæ : partus Virginis Divinæ est virtutis indicium : infantia
Parvuli ostenditur humilitate cunaram : magnitudo Altissimi decla-
ratur vocibus Angelorum . Similis est redimentis homines, quem
Herodes impius moliter occidere ; sed Dominus est omnium, quem
Magi gaudentes veniunt suppliciter adorare. Cum ad Præcursoris
sui baptismum venit, ne lateret, quod carnis velamine Divinitas
operiatur, vox Patris de Cœlo intonans dixit : 6 Hic est Filius meus
dilectus, in quo mihi bene complacui.' Sicut hominem diabolica
tentat astutia, sic Deo Angelica famulantur officia. Esurire, sitire,
lassescere, atque dormire, evidentur humanum est : quinque pani-
bus quinque millia hominum satiare, largiri Samaritanæ aquam
vivam, &c. , sine ambiguitate dicendum est. Non ejusdem naturæ
est flere miserationis affectu , amicum mortuum, et eundem quatri-
duanæ aggere sepulturæ ad vocis imperium excitare redivivum :
474 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

aut in ligno pendere, et in noctem luce conversa omnia elementa


tremefacere : aut clavis transfixum esse, et Paradisi portas fidei
Latroni aperire. Non ejusdem naturæ est dicere : Ego et Pater
unum sumus, et dicere : Pater major me est."
9. Besides the Scripture, tradition has constantly preserved the
faith of the two natures in Christ. In the Apostles' Creed we see
this marked down most clearly : " I believe in Jesus Christ , his
only Son, our Lord"-here is the Divine nature-" who was
conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered
under Pontius Pilate, was crucified , dead , and buried"-here is the
human nature. In the Creeds of Nice and Constantinople the
Divine nature is thus explained : " And in our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Son of God ......true God of true God , born, not made , con-
substantial to the Father, by whom all things were made." Then
the human nature is explained : "Who, for us man, and for our
salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy
Ghost by the Virgin Mary, and was made man : he suffered, was
crucified, died , and arose the third day."
10. Even before the Eutychian heresy sprung up at all, it was
condemned by the first Council of Constantinople, in which the
Fathers, in their Synodical Epistle to Pope St. Damasus, thus write :
" Se agnoscere Verbum Dei ante secula omnino perfectum et per-
fectum hominem in novissimis diebus pro nostra salute factum esse."
And St. Damasus, in the Roman Synod ( 1 ) , had already defined
against Apollinares that in Christ there was both a body and an
intelligent and rational soul, and that he had not suffered in the
Divinity, only in the humanity. In the Council of Ephesus the
Second Epistle of St. Cyril to Nestorius, in which the dogma of
two natures distinct and unmixed in Christ is expressed, was
approved. Here are the words : " Neque enim dicimus Verbi
naturam per sui mutationem carnem esse factam , sed neque in totum
hominem transformatam ex anima, et corpore constitutam. Asse-
rimus autem Verbum, unita sibi secundum hypostasim carne ani-
mata, rationali anima, inexplicabili , incomprehensibilique modo
hominem factum, et hominis Filium extitisse.....Et quamvis naturæ
sint diversæ , veram tamen unionem coeuntes, unum nobis Christum ,
et Filium effecerunt. Non quod naturarum differentia propter
unionem sublata sit, verum quorum Divinitas, et humanitas secreta
quadam ineffabilique conjunctione in una persona unum nobis
Jesum Christum, et Filium constituerint ."
11. Besides the Councils we have the authority of the Holy
Fathers, likewise , who wrote previous to the Eutychian heresy.
These were quoted in the Actio II. of the Council of Chalcedon,
and Petavius ( 2 ) collected a great number, but I will only call the
attention of the reader to a few. St. Ignatius the Martyr ( 3) thus
(1) Vide t. 2, Concil. p. 900, 964. (2) Petav. l. 3, de Incar. c. 6, 7. (3) St.
Ignat. Ep. Eph. 7.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 475

expresses the doctrine of the two natures : " Medicus unus est et car-
nalis , et spiritualis, genitus et ingenitus, seu factus et non factus, in
homine existens Deus, in morte vita vera, et ex Maria et ex Deo, pri-
mum passibilis , et tunc impassibilis , Jesus Christus Dominus noster."
St. Athanasius wrote two books against Apollinares, the predecessor
of Eutyches. St. Hilary says (4 ) : " Nescit plane vitam suam , nescit
qui Christum Jesum ut verum Deum, ita et verum hominem igno-
rat." St. Gregory of Nazianzen says (5) : " Missus est quidem, sed
ut homo ; duplex enim erat in eo natura." St. Amphilochius, quoted
by Theodoret in the dialogue Inconfusus, writes thus : " Discerne
naturas, unam Dei , alteram hominis ; neque enim ex Deo excidens
homo factus est, neque proficiscens ex homine Deus." St. Ambrose
says (6) : " Servemus distinctionem Divinitatis , et carnis , unus in
utraque loquitur Dei Filius, qui in eodem utraque natura est. St.
John Chrysostom says ( 7) : " Neque enim (Propheta) carnem dividit
a Divinitate , neque Divinitatem a carne ; non substantias confun-
dens, absit, sed unionem ostendens . .... Quando dico eum fuisse
humiliatum , non dico mutationem , sed humanæ susceptæ naturæ
demissionem ." St. Augustin writes ( 8 ) : " Neque enim illa suscep-
tione alterum eorum in alterum conversum, atque mutatum est ; nec
Divinitas quippe in creaturam mutata est, ut desisteret esse Divini-
tas ; nec creatura in Divinitatem , ut desisteret esse creatura ."
12. I omit a great number of authorities of other holy Fathers
taken into account by the Council of Chalcedon , consisting of
nearly six hundred Fathers, in which Eutyches was condemned ,
and which thus defined the doctrine of the Church ( Act. V. ) :
" Sequentes igitur Ss. Patres unum eundem confiteri Filium et
Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum consonanter omnes docemur,
eundem perfectum in Deitate , et eundem perfectum in humanitate,
Deum verum, et hominem verum ; eundem ex anima rationali, et
corpore ; consubstantialem Patri secundum Deitatem , consubstan-
tialem nobiscum secundum humanitatem ante secula quidem de
Patre genitum secundum Deitatem , in novissimis autem diebus
eundem propter nos , et propter nostram salutem ex Maria Virgine
Dei Genitrice secundum humanitatem, unum eundem Christum ,
Filium , Dominum, unigenitum in duabus naturis inconfuse, immu-
tabiliter, indivise, inseparabiliter agnoscendum ; nusquam sublata
differentia naturarum propter unitionem, magisque salva proprietate
utriusque naturæ, et in unam Personam , atque substantiam concur-
rentes." It is related that the Fathers, after hearing the dogmatical
Epistle of St. Leo to St. Flavian , read in the Council, all cried out
as with one voice : " This is the faith of the Fathers and of the
Apostles ; we and all orthodox believers hold this faith ; anathema
to him who believes otherwise. Peter has spoken through Leo."
(4) St. Hil. l. 9, de Trin . (5) St. Greg. Nazian. Orat. de Nat. (6) St. Ambrose,
1. 2 , de Fide, c. 9, alias 4, n. 79. (7) St. Chrysos. in Psalm xliv. n. 4. (8) St.
Aug. . 1, de Trin. c. 7, n. 14.
476 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

The following Councils confirmed the same doctrine, especially the


second Council of Constantinople, which, in the eighth Canon, thus
decreed : " Si quis ex duabus naturis Deitatis, et humanitatis con-
fitens unitatem factam esse, vel unam naturam Dei Verbi incarna-
tam dicens, non sic eam excipit, sicut Patres docuerunt, quod ex
Divina natura et humana, unione secundum substantiam facta, unus
Christus effectus est, sed ex talibus vocibus unam naturam, sive
substantiam Deitatis , et carnis Christi introducere conatur ; talis
anathema sit." The third Council of Constantinople , in the defini-
tion of Faith, repeats the words of the Council of Chalcedon and
of the second Council of Nice : " Duas naturas confitemur ejus ,
qui incarnatus est propter nos ex intemerata Dei genitrice semper
Virgine Maria, perfectum eum Deum, et perfectum hominem cog-
noscentes ."
14. We may as well give two theological reasons for the dogma.
The first is this : if the human nature Christ assumed was, after the
Incarnation, absorbed into the Divinity, as the Eutychians believe,
there would be an end to the mystery of the Redemption , for in
that case we should either deny the Passion and death of Jesus
Christ altogether, or admit that the Divinity suffered and died , a
supposition from which our very nature shrinks with horror.
15. This is the second reason : if, after the Incarnation , but one
nature alone remained in Christ, this must have come to pass ,
either because one of the two natures was changed into the other,
or because both were so mixed up and confused that they formed
but one alone , or at least because, being united together without
confusion of any sort they formed a third nature, just as the union
of soul and body in man forms human nature. But so it is that not
one of those things could take place in the Incarnation , consequently
both natures, the Divine and the human , remained entire in Jesus
Christ, with all the properties of each.
16. It is impossible that one of the two natures could be changed
into the other, for in that case the Divine would be changed into
the human nature, and that is totally repugnant not only to Faith
but to reason itself, for we cannot imagine it even possible that the
Divinity should be subject to the slightest change . Then if the
human nature was absorbed and changed into the Divine nature,
we should admit that the Divinity was born in Christ, suffered,
died, and rose again, which is equally repugnant to Faith and rea-
son, as the Divinity is eternal, impassible, immortal, and unchange-
able. Besides, if the Divinity suffered and died , then the Father
and the Holy Ghost suffered and died also, for the Father, and the
Son, and the Holy Ghost are together one Divinity. Again, if the
Divinity was conceived and was born, then the Blessed Virgin did
not conceive and bring forth Christ according to the one nature
consubstantial to herself, and therefore she is not the Mother of
God. Finally, if the humanity was absorbed into the Divinity in
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 477

Christ, then he could not be our Redeemer, Mediator, and Pontiff


of the New Testament, as faith teaches us he is, for these offices re-
quired prayers, sacrifice , and humiliations which the Divinity could
not fulfil .
17. Therefore it cannot be asserted, First.-That human nature
in Christ was changed into the Divine nature, and much less that
the Divine was changed into human nature . Second. It never
could happen that the two natures were mixed up with each other
and confused, and so formed one nature alone in Christ, for in that
case the Divinity would be changed, and would become something
else ; in Christ there would exist neither Divinity nor humanity ,
but a nature neither Divine nor human, so that he would be neither
true God nor true man . Third. It never could have happened
that the two natures which existed without confusion , and totally
distinct from each other, could , by uniting together, form a third
nature, common to both, because this common nature must, in that
case, have been produced by the two parts, which, uniting together,
must be reciprocally perfect, for otherwise, if one part receives
nothing from the other, but loses some of its own properties in the
union, it will certainly not be as perfect as it was before . Now, in
Christ the Divine nature has received no perfection from the human
nature, and it could not lose anything itself, therefore it must have
remained as it was before, and consequently could never form with
the humanity a third nature, common to both . Besides, a common
nature only springs out of several parts, which naturally require
a reciprocal union , as is the case in the union of the soul with the
body ; but that is not the case in Christ, in whom it is not natu-
rally requisite that human nature should be united with the Word ,
nor is it necessary that the Word should be united with human
nature .

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

18. FIRST the Eutychians quote certain texts of Scripture, by


which it would appear that one nature is changed into the other, as
that of St. John (i. 14) : " The Word was made flesh ;" therefore
the Word was changed into flesh . Also that passage of St. Paul,
in which it is said, that " Christ emptied himself, taking the form
of a servant" (Phil . ii . 7) ; therefore, the Divine nature is changed .
We reply to the first objection , that the Word was not changed
into flesh, but was made flesh by assuming humanity in the unity
of the Person, without suffering any change in the union. Thus it
is said also of Jesus Christ (Gal. iii. 13) , that " he was made a curse
for us," inasmuch as he took on himself the malediction which we
deserved, to free us from it. St. John Chrysostom says, that the
very words which follow the text they lay so much stress on ex-
plain the difference of the two natures : " The Word was made flesh,
478 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as it
were of the only begotten of the Father." Now, here the Word is
said to have dwelt among us, which is a proof that he is different
from us, for that which dwells is different from that which is dwelt
in. Here are his words ( 1 ) : " Quid enim subjicit ? Et habitavit.
in nobis.' Non enim mutationem illam incommutabilis illius
naturæ significavit, sed habitationem , et commemorationem ; porro
id quod habitat, non est idem cum eo quod habitatur, sed diversum. "
And here we may remark, that these expressions of St. John give
a death blow, at the same time, to the Eutychian and Nestorian
heresies, for when Nestorius says that the Word dwells in the hu-
manity of Christ alone, because the Evangelist says, " he dwelt
among us," he is refuted by the antecedent part of the sentence,
" the Word was made flesh," which proves not alone a mere inha-
bitation , but a union with human nature in one Person ; and , on
the other hand, when Eutyches says that the Word is said to be
turned into flesh, he is refuted by the subsequent expression, " and
dwelt among us, " which proves that the Word is not changed into
flesh (even after the union of the flesh ) , but remains God the same
as before, without confounding the Divine nature with the human
nature he assumed.
19. We should not be startled , either, at the expression , " made
flesh," for this is but a manner of expressing a thing, and does not
at all times mean the conversion of one thing into another, but fre-
quently that one thing was superadded to another, as in Genesis we
read that Adam " became (was made into, factus est) a living soul"
(ii. 7) . Now, the obvious meaning of this is, not that the body of
Adam, which was already created , was converted into a soul, but
that the soul was created and joined to the body. St. Cyril makes
a very pertinent remark on this in his dialogue, " De Incarnatione
Unigeniti." He says : " At si Verbum inquiunt, factum est caro,
jam non amplius mansit Verbum, sed potius desiit esse quod erat.
Atqui hoc merum delirium, et dementia est, nihilque aliud quam
mentis erratæ ludibrium. Censent enim, ut videtur, per hoc,
factum est, necessaria quadam ratione mutationem, alterationemque
significari. Ergo cum psallunt quidam , et factus est nihilominus in
refugium; et rursus, Domine refugium factus est nobis , quid respon-
debunt ? Anne Deus, qui hic decantatur, desinens esse Deus,
mutatus est in refugium, et translatus est naturaliter in aliud , quod
ab initio non erat? Cum itaque Dei mentio fit, si ab alio dicatur
illud factus est, quo pacto non absurdum, atque adeo vehementer
absurdum existimare mutationem aliquam per id significari , et non
potius conari id aliqua ratione intelligere, pudenterque ad id quod
Deo maxime convenit accommodari ?" St. Augustin also explains
how the Word was made flesh without any change ( 2 ) : " Neque

(1) St. John Chrys. Hom. 11 , in Joan. (2) St. August. Ser. 187, & al. 77, de Tempore.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 479

enim, quia dictum est, Deus erat Verbum, et Verbum caro factum,
sic Verbum caro factum est, ut esse desineret Deus, quando in ipsa
carne, quod Verbum caro factum est, Emmanuel natum est nobis-
cum Deus. Sicut Verbum, quod corde gestamus, sit vox, cum id
ore proferimus, non tamen illud in hanc commutatur, sed illo inte-
gro, ista in qua procedat, assumitur, ut et intus maneat, quod
intelligatur, et foris sonet, quod audiatur. Hoc idem tamen profer-
tur in sono, quod ante sonuerat in silentio. Atque ita in Verbum ,
cum sit vox, non mutatur in vocem, sed manens in mentis luce,
et assumpta carnis voce procedit ad audientem , ut non deferat
cogitantem."
20. As to the second objection, taken from the words, " he
emptied himself," the answer is very clear, from what we have
said already ; for the Word " emptied himself," not by losing what
he was, but by assuming what he was not, for he, being God, equal
to the Father in his Divine nature, " took the form of a servant,"
thereby making himself less than the Father in his assumed
nature, and humbling himself in it even to the death of the Cross :
" He humbled himself, being made obedient unto death, even to the
death of the Cross ;" but, notwithstanding , he retained his Divinity,
and was, therefore, equal to the Father.
21. It was not, however, the Eutychians, properly speaking, who
made use of these objections, for they did not assert that the
Divine was changed into the human nature, but that the human
was changed into the Divine nature, and they quoted some passages
of the Holy Fathers, which they did not understand in their true
-
sense, in their favour. Firstly. They say that St. Justin , in his
Second Apology , writes, that in the Eucharist the bread is converted
into the body of Christ, as the Word was into flesh . But Catho-
lics answer, that the Saint only wished , by this expression, to say
that the real and true body of Christ is in the Eucharist, just as the
Word in reality assumed and retained human flesh ; and the con-
text, if read, shows that this is the true meaning of the passage.
The argument is this : that as, in the Incarnation , the Word was
made flesh, so , in the Eucharist, the bread is made the body of
Christ ; but if he intended to teach , as the Eutychians assert, that
in the Incarnation of the Word the humanity was absorbed into
the Divinity, he never could have said that in the Eucharist the
true body of our Lord exists.
22. Secondly. They found an objection on that passage of the
Athanasian Creed : " As a rational soul and flesh is one man , so
God and man is one Christ." Hence, they argue the two natures
are but one. To this we reply, that these words denote an unity
of Person, and not of Nature, in Christ, and that is manifest from
the words, " one Christ," for by Christ is properly understood the
Person, and not the Nature.
23. They object, thirdly, that St. Iræneus, Tertullian , St.
480 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Cyprian, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Augustin, and St. Leo (3) , call
the union of the two natures a mixture or fusion , and compare it
to the mixture of two fluids one with the other. We answer with
St. Augustin ( as quoted) , that these Fathers did not make use of
these expressions, because they believed that the two natures were
confounded, but to explain how close the union was, and that the
Divine was united to the human nature as closely and intimately as
the colouring poured into a liquid unites with every portion of it.
This is St. Augustin's explanation : " Sicut in unitate Personæ
anima unitur corpori, ut homo sit : ita in unitate Personæ Deus
unitur homini, ut Christus sit. In illa ergo persona mixtura est
animæ et corporis ; in hac Persona mixtura est Dei et hominis : si
tamen recedat auditor a consuetudine corporum, qua solent duo
liquores ita commisceri, ut neuter servet integritatem , suam ,
quamquam et in ipsis corporibus aeri lux incorrupta misceatur."
Tertullian previously gave the same explanation .
24. They object, fourthly, the authority of Pope Julius in his
Epistle to Dionisius , Bishop of Corinth , in which he blames those
who believed that there were two natures in Christ, and also one
expression of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, quoted by Photius, who
says that there are not two Persons, nor two natures, for then we
should be adoring four . But we answer, with Leontius (4 ) , that
these Epistles are falsely attributed to these Holy Fathers, for the
Epistle attributed to Julius in supposed to have been the produc-
tion of Apollinares, since St. Gregory of Nyssa quotes several
passages from it, as written by Apollinares, and refutes them. We
have the same reply to make to the quotation from St. Gregory
Thaumaturgus, for it is universally supposed to have been written
by the Apollinarists , or Eutychians.
They object, fifthly, that St. Gregory of Nyssa says, in his
Fourth Oration against Eunomius , that human nature was united
with the Divine Word ; but we answer, that notwithstanding this
union , each nature retained its own properties, as St. Gregory
himself says: " Nihilominus in utraque, quod cuique proprium est,
intuetur." Finally, they say, if there were two natures in Christ,
there would be also two Persons ; but we have already disposed of
that objection in our Refutation of Nestorianism ( Ref. vii. n . 16 ) ,
in which we have shown that there is nothing repugnant in the
existence of two natures, distinct and unmixed , in the sole Person
of Christ.

(3) St. Iren. l. 2, ad. Hær. c. 21 ; Tertull. Apol. c. 21 ; St. Cyprian, de Van. Idol ;
St. Greg. Nyss. Catech. c. 25 ; St. Augus. Ep. 137 , al. 3, ad Volusian.; St. Leo, Ser. 3 ,
in die Natal. (4) Leon. de Sect. art. 4.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 481

REFUTATION IX.

OF THE MONOTHELITE HERESY, THAT THERE IS BUT ONE NATURE AND


ONE OPERATION ONLY IN CHRIST.

1. THOSE heretics who believe that there is only one will in Christ
are called Monothelites , and the name is derived from two Greek
words, Monos, one, and Thelema, will, and on that account many
of the Arians, who asserted that Christ had no soul, but that the
Word took the place of it, can be called Monothelites, as may , in
like manner, many Apollinarists, who admitted that Christ had a
soul, but without mind, and consequently, without will. The true
Monothelites, however, formed themselves into a sect, in the reign
of the Emperor Heraclius, about the year 626. The chief author
of this sect was Athanasius, Patriarch of the Jacobites, as remarked
in the History ( Chap. vii. n. 4) , and his first followers were the
Patriarchs who succeeded him, Sergius , Cirus, Macarius, Pirrus,
and Paul. These admitted two natures in Christ, the Divine and
the human , but denied the two wills, and the two operations be-
longing to each nature, asserting that he had but one will, that is,
the Divine will, and one operation, the Divine one also ; this they
called Theandric, or belonging to the Man-God, but not in the
Catholic sense, in which the operations of Christ in his humanity
are called Theandric, as being the operation of the Man- God, and
are attributed to the Person of the Word, which sustains and is the
term of this humanity, but in a heretical sense, for they believed
that the Divine will alone moved the faculties of his human nature ,
and used them as a mere passive and inanimate instrument. Some
of the Monothelites called this operation Deodecibilem, or fitted to
God, and this expression gives more clearly the peculiar meaning
of their heretical tenets. It was a debated question among the
ancients, whether the Monothelites, by the word " will," meant the
faculty of wishing, or the act of volition itself. Patavius thinks it
most probable ( 1 ) that they understood by it, not the act of volition
itself, but the power of wishing at all, which they say the humanity
of Christ did not possess . The Catholic dogma, however, rejects
it in both senses, and teaches that as in Christ there were two
natures, so there were Divine will and volition with the Divine
operation, and human will and volition with the human operation .

SEC. I. IT IS PROVED THAT THERE ARE TWO DISTINCT WILLS IN CHRIST, DIVINE
AND HUMAN, ACCORDING ΤΟ THE TWO NATURES, AND TWO OPERATIONS ,
ACCORDING TO THE TWO WILLS.

2. It is proved, in the first place, by the Scriptures , that Christ


has a Divine will, for every text that proves his Divinity, proves

( 1) Petav. l. 8, de Incar. c. 4, et seq.


2H
482 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

that, as the will cannot be separated from the Divinity . We have


already quoted all these texts against the Nestorians and Eutychians,
so there is no necessity of repeating them here, especially as the
Monothelites do not deny the Divine, but only the human will , in
Christ. There are, however, numberless texts to prove that our
Redeemer had a human will likewise . St. Paul, in his Epistle to
the Hebrews (x . 5) , applies to Christ the words of the 39th Psalm
(ver. 8, 9) : " Wherefore, when he cometh into the world he said
Behold, I come ; in the head of the book it is written of me,
that I should do the will of God." In the 39th Psalm, also,
we find : " In the head of the book it is written of me ,
that I should do thy will , O my God ; I have desired it, and thy
law in the midst of my heart" (ver. 9) . Now, here both wills are
distinctly marked-the Divine , " that I may do thy will, O God ;"
and the human will, subject to the Divine will, " O my God, I have
desired it." Christ himself draws the same distinction in many
places ; thus in John (v. 30) , he says : " I seek not my own will,
but the will of him who sent me .' And again : " I came down
from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent
me" (vi. 38) St. Leo explains this in his Epistle to the Emperor,
for he says, that according to the form of a servant, " secundum
formam servi," that is, as man, he came not to do his own will, but
the will of him who sent him.
3. Christ, who says in St. Matthew (xxvi. 39) : " My Father, if
it is possible, let this chalice pass from me, nevertheless, not as I
will, but as thou wilt." And in St. Mark (xiv. 36) : " Abba,
Father, all things are possible to thee, remove this chalice from me,
but not what I will, but what thou wilt." Now, the two texts
clearly show the Divine will which Christ had, in common with the
Father, and the human will which he subjected to the will of his
Father. Hence, St. Athanasius, writing against Apollinares, says :
" Duas voluntates hic ostendit, humanam quidem quæ est carnis,
alteram vero Divinam. Humana enim propter carnis imbecillitatem
recusat passionem , Divina autem ejus voluntas est promta." And
St. Augustin says (1 ) : " In eo quod ait, non quod ego volo , aliud se
ostendit voluisse , quam Pater, quod nisi humano corde non potest ;
nunquam enim posset immutabilis illa natura quidquam aliud velle,
quam Pater."
4. The Catholic dogma is proved also by all those texts in which
Christ is said to have obeyed his Father. In St. John (xii. 49), we
read : " For I have not spoken of myself, but the Father who sent
me, he gave commandment what I should say, and what I should
speak." And again : " As the Father giveth me commandment,
so do I" (xiv. 31). And St. Paul, writing to the Philippians, says ,
" that he was made obedient unto death, even unto the death of the
cross." Many other texts are of the same tenor . All this proves
All this
(1) St. Augus. 7. 2, adv. Maximin. c. 20.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 483

that there must be a human will, for he who has no will can neither
obey nor be commanded. It is most certain that the Divine will
cannot be commanded , as it recognizes no will superior to itself.
The obedience of Christ, therefore, to his Father, proves that he
must have had a human will : " Qua," says Pope Agatho , " a lumine
veritatis se adeo separavit, ut audeat dicere, Dominum nostrum
Jesum Christum voluntate suæ Divinitatis Patri obedisse, cui est
æqualis in omnibus, et vult ipse quoque in omnibus, quod Pater?"
5. We pass over other Scripture arguments, and come to Tradi-
tion, and first of all, we shall see what the Fathers who lived before
the rise ofthe heresy said on the subject. St. Ambrose says (2) : " Quod
autem ait : Non mea voluntas, sed tua fiat, suam, ad hominem
retulit ; Patris, ad Divinitatem : voluntas enim hominis, temporalis ;
voluntas Divinitatis, æterna." St. Leo , in his Epistle 24 (a . 10 , c. 4 ) ,
to St. Flavian, against Eutyches, thus writes : " Qui verus est Deus,
idem verus est homo ; et nullam est in hac unitate mendacium ,
dum invicem sunt, et humilitas hominis, et altitudo Deitatis .....
Agit enim utraque forma cum alterius communione, quod proprium
est ; Verbo scilicet operante, quod Verbi est, et carne exequente ,
quod carnis est." I omit many other authorities from St. Chrysos-
tom , St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Jerome , and others referred to by
Petavius (3) . Sophronius compiled two whole books of them against
Sergius, as we find from the petition of Stephen Duresius to the
Council of Lateran, under Martin I., in 649. It is proved also by
the Creeds, in which it is professed that Christ is at the same time
true God and true man , perfect in both natures. If Christ had not
human will , one of the natural faculties of the soul , he would not
be a perfect man, no more than he would be perfect God, if he had
not Divine will. The Councils whose Decrees we have already
quoted against Nestorius, have defined that there are two natures
in Christ, distinct and perfect in all their properties, and that could
not be the fact, unless each of the two natures had its proper natural
will and natural operation . A Portuguese writer, Hippolitus, in
his Fragments against Vero, from the distinction of the different
operations in Christ, argued that there was a distinction of the two
natures, because if there was but one will and one operation in
Christ, there would be but one nature : " Quæ sunt inter se ejusdem
operationis, et cognitionis, et omnino idem patiuntur, nullam naturæ
differentiam recipiunt."
6. All these things being taken into consideration , in the Third
General Council of Constantinople, under Pope Agatho, it was
thought proper to condemn, in one Decree (Act. 18 ) , all the
heresies against the incarnation condemned in the five preceding
General Councils. Here is the Decree, in the very words : " Asse-
quti quoque sancta quinque universalia Concilia, et sanctos atque
probabiles Patres, consonanterque confiteri definientes, D. N. Jesum
(2) St. Ambros. l. 20, in Luc. n. 59 & 60. (3) Petav. 1. 3, de Incarn. c. 8 & 9.
484 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Christum verum Deum nostrum, unum de sancta, et consubstanti-


ali , et vitæ originem præbente Trinitate , perfectum in Deitate, et
perfectum eundem in humanitate, Deum vere, et hominem vere,
eundem ex anima rationali et corpore, consubstantialem Patri
secundum Deitatem , et consubstantialem nobis secundum humani-
tatem, per omnia similem nobis absque peccato ; ante secula quidem
ex Patre genitum secundum Deitatem, in ultimis diebus autem
eundem propter nos et propter nostram salutem de Spiritu Sancto,
et Maria Virgine proprie, et veraciter Dei Genitrice secundum hu-
manitatem, unum eundemque Christum Filium Dei unigenitum in
duabus naturis inconfuse , inconvertibiliter, inseparabiliter, indivise
cognoscendum, nusquam extincta harum naturarum differentia prop-
ter unitatem, salvataque magis proprietate utriusque naturæ , et in
unam Personam , et in unam subsistentiam concurrente, non in duas
Personas partitam , vel divisam, sed unum eundemque unigenitum
Filium Dei , Verbum D. N. Jesum Christum ; et duas naturales
voluntates in eo, et duas naturales operationes indivise, inconverti-
biliter, inseparabiliter, inconfuse secundum Ss. Patrum doctrinam,
adeoque prædicamus ; et duas naturales voluntates, non contrarias,
absit, juxta quod impii asseruerunt Hæretici , sed sequentem ejus
humanam voluntatem, et non resistentem, vel reluctantem, sed po-
tius, et subjectam Divinæ ejus, atque omnipotenti voluntati ...
His igitur cum omni undique cautela, atque diligentia a nobis for-
matis, definimus aliam Fidem nulli licere proferre, aut conscribere,
componere, aut fovere, vel etiam aliter docere. "
7. The principal proofs from reason alone against this heresy
have been already previously given. First.-Because Christ having
a perfect human nature, he must have, besides, a human will, with-
out which his humanity would be imperfect, being deprived of one
of its natural powers. Secondly. - Because Christ obeyed, prayed,
merited, and satisfied for us, and all this could not be done without
a created human will, for it would be absurd to attribute it to the
Divine will. Thirdly.-We prove it from that principle of St.
Gregory of Nazianzen , adopted by the other Fathers, that what the
Word assumed he healed , and hence St. John of Damascus (3) con-
cludes that as he healed human will he must have had it : " Si non
assumsit humanam voluntatem, remedium ei non attulit, quod pri-
mum sauciatum erat ; quod enim assumtum non est, nec est curatum ,
ut ait Gregorius Theologus. Ecquid enim offenderat, nisi volun-
tas ?"

SEC. IL - OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

8. THE Monothelites object, first, that prayer of St. Dionisius in


his Epistle to Caius : " Deo viro facto unam quandum Theandricam ,

(3) St. Joan. Damas. Ora. de duab. Chris. Volunt.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 485

seu Deivirilem operationem expressit in vita ;" that is, that in the
God made man there is one Theandric or human-divine operation.
We answer, with Sophronius, that this passage was corrupted by
the Monothelites, by changing the word, " novam quandam" into
66
unam quandam, ” or a new sort of Theandric operation , into some
one Theandric operation. This was noticed in the Third Council
of Lateran, in which St. Martin commanded the Notary Paschasias
to read the Greek copy that was preserved , and the words were
found to be novam quandam, &c. , and not unam, &c. , and this was
in no wise opposed to the Catholic doctrine, and can be explained
two ways in an orthodox sense . First. -As St. John of Damascus
says, every operation ( 1 ) performed by Christ by the Divine and
human nature is Theandric, or human-divine, because it is the
operation of a Man-God , and is attributed to the Person of Christ,
the term, at the same time , of both the Divine and human nature.
The second sense, as Sophronius and St. Maximus lay down , is this,
that the new Theandric operation St. Dionisius speaks of should be
restricted to those operations of Christ alone, in which the Divine
and human natures concur , and , therefore, there are three distinct
operations to be noted in him : first, those which peculiarly belong
to human nature alone, as walking, eating, sitting, and so forth ;
secondly, those which belong purely to the Divine nature, as re-
mitting sins, working miracles, and the like ; and, thirdly, those
which proceed from both natures, as healing the sick by touching
them , raising the dead by calling them, &c.; and it is of operations
of this sort that the passage of St. Dionisius is to be explained.
9. Secondly. - They object that St. Athanasius (2 ) admits the
Divine Will only, " voluntatem Deitatis tantum ;" but we answer
that this does not exclude human will , but only that opposing will
which springs from sin, as the context proves. Thirdly. -They
object that St. Gregory of Nazianzen (3) says that the will of
66
Christ was not opposed to God , as it was totally Deified : “ Christi
velle non fuisse Deo contrarium , utpote Deificatum totum." We
answer, with St. Maximus and St. Agatho, that there is not the
least doubt but that St. Gregory admitted two wills, and the whole
meaning of this expression is that the human will of Christ was
never opposed to the Divine will . They object, fourthly , that St.
Gregory of Nyssa, writing against Eunomius, says, that the Deity
worked out the salvation of man ; the suffering, he says, was of
the flesh, but the operation was of God : " Operatur vere Deitas
per corpus, quod circa ipsam est omnium salutem, ut sit carnis
quidem passio, Dei autem operatio. " This objection was answered
in the Sixth Council , for the Saint having said that the humanity
of Christ suffered , admitted by that that Christ operated by the

(1) St. Jo. Damas. 1. 3, de Fide Orthodox. c. 19. (2) St. Athanas. in 7. de Adv.
Chri. (8) St. Greg. Naz. Orat. 2 de Filio.
486 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

humanity. All that St. Gregory in fact wanted to prove against


Eunomius was, that the sufferings and the operations of Christ
received a supreme value from the Person of the Word who sus-
tains his humanity, and therefore he attributed these operations to
the Word. They object, fifthly, that St. Cyril of Alexandria (4)
says that Christ showed some cognate operation , " quandam cogna-
tam operationem ." We reply, that from the context it is manifest
that the Saint speaks of the miracles of Christ in which his Divine
nature operated by his omnipotence, and his human nature by the
contact, commanded by his human will ; and thus this operation is
called by the Saint an associated one. Sixthly, they object that
many of the Fathers called the human nature of Christ the instru-
ment of the Divinity. We answer, that these Fathers never
understood the humanity to have been an inanimate instrument,
which operated nothing of itself, as the Monothelites say, but their
meaning was that the Word being united with the humanity, go-
verned it as its own, and operated through its powers and faculties.
Finally, they oppose to us some passages of Pope Julius, of St.
Gregory Thaumaturgus, and some writings of Menna to Vigilius,
and of Vigilius to Menna ; but our reply to this is that these pas-
sages are not authentic, but were foisted into the works of the
Fathers by the Apollinarists and Eutychians. It was proved in
the Sixth Council ( Act. XIV. ) , that the writings attributed to
Menna and Vigilius were forged by the Monothelites.
10. The Monothelites endeavour to prop up their opinions by
several other reasons . If you admit two wills in Christ, they say,
you must also admit an opposition between them. But we , Catho-
lics, say that this supposition is totally false ; the human will of
Christ never could oppose the Divine will, for he took our nature,
and was made in all things like us, but with the exception of sin ;
as St. Paul says ( Heb. iv. 15 ) , he was " one tempted in all things
like as we are, without sin." He never, therefore, had those
movements we have to violate the Divine law, but his will was
always conformable to the Divine will . The Fathers make a dis-
tinction between the natural and arbitrary will ; the natural will is
the power itself of wishing, the arbitrary will is the power of wish-
ing anything, either good or bad . Christ had the natural human
will, but not the arbitrary human will, for he always wished, and
could only wish what was most conformable to the Divine will,
and hence he says : "I do always the things that please him" (John ,
viii. 29) . It is because the Monothelites have not made this dis-
tinction of the will that they deny altogether to Christ human will :
" Sicut origo erroris Nestorianorum et Eutychianorum fuit, quod
non satis distinguerent personam , et naturam ; sic et Monothelitis,
et quod nescirent quia inter voluntatem Naturalem et Personalem ,

(4) St. Cyril, Alex. l. 4, in Joan.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 487

sive Arbitrarium discriminis interesset, hoc in causa fuisse, ut unam


in Christo dicerent voluntatem " (5).
11. They say, secondly, that there being only one Person there
must be only one will , because, the Mover being but one , the faculty
by which he moves the inferior powers must be but one likewise.
We answer, that where there is but one Person and one nature there
can be only one will and one operation , but where there is one
Person and two natures, as the Divine and human nature in
Christ, we must admit two wills and two distinct operations, cor-
responding to the two natures . They say, very properly, that the
will and the operations are not multiplied according as the Persons
are multiplied, for in the case where one nature is the term of
several Persons, as is the case in the Most Holy Trinity, then in
this nature there is only one will and one operation alone, common
to all the Persons included in the term of the nature. Here the
Monothelites have reason on their side, for the Mover is but one .
But it is quite otherwise when the Person is one of the two
natures, for then the Mover, although but one, has to move two
natures , by which he operates, and, consequently, he must have
two wills and two operations .
12. They make a third objection . The operations, they say,
belong to two Persons, and, consequently, when the Person is but
one, the operation must be but one likewise. We answer, that it
is not always the case that when there is but one Person that there
is but one operating faculty, but when there are more Persons than
one, then there must be more than one operating faculty. There
are three Persons in God, but only one operation common to all
three, because the Divine nature is one and indivisible in God.
But as in Jesus Christ there are two distinct natures, there are,
therefore, two wills, by which he operates, and two operations
corresponding to each nature ; and , although all the operations ,
both of the Divine and human nature are attributed to the Word,
which terminates and sustains the two natures , still the will and
operations of the Divine nature should not be confounded with
those of the human nature ; neither are the two natures confused
because the Person is one.

REFUTATION X.

THE HERESY OF BERENGARIUS, AND THE PRETENDED REFORMERS,


CONCERNING THE MOST HOLY SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST.

1. MOSHEIM, the Protestant ecclesiastical historian , asserts ( 1 )


that in the ninth century, the exact nature of the faith of the body

(5) St. Joan. Dames Orat. de 2 Christ. Volent. ( 1 ) Mosh. His. t. 3 , Cent. IX. c. 3, p. 1175 .
488 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

and blood of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist was not established , and
that, therefore, Pascasius Radbertus laid down in a book he wrote .
two principal points concerning it ; first, that after the consecration
nothing remained of the substance of the bread and wine ; and,
secondly, that in the consecrated Host is the very body of Jesus
Christ, which was born of Mary, died on the cross, and arose from
the sepulchre, and this , he said, is " what the whole world believes
and professes." This work was opposed by Retramn, and perhaps
others, and hence Mosheim concludes that the dogma was not then
established. In this, however, he is astray, for, as Selvaggi writes
(note 79 , vol. iii. ) , there was no controversy at all about the dogma,
in which Retramn was agreed with Radbert ; he only attacked some
expressions in his work. The truth of the Real Presence of Christ
in the Sacrament of the Altar has been always established and
universally embraced by the whole Church , as Vincent of Lerins
says, in 434 : " Mos iste semper in Ecclesia viguit, ut quo quisque
forte religiosior, eo promtius novellis adinventionibus contrairet."
Up to the ninth century the Sacrament of the Eucharist never was
impugned, till John Scotus Erigena, an Irishman , first published
to the world the unheard-of heresy that the body and blood of
Christ were not in reality in the Holy Eucharist , which , he said ,
was only a figure of Jesus Christ.
2. Berengarius, or Berenger, taught the same heresy in the year
1050, taking his opinions from the works of Scotus Erigena, and in
the twelfth century we find the Petrobrussians and Henricians, who
said that the Eucharist was only a mere sign of the body and blood
of our Lord. The Albigenses held the same error in the thirteenth
century, and finally, in the sixteenth century the modern Reformers
all joined in attacking this holy Sacrament. Zuingle and Carlostad
said that the Eucharist was a signification of the body and blood of
Jesus Christ, and Ecolampadius joined them afterwards, and Bucer,
also, partially. Luther admitted the Real Presence of Christ in
the Eucharist, but said that the substance of the bread remained
there also. Calvin several times changed his opinion on the
matter ; he said, in order to deceive the Catholics, that the Eu-
charist was not a mere sign, or naked figure of Christ , but was
filled with his Divine Virtue, and sometimes he even admitted
that the very substance of the body of Christ was there, but his
general opinion was that the presence of Christ was not real but
figurative, by the power placed there by our Lord . Hence Bos-
suet says in his " Variations," he never wished to admit that the
sinner, in communicating, receives the body of Christ, for then he
should admit the Real Presence. The Council of Trent (Sess. xiii.
c. 1 ) teaches, " that Jesus Christ, God and man, is really, truly,
and substantially contained under the appearance of those sensible
things in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, after the consecration of
the bread and wine."
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 489

3. Before we prove the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist ;


we must know that it is a true Sacrament , as the Council of Flo-
rence declares in its decree or instruction for the Armenians, and
the Council of Trent (Sess . vii. c. 1 ) , in opposition to the Socinians,
who say that it is not a Sacrament, but merely a remembrance of
the death of our Saviour. It is, however, an article of Faith that
the Eucharist is a true Sacrament ; for, First, we have the sensible
sign, the appearance of bread and wine. Secondly , there is the
institution of Christ : " Do this in commemoration of me" (Luke,
xxii.) Thirdly, there is the promise of grace : " Who eats my
flesh ....hath eternal life." We now have to inquire what in the
Eucharist constitutes a Sacrament. The Lutherans say that it is
in the use, with all the actions that Christ did, at the last Supper,
that the Sacrament consists, as St. Matthew tells us : " Jesus took
bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples" (Matt.
xxvi). The Calvinists, on the other hand, say that it is in the
actual eating that the Sacrament consists. We Catholics believe
that the consecration is not the Sacrament, because that is a trans-
itory action, and the Eucharist is a permanent Sacrament, as we
shall show hereafter (sec. 3) , nor the use or communion, for this
regards the effect of the Sacrament, which is a Sacrament before it
is received at all, nor in the species alone , for these do not confer
grace, nor the body of Jesus Christ alone, because it is not there in
a sensible manner ; but the sacramental species, together with the
body of Christ, form the Sacrament, inasmuch as they contain the
body of our Lord.

SEC. I.- OF THE REAL PRESENCE OF THE BODY AND BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST
IN THE EUCHARIST.

4. We have already said that the Council of Trent ( Sess . xiii .


c. 3) teaches that Jesus Christ is contained in the sacramental
species, truly, really, and substantially :-truly, rejecting the figura-
tive presence, for the figure is opposed to truth ; really, rejecting
the imaginary presence which Faith makes us aware of, as the
Sacramentarians assert ; and substantially, rejecting the doctrine of
Calvin, who said that in the Eucharist it was not the body of
Christ, but his virtue or power, that was present, by which he
communicates himself to us ; but in this he erred , for the whole
substance of Jesus Christ is in the Eucharist. Hence , the Council
of Trent (Can. 1 ) condemns those who assert that Christ is in the
sacrament as a sign, or figure, signo vel figura , aut virtute.
5. The Real Presence is proved , first, by the words of Christ
himself: " Take and eat, this is my body," words which are quoted
by St. Matthew (xxvi . 26 ) ; St. Mark (xiv. 22 ) ; St. Luke ( xxii. 19 ) ;
and St. Paul (1 Cor. xi. 24 ). It is a certain rule, says St. Augus-
tin (1 ) , and is commonly followed by the Holy Fathers, to take the

(1) St. Aug. l. 3, de Doct. Chris. c. 10.


490 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

words of Scripture in their proper literal sense, unless some absurdity


would result from doing so ; forif it were allowed to explain every-
thing in a mystic sense, it would be impossible to prove any article
of Faith from the Scripture, and it would only become the source
of a thousand errors, as every one would give it whatever sense he
pleased . Therefore, says the Council ( Cap. 1 ) , it is an enormous
wickedness to distort the words of Christ by feigned figurative
explanations, when three ofthe Evangelists and St. Paul give them
just as he expressed them : " Quæ verba a sanctis Evangelistis com-
memorata, et a D. Paulo repetita cum propriam illam significa-
tionem præ se ferant ...... indignissimum flagitium est ea ad
fictitios tropos contra universum Ecclesiæ sensum detorqueri ." Who
will dare to doubt that it is his body and blood, says St. Cyril of
Jerusalem, when Christ has said so (2) ? " Cum ipse de pane pro-
nunciaverit, Hoc est corpus meum, quis audebit deinceps ambi-
gere ? Et cum idem ipse dixerit, Hic est sanguis meus, quis dicet
non esse ejus sanguinem ?" We put this question to the heretics :
Could Jesus Christ turn the bread into his body or not ? We be-
lieve not one of them will deny that he could, for every Christian
knows that God is all-powerful, " because no word shall be im-
possible with God" (Luke, i . 37) . But they will answer, perhaps :
We do not deny that he could, but perhaps he did not wish to do
it. Did not wish to do it, perhaps ? But tell me, if he did wish
to do so, could he have possibly declared more clearly what his will
was, than by saying: " This is my body ?" When he was asked
by Caiphas : " Art thou the Christ, the Son of the blessed God ?
And Jesus said to him : I am" ( Mark, xiv. 61 , 62) , we should say ,
according to their mode of explanation , that he spoke figuratively
also. Besides, if you allow, with the Sacramentarians, that the
words of Christ : " This is my body," are to be taken figuratively,
why, then, do you object to the Socinians, who say that the words
of Christ, quoted by St. John ( x . 30 ) : " I and the Father are one,"
ought to be taken not literally, but merely showing that between
Christ and the Father there existed a moral union of the will, but
not a union of substance, and, consequently, denied his Divinity.
We now pass on to the other proofs.
6. The Real Presence is proved , secondly, by that text of St.
John where Christ says : " The bread that I will give is my flesh
for the life of the world" (John , vi . 52 ) . Our adversaries explain
away this text, by saying, that here our Redeemer does not in this
chapter speak of the Eucharist, but of the Incarnation of the Word.
We do not say that in the beginning of the chapter it is the Incar-
nation that is spoken of; but there cannot be the least doubt but
that from the 52nd verse out it is the Eucharist, as even Calvin
admits (3) ; and it was thus the Fathers and Councils always un-

(2) St. Cyril, Hieros. Cath. Mystagog. 4. (3) Calvin. Instit. 7. 4, c. 17, s. 1.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 491

derstood it, as the Council of Trent, which ( Cap . 2 , Sess. xiii . and
Cap. 1 , Sess. xxii . ) quotes several passages from that chapter to con-
firm the Real Presence ; and the Second Council of Nice (Act. 6)
quotes the 54th verse of the same chapter : " Unless you eat the
flesh of the Son of Man, " &c . , to prove that the true body of Christ
is offered up in the sacrifice of the Mass. It is in this chapter, also,
that our Saviour promises to give to the faithful, at a future time, his
own flesh as food : " The bread that I will give is my flesh, for the
life of the world" ( ver. 52) , and here he sets totally aside the false
explanation of the sectarians, who say that he only speaks of the
spiritual manducation by means of faith , in believing the Incarna-
tion of the Word ; for if that was our Lord's meaning, he would not
say: " The bread which • will give ," but " the bread which I have
given," for the Word was already incarnate, and his disciples might
then spiritually feed on Jesus Christ ; therefore he said: " I will
give," for he had not as yet instituted the Sacrament, but only pro-
mised to do so, and as St. Thomas (4) remarks, he says, " the bread
which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world ;" he did not
say, it means my flesh (as the Zuinglians afterwards explained it),
but it is my flesh , because it is truly the body of Christ which is
received . Our Lord next says : " My flesh is meat indeed , and my
blood is drink indeed" (John , vi. 56 ) ; and, therefore , St. Hilary (5)
says he leaves us no room to doubt of the truth of his body and
blood. In fact, if the real body and blood of Christ were not in the
Eucharist, this passage would be a downright falsehood . We should
not forget, also, that the distinction between meat and drink can
only be understood as referring to the eating of the true body , and
drinking the true blood of Christ, and not of spiritual eating by
faith, as the Reformers assert ; for, as that is totally internal, the
meat and the drink would be only one and the same thing, and not
two distinct things.
7. We have another strong proof in the same chapter of St.
John (chap. vi.) ; for the people of Caphernaum , hearing Christ
speak thus, said : " How can this man give us his flesh to eat ?"
(ver. 53) ; and they even thought it so unreasonable, that " after
this many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with
him" ( ver. 67) . Now, if the flesh of Christ was not really in the
Eucharist, he could remove the scandal from them at once, by
saying that it was only spiritually they were called on to eat his
flesh by faith ; but, instead of that, he only confirmed more strongly
what he said before, for he said : " Except you eat the flesh of
the Son of Man, and drink his blood , you shall not have life in
you" ( ver. 54) . And he then turned to the twelve disciples, who
remained with him, and said : " Will you also go away ? And

(4) St. Thoin. Lec. 9, in Joan. (5) St. Hilar. l. 8, de Trin. n. 13.
492 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Peter answered him : Lord , to whom shall we go ? thou hast the


words of eternal life, and we have believed and have known that
thou art the Christ the Son of God" ( ver. 69 , 70).
8. The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is proved also
from the words of St. Paul : " For let a man prove himself......
for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh
judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord" (1 Cor.
xi. 28 , 29) . Now, mark these words, " the body of the Lord."
Does not that prove how erroneously the sectarians act, in saying
that in the Eucharist we venerate, by faith, the figure alone of
the body of Christ ; for if that was the case, the Apostle would not
say that they who received in sin were deserving of eternal con-
demnation ; but he clearly states that one who communicates
unworthily is so , for he does not distinguish the body of the Lord
from the common earthly food .
9. Fourthly, it is proved again from St. Paul, for speaking
of the use of this Holy Sacrament, he says : " The chalice of
benediction which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood
of Christ? and the bread which we break, is it not the partaking
of the body of the Lord ?" (1 Cor. x. 16 ). Mark the words, " the
bread which we break ;" that which is first offered to God on the
altar, and afterwards distributed to the people, is it not the partaking
of the body of the Lord ? Do not, in a word, those who receive
it partake of the true body of Christ ?
10. Fifthly, it is proved by the Decrees of Councils . We find
it first mentioned in the Council of Alexandria , which was after-
wards approved of by the first Council of Constantinople . Next,
the Council of Ephesus sanctioned the twelve anathematisms of
St. Cyril against Nestorius, and in this the Real Presence of Christ
in the Eucharist is taught. The second Council of Nice ( Act. 6)
condemns, as an error against Faith, the assertion that the figure
alone, and not the true body of Christ, is in the Eucharist ; for,
says the Council , Christ said, take and eat, this is my body , but
he did not say, take and eat, this is the image of my body. In
the Roman Čouncil, under Gregory VII ., in 1079 , Berengarius,
in the Profession of Faith which he made, confesses that the bread
and wine are, by the consecration, substantially converted into the
body and blood of Christ. The Fourth Council of Lateran , under
Innocent III., in the year 1215 (chap. 1 ) , says : " We believe
that the body and blood of Christ are contained under the species
of bread and wine, the bread being transubstantiated into the
body, and the wine into the blood ." In the Council of Constance
the propositions of Wickliffe and Huss were condemned , which
said that (in the Eucharist) the bread was present in reality, and
the body figuratively, and that the expression " this is my body'
is a figure of speech , just like the expression , " John is Elias" .
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 493

The Council of Florence , in the Decree of Union for the Greeks ,


decrees, " that the body of Christ is truly consecrated ( veraciter
confici) in bread of wheat, either leavened or unleavened."
11. It is proved, sixthly, by the perpetual and uniform tradition
of the Holy Fathers. St. Ignatius the Martyr (6 ) says : " Eucharis-
tiam non admittunt, quod non confiteantur Eucharistiam esse car-
nem Salvatoris nostri Jesu Christi ." St. Iræneus ( 7) : " Panis
percipiens invocationem Dei jam non communis panis est sed Eu-
charistia." And in another place he says (8) : " Eum, panem in
quo gratiæ sunt actæ, corpus esse Christi , et calicem sanguinis ejus."
St. Justin, Martyr, writes (9) : " Non hunc ut communem panem
sumimus, sed quemadmodum per verbum Dei caro factum est J. C.
carnem habuit," &c. He, therefore, says, that the same flesh which
the Word assumed is in the Eucharist. Tertullian (10) says : " Caro
99
corpore et sanguine Christi vescitur, ut et anima de Deo saginetur.'
Origen writes ( 11 ) : " Quando vitæ pane et poculo frueris, man-
ducas et bibis, corpus et sanguinem Domini ." Hear St. Ambrose ( 12 ) :
" Panis iste panis est ante verba Sacramentorum ; ubi accesserit con-
secratio, de pane fit caro Christi .” St. Chrysostom says (13) :
66
Quot nunc dicunt vellem ipsius formam aspicere ...... Ecce eum
vides, Ipsum tangis, Ipsum manducas." St. Athanasius , St. Basil,
and St. Gregory of Nazianzen , express the same sentiments (14).
St. Augustin says (15 ) : " Sicut mediatorem Dei et hominum, homi-
nem Christum Jesum, carnem suam nobis manducandam, biben-
dumque sanguinem dantem fidei corde suspicimus. " St. Remigius (16 )
says : " Licet panis videatur, in veritate corpus Christi est." St.
Gregory the Great writes ( 17) : " Quid sit sanguis agni non jam
audiendo sed libendo didicistis qui sanguis super utrumque postem
ponitur quando non solum ore corporis, sed etiam ore cordis hauri-
tur." St. John of Damascus ( 18 ) writes : " Panis , ac vinum, et aqua
qua per Spiritus Sancti invocationem et adventum mirabili modo
in Christi corpus et sanguinem vertuntur." Thus we see an unin-
terrupted series of Fathers for the first seven centuries proclaiming,
in the clearest and most forcible language, the doctrine ofthe Real
Presence of Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Sacrament of the
Eucharist.
12. By this we see how false is the interpretation which Zuin-
glius put on that text, " This is my body," when he said that the
word is means signifies, founding his heresy on a verse of Exodus
(xii. 11) : " For it is the phase (that is the passage) of the Lord."
Now, said he, the eating of the paschal lamb was not itself the

(6) St. Ignat. Ep. ad Smirn. ap. Theodor. Dial. 3. (7) St. Iræn. l. ad Hær. c. 18,
al 34. (8) Idem, l. 4, c. 34. (9) St. Justin. Apol. 2. (10) Tertul. . Resur.
c. 8. (11) Orig. Hom. 5, in divers. (12) St. Amb. l. 4, de Sacram. c. 4. (13) St.
Chrys. Hom. ad Pop. Antioch. (14) Apud. Antoin. de Euch. Theol. Univer. c. 4, 1 .
(15) St. Aug. l. 2, con. adver. legis. c. 9. (16) St. Remig. in Ep. ad Cor. c. 10.
(17) St. Greg. Hom. 22, in Evang. (18) St. Joan. Damas. 7. 4, Orthodox. c. 14.
494 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

passage of the Lord ; it only meant it, or signified it . The Zuin-


glians alone follow this interpretation , for we never can take the
sense of the word is for the word means or signifies, unless in cases
where reason itself shows that the word is has a figurative meaning ;
but in this case the Zuinglian explanation is contrary to the proper
literal sense in which we should always understand the Scriptures,
when that sense is not repugnant to reason. The Zuinglian expla-
nation is also opposed to St. Paul, relating to us the very words of
Christ : " This is my body, which shall be delivered up for you"
(1 Cor. xi. 24). Our Lord, we see, did not deliver up, in his Pas-
sion , the sign or signification of his body,but his real and true body.
The Zuinglians say, besides, that in the Syro-Chaldaic or Hebrew,
in which our Redeemer spoke, when instituting the Eucharist,
there is no word corresponding in meaning to our word signify, and
hence, in the Old Testament, we always find the word is used
instead of it, and, therefore, the words of Christ, " This is my body,"
should be understood , as if he said , " This signifies my body." We
answer : First. - It is not the fact that the word signifies is never
found in the Old Testament, for we find in Exodus: " Man-hu !
which signifieth What is this" (Exod. xvi . 15) ; and in Judges
66
(xiv. 15): Persuade him to tell thee what the riddle meaneth ;"
and in Ézechiel ( xvii. 12) : " Know you not what these things
mean." Secondly.-Although the words mean or signify are not
found in the Hebrew or Syro-Chaldaic, still the word is must not
always be taken for it, only in case that the context should show
that such is the intention of the speaker ; but in this case the word
has surely its own signification , as we learn, especially from the
Greek version ; this language has both words, and still the Greek
text says , " This is my body," and not " This means my body."
13. The opinion of those sectarians, who say that in the Eucha-
rist only a figure exists, and not the body of Christ in reality, is also
refuted by these words of our Lord, already quoted : " This is my
body, which shall be delivered up for you" ( 1 Cor. xi . 24) ; for
Jesus Christ delivered up his body to death, and not the figure of
his body. And, speaking of his sacred blood , he says (St. Matt.
xxvi. 28) : " For this is my blood of the New Testament which
shall be shed for many unto remission of sins." Christ, then , shed
his real blood, and not the figure of his blood ; for the figure is
expressed by speech, or writing, or painting, but the figure is not
shed. Piceninus ( 19) objects that St. Augustin , speaking of that
passage of St. John , " Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man,"
says that the flesh of our Lord is a figure, bringing to our mind the
memory of his passion : " Figura est præcipiens Passione Dominica
esse communicandum ." We answer, that we do not deny that our
Redeemer instituted the Holy Eucharist in memory of his death, as

(19) St. Aug. 1. 3, de Doct. Christian. c. 16.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 495

we learn from St. Paul ( 1 Cor. xi . 26) : " For as often as you shall
eat this bread, and drink this chalice, you shall show the death of
the Lord until he come ;" but still we assert, that in the Eucharist
there is the true body of Christ, and there is, at the same time, a
figure, commemorative of his death ; and this is St. Augustin's
meaning, for he never doubted that the body and blood of Christ
were in the Eucharist really and truly, as he elsewhere expresses
it (20) : " Panis quem videtis in Altari , sanctificatus per verbum .
Dei, Corpus est Christi."
14. There is, I should say, no necessity of refuting Calvin's
opinions on the Real Presence, for he constantly refutes himself,
changing his opinion a thousand times, and always cloaking it in
ambiguous terms. Bossuet and Du Hamel (21 ) may be consulted
on this point. They treat the subject extensively, and quote
Calvin's opinion , who says, at one time, that the true substance of
the body of Christ is in the Eucharist, and then again ( 22 ) , that
Christ is united to us by Faith ; so that, by the presence of Christ,
he understands a presence of power or virtue in the Sacrament ; and
this is confirmed by him in another part of his works, where he says
that Christ is just as much present to us in the Eucharist as he is
in baptism. At one time he says the Sacrament of the Altar is a
miracle, and then again ( 23), the whole miracle, he says , consists in
this, that the faithful are vivified by the flesh of Christ , since a
virtue so powerful descends from heaven on earth. Again, he says,
that even the unworthy receive in the Supper the body of Christ,
and then, in another place (24) , he says that he is received by the
elect alone. In fine, we see Calvin struggling, in the explanation
of this dogma, not to appear a heretic with the Zuinglians, nor a
Catholic with the Roman Catholics. Here is the Profession of
Faith which the Calvinist ministers presented to the prelates, at the
Conference of Poissy, as Bossuet gives it (25) : " We believe that
the body and blood are really united to the bread and wine, but in
a sacramental manner- that is, not according to the natural position
of bodies, but inasmuch as they signify that God gives his body and
blood to those who truly receive him by Faith." It was remarkable
in that Conference , that Theodore Beza, the first disciple of Calvin,
and who had hardly time to have imbibed all his errors, said pub-
licly, as De Thou (26 ) relates, " that Jesus Christ was as far from
the Supper as the heavens were from the earth ." The French
prelates then drew up a true Confession of Faith, totally opposed
to the Calvinists : " We believe ," said they, " that in the Sacrament
of the Altar there is really and transubstantially the true body and
blood of Jesus Christ, under the appearance of bread and wine, by
the power of the Divine Word pronounced by the priest," &c .
(20) St. Aug. Ser. 83, de Div. n. 27. (21) Bossuet, His. des Variat. t. 2, l. 9 ;
Du Hamel, Theol. de Euch. (22) Calvin, Inst. l. 4, c. 11. (28) Idem.
(24) Idem. (25) Bossuet, t. 2, l. 9. (26) Thuan . 7. 28, c. 48.
496 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE REAL PRESENCE ANSWERED.

15. THEY object, first, the words of Christ : " It is the Spirit
that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing. These words that I
have spoken to you are spirit and life" (John, vi. 64) . See there,
they say, the words which you make use of to prove the Real Pre-
sence of Christ in the Eucharist are figurative expressions, which
signify the celestial food of life, which we receive by faith. We
answer, with St. John Chrysostom ( 1 ) , that when Christ says the
flesh profiteth nothing, he spoke not of his own flesh, God forbid !
but of those who carnally receive it, as the Apostle says : " The
sensual man perceiveth not those things that are of the Spirit of
God" (1 Cor. ii. 14 ) , and those who carnally speak of the Divine
Mysteries ; and to this St. John refers when he says : " The words
I have spoken to you are spirit and life" (John , vi . 64 ) , mean-
ing that these words refer not to carnal and perishable things , but
to spiritual things and to eternal life. But even supposing these
words to refer to the flesh of Christ itself, they only mean, as St.
Athanasius and St. Augustin explain them, that the flesh of Christ ,
given to us as food, sanctifies us by the Spirit , or the Divinity
united to it, but that the flesh alone would be of no avail. These
are St. Augustin's words ( 2 ) : " Non prodest quidquam (caro) , sed
quomodo ; illi intellexerunt, carnem quippe sic intellexerunt, quo-
modo in cadavere dilaniatur , aut in macello venditur, non quomodo
spiritu vegetatur. Caro non prodest quidquam, sed sola caro ; accedat
spiritus ad carnem, et prodest plurimum."
16. They object, secondly, that when Jesus Christ said : " This
is my body," the word this in the sentence has reference to the bread
alone, which he then held in his hand , but bread is only a figure of
the body of Christ, but not the body itself. We answer that if we
do not consider the proposition " This is my body" as complete in
itself, that might be the case if he said, for example, this is, and
did not say any more, then the word this would have reference to
the bread alone, which he held in his hand ; but taking the whole
sentence together, there can be no doubt but that the word this
refers to the body of Christ. When our Lord changed water into
wine , if he had said , this is wine, every one would understand that
the word this referred not to the water but to the wine, and in the
same way in the Eucharist the word this , in the complete sense of
the sentence, refers to the body, because the change is made when
the whole sentence is completed. In fact the word this in the sen
tence has no meaning at all, till the latter part is pronounced, is my
body-then alone the sense is complete.
17. They object, thirdly, that the sentence, " This is my body,"
is just as figurative as other passages in the Scriptures, as for example ,

(1) St. John Chrysos. Hom. in Joan. (2) St. Aug. Tract, 27 in Joan.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 497

when Christ says :


" I am the true vine," " I am the gate," or when
it is said he is the Rock. We reply that it is a matter of course
that these propositions should be taken figuratively , for that Christ
should be literally a vine, a door, or a rock is repugnant to common
sense , and the words " I am," therefore , are figurative . In the
words of consecration , however , there is nothing repugnant to rea-
son in joining the predicate with the subject , because , as we have
• remarked already , Christ did not say This bread is my body, but
" This is my body ;" this, that is what is contained under the appear-
ance of this bread , is my body ; here there is nothing repugnant to
reason .
18. They object, fourthly, that the Real Presence is opposed to
the words of Christ himself, for he said (John, xii . 8) : " The poor
you have always with you , but me you have not always." Our
Saviour, therefore, after his ascension, is no longer on earth. Our
Lord, we reply, then spoke of his visible presence as man receiving
honour from Magdalen. When Judas, therefore, murmured against
the waste ofthe ointment, our Lord reproves him, saying, you have
not me always with you, that is, in the visible and natural form of
man, but there is here nothing to prove that after his ascension into
heaven he does not remain on earth in the Eucharist, under the
appearance of bread and wine , invisibly, and in a supernatural man-
ner. In this sense we must understand also all similar passages, as,
" I leave the world and go to my Father" (John , xvi . 18 ) : 66 He
was taken up into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God"
(Mark, xvi. 19 ) .
19. They object, fifthly, these words of the Apostle : " Our
fathers were all under the cloud ...... and did all eat the same
spiritual food" (1 Cor. x . 1-3) ; therefore, they say, we only receive
Christ in the Eucharist by Faith, just as the Hebrews received
him. We answer, that the sense of the words is, that the Hebrews
received spiritual food , the Manna, of which St. Paul speaks, the
figure of the Eucharist, but did not receive the body of Christ in
reality, as we receive it. The Hebrews received the figure, but
we receive the real body, already prefigured.
20. Sixthly, they object that Christ said : " I will not drink from
henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I shall
drink it with you new, in the kingdom of my Father" (Matt. xxvi.
29) , and these words he expressed , after having previously said,
" This is my blood of the New Testament, which shall be shed for
many for the remission of sins" ( ver. 28 ) . Now, say they, take
notice of the words, fruit ofthe vine, that is a proof that the wine
remains after the consecration. We answer, first, that Christ might
have called it wine , even after the consecration, not because the
substance, but because the form of wine was retained, just as St.
Paul calls the Eucharist bread after the consecration : " Whosoever
shall eat this bread , or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily,
21
498 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord" (ver. 29) .
Secondly, we reply, with St. Fulgentius (3 ), who supposes that
Christ took two chalices, one the Paschal chalice, according to the
Jewish rite, the other according to the Sacramental rite. Our
Lord then, he says, when using the words they found the objection
on, spoke ofthe first chalice, and not ofthe second , and that he did
so is clear from the words of another of the Evangelists, St. Luke
(xxii . 17) , who says that " having taken the chalice, he gave
thanks, and said : Take and divide it among you. For I say to
you that I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, till the kingdom
of God come." Now, if we read on to the 20th verse of the same
chapter, we find that Jesus took the chalice of wine and consecrated
it: "In like manner the chalice also, after he had supped, saying :
This is the chalice, the New Testament, in my blood which shall
be shed for you." Hence it is manifest that the words, " I will not
drink of the fruit of the vine," were expressed by our Redeemer
previous to the consecration of the chalice.
21. They object, seventhly, that the doctrine of the Real Pre-
sence cannot be true, for it is opposed to all our senses. But to
this we reply, with the Apostle, that matters of faith are not mani-
fest to the senses, for " Faith .... is the evidence of things that
appear not" (Heb. xi . 1 ) . And we have another text, also, which
disposes of this feeble argument : " The sensual man perceiveth
not the things that are of the Spirit of God, for it is foolishness to
him" (1 Cor. ii. 14) . All this will be answered more extensively
farther on (sec. 3).

SEC. II. TRANSUBSTANTIATION, THAT IS, THE CONVERSION OF THE SUBSTANCE OF


THE BREAD AND OF THE WINE INTO THE SUBSTANCE OF THE BODY AND BLOOD
OF JESUS CHRIST.

22. LUTHER at first left it as a matter of choice to each person,


either to believe in Transubstantiation or not, but he changed his
opinion afterwards, and in 1522, in the book which he wrote
against Henry VIII., he says : " I now wish to transubstantiate
my own opinion. I thought it better before to say nothing about
the belief in Transubstantiation, but now I declare, that if any one
holds this doctrine, he is an impious blasphemer" ( 1 ), and he con-
cludes by saying, that in the Eucharist, along with the body and
blood of Christ, remains the substance of the bread and wine :
"that the body of Christ is in the bread, with the bread, and
under the bread, just as fire is in a red-hot iron." He , therefore,
called the Real Presence " Impanation," or " Consubstantiation,"
that is, the association of the substance of bread and wine with the
substance of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
23. The Council of Trent, however, teaches that the whole
(3) St Fulgen. ad Ferrand. Dial. de Zuing. quæst. ix. 5. (1) Luther, lib. con.
Reg. Angliæ.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 499

substance of the bread and wine is changed into the body and blood
of Christ. It issued a decree to that effect (Cap. 4, Sess. xiii .) , and
says, that the Church most aptly calls this change Transubstantia-
tion. Here are the words of the Second Can.: " Si quis dixerit in
sacrosancto Eucharistiæ sacramento remanere substantiam panis et
vini una cum corpore et sanguine D. N. J. C. , negaveritque mira-
bilem illam , et singularem conversionem totius substantiæ panis in
corpus, et totius substantiæ vini in sanguinem, manentibus dum-
taxat speciebus panis et vini , quam quidem conversionem Catholica
Ecclesia aptissime Transubstantiationem appellat, anathema sit."
Remark the words , mirabilem illum, et singularem conversionem
totius substantiæ, the wonderful and singular conversion of the
whole substance . It is called wonderful, for it is a mystery hidden
from us, and which we never can comprehend . It is singular,
because in all nature there is not another case of a similar change ;
and it is called a conversion, because it is not a simple union with
the body of Christ, such as was the hypostatic union by which the
Divine and human natures were united in the sole person of Christ.
Such is not the case , then , in the Eucharist, for the substance of
the bread and wine is not united with, but is totally changed and
converted into, the body and blood of Jesus Christ. We say a
conversion of the whole substance, to distinguish it from other con-
versions or changes, such as the change of food into the body of
the person who partakes of it, or the change of water into wine by
our Redeemer at Cana, and the change of the rod of Moses into a
serpent, for in all these changes the substance remained , and it was
the form alone that was changed ; but in the Eucharist the matter
and form of the bread and wine is changed, and the species alone
remain , that is, the appearance alone, as the Council explains it,
"remanentibus dumtaxat speciebus panis et vini ."
24. The general opinion is, that this conversion is not performed
bythe creation of the body of Christ, for creation is the production
of a thing out ofnothing ; but this is the conversion of the substance
of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ. It does not
take place either by the annihilation of the matter of the bread
and wine, because annihilation means the total destruction of a
thing, and the body of Christ, then, would be changed , we may
say, from nothing ; but in the Eucharist the substance ofthe bread
passes into the substance of Christ, so that it is not from nothing.
Neither does it take place by the transmutation of the form alone
(as a certain author endeavours to prove) , the same matter still
remaining, as happened when the water was changed into wine,
and the rod into a serpent. Scotus says that Transubstantiation
is an act adducing the body of Christ into the Eucharist (actio
adductiva) ; but this opinion is not followed by others, for adduction
does not mean conversion by the passage of one substance into
the other. It cannot be called , either, a unitive action , for that
500 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

supposes two extremes in the point of union . Hence, we say,


with St. Thomas, that the consecration operates in such a manner,
that if the body of Christ was not in heaven, it would commence
to exist in the Eucharist. The consecration really, and in instanti,
as the same Doctor says ( 2) , reproduces the body of Christ under
the present species of bread, for as this is a sacramental action, it
is requisite that there should be an external sign , in which the
rationale of a Sacrament consists.
25. The Council of Trent has declared (Sess . xiii. cap. 3), that
vi verborum the body of Christ alone is under the appearance of
bread, and the blood alone under the appearance of wine ; that by
natural and proximate concomitance the soul of our Saviour is
under both species, with his body and his blood ; by supernatural
and remote concomitance the Divinity of the Word is present, by
the hypostatic union of the Word with the body and soul of Christ ;
and that the Father and the Holy Ghost are present, by the
identity of the essence of the Father and the Holy Ghost with
the Word. Here are the words of the Council : " Semper hæc
fides in Ecclesia Dei fuit, statim post consecrationem verum Domini
nostri corpus, vetumque ejus sanguinem sub panis, et vini specie,
una cum ipsius anima, et Divinitate existere ; sed corpus quidem
sub specie panis , et sanguinem sub vini specie ex vi verborum ;
ipsum autem corpus sub specie vini, et sanguinem sub specie panis,
animamque sub utraque vi naturalis illius connexionis, et conco-
mitantiæ, qua partes Christi Domini, qui jam ex mortuis resurrexit,
non amplius moriturus , inter se copulantur : Divinitatem porro
propter admirabilem illam ejus cum corpore, et anima hypostaticam
unionem ."
26. Transubstantiation is proved by the very words of Christ
himself: " This is my body." The word this, according to the
Lutherans themselves, proves that Christ's body was really present.
If the body of Christ was there, therefore the substance of the
bread was not there ; for if the bread was there, and if by the
word this our Lord meant the bread, the proposition would be
false, taking it in this sense , This is my body, that is, this bread
is my body, for it is not true that the bread was the body of
Christ. But perhaps they will then say , before our Lord expressed
the word body, what did the word this refer to ? We answer, as
we have done already, that it does not refer either to the bread
or to the body, but has its own natural meaning, which is this :
This which is contained under the appearance of bread, is not
bread, but is my body . St. Cyril of Jerusalem says (3 ) : " Aquam
aliquando ( Christus) mutavit in vinum in Cana Galilææ sola
voluntate, et non erit dignus cui credamus, quod vinum in san-
guinem transmutasset." St. Gregory of Nyssa (4) says : " Panis

(2) St. Thom. p. 3, qu. 75, art. 7. (3) St. Cyril, Hieros. Cath. Mystagog. (4) St.
reg. Nyssa. Orat. Cath. c. 37.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 501

statim per verbum transmutatur, sicut dictum est a Verbo : Hoc


est corpus meum." St. Ambrose writes thus (5) : " Quantis utimur
exemplis, ut probemus non hoc esse quod natura formavit, sed
quod benedictio consecravit ; majoremque vim esse benedictionis,
quam naturæ, quia benedictione etiam natura ipsa mutatur." St.
John of Damascus (6) : " Panis, ac vinum et aqua per Sancti
Spiritus invocationem , et adventum mirabili modo in Christi corpus
et sanguinem vertuntur." Tertullian , St. Chrysostom, and St.
Hilary used the same language (7) .
27. Transubstantiation is also proved by the authority of
Councils, and especially, first, by the Roman Council, under
Gregory VII. , in which Berengarius made his profession of Faith ,
and said: " Panem et vinum, quæ ponuntur in Altari, in veram
et propriam ac vivificatricem carnem et sanguinem Jesu Christi
substantialiter converti per verba consecratoria." Secondly. - By
the Fourth Council of Lateran (cap. 1 ), which says : " Idem ipse
Sacerdos et Sacrificium Jesus Christus, cumcorpus et sanguis in
Sacramento Altaris sub speciebus panis et vini veraciter continetur,
transubstantiatis pane in corpus, et vino in sanguinem potestate
Divina," & c. Thirdly. By the Council of Trent ( Sess. xiii.
can. 2 ) , which condemns all who deny this doctrine : " Mirabilem
illam conversionem totius substantiæ panis in corpus, et vini in
sanguinem..... .quam conversionem Catholica Ecclesia aptissime
Transubstantionem appellat."

OBJECTIONS AGAINST TRANSUBSTANTIATION ANSWERED.

28. THE Lutherans say, first, that the body of Christ is locally
in the bread as in a vessel, and, as we say, showing a bottle in
which wine is contained , " This is the wine," so , say they, Christ,
showing the bread , said : " This is my body ;" and hence, both the
body of Christ and the bread are, at the same time , present in the
Eucharist. We answer, that, according to the common mode of
speech, a bottle is a fit and proper thing to show that wine is there ,
because wine is usually kept in bottles, but it is not the case with
bread, which is not a fit and proper thing to designate or point out
a human body, for it is only by a miracle that a human body could
be contained in bread.
29. Just to confound one heresy by another, we will quote the
argument of the Zuinglians ( 1 ) against the Impanation or Consub-
stantiation of the bread and the body of Christ, invented by the
Lutherans. If, say they, the words " This is my body " are to be
taken in a literal sense , as Luther says they are, then the Transub-
stantiation of the Catholics is true. And this is certainly the case.

(5) St. Ambrose de Initiand. c. 9. (6) St. Jo. Damas. 7. 4, Orthod. Fidci, c. 14.
(7) Tertul. contra Marcion, l. 4, c. 4 ; Chrysos. Hom. 4, in una cor. St. Hil. l. 8, de
Trinit. (1) Bossuet. Variat. t. 1, l. 2, n. 31 ; Ospinian. ann. 1527 , p. 49.
502 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Christ did not say, this bread is my body, or here is my body, but
this thing is my body. Hence, say they, when Luther rejects the
figurative meaning, that it is only the signification of the body of
Christ, as they hold, and wishes to explain the words " this is my
body " after his own fashion , that is, this bread is really my body,
and not the frame of my body, this doctrine falls to the ground of
itself, for if our Saviour intended to teach us that the bread was his
body, and that the bread was there still, it would be a contradic-
tion in itself. The true sense of the words " This is my body,"
however, is that the word this is to be thus understood : this, which
I hold in my hands, is my body. Hence the Zuinglians concluded
that the conversion of the substance of the bread into the substance
of the body of Christ should be taken either totally figuratively or
totally in substance, and this was Beza's opinion in the Conference
of Monbeliard, held with the Lutherans. Here, then , is, accord-
ing to the true dogma, the conclusion we should come to in opposi-
tion to Luther. When our Lord says, " This is my body," he in-
tended that of that bread should be formed either the substance, or
the figure of his body ; if the substance of the bread , therefore, be
not the mere simple figure of Christ's body, as Luther says, then it
must become the whole substance of the body of Jesus Christ.
30. They object, secondly, that in the Scripture the Eucharist is
called bread, even after the consecration : " One body .... who all
partake of one bread" ( 1 Cor. x. 17) ; " Whosoever shall eat this
bread, or drink the Chalice of the Lord unworthily," &c. , (1 Cor.
xi. 27) ; the bread, therefore, remains. Such , however, is not the
case ; it is called bread, not because it retains the substance of
bread, but because the body of Christ is made from the bread. In
the Scriptures we find that those things which are miraculously
changed into other things are still called by the name of the thing
from which they were changed, as the water which was changed
into wine, by St. John , at the marriage of Cana in Galilee, was still
called water , even after the change : " When the chief stewart
had tasted the water made wine " (John, ii. 9) ; and in Exodus also
we read that the rod of Moses changed into a serpent was still
called a rod : " Aaron's rod devoured their rods " (Exod . vii . 12).
In like manner, then , the Eucharist is called bread after the conse-
cration, because it was bread before, and still retains the appearance
of bread. Besides, as the Eucharist is the food of the soul, it may
be justly called bread, as the Manna made by the angels is called
bread, that is, spiritual bread : " Man eat the bread of angels "
(Psalms , lxxvii . 25) . The sectarians, however, say, the body of
Christ cannot be broken, it is the bread alone that is broken, and
still St. Paul says : " And the bread which we break is it not the
partaking of the body of the Lord ?" (1 Cor. x. 16. ) We answer,
that the breaking is understood to refer to the species of the bread
which remain , but not to the body of the Lord , which, being
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 503

present in a sacramental manner, cannot be either broken or


injured.
31. They object , thirdly, that Christ says, in St. John : " I am
the bread of life " (John , vi. 48) ; still he was not changed into
bread. The very text, however, answers the objection itself. Our
Lord says : " I am the bread of life :" now the word " life " shows
that the expression must be taken not in a natural but a meta-
phorical sense . The words " This is my body " must, however, be
taken in quite another way ; in order that this proposition should
be true, it was necessary that the bread should be changed into the
body of Christ, and this is Transubstantiation , which is an article
of our Faith, and which consists in the conversion of the substance
of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ, so that in the
very instant in which the words of consecration are concluded , the
bread has no longer the substance of bread , but under its species
exists the body of the Lord. The conversion, then, has two
terms, in one of which it ceases to be, and in the other commences
to be, for otherwise , if the bread was first annihilated , and the body
then produced, it would not be a true conversion or Transubstantia-
tion. It is of no consequence to say that the word Transubstantia-
tion is new, and not found in the Scriptures, when the thing
signified , that is, the Eucharist, really exists. The Church has
always adopted new expressions, to explain more clearly the truths
of the Faith when attacked by heretics, as she adopted the word
Consubstantial to combat the heresy of Arius.

SEC. III. OF THE MANNER IN WHICH JESUS CHRIST IS IN THE EUCHARIST. THE
PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECTIONS OF THE SACRAMENTARIANS ANSWERED.

32. BEFORE we reply in detail to the philosophical objections of


the Sacramentarians relative to the manner in which the body of
Jesus Christ is in the Sacrament, we should reflect that the Holy
Fathers in matters of faith do not depend on philosophical princi-
ples, but on the authority of the Scriptures and the Church ,
knowing well that God can do many things which our weak reason
cannot comprehend. We never will be able to understand the
secrets of nature in created things ; how, then , can we comprehend
how far the power of the Almighty, the Creator of nature, itself,
extends ? We now come to their objections. First, they say that,
although God is omnipotent, he cannot do anything which is
repugnant in itself, but it is repugnant, they say, that Christ should
be in heaven and on earth, at the same time, really and truly, as
he is according to our belief, and not alone in one, but in many
places, at the same time. Hear what the Council of Trent says on
this subject (Sess . xiii. c. 1 ) : " Nec enim hæc inter se pugnant, ut
ipse Salvator noster semper ad dexteram Patris in cœlis assideat
juxta modum existendi naturalem ; et ut multis nihilominus aliis in
504 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

locis sacramentaliter præsens sua substantia nobis adsit, ex existendi


ratione ; quam etsi verbis exprimere vix possumus, possibilem tamen
esse Deo, cogitatione per fidem illustrata, assequi possumus, et con-
stantissime credere debemus." The Council, therefore, teaches that
the body of Jesus Christ is in heaven in a natural manner, but that
it is on earth in a sacramental or supernatural manner, which our
limited understanding cannot comprehend, no more than we can
understand how the three Divine Persons in the Trinity are the
same essence, or how, in the Incarnation of the Word in Jesus
Christ, there is but one Divine Person and two natures, the Divine
and human.
33. It is impossible, they say also, for a human body to be in
several places at once. We believe, however, that the body of
Christ is not multiplied in the Eucharist, for our Lord is not there
present definitively, or circumscribed to that place and to no other ,
but sacramentally, under the appearance of bread and wine, so that
wherever the species of the consecrated bread and wine are, there
Jesus Christ is present. The multiplicity of the presence of Christ,
therefore, does not proceed from the multiplication of his body in
many places, but from the multiplicity of the consecrations of the
bread and wine, performed by the priests in different places . But
how is it possible, say they, that the body of Christ can be in
several places at once, unless it is multiplied ? We answer, that
before our adversaries can prove this to be impossible, they should
have a perfect knowledge of place and of glorified bodies ; they
should know distinctly what place is, and what existence glorified
bodies have. When such knowledge, however, surpasses our weak
understandings , who shall have the hardihood to deny , that the
body of our Lord can be in several places at once, since God has
revealed in the Holy Scriptures that Jesus Christ really exists in
every consecrated Host ? But, they reply, we cannot understand
this. We answer again , that the Eucharist is a mystery of Faith ,
since our understanding cannot comprehend it, and as we never
can do So, it is rashness to say that it cannot be, when God has
revealed it, and when we know we cannot decide by reason what
is beyond the power of reason .
34. They assert , besides, that it is repugnant to reason to say
that the body of Jesus Christ exists under the species, without
extension or quantity , for both extension and quantity are essential
qualities of bodies, and God himself cannot deprive things of their
essences , therefore, say they , the body of Christ cannot exist with-
out filling a space corresponding to its quantity, and, therefore, it
cannot be in a small Host, and in every particle of the Host, as
Catholics believe. We reply to this, that although God cannot
deprive things of their essence, still he can deprive them of the
property of their essence ; he cannot take away from fire the essence
of fire, but he can deprive fire of the essential quality of burning,
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 505

as he did in the case of Daniel and his companions, who were un-
harined in the furnace. Thus , in like manner, though God cannot
make a body to exist without extension and quantity, still he can
make it, so that it will not occupy space, and that it will be entire
in every part of the sensible species which contain it as a substance ;
the body of Christ, therefore, into which the substance of the bread
is changed, does not occupy place, and is whole and entire in every
part of the species . Here is how St. Thomas explains it (1) :
" Tota substantia corporis Christi continetur in hoc Sacramento
post consecrationem, sicut ante consecrationem continebatur ibi
tota substantia panis. Propria autem totalitas substantiæ continetur
indifferenter in pauca vel magna quantitate , unde et tota substantia
corporis et sanguinis Christi continetur in hoc sacramento."
35. That being the case, it is not the fact that the body of
Christ in the Eucharist exists without quantity ; the whole quan-
tity is there, but in a supernatural not a natural manner . It does
not exist, then, circumscriptive, that is, according to the measure of
the proper quantity corresponding to the quantity of space ; but it
exists sacramentaliter-sacramentally, after the manner of a sub-
stance. Hence it is that Jesus Christ, in the Sacrament, does not
exercise any action dependent on the senses ; and although he
exercises the acts of the intellect and of the will, he does not exer-
cise the corporal acts of the sensitive life , which require a certain
sensible and external extension in the organs of the body.
36. Neither is it true that Jesus Christ exists in the Sacrament
without extension. His body is there, and it has extension ; but
this extension is not external , or sensible and local, but internal,
in ordine ad se, so that although all the parts are in the same place,
still one part is not confused with the other. Thus Jesus Christ
exists in the Sacrament with internal extension ; but as to external
and local extension , he is inextended , and indivisible , and whole,
and entire, in each particle of the Host , as a substance , as has been
already said, without occupying space. Hence it is, that as the
body of our Lord does not occupy space , it cannot be moved from one
place to another, but is moved only per accidens , when the species
are moved under which it is contained, just as happens to ourselves ,
that when our bodies are moved from one place to another, our
souls are also moved , per accidens, though the soul is incapable of
occupying any space. In fine, the Eucharist is a Sacrament of
Faith, mysterium Fidei, and as we cannot comprehend all the
matters of Faith , so we should not pretend to understand all that
Faith , through the Church, teaches us concerning this Sacrament.
37. But how, say they, can the accidents of bread and wine
exist without their substance, or subject, as it is called ? We
-
answer the question whether accidents are distinct from matter

(1) St. Thom. p. 3, q. 76, a. 1 .


506 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

has been already mooted ; the most general opinion is in the affir-
mative ; the Councils of Lateran, Florence, and Trent, however,
keeping clear of the controversy altogether, call the accidents
species. In the ordinary course of things these accidents , or species,
cannot exist without the subject, but they can in a supernatural
and extraordinary manner. In the ordinary course ofthings , hu-
manity cannot exist without its proper subsistence (subsistentia) ;
but notwithstanding, Faith teaches us that the humanity of Christ
had not human, but Divine subsistence, that is, the Person of the
Word. As the humanity of Christ, therefore, united to the Word
hypostatically, subsists without the human person , so, in the
Eucharist, the species can exist without the subject , that is, with-
out the substance of bread, because their substance is changed into
the body of Christ. These species, therefore, have nothing of
reality, but by Divine power they represent their former subject,
and appear still to retain the substance of bread and wine, and may
even become corrupted , and worms may be generated in them, but,
then, it is from a new matter, created by the Almighty, that these
worms spring, and Jesus Christ is no longer present, as St. Thomas
teaches (2) . As far as the sensations of our organs go, the body of
Christ in the Eucharist is neither seen nor touched by us imme-
diately in itself, but only through the medium of those species under
which it is contained , and it is thus we should understand the
words of St. John Chrysostom (3) : " Ecce eum vides, Ipsum tangis ,
Ipsum manducas."
38. It is, then, an article of faith , that Jesus Christ is perma-
nently in the Eucharist, and not alone in the use of the commu-
nion, as the Lutherans say, and this is the doctrine of the Council
of Trent, which also assigns the reason : " In Eucharistia ipse auctor
ante usum est, nondum enim Eucharistiam de manu Domini Apos-
toli susceperant, cum vere tamen ipse affirmavit corpus suum esse,
quod præbebat" (Sess. xiii. Cap. 3) . And as Jesus Christ is present
before the use of the Sacrament, so he is also present after it, as
the Fourth Canon expresses it : " Si quis dixerit......in Hostiis,
seu particulus consecratis, quæ post communionem reservantur, vel
supersunt, non remanere verum corpus Domini ; anathema sit."
39. This is proved , not alone by reason and authority, but by
the ancient practice of the Church, likewise ; for in the early ages,
on account of the persecution, the Holy Communion was given in
private houses and in caverns, as Tertullian testifies (4) : " Non
sciet Maritus, quid secreto ante omnem cibum gustes : et si sciverit
panem, non illum esse credat, qui dicitur." St. Cyprian (5) tells us,
that in his time the faithful used to bring home the Eucharist to
their houses , to communicate at the proper time. St. Basil ( 6) ,
(2) St. Thom. 3, p. qu. 76, a. 5, ad. 3. (3) St. Chrysost. Hom. 60, ad Pap.
(4) Tertul. l. 2, ad Uxor. c. 5. (5) St. Cypri. Tract. de Lapsis. (6) St. Basil, Ep.
289 ad Cesar. Patriciam.
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 507

writing to the Patrician Cesaria, exhorts her, that as she could not,
on account of the persecution , attend the public communion , she
should carry it along with her, to communicate in case of danger.
St. Justin, Martyr (7), mentions that the deacons used to carry the
communion to the absent. St. Iræneus ( 8 ) laments to Pope Victor,
that having omitted to celebrate the Pasch, he deprived several
priests of the communion on that account, who could not come to
the public meetings, and he therefore sent the Eucharist in sign of
peace to those who were prevented from attending : " Cum tamen
qui te præcesserunt, Presbyteris, quamvis id minime observarent,
Eucharistiam transmiserunt ." St. Gregory of Nazianzen ( 9 ) relates
that her sister Orgonia, standing with great faith nigh to the
Sacrament, which was concealed, was freed from a disease under
which she was labouring ; and St. Ambrose ( 10) tells us that St.
Satirus, having the Eucharist suspended round his neck, escaped
shipwreck .
40. Father Agnus Cirillo, in his work entitled " Ragguagli Teo-
logici" (p. 353), adduces several other examples to the same effect,
and proves that an anonymous author, who lately taught that it was
not lawful to give communion with particles previously consecrat-
ed, and preserved in the tabernacle, is totally wrong. The learned
Mabillon ( 11 ) shows that the practice of giving communion when
Mass was not celebrated had its origin in the Church of Jerusalem ,
and existed in the days of St. Cyril, as it was not possible to say
Mass each time that the numerous pilgrims frequenting the Holy
City required communion. From the Eastern this custom was in-
troduced into the Western Church, and Gregory XIII ., in 1584,
laid down in his Ritual the mode to be observed by the priest in
the administration of the holy communion, when Mass was not said.
This Ritual was confirmed , subsequently, by Paul V. , in 1614, and
in the chapter de Sac. Eucharis., it is ordered that " Sacerdos
curare debet, ut perpetuo aliquot particulæ consecratæ eo numero,
quæ usui infirmorum, et aliorum (mark this) Fidelium communioni
satis esse possint, conserventur in pixide." Benedict XIV. , in his
Encyclical Letter of the 12th November, 1742, approves of giving
communion when Mass is not celebrated : " De eodem Sacrificio
participant, præter eos quibus a sacerdote celebrante tribuitur in
ipsa Missa portio Victimæ a se oblatæ, ii etiam quibus sacerdos
Eucharistiam præservari solitam ministrat.”
41. We may as well remark here, that a certain decree of the
Congregation of Rites, dated 2nd September, 1741 , was circulated,
by which it was prohibited to give communion to the people at the
Masses for the dead, with pre-consecrated particles, and taking the
pixis from the tabernacle, because the usual benediction cannot be

(7) St. Justin. Apol. 2, p. 97. (8 ) St. Iren. Ep. ad Vic. Pon. (9) St. Greg.
Nazian. Orat. 11. (10) St. Ambr. Orat. de obitu fratris Satyri. (11) Mabill.
Liturg. Gallic. l. 2, c. 9, n. 26.
508 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

given in black vestments to those who communicate ; but Father


Cirillo (p. 368 ) says that this decree is not obligatory, as it was not
sanctioned by the reigning Pope, Benedict XIV . There is, cer-
tainly, one very strong argument in his favour, and it is this, that
Benedict, while Archbishop of Bologna, in his work on the Sacri-
fice of the Mass, approved ofthe opinion of the learned Merati , that
communion might be given, at the Masses for the dead, with pre-
consecrated particles, and when he was afterwards Pope, and re-
composed the same treatise on the Sacrifice of the Mass, he never
thought of retracting his opinion , which he would have done had
he considered the decree we mentioned valid , and he would have
given it his approbation , as published during his Pontificate.
Father Cirillo adds, that one of the consultors of the congregation
told him that, although the decree was drawn up, yet several of the
consultors refused to sign it, and thus it was held in abeyance , and
never published.
42. To come back to the sectaries who deny the Real Presence
of Jesus Christ, unless in the use alone, I know not how they can
answer the First Council of Nice, which ordains ( Can. 13), that
communion should be administered to the dying at all times, and
it would be impossible to do that if the Eucharist was not preserved .
The Fourth Council of Lateran expressly ordains the same thing
(Can. 20) : " Statuimus quod in singulis Ecclesiis Chrisma, et Eu-
charistia sub fideli custodia conserventur ;" and this was confirmed
by the Council of Trent (Sess. xiii. c. 6). From the earliest ages
the Greeks preserved the Eucharist in silver ciboriums, made in the
form of a dove, or of a little tower, and suspended over the altar, as
is proved from the life of St. Basil, and the testament of Perpetuus,
Bishop of Durs ( 12) .
43. Our adversaries object that Nicephorus ( 13 ) relates, that in
the Greek Church it was the custom to give the children the frag-
ments that remained after communion ; therefore, they say, the
Eucharist was not preserved . We answer, that this was not done
every day, only on Wednesdays and Fridays, when the pixis was
purified ; and it was, therefore, preserved on the other days, and,
besides, particles were always preserved for the sick. They object ,
besides, that the words, " This is my body," were not pronounced
by Christ before the manducation, but after it, as appears from
St. Matthew (xxvi . 26 ) : " Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke ;
and gave to his disciples, and said : Take ye, and eat : This is my
body." We answer, with Bellarmin , that in this text the order of
the words is not to be regarded , for the order is different with each
of the Evangelists . St. Mark, speaking of the consecration of the
chalice, says (xiv. 23 , 24) : " Having taken the chalice ...... they
all drank of it. And he said to them : This is my blood ." Now,

( 12) Tournelly, t. 2, de Euch. p. 165, n. 5. (13) Niceph. Histor. l . 17, c. 25.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 509

it would appear from this, also, that the words, " This is my blood,"
were said after the sumption of the chalice ; but the context of all
the Evangelists shows that both " This is my body," and " This is
my blood," was said by our Lord before he gave them the species
of bread and wine.

SEC. IV. THE MATTER AND FORM OF THE SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST.

44. As to the matter of the Eucharist, there is no doubt but that


we should use that alone which was used by Jesus Christ—that is ,
bread of wheat, and wine of the vine, as we learn from St. Matthew
(xxv. 26), St. Mark ( xiv. 12 ) , St. Luke (xxii . 19) , and St. Paul
(1 Cor. xi . 27) . This is what the Catholic Church has always
done, and condemned those who dared to make use of any other
matter, as is proved in the third Council of Carthage (c. 27) , which
was held in the year 397. Estius ( 1 ) says that consecration can be
performed with any sort of bread- wheaten, barley, oaten , or mil-
let ; but St. Thomas (2 ) writes, that it is with bread of wheat alone
it can be done, but still that bread made of a sort of rye, which
grows from wheat sown in poor soil , is also matter for the consecra-
tion : " Et ideo si qua frumenta sunt, quæ ex semine tritici generari
possunt, sicut ex grano tritici seminato malis terris nascitur siligo ,
ex tali frumento panis confectus potest esse materia hujus Sacra-
menti." He , therefore , rejected all other bread, and this is the only
opinion we can follow in practice . Doctors have disputed , as we
may see in the works of Mabillon, Sirmond, Cardinal Bona, and
others, whether unleavened bread , such as the Latins use, or
leavened bread, as used by the Greeks, is the proper matter for the
Sacrament. There is not the least doubt but that the consecration
is valid in either one or the other ; but, at present, the Latins are
prohibited from consecrating in leavened , and the Greeks in un-
leavened bread, according to a Decree of the Council of Florence ,
in 1429 : " Definimus in azimo , sive in fermentato pane triticeo
Corpus Christi veraciter confici , Sacerdotesque in alterutro ipsum
Domini Corpus conficere debent, unumquenque scilicet juxta suæ
Ecclesiæ Occidentalis , sive Orientalis consuetudinem ." The matter
of the consecration of the blood should be common wine, pressed
from ripe grapes ; and , therefore, the liquor expressed from unripe
grapes, boiled wine , or that which has become vinegar, cannot be
used. Must, however, or the unfermented juice of the grape, will
answer ; but it should not be used without necessity.
45. As to the quantity of bread and wine to be consecrated , it is
quite sufficient that it be apparent to the senses, be it ever so little ;
it must, however, be certain, and of a known quantity, and morally
present. According to the intention of the Church, and as St.

(1) Estius, in 4, dist. 8, c. 6. (2) St. Thom. q. 74, art. 3, ad 2.


510 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Thomas teaches (3), a greater number of particles should not be


consecrated than is sufficient to give communion to that number of
people who are expected to receive within the time that the species
would keep without corrupting. From this Peter de Marca con-
cludes (4), that it is not in the power of a priest to consecrate all
the bread in a shop, for example ; the consecration in this case, he
says, would be invalid, though others assert it would only be illicit.
Theologians also dispute of the validity of consecration , when per-
formed for the purposes of witchcraft, or to expose the Host to the
insult of unbelievers.
46. We now have to treat of the form of the Eucharist. Lu-
ther (5) says, that the words of Christ alone, " This is my body,"
are not sufficient to consecrate, but that the whole liturgy must be
recited. Calvin ( 6) said , that the words were not necessary at all
for consecration , but only to excite faith. Some Greek schismatics,
Arcudius (7) informs us, said that the words, " This is," &c. , being
once expressed by Christ, were sufficient in themselves to consecrate
all the Hosts offered up ever after.
47. Some Catholics taught that Christ consecrated the Eucharist
by his occult benediction, without any words at all, by the excel-
lence of his power ; but ordained the form, at the same time , for
man to use in consecration. This opinion was held by Duran-
dus ( 8), Innocent III. (9) , and especially by Catherinus ( 10) , but
as Cardinal Gotti ( 11 ) informs us, it is now not held by any one,
and some even say it was branded as rashness to hold it. The true
and general doctrine is, as St. Thomas teaches ( 12) , that Jesus
Christ consecrated, when he expressed the words, " This is my
body, this is my blood," and that the priest, at the present day,
consecrates in the same manner, expressing the same words, in the
person of Christ, and this not historically narrative, but signifi-
cantly significative—that is, by applying this meaning to the matter
before him, as the generality of Doctors teach with St. Thomas (13) .
48. Catherinus says, also, that besides the words of our Lord, it
is necessary, in order to consecrate, to add the prayers which, in the
Latin Church, precede, and in the Greek, follow, the act ; and the
learned Oratorian, Father Le Brun ( 14) , follows this opinion, like-
wise. The general opinion of theologians agreeing with St.
Thomas ( 15) , is, that Christ consecrated with the very same words
as priests do at present, and that the prayers of the Canon of the
Mass are obligatory , but not necessary for consecration , so that it
would be valid without them. The Council of Trent (Sess. xiii. c. 1)
declares that our Saviour, " Post panis vinique benedictionem se

(3) St. Thom. 3, p. q. 73, art. 2. (4) Petr. de Marca Diss. posthuma de Sacrif. Missa.
(5) Luther, 7 de Abrog. Missa. (6) Calvin, Inst. 4, c. 17, sec. 39. (7) Arcud.
3, c. 28. (8) Durand. l. 4, de Div. Offic. c. 41, n. 13. (9) Innoc. III. l. 4,
Myst. c. 6. (10) Ap. Tournelly Comp. de Euch. qu. 4, a. 6, p. 184. (11) Gotti,
Theol. de Euch. qu. 2, sec. 1 , n. 2. (12) St. Thom. 3, p. q. 78, a. 1. (13 ) St. Thom.
loc. cit. a. 5. ( 14) Le Brun, t. 3, rer. Liturg. p. 212. (15) St. Thom. 3,
p. q. 78, a. 5.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 511

suum ipsius corpus illis præbere, ac suum sanguinem disertis ac


perspicuis verbis testatus est ; quæ verba a sanctis Evangelistis
commemorata, et a D. Paulo postea repetita, cum propriam illam et
apertissimam significationem præ se ferant, secundum quam a Pa-
tribus intellecta sunt," &c. Were not the words, " Take and eat ;
this is my body," as the Evangelists inform us, clearly demonstrative
that Christ gave his disciples his body to eat ? It was by these
words, then, and no other, that he converted the bread into his
body, as St. Ambrose writes ( 16) : " Consecratio igitur quibus ver-
bis est, et cujus sermonibus ? Domini Jesu. Nam reliqua omnia,
quæ dicuntur, laudem Deo deferunt ; oratio præmittitur pro Popolo
pro Regibus, pro ceteris ; ubi venitur ut conficiatur venerabile Sa-
cramentum, jam non suis sermonibus Sacerdos, sed utitur sermoni-
bus Christi." St. John Chrysostom (17) , speaking of the same
words, says : " Hoc verbum Christi transformat ea, quæ proposita
sunt." And St. John of Damascus says : " Dixit pariter Deus, Hoc
est corpus meum, ideoque omnipotenti ejus præcepto, donec veniat,
efficitur."
49. The same Council ( Cap. 3) says : " Et semper hæc fides in
Ecclesia Dei fuit, statim post consecrationem verum Domini nostri
Corpus, verumque ejus sanguinem sub panis et vini specie.....
existere......ex vi verborum." Therefore, by the power of the
words-that is, the words mentioned by the Evangelist- instantly
after the consecration , the bread is converted into the body, and
the wine into the blood of Jesus Christ. There is a great
difference between the two sentences, " This is my body," and
"We beseech thee that the body of Jesus Christ may be made for
us," or, as the Greeks say, " Make this bread the body of Christ ;"
for the first shows that the body of Christ is present at the very
moment in which the sentence is expressed, but the second is only
a simple prayer, beseeching that the oblation may be made the
body, not in a determinative , but a suspended and expectative
sense. The Council says that the conversion of the bread and
wine into the body and blood of Christ takes place vi verborum ,
not vi orationum, by the power of the words, and not by the
power of the prayers. St. Justin says ( 18) : " Eucharistiam confici
per preces ab ipso Verbo Dei profectas ;" and he afterwards explains
that these prayers are: " This is my body ;" but the prayer in the
Canon was not pronounced by the Word of God himself. St.
Iræneus ( 19 ) says, also : " Quando mixtus calix et factus panis
percipit verbum Dei, fit Eucharistia corporis Christi." We do
not find that Christ, in consecrating, used any other words but
those : " This is my body, and this is my blood." Taking all this
into consideration, we must decide that the opinion of Le Brun
has not a sound foundation of probability.
(16) St. Ambrose, de Sacramen. l. 4, c. 4. (17) St. Chrysost. Hom. 1 de Prod. Judæ.
(18) St. Justin, Apol. 2. (19) St. Iræn. l. 5, c. 2.
512 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

50 Several Fathers (say the supporters of this opinion ) teach


that the Eucharist is consecrated both by prayer and by the words
of Christ . We answer, that by the word prayer they mean the
very expression " This is my body," used by Christ, as St. Jus-
tin (20 ) expressly states, that the prayer by which the Eucharist is
consecrated is the words, " This is my body," &c. St. Iræneus
had previously said the same (21 ) , that the Divine invocation by
which the Eucharist is made is the Divine Word . St. Augus-
tin (22) says that the mystic prayer (23) by which the Eucharist is
made consists in the words of Christ, " This is my body," &c., as
the forms of the other Sacraments are called prayers, because they
are holy words which have the power of obtaining from God the
effect of the Sacraments. They object to us, also , some Liturgies,
as those of St. James, St. Mark, St. Clement, St. Basil, and St.
John Chrysostom , which would make it appear that besides the
words of Christ other prayers are requisite for consecration, as we
have in the Canon : " Quæsumus. .....ut nobis corpus, et sanguis
fiat delectissimi Filii tui," &c. The same prayer is also used in
the Greek Mass , but, as Bellarmin writes (24), when the Greeks
were asked by Eugenius IV. what was the reason that they used
the prayer "that this may become the body," &c. , after having
already expressed the words of consecration , " This is my body,
&c., they answered that they added this prayer, not to confirm the
consecration , but that the Sacrament might assist the salvation of
the souls of those who received it.
51. Theologians ( 25 ) say, notwithstanding, that it is not an
article of Faith that Christ did consecrate with these words , and
ordained that with these words alone priests should consecrate,
for although this is the generalopinion, and most consonant with
the sentiments of the Council of Trent, still it is not anywhere
declared to be an article of Faith by the Canon of the Church ;
and although the Holy Fathers have given it the weight of their
authority, they have never laid it down as a matter of Faith.
Salmeron mentions (loc. cit.) that the Council of Trent being
entreated to explain the form with which Christ consecrated this
Sacrament, the Fathers judged it better not to define anything on
the subject. Tournelly ( 26) replies to all the objections made by
those who wish to make it a matter of Faith. If it is not a matter of
Faith, however, still , as St. Thomas teaches, it is morally certain ( 27 ),
and we cannot even say that the contrary opinion is probable.
The priest, then, would commit a most grievous sin , if he omitted
the preceding prayers, but still his consecration would be valid.

(20) St. Justin Apol. 2. (21 ) St. Iren. l. 4, c. 24, & l. 3, c. 2. (22) St. Aug.
Serm. 28, de Verb. Do. (23) Idem, de Trinit . c. 4. (24) Bellar. 7. 4, de Euchar.
c. 19. (25) Salmeron. t. 9, trac. 13, p. 88 ; Tournell. de Euchar. 9, 4, a. 6, vers.
Quær. (26) Tournell. loc. cit. p. 191, v. Dices. 1. (27) St. Thom. 3, p. 9, 78,
a. 1 , ad 4.
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 513

It is debated among authors, whether any words unless these ,


" This is the Chalice of my blood," though the remainder is laid
down in the Missal, are essentially necessary for the consecration
of the blood. In our Moral Theology ( 28 ) the reader will find
the point discussed. Several hold the affirmative opinion , and
quote St. Thomas in their favour, who says ( 29) : " Et ideo illa
quæ sequuntur sunt essentialia sanguini, prout in hoc Sacramento
consecratur, et ideo oportet, quod sint de substantia Formæ :" the
opposite opinion, however, is more generally followed , and those
who hold it deny that it is opposed to the doctrine of St. Thomas,
for he says that the subsequent words appertain to the substance
but not to the essence of the form , and hence they conclude that
these words do not belong to the essence, but only to the integrity
of the form, so that the priest who would omit them would commit
a grievous sin undoubtedly, but still would validly consecrate.
52. We should remark here that the Council of Trent (Sess.
xxii . ) condemned in nine Canons nine errors of the Reformers
concerning the Sacrifice of the Mass, as follows : First.- that the
Mass is not a true Sacrifice, and that it is only offered up to ad-
minister the Eucharist to the Faithful. Second.-That by these
words, " Do this in commemoration of me, " Christ did not institute
the Apostles priests, or ordain that the priests should offer up his
body and blood. Third. That the Mass is only a thanksgiving or
remembrance of the Sacrifice of the Cross, but not a propitiatory
Sacrifice, or that it is useful only to those who communicate at it.
Fourth. That this Sacrifice is derogatory to the Sacrifice of the
Cross . Fifth. That it is an imposture to celebrate Mass in honour
of the Saints, and to obtain their intercession . Sixth -That there
are errors in the Canon . Seventh.- That the ceremonies, vest-
ments, and signs used in the Catholic Church are incentives to
impiety. Eighth.- That private Masses, in which the priest alone
communicates, are unlawful. Ninth. That the practice of saying
part of the Canon in a low voice should be condemned ; that it all
ought to be said in the vulgar tongue, and that the mixture of
water with the wine in the Chalice should also be condemned.
All these errors I have refuted in my work against the Reformers.

(28) Liguor. Theol. Moral. t. 2, dub. 6 , de Euch., &c. (29) St. Thom. in 4 Dist. 8,
q. 2, ar. 2, q. 2.

2 K
514 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

REFUTATION XI .

ERRORS OF LUTHER AND CALVIN.

SUMMARY OF THE PRINCIPAL POINTS.


1. Free Will exists. 2. The Divine Law is not impossible. 3. Works are necessary
4. Faith alone does not justify us. 5. Of the Uncertainty of Justification, Persever-
ance, and eternal Salvation. 6. God is not the Author of Sin. 7. God predestines
no one to Hell. 8. Infallibility of General Conncils.

SEC. I.- OF FREE WILL.

1. I HAVE already stated in this work ( 1 ), that the errors of


Luther, Calvin, and their disciples, who have added error to error,
are almost innumerable ; and in particular, as Prateolus remarks ,
in the Calvinistic heresy alone two hundred and seven errors
against Faith are enumerated, and another author brings them up
even to fourteen hundred. I, however, refute only the principal
errors of Luther, Calvin, and the other Reformers, for the refuta-
tion of their other erroneous opinions will be found in Bellarmin,
Gotti, and several other authors. One of Calvin's chief heresies
was, that Adam alone had free will, but that by his sin not alone
he, but all his posterity, lost it, so that free will is only titulus sine
re. This error was specially condemned by the Council of Trent
(Sess. vi. c. 5) : " Si quis hominis arbitrium post Adæ peccatum
amissum et extinctum esse dixerit, aut rem esse de solo titulo, imo
titulum sine re, figmentum denique a Satana invectum in Ecclesiam,
anathema sit."
2. Free will consists of two sorts of liberty, Contradictionis, by
which we can either do anything or let it alone, and Contrarietatis,
by which we have the power of doing anything, and also doing
the opposite, as of doing what is good and doing what is bad. Man
has retained both species of free will, as the Scriptures prove.
First. As to the liberty of Contradiction , to do or not to do what
is right, we have several texts to prove it. For example, in
Ecclesiasticus (xv. 14, 16) : " God made man from the beginning,
and left him in the hands of his own counsel. He added his com-
mandments and precepts. If thou wilt keep the commandments ....
for ever, ...they shall preserve thee ;" " It shall depend on the
will of her husband whether she shall do it or do it not " (Numb.
xxx. 14 ; " He could have transgressed, and hath not transgressed,
and could do evil things and hath not done them " (Eccles. xxxi .
10) ; " Whilst it remained did it not remain to thee, and after it
was sold was it not in thy power ?" ( Acts, v. 4) ; " The lust thereof
shall be unto thee , and thou shalt have dominion over it " ( Gen.

(1) Cap. xi. Cent. xvi. ar. 3.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 515

iv. 7). Many texts, likewise, prove the liberty of Contrariety:


" I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing " (Deut.
xxx. 19 ) ; " Before man is life and death, good and evil ; that
which he shall choose shall be given unto him" (Eccl. xv . 18 ) .
And lest our adversaries should say that those texts apply to man
only in a state of innocence, we will quote others, which speak of
him without doubt after the fall : " But if it seem evil to you to
serve the Lord, you have your choice ; choose this day whom you
would rather serve, whether the Gods," &c., (Jos. xxiv. 15 ) ; " If
any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his
cross, and follow me " (Luke , ix . 23) ; " For he hath determined ,
being steadfast in his heart, having no necessity, but having power
of his own will " ( 1 Cor. vii. 37) ; " And I gave her a time , that
she might do penance , and she will not repent " ( Apoc . ii. 21 ) ; " If
any man shall hear my voice , and open to me the door, I will come
in to him " (Apoc . iii . 20 ) . There are many other texts of a like
nature, but these are sufficient to prove that man has preserved his
free will after the fall. Luther objects that text of Isaias (xli. 23 ) :
" Do also good or evil, if you can," but he ought to remember that
in the text the Prophet is speaking not of man , but of idols, which,
as David said , could do nothing : " They have mouths and speak
not, they have eyes and see not " (Psalms, exiii . 5) .
3. That being the case , it is not enough, as Luther, Calvin, and
the Jansenists say, to have the liberty coactionis, that is, freedom
from restraint, that our actions may be meritorious or otherwise.
This is exactly the third proposition of Jansenius, condemned as
heretical : " Ad merendum, et demerendum in statu naturæ lapsæ
non requiritur in homine libertas a necessitate, sed sufficit libertas a
coactione." Inthis manner we might say that even the beasts have
free will, since, without any violence, they are carried on spon-
taneously (after their way) to seek the pleasures of sense . It is
necessary, however, for the true liberty of man , that he should have
the liberty necessitatis , so that he may choose whatever he pleases,
as St. Paul ( 1 Cor. vii . 37) says, " having no necessity, but having
the power of his own will," and it is this will that is required both
for merit and demerit. St. Augustin, speaking of sin ( 2 ), says :
" Peccatum usque adeo voluntarium (that is free, as he afterwards
explains it) malum est, ut nullo modo sit peccatum si non sit volun-
tarium." And the reason is, says the saint, that God judged that
his servants would be better if they served him freely ; " Servos
suos meliores esse Deus judicavit , si ei servirent liberaliter, quod
nullo modo fieri posset, si non voluntate , sed necessitate servirent."
4. They say that it is God who operates in us all the good which
we perform, as the Scriptures teach ( 1 Cor. xii. 6) : " The same
God who worketh all in all ;" " Thou hast wrought all our works

(2) St. Aug. l. de Ver. Rel. c. 14.


516 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

for us" (Isaias , xxvi . 12 ) ; “ And I will cause you to walk in my


commandments" ( Ezechiel , xxxvi. 27 ). We answer, that there is
no doubt but that free will after the fall was not , indeed , extin-
guished , but still was weakened , and inclined to evil, as the Council
of Trent teaches : " Tametsi in eis liberum arbitrium minime
extinctum esset, viribus licet attenuatum, et inclinatum" ( Sess. vi.
cap. 1 ) . There is no doubt that God operates everything good in
us ; but, at the same time, he does along with us , as St. Paul
what I am ....
(1 Cor. xv. 10) says : " By the grace of God I am
but the grace of God with me." Mark this " the grace of God
with me . God excites us to do what is good by his preventing
grace, and helps us to bring it to perfection by his assisting grace ;
but he wishes that we should unite our endeavours to his grace, and,
Be con-
therefore, exhorts us to co-operate as much as we can : "
verted to me" (Zach . i. 3) ; " Make unto yourselves a new heart"
(Ezech . xviii. 31 ) ; " Mortify, therefore, your members ... .
stripping yourselves of the old man with his deeds, and putting on
the new" (Col. iii. 5 , &c . ) He also reproves those who refuse to
obey his call : " I called , and you refused” ( Prov. i . 24 ) ; “ How often
would I have gathered together thy children .... and thou wouldst
not ( Matt. xxiii . 37 ) ; " You always resist the Holy Ghost" (Acts ,
vii. 51 ). All these Divine calls and reprovals would be vain and
unjust if God did everything regarding our eternal salvation , with-
out any co-operation on our part ; but such is not the case. God
does all, and whatever good we do , the greater part belongs to him ;
but still it is his will that we labour a little ourselves, as far as we
can, and hence, St. Paul says : " I have laboured more abundantly
than all they, yet not I , but the grace of God with me" (1 Cor.
xv. 10). By this Divine grace , therefore , we are not to understand
that habitual grace which sanctifies the soul, but the actual pre-
venting and helping grace which enables us to perform what is
right, and when this grace is efficacious, it not only gives us strength
to do so, in the same manner as sufficient grace does, but more- it
makes us actually do what is right. From this first error, then,
that free will is extinguished in man by sin, the Innovators deduce
other erroneous doctrines- that it is impossible for us to observe
the laws of the Decalogue ; that works are not necessary for salva-
tion, but only faith alone ; that our co-operation is not required for
the justification ofthe sinner, for that is done by the merits of Christ
alone, although man should still continue in sin. We shall treat of
those errors immediately.

SECT. IL - THAT IT IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE TO OBSERVE THE DIVINE LAW.

5. Man having lost his free will , the sectarians say that it is im-
possible for him to observe the precepts of the Decalogue, and
especially the first and tenth commandments. Speaking of the tenth
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 517

commandment, " Thou shalt not covet," &c. , non concupisces , they
say it is quite impossible to observe it, and they found the impossi-
bility on a fallacy. Concupiscence, they say, is itself a sin , and
hence, they assert that not alone motions of concupiscence, in
actu secundo, which precede consent, are sinful, but also move-
ments in actu primo, which precede reason , or advertence itself.
Catholics, however, teach, that movements of concupiscence , in actu
primo, which precede advertence, are neither mortal nor venial sins,
but only natural defects proceeding from our corrupt nature, and
for which God will not blame us. The movements which precede
consent are at most only venial sins, when we are careless about
banishing them from our minds after we perceive them, as Gerson
and the Salmanticenses, following St. Thomas , teach , for in that
case the danger of consenting to the evil desired, by not positively
resisting and banishing that motion of concupiscence, is only remote,
and not proximate . Doctors, however, usually except movements
of carnal delectation , for then it is not enough to remain passive ,
negative se habere, as theologians say, but we should make a posi-
tive resistance, for, otherwise, if they are any way violent, there is
great danger of consenting to them. Speaking of other matters,
however, the consenting alone ( as we have said) to the desire of
a grievous evil is a mortal sin. Now, taking the commandment in
this sense, no one can deny that with the assistance of Divine grace,
which never fails us, it is impossible to observe it. If one adver-
tently consents to a wicked desire, or takes morose delectation in
thinking on it, he is then guilty of a grievous, or, at all events, of
a light fault, for our Lord himself says : " Follow not in thy strength
the desires of thy heart" (Eccl. v. 2) ; " Go not after thy lusts"
(Eccl. xviii . 30) ; " Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal
body, so as to obey the lusts thereof" ( Rom. vi. 12) . I have used
the expression a light fault, because the delectation of a bad object
is one thing; the thought of a bad object another : this delectation
of thought is not mortally sinful in itself, but only venially so ; and
even if there be a just cause, it is no sin at all. This, however,
must be understood to be the case only when we abominate the
evil object, and besides, that the consideration of it should be of
some utility to us, and that the consideration of it should not lead
us to take pleasure in the evil object, because if there was a proxi-
mate danger ofthis, the delectation would , in that case, be grievously
sinful . When then , on the other hand, concupiscence assaults us
against our will , then there is no sin , for God only obliges us to do
what is in our power. Man is composed of the flesh and the spirit,
which are always naturally at war with each other ; and hence, it
is not in our power not to feel many times movements opposed to
reason. Would not that master be a tyrant who would command
his servant not to feel thirst or cold ? In the law of Moses punish-
ment was imposed only on actual external crimes, and hence the
518 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Scribes and Pharisees drew a false conclusion, that internal sins


were not prohibited ; but in the New Law our Redeemer has ex-
plained that even wicked desires are forbidden : " You have heard
that it was said to them of old : Thou shalt not commit adultery ;
but I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after
her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matt.
v. 27, 28) . This stands to reason, for if we do not reject evil desires,
it would be very difficult to avoid actual external sins ; but when
these desires are rejected , they are a matter of merit to us, instead of
deserving of punishment. St. Paul deplored that he was tormented
with carnal temptations, and prayed to God to free him from them,
but was answered that his grace alone was sufficient : " There was
given to me a sting of my flesh, an angel of Satan to buffet me,
which thing thrice I besought the Lord that it might depart from
me, and he said to me : My grace is sufficient for thee, for power is
made perfect in infirmity" (2 Cor. xii . 7, &c. ) Mark here, " " power
is made perfect," which proves that when evil desires are rejected,
they increase, instead of weakening our virtue. Here we should
also take occasion to remark, that the Apostle says that God does
not permit that we should be tempted beyond our strength : " God
is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which
you are able" ( 1 Cor. x. 12).
6. They also assert that it is impossible to observe the first com-
mandment : " Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart." How
is it possible, says Calvin, for us, living in a state of corruption, to
keep our hearts continually occupied with the Divine love ? Cal-
vin understands the commandment in this way, but St. Augustin ( 1)
does not, for he counsels us that we cannot observe it as to the
words, but we can as to the obligation. We fulfil this command-
ment by loving God above all things, that is, by preferring the
Divine grace to everything created . The angelic Doctor, St.
Thomas ( 2) teaches the same. We observe, he says, the precept of
loving God with all our hearts, when we love him above everything
else : " Cum mandatur, quod Deum ex toto corde diligamus, datur
intelligi, quod Deum super omnia debemus diligere." The substance
of the first commandment, then, consists in the obligation of pre-
ferring God above all things else, and , therefore , Jesus says that
" he who loves father or mother more than me ... is not worthy of
me" (Matt. x. 37) . And St. Paul, confiding in the Divine grace,
says that he is certain that nothing created could separate him from
the love of God : " For I am sure that neither death , nor life , nor
angels, nor principalities ...nor any other creature, shall be able to
separate us from the love of God" ( Rom. viii. 38 , 39 ) . Calvin (3 )
not alone taught the impossibility of observing the first and tenth

(1) St. Aug. 1. de Sp. & Lit. c. 1 , & l. de Perf. just. Resp. (2 ) St. Thom. 2, 2 qu. 44,
art. 8, ad 2. (3) Calvin in Antid. Con. Trid. Sess. vi. c. 12.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 519

commandments, but even that the observance of any of the others


was impossible.
7. They object , first, that St. Peter said, in the Council of Jeru-
salem : " Now, therefore, why tempt you God to put a yoke upon
the necks of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we have
been able to bear" (Acts, xv. 10) . Here the Apostle himself de-
clares that the observance of the law is impossible. We answer,
that St. Peter here does not speak of the moral, but of the cere-
monial law, which should not be imposed on Christians , since the
Hebrews themselves found it so difficult, that very few of them
observed it, though several, however, did so, as St. Luke tells us
that St. Zachary and St. Elizabeth did : " They were both just be-
fore God, walking in all the commandments and justifications of the
Lord, without blame" (Luke, i . 6) .
8. They object, secondly, that text of the Apostle : " For I
know that there dwelleth not in me, that is to say, in my flesh , that
which is good . For to will, is present with me ; but to accomplish
that which is good, I find not" (Romans, vii . 18 ) . Now, when he
says "that there dwelleth not in me that which is good" he tells us
that the law cannot be observed ; but we should not separate that
passage from what follows : " that is to say, in my flesh ." What
St. Paul means to say is, that the flesh is opposed to the spirit, and
no matter how good our will may be, we never can be exempt
from every movement of concupiscence ; but these movements, as
we have already said, do not prevent us from observing the law.
9. They object, thirdly, that St. John says : " If we say we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us"
(1 John, i. 8) . We answer that the Apostle does not mean by that,
that it is impossible for us to observe the commandments , so that no
one can escape falling into mortal sin , but that on account of the
present weakness of corrupt nature, no one is exempt from venial
sins, as the Council of Trent declared ( Sess. vi. cap. 11 ) : " Licet
enin in hac mortali vita quantumvis sancti, et justi in levia saltem ,
et quotidiana, quæ etiam venialia dicuntur peccata, quandoque
cadant, non propterea desinunt esse justi."
10. They object, fourthly, that St. Paul says : " Christ has
redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us"
(Gal . iii. 13). Therefore, say our adversaries, Christ, by the merits
of his death, has exempted us from the obligation of observing the
law. We answer : It is quite a different thing to say that Christ
has freed us from the malediction of the law, since his grace gives
us strength to observe, and thus avoid the malediction fulminated
by the law against its transgressors , and to assert that he has freed
us from the observance of the law, which is totally false.
11. They object , fifthly, that the Apostle says, in another place :
" Knowing this, that the law is not made for the just man , but for 22
the unjust and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners
520 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

( 1 Tim. i. 9) . Joining this passage with the other just quoted,


they say that our Redeemer has freed us from the obligation of
observing the commandments, and that when he told the young
man (Matt. xix . 17), " If you wish to enter into eternal life, keep
the commandments," he only spoke ironically, as much as to say,
66
Keep them if you can," knowing that it was quite impossible for
a child of Adam to observe them. We answer, with St. Thomas (4) ,
that the law, as to the directive power, is given both to the just
and to the unjust, to direct all men as to what they ought to do ;
but as to the co-active power, the law is not imposed on those who
voluntarily observe it without being constrained to observe it, but
on the wicked who wish to withdraw themselves from it, for it is
these alone should be constrained to observe it. The explanation
of the text, " Keep the commandments," given by the Reformers,
that Christ spoke ironically, is not only heretical, but totally op-
posed to common sense and Scripture, and is not worth an answer.
The true doctrine in this matter is that of the Council of Trent (5) :
" Deus impossibilia non jubet, sed jubendo monet, et facere quod
possis, et petere quod non possis, et adjuvat ut possis" (Sess. vi .
c. 13). He, therefore, gives to every one the ordinary grace to
observe the commandments, and whenever a more abundant grace
is required, if we pray to him for it, we are sure of obtaining it.
12. This was the answer of St. Augustin to the Adrometines,
who objected to him, that if God does not give us sufficient grace
to observe the law, he should not chastise us for violating it : " Cur
me corripis ? et non potius Ipsum rogas, ut in me operetur et
velle" (6 ). And the Saint answers : " Qui corrigi non vult, et
dicit, Ora potius pro me ; ideo corripiendus est, ut faciat (id est
oret) etiam ipse pro se." Therefore, says St. Augustin , although man
does not receive efficacious grace from God to fulfil the law, still
he should be punished , and commits a sin by violating it, because,
having it in his power to pray, and by prayer obtain more abun-
dant assistance to enable him to observe it, he neglects to pray, and
thus does not observe the law. It would be quite otherwise , if it
were not granted to all to pray , and , by prayer, obtain strength to
do what is right. But another efficacious grace is necessary to pray,
and, in my opinion , St. Augustin would not have answered the
Adrometines rationally, that man should be punished if he did not
pray for himself, for they might in that case answer him, how can
he pray, if he have not efficacious grace to pray ?

SEC. III. THAT GOOD WORKS ARE NECESSARY FOR SALVATION, AND THAT FAITH
ALONE IS NOT SUFFICIENT.

13. LUTHER said that, not alone the works of infidels and sinners

(4) St. Thom. 1, 2 , qu. 96, art. 5. (5) Ap. St. Aug. de Corrept. et Grat. t. 10, c. 4 ,
n. 6, in fine. (6) St. Aug. ibid. c. 5, n. 7.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 521

were of no use, but that even works performed by the just are
mere sins, or, at all events, vitiated by sin. Here are his words :
" In omni opere bono justus peccat ( 1 ) . Opus bonum, optime
factum, est mortale peccatum secundum judicium Dei ( 2 ) . Justus
in bono opere peccat mortaliter" (3) . Becanus ( 4) says that Calvin
taught the same, that the works of the just are nothing but iniquity.
O, my God, how blind is the human understanding, when it loses
the light of Faith ! This blasphemy of Luther and Calvin was
properly condemned by the Council of Trent ( Sess. vi. Can. 22) :
" Si quis in quodlibet bono opere justum saltem venialiter peccare
dixerit, aut quod intolerabilius est, mortaliter, atque ideo pœnas
æternas mereri ; tantumque ob id non damnari, quia Deus ea opera
non imputet ad damnationem ; anathema sit." They quote Isaias,
however, who says (lxiv. 6) : " And we have all become as one
unclean, and all our justices," &c. But, as St. Cyril explains this
text, the Prophet here is not speaking of the works of the just, but
of the iniquity of the Jews of that day. How could good works
possibly be sinful, when Christ exhorts us to perform them : " Let
your light shine before men , that they may see your good works"
(Matt. v. 16 ) . They are not sins ; but, on the contrary, God de-
lights in them, and without them we cannot obtain salvation.
Nothing can be clearer than the Scripture on this point : " Not
every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord , shall enter into the
kingdom of heaven ; but he that doth the will of my Father"
(Matt. vii. 21 ) . To do the will of God is to do good works : " If
thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments" ( Matt. xix . 17) .
When God shall condemn the wicked, he shall say to them : "Go
from me, ye accursed ." And why ? " For I was hungry, and you
gave me not to eat ; I was thirsty, and you gave me not to drink"
(Matt. xxv. 42 ). " Patience is necessary for you : that, doing the
will of God, you may receive the promise" (Heb. x. 36) . " What
shall it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith , but hath
not works ? Shall Faith be able to save him ?" (James, ii . 14 ) .
Here it is proved that works are necessary for salvation , and that
Faith is not alone sufficient. We will treat this subject more
extensively by-and-by.
14. Our adversaries object, that St. Paul, writing to Titus (iii.
5-7), says : " Not by the works of justice, which we have done,
but according to his mercy he saved us, by the laver of regene-
ration, and renovation of the Holy Ghost. Whom he hath poured
forth upon us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour: That
being justified by his grace, we may be heirs, according to hope of
life everlasting." Therefore, they say that no work of ours, though
a work ofjustice, is available to salvation ; but that we should rest

(1) Luther, in Assert. art. 31. (2) Idem. art. 33. (3) Idem. art. 36
(4) Becan. Man. contr. l. 1 , c. 18, ex Calv. Inst. l. 2, t. 1, sec. 9, &c.
522 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

all our hopes of grace and salvation in Jesus Christ, who, by his
merits, has obtained both grace and salvation for us. To answer
this argument clearly , we must make several distinctions. We can
deserve grace and eternal salvation in two ways - de condigno
and de congruo. To deserve it de condigno, it is necessary that the
remunerator should be obliged to reward us, as a debt of justice ;
but to deserve it, de congruo, the remunerator has no obligation to
reward us- it is fit that he should do so , but it is totally an act of
liberality on his part. Now, as far as human merit is with God as
a matter ofjustice, several conditions are requisite. The act itself
must be good ; it is requisite that he who performs it be in a state .
of grace, and, on the part of the Almighty it is necessary that he
should have promised to reward us, for he, as man's supreme Lord,
might require all service from him, without any reward at all. To
make it a debt of justice, therefore, it is necessary that a gratuitous
Divine promise should have been already given, by which God
himself gratuitously makes himself a debtor for the reward pro-
mised. It is after this manner that St. Paul could say that he ex-
pected , in justice, eternal life , as the reward of his good works : “ I
have fought the good fight ; I have finished my course ; I have
kept the Faith. As to the next, there is laid up for me a crown
of justice, which the Lord, the just judge, will render to me in
that day" (2 Tim. iv. 7 , 8 ). And here St. Augustin (5 ) says :
" Debitorem Dominus ipse se fecit, non accipiendo, sed promit-
tendo . Non ei dicimus : Redde quod accepisti , sed redde quod
promisisti."
15. Here, then, is what the Catholic Church teaches. No man
can merit actual justifying grace de condigno, but only de congruo,
and Melancthon stated a falsehood in his Apology of the Confession
of Augsburg (p. 137) , when he asserted that we believe we can
merit justification by our works. The Council of Trent has de-
clared, and this is our faith, and no other, that sinners are justified
gratuitously by God, and that no work of theirs preceding their
justification can deserve it. But the Council has also said that
man justified, although he cannot de condigno merit final perseve-
rance ( Sess. vi. c. 13 ) , still can merit de condigno , by the good
works he does, assisted by Divine grace, and the merits of Christ,
the augmentation of grace and eternal life. The Council fulmi-
nates its anathema against all who deny this doctrine , in the Sixth
Session (Can . 33) : " Si quis dixerit hominis justificati bona opera
ita esse dona Dei, ut non sint etiam bona ipsius justificati merita ;
aut ipsum justificatum bonis operibus, quæ ab eo per Dei gratiam ,
et per Jesu Christi meritum, cujus vivum membrum est, fiunt, non
vere mereri augmentum gratiæ, vitam æternam, et ipsius vitæ
æternæ (si tamen in gratia decesserit) consecutionem, atque etiam

(5) St. Augus. in Psalm, 83.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 523

gloriæ augmentum : anathema sit." All, therefore, that we receive


from God, we get through his mercy, and through the merits of
Jesus Christ : but, through his goodness, he has so disposed that,
with the good words we perform, by the power of his grace, we
can deserve eternal life, on account of the gratuitous promise made
by him to those who do what is right . Hear again the words of
the Council : " Justificatis, sive acceptam gratiam conservaverint
sive amissam recupaverint, proponenda est vita æterna, et tanquam
gratia, filiis Dei per Christum Jesum promissa et tanquam merces
ex ipsius Dei promissione ipsorum meritis reddenda" ( Sess . vi. cap.
16). Therefore, say the heretics, he who is saved can glorify
himself that he is saved through his own works. No ; for the
Council says :
" Licet bonis operibus merces tribuatur........absit
tamen, ut Christianus in se ipso vel confidat, vel glorietur, et non
in Domino : cujus tanta est erga homines bonitas, ut eorum velit
esse merita, quæ sunt ipsius dona. "
16. Our adversaries may thus see how unjustly the Calvinists
charge us with insulting the mercy of God and the merits of Jesus
Christ by attributing to our own merits the acquisition of eternal
salvation . We assert that we can do nothing good, unless in virtue
of the grace communicated to us by God, through the merits of
Jesus Christ, and hence all our merits are the gift of God, and if
he gives us glory as a reward of our merits, he does not do so
because he is obliged to give it, but because ( to encourage us in
his service, and make us more certain of eternal salvation if we are
faithful) it is his wish, merely through his own goodness, gratui-
tously to bind himself by a promise to give eternal life to those
who serve them. That being the case, what have we to glorify
ourselves in , since all that is given to us we receive through the
mercy of God, and by the merits of Jesus Christ communicated to
us?
17. The Scriptures most clearly prove that eternal glory in the
next life is given as a reward for good works, and this glory is
called a reward, a debt, a crown of justice, and a payment : " Every
man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour" ( 1
Cor. iii. 8) ; " Now to him that worketh, the reward is not reckoned
according to grace, but according to debt" (Rom. iv. 4 ) . Mark the
words " according to debt." " As to the rest there is laid up for
me a crown ofjustice" ( 2 Tim . iv. 8) ; " And having agreed with
the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard"
(Matt. xx. 2) ; " That you may be counted worthy of the king-
dom of God, for which you suffer" (2 Thess . i. 5) ; Because thou
hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many
things, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord" (Matt. xxv. 21 ) ;
" Blessed is the man that endureth temptations, for when he hath
been proved he shall receive the crown of life, which God hath
promised to them that love him " (James, i. 12 ) . All these texts
524 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

prove that the merit of the just man is a merit of justice, de con-
digno.
18. The Holy Fathers prove the same doctrines. St. Cyprian
says (6) : " Justitiæ opus ..... ut accipiant merita nostra mercedem."
St. John Chrysostom, in a long passage which I abridge , says (7) :
" Nunquam profecto, cum justus sit Deus, bonos hic cruciatibus
affici sinerit, si non in futuro seculo mercedem pro meritis parasset .”
St. Augustin says ( 8) : " Non est injustus Deus, qui justos fraudet
mercede justitiæ." And again ( 9) : " Nullane sunt merita justorum ?
sunt plane, sed ut justi fierent ; merita non fuerunt ;" as they are
not just by their own merits, but by the Divine Grace. Again, the
same Saint says : " Deus cum coronat nostra merita , quid aliud
coronat quam sua dona ?" The Fathers of the Second Council of
Oranges decided that, " Debetur merces bonis operibus, si fiant ;
sed gratiæ Dei, quæ non debetur, præcedit ut fiant." In conclusion ,
therefore, all our merits depend on the assistance of grace, without
which we cannot have any, and the reward of salvation due to our
good works is founded in the promise gratuitously made to us by
God through the merits of Jesus Christ."
19. They object that text of St. Paul (Rom. vi . 23) : “ The
grace of God life everlasting in Christ Jesus our Lord." Eternal
life, therefore, say they, is a grace of the Divine Mercy, and not a
reward due to our good works. We reply, that eternal life is justly
to be attributed to the mercy of God, for he, by his mercy, has
promised it to our good works. The Apostle, therefore, with good
reason, calls eternal life a grace, since it is by the grace of God
alone that he has constituted himself a debtor of eternal life to all
who perform good works.
20. They object, secondly, that eternal life is called an inheri-
tance, " Knowing that you shall receive of the Lord the reward of
inheritance" (Col. iii. 24) . Inheritance, they say, then, is not the
right of Christians, as being children of God by merit, but solely on
account of his gratuitous adoption . We answer, that to infants
glory is given, solely on the title of inheritance ; but adults obtain
it as an inheritance, as they are the adopted children of God, and
also as a reward for their good works, since God has promised them
the inheritance if they observe the law ; so that this inheritance is,
at the same time, a gift and a retribution due to them for their
merits, and this is what the Apostle means when he says : " You
shall receive of the Lord the reward of inheritance ."
21. They object, thirdly, that our Lord wishes that no matter
how carefully we fulfil the commandments, we should call ourselves
unprofitable servants : " So you also, when you shall have done all
these things that are commanded you, say, we are unprofitable ser-

(6) St. Cyprian de Unit. (7) St. Chrysos. t. 5, l. 1, de Prav. (8) St. Aug. 1. de
Nat. et Grat. c. 2. (9) Idem. Epis. 165.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 525

vants, we have done that which we ought to do" (Luke, xvii . 10) .
If then, say they, we are unprofitable servants, how can we merit
eternal life by our works? We answer, that our works of them-
selves, without grace, have no merit, but being performed with
grace, they, with justice , merit eternal life, in regard of the promise
made by God to those who perform them.
22. They object, fourthly, that our works are due to God by
obedience, as our supreme Lord , and , hence, they cannot merit
eternal life, as justly due to them. We answer, however, that God,
through his goodness, laying on one side every other title by which
he might justly require all the services we can pay him, has bound
himself by a promise to give us eternal glory , as the reward of our
good works. But they still say, when every good work is from
God, what reward can we expect ? We answer, every good work
is all from God, but not totally from God, in the same manner as
every good work is all our own, but not totally our own, because
God works with us, and we with him, and it is to this co-operation
of ours that it has pleased God to promise, gratuitously, the reward
of eternal life.
23. They object, fifthly , that although the good work might be
deserving of glory, still there should be some proportion between
the labour and the reward ; but what proportion , say they, can be
found between our works and eternal glory ? " The sufferings of
this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come
that shall be revealed in us" (Rom. viii . 18) . We answer, that our
works in themselves, and unconnected with Divine grace , are, with-
out doubt, unworthy of eternal glory , but rendered valuable by
grace, they are worthy of it, and a proportion then exists between
them, as the same Apostle says : " For that which is at present
momentary and light of our tribulation , worketh for us above
measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor. iv. 17) .
24. They object, sixthly, that St. Paul says : " For by grace you
are saved through faith, and not of yourselves, for it is the gift of
God, not of works, that no man may glory" (Ephes. ii . 8 , 9 ). Here,
then, say they, it is clear that it is grace that saves us, by means of
faith in Jesus Christ. The Apostle, however, is not here speaking
of eternal life, but of grace itself, which , undoubtedly , we never
can merit by our works ; but, as we have already proved, God
wishes that those who fulfil his precepts should, on account of the
promise made by him, acquire eternal glory . Then , they reply,
if our works are necessary for salvation, the merits of Christ alone
are not sufficient to save us. No, in truth they are not enough, but
our works are also requisite, for the benefit of Jesus Christ is, that
he obtained for us the power of applying his merits with our own
works. Neither is there anything in that out of which we can pride
ourselves, because whatever power we have to merit heaven, we
have solely through the merits of Christ ; and , therefore , all the
526 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

glory is his, as when the vine branches produce fruit, the whole is
due to the vine which sends sap to the branches . When the just
man, then, obtains eternal life he does not glory in his own works,
but in the Divine grace which, by the merits of Christ , gave him
the power of meriting it. According to the doctrine of our adver-
saries, however, almost every means of salvation is taken from us,
for if our works are of no avail to us for salvation , and God does
everything, then it is no matter whether our morals are good or
bad, we need no preparation to receive the sacraments ; and prayer
inculcated in so many passages of the Scripture, is totally useless to
us . What worse doctrine than this could the devil himself invent
to lead souls to perdition ?
25. This leads us on to another point, following from the former
one-that Faith alone is sufficient to save us , as Luther and Calvin ·
said, who, on this anchor alone, trusted their eternal salvation , and
therefore despised all law and judgment , cared nothing for righteous-
ness, prayers, or sacraments, and considered all things, no matter
how wicked, lawful. They asserted that the Faith by which we
firmly believe that God will save us by the merits of Jesus Christ
and the promises made by him, is alone sufficient, without works ,
to obtain salvation for us from God, and this faith they called
Fiducia, confidence , it being a hope founded on the promise of Jesus
Christ. They quote Scripture, too, in favour of this opinion ;
" Who believes in the Son, hath eternal life" (John , iii. 36) ; " That
he himself may be just , and the justifier of him who is of the Faith
of Jesus Christ" (Romans, iii. 26) ; " In him every one that believeth
is justified" (Acts, xiii . 39) ; " Whoever believeth in him shall not
be confounded" (Rom. x. 11 ) ; " The just manliveth by Faith"
(Gal. iii . 11 ) ; " The justice of God, by Faith of Jesus Christ, unto
all, and upon all them that believe in him" (Rom. iii . 22) .
26. If Faith alone, however, justifies us, how is that the very
same Scriptures declare, that it is of no use without works ? " What
shall it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith but hath not
works ? Shall faith be able to save him ?" (James, ii . 14) ; and im-
mediately after he says (ver. 17) : " So Faith also , if it have not
works, is dead in itself." Luther, to be sure, says, that this Epistle
is not canonical , but we believe rather the authority of the Church,
which includes it in her Canon . But there are numberless other
passages to prove that Faith alone is not sufficient to save us, but
that it is necessary also that we fulfil the commandments. St. Paul
says : " If I should have all faith, so that I could remove moun-
tains, and have not charity, I am nothing" ( 1 Cor. xiii . 2) . Jesus
Christ commanded his disciples : " Go teach all nations .... to
observe all things whatever I commanded you" (Mark , xxviii.19,20).
And he said to the young man : 66 If thou wilt enter into eternal
life, observe the commandments" (Matt. xix. 17) , and there are
many other texts of a like nature. The texts, therefore, adduced
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 527

by our adversaries, must be understood to refer to that Faith ,


which, as St. Paul teaches, operates by charity : " For in Christ
Jesus, neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision,
but faith, that worketh by charity" (Gal. v. 6 ) ; and hence St.
Augustin ( 10) says, that Faith may exist without charity , but it
availeth nothing. Hence , when we find it said in the Scriptures,
that Faith saves us, we are to understand that living Faith , that is,
that Faith which saves us by good works, which are the vital ope-
rations of Faith, for if these are wanting it is a sign that the Faith
is dead, and that which is dead cannot give life . Hence it is that
the Lutherans themselves, as Lomer, Gerard , the Doctors of Stras-
bourg, and the greater part of the sect, as a certain author
states ( 11 ) , forsaking the doctrine of their master, insist on the ne-
cessity of good works for salvation. Bossuet ( 12) tells us that the
Lutherans of the University of Wittemberg , in the confession they
presented to the Council of Trent, said " that good works ought of
necessity be practised , and that they deserve, by the gratuitous
goodness of God, recompense both corporal and spiritual ."
27. The Council of Trent ( Sess . vi . Can. 19 ) says : " Si quis
dixerit, nihil præceptum esse in Evangelio præter fidem, cetera esse
indifferentia, neque prohibita , sed libera ; aut decem præcepta nihil
pertinere ad Christianos : anathema sit ;" and in Can. 20 : Si quis
hominem justificatum , et quantumlibet perfectum , dixerit non
teneri ad observantiam mandatorum Dei, et Ecclesiæ , sed tantum
ad credendum ; quasi vero Evangelium sit nuda, et absoluta pro-
missio vitæ æternæ, sine conditione observationis mandatorum :
anathema sit."

SEC. IV. THE SINNER IS NOT JUSTIFIED BY FAITH ALONE.

28. THE sectarians say, that the sinner, by means of Faith , or


confidence in the promises of Jesus Christ, and believing, with an
infallible certainty, that he is justified, becomes so, for the justice
of Jesus Christ is extrinsically imputed to him, by which his sins.
are not indeed concealed , but covered, and are thus not imputed to
him , and they found this dogma on the words of David : " Blessed
are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered .
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord hath not imputed sin, and in
whose spirit there is no guile" (Psalm xxxi. 1 , 2 ) .
29 The Catholic Church, however, condemns and anathematizes
the doctrine, that as man is absolved from his sins, by Faith alone,
that he is justified. Hear the Council of Trent on this subject
(Sess. vi. Can. 14) : " Si quis dixerit, hominem a peccatis absolvi, ac
justificari ex eo quod se absolvi ac justificari certo credat ; aut

(10) St. Aug. 1. 15 de Trin. c. 18. (11) Pich. Theol. Pol. par. post. ar 6.
(12) Bossuet, Variat. l. 8, n. 30 in fine.
528 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

neminem vere esse justificatum , nisi qui credat se esse justificatum ,


et hac sola fide absolutionem , et justificationem perfici ; anathema
sit." The Church, besides, teaches, that in order that the sinner
should become justified, it is necessary that he be disposed to receive
grace. Faith is necessary for this disposition, but Faith alone is not
sufficient. The Council of Trent ( Sess. vi . cap. 6) , says, that acts
of hope, of love, of sorrow, and a purpose of amendment are also
necessary, and God then finding the sinner thus disposed, gives him
gratuitously his grace, or intrinsic justice (ibid. cap. 7) , which
remits to him his sins, and sanctifies him.
30. We shall now examine the points on which the supposition
of our adversaries rests. In the first place, they say, that by means
of faith in the merits and promises of Jesus Christ, our sins are not
taken away, but are covered. This supposition is, however, totally
opposed to the Scriptures, which teach that the sins are not alone
covered, but are taken away and cancelled in a justified soul :
" Behold the lamb of God , behold him who taketh away the sins of
the world" (John , i. 29) ; " Be penitent, therefore, and be converted,
that your sins may be blotted out" ( Acts , iii. 19) ; 66 He will cast all
our sins into the bottom of the sea" (Michaes, vii. 19) ; " So also
Christ was offered once, to exhaust the sins ofmany" (Heb. ix . 28) .
Now that which is taken away, which is blotted out, which is
annihilated, we cannot say exists any longer. We are also taught
that the justified soul is cleansed and delivered from its sins : " Thou
shall sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed , thou shalt
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow" ( Psalm i. 9) ; " You shall
be cleansed from all your filthiness" (Ezech. xxxvi. 25) ; “ And
such some of you were, but you are washed, but you are sanctified ,
but you are justified" ( 1 Cor. vi. 11) ; " But now being made free
from sin, and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto
sanctification" ( Rom. vi . 22 ) . It is on this account that Baptism ,
by which sin is remitted , is called regeneration and renovation :
" He saved us by the laws of regeneration and renovation of the
Holy Ghost" (Tit. iii. 5) ; " Unless a man be born again , he cannot
see the kingdomof God" (John, iii. 3) . The sinner, therefore,
when he is justified , is generated again, and re-born to grace, so
that he is changed in all, and renovated from what he was before.
31. How is it, then, that David says our sins are covered ?
" Blessed are they whose sins are covered." St. Augustin, explain-
ing this Psalm , says, that wounds may be covered both by the
sufferer and the physician ; the sufferer himself only covers them,
but the physician both covers them with a plaister and heals them :
" Si tu tegere volueris erubescens (says the Saint) Medicus non
sanabit ; Medicus tegat, et curet." Our sins, by the infusion of
grace, are covered at the same time and healed, but the heretical
opinion is, that they are covered , but not healed ; they are covered
only inasmuch as God does not impute them to the sinner. If sins
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 529

remained in the soul as far as the fault was concerned should not God
impute them to us ? God judges according to truth : " For we know
the judgment of God is according to truth" ( Rom . ii . 2 ) ; but how
could God judge according to the truth, judging that man not to be
culpable, who is in reality culpable ? These are truly some of Cal-
vin's mysteries which surpass our comprehension. The Scripture
says, "To God the wicked and his wickedness are equal alike"
(Wisdom, xiv. 9) . If God hates the sinner on account of the sin
that reigns in him, how can he love him as a child , because he is
covered with the justice of Christ, while he is still a sinner all the
while ? Sin, by its very nature, is contrary to God , so it is impos-
sible that God should not hate it as long as it is not taken away,
and he must also hate the sinner as long as he retains it . David
says : " Blessed is the man to whom the Lord hath not imputed
sin." We understand by this not that God does not impute sin by
leaving sin in the soul, and not pretending to see it , but that he
does not impute it because he cancels and remits it, and hence
David says, in the very same passage , " Blessed are they whose
iniquities are forgiven." The sins that are forgiven to us are not
imputed to us.
32. They say, in the second place, that in the justification of a
sinner intrinsic justice is not infused into him, but the justice of
Christ alone is imputed to him, so that the wicked man does not
become just, but remains wicked still, and is reputed just alone by
the intrinsic justice of Christ which is imputed to him. This is,
however, an evident error, for the sinner cannot become a friend of
God if he does not receive justice of his own , which will renovate
him internally, and change him from being a sinner to become one
of the just, and as he was previously hateful in the eyes of God,
now having acquired this justice, he is agreeable to him. Hence
St. Paul exhorts the Ephesians to become renewed in spirit, “ And
be renewed in the spirit of your mind" (Eph. iv . 23) . And hence
the Council of Trent says that by the merits of Christ internal
justice is communicated to us : " Qua renovamur spiritus mentis
nostræ, et non modo reputamur, sed vere etiam justi nominamur, et
sumus" (Sess. vi. cap. 7) . The Apostle says in another place, that
the sinner, by justification , " is renewed unto knowledge according
to the image of him who created him" (Col. iii. 10 ) ; so that the
sinner, by the merits of Christ , returns back to that state from
which he fell by sin , and becomes sanctified as a temple in which
God dwells, and hence the Apostle, admonishing his disciples , says :
" Fly fornication ...... know you not that your members are the
temple of the Holy Ghost" ( 1 Cor. vi. 18 , 19) . What is more sur-
prising than all is, that Calvin himself knew that man never can be
reconciled with God unless internal and inherent justice is given to
him : "Nunquam reconciliamur Deo, quin simul donemur inhærente
2L
530 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

justitia" ( 1 ). These are his own words, and how can he afterwards
say that through faith alone we are justified with the imputative
justice of Christ, which is not ours, nor is in us, neither does it
belong to us, and is totally extern to us, and is merely intrinsically
imputed to us, so that it does not make us just, only to be reputed
just ? This has been justly condemned by the Council of Trent
(Sess. v. Can. 10) : " Si quis dixerit , homines sine Christi justitia,
per quam nobis meruit, justificari ; aut per eam ipsam formaliter
justos esse ; anathema sit." (Can. 11 ) : " Si quis dixerit homines.
justificari vel sola imputatione justitiæ Christi , vel sola peccatorum
remissione, exclusa gratia, et caritate, quæ in illis inhæreat .....
anathema sit."
33. They object, first, the text (Rom. iv. 5) : " But to him that
worketh not, yet believeth in him that justifieth the ungodly, his
faith is reputed to justice." We answer, briefly, that here the
Apostle says that faith should be imputed to justice, to teach us that
the sinner is justified , not by his own works, but by his faith in the
merits of Christ ; but he does not say, that in virtue of this faith
the justice of Christ is intrinsically imputed to the sinner who , with-
out being just, is reputed so.
34. They object, secondly, that St. Paul says to Titus : " Not by
the works of justice which we have done, but according to his
mercy, he saved us by the labour of regeneration and renovation of
the Holy Ghost, whom he hath poured forth upon us abundantly,
through Jesus Christ our Saviour" (Tit. iii. 5 , 6). Therefore, they
say, God justifies us by his mercy, and not by the works which,
we allege, are necessary for justification. We reply, that our works,
as hope, charity, and repentance, with a purpose of amendment , are
necessary to render us disposed to receive grace from God ; but
when the Almighty gives it to us, he does so not for our works , but
through his mercy alone, and the merits ofJesus Christ. Let
them particularly remark the words " renovation ofthe Holy Ghost,
whom he hath poured forth abundantly upon us, through Jesus
Christ our Saviour ;" so that when God justifies us, he infuses upon
us, not away from us, the Holy Ghost, who renews us, changing us
from sinners unto saints.
35. They object, thirdly, another text of St. Paul : " But of him
are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom , and
justice, and sanctification , and redemption" ( 1 Cor. i . 30 ) . Behold,
they exclaim, how Jesus Christ is made our justice . We do not
deny that the justice of Jesus Christ is the cause of our justice ; but
we deny that the justice of Christ is our justice itself, no more than
we can say that our wisdom is the wisdom of Christ ; and as we do
not become wise because of the wisdom of Christ imputed to us,

(1 ) Calvin, 7. de vera rat. Reform. Eccles.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 531

neither do we become just because his justice is imputed to us, as


the sectarians teach : " He is made unto us wisdom , and justice , and
sanctification ." All this is to be understood , not imputatively, but
effectively, that is, that Jesus Christ, by his wisdom , and justice ,
and sanctity, has made us become effectively wise, and just, and
holy. It is in the same sense we say to God : " I will love thee, O
Lord, my strength" (Psalm xvii. 1 ) ; " For thou art my patience , O
Lord" ( Psalm lxx. 5) ; " The Lord is my light and my salvation'
(Psalm xxvi . 1 ) . How is God our strength, our patience, our
light ? is it imputatively alone ? By no means ; he is effectively so ,
for it is he who strengthens, enlightens, and renders us patient ; and
who saves us.
36. They object, fourthly, that the Apostle says : " Put on the
new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness
of truth" (Ephes. iv . 24) . Here, say they, it is plain that we, in
the justification of faith, clothe ourselves with the justice of Christ
as with a garment, which is extrinsic to us. Behold how all here-
tics boast of not following anything but the pure Scriptures, and
will not listen to Tradition, nor the definitions of Councils, nor the
authority of the Church . The Scripture, they cry, is our only rule
of faith ; and why so ? Because they distort it, and explain it each
after his own fashion , and thus render the Book of Truth a fountain
of error and falsehood . In answer to the objection , however, we
reply, St. Paul, in that passage, does not speak of extrinsic , but
intrinsic justice, and he therefore says : " Be renewed in the spirit
of your mind, and put on the new man ," &c. (Ephes. iv. 23.) He
means that clothing ourselves with Jesus Christ, we should renew
ourselves internally in spirit with intrinsic and inherent justice, as
Calvin himself admitted; for, otherwise, remaining sinners , we could
not renew ourselves. He says : " Put on the new man," because ,
• as a garment is not properly a thing belonging to the body itself,
or part of it, so grace or justice does not properly belong to the sin-
ner, but is gratuitously given to him by the mercy of God alone.
The Apostle says in another place : " Put on bowels of mercy"
(Col. iii. 13) . Now, as in this passage he does not speak of extrin-
sic and apparent mercy, but of that which is real and intrinsic, so
when he says, " Put on the new man," he means that we should
strip ourselves of the old vicious and graceless man , and put on the
new man enriched not with the imputative justice of Jesus Christ,
but with intrinsic justice belonging to ourselves, though given us
through the merits of Jesus Christ.

SEC. V. — FAITH ALONE CANNOT RENDER US SECURE OF JUSTICE, OR PERSEVERANCE, OR


ETERNAL LIFE.

37. It was one of Luther's doctrines, in which he was closely


followed by Calvin, that man , after being once justified by Faith ,
should no longer have either fear or doubt, but that all his sins
532 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

were forgiven him, and hence he says ( 1 ) : " Believe firmly that
you are absolved, and you will be so, no matter what contrition you
may have ;" and he props up this opinion by a text of St. Paul :
" Try your ownselves if you be in the faith : prove ye yourselves.
Know you not your ownselves, that Christ Jesus is in you , unless
perhaps you be reprobated ?" ( 2 Cor. xiii. 6 ) . From this text Luther
deduces that a man may be certain of his Faith , and hence he con-
cludes, that being certain of his Faith, he is also certain of the re-
mission of sins. But what sort of conclusion is this ? A man is
certain of his Faith ; but when he knows, at the same time, that he
is a sinner, how can he be certain of pardon , unless he is also cer-
tain of contrition. Luther himself had previously said ( 2 ) : " No
one can be sure of the truth of his contrition , and much less of par-
don." This is the way with all heretics ; they are continually con-
tradicting themselves. Besides, in this passage the Apostle is not
speaking ofjustification , but of the miracles which the Corinthians
should believe were wrought by God.
38. The Council of Trent (Sess . vi. cap. 9), teaches, that although
every one ought to be certain of the Divine Mercy, of the merits
of Christ, and of the power of the sacraments, still no one can be
certain of the remission of his sins as a matter of Faith , and in the
13th Canon condemns all who assert the contrary : " Si quis dixerit,
omni homini ad remissionem peccatorum assequendam necessarium
esse, ut credat certo, et absque ulla hæsitatione propriæ infirmitatis,
et indispositionis peccata sibi esse remissa : anathema sit." And
this is proved by the Scriptures likewise : " Man knoweth not
whether he be worthy of love or hatred , but all things are kept
uncertain for the time to come" (Eccles. ix. 1 , 2) . Calvin ( 3) ob-
jects that this text does not allude to the state of a soul in grace or
anger with God, but to the prosperous or adverse circumstances
which happen in this life, as by those temporal accidents we cannot
know whether God loves or hates us, since prosperity and adversity
are the portions of good and bad alike ; but, on the other hand, he
says man can very well know whether he is just or unjust, if he
knows that he has or has not faith . But we answer, that this text
does not speak of temporal things, but of the love or hatred with
which God looks on the state of the soul, and, therefore, it says,
" all things are kept uncertain for the time to come." If, therefore,
in this life all things are " kept uncertain," then what our adver-
saries say cannot be the fact, that man , by the knowledge of his
faith, can be certain that he is in a state of grace.
39. God , besides, admonishes us that we should be afraid even
ofthe sin forgiven already : " Be not without fear about sin forgiven"
( Eccles. v. 5) . The innovators quote the Greek text here, which

(1) Luther, Serm. de Indulg. t. 1, p. 59. (2) Luther Serm. de Indulg. t. 1, p. 30.
3) Calvin, Instit. l. 3, c. 2 , s. 38.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 533

says not forgiven, but forgiveness, and that, they say, means that we
should not presume that the sins not yet committed will be forgiven.
This interpretation , however, is false, because the Greek expression
comprehends both past and future sins, and the Greek text is ex-
plained in the Latin translation by past sins. St. Paul surely had
a knowledge of his Faith, and although he did not feel his con-
science laden with any sin, and saw himself favoured by God with
revelations and extraordinary gifts , still he did not consider himself
with certainty justified . God alone, he says, knew in truth whether
he was or not : " I am not conscious to myself of anything, yet I
am not hereby justified , but he that judgeth me is the Lord" (1 Cor.
iv. 4).
40. Our adversaries object, that the Apostle says : " The Spirit
himself giveth testimony of our Spirit, that we are the sons of
God" (Rom. viii. 16 ) . Hence Calvin concludes that it is Faith
which assures us of being the children of God . We answer that,
although the testimony of the Holy Ghost is infallible in itself, still
as far as we are concerned , and know anything about it, we can only
have a conjectural certainty of being in a state of grace , but never
can be infallibly certain of it, unless by a special revelation from
God. And, moreover, as far as our knowledge goes, we cannot
know if that Spirit be surely from God , for many times the angel
of darkness transforms himself into an angel of light, to deceive us.
41. Luther said , that a faithful man, by means of justifying
Faith, though he may be in sin at the time, ought to believe, with
an infallible certainty, that he is justified by reason of the justice.
of Christ, imputed to him ; but he afterwards said that this justice
might be lost by any new sin. Calvin (4) , on the contrary, made
an addition to this heresy, for he insisted on the inadmissibility of
this imputative justice. If we could suppose Luther's false prin-
ciple of justifying Faith to be true, we should admit that Calvin
had more reason at his side than he . He said , if any one of the
Faithful is sure of his justification, when he prays for it, and
believes with confidence that God, by the merits of Christ, justifies
him, this petition then, and this certainty of Faith , regard no less
the remission of sins committed, than the future perseverance in
grace, and, consequently, eternal salvation . Calvin adds ( 5 ) , that
when the faithful man relapses into sin , though his justifying
Faith is oppressed by it , it is not, however, lost, for the soul always
would have retained possession of it. Such were the specious
doctrines of Calvin, and this was the doctrine professed by the
Elector Count Palatine, in his Confession of Faith : " I believe,"
said he, " that I am a living member of the Catholic Church for
evermore, since God, appeased by the satisfaction of Jesus Christ,
will not remember either the past, or future sins of my life " (6) .
(4) Bossuet, Var. t. 3, l. 14 , n. 16. (5) Calv. Ant. ad Con. Trid. s. 6, c. 13.
(6) Recuil. de Genevre, part 2, p. 169.
534 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

42. The whole gist of the matter is this, that the principle of
Luther, as we have already seen , is false , in the first place, for, in
order to obtain justification , it is not enough to have Faith alone
that we are justified by the merits of Christ ; but it is necessary,
also, that the sinner should have contrition for his faults, so as to
dispose himself to receive the remission which God grants him, ac-
cording to the promise he has made , to pardon those who repent,
through the merits of Jesus Christ. Hence, if the justified man
relapses into sin, he again loses grace.
43. If the doctrine of Luther, regarding the certainty of justifi-
cation , is false, the doctrine of Calvin , regarding the certainty of
perseverance and eternal salvation, is equally so. St. Paul tells
us : " Wherefore he that thinketh himself to stand , let him take
heed lest he fall" ( 1 Cor. x. 12). And, again, he tells us : " With
fear and trembling, work out your salvation" (Phil. ii. 12. ) How,
then, can Calvin say that it is a temptation of the devil, to have
any fear about our perseverance ? When St. Paul, then , tells us to
live in fear, does he mean that we should second the temptations of
the devil ? But, say they, what is the use of this fear ? If what
Calvin asserts was true, that having once received justice and the
Holy Ghost, we can never lose them, because, according to him,
justifying Faith is never lost, and to him who has Faith, God does
not impute his sins-if all this , I say, were true , then , indeed , it
would be useless to dread the loss of Divine grace. But can any
one imagine that God will give his friendship and eternal glory to
one who tramples on the Divine law, and commits all sorts of
wickedness ; and all this because he believes, forsooth, that through
the merits of Jesus Christ, the crimes he commits will not be im-
puted to him ? Such , then, is the gratitude these Reformers show
to Jesus Christ. They avail themselves for the death he suffered
for love of us, to involve themselves more and more in crime ,
trusting that, through his merits, God will not impute their sins to
them. So Jesus Christ, then , has died , that men may have leave
to do whatever they please, without fear of punishment . If such ,
however, was the fact, why did God promulgate his laws - make
so many promises to those who observe them- and threaten those
who violate them? God, however, never deceives us when he
speaks to us ; he wishes that the commandments he imposes on uş
should be exactly observed-" Thou hast comminanded thy com-
mandments to be kept most diligently " (Psalm cxviii . 4)-and
condemns those who offend against his laws-" Thou hast despised
all those that fall off from thy judgments (Psalm exviii . 118 ) . It is
thus that fear is useful : the fear of losing the Divine grace, which
makes us cautiously avoid the occasions of sin, and adopt the means
of perseverance in a good life, such as frequenting the sacraments,
and praying continually.
44. Calvin says that, according to St. Paul, the gifts of God are
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 535

irrevocable, and given to us without penance : " The gifts and


calling of God are without repentance" (Romans, xi. 29). Who-
soever, therefore, he says, has received the Faith, and with the
Faith, Grace, to which eternal salvation is united, as these are
perpetual gifts, they never can be lost ; and thus the faithful man,
though he may fall into sin , will always be in possession of that
justice, which is given him by Faith. Here, however, we ask a
question. David surely had Faith-he fell into the sins of murder
and adultery ; now, I ask, when David was in sin , before his
repentance, was he a sinner or a just man ? if he died in that state
would he be damned or not ? No one, I believe , will be bold .
enough to assert, that he could be saved in that state . In that
state, then, he was no longer just, as he himself, after his conversion ,
confessed-" I know my iniquity ;" and, therefore he prayed to
God, to cancel his sins-" Blot out my iniquity" (Psalm 1. 2) . It
will not do to say that he who is predestined may consider himself
just in the meantime, since he will do penance for his sins before
he dies ; that will not do, I assert, because future penance cannot
make the sinner just, when he is in a state of sin at the time.
Bossuet (7 ) says that the difficulty of accounting for this, according
to Calvin's doctrine, caused many of his followers to return to the
bosom of the Church.
45. Before we conclude this subject, we may as well review the
Scripture texts on which Calvin founds his doctrine. The Apostle
St. James, he says, tells us that we should pray to God for graces-
and that of perseverance is the principal of all others - without
having any doubt of obtaining them : " Let him ask in Faith,
nothing wavering" (James, i . 6) ; and our Lord himself says : " All
things whatsoever you ask when ye pray, believe that you shall
receive : and they shall come unto you" ( Mark, xi. 24) . Therefore,
says Calvin, whosoever seeks perseverance from God, and believes
that he obtains it , never can want it, as we have the Divine
promise for it. We answer that, although the promise of God ,
to hear him who prays to him, can never fail, still that is to be
understood, when we pray for grace, with all the requisite
conditions, and one of the conditions of beseeching prayer is perse-
verance ; but if we cannot be certain that in future we will
persevere in prayer, how can we be sure at the present time that
we will persevere in grace ? Calvin , besides, objects that St. Paul
says : " I am sure that neither death nor life, &c.......shall be
able to separate us from the love of God" (Rom . viii. 38 , 39 ) . But
we reply to this, that the Apostle does not here speak of an
infallible certainty of Faith, but only of a simple moral certainty,
founded on the Divine Mercy, and on that good will which God
gave him, to suffer everything, sooner than be separated from his
love.
(7) Bossuet, Variat. t. 3, l. 14, n. 16.
536 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

46. Leave Calvin aside, and hear what the Council of Trent
teaches, concerning perseverance and predestination . Speaking of
perseverance, it says : " Si quis magnum illud usque in finem
perseverantiæ donum se certo habiturum, absoluta et infallibili
certitudine dixerit, nisi hoc ex speciali revelatione didicerit :
anathema sit" (Sess. vi. Can. 16) . And, regarding predestination :
" Si quis dixerit , hominem renatum , et justificatum teneri ex fide
ad credendum , se certo esse in numero prædestinatorum : anathema
sit" (Sess. vi. Can. 15) . Behold , then, how clearly and distinctly
the Council defines all the dogmas of Faith, opposed to the errors
of modern innovators. I make this remark for the instruction of
those who assert that the Council gave only ambiguous decisions
in their controversies, and that it only increased disputes, instead
of putting an end to them. The Fathers of the Council said over
and over, that it was never their intention to give any decision
regarding the questions debated in Catholic schools, but solely to
define matters of Faith, and condemn the errors of the pretended
Reformers, who were endeavouring, not to reform morals, but to
subvert the ancient and true doctrines of the Catholic Church.
The Council, therefore, speaks ambiguously of scholastic questions,
and gives no decision on them ; but in matters of Faith , contested
by Protestants, it always speaks with the greatest clearness , and
without any ambiguity. Those alone find the definitions of the
Council doubtful who refuse to yield obedience to them. Το
come back to the subject. The Council teaches that no one can
be sure that he is predestined ; and, in fact, how can any one be
sure of predestination, when he is not sure that he will persevere
in goodness. But, says Calvin, St. John teaches that " You have
eternal life, you who believe in the name of the Son of God"
(1 John, v. 13 ) . Therefore , says he, whoever has faith in Jesus
Christ has eternal life. We answer, he who believes in Jesus
Christ with true Faith , enlivened by charity, has eternal life , not
in possession, but in hope, as St. Paul says : " For we are saved by
hope" ( Rom. viii . 24 ). Perseverance is necessary to obtain eternal
life-" He that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved" ( Matt.
x. 22)-but as long as we are uncertain of perseverance, we are
never sure of eternal life.
47. The sectarians object that the uncertainty of eternal salvation
makes us doubt of the Divine promises, to be saved by the merits
of Jesus Christ. We answer that the Divine promises never can
fail, so, on God's part, we never can doubt that he will be wanting,
by denying what he promised us. The doubt and fear is on our
side, for we may be found wanting, by transgressing his Divine
commandments, and thus losing his grace. God in that case is not
obliged to fulfil the promises made to us, but rather punish our
infidelity ; and, therefore, St. Paul exhorts us to work out our
salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. ii. 12 ). We are, therefore,
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 537

certain of salvation, if we remain faithful to God ; but, on the


other hand, should dread our perdition, if we are unfaithful .
But, they add, this fear and uncertainty destroys peace of con-
science. We answer, that peace of conscience in this life does
not consist in a certain belief that we will be saved , for this is
not what God promises us, but it consists in the hope that he will
save us, through the merits of Jesus Christ, if we strive to live well ,
and endeavour, by prayer, to obtain the Divine assistance to per-
severe in a holy life . This it is which is so hurtful to these heretics ;
for, trusting to this Faith alone for salvation , they pay little atten-
tion to the observance of the Divine commandments, and much
less to prayer, and, not praying, they are deprived of the Divine
assistance necessary for a good life, and thus they are lost. Sur-
rounded as we are by dangers and temptations, we have need of a
continual assistance from grace, which, without prayer, we cannot
obtain ; and, for that reason , God tells us we should pray continually :
" We ought always to pray and not to faint" (Luke , xviii . Ï ) .
He , however, who believes that he is sure of salvation , and believes
that prayer is not necessary for this object, scarcely prays at all, and
then is lost. He, on the contrary, who is not sure of his salvation ,
and fears to fall into sin , and be lost, will surely pray continually
to God to succour him, and thus hopes to obtain perseverance and
salvation, and this is the only peace of conscience we can have in
the present life. No matter how the Calvinists may strive to
obtain perfect peace, by believing their salvation certain, they
never can accomplish it in this way ; and we even see the Synod
of Dort, the great exponent of their doctrine (Art. 12) , declare
that the gift of Faith (which , according to them, includes past and
future justification) is not granted by God unless to his elect alone.
How, then, can a Calvinist be sure that he is among the number
of the elect, when he knows nothing about his election ? This
alone would, we think, be sufficient to show them that they cannot
be certain of their salvation .

SEC. VI. GOD CANNOT BE THE AUTHOR OF SIN.

48. DEAR reader, you will be horrified to hear the blasphemies


which those sectarians, and especially Calvin, vomited forth, con-
cerning sin. They are not afraid to say that God ordains all the
sins committed on this earth. Here are Calvin's own words (1) :
" Nec absurdum videri debet, quod dico, Deum non modo primi
hominis casum, et in eo posteriorum ruinam prævidisse , sed arbitrio
quoque suo dispensasse.' And again he says (2) : " Ex de ordi-

(1 ) Calvin, Inst. l. 3, c. 23, sec. 7, infra.


538 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

natione reprobis injicitur peccandi necessitas." He says, in the


second place ( 3) , that God pushes on the devil to tempt man to
sin: " Dicitur et Deus suo modo agere, quod Satan ipse (instru-
mentum cum sit iræ ejus) pro ejus nutu, atque imperio se inflectit
ad exequendo ejus justa justitia." And again ( Sec. 5) , he says :
" Porro Satanæ ministerium intercedere ad reprobos, instigandos,
quoties huc atque illuc Dominus providentia sua eos destinat." He
says, thirdly ( 4) , that God instigates man to sin : " Homo justo
Dei impulsu agit, quod sibi non licet." In the fourth place (5) , he
says, that God himself operates sin in us and with us, and makes
use of men as instruments for the execution of his judgments :
" Concedo fures, homicidas, &c. , Divinæ esse providentiæ instru-
menta, quibus Dominis ad exequenda sua judicia utitur." In this
respect, Calvin's doctrine approaches Luther's and Zuinglius's.
Luther says : " Mala opera in impiis Deus operatur." And Zuing
lius (6) writes : " Quando facimus adulterium, homicidium, Dei
opus est auctoris." In fine, Calvin ( 7 ) is not ashamed to say that
God is the author of all sin : " Et jam satis aperte ostendi , Deum
vocari omnium eorum (peccatorum) auctorem, quæ isti Censores
volunt tantum ejus permissu contingere." Soothed by such doc-
trines, the sectarians flatter themselves that their vices are excus-
able ; for, if they sin, they do it through necessity, and if they are
damned , it is by necessity also, for all the damned are destined to
be so by God, even before their creation . This monstrous doc-
trine will be refuted in the next section.
49. Calvin maintains this horrible opinion by the following
reasons : God never, he says, could have had the foreknowledge of
the eternal happiness or misery of any of us, if he had not ordained
by his decree the good or bad works we perform during our lives :
66
Decretum quidem horribile fateor, inficiari tamen nemo poterit,
quin præsciverit Deus, quem exitum esset habiturus homo ; et ideo
præsciverit, quia decreto suo sic ordinaverat." We answer, that
there is a great difference between forseeing and predestining the
sins of mankind. There is not the least doubt but that God, by
his infinite intelligence, knows and comprehends everything that
will come to pass, and, among the rest, all the sins which each one
will commit ; but some things he foresecs according to his positive
decree ; others according to his permission ; but neither the Divine
decree nor the permission are opposed to man's free will, for when
God foresees our good or evil works, he foresees them all performed
freely. The sectaries argue thus : If God has forescen Peter's sin,
for example, he cannot be mistaken as to his knowledge of what
will happen when the time foreseen arrives ; therefore Peter must

(2) Idem, ibid. sec. 39. (3) Idem, l. 3, c. 4 , sec. 3. (4) Calvin, Inst. l. 1 , c. 18,
sec. 4. (5) Idem , l. 1, c. 17, sec. 5. (6) Zuing. Serm. de Provid. c. 6. (7) Calv.
l. 1, c. 1 , sec. 3.
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 539

necessarily sin. Here they are in error, however, when they say
necessarily; he will infallibly sin, because God has foreseen it, and
cannot err in his foresight ; but he will not necessarily sin , because ,
if he wishes to sin , he will do so of his own free will, by his own
malice, and God will permit him to do so , solely not to deprive him
of that free will which he gave him.
50. We shall now see how many absurd consequences proceed
from this sectarian doctrine. First absurdity. -They say that God,
for his own just ends, ordains and wills the sins committed by man-
kind. But nothing can be clearer than the Scriptures on this
point, which tell us that God not only does not wish sins, but
looks on them with horror, and wishes nothing so much as our
sanctification : " Thou art not a God that willest iniquity" (Psalm ,
v. 5) ; " To God the wicked and his wickedness are hateful alike"
(Wisdom, xiv. 9 ) ; " Thy eyes are too pure to behold evil , and
thou canst not look on iniquity" (Habak . i . 13 ) . Now, when God
protests that he does not wish sin, but hates and prohibits it, how
can the sectarians say, that, contradicting himself, he wishes it and
predestines it? Calvin himself ( 8 ) takes notice of this difficulty :
66
Objiciunt," he says, " si nihil eveniat, nisi volente Deo, duas
esse in eo contrarias voluntates, quia occulto consilio decernat, quæ
lege sua palam vetuit, facile diluitur." How does he get out of
the difficulty ? merely by saying, " We cannot understand it."
The true answer, however, is, that his supposition is totally false ,
for God can never wish that which he hates and forbids . Me-
lancthon, even in the Augsburg Confession , says : " Causa peccati
est voluntas impiorum, quæ avertit se a Deo." The will of the
wicked turned away from God is the cause of sin.
51. The second absurdity is this.-God , they say, incites the
devil to tempt us, and he himself even tempts man, and drives
him on to sin. How can that be, however, when God prohibits
us from following our evil inclinations : " Go not after thy lusts"
(Eccles. xviii . 30) ; and to fly from sin as from a serpent : " Flee
from sin as from the face of a serpent" (Eccles . xxi . 2 ) ? St. Paul
tells us to clothe ourselves with the armour of God , that is prayer,
against temptations : " Put on the armour of God, that you may be
able to stand against the deceits of the devil" (Ephes. vi. 11 ) . St.
Stephen reproaches the Jews, that they resisted the Holy Ghost ;
but if it were true that God moved them to sin , they might answer,
we do not resist the Holy Ghost, by any means, but do what he
inspires us, and on that account we stone you. Jesus Christ
teaches us to pray to God not to permit us to be tempted by those
dangerous occasions, which may lead to our fall : " Lead us not
into temptation." Now, if God urges on the devil to tempt us, and
even tempts us himself, and moves us to sin, and decrees that we

( 8) Calvin, Inst. l. 1 , c. 16, sec. 3.


540 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

sin, how can he command us to fly from sin and resist it, and to
pray that we may be free from temptations. If God has decreed
that Peter, for example, should have a certain temptation, and
succumb to it, how can he command this same Peter to pray that
he may free him from this temptation , and change his own decree ?
God never urges the devil to tempt us, but merely permits him to
do so to prove us. When the devil tempts us, he commits a wick-
edness, and God cannot command him to do this : " He hath com-
manded no man to do wickedly, and he hath given no man license
to sin" (Eccles. xv. 21 ) . Our Lord himself promises, even , that
whenever we are tempted he will assist us, and give us sufficient
grace to resist, and declares that he will never allow us to be
tempted beyond our strength : " God is faithful , who will not suffer
you to be tempted above that which you are able " ( 1 .Cor . x. 13 ) .
But they still insist God, as we read in the Scriptures, several
times tempted man : " God hath tried them" (Wisdom, iii . 5) .
" After these things God tempted Abraham" ( Gen. xxii. 1 ) . We
must here draw a distinction : the devil tempts men to make them
fall into sin, but God tempts them solely to prove their fidelity, as
he did in Abraham's case, and does continually, with his faithful
servants : " God hath tried them , and found them worthy of himself"
(Wisdom, iii . 5 ) ; but he never tempts man to fall into sin, as the
devil does : " For God is not a tempter of evils, and he tempteth no
man" (James, i . 13).
52. The third absurdity is this.- God says : " Believe not every
spirit, but try the spirits if they be of God" (1 John , iv. 1 ) . Hence ,
we Catholics are bound to examine the resolutions we take, as well
as the counsels we receive from others, even when at first they
appear good and holy, because frequently what we believe to be an
inspiration from God is nothing but a snare of the devil. Accord-
ing to Calvin's doctrine, however, we are not obliged to make
this examination , and see whether the spirit is good or bad , because
whether it be one or the other, it is all from God, who wills that
we should put in practice whatever he inspires us to do, whether it
be good or bad. According to this, then , the reformer's own maxim
-of understanding the Scriptures, according to our private judg
ment-falls to the ground, for no matter what we do, or what
erroneous or heretical interpretation we may give to the Holy Writ,
it is all an inspiration from God.
53. The fourth absurdity. The whole Scriptures teach us that
God leans much more to mercy and pardon than to justice and
punishment : " All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth"
(Psalm, xxiv. 10) ; " The earth is full of the mercy of the Lord.
His tender mercies are above all his works" ( Psalm , cxliv. 9) ;
66
Mercy exalteth itself above judgment" (James, ii. 13) . The
Almighty, therefore, superabounds in mercy, not alone to the just,
but to sinners. The great desire he has to make us live well, and
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 541

work out our salvation, is manifest from that passage so frequently


repeated in the Gospel : " Ask and ye shall receive (John , xvi.
24) ; " Ask and it shall be given to you" (Matt . vii. 7) ; " Every
one that asketh receiveth" ( Luke , xi. 10) . To all he offers the
treasures of enlightenment, of Divine love, of efficacious grace, of
final perseverance, and of eternal salvation, if we only pray for
them. He is faithful, and cannot fail in his promises, and so,
whoever is lost, is solely through his own fault . Calvin says the
elect are few ; these are Beza and his own disciples ; and all others
are reprobates, on whom God exercises his justice alone, since he
has predestined them to hell, and therefore deprives them of all
grace, and incites them to sin. According to Calvin's doctrine,
then, we should imagine the Almighty not as a God of mercy, but
the most unjust and cruel of tyrants, since he wishes us to sin that
he may torment us for all eternity. God, says Calvin , only acts
thus to exercise his justice, but this is what all cruel tyrants do ;
they wish others to commit crimes, that by punishing them they
may gratify their own cruel dispositions.
54. The fifth absurdity.- As man is obliged to sin , for God
wishes that he should, and pushes him on, it is unjust to punish
him, for as he is forced to sin he has no freedom, and therefore
commits no sin ; nay, more, as he does the will of God , who wishes
him to sin, he ought to be rewarded for conforming to the Divine
will ; how, then, can God punish him in justice ? Beza says, the
Apostle tells us that God " worketh all things according to the
counsel of his will" (Ephes. i. 11 ) . If everything is done, then, by
the will of God , sins, also, he says, are committed by his will.
Beza, here, however, is in error ; everything except sin is done by
the will of God. God does not wish sin , nor that any one should
be lost through sin : " Is it my will that a sinner should die , saith
the Lord ?" (Ezech . xviii . 23) ; " Not willing that any should perish ,
but that all should rather do penance" (2 Peter , iii . 5 ) . The Al-
mighty wishes that we should all become saints : " For it is the
will of God your sanctification" ( 1 Thess. iv. 3) .
55. The sixth absurdity.-These sectarians say that God himself
operates sins with us, and uses us as instruments for the accomplish-
ment of sin, and hence Calvin, as we have already remarked , calls
God the author of sin. This is condemned by the Council of Trent
(Sess. vi. can. 6) : " Si quis dixerit, non esse in potestate hominis
vias suas malas facere, sed mala opera, ita ut bona, Deum operari ;
non permissive solum, sed etiam proprie, et per se, adeo ut sit pro-
prium ejus opus , non minus proditio Judæ, quam vocatio Pauli ;
anathema sit." If God, then , be the author of sin, since he wishes
it, and urges us on to commit it, and operates it with us, how is it
that man sins, and God does not sin ? When this difficulty was
put to Zuinglius, he only answered : " Ask God himself; I am not
one of his counsellors." When Calvin himself was asked : How is
542 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

it that God condemns men for executing sin, when he himself


operates it through their means ; in every wicked work it is not the
instrument but the operator who is culpable ? and hence , if man
sins alone as the instrument of God , it is not he but God who is
culpable ? he answered , that " our carnal minds could not understand
it" (9) . Some sectaries answer this by saying, that God does not
sin by operating the sin , but man alone, for man does it for an evil
end, but God for a good end , to wit, exercising his justice by
punishing the sinner for his crime. But this answer will not excuse
God, because, according to Calvin, the Almighty decrees and pre-
destines man not alone to do the work of sin, but to do it with an
evil end, for otherwise he could not punish him. Hence God is
the true author of sin, and truly sins. Zuinglius gives another
answer (10) : Man , he says, sins because he acts against the law,
but God does not sin, because he has no law ; but this ridiculous
answer is rejected by Calvin himself ( 11) , who says, " we cannot
suppose God without a law." And it stands to reason, for though
no one can give a law to God , still his own goodness and justice
are a law to him . Hence as sin is contrary to the law of nature,
it is also opposed to the goodness of God , and he, therefore, never
can will sin. Now, as Calvinists assert, that whatever a man does,
good or bad, he does through necessity, for it is all the work of God ,
I would like to see, if one broke another's head , and he asked him ,
Why do you strike me? and the other would answer, It is not I
who strike you, but God who makes me, and forces me to do so,
would his co-religionist be satisfied with the excuse ? What God
are you talking about ? he would say ; away with such nonsense , it
is you have done it, and I will punish you for it. Poor people !
We hope they are not wilfully blind, for really it would appear
that those who entertain such extravagant opinions must be so.
56. The sectarians adduce several portions of Scripture to prove
that God wishes, commands, and operates sins. He says, in Isaias,
" I make peace, and create evil” (Isaias, xlv. 7) ; but Tertullian
answers, that there are two sorts of evil crimes and punishments.
God performs punishments, but not crimes, for the crimes of the
wicked, he says, belong to the devil, the punishments to God.
When Absalom rebelled against his father, David , God wished the
chastisement of David , but not the sin of Absalom . But, say they,
we read in 2 Kings, xvi . 10, that the Lord bid Semei " curse David ;"
and in Ezech. xiv. 9, " I , the Lord , have deceived that Prophet ;"
in the 104th Psalm, ver. 25 : " He turned their heart to hate his
people ;" and in St. Paul (2 Thess . ii. 10) : " God shall send them
the operation of error to believe lying." Behold then, say they, how
God commands and operates sins. They do not, however, in these

(9) Calvin, Inst. . 1 , c. 18, s. 1. (10) Zuing. Serm. de Provident. c. 5. (11) Calv.
1. 3, c. 23, s. 2.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 543

texts distinguish between the will of God and his permission . God,
for his own just ends, permits that man may deceive or sin , either
for the punishment of the wicked or for the advantage of the just,
but he neither wishes nor operates sin . Tertullian ( 12 ) says , God
is not the author nor the actor of sin, though he undoubtedly per-
mits it. St. Ambrose ( 13) says he does what is good , but not what
is evil, and St. Augustin ( 14 ) writes : He (God) knows how to con-
demn iniquity, but not to do it.

SEC. VII.- GOD NEVER PREDESTINED ANY ONE TO ETERNAL DAMNATION WITHOUT
REGARD TO HIS SINS.

57. CALVIN teaches that God has predestined many to eternal


damnation, not because of their sins, but merely for his own plea-
sure . Here are his words ( 1 ) : " Aliis vita æterna, aliis damnatio
æterna præordinatur ; itaque prout in alterutrum finem quisque con-
ditus est, ita vel ad vitam, vel ad mortem prædestinatum dicimus,”
and the only reason he assigns for this predestination is the will of
God (2) : " Neque in aliis reprobandis aliud habebimus, quam ejus
voluntatem." I can understand very well how the heretics embrace
this doctrine, for they argue thus : I may commit whatever sins I
please, without fear or remorse ; for, if I am predestined to heaven,
I will, notwithstanding, be infallibly saved, no matter what wicked-
ness I commit ; if I am among the reprobate I will be damned , no
matter how virtuously I live. Cesarius tells a story of a certain.
physician who gave a very good answer to this argument, if it can
be called one . A man of the name of Louis Landgrave got a mor-
tal fit of sickness, and sent for this physician , who called on him ,
and asked him what he wanted with him. " I hope," said the sick
man, " you will be able to restore me to health." 66"Oh ," said the
physician, " what can I do for you ? If your hour is come you
will die, no matter what remedies I may give you , but if not, you
will recover, without any assistance from me." Remember this was
the same answer the sick man had previously given to a person who
reprimanded him in presence of the physician, for his wicked life.
" If I am to be saved," said he, " I will be so , no matter how wicked
I may be ; and if I am to be damned, it will happen, no matter how
good I am." " Oh ," said the sick man, " do what you can for me,
perhaps your skill will restore me, but if you do nothing for me I
will surely die." The physician , then, who was both a pious and
prudent man, said to him : " If, then, you think that you can re-
cover your bodily health with the assistance of medicine, why do
not you try and restore your soul to health by a good confession ?"
The argument hit hard, the man sent immediately for a confessor,
and became a true penitent .

(12) Tertull. le cont. Hermog. (13) St. Ambr. i. de Par. c. 15. (14) St. Augus.
7. 105, ad Sixtum. (1) Calvin, Inst. l. 1, c. 21 , sec. 5. (5) Calvin, Inst. 7. 1 ,
c. 21 , s. 5 .
544 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

58. We shall, however, give Calvin a direct answer. If you


are predestined to eternal life , it is because you will be saved by
the good works you perform, at least that your predestination may
be carried out, but if you are destined to hell it is on account of
your sins, and not through the mere will of God, as you blasphe-
mously assert. Forsake, then, your evil ways ; do what is just,
and you will be saved . Nothing can be more false than the sup-
position of Calvin, that God created many men for hell alone.
Numberless passages in the Scriptures prove most clearly that it is
his will that all should be saved. St. Paul most expressly says
(1 Tim . ii . 4) , that he will " have all men to be saved , and come
to the knowledge of the truth ;" and, as St. Prosper says, speaking
of this passage, nothing can be clearer than that it is the will of
God that all should be saved : " Sacrificium credendum atque pro-
fitendum est Dominum velle omnes homines salvos fieri , siquidem
Apostolus (cujus hæc sententia est) sollicite præcipit ut Deo pro
omnibus supplicetur " ( 3). This is clear from the context, for the
Apostle says : " I desire first of all that supplications .....be made
for all men ..... for this is good and acceptable in the sight of
God our Saviour, who will have all men to be saved," &c. So we
see the Apostle tells us to pray for all, since God wishes to save all.
St. John Chrysostom argues in the same manner on the same
text (4) : " Si omnes Ille vult salvos fieri, merito pro omnibus
oportet orare. Si omnes ipse salvos fieri cupit, Illius et tu con-
corda voluntate ." St. Paul, speaking of our Saviour , also says :
" Christ Jesus, who gave himself a redemption for all " ( 1 Tim.
ii. 6). If then, Jesus Christ wished to redeem all men, then he
wills that all men should be saved.
59. But, says Calvin , God certainly foresees the good and bad
actions of every man : he has, therefore , decreed to send some to
hell on account of their sins, and how, then, can it be said that he
wills that all should be saved ? We answer, with St. John of
Damascus, St. Thomas of Aquin, and the great body of Catholic
Doctors, that with regard to the reprobation of sinners, it is neces-
sary to distinguish between the priority of time and the priority of
order, or, if we may say, of reason. In priority of time, the
Divine Decree is anterior to man's sin ; but in priority of order,
sin is anterior to the Divine Decree ; for God has decreed many
sinners to hell, inasmuch as he has foreseen their sins. Hence we
may see that God , with that antecedent will which regards his
goodness, truly wills that all should be saved , but by that conse-
quent will which regards the sins of the reprobate, he wishes their
damnation. Hear the words of St. John of Damascus on the sub-
ject (5) : " Deus precedenter vult omnes salvari, ut efficiat nos

(3) St. Prosper. resp. ad 2. Object. Vin. (4) St. Chrysos. in 1 Tim. 2, Hom. 7.
(5) St. Joan. Damas. 1. 2, de Fide Orthod. c. 2.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 545

bonitatis suæ participes ut bonus ; peccantes autem puniri vult ut


justus ;" and St. Thomas says : " Voluntas antecedens est , qua
(Deus) omnes homines salvos fieri vult ...... Consideratis autem
omnibus circumstantiis personæ, sic non invenitur de omnibus
bonum esse quod salventur ; bonum enim est eum qui se præparat,
et consentit, salvari ; non vero nolentem, et resistentem .... Et hæc
dicitur voluntas consequens, eo quod præsupponit præscientiam
operum, non tanquam causam voluntatis, sed quasi rationem
voliti " (6).
60. There are many other texts to prove that God wills the sal-
vation of all. I will quote at least a few. Christ says : " Come to
99
me, all you that labour and are burthened, and I will refresh you
(Matt. xi. 28) . Come, he says, all you burthened with your sins ,
and I will repair the ruin you yourselves have occasioned. When,
therefore, he invites all to accept a remedy, he wishes that all
should be saved . In another place St. Peter says, the Lord
" dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should
perish, but that all should return to penance" ( 2 Peter, iii . 9) . Mark
this, "that all should return to penance." God does not wish
that any one should be damned , even sinners, while in this life, but
that all should repent of their sins, and be saved. Again, in
another place, David says : " For wrath is in his indignation , and
life in his good will" (Psalm, xxix. 6) . St. Basil, explaining this
passage, says , that it proves that God wishes all men to be saved :
" Et vita in voluntate ejus, quid ergo dicit ? nimirum quod vult
Deus omnes vitæ fieri participes." Although we offend God by
our sins, he does not wish our death , but that we should live. In
the book of Wisdom ( xi . 25 ) , we read : " Thou lovest all things
that are, and hatest none of the things thou hast made ...... thou
sparest all, because they are thine , O Lord , who lovest souls ." If,
therefore, God loves all his creatures, and especially the souls he
created, and is always ready to pardon those who repent of their
sins, how can we imagine, for a moment , that he creates souls solely
for the purpose of tormenting them eternally in hell ? No ; God
does not wish to see them lost, but saved, and when he sees that
we are hurrying to eternal torments , by our sins, he almost im-
plores us to retrace our steps, and avoid destruction : " Turn ye ,
turn ye from your evil ways, and why will you die, O house of
Israel" (Ezech . xxxiii . 11 ). Poor sinners, he says, why will you
persevere in damning yourselves ? return to me, and you will find
again the life which you lost. Hence it was, that our Saviour,
viewing Jerusalem, and considering the destruction the Jews were
bringing on it, by the crime of putting him to death , " wept over it"
(Luke, xix. 41 ) . In another place he declares that he does not wish
the death of the sinner, and even swears so : " As I live, saith the

(6) St. Thom. cap. 6, Joan. lec. 4.


2 M
546 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Lord God, I desire not the death of the wicked , but that the wicked
turn from his evil way, and live" ( Ezech . xxxiii . 11) ,
61. Now, taking into account so many Scripture proofs, by
which God tells us that he wishes to save all mankind, it is, as the
learned Petavius says, an insult to the Divine Mercy, and a mock-
ery of the Faith , to say that God does not wish that it should be
so: " Quod si ista Scripturæ loca, quibus hanc suam voluntatem
tam illustribus, ac sæpe repetitis sententiis, imo lacrymis, ac jureju-
rando testatus est Deus, calumniari licet, et in contrarium detor-
quere sensum, ut præter paucos genus humanum omne perdere
statuerit, nec eorum servandorum voluntatem habuerit, quid est adeo
disertum in Fidei decretis, quod simili ab injuria, et cavillatione
tutum esse possit" (7) . Cardinal Sfrondati adds, that to assert the
contrary, that God wishes only some few to be saved, and has ab-
solutely decreed that all the rest should be damned , when he has
so often manifested that he wishes all to be saved, is only mak-
ing him an actor, who says one thing, and wishes and performs
another : " Plane qui aliter sentiunt, nescio an ex Deo vero Deum
scenicum faciant" (8 ) . All the Fathers, both Greek and Latin, are
agreed in this, that God sincerely wishes that all should be saved.
Petavius cites St. Justin, St. Basil , St. Gregory, St. Cyril, St. Chry-
sostom , and St. Methodius, on the subject. Hear what the Latin
Fathers say- St. Jerome : " Vult ( Deus ) salvare omnes, sed quia
nullus absque propria voluntate salvatur, vult nos bonum velle, ut
cum voluerimus, velit in nobis et Ipse suum implere consilium" (9) .
St. Hilary says ( 10) : " Omnes homines Deus salvos fieri vult, et
non eos tantum qui ad Sanctorum numerum pertinebunt, sed omnes
omnino, ut nullus habeat exceptionem." St. Paulinus ( 11 ) thus
writes : " Omnibus dicit Christus, venite ad me, &c., omnem enim
29
quantum in ipso est, hominem salvum fieri vult, qui fecit omnes."
St. Ambrose says ( 12) : " Etiam circa impios suam ostendere debuit
voluntatem, et ideo nec proditorem debuit præterire, ut adverterent
omnes, quod in electione etiam proditoris sui salvandorum omnium
prætendit ..... et quod in Deo fuit, ostendit omnibus, quod omnes
voluit liberare." I omit all other proofs from the Fathers, as they
are too numerous, but as Petrocoresius well remarks, the Divine
precept of hope assures us that God truly on his part wishes all to
be saved ; for if we were not certain that God wishes all to be saved ,
our hope would not be secure and firm, as St. Paul tells us, 66 an
anchor of the soul sure and firm" ( Heb. vi . 18, 19) , but weak and
doubtful: " Qua fiducia," he says, " Divinam misericordiam sperare
poterunt homines, si certum non sit quod Deus salutem omnium
eorum velit" ( 13) . I have expounded this argument in my Work
on Prayer ( 14) .
(7) Petav. Theol. t. 1, l. 10, c. 15, n. 5. (8) Nodus Præd. Par. 1. (9) St. Hier.
Comment. in c. 1 , ad Ephesios. (10 ) St. Hilar. Ep. ad Aug. (11) St. Paulin. Ep.
24, ad Sever. n. 9. (12 ) St. Ambr. de Libro Parad. c. 8. (13) Petrocor. Theol. t. 1 ,
c. 3, q. 4. (14) Mezzo della Preghiera Par. 2, c. 4.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 547

62. Calvin, however, says that, by the sin of Adam , the whole
human race became a 66 condemned mass ;" and hence God does no
injury to mankind, if he only saves a few, and allows the rest to be
damned, if not for their own sins, at all events for the sin of Adam.
But we answer, that it is this very " condemned mass" itself, that
Jesus Christ came to save by his death : " For the Son of Man is
come to save that which was lost" ( Matt. xviii. 11 ) . He offered up
his death, not alone for those who were to be saved, but for all,
without exception : " He gave himself a redemption for all”
(1 Tim. ii. 6) ; " Christ died for all" ( 1 Cor. v. 15 ) ; " We hope in
the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of the
faithful" (1 Tim. iv. 10) . And even St. Paul, to show that we were
all dead by sin, says that Christ died for all : " The charity of
...... if one died for all, then all were dead"
Christ presseth us ...
(2 Cor. v. 14) . Hence, St. Thomas says, Christ is the mediator,
not of some, but of all : " Christus Jesus est mediator Dei , et homi-
num, non quorundam, sed inter Deum et omnes homines et hoc
non esset, nisi vellet omnes salvare” ( 15 ) .
63. If, God, however, wishes that all should be saved, and Christ
died for all, how then is it, St. Chrysostom asks, that all are not
saved ? He answers the question himself: Because all will not act
in conformity with the will of God, who wishes that all should be
saved, but, at the same time, will not force any one's will : " Cur
igitur non omnes salvi fiunt, si vult ( Deus) omnes salvos esse ? quo-
niam non omnium voluntas Illius voluntatem sequitur, porro ipse
neminem cogit ( 16 ) . And St. Augustin ( 17) says : " Bonus est
Deus, justus est Deus ; potest aliquos sine bonis meritis liberare,
quia bonus est, non potest quenquam sine malis meritis damnare,
quia justus est." Even the Lutheran Centuriators of Magdeburg,
speaking of the reprobate, confess that the Holy Fathers have taught
that God does not predestine sinners to hell, but condemns them ,
on account of the foreknowledge he has of their sins : " Patres nec
prædestinationem ineo Dei, sed præscientiam solumadmiserunt" (18) .
But, says Calvin, God , although he predestines many to eternal
death, still does not insist on the punishment until after they
have sinned ; and therefore, he first predestines the reprobates to
sin, that he may, in justice, condemn them afterwards . But if it
would be an act of injustice to send the innocent to hell, would it
not be much more so to predestine them first to sin, that they may
be subsequently damned. " Major vero injustitia," says St. Ful-
gentius, " si lapso Deus retribuit pœnam , quam stantem prædestinasse
dicitur ad ruinam" ( 19) .
64. The truth is, that those who are lost are so through their

(15 ) St. Thom. ad 1 Tim. ii. lect. 1. ( 16 ) St. Chrysos. Hom . 43, de Longitud.
prem . (17) St. Augus. 1. 3, contra Julian, c. 18. (18) Centuriat . 102, c. 4.
(19) St. Fulgent. l. 1 , ad Monim. c. 24.
548 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

own negligence, since , as St. Thomas writes, our Lord gives to all
the necessary grace for salvation : " Hoc ad Divinam providentiam
pertinet, ut cuilibet provideat de necessariis ad salutem" (20).
And in another place, explaining the text of St. Paul, that God
wishes all men to be saved, he says : 66 Et ideo gratia nulli deest,
sed omnibus ( quantam in se est) se communicat" ( 21 ). God
himself has said the self- same thing, by the mouth of the Prophet
Osee, that, if we are lost, it is altogether through our own fault,
for he gives us sufficient assistance to work out our salvation :
" Destruction is thine own, O Israel ; thy help is only in me"
(Osee, xiii. 9 ) ; and, therefore, it is that the Apostle says, that God
will not allow us to be tempted beyond our strength : " God is
faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which
you are able" ( 1 Cor. x. 13 ). It would , indeed , be both wicked
and cruel of God, as St. Thomas and St. Augustin say, if he, as
Calvin teaches, obliged men to observe commandments which he
knew they could not : " Peccati reum," says St. Augustin, " tenere
quenquam, quia non fecit quod facere non potuit, summa iniquitas
est" ( 22). And St. Thomas says : " Homini imputatur ad crude-
litatem, si obliget aliquem per præceptum ad id quod implere non
possit ; ergo de Deo nullatenus est æstimandum" (23 ) . It is quite
otherwise, however, the Saint says, when the sinner, on account of
his own negligence, has not grace to observe the command-
ments (24 ). This negligence is carelessness in availing ourselves
of, at least, the remote grace of prayer, by which we may obtain
proximate grace to observe the commandments, as the Council of
Trent teaches : " Deus impossibilia non jubet, sed jubendo monet ,
et facere quod possis, et petere quod non possis et adjuvat ut possis"
(Sess. vi. c . 13 ) .
65. Hence, we conclude, with St. Ambrose, our Saviour has
manifested to us most clearly that, although all men are infirm
and guilty, still he has provided a sufficient remedy for their
salvation : " Omnibus opem sanitatis detulit.......ut Christi mani-
festa in omnes prædicetur misericordia qui omnes homines vult
salvos fieri" (25) . What greater felicity can a sick man have, says
St. Augustin, than to have his life in his own hands, having always
a remedy to heal himself whenever he pleases ? " Quid enim te
beatius quam ut tanquam in manu tua vitam , sic in voluntate tua
sanitatem habeas" (26 ) ? Hence , St. Ambrose again says, that he
who is lost is guilty of his own death , since he will not make use
of the remedy prepared for him: " Quicumque perierit mortis suæ
causam sibi adscribat qui curari noluit cum remedium haberet."
For, as St. Augustin says, our Lord heals all, and heals them

(20) St. Thom. quæst. 14, de Verit. art. 11, ad 1. (21) Idem in Epist. ad Hebr.
c. 12, lect. 8. (22) St. Aug. de Anima, l. 2, c. 12, n. 17. (23) St. Thom. in 2,
Sent. Dist. 28, qu. 1, a. 3. (24) Idem, ques. 24, de Verit. a. 14, ad 2. (25) Ambro.
1. 2, de Abel. c. 3. (26) St. Augus. trac. 12, in Joan, cir. fin.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 549

perfectly, as far as he is concerned , but will not heal him who


refuses to be healed : " Quantum in medico est sanare venit
ægrotum......Sanat omnino, Ille sed non sanat invitum” (27) .
Finally, says St. Isidore of Pelusium, God wishes, by every means,
to assist sinners to save themselves, and , therefore, in the day of
judgment, they will find no excuse for their condemnation :
" Etenim serio et modis omnibus (Deus) vult eos adjuvare qui in
vitio volutantur ut omnem eis excusationem eripiat" (28).
66. Calvin, however, objects to all this, first, several texts of
Scripture, in which it is said that God himself hardens the hearts
of sinners, and blinds them, so that they cannot see the way of
salvation : " I shall harden his heart" (Exod . iv. 21 ) ; “ Blind the
heart of this people" ( Isaias, vi . 10) . But St. Augustin explains
these and similar texts, by saying that God hardens the hearts of
the obstinate, by not dispensing to them that grace, of which they
have rendered themselves unworthy, but not by infusing wickedness
into them, as Calvin teaches: " Indurat subtrahendo gratiam non
impendendo malitiam" ( 29 ) ; and it is thus , also, he blinds them :
" Excecat Deus deserendo non adjuvando" ( 30) . It is one thing
to harden and blind men , but quite another thing to permit them,
as God does, for just reasons, to become blind and obstinate. We
give the same answer to that saying of St. Peter to the Jews, when
he reproached them for putting Christ to death : " This same being,
delivered up by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God,
you, by the hands of wicked men, have crucified and slain" (Acts,
ii. 23 ) . When they say, therefore, that it was by the counsel of
God that the Jews put our Saviour to death, we answer, that God,
indeed, decreed the death of Christ, for the salvation of the world ,
but he merely permitted the sin of the Jews.
67. Calvin objects , in the second place, these expressions of the
Apostle (Rom . ix. 11 , &c.) : " For when the children were not yet
born, nor had done any good or evil (that the purpose of God
according to election might stand) , not of works, but of him that
calleth, it was said to her: The elder shall serve the younger. As
it is written : Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated." And
then he quotes, further on in the same chapter : " So then it is not
of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that
showeth mercy ." And again : " Therefore, he hath mercy on
whom he will ; and whom he will he hardeneth ." And , finally :
" Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump, to
make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour ?" I
cannot, understand, however, how these passages favour Calvin's
doctrines. The text of St. Paul says, " Jacob I have loved, but
Esau I have hated ," after having first said that they had not yet
done any good or evil . How, then, could God hate Esau before
(27) St. Augus. trac. 12, in Joan. cir. fin. (28) St. Isid. Pelus. 1. 2, Ep, 270.
(29) St. Augus. Ep. 194, ad Sixtum. (30) Idem, Tract. in Joan.
550 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

he had done anything wicked ? St. Augustin ( 31 ) answers : " God


did not hate Esau as a man, but as a sinner. No one can deny
that it does not depend on our will, but on the goodness of God,
to obtain the Divine Mercy , and that God leaves some sinners
hardened in their sins, and makes them vessels of dishonour, and
uses mercy towards others, and makes them vessels of honour . No
sinner can glorify himself, if God uses mercy towards him, nor
complain of the Almighty, if he does not give him the same grace
as he gives to others. " Auxilium," says St. Augustin , " quibus-
cumque datur, misericordia datur ; quibus autem non datur, ex
justitia non datur" ( 32 ) . In all that, we must only adore the
Divine Judgments, and say, with the Apostle : " O, the depth of
the riches, of the wisdom, and of the knowledge of God. How
incomprehensible are his judgments, and how unsearchable his
ways" (Rom. xi. 33) . But all that does not, in the least, strengthen
Calvin's position , for he says that God predestines man
hell, and that he first predestines him to sin ; but this is not the
case, as St. Fulgentius (33) says : " Potuit Deus prædestinare
quosdam ad gloriam , quosdam ad pœnam, sed quos prædestinavit
ad gloriam, predestinavit ad justitiam ; quos predestinavit ad
pœnam, non prædestinavit ad culpam." Some charged St. Augustin
with the same error, and, therefore, Calvin says : " Non dubitabo
cum Augustino fateri , voluntatem Dei esse rerum necessitatem "—
that is, the necessity a man has to perform what is either good or
bad ( 34) . St. Prosper, however, clears his venerable master from
this charge : " Prædestinationem Dei sive ad bonum , sive ad malum
in hominibus operari, ineptissime dicitur" (35). The Fathers of
the Council of Oranges also defended St. Augustin : " Aliquos ad
malum Divina potestate prædestinatos esse, non solum non credi-
mus, sed etiam si sint qui tantum malum credere velint, cum omni
detestatione illis anathema dicimus."
68. Calvin objects, in the third place.-Do not you Catholics
teach that God, by the supreme dominion he has over all creatures,
can exclude, by a positive act, some from eternal life : is not this
the " Negative Reprobation " defended by your theologians ? We
answer, that it is quite one thing to exclude some from eternal
life, and another to condemn them to everlasting death , as it is one
thing for a Sovereign to exclude some of his subjects from his
table, and another to condemn them to prison ; and , besides, all our
theologians do not teach this opinion - the greater part reject it.
Indeed, for my own part, I cannot understand how this positive
exclusion from everlasting life can be in conformity with the Scrip-
ture, which says : " Thou lovest all things that are , and hatest none
of the things which thou hast made" (Wisdom , xi. 25) ; " Destruc-

(31) St. Augus. Ep. 194, ad Sixtum. (32 ) St. Aug. 1. de Corrept. et Grat. c. 5 &
6 , ad 1. (33) St. Fulgen. l. 1 , ad Monim. c. 15. (34) Calvin, l. 3, c. 21 , sec. 7.
(35) St. Prosp. in libell. ad Capit. Gallor. c. 6.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 551

tion is thy own, O Israel : thy help is only in me" ( Osee , xiii . 9) ;
" Is it my will that a sinner should die , saith the Lord God , and
not that he should be converted from his ways, and live" (Ezech .
xviii . 23) . And in another place our Lord even swears that he does
not wish the death , but the life of the sinner : " As I live, saith the
Lord God, I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked
turn from his way and live" (Ezech . xxxiii. 11 ) ; " For the Son of
man is come to save that which was lost" (Matt. xviii . 11 ) ; " Who
wishes all men to be saved" ( 1 Tim . ii . 4) ; " Who gave himself a
redemption for all” ( ver. 6) .
69. Now, when our Lord declares in so many places that he
wishes the salvation of all , and even of the wicked , how can it be
said, that by a positive decree he excludes many from glory , not
because of their crimes, but merely for his own pleasure , when this
positive exclusion necessarily involves, at least necessitate conse-
quentiæ, positive damnation ; for, according to the order established
by God, there is no medium between exclusion from eternal life and
condemnation to everlasting death. Neither will it serve to say,
that all men, by original sin, have become a condemned mass ; and
God, therefore, determines that some should remain in their perdi-
tion, and others be saved ; for although we know that all are born
children of wrath , still we are also aware that God, by an antece-
dent will, really wishes that all should , through means of Jesus
Christ , be saved. Those who are baptized, and in a state of grace,
have even a greater claim, for in them, as St. Paul says, there is
found nothing worthy of damnation : " There is now, therefore, no
condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus" (Rom. viii . 1. ) And
the Council of Trent teaches, that in such God finds nothing to
hate : " In renatis enim nihil odit Deus" (Sess. V. , Decret. de Pec.
Orig. n. 5). Those who die , then, after baptism, free from actual
sin, go at once to the joys of heaven : " Nihil prorsus eos ab
ingressu cœli removetur" (Ibid.) Now, if God entirely remits
original sin to those who are baptized , how can it be asserted , that,
on account of it, he afterwards excludes some of them from eternal
life ? That God, however, may wish to free from eternal and
deserved damnation some of those who voluntarily have lost their
baptismal grace by mortal sin, and leave others to their fate, is a
matter which entirely depends on his own will , and his just judg-
ments. But even of these, St. Peter says God does not wish , as
long as they are in this life, that one should perish, but should re-
pent of his wickedness, and be saved : " He dealeth patiently for
your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should
return to penance" (2 Peter, iii . 9) . Finally , St. Prosper says, that
those who die in sin are not necessarily lost, because they are not
predestined ; but they were not predestined, inasmuch as God
foresaw that they wished to die obstinately in sin : " Quod hujus-
modi in hæc prolapsi mala, sine correctione pœnitentiæ defecerunt,
non ex eo necessitatem habuerunt, quia prædestinati non sunt, sed
552 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

ideo prædestinati non sunt ; quia tales futuri ex voluntaria prævari-


catione præsciti sunt" (36) .
70. From all we have already written on the subject, we see
how confused are all heretics, but especially the pretended Re-
formers, with the dogmas of Faith. They are all united in oppos-
ing the dogmas taught by the Catholic Church, but they afterwards
contradict each other in a thousand points of belief among
themselves, and it is difficult to find one who believes the same as
another. They say that they are only seeking for and following the
truth ; but how can they find the truth, if they cast away the rule
of truth ? The truths of the Faith were not manifested of them-
selves to all men, so that if every one was bound to believe that
which pleased his own judginent best, there would be no end to
disputes. Hence, our Lord, to remove all confusion regarding the
dogmas of Faith, has given us an infallible judge to put an end to
all disputes, and as there is but one God, so there is but one
Faith: " One faith, one baptism, one God" (Ephes . iv. 5) .
71. Who, then, is this judge who puts an end to all controver-
sies regarding Faith , and tells us what we are to believe ? It is
the Church established by God, as the pillar and the ground of
truth : " That thou mayest know how thou ought to behave thy-
self in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God,
the pillar and the ground of the truth ." The voice of the Church,
then, it is which teaches the truth , and distinguishes the Catholic
from the heretic, as our Lord says , speaking of him who contemns
the correction of his pastor : " If he will not hear the Church , let
him be to thee as the heathen and the publican" ( Matt. xviii. 17) .
Perhaps, however, some will say : Among the many churches in
the world , which is the true one-which is it we are to believe ?
I briefly answer- having treated the subject at length in my Work
on the Truth of the Faith, and also in the Dogmatic part of this
Work-that the only true Church is the Roman Catholic , for this
is the first founded by Jesus Christ. It is certain that our Re-
deemer founded the Church in which the faithful may find salva-
tion ; he it was who taught us what we should believe and practise
to obtain eternal life. After his death , he committed to the
Apostles, and their successors, the government of his Church, pro-
mising to assist them, and to be with them all time, " even to the
consummation of the world" (Matt . xxviii . 20 ) . He also promised
that the gates of hell should never prevail against it : " Thou art
Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of
hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. xvi. 18 ) . Now, every
heresiarch , in founding his Church, separated himselffrom this first
Church founded by Jesus Christ ; and if this was the true Church
of our Saviour, all the others are, necessarily, false and heretical.
72. It will not do to say, as the Donatists did of old , and the
Protestants in later times, that they have separated themselves from
(36) St. Prosper, Res. 3 ad Capit. Gallor
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 553

the Church, because although in the beginning it was the true one,
still, through the fault of those who governed it, the doctrine
preached by Jesus Christ became corrupted, for he , as we have
seen, has promised that the gates of hell should never prevail
against the Church he founded. Neither will it avail them to say
that it was only the visible, and not the invisible Church that
failed, on account of the wickedness of the shepherds, for it is
necessary that there should always be a visible and infallible judge,
in the Church , to decide all doubts, that disputes may be quashed,
and the dogmas of Faith be secure and certain . I wish every Pro-
testant would consider this , and see how he can be certain then, of
his salvation outside the Holy Catholic Church.

SEC. VIII.-THE AUTHORITY OF GENERAL COUNCILS.

73. THERE can be only one Faith, for as Faith and truth are
indivisibly united, and as truth is one, so Faith must be one like-
wise. Hence , we conclude, as we have already shown , that in all
controversies regarding the dogmas of Faith, it has always been ,
and is always necessary to have, an infallible judge, whose decisions
all should obey. The reason of this is manifest, for if the judgment
of every one of the faithful was to be taken on this matter, as the
sectaries expect, it would not be alone opposed to the Scriptures,
as we shall see, but to reason itself, for it would be quite impossible
to unite the opinions of all the faithful, and give from them a dis-
tinct and definitive judgment in dogmas of Faith, and there would
be endless disputes, and, instead of unity of Faith, there would be
as many creeds as persons. Neither is the Scripture alone sufficient
to assure us of the truth of what we should believe , for several pas-
sages of it can be interpreted in different senses, both true and false,
so that the Bible will be, for those who take it in a perverse sense,
not a rule of Faith , but a fountain of errors ; the Gospel, as St.
Jerome says, will become, not the Gospel of Christ, but the Gospel
of man, or of the devil : " Non putemus in verbis Scripturarum esse
Evangelium sed in sensu, interpretatione enim perversa de Evan-
gelio Christi fit hominis Evangelium aut diaboli ." Where, in fact,
can we look for the true sense of the Scriptures, only in the judg-
ment of the Church, the pillar and the ground of truth , as the
Apostle calls it?
74. That the Roman Catholic Church is the only true one, and
that the others who have separated from it are false, is manifest
from what we have already seen ; for , as the sectaries themselves
admit, the Roman Catholic Church has been certainly first founded
by Jesus Christ. He promised to assist it to the end of time, and
the gates of hell, that is, as St. Epiphanius explains it , heretics and
founders of heresies, will never prevail against it, as was promised
to St. Peter. Hence, in all doubts of Faith, we should bow to the
decisions of this Church, subjecting our judgment to her judgment,
554 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

in obedience to Christ, who, as St. Paul tells us, commands us to


obey the Church : " Bring into captivity every understanding unto
the obedience of Christ" (2 Cor. x. 5).
75. The Church, then, teaches us through General Councils ,
and hence, the perpetual tradition of all the faithful has always
held as infallible the definitions of General Councils, and considered
as heretics those who refused obedience to them. Such have been
the Lutherans and Calvinists, who have denied the infallibility of
General Councils. Here are Luther's own words, taken from the
thirtieth article of the forty-one condemned by Leo X. (1 ) : " Via
nobis facta est enervandi auctoritatem Conciliorum , et judicandi
eorum Decreta, et confidenter confitendi quidquid verum videtur ,
sive prolatum fuerit, sive reprobatum a quocunque Concilio ." Calvin
said the same thing , and the followers of both heresiarchs have
adopted their opinion . We know, especially, that Calvin and Beza
both said, that no matter how holy a Council might be, still it may
err in matters appertaining to Faith ( 2) . The Faculty of Paris,
however, censuring the thirtieth article of Luther, declared the
contrary: " Certum est, Concilium Generale legitime congregatum
in Fidei et morum determinationibus errare non posse." How, in
fact, can we deny infallibility to General Councils, when we know
that they represent the whole Church ? for, if they could err in
matters of Faith, the whole Church could err, and the infidels
might say, then, that God had not provided sufficiently for the
unity of Faith, as he was bound to do, when he wished that all
should profess the same Faith.
76. Hence , we are bound to believe, that in matters relating to
the dogmas of Faith, and to moral precepts, General Councils can-
not err, and this is proved , in the first place, from Scripture . Christ
says : " Where there are two or three gathered together in my
name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt. xviii. 20) . But
then, says Calvin, according to that a Council of two persons assem-
bled in the name of God cannot err. The Council of Chalcedon ,
however (Act 3, in fine) , in the Epistle to Pope St. Leo, and the
Sixth Synod ( Act 17) , had previously disposed of this objection ,
by explaining that the words, " in my name," show that this can-
not be applied to a meeting of private persons assembled to discuss
matters regarding their own private interests, but a meeting of
persons congregated to decide on points regarding the whole society
of Christendom. It is proved , secondly, bythe words of St. John :
"When he , the Spirit of Truth, is come, he will teach you all
truth" (John , xvi . 13) . And previously, in the 14th chap. 16th
verse , he says : " I will ask the Father, and he shall give you
another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever : the Spirit
of Truth." Now the expression, " that he may abide with you for

(1) Luther, lib. de Concil. ar. 28, 29. (2) Joan Vysembogard. Ep. ad Lud. Colin.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 555

ever," clearly shows that the Holy Ghost continually abides in the
Church, to teach the truths of the Faith, not alone to the Apostles,
who, being mortal, could not remain always with us, but to the
bishops, their successors . Unless, then, in this congregation of
bishops, we do not know where the Holy Ghost teaches these
truths.
77. It is proved , also, from the promises made by our Saviour
always to assist his Church, that it may not err : " Behold , I am
with you all days, even to the consummation of the world" (Matt.
xxviii . 20) ; " And I say to thee, thou art Peter, and upon this
rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it" (Matt. xvi. 18) . A General Council, as has been said
already, and as the eighth Synod (Act 5 ) declared , represents the
universal Church ; and, hence, this interrogatory was put to all
suspected of heresy in the Council of Constance : " An non credunt
Concilium Generale universam Ecclesiam repræsentare ?" And
St. Athanasius , St. Epiphanius, St. Cyprian, St. Augustin, and St.
Gregory, teach the same thing (3) . If, therefore, the Church, as
it has been proved , cannot err, neither can the Council which re-
presents the Church fall into error. It is proved, besides , from
those texts, in which the faithful are commanded to obey the
prelates of the Church : " Obey your prelates , and be subject
to them" (Heb. xiii . 17) ; " Who hears you, hears me" (Luke, x.
16) ; " Go, therefore, teach all nations" (Matt . xxviii . 19 ). These
prelates, separately, may fall into error, and frequently disagree
with each other on controverted points, and, therefore , we should
receive what they tell us as infallible, and as coming from Christ
himself, when they are united in Council. On this account the
Holy Fathers have always considered as heretics those who con-
tradicted the dogmas defined by General Councils, as the reader
may see, by consulting St. Gregory of Nazianzen, St. Basil , St.
Cyril, St. Ambrose , St. Athanasius, St. Augustin , and St. Leo(4 ) .
78. Besides all these proofs, there is another, that if General
Councils could err, there would be no established tribunal in the
Church, to terminate disputes about points of dogma, and to pre-
serve the unity of the Faith, and if they were not infallible in their
judgments, no heresy could be condemned, nor could we say it was
a heresy at all. We could not be certain either of the canonicity
of several books of the Scripture, as the Epistle of St. Paul to the
Hebrews, the Second Epistle of St. Peter, the Third Epistle of St.
John, the Epistles of St. James and St. Jude, and the Apocalypse
of St. John ; for, although the Calvinists receive all these, still they

(3) St. Athanas. Ep. de Synod. Arim. St. Epiphan. An. at. in fin.; St. Cyprian. l. 4,
Ep. 9 ; St. Augus. l. 1 contra at. c. 18, St. Greg. Ep. 24 ad Patriarch. (4) St. Greg.
Nazian. Ep. ad Cledon.; St. Basil, Ep. 78 ; St. Cyril. de Trinit.; St. Ambr. Ep. 32 ;
St. Athan. Ep. ad Episc. Afric.; St. Aug. . 1, de Bapt. c. 18 ; St. Leo, Ep. 77, ad
Anatol.
556 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

are considered doubtful by others, because they were not declared


canonical by the Fourth Council. Finally, we may add, that if
Councils could err, they committed an intolerable error in propos-
ing, as Articles of Faith, matters, which they could not assert
were true or false ; and thus the Creeds of Nice, of Constantinople,
of Ephesus, and of Chalcedon, would fall to the ground, in which
several dogmas were declared , which before were not held as such,
and still these four General Councils are received as Rules ofFaith
by the Innovators themselves. We have now to consider their
numerous and importunate objections.
79. First, Calvin objects ( 5) several passages of the Scriptures,
in which the prophets, priests, and pastors, are called ignorant and
liars : " From the prophet to the priest, all deal deceitfully" (Jer.
viii. 10) ; " His watchmen are all blind ..........the shepherds
themselves know no understanding" ( Isaias, lvi . 10, 11 ). We
answer, that frequently in the Scriptures, because some are wicked,
all are reprimanded, as St. Augustin ( 6 ) says, explaining that
passage (Phil. ii . 21 ) : " All seek the things that are their own , and
not the things that are Jesus Christ's." But the Apostles surely
did not seek the things which were their own ; they sought solely
the glory of God, and, therefore , St. Paul calls on the Philippians,
and tells them: " Be followers of me, brethren , and observe them
who walk, so as you have our model" (Phil . iii. 17 ) . We should,
besides, remember that the texts quoted speak of priests and pro-
phets divided among themselves, and deceiving the people, and not
of those who speak to us, assembled in the name of God. Be-
sides , the Church of the New Testament has received surer promises
than did the Synagogue of old, which was never called " The
Church of the living God, the pillar and the firmament of truth"
( 1 Tim . iii. 15 ) . Calvin, however, says (7 ) , that even in the New
Law there are many false prophets and deceivers, as St. Matthew
(xxiv. 11 ) tells us : " Many false prophets shall arise , and seduce
many." This is also true ; but he ought to apply this text to him-
self, and Luther, and Zuinglius, and not to the Ecumenical Councils
of bishops, to whom the assistance of the Holy Ghost is promised , and
who can say: " It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us"
(Acts, xv. 28 ) .
80. Calvin objects, secondly , the iniquity of the Council of Cai-
phas, which, withal, was a General one, composed of the Princes
and Priests, and still condemned Jesus Christ as guilty of death
(Matt. xxvi. 66) . Therefore , he says, even General Councils are
fallible. We reply, that we call infallible those legitimate General
Councils alone, at which the Holy Ghost assists ; but how can we
call that council either legitimate , or assisted by the Holy Ghost,

(5) Calv. Inst. l. 4, c. 9, sec. 3. (6) St. Aug. de Unit. Eccl. c. 11. (7) Calvin,
loc. cit. sec. 4.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 557

in which Christ was condemned as a blasphemer, for attesting that


he was the Son of God, after so many proofs given by him that he
was really so - whose proceedings were all based on false testimony,
suborned for the purpose, and which was governed by envy alone,
as even Pilate knew : " For he knew that for envy they had deli-
vered him " ( Matt. xxvii . 18.)
81. Luther objects, thirdly, (in art. 29) , that, in the Council of
Jerusalem, St. James changed the sentence given by St. Peter, who
decided that the Gentiles were not bound to the observance of the
precepts of the Law ; but St. James said that they should abstain
from meats offered to idols, from things suffocated , and from blood,
and this was forcing them to a Jewish observance . We answer,
with St. Augustin and St. Jerome ( 8) , that this prohibition does not
subvert the decision of St. Peter ; nor, properly speaking, was it an
imposition of the precepts of the Old Law, but a mere temporary
precept of discipline, to satisfy the Jews, who could not bear just
then, at the beginning of Christianity, to see the Gentiles eating
blood and meats abhorred by them. It was, however, only a simple
command, which fell into disuse, when the time passed away it was
intended for, as St. Augustin remarks ( 9 ).
82. They object, fourthly, that in the Council of Neocesarea,
received by the First Council of Nice, as the Council of Florence
attests, second marriages were condemned : " Presbyterum convivio
secundarum nuptiarum interesse non debere." But how, say they,
could such a prohibition be given, when St. Paul says : " If her
husband should die, she is at liberty ; let her marry to whom she
will, only in the Lord" ( 1 Cor . vii. 39) . We answer that, in the
Council of Neocesarea, second marriages are not forbidden, but only
the solemn celebration of them, and the banquets which were usual
at first marriages alone ; and, therefore, it was forbidden to the
priests to attend, not at the marriage, but at the banquets, which
were a part of the solemnity. Fifthly, Luther objects that the
Council of Nice prohibited the profession of arms , although St. John
the Baptist ( Luke , iii . 14) held it as lawful. We answer, that the
Council did not prohibit the profession of arms, but forbid the sol-
diers to sacrifice to idols, to obtain the belt, or military distinction ,
which, as Ruffinus ( 10) tells us, was only given to those who offered
sacrifice; and it is these alone the Council condemned in the Second
Canon. Sixthly, Luther objects that this same Council ordained
that the Paulinians should be re-baptized, while another Council,
which St. Augustin calls Plenary, and which is believed to have
been the Council celebrated by the whole French Church in Arles,
prohibited the re-baptism of heretics, as the Pope St. Stephen com-
manded, in opposition to St. Cyprian. We answer, that the Council

(8) St. Augus. l. 32, contra Faust, c. 13 ; St. Hier. Ep. ad Aug. quæ est 11 inter
Epist. August. (9) St. Aug. loc. cit. (10) Ruffin. Histor. l. 10, c. 32.
3
558 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

commanded that the Paulinians should be re-baptized, for those


heretics, believing Christ to be but a mere man , corrupted the form
of Baptism , and did not baptize in the name of the three Persons,
and, therefore, their Baptism was null and void. But this was not
the case with other heretics, who baptized in the name of the
Trinity, though they did not believe that the three Persons were
equally God.
83. The innovators object, eighthly, that in the Third Council
of Carthage ( Can. 47) , the books of Tobias, Judith, Baruch , Wis-
dom, Ecclesiasticus, and the Maccabees, were received as Canoni-
cal, and the Council of Laodicea (cap . ult.) rejected them. We
reply, first, that neither of these Councils were Ecumenical. One
was a Provincial Council, composed of twenty-two bishops ; and
that of Carthage was a national one, of forty-four prelates, and this
was confirmed by Pope Leo IV. (as may be seen, Can. de libellis ,
Dist. 20), and was later than that of Laodicea, which, therefore ,
may be said to have amended the preceding one . Secondly, we
answer, that the Council of Laodicea did not reject these books,
but only omitted their insertion in the Canon ofthe Scriptures, as their
authority was, at that time, doubtful ; but the matter being made
more clear, in the Council of Carthage, afterwards, they were , at
once, admitted as authentic. They object, ninthly, that several
errors were decided in the sixth Council, such as that heretics
should be re-baptized, and that the marriages between Catholics
and heretics were invalid. We answer, with Bellarmin ( 11 ) , that
these Canons were foisted in by the heretics ; and, in the seventh
Council (Act 4) , it was declared, that these Canons did not belong
to the sixth Council, but were promulgated by an illegitimate
Council, many years after, in the time of Julian II., and, as Vene-
rable Bede tells us ( 12), this Council was rejected by the Pope.
They object, tenthly, that the seventh Council- the second of
Nice-was opposed to the Council of Constantinople, celebrated
under the Emperor Copronimus, regarding the veneration of
images, which the Constantinopolitan Council prohibited. We
answer that this Council was neither a lawful nor a General one ;
it was held by only a few bishops, without the intervention of the
Pope's Legates, or of the three Patriarchs of Antioch, Alexandria,
and Jerusalem, who should , according to the discipline of those
times, be present.
84. They object, eleventhly, that the Second Council of Nice
was rejected by the Council of Frankfort. But we reply, with
Bellarmin, that this was all by mistake, for the Frankfort Council
supposed that it was decided in the Nicene Council, that images
should receive supreme worship ( Cultus Latria), and that it was
held without the Pope's consent ; but both these suppositions were
incorrect, as appears from the Acts of the Nicene Council itself.

(11) Bellar. de Conc. l. 2 , c. 8, v. 13. (12) Beda, lib. de sex ætatib.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 559

They object, twelfthly, that, in the fourth Council of Lateran ,


the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the body and
blood of Christ was defined as an Article of Faith, while an ana-
thema was fulminated by the Council of Ephesus against all who
would promulgate any other Symbol besides that established by
the first Council of Nice. We answer, first, that the Lateran
Council did not compose any new Symbol, but merely defined the
question then debated . Secondly, that the Council of Ephesus
anathematized any one publishing a Symbol opposed to the
Nicean one, but not a new Symbol declaratory of some point
not previously defined . They object, thirteenthly, that as in
Councils the points of Faith are defined by the majority of votes, it
might so happen that one vote might incline the scale to the side
of error, and thus the better part be put down by the major part of
the Synod. We answer that, in purely secular affairs, such might
be the case, that the majority might, in a worldly meeting, put
down the more worthy ; but, as the Holy Ghost presides in Gene-
ral Councils, and as Jesus Christ has promised, and does not fail to
assist his Church, such can never be the case.
85. They object , fourteenthly, that it is the business of the Coun-
cil merely to seek the truth ; but the Scripture must decide it, and
hence, then, the decision does not depend on the majority of votes,
but on that judgment which is most in conformity with the Scrip-
ture, and hence, say they, every one has a right to examine and
see for himself, whether the decrees of Councils are in confor
mity with the Scriptures. This is the doctrine of Luther, Cal-
vin ( 13), and all Protestants. We answer, that in Canonical
Councils it is the bishops who give an infallible decision on
dogmas, and this all should obey without examination. This is
proved from Deuteronomy (vii. 12) , in which our Lord commands.
that all should obey the priest , who decides doubts, presiding at the
Council, and those who refuse should be punished with death :
" He who will be proud, and refuse to obey the commandment of
the priest, who ministereth at the time to the Lord thy God, and
the decree of the judge, that man shall die , and them that take
away the evil from Israel." It is also proved most clearly from
the Gospel, which says : " If he will not hear the Church , let him
be unto you as a heathen and a publican" (Matt. xviii. 17) . A
General Council represents the Church, as understood by all, and,
therefore, should be obeyed . Recollect, also, that in the Council
of Jerusalem (Act 15 , 16 ), the question of legal observances was
decided, not by the Scriptures, but by the votes of the Apostles ,
and all were obliged to obey their decision. Therefore, reply the
sectarians, the authority of Councils is superior to that of the
Scriptures. What a blasphemy, exclaims Calvin ( 14 ) ! We an-
(13) Luther de Conc. art. 29 , & Calvin, Inst. 7. 4, c. 9, sec. 8 (14) Calvin, Inst.
7. 4, c. 9, sec. 14.
560 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

swer that the Word of God, both written and unwritten, or Scrip-
ture and Tradition , is certainly to be preferred to any Council ; but
Councils do not make the Word of God, but merely declare what
true Scripture is, and true Tradition is, and what is their true
sense ; they do not, therefore , give themselves the authority of infalli-
bility , but merely declare that which they already possess, deducing
it from the Scripture itself, and thus they define the dogmas the
faithful should believe. It was thus the Council of Nice declared
that the Word was God, and not a creature, and the Council of
Trent, that the real body of Christ, and not the figure, was in the
Eucharist.
86. But then, the heretics say, the Church is not composed of
Bishops alone, but of all the faithful, both Clergy and laity, and
why,then, are Councils held by the Bishops alone ? Therefore, says
Luther, all Christians, no matter of what degree, should be judges
in the Councils. The Protestants maintained this doctrine in the
time of the Council of Trent, and sought to have a decisive voice
in decreeing the dogmas of the Faith . This they required, when
they were invited to attend the Council, to explain themselves on
all controverted points, and when a safe conduct was given them,
promising them security while in Trent , perfect liberty of conferring,
as often as they pleased , with the Fathers, and no hindrance to
leave whenever they wished to go. Their ambassadors came, and at
first said that they did not consider the safeguard sufficient, since
the Council of Constance said that no faith was to be kept with
public heretics. The Fathers of Trent, however, replied, that the
safe conduct from the Council of Constance to Huss was not given
by the Council itself, but by the Emperor Sigismund , so that the
Council had then full jurisdiction over him. Besides, as we have
already explained in Chap. X. , art . v. n. 43, of this History, the
safe conduct given to Huss was for other crimes with which he
was charged, but not for errors against Faith, and, when Huss was
charged with this, he knew not what defence to make. The
Tridentine Fathers , at all events , explained to those delegates that
the safe conduct given by them was as secure as the Council could
make it, and different from that given by the Council of Constance
to Huss . The delegates then made three requisitions, in case the
Lutheran Doctors came to Trent, none of which could be agreed
to ( 15) : First. That questions of Faith should be decided by the
Scriptures alone. This could not be granted , since the Council
had already decreed in the Fourth Session, that the same venera-
tion was to be paid to traditions preserved in the Catholic Church
as to the Scriptures. Secondly.- They required that all Articles
already decided on by the Council should be debated over again ;
but this could not be granted , because it would be just the same

(15) Vedi Pallavic. Istor. del Conc. di Trento, t. 2, c. 15, n. 9.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 561

thing as to declare that the Council was not infallible when it had
made the Decrees, and that would be to give a triumph to the
Protestants, even before the battle commenced . Thirdly . They
demanded that their Doctors should have a seat in the Council as
judges, for the decision of dogmatical points, just as the Bishops
had.
87. We answer, that the Church is a body, as St. Paul writes,
in which our Lord has assigned the duties and obligations of each
individual : " Now you are the body of Christ, and members of
member. And God indeed hath set some in the Church : first,
apostles ; secondly, prophets ; thirdly , doctors" (1 Cor. xii. 27 , 28 ).
And in another place he says : " And other same pastors and
doctors" (Ephes. iv. 11 ). And he adds, afterwards : " Are all
doctors" (1 Cor. xii. 29). God, therefore, has appointed some
pastors in his Church to govern the flock ; others, doctors, to teach
the true doctrine, and he charges others, again , not to allow them-
selves to be led astray by new doctrines : " Be not led away with
various and strange doctrines" ( Heb. xiii. 9) ; but to be obedient
and submissive to the masters appointed to them : " Obey your
prelates, and be subject to them, for they watch, as being to render
an account of your souls" ( Heb. xiii. 17 ) . Who, then , are these
masters whom our Lord has promised to assist to the end of time ?
They were, in the first place, the Apostles, to whom he said :
" Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of
the world" (Matt. xxviii. 20) . He promised them the Holy Ghost,
who would remain always with them, to teach them all truth : " I
will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, that
he may abide with you for ever" (John, xiv. 6) . And when he ,
the " Spirit of Truth , is come, he will teach you all truth" (John ,
xvi. 13). The Apostles, however, being mortal, should soon leave
this world, and how, then, could we understand the promise that
the Holy Ghost would perpetually remain with them , to instruct
them in all truth, that they might afterwards communicate it to
others? It must be understood, therefore, that they would have
successors, who, with the Divine assistance, would teach the faithful
people, and the Bishops are exactly these successors , appointed by
God to govern the flock of Christ, as the Apostle says : " Take
heed to yourselves, and to the whole flock, wherein the Holy
Ghost hath placed you bishops to rule the Church of God , which
he hath purchased with his own blood" (Acts, xx . 28) . Estius ( 16) ,
commenting on this passage, says : " Illud, in quo vos Spiritus
Sanctus posuit, &c ..... .de iis qui proprii Episcopi sunt,
intellexit." And, hence, the Council of Trent (Sess. xxiii . Cap. 4)
declared : " Delarat præter ceteros Ecclesiasticos gradus , Episcopus,
qui in Apostolorum locum successerunt. ..positos a Spiritu

(16) Estius, in 20 Act. v. 12 .


2 N
562 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Sancto regere Ecclesiam Dei , eosque Presbyteris superiores esse."


Hence, the Bishops in Council are the witnesses and judges of the
Faith, and say, as the Apostles did in the Council of Jerusalem :
" It hath seemed well to the Holy Ghost and to us" (Acts, xv. 18 ).
88. St. Cyprian, therefore, says ( 17) : " Ecclesia est in Episcopo ;"
and St. Ignatius the Martyr (18) had previously said : " Episcopus
omnem principatum et potestatem ultra omnes obtinet." The Coun-
cil of Chalcedon ( 19) decided " Synodus Episcoporum est, non
Clericorum, superfluos foras mittite ;" and although, in the Council
of Constance, the Theologians, Canonists, and Ambassadors of the
Sovereigns were allowed to vote, still it was declared that this was
permitted merely in the affair of the schism, to put an end to it,
but was not allowed when dogmas of Faith were concerned . In
the Assembly of the Clergy of France, in 1656 , the Parish Clergy
of Paris signed a public protest against any other judges in matters
of Faith but the Bishops alone. The Archbishop of Spalatro, Mark
Anthony de Dominis, whose Faith was justly suspected, said that
the consent of the whole Church to any article required not alone
that of the Prelates, but of the laity, likewise : " Consensus totius
Ecclesiæ in aliquo articulo non minus intelligitur in Laicis, quam
etiam in Prælatis ; sunt enim etiam Laici in Ecclesia, imo majorem
partem constituunt." But the Sorbonne condemned his doctrine
as heretical : " Hæc propositio est hæretica, quatenus ad Fidei pro-
positiones statuendas consensum Laicorum requirit."
89. It is usual to allow the Generals of Religious Orders and
Abbots to give a decisive vote in Ecumenical Councils ; but this is
only by privilege and custom, for, by the ordinary law, the Bishops
alone are judges, according to the Tradition of the Fathers, as St.
Cyprian, St. Hilary , St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, Osius, St. Augustin,
St. Leo the Great, and others testify (20) . But they say that, in
the Council of Jerusalem, not alone the Apostles, but the Elders
had a place : " The apostles and ancients assembled" ( Acts, xv. 6 ),
and gave their opinion ; " then it pleased the apostles and ancients"
(ver. 22). We answer, that some consider the " Ancients" to have
been Bishops, already consecrated by the Apostles ; but others
think that they were convoked , not as judges, but as advisers, to
give their opinions, and thus more easily quiet the people . It will
not avail our adversaries either, to say that many of the Bishops are
men of prejudiced minds, or lax morality, who cannot expect, con-
sequently, the Divine assistance, or that they are ignorant, and not
sufficiently instructed in religious knowledge ; for as God promised
infallibility to his Church, and , consequently , to the Council which

(17) St. Cypr. Ep. ad Papinum. ( 18) St. Ignat. Ep. ad Trallian. (19) Tom. 4,
Conc. p. 111. (20) St. Cypr. Ep. ad Jubajan ; St. Hilar. de Synod.; St. Ambr. Ep.
22 ; St Hieron. Apol. 2 contra Ruffin. , Osius ap. St. Athanas. Ep. ad Solit.; St. Leo
Magnus Ep. 16.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 563

represents it, he so disposes everything that, in the definition of


the dogmas of the Faith, all the means requisite are supplied .
Hence, whenever there is not a manifest defect in any decision, by
the omission of some requisite absolutely necessary , every one of
the Faithful should bow down with submission to the decrees of
the Council.
90. With regard to the other errors promulgated by these sec-
tarians againgst Tradition, the Sacraments, the Mass, Communion
under one kind, the Invocation of Saints, Feast Days, Relics ,
Images, Purgatory, Indulgences, and the Celibacy of the Clergy, I
omit their refutation here, for I have done so already in my Dog-
matic Work against the Reformers, on the Council of Trent ( Sess.
xxiii. sec. 1 & 2) . But that the reader may form an opinion of the
spirit of these new matters of the Faith, I will just quote one of
Luther'ssentiments, from one of his public sermons to the people (21 ).
He was highly indignant with some who rebelled against his autho-
rity, and, to terrify them into compliance with his sentiments, he
said : " I will revoke all I have written and taught, and make my
recantation." Behold the Faith this new Church Reformer teaches
-a Faith, which he threatens to revoke, when he is not respected
as he considers he should be . The Faith of all other sectaries is
just the same ; they never can be stable in their belief, when once
they leave the true Church, the only Ark of Salvation.

REFUTATION XII.

THE ERRORS OF MICHAEL BAIUS.

In order to refute the false system of Michael Baius, it is neces-


sary to transcribe his seventy-nine condemned propositions, for it
is out of them we must find out his system. Here, then, are the
propositions, condemned by Pope St. Pius V. , in the year 1564,
in his Bull, which commences, " Ex omnibus afflictionibus," &c.:
" 1. Nec Angeli , nec primi hominis adhuc integri merita recte
vocantur gratia. 2. Sicut opus malum ex natura sua est mortis
æternæ meritorium, sic bonum opus ex natura sua est vitæ æternæ
meritorium. 3. Et bonis Angelis, et primo homini , si in statu illo
permansissent usque ad ultimum vitæ, felicitas esset merces, et non
gratia. 4. Vita æterna homini integro, et Angelo promissa fuit
intuitu bonorum operum : et bona opera ex lege naturæ ad illam
consequendam per se sufficiunt. 5. În promissione facta Angelo,
et primo homini, continetur naturalis justitiæ constitutio , quæ pro
bonis operibus sine alio respectu , vita æterna justis promittitur.
6. Naturali lege constitutum fuit homini, ut si obedientia perse-

(21) Luther. Ser. in Abus. t. 7, p. 275.


564 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

veraret, ad eam vitam pertransiret, in qua mori non posset. 7. Pri-


mi hominis integri merita fuerunt primæ creationis munera : sed
juxta modum loquendi Scripturæ Sacræ, non recte vocantur gratiæ ;
quo fit ut tantum merita, non etiam gratiæ debeant nuncupari.
8. In redemptis per gratiam Christi nullum inveniri potest bonum
meritum, quod non sit gratis indigno collatum. 9. Dona concessa
homini integro, et Angelo, forsitan, non improbanda ratione, possunt
dici gratia : sed quia secundum usum Scripturæ nomine gratiæ
tantum ea munera intelliguntur, quæ per Jesum male merentibus
et indignis conferuntur, ideo neque merita, nec merces quæ illis
redditur, gratia dici debet. 10. Solutionem pœnæ temporalis, quæ
peccato dimisso sæpe manet, et corporis resurrectionem , proprie
nonnisi meritis Christi adscribendam esse. 11. Quod pie et juste
in hac vita mortali usque in finem conversati vitam consequimur
æternam , id non proprie gratiæ Dei, sed ordinationi naturali statim
initio creationis constitutæ, justo Dei judicio deputandum est.
12. Nec in hac retributione bonorum ad Christi meritum respicitur,
sed tantum ad primam constitutionem generis humani , in qua lege
naturali institutum est, ut justo Dei judicio obedientiæ mandato-
rum vita æterna reddatur. 13. Pelagii sententia est, opus bonum
citra gratiam adoptionis factum non esse Regni Coletis meritorium.
14. Opera bona a filiis adoptionis facta non accipiunt rationem
meriti ex eo quod fiunt per spiritum adoptionis inhabitantem corda
filiorum Dei, sed tantum ex eo quod sunt conformia Legi , quodque
per ea præstatur obedientia Legi. 15. Opera bona justorum non
accipient in die Judicii extremi ampliorem mercedem, quam justo
Dei judicio merentur accipere. 16. Ratio meriti non consistit in .
eo quod qui bene operatur, habeat gratiam et inhabitantem Spiritum
Sanctum, sed in eo solum quod obedit divinæ Legi. 17. Non est
vera Legis obedientia, quæ fit sine caritate. 18. Sentiunt cum
Pelagio, qui dicunt esse necesarium ad rationem meriti , ut homo
per gratiam adoptionis sublimetur ad statum Deificum . 19. Opera
Catechumenorum , ut Fides, et Poenitentia, ante remissionem pec-
catorum facta sunt vitæ æternæ merita ; quam ii non consequentur,
nisi prius præcedentium delictorum impedimenta tollantur. 20 .
Opera justitiæ, et temperantiæ, quæ Christus fecit, ex dignitate
Persona operantis non traxerunt majorem valorem. 21. Nullum
est peccatum ex natura sua veniale, sed omne peccatum meretur
pœnam æternam . 22. Humanæ naturæ sublimatio et exaltatio in
consortium Divinæ naturæ debita fuit integritati primæ conditionis ;
ac proinde naturalis dicenda est, non supernaturalis. 23. Cum
Pelagio sentiunt, qui textum Apostoli ad Romanos secundo :
Gentes quæ legem non habent, naturaliter quæ legis sunt faciunt;
intelligunt de Gentilibus fidem non habentibus. 24. Absurda est
eorum sententia, qui dicunt, hominem ab initio dono quodam super-
naturali, et gratuito supra conditionem naturæ fuisse exaltatum , ut
fide, spe, caritate Deum supernaturaliter coleret. 25. A vanis, et
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 565

otiosis hominibus secundum insipientiam Philosophorum excogitata


est sententia hominem ab initio sic constitutum, ut per dona na-
turæ superaddita fuerit largitate Conditoris sublimatis , et in Dei
filium adoptatus, et ad Pelagianismum rejicienda est illa sententia.
26. Omnia opera Infidelium sunt peccata, et Philosophorum vir-
tutes sunt vitia. 27. Integritas prima creationis non fuit indebita
humanæ naturæ exaltatio, sed naturalis ejus conditio . 28. Liberum
arbitrium sine gratiæ Dei adjutorio nonnisi ad peccandum valet.
29. Pelagianus est error dicere, quod liberum arbitrium valet ad
ullum peccatum vitandum. 30. Non solum fures ii sunt et latrones,
qui Christum viam, et ostium veritatis et vitæ negant ; sed etiam
quicunque aliunde quam per Christum in viam justitiæ, hoc est, ad
aliquam justitiam conscendi posse dicunt ; aut tentationi ulli sine
gratiæ ipsius adjutorio resistere hominem posse, sic ut in eam non
inducatur, aut ab ea superetur. 31. Caritas perfecta et sincera,
quæ est ex corde puro et conscientia bona, et fide non ficta, tam in
Catechumenis, quam in Poenitentibus potest esse sine remissione
peccatorum. 32. Caritas illa quæ est plenitudo Legis, non est
semper conjuncta cum remissione peccatorum . 33. Catechumenus
juste, recte, et sancte vivit, et mandata Dei observat, ac Legem
implet per caritatem , ante obtentam remissionem peccatorum, quæ
in Baptismi lavacre demum percipitur. 34. Distinctio illa duplicis
amoris, naturalis videlicet, quo Deus amatur ut auctor naturæ, et
gratuiti, quo Deus amatur ut beatificator, vana est et commentitia ,
et ad illudendum Sacris Litteris, et plurimis Veterum testimoniis
excogitata. 35. Omne quod agit peccator, vel servus peccati
peccatum est. 36. Amor naturalis, qui ex viribus naturæ exoritur,
et sola Philosophia per elationem præsumptionis humanæ, cum
injuria Crucis Christi defenditur a nonnullis Doctoribus. 37. Cum
Pelagio sentit, qui boni aliquid naturalis, hoc est, quod ex naturæ
solis viribus ortum ducit, agnoscit. 38. Omnis amor creaturæ
naturalis, aut vitiosa est cupiditas, qua mundus diligitur, quæ a
Joanne prohibetur : aut laudabilis illa caritas, qua per Spiritum
Sanctum in corde diffusa Deus amatur. 39. Quod voluntarie fit,
etiamsi in necessitate fiat, libere tamen fit. 40. In omnibus suis
actibus peccator servit dominanti cupiditati. 41. Is libertatis
modus, qui est a necessitate , sub libertatis nomine non reperitur
in scripturis, sed solum libertatis a peccato ? 42. Justitia, qua jus-
tificatur, per fidem impius, consistit formaliter in obedientia manda-
torum, quæ est operum justitia, non autem in gratia aliqua animæ
infusa, qua adoptatur homo in filium Dei, et secundum interiorem
hominem renovatur, et Divinæ naturæ consors efficitur, ut sic per
Spiritum Sanctum renovatus, deinceps bene vivere, et Dei manda-
tis obedire possit. 43. In hominibus poenitentibus , ante Sacramen-
tum absolutionis, et in Catechumenis ante Baptismum est vera
justificatio, et separata tamen a remissione peccatorum. 44. Operi-
bus plerisque, quæ a fidelibus fiunt, solum ut Dei mandatis pareant,
566 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

cujusmodi sunt obedire parentibus, depositum reddere, ab homicidio,


a furto, a fornicatione abstinere, justificantur quidem homines,
quia sunt legis obedientia, et vera legis justitia ; non tamen iis
obtinent incrementa virtutum. 45. Sacrificium Missæ non alia
ratione est Sacrificium, quam generali illa, qua omne opus quod fit,
ut sancta societate Deo homo inhæreat. 46. Ad rationem, et defi-
nitionem peccati non pertinet voluntarium nec definitionis quæstio
est, sed causæ, et originis, utrum omne peccatum debeat esse vo-
luntarium. 47. Unde peccatum originis vere habet rationem pec-
cati, sine ulla relatione, ac respectu ad voluntatem , a qua originem
habuit. 48. Peccatum originis est habituali parvuli voluntate vo-
luntarium, et habitualiter dominatur parvulos, eo quod non gerit
contrarium voluntatis arbitrium. 49. Et ex habituali voluntate
dominante fit ut parvulus decedens sine regenerationis Sacramento ,
quando usum rationis consequens erit, actualiter Deum odio habeat,
Deum blasphemet, et Legi Dei repugnet. 50. Prava desideria,
quibus ratio non consentit, et quæ homo invitus patitur, sunt pro-
hibita præcepto : Non concupisces . 51. Concupiscentia, sive lex
membrorum, et prava ejus desideria, quæ inviti sentiunt homines ,
sunt vera legis inobedientia. 52. Omne scelus est ejus conditionis ,
ut suum auctorem, et omnes posteros eo modo inficere possit, quo
infecit prima transgressio. 53. Quantum est ex vi transgressionis ,
tantum meritorum malorum a generante contrahunt, qui cum mi-
noribus nascuntur vitiis, quam qui cum majoribus. 54. Definitiva
hæc sententia, Deum homini nihil impossibile præcepisse, falso
tribuitur Augustino, cum Pelagii sit. 55. Deus non potuisset ab
initio talem creare hominem, qualis nunc nascitur. 56. In peccato
duo sunt, actus, et renatus ; transeunte autem actu nihil manet, nisi
reatus, sive obligatio ad pœnam. 57. Unde in Sacramento Bap-
tismi, aut Sacerdotis absolutione proprie reatus peccati dumtaxat
tollitur ; et ministerium Sacerdotum solum liberat a reatu. 58. Pec-
catur pœnitens non vivificatur ministerio Sacerdotis absolventis, sed
a solo Deo, qui poenitentiam suggerens, et inspirans vivificat eum ,
et resuscitat ; ministerio autem Sacerdotis solum reatus tollitur.
59. Quando per eleemosynas aliaque pœnitentiæ opera Deo satis-
facimus pro poenis temporalibus, non dignum pretium Deo pro
peccatis nostris offerimus, sicut quidem errantes autumant (nam
alioqui essemus saltem aliqua ex parte redemptores) , sed aliquid
facimus, cujus intuitu Christi satisfactio nobis applicatur, et commu-
nicatur. 60. Per passiones Sanctorum in indulgentiis communicatas
non proprie redimuntur nostra delicta, sed per communionem
caritatis nobis eorum passiones impartiuntur, et ut digni simus, qui
pretio Sanguinis Christi a pœnis pro peccatis debitis liberemur.
61. Celebris illa Doctorum distinctio , divinæ legis mandata bifariam
impleri, altero modo quantum ad præceptorum operum substantiam
tantum , altero quantum ad certum quendam modum, videlicet,
secundum quem valeant operantem perducere ad regnum (hoc est
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 567

ad modum meritorum) commentitia est, et explodenda. 62. Illa


quoque opus dicitur bifariam bonum, vel quia ex objecto, et omni-
bus circumstantiis rectum est, et bonum (quod moraliter bonum
appellare consueverunt), vel qui est meritorium Regni, æterni, eo
quod sit a vivo Christi membro per spiritum caritatis , rejicienda est.
63. Sed et illa distinctio duplicis justitiæ alterius, quæ fit per spiri-
tum caritatis inhabitantem, alterius, quæ fit ex inspiratione quidem
Spiritus Sancti cor ad penitiam excitantis, sed nondum cor habi-
tantis, et in eo caritatem diffundentis, qua Divinæ legis justificatio
impleatur, similiter rejicitur. 64. Item et illa distinctio duplicis
vificationis, alterius, qua vivificatur peccatur, dum ei pœnitentiæ, et
vitæ novæ propositum, et inchoatio per Dei gratiam inspiratur ;
alterius, qua vivificatur, qui vere justificatur, et palmes vivus in vite
Christo efficitur ; pariter commentitia est, et Scripturis minime con-
gruens. 65. Nonnisi Pelagiano errore admitti potest usus aliquis
liberi arbitrii bonus, sive non malus, et gratiæ Christi injuriam facit,
qui ita sentit, et docet. 66. Sola violentia repugnat libertati
hominis naturali. 67. Homo peccat, etiam damnabiliter ; in eo
quod necessario facit. 68. Infidelitas pure negativa in his, in
quibus Christus non est prædicatus, peccatum est. 69. Justificatio
impii fit formaliter per obedientiam Legis, non autem per occultam
communicationem , et inspirationem gratiæ, quæ per eam justificatos
faciat implere legem. 70. Homo existens in peccato mortali, sive
in reatu æternæ damnationis, potest habere veram caritatem ; et
caritas, etiam perfecta, potest consistere cum reatu æternæ damna-
tionis. 71. Per contritionem, etiam cum caritate perfecta, et cum
voto suscipiendi Sacramentum conjunctam, non remittitur crimen,
extra causam necessitatis, aut Martyrii, sine actuali susceptione
Sacramenti. 72. Omnes omnino justorum afflictionis sunt ultiones
peccatorum ipsorum ; unde et Job, et Martyres, quæ passi sunt ,
propter peccata sua passi sunt . 73. Nemo, præter Christum est
absque peccato originali, hinc Virgo mortua est propter peccatum
ex Adam contractum , omnesque ejus afflictiones in hoc vita, sicut
et aliorum justorum, fuerunt ultiones peccati actualis, vel originalis.
74. Concupiscentia in renatis relapsis in peccatum mortale, in quibus
jam dominatur, peccatum est, sicut et alii habitus pravi. 75. Motus
pravi concupiscentiæ sunt pro statu hominis vitiati prohibiti præ-
cepto, Non concupisces ; Unde homo eos sentiens, et non consentiens,
transgreditur præceptum , Non concupisces ; quamvis transgressio in
peccatum non deputetur. 76. Quandiu aliquid concupiscentiæ
carnalis in diligente est, non facit præceptum, Diliges Dominum
Deum tuum ex toto corde tuo. 77. Satisfactiones laboriosæ justifi-
catorum non valent expiare de condigno pœnam temporalem restan-
tem post culpam conditionatam. 78. Immortalitas primi hominis
non erat gratiæ beneficium, sed naturalis conditio. 79. Falsa est
Doctorum sententia, primum hominem potuisse a Deo creari , et
institui sine justitia naturali ."
568 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

1. I should remark here that several of these propositions are


taken word for word from the writings of Baius-others only ac-
cording to their meaning-and others again belong to his companion ,
Esselius , or other supporters of his ; but as they were almost all
taught by him, they are all generally attributed to him, and from
them his system can be clearly deduced. He distinguishes three
states of human nature- Innocent, Fallen , and Restored or Re-
deemed.
2. Regarding nature in a state of innocence, he says : First.-
That God, as a matter of justice , and by that right which the
creature has, ought to create both angels and men for eternal bea-
titude. This opinion is deduced from eight articles, condemned in
the Bull- the twenty-first, twenty-third, twenty-fourth, twenty-
sixth , twenty-seventh, fifty-fifth, seventy-second, and seventy-ninth .
--
Secondly. That sanctifying grace was due, as a matter of right, to
nature in a state of innocence. This proposition follows, as a ne-
cessary consequence, from the former one. Thirdly.- That the
gifts granted to the angels and to Adam were not gratuitous and
supernatural, but were natural, and due to them by right, as the
twenty-first and twenty-seventh articles assert. Fourthly.- That
the grace granted to Adam and to the angels did not produce su-
pernatural and Divine merits, but merely natural and human ones,
according to the first, seventh , and ninth articles. And, in fact, if
merits follow from grace, and the benefits of grace were due by
right, and naturally belonged to nature , in a state of innocence, the
same should be said of merits, which are the fruit of this grace .
Fifthly. That beatitude would be, not a grace but a mere natural
reward , if we had persevered in a state of innocence, as the third ,
fourth, fifth, and sixth articles say ; and this is also a consequence
of the antecedent propositions, for if it were true that merits, in a
state of innocence, were merely human and natural , then beatitude
would be no longer a grace, but a reward due to us.
3. Secondly. - Baius taught, regarding fallen nature, that when
Adam sinned he lost all gifts of grace, so that he was incapable of
doing anything good, even in a natural sense, and could only do
evil. Hence, he deduces , first , that in those who are not baptized,
or have fallen into sin after Baptism , concupiscence, or the fomes
of sensitive pleasure, which is contrary to reason , though without
any consent of the will, is truly and properly a sin, which is imputed
to them by reason of the will of mankind included in the will of
Adam , as is explained in the seventy-fourth proposition . Nay,
more, he says, in the seventy-fifth proposition, that the evil move-
ments of our senses, though not consented to, are transgressions even
in the just, though God does not impute it to them. Secondly, he
deduces, that all that the sinner does is intrinsically a sin ( see the
thirty-fifth proposition) . He deduces, thirdly, that for merit or
demerit violence alone is repugnant to the liberty of man ; so that
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 569

when he does any voluntary bad action , though he does it of ne-


cessity, he sins, as the thirty-ninth and sixty-seventh propositions
teach. In the third place, with regard to redeemed nature , Baius
supposes that every good work, by its very nature, and of itself,
merits eternal life, independently, altogether, ofthe Divine arrange-
ment, the merits of Jesus Christ, and the knowledge of the person
who performs it. The second, eleventh, and fifteenth propositions
show this. From this false supposition he draws four false conse-
quences : First.- That man's justification does not consist in the in-
fusion of grace, but in obedience to the Commandments (see pro-
positions forty-two and sixty-nine) . Second .- That perfect charity
is not always conjoined with the remission of sins . Third.- That
in the Sacraments of Baptism and Penance the penalty of the pu-
nishment alone is remittted, and not the fault, for God alone can take
away that (see the fifty-seventh and fifty-eighth propositions).
Fourth. That every sin deserves eternal punishment, and that there
are no venial sins (proposition twenty-one). We see, then , that
Baius taught, by his system, the errors of Pelagius, when he treats
of innocent nature-man's nature before the fall ; for, with that
heresiarch, he teaches that grace is not gratuitous, or supernatural ,
but as natural, and belongs to nature, ofright. With regard to fallen
nature , he teaches the errors of Luther and Calvin , for he asserts
that man is, of necessity, obliged to do good or evil according to
the movements of the two delectations which he may receive,
heavenly or worldly. With regard to the state of redeemed nature ,
the errors which he teaches concerning justification , the efficacy of
the Sacraments, and merit, are so clearly condemned by the Council
of Trent, that if we did not read them in his works, we never could
believe that he published them , after having personally attended
that Council.
4. He says, in the forty-second and sixty-ninth propositions, that
the justification of the sinner does not consist in the infusion of
grace, but in obedience to the Commandments ; but the Council
teaches ( Sess. vi . cap. 7 ) , that no one can become just, unless the
merits of Jesus Christ are communicated to him ; for it is by these
the grace which justifies is infused into him : " Nemo potest esse
justus , nisi cui merita passionis D. N. Jesu Christi communicantur.”
And this is what St. Paul says : " Being justified freely by his
grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Rom. iii . 24) .
He says that perfect charity is not conjoined with the remission of
sins (propositions thirty-one and thirty-two) ; butthe Council,
speaking specially of the Sacrament of Penance, declares (Sess. xiv.
c . 4) , that contrition , united with perfect charity, justifies the sin-
ner before he receives the Sacrament. He says that by the Sacra-
ments of Baptism and Penance the penalty of punishment , but not
of the fault, is remitted (propositions fifty-seven and fifty-eight).
But the Council, speaking of Baptism ( Sess . v. Can. 5 ) , teaches that
570 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

by Baptism the penalty of original sin , and everything else which


has the rationale of sin , is remitted : " Per Jesu Christi gratiam , quæ
in Baptismate confertur, reatum originalis peccati remitti , et tolli
totum id quod veram, et propriam peccati rationem habet , illudque
non tantum radi , aut non imputari." Speaking of the Sacrament
of Penance, the Council diffusely explains ( Sess . xiv. c. 1 ) , that it
is a truth of Faith, that our Lord has left to priests the power to
remit sins in this Sacrament, and condemns anew the error of
the Novatians, who denied it. Baius says that concupiscence, or
every evil motion of concupiscence, in those who are not baptized,
or who , after Baptism , have fallen , is a real sin , because they then
transgress the Commandment, " Thou shalt not covet," &c. (pro-
positions seventy-four and seventy-five) ; but the Council teaches
that concupiscence is not a sin , and that it does no harm to those
who do not give consent to it : " Concupiscentia, cum ad agonem
relicta sit, nocere non consentientibus non valet . . .. . ... Hanc con-
cupiscentiam Ecclesiam nunquam intellexisse peccatum appellari ,
quod vere peccatum sit, sed quia ex peccato est, et ad peccatum
inclinas" (Sess. v. cap. 5) .
5. In fine, all that Baius taught regarding the three states of
nature is a necessary consequence of one sole principle of his , that is,
that there are but two authors, either theological charity, by which
we love God above all things, as the last end ; or concupiscence,
by which we love the creature as the last end , and that between
these two loves there is no medium . He says, then God being
just, could not, in opposition to the right which an intelligent crea-
ture has, create man subject to concupiscence alone ; and therefore,
as leaving concupiscence out of the question, there is no other pro-
per love but supernatural love alone, when he created Adam he
must have given him, in the first instance of his creation , this super-
natural love, the essential end of which is the beatific vision of
God . Charity , therefore, was not a supernatural and gratuitous
gift, but a natural one, which was the right of human nature, and,
therefore, the merits of this charity were natural, and beatitude was
our due, and not a grace. From this, then, he drew another con-
sequence, which was, that free will being, after the fall, deprived of
grace, which was, as it were, a supplement of nature, was of no
use, only to cause us to sin . We answer, however, that this prin-
ciple is evidently false, and, therefore, every consequence deduced
from it is false, likewise. There is evidence to prove, in opposition
to the principle of Baius, that the intelligent creature has no positive
right to existence, and, consequently, has no innate right to exist
in one way more than another. Besides, several learned theolo-
gians, whose opinions I follow, teach, with very good reason, that
God could, if it pleased him, create man in a state of pure nature,
so that he would be born without any supernatural gift, and with-
out sin, but with all the perfections and imperfections which belong
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 571

to this state of nature ; so that the object of pure nature might be


natural, and all the miseries of human life, as concupiscence, igno-
rance, death , and all other calamities, might belong of right to mere
human nature itself, just as now in the state of fallen nature they
are the effects and punishments of sin ; and, therefore, in our pre-
sent state, concupiscence inclines us much more to sin than it would
do in a state of pure nature, since by sin the understanding of man
is more obscured, and his will wounded.
6. It was undoubtedly one of the errors of Pelagius, that God
had in fact created man in a state of pure nature. On the other
hand , it was one of Luther's errors to assert that the state of pure
nature is repugnant to the right which man has to grace ; but this
error was already taken up by Baius, because surely it was not
necessary by right of nature that man should be created in a state
of original justice ; but God might create him without sin, and
without original justice, taking into account the right of human
nature. This is proved, first, from the Bulls already quoted, of St.
Pius V., Gregory XIII., and Urban VIII . , which confirm the Bull
of St. Pius, in which the assertion , that the consortium of the Divine
nature was due to , and even natural to , the nature of man , as Baius
said " Humanæ naturæ sublimatio , et exaltatio in consortium Di-
vinæ naturæ debita fuit integritati primæ conditionis, et proinde na-
turalis dicenda est, et non supernaturalis" -was condemned (propo-
sition twenty-two) . He says the same in the fifty-fifth proposition :
" Deus non potuisset ab initio talem creare hominem , qualis nunc
nascitur ;" that is, exclusive of sin we understand. In the seventy-
ninth proposition, again he says : " Falsa est Doctorum sententia,
primum hominem et potuisse a Deo creari, et institui sine justitia
naturali." Jansenius, though a strong partisan of the doctrine of
Baius, confesses that those Decrees of the Pope made him very
uneasy: " Hæreo, fateor" ( 1).
7. The disciples of Baius and Jansenius, however, say they have
a doubt whether the Bull of Urban VIII., " In eminenti," should
be obeyed ; but Tournelly (2 ) answers them, and shows that the
Bull being a dogmatic law of the Apostolic See, whose authority ,
Jansenius himself says, all Catholics, as children of obedience , should
venerate, and being accepted in the places where the controversy
was agitated, and by the most celebrated churches in the world,
and tacitly admitted by all others, should be held as an infallible
judgment of the Church, which all should hold by ; and even
Quesnel himself admits that.
8. Our adversaries also speak of the way the Bull of St. Pius
should be understood , and say, first, that we cannot believe that the
Apostolic See ever intended to condemn in Baius the doctrine of

(1 ) Jansen. l. 9, d. Statu. nat. pur. c. ult. (2) Comp. Theol. t. 5, p. 1 , Disp. 5,


art. 3, s. 2.
572 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

St. Augustine, who, as they suppose, taught that the state of pure
nature was an impossibility. This supposition of theirs, however,
is totally unfounded , for the majority of theologians assert, that the
Holy Doctor in many places teaches the contrary, especially in his
writings against the Manicheans ( 3) , and distinguishes four modes
in which God might create the souls of men blameless, and, among
them , the second mode would be, if, previously to any sin being
committed, these created souls were infused into their bodies sub-
ject to ignorance , concupiscence, and all the miseries of this life ; by
this mode, the possibility of pure nature is certainly established.
Consult Tournelly ( 4) on this point, where he answers all objections,
and you will see also how Jansenius treats it.
9. They say, likewise, that the propositions of Baius were not
condemned in the Bull of St. Pius in the sense the author under-
stood them. The words of the Bull are : "Quas quidem sententias
stricto coram nobis examine ponderatas, quanquam nonnullæ aliquo
pacto sustineri possent, in rigore, et proprio verborum sensu ab
assertoribus intento hæreticas, erroneas, temerarias, &c., respective
damnamus," &c . They then say that between the word possent,
and the following ones, in rigore, et proprio verborum sensu , there
was no comma, but that it was placed after the words ab assertori-
bus intento ; so that the sentence being read thus : " quanquam
nonnullæ aliquo pacto sustineri possent in rigore et proprio verborum
sensu ab assertoribus intento," the proposition could be sustained
in this proper and intended sense , as the Bull declares . According
to this interpretation , however, the Bull would contradict itself,
condemning opinions which , in their proper sense, and that intend-
ed by the author, could be sustained. If they could be sustained
in the proper sense , why were they condemned, and why was Baius
expressly called on to retract them ? It would be a grievous injus-
tice to condemn these propositions, and oblige the author to retract
them, if in the proper and plain sense they could be defended .
Besides, though in the Bull of St. Pius the comma may be wanted
after the word possent, still no one has ever denied or doubted but
that it was inserted in the subsequent Bulls of Gregory XIII . and
Urban VIII. There cannot be the least doubt that the opinions of
Baius were condemned by these Pontifical Bulls .
10. They say, thirdly, that the propositions were condemned,
having regard to the Divine Omnipotence, according to which the
state of pure nature was possible. but not in regard to the wisdom
and goodness of God. The theologians already quoted answer,
that in that case the Apostolic See has condemned not a real, but
only an apparent, error, since, in reality, the doctrine of Baius, in
regard to the wisdom and goodness of God, is not condemnable.
It is false, however, to suppose that the state of pure nature is only

(3) St. August. 7. 3 , de lib. arb. c. 20. (4) Tourn. t. 5, p. 2, c. 7, p. 67.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 573

possible according to the Omnipotence of God, and not according


to his other attributes. That which is repugnant or not agreeable
to any of the attributes of God is, in fact, impossible, for " He can-
not deny himself" ( 2 Tim. ii . 13 ) . St. Anselm says ( 5 ) : " In
Deo quantumlibet parvum inconveniens sequitur impossibilitas."
Besides, if that principle of our adversaries themselves were true,
that there is no middle love between vicious cupidity and laudable
charity, then the state of pure nature, even in regard to the Divine
Omnipotence, as they suppose, would be an impossibility , since it
would, in fact, be repugnant to God to produce a creature contrary
to himself, with the necessity of sinning, as, according to their sup-
position of possibility, this creature would be .
11. In fact, I think no truth can be more evident, than that the
state of pure nature is not an impossibility, a state in which man
would be created without grace and without sin, and subject to all
the miseries of this life. I say this with all reverence for the Au-
gustinian school, which holds the contrary opinion. There are
two very evident reasons for this doctrine : First. -Man could very
well have been created without any supernatural gift, but merely
with those qualities which are adapted to human nature . There-
fore, that grace which was supernatural, and was given to Adam,
was not his due, for then, as St. Paul says ( Rom. xi. 6) : " Grace is
no more grace." Now, as man might be created without grace,
God might also create him without sin- in fact, he could not create
him with sin, for then he would be the author of sin. Then he
might likewise create him subject to concupiscence, to disease, and
to death, for these defects, as St. Augustin explains , belong to man's
very nature, and are a part of his constitution . Concupiscence
proceeds from the union of the soul with the body, and, therefore,
the soul is desirous of that sensitive pleasure which the body likes.
Diseases, and all the other miseries of human life, proceed from the
influence of natural causes , which , in a state of pure nature, would
be just as powerful as at present, and death naturally follows from
the continual disagreement of the elements of which the body is
composed.
12. The second reason is, that it is not repugnant to any of the
Divine attributes to create man without grace and without sin.
Jansenius himself admits that it is not opposed to his Omnipotence ;
neither is it to any other attribute, for in that state, as St. Augustin (6)
teaches, all that is due by right to man's natural condition , as reason ,
liberty, and the other faculties necessary for his preservation, and
the accomplishment of the object for which he was created, would
be given to him by God. Besides, all theologians, as Jansenius
himself confesses in those works in which he speaks of pure nature,
are agreed in admitting the possibility of this state , that is consi-

(5) St. Anselm, l. 1 , Cum Deus homo, c. 1. (6) St. August. 7. 3, de lib. arb. c. 20, 22, 23.
574 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

dering the right of the creature alone, and this is precisely the
doctrine of the Prince of Schoolmen , St. Thomas. He teaches (7),
that man might be created without consideration to the Beatific
Vision. He says : " Carentia Divino visionis competeret ei qui in
solis naturalibus esset etiam absque peccato ." He likewise , in
another passage (8), teaches that man might be created with that
concupiscence which rebels against reason : " Illa subjectio inferio-
rum virium ad rationem non erat naturalis." Several theologians ,
therefore, admit the possibility of the state of pure nature, as Estius,
Ferrarensis, the Salmanticenses, Vega, and several others. Bellar-
min ( 9), especially, says he does not know how any one can doubt
of this opinion.
13. We have now to answer the objections of our adversaries.
The first objection is on the score of " Beatitude." St. Augustin,
according to Jansenius, teaches in several places that God could
not, without injustice, deny eternal glory to man in a state of
innocence : " Qua justitia quæso a Regno Dei alienatur imago Dei
in nullo transgressu legem Dei." These are St Augustin's words ( 10)
We answer that the Holy Father in this passage was opposing the
Pelagians, according to man's present state, that is, supposing the
gratuitous ordination of man to a supernatural end : according to
that supposition, he said that it would be unjust to deprive man of
the kingdom of God if he had not sinned. Neither is it of any
consequence that St. Thomas (11 ) says that man's desires can find
no rest except in the vision of God : " Non quiescit naturale de-
siderium in ipsis, nisi etiam ipsius Dei substantiam videant ;" and
as this appetite is naturally implanted in man, he could not have
been created unless in order to this end. We answer, that St.
Thomas ( 12), in several places, and especially in his book of
Disputed Questions, teaches that by nature we are not inclined in
particular to the vision of God, but only to beatitude in general :
Homini inditus est appetitus ultimi sui finis in communi, ut
scilicet appetat se esse completum in bonitate ; sed in quo ista
completio consistat non est determinatum a natura." Therefore,
according to the Holy Doctor, there is not in man an innate
tendency to the beatific vision, but only to beatitude in general.
He confirms this in another place (13) : " Quamvis ex naturali
inclinatione voluntas habeat, ut in beatitudinem feratur, tamen
quod feratur in beatitudinem talem, vel talem, hoc non est ex
inclinatione naturæ." But they will still say that it is only in the
vision of God that man can have perfect happiness, as David says
(Psalm, xvi. 15) : " I shall be satisfied when thy glory shall appear."
To this we reply, that this refers to man in his present state, since

(7) St. Thom. qu. 4, de Malo . a. 1. (8) Idem in Summa. 1, p. q. 95, art 1.
(9) Bellarm. Z de Grat. primi. hom. cap. 5. (10) St. August. l. 3, contra. Julian,
cap. 12. (11) St. Thom. 1. 4, contra Gentes, c. 50. (12) St. Thom. q. 22, de Verit.
(13) Idem, 4, Sent. Dist. 49, q. 1, art. 3.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 575

he has been created in order to eternal life , but never would be


the case in another state, that of pure nature, for example.
14. The second objection is on the score of " Concupiscence."
God , they say, could never be the author of concupiscence, since
we read in St. John ( 1st Epis. ii. 16 ) , that " it is not of the Father,
but is of the world ;" and St. Paul says : " Now, then, it is no more
I that do it, but sin (that is concupiscence) , that dwelleth in me"
(Rom . vii. 17) . We answer the text of St. John, by saying that
the concupiscence of the flesh is not from the Father, in our present
state of existence, for in that it springs from sin, and inclines to
sin, as the Council of Trent ( Sess . v. Can. 5 ) declares : " Quia est a
peccato, et ad peccatum inclinat ." In our present state even, it
influences us more powerfully than it would in a state of pure
nature ; but even in this state it would not proceed formally from
the Father, considered as an imperfection , but would come from
him as one of the conditions of human nature. We answer the
text of St. Paul in like manner, that concupiscence is called sin,
because, in our present state, it springs from sin, since man was
created in grace ; but in a state of pure nature it would not come
from sin, but from the very condition itself, in which human nature
would have been created.
15. They say, secondly, that God could not create a rational
being with anything which would incline him to sin, as concu-
piscence would. We answer, that God could not create man with
anything which, in itself, in se, would incline him to sin, as with
a vicious habit, for example, which of itself inclines and induces
one to sin ; but he might create man with that which accidentally,
per accidens, inclines him to sin, for in this is the condition of his
nature only accomplished , for otherwise God should create man
impeccable, for it is a defect to be peccable. Concupiscence, of
itself, does not incline man to sin, but solely to that happiness
adapted to human nature, and for the preservation of nature itself,
which is composed of soul and body ; so that it is not of itself, but
only accidentally, and through the deficiency of the condition of
human nature itself, that it sometimes inclines us to sin. God,
surely, was not obliged, when he produced his creatures, to give
them greater perfections than those adapted to their natures. Be-
cause he has not given sensation to plants, or reason to brutes, we
cannot say that the defect is his ; it belongs to the nature itself of
these creatures, and so if, in the state of pure nature, God did not
exempt man from concupiscence, which might accidentally incline
him to evil, it would not be a defect of God himself, but of the
condition itself of human nature.
16. The third objection is on the score of the " Miseries" of
human nature. St. Augustin, they say, when opposing the Pela-
gians, frequently deduced the existence of original sin from the
miseries of this life. We briefly answer, that the Holy Doctor
576 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

speaks of the misery of man in his present state, remembering the


original holiness in which he was created, and knowing, from the
Scriptures, that Adam was created free from death and from all the
penalties of this life. On this principle, God could not, with jus-
tice, deprive him of the gifts granted to him, without some posi-
tive fault on his side ; and, hence, the Saint inferred that Adam
sinned, from the calamities which we endure in this life . He
would say quite the contrary, however, if he were speaking of the
state of pure nature, in which the miseries of life would spring
from the condition itself of human nature, and especially as in the
state of lapsed nature our miseries are, by many degrees, greater
than they would be in a state of pure nature. From the grievous
miseries , then, of our present state, original sin can be proved ; but
it could not be so from the lesser miseries which man would suffer
in a state of pure nature .

REFUTATION XIII.

THE ERRORS OF CORNELIUS JANSENIUS.

1. In order to refute the errors of Jansenius, it is quite sufficient to


refute his system, which, in substance, consists in supposing that
our will is forced by necessity to do either what is good or bad ,
according to the impulse it receives from the greater or less degree
of celestial or terrestrial delectation , which predominates in us,
and which we cannot resist, since this delectation, as he says, pre-
cedes our consent, and even forces us to yield consent to it. This
error he founded on that well-known expression of St. Augustin :
66
Quod amplius delectat, id nos operemur, necessum est." Here
are his words : " Gratia est delectatio et suavitas, qua Anima in
bonum appetendum delectabiliter trahitur ; ac pariter delectationem
concupiscentiæ esse desiderium illicitum, quo animus etiam repug-
nans in peccatum inhiat" (1 ). And again, in the same book (cap. 9),
he says : " Utraque delectatio invicem pugnat, earumque conflictus
sopiri non potest, nisi alteram altera delectando superaverit, et eo
totum animæ pondus vergat, ita ut vigente delectatione carnali
impossibile sit, quod virtutis, et honestatis consideratio prævaleat."
2. Jansenius says that in that state of justice, in which man was
created-" God made man right" (Eccles. vii. 30 ) -being then in-
clined to rectitude, he could with his own will easily perform what
was right, with the Divine assistance alone, called sine quo - that
is, sufficient grace (which gives him the power, but not the will) ;
so that, with the ordinary assistance alone, he could then agree to,

(1) Jansen. l. 4, de Grat. Christ. c. 11.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 577

and follow grace, but when his will was weakened by sin , and in-
clined to forbidden pleasures, it then could not , with sufficient
grace alone, do what is right, but required that assistance called,
theologically, Quo - that is, efficacious grace (which is his conquer-
ing delectation, in relation to the superiority of degrees) , which
pushes him on, and determines him to perform what is good, other-
wise he never could resist the opposing carnal delectation : " Gratia
sanæ voluntatis in ejus libero relinquebatur arbitrio , ut eam, si
vellet desereret ; aut si vellet uteretur ; gratia vero lapsæ ægrotæque
voluntatis nullo modo in ejus relinquitur arbitrio, ut eam deserat,
et arripiat si voluerit" ( 2) . During the period that the carnal delec-
tation predominates, then, says Jansenius, it is impossible that
virtue should prevail : " Vigente delectatione carnali , impossibile
est, ut virtutis et honestatis consideratio prævaleat" (3) . He says ,
besides, that this superior delectation has such power over the will,
that it obliges it necessarily either to wish or reject, according as it
moves it : " Delectatio , seu delectabilis objecti complacentia , est id
quod tantam in liberum arbitrium potestatem habet, ut eum faciat
velle vel nolle, seu ut ea præsente actus volendi sit reipsa in ejus
potestate, absente non sit" (4).
3. In another passage he says, that if the celestial delectation is
less than the terrestrial one, it will only give rise to some ineffica-
cious and impotent desires in the soul , but will never lead us on to
embrace what is good : " Delectatio victrix, quæ Augustino est
efficax adjutorium, relativa est ; tunc enim est victrix, quando
alteram superat. Quod si contingat alteram ardentiorem esse, in
solis inefficacibus desideriis hærebit animus, nec efficaciter unquam
volet, quod volendum est" (5) . Again, he says that as the faculty
of vision not only causes us to see, but gives us the power of seeing,
so the predominant delectation not only causes us to act, but gives
us the power of acting : " Tantæ necessitatis est, ut sine illa effectus
fieri non possit ...... dat enim simul et posse, et operari" (6) . He
says, besides, that it is just as impossible to resist this superior delec-
tation, as for a blind man to see, a deaf one to hear, or a bird
deprived of its wings to fly ( 7). Finally, he concludes that this
delectation , " delectatio victrix ," be it heavenly or earthly, so binds
down our free will, that it loses all power when opposed to it :
" Justitiæ vel peccati delectatio est illud vinculum, quo liberum
arbitrium ita firmiter ligatur, ut quamdiu isto stabiliter constringi-
tur, actus, oppositus sit extra ejus potestatem" (8 ). These passages
alone, I think, are quite sufficient to show how false is Jansenius's
system of relative conquering delectation , to which the will is
always obliged, of necessity , to yield obedience.

(2) Jansen. de lib. arb. l. 2, c. 4. (3) Jansen. 7. 7 , de Grat. Chr. c. 3, vide etiam ,
c. 50. (4) Idem. eod. tit. l. 7, c. 3. (5) Idem. eod. tit. l. 8, c. 2. (6) Jansen.
1. 2 , c. 4. (7) Jans. de Grat. Christ. l. 4, c. 7, & l. 7, c. 5. (8) Ibid. l. 7, c. 5.
20
578 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

4. From this system, then, spring his five propositions, con-


demned by Innocent X. , as we have seen in the Historical Part of
the Work (9) . It is necessary to repeat them here again. The
first proposition is : " Some commandments of God are impossible
to just men, even when they wish and strive to accomplish them,
according to their present strength, and grace is wanting to them,
by which they may be possible to them." The censure passed on
this was-It was rash, impious, blasphemous , branded with ana-
thema, and heretical ; and, as such, condemned . The Jansenists
made many objections to the condemnation of this proposition , as
well as of the other four. Their two principal objections, however,
were the following : First, that the propositions quoted in the Bull
of Innocent were not in the book of Jansenius at all ; and , secondly,
that these propositions were not condemned in the sense intended
by Jansenius. These two objections, however, were quashed by
Alexander VII., in his Bull, promulgated in 1656 , in which he
expressly declares that the five propositions were taken from the
book of Jansenius, and in the sense intended by him: " Quinque
propositiones ex libro Cornelii Jansenii excerptas, ac in sensu ab
eodem Cornelio intento damnatas fuisse." This was, in reality , the
fact, and so to refute, first of all, these most dangerous and most
general objections (for by and by we will have occasion to attack
others), I will quote the passages transcribed from the book of
Jansenius himself, in which the reader will see that though the words
are not the same, the substance is, and, taken in their natural and ob-
vious sense, prove that this was the meaning intended by the author.
5. To begin with the first proposition, it is expressed in Jan-
senius's book almost in the same words : " Hæc igitur omnia plenis-
sime planissimeque demonstrant, nihil esse in St. Augustini doc-
trina certius ac fundatius, quam esse præcepta quædam, quæ homini-
bus non tantum infidelibus, excæcatis, obscuratis , sed fidelibus
quoque, et justis volentibus, et conantibus secundum præsentes quas
habent vires, sunt impossibilia, deesse quoque gratiam , qua possibilia
fiant" ( 10). He then immediately, as an example, quotes the fall
of St. Peter, and says : " Hoc enim St. Petri exemplo, aliisque
multis quotidie manifestum esse, qui tentantur ultra quam possint
substinere." Listen to this. St. Paul says, that God will not per-
mit us to be tempted beyond our strength : " God is faithful , who
will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able"
(1 Cor. x. 13) ; and Jansenius says that many are tempted beyond
their strength. Towards the end of the same chapter, he labours
to prove that the grace of prayer sometimes fails the just, or at least
that they have not that grace of prayer, which is sufficient to obtain
efficacious assistance to observe the commandments , and, conse-
quently, that they have not power to fulfil them. In fine, the sense

(9) Chap. 12, art. 3. (10) Jansen. l. 3, de Grat. Christi, c. 13.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 579

of this first proposition of his is, that some precepts are impossible
even to the just, on account of the strength of earthly delectations,
for then they want that grace by which these commandments could
be observed. He says : " Secundum præsentes quas habent vires ;"
by which he understands that these precepts, as to observance, are
not absolutely impossible, but only relatively so, according to that
stronger grace, which would be necessary for them, and which they
then want to enable them to observe them.
6. This proposition, then, as we have already remarked, was con-
demned, first , as "
" rash," since it is opposed to Scripture : " This
commandment ...... is not above thee" (Deut. xxx. 11 ) ; 66 My
yoke is easy and my burthen light" (Matt . xi. 30) . The Council
of Trent had already branded this same proposition as rash
(Sess. vi. c . 11 ) , when it was previously taught by Luther and Cal-
vin : " Nemo temeraria illa, et a Patribus sub anathemate prohibita
voce uti, Dei præcepta homini justificato ad observandum esse
impossibilia." It was also condemned in the fifty-fourth proposi-
tion of Baius : " Definitiva hæc sententia : Deum homini nihil im-
possibile præcepisse, falso tribuitur Augustino, cum Pelagii sit."
Secondly, it was condemned as " impious ;" for it makes of God
an unjust tyrant, who obliges men to impossibilities and then con-
demns them for not performing them. Jansenius prides himself in
having adopted all the doctrines of St. Augustin, and did not
blush to entitle his book " Augustinus," though Anti-Augustinus
would have been a more appropriate name, since the Saint, in his
works, expressly opposes his impious opinions. St. Augustin
taught (11 ) that God does not desert those once justified by his
grace, unless previously deserted by them ; and Jansenius held up
the Almighty void of all pity, since he says : " He deprives the
just of grace without which they cannot escape sin, and so abandons
them before they abandon him ." Besides, St. Augustin writes, in
opposition to this sentiment ofJansenius : " Quis non clamet stultum
esse præcepta dare ei, cui liberum non est quod præcipitur facere ?
et iniquam esse eum damnare, cui non fuit potestas jussa com-
plere" (12) ; and , above all, we have that celebrated Decree of the
Council of Trent (Sess . vi. c. 11 ) : " Deus impossibilia non jubet ,
sed jubendo monet et facere quod possis, et petere quod non possis,
et adjuvat ut possis" ( 13). Thirdly, it was condemned as " blas-
phemous ;" for it makes out God to be without either faith or truth ,
since he has promised that he will not allow us to be tempted beyond
our strength " God is faithful who will not suffer you to be
tempted above that which you are able" (1 Cor. x. 13)-and after-
wards commands us to do what is not in our power. St. Augus-
tin himself, from whom Jansenius falsely asserted he had learned.

(11) St. August. lib. de Nat. et Grat. c. 26. (12) Idem. de Fide contra Manich.
7. 10. (13) St. August. lib. de Nat. et Grat. c. 43.
580 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

this doctrine, calls it a blasphemy : " Execramur blasphemiam


eorum , qui dicunt, impossibile aliquid a Deo esse præceptum " ( 14) .
Finally, it was condemned as " heretical," being as we have seen
opposed to the Holy Scriptures and to the definitions of the Church.
7. The Jansenists still, however, made objections . First.- That
passage of St. Augustin, they say " Deus sua gratia non deserit ,
nisi prius deseratur" -which is adopted by the Council of Trent
(Sess. vi. cap. 11 ) , is thus to be understood : That God does not
deprive those who are justified of his habitual grace before they
fall into actual sin, but often deprives them of actual grace before
they sin. We reply, however, with St. Augustin himself, that our
Lord, in justifying the sinner, not only gives him the grace of re-
mission, but also assistance to avoid sin in future ; and this, says
the Saint, is the virtue of the grace of Jesus Christ : " Sanat Deus,
non solum ut deleat quod peccavimus, sed ut præstet etiam ne pec-
cemus ( 15) . If God, previous to sin, denied to man sufficient
assistance not to fall into sin , he would not heal him , but rather
abandon him, before he sinned . Secondly.- They say that the
text of St. Paul, already quoted- " God is faithful , who will not
suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able"--does not
apply to all the faithful , but only to the predestined . But the text
itself already shows that here all the faithful are spoken of, and it
says : " But will make also with temptation issue, that you may be
able to bear it" ( 1 Cor. x . 13 ) . That is, that God permits his
faithful servants to be tempted, that the temptation may be an
occasion of merit and profit to them. We should not forget either,
that St. Paul was writing to all the faithful of Corinth , and we are
not aware that all the faithful of that city were predestined . St.
Thomas, therefore, properly understands it as referring to all in
general, and God, he says, would not be faithful if he did not grant
them (as far as he himself was concerned) the necessary grace to
work out their salvation : " Non autem videretur esse fidelis, si nobis
denegaret (in quantum in ipso est) ea per quæ pervenire ad Eum
possemus" ( 16).
8. The second condemned proposition originates from the same
principle of Jansenius, the " delectatio victrix" which necessitates
the consent of his will : " Interior grace in the state of corrupt
nature is never resisted ." This, says the sentence, we declare here-
tical, and as such condemn it. Hear what Jansenius says in one
place: " Dominante suavitate spiritus, voluntas Deum diligit, ut
peccare non possit" (17) . And again : " Gratiam Dei Augustinus
ita victricem statuit supra voluntatis arbitrium , ut non raro dicat
hominem operanti Deo per gratiam non posse resistere" (18) . St.
Augustin, however, in many passages , declares the contrary, and
(14) Idem. Serm. 191 , de Temp. (15) St. August. lib. de Nat. & Grat. c. 26.
(16) St. Thom. Lect. 1 , in cap. 1, Epist. 1 ad Cor. (17) Janser. l. 4, de Grat. Christ.
c. 9. (18) Jansen. eod. tit. l. 2, c. 24.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 581

especially in one (19) , in which, reproving the sinner, he says :


" Cum per Dei adjutorium in potestate tua sit, utrum consentias
Diabolo ; quare non magis Deo, quam ipsi obtemperare deliberas."
And, hence, the proposition was justly condemned as heretical,
being, in fact, opposed to the Scripture : " You always resist the
Holy Ghost" ( Acts, vii. 51 ) . It is also opposed to Councils— to that
of Sens, celebrated in Paris, against the Lutherans, in 1528 (p. 1 ,
c. 15 ) , and to the Council of Trent ( Sess . vi . can . 4 ) , which fulmi-
nates an anathema against those who assert that we cannot go con-
trary to grace : " Si quis dixerit, liberum hominis arbitrium a Deo
motum et excitatum .....neque posse dissentire , si velit."
9. The third proposition is : " To render us deserving or other-
wise, in a state of corrupt nature, liberty, which excludes constraint ,
is sufficient." This has been declared heretical, and as such con-
demned. Jansenius, in several places, expresses this proposition .
In one passage he says : " Duplex necessitas Augustino, coactionis,
et simplex, seu voluntaria ; illa, non hæc , repugnat libertati” ( 20)
And again : " Necessitatem simplicem voluntatis non repugnare
libertati" (21 ). And in another place, he says, that our theologians
teach a paradox , when they say, " quod actus voluntatis propterea
liber sit, quia ab illo desistere voluntas, et non agere potest ;" that it
is the liberty of indifference which is required for us to have merit
or otherwise. His third proposition springs also from the supposed
predominant delectation invented by him, which, according to him,
forces the will to consent, and deprives it of the power of resistance.
This , he asserts, is the doctrine of St. Augustin ; but the Saint (22)
denies that there can be sin where there is no liberty : " Unde non
est liberum abstinere ;" and, on the contrary, in another place he
says ( 23 ) , that it is false that man, in this life, cannot resist grace.
Therefore, according to St. Augustin, man can at all times resist
grace, and always resist concupiscence, likewise , and it is only thus
he can acquire merit or otherwise.
10. The fourth proposition says : " That the Pelagians admitted
the necessity of interior preventing grace for every act in particu-
lar, even for the commencement of the Faith , and in this they were
heretics, inasmuch as they wished that the human will could either
resist it or obey it." This proposition consists of two parts - the
first false , the second heretical. In the first part Jansenius says
that the Semipelagians admitted the necessity of internal and actual
grace for the beginning of Faith . Here are his words : " Massi-
liensium opinionibus, et Augustini doctrina quam diligentissime
ponderata, certum esse debere sentio , quod Massilienses præter
prædicationem , atque naturam, veram etiam, et internam , et actua-
lem gratiam ad ipsam etiam Fidem , quam humanæ voluntatis ac
(19) St. August. Hom. 12, inter 50. (20) St. Aug. 1. 6, de Grat. Chr. c. 6 .
(21 ) Idem, eod. tit. c. 24. (22) Idem , l. 3, de lib. arb. c. 3. (23) St. Aug. de Nat.
& Grat. c. 67.
582 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

libertatis adscribunt viribus, necessariam esse fateantur" (24) . This


is false , then, for St. Augustin always taught as a dogma, that grace
was necessary for the commencement of Faith ; but the Semipela-
gians, for the most part, denied it, as the Holy Doctor himself
attests (25 ) . In the second place, Jansenius says that the Semi-
pelagians were heretics, in teaching that grace was of such a nature
that man could either use or reject it ; hence, he called them,
" Gratiæ medicinalis destructores, et liberi arbitrii præsumptores ."
In this, however, not the Massilians, but Jansenius himself, was
heretical, in saying that free will had not the power of agreeing to
or dissenting from grace, contrary to the definition of the Council
of Trent (Sess. vi . can. 4) , which says : " Si quis dixerit liberum
hominis arbitrium a Deo motum et excitatum non posse dissentire
si velit ..... anathema sit." With good reason, then, the proposi-
tion was branded as heretical.
11. The fifth proposition says : " That it is Semipelagianism to
say that Jesus Christ died or shed his blood for all men in general ;"
and this has been condemned as false , rash, and scandalous, and ,
understood in the sense that Christ died for the predestined alone,
impious, blasphemous, contumelious, derogatory to the Divine
goodness, and heretical. Therefore, if we are to understand the
proposition in the sense that Jesus Christ died for the predestined
alone, it is impious and heretical ; and yet in this sense it is
published in several places by Jansenius. In one passage he says :
"Omnibus illis pro quibus Christus sanguinem fudit, etiam sufficiens
auxilium donari, quo non solum possint, sed etiam velint, et faciant.
id quod ab iis volendum, et faciendum esse decrevit" ( 26). There-
fore, according to Jansenius, Jesus Christ offered up his blood
solely for those whom he selected both to will and to perform good
works, understanding by the sufficiens auxilium the assistance, Quo
(as explained already), that is, efficacious grace, which , according
to him, necessarily obliges them to perform what is good. Imme-
diately after he explains it even more clearly ; for , speaking of
St. Augustin, he says : " Nullo modo principiis ejus consentaneum
est, ut Christus vel pro Infidelium , vel pro Justorum non perse-
verantium æterna salute mortuus esse sentiatur." See, then, how
Jansenius explains how it is that our Saviour did not die for the
just not predestined . When his proposition was, then, understood
in this sense, it was justly censured as heretical, as opposed both to
Scripture and Councils-as to the first Council of Nice, for example,
in which, in the Symbol, or Profession of Faith ( 27) , then pro-
mulgated, and afterwards confirmed by several other General
Councils, it was decreed as follows : " Credimus in unum Deum
Patrem . .... .et in unum Dom. Jesum Christum Filium Dei......

(24) St. Aug. 1. 2 de Peccator. merit. c. 17. (25) Idem de Prædest. Ss. c. 3 in Ep.
227 ad Vital. n. 9. (26) Jansen. l. 3 de Grat. Christ. c. 21. (27) Chap. 4, art. 1,
n. 16.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 583

Qui propter nos homines ; et propter nostram salutem descendit, et


incarnatus est, et homo factus ; passus est, et resurrexit," &c.
12. Let us consider the proposition in general, that Christ did
not die for all. Jansenius said it was an error against Faith to
assert that he did : " Nec enim juxta doctrinam Antiquorum pro
omnibus omnino Christus mortuus est, cum hoc potius tanquam
errorem a Fide Catholica abhorrentem doceant esserespuendum" (28) .
And this opinion , he adds, was an invention of the Semipelagians.
Understanding it in this sense, it was false and rash, as not in
accordance with the Scripture, or the sentiments of the Holy
Fathers. As Jesus Christ died for every individual in particular
of the human race, some theologians teach that he prepared the
price for the redemption of all ; and , therefore, say he is the Re-
deemer of all, solely sufficientia pretii. But the opinion more
generally followed is, that he is the Redeemer sufficientia voluntatis,
also that is, that he desired, with a sincere will, to offer up his
death to his Father, in order to obtain for all mankind the helps
necessary for salvation.
13. We do not agree in opinion with those who say that Jesus
Christ died with equal affection for all, distributing to each
individual the same grace ; for there can be no doubt that he died
with special affection for the Faithful, and more especially for the
elect, as he himself declared, previous to his Ascension : " I pray
not for the world, but for them whom thou hast given me"
(John , xvii. 9) . And St. Paul says he is " the Saviour of all men,
especially of the faithful" (1 Tim. iv. 10) . Neither can we agree
with others, who say that, for a great number, Christ has done
nothing more than prepare the price sufficient to redeem them ,
but without offering it up for their salvation . This opinion, I
think, is not in conformity with the Scripture, which says : " If one
died for all, then all were dead ; and Christ died for all," &c.
(2 Cor. v. 14, 15) . Therefore , as all were dead , through original
sin, so Christ died for all. By his death he cancelled the general
decree of death , which descended from Adam to all his posterity ;
""
Blotting out the hand-writing of the decree which was against
us, which was contrary to us ; and he hath taken the same out of
the way, fastening it to the cross" ( Col. ii. 14 ) . Osee, speaking in
the person of Christ, before his coming, says that he will, by his
death, destroy that death which was produced by the sin of Adam:
" I will be thy death , O death" (Osee, xiii. 14) . And the Apostle
St. Paul afterwards speaks to the same effect : " O death , where is
thy victory" ( 1 Cor. xv. 15) ; meaning by that, that our Saviour,
by his death, killed and destroyed the death brought among men
by sin. Again, St. Paul says : " Jesus Christ, who gave himself a
redemption for all" ( 1 Tim. ii . 5, 6) ; " Who is the Saviour of all

(28) Jansen. Z 3, de Grat. Christ. c. 3.


584 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

men, especially of the faithful" (iv. 10) ; and St. John says that he
" is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for
those of the world" ( 1 John, ii . 2 ) . When I see the Scripture
speak thus so plainly, I do not know how any one can say that
Jesus Christ, by his death, has only prepared a sufficient price for
the redemption of all, but has not offered it to the Father for the
redemption of all. Taken in that sense, we might say that Christ
shed his blood even for the devils themselves, for there is no doubt
but that this sacred blood would have been a price sufficient even
to save them .
14. This opinion is most clearly opposed , likewise, by many of
the Holy Fathers, who say that Christ has not alone prepared the
ransom, but, likewise, offered it to his Father for the salvation of
all. St. Ambrose says : " Si quis autem non credit in Christum,
generali beneficio ipse se fraudat ; ut si quis clausis fenestris solis
radios excludat, non ideo sol non est ortus omnibus" ( 29) . The
sun not alone prepares light for all, but offers its light likewise to
all, if they wish to avail themselves of it, and do not close their
windows against it ; and, in another place, the same Saint says , in
the clearest manner : " Ipse pro omnibus mortem suam obtulit" ( 30) .
St. Jerome says just the same : 66 Christus pro nobis mortuus est,
solus inventus est, qui pro omnibus, qui erant in peccatis mortui,
offerretur" (31 ). St. Prosper says : " Salvator noster......dedit.
pro mundo sanguinem suum (remark dedit, he gave, not paravit),
et mundus redimi noluit, quia lucem tenebræ non receperunt" (32 ) .
St. Anselm says : " Dedit redemptionem semetipsum pro omnibus,
nullum excipiens, qui vellet redimi ad salvandum......et ideo qui
non salvantur, non de Deo, vel Mediatore possent conqueri, sed de
seipsis, qui redemptionem quam Mediator dedit, noluerunt acci-
pere" ( 33) . And St. Augustin, explaining these words of St. John ,
" God sent not his Son into the world to judge the world , but that
the world should be saved by him" (John, iii. 17), says : " Ergo,
quantum in Medico est, sanare venit ægrotum. Ipse se interimit,
qui præcepta Medici servare non vult. Sanat omnino Ille, sed
non sanat invitum" ( 34 ) . Remark the words, " quantum in Medico
est, sanare venit ægrotum ;" this shows that he did not alone come
to prepare the price as the remedy of our evils , but that he offers
it to every one sick, and willing to be healed.
15. Then (perhaps those who hold the contrary opinion will say)
God gives to the infidels who do not believe in him at all , the same
sufficient grace which he gives to the faithful. I do not mean to
say that he gives them the same grace ; but I hold , with St. Prosper,
that he gives them at all events a lesser grace ;-call it a remote
grace ; and if they correspond to this they will be exalted by the

(29) St. Ambrose, in Ps. 118 , t. 1, p . 1077. (30 ) Idem, l. de Joseph, c. 7. ( 31 ) St.
Hier. in Ep. 2, ad Cor. c. 5. (32) St. Prosp. ad object. 9 , Gallor. (33) St. Anselm.
in c. 2 , Ep. 1 , ad Tim. (34) St. Aug. Tract. 12, in Joan. circa fin.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 585

reception of a more abundant grace which will save them. Here


are the Saint's words : " Adhibita semper est universis hominibus
quædam supernæ mensura doctrinæ, quæ et si parcioris gratiæ fuit,
sufficit tamen quibusdam ad remedium , omnibus ad testimonium" (35).
A remedy to those who correspond to it, a testimony to those who
do not. Hence it is that among the thirty-one propositions, con-
demned by Alexander VIII., on the 7th of December, 1690 , the
fifth was that " Pagans, Jews, Heretics, and such like, receive
no influx from Jesus Christ, and had nothing but a naked and
powerless will without any sufficient grace :"-" Pagani, Judæi ,
Hæretici, aliique hujus generis nullum omnino accipiunt a Jesu
Christo influxum ; adeoque hinc recte inferes , in illis esse voluntatem
nudam et inermem , sine omni gratia sufficienti." Finally , God
does not blame us for ignorance alone, but only for culpable
ignorance, which , in some sort, must be wilful ; he does not punish
the sick, but only those who refuse to be healed : " Non tibi depu-
tatur ad culpam, quod invitus ignoras, sed quod negligis quærere
quod ignoras . Nec quod vulnerata membra non colligis, sed quod
volentem sanare contemnis" (36 ) . There can be no doubt, then,
but that Jesus Christ died for all, though, as the Council of Trent
teaches, the benefit of his death does not avail all : " Verum , et si
ille pro omnibus mortuus est, non omnes tamen mortis ejus benefi-
cium recipiunt, sed ii dumtaxat quibus meritum passionis ejus
communicatur" (Sess . vi. c. 3) . This must be understood , as
applying solely to infidels, who , being deprived of the Faith, do
not in effect participate in the merits of the Redeemer , as the faith-
ful do, by means of the Faith and Sacraments, though, through
their own fault, all the faithful even do not participate in the com-
plete benefit of eternal salvation. The renowned Bossuet says
that every one of the faithful is bound to believe, with a firm faith,
that Jesus Christ died for his salvation ; and this , he says, is the
ancient tradition of the Catholic Church. And, in truth, every one
of the faithful is bound to believe that Jesus Christ died for us and
for our salvation , according to the Symbol drawn up in the First
General Council. [ See the historical part of the work ( 37) , which
says : " We believe in one God Almighty ...... and one Lord
Jesus Christ, the Son of God ...... who , for us men, and for our
salvation, descended , and was made flesh , and suffered," &c. ] Now,
when Jesus Christ died for us all who profess the Christian Faith ,
how can one say that he has not died for those who are not pre-
destined, and that he does not wish them to be saved ?
15. We should, therefore, with a firm faith , believe that Jesus
Christ died for the salvation of all the faithful. Every one of the
faithful, says Bossuet, should believe with a firm faith that God
wishes to save him, and that Jesus Christ has shed every drop of
(35) St. Prosp. de Vocat. Gent. c. 4. (36) St. August. l. 3, de lib. arb. c. 19, n. 53.
(37) Chap. 4, art. 2, n. 16.
586 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

his blood for his salvation ( 38) . The Council of Valence ( Can . 4)
had previously published the same doctrine : " Fideliter tenendum
juxta Evangelicam, et Apostolicam veritatem, quod pro illis hoc
datum pretium (sanguinis Christi ) teneamus, de quibus Dominus
noster dicit ...... Ita exaltari oportet Filium hominis, ut omnis,
qui credit in ipsum, non pereat, sed habeat vitam æternam" ( 39) .
The Church of Lyons, also, in its Book of the Truth of the Scrip-
ture, says : "Fides Catholica tenet, et Scripturæ sanctæ veritas docet,
quod pro omnibus credentibus, et regeneratis vere Salvator noster
sit passus" (40 ) . Antoine in his Scholastic and Dogmatic Theo-
logy ( 41 ) says : "Est Fidei Dogma Christum mortuum esse pro salute
æterna omnium omnino Fidelium ." Tournelly (42 ) teaches the
same, and quotes the Body of Doctrine, published by Cardinal de
Noailles, in 1720, and signed by ninety bishops, which says, " that
every one of the faithful is bound by firm faith to believe that Jesus
Christ shed his whole blood for his salvation ." And the Assembly
of the Gallican clergy , in 1714 , declared that all the faithful, both
just and sinners , are bound to believe that Jesus Christ has died for
their salvation.
17. Now, when the Jansenists held that our Redeemer did not
die for all the faithful, but only for the elect, they say, then, he
had no love for us. One of the principal motives which induces us
to love our Saviour and his Eternal Father, who has given him to
us, is the great work of redemption , by which we know that for
love of us the Son of God sacrificed himself on the Cross : " He
loved us, and delivered himself up for us" (Ephes . v. 2). It was
this same love that inclined the Eternal Father to give up his only
begotten Son: " God so loved the world as to give up his only be-
gotten Son" (John , iii. 16 ) . This was the chief incentive St.
Augustin made use of to inflame Christians with the love of Jesus :
" Ipsum dilige ; qui ad hoc descendit, ut pro tua salute sufferet" (43).
When the Jansenists, then, believe that Christ solely died for the
elect, how can they have for him an ardent affection , as having
died for love of them, when they cannot be sure that they are
among the number of the predestined ? They must, consequently,
be in doubt that Christ died for love of them.
18. This belief of theirs, that Christ did not die for all the faith-
ful, is also totally destructive of Christian hope. Christian hope,
as St. Thomas defines it, is an expected certainty of eternal life:
66
Spes est expectatio certa beatitudinis" (44) . We are , therefore,
bound to hope that God will surely save us, trusting to the promises
of salvation, through the merits of Jesus Christ, who died to save
us, if we correspond to his grace. This is what Bossuet states, also,

(38) Bossuet, lib. Justisic. des Reflex. &c. sec. 16, p. 100. (39) Syn. Valent. com.
Concil. p. 136. (40) Eccl . Lugdun. 7. de ten. ver. &c. c. 5. (41) Antoine Theol.
univers. t. 2, de Grat. c. 1, a. 6, ad Prop. 6. (42) Tourn. Theol. t. 1 , 2,q.q.8, 18,
art.a.10,
Concl. 2. (43) St. August. Tract. 2, in Ep. 1, Jo. (44) St. Thom. 2, 4.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 587

in the Catechism which he composed for his Diocese of Meaux :


Q. Why do you say that you hope for the eternal life which God
has promised ? A. Because the promise of God is the foundation
of our hope (45) .
19. A modern writer, in a work entitled " Christian Confidence,"
says that we should not found the certainty of our hope on the
general promise made by God to all believers, that he will give
them eternal life, if they faithfully correspond to his grace, although,
our Lord in several places makes this promise : " If any man keep
my word, he shall not taste death for ever" (John , viii. 52 ) ; “ If
thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments" ( Matt. xix . 17) .
This general promise, says this writer, made to all Christians who
observe the Divine commandments, is not enough to give a certain
hope of salvation ; for, as it is subject to a condition which may
not be fulfilled , that is, that we should correspond to it, it only gives
us an uncertain hope. Hence, he says, we ought to found our hope
on that particular promise of salvation given to the elect ; for, as
this promise is absolute, it is the foundation of a certain hope.
Hence, he concludes, that our hope consists in appropriating
to ourselves the promise made to the elect by considering
ourselves enrolled among the number of the predestined . The
opinion, however , I imagine, does not square with the doctrine of
the Council of Trent ( Sess. vi. c. 16), which says : " In Dei auxilio
firmissimam spem collocare omnes debent, Deus enim , nisi ipsi
illius gratiæ defuerint, sicut cœpit opus bonum, ita perficiet." And,
therefore, though we should fear on our part that we may lose our
salvation, by abusing grace, still we should have a most firm hope,
on the part of God , that he will save us by his Divine assistance :
" In Deo auxilio (says the Council) firmissimum spem collocare
omnes debent." All should hope, the Council says ; for even those
who are buried in sin frequently receive from God the gift of
Christian hope, expecting that our Lord, through the merits of
Jesus Christ, will show them his mercy ; and hence the same
Council says, speaking of sinners : " Ad considerandam Dei miseri-
cordiam se convertendo, in spem eriguntur, fidentes Deum sibi
propter Christum propitium fore." St. Thomas says to those who
are in a state of grace , that the dread of falling away from it should
not weaken the certainty of this hope, which is founded on the
Divine power and mercy, which cannot fail : " Dicendum quod hoc
quod aliqui habentes spem deficiant a consecutione beatitudinis ,
contigit ex defectu liberi arbitrii ponentis obstaculum peccati, non
autem ex defectu potentiæ, vel misericordiæ, cui spes innitur ;
unde hoc non præjudicat certitudini spei" (46) . Our hope is,
therefore, made certain, not by regarding ourselves as written
among the number of the elect, by being based on the power and
(45) Bossuet, Catech. Meldens. 3, p. 161 , n. 117. (46) St. Thom. 2 , 2, qu. 18,
art. 4 ad 3.
588 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

mercy of God ; nor should the uncertainty of our correspondence


with grace prevent us from having this certain hope of salvation ,
founded on the power, and mercy, and faithfulness of God, who
has promised it to us through the merits of Jesus Christ, since this
promise never can fail , if we fail not to correspond to it.
20. Besides, if our hope, as this writer says , was to be founded
on the promise alone made to the elect , it would be uncertain not
only as far as concerned ourselves, but with regard to God , like-
wise ; for as we are not sure that we are enrolled among the number
of the predestined , neither could we be sure of the Divine assistance
promised to us to work out our salvation ; and as the number of
the reprobate is much greater than that of the elect, we would have
greater reason to despair of than to hope for salvation. The writer
has taken notice of this difficulty, and admits it to be a most
important one. The number of the elect, he says, is, without
comparison, much smaller than the reprobate, even among those
called. One will then ask himself in this difficulty : Why should
I imagine myself to belong to the lesser, instead of the greater
number ? And, on the other hand, I am commanded to hope ; but
how can I think that I am separated from the number of the repro-
bate in the decrees of the Almighty, when he commands the repro-
bates as well as me ? Let us see how he extricates himself out of
this difficulty. It is, he says, a mystery which we cannot under-
stand ; and, as we are bound to believe the articles of Faith , though
we cannot comprehend them, because God commands to do so ; so,
in like manner, and for the same reason , we should hope, though
our reason cannot explain the difficulty we encounter. The true
answer, however, is that the writer, to uphold his system, imagines
a mystery in the commandment to hope which does not exist in
reality. In Faith there are mysteries which we are bound to believe,
without being able to comprehend, as the Trinity, Incarnation , &c.;
these are beyond our reason ; but in the Commandment to hope
there is no mystery, for this precept merely regards eternal life, and
the motive we have in hoping for it, the promise of God to save us
through the merits of Christ, if we correspond to his grace , and all
this is clear to us and no mystery . On the other hand , when it is
most true that all the faithful should have a most firm hope of sal-
vation by the assistance of God, as the Council , St. Thomas , and all
theologians teach, how can we most firmly and most surely hope
for this salvation , by hoping that we are among the number of the
elect, when we do not know for certain , nor have we any certain
argument in Scripture, to prove that we are comprised in that
number?
21. There are, to be sure, powerful arguments in the Scriptures
to induce us to hope for eternal life,-confidence, and prayer ; for
God tells us that " No one hoped in the Lord and hath been con-
founded" (Eccles. ii. 11 ) ; and our Redeemer says : " Amen, I say to
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 589

you, if you ask the Father anything in my name he will give it to


you" (John, xvi . 23) . But if, as this writer said , the certainty of
our hope consisted in considering ourselves among the number of
the elect, where would we find a foundation in Scripture for believ-
ing that we belong to that number ? We would rather find proofs
to the contrary, as that the elect were but few in comparison with
the reprobate : " Many are called , but few chosen" (Matt. xx . 16 ) ;
"Fear not, little flock," &c. (Luke, xii . 32 ) . To conclude the sub-
ject, however, I will quote the words of the Council of Trent :
66
In Dei auxilio firmissimam spem collocare omnes debent," &c.
Now God having commanded all to repose in his assistance a cer-
tain hope of salvation, he ought to give a sure foundation for this
hope. The promise made to the elect is a sure foundation for them,
but not for us individually , since we do not know that we are of
the elect. The certain foundation , then , that each of us has to hope
for salvation, is not the particular promise made to the elect, but
the general promise of assistance made to all the faithful to save
them if they correspond to grace. To make the matter more brief:
If all the faithful are obliged to hope with certainty for salvation
in the Divine assistance, and this assistance being promised not to
the elect alone but to all the faithful, it is on this, then, that every
one of the faithful should base his hope.
22. To return to Jansenius. He wants us to believe that Christ
did not die for all men, not even for all the faithful, but only for the
predestined. If that were the case Christian hope would exist no
longer, for, as St. Thomas says, hope is a sure foundation on the
part of God , and this foundation is in fact the promise made by God
to give, through the merits of Christ , eternal life to all who observe
his law. Hence St. Augustin said that the certainty of his hope
was in the blood of Christ, shed for our salvation : " Omnis spes,
et totius fiduciæ certitudo mihi est in pretioso Sanguine ejus, qui
effusus est propter nos , et propter nostram salutem" (47). The
death of Christ, then, as the Apostle tells us, is the sure and firm
anchor of our hope : "We may have the strongest comfort who
have fled for refuge to hold fast the hope set before us, which we
have as an anchor of the soul, sure and firm" ( Heb. vi. 18 , 19 ).
St. Paul had previously, in the same chapter, explained what this
hope was which was proposed to us - the promise made to Abraham
to send Jesus Christ to redeem mankind. IfJesus Christ had not died,
then, at least for all the faithful, the anchor St. Paul speaks of would
not be secure or firm, but weak and doubtful, not having that sure
foundation , the blood of Jesus Christ shed for our salvation. See,
then , how the doctrine of Jansenius destroys Christian hope. Let
us, then, leave their opinions to the Jansenists, and warmly excite
in our hearts a confidence of salvation, through the death of Jesus

(47) St. Augus. Medis. 50, cap. 14.


590 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Christ, but still let us never cease to fear and tremble, as the Apostle
says: " With fear and trembling work out your salvation" (Phil.
ii. 12) . Notwithstanding the death of Christ, we may be lost
through our own fault. Thus, during our whole lives, we should
fear and hope, but hope should predominate, for we have stronger
reasons to hope in God than to fear him.
23. Some people give themselves a great deal of trouble by
seeking to penetrate the order of God's Divine judgments, and the
great mystery of Predestination . These mysterious secrets of the
Most High our weak intellects can never arrive at. Let us then
leave these secrets which God keeps to himself, since we have so
many things to learn which he has revealed for our instruction.
First, he wishes us to know that he ardently desires that all should
be saved, and that none should perish : " Who will have all men to
be saved" (1 Tim. ii. 4 ) ; " Not willing that any should perish , but
that all should return to penance" ( 2 Pet. iii. 9 ). Secondly,
he wishes us to know that Jesus Christ died for all : " Christ
died for all, that they also who live may not now live to
themselves but unto him who died for them, and rose again" ( 2 Cor.
v. 15). Thirdly, he wishes us to know that he who is lost is so
through his own fault, since he provides all the requisite means
for his salvation : " Destruction is thy own, O Israel, thy help is
only in me" (Osee , xiii . 9). It will not avail sinners in the day of
judgment to excuse themselves by saying that they could not resist
temptation, for the Apostle teaches that God is faithful, and will
suffer no one to be tempted beyond his strength : " God is faithful ,
who will not suffer you to be tempted beyond what you are able"
(1 Cor. x. 13) . If we require more strength to resist we have only
to ask the Almighty, and he will give it to us, for with his assist-
ance we can subdue all carnal and infernal temptations : " Ask and
it shall be given unto you" (Matt. vii. 7) ; " Every one that asketh
receiveth" (Luke , ii . 10) . St. Paul shows that he is most bountiful
to those who invoke him: " Rich unto all that call upon him, for
whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved"
(Rom. x. 12 , 13).
24. Behold, then, the sure means of obtaining salvation . We
should pray to God for light and strength to accomplish his will,
but we should also pray with humility, confidence, and persever-
ance, which are the three requisites for prayer to be heard. We
should labour to co-operate to our salvation as much as we can,
without waiting for God to do everything while we do nothing.
Let the order of predestination be as it will, and let heretics say
what they like, one thing is certain, that if we are to be saved , it is
our good works that will save us, and if we are to be damned it is
our own sins that will damn us. Let us place, however, all our
hopes of salvation, not in our own works, but in the Divine mercy,
and in the merits of Jesus Christ, and we shall be surely saved.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 591

If we are saved, then , it will be solely by the grace of God , for


even our good works are but gifts of his grace, and if we are lost
it is solely through our own sins. It is this truth that preachers
should frequently hold up to the people, and not go into the pulpit
to make subtle theological disquisitions, uttering opinions not
taught by the Fathers, and Doctors, and Martyrs of the Church,
and explaining things in a way only calculated to make their hear-
ers uneasy .

REFUTATION XIV .

THE HERESY OF MICHAEL MOLINOS.

1. THIS heresiarch preached two impious maxims ; one did away


with everything good , the other admitted everything evil . His
first maxim was that the contemplative soul should fly from and
banish all sensible acts of the will and understanding, which,
according to him , impede contemplation, and thus deprive man of
all those means which God has given him to acquire salvation.
When the soul, he said, had given itself entirely up to God, and
annihilated its will, resigning itself entirely into his hands, it becomes
perfectly united with God , it should then have no further care for
its salvation, no longer occupy itself with meditations, thanksgivings ,
prayers, devotion to Holy Images, or even to the Most Holy
Humanity of Jesus Christ : it should avoid all devout affections of
hope, of self sacrifice, of love for God, and in fine, drive away all
good thoughts and avoid all good actions , for all these are opposed
to contemplation, and to the perfection ofthe soul .
2. That we may perceive how poisoning this maxim is, we should
know what is meditation and what contemplation . In meditation
we labour to seek God by reasoning and by good acts, but in con-
templation we behold him without labour, already found. In
meditation the mind labours operating with its powers, but in con-
templation it is God himself who operates, and the soul merely
receives the infused gifts of his grace, anima potitur. Hence, when
the soul is by passive contemplation absorbed in God, it should not
strain itself to make acts and reflections, because then God supports
it in an union of love with himself. " Then," says St. Theresa,
" God occupies with his light the understanding, and prevents it
from thinking of anything else." " When God," says the Saint,
" wishes that our understanding should cease to reason, he occupies
it, and gives us a knowledge superior to that which we can arrive
at, and keeps the intellect suspended." But then she also remarks
that the gift of contemplation and suspension of the intellectual
powers, when it comes from God, produces good effects , but when
it is procured by ourselves only makes the soul more dry than before.
592 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Sometimes in prayer, she says , we have a beginning of devotion which


comes from God , and we wish to pass of ourselves into this quietude
of will, but if it is procured by ourselves it is of no effect, it is soon
over, and leaves nothing but dryness behind . This is the defect
which St. Bernard noticed in those who wish to pass from the foot
to the mouth , alluding to that passage in the Canticle of Canticles,
which refers to holy contemplation : " Let him kiss me with the
kiss of his mouth" (Cant. i. 1 ). 66 Longus saltus," says the Saint,
" et arduus de pede ad os."
3. It may be objected to us, however, that our Lord says by
David : " Be still, and see that I am God" ( Psalm , xlv . 11 ) . The
word " be still," however, does not mean that the soul should remain
in a total state of quiescence in prayer, without meditating, offering
up affections, or imploring grace. " Be still" means that in order
to know God, and the immensity of his goodness, it is sufficient to
abstain from vices, to remove ourselves from the cares of the world,
to suppress the desires of self-love, and to detach ourselves from the
goods of this life. That great mistress of prayer, St. Theresa, says :
66 It is necessary on our part to prepare ourselves for prayer ; when

God elevates us higher, to Him alone be the glory. When , there-


fore, in prayer, God elevates us to contemplation , and makes us feel
that he wishes to speak to us, and does not wish that we should
address him, we should not try to do anything then ourselves, lest
we impede the Divine operation in us ; we should only apply our
loving attention to the voice of God, and say : ' Speak , Lord, for
thy servant heareth.' When God, however, does not speak to us,
then we should address him in prayer, making acts of contrition,
acts of love, purposes of advancement in perfection , and not lose our
time doing nothing." St. Thomas says : " Contemplatio diu durare
non potest , licet quantum ad alios contemplationis actus, possint diu
durare" (1 ) . True contemplation , in which the soul is absorbed in
God, can operate nothing, and does not last long ; the effects of it,
however, last, and so, when the soul returns to the active state, it
ought to return also to labour, to preserve the fruit received in con-
templation, by reading, reflecting, offering up pious affections, and
performing similar acts of devotion , because, as St. Augustin con-
fesses, he always felt himself, after being exalted to some unusual
union with God, drawn back again as it were by a weight, to the
miseries of this life, so that he felt obliged again to assist himself
by acts of the will and the understanding, to an union with God .
He says : " Aliquando, intromittis me in affectum inusitatum . . . ..
sed recido in hæc ærumnosis ponderibus, et resorbeor solitis" (2 ) .
4. We have now to examine the pernicious propositions of
Molinos, of which I will merely quote the principal ones, which
will clearly show the impiety of his system. In his first proposi-

(1) St. Thomas, 2, 2 , q. 180, a. 8, ad 2. (2) St. Aug. Conf. l. 10, c. 40.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 593

tion he says : " Oportet hominem suas potentias annihilare , et


hæc est via interna ;" in the second : " Velle operari active , est
Deum offendere, qui vult esse Ipse solus agens ; et ideo opus est
seipsum in Deo totum, et totaliter delinquere, et postea permanere
velut corpus exanime." Thus he wished, that, abandoning all to
God, man should do nothing, but remain like a dead body, and
that the wish to perform any good act of the intellect or the will
was an offence against God, who wishes to do everything by him-
self; this, he said, was the annihilation of the powers of the soul,
which renders it divine, and transfuses it in God, as he said in his
fifth proposition : " Nihil operando anima se annihilat, et ad suum
principium redit, et ad suam originem, quæ est essentia Dei, in
quem transformata remanet, ac divinizata .......et tunc non sunt
amplius duæ res unitæ , sed una tantum." See what a number of
errors in few words.
5. Hence , also, he prohibited his disciples from having any care
about, or even taking any heed of, their salvation, for the perfect
soul, said he, should think neither of hell nor paradise : " Qui suum
liberum arbitrium Deo donavit, de nulla re debet curam habere,
nec de Inferno , nec de Paradiso ; nec desiderium propriæ perfec-
tionis , nec propriæ salutis, cujus spem purgare debet." Remark
the words " spem purgare." To hope for our salvation , then, or
make acts of hope, is a defect ; to meditate on death and judgment,
hell and heaven, shows a want of perfection , although our Lord
says that the meditation on them is the greatest safeguard against
sin : " In all thy works remember thy last end , and thou shalt never
sin" (Eccles. vii. 40 ) . He also taught that we should make no acts
of love towards the Saints, the Divine Majesty, or even Jesus
Christ himself, for we should banish all sensible objects from our
soul. See his thirty-fifth proposition : " Nec debent elicere actus
amoris erga B. Virginem, Sanctos , aut humanitatem Christi ; quia,
cum ista objecta sensibilia sint, talis est amor erga illa." Good
God ! to prohibit acts of love towards Jesus Christ , because he is a
sensible object, and prohibits our union with God ! But, as St
Augustin says, when we approach Jesus Christ, is it not God him-
self we approach, for he is both God and man ? How even can we
approach God, unless through Jesus Christ ? " Quo imus nisi ad
Jesum, et qua imus, nisi per Ipsum ?"
6. This is exactly what St. Paul says : " For by him we have
access both in one spirit to the Father" (Ephes. ii . 18 ) . And our
Saviour himself says in St. John : " I am the door. By me if any
man enter in, he shall be saved , and he shall go in and go out, and
shall find pastures" (John , x . 9) . " He shall go in and go out,"
that is, as an author quoted by Cornelius Lapide explains it : " In-
gredietur ad Divinitatem meam, et egredietur ad humanitatem,
et in utriusque contemplatione mira pascua inveniet." Thus,
whether the soul contemplates Jesus either as God or man , it will
2 P
594 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

always find pastures. St. Theresa having once read in one of


these condemned mystical books, that stopping in the contempla-
tion of Christ prevented the soul from passing on to God , began
to adopt this evil practice, but she constantly afterwards grieved for
having done so. " Is it possible, my Lord," she says , " that you
could be an impediment to me for greater good ? Whence does all
good come to me, if not from you alone ?" She afterwards says :
" I have seen that in order to please God , and that we may obtain
great graces from him, he wishes that everything should pass
through the hands of this Most Holy Humanity, in which he has
declared that he is well pleased."
7. Molinos, in prohibiting us from thinking of Jesus Christ, con-
sequently prevented us from meditating on his passion , though all
the saints have done nothing else during their lives than meditate
on the ignominy and sufferings of our loving Saviour. St. Augustin
says : " Nihil tam salutiferum quam quotidie cogitare, quanta
pro nobis pertulit Deus homo ;" and St. Bonaventure : " Nihil enim
in anima ita operatur universalem sanctificationem , sicut meditatio
Passionis Christi." St. Paul said he wished to know nothing but
Christ crucified : " For I judged not myself to know anything
among you but Jesus Christ, and him crucified" ( Cor. ii. 2 ) . And
withal, Molinos says we ought not to think on the humanity of
Jesus Christ.
8. He also had the impiety to teach, that we should ask nothing
from God, for petitioning is a defect of our own will. Here is his
fourteenth proposition : " Qui Divinæ voluntati resignatus est, non
convenit ut a Deo rem aliquam petat ; quia petere est imperfectio,
cum sit actus propriæ voluntatis. Illud autem Petite et accipietis,
non est dictum a Christo pro animabus internis," &c . He thus
deprives the soul of the most efficacious means of obtaining per-
severance in a good life, and arriving at the grace of perfection.
Jesus Christ himself, in the Gospel, tells us to pray unceasingly.
" We ought always to pray, and not to faint" ( Luke, xviii. 1) ;
"Watch ye, therefore, praying at all times" (Luke, xxi . 36) ; and
St. Paul says : " Pray without ceasing" ( 1 Thes . v. 17) ; and " Be
instant in prayer" ( Col. iv. 2. ) And still Molinos will tell us not to
pray, and that prayer is an imperfection . St. Thomas ( 3 ) says that
continual prayer is necessary for us till our salvation is secured ; for
though our sins may have been remitted, still the world and the
devil will never cease to attack us till the last hour of our lives :
" Licet remittantur peccata, remanet tamen fomes peccati nos
impugnant interius, et mundus et Dæmones, qui impugnant
exterius." In this battle we cannot conquer without the Divine
assistance, and this is only to be acquired by prayer, as St. Augus-
tin teaches us, that except the first grace, that is, the voca-

(3) St. Thom. 3, p. q. 1 , 39, a. 5.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 595

tion to grace or penance, every other grace, especially that of per-


severance, is only given to those who pray for it : " Deus nobis dat
aliqua non orantibus, ut initium Fidei, alia nonnisi orantibus
præparavit, sicut perseverantiam."
9. We have now to examine his second maxim , which, as we
said in the commencement, allows evil to be innocent. When the
soul, he says, is given up to God, whatever happens in the body is
of no harm, even though we perceive that it is something unlaw-
ful ; for the will, as he said, being then given to God , whatever
happens in the flesh is to be attributed to the violence of the devil
and of passion ; so that, in that case, we should only make a nega-
tive resistance, and permit our nature to be disturbed , and the
devil to operate. Here is his seventeenth proposition : " Traditio
Deo libero arbitrio , non est amplius habenda ratio tentationum , nec
eis alia resistentia fieri debet nisi negativa , nulla adhibita industria ;
et si natura commovetur, oportet sinere ut commoveatur, quia est
natura." And in the forty-seventh proposition , also, he says :
" Cum hujusmodi violentiæ occurrunt, sinere oportet, ut Satanas
operetur......etiamsi sequantur pollutiones, et pejora......et non
opus est hæc confiteri."
10. Thus this deceiver led people astray, though our Lord tells
us, through St. James : " Resist the devil, and he will fly from
you" (James, iv. 7) . It is not sufficient, then , to take no active
part, negative se habere, we are not to allow the devil to operate in
us, and our concupiscence to be gratified, for God commands us to
resist him with all our strength. Nothing can be more false than
what he says in his forty-first proposition : " Deus permittit, et vult
ad nos humiliandos......quod Dæmon violentiam inferat corpori-
bus, et actus carnales committere faciat," &c. Nay, it is most false,
for St. Paul teaches us that God will not allow us to be tempted
above our strength : " God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be
tempted above that which you are able ; but will make also with temp-
tation issue, that you may be able to bear it" (1 Cor. x. 13) . The
meaning ofthe Apostle is this : that God will not fail to give us
sufficient assistance in time of temptation to resist with our will ,
and by this resistance our temptations will be advantageous to us.
He allows the devil to tempt us to sin ; " but, as St. Jerome says, he
will not permit
99 him to force us : " Persuadere potest, præcipitare
non potest.' And St. Augustin (4) says that he is like a chained
dog, who can bark at us, but not bite us, unless we put ourselves
in his power. No matter how violent the temptation may be, if
we call on God we will never fail : " Call on me in the day of trou-
ble......I will deliver you" (Psalm , xlix. 15) ; " Praising I will call
upon the Lord, and I will be saved from my enemies" ( Psalm ,
xvii. 4). It is on this account that St. Bernard says (5 ) that prayer

(4) St. August. Z. 5, de Civ. c. 20. (5) St. Bern. Serm . 49, de Modo bene viv. ar. 7.
596 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

prevails over the devil, and St. Chrysostom, that nothing is more
powerful than the prayer of a man.
11. In his forty-fifth proposition Molinos says that St. Paul suf-
fered violence in his body from the devil, for the Saint says : " The
good I will, I do not ; but the evil which I will not, that I do."
But we reply, that by the words " that I do," the Apostle only in-
tends to say that he could not avoid involuntary motions of concu-
piscence ; and, therefore, he says again : " Now that is no more I
that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me" (Rom . viii . 17 ) . In his
forty- ninth proposition , also, he adduces the example of Job : " Job
ex violentia Dæmonis se propriis manibus polluebat eodem tempore,
quo mundas habebat ad Deum preces." What a shocking perver-
sion of the Scripture ! Job says (chap . xvi.) : " These things I have
suffered without the iniquity of my hand, when I offered pure
prayers to God." Now, is there any allusion to indecency in this
text ? In the Hebrew, and the version of the Septuagint, as Du
Hamel informs us, the text is : " I have not neglected God nor in-
jured any one." Therefore, by the words " these things I have
suffered without the iniquity of my hand," Job meant to say that
he never injured his neighbour ; as Menochius explains it : " I
raised up my hands to God, unstained by plunder or by any other
crime." In his fifty-first proposition , also, he quotes in his defence
the example of Sampson : " In sacra Scriptura multa sunt exempla
violentiarum ad actus externos peccaminosos, ut illud Sampsonis,
qui per violentiam seipsum occidit, cum Philistæi," &c. We reply,
however, with St. Augustin, that this self-destruction of Sampson
was accomplished by the pure inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and
that is proved by the restoration to him, at the time, of his mira-
culous strength by the Almighty, who employed him as an instru-
ment for the chastisement of the Philistines ; for he having re-
pented of his sins before he grasped the pillar which supported the
building, prayed to the Lord to restore him his original strength :
"But he called upon the Lord, saying : O Lord God, remember me,
and restore me now to my former strength." And hence, St. Paul
places him among the Saints : " Sampson , Jeptha, David , Samuel,
and the Prophets , who, by Faith, conquered kingdoms , wrought jus-
tice," &c. (Heb. xi. 32 , 33) . Behold , then, the impiety of the system
of this filthy impostor. He had good reason to thank the Almighty
for his mercies, in giving him grace to die repentant, after his
imprisonment of several years (Hist. c. 13, ar . 5 , n. 32) .
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 597

REFUTATION XIV .

BERRUYER'S ERRORS.

THE abstruse matters treated of in this Chapter will not, perhaps,


be interesting to the general reader ; but several will be desirous to
study profoundly the mysteries of the Faith , and to them this will
be highly interesting and instructive.

SUMMARY OF THESE ERRORS.

SEC. I. -Jesus Christ was created in time, by an operation ad


extra, natural Son of God, of one God, subsisting in three
Persons, who united the Humanity of Christ with a Divine
Person.
SEC. II .- Jesus Christ, during the three days he was in the
sepulchre, as he ceased to be a living man, consequently ceased
to be the Son of God, and when God raised him again from the
dead, he again begot him, and caused him to be again the Son of
God.
SEC. III . It was the Humanityalone of Christ which obeyed,
prayed, and suffered ; and his oblations, prayers , and meditations
were not operations, produced from the Word, as from a physical
and efficient principle, but, in this sense, were mere actions of his
Humanity.
SEC. IV. The miracles performed by Jesus Christ were not
done by his own power, but only obtained by him from the Father
by his prayers .
SEC. V. The Holy Ghost was not sent to the Apostles by Jesus
Christ, but by the Father alone, through the prayers of Jesus
Christ.
SEC. VI. Several other errors of his on various subjects.

1. Reading in the Bullarium of Benedict XIV. a Brief, which


begins " Cum ad Congregationem," &c. , published on the 17th of
April, 1758 , I see there prohibited and condemned the second part
of a work (the first having been condemned in 1734) , entitled the
66
History of the People of God, according to the New Testament,"
written by Father Isaac Berruyer ; and all translations of the work
into any language whatever are also condemned and prohibited.
The whole of Berruyer's work , then , and the Latin Dissertations
annexed, and the Defence, printed along with the Italian edition ,
are all condemned , as containing propositions false , rash , scandal-
ous, favouring and approaching to heresy , and foreign to the com-
mon sense of the Fathers and the Church in the interpretation of
Scripture. This condemnation was renewed by Pope Clement XIII. ,
598 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

on the 2nd of December, 1758 , and the literal Paraphrase of the


Epistles of the Apostles, after the Commentaries of Hardouin, was
included in it : " Quod quidem Opus ob doctrinæ fallaciam, et con-
tortas Sacrarum Litterarum interpretationes ....... scandali men-
suram implevit." With difficulty, I procured a copy of the work,
and I took care also to read the various essays and pamphlets in
which it was opposed. It went, however, through several editions,
though the author himself gave it up, and submitted to the sentence
of the Archbishop of Paris, who, with the other bishops of France,
condemned it. Besides the Pontifical and Episcopal condemnation ,
it was prohibited , likewise, by the Inquisition, and burned by the
common hangman, by order of the Parliament of Paris . Father
Zacchary , in his Literary History, says that he rejects the work ,
likewise, and that the General of the Jesuits, whose subject Father
Berruyer was, declared that the Society did not recognize it.
2. I find in the treatises written to oppose Berruyer's work, that
the writers always quote the errors of the author in his own words,
and these errors are both numerous and pernicious , especially those
regarding the Mysteries of the Trinity, and the Incarnation of the
Eternal Word, against which especially the devil has always worked ,
through so many heresies ; for these Mysteries are the foundation
of our Faith and salvation , as Jesus Christ, the Son of God , is God
made man, the fountain of all graces, and of all hope for us ; and
hence, St. Peter says that, unless in Jesus, there is no salvation :
" Neither is there salvation in any other" (Acts, iv. 12).
3. I was just concluding this work, when I heard of Berruyer's
work, and the writings opposing it ; and, to tell the truth, I was
anxious to conclude this work of mine, and rest myself a little after
the many years of labour it cost me ; but the magnitude and danger
of his errors induced me to refute his book as briefly as I could .
Remember that, though the work itself was condemned by Bene-
dict XIV. and Clement XIII ., the author was not, since he
at once bowed to the decision of the Church , following the advice
of St. Augustin, who says that no one can be branded as a heretic,
who is not pertinaciously attached to , and defends his errors : " Qui
sententiam suam, quamvis falsam , atque perversam , nulla pertinaci
animositate defendunt ...... corrigi parati cum invenerint, nequa-
quam sunt inter Hæreticos deputandi."
4. Before we commence the examination of Berruyer's errors , I
will give a sketch of his system, that the reader may clearly under-
stand it. His system is founded principally on two Capital Propo-
sitions, both as false as can be. I say Capital ones, for all the
other errors he published depend on them. The first and chief
proposition is this, that Jesus Christ is the natural Son of one God,
but of God subsisting in three Persons ; that is to say, that Jesus
Christ is Son , but not Son of the Father, as principal, and first
P'erson of the Trinity, but Son of the Father subsisting in three
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 599

Persons, and, therefore , he is, properly speaking, the Son of the


Trinity. The second proposition , which comes from the first, and
is also what I call a Capital one, is this, that all the operations of
Jesus Christ, both corporal and spiritual, are not the operations of
the Word, but only of his humanity , and from this, then , he deduced
many false and damnable consequences. Although, as we have
already seen, Berruyer himself was not condemned, still his book
is a sink of extravagancies, follies, novelties, confusion, and perni-
cious errors, which, as Clement XIII . says, in his Brief, obscure the
principal Articles of our Faith, so that Arians, Nestorians, Sabel-
lians, Socinians, and Pelagians, will all find , some more, some less,
something to please them in this work. There are mixed up with
all this many truly Catholic sentiments, but these rather confuse
than enlighten the mind of the reader. We shall now examine his
false doctrine, and especially the first proposition, the parent, we
may say, of all the rest.

SEC. I.- BERRUYER SAYS THAT JESUS CHRIST WAS MADE IN TIME, BY AN OPERA-
TION ad extra, THE NATURAL SON OF GOD, ONE SUBSISTING IN THREE PERSONS, WHO
UNITED THE HUMANITY OF CHRIST WITH A DIVINE PERSON.

5. He says, first : " Jesus Christus D. N. vere dici potest et debet


naturalis Dei Filius ; Dei, inquam, ut vox illa Deus supponit pro
Deo uno et vero subsistente in tribus personis, agente ad extra, et
per actionem transeuntem et liberam uniente humanitatem Christi
cum Persona Divina in unitatem Persona" ( 1 ). And he briefly
repeats the same afterwards : " Filius factus in tempore Deo in
tribus Personis subsistenti" (2). And again : " Non repugnat Deo
in tribus Personis subsistenti , fieri in tempore, et esse Patrem Filii
naturalis, et veri." Jesus Christ, then , he says, should be called the
natural Son of God, not because (as Councils, Fathers, and all
Theologians say) the Word assumed the humanity of Christ in
unity of Person ; and thus our Saviour was true God and true man
-true man, because he had a human soul and body , and true God
because the Eternal Word , the true Son of God, true God gene-
rated from the Father, from all eternity, sustained and terminated
the two natures of Christ, Divine and human , but because, accord-
ing to Berruyer, God, subsisting in Three Persons, united the
Word to the humanity of Christ, and thus Jesus Christ is the natu-
ral Son of God , not because he is the Word, born of the Father,
but because he was made the Son of God in time, by God subsist-
ing in three Persons, " uniente humanitatem Christi cum Persona
Divina." Again, he repeats the same thing, in another place :
66 Rigorose loquendo per ipsam formaliter actionem unientem Jesus
Christus constituitur tantum Filius Dei naturalis." The natural
Son, according to Hardouin's and Berruyer's idea ; because the real
(1) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 59. (2) Idem. ibid. p. 60.
600 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

natural Son of God was the only begotten Son, begotten from the
substance of the Father ; and hence, the Son that Berruyer speaks
of, produced from the three Persons, is Son in name only. It is
not repugnant, he says, to God to become a Father in time, and to
be the Father of a true and natural Son , and he always explains
this of God, subsisting in three Divine Persons.
6. Berruyer adopted this error from his master, John Hardouin,
whose Commentary on the New Testament was condemned by
Benedict XIV. , on the 28th of July , 1743. He it was who first
promulgated the proposition, that Jesus Christ was not the Son of
God as the Word, but only as man, united to the Person of the
Word. Commenting on that passage of St. John, " In the begin-
ning was the Word," he says : "Aliud esse Verbum, aliud esse
Filium Dei , intelligi voluit Evangelista Joannes. Verbum est
secunda Ss . Trinitatis Persona ; Filius Dei , ipsa per se quidem, sed
tamen ut eidem Verbo hypostatice unita Christi humanitas." Har-
douin, therefore, says that the Person of the Word was united to
the humanity of Christ, but that Jesus Christ then became the Son
of God, when the humanity was hypostatically united to the Word ;
and, on this account, he says, he is called the Word , in the Gospel
of St. John, up to the time of the Incarnation , but, after that , he is
no longer called the Word , only the Only-begotten , and the Son of
God: " Quamobrem in hoc Joannis Evangelio Verbum appellatur
usque ad Incarnationem. Postquam autem caro factum est , non
tam Verbum, sed Unigenitus, et Filius Dei est."
7. Nothing can be more false than this, however, since all the
Fathers , Councils, and even the Scriptures, as we shall presently
see, clearly declare that the Word himself was the only- begotten
Son of God, who became incarnate. Hear what St. Paul says :
" For let this mind be in you , which was also in Christ Jesus, who ,
being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with
God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant” (Phil . ii.
5 , &c. ) So that the Apostle says, that Christ, being equal to God,
emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. The Divine Person,
which was united with Christ, and was equal to God , could not be
the only-begotten Son of God , according to Hardouin , but must be
understood to be the Word himself, for, otherwise , it would not be
the fact that He who was equal to God emptied himself, taking the
form of a servant. St. John, besides, in his First Epistle (v . 20),
says : "We know that the Son of God is come." He says , is
come ;" it is not, therefore, true that this Son of God became the
Son , only when he came, for we see he was the Son of God before
he came. The Council of Chalcedon (Act. v. ) says , speaking of
Jesus Christ : " Ante sæcula quidem de Patre genitum secundum
Deitatem, et in novissimis autem diebus propter nos et propter
nostram salutem ex Maria Virgine Dei Genitrice secundum humani-
tatem ..... non in duas personas partitum , sed unum eundemque
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 601

Filium , et unigenitum Deum Verbum." Thus we see it there de-


clared , that Jesus Christ, according to the Divinity, was generated
by the Father before all ages, and afterwards became incarnate in
the fulness of time, and that he is one and the same, the Son of God
and of the Word . In the Third Canon of the Fifth General Coun-
cil it is declared : " Si quis dixerit unam naturam Dei Verbi incar-
natam dicens, non sic ea excipit, sicut Patres docuerunt, quod ex
Divina natura et humana, unione secundum subsistentiam facta,
unus Christus effectus . . . . . talis anathema sit." We see here there
is no doubt expressed that the Word was incarnate, and became
Christ, but it was prohibited to say absolutely that the Incarnate
nature of the Word was one. We say, in the Symbol at Mass , that
we believe in one God, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God,
born of the Father, before all ages. Jesus Christ is not , therefore,
the Son of God, merely because he was made the Son in time, or
because his humanity was united to the Word, as Hardouin says ,
but because his humanity was assumed by the Word, who was
already the Son of God, born of the Father before all ages.
8. All the Fathers teach that the Son of God who was made man
is the very Person of the Word. St. Iræneus (3) says : " Unus et
idem , et ipse Deus Christus Verbum est Dei . " St. Athanasius (4)
reproves those who say : " Alium Christum , alium rursum esse Dei
Verbum, quod ante Mariam, et sæcula erat Filius Patris." St.
Cyril says ( 5 ) : " Licet (Nestorius) duas naturas esse dicat carnis et
Verbi Dei, differentiam significans . . .. .. .. attamen unionem non
confitetur ; nos enim illas adunantes unum Christum ; unum eundem
Filium dicimus." St. John Chrysostom (6) , reproving Nestorius
for his blasphemy, in teaching that in Jesus Christ there were two
Sons, says: " Non alterum et alterum, absit, sed unum et eundem
Dom. Jesum Deum Verbum carne nostra amictum ," &c . St. Basil
writes (7) : " Verbum hoc quod erat in principio, nec humanum
erat, nec Angelorum , sed ipse Unigenitus qui dicitur Verbum ; quia
impassibiliter natus,66et Generantis imago est." St. Gregory Thau-
maturgus (8 ) says : Unus est Deus Pater Verbi viventis ..... per-
fectus perfecti Genitor, Pater Filii unigeniti." St. Augustin
says (9): " Et Verbum Dei , forma quædam non formata , sed forma
omnium formarum existens in omnibus. Quærunt vero , quomodo
nasci potuerit Filius coævus Patri : nonne si ignis æternus esset,
coævus esset splendor ?" And in another passage he says ( 10) :
" Christus Jesus Dei Filius est, et Deus, et Homo ; Deus ante omnia
secula , Homo in nostro seculo. Deus, quia Dei Verbum : Homo
autem, quia in unitatem personæ accessit Verbo anima rationalis , et
caro." Eusebius of Ceserea says (11) , not like Hardouin : " Non
(3) St. Iræneus. l. 17, adv. Hæres. (4) St. Athan. Epist. ad Epictetum. (5) St.
Cyril. in Commonitor. ad Eulogium . (6) St. Chrysost. Hom. 3, ad c. 1, Ep. ad Cæsar.
(7) St. Basil. Hom. in Princ. Johann. (8) St. Greg. Thaumat. in Vita St. Greg.
Nyss. (9) St. August. Serm. 38, de Verb. Dom. ( 10) St. August. in Euchirid. c. 35 .
(11 ) Euseb. Ces. l. 1, de Fide.
602 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

cum apparuit, tunc et Filius : non cum nobiscum, tunc et apud


Deum : sed quemadmodum in principio erat Verbum, in principio
erat ..... in principio erat Verbum , de Filio dicit." We would
imagine that Eusebius intended to answer Hardouin, by saying
that the Word, not alone when he became incarnate and dwelt
amongst us, was then the Son of God , and with God, but as in the
beginning he was the Word, so , in like manner, he was the Son ;
and hence, when St. John says : " In the beginning was the Word,"
he meant to apply it to the Son. It is inthis sense all the Fathers
and schoolmen take it, likewise , as even Hardouin himself admits,
and still he is not ashamed to sustain , that we should not under-
stand that it is the Word, the Son of God, who became incarnate,
though both doctors and schoolmen thus understand it. Here are
his words : " Non Filius stilo quidem Scripturarum sacrarum,
quamquam in scriptis Patrum , et in Schola etiam Filius."
9. This doctrine has been taken up, defended, and diffusely
explained, by Berruyer ; and to strengthen his position , even that
Jesus Christ is not the Son of the Father, as the first Person of
the Trinity, but of one God, as subsisting in the three Divine
Persons, he lays down a general rule, by which he says all
texts of the New Testament in which God is called the Father of
Christ, and the Son is called the Son of God, should be under-
stood of the Father subsisting in three Persons, and the Son of
God subsisting in three Persons. Here are his words : " Omnes
Novi Testamenti textus, in quibus aut Deus dicitur Pater Christi,
aut Filius dicitur Filius Dei, vel inducitur Deus Christum sub
nomine Filii , aut Christus Deum sub nomine Patris interpretans :
vel aliquid de Deo ut Christi Patre, aut de Christo ut Dei Filio
narratur, intelligendi sunt de Filio facto in tempore secundum
carnem Deo uni et vero in tribus Personis subsistenti." And this
rule, he says, is necessary for the proper and literal understanding
of the New Testament : " Hæc notio prorsus necessaria est ad
litteralem et germanam intelligentiam Librorum Novi Testa-
menti" ( 12 ) . He previously said that all the writers ofthe Old
Testament who prophesied the coming of the Messiah should be
understood in the same sense : " Cum et idem omnino censendum
est de omnibus Vet. Testamenti Scriptoribus, quoties de futuro
Messia Jesu Christo prophetant" ( 13) . Whenever God the Father,
or the first Person , he says, is called the Father of Jesus Christ,
it must be understood that he is not called so in reality, but by
appropriation, on account of the omnipotence attributed to the
Person of the Father : " Recte quidem , sed per appropriationem
Deus Pater, sive Persona prima, dicitur Pater Jesu Christi, quia
actio uniens, sicut et actio creans, actio est omnipotentiæ, cujus
attributi actiones Patri, sive primæ Personæ, per appropriationem
tribuuntur" (14).

(12) P. Berruyer, t. 8, p. 89 & 98. ( 13) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 3. (14) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 83.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 603

10. This false notion of the Filiation of Jesus Christ Berruyer


founds on that text of St. Paul (Rom. i. 3 , 4) : " Concerning his
Son, who was made to him of the seed of David, according to the
flesh, who was predestined the Son of God in power," &c. Now,
these words , " his Son, who was made to him according to the
flesh," he says, prove that Jesus Christ was the Son of God made
in time according to the flesh . We reply, however, to this, that
St. Paul, in this passage, speaks of Jesus Christ not as Son of
God, but as Son of man : he does not say that Jesus Christ was
made his Son according to the flesh, but " concerning his Son,
who was made to him ofthe seed of David, according to the flesh ;"
that is , the Word, his Son , was made according to the flesh, or, in
other words, was made flesh-was made man as St. John says :
“ The Word was made flesh ." We are not, then, to understand
with Berruyer, that Christ, as man, was made the Son of God ;
for as we cannot say that Christ, being man, was made God ,
neither can we say that he was made the Son of God ; but we are
to understand that the Word being the only Son of God, was
made man from the stock of David. When we hear it said, then,
that the humanity of Jesus Christ was raised to the dignity of
Son of God, that is, understood to have taken place by the com-
munication of the idioms founded on the unity of Person : for the
Word having united human nature to his Person, and as it is one
Person which sustains the two natures, Divine and human , the
propriety of the Divine Nature is then justly affirmed of man,
and the propriety of God , of the human nature be assumed. How,
then, is this expression , " who was predestined the Son of God in
power," to be taken ? Berruyer endeavours to explain it by a most
false supposition , which we will presently notice. It is, he says, to
be understood of the new filiation which God made in the re-
surrection of Jesus Christ, for when our Lord died , as his soul was
separated from his body, he ceased to be a living man , and was
then no longer, he said, the Son of God ; but when he rose again
from the dead, God again made him his Son, and it is of this new
filiation St. Paul , he says, speaks in these words : " Who was pre-
destinated the Son of God in power, according to the spirit of
sanctification , by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from
the dead" (Rom. i . 4) . Commentators and Holy Fathers give
different interpretations to this text, but the most generally re-
ceived is that of St. Augustin, St. Anselm, Estius, and some others,
who say that Christ was from all eternity destined to be united in
time, according to the flesh , to the Son of God, by the operation of
the Holy Ghost, who united this man to the Word, who afterwards
wrought miracles, and raised him from the dead .
11. To return to Berruyer. In his system he lays it down for a
certainty, that Jesus Christ is the natural Son of one God , subsist-
ing in three Persons. Is Christ , then, the Son of the Trinity ? an
604 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

opinion which shocked St. Fulgentius ( 15) , who says that our
Saviour, according to the flesh, might be called the work of the
Trinity ; but, according to his birth, both eternal and in time, is the
Son of God the Father alone: " Quis unquam tantæ reperiri possit
insaniæ , qui auderet Jesum Christum totius Trinitatis Filium præ-
dicare ? ......Jesus Christus secundum carnem quidem opus est
totius Trinitatis ; secundum vero utramque Nativitatem solus Dei
Patris est Filius." But Berruyer's partisans may say that he does
not teach that Jesus Christ is the Son of the Trinity ; but granting
that he allows two filiations-one eternal, the filiation of the Word,
and the other in time , when Christ was made the Son of God, sub-
sisting in three Persons--he must then , of necessity , admit that this
Son made in time was the Son of the Trinity. He will not have
Jesus Christ to be the Word, that is, the Son generated from the
Father, the first Person of the Trinity from all eternity. If he is
not the Son of the Father, whose Son is he if not the Son of the
Trinity ? Had he any Father at all ? There is no use in wasting
words on the matter, for every one knows that in substance it is just
the same to say the Son of one God subsisting in three Persons, as
to say the Son of the Trinity. This, however, is what never can
be admitted ; for if we said Christ was the Son of the three Persons,
it would be the same, as we shall prove, as to say that he was a
mere creature ; but when we say he is the Son , we mean that he
was produced from the substance of the Father, or that he was of
the same substance as the Father, as St. Athanasius teaches (16) :
"Omnis filius ejusdem essentiæ est proprii parentis, alioquin im-
possibile est, ipsum verum esse filium." St. Augustin says that
Christ cannot be called the Son of the Holy Ghost, though it was
by the operation of the Holy Spirit the Incarnation took place.
How, then, can he be the Son of the three Persons ? St. Tho-
mas ( 17 ) teaches that Christ cannot be called the Son of God , unless
by the eternal generation, as he has been generated by the Father
alone ; but Berruyer wants us to believe that he is not the Son,
generated by the Father, but made by one God , subsisting in three
Persons.
12. To carry out this proposition , if he understands that Jesus
Christ is the Son, consubstantial to the Father, who subsists in three
Persons, he must admit four Persons in God, that is, three in which
God subsists, and the fourth Jesus Christ, made the Son of the most
Holy Trinity ; or, in other words, of God subsisting in three Per-
sons. If, on the other hand , he considers the Father of Jesus Christ
as one Person alone, then he falls into Sabellianism, recognizing in
God not three distinct Persons, but one alone under three different
names. He is accused of Arianism by others, and , in my opinion ,
his error leads to Nestorianism. He lays down as a principle, that
( 15) St. Fulgent. Fragm. 32, l. 9. (16) St. Athan. Epist. 2, ad Serapion. (17) St.
Thom. 3. p. qu. 32, art. 3.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 605

there are two generations in God- one eternal , the other in time-
one of necessity, ad intra- the other voluntary, ad extra . In all this
he is quite correct ; but then , speaking of the generation in time, he
says that Jesus Christ was not the natural Son of God the Father, as
the first Person of the Trinity, but the Son of God, as subsisting in
three Persons.
13. Admitting this, then, to be the case, it follows that Jesus
Christ had two Fathers, and that in Jesus Christ there are two
Sons-one the Son of God, as the Father, the First Person of the
Trinity, who generated him from all eternity-the other , the Son
made in time by God, but by God subsisting in three Persons , who ,
uniting the humanity of Jesus Christ (or, as Berruyer says, uniting
that man, hominem illum) to the Divine Word , made him his natural
Son. If we admit this , however, then we must say that Jesus Christ
is not true God, but only a creature, and that for two reasons , first-
because Faith teaches us that there are only two internal operations
(ad intra) in God, the generation of the Word and the spiration of
the Holy Ghost ; every other operation in God is external (ad
extra) , and external operations produce only creatures , and not a
Divine Person . The second reason is- because if Jesus Christ
were the natural Son of God, subsisting in three Persons, he would
be the Son of the Trinity, as we have already stated, and that would
lead us to admit two grievous absurdities-first, the Trinity, that
is, the three Divine Persons, would produce a Son of God ; but as
we have already shown , the Trinity, with the exception of the pro-
duction of the Word and the Holy Ghost, ad intra, only produces
creatures, and not Sons of God. The second absurdity is, that if
Jesus Christ was made the natural Son of God by the Trinity, he
would generate or produce himself (unless we exclude the Son from
the Trinity altogether) , and this would be a most irrational error,
such as Tertullian charged Praxeas with : " Ipse se Filium sibi
fecit" ( 18) . Therefore we see, according to Berruyer's system, that
Jesus Christ, for all these reasons, would not be true God, but a
mere creature, and the Blessed Virgin would be , as Nestorius
asserted, only the Mother of Christ, and not, as the Council de-
cided, and Faith teaches, the Mother of God , for Jesus Christ is true
God, seeing that his humanity had only the Person of the Word
alone to terminate it, for it was the Word alone which sustained the
two natures, human and Divine.
14. Berruyer's friend , however, says that he does not admit the
existence of two natural Sons-one from eternity, the other in time.
But then, I say, if he does not admit it, where is the use of tortur-
ing his mind by trying to make out this second filiation of Jesus
Christ, made in time the natural Son of God, subsisting in three
Persons. He ought to say, as the Church teaches, and all Catholics

(18) Tertull . adv. Praxeam. n. 50.


606 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

believe, that it is the same Word who was from all eternity the
natural Son of God, generated from the substance of the Father,
who assumed human nature , and thus redeemed mankind . But
Berruyer wished to enlighten the Church with the knowledge of
this new natural Son of God , about whom we know nothing before,
telling us that this Son was made in time, not from the Father, but
by all the three Divine Persons, because he was united to , or, as he
expressed it, had the honour ofthe Consortium of the Word, who
was the Son ofGod from all eternity. We knew nothing of all this
till Berruyer and his master, Hardouin , came to enlighten us.
15. Berruyer, however, was grievously astray in asserting that
Jesus Christ was the natural Son of one God, subsisting in three
Persons . In this he has all Theologians, Catechisms, Fathers,
Councils, and Scripture, opposed to him. We do not deny that the
Incarnation of the Word was the work of the three Divine Persons ;
but neither can it be denied that the Person who became incarnate
was the only Son, the second Person of the Trinity, who was, without
doubt, the Word himself, generated from all eternity by the Father,
who, assuming human nature, and uniting it to himself in unity of
Person, wished by this means to redeem the human race. Hear
what the Catechisms and the Symbols of the Church say ; they
teach that Jesus Christ is not the Son of God made in time by the
Trinity, as Berruyer imagines, but the eternal Word, born of the
Father, the principal and first Person of the Most Holy Trinity.
This is what the Roman Catechism teaches : " Filium Dei esse
(Jesum) et verum Deum, sicut Pater est, qui eum ab æterno ge-
nuit” ( 19 ) . And again ( N. 9) , Berruyer's opinion is directly im-
pugned : " Et quamquam duplicem ejus nativitatem agnoscamus,
unum tamen Filium esse credimus ; una enim Persona est, in quam
Divina et humana natura convenit." The Athanasian Creed says
that the Son is from the Father alone, not made nor created , but
begotten ; and speaking of Jesus Christ, it says that he is God, of
the substance of the Father, begotten before all ages, and man, of
the substance of his Mother, born in time, who, though he is God
and man, still is not two, but one Christ- one , not by the conversion
of the Divinity into flesh , but by the assumption of the humanity
into God. As Jesus Christ, therefore, received his humanity from
the substance of his Mother alone , so he had his Divinity from the
substance of his Father alone.
16. In the Apostles' Creed we say : " I believe in God , the Father
Almighty ...... and in Jesus Christ, his only Son .....born ofthe
Virgin Mary, suffered," &c. Remark, Jesus Christ, his Son , ofthe
Father, the first Person, who is first named , not of the three Per-
sons ; and his only Son, that is one Son , not two. In the Symbol
of the Council of Florence, which is said at Mass, and which com-

(19) Catech. Rom. e. 3, art. 2, n. 11 .


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 607

prises all the other Symbols previously promulgated by the other


General Councils , we perceive several remarkable expressions . It
says : " I believe in one God, the Father Almighty .... and in one
Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, and born of the
Father before all ages (see, then , this only begotten Son is the same
who was born of the Father before all ages), consubstantial to the
Father, by whom all things were made, who for us men , and for
our salvation, came down from heaven, and became incarnate," &c.
The Son of God, then, who wrought the redemption of mankind ,
is not he whom Berruyer supposes made in time on this earth , but
the eternal Son of God, by whom all things were made, who came
down from heaven , and was born and suffered for our salvation.
Berruyer, then, is totally wrong in recognizing two natural Sons of
God, one born in time of God, subsisting in three Persons, and the
other generated by God from all eternity.
17. But, says Berruyer, then Jesus Christ, inasmuch as he was
made a man in time , is not the real, natural Son of God , but merely
his adopted Son , as Felix and Elipandus taught, and for which
they were condemned ? But this we deny, and we hold for cer-
tain that Jesus Christ, even as man, is the true Son of God (See
Refutation vii. n. 18 ) , but that does not prove that there are two
natural Sons of God , one eternal and the other made in time, because ,
as we have proved in this work, as quoted above , Jesus Christ, even
as man, is called the natural Son of God, inasmuch as God the
Father continually generates the Word from all eternity, as David
writes : " The Lord hath said to me, Thou art my Son , this day
have I begotten thee" (Psalm, ii . 7). Hence it is that as the Son,
previous to the Incarnation , was generated from all eternity, with-
out flesh, so from the time he assumed humanity he was generated
by the Father, and will for ever be generated , hypostatically united
to his humanity. But it is necessary to understand that this man ,
the natural Son of God created in time, is the very Person of the
Son, generated from all eternity, that is the Word, who assumed
the humanity of Jesus Christ, and united it to itself. It cannot be
said, then, that there are two natural Sons of God , one , man , made
in time, the other, God, produced from all eternity, for there is only
one natural Son of God, that is the Word , who, uniting human
nature to himself in time, is both God and man, and is, as the
Athanasian Creed declares, one Christ : " For as the rational soul
and flesh is one man , so God and man is one Christ. And as every
man, though consisting of soul and body, is still only one man, one
person, so in Jesus Christ , though there is the Word and the hu-
manity, there is but one Person and natural Son of God."
18. Berruyer's opinion also is opposed to the First Chapter of
the Gospel of St. John, for there we read : " In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God ; "
and then it is said that it was this same Word which was made
608 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

flesh : " And the Word was made flesh." Being made flesh does
not mean that the Word was united to the human person of Jesus
Christ, already existing, but it shows that the Word assumed
humanity in the very instant in which it was created , so that from
that very instant the soul ofJesus Christ and his human flesh became
his own proper soul and his own proper flesh , sustained and governed
by one sole Divine Person alone , which is the Word, which termi-
nates and sustains the two natures, Divine and human , and it is
thus the Word was made man. Just pause for a moment ! St. John
affirms that the Word, the Son , generated from the Father from all
eternity, is made man , and Berruyer says that this man is not the
Word, the Son of the eternal God, but another Son of God , made
in time by all the three Divine Persons. When , however, the
Evangelist has said : " The Word was made flesh," if you say and
understand that the Word is not made flesh, are you not doing just
what the Sacramentarians did , explaining the Eucharistic words,
" This is my body," that the body of Jesus Christ was not his body,
but only the figure, sign, or virtue of his body ? This is what the
Council of Trent reprobates so much in the heretics, distorting the
words of Scripture to their own meaning. To return, however, to
the Gospel of St. John . The Evangelist says, he dwelt among us.
It was the eternal Word, then, which was made man, and worked
out man's redemption , and, therefore, the Gospel again says : "The
Word was made flesh ....... and we saw his glory, as it were the
glory of the only-begotten of the Father." This Word, then, who
was made man in time, is the only-begotten, and, consequently,
the only natural Son of God, generated by the Father from all
eternity. St. John (1 Epis. iv. 9) , again repeats it : " By this has
the charity of God appeared towards us, because God hath sent his
only-begotten Son into the world, that we may live by him." In
this text we must remark that the Apostle uses the word " hath
sent." Berruyer then asserts what is false, in saying that Jesus
Christ is the Son of God, made in time , for St. John says that he
existed before he " was sent," for in fact it was the eternal Son of
the Father that was sent by God, who came down from heaven,
and brought salvation to the world . We should also recollect that
St. Thomas says ( 20) , that speaking of God , whenever one Person
is said to be sent by another, he is said to be sent, inasmuch as he
proceeds from the other, and therefore the Son is said to be sent by
the Father to take human flesh, inasmuch as he proceeds from the
Person of the Father alone . Christ himself declared this in the re-
surrection of Lazarus, for though he could have raised him himself,
still he prayed to his Father that they might know he was his true
Son, " That they may believe that thou hast sent me” (John, xi. 42) ;

(20) St. Thomas, p. 1 , q. 4, ar. 1.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 609

and hence St. Hilary says ( 21 ) : " Non prece eguit, pro nobis oravit,
ne Filius ignoraretur ."
19. Along with all this we have the tradition of the Fathers
generally opposed to Berruyer's system. St. Gregory of Nazian-
zen (22) says : " Id quod non erat assumpsit, non duo factus, sed
unum ex duobus fieri subsistens ; Deus enim ambo sunt, id quod
assumpsit, et quod est assumptum, naturæ duæ in unum concurren-
tes, non duo Filii ." St. John Chrysostom (23) writes : " Unum
Filium unigenitum , non dividens eum in Filiorum dualitatem , por-
tantem tamen in semetipso indivisarum duarum naturarum incon-
vertibiliter proprietates ;" and again, " Etsi enim duplex natura,
verumtamen indivisibilis unio in una filiationis confitenda Persona,
et una subsistentia." St. Jerome says ( 24) : " Anima et caro Christi
cum Verbo Dei una Persona est, unus Christus." St. Dionisius of
Alexandria wrote a Synodical Epistle to refute Paul of Samosata ,
who taught a doctrine like Berruyer ; " Duas esse Personas unius,
et solius Christi ; et duos Filios, unum natura Filium Dei, qui fuit
ante sæcula, et unum homonyma Christum Filium David." St. Au-
gustin says (25 ) : " Christus Jesus Dei Filius est Deus et Homo :
Deus quia Dei Verbum : Homo autem, quia in unitatem Personæ
necessit Verbo Anima rationalis et caro." I omit the quotations
from many other Fathers, but those who are curious in the matter
will find them in the Clypeum of Gonet and in the writings of
Petavius, Gotti, and others.
20. Another reflection occurs to my mind . Besides the other
errors published by Berruyer, and which follow from his opinions,
which we will immediately refute, if the reader goes back to N. 9,
he will perceive that the faith of Baptism, as taught by all Christians
and Councils, is jeopardized . According to this system , all passages
in the New Testament in which God is called the Father of Christ,
or the Son is called the Son of God , or where anything is mentioned
about God, as Father of Christ, the Son of God, must be under-
stood to apply to the Son of God made in time, according to the
flesh, and made by that God, subsisting in three Persons. On
the other hand, it is certain that Baptism is administered in the
Church in the name ofthe three Persons, expressly and individually
named, as Jesus Christ commanded his Apostles to do : " Go ye,
therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father, and ofthe Son , and of the Holy Ghost" (Matt. xxviii. 19 ) .
But if the general rule laid down by Berruyer, as we have explained
it, should be observed, then the Baptism administered in the
Church would be no longer Baptism in the sense we take it,
because the Father who is named would not be the first Person of

(21 ) St. Hilar. l. 10, de Trin. (22) St. Greg. Nazian. Orat. 31. (23) St. John
Chrysos. Ep. ad Cæsar. et Hom. 3, ad cap. I. (24) St. Hieron. Tract 49, in Jo.
(25) St. August. in Enchirid. cap. 33.
2 Q
610 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

the Trinity, as is generally understood, but the Father Berruyer


imagined, a Father subsisting in three Divine Persons- in a word,
the whole Trinity. The Son would not be the Word, generated
by the Father, the Principle of the Trinity, from all eternity , but
the Son, made in time by all the three Persons, who, being an
external work of God, ad extra, would be a mere creature , as we
have seen already. The Holy Ghost would not be the third
Person, such as we believe him, that is, proceeding from the
Father, the first Person of the Trinity, and from the Son, the
second Person, that is, the Word, generated from all eternity by
the Father. Finally, according to Berruyer, the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost would not be what they are in reality, and
what the whole Church believes them to be, the real Father, the
real Son, and the real Holy Ghost, in opposition to what that
great theologian, St. Gregory of Nazianzen teaches : " Quis Catho-
licorum ignorat Patrem vere esse Patrem, Filium vere esse Filium,
et Spiritum Sanctum vere esse Spiritum Sanctum, sicut ipse
Dominus ad Apostolos dicit : Euntes docete, &c. Hæc est perfecta
Trinitas," &c. (26) . Read , however, further on the Refutation of the
third error, and you will find this fiction more diffusely and clearly
refuted. We now pass on to the other errors of this writer, which
flow from this first one.

SEC. II.- BERRUYER SAYS THAT JESUS CHRIST, DURING THE THREE DAYS HE WAS IN THE
SEPULCHRE, CEASED TO BE A LIVING MAN, AND, CONSEQUENTLY, WAS NO LONGER
THE SON OF GOD. AND WHEN GOD AGAIN RAISED HIM FROM THE DEAD, he once
MORE GENERATED HIM, AND AGAIN MADE HIM THE SON OF GOD.

21. ONE must have a great deal of patience to wade through all
these extravagant falsehoods. Christ, he says, during the three
days he was in the sepulchre, ceased to be the natural Son of God :
"Factum est morte Christi, ut homo Christus Jesus, cum jam
non esset homo vivens, atque adeo pro triduo quo corpus ab Anima
separatum jacuit in sepulchro, fieret Christus incapax illius ap-
pellationis, Filius Dei ( 1 ) ; and he repeats the same thing in
another part of his work, in different words : " Actione Dei unius ,
Filium suum Jesum suscitantis, factum est, ut Jesus qui desierat
esse homo vivens, et consequenter Filius Dei, iterum viveret
deinceps non moriturus." This error springs from that false sup-
position we have already examined , for supposing that Jesus Christ
was the Son of God subsisting in three Persons, that is the Son of
the Trinity by an operation ad extra, he was then a mere man,
and as by death he ceased to be a living man, he also ceased to be
the Son of God subsisting in three Persons ; because if Jesus Christ
were the Son of God, as first Person of the Trinity, then in him
was the Word, which, being hypostatically united to his soul and

(26) St. Greg. Nazian. in Orat. de Fide, post init. (1) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 63.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 611

body, could never be separated from him, even when his soul was
by death separated from his body.
22. Supposing, then, that Jesus Christ, dying, ceased to be the
Son of God, Berruyer must admit that in those three days in which
our Lord's body was separated from his soul, the Divinity was
separated from his body and soul. Let us narrow the proposition.
Christ, he says, was made the Son of God, not because the Word
assumed his humanity , but because the Word was united to his
humanity, and hence, he says, as in the sepulchre he ceased to be
a living man, his soul being separated from his body, he was no
longer the Son of God, and, therefore, the Word ceased to be
united with his humanity. Nothing, however, can be more false
than this, for the Word assumed and hypostatically and inseparably
united to himself in unity of Person the soul and body of Jesus
Christ, and hence when our Lord died, and his most holy body
was laid in the tomb, the Divinity of the Word could not be
separated either from the body or the soul. This truth has been
taught by St. Athanasius (2) : " Cum Deitas neque Corpus in
sepulchro desereret, neque ab Anima in inferno separaretur." St.
Gregory of Nyssa writes (3) : " Deus qui totum hominem per suam
cum illo conjunctionem in naturam Divinam mutaverat, mortis
tempore a neutra illius, quam semel assumpserat, parte recessit ;"
and St. Augustin says (4) : " Cum credimus Dei Filium, qui
sepultus est, profecto Filium Dei dicimus et Carnem , quæ sola
sepulta est."
23. St. John of Damascus tells us the reason the soul of Christ
had not a different subsistence from his body, as it was the one
Person alone which sustained both : " Neque enim unquam aut
Anima, aut Corpus peculiarem atque a Verbi subsistentia diversam
subsistentiam habuit" (5) . On that account, he says, as it was one
Person which sustained the soul and body of Christ, although the
soul was separated from the body, still the Person of the Word
could not be separated from them : " Corpus, et Anima simul ab
initio in Verbi Persona existentiam habuerant, ac licet in morte .
divulsa fuerint, utrumque tamen eorum unam Verbi, qua subsis-
teret, semper habuit." As, therefore, when Jesus descended into
hell, the Word descended , likewise, with his soul , so , while his
body was in the sepulchre, the Word was present, likewise ; and,
therefore, the body of Christ was free from corruption , as David
foretold : " Nor wilt thou give thy holy One to see corruption"
(Psalm, xv. 10) . And St. Peter, as we read in the Acts (ii. 27) ,
shows that this text was applied to our Lord lying in his tomb.
It is true, St. Hilary (6 ) says , that, when Christ died, the Divinity

(1) St. Athanasius, contra Apollinar. l. 1 , n. 15. (3) St. Greg. Nyss. Orat. 1 in
Christ. Resur. (4) St. Aug. Tract. 78, in Joan, n. 2. (5) St. Jo. Damasc. 1. 3, de
Fide, c. 27. (6) St. Hilar. c. 33, in Matth.
612 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

left his body ; but St. Ambrose (7) explains this, and says, that
all the Holy Doctor meant to say was, that, in the Passion , the
Divinity abandoned the humanity of Christ to that great desola-
tion , which caused him to cry out : " My God, my God , why hast
thoy forsaken me ?" (Matt. xxvii . 46 ) . In his death, therefore, the
Word abandoned his body, inasmuch as the Word did not pre-
serve his life, but never ceased to be hypostatically united with
him. Christ never, then, could cease to be the Son of God in the
sepulchre, as Berruyer teaches ; for it is one of the axioms of all Ca-
tholic schools( 10) : " Quod semel Verbum assumpsit, nunquam misit"
-The Word, having once assumed human nature , never gives it
up again. But when Berruyer admits, then, that the Word was
united in the beginning in unity of Person with the body and soul
of Jesus Christ, how can he afterwards say that, when the soul
was separated from the body, the Word was no longer united with
the body ? This is a doctrine which , surely, neither he nor any
one else can understand.
24. When Berruyer says that Jesus Christ, at his death, ceased
to be the natural Son of God, because he was no longer a living
man, he must, consequently, hold that the humanity, previous to
his death, was not sustained by the Person of the Word, but by
its own proper human subsistence , and was a Person distinct from
the Person of the Word. But, then, how can he escape being
considered a Nestorian, admitting two distinct Persons in Jesus
Christ. Both Nestorius and Berruyer are expressly condemned
by the Symbol promulgated in the Council of Constantinople,
which says, that we are bound to believe in one God , the Father
Almighty, and in one only-begotten Son of God, born of the
Father before all ages, and consubstantial to the Father, who, for
our salvation , came down from heaven, and became incarnate of
the Virgin Mary, suffered, was buried, and rose again the third
day. It is, therefore, the only-begotten Son of God the Father,
generated by the Father from all eternity, and who came down
from heaven, that was made man, died , and was buried. But,
how could God die and be buried ? you will say. By assuming
human flesh, as the Council teaches. As another General Council,
the Fourth of Lateran, says (9) , as God could not die, nor suffer,
by becoming man he became mortal and passible : " Qui cum
secundum Divinitatem sit immortalis et impassibilis, idem ipse
secundum humanitatem factus est mortalis et passibilis."
25. As one error is always the parent of another, so Berruyer
having said that Jesus Christ in the sepulchre ceased to be the
natural Son of God, said, likewise, that when God raised Christ-
man again from the dead, he again generated him, and made him

(7) St. Ambrose. 7. 10, in Luc. c. 13. (8) Cont. Tournely, de Incarn. t. 4, part 2,
pag. 487. (9) Cont. Lat. in cap. Fermiter, de Summ. Trin. &c.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 613

Man-God, because, by raising him again, he caused him to be his


Son, who, dying, ceased to be his Son . We have already (N. 18 )
alluded to this falsehood . He says : " Actione Dei unius, Filium
suum Jesum suscitantis , factum est, ut Jesus, qui desierat esse homo
vivens, et consequenter Filius Dei, iterum viveret deinceps non
moriturus." He says the same thing, in other words, in another
place : "Deus Christum hominem resuscitans, hominem Deum iterato
generat, dum facit resuscitando, ut Filius sit, qui moriendo Filius esse
desierat" ( 10). We should, indeed , be rejoiced to hear of this new
dogma, never before heard of, that the Son of God twice became
incarnate, and was made man-first, when he was conceived in the
holy womb of theVirgin, and , again, when he arose from the tomb.
We should, indeed , feel obliged to Berruyer, for enlightening us on a
point never before heard of in the Church . Another consequence of
this doctrine is, that the Blessed Virgin must have been twice made
the Mother of God ; for, as Jesus ceased to be the Son of God while
in the tomb, so she ceased also to be the Mother of God at the same
time, and then, after his resurrection , her Divine maternity was
again restored to her. In the next paragraph we will examine even
a more brainless error than this. I use the expression, " brainless,"
for I think the man's head was more in fault than his conscience .
A writer, who attacked Berruyer's errors, said that he fell into all
these extravagancies, because he would not follow the Tradition of
the Fathers, and the method they employed in the interpretation of
the Scriptures, and the announcement of the unwritten Word of
God, preserved in the works of these doctors and pastors. It is on
this account, as the prelate, the author of " The Essay," remarks,
that Berruyer, in his entire work, does not cite one authority either
from Fathers or theologians , although the Council of Trent (Sess. iv.
Dec. de Scrip. S. ) expressly prohibits the interpretation of the
Sacred Writings, in a sense contrary to the generality of the
Fathers. We now pass on to the examination of the next error-
a most pernicious and enormous one.

SEC. III - BERRUYER SAYS THAT IT WAS THE HUMANITY ALONE OF CHRIST THAT
OBEYED, PRAYED, AND SUFFERED, AND THAT HIS OBLATIONS, PRAYERS, AND
MEDITATIONS, WERE NOT OPERATIONS PROCEEDING FROM THE WORD, AS A PHYSICAL
AND EFFICIENT PRINCIPLE, BUT THAT, IN THIS SENSE, THEY WERE ACTIONS MERELY
OF HIS HUMANITY.

26. BERRUYER says that the operations of Jesus Christ were not
produced by the Word, but merely by his humanity, and that the
hypostatic union in no wise tended to render the human nature of
Christ a complete principle of the actions physically and super-
naturally performed by him. Here are his words : " Non sunt
operationes a Verbo elicitæ ...... . sunt operationes totius humani-

(10) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 66.


614 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

tatis" (1). He had already written (2): " Ad complementum autem


naturæ Christi humanæ, in ratione principii agentis, et actiones suas
physice sive supernaturaliter producentis, unio hypostatica nihil
omnino contulit." In anotherpassage he says that all the propositions
regarding Christ, in the Scriptures, and especially in the New Tes-
tament, are directly and primarily verified in the Man-God , or, in
other words, in the humanity of Christ, united to the Divinity , and
completed by the Word in the unity of Person , and this, he says, is
the natural interpretation of Scripture : " Dico insuper, omnes et
singulas ejusdem propositiones, quæ sunt de Christo Jesu in Scrip-
turis sanctis, præsertim Novi Testamenti, semper et ubique veri-
ficari directe et primo in homine Deo, sive in humanitate Christi,
Divinitati unita et Verbo , completa in unitate personæ ..... Atque
hæc est simplex obvia, et naturalis, Scripturas interpretandi metho-
dus," &c. (3).
27. In fine, he deduces from this, that it was the humanity alone
of Christ that obeyed, and prayed, and suffered that alone was
endowed with all the gifts necessary for operating freely and meri-
toriously, by the Divine natural and supernatural cohesion (concur-
sus) : Humanitas sola obedivit Patri, sola oravit, sola passa est ,
sola ornata fuit donis et dotibus omnibus necessariis ad agendum
libere et meritorie (4) . Jesu Christi oblatio, oratio, et mediatio non
sunt operationis a Verbo elicitæ tamquam a principio physico et
efficiente, sed in eo sensu sunt operationes solius humanitatis Christi
in agendo, et merendo per concursum Dei naturalem et supernatu-
ralem completa" (5) . By this Berruyer deprives God of the infinite
honour he received from Jesus Christ, who, being God, equal to the
Father, became a servant, and sacrificed himself. He also deprives
the merits of Jesus Christ of their infinite value, as they were the
operations of his humanity alone , according to him, and not per-
formed by the Person of the Word, and, consequently, he destroys
that hope which we have in those infinite merits. Besides, he does
away with the strongest motive we have to love our Redeemer,
which is the consideration that he, being God, and it being impos-
sible that he could suffer as God, took human flesh, that he might
die and suffer for us, and thus satisfy the Divine justice for our
faults, and obtain for us grace and life everlasting. But what is
more important even, as the Roman Censor says, if it was the hu-
manity of Christ alone which obeyed, prayed, and suffered, and if
the oblations, prayers, and mediation of Christ were not the opera-
tions of the Word, but of his humanity alone, it follows that the
humanity of Christ had subsistence of its own , and, consequently,
the human Person of Christ was distinct from the Word, and that
would make two Persons.

(1) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 53. (2) Idem. p. 22. (3) Idem. p. 18 , 19. (4) Berruyer,
t. 8, p. 20, 21, & 23. (5) Idem. p . 53.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 615

28. Berruyer concludes the passage last quoted , " Humanitas sola
obedivit," &c ., by these words : " Ille (inquam) homo, qui hæc
omnia egit, et passus est libere et sancte, et cujus humanitas in
Verbo subsistebat, objectum est in recto immediatum omnium , quæ
de Christo sunt, narrationem" ( 6) . It was the man, then, in Christ,
99
and not the Word, that operated : " Ille homo qui hæc omnia egit.
Nor is that cleared up by what he says immediately after : " Cujus
humanitas in Verbo subsistebat ;" for he never gives up his system,
but constantly repeats it in his Dissertations, and clothes it in so
many curious and involved expressions, that it would be sufficient
to turn a person's brain to study it. His system, as we have pre-
viously explained it, is, that Christ is not the Eternal Word, the
Son, born of God the Father, but the Son , made in time by one
God, subsisting in three Persons, who made him his Son by uniting
him to the Divine Person ; so that, rigorously speaking, he says he
was formally constituted the Son of God, merely by that action
which united him with the Divine Person : " Rigorose loquendo,
per ipsam formaliter actionem unientem cum Persona Divina." He ,
therefore, says that God, by the action of uniting the humanity of
Christ with the Word, formed the second filiation, and caused
Christ-Man to become the Son of God, so that, according to his
opinion, the union of the Word with the humanity of Christ was,
as it were, a means to make Christ become the Son of God . All
this, however, is false , for when we speak of Jesus Christ, we cannot
say that that man, on account of being united with a Divine Person,
was made by the Trinity the Son of God in time ; but we are
bound to profess that God, the Eternal Word, is the Son, born of
the Father from all eternity, born of the substance of the Father, as
the Athanasian Creed says, " God , of the substance of the Father,
born before all ages," for, otherwise , he never could be called the
natural Son of God. He it is who, uniting to himself humanity in
unity of Person, has always sustained it, and he it is who performed
all operations, who, notwithstanding that he was equal to God,
emptied himself, and humbled himself to die on a cross in that flesh
which he assumed.
29. Berruyer's whole error consists in supposing the humanity
of Christ to be a subject subsisting in itself, to which the Word
was subsequently united . Faith and reason, however, would both
teach him that the humanity of Christ was accessary to the Word
which assumed it, as St. Augustin (7) explains : " Homo autem,
quia in unitatem personæ accessit Verbo Anima et Caro ." Ber-
ruyer, however, on the contrary, says that the Divinity of the
Word was accessary to the humanity ; but he should have known,
as Councils and Fathers teach , that the humanity of Jesus Christ
did not exist until the Word came to take flesh . The Sixth
Council ( Act 11 ) reproved Paul of Samosata , for teaching, with
(6) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 53 & 95. (7) St. Augus. in Euchirid. c. 35.
616 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Nestorius, that the humanity of Christ existed previous to the In-


carnation. Hence, the Council declared : " Simul enim caro , simul
Dei Verbi caro fuit ; simul animata rationabiliter, simul Dei Verbi
caro animata rationabiliter." St. Cyril (8 ), in his Epistle to Nes-
torius, which was approved of by the Council of Ephesus, writes :
" Non enim primum vulgaris quispiam homo ex Virgine ortus est,
in quem Dei Verbum deinde Se dimiserit ; sed in ipso utero carni
unitum secundum carnem progenitum dicitur, utpote suæ carnis
generationem sibi ut propriam vindicans." St. Leo the Great (9) ,
reprobating the doctrine of Eutyches, that Jesus Christ alone,
previous to the Incarnation , was in two natures, says : " Sed hoc
Catholicæ mentes auresque non tolerant...... .natura quippe
nostra non sic assumpta est, ut prius creata postea sumeretur sed
ut ipsa assumptione crearetur. St. Augustin, speaking of the
glorious union of the humanity of Christ with the Divinity, says :
" Ex quo esse Homo cœpit, non aliud cœpit esse Homo, quam
Dei Filius" (10) . And St. John of Damascus ( 11 ) says : " Non
quemadmodum quidam falso prædicant, mens ante carnem ex
Virgine assumptam Deo Verbo copulata est, et tum Christi nomen
accepit."
30. Berruyer, however, does not agree with Councils or Fathers,
for all the passages of Scripture, he says, which speak of Jesus
Christ are directly verified in his humanity united to the Divinity :
" Dico insupere omnes propositiones quæ sunt de Christo in Scrip-
turis.......verificari directe et primo in homine Deo, sive in hu-
manitate Christi Divinitati unita," &c . (12). So that the primary
object of all that is said regarding Christ is, according to him,
Man- God, and not God-Man : ." Homo-Deus, non similiter Deus-
homo objectum primarium," &c.; and again, as we have al-
ready seen that Jesus Christ was formally constituted the natural
Son of God, solely by that act which united him to the Word :
" Per ipsam formaliter actionem unientem Jesus Christus consti-
tuitur tantum Filius Dei naturalis." This, however, is totally false,
for Jesus Christ is the natural Son of God , not on account of the
act which united him to the Word, but because the Word, who is
the natural Son of God, as generated by the Father from all eter-
nity, assumed the humanity of Christ, and united it to himself in
the unity of Person . Berruyer then imagines that the humanity
was the primary object in recto , and self-subsisting, to whom the
Word was united, and that by this union Christ-Man was subse-
quently made the Son of God in time. Hence, he says, that the
humanity alone obeyed , prayed , and suffered : and it was that man
(Christ), he says, who did all those things : " Ille ( inquam) homo
qui hæc omnia egit.....objectum est in recto immediatum eorum,
quæ de Christo sunt," &c. In this, however, he is wrong . Faith
(8) St. Cyril. Ep. 2, ad Nestor. (9) St. Leo, Ep. ad Julian. (10) St. Aug. in
Euchir. c. 36. (11) St. Jo. Dam. l. 4 Fide orth. c. 6. (12) Berruyer, t. 8, p. 18.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 617

tells us that we ought to regard as the primary object , the Eternal


Word, who assumed the humanity of Christ, and united it to him-
self hypostatically in one Person , and thus the soul and body of
Jesus Christ became the proper soul and body of the Word.
When the Word, St. Cyril says, assumed a human body , that body
was no longer strange to the Word, but was made his own : " Non
est alienum a Verbo corpus suum" ( 13 ) . This is what is meant
by the words of the Creed ; " He came down from heaven , and was
incarnate, and was made man ." Hence we, following the Creed,
say God was made man, and not as Berruyer says, man was made
God ; for this mode of expression would lead us to think that man,
already subsisting, was united with God, and we should then, as
Nestorius did, suppose two Persons in Christ ; but Faith teaches us
that God was made man by taking human flesh , and thus there is
but one Person in Christ , who is both God and man. Neither is
it lawful to say (as St. Thomas instructs us) ( 14 ) , with Nestorius,
that Christ was assumed by God as an instrument to work out
man's salvation, since, as St. Cyril, quoted by St. Thomas, teaches,
the Scripture will have us to believe that Jesus Christ is not an
instrument of God, but God in reality, made man : " Christum non
tanquam instrumenti officio assumptum dicit Scriptura, sed tanquam
Deum vere humanatum ."
31. We are bound to believe that there are in Christ two distinct
natures, each of which has its own will and its own proper ope-
rations, in opposition to the Monothelites, who held that there was
but one will and one operation in Christ. But, on the other hand,
it is certain that the operations of the human nature of Jesus Christ
were not mere human operations, but, in the language of the
schools, Theandric, that is, Divine-human , and chiefly divine , for
although, in every operation of Christ, human nature concurred ,
still all was subordinate to the Person of the Word, which was the
chief and director of all the operations of the humanity. The
Word, says Bossuet, presides in all ; the Word governs all ; and the
Man, subject to the direction of the Word, has no other move-
ments but Divine ones ; whatever he wishes and does is guided by
the Word ( 15 ). St. Augustin says that as in us the soul governs
the body, so in Jesus Christ the Word governed his humanity :
" Quid est homo?" says the Saint ; " anima habens corpus. Quid
est Christus ? Verbum Dei habens hominem." St. Thomas says :
" Ubicunque sunt plura agentia ordinata, inferius movetur a supe-
riori....... Sicut autem in homine puro corpus movetur ab ani-
mo......ita in Domino Jesu Christo humana natura movebatur et
regebatur a Divina" ( 16) . All, then, that Berruyer states on the
subject is totally false : " Humanitas sola obedivit Patri, sola passa
est, Jesu Christi oblatio, oratio, et mediato non sunt operationes a
(13) St. Cyr. Epist. ad Nestor. (14) St. Thom. 3 p. qu. 2, ar. 6, ad 4. (15) Bos-
suet, Diss. Histor. p. 2. (16) St. Thom. p. 3, q. 19, a. 1.
618 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Verbo elicitæ tanquam a principio physico et efficiente . Ad com-


plementum naturæ Christi humanæ in ratione principii producentis,
et actiones suas sive physice sive supernaturaliter agentis, nihil
omnino contulit unio hypostatica." If, as the Roman Čensor says,
it was the humanity alone of Christ that obeyed, prayed, and suf-
fered ; and if the oblation, prayers, and mediation of Jesus Christ
were not operations elicited by the Word, but by his humanity alone,
so that the hypostatic union had, in fact, added nothing to the hu-
manity, for the completion of the principle of his operations, it
follows that the humanity of our Redeemer operated by itself, and
doing so must have had subsistence proper to itself, and a proper
personality distinct from the Person of the Word, and thus we
have, as Nestorius taught, two Persons in Christ.
32. Such, however, is not the fact. All that Jesus Christ did
the Word did, which sustained both natures, and as God could not
suffer and die for the salvation of mankind, he, as the Council of
Lateran said, took human flesh, and thus became passible and
mortal : " Qui cum secundum Divinitatem sit immortalis et im-
passibilis, idem ipse secundum humanitatem factus est mortalis et
passibilis." It was thus that the Eternal Word , in the flesh he
assumed, sacrificed to God his blood and his life itself, and being
equal to God became a mediator with God , as St. Paul says, speak-
ing of Jesus Christ : " In whom we have redemption through his
blood, the remission of sins ; who is the image of the invisible
God ..... for in him were all things created in heaven and on
earth ...... Because in him it has well pleased the Father that all
fulness should dwell," &c . (Col. i . 13) . According to St. Paul, then,
it is Jesus Christ who created the world , and in whom the plenti-
tude of the Divinity dwells.
33. One of Berruyer's apologists says, however, that when his
master states, that the humanity alone of Christ obeyed , prayed,
and suffered, that he then speaks of this humanity as the physical
principle Quo, that is, the medium by which he operates, and this
physical principle belonged to the humanity alone, and not to the
Word, for it is through his humanity that he suffered and died .
But we answer, that the humanity, as the principle, Quo, could
not act of itself in Christ, unless put in motion by the principle,
Quod that is, the Word, which was the one only Person, which
sustained the two natures. He it was who principally performed
every action in the assumed humanity, although it was by means of
that he suffered, prayed, and died . That being the case, how can
Berruyer be defended, when he says that it was the humanity alone
which prayed and suffered ? How could he say that the obla-
tions, prayers, and mediation of Christ were operations elicited by
the Word? And, what is even of greater consequence, how could
he say that the hypostatic union had no influence on the actions of
Christ-Nihil omnino contulit unio hypostatica? I said already
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 619

that the Word was the principal agent in all operations . But, say
those of the other side : Then, the humanity of Christ performed
no operations ? We answer that the Word did all ; for, though
the humanity might also act, still, as the Word was the sole Per-
son sustaining and completing this humanity, he (the Word) per-
formed every operation both of the soul and body, for both body
and soul, by the unity of Person, became his own. Everything,
then, which Jesus Christ did- his wishes, actions , and sufferings-
all belonged to the Word, for it was he who determined everything,
and his obedient humanity consented and executed it. Hence it is
that every action of Christ was holy and of infinite value, and
capable of procuring every grace, and we are, therefore, bound to
praise him for all .
34. The reader, then, should totally banish from his mind the
false idea which Berruyer (as the author of the " Essay " writes)
wished to give us of Christ, that the humanity was a being, exist-
ing of itself, to whom God united one of his Sons by nature ; for,
as will be seen, by referring back to N. 11 , there must have been,
according to him, two natural Sons- one, generated by the Father
from all eternity; the other, in time, by the whole Trinity ; but,
then, Jesus Christ, as he teaches, was not, properly speaking, the
Word made incarnate, according to St. John-" The Word was
made flesh”—but was the other Son of God , made in time. This ,
however, is not the doctrine of the Holy Fathers ; they unani-
mously teach that it was the Word. St. Jerome writes :
" Anima et Caro Christi cum Verbo Dei una Persona est, unus
Christus" ( 17) . Sr. Ambrose ( 18 ) , showing that Jesus Christ spoke
sometimes according to his Divine, and, at other times, according
to his human nature, says : " Quasi Deus sequitur Divina, quia
Verbum est, quasi homo dicit humana." Pope Leo says : " Idem est
qui mortem subiit, et sempiternus esse non desiit" (19 ) . St. Augustin
says : " Jesus Christus Dei Filius est, et Deus, et homo. Deus
ante omnia secula, homo in nostro seculo. Deus quia Dei Verbum,
Deus enim erat Verbum : homo autem, quia in unitatem personæ
accessit Verbo Anima, et Caro ..... Non duo Filii , Deus, et homo,
sed unus Dei Filius" (20) . And , in another place (cap . 36 ) : Ex
quo homo esse cœpit, non aliud cœpit esse homo, quam Dei Filius,
et hoc unicus, et propter Deum Verbum, quod illo suscepto caro
factum est, utique Deus . . . . . ut sit Christus una persona , Verbum
et homo." The rest of the Fathers speak the same sentiments ;
but it would render the Work too diffuse to quote any more.
35. The Holy See, then, had very good reasons for so rigorously
and so frequently condemning Berruyer's Book ; for it not alone
contains many errors, in opposition to the doctrines of the Church ,

(17) St. Hieron. Tract. 49, in Joan. (18) St. Ambr. ap. St. Leon, in Ep. 134.
(19) St. Leo, Serm. 66. (20) St. Augu. in Euchirid. c. 35.
620 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

but is , besides , most pernicious, because it makes us lose that proper


idea we should have of Jesus Christ. The Church teaches that the
Eternal Word-that is, the only natural Son of God (for he had
but one natural Son , who is, therefore, called the only-begotten,
born ofthe substance of God the Father, the first Person of the
Trinity), was made man, and died for our salvation . Berruyer, on
the contrary, would have us to believe that Jesus Christ is not the
Word, the Son, born of the Father from all eternity, but another
Son, which only he and Hardouin knew anything about, or, rather,
dreamed of, who, if their ideas were founded in fact, would have
the name alone, and the honour of being called the Son of God ;
for, in order that Jesus Christ should be the true natural Son of
God, it was requisite that he should be born ofthe substance of the
Father, but the Christ, according to Berruyer, was made in time
by the whole Trinity. The whole idea, then, we had hitherto
formed of our Redeemer is totally changed. We considered him
to be God, who, for our salvation , humbled himself to take human
flesh, in order to suffer and die for us ; whereas Berruyer represents
him to us, not as a God made man, but as a man made the Son of
God, on account of the union established between the Word and
his Humanity. Jesus Christ crucified is the greatest proof of God's
love to us, and the strongest motive we have to induce, nay , as St.
Paul says , to force us , to love him-" For the charity of Christ
presseth us" ( 2 Cor. v. 14) -is to know that the Eternal Word,
equal to the Father, and born of the Father, emptied himself, and
humbled himself to take human flesh , and die on a cross for us ;
but, according to Berruyer's system, this proof of Divine love to us,
and this most powerful motive for us to love him, falls to the ground.
And, in fine , to show how different are Berruyer's errors from the
truth taught by the Church : The Church tells us to believe that
Jesus Christ is God, made man, who, for us, suffered and died, in
the flesh he assumed , and who assumed it solely to enable him to
die for our love. Berruyer tells us, on the contrary, that Jesus
Christ is only a man , who, because he was united by God to one of
the Divine Persons, was made by the Trinity the natural Son of
God, and died for the salvation of mankind ; but, according to
Berruyer, he did not die as God, but as man , and could not be the
Son of God at all, according to his ideas ; for, in order to be the
natural Son of God , he should have been born of the substance of
the Father, but, according to Berruyer, he was a being ad extra,
produced by the whole Trinity, and if he was thus an external pro-
duct, he could not have been anything but a mere creature ; conse-
quently, he must admit two distinct Persons in Christ- one Divine ,
and one human . In fine, if we held this man's doctrine , we could
not say that God " loved us, and delivered himself up for us" (Ephes.
v. 2) ; for, according to him, it was not the Word " who delivered .
himself up for us," but the humanity of Christ, honoured , indeed, by
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 621

the union with the Word , that alone it was which suffered, and
was subjected to death. Let him keep these opinions to himself,
however, for every faithful Catholic will say, with Saint Paul : " I
live in the faith of the Son of God , who loved me , and delivered
himself for me" ( Gal. ii . 20) . And we will praise and love with all
our hearts that God who, being God , made himself man, to suffer
and die for every one of us.
36. It is painful to witness the distortion of Scripture which
Berruyer has recourse to in every part of his work, but more espe-
cially in his Dissertations, to accommodate it to his false system ,
that Jesus Christ was the Son of one God , subsisting in three Per-
sons. We have already (N. 7) quoted that text of St. Paul (Phil.
ii. 5, &c.) : " Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ
Jesus, who, being in the form of God , thought it not robbery to be
equal with God , but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,”
&c. Here is conclusive evidence to prove that the Word, equal to
the Father, emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, in
becoming man. Berruyer says, on the contrary, that it was not the
Word, not the Divine nature, which humbled itself, but the human ,
conjoined with the Divine nature : " Humiliat sese natura humana
naturæ Divinæ physice conjuncta." To consider the Word humbled
to become incarnate, and die on the cross, would, he says, be
degrading the Divinity ; it should, therefore , he says, be only under-
stood according to the communication of the idioms, and, conse-
quently, as referring to the actions of Christ after the hypostatic
union, and, therefore, he says it was his humanity that was humbled.
But in that case we may well remark, what is there wonderful in
the humiliation of humanity before God ? That prodigy of love
and mercy which God exhibited in his Incarnation , and which
astonished both heaven and earth, was when the Word, the only-
begotten Son of God , equal to the Father, emptied himself (exina-
nivit) , in becoming man, and, from God, became the servant of
God, according to the flesh. It is thus all Fathers and Catholic
Doctors understand it, with the exception of Berruyer and Har-
douin ; and it is thus the Council of Chalcedon , also ( Act. V. ) ,
declared that the Son of God, born of the Father, before all ages,
became incarnate in these latter days (novissimis diebus), and
suffered for our salvation.
37. We will take a review of some other texts. St. Paul (Heb.
i. 2) says, that God " in these days hath spoken to us by his Son
...by whom he also made the world." All the Fathers under-
stand this, as referring to the Word, by whom all things were
created, and who was afterwards made man ; but Berruyer explains
the passage, " By whom he also made the world," thus : In consi-
deration of whom God made the world . He explains the text of
St. John, " By him all things were made," in like manner, that in
regard of him all things were made, so that he does not even admit
622 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

the Word to be the Creator. But hear St. Paul on the contrary.
God, speaking to his Son, says : " Thy throne, O God, is for ever
and ever ...... In the beginning, O Lord, didst thou found the
earth, and the works of thy hands are the heavens" ( Heb. i . 8 , 10) .
Here God does not say that he created the heavens and the earth
in consideration or in regard of his Son , but that the Son himself
created them ; and hence St. Chrysostom remarks : " Nunquam
profecto id asserturus, nisi conditorem Filium, non ministrum arbi-
traretur, ac Patri et Filio pares esse intelligeret dignitates."
38. David says: " The Lord hath said to me, thou art my Son ;
this day have I begotten thee" (Psalm , ii. 7). Berruyer says that
the expression, " This day have I begotten thee," has no reference
to the eternal generation, as all understand it, but to the generation
in time, of which he is the inventor, when Jesus Christ was made
in time the Son of one God , subsisting in three Persons. He thus
explains the text, " This day have I begotten thee :" I will be your
Father, and you will be my Son-that is, according to the second
filiation , made by the one God in three Persons, as he imagines.
39. St. Luke says : " And, therefore, also the Holy which shall
be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" ( Luke, i. 35) . Ber-
ruyer says that these words do not refer to Jesus Christ, as the
Word, but as man ; for the expression " Holy" is not adapted to
the Word, but rather to humanity. All Doctors, however, under-
stand by the Holy One, the Word, the Son of God, born before all
ages. Bossuet sagaciously remarks, that the expression , " Holy,"
when it is only an adjective, properly speaking, is adapted to the
creature ; but when, as in the present case, it is a substantive, it
means holiness essentially, which belongs to God alone.
40. St. Matthew (xxviii. 19) tells us that Christ said to his dis-
ciples : " Going, therefore, teach all nations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Ber-
ruyer says, then, that by the name of Father, the first Person
of the Trinity is not meant, but the God of the Jews-that is, one
God subsisting in three Persons ; by the name of the Son, the
Word is not understood, but Christ, as man, made the Son of God,
by the act by which God united him to the Word. He says nothing
at all about the Holy Ghost. Now, by this doctrine the sacrament
of Baptism is not alone deranged, but totally abolished I may say ;
because, according to him , we would not be baptized at first in the
name of the Father, but in the name ofthe Trinity, and Baptism,
administered after this form , as all theologians hold , with St. Thomas,
would be null and void ( 21 ) . In the second place , we would not
be baptized in the name of the real Son of God—that is, the Word
who became incarnate, but in the name of that Son invented by
Berruyer, made in time by the Trinity-a Son which never did nor

(21) St. Thomas, 3, p. qu. 60, art. 8.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 623

ever can exist, because there never was, nor ever will be, any other
natural Son of God , unless that only-begotten one, generated from
all eternity from the substance ofthe Father, the principle, and first
Person of the Trinity. The second generation, made in time, or,
to speak more exactly, the Incarnation ofthe Word , did not make
Christ the Son ofGod, but united him in one Person with the true
Son of God ; that did not give him a Father but merely a Mother,
who begot him from her own substance . Rigorously speaking this
cannot be called generation , for the generation of the Son of God
is that alone which was from eternity . The humanity of Christ
was not generated by God, but was created, and was begotten solely
by the Virgin Mary. Berruyer says that the Blessed Virgin is the
Mother ofGod by two titles-first, by begetting the Word, and
secondly, by giving Christ his humanity, since, as he says, the union
established between this humanity and the Word has caused Jesus
Christ to be made the Son of God. Both reasons, however, are
false, for first we cannot say that the Blessed Virgin begot the
Word, for the Word had no Mother, but only a Father, that is God.
Mary merely begot the Man, who was united in one Person with
the Word, and it is on that account that she, the Mother of Man, is
justly called the true Mother of God . His second reason is equally
false, that the Blessed Virgin has contributed, with her substance,
to make Jesus Christ become the Son of God, one subsisting in three
Persons, for, as we have proved , this supposition is totally false, so
that, by attributing thus two maternities to the Blessed Virgin, he
does away with it altogether, for one destroys the other. Berruyer
mangles several other texts, but I omit them not to weary the reader
with such folly any longer.

SEC. IV. THE MIRACLES WROUGHT BY JESUS CHRIST WERE NOT PERFORMED BY HIS
OWN POWERS, BUT OBTAINED FROM HIS FATHER BY HIS PRAYERS.

41. BERRUYER says that Jesus Christ wrought his miracles in this
sense alone, that he operated, with a beseeching power, by means
of his prayers : " Miracula Christus efficit, non precatio.......prece
tamen et postulatione. . . .. . .eo unice sensu dicitur Christus miracu-
lorum effector." In another place he says that Christ, as the Son
of God (but the Son in his sense-that is, of one God subsisting in
three Persons), had a right, by his divinity, that his prayers should
be heard. Remark the expression, " his prayers." Therefore,
according to Berruyer, our Saviour did not work miracles by his
own power, but obtained them from God by his prayers like any
other holy man. This doctrine, however, once admitted, we should
hold with Nestorius, that Christ was a mere human person, distinct
from the Person of the Word, who, being God, equal to the Father,
had no necessity of begging the Father to grant him power to work
miracles, since he had all power himself. This error springs from
624 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

the former capital ones we have refuted —that is, that Christ is not
the Word, but is that Son of God existing only in his imagination,
his Son merely in name, made in time by God, subsisting in three
Persons, and also that in Christ it was not the Word that operated,
but his humanity alone : " Sola humanitas obedivit, sola passa
est," &c.
42. He was just as much astray in this proposition that Christ
wrought miracles merely by prayer and supplication as he was in
his previous statements. St. Thomas, the prince of theologians,
teaches " that Christ wrought miracles by his own power, and not
by prayer, as others did" (1 ) . And St. Cyril says that he proved,
by the very miracles he wrought, that he was the true Son of God,
since he performed them not by the power of another, but by his
own : "Non accipiebat alienam virtutem." Only once, says St.
Thomas (2) , did he show that he obtained from his Father the
power to work miracles, that was in the resurrection of Lazarus,
when imploring the power of his Father, he said : " I know that
thou hearest me always, but because of the people who stand about
have I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me" (John,
xi. 42 ) . But, as the holy Doctor remarks, he did this for our in-
struction, to show us that in our necessities we should have recourse
to God as he had. St. Ambrose then tells us not to imagine , from
this fact of Lazarus , that our Saviour prayed to his Father for power
to perform the miracle, as if he had not power to work it himself;
that prayer, he says, was intended for our instruction : " Noli insi-
diatrices aperire aures, ut putes Filium, Dei quasi infirmum rogare,
ut impetret quod implere non possit.......ad præcepta virtutis
suæ nos informat exemplo" (3) . St. Hilary says just the same ;
but he also assigns another reason : Christ , he says, did not require
to pray, but he did so to make us believe that he was in reality
the Son of God: " Non prece eguit, pro nobis, oravit, ne Filius
ignoraretur" (4).
43. St. Ambrose (5) remarks, that when Jesus Christ wished, he
did not pray, but commanded, and all creatures obeyed—the sea,
the winds, and diseases. He commanded the sea to be at rest, and
it obeyed : " Peace, be still" (Mark, iv. 39) . He commanded that
disease should leave the sick, and they were made whole : " Virtue
went out from him, and healed all" ( Luke , vi. 19 ) . He himself
tells us that he could do , and did, everything equal to his Divine
Father: " For whatsoever things he (the Father) doth , these the
Son also doth in like manner.......For as the Father raiseth up
the dead, and giveth life, so the Son also giveth life to whom he
will" (John, v. 19 , 21 ) . St. Thomas says (6) that the miracles alone
which Christ wrought were sufficient to make manifest the Divine

(1) St. Thomas, 3, p. q. 44, art. 4. (2) Idem, ibid. qu. 21 , art. 1 , ad. 1. (3) St.
Ambros. in Luc. (4) St. Hilar. l. 10, de Trinit. (5) St. Ambros. l. 3, de Fide,
c. 4. (6) St. Thom. 3, p. q. 43, art. 4.
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 625

power which he possessed : " Ex hoc ostendebatur, quod haberet


virtutem coæqualem Deo Patri." This was what our Lord said to
the Jews when they were about to stone him: " Many good works
have I showed from my Father, for which of those works do you
stone me?" The Jews answered him : " For a good work we stone
thee not, but for blasphemy, and because that thou, being a man,
maketh thyself God ." Jesus answered them : " You say, thou
blasphemest, because I said I am the Son of God . If I do not the
works of my Father, believe me not ; but if I do, though you will
not believe me, believe the works," &c . (John , x . 32 , &c.) We have
said enough on this subject.

SEC. V. THE HOLY GHOST WAS NOT SENT TO THE APOSTLES BY JESUS CHRIST, BUT
BY THE FATHER ALONE, AT THE PRAYER OF CHRIST.

44. BERRUYER says that the Holy Ghost was not sent to the
Apostles by Jesus Christ, but by the Father, at his prayer : " Ad
orationem Jesu Christi, quæ voluntatis ejus efficacis signum erit ,
mittet Pater Spiritum Sanctum. Quæ quasi raptim delibavimus de
Jesu Christo missuro Spiritum Sanctum, quatenus homo Deus est
Patrem rogaturus."
45. This error is also a necessary consequence ofthe former ones ;
that is, Jesus Christ, the Word, did not operate, but the humanity
alone, or the Man made the Son of one God subsisting in three
Persons, by reason of the union of the Person of the Word with the
humanity ; and from this false supposition he deduces this present
falsehood, that the Holy Ghost was not sent by Jesus Christ, but
by the Father, at the prayer of Jesus Christ. If he said that the
Holy Ghost does not proceed from the Word , but from the Father
alone, he would fall into the Greek heresy already refuted (Ref. iv .) ;
but he rather leans to the heresy of Nestorius, who, admitting two
Persons in Christ, a Divine and a human Person, said, consequently,
that the Divine Person dwelling in Jesus Christ, together with the
Father, sent the Holy Ghost ; and the human Person in Christ ob-
tained from the Father, by his prayers, that the Holy Spirit should
be sent. Berruyer does not expressly say this ; but when he asserts
that the Holy Ghost was not sent by Jesus Christ, only by his
prayer alone, he appears to believe, either that there is no Divine
Person in Christ at all, or that there are two Persons -one Divine,
which sends, of himself, the Holy Ghost ; the other human , which
obtains, by his prayers, that he may be sent. He shows that that
is his opinion, when he says that in Jesus Christ it was the humanity
alone that acted and suffered, that is, the Man alone made in time
the Son ofGod by the whole three Persons . This was not, certainly,
the Word who was born of the Father alone before all ages. But
the word, he says, was already united to the humanity of Christ in
unity of Person ; but then we should remember, that according to
2R
626 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

his opinion the Word had nothing to do , for it was only the
humanity that acted in Christ. That being the case, of what
service was the union of the Word in unity of Person with the
humanity ? Merely, as he said , that by means of the hypostatic
union Christ might be made the Son of God, of the three Divine
Persons ; and hence, he says, the operations of Christ were not
elicited by the Word , but merely by his humanity, and the hypos-
tatic union gave no value to his actions : " in ratione principii
agentis ..... unio hypostatica nihil omnino contulit."
46. With what face could Berruyer assert that the Holy Ghost
was not sent by Jesus Christ, when he himself several times said he
was, and promised his Apostles that he would send them the Para-
clete : " But when the Paraclete cometh, whom I will send you
from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the
Father" (John , xv. 26 ) ; " For if I go not, the Paraclete will not
come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you" (John , xvi . 7) .
Listen to this ! Christ says that he sent the Holy Ghost ; and
Berruyer says that the Holy Ghost was not sent by him, but only
at his prayer. Perhaps he will argue that Christ himself said : " I
will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete"
(John, xiv. 16) . But we answer with St. Augustin , that Christ
then spoke as man ; but when he spoke as God, he said not once,
but several times, " whom I will send to you ." And again he says :
"The Paraclete , the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in
my name, he will teach you all things" (John , xiv. 26 ) . St. Cyril ,
explaining this text, says, " in my name," that is, by me, because
he proceeds from me. It is certain the Holy Ghost could not be
sent unless by the Divine Persons alone, who were his Principle,
the Father and the Son. If, then, he was sent by Jesus Christ,
there can be no doubt that he was sent by the Word, who operated
in Jesus Christ, and the Word being equal to the Father, and with
the Father, co-principle of the Holy Ghost, had no necessity to pray
to the Father (as Berruyer says) that he might be sent ; for as the
Father sent him, so did he likewise.

SEC. VI. OTHER ERRORS OF BERRUYER ON DIFFERENT SUBJECTS.

47. THOSE writers who have refuted Berruyer's work remark


several other errors which, though they may not be clearly opposed
to Faith , still , in my opinion , are most extravagant, and totally
opposed to the general opinion of Fathers and theologians. I will
here refute some of the most strange and reprehensible.
48. In one place he says : " Revelatione deficiente, cum nempe
Deus ob latentes causas eam nobis denegare vult, non est cur non
teneamur saltem objecta credere, quibus religio naturalis fundatur.”
Speakinghere of the revelation of the mysteries of the Faith, he says,
that should no such revelation be made to us, we are, at all events,
AND THEIR REFUTATION. 627

obliged to believe those objects on which natural religion is based .


And then he assigns the reasons subsequently : " Religio pure na-
turalis, si Deus ea sola contentus esse voluisset , propriam fidem, ac
revelationem suo habuisset modo , quibus Deus ipse in fidelium
cordibus, et animo inalienabilia jura sua exercuisset." Now the
extravagance of this doctrine is only equalled by the confused man-
ner in which it is stated . It would appear that he admits that true
believers can be found professing mere natural religion alone, which ,
according to him, has, in a certain way, its own faith, and its own
revelation. Then in mere natural religion there must be a faith
and revelation with which God is satisfied. But, says Berruyer's
friend, he intends this a mere hypothesis ; but this does not render
it less objectionable, for it would lead us to believe that God would
be satisfied with a religion purely natural, without faith in the
merits of Jesus Christ, and sufficient to save its professors. St.
Paul answers this, however, for he says : " Then Christ died in
vain" (Gal . ii . 21 ). If natural religion be sufficient to save those
who neither believe nor hope in Jesus Christ, then he died in vain
for man's salvation . St. Peter, on the contrary, says that salvation
can only be obtained in Christ : " Neither is there salvation in any
other. For there is no other name under heaven given to men
whereby we must be saved" ( Acts , iv . 12 ) . If any infidels, either
under the New or Old Law have been saved, it has only been be-
cause they knew the grace of the Redeemer, and hence St. Augus-
tin says that it was granted to no person to live according to God,
and save his soul, to whom Jesus Christ has not been revealed ,
either as promised or already come : " Divinitus autem provisum
fuisse non dubito, ut ex hoc uno sciremus etiam per alias Gentes
esse potuisse, qui secundum Deum vixerunt, eique placuerunt, per-
tinentes ad spiritualem Jerusalem : quod nemini concessum fuisse
credendum est, nisi cui divinitus revelatus est unus Mediator Dei ,
et hominum homo Christus Jesus , qui venturus in carne sic antiquis
Sanctis prænunciabatur, quemadmodum nobis venisse nuntiatus
est" (1).
49. This is the faith required for the just man to live always
united with God : " The just man liveth by faith," says the Apos-
tle : " But that in the law no man is justified with God it is mani-
fest, because the just man liveth by faith" (Gal . iii. 11 ). No one,
says St. Paul, can render himself just in the sight of God, by the
law alone, which imposes commandments, but gives no strength to
fulfil them. Neither can we, since the fall of Adam , fulfil them
merely by the strength of our free will ; the assistance of grace is
requisite, which we should implore from God , and hope for through
the mediation of our Redeemer. " Ea quippe fides," says St.
Augustin ( 2), " justos sanavit antiquos, quæ sanat, et nos , idest

(1) St. Aug. 7. 18 de C. D. c. 47. (2) St. Aug. de Nat. et Grat. p. 149.
628 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

Jesu-Christi, fides mortis ejus." In another passage he tells us the


reason of this (3) : " Quia sicut credimus nos Christum venisse, sic
illi venturum ; sicut nos mortuum, ita illa moriturum." Where the
Jews went astray was in presuming, without prayer, or faith in a
Mediator to come, to be able to observe the law imposed on them.
When God commanded Moses to ask them if they wished to per-
form all that he would reveal to them, they answered : " All that
the Lord hath spoken, we will do " (Exod . xix. 8) . But after this
promise our Lord said to them : " Who shall give them to have
such a mind to fear me, and to keep all my commandments at all
times ?" (Deut. vi. 29.) They say
say that they desire to fulfil the com-
mandments, but who will give them power to do so? By this God
means that if they had the presumption to hope to fulfil them ,
without praying for Divine assistance, they could never accomplish
it. Hence it was that immediately after they forsook the Lord , and
adored the golden calf.
50. The Gentiles, who, by power of their own wills alone ex-
pected to make themselves just, were even more blind than the
Jews. What more has Jupiter, says Seneca, than other good men ,
only a longer life ? " Jupiter quo antecedit virum bonum ? diutius
bonus est. Sapiens nihilo se minoris æstimat, quod virtutes ejus
spatio breviore clauduntur" (4) . And again he says Jupiter despises
worldly things, because he can make no use of them, but the wise
man depises them, because it is his will to do so : " Jupiter uti illis
non potest, Sapiens non vult" (5 ) . A wise man, he says , is like a
God in everything, only that he is mortal : " Sapiens, excepta mor-
talitate, similis Deo" (6) . Cicero said we could not glory in virtue,
if it was given to us by God : " De virtute recte gloriamur, quod
non contingeret, si id donum a Deo, non a nobis , haberemus" (7).
And again he says : " Jovem optimum maximum appellant, non
quod nos justos, sapientes efficiat, sed quod incolumes, opulentos ,"
&c. See here the pride of those wise men of the world , who said
that virtue and wisdom belonged to themselves, and did not come
from God.
51. It was this presumption which blinded them more and more
every day. The most learned among their sages, their philosophers,
as they had a greater share of pride, were the most blind, and
although the light of nature taught them to know that there was
but one God, the Lord and Creator of all things, still, as the Apostle
says, they did not avail themselves of it to thank and praise God as
they ought: " Because that, when they knew God they have not
glorified him as God, or given thanks : but became vain in their
thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened . For profess-
ing themselves to be wise they became fools" (Rom. i . 21 ) . The

(3) St. Ang. de Nupt. et Concup. l. 2, p. 113. (4) Seneca, Epist. 73. (5) Idem.
de Constantia Sap. c. 8. (6) Idem. Epist. 53. (7) Cicero de Nat. Deor. p. 253.
AND THEIR REFUTATION . 629

presumption of their own wisdom increased their folly . Nay, so


great was their blindness that they venerated as gods not only their
fellow-mortals, but the beasts of the field : " And they changed the
glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a
corruptible man, and of birds and four-footed beasts and of creeping
things" (ver. 22. ) Hence it was that God deservedly abandoned
them to their own wicked desires, and they slavishly obeyed their
most brutal and detestable passions : " Wherefore God gave them
up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness ," &c. ( ver. 24.) The
most celebrated among the ancient sages is Socrates, who, it is
said, was persecuted by the idolaters, for teaching that there was
but one supreme God, and still he called them who accused him of
not adoring the gods of his country calumniators, and ordered his
disciple Xenophon before his death to sacrifice a cock he had in his
house, in honour of Esculapius. St. Augustin tells us ( 8) that Plato
thought sacrifices ought to be offered to a multiplicity of gods. The
most enlightened among the Gentiles, the great Cicero, though he
knew there was only one supreme God , still wished that all the
gods recognized in Rome should be adored . Such is the wisdom .
of the sages of Paganism, and such is the faith and natural religion
of the Gentiles which Berruyer exalts so much that he says that it
could, without the knowledge of Jesus Christ, make people good
and innocent, and adopted children of God.
52. We now proceed to examine the other foolish opinions of
this work. He says : " Relate ad cognitiones explicitis , aut media
necessaria, quæ deficere possent, ut eveherentur ad adoptionem
filiorum, dignique fierent cœlorum remuneratione, præsumere de-
bemus, quod viarum ordinariarum defectu in animabus rectis ac
innocentibus bonus Dominus cui deservimus, attenta Filii sui
mediatione, opus suum perficeret quibusdam omnipotentiæ rationi-
bus, quas liberum ipsi est nobis haud detegere" ( 9) . He says,
then , that when the means necessary for salvation are wanting, we
ought to presume that God will save the souls of the upright and
innocent by certain measures of his omnipotence, which he has not
revealed to us. What an immensity of folly in few words ! He
calls those souls upright and innocent who have no knowledge of
the means necessary for salvation , and consequently , know nothing
of the mediation of the Redeemer-a knowledge of which, as we
have seen, has been , at all times, necessary for the children of
Adam. Perhaps, these upright and innocent souls were created
before Adam himself, for, if they were born after his fall, they
are undoubtedly children of wrath. How, then, can they be
exalted up to the adoption of the children of God, and, without
faith in Jesus Christ (out of whom there is no salvation) , and
without baptism , enter into heaven , and enjoy the beatific vision

(8) St. Aug. de Civit. Del. l. 8, c. 12. (9) Berruver, t. 1, p. 58.


630 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES ,

of God? We have always believed, and do still, that there is no


other way of obtaining salvation , but by the mediation of Christ.
He himself says : " I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John ,
xiv. 6). And again : " I am the door ; by me, if any man go in,
he shall be saved" (John , x . 9) . St. Paul says : " For by him we
have access to the Father" (Ephes. ii . 18 ) . Burruyer, however,
tells us that there is another way-a hidden one, by which God
saves those upright souls who live in the religion of nature- a way,
of which neither Scripture, Fathers, nor Ecclesiastical Writers tell
us anything. All grace and hope of salvation is promised to
mankind, through the mediation of Jesus Christ. If you read
Selvaggi , the annotator of Mosheim ( 10) , you will see that all the
prophecies of the Old Testament, and even the historical facts
narrated , all speak of this in a prophetic sense, as St. Paul says :
" These things were done in a figure" ( 1 Cor. x. 6) . Our Saviour
himself proved to the disciples, in the journey to Emmaus, that
all the Scriptures of the Old Law spoke of him: " Beginning at
Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the
Scriptures the things that were concerning him" (Luke, xxiv. 27) .
And still Berruyer says, that souls, under the law of nature, were
adopted as children of God , without any knowledge of the media-
tion of Jesus Christ.
33. How could those persons obtain the adoption of the children
of God without Jesus Christ, when it is he who has given to the
faithful the power " to become the children of God ." Berruyer
says : " Quod adoptio prima, eaque gratuito, cujus virtute ab
Adamo usque ad Christum, intuitu Christi venturi fideles omnes
sive ex Israel, sive ex Gentibus facti sunt filii Dei , non dederit
Deo nisi filios minores semper et parvulos usque ad tempus præ-
finitum a Patre. Vetus hæc itaque adoptio præparabat aliam, et
novam quasi parturiebat adoptionem superioris ordinis." He then
admits two adoptions- the first and the second . The latter is that
which exists in the New Law ; the former, that by which all those
who have received the Faith among the Jews or Gentiles, in regard
to the promised Messiah, and these were only, as it were , younger
children of God, minors. This ancient adoption , he said, prepared,
and, we may say, brought forth , another one of a superior order ;
but those who were adopted under this ancient one scarcely
deserved to be named among the faithful : " Vix filiorum nomen
obtinerent ." It would take volumes to examine all the extrava-
gant opinions and extraordinary crotchets of this writer, which
were never heard of by theologians before . The adoption of the
children of God, as St. Thomas says (11 ) , gives them a right to a
share in his birthright-that is, eternal beatitude. Now, supposing
Berruyer's system to be true, as the ancient adoption was of an

(10) Selvag. in Mosh. vol. i. n. 61 . (11) St. Thom. 3 p. q. 32, a. 1.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 631

inferior order, we ask, would it give a right to entire beatitude, or


only to an inferior or partial sort, corresponding to the adoption ?
It is quite enough to state such paradoxical opinions, and the
reader will perceive that they refute themselves. The truth of the
matter is, that there never was but one true religion , which never
had any other object but God, nor no way of approaching to God
unless through Jesus Christ . It is the blood of Jesus Christ
which has taken away all the sins of the world , and saved all
those who are saved, and it is the grace of Jesus Christ that has
given children to God.. Berruyer says, that the natural law in-
spired faith, hope, and charity. What folly ! These divine virtues
are gifts infused by God ; and how, then, could they be inspired
by the law of nature ? Why, Pelagius himself never went so far as
that.
54. In another place, he says : " Per annos quatuor mille quot-
quot fuerunt primogeniti , et sibi successerunt in hereditate nominis
illius, Filius Hominis, debitum nascendo contraxerunt." And
again : “ Per Adami hominum Parentis, et Primogeniti lapsum
oneratum est nomen illud , sancto quidem, sed pœnali debito satis-
faciendi Deo, in rigore justitiæ, et peccata hominum expiandi."
Berruyer then says that, for four thousand years , the first-born
were obliged to make satisfaction for the sins of mankind. This
opinion would bear rather heavy on me, as I have the misfortune
to be the first-born of my family, and it would be too hard that I
should make atonement, not only for my own manifold sins , but
also for the crimes of others. But can he tell us where this obliga-
tion is laid down . He appears to think that the law of nature
imposed it : " Erat præceptum illud quantum ad substantiam natu-
rale." But no one with a grain of sense will admit this to be a
precept of the law of nature, when neither the Scriptures nor the *
Canons of the Church make any allusion to it. It is not, then, im-
posed by the law of nature, nor by any positive command of God ,
for all children of Adam, as well as the first-born , are born with the
guilt of original sin (with the exception of our Lord and his Im-
maculate Mother), and all are equally bound to have themselves
cleaned from this stain .
55. Berruyer leaves the first-born alone, then , and applies this
new doctrine of his to our Lord. All those, he says, from whom
Jesus Christ sprung, were first- born down to Joseph, and hence, in
the person of Christ , by the succession inherited from St. Joseph ,
all the rights, and all the debts of his first-born ancestors were
united ; but as none of these could satisfy the Divine justice, the
Saviour, who alone could do so, was bound to make satisfaction for
all, for he was the chief among the first-born , and on that account ,
he says, he was called the Son of Man . This title, however, St.
Augustin says, was applied to our Lord as a title of humility, and
not of majority or obligation . As the Son of Man , then , he says ,
632 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

he was the first-born among men ; and as the Son of God, he was
bound, according to the rigour of justice, to sacrifice himself to
God for his glory, and the salvation of mankind : " Debitum con-
traxerat in rigore justitiæ fundatum, qui natus erat Filius hominis,
homo Primogenitus simul Dei Unigenitus, ut se Pontifex idem, et
hostia ad gloriam Dei restituendam , salutemque hominum redimen-
dam Deo Patri suo exhiberet." Hence, he says that Christ, by a
natural precept, was bound, ex condigno, to satisfy the Divine Justice
by his Passion : " Offerre Se tamen ad satisfaciendum Deo ex con-
digno, et ad expiandum hominis peccatum, quo satis erat passione
sua, Jesus Christus Filius hominis , et Filius Dei præcepto naturali
obligabatur." Christ, therefore , he says, as the Son of Man, and
the first-born of man, contracted a debt, obliging him, in rigorous
justice, to atone to God, by his Passion, for the sins of mankind .
We answer, that our Saviour could not, either as the Son of Man,
or first born of man, contract this strict obligation to make satis-
faction for mankind . He could not be obliged, as the Son of Man,
for it would be blasphemous to assert that he incurred original sin :
66
Accepit enim hominem," says St. Thomas (12) , " absque peccato ."
Neither could he be obliged to it, as the first-born among men. It
is true, St. Paul calls him the first-born among many brethren ;
but we must understand in what sense the Apostle applies this
term . The text says : " For whom he foreknew he also predes-
tinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son , that he
might be the first-born among many brethren" (Rom. viii. 29).
The Apostle here instructs us, that those whom God has foreseen
will be saved, he has predestined to be made like unto Jesus Christ,
in holiness and patience, poor , despised, and persecuted like him
on earth.
56. Berruyer, however, asserts, that according to strict justice
Christ could not be the mediator of all mankind, if he was not at
the same time Man-God, and the Son of God, and thus make full
satisfaction for the sins of man. But St. Thomas says ( 13) that
God could be satisfied in two ways in regard to man's sin, per-
fectly and imperfectly-perfectly, by the satisfaction given him by
a Divine Person, such as was given him by Jesus Christ ; imper-
fectly, by accepting the satisfaction which man himself could make,
and which would be sufficient, if God wished to accept it. St.
Augustin says those are fools who teach that God could save
mankind in no other manner, unless by becoming man himself, and
suffering all he did . He could do so if he wished, says the Saint ;
but then their folly would not be satisfied : " Sunt stulti qui di-

cunt: Non poterat aliter sapientia Dei homines liberare , nisi susci-
peret hominem, et a peccatoribus omnia illa pateretur. Quibus

(12) St. Thom. 3 p. q. 14, a. 3. (13) St. Thom. p. 3, ar. 1, ad. 2.


AND THEIR REFUTATION. 633

dicimus, poterat omnino; sed si aliter faceret, similiter vestræ stulti-


tiæ displiceret' "(14).
57. Such being the case, it is insufferable to hear Berruyer assert
that Christ, as the Son of Man, and first-born of man , had con-
tracted , in rigorous justice, the obligation of sacrificing himself to
God, by dying for the satisfaction of man's sins, and obtaining
salvation for them. It is true in another place he says that the
Incarnation of the Son of God was not a matter of necessity, but
merely proceeded from God's goodness alone ; but then he contra-
dicts himself (see n. 55). No matter what his meaning was, one
thing is certain-that Christ suffered for us, not because he was
obliged to do so by necessity, but of his own free will, because he
voluntarily offered himself up to suffer and die for the salvation of
mankind : " He was offered because it was his own will" (Isaias ,
liii. 7) . He says himself: " I lay down my life......no man taketh
it away from me, I lay it down of myself" (John, x. 17 , 18 ) . In
that, says St. John, he shows the extraordinary love he bore to
mankind, when he sacrificed even his life for them : " In this we
have known the charity of God, because he hath laid down his life
for us . This sacrifice of love was called his decease by Moses and
Elias on the Mount of Thabor : " They spoke of his decease, which
he should accomplish in Jerusalem."
58. I think I have said enough about Berruyer's errors ; the
chief and most pernicious of all, the first and third, I have rather
diffusely refuted. In these the fanatical author labours to throw
into confusion all that the Scriptures and Councils teach regarding
the great mystery of the Incarnation, the foundation of Christi-
anity itself, and of our salvation.
In conclusion, I protest that all tnat 1 nave written in this Work ,
and especially in the Refutation of Heresies, I submit to the judg-
ment ofthe Church. My only glory is, that I am her obedient
child, and as such I hope to live and die.

(14) St. August. lib. de Agone Christiano, c. 11.

END OF THE REFUTATION.


EXHORTATION TO CATHOLICS.

DEAR READER- Leave heretics in their wilful blindness- I mean


wilful when they wish to live deceived-and pay no attention to
the fallacies by which they would deceive you . Hold on by the
sure and firm anchor of the Catholic Church , through which God
has promised to teach us the true faith. We should place all our
hope of eternal salvation in the mercy of God and the merits of
Jesus Christ our Saviour, but still we should co-operate ourselves ,
by the observance of the Divine Commandments, and the practice
of virtue, and not follow the opinion of the innovators, who say
that faith alone in the merits of Jesus Christ will save us, without
works ; that God is the author both of all the good and all the evil
we do ; that salvation or damnation has been decreed for us from
all eternity, and, consequently, we can do nothing to obtain the
one or avoid the other. God tells us that he wishes all to be saved,
and gives to all grace to obtain eternal salvation ; he has promised
to listen to those who pray to him, so that if we are lost, it is solely
through our own fault. He also tells us that if we are saved it must
be by those means of salvation which he has given us , the fulfilment
of his holy law, the sacraments by which the merits of Christ are
communicated to us, prayer, by which we obtain the grace we
stand in need of; and this is the order of the decree of God's pre-
destination or reprobation , to give eternal life to those who
correspond to his grace, and to punish those who despise it.
The devil always strives to deceive heretics, by suggesting to
them that they can be saved in their belief. This was what
Theodore Beza said to St. Francis de Sales, when hard pressed by
him on the importance of salvation : " I hope to be saved in my
own religion." Unhappy hope ! which only keeps them in error
here, and exposes them to eternal perdition hereafter, when the
error cannot be remedied. I think the danger of eternal perdition,
by dying separated from the Church , should be a sufficient motive
to convert every heretic . It was this that made Henry IV. forsake
Calvinism, and become a Catholic . He assembled a conference of
Catholics and Calvinists, and after listening for a time to their
EXHORTATION TO CATHOLICS . 635

arguments, he asked the Calvinistic doctors if it was possible a


person could be saved in the Catholic faith ; they answered that it
was ; " Then," said the King, " if the faith of the Roman Church
secures salvation , and the Reformed faith is at least doubtful , I will
take the safe side and become a Catholic ."
All the misfortunes of unbelievers spring from too great an attach-
ment to the things of this life . This sickness of heart weakens and
darkens the understanding, and leads many to eternal ruin . If
they would try to heal their hearts by purging them of their vices,
they would soon receive light, which would show them the neces-
sity of joining the Catholic Church , where alone is salvation . My
dear Catholics, let us thank the Divine goodness, who, among so
many infidels and heretics , has given us the grace to be born and
live in the bosom of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, and let us
take heed and not be ungrateful for so great a benefit. Let us take
care and correspond to the Divine graee, for if we should be lost
(which God forbid) , this very benefit of grace conferred on us
would be one of our greatest torments in hell.
GENERAL INDEX.

Abelard, Life of, 228. Armenians, 326.


Errors of, 228. at the Council of Florence, 222.
opposed by St. Bernard, 229. Armogasies, 89.
Acacius, his Death, 165. Arnauld, Death of, 371.
Acemetic Monks, 172. Arnold of Brescia, 230.
Acephali, 168. excites a sedition in Rome, and is
Admiral, Lord High, executed, 341. burned, 231.
Adoption, none without Christ, 630. Athanasius, St. , 64.
Aerius, 100. persecutions endured by, 66.
Agnoites, 169. Audceans, 103.
Agricola , 281. Augsburg, Diet of, 267.
Albigenses, 234. Augustin, St., opposes Pelagius, 112.
Doctrines and practices of, 235. " Augustinus," the famous book, 365.
Crusade against, 238. sensation caused by, 366.
condemned by the Fourth
Council of Lateran, 239. Baius opposed by the Franciscans, and con-
Alexander, St. , Death of, 71. demned by the Sorbonne, 363.
Alexandrian Synod condemns Arius, 57. attends the Council of Trent, 363.
Alkoran, 178. condemned by St. Pius V. and Gre-
Alva, Duke of, 312. gory XIII. 364.
Amalric, his Errors, 240. -condemned Propositions of, refuted,563.
Amboise, Conspiracy of, 304. Ball, Coadjutor of Wickliffe, 245.
Amour de St. William, 241. Bands, Methodist, 385.
Anabaptists, Tenets of, 284. Bardesanes, 42.
Anastatius, Emperor, 166. Bardus put to death, 208.
his Death, 168. Barefooted Heretics, 103.
Anastatius, Patriarch, an Iconoclast, 190. Barnaveldt beheaded, 326.
Anathematisms of St. Cyril, 123. Basilides, 36.
Andrew, St. Calabita, 195. Basnage impugns the Virginity of the Bles-
Angelicals, 50. sed Virgin, 106.
Anglo-Calvinists, 325. defends Nestorianism, 133.
Anna Boleyn executed, 325. Beatific Vision, Decree of the Council of
Antidicomarianites, 99. Florence concerning, 221.
Antinomians, 281 . Beghards and Beguines, Errors of, 243.
Antropomorphites, 103. Berengarius, Heresy of, 224.
Antwerp, Calvinistic outbreak at, 312. Refutation of, 487.
Apollinaris, his Heresy, 98. condemned by Pope Leo IX.
Dispute with St. Ephraim, 99. 225.
Apostolicals , 232. dies repentant, 226.
Arian Heresy, Refutation of, 400. Berruyer's Errors and Refutation of, 597.
Arius, 55. Bessarion, Cardinal, unites the Greeks and
condemned in Alexandria, 57. Latins, 222.
banished, 66. Beza, Character of, 306.
recalled, and horrible Death of, 69. Conference with St. Francis de Sales,
Arles, Synod of, 72. and Death, 308.
GENERAL INDEX .
638
Darnley , Henry , Death of, 314.
Blandrata, 353. Delectatio Victrix , 577.
Breamoli
Bono d and stsWine,
, 102. quantity to be consecrated, Denmark becomes Lutheran, 272.
Dioscorus , his infamous character, 142.
509. Diospolis , ofcil 112.e Divine Persons
Bre nzi us , 282. DistinctionCoun theof, thre
Boetius the Philosopher put to death, 92.
proved, 391.
Doceti, 39.
Bucer, his Errors , 294. Dominick, St., his labours, 237.
Bulgarians, Legates sent to, 208. Miracles, 237.
Dominis, Mark Anthony de, 359.
Cainites, 38. his return to the Church , and
Caiphas, Council of, 556. Death , 359.
Calvin's birth, 296. Donatists , 50.
flies to Angouleme , 298. refuted by St. Augustin, 52.
fixes his residence in Geneva, 300.
Donatus, two of that name, 50.
ngs
his Writi , 302.
gets Servetus burned, 303.
his Character and Death, 305. Ecolonampa
Ebi , 35.dius , his explanation of the words
his numerous Errors, 317. of consecration, 293.
Calvinism refuted , 514. Ecthesis of Heraclius, 182.
Calvinistic Mission to Brazil, 303. Eleurus an Eutychian, 157.
Doctrine on the Eucharist, 495.
his Death, 160.
Campeggio Legate in England , 330. Elizabeth crowned as a Catholic, 344.
Campion, Martyrdom of, 346. gets Parliament to establish Pro-
Canon of Scripture , 558. test anti sm , 345.
Carlostad attacks the Real Presence , 288. her Death , 348.
breaks with Luthe r, 288.
marries, and composes a Mass on the Elvidius, Errors of, 104.
- a heretic , 104.
occasion, 289. England , early religious state of, 327.
his Death, 289. English Reformation , 327.
Carpocrates, 37. Ephesus, Council of, condemns Nestorius ,
Catholics , Exhortation to, 634. 126, 462 .
Celestius , a disciple of Pelagius, 111.
Centuriators of Magdeburg , 280. Epiphanes, 39.
Eranistes , an Apollinarist , 98.
Cerulanius,
Cerdo 39. l, an opponent ofthe Roman
rius ,Michae Erasmus , 257.
doubtful doctrine of, 257.
Church, 215 . his deat h, 258.
Chal cedo n , Coun cil of, 150. Ethi opia n Ambassadors to the Council of
Decisions of, 152, 153.
Chemnitz, Martin , the Prince of Protestant Florence , 222.
Eucharist , Matter and Form of, 509.
Theol ogian s, 283. Eusebius of Dorileum accuses Eutyches, 137.
Christ Church Hospital, 338. Eusebius an Arian, 62.
Cleves, Anne of, a Lutheran, 336. Eutyches condemned , 140 .
Concupiscence , 575 . appeals to the Pope, 140.
Condemnation , awful, of Pyrrhus, by Pope .
Death of, 155.
Theodore , 184. Eutychian Heresy , 136.
Confession of Augsburg, 279. Refutation of, 470.
Confession of Sins among Methodists, 385. Eutychians, objections of, answered , 477.
"Consci ence ist
, Case of," Jansen , 370.
Constans, Death of, 185. Evagrius , 172 .
Exurge Domini ," Bull of, 264.
Consta ntine , Death of, 69.
divides the Empire, 70. h alone not sufficient, 520.
Constantinople, Sixth General Council held Fait Faith , commencement of, from God, 451.
in, 186. Fat her and Son, Holy Ghost proceeds from ,
Eighth General Council held
433.
in, 210. Faustus Socinus, distich on, 359.
Canons of, 211. Felix I. at first a schismatic , 78.
Consubstantial , the Word, 60.
" Consultum," the, 375. Felix and Elipandus, 132. Refutation of their
Contemplation , what, 591 .
Cromwell , Oliver, 317. Errors, 465.
Fenelon's Maxims of the Saints, 379.
Cyril, St., Anathematisms of, 123.
GENERAL INDEX. 639

First-born, the curious opinion concerning, Henry VIII. , his early days, 328 .
631 . becomes enamoured of Anna
Fisher takes the Oath of Supremacy, condi- Boleyn, 329.
tionally, 332. marries her, 330.
put to death, 334. writes against Luther, 277.
Five Propositions of Jansenius, 366. Death of, 339.
Flagellants, history of, 242. Hermengild, St., 93.
Flavian, St., held a Synod against Eutychi- Hernhutters, 381 .
anism , 137. Holy Ghost, Descent of, Berruyer's Error
Martyrdom of, 146. regarding, 625.
Florence, Council of, 219. Divinity of, proved, 421.
Proceedings of, 439. Honorius, Pope, not a Monothelite, 181.
Folmar, 232. Huguenots, 304, 310.
Formula signed by Gallican Clergy, 369. Human nature, three states of, according to
Formula of Sirmium, signed by Liberius, 77. Baius, 568.
Francis de Sales, St., visits Beza, 308. Humanity of Christ, Berruyer's Errors re-
Franciscan Friars, 200 imprisoned by Henry garding, 613.
VIII., 333. Hunneric, 90.
Frankfort, Council of, 200. his horrible Death, 91.
Fratricelli, 242. Huss, John, 250.
condemned by John XXII., 243. translates Wickliffe's works, 251 .
Frederic, Elector, protects Luther, 266. his Errors, 251 .
his Death, 270. comes to the Council of Constance, 253.
Free Will denied by Calvin, 320. dies at the stake, 254.
existence of, proved, 514. Hypsisteri, 100.
two sorts of, 514.
Iconoclasts, 188.
Geneva, establishment of Calvinism in, 326. Ignatius, St. , of Constantinople, 201.
Genseric persecutes the Catholics, 87. dreadful persecution endured by,
Gentilis, Valentine, 351. 204.
his Doctrine, 352. appeals to the Pope, 205 .
Punishment and Death, forced to sign his own deposition,
353. 206.
George, Duke of Saxony, his opinion of the Ignorants, 169.
Reformation, 282. Incorruptibilists, 170.
German Catholics, 389 . " In eminenti," Bull of, 571.
Germanus, St. , 189. Infidels, Doctrine of the Church concerning,
Gilbert de la Poree, 231. 456.
his Errors, 231 . Interim, the, of Charles V., 271.
Gnostics, 37.
Godeschalcus, his Errors and Death, 117, Jacobites, 169.
118 . James I., 316.
Opinions ofAuthors concerning Jansenius, Bishop of Ghent, 365.
his Doctrine, 118. Bishop of Ipres, 365.
Gomarists, 326. Errors of, refuted, 576.
Grace and Free Will, Pelagian Doctrine of, Jarnac, Battle of, 311.
110. Jeane, Queen of Navarre, a Calvinist, 310.
necessity of, 443. Jerome of Prague, 255.
gratuity of, 446 . put to death, 255.
Greek Church, curious custom regarding the Joachim, Abbot, 232.
Eucharist, 508. John, St., Pope, 92.
Greek Heresy refuted, 433. | John, St., of Damascus, 193.
Greeks, objections of, answered, 440. Jovian, Emperor, 84.
Gregory III. , Letter of, to Leo the Iconoclast, Jovinian, a Monk, his Heresy, 105.
192. denied the Virginity of the Blessed
Grey, Lady Jane, 342. Virgin, 105.
Guion, Madam, 379. this Error refuted, 106.
Julian the Apostate, 82.
Henoticon of Zeno, 163. his Death, 83.
Henricians, 227.
Henry IV., his reasons for leaving the Cal- Kant, his system of religion, 380.
vinists, 635. Knox, John, 313.
640 GENERAL INDEX.

Knox, John, establishes Calvinism in Scot- | Melancthon, character of, 279.


land, 313. Melchites, 169.
Menander, 34.
Lateran, Fourth Council of, 239. Menandrinus, his errors, 244.
Decrees of, 239 . Mennonites, 287.
condemns the Albigenses, 239. Mercy ofGod, 530.
Latrocinium Ephesinum, 142. Messalians, 100.
proceedings of, 143, 144. Messalian errors, 101.
Law, Divine, not impossible, 516. Methodists, origin of, 382.
Leo X. publishes the Bull against Luther, doctrine of, 383.
264. Michael Paleologus, excommunicated by
Leo the Isaurian an Iconoclast, 191. Nicholas III., 219.
Leyden, John of, Life and Death of, 286. Milan, Council of, 72.
Liberius, Pope, banished, 73. Ministers, Calvinistic, why so called, 299.
signs one of the Formulas of Sirmium, Miracles of Christ, Berruyer's errors con-
77. cerning the, 623.
Liberius, his Death, 84. Miseries of human nature, 575.
Library of Constantinople burned, 191. Molinism refuted, 592.
Lisosius, a Heretic, 224. Molinos, 377.
Lucifer of Cagliari, 82. condemnation of, 378.
Luther, Martin, his Birth, 258. Mongus, 164.
becomes an Augustinian Monophysites, 168.
Friar, 259. Monothelite Heresy refuted, 199.
attacks Indulgences, 260. Monothelites, 179.
interview with Cardinal objections of, answered, 484.
Cajetan, 261. Montanus, 40.
burns the Pope's Bull and Montfort, Count, his glorious Death, 238.
Decretals, 264. Moravians, 381.
marries a Nun, 267. Mormon, book of, 387.
his Death, 270. Mormonites, 387.
his Errors. Forty-one pro- Mother of God, the Blessed Virgin, 466.
positions condemn ed, 273. Objections to the doctrine,
threatens to recant, 563. answered, 469.
Lutherans invited to the Council of Trent, Munzer, an Anabaptist, 285.
270. put to death, 286.
Lyons, Council of, 217. Musculus, Andrew, 282.
Synodical Constitution of, 218.
Natural Religion, Berruyer's opinion of, 627.
Macedonians condemned, 97. Negative Reprobation, 550.
refuted, 421 . Nestorius, his origin, 119.
Macedonius, 95. made Bishop of Constantinople,
thousands put to death at 119.
his inauguration, 95. promulgates his Heresy, 120.
persecutes the Catholics , 95. his Death, 130.
his errors, 96. New Jerusalemites, 381.
Magus, Simon, 33. New Testament, Quesnel's, 371.
Mahometanism, 177. Nice, Council of, 58.
Manes, 44. Nicene Canons, 63.
Manichean Heresy, 44. Profession of Faith, 61.
Marcion, 40. Nicholites, 36.
Marpurg, Conference of, 266. Nicholites, New, 224.
Mary, Queen of England, 343. Noailles de, Cardinal, his Death, 375.
Mary, Queen of Scots, forced to resign, 314. Novatian, 49.
puts herself under Elizabeth's first anti- Pope, 50.
protection, 315. Novatus, 49.
beheaded, 316.
Mass, Errors concerning condemned, 513. Ochino, an Antitrinitarian, 354.
Materialism, Refutation of, 408. his life as a Friar, 354.
Matthias, Flaccus Illiricus, 280. his Death, 356.
Maximus, St., refutes Pyrrhus, 184. Olaus Petri, 271.
Mediation of Christ necessary, 630. Omousion, 60.
Meditation, what, 591 . One Person in Christ, 458.
GENERAL INDEX. 641

Ophites, 38. | Pulcheria, St. , 149.


Opus Operatum, explanation of, 321. Pure Nature, state of, not impossible, 573 .
Orebites, 256. Purgatory, denied by Calvin, 323.
Origen, 45 . Greek belief in, 221.
Editions of the Scriptures by, 46. Puritans, 323.
Errors of, 47.
Orphans, Hussites so called, 256.
Osiander, an Eutychian, 281. Quakers 324.
Osius, fall of, 74. Quesnel, 371.
escapes to Holland, 371.
Pattalorinchites, 41 . his Death, 372.
Paul of Samosata, 43. Quesnelism, 375.
Peasants, War of the, 285.
Pelagian Heresy, 109. Ranters, 325.
Pelagian objections answered, 449. Rationalism, 380.
Pelagianism refuted, 443. Real Presence, Miracles in proofof, 248, 249.
Pelagius, a Briton, 109. proved, 489.
People of God, History of, 597. objections to, answered, 496.
Peputians, 41. Remonstrants, 326.
Perieres, 359. Rhetoricians and Theologians, disputation
Peter Martyr, 295. between, 257.
Peter the Fuller, 164. Richer, his doctrine, 376.
Petrobrussians, Errors of, 226. Rimini, Council of, 81.
Phantasiasts, 170. Robe, Holy, of Treves, 389.
Philip the Landgrave marries two wives, Roman people defend the Veneration of
269. Images, 192.
Photius, 202. Sabellians, objections answered, 396.
condemned at Rome, 207. Sabellianism refuted, 391 .
excommunicates the Pope, 209. Sabelliuus, 43.
Pietists, 381. Sacramentarians opposed by Luther, 278.
Pillar and Ground of Truth, the Church, origin of, 288.
552. objections answered, 503.
Piscatorians, 325. Sacraments, the Calvinistic opinions on 321.
Pius V. , St., excommunicates Elizabeth, Salvation of all, Christ died for, 564.
347. God wishes, 544.
Pneumatomachi, 26. Sardis, Council of, 71.
Pogonatus, Constantine, 186. Saturninus, 35.
Poissy, Conference of, 304. Scotland, Reformation established in, 313.
Pole, Cardinal, 336 . Scotus Erigena, 225.
reconciles England to the Seekers, 343.
Church, 343. Semi-Pelagians, 115.
Polyglott, Origen's, 46. Doctrine of, 116.
Poor Men of Lyons, 233. Sepulchre, Jesus Christ in the, 610 .
Postellus, 360. Servetus, his History, 350.
his fanaticism, 360. his Errors, 350.
Praxeas, 42. burned alive, 303.
Preadamites, 359. Sethites, 38.
Predestinarians, 116. Severus, 39.
Predestination, Calvininistic, 320. " Silence, Religious, " Jansenistic, 370.
Catholic doctrine of, 544. Sin, God not the author of, 539.
to Hell, Calvin's doctrine, Sirmium, first Formula of, 75.
543. second Formula of, 76.
secret of, 590. third Formula of, 76.
Presbyterians, 324. Six Articles of Henry VIII., 335.
Priscillianists, 102. Smalkalde, League of, 269.
Procession of the Holy Ghost, 433. Smith, Joe, 387.
Prodicus, 39. Socinian Heresy, 357.
Proterius, St., Martyrdom of, 158. Socinus Lelius and Faustus, 356.
Protestant, origin of the name, 266. Somerset, Protector 340.
Protestants refuse to attend the Council of Sophronius, St., 180.
Trent, 560. Southcott, Johanna, 386.
Ptolemy and Saturninus, 38. Delusion and Death, 387.
2s
642 GENERAL INDEX .

Spinosa, 361. Unitarians, 356.


his Atheistical Doctrine, 361. United Brethren, 381 .
his Death, 362. Ursacius and Valens, 79.
Spire, Diet of 266.
" Spiritual Guide of Molinos, " 378.
Stancaro, Francis, a Nestorian, 281. Valens, 79.
Stephen and Lisosius, Heretics, 223. an Arian, 80.
Stephens', Robert, Edition of NewTestament, Emperor, persecutes the Catholics,
394. 85.
Stilites, St. Simon, 160. his horrible Death, 87.
his Death, 162. Valentine, 38.
Storchius, Chief of the Anabaptists, 285. Vigilantius, 108.
Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, killed , opposed by St. Jerome, 108.
246. Vigilius, Pope, censured, 174.
Supper, the Calvinistic, 299.
Supremacy, Oath of, 346. Waldenses, 233.
Sweden, Lutheranism introduced into, 271. Errors of, 239.
becomes Lutheran, 271.
Waldo, Peter, 233.
Swedenborg, extraordinary doctrine taught Watch Night, 386.
by, 381. Wesley goes to America, 383.
appoints a Bishop, 384.
Tatian, 39. 384.384.
Temptation, God does not lead us into, 539. Whitfielhis d, aDeath,
Calvinist,
Tertullian, 45. Wickliffe, 245.
Tetzel preaches Indulgences, 260. doctrine condemned, 246.
Thaborites, 256. his Death, 249.
Theandric operations, 617. Wills, two, in Christ, 481.
Theodoret, account of, 147. Wolsey, Cardinal, 329.
Theodoric, his extraordinary Death, 93. Word, the Divinity of, proved, 400.
Theodosius, the Eutychian, 155. " Work of Light," the Reformation, 341.
Theodotus, 42. Works, good, necessary, 520.
Three Chapters, the, 132. Worms, Diet of, 265.
condemnation of, 174.
Transubstantiation, doctrine of, 428.
objections to, answered, Zeno, Emperor, 160.
501. Henoticon of, 163.
Trent, Council of, 269. Zinzendorf, 381.
Tritheists, 170. Ziska, the Hussite. 256.
Type, the, of Constans, 183. Zozymus, Pope, condemns Pelagius, 114.
Tyre, Council of, 66. Zuinglius, Heresy of, 290.
consecration, explanation of the
Ubiquists , 282. words of, 291.
" Unigenitus," Bull of, 273. disputation with the Catholics,
Four Bishops appeal against, 292.
374. marries ; is killed, 293.

5 SE 57

THE END.

Printed by J. M. O'TOOLE, 13, Hawkins'-street, Dublin.


WORKS

OF

SAINT ALPHONSUS M. LIGUORI ,

PUBLISHED BY JAMES DUFFY,

7 , WELLINGTON QUAY , DUBLIN .

LIGUORI'S ( ST. ) EXPLANATION AND DEFENCE


OF ALL THE POINTS OF FAITH DISCUSSED AND DE-
FINED BY THE SACRED COUNCIL OF TRENT, along with
a Refutation of the Pretended Reformers , post 8vo, fancy cloth, 4s.
LIGUORI'S DISCOURSES , MEDITATIONS , AND NO-
VENAS, second edition, 18mo, cloth, fine portrait, 2s.
LIGUORI'S FOURTEEN STATIONS OF THE MOST
HOLY WAY OF THE CROSS , embellished with beautiful
engravings by eminent artists, 18mo, fancy cloth, 8d.
LIGUORI'S GLORIES OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN
MARY ; a Paraphrase on the Salve Regina, treating of the fre-
quent and abundant Graces which the Mother of God obtains for
her Devout Clients, royal 32mo, now first translated from the
Italian, by a Catholic Clergyman, fancy cloth, fine frontispiece, 1s.
LIGUORI'S GLORIES OF MARY, complete edition, con-
taining the Second Part, which treats of the principal Festivals of
the Blessed Virgin, of her Dolours, of her heroic Virtues, and of
the Exercise of Devotion to be practised in her honour, 2 vols. ,
18mo, cloth, 3s.
LIGUORI'S INSTRUCTIONS ON THE COMMAND-
MENTS AND SACRAMENTS , royal 32mo, new edition, beau-
tifully printed in large type, and published with approbation of
His Grace the Most Rev. Dr. Murray, cloth, 1s.
LIGUORI'S MORAL DISSERTATIONS ON PURGA-
TORY, ANTICHRIST, THE LAST JUDGMENT, THE GENE-
RAL RESURRECTION, &c. , &c. , royal 32mo, cloth, 1s.
WORKS OF ST. ALPHONSUS M. LIGUORI.

LIGUORI'S NOVENA TO ST. TERESA ; translated


from the Italian under the superintendence of the Redemptorist
Fathers, published with the approbation of His Grace the Most
Rev. Dr. Cullen, Archbishop of Dublin, 18mo, cloth, 8d .

LIGUORI'S TREATISE ON PRAYER,


18mo, fancy cloth, 6d .

LIGUORI'S WAY OF SALVATION ; or Reflections for


every Day in the Year, royal 32mo, cloth, 1s. 4d.

LIGUORI'S PREPARATION FOR DEATH ; or Consi-


derations on the Eternal Maxims, useful to all as a Book of Medi-
tations, and to Priests as a collection of matter for Sermons ; 12mo,
new edit., reduced to 2s.

LIGUORI'S REFLECTIONS AND AFFECTIONS ON


THE PASSION OF JESUS CHRIST ; translated from the Ita-
lian by a Catholic Clergyman, royal 32mo, cloth, 1s.
LIGUORI'S SERMONS FOR ALL THE SUNDAYS IN
THE YEAR ; translated from the Italian by a Catholic Clergy-
man, 8vo, fancy cloth, fourth edition, 6s.

LIGUORI'S TRUE SPOUSE OF CHRIST ; or, the Nun


Sanctified ; new edition , beautifully printed in one volume , post
8vo, fancy cloth, 6s.

LIGUORI'S SPIRIT,
Royal 32mo, fancy cloth, 1s.
LIGUORI'S VISITS TO THE BLESSED SACRAMENT ;
new edition, with additions, royal 32mo, cloth, beautifully
printed on fine paper, 1s.

cape morocco, gilt, 2s .

morocco extra, richly gilt, 3s. 6d.

LIGUORI'S VICTORIES OF THE MARTYRS, AND


THE MISERABLE END OF THE PERSECUTORS OF GOD'S
CHURCH ; translated from the Italian, with Notes, &c. , by the
Rev. Dr. MacLoughlin, new edition, 1s. 4d.

LIGUORI'S LIFE, by the Right Rev. Dr. Mullock, 12mo ,


cloth, fine portrait, 2s.

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