Jerome: Contra Ioannem

[1], ac propriae mentis cogitationem sermo non explicat; quanto magis periculosum est de alterius animo iudicare, et singulorum dictorum atque verborum investigare atque proferre rationem? Natura hominum prona est ad clementiam, et in alieno peccato sui quisque miseretur. Si ergo reum in sermone reprehenderis, simplicitatem vocabit; si calliditatem argueris, imperitiam confitebitur, ut suspicionem vitet malitiae.

[1], and speech does not explicate the cogitation of one’s own mind; how much more dangerous is it to judge of another’s spirit, and to investigate and proffer the rationale of each utterance and word? Human nature is prone to clemency, and in another’s sin each person pities himself. If therefore you reprehend the defendant in discourse, he will call it simplicity; if you indict him for cunning, he will confess inexperience, so that he may avoid the suspicion of malice.

Atque ita fiet ut tu qui arguis, calumniator: ille qui reprehenditur, non haereticus, sed rusticus iudicetur. Nosti, Pammachi, nosti me ad hoc opus non inimicitiis, non gloriae cupiditate descendere; sed provocatum litteris tuis ex ardore fidei; ac velle si fieri posset, omnes idipsum sapere, nec impatientiae ac temeritatis posse reprehendi, qui post triennium loquor. Denique nisi ad Apologiam, de qua nunc scribere institui, multorum animos diceres perturbatos, et in utramque partem fluctuare sententiam, decreveram in incepto silentio permanere.

And thus it will come about that you who arraign are a calumniator; he who is reproved will be judged not a heretic, but a rustic. You know, Pammachius, you know that I descend to this work not by enmities, not by a cupidity for glory, but provoked by your letters out of the ardor of faith; and that I wish, if it could be done, for all to think the selfsame thing, and that I cannot be reproached for impatience and temerity, I who speak after three years. Finally, unless, concerning the Apology which I have now undertaken to write, you were saying that the minds of many were disturbed, and that opinion was wavering to either side, I had resolved to remain in the silence I had begun.

2. Facessat itaque Novatus errantibus non manus porrigens, Montanus cum insanis feminis prosternatur, iacentes in barathrum praecipitans, ne leventur. Quotidie peccamus omnes et in aliquo labimur. Qui ergo in nos clementes sumus, rigorem contra alios non tenemus: quin potius oramus, petimus, obsecramus, ut aut simpliciter nostra fateatur, aut aperte defendat aliena.

2. Let Novatus, then, be gone, not stretching a hand to the erring; let Montanus be laid low with the insane women, hurling the prostrate into the barathrum, lest they be raised. Every day we all sin and in some respect we slip. Therefore we, being clement toward ourselves, do not hold rigor against others; nay rather we pray, we ask, we beseech, that he either simply confess what is ours, or openly defend what is another’s.

Nolo verborum ambiguitates: nolo mihi dici, quod et aliter possit intelligi. Revelata facie gloriam Domini contemplemur

I do not want ambiguities of words: I do not want it to be said to me something that also can be understood otherwise. With unveiled face let us contemplate the glory of the Lord

[2]. Claudicabat quondam et Israeliticus populus in utroque pede. SedElias, qui interpretatur, fortis Domini: Usquequo, ait, claudicatis in utroque vestigio? Si Dominus est Deus, ambulate post eum: si autem Baal, sequimini eum

[2]. Once too the Israelite people was limping on both feet. ButElijah, which is interpreted, strong of the Lord: How long, he says, do you limp on both tracks? If the Lord is God, walk after him; but if Baal, follow him

[3]. Et ipse Dominus de Iudaeis:Filii alieni mentiti sunt mihi: filii alieni inveteraverunt, et claudicaverunt a semitis suis

[3]. And the Lord himself concerning the Jews:Alien sons have lied to me; alien sons have grown inveterate, and have limped from their paths

[4]. Certe si haereseos nulla suspicio est - ut cupio et credo - cur non verbis meis meum sensum loquitur? Quam ille simplicitatem vocat, ego malitiam interpretor. Persuadere mihi vult, quod pure credat; pure ergo et loquatur.

[4]. Certainly, if there is no suspicion of heresy—as I desire and believe—why does he not speak my meaning in my words? What he calls simplicity, I interpret as malice. He wants to persuade me that he believes purely; therefore let him speak purely as well.

Et si quidem unum verbum, vel unus sensus esset ambiguus, si duo, si tres, ignorantiae veniam tribuerem: nec ea quae aut obscura vel dubia sunt, de certis et perspicuis aestimarem. Nunc vero quae ista simplicitas est, quasi super ova et aristas inter theatrales praestigias pendenti gradu incedere: ubique dubium, ubique suspectum? Putes eum non expositionem fidei, sed figuratam controversiam scribere.

And if indeed one word, or one sense were ambiguous—if two, if three—I would grant pardon to ignorance; nor would I evaluate those things which are either obscure or doubtful by means of the certain and perspicuous. But now, what sort of “simplicity” is this, to advance with a suspended step, as if over eggs and awns, amid theatrical prestidigitations: everywhere a doubt, everywhere a suspicion? You would think he was writing not an exposition of the faith, but a figurative controversy.

Quod iste nunc appetit, olim in scholis didicimus. Nostra adversum nos dimicat armatura. Etiam si bene credit, et circumspecte et timide loquitur, suspicionem mihi facit nimia diligentia.

What that fellow now aims at, we once learned in the schools. Our armature fights against us. Even if he believes well, he speaks both circumspectly and timidly; excessive diligence makes me suspicious.

Qui ambulat simpliciter, ambulat confidenter

He who walks simply, walks confidently

[5]. Stultum est frustra infamiam sustinere. Obiicitur ei crimen, cuius non habet conscientiam. Ergo crimen quod totum pendet in verbo, neget confidenter, ac libere faciat invidiam adversario suo.

[5]. It is foolish to bear infamy in vain. A crime is alleged against him, of which he has no conscience. Therefore, the crime which hangs wholly on a word let him deny confidently, and let him freely bring odium upon his adversary.

Eadem audacia qua ille insimulat, hic defendat. Cumque omnia dixerit quae voluerit, quae proposuerit, quae suspicionibus carent: si perseverat calumnia, conserta manu in ius trahat. Nolo in suspicione haereseos quemquam esse patientem; ne apud eos qui ignorant innocentiam eius, dissimulatio conscientia iudicetur, si taceat: licet superfluum sit eius praesentiam quaerere, et extorquere silentium, cuius apud et litteras teneas.

Let him defend with the same audacity with which that man imputes. And when he has said everything he has wished, what he has proposed, things that are devoid of suspicions: if the calumny persists, with battle joined let him drag him into court. I do not want anyone to be patient under suspicion of heresy; lest among those who are ignorant of his innocence, dissimulation be judged a conscience (of guilt), if he is silent: although it may be superfluous to seek his presence and to extort silence from one whose letters you also hold in your possession.

3. Scimus omnes, quid tibi scripserit, quid in te arguerit, in quo, ut tu vis, calumniatus sit. Responde ad singula, per Epistolae huius gradere vestigia, ne punctum quidem et apicem calumniae transeas. Si enim egeris negligenter, et - ut ego tibi credo iuranti - casu aliqua transieris, statim ille clamabit et dicet: Hic hic te vinctum teneo: hic totius negotii cardo versatur.

3. We all know what he has written to you, what he has charged against you, wherein, as you maintain, he has calumniated you. Answer to each particular, tread the vestiges of this Epistle, do not pass over even a point and apex of the calumny. For if you act negligently, and - as I believe you when you swear - you pass over some things by chance, immediately he will shout and say: Here, here I hold you bound: here the hinge of the whole affair turns.

Non aeque inimici audiunt, et amici. Qui inimicus est, etiam in scirpo nodum quaerit: amicus prava quoque recta iudicat. Scribunt saeculi litterae, amantium caeca esse iudicia; quas tu forsitan sacris Voluminibus occupatus omnino neglexeris.

Enemies and friends do not listen in the same way. He who is an enemy looks for a knot even in a bulrush; a friend judges even crooked things as straight. The literature of the age writes that the judgments of lovers are blind; which you, perhaps, occupied with the Sacred Volumes, have altogether neglected.

Numquam de amicorum iudicio glorieris. Illud verum est testimonium, quod ab inimica voce profertur. Alioqui si amicus pro te dixerit, non testis, aut iudex, sed fautor putabitur.

Never boast of the judgment of friends. That is the true testimony which is brought forth by an inimical voice. Otherwise, if a friend speaks on your behalf, he will be thought not a witness, or a judge, but a favorer.

Haec et huiusmodi loquentur inimici tui, qui tibi forte movere cupiant stomachum.

These and things of this sort your enemies will say, who perhaps wish to stir up your ire.

Caeterum ego quem numquam volens laesisti, cuius semper in Epistolis tuis nomen cogeris ventilare, do consilium ut aperte aut fidem Ecclesiae praedices, aut loquaris, ut credis. Dispensatio etenim ac libratio ista prudens verborum, indoctos decipere potest. Cautus auditor et lector cito deprehendet insidias: et cuniculos quibus veritas subvertitur, aperte in luce demonstrabit.

Moreover I, whom you have never willingly injured, whose name you are always compelled to ventilate in your Epistles, give counsel that you either openly proclaim the faith of the Church, or speak as you believe. For this prudent dispensation and libration of words can deceive the unlearned. A cautious auditor and reader will quickly detect the ambushes; and the mining-tunnels by which truth is subverted he will openly demonstrate in the light.

Et Ariani, quos optime nosti, multo tempore propter scandalum nominis consubstantialem se damnare simulabant, venenaque erroris circumlinebant melle verborum. Sed tamdem coluber se tortuosus aperuit, et noxium caput, quod spiris totius corporis tegebatur, spiritali mucrone confossum est. Recipit, ut scis, Ecclesia poenitentes; et numero superata peccantium dum deceptis gregibus consulit, pastorum vulneribus ignoscit.

And the Arians, whom you know very well, for a long time, on account of the scandal of the name, pretended that they condemned the consubstantial, and they smeared the poisons of error with the honey of words. But at length the tortuous serpent exposed itself, and the noxious head, which was covered by the coils of the whole body, was pierced through by the spiritual blade. The Church, as you know, receives penitents; and, overcome by the number of sinners, while it takes thought for the deceived flocks, it pardons the wounds of the shepherds.

Eadem nunc in veteri et nova haeresi consuetudo servatur, ut aliud populi audiant, aliud praedicent sacerdotes.

The same custom is now preserved in the old and the new heresy, that the people hear one thing, the priests preach another.

4. Ac primum antequam epistolam tuam, quam scripsisti ad episcopum Theophilum, interpretatam huic volumini inseram, et ostendam tibi, me intelligere nimis cautamtantam prudentiam tuam, expostulare tecum libet. Quae haec est tanta arrogantia, non respondere de fide interrogantibus? Tantam fratrum multitudinem, et Monachorum choros, qui tibi in Palaestina non communicant, quasi nostes publicos aestimare?

4. And first, before I insert into this volume, translated, your letter which you wrote to the bishop Theophilus, and show you that I understand your over-cautiousso great prudence, I am minded to expostulate with you. What is this so great arrogance, not to respond about the faith to those who ask? To reckon such a multitude of brethren, and choirs of Monks, who do not communicate with you in Palestine, as if they were public enemies?

Dei Filius propter unam morbidam ovem, nonaginta novem in montibus derelictas, alapas, crucem, flagella sustinuit, et suis humeris portavit ad coelos baiulans, et patiens delicatam peccatricem. Tu beatissimus papa, et fastidiosus antistes, solus dives, solus sapiens, solus nobilis ac disertus, conservos tuos, et redemptos sanguine Domini tui, rugata fronte et obliquis oculis despicis? Hoc est illud, quod, Apostolo praecipiente, didicisti: Parati semper ad satisfactionem omni poscenti vos rationem de ea quae in vobis est spe

The Son of God, on account of one sickly sheep, the ninety-nine left on the mountains, endured slaps, the cross, scourges, and on his own shoulders carried her, bearing and being patient with the delicate sinner, up to the heavens. You, most blessed pope, and fastidious prelate, alone rich, alone wise, alone noble and eloquent, do you look down upon your fellow-servants, and those redeemed by the blood of your Lord, with a wrinkled brow and sidelong eyes? This is that which, the Apostle giving the precept, you have learned: Always ready for a defense to everyone asking you for a reason concerning the hope that is in you

[6]? Finge nos occasionem quaerere, et sub praetextu fidei lites serere, schisma conficere, iurgia concitare. Tolle occasionem volentibus occasionem; ut postquam de fide satisfeceris, et omnes nodos qui contra te nectuntur absolveris, tunc liquido omnibus probes, non dogmatum, sed ordinationis esse certamen. Nisi forte prudenti consilio, ideo de fide interrogatus taces, ne videaris haereticus esse, cum satisfeceris.

[6]? Suppose us to be seeking an occasion, and under the pretext of faith to sow litigations, to make a schism, to stir up altercations. Remove the opportunity from those who want an opportunity; so that after you have given satisfaction concerning the faith, and have loosed all the knots which are being woven against you, then you may clearly prove to all that the contest is not of dogmas, but of ordination. Unless perhaps by prudent counsel, for this reason when questioned about the faith you keep silence, lest, once you have given satisfaction, you seem to be a heretic.

Omnia ergo crimina, quibus accusantur homines, refutare non debent: ne postquam negaverint, criminosi sint. At contemnis laicos, diaconos atque presbyteros. Potes enim, ut gloriaris et iactitas, in una hora mille clericos facere.

Therefore, all crimes with which men are accused ought not to be refuted, lest, after they have denied, they be criminal. But you disdain laymen, deacons, and presbyters. For you can, as you boast and vaunt, make a thousand clerics in one hour.

Habes papam Epiphanium, qui te aperte missis litteris haereticum vocat. Certe nec aetate, nec scientia, nec vitae merito, nec totius orbis testimonio, maior illo es. Si aetatem quaeris, iuvenis ad senem scribis. Si scientiam, non sic eruditus ad doctum: licet te fautores tui, disertiorem Demosthene, acutiorem Chrysippo, sapientiorem Platone contendant, et tibi ipsi forte persuaserint.

You have Pope Epiphanius, who openly, by letters sent, calls you a heretic. Surely neither in age, nor in knowledge, nor in the merit of life, nor by the testimony of the whole world, are you greater than he. If you seek age, a young man writes to an old man. If it is knowledge, one not so erudite writes to one learned; although your supporters contend that you are more eloquent than Demosthenes, more acute than Chrysippus, more sapient than Plato, and perhaps have even persuaded you yourself of it.

De vita autem et fide nihil amplius dicam, ne te laedere videar. Eo tempore quo totum Orientem, excepto papa Athanasio atque Paulino, Arianorum et Eunomianorum haeresis possidebat, quando tu Occidentalibus et in medio exsilio confessoribus, non communicabas; ille vel presbyter monasterii ab Eutychio audiebatur, vel postea Episcopus Cypri a Valente non tangebatur. Tantae enim venerationis semper fuit, ut regnantes haeretici, ignominiam suam putarent, si talem virum persequerentur.

But concerning life and faith I will say nothing further, lest I seem to wound you. At that time when the whole Orient, except for pope Athanasius and Paulinus, was possessed by the heresy of the Arians and Eunomians, when you were not communicating with the Occidentals and with confessors in the midst of exile; he, either as a presbyter of a monastery, was heard by Eutychius, or later, as Bishop of Cyprus, was not touched by Valens. For he was always of such veneration that the heretics reigning thought it their own ignominy if they were to persecute such a man.

Scribe igitur ad hunc. Responde epistolae eius: sentiant caeteri finem, eloquentiam, prudentiam tuam, ne tibi solus disertus esse videaris. Cur ab alio provocatus, aliorsum arma convertis?

Write therefore to him. Answer his epistle: let the others perceive your aim, your eloquence, your prudence, lest you seem eloquent only to yourself. Why, when provoked by one, do you turn your arms elsewhere?

Palaestinae interrogaris, et respondes Aegypto. Aliis lippientibus, ungis oculos non dolentium. Si placitura nobis alteri loqueris, satis superbe: si aliud quam quaerimus, satis superflue.

You are asked about Palestine, and you answer about Egypt. While others are bleary-eyed, you anoint the eyes of those not aching. If, to us, you speak things that will be pleasing to another, quite haughtily; if something other than what we seek, quite superfluously.

5. Sed dicis, epistolam meam probavit Alexandrinus episcopus. Quid probavit? contra Arium, contra Photinum, contra Manichaeum bene locutum.

5. But you say, the Alexandrian bishop approved my epistle. What did he approve? That I spoke well against Arius, against Photinus, against the Manichaean.

Quis enim te hoc tempore arguit Arianum? quis tibi nunc Photini, Manichaeique crimen impingit? Olim ista emendata sunt atque concussa.

For who, indeed, at this time arraigns you as an Arian? who now imputes to you the charge of Photinus and of the Manichaean? Long ago those things were emended and shaken off.

Non eras tam stultus, ut aperte defenderes haeresim, quam sciebas Ecclesiae displicere. Noveras te si hoc fecisses, statim loco movendum, et solii tui delicias suspirabas. Sic sententiam temperasti, ut nec simplicibus displiceres, nec tuos offenderes.

You were not so foolish as to openly defend a heresy which you knew displeased the Church. You knew that, if you had done this, you would at once be moved from your place, and you were sighing for the delights of your throne. Thus you tempered your opinion, so that you would neither displease the simple nor offend your own.

Bene scripsisti, sed nihil ad causam pertinens. Unde noverat Alexandrinae Ecclesiae pontifex, in quibus arguereris? quorum a te confessio postularetur?

You wrote well, but nothing pertaining to the case. Whence had the pontiff of the Alexandrian Church known, in what matters you were being accused? of which a confession would be demanded from you?

Debueras tibi obiecta proponere, et sic ad singula respondere. Vetus narrat historia: Quidam cum diserte diceret, ferreturque impetu ac volubilitate verborum, causamque omnino non tangeret, prudens auditor et iudex: «Bene, inquit, bene, sed quo istud tam bene?» Imperiti medici ad omnes oculorum dolores uno utuntur collyrio. Qui arguitur in pluribus, et in dilutione criminum aliqua praetermittit, quidquid tacuerit, confitetur.

You ought to have set forth the objections brought against you, and thus to respond to each point. An old history narrates: A certain man, when he was speaking eloquently and was borne along by the impetus and volubility of his words, and was not touching the case at all, a prudent auditor and judge said: «Good, he says, good; but to what end is that so good?» Unskilled physicians use one collyrium for all pains of the eyes. He who is accused on several counts, and in the dilution of the charges omits something, whatever he keeps silent about, he confesses.

An non respondisti ad epistolam Epiphanii, et proposuisti ipse quae dissolveres? Nimirum hac fiducia respondisti: Nullus fortiter a semetipso caeditur, Elige e duobus, quod vis. Optio tibi dabitur, aut respondisti ad epistolam Epiphanii, aut non.

Or did you not respond to the epistle of Epiphanius, and did you yourself set forth what you would dissolve? Clearly with this confidence you responded: No one is stoutly struck by himself. Choose between the two, what you wish. A choice will be given to you: either you responded to the epistle of Epiphanius, or you did not.

Si respondisti, cur maxima et plurima de his quae tibi obiecta sunt, reliquisti? Si non respondisti: ubi est illa Apologia tua, in qua gloriaris apud simplices: et quasi [Al. quam] ignorantibus causam, huc illucque disseminas?

If you have answered, why have you left the greatest and most numerous of the things objected to you? If you have not answered: where is that Apology of yours, in which you boast among the simple; and as though [Al. quam] to those ignorant of the cause, you disseminate it hither and thither?

6. Octo tibi, ut statim probabo, de spe fidei Christianae quaestionum capita obiecta sunt. Tria tantum tangis, et praeteris. In caeteris grande silentium est.

6. Eight heads of questions concerning the hope of the Christian faith have been put before you, as I will straightway prove. You touch only three, and pass them by. In the rest there is a great silence.

Si ad septem absolutissime respondisses, haererem tantum in uno crimine: et quod tacueras, hoc tenerem. Nunc vero quasi auribus lupum apprehenderis, nec tenere potes, nec audes dimittere. Ipsa quoque tria quasi negligens atque securus, quasique aliud agens: et in quibus aut nulla aut parva sit quaestio, praetervolas atque perstringis.

If you had answered the seven most absolutely, I would stick only in one charge: and what you had kept silent about, this I would hold. Now indeed, as if you had apprehended a wolf by the ears, you can neither hold, nor do you dare to dismiss. Even the three themselves you, as if negligent and secure, and as if doing something else: and those in which there is either no or only a small question, you fly past and merely graze.

Et ita opertus ac tectus incedis, ut plus confitearis tacendo quam renuas disputando. Quis non protinus tibi potest dicere: Si lumen quod in te est, tenebrae sunt, ipsae tenebrae quantae erunt

And thus you go forward covered and roofed-over, so that you confess more by keeping silent than you refuse by disputing. Who cannot at once say to you: If the light which is in you is darkness, how great will the darkness itself be

[7]? Si tres quaestiunculae, de quibus visus es aliquid dicere, suspicione et culpa non carent, et fraudulenter ac lubrice scriptae coarguuntur, quid faciemus de quinque reliquis, in quibus quia nulla ambigui sermonis dabatur occasio, nec illudere poteras audientes, maluisti omnino reticere, quam aperte quod tectum fuerat confiteri.

[7]? If the three little questions, about which you seemed to say something, are not without suspicion and blame, and are proved to have been written fraudulently and slipperily, what shall we do about the five remaining, in which, because no occasion was afforded for ambiguous speech, and you could not illude the hearers, you preferred altogether to keep silent rather than openly to confess what had been covered.

7. Et primum de libro ubi loquitur: sicut enim incongruum est dicere, quod possit Filius videre Patrem: ita inconveniens est opinari, quod Spiritus sanctus possit videre Filium. Secundum, quod in hoc corpore quasi in carcere sint animae religatae; et antequam homo fieret in paradiso, inter rationales creaturas in coelestibus commoratae sunt. Unde postea in consolationem suam anima loquitur in Psalmis:Priusquam humiliarer, ego deliqui

7. And first, concerning the book where he speaks: for just as it is incongruous to say that the Son can see the Father, so it is inconvenient to opine that the Holy Spirit can see the Son. Secondly, that in this body souls are bound as if in a prison; and that before man was made in paradise, they sojourned among rational creatures in the celestial realms. Whence afterwards, for its consolation, the soul speaks in the Psalms:Before I was humbled, I transgressed

[8]. Et:Revertere, anima mea, in requiem tuam

[8]. And:Return, my soul, to your rest

[9]. Et:Educ de carcere animam meam

[9]. And:Lead out of prison my soul

[10], et caetera his similia. Tertium, quod dicat, et diabolum et daemones acturos poenitentiam aliquando, et cum sanctis ultimo tempore regnaturos. Quartum, quod tunicas pelliceas humana corpora interpretetur, quibus post offensam et eiectionem de paradiso Adam et Eva induti sint, haud dubium quin ante in paradiso sine carne, nervis et ossibus fuerint.

[10], and other things similar to these. Third, that he says both the devil and the demons will at some time do penitence, and will reign with the saints at the last time. Fourth, that he interprets the leather tunics as human bodies, with which, after the offense and the ejection from paradise, Adam and Eve were clothed, with no doubt that before in paradise they had been without flesh, sinews, and bones.

Quintum, quod carnis resurrectionem membrorumque compagem, et sexum quo viri dividimur a feminis, apertissime neget: tam in explanatione primi psalmi, quam in aliis multis tractatibus. Sextum, quod sic paradisum allegorizet, ut historiae auferat veritatem; pro arboribus Angelos, pro fluminibus virtutes coelestes intelligens: totamque paradisi continentiam tropologica interpretatione subvertat. Septimum; quod aquas, quae super coelos in Scripturis esse dicuntur, sanctas supernasque virtutes, quae super terram et infra terram contrarias et daemoniacas esse arbitretur.

Fifth, that he most openly denies the resurrection of the flesh and the compages of the members, and the sex by which males are divided from females: both in the explanation of the first psalm, and in many other treatises. Sixth, that he allegorizes Paradise in such a way as to take away the truth of the history; understanding Angels in place of trees, and heavenly virtues in place of rivers: and overturns the entire content of Paradise by a tropological interpretation. Seventh; that he deems the waters which in the Scriptures are said to be above the heavens to be holy and supernal virtues, and those above the earth and beneath the earth to be contrary and demoniacal.

Octavum, quod extremum obiicit, imaginem et similitudinem Dei, ad quam homo conditus fuerat, dicit ab eo perditam; et in homine post paradisum non fuisse.

Eighth, what he alleges last, he says that the image and similitude of God, according to which man had been created, was lost by him; and that in man after Paradise it was not present.

8. Hae sunt sagittae, quibus confoderis: haec tela, quibus in tota Epistola vulneraris: excepto eo, quod tuis genibus advolutus, sanctamque canitiem seposito parumper Sacerdotis honore substernens, deprecatur salutem tuam, et his verbis loquitur:Praesta mihi et tibi ut salveris, sicut scriptum est, A generatione perversa: et recede ab haeresi Origenis, et a cunctis haeresibus, dilectissime. Et infra: Propter defensionem haereseos adversum me odia suscitantes rumpitis charitatem, quam in vobis habui: intantum, ut faceretis nos etiam poenitere quare vobis communicaverimus, ita Origenis errores et dogmata defendentibus. Dic mihi, disputator egregie, de octo capitulis, ad quae responderis. Paulisper de caeteris taceo.

8. These are the arrows with which you are pierced through; these the weapons with which throughout the whole Epistle you are wounded: with the exception that, having fallen at your knees, and laying his holy gray hairs beneath you, with the honor of the Priest for a little set aside, he implores your salvation, and speaks in these words:Grant to me and to yourself that you may be saved, as it is written, From a perverse generation; and withdraw from the heresy of Origen, and from all heresies, most beloved. And below: On account of the defense of the heresy, by stirring up hatreds against me, you break the charity which I had in you: to such an extent that you even made us repent that we had communicated with you, you thus defending the errors and dogmas of Origen. Tell me, excellent disputant, about the eight chapters to which you have replied. For a little I am silent about the rest.

Prima illa blasphemia, quod nec Filius Patrem, nec Filium possit videre Spiritus sanctus, quibus a te telis confossa est? «Sanctam, inquit, et adorandam Trinitatem, eiusdem substantiae, et coaeternam; eiusdem gloriae et divinitatis credimus: anathematizantes eos, qui grande aut parvum, aut inaequale, aut visibile in deitate Trinitatis quidquam loquuntur. Sed sicut incorporalem, invisibilem, et aeternum dicimus Patrem: sic incorporalem, invisibilem et aeternum dicimus Filium et Spiritum sanctum.» Nisi hoc diceres, Ecclesiam non teneres: et tamen non quaero, si ante non dixeris: non eventilabo, si amaveris eos qui talia praedicaverint; cum quibus fueris, quando ista dicentes exsilia sustinebant: quis sit ille, qui Theone presbytero Spiritum sanctum Deum in Ecclesia praedicante, clauserit aures, forasque cum suis concitus fugerit, ne tantum audiret piaculum.

That first blasphemy, that neither the Son can see the Father, nor can the Holy Spirit see the Son—by what darts from you has it been pierced? «We believe,» he says, «in the holy and adorable Trinity, of the same substance and coeternal; of the same glory and divinity: anathematizing those who speak anything great or small, or unequal, or visible in the deity of the Trinity. But just as we call the Father incorporeal, invisible, and eternal: so we call the Son and the Holy Spirit incorporeal, invisible, and eternal.» Unless you were to say this, you would not hold the Church: and yet I do not inquire, if you had not said it before; I will not winnow it, if you have loved those who have preached such things; with whom you were, when those saying these things were enduring exiles: who he is who, when Theon the presbyter was preaching in the Church that the Holy Spirit is God, shut his ears, and in agitation fled outside with his own people, lest he should hear so great a sacrilege.

Statim sera conversione fidelem, inquit, volo. Miserabilis Praetextatus, qui designatus consul est mortuus. Homo sacrilegus, et idolorum cultor, solebat ludens beato Papae Damaso dicere: Facite me Romanae urbis episcopum, et ero protinus Christianus.

“Immediately, he says, I want him faithful by a late conversion.” Wretched Praetextatus, who died when designated consul. A sacrilegious man and a worshipper of idols, he used, jesting, to say to the blessed Pope Damasus: “Make me bishop of the Roman city, and I will be forthwith a Christian.”

Quid mihi longo sermone et laciniosis periodis Arianum te non esse demonstras? Aut nega hoc dixisse eum, qui arguitur: aut si locutus est talia, damna, quia dixerit. Vis scire quantus sit ardor bene credentium?

Why do you, with a long discourse and ragged periods, demonstrate to me that you are not an Arian? Either deny that the one who is accused said this; or, if he has spoken such things, condemn him because he said them. Do you wish to know how great is the ardor of the well-believing?

audi Apostolum: Et si nos, aut Angelus de coelo aliter evangelizaverit vobis quam annuntiavimus, anathema sit

hear the Apostle: And if we, or an Angel from heaven should evangelize to you otherwise than we announced, let him be anathema

[11]. Tu mihi ut crimen extenues, et dissimulato nomine criminosi, quasi secura sint omnia, et nullus in blasphemiis arguatur, otiosam fidem artifici sermone contexis. Dic statim, et Epistola tua hoc habeat exordium, anathema ei, qui talia ausus est scribere. Fides pura moram non patitur.

[11]. You, in order to extenuate the crime for me, and with the name of the criminal dissimulated, as though all things were secure and no one were accused in blasphemies, weave an idle faith with artful speech. Say at once, and let your Epistle have this as its exordium: anathema to him who has dared to write such things. Pure faith does not tolerate delay.

Ut apparuerit scorpius, illico conterendus est. David inventus secundum cor Domini, Nonne, inquit, odientes te, Domine, oderam et super inimicos tuos tabescebam? Perfecto odio oderam illos

As soon as a scorpion appears, it must be crushed straightway. David, found according to the heart of the Lord, Is it not, he says, that I hated those hating you, Lord, and I was wasting away over your enemies? With perfect hatred I hated them

[12]. Ego si patrem, si matrem, si germanum adversus Christum meum audivissem ista dicentes, quasi rabidi canis blasphemantia ora lacerassem, et fuisset in primis manus mea super eos. Qui patri et matri dixerunt:Non novimus vos, hi impleverunt voluntatem Domini. Qui diligit patrem aut matrem super Christum, non est eo dignus

[12]. If I had heard my father, my mother, or my brother saying such things against my Christ, I would have torn their blaspheming mouths like a rabid dog, and my hand would have been upon them first of all. They who said to father and mother:We do not know you, these fulfilled the will of the Lord. He who loves father or mother above Christ is not worthy of him

[13].

9. Obiicitur tibi, quod magister tuus, quem catholicum vocas, quem defendis obnixe, dixerit: «Filius non videt Patrem; et Filium non videt Spiritus sanctus: Et tu mihi dicis: Invisibilis Pater, invisibilis Filius, invisibilis Spiritus sanctus:» quasi non et Angeli et Cherubim et Seraphim, secundum naturam suam oculis nostris invisibiles sint? Certe David etiam de aspectu coelorum dubitans:Videbo, inquit, coelos, opera digitorum tuorum

9. It is objected to you that your master, whom you call catholic, whom you strenuously defend, said: «The Son does not see the Father; and the Holy Spirit does not see the Son: And you say to me: Invisible Father, invisible Son, invisible Holy Spirit:» as though not also the Angels and the Cherubim and the Seraphim, according to their nature, are invisible to our eyes? Surely David too, even doubting about the sight of the heavens:I will see, he says, the heavens, the works of your fingers

[14]. Videbo, non video. Videbo, quando facie revelata gloriam Domini fuero contemplatus: nunc autem ex parte videmus, et ex parte cognoscimus

[14]. I shall see, not I see. I shall see, when, the face having been unveiled, I shall have contemplated the glory of the Lord: now, however, we see in part, and we know in part

[15]. Quaeritur an Patrem videat Filius: et tu dicis: «Invisibilis Pater est.» Deliberatur an Filium videat Spiritus sanctus: et tu respondes, «Invisibilis est Filius.» Versatur in causa, an se invicem Trinitas videat, humanae aures tantam blasphemiam ferre non sustinent: et tu dicis, «Invisibilis Trinitas est.» In laudes caeteras evagaris: peroras in his, quae nullus inquirit. Auditorem aliorsum trahis, ut quod quaerimus, non loquaris. Verum haec ex superfluo dicta sint.

[15]. It is asked whether the Son sees the Father; and you say: «The Father is invisible.» It is deliberated whether the Holy Spirit sees the Son; and you answer, «The Son is invisible.» The case turns on whether the Trinity sees itself mutually—human ears cannot sustain so great a blasphemy—and you say, «The Trinity is invisible.» You wander into other eulogies; you perorate on things which no one inquires into. You drag the auditor elsewhere, so that you may not speak about what we are asking. But let these things have been said superfluously.

Donamus tibi, ut non sis Arianus: immo plus, ut numquam fueris. Concedimus, ut in expositione primi capituli, adversum te nulla suspicio sit, et totum pure, totum simpliciter sis locutus, eadem simplicitate et nos tecum loquimur. Num papa Epiphanius accusavit te, quod Arianus esses?

We grant you that you are not an Arian—nay more, that you never have been. We concede that in the exposition of the first chapter there is no suspicion against you, and that you have spoken everything purely, everything simply; with the same simplicity we too speak with you. Did Pope Epiphanius accuse you of being an Arian?

Num Eunomi, aut Aerii tibi impegit haeresim? Hoc per totam Epistolam quaeritur quod Origenis dogmatum sequaris errores, et quosdam habeas huius haereseos socios. Cur aliud interrogatus, respondes aliud, et quasi cum stultis loquaris dissimulatis criminibus, quae in litteris continentur, replicas quid in Ecclesia praesenti Epiphanio dixeris?

Has the heresy of Eunomius or of Aerius fastened upon you? Throughout the whole Epistle this is inquired: that you follow the errors of Origen’s dogmata, and that you have certain associates of this heresy. Why, when asked one thing, do you answer another, and, as if you were speaking with fools, with the charges concealed which are contained in the letters, do you reply by repeating what you said in the Church to Epiphanius when present?

Confessionem fidei postularis, et disertissimos tractatus tuos nolentibus ingeris? quaeso, lector, ut memor tribunalis Domini, et de iudicio tuo te intelligens iudicandum, nec mihi, nec adversario faveas, neve personas loquentium, sed causam consideres. Dicamus ergo quod coepimus.

You demand a confession of faith, and thrust your most eloquent treatises upon the unwilling? I beg, reader, that mindful of the tribunal of the Lord, and understanding that you yourself are to be judged for your judgment, you favor neither me nor the adversary, and consider not the persons of the speakers, but the cause. Let us say, then, what we have begun.

10. Scribis in Epistola tua, quod antequam Paulinianus presbyter fieret, numquam te Papa Epiphanius super Origenis errore convenit. Primum dubium est, et de personis disputo. Ille obiecisse se dicit, tu negas: ille testes profert, tu non vis audire productos.

10. You write in your Epistle that before Paulinianus became a presbyter, Pope Epiphanius never called you to account concerning the error of Origen. First, this is doubtful, and I dispute about the persons. He says that he objected; you deny it: he brings forward witnesses, you are unwilling to hear those produced.

Ille etiam commemorat alium esse conventum, tu pro utroque dissimulas: mittit tibi per Clericum suum epistolam, responsionem flagitat: taces, mutire non audes, et Paelestinae provocatus, Alexandriae loqueris. Inter illum et te, cui accommodanda sit fides, non est meum dicere. Puto quod nec ipse audeas adversum talem ac tantum virum, tibi veritatem, illi mendacium deputare.

He also commemorates that there was another meeting, you dissemble as to both: he sends you an epistle through his own Cleric, demands a response; you are silent, you do not dare to mutter, and, though provoked in Palestine, you speak at Alexandria. Between him and you, to whom credence should be accommodated, it is not mine to say. I think that not even you would dare, against such and so great a man, to assign truth to yourself and falsehood to him.

Sed fieri potest, ut unusquisque pro se loquatur. Teipsum contra te testem vocabo. Si enim nulla de dogmatibus quaestio versabatur: si stomachum senis non moveras: si ille tibi nihil responderat, quid necesse erat, ut in uno Ecclesiae tractatu, de cunctis dogmatibus, homo non satis eloquens, disputares: de Trinitate, de assumptione dominici corporis, de cruce, de inferis, de Angelorum natura, de animarum statu, de resurrectione Salvatoris, et nostra: et in terra, quae forsitan oblitus es scribere, praesentibus populis et tali ac tanto viro, intrepidus diceres, et omnia una saliva continuares?

But it may be that each one speaks for himself. I will call you yourself as a witness against you. For if there was no question being debated about dogmas; if you had not stirred the old man’s bile; if he had answered you nothing, what need was there that in one ecclesiastical tractate you, a man not sufficiently eloquent, should dispute about all the dogmas: about the Trinity, about the assumption of the Lord’s body, about the cross, about the underworld, about the nature of the angels, about the state of souls, about the resurrection of the Savior and of ourselves; and about the earth, which perhaps you forgot to write, with the peoples present and such and so great a man present, would you speak undaunted, and run everything together in one breath?

Ubi sunt veteres Ecclesiae tractatores, qui vix singulas quaestiones explicare multis voluminibus potuerunt? ubi electionis vas, tuba Evangelii, rugitus leonis nostri, tonitruus gentium, flumen eloquentiae Christianae, qui mysterium retro generationibus ignoratum, et profundum divitiarum sapientiae et scientiae Dei magis miratur, quam loquitur

Where are the ancient tractators of the Church, who could scarcely explain individual questions in many volumes? where is the vessel of election, the trumpet of the Gospel, the roar of our lion, the thunder of the nations, the river of Christian eloquence, who marvels more than he speaks at the mystery unknown to past generations, and at the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God

[16]? Ubi Isaias Virginis demonstrator, qui in una quaestione succumbens ait:Generationem eius quis enarrabit

[16]? Where is Isaiah, the demonstrator of the Virgin, who, succumbing in one question, says:Who will narrate his generation

[17]? Repertus est saeculis nostris haud grandis homunculus, qui de cunctis Ecclesiae quaestionibus, uno linguae rotatu sole clarius coruscaret. Si nemo a te postulabat, et tranquilla erant omnia, stulte tanta disputandi voluisti subire discrimina. Si iam tunc in satisfactione fidei loquebaris, ergo non est ordinatio presbyteri, causa discordiae: quem constat multo post tempore constitutum.

[17]? A not-grand homunculus has been found in our times, who, about all the Church’s questions, with a single rotation of the tongue would coruscate more brightly than the sun. If no one was demanding from you, and all things were tranquil, foolishly you wished to undergo such perils of disputation. If already then you were speaking in the satisfaction of the faith, then the ordination of the presbyter is not the cause of discord: whom it is agreed was constituted much later.

Fefellisti absentes, et litterae tuae peregrinis auribus blandiuntur.

You have deceived the absent, and your letters flatter foreign ears.

11. Nos hic eramus, cuncta novimus, quando contra Origenem in Ecclesia tua, Papa Epiphanius loquebatur: quando sub illius nomine in vos iacula torquebantur. Tu et chorus tuus canino rictu, naribusque contractis, scalpentes capita, delirum senem nutibus loquebamini. Nonne ante sepulcrum Domini misso Archidiacono praecepisti, ut talia disputans conticesceret?

11. We were here; we knew everything, when against Origen in your Church Pope Epiphanius was speaking: when under his name javelins were being hurled at you. You and your chorus, with a canine gape and your nostrils contracted, scratching your heads, by nods were calling him a delirious old man. Did you not, before the Lord’s Sepulcher, having sent the Archdeacon, command that, disputing such things, he fall silent?

Quis hoc umquam presbytero suo coram plebe imperavit Episcopus? Nonne cum de Anastasi pergeretis ad crucem, et ad eum omnis aetatis et sexus turba conflueret, offerens parvulos, pedes deosculans, fimbrias vellens: cumque non posset praemovere gradum, sed in uno loco vix fluctus inundantis populi sustineret, tu tortus invidia adversus gloriosum senem clamitabas: nec erubuisti in os ei dicere, quod volens et de industria moraretur. Recordare, quaeso, illius diei, quando ad horam septimam invitatus populus spe sola, quasi postea auditurus Epiphanium esset, detinebatur, quid tunc concionatus sis.

Has a Bishop ever commanded this to his presbyter in the presence of the people? Was it not when you were going from the Anastasis to the Cross, and a crowd of every age and sex was streaming together toward him, offering little ones, kissing his feet, plucking at the fringes; and when he could not move a step forward, but in one place could scarcely withstand the surge of the inundating populace, that you, twisted with envy against the glorious old man, kept shouting; nor did you blush to say to his face that he was delaying willingly and on purpose. Remember, I beg, that day, when until the seventh hour the invited people, by hope alone—as if they would afterwards hear Epiphanius—were being kept, what sort of harangue you then delivered.

Nempe contra Anthropomorphitas, qui simplicitate rustica Deum habere membra, quae in divinis libris scripta sunt, arbitrantur, furens et indignans loquebaris: oculos et manus et totius corporis truncum, in senem dirigebas, volens illum suspectum facere stultissimae haereseos. Postquam lassus ore arido, resupinaque cervice ac trementibus labiis conticuisti, et tandem totius populi voto completa sunt, quid tibi fecit delirus et fatuus senex? Surrexit, ut se indicaret pauca dicturum esse, salutataque et voce et manu Ecclesia, «Cuncta, inquit, quae locutus est collegio frater, aetate filius meus, contra Anthropomorphitarum haeresim, bene et fideliter locutus est, quae mea quoque damnatur voce.

Surely, against the Anthropomorphites—who, in rustic simplicity, suppose God to have the limbs that are written of in the divine books—you were speaking in a fury and indignant: you were directing eyes and hands and the trunk of the whole body at the old man, wishing to make him suspected of the most foolish heresy. After you, weary, with dry mouth and neck thrown back and trembling lips, fell silent, and at length, the wish of the whole people being fulfilled, what did the doting and foolish old man do to you? He rose, to indicate that he would say a few things, and, having greeted the Church both with voice and with hand, said: «Everything that the brother, my colleague, my son in age, has spoken against the heresy of the Anthropomorphites, he has spoken well and faithfully, which is condemned also by my voice.»

Sed aequum est, ut quomodo hanc haeresim condemnamus, etiam Origenis perversa dogmata condemnemus.» Qui risus omnium, quae acclamatio consecuta sit, puto quod retineas. Hoc est illud quod in Epistola tua dieis, loquentem illum ad populum quae vellet, et qualia vellet. Scilicet delirabat, qui in regno tuo contra tuam sententiam loquebatur.

"But it is equitable that, just as we condemn this heresy, we also condemn the perverse dogmas of Origen." What laughter of all, what acclamation ensued, I think you still retain. This is that which in your Epistle you say, that he was speaking to the people what he wished, and of whatever sort he wished. To be sure, he was delirious, who in your kingdom was speaking against your opinion.

Quae vellet, inquis, et qualia vellet. Vel lauda, vel reproba. Quid et hic dubius incedis?

What he wished, you say, and of what sort he wished. Either praise, or reprove. Why do you here too advance in doubt?

Si bona erant quae loquebatur, cur non aperte praedicas? Si mala, cur non constanter reprehendis? Atqui columna veritatis ac fidei, qui de tanto viro audet dicere, loquente illo ad populum quae vellet: de seipso quam prudenter et verecunde, quam humiliter referat, consideremus.

If the things he was speaking were good, why do you not openly proclaim them? If bad, why do you not steadfastly reprehend them? And yet the pillar of truth and of faith—he who dares to say about so great a man, that, as he was speaking to the people, he said whatever he wished—let us consider how prudently and modestly, how humbly, he reports about himself.

Cum, inquit, et nos quadam die ante eum locuti essemus et praesens lectio provocasset, audiente illo, et universa Ecclesia, de fide et omnibus ecclesiasticis dogmatibus haec locuti sumus, quae et semper, gratia Dei, indesinenter in Ecclesia docemus, et in catechesibus.

“When,” he says, “we too on a certain day had spoken before him, and the present lection had prompted it, with him, and the whole Church, listening, we spoke these things about the faith and all ecclesiastical dogmas—things which also we always, by the grace of God, unceasingly teach in the Church and in the catecheses.”

12. Rogo quae est ista confidentia, qui tantus animi tumor? Gorgiam Leontinum cuncti philosophi et oratores lacerant, quod ausus sit, publice sella posita, polliceri responsurum se, de qua quisque re interrogare voluisset. Nisi me honor sacerdotii, et veneratio nominis refrenaret, et scirem illud Apostoli:Nesciebam, fratres, quia Pontifex est: scriptum est enim: Principem populi tui non maledices

12. I ask, what is this confidence, what so great a swelling of spirit? All the philosophers and orators lacerate Gorgias the Leontine, because he dared, with a chair set up publicly, to promise that he would respond about whatever matter anyone might have wished to ask. If the honor of the priesthood and the veneration of the name did not rein me in, and if I did not know that saying of the Apostle:I did not know, brothers, that he is a High Priest; for it is written: You shall not speak evil of the ruler of your people

[18], qua vociferatione et indignatione verborum, de tua narratione conquererer! Licet ipse nominis tui extenues dignitatem, cum patrem pene omnium episcoporum, et antiquae reliquias sanctitatis et opere et sermone despicias. Dicis te quadam die, cum praesens lectio provocasset, audiente illo et universa Ecclesia, de fide et omnibus ecclesiasticis dogmatibus disputasse.

[18], with what outcry and indignation of words would I complain about your narrative! Granted you yourself attenuate the dignity of your name, since you despise the father of almost all bishops and the relics of ancient sanctity, both in deed and in word. You say that on a certain day, when the present reading had provoked it, with him and the whole Church listening, you disputed concerning the faith and all ecclesiastical dogmas.

Nunc est mirari Demosthenem, qui pulcherrimam orationem contra Aeschinem multo tempore dicitur exarasse. Frustra suspicimus Tullium; refert enim Cornelius Nepos, se praesente, iisdem pene verbis quibus edita est, eam pro Cornelio seditioso tribuno defensionem peroratam. En Lysias noster, en Gracchus, et ut aliquid de neotericis inferam, Quintus Aterius, qui ingenium in numerato habebat, ut sine monitore tacere non posset: de quo egregie Caesar Augustus, «Quintus, inquit, noster sufflaminandus est.»

Now it is a thing to marvel at Demosthenes, who is said to have drafted over a long time a most beautiful oration against Aeschines. We suspect Tullius in vain; for Cornelius Nepos relates that, he himself being present, in almost the very words in which it was published, that defense for Cornelius, the seditious tribune, was perorated. Behold our Lysias, behold Gracchus, and, to bring in something of the neoterics, Quintus Aterius, who had his genius in ready money, so that without a monitor he could not keep silence: about whom Caesar Augustus excellently said, «Quintus,» says he, «our man must be braked.»

13. Quisquamne prudentum et sani capitis in uno Ecclesiae tractatu, de fine et de omnibus ecclesiasticis dogmatibus se asserat disputasse? Quaeso te ut ostendas mihi, quae sit illa lectio, toto Scripturarum sapore condita, cuius te occasio provocarit, ut repente ad periculum ingenii descenderes? Et nisi tibi disertitudinis tuae fluvius inundasset, poteras argui, quod non posses ex tempore de cunctis dogmatibus dicere.

13. Would anyone of the prudent and of sound mind, in a single Church tractate, assert that he has disputed about the end and about all ecclesiastical dogmas? I beg you to show me what that lection is, seasoned with the whole savor of the Scriptures, whose occasion provoked you to descend suddenly to the peril of your ingenium. And unless the river of your eloquence had overflowed, you might have been charged with not being able to speak ex tempore about all dogmas.

Verum quid hoc est? aliud promittis, et aliud exhibes. Consuetudo autem apud nos istiusmodi est, ut his qui baptizandi sunt; per quadraginta dies, publice tradamus sanctam et adorandam Trinitatem.

But in truth, what is this? You promise one thing, and you exhibit another. But the custom among us is of this sort, that to those who are to be baptized; for forty days, we publicly hand down the holy and adorable Trinity.

Si te praesens lectio provocavit, ut de cunctis dogmatibus una hora diceres, quid necesse fuit quadraginta dierum replicare doctrinam? Sin autem ea referebas, quae per totam quadragesimam locutus es, quomodo te quadam die, ut de cunctis dogmatibus diceres, una lectio provocavit? Sed et hic ambigue loquitur: potest enim fieri, ut quae per quadraginta dies tradere solebat in Ecclesia baptizandis, haec sub unius lectionis occasione perstrinxerit.

If the present reading provoked you to speak about all dogmas in one hour, what need was there to replicate the doctrine of forty days? But if you were reporting those things which through the whole Quadragesima (Lent) you spoke, how did one reading on a certain day provoke you to speak about all dogmas? Yet even here he speaks ambiguously: for it can happen that the things which for forty days he was accustomed to deliver in the Church to those to be baptized, these he merely skimmed under the occasion of a single reading.

Eiusdem enim eloquentiae est, et pauca multis, et multa paucis verbis posse dicere. Hoc quoque intelligi datur, quod postquam illum una lectio provocavit, inflammatus ardore dicendi, per quadraginta dies numquam tacuerit. Sed et otiosus senex, ex eius ore dependens, dum res inauditas scire desiderat, pene dormiens ceciderit.

For it belongs to the same eloquence both to be able to say few things with many words and many things with few words. This also may be understood: that after a single reading provoked him, inflamed with the ardor of speaking, he never fell silent for forty days. But also the idle old man, hanging on his lips, while he desires to know unheard-of things, almost fell asleep.

Utcumque toleranda sunt: forsitan et haec simpliciter more suo sit locutus.

Anyhow, they are to be tolerated: perhaps he also has spoken these things simply in his own manner.

14. Ponamus reliqua, in quibus post laciniosae disputationis labyrinthos, nequaquam dubiam, sed apertam ponit sententiam, et miros tractatus suos hoc fine concludit: «Cum haec ipso praesente locuti essemus, et ipse post nos causa honoris, quem ei super omnem mensuram exhibuimus, provocatus esset ut diceret: praedicationem nostram laudavit, atque miratus est, et catholicam fidem esse omnibus declaravit. Quantum ei super omnem mensuram honoris exhibueris, declarant supra mensuram exhibitae contumeliae: quando eum per Archidiaconum tacere iussisti; et morantem in populis, laudis cupidum pertonabas. Docent praesentia de praeteritis.

14. Let us set aside the rest, in which, after the labyrinths of a ragged disputation, he sets not at all a doubtful but a manifest opinion, and concludes his wondrous tracts with this end: «When we had spoken these things with him himself present, and he himself after us—on account of the honor which we exhibited to him beyond all measure—had been provoked to speak: he praised our preaching, and he marveled, and he declared to all that it was the catholic faith. How much honor you have exhibited to him beyond all measure is declared by the contumelies exhibited beyond measure: when through the Archdeacon you ordered him to be silent; and, while he lingered among the people, greedy for praise, you were thundering at him. Present things teach about past things.

Ille per totum exinde triennium suas iniurias devorat, privataque simultate contempta, fidei tantum correctionem postulat. Tu qui sumptibus abundas, et totius orbis religio lucrum tuum est, gravissimos illos legatos tuos huc illucque transmittis, et dormientem senem ad respondendum suscitas. Et revera cui tantum honoris detuleras, iustum erat, ut tua praesertim extemporalia dicta laudaret.

He thereafter for a whole triennium devours his own injuries, and, private enmity despised, demands only a correction of the faith. You, who abound in expenses, and for whom the religion of the whole world is your profit, send those most weighty legates of yours hither and thither, and rouse the sleeping old man to make a reply. And indeed, to the one upon whom you had conferred so much honor, it was just that he should praise—especially—your extemporaneous sayings.

Quia vero solent interdum homines laudare quod non probant, et alienam stultitiam cassis nutrire praeconiis, non solum tua dicta laudavit, sed laudavit atque miratus est: et ne miraculum quoque parvum esset, catholicae esse fidei omni populo declaravit. Haec quam vere dixerit, et nos testes sumus qui audivimus, ad quos tuis vocibus perturbatus venit exanimis, temere se communicasse, dicens: Rogatusque ab omni Monasterio, ut ad te de Bethleem reverteretur, tantorum preces non ferens, sic reversus est vespere, ut medio noctis aufugeret, et litterae ad papam Siricium probant: quas si legeris, pervidebis, quomodo tua dicta miratus sit, et catholica declaraverit. Verum nugas terimus, et aniles et superfluas cantilenas longo sermone convincimus.

Because indeed men are wont sometimes to praise what they do not approve, and to nourish another’s stupidity with empty panegyrics, he not only praised your words, but praised and marveled; and so that even the wonder might not be small, he declared to all the people that they were of the catholic faith. How truly he said these things, we too are witnesses who heard them, to whom, perturbed by your voices, he came breathless, saying that he had rashly communicated; and, asked by the whole Monastery to return to you from Bethlehem, not bearing the entreaties of so many, he so returned in the evening that in the middle of the night he fled away; and the letters to Pope Siricius prove it: which, if you read, you will thoroughly see how he marveled at your words and declared them catholic. But we are grinding trifles, and we are confuting old-womanish and superfluous ditties with a long discourse.

15. Transeamus ad secundam quaestionem, in qua quasi nihil sibi propositum sit, securus et ructans dormire se simulat, ut legentes faciat dormitare. Sed de reliquis quae ad fidem pertinent, sermo nobis erat, id est, omnium visibilium, et invisibilium, coelestium fortitudinum, et terrestrium creaturarum unum et eumdem esse conditorem Deum, id est sanctam Trinitatem, «iuxta beatum David dicentem:Verbo Domini coeli firmati sunt, et spiritu oris eius omnis virtus eorum

15. Let us pass to the second question, in which, as though nothing had been set before him, secure and belching, he simulates sleep, so as to make those reading doze. But our discourse was about the remaining things which pertain to the faith, that is, that of all things visible and invisible, of the heavenly fortitudes and the earthly creatures, one and the same God is the founder, that is, the holy Trinity, «according to blessed David saying:By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their host

[19]: quod simpliciter ostendit et hominis creatio. Ipse est enim qui, accepto limo de terra, plasmavit hominem, et per gratiam propriae insufflationis animam donavit rationabilem [Al. rationalem], et liberi arbitrii, non partem aliquam suae naturae iuxta quosdam, qui hoc impie praedicant, sed propriam conditionem. Et de sanctis Angelis aeque credunt, secundum divinam Scripturam de Deo dicentem: Qui facit Angelos suos spiritus, et ministros suos ignem urentem

[19]: which the creation of man also plainly shows. For he himself is the one who, having taken clay from the earth, fashioned the man, and by the grace of his own insufflation he granted a rational soul [Al. rational], and free will—not some part of his own nature, according to certain persons who proclaim this impiously, but its own proper condition. And concerning the holy Angels they likewise believe, according to the divine Scripture speaking about God: Who makes his Angels spirits, and his ministers a burning fire

[20]: de quibus credere quod immutabilis[Al. immutabiles] naturae sint, non concedit nobis Scriptura, dicens: Angelos quoque qui non custodierunt suum principatum; sed dereliquerunt proprium domicilium in iudicium magni diei, vinculis aeternis in tenebris custodivit

[20]: about whom to believe that they are of an immutable[Alt. immutabiles] nature, Scripture does not grant to us, saying: And the angels also who did not keep their own principate; but abandoned their proper domicile—unto the judgment of the great day he has kept in eternal bonds in darkness

[21]: quia immutati sunt, et ex propria dignitate et gloria, magis in daemonum ordinem abisse eos cognovimus[Al. cognoscimus]. Animas vero hominum ex Angelorum ruina, aut ex conversione fieri: neque credidimus aliquando, neque docuimus (absit enim), et alienum hoc esse a praedicatione Ecclesiastica confitemur.»

[21]: since they have been changed, and from their own dignity and glory, we have come to know that they have rather gone away into the order of daemons[Al. we come to know]. But that the souls of men are made from the ruin of Angels, or from conversion: we have neither ever believed nor taught (far be it!), and we confess that this is alien to Ecclesiastical preaching.»

16. Quaerimus utrum animae antequam homo in paradiso fieret, et plasmaretur Adam de terra, inter rationabiles fuerint creaturas; utrum proprium statum habuerint, vixerint, moratae sint, atque substiterint, et an Origenis doctrina sit vera, qui dixit cunctas rationabiles creaturas, incorporales et invisibiles, si negligentiores fuerint, paulatim ad inferiora labi, et iuxta qualitates locorum ad quae defluunt, assumere sibi corpora. Verbi gratia, primum aetherea, deinde aerea. Cumque ad viciniam terrae pervenerint, crassioribus corporibus circumdari, novissime humanis carnibus alligari, ipsosque daemones, qui proprio arbitrio cum principe suo diabolo de Dei ministerio recesserunt, si paululum resipiscere coeperint, humana carne vestiri, ut acta deinceps poenitentia post resurrectionem eodem circulo, quo in carnem venerant, revertantur ad viciniam Dei, liberati etiam aereis aethereisque corporibus, et tunc omnia genua curvent Deo, coelestium, terrestrium, et infernorum, et sit Deus omnia omnibus.

16. We ask whether souls, before man was made in paradise and Adam was molded from the earth, were among the rational creatures; whether they had a proper state, lived, dwelt, and subsisted; and whether the doctrine of Origen is true, who said that all rational creatures, incorporeal and invisible, if they should prove more negligent, gradually slide down to lower things, and, according to the qualities of the places to which they flow down, assume bodies to themselves. For example, first ethereal, then aerial. And when they have come to the neighborhood of the earth, they are surrounded with thicker bodies, and at last are bound to human flesh; and that the demons themselves, who by their own choice withdrew with their prince the devil from the ministry of God, if they begin to come somewhat to their senses, are clothed with human flesh, so that, repentance thereafter having been performed, after the resurrection they return by the same circuit by which they had come into flesh, to the neighborhood of God, liberated also from aerial and ethereal bodies; and then all knees bend to God, of the celestial, terrestrial, and infernal, and God be all things in all.

Cum ergo ista quaerantur, cur tu omissis super quibus pugna est, de scammate et loco certaminis egrediens, in peregrinis et longe alienis disputationibus immoraris?

Since therefore these things are being inquired, why do you, leaving aside the very matters over which the fight is, going out from the ring and the place of the contest, linger in peregrine and far alien disputations?

17. Credis quod cunctas visibiles, et invisibiles creaturas unus Deus fecerit: hoc et Arius confiteretur, qui dicit cuncta creata per Filium. Si de Marcionis arguereris haeresi, quae alterum bonum, alterum iustum Deum inferens; illum invisibilium, hunc visibilium asserit Creatorem, recte mihi de huiusmodi satisfeceris quaestione. Credis quod universitatis Trinitas sit creatrix.

17. You believe that one God made all visible and invisible creatures: this even Arius would confess, who says that all things were created through the Son. If you should be charged with the heresy of Marcion, which, bringing in one good God and another just God; he asserts that that one is the Creator of invisibles, this one of visibles, you would have rightly satisfied me concerning a question of this sort. You believe that the Trinity is the creatrix of the universe.

Istud Ariani et Hemiariani negant, Spiritum sanctum non conditorem, sed conditum blasphemantes. Sed te quis hoc tempore insimulat Arianum? Dicis animas hominum non partem Dei esse naturae; quasi Manichaeus nunc ab Epiphanio sis vocatus.

This the Arians and Semi-Arians deny, blaspheming the Holy Spirit as not a creator, but created. But who at this time charges you as an Arian? You say that the souls of men are not part of the nature of God; as though you had now been called a Manichaean by Epiphanius.

Detestaris eos, qui animas ex Angelis asserunt fieri, et illorum ruinam nostram dicunt esse substantiam. Noli dissimulare quod nosti, nec simplicitate quod non habes fingere: Nec Origenes umquam dixit ex Angelis animas fieri, cum ipsos Angelos nomen esse officii doceat, non naturae. In libris enim, et Angelos, et Thronos, et Dominationes, Potestates, et rectores mundi, et tenebrarum, et omne nomen quod nominatur

You detest those who assert that souls are made from Angels, and say that their ruin is our substance. Do not dissimulate what you know, nor feign by simplicity what you do not have: nor did Origen ever say that souls are made from Angels, since he teaches that Angels themselves is a name of office, not of nature. For in his books both Angels, and Thrones, and Dominations, Powers, and the rulers of the world, and of darkness, and every name that is named

[22], non solum in praesenti saeculo, sed in futuro, dicit animas esse eorum corporum, quae vel desiderio, vel ministerio susceperint. Solem quoque ipsum et lunam, et omnium astrorum chorum, esse animas rationabilium quondam et incorporalium creaturarum: quae nunc vanitati subiectae, ignitis videlicet corporibus, quae nos imperiti et rudes luminaria mundi appellamus, liberabuntur a servitute corruptionis in libertatem gloriae filiorum Dei. Unde et omnis creatura congemiscit et parturit.

[22], not only in the present age, but in the future, he says that souls belong to those bodies which they have assumed either by desire or by ministry. The sun itself also and the moon, and the chorus of all the stars, are the souls of rational and formerly incorporeal creatures: which now, subjected to vanity—namely in fiery bodies—which we, unskilled and rude, call the luminaries of the world, will be freed from the servitude of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the sons of God. Whence also every creature groans together and travails.

Et Apostolus deplorat, dicens: Infelix ego homo, quis me liberabit de corpore mortis huius? Non est istius temporis contra dogma gentilium, et ex parte Platonicum, scribere. Ante annos ferme decem in Commentariis Ecclesiaste, et in explanatione Epistolae ad Ephesios, arbitror sensum animi mei prudentibus explicatum.

And the Apostle deplores, saying: Unhappy man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? It is not the time for writing against the dogma of the Gentiles, and in part Platonic. About nearly ten years ago, in the Commentaries on Ecclesiastes, and in the explanation of the Epistle to the Ephesians, I judge that the sense of my mind has been explained to the prudent.

18. Hoc nunc rogo, qui tanta loqueris, qui de cunctis sermonibus sub uno tractatu edisseris veritatem, ut respondeas sciscitantibus brevem absolutamque sententiam. Quando plasmavit Deus hominem ex limo, et per gratiam propriae insufflationis ei animam tribuit: utrum illa anima fuerit ante et substiterit, et ubi versata sit, quae Dei postea insufflatione donata est: an in sexto die quando corpus ex limo formatum est, et esse et vivere, Dei potestate susceperit. De hoc taces, et quid quaeratur scire dissimulans, in superfluis quaestionibus occuparis.

18. This now I ask—you who speak such great things, who under a single tractate expound the truth concerning all discourses—that you answer those inquiring with a brief and absolute sentence. When God fashioned the human from clay, and by the grace of His own insufflation bestowed upon him a soul: whether that soul had existed before and had subsisted, and where it had been engaged, which later was endowed by God’s insufflation; or whether on the sixth day, when the body was formed from clay, it received both being and living by the power of God. About this you are silent, and, dissembling as to what is being sought, you occupy yourself with superfluous questions.

Origenem relinquis intactum, et contra Marcionem, Apollinarem, Eunomium, Manichaeum, Arium caeterorumque haereticorum ineptias debaccharis. Manum peteris, et pedem porrigis; et tamen dogma quod retines, latenter insinuas. Sic nos rusticos placas, ut tuis penitus non displiceas.

You leave Origen untouched, and you rave against the ineptitudes of Marcion, Apollinaris, Eunomius, Manichaeus, Arius, and the other heretics. You ask for the hand, and you stretch forth the foot; and yet the dogma which you retain, you insinuate covertly. Thus you placate us rustics, so that you may not utterly displease your own.

19. Dicis ex Angelis daemones potius quam animas fieri, quasi non et ipsi daemones iuxta Origenem, animae sint aerei corporis, et ex daemonibus postea si resipuerint, humanae animae sint futuri.Angelos scribis esse mutabiles, et sub eo quod pium est, illud quod impium est introducis; ut multis periodis animae fiant non ex Angelis, sed ex his vocabulis, in quae prius Angeli mutati sunt. Volo quod dico, manifestius fieri: finge aliquem tribunitiae potestatis suo vitio regradatum, per singula militiae equestris officia, ad tironis vocabulum devolutum, numquid ex tribuno statim fit tiro?

19. You say that from Angels demons rather than souls are made, as if the demons themselves, according to Origen, were souls of an aerial body, and that from demons afterward, if they recover their senses, they are going to be human souls.You write that Angels are mutable, and under that which is pious you introduce that which is impious; so that through many periods souls come to be not from Angels, but from those appellations into which Angels had first been changed. I wish what I say to be made more manifest: imagine someone of tribunitian power retrograded by his own fault, rolled down through each office of the equestrian service to the appellation of a recruit—does he from a tribune at once become a recruit?

Non; sed ante primicerius, deinde senator, ducenarius, centenarius, biarchus, circitor, eques, dein tiro; et quamquam tribunus quondam miles gregarius sit, tamen ex tribuno non tiro, sed primicerius factus est. Docet Origenes per scalam Iacob paulatim rationabiles creaturas ad ultimum gradum, id est, ad carnem et sanguinem descendere: nec fieri posse, ut de centenario numero subito quis ad unum numerum praecipitetur, nisi per singulos numeros, quasi per scalae gradus, ad ultimum usque perveniat; et tot mutare corpora, quot de coelo ad terram mutaverint mansiones. Hae sunt strophae vestrae atque praestigiae, quibus nos Pelusiotas et iumenta, et animales homines dicitis, quia non recipimus ea quae spiritus sunt.

No; but first a primicerius, then a senator, a ducenarius, a centenarius, a biarchus, a circitor, a horseman, then a recruit; and although a tribune was once a rank-and-file soldier, nevertheless from tribune he did not become a recruit, but was made a primicerius. Origen teaches that by Jacob’s ladder rational creatures gradually descend to the last step, that is, to flesh and blood: and that it cannot happen that someone is suddenly hurled from the hundred-number down to the one-number, unless through the individual numbers, as if through the rungs of a ladder, he comes all the way to the last; and that they change as many bodies as the mansions they have changed from heaven to earth. These are your twists and prestidigitations, by which you call us Pelusiots both beasts of burden and animal men, because we do not receive the things that are of the spirit.

Vos Hierosolymitae etiam Angelos deridetis. Pertrahuntur [Al. protrahuntur] in medium vestra mysteria, et de Gentilium fabulis dogma contextum, Christianis auribus publicatur. Hoc quod vos miramini, olim in Platone contempsimus.

You Hierosolymites even deride the Angels. Your mysteries are dragged [Alt. are brought forth] into the midst, and a dogma woven from the fables of the Gentiles is published to Christian ears. This thing which you marvel at, we long ago despised in Plato.

Contempsimus autem, quia Christi stultitiam recepimus. Recepimus Christi stultitiam, quia fatuum Dei sapientius est hominibus. Non pudet Christianos et sacerdotes Dei, quasi de rebus ludicris agatur, verbis dubiis haerere, et ambiguas librare sententias, quibus loquens magis quam audiens decipitur

We have, however, contemned it, because we have received the folly of Christ. We have received the folly of Christ, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men. Are Christians and the priests of God not ashamed, as though the matter were about ludicrous things, to cling to doubtful words and to balance ambiguous sentences, whereby the one speaking is deceived more than the one hearing

[23].

20. Unus ex choro vestro cum a me teneretur, ut diceret quid sentiret de anima, fuissetne ante carnem, an non fuisset; fuisse respondit simul, et corpus et animam. Sciebam hominem haereticum laqueos in sermone quaerere. Tamdem reperi eum, ex quo corpus animasset, ex tunc eam dicere animam nuncupatam, quae prius vel daemon, vel Angelus Satanae, vel spiritus fornicationis, aut in parte contraria, dominatio, potestas, administrator spiritus, aut nuncius appellata sit.

20. One from your choir, when he was being held by me to say what he felt about the soul—whether it had been before the flesh, or had not been—answered that both body and soul had existed together. I knew the man, a heretic, to be seeking snares in discourse. At length I discovered him to say that, from the time when it had animated the body, from then it is named “soul”; which previously had been called either a demon, or an Angel of Satan, or a spirit of fornication, or, on the contrary side, a domination, a power, an administering spirit, or a messenger.

Si fuit anima antequam Adam in paradiso formaretur, in quolibet statu et ordine, et vixit, et egit [Al. erat] aliquid (neque enim possumus incorporalem, et aeternam in modum glirium immobilem torpentemque sentire), necesse est ut aliqua causa praecesserit, cur quae prius sine corpore fuit, postea circumdata sit corpore. Et si animae est naturale esse sine corpore, ergo contra naturam est esse in corpore. Si contra naturam est esse in corpore, ergo resurrectio corporis contra naturam erit.

If the soul existed before Adam was formed in paradise, in whatever status and order, and lived, and did [Al. was] something (for we cannot conceive the incorporeal and eternal as immobile and torpid after the manner of dormice), it is necessary that some cause should have preceded, why that which previously was without a body was afterward encompassed with a body. And if it is natural to the soul to be without a body, then it is against nature to be in a body. If it is against nature to be in a body, then the resurrection of the body will be against nature.

Sed non fiet resurrectio contra naturam; ergo iuxta sententiam vestram corpus quod contra naturam est resurgens, animam non habebit.

But the resurrection will not take place against nature; therefore, according to your opinion, the body which is rising again against nature will not have a soul.

21. Dicis animam non esse de Dei substantia. Pulchre. Damnas enim impiissimum Manichaeum, quem nominare pollutio est.

21. You say that the soul is not of the substance of God. Well. For you condemn the most impious Manichaean, whom to name is pollution.

Dicis ex Angelis animas non fieri. Acquiesco paulisper, licet noverim quo sensu dixeris. Quia ergo didicimus quid neges, volumus scire quid credas.

You say that souls are not made from Angels. I acquiesce for a little while, although I know in what sense you have said it. Since therefore we have learned what you deny, we wish to know what you believe.

«Accepto, inquis, de terra limo, plasmavit Deus hominem, et per gratiam propriae insufflationis animam donavit rationabilem; et liberi arbitrii, non partem aliquam suae naturae, iuxta quosdam, qui hoc impie praedicant, sed propriam conditionem.» Videte quanto circumitu, quod non quaerimus, eloquatur. Scimus quod de terra Deus plasmavit hominem, novimus quod insufflavit in faciem eius, et factus est in animam viventem: non ignoramus quod anima rationalis sit, et proprii arbitrii, et scimus quod Dei illa conditio sit. Nemo dubitat errare Manichaeum, qui dicit eam esse Dei substantiam.

«Having taken, you say, clay from the earth, God formed man, and by the grace of His own insufflation He bestowed a rational soul; and one of free will—not some part of His own nature, according to certain people who impiously proclaim this, but a proper creation.» See with how much circumlocution he speaks about what we are not asking. We know that God formed man from the earth, we know that He breathed into his face, and he was made into a living soul: we are not unaware that the soul is rational and of its own free will, and we know that it is a creation of God. No one doubts that the Manichaean errs, who says that it is the substance of God.

Hoc nunc interrogo: Anima ista Dei conditio, liberi arbitrii, rationalis, neque de substantia Creatoris, quando facta sit: utrum eo tempore quo de limo factus est homo, et insufflatum est spiraculum vitae in faciem eius: an quae prius fuerat [Al. antea facta fuerat], et inter rationabiles creaturas et incorporeas erat atque vivebat, Dei postea insufflatione donata sit? Hic taces, hic simplicem ac rusticum te simulas; et sub verbis Scripturae, ea quae Scriptura non sentit, abscondis. In eo loco ubi dicis, quod nullus quaerit, non illam partem aliquam esse suae [Al. divinae] naturae, iuxta quosdam qui hoc impie praedicant, illud magis debueras dicere, quod omnes quaerimus, non eam, quae prius fuerat, non eam quam ante condiderat, quae inter rationabiles atque incorporeas et invisibiles creaturas multo iam tempore versabatur.

This I now ask: this soul, a creation of God, of free will, rational, and not of the substance of the Creator—when was it made? Was it at that time when man was made from clay, and the breath of life was insufflated into his face; or was that which had previously existed [Al. had previously been made], and was among rational and incorporeal creatures and lived, afterward endowed by God’s insufflation? Here you are silent, here you pretend yourself simple and rustic; and under the words of Scripture you hide those things which Scripture does not mean. In that place where you say, what no one asks, that it is not some part of his [Al. divine] nature, according to certain persons who impiously preach this, you ought rather to have said what we all ask: that it is not that which previously had been, not that which he had before created, which for a very long time already was conversant among rational and incorporeal and invisible creatures.

Nihil horum loqueris, producis nobis Manichaeum, et abscondis Origenem, et sicut parvulis cibum poscentibus, ludicra quaedam offerunt gerulae, ut avocent mentes eorum, sic tu nos rusticos avocas ad alia, ut dum alterius personae novitate tenemur, quod volumus non quaeramus.

You say nothing of these things; you produce for us a Manichaean and conceal Origen; and just as nursemaids offer certain playthings to little children asking for food, to avert their minds, so you divert us rustics to other matters, so that, while we are held by the novelty of another person, we do not seek what we desire.

22. Esto, hoc non loquaris, et simplicitas tua nihil in se habeat quod callide taceas. Qui ergo de anima semel dicere coeperas, et de re tanta ab exordio conditionis humanae repetere: cur, disputatione pendente, ad Angelos et ad dispensationem Dominici corporis repente transcendis: et tam grandi in medio praetermissa salebra, dubios nos in luto haerere pateris? Si insufflatio Dei, quod non vis, et quod nunc relinquis ambiguum, humanae animae conditio est: Eva, in cuius faciem non insufflavit Deus, unde animam habuit?

22. Be it so: do not say this, and let your simplicity have in itself nothing that you cunningly keep silent. You then, who once began to speak about the soul, and to trace back, concerning so great a matter, to the beginning of the human condition—why, while the disputation hangs in suspense, do you suddenly overleap to the Angels and to the dispensation of the Lord’s body; and, with so great a rut left out in the midst, do you suffer us, wavering, to stick fast in the mud? If the insufflation of God—which you do not wish, and which you now leave ambiguous—is the constitution of the human soul, Eve, into whose face God did not breathe, whence had she a soul?

Taceo de Eva, quae in typo Ecclesiae de costa viri aedificata, non debet post tanta saecula nepotum calumnias sustinere. Cain et Abel, primi ex primis hominibus, unde habuere animas? Omne deinceps humanum genus, quibus animarum censetur exordiis?

I pass over Eve, who, in the type of the Church, built from the rib of the man, ought not, after so many ages, to sustain the calumnies of descendants. Cain and Abel, the first from the first human beings—whence did they have souls? All the human race thereafter, by what beginnings of souls is it accounted?

Utrum ex traduce, iuxta bruta animalia: ut quomodo corpus ex corpore, sic anima generetur ex anima? an rationabiles creaturae desiderio corporum paulatim ad terram delapsae, novissime etiam humanis illigatae corporibus sint? An certe (quod Ecclesiasticum est secundum eloquia Salvatoris) Pater meus usque modo operatur, et ego operor

Whether by propagation, after the fashion of brute animals: so that just as a body from a body, thus a soul is generated from a soul? or whether rational creatures, by desire for bodies, have gradually slipped down to earth, and at last have even been bound to human bodies? Or certainly (which is ecclesiastical according to the sayings of the Savior) My Father is working until now, and I am working

[24]. Et illud Isaiae:Qui format spiritum hominis in ipso. Et in Psalmis: Qui fingit per singulos corda eorum

[24]. And that of Isaiah:Who forms the spirit of man within him. And in the Psalms: Who fashions their hearts one by one

[25], quotidie Deus fabricatur animas: cuius velle fecisse est, et conditor esse non cessat? Scio quae contra haec soleatis dicere, et adulteria nobis atque incesta proponere; quae longior pugna est, nec huius temporis patitur angustias. Eadem controversia et in vos retorqueri potest: et quodcumque in Conditorem praesentis temporis videtur indignum, hoc etiam eo donante non est indignum.

[25], daily God fashions souls: for whom to will is to have made, and he does not cease to be Creator? I know what you are wont to say against these things, and to propose to us adulteries and incests; which is a longer contest, and does not admit the constraints of this time. The same controversy can be retorted upon you as well: and whatever seems unworthy with respect to the Creator of the present time, this also, he being the giver, is not unworthy.

Nasci de adulterio, non eius culpa est qui nascitur, sed illius qui generat. Quomodo in seminibus non peccat terra quae fovet, non semen quod in sulcos iacitur, non humor et calor, quibus temperata frumenta in germem pullulant, sed verbi gratia, fur et latro qui fraude et vi eripit semina, sic in generatione hominum [Al. genus humanum] recipit terra, id est, vulva quod suum est; et receptum confovet, confotum corporat, corporatum in membra distinguit. Et inter illas secretas ventris angustias, Dei manus semper operatur: idemque est corporis et animae Creator.

To be born of adultery is not the fault of the one who is born, but of the one who begets. Just as in the matter of seeds the earth that nurtures does not sin, nor the seed that is cast into the furrows, nor the moisture and the heat, by whose tempering the grain buds into a germ, but, for example, the thief and robber who by fraud and by force snatches away the seeds, so in the generation of human beings [Al. genus humanum] the earth, that is, the womb, receives what belongs to it; and what has been received it cherishes, what has been cherished it incorporates, what has been incorporated it distinguishes into members. And amid those hidden straits of the belly, the hand of God is always at work: and He is the same Creator of body and soul.

Noli despicere bonitatem figuli tui, qui te plasmavit, et fecit ut voluit. Ipse est Dei virtus et Dei sapientia qui [Al. quae] in utero Virginis aedificavit sibi domum

Do not despise the goodness of your potter, who formed you and made you as he willed. He himself is the power of God and the wisdom of God who [Al. which] in the womb of the Virgin built for himself a house

[26]. Iephte inter viros sanctos Apostoli voce numeratus, meretricis est filius. Sed audi, ex Rebecca et Isaac, Esau genitus, hispidus, tam mente quam corpore, quasi bonum triticum in lolium avenasque degenerat: quia non in seminibus, sed in voluntate nascentis, causa est vitiorum atque virtutum. Si offensa est nasci corporibus humanis, quomodo Isaac

[26]. Jephthah, numbered among the holy men by the Apostle’s voice, is the son of a prostitute. But listen: from Rebecca and Isaac, Esau was begotten, hirsute, as much in mind as in body, as if good wheat degenerates into darnel and wild oats: because the cause of vices and virtues is not in the seeds, but in the will of the one being born. If it is an offense to be born into human bodies, how is Isaac

[27], Samson

[28], Ioannes Baptista

[28], John the Baptist

[29], de repromissione nascuntur? Intelligis quid sit fidem suam audacter ac libere profiteri? Pone errare me, aperte dico quod sentio.

[29], are they born of the promise? Do you understand what it is to profess one’s faith boldly and freely? Assume that I err, I say openly what I think.

Et tu igitur aut libere nostra profitere, aut constanter tua loquere. Noli statuere te in acie mea, ut rusticitate simulata in tuto habeas, cum volueris, pugnanti terga confodere. Non est istius temporis contra Origenis dogmata conscribere: alteri istud, si Christus vitam dederit, operi dedicabimus.

And you, therefore, either freely profess what is ours, or steadfastly speak what is yours. Do not set yourself in my battle-line, so that, with feigned rusticity, you may hold yourself in safety and, whenever you wish, stab in the back the one who is fighting. This is not the time to compose against the dogmata of Origen: we shall dedicate that, if Christ grant life, to another work.

Nunc quaeritur, an qui arguitur, ad interrogata responderit, et simplex sit et aperta eius responsio.

Now it is inquired whether the accused has answered the interrogatories, and whether his response is both simple and open.

23. Transeamus hinc ad famosissimam de resurrectionne carnis et corporis quaestionem, in qua te rursum, lector, admonitum volo, ut cum timore et iudicio Dei me scias loqui, et te audire debere. Neque enim tantae stultitiae sum, ut si in expositione illius fides mera est; et perfidiae nulla suspicio, quaeram accusandi occasionem: et dum volo alium notare culpae, ipse noter calumniae. Lege ergo de resurrectione carnis quae subdita sunt; et cum legeris, et placuerint (scio enim placitura ignorantibus), suspende iudicium, exspecta paulisper, usque ad finem responsionis nostrae cohibe sententiam: et si tibi postea placuerint, tunc nos calumniae denotabis.

23. Let us pass over from here to the most famous question concerning the resurrection of the flesh and the body, in which again, reader, I wish you to be admonished, that with fear and the judgment of God you may know that I speak, and that you ought to hear. For I am not of such folly as, if in his exposition the faith is pure, and there is no suspicion of perfidy, to seek an occasion for accusing; and while I wish to mark another with fault, to be myself marked with calumny. Read therefore, on the resurrection of the flesh, the things which are subjoined; and when you have read, and they have pleased you (for I know they will be pleasing to the ignorant), suspend judgment, wait a little, restrain your opinion until the end of our response: and if afterwards they shall have pleased you, then you will brand us with calumny.

«Passionem quoque eius in cruce et mortem ac sepulturam, quae universa servavit, ac resurrectionem veritate, et non putative confitemur: qui

«We confess also his Passion on the cross and death and sepulture, all of which he fully underwent, and the Resurrection in verity, and not putatively, who

[30] et primogenitus ex mortuis, primitias massae corporum nostrorum, quas in sepulcro positas suscitavit, pervexit ad coelum, spem nobis resurrectionis in resurrectione proprii corporis tribuens: unde et omnes sic speramus resurgere ex mortuis, sicut ille resurrexit. Non in aliis quibusdam peregrinis et in alienis corporibus, quae assumuntur in phantasmate: sed sicut ipse in illo corpore, quod apud nos in sancto sepulcro conditum resurrexit: ita et nos in ipsis corporibus, quibus nunc circumdamur, et in quibus nunc sepelimur, eadem ratione et visione speramus resurgere. Quae enim iuxta Apostolum seminantur in corruptione, surgent in incorruptione: quae seminantur in ignobilitate, surgent in gloria.Seminatur corpus animale, surget corpus spirituale

[30] and the firstborn from the dead, the first-fruits of the mass of our bodies, which, having been placed in the sepulchre, he raised and carried up to heaven, granting to us the hope of resurrection in the resurrection of his own body: whence also we all thus hope to rise again from the dead, just as he rose again. Not in certain other foreign and alien bodies, which are assumed in phantasm, but just as he, in that body which among us, laid in the holy sepulchre, rose again: so also we, in the very bodies with which we are now encompassed and in which we are now buried, by the same reason and vision hope to rise again. For those things which, according to the Apostle, are sown in corruption, will rise in incorruption; those which are sown in ignobility, will rise in glory.It is sown a natural body, it will rise a spiritual body

[31]: de quibus et Salvator docens locutus est:Qui enim digni fuerint saeculo illo, et resurrectione ex mortuis, neque nubent neque nubentur: neque enim ultra mori poterunt: sed erunt sicut Angeli Dei: cum sint filii resurrectionis

[31]: concerning which also the Savior, teaching, spoke:For those who shall be worthy of that age, and of the resurrection from the dead, will neither marry nor be given in marriage: for neither will they be able to die any longer: but they will be like the Angels of God: since they are sons of the resurrection

[32].

24. Rursum in alia parte Epistolae, hoc est, in fine suorum tractatuum, ut auribus illuderet nescientium, strepitum resurrectionis ac pompam hac verborum ambiguitate libravit: «Sed neque de secundo glorioso adventu Domini nostri Iesu Christi intermisimus, qui venturus est in gloria sua iudicare vivos et mortuos: ipse enim suscitabit omnes mortuos, et ante suum tribunal esse faciet: et unicuique reddet secundum quod egit per corpus, sive bonum sive malum; scilicet aut coronandus in corpore, quod caste egit, et iuste; aut condemnandus, quod voluptatibus pariter iniquitatibusque servivit.» Hoc quod in Evangelio legimus: In consummatione mundi,si fieri potest

24. Again in another part of the Epistle, that is, at the end of his tractates, in order to mock the ears of the unknowing, he balanced the din of the resurrection and the pomp by this ambiguity of words: «But neither have we omitted the second glorious advent of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is going to come in his glory to judge the living and the dead: for he himself will raise all the dead, and will cause them to be present before his tribunal: and he will render to each according to what he has done through the body, whether good or evil; namely, either to be crowned in the body, inasmuch as he acted chastely and justly; or to be condemned, because he served pleasures and iniquities alike.» This which we read in the Gospel: At the consummation of the world,if it can be done

[33], seduci etiam electos, in hoc capitulo comprobamus. Audit vulgus indoctum mortuos et sepultos: audit resurrectionem mortuorum, veritate et non putative: audit primitias massae nostrorum corporum, in Domini corpore ad coelestia pervenisse: audit resurrecturos, non in peregrinis alienisque corporibus, quae assumuntur in phantasmate, sed sicut surrexit Dominus in corpore, quod apud nos in sancto sepulcro conditum iacuit: ita et nos in ipsis corporibus, quibus nunc circumdamur et sepelimur, in die iudicii resurrecturos. Et ne hoc parum quis existimaret, addit in extremo capitulo: «Et unicuique reddet secundum quod egit per corpus, sive bonum, sive malum: scilicet aut coronandus in corpore quod caste egit et iuste: aut condemnandus, quod voluptatibus iniquitatibusque servivit.» Haec audiens, indoctum vulgus, in tanto mortuorum, sepulti corporis, resurrectionis sonitu, nullam stropham, nullas insidias suspicatur.

[33], to seduce even the elect, we verify in this chapter. The unlearned crowd hears “the dead and the buried”; it hears “the resurrection of the dead, in truth and not putatively”; it hears “that the first-fruits of the mass of our bodies have reached the heavenly places in the Lord’s body”; it hears that we shall rise again, not in foreign and alien bodies, which are assumed in phantasm, but just as the Lord rose in the body which among us lay laid in the holy sepulcher: so also we, in the very bodies with which we are now encompassed and are buried, shall rise on the day of judgment. And lest anyone should deem this too little, he adds in the last chapter: «And to each he will render according as he has done through the body, whether good or evil: namely, either to be crowned in the body in which he acted chastely and justly, or to be condemned, because he served pleasures and iniquities.» Hearing these things, the unlearned crowd, at so great a sound of the dead, of the buried body, of resurrection, suspects no stratagem, no ambushes.

Credit esse quod dicitur. Sanctiores enim sunt aures populi, quam sacerdotis animus.

Let what is said be believed. For the ears of the people are holier than the mind of the priest.

25. Iterum atque iterum, te lector, commoneo, ut patientiam teneas, et discas quod ego quoque per patientiam didici; et tamen antequam vultum draconis evolvam, et dogma Origenis de resurrectione breviter exponam (non enim poteris vim scire antidoti, nisi venena perspexeris), illud diligenter observa et caute relegens numera: quod novies resurrectionem nominans corporis, ne semel quidem carnis inseruit: suspectumque tibi sit, quod de industria praetermisit. Dicit ergo Origenes in pluribus locis, et maxime in libro de Resurrectione quarto, et in Expositione primi psalmi, et in Stromatibus, duplicem errorem versari in Ecclesia; nostrorum, et haereticorum: «Nos simplices et philosarcas dicere, quod eadem ossa, et sanguis, et caro, id est, vultus et membra, totiusque compago corporis resurgat in novissima die: scilicet ut pedibus ambulemus, operemur manibus, videamus oculis, auribus audiamus, circumferamusque ventrem insatiabilem, et stomachum cibos concoquentem. Consequens autem esse, qui ista credamus, dicere nos quod et comedendum nobis sit, et bibendum, digerenda stercora, effundendus humor, ducendae uxores, liberi procreandi.

25. Again and again, I remind you, reader, to hold to patience, and to learn what I too learned through patience; and yet, before I unfold the visage of the dragon and briefly set forth Origen’s dogma concerning the resurrection (for you will not be able to know the power of the antidote unless you have examined the poisons), observe this diligently and, rereading cautiously, count: that, naming nine times the resurrection “of the body,” he did not insert “of the flesh” even once; and let what he has omitted on purpose be suspect to you. Therefore Origen says in many places, and especially in the fourth book On the Resurrection, and in the Exposition of the first psalm, and in the Stromata, that a double error is current in the Church: ours and that of the heretics: «We simple folk and philosarcs (flesh-lovers) say that the same bones and blood and flesh—that is, the face and the limbs and the entire structure of the body—will rise again on the last day: namely, that we will walk with feet, work with hands, see with eyes, hear with ears, and carry about an insatiable belly and a stomach concocting foods. And that, since we believe these things, it follows that we say that we must also eat and drink, excrements must be digested, moisture poured out, wives taken, children begotten.»

Quo enim membra genitalia, si nuptiae non erunt? Quo dentes, si cibi non molendi sunt? Quo venter et cibi si iuxta Apostolum et hic et illi destruentur?

To what end, then, the genital members, if there are to be no nuptials? To what end the teeth, if foods are not to be ground? To what end the belly and foods, if, according to the Apostle, both this and those will be destroyed?

ipso iterum clamante: Caro et sanguis regnum Dei non possidebunt, neque corruptio incorruptionem

himself again crying out: Flesh and blood will not possess the kingdom of God, nor corruption incorruption

[34].» Haec nos innocentes et rusticos asserit dicere. «Haereticos vero, in quorum parte sunt Marcion, Apelles, Valentinus, Manes, nomen insaniae, penitus et carnis et corporis resurrectionem negare: et salutem tantum tribuere animae, frustraque nos dicere ad exemplum Domini resurrecturos, cum ipse quoque Dominus in phantasmate resurrexerit: et non solum resurrectio eius, sed et ipsa nativitas, id est, putative visa magis sit, quam fuerit. Sibi autem utramque displicere sententiam, fugere se et Nostrorum carnes, et Haereticorum phantasmata: quia utraque pars in contrarium nimia sit; aliis idem volentibus se esse quod fuerint[Al. non erunt]; aliis resurrectionem corporum omnino denegantibus.

[34].» He asserts that we, innocents and rustics, say these things. «But that the heretics, in whose party are Marcion, Apelles, Valentinus, Manes—the very name of insanity—utterly deny the resurrection both of flesh and of body; and grant salvation only to the soul, and that we say in vain that we shall rise according to the example of the Lord, since the Lord himself also rose in a phantasm; and that not only his resurrection, but even his very nativity, that is, was seen putatively rather than truly was. But that both opinions displease him, that he flees both the flesh of Ours and the phantasms of the Heretics: because each party is excessive to the opposite; some wishing to be the same as they had been[Al. non erunt]; others altogether denying the resurrection of bodies.

Quatuor, inquit, elementa sunt, philosophis quoque nota et medicis, de quibus omnes res et corpora humana compacta sunt, terra, aqua, aer, et ignis. Terram in carnibus, aerem in halitu, aquam in humore, ignem in calore intelligi. Cum ergo anima caducum hoc frigidumque corpusculum Dei iussione dimiserit, paulatim omnia redire ad matrices suas substantias: carnes in terram relabi, halitum in aera misceri, humorem reverti ad abyssos, calorem ad aethera subvolare.

There are four elements, he says, known also to philosophers and physicians, out of which all things and human bodies are compacted: earth, water, air, and fire. The earth is understood in the flesh, the air in the breath, the water in the humor, the fire in the heat. When therefore the soul, at God’s injunction, has dismissed this caducous and chilly little body, little by little all things return to their maternal substances: the flesh to slip back into earth, the breath to be mingled into the air, the humor to return to the abysses, the heat to fly up to the aether.

Et quomodo si sextarium lactis et vini mittas in pelagus, velisque rursum separare quod mixtum est: vinum quidem et lac quod miseras non perire, non tamen posse quod fusum est separari: sic substantiam carnis et sanguinis non perire quidem in originalibus materiis, non tamen in antiquam redire compaginem, nec posse ex toto eadem esse quae fuerint.» Cum autem ista dicantur, soliditas carnium, sanguinis liquor, crassitudo nervorum, venarumque perplexio, et ossium durities denegatur.

And just as if you were to send a sextarius of milk and of wine into the sea, and should wish in turn to separate what has been mixed: the wine indeed and the milk which you had poured in do not perish, yet what has been poured out cannot be separated: so the substance of flesh and blood does not indeed perish in the original materials, yet it cannot return into its ancient framework (compages), nor can it altogether be the same as it had been. But when these things are said, the solidity of the flesh, the liquid of the blood, the thickness of the sinews, the interweaving of the veins, and the hardness of the bones is denied.

26. Alia ratione resurrectionem corporum confitemur, eorum quae in sepulcris posita sunt, dilapsaque in cineres: Pauli Pauli, et Petri Petri, et singula singulorum, neque enim fas est ut in aliis corporibus animae peccaverint, in aliis torqueantur: nec iusti iudicis, alia corpora pro Christo sanguinem fundere, et alia coronari. Quis haec audiens, resurrectionem carnis eum negare putet? Et, inquit, singulis seminibus ratio quaedam a Deo artifice insita, quae futuras materias in medullae principiis tenet.

26. By another reasoning we confess the resurrection of bodies, of those which have been placed in sepulchres, and have dissolved into ashes: Paul’s to Paul, and Peter’s to Peter, and each to each one; for it is not right that souls should have sinned in other bodies and be tormented in others; nor is it of a just judge that some bodies should pour out blood for Christ and others be crowned. Who, hearing these things, would think him to deny the resurrection of the flesh? And, he says, in the individual seeds a certain rationale has been implanted by God the artificer, which holds the future materials in the principles of the marrow.

Et quomodo tanta arboris magnitudo, truncus, rami, poma, folia non videntur in semine, sunt tamen in ratione seminis, quam Graeci vocant: et in grano frumenti est intrinsecus vel medulla, vel venula, quae cum in terra fuerit dissoluta, trahit ad se vicinas materias, et in stipulam, folia, aristasque consurgit: aliudque moritur, et aliud resurgit. Neque enim in grano tritici, radices, culmus, folia, aristae, paleae sunt dissolutae: sic et in ratione humanorum corporum manent quaedam surgendi antiqua principia, et quasi, id est, seminarium mortuorum, sinu terrae confovetur. Cum autem iudicii dies advenerit, et in voce Archangeli, et in novissima tuba tremuerit terra, movebuntur statim semina, et in puncto horae mortuos germinabunt: non tamen easdem carnes, nec in his formis restituent, quae fuerunt.

And just as so great a magnitude of a tree—trunk, branches, fruits, leaves—is not seen in the seed, yet is in the rationale of the seed, which the Greeks call logos; and in a grain of wheat there is inwardly either a marrow or a little vein, which, when it has been dissolved in the earth, draws neighboring materials to itself, and rises up into stalk, leaves, and ears; and one thing dies, and another rises again. For neither in a grain of wheat are the roots, the culm, the leaves, the ears, the chaff dissolved: so too in the rationale of human bodies certain ancient principles of rising remain, and, as it were—that is—a seedbed of the dead is cherished in the bosom of the earth. But when the day of judgment shall have come, and at the voice of the Archangel and at the last trumpet the earth shall have trembled, the seeds will be moved at once, and in the twinkling of an hour they will sprout the dead: not, however, will they restore the same flesh, nor in those forms which they were.

Vis scire verum esse quod dicimus, audi Apostolum: Sed dicit aliquis: Quomodo resurgent mortui? quo autem corpore venient? Insipiens, quod tu seminas, non corpus quod futurum est seminas, sed nudum granum; ut puta tritici, vitis et arboris

Do you wish to know that what we say is true? listen to the Apostle: But someone says: How will the dead rise again? and with what body will they come? Fool, what you sow, you do not sow the body that will be, but a naked grain; for instance, of wheat, of the vine, and of a tree

[35]. Et quia de grano tritici ac semente arborum ex parte iam diximus, nunc de acino vinacii disseramus. Granum parvum est, ita ut vix duobus digitulis teneri possit. Ubi sunt radices?

[35]. And since about the grain of wheat and the seed of trees we have already spoken in part, now let us discourse about the grape-seed (the grape-stone). The grain is small, such that it can scarcely be held with two little fingers. Where are the roots?

ubi radicum et trunci et propaginum tortuosa perplexio? Ubi pampinorum umbracula, et uvarum pulchritudo, futura vina parturiens? Aridum est quod tenetur, et pene vix cernitur: sed in sicco illo grano, potentia Dei, et occulta ratione sementis, spumantia musta fundentur.

where are the roots, and the trunks, and the twisting perplexity of the shoots? Where the umbracles of vine-leaves, and the beauty of the grapes, bearing the wines to come? What is held is dry, and can scarcely be discerned; but in that dry grain, by the power of God and by the hidden rationale of the seed, foaming musts will be poured forth.

Haec ligno tribues, homini non tribues: quod periturum est, sic ornatur: quod mansurum est, pristinam non recipiet vilitatem. Et vis rursum carnem, ossa, sanguinem, membra, ut crescentibus capillis tonsore egeas, nasus pituitas digerat, incrementa unguium resecanda sint, ut per inferiores partes vel stercora, vel libidines effluant? Si affers istas ineptias rusticorum, et carnis, in qua Deo placere non possumus, quasi inimicae oblivisceris, et resurrectionis mortuorum: Seminatur in corruptione, surget in incorruptione.

These things you will grant to wood; you will not grant them to man: that which is going to perish is thus adorned; that which is going to remain will not receive back its pristine vileness. And do you want again flesh, bones, blood, limbs, such that, with the hair growing, you need a barber, the nose to discharge phlegms, the increments of the nails to be cut back, that through the lower parts either excrements or lusts flow out? If you bring forward those rustic ineptitudes, and you forget the flesh—in which we cannot please God—as if it were an enemy, and the resurrection of the dead: It is sown in corruption, it will rise in incorruption.

Seminatur in contumelia, surget in gloria. Seminatur in infirmitate, surget in virtute. Seminatur corpus animale, surget corpus spirituale

It is sown in dishonor, it will rise in glory. It is sown in weakness, it will rise in power. A natural body is sown, a spiritual body will rise

[36]. Nunc oculis videmus, auribus audimus, manibus agimus, pedibus ambulamus. In illo autem corpore spirituali toti videbimus, toti audiemus, toti operabimur, toti ambulabimus: et transfigurabit Dominus corpus humilitatis notrae, conforme corporis suae gloriae. Quando dixittransfigurabit

[36]. Now with eyes we see, with ears we hear, with hands we act, with feet we walk. But in that spiritual body we shall see wholly, we shall hear wholly, we shall operate wholly, we shall walk wholly: and the Lord will transfigure the body of our humility, conformable to the glory of his body. When he saidhe will transfigure

[37], id est, membrorum, quibus nunc utimur, diversitas denegatur. Aliud nobis spirituale et aethereum promittitur: quod nec tactui subiacet, nec oculis cernitur, nec pondere praegravatur: et pro locorum, in quibus futurum est, varietate mutabitur. Alioqui si eaedem carnes erunt, et corpora quae fuerunt, rursum mares et feminae, rursum nuptiae; viris hirsutum supercilium, barba prolixa; mulieribus laeves genae, et angusta pectora, ad concipiendos et pariendos fetus venter et femora dilatanda sunt.

[37], that is, the diversity of the members, which we now use, is denied. Another thing spiritual and ethereal is promised to us: which neither is subject to touch, nor is discerned by the eyes, nor is weighed down by weight: and it will be changed according to the variety of the places in which it will be. Otherwise, if the same flesh be, and the bodies which were, again males and females, again nuptials; for men a shaggy brow, a long beard; for women smooth cheeks, and narrow bosoms, the belly and thighs must be dilated for conceiving and bearing offspring.

Resurgent etiam infantuli, resurgent et senes: illi nutriendi, hi baculis sustentandi. Nec vos, o simplices, resurrectio Domini decipiat, quod latus et manus monstraverit, in littore steterit, in itinere cum Cleopha ambulaverit, et carnes et ossa habere se dixerit. Illud corpus aliis pollet privilegiis, quod de viri semine, et carnis voluptate non natum est.

Little infants will rise again too, and old men will rise again: the former must be nursed, the latter must be supported by staffs. Nor let the resurrection of the Lord deceive you, O simple ones, because he showed his side and hands, stood on the shore, walked on the road with Cleophas, and said that he had flesh and bones. That body prevails by other privileges, in that it was not born from the seed of a man and the pleasure of the flesh.

Comedit post resurrectionem suam et bibit, et vestitus apparuit, tangendum se praebuit, ut dubitantibus Apostolis, fidem faceret resurrectionis. Sed tamen non dissimulat naturam aerei corporis et spiritualis. Clausis enim ingreditur ostiis, et in fractione panis ex oculis evanescit.

He ate after his resurrection and drank, and appeared clothed, he offered himself to be touched, so that for the doubting Apostles he might make assurance of the resurrection. But yet he does not disguise the nature of an aerial and spiritual body. For with the doors closed he enters, and in the breaking of the bread he vanishes from their eyes.

Ergo et nobis post resurrectionem bibendum erit et comedendum, et post cibum stercora egerenda? Et ubi erit illa promissio: Oportet mortale hoc induere immortalitatem

Therefore, will it also be for us after the resurrection to drink and to eat, and after food to expel excrement? And where will that promise be: It is necessary for this mortal to put on immortality

[38]?

27. Haec est omnis causa, cur in expositione fidei tuae, ad decipiendas aures ignorantium, novies corpus, et ne semel quidem carnem nominas: dum homines putant te carnes in corporibus confiteri, et idem carnem esse quod corpus. Si idem est, non diversum significat. Scio enim te hoc esse dicturum: Putavi idem corpus esse quod carnem: simpliciter sum locutus.

27. This is the whole cause why, in the exposition of your faith, in order to deceive the ears of the ignorant, you name “body” nine times, and not even once “flesh”: while people think you confess fleshes in bodies, and that flesh is the same as body. If it is the same, it does not signify something diverse. For I know you will say this: I thought that body was the same as flesh: I spoke simply.

Quare non carnem potius nominas, ut corpus significes, et indifferenter nunc carnem, nunc corpus, ut corpus in carne, et caro in corpore demonstretur? Sed mihi crede, non est simplex silentium tuum. Alia enim carnis, alia corporis definitio est: omnis caro est corpus, non omne corpus est caro.

Why do you not rather name flesh, in order to signify body, and indifferently now flesh, now body, so that body in flesh, and flesh in body, may be shown? But believe me, your silence is not simple. For the definition of flesh is one thing, the definition of body another: every flesh is a body, not every body is flesh.

Caro est proprie, quae sanguine, venis, ossibus, nervisque constringitur. Corpus quamquam et caro dicatur, interdum tamen aethereum, vel aereum nominatur, quod tactui visuique non subiacet, et plerumque visibile est atque tangibile. Paries est corpus, sed non caro: lapis corpus est, sed non caro dicitur.

Flesh is properly that which is bound together with blood, veins, bones, and nerves. Body, although it is also called flesh, is nevertheless sometimes named ethereal or aerial, which is not subject to touch and sight; and for the most part it is visible and tangible. A wall is a body, but not flesh: a stone is a body, but is not called flesh.

Unde Apostolus corpora coelestia appellat, et corpora terrestria. Coeleste corpus solis, lunae, stellarum. Terrestre, ignis, aeris, aquae, terrae, et reliquorum, quae absque anima his censentur elementis. Vides nos intelligere subtilitates vestras, et arcana, quae in cubiculis et inter perfectos loquimini, et quae populus foris stans, nec meretur audire, proferre in medium?

Whence the Apostle calls bodies celestial and bodies terrestrial. The celestial body: of the sun, the moon, the stars. The terrestrial: of fire, of air, of water, of earth, and of the rest, which, without soul, are reckoned among these elements. Do you see that we understand your subtleties, and the arcana which you speak in chambers and among the perfect, and that we bring forth into the midst those things which the people standing outside do not even deserve to hear?

Hoc est illud quod reducta ad auriculam manu, et concrepantibus digitis, ridentes dicitis: Omnis gloria filiae regis intrinsecus

This is that which, with your hand drawn back to your ear, and with your fingers snapping, you say, laughing: All the glory of the king’s daughter is within

[39]. Etintroduxit me rex in cubiculum suum

[39]. Andthe king has brought me into his chamber

[40]. Patet quare corporis, et non carnis resurrectionem dixeris: scilicet ut nos rudes carnem te dicere putaremus in corpore, et hi qui perfecti sunt, intelligerent carnem in corpore denegari. Denique Apostolus in Epistola sua ad Colossenses, volens corpus Christi carneum, et non spirituale, aereum, tenue, demonstrare, significanter locutus est, dicens:Et vos cum essetis aliquando alienati a Christo, et inimici sensus eius in operibus malis, reconciliavit in corpore carnis suae per mortem

[40]. It is patent why you have said resurrection of the body, and not of the flesh: namely, so that we who are untrained would suppose you to be saying flesh in the body, and those who are perfect would understand flesh to be denied in the body. Finally, the Apostle in his Epistle to the Colossians, wishing to demonstrate that the body of Christ was carnal (fleshly), and not spiritual, aerial, tenuous, spoke significantly, saying:And you, when you were at one time alienated from Christ and hostile in mind toward him in evil works, he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death

[41]. Rursumque in eadem Epistola:In quo circumcisi estis circumcisione non manu facta in exspoliatione corporis carnis

[41]. And again in the same Epistle:In whom you were circumcised with a circumcision not made by hand, in the stripping off of the body of flesh

[42]. Si corpus carnem solum significat, et non est nomen ambiguum, nec ad diversas intelligentias trahi potest: satis superflue corporeum et carneum dicit, quasi caro non intelligatur in corpore.

[42]. If corpus signifies flesh only, and is not an ambiguous name, nor can it be drawn to diverse understandings: he says “corporeal” and “fleshly” quite superfluously, as if flesh were not understood in body.

28. In Symbolo fidei et spei nostrae, quod ab Apostolis traditum, non scribitur in charta et atramento; sed in tabulis cordis carnalibus, post confessionem Trinitatis et unitatem Ecclesiae, omne Christiani dogmatis sacramentum, carnis resurrectione concluditur. Et tu intantum in corporis, et iterum corporis, et tertio corporis, et usque novies corporis, vel sermone vel numero immoraris, nec semel nominas carnem; quod illi semper nominant carnem, corpus vero tacent. Sed et illud quod argute subnectis, et prudenter praecavens dissimulas, scito nos intelligere.

28. In the Symbol of our faith and hope, which was handed down by the Apostles, it is not written on paper and ink; but on the fleshy tablets of the heart, after the confession of the Trinity and the unity of the Church, the whole sacrament of Christian dogma is concluded with the resurrection of the flesh. And you to such an extent linger on “of the body,” and again “of the body,” and a third time “of the body,” and even nine times “of the body,” either in word or in number, nor do you once name the flesh; whereas they always name the flesh, but are silent about the body. But even that which you shrewdly subjoin, and prudently, by anticipating, dissimulate, know that we understand.

His enim testimoniis veritatem resurrectionis probas, quibus Origenes negat, et de dubiis incerta confirmans, certam fidei domum, subita tempestate subvertis. Seminatur, inquit, corpus animale: surget corpus spirituale. Neque enim nubent, neque nubentur; sed erunt sicut Angeli in coelis

For by these testimonies you prove the truth of the resurrection, which Origen denies; and, confirming uncertain things from doubtful ones, you subvert the sure house of faith with a sudden tempest. It is sown, he says, an animate body: it will rise a spiritual body. For neither will they marry, nor will they be given in marriage; but they will be like the Angels in the heavens

[43]. Quae alia exempla assumeres, si resurrectionem negares? Vis resurrectionem carnis, veritate et non putative, ut loqueris, confiteri. Post illa, quibus ignorantium blanditus es auribus, quod in ipsis corporibus, in quibus mortui sumus et sepulti, resurgamus, hoc potius adiunge, et dic: »Quomodo Dominus post resurrectionem fixuras clavorum ostendit in manibus, vulnus lanceae monstravit in latere, et dubitantibus Apostolis, quod putarent phantasma se videre, respondit,Palpate me et videte, quoniam spiritus carnes et ossa non habet, sicut me videtis habere

[43]. What other examples would you take up, if you were denying the resurrection? You wish to confess the resurrection of the flesh, in truth and not putatively, as you say. After those things with which you have flattered the ears of the ignorant—that we rise again in the very bodies in which we died and were buried—add this rather, and say: »Just as the Lord after the resurrection showed the nail-marks in his hands, displayed the wound of the lance in his side, and to the doubting Apostles, when they thought they were seeing a phantasm, replied,Handle me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see me to have

[44], et proprie ad Thomam:Infer digitum tuum in manus meas, et manum tuam in latus meum, et noli esse incredulus, sed fidelis

[44], and specifically to Thomas:Put your finger into my hands, and your hand into my side, and do not be incredulous, but faithful

[45]; sic et nos post resurrectionem eadem habebimus membra, quibus nunc utimur, easdem carnes et sanguinem et ossa: quorum in Scripturis sanctis opera, non natura damnantur. Denique in Genesi scriptum est:Non permanebit Spiritus meus in hominibus istis, quia caro sunt

[45]; so also we, after the resurrection, will have the same members which we now use, the same flesh and blood and bones: of which, in the sacred Scriptures, the works, not the nature, are condemned. Finally, in Genesis it is written:My Spirit will not remain in these men, because they are flesh

[46]. Et Paulus Apostolus de prava doctrina et operibus Iudaeorum:Non acquievi, ait, carni et sanguini

[46]. And the Apostle Paul concerning the perverse doctrine and the works of the Jews:I did not acquiesce, he says, to flesh and blood

[47]. Et ad Sanctos, qui utique in carne erant, dicit:Vos autem in carne non estis; sed in spiritu: si tamen Dei spiritus habitat in vobis

[47]. And to the Saints, who assuredly were in the flesh, he says:But you are not in the flesh; but in the spirit: if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you

[48]. Negans enim eos in carne, quos in carne esse constabat, non carnis substantiam, sed peccata damnabat.

[48]. For in denying those to be in the flesh, whom it was established were in the flesh, he was condemning not the substance of the flesh, but the sins.

29. Haec est vera resurrectionis confessio, quae sic gloriam carni tribuit, ut non auferat veritatem. Quod vero dicit Apostolus,corruptibile hoc et mortale

29. This is the true confession of the resurrection, which thus assigns glory to the flesh, so that it does not remove truth. But as to what the Apostle says,this corruptible and mortal

[49] hoc ipsum corpus, id est, carnem, quae tunc videbatur, ostendit. Quod autem copulat,induere incorruptionem, et immortalitatem, illud indumentum, id est vestimentum, non dicit corpus abolere quod ornat in gloria: sed quod ante inglorium fuit, efficere gloriosum; ut mortalitatis et infirmitatis viliore veste deposita, immortalitatis auro, et, ut ita dicam, firmitatis atque virtutis beatitudine induamur; volentes non spoliari carne, sed supervestiri in gloria, et domicilium nostrum, quod de coelo est, superindui desiderantes, ut devoretur mortale a vita. Certe nemo superinduitur, nisi qui ante vestitus est. Sic et Dominus noster in monte transfiguratus est in gloria

[49] he shows this very body, that is, the flesh, which at that time was being seen. But when he couples,to put on incorruption and immortality, he does not say that that clothing, that is, the vestment, abolishes the body which it adorns in glory; but that what before was inglorious it makes glorious; so that, the cheaper garment of mortality and infirmity having been laid aside, we may be clothed with the gold of immortality and, so to speak, with the beatitude of firmness and virtue; willing not to be stripped of the flesh, but to be over-clothed in glory, and desiring to have our dwelling, which is from heaven, put on over us, so that the mortal may be swallowed up by life. Surely no one is over-clothed, except one who has first been clothed. Thus also our Lord was transfigured on the mountain in glory

[50], non ut manus ac pedes caeteraque membra perderet, et subito in rotunditate vel solis, vel sphaerae volveretur: sed eadem membra solis fulgore rutilantia, Apostolorum oculos praestringerent: unde et vestimenta eius mutata sunt in candorem, non in aerem; ne forte et vestes eius asseras spirituales:Et facies eius, inquit, fulgebat sicut sol

[50], not that he might lose hands and feet and the rest of the members, and suddenly be rolled into the rotundity either of the sun or of a sphere: but that the same members, rutilant with the sun’s radiance, might dazzle the eyes of the Apostles: whence also his garments were changed into whiteness, not into air; lest perhaps you should assert even his garments to be spiritual:And his face, he says, was shining like the sun

[51]. Ubi autem facies nominatur, aestimo quod et caetera membra conspecta sint. Enoch translatus est in carne. Elias carneus raptus est in coelum

[51]. But where the face is named, I reckon that the other members also were seen. Enoch was translated in the flesh. Elijah, fleshly, was rapt into heaven

[52]: necdum mortui, et paradisi iam coloni, habent membra cum quibus rapti sunt atque translati. Quod nos imitamur ieiunio, illi possident Dei consortio. Vescuntur coelesti pane, et saturantur omni verbo Dei, eumdem habentes Dominum, quem et cibum. Audi Salvatorem dicentem:Et caro mea requiescit in spe

[52]: not yet dead, and already colonists of paradise, they have the limbs with which they were rapt and translated. What we imitate by fasting, they possess by the consortium of God. They feed on celestial bread, and are satiated with every word of God, having the same Lord as also their food. Hear the Savior saying:And my flesh rests in hope

[53]. Et in alio loco:Caro eius non vidit corruptionem

[53]. And in another place:His flesh did not see corruption

[54]. Et rursum:Omnis caro videbit salutare Dei

[54]. And again:All flesh will see the salvation of God

[55]. Et tu semper corpus ingeminas? Profer magis Ezechiel, qui ossa iungens ossibus et educens ea de sepulcris suis, et super pedes stare faciens, carnibus nervisque constringit, et cute desuper tegit

[55]. And do you always ingeminate the body? Proffer rather Ezekiel, who, joining bones to bones and leading them out of their sepulchers, and making them stand upon their feet, binds them with flesh and sinews, and covers them over with skin

[56].

30. Tonet Iob tormentorum victor, et testa radens putridae carnis saniem, miserias suas resurrectionis spe et veritate soletur:Quis mihi det, inquit, ut scribantur sermones mei? Quis mihi det, ut exarentur in libro stylo ferreo, et plumbi lamina, vel celte sculpantur in silice? Scio enim quod Redemptor meus vivit, et in novissimo die de terra surrecturus sum, et rursum circumdabor pelle mea, et in carne mea videbo Deum: quem visurus sum ego ipse, et oculi mei conspecturi sunt, et non alius.

30. Job thunders, victor over torments, and, with a potsherd scraping the sanies of putrid flesh, he consoles his miseries by the hope and truth of the resurrection:Who will grant me, he says, that my words be written? Who will grant me, that they be ploughed into a book with an iron stylus, and on a plate of lead, or be sculpted in flint with a chisel? I know indeed that my Redeemer lives, and on the last day I shall rise from the earth, and again I shall be encompassed with my skin, and in my flesh I shall see God: whom I myself am going to see, and my eyes will behold, and not another.

Reposita est haec spes mea in sinu meo

This hope of mine has been laid up in my bosom

[57]. Quid hac prophetia manifestius? Nullus tam aperte post Christum, quam iste ante Christum de resurrectione loquitur. Vult verba sua in perpetuum durare: et ut nulla possint vetustate deleri, exarari ea vult in plumbi lamina, et sculpi in silice.

[57]. What is more manifest than this prophecy? No one speaks so openly after Christ as this man before Christ about the resurrection. He wants his words to endure in perpetuity; and, so that they may not be erased by age, he wants them to be inscribed on a plate of lead, and carved in flint.

Sperat resurrectionem, immo novit et vidit, quod vivit Christus redemptor eius, et in novissimo die de terra resurrecturus sit. Necdum mortuus erat Dominus, et Athleta Ecclesiae redemptorem suum videbat ab inferis resurgentem. Illud vero quod infert: Et rursum circumdabor pelle mea, et in carne mea videbo Deum, puto quod non loquatur, quasi amator carnium, quas putridas fetentesque cernebat; sed ex fiducia resurgendi, contemnit praesentia, solatio futurorum.

He hopes for the resurrection—nay rather, he knows and has seen—that Christ, his Redeemer, lives, and that on the last day he will rise from the earth. The Lord had not yet died, and the Athlete of the Church was seeing his Redeemer rising from the underworld. But as to what he adds: And again I shall be surrounded with my skin, and in my flesh I shall see God, I think he does not speak as a lover of flesh, which he beheld putrid and fetid; but from the confidence of rising again, he contemns present things, with the solace of things to come.

Rursum ait: Circumdabor pelle mea. Ubi hic corpus aethereum? ubi aereum, et spiritui et aurae simile? Certe ubi pellis et caro, ubi ossa et nervi, et sanguis et venae, ibi carnis structura, ibi sexus proprietas.

Again he says: I shall be surrounded with my skin. Where here is the aethereal body? where the aerial one, and similar to spirit and to breeze? Surely, where skin and flesh are, where bones and sinews, and blood and veins, there is the structure of flesh; there the property of sex.

Et in carne, inquit, mea videbo Deum. Quando omnis caro videbit salutare Dei, et Iesum Deum, tunc et ego videbo Redemptorem et Salvatorem, et Deum meum. Videbo autem in ista carne, quae me nunc cruciat, quae nunc prae dolore distillat. Idcirco Deum in carne conspiciam, quia omnes infirmitates meas sua resurrectione sanavit.

And in the flesh, he says, I shall see God. When all flesh shall see the salvation of God, and Jesus God, then I too shall see my Redeemer and Savior, and my God. But I shall see in this very flesh, which now torments me, which now drips on account of pain. Therefore I shall behold God in the flesh, because by his resurrection he has healed all my infirmities.

Nonne tibi videtur iam tunc Iob contra Origenem scribere, et pro carnis veritate, in qua tormenta sustinuit, alterum contra haereticos habere certamen? Dolet enim, si tanta sit frustra perpessus, et alia spiritualiter resurgente, ista carnaliter cruciata sit. Unde inculcat et exaggerat, et omnia lubricae confessionis arcana manifesta voce concludit, dicens: Quem visurus sum ego ipse,et oculi mei conspecturi sunt, et non alius. Is si non sexu suo resurrecturus est, si non eisdem membris, quae iacuere in stercore, si non eosdem oculos aperiat ad videndum Deum, quibus tunc videbat vermiculos, ubi erit ergo Iob?

Does it not seem to you that even then Job was writing against Origen, and, on behalf of the truth of the flesh in which he endured torments, to have another contest against the heretics? For he grieves, if he has suffered so much in vain, and that, with another rising spiritually, this one has been tortured carnally. Whence he inculcates and amplifies, and with a manifest voice brings to a close all the arcana of a slippery confession, saying: Whom I myself shall see,et my eyes shall behold, and not another. If he is not going to rise with his own sex, if not with the same members which lay in dung, if he does not open those same eyes to see God with which then he used to see the little worms, where then will Job be?

Tollis ea in quibus substitit Iob, et donas mihi inane vocabulum resurgentis: quomodo si navim post naufragium restitutam velis, ac neges singula de quibus navis construitur.

You take away the things on which Job stood fast, and you grant me the empty term of the resurgent: just as if you should wish a ship restored after a shipwreck, and yet deny the individual parts from which a ship is constructed.

31. Ego libere dicam, et quamquam torqueatis ora, trahatis capillum, applaudatis pede, Iudaeorum lapides requiratis, fidem Ecclesiae apertissime confitebor. Resurrectionis veritas sine carne et ossibus, sine sanguine et membris, intelligi non potest. Ubi caro et ossa, et sanguis et membra sunt, ibi necesse est ut sexus diversitas sit.

31. I will speak freely, and although you may twist mouths, drag hair, applaud with your foot, and seek the stones of the Jews, I will most openly confess the faith of the Church. The truth of the Resurrection cannot be understood without flesh and bones, without blood and limbs. Where flesh and bones, and blood and limbs are, there it is necessary that there be a diversity of sex.

Ubi sexus diversitas est, ibi Ioannes Ioannes, Maria Maria. Noli timere eorum nuptias, qui etiam ante mortem in sexu suo sine sexus opere vixerunt. Quando dicitur: In illa die neque nubent, neque nubentur

Where there is diversity of sex, there John is John, Mary is Mary. Do not fear the nuptials of those who even before death lived in their sex without the work of sex. When it is said: On that day neither will they marry, nor will they be given in marriage

[58], de his dicitur, qui possunt nubere, et tamen non nubent. Nemo enim dicit de Angelis:Non nubent, neque nubentur. Ego numquam audivi spiritualium Virtutum in coelo nuptias celebrari: sed ubi sexus est, ibi vir et femina. Unde et tu invitus licet, cogente veritate, confessus es, et dixisti: Aut coronandus in corpore, quod caste egit et iuste, aut condemnandus in corpore, quod voluptatibus iniquitatique servivit. Tolle corpus et pone carnem, et virum ac feminam non negasti.

[58], it is said of those who are able to marry and yet will not marry. For no one says of the Angels:They will not marry, nor will they be given in marriage. I have never heard of nuptials of the spiritual Powers being celebrated in heaven; but where there is sex, there there is male and female. Whence also you, albeit unwilling, with truth compelling, have confessed and said: Either to be crowned in the body, which has acted chastely and justly, or to be condemned in the body, which has served pleasures and iniquity. Take away “body” and put “flesh,” and you have not denied man and woman.

Quis enim vivit cum gloria pudicitiae qui non habet sexum, per quem committi potuit impudicitia? Quis enim umquam lapidem coronavit, quia virgo permanserit? Angelorum nobis similitudo promittitur, id est, beatitudo illa, in qua sine carne et sexu sunt Angeli, nobis in carne et sexu nostro donabitur.

For who lives with the glory of pudicity who does not have a sex, through which impudicity could have been committed? For who ever crowned a stone because it had remained a virgin? The similitude of the Angels is promised to us, that is, that beatitude, in which the Angels are without flesh and sex, will be bestowed upon us in our flesh and in our sex.

Mea rusticitas sic credit, et sic intelligit sexum confiteri sine sexuum operibus: homines resurgere, et sic eos Angelis adaequari. Nec statim superflua videbitur membrorum resurrectio, quae caritura sint officio suo; cum adhuc in hac vita positi, nitamur opera non implere membrorum. Similitudo autem ad Angelos, non hominum in Angelos demutatio, sed profectus immortalitatis et gloriae est.

My rusticity thus believes, and thus understands to acknowledge sex without the works of the sexes: that humans rise again, and thus are made equal to the Angels. Nor will the resurrection of the members straightway seem superfluous, which are going to be without their office; since, even while set in this life, we strive not to fulfill the works of the members. The likeness to the Angels, however, is not a transmutation of humans into Angels, but a progress in immortality and glory.

32. Argumenta vero illa puerorum et infantium, et senum, et ciborum, et stercorum, quibus adversum Ecclesias uteris, non sunt tua: de Gentilium fonte manarunt. Eadem enim opponunt nobis Ethnici. Qui Christianum esse te dicis, Gentilium arma depone.

32. As for those arguments of boys and infants, and of old men, and of foods, and of excrements, which you use against the Churches, they are not yours: they have flowed from the fount of the Gentiles. For the Ethnics (Pagans) oppose the same things to us. You who say that you are a Christian, lay down the arms of the Gentiles.

Discant illi magis a te resurrectionem carnis confiteri, quam tu ab illis negare. Aut si et tu de hostium numero es, ostende te libere adversarium, ut Ethnicorum suscipias vulnera. Dono tibi nutriculas tuas, ne vagiant infantes; dono decrepitos senes, ne hyberno frigore contrahantur.

Let them learn rather from you to confess the resurrection of the flesh, than that you from them learn to deny it. Or if you too are of the number of enemies, show yourself freely an adversary, so that you may receive the wounds of the Gentiles. I grant to you your nurses, lest the infants wail; I grant the decrepit elders, lest they be contracted by hibernal cold.

Frustra etiam tonsores artificia didicerunt, scientes Israeliticum populum per quadraginta annos, nec unguium, nec capillorum incrementa sensisse: et quod his maius est, non sunt attrita vestimenta eorum; nec inveteraverunt calceamenta eorum. Enoch et Elias, de quibus dudum diximus, tanto tempore in eadem permanent aetate, qua rapti sunt. Habent dentes, ventrem, genitalia, et tamen nec cibis, nec uxoribus indigent.

In vain also have barbers learned their arts, knowing that the Israelite people for forty years sensed neither increments of nails nor of hairs; and what is greater than these, their garments were not worn out, nor did their footwear grow old. Enoch and Elijah, of whom we said aforetime, remain for so long a time in the same age in which they were snatched up. They have teeth, a belly, genitals, and yet they are in need neither of foods nor of wives.

Quid potentiam Dei calumniaris? qui potest de medulla illa et de seminario vestro, non carnes tantum de carnibus, sed corpus educere, et aliud ex alio facere; et de aqua, id est, de vilitate carnium, pretiosa et aerei corporis vina mutare: potest utique eadem potentia, qua de nihilo cuncta fabricatus est, reddere quae fuerunt: quia multo minus est restituere quod fuerit, quam facere quod non fuit. Miraris si de infantibus et senibus in perfecti viri aetatem resurrectio fiat, cum de limo terrae absque ullis aetatum incrementis, consummatus homo factus sit?

Why do you calumniate the power of God? who can from that marrow and from your seminary bring forth not only flesh from flesh, but a body, and make one thing out of another; and from water, that is, from the vility of the flesh, transmute into precious wines of an airy body: assuredly by the same power by which he fabricated all things out of nothing, he can render the things that were; because it is much less to restore what has been than to make what was not. Do you marvel if from infants and old men the resurrection should be into the age of a perfect man, when from the mud of the earth, without any increments of ages, a consummated man was made?

Costa mutatur in feminam; et tertio humanae conditionis modo, vilia et pudenda nostrae nativitatis elementa mutantur in carnes: ligantur membris, discurrunt in venas, in ossa durantur. Vis et quartum genus humanae generationis audire? Spiritus Sanctus superveniet in te, et virtus Altissimi obumbrabit tibi.

A rib is changed into a woman; and in the third mode of the human condition, the vile and shameful elements of our nativity are changed into flesh: they are bound to the members, they run into the veins, they are hardened into bones. Do you wish also to hear a fourth kind of human generation? The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.

Propterea quod nascetur ex te sanctum, vocabitur Filius Dei

Therefore the holy one that will be born from you shall be called the Son of God

[59]. Aliter Adam, aliter Eva, aliter Abel, aliter homo Iesus Christus. Et in omnibus diversis exordiis, una hominis natura non differt.

[59]. Adam in one way, Eve in another, Abel in another, the man Jesus Christ in another. And in all the diverse commencements, the one nature of man does not differ.

33. Resurrectionem carnis, omniumque membrorum si velim probare, et ad singula testimonia explanationes adiungere, multis libris opus erit: sed praesens causa hoc non desiderat. Proposui enim, non Origeni in omnibus respondere, sed fraudulentae satisfactionis aperire mysteria. Attamen quia longus fui in assertione contraria, et vereor ne dum fraudes pandere studeo, scandalum lectori reliquerim, acervatim testimonia ponam, cursimque perstringam, ut toto contra venenatam argumentationem Scripturarum pondere dimicemus.

33. If I should wish to prove the resurrection of the flesh and of all the members, and to add explanations to the testimonies for each several point, there will be need of many books: but the present cause does not require this. For I have proposed not to respond to Origen in all things, but to lay open the mysteries of a fraudulent satisfaction. Yet because I have been long in the contrary assertion, and I fear lest, while I strive to lay open frauds, I may have left a scandal to the reader, I will set forth testimonies in a heap and touch on them cursorily, so that with the whole weight of the Scriptures we may contend against the venomous argumentation.

Qui vestem non habet nuptialem, nec servavit illud mandatum: Candida sint vestimenta tua semper

He who does not have the nuptial garment has not kept that command: Let your garments be white always

[60], manibus pedibusque constringitur, ne recumbat in convivio, sedeat in solio, stet ad dextram Dei; mittitur in gehennam, ubi fletus oculorum, et stridor dentium est

[60], he is bound hand and foot, lest he recline at the banquet, sit upon the throne, stand at the right hand of God; he is sent into Gehenna, where there is weeping of the eyes, and gnashing of teeth

[61].Capilli capitis vestri numerati sunt

[61].The hairs of your head have been enumerated

[62]. Si capilli, puto facilius dentes. Frustra autem numerati, si aliquando perituri.Veniet hora, in qua omnes qui in monumentis sunt, audient vocem Filii Dei, et procedent

[62]. If the hairs, I suppose the teeth more easily. But numbered in vain, if they are ever to perish.The hour will come, in which all who are in the tombs will hear the voice of the Son of God, and will come forth

[63]. Audient auribus, procedent pedibus. Hoc et Lazarus ante iam fecerat. Procedent autem de monumentis, id est, qui monumentis illati fuerant, venient mortui, et resurgent de sepulcris suis.

[63]. They will hear with their ears, they will come forth with their feet. This even Lazarus had already done before. Moreover, they will come forth from the monuments, that is, those who had been carried into the monuments, the dead will come, and they will resurge from their sepulchers.

Ros enim qui a Deo est, medicina est ossibus ipsorum. Tunc implebitur quod Dominus loquitur per Prophetam: Populus meus, intra in cellaria tua aliquantulum, donec ira mea transeat

For the dew which is from God is a medicine to their bones. Then will be fulfilled what the Lord speaks through the Prophet: My people, enter into your cellars for a little while, until my wrath passes by

[64]. Cellaria sepulcra significant, de quibus hoc utique profertur, quod conditum fuerat. Et exibunt de sepulcris suis, veluti hinnuli de vinculis soluti. Gaudebit cor eorum, et ossa eorum sicut sol orientur: veniet omnis caro in conspectu Domini, et mandabit piscibus maris, et eructabunt ossa quae comederant, et faciet compagem ad compagem, et os ad os: et qui in terrae pulvere dormierunt, resurgent: alii in vitam aeternam, alii in opprobrium et confusionem aeternam

[64]. The cellars signify tombs, from which, to be sure, that is brought forth which had been stored away. And they will go out of their sepulchers, like fawns loosed from bonds. Their heart will rejoice, and their bones, like the sun, will rise: all flesh will come into the presence of the Lord, and he will command the fishes of the sea, and they will belch forth the bones which they had eaten, and he will make joint to joint, and bone to bone: and those who have slept in the dust of the earth shall rise again: some to eternal life, others to opprobrium and everlasting confusion

[65]. Tunc videbunt iusti impiorum poenas atque cruciatus: quoniam vermis eorum non morietur, et ignis eorum non exstinguetur, et erunt in conspectu omnis carnis

[65]. Then the just will see the penalties and cruciations of the impious: for their worm will not die, and their fire will not be extinguished, and they will be in the sight of all flesh

[66]. Quotquot igitur habemus hanc spem, sicut exhibuimus membra nostra famulantia immunditiae, et iniquitati ad iniquitatem, ita exhibeamus ea famulantia iustitiae ad sanctificationem: ut resurgentes ex mortuis, in novitate vitae ambulemus

[66]. Therefore, as many as have this hope, just as we presented our members serving uncleanness, and to iniquity unto iniquity, so let us present them serving justice unto sanctification: so that, rising again from the dead, we may walk in newness of life

[67]. Quomodo et vita Domini Iesu manifestatur in nostro mortali corpore: et qui suscitavit Iesum Christum a mortuis, vivificabit et mortalia corpora nostra, propter inhabitantem spiritum eius in nobis

[67]. Just so also the life of the Lord Jesus is manifested in our mortal body: and he who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will vivify even our mortal bodies, because of his indwelling spirit in us

[68]. Iustum enim est, ut qui semper mortificationem Christi in corpore nostro circumtulimus, vita quoque Iesu manifestetur in corpore nostro mortali, id est, in carne mortali secundum naturam, aeterna autem secundum gratiam. Vidit et Stephanus stantem Iesum ad dexteram Patris

[68]. For it is just that we who have always carried around the mortification of Christ in our body, the life of Jesus also be manifested in our mortal body, that is, in flesh mortal according to nature, but eternal according to grace. Stephen too saw Jesus standing at the right hand of the Father

[69], et manus Moysi mutata est in candorem nivis, et deinceps colori pristino restituta

[69], and the hand of Moses was changed into the whiteness of snow, and thereafter restored to its pristine color

[70]. In utraque diversitate manus fuit. Figulus ille Ieremiae, cuius per duritiam lapidum vas quod fecerat, confractum est, de eadem massa et de eodem luto redintegravit quod ceciderat

[70]. In either diversity the hand was the same. That potter of Jeremiah, whose, through the hardness of the stones, the vessel which he had made was broken, from the same mass and the same clay redintegrated what had fallen

[71]: Sed et ipsumresurrectionis vocabulum significat non aliud ruere, aliud suscitari: et quod adiicitur, mortuorum, carnem propriam demonstrat: quod enim in homine moritur, hoc et vivificatur. Vulneratus ille itineris Iericho totus refertur ad stabulum, et delictorum plagae immortalitate sanantur

[71]: But even the very termresurrection signifies that it is not one thing to collapse, another to be raised; and that which is added, of the dead, demonstrates one’s own flesh: for that which dies in a human, this also is vivified. That man wounded on the journey to Jericho is brought back whole to the inn, and the wounds of sins are healed by immortality

[72].

34. Aperta sunt et sepulcra in Domini passione, quando sol fugit, terra tremuit, et multa corpora Sanctorum surrexerunt, et visa sunt in sancta civitate

34. The sepulchres also were opened at the Lord’s Passion, when the sun fled, the earth quaked, and many bodies of the Saints arose, and were seen in the holy city

[73]. Quisest, inquit Isaias, qui ascendit ex Edom: fulgida vestimenta eius ex Bosor, sic formosus in stola candida

[73]. Whois it, says Isaiah, who ascends from Edom: his vestments fulgid from Bosor, thus fair in a white stola

[74]. Edom autterrenus interpretatur, aut cruentus. Bosor, aut caro, aut in tribulatione. Paucis verbis totum resurrectionis mysterium demonstrat, id est, et veritatem carnis et augmentum gloriae. Et est sensus: Quis est iste qui ascendit de terra, ascendit de sanguine

[74]. Edom is interpreted eitherterrene, or bloody. Bosor, either flesh, or in tribulation. With a few words he demonstrates the whole mystery of the resurrection, that is, both the truth of the flesh and the augmentation of glory. And the sense is: Who is this who ascends from the earth, ascends from blood

[75]? Cuius vestimenta iuxta prophetiam Iacob, qui alligavit pullum suum ad vitem, et torcular calcavit solus, musto rubentia sunt de Bosor, id est, de carne, sive tribulatione mundi

[75]? Whose vestments, according to the prophecy of Jacob, who bound his foal to the vine and trod the winepress alone, are reddened with must from Bosor, that is, from flesh, or the tribulation of the world

[76]: ipse enim vicit mundum. Ideoque rubra et fulgida sunt vestimenta eius; quia speciosus est forma prae filiis hominum

[76]: for he himself has conquered the world. And therefore his garments are red and fulgid; because he is more beautiful in form than the sons of men

[77]: et propter gloriam triumphantis in stolam candidam commutata sunt; et tunc vere de Christi carne completum est:Quae est ista quae ascendit dealbata, innitens super fratruelem suum? Et quod in eodem libro scribitur: Fratruelis meus rubicundus et candidus

[77]: and on account of the glory of the One triumphing they were changed into a white stole; and then truly concerning the flesh of Christ it was fulfilled:Who is this who ascends whitened, leaning upon her cousin? And what is written in the same book: My cousin is rubicund and candid

[78]. Hunc imitantur, qui vestimenta sua non coinquinaverunt cum mulieribus

[78]. Him they imitate, who have not stained their garments with women

[79]; virgines enim permanserunt qui se castraverunt propter regna coelorum. Itaque in albis erunt vestibus. Eo tempore sententia Domini opere perfecta monstrabitur.Omne quod dedit mihi Pater, non perdam ex eo quidquam, sed resuscitabo illud in novissimo die

[79]; for virgins have remained who castrated themselves for the kingdoms of the heavens. And so they will be in white garments. At that time the decree of the Lord, perfected in deed, will be shown.Everything that the Father has given me, I will not lose anything of it, but I will resuscitate it on the last day

[80]. Totum videlicet hominem, quem totum nascendo susceperat. Tunc ovis quae perierat, et in inferioribus oberrabat, humeris Salvatoris tota portabitur: et quae peccatis languida fuit, clementia iudicis sustentabitur

[80]. Namely the whole man, whom he had wholly assumed by being born. Then the sheep which had perished and was wandering in the lower regions will be carried whole upon the Savior's shoulders; and she who was languid through sins will be sustained by the clemency of the judge

[81]. Tunc videbunt illum qui compunxerunt, qui clamaverunt:Crucifige, crucifige talem

[81]. Then they will see him whom they pierced, they who shouted:Crucify, crucify such a one

[82]. Tribus et tribus caedent pectora, ipsi et mulieres eorum. Illae mulieres, quibus Dominus locutus est crucem portans:Filiae Ierusalem, nolite flere super me, sed super vos flete, et super filios vestros

[82]. Tribe by tribe will smite their breasts, they themselves and their wives. Those women to whom the Lord spoke while carrying the cross:Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep over me, but weep over yourselves, and over your sons

[83]. Tunc Angelorum vaticinium complebitur, qui stupentibus Apostolis sunt locuti:Viri Galilaei, quid statis stupentes in coelum. Hic Iesus qui a vobis assumptus est in coelum, sic veniet, quemadmodum vidistis eum euntem in coelum

[83]. Then the vaticination of the Angels will be fulfilled, who spoke to the stupefied Apostles:Men of Galilee, why do you stand stupefied into heaven. This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will thus come, in the same manner as you saw him going into heaven

[84]. Quale est autem, idcirco dicere Dominum post resurrectionem quadraginta diebus comedisse cum Apostolis, ne phantasma putaretur; et hoc ipsum quod comedit, in carne et in membris visus est, in phantasmate confirmare? Aut verum est quod videbatur, aut falsum. Si verum est, ergo vere comedit, et vere membra habuit.

[84]. But what sort of thing is it, for this reason, to say that the Lord after the resurrection ate with the Apostles for 40 days, lest he be thought a phantasm; and to confirm as a phantasm this very thing which he ate, though he was seen in flesh and in members? Either what was seen is true, or false. If it is true, then he truly ate, and truly had members.

Si autem falsum, quomodo res falsas ostendere voluit, ut resurrectionis veritatem probaret? Nemo enim falso verum probat. Ergo, inquies, et nos post resurrectionem comesuri sumus?

But if it was false, how did he wish to display false things, in order to prove the truth of the resurrection? For no one proves the true by the false. Therefore, you will say, are we also going to eat after the resurrection?

Nescio. Non enim scriptum est: et tamen si quaeratur, non puto comesuros. Legi enim, non esse regnum Dei cibum et potum, repromittens nobis quae oculus non vidit, nec auris audivit, nec in cor hominis ascenderunt

I do not know. For it is not written: and yet, if it be inquired, I do not think we shall eat. For I have read that the kingdom of God is not food and drink, promising to us the things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have ascended into the heart of man

[85]. Moyses et Elias quadraginta diebus ieiunaverunt ac noctibus

[85]. Moses and Elias fasted for forty days and nights

[86]. Hoc hominum natura non patitur, sed quod homini impossibile est, Deo impossibile non est

[86]. Human nature does not allow this, but what is impossible for man is not impossible for God

[87]. Sicut qui futura praedicit, non interest utrum post decem annos, aut post centum futura pronuntiet, quia una est scientia futurorum: sic qui quadraginta diebus potest ieiunare et vivere, immo non potest ieiunare, sed vivit virtute Dei; et aeterno tempore poterit absque esca et potu vivere. Quare favum comedit Dominus? Ut resurrectionem probaret; non ut tuis faucibus mella permitteret.

[87]. Just as for one who predicts future things, it makes no difference whether he pronounces the future after 10 years or after 100, because there is one science of things to come: so one who is able to fast for 40 days and live—nay, he cannot fast, but lives by the virtue of God—will also be able, for eternal time, to live without food and drink. Why did the Lord eat a honeycomb? In order to prove the resurrection; not to permit honey to your throats.

Piscem in prunis assum petiit, ut dubitantes confirmaret Apostolos, qui ad illum accedere non audebant, quod putarent se spiritum videre, non corpus

He asked for fish roasted on the embers, so that he might confirm the doubting Apostles, who did not dare to approach him, because they thought they saw a spirit, not a body

[88]. Archisynagogi filia suscitatur, et cibum accipit: Lazarus quatriduanus mortuus resurgit, et prandens inducitur

[88]. The ruler of the synagogue’s daughter is raised, and receives food: Lazarus, four days dead, rises again, and, eating, is introduced

[89]: non quia apud inferos esuriebat, sed quia difficultas operis, scrupulositatem fidei requirebat. Quomodo veras manus et verum ostendit latus: ita vere comedit cum discipulis: vere ambulavit cum Cleopha: vere lingua locutus est cum hominibus: vero accubitu discubuit in coena: veris manibus cepit panem, benedixit, ac fregit, et porrigebat illis. Quod autem ab oculis repente evanuit, virtus Dei est, non umbrae et phantasmatis.

[89]: not because he was hungry in the underworld, but because the difficulty of the work required scrupulosity of faith. Just as he showed true hands and a true side: so truly he ate with the disciples: truly he walked with Cleopha: truly with a tongue he spoke with human beings: with true reclining he reclined at the supper: with true hands he took bread, blessed, and broke it, and was proffering it to them. But that he suddenly vanished from their eyes is the power of God, not of shadow and phantasm.

Alioquin et ante resurrectionem, cum eduxissent eum de Nazareth, ut praecipitarent de supercilio montis, transivit per medios, id est, elapsus est de manibus eorum. Numquid iuxta Marcionem dicere possumus, quod ideo nativitas eius in phantasmate fuerit, quia contra naturam qui tenebatur, elapsus est? Quod Magis licet, hoc Domino non licet?

Moreover, even before the resurrection, when they had led him out of Nazareth to precipitate him from the brow of the mountain, he passed through the midst, that is, he slipped from their hands. Can we, according to Marcion, say that for this reason his nativity was in a phantasm, because he who was being held, against nature, slipped away? What is permitted to the Magi is not permitted to the Lord?

Apollonius Tyaneus scribitur cum ante Domitianum staret in consistorio, repente non comparuisse. Noli potentiam Domini Magorum praestigiis adaequare, ut videatur fuisse quod non fuit, et putetur comedisse sine dentibus, ambulasse sine pedibus, fregisse panem sine manibus, locutus esse sine lingua, et latus monstrasse sine costis.

It is written that Apollonius of Tyana, when he was standing before Domitian in the consistory, suddenly disappeared. Do not equate the Lord’s power with the prestidigitations of the Magi, so that it may seem to have been what it was not, and it be supposed that he ate without teeth, walked without feet, broke bread without hands, spoke without a tongue, and showed a side without ribs.

35. Et quomodo, inquies, non cognoscebant eum in itinere, si ipsum habebat corpus, quod ante habuit. Audi Scripturam dicentem:Oculi eorum tenebantur, ne eum agnoscerent

35. And how, you will say, did they not recognize him on the way, if he had the very body which he had before? Hear Scripture saying:Their eyes were held, so that they might not recognize him

[90]. Et rursum:Aperti sunt oculi eorum, et cognoverunt eum

[90]. And again:Their eyes were opened, and they recognized him

[91]. Numquid alius fuit quando non agnoscebatur, et alius quando agnitus est? Certe unus atque idem erat. Cognoscere ergo, et non cognoscere, oculorum fuit, non eius qui videbatur, licet et ipsius fuerit.

[91]. Was he perhaps another when he was not being recognized, and another when he was recognized? Surely he was one and the same. To recognize, therefore, and not to recognize, was of the eyes, not of him who was being seen, albeit it was also of himself.

Oculos enim tenebat eorum, ne se agnoscerent. Denique ut scias errorem qui versabatur in medio, non corporis Domini, sed oculorum fuisse clausorum: Aperti sunt oculi eorum, inquit, et cognoverunt eum

For he was holding their eyes, lest they recognize him. Finally, that you may know that the error which was being turned about in the midst was not of the body of the Lord, but of the eyes being closed: Their eyes were opened, he says, and they recognized him

[92]. Unde et Maria Magdalene quamdiu non agnoscebat Iesum, et vivum quaerebat inter mortuos, hortulanum putabat. Agnoscit, et Dominum vocat. Post resurrectionem Iesus stabat in littore, discipuli in navi erant.

[92]. Whence also Mary Magdalene, so long as she did not recognize Jesus, and was seeking the living among the dead, supposed him to be the gardener. She recognizes, and calls him Lord. After the resurrection Jesus was standing on the shore, the disciples were in the ship.

Caeteris non cognoscentibus eum, dicit discipulus quem diligebat Iesus, Petro, Dominus est

While the others were not recognizing him, the disciple whom Jesus loved says to Peter, It is the Lord

[93]. Prior enim virginitas virginale corpus agnoscit. Idem erat, et non idem omnibus videbatur. Statimque subiungitur:Et nemo audebat interrogare eum, Tu quis es? scientes quod Dominus est. Nemo audebat, quia Deum sciebant.

[93]. For prior virginity recognizes the virginal body. He was the same, and yet not the same did he seem to all. And immediately it is subjoined:And no one dared to question him, Who are you? knowing that it is the Lord. No one dared, because they knew God.

Vescebantur cum prandente, quia hominem et carnem videbant, non quod alter Deus, alter homo esset, sed unus atque idem Filius Dei cognoscebatur ut homo, adorabatur ut Deus. Scilicet nunc mihi philosophandum est, incertos esse sensus nostros, et maxime visum. Carneades aliquis ab inferis excitandus, ut proferat verum.

They were eating with one who was lunching, because they saw a man and flesh—not that one was God, another man, but one and the same Son of God was recognized as a man, was adored as God. Surely now I must philosophize that our senses are uncertain, and vision most of all. Some Carneades must be called up from the underworld, to bring forth the truth.

Remum in aqua fractum videri, porticus longius angustiores, rotundos procul turrium angulos, columbarum colla ad singulas conversiones colorem mutantia. Cum Rhode Petrum nuntiaret, et Apostolis diceret

that an oar seems broken in water, that porticoes appear narrower at a greater distance, that the angles of towers look rounded from afar, that the necks of doves change color at each single turning. When Rhoda was announcing Peter, and was telling the Apostles

[94]: ob periculi magnitudinem evasisse: non credunt, phantasma suspicantur. Porro quod clausis ingressus est ostiis, eiusdem virtutis fuit, cuius et ex oculis evanescere. Lynceus (ut fabulae ferunt) videbat trans parietem: Dominus clausis ostiis, nisi phantasma fuerit, intrare non poterit?

[94]: on account of the greatness of the danger he had escaped: they do not believe, they suspect a phantasm. Moreover, that he entered with the doors shut was of the same power as that of vanishing from their eyes. Lynceus (as the fables report) saw through a wall: will the Lord, with the doors shut, be unable to enter—unless he were a phantasm?

Aquilae et vultures transmarina cadavera sentiunt. Salvator Apostolos suos, nisi ostium aperuerit, non videbit? Dic mihi, acutissime disputator, quid est maius, tantam terrae magnitudinem appendere super nihilum, et super aquarum incerta librare: an Deum transire per clausam portam, et creaturam cedere Creatori?

Eagles and vultures sense transmarine cadavers. Will the Savior not see his Apostles unless he opens the door? Tell me, most acute disputant, what is greater: to suspend so great a magnitude of the earth upon nothing, and to poise it upon the uncertainties of the waters; or for God to pass through a shut gate, and for the creature to yield to the Creator?

Quod maius est, tribuis: quod minus est, calumniaris. Petrus super aquas ambulat gravi et solido corpore

That which is greater, you attribute; that which is lesser, you calumniate. Peter walks upon the waters with a heavy and solid body

[95]Mollis unda non cedit: paululum fides dubitat, et statim naturam suam corpus intelligit: ut sciamus, super aquas non corpus ambulasse, sed fidem.

[95]The soft wave does not yield: faith doubts a little, and immediately the body understands its own nature: so that we may know that upon the waters it was not the body that walked, but faith.

36. Oro te, qui tantis contra resurrectionem uteris argumentis, ut simpliciter mecum loquaris. Credis vere Dominum resurrexisse, in eodem quo mortuus, quo sepultus est corpore, an non credis? Si credis, cur ista proponis, per quae resurrectio denegatur?

36. I beg you, you who employ such great arguments against the resurrection, to speak simply with me. Do you truly believe that the Lord rose again, in the same body in which he died, in which he was buried, or do you not believe? If you believe, why do you propose those things by which the resurrection is denied?

Si non credis, qui ita imperitorum lactas animas, et resurrectionem casso nomine ventilas? Audi. Nuper de Marcionis quidam schola:

If you do not believe, why do you thus gull the souls of the unlearned, and bandy about the resurrection under an empty name? Listen. Recently, a certain man from the school of Marcion:

- Vae, inquit, ei, qui in hac carne, et in his ossibus resurrexerit.

- Woe, he says, to him who shall have risen in this flesh, and in these bones.

Gaudebat animus.

The spirit was rejoicing.

Sed statim intulit: Consepulti enim sumus, et consurreximus cum Christo per baptismum

But immediately he added: For we have been co-buried, and we have co-risen with Christ through baptism

[96].

- Animae, an carnis resurrectionem dicis?

- Do you say a resurrection of the soul, or of the flesh?

- Respondit: Non solius animae, sed carnis, quae cum anima renascitur in lavacro.

- He responded: Not of the soul alone, but of the flesh, which is reborn with the soul in the laver.

- Et quomodo peribit, quae in Christo renata est?

- And how will the flesh perish, which has been reborn in Christ?

- Quia scriptum est, ait: Caro et sanguis regnum Dei non possidebunt

- Because it is written, he said: Flesh and blood will not possess the kingdom of God

[97]. Attende, obsecro te, quod dicitur,Caro et sanguis regnum Dei non possidebunt. Numquid non resurgent? Absit; sed non possidebunt. Quare non possidebunt?

[97]. Attend, I beseech you, to what is said,Flesh and blood will not possess the kingdom of God. Will they then not rise again? Far be it; but they will not possess. Why will they not possess?

Quia sequitur, neque corruptio incorruptionem possidebit. Tamdiu ergo regnum Dei non possidebunt, quamdiu caro tantum sanguisque permanserint. Cum autem corruptivum induerit incorruptionem, et mortale induerit immortalitatem

Because it follows, nor will corruption possess incorruption. Therefore they will not possess the kingdom of God so long as they remain merely flesh and blood. But when the corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and the mortal shall have put on immortality

[98], et lutum carnis in testam fuerit excoctum, quae prius gravi pondere premebatur in terram, acceptis spiritus pennis et immutationis, non abolitionis, nova gloria volabit ad coelum; et tunc implebitur illud quod scriptum est:Absorpta est mors in victoria. Ubi est, mors, contentio tua? ubi est, mors, aculeus tuus

[98], and when the clay of the flesh shall have been fired into a potsherd, which previously was pressed down to the earth by a heavy weight, having received the wings of the spirit and of transmutation, not of abolition, with a new glory it will fly to heaven; and then that which is written will be fulfilled:Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where is, O death, your contention? where is, O death, your sting

[99]?

37. Praepostero ordine de animarum statu et carnis resurrectione respondimus: omissisque principiis Epistolae, tota nobis contra egregios tractatus eius fuit disputatio. Maluimus enim de Dei rebus, quam de nostris iniuriis dicere.Si peccaverit homo in hominem, rogabunt pro eo ad Dominum.

37. In a preposterous order we responded about the state of souls and the resurrection of the flesh: with the principles of the Epistle omitted, our whole disputation was against his distinguished treatises. For we preferred to speak about the matters of God rather than about our own injuries.If a man should sin against a man, they will pray for him to the Lord.

Si autem in Deum peccaverit, quis orabit pro eo

But if he sins against God, who will pray for him

[100]? Nunc e diverso super omnia nostros adversarios immortali odio persequimur: blasphemantibus Deum, clementem porrigimus manum. Scribit ad Theophilum episcopum apologiam, cuius istud exordium est:Tu quidem ut homo Dei, et apostolica ornatus gratia, curam omnium Ecclesiarum, maxime eius quae in Ierosolymis est, sustines, cum ipse plurimis sollicitudinibus Ecclesiae Dei, quae sub te est, distringaris.

[100]? Now, on the contrary, above all we pursue our adversaries with immortal hatred: to those blaspheming God, we extend a clement hand. He writes an apologia to the bishop Theophilus, whose exordium is this:You indeed, as a man of God, and adorned with apostolic grace, bear the care of all the Churches, especially of that which is in Jerusalem, while you yourself are constrained by the very many solicitudes of the Church of God which is under you.

Laudat faciem, ad personam principum trahit. Tu qui regulas quaeris Ecclesiasticas, et Nicaeni concilii canonibus uteris, et alienos clericos, et cum suis episcopis commorantes tibi niteris usurpare, responde mihi, ad Alexandrinum episcopum Palaestina quid pertinet? Ni fallor, hoc ibi decernitur, ut Palaestinae metropolis Caesaria sit, et totius Orientis Antiochia.

He praises the face; he appeals to the person of princes. You who seek Ecclesiastical rules and employ the canons of the Council of Nicaea, and who strive to usurp to yourself foreign clerics—even those residing with their own bishops—answer me: what has Palestine to do with the Alexandrian bishop? Unless I am mistaken, this is decreed there, that the metropolis of Palestine is Caesarea, and of the whole Orient, Antioch.

Aut igitur ad Caesariensem episcopum referre debueras, cui, spreta communione tua, communicare nos noveras; aut si procul expetendum iudicium erat, Antiochiam potius litterae dirigendae. Sed novi cur Caesariam, cur Antiochiam nolueris mittere. Sciebas quid fugeres, quid vitares.

Therefore you ought either to have referred the matter to the bishop of Caesarea, with whom—you knew—despising your communion, we were in communion; or, if judgment was to be sought from afar, letters ought rather to have been directed to Antioch. But I know why you were unwilling to send to Caesarea, why to Antioch. You knew what you were fleeing, what you were avoiding.

Maluisti occupatis auribus molestiam facere, quam debitum Metropolitano tuo honorem reddere. Nec hoc dico, quod praeter amicitias, quae suspicionem generant, quidquam in legatione reprehendam; sed quia apud interrogantes magis et praesentes te purgare debueris. Misisti religiosissimum hominem Dei Isidorum presbyterum, virum potentem tam ex ipsa incessus et habitus dignitate, quam divinae intelligentiae, curare etiam eos, qui animo vehementer aegrotant; si tamen sensum sui languoris habeant.

You preferred to cause annoyance to ears that were occupied, rather than to render the due honor to your Metropolitan. Nor do I say this because—apart from friendships, which engender suspicion—I would find anything to reprove in the legation; but because you ought rather to have cleared yourself before those questioning and present. You sent the most religious man of God, Isidore the presbyter, a man powerful both by the dignity of his very gait and habit, and by divine intelligence, to care even for those who are vehemently ill in mind; if, however, they have a sense of their own languor.

Homo Dei mittit hominem Dei.

A man of God sends a man of God.

Nihil interest inter presbyterum et episcopum; eadem dignitas mittentis et missi: hoc satis imperite: in portu, ut dicitur, naufragium. Iste Isidorus qui in coelum tuis laudibus tollitur, idipsum infamatur Alexandriae, quod tu Ierosolymae; ex quo non legatus advenisse videtur, sed socius. Alioquin et litterae manu eius scriptae, quae ante tres menses legationis ad nos directae erant, portantes errorem, Vincentio presbytero redditae sunt, quae usque hodie ab eo tenentur, quibus cohortatur ducem exercitus sui, ut super petram fidei, stabili pesistat gradu, nec nostris naeniis terreatur.

There is no difference between a presbyter and a bishop; the same dignity of the sender and of the sent: this quite unskillfully—a shipwreck in harbor, as they say. That Isidore, who is lifted to heaven by your praises, is defamed at Alexandria for this very same thing as you at Jerusalem; whence he seems to have come not as a legate, but as a companion. Moreover, the letters written by his hand, which three months before had been directed to us as part of the embassy, bearing error, were delivered to the presbyter Vincentius, and to this very day are held by him, in which he exhorts the leader of his army to persist upon the rock of faith with a steady step, and not be frightened by our laments.

Pollicetur se antequam legationis esset ulla suspicio, venturum Ierosolymam, et ad adventum suum illico adversariorum cuncos proterendos. Et inter caetera his etiam verbis utitur: «Quomodo fumus in aere dissolvitur, et cera ad viciniam ignis liquescit: ita dissipabuntur qui semper Ecclesiasticae fidei resistentes, nunc per homines simplices eamdem fidem inquietare conantur.

He promises that, before there was any suspicion of the legation, he would come to Jerusalem, and that at his advent he would immediately trample down all the adversaries. And among other things he also uses these words: «Just as smoke is dissolved in the air, and wax melts at the vicinity of fire: so will they be dissipated who, always resisting the Ecclesiastical faith, now through simple men try to trouble the same faith. »

38. Rogo te, lector, qui hoc scribit antequam veniat, qui tibi videtur? adversarius, an legatus? Iste est quem nos piissimum vel religiosissimum, et, ut verbum exprimamus e verbo,deicolam possumus dicere.

38. I ask you, reader: he who writes this before he comes—how does he seem to you? an adversary, or a legate? This is the one whom we can call most pious or most religious, and, to express a word from the word, agod-worshipper.

Iste est homo divinae intelligentiae; tam potens, et tanta incessus ac habitus dignitate, ut quasi spiritualis Hippocrates, languorem animarum nostrarum sua potuerit praesentia mitigare, si tamen nos voluerimus suae medicinae acquiescere. Curet se tali medicamine, qui etiam alios curare consuevit. Nobis divina illa intelligentia, pro Christo stultitia est.

This is a man of divine intelligence; so powerful, and with such dignity of gait and bearing, that, as a spiritual Hippocrates, he might have been able to mitigate the languor of our souls by his presence, if only we were willing to acquiesce in his medicine. Let him cure himself with such a medicament, he who is even accustomed to cure others. For us, that divine intelligence is folly for Christ’s sake.

Libenter nostra rusticitate languemus, ne collyrio vestro impie videre discamus. «Tuae vero sanctimoniae, pro optima voluntate quasi ad finem usque perducta sit, deprecamur Dominum in sanctis locis nocte ac die, ut ei reddat perfectam mercedem, et coronam vitae largiatur.» Recte gratias agis; nisi enim venisset Isidorus, tu in tota Palaestina tam fidelem sodalem non invenisses. Nisi ille tibi promissum apportasset auxilium, haereres in turba rusticorum, quae sapientiam tuam intelligere non posset.

Willingly we languish in our rusticity, lest by your collyrium we learn to see impiously. «But to Your Sanctity, for your best goodwill as though brought even to the end, we beseech the Lord in the holy places night and day, that He may render a perfect recompense to you, and bestow the crown of life.» You give thanks rightly; for if Isidore had not come, you would not have found in all Palestine so faithful a comrade. Unless he had brought you the promised aid, you would be sticking in a crowd of rustics, which could not understand your wisdom.

Haec ipsa apologia, de qua nunc sermo est, Isidoro praesente et multum collaborante, dictata est, ut idem esset, et dictator et baiulus litterarum.

This very apology, about which there is talk now, was dictated with Isidore present and collaborating much, so that he might be the same person, both the dictator and the bearer of the letters.

39. Cum ergo huc venisset, et accessisset ad nos tribus vicibus, et admovisset tam divinae sapientiae tuae, quam propriae intelligentiae habentia medicinam verba, nec profuit alicui, nec profuit ei quisquam.» Hic qui ad tres vices dicitur ad nos accessisse, ut in veniendo mysticum numerum conservaret, qui Theophili episcopi mandatum nobis loquebatur, litteras ad nos ab eo missas noluit reddere. Cumque diceremus: Si legatus es, redde legationis epistolas: si epistolas non habes, quomodo legatum te probabis? Respondit se habere quidem litteras ad nos: adiuratum tamen ab Hierosolymorum episcopo, ne nobis eas redderet.

39. When therefore he had come here, and had approached us three times, and had applied words holding a remedy both from your divine wisdom and from his own intelligence, it benefited no one, nor did anyone benefit him.» This man who is said to have come to us on three occasions, so that in coming he might preserve the mystical number, who was speaking to us the mandate of Bishop Theophilus, was unwilling to hand over the letters sent to us by him. And when we said: If you are a legate, produce the epistles of the legation; if you have no epistles, how will you prove yourself a legate? He replied that he did indeed have letters for us; nevertheless he had been adjured by the bishop of Jerusalem not to deliver them to us.

En legati constantia, qui ut pacem faceret, et suspicionem in alteram partem favoris excluderet, aequum se utrisque tribuit. Et quia sine emplastro venerat, et medicorum armamenta non habebat, idcirco eius medicina non profuit. Hieronymus et hi cum eo sunt, et secreto et coram omnibus, frequentissime et sub iurisiurandi testificatione satis ei fecerunt, quod numquam de nobis ambiguitatem aliquam habuerint fidei, dicentes: Quomodo eo tempore quando communicabamus ei, nunc similiter eumdem affectum habemus de ratione fidei. Videte quid faciat concordia dogmatum.

Behold the constancy of the legate, who, in order to make peace and to exclude a suspicion of favor toward the other side, showed himself equitable to both. And because he had come without a plaster, and did not have the armaments of physicians, therefore his medicine did not profit. Jerome and those with him, both in secret and before all, very frequently and under the attestation of an oath, satisfied him that they had never had any ambiguity about us concerning the faith, saying: Just as at the time when we were in communion with him, so now likewise we have the same disposition regarding the reason of the faith. See what the concord of dogmas does.

Isidorus, ut haec significaret, eius socius erat, homo Dei et presbyter, et vir potens, et sacro ac venerabili incessu, et divinae intelligentiae, et Hippocrates Christianorum vocatur. Ego misellus dum in solitudine delitesco, a tanto pontifice repente truncatus, presbyteri nomen amisi. Et tamen iste Hieronymus, cum pannosa turba et sordidatis gregibus, quid Isidoro illi fulmineo [Al. fulmine] ausus est respondere?

Isidore, so as to signify these things, was his associate, a man of God and a presbyter, and a powerful man, and with a sacred and venerable gait, and of divine intelligence, and is called the Hippocrates of the Christians. I, a poor wretch, while I hide away in solitude, suddenly cut off by so great a pontiff, lost the name of presbyter. And yet what did that Jerome, together with a ragged mob and sordid flocks, dare to reply to that fulmineous Isidore [Al. fulmine]?

At ne forte ille non cederet, et opprimeret eos praesentia, et mole corporis sui, non semel, non tertio, sed frequentissime iuraverunt, se eum de quo quaestio erat, scire orthodoxum, nec umquam in suspicione habuisse haereseos. O apertum impudensque mendacium! O testimonium pro se, nec Catoni creditum!

But lest perhaps he should not yield and should overwhelm them by his presence and by the bulk of his body, they swore not once, not a third time, but most frequently, that they knew the one about whom the question was to be orthodox, and that they had never held him in suspicion of heresy. O open and impudent lie! O testimony on his own behalf, not believed even by Cato!

In ore enim duorum, vel trium testium stat omne verbum

For in the mouth of two, or three, witnesses every word stands

[101]. Alicubi[Al. aliquando] ne dictum, aut tibi alicubi mandatum est, quod sine satisfactione fidei communionem tuam subiremus? Quando per virum disertissimum, et christianissimum Archelaum comitem, qui sequester pacis era, condictus locus foederis fuit, nonne hoc in primis postulatum est, ut futurae concordiae fides iaceret fundamenta? Pollicitus est esse se venturum.

[101]. Anywhere[Al. aliquando] was it said, or was it anywhere enjoined to you, that we should enter your communion without a satisfaction of faith? When, through the most eloquent and most Christian man, Count Archelaus, who was the sequester of peace, a place for the covenant was appointed, was not this among the first things demanded, that the pledge of future concord should lay the foundations? He promised that he would come.

Instabat dies Paschae: frequens monachorum turba convenerat: exspectabaris in loco: quid faceres, nesciebas. Repente mandasti aegrotare nescio quam: illo die te non posse venire. Ludione an episcopus haec loquitur?

The day of Easter was at hand: a numerous crowd of monks had gathered: you were expected at the place: what you would do, you did not know. Suddenly you sent word that you were sick with I-know-not-what: that on that day you could not come. Is it a jester or a bishop who says these things?

Pone verum esse quod dicis, propter unius mulierculae delicias, ne te absente doleat caput, fastidium sustineat, stomacho perfrigescat, Ecclesiae causam negligis? tot virorum, et christianorum et monachorum contemnis praesentiam? Noluimus occasionem dare: videbamus enim stropham dilationis tuae, iniuriam patientia vicimus.

Suppose what you say to be true: on account of the delights of a single little woman, lest, with you absent, her head ache, she endure disgust, she grow chilled in her stomach, do you neglect the cause of the Church? Do you contemn the presence of so many men, both Christians and monks? We were unwilling to give an occasion: for we saw the strophe of your delay, and we overcame the injury by patience.

Rescribit Archelaus: monet altero et tertio die manere, si vellet venire. At ille occupatus: Muliercula enim vomere non cessavit: dum nauseam evasisset, nostri penitus oblitus est. Post duos ergo menses tamdem exspectatus venit Isidorus, qui non, ut tu fingis, pro te testimonium, sed causam postulatae satisfactionis audivit.

Archelaus writes back: he advises to remain for a second and a third day, if he wished to come. But he was occupied: for the little woman did not cease vomiting; until she had escaped the nausea, he completely forgot us. After two months, therefore, at last long-awaited, Isidore came, who did not, as you feign, hear testimony on your behalf, but heard the case of the demanded satisfaction.

Cum enim obiiceret nobis, quare ei communicastis, si haereticus erat? audivit ab omnibus, communicavimus nihil de haeresi suspicantes. Postquam vero a beato Papa Epiphanio conventus, tam sermone, quam litteris, respondere contempsit: cunctis monachis ab eodem Epiphanio scripta venerunt, ut absque satisfactione fidei, nullus ei temere communicaret.

For when he was objecting to us, “Why did you communicate with him, if he was a heretic?” he heard from all: we communicated, suspecting nothing of heresy. But after he had been convened by the blessed Pope Epiphanius, both by speech and by letters, he disdained to reply: letters came to all the monks from that same Epiphanius, that, without a satisfaction of faith, no one should rashly communicate with him.

Presto sunt litterae, nec super hac re dubitari potest. Haec sunt quae fratrum turba respondit, non ut tu argumentaris, ex eo te non esse haereticum, quia aliquando non dictus sis. Hac enim ratione aegrotare non debebit, qui ante aegrotationem sanus fuit.

The letters are at hand, nor can there be doubt concerning this matter. These are the things that the multitude of the brethren replied, not, as you argue, that from this you are not a heretic, because at some time you were not so called. For by this rationale, he ought not to be sick who before the sickness was healthy.

41.Quando autem coeptum est de ordinatione Pauliniani, et aliorum qui cum eo sunt, ventilari, videntes se reprehendi, cum propter charitatem atque concordiam concederentur eis omnia; hoc autem solum expeteretur, ut licet ab aliis contra regulas ordinati essent, tamen subiicerentur Ecclesiae Dei; ut non scinderent eam, atque proprium sibi facerent principatum: in hoc non acquiescentes, coeperunt proponere de fide, et omnibus notum facere, quod si non arguerentur hi qui cum Hieronymo presbytero erant, nihil culparent in nobis. Sin autem arguerentur erroris, et culpae, cum penitus non queant de istiusmodi quaestionibus disputare, satisfactionem errati proprii non invenientes, ad ista confugerent: non quo sperarent nos posse convinci, sed famam nostram laedere niterentur. Quod perplexa oratio est, nemo vitium interpretationis putet. Talis enim et Graeca est.

41.But when the matter of the ordination of Paulinianus, and of the others who are with him, began to be aired, seeing themselves reproved, although on account of charity and concord all things were being conceded to them; but this alone was being sought, that although they had been ordained by others against the rules, nevertheless they should be subjected to the Church of God; that they might not rend it, and make for themselves a principate of their own: not acquiescing in this, they began to bring forward matters of faith, and to make it known to all that, if those who were with the presbyter Jerome were not accused, they would blame nothing in us. But if, however, they were accused of error and fault, since they are utterly unable to dispute about questions of this sort, not finding satisfaction for their own error, they would take refuge in these things: not because they hoped that we could be refuted, but they were striving to injure our reputation. Because the discourse is perplexed, let no one think it a fault of the interpretation. For such also is the Greek.

Interim ego gaudeo, quod qui me decollatum putabam, subito mihi presbyterii caput video repositum. Dicit nos omnino convinci non posse, et venire ad praelium perhorrescit. Si causa discordiae, non ex dissensione fidei est, sed ex Pauliniani ut dicis, ordinatione descendit, quae tanta stultitia est volentibus occasionem dare, nolle respondere?

Meanwhile I rejoice that I, who had supposed myself beheaded, suddenly see the head of the presbyterate restored to me. He says that we cannot at all be refuted, and he shudders to come to the battle. If the cause of the discord is not from a dissension of faith, but, as you say, descends from the ordination of Paulinian, what great folly is it to give occasion to those eager for it, and to be unwilling to answer?

Confitere fidem; sed tamen responde quod quaereris, ut omnibus luceat, non de fide, sed de ordinatione esse certamen. Quamdiu enim interrogatus de fide, tacueris, potest tibi adversarius dicere: Non est ordinationis causa, sed fidei. Si ordinationis causa est, stulte facis de fide interrogatus, tacere.

Confess the faith; but nevertheless answer what is being asked, so that it may be clear to all that the contest is not about faith, but about ordination. For as long as, when questioned about faith, you keep silent, your adversary can say to you: It is not a cause of ordination, but of faith. If the cause is ordination, you act foolishly to be silent when questioned about faith.

Si fidei, stulte praetendis ordinationem. Porro quod dicis te petisse, ut subiicerentur Ecclesiae Dei, et non scinderent eam, neque proprium sibi facerent principatum, de quibus dicas, non satis intelligo. Si de me et de presbytero Vincentio, satis multo dormisti tempore, qui post annos tredecim, nunc excitatus haec loqueris.

If it is of faith, you foolishly put forward ordination. Moreover, as to what you say that you asked—that they be subjected to the Church of God, and not sunder it, nor make for themselves a proper principate—I do not quite understand about whom you are speaking. If you mean me and the presbyter Vincentius, you have slept for quite a long time: after thirteen years, now awakened, you say these things.

Ob id enim et ego Antiochiam, et ille Constantinopolim, urbes celeberrimas deseruimus, non ut te in populis praedicantem laudaremus: sed ut in agris et in solitudine adolescentiae peccata deflentes, Christi in nos misericordiam deflecteremus. Sin autem de Pauliniano tibi sermo est: vides eum Episcopo suo esse subiectum, versari Cypri, ad visitationem nostram interdum venire: non ut tuum, sed ut alienum; eius videlicet, a quo ordinatus est. Quod si hic etiam esse voluerit, et in exsilio nostro quietus in solitudine vivere, quid tibi debet, nisi honorem quem omnibus debemus episcopis?

For this reason indeed both I left Antioch and he left Constantinople, the most celebrated cities, not that we might praise you proclaiming among the peoples, but that in the fields and in solitude, bewailing the sins of our adolescence, we might incline Christ’s mercy toward us. But if your talk is about Paulinianus: you see that he is subject to his own Bishop, that he dwells in Cyprus, that he sometimes comes for our visitation—not as yours, but as another’s; namely, as belonging to him by whom he was ordained. And if he should also wish to be here, and quietly to live in solitude in our exile, what does he owe you, except the honor which we owe to all bishops?

Fac a te ordinatum: idem ab eo audies, quod a me misello homine sanctae memoriae episcopus Paulinus audivit. «Num rogavi te, ut ordinarer? Si sic presbyterium tribuis, ut monachum nobis non auferas, tu videris de iudicio tuo.

Make him to have been ordained by you: you will hear the same from him, which the bishop Paulinus of holy memory heard from me, a poor wretch of a man. «Did I ask you to be ordained? If thus you bestow the presbyterate, on condition that you do not take the monk away from us, you see to your own judgment.

Sin autem sub nomine presbyteri tollis mihi, propter quod saeculum dereliqui: ego habeo quod semper habui: nullum dispendium in ordinatione passus es.

But if, under the name of presbyter, you take away from me that for the sake of which I forsook the world: I have what I have always had: you have suffered no loss in the ordination.

42.Ut non scinderent, inquit, eam, neque proprium sibi facerent principatum. Quis scindit Ecclesiam? Nos, quorum, omnis domus Bethleem in Ecclesia communicat? an tu qui aut bene credis, et superbe de fide taces: aut male, et vere scindis Ecclesiam?

42.“So that they might not tear it,” he says, “nor make a principate proper to themselves.” Who is rending the Church? We, of whom, the whole house of Bethlehem is in communion in the Church? or you, who either believe well and proudly keep silence about the faith; or believe badly, and truly rend the Church?

Nos scindimus Ecclesiam, qui ante paucos menses circa dies Pentecostes, cum obscurato sole, omnis mundus iam iamque venturum iudicem formidaret, quadraginta diversae aetatis et sexus, presbyteris tuis obtulimus baptizandos? Et certe quinque presbyteri erant in monasterio, qui suo iure poterant baptizare; sed noluerunt quidquam contra stomachum tuum facere, ne et haec tibi de fide reticendi daretur occasio. An non tu potius scindis Ecclesiam, qui praecepisti Bethleem presbyteris tuis: ne competentibus nostris in Pascha baptismum traderent, quos nos Diospolim ad confessorem et episcopum misimus Dionysium baptizandos?

Do we rend the Church, we who a few months ago, around the days of Pentecost, when, with the sun darkened, the whole world was already and again fearing that the Judge was about to come, presented forty, of diverse age and sex, to your presbyters to be baptized? And certainly there were five presbyters in the monastery, who by their own right could baptize; but they were unwilling to do anything against your resentment, lest even this should be given you as an occasion for keeping silence about the faith. Or is it not rather you who rend the Church, you who commanded at Bethlehem your presbyters not to hand over baptism at Pascha to our competentes, whom we sent to Diospolis to the confessor and bishop Dionysius to be baptized?

Ecclesiam scindere dicimur, qui extra cellulas nostras locum Ecclesiae non habemus? An non tu scindis Ecclesiam, qui mandas clericis tuis, ut si quis Paulinianum ab Epiphanio episcopo consecratum presbyterum dixerit, Ecclesiam prohibeatur intrare. Ex quo tempore usque in praesentem diem videmus tantum specum Domini; et haereticis intrantibus, procul positi suspiramus.

Are we said to rend the Church, we who outside our little cells have no place in the Church? Or is it not you who rend the Church, you who command your clerics that, if anyone shall say that Paulinianus is a presbyter consecrated by Bishop Epiphanius, he be forbidden to enter the Church. From which time up to the present day we see only the Lord’s cave; and, with heretics entering, placed afar we sigh.

43. Nosne sumus, qui Ecclesiam scindimus: an ille qui vivis habitaculum, mortuis sepulcrum negat, qui fratrum exsilia postulat? Quis potentissimam illam feram, totius orbis cervicibus imminentem, contra nostras cervices specialiter incitavit? Quis ossa Sanctorum, et innoxios cineres hucusque verberari ab imbribus sinit?

43. Are we the ones who are rending the Church: or is it he who denies a dwelling to the living and a sepulcher to the dead, who demands the exile of the brethren? Who has specifically incited that most powerful beast, hanging over the necks of the whole world, against our necks? Who allows the bones of the Saints and the innocent ashes thus far to be scourged by the rains?

His nos blandimentis bonus Pastor invitat ad pacem, et proprium arguit facere principatum: qui omnibus episcopis, rectam dumtaxat fidem tenentibus, et communione et charitate sociamur. An tu solus Ecclesia es, et qui te offenderit, a Christo excluditur? Si proprium defendimus principatum, ostende nos in paroecia tua habere episcopum.

With these blandishments the Good Shepherd invites us to peace, and he charges that we are making a private principate: whereas we are associated with all bishops, provided only that they hold the right faith, both in communion and in charity. Are you alone the Church, and is he who has offended you excluded from Christ? If we are defending a private principate, show that we have a bishop in your diocese.

Quod tibi non communicavimus, fidei est: responde, et ordinationis erit.

That we have not communicated with you is a matter of faith: respond, and it will be a matter of ordination.

44.Occasionem quoque fingunt aliarum litterarum, quas dicunt sibi scripsisse Epiphanium. Quamquam dabit ille rationem pro omnibus quae gesta sunt ante tribunal Christi, ubi maior et minor absque ulla personarum acceptione iudicabitur. Attamen quomodo possunt illius niti epistola, quam de ordinatione Pauliniani illicita, et illorum qui cum eo sunt, a nobis coargutus scripsit: sicut et ipsa eius epistola in exordio suo significat? Rogo quae tanta est caecitas, Cimmeriis, sicut aiunt, tenebris involuta?

44.They also feign the occasion of other letters, which they say Epiphanius wrote to them. Although he will render an account for all things that have been done before the tribunal of Christ, where the greater and the lesser will be judged without any respect of persons. Yet how can they rely upon that letter of his, which, having been convicted by us, he wrote concerning the illicit ordination of Paulinianus, and of those who are with him, as even his letter itself indicates in its exordium? I ask, what blindness so great, wrapped, as they say, in Cimmerian darkness?

Dicit nos occasionem fingere, et Epiphanii adversus se litteras non habere, statimque subiungit: «Quomodo possunt illius niti epistola, quam de ordinatione Pauliniani illicita, et eorum qui cum eo sunt, a nobis coargutus scripsit: sicut et ipsa eius epistola in exordio suo significat?» Non habemus epistolam. Et quae est illa epistola quae in exordio suo de Pauliniano loquitur? Est aliquid post exordium, cuius tu times facere mentionem.

He says that we feign an occasion, and that we do not have Epiphanius’s letters against him, and straightway he subjoins: «How can they lean upon his letter, which—about the illicit ordination of Paulinianus, and of those who are with him—he, convicted by us, wrote; as even his letter itself indicates in its exordium?» We do not have the epistle. And what is that epistle which in its exordium speaks about Paulinianus? There is something after the exordium, mention of which you are afraid to make.

A te est coargutus aetatis, qua Paulinianus erat. Presbyterum ordinas, et legatum mittis ac socium: tantamque habes fiduciam, ut ubi Paulinianum mentitus es puerum, illuc puerum mittas presbyterum. Itemque Theosebam Thiriae Ecclesiae diaconum facis presbyterum, et contra nos armas, illiusque in nos abuteris eloquentia.

You are yourself confuted as to the age that Paulinianus was. You ordain a presbyter, and you send him as legate and companion; and you have such confidence that, where you lied that Paulinianus was a boy, there you send a boy as presbyter. Likewise you make Theosebas, deacon of the Church of Thiria, a presbyter, and you arm him against us, and you abuse his eloquence against us.

Tibi soli licet Ecclesiae iura calcare: tu quidquid feceris, norma doctrinae est; et non erubescis ante tribunal Christi iudicandum tecum Epiphanium provocare. Quae sequuntur post hoc capitulum, haec sunt: Mensae suae et domus contubernium imputat Epiphanio, scribitque eum numquam quam esse secum de Origenis dogmatibus locutum, et sub iurisiurandi testificatione confirmat, dicens: Ne suspicionem quidem, sicut Deus testis est, perversae in nos fidei se habere monstravit. Nolo respondere et arguere acriter, ne periurii episcopum convincere videar. Praesto sunt plures epistolae Epiphanii: una ad ipsum, aliae ad episcopos Palestinos, et nuper ad Romanae urbis pontificem: in quibus dicit se eum coram multis, de dogmatibus arguentem non meruisse responsum, totumque nostrae parvitatis testis est monasterium.

To you alone it is permitted to trample the rights of the Church: whatever you do is the norm of doctrine; and you are not ashamed to summon Epiphanius with you to be judged before the tribunal of Christ. The things which follow after this chapter are these: he imputes to Epiphanius the companionship of his table and house, and he writes that he never at any time spoke with him about the dogmas of Origen, and under the testimony of an oath he confirms it, saying: Not even a suspicion, as God is witness, did he show that he had against us of perverse faith. I am unwilling to respond and to accuse sharply, lest I seem to convict the bishop of perjury. There are at hand several epistles of Epiphanius: one to himself, others to the Palestinian bishops, and recently to the pontiff of the city of Rome: in which he says that he, arraigning him about the dogmas before many, did not merit a response, and the whole monastery of our littleness is witness.

[1] Rom. 8, 26

[1] Romans 8:26

[2] II Cor. 3, 18

[2] 2 Cor. 3, 18

[3] III Reg. 18, 21

[3] 3 Kings 18, 21

[4] Ps. 17, 46

[5] Prov. 10, 9

[5] Proverbs 10, 9

[6] I Pet. 3, 15

[6] 1 Peter 3, 15

[7] Matth. 6, 23

[7] Matt. 6, 23

[8] Ps. 118, 67

[8] Psalm 118, 67

[9] Ps. 114, 7

[10] Ps. 141, 8

[11] Gal. 1, 8

[11] Galatians 1:8

[12] Ps. 138, 21

[13] Mat. 10, 37

[13] Matt. 10, 37

[14] Ps. 8, 4

[14] Psalm 8, 4

[15] I Cor. 12, 9.

[15] 1 Cor. 12, 9.

[16] Rom. 2, 33; Col. 1, 26

[16] Romans 2, 33; Colossians 1, 26

[17] Isai. 53, 8

[17] Isaiah 53, 8

[18] Act. 23, 5; Exod. 22

[18] Acts 23, 5; Exodus 22

[19] Psal. 32, 6

[19] Psalm 32, 6

[20] Psal. 103, 4

[20] Psalm 103, 4

[21] Iud. 6

[21] Judges 6

[22] Ephes. 1, 21

[22] Ephesians 1:21

[23] I Cor. 1, 25

[23] 1 Corinthians 1, 25

[24] Ioan. 5, 17

[24] John 5, 17

[25] Ps. 32, 15

[26] Heb. 11

[26] Hebrews 11

[27] Genes. 18

[27] Genesis 18

[28] Iudic. 13

[28] Judges 13

[29] Luc. 1

[29] Luke 1

[30] Colos. 18

[30] Colossians 18

[31] I Cor. 15, 42

[31] 1 Cor. 15, 42

[32] Luc. 20, 35, 36

[32] Luke 20, 35, 36

[33] Matth. 24

[33] Matthew 24

[34] I. Cor. 1, 15

[34] 1 Corinthians 1:15

[35] I Cor. 15, 36, 37

[35] 1 Cor. 15, 36, 37

[36] I Cor. 12, 34

[36] 1 Cor. 12, 34

[37] Philipp. 3, 21

[37] Philippians 3, 21

[38] I Cor. 15, 53

[38] 1 Cor. 15, 53

[39] Ps. 44, 14

[39] Psalm 44, 14

[40] Cant. 1, 3

[40] Song of Songs 1, 3

[41] Coloss. 1 , 21, 22

[41] Colossians 1, 21, 22

[42] Coloss. 2, 11

[42] Colossians 2, 11

[43] I Cor. 15, 44; Matth. 22, 30; et Luc. 20, 35

[43] 1 Corinthians 15, 44; Matthew 22, 30; and Luke 20, 35

[44] Luc. 24, 39

[44] Luke 24, 39

[45] Ioan. 20, 27

[45] John 20, 27

[46] Gen. 6, 3

[46] Genesis 6, 3

[47] Gal. 1, 16

[47] Galatians 1, 16

[48] Rom. 8, 9

[49] I Cor. 15

[49] 1 Corinthians 15

[50] Matth. 17, et Marc. 9

[50] Matt. 17, and Mark 9

[51] Matth. 9, 2

[51] Matt. 9, 2

[52] Genes. 5, 4; Reg. 3

[52] Genesis 5, 4; Kings 3

[53] Psal. 15, 9

[53] Psalm 15, 9

[54] Act. 2, 31

[54] Acts 2:31

[55] Isai. 40, 5

[55] Isaiah 40, 5

[56] Ezech. 37

[56] Ezek. 37

[57] Iob. 19, 23 et seqq.

[57] Job 19:23 and the following.

[58] Matth. 22, 30

[58] Matt. 22:30

[59] Luc. 1, 35

[59] Luke 1:35

[60] Matth. 12, 13

[60] Matt. 12:13

[61] Matth. 22

[61] Matt. 22

[62] Luc. 12, 7

[62] Luke 12:7

[63] Ioann. V, 25

[63] John 5, 25

[64] Is. 26, 20, sec. LXX

[64] Isaiah 26, 20, according to the 70

[65] Dan. 12, 2

[65] Daniel 12, 2

[66] Is. 66, 24

[66] Isa. 66:24

[67] Rom. 6, 19 >

[67] Romans 6, 19 >

[68] II Cor. 4, 14

[68] 2 Cor. 4, 14

[69] Act. 7

[69] Acts 7

[70] Exod. 4

[70] Exodus 4

[71] Ier. 18

[71] Jer. 18

[72] Luc. 10

[72] Luke 10

[73] Matth. 27

[73] Matt. 27

[74] Isai. 63, 1, (iuxta LXX)

[74] Isaiah 63, 1, (according to the 70)

[75] Gen. 49, Isa. 63.

[75] Genesis 49, Isaiah 63.

[76] Ioan. 16

[76] John 16

[77] Psal. 44

[77] Psalm 44

[78] Cant. 8, 5; 5, 10

[78] Song of Songs 8, 5; 5, 10

[79] Apoc. 3

[79] Rev. 3

[80] Ioan. 6, 39

[80] John 6:39

[81] Luc. 15

[81] Luke 15

[82] Ioan. 19, 6

[82] John. 19, 6

[83] Luc. 23, 28

[83] Luke 23:28

[84] Act. 1, 11

[84] Acts 1:11

[85] Rom. 1

[85] Romans 1

[86] Is. 65, 4; Deut. 9

[86] Isaiah 65, 4; Deuteronomy 9

[87] III Reg. 19

[87] 3 Kings 19

[88] Ioan 12

[88] John 12

[89] Marc. 5, Ioann. 11

[89] Mark 5, John 11

[90] Luc.24, 16

[90] Luke 24, 16

[91] Ibid. 31

[92] Ioan. 20

[92] John 20

[93] Ioan 21, 12

[93] John 21:12

[94] Act. 12

[94] Acts 12

[95] Ioan 20.

[95] John 20.

[96] Rom. 6, 4

[96] Romans 6, 4

[97] II Cor. 15

[97] 2 Corinthians 15

[98] I Cor. 15, 53

[98] 1 Cor. 15, 53

[99] Ose.13, 14; et I Cor. 15, 55

[99] Hos.13, 14; and 1 Cor. 15, 55

[100] I Reg. 2, 25

[100] 1 Kings 2:25

[101]Deut. 27, 6; et Matth. 18, 16; et II Cor. 16, 1

[101]Deuteronomy 27, 6; and Matthew 18, 16; and 2 Corinthians 16, 1