Brevis Syllabus Controversiarum (A Brief Syllabus of Controversies)

English

We now append this Brief Summary of Controversies to the Marrow of our Didactic and Elenctic Theology, so that the sons of theologians — whose studies we strive to advance by every means, and whom we embrace with affection — may understand and see, as it were in a brief table: With whom must we contend? What is the weight of the controversies? How great is the harvest of errors? How great is the variety of minds? How far do human minds go astray? How easy is the fall from minor errors to the gravest heresies? How numerous are the phalanxes of those who so style themselves? How rare is the agreement among the ancient and more recent heretics? It is truly to be lamented — indeed, with tears of blood — that in our times ancient errors, encrusted over and clothed as if in new garments, are being revived, and that the foundations of the Christian religion are being overthrown, partly by secret undermining, partly by open warfare. It is to be lamented that the true Theology handed down from Christ Himself and the Apostles is found displeasing because it is ancient, on the grounds that it is therefore believed to be outdated. It is also to be lamented that those who pretend to hear nothing but Scripture so miserably handle the sacred text that all the mysteries vanish — those passages which prove to all who are unwilling to be blind the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, the total depravity of man in the state of sin, the necessity of grace, and its irresistible operation — are either expunged or at least twisted into a foreign meaning.

English

— that all the oracles of the Old Testament, which the circumcised Jews themselves expounded concerning the Messiah, are referred to someone other than Christ, and that something or other is attempted against the Sacred Writers, as if Scripture were a wax nose. It was my intention to append to this synopsis of controversies a refutation of the errors, so that, with the poison set forth, the antidote might also be offered. But it was not permitted to attend to this business now, while we are occupied with other matters. We have set forth the truth in the Medulla, so that the young might be fortified, and we have indicated the chief authors who wrote against the errors contained in this book, besides the fact that nearly all of them have been refuted by us in our French Theology. We pray to God with a humble voice that all who err may be brought back to the way, that all darkness may be dispersed, that all controversies may be abolished, that truth may triumph over all errors and heresies, and that the Church of Christ may rejoice in tranquil peace, until she may enjoy with her heavenly Bridegroom and Head eternal glory. A BRIEF SYLLABUS OF CONTROVERSIES

English

Concerning the Controversies that have been debated since the Age of the Reformation.

English

Atheists, Deists, Antiscripturists. They deny the existence of God, consider the soul to be mortal, and believe the world to be eternal — such as Vanini, burned at Toulouse.

English

Whether there truly exist persons who are genuinely persuaded that no divinity exists is a matter of inquiry. Against the Atheists many have written: Grotius, Calixtus, Abbadie, in their treatises on the truth of the Christian religion; Johann Musaeus in Atheism Overcome; Chr. Franck in The Atheist Convicted; Seb. Niemann in The Atheist Refuted; Theoph. Spizelius in Scrutiny of Atheism and in his Epistle to Heinrich Meibom on the Root of Atheism; Johann Barthold Niemeyer in disputations on the existence of God and the overthrow of Atheism; Richard Bentheim in The Foolishness of Atheism; Johann Zezschwitz in The Irrationality of Atheism; Pet. Charron in the book whose title is La vérité; and many others, besides the authors of systems. Deists and Antiscripturists are not all of one kind. There are those who, although they profess with their lips that a divinity exists, yet truly deny it, inasmuch as they assert concerning God things that overturn the nature of God. There are those who seem to admit something drawn from the Scriptures, but who attack the chief things contained in them. Others outright laugh Scripture to scorn. Most deny providence, the last judgment, the immortality of the soul, and the divine inspiration of the sacred books. There are those who acknowledge the immortality of the soul, but open heaven to all religions, provided only that life is upright. Among those who can rightly and deservedly be called Atheists, Spinoza certainly stands out — a man who rejected not only Judaism but also all religions, and whose errors are innumerable. His chief errors are these: 1. He believed that there is one single substance in the nature of things, and that this substance is predicated of innumerable attributes, chiefly extension and thought. 2. He held that all bodies existing in the world are modifications of this substance insofar as it is extended, and that the souls of men are modifications of this same substance insofar as it is thinking. 3. He held that God, the necessary and most perfect Being, is the cause of all things that exist, yet does not differ from them; that He is at once agent and patient, efficient cause and subject, and produces nothing that is not a modification of Himself.

English

7. God is not free except insofar as He acts by the sole necessity of His own nature, and because He is determined to act by Himself alone.

English

8. It belongs to the essence of substance that it necessarily subsists.

English

11. Prophecy was nothing other than phantasms and imaginations presented to fanatical and melancholic madmen, whether waking or sleeping, and these were called the mind, revelation, and decrees of God. 12. Revelation varied in each prophet according to the disposition of his bodily temperament, imagination, and according to the opinions he had previously embraced; so that to the joyful God represented joyful things, to rustics He represented oxen and cows, to military commanders He represented an army, and to courtiers He represented a royal throne. 13. Moses held erroneous opinions about God, and God feigned to accommodate Himself to those same opinions.

English

14. The Hebrew people surpassed the other nations in nothing other than the prosperity of their earthly dominion, and therefore no other kind of calling is to be recognized for them. 15. No miracles can exist, because the laws of nature are necessary and cannot be altered by any other Being; and whatever things of that sort are found in Scripture are nothing other than accounts transmitted in bad faith — inasmuch as the writer either wrapped in silence the natural causes by which those things were produced and added certain falsehoods, or else imagined things that never happened. 16. The decrees, commandments, and providence of God are nothing other than the order of nature; and so when Scripture says that this or that was done by God or by the authority of God, it truly means nothing other than that the same thing was done according to the laws and order of nature. 17. Whatever things are narrated in the sacred books as performed beyond the order of nature were added by sacrilegious men.

English

20. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah, as well as the books of Chronicles, were composed by the Sadducees after the restoration of the Temple worship by Judas Maccabaeus.

English

22. The Psalms were collected and distributed into five books in the second Temple. 23. The books of the Prophets are fragments and rhapsodies.

English

24. The book of Daniel was written by various authors, and the first seven chapters were drawn from the Chronological books of the Chaldeans; and the same author composed Daniel, Esther, Ezra, and Nehemiah; and these books were written after Judas Maccabaeus restored the worship of the Temple. 25. The books of the New Testament proceeded from private individuals on the basis of their own personal judgment. 26. We are obligated to nothing except because we ourselves have voluntarily obligated ourselves.

English

27. To be devoted to virtue is to follow the laws of nature, and to follow one's affections is to love God. 28. It is a delusion to think that God makes any promises or threats, and that it makes no difference whatsoever what we think about the Divinity or what worship we render to Him.

English

29. Absolute right belongs to those who hold dominion, to determine, decide, interpret, and accommodate sacred things and religions to the public utility of the commonwealth, as regards external worship. Spinoza was refuted by many: by Mansveld, Wittich, Huttinga, Velthuysen, Musaeus, Kayser, Jacquelot, Duris, Bayle, and various authors of theological systems. Hobbes. After Spinoza, Hobbes is placed here, because he holds many views no less absurd, on account of which he is numbered among the Atheists by many, although he teaches more things that Atheists do not acknowledge. He believed: 1. That the state of nature is a state of war.

English

3. The seeds of religion arise from these four causes: (a) from some unknown fear of invisible spirits, which he denies exist; (b) from ignorance of secondary causes; (c) from the worship of those things which imprudent people greatly dread; (d) from the interpretation of chance events, as if there were something divine in them.

English

5. He attributed to Moses the role of representing the person of God; hence God was representative — not, therefore, from the three Divine Persons, of whom the Second was the Son coming into the world, and the Third was the Holy Spirit sanctifying the people of God. 6. Actions are to be judged not by justice or injustice, but by greatness, power, success, and superior or inferior strength. 7. The supreme law for everyone is the law of civil authority, which is to be taken as the divine law.

English

10. The reward of eternal life for the righteous and eternal death for the reprobate are to be expected in this world alone. 11. The life of the blessed will be like the life of Adam in Paradise, and the pinnacle of that happiness will be the earthly Jerusalem.

English

14. That incorporeal demons do not exist.

English

16. That there is one article necessary to be believed for salvation, namely that Jesus is the Christ; but in ch. 18 of De Cive he says that this proposition embraces others as well, namely: that Jesus is the Son of God, born of a Virgin, that He died for sins, that He is the Christ, that is, the King, that He rose again, that He will judge the world, and that men will rise again.

English

18. That the founders of religions, with the exception of Moses and Christ, exploited the fear and ignorance of men in order to establish dominion for themselves.

English

21. He held erroneous views concerning the miracles narrated in Scripture and concerning prophecies. Against him in England there appeared censures by Guil. Lawson, Rob. Filmer, Richard Cumberland, Joh. Templer, the Most Reverend Bishop of St. David's, and the Most Reverend Tenison, now Primate of all Britain. Edward Herbert, Baron of Cherbury, Peer of the realm of England and Britain, who served Kings James and Charles I as advisor on sacred and military affairs, believed that whatever pertains to universal religion could be contained under five heads or articles: 1. That there is some supreme being, without inquiring what its nature is. 2. That it is to be worshipped, but that any cult referred to God, even if idolatrous —

English

Now, having spoken of those who disturbed the Church from the age of the Reformation down to our own times, we think it not unprofitable to add something about the heretics who harassed Christians in the first century, and to gather into a summary what Irenaeus, Tertullian, Philastrius, Jerome — if he is indeed the author of the work on heresies — and Epiphanius have recorded.

English

Book I.

English

2. That idolatrous and profane worship is not to be condemned.

English

3. That virtue and piety are the chief parts of divine worship. 4. That all vices and crimes whatsoever ought to be expiated through repentance. 5. That reward and punishment are given after this life. Against him Richard Baxter wrote in England. The Opinion of George Holwod. From Horntokius and Osiander, and Schlüsselburg it is gathered that he said: 1. That the doctrine of Moses, the Prophets, Christ, and the Apostles is deficient, imperfect, and useless, but his own is effective for making man blessed. 2. That he himself is the true Christ and Messiah, born not from the flesh, but from the Spirit of Christ Jesus. 3. That he himself would restore the tabernacle of God, that is the church, but not by death and the cross.

English

4. That he himself could remit and retain sins, and indeed could pardon sin against the Holy Spirit, and that he himself would judge the world.

English

5. That he himself is that least one, of whom Christ said that the least is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. 6. That he himself is more excellent than Christ. And other things which were unknown while he lived, but after his death became known at Basel in the year 1551.

English

Book I.

English

3. In the state of the contemplative or unitive life, every self-interested motive of fear and hope is lost. That which is essential in the direction of the soul is to do nothing other than to follow grace step by step, with infinite patience, caution, and subtlety. One must keep oneself within those limits so that God is permitted to act, and one must never allow oneself to be led to pure love, except when God through interior unction begins to open the heart of such a person to His word, which is so hard for souls still attached to themselves, and so capable of scandalizing them or casting them into confusion.

English

4. In the state of holy indifference, the soul no longer has desires that are voluntary and deliberate for the sake of its own interest, except in those occasions in which it does not faithfully cooperate with all of its grace.

English

5. In the same state of holy indifference, we will nothing for ourselves, all things for God: we will nothing in order that we may be perfect and blessed for our own interest, but we will all perfection and blessedness insofar as it pleases God to cause us to will these very things by the impression of His grace.

English

6. In this state of holy indifference we no longer will salvation as our own salvation, as eternal deliverance, as the reward of our merits, as our greatest interest of all; but we will it with full will, as the glory and good pleasure of God, as a thing which He Himself wills and which He wills us to will for His own sake.

English

7. Dereliction is nothing other than the abnegation, or renunciation of oneself, which Christ requires of us in the Gospel, after we have forsaken all external things. That abnegation of ourselves extends only to our own interest. The extreme trials in which this abnegation, or dereliction of oneself, must be exercised are temptations, by which God, the jealous lover, wills to purify love, showing it no refuge and no hope whatsoever with regard to its own interest, even its eternal interest.

English

8. All the sacrifices that are customarily made by souls who are most disinterested with regard to their eternal blessedness are conditional; but this sacrifice cannot be absolute in the ordinary state. In one of the cases of extreme trials, this sacrifice becomes in some manner absolute.

English

9. In extreme trials it can come about that the soul is invincibly persuaded — by a reflex persuasion, which is not the inmost foundation of the conscience — that it is justly reprobated by God.

English

10. Then the soul, divided from itself, expires with Christ on the cross, saying: My God, my God, why have You forsaken me! In this involuntary impression of desperation consists the absolute sacrifice of one's own interest with regard to eternity.

English

11. In this state the soul loses all hope of its own interest; yet it never loses, in the superior part, that is in its direct and intimate acts, the perfect hope which is the disinterested desire of the promises.

English

12. The director may then permit this soul to acquiesce simply in the loss of its own interest and in the just condemnation which it believes God has pronounced against it.

English

13. Brief Summary

English

13. The inferior part of Christ on the cross did not communicate its involuntary disturbances to the superior part.

English

14. In extreme trials for the purification of love, a certain separation of the superior part of the soul from the inferior takes place. In this separation the acts of the inferior part flow from an utterly blind and involuntary disturbance, for everything that is voluntary and intellectual belongs to the superior part. 15. Meditation consists of discursive acts which easily distinguish themselves from one another. This composition of discursive and reflex acts is the proper exercise of interested love.

English

16. There is a state of contemplation so sublime and so perfect that it becomes habitual, so that whenever the soul actually prays, its prayer is contemplative, not discursive. At that point it no longer needs to return to meditation and its methodical acts. 17. Contemplative souls are deprived of the distinct, sensible, and reflex vision of Jesus Christ at two different times: first, in the nascent fervor of their contemplation; second, the soul loses the vision of Christ in extreme trials.

English

18. In the passive state all the distinct virtues are exercised without thinking that they are virtues. At every moment nothing is thought of but doing what God wills; and jealous love at the same time brings it about that one no longer seeks virtue for its own sake, nor is one ever so endowed with virtue as when one is no longer attached to virtue.

English

19. It can be said in this sense that the passive and disinterested soul no longer wills even love itself insofar as it is its own perfection and its own happiness, but only insofar as it is that which God wills from us.

English

20. In confession, transformed souls must detest their sins and condemn themselves, and desire the remission of their sins, not as their own purification and deliverance, but as a thing which God wills and wills us to will for His own glory. 21. The holy Mystics have excluded from the state of transformed souls the exercises of the virtues.

English

22. Brief Summary

English

22. Although this doctrine of pure love were the pure and simple Evangelical perfection designated throughout the whole tradition, the ancient Pastors did not set before the multitude of the just anything but the exercises of interested love proportioned to their grace. 23. Pure love alone constitutes the whole interior life, and it then becomes the unique principle and unique motive of all acts that are deliberate and meritorious. Whoever wishes to know more about the Quietists should read the works of Antonia Bourignon and Poiret, and also, against them, the works of the Illustrious Bishop Bossuet, of the renowned Jurieu,

English

La Placette, etc., the books which they published on these arguments. Concerning the Mystics, one may read the works of Cardinal Petrucci, Boyse, Lansperge, John of Jesus Maria, and Cardinal Bona.

English

Book I.

English

Chapter 11. The Opinions of Michael Servetus and the Antitrinitarians, Socinus, etc. Servetus was a Spaniard from Aragon, also called Villanovanus; by profession he was a physician. Beginning in the year 1523, he published six books on the Trinity, Dialogues on the same subject, certain Epistles, and other writings. Servetus believed: 1. That all who posit the Trinity in the essence of God hold imaginary gods and illusions of demons, and that therefore all Trinitarians are atheists.

English

2. That the Word was the ideal reason from the beginning, which already referred to man; and that in the Word with God there existed the exemplar, person, image, face, and appearance of the future man Jesus Christ — a representation of man in God.

English

3. That Christ Himself is the Son of God insofar as He was begotten by God in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and this not only by the power of the Holy Spirit, but because God begat Him from His own substance. 4. That the Word of God descending from heaven is now the flesh of Christ, so that the flesh of Christ is from heaven. 5. That the very body of Christ is the body of the Deity; that His flesh is divine flesh, a heavenly flesh of God, begotten from the substance of God; that the soul of Christ is God; that the flesh of Christ is God; and that both the soul and the flesh of Christ have existed from eternity in the proper substance of the Deity. That Christ Himself as man existed with God from the beginning in His own person and substance. 6. That the Word of God was the seed of Christ, yet that it is something other than the Son; that it was the moisture of the natural generation of Christ in the Virgin, just as the seed of generation is in animals. 7. That the heavenly fire overshadowing the Virgin and mingling itself with her seed and blood transformed human matter into God.

English

8. That Jesus Christ, having participation in both God and man, could not be called a creature, but a participant in creatures. 9. That one and the same Deity, which is in the Father, was communicated to the Son Jesus immediately and corporeally; and that then, through Him as Mediator, through the ministry of the angelic spirit, it was communicated spiritually to the Apostles; and that to Christ alone the Deity is implanted by nature, both corporeally and spiritually; yet that from Him a holy and substantial breath is given to others.

English

10. That just as all things are now in God, so in the same order before creation they existed in Him, and first of all Christ. 11. That Christ, for as long as He lived in mortal flesh, had not yet received the new Spirit, which He was to receive from His resurrection.

English

12. That angels were worshipped by the Jews as gods. 13. That the soul is from the substance of God.

English

14. He condemned infant baptism.

English

15. That the Holy Spirit was not always God, and that His God is the Father. Servetus was burned at Geneva in the year 1553. Valentinus Gentilis, an Italian from Campania, asserted three eternal Spirits distinct in degree and number; he was beheaded in the year 1566. His opinion was defended by Matthaeus Gribaldus, a jurist from Padua; Georgius Blandrata, a physician from Piedmont; and Johannes Paulus Alciatus. Contemporary with them was Bernardus Ochinus of Siena, a Franciscan monk, who attacked the Trinity and the satisfaction of Christ in his Dialogues. Franciscus Lismaninus of Corfu, a Franciscan monk, was confessor to Bona Sforza, mother of Sigismund II. Petrus Gonesius of Poland followed the opinion of Servetus. Gregorius Pauli adhered to the Arian opinion, as did Erasmus Johannis and Everhard Spangenbergius. Franciscus Davidis, a Hungarian superintendent of Transylvania, was an Antitrinitarian, but denied that Christ is to be invoked and worshipped; and Christian Franck, formerly a Jesuit, followed him. Laelius Socinus, a Sienese patrician, born in the year 1525, having familiar intercourse with Ochinus, Valentinus Gentilis, Alciatus, and others, attacked the Trinity together with them in private writings, and dying in the year 1562, left these writings to his nephew Faustus Socinus. Faustus Socinus attacked the Trinity and the satisfaction of Christ in numerous writings, and is recognized as the author of the Socinian sect; he died in the year 1604. He had and still has many followers, who were expelled from Poland in the year 1658 on account of an impious book bearing the title, Casting the Trinity down from its throne. From the year 1570, this heresy infected the Palatine Church and Academy through Adam Neuser, a Swabian pastor of Heidelberg, who afterwards defected to Islam and was circumcised at Constantinople; and through Johannes Sylvanus, inspector of the church at Ladenburg near Heidelberg, who was beheaded in the year 1572 for the crime of treason and for wicked conspiracies with the Transylvanians. In Germany there were several others: Christian Franck (already cited), Christoph Ostorodius, Johannes Volkelius, Valentinus Smalcius, Ernestus Sonnerus, Martin Ruarus, Johannes Crellius, the Stegmann brothers, and Ludwig Wolzogen. The dogmas of the Socinians and Antitrinitarians are as follows.

English

1. They appear to admit nothing unless reason is able to comprehend it, though some of them at times deny this. They believe that the sacred writers were able to err in matters of minor importance. They hold that the Christian religion consists essentially in two parts: obedience to the divine commandments, and faith in the divine promises; and they add a list of articles to be believed. They hold that the fundamental articles of religion can be referred to six heads: the existence of God, His unity, His eternity, His justice, His perfect wisdom, and His perfect power; and that only those things are necessary about which all agree. They deny that any true knowledge of God can be acquired by intuition alone — though not all of them hold this view; some, such as Volkelius and Smalcius, deny it. 2. They hold that the name Jehovah does not belong to the Son alone. 3. They hold that the name of God is a name of office and dignity.

English

13. They deny the mystery of the Trinity, as well as the divinity of Christ.

English

14. That Christ is not the natural Son of God according to His divine nature, but is called such only improperly according to His human nature — on account of His miraculous conception by the Holy Spirit, the love of the Father, and the communication of likeness with God; which likeness, according to them, consists in three things: 1. In His ordination to the office of Mediator, and in the communication of perfect holiness and a certain dominion. 2. In His resurrection from the dead and the communication of immortality. 3. In His exaltation to the right hand of God the Father, and the communication of perfect power and glory.

English

15. Socinus and his followers said that Christ is to be worshipped and invoked; Franciscus Davidis and Christian Franck denied this. 16. They hold that by "Holy Spirit" in the New Testament is meant either the Gospel, or a temporary gift of God infused into the hearts of certain men, or a firm and certain hope of eternal life, or an accidental power — not a Divine Person; or else a creature, the Prince of Angels, or a collection of angelic spirits.

English

18. There are those who believe, with the Sabellians, that there are only three names — that one is called Father when He created, Son when He redeemed, and Spirit when He sanctified. Others say that the divinity of the Father dwelt in Christ, and that He is the Son of God, but they maintain that Christ is called God only improperly.

English

19. They believe that Christ is called the Word (Logos) only because He was in time the interpreter of the Father's will; or that by the Word is to be understood the word of the Gospel; or the Holy Spirit who was from the beginning and who was made flesh when He dwelt in the flesh; or that by Word is to be understood the reason or wisdom of God, His essential power.

English

22. That matter is either eternal, or that it pre-existed before the beginning of all things, and thus that what existed before the Mosaic beginning is not therefore eternal — as the Arians hold. 23. That the image of God consists principally in dominion, that is, in the right over sublunar creatures.

English

25. They deny original sin. 26. Some Socinians appear to have believed that the punishment reserved for the wicked is the annihilation of soul and body. 27. That men have the power to perform, without the aid of grace, a truly good work.

English

28. That legal sacrifices, properly and in themselves, were expiatory for sins, at least for the lesser ones; and that for more serious sins there was no other remedy than the singular mercy of God.

English

29. That Christ corrected and enlarged the moral law.

English

30. That Christ, before His prophetic office had begun, was taken up bodily to the Father in heaven. 31. That Christ is a priest by reason of His appearance in heaven and of His will to help us, and because He actually delivers us from the punishments and bondage of sin — but that He is not truly our Mediator or Redeemer, properly so called, by means of a true satisfaction.

English

32. That Christ did not truly make satisfaction for us, but that He underwent death: first, in order to confirm to us by His death God's will regarding the free remission of sins; second, in order to illuminate the way for us to patience and perseverance by His own example; and third, in order that He might be more fitted to have compassion on us — and thus that Christ did not die in our place and stead, but for our benefit.

English

33. That the body of Christ after the resurrection was changed into a spiritual and heavenly body, devoid of flesh and blood.

English

34. That the true Church can actually and completely fail.

English

35. That a common assistance toward conversion is given to all who are outwardly called, and that nothing else is necessary.

English

36. That we are not justified by the righteousness of Christ, but by the acceptilation of our faith.

English

37. That regeneration and sanctification consist, not in the renewal of our faculties, but in a change of our former manner of life.

English

38. That perfect men can exist here, whose certain works are free from all remnants of sin.

English

39. That true believers can fall away from the grace of God and lose true faith.

English

40. Some deny all right, or the right of the sword, to magistrates over criminals — such as Woblzogius and Stegmannus the younger — but there are those who affirm it, such as Crellius and Przipkovius.

English

41. That a legitimate calling is not necessary for the exercise of the ministry.

English

42. That the sacraments are mere tokens and external marks of our profession. 43. That water baptism is a rite sufficiently indifferent and temporary, whose use was only for the nascent and primitive Church.

English

44. That the Supper was instituted only as a mark of profession and for the commemoration of Christ's love.

English

45. That when a man has died, the soul is in the same condition as if it did not exist — having no perception, no sensation, no activity, as though lulled into a deep sleep — is what certain Socinians appear to have believed.

English

46. That there will not be a universal resurrection of all and each, certain Socinians have said — though others affirm it.

English

47. That the bodies which fell do not rise again, but entirely new ones as to their substance. 48.

English

48. That the ungodly who would be alive on the last day are to be cast into an annihilating fire — so certain of them said. Concerning the Socinians, and against the Socinians, many have written: Rob. Bellarminus, Jac. Wiekus, Mar. Smiglecius, Fridericus Baldvinus, Schlusselburgius, Wolfg. Franzius, Jacobus Martinus, Christianus Matthias, Graverus, Joh. Gerhardus, Nicol. Hunnius, Paulus Starniovius, Joh. Botsaccus, Joh. Mauritsch, B. Meisnerus, Joh. Saubertus, Theod. Thummius, Josua Stegmannus, Andr. Prolaius, Conr. Dannhaverus, Justus Feuerbornius, And. Keslerus, Ab. Calovius, Aug. Varenius, I. Paulus Durius, Paulus Felwingerus, Joh. Andr. Scherrerus, Phil. Jac. Spenerus, Johannes Olearius, Zanchius, Joh. Junius, Jacob. ad Portum, J. Henricus Altingius, Josias Simlerus, Sibr. Lubbertus, uterque Spanhemius, Hugo Grotius, Cloppenburgius, Jos. Placaeus, Maccovius, L. Crocius, Andreas Essenius, Joh. Hoornbeeckius, Joh. Cocceius, Mart. Schoockius, Amos Comenius, Samuel Maressius, Ulz. Berenyius, Nicol. Arnoldus, Abbadie, and all writers of common-places.

English

On the Libertines.

English

This sect owes its origin to the abuse of the doctrine of Christian liberty and to Anabaptist Enthusiasm. The authors and leaders of this sect are Coppinus, Insulanus, Quintinus, Bertrandus, Claudius Perseval, Antonius Pocques the priest, and Henricus Nicolai of Westphalia from Munster, who around the year 1555 founded the Family of Love, and who placed himself before Moses and Christ. Their dogmas, gathered from various sources, were as follows. 1. That the Spirit of God is the one spirit of all living things, spread everywhere, and that our soul is nothing other than that Spirit of God.

English

2. That all the stronger impulses of man are from the Spirit of God.

English

3. That sins and the pangs of conscience, as also the terrors of Gehenna, are figments of the mind.

English

4. That the distinction of religion likewise consists in imagination. 5. That true and spiritual freedom treats all things alike, and is touched by no awareness of sin nor scruple of religion; and that each person must commit himself to be led by the Spirit of God.

English

6. That liberty does not permit anyone to allow himself to be bound to Scripture, much less to human laws and to a fixed Rule or communion of Religion.

English

Concerning the Jews. They believe,

English

1. That besides the written law given by Moses, there is another oral law of divine origin, which was transmitted to posterity by oral tradition, and which they venerate with a deep sentiment of piety. The Karaites, however, deny this.

English

2. That the Jewish Talmud -- both the book of the Mishnah collected by R. Judah around the year 130, and the Gemara, the other part of the Babylonian Talmud, completed around the year 500 (besides the Jerusalem Talmud, which is as it were a commentary on the book of the Mishnah, authored by R. Jochanan, around the year 130) -- possesses divine authority and certainty for proving and establishing the dogmas of faith and the rules of life. From Eccl. X. 8.

English

3. That only the books of the Old Testament are to be received, the books of the New Testament being rejected. 4. They deny the mystery of the Trinity, and attribute many absurd and ridiculous things to God, such as weeping, devoting himself to the reading of the Talmud, etc. 5. That demons, created by God as evil spirits on the second day of creation together with hell, are sublunary spirits, corporeal substances, airy and fiery. 6. That human souls were all created at once on the first day, together with the light, created as pairs or couples, the soul of male and female jointly.

English

7. They corrupt the law with false, inept, and absurd glosses.

English

8. They consider every use of images, even that which serves only the memory, to be illicit. 9. That blasphemy is committed by pronouncing the name YHWH.

English

10. That on the day of the Sabbath one must abstain from all work, even that by which the welfare of one's neighbor is promoted.

English

11. They believe the law was given so that the Israelites would be justified before God by observing it, would live eternally by it, and would obtain the reward of their obedience.

English

12. That the ceremonial and forensic laws were given to be of eternal observance, of perpetual and immutable force; especially the law concerning circumcision, and concerning the Sabbath, and concerning abstinence from unclean foods.

English

13. That the Messiah has not yet come.

English

14. That there will be two Messiahs: one the son of Joseph or Ephraim, by name Tschombet, lowly, destined to be killed in the battle against Gog or Magog by Armillus, the leader of the sons of Edom, that is, of the Christians, but afterward to be raised from the dead by his successor. The other, the son of David, conspicuous in royal majesty, to whom the ten tribes and the kings of the earth are to be subjected.

English

15. That the kingdom of the Messiah will be earthly, worldly, external, and carnal. 16. That our Jesus is not the true Messiah, and that He did not rise from the dead.

English

17. That our justification and the expiation of sins are not to be sought in the obedience of our Jesus, but in repentance, in the feast of atonement, in the mercy of God, in afflictions, and in death.

English

18. That the souls of the righteous, having departed from the body, migrate through transmigration of souls into other human bodies, at least three times; and that the souls of the wicked migrate into the bodies of brute animals. Not all, however, believe this.

English

19. That the resurrection will be particular, of certain persons only, the wicked remaining in death, with few exceptions. Not all Jews, however, hold this view. 20. Of the Israelites.

English

20. That the resurrection of the Israelites who have died far from the Holy Land will come about by the rolling of their bodies through underground passages to the land of Israel, and will be accomplished by the benefit of a certain small bone in the human body. 21. That the Israelites will be led back by the Messiah into the Holy Land, that Jerusalem will be restored, and the third Temple, that the Levitical worship will be re-established, and that the dominion over the whole world will fall to the Israelites. Whoever wishes to be fully instructed on these controversies should read Raymond Martin's Pugio Fidei; Peter Galatino; and the works of Fagius, Broughton, Helvicus, L'Empereur, Schickard, Buxtorf, Cocceius, Muller, Hulsemann, Lentius, Hackspan, Cappellus, Limborch, Frickmuthe, Carpzov in his notes on Schickard, Goussett, Huet, Hoornbeeck, Wagenseil, Hottinger, Simm, Reland, and Basnage in his History of the Jews, Bertoloccio's Bibliotheca Rabbinica, etc.

English

On the Muhammadans. They believe Muhammad to be the last Apostle — Deut. XXXII; Joh. XVI.17 — who received a revelation from God, and whose Qur'an cannot be set aside. They hold, moreover, that Christ Himself was truly received alive into heaven.

English

7. Men are saved not by faith in Christ, but by works of the Mosaic law or of the Qur'an. The works prescribed in the Qur'an are: prayers conceived five or seven times daily; votive pilgrimages to Mecca; ransoms of captives; washings; almsgiving; the building of temples; fasting for a month; and they retain circumcision.

English

10. They place eternal life in mere bodily delights and pleasures — though not all of them do so.

English

11. They believe that sins are expiated by repentance and supplication to God.

English

12. They attribute a body to God, and likewise to angels. See the learned Reland, Compendium of Muhammadan Theology.

English

The Papists believe: 1. That the authority of Holy Scripture, insofar as it concerns us, depends on the testimony of the Church, and that it is on account of that testimony that we are firmly persuaded of the authority of the Scriptures. 2. That the word of God was written on account of chance occasions.

English

3. That besides the written word there is another unwritten word, namely traditions, which are to be received with an equal affection of piety and reverence as Holy Scripture. 4. That beyond the books we call Canonical, certain others are still to be admitted, namely the books of Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, First and Second Maccabees, along with the additions to Esther and Daniel, Third Esdras, and those which we regard as Apocryphal — that these are of Divine authority.

English

9. That there exists in God a middle knowledge (scientia media), by which, prior to every decree, God knew what would come to pass if a given condition were posited. Some Papists affirm this, not all.

English

10. That God from eternity predestined men to glory on the basis of foreseen good works, or condign merits, and to grace on the basis of foreseen good use of free will aided by grace, or congruous merits. Not all Papists, however, hold this view.

English

11. That the first man was created in a state of pure nature, subject to the first motions of concupiscence, to diseases and weaknesses; and that original justice was granted to man as a bridle for restraining the motions of concupiscence and as a remedy for a languishing nature. Some Papists believe this. 12. That the free will of man in the state of sin is not so enslaved to sin that it cannot, without the aid of special grace, determine itself toward spiritual good — some Papists affirm this. 13. That actual sins are of two kinds, some mortal and some venial, not by reason of their outcome but by their own nature and from the imperfection of the work.

English

15. That Christ, having suffered on the cross, descended according to His soul to the places beneath the bowels of the earth, such as the Limbo of the Fathers, the Limbo of Infants, Purgatory, and Gehenna. 16. That sufficient grace is granted to all for faith and salvation — most Papists affirm this, but not all.

English

18. That it is good and useful to invoke the saints with supplication, and, in order to obtain benefits from God through His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, to have recourse to their prayers, works, and aid. 19. That the holy bodies of the martyrs and of others living with Christ, which were living members of Christ and temples of the Holy Spirit, destined by Him to be raised to eternal life and glorified, are to be venerated by the faithful, through which many benefits are bestowed by God upon men; and that therefore those who affirm that veneration and honor are not owed to the relics of the saints, or that these relics and other sacred monuments are honored uselessly by the faithful, and that the memorials of the saints are frequented in vain for the purpose of obtaining their help — such persons are to be utterly condemned.

English

20. That the veneration of the Blessed Virgin is also useful — indeed most useful — some of whom also preach her immaculate conception. That it is likewise useful to venerate the angels. 21. That images of Christ, of the Virgin Mother of God, and of the other saints are especially to be held and retained in churches, and that due honor and veneration are to be given to them — not because any divinity or power is believed to reside in them, but because through the images which we kiss and before which the head is uncovered and one prostrates oneself, Christ and the saints are adored. Some among the Papists, however, believe that the veneration of images is the same as the veneration of their originals: that the image of Christ is to be adored with the adoration of latria; the image of the Blessed Virgin with the adoration of hyperdulia; and the images of the other saints with the adoration of dulia.

English

23. That the adoration of latria is owed to the cross — so Thomas Aquinas held (Part III, q. 25, a. 4) — and on Good Friday the wood of the cross is adored.

English

24. That feast days publicly dedicated to divine worship are necessary by precept under the New Testament, and that days may be religiously dedicated to the saints.

English

25. That to justify is the same as to make righteous, and that the formal ground of our justification consists in a certain gift of habitual righteousness, or in the infusion of grace and charity. 26. That God remits to every penitent only the guilt and the liability to eternal punishment, and that satisfaction must still be made to divine justice for venial sins and for the liability to temporal punishment — by satisfactions either personal or those of another, either in this life or in the life to come, and specifically in Purgatory.

English

27. That besides private satisfactions made by others, there exists a public Treasury of satisfactions, composed of the superabundant Sufferings of Christ and of the saints, preserved in the Roman Church alone, from which indulgences are distributed.

English

28. That works are of two kinds, some meritorious ex congruo and others ex condigno — the Papists believe this, though not all. 29. That the faithful departed are assisted by the suffrages of the living faithful. 30. That fasting, prayers, pilgrimages, and almsgiving are meritorious works.

English

31. That fasting consists in abstinence or moderation in food and drink, or in abstaining from a certain kind of food, at the appointed times called Quadragesima, the Ember Days, Advent, Rogationtide, Saturday, Vigils, and Wednesdays and Fridays.

English

34. That monastic vows of perpetual continence, voluntary poverty, and regular obedience are lawful.

English

33. That every truly faithful person can totally and finally fall away from the grace of adoption, from true faith, and from justification. 34. That a faithful person cannot be certain of his justification, of the remission of his sins, nor of his own faith. 35. That the members of the true Church are all those who profess the external Christian faith, under the external governance of the Pope, even if they are hypocrites.

English

36. That the marks of the true Church are: the name of the Catholic Church, antiquity, uninterrupted duration, the multitude of believers, the succession of bishops, agreement in doctrine with the ancient Church, miracles, prophecies, the external union of members with the head and with one another, the holiness of doctrine, its efficacy, the testimony of life, the confession of adversaries, the unhappy end of the enemies of the Church, and external and temporal prosperity.

English

40. That the Roman Pope is the sole and legitimate successor of Peter in the Universal Pontificate, and the visible head of the entire Church.

English

42. That the Roman Pope can canonize pious deceased persons. 43. That the right of electing, calling, or sending Presbyters belongs to Bishops alone, and the right of electing Bishops belongs to the Roman Pope.

English

45. That the souls of the faithful not sufficiently purged in this life are purged by purgatorial fire.

English

48. [Book I of the Controversies]

English

51. That it can be administered even by laypeople or women. 52. That Baptism together with Confirmation and Orders impresses an indelible character, and removes every stain from the baptized person.

English

53. That in the Eucharist, through the words of institution, the true body and true blood of Christ are corporally and substantially present under the remaining accidents of bread and wine, by the transubstantiation of these. 54. That with the bread and wine at consecration a true transubstantiation takes place into the body and blood of the Lord, and that all the faithful are bound to render the worship of latria, which is truly owed to God, to this most holy sacrament. 55. That the Eucharist is a sacrifice truly and properly so called, though unbloody, and likewise propitiatory for the sins of the living and the dead. 56. That it is sufficient to give to the faithful laity and to clergy who do not celebrate the symbol of the bread, the chalice being left to the priest alone. 57. That every adult and baptized person is obligated, by the command of Christ and by divine law, to confess into the ear of a priest all his sins, at least all mortal ones, even secret ones, and this at certain set times.

English

58. That sins are to be confessed in the Mass also to the Blessed Virgin, to the Archangel Michael, to blessed John the Baptist, etc. 59. That the priest has the right to absolve sinners who confess. Against the Papists, nearly all Lutheran and Reformed Doctors who became famous in their writings have written. On the Jansenists: Since the Jansenists have acquired great renown in the Roman Church -- named after Jansenius, Bishop of Ypres, who died in the year 1638 -- it will not be without profit to note certain things about them in particular. And so those five famous Propositions are to be reported here, which Innocent X, in the year 1653, on the day...

English

...the 9th of June, condemned by papal bull, excerpted from Jansenius's Augustinus. 1. Some of God's commandments are impossible for just persons who are willing and striving according to their present powers; and there is also lacking to them the grace by which those commandments become possible. 2. In the state of fallen nature, interior grace is never resisted.

English

4. The Semi-Pelagians admitted the necessity of interior prevening grace for individual acts, even for the beginning of faith; but they were heretics in this, that they wished such grace to be of a kind to which the human will could either resist or yield.

English

5. It is Semi-Pelagian to say that Christ died for all human beings absolutely, or shed His blood for them. The celebrated Leydeckerus, in his History of Jansenism, reduces the sum of Jansenian theology -- opposed to the common opinions of the Romans -- to these twelve dogmata, which he selected from Jansenius's Augustinus. I. The first man necessarily had to be created with that grace by which he could love God and tend toward the highest good; therefore his righteousness was not supernatural but natural. Hence the Pelagians erred most grievously when they imagined a state of pure nature devoid of moral gifts, in which there would be natural ignorance, concupiscence, rebellion of flesh and spirit, bodily weakness, and mortality. II. Sin cannot be punished by God without cause, and therefore the necessity of punishing sin is given; not because God so ordained it by His will, but from the eternal law, which is God Himself. Therefore nothing evil against the good that ought first to have been created can happen except from God's justice, which necessarily punishes sin, and the loss of the good is the punishment of sin. III. Through sin in the state of fallen nature, indifference toward good and evil is lost. Hence free will has become captive and bound to servitude, subject to the dominion of concupiscence and the tyranny of the Devil, and has so perished -- not only for doing good, but even for refraining from evil -- being driven to sin by necessity. IV. There is no truly good work, nor is there any true virtue, except what is done from love of God, of justice, and of the ultimate end. Hence, since love of creature, of the world, and of desire holds the chief place in all the works of unbelievers, there is no truly good work in them, and their virtues are not true virtues but only their semblance. V. Free will is the power of doing what you will, and indifference toward good and evil is not required for it, as is apparent from the freedom of God, of the blessed, and of the devils. Indeed, just as the inability to do evil does not detract from freedom for the good, so the inability to do good does not detract from freedom for evil. VI. Freedom does not conflict with the need for divine assistance; indeed, unless it is freed through grace, it is able to do nothing but sin, since fallen man has in himself nothing but sin and falsehood, according to the canon of the Council of Orange; and through the grace of the Physician-Savior the soul must be freed, so that it becomes free for the good and a servant of righteousness -- here in grace, and at last in peace. VII. That grace of the Savior does not merely give the power to work well, but also the very will to do what we can; and it is itself efficacious and victorious, being the most powerful freedom of the sick soul healed by the omnipotent Physician. VIII. Every medicinal grace is in itself efficacious, nor is there any universal sufficient grace given to all by which they can convert themselves if they will; rather, that which is commonly so called by the Scholastics is monstrous, nor can those who add a sufficient efficacious grace resolve themselves from the contradiction. IX. Medicinal grace consists in a heavenly sweetness and spiritual delight, by which the will is bent toward doing what is good; and that grace which reaches only to the intellect does not suffice, for it is not able to liberate the will held captive under sin. Indeed, this grace is necessary for every good work in order that it be truly good; nor can any good work at all be done by fallen man unless, through the inspiration of medicinal grace, he is freed and healed from the dominion of concupiscence. X. Even this grace of faith is necessary so that he may here and now do a good work, avoid sins, resist temptations, overcome and conquer them, and thus be led as much as possible to perseverance; and this is indeed the effect of that grace. XI. That grace is given from the eternal, immutable, singular counsel of Predestination. Moreover, it precedes all works; rather, from it is given the grace by which a good work can be done, for it is the preparation of grace and glory. XII. Christ, having died according to this counsel of Predestination, died only for the elect, to the end that they might be saved; nor did He redeem all so indifferently that they could be saved equally, although the reprobate receive from His death a certain grace -- yet one that is transitory. For he believed that a grace was given to the reprobate from the death of Christ that would produce true regeneration and faith, yet would not be persevering, since God withdraws grace from them for certain reasons; whence he affirmed that very many truly holy and faithful persons plainly and eternally fall away; and therefore no one can be certain of his salvation, even though he may be persuaded of his conversion and faith. Thus far the most celebrated Leydeckerus. It is therefore easy for the Reformed to understand now in what they agree with the Jansenists on these propositions, and in what they disagree. On the Opinion of Richard Simon. Nor will it be unwelcome, I think, to report here the opinion of that most learned and celebrated man, Richard Simon. He believes: 1. That the Pentateuch was not entirely written by Moses himself, but only the Laws.

English

2. That scribes or public notaries called Prophets were instituted by Moses in imitation of the Egyptians, who would record all things in acts; and that the books attributed to Moses were for the most part written by them, and that the books in use today are only compendiums of ancient records. Hence arose confusion in order and in chronology; hence many things interpolated in the ancient manner of writing in brief volumes, others written separately elsewhere; hence so many obscurities, so many errors. Many wrote against him, but among others Spanheim and Turretin, as well as the celebrated Heidegger, and in the Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica several systematic writers. [Chapter 5.] Brevis Syllabus.

English

On the Anabaptists. Their errors spread around the tenth or eleventh year of the sixteenth century. They are sometimes called Anabaptists on account of the repeated baptism by which they re-baptize all those who are to be joined to them or who have been excommunicated; sometimes Catabaptists, on account of their attack on infant baptism as useless; sometimes they are called Fanatics, New Evangelists, Celestial Prophets, Enthusiasts. They are divided into various sects. By their authors they are named: from Thomas Müntzer, Münsterians; from Jacob Hutt, Hutterites; from Augustine the Bohemian, Augustinians; from Menno Simons, who came from a village in Frisia, Mennonites; from a certain Hofmann, Hofmannians; from Gabriel Scherding, Gabrielites; from Jacob Hutter, Hutterites. From their manner of life they were called Apostolics, because they boasted of imitating the Apostles; Pedonipti, because they washed one another's feet; Singularians, because they affected singularity in dress, food, sleep, and gait; Cathari or Puri, because they said that the adult members of their sect were without sin; Silentiarians, because when asked about religion they kept silent; Eucheti, because they devoted themselves to prayers; Adiaphorists, because they counted the external acts of ministry among things indifferent and free. Libertines, because they said that Christ had freed them from all tributes, political laws, and every form of servitude — whence some are said to have held wives in common; Adamites, because they affected nakedness after the manner of Adam; Apocediarians, because they condemned the learned; Brethren of Truth, etc. The leaders of the Catabaptists in Germany were Nicolaus Storch, Thomas Müntzer, Marcus Stübner, and Martin Cellarius. Not all hold the same views. There are some who differ from the Reformed only in the following points.

English

1. They believe that it is not lawful for a Christian man under the New Economy to exercise civil magistracy; that such civil office is to be abolished, and that Christ alone is to reign on earth in His holy kingdom with His own. 2. That it is unlawful for a Christian man to litigate, to impose capital punishment, to declare or wage war, or to exact tribute. They hold, however, that it is unlawful to resist an ordained magistrate, by the law of tolerance, patience, and obedience, even love toward enemies, etc. 3. That an oath is not to be taken; that this was permitted only to the Fathers under the Old Testament for the confirmation of truth, but under the New Testament was plainly forbidden by Christ; that an oath is a work of the flesh, not of the Spirit.

English

4. That paedobaptism is a human invention instituted by Pope Nicholas; an abominable idol, as Menno says.

English

5. That baptism administered by any Christian Church is to be repeated when infants have reached the age of discretion, and that this is to be required of those who are first admitted to the Holy Supper, or who pass over to the new synagogue or sect of the Anabaptists, or who, having been excommunicated, are received back into the Church.

English

9. That ministers are owed no stipends, but only alms, if they should be in need. 10. That the subject of ecclesiastical authority is the entire congregation — all members of the Church of both sexes, those alone excepted who have given offense, and not the pastors. 11. That it is better for a minister to pray silently, or in a subdued voice, along with the rest. Others, however, hold more numerous additional dogmas. Among these: besides the written word of God, there is another inner word, peculiar enthusiasms, private revelations, conversations with angels, visions and dreams, and the immediate voices of God, of equal authority with Scripture.

English

9. Some believe that the Word was made flesh by conversion. 10. That original sin does not exist, and that Adam sinned for himself alone, and therefore that infants are born without sin. 11. There are those who believe that Christ suffered with respect to His divinity.

English

16. That all things belonging to Christians ought to be held in common. 17.

English

18. That any visible assembly can be judged by love and piety alone as the chief mark.

English

22. That souls after their departure from the body are deprived of all intellection and thought, and sleep until the last day.

English

24. That at the resurrection the bodies will not be the same, but are to be converted into spiritual substances, devoid of flesh. 25. Some believe that the damned and the Devil will at last be saved. On the Anabaptists have written: Zwingli, Melanchthon, Adam Ment, Zwingli, Wigand, Oecolampadius, Urbanus Rhegius, Bullinger, and Martin Micronius; à Lasco, Guido de Brès, G. Cassander, Calvin, Schlüsselburg, Alckmar, Sleidan, Osiander, A. Backens, F. Montanus, Fridericus Seyler, Joh. Emmius, Joh. Tullius, Lambertus Hortensus, Herman. Faultus, Cloppenburg, the two Spanheims, Cromayer, Abraham à Drieser, Hoornbeeck, Hoornbeeck, Caspar Calvorius; Hoornbeeck, Episcopius, Joh. Edward, Alex. Ross, Th. Welling, Joh. Henr. Ursinus, Joh. Ottius, Figurinus, and all writers of common places. The following colloquies may also be read: the Frankfurt colloquy of a certain year; the Emden colloquy of 1578; the Leeuwarden colloquy of 1598. The Mennonite Confessions — of Nicolaus Mcelai, Jac. Outermans. The Confession of the Schwenckfeldians. Caspar Schwenckfeld of Ossig, a Silesian nobleman, around the year 1527, embracing the enthusiasm of the Anabaptists, built his own dogmas upon theirs; having gained supporters in Crautwald the canon and Johann Werner the preacher, he died in 1561 in Swabia. These opinions, among others, are attributed to him by Osiander on the basis of Schlüsselburg.

English

5. That all the Fathers of the Old Testament went down to hell before Christ, and were detained there until the resurrection of Christ. He admitted several other errors of the Anabaptists. He published more than fifty fanatical books and many private letters. His notable motto was: Nothing sad when Christ is received. Chapter 6. The Opinion of Weigel and the Weigelians. Philippus Theophrastus Paracelsus, also called Bombast, a Swabian by nationality, who died in the year 1541, after he had spread his errors concerning the state of Adam, the origin of Christ, and the resurrection of the dead, had among his disciples Valentin Weigel of Meissen, who around the year 1572 was the founder of a notorious sect, having published the Astrologia Theologizata, the Golden Grasp (Gulden Griff), the Knowledgeable Art, the Postilla, the book on the Place of the World, the Theosophia, etc. To these are added the Brothers of the Rosy Cross, whose first leader is claimed to be Christian Rosenkreuz, a German, born in 1378 and died in 1484, and whose public writings are the Fama Fraternitatis, the Confessio, the Universal Reformation, the Bell of the Wise, and the Portal of Knowledge. To their number are also counted Jakob Bohme, a cobbler of Gorlitz, born in 1575 and died in 1624; Elias Stiefel; Ezekiel Meth, who called himself Christ, the Word of God, Michael, and Elijah on account of the internal substantial indwelling light. Some prefer to trace the origin of Weigelianism, or the Theology of the Pseudo-Mystics, either from Hermes Trismegistus, who is himself called Enoch by some Weigelians, or from Pythagoras and Plato. They add that in the ninth century Erigena Scotus followed this path; in the twelfth century, Hugh and Richard of Saint Victor, and Bernard; in the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure; in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Tauler, Ruysbroeck, Bernardine of Siena, Lawrence Justinian, Dionysius the Carthusian, Thomas a Kempis, Heinrich Harphius, and Marsilius of Inghen. To these they add Johann Tauler, a priest and keeper of the Teutonic Order, believed to be the author of the Theologia Germanica, around 1360; Jacob Boehme the preacher of Arnhem; Augustin Fuhrmann, pastor of Silesia; Antoinette Bourignon; Michael de Molinos; etc. This is drawn from the learned work of Gerhard. Whatever may be said, this most distinguished author whom we cite observes that the center of Weigelian and Pseudo-Mystical Theology is the reign of Christ within us. And he attributes the following opinions to the Weigelians among others: 1. That God is triune, whether as Power, or as Potency: that the First is the supreme good, the source of all things; that the Second is the Idea or Intellect creating all things; and the Third, the soul or spirit of the world, pervading, enlivening, and animating all things. 2. That from this Divinity the invisible, ideal, and intelligible world has emanated; and from the invisible world the visible world has proceeded.

English

6. That in matters of faith, beyond Scripture, revelations of angels, colloquies, and dreams are to be expected. 7. God...

English

8. That the Son is not equal to God the Father with respect to Deity.

English

11. That the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament proceeds from the Father alone, but in the New Testament proceeds from the Father and the Son. 12. That God creates Himself, and creates nothing besides Himself, since He is the matter of all things. 13. That Christ brought His flesh from heaven, and was thereafter born of Mary through the Spirit.

English

14. That the Father and the Holy Spirit are equally incarnate as the Son. 15. That the descent of Christ into hell is the descent of God into our flesh, misery, and death.

English

16. That we are saved by grace dwelling in Christ within us, not by the obedience of Christ.

English

17. That this visible world with all its creatures is the shadow of invisible stars, which are the essences of the Angels.

English

26. That the same bodies which we now carry will not be taken up into heaven. Many other errors are reported by various authors. See Hoornbeeck and Crocius in the Anti-Weigel. A book on the Use of Christ is attributed to Weigel, in which he is said to have believed many absurdities: that the seeds of all things are scattered throughout the entire world, and are mutually immersed in one another by a kind of immersion — as if intimately submerged, mingled, and mixed together, as in a mineral mass there are particles of gold, silver, etc.

English

4. That every man's birth is subject to his own Planet, and that this is the natural and physical generation and birth through which man cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven; and that if in this state a man quits the tabernacle of the body, he is then united to his Planet. 5. That a celestial regeneration from the Spirit is necessary; but that this takes place through faith, when man withdraws by a backward movement from his Planet and from the firmament which he carries within himself, and retreats into his center, God; and there intimately unites himself with God in sacred sabbath-rest, obediently hearing, perceiving, and receiving His breathings, impulses, and manifestations; and that in this way a man is transformed into God and Christ Himself, becomes a partaker of the divine nature, and is thus most intimately regenerated. From this indwelling and most intimate and universal union of all things, where God is the center and the soul, and Christ is the life — they conclude a combination of contraries, such that things contrary and contradictory to each other can be predicated of one another, simply and in the same respect; and therefore all things are true in any sects whatsoever, even if they are mutually contradictory. Whoever wishes to know more, let him read Paracelsus, Weigel, Fludd, or the Refutation, and Crocius; and against them: Schelhammer, Thummius, Hunnius, Weber, Libanus, Meisner, Balduin, Calovius, Mercier, Stegmann, Crocius, Kromayer, Calvorin, Hoornbeeck. Chapter 7.

English

Propositions of M. de Molinos condemned by Innocent XI in the year 1687. 1. Man must annihilate his powers, and this is the internal way.

English

2. To will to act actively is to offend God, who wills to be Himself the sole agent; and therefore one must abandon oneself in God totally and completely, and afterward remain like a lifeless body. 4. Vows concerning something to be observed are impediments to perfection.

English

4. Natural activity is the enemy of grace, and impedes the operations of God and true perfection, which God wills to work in us without us.

English

5. By doing nothing, the soul annihilates itself, and returns to its principle and to its origin, which is the essence of God, into which, having been transformed, it remains and is divinized; and God then remains in Himself, because then there are no longer two things united, but only one; and in this way God lives and reigns in us, and the soul annihilates itself in its operative being. 6. The internal way is that in which neither light, nor love, nor resignation is known, and it is not necessary to know God; and in this way one rightly proceeds. 7. The soul must not think about reward, nor punishment, nor Paradise, nor hell, nor death, nor eternity.

English

8. The soul ought not will to know whether it walks in God's will, or whether it remains resigned to that same will or not, nor is it necessary that it will to know its own state, nor anything of its own, but it ought to remain like a lifeless body.

English

9. The soul must not remember either itself, or God, or anything whatever; and in the internal way all reflection is harmful, even reflection upon one's own human actions and one's own defects.

English

10. If one scandalizes others by one's own defects, it is not necessary to be grieved, provided there is no will to scandalize; and not to be able to reflect on one's own defects is a grace of God. 11. Regarding the doubts that arise about whether one proceeds rightly or not, there is no need to reflect.

English

12. Whoever has donated his free will to God ought to have no care about anything — not about hell, nor about Paradise; nor ought he to have any desire for his own perfection, nor virtues, nor his own holiness, nor his own salvation, the hope of which he must purge. 13. Having resigned free will to God, the thought and care of all our affairs must be left to that same God, and one must leave Him to do in us, without us, His divine will.

English

14. Whoever is resigned to the divine will, it is not fitting for him to ask anything of God, because asking is imperfection, since it is an act of one's own will and choice, and is willing that the divine will be confirmed to our own will; and that word of the Gospel, "ask and you shall receive," was not said by Christ for internal souls, who do not want to have a will; indeed such souls come to the point where they cannot ask God for anything. 15. Just as one ought not ask anything of God, so neither ought one give thanks to Him for anything, because both are acts of one's own will.

English

16. It is not fitting to seek indulgences for the penalty owed for one's own sins, because it is better to satisfy divine justice than to seek divine mercy, since the former proceeds from pure love of God, and the latter from self-interested love; nor is it a thing pleasing to God or meritorious, because it is willing to fix the cross.

English

17. Having surrendered free will to God and left to Him the care and knowledge of our soul, one ought no longer take account of temptations, nor should resistance be made to them, except negative resistance, with no applied effort; and if nature is stirred, one must let it be, for it is nature. 18. Whoever uses images, figures, species, and one's own concepts in prayer does not worship God in spirit and in truth. 19. Whoever loves God in the way that reason argues or the intellect comprehends does not love the true God.

English

20. To assert that in prayer one needs to bring help to oneself through discourse and through thoughts, when God does not speak to the soul, is ignorance; God never speaks — His speaking is operation, and He always operates in the soul when the soul does not hinder Him by its discourses, thoughts, and operations. 21. In prayer one must remain in dark and universal faith, with quiet and forgetfulness of every particular thought and of the distinction of the attributes of God and the Trinity, and thus to remain in God's presence to adore and love Him and to serve Him, but without producing acts, because God is not pleased with these.

English

22. This knowledge through faith is not an act produced by a creature, but is knowledge given by God to the creature, which the creature does not know itself to have, nor afterward knows that it had it; and the same is said of love. 23. Mystics, together with St. Bernard, in the ladder of the cloister, distinguish four degrees: reading, meditation, prayer, and infused contemplation. Whoever stops at the first never passes to the second; whoever always persists in the second never arrives at the third, which is our acquired contemplation, in which one must persist through one's whole life — provided that God does not draw the soul (without its expecting it) to infused contemplation; and when this ceases, the soul must return to the third degree and remain in it, without ever returning to the second or the first.

English

24. Whatever thoughts arise in prayer, even impure ones, even those against God, the saints, faith, and the sacraments, if they are not voluntarily nurtured but are tolerated with indifference and resignation, they do not hinder the prayer of faith, and indeed make it more perfect, because the soul then remains more resigned to the divine will. 25. Even if sleep supervenes and one sleeps, nonetheless actual prayer and contemplation take place, because prayer and resignation are the same, and as long as resignation endures, prayer also endures. 26. Those three ways — purgative, illuminative, and unitive — are the greatest absurdity that has been said in mystical theology, since there is only one way, namely the internal way. 27. Whoever desires and embraces sensible devotion does not desire or seek God, but himself; and he who walks by the internal way acts badly when he desires it and tries to have it, both in holy places and on solemn days.

English

28. Tedium of spiritual goods is good, since self-love is thereby purged. 30. When the internal soul experiences disgust at discourses about God and virtues, and remains cold, feeling no fervor in itself, it is a good sign.

English

30. All that is sensory which we experience in the spiritual life is abominable, filthy, and unclean. 31. No meditative person exercises true internal virtues, which ought not to be known by the senses. 32. Neither before nor after communion is any other preparation or thanksgiving required for such internal souls, than remaining in the customary passive resignation; because in a more perfect manner it supplies all acts of virtues that can be and are done in the ordinary way; and if on the occasion of communion there arise impulses of humiliation, petition, or thanksgiving, they are to be repressed whenever they are not discerned to be from a special impulse of God; otherwise they are impulses of nature not yet dead.

English

33. The soul that proceeds by this internal way acts badly if, on solemn days, it wants by some particular effort to arouse in itself some devout feeling, because for internal souls all days are equal, all are festive; and the same is said of holy places, because for such souls all places are equal. 34. To give thanks to God in words and with the tongue is not for internal souls, who ought to remain in silence, opposing no impediment to God so that He may operate in them; and the more they resign themselves to God, the more they find themselves unable to recite the Lord's Prayer.

English

35. It is not fitting for souls of this internal life to perform even virtuous acts from their own choice and activity; otherwise they would not be dead; nor must they elicit acts of love toward the Blessed Virgin, the saints, or the humanity of Christ, because since these are sensible objects, love toward them is also of that kind.

English

36. No creature — not even the Blessed Virgin, nor the saints — ought to sit in our heart, because God alone wills to occupy and possess it.

English

37. On the occasion of temptations, even plausible ones, the soul must not elicit acts of the opposing virtues, but must remain in the aforesaid love and resignation.

English

38. The voluntary cross of mortifications is a heavy and fruitless burden, and therefore is to be laid down.

English

39. The holiest works and penances that the saints performed are not sufficient to remove even one attachment from the soul.

English

40. The Blessed Virgin never performed any external work, and yet was holier than all the saints; therefore holiness can be attained without external works.

English

41. God permits and wills, in order to humble us and lead us to true transformation, that in some perfect souls — even those not possessed — the demon inflict violence upon their bodies, and make them commit carnal acts, even while awake and without clouding of the mind, by physically moving their hands and other members against their will; and the same is said of those acts that are sinful in themselves, in which case they are not sins, because in these there is no consent.

English

42. It is possible that such violence toward carnal acts might occur at the same time on the part of two persons, namely a man and a woman, and that from both parties the act follows.

English

43. God, in past times, made people holy through the ministry of tyrants; but now He makes them holy through the ministry of demons, who, by causing in them the aforesaid violences, causes those souls to despise themselves, annihilate themselves, and resign themselves to God even more. 44. Job blasphemed, and yet did not sin with his lips, because it was from the violence of the demon.

English

45. Saint Paul suffered violences of this kind from a demon in his own body, wherefore he wrote: the good that I will, this I do not do, but the evil that I do not will, this I do.

English

45. Violences of this kind are the medium most proportioned to annihilating the soul and to leading it to true transformation and union; nor does any other way remain, and this is the easier and safer way. It is tedious to recount more things, which extend to 68 articles: whether Molinos truly believed all these things, one may rightly doubt.

English

Propositions drawn from the book of the Most Reverend François de Salignac Fénelon, Archbishop of Cambrai, whose title is, Explication des maximes des saints sur la vie intérieure, in the year 1697; first condemned by Innocent XII, in the year 1699, on the day

English

11th of March. I. There exists a habitual state of the love of God, which is pure charity, and without any admixture of a motive of self-interest; neither the fear of punishments nor the desire of rewards has any further part in it. God is no longer loved on account of merit, nor on account of perfection, nor on account of the happiness to be found in loving Him.

English

On the Quakers.

English

Their leader is said to have been George Fox, born in the year 1514. The foundation of the Quakers, as also of the Weigelians, is the Kingdom of Christ within us. Their chief tenets are: 1. That Christ unites Himself with all and each individual person, and operates in them, and all this without the external word and sacraments; and that through this union and operation there comes to be, in all who follow the internal instinct -- that is, who live uprightly -- an intrinsic and indwelling righteousness and salvation, whether they be Christians or Pagans. 2. That an internal and immediate revelation must be presupposed to Scripture, as the adequate and primary rule.

English

3. That neither divine Scripture nor the explicit knowledge of Christ derived from it is absolutely necessary; but that those peoples who are deprived of it not through their own fault but through insuperable obstacles can be saved through Christ, who dwells in them, provided they do not resist His inner light, but allow Christ to sanctify them and work His righteousness in them.

English

4. That water baptism is not necessary, inasmuch as it was instituted by the Apostles merely for a time as a rite of initiation, being a shadow and figure of the inner and true baptism, which consists in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit performed inwardly by Christ in mystical union and regeneration.

English

5. That the holy Lord's Supper itself, true and Christian, is not an external ceremony instituted by Christ merely for a time, but is the mystical and secret distribution and participation of the body and blood of Christ in the inner man, of which the external ceremonies of the Supper were formerly the enactment and figure.

English

6. That the one who is inwardly anointed and called is obligated, wherever, whenever, and however the anointing wills and commands -- even if called to the farthest corners of the world -- to preach the word of God and to undertake ecclesiastical duties, and this without a fixed stipend, being obligated, after the example of Paul, to seek sustenance with his own hands; or if sacred duties prevent this, he may receive alms.

English

7. That uncovering the head, reverences, and other enticements of pride and flattery are not fitting for Christians.

English

8. That oaths, legal disputes, wars, and all acts of vengeance are unlawful for Christians, yet so that the magistrate retains the right to punish criminals with Christian charity. They hold many other opinions; but there are disagreements among them. Some align themselves with the coarser Anabaptists; others with the Mennonites. Among them, George Keith acknowledged a double human nature of Christ: one heavenly, spiritual, and eternal; the other earthly and corporeal, assumed in time from His mother Mary; and he held that the divine man in Christ was conjoined with the corporeal and visible humanity in Mary. They are also said to have believed in the transmigration of souls. William Penn preached universal toleration and liberty of religion. Many false things are attributed to them. Concerning them, one should read: R. Barclay's Apology for the True Christian Theology; Alexander Ross on various religions; Honorius Reggius or George Horn on the state of the British Church; Gerard Croese's History of the Quakers; Schelvigius; an English tract on the snake in the grass among the Quakers. Chapter 14. On the Antinomians. The Antinomians, or adversaries of the Law, were numerous already in the times of the Apostles; but we speak of them elsewhere; now we must speak of others. At the very beginnings of the Reformation, a certain Johannes Agricola of Eisleben, born in the year 1492, is reported to have said that the moral law ought to be banished from the Church. Luther observes that these Antinomians said that the Law is not worthy to be called the word of God. Concerning the English Antinomians, one should consult Thomas Gataker, Samuel Rutherford, Antonius Burgess, Johannes Bisco, Henr. Vossius, etc.

English

On the Arminians or Remonstrants. They are called Arminians after Jacobus Arminius, the chief leader of this sect. He was born in 1560, a professor of theology at Leiden from 1603, distinguished for learning and erudition, and died in 1609. His followers are called not only Arminians but also Remonstrants, because in 1610 they presented to the powerful estates of Holland a Remonstrance, that is, a petition, asking that the confession and catechism be reviewed. Against them the Synod of Dort was held in 1618 and 1619. Among them are those who differ from the Reformed only in the five articles condemned by the Synod. Those articles are as follows.

English

1. That the decree or will by which God determined in Christ, through Christ, and on account of Christ, to save those who believe and who persevere in the obedience of faith to the end of life, and to preserve such persons, is the true, unique, and complete decree of election; and that the decree and will by which God determined to leave under wrath unbelievers who stubbornly persist in their unbelief, and to condemn them, is the complete decree of reprobation. That election to salvation is of two kinds: one peremptory, another non-peremptory. That the condition without which, or the prerequisite condition of the election of individual persons, is faith and the obedience of faith, foreseen by God in those to be elected; and that the election of individual persons is also from God's good pleasure, because, namely, out of many possible conditions, it pleased Him to choose this one rather than others as the means appointed for salvation and eternal life. That incomplete, conditional, and non-peremptory election is mutable, and can therefore be interrupted and revoked, and that the elect can pass into the number of the reprobate, and that number can be increased and diminished. That certain knowledge of complete, peremptory, and absolute election cannot be had before death, and therefore no fruit of it can be perceived in this life. That the meritorious cause of reprobation is unbelief toward the Gospel and perseverance in it.

English

2. That Christ the Savior of the world died, by God's intention, for all and each individual human being, and in such a way that He obtained for all, through the death of the cross, reconciliation and remission of sins, yet on this condition: that no one actually becomes a partaker of the remission of sins except the one who believes.

English

3. That there is in all and each individual human being a common and sufficient grace, consisting in the light of nature and in the gifts left to man after the fall, by which they are able to dispose themselves toward greater grace, and to elicit acts that precede conversion, and by which it comes about that nothing more is required for the conversion of man than a fitting and moral and gentle persuasion. Yet some confess, as the illustrious Spanheim reports concerning the distinguished Limborch, that men are of a will as if bound by the habit of sinning, so that it cannot of itself assert itself into freedom, and that common grace, as sufficient of itself, is by no means without that grace which, as it is undue, is dispensed by God according to His own will.

English

4. That every operation of converting grace is nothing more than moral, by persuading, proposing, and inviting, and is therefore resistible, so that with all operations of divine grace in place, it remains still within the power of free will either to convert or not to convert. 5. That believers can fall from grace and in fact do sometimes actually fall from it, and therefore no one can be certain that he will obtain salvation, even if he is certain of his faith. Other Remonstrants dissent in far more articles.

English

1. That the sacred writers did in fact err in minor matters, whether through lapse of memory, or through ignorance, or through human frailty.

English

2. That men can be saved without knowledge of Christ.

English

3. That it is not necessary for salvation to believe in the absolute infinity of God, the foreknowledge of future contingents, punitive justice, the mystery of the Trinity, etc.

English

4. That the Son, with respect to His divine nature, is subordinate to the Father, as also is the Spirit. 5. That all the decrees of God are not eternal and peremptory and immutable.

English

6. That the creation of the angels and of the invisible or non-apparent world preceded the creation of the visible world by many ages.

English

7. That the term of each individual person's life is not immutable.

English

8. That original sin is not properly sin, nor properly evil or punishment; yet it may be allowed to be held as an evil, inasmuch as all the posterity of Adam are subject to the necessity of dying and are unfit and unsuited for obtaining eternal life and for returning to the grace of God; and they do not deny that men are born with a propensity toward evil.

English

9. That Christ added precepts of the new law. 10. That Christ is called the Son of God principally by reason of His conception by the Holy Spirit, by reason of His resurrection from the dead, and by reason of the inheritance received from the house of His Father. 11. That Christ is the Savior who, by the merit of His obedience, suffering, and the sacrifice of His body, obtained for Himself all power in heaven and on earth, according to which He frees His own from the guilt and dominion of sin and will grant them immortality; and that in this consists the complete atonement; and that Christ is called the bridegroom because by His teaching and gifts He has assured us of the goodness and faithfulness of His Father, who wills that no one perish on account of sins, that the call to the Gospel not be omitted. Yet there are among the Remonstrants those who dispute about the words, not denying the thing itself signified by the term satisfaction. 12. That Christ could have sinned, though He never did sin.

English

13. That a sufficient calling to salvation is given through the works of Creation and Providence. 14. That the same bodies will not rise again.

English

15. That the sacraments can also, in case of necessity, be administered by laymen. On the Arminians and against them, see Voetius, Twisse, Lubbertus, Amesius, Spanheim, Cloppenburg, Rhetorfort, Ryssen, Leiden Synopsis, Essenius, Vedelius, Molina, Calovius, Kromayer, Hulsemann, Rossi; the Judgments of the Doctors and Reformed Churches at the Synod of Dort, and all writers of commonplaces.

English

Concerning the Augsburg Evangelical Brethren. They differ from us in no fundamental article, so that nothing could hinder our agreement with them. Formerly the sole head of controversies was the Lord's Supper, but the controversies have grown. The brethren believe, therefore: 1. That the body of Christ is in, with, and under the bread in the Eucharist.

English

2. That the true body of Christ is received by the mouth of the body by each and every person.

English

3. That the decree of election is from foreknown faith, which was not believed by the Augsburg brethren before Aegidius Hunnius in the year 1580, as Calixtus acknowledges.

English

4. That the decree of the reprobation of some is from foreknown unbelief, which Luther, however, never

English

5. That the righteous can fall away from grace totally, though not finally. 6. That from the hypostatic union of the natures in Christ, certain properties — namely omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence, and the life-giving power — have been communicated to the human nature of Christ; this some have asserted, but not all. 7. That all infants baptized with water are inwardly regenerated through the Holy Spirit, and that faith and salvation are conferred upon them, and that baptism may be administered, in case of necessity, by laymen, indeed by women.

English

8. That the use of sacred images in churches is useful.

English

9. That the ceremony of exorcism is to be employed in baptism, with the sign of the cross also applied. We have spoken more fully about these matters in our treatise on the disagreement and agreement among Protestants, and in the vindication of this book against an anonymous Lutheran.

English

On the Contemporary Greeks. Since there are many who come under this name, it is difficult to set forth the undoubted doctrines of the Greeks. The principal ones are the following.

English

1. That the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, not from the Son: in the Confession, article

English

4. Metrophanes Critopoulos.

English

2. That Christ descended into hell in order to triumph over the Devil as tyrant. 3. That they paint images of Christ, of the Virgin, and of the saints, and not only place them in public temples for the sake of distinction from unbelievers, and in honor of the Mother of God and the saints, but also pay them religious honor and worship — with the body bowed or the knees bent, or with lights kindled — according to the decree of the Second Council of Nicaea; they do not, however, have images of God or of the Trinity, nor sculpted or cast images. Yet there are some who say they attribute to images not religious or servile honor, but fitting and benevolent honor, relative and of love.

English

4. That honor is to be given to holy relics, they believe. 5. That angels, the Virgin Mary, and deceased saints are not mediators by way of office, merit, or power, but are nevertheless intercessors and helpers for us before God, and our advocates, who have singular favor and grace with Him, and are to be religiously invoked by us, though not worshipped as God. Their prayers can prevail. They call Mary by Greek titles meaning the inexpugnable wall and bulwark of salvation. In their Troparia, which each person is commanded to recite upon rising from sleep in the morning, they invoke her with various acclamations, etc. 6. They have fixed fasts, semi-fasts, and abstinences. During the Lenten fast they abstain from milk, meat, and even from fish. Monks at that time use neither oil nor wine except twice a week, on Saturday and the Lord's Day. On the days of the 4th and 5th weeks of the year they abstain from all flesh, and some even from fish. 7. They believe that the Apostolic precept of abstaining from what is strangled and from blood is a moral, universal, and perpetual law.

English

8. They have a hymn to the cross and kiss it. 9. They have feasts in honor and memory of the Blessed Virgin, and of each of the Apostles, Joh. Baptist, Mark, Luke, and of various martyrs and teachers in the Eastern Church. 10. All and each of the faithful must make private confession before a priest at least four times a year before participating in the Eucharist; yet there are some who do not believe it to be necessary. 11. They acknowledge the absolute necessity of baptism, and that it is lawful for laypeople or women to baptize. 12. The sacraments of the New Testament are: 1. baptism; 2. unction; 3. the Eucharist.

English

5. Holy orders; 6. Matrimony, but conceded to priests; 7. Holy unction. 13. In the holy synaxis, through the consecration which they believe must be accomplished by a lengthy commemoration of the cross and death of Christ, the recitation of the Lord's Prayer, various readings, and prayers to God for the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the proposed symbols, they hold that such a transformation and transubstantiation, or transmutation and assimilation, of the bread and wine occurs — that by the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon them, the symbols are united to the body and blood of Christ, and thus become the true, proper, and substantial body of Christ. But with respect to the faithful, only in legitimate use, in a manner similar to how wood or iron immersed in fire become fire, or how food becomes our body when consumed — not by way of annihilation or transubstantiation, but more truly by way of augmentation and assimilation into the body of Christ.

English

14. That children seven years old, and even infants of two or three years, or even newborns, provided they have recently been washed in holy baptism, can and ought to be admitted to the holy synaxis, receiving from a spoon wine in which bread has been dipped. 15. Seven orders: Presbyters, Deacons, Sub-deacons, Readers, Exorcists, Doorkeepers. They also have Patriarchs, Metropolitans, Archbishops, Hermit-monks, and their Monks have their own Archimandrites.

English

16. That marriage is not only permitted to clergy but commanded by Paul, yet before ordination, not after, and with a virgin, not a widow or a woman separated from her husband, and indeed only once. For bigamous clergy are removed from office and for a time excluded from holy communion itself.

English

17. That it is not lawful for laypeople to enter into a third marriage, if one has passed the age of forty and has received children from prior marriages.

English

18. That it is lawful for no one to enter into a fourth marriage. 19. That the souls of the pious, when separated from the body, are not straightway received into the heaven of the blessed, but are in a certain most hidden place, which they sometimes call the hand of God, sometimes Paradise, sometimes the bosom of Abraham, and sometimes heaven.

English

20. That prayer must be made for the dead, even for the Blessed Mary and the Apostles. Concerning the Greeks, many have written, among others: Crusius, Gerlachus, Chytraeus, Savileius, Phil. Nicolai, Kromayer, Hottinger, Olearius, Daumius, Seidlius, Pocoke or Arnold, Claudius, Suvonius, Hartmann, Lucius, Hoornbeeck, Spanheim, Aymonius; and if anyone wishes to compare certain views of the contemporary Greeks with the ancients, he may consult our book on this matter. Chapter

English

On the Russians or Muscovites, the Copts, and the Abyssinians or Ethiopians. Although the Muscovites, Copts, and Abyssinians are Greeks, they nevertheless have certain peculiarities of their own. 1. The Muscovites or Russians hold Nicholas as their chief intercessor after the Virgin Mary, and believe that services are rendered to him by 300 chief angels; they have set prayers addressed to him, which they teach; indeed, they insert an epistle addressed to St. Nicholas into the hands of the dead on behalf of those who have died. They also venerate Andrew and Michael the Archangel. Some say the Russians refuse to have the Pentateuch — except for the book of Genesis — read in the Church, and indeed that none of these books, nor those of the Prophets, are of any use after the coming of Christ.

English

3. They carry around an image of Christ, which they believe was made without human hands, on the solemn day of Epiphany.

English

4. For every day of the year they appoint a patron saint; the Deacon brings his image at the morning hours of each day into the bedchamber of the Grand Duke. The Tsar venerates it and prostrates his head to the ground before it; and thus every feast of the Duke is adorned with images of Christ and Mary.

English

6. They believe that water blessed by a Priest on the day of Epiphany also has the greatest power; they add it to food and drink, and believe that the sick thereby either recover or are made more holy.

English

7. When they baptize an infant, they immerse it entirely in cold water — not even the head excepted — even in the middle of winter; but the godparents pour out a large supply of hot water.

English

8. After baptism, the priest anoints the infant's face with oil mixed with salt, places it at the feet of an image — especially in the church — and commends it to the saint, or mediator, or patron. 9. The infant's hairs are cut and pasted in the form of a cross, as objects kept in the church. 10. They approach the sacred Synaxis only once each year, and indeed only once each time. 11. The cup is also presented, as among other Eastern Christians, full of wine, or they are given it frequently with certain words added. 12. Afterward only bread is given to them, and then wine mixed with warm water. As to these accounts, whether they are true or must be examined in detail, inquiry is made from an anonymous author, from the Bishop of Abdilnensis and his report in the year 1506 to the King of Portugal, and from Goes, into whose work the matter is referred.

English

5. They hold that the marriage of clergy is lawful, but for clergy to pass to a second marriage, a dispensation must be obtained from the Patriarch; concubines, however, are excluded from sacred offices, and polygamists are held as excommunicated. For other subjects, polygamy is permitted. 6. Divorces are frequent, but clergy do not have the right to put away their wives. 7. They abstain from foods forbidden by the Mosaic law, and observe the Mosaic laws concerning uncleanness and purification, as well as those concerning the marriage of brothers with their brothers' wives.

English

10. Together with the Jacobites they acknowledge only one nature and one will, and therefore reject the Council of Chalcedon, although they believe Christ is perfect God and perfect man.

English

12. On the fortieth day they baptize males, and on the eightieth day females, unless illness compels an earlier date, and indeed in the name of the Trinity; and infants who die before baptism they call semi-Christians.

English

14. Each year they repeat baptism in memory of Christ's baptism on the feast of the Magi, with a large number descending naked into the water under the priestly blessing. 15. Some say a double baptism is used among them: one of water, the other of fire, by which they burn the forehead and temples; but some say this rite is medicinal. 16. Those about to come to the Lord's Supper first confess their sins to a Priest, and having obtained absolution, they receive the sacrament in both kinds in the church alone, the Deacon presenting the wine to them in a spoon.

English

17. They use leavened bread, but on Good Friday they use unleavened bread.

English

19. Together with the books of the Old Testament they hold the eight books of the Apostolic Synods, together with the Canons contained therein — books unknown to the Western churches. They use crosses and place them at the beginnings of the Gospels; on the following day they offer them certain prayers; on Lord's days they commemorate the souls of the dead in Purgatory, believing they can pass in time to heaven. Together with the other Greeks, they believe Christ after the Incarnation has one nature and one will. They reject the ecumenical councils whenever these oppose the Abyssinian Synod; they expressly reject the Council of Chalcedon. They do not approve extreme unction for the dead, nor do they approve purification. They give singular honor to the blessed saints and also to the angels. 4. They practice circumcision, as well as baptism of fire, and delay baptism until the fortieth day, even if the infant incurs the risk of death.

English

5. In the Eucharist they use leavened bread, and mix water with the blessed wine; they receive under both kinds, and they make infants partakers of the Lord's Supper immediately from baptism. 6. They fast on Wednesdays, Fridays, and...

English

4. They observe feast times accurately. Whoever wishes to know more can read Rossi's Examination of Religions, Brerewood's Scrutiny of Religions, Kircher's Coptic Prodromus, Hoornbeeck's Summa Controversiarum, and Gerhard on the Coptic Church, etc. Chapter 17. On the Pietists. There would be something lacking in this synopsis if we said nothing about those who go by the name of Pietists; but we admit it is not easy to investigate their various opinions. 1. There are some who are so called because they devote themselves to true piety; those who achieve this ought not to be regarded as wicked men, but as truly Christian men. 2. There are some who, beyond the piety they pursue, preach the millennial kingdom of Christ.

English

6. There are those who consider themselves so perfect that they no longer think it necessary for themselves to pray.

English

7. There are those who believe many other exceedingly absurd things and accept all the teachings of Antonia Bourignon or Pierre Poiret. From a certain manuscript Apology, composed from some source, I have gathered furthermore: 1. That they do not believe infant baptism to be founded in Scripture. 2. That they hold the same view of Scripture as the Anabaptists and Enthusiasts, who call it the killing letter. 3. That all the damned will at some time be freed from their punishments.

English

On the Heretics Who Have Troubled the Church from the First Century of Christianity.

English

These matters are related by Epiphanius, Augustine, a certain author under the name of the Predestinate, Gennadius of Marseilles, Theodoret, Leontius of Byzantium, Isidore of Seville, Anastasius Hodegus as author, Sophronius Patriarch of Jerusalem, Timothy the Presbyter, John of Damascus, Rabanus Maurus, Euthymius Zigabenus, John of Thorà, Honorius of Augustodunum, Constantine Harmenopulus, Nicetas Choniates, Matthew Blastares, Guido of Perpignan, Bernard of Luxembourg, Gabriel Prateolus, Alphonsus a Castro, Theodore Petreius, Bonaventura of Malvasia, Daniel Cramer, Pontanus, Thomas Ittigius, and Caspar Calvoer — indeed by all writers of ecclesiastical history. This we must observe after noting that the history concerning these heresies is involved in great darkness, partly because the writings of the heretics have for the most part perished, partly because many things are perhaps attributed to the heretics which they did not say, and partly because many things are imputed to them which they stubbornly denied. We cannot doubt that there were heresies in the age of the Apostles, even though Firmilianus in his letter to Cyprian and Clement of Alexandria deny this. Some begin with a certain Dositheus, concerning whom, and also another who lived before the birth of Christ, one should read Serar, Drusius, Scaliger, Lupus in his scholia on Tertullian, Le Moyne in his Varia Sacra, Casaubon, Montacutius, Lightfoot, and Deyling — who report that he presented himself as the Christ foretold by the Prophets.

English

2. That he was superstitious concerning the Sabbath. What some relate concerning the Dositheans, his followers: 1. That they spread false rumors about the immortality of their master Dositheus. 2. That they denied the resurrection. 3. That they dreamed the world to be incorruptible.

English

5. That they acknowledged no other kind of demons than idols or images. This Dositheus is said to have had thirty disciples, corresponding to the number of days in the month, and to have kept a certain woman named Luna in his company. Simon Magus, a native of Gitta in Palestine, is said to have taught the following in the time of Caligula: 1. That he was the great power of God, or the infinite power. 2. That his Helena, a prostitute from Tyre whom he had brought with him from a brothel, was that first thought or mental conception, the supreme power, intelligence, and the Holy Spirit. 3. That through her he had created the Angels from himself.

English

4. That the world was created by these Angels and not by God. 5. That he himself was the Messiah, or Christ. 6. That he had appeared on Mount Sinai in the person of the Father; in the time of Tiberius, in the form of the Son; and that he had descended upon the Apostles in fiery tongues in the form of the Holy Spirit.

English

1. Attributed the origin of sin to God. 2. Acknowledged a twofold God — one good and one evil.

English

5. That those who follow the mystical teaching of himself and Helena are saved not by good works but by the grace of Simon and Helena — that is, those who regard Simon as the supreme God and Helena as the Holy Spirit and the mother of all things.

English

6. That the soul is not defiled by vices, but only the flesh. Cleobius, or Cleobulus, is said to have believed —

English

4. That the body was not created by God. 5. That Jesus Christ was not born from the body of the Virgin Mary, and that He is a mere man.

English

6. That the world was created by Angels. The Nazarenes —

English

1. They urged circumcision and pressed the observance of the ceremonial laws of Moses; yet they employed Baptism; and they observed the Jewish Sabbath together with the Lord's Day.

English

2. Epiphanius doubts whether they regarded Christ as God.

English

3. They used the Gospel of Matthew, and that alone, in Hebrew, but variously interpolated — sometimes enlarged with various additional circumstances, sometimes mutilated in certain places. It should be noted in the meantime that the Nazarenes were originally the name given to all Christians, but afterward those Jews who Judaized were so called. The Jews cursed these three times daily — namely in the morning, around midday, and in the evening. Menander, by nation a Samaritan, is said to have believed —

English

1. That he was sent by the first power for the salvation of men, on account of which he called himself the Savior.

English

4. That Christ was not a true man. The Nicolaitans — it is doubtful whether they were so named from Nicolas the Deacon, as the ancients held, or from another person, which is more probable. The doctrines attributed to them are as follows: 1. That licentious lusts are lawful, and the community of wives. 2. That it is lawful to eat things sacrificed to idols, without abhorrence of idolatry. Some add that they denied the divinity of Christ and His sufferings, and admitted two persons in Christ — distinguishing Christ the divine from Christ the human — that Christ descended upon Jesus and then flew back up into heaven. There are those who assert that they believed in a plurality of gods. Hymenaeus and Philetus (2 Tim. 2:17-18) denied the universal resurrection. They are said to have believed it already accomplished in those whose bodies rose with Christ, or that souls pass into other bodies; or they admitted only a mystical resurrection through repentance, or the amendment of life. Cerinthus, whom some call Merinthus, and whom others distinguish from Merinthus, is said to have opposed Peter in Judea and John in Asia. His errors: 1. He said that Christ was born of Joseph and Mary. 2. And therefore that Christ is a mere man.

English

3. He separated Jesus from Christ. After the baptism of Jesus, Christ descended upon Him from that principality which is above all things, in the form of a dove, and then proclaimed the unknown Father. But at the end, Christ flew back from Jesus; and Jesus suffered and rose again, while Christ, being spiritual, persisted impassible. Epiphanius, however, says that Cerinthus believed that Christ suffered and was crucified, but had not yet been raised from the dead, and that He would only be raised at last when all the dead rise.

English

4. He believed the world was made by angels.

English

5. He believed circumcision and the other observances of the Mosaic law to be necessary. 6. He condemned the epistles of Paul and the Acts of the Apostles.

English

7.

English

7. After the resurrection of Christ, Christ would begin a reign of a thousand years, and His citizens dwelling in Jerusalem would live in every kind of fleshly pleasure.

English

8. If anyone should die without baptism, some living person was to be baptized in his place, so that the unbaptized person would not suffer penalties at the resurrection. Paul is thought to have alluded to this practice:

English

1 Cor. 15:29. 9. Some of his followers are said to have denied the resurrection. Ebion and the Ebionites. Some doubt that such a heretic existed; others, however, believe it, and it is clear that the ancients believed so. The following dogmas are attributed to them. 1. That Christ was a mere man, and came only for the Jews.

English

1. That circumcision and observance of the law are necessary for salvation. 2. They accepted part of the Pentateuch, but rejected other parts, along with the Psalms of David, the writings of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. And from the New Testament they received only the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, omitting the first two chapters as spurious. 3. They called Paul an apostate and abominated John. 4. They said one must abstain from meat, wine, and animals.

English

6. The Ebionites are accused of worshipping Jerusalem as the house of God; and when one of them fell sick, or had been bitten by a reptile, of descending into the waters and invoking heaven and earth, the sun and water, the winds and the angels of righteousness, bread and oil, saying: Help us and remove pain from me.

English

7. They cultivated poverty.

English

8. Some held that Christ was born of a virgin; others held that He was born as other men are born.

English

9. There were those who distinguished Jesus from Christ, and who said that Christ was he who called Jesus the son of the law. Chapter 2. On the Heretics of the Second Century. Saturninus. Saturninus or Saturnilus of Antioch, under Hadrian, was a disciple of Simon Magus and Menander; he troubled the Church with the following heresies. 1. That there is one unknown Father, distinct from God, who is the creator of the angels of the Jews. 2. That the world and man were created by angels, who according to him were seven in number, and that the God of the Jews arose from among the angels. 3. That the angels formed the body of man, and that God sent the soul into the body; hence that which descended from above, namely the soul, must be entirely preserved, while all the rest of man, which comes from below, perishes; but that which in man descended from above returns after a certain time. 4. That from the beginning two kinds of men were formed, one good and one evil, from which two races of men exist in the world, good and evil. 5. That the prophecies of the Old Testament did not come from God, but proceeded from angels or from Satan. 6. That he himself was sent as Savior by the Father, by the will of the powers, for the destruction of the God of the Jews and of the demons who afflict good men, and that therefore He came for the salvation of believers. 7. That Christ, who is also the firstborn of God, was truly unborn and incorporeal, did not truly appear in the flesh, nor was He truly crucified, but in His place Simon of Cyrene, who was compelled, carried the cross, and whose form Jesus received. 8. He denied the resurrection.

English

9. He believed one must abstain from marriage and from animals. Basilides. Basilides of Alexandria, also under Hadrian, sowed heresies in Egypt. Some, however, maintain that he conceived them under Domitian, published them under Trajan, and established his sects under Hadrian. His errors are enumerated as follows.

English

1.

English

1. From the unborn Father was begotten mind; from mind, the Word; from the Word, prudence; from these, the chief powers and first angels; from the first angels, the highest heaven and other angels; from these, a second heaven, and again other angels, and so on, until through the continuous emanations of angels 365 heavens were formed, whose collective name is Abraxas or Kosmos. He also assigns this number by the following calculation: A=1, B=2, R=100, A=1, X=60, A=1, S=200.

English

200. Some wished to find in this name a mystery of the Trinity and of the crucified Savior. 2. The angels of the lowest heaven created the lower regions and divided the earthly sphere among themselves. 3. The prince of the angels is the God of the Jews. 4. He attributed the law of the Jews to God, and the prophecies to the remaining angels.

English

5. That Christ was sent to liberate believers from the power of the angels.

English

6. That He came in a phantom, and did not truly suffer at the hands of the Jews, but that Simon of Cyrene suffered in His place. Hence came the saying of Basilides: he who confesses Christ crucified is still a slave; but he who has denied Him is free.

English

7. He denied the resurrection of the flesh. 8. He held it lawful to eat food sacrificed to idols, to deny the faith in time of persecution, and to indulge in promiscuous lust. 9. He imposed a five-year silence and a period of study.

English

10. He taught that souls sinned in another life and suffer punishment in this one. 11. He asserted that faith is natural to man. 12. Some say that they used images as amulets. Carpocrates. Carpocrates, or Carpocras, an Alexandrian Platonist philosopher by background, was regarded as the father of the Gnostics, together with his followers. 1. He used love-potions carefully elaborated by magic arts. 2. He rejected the entire Old Testament.

English

3. That Christ was born from the seed of Joseph, and surpassed other men only in righteousness.

English

4. That those who wished to attain the perfection of the mysteries practiced among them were obliged to commit every base act.

English

5. That good and evil are judged by opinion, not by truth.

English

6. He denied the resurrection of the flesh.

English

7. The world was made by angels.

English

8. He is said to have believed in the transmigration of souls.

English

9. That the soul of Christ, leaving its body on earth, flew up to heaven, but that before the soul flew up, it had committed all manner of shameful acts.

English

10. He venerated images of Plato, Pythagoras, and others. 11. He approved of the community of wives. 12.

English

12. He was accustomed to mark the ears of his disciples with a kind of branding iron. To this sect was joined Marcellina, from whom came the Marcellinians. Epiphanes, the son and heir of this impiety, was the son of Carpocrates. The Adamites, or Adamians, in their assemblies imitated the nakedness of Adam before the fall, and they expelled from their company any who had fallen into some sin; they also disapproved of marriage. This sect was revived in Bohemia by a certain Picardus (in the 15th century), who called himself the Son of God and a second Adam. The Cainites, also called Caianites or Cajanists.

English

3. They honored Judas above all with the highest honor, and they promulgated a forged Gospel of Judas.

English

4. They condemned the law handed down by Moses. 5. When committing any licentious act whatsoever, they invoked the name of some angel.

English

6. They admitted the transmigration of souls, and they denied the resurrection of bodies.

English

7. They held that there are certain sins that Christ cannot purify with His blood. Quintilla. To this heresy was joined Quintilla, who, according to Tertullian, destroyed baptism; from her arose the Quintillians. What they did with the blood of an infant is reported by Augustine, heresy 27. Some assign to this century the Abelites, or Abelonians, or Abeloites, who, though living with wives, professed continence. The Sethians, or Sethiani, said that Seth was Christ, they corrupted Scripture, and according to some denied the resurrection. The Ophians or Ophites were so called either because they called themselves wise, or because they preferred the ancient serpent, as the author of the knowledge of good and evil, to Christ, or because they considered this serpent to be Christ, and they nourished and venerated a certain serpent in a cave, believing that their offerings were consecrated by it when summoned through magical incantations. Valentinus, a philosopher of the Platonic school, concerning the date of whose activity there is dispute, and whether he had already disseminated his heresy while John was still living. It is believed he scattered his errors, according to some, under Hadrian; according to others, under Antoninus Pius, around the year 140 or

English

144, under Hyginus, Bishop of Rome. The cause of his defection from the Church is said to have been a rejection of the episcopate. The Errors of Valentinus and the Valentinians. 1. They held that truth cannot be drawn from the Scriptures by those who do not know the traditions.

English

2. They misused the words of Scripture and disapproved of many things. 3. They had certain apocryphal books, to which belong the Psalms of Valentinus. 4. They imagined that there are thirty Aeons, which they dreamed were born successively as gods: from a coupling of Depth (Bythos) and Silence (Sige) proceeded Intellect (Nous) and Truth (Aletheia), from which pair were born eight Aeons; then Intellect and Truth joining again produced Word (Logos) and Life (Zoe), and from this Life were born ten Aeons; and from their union were born Man (Anthropos) and Church (Ekklesia), from which union were born twelve Aeons, which together make thirty. From the thirtieth Aeon were born heaven, earth, the sea, or the evil angels by whom the world was made. 5. They held that there are three kinds of human beings: spiritual, psychical, and material. 6. They held that the spiritual person has a soul good by nature, and one so perfect that he can judge all things and be judged by no one, and can commit all manner of crimes; that such persons cannot perish or sin — such, they said, was Seth. The psychical person they held to need good works — such, they said, was Adam. The material, or choic, or earthly person they held to perish — such, they said, was Onan.

English

7. The Valentinians are accused of believing in a corporeal God and two principles.

English

8. Some of the Valentinians said that Christ had a celestial body, which passed through the womb of Mary as water through a channel, assuming nothing of her substance; others said He was born of Joseph and Mary.

English

9. They are accused of believing that Christ's divine nature proceeded from the Aeons, each contributing its own portion. 10. They denied the resurrection, at least of the imperfect. 11. They held that justification is accomplished through that singular knowledge of which they boasted.

English

11. They are said to have baptized in the name of the unknown Father of all, in truth the mother of all, in the one who descended into union, redemption, and communion of power.

English

13. They say that the Lord's Supper was celebrated by them in the following manner: wine was poured by Marcus, a chief associate of Valentinus, into a cup, which through magical art became red; and they explained this as if blood had distilled into the cup from heaven. This cup, thus consecrated, was handed with certain prayers to the women present, so that they in turn might pronounce prayers over it.

English

14. In their assemblies they used barbarous words, so that they would cause stupor. The followers of Valentinus were: Ptolemy, from whom came the Ptolemaeans. He is said to have held this peculiar doctrine: that God, one and the same, when He emits something is called Father; when He truly speaks, Truth; when He manifests Himself, Man. Also Secundus, from whom came the Secundians, called by others the Sephantians. Heracleon, from whom came the Heracleonites, who believed —

English

1. That there are two principles; that the first is Man, whom he called by a certain term, neither male nor female; from this there exists the mother of all things, whom he called now by one name, now by another. From this mother there proceeds a second mother.

English

2. He posited three parts in the human being: the body, the soul, and a third thing which after death flies higher than the soul itself.

English

4. That Christ has an imperfect body, since He is called the Lamb of God, and that those who worship God in spirit and in truth are of the same substance as God.

English

5. They sprinkled oil and ointment on the heads of the dying, and at the anointing they added superstitious invocations, concerning which see Epiphanius, heresy 36. Marcus, from whom came the Marcosians. 1. He attempted to seduce all women.

English

2. By his tricks he appeared to change the Eucharistic wine into blood. 3. In other matters he followed Valentinus and others. Colorbasius, from whom came the Colorbasians. 1. Among other dreams, he denied that Christ came in the substance of the flesh. 2. He affirmed that the life of all human beings and their generation consist in the seven stars. 3. He sought various mysteries in numbers and in the elements of letters. Florinus, Presbyter of the Church of Rome. He believed God to be the author of evil, or rather admitted two principles — one God the author of good, the other the author of evil, as some said; he is elsewhere called Florianus. He admitted the Aeons of Valentinus. He had Blasius as a companion. Bardesanes was also a follower of Valentinus. 1. He is said to have denied that the Devil was created by God.

English

3. He is likewise said to have denied that the Son of God assumed human flesh and that the body rises again. Cerdon, a contemporary of Valentinus, believed: 1. He asserted two principles, two Gods opposed to each other and independent of each other: one good, the other evil — the latter the author of the world, the Law, and the Prophets; the former the Father of Jesus Christ, and he held this Father to be both good and just. 2. He said the Old Testament proceeded from the evil God, because it forbade eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; because it prohibited eating from the tree of life; because it brought the flood; and because it revealed its cruelty in the destruction of Sodom and the extermination of the Canaanites; and because it gave this law: a tooth for a tooth, etc. And he found other fault with the books of the Old Testament.

English

3. He received the Gospel of Luke, but not all of it, and certain Epistles of Paul.

English

4. That Christ was not born of Mary, nor born at all in any way, nor had flesh; that He suffered in appearance only. That He came from the heavenly realms, from an unknown Father, for the condemnation of the maker of the world. 5. He denied the resurrection. Marcion, a Pontic by nationality, born at Sinope, who, on account of the violation of a virgin and the stricter discipline exercised against him by the bishop there, withdrew to Rome; Polycarp called him the firstborn of Satan. 1. He rejected the entire Old Testament, and received only the Gospel of Luke, and that in mutilated form; he admitted not all of the Epistles of Paul, nor even those in their entirety.

English

2. He invented two Gods: one evil, to whom he attributed the creation of the world and the law, the other good. There are those who say he believed in three — good and

English

3. He venerated the thirty aeons of Valentinus.

English

4. Christ was said to have appeared only as a phantom.

English

5. He is said to have admitted two Christs: one who was revealed in the times of Tiberius by a God previously unknown, for the salvation of all the nations; another who was destined by God the Creator for the restoration of the Jews, and who would come at some future time.

English

6. He attacked marriage and the procreation of children, and preached virginity and continence.

English

7. Cain, the Sodomites, the Egyptians, and the impious Gentiles were saved by Christ descending to the underworld; but Abel, Enoch, Noah, and other righteous persons were left in hell.

English

8. He is said by some to have denied the resurrection of the dead. 9. He is said by some to have baptized the living who were hidden under a bed in place of the dead; others deny this.

English

10. He believed that baptism should be repeated two or three times.

English

11. Some have accused him of having believed that rational souls are of divine substance.

English

12. He is said to have believed certain things. 13. He is said to have permitted baptism to be administered by women. 14. He is said to have fasted on the Sabbath. The disciples of Marcion were as follows. Lucanus or Lucianus, who among other things believed that neither the soul nor the flesh, but some third thing, would rise again. Apelles, from whom the Apellites, and others, who, having been expelled from the school of Marcion for the fornication he had committed, lived in intimacy with a most impure woman named Philumena, whose prophecies he published. His teachings were: 1. He rejected the Law and the Prophets. 2. He taught that the good God had made another God; that this made god had created all things. That the latter, however, had turned out to be not good, and that the things made by him were not well made, but were created according to his evil mind. 3. Christ, descending from the higher regions, formed for Himself during the very descent a sidereal and aerial flesh, and this body returned to its own principles at His ascension.

English

4. The good God does not care for the things that are done in this world. 5. He denied the resurrection of bodies. The Gnostics arose from the school of Simon, Menander, the Nicolaitans, Saturninus, Basilides, Carpocrates, and Valentinus. Some hold that they already existed in the time of the Apostles, and that Paul alludes to them in I Tim. 6:20, when he speaks of the oppositions of falsely-so-called knowledge, concerning which Hammond is to be consulted in various passages of Scripture; others say they arose later. They were called Borborites or Borborians, and also Phibionites, or from the bed of impurity in which they wholly immersed themselves. They were called Barbelites from a certain heavenly power called Barbelo; Coddians from Codda, which among the Syrians is the same as a common dish, because no one could eat at a common table with them, or from Solus (alone), because they lived apart. They were also called by other names. 1. They possessed apocryphal books stuffed with trifles, such as the book called Noria, from the wife of Noah; a poem they called the Gospel of Perfection; the books of Seth; the Revelations of Adam; etc.

English

2. They fabricated a twofold God, one good and one evil. 1. They denied that Christ was born of Mary, and said that He had assumed flesh only in appearance.

English

4. The ruler of this world is not God, but one who has the likeness of a Dragon, by whom are swallowed up all those souls among them who have been deprived of the knowledge which these heretics boasted of — that is, of the full complement of the most shameful deeds — and who are again twisted back into this world through the tail, and from there into swine and other animals, so as to be carried upward again through these. 5. They said the nature of human souls is mortal, and that the same soul is implanted in animals, in wild beasts, in fish, in serpents, and in the humans who are in bread, vegetables, fruits, and trees. 6. They said that drunkenness is lawful, and they gave themselves over to all promiscuous lusts, which it would be indecent to describe. Hermogenes said that matter is co-eternal with God, and that sin arose necessarily from the vice of matter; he was a polygamist and a painter; Tertullian said of him: he marries continually, he paints illicitly. He is further accused of having believed that the body of Christ was deposited in the sun at the ascension. The Docetae, or Docetists, were those who were said to have asserted that Christ assumed a phantom body; the name Docetae was used by no one before Serapion, as found in Eusebius, Hist. 6.12, and Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 7; yet the error itself arose in the apostolic age; to this some refer the words of I John 4.

English

3. Some hold that they were also called Phantasiodocetae, Phantasiastae, and Anthropomorphites. Among them were: Scythianus, who at the beginning of the second century denied that Christ had come in the flesh and in a true body; he was the forerunner of Manes. The Marcianites and Marcianists. Julius Cassianus, whom Clement of Alexandria calls the promoter of continence in Stromata 3. The Haematites, or Scythians. The Marcianites are believed to have been so called, or Haimites, either because they defiled themselves with blood or by drinking it, or because they used human blood in their mysteries. The Melitonians, from a certain Melito, who sought the image of God in the body, and hence appear to have believed God to be corporeal. Tatian the Syrian, said to be a disciple of Justin Martyr. 1. He devised invisible aeons, as Valentinus did.

English

2. He wrongly inferred from Gal. 6:8 that marriage is corruption and fornication.

English

3. He is said to have believed that the Law belonged to another God. 4. That Adam was condemned by God and was not a partaker of eternal life. 5. He rejected the eating of flesh and of living creatures.

English

6. He denied the truth of human nature in Christ.

English

7. He is also said to have forbidden wine.

English

8. In sacred mysteries he used water. The Encratites taught that marriage ought not to be contracted. 1. They said one must abstain from eating living creatures. 2. They denied the salvation of the first man.

English

4. He is accused of having established many principles, and of having placed the Devil among them.

English

5. They are also accused of having possessed many apocryphal acts. Because they used water in their mysteries, they were called Hydroparastatae from that water, and also Aquarians. The Severians, from Severus; they were a branch of the Encratites, because of their abhorrence of wine and marriage.

English

1. They admitted the Law and the Prophets together with the Gospels, though Epiphanius denies this.

English

1. They rejected the Epistles of Paul and the Acts of the Apostles.

English

5. They attributed the origin of the world to certain powers and principles.

English

4. The vine, they said, sprang from a serpent cast down to earth by heavenly power, and having grown from the earth, and hence the flexion of the vine imitates the coils of serpents. 5. Woman is the work of Satan, and those who contract marriage are performing the work of the Devil.

English

6. The upper part of man was created by God, the lower part by an evil power.

English

7. They are believed to deny the resurrection of the flesh. The Apotactics or Apotactites — so called because they renounced ownership of their own property and excluded from their communion those who were unwilling to do the same. They also shunned marriage. They were called Apostolics as well, though they were unlike the Apostles. They refused to receive the lapsed. Montanus (hence the Montanists) — a Phrygian by birth, or rather a Mysian, from an obscure Mysian town called Ardabau, and also called by another name; hence the followers of Montanus were called Phrygians, Cataphrygians, and Pepuzians. He is accused by Jerome of having believed that there is only one Person in the Divinity; that God, when He had been unable to save the world through Moses and the Prophets, assumed a body from a virgin and died, and since even so He could not save the world, descended through the Holy Spirit into Montanus. But from Tertullian, who was a Montanist, it is clear that this accusation is false. Nor is it credible that Montanus claimed to be the Paraclete and the Spirit, although he is accused of this; though his followers did believe him to be peculiarly inspired by the Holy Spirit. He was unwilling for the Church to grant peace to adulterers, murderers, and idolaters, although he did not deny that God is able to forgive them.

English

4. They taught that a selection of foods must be maintained, and they bound various fastings, as if necessary, by fixed laws; and the Montanists observed xerophagies. Jerome says that they made three Lenten fasts in a year. 5. They condemned second marriages.

English

6. They declared that flight in persecution was unlawful, and that persecution was not to be bought off with money.

English

7. Among them there were Patriarchs, and among them women preached the word and administered the sacraments.

English

8. They boasted of many visions and prophecies.

English

9. Many things were imputed to them, such as incestuous sexual intercourse, and the composition of the sacrament of the Eucharist from the blood of a year-old infant — things which appear to be fables.

English

10. Montanus joined to himself as companions certain women: Prisca, or Priscilla, and Maximilla.

English

11. Among the followers of Montanus are numbered a certain Theodotus, Alexander, Alcibiades, Miltiades, Aeschines, Proclus, and Tertullian.

English

12. The Sibylline oracles are believed to have originated from Montanus's influence. 13. The author of the Acts of Perpetua and Felicitas is believed to have been an adherent of Montanus's party. The Tascodrugoi, or Tascodrugitae, are referred by some to the Montanists, so called because during prayer they placed a finger on their nose — a word which in their own language signifies a peg, and another word which signifies a snout or nose. They are distinguished by others as Ascodrugitae or Ascodrobi, though some distinguish these from those. The Pastorinchitae, or Pattalorinchitae, are believed to be entirely the same as the Tascodrugitae, so called because in their zeal for silence they placed a finger on their nostrils or lips — whence they ought rather to be called Dactyloriunchitae. To the sects of the Montanists are also joined the Artotyritae, so called because they used bread and cheese in their mysteries. The Alogi, or Alogiani, so called, rejected the Word preached by John, and for that reason also repudiated the Gospel of John together with the Apocalypse. They denied the divinity of Christ. The restorer of this sect was Theodotus the Tanner, who blasphemed against Christ before Victor, bishop of Rome. 1. He asserted that Christ was a mere man, and for that reason was excommunicated by Victor. 2. He is accused by Clement of Alexandria of believing that the Son of God and the angels were material.

English

4. That souls and demons are corporeal.

English

5. That Jesus Himself had need of redemption, which He obtained by means of the dove sent upon Him after baptism. 6. That God the Father suffered in Christ's suffering.

English

7. That before the passion, the divine and spiritual soul, which He distinguished from the material, departed from Christ.

English

8. That the stars impose fate upon things. Theodotus of Byzantium believed that Melchizedek was a certain heavenly power, superior to Christ; and that Christ intercedes for men, while Melchizedek intercedes for the angels. His followers were called Melchizedekians. Artemon, or Artemas, a disciple of Theodotus the Tanner, likewise attacked the divinity of Christ; he is believed to have sustained the cause

English

1 Joh. 5:7. The Hermiani, so called from Hermias, are accused of believing, together with Hermogenes (mentioned above), that matter is co-eternal with God, and also that the body of the ascending Christ was deposited in the sun — an error attributed likewise to Hermogenes. Noetus, under the Emperor Antoninus, spread his poison in Asia; he claimed to be Moses and called his brother Aaron, and established one single Person. His disciple was Praxeas, from whom the Praxeans and, on account of the Father's suffering, the Patripassians take their name. He held that the hypostasis of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is one and the same. He was the first to use the term of address. The Metanatoi, or Antitactae, who set themselves against the ordinances of God, taught:

English

1. That God the Father is indeed our Father by nature over all things, and that all things He made are good; but that some one among those made by Him sowed tares and produced the nature of evil — by which, they said, He also entangled us and made us adversaries of the Father. The Peratti and Sethiani, so named from the region in which they lived, divided the world into three sections. 1. They called the first section the Trinity, naming it the good perfect one, the paternal greatness, the multitude of infinite powers — the third, special one. 2. They called it unbegotten, and named three Gods, three words, three minds, three men. From the heavenly regions, in the times of Herod, there descended a certain man of triple nature, of three bodies and triple power, named Christ; and He passed through the unbegotten world and through the self-begotten world, and arrived in this world in which we are. The unbegotten world and the self-begotten world they said were to be saved, but the world which they called special would perish. The Elkasaites, so called from a certain Elkesai whom Epiphanius says lived in the time of Trajan, rejected the writings of the Apostle Paul, and declared that denial of the faith made with the mouth is lawful. Chapter 3. Book III. Among the heresies mentioned above, there are those charged with worshiping one God, with having worshiped the Holy Spirit as a female being, and with having used incantations. Other heresies of various names in Arabia: among them, those who denied the pre-existence of the soul, and who held that men dwell in it; the Egyptian bishops, and those who are called Chiliasts, because they established the kingdom of Christ on earth for a thousand years in bodily pleasures. They are also said to have rejected the Prophets and Apostles. Their standard-bearer was called Coracion, concerning whom Dionysius speaks in Eusebius. 5. The Sabellians of Asian Pentapolis, or of Libyan Cyrenaica, whence the Sabellians, who are also called Noetians — following Noetus as their teacher — and the Praxeans from Praxeas, the Hermogenians from Hermogenes, the Monarchians, and by Prudentius the Unionists. Sabellius held that the persons of the Trinity are only names, and that there is only one person in God: that God the Father is called Father in heaven, Son on earth, and Holy Spirit in creatures insofar as He exercises His power in them. That the Father was born of the Virgin under the concept of the Son, and suffered — hence Patripassianism. On which account a certain learned man compares them to the pagans, who said that Apollo is the sun in heaven, Liber Pater on earth, and Apollo in the underworld.

English

4. Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch: Together with Artemon he said that Christ was a mere man, not God, and did not exist before His birth from the Virgin Mary; that He was called Son of God and God on account of the divine and heavenly gifts with which He was endowed, and called the Logos as it were the spokesman of God to us. He denied divine worship to Christ, and forbade the singing of psalms in honor of Christ as had been customary. He did not administer baptism in the name of Christ; hence his disciples are decreed to be rebaptized by Canon XIX of the Nicene Synod under the name of Paulianists. Philastrius says that he taught circumcision.

English

5. The Manichaeans, named after the founder of the heresy: The first founder was Scythianus, a Saracen by trade, who fabricated revelations as if received from God; whose disciple was Buddas, otherwise known as Terebinthus, upon whose death a certain Persian slave named Cubricus came into possession of his books. This Cubricus adopted the name Manes, whence the Manichaeans. Their errors:

English

2. They repudiated the Old Testament. 3. The Paraclete had been sent by Christ, said Manes. 4. That Christ appeared as a man but was not truly one, and did not truly suffer. 5. That good and evil are substances. 6. That the world, the flesh, the magistracy, and sin proceeded from the evil God.

English

7. That there is an absolute necessity of sin and carnal concupiscence, being driven thereto by the evil God. 8. That marriage, war, meat, eggs, milk, and wine are unlawful — calling these things the food of demons. 9. They administered the Eucharist under one kind only, and sprinkled it with human semen.

English

10. That the sun is Christ, whence the sun was eclipsed at His cross. 11. That the sun, the moon, and the air are the seat of the Trinity, and that they are vessels by which the souls of the dead are conveyed to the light. 12. They are accused of believing in no resurrection of bodies. 13. That good souls are a particle of divinity, if not God Himself. 14. It is reported that this Manes had XII disciples and LXXII bishops, in imitation of the XII Apostles and LXXII disciples of Christ. 15. They distinguished the Elect from the Hearers and the common people; concerning the last, he asserted — especially those joined in matrimony — that the substance of evil had not yet been purged from them.

English

16. He rejected water baptism as useless.

English

7. He said that the souls of the Hearers are converted into the souls of the Elect, and thus, purified, return to God; and that the souls of the rest return into the bodies of cattle and into trees — hence he taught that plants and trees are alive, and called farmers murderers. Novatian.

English

6. Of Novatus, a presbyter of Carthage, and of Novatian, a presbyter of Rome — hence the Novatians, who were also called Cathari. 1. They denied pardon to the lapsed who had renounced the Christian faith, even when they were penitent.

English

3. They condemned second marriages contracted after baptism. Chapter 4. Book II. Heresies born in this century. I. Of Arius, a presbyter of the Church of Alexandria — hence the Arians. Arius said that Christ is called God, but is less than the Father, was created from non-being, or from nothing — hence the name Exoucontians — was made God by the will of the Father, and is the Son of God not by nature but by adoption. That through Him, as an instrument, the Father created all things. That the essence of the Son differs from the essence of the Father. He is also said to have believed that the Holy Spirit is a creature of the Son, begotten and created by Him, inferior in dignity to the Father and the Son, cooperating in creation. Those who came out of Arius's school were divided into various factions. Some were called pure Arians and Anomoeans, who would establish that the Son is unlike the Father in all things; chief among them was Aetius, a deacon of the Church of Antioch, called Atheos, teacher of Eunomius — hence Eunomians. Others were called Semi-Arians, who asserted that the Son is similar in substance, but not consubstantial; their leaders were Basil of Ancyra, Eustathius of Sebaste, etc. Others asserted simply that the Son is like the Father, not adding "like in all things" or "like in substance," but like in will — and in reality: among them was Acacius, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine after Eusebius, also present at the Synod of Seleucia in Isauria in 359, whose formula Socrates records; but he is said to have repented afterward and subscribed with the Catholics to the Synod of Antioch in 363. Rejecting all those words consubstantial, of one substance, of like substance, they said the Father is greater than the Son in honor, dignity, and deity — calling Him a servant of the Father. Against Arius stood the Council of Nicaea in 325. II. Photinus, bishop of Sirmium in Illyricum, who said that Christ is only a man, had His beginning from Mary, that the Holy Spirit is neither God nor a person of the Holy Trinity; he called extension an extension. For the rest he followed the opinion of Sabellius, namely that there is one person; condemned at the Synod of Antioch in 345 and at Milan in 347, etc. III. Of Apollinaris the father and Apollinaris the son, both from Laodicea in Syria, who said: 1. That the Holy Spirit is great; the Son, greater; the Father, greatest.

English

2. That Christ assumed flesh, but without a human soul, or at least without a rational mind, and that the divinity took the place of this. 3. Some say they believed that the flesh of Christ is consubstantial with the divinity, and was in no way formed from the substance of the Virgin. 4. Others say they were Sabellians; that they believed in a millennial kingdom, and that souls are produced from the soul of the parents. IV. The Macedonians of Constantinople — hence the Macedonians: They said that the Holy Spirit is not God, nor a divine person, nor does He possess His own substance; they asserted He is only a created power or creature ministering to the Son, just as the angels are, and that each individual creature participates in Him, or that the Spirit is present in all things by the infinite diffusion of Himself — against whom stood the Council of Constantinople under Theodosius the Great in 381. The Audians, followers of Audius, a Syrian monk, hence called Audians, who were anthropomorphites: 1. They attributed human members and a human form to God. 2. They celebrated Passover together with the Jews on the fourteenth day.

English

5. They did not believe that God had created fire and water. VI. Priscillian and the Priscillianists, Spanish bishops, under the reign of emperors Gratian and Theodosius, with Damasus as bishop of the city of Rome.

English

2. Controversiarum Lib. II.

English

4. Likewise, he believed in astrological fate, holding that each individual member of the body is governed by a star — the head by Aries, the neck by Taurus, etc. 5. He required abstinence from meat, as from unclean things. 6. He concealed the mysteries with great zeal, except from women of low standing; and so he required an oath of secrecy from his followers, as the Gnostics did — swear and perjure, but do not betray the secret.

English

9. They said that human souls are of the same nature and substance as God, having descended to engage in a certain voluntary contest to be carried out in these lower realms.

English

through the heavens, and to descend step by step through certain principalities, and to fall under the evil prince. VII. The well-known schism of Donatus and the Donatists. 1. They said the Church consists of the perfect alone, such as they considered their own members to be.

English

VIII. The Archontics in Palestine and in Armenia, so called because they attributed the creation of this world to secondary gods called Princes (who in Greek are called archontes) and to their angels, born of their Mother Photenia, that is, light. They said that God the Father is the Father of the Trinity.

English

3. Following the example of the Heracleonites, they poured oil and water over the heads of the dead while murmuring certain words, saying that by this they would become invisible.

English

4. They had abolished the sacraments, and because they broke vessels designated for the sacraments, they were called antitactes or something similar.

English

5. They said the devil had begotten Cain and Abel through Eve. IX. The Luciferians, from Lucifer, bishop of Cagliari in Sardinia. They denied penance to lapsed clergy, and for that reason, if clerics had fallen into heresy, they held that even if they later repented they should never again be appointed to ecclesiastical office. They are further accused of having believed that the entire world is the work of the devil, and that the soul is a corporeal substance. X. The Messalians, also called Euchites, Adelphians, Satanians, Martyrians, Psalllians, and Enthusiasts, who taught that one must always pray.

English

2. They are accused of believing God to be corporeal, along with the Anthropomorphites, and of believing there is one person, along with the Sabellians, and that perjury for the purpose of concealing one's religion is lawful. 3. They declared themselves alone to be perfect, and therefore called themselves spirituals. XI. Helvidius, disciple of Auxentius, bishop of Milan — so called because he differed from the dogma of the Marians, who asserted that Mary had relations with her husband after Christ was born. XII. The Collyridians, so named from their practice of offering twisted bread or a kind of twisted cake. For at a certain fixed time of year, women would adorn a wagon or a four-wheeled seat, spread a linen cloth over it, and then bring out cakes and pastries, offering them to the Virgin seated on the wagon seat, in honor of Mary. Chapter 5. The heresies of the fifth century are: I. Pelagius and the Pelagians. Pelagius, called Morgan, an Anglo-Briton, a monk by profession, had as follower, companion, and assistant Caelestius, a Syrian or Irishman by birth, and Julian, bishop of Eclanum. Origen is named as a forerunner; then Rufinus, a presbyter of Aquileia. The place and time of the heresy's origin was around the year 405.

English

3. That Adam was by nature and condition mortal even before the fall, that he would have died even if he had not sinned, and that death does not derive from sin but from the necessity of nature. 4. That the powers of man are fully intact for the beginning of good works, for progress and perseverance in them, both as to willing the good and as to performing it; and hence that it is from God that we are human beings, but from ourselves that we are righteous. 5. That there are three ways of salvation: through the law of nature, through the law of Moses, and through the law of Christ.

English

6. That the works of the Gentiles were truly good and accepted by God, even if performed without the aid of grace. 7. That a perfection of the righteous is attainable in this life, either an actual one such that they do not sin at all — as Abel under the law of nature — or at least that they do not sin after baptismal grace — as Paul — or similarly that they are able to be without sin.

English

8. Pelagius first confused grace with the powers of nature, then extended it to the external doctrine of the divine law as it sounds in the Gospel. 9. That no internal and supernatural grace is given beyond the rational will and the possibility of nature, to which he later added illuminating grace for the will and the example of Christ.

English

10. That we are justified by our own powers, efforts, and the merit of a good will, even by works performed by the powers of nature alone, without the grace of Christ or the virtue of the Holy Spirit. 11. That the cause of predestination, both to grace and to glory, is the foreknowledge of good works and perseverance in them, arising from the right use of free will, excepting apostolic grace in the Apostles.

English

12. It was held to be an oath that those who had received baptism, unless they performed all things, could not enter the kingdom of heaven. II. Of the Semipelagians, or the Massilians — so called because they first arose at Massilia — around the year 430, whose leader was Cassianus, first a monk, afterward ordained deacon at Constantinople, who came to Massilia. 1. These men preached the powers of free will prior to prevenient grace; if not with respect to a good work, at least with respect to the beginning of good — of faith, conversion, repentance — or with respect to the foundational act of seeking grace.

English

2. They said that some are brought to Christ by pure grace prior to all strivings, but that most are predestined on the basis of foreseen strivings, good will, and the beginning of faith. 3. That infants are predestined to punishment or reward on the basis of a foreknowledge of the life each would have lived. III. Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, who was accused of believing that there were two persons in Christ, not merely two natures — condemned in the year 431. IV. Eutyches, Archimandrite of Constantinople, condemned in the year 451, who taught: 1. That there were two natures in Christ before their conjunction, but after the incarnation and union, only one nature. 2. That the body of Christ, after the union, was not consubstantial with the Virgin Mary His mother, but that at the very moment of incarnation the flesh was transformed into the divinity, or into the substance of the Word. Hence the comparison was drawn with iron heated in fire, or with a drop of honey or vinegar cast into a vast sea and absorbed by it. Hence arose several other sects. V. Of the Acephali, so called because their sect had no head; they taught that the properties of human nature were absorbed by the divine, as vinegar is absorbed by the sea. Of the Theopaschites, under the leadership of Peter Gnaphaeus, restored to the episcopate of Antioch after he had subscribed to Zeno’s Henoticon; he is said to have pronounced an anathema against the Council of Chalcedon.

English

1. That it was not one person of the Trinity who suffered, but the Trinity itself; wherefore in the hymn Agios ho Theos, Agios ischyros, Agios athanatos, he added: who was crucified for us. 2. To the same Gnaphaeus are attributed, among other public innovations, litanies to the saints, and in particular the invocation of the Virgin in public prayer. VII. Of the Armenians, who, under the instigation of one Ethanius the Armenian, made a schism in this century, rejecting the Council of Chalcedon. They retained the writings of Peter Gnaphaeus. VIII. Of the Jovianists, so called from Jovianus, a Roman monk, who are accused of believing that all sins are equal and that men do not sin after baptism. IX. Of Vincentius Pictor, who around the year 420 is believed to have taught:

English

1. That the soul was created not from nothing, but from the nature of God, and that it is a body.

English

Century 6. The propagation of Arianism in this century was remarkable, as was that of Eutychianism, with sects arising from the Eutychian family. 1. The Severitani, from Severus, a Palestinian monk expelled for heresy, who insinuated himself into the favor of Anastasius at Constantinople, and was at length made Bishop of the Church of Antioch; he thereafter became the head of the Acephali, having been substituted by force in the place of the expelled Flavian in the year 515. A persecution against the Orthodox was stirred up by that Severus. 2. The Jacobitae, whose founder was a certain Jacobus, a Syrian by nation, under the reign of Anastasius, a man of abject condition, who spread through Syria the heresy of Gnaphaeus and Severus — as Apollinaris held regarding the assumed flesh without a soul — and gave his name to the Jacobite sect, to which Theodosius, Bishop of Alexandria, joined himself from the year 535, with the favor of Theodora.

English

3. The Maronites, who are an offshoot of the Eutychians, and who admitted at least one will in Christ, if not one nature.

English

4. The Tritheists, led by John Philoponus, an Alexandrian philosopher and grammarian, who said that there were three hypostases and three natures, or substances, in God, yet similar in all things; whence he was called a Tritheist, although he would blush to say three deities or three Gods, because he acknowledged in each individual the same species and individual substance. 5. The Agnoetae, who were also called Phantasiasts, who said that Christ did not know certain things from His bodily condition. The patron of this sect is said to have been the Emperor Justinian. Century 7. Besides several ancient heresies reviving — Arianism, Pelagianism, and others — in this century also arose: 1. The Monothelites, around the year 630, who said there was only one will and one operation in Christ; their supporters were Cyrus, Bishop of Alexandria, and Sergius, Bishop of Constantinople. Century 8. In this century arose: 1. The heresy of the Iconolaters, propagated from the West to the East, and confirmed by the Roman Pontiffs. 2. The opinion of the Felicistae, or Adoptionists: their authors were Felix, Bishop of the city of Urgel in Septimania, and Elipandus, Bishop and Primate of Toledo.

English

2. They said that Christ, according to His divine nature, was the true and proper Son of God, naturally begotten by the Father; but according to His humanity, was the adoptive Son of God; whence their adversaries said it followed that in Christ there were two sons, and therefore two persons.

English

3. Debated also in this century was the procession of the Spirit. [Index of Chapters follows, Book I: On controversies agitated from the century of the Reformation.] Ch. I. On Atheists, Deists, and Anti-Scripturists, p. []; errors of Spinoza, p. 3; Hobbes, p. 8; Edward Herbert, p. 9; the opinion of David George of Holland, p. 13; on the Libertines, p. 14. Ch. 2. On the Jews, p. 15. Ch. 3. On the Mohammedans, p. 20.

English

On the Papists, p. 22. On the Jansenists, p. 33. On the opinion of Richard Simon, p. []. Ch. 5. On the Anabaptists, p. 40. On the opinion of the Schwenckfeldians, p. 47. Ch. 6. On the opinion of Weigel and the Weigelians, p. []. Ch. 7. Propositions of Molinos condemned by Innocent XI in 1687, p. []. Ch. 8. Propositions drawn from the book of the Rev. Francis Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambrai, as condemned at Rome by Innocent XII in 1699, p. []. Ch. 9. On the Quakers, p. []. Ch. 10. On the Antinomians, p. []. Ch. 11. The opinion of the Antitrinitarians: Servetus, p. []; Valentino Gentile; Socinus and the Socinians, etc. Ch. 12. On the Arminians, or Remonstrants, p. []. Ch. 13. On the Augustan Evangelical Brethren, p. []. Ch. 14. On the modern Greeks, p. []. Ch. 15. On the Russians, or Muscovites, Copts, Abyssinians, or Ethiopians, p. []. Ch. 16. On the Pietists, p. []. Book II. Index [continues].

English

On the heretics of the first century, p. 116.

English

On the heretics of the second century, p. 126

English

On the Heretics of the Third Century, p. 154.

English

On the Heretics of the Fourth Century, p. 159.

English

On the Heretics of the Fifth Century, p. 166. Chapter VI. Of the Sixth Century, p. 172. Chapter VII. Of the Seventh Century, p. 174. Chapter VIII. Of the Eighth Century, p. 175. Chapter IX. Of the Ninth Century, p. 17_.