Chapter XXIV.—St. Peter’s Further Vindication. St. Paul Not Superior to St. Peter in Teaching. Nothing Imparted to the Former in the Third Heaven Enabled Him to Add to the Faith. Heretics Boast as If Favoured with Some of the Secrets Imparted to Him.

I have not the good fortune,252 or, as I must rather say,253 I have not the unenviable task,254 of setting apostles by the ears.255 But, inasmuch as our very perverse cavillers obtrude the rebuke in question for the set purpose of bringing the earlier256 doctrine into suspicion, I will put in a defence, as it were, for Peter, to the effect that even Paul said that he was “made all things to all men—to the Jews a Jew,” to those who were not Jews as one who was not a Jew—“that he might gain all.”257 Therefore it was according to times and persons and causes that they used to censure certain practices, which they would not hesitate themselves to pursue, in like conformity to times and persons and causes. Just (e.g.) as if Peter too had censured Paul, because, whilst forbidding circumcision, he actually circumcised Timothy himself. Never mind258 those who pass sentence on apostles! It is a happy fact that Peter is on the same level with Paul in the very glory259 of martyrdom. Now, although Paul was carried away even to the third heaven, and was caught up to paradise,260 and heard certain revelations there, yet these cannot possibly seem to have qualified him for (teaching) another doctrine, seeing that their very nature was such as to render them communicable to no human being.261 If, however, that unspeakable mystery262 did leak out,263 and become known to any man, and if any heresy affirms that it does itself follow the same, (then) either Paul must be charged with having betrayed the secret, or some other man must actually264 be shown to have been afterwards “caught up into paradise,” who had permission to speak out plainly what Paul was not allowed (even) to mutter.

CAPUT XXIV.

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Idque reprehensionis usurpatum fuisse pro temporibus, personis, et caussis.

Non mihi tam bene est, imo non mihi tam male est, ut Apostolos committam. Sed quoniam perversissimi isti illam reprehensionem ad hoc obtendunt, ut suspectam faciant doctrinam superiorem, respondebo quasi pro Petro: ipsum Paulum dixisse, factum se esse omnibus omnia, Judaeis judaeum, non judaeis non judaeum, ut omnes lucrificaret . Adeo pro temporibus et personis et caussis quaedam reprehendebant, in quae et ipsi aeque pro temporibus et personis et caussis committebant: quemadmodum si et Petrus reprehenderet Paulum, quod prohibens circumcisionem, 0036C circumciderit ipse Timotheum. Viderint qui de Apostolis judicant. Bene quod Petrus 0037A Paulo et in martyrio adaequatur. Sed etsi in tertium usque coelum ereptus Paulus, et in paradisum delatus audiit quaedam illic, non possunt videri fuisse quae illum in aliam doctrinam instructiorem praestarent, cum ita fuerit conditio eorum, ut nulli hominum proderentur. Quod si ad alicujus conscientiam manavit nescio quid illud, et hoc se aliqua haeresis sequi affirmat, aut Paulus secreti proditi reus est, aut et alius postea in paradisum ereptus debet ostendi, cui permissum sit eloqui, quae Paulo mutire non liquit.