Heretics

 REVEALED truth, to be what it professes, must have an uninterrupted descent from the Apostles; its teachers must be unanimous, and persistent in their unanimity; and it must bear no human master's name as its designation.

 On the other hand, first novelty, next discordance, vacillation, change, thirdly sectarianism, are consequences and tokens of religious error.

 These tests stand to reason; for what is over and above nature must come from divine revelation; and, if so, it must descend from the very date when it was revealed, else it is but matter of opinion; and opinions vary, and have no warrant of permanence, but depend upon the relative ability and success of individual teachers, one with another, from whom they take their names.

 The Fathers abound in passages which illustrate these three tests.

 "Who are you?" says Tertullian, "whence and when came ye? what do ye on my property, being none of mine? by what right, O Marcion, cuttest thou my wood? by what licence, O Valentinus, turnest thou my springs? by what power, O Apelles, movest thou my landmarks? Mine is possession ... I possess of old, I have prior possession ... I am heir of the Apostles." Tertull. de Præscr. 37. "Tardily for me hath this time of day put forth these, in my judgment, most impious doctors. Full late hath that faith of mine, which Thou hast taught me, encountered these Masters. Before these names were heard of, I thus believed in Thee, I thus was new born by Thee, and thenceforth I thus am Thine." Hil. de Trin. vi. 21. "What heresy hath ever burst forth, but under the name of some certain men, in some certain place, and at some certain time? who ever set up any heresy, but first divided himself from the consent of the universality and antiquity of the Catholic Church?" Vincent. Lir. Commonit. 24. "I will tell thee my mind briefly and plainly, that thou shouldest remain in that Church which, being founded by the Apostles, endures even to this day. When thou hearest that those who are called Christ's, are named, not after Jesus Christ, but after some one, say Marcionites, Valentinians, etc., know then it is not Christ's Church, but the synagogue of Antichrist. For by the very fact that they are formed afterwards, they show that they are those who the Apostle foretold should come." Jerom. in Lucif. 27. "If the Church was not ... whence hath Donatus appeared? from what soil has he sprung? out of what sea hath he emerged? from what heaven hath he fallen?" August. de Bapt. contr. Don. iii. 2. vid. art. Catholic, etc.

 "However the error was, certainly," says Tertullian ironically, "error reigned so long as heresies were not. Truth needed a rescue, and looked out for Marcionites and Valentinians." "Meanwhile, gospelling was nought, faith was nought, nought was the baptism of so many thousand thousand, so many works of faith performed, so many virtues, so many gifts displayed, so many priesthoods, so many ministries exercised, nay, so many martyrdoms crowned." Tertull. Præscr. 29. "'Profane novelties,' which if we receive, of necessity the faith of our blessed ancestors, either all or a great part of it, must be overthrown; the faithful people of all ages and times, all holy saints, all the chaste, all the continent, all the virgins, all the Clergy, the Deacons, the Priests, so many thousands of confessors, so great armies of martyrs, so many famous populous cities and commonwealths, so many islands, provinces, kings, tribes, kingdoms, nations, to conclude, almost now the whole world, incorporated by the Catholic Faith to Christ their head, must needs be said, so many hundred years, to have been ignorant, to have erred, to have blasphemed, to have believed they knew not what." Vinc. Comm. 24. "O the extravagance! the wisdom, hidden until Christ's coming, they announce to us today, which is a thing to draw tears. For if the faith began thirty years since, while near four hundred are past since Christ was manifested, nought hath been our gospel that long while, and nought our faith, and fruitlessly have martyrs been martyred, and fruitlessly have such and so great rulers ruled the people." Greg. Naz. ad Cledon. Ep. 102, p. 97.

 "They know not to be reverent even to their leaders. And this is why commonly schisms exist not among heretics; because while they exist, they are not visible. Schism is their very unity. I am a liar if they do not dissent from their own rules, while every man among them equally alters at his private judgment (suo arbitrio) what he has received, just as he who gave to them composed it at his private judgment. The progress of the thing is true to its nature and its origin. What was a right to Valentinus, was a right to Valentinians, what to Marcion was to the Marcionites, to innovate on the faith at their private judgment. As soon as any heresy is thoroughly examined, it is found in many points dissenting from its parent. Those parents for the most part have no Churches; they roam about without mother, without see, bereaved of the faith, without a country, without a home." Tertull. Præscr. 42. "He writes," says Athan. of Constantius, "and while he writes repents, and while he repents is exasperated; and then he grieves again, and not knowing how to act, he shows how bereft the soul is of understanding." Hist. Arian. 70; vid. also ad Ep. Æg. 6.

 "Faith is made a thing of dates rather than Gospels, while it is written down by years, and is not measured by the confession of baptism." Hil. ad Const. ii. 4. "We determine yearly and monthly creeds concerning God, we repent of our determinations; we defend those who repent, we anathematise those whom we have defended; we condemn our own doings in those of others, or others in us, and gnawing each other, we are well-nigh devoured one of another." ibid. 5. "It happens to thee," says S. Hilary to Constantius, "as to unskilful builders, always to be dissatisfied with what thou hast done; thou art ever destroying what thou art ever building." contr. Constant. 23.

 "The Emperor [Theodosius] had a conversation with Nectarius, Bishop [of Constantinople], in what way to make Christendom concordant, and to unite the Church ... This made Nectarius anxious; but Sisinnius, a man of ready speech and of practical experience, and thoroughly versed in the interpretation of the sacred writings and in the doctrines of philosophy, having a conviction that disputation would but aggravate the party-spirit of the heretics instead of reconciling schisms, advised him to avoid dialectic engagements, and to appeal to the statements of the ancients, and to put the question to the heresiarchs from the Emperor, whether they made any sort of account of the doctors who belonged to the Church before the division, or came to issue with them as aliens from Christianity; for if they made their authority null, therefore let them venture to anathematise them. But if they did venture, then they would be driven out by the people." Socr. v. 10.

 "They who do not pertinaciously defend their opinion, false and perverse though it be, especially when it does not spring from the audacity of their own presumption, but has come to them from parents seduced and lapsed into error, while they seek the truth with cautious solicitude, and are prepared to correct themselves when they have found it, are by no means to be ranked among heretics." August. Ep. 43, init.; vid. also de Bapt. contr. Don. iv. 20.