25. The sixth book reveals the full deceitfulness of this heretical teaching. To win credit for their assertions they denounce the impious doctrine of heretics:—of Valentinus, to wit, and Sabellius and Manichæus and Hieracas, and appropriate the godly language of the Church as a cover for their blasphemy. They reprove and alter the language of these heretics, correcting it into a vague resemblance to orthodoxy, in order to suppress the holy faith while apparently denouncing heresy. But we state clearly what is the language and what the doctrine of each of these men, and acquit the Church of any complicity or fellowship with condemned heretics. Their words which deserve condemnation we condemn, and those which claim our humble acceptance we accept. Thus that Divine Sonship of Jesus Christ, which is the object of their most strenuous denial, we prove by the witness of the Father, by Christ’s own assertion, by the preaching of Apostles, by the faith of believers, by the cries of devils, by the contradiction of Jews, in itself a confession, by the recognition of the heathen who had not known God; and all this to rescue from dispute a truth of which Christ had left us no excuse for ignorance.

25. Liber sextus.---Sextus vero jam liber omnem haereticae assertionis fraudulentiam pandit. Namque ut dictis suis fidem facerent, damnantes dicta et vitia haereticorum, Valentini scilicet et Sabellii et Manichaei 0040C et Hieracae, pias Ecclesiae praedicationes velamento professionis impiae furati sunt: ut correptis in melius verbis irreligiosorum, et ambigua significatione moderatis, sub impietatis damnatione doctrinam pietatis exstinguerent. Sed nos singulorum dictis et professionibus demonstratis, sanctas Ecclesiae praedicationes absolvimus, neque quidquam cum damnatis haereticis commune eis esse permisimus, ut damnanda damnantes, sola venerabiliter sectanda sequeremur, filium Dei (supple, esse) Dominum Jesum Christum, quod maxime ab iis negabatur, per haec docentes, dum de eo testatur Pater, dum de se 0041A ipse profitetur, dum Apostoli praedicant, dum religiosi credunt, dum daemones clamant, dum Judaei negantes fatentur, dum ignorantes intelligunt gentes; ne jam (id est, ut non) ambigendum permitteretur, quod ignorandum non relinquebatur.