Chapter XXIX.—The Truth Not Indebted to the Care of the Heretics; It Had Free Course Before They Appeared. Priority of the Church’s Doctrine a Mark of Its Truth.

In whatever manner error came, it reigned of course300 only as long as there was an absence of heresies? Truth had to wait for certain Marcionites and Valentinians to set it free. During the interval the gospel was wrongly301 preached; men wrongly believed; so many thousands were wrongly baptized; so many works of faith were wrongly wrought; so many miraculous gifts,302 so many spiritual endowments,303 were wrongly set in operation; so many priestly functions, so many ministries,304 were wrongly executed; and, to sum up the whole, so many martyrs wrongly received their crowns! Else, if not wrongly done, and to no purpose, how comes it to pass that the things of God were on their course before it was known to what God they belonged? that there were Christians before Christ was found? that there were heresies before true doctrine? Not so; for in all cases truth precedes its copy, the likeness succeeds the reality. Absurd enough, however, is it, that heresy should be deemed to have preceded its own prior doctrine, even on this account, because it is that (doctrine) itself which foretold that there should be heresies against which men would have to guard! To a church which possessed this doctrine, it was written—yea, the doctrine itself writes to its own church—“Though an angel from heaven preach any other gospel than that which we have preached, let him be accursed.”305

CAPUT XXIX.

0041A

Haereses potius errasse, quae vera doctrina sunt posteriores.

Quoquo modo sit erratum; tamdiu utique regnavit error, quamdiu haereses non erant . Aliquos Marcionitas et Valentinianos liberanda veritas expectabat: interea perperam evangelizabatur, perperam credebatur , tot millia millium perperam tincta, tot opera fidei perperam administrata , tot virtutes, tot charismata perperam operata, tot sacerdotia, tot ministeria perperam functa, tot denique martyria in vacuum coronata . Aut si nec perperam, nec in vacuum , quale est ut ante res Dei currerent , quam cujus Dei notum esset; ante Christiani, quam Christus inventus, ante haeresis, 0041B quam vera doctrina? Sed enim in omnibus veritas imaginem antecedit; post rem similitudo succedit. Caeterum satis ineptum, ut prior in doctrina haeresis habeatur; vel quoniam ipsa est quae futuras haereses et cavendas praenuntiavit . Ad ejus doctrinae Ecclesiam scriptum est, imo ipsa doctrina ad Ecclesiam suam scribit: Etsi Angelus de coelo aliter evangelizaverit citra quam nos, anathema sit (Gal., I, 8).