Chapter XLII.—Heretics Work to Pull Down and to Destroy, Not to Edify and Elevate. Heretics Do Not Adhere Even to Their Own Traditions, But Harbour Dissent Even from Their Own Founders.

But what shall I say concerning the ministry of the word, since they make it their business not to convert the heathen, but to subvert our people?  This is rather the glory which they catch at, to compass the fall of those who stand, not the raising of those who are down. Accordingly, since the very work which they purpose to themselves comes not from the building up of their own society, but from the demolition of the truth, they undermine our edifices, that they may erect their own. Only deprive them of the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the divinity of the Creator, and they have not another objection to talk about. The consequence is, that they more easily accomplish the ruin of standing houses than the erection of fallen ruins. It is only when they have such objects in view that they show themselves humble and bland and respectful. Otherwise they know no respect even for their own leaders.  Hence it is [supposed] that schisms seldom happen among heretics, because, even when they exist, they are not obvious.439    Non parent. Their very unity, however,440    Enim. [e.g. The Trent system of Unity, alas! is of this sort.] is schism. I am greatly in error if they do not amongst themselves swerve even from their own regulations, forasmuch as every man, just as it suits his own temper, modifies the traditions he has received after the same fashion as the man who handed them down did, when he moulded them according to his own will.  The progress of the matter is an acknowledgment at once of its character and of the manner of its birth. That was allowable to the Valentinians which had been allowed to Valentinus; that was also fair for the Marcionites which had been done by Marcion—even to innovate on the faith, as was agreeable to their own pleasure. In short, all heresies, when thoroughly looked into, are detected harbouring dissent in many particulars even from their own founders. The majority of them have not even churches.441    Hence the saying, “Wasps make combs, so Marcionites make churches” (see our Anti-Marcion, p. 187); describing the strangeness and uselessness of the societies, not (as Gibbon said) their number (Dodgson). Motherless, houseless, creedless, outcasts, they wander about in their own essential worthlessness.442    Sua in vilitate. Another reading, pronounced corrupt by Oehler, has “quasi sibi latæ vagantur,” q.d. “All for themselves, as it were, they wander” etc. (Dodgson).

CAPUT XLII.

In verbi quoque administratione negotium illis esse non ethnicos convertendi, sed nostros evertendi; nec suis praesidibus reverentiam praestent: et hinc apud eos schismata non parere, quantumvis tamen a regulis suis inter se varient et etiam ab auctoribus suis.

De verbi autem administratione quid dicam, 0057B cum hoc sit negotium illis, non ethnicos convertendi , sed nostros evertendi? Hanc magis gloriam captant, si stantibus ruinam, non si jacentibus elevationem operentur; quoniam et ipsum opus eorum non de suo proprio aedificio venit, sed de veritatis destructione. Nostra suffodiunt, ut sua aedificent. Adime illis legem Moysi, et Prophetas, et creatorem Deum, accusationem eloqui non habent. Ita fit ut ruinas facilius operentur stantium aedificiorum, quam exstructiones jacentium ruinarum. Ad haec solummodo opera humiles, et blandi, et summissi agunt. Caeterum, nec suis praesidibus reverentiam noverunt. Et hoc est quod schismata apud haereticos fere non 0057C sunt; quia, cum sint, non parent. Schisma est 0058A unitas ipsis . Mentior si non etiam a regulis suis variant inter se, dum unusquisque proinde suo arbitrio modulatur quae accepit, quemadmodum de suo arbitrio ea composuit ille qui tradidit. Agnoscit naturam suam, et originis suae morem, profectus rei. Idem licuit Valentinianis quod Valentino, idem Marcionitis quod Marcioni, de arbitrio suo fidem innovare. Denique penitus inspectae haereses omnes in multis cum auctoribus dissentientes deprehenduntur. Plerique nec Ecclesias habent, sine matre, sine sede, orbi fide, extorres, sine lare vagantur.