13. I beseech thee, hast thou not read, “Boast not, and speak not loftily, and let not arrogancy proceed out of your mouth: for the Lord lifteth the poor from the earth; He raiseth up the beggar from the dunghill, and maketh him to sit with the mighty ones of the people?”41    1 Sam. ii. 3–8. Hast thou not read, that “the Lord resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble?”42    Jas. iv. 6.  Hast thou not read, “Whoso exalteth himself shall be humbled?”43    Matt. xxiii. 12. Hast thou not read, that “God destroys the remembrance of the proud, and does not forsake the memory of the lowly?” Hast thou not read, that “with what judgment a man shall judge he must be judged?”44    Matt. vii. 2.  Hast thou not read, that “he who hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because the darkness hath blinded his eyes?”45    1 John ii. 11. Whence, then, this Novatian has become both so wicked and so lost, so mad with rage of discord, I cannot discover, since he always in one household—that is, the Church of Christ—would have bewailed the sins of his neighbours as his own;46    This refers to Novatian’s letter in the name of the Roman people. (See p. 308. Compare p. 320, note 6.] would have borne the burthens of his brethren, as the apostle exhorts; would have strengthened the faltering in the faith with heavenly counsel.  But now, from the time when he began to practise that heresy of Cain which only delights in slaying, he does not even of late spare himself. But if he had read that “the righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day on which he shall have erred, and the wickedness of the wicked shall not harm him from the day in which he shall have been converted,”47    Ezek. xxxiii. 12. he would long ago have repented in ashes, who is always opposed to penitents; who labours more readily in the destruction of those things which are built and standing, than in the building up of those which are prostrate; who has once more made heathens of many most wretched brethren of ours, terrified by his false oppositions, by saying that the repentance of the lapsed is vain, and cannot avail them for salvation, although the Scripture cries aloud and says, “Remember whence thou hast fallen, and repent, or else I will come to thee except thou repent.”48    Rev. ii. 5. And indeed, writing to the seven churches, rebuking each one of them with its own crimes and sins, it said, Repent. To whom but to them, doubtless, whom He had redeemed at the great price of His blood?

1214A XIII. Oro, non legisti: Nolite gloriari, et nolite loqui excelsa, et ne exeat magniloquentia ex ore vestro; quoniam erigit a terra pauperem, a sterquilino erigit inopem, et sedere eum facit cum potentibus populi (I Reg. II, 3, 8)? Non legisti: Quia Dominus superbis resistit, humilibus autem dat gratiam (Jac. IV, 6; I Pet. V, 5)? Non legisti: Qui se exaltat, humiliabitur (Matth. XXIII, 12; Luc. XIV, 11; XVIII, 14)? Non legisti: Quia Deus perdit memoriam superborum, et non relinquit memoriam humilium (Psal. IX, 7, 11)? Non legisti: Quia quo judicio quis judicaverit, eum judicari necesse est (Matth. VII, 2)? Non legisti: Quia qui odit fratrem suum, in tenebris est, et in tenebris ambulat; et non scit quo eat, quia tenebrae excaecaverunt oculos ejus (I Joan. II, 11)? Unde igitur et tam sceleratus, 1214B et tam perditus, tam discordiae furore vesanus exstiterit iste Novatianus, invenire non possum; qui semper in domo una, id est, Christi Ecclesia, proximorum delicta ut propria fleverit; onera fratrum, sicut Apostolus hortatur (Gal. VI, 2), sustinuerit; lubricos in fide coelesti allocutione corroboraverit. At nunc ex quo Cainam illam haeresim, quae non nisi tantum occidere gestit, exercere coepit; nec sibi novissime parcit. Caeterumsi legisset quia justitia justi non liberabit eum in die qua erraverit, et iniquitas impii non nocebit ei ex qua die conversus fuerit (Ezech. XXXIII, 12), jam olim in cinere poeniteret, ille qui semper poenitentibus adversatur: qui in ruina facilius aedificatorum stantium operantur, quam in structione jacentium ruinarum; qui multos ex fratribus nostris 1214C miserrimos falsis suis adversationibus perterritos, iterum fecit ethnicos, dicendo quod poenitentia lapsorum sit vana, nec possit eis proficere ad salutem; clamante Scriptura et dicente: Memento unde excideris, et age poenitentiam; si quo minus, veniam tibi, nisi poenitentiam egeris (Apoc. II, 5). Et quidem ad septem ecclesias scribens, singulis sua quoque facinora et delicta ingerens: Poenitemini, dicebat. Quibus, nisi illis, scilicet, quo pretio magno sui sanguinis redemerat?