On the Unity of the Catholic Church

Since the Lord warns us and says, "You are the salt of the earth," and since he bids us be simple toward innocence and yet, with our simplicity, prudent, what else befits us, dearest brothers, than to be on our guard, and, watching with anxious heart, both to understand and to beware of the snares of the crafty enemy, lest we, who have put on Christ, the wisdom of God the Father, should seem less wise in guarding our salvation? For it is not persecution alone that is to be feared, nor those things that advance by open attack to overthrow and cast down the servants of God. Caution is easier where the danger is plain, and the mind is prepared for the contest in advance when the adversary declares himself. The enemy is more to be feared and guarded against when he creeps up secretly, when, deceiving under the image of peace, he slithers in by hidden approaches, whence he has also received the name of serpent. This is always his cunning; this is his blind and lurking deceit for entrapping man. So from the very beginning of the world he deceived, and, flattering with lying words, he beguiled the inexperienced soul through its unwary credulity. So, trying to tempt the Lord himself, he approached secretly, as if to creep up again and deceive; yet he was understood and beaten back, and therefore overthrown, because he was recognized and exposed.

Hence an example has been given us to flee the way of the old man, to walk in the footsteps of the conquering Christ, lest, unwary, we be rolled back again into the snare of death, but, foreseeing the danger, we may take possession of the immortality we have received. But how can we possess immortality unless we keep the commandments of Christ, by which death is overcome and conquered, as he himself warns and says: "If you wish to come to life, keep the commandments"; and again: "If you do what I command you, I no longer call you servants but friends"? These, in short, he calls strong and steadfast; these, founded upon the rock with solid mass; these, established with immovable and unshaken firmness against all the storms and whirlwinds of the world. "He who hears my words," he says, "and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house upon the rock. The rain came down, the floods came, the winds came and beat upon that house, and it did not fall: for it was founded upon the rock." We ought, then, to stand fast on his words, to learn and do whatever he both taught and did. But how does he say that he believes in Christ who does not do what Christ commanded him to do? Or how will he reach the reward of faith who will not keep faith with the command? He must waver and wander and, carried off by the spirit of error, be blown about like dust that the wind shakes up; nor will he make progress toward salvation by walking, who does not hold the truth of the way of salvation.

But we must beware not only of things that are open and manifest, but also of those that deceive by the subtlety of crafty fraud. And what is more crafty or more subtle than this? The enemy, exposed and overthrown by the coming of Christ, after light came to the nations and the saving light shone out for the preservation of men, so that the deaf received the hearing of spiritual grace, the blind opened their eyes to the Lord, the sick recovered with eternal health, the lame ran to the church, the dumb prayed with clear voices and prayers, seeing the idols abandoned and his seats and temples deserted by the great multitude of believers, devised a new fraud, to deceive the unwary under the very title of the Christian name. He invented heresies and schisms, by which to overthrow faith, corrupt truth, and split unity. Those whom he cannot hold in the blindness of the old way, he circumvents and deceives by the error of a new road. He snatches men from the church itself, and, while they seem to themselves to have already drawn near to the light and escaped the night of the world, he pours other darkness over them again without their knowing it; so that, not standing with the gospel of Christ and with its observance and law, they call themselves Christians, and, walking in darkness, think they have the light, while the adversary flatters and deceives them, who, according to the apostle's word, transforms himself into an angel of light and suborns his ministers as ministers of righteousness, who assert night for day, destruction for salvation, despair under the pretext of hope, faithlessness under the pretence of faith, Antichrist under the name of Christ; so that, while they tell lies that look like truth, they frustrate the truth by their subtlety. This happens, dearest brothers, because there is no return to the source of truth, nor is the head sought, nor is the teaching of the heavenly Master kept.

If anyone considers and examines these things, there is no need of long discussion and arguments. The proof for faith is easy by a summary of the truth. The Lord speaks to Peter: "I say to you," he says, "that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven." Upon one he builds the church; and although after his resurrection he gives equal power to all the apostles and says, "As the Father has sent me, I also send you. Receive the Holy Spirit: if you forgive anyone's sins, they will be forgiven him; if you retain anyone's, they will be retained," yet, to make unity manifest, he arranged by his own authority that the origin of that same unity should begin from one. The other apostles too were certainly what Peter was, endowed with an equal fellowship both of honour and of power; but the beginning proceeds from unity, so that the church of Christ may be shown to be one. This one church the Holy Spirit also designates in the Song of Songs, in the person of the Lord, and says: "My dove is one, my perfect one; she is the only one of her mother, the chosen one of her that bore her." Does he who does not hold this unity of the church believe that he holds the faith? Does he who strives against and resists the church trust that he is in the church? For the blessed apostle Paul too teaches this same thing and shows the sacrament of unity, saying: "One body and one Spirit, one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God."

This unity we ought firmly to hold and defend, especially we bishops who preside in the church, so that we may prove the episcopate itself also to be one and undivided. Let no one deceive the brotherhood by a lie; let no one corrupt the faith of the truth by faithless betrayal. The episcopate is one, of which a part is held by each one in full. The church is one, which is extended more widely into a multitude by the increase of its fruitfulness; just as the sun has many rays but one light, and a tree many branches but one strength founded on its tenacious root; and when many streams flow down from one spring, though their number seems spread out by the lavishness of an overflowing abundance, yet unity is preserved in the source. Tear a ray of the sun from its body: the unity does not admit a division of the light. Break a branch from the tree: once broken, it cannot sprout. Cut off a stream from its spring: once cut off, it dries up. So too the church of the Lord, bathed in light, stretches its rays through the whole world; yet it is one light that is spread everywhere, and the unity of the body is not separated. She extends her branches over the whole earth in rich abundance; she spreads wider her abundantly flowing streams; yet there is one head and one source, and one mother, rich in the results of her fruitfulness. From her womb we are born, by her milk we are nourished, by her spirit we are given life.

The bride of Christ cannot be made an adulteress; she is undefiled and chaste. She knows one home; she guards the sanctity of one bedchamber with chaste modesty. She keeps us for God; she assigns to the kingdom the sons she has borne. Whoever is separated from the church and joined to an adulteress is separated from the promises of the church; nor will he who has left the church of Christ reach the rewards of Christ. He is a stranger, he is profane, he is an enemy. He cannot have God for his Father who does not have the church for his mother. If anyone who was outside the ark of Noah could escape, then he too escapes who is outside the church. The Lord warns and says: "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters." He who breaks the peace and concord of Christ acts against Christ; he who gathers elsewhere than in the church scatters the church of Christ. The Lord says: "I and the Father are one." And again it is written of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit: "And the three are one." And does anyone believe that this unity, which comes from the divine steadfastness and coheres with heavenly sacraments, can be split in the church and separated by the divorce of clashing wills? He who does not hold this unity does not hold God's law, does not hold the faith of the Father and the Son, does not hold life and salvation.

This sacrament of unity, this bond of concord inseparably cohering, is shown when in the gospel the tunic of the Lord Jesus Christ is not divided at all nor torn, but, when they cast lots for Christ's garment, as to who should rather put on Christ, the garment is received whole, and the tunic is possessed unspoiled and undivided. The divine Scripture speaks and says: "But about the tunic, because it was not sewn from the upper part but woven throughout, they said to one another: 'Let us not tear it, but let us cast lots for it, whose it shall be.'" He bore a unity coming from the upper part, that is, coming from heaven and from the Father, which could not be torn at all by the one who received and possessed it, but kept its firmness whole once for all and solid, inseparably. He cannot possess the garment of Christ who tears and divides the church of Christ. On the other hand, when, at Solomon's death, his kingdom and people were split, the prophet Ahijah, meeting King Jeroboam in the field, tore his garment into twelve pieces, saying: "Take for yourself ten pieces, for thus says the Lord: See, I am tearing the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and I will give you ten sceptres, and two sceptres shall be his, for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city that I have chosen to put my name there." When the twelve tribes of Israel were being split, the prophet Ahijah tore his garment. But because Christ's people cannot be torn, his tunic, woven throughout and cohering, was not divided by those who possessed it: undivided, joined, connected, it shows the cohering concord of our people, who have put on Christ. By the sacrament and sign of his garment he declared the unity of the church.

Who, then, is so wicked and faithless, who so maddened by the fury of discord, as either to believe that the unity of God, the garment of the Lord, the church of Christ, can be torn, or to dare to tear it? He himself warns and teaches in his gospel, saying: "And there shall be one flock and one shepherd." And does anyone think that there can be in one place either many shepherds or several flocks? The apostle Paul likewise, impressing this same unity upon us, beseeches and exhorts and says: "I beseech you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all say the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you, but that you be joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment." And again he says: "Bearing with one another in love, taking pains to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." Do you think that one can stand and live who withdraws from the church and builds for himself other seats and different homes? For it was said to Rahab, in whom the church was prefigured: "Your father and your mother and your brothers and the whole house of your father you shall gather to yourself into your house, and everyone who goes out of the door of your house shall be guilty of his own death." Likewise the sacrament of the Passover in the law of Exodus contains nothing else than that the lamb, which is slain as a figure of Christ, be eaten in one house. God speaks, saying: "In one house it shall be eaten; you shall not cast the flesh outside the house." The flesh of Christ and the holy thing of the Lord cannot be cast outside, nor is there any other house for believers except the one church. This house, this dwelling of unanimity, the Holy Spirit designates and proclaims in the psalms, saying: "God, who makes those of one mind to dwell in a house." In the house of God, in the church of Christ, those of one mind dwell; they persevere in concord and simplicity.

For this reason the Holy Spirit also came in a dove. It is a simple and joyful creature, not bitter with gall, not savage with bites, not violent with tearing claws; it loves human dwellings, knows the fellowship of one home; when they breed they bring forth their young together; when they fly about they keep close to one another; they spend their life in common intercourse; they acknowledge the concord of peace with the kiss of the beak; they fulfil the law of unanimity in all things. This is the simplicity that should be known in the church; this is the charity to be attained, that the love of the brotherhood may imitate the doves, that gentleness and mildness may equal the lambs and sheep. What are the ferocity of wolves, the madness of dogs, the deadly poison of serpents, and the bloody savagery of beasts doing in a Christian breast? We must rejoice when such people are separated from the church, lest they prey upon the doves and sheep of Christ with their savage and poisonous contagion. Bitterness cannot cohere and be joined with sweetness, darkness with light, rain with fair weather, war with peace, barrenness with fruitfulness, drought with springs, storm with calm. Let no one think that the good can depart from the church: the wind does not carry away the wheat, nor does the storm overturn the tree founded on a solid root. It is the empty chaff that is tossed by the tempest; it is the weak trees that are overturned by the onset of the whirlwind. These the apostle John curses and strikes, saying: "They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have remained with us."

Hence heresies both have often arisen and still arise, while a perverse mind has no peace, while discordant faithlessness does not hold unity. The Lord permits and allows these things to happen, the choice of one's own freedom remaining, so that, while the test of truth examines our hearts and minds, the unimpaired faith of the approved may shine out in clear light. The Holy Spirit forewarns through the apostle and says: "There must also be heresies, so that those who are approved may be made manifest among you." So the faithful are proved, so the faithless are uncovered; so even before the day of judgment, here too, the souls of the righteous and the unrighteous are already divided and the chaff is separated from the wheat. Hence are those who, of their own accord, set themselves over rash gatherings without divine appointment, who make themselves prelates without any law of ordination, who, though no one gives them the episcopate, take to themselves the name of bishop; whom the Holy Spirit designates in the psalms as sitting in the chair of pestilence, plagues and pestilences of the faith, deceiving with the serpent's mouth and skilled in corrupting truth, vomiting deadly poisons from pestilent tongues, whose speech creeps like a cancer, whose discourse pours a deadly venom into the breasts and hearts of each.

Against such the Lord cries out; from them he restrains and calls back his erring people, saying: "Do not listen to the words of the false prophets, for the visions of their heart deceive them. They speak, but not from the mouth of the Lord. They say to those who cast away the word of God: 'Peace shall be yours and all who walk in their own wills'; to everyone who walks in the error of his heart: 'No evils shall come upon you.' I did not speak to them, and they prophesied. If they had stood in my substance and heard my words and taught my people, I would have turned them from their evil thoughts." The Lord again designates and marks these same people, saying: "They have forsaken me, the fountain of the water of life, and have dug for themselves broken cisterns, which cannot hold water." Although there can be no other baptism besides the one, they think that they baptize; having forsaken the fountain of life, they promise the grace of living and saving water. Men are not washed there but rather defiled, nor are sins purged but rather heaped up. That birth begets sons not for God but for the devil. Born through a lie, they do not receive the promises of truth; begotten of faithlessness, they lose the grace of faith. Those cannot come to the reward of peace who have broken the Lord's peace by the fury of discord.

Nor let some deceive themselves by an empty interpretation, because the Lord said: "Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I am with them." Corrupters of the gospel and false interpreters set down the last words and pass over the earlier ones, remembering part and craftily suppressing part: as they themselves are cut off from the church, so they cut up the sense of a single passage. For the Lord, when he was urging unanimity and peace on his disciples, said: "I say to you that if two of you agree on earth about anything, whatever you ask, it will be done for you by my Father who is in heaven. For wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I am with them"; showing that most is granted not to the multitude but to the unanimity of those who pray. "If two of you," he says, "agree on earth": he put unanimity first, he set the concord of peace before, he taught faithfully and firmly that we should agree. But how can he agree with anyone who does not agree with the body of the church itself and with the whole brotherhood? How can two or three be gathered in the name of Christ who, it is plain, are separated from Christ and from his gospel? For it is not we who have withdrawn from them, but they from us; and since heresies and schisms were born later, when they set up different conventicles for themselves, they have left the head and source of truth. But the Lord speaks of his church and speaks to those who are in the church, that if they are in concord, if, according to what he commanded and warned, two or three, though gathered, pray with one mind, though they be two or three, they can obtain from the majesty of God what they ask. "Wherever two or three are," he says, "I am with them": that is, with the simple and peaceable, with those who fear God and keep God's precepts. With these, though two or three, he said that he is present, as he was with the three youths in the furnace of fire, and, because they remained simple toward God and of one mind among themselves, he refreshed them with the breath of dew in the midst of the surrounding flames; as he was present himself with the two apostles shut up in prison, because they were simple, because they were of one mind, and, loosing the bars of the prison himself, he set them again in the marketplace, that they might hand on to the multitude the word which they were faithfully preaching. When, therefore, he lays down in his precepts and says, "Where two or three are, I am with them," he who instituted and made the church does not divide men from the church, but, reproaching the faithless for their discord and commending peace to the faithful by his own voice, he shows that he is with two or three praying with one mind rather than with very many who disagree, and that more can be obtained by the concordant prayer of a few than by the discordant petition of many.

Therefore, when he was giving the law of prayer, he added, saying: "And when you stand to pray, forgive if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven may also forgive you your sins." And one who comes to the sacrifice with dissension he calls back from the altar and bids him first be reconciled with his brother, and then, returning with peace, offer his gift to God; because God did not regard Cain's gifts either: for he could not have God at peace with him who, through the discord of jealousy, did not have peace with his brother. What peace, then, do the enemies of the brothers promise themselves? What sacrifices do the rivals of the priests believe they celebrate? Do they think Christ is with them when they are gathered, who are gathered outside the church of Christ?

Such men, even if they are killed in confession of the name, that stain is not washed away even by blood: the inexpiable and grievous guilt of discord is not purged even by suffering. He cannot be a martyr who is not in the church; he will not be able to reach the kingdom who has forsaken her who is to reign. Christ gave us peace; he commanded us to be of one heart and one mind; he enjoined us to keep the covenants of love and charity uncorrupted and inviolate. He cannot show himself a martyr who has not kept brotherly charity. Paul the apostle teaches and bears witness to this, saying: "And if I have faith so that I remove mountains, but do not have charity, I am nothing; and if I give all my goods for food, and if I hand over my body to be burned, but do not have charity, I gain nothing. Charity is great-hearted, charity is kind, charity is not jealous, is not puffed up, is not provoked, does not act wrongly, thinks no evil; it loves all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Charity will never fail." "Never," he says, "will charity fail." For it will always be in the kingdom; it will endure forever in the unity of a brotherhood that holds together. Discord cannot reach the kingdom of heaven; he who has violated the love of Christ by faithless dissension cannot have part in the reward of Christ, who said: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." He who does not have charity does not have God. It is the voice of the blessed apostle John: "God," he says, "is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him." They cannot abide with God who would not be of one mind in the church of God. Though they burn, given over to flames and fires, or lay down their lives thrown to the beasts, that will not be the crown of faith but the punishment of faithlessness, not the glorious end of religious virtue but the death of despair. Such a man can be killed; he cannot be crowned. He professes himself a Christian in the same way that the devil often falsely claims to be Christ, as the Lord himself forewarns and says: "Many will come in my name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many." As he is not Christ, although he deceives in the name, so he cannot be regarded as a Christian who does not remain in his gospel and in the truth of faith.

For to prophesy, to cast out demons, and to do great mighty works on earth is certainly a sublime and admirable thing; yet no one who is found in all these attains the heavenly kingdom unless he walks in the observance of the right and just way. The Lord declares and says: "Many will say to me on that day: 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do great mighty works in your name?' And then I will say to them: 'I never knew you; depart from me, you who work iniquity.'" There is need of righteousness, that one may deserve well of God the Judge; we must obey his precepts and warnings, that our merits may receive their reward. The Lord in the gospel, when he was directing the way of our hope and faith in a short summary, said: "The Lord your God is one Lord," and: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. This is the first; and the second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments hang the whole law and the prophets." He taught unity and love together by his teaching; he enclosed all the prophets and the law in two precepts. But what unity does he keep, what love does he guard or even think of, who, maddened by the fury of discord, splits the church, destroys faith, disturbs peace, scatters charity, profanes the sacrament?

This evil, most faithful brothers, began long ago; but now the hostile havoc of the same evil has grown, and the poisoned destruction of heretical perversity and schisms has begun to rise and sprout the more, because so it had to be at the ending of the world, as the Holy Spirit foretold and forewarned us through the apostle: "In the last days," he says, "troublesome times will come; men will be self-pleasing, proud, swollen, covetous, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, impious, without affection, without covenant, informers, incontinent, ungentle, not lovers of the good, traitors, insolent, puffed up with stupor, loving pleasures rather than God, having a deformed appearance of religion but denying its power. Of these are those who creep into houses and prey upon weak women laden with sins, who are led by various desires, always learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth. And as Jannes and Mambres withstood Moses, so these also withstand the truth; but they will not get very far, for their ignorance will be manifest to all, as theirs also was." Whatever was foretold is being fulfilled, and, as the end of the world now draws near, it has come for the testing both of men and of the times. More and more, as the adversary rages, error deceives, stupor lifts up, envy inflames, covetousness blinds, impiety depraves, pride puffs up, discord embitters, anger hurls headlong.

Yet let not the excessive and abrupt faithlessness of many move or disturb us; rather let it strengthen our faith by the truth of what was foretold. As some have begun to be such because these things were foretold beforehand, so let the other brothers beware of such people, because these things too were foretold beforehand, as the Lord instructs us and says: "But you, beware; see, I have told you all things beforehand." Avoid such men, I beg you, and keep away from your side and your ears their deadly conversations as the contagion of death, as it is written: "Hedge your ears with thorns, and do not listen to a wicked tongue." And again: "Evil talk corrupts good character." The Lord teaches and warns that we must withdraw from such: "They are blind," he says, "leaders of the blind. But if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into the ditch." Whoever has been separated from the church must be turned from and shunned. Such a man is perverted and sins and is condemned by himself. Does he think he is with Christ who acts against the priests of Christ, who separates himself from the fellowship of his clergy and people? He bears arms against the church; he fights against God's arrangement. An enemy of the altar, a rebel against the sacrifice of Christ, faithless instead of faithful, sacrilegious instead of religious, a disobedient servant, an impious son, a hostile brother, despising the bishops and forsaking the priests of God, he dares to set up another altar, to make another prayer with unlawful words, to profane the truth of the Lord's offering by false sacrifices; not knowing that he who strives against God's ordinance is punished by divine chastisement for the audacity of his rashness.

So Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, who tried to claim for themselves the right to sacrifice against Moses and Aaron the priest, paid the penalty at once for their attempt. The earth, its joints broken, opened into a deep chasm, and the gaping of the receding ground swallowed them up standing and alive. Nor did the anger of an indignant God strike only those who had been the authors; the others too, the two hundred and fifty sharers and companions of the same madness, who had banded together with them in their audacity, fire going out from the Lord consumed with swift vengeance; warning, of course, and showing that whatever the wicked attempt by human will to destroy God's ordinance is done against God. So too King Uzziah, when, carrying a censer and violently taking the sacrifice upon himself against the law of God, he would not obey and yield to Azariah the priest who opposed him, was confounded by divine indignation and spotted on his forehead with the blotches of leprosy, marked, since the Lord was offended, on that part of the body where those who deserve well of the Lord are sealed. And the sons of Aaron, who put strange fire on the altar which the Lord had not commanded, were at once destroyed in the sight of the avenging Lord.

These, of course, are imitated and followed by those who, despising God's tradition, seek after strange doctrines and bring in teachings of human institution; whom the Lord rebukes and reproves in his gospel, saying: "You reject the commandment of God, so as to establish your own tradition." This crime is worse than that which the lapsed seem to have committed, who nevertheless, placed in penance for their crime, beseech God with full satisfactions. Here the church is sought and entreated; there the church is fought against. Here there may have been necessity; there the will is held fast in crime. Here he who lapsed harmed only himself; there he who tried to make a heresy or schism deceived many by dragging them with him. Here is the loss of one soul; there the danger of many. Certainly the one both understands that he has sinned and laments and bewails it; the other, swelling in his sin and pleasing himself in his very offences, separates sons from their mother, entices sheep from their shepherd, disturbs the sacraments of God. And while the lapsed man has sinned once, the other sins daily. Finally, the lapsed man, if he afterwards attains martyrdom, can receive the promises of the kingdom; the other, if he is killed outside the church, cannot attain the rewards of the church.

Nor let anyone be surprised, dearest brothers, that even some of the confessors go on to such things, and that some of them too sin so wickedly, so grievously. For confession does not make a man immune from the snares of the devil, nor, while he is still placed in the world, does it defend him with perpetual security against worldly temptations, dangers, attacks, and assaults; otherwise we would never afterwards see in confessors the frauds, debaucheries, and adulteries which we now see in some, and groan and grieve. Whoever that confessor is, he is not greater or better or dearer to God than Solomon; and yet Solomon, as long as he walked in the ways of the Lord, kept the grace he had obtained from the Lord; after he forsook the Lord's way, he lost the Lord's grace too. And therefore it is written: "Hold fast what you have, lest another take your crown." The Lord surely would not threaten that the crown of righteousness could be taken away, unless, when righteousness departs, the crown must depart too.

Confession is the beginning of glory, not yet the full merit of the crown; it does not complete praise but begins dignity; and since it is written, "He who endures to the end, he will be saved," whatever comes before the end is a step by which one climbs to the summit of salvation, not the goal where the top of the height is already held. He is a confessor: but after confession the danger is greater, because the adversary has been more provoked. He is a confessor: all the more ought he to stand with the Lord's gospel, having obtained glory from the Lord through the gospel. "From him to whom much is given, much is required"; and from him to whom more dignity is ascribed, more service is demanded. Let no one perish by a confessor's example; let no one learn injustice, insolence, or faithlessness from a confessor's conduct. He is a confessor: let him be humble and quiet, let him be modest and disciplined in his conduct, so that he who is called a confessor of Christ may imitate the Christ whom he confesses. For since he says, "He who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted," and he himself was exalted by the Father because he, the Word and the Power and the Wisdom of God the Father, humbled himself on earth, how can he love self-exaltation who both commanded humility to us by his law and himself received from the Father the most exalted name as the reward of humility? He is a confessor of Christ: but only if the majesty and dignity of Christ are not afterwards blasphemed through him. Let the tongue that has confessed Christ not be abusive, not turbulent, not heard resounding with insults and quarrels; let it not, after words of praise, dart the poisons of the serpent against the brothers and the priests of God. But if he afterwards becomes blameworthy and detestable, if he squanders his confession by evil conduct, if he stains his life with shameful foulness, if, finally, forsaking the church where he became a confessor and splitting the concord of unity, he exchanges his first faith for later faithlessness, he cannot flatter himself by his confession as if chosen for the reward of glory, since from this very fact the deserts of punishment have grown the greater.

For the Lord chose Judas too among the apostles, and yet Judas afterwards betrayed the Lord. Yet the firmness and faith of the apostles did not fall on that account, because Judas the traitor fell away from their fellowship. So here too the holiness and dignity of the confessors is not at once diminished because the faith of some has been broken. The blessed apostle speaks in his letter, saying: "For what if some of them have fallen away from the faith? Has their unbelief made void the faithfulness of God? By no means; for God is true, but every man a liar." The greater and better part of the confessors stands firm in the strength of its faith and in the truth of the Lord's law and discipline; nor do they depart from the peace of the church, who remember that they obtained grace in the church by God's favour; and by this very fact they obtain a fuller praise for their faith, that, separated from the faithlessness of those who were joined with them in the fellowship of confession, they have withdrawn from the contagion of crime. Truly enlightened by the light of the gospel, shining with the pure and white light of the Lord, they are as praiseworthy in preserving the peace of Christ as they were victorious in their conflict with the devil.

I wish, indeed, dearest brothers, and at the same time I counsel and urge, that if it can be, none of the brothers may perish, and that our rejoicing mother may enclose in her bosom the one body of a people in agreement. Yet if wholesome counsel cannot recall to the way of salvation certain leaders of schisms and authors of dissension who persist in blind and obstinate madness, still you others, whether taken in by simplicity, or led on by error, or deceived by some cunning of deceitful craft, free yourselves from the snares of deceit, release your wandering steps from errors, recognize the straight road of the heavenly way. It is the voice of the apostle bearing witness: "We command you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that you withdraw from all brothers who walk disorderly and not according to the tradition which they received from us." And again he says: "Let no one deceive you with empty words; for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of stubbornness. Do not, therefore, be partakers with them." We must withdraw from those who do wrong, or rather flee from them, lest, while one is joined to those who walk wickedly and goes along the paths of error and crime, wandering from the way of the true road, he too be held in the same crime. There is one God, and one Christ, and one church of his, and one faith, and one people joined into the solid unity of a body by the glue of concord. Unity cannot be split, nor can one body be separated by the division of its structure, torn into pieces with its vitals ripped apart. Whatever departs from the womb cannot live and breathe apart; it loses the substance of salvation.

The Holy Spirit warns us and says: "Who is the man who desires life and loves to see the best days? Keep your tongue from evil, and let your lips not speak deceitfully. Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it." The son of peace ought to seek peace and pursue it; he who knows and loves the bond of charity ought to keep his tongue from the evil of dissension. Among his divine commands and saving teachings, the Lord, when already near his passion, added, saying: "Peace I leave you, my peace I give you." This inheritance he gave us; all the gifts and rewards of his promise he promised in the keeping of peace. If we are heirs of Christ, let us remain in the peace of Christ; if we are sons of God, we ought to be peacemakers. "Blessed," he says, "are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." The sons of God ought to be peacemakers, gentle in heart, simple in speech, concordant in affection, faithfully cleaving to one another in the bonds of unanimity.

This unanimity existed once under the apostles; so the new people of believers, keeping the Lord's commands, held fast their charity. Scripture proves it, saying: "And the multitude of those who had believed acted with one soul and mind." And again: "And they were all persevering with one mind in prayer, with the women and Mary, who had been the mother of Jesus, and his brothers." And therefore they prayed with effective prayers; therefore they could obtain with confidence whatever they asked of God's mercy.

But in us unanimity has so diminished that generosity in good works has also been broken. Then they sold houses and estates, and, laying up treasures for themselves in heaven, they offered the price to the apostles to be distributed for the needs of the poor. But now we do not give even tithes from our patrimony, and, while the Lord bids us sell, we rather buy and increase. So the vigour of faith has withered in us, so the strength of believers has languished. And therefore the Lord, looking upon our times, says in his gospel: "When the Son of Man comes, do you think he will find faith on the earth?" We see what he foretold coming to pass. In the fear of God, in the law of righteousness, in love, in works, there is no faith. No one thinks of the fear of things to come; no one considers the day of the Lord and the wrath of God and the punishments coming upon unbelievers and the eternal torments appointed for the faithless. Whatever our conscience would fear if it believed, because it does not believe it does not fear at all. But if it believed, it would also take care; and if it took care, it would also escape.

Let us rouse ourselves as much as we can, dearest brothers, and, breaking off the sleep of our old sloth, let us be watchful to observe and do the Lord's precepts. Let us be such as he himself commanded us to be, saying: "Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning, and you like men waiting for their master, when he comes from the wedding, so that when he comes and knocks they may open to him. Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when he comes, finds watching." We ought to be girded, lest, when the day of setting out comes, it catch us hampered and entangled. Let our light shine and gleam in good works, that it may lead us from this night of the world to the light of eternal brightness. Let us always wait, anxious and cautious, for the sudden coming of the Lord, that when he knocks our faith may be awake, to receive from the Lord the reward of its watchfulness. If these commands are kept, if these warnings and precepts are held fast, we cannot be overcome while asleep by the deceiving devil; as watchful servants we shall reign with Christ as Lord.