Eleven Tractates 1.1–1.25

Although our faith, hindered by no stumbling blocks of life and travelling the secure road of catholic order toward God, is free, yet, because when it is assailed by the devil's slander it is proved the more at the very point where it is struck, we have thought it glorious for us, most blessed bishops, that—with no conscience accusing us—although in frequent pamphlets we have spoken out our faith and condemned the doctrines of all heretics, and although in the pamphlet of our brothers Tiberianus, Asarbus, and the rest, with whom we have one faith and one mind, every doctrine that seems to be against Christ has been condemned and whatever is for Christ approved, yet even now, because you wish it, as it is written, "ready always to make confession to everyone who asks us for a reason concerning the faith and hope that is in us," we did not wish to keep silent about what you command. For although, with our confession repeated, all that we live is before your eyes, and, set in the light of faith, we pursue no secrets of a dark way of life, we nevertheless do not refuse, so that satisfaction may be given even to those who do not know us, lest anyone, believing evil of us, should sin by another's unpardonable error; we do not decline to show with the mouth what we have believed in the heart.

For although one ought not to glory in what we were, yet we were not born into the world in so obscure a place, nor were we called so foolish, that the faith of Christ and instruction in believing could have brought us death rather than salvation. For to this, as you yourselves know, after every experience of human life had been gone through and our evil ways of living rejected, we entered as into a harbour of secure rest. For recognizing that no one unless reborn of water and the Holy Spirit would ascend into the kingdom of heaven, we purified our souls for obedience to the faith through the Spirit, and, having rejected the desires of our former life, of which we were ashamed, we received for the road of renewed grace the creed of catholic observance, which we hold, so that, entering the washing, the redemption of our body, and baptized into Christ and having put on Christ, rejecting the empty glory of the world, we might give our life to him alone, as we had already given it—to him who, having granted forgiveness of sins, himself suffered for us and has furnished both redemption and salvation to our souls. For who is there who, reading the Scriptures and believing one faith, one

baptism, one God, does not condemn the foolish doctrines of the heretics, who, wishing to compare divine things with human, divide the substance united in the power of God, and by the crime of the Binionites split up the greatness of Christ, venerable in the threefold font of the church? For it is written: "I am God and there is no other besides me; a righteous one and a saviour there is none besides me"; and: "I am first and I am hereafter, and besides me there is no God; who is like me?" Likewise elsewhere: "I am, and before me there was no other, and after me there will be none like me; I am God, and there is none besides me who saves." And again Moses says: "The Lord our God is one God"; and Jeremiah says: "This is our God, and no other will be reckoned beside him, who found every way of wisdom and gave it to Jacob his servant and to Israel his beloved; afterward he was seen on earth and lived among men." For he is the one who was and is and is to come, and, seen from the ages, the Word made flesh dwelt among us, and, crucified, having conquered death, became heir of life, and rising on the third day, made the pattern of what is to come, he showed the hope of our resurrection, and ascending

into the heavens he builds a road for those who come to him, wholly in the Father and the Father in him, so that what is written might be made manifest: "Glory in the highest to God, and on earth peace to men of good will"; as John says: "There are three that bear witness on earth: the water, the flesh, and the blood, and these three are in one; and there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one in Christ Jesus." And because you wish us to go through each point, so that we may declare what we believe—although it is our part to be zealous concerning you—yet since it accords with the ordinance of God, who, though he showed by his works who he was, still wished to hear from his disciples who he was, or who he was believed to be: because you wish us also to prove to you what you already know, we ask pardon if, in asserting our faith or in demolishing what error insinuates to deprave the minds of unbelievers, we speak at some length. For the fault is theirs who, by telling many lies against Christ's people, have made us reject at greater length the charges they themselves bring. Let him be anathema who, believing the evil of the Patripassian heresy, harasses the catholic faith,

since it is written, Peter saying: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God"; and elsewhere: "He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son does not have life"; and again, he himself saying: "I and the Father are one"; and elsewhere: "I am in the Father and the Father in me." To testify to this there was added in the gospel even the confession of demons, saying: "You are the Christ, the Son of God; why have you come before the time to destroy us?" We know that this was set down not because God wanted the testimony of demons, but so that men, made in the image and likeness of God, would be bound over to worse torments if they did not know the things that even demons confess. But for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we in him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him. To their folly is added the Novatian heresy, as though, with the error of sin always growing more savage, people were cleansed by repeated baptisms, although the apostolic Scripture testifies to one baptism, one faith, one God, and we know that, beyond what has been preached to us, not even an angel from heaven is to be heard if he says anything else. But we, baptized once in Christ, leaving behind what is past and stretching out toward what lies ahead,

wish to lay hold of that for which we were laid hold of, since, apart from the one Christ Jesus, united in faith, we have no protection other than the one baptism, knowing that Christ came in the flesh to save sinners and to restore those redeemed in himself to the ordinances of everlasting life. But whoever denies that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is antichrist, and his destruction does not slumber, as the apostle says: "Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; but whoever confesses the Son has both the Son and the Father." Anathema be the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, and whoever either institutes or follows sacrileges hateful to God, let him have his share with Sodom and Gomorrah. Anathema be he who, reading of griffins, eagles, asses, elephants, serpents, and useless beasts, and held captive by the vanity of a shameful observance, has set them up as a mystery of divine religion; their works and the hideousness of their forms are the nature of demons, not the truth of divine glories. For these are they whose god is the belly and whose glory is in their shame; these are they who overturn the wavering

and lead them to the ruin of their own perdition, and call it a sacrament, not knowing that according to the Scriptures of God it is a mystery of perdition; and going over the precipice, as the prophet says, they have become like a wind in the wings of birds, and therefore they will be put to shame by their shrines, having become like the horse and mule, which have no understanding, and they deserve to have the Sun as their god. But we, taught by the words of the divine Scriptures, though we know that an idol is nothing in this world, but that what they sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, nevertheless labour, as it is written, understanding the subtleties of words and the interpretations of parables, and working because we are in God, that the figure of beasts may have nothing in us, but the discipline of Christ, God, may hold the whole, because there is no communion between the table of the Lord and the table of demons, between light and darkness, Christ and Belial. As John too says, speaking of such things: "If anyone worships the beast and its image, he has received a mark on his forehead and on his hand"; and elsewhere he says: "I saw a beast rising from the sea, having ten horns

and seven heads, and on its heads ten diadems and the name of blasphemy; and it was like a leopard, and its feet like a bear's, and its mouth like a lion's mouth; and the dragon gave it his throne and his power." As Daniel too says of this very thing: "I was watching, and behold, four winds were striking the great sea, and four beasts came up from the sea, each exceeding the other in size; and the first was like a lioness, and its wings like an eagle's, and it rose from the earth and stood on a man's feet, and a man's heart was given to it; and behold, another beast like a bear, and it stood on one side, and three ribs were in its mouth and among its teeth, and it was told: Arise, eat the flesh of many; and behold, another beast like a leopard, and it had four wings of a bird, and the beast had four heads, and power was given to it; and behold, a fourth beast, terrible and wonderful and exceedingly strong, and its teeth were of iron and its claws of bronze." All these things the prophets set down in their visions, wishing them to be read by all and, once understood, to be shunned; and therefore those who knew them but did not rightly understand what they were reading—their heart has been given to the beast

and their flesh will be devoured; for they became futile in their thoughts, and their senseless heart was darkened, and claiming to be wise they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed beasts and serpents; and conforming themselves to the former desires of a life of ignorance they have fallen into things they do not understand. But we, knowing that the law is spiritual and that all prophecy needs interpretation, having Christ, God, as the guide of our understanding, through whom, even if we thought otherwise, these things too were revealed to us, have resolved to serve the righteousness of the Lord for sanctification, so that, as the prophet says, having rooted the names of the Baals out of our mouth and blotted out their titles, we may cast away from us, as it is written, the covenant that is with the beasts of the field and the birds of heaven and the creeping things of the earth, recognizing that all these are the wages of sin, whose end is death, but grace and peace are eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. As Solomon also says:

"God gave me true knowledge of all things that are, that I might know the structure of the world and the power of the elements, the beginning and end and middle of the months, the changes and divisions of seasons, the courses of the year and the arrangements of the stars, the natures of animals and the rages of beasts, the force of winds and the thoughts of men, the differences of trees and the powers of roots; and all things that are hidden and manifest I have known." As he himself also says: "Some, going astray, worshipped dumb reptiles and serpents and useless beasts, and he sent on them a multitude of dumb animals for vengeance, that they might know that by what things a man sins, by these he is also tormented." As David also says: "Many calves surrounded me, fat bulls besieged me; they opened their mouth against me like a lion ravening and roaring." Let the impure mind of the schismatics, reading this, take notice, and if it can be converted and can avoid perishing, let it not perish; for holy David did not fear bulls or calves, but, as it is written:

"Your adversary the devil, like a lion ravening and roaring, goes about seeking whom he may devour; resist him, firm in the faith." As it is written elsewhere: "Do not be a lion in your house, overturning your household"; as it also says there: "Do not exalt yourself in the thought of your soul like a bull, lest your strength be dashed down through folly and it eat your leaves." As David also says: "My tongue clung to my jaws, and you brought me down into the dust of death, for many dogs surrounded me"; in which, however, holy David, to show what he had meant in the earlier outcry, added: "the assembly of evildoers besieged me." As Isaiah says: "They are dogs, souls that know no satisfaction." So too the Lord our God, speaking to the prophet Job, said: "Show me whether the lion is now at rest with you, or whether the unicorn will serve you or sleep in its stall"; and elsewhere God says to him: "You will capture Leosibora, and you will fill the souls of dragons with fear, so that they fear, sitting in their dens in the woods and laying snares"; and again elsewhere the Lord says to him:

"Will you draw out the dragon with a hook, or put a halter in its nose, or pierce its lips? Will it speak gently to you, so as to make a covenant with you, and will you have it as a slave for ever?" In this holy Job, understanding that the Lord was speaking and wishing to open the understanding of the words to us too, says: "Why am I still judged, Lord, while I am rebuked and reproved? Or what answer, Lord, shall I give to such words, since I am nothing?" And then the Lord, granting to us also who were to come after the work of understanding him, expounded the parable of the speech he had spoken, saying: "Do not set aside my judgment, and do not think that I have decreed otherwise than that you might appear less unrighteous; but take on loftiness and power, put on glory and honour; let loose the angels of wrath and extinguish everything insolent and proud in you; break the ungodly away from you and hide them in the earth, and fill their faces with disgrace, that they may be without honour; and then you will confess that my right hand is able to save you. Even before you the wild beast, made like an ox, eats hay; its strength is in its loins and its power in the navel of its belly, and its tail is erect like a cypress."

"and its sinews are twisted like ropes, and its sides are rocks of bronze, and its spine like a wall of iron; and this is the beginning made for the angels to mock my creature." Yet, searching all these Scriptures, most blessed bishops, we know that they were written for our sake, so that whoever understands the natures of beasts spoken of in parables may reject the vices of the world's ways and chastise them in himself, as it is written in the Apocalypse: "Behold, the waters that you saw, where the harlot sits, are peoples and crowds and nations and tongues." As John says there too: "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, and has become a dwelling of demons, because the nations have drunk of the wrath of her sexual immorality"; and there again: "And they will weep, beating their breasts over her, because they committed sexual immorality with her and lived in her luxury." As the apostle too says: "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers of this world, the rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavens." As John too says: "I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet

three unclean spirits like frogs; and these are spirits of demons, who go out working signs to throw the kings of the world into confusion." In short, as those initiated in Christ, we keep the first rudiments of the faith we received: we know that we have believed what we believe in God and renounced what we renounced in the devil, and that it is he who is called "the beast," and that God is he who is Christ Jesus. As the apostle too says: "For God is not concerned about oxen, but he speaks of us, since he who ploughs ought to plough in hope, and he who threshes to receive the fruit of his hope." Let no one, then, ascribe to us the understanding of his own perversity; each one will be condemned by his own words and justified by his own words. We confess what we believe, and searching the Scriptures and rejecting the appearance of demons, we understand, as it is written, "the depth of Satan," knowing, as the apostle says, that no one has set us free from the body of this death except the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ; for it is written: "Unless you believe, you will not understand"; and elsewhere: "Good understanding to all who do it."

As for the fact, most blessed bishops, that they have brought forward idol forms—Saturn, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Mars, and the other gods of the pagans—even if we had lived so idle toward God and instructed by no faith through the Scriptures, yet while we still delighted in the ways of worldly folly, by worldly wisdom (though then of no use to us) we recognized these things as hostile to our faith, and, seeing through the gods of the pagans, we laughed at the follies and wretchednesses of the world, whose works we used to read as if for the training of the mind. But if the faith of our profession is asked for even on these matters: anathema be he, and let their table become a snare and a stumbling block to those who call gods the Sun and Moon, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Venus, or Saturn, and all the host of heaven, whom the error of the pagans, ignorant of God, took up for itself in the ceremonies of its rites, and to him who venerates them, though they are detestable idols worthy of hell; for it is written: "Woe to him who says to the wood, Wake up, and rise, and to the stone, Be lifted up"; let them perish with their gods, those who are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth; let their mind be laid waste by vice, as it is written, "the boar from

the forest and the solitary wild beast ravage it." But for us, set free through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ from the body of this death, as it is written, "a thousand will fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand," so that, according to the Scriptures, clothed in the armour of God, treading on the basilisk and the asp, we may trample on the lion and the dragon, subject to no likeness of idolatrous wretchedness, of which it is written: "What does the carved image profit, because it has been carved? They have fashioned it as a molten thing, a lying phantom, and those who formed it were put to shame over their own fiction, for the idols were deaf." The foolish superstitions of these idols, or the forms of sins, or the names of demons, or the death of vices are therefore shown, so that, understanding the darkness, we may long for the light of the Lord, and crying out, "Know, you nations, God is with us," we may break their bonds and cast their yoke away from us, and not be polluted by the pursuits of the Egyptians, as it is written; for "the Lord will laugh at them and the Lord will mock them." Of these John, showing the prince of idolatrous wretchedness, says: "He is of the seven, and the eighth, and he goes to destruction."

Of these Solomon too says: "Do not sow in the furrows of iniquity, and you will not reap them sevenfold"; for so he says elsewhere: "Before man are life and death, water and fire; let him stretch out his hand to whichever he wishes." For these are the seven shepherds and the eight bites of men, working, as it is written, in the sons of disobedience. But for us, to live is Christ, life is Christ, faith is Christ, knowing that we have an anointing from the Holy One, and that we were redeemed from our futile way of life inherited from our fathers not with corruptible silver and gold, but with the precious blood, as of a lamb unstained and spotless, Jesus Christ; and since we stand in him, let no one plunder us according to the philosophy of the world and not according to Christ. Let those who love gold invent for themselves the golden age of Saturn: for us the divine wisdom is more precious than all gold and silver and precious stone. Let those whose dwelling is the fire of hell call the Sun their god, and confess themselves his element, who do not want Christ God to be their beginning: for us, all things under the sun are vanity and the presumption of a perverse spirit, since we know that it will perish with the world. Let those confess the Moon as god in their evils who, carried about by every wind of doctrine,

arrange to observe days and seasons and years and months; let those call Mars their god who have taken pleasure in Mars the adulterer and, given over to the lust of the flesh, are bound by acts of sexual immorality; and having become like sounding brass or a clanging cymbal, let them judge Jupiter their god, destined to perish with their father as their author: but for us God is Christ Jesus, who, when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together, forgiving us all our trespasses and blotting out the handwritten bond that was against us, which was contrary to us by its decrees, and took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross; he boldly led away the principalities and powers, triumphing over them in himself. For those who worship such demons will be struck, like their gods, by the sword of the Lord, and, not knowing the true Father and Christ God, the Son of God, they will appear made like their idols, as it is written: "Father against son, son against father, daughter-in-law against mother-in-law, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law, and a man's enemies will be those of his own household." Let those worship Mercury as god who, gathering moth-eaten bags of earthly treasures, venerate his staff or his purse: we seek treasures hidden in heaven and

unseen, which neither rust seizes nor moth corrupts, knowing that the rich man has not entered the kingdom of heaven, as it is written: "Come now, you rich, weep, howling over the miseries that are coming upon your riches; your garments have rotted and been eaten by moths; your gold and your silver, which you have stored up, will rust in the last days, and their rust will be a testimony against you and will eat your flesh like fire." But we know that God chose the poor of the world, rich in faith, heirs of the kingdom. Let those venerate Venus as a god who commit shameful acts and await the due recompense of their error: but we, looking to Abraham our father and to Sarah who bore us, born of the church as mother and brought forth by wisdom as midwife, press on toward the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. And although no one is sufficient for these things,

yet we know that our God is mighty, since he who promised is able also to do it; for he himself said: "Who has hoped in the Lord and been put to shame, or remained in his commandments and been forsaken?" Anathema be he who venerates Saclas, Nebroel, Samael, Beelzebub, Nasbodeus, Belial, and all such—since they are demons—with the wretched sanctification of ceremonies, or says that they are to be venerated. All of these, as we read in the Scriptures of God, we condemn, scorning the claims of demonic wisdom; for into whatever species or forms the devil may now change himself, we know that he can be nothing other than the devil; and whether he is called Abaddon in Hebrew, or Apollyon in Greek, or in Latin Exterminans, or whether he is presented as a beast having seven heads and ten horns, or as a serpent or a dragon, we know that he is the devil, and according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that works in the sons of disobedience, among whom we too all once lived in the desires of our flesh, doing the wills of the flesh and of the thoughts; of whom it is written in the Apocalypse: "And the great dragon was cast down from heaven, the ancient serpent, who is called the devil, Satan, who deceived the whole world, and he was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast down with him."

And therefore it is no wonder if those who believe such things, or who sanctify themselves by such an author—by nature children of wrath and perdition, walking in darkness—denying in themselves the image and likeness of God and having become like the devil in their vices, ascribe the making of man to demons. Of them the apostle rightly says: "The natural man does not perceive the things of the Spirit of God, for he cannot; they are foolishness to him, and he cannot judge them; but the spiritual man judges all things, and he himself is judged by no one"; and as it is written: "Those who are of the flesh mind the things of the flesh, but those who are of the Spirit the things of the Spirit; and the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace." And if they wish to know what we think of each of the things that are written: such people rightly have kinship with the earthly Adam, made a beast of a dark life, as it is written: "As is the earthly man, so are the earthly; as is the heavenly man, so are the heavenly." They deserve to be those whom Eve, in the form of Cain and Lamech, brought forth—she who had been made

the mother of all the living, but who committed adultery against God and, consenting to the devil's seduction, called the demon Saclas her god and her husband, as it is written in the prophet: "Behold, bring judgment against your mother, judge her, for she is not my wife and I am not her husband; and I will remove her sexual immorality from the face of my people and her adultery from between her breasts"; likewise there: "And I will take away my garments and my linens, so that she may not cover her shame, and I will lay bare her filth in the sight of her lovers"; and in Jeremiah the Lord, rebuking Jerusalem, who had become a slave with her children, says to her: "How do you say, I am not defiled, and I have not gone after Baal? Behold, look at your many ways and see where you have not committed sexual immorality." And Ezekiel says: "Thus says the Lord: your root is from the land of Canaan, your father an Amorite and your mother a Hittite"; as also elsewhere: "I have likened your mother to the night; my people is like one who has no knowledge." As God also says to such people in the gospel: "You are sons of the devil and have the devil as your father." But we did not so learn Christ, but, taught

in him, as the truth is in Jesus, we understand that the law is spiritual, but we are fleshly, sold under sin; and comparing spiritual things with spiritual, we labour so that, as we have borne the image of him who is from the clay, when, overcome by our offences, we walked in vices, so we may bear the image of him who is from heaven; and putting off, according to our former way of life, the old man, who is corrupted according to the desires of error, we may be renewed in the spirit of our mind, putting on the new man, who has been created according to God in holiness and righteousness and truth. For we know and are aware that we are God's workmanship in good works, which God prepared that we should walk in them; as Moses also says: "God made man in his image and likeness, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul." And we know that Eve, who was deceived and fell into transgression, will be saved through the bearing of children, if she remains in the faith, and recognizing that she was taken from her husband, and bearing children in sorrow, her turning will be to her husband;

as it is written in the prophet: "Therefore, behold, says the Lord, I will hedge up your mother's way with stakes, and I will not build her road, and she will not find her paths; she will pursue her lovers and not overtake them, and she will say: I will go and return to my former husband, for it was better for me then than now." Understanding this, freed, as it is written, from our mother's womb and not consulting flesh and blood, we labour, and as we were slaves of sin unto death, so we are slaves of righteousness unto righteousness, knowing that though our outer man is being corrupted, yet the inner man is being renewed; and as the first man was from the earth, of clay, so the works of the flesh are manifest, which are adulteries, sexual immorality, impurity, unchastity, luxury, idolatry, sorceries, enmities, strifes, jealousies, angers, quarrels, dissensions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, carousings, and the like. Among these let the demons Saclas and Nebroel have their part among their own; for let them not seek a place among things chaste and religious.

And as the second man is from heaven, heavenly, so the works of the Spirit are manifest, which are love, joy, peace, patience, long-suffering, goodness, gentleness, faith, self-control, chastity, kindness, and love; in which Christ, appearing as God, said that we are his temple, and in that which he himself had made for himself in us he willed to dwell in us, as the prophet Job also says: "Your hands formed me and made me; afterward, changing, you cast me down; remember that you formed me from clay and will return me again to the earth; and you milked me like milk and curdled me like cheese; you clothed me with skin and flesh, you arranged bones and sinews; you put life and mercy with me, and your visitation guarded my spirit." And therefore, the word always repeated: anathema be he who denies that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, for this one is antichrist; anathema be he who denies that Christ Jesus, God, the Son of God, was crucified for us, as the prophet says: "He bears our sins and suffers pain for us"; and again Paul testifies that he knows nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified; anathema be he who denies that the Lord our God was fastened with nails or given vinegar or gall to drink, since he himself said to his disciples: