VI. 76 Doctrines and rites of Manicheism. LECT. many doth the gardener put his sickle, as we see;-into which then of these is he transformed? Ridiculous doctrines truly, and fraught with their own condemnation and shame! A shepherd both sacrifices a sheep and slays a wolf; into which is he changed? Many men have both netted fishes and limed birds; into which are they changed? (19.) 32. Let the Manichees, children of sloth, answer; who themselves work not, and eat up the labours of those who do; who receive with smiling countenances those who bring them meats, and return them curses instead of blessings. For when some simple person brings them any thing, the Manichee says, "Stand forth a little, and I will bless thee:" then having received the bread into his hand, (as some of them who have repented have confessed,) he says to the bread, "I did not make thee;" and he utters curses against the Highest, and curses him that made the bread, and thus eats what is made. If thou hatest food, why didst thou look with a smiling face on him who brought it? If thou art grateful to him who brought it, why utterest thou blasphemy against God who made and fashioned it? And again he says, "I did not sow thee; may the sower of thee be sown! I did not reap thee with a sickle; may the reaper of thee be reaped! I baked thee not with fire; may the baker of thee be baked!" A fair return this for kindness. 33. These are great offences, yet but small in comparison of what remains behind. I do not venture to describe their Baptism before men and women. k I do not venture to say what they dispense to their wretched congregations'. It is truly a pollution of our lips to speak on the subject. Are Greeks more loathsome? are Samaritans more abandoned? and Jews more blasphemous? are open profligates more unclean? The Manichee at the very altar, as he thinks right, places his offering"; and dost thou, O man, accept teaching k The Manichees of later times seem to have rejected Baptism, using oil for water, or considering Baptism a spiritual washing. Ed. Bened. 1 The original runs thus: Οὐ τολμῶ εἰπεῖν, τίνι ἐμβάπτοντες τὴν ἰσχάδα, διδόασι τοῖς ἀθλίοις. διὰ συσσήμων δὲ μόνον δηλούσθω. ἄνδρες γὰρ τὰ ἐν τοῖς ἐνυπνιασμοῖς ἐνθυμείσθωσιν, καὶ γυναῖκες τὰ ἐν ἀφίδροις. Μιαίνομεν ἀληθῶς τὸ στόμα κ. τ. λ. m Ὁ μὲν γὰρ πορνεύσας, πρὸς μίαν ὥραν δι' ἐπιθυμίαν τελεῖ τὴν πράξιν· καταγινώσκων δὲ τῆς πράξεως, ὡς μιανθεὶς οἶδι λουτροῦ ἐπι· δεόμενος, καὶ γινώσκει τῆς πράξεως τὸ μυσαρόν. Ὁ δὲ Μανιχαίος θυσιαστηρίου μέσον, οὗ νομίζει, τίθησι ταῦτα, καὶ μιαίνει καὶ τὸ στόμα καὶ τὴν γλῶτταν. παρὰ τοιούτου στόματος, ἄνθρωπε κ. τ. λ. Contrast between the Church and heresy. 77 at such a mouth? dost thou meet him and greet him at all with a kiss; and not rather, without reference to his other blasphemy, flee from this defiled teacher, from a man worse than dissolute, more loathsome than any haunt of profligacy? 34. These things the Church tells of and teaches thee, and touches mire, that thou be not bemired: she tells of wounds, that thou be not wounded. Suffice it thee to know the fact; attempt not to learn by experience.-God thunders, and we all tremble; but they blaspheme. God lightens, and we all bow down to earth; but they have blasphemous tongues concerning the heavens,-which are written in their books, and which we have read, disbelieving those who affirmed them: yes, for your salvation, we have closely inquired into their deadly doctrines". 35. But may the Lord deliver us from such error: and may (20.) you be vouchsafed enmity against the serpent; that as they watch the heel, so you in turn may trample on their head. Remember the text, What agreement is there between our matters and theirs? what hath light to do with darkness? 2 Cor. 6, 14. What the majesty of the Church with the abomination of the Manichees? Here is order, here is discipline, here majesty, here chastity: here even a wanton glance is condemnation. Here is marriage with seriousness, and perseverance in conti- trod. Lect. §. nence, and the angelical rank of a virgin life, feasting with 4. thanksgiving, and towards the Maker of the world an affec- Bewμátionate heart. Here the Father of Christ is worshipped; here. I is taught fear and trembling towards Him who sends us rain, Tim. 4, and praise ascribed to Him who thunders and lightens. 36. Fold thou with the sheep: flee the wolves; depart not from the Church. Nay, abhor those who at any time have come into suspicion of such things; and unless in the course of time thou ascertain their repentance, be not hasty to trust thyself with them. The truth is now delivered to thee, how η Κᾀκεῖνοι περὶ οὐρανῶν τὰς δυσφήμους ἔχουσι γλώσσας. ̓Ιησοῦς λέγει περὶ τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ. Ὅστις τὸν ἥλιον αὐτοῦ ἀνατέλλει ἐπὶ δικαίους καὶ ἀδίκους, καὶ βρέχει ἐπὶ πονηροὺς καὶ ἀγαθούς. κἀκεῖνοι λέγουσιν, ὅτι οἱ ὑετοὶ ἐξ ἐρωτικῆς μανίας γίνονται, καὶ τολμῶσι λέγειν, ὅτι ἐστί τις παρθένος ἐν οὐρανῷ εὐειδὴς μετὰ νεανίσκου εὐειδοῦς, καὶ κατὰ τὴν τῶν καμηλῶν ἢ λύκων καιρὸν, τοὺς τῆς αἰσχρᾶς ἐπιθυμίας καιροὺς ἔχειν, supr. In των μετ 3. VI. Thess.5, 21. 22. LECT. God only is the First Principle of all things; distinguish one pasturage of doctrine from another. Be thou a good Ts banker, holding fast what is good, abstaining from all ναρχίας. Vid. 1 appearance of evil. But if thou thyself wert even one of them, now that thou hast discovered thine error, abhor it. It will prove a way of salvation, to vomit it up; to hate it from thy heart; to shun them too, not with thy lips only, but with thy soul also; to bow down to the Father of Christ, the God of the Law and the Prophets; to acknowledge the Good and the Just, to be One and the same God. May He keep all of you, guarding you from fall and offence, stablished in the Faith, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. • Γίνου δόκιμος τραπεζίτης. These words, which are frequently quoted in antiquity, are sometimes ascribed to our Lord, sometimes to S. Paul. Vid. Constit. Apost. ii. 36. Clementin. Hom. ii. 51. iii, 50 &c. Dionys. Alex. a LECTURE VII. ON GOD, THE FATHER. EPH. iii. 14, 15. For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus χίας, 1. OF God as the One Principle of all things I said enough gì s yesterday; enough, I mean, not in respect to the subject, (for ragmortal nature cannot reach this,) but in the measure of our of the Unity of weakness; and I trod the bye paths which have been variously God. struck out by profane heretics: now, shaking from us their foul and soul-destroying doctrine, and remembering it not to our hurt, but for their detestation, let us revert to ourselves, and receive the salutary articles of the true Faith, joining to the dignity of God's sole sovereignty, the attribute of Father, and believing in One God the Father. It is not enough to believe in One God: we must receive with reverence this also, that He is the Father of the Only-begotten, our Lord Jesus Christ. and against His Christ, Ps. 2, 1. made their friend, apart 2. For thus our view of religion will rise above the Jewish. (2.) For the Jews receive indeed the doctrine of the One God; (though they have often denied this too by committing idolatry; but they deny that He is also the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, differing from their own Prophets, who say in Holy Scripture, The Lord hath said unto Me, Thou art My Ps. 2, 7. Son, this day have I begotten Thee. Even to this day they rage and gather against the Lord thinking that the Father may be from devotion towards the Son; knowing not that no man John 14, 6. cometh to the Father, but by the Son, who saith, I am the John 10, door, and I am the way. He then who declines the Way 9. which leads to the Father, and denies the Door, how shall he John 14, be vouchsafed entrance to God? They contradict too the words of the eighty-eighth Psalm: He shall cry unto Me, Ps. 89, Thou art My Father, My God, and the rock of My salvation; a a i. e. Psalm 89. In the Greek and Latin Versions, as need scarcely be said, the Psalms are numbered differently 2. 6. 26. 27. 80 The name of Father implies the Son. LECT. also, I will make Him My first-born, higher than the kings of VII. the earth. If they contend that these things are spoken to David, or Solomon, or some of their successors, they have to shew how the throne of him whom they consider to be the Ps. 89, object of the prophecy, is as the days of heaven, and as the 29. sun before God, and as the moon stablished in heaven; and how 36. 37. is it they feel no awe about the text, From the womb, before Ps. 110, the star of dawn I begat thee: and again, He shall endure with the sun, and before the moon, from generation to gene5. Sept. ration? To apply these things to a man, argues a mind utterly and entirely insensible. Ps. 89, Ps. 72, 3. But let the Jews, since they so will, be troubled with their accustomed sickness, and disbelieve these and such like Scriptures; but let us embrace the godly doctrine of the Faith, worshipping one God, the Father of Christ. For it rois rã- were profane indeed, when He has given unto all the prerogative of parents, to deny to Him the like. And let us believe in One God the Father, that even before proceeding to treat of Christ, our previous discourse concerning the Father, may lay deeply in your hearts, not retard, faith in the Only-begotten. σι τὸ youräv xa μενον. (3.) 4. For the name of the Father, in its very utterance implies the Son as in like manner to name the Son, is at once to imply the Father also. For if He is a Father, plainly the Father of a Son; and if a Son, plainly the Son of a Father. Therefore, lest when we say, We believe," in one God, the Father Almighty; Maker of Heaven and Earth; and of all things visible and invisible," and then add," and in One Lord Jesus Christ," it should be irreverently thought, that the Only-begotten is second in rank to heaven and earth, therefore before naming them, we named God, the Father; that as soon as we think of the Father, we may also think of the Son, for between the Son and the Father no being whatever comes. 5. God then, though He is in an improper sense the Father of many things, yet by nature and in truth is Father of One only, the Only-begotten Son our Lord, Jesus Christ: not becoming so in course of time, but being from everlasting the Father of the Only-begotten; not first without Son, and then becoming a Father, by a change of purpose; but before Torrá- all substance, and all intelligence, before times and all ages, hath God the prerogative of Father; and more honoured σεως. |