Saint Cyprian: On the Unity of the Catholic Church

Below we reproduce the full text of “On the Unity of the Catholic Church” by Saint Cyprian.

Chapter 1
Since the Lord warns us in these words: ‘Ye are the salt of the earth,’ and since He bids us to be sim­ple un­to harm­less­ness, and yet to be pru­dent with our sim­plic­i­ty, what else, most beloved brethren, be­fits us than to have fore­sight and watch­ing with an anx­ious heart alike to per­ceive the snares of the crafty en­e­my and to be­ware lest we, who have put on Christ the wis­dom of God the Father, seem to be less wise in guard­ing our sal­va­tion. For per­se­cu­tion alone is not to be feared, nor the ad­vances which are made in open at­tack to over­whelm and cast down the ser­vants of God. To be cau­tious is eas­i­er when the ob­ject of fear is man­i­fest, and the soul is pre­pared for the con­test be­fore­hand, when the ad­ver­sary de­clares him­self. The en­e­my is more to be feared and guard­ed against when he creeps up se­cret­ly, when de­ceiv­ing us un­der the ap­pear­ance of peace he steals for­ward by hid­den ap­proach­es, from which too he re­ceives the name of ser­pent (creep­er, crawler, steal­er). This is al­ways his cun­ning; this is his blind and dark de­ceit for cir­cum­vent­ing men. Thus from the very be­gin­ning of the world did he de­ceive and, flat­ter­ing with ly­ing words, mis­lead the in­ex­pe­ri­enced soul with its reck­less in­creduli­ty. Thus try­ing to tempt the Lord him­self, as if he would creep up again and de­ceive, he ap­proach­es se­cret­ly. Yet he was un­der­stood and driv­en back and so cast down, be­cause he was dis­cov­ered and un­masked.

Chapter 2
In this an ex­am­ple has been giv­en us to flee the way of the old man; to walk in the foot­steps of the con­quer­ing Christ, that we may not heed­less­ly be turned back again un­to the snare of death, but that, on guard against the dan­ger, we may re­ceive and pos­sess im­mor­tal­i­ty. But how can we pos­sess im­mor­tal­i­ty, un­less we keep those com­mand­ments of Christ by which death is over­come and con­quered, He Him­self. warn­ing us in these words: ‘If thou wilt en­ter in­to life, keep the com­mand­ments,’ and again: ‘If you do what I com­mand you, I no longer call you ser­vant but friends.’ Th­ese, fi­nal­ly, He calls strong and stead­fast, these ground­ed up­on a rock of firm foun­da­tion, these firm­ly es­tab­lished against all the tem­pests and storms of the world with an im­move­able and un­shak­en firm­ness. ‘He who hears my words,’ He says, ‘and does them, I shall liken him to a wise man who built his house up­on a rock. The rain de­scend­ed and the floods came, the winds blew and beat up­on that house, but it did not fall, for it was found­ed up­on a rock.’ There­fore, we ought to stand firm up­on His words, and to learn and do what­ev­er He taught and did. But how does he say that he be­lieves in Christ who does not do what Christ or­dered him to do? Or, whence shall he at­tain the re­ward of faith, who does not keep the faith of the com­mand­ment? He will nec­es­sar­i­ly wa­ver and wan­der, and caught up by the breath of er­ror will be blown as the dust which the wind stirs up, nor will he make any ad­vance in his walk to­ward sal­va­tion, who does not hold to the truth of the sav­ing way.

Chapter 3
But not on­ly must we guard against things which are open and man­i­fest but al­so against those which de­ceive with the sub­tle­ty of clever fraud. Now what is more clever, or what more sub­tle than that the en­e­my, de­tect­ed and cast down by the com­ing of Christ, af­ter light had come to the Gen­tiles, and the sav­ing splen­dor had shone forth for the preser­va­tion of man, that the deaf might re­ceive the hear­ing of spir­i­tu­al grace, the blind open their eyes to the Lord, the weak grow strong with eter­nal health, the lame run to the church, the dumb sup­pli­cate with clear voic­es and prayers, see­ing the idols aban­doned and his shrines and tem­ples de­sert­ed be­cause of the great pop­u­lace of be­liev­ers, de­vise a new fraud, un­der the very ti­tle of Chris­tian name to de­ceive the in­cau­tious? He in­vent­ed here­sies and schisms with which to over­throw the faith, to cor­rupt the truth, to di­vide uni­ty. Those whom he can­not hold in the blind­ness of the old way, he cir­cum­vents and de­ceives by the er­ror of a new way. He snatch­es men from the Church it­self, and, while they seem to them­selves to have al­ready ap­proached the light and to have es­caped the night of the world, he again pours forth oth­er shad­ows up­on the un­sus­pect­ing, so that, al­though they do not stand with the Gospel of Christ and with the ob­ser­va­tion of Him and with the law, they call them­selves Chris­tians, and, al­though they walk in dark­ness, they think that they have light, while the ad­ver­sary ca­joles and de­ceives, who, as the Apos­tle says, trans­forms him­self in­to an an­gel of light, and adorns his min­is­ters as those of jus­tice who of­fer night for day, death for sal­va­tion, de­spair un­der the of­fer of hope, per­fidy un­der the pre­text of faith, an­tichrist un­der the name of Christ, so that while they tell plau­si­ble lies, they frus­trate the truth by their sub­tle­ty. This hap­pens, most beloved brethren, be­cause there is no re­turn to the source of truth, and the Head is not sought, and the doc­trine of the heav­en­ly Master is not kept.

Chapter 4
If any­one con­sid­ers and ex­am­ines these things, there is no need of a lengthy dis­cus­sion and ar­gu­ments. Proof for faith is easy in a brief state­ment of the truth. The Lord speaks to Peter: ‘I say to thee,’ He says, ‘thou art Peter, and up­on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not pre­vail against it. And I will give thee the keys of the king­dom of heav­en; and what­ev­er thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound al­so in heav­en, and what­ev­er thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed al­so in heav­en.’ Upon him, be­ing one, He builds His Church, and al­though af­ter His res­ur­rec­tion He be­stows equal pow­er up­on all the Apos­tles, and says: ‘As the Father has sent me, I al­so send you. Re­ceive ye the Holy Spir­it: if you for­give the sins of any­one, they will be for­giv­en him; if you re­tain the sins of any­one, they will be re­tained,’ yet that He might dis­play uni­ty, He es­tab­lished by His au­thor­i­ty the ori­gin of the same uni­ty as be­gin­ning from one. Sure­ly the rest of the Apos­tles al­so were that which Peter was, en­dowed with an equal part­ner­ship of of­fice and of pow­er, but the be­gin­ning pro­ceeds from uni­ty, that the Church of Christ may be shown to be one. This one Church, al­so, the Holy Spir­it in the Can­ti­cle of Can­ti­cles des­ig­nates in the per­son of the Lord and says: ‘One is my dove, my per­fect one is but 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 think that he holds the faith? Does he who strives against the Church and re­sists her think that he is in the Church, when too the blessed Apos­tle Paul teach­es this same thing and sets forth the sacra­ment of uni­ty say­ing: ‘One body and one Spir­it, one hope of your call­ing, one Lord, one faith, one bap­tism, one God’?

Chapter 5
This uni­ty we ought to hold firm­ly and de­fend, es­pe­cial­ly we bish­ops who watch over the Church, that we may prove that al­so the epis­co­pate it­self is one and un­di­vid­ed. Let no one de­ceive the broth­er­hood by ly­ing; let no one cor­rupt the faith by a per­fid­i­ous pre­var­i­ca­tion of the truth. The epis­co­pate is one, the parts of which are held to­geth­er by the in­di­vid­u­al bish­ops. The Church is one which with in­creas­ing fe­cun­di­ty ex­tend far and wide in­to the mul­ti­tude, just as the rays of the sun are many but the light is one, and the branch­es of the tree are many but the strength is one found­ed in its tena­cious root, and, when many streams flow from one source, al­though a mul­ti­plic­i­ty of wa­ters seems to have been dif­fused from the abun­dance of the over­flow­ing sup­ply nev­er­the­less uni­ty is pre­served in their ori­gin. Take away a ray of light from the body of the sun, its uni­ty does not take on any di­vi­sion of its light; break a branch from a tree, the branch thus bro­ken will not be able to bud; cut off a stream from its source, the stream thus cut off dries up. Thus too the Church bathed in the light of the Lord projects its rays over the whole world, yet there is one light which is dif­fused ev­ery­where, and the uni­ty of the body is not sep­a­rat­ed. She ex­tends her branch­es over the whole earth in fruit­ful abun­dance; she ex­tends her rich­ly flow­ing streams far and wide; yet her head is one, and her source is one, and she is the one moth­er co­pi­ous in the re­sults of her fruit­ful­ness. By her womb we are born; by her milk we are nour­ished; by her spir­it we are an­i­mat­ed.

Chapter 6
The spouse of Christ can­not be de­filed; she is un­cor­rupt­ed and chaste. She knows one home, with chaste mod­esty she guards the sanc­ti­ty of one couch. She keeps us for God; she as­signs the chil­dren whom she has cre­at­ed to the king­dom. Who­ev­er is sep­a­rat­ed from the Church and is joined with an adul­ter­ess is sep­a­rat­ed from the promis­es of the Church, nor will he who has aban­doned the Church ar­rive at the re­wards of Christ. He is a stranger; he is pro­fane; he is an en­e­my. He can­not have God as a fa­ther who does not have the Church as a moth­er. If who­ev­er was out­side the ark of Noe was able to es­cape, he too who is out­side. the Church es­capes. The Lord warns, say­ing: ‘He who is not with me is against me, and who does not gath­er with me, scat­ters.’ He who breaks the peace and con­cord of Christ acts against Christ; he who gath­ers some­where out­side the Church scat­ters the Church of Christ. The Lord says: ‘I and the Father are one.’ And again of the Father and Son and the Holy Spir­it it is writ­ten: ‘And these three are one.’ Does any­one be­lieve that this uni­ty which comes from di­vine strength, which is close­ly con­nect­ed with the di­vine sacra­ments, can be bro­ken asun­der in the Church and be sep­a­rat­ed by the di­vi­sions of col­lid­ing wills? He who does not hold this uni­ty, does not hold the law of God, does not hold the faith of the Father and the Son, does not hold life and sal­va­tion.

Chapter 7
This sacra­ment of uni­ty, this bond of con­cord in­sep­a­ra­bly con­nect­ed is shown, when in the Gospel the tu­nic of the Lord Je­sus Christ is not at all di­vid­ed and is not torn, but by those who cast lots for the gar­ment of Christ, who rather might have put on Christ, a sound gar­ment is re­ceived, and an un­dam­aged and un­di­vid­ed tu­nic is pos­sessed. Divine Scrip­ture speaks and says: ‘Now of the tu­nic, since it was wo­ven through­out from the up­per part with­out seam, they said to one an­oth­er: “Let us not tear it, but let us cast lots for it, whose it shall be.” ‘ He bore the uni­ty that came down from the up­per part, that is, that came down from heav­en and the Father, which could not all be torn by him who re­ceived and pos­sessed it, but he ob­tained it whole once for all and a firm­ness in­sep­a­ra­bly sol­id. He can­not pos­sess the gar­ment of Christ who tears and di­vides the Church of Christ. Then on the oth­er hand when at the death of Solomon his king­dom and peo­ple were torn asun­der, Ahias the prophet met King Jer­oboam in the field and tore his gar­ment in­to twelve pieces, say­ing: ‘Take to thee ten pieces, for thus saith the Lord: “Be­hold I rend the king­dom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give thee ten scepters, but two scepters shall re­main to him for the sake of my ser­vant David and for the sake of Jerusalem the city which I have cho­sen, that I may place my name there.” When the twelve tribes of Is­rael were torn asun­der, the prophet Ahias rent his gar­ment. But be­cause the peo­ple of Christ can­not be torn asun­der, His tu­nic wo­ven and unit­ed through­out was not di­vid­ed by those who pos­sessed it. Un­di­vid­ed, joined, con­nect­ed it shows the co­her­ent con­cord of us who have put on Christ. By the sacra­ment and sign of His gar­ment, He has de­clared the uni­ty of the Church.

Chapter 8
Who then is so pro­fane and lack­ing in faith, who so in­sane 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 asun­der or to dare to do so? He Him­self warns us in His Gospel, and teach­es say­ing: ‘And there shall be one flock and one shep­herd.’ And does any­one think that there can be ei­ther many shep­herds or many flocks in one place? Like­wise the Apos­tle Paul in­sin­u­at­ing this same uni­ty up­on us be­seech­es and urges us in these words: ‘I be­seech you, brethren,’ he says, ‘by the name of our Lord Je­sus Christ, that you all say the same thing, and that there be no dis­sen­sions among you: but that you be per­fect­ly unit­ed in the same mind and in the same judg­ment.’ And again he says: ‘Bear­ing with one an­oth­er in love, care­ful to pre­serve the uni­ty of the Spir­it, in the bond of peace.’ Do you think that you can stand and live, with­draw­ing from the Church, and build­ing for your­self oth­er abodes and dif­fer­ent dwellings, when it was said to Rhaab, in whom the Church was pre­fig­ured: ‘You shall gath­er your fa­ther and your moth­er and your brethren and the en­tire house of your fa­ther to your own self in your house, and it will be that ev­ery­one who goes out of the door of your house shall be his own ac­cus­er’; like­wise, when the sacra­ment of the Passover con­tains noth­ing else in the law of the Ex­o­dus than that the lamb which is slain in the fig­ure of Christ be eat­en in one house? God speaks, say­ing: ‘In one house it shall be eat­en, you shall not car­ry the flesh out­side of the house.’ The flesh of Christ and the holy of the Lord can­not be car­ried out­side, and there is no oth­er house for be­liev­ers ex­cept the one Church. This house, this hos­pice of una­nim­i­ty the Holy Spir­it des­ig­nates and pro­claims, when He says: ‘God who makes those of one mind to dwell in his house.’ In the house of God, in the Church of Christ, those of one mind dwell; they per­se­vere in con­cord and sim­plic­i­ty.

Chapter 9
So the Holy Spir­it came in a dove. It is a sim­ple and hap­py an­i­mal, not bit­ter with gall, not cru­el with its bites, not vi­o­lent with lac­er­at­ing claws; it loves the hos­pi­tal­i­ties of men; when they give birth they bring forth their off­spring to­geth­er; when they go and come they cling to­geth­er; they spend their lives in mu­tu­al in­ter­course; they rec­og­nize the con­cord of peace by the kiss of the beak; they ful­fill the law of una­nim­i­ty in all things. This is the sim­plic­i­ty which ought to be known in the Church; this the char­i­ty to be at­tained, that the love of the brethren im­i­tate the doves, that their gen­tle­ness and ten­der­ness equal that of the lambs and the sheep. What is the sav­agery of wolves do­ing in the breast of a Chris­tian, and the mad­ness of dogs and the lethal poi­son of snakes and the bloody cru­el­ties of beasts? Con­grat­u­la­tions are due, when such as these are sep­a­rat­ed from the Church, lest they prey up­on the doves and sheep with their cru­el and ven­omous con­ta­gion. Bit­ter­ness can­not cling and join with sweet­ness, dark­ness with light, rains with clear weath­er, fight­ing with peace, steril­i­ty with fe­cun­di­ty, drought with run­ning wa­ters, storm with calm. Let no one think that the good can de­part from the Church; the wind does not rav­age the wheat, nor does the storm over­turn the tree strong­ly and solid­ly root­ed; the light straws are tossed about by the tem­pest; the fee­ble trees are thrown down by the on­rush of the whirl­wind. The Apos­tle Paul ex­e­crates and strikes at these, when he says: ‘They have gone forth from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have con­tin­ued with us.’

Chapter 10
Hence here­sies have both fre­quent­ly arisen and are aris­ing, while the per­verse mind has no peace, while dis­cor­dant per­fidy does not main­tain uni­ty. In­deed the Lord per­mits and suf­fers these things to hap­pen, while the choice of one’s own lib­er­ty re­mains, so that, while the norm of truth ex­am­ines our hearts and minds, the sound faith of those who are ap­proved may be­come man­i­fest in a clear light. Through the Apos­tle the Holy Spir­it fore­warns and says: ‘For there must be frac­tions so that those who are ap­proved among you may be made man­i­fest.’ Thus the faith­ful are ap­proved; thus the per­fid­i­ous are dis­closed; thus al­so be­fore the day of judg­ment, al­ready here too the souls of the just and the un­just are di­vid­ed and the chaff is sep­a­rat­ed from the wheat. From these are those who of their own ac­cord set them­selves over dar­ing strangers with­out di­vine ap­point­ment, who es­tab­lish them­selves as prelates with­out any law of or­di­na­tion, who as­sume the name of bish­op for them­selves, al­though no one gives them the epis­co­pa­cy; whom the Holy Spir­it in the psalms des­ig­nates as sit­ting in the chair of pesti­lence, the plague and dis­ease of the faith, de­ceiv­ing with a ser­pent’s tongue and mas­ters in cor­rupt­ing truth, vom­it­ing lethal poi­sons from their pesti­len­tial tongues, whose speech creeps about like can­cer, whose dis­cus­sions in­ject a dead­ly virus with­in the breast and heart of ev­ery­one.

Chapter 11
Against such peo­ple the Lord cries out; from these He re­strains and re­calls His wan­der­ing peo­ple say­ing: ‘Hear­ken not to the words of false prophets, since the vi­sions of their hearts frus­trate them. They speak, but not from the mouth of the Lord. They say to them who re­ject the word of God: Peace shall be to you and to all who walk in their own de­sires. To ev­ery­one who walks in the er­rors of his own heart (they say): ‘Evil shall not come up­on you.’ I have not spo­ken to them, yet they have proph­e­sied. If they had stood in my coun­sel and had heard my words, and if they had taught my peo­ple, I would have turned them from their evil thoughts.’ Th­ese same peo­ple does the Lord again des­ig­nate and point out, when He says: ‘They have aban­doned me to the foun­tain of liv­ing wa­ter, and have dug for them­selves bro­ken cis­terns which can­not hold wa­ter.’ Although there can­not be an­oth­er bap­tism than the one, they think that they bap­tize; al­though the foun­tain of life has been de­sert­ed, they promise the grace of the life-giv­ing and sav­ing wa­ter. There men are not washed but rather are made foul, nor are their sins purged but on the con­trary piled high. That na­tiv­i­ty gen­er­ates sons not for God but for the dev­il. Be­ing born through a lie they do not ob­tain the promis­es of truth; be­got­ten of per­fidy they lose the grace of faith. They can­not ar­rive at the re­ward of peace who have bro­ken the peace of the Lord by the mad­ness of dis­cord.

Chapter 12
Let not cer­tain ones de­ceive them­selves by an emp­ty in­ter­pre­ta­tion of what the Lord has said: ‘When­ev­er two or three have gath­ered to­geth­er in my name, I am with them.’ Cor­rupters and false in­ter­preters of the Gospel quote the last words and pass over ear­li­er ones, be­ing mind­ful of part and crafti­ly sup­press­ing part. As they them­selves have been cut off from the Church, so they cut off a sen­tence of one Chapter. For when the Lord urged una­nim­i­ty and peace up­on His dis­ci­ples, He said: ‘I say to you that if. two of you agree up­on earth con­cern­ing any­thing what­so­ev­er that you shall ask, it shall be grant­ed you by my Father who is in heav­en. For wher­ev­er two or three have gath­ered to­geth­er in my name, I am with them,’ show­ing that the most is grant­ed not to the mul­ti­tude but to the una­nim­i­ty of those that pray. ‘If two of you,’ He says, ‘agree up­on earth’; He placed una­nim­i­ty. first; He set the con­cord of peace first; He taught that we should agree faith­ful­ly and firm­ly. But how can he agree with any­one, who does not agree with the body of the Church her­self and with the uni­ver­sal broth­er­hood? How can two or three be gath­ered in the name of Christ, who it is clear are sep­a­rat­ed from Christ and His gospel? For we did not with­draw from them, but they from us, and when there­after here­sies and schisms arose, while they were es­tab­lish­ing di­verse meet­ing places for them­selves, they aban­doned the source and ori­gin of truth. The Lord, more­over, is speak­ing of His Church, and He is speak­ing to those who are in the Church, that if they are in agree­ment, if, ac­cord­ing to what He has com­mand­ed and ad­mon­ished, al­though two or three are gath­ered to­geth­er, they pray with una­nim­i­ty, al­though they are two or three, they can ob­tain from the majesty of God, what they de­mand. ‘Wher­ev­er two or three have gath­ered, I,’ He said, ‘am with them,’ name­ly, with the sim­ple and the peace­ful, with those who fear God and keep the com­mand­ments of God. He said that He was with these al­though two or three, just as al­so He was with the three chil­dren in the fiery fur­nace, and, be­cause they re­mained sim­ple to­ward God and in una­nim­i­ty among them­selves, He an­i­mat­ed them in the midst of flames with the breath of dew; just as he was present with the two apos­tles shut up in prison, be­cause they were sim­ple, be­cause they were of one mind, He opened the doors of the prison and re­turned them again to the mar­ket-place that they might pass on the word to the mul­ti­tude which they were faith­ful­ly preach­ing. When then He lays it down in His com­mand­ments and says: ‘Where there are two or three, I am with them,’ He who es­tab­lished and made the Church did not sep­a­rate men from the Church, but re­buk­ing the faith­less for their dis­cord and com­mand­ing peace to the faith­ful by His word, He shows that He is with two or three who pray with one mind rather than with a great many who are in dis­agree­ment, and that more can be ob­tained by the har­mo­nious prayer of a few than by the dis­cor­dant sup­pli­ca­tion of many.

Chapter 13
So too when He gave the law of prayer, He added, say­ing: ‘And when you stand up to pray, for­give what­ev­er you have against any­one, that your Father al­so who is in heav­en may for­give you your of­fens­es.’ And He calls back from the al­tar one who comes to the sac­ri­fice with dis­sen­sion, and He or­ders Him first to be rec­on­ciled with his broth­er and then re­turn with peace and of­fer his gift to God, be­cause God did not look with fa­vor up­on the gifts of Cain; for he could not have God at peace with him, who through en­vi­ous dis­cord did not have peace with his broth­er. What peace then do the en­e­mies of the brethren promise them­selves? What sac­ri­fices do the im­i­ta­tors of priests be­lieve that they cel­e­brate? Do they who are gath­ered to­geth­er out­side the Church of Christ think that Christ is with them when they have been gath­ered to­geth­er?

Chapter 14
Even if such men are slain in con­fes­sion of the Name that stain is not washed away by blood; the in­ex­pi­able and in­ex­pi­able and se­ri­ous fault of dis­cord is purged not even by mar­tyr­dom. He can­not be a mar­tyr who is not in the Church. He will not be able to ar­rive in the king­dom who de­sert­ed her who is to rule. Christ gave us peace; He or­dered us to be in agree­ment and of one mind; He com­mand­ed us to keep the bonds of love and char­i­ty un­cor­rupt­ed and in­vi­o­late. He can­not dis­play him­self a mar­tyr who has not main­tained fra­ter­nal char­i­ty. The Apos­tle Paul teach­es and bears wit­ness to this when he says: ‘If I have faith so that I re­move moun­tains, but not so that I have char­i­ty, I am noth­ing; and if I dis­tribute all my goods for food, and if I hand over my body so that I am burned, but not so that I have char­i­ty, I ac­com­plish noth­ing. Char­i­ty is no­ble, char­i­ty is kind, char­i­ty en­vi­eth not, is not puffed up, is not pro­voked; does not act per­verse­ly, thinks no evil, loves all things, be­lieves all things, hopes all things, bears all things. Char­i­ty nev­er will fall away.’ ‘Nev­er,’ he says, ‘will char­i­ty fall away.’ For she will al­ways be in the king­dom and will en­dure for­ev­er in the uni­ty of the broth­er­hood cling­ing to it. Dis­cord can­not come to the king­dom of heav­en; to the re­wards of Christ who said: ‘This is my com­mand­ment that you love one an­oth­er, even as I have loved you.’ He will not be able to at­tain it who has vi­o­lat­ed the love of Christ by per­fid­i­ous dis­sen­sion. He who does not have char­i­ty does not have God. The words of the blessed Apos­tle John are: ‘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 have been un­will­ing to be of one mind in God’s Church. Although they burn when giv­en over to flames and fire, or lay down their lives when thrown to the beasts, that crown of faith will not be theirs, but the pun­ish­ment of per­fidy, and no glo­ri­ous end­ing of re­li­gious val­or but the de­struc­tion of des­per­a­tion. Such a man can be slain; he can­not be crowned. Thus he pro­fess­es him­self to be a Chris­tian, just as the dev­il of­ten false­ly de­clares him­self to be even Christ, al­though the Lord fore­warned of this say­ing: ‘Many will come in my name say­ing: “I am the Christ,” and will de­ceive many.’ Just as He is not Christ, al­though he de­ceives in His name, so he can­not seem a Chris­tian who does not abide in His Gospel and in the true faith.

Chapter 15
For both to proph­esy and to drive out demons, and to per­form great mir­a­cles on earth is cer­tain­ly a sub­lime and ad­mirable thing, yet who­ev­er is found in all this does not at­tain the king­dom of heav­en un­less he walk in the ob­ser­vance of the right and just way. The Lord gives warn­ing and says: ‘Many will say to me in that day: “Lord, Lord, have we not proph­e­sied in Thy name and cast out dev­ils in thy name and worked great mir­a­cles in thy name?” And then I will say to them: “I nev­er knew you. Depart from me ye work­ers of in­iq­ui­ty.” ‘There is need of righ­teous­ness that one may de­serve well of God as judge; His pre­cepts and ad­mo­ni­tions must be obeyed 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 brief sum­ma­ry said: ‘The Lord thy God is one Lord,’ and ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul and with thy whole strength. This is the first, and the sec­ond is like un­to it: Thou shalt love thy neigh­bor as thy­self. On these two com­mand­ments de­pend the whole law and the prophets.’ He taught at the same time uni­ty and love by the au­thor­i­ty of His teach­ing; He in­clud­ed all the prophets and the law in two com­mand­ments. But what uni­ty does he pre­serve, what love does he guard or con­sid­er, who mad with the fury of dis­cord splits the Church, de­stroys the faith, dis­turbs the peace, dis­si­pates char­i­ty, pro­fanes the sacra­ment?

Chapter 16
This evil, most faith­ful brethren, be­gan long ago, but now the dan­ger­ous de­struc­tion of the same evil has in­creased, and the ven­omous plague of hereti­cal per­ver­si­ty and schisms has be­gun to rise and to spread more, be­cause even so it was to be at the de­cline of the world, for the Holy Spir­it pro­claimed it to us and fore­warned us through the Apos­tle: ‘In the last days,’ he says, ‘dan­ger­ous times will come, men will be lovers of self, haughty, proud, cov­etous, blas­phe­mous, dis­obe­di­ent to par­ents, un­grate­ful, im­pi­ous, with­out af­fec­tion, with­out law, slan­der­ers, in­con­ti­nent, mer­ci­less, not lov­ing the good, treach­er­ous, stub­born, puffed up with pride, lov­ing plea­sure more than God, hav­ing a sem­blance of piety, but deny­ing its pow­er. Of such are they who make their way in­to hous­es and cap­ti­vate sil­ly wom­en who are sin-laden and led away by var­i­ous lusts; ev­er learn­ing, yet nev­er at­tain­ing knowl­edge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Mam­bres re­sist­ed Mos­es, so these re­sist the truth. But they will make no fur­ther progress, for their fol­ly will be ob­vi­ous to all, as was that of those oth­ers.’ What­ev­er things were fore­told are be­ing ful­filled and, as the end of the world now ap­proach­es, have come with the test­ing of men and the times alike. More and more, as the ad­ver­sary raves, er­ror de­ceives, stu­pid­i­ty rais­es its head, en­vy in­flames, cov­etous­ness blinds, impi­ety de­praves, pride puffs up, dis­cord ex­as­per­ates, anger rush­es head­long.

Chapter 17
Yet let not the ex­treme and pre­cip­i­tous per­fidy of many move or dis­turb us, but rather let it strength­en our faith by the truth of things fore­told. As cer­tain ones be­gin to be such, be­cause these things were pre­dict­ed be­fore­hand, thus let oth­er brethren be­ware of mat­ters of a sim­i­lar sort, be­cause these al­so were pre­dict­ed, as the Lord in­struct­ed us say­ing: ‘Be on your guard there­fore; be­hold I have told you all things be­fore­hand.’ I be­seech you, avoid men of this sort, and ward off from your side and from your hear­ing their per­ni­cious con­ver­sa­tion as the con­ta­gion of death, as it is writ­ten: ‘Hedge in thy ears with thorns, and hear not a wicked tongue.’ And again: ‘Evil com­mu­ni­ca­tions cor­rupt good man­ners.’ The Lord teach­es and ad­mon­ish­es that we must with­draw from such. ‘They are blind guides,’ He says, ‘of the blind. But if a blind man guide a blind man, both shall fall in­to a pit.’ Such a one is to be turned away from, and who­ev­er has sep­a­rat­ed him­self from the Church is to be shunned. Such a man is per­vert­ed and sins and is con­demned by his very self. Does he seem to him­self to be with Christ, who acts con­trary to the priests of Christ, who sep­a­rates him­self from as­so­ci­a­tion with His cler­gy and His peo­ple? That man bears arms against the Church; he fights against God’s plan. An en­e­my of the al­tar, a rebel against the sac­ri­fice of Christ, for the faith faith­less, for re­li­gion sac­ri­le­gious, a dis­obe­di­ent ser­vant, an im­pi­ous son, a hos­tile broth­er, de­spis­ing the bish­ops and aban­don­ing the priests of God, he dares to set up an­oth­er al­tar, to com­pose an­oth­er prayer with unau­tho­rized words, to pro­fane the truth of the Lord’s of­fer­ing by false sac­ri­fices, and not to know that he who strug­gles against God’s plan on ac­count of his rash dar­ing is pun­ished by di­vine cen­sure.

Chapter 18
Thus Core, Dathan, and Ab­iron, who tried to as­sume for them­selves in op­po­si­tion to Mos­es and Aaron the free­dom to sac­ri­fice, im­me­di­ate­ly paid the penal­ty for their ef­forts. The earth, break­ing its bonds, opened up in­to a deep chasm, and the open­ing of the re­ced­ing ground swal­lowed up the stand­ing and the liv­ing, and not on­ly did the anger of the in­dig­nant God strike those who had been the au­thors (of the re­volt), but fire that went out from the Lord in speedy re­venge al­so con­sumed two hun­dred and fifty oth­ers, par­tic­i­pants and shar­ers in the same mad­ness, who had been joined to­geth­er with them in the dar­ing, clear­ly warn­ing and show­ing that what­ev­er the wicked at­tempt by hu­man will to de­stroy God’s plan is done against God. Thus Ozias the king al­so, when, car­ry­ing the censer and vi­o­lent­ly as­sum­ing to him­self the right to sac­ri­fice con­trary to the law of God, al­though Azarias, the priest, re­sist­ed him, he was un­will­ing to give way and obey, was con­found­ed by the di­vine in­dig­na­tion and was pol­lut­ed on his fore­head by the spot of lep­rosy, be­ing marked for his of­fense against the Lord where they are signed who mer­it­ed well of the Lord. And the sons of Aaron, who place a strange fire on the al­tar, which the Lord had not or­dered, were im­me­di­ate­ly ex­tin­guished in the sight of the aveng­ing Lord.

Chapter 19
Th­ese, cer­tain­ly, they im­i­tate and fol­low, who de­spise God’s tra­di­tion and seek af­ter strange doc­trines and in­tro­duce teach­ings of hu­man dis­po­si­tion. Th­ese the Lord re­bukes and re­proves in His Gospel when He says: ‘You re­ject the com­mand­ment of God that you may es­tab­lish your own tra­di­tion.’ This crime is worse than that which the lapsed seem to have com­mit­ted, who while es­tab­lished in penance for their crime be­seech God with full sat­is­fac­tions. Here the Church is sought and en­treat­ed, there the Church is re­sist­ed; here there can have been ne­ces­si­ty, there the will is held in wicked­ness; here he who lapsed harmed on­ly him­self, there he who tried to cause a heresy or schism de­ceived many by drag­ging them with him; here there is the loss of one soul, there dan­ger to a great many. Cer­tain­ly this one knows that he has sinned and be­wails and laments; that one swelling in his sin and tak­ing plea­sure in his very crimes sep­a­rates chil­dren from their Mother, en­tices sheep from their shep­herd, and dis­turbs the sacra­ments of God. And where­as the lapsed has sinned once, the for­mer sins dai­ly. Fi­nal­ly, the lapsed lat­er, af­ter achiev­ing mar­tyr­dom, can re­ceive the promis­es of the king­dom; the for­mer, if he is killed out­side the Church, can­not ar­rive at the re­wards of the Church.

Chapter 20
Let no one mar­vel, most beloved brethren, that even cer­tain of the con­fes­sors pro­ceed to these lengths, that some al­so sin so wicked­ly and so grievous­ly. For nei­ther does con­fes­sion (of Christ) make one im­mune from the snares of the dev­il, nor does it de­fend him who is still placed in the world, with a per­pet­u­al se­cu­ri­ty against world­ly temp­ta­tions and dan­gers and on­sets and at­tacks; oth­er­wise nev­er might we have seen af­ter­wards among the con­fes­sors the de­cep­tions and de­baucheries and adul­ter­ies which now with groan­ing and sor­row we see among some. Who­ev­er that con­fes­sor is, he is not greater or bet­ter or dear­er to God than Solomon, who, how­ev­er, as long as he walked in the ways of the Lord, so long re­tained the grace which he had re­ceived from the Lord; af­ter he had aban­doned the way of the Lord, he lost al­so the grace of the Lord. And so it is writ­ten: ‘Hold what you have, lest an­oth­er re­ceive thy crown.’ Sure­ly the Lord would not make this threat, that the crown of righ­teous­ness can be tak­en away, un­less, when righ­teous­ness de­parts, the crown al­so must de­part.

Chapter 21
Con­fes­sion is the be­gin­ning of glo­ry, not al­ready the mer­it of the crown; nor does it achieve praise, but it ini­ti­ates dig­ni­ty, and, since it is writ­ten; ‘He that shall per­se­vere to end, he shall be saved,’ what­ev­er has tak­en place be­fore the end is a step by which the as­cent is made to the sum­mit of sal­va­tion, not the end by which the top­most point is held se­cure. He is a con­fes­sor, but af­ter the con­fes­sion the dan­ger is greater, be­cause the ad­ver­sary is the more pro­voked. He IS a con­fes­sor; for this rea­son he ought to stand with the Gospel of the Lord, for by the Gospel he has ob­tained glo­ry from the Lord. ‘To whom much is giv­en, of him much is re­quired’; and to whom the more dig­ni­ty is al­lot­ted, from him the more ser­vice is de­mand­ed. Let no one per­ish through the ex­am­ple of a con­fes­sor, let no one learn in­jus­tice, no one in­so­lence, no one per­fidy from the habits of a con­fes­sor. He is a con­fes­sor; let him be hum­ble and qui­et, in his ac­tions let him be mod­est with dis­ci­pline, so that he who is called a con­fes­sor of Christ may im­i­tate the Christ whom he con­fess­es. For since he says: ‘Every­one that ex­alts him­self shall be hum­bled, and ev­ery­one that hum­bles him­self shall be ex­alt­ed,’ and since he him­self has been 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 pride who even by His law en­joined hu­mil­i­ty up­on us and Him­self re­ceived from the Father the high­est name as the re­ward of hu­mil­i­ty? He is a con­fes­sor of Christ, but on­ly if af­ter­wards the majesty and dig­ni­ty of Christ be not blas­phemed by him. Let not the tongue which has con­fessed Christ be abu­sive nor bois­ter­ous; let it not be heard re­sound­ing with in­sults and con­tentions; let it not af­ter words of praise shoot forth a ser­pent’s poi­sons against the brethren and priests of God. But if he lat­er be­come blame­wor­thy and abom­inable, if he dis­si­pates his con­fes­sion by evil con­ver­sa­tion, if he pol­lutes his life with un­seem­ly foul­ness, if, fi­nal­ly, aban­don­ing the Church where he be­came a con­fes­sor and break­ing the con­cord of its uni­ty, he change his first faith for a lat­er faith­less­ness, he can­not flat­ter him­self by rea­son of his con­fes­sion as if elect­ed to the re­ward of glo­ry, when by this very fact the mer­its of pun­ish­ment have grown the more.

Chapter 22
For the Lord chose even Ju­das among the Apos­tles, and yet lat­er Ju­das be­trayed the Lord. Nev­er­the­less, the firm­ness and faith of the Apos­tles did not on this ac­count fall, be­cause the traitor Ju­das de­fect­ed from their fel­low­ship. So al­so in this case the sanc­ti­ty and dig­ni­ty of the con­fes­sors was not im­me­di­ate­ly di­min­ished, be­cause the faith of some of them was bro­ken. The blessed Apos­tle speaks in his let­ter say­ing: ‘For what if some of them have fall­en away from the faith? Has their in­fi­deli­ty made of no ef­fect the faith of God? God for­bid. For God is true, but ev­ery man a liar.’ The greater and bet­ter part of the con­fes­sors stand firm in the strength of their faith and in the truth of the Lord’s law and teach­ing, nei­ther do they de­part from the peace of the Church, who re­mem­ber that they have ob­tained grace in the Church from God’s es­teem, and by this very fact do they ob­tain greater praise for their faith, that they sep­a­rat­ed them­selves from the per­fidy of those who had been joined with them in the fel­low­ship of con­fes­sion, and with­drew from the con­ta­gion of their crime. More­over, il­lu­mined by the light of the Gospel, shin­ing with the pure white light of the Lord, they are as praise­wor­thy in pre­serv­ing the peace of Christ as they were vic­to­ri­ous in their en­counter with the dev­il.

Chapter 23
In­deed, I de­sire, most beloved brethren, and I like­wise ad­vise and en­treat, that, if it can be done, no one of the brethren per­ish, and that our re­joic­ing Mother en­close in her bo­som one body of peo­ple in agree­ment. If, how­ev­er, sav­ing coun­sel can­not re­call cer­tain lead­ers of schisms and au­thors of dis­sen­sions who per­sist in their blind and ob­sti­nate mad­ness to the way of sal­va­tion, yet the rest of you ei­ther tak­en by your sim­plic­i­ty, or in­duced by er­ror, or de­ceived by some crafti­ness of mis­lead­ing cun­ning, free your­selves from the snare of de­ceit, lib­er­ate your wan­der­ing steps from er­rors, rec­og­nize the right way of the heav­en­ly road. The words of the Apos­tle giv­ing tes­ti­mo­ny are: ‘We charge you in the name of the Lord Je­sus Christ that you with­draw from all brethren who walk dis­or­der­ly and not ac­cord­ing to the tra­di­tion which they re­ceived from us.’ And again he says: ‘Let no one de­ceive you with vain words; for be­cause of these things comes the wrath of God up­on the chil­dren of dis­obe­di­ence. Be ye not, there­fore, par­tak­ers with them.’ We must with­draw, rather flee from those who fall away, lest, while one is joined with them as they walk wicked­ly, and pass­es over the paths of er­ror and crime, wan­der­ing apart from the way of the true road, he him­self al­so be caught in a like crime. God is one and Christ one and His Church one and the faith one and the peo­ple one joined to­geth­er by the tie of con­cord in­to a sol­id uni­ty of body. The uni­ty can­not be torn asun­der, nor can the one body be sep­a­rat­ed by a di­vi­sion of its struc­ture, nor torn in­to bits by the wrench­ing asun­der of its en­trails by lac­er­a­tion. What­ev­er de­parts from the par­ent-stem will not be able to breathe and live apart; it los­es the sub­stance of health.

Chapter 24
The Holy Spir­it warns us, say­ing: ‘Who is the man that de­sireth life; who loveth to see the best days? Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speak­ing guile. Turn away from evil and do good; seek af­ter peace, and pur­sue it.’ The son of peace ought to seek and fol­low peace; he who knows and loves the bond of char­i­ty ought to re­strain his tongue from the evil of dis­sen­sion. Among his di­vine com­mands and salu­tary in­struc­tions the Lord now very near His pas­sion added the fol­low­ing: ‘Peace I leave you, my peace I give you.’ This in­her­i­tance He gave us, all the gifts and re­wards of His promise He as­sured us in the con­ser­va­tion 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 peace-mak­ers. ‘Blessed,’ He said, ‘are the peace-mak­ers, for they shall be called the sons of God.’ The sons of God should be peace-mak­ers, gen­tle in heart, sim­ple in speech, har­mo­nious in af­fec­tion, cling­ing to one an­oth­er faith­ful­ly in the bonds of una­nim­i­ty.

Chapter 25
This una­nim­i­ty ex­ist­ed of old among the Apos­tles; thus the new as­sem­bly of be­liev­ers, guard­ing the com­mand­ments of the Lord, main­tained their char­i­ty. Scrip­ture proves this in the fol­low­ing words: ‘But the mul­ti­tude of those who be­lieved act­ed with one soul and one mind.’ And again, ‘And all were per­se­ver­ing with one mind in prayer with the wom­en and Mary the moth­er of Je­sus and His brethren.’ Thus they prayed with ef­fi­ca­cious prayers; thus they were able with con­fi­dence to ob­tain what­ev­er they asked of God’s mer­cy.

Chapter 26
But with us una­nim­i­ty has been so di­min­ished that even the lib­er­al­i­ty of our good works has been less­ened. Then they sold their homes and es­tates, and, lay­ing up trea­sures for them­selves in heav­en, they of­fered to the Apos­tles the pro­ceeds to be dis­tribut­ed for use among the poor. But now we do not even give a tenth of our pat­ri­mo­ny, and, al­though the Lord or­ders us to sell, we rather buy and in­crease. So has the vig­or of faith with­ered in us; so has the strength of be­liev­ers lan­guished. And there­fore the Lord, look­ing up­on our times, says in His Gospel: ‘When the Son of man comes, do you think that He will find faith on the earth?’ We see that what he fore­told is com­ing to pass. There is no faith in the fear of God, in the law of jus­tice, in love, in works. No one con­sid­ers fear of the fu­ture; no one thinks of the day of the Lord and the anger of God and the pun­ish­ments to come up­on un­be­liev­ers and the eter­nal tor­ments de­creed 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 did be­lieve, it would al­so be on guard; if it were on guard, it would al­so es­cape.

Chapter 27
Let us rouse our­selves in so far as we can, most beloved brethren, and, break­ing the sleep of old in­er­tia let us awake to the ob­serv­ing and keep­ing of the Lord’s pre­cepts. Let us be such as He Him­self or­dered us to be when He said: ‘Let your loins be girt, and your lamps bright­ly burn­ing, and you your­self like to men wait­ing for their Lord, when He shall come from the wed­ding, that when He comes and knocks, they may open to Him. Blessed are those ser­vants whom the Lord, when He comes, shall find watch­ing.’ We ought to be girt, lest, when the day of de­par­ture come, it finds us bur­dened and en­tan­gled. Let our light shine forth in good works and glow, so that it may lead us from the night of this world to the light of eter­nal bright­ness. Let us al­ways with so­lic­i­tude and cau­tion await the sud­den com­ing of the Lord, so that, when He knocks, our faith may be vig­i­lant, ready to re­ceive from the Lord the re­ward of its vig­i­lance. If these man­dates are kept, if these warn­ings and pre­cepts are main­tained, we can­not be over­tak­en while sleep­ing by the de­ceit of the dev­il; we will reign as vig­i­lant ser­vants with Christ as our Lord.