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OTHERWISE if Christ who was born of Mary is not the same Person as He
who is of God, you certainly make two Christs; after the manner of that
abominable error of Pelagius, which in asserting that a mere man was born
of the Virgin, said that He was the teacher rather than the redeemer of
mankind; for He did not bring to men redemption of life but only an example
of how to live, i.e., that by following Him men should do the same sort of
things and so come to a similar state. Your blasphemy then has but one
source, and the root of the errors is one and the same. They maintain that
a mere man was born of Mary: you maintain the same. They sever the Son of
man from the Son of God: you do the same. They say that the Saviour was
made the Christ by His baptism: you say that in baptism He became the
Temple of God.
They do not deny that He became God after His Passion: you deny Him even
after His ascension. In one point only therefore your perverseness goes
beyond theirs, for they seem to blaspheme the Lord on earth, and you even
in heaven. We do not deny that you have beaten and outstripped those whom
you are copying. They at last cease to deny God; you never do. Although
theirs must not altogether be deemed a true confession, as they only allow
the glory of Divinity to the Saviour after His Passion, and while they deny
that He was God before this, only confess it afterwards: for, as it seems
to me, one who denies some part in regard to God, denies Him altogether:
and one who does not confess that He ever existed, denies Him forever. Just
as you also, even if you were to admit that now in the heavens the Lord
Jesus Christ, who was born of the Virgin Mary, is God, would not truly
confess Him unless you admitted that He was always God. But indeed you do
not want in any point to change or vary your opinion. For you assert that
He whom you speak of as born a mere man, is still at the present time not
God. O novel and marvellous blasphemy, though with the heretics you assert
Him to be man, you do not with the heretics confess Him to be God!
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