|
I APPEAL then to you, to you yourself, I say. Tell me, I pray, if any
Jew or pagan denied the Creed of the Catholic faith, should you think that
we ought to listen to him? Most certainly not. What if a heretic or an
apostate does the same? Still less should we listen to him, for it is worse
for a man to forsake the truth which he has known, than to deny it without
ever having known it. We see then two men in you: a Catholic and an
apostate: first a Catholic, afterwards an apostate. Determine for yourself
which you think we ought to follow: for you cannot press the claims of the
one in yourself without condemning the other. Do you say then that it is
your former self which is to be condemned: and that you condemn the
Catholic Creed, and the confession and faith of all men? And what then? O
shameful deed! O wretched grief! What are you doing in the Catholic Church,
you preventer of Catholics? Why is it that you, who have denied the faith
of the people, are still polluting the meetings of the people: And above
all venture to stand at the altar, to mount the pulpit, and show your
impudent and treacherous face to God's people--to occupy the Bishop's
throne, to exercise the priesthood, to set yourself up as a teacher? To
teach the Christians what? Not to believe in Christ: to deny that He in
whose Divine temple they are, is God. And after all this, O folly! O
madness! you fancy that you are a teacher and a Bishop, while (O wretched
blindness) you are denying His Divinity, His Divinity (I repeat it) whose
priest you claim to be. But we are carried away by our grief. What then
says the Creed? or what did you yourself say in the Creed? Surely "the Lord
Jesus Christ, Very God of Very God; Being of one substance with the Father;
By whom the worlds were created and all things made:" and that this same
Person "for us came and was born of the Virgin Mary." Since then you said
that God was born of Mary, how can you deny that Mary was the mother of
God? Since you said that God came, how can you deny that He is God who has
come? You said in the Creed: "I believe in Jesus Christ the Son of God: I
believe in Very God of Very God, of one substance with the Father: who for
us came and was born of the Virgin Mary; and was crucified under Pontius
Pilate; and was buried." But now you say: "If we should say, I believe in
God the Word, the only Son of God, Begotten of the Father, of one
substance with the Father; who came and was buried, would not our ears be
shocked at the sound?" Do you see then how you are utterly destroying and
stamping out the whole faith of the Catholic Creed and the Catholic
mystery? "O Sin, O monstrosity, to be driven away," as one says, "to
the utmost parts of the earth:" for this is more truly said of you, that
you may forsooth go into that solitude where you will not be able to find
anyone to ruin. You think then that the faith of our salvation, and the
mystery of the Church's hope is a shock to your ears and hearing. And how
was it that formerly when you were hastening to be baptized, you heard
these mysteries with unharmed ears? How was it that when the teachers of
the church were in-strutting you your ears were not damaged? You certainly
at that time did your duty without any double shock to your mouth and ears;
when you repeated what you heard from others, and as the speaker yourself
heard yourself speaking. Where then were these injuries to your ears? Where
these shocks to your hearing? Why did you not contradict and cry out
against it? But indeed you are at your will and fancy, when you please, a
disciple; and when you please, the Church's enemy: when you please a
Catholic, and when you please an apostate. A worthy leader indeed, to draw
Churches after you, to whatever side you attach yourself; to make your will
the law of our life, and to change mankind as you yourself change, that, as
you will not be what all others are, they may be what you want! A
splendid authority indeed, that because you are not now what you used to
be, the world must cease to be what it formerly was!
|
|