De fide catholica

After the determination of the authorities and the refutation of the reasonings by which the heretics seem to confirm their error, let us turn our pen to the authorities and reasonings which are brought against them. For John says of Christ: All things were made through him (John 1). This totality either includes visible and invisible things together, or not; if not all, then either visible things only, or invisible things only, or some visible and some invisible — which they themselves do not grant. If invisible things only, why invisible rather than visible, since the multitude of visible things is greater than that of invisible ones, which rather pertain to the totality? Whence it follows: And without him nothing was made (ibid.) — that is, no thing was made without him.

Perhaps the heretics will say that by this word "nothing" is meant a corporeal thing which decays and tends toward nothingness; but many corporeal things neither decay nor tend toward nothingness, such as the sun and the other stars; and of the earth it is said that it stands forever. If they say that the stars vary in their rising and setting, in the waxing and waning of their light — by the same reasoning souls vary, and tend toward nothingness; for they change according to sorrow and joy, according to ignorance and knowledge, according to sin and righteousness.

By whatever reasoning, then, this word "nothing" designates everything corporeal because it is variable, by the same reasoning every spirit will be so designated, because it too is variable. Likewise in the same Gospel: He came unto his own, and his own received him not (ibid.). What is meant by "his own," except these visible and worldly things, into which Christ came through his assumed humanity? — things which are called Christ's own not so much by reason of possession as by reason of creation and authority. If they say they are Christ's own by reason of possession, then the devil's possession is also God's; for if they were created by the devil, they would rather be possessed by him than by God, and yet there is no partnership between Christ and Belial (II Cor. 6). Likewise in the same Gospel: He was in the world, and the world was made through him (John 1). Likewise in the apostolic Creed it is read: Creator of heaven and earth. Likewise Christ in the Gospel: Are not two sparrows sold for a penny, and not one of them falls to the ground without your Father? (Matth. 10.) What does it mean that a sparrow does not fall to the ground without your Father, except that the sparrow is under the power of God? Likewise in the Gospel it says that God clothes the lilies of the field (Matth. 6); what does it mean that God clothes the lilies of the field, except that he gives them their elegant nature, and thus that the nature of the lily is from God? Likewise the Apostle in the Epistle to the Colossians (ch. 1), speaking of Christ, says: In whom all things were created, visible and invisible. Likewise in the Epistle to the Hebrews (ch. 1): God, who at various times and in various ways spoke of old to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the ages. Likewise in the same Epistle, on the authority of David, it proves that God created heaven and earth, in this way: In the beginning, Lord, you founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands (Ps. 101). Likewise in the Acts of the Apostles (ch. 17), Paul says to the Athenians: This unknown God to whom you have built this altar, I proclaim to you: this is the God who made this world, and all things that are in it, in whom we live, and move, and have our being. In Luke (ch. 3) also, where the genealogy of Christ is traced, it is read: Who was the son of Seth, who was the son of Adam, who was the son of God. Adam is said to have been the son of God by reason of creation, and thus he was from God, and not from the devil. Likewise Christ in the Gospel says to the Jews: You have dishonored me, but my Father, of whom you say that he is your God, glorifies me (John 8). If, then, the Jews said that God the Father was their God, they did not believe the devil to be their God. Of these heretics, against whom we speak, the Apostle says to Timothy: The Spirit says that in the last times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created (I Tim. 4). Do not the aforesaid heretics depart from the faith in these last times — the faith, I say, which the universal Church holds? For they do not depart from the faith of the Jews — that faith, I say, they never had — nor from the faith of the Saracens, since they lack faith; therefore they depart from the faith of the Christians. These are they who give heed to the doctrines of demons, and, feigning themselves to be righteous, speak lies in hypocrisy. They themselves forbid marriage, since they condemn weddings; they themselves command abstinence from foods which God created. Likewise in Matthew the Lord is introduced speaking thus: He who made man from the beginning made them male and female (Matth. 19); and elsewhere: So God loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son (John 3). Paul also, in the Epistle to the Corinthians, says: God placed the members, each one of them, in the body as he willed (I Cor. 12). Likewise Peter: The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, has raised up his Son Jesus (Acts, ch. 3).