Scotus Academicus, Tomus primus: De Deo in se subsistente

To gratify the Roman Pontiff, Leo XIII, to whom the restoration of Scholastic Philosophy and Theology is supremely dear, publishers in very many places have again and again, in these most recent times, printed the works of those who have won a great name among the Scholastics; and some, setting aside the folio volumes, have entered upon such a manner of publishing that, by the smallness of the volume and at the same time the cheapness of the price, the reprinted works might be approved by all, with great benefit to scholastic doctrine.

The happy outcome of an attempt of this kind added incentives to us to publish in like manner certain works composed by Theologians of the Order of S. P. Francisci, whose very rare copies are eagerly sought after by learned men and are sold at the greatest price among booksellers. We have begun with the Summa Theologica excerpted from the works of Ven. Ioannes Duns Scotus by P. Hieronymus de Montefortino, a Theologian of the 18th century, which without doubt brings the greatest advantage to those who, devoting their attention to the most celebrated works of St. Thomas, desire without much labor to discern in what manner the same arguments are developed by the Angelic Doctor and by Ven. Ioannes Duns Scotus; thereafter, in order that the wisdom of the Subtle Doctor might be set in a clearer light and it might appear what is to be thought concerning certain questions, about which there has been dispute on both sides, we again make public this work of P. Claudius Frassen, Doctor of Paris of the 17th century.

There is no need for us to dwell at length upon the merits of this most illustrious Theologian; let the readers, of whatever school they may be, after they have reached the end of the work, pass judgment upon them. It is our part in this place to give the readers one or two admonitions concerning the present edition.

And in the first place we confess that time was lacking to us for comparing the authorities adduced with the original sources: time indeed was lacking, because as soon as we made the proposal public, we were pressed on every side for the new edition, so that it might be completed as quickly as possible. Now that by which our edition excels the three preceding ones — the Parisian of the year 1672, the Roman of the year 1721, and the Venetian of the year 1734 — is this: that ours truly is, and can be called, an edition corrected and augmented by the author himself. For P. Frassen himself had prepared a second edition, but, prevented by death, he could not carry out his proposal. Volumes II, III and IV of the first edition, already corrected and augmented by him, are religiously preserved in the National Library of Paris (5°, 16888); but volume I — alas! — it has not been granted to us to find, perhaps because it has wholly perished. From the same Library, el. P. Antonius de Serent, a son of the Province of Francia, transcribed for us the annotations and notes made by the hand of P. Frassen himself, for which we here give him very many thanks. For the studious we shall mark by the sign (*), in vol. IV and the following volumes, the places in which this edition differs from the rest.

May God grant that our labors and our not inconsiderable expenses may redound to His greater glory and to the advancement of catholic truth.

To you, studious Reader, I present the Academy of the Subtle Doctor, easily the Prince of Scholastic Theologians, celebrated throughout the whole world: an Academy in which, if my opinion does not deceive me, whatever of sublime and subtle wisdom has ever flowed from that most abundant Fountain of all the sciences, you will be able to sip with no difficulty, nay, even to drink in with a full breast.

For I have arranged all his theological dogmas, as far as the weakness of my talent allowed, according to the elegant teaching method of the Academy of Paris, so that in acquiring the doctrine of the Subtle Doctor himself no labor may seem to remain for you, nor should any annoyance of that pretended obscurity draw you back and retard you from its study.

Moreover, for undertaking so arduous a work, I had not one but many a spur. For in the first place, certain most renowned men of our Seraphic Order urged me to spend on the theological dogmas of the same Doctor the same labor I had given to setting in order and committing to the press a second time his philosophical dogmas; so that the younger students of both schools might be exempt from the burdensome weight of continual writing; lest their bodies, already almost broken by the harshness of food and clothing and by the other day and night austerities of our strict Seraphic Religion, should be utterly shattered under the yoke of writing so often repeated, and should turn away the soul panting to search the inmost recesses of sacred theology. For the body that is corrupted weighs down the soul and depresses the mind that meditates on many things.

Many outsiders, too, complained that among so many distinguished and most learned illustrators and interpreters of the Subtle Doctor, no one yet seemed to have come forth who had explained his arduous and subtle doctrine with such order, and with such clarity and richness, that neither brevity of words would blunt its subtlety, nor a confused and undigested variety of less useful matters mixed with necessary ones obscure the truth. Indeed (they said), almost every year many subtle lucubrations of various authors upon the Subtle Doctor come forth: but some are so compressed by compendious brevity that from this immense Ocean of Wisdom they bring forth only certain tiny drops to be sipped with the very edge of the lips; others overflow with so great an excess of words and futile matters, and explain Subtle Theology with so manifold and huge an apparatus of volumes, that a whole course of life scarcely suffices for turning them over. Hence they had it in their wishes that someone would at length some day come forth from the school of the Subtiles, who would explain the theological dogmas of the Subtle Doctor with such a method and such an order, that neither compendious brevity would make the mind hungry and empty, nor excessive prolixity make it fastidious and averse.

Nor were there lacking men conspicuous for piety and learning who spoke against the more recent writers, saying that they proposed to their readers a dry and lean theology, stocked, namely, with none of the oracles of the holy Fathers, enriched with no explanation of the celebrated ecclesiastical controversies, and finally strengthened by no testimony of the sacred Pages, or by one all too rare. Yet by these, as by solid and most firm foundations, an absolute and perfect theology is established. It seemed therefore to be wished that someone would write on the whole of theology in such a way that in the same work the students might have what to propose subtly and lay up on their benches, what, speaking holy words to the people, to proclaim from the fertile storehouse of the holy Fathers concerning every theological truth from their chairs, and with what, finally, to refresh and recreate abundantly, in friendly converse, the lover of Ecclesiastical History. A great work indeed, and one to be celebrated with eternal memory, if it should find an Author worthy of it! But what mortal could fully suffice for so immense a labor?

I am not, then, the man who thinks myself to be held equal to fulfilling so great a charge. But since in arduous matters it is enough to have attempted, and to have gone before others in every great undertaking, even at the cost of one's life, is glorious, no one ought to wonder if, though conscious of my own weakness, I have nevertheless judged that so great a labor should be sketched out, to be completed in all its numbers by another, if God should ever grant it. For to this one end all my labor aims: that, made all things to all men, at least in part, I might draw out and set forth to our students of theology not only that theology which they call Scholastic, from the very storehouse of the Subtle Doctor, but also set forth and explain that which they call Positive, made whole out of the very oracles of the sacred Scriptures, the Councils, and the holy Fathers, as the opportunity of the matter allows; and whether I have in some measure attained this, you, Reader, will yourself judge in the course of this work.

I wish to warn you of one or two things of my own accord: namely, that in writing I take the middle way — not, that is, with a fuller pen, as some, nor with a stricter one, as all others, although with equal learning and ingenuity alike; for this was my plan in the undertaking of this work, that I should neither hand over to beginners a compendious and meager science, nor set before the learned and expert one diffuse and nauseating to the point of disgust. Wherefore I gladly leave to others the task of transcribing the long series of opinions and of approving the reasons on which they rest: for that custom of certain men seems to me in no way to be approved, who, while they sometimes embrace the same assertion as others, nevertheless attack and reject their reasons as weak and feeble, only to establish at length their own, frequently much weaker than those which they rejected: by which means they leave all things doubtful and uncertain, and the sciences which they had undertaken to adorn or explain go to ruin.

But since in defending the opinion of the Subtle Doctor I am wholly devoted in spirit, it will be necessary, I confess, often to depart from the mind of the truly Angelic Doctor, and sometimes to attack his doctrine and his interpreters; yet injury in word will always be far absent, and this will be sacred to me, that mutual contention over attaining the truth may not loosen the strict bond of fraternal charity, by which the Angelic Dominicans are joined with the Seraphic Franciscans in an everlasting covenant.

Although, however, I have given all care that anyone may read my writings more easily than understand them, I do not deny, nevertheless, that perhaps some things will seem to some so abstruse, that they will labor a little in grasping their sense; to whom, with St. Augustine, Book I. De Trinitate, I reply:

Whoever, then, when he reads, says: this is not well said, because I do not understand; let him blame my manner of speech, not my faith: and perhaps it could have been said more plainly: yet no man has so spoken, that he was understood in all things by all men. Let him, therefore, to whom this in my discourse is displeasing, see whether he understands others versed in such matters and questions, when he does not understand me, and let him rather spend his labor and time on those whom he has understood. Let him not, however, on that account think that I ought to have kept silence, because I could not speak as readily and clearly as those whom he understood. For not all things that are written by all men come into the hands of all men; and it can happen that some, who are even able to understand these things of ours, do not find those plainer books and at least fall upon these. Therefore it is useful that many books be made by many men in diverse style, not in diverse faith, even on the same questions, so that the matter itself may reach the very many — reaching some in this way, others in that.

But if that man who complains that he has not so understood me could never understand anything diligently and acutely disputed on such matters, let him deal with himself by vows and studies that he may make progress, not with me by complaints or reproaches that I may be silent.

Moreover, if anything (which God forbid) should slip out in the course of this work less consonant with the doctrine of the holy Roman Church and the judgment of the sacred Faculty of Paris, I wish it all to be expunged and retracted from my heart.

Who attacked the Catholic and theological truths in whatever age.

I think it will not be unwelcome to the students and readers of this theological labor and work of ours to set forth from the very threshold the several centuries of heresies by which the Church has always been harassed and Catholic truth attacked: for from this it will be evident on how firm and how stable a support of faith the theological dogmas rest, which, assailed by so many pestilent enemies, have stood unchanged and unshaken.

I am not unaware that the enumeration of these nefarious sects does not please certain wise and pious men, especially those which have either already become obsolete through age or are defiled with remarkable foulness and filth; for such a recollection is not only harmful but for the most part deadly: while by the allurements of obscene pleasure it partly entices the incautious, and partly drenches the unwilling and resistant with a certain breath and odor of turpitude.

But those who refuse to consign the pestiferous dogmas of heresies to writing, and to commit the hidden mysteries of iniquity to texts, seem, in their opinion, to deprive truth of its highest and singular patronage: for they wrench away that by which the recrudescent and relapsing sects of lies could be most vigorously repelled and overturned by us.

For whoever has learned from sure testimonies of the ancients that those nefarious opinions which are newly thrust forward were already attacked and repudiated by the ancient Fathers and Councils and by the public consent of Christians, will without difficulty be persuaded that they must be destroyed and eliminated as rising monsters by every art and force.

It were to be wished, I confess, that those heresies infamous for turpitude should be buried, and utterly fall from the memory of men. But since at fixed intervals of time the same hydra, so often cut off and slaughtered, revives — and that especially in our age, in which almost all Europe mourns the loss of faith through the pestilence of Calvinist and Lutheran error raging everywhere, into which, as into the bilge of the whole world, the flood of old and recent sects has flowed together — who would not judge it necessary, against the danger of a renewed disease, to prepare the ancient and sure remedies, and to mark the origin and outcome of the lethal illness, so that in others it may be more easily and safely either guarded against or cured?

Yet it is not my intention in weaving this index of heresies, while relating their venomous and nefarious dogmas, to set forth here also their refutation as an antidote; for that will be done more advisedly in the course of our work.

But I undertake to sketch only a brief chronology of those men of darkness, selected from the holy Fathers — chiefly Augustine, Epiphanius, and Irenaeus — and from trustworthy historians, so that every prudent reader, in traversing our theological work, may see from the very threshold which quicksands to avoid and which rocks to shun.

I warn moreover that in weaving this index the period of years in which each of the heresiarchs taught has not been kept so accurately: for since the sacred chronologists vary in this matter, it can happen that one who began to be written first occupies a later place in this index: for we have sought to record the errors rather than the age of the erring, following the custom of the aforementioned holy Fathers.

What heresies existed before the nativity of Christ the Lord.

St. Epiphanius affirms, in book 1, adversus haereses, cap. 5, that before the undertaking of the building of the Babylonian tower and the confusion and division of human speech, no heresy had arisen. None, he says, at that time was there a heresy, no disagreement of opinions, since all were reckoned under the single appellation of man, endowed with one lip and one tongue. Moreover, piety and impiety were defined only by the law of nature, or by each one's will accommodated to nature, and error had not yet emerged, whether acquired by discipline or handed down in the monument of writings. True Judaism, therefore, and no other sect, came forth; but, so to speak, that faith prevailed which today perseveres as the holy and Catholic faith in the Church of God, which, since it had flourished from the very beginnings of things, was afterwards revealed anew.

From this it is clear that the twenty heresies which St. Epiphanius enumerates and attacks in the same book before the coming of Christ, and which he reduces to four heads — namely Barbarism, Scythism, Hellenism or Graecism, Judaism, and Samaritanism — are to be called not so much heresies as various contentions and opinions about truth or religion.

I. Barbarism, he says in Epistola ad Acacium, persevered from Adam through ten generations and to the times of Noah. This is called Barbarism for this reason: that those most ancient of mortals had no author of things, nor did they agree among themselves; but each one ordered his life according to his own will, and each set before himself his own nature and judgment as law.

II. Scythism prevailed from the times of Noah up to the building of the Tower and of Babylon, and for a few more years after the tower, that is, up to Phaleg and Rhagau, who, crossing over to Europe, penetrated into Scythia and nations of that kind from the times of Thare and beyond, from whom the Thracians trace their origin.

III. Hellenism began in the times of Seruch; from there the worship of idols had its beginning. And since at that time each person was led by a false superstition, men thereafter turned to a more civilized use, to fixed laws, and to the rites of images. According to their prescription they fashioned gods for themselves. And first they used to paint in colors and liken those whom they had held in some honor — whether tyrants or magicians, who had done something memorable in life and given a distinguished specimen of courage and strength; but afterwards, from the time of Thare, the father of Abraham, they propagated the same error of idolatry with images and statues. For indeed, honoring their ancestors with images, and the dead, they first fashioned statues by the potter's art; then the industry of imitating reached all the arts. For architects with hewn stones, silversmiths and goldsmiths, and also craftsmen each with his own material, and the rest thereafter, produced likenesses. First of all, the Egyptians and Babylonians, and also the Phrygians and Phoenicians, were the authors of superstitious worship and of images and mysteries. From them most things were transferred to the Greeks.

Already then from the age of Cecrops and thereafter, but only later after a long interval, they began to celebrate Saturn, Rhea, Jupiter, Apollo, and the rest of the gods.

Hellenism is again divided into four sects, namely the Pythagoreans, the Platonists (from whom the Peripatetics arose), the Stoics, and the Epicureans — a division which is also that of Clement of Alexandria.

IV. The Samaritans had a religion mixed from Judaism and Gentilism, and were divided into four sects on account of the diversity of their feasts. These are: the Gorotheni, the Sebuaei, the Esseni, and the Dosithei; Tertullian also makes mention of these.

Why Epiphanius ascribed the Essenes to the Samaritans, scarcely anyone expert can divine. For the explanation which may occur — that there was a certain kind of Essenes different from those well-known and holier ones — I for my part would approve, if among Philo or Josephus, who wrote most accurately about the kinds, institutions, and customs of the Essenes, any trace of those new and later ones existed. Now since neither they nor anyone else has even lightly signified that the Essenes had anything in common with the Samaritans, and since the Essenes are numbered by Josephus among the sects of the Jews, it appears first that there was no sect of Essenes among the Samaritans, and that Epiphanius understood no other kind of Essenes to ascribe to the Samaritans than that most famous and most praised one, whose institutions Philo and Josephus wrote out most abundantly. Although he afterwards mentions the Ossenes among the Jewish sects, who seem to be the same as the Essenes.

V. The sects of the Jews were seven in number, and the first were the Scribes, skilled in the law and observers of the traditions, which, received from their ancestors, they called παραδόσεις; and they kept all the rites more superstitiously and more diligently than the rest, rites which they had not learned from the law but had imposed upon themselves as special cults and ceremonies of the justice of the law.

The Pharisees — whom one might interpret as "the separated," who, professing a most holy manner of life, seemed to surpass the rest in uprightness — among them the resurrection of the dead is defended, as also among the Scribes. The same do not deny that Angels and the Holy Spirit exist. They display an outstanding institution of life. They undertake continence for a fixed time, and also virginity. They were accustomed to fast twice every week, and to wash their pitchers, dishes, and cups more often, as also the Scribes did. In addition, to bring tithes and first-fruits, to pray assiduously; to affect certain cults and superstitious kinds of garments with more curiosity: of which sort are dalmatics and colobia, and certain broader phylacteries, that is, purple segments and fringes, and pomegranates hung at the hems of garments, which they bore as signs of that temporary continence. Finally, the same introduced nativities and fate.

The Sadducees have their name from most exact justice. They had their origin from the race of the Samaritans, from a certain priest named Sadoc. 1. They condemn the resurrection of the dead. 2. They deny angels and spirit utterly; in the rest they are like the Jews. But it must be observed that there were two Sadocs: one who lived in the age of David and Solomon, and another who was a disciple of Antigonus, as Rabbi Elias affirms in the Thisbi; and this latter, falling away from the institutions of his teacher and from the sacred institutions, gave origin to the sect of the Sadducees; although perhaps the Sadducees would prefer to profess themselves descended from that first and most ancient Pontiff rather than from this later renegade.

The Hemerobaptists differed from the Jews in nothing except this one thing: that they said no one could attain eternal life unless he washed himself daily.

The Ossenes, whose name signifies "the most insolent," did all things according to the prescription of the law, but besides they used other Scriptures, and rejected most of the later prophets.

The Nazaraeans — whom you could interpret as "keepers" — 1. forbid the use of flesh entirely, 2. abstain from animate things, 3. adopt all the Patriarchs who are contained in the Pentateuch up to the times of Moses and Joshua the son of Nun, and give faith to them, such as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all those superior to them, as well as Moses himself with Aaron and Joshua. Moreover, they do not think those five volumes are of Moses, and they boast that they have other books different from them.

The Herodians, while they showed themselves Jews in all things, professed that Herod was the Christ, and ascribed to him the dignity and name of Christ. Thus St. Epiphanius in the cited place.

But it must be known, says Tostatus on ch. 23 of Matthew, q. 22, that although Scribes and Pharisees are here placed as distinct, they are not however distinguished from each other as a Pharisee and a Sadducee are, or as opposites — because no Pharisee is a Sadducee, nor conversely, since they were disparate and as it were opposite sects; but they are distinguished as a Grammarian and a Dialectician are, because although being a Grammarian is one thing and being a Dialectician another, yet the same man can be both Grammarian and Dialectician. So also, although being a Scribe is one thing and being a Pharisee another — for to be a Scribe is to be wise in the law, while to be a Pharisee was to have a certain manner of life and a sect — yet it happens that the same man is both Pharisee and Scribe, that is, learned in the law.

Hence Maldonatus, on ch. 2 of Matthew, teaches that the Scribes were properly public notaries, whose office was twofold: one of drawing up public instruments, the other of interpreting the sacred Scriptures and defending them from corruption.

About the year of Christ 30, Theudas the Jew appeared, of whom mention is made in Acts 5; he boasted himself a prophet, and affirmed that by his word he could divide and hold back the Jordan; a number of about four hundred men had adhered to him; but when he had been killed, all who believed in him were scattered and brought to nothing. After him arose Judas the Galilean, teaching that all the magistrates of the Jews must be abolished, and that God alone must be held as sole Lord and king, as is noted in the same place, and also in Josephus, book 3 of Belli Iudaici.

Heresiarchs of the first century.

The first of all the heresies (says St. Epiphanius) which came forth from the time of Christ to this age, Simon Magus stood as prince, about the year of Christ 1, of whom mention is made in Acts 8; baptized by Philip, seeing that the Holy Spirit was given through the imposition of the Apostles' hands, he offered them money, so that he might receive that same power of conferring the Holy Spirit; having suffered rejection from them, he gave himself wholly to magical arts, and with the help of demons deceived many; for he taught that he was God, who appeared in Samaria as the Father, in Judea as the Son, among the Gentiles as the Holy Spirit, and he affirmed that God had not made this world, denied the resurrection of the flesh, and, since he was by nature more inclined to lust, urged that women be used indifferently. Hence, having obtained a certain wandering little woman, a Tyrian by country, named Helen, he joined her to himself; while pretending publicly to have no intercourse with her, he secretly wallowed in every kind of lust. Moreover he fabulated that his harlot was the Holy Spirit, who, having slipped down from heaven to earth to overcome the Angelic Princes who had made the world, had been bound in flesh by them, and for this reason had put on various forms in the succession of times; for he affirmed that she was the same Helen for whose cause the war blazed between the Greeks and the Trojans; he likewise called her Minerva and the Wisdom of God, and also the wandering sheep, to seek which and lead it back to heaven he, as the good Shepherd, had come down to earth. Hence he offered to his disciples his own image under the likeness of Jupiter, and Helen's under the figure of Minerva, to be adored; these he had also caused to be set up at Rome, by public authority, as images of gods between the two Tiberine bridges, with this inscription: To Simon the holy God. But when, with the help of demons, he had attempted to fly into the heavens to deceive the Romans, in order to prove himself the true God, he was thrown headlong to the ground by the Apostle St. Peter.

The Pseudo-apostles so received the Gospel of Christ that meanwhile they contended the observance of the law to be necessary for salvation. Against these the first Council of the Apostles was held at Jerusalem, Acts 15. In their number perhaps were those Thebuteni, Cleobiani, Dositheani, Gorotheni, and Masbothei, of whom Nicephorus from Hegesippus.

The Nicolaitans, of whom Apocalypse 2, are named from Nicolas, one, as is reported (says St. Augustine), of those seven whom the Apostles ordained as Deacons. He, when he was blamed for zeal for his most beautiful wife, is said to have permitted, as if for the purpose of clearing himself, that whoever wished should use her; which deed of his was turned into a most shameful sect, in which the indifferent use of women is approved. Hence they taught that it was lawful to fornicate, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and that the world was not made by God but by certain Princes, whom they expressed with horrible and barbarous names, with which they might strike terror into their hearers, namely Ialdabaoth, Chaulcaucuch, etc. Yet I can scarcely be brought to believe that the prince of this most shameful sect was one of those seven Deacons, since these are read to have been filled with the Holy Spirit and of blameless life and μαρτυρουμένους. Wherefore I would not unreasonably believe that this foulest error was disseminated by another Nicolas.

Alexander, Hymenaeus, and Philetus had fallen away from the faith, teaching that there is no resurrection, and attempting to bring back the Mosaic ceremonies. Concerning these, see 1 Timoth. 1.

Hermogenes, and Phygellus with the Asians were schismatics. 2 Timoth. 1.

Menander, from whom the Menandrians, was the disciple and successor of Simon Magus, who, says St. Epiphanius, used to say that he was the power of God sent from the heavens for the salvation of the human race, in order to subject to his own dominion the Angelic virtues, the makers of the world. The rest, in agreement with his master and teacher, he wove together with the same prestiges and malefices, nor did he dissent from his dogma, except that he boasted himself greater than he, inasmuch as he had subjected even his own preceptor to himself. St. Linus the Bishop excommunicated these heretics and separated them from the bosom of the Church, teaching, according to the sacred Scriptures of the Old Testament, that God is the Creator of all things, and that nothing is blameworthy from its own nature; for whoever are blamed are blamed by act, not by condition.

The Cerinthians from Cerinthus, or the Merinthians from Merinthus, said 1. that the world was made by angels. 2. that circumcision was to be performed. 3. that the Old Testament was to be kept according to the letter. 4. that Iesus was only a man, and that he had not risen, but was still to rise again. 5. that a thousand years were to come after the conflagration of the world and the judgment, in which the elect would reign with Christus, giving themselves to every lust and bodily pleasure. These S. Paulus condemned in the Epist. ad Galatas.

The Nazarenes confess Christus indeed to be the Messiah and the Son of God, but they assert that together with the evangelical law the Mosaic law must also be kept in all things. When S. Paulus found them in Galatia, he anathematized them.

The Ebionites, from Ebion, assert that the Lord Christus was a mere man, and lay down that the commandments of the law must be kept in the Jewish manner. S. Lucas, finding them at the Church of Antioch, condemned them.

The Basilidians, from Basilides, differed from the Simonians in this: 1. that they asserted three hundred and sixty-five heavens, so that by their number the number of days would make up the year. Hence they also called God, the maker of these heavens, Abraxas, because the letters of this name, according to Greek reckoning, complete the same number: for they are seven in number, of which Α signifies one, and Β two, and Ρ one hundred, and Α one, and Ξ sixty, and Α one, and Σ two hundred, which in sum constitute three hundred and sixty-five. 2. They affirmed that this world and man were made not by God, but by the three hundred and sixty-fifth heaven. 3. That the Lord Christus was not crucified by the Jews, but that in his place Simon of Cyrene, who had been the helper of Christus in carrying the Cross, was nailed up. The Church, counting them as Energumens, condemned them not by disputing, but by casting them out.

Heresiarchs of the second century.

The Saturninians, from a certain Saturninus, a disciple of Menander, who 1. is said to have carried the Simonian turpitude into Syria and to have confirmed it. 2. He asserted that the world was founded without the knowledge of God the Father by seven angels who had revolted from a superior power, who, coming together, fashioned man to the likeness of that supreme power, at whose beauty, shining upon them, they had been exceedingly delighted. But when on account of their weakness they could not complete their work, and man, already conceived, subsisted and crawled like a worm, and could neither raise himself up nor undertake anything, that heavenly power, foreseeing this and regarding its imperfect image, sent into him a spark of its own life, by which it both raised him up and imparted life to him. 3. They affirmed that one of those angels, who had likewise revolted from his power, was the God of the Jews; wherefore, by the common power and counsel, Saturninus himself, the Savior, had been sent by God the Father, so that he might reduce the God of the Jews to order and bring salvation to those who would believe in him. 4. He pronounced that marriages were to be banished as an institution of demons. 5. That one must abstain from the eating of animals and of any living things, so that, the earthly part of man failing the more easily, the heavenly spark which is in it might fly upward. 6. He said that some prophecies were from the Devil, others from the angels, the makers of the world, to whom Satan himself, and especially the God of the Jews, resists.

Carpocrates, the coryphaeus of the Gnostics, most skilled in Platonic philosophy but most ignorant of true theology, taught 1. that the world was not made by God. 2. that Christus was a mere man, born of Iosephus and Maria, and that other men too were equal to or superior to Christus. 3. that nothing is evil by nature, but by opinion. 4. that evil angels are appeased by sins and by the shameful life of men. 5. that wives ought to be common. 6. that souls are from time to time cast into other bodies, so that they may sin more; finally, that these mysteries must be kept hidden. From this seducer the Carpocratians have their origin: horrible are the things that S. Epiphanius writes about their nefarious turpitude and impurities, which it shames one to transcribe here.

The Valentinians, from Valentinus, who invented many fabulous things about the nature of things. Asserting that there were thirty Aeons, that is, ages, whose principle was the Depth and the Silence, which Depth he also calls the Father. From these two, as from a marriage, he relates that the Intellect and Truth proceeded, and brought forth eight Aeons in honor of the Father. From the Intellect and Truth, moreover, proceeded the Word and Life, and brought forth ten Aeons. Further, from the Word and Life proceeded Man and the Church, and brought forth twelve Aeons. And so from eight and ten and twelve there are made thirty Aeons, having, as we have said, their first principle from the Depth and the Silence. He says that Christus, sent by the Father, that is, from the Depth, brought with him a spiritual or heavenly body, and took nothing from the Virgin Maria, but passed through her as through a stream or a pipe, without taking any flesh from her. Of the thirtieth age he says the Devil was born, and from the Devil others were born who made this world. And therefore he attributes malice not to free choice, but to the nature of the world, that is, to the diabolical race: he denies the resurrection of the flesh, affirming that only the soul and the spirit receive salvation through Christus. Tertullianus attacked these, and Zachaeus, Bishop of Caesarea, anathematized them.

Secundus, from whom the Secundians have their name, was the primary disciple of Valentinus and the successor of his school; in Egypt he devised a new syzygy of the Aeons, divided the syzygies of the master more ingeniously, and established that the Aeons were substances, whereas the master held them to be only bare affections of the divine mind. Diodorus, Bishop of Crete, condemned him.

The successor of Secundus was Ptolemaeus, who distinguished the Aeons otherwise than Valentinus or Secundus. Heracleo was a contemporary of Ptolemaeus, whose authority was great in the Valentinian school. He too retained the Aeons, and said that man consists of a threefold nature, not indeed merely of soul and body: he anointed the dying with balsam oil and water, so that they might be redeemed from eternal death.

Heracleon was succeeded in the school of Valentinus by Marcus, from whom the Marcites are named. This Marcus had a familiar demon: he deceived the minds of men with magical tricks and abused bodies for lewdness; he set up two principles of things contrary to each other. St. Clemens, Bishop of Rome and most worthy martyr of Christus, refuting him with firm and complete assertions and exposing him before all the people in the Church, punished him with eternal damnation.

Colarbasus, from whom the Colarbasians, affirmed that the whole life of men is placed in seven stars: and he tried to establish that these are the seven Churches and the seven golden candlesticks. He said that the one God is called by diverse names: he taught that Christus is composed of thirty Aeons: he separated Iesus from Christus. St. Theodorus, Bishop of Pergamum, having held a Synod, anathematized him, teaching that the seven Churches are consecrated in the sevenfold Spirit.

The Ophites are named from the Serpent, for the serpent is called ophis in Greek; they think that this serpent (the serpent that deceived Adam and Eve) is Christus, but they also have a real serpent which they feed and venerate, and which, when the Priest chants his incantation, comes out of the cave and climbs upon the altar leaning against the cave, and licks their offerings, and winding itself around them returns to the cave; and so they break the offerings into the Eucharist as if sanctified by the serpent Christus, as they suppose. They report that the worship of this serpent was handed down to these from the Nicolaitans, or Gnostics. Here St. Augustine. Theocritus and Evander, Bishops of Chalcedon and Nicomedia, attacked and vanquished these, who drove out their priests and killed their serpents, and with the most effective arguments delivered the people from this nefarious error.

The Cainites are so called for this reason, because they honor Cain, saying that he is of most powerful virtue: at the same time they think that Iudas the traitor is something divine, and reckon his crime a benefit, asserting that he foreknew how much the passion of Christus would profit the human race, and that therefore he handed him over to the Jews to be put to death: they are also said to venerate those who, making a schism in the first people of God, perished when the earth opened — Chore, Dathan, and Abiron — and the Sodomites. They blaspheme the law and God the Author of the law, and deny the resurrection of the flesh.

The Sethians took their name from the son of Adam who is called Seth: him indeed they honor, but with fabulous and heretical vanity; for they say that he was born of a supernal mother, whom they relate to have consorted with the supernal Father, whence another divine seed might be born, as it were of the sons of God. These also babble many most vain things about principalities and powers: some say that they think Sem, the son of Noe, to be Christus. St. Peregrinus, Bishop of the city of Argus, condemned these, who arose in Achaia, showing them that from one holy, true, and just Isaac two twins were born, brought forth together from one womb: that the one penetrated to the higher things of divine grace, the other descended to the lower things of hell. One therefore of the two, he says, either they are sons of an evil nature, and both, for the very fact that they were born, are to be condemned, or they are of a good nature, and according to the quality of their deed, blessing justly crowned the one, and curse condemned the other.

From these were born the Antitactae, who with as great an effort of mind as they could opposed the precepts of God. Further, the Peratae imagined Christus as three-bodied, and the world as twofold.

The Abelians or Abeloites, who flourished even in the time of St. Augustine, as he himself writes in Haeresi 87, did not have intercourse with their wives, and yet by the dogma of that sect it was not permitted to them to live without wives. Men therefore and women, dwelling together under a profession of continence, adopted for themselves a boy and a girl, who by the compact of the same union would be their future successors; as each one was cut off by death, others were substituted, provided only that two of different sex succeeded to the fellowship of that house. For when either parent died, with one remaining, the children served until his death as well. After whose death they themselves likewise adopted a boy and a girl.

The Archontics took their name from the princes. For they boast that they worship divine princes, whom they say founded this world. St. Dioscorus, Bishop of Crete, condemned these, teaching that the one and true God can by no means be divided at all into substantial parts.

The Marcionists, from Marcion, who affirms that there were two principles, of good and of evil, whom Epiphanius said taught three principles, of the good, the just, and the wicked. But Eusebius writes that a certain Syrinus, not Marcion, was the author of the three principles and natures. The Marcionists, when they were staining the whole Church of the East, were overcome and refuted by Origenes, and were condemned in each of the cities. Likewise, after some years, already vanquished and exposed, they sprouted up in the African regions, whom Tertullianus so prevailed over in every way that they ceased to preach publicly against their own sect.

The Apellites, from Apelles, who indeed introduces two Gods, but confesses one principle, that is, the good, and that the other was made by it, that is, that by that one principle the other was made. When it was found to be evil, it was cast off by the good. And cast off by the good principle, this principle, which worked malice against the will of the good principle, in its malice made the world. Hence it is that by nature we are more ready for evil than for good, and we take more delight, he says, in vices than in virtues. Moreover, they assert that our Lord Iesus Christus took flesh from the elements, which he gave back to the air when he ascended, and entered Heaven without it. Origenes so perfectly overcame these that for their sake he became a wanderer, and going through each and every city throughout the East, he preached.

The Cerdonians, from Cerdon, who dogmatized two principles opposed to each other, and that the God of the law and of the Prophets is not the Father of Christus, nor is God good, but just. But that the Father of Christus is good, and that Christus himself was neither born of a woman, nor had flesh, nor truly died or suffered anything, but feigned the passion. Against him St. Apollonius, Bishop of the Corinthians, rose up, and condemned him with the whole Eastern Synod.

The Severians, from Severus, do not drink wine, because with fabulous vanity they assert that the earth sprouted the vine from the seed of Satan. They also reject the resurrection of the flesh together with the Old Testament. St. Euphranon, Bishop of Rhodes, condemned these; for their superstition arose at Rhodes, and he convicted them by the reasoning of the holy Scriptures, in which it is read that God brings forth bread from the earth to strengthen the heart of man, and wine to gladden it. And that it is not the necessary use of wine, but excess, the enemy of health, that is to be blamed.

The Tatians, from Tatian, who are also called Encratites. They condemn marriages, and make them altogether equal to fornications and other corruptions, and they do not receive into their number anyone, male or female, who uses marriage. They do not eat flesh, and altogether abominate it. Against these rose St. Epiphanius, Bishop of Ancyra of Galatia, objecting to them the first Epistle of Paulus the Apostle to Timothy, and saying that they have a seared conscience, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by the faithful, and by those who have known the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected that is received with thanksgiving.

The Cataphrygians around the year 172 obtained their name from the province of Phrygia, not from a dogma. Their authors were Montanus, as a Paraclete and leader, and his pseudo-prophetesses Prisca, and Maximilla. St. Hieronymus transcribes his errors in Epist. 41. ad Marcellam:

We (he says) place the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit each in his own person, although we join them in substance. They, following the dogmas of Sabellius, force the Trinity into the narrows of a single person. They think repeated marriages so criminal that whoever has done this is held an adulterer. They make three Lents in the year, as if three Saviors had suffered. Among us the Bishops hold the place of the Apostles; among them the Bishop is third. For they have from Pepusa of Phrygia secondary Patriarchs, whom they call Cenones, and so they are reduced to the third, that is, to the last place, the Bishop, as if religion became the more ambitious from this, if what is first among us is last among them. They shut the doors of the Church against every sin deserving punishment; we read daily: I prefer the repentance of a sinner to death. They are rigid, not because they themselves do not commit worse sins; but this is the difference between us and them, that they blush to confess their sins as if righteous; we, while we do penance, more easily merit forgiveness. I pass over the criminal mysteries which are said to have been devised about a suckling child and about a martyr that shall live; I prefer, I say, not to believe, if all that is of blood is false; the blasphemy of those who say that God first willed in the old Testament through Moyses and the Prophets to save the world, but because he could not accomplish it, took a Body from the Virgin, and in Christus, preaching under the appearance of the Son, underwent death for us, and because he could not save the world through two steps, at last descended through the Holy Spirit into Montanus, Prisca and Maximilla, mad women, and that the mutilated and half-dead Montanus had the fullness which Paulus did not have, saying: We know in part, and we prophesy in part, and now we see through a mirror and in an enigma is openly to be refuted.

Yet St. Augustine adds that the Montanists, from the blood of a one-year-old infant, which they extort from his whole body through the tiny wounds of punctures, as it were make their Eucharist, mixing it with flour and making bread from it; and if the boy has died, he is held among them as a martyr; but if he has lived, as a great Priest. They were condemned by the Supreme Pontiffs Zephyrinus and Anicetus, as Tertullianus writes in book contra Psychicos cap. 1, who, although at the beginning he had fought against Montanus as a heretic, afterwards, allured and deceived by his austere and rigid manner of living, miserably slipped into his party, and undertook to defend it against the condemnation of the Church.

The Pepuzians, who are named from a certain place which Epiphanius calls the deserted City. Thinking this to be something divine, they call it Jerusalem; they give so much preeminence to women that they are also honored among them with the priesthood. For they say that the two Churches, of Quintilla and Priscilla, are in the same City of Pepuza. They seem to be one with the Cataphrygians. But they hold them in contempt, because these Pepuzians think themselves better than the rest. For they say that this Pepuza was the estate of Montanus, Prisca, and Maximilla, and because they began to preach there and lived there, therefore the place is called Jerusalem. And because they are inhabitants of the place, therefore they ascribe that they are in reality better than the rest. Apollonius, Bishop of the Ephesians, overcame these.

The Artotyrites are called by this name from their offering. For they offer bread and cheese, saying that the first men therefore celebrated offerings from the fruits of the earth and of sheep. Epiphanius joins these to the Pepuzians, against whom no one deigned even to speak.

The Quarto-decimans, otherwise called Tessaresdecatitae, because they celebrate Easter on the fourteenth moon, on whatever day of the week it occurs. And if the Lord's day falls on it, they fast and keep vigil on that very day. Victor the Roman condemned these.

The Alogi are so called because they are unwilling to accept that the Word of God is the Son, so much so that they say the Gospel of St. Ioannes is not his. Nor do they accept the Apocalypse of the same Ioannes. Why many words? They execrate the Word of God, the Son of God, utterly as a blasphemy. Philo, Bishop, often overcame these.

The Adamians took their name from Adam, whose nudity in Paradise they imitate, as it was before sin. Hence they also shun marriages, because he did not know his wife before he was sent out of Paradise. They believe therefore that there would have been no marriages if no one had sinned. And so men and women gather naked, naked they hear the readings, naked they pray, naked they celebrate the sacraments. And from this they think their Church is Paradise. St. Polycarp, a Presbyter, exposed these, overcame them, and drove them out.

The Helcesaites. A certain pseudo-prophet by the name of Helchi deceived these; two women of his family are reported to have been adored by them as Goddesses. In the rest, they are asserted by Epiphanius to hold things similar to Ebion. Papias, a Presbyter of Achaia, overcame these.

The Theodotians, instituted by a certain Theodotus, asserting that Christus was only a man, not the Son of God. The same Theodotus is said to have taught this for this reason, because, having lapsed in persecution, he thought in this way to avoid the reproach of his fall, if he seemed to have denied not God, but a man. Crato, Bishop of the Syrians, overcame these.

The Melchisedechians think that Melchisedec, the Priest of the most high God, was not a man, but is a power of God, following that passage of the Apostle to the Hebrews in which he says, chapter 7. verse 3: Without father, without mother, without genealogy. Dionysius, Bishop of Jerusalem, met these, saying that he had both a father and a mother, and that the Apostle said this for this reason, because neither his genealogy nor his maternal or paternal lineage was contained in that order in which the genealogies of the Hebrews are written.

The Bardesanites, perverted by a certain Bardesanes, who is said to have been a perfect Catholic, but afterwards to have fallen into this through a disciple of Valentinus, so that he called the human flesh an evil creature, and the soul good. Theocritus, a Bishop, condemned him in Cappadocia, teaching that the good God made both, joined both, and that it is not the nature but the transgression of the human flesh that is to be blamed.

The Noetians say that Christus is the same as the Father and the Holy Spirit, not in substance, as we say, but in person, so that the Holy Spirit is said putatively, not truthfully. These were condemned by Tranquillus, Bishop of the Chalcedonians of Syria.

The Valesii, wretched men, castrate both themselves and their guests. In this way they say that this is fulfilled, Math. 19: There are eunuchs who have castrated themselves for the Kingdom of Heaven. They are also said to assert other heretical and shameful things; but because such they are, neither does Epiphanius himself mention them, nor could I anywhere find them (says St. Augustine). These were condemned by the Synod of Achaia.

The Cathari most proudly called themselves by this name, that is, pure and free from the stain of sin. They did not admit second marriages. They denied penance. They followed the heretic Novatian, who, while he was a priest of the city of Rome, attempted to seize the pontifical chair against Cornelius, as Cornelius himself writes to Flavianus, Bishop of the Church of Antioch; and when he could not accomplish this, he first fabricated a schism, and finally a heresy.

The Angelici are so named because they teach that angels ought to be adored and worshipped in mind, and that prayers should be poured out to them, so that those whom they know to be able to do more than themselves may come to the aid of men's vows and petitions. Epiphanius testifies that these have now entirely failed, being vanquished by Theophilus, Bishop of Apamea.

The Apostolici, who most arrogantly called themselves by this name, because they would not receive into their communion those using wives and possessing their own property, such as the Catholic Church has, nor monks, nor very many clerics. But these are heretics for this reason, that, separating themselves from the Church, they think that those who use these things, which they themselves lack, have no hope. These are similar to the Encratites, for they are also called Apotacticae. These are the words of St. Augustine.

The Sabellians, from Sabellius, taught that there is a single person in God, and that the same one is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These are those who are also called Praxeans, who in their beginnings had a certain Doctor Praxeas. They are also called Hermogenians, because they had Hermogenes in the company of Sabellius. Dositheus, Bishop of Seleucia, met them, teaching them that they deny the safe Trinity while they think themselves to be defending unity. For the Father is unbegotten, the Son begotten, the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father, co-equal in all things to the Father and the Son. For the Godhead so receives the unity of substance that it does not lose the distinction of person.

The Origenians, from a certain Origen, not that one who is known to almost everyone, but from another, I know not whom, about whom, or rather his followers, Epiphanius speaks: "The Origenians," he says, "are disciples of a certain Origen, but they are of shameful operation; these are the ones who do abominable things, delivering their own bodies to corruption."

But immediately subjoining the other Origenians, "Other Origenians," he says, "who are also the followers of that commentator Adamantius, who also deny the resurrection of the dead, but say that Christ and the Holy Spirit are a creature. But they do not believe that Paradise, and the Heavens, and other things are according to the letter, but in allegory." These things indeed Epiphanius reports about Origen. But his defenders say that Origen taught that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are of one and the same substance, and that he did not reject the resurrection of the dead; but those who have read his writings contradict this. There are also other teachings of this Origen which the Catholic Church did not at all receive, in which it neither accuses him falsely, nor can he be excused by his defenders, especially concerning the purgation and liberation, and again, after a long time, the return by revolution of the whole rational creature to the same evils. For what Catholic Christian, learned or unlearned, would not vehemently shudder at that purgation of the wicked which he speaks of, namely, that even those who ended this life in the greatest disgraceful deeds, crimes, sacrileges, and impieties of whatever magnitude, and even finally the Devil himself and his angels, although after very long times, being purged and liberated, are restored to the kingdom of God and to the light; and again after very long times all who were liberated relapse and return anew to these evils; and that the rational creature has always been, and always will be, subject to these alternating turns of blessedness and miseries? These are the words of St. Augustine.

The Paulians, from Paul of Samosata, say that Christ did not always exist, but assert that his beginning is from the time when he was born of Mary, nor do they think him anything more than a man. This heresy once belonged to a certain Artemon; but when it had died out, it was restored by Paul, afterwards so confirmed by Photinus that they are more famously called Photinians than Paulians. Indeed, it was established by the Council of Nicaea that these Paulians ought to be baptized in the Catholic Church. Whence it must be believed that they do not hold the rule of baptism, which many heretics took away with them when they departed from the Catholic Church, and do not keep it.

Manes, a Persian, whom his disciples called Manichaeus, as one pouring forth manna, avoiding the name of his madness. This Manes, I say, denied the holy Trinity, repudiated the Old Testament, established two co-eternal principles, one good, the other evil, said that the substance of the good God was distributed piecemeal into creatures, denied that Christ truly suffered, said that sin is the substance of man, which he fancied to consist of two souls, in place of the resurrection of the flesh introduced a certain μετεμψύχωσιν of bodies, an ἀνασωμάτωσιν of souls; finally he called himself Christ and the Paraclete.

Meletius, a bishop in Egypt, corrupted the teaching of Novatus and made a secession from the Church. From this schismatic the Meletians are named, who had churches separated from the orthodox, and afterwards joined themselves to the Arians.

The Hieracitae, whose author is called Hieracas, deny the resurrection of the flesh. They receive into communion only monks, and nuns, and those who do not have marriages. They say that little children do not pertain to the kingdom of Heaven, because they have no merits of the struggle by which vices are repaired.

Heresiarchs of the third Century.

Arius, an African by nation, by profession a priest of Alexandria, became known around the year 325, and taught that the Son of God is a creature, and not truly co-eternal and consubstantial with the Father.

The Donatians or Donatists are those, says St. Augustine, who first made a schism because of Caecilianus, ordained Bishop of the Church of Carthage against his will, objecting to him unproved crimes, and especially that he had been ordained by traitors of the divine Scriptures. But after the case was argued and finished with him, being caught in the falsity of the matter, with their obstinate dissension confirmed, they turned the schism into a heresy, as though the Church of Christ had perished from the whole circle of lands because of the crimes of Caecilianus, whether true, or, as appeared more to the judges, false, and had remained in the part of Donatus in Africa, being extinguished in the other parts of the world as if by the contagion of communion. They even dare to rebaptize Catholics, whereby they have more firmly declared themselves to be heretics, since it pleased the whole Catholic Church not to rescind common baptism even in the heretics themselves. We have received that the beginning of this heresy was Donatus, who, coming from Numidia and dividing the Christian people against Caecilianus, with bishops of the same faction joined to himself, ordained Maiorinus as bishop at Carthage; to this Maiorinus another bishop, Donatus, succeeded in the same division, who by his eloquence so confirmed this heresy that many think that they are called Donatists rather because of him.

To this heresy in Africa also belong those who are called Circumcelliones, so called because they inhabited cells in the fields, a rustic kind of men and of most notorious audacity, not only perpetrating enormous crimes against others, but not even sparing themselves with the same mad ferocity. For they were accustomed to kill themselves by various deaths, especially by precipices, and waters, and fires, and to seduce into this madness others of either sex whom they could, sometimes threatening death unless they should be killed by others.

Moreover, Pope Melchiades condemned Donatus, who was the first author of the schism of the Donatists, and absolved Caecilianus, Bishop of the Church of Carthage. But the Donatists, after the manner of heretics, appealed from the sentence of Melchiades to the Emperor Constantine. Against whom Constantine replied in these words:

They demand my judgment, I who await the judgment of Christ myself. For I say (as the truth holds) that the judgment of priests ought so to be regarded, as if the Lord himself, sitting in judgment, were judging; for it is not lawful for them to feel anything else, or to judge anything else, except what they have been taught by the teaching of Christ.

At this time flourished the Messalians, otherwise Psallians, Euchitae, Euphemitae, Spirituales, and Martyriani, who placed merit in assiduous prayer and were meanwhile given over to idleness.

Macedonius, Bishop of Constantinople, around the year 381 taught that the Son is indeed like the Father in all things, but that the Holy Spirit is a creature. The Son, I say, he concedes to be ὁμοιούσιον to the Father, but not ὁμοούσιον; and he says that the Holy Spirit is a power created by God, which, by a division of essence, inheres in each creature, so that each creature has within itself some part of the essence of the Holy Spirit. From him the Macedonians are named, whom the first Council of Constantinople condemned, with St. Damasus, the Supreme Pontiff, acting.

Aerius, when, upon the death of Paulinus, Bishop of Antioch, he had conceived in his mind the vain hope of obtaining the episcopate, taught that the Son is not only ἀνόμοιον to the Father, but also entirely dissimilar. His disciple and scribe Eunomius taught the same. Their followers are called Eunomians. At this same time Acatius and Aerius flourished; Acatius taught that the Son is ὁμοούσιον κατὰ φύσιν to the Father, Aerius κατὰ βούλησιν: their disciples are called Acatians and Aerians. Others read Aetius for Aerius, and Aetians for Aerians. Of these, the Acatians are also called Semiarians. The disciples of the Eunomians are the Nativitarii, who said that the Son always was, but that he was not always the Son, but that he began to be the Son from the time when he was born of the Father.

Apollinaris or Apollinarius — both, namely the father and the son, the former a priest, the latter a reader of Laodicea, around the year 370 — taught that the Word of God took flesh without a rational soul, and that the divine Persons are unequal: namely, that the Holy Spirit is great, the Son greater, the Father greatest. From these the Apollinarists are named. At the same time appeared the Ursicini, schismatics. Likewise the Anthropomorphites, who, with Vadius or Audius as author, taught that God has a human form. Otherwise they are called Andropiani and Audiani, commonly Vadiani. But consult what we say about Audius, pag. 222.

The Antidicomarianites, whose parent seems to be Helvidius, are the heretics who so far contradict the Virginity of Mary that they affirm that after Christ was born she was united with a man. Against these Theodoretus, Bishop of Cyprus, contended.

The Messalians — which name is from the Syriac language; in Greek, however, they are called Euchitae, so named from praying, for they sing psalms continually and pray. But because they do this alone, having neither charity, nor conversation, nor humanity, they were confuted among the heretics by the holy synod. They also condemn those monks who, besides the works of reading and praying, have worked at anything, whether of art or of agriculture.

The Paternians, at the same time, with Paternus as author, taught that the lower parts of the human body were made not by God, but by the Devil; and, attributing to those parts license for all crimes, they lived most impurely, for which reason they were also called Venustiani, from Venus, and Eticoproscoptae, that is, mockers of morals. To these are subjoined the Tertullians, who, following Tertullus, said that the souls of wicked men are turned into demons, or at least into beasts, whose nature they had in the body.

The Pattalorinchitae restrain their mouth with a finger, so that by their silence they may be able to please God; from the region they are called Tabennesiotae.

The Metangismonitae may be called those who assert Metangismon, saying that the Son is in the Father as a vessel in a vessel, thinking carnally as it were of two bodies, so that the Son enters into the Father, as a smaller vessel into a larger vessel.

The Seleucians or Hermians, from the authors Seleucus and Hermias, say that the matter of the elements, from which the world was made, was not made by God, but is co-eternal with God. Nor do they attribute the soul to God the Creator, but they want the angels to be the creators of souls, of fire and spirit. They assert, moreover, that evil is sometimes from God, sometimes from matter. They deny that the Savior sits in the flesh at the right hand of the Father, but in the Sun, from the Psalm, where it is read: He placed his tabernacle in the Sun. They also deny a real Paradise; they do not accept baptism in water. They do not think that the resurrection will come to be, but that it happens daily in the generation of children.

The Proclianitae followed these, and added that Christ did not come in the flesh.

The Patricians, taking their beginning from Patricius, say that the substance of human flesh was created not by God, but by the Devil, and they so detest it that they say that he is perfect who has been able to kill himself steadfastly. Of these there are even those who ask the strangers whom they find that they be killed by them. This madness once began in the parts of Upper Numidia and Mauritania. These the wretched Donatists afterwards followed, and began to hand themselves over to a death by precipice, as though about to be future martyrs. But those who abandon the eternal life of the Catholic faith will without doubt find eternal death. Optatus is read to have contended against these.

The Ascitae are named from the wine-skin: for ἀσκὸς in Greek means wine-skin. These, although they have nothing wrong in the Trinity, nevertheless place a huge wine-skin next to the altar, and blow it up empty, and cover it with linens, and adore it, because they say that the consecrated blood of the Lord is there, saying that saying of the Gospel: new wine into new wine-skins.

The Aquarii are so called from this, that they offer water in the cup of the Sacrament; for they say that wine is the thing of drunkenness, through which homicides, and fornications, and other crimes are perpetrated. Although it nevertheless stands firm that crimes are committed not by the drinking of wine, but by excess.

The Coluthiani, from a certain Coluthus, who said that God does not inflict the evils of punishment, against that which is written: I am God creating evils.

The Floriani, from Florinus, who in a contrary sense said that God created evils, against that which is written: God made all things, and saw that they were very good, and on this account, although saying things contrary to each other, nevertheless both resisted the divine utterances.

The Priscillianists, so called from Priscillian the Gnostic, shared in all the preceding heresies, namely with the Manichaeans, Sabellians, Arians, Marcionists, and Quartodecimans. 1. They said that the body is evil per se, from an evil principle, namely the Devil, and so denied that bodies would rise again. 2. They detested marriage, believing that children procreated by carnal seed cannot pertain to God, but only those who were conceived of the Holy Spirit. 3. They asserted that souls are of the substance of God, and said that it is lawful to swear, and to perjure oneself, rather than betray a secret. Whence this was common among them: Swear, perjure yourself, do not betray the secret.

Iovinianus thinks the same as the Antidicomarianites, who moreover said that marriage is equal to virginity, and all crimes equal, just as the rewards of the blessed.

The Triscellidae so assert a triform God, that one part of him is the Father, one the Son, and one the Holy Spirit, and hence the Trinity is made in unity.

Heresiarchs of the fourth century.

Hydrotheitae said that water is God, having neither beginning nor end, washing away defilements, remitting sins, and having the Holy Spirit.

Ametritae said that there are innumerable worlds. Whoever has not read the Philosophers thinks that this is something new for them to say, for long ago some of the Gentile philosophers said this.

Psychopneumones said that the good souls of men are changed into the spirits of Angels; but the evil souls of men are turned into the spirits of Demons.

Adecerditae say that when Christ descended into Hell, the whole multitude of souls came to meet him, and believed in him, and was set free.

Nudipedales asserted that one must always walk with bare feet, because the Lord said to Moses: put off the shoe from thy feet, and because the Prophet Isaiah was commanded to walk barefoot. Hence it is a heresy, because they walk thus not for the affliction of the body, but because they understand the divine testimonies in this way. Thus Augustine.

Heresiarchs of the fifth century.

Pelagius the Briton taught that the sin of Adam harmed him alone, and that in his posterity there was no original sin: that the commandments of God can be observed by the strength of nature alone: he said that prayers to God were useless for doing well what free choice could do of itself; he nevertheless admitted baptism, so that infants might advance from good to better. He said that death is not a punishment of sin, but a condition of nature even in innocence, so that Adam would have died even without sinning. Finally, he disapproved of the priestly and episcopal vestments. Coelestius followed him in Africa, whence the Coelestiani are the same as the Pelagians.

Vigilantius taught that the invocation of the Saints is vain; that the worship which is rendered to relics is idolatry; he rejected the ecclesiastical fasts as well as the celibacy of Priests.

Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, asserted that there are two persons in Christ; he refused that the Virgin be acknowledged as Mother of God, and he consecrated and communicated in leavened bread with the two species.

Eutyches, Archimandrite, or Abbot, of Constantinople, in order to contradict Nestorius, taught around the year 451 that there is one nature in Christ, and he employed this as his assertion: I know that Christ consisted of two natures before the union, but after the union I know and acknowledge that there was only one in him. Again: I confess that Christ is of two natures; that he consists in two, I deny. And this was the heresy of Eutyches, which, together with Nestorianism, lasts in the regions of the East down to our times, yet in such a way that there are various factions. Eutychianism indeed has these offshoots and sproutings: First present themselves the Monophysitae, who are otherwise called Schematici, Theopaschitae, and from their place Aegyptii. These taught that Christ indeed consists of two natures, but does not subsist in two natures, so that this controversy lay in those two little words, ex, and in. In defending this error John Philoponus, a celebrated Philosopher, was most busily engaged, ann. 603, who also taught that the three Persons are three Gods, and thus introduced the error of the Tritheitae: these Tritheitae are otherwise called Trifermiani. After the Monophysitae came the Acephali, so called because they acknowledged no Bishops. These conceded two natures, but contended that their properties were so confused, just as a drop of vinegar poured into the sea loses its strength. These were called Severitae from Severus, Bishop of Antioch: Iulianistae from Iulianus of Halicarnassus: Theodosiani from Theodosius of Alexandria, and from their place Contocaptilae, and Angelitae.

Afterwards, among the Eutychians are recorded the Agnoetae, commonly Agnoitae, whose error is attributed to the patronage of Themistius the Philosopher. These taught that the divine nature of Christ (for they acknowledged this alone after the union, as if the human nature were wholly absorbed) was ignorant of certain things, such as the hour of the last judgment. And these in turn were divided into three other sects, of the Damianists, Paulianists, and Petreians.

These are followed by the Iacobitae, so called from a certain James the Syrian, who imbued the whole of Syria with the very doctrine of Eutyches. Again, others were called Armenii, who in Armenia added this to the dogma of Eutyches, that Christ did not assume a body from Mary, but had it incorruptible from the very moment of the Conception: they had also taught that this very body is to be adored per se, and in the property of its own nature. The same men set up a quaternity in God, and said that the Deity suffered.

Peter Fullo, Bishop of Antioch, had set the stage for these, for he held that the whole Trinity had been crucified: whence in the Trisagion he spoke thus: holy God, holy strong one, holy and immortal one, who was crucified for us.

Pacificantes is the name given to those who, at the instigation of the Emperor Zeno, made a certain union between Catholics and Eutychians; so that on the one hand they pronounced anathema against Eutyches; and on the other hand they despised the Council of Chalcedon, where he had been condemned.

Heresiarchs of the sixth and seventh centuries.

Monothelitae, with Sergius, Patriarch of Alexandria, as their author, asserted only one will in Christ: this Syrian drew Sergius, Patriarch of Constantinople, to his error. They were condemned in the third Council of Constantinople.

Mahumetismus began around the year 625 under the authorship of Mahumet, who gathered his dogmas into a particular book, which he called the Alcoran. The principal Chapters are: 1. That God has a corporeal essence endowed with a soul. 2. That there are not three persons in God. 3. That Christ is not God, but a certain great and holy prophet. 4. That he did not truly suffer, but a phantom was offered to the Jews in his place. 5. That the Mosaic ceremonies, namely circumcision, the choice of foods, the various washings of the body, and the like, are necessary for salvation. 6. That natural good works merit eternal life. 7. That polygamy is lawful. 8. That eternal life consists in the pleasures of the body. This pestilence seized the whole East far and wide; for although there are some Churches in those places, yet how miserable is their condition, and how depraved is the confession of doctrine of the many, can be understood from this, that ten kinds of Christians are said to inhabit the East here and there, and the Latins alone keep the faith whole.

Heresiarchs of the eighth century.

Iconomachi, that is, the attackers of the sacred images, raged against the Church most of all in this century, imputing idolatry to those who keep them in the temples; whence the Emperor Leo Isauricus, called on that account Iconomachus, or Iconoclasta, published an edict that the sacred images should be removed from the Temples everywhere. The second Nicene Synod, in which 367 Bishops took part, condemned them.

Agonyclitae considered those superstitious who bent the knee while praying, and therefore they always prayed standing upright.

Aldebertini, from Aldebertus the Gaul, believed that most holy, but uncertain, relics had been brought to their founder from the ends of the earth by the ministry of an Angel; they believed him like to the Apostles, and said that his hair and nails were to be venerated equally with the relics of the blessed Peter; they believed that he knew all the sins which they committed, and could remit them without any confession.

Albanenses 1. held two principles, one good, the other evil. 2. denied that anyone had been just before the coming of Christ. 3. believed that God does not provide for evil, but that it is done by the ministry of the devil. 4. made the world eternal, and to last into eternity. 5. that God does not create souls anew, but that the soul of the dead passes over into another body. 6. that an oath is in no way lawful. 7. that no original sin exists. 8. that the Sacraments have no power when they are conferred by evil ministers. 9. that there is no necessity of confessing. 10. that no perverse man can be made bishop. 11. that Matrimony is illicit. 12. that the Church must possess nothing except in common; finally they denied the resurrection of the bodies.

Elipandus held that Christ is only the adoptive son of God.

Paulianistae, so called from Paulus and Ioannes, besides the Manichaeism which they professed, held that the form of baptism consists in these words: I am the living water; and the Eucharist in these: take, eat, and drink: they denied the worship of the holy Cross, rejected our Priests; and called themselves Christians, but us Romans.

Heresiarchs of the ninth century.

Gotescalcus, whom some think to have originated from Gaul, others from Belgium, was condemned in the Council of Mainz, because he renewed the heresy of the Praedestinatiani by saying that God, without the foresight of good and evil, absolutely predestined some, and absolutely reprobated others; consequently he held that Christ did not die for all; nor that God wills the salvation of all.

Claudius Taurinensis, Bishop, against whom Ionas, Bishop of Orleans, wrote three Books, professed the heresies of the Nestorians, Iconoclasts, and Arians; he was truly an enemy of the Saints; he condemned pilgrimages to the holy Places, and held that baptism is nothing without the sign of the cross.

Photius was the standard-bearer of the Greek Schismatics, whose schism, renewed fourteen times, the fourth Council of Constantinople condemned, chiefly because, after the Patriarch Ignatius had been driven out, he himself, a layman and a neophyte, had usurped the Constantinopolitan see against the custom of the Church.

Ioannes Scotus, not the Subtle Doctor, who lived most holily, but a Monk of Saint Benedict, who was a disciple of the venerable Bede, wrote a book in which he seemed to say that only the figure of the Body of Christ is in the Eucharist: whence this book was condemned in the Council of Vercelli, as Lanfranc, Bishop of Canterbury, testifies; on this account very many think Ioannes Scotus the Father of the Sacramentarians.

Heresiarchs of the tenth and eleventh centuries.

Berengarius, Archdeacon of Angers, first taught that in the Eucharist the Body of Christ does not exist except figuratively. But when he had afterwards revoked this error, he taught that the substance of the bread is present with the Body of Christ, and added that little children are not to be baptized. The Zuingliani followed him in the first error, the Lutherani in the second, and the Anabaptistae in the third. Yet he came to his senses, and having sung his recantation once and again, he died a Catholic. But as he was dying, mindful of how many wretches he had infected with his errors, he said with lamentation: today the Lord Jesus Christ will appear to me, by reason of my repentance, as I hope, to glory; or by reason of others, as I fear, to punishment, as Vincentius Bellovac. relates, lib. 26. cap. 30.

Simoniaci, breaking out again at this time, affirmed that the sale of ecclesiastical revenues is lawful. Reordinantes, on the contrary, refused to admit simoniacal Priests unless they were first reordained. Incestuosi affirmed that Matrimony contracted in a degree of consanguinity against the Canons of the Church is lawful.

Heresiarchs of the twelfth century.

Bogomilii, from their author Basilicus the Physician, whom Alexius Comnenus, the Emperor, caused to be burned. They denied the Trinity in the Divinity, asserted that God is endowed with human form, and that the world was created by demons; they disapproved of the homage rendered to images; they believed that our baptism is the baptism of Ioannes and that theirs is the baptism of Christ; they affirmed that dissimulation in the matter of religion is lawful, and proclaimed that Michael the Archangel was made incarnate.

Tanchalinus or Tanquellinus, a Layman of Antwerp, justified men by faith alone, and proclaimed that the supper is not necessary, but that carnal union is lawful without distinction.

Petrobrusiani, from a certain Peter of Bruys of Antwerp, held that baptism is not necessary for little children; that Christ is not really in the Eucharist, nor are prayers useful for the dead.

Petrus Abailardus, a Briton by nation, a distinguished philosopher, made a eunuch on account of his violation of Heloise, his disciple and the niece of a certain canon of Paris, while he delighted in the novelty of terms and attempted to scrutinize things too high, fell into many errors: not so many, however, as were attributed to him, for condemning which several Councils were held. Yet it has been proven rather that he came to his senses from these, and returned to peace with St. Bernard, friendship being ratified between them through mutual embraces, and an agreement between them, that afterwards if anything offending Catholic ears were found in his writings, it would be erased with a sponge drawn over it: the remaining time of his life he is said to have spent at Cluny. These errors are attributed to him: namely, 1. That the Father is full power, the Son a certain power, the Holy Spirit no power. 2. That the Holy Spirit is not of the substance of the Father. 3. That the Holy Spirit is the soul of the world. 4. That Christ did not assume flesh, to free us from the yoke of the Devil. 5. That those who crucified Christ in ignorance did not sin.

Gilbertus Porretanus, Bishop of Poitiers, about the year 1147, taught that the divine nature, which is called Divinity, is not God, but the form by which God is, just as humanity is not a man, but the form by which a man is.

That when the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are said to be one, they are understood to be so by one Divinity only, nor can it be converted, so that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are said to be one God, or one substance, or one something. That the three Persons are three by three unities, and distinct by three properties, which are not the persons themselves, but are three eternal properties differing from one another and from the divine substance in number. He was convicted of error in the Council of Reims the following year, and there abjured his errors: whence he is not to be deemed a heretic, since he did not teach errors with a mind pertinacious and repugnant to the Church.

In the same Council there was condemned a certain fanatical Briton named Eon, surnamed from a star, an illiterate and ignorant man, but so demented by the delusion of Demons, that since he could not distinguish between Eon and eum, he believed that to pertain to his own person what the Church sometimes brings forth in her prayers and exorcisms: by him who is to come to judge the world by fire. Whence with a stupendous blindness beyond measure he believed himself to be the Lord, and the Judge of the living, and of the dead; and he was so powerful through diabolical prestiges in deceiving the souls of the simple, that he gathered to himself a seduced multitude, as if flies ensnared in the work of spiders' webs, which wholly followed him, as the Lord of lords, inseparably. Sometimes indeed he was borne with marvelous speed through various Provinces: sometimes however he lingered with all his followers in desert, and trackless places, and soon, instigated by the Devil, he burst forth unexpectedly, a harasser especially of Churches, and of Monasteries. His acquaintances and relatives usually approached him: for he was of no mean lineage, whether that they might snatch him away with familiar boldness, or that they might explore more cautiously how matters stood with him. Moreover there seemed to be about him a huge apparatus of glory and royal pomp, and those who were with him, devoid of care and labor, seemed to be dressed preciously, to feast splendidly, and to live in the highest joy, to such a degree that most of those who had come to seize him, having beheld his glory, not true but fantastic, were deceived, and fled. All which things he wrought by magical art, and the help of Demons, by whom, namely, that wretched multitude was nourished in desert places, not with true, and solid, but rather with airy foods.

At length captured by the Archbishop of Reims, when he stood in the sight of the Council, asked by the Supreme Pontiff who he was, he answered: I am he who is to come to judge the living, and the dead, and the world by fire. He held in his hand, however, a staff of unusual form, forked namely in its upper part. Asked what that staff meant to him:

It is, he said, a thing of great mystery. For as long as, as you now see, it looks up to Heaven with two heads, God possesses two parts of the world, ceding the third part to me. But if I lower those same two upper heads of the staff down to the ground, and raise its lower part, which is simple, so that it looks up to Heaven, with two parts of the world kept by me, I leave only the third part to God.

At these things the whole Synod laughed, marveling that the man had been given over so deeply to a reprobate mind: but ordered by decree of the Council, lest the pestilence creep again, to be diligently guarded, he survived a very short time.

Henriciani, from a certain Henry of Toulouse, held the same doctrine as Peter of Bruys, and added that those who sang in the Church mocked God.

Apostolici, revived, called themselves Apostles, and sent immediately by God. They condemned Marriage, the use of foods prepared with milk, the Baptism of little children, purgatory, prayers for the dead, and all the Sacraments.

Valdenses, about the year of Christ 1181, from Valdo of Lyon, who had distributed his goods to the poor, were called the Poor of Lyon: they rejected disobedience to the Supreme Pontiff, the cult of Images, Prayers to the Saints, the feasts of the Church, the oil of baptism, Confirmation, fasts, auricular Confession, the remission of sins, Purgatory, merits, Religious orders, extreme unction, miracles, oaths, the chants of the Church, the Canonical Hours, and almost all things which flourish in the Roman Church. They asserted that Prelates and Princes lose their authority on account of sin; that the Church erred in the time of Pope Sylvester: that the Creed is to be rejected, and that every copulation is licit. Pope Lucius condemned them, yet he could not entirely extinguish them.

Petrus Ioannis taught at this time 1. That the side was pierced while Christ was living. 2. That the rational soul is not the form of the body. 3. That the universal Church is the Babylon of the Apocalypse; that the Pope is the mystical Antichrist. Thus report Guido Carmelita, and Bernardus de Luxemburgo in Catalogo haeresum.

Almaricus taught many things insanely. For first he maintained that the Body of Christ is in the bread of the altar no otherwise than in other bread, and in any other thing whatsoever, denying Transubstantiation. Second, that God spoke in Origen just as in Augustine. Third, he denied also the resurrection of Bodies, and likewise Paradise and Hell: but that he who had in himself the knowledge of God had also in himself Paradise: that he who had a mortal sin had the same hell in himself, no otherwise than a rotten tooth in the mouth. Fourth, he asserted that to offer incense to altars dedicated to the saints, and to Images, and the invocations of the saints, are Idolatry. Fifth, not only with the Armenians, that Adam, and Eve would never have been joined by carnal union if they had remained in that state in which God founded them; but he also affirmed that there would be no difference of the sexes, but a multiplication of men, and of Angels, against that which is written in Genesis: The Lord created man to his image, and his likeness; to the image of God he created him; male, and female he made them. Sixth, he asserted again that God is not seen in Himself, but in creatures, as light in the air. Seventh, likewise, that what is otherwise a mortal sin, done in charity is not a sin, promising impunity of sins. Finally, he affirmed that the ideas which are in the divine mind can be created, whereas on the contrary, with Augustine as witness, in the divine mind there is nothing but what is eternal, and immutable. Ninth, he also dreamed that the mind of the Contemplative, or of the Blessed, loses its being in its own genus, and returns into that ideal being which it had in the divine mind. Tenth, he taught that all creatures in the end return into God, and converted into Him, so that they may be one individual with Him. Finally, he denied that in the resurrection there will be a double sex.

Yet Rigord affirms in the life of Philip Augustus, that, convicted and refuted by the Parisian theologians, he came to his senses from error, and went to Rome, to obtain from the Supreme Pontiff pardon for the guilt he had admitted.

But when after his death his disciples had published his errors, and moreover asserted that Almaricus had truly been the Holy Spirit, and that the kingdom of God the Father had lasted until Christ; but that of Christ only until Almaricus, and so that the evangelical law, and all the sacraments had already ceased, and only the law of charity flourished, by whose motive whatever was done could not be sin: whence they said that fornications, adulteries, and other nefarious things too are not sinful while they were committed with a view to charity; so that the ecclesiastical and royal authority might meet so great an evil, which then raged through the whole province of Orleans, proceedings were taken with censures against those wretched wanderers: but since they were not moved even so, at length it was fought against them with fire and sword, and in execration of this crime, punishment was also inflicted upon its originator, Almaricus, long since dead, and as was believed buried in the peace of the Church. For by public edict his bones were exhumed, and given to the fire by the executioner, and the ash was scattered through the dunghills.

The error of mad charity, long buried and extinguished, had broken out again in these our times, with a certain fanatic named Morin as its author, who after he had driven very many mad, at length, consigned to prison by public authority, was condemned at Paris, and burned alive.

Albigenses arose in the time of Innocent III, and perhaps before, who long vexed the Church not only with sermons, but also with arms. St. Antoninus recounts their errors in the Summa theologica, part. 4. tit. 11. cap. 7.: namely, that they posited two coeternal principles, one good, the other evil, in the manner of the Manichaeans: and other things of this kind. See St. Antoninus in the Summa historiali, third part, tit. 19. cap. 1.

Heresiarchs of the thirteenth century.

Guillelmus de Sancto Amore, in the time of Pope Alexander IV, raging with hatred against the mendicant religious, taught that it is illicit to leave all things unless one is compelled. The same Desiderius Longobardus taught this, and added that it is not licit to institute, or to enter, a religious order which does not have possessions, at least in common. Against this heresy wrote St. Thomas in the opuscule contra impugnantes religionem, and St. Bonaventure in various opuscules.

Fratricelli, with a certain Hermann as their author, together with Dulcitius of Novara began their heresy, teaching that the authority of the Roman Church has ceased on account of the malice of the Prelates: that they alone are the true Church, and perfect, as the Apostles were: that they owe obedience to no one, and that their sect is immediately from Christ: that all the Pontiffs from the time of St. Sylvester were prevaricators, except Celestine V. Boniface VIII condemned these and similar things. See Nauclerus, generat. 41. and Ioannes de Turrecremata, lib. 4. Summa part. 2. cap. 37.

Beghardi, and Beghinae, with Bogonatus as author (who seemed to want to be Monks, and the Beghinae nuns, but without vows) taught that man can become impeccable in this life: and is no longer bound to fasts, and prayer, and cannot grow in grace, and other things of this kind. See Alvarus, De Planctu Ecclesiae, lib. 2. cap. 52; and Ioannes de Turrecremata, lib. 4. part. 2. cap. 36.

Lollardus Gualterus taught that Lucifer was unjustly damned by God, as Trithemius testifies in the Cronico of the year 1325, where he also recounts other errors.

Marsilius de Padua, et Ioannes de Ianduno taught many errors, which John XXII condemned in the Extravagant, which begins, Licet iuxta doctrinam. The sum of the errors is, that St. Peter was not the head of the Church, and that Christ paid the didrachma, compelled by necessity, not out of condescension.

Flagellantes arose indeed in Italy, but were propagated most of all in Germany. They taught that those cannot be saved who do not baptize themselves in their own blood, flagellating themselves with knotted ropes: they despised the sacraments, and the other good works. They denied that there is a Purgatory in the other life. Finally, they labored under many errors. See Bernardus Luxemburgensis in the Catalogo haeresum, and Nicolaus Sanderus, de Visibili Monarchia Ecclesiae.

Heresiarchs of the fourteenth century.

Ioannes Wicleffus (says our Sedulius), an English priest, master of arts, in about the thirteen hundred and fifty-second year, under Emperor Charles IV, published impious dogmas: whose poison Hieronymus a Praga, while he served him at Oxford in England, drank up most avidly, and afterwards disseminated at Prague together with Ioannes Hus, who, gradually drawing the people into hatred of the Clergy, recommending the doctrine of Wicleffus, and capturing the people's favor with his turbulent writings, translated them into the vulgar tongue. The erroneous articles of Wicleffus are numbered forty-five principal ones, of which I shall especially transcribe those which the innovators of our age have taken up again, so that they may know that they are the evil eggs of those evil crows.

1. The material substance of the bread, and of the wine remains in the Sacrament of the altar.

2. The accidents of the bread do not remain without a subject in the same Sacrament.

3. Christ is not there really in His own corporal presence.

4. It is not founded in the Gospel, that Christ ordained the Mass.

5. God ought to obey the devil.

6. If a man has been duly contrite, all exterior confession is superfluous.

7. It is against Scripture for ecclesiastics to have possessions.

8. Temporal lords can, at their pleasure, take away from the Church the temporal goods of delinquent possessors.

9. Those who found cloisters sin, and those who enter them are diabolical men.

10. The saints who instituted private religious orders sinned in so instituting.

11. Religious living in private religious orders are not of the Christian religion.

12. All who are of the mendicant order are heretics.

13. All things proceed from absolute necessity.

14. The confirmation of youths, the ordination of clerics, and the consecration of places are reserved to the Pope and to the bishops because of the desire for temporal gain and honor.

15. The excommunication of the Pope, or of any prelate whatsoever, is not to be feared, because it is the censure of Anti-christ.

16. The Pope, together with all clerics who hold possessions, are heretics because they hold possessions, and so are those consenting to them.

17. The Emperor and the secular lords have been seduced by the devil, that they might endow the Church with temporal goods.

18. The Roman Church is the synagogue of Satan.

19. The Pope is not the immediate Vicar of Christ and the successor of Peter.

20. The election of the Pope by the Cardinals was introduced by the devil.

21. It is foolish to believe in the indulgences of the Pope and of the bishops.

22. All religious orders, without distinction, were introduced by the devil.

Such, indeed more wearisome, are the articles of Ioannes Hus, which, reviewed in session 12. of the same Council of Constance, I cannot pass over entirely, but I shall transcribe the principal ones.

1. There is one holy universal Church, which is the sole community of the predestined.

2. Paul was never a member of the devil, although he performed certain acts similar to the acts of the church of the wicked.

3. The foreknown are not parts of the Church, since no part of it will finally fall away, because the charity of Predestination, by which it binds it, does not fall away. Peter was not, nor is, the Head of the holy Catholic Church. Priests living wickedly in any way defile the power of the priesthood.

4. The papal dignity grew up from the Emperor.

5. The Roman Pontiff is not the Head of the Roman Church.

6. No one bears the place of Christ or of Peter unless he follows him in his morals.

7. The Pope is not a manifest and true successor of the Prince of the Apostles if he lives with morals contrary to Peter, and if he seeks avarice, then he is the Vicar of Judas.

8. The Cardinals are not manifest and true successors of the College of the other Apostles unless they have lived in the manner of the Apostles.

9. The doctors who maintain that someone who is to be corrected by ecclesiastical censure, if he refuses to be corrected, is to be handed over to secular judgment, certainly follow in this the Pontiffs, the scribes, and the Pharisees, who, saying of Christ, who was unwilling to obey them in all things: it is not lawful for us to kill anyone, handed him over to secular judgment, because such men are murderers more grievous than Pilate.

10. Ecclesiastical obedience is obedience according to the invention of the priests of the Church, apart from the express authority of Sacred Scripture.

11. The immediate division of human works, how many of them are from themselves either virtuous or vicious.

12. Through the ecclesiastical censures of excommunication, suspension, and interdict, for its own exaltation the Clergy subjects the lay people to itself, multiplies avarice, protects malice, and prepares the way for Anti-christ.

13. The Pope ought not to be called most holy.

14. The condemnation of the forty-five articles of Ioannes Wicleff, made by the Doctors, is irrational and unjust.

15. There is not the least appearance that there ought to be a single Head ruling the Church in spiritual matters.

16. Christ, without such monstrous heads, through His truthful disciples scattered throughout the whole world, would better rule His Church.

17. The Apostles and the faithful priests of the Lord strenuously ruled the Church in the things necessary for salvation before the office of the Pope had been introduced: so would they do, were the Pope to be lacking per impossibile until the day of judgment.

18. No one is a civil lord, no one is a prelate, no one is a bishop, while he is in mortal sin.

The ecumenical Synod of Constance, at which the Emperor Sigismundus had assembled, with four Patriarchs, twenty-nine Cardinals, forty-seven Archbishops, one hundred sixty Bishops, and five hundred sixty-four Abbots and Doctors, decreed of Wicleff, Ioannes Hus, and Hieronymus a Praga in these words:

This holy Synod declares, defines, and decrees that the same Ioannes Wicleff was a notorious heretic, pertinacious, and died in heresy, anathematizing him. And it decrees and orders that his body and bones (if they can be distinguished from the bodies of the other faithful) be exhumed and thrown far from burial in the Church, according to the canonical and legitimate sanctions.

And in session 15., against Ioannes Hus:

With the name of Christ invoked, this most sacred Synod of Constance, having God alone before its eyes, by this definitive sentence, which it pronounces in these writings, pronounces, decrees, and declares that the said Ioannes Hus was and is a true and manifest heretic, and that he dogmatized and publicly preached errors and heresies long since condemned, and very many scandalous things, offensive to pious ears, rash and seditious, to no small offense of the Divine majesty, to the scandal of the universal Church, and to the detriment of the catholic faith. Therefore, on account of the foregoing and of many other things, this holy Synod pronounces that the aforesaid Ioannes Hus was and is a heretic; and it judges and condemns by these presents that he is to be judged and condemned as a heretic.

The Hussites are divided into various sects: for some are called Orebitae, others Thaboritae, others Orphani, others Adamitae, or Pichardi, with a certain Gaul as their author, who was called Pichardus, and who seduced many Bohemians, saying that he was the Son of God and was called Adam. See Eneas Sylvius De origine Boemorum, cap. 40, 41, 43 et 47.

Hermannus Riesvich, a Dutchman by nation, in the time of Alexander VI, taught that the soul dies with the body, that there is no hell, that Christ was a fool, that our faith is fabulous, and that the Gospel is false. Thus reports Bernardus Luxemburgensis in the Catalogo Haereticorum. This Hermannus seems to have been the most abandoned and the most foolish of all heretics, since he who said that the soul dies with the body nevertheless chose to be burned alive rather than retract his heresy.

Heresiarch of the fifteenth century.

Martinus Lutherus, a Saxon by nation, his homeland Eisleben, born in the year 1483 of parents of slender fortune, an Augustinian monk by profession, whom Erasmus Roterodamus gathered from his own writings to be a most wicked man: from a Catholic monk he became a heretical deserter, gravely imitating the father of all heretics, Simon Magus, who said that he was the supreme power of God; for he, out of excessive self-esteem, proclaimed himself an Evangelist of the Lord: he was called by his followers Elijah who would herald the coming of the Lord. The rumor is that he was born of an incubus, so that it is no wonder that he was pleasing and familiar to the Devil. For in the book which he wrote de Missa angulari, he does not obscurely relate what author his doctrine had; for there he introduces the Devil disputing with him and bringing forward stronger arguments against the Mass than could be refuted by him: he also describes his voice in that place, that it is grave and robust, and sounds so terribly that it sometimes happens by experience that after a nocturnal conference with the Demon men are found dead the next day: for, he says, it can also kill the body: and then it renders the soul so anxious that sometimes in a moment it must depart from the body; which he writes often nearly happened to him, and indeed at length happened in the end.

He shamelessly confesses that he ate not one morsel but much salt with the Devil, indeed more than a bushel of salt, together; and that he shared many things with him, and learned with him as his master especially that the Mass is not a sacrifice; nor that communion is to be received under one species; nor that anything is to be believed which is not written in the divine books. Likewise he writes that he confessed before the Devil that he had sinned in that he had celebrated the Mass; indeed that he did not love God, but rather hated the Just One who punishes sinners. And at length in the Leipzig Disputation his blasphemous voice was heard, indeed a fury-like monstrosity: This matter was not begun for the sake of God, nor will it end for the sake of God. Since these things are so, who can doubt that Luther is of that flock who in the last times, denying the faith and giving heed to spirits of error and to doctrines of demons speaking lies in hypocrisy, and that he himself, with the Devil as author and master, introduced impious, heretical, devilish dogmas?

Although, however, the Parisian Theologians judged Luther unworthy of being written against, because he had championed not only the errors of the Wycliffists and Hussites, but also the most ancient errors, which the Church had once repelled and enfeebled, calling them back anew to the arena, and therefore the man so impious was to be examined by flames rather than by arguments; yet since the Germans had already drunk so abundantly from the cup of Luther's errors and were so inebriated that that poison began to creep to foreign Nations, it was necessary for every Region to fortify itself against that evil; therefore the sacred Theological Faculty of Paris subjected Luther's writings to its examination; and, having detected many errors in them, it issued a censure by which it both preserved the peoples of France in the ancient faith and was a protection to many foreigners, among whom the authority of the head of this Faculty is held in esteem, lest their minds be seized by the flood of current errors. D. Bail relates this censure transcribed from Thomas Illiricus in the apparatu ad Concilium Tridentinum.

Andreas Carlostadius, who was the first of Luther's Disciples publicly to take a wife while he was a Priest, and with him Huldricus Zuinglius and Ioannes Oecolampadius, began the Sacramentarian heresy in the year 1526, teaching that in the Eucharist the body of Christ is present only in sign; and they added that the Images of Christ and of the Saints are to be broken. See Ioannes Cochleus in the book De actis Lutheri, year 1526.

Balthassar Pacimontanus and Bernardus Rothmannus instituted the sect of the Anabaptists in the year 1527, which is also an offspring of Lutheranism, and is divided into various sects. These teach that infants are not to be baptized, and that if they have been baptized, they are to be baptized again when they are adults. They teach very many other errors, concerning which see Ioannes Cochleus, De actis Lutheri, year 1520, and Cardinal Hosius, lib. 1. De Haeresibus nostr. temporis.

Philippus Melanchthon, a disciple of Luther, composed the Confessionem Augustanam in the year 1530, whence those who follow it are called Confessionists and soft Lutherans. They hold many errors, as that the parts of penance are only two, Contrition and Faith; that is, terrors of conscience and the faith by which we believe that sins are forgiven us through Christ. See Cochleus in the book De actis Lutheri.

Ioannes Calvinus, in our age easily the Prince of heretics, indeed of all heresiarchs, was born in the year of the Lord 1509. His father was Gherardus Cauvinus, whom some leading Citizens of Noyon testified to have been an impious man and most blasphemous against God. Inquiry was made into the Son's morals and life, and among other things it was recorded in the public registers that Ioannes Calvinus, while he held the benefice of Curate of Noyon and another Priesthood of a certain Chapel, being convicted of the crime of sodomy, came into danger of his life, so that he would be burned by fire (which is the ordinary and lawful punishment for a crime of this kind): but by the compassion of the Bishop of the city the punishment was moderated, so that a lily glowing with a cautery was branded on his shoulder. Not bearing this ignominy, he sought Germany, hiding at Basel. Then, exiled at Strasbourg, he became a Preacher to the Refugees. Thence setting out for Italy, he successively called himself Carolus Happ; finally he who had been Cauvinus called himself Calvinus. Returning thence, he came to Geneva about the year 1537¹, and infected, overturned, and destroyed the whole of France with his blasphemies, because of the new figment of his supper, by which he imagines Christ, though absent, present by his own power and efficacy alone through Metonymy. In this he agreed neither with his Father Farellus, nor with Oecolampadius, nor with his Grandfather Zuinglius: he reproved both of them because they did not treat the supper of the Lord correctly.

He also taught several other errors; first indeed concerning Predestination, that Adam fell into sin necessarily by God's ordination and eternal decree: that certain of Adam's posterity who are saved are the Elect: that others are destined to everlasting death: and he asserted that the first and principal cause of this diversity is the will of God. That God chiefly created the human race for perpetual damnation and destruction: that God created Adam not only that he should perish, but also that he predestined him from eternity to ruin; and therefore it was necessary that he sin.

Concerning free choice, he denies that man is endowed with free choice, since he teaches that God not only permits sins but also efficaciously works them.

Concerning sins, he teaches that God is the author of sin: that the sins which men commit are not only permitted by God to be done, but are also done with God willing and impelling: that all sins which are committed are entirely works of God; for example, theft, adultery, etc., are done not by man alone, but God effects them in man: that the Devil is a liar by God's command: with Luther he asserts that unbelief alone is a mortal sin: that there is no distinction between mortal and venial sin, nor is any sin to be called venial, but every sin is immortal: that the Law of God and the will of God are often contrary to each other.

Concerning faith, justification and salvation, he teaches that every just man knows that he is in grace, and is certain of his justification, because the faith by which a man is justified can be certain to anyone; wickedly usurping that saying of Augustine: nothing is more certain to a man than his own faith, so that, says Calvinus, whatever sins, whatever crimes and wicked deeds he may commit, nevertheless nothing is imputed to the believer.

Concerning works and merits, he teaches that no human work, however good, is meritorious of eternal life; nor is it necessary for obtaining eternal life: he indeed confesses that there is in our works some merit to which corporal and spiritual rewards correspond, but not eternal life; indeed he asserts that every just man sins in every good work.

Concerning vows and monasteries, he asserts that there is absolutely no distinction between a precept and an evangelical counsel, nor is there any counsel in the Gospel, but all things which have been commended to us by Christ are precepts. And so he condemns all vows, asserting that they profit nothing, because they impose a certain necessity on men, since the Prophet says: I will sacrifice to you willingly. He teaches moreover that nothing can be vowed to God except what has been precepted by him.

Concerning Matrimony. Although he confesses that it is good that we ask help from God for continence, he nevertheless says that this invocation is not a sufficient remedy for preserving continence, and therefore that marriage is necessary; and that in the time of grace the universal precept still stands which obliges all to marriage, namely: it is not good for man to be alone. He teaches moreover that baptism is not necessary for children.

Concerning the sacrifice of the Mass, he denies that the Mass was instituted by Christ; and he blasphemes that it is neither a sacrifice nor a good work, etc. See Prateolus, Bolsecus, etc.

Michael Servetus, a Spaniard, when he was 25 years old, boasted that he was the supreme Prophet of the world; he wrote seven books De erroribus Trinitatis: in which he taught that there is no real generation in God: that there is no personal distinction in God: that men should not be baptized until the age of 30; finally in the year 1555 he was delivered to the fire at Geneva by Calvinus himself. See Ioannes Cochleus, De actis Lutheri to the year 1532, and Surius in the history of the same year.

David Georgius, born at Delft in Holland, preached that he was the outstanding one of the Prophets and a Son of God greater than Christ Jesus, and that he would rise again in the third year after death and restore the Kingdom of Israel. But now about eighty years have passed since his death, and yet he has not risen, nor will he rise, except on the last day, to be tormented with the other impostors in eternal fires. See the whole history in Surius in the Historia of the year 1555.

Gaspar Schwenckfeldius, one of the Confessionists, invented dogmas of his own. He taught that the human nature of Christ was changed into the divine after the ascension, and that we ought to be content with the Spirit alone: that the vocal word, like the letter that kills, is to be rejected. See Fridericus Staphylus in the book De Concordia Lutheranorum.

Andreas Osiander, one of the Confessionists, but on account of new heresies a heretic even to the Confessionists themselves, taught that Charity and Justice and Wisdom, by which a man is Just and Wise, are the very essence of God, and that Christ justifies men only according to the divine nature. See Fredericus in the cited place and Surius in the Historia of the year 1555.

Ioannes Brentius, not the least among the Confessionists, taught that Christ's humanity was always everywhere from the very incarnation. Whence the Ubiquists were born. Theodorus, Beza, and others fought against him sharply for a long time. See Surius in the Historia of 1561.

Mathias Illyricus, the principal author of the historiae Centuriatae Magdeburgensis and Father of the rigid Lutherans, besides other most foolish dogmas, taught that original sin is a substance.

The Libertines, with a certain Quintinus as their author, teach that it is lawful to simulate and dissimulate Faith and Religion and to have communion with everyone; that there is only one immortal Spirit; that Angels and the Souls of men are not immortal; that Christ did not truly die on the cross, but only in opinion. They teach many other things, but secretly and among themselves, as Calvinus himself relates in the book Contra Libertinos, where he says that he knows that there are many thousands in this sect.

Valentinus Gentilis, a native of Cosenza by country, in the year 1558, recalling Arianism, began to teach that the three divine Persons are three eternal Spirits differing in essential number, but that the Father is greater than the Son and the Holy Spirit: for which heresy he was beheaded at Bern by the heretics themselves. This History is extant in Benedictus Aretius, a condemned author whom Bellarminus cites, because he had no others who relate the matter.

Franciscus David with the other Transylvanian ministers taught that only the Father is true God, that the Son and the Holy Spirit are powers of God, not distinct from the Father by person, or relation, or essence: that Christ is a mere man, but is called the word of God, because he announced the words of God.

Socinus corrupted the whole of Theology, above all concerning the most holy Trinity and the justification of man before God.

The Puritans had their origin in England in the time of Queen Elizabeth, who had withdrawn herself from Catholic Communion; they were given this name either because they vaunted themselves as reformed Calvinists, or because they followed the pure Scripture, or because they proclaimed themselves most pure and most holy. They, like the Calvinists, had removed from the end of the Psalms the verse Gloria Patri, etc., which the Church had set there against the Heretics who were unwilling to adore the Son with the Father. The Antipuritans in England are even now wholly opposed to the opinions of the Puritans.

The Pacificators, with Ioannes Sturmius as their author, say that the Calvinistic Religion does not differ essentially from the Catholic; whence a certain anonymous Minister, under the name of Christianus Constans, wrote several things about the conformity of both Churches.

The Arminians, or Remonstrants or soft Calvinists, took their origin from Iacobus Arminius, Minister at Amsterdam, who afterwards was made Professor of Calvin's Theology in the Leyden Academy among the Dutch, whose Chair Franciscus Gommarus had previously held. This Arminius always wanted to be regarded as a Calvinist, although he maintained many opinions very distant from Calvin and the rigid Calvinists, against the Remonstrants. The rigid Calvinists have Gommarus as their author, who undertook a disputation against Iacobus Arminius. These followed the rigor of Calvin's opinions concerning free choice, grace, reprobation and other things.

Conradus Vorstius, a Dutch Minister, contested the divine perfections, namely, the simplicity of God, his infinity, immensity, and eternity, which brings the greatest division to the Reformed of Holland even in these times. The Metaphorists, reducing everything to metaphors, said that the Son of God is not properly either the word of the Father or the Image, but only by metaphor.

Marcus Antonius de Dominis, who by fraud intruded himself into the Archbishopric of Spalato in Dalmatia, always tried to depress the authority of the Pope.

In Holland, Bohemia, Germany, and England new Sects continually arise, the numbering of which is impossible. Moreover, especially in these times, several erroneous assertions have arisen concerning divine Predestination and Grace, condemned by the Church.

Here, however, it is to be observed that the greater Heretics have always had an unhappy end. For Simon Magus, when he wanted to fly, was cast down by the prayers of S. Peter, broke his legs, and shortly after died with the greatest ignominy. Thus it is related by Egesippus, lib. 3. cap. 2. de Excidio Ierosol., and Arnobius, lib. 2. contra Gentes. Manichaeus was flayed alive by the King of the Persians, because, in undertaking to cure the King's son, he killed him, according to Epiphanius, Heresy 36. Montanus, Theodotus, and their Prophetesses killed themselves with nooses, as Eusebius relates, lib. 5. Historiarum cap. 16. The Donatists were torn to pieces by the same dogs to which they threw the Eucharist, Optatus, lib. 2. contra Parmenianum. Arius, wanting to enter the Church, was suddenly seized by a movement of the bowels, went to the public latrines, and poured out all his intestines together with his excrement, and his soul, according to Athanasius, Orat. 1. contra Arianos, and according to Rufinus, lib. 10. Hist. cap. 13. Valens the Arian was burned alive by the Goths, according to Rufinus, lib. 11. Hist. cap. 13. Nestorius, with his impious tongue consumed by worms, perished most miserably, according to Evagrius, lib. 1. Hist. cap. 6. The Emperor Anastasius, a supporter of the Eutychians, perished by a stroke of lightning, according to Cedrenus and Zonaras. Lutherus, when in the evening he had taken a sumptuous supper, cheerful and healthy, and had provoked everyone to laughter with his witticisms, died that same night, according to Cochleus in the vita Lutheri. Zuinglius was slaughtered in war against the Catholics. Oecolampadius, when in the evening he had gone to bed healthy, was found dead in bed by his wife in the morning. From Cochleus, in the actis Lutheri, year 1531. Carlostadius was killed by a Demon. So the Basel Ministers relate in the Epist. which they had published about the death of Carlostadius. Ioannes Calvinus finally, weighed down by horrible and painful diseases, expired consumed by worms, as Hieronymus Bolsecus testifies in his life, adding that he died blaspheming, with demons invoked.

Approval of the Doctors of the sacred Faculty of Paris.

Once again Scotus emerges from the darkness, bearing the torch of the Very Reverend Father Claudius Frassen, of the Seraphic Order, Doctor of sacred Theology of Paris, and Professor among his own. So that this writer of a doctrine no less profound than subtle might come forth into public more pleasing to all, this most meritorious man did not suffer two further ornaments to be wanting in him, namely diction and arrangement. He therefore added the polish of language and the order of methodical treatment, and thus clothed and refined by both, he made of the Subtle Doctor an Academic, all the more, as is rightly hoped, to benefit all academics, because it is entirely consonant with the Christian faith and with chaste morals. Thus we judge and testify from our hearts, we the undersigned Doctors of the Sorbonne society in the sacred Faculty of Paris, on the 25th day of May, in the year 1672.

G. Lestocq, Royal Professor of sacred Theology at the Sorbonne.

A. Chevillier.

Mandate of Obedience, and Permission of the Most Reverend Father General.

Brother Franciscus Maria Rhini de Politio, Minister General of the whole Order of Friars Minor of our Seraphic Father Francis, and servant, and Apostolic Commissary in the Kingdom of France over all the Provinces subject to us, etc. To the Father beloved of us in Christ, and to Brother Claudius Frassen, alumnus of our Province of great France, Doctor of sacred Theology of Paris, and Professor of the same in our greater Convent of Paris, everlasting greeting in the Lord.

Since (as we have learned) a Work has been composed by you, whose title is Scotus Academicus, etc., and you desire it to be printed for the greater glory of God, the exaltation of Scotistic doctrine, and the honor of our Order; we, desiring to promote all the aforesaid as much as we can in the Lord, and understanding that your book will be of no small benefit in all these things, by the force of these presents grant you the faculty, joined with the merit of salutary obedience, inasmuch as, after the prior examination and approval of the same Work by the Reverend Fathers, emeritus Theologians of our Order and Doctors of the sacred Parisian Faculty, to be made by Brother Claude Domart, Guardian of this great Convent, Brother Andreas Houbereau, and Brother Carolus Mignet, and with the remaining Apostolic sanctions and our Constitutions preserved, you may and can commit it to the press. Given in our great Convent of Paris, on the twentieth day of April, under the handwriting and the greater seal of our office, in the year one thousand six hundred seventy-one.

Brother F. Maria Rhini de Politio, Minister General.

Brother A. E. de Lossada, Secretary General of the Order.

Approval, and Permission of the Very Reverend Father Claude Domart, Doctor of Paris, and Guardian of the greater Convent of the Friars Minor of St. Francis.

Having seen his earlier lucubrations, both philosophical and on the spiritual life, we cannot but hope that the Scotus Academicus of the Reverend Father Claudius Frassen, Doctor of Paris and Lector General of the great Convent of the Friars Minor of St. Francis, will come forth into the light with the applause of all Theologians. Wherefore, we not only permit it to be committed to the press, but inasmuch as we judge this Work most useful to the public, we desire it from our heart. Given in the said Convent of Paris on the tenth day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred seventy-one.

Brother C. Domart, humble Guardian of the great Convent.

Approval of the Very Reverend Father Carolus Miguet, Doctor of Paris, and Lector General in Theology in the great Convent of the Friars Minor, and at present Guardian of the same.

A Work long at last desired, and a most useful Method of our School for unfolding the polished and solid doctrine of the Subtle Doctor, especially on the first book of the Sentences, I, the undersigned, attest that I have read through: whose title is truly Scotus Academicus: for it will stand as the strongest and clearest ornament of Scotistic learning, the honor of our Seraphic Family, and an easy way for Theologians to divine Wisdom. Hence I judge it to be saying too little to call it worthy of the press; rather, I think that the Author, the Rev. Father Claudius Frassen, proves himself the legitimate heir of the subtlety of the Subtle Doctor, and likewise shows himself the most faithful Interpreter of his doctrine, as also in the philosophical works: Wherefore, that it may be engraved by the types, as it will profit the public, and as a singular token of our friendship toward the Author, I most earnestly desire it. Given at Paris in the great Convent of the Friars Minor, on the fifteenth of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred seventy-one.

Fr. Carolus Miguet, Doctor in Theology, and Lector General.

Approval of the Very Reverend Father Andreas Houbereau, Doctor of Paris, Former Definitor General, and Former Provincial of the greater Province of Touraine.

I, the undersigned, Doctor of Theology in the University of Paris, have read and perused the Book whose title is Scotus Academicus, composed by the Rev. Father Claudius Frassen, Doctor and Professor of our Order in the same University: which I found elaborated with singular Doctrine, order, and method: for in it the deepest mysteries of the faith, the more abstruse difficulties of Theology, and the hidden treasures of the profound doctrine of Scotus himself are opened up so clearly, lucidly, and vigorously, and are piled up with such a density of arguments and reasons, that hardly any other learned man has ever yet unraveled them so. Hence it seems to draw any readers whatsoever and the souls of pious men into its own judgment by its very weight, with a certain sweet violence. Wherefore, since this great work contains a doctrine most firmly founded in the Scriptures, Councils, Fathers, and weightier Theologians, and there is in it nothing at all that is not holy, nothing not pious, nothing alien to the mind of the holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church, and nothing that does not savor of the Author's outstanding learning joined with equal piety; I judge it most worthy to come forth into the light, that it may be spread abroad into all Christian regions, for the glory of God and the public utility. At Paris, in the great Convent of the Franciscans, the twentieth of September, in the year one thousand six hundred seventy-one.

Fr. Andreas Houbereau, Former Definitor General, and Former Provincial of the Province of Touraine.

The sacred name of Theology, from its primary use among the faithful, designated that doctrine alone which explained and proved the Divinity of Christ the Lord: wherefore St. John the Evangelist was called the Theologian by a title of special dignity, because, like an Eagle flying higher than the rest, he gazed upon the rays of Christ's Divinity with unblinking eyes:

For the other three Evangelists, says Augustine, as it were walking on the earth with the Lord as a man, said little about His Divinity: but this one, like an eagle disdaining to walk on the earth, raised himself not only above the earth and above the whole expanse of air and sky, but even above the whole host of Angels and the whole array of invisible powers, and reached Him through whom all things were made.

Gregory Nazianzenus was likewise at some time honored with a similar name, because among the sacred Doctors he treated that doctrine of the Divinity of Christ the Lord more subtly and more sublimely: Theodoretus, however, and whatever other Greek Fathers are chiefly engaged in explaining the mysteries of the incarnate Word, profess that they are detained not in Theologia, but in Oeconomia; for this reason, that the adorable mystery of the incarnate Word pertains to that special providence of God by which He supplies us with the means necessary for obtaining eternal salvation.

But in the course of succeeding ages it came to pass that the sacred name of Theology was granted not only to each of the two doctrines discoursing on the Divinity and Humanity of Christ, but also to that one which holds, as it were, the middle place between the two; therefore it was called Scholastic, because by the Academic method and the retired exercise of Disputations it defends all the mysteries of the Faith against Infidels with whatever force of arguments it can; separating the true from the false, the certain from the doubtful, and eliminating and purging the Catholic dogmas from the masked and counterfeit assertions of heretics.

Now the first of the holy Fathers who seems to have adapted sacred Doctrine to the manner of the Dialecticians by disputations and arguments was St. Clement Alexandrinus, a man certainly most distinguished in sacred as well as profane literature, the disciple of the most celebrated Pantaenus, and the Master of the most famous Origen in the Alexandrian school.

Many men, renowned at once for doctrine and for piety, at length followed him; among whom St. Damascene seems to have obtained the palm, inasmuch as around the year 739 or 800 he so confined the sacred streams of this divine doctrine, flowing more broadly and more abundantly in the vastest writings of the Greek Fathers as in a spacious channel, within certain little rivulets of questions and answers, that what the rest had written in a greater volume, he himself comprised in four little books on the orthodox Faith.

After some centuries had elapsed, namely around the year one thousand one hundred and forty, Peter Lombard, Bishop of the Parisians, imitated him; for having collected the sentences of the Latin Fathers, especially of Saint Augustinus, he arranged them all so wisely and methodically in four books, that from this outstanding work he was called the Master of the Sentences.

Thereafter it had various Commentators and Interpreters of its writings, who, overflowing with the waters of divine wisdom, like the river of Paradise, were divided into four Heads, that is, into four principal Academies of Theologians: namely the Seraphic and the Subtle of the Franciscans, the Angelic of the Preachers, the Spiritual of the Nominalists, and the more unconstrained and free of the rest.

All these you would rightly call those sixty valiant men who surround the mystic couch of Salomon, namely the Church of Christ, from among the strongest of Israel, all holding swords and most skilled in war, each one's sword upon his thigh because of the terrors of the night, namely the incursions and ambushes of heretics and of other men of darkness, which the Scholastic Theologians, the watchmen and sentinels of the Church, perceive beforehand, and, when they are brought out into open battle, pierce and slay them with the spear-point of reasonings: For the weapons of our warfare (says the Apostle) are not carnal, but the power of God for the destruction of strongholds, destroying counsels and every height that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.

Hence all the heretics, the sowers of tares and the craftiest adulterators of Catholic truth, harass the Theologian Doctors with the bitterest mockeries of every kind. For Wicleffus, impiously no less than ignorantly, said that Universities, Schools, Colleges, graduations and masterships were introduced from paganism, and profit the Church just as much as the devil.

Who does not know that Luther, a most filthy man, everywhere calls Scholastic Theology ignorance of the truth, empty fallacy, and the Academies in which it is taught the brothels of Antichrist! Who is unaware with how many insults Calvin, that most impious fury, devoted to drink, a scoundrel, attacks the Theologian Doctors, especially those of Paris, when he called them Sophists, horned Asses, two-footed Beasts, and other things of that kind?

But why wonder if the shadows shun the light, the wolves attack the dogs, the poisons reject the antidote? For they are hostile to Scholastic Theology and to its students for this reason, that they understand that this doctrine itself is that mystic Davidic Tower in which hang a thousand shields, all the armor of the strong, that is, a most strongly fortified arsenal, whence weapons are brought forth, by which the Catholic faith stands firm and protected against their assaults up to this very day, and their errors are in like manner struck and fall.

For it will always be, whatever those men of darkness cry out, it will, I say, always be: Scholastic Theology, the light of the Church, the pillar of faith, the balance of truth, the club of errors, the sword of knots, the thunderbolt of heresies, the torch of mysteries, and Catholic doctrine, a Lydian stone.

This doctrine, already made illustrious by almost innumerable and most learned commentaries, I undertake to make illustrious again, with the torches of the Franciscan Doctors rekindled and doubled, especially those of the most subtle Doctor, as with a new splendor arising, the more confidently because I hear divine Wisdom herself crying out: They that explain me shall have life everlasting.

Lest, however, I should seem to run through the narrow sanctuary of Theology with too free a foot, without greeting the host, I have judged that this immense labor must be begun from a slight delineation of it, as is the custom. Wherefore let it be

No one among the wise is ignorant that the name of theology is a Greek word by which, as St. Augustine says, lib. 8. De Civit. Dei, cap. 1., we understand the reason or discourse concerning the Divinity to be signified: whence whoever delivers a sacred or profane, serious or playful discourse about God can be called a theologian.

Hence the same Augustine reports in the same place, lib. 6. cap. 5., from Marcus Varro, that among the ancient idolaters a threefold kind of theology existed: one indeed mythical, or fabulous, which the poets devised no less impiously than ridiculously; for they relate (says the same Augustine) that one god was born from the head, another from the thigh, another from drops of blood: that the gods stole, committed adultery, served a man: in fine, all things are attributed to the gods which can fall not only upon a man, but upon the most contemptible man. The second is physical and natural, which the philosophers themselves treated, inquiring who the gods are, where, of what kind, of what sort, from what time, whether they were from eternity, or from fire, as Heraclitus believes; or from numbers, as Pythagoras; or from atoms, as Epicurus, etc. The third is civil, which the citizens, especially the priests, ought to know and administer in the cities, and in which it is laid down which gods it befits each one to worship publicly, and what sacred rites and sacrifices to perform.

The first theology (says Varro) is most suited to the theater, the second to the world, the third to the city. But St. Augustine rightly ridicules and attacks this division, for he says, cap. 6.:

Since the world is a divine work; but cities and theaters are the works of men, and no other gods are laughed at in the theaters than those who are adored in the temples: nor do you present games to any others than those to whom you immolate victims. How much more freely and subtly would you divide these things by saying that some gods are natural, others instituted by men? But concerning the instituted gods, the writings of the poets hold one thing, and those of the priests another; both, nevertheless, are so friendly to each other in the fellowship of falsehood, that both are pleasing to the demons, to whom the doctrine of truth is hostile.

Although the idolatrous Gentiles abused this sacred name of theology in explaining their vain and profane mysteries; nevertheless the sacred Doctors and the interpreters of the divine Mysteries took it up to designate that doctrine which is wholly engaged in the contemplation of God, and is intent solely upon setting forth His divine excellences and operations.

But in order that an evident and exact knowledge of this divine doctrine may be had, we shall distribute the present Disputation into three Articles, of which the First will set forth the necessity and existence of theology; the Second its essence and dignity; the Third, finally, its utility and efficacy.