St. Cyprian: On The Unity Of The Catholic Church
In a day when the enemy has constructed a whole new church that implies everyone is in it let us turn to St. Cyprian for a classic text on the unity of the Church. This work by the martyr and early Father of the Church, Cyprian (martyred A.D. 258), contains the earliest known statement “extra ecclesiam nulla salus” – that, outside the Church there is no salvation – and that is the subject of the work.
[The Devil Seeks
To Deceive Men Subtly]
1. Since the
Lord warns us, saying, “Ye are the salt of the earth,” and since He
bids us to be simple to harmlessness, and yet with our simplicity to be
prudent, what else, beloved brethren, befits us, than to use foresight and
watching with an anxious heart, both to perceive and to beware of the wiles
of the crafty foe, that we, who have put on Christ the wisdom of God the
Father, may not seem to be wanting in wisdom in the matter of providing for
our salvation? For it is not persecution alone that is to be feared; nor
those things which advance by open attack to overwhelm and cast down the
servants of God. Caution is more easy where danger is manifest, and the mind
is prepared beforehand for the contest when the adversary avows himself. The
enemy is more to be feared and to be guarded against, when he creeps on us
secretly; when, deceiving by the appearance of peace, he steals forward by hidden
approaches, whence also he has received the name of the Serpent. That is
always his subtlety; that is his dark and stealthy artifice for circumventing
man. Thus from the very beginning of the world he deceived; and flattering
with lying words, he misled inexperienced souls by an incautious credulity.
Thus he endeavoured to tempt the Lord Himself: he secretly approached Him, as
if he would creep on Him again, and deceive; yet he was understood, and
beaten back, and therefore prostrated, because he was recognised and
detected.
2. From which an
example is given us to avoid the way of the old man, to stand in the
footsteps of a conquering Christ, that we may not again be incautiously
turned back into the nets of death, but, foreseeing our danger, may possess
the immortality that we have received. But how can we possess immortality,
unless we keep those commands of Christ whereby death is driven out and
overcome, when He Himself warns us, and says, “If thou wilt enter into
life, keep the commandments?” And again: “If ye do the things that I
command you, henceforth I call you not servants, but friends.” Finally,
these persons He calls strong and steadfast; these He declares to be founded
in robust security upon the rock, established with immoveable and unshaken
firmness, in opposition to all the tempests and hurricanes of the world. “Whosoever,”
says He, “heareth my words, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise
man, that built his house upon a rock: the rain descended, the floods came,
the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded
upon a rock.” We ought therefore to stand fast on His words, to learn and
do whatever He both taught and did. But how can a man say that he believes in
Christ, who does not do what Christ commanded him to do? Or whence shall he
attain to the reward of faith, who will not keep the faith of the
commandment? He must of necessity waver and wander, and, caught away by a
spirit of error, like dust which is shaken by the wind, be blown about; and
he will make no advance in his walk towards salvation, because he does not
keep the truth of the way of salvation.
[The Devil Has
Established Heresies And Schisms From The Church; Their Followers, Though
Thinking Themselves Christian, Are Not And Are Damned]
3. But, beloved
brethren, not only must we beware of what is open and manifest, but also of
what deceives by the craft of subtle fraud. And what can be more crafty, or
what more subtle, than for this enemy, detected and cast down by the advent
of Christ, after light has come to the nations, and saving rays have shone
for the preservation of men, that the deaf might receive the hearing of
spiritual grace, the blind might open their eyes to God, the weak might grow
strong again with eternal health, the lame might run to the church, the dumb
might pray with clear voices and prayers - seeing his idols forsaken, and his
lanes and his temples deserted by the numerous concourse of believers - to
devise a new fraud, and under the very title of the Christian name to deceive
the incautious? He has invented heresies and schisms, whereby he might
subvert the faith, might corrupt the truth, might divide the unity. Those
whom he cannot keep in the darkness of the old way, he circumvents and
deceives by the error of a new way. He snatches men from the Church itself;
and while they seem to themselves to have already approached to the light,
and to have escaped the night of the world, he pours over them again, in
their unconsciousness, new darkness; so that, although they do not stand firm
with the Gospel of Christ, and with the observation and law of Christ, they
still call themselves Christians, and, walking in darkness, they think that
they have the light, while the adversary is flattering and deceiving, who,
according to the apostle’s word, transforms himself into an “angel of
light” (II Corinthians 11:14), and equips his ministers as if they were
the “ministers of righteousness” (ibid.), who maintain night instead
of day, death for salvation, despair under the offer of hope, perfidy under
the pretext of faith, antichrist under the name of Christ; so that, while
they feign things like the truth, they make void the truth by their subtlety.
This happens, beloved brethren, so long as we do not return to the source of
truth, as we do not seek the head nor keep the teaching of the heavenly
Master.
[There Is Only
One Church, Of Which The Pope, In The Person Of Peter, Is Made The
Foundation; Only Those Who Are In His Communion Are In The Church]
4. If any one
consider and examine these things, there is no need for lengthened discussion
and arguments. There is easy proof for faith in a short summary of the truth.
The Lord speaks to Peter, saying, “I say unto thee, that thou art Peter;
and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of
heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound also in
heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven”
(St. Matthew 16:18). And again to the same He says, after His resurrection, “Feed
my sheep” (St. John 21:16). It is on him that He builds the Church, and
to him that He entrusts the sheep to feed. And although to all the apostles,
after His resurrection, He gives an equal power, and says, “As the Father
hath sent me, even so send I you: Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever
sins ye remit, they shall be remitted unto him; and whose soever sins ye
retain, they shall be retained;” (St. John 20:21, 22) yet, He founded a
single Chair. That He might set forth unity, He established by His authority
the origin of that unity, as having its origin in one man alone. No doubt the
others were all that Peter was, but a primacy is given to Peter, and it is
thus made clear that there is but one Church and one Chair. So too, even if
they are all shepherds, we are shown but one flock which is to be fed by all
the apostles in common accord. If a man does not hold fast to this oneness of
Peter, does he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he deserts the Chair
of Peter upon whom the Church was built, has he confidence that he is in the
Church?
Which one
Church, also, the Holy Spirit in the Song of Songs, speaking in Our Lord’s
name, says, “My dove, my spotless one, is but one. She is the only one of
her mother, elect of her that bare her” (6:9). Does he who does not hold
this unity of the Church think that he holds the faith? Does he who strives
against and resists the Church trust that he is in the Church, when moreover
the blessed Apostle Paul teaches the same thing, and sets forth the sacrament
of unity, saying, “There is one body and one spirit, one hope of your
calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God”? (Ephesians 4:5)
[The One Church
Is Catholic, Over The Whole World]
5. And this
unity we ought firmly to hold and assert, especially those of us that are
bishops who preside in the Church, that we may also prove the episcopate
itself to be one and undivided. Let no one deceive the brotherhood by a
falsehood: let no one corrupt the truth of the faith by perfidious
prevarication. The episcopate is one, each part of which is held by each one
for the whole. The Church also is one, which is spread abroad far and wide
into a multitude by an increase of fruitfulness. As there are many rays of
the sun, but one light; and many branches of a tree, but one strength based
in its tenacious root; and since from one spring flow many streams, although
the multiplicity seems diffused in the liberality of an overflowing
abundance, yet the unity is still preserved in the source. Separate a ray of
the sun from its body of light, its unity does not allow a division of light;
break a branch from a tree,--when broken, it will not be able to bud; cut off
the stream from its fountain, and that which is cut off dries up. Thus also
the Church, shone over with the light of the Lord, sheds forth her rays over
the whole world, yet it is one light which is everywhere diffused, nor is the
unity of the body separated. Her fruitful abundance spreads her branches over
the whole world. She broadly expands her rivers, liberally flowing, yet her
head is one, her source one; and she is one mother, plentiful in the results
of fruitfulness: from her womb we are born, by her milk we are nourished, by
her spirit we are animated.
[Outside The
Church There Is No Salvation. Whoever Is Separated From Her Will Be Damned]
6. The spouse of
Christ cannot be adulterous; she is uncorrupted and pure. She knows one home;
she guards with chaste modesty the sanctity of one couch. She keeps us for
God. She appoints the sons whom she has born for the kingdom. Whoever is
separated from the Church and is joined to an adulteress, is separated from
the promises of the Church; nor can he who forsakes the Church of Christ
attain to the rewards of Christ. He is a stranger; he is profane; he is an
enemy. He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for
his mother. If any one could escape who was outside the ark of Noah, then he
also may escape who shall be outside of the Church. The Lord warns, saying, “He
who is not with me is against me, and he who gathereth not with me scattereth”
(St. Matthew 12:30). He who breaks the peace and the concord of Christ, does
so in opposition to Christ; he who gathereth elsewhere than in the Church,
scatters the Church of Christ. The Lord says, “I and the Father are one;”
(St. John 10:30) and again it is written of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit, “And these three are one.” (I St. John 5:7) And
does any one believe that this unity which thus comes from the divine
strength and coheres in celestial sacraments, can be divided in the Church,
and can be separated by the parting asunder of opposing wills? He who does
not hold this unity does not hold God’s law, does not hold the faith of the
Father and the Son, does not hold life and salvation.
[The One
Catholic Church Cannot Be Divided]
7. This
sacrament of unity, this bond of a concord inseparably cohering, is set forth
where in the Gospel the coat of the Lord Jesus Christ is not at all divided
nor cut, but is received as an entire garment, and is possessed as an
uninjured and undivided robe by those who cast lots concerning Christ’s
garment, who should rather put on Christ. Holy Scripture speaks, saying, “But
of the coat, because it was not sewed, but woven from the top throughout,
they said one to another, Let us not rend it, but cast lots whose it shall be”
(St. John 19:23, 24). That coat bore with it an unity that came down from the
top, that is, that came from heaven and the Father, which was not to be at
all rent by the receiver and the possessor, but without separation we obtain
a whole and substantial entireness. He cannot possess the garment of Christ
who parts and divides the Church of Christ. On the other hand, again, when at
Solomon’s death his kingdom and people were divided, Abijah the prophet,
meeting Jeroboam the king in the field, divided his garment into twelve
sections, saying, “Take thee ten pieces; for thus saith the Lord, Behold,
I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and I will give ten
sceptres unto thee; and two sceptres shall be unto him for my servant David’s
sake, and for Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen to place my name there”
(I Kings 11:31). As the twelve tribes of Israel were divided, the prophet
Abijah rent his garment. But because Christ’s people cannot be rent, His
robe, woven and united throughout, is not divided by those who possess it;
undivided, united, connected, it shows the coherent concord of our people who
put on Christ. By the sacrament and sign of His garment, He has declared the
unity of the Church.
[No Salvation
Outside The Church]
8. Who, then, is
so wicked and faithless, who is so insane with the madness of discord, that
either he should believe that the unity of God can be divided, or should dare
to rend it--the garment of the Lord--the Church of Christ? He Himself in His
Gospel warns us, and teaches, saying, “And there shall be one flock and
one shepherd” (St. John 10:16). And does any one believe that in one
place there can be either many shepherds or many flocks? The Apostle Paul,
moreover, urging upon us this same unity, beseeches and exhorts, saving, “I
beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all
speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you; but that ye be
joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (I Corinthians
1:10). And again, he says, “Forbearing one another in love, endeavouring
to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:2, 3).
Do you think that you can stand and live if you withdraw from the Church,
building for yourself other homes and a different dwelling, when it is said
to Rahab, in whom was prefigured the Church, “Thy father, and thy mother,
and thy brethren, and all the house of thy father, thou shalt gather unto
thee into thine house; and it shall come to pass, whosoever shall go abroad
beyond the door of thine house, his blood shall be upon his own head?”
(Joshua 2:18, 19) Also, the sacrament of the passover contains nothing else
in the law of the Exodus than that the lamb which is slain in the figure of
Christ should be eaten in one house. God speaks, saying, “In one house
shall ye eat it; ye shall not send its flesh abroad from the house”
(Exodus 12:46). The flesh of Christ, and the holy of the Lord, cannot be sent
abroad, nor is there any other home to believers but the one Church. This
home, this household of unanimity, the Holy Spirit designates and points out
in the Psalms, saying, “God, who maketh men to dwell with one mind in a
house.” In the house of God, in the Church of Christ, men dwell with one
mind, and continue in concord and simplicity.
[We Should Be
Glad When Heretics And Schismatics Leave The Church]
9. Therefore
also the Holy Spirit came as a dove, a simple and joyous creature, not bitter
with gall, not cruel in its bite, not violent with the rending of its claws,
loving human dwellings, knowing the association of one home; when they have
young, bringing forth their young together; when they fly abroad, remaining
in their flights by the side of one another, spending their life in mutual
interaction, acknowledging the concord of peace with the kiss of the beak, in
all things fulfilling the law of unanimity. This is the simplicity that ought
to be known in the Church, this is the charity that ought to be attained,
that so the love of the brotherhood may imitate the doves, that their
gentleness and meekness may be like the lambs and sheep. What does the
fierceness of wolves do in the Christian breast? What the savageness of dogs,
and the deadly venom of serpents, and the sanguinary cruelty of wild beasts?
We are to be congratulated when such as these are separated from the Church,
lest they should lay waste the doves and sheep of Christ with their cruel and
envenomed contagion. Bitterness cannot consist and be associated with
sweetness, darkness with light, rain with clearness, battle with peace,
barrenness with fertility, drought with springs, storm with tranquillity. Let
none think that the good can depart from the Church. The wind does not carry
away the wheat, nor does the hurricane uproot the tree that is based on a
solid root. The light straws are tossed about by the tempest, the feeble
trees are overthrown by the onset of the whirlwind. The Apostle John
execrates and severely assails these, when he says, “They went forth from
us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, surely they would
have continued with us” (I John 2:19).
[Heretics And
Schismatics Are Damned]
10. Hence
heresies not only have frequently been originated, but continue to be so;
while the perverted mind has no peace--while a discordant faithlessness does
not maintain unity. But the Lord permits and suffers these things to be,
while the choice of one’s own liberty remains, so that while the
discrimination of truth is testing our hearts and our minds, the sound faith
of those that are approved may shine forth with manifest light. The Holy
Spirit forewarns and says by the apostle, “It is needful also that there
should be heresies, that they which are approved may be made manifest among
you” (I Corinthians 11:19). Thus the faithful are approved, thus the
perfidious are detected; thus even here, before the day of judgment, the
souls of the righteous and of the unrighteous are already divided, and the
chaff is separated from the wheat. These are they who of their own accord,
without any divine arrangement, set themselves to preside among the daring
strangers assembled, who appoint themselves prelates without any law of
ordination, who assume to themselves the name of bishop, although no one
gives them the episcopate; whom the Holy Spirit points out in the Psalms as
sitting “in the seat of pestilence” (1:1), plagues, and spots of the
faith, deceiving with serpent’s tongue, and artful in corrupting the truth,
vomiting forth deadly poisons from pestilential tongues; whose speech doth
creep like a cancer, whose discourse forms a deadly poison in the heart and
breast of every one.
[The Sacraments
Do Not Give Life Outside The Catholic Church]
11. Against
people of this kind the Lord cries; from these He restrains and recalls His
erring people, saying, “Harken not unto the words of the false prophets;
for the visions of their hearts deceive them. They speak, but not out of the
mouth of the Lord. They say to those who cast away the word of God, Ye shall
have peace, and every one that walketh after his own will. Every one who
walketh in the error of his heart, no evil shall come upon him. I have not
spoken to them, yet they prophesied. If they had stood on my foundation, and
had heard my words, and taught my people, I would have turned them from their
evil thoughts” (Jeremiah 23:16-). Again, the Lord points out and
designates these same, saying, “They have forsaken me, the fountain of
living waters, and have hewed them out broken cisterns which can hold no
water” (Jeremiah 2:13). Although there can be no other baptism but one,
they think that they can baptize; although they forsake the fountain of life,
they promise the grace of living and saving water. Men are not washed among
them, but rather are made foul; nor are sins purged away, but are even
accumulated. Such a nativity does not generate sons to God, but to the devil.
By a falsehood they are born, and they do not receive the promises of truth.
Begotten of perfidy, they lose the grace of faith. They cannot attain to the
reward of peace, since they have broken the Lord’s peace with the madness of
discord.
[Only Catholics
Are The “Two Or Three” Whom The Lord Spoke Of]
12. Nor let any
deceive themselves by a futile interpretation, in respect of the Lord having
said, “Wheresoever two or three are gathered together in my name, there am
I in the midst of them” (St. Matthew 18:20). Corrupters and false
interpreters of the Gospel quote the last words, and lay aside the former
ones, remembering part, and craftily suppressing part: as they themselves are
separated from the Church, so they cut off the substance of one section. For
the Lord, when He would urge unanimity and peace upon His disciples, said, “I
say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth touching anything that
ye shall ask, it shall be given you by my Father which is in heaven. For
wheresoever two or three are gathered together in my name, I am with them;”
showing that most is given, not to the multitude, but to the unanimity of
those that pray. “If,” He says, “two of you shall agree on earth:”
He placed agreement first; He has made the concord of peace a prerequisite;
He taught that we should agree firmly and faithfully. But how can he agree
with any one who does not agree with the body of the Church itself, and with
the universal brotherhood? How can two or three be assembled together in
Christ’s name, who, it is evident, are separated from Christ and from His
Gospel? For we have not withdrawn from them, but they from us; and since
heresies and schisms have risen subsequently, from their establishment for
themselves of diverse places of worship, they have forsaken the Head and
Source of the truth. But the Lord speaks concerning His Church, and to those
also who are in the Church He speaks, that if they are in agreement, if
according to what He commanded and admonished, although only two or three
gathered together with unanimity should pray--though they be only two or
three - they may obtain from the majesty of God what they ask. “Wheresoever
two or three are gathered together in my name, I,” slays He, “am with
them;” that is, with the simple and peaceable--with those who fear God
and keep God’s commandments.
With these,
although only two or three, He said that He was, in the same manner as He was
with the three youths in the fiery furnace; and because they abode towards
God in simplicity, and in unanimity among themselves, He animated them, in the
midst of the surrounding flames, with the breath of dew: in the way in which,
with the two apostles shut up in prison, because they were simple-minded and
of one mind, He Himself was present; He Himself, having loosed the bolts of
the dungeon, placed them again in the market-place, that they might declare
to the multitude the word which they faithfully preached. When, therefore, in
His commandments He lays it down, and says, “Where two or three are
gathered together in my name, I am with them,” He does not divide men
from the Church, seeing that He Himself ordained and made the Church; but
rebuking the faithless for their discord, and commending peace by His word to
the faithful, He shows that He is rather with two or three who pray with one
mind, than with a great many who differ, and that more can be obtained by the
concordant prayer of a few, than by the discordant supplication of many.
13. Thus, also,
when He gave the law of prayer, He added, saying, “And when ye stand
praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any; that your Father also which
is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” And He calls back from the
altar one who comes to the sacrifice in strife, and bids him first agree with
his brother, and then return with peace and offer his gift to God: for God
had not respect unto Cain’s offerings; for he could not have God at peace
with him, who through envious discord had not peace with his brother. What
peace, then, do the enemies of the brethren promise to themselves? What
sacrifices do those who are rivals of the priests think that they celebrate?
Do they deem that they have Christ with them when they are collected
together, who are gathered together outside the Church of Christ?
[No Blessed
Martyrs Outside The Church; Heretic And Schismatic “Martyrs” Are Damned]
14. Even if such
men were slain in confession of the Name, that stain is not even washed away
by blood: the inexpiable and grave fault of discord is not even purged by
suffering. He cannot be a martyr who is not in the Church; he cannot attain
unto the kingdom who forsakes that which shall reign there. Christ gave us
peace; He bade us be in agreement, and of one mind. He charged the bonds of
love and charity to be kept uncorrupted and inviolate; he cannot show himself
a martyr who has not maintained brotherly love. Paul the apostle teaches
this, and testifies, saying, “And though I have faith, so that I can
remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I give all
my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have
not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity is magnanimous; charity is
kind; charity envieth not; charity acteth not vainly, is not puffed up, is
not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; loveth all things, believeth all
things, hopeth all things, endureth all things Charity never falleth” (I
Corinthians 13:2-). “Charity,” says he, “never faileth.” For
she will ever be in the kingdom, she will endure for ever in the unity of a
brotherhood linked to herself. Discord cannot attain to the kingdom of
heaven; to the rewards of Christ, who said, “This is my commandment that
ye love one another even as I have loved you:” (St. John 15:12) he cannot
attain who has violated the love of Christ by faithless dissension. He who
has not charity has not God. The word of the blessed Apostle John is: “God,”
saith he, “is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God
dwelleth in him” (I St. John 4:16). They cannot dwell with God who would
not be of one mind in God’s Church. Although they burn, given up to flames
and fires, or lay down their lives, thrown to the wild beasts, there will not
be the crown of faith, but the punishment of perfidy; nor will it be the
glorious ending of religious valour, but the destruction of despair. Such a
one may be slain; crowned he cannot be. He professes himself to be a
Christian in such a way as the devil often feigns himself to be Christ, as
the Lord Himself forewarns us, and says, “Many shall come in my name,
saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many” (St. Matthew 24:5). As he is
not Christ, although he deceives in respect of the name; so neither can he
appear as a Christian who does not abide in the truth of His Gospel and of
faith.
[Catholic
Ecclesial Charity Is Necessary To Any Eternal Profit]
15. For both to prophesy
and to cast out devils, and to do great acts upon the earth is certainly a
sublime and an admirable thing; but one does not attain the kingdom of heaven
although he is found in all these things, unless he walks in the observance
of the right and just way. The Lord denounces, and says, “Many shall say
to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name, and in Thy
name have cast out devils, and in Thy name done many wonderful works? And
then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work
iniquity” (St. Matthew 7:22). There is need of righteousness, that one
may deserve well of God the Judge; we must obey His precepts and warnings,
that our merits may receive their reward. The Lord in His Gospel, when He
would direct the way of our hope and faith in a brief summary, said, “The
Lord thy God is one God: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength. This is the first
commandment; and the second is like unto it: Thou shall love thy neighbour as
thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets”
(St. Matthew 22:37). He taught, at the same time, love and unity by His
instruction. He has included all the prophets and the law in two precepts. But
what unity does he keep, what love does he maintain or consider, who, savage
with the madness of discord, divides the Church, destroys the faith, disturbs
the peace, dissipates charity, profanes the sacrament?
[Heresy And
Schism Were Increasing In St. Cyprian’s Day]
16. This evil,
most faithful brethren, had long ago begun, but now the mischievous
destruction of the same evil has increased, and the envenomed plague of
heretical perversity and schisms has begun to spring forth and shoot anew;
because even thus it must be in the decline of the world, since the Holy
Spirit foretells and forewarns us by the apostle, saying, “In the last
days,” says he, “perilous times shall come, and men shall be lovers of
their own selves, proud, boasters, covetous, blasphemers, disobedient to
parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false
accusers, incontinent, fierce, hating the good, traitors, heady, high-minded,
lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a sort of form of religion,
but denying the power thereof. Of this sort are they who creep into houses,
and lead captive silly women laden with sins, which are led away with divers
lusts; ever learning, and never coming to the knowledge of the truth. And as
Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth; but
they shall proceed no further, for their folly shall be manifest unto all
men, even as theirs also was.” (II St. Timothy 3) Whatever things were
predicted are fulfilled; and as the end of the world is approaching, they
have come for the probation as well of the men as of the times. Error
deceives as the adversary rages more and more; senselessness lifts up, envy
inflames, covetousness makes blind, impiety depraves, pride puffs up, discord
exasperates, anger hurries headlong.
[Heretics And
Schismatics Are To Be Avoided]
17. Yet let not
the excessive and headlong faithlessness of many move or disturb us, but
rather strengthen our faith in the truthfulness which has foretold the
matter. As some have become such, because these things were predicted
beforehand, so let other brethren beware of matters of a like kind, because
these also were predicted beforehand, even as the Lord instructs us, and
says, “But take ye heed: behold, I have foretold you all things” (St. Mark
13:23). Avoid, I beseech you, brethren, men of this kind, and drive away from
your side and from your ears, as if it were the contagion of death, their
mischievous conversation; as it is written, “Hedge thine ears about with
thorns, and refuse to hear a wicked tongue.” And again, “Evil
communications corrupt good manners” (I Corinthians 15:33). The Lord
teaches and warns us to depart from such. He saith, “They are blind
leaders of the blind; and if the blind lead the blind, they shall both fall
into the ditch” (St. Matthew 15:14). Such a one is to be turned away from
and avoided, whosoever he may be, that is separated from the Church. Such a
one is perverted and sins, and is condemned of his own self. Does he think
that he has Christ, who acts in opposition to Christ’s priests, who separates
himself from the company of His clergy and people? He bears arms against the
Church, he contends against God’s appointment. An enemy of the altar, a rebel
against Christ’s sacrifice, for the faith faithless, for religion profane, a
disobedient servant, an impious son, a hostile brother, despising the
bishops, and forsaking God’s priests, he dares to set up another altar, to
make another prayer with unauthorized words, to profane the truth of the
Lord’s offering by false sacrifices, and not to know that he who strives
against the appointment of God, is punished on account of the daring of his
temerity by divine visitation.
[Heretics And
Schismatics Are Damned]
18. Thus Korah,
Dathan, and Abiram, who endeavoured to claim to themselves the power of
sacrificing in opposition to Moses and Aaron the priest, underwent immediate
punishment for their attempts. The earth, breaking its fastenings, gaped open
into a deep gulf, and the cleft of the receding ground swallowed up the men
standing and living. Nor did the anger of the indignant God strike only those
who had been the movers (of the sedition); but two hundred and fifty sharers
and associates of that madness besides, who had been mingled with them in
that boldness, the fire that went out from the Lord consumed with a hasty
revenge; doubtless to admonish and show that whatever those wicked men had
endeavoured, in order by human will to overthrow God’s appointment, had been
done in opposition to God. Thus also Uzziah the king, - when he bare the
censer and violently claimed to himself to sacrifice against God’s law, and
when Azariah the priest withstood him, would not be obedient and yield, - was
confounded by the divine indignation, and was polluted upon his forehead by
the spot of leprosy: he was marked by an offended Lord in that part of his
body where they are signed who deserve well of the Lord. And the sons of
Aaron, who placed strange fire upon the altar, which the Lord had not
commanded, were at once extinguished in the presence of an avenging Lord.
19. These,
doubtless, they imitate and follow, who, despising God’s tradition, seek
after strange doctrines, and bring in teachings of human appointment, whom
the Lord rebukes and reproves in His Gospel, saying, “Ye reject the commandment
of God, that ye may keep your own tradition” (St. Mark 7:9). This is a
worse crime than that which the lapsed seem to have fallen into, who
nevertheless, standing as penitents for their crime, beseech God with full
satisfactions. In this case, the Church is sought after and entreated; in
that case, the Church is resisted: here it is possible that there has been
force; there the will is engaged in the wickedness: on the one hand, he who
has lapsed has only injured himself; on the other, he who has endeavoured to
cause a heresy or a schism has deceived many by drawing them with him. In the
former, it is the loss of one soul; in the latter, the risk of many.
Certainly the one both understands that he has sinned, and laments and
bewails it; the other, puffed up in his heart, and pleasing himself in his
very crimes, separates sons from their Mother, entices sheep from their
shepherd, disturbs the sacraments of God; and while the lapsed has sinned but
once, he sins daily. Finally, the lapsed, who has subsequently attained to
martyrdom, may receive the promises of the kingdom; while the other, if he
have been slain without the Church, cannot attain to the rewards of the
Church.
[Confessors Who
Leave The Church Will Be Damned]
20. Nor let any
one marvel, beloved brethren, that even some of the confessors advance to
these lengths, and thence also that some others sin thus wickedly, thus
grievously. For neither does confession make a man free from the snares of
the devil, nor does it defend a man who is still placed in the world, with a
perpetual security from temptations, and dangers, and onsets, and attacks of
the world; otherwise we should never see in confessors those subsequent
frauds, and fornications, and adulteries, which now with groans and sorrow we
witness in some. Whosoever that confessor is, he is not greater, or better,
or dearer to God than Solomon, who, although so long as he walked in God’s
ways, retained that grace which he had received from the Lord, yet after he
forsook the Lord’s way he lost also then the Lord’s grace. And therefore it
is written, “Hold fast that which thou hast, lest another take thy crown.”
But assuredly the Lord would not threaten that the crown of righteousness
might be taken away, were it not that, when righteousness departs, the crown
must also depart.
21. Confession
is the beginning of glory, not the full desert of the crown; nor does it
perfect our praise, but it initiates our dignity; and since it is written, “He
that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved,” (St. Matthew 10:22)
whatever has been before the end is a step by which we ascend to the summit
of salvation, not a terminus wherein the full result of the ascent is already
gained. He is a confessor; but after confession his peril is greater, because
the adversary is more provoked. He is a confessor; for this cause he ought
the more to stand on the side of the Lord’s Gospel, since he has by the
Gospel attained glory from the Lord. For the Lord says, “To whom much is
given, of him much shall be required; and to whom more dignity is ascribed,
of him more service is exacted” (St. Luke 12:48). Let no one perish by
the example of a confessor; let no one learn injustice, let no one learn
arrogance, let no one learn treachery, from the manners of a confessor. He is
a confessor, let him be lowly and quiet; let him be in his doings modest with
discipline, so that he who is called a confessor of Christ may imitate Christ
whom he confesses. For since He says, “Whosoever exalteth himself shall be
abased, and he who humbleth himself shall be exalted;” and since He
Himself has been exalted by the Father, because as the Word, and the
strength, and the wisdom of God the Father, He humbled Himself upon earth,
how can He love arrogance, who even by His own law enjoined upon us humility,
and Himself received the highest name from the Father as the reward of His
humility? He is a confessor of Christ, but only so if the majesty and dignity
of Christ be not afterwards blasphemed by him. Let not the tongue which has
confessed Christ be evil-speaking; let it not be turbulent, let it not be
heard jarring with reproaches and quarrels, let it not after words of praise,
dart forth serpents’ venom against the brethren and God’s priests. But if one
shall have subsequently been blameworthy and obnoxious; if he shall have
wasted his confession by evil conversation; if he shall have stained his life
by disgraceful foulness; if, finally, forsaking the Church in which he has
become a confessor, and severing the concord of unity, he shall have exchanged
his first faith for a subsequent unbelief, he may not flatter himself on
account of his confession that he is elected to the reward of glory, when
from this very fact his deserving of punishment has become the greater.
22. For the Lord
chose Judas also among the apostles, and yet afterwards Judas betrayed the
Lord. Yet not on that account did the faith and firmness of the apostles
fail, because the traitor Judas failed from their fellowship: so also in the
case in question the holiness and dignity of confessors is not forthwith
diminished, because the faith of some of them is broken. The blessed Apostle
Paul in his epistle speaks in this manner: “For what if some of them fall
away from the faith, shall their unbelief make the faith of God without
effect? God forbid: for God is true, though every man be a liar” (Romans
3:3). The greater and better part of the confessors stand firm in the
strength of their faith, and in the truth of the law and discipline of the
Lord; neither do they depart from the peace of the Church, who remember that
they have obtained grace in the Church by the condescension of God; and by
this very thing they obtain a higher praise of their faith, that they have
separated from the faithlessness of those who have been associated with them
in the fellowship of confession, and withdrawn from the contagion of crime.
Illuminated by the true light of the Gospel, shone upon with the Lord’s pure
and white brightness, they are as praiseworthy in maintaining the peace of
Christ, as they have been victorious in their combat with the devil.
[We Avoid
Schisms Or Are Damned]
23. I indeed
desire, beloved brethren, and I equally endeavour and exhort, that if it be
possible, none of the brethren should perish, and that our rejoicing Mother
may enclose in her bosom the one body of a people at agreement. Yet if
wholesome counsel cannot recall to the way of salvation certain leaders of
schisms and originators of dissensions, who abide in blind and obstinate
madness, yet do you others, if either taken in simplicity, or induced by
error, or deceived by some craftiness of misleading cunning, loose yourselves
from the nets of deceit, free your wandering steps from errors, acknowledge
the straight way of the heavenly road. The word of the witnessing apostle is:
“We command you,” says he, “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that ye withdraw yourselves from all brethren that walk disorderly, and not
after the tradition that they have received from us” (II Thessalonians
3:6). And again he says, “Let no man deceive you with vain words; for
because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of
disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them” (Ephesians 5:6).
We must withdraw, nay rather must flee, from those who fall away, lest, while
any one is associated with those who walk wickedly, and goes on in ways of
error and of sin, he himself also, wandering away from the path of the true
road, should be found in like guilt. God is one, and Christ is one, and His
Church is one, and the faith is one, and the people is joined into a
substantial unity of body by the cement of concord. Unity cannot be severed;
nor can one body be separated by a division of its structure, nor torn into
pieces, with its entrails wrenched asunder by laceration. Whatever has proceeded
from the womb cannot live and breathe in its detached condition, but loses
the substance of health.
[It Is Only
Through Catholic Ecclesial Concord That We May Be Saved]
24. The Holy
Spirit warns us, and says, “What man is he that desireth to live, and
would fain see good days? Refrain thy tongue from evil, and thy lips that
they speak no guile. Eschew evil, and do good; seek peace, and ensue it”
(Psalm 33:12) The son of peace ought to seek peace and ensue it. He who knows
and loves the bond of charity, ought to refrain his tongue from the evil of
dissension. Among His divine commands and salutary teachings, the Lord, when
He was now very near to His passion, added this one, saying, “Peace I
leave with you, my peace I give unto you” (St. John 14:27). He gave this
to us as an heritage; He promised all the gifts and rewards of which He spoke
through the preservation of peace. If we are fellow-heirs with Christ, let us
abide in the peace of Christ; if we are sons of God, we ought to be
peacemakers. “Blessed,” says He, “are the peacemakers; for they
shall be called the sons of God” (St. Matthew 5:9). It behooves the sons
of God to be peacemakers, gentle in heart, simple in speech, agreeing in
affection, faithfully linked to one another in the bonds of unanimity.
25. This
unanimity formerly prevailed among the apostles; and thus the new assembly of
believers, keeping the Lord’s commandments, maintained its charity. Divine
Scripture proves this, when it says, “But the multitude of them which
believed were of one heart and of one soul” (Acts 4:32). And again: “These
all continued with one mind in prayer with the women, and Mary the mother of
Jesus, and with His brethren” (Acts 1:14). And thus they prayed with
effectual prayers; thus they were able with confidence to obtain whatever
they asked from the Lord’s mercy.
[We Must Believe
With Zeal If We Would Be Saved]
26. But in us
unanimity is diminished in proportion as liberality of working is decayed.
Then they used to give for sale houses and estates; and that they might lay
up for themselves treasures in heaven, presented to the apostles the price of
them, to be distributed for the use of the poor. But now we do not even give
the tenths from our patrimony; and while our Lord bids us sell, we rather buy
and increase our store. Thus has the vigour of faith dwindled away among us;
thus has the strength of believers grown weak. And therefore the Lord,
looking to our days, says in His Gospel, “When the Son of man cometh,
think you that He shall find faith on the earth?” (St. Luke 18:8) We see
that what He foretold has come to pass. There is no faith in the fear of God,
in the law of righteousness, in love, in labour; none considers the fear of
futurity, and none takes to heart the day of the Lord, and the wrath of God,
and the punishments to come upon unbelievers, and the eternal torments
decreed for the faithless. That which our conscience would fear if it
believed, it fears not because it does not at all believe. But if it
believed, it would also take heed; and if it took heed, it would escape.
27. Let us, beloved
brethren, arouse ourselves as much as we can; and breaking the slumber of our
ancient listlessness, let us be watchful to observe and to do the Lord’s
precepts. Let us be such as He Himself has bidden us to be, saying, “Let
your loins be girt, and your lamps burning; and ye yourselves like unto men
that wait for their Lord, when He shall come from the wedding, that when He
cometh and knocketh, they may open to Him. Blessed are those servants whom
their Lord, when He cometh, shall find watching.” We ought to be girt
about, lest, when the day of setting forth comes, it should find us burdened
and entangled. Let our light shine in good works, and glow in such wise as to
lead us from the night of this world to the daylight of eternal brightness.
Let us always with solicitude and caution wait for the sudden coming of the
Lord, that when He shall knock, our faith may be on the watch, and receive
from the Lord the reward of our vigilance. If these commands be observed, if
these warnings and precepts be kept, we cannot be overtaken in slumber by the
deceit of the devil; but we shall reign with Christ in His kingdom as
servants that watch.
Related:
http://tradcatknight.blogspot.com/2015/06/st-cyril-of-alexandria-one-of-greatest.html
http://tradcatknight.blogspot.com/2015/06/st-bernard-converts-duke-of-aquitaine.html
http://tradcatknight.blogspot.com/2015/06/st-bernard-converts-duke-of-aquitaine.html
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Church unity is equally important as the unity of humans because until the church will be united we can not get right message from the religious presidency.
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