Panarion (Against Heresies) 1 part 39/82

There is nothing altered: the Father is always Father, and there was no time when the Father was not Father, being always perfect Father, subsisting in his own person; and the Son, always perfect, always subsisting in his own person, truly begotten of the Father without beginning, without time, and inexpressibly, not being a brother to the Father, not having begun to be, nor ever ceasing, but always the true Son coexisting with the Father, begotten of the Father timelessly, being equal, God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten not created -- yet he himself is not the Father, nor is the Father himself the Son, but there is one God: Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

For the Spirit is always with the Father and the Son -- not a brother to the Father, not begotten, not created, not a brother of the Son, not an offspring of the Father, but proceeding from the Father and receiving from the Son; not alien to the Father and the Son, but of the same substance, of the same Godhead, from the Father and the Son, with the Father and the Son -- the Holy Spirit, always subsisting in his own person, the divine Spirit, the Spirit of glory, the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of the Father; for it says, 'the Spirit of your Father, speaking in you,' and, 'my Spirit stands in the midst of you' -- third in name, equal in Godhead, not altered from the Father and the Son, the bond of the Trinity, the seal of the confession.

For the Son says, 'I and the Father' -- 'we two are one.'

And he did not say, 'I am one,' but by 'I' and 'the Father' he signifies the Father as subsisting in his own person and the Son as subsisting in his own person.

And he said 'the two,' and did not say 'the one.'

And again, 'we are one,' and he did not say, 'I am one.'

Likewise also he says, 'Go and baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.'

And the conjunctions being placed in between -- that is, the syllable 'and' -- this refutes Sabellius, who vainly introduces his notion of a blending together.

For wherever 'and' is placed, it signifies truly the Father, truly the Son, truly the Holy Spirit.

But when the Trinity is of equal rank, and is called Trinity by a single name, this refutes Arius, who imagines some sort of subordination, or alteration, or variation within the Trinity.

For even if the Father is declared, by the Son who glorifies him, to be greater, Scripture most fittingly secures equal glory for the Son as well.

For to whom was it fitting to glorify his own Father, if not to the true Son? And again, when he wishes to declare the equality, so that some might not fall away by thinking somewhat less of the Son, he says thus: 'He who does not honor the Son as he honors the Father does not have life in himself,' and, 'all things that are my Father's are mine.'

And what are 'the things of the Father'? But --

'all things that are my Father's are mine'?

Consider, O Sabellius, and understand.

Open the eyes of your heart, and do not remain blind.

Let your mind, and the minds of those deceived by you, go together with holy John to the Jordan.

Listen to the forerunner of the Lord, who was deemed worthy to be called an 'angel,' who received the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb, and who leapt for joy at Mary's coming to Elizabeth.

who, while still in the womb, recognized the coming of his own Master, and leapt for joy.

to whom was given the message of the forerunning proclamation, and the preparation of the way of the Lord.

Be persuaded by him, and you will not fall away from the mark of the truth.

For behold, he himself bears witness, saying -- first, having recognized his own Master -- 'I have need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?'; and the Savior saying, 'Permit it for now, that all righteousness may be fulfilled'; and he was baptized by him, as the divine Gospel says, that John bore witness, saying that the heavens were opened, and, 'I have seen the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove, and coming upon him.'

And a voice from heaven: 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.'

The Father was above, O contentious one; the voice came from above.

If, then, the voice was from above, then explain to me your distorted reasoning.

To whom was the Father speaking when he said, 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased'? And who was this? And why did the Spirit come down in the form of a dove, though the Spirit did not bear a body? For the Only-begotten alone put on a body and became fully human, from Mary the ever-virgin, through the Holy Spirit, not from the seed of a man -- but the Word, the master-craftsman, fashioned for himself a body from Mary, and a human soul, and a mind, and whatever else constitutes a human being, fully taking on all these things and uniting them to his own Godhead -- not as one who merely dwelt in a man (God forbid!), but he himself, the holy Word, God the Word, became man.

But for what reason does the Spirit appear in the form of a dove? It is so that it may persuade you not to blaspheme, O self-styled philosopher who thinks nothing rightly, so that you might not suppose the Spirit to be a blending together with the Father or the Son.

For this reason, although the Holy Spirit itself did not bear a body, it takes the form of a dove, so that it might show you -- and thereby refute your error -- that the Spirit indeed subsists in its own person by itself, and the Father subsists in his own person, and the Only-begotten subsists in his own person, without the Godhead being divided or its own glory being diminished.

And do you see how the Trinity is enumerated: the Father crying out from above, the Son being baptized in the Jordan, and the Holy Spirit alighting in the form of a dove? Tell me, then, who is it that said: 'Behold, my beloved servant shall understand, in whom I am well pleased, whom my soul has chosen'?

'I will put my Spirit upon him, and he shall proclaim judgment to the nations.'

'He shall not strive, nor cry out, nor shall his voice be heard in the streets.'

'A bruised reed he shall not break, and smoking flax he shall not quench, until he brings forth judgment unto victory' — and so on.

Are these things, then, not capable of expressing the Trinity, O lover of contention? Did the Father, then, say all these things about himself through the prophet? And who is he of whom it is written: 'The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand'? And it did not say, 'Enter into me.'

Or again, how does the Gospel say: 'And he went up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of the Father, and he comes to judge the living and the dead'? Or again, how have the two men who appeared in white garments failed to persuade you, who said to the disciples: 'Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him going up'? And whom did the blessed Stephen behold, when he said: 'Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God'? But you, an ignoramus in every respect, having failed to understand the voice of the holy Scriptures, have harmed yourself the more, and those who obeyed you, having fallen away from the holy faith of God's truth.

For he truly said: 'I am the first and I am the one after these things, and besides me there is no other.'

...and Son, and Holy Spirit — the Trinity being neither a confused fusion nor divided...

...in its own selfsame identity; but the Father truly begetting a Son, and the Son truly begotten of the Father, subsistent without beginning and without time; and the Holy Spirit truly [proceeding] from the Father and the Son, of the same Godhead, proceeding from the Father and receiving from the Son, ever subsistent — one God, the first and the one after these things.

But again, for the sake of another dispensation, this is sung in the person of Christ himself, since our Lord Jesus Christ had long ago, many times, appeared in the prophets and announced that his own coming would take place; but some did not receive him, expecting another in his place.

And with reference to those superstitious devotees of idols who had introduced polytheism into the world — lest the sons of Israel, terrified, should turn aside and worship the idols of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Girgashites, the Jebusites, the Arukites, and the Asanites, as had also been prophesied concerning them —

for they worshiped Baal-peor, and Chemosh, and Astarte, and the Mazuroth, and the Neastho, and Baalzebath, and the rest of the idols of the nations.

Therefore the Lord also said to them: 'I am the first and the one after these things,' in order to turn them away from the error of those fable-mongering nations who worshiped polytheism.

And since they were about to reject the coming of the Son himself, our Lord Jesus Christ, he said to the Jews: 'I am the first and the one after these things' — the first who sojourned in the flesh, and the one who comes after these things to judge the living and the dead; he who suffered on the cross and was buried and rose again, taken up in glory in that very body, which was united to his divinity unto glory and made radiant, no longer now falling under touch, no longer sharing in death.

For Christ has risen, as the Scripture says.

For death no longer has dominion over him, says the apostle.

And see how precision guides a man, so that he may not fall away toward either one of the two sides of the truth: so that, whenever the mind should be inclined to fashion polytheism, it may hear: 'The Lord your God is one Lord.'

But when the sons of Israel should expect another Christ besides the one who came, let them hear: 'I am the first and the one after these things,' and: 'I am the Alpha and the Omega' — the Alpha looking downward and the Omega looking upward — so that what was said might be fulfilled: 'He who descended is the very one who also ascended far above all rule and authority and dominion and every name that is named.'

And in order that, when someone might suppose — because it was said, 'I am the first and the one after these things,' and, 'I am the Alpha and I am the Omega,' and, 'The Lord your God is one Lord,' and, 'I am He who is' — [to conclude in such a way] that no one might deny the Son and the Holy Spirit, for this reason he also says: 'My Father is greater than I,' and: 'that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.'

Not that the Son is not true God, but that he might lead the naming of the Trinity into a single unity, and shut the minds of men away from polytheism into a single Godhead.

But if Arius, deceived in his mind, should suppose that only the One — that is, the Father — is called true God, while the Son is God but not true God, [Scripture] refutes such a one again in another way, saying: 'I am the true light, which enlightens every man coming into the world,' while concerning the Father it says only that 'God is light.'

And it did not say 'true light' [of the Father], so that from the phrase 'true God' and 'true light' [applied to the Son] we might understand the equal Godhead of the Father toward the Son and of the Son toward the Father, and also from the fact that the Father is light and the Son is God — even though 'true' is not appended in this instance.

For there was no need to say it, since there was no ambiguity at all.

For from the terms 'God' and 'light,' the one perfection of the same genuineness — of the Father toward the Son and of the Son toward the Father — has been clearly declared.

And thus your whole madness of error has been dissolved.

For the Father is Father, the Son is Son, the Holy Spirit is Holy Spirit — being a Trinity, one Godhead, one doxology, one lordship, one God, to whom be glory, honor, and might: to the Father in the Son, to the Son in the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, unto ages of ages. Amen.

Having shaken off this heresy in turn, as one shakes off a libys, or a molouros, or an elops, or one of the most fearsome reptiles — though these, once shaken off, can no longer harm by their bites — and having trampled it down by the power of the Holy Trinity, let us proceed again to what follows, calling upon him as helper of our poverty and littleness, so that we may be aided to set forth worthily what is said and done in connection with each heresy, and to compose a refutation of these things.

Against the Origenians — the first, the shameful ones — the forty-third heresy, but the sixty-third in order.

Certain people are called Origenians, though this sect does not exist everywhere; and I suppose that, in the succession of these heresies, this one now being described has likewise sprung up.

They are called Origenians, but we do not know very clearly on what account.

Whether they derive their existence from Origen, called Adamantius, the writer, or from some other person, I do not know.

Nevertheless, this is the name by which we have come to know them.

The heresy which is held as law among them seems, as it were, to resemble that of Epiphanes, whom I mentioned above among the heresies concerning the Gnostics.

These people read various scriptures of the New and Old Testaments.

But they reject marriage, and lust never ceases from among them.

Some have said that it arose around Rome and Africa.

And they defile their own body and mind and soul in licentiousness.

For the men are so under the pretense of being monks, and the women who are with them under the pretense of being nuns.

But they are corrupted in their bodies, fulfilling their lust, yet employing the act — to put it more decorously —

after the manner of the son of Judah called Onan.

For as that man united bodily with Tamar and fulfilled his desire, but did not complete the emission of seed unto the procreation of children as given by God, but rather wronged himself, in the manner by which he himself worked evil — so also these people make use of the women reckoned as their partners, performing this unlawful act.

For among them it is not chastity that is prized, but rather a hypocritical thing called chastity in name only; and the ambition extends only so far as ensuring that the woman who is, as it seems, corrupted by her partner should not become pregnant — whether so as not to produce childbearing in the world, or so as not to be detected by men — since they wish to be held in honor on account of the practice of chastity supposedly observed among them.

This, then, is their practice; but others among them make it their ambition to perform this very abomination not by means of women, but in other ways as well, defiling themselves with their own hands.

And likewise they imitate the aforementioned son of Judah, defiling the earth with their unlawful acts and abominable droppings, and rubbing their own discharges into the ground with their feet, supposedly so that their seed might not be seized by unclean spirits for the reception of a demonic conception.

As I have said, they make use of various scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, and certain apocryphal writings, especially the so-called Acts of Andrew and of the others.

And indeed those very people have often boasted openly of performing this.

And they falsely accuse those in the church who keep the so-called 'beloved' cohabiting women, alleging that these too do this same thing, but secretly, out of shame before men — so that, while joining themselves to wickedness, they might dignify the name for appearance's sake before men.

Some also spoke to us concerning certain persons already deceased, alleging that these too, supposedly, did this same thing, as these accusers claimed to have heard from the women whom they had forced into it.

But we also know that such a one was in fact numbered among the confessors of the faith.

Nevertheless, we have not believed those who said this and who claimed to have heard it from the women.

For the constraint arising from the wickedness of those who spoke prompted us at one time to believe, and at another not to believe, the slanderous report concerning the aforementioned aged bishop after his death.

For the accusation that reached us concerning him was of this sort.

A certain such man was caught in sin with a woman, and when he was reproved by us, he offered this defense: that the woman who had been corrupted together with him — although she was already advanced in years and of an aged condition — had told him about the

practice of the wicked art, teaching him how to proceed — namely, that he should scatter his abominable flow outside, upon the ground.

And this, then, is their abominable practice, deceiving their minds and blinded by the devil.

I have not considered it necessary to bring forward the testimonies through which they fall into disgrace, lest, through the very things by which we intend to give a precise account for the purpose of deterring others from the unlawful practice of each heresy, we should seem rather to incite toward evil those unsteady persons whose minds are ever growing slack — those who desire to hunt out evil for themselves in preference to what is good.

But rather, for the sake of warding off this terrible and reptilian heresy, I shall set forth a few points out of many.

Whence, O you people, did you derive the notion of your unlawful practice? For in the first place, to whom will it not be evident that your teaching is altogether of demons, and that this contrived wicked device belongs to men deceived and corrupted in mind? For if conceiving were altogether evil, then the evil would not lie in bearing children but in being united bodily.

How then, overcome by pleasure, do you unite bodily? And if it is not evil to be united bodily, neither is it evil, having united, to bring to completion what has come to be.

For either a man who has renounced the world must not cultivate the things of the earth —

as Abel was a shepherd of sheep, while Cain worked the earth.

But if someone does cultivate the earth, as Noah did, who became a husbandman and planted a vineyard — he did not plant it so that it would bear no grapes, but he planted it, and drank of its fruit, and was drunk, as it is written.

It was fitting, however, to grant pardon to the old man.

For being well-pleasing to God, he did not fall into drunkenness through dissipation, but, being carried away perhaps by grief, he had become overcome; and unable to bear it from both causes, on account of his weakness and old age, he succumbed to weakness — not so that he might be mocked by his own child.

But the one who mocked brought the curse upon himself, so that those who inflict insult upon their fathers might be punished, along with those reasonings which arise within us against the knowledge of God and against his well-ordered arrangement.

For even though marriage is not glorified as virginity is, virginity nonetheless stands above it; and true virginity is called glorious and virtuous, not defiled, while marriage too is honorable, provided that it is directed toward child-bearing and not toward shame — it does not forbid the things well created by God, nor does it deal with the fellowship of marriage in any manner other than the order appointed by God.

For true virginity is that which is praised by the holy apostle: that the virgin and the unmarried woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how she may please the Lord, that she may be holy in body and in spirit — so that she might show that the solitary state admits of no cause for wrongdoing to be even suspected.

But we also know Abraham as one who begot children, yet was a friend of the Lord — and Isaac, and Jacob, and those who followed.

And they neither defiled themselves with unlawful acts, falling into abominable things, nor did they set themselves in opposition to the child-bearing well ordained by God through honorable marriage; nor did those among them who practiced chastity and virginity corrupt their contest and refashion it otherwise, as though, through trickery, merely assuming the virtuous manner of the contest.

...he was; and continuing in the wilderness there were also Elisha and John, and all who exhibited this great mark of the imitation of angels — those who, in accordance with the Lord's evangelical precept, rightly made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.

And though we have much to say about these matters, and are able from many testimonies of divine Scripture to refute their understanding, mocked as it is by the devil, we are content with these few points.

For since it is clear to everyone that their activity is not a matter of understanding, nor is such knowledge from God, but their mockery and their downfall in their unlawful practice arise from the working of demons—

and having thrust this one too aside—like the terrible serpent called the scytale-viper, which, though small of body, breathes forth a dreadful hiss with its venom and exhales ruin upon those who draw near—having crushed it, let us proceed to what follows, calling upon God as our helper for the fulfillment, in God, of our whole undertaking.

Against Origen, also called Adamantius: [Heresy] 44, but 64 in the sequence.

Origen, who was also surnamed Adamantius, follows next after these.

For he was Egyptian by race, but had his residence and upbringing in Alexandria, and perhaps also attended the schools in Athens for a certain time.

He is said to have suffered many things for the holy word of the faith and for the name of Christ—being often dragged through the city, reviled, and subjected to unbearable tortures.

For indeed, on one occasion, as the story goes, the Greeks shaved his head and, setting him at the ascent to the precinct called the Serapeum—the temple of their idol—ordered him to hand out palm branches to those going up to perform their unlawful rites and worship the idol;

for such is the office held by the priests of their idols.

But he, taking them up, with a loud voice and a boldly outspoken mind, without fear or hesitation, cried out, saying, 'Come, take not the palm branch of the idol, but the palm branch of Christ!'

And there are many acts of valor concerning him that the ancients relate according to tradition.

But the prize did not remain his to the end.

For on account of the surpassing excellence of his learning and his early education, he was slandered out of great envy, and this all the more provoked those who at that time held governing authority.

For by devilish contrivance the workers of wickedness devised to inflict shame upon the man and to appoint such a punishment—preparing for him an Ethiopian for the abuse of his own body.

But he, unable to bear so great a device of diabolical activity, burst into a cry, choosing rather to sacrifice, of the two things set before him.

Yet again, he did not carry this out with a willing mind, as is widely told and sung of;

but since he had altogether consented to do this, they put frankincense into his hands and let it down into the fire of the altar.

And thus he was then rejected from martyrdom by the confessors and martyrs who judged the matter, and was thrust out of the church.

Having endured this in Alexandria, and unable to bear the mockery of those who reproached him, he withdrew, and chose to dwell in the land of the Palestinians, that is, of Judea.

Accordingly, having gone up to Jerusalem, and being such a distinguished expositor and man of learning, he was invited by the clergy to speak in the church;

for they say that he had even been deemed worthy of the presbyterate before this, before he sacrificed.

But having uttered only the verse of the forty-ninth psalm, passing over the whole preceding portion, as the psalm says: 'But to the sinner God said:'

'Why do you declare my statutes, and take up my covenant in your mouth?' Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back and sat down amid weeping and tears, with all present weeping together with him.

Some time after this, when many were urging and compelling him, he happened to meet a certain Ambrose, one of the distinguished men at the royal court—some said this Ambrose was a Marcionite, others a Sabellian—and he catechized him, so that he turned away from his heresy and anathematized it, and embraced the faith of the holy church of God;

for at that time Origen himself was of the right and catholic faith.

And this aforementioned Ambrose, since he had come from another heresy, and being a learned man earnest about the reading of the divine Scriptures, on account of the depth of thought in the divine books, asked Origen to explain them to him.

And Origen, wishing to fulfill that man's request and exhortation, undertook to become, so to speak, the interpreter of all Scripture and to expound it; and in Tyre of Phoenicia, as the account has it, for twenty-eight years, with surpassing good conduct, leisure, and labor—Ambrose supplying provisions for him, for the shorthand-writers, and for those serving him, as well as paper and the other expenses—while Origen accomplished his labor concerning the Scripture in vigils and with the greatest diligence.

Hence, having first carefully and zealously taken pains to gather the six versions—of Aquila, Symmachus, the seventy-two, and Theodotion, together with a fifth and sixth edition—he published the books, with each Hebrew word set alongside, together with the Hebrew letters themselves;

and directly opposite, in parallel, using a second column, he made yet another arrangement according to the composition of the Hebrew word, but rendered in Greek letters;

so that these are, and are called, the Hexapla; and besides the Greek versions there came to be two parallel columns together—of the Hebrew in its own nature by Hebrew letters, and of the Hebrew by Greek letters—so that the whole Old Testament exists through what is called the Hexapla and through those two renderings of the Hebrew words.

The man had, with great labor, zealously devoted himself to this entire undertaking together;

but his glory did not remain unquenched to the end.

For it happened to him that his great experience became the occasion of a great fall.

For out of that very purpose—wishing to leave nothing of the divine Scriptures unexplained—he wrapped himself in an inducement to sin, and expounded deadly statements, from which arose those called Origenists—not the first ones, the ones given to shameful practice;

for concerning those I am not able to say, as I have already said before, whether they had their origin from this Origen, also called Adamantius, or whether they had some other founder, likewise called Origen.

They say that this Origen too devised something for himself with regard to his body.

For some say that he cut off a member, so as not to be troubled by pleasure nor to be inflamed and set afire by bodily movements;

but others say it was not so, but that he devised a certain drug to apply to the parts and dry them up;

and still others dare to attribute other things to him, such as that he also discovered a certain medicinal herb for the sake of memory.

Now, the exaggerated things said about him we have not fully believed; nevertheless, we have not failed to relate what is said.

The heresy that sprang up from him existed at first in the land of the Egyptians, but is now found among those most distinguished men who are reputed to have taken up the solitary life, among those who by nature withdraw into the deserts and have chosen poverty;

and this heresy too is grievous, and more wicked than all the earlier ones, being of the same mind as those former heresies.

It does not indeed train its disciples actually to carry out such a shameful deed, but nevertheless it hurls upon the Godhead itself a dreadful suspicion more grievous than mere shamefulness.

For from this Arius too took his pretexts, and after him the Anomoeans and the rest.

For this man asserts—having presumed, forsooth, to speak concerning first principles—first, that the only-begotten Son cannot see the Father; nor indeed can the Spirit behold the Son; nor can angels behold the Spirit, nor men the angels.

And this is his first fall.

For he does not want the Son to be of the substance of the Father, but introduces him as altogether alien to the Father, and at the same time as created.

He wishes to maintain that he is called Son only, as it were, by grace.

But there are also other, greater falls of his.

For he says that the human soul pre-exists, and that these souls are angels and powers above, but having sinned and gone astray, they have for this reason been shut up for punishment in this body;

and they are sent down from God for punishment, so that here they may receive a first judgment.

For this reason, he says, the body is also called 'demas' (bond), because the soul is bound within the body;

thereby imagining the ancient mythical notion of the Greeks.

And in support of these he sets forth other myths as well.

For he says we call it 'psychē' (soul) for this reason, because it was cooled ('epsychthē') from above.