Refutatio et Eversio 1 part 4/21

But if they happened to encounter any of the pious anywhere, the order was to bind them, to scourge them, to lead them off to prisons, to hand them over to the authorities, to seize them and parade them about to the palace as though they were hostile barbarians and enemies, compelling them either to abjure piety and to exchange the apostolic habit, putting on instead the garb of laymen and being numbered among the common multitude, or else to suffer irreparable harm.

Against these they employed frequent and wicked devices, and countless accusations and slanders, such as they had never even so much as heard of before.

And they left out no kind of public procession or mockery, when they even bestowed upon them that novel name, 'the unremembered.'

A countless multitude of these, together with virgin nuns, was forcibly led to the hippodrome, and the persecutors, showing no regard even for ordinary or feminine modesty, bound them together in pairs, hand clasped in the hand of another, and paraded them in a mock triumph, exhibiting to public disgrace other things too, still more absurd and shameful than these, which would take long to relate.

Thus, then, it set each person at war against his neighbor, and brought it about that nearly the whole nation took up enmity against one another.

Who could number the visitations of divine wrath, the god-sent plagues, and all that befell mankind in those times, exacting penalties from those responsible? As for the earth, what a thing was that seething and that dreadful convulsion — the ruins lying as fallen wreckage throughout the imperial city would cry it aloud.

Let the extraordinary marvels from the waters bear witness — ice that congealed into the nature of crystal, and, rising up and towering to a height equal to the loftiest mountains, in both multitude and magnitude rendered the liquid nature of the sea passable on foot for men.

Some of these, crashing against the city, shook the walls considerably, and threw those within into turmoil and brought them to consternation.

How great was the pestilential destruction that ravaged the wretched (a swelling would rise up, and death would follow at once) — no human tongue could ever recount the number of those who perished.

What extraordinary terrors there were from the region of the sky!

For indeed it seemed that all the stars, torn loose from the heavenly place in which they were fixed, were rushing violently down toward the earth — the elements likewise, and all creation, suffering, unable to endure the offense committed against the Creator by the impious.

Many of these things men report even to this day, surviving as heralds of the sufferings that fell upon the transgressors.

Such, then, are the fruits of the council held among them.

Thus has the Church been kept so free from tempest!

Such are the blessings of peace that have been accomplished by them!

But since, from what these men themselves also decreed, they perceived beforehand that a like storm would rise up against the Christians, for this very reason they gloried in the wickedness of their predecessors as though it were their own virtue, so that they might not be ashamed of what they were about to do.

And hence, then, these wretched men stand convicted of zealously upholding falsehood and the error of impiety.

And joining this to what has already been said, exchanging one falsehood for another, they write as follows:

'...until the rule passed from men to a woman, and the Church of God was afflicted by feminine simplicity.'

'For, having gathered together a reckless assembly, and having followed the most ignorant bishops...'

Again, these unjust judges of affairs, ever displeased at what has been rightly done and said, yet delighted with the contrary, being, as it were, a kind of squint-eyed and distorted-visioned people, are unwilling to look at what is straight and proper, nor do they wish to set their mind upon what lies manifest and known to all.

Wherefore they are shown to be ungrateful for the benefactions of God, proving themselves sharp accusers of virtue and goodness, but ardent praisers of vice and impudence.

...they welcome; but whatever belongs to fairness and to a life of freedom, they reject.

I do not know whether they are deceiving themselves, or are attempting to beguile their hearers by means of falsehood.

'The rule passed from men to women.'

Who then are the men praised and admired by them? If, indeed, they are 'manly' in tyrannizing, in doing wrong, and in displaying deeds of cruelty and bad temper, I concede the point.

For, breathing great violence against our holy religion, they poured out their wrath and fury upon the pious, and, like certain untamed and savage wild beasts, having overrun the Church of God and having found her at peace within herself, they wrought innovations upon the established order of things.

For, being enslaved to their own passions, and nourished by empty hopes of long life, they all but clearly cried out themselves:

'Let us do evil things, that good may come' — of whom the condemnation is indeed just — they mercilessly tore apart and destroyed the rational sheep of Christ's flock, well united and gathered together, they who did not even choose to keep peace among themselves.

For their whole life was full of wraths and tumults; the sword held sway, irreparable blows fell upon all their subjects, dread torture-chambers abounded, and there was unceasing war against their fellow servants.

When has peace and the utmost tranquility come to the Romans? When has gentleness and stability? And mildness and freedom from faction — whence did these come? Is it not from feminine simplicity? When, then, and from where has it come to pass that the Church of God has been harmed? Even the stones will cry out, though men should wish to be silent — even those who have made their hearts more insensate and harder than stones.

But if the boldness of women, and their fervor concerning the faith, be manly and vigorous, it is fitting that this should reasonably be so reckoned and praised by those of sound judgment.

But as for those who have been swept away into passions and who have irrationally sinned in the most critical matters, how shall the label of unmanliness and weakness not be affixed to them, even though they happen to be men by nature, yet are by far inferior in strength and vigor to courageous women? And how shall they not justly be blamed and condemned, filled with shame and pelted with still more reproaches? As for feminine simplicity, then, how greatly it has benefited the whole community is not without evidence.

For she, having found the Church of God divided (what need is there to speak of the Christians living under the other patriarchal thrones, how they had no communion with us on account of impiety? Even among themselves, those set in authority here from the beginning were at strife, displaying discord concerning the confession of the faith) — set before herself a pious and God-loving purpose: to bring about union, to join together what had been divided, to effect a healing of what had been separated, and to award peace in all things, so that all might come together into one confession and concord.

Whether these things, then, promise us an unwavering and tranquil life is surely clear to everyone.

But those who are ignorant even of what lies before their feet, and are ever entangled in vanity, choosing to know nothing whatsoever of what is needful, do not even know how that holy and, in our reckoning, great council was convened or assembled.

But in what manner it was begun and brought to completion, this discourse will now set forth.

For it will be related more concisely, and just as the events actually occurred, in due order and truth.

He who some time before had occupied the high-priestly throne in the imperial city (Paul was his name), a man exceedingly good, at once most perceptive and most prudent, nurtured from the beginning in the uprightness of doctrine, distinguished in excellent conduct, in speech, and in his other virtues — unable to endure any longer seeing the right doctrine of truth languishing, and the hard-heartedness and disobedience of a people wickedly and impiously taught, and since, at the same time, the tyranny had already been extinguished and the arrogant temper of the murderous faction had been swept out of the way, he took counsel of the following sort and thus disposed his own affairs:

Having resolved upon a solitary and most tranquil life, he went down and arrived at a certain monastery situated not far from the great church, and there changed into the monastic habit.

At this, she who adorned the imperial sceptres was greatly grieved and exceedingly indignant, and the whole populace of the city, as was natural, was thrown into an uproar and disturbed at these novel happenings.

There gathered to him, therefore, all who held high offices and all who had charge of civil and military authority, and they came to inquire for what reason this sudden change had come about.

But he, confronting them with speech more forceful and more weighty, censured their contradiction and unbelief, declaring that he did not wish to be bishop of such a people, nor indeed, on account of the heresy that had befallen the church here, did he wish to be estranged from those established on the other patriarchal thrones and struck by the anathemas issuing from them, but rather desired their communion as much as possible, and to stand in accord with their confession.

And he proclaimed the doctrine of orthodoxy boldly, in a free and clear voice, and he spurned and publicly denounced the prevailing unbelief.

Having declared these things and many others besides, he sent away those who had assembled, now thoroughly refuted.

He himself, after surviving a little while longer, was released from the present life by the illness that overtook him, putting in at windless and tranquil harbors, having tilled for himself furrows that profited his soul.

From this point onward, then, the seeds of piety began to be sown.

For the rational field was immediately being cleansed, and the evil thorns, which had earlier sprung up from the living soil left fallow by unbelief, were soon to be cut out by the very roots.

From that time, therefore, very many, after inward struggle, changed their minds — as many as were capable of perceiving what was truly advantageous — and they rejected the unbelief that had previously prevailed, and turned to approach the most upright teaching, so that the hierarch's resignation of the throne became, in effect, a resurrection of right belief.

But he who succeeded to the ministry of the priesthood after him brought the ear of grain of piety to fuller ripeness, having striven with no ordinary labors and having been carried through many toils of teaching.

For indeed, the pure grain of piety, having fallen upon the good and fertile ground already prepared, bore an abundant harvest, so that the divine husbandry was displayed as rich in ears and flourishing in bloom, the seeds that had been sown multiplying in number, some to one degree and some to another.

But those few who were choked among the thorns of unbelief, and remained thereafter unfruitful and uncorrected, were mere offshoots of the old, Christ-opposing husbandry, and remnants of the Pharisaic leaven, unwilling to relearn or to let piety sprout, nor willing to lift their eyes toward the light of truth.

Since, then, the priesthood was in need of one to preside over it, and a divine vote and a judgment pleasing to God bestowed the office, and the grace from above called the worthy man to the hierarchy, there was brought forward he who, even before, was most distinguished in virtue and character by his own manner of life, and who for this reason was renowned by all as worthy of such an honor, the whole populace already running together and rejoicing with him — Tarasius, celebrated in holy memory and among the fathers and teachers.

And he did not think it right to be enthroned until he should first receive assurances of faith from all, so that, through the presence of an ecumenical council, doubtful matters might, as was fitting, be resolved.

All then, together, gave their assent — as many as belonged to the assembly called the Senate, and as many as were in the civil and military magistracy.

And raising their right hands to heaven, they stretch them out to him, and make their confessions before God and the angels, that, when a common vote should proceed, they would gladly and willingly receive and keep whatever should be judged and decreed.

Thus then, having been consecrated to God, the high priest ascends the throne and takes up the affairs of the priesthood.

And as for all the other matters, according as ecclesiastical ordinance and canonical custom have prevailed from of old, they send proclamation to those entrusted with the reins of the patriarchal thrones — both him of the West and those toward the rising sun.

And indeed with all zeal and eagerness, they choose faithful, devout, and ordained men, chosen for their life and speech, such as ought to go forth to mediate in so divine and so sacred a matter and to fill their place; and having furnished and fortified them with synodal and canonical letters, they send them forth.

And, as it is true to say here, by canonical and priestly enactment there is gathered and convened, for the second time in Nicaea the God-preserved city, an ecumenical, holy, and great synod, and it is celebrated auspiciously and in a manner most befitting God.

which in truth followed in all things, rightly and unswervingly, the six holy and ecumenical synods that preceded it, receiving and honoring their divine dogmas and decrees, both concerning theology and concerning the saving economy of Christ our Savior and God of us all, which they set forth, moved in the grace of the Spirit.

among which, keeping also the tradition that has shone from the beginning in the holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of God — the tradition concerning the venerable images of Christ and our God, and of our all-holy Lady the Mother of God, and of the other saints — a tradition preserved intact, it rendered to them veneration and the fitting reverence.

For it made nothing new at all; it devised and introduced no novel invention; it brought forth nothing improvised or ill-considered.

but that with which, being initiated by a more divine inspiration, they were illumined — just as the holy fathers of the venerable Sixth Synod also, they too following the saints who went before, that is to say the catholic Church, piously set forth in sacred canons.

Confirming, then, and setting its seal upon all these things, fortified with the weapons of truth and strengthened by the divine Spirit, by common vote and judgment it proclaimed and decreed the divine horos: that, in the same manner as the type of the life-giving cross, the venerable image of our Savior Christ should be venerated, and also that of our all-holy, immaculate Lady the Theotokos, and further of the saints likewise, together with the other sacred dedicatory offerings.

And having mightily overthrown the innovation rashly ventured against the sacred images by the impious who raged, it spat upon and set aside that mob-raising and Jewish sanhedrin.

In these things, then, the seal of piety comes to be, and the bars of the faith are set.

For where the mystery of our glorious and blameless religion, being brought to a more manifest and more perfect completion, attained the manifestation of the truth, there also it was necessary that the end and the seals be set — starting out from theology, and being brought to completion in the economy.

It extolled, then, the economy of the Savior; it did not insult it.

It did not overturn what was rightly established; it did not offend against holy things.

It did not despise them, but honored them.

It did not, by slandering, hurl the abomination of idols against what is sacred among us.

It did not impiously and godlessly accuse Christians, and indeed Christ himself — accusing the former as though they had offered veneration to abominable and detestable idols, a charge fit for those men themselves, and accusing the latter as though he had not had the power to abolish what he in fact abolished.

nor anything else of what the impious have dared.

Whom then must we believe? And to whom must we assign the prizes and the trophies of victory? To those who followed a human, passion-ridden, and God-hated will, and overturned all ecclesiastical ordinance — or to those who yielded to the evangelical proclamation and cherished the Christian ordinances? Let the lovers of piety, entrusted with the judgment of what is true, to whom it is right, award the victory.

And let the matters concerning that holy synod stand thus, in this manner.

But we must examine what charges likewise attach to those of the unholy assembly that preceded it.

"having gathered together a thoughtless assemblage, having followed most ignorant bishops"

This proceeds from their stupidity and folly, and that it leaves no excess of wickedness unattained, no one, I think, of those distinguished in understanding would dispute.

For, to speak truly here, they went off to the utmost extreme of unreason and ignorance.

And thus, being out of their minds and carried away from reasonable thinking, babbling nonsense, they show themselves more irrational than the irrational and more ignorant than the ignorant.

For what do they do? Just as it is likely for those terribly seized by derangement and madness, having failed to recognize even their own kin and familiars, to rush most shamefully and absurdly, using whatever weapon comes to hand, as though to defend themselves and to inflict irreparable harm upon them — for in this way these men too seem to me to have plainly disposed themselves.

For indeed, armored with falsehood, having madly sharpened their tongues, and precariously arrayed with the weapons of impiety, and as if beside themselves and carried away from sound mind, they advance against their own teachers in the manner of enemies.

Which is to say, they leap disorderly against Christ himself and against our sacred dogmas, and they dare, indeed recklessly, to shake and overturn what has been proclaimed with all harmony and precision, with God as mediator, and by the divine ordinances that adjudicated these matters — puffed up with empty arrogance.

Whence, then, do these things come? And initiated by what sacred writings and oracles, or instructed by what apostolic and patristic canons, have those who profess to follow the priestly synods been thus hostilely disposed toward those who travail in spirit for them? From what synods do they appear to have received this? But no word of truth shall stand up for them.

Running far off from all priestly good order, and turned away from right thinking, having chosen to do wrong and speak evil rather than to act well and do good, they resolved shamefully both to think and to speak those things.

"having followed most ignorant bishops"

How full of wisdom and understanding is this! How full of erudition and shrewdness!

Who would not marvel at and be astonished by their shameless and childish mentality? They did not even come to perceive to what end these follies of theirs would issue.

Against whom, then, do they give offense? And upon whom do they lay this outrage, and to whom do they attribute the cause of ignorance? If, then, it were against certain unknown persons who had completed the course of life long ago in the distant past, time would have covered over their rashness and love of slander.

But if it is against their own high priests and teachers, from whom they received their ordinations and by whom their thrones were proclaimed to them (men who, at the divine altar, through the Gospel — whose sacred book was borne, carried upon the neck — begot them in grace, and allotted to them the dignity of the priesthood, perfecting them with the mystical chrism, and introduced them to the divine dogmas, and initiated them into all priestly teaching and good order, and put them forward and honored them to lead the faithful people) — how would they not in truth be the most ignorant of all the ignorant, and the most senseless of all the senseless, and far from being ranked among priests? That in truth they shall bear the charge of ignorance turned back upon their own heads, being convicted as ignorant and deranged and forgetful of their own purpose, the following argument will show.

For if they speak truly in asserting these things, who would be so foolish as to accept, in the consideration and inquiry of divine dogmas, disciples of most ignorant teachers as being far more ignorant still? For if the teachers are ignorant, how full of ignorance and lack of instruction would not the disciples be? For, says the Lord, "A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his own master."

They seem, then, not even to accept the divinely-inspired Paul as a teacher — Paul who exhorted those whom he begot through the Gospel to become imitators of him — insofar as, instead of becoming imitators, they become abusers of their teachers.

twisting themselves together in this, so that they thereby smear upon themselves — not upon their teachers — the reproach of ignorance, and shall be convicted of being no less impious than ignorant.

so that they shall have no way whatsoever to be held blameless, and their claimed great learning has been turned for them into ignorance, uncultivation, and folly.

But they seem to me to suffer the very same thing, truly out of unreason and ignorance, as those who are drenched in much drunkenness, who somehow reproach and impute their own affliction to those who are sober.

For, as if intoxicated by insensibility and folly, they imagine that they are washing clean the reputation of their teachers by staining it with shameful insults.

Or, to speak more fittingly, just as the mad, laying hold of their own flesh, or those who, out of rage and frenzy, thrust the sword against themselves — so too, weaving slander and abuse against those who anointed them, they do not perceive at all that they are drawing the reproach and the disfigurement back upon themselves.

Nevertheless, even here nothing strange has resulted from their thanklessness and ill will.

For if they emulated the disciple who betrayed his teacher to the Lord-slaying and Christ-murdering Jews, and imitated the same manner — having given up Christ himself, the first and great high priest and head of the Church and common master and teacher of all, and having deemed him worthy of no mercy whatsoever — then hardly indeed would they turn out to be most well-disposed toward their own leaders and high priests.

For he who rejects the Creator, how shall he cherish the one who anointed him? And if they were so disposed toward the ineffable condescension of God the Word, counting those greatest benefits and so great a grace as nothing, what evil and most abominable thing would they not be about to do against their teachers, and to commit outrage even against the holy memory of the fathers? Whom it was fitting to hold in all honor, and to stand in the forefront of danger for the right doctrine they were taught by them — but these men turned entirely to the contrary, senselessly and unholily arraying themselves against their teachers and against the true dogmas.

"Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!" — we hear the divine Scripture saying.

These would be the ones wise in their own conceit, fed on empty puffings, and made vain by self-will and self-love, to the end that they might arrogantly lift themselves up against those who anointed them, and most rashly fasten their teeth upon the spiritual travail that bore them, so that henceforth they might be reckoned bastards, and not approved nor genuine sons of the Gospel.

They are wise from mere wishing and apart from wisdom, so as willingly to draw upon themselves the prophetic curse; and they are "knowing" by supposing themselves so — not by actually being so — and truly forgetful of the things into which they were formerly initiated and had experience, and which they confessed and stood forth for as divine dogmas; so that the easily-swayed and easily-carried-away character of their ignoble soul might be plainly branded toward what was not fitting, seeing that they betrayed, unguarded, the good deposit entrusted to them — of which even the slightest neglect and disregard would be perilous and most treacherous.

O wicked tongue, which they do not fear to let loose without restraint against those who begot them in grace!

O shameless soul and beastly manner, and depraved and ill-disposed mind! For indeed they too have set an iron sinew as their neck and a brazen forehead, after the manner of Jewish disobedience.

Just as those Jews against the prophets and those sent to them, so also these against the high priests and teachers.

And what indeed justly forecloses every defense of theirs and renders them liable to the heavenly judgment is that, raving madly against that holy synod, they did not shrink from casting anathemas against it.

These are the ones who, in accordance with the divine and lawful horos proclaimed by that council, had set down their handwritten declarations, subscribing with their own hands at their ordinations, and drawing the sign of the cross, and binding under dreadful anathemas those who should dare to transgress what had been defined therein.

...that they would receive it — thus indeed those men too must in every way draw upon themselves the anathema written down by themselves, as it turns back and stands opposed to them.

Where, then, is the chrism? It is gone.

And where is the grace? It has been stripped away.

Where is the sacred Gospel? It has been trampled underfoot.

How, and in what manner? Because indeed they have set at naught every canon and priestly precept; they have already spat out every teaching in which they were instructed or which they themselves taught, having utterly forgotten their own confession and belief.

Who then will still reckon them among the number of priests, seeing that they have plainly rendered themselves cast out from the whole Church? One might also say this too:

If, on the one hand, they did this while acting justly, and those who conducted the synod were deserving of the anathemas, it would be easy to see that they show themselves unworthy of the priesthood, and whatever priestly judgment or act was performed by them would have been done idly and in vain, and would in no way be worthy to proceed into effect.

Then neither are these men priests, nor have they partaken of grace, since the offices of the priesthood were proclaimed to them by those unworthy of the priesthood.

But if, on the other hand, they speak falsely and unjustly — acting as they do entirely contrary to the principle of the sacred canon, having stripped away their own ordination and grace itself — they shall be ranked far from all priestly standing, and shall rightly be reckoned father-slayers, being branded as liars and impostors and unjust men and transgressors of their own covenants, and of all that was performed concerning them at the divine altar before God and the angels.

Thus, then, plainly dancing in mockery upon holy things and raising their hands against the mother of us all, the catholic and apostolic Church, they shall now justly be judged mother-slayers as well.

From which what follows? That they do not even partake in the commonwealth of Christians, still less that they should take part in the sacred assemblies and lay hold of canonical judgments.

For how great an accusation and slander they deserve is easy and effortless to perceive: on the one hand, having lawlessly and senselessly forsworn the God-chosen assembly by which they had obtained the lot of priesthood unto God; and on the other, having disorderly and madly attached themselves to the Arian and Manichaean company.

Therefore, in every respect the result for them is that they have been driven out from every divine chorus and from the fullness of the Church — let alone that the confused jumble wickedly and unholily stitched together by them should be called a synod, and the monstrous, outlandish, and ill-omened blasphemies uttered in it against the piety of the Christians.

Perhaps certain bold and shameless men, who twist everything rightly and well established according to their own opinion — even when it stands in opposition to their opinion — being drawn on by malice and depravity, will run down what has been set forth.

And indeed they will also object, foolishly insisting that the argument falls into self-contradiction, and would accuse the teachers, attempting to attribute the wickedness of the disciples back upon them.