備忘錄 第 1 章 第 1/6 段

I. Since Scripture says and admonishes, 'Ask thy fathers, and they will tell thee; thine elders, and they will declare to thee,' and likewise, 'Incline thine ear to the words of the wise,' and likewise, 'My son, forget not these discourses, but let my words keep thy heart,' it seems to me, Peregrinus, the least of all the servants of God, that, with the Lord's help, it will be a thing of no small usefulness, if I commit to writing those things which I have faithfully received from the holy fathers — necessary indeed for my own infirmity, since I have at hand that whereby the weakness of my memory may be repaired by constant reading. To which undertaking not only the fruit of the work, but also the consideration of the time and the opportuneness of the place exhorts me. The time:

because, since all human things are snatched away by it, we too ought in turn to snatch from it something that may avail unto life eternal; especially since a certain dread expectation of the approaching divine Judgment demands that the zeal of religion be increased, and the fraudulence of new heretics calls for much care and attentiveness. The place, moreover: because, shunning the throngs and crowds of cities, we dwell in the retreat of a more remote little farmstead and in it the secluded dwelling of a monastery, where, without great distraction, that may be done which is sung in the psalm: 'Be still,' it says, 'and see that I am the Lord.' But the very plan of our purpose also accords with this;

for, since for some while we were tossed about in the various and grievous whirlwinds of secular service, at length, by Christ's inspiration, we have settled ourselves in the harbour of religion, ever most faithful to all; that there, having laid aside the blasts of vanity and pride, and appeasing God by the sacrifice of Christian humility, we might be able to escape not only the shipwrecks of the present life, but also the fires of the age to come. But now, in the name of the Lord, I will approach that which presses: namely, that I may describe the things handed down by our forefathers and deposited with us, with the fidelity of a reporter rather than the presumption of an author;

yet observing this law of writing, that I touch upon by no means all things, but only whatever is necessary, and that not in ornate and exact, but in easy and common speech, so that most things may seem rather indicated than explained. Let those write elegantly and accurately who are led to this task either by confidence in their talent or by the obligation of their office. But for me it will suffice to have prepared for myself a Commonitorium for the relieving of my recollection, or rather of my forgetfulness: which, however, little by little, by recalling what I have learned, I shall endeavour daily, by the Lord's bestowal, to amend and to fill out. And I have given this very forewarning for this reason, that if perchance, having slipped from me, it should come into the hands of holy persons, they may rashly reprehend nothing in it which they still see needs to be polished by the promised amendment. II.

Often, therefore, inquiring with great zeal and the utmost attention from very many men eminent in holiness and doctrine, by what sure and, as it were, general and regular way I might be able to discern the truth of the catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical depravity, I received from nearly all an answer of this kind: that whether I, or anyone else, wished to detect the frauds of the heretics that arise and to avoid their snares, and to remain sound and whole in a sound faith, he ought, with the Lord's help, to fortify his faith in a twofold manner: first, namely, by the authority of the divine law, and then by the tradition of the catholic Church. Here perhaps someone may inquire:

Since the Canon of the Scriptures is perfect, and abundantly sufficient of itself for all things, what need is there that the authority of ecclesiastical understanding be joined to it? Because, namely, on account of its very depth, not all receive sacred Scripture in one and the same sense, but its words one interprets one way and another another way, so that almost as many opinions can seem to be elicited from it as there are men. For Novatian expounds it one way, Sabellius another, Donatus another, Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius another; Photinus, Apollinaris, Priscillianus another, Jovinianus, Pelagius, Caelestius another; and lastly Nestorius another.

And therefore it is very necessary, on account of so many windings of such varied error, that the line of prophetic and apostolic interpretation be directed according to the norm of the ecclesiastical and catholic sense. In the Catholic Church itself, moreover, great care must be taken that we hold that which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For this is truly and properly catholic, as the very force and meaning of the name declares, which comprehends nearly all things universally. But this will at last be done, if we follow universality, antiquity, consent. And we shall follow universality in this manner, if we confess that one faith to be true which the whole Church throughout the world confesses;

antiquity, on the other hand, in this way, if we in no wise depart from those senses which it is manifest our holy elders and fathers celebrated: consent likewise also, if, in this very antiquity, we follow the definitions and opinions of all, or at least of nearly all, the priests and masters alike. III. What then shall a catholic Christian do, if some little portion of the Church has cut itself off from the communion of the universal faith? What indeed but prefer the soundness of the whole body to the pestilent and corrupt member? What if some new contagion should attempt to defile, not now only a small portion, but the whole Church alike?

Then likewise he will take care to cleave to antiquity, which now can in no way be seduced by any fraud of novelty. What if, in antiquity itself, the error of two or three men, or at least of one city or even of some province, be detected? Then by all means he will take care to prefer the decrees of the universal Church, of old universally given, if there are any, to the rashness or ignorance of the few. What if something of this kind should emerge, where nothing of the sort can be found? Then he will give his effort to consult and interrogate the collated opinions of the forefathers, of those only who, though in diverse times and places, yet remaining in the communion and faith of the one Catholic Church, stood forth as approved masters;

and whatever he shall have learned that not one or two only, but all alike, with one and the same consent, openly, frequently, perseveringly held, wrote, and taught, let him understand that this is to be believed by him also without any doubt. IV. But, that what we say may become plainer, it must be illustrated one by one with examples, and somewhat more fully amplified; lest, by zeal for excessive brevity, the weight of the matters be carried away by the swiftness of the discourse.

In the time of Donatus, from whom the Donatists are named, when a great part of Africa was hurling itself into the madness of its error, and, unmindful of the name, of religion, of profession, was preferring the sacrilegious rashness of one man to the Church of Christ, then whoever, being established throughout Africa, having detested the profane schism, were associated with the universal Churches of the world, alone of all those were able to be saved within the sanctuaries of the catholic faith; leaving indeed to posterity an excellent pattern, namely, how thenceforth, by good custom, the soundness of all should be set before the frenzy of one or at least of a few.

Likewise, when the poison of the Arians had contaminated not merely some small portion but nearly the whole world, so that almost all the bishops of the Latin tongue, deceived partly by force and partly by fraud, had a certain darkness poured over their minds, and it was unclear what above all ought to be followed amid so great a confusion of affairs, then whoever proved a true lover and worshipper of Christ, by preferring the ancient faith to the new treachery, was stained by no plague of that contagion. By the peril of that time it was shown abundantly and more than enough how great a calamity is brought in by the introduction of a novel teaching. For by it not only small matters but even the greatest were shaken.

For not only were kinships, blood-ties, friendships, and households shaken, but even cities, peoples, provinces, nations, and finally the whole Roman Empire were utterly convulsed and overthrown. For when that profane novelty of the Arians, like some Bellona or Fury, had first of all captured the Emperor and then subjected all the heights of the palace to its new laws, it never thereafter ceased to confound and harass all things, private and public, all things sacred and profane, drawing no distinction between good and true, but striking down whomever it pleased, as if from a higher vantage point.

Then wives were defiled, widows stripped of mourning, virgins profaned, monasteries demolished, clergy scattered, deacons beaten, priests driven into exile; the workhouses, prisons, and mines were filled with holy men. Of these the greatest part, banished from the cities, thrust out and exiled, were among deserts, caves, wild beasts, and rocks, afflicted with nakedness, hunger, and thirst, worn down and wasted away.

And were all these things for any other cause whatever than that, for the sake of a heavenly teaching, human superstitions were being introduced; that a well-founded antiquity was being undermined by a wicked novelty; that the institutions of those before were being violated; that the decrees of the fathers were being torn up; that the definitions of our elders were being uprooted; that the lust of profane and novel curiosity would not contain itself within the chaste limits of sacred and uncorrupted antiquity? V. But perhaps out of hatred of novelty and love of antiquity we are inventing these things. Whoever judges so, let him at least believe the blessed Ambrose, who, in his second book to the Emperor Gratian, himself lamenting the bitterness of the time, says:

'But now, Almighty God,' he says, 'we have sufficiently atoned by our exile and our blood for the slaughters of the Confessors, the banishments of the priests, and the crime of so great an impiety. It has become sufficiently clear that those who have violated the faith cannot be safe.' Likewise in the third book of the same work he says: 'Let us therefore keep the precepts of our forefathers, and not dare with the rashness of the untrained to violate the seals of our inheritance. That sealed prophetic book neither the Elders, nor the Powers, nor the Angels, nor the Archangels dared to open: to Christ alone was reserved the prerogative of expounding it. Who of us would dare to unseal the priestly book, sealed by the Confessors and already consecrated by the martyrdom of many? Those who were afterwards compelled to unseal it nevertheless sealed it again, condemning the fraud;

those who did not dare to violate it became Confessors and martyrs. How can we deny the faith of those whose victory we proclaim?' We proclaim it indeed, I say—O venerable Ambrose! We proclaim it indeed, and praising it we marvel. For who is so mad that—even if he be unable to attain to them—he does not long to follow those whom no force drove away from the defense of the faith of the fathers: not threats, not flatteries, not life, not death, not the palace, not the courtiers, not the Emperor, not the empire, not men, not demons?

Those, I say, whom the Lord, for their tenacity in holding to the religious antiquity, judged worthy of so great a gift that through them He restored the prostrate Churches, gave life again to the spiritually dead peoples, replaced the cast-down crowns of the priests, and wiped out those wicked marks—not letters but blots—of the new impiety, by pouring out upon the bishops from heaven a fountain of the faithful's tears; and finally He recalled almost the whole world, struck by the savage tempest of a sudden heresy, from a new treachery back to the ancient faith, from the madness of novelty back to the ancient soundness, from the blindness of novelty back to the ancient light.

But in this divine virtue, as it were, of the Confessors, this above all must be especially considered by us: that then, in the very antiquity of the Church, it was not the defense of some part, but of the whole, that was undertaken by them. For it would not have been right that men so great and of such quality should assert, with so great an effort, the wandering and self-contradictory conjectures of one or two men, or contend on behalf of some little province by a kind of rash conspiracy; but rather, following the decrees and definitions of all the priests of the holy Church—heirs of the apostolic and catholic truth—they chose to betray themselves rather than the faith of the ancient universality.

Whence also they deserved to attain to so great a glory that they are rightly and deservedly held to be not only Confessors, but even princes of the Confessors. VI. Great therefore, and plainly divine, is this example of those same blessed men, and to be pondered with tireless meditation by all true Catholics: who, with the seven lamps of the sevenfold candlestick shining with the light of the Holy Spirit, showed beforehand to posterity a most clear pattern of how thereafter, through each and every empty babbling of errors, the audacity of profane novelty might be crushed by the authority of sacred antiquity. Nor is this anything new. For this custom has always flourished in the Church, that the more religious anyone was, the more readily he opposed the novel inventions. All things are full of such examples.

But lest it grow too long, we shall take some one example, and this preferably from the Apostolic See, so that all may see more clearly than the light with what force, with what zeal, with what striving the blessed succession of the blessed Apostles always defended the integrity of the Religion once received. Long ago, then, Agrippinus, bishop of Carthage, of venerable memory, the first of all mortals, against the divine Canon, against the rule of the universal Church, against the judgment of all his fellow-priests, against the custom and institutions of our elders, judged that there must be rebaptizing. This presumption brought in so great an evil that it furnished not only to all heretics a form of sacrilege, but even to certain Catholics an occasion of error.

When therefore all on every side cried out against the novelty of the thing, and all the priests everywhere held back, each according to his own zeal, then Pope Stephen of blessed memory, prelate of the Apostolic See, resisted—together indeed with the rest of his colleagues, but yet beyond the rest—judging, as I suppose, it fitting that he should surpass all the others as much in the devotion of his faith as he excelled them in the authority of his office. In short, in the letter which was then sent to Africa, he ratified it in these words: 'Let nothing be innovated except what has been handed down.' For that holy and prudent man understood that the principle of piety admitted nothing else than that all things which had been received from the fathers in the same faith should be consigned to the children in that same faith;

and that we ought to follow the Religion, not to lead it where we would wish, but rather where it would lead us; and that it is proper to Christian modesty and gravity not to hand down our own things to posterity, but to keep what has been received from our forefathers. What then was the outcome of the whole affair? What indeed but the usual and customary one? Antiquity, of course, was retained, novelty was hissed off the stage. But perhaps then patrons were lacking to that novel invention?

On the contrary, there was present so great a force of talent, such rivers of eloquence, so great a number of supporters, such plausibility, so many oracles of the divine law—but plainly understood in a new and evil manner—that it seems to me that whole conspiracy could in no way have been destroyed, had not the very profession of novelty undertaken, defended, and praised for the sake of so great an effort abandoned its own cause. What, finally, was the strength of the African Council itself, or of its decree? By God's gift, none; but all of it, like dreams, like fables, like superfluities, was abolished, made obsolete, and trodden underfoot. And, O wondrous reversal of affairs! the authors of that same opinion are judged Catholics, but its followers heretics; the masters are absolved, the disciples condemned;

the writers of the books shall be sons of the kingdom, but Gehenna shall receive the asserters of them. For who is so mad as to doubt that that most blessed light of all the saints, both bishops and martyrs, Cyprian, together with the rest of his colleagues, shall reign forever with Christ? Or who is so contrarily sacrilegious as to deny that the Donatists and other plagues, who boast that on the authority of that Council they rebaptize, shall burn forever with the devil? VII.

This judgment indeed seems to me to have been promulgated by divine providence chiefly on account of the fraudulence of those who, while they contrive to concoct a heresy under another's name, very often snatch at the writings of some ancient man, published a little obscurely, which because of their very obscurity seem to accord, as it were, with their own dogma; so that whatever it is they put forward, they may seem to be neither the first nor the only ones to hold that view.

I judge their wickedness worthy of a double hatred: both because they do not fear to give the poison of heresy to others to drink, and also because with a profane hand they fan the memory of some holy man, like ashes already laid to rest, and what ought to have been buried in silence they spread abroad with a revived report—following altogether in the footsteps of their author Ham, who not only neglected to cover the nakedness of the venerable Noah, but even announced it to the others to be mocked.

Whence he merited so great an offense of injured piety that even his posterity were bound by the curses of his sin—wholly and far unlike those blessed brothers, who would neither defile with their own eyes the nakedness of their revered father nor lay it open to others, but, turning away (as it is written), covered him: which is neither to have approved nor to have published abroad the lapse of a holy man; and therefore they were endowed with a blessed benediction upon their posterity. But let us return to our subject. With great fear, then, must we dread the guilt of an altered faith and a defiled religion; from which not only the discipline of ecclesiastical ordinance, but also the censure of Apostolic authority, deters us.

For it is known to all how gravely, how severely, how vehemently the blessed Apostle Paul inveighs against certain men who with marvelous fickleness had too quickly been removed from him who had called them into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel which is no gospel; who had heaped up for themselves teachers according to their own desires, turning away their hearing indeed from the truth, but being turned aside to fables, having damnation because they had made void their first faith; whom those had deceived concerning whom the same Apostle writes to the Roman brethren: 'I beseech you, brethren, to mark those who cause dissensions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you yourselves have learned; and turn away from them.'

'For such men do not serve Christ our Lord, but their own belly; and by sweet words and benedictions they seduce the hearts of the innocent. They make their way into households, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, who are led away by various desires, ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth. Vain talkers and deceivers, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of filthy gain. Men corrupt in mind, reprobate concerning the faith, proud, knowing nothing, but languishing about questions and strifes of words; who are deprived of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness; and being at the same time idle, they learn to go about from house to house;'

'and not only idle, but also tattlers and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not: who, putting away a good conscience, have made shipwreck concerning the faith: whose profane vain babblings advance much unto impiety, and whose word spreads like a cancer.' But it is well that of these it is likewise written: 'But they shall proceed no further; for their folly shall be manifest to all, as theirs also was.' VIII.

When therefore certain such men, going about through provinces and cities and carrying their errors for sale, had come even to the Galatians, and when, on hearing them, the Galatians, seized with a kind of nausea for the truth, vomited up the manna of Apostolic and Catholic doctrine and were delighting in the filth of heretical novelty, then the authority of Apostolic power so exerted itself that it decreed with the utmost severity: 'But although we,' he says, 'or an angel from heaven preach to you any gospel besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.' What is it that he says, 'But although we'? Why not rather, 'But although I'? That is:

'Even if Peter, even if Andrew, even if John, even if finally the whole choir of the Apostles preach to you any gospel besides that which we have preached, let him be anathema.' A tremendous strictness, that for the sake of asserting tenacity in the first faith he spared neither himself nor his fellow Apostles! It is too little: 'Even if an angel,' he says, 'from heaven preach to you any gospel besides that which we have preached, let him be anathema.' It had not been enough, for the safekeeping of the faith once handed down, to have recalled the nature of the human condition, unless he had also included angelic excellence. 'Although we,' he says, 'or an angel from heaven.' Not because the holy and heavenly angels can now sin; but this is what he means:

'Even if,' he says, 'that which cannot happen should happen, whoever shall attempt to change the faith once handed down, let him be anathema.' But perhaps he spoke these things perfunctorily, and poured them out rather by human impulse than decreed them by divine reason. Far from it. For he goes on, and drives home this very thing with the enormous effort of a repeated declaration: 'As we said before, so now I say again: If any man preach to you a gospel besides that which you have received, let him be anathema.' He did not say: 'If anyone announce to you a gospel besides that which you have received, let him be blessed, praised, received'; but, 'let him be anathema,' he says—that is, separated, set apart, excluded—lest the dreadful contagion of one sheep contaminate by its venomous mixture the harmless flock of Christ. IX.

But perhaps these precepts were given to the Galatians only. Then those things too were commanded to the Galatians alone which are recorded in what follows in the same Epistle: such as these: 'If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be made desirous of vainglory, provoking one another, envying one another,' and the rest. But if this is absurd, and these things were commanded equally to all, it remains that just as these are precepts of conduct, so too those things which are decreed concerning the faith must be grasped by all in like manner; and just as it is lawful for no one to provoke one another or to envy one another, so let it be lawful for no one to receive anything besides what the Catholic Church everywhere preaches.

Or perhaps it was then commanded that if anyone should announce anything besides what had been announced, he should be anathematized; but now it is no longer commanded. Then likewise that which he also says there: 'But I say, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the desire of the flesh,' was then only commanded, but now is no longer commanded. But if it is both impious and pernicious so to believe, it necessarily follows that, just as these things are to be observed in all ages, so too those things which have been ordained concerning the unchanging faith have been commanded for all ages. To announce, therefore, anything to Catholic Christians besides what they have received was never lawful, is nowhere lawful, will never be lawful;

and to anathematize those who announce anything besides what was once received was never wrong, is nowhere wrong, will never be wrong. Since these things are so, is there anyone of such great audacity as to announce, besides what has been announced in the Church, or of such great fickleness as to receive, besides what he has received from the Church? He cries out, and crying repeats it, and to all, and always, and everywhere through his letters he cries—that one, that chosen vessel, that teacher of the nations, that trumpet of the Apostles, that herald of the lands, that one privy to the heavens—that if anyone announce a new dogma, he should be anathematized.

And against this certain frogs, gnats, and flies doomed to perish cry back—such as the Pelagians—and that to Catholics: 'On our authority,' they say, 'with us as leaders, with us as expositors, condemn what you held, hold what you condemned, cast away the ancient faith, the paternal institutions, the deposits of our forefathers—and receive...': what, then, at last? I shudder to say it; for they are so arrogant that to me they seem to be incapable of being affirmed, or even refuted, without some sacrilege. X. But someone will say: Why then are certain eminent persons set in the Church so very often divinely permitted to announce new things to Catholics? A right question, and worthy to be treated more diligently and more fully:

yet it must be satisfied not by our own ingenuity, but by the authority of the divine law, by the testimony of the Church's teaching office. Let us hear, then, holy Moses; and let him himself teach us why learned men—and those who, on account of the grace of knowledge, are even called prophets by the Apostle—are sometimes permitted to bring forth new dogmas, which the Old Testament was accustomed in allegorical language to call 'strange gods,' inasmuch, namely, as the opinions of heretics are observed by their followers just as their gods are observed by the heathen. Blessed Moses, then, writes in Deuteronomy:

'If there arise,' he says, 'in the midst of you a prophet, or one who says that he has seen a dream'—that is, a teacher set in the Church, whom his disciples or hearers suppose to teach from some revelation. What then? 'And he foretell,' he says, 'a sign and a wonder, and that come to pass which he spoke.' Some great teacher, I know not whom, is surely signified, and of such great knowledge that he may seem able to his own followers not only to know what is human, but even to foreknow what is above man—such as the disciples of Valentinus, Donatus, Photinus, Apollinaris, and others of that kind generally boast theirs to have been. What afterwards? 'And he say,' he says, 'to you: Let us go and follow strange gods, whom you do not know, and let us serve them.'