1. What you ask very often and most insistently, holy son Quodvultdeus—that I write something about the heresies worth reading by those who desire to avoid the doctrines contrary to the Christian faith and deceptive under the shadow of the Christian name—know that long ago, far before you asked, I had thought to do it, and would have done it, had I not, carefully considering of what kind and how great a thing it was, felt it to be beyond my powers. But since I confess that no one has pressed me with asking as you have, in your very troublesome insistence I noted your name too and said, "I will undertake it and do what God wills." For I am confident that God wills this: if by his merciful favor he brings me to the end of this work, that through the ministry of my tongue the great difficulty of the matter may either be merely shown, or, with his fuller help, removed. Of these two, the one I put first I have long turned over and over in my mind and contemplate in a kind of meditation. But the one I named afterward I confess I have not received. And whether, while I do this in order to accomplish it, while I ask, while I seek, while I knock, I am perhaps going to receive it, I do not know. Yet I know that I shall neither ask nor seek nor knock as much as is enough, unless I have received this disposition too as a gift of divine inspiration.

2. In this work, then, which at your vehement urging I have undertaken in the will of God, you see that, in order to carry it through, I need not so much to be compelled by your ever more frequent requests to me, as to be helped by the devout prayers to God—not only yours, but also those of the other brothers whom you may be able to find as faithful associates in this matter. That this may come about, I have taken care to hasten the sending, with the Lord's help, of these very first parts of my labor, where this preface stands, to your Charity, so that all of you who can know that I have already undertaken this so great a task which you desire to be fulfilled by me may know how much you ought to pray for me.

3. You ask, then, as your letters indicate—those you sent me when you first began to ask these things of me—that I set out: "Briefly, concisely, and summarily, from the time the Christian religion received the name of the promised inheritance, what heresies there have been and now are; what errors they introduced and still introduce; what they held and still hold against the catholic Church concerning faith, the Trinity, baptism, penance, Christ as man, Christ as God, the resurrection, and the New and Old Testament." But when you saw that these inquiries of yours were proceeding without measure, you thought a summary of a certain general kind should be employed, and said, "And absolutely everything in which they dissent from the truth." Then you added, "Which of them have baptism and which do not; after which of them the Church baptizes yet does not rebaptize; how it receives those who come over; and what answer, by law, authority, and reason, is to be given to each."

4. When you ask that all these things be set out by me, I marvel that your brilliant mind both thirsts for the truth in so many and such great matters and, already dreading tedium, asks for brevity. But you yourself also saw what I could think at this point about this letter of yours, and as if watchfully you met my thought, saying, "Let not your Blessedness think me so foolish as not to see how many and how vast the volumes would have to be in order to resolve these matters. But this is not what I am asking be done; for I do not doubt that it has been done many times over." And as if suggesting a plan by which both brevity might be kept and the truth disclosed, you add the words I have already set down a little above, and say, "But I ask that the opinions of each heresy be set out briefly, concisely, and summarily, and that what the catholic Church holds against them be appended, only so far as is enough for instruction." See, again you send me off into length—not because these things cannot or should not be said briefly, but because they are so many that, however briefly they are to be said, they demand many pages. But you say, "So that, as it were from a single handbook drawn from them all, anyone who wishes to know some objection or refutation more amply, fully, and plainly may be referred to the rich and magnificent volumes which various authors, and especially," you say, "your Reverence, are known to have produced for this very purpose." In saying this you indicate that you desire, as it were, a single handbook about all these things. Hear, then, from where you may be reminded what you are asking.

5. A certain Celsus set out, in six not small volumes, the opinions of all the philosophers who founded the various sects down to his own times—for he could not go further. Nor did he refute anyone, but only disclosed what they held, with such brevity of speech that he employed only as much eloquence as sufficed for a matter neither to be praised nor blamed, neither affirmed nor defended, but only disclosed and indicated; though he named nearly a hundred philosophers, not all of whom established heresies of their own, since he did not think that even those should be passed over in silence who followed their teachers without any disagreement.

6. But our own Epiphanius, bishop of Cyprus, taken from human affairs not long ago, speaking of eighty heresies, himself also composed six books, recounting everything in a historical narrative, contending in no disputation against falsehood on behalf of the truth. These little books are indeed brief, and if they were brought together into one book, even that would not be comparable in length to certain books of ours or of others. If I imitate his brevity in recounting the heresies, you will have nothing briefer to demand or expect of me. But the sum of this labor of mine does not lie there, as will be able to appear to you, either as I demonstrate it or even as you run ahead of me, when I have done so. For you will see, in what the aforesaid bishop did, how much is lacking to the work that you yourself want done—how much more, then, to what I want. For you, although you want it "briefly, concisely, and summarily," nevertheless also want the heresies recounted to be answered, which he did not do.

7. But I would rather do this, if God too wills, whereby every heresy, both the one that is known and the one that is unknown, may be avoided, and whereby whatever becomes known may be rightly judged. For not every error is a heresy, although every heresy, which is reckoned among the vices, cannot be a heresy without some error. What it is, then, that makes someone a heretic can, as I judge, either not be comprised at all in a regular sort of definition, or be so only with the greatest difficulty. This will be made clear in the course of this work, if God guides it and brings my plan to what I intend. But what use the inquiry itself may have, even if we are unable to comprise how a heretic is to be defined, is to be seen and stated in its own place. For if this can be comprised, who does not see how great the usefulness is? The first parts, then, of this work will be about the heresies that arose against Christ's teaching after his coming and ascension, and that have been able in some way to become known to us. But in the later parts it will be discussed what makes someone a heretic. When, therefore, the Lord had ascended into heaven, these heretics arose:

1. The SIMONIANS, from Simon the magician, who, baptized by Philip the deacon, as is read in the Acts of the Apostles, wished to buy with money from the holy Apostles that the Holy Spirit might be given also through the laying on of his hands. He had deceived many by magical tricks (See Acts 8:9-19). He taught, moreover, the detestable shamefulness of using women indiscriminately. He said that God had not made the world, and he denied the resurrection of the flesh as well. And he asserted that he himself was Christ; he likewise wished to be believed to be Jupiter, and a certain prostitute named Helen, whom he had made his partner in crimes, to be Minerva. He offered images both of himself and of that same prostitute to his disciples to be adored, and these he had set up at Rome too, by public authority, as if they were statues of gods. In that city the apostle Peter extinguished him by the true power of almighty God.

2. The MENANDRIANS, from Menander, himself also a magician, his disciple, who asserted that the world was made not by God, but by angels.

3. The SATURNINIANS, from a certain Saturninus, who is reported to have confirmed the Simonian shamefulness in Syria; he also said that the world was made by seven angels alone, without the knowledge of God the Father.

4. The BASILIDIANS, from Basilides, who differed from the Simonians in this, that he believed there were three hundred sixty-five heavens, the number in which the days of the year are contained. Hence too he commended as a kind of holy name the word that is
. The letters of this name, according to the Greek reckoning, make up that same number; for there are
seven, and
and and
and and
and; that is, one and two and a hundred and one and two hundred and one and sixty, which come in sum to three hundred sixty-five.

5. The NICOLAITANS are named from Nicolaus, one, as is reported, of those seven whom the Apostles ordained as deacons (See Acts 6:5). When he was blamed for jealousy over his most beautiful wife, he is said, as if to clear himself, to have permitted whoever wished to make use of her. This deed of his was turned into a most shameful sect, in which the indiscriminate use of women is favored. They do not separate their food from what is sacrificed to idols, and they do not shun the other rites of the superstitions of the gentiles (See Rev 2:14-15). They also tell certain fabulous things about the world, mixing into their disputes I know not what barbarous names of princes, with which they may terrify their hearers—things which to the prudent cause laughter rather than fear. These too are understood not to attribute creation to God, but to certain powers which they either invent or believe with marvelous emptiness.

6. The GNOSTICS boast that they were so called, or ought to have been so called, on account of the excellence of their knowledge, although they are emptier and more shameful than all the foregoing. In short, since they are named differently by different people through the various parts of the world, some even call them Borborites, as if filthy, on account of the excessive shamefulness which they are said to practice in their mysteries. Some think they arose from the Nicolaitans, some from Carpocrates, of whom we will speak later. They hand down doctrines full of the most fabulous inventions. They too capture weak souls with the terrible names of princes or angels, and they weave many things about God and the nature of things that are fabulous and alien to the soundness of the truth. They say the substance of souls is the nature of God, and they insert their souls' coming into these bodies and their return to God into those same very long and most foolish fables of theirs, in keeping with their errors. And they make those who believe them excel, as they suppose, in much knowledge, but, so to speak, vanish in much fable-mongering. They are also said to have in their doctrines a good God and an evil God.

7. The CARPOCRATIANS are from Carpocrates, who taught that every shameful act and every contrivance of sin must be committed, and that the principalities and powers to whom these things are pleasing cannot otherwise be escaped and passed, so that one may reach the higher heaven. He is also reported to have thought that Jesus was a man only, born of both sexes, but that he received such a soul as to know the things that were above and to announce them. He rejected the resurrection of the body together with the law. He denied that the world was made by God, but by I know not what powers. To his sect there is said to have belonged a certain woman named Marcellina, who worshiped images of Jesus and Paul and Homer and Pythagoras by adoring them and offering incense.

8. The CERINTHIANS, from Cerinthus, and the same the MERINTHIANS, from Merinthus, saying that the world was made by angels, and that one must be circumcised in the flesh and keep the other precepts of the law of this kind; asserting that Jesus was a man only, and did not rise, but will rise. They also fable that there will be a thousand years after the resurrection in an earthly kingdom of Christ, devoted to the carnal pleasures of the belly and of lust; whence they are also called Chiliasts.

9. The NAZORAEANS, although they confess that Christ is the Son of God, nevertheless observe all the things of the old law, which Christians have learned through the apostolic tradition not to observe carnally but to understand spiritually.

10. The HEBIONITES too say that Christ is a man only. They observe the carnal commandments of the law—namely, circumcision of the flesh, and the rest from whose burdens we have been freed through the New Testament. To this heresy Epiphanius so joins the Sampsaeans and Elcesaeans that he places them under the same number, as if it were one heresy, indicating nonetheless that there is some difference. Yet in what follows he also speaks of them, placing them under their own number. Eusebius, recounting the sect of the Elcesaites, says it taught that the faith was to be denied in persecution and kept in the heart.

11. The VALENTINIANS, from Valentinus, who invented many fabulous things about the nature of reality, asserting that there were thirty aeons, that is, ages, whose beginning was Depth and Silence, and Depth he also calls the Father. From these two, as if from a marriage, he claims that Intellect and Truth proceeded, and that they brought forth, in honor of the Father, eight aeons; and that from Intellect and Truth proceeded Word and Life, and brought forth ten aeons; further, that from Word and Life proceeded Man and Church, and brought forth twelve aeons; so that eight and ten and twelve make thirty aeons, having, as we said, their first beginning from Depth and Silence. He said that Christ, sent by the Father—that is, from Depth—brought with him a spiritual or heavenly body and assumed nothing from the Virgin Mary, but passed through her as through a channel or pipe, with no flesh assumed from her. He also denies the resurrection of the flesh, affirming that through Christ only the spirit and soul receive salvation.

12. The SECUNDIANS are said to differ from the Valentinians in this, that they add shameful works.

13. PTOLEMY too, a disciple of Valentinus, desiring to found a new heresy, preferred to assert four aeons and another four.

14. A certain MARK also founded a heresy, denying the resurrection of the flesh and asserting that Christ suffered not truly but only in appearance. He also held that there were two principles opposed to each other, affirming something about the aeons such as Valentinus did.

15. COLORBASUS followed these, holding views not much different, affirming that the life and generation of all human beings consists in the seven heavenly bodies.

16. The HERACLEONITES, from Heracleon, a disciple of the foregoing, assert two principles—one from the other, and from these two very many others. They are reported to redeem their dying in a new way, as it were: that is, by oil, balsam, and water, and by invocations, which they speak in Hebrew words over their heads.

17. The OPHITES are named from the snake, for "snake" in Greek is
. This they think to be Christ; but they also keep a real snake, accustomed to lick their loaves, and so to sanctify them for them as their Eucharist. Some say that these Ophites arose from the Nicolaitans or the Gnostics, and that through their fabulous inventions they came to worship the snake.

18. The CAINITES are so called because they honor Cain, saying that he was of the strongest power. At the same time they think Judas the traitor too to be something divine, and they reckon his crime a benefit, asserting that he foreknew how profitable Christ's passion would be to the human race, and for that reason handed him over to the Jews to be killed. They are reported to venerate also those who, making a schism among the first people of God, perished when the earth opened (See Num 16:31-33), and the Sodomites. They blaspheme the law and God the author of the law, and they deny the resurrection of the flesh.

19. The SETHIANS received their name from the son of Adam who was called Seth; for they honor him, but with a fabulous and heretical vanity. For they say that he was born of a heavenly mother, who, they claim, came together with a heavenly father, that thence another divine seed might be born, as it were of the children of God. These too tell many most empty fables about the principalities and powers. Some say they think Shem the son of Noah to be Christ.

20. The ARCHONTICS, named from the rulers, say that the universe, which God founded, is the work of the rulers. They also practice a certain shamefulness. They deny the resurrection of the flesh.

21. The CERDONIANS, named from Cerdo, who laid down as doctrine two principles opposed to each other, and that the God of the law and the prophets is not the Father of Christ, nor a good God but a just one, whereas the Father of Christ is good; and that Christ himself was neither born of a woman nor had flesh, nor truly died or suffered anything, but feigned the passion. Some, however, report that in his two principles he so spoke of two gods that one of them was good, the other evil. He denies the resurrection of the dead, scorning the Old Testament as well.

22. MARCION too, from whom the Marcionites are named, followed Cerdo's doctrines about two principles; although Epiphanius says he asserted three principles—good, just, and depraved—but Eusebius writes that a certain Synerus, not Marcion, was the author of three principles and natures.

23. The APELLITES are those whose leader is Apelles, who indeed introduces two gods, one good, the other evil; yet not in two different principles opposed to each other, but says that there is one principle, namely the good God, and that by him the other was made, who, when he was found to be malignant, made the world in his own malignity. Some say that this Apelles thought such false things about Christ too that he said Christ did not, indeed, bring his flesh down from heaven, but received it from the elements of the world, which he gave back to the world when, rising without flesh, he ascended into heaven.

24. The SEVERIANS, arising from Severus, do not drink wine, because with fabulous vanity they assert that the vine sprang from the earth of Satan. They too puff up their unsound doctrine with the names of princes, as they please, rejecting the resurrection of the flesh together with the Old Testament.

25. The TATIANS, established by a certain Tatian, who are also called Encratites, condemn marriage and make it altogether equal to fornications and other corruptions, and do not receive into the number of their own anyone making use of marriage, whether male or female. They do not eat meat, and they utterly abominate it. These too relish certain fabulous emanations of the ages. They contradict the salvation of the first man. Epiphanius so distinguishes the Tatians and the Encratites that he calls the Encratites schismatics of Tatian.

26. The CATAPHRYGIANS are those whose authors were Montanus, as it were the Paraclete, and his two prophetesses, Prisca and Maximilla. The province of Phrygia gave them their name, because there they arose and there they lived, and even now they have peoples in those same parts. They assert that the coming of the Holy Spirit promised by the Lord was rendered in themselves rather than in the Apostles. They hold second marriages to be fornications, and they say that for this reason the apostle Paul permitted them, because he knew in part and prophesied in part, for that which is perfect had not yet come (1 Cor 13:9-10). But they rave that this perfect thing came in Montanus and in his prophetesses. They are reported to have deadly rites; for from the blood of a year-old infant, which they extort from his whole body by tiny pricking wounds, they are reported to make, as it were, their Eucharist, mixing it with flour and making bread from it. If that child dies, he is held by them to be a martyr; but if he lives, to be a supreme priest.

27. The PEPUZIANS are named from a certain place, which Epiphanius says is a deserted city. But these people, thinking it to be something divine, call it Jerusalem; they grant such primacy to women that among them women are honored even with the priesthood, for they say that Christ was revealed in the form of a woman to Quintilla and Priscilla in that same city of Pepuza; whence they are also called Quintillians, from her. They too do with the blood of an infant what we said above the Cataphrygians do, for they are reported to have arisen from them. Finally, others say that this Pepuza was not a city, but was the country estate of Montanus and his prophetesses Priscilla and Maximilla, and that because they lived there the place therefore deserved to be called Jerusalem.

28. The ARTOTYRITES are those to whom their oblation gave this name. For they offer bread and cheese, saying that by the first human beings oblations from the fruits of the earth and of sheep were celebrated. These Epiphanius joins to the Pepuzians.

29. The TESSARESCAEDECATITES are so called from this, that they celebrate Pasch only on the fourteenth day of the moon, on whatever day of the seven it falls; and if the Lord's day falls on it, on that very day they fast and keep vigil.

30. The ALOGI are so called as if "without the Word"—for
in Greek means "word"—because they refused to receive God the Word, rejecting the Gospel of John, of whom they accept the Revelation no more than the Gospel, denying, that is, that these Scriptures are his.

31. The ADAMIANS, named from Adam, whose nakedness in paradise they imitate, the nakedness that was before sin. Hence they also shun marriage, because Adam did not know his wife either before he had sinned or before he was sent out of paradise. They believe, therefore, that there would have been no marriage if no one had sinned. And so, naked, men and women come together; naked they hear the readings, naked they pray, naked they celebrate the sacraments, and on this account they think their church is paradise.

32. The ELCESAEANS and SAMPSAEANS Epiphanius here recounts, as in their own order, whom he says were deceived by a certain false prophet who was called Elci, two women of whose family he reports were adored by them as goddesses. In other respects they hold things similar to the Hebionites.

33. The THEODOTIANS, established by a certain Theodotion, assert that Christ is a man only. Theodotion is indeed said to have taught this because, having fallen in persecution, he thought in this way to avoid the reproach of his lapse, if he should seem to have denied not God but a man.

34. The MELCHIZEDECHIANS think that Melchizedek, priest of God Most High (See Gen 14:18), was not a man, but is a power of God.

35. The BARDESANISTS, from a certain Bardesanes, who is reported to have first been distinguished in the teaching of Christ, but afterward fell, though not in all things, into the heresy of Valentinus.

36. The NOETIANS, from a certain Noetus, who said that Christ was the very same as the Father and the Holy Spirit.

37. The VALESIANS castrate both themselves and their guests, thinking in this way that they ought to serve God. They are said to teach other heretical and shameful things as well, but what these are neither did Epiphanius himself recount, nor have I been able to find anywhere.

38. The CATHARS, who most proudly and most odiously name themselves by this name as if on account of purity, do not admit second marriages, deny penance, and follow the heretic Novatus, whence they are also called Novatians.

39. The ANGELICS, inclined to the worship of angels, whom Epiphanius testifies have now altogether ceased to exist.

40. The APOSTOLICS, who most arrogantly called themselves by this name because they would not receive into their communion those who used marriage and possessed property of their own. Such the catholic Church has too, both monks and very many clerics. But these are heretics for this reason: that, separating themselves from the Church, they think those who use the things they themselves lack have no hope. These are similar to the Encratites, for they are also called Apotactites. But they are reported to teach other heretical things of their own, I know not what.

41. The SABELLIANS are said to have flowed down from that Noetus whom we mentioned above. For some report that Sabellius was his disciple. But on what ground Epiphanius reckons these two heresies I do not know, since we can see that it could have come about that this Sabellius was more famous, and so from him this heresy more notably received its name. For the Noetians are known with difficulty by anyone, but the Sabellians are on the lips of many. For some also call them Praxeans, from Praxeas, and they could be called Hermogenians, from Hermogenes—which Praxeas and Hermogenes, holding the same views, are said to have been in Africa. Yet these are not several sects, but several names of one sect, from those men who became most known in it—just as the Donatists are the same as the Parmenianists, just as the Pelagians are the same as the Celestians. Whence, then, it came about that the aforesaid bishop Epiphanius placed the Noetians and the Sabellians not as two names of one heresy, but as two heresies, I have not been able to find clearly; because if they differ in anything between themselves, he said it so obscurely—perhaps in his zeal for brevity—that I do not understand it. For in this very place, where we too are, recounting the Sabellians so far from the Noetians, he says, "The Sabellians, laying down as doctrine things similar to Noetus, except for this, that they say the Father did not suffer." How can this be understood of the Sabellians, when they have become so known for saying that the Father suffered, that they are more frequently called Patripassians than Sabellians? Or if perhaps in saying "except for this, that they say the Father did not suffer" he wished the Noetians to be understood as saying this, who can distinguish them in this ambiguity? Or how can any of them be understood not to say that the Father suffered, when they say that the very same is both Father and Son and Holy Spirit? But Philaster, bishop of Brescia, in the most prolix book he composed on heresies, and in which he thought one hundred twenty-eight heresies should be reckoned, placing the Sabellians directly after the Noetians, says, "Sabellius, his disciple, who likewise followed the likeness of his teacher, whence afterward they were called Sabellians, who are also Patripassians; and Praxeans from Praxeas, and Hermogenians from Hermogenes, who were in Africa; who, thinking thus, were cast out from the catholic Church." Certainly he said that those who held what Noetus held were afterward called Sabellians, and he recounted other names of the same sect. And yet he placed the Noetians and the Sabellians under two numbers, as if two heresies; for what reason, let him see to it.

42. The ORIGENIANS are named from a certain Origen—not the one who is known to nearly everyone, but from some other one, I know not whom—of whom, or of whose followers, Epiphanius, speaking, says, "The Origenians, of a certain Origen, but of shameful practice, are those who do unspeakable things, handing over their bodies to corruption."

43. But, immediately subjoining other ORIGENIANS, he says, "Other Origenians, who are also of the commentator Adamantius, who reject the resurrection of the dead too, but introduce Christ and the Holy Spirit as a creature, and allegorize paradise and the heavens and everything else." These things, indeed, Epiphanius says about Origen. But those who defend him say that he taught the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit to be of one and the same substance, and that he did not reject the resurrection of the dead; although those who have read more of his works are eager to convict him in these matters too. But there are other doctrines of this Origen which the catholic Church does not at all accept. In these he is neither falsely accused nor can his defenders be deceived—especially concerning the purification and liberation, and again, after a long time, the relapse of the whole rational creation into the same evils. For what catholic Christian, whether learned or unlearned, would not vehemently shudder at what he calls the purification of the wicked—that is, that even those who end this life in disgraceful acts and crimes and sacrileges and impieties however great, indeed the devil himself and his angels too, though after the very longest times, will be purified and freed and restored to the kingdom of God and to the light; and again, after the very longest times, all who have been freed will slip back and return anew to these evils; and that the rational creation, alternating these turns of beatitudes and miseries, always was and always will be? On this most empty impiety I have disputed most diligently against the philosophers from whom Origen learned these things in the books The City of God.

44. The PAULIANS, from Paul of Samosata, say that Christ did not always exist, but assert that his beginning was from when he was born of Mary; nor do they think him anything more than a man. This heresy once belonged to a certain Artemon, but when it had died out, it was restored by Paul, and afterward so confirmed by Photinus that they are more notably called Photinians than Paulians. These Paulians, indeed, it was established in the Council of Nicaea, must be baptized in the catholic Church. Hence it is to be believed that they do not have the rule of baptism, which many heretics took with them when they departed from the catholic Church, and which they preserve.

45. PHOTINUS is placed by Epiphanius not directly after Paul or with Paul, but with others interposed. It is not, indeed, passed over in silence that he believed similar things; yet he is said in some respect to have opposed him, but what that respect is is not stated at all. Philaster, however, places both consecutively under separate and proper numbers, as two heresies, although he says that Photinus followed Paul's doctrine in all things.

46. 1. The MANICHEANS arose from a certain Persian who was called Manes, although his disciples, when his insane doctrine began to be preached in Greece, preferred to call him Manichaeus, avoiding the name of insanity. Hence some of them, as if more learned and for that very reason more deceitful, with the letter "n" doubled, call him Mannicheus, as if pouring out manna.

46. 2. This man composed two principles, different from and opposed to each other, and these eternal and coeternal—that is, that they always existed—and, following other ancient heretics, held that there are two natures and substances, namely of good and of evil. Asserting, according to their doctrines, the struggle and commingling of these with each other, and the purification of the good from the evil, and the eternal damnation, together with the evil, of the good that cannot be purified, they tell many fables, all of which it would be too long to weave into this work.

46. 3. From these empty and impious fables of theirs they are forced to say that the good souls, which they hold must be freed from commingling with the nature of the evil souls—that is, the contrary nature—are of the nature whose God is.

46. 4. Accordingly, they do indeed confess that the world was made by the nature of the good—that is, by the nature of God—but from the commingling of good and evil that occurred when each nature fought against the other.

46. 5. This purification and liberation of the good from the evil, they say, the powers of God effect not only throughout the whole world and from all its elements, but also through their Elect, by means of the food they take. For in that food, as in the whole world, they report that the substance of God is commingled, which they think is purified in their Elect by the kind of life the Elect of the Manicheans live, as something holier and more excellent than their Hearers. For by these two professions—that is, of the Elect and of the Hearers—they wished their church to consist.

46. 6. But in the rest of human beings, even in their own Hearers, they think that this part of the good and divine substance, which is held mixed and bound up in food and drink, is bound more tightly and more foully, especially in those who beget children. But whatever light is purified from every quarter is restored, by means of certain ships, which they hold to be the moon and the sun, to the kingdom of God, as to its proper seats. These ships likewise they report to have been fashioned from the pure substance of God.

46. 7. And this corporeal light, lying before the eyes of mortal living things, they say is the nature of God—not only in these ships, where they believe it purest, but also in any other luminous things, where, according to them, it is held mixed in and is believed to need purifying. For they attribute the five elements that begot their own princes to the race of darkness, and they call those elements by these names: smoke, darkness, fire, water, wind. In smoke, they hold, were born two-footed animals, from which they think human beings draw their origin; in darkness, creeping things; in fire, four-footed beasts; in the waters, swimming things; in wind, flying things. For the conquering of these five evil elements, they say that another five elements were sent from the kingdom and substance of God, and that in that fight there were mingled air with smoke, light with darkness, good fire with evil fire, good water with evil water, good wind with evil wind. Those ships, that is, the two luminaries of the heavens, they so distinguish that they say the moon was made from good water, but the sun from good fire.

46. 8. And they say that there are in these ships holy powers, which transform themselves into males in order to entice the females of the adverse race, and again into females in order to entice the males of the same adverse race. And through this enticement, when their desire has been stirred, the light that they held mingled with their members flees from them, and is taken up to be purified by the angels of light, and, once purified, is loaded onto those ships to be carried back to its proper kingdoms.

46. 9. On this occasion, or rather by a certain necessity of their execrable superstition, their Elect are forced to take, as it were, a Eucharist sprinkled with human seed, so that from it too, as from the other foods they receive, that divine substance may be purified. But they deny that they do this, and they affirm that certain others, I know not who, do it under the name of the Manicheans. Yet they have been detected in the Church, as you know, at Carthage, when you were already established there as a deacon, when, at the insistence of the tribune Ursus, who then was in charge of the royal household, some were brought forward. There that girl named Margarita exposed this wicked shamefulness, who, being not yet twelve years old, said that on account of this criminal rite she had been violated. Then he could scarcely compel a certain Manichean woman named Eusebia, as it were a nun, who had suffered the same thing for this same purpose, to confess it, since at first she had asserted that she was untouched, and had demanded to be examined by a midwife. When she had been examined and what she was had been found, she likewise disclosed that whole most shameful crime—where, to catch and mix together the seed of those lying together, flour is spread beneath—which, being absent, she had not heard from Margarita's disclosure. And in recent times some of them have been found and brought to the Church, and, as the episcopal proceedings which you sent us show, under careful interrogation they confessed this not as a sacrament but as an execration.

46. 10. One of them, named Viator, saying that those who do these things are properly called Catharists, while he reported that the other parts of the same Manichean sect are divided into Mattarians and, specifically, Manicheans, could nonetheless not deny that all these three forms were propagated from one author, and that all are generally Manicheans. And certainly those books are without doubt common to all the Manicheans, in which books are written down those monstrous things about the transformation of the males into females and of the females into males, for the enticing and, through desire, the dissolving of the princes of darkness, so that the divine substance which was held captive in them may, once freed, flee from them; whence has flowed down this shamefulness, which any of them deny pertains to them. For they think they imitate the divine powers as much as they can, in order to purify the part of their God; which, surely, just as in all heavenly and earthly bodies and in the seeds of all things, so also in the seed of man they suppose to be held defiled. And from this it follows for them that they ought thus to purify it, even from human seed, by eating, just as from the other seeds they take in their food. Whence they are also called Catharists, as it were purifiers, who, purifying it with such diligence, do not abstain even from this so horrible shamefulness of food.

46. 11. They do not eat meat, however, on the supposition that the divine substance has fled from things dead or slain, and that only so much, and of such a kind, has remained in them as is no longer worthy to be purified in the belly of the Elect. They do not even take eggs, as if these too expire when they are broken, and as if one ought to eat no dead bodies, and as if that alone lives, of flesh, which is taken up into flour lest it die. But neither do they use the nourishment of milk, although it is milked or sucked from the living body of an animal—not because they think nothing of the divine substance is mingled there, but because the error itself is inconsistent with itself. For they do not drink wine either, saying that it is the gall of the princes of darkness, although they eat grapes. Nor do they sip any new wine, even the freshest.

46. 12. They think that the souls of their Hearers pass back into the Elect, or, by a happier shortcut, into the food of their Elect, so that, already purified thence, they pass back into no bodies. But the other souls they think return both into cattle and into all things that are fixed by roots and nourished in the earth. For they think that grasses and trees live in such a way that they believe the life within them both feels and grieves when it is hurt, and that no one can pluck or pick anything from them without torturing them. On this account they hold it a sin even to clear a field of thorns. Whence they madly accuse agriculture, which is the most innocent of all the arts, as if it were guilty of many homicides. And they think their Hearers are forgiven these things because they provide nourishment from them to their Elect, so that the divine substance, purified in their belly, may obtain pardon for those by whose offering it is handed over to be purified. And so the Elect themselves, doing no work in the fields, picking no fruit, and not even plucking any leaves, wait for these things to be brought for their use by their Hearers, living, according to their own vanity, by so many and such great homicides committed by others. They also warn these same Hearers that, if they eat meat, they should not kill animals, lest they offend the princes of darkness bound up in the heavenly things, from whom they say all flesh draws its origin.

46. 13. And if they use marriage, they nevertheless avoid conception and generation, lest the divine substance, which enters into them through food, be bound by fleshly chains in offspring. For thus they believe that souls come into all flesh, that is, through food and drink. Whence they condemn marriage without doubt and, so far as in them lies, forbid it, since they forbid begetting, for the sake of which marriages are to be joined.

46. 14. They assert that Adam and Eve were born of parents who were princes of smoke, when their father, named Saclas, had devoured the offspring of all his companions, and, lying with his wife, had bound up in the flesh of offspring, as by a most tenacious chain, whatever of the divine substance, mingled in, had thence begun to be.

46. 15. They affirm that the one whom our Scripture calls the serpent was Christ, by whom they assert the first humans were enlightened, so that they might open the eyes of knowledge and distinguish good and evil; and that this Christ came in the latest times to free souls, not bodies; and that he was not in true flesh, but presented a feigned appearance of flesh to mock the human senses, in which he likewise lied not only about death but also about the resurrection; and that the God who gave the law through Moses, and spoke in the Hebrew prophets, is not the true God, but one of the princes of darkness. And they so read the Scriptures of the New Testament itself, as if falsified, that they accept from them what they want and reject what they do not want; and, treating these as not wholly true, they prefer to them certain apocryphal writings.

46. 16. They say that the Lord Jesus Christ's promise concerning the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit (See John 16:7), was fulfilled in their heresiarch Manichaeus. Whence he himself, in his writings, calls himself an apostle of Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ promised that he would send him, and sent the Holy Spirit in him. On this account Manichaeus himself also had twelve disciples, after the likeness of the apostolic number, which number the Manicheans preserve to this day. For from their Elect they have twelve whom they call teachers, and a thirteenth as their chief; and seventy-two bishops, who are ordained by the teachers, and presbyters, ordained by the bishops, in no fixed number. The bishops also have deacons. The rest are simply called Elect. But even these who seem suitable are sent, either where this error must be sustained and increased, or where it must even be sown.

46. 17. They report that baptism in water brings no salvation to anyone, and they think that none of those whom they deceive should be baptized.

46. 18. They make prayers to the sun by day, in whatever direction it travels; to the moon by night, if it appears; but if it does not appear, toward the northern region, where the sun, when it has set, returns to the east. They stand while praying.

46. 19. They attribute the origin of sins not to the free choice of the will, but to the substance of the adverse race, which they lay down as doctrine to be mixed in with human beings. They report that all flesh is the workmanship not of God, but of an evil mind, which, from a contrary principle, is coeternal with God. They say that carnal desire, by which the flesh desires against the spirit (See Gal 5:17), is not an infirmity within us from a nature corrupted in the first man, but they want it to be a contrary substance so clinging to us that, when we are freed and purified, it is separated from us and lives on immortally in its own nature; and that these two souls, or two minds, one good, the other evil, have a conflict between themselves in one human being, when the flesh desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; nor is this vice healed in us, as we say it will nowhere exist, but, this substance of evil being sundered and shut off from us, when this age is ended, after the conflagration of the world, it will live on in a certain globe, as in an everlasting prison. To this globe they affirm there will always cling, as a covering and lid, the souls that are good by nature, but that nevertheless could not be cleansed from the contagion of the evil nature.

47. The HIERACITES, whose author is named Hieracas, deny the resurrection of the flesh. They receive into communion only monks and nuns and those not having spouses. They say that little children do not belong to the kingdom of heaven, because they have no merits of the struggle by which vices are overcome.

48. The MELETIANS, named from Meletius, unwilling to pray with the converted—that is, with those who fell in persecution—made a schism. But now they are said to be joined to the Arians.

49. The ARIANS, from Arius, are most known for that error by which they refuse the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit to be of one and the same nature and substance—or, to say it more expressly, essence, which in Greek is called
—but want the Son to be a creature, and the Holy Spirit to be a creature of a creature, that is, created by the Son himself. But in that they think Christ took up flesh alone, without a soul, they are less known. Nor have I found that anyone ever disputed against them on this matter. But that this is true Epiphanius did not pass over in silence, and I have learned it most certainly from certain of their writings and conversations. We know too that catholics are rebaptized by them; whether non-catholics are also, I do not know.

50. Those whom Epiphanius calls Audians, and wishes to be regarded as schismatics, not heretics, others call Anthropomorphites, because they form God for themselves by a carnal thinking in the likeness of the image of corruptible man (See Rom 1:23)—which Epiphanius attributes to their rusticity, sparing them, that they not be called heretics. But he says that they separated themselves from our communion by faulting wealthy bishops and by celebrating the Pasch with the Jews. There are, however, those who assert that in Egypt they are in communion with the catholic Church. About the Photinians, whom Epiphanius recounts in this place, I have already spoken enough above.

51. Epiphanius calls SEMIARIANS those who say the Son is of like essence, as if not full Arians; as if the Arians did not want him even to be like, since this the Eunomians are noted for saying.

52. The MACEDONIANS are from Macedonius, whom the Greeks also call
, because they dispute about the Holy Spirit. For about the Father and the Son they think rightly, that they are of one and the same substance or essence, but this they refuse to believe about the Holy Spirit, saying that he is a creature. These some rather call Semiarians, because in this question they are partly with the Arians, partly with us, although they are reported by some to say that the Holy Spirit is not God, but the deity of the Father and the Son, and has no proper substance of his own.

53. The AERIANS are from a certain Aerius who, when he was a presbyter, is said to have grieved that he could not be ordained a bishop; and, having fallen into the heresy of the Arians, he also added some doctrines of his own, saying that one ought not to make offerings for the dead, and that fasts ought not to be celebrated as solemnly appointed, but that one should fast whenever one wishes, lest one seem to be under the law. He also said that a presbyter ought to be distinguished from a bishop by no difference. Some report that these, like the Encratites or Apotactites, do not admit to their communion any but the continent and those who have so renounced the world that they possess nothing of their own. Epiphanius says, however, that they do not abstain from the eating of meat; but Philaster attributes this abstinence to them as well.

54. The AETIANS are named from Aetius, and the same the EUNOMIANS, from Eunomius the disciple of Aetius, in whose name they became more known. For Eunomius, prevailing in dialectic, defended this heresy more acutely and more notably, asserting that the Son is in all things unlike the Father, and the Holy Spirit unlike the Son. He is also reported to have been so hostile to good morals that he asserted that the perpetration and persistence of any sins whatever did no harm to anyone, if he were a partaker of that faith which was preached by him.

55. Apollinaris established the APOLLINARISTS, who dissented from the catholic Church about the soul of Christ, saying, as the Arians do, that Christ the God took up flesh alone, without a soul. In this question, overcome by the testimonies of the Gospel, they said that the mind, by which the soul of man is rational, was lacking to the soul of Christ, but that in its place the Word itself was in it. But about his flesh itself they are reported to have so dissented from the right faith that they said that that flesh and the Word were of one and the same substance, most contentiously asserting that the Word was made flesh—that is, that something of the Word was converted and changed into flesh—and not that flesh was taken up from the flesh of Mary.

56. The ANTIDICOMARITES are heretics so called who so contradict the virginity of Mary that they affirm she had intercourse with her husband after Christ was born.

57. Epiphanius places last the heresy of the MASSALIANS, which name is from the Syriac tongue. In Greek they are called
, so named from praying. For they pray so much that it seems incredible to those who hear this about them. For although the Lord said, One ought always to pray and not to faint (Luke 18:1), and the Apostle, Pray without ceasing (1 Thess 5:17)—which is most soundly taken to mean that on no day are the fixed times of prayer to be omitted—these do this so excessively that on this account they were judged to be named among the heretics. Some, however, say that they tell of some fantastic and ridiculously fabulous purification of souls—namely, that a sow with piglets seems to come out of a man's mouth when he is purified, and that into him there likewise enters, in a visible form, a fire that does not burn. To these Epiphanius joins the Euphemites, the Martyrians, and the Satanians, and he places all these with them as if one heresy. The Euchites are said to think that it is not lawful for monks to do any work to sustain their life, and so to profess themselves monks as to be wholly idle from works.
Up to these, then, the aforesaid Epiphanius, bishop of Cyprus, held among the Greeks to be one of their masters, and praised by many for his holiness in the catholic faith, brought his work on the heresies. In recounting the heretics I have followed not his measure, but his order. For I have set down some things from others which he did not set down, and have not set down some things which he did. And so I have explained some things more fully than he, others even more briefly, and in some have shown an equal brevity, regulating everything as the plan of my intention required. Accordingly he—of the eighty heresies, setting apart the twenty he reckoned to have existed before the coming of the Lord, as it seemed to him—comprised the remaining sixty, born after the Lord's ascension, in five most brief books, and made all six books of that whole work of his. But I, because I undertook, in accordance with your request, to recount those heresies which after the glorification of Christ raised themselves against the teaching of Christ, even under the veil of the Christian name, have transferred fifty-seven from Epiphanius's own work into mine, bringing two into one where I could find no difference; and again, where he wished to make one from two, I placed them singly under their own numbers. But I still ought to recount either those I have found in others or those I myself recall. Now, therefore, I add those that Philaster set down and Epiphanius did not.

58. The METANGISMONITES can be so called who assert the metangismos, saying that the Son is in the Father as a vessel in a vessel, supposing, as it were, two bodies in a carnal way, so that the Son enters into the Father as a smaller vessel into a greater. Whence this error received such a name, that in Greek it was called

; for in that tongue
means a vessel, but the entry of one vessel into another cannot be expressed by a Latin name as it could in Greek by
.

59. The SELEUCIANS, or HERMIANS, from their authors Seleucus or Hermias, say that the matter of the elements, from which the world was made, was not made by God, but is coeternal with God. Nor do they attribute the soul to God the creator, but they want angels, made of fire and spirit, to be the creators of souls. They assert, moreover, that evil is sometimes from God, sometimes from matter. They deny that the Savior sits in the flesh at the right hand of the Father, but report that he put it off and placed it in the sun, taking their occasion from the psalm where it is read, In the sun he has set his tent (Ps 19:4 (18:6)). They also deny a visible paradise, do not accept baptism in water, and do not think there will be a resurrection, but that it happens daily in the begetting of children.

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

61. The PATRICIANS, named from Patricius, say that the substance of human flesh was founded not by God but by the devil, and they think it so to be fled from and detested that some of them are reported to have wished to be rid of the flesh even by inflicting death on themselves.

62. The ASCITES are named from the wineskin—for

in Greek means a wineskin in Latin—which they are reported to go around, inflated and covered, reveling, as if they themselves were the gospel new wineskins filled with new wine.

63. The PASSALORYNCHITES are so devoted to silence that they put a finger to their nostrils and lips, lest they should command silence itself even by a word, when they think they must be silent; whence too the name
was given them; for in Greek
means a peg, and
a nose. But why those who composed this name preferred to signify a finger by "peg" I do not know, since in Greek a finger is called

, and they could surely have been named Dactylorynchites much more plainly.

64. The AQUARIANS are so called from this, that they offer water in the cup of the sacrament, not that which the whole Church offers.

65. The COLUTHIANS, from a certain Coluthus, who said that God does not make evils, against that which is written: I am God, creating evils (Isa 45:7).

66. The FLORINIANS, from Florinus, who, on the contrary, said that God created evils, against that which is written: God made all things, and behold, they were very good (Gen 1:31). And on this account, although they said things contrary to each other, both nevertheless resisted the divine words. For God creates evil by inflicting most just punishments—which Coluthus did not see—but not by creating evil natures and substances insofar as they are natures and substances, where Florinus erred.

67. Philaster recounts a certain heresy without author and without name, which says that this world, even after the resurrection of the dead, will remain in the same state in which it now is, and will not be so changed that there be a new heaven and a new earth, as holy Scripture promises (See Isa 65:17; 2 Pet 3:13; Rev 21:1).

68. There is another heresy, of those who always walk with bare feet, on the ground that the Lord said to Moses, Loose the sandal from your feet (Exod 3:5; Josh 5:16), and that the prophet Isaiah is read to have walked with bare feet (See Isa 20:2). It is therefore a heresy because they do not walk thus for the affliction of the body, but because they understand the divine testimonies in this way.

69. 1. The DONATIANS or DONATISTS are those who first made a schism on account of the ordination, against their will, of Caecilian as bishop of the Church of Carthage, charging him with crimes that were not proved, and especially that he had been ordained by betrayers of the divine Scriptures. But after the case had been argued with him and concluded, and they had been caught guilty of falsehood, their obstinate dissent being hardened, they turned the schism into a heresy, as if the Church of Christ had perished from the whole world—where it was promised to be in the future—on account of Caecilian's crimes, whether true, or, as appeared more to the judges, false, and had remained in the African party of Donatus, extinguished in the other parts of the world, as if by the contagion of communion. They even dare to rebaptize catholics, in which they have further confirmed that they are heretics, since it has pleased the whole catholic Church not to annul the common baptism even in the heretics themselves.

69. 2. We have received that the chief of this heresy was Donatus, who, coming from Numidia and dividing the Christian people against Caecilian, with bishops of the same faction joined to him, ordained Majorinus bishop at Carthage. To this Majorinus another Donatus succeeded in the same division, who so confirmed this heresy by his eloquence that many think they are called Donatists rather on his account. There exist writings of his where it appears that he did not even hold the catholic view about the Trinity, but thought that the Son, though of the same substance, was nevertheless less than the Father, and the Holy Spirit less than the Son. But the multitude of the Donatists was not intent on this error of his about the Trinity, nor is anyone easily found among them who knows that he held this view.

69. 3. These heretics in the city of Rome are called MOUNTAIN MEN, to whom they usually send a bishop from here, from Africa, or to whom African bishops of theirs go from here to there, if perhaps it has pleased them to ordain him there.

69. 4. To this heresy in Africa belong also those who are called CIRCUMCELLIONS, a wild kind of men of most notorious audacity, not only by perpetrating monstrous crimes against others but also by not sparing themselves with the same insane ferocity. For by various kinds of death, and especially by precipices and waters and fires, they have been accustomed to kill themselves, and to seduce into this frenzy others of both sexes whom they could, sometimes threatening them with death, unless they did it, that they might be killed by others. Nevertheless these are displeasing to most of the Donatists, who do not think themselves contaminated by their communion, even as they madly charge the Christian world with the crime of unknown Africans.

69. 5. Many schisms have been made even among themselves, and some and others have separated from them in diverse assemblies, whose separation the rest of the great multitude did not notice. But at Carthage, Maximianus, ordained against Primianus by about a hundred bishops of the same error, and condemned by the remaining three hundred ten—along with those twelve who were even present in bodily presence at his ordination—by a most atrocious accusation, compelled them to acknowledge that the baptism of Christ can be given even outside the Church. For they received some of these, along with those whom they had baptized outside their Church, in their own offices, without any repetition of baptism in anyone. Nor did they cease to act through the public powers to correct them, nor did they fear to contaminate their own communion, though the crimes of these men had been vehemently exaggerated by the sentence of their own council.

70. 1. The PRISCILLIANISTS, whom Priscillian established in Spain, follow especially the doctrines of the Gnostics and Manicheans mixed together, although from other heresies too filth has flowed into them, as into a kind of bilge, in a horrible confusion. But in order to conceal their contaminations and shameful acts, they have among their doctrines these words too:

"Swear, forswear yourself, but do not betray the secret."

These say that souls are of the same nature and substance as God; that, in order to carry out a certain voluntary struggle on earth, they descend gradually through seven heavens and through certain principalities; and that they run into an evil prince, by whom they want this world to have been made, and by this prince to be sown through the diverse bodies of flesh. They also maintain that human beings are bound by the stars of fate, and that our very body is composed according to the twelve signs of heaven, like those who are commonly called Astrologers—setting the Ram in the head, the Bull in the neck, the Twins in the shoulders, the Crab in the breast, and, running through the other signs by name, they come down at last to the soles of the feet, which they assign to the Fishes, which is the last sign named by the astrologers. These and other fabulous, empty, sacrilegious things, which it would be long to pursue, this heresy weaves together.

70. 2. This heresy too avoids meat as unclean food; it separates spouses whom it has been able to persuade of this evil, both husbands from unwilling wives and wives from unwilling husbands. For they attribute the workmanship of all flesh not to the good and true God, but to evil angels; in this they are even craftier than the Manicheans, that they repudiate none of the canonical Scriptures, reading everything together with the apocryphal writings and taking them into authority, but turning by allegory into their own meanings whatever in the holy books overturns their error. About Christ they hold the Sabellian sect, saying that the very same is not only the Son, but also the Father and the Holy Spirit.

71. Philaster says there are other heretics who do not take food with other people. But whether they do this with others who are not of the same sect, or even among themselves, he does not express. He says also that they think rightly about the Father and the Son, but not in a catholic way about the Holy Spirit, because they suppose him to be created.

72. He says a heresy of exceedingly marvelous vanity arose from a certain Rhetorius, which affirms that all heretics walk rightly and speak the truth—which is so absurd that it seems incredible to me.

73. There is another heresy which says that in Christ the divinity grieved when his flesh was fixed on the cross.

74. There is another which asserts that God is triform in such a way that one part of him is the Father, one part the Son, one part the Holy Spirit—that is, that they are parts of the one God which make up this Trinity, as if God were completed out of these three parts, and neither the Father, nor the Son, nor the Holy Spirit were perfect in himself.

75. There is another which says that water was not created by God, but was always coeternal with him.

76. Another says that the body of man, not the soul, is the image of God.

77. Another says that there are innumerable worlds, as certain philosophers of the gentiles supposed.

78. Another says that the souls of the wicked are turned into demons and into whatever animals are suited to their merits.

79. Another thinks that, when Christ descended to the lower regions, the unbelievers and everyone there were freed.

80. Another, not understanding that the Son was eternally begotten, thinks that that begetting took its beginning from time. And yet, wishing to confess that the Son is coeternal with the Father, it thinks that he was with the Father before he was born of him—that is, that he always existed; but that he was nevertheless not always the Son, but began to be the Son from the time he was born of him.

These heresies I thought should be transferred into this work of mine from the work of Philaster. He recounts others too, indeed, but they do not seem to me to be called heresies. But whichever I have set down without names, he himself did not record their names either.

81. The LUCIFERIANS, arisen from Lucifer, bishop of Cagliari, and notably named, neither Epiphanius nor Philaster placed among the heretics. I believe they thought that these had founded only a schism, not a heresy. Yet in a certain author, whose name I did not find in that little work of his, I read that the Luciferians were placed among the heretics in these words: "The Luciferians," he says, "although they hold the catholic truth in all things, fall into this most foolish error, that they say the soul is begotten by transfusion, and they say it is both from the flesh and of the substance of the flesh." Whether, then, he believed—and rightly believed—that they should be placed among the heretics on account of their thinking thus about the soul (if indeed they truly think thus), or whether, even if they did not or do not think this, they are nevertheless heretics because they hardened their dissent with obstinate animosity, is another question, and one that does not seem to me to be treated in this place.

82. The JOVINIANISTS too I found in that author, whom I already knew. This heresy arose from a certain monk Jovinian in our own time, when we were still young men. He said that all sins, like the Stoic philosophers, are equal; that a man, once he has received the bath of regeneration, cannot sin; and that fasts or abstinence from certain foods are of no profit. He destroyed the virginity of Mary, saying that she was corrupted in giving birth. He also made the virginity of consecrated women and the continence of the male sex in holy people choosing the celibate life equal to the merits of chaste and faithful marriages—so that certain consecrated virgins of already advanced age in the city of Rome, where he taught these things, are said, on hearing this, to have married. He himself, indeed, neither had nor wished to have a wife, which he argued was of profit not on account of any greater merit before God in the kingdom of perpetual life, but on account of the present necessity—that is, lest a man suffer the troubles of marriage. Yet this heresy was quickly suppressed and extinguished, and could not reach even to the deception of any priests.

83. When I had searched through the history of Eusebius, to which Rufinus, after he had translated it into the Latin tongue, added two books of the times that followed, I found no heresy that I had not read in those authors, except the one Eusebius sets down in the sixth book, narrating that it arose in Arabia. And so these heretics, since he sets down no author of them, we can call Arabians, who said that souls die and are dissolved together with their bodies, and that both rise again at the end of the age. But he says that these were very swiftly corrected by the disputation of Origen, who was present and addressed them.

Now those heresies are to be recounted which we found not in those authors, but which came into our recollection in one way or another.

84. The HELVIDIANS, arisen from Helvidius, so contradict the virginity of Mary that they contend she bore other sons too, after Christ, by her husband Joseph. But it is strange why Epiphanius, leaving aside the name of Helvidius, called these the Antidicomarites.

85. The PATERNIANS think that the lower parts of the human body were made not by God, but by the devil, and, attributing license for all the disgraceful acts of those parts, they live most impurely. These some also call Venustians.

86. The TERTULLIANISTS, from Tertullian, many of whose little works, written most eloquently, are read, gradually dwindling down to our own time, were able to last in their final remnants in the city of Carthage. But while I was placed there some years ago—which I think you too remember—they were consumed in every part. For the very few who remained crossed over to the catholic Church, and handed over their basilica, which even now is very well known, to the catholic Church.

Tertullian, then, as his writings indicate, says that the soul is indeed immortal, but he contends that it is a body—and not only it, but God himself too. Yet he is not for this reason said to have become a heretic. For he could in some way be thought to call the divine nature and substance itself a body—not such a body as has parts, some larger, some smaller, that can or must be conceived, such as are all the things we properly call bodies, although he holds something of this sort about the soul. But he could, as I said, be thought to call God a body for this reason: that God is not nothing, is not emptiness, is not a quality of body or of soul, but is everywhere whole, and, divided by no spaces of place, nevertheless remains unchangeably in his own nature and substance. Tertullian, then, did not become a heretic for this reason, but because, crossing over to the Cataphrygians, whom he had earlier refuted, he began to condemn second marriages too, against the apostolic doctrine (See 1 Tim 4:3), as if they were debaucheries, and afterward, divided even from them, he propagated his own conventicles. He himself, indeed, says that the worst souls of men are turned into demons after death.

87. There is a certain rustic heresy in our countryside, that is, in the region of Hippo—or rather there was; for, gradually diminished, it had remained in one tiny estate, in which there were indeed very few, but all were of it. All of these have now been corrected and made catholics, and none has survived in that error. They were called ABELOIM, by a Punic declension of the name. Some say they were named from the son of Adam who was called Abel, whence we can call them ABELIANS or ABELOITES.

They did not have intercourse with their wives, and yet by the doctrine of their sect it was not lawful for them to live without wives. So men and women, living together under a profession of continence, adopted for themselves a boy and a girl, who, by the agreement of the same union, would be their successors. When any individuals were overtaken by death, others were substituted, provided that two of differing sex succeeded the two in the fellowship of that household. For when either parent had died, while one remained, the children served until that one's death too. After whose death they likewise adopted a boy and a girl. Nor were they ever without a source from which to adopt, since the neighbors all around were begetting children and gladly giving their poor children to the hope of another's inheritance.

88. 1. The heresy of the PELAGIANS is at this time the most recent of all, arisen from the monk Pelagius. Celestius so followed him as his teacher that their followers are also called Celestians.

88. 2. These are so hostile to the grace of God, by which we were predestined unto the adoption of sons through Jesus Christ unto himself (Eph 1:5), and by which we are rescued from the power of darkness that we may believe in him and be transferred into his kingdom (See Col 1:13)—on account of which he says, No one comes to me unless it has been given him by my Father (John 6:65)—and by which love is poured out in our hearts (See Rom 5:5), that faith may work through love (See Gal 5:6)—so hostile, I say, that they believe a man can do all the divine commandments without it. But if this were true, the Lord would seem to have said in vain, Without me you can do nothing (John 15:5). In short, Pelagius, rebuked by the brothers because he attributed nothing to the help of God's grace for doing his commandments, yielded to their rebuke so far as not to place grace before free choice, but, with faithless cunning, to put it under, saying that it is given to human beings for this: that what they are commanded to do by free choice they may be able to fulfill more easily through grace. By saying "that they may be able more easily," he certainly wished it to be believed that, even if with more difficulty, human beings can nevertheless do the divine commands without divine grace. But that grace of God, without which we can do nothing good, they say is nothing but free choice—which our nature received from him by no preceding merits of its own—thinking that it serves only for this, with God himself helping through his law and teaching, that we may learn what we ought to do and what to hope for, but not for this, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, that we may do what we have learned ought to be done.

88. 3. And on this account they confess that knowledge, by which ignorance is driven out, is given us by God; but they deny that the love is given by which one lives devoutly—so that, while knowledge, which puffs up without love, is the gift of God, that love itself, which builds up so that knowledge does not puff up, is not the gift of God (See 1 Cor 8:1).

88. 4. They destroy too the prayers which the Church makes, whether for unbelievers and those who resist the doctrine of God, that they may turn to God, or for the faithful, that their faith may be increased and that they may persevere in it. For they contend that human beings receive these things not from him, but have them from themselves, saying that the grace of God by which we are freed from impiety is given according to our merits. This indeed Pelagius, fearing it would be condemned in the episcopal judgment in Palestine, was compelled to condemn; but in his later writings he is found to teach it.

88. 5. They go so far as to say that the life of the righteous in this world has no sin at all, and that from these the Church of Christ is perfected in this mortal life so as to be wholly without spot or wrinkle (See Eph 5:27)—as if it were not the Church of Christ which throughout the whole world cries out to God, Forgive us our debts (Matt 6:12).

88. 6. They deny too that little children born carnally according to Adam contract the contagion of the ancient death by their first birth. For they assert that they are born without any bond of original sin, so that there is absolutely nothing that needs to be remitted to them by a second birth; but that they are baptized for this reason, that, adopted by regeneration, they may be admitted to the kingdom of God, transferred from good to better, not absolved by this renewal from any evil of the old obligation. For even if they are not baptized, the Pelagians promise them, outside the kingdom of God indeed, yet a certain eternal and blessed life of their own.

88. 7. They say that Adam himself, even if he had not sinned, would have died in body, and that he died thus not by the desert of his fault but by the condition of nature. Some other things too are charged against them, but these are chiefly the ones from which the others are understood to depend—either all of them, or nearly all.

1. See how many heresies we have recounted, and yet we have not fulfilled the measure of your request. For "from the time the Christian religion"—to use your words—"received the name of the promised inheritance," how could I have recounted all the heresies that arose, when I could not know them all? This I think is because none of those whose writings on this matter I have read set down all of them. Since indeed I found in one author heresies that I did not find in another, and again in this one those that the other did not set down. But I have set down more than they did because I gathered from them all those which I did not find in each one separately, with the addition too of those which I, recalling them myself, could not find in any of them. Whence I rightly believe that I too have not set down all of them, because I could not read all who have written on this matter, nor do I see that any of those I read did this. Finally, even if I have perhaps set down all of them—which I do not think—I certainly do not know whether they are all. And so what you want to be brought to a close by my speaking cannot even be comprised by my knowing, because I cannot know all things.

2. I have heard that holy Jerome wrote about heresies, but that little work of his we could neither find in our library, nor do we know where it can be obtained. A most reliable, studious man, well acquainted with his books, when questioned about this, said that someone—I know not who—who spread this report did not know what he was saying. "For about heresies," he says, "holy Jerome composed no little work." But if you should learn of it, get to it, and perhaps you will have something better than this of ours—although I think that even he, learned man though he was, could not have tracked down all the heresies. And certainly the ABELOITES, heretics of our region, he did not, I suppose, know; and so perhaps elsewhere too others, hidden away in the most obscure places, escaping his notice by the very obscurity of their localities.

3. But now that which your letter contains—"that we say absolutely everything in which heretics dissent from the truth"—even if I knew everything, I could not do; how much less can I, who cannot know everything? For there are heretics, it must be confessed, who attack the rule of truth with single doctrines, or with not many more, like the Macedonians or the Photinians, and any others who are so disposed. But those, so to speak, fable-mongers—that is, those who weave together empty fables, and these long and intricate—are full of so many false doctrines that they themselves cannot count them, or can only with the greatest difficulty. Nor does any heresy easily become so known to any outsider as to its own members; whence I profess that I have neither stated nor learned all the doctrines even of those I have recounted. For who does not see how much labor this matter demands, and how many pages? Yet it is not for that reason of little profit to avoid these errors, once they are read and known, which I have woven into this work. For what the catholic Church thinks against these things, which you thought I should state, is asked to no purpose, since for this it suffices to know that the Church thinks against these things, and that one ought to receive none of them into one's faith. But how the truths to be asserted and defended against these things are to be stated exceeds the scale of this work. Yet it greatly helps a faithful heart to know what is not to be believed, even if it cannot refute it by a capacity for disputing. And so every catholic Christian ought not to believe these things. But not everyone who does not believe these things ought consequently to think or call himself a catholic Christian. For there can both be and arise other heresies which have not been recounted in this work of ours, any one of which, whoever holds it, is not a catholic Christian. What, then, makes someone a heretic is next to be inquired into, so that, when by the Lord's help we avoid this, we may avoid the heretical poisons not only of those we know but also of those we do not know, whether those that have already arisen or those that can still arise. But let there now be an end to this volume, which I believed should be sent to you before I completed this whole work, so that all of you who read it may help me by your prayers toward fulfilling what remains—which, however, you see to be great.

The Timotheans say that the Son of God was indeed a true man, born of the Virgin Mary, but that he did not so render one person that he was not reduced to one nature; wanting the inner parts of the Virgin to have been a kind of smelting-furnace, through which the two natures, that is, God and man, dissolved and compacted into one mass, presented one form of God and man—the property of the natures effecting the union being, that is, changed. And to confirm an impiety of this kind, which asserts that God was turned from his own nature, they press into service the testimony of the Evangelist who says, And the Word was made flesh (John 1:14), which they interpret thus: the divine nature was turned into the human. O abolition, impinging upon that inviolable substance! The beginner of this impiety, Timothy, now an exile at Biza, a city of Bithynia, deceives many by the image of a continent and religious life.

The Nestorians, from the bishop Nestorius, who dared to lay down as doctrine against the catholic faith that Christ our Lord, God and man, was not—in that which was made the mediator of God and men—conceived in the womb of the Virgin by the Holy Spirit, but that afterward God was mingled with the man. Nor did he say that God suffered and was buried as man; contending to empty out our whole remedy, whereby the Word of God so deigned to take up man in the womb of the Virgin that there came to be one person of God and man, on account of which, having been so singularly and marvelously born, and having died too for our sins, paying back the things he had not seized, God and man, rising from the dead, ascended into heaven.

The Nestorian heresy is named from its author Nestorius, bishop of the Church of Constantinople. Whose perversity was this: that he preached a man only, begotten of the blessed Virgin Mary, whom the Word of God had not received into the unity of person and into an inseparable fellowship. And on this account the Virgin Mother should be understood not as theotokos but as anthropotokos—which the ears of catholics could in no way bear, because such a birth asserted not one Christ in the truth of flesh and deity, but a twofold one, which is a sacrilege.

The Eutychians arose from a certain Eutyches, a presbyter of the Church of Constantinople, who, while he seemed to refute Nestorius, crossed over into Apollinaris and Manichaeus, and, denying the truth of the humanity in Christ, ascribes whatever of our own nature was received by the Word to the divine essence only; so that, by denying our nature in Christ, he might dissolve the sacrament of human salvation, which is only in both substances—not perceiving, in his foolish impiety, that what had been lacking to the Head would be taken away from the whole body.

The Eutychians, from the presbyter Eutyches, who, while seeking to win royal patronage for himself through ambition, dared to lay down as doctrine that before the incarnation there were two natures in Christ, but that after the Word was made flesh there was one nature, that is, the divine, and the whole man translated into God; and that a true man was not conceived in the womb of the Virgin, nor was flesh taken from the body of Mary. But he maintained that a body, I know not where, was formed so subtle that it could pass through the inviolate virginal inner parts of the mother; and, affirming him to be wholly God, one nature, he held that not God-and-man, but the divinity alone, took up the passion, and bore it up into heaven—whereas he who was born of the Virgin Mary and made of the seed of David according to the flesh, crucified, dead, and buried, rose from the dead and bore up into heaven a perfect man, whom we await to come to judge the living and the dead.

This both the catholic faith confirms and all the authority of the divine Scriptures proclaims. Recoiling against this faith, the aforesaid Eutyches—when the synod of Ephesus, oppressed by royal power, and especially Dioscorus, bishop of Alexandria, followed his errors—not only deprived Flavian, bishop of the people of Constantinople, of his honor, but also had him driven from his homeland and given over to exile, with Hilary, deacon of the venerable apostolic see, standing by and protesting. They also, in a second session, deprived other priests, who were absent, of their honors; but this man the divine majesty itself, by a provident and swift and just judgment, consumed. For with the emperor Theodosius taken away and removed from this life, and likewise Chrysaphius, by whose patronage the oft-mentioned Eutyches, attacking the catholic faith, had brought in the aforesaid error—holy Flavian the bishop and confessor going before to God, so that together they might await the examination of God the just judge, as far as has been reported. By the authority, therefore, of the aforesaid apostolic see both the strength of the faith was expressed and the error of the abominable doctrine was extinguished. Indeed, the body of the confessor, brought back with glory, a worthy place of the holy Church received, the priests being released, that is, who, worthy by their confession, accepted by God and pleasing to men, were restored to the priesthood. The author of the abominable error, Eutyches, having been driven from the province, and the aforesaid synod detesting by its subscription the wrongly conceived errors, against the sound doctrine, the peace of holy mother Church recalls her priests.