The One Holy Church

Next in the order of belief comes the holy church. We explained above why the creed does not say here, as in the article before, “In the holy church.” Those, then, who were taught above to believe in one God under the mystery of the Trinity must believe this also: that there is one holy church, in which there is one faith and one baptism, and in which one God the Father is believed, and one Lord Jesus Christ his Son, and one Holy Spirit. This is that holy church which is without spot or wrinkle. For many others have gathered churches together, such as Marcion, Valentinus, Ebion, Manichaeus, Arius, and all the other heretics. But those churches are not without the spot or wrinkle of unfaithfulness. That is why the prophet said of them, “I hate the church of evildoers, and I will not sit with the ungodly.” But hear what the Holy Spirit says in the Song of Songs about this church, which keeps the faith of Christ whole: “My dove is one; her mother’s perfect one is one.” Let the one who receives this faith in the church, then, not turn aside into the council of emptiness, and let him not go in with those who do wrong. [a]

For Marcion’s assembly is a council of emptiness, because he denies that the Father of Christ is God the Creator, who made the world by his Son. Ebion’s is a council of emptiness, because he teaches that while we believe in Christ we are also to keep the circumcision of the flesh, the observance of the Sabbath, the customary sacrifices, and all the other ordinances according to the letter of the Law. Manichaeus’s is a council of emptiness because of his teaching. First, he calls himself the Paraclete. Then he says that the world was made by an evil God; he denies God the Creator; he rejects the Old Testament; he asserts two natures, one good and the other evil, opposed to each other; he affirms that men’s souls are eternal along with God, and that, as the Pythagoreans hold, they return through various cycles of birth into cattle, animals and beasts; he denies the resurrection of our flesh; and he maintains that the Lord’s suffering and birth were not in real flesh but only in appearance. It was the council of emptiness when Paul of Samosata, and Photinus who came after him, taught that Christ was not born of the Father before the world but had his beginning from Mary, and believed, not that he who was God was born a man, but that from being a man he was made God.

It was the council of emptiness when Arius and Eunomius laid it down as settled doctrine that the Son of God was not born of the very substance of the Father but was created out of nothing, and that the Son of God had a beginning and is lower than the Father. They affirm, moreover, that the Holy Spirit is not only lower than the Son but is also a ministering Spirit, one sent out on errands. Theirs also is a council of emptiness who confess indeed that the Son is of the substance of the Father, but divide and separate the Holy Spirit. Yet the Savior shows in the Gospel that the power and Godhead of the Trinity are one and the same, when he says, “Baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”; and it is plainly ungodly for man to separate what God has joined together. That also is the council of emptiness which a stubborn and wicked quarrelsomeness once gathered together, affirming that Christ took human flesh indeed, but not a rational soul along with it, when in fact Christ gave one and the same salvation to the flesh, to the soul that gives it life, and to the reason and mind of man. That also is the council of emptiness which Donatus drew together throughout Africa by charging the church with being traitors who handed over the sacred books; and that with which Novatus unsettled people’s minds, by refusing repentance to the lapsed and by condemning second marriages, even those perhaps contracted out of necessity.

Avoid all these, then, as assemblies of evildoers. Avoid also those, if there are any such, who are said to assert that the Son of God does not see or know the Father as he himself is known and seen by the Father; or that the kingdom of Christ will come to an end; or that the flesh will not be raised with its substance completely restored. Avoid those also who deny that there will be a just judgment of God upon all, and who affirm that the devil will be released from the punishment of damnation due to him. To all these, I say, let the believer turn a deaf ear. But hold fast to the holy church, which confesses God the Father Almighty, and his only Son Jesus Christ our Lord, and the Holy Spirit, of one substance in concord and harmony; which believes that the Son of God was born of the Virgin, suffered for man’s salvation, and rose again from the dead in the same flesh in which he was born; and which, lastly, hopes that he will come as the Judge of all, he through whom both the forgiveness of sins and the resurrection of the flesh are preached.