Paul’s Warning Against Profane Novelties

That being so, when I think over these things and turn them over in my mind again and again, I cannot wonder enough at the madness of certain men, at the impiety of their blinded understanding, at their craving for error. Not content with the rule of faith delivered once for all and received from ancient times, they seek one novelty after another every day, and are always longing to add, change and take away something in religion. They act as though the teaching “Let what has once for all been revealed be enough” were not a heavenly rule but an earthly one, a rule that could only be kept by constant correction, or rather by constant fault-finding. Yet the divine oracles cry aloud: “Do not move the boundary markers your fathers set,” and “Do not go to law against a judge,” and “Whoever breaks through a fence, a snake will bite him.” And there is the apostle’s saying, with which, as with a spiritual sword, all the wicked novelties of all heresies have often been beheaded, and always will have to be: “O Timothy, guard the deposit, avoiding profane novelties of words and the contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and so have strayed from the faith.” [a]

After words like these, is there anyone with so hard a face, such anvil-hard impudence, such diamond-hard stubbornness, as not to give way before so huge a mass, not to be crushed by so heavy a weight, not to be shattered by such heavy blows, not to be destroyed by such dreadful thunderbolts of divine speech? “Avoid profane novelties,” he says. He does not say avoid “antiquity.” But he plainly points to what must follow by the rule of opposites. For if novelty is to be avoided, antiquity is to be held fast; if novelty is profane, antiquity is sacred. He adds, “and the contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge.” “Falsely called” indeed, when applied to the doctrines of heretics, where ignorance is disguised under the name of knowledge, fog under the name of sunshine, darkness under the name of light. “Which some have professed and so have strayed from the faith.” Professed what? What but some new and unheard-of doctrine, whatever it may be? [c]

For you may hear some of these same teachers say: “Come, you foolish wretches, who go by the name of catholics, come and learn the true faith, which no one but us knows. It has lain hidden these many ages, but has recently been revealed and made known. But learn it by stealth and in secret, for you will be delighted with it. And when you have learned it, teach it secretly, so that the world may not hear and the church may not know. For only a few are granted to receive the secret of so great a mystery.” Are these not the words of that prostitute who, in the Proverbs of Solomon, calls to the passers-by who go straight on their way: “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here”? And to those who lack understanding she urges: “Drink stolen water, for it is sweet, and eat bread in secret, for it is pleasant.” What next? “But he does not know that the sons of earth perish in her house.” Who are those “sons of earth”? Let the apostle explain: “those who have strayed from the faith.”