Avoiding Profane Novelties

But let us return to the apostle. “O Timothy,” he says, “guard the deposit, avoiding profane novelties of words.” “Avoid them as you would a viper, as you would a scorpion, as you would a basilisk, so that they do not strike you, not only with their touch, but even with their eyes and their breath.” What does “avoid” mean? Not even to eat with a person of this sort. What does “avoid” mean? “If anyone,” says Saint John, “comes to you and does not bring this doctrine.” What doctrine? What but the catholic and universal doctrine, which has continued one and the same through the successive ages by the uncorrupted tradition of the truth, and so will continue forever? “Do not receive him into your house, and do not greet him, for whoever greets him shares in his evil deeds.” [a]

“Profane novelties of words.” What words are these? Words that have nothing sacred about them, nothing religious; words utterly remote from the inner sanctuary of the church, which is the temple of God. Profane novelties of words, that is, of doctrines, subjects, and opinions, such as are contrary to antiquity and to the faith of earlier times. If these are received, it necessarily follows that the faith of the blessed fathers is violated, either entirely or at least in great part. It necessarily follows that all the faithful of all ages, all the saints, the chaste, those living in continence, the virgins, all the clergy, deacons and priests, so many thousands of confessors, so vast an army of martyrs, such multitudes of cities and of peoples, so many islands, provinces, kings, tribes, kingdoms, and nations, in a word, almost the whole earth, joined into one body in Christ the Head through the catholic faith, have for so long a stretch of time been ignorant, have been mistaken, have blasphemed, and have not known what to believe or what to confess. [d]

“Avoid profane novelties of words.” To receive and follow them was never the way of catholics; it was always the way of heretics. And indeed, what heresy ever broke out except under a definite name, at a definite place, at a definite time? Who ever started a heresy without first cutting himself off from the consent of the universality and antiquity of the catholic church? That this is so is shown most clearly by examples. For who, before that profane Pelagius, ever gave free will so much strength in advance as to deny that God’s grace is needed to help it toward good in every single act? Who, before his monstrous disciple Caelestius, ever denied that the whole human race is bound up in the guilt of Adam’s sin? Who, before sacrilegious Arius, dared to tear apart the unity of the Trinity? Who, before impious Sabellius, was so bold as to confuse the Trinity of the Unity? Who, before Novatian, cruelest of men, made God out to be cruel, as though he would rather the wicked man died than turned and lived? Who before Simon Magus? It was Simon who was struck by the apostle’s rebuke, and from him that ancient cesspool of everything vile has flowed, by a hidden and unbroken succession, down to Priscillian in our own time. Who, I say, before this Simon Magus dared to say that God the Creator is the author of evil, that is, of our wickedness, our impieties, our shameful crimes? For he asserts that God made with his own hands a human nature of such a kind that, by its own motion and by the drive of a will bound by necessity, it can do nothing else and will nothing else but sin; since, tossed to and fro and set on fire by the furies of every kind of vice, it is swept away by unquenchable lust to the utmost extremes of baseness. [e]

There are countless instances of this kind, which I pass over for brevity’s sake. Yet all of them show plainly and clearly that it is a settled law in the case of almost all heresies that they always delight in profane novelties, scorn the decisions of antiquity, and, through the contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, make shipwreck of the faith. On the other hand, it is the sure mark of catholics to keep what the holy fathers committed to their trust, to condemn profane novelties, and, in the apostle’s words, said once and then said again, to pronounce accursed anyone who preaches any doctrine other than the one that has been received. [h]