Heretics Appeal to Scripture

Here, perhaps, someone may ask: Do heretics also appeal to Scripture? They certainly do, and with a vengeance. You may see them race through every single book of Holy Scripture: the books of Moses, the books of Kings, the Psalms, the letters, the Gospels, the prophets. Whether among their own people or among strangers, in private or in public, in speaking or in writing, at dinner parties or in the streets, they hardly ever bring forward anything of their own that they do not try to shelter under the words of Scripture. Read the works of Paul of Samosata, of Priscillian, of Eunomius, of Jovinian, and the rest of those plagues, and you will see an endless heap of instances. There is hardly a single page that does not bristle with plausible quotations from the New Testament or the Old. [a]

But the more secretly they hide under the shelter of the divine law, the more they are to be feared and guarded against. For they know that the foul stench of their doctrine will hardly find acceptance with anyone if it is breathed out pure and simple. So they sprinkle it with the perfume of heavenly language, so that someone who would readily despise human error may hesitate to condemn divine words. In fact, they do what nurses do when they prepare some bitter medicine for children: they smear the rim of the cup all around with honey, so that the unsuspecting child, having first tasted the sweet, may have no fear of the bitter. So too do those who disguise poisonous herbs and harmful juices under the names of medicines, so that almost no one who reads the label suspects the poison.

It was for this reason that the Savior cried out, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.” What is meant by “sheep’s clothing”? What but the words which prophets and apostles, with the innocence of sheep, wove beforehand like fleeces for that spotless Lamb who takes away the sin of the world? What are the ravenous wolves? What but the savage and rabid interpretations of heretics, who continually prowl around the church’s folds and tear the flock of Christ to pieces wherever they can? But so that they may steal up on the unsuspecting sheep with more successful cunning, they keep the ferocity of the wolf but put off its look, and wrap themselves, so to speak, in the language of the divine law as in a fleece, so that someone who has felt the softness of the wool may have no dread of the wolf’s fangs. But what does the Savior say? “By their fruits you will know them.” That is, when they begin not only to quote those divine words but also to explain them, not yet only to boast of them as being on their side but also to interpret them, then that bitterness, that harshness, that rage will be recognized. Then the foul smell of that new poison will be noticed, then those profane novelties will be exposed. Then you may see, first, the hedge broken through, then the landmarks of the fathers moved, then the catholic faith attacked, then the doctrine of the church torn to pieces. [b]

Such were the men the apostle Paul rebukes in his second letter to the Corinthians, when he says, “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ.” The apostles brought forward instances from Holy Scripture; these men did the same. The apostles cited the authority of the Psalms; these men did so too. The apostles brought forward passages from the prophets; these men still did the same. But when they began to interpret in different senses the passages that both sides had agreed in appealing to, then the honest were told apart from the crafty, the genuine from the counterfeit, the straight from the crooked; then, in a word, the true apostles from the false apostles. “And no wonder,” he says, “for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. So it is no marvel if his servants are also transformed into servants of righteousness.” So, on the authority of the apostle Paul, whenever false apostles or false teachers cite passages from the divine law and, by misinterpreting them, try to prop up their own errors, there is no doubt that they are following the cunning schemes of their father. He would certainly never have devised these schemes, had he not known that, wherever he could bring in error by fraud and stealth, there is no easier way of carrying out his wicked purpose than by putting forward the authority of Holy Scripture as a pretense. [c]