Hold Fast What You Received

If you were a champion of the Arian or Sabellian heresy and did not use your own creed, I would still refute you by the authority of the Holy Scriptures. I would refute you by the words of the law itself. I would refute you by the truth of the creed that has been approved throughout the whole world. I would say that even if you were without sense and understanding, you still ought at least to follow universal consent, and not make more of the perverse view of a few wicked men than of the faith of all the churches. That faith, established by Christ and handed down by the apostles, ought to be regarded as nothing other than the voice of God’s authority, which certainly holds the voice and mind of God. [a]

And what if I dealt with you in this way? What would you say? What would you answer? I ask you solemnly: would it not be this? That you had not been brought up and taught this way. That something different had been handed down to you by your parents and masters and teachers. That this was not what you heard in the meeting place of your father’s teaching, nor in the church of your baptism. And finally, that the text and words of the creed handed down and taught to you said something different, and that in it you were baptized and born again. You would say that you would hold fast what you had received, and live in the creed in which you learned that you were born again. And when you said this, would you not imagine, I ask, that you were holding a very strong shield even against the truth? And indeed it would be no unreasonable defense, even in a bad cause, and would give no poor excuse for error, if it did not join stubbornness to error. For if you held what you had received from childhood, we would try to amend and correct your present error rather than be severe in punishing your past fault.

As it is, since you were born in a catholic city, instructed in the catholic faith, and born again in catholic baptism, how can I deal with you as with an Arian or a Sabellian? I wish you were one! I would grieve less if you had been brought up in what was wrong instead of falling away from what was right; if you had never received the faith instead of losing it; if you were an old heretic instead of a new apostate. For then you would have brought less scandal and harm on the whole church. In short, it would have been a less bitter sorrow and a less damaging example if you had been able to trouble the church as a layman rather than as a priest. So, as I said above, if you had been a follower and champion of Sabellianism or Arianism or any heresy you please, you could shelter behind the example of your parents, the teaching of your instructors, the company of those around you, and the faith of your creed. I ask nothing unfair of you, heretic, and nothing hard. Since you were brought up in the catholic faith, do what you would do for a wrong belief. Hold fast to the teaching of your parents. Hold fast the faith of the church. Hold fast the truth of the creed. Hold fast the salvation of baptism. What kind of marvel, what kind of monster, are you? You will not do for yourself what others have done for their errors.

But we have sailed out far enough. Out of love for a city bound up with us, we have given way to our grief as to a strong wind, and in our eagerness to make headway we have overshot the mark of our proper course.