Book One: On the Sacred and Apocryphal Books
Chapter Six: On the Heretics who Attack the Books of the New Testament Enumerated Above
A ninth heresy universally repudiates the books of the Gospels. The authors of this error are divided into two. For some are in the error of thinking that the Gospels were not written by the Apostles nor by other disciples of the Lord but by certain imposters who mixed many false things in with the true and advertised their treatises as the writings of the Apostles. So did Faustus the Manichean think, according to Augustine. Some do not deny that the Gospels were written by the Apostles but say that in many places they are in conflict with each other or with the truth; wherefore they do not doubt that the Apostles partly erred as men and partly adorned things with invented stories to glorify their master.
And this opinion has many supporters; first the pagans, as Augustine testifies in Retract. 2 ch.16; then Julian the Apostate, as Cyril testifies in bk.10 to Julian; then Mohammed, the false prophet, on the evidence of John Damascene in his book on 100 Heresies; finally also in our days Otho Brunselsius, on the evidence of John Cochlaeus in his book on the Authority of Scripture and the Church chs.3-‐4.
The former heresy, which is that of the Manichees, is refuted with two arguments by St. Augustine in his book Against Faustus bk.32 chs.16, 21, and bk.33 ch.7. First that when the Manichees try to confirm their own errors from the Gospels, and yet also claim that the same Gospels were written by certain imposters, they seem surely to be acting like someone who first declares that his witness is corrupted by falsehood and then brings him forward as supporting evidence.
Second, since if so clear a continuous attestation by so many centuries succeeding each other does
not sufficiently prove that those writings belong to the Apostles which the Church, propagated by those very Apostles and diffused far and wide among all nations, says and holds belong to the Apostles, then faith in all writings and books must necessarily perish. For how is it agreed that the books of Hippocrates, of Plato, of Aristotle, of Cicero, of Varro, and of other authors of this sort, belong to them? How is it that if anyone denies this he is not surely refuted but laughed at? Only because from their time up to the present a continued succession has affirmed that such those books are, so that to doubt of the matter is plainly the mark of a madman.
Next, the second heresy is refuted no less briefly than keenly by the same Augustine in the first book of the Harmony of the Gospels, chs.7-‐8, with the following arguments: first if about Pythagoras and Socrates, who wrote nothing of their own, we believe the writings of their disciples, what cause is there for not trusting what the Apostles wrote about their master? Or were the former perhaps, since they were wise, able to make true disciples, but Christ could not make true disciples – Christ who, as even they themselves agree, endowed all with wisdom?
Next, since they themselves, who proclaim that the Apostles wrote falsehoods, reckon Christ to have been the wisest of men, and since they were not able to learn of this from anywhere else but from the writings of the Apostles, are they not clearly convicted of sometimes believing, and sometimes disbelieving, the books of the Apostles, not by judgment of reason, but by choice of will? Besides if the disciples had striven too eagerly to magnify in their writings the glory of their master, certainly they should have passed over the shame of the cross in silence, or at least touched on it with extreme brevity, while they should have set down a very long discourse explaining his return from the nether world and his ascension into heaven. For what reason then do all the Evangelists scarcely mention the resurrection and ascension, while they dwell as long as possible on expounding the bonds, the scourgings, the cross, the abuse, the shame, the torments? Surely their intention was not to promote with false stories the praises of their master, but to commend in writing simply and truly the words of Christ and the things he did.
The tenth heresy accepts the three Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke in order to repudiate John as contrary to them. This heresy is related by Philastrius ch.60 without a name for the author of it. But Epiphanius in his Heresy 51, who is followed by Augustine in his 30 Heresies, thinks it can be attributed to the Alogiani or the Ali.
The eleventh heresy approves of Matthew only among the Evangelists; Irenaeus writes bk.1 ch.26 that the author of this heresy was Ebion. See also Epiphanius Heresy 30, Eusebius Histories 3 ch.21.
The twelfth heresy, that of Cerinthus, uses, on the evidence of the same Irenaeus bk.3 ch.11, only the Gospel of Mark.
The thirteenth heresy is that of Marcion, as Irenaeus ibid. and Tertullian Prescription against Heretics have written, and it only holds Luke in value; although not as whole but mutilated and corrupted, as is plain from Tertullian Against Marcion bk.4 and Epiphanius Heresy 42.
The fourteenth heresy acknowledges no Evangelist save John, of which heresy Irenaeus ibid. makes Valentinus author. And Martin Luther seems to have wanted this heresy to be vigorous and flourish, although since he understood the thing to be too difficult in our times, he did not think much work or labor should be put into it. Certainly in his preface to the New Testament, as even John Cochlaeus noted in his book on the Authority of Scripture and the Church, in the third chapter, Luther says that the false opinion needs to be abolished, that there are only four Gospels. Again he says that the Gospel of John is the only, beautiful, true, and principal Gospel, and by far to be preferred to the other three, so that even the epistles of Paul and Peter far exceed the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
In order to refute these last five heresies the ancient Fathers tried to show by many reasons that not just four Gospels but neither more nor fewer should have been put together. See Irenaeus bk.3 ch.11, Tertullian bk.4 Against Marcion, Ambrose in the preface to his commentaries on Luke and bk.10 ch.101, Eucherius on Genesis bk.1 ch.14, Jerome in the preface to his commentary on Matthew, Augustine On the Harmony of the Gospels bk.1 ch.6, Gregory in homily 4 on Ezekiel. And certainly, to pass over other reasons for the present, what should those four living animals be thought to signify which were divinely shown to Ezekiel and John, the Man, the Lion, the Calf, the Eagle, save the four Evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? For this is evidenced not only by the writings and the sayings of the people everywhere, but even the walls themselves proclaim it in signs and images.
The fifteenth heresy removes the book of Acts from the number of the divine volumes. We have many authors of this heresy: Cerinthus in Philastrius ch.36, Cerdo in Tertullian On Prescription, Tatian in Eusebius Histories bk.4 ch.29, Manichaeus in Augustine on the Utility of Believing ch.3.
The sixteenth heresy is that of the Ebionites who reject all the writings of the Apostle Paul, and call Paul himself a Greek and an apostate. The witnesses are Irenaeus bk.1 ch.26, Epiphanius Heresy 30, and the same error was a little later accepted by the Helcheseites as Eusebius writes in his History bk.6 ch.17.
The seventeenth heresy, which belongs to Marcion, on the evidence of Epiphanius heresy 42 and Jerome preface to Titus, rejects the entire letters of Timothy and Titus. These three heresies are rightly refuted by Abbott Peter of Cluny in his first letter against the Henricians and Petrobusians. Nor is there need to waste time on a matter so clear.
The last heresy is that of those who do not wish everything in the letters of St. Paul and in the other sacred and divine writings to have been written at the dictation of the Holy Spirit, but that some things were sometimes written under the guidance only of human prudence and reason. Wherefore they despised the whole letter to Philemon as written in human manner. The Anomoeans once labored under this error, see Epiphanius Heresy 76, and also certain others, see Jerome on Micah ch.5 and preface to Philemon, and Augustine bk.2 ch.2 Against the Adversary of the law and Prophets.
In our century Erasmus has renewed the same heresy, since in his notes to Matthew chs.2 and 27 he not obscurely writes that one need not fear that the authority of the whole of Scripture would be destroyed if some slight error is detected in it, especially since Augustine concedes that the Evangelists sometimes suffered lapses of memory, bk.3 ch.7 on the Harmony of the Gospels, and the thing seems impossible to deny.
This heresy is refuted by Epiphanius and Jerome and Augustine in the places just cited above. But because Erasmus misuses the testimony of Augustine, it will be worthwhile to bring forward the words of this doctor. He speaks therefore like this in bk.2 ch.12 on the Harmony of the Gospels: “It is fitting that all falsity be absent from the Evangelists, not only that which is due to lying but also that which is due to forgetfulness.” Augustine did not, therefore, as Erasmus wished, attribute error from lapse of memory to the Evangelists.
Again in letter 8 to Jerome he says: “If any lie is admitted to exist in so high an authority, no part of these books will remain that could not be brought into doubt.” Which reasoning of Augustine is very strong, for if any error in Scripture could have been committed by the authors through lack of skill, or forgetfulness, or any other human weakness, then the question can be raised about any place that is brought forward whether in writing it the author did not err.
What then, you will say, does Augustine intend when in bk.3 ch.7 on the Harmony of the Gospels he attributes the error that in Matthew the name Jeremiah is put in place of that of Zechariah to a lapse of memory? I reply that I have not in Augustine read of an error or a lapse, as Erasmus says, but of the Evangelist’s mind being marvelously governed by the Holy Spirit without error and without lapse. This alone does Augustine say, that when the Evangelist was writing, the name of one prophet occurred by divine providence in place of the other; in which matter if there was lapse or error, it was certainly that of the Holy Spirit, but no one of sane mind ever said that the Holy Spirit could err or lapse. But let us hear the words of St. Augustine.
“What,” he says, “must we understand other than that this was done by the more secret counsel of the providence of God by which the minds of the Evangelists were governed? For it could have happened that to the mind of Matthew, as he was writing his Gospel, Jeremiah occurred in place of Zachariah, as is wont to happen, which however he would without any hesitation correct, at any rate when advised by others who could have read it while he was still alive in the flesh, unless he was thinking in his memory, which was ruled by the Holy Spirit, that not in vain had one name of a Prophet occurred in place of another, unless because thus the Lord determined it to be written. But as to why the Lord determined thus, first this most useful cause should most easily be thought on, that even thus was it insinuated that all the holy Prophets, having spoken with one spirit, stand together with a marvelous agreement among themselves, so that thereby it may become much more complete than if everything from the Prophets was said by the one voice of one man; and therefore all the things the Holy Spirit said through them should be received without hesitation, and each saying individually should belong to all of them and all the sayings should belong to each of them individually. Since therefore what was said through Jeremiah is as much Zechariah’s as Jeremiah’s, and what was said through Zechariah is as much Jeremiah’s as Zechariah’s, what need for Matthew to make correction when, with one name occurring to him in place of another, he re-‐ read what he had written, and not instead, by following the authority of the Holy Spirit by whom he felt more than us that his mind was ruled, leave it as thus written as the Lord had decided for him by advising him? For purpose of informing us that there was so great agreement of words among the Prophets that not absurdly, nay with great appropriateness, we should attribute also to Jeremiah what we found said through Zechariah.”
The arguments that Melchior Canus in his book on Theology chs.16-‐18 adduces for this heresy and then dissolves I have thought I should pass over, both because I have not read them in any of the heretics and because they can easily be got from Canus himself.
Robert Bellarmine’s: Controversies of the Christian Faith – Volume 1: On the Word of God — HOME