Against Hermogenes 1
1 The Opinions of Hermogenes, by the Prescriptive Rule of Antiquity Shown to Be Heretical. Not Derived from Christianity, But from Heathen Philosophy. Some of the Tenets Mentioned PL 2, 197
III.
Against Hermogenes.
Containing an Argument Against His Opinion that Matter is Eternal.
[Translated by Dr. Holmes.]
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Chapter I.—The Opinions of Hermogenes, by the Prescriptive Rule of Antiquity Shown to Be Heretical. Not Derived from Christianity, But from Heathen Philosophy. Some of the Tenets Mentioned.
We are accustomed, for the purpose of shortening argument, to lay down the rule against heretics of the lateness of their date. For in as far as by our rule, priority is given to the truth, which also foretold that there would be heresies, in so far must all later opinions be prejudged as heresies, being such as were, by the more ancient rule of truth, predicted as (one day) to happen. Now, the doctrine of Hermogenes has this taint of novelty. He is, in short, a man living in the world at the present time; by his very nature a heretic, and turbulent withal, who mistakes loquacity for eloquence, and supposes impudence to be firmness, and judges it to be the duty of a good conscience to speak ill of individuals. Moreover, he despises God’s law in his painting, maintaining repeated marriages, alleges the law of God in defence of lust, and yet despises it in respect of his art. He falsifies by a twofold process—with his cautery and his pen. He is a thorough adulterer, both doctrinally and carnally, since he is rank indeed with the contagion of your marriage-hacks, and has also failed in cleaving to the rule of faith as much as the apostle’s own Hermogenes. However, never mind the man, when it is his doctrine which I question. He does not appear to acknowledge any other Christ as Lord, though he holds Him in a different way; but by this difference in his faith he really makes Him another being,—nay, he takes from Him everything which is God, since he will not have it that He made all things of nothing. For, turning away from Christians to the philosophers, from the Church to the Academy and the Porch, he learned there from the Stoics how to place Matter (on the same level) with the Lord, just as if it too had existed ever both unborn and unmade, having no beginning at all nor end, out of which, according to him, the Lord afterwards created all things.
Solemus haereticis compendii gratia de posteritate praescribere. In quantum enim veritatis regula prior, quae etiam futuras haereses praenuntiavit, in tantum posteriores quaeque doctrinae haereses praejudicabuntur, quia sunt quae futurae veritatis antiquiore regula praenuntiabantur. Hermongenis autem doctrina tam novella est, denique ad hodiernum homo in saeculo, et natura quoque haereticus etiam turbulentus, qui loquacitatem facundiam existimet, et impudentiam constantiam deputet, et maledicere singulis, officium bonae conscientiae judicet. Praeterea pingit illicite , nubit assidue; legem Dei in libidinem defendit, in artem contemnit; bis falsarius, et cauterio et stylo; totus adulter, et praedicationis et carnis siquidem etnubentium contagio foetet, nec ipse apostolicus Hermogenes in regula perseveraverit. Sed viderit persona, cum doctrina mihi quaestio est. Christum Dominum non alium videtur aliter cognoscere, alium tamen facit quem aliter cognoscit: imo totum quod est Deus aufert, nolens illum ex nihilo universa fecisse. A Christianis enim conversus ad Philosophos, de Ecclesia in Academiam et Porticum, inde sumpsit a Stoicis materiam cum Domino ponere, quae ipsa semper fuerit neque nata, neque facta, nec initium habens omnino nec finem, ex qua Dominus omnia postea fecerit.