But then others, turning aside from this, have dared to go another way, denying the Master who alone bought them, the only-begotten Child Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, him who truly is, begotten of the Father without beginning and outside time, who is ever from the Father and with the Father, begotten incomprehensibly and without defilement, being consubstantial with the Father and not different from the Father. These in their turn go mad like rabid dogs and bark at their own Master; just as the Jews, who from the beginning did not know him, have been called “dumb dogs,” being rightly granted this name by the prophet for their shameless onset against the Lord and his coming, as may truly be seen. For they say that mad dogs are called dumb because they are left toothless when their sense deserts them.

4. For this is the nature of dogs, when they turn rabid. Once they knew their master and his sons, his household and all the rest of the master’s own people; but when madness takes them, the faces change before their eyes, and they rise up against those very people of the house whom once they honoured, fawning on them with their tails and submitting to them in their ways. So it was with those who looked for the coming of Christ, who were making ready to receive the Bridegroom, who prayed to see the prophets, who promised to obey the divine words, who had entered into a covenant with Moses, saying, “Be thou for us to God-ward,” and “All that the Lord shall speak unto thee, we will hear it, and do it.” When they saw their Master come, they did not recognise the form and the figures of the truth which the prophets had drawn beforehand, before he came in the flesh: they had sketched him, engraved him, proclaimed him and signified him. First they said of him, “Who is this which speaketh blasphemies?” At another time they dared, without shame, to say that he had a devil; and further they did not blush to call him a Samaritan. At last, as I have said already, they rose up like maddened dogs, and fastened his hands with nails, as a dog in its madness always leaps up and springs at the hands, and is not ashamed to tear the faces of its own masters. They delivered up their own Lord to be crucified; and of the prophets, the servants of their same Master’s house, one they sawed asunder, another they stoned, and another they slew with the sword. And after them the new Jews now, following the same course one after another in like manner: the Jews by nature denied him according to the flesh, while those who now deny the perfect and true Sonship of the Son of God towards the Father go on insisting without ceasing, utterly mad and thunderstruck, that he is a creature, a thing made, and alien to the Father.

5. From these, again, others have left the blasphemous teachings I have mentioned, and, as though they had gazed upon the very nature of the heavenly vision and had set foot among things on high and busied themselves with them, they announce with presumption, as if they had come down from above, and insist with vehemence, casting the Holy Spirit out of the Godhead. They have not denied the Father, nor the true Sonship of the Son towards him; but they walk once more along another road, so that on every side the saying may be fulfilled, “Faith is perished from their mouth.” For what else remains, but that they should wish to lay commands upon the Holy Spirit (which is not alien to the Father and the Son, which is of the same Godhead, and which cannot be alien to the Godhead), as though they had authority to command God rather than to be commanded by him? For they are not ashamed to call the Spirit alien, a servant, a creature, a newcomer, a thing made, and whatever else shameful they can devise to add to their notion of him.

Since the world, then, has now been struck the more with an incurable wound of unbelief, so that the lawlessness which destroys men by ill will, unbelief and ignorance may leave nothing out, an idle and ill-meaning thought has drawn off even those who escaped the blasphemy against the Holy Trinity into other things once more, so that no one may sin unawares. For I hear that some are thinking something new about holy Mary, the ever-virgin, and are daring to fasten a blasphemous notion upon her. And so our time is beset on every side, as by an evil serpent, a venomous beast lurking in the darkness and trying every man with its bites: one about the face, another about the heel, another about the hand, so that no one may escape the bite of unbelief; but he who thinks he has escaped in one thing may take the poison in another, and he who is sound in the faith on one point may bring harm upon himself in some other way.

6. Whence comes this ill will? Whence such boldness? Does not her very name bear witness? Does it not persuade you, contentious man? Who ever, or in what generation, dared to speak the name of holy Mary and, when asked, did not at once add “the Virgin”? For the very titles that are added show the marks of virtue. The righteous have received titles of honour, each as was fitting and as became him. To Abraham was added “the friend of God,” and it will not be undone; to Jacob, to be called Israel, and it will not be changed; to the apostles, Boanerges, that is, “sons of thunder,” and it will not be left off; and to holy Mary, “the Virgin,” and it will not be altered, for the holy one remained undefiled. “Doth not even nature itself teach you?” O new madness! O new doings! There are many other things which in the olden times the fathers never dared; but now one man blasphemes against the incarnate coming of Christ, saying other things against the Godhead itself; another makes the whole work of the incarnate coming defective in his own mind; another is vexed at the resurrection of the dead, and another at a part of it. In short, alas for our muddied generation, whose life stands in danger, drenched on every side by the devil’s evil sowings of thoughts and reasonings of false belief! How do they dare to make the undefiled Virgin, who was counted worthy to become the dwelling-place of the Son, who was chosen for this very purpose out of the tens of thousands of Israel, a vessel and dwelling so honoured, into a mere token of childbearing?

7. For I have heard from someone that certain people dare to say of her that after she had borne the Saviour she was joined to a man. And I do not wonder at it. For the ignorance of those who have not learned the divine Scriptures accurately, nor come near to the histories, always turns and draws aside from one thing to another the man who wishes to track out something of the truth from his own mind. For, first, when the Virgin was delivered to Joseph, the lots compelling her to come to this, she was not delivered to him for union, if the truth must be told, since he was a widower. By the law he was called her husband; but from the tradition of the Jews it is shown in due order that the Virgin was not delivered to him that she might be joined to him, but that she might be kept safe, as a witness for what was to come: that the dispensation of the incarnate coming did not arrive as something spurious, but as attested in truth, accomplished in truth without the seed of man, by the Holy Spirit. For how could so old a man, a widower so many years since his first wife, have taken a virgin as his wife?

This Joseph was the brother of Clopas, and he was the son of Jacob, who was surnamed Panther; both of these were sons of the one surnamed Panther. This Joseph had his first wife from the tribe of Judah, and she bore him children, six in number, four males and two females, as the Gospels according to Mark and according to John have made plain. His firstborn was James, who was surnamed Oblias, which is interpreted “wall,” and who was called “the Just,” and was a Nazirite, which is interpreted “holy.” He was the first to receive the chair of the episcopate, the first to whom the Lord entrusted his throne upon earth. He was also called the brother of the Lord, as the apostle too agrees, where he says, “But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord’s brother,” and so on. He is called the brother of the Lord because they were brought up together; not by nature, but by grace. For Mary, betrothed to Joseph, was thought to be the man’s wife, though she had no bodily union with him. On this account the nearness of kinship of Joseph’s sons to the Saviour was called, or rather was reckoned, a brotherhood. For Joseph himself, who had no share in the Saviour’s birth according to the flesh, is reckoned in the place of a father by dispensation; as Luke the evangelist says of the Saviour, “being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph”; and as Mary herself said to him in the Gospel according to Luke, “Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.” Who then would call Joseph the father of the Lord, when he had no part in causing him, especially since the incarnate coming was without the seed of man? But by the dispensation the matter received this share.

8. Joseph begot this James when he was about forty years old, more or less. After him was born a son called Joses; then after him Simeon, then Judas, and two daughters, called Mary and Salome; and his wife died. Many years later, as a widower, he took Mary, being then about eighty years old or more. After these things he took Mary, as it says in the Gospel; for it says, “when Mary was espoused,” and not “when she was married”; and again elsewhere, “he knew her not.”

One may wonder at all the pretexts which wicked men hunt out, searching into causes that there is no need to search, and seeking what is not to be sought, turning from what is necessary to foolish questions, so that the ruin of unbelief and blasphemy may by every means be fastened upon us from every side, through dishonour done to the saints. First, the order of events refutes them on every side. For, first, an old man of more than eighty did not take a virgin for use; rather, it was so ordered that he should keep her. Secondly, they were themselves, surely, righteous. And he who had heard that what was in her was “of the Holy Ghost” would not have dared, after such a dispensation, to lay hands on her further, and to use the vessel which had been counted worthy to contain him whom heaven and earth could not contain, for the exceeding greatness of his glory. For if even now virgins strive to continue as virgins in his name, and to keep chaste and continent, how much more faithful was Joseph, and Mary herself, who “kept all these things in her heart,” as it is written? But … that after so great, so wonderful a dispensation, an old man should be joined again to a virgin, chaste and honoured, the vessel which contained him whom nothing can contain, and which received such a mystery of the heavenly sign and of the life of men?

9. For how shall we not show that the Virgin remained chaste? Let them show us straightway that after she had conceived our Saviour Mary bore any other children. Let the forgers and stitchers-together of deceit and mischief make up the names and tell them: they cannot show it. For the Virgin was never joined to a man; God forbid! For if she had borne children, since she was always with the Saviour, her children too would have been said to be with him. What leads them astray is the saying, “Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, seeking thee.” And they do not know what was written before this, that “his brethren” did not “believe in him.” For as we too have gone forward in time, and have marvelled at things in the divine Scriptures as if they were written plainly and without purpose, now, coming to understand them in every point, we give thanks to God, who made provision beforehand, through words in the divine Scripture which seem slight, to set forth the truth of all Scripture. For hearing continually of James, that he was called the brother of the Lord, we used to wonder and say, “What need was there of this?” But now we have learned for what cause the divine Scripture spoke so beforehand: surely, that when we hear, “Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, seeking thee,” we may learn that it speaks of James and the other sons of Joseph, and not of sons of Mary, who never existed. For it was plain that James was the elder in years at the time of the Lord’s incarnate coming. The Scripture calls them his brethren, and, to make the matter clear, names them one by one, James and Joses and Simeon and Judas and Salome and Mary, so that men may learn whose son James is, and of what mother, and may understand which of them is the elder. For Jesus was crucified in the thirty-third year of his incarnate coming, and in the twentieth year of Herod, the son of Archelaus, who was reigning at that time.

10. For in the thirty-third year of the first Herod, the son of Antipater, the Saviour was born in Bethlehem of Judaea, which was the forty-second year of the emperor Augustus. When he was two years old he was taken by Joseph into Egypt, because of what the magi had told Herod, since Herod was seeking the child. He went down into Egypt and remained there two years more. King Herod died in the thirty-seventh year of his reign, and Archelaus his son succeeded him for nine years. And so the work was accomplished, and he was delivered to the cross in the eighteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, which was the twentieth year of Agrippa, surnamed the Great, the younger Herod, the son of Archelaus.

Nowhere have we heard that Joseph begot sons by her. Nor did he live many years after he came from Egypt; for the Saviour was in his fourth year, and Joseph past his eighty-fourth, when he came from the land of Egypt. Joseph lived on for another eight years; and in the twelfth year, as they went up to Jerusalem, the child was sought when he was not found on the journey, as the Gospel according to Luke has it. Between these years Joseph died, and the child was brought up no longer under Joseph, but in the house of Joseph. Hence the Gospel no longer says that his father came, and his mother and his brethren, but, “Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without.” Nor, again, when they said to him in Idumaea, “There is no man that doeth any thing in secret. If thou do these things, shew thyself to the world,” does it say that his father and his brethren said it to him, but his brethren only, since Joseph was no longer living in the body.

Then at the very end, when the Saviour was on the cross, as the Gospel according to John has it, he turned, it says, and “saw the disciple whom the Lord loved, and said to him,” of Mary, “Behold thy mother!” and to her he said, “Behold thy son!” But if Mary had children, and if she had a husband, for what reason did he commit Mary to John, and John to Mary? For what reason did he not rather commit her to Peter, or to Andrew, or to Matthew and Bartholomew? Plainly, to John because of his virginity. For “Behold thy mother!” he says, although she was not the mother of John according to the flesh; but so that he might show her to be the mother and first beginner of virginity, since the Life came from her. And he said it to John, although he was a stranger according to the flesh, to teach him to honour his own mother; because the Lord himself was in truth born of her according to the flesh, so that no one should think that the work was a mere seeming and not the truth. For if she had not been truly his mother, having conceived him according to the flesh, he would not have taken such care to commit to another the ever-virgin: a mother by the dispensation, but undefiled, for his honour and as the wonderful vessel. And the Gospel says, “And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.” But if she had had a husband, if she had had a house, if she had had children, she would have gone back to her own, and not to a stranger.

11. But let not this turn to harm for any, and let them not think to take occasion from it, contriving for themselves the women called “subintroductae” and “beloved sisters” out of an ill-devised notion. For there the matter was accomplished by dispensation, and it stands apart from all the rest of the strictness which must be kept according to God. For when this had come to pass, and he had taken her to his own home, she did not remain with him any longer. And if some think we are mistaken, let them search out the traces in the Scriptures, and they will find neither Mary’s death, nor whether she died or did not die, nor whether she was buried or was not buried; and this although John made his journey into Asia. Nowhere does it say that he took the holy Virgin with him; the Scripture has simply kept silence, because of the exceeding greatness of the wonder, so as not to throw the minds of men into amazement. For my part, I do not dare to speak; but I think on it, and keep silence. For perhaps we have found some traces of that holy and blessed one, showing that her death is not to be found. In one place Simeon says of her, “Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed”; in another the Revelation of John says, “And the dragon hastened after the woman which brought forth the man child; and to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, and she was taken into the wilderness, that the dragon might not take her.” Perhaps this may be fulfilled in her. I do not lay this down as certain, and I do not say that she remained immortal; but neither do I affirm that she died. For the Scripture went beyond the mind of man and left it in suspense, because of that honoured and most excellent vessel, so that no one should suspect anything fleshly of her. Whether she died, we do not know; and even if she was buried, she was never joined in carnal union. God forbid! Who, having gathered madness to himself, will wish to cast a blasphemous suspicion upon her, to lift up his mouth and loose his tongue and open his lips out of an evil mind, and rather than hymns and glory to devise insults and to rave drunkenly against the holy Virgin, and not to honour the honoured vessel?

12. And if we must take the matter from some other point of view as well, let us feel our way through the relations of natural history also. They say that the lioness bears young from one womb only, and that the reason is this. The creature is most fierce, bright-eyed in appearance, very heavy in strength, and, so to speak, the most kingly race among the other beasts. It conceives from one mate, and carries the seed that is sown for twenty-six months in the belly, so that the whelp within comes to full growth through the length of time, so that it has all its teeth already before it comes out of the womb, and its claws of a settled age, and the so-called pegs and canine teeth, and the molars, and all else that belongs to the creature. So, while it is in the belly, in its leaping and moving and in other ways it tears with its claws and scratches the parts of the mother that bear young, the womb and uterus. And so when the mother comes to give birth, on that day her belly becomes free of every trouble of bearing; for the naturalists say that with the birth the uterus and womb are cast out together, so that the female no longer desires, unless perhaps there is force; nor, even if she should chance to be forced to some union, can she conceive any more, since there is no longer any womb or uterus.

So this sequence too, then, has given us some idea of a comparison to bring to the matter in question, to our benefit rather than our harm. For if Jacob speaks in a figure of Christ, saying “Judah is a lion’s whelp,” and in the Revelation of John it says, “Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed,” the Lord is likened to a lion; not according to nature, but by way of figure, and because the creature is kingly, the boldest and strongest of all beasts and in all else the most gracious. Then surely I may call her who bore him a lioness. For whence is a lion born at all, unless the mother is to be called a lioness? And a lioness does not conceive a second time. Therefore Mary knew no further conception; the holy Virgin knew no further union of bodies.

13. But let us look at other considerations too, so that we may see who it was that followed Jesus and was always with him. “Jesus was called to the marriage,” and his mother was there, and his brethren, and nowhere Joseph. “Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come”; and he did not say, “Men, what have I to do with you?” There stood by Mary Magdalene, and Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary the mother of Rufus, and the other Mary, and Salome, and other women; and it does not say that Joseph was there, or James the brother of the Lord, who died at ninety-six years old, having remained a virgin: upon whose head no razor came, who never used the bath, who never partook of anything that had life, who never put on a second tunic, who wore a single cloak of linen only; as it says in the Gospel, “The young man fled, and left the linen cloth that he had cast about him.” For John and James and James, these three lived this life: the two sons of Zebedee, and James the son of Joseph, the brother of the Lord because they lived together and were brought up together, since Joseph held him in the place of a brother on account of the kinship which Joseph had with Mary alone, from her being betrothed to him. To this James alone it was permitted to enter once a year into the holy of holies, because he was a Nazirite and was joined with the priesthood. For this is how Mary was in two ways a kinswoman of Elisabeth, and James was distinguished by the priesthood; for the two tribes, the royal and the priestly, were joined only with each other, the royal with the priestly and the priestly with the royal, as long before in the Exodus Nahshon, the prince of the tribe of Judah, took Elisabeth of old, the daughter of Aaron, to wife. Many of the heresies, being ignorant of the Saviour’s genealogy according to the flesh, disbelieve because they are at a loss, and think to contradict the truth, saying, “How can she who is of the tribe of David and Judah be a kinswoman of Elisabeth, who is of Levi?”

14. This James also wore the plate upon his head. Once, when there was a drought, he lifted up his hands to heaven and prayed, and at once heaven gave rain. He never put on a woollen garment. His knees grew hard like a camel’s, from bending them continually before the Lord in his exceeding devotion. So they no longer called him by his name; “the Just” was his name. He never washed in a bath; he never partook of anything that had life, as I have already shown; he never put on a sandal. There is much that might be said of the man and of his virtuous life. You see, then, that the house was altogether most worthy of note. For if the sons of Joseph knew the order of virginity and the practice of the Nazirites, how much more did the old and honoured man know how to keep a virgin chaste, and to honour the vessel in which the salvation of men came to dwell? Does not even nature itself teach us that he was an old man, far advanced in age, great among men, faithful in his ways, devout in his bearing? For the Gospel says that “a man that feared God was minded to put her away privily.”

This James, the brother of the Lord and the son of Joseph, died in Jerusalem, having lived after the Saviour’s ascension twenty-four years, more or less, being ninety-six years old. He was struck on the head with a club by the fuller, when he had been thrown down from the pinnacle of the temple and had come down unhurt; kneeling, and praying for those who had thrown him down, and saying, “Forgive them; for they know not what they do.” So also Simeon, his cousin, the son of Clopas, standing afar off, said, “Stop! Why do you stone the just man? Behold, he is praying the best of prayers for you.” And so his martyrdom came about.

15. If, then, his son was of such an age, how could his father, who saw awesome things (angels attending the birth of the Son as his bodyguard, singing hymns from heaven and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men”; the shepherds coming to the cave where he was born, and telling these things); how could Joseph, the old man, far advanced in years, hearing of so many signs and wonders, have dared to behave outrageously and to do violence to the holy body in which God had come to dwell? It was from that body that the dispensation of the incarnate coming was put together for us; from it the holy, undefiled flesh was built for us in the Godhead of the Saviour; as the angel Gabriel says there, “The Spirit of the Lord shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” How then could he have dared to be joined to so great and so holy a virgin as Mary? And what would it profit us to inquire into it, even if she had been joined to him, which God forbid? Which is more to be chosen, to leave the matter to God, or to force the worse upon ourselves? It is plain that it has not been written for us that unless we believe that Mary was joined to a man afterwards we have not eternal life, but come into judgment. What has been written is what is good, and more, what is righteous and what is seemly, “that we may minister grace unto the hearers.” But men have left what is necessary, the things of the true faith and the things that give glory to God, and wherever they can find it they procure harm for themselves: things that it is a woe even to think of, above all when the Scripture does not say them.

16. For if the Scripture had said so, we would have rendered the truth, and would have thought nothing amiss. For is marriage dishonourable? Is the bed profane? Is not “the bed undefiled”? Is marriage debased? But the prophets and high priests refrain from it, for the sake of a greater service. For after Moses had prophesied he was no longer joined to a wife; such a man no longer begets children, no longer has offspring. For he kept his life more free for the Master. For how could he have remained “forty days and forty nights” on Mount Sinai if he had been giving his attention to marriage? Or how could he have been ready for forty years in the wilderness for the dispensation of God, and have given himself to the priesthood? And how could he have told forth the mysteries, and conversed with God, if he had continued joined in marriage? For if the holy apostle says plainly of us, “for a time, that ye may give yourselves to prayer,” how much more will this word be true of the prophets? And Mary too is a prophetess. For it says, “I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. Then said the Lord to me, Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz,” that is, “Swiftly spoil, speedily plunder,” and so on. Here it signifies the coming of Gabriel to Mary, when he went forth to bring her the good tidings that she was to bear the Son of God, a Saviour for the world, not of the seed of man, but through the Holy Spirit. And Philip the evangelist “had four daughters, which did prophesy”; and they prophesied, surely, because of the virginity which they had been counted worthy to keep. And Thecla met the holy Paul, and broke off her marriage, though she had a betrothed who was most handsome, first in his city, very rich, of the noblest birth and most distinguished in his manner of life; and the holy woman despised the things of earth, that she might lay hold of the things of heaven. If, then, these did such things, how much more Mary, for whom the whole wonderful dispensation was brought about? How, then, shall I gather minds to what is good, and turn away the darkness of those who have longed after dreadful things; as it is written, “He conceived mischief, and brought forth iniquity”? For these truly conceive the mischief of their thoughts, and bring forth the iniquity of their blasphemies.

17. But let no one suspect those things, and, trying to sow them for himself in another way, say: “Why then did the Gospel say that Mary ‘was found with child of the Holy Ghost, before they came together’? Was their coming together, then, expected, and is this why it said ‘before they came together’?” And again, in another place the same Gospel says, “And she was found with child before they came together”; or, “She brought forth, and he knew her not”; or, “She brought forth her firstborn son,” and “he knew her not,” and “he knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son.” Those who profess to distinguish the senses of the Scriptures, and who set about busying themselves with lofty and deep things, do not know that the sense is of this kind. For if Mary had borne again, the names of the other brothers ought to have been given. And if it is because the Only-begotten “is the firstborn of every creature,” do not be troubled. For it did not say that she brought forth her firstborn, but, “he knew her not till she had brought forth her son”; and it did not say her firstborn, but “the firstborn.” In the words “her son” it signified that he was born of her according to the flesh; but with the title of firstborn it no longer put “her,” but “firstborn” only. For he is the one whom the apostle calls “the firstborn of every creature”: not joined to creation, but begotten before creation. For he did not say “first-created,” but “firstborn,” the reading being divided in the better and safer way: saying “firstborn” first, and then speaking of the creation as coming after. For “firstborn” is taken of the Son, while the creation comes to be through the Son.

“She brought forth, then, her son, the firstborn,” and not “her firstborn,” as though she were going to conceive another. “And he knew her not.” For how could he have known that a woman would receive so great a grace? Or how could he have known that a virgin would be glorified with such glory? He knew her as a woman by her fashioning, and female by her nature, and as the daughter of her mother Anna and her father Joachim, and a kinswoman of Elisabeth, of the house and lineage of David; but he did not know that anyone on earth, still less a woman, would be honoured with such glory. So he did not know her until he saw the wonder; he did not know the wonder of her until he saw “that which was born of her.” But when she had brought forth, he knew also the honour from God: that she was the one who heard, “Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee.”

18. She is the one who was signified in Eve, receiving in a figure the name “mother of all living.” For Eve was called the mother of all living, and that after she had heard, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” after the transgression. And it was a wonder that after the transgression she received this great title. In the order of the senses, all the generation of men upon earth has come from that Eve; but here, in truth, Life itself was born into the world from Mary, so that she bore the Living One, and Mary became the mother of the living. It is in a figure, then, that Mary is called the mother of the living. For of the two women it was said, “Who hath given to woman wisdom, or the skill of embroidery?” For the first wise woman, Eve, wove garments for the senses because of Adam, whom she had stripped naked; for this labour was given to her. Since the nakedness was found through her, to her it was given to clothe the body of the senses, because of the nakedness of the senses. But to Mary it was given by God that she should bear for us a Lamb and a Sheep, and that from the glory of the Lamb and Sheep himself, as from a fleece, a garment of incorruption should be made for us in wisdom by his power.

But there is another wonderful thing to be thought of concerning these two, Eve and Mary. Eve became the occasion of death to men; for through her “death entered into the world.” But Mary became the occasion of life, through whom Life was born for us. And for this the Son of God came into the world; and “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” And whence death came, there life came first, so that life might take the place of death, shutting out the death that came from a woman: he who was born for us of a woman again, and who is himself our life. And since there Eve, while still a virgin, fell into the transgression of disobedience, so again through the Virgin came the obedience of grace, when the good tidings were brought of the coming down from heaven, of the incarnate coming, and of life eternal. For there he says to the serpent, “And I will put enmity between thee and her, and between thy seed and her seed.” But nowhere is a seed of woman found … except that in a figure the enmity is taken of Eve, towards what is born of the serpent, and of the devil who was in the serpent, and of envy.

19. But in the fullest sense the whole cannot be fulfilled in her. It will be fulfilled in truth in the holy seed, the chosen and only seed, that which came of Mary alone and not of union with a man. For he came to “slay” the power “of the dragon, the crooked serpent that fleeth,” and that boasts that it has seized the whole world. This is why the Only-begotten came of a woman: for the destruction of the serpent, that is, of false teaching, corruption and deceit, error and lawlessness. He it is who is truly “the one that openeth the womb of his mother.” For all who were born as firstborn, to speak more reverently, could not fulfil this; none but the Only-begotten alone, who “opened the womb of a virgin.” In him alone was this accomplished, and in no other.

This may be seen from the subject itself as well. The word is taken from Mary, and I may say this of the Church also: “For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.” And the holy apostle says, “This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” And see, I pray you, the exactness of the Scriptures: of Adam it says “he formed,” but of Eve it no longer says that she was formed, but that she was “built.” For it says, “He took one of his ribs, and built it up for him into a woman”; to show that the Lord fashioned a body for himself from Mary, and that from his very side the Church was built, when his side was pierced, and the mysteries of the blood and the water became a ransom within us.

20. And yet Joseph knew Mary: not with any knowledge of use, not with the knowledge of intercourse; but he knew her, honouring her who was honoured by God. For he did not know that she was of such glory until he saw the Lord born of a woman. And the words “before they came together she was found with child” were said so that the opinion of those who think that the mystery ordered by God came from union with a man should never prevail. For it was speaking of what was expected, before it came about; and this thing did not come about. For even if the Virgin was expected to be joined to Joseph (though he would not have accepted it, because of his old age), the Scripture nevertheless anticipates it, and suggests to us, and makes our minds secure, that, since the case was a possible one, after the divine birth the Virgin was persuaded no longer to come near a man for union; even as the angel persuaded Joseph that the suspicion was not what he himself supposed.

For like the words spoken before, “before they came together,” of a thing expected but which did not come about, is the saying, “being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily”: as though a wrong would be done in making her a public example, but which was not done. As the angel teaches, saying, “Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife,” though she had not yet become so; and though she is under suspicion of a fault with you, she is not so, as you suppose; and so on. For immediately, in order, he says, “that which is conceived in her,” as of one already conceived; and again, “she shall bring forth a son,” as of what was still to come; for so it was. The foretelling was given so that it might be believed, as also the words “before they came together” … being satisfied that it never came about at all. “Till she had brought forth her firstborn son” is to be interpreted in the same way, because of the wonder of the knowledge concerning the Virgin, who was honoured before God.

21. Let no one suppose, from the words “before they came together,” that they came together afterwards; for no one can show it or point to it. The Scripture confirmed this in order to show that the conception of the Saviour was undefiled. So “he knew her not” is said because of her glory; and “firstborn,” because he is the firstborn before created things existed, and “the firstborn among many brethren,” as the apostle says: not in respect of Mary, as though she had other sons, but among those who are counted worthy to receive adoption through him, when he truly became her son according to the flesh, so that it should not be supposed to be a mere seeming. He is both the firstborn and the son of the Virgin herself, and not, as I have said, because she had other sons. For this is like the first case, before he came among us. He who is truly the firstborn of the Father on high, before all creation, is not called firstborn because others were begotten of the Father after him; for he has no second brother, since he is only-begotten. So also in the incarnate coming he is ever Mary’s firstborn, but he is by nature only-begotten to Mary, having no second brother from her.

And let those cease who have devised against themselves what is harmful rather than what is profitable. No, no, I beseech you! He who honours the Lord honours also what is holy; and he who dishonours what is holy dishonours also his own Master. Let Mary, the holy Virgin, the holy vessel, be left to herself. For these things that tend to harm do us no good; we ought to think more reverently, so that we do not gain for ourselves a stiff neck, or dissension, or idle talk. For “of every idle word” we shall give “account,” as it is written. Let us take thought for ourselves, and look to our own affairs; let us not cast our own things upon the saints, nor judge the things of the saints from ourselves.

22. For certainly some who do violence to the text, and who incline to lewdness and have a corrupt notion within them, wish to defile the saints as well, as a plausible defence of their own evil and weak notion. To them the apostle says, “For I would that all men were even as I myself.” And how does he say “as I myself,” except because of chastity? “Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife.” The pronoun has been left out; for he spoke by way of reproof, and with some sharpness. He might have said, “because of your fornications”; but he took away the “your,” so that he should not seem to have said it to insult anyone. It was said to the condemnation of some who are unwilling to give themselves to God after living according to the law, and after rightly knowing their own vessel for the begetting of children; as our fathers of old also used this manner of life. As we find the Scripture saying somewhere, “But Rebecca, having conceived by one.” In saying “by one” it spoke more modestly, and showed that the conception was a righteous one; for it shows that after he had had children he was no longer joined to his wife.

But since it is easy and ready for the mind to turn rather to what is base than to what is needful (for our human reasoning is slippery, and it does not quickly direct its impulse to the straight way of the Lord, but leans now to the right hand and now to the left, and grievously fulfils the saying in Solomon, “Turn not to the right hand nor to the left”), and since wickedness again turns us about in another way concerning the same thoughts, and thrusts our soundness of mind to walk again in other ways, let us take care, then, that the praising of the Virgin beyond measure does not become to anyone another stumbling-block of fancy.

23. For those who blaspheme against the Son, as I have shown above, have been ambitious to estrange him by nature from the Godhead of the Father; while others again, of another mind, as though they were led on to honour him the more, have said that the Father is the same, the Son the same, and the Holy Spirit the same; and on both sides the wound is incurable. So too with this holy and blessed ever-virgin: some have dared to insult her, as though she had been joined in the flesh after that greatest and purest dispensation of the Lord, his incarnate coming; and this is the most impious of all wickedness. But as we say that we have heard that some have dared so readily to give themselves up to this sin, so we have wondered to hear of the other thing also. For we hear that others again, out of their senses in the matter of this same holy ever-virgin, have been striving and are still striving to bring her in in place of God, carried away by a kind of stupefaction and madness. For they relate that certain women there in Arabia, from the parts of Thrace, have brought in this empty talk: that they offer a kind of cake in the name of the ever-virgin, and gather together for this purpose; and that in the name of the holy Virgin they attempt something beyond measure, and set their hands to a lawless and blasphemous thing, and perform priestly rites in her name through women. All this is impious and lawless, and altered from the preaching of the Holy Spirit, so that the whole of it is a work of the devil and a teaching of an unclean spirit. For in them too is fulfilled the saying, “Some shall depart from sound doctrine, giving heed to fables and doctrines of devils.” For they shall be, it says, “worshippers of the dead,” as they were worshipped in Israel also. And the glory of the saints, given in its season for the glory of God, has become error to others who do not see the truth.

24. For in Shechem, that is, in what is now Neapolis, the people of the place offer sacrifices in the name of the Maiden, on the pretext, forsooth, of the daughter of Jephthah, who was once offered to God in sacrifice; and this has become for those who were deceived a harm of idolatry and vain worship. So too the Egyptians, honouring beyond what was fitting, in place of God, the daughter of Pharaoh, who honoured Moses the servant of God, and took him up and brought him up, because of the fame of the child at that time, handed this down to the foolish as an evil tradition for their worship. And they worship Thermuthis, the daughter of Amenophis, who was then Pharaoh, because, as I said before, she brought up Moses. And many other such things have come about in the world, to the error of those who were deceived; not that the saints were the cause of anyone’s stumbling, but because the minds of men are not at rest, but turn aside to what is evil.

For either the holy Virgin died and was buried (then her falling asleep is in honour, her end in chastity, and her crown in virginity); or she was slain, as it is written, “Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also” (then her renown is among the martyrs, and her holy body, through whom light rose upon the world, among the blessed); or she remained, for it is not impossible with God to do whatever he wills; for no one knows her end. But the saints are not to be honoured beyond what is fitting; it is their Master who is to be honoured. Let the error of those who have been led astray cease, then. For Mary is not God, nor did she have her body from heaven; she came of the conception of man and woman, though by promise, as Isaac did, by the dispensation of God. Let no one make offerings in her name, for he destroys his own soul; nor, again, let anyone rave against the holy Virgin and insult her. For God forbid! She was not joined in the flesh after the birth, nor before the birth of the Saviour.

25. These few things, then, we have written, having considered them among ourselves, for those who wish to learn the truth of the Scripture, and not to rave idly against its words, nor to arm themselves with a blasphemous tongue. But if some wish to resist, and will not accept what is profitable, but rather the contrary, then from us too, humble as we are, it must be said, “He that heareth, let him hear; and he that forbeareth, let him forbear.” Let no one “trouble” the apostles, nor us any more. For what we knew to be more reverent and profitable to the Church, this we have said concerning the holy Virgin, pleading the cause of her who was in all things highly favoured, as Gabriel said, “Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee.” But if the Lord is with her, how can she be in another wedlock? How can she come near to the flesh, when she is kept by the Lord? The saints are in honour: their rest in glory, their departure hence in perfection, their lot in blessedness, in holy mansions, their choir with the angels, their dwelling in heaven, their way of life in the divine Scriptures, their renown in an honour beyond compare and everlasting, their prizes in Christ Jesus our Lord; through whom and with whom be glory to the Father, with the Holy Spirit, for ever. Amen.

All the brethren salute you. Salute also, yourselves, all the brethren with you, the faithful and orthodox, who abhor pride, who hate communion with the Arians and the quibbling of the Sabellians, who honour the Trinity as consubstantial, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three hypostases, one essence and one Godhead, and in short one glory; who do not err concerning the saving dispensation and the incarnate coming of our Saviour, but believe perfectly in the incarnation of Christ, perfect God, and the same perfect man without sin, who took the body itself from Mary, and took a soul and a mind and all that man is, without sin; not being two, but one Lord, one God, one King, one High Priest, God and man, man and God, not two but one, united not into confusion, nor into non-existence, but into a great dispensation of grace. Farewell.

We are content with this copy of the letter, which is sound, judging it sufficient thus far for the refutation of these people. By God’s help we have passed over this heresy too, like a reptile that has put its head out of a hole: we have refuted it by the wise teaching and power of God (which breathes a sweet fragrance in the world like storax, for virtue … and for the holy children of virginity, which began with holy Mary, through him who rose from her as light for the world), and we have shown up the evil poison of their reptilian wickedness. Let us go on once more to the others, to the completion of the whole work, in God.

Against the Collyridians, who make offerings to Mary

The fifty-ninth heresy of this book, and the seventy-ninth of the whole.

1. Next after this a heresy has come to light, of which we have already said a little in the one before it, through the letter written to Arabia concerning Mary. This heresy too has appeared once more in Arabia, from Thrace and the upper parts of Scythia, and has been brought to our hearing. It too is found ridiculous and full of mockery by men of understanding. Let us begin, then, to speak of it and to relate what concerns it; for it will be judged a thing of simple-mindedness rather than of understanding, as others like it were. For as those who thought fit to hold the notions described at length above, through their insult to Mary, sow harmful notions in the reasonings of men, so these, leaning to the other side, are caught in the extreme of harm; so that the saying sung by some of the philosophers outside the Church may be fulfilled in them too, “Extremes are equal.” For the harm is equal in both these heresies: the one party cheapens the holy Virgin, and the other again glorifies her beyond what is fitting.

For who are they that teach this, but women? The race of women is easily led astray, unsteady, and low in understanding. For here too the devil has seen fit to vomit out his teaching through women; for as above, in the case of Quintilla, Maximilla and Priscilla, the doctrines were laughable, so it is here also. For certain women adorn a kind of barber’s chair, or a square stool, spreading a linen cloth over it; and on a set day of the year, on certain days, they set out a loaf and offer it in the name of Mary, and all of them partake of the loaf; as we discussed in part when we wrote in the letter to Arabia itself. But now we shall speak plainly about this heresy, and, having asked God’s help, we shall set out as far as we can the refutations of it, so that, cutting out the roots of this idol-making heresy, we may be able in God to put an end to such madness in some.

2. Come then, servants of God, let us put on a manly mind, and scatter the madness of these women. For the whole notion is feminine, and the sickness of Eve once more, who was deceived; or rather it is the promise of error of the serpent, that provoking beast, which spoke in her. It brings nothing forth into the open, nor fulfils what it promises, but only works death, calling the things that are not as though they were; and through the sight of the tree it works disobedience and a turning away from the truth itself, and a turning to many things. One may suppose that as the deceiver sowed his words, “Ye shall be as gods,” so the mind of these women too is made a fool of by the lifting up of the aforesaid beast, by which it works death again by its nature, as I have often said.

For first, to look straightway from the beginning until now, to whom is it not plain that the teaching, the practice, and the perverted undertaking are of devils? Never from the beginning has a woman served God as priest. Not Eve herself, although she had fallen into transgression, yet she did not dare to go on to so impious an undertaking; nor one of her daughters, although Abel straightway offered sacrifice to God, and Cain sacrificed before the Lord sacrifices which were not accepted; although Enoch pleased God and was translated, and Noah offered to the Lord thank-offerings from what was left over in the ark, showing a token of a grateful disposition and confessing his thanks to him who had saved him. Abraham the just offers sacrifice to God, and Melchizedek the priest of the most high God, and Isaac is found pleasing to God, and Jacob offered as he was able upon the stone, pouring oil on it from the flask. And of his sons, Levi is found receiving the priesthood in succession, and of his race those who received the priestly order: Moses, I mean, the prophet and revealer of holy things, and Aaron and his sons, Eleazar and Phinehas, and Ithamar his grandson. And why should I tell over the multitudes of those who offered sacrifice to God in the old covenant? So Ahitub is found offering sacrifice; and the Korahites, the Gershonites and the Merarites, who were entrusted with the order of the Levites; and the house of Eli, and those after him who were of his kindred in the house of Abimelech and Abiathar, and Hilkiah and Buzi, down to Jeshua the high priest, and Ezra the priest, and the rest. And nowhere did a woman act as priest.

3. I will come also to the new covenant. If women were appointed to act as priests to God, or to do any canonical office in the Church, it would have been fitting rather for Mary herself to perform a priesthood in the new covenant: she who was counted worthy to receive in her own bosom the King of all, the heavenly God, the Son of God; whose womb became a temple and a dwelling, prepared for the incarnate dispensation of the Lord, by the love of God for men and by an amazing mystery. But it did not please him. Nor was she entrusted even with giving baptism; for Christ could have been baptised by her rather than by John. But John, the son of Zacharias, lived in the wilderness, entrusted with the baptism for the remission of sins, and his father served God as priest, and saw a vision at the hour of incense. Peter and Andrew, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas, Thaddaeus, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Judas the brother of James, and Simon the Canaanite, and Matthias who was chosen to fill up the twelve: all these were chosen apostles, “ministering the gospel” throughout the earth, together with Paul and Barnabas and the rest, and were leaders in the mysteries, with James the brother of the Lord and first bishop of Jerusalem. From this bishop and the aforesaid apostles were appointed successions of bishops and presbyters in the house of God; and nowhere was a woman appointed among them. “Philip the evangelist,” it says, “had four daughters, which did prophesy”; but they did not offer sacrifice. And “there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel”; but she was not entrusted with the priesthood. For it had to be fulfilled, “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.”

It is true that there is an order of deaconesses in the Church; but it is not for acting as priests, nor are they permitted to undertake anything of the kind. It is for the sake of the modesty of the female sex, either at the time of the bath, or in visiting in sickness or trouble, and when a woman’s body is uncovered, so that she may not be seen by the men who offer sacrifice, but by the deaconess; who is charged by the priest to take care of the woman who needs it at the time when her body is uncovered. For the order of good discipline and of the Church’s good government has been most carefully secured, with understanding, within the measure of the canon. Therefore the divine word does not allow a woman “to speak” in church, nor “to usurp authority over the man.” And there is much to be said about this.

4. It is to be observed that the order of the Church needed deaconesses only; it named widows too, and called the older of them elders; but nowhere did it appoint women as presbyters or priestesses. For not even the deacons in the order of the Church were entrusted with performing any mystery, but only with ministering at what is performed. Whence, then, has this new fable been raised up for us? Whence this pride of women and this womanish madness? Whence is this wickedness nourished, which through the female, once more, pours into our minds the womanishness of this notion, working its own voluptuousness, and tries to force the wretched nature of men to go outside what is set before it? But let us receive the steadfast mind of Job, the athlete; let us arm ourselves, taking the righteous answer upon our lips, and say, we too, “Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh.”

For how shall such a thing not appear stupefying to everyone who has understanding and has … in God? How is the practice not idol-making, and the undertaking devilish? For always, under the pretext of what is righteous, the devil slips into the minds of men, and, making mortal nature into gods before the eyes of men, he has portrayed images in the likeness of men by the variety of the arts. Those who are worshipped are dead, but they bring in their images, which never lived (for what never lived cannot even be called dead), to be worshipped, through a mind that has committed adultery … from the one and only God; as the common harlot, inflamed to great outrage by her many lovers, rubs away the chastity of lawful union with one husband.

Yes indeed, the body of Mary was holy; but she was not God. Yes indeed, the Virgin was a virgin, and honoured; but she was not given to us for worship. She herself worshipped him who was born of her in the flesh, and who came from the heavens, from the bosom of the Father. And for this reason the Gospel makes us secure, telling us that the Lord himself said, “Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.” So that no one should think, from the words “Woman, what have I to do with thee?”, that the holy Virgin was something more, he called her “woman,” as though prophesying, because of the schisms and heresies that were to come upon the earth; so that none, marvelling at the holy one to excess, should fall into this foolish talk of the heresy.

5. For the whole thing is a matter for mockery, and the story of the heresy is, one may say, an old wives’ tale. What Scripture has told of this? Which of the prophets allowed a man to be worshipped, let alone a woman? The vessel is indeed chosen, but it is a woman, and in no way altered in nature, though honoured in mind and in sense, like the bodies of the saints; and if I may say something more in her praise, she is like Elijah, a virgin from his mother’s womb, and so remaining for ever, and taken up, and not having seen death; like John, who leaned on the Lord’s breast, “whom Jesus loved”; like holy Thecla; and Mary is more honoured than she, because of the dispensation of which she was counted worthy. But neither is Elijah to be worshipped, though he is among the living; nor is John to be worshipped, though by his own prayer he made his falling asleep a thing of amazement, or rather received the grace from God; nor is Thecla, nor any of the saints, worshipped. For the ancient error shall not have dominion over us, to forsake the Living One and to worship the things that he has made. For “they worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator,” and “became fools.”

For if he will not have angels worshipped, how much less her who was born of Anna, who was given to Anna by Joachim, who was granted to her father and mother by promise, through prayer and all diligence; though she was not born otherwise than according to the nature of men, but, like all men, from the seed of a man and the womb of a woman? For even if the history of Mary and the traditions have it that it was said to her father Joachim in the wilderness, “Thy wife hath conceived,” it was not that this came about without marriage, nor without the seed of a man. The angel who was sent foretold what was to come, so that there should be no doubt about what had come about in truth, what had already been ordained by God and had been born to the righteous man.

6. And everywhere we see the Scriptures telling us so. For Isaiah proclaims beforehand the things that were to be fulfilled in the Son of God, saying, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel.” And since she who bore him was a virgin, and he who was conceived in a woman is interpreted “God with us,” so that the truth should not come into doubt through a suspicion of the prophet, the prophet sees in a vision, and, constrained by the Holy Spirit, tells it, and says, “And I went unto the prophetess,” telling of the coming of Gabriel with the good tidings, who was sent by God to tell of the coming of the only-begotten Son of God into the world, and of his birth from Mary. “And she conceived,” he says, “and bare a son. Then said the Lord to me, Call his name, Swiftly spoil, speedily plunder. For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away,” and so on.

And none of this had yet been accomplished; it was to come about in the Son of God, and to be fulfilled after a thousand six hundred years, more or less. And after so many generations the prophet saw the things to come as though they had already happened. Was it a lie, then? God forbid! But what had been ordered by God was proclaimed with certainty, as though already accomplished, so that the truth should not be disbelieved, and so that so astonishing and amazing a mystery, which was to come, should not fall into doubt through suspicion of the prophet. Or do you not see the very proclamation that follows, as holy Isaiah himself says: “He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearer is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. And who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth: and I will give the wicked for his burial,” and so on? See how he tells the first things last, and interprets the later things as already done, saying, “He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter.” It is said as past; for he did not say “he is brought,” and he whom Isaiah proclaimed had not yet been brought. But the work was spoken to the prophet as already done; for the teaching of God’s mysteries could not be broken. But going on from there he no longer spoke of these things as done, so as not to cause error again; but he says, “His life is taken from the earth.” From the two ways of speaking he shows the truth: that the “was brought” was already being accomplished, and the “is taken” was fulfilled afterwards; so that from what has come about you may understand the truth and the firmness of God’s promise, and from what is to come you may guess at the time of the mysteries that are revealed.

7. So also in the case of Mary the angel foretold what her father was to receive from God as he came into his own house, the thing asked for in prayer by the petition of the father and the mother: “Behold, thy wife hath conceived in her womb”; so as to bring the mind of the faithful man surely through, in the promise. But this became error for some. For it is impossible for anyone on earth to be born otherwise than according to the nature of men. Only in One did nature excel; to him alone did nature give way. As the Fashioner and Lord of the matter, he fashioned himself anew from a virgin, as from the earth; God coming from the heavens, the Word putting on flesh from a holy virgin: not, however, that the Virgin should be worshipped, nor to make her God, nor that we should make offerings in her name, nor, again, to appoint women as priestesses after so many generations. God was not pleased that this should be done in Salome, nor in Mary herself. He did not allow her to give baptism, nor to bless disciples. He did not bid her rule upon the earth, but only that she should be a holy thing, and be counted worthy of his kingdom. Not the woman called the mother of Rufus, not the women who followed him from Galilee, not Martha the sister of Lazarus, nor Mary, nor any of the holy women who were counted worthy to be saved by his coming and who ministered to him of their own substance, not the Canaanite woman, not the woman with the issue of blood who was saved, nor any of the women on earth, did he command to perform this office.

Whence, then, does this coiling serpent come to us again? Whence are its crooked counsels renewed? Let Mary be in honour, and let the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit be worshipped; let no one worship Mary. I do not say to a woman; not even to a man is this mystery appointed, but to God; not even angels are capable of such glory. Let the things wrongly written in the hearts of those who have been deceived be blotted out; let the craving for the tree be dimmed from their eyes; let the creature turn back again to its Master; let Eve, with Adam, be put to shame into honouring God alone; let her not be led by the voice of the serpent, but abide by the command of God, “Thou shalt not eat of the tree.” And the tree was not error; but through the tree came the disobedience of error. Let no one eat of the error that comes by way of holy Mary. For even if “the tree is pleasant,” it is not for food; and even if Mary is most fair, and holy, and honoured, it is not for worship.

8. But these women once more “fill the cup for Fortune” and “prepare the table” for the demon and not for God, as it is written, and eat the food of impiety, as the divine word says: “The children gather wood, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the host of heaven.” Let such women be silenced by Jeremiah, and let them not trouble the world. Let them not say, “We honour the queen of heaven.” For Tahpanhes knows how to punish them; the places of Migdol know how to receive their bodies to corruption. Be not persuaded by a woman, O Israel; lift up your head from a wicked woman’s counsel. “For the adulteress will hunt for the precious life of a man”; “her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.” “Give not heed to a wicked woman; for the lips of a harlot drop as an honeycomb, which for a time is smoother than oil to thy throat; but afterwards thou shalt find it more bitter than gall, and sharper than a two-edged sword.” Be not persuaded by this wicked woman. For every heresy is a wicked woman, but this more than any: the heresy of women, and of him who deceived the first woman.

Let our mother Eve be honoured, as fashioned by God; but let her not be listened to, lest she persuade her children to eat of the tree and to transgress the commandment. Let her too repent of her empty talk, and turn back, ashamed, clothing herself in fig leaves. And let Adam look to himself, and be persuaded by her no longer. For the persuasion of error, and the counsel of a woman to what is contrary, works death for her own husband, and not only for him but for her children also. Eve overturned the creature by her transgression, provoked by the serpent’s voice and promise, led astray from the proclamation of God, and walking after another mind.

9. For this reason the Master and Saviour of all, wishing to heal the pain, to rebuild what had been overthrown, and to set right what had been impaired, since “death came down into the world” from a woman, was himself born of a woman who was a virgin, to shut out death, to fill up what was lacking, and to make perfect what had been impaired. But wickedness turns upon us again, to bring the impairment forth into the world. Yet neither the young nor the old are persuaded by the woman, because of the chastity that is from above. The Egyptian woman does not make sport of chaste Joseph, nor lead him astray, although with much contriving she worked the dreadful thing of her counsel against the youth. The man who has received his understanding from the Holy Spirit is not persuaded; he does not destroy his chastity, so as not to degrade his nobility. He leaves his garment behind, and does not lose his body; he flees the place, so as not to fall into the snare. For a time he is punished; for ever he reigns. He is cast into the prison; but it is better to remain in prison, “in a corner of the housetop,” than “with a brawling woman” and a talkative one.

And how much more might be said! For whether these idle women offer the cake to Mary as though they worshipped her, or undertake to offer this rotten offering on her behalf, the whole thing is foolish and alien, the arrogance and deceit of the working of demons. But not to draw out our discourse, what has been said will suffice us. Let Mary be in honour; let the Lord be worshipped. For the righteous work error for no one. “For God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man”; nor do his servants tempt anyone to deceit. “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”

Thinking, beloved, that we have said enough about all these, and having crushed with the word of truth this beetle, as one might call it, golden in appearance, winged, one might say, and flying, but venomous and carrying poison within itself, let us go on to the one that still remains, calling once more upon God to stand by us, so that we may track out the parts of the truth and make a complete overthrow of what is contrary to it.