to the parts of truth A by the parts of falsehood. For falsehood is opposed to truth, and truth is opposed to falsehood; for each of these is known by its fruit, as Truth has said.
The disputation of holy Athanasius against Arius B is, with God’s help, completed.
ADMONITION REGARDING THE FOLLOWING WORK
I. The *Sermo contra omnes haereses* (Sermon against all heresies) is found in ancient codices, though in most it is marked as a work to be adjudged away from Athanasius. Thus it is read in the margin of the Seguerian codex: *xenos kai chudaios* (foreign and common), meaning, a foreign book written in a looser style. What is noted in the Commelinian codices is accurately explained by Felckmann in these words: "It exists here in the Basilian, Goblerian, and 4th codices." Furthermore, at the beginning of it, these things are noted in the Basilian: "Leave it alone, do not transcribe." As to what these mean, I do not know (though these are plain and clear, and signify: leave this alone and do not transcribe it), unless perhaps the same as the Roman reader likewise noted at its beginning in the Goblerian codex with these words: (That is, "This sermon, as it seems to me, is by no means by the great Father Athanasius, but is foreign, and for the most part written in a looser style.") These things are there. Similar things are found regarding the same in the Basilian codex, right at the beginning, where a catalogue of the books contained therein is prefaced, thus: (That is, "In the book of the monastery of St. Athanasius, the following inscription is placed before this book: This book is not by the great Athanasius, but is spurious and written in a looser style. But we, in order to fulfill the command, have transcribed it as well.") These latter words seem to be those of someone excusing himself for why he transcribed this sermon, even though it is spurious and on its frontispiece it is noted not to be transcribed. These are the words of Felckmann, to whose passages, cited only in Greek, we have added the Latin meaning.
II. Furthermore, from these notes in the codices it is clear that this book has long appeared among the Athanasian works, since it had its place in those codices from which the most ancient of the Commelinian ones were transcribed along with the works of Athanasius. However, the style of the oration, as the scribes warn, differs greatly from the style of the holy doctor, which surely no one can fail to see. Yet it is evident that the work was compiled from the works of Athanasius; for in it the same heresies are impugned that we see refuted in various places in Athanasius’s works; some of which the holy doctor addressed only incidentally. Here, in the first place, the Arians are agitated, whom Athanasius also attacked earlier; finally, the Apollinarians, who are the last to be refuted by Athanasius. Here, the Pneumatomachi are called Tropici, a term which I do not recall reading with this meaning anywhere except in Athanasius, in his *Letters to Serapion*. The same arguments that are used by Athanasius are also used in this work against the heretics. Moreover, the heretics who are refuted here are: Arians, Tropici, Paul of Samosata, Manichaeans, Marcion, Valentinus, Basilides, Hieracas, Novatus, Phrygians, and Apollinarians, all of whom are discussed in the general preface.
OF OUR HOLY FATHER ATHANASIUS AGAINST ALL HERESIES
1. What is proposed from the Gospel according to John is such: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word." This was in
A the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was made nothing that was made. Each of the holy prophets and evangelists, being farsighted and inspired by the Holy Spirit, declares the entire great and holy salvation that was to come to the human race. But someone might say, "How? Interpret this for us." Listen, beloved. The prophets, as I said above, being farsighted, announce what is to come ages beforehand, clearly exhibiting future things as if they were present. Likewise, the great evangelists also confirm, each in the Gospels, the things foretold concerning the advent of the Word by the prophets, bringing forward those very predictions. For example, the great prophet Isaiah says: "He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is dumb, so he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation his judgment was taken away; and who shall declare his generation? By his bruise we were all healed." And when he who had been foretold had arrived, and the great Baptist John saw him passing by, fulfilling what had been predicted through Isaiah the prophet, he says: "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." Behold, the B great Baptist confirms the voice of the prophet. Likewise, the high priest Moses also, concerning this bruise by which the whole human race was to become partaker of salvation, what did he say? "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree." And again he says: "You shall see your life hanging on the tree." He did not place life in the first position and the curse in the second; rather, he placed the curse first, and then life. For it was fitting that the handwriting should first be affixed to the cross, and the side of the Word be pierced by the lance, so that the wound in the piercing might become a cleansing for the world, the blood and the water for the human race.
2. Miserable and ungrateful Jews, even after such great signs and benefits had been bestowed upon them, instead of praising and blessing the one who had sojourned among them for the deeds he performed, said on the contrary: "If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross." And yet the sun withheld its rays, not bearing to behold the Lord hanging on the gibbet. And there were two thieves hanging with him, one of whom C reviling, said
A to the other, "Why do you revile the just one? We suffer according to our sins; but what is there between you and that just man?" And he said to Jesus, "Remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom." And Jesus said to him B, "Amen, amen I say to you, today you shall be with me in paradise." Oh, great deed! The curse having been nailed up, he opened paradise by his promise to the thief. Oh, the blessedness of this thief! He plundered while robbing in the world, and he plundered the kingdom of heaven by his confession. Regarding this, the great prophet said, "And the beetle will cry out from the wood." You know, brothers, that the beetle dwells around unclean things, being itself unclean; so also the thief at one time occupied himself with acts of robbery; but when he was on the cross, he confessed, as I said before, and in him is fulfilled what was prophesied: "And the beetle will cry out from the wood." Having cried out, therefore, he was deemed worthy to seize beforehand the kingdom of heaven. And again the great prophet Isaiah says, showing it as if present, "Behold the Virgin shall have in her womb, and shall bear a Son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel," which is interpreted, "God with us." Since, therefore, this prophetic meaning was about to be fulfilled, the great archangel Gabriel is sent, who stands at the right hand of the Majesty, to signify to the immaculate Theotokos and unwedded Mary, using these words: [C ] "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you." By saying "Lord," he indicates the common Master, confessing himself to be a fellow-servant. "The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you, and therefore what is born of you shall be called Holy." Deservedly, beloved, is the temple of Him who is about to sanctify the whole world called holy. Again the same prophet says, "A child is born to us, and a son is given to us, whose government is upon his shoulder. And his name is called the Angel of Great Counsel."
3. These things therefore having been fulfilled, the great evangelist John the son of thunder says: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. All things through him..."
came to be, and without him nothing came to be." If all things were made through him, then he is A outside of the things which were made, and it is manifest that he was always in the Father. Miserable Jews, the new Ariomanites, who neither read correctly nor search accurately because they have the eyes of their mind blinded, thinking the Creator and Maker of all things to be a creature. Hear that saying of the great evangelist: "In the beginning." O enemy of Christ, Arian, if he had said, "In the beginning it was made," you would have a color of excuse to say: "Lo, the evangelist said, 'In the beginning it was made.'" But since he said, "In the beginning (48) it was," search diligently and you will find the truth; then ask the great evangelist, saying to him: "O evangelist, tell us the dispensation of the beginning and of the existing God the Word (49); because the Christ-fighting Arians think the Creator of all things is a creature." The great evangelist will immediately say to you: "Read the origin of the created world in Genesis, which is as follows: 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth.'" Let those things, therefore, which were not, be for the sake of coming into being, for the sake of things to come. God the Word was with the Father, through whom all things came to be. Nobly, therefore, the evangelist says (50): "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word." See, a third time, "was," and nowhere is there, "was not." Moreover, the great archangel Gabriel, B when he said to the immaculate and unwedded Theotokos: "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee," he did not say: "The Holy Spirit shall be in thee," or "the power shall be made in thee," but: "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee." The blessed Apostle indicated this with these words: "Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." But to this the Ariomanite will say: "Why then does the Wise Man of the Proverbs (53) say: 'The Lord created me the beginning of his ways for his works'?" O most impious one, have you not heard the archangel (54) saying to the Virgin: "That which is born of thee shall be called holy"? You see that he was speaking concerning the dispensation of the incarnation. C But since the work of the six days had grown old by the transgression of the father of our race, Adam, and our race had fallen into death (56), it pleased God to send to us his own Son, God the Word, and to assume, as I said above, from the intact Virgin a temple, that is, our nature in the transgression; [it pleased] God to send his own Son, God the Word, and to take from the Virgin the human nature, as the Apostle also says: "It pleased God to send forth..."
his Son into the world, born of a woman." Do you see that he is speaking of the incarnation?
A 4. If you wish to hear of the undivided and one divinity, listen to these words of Paul: "Who, being the brightness of his glory and the figure of his substance"; and again he says: "Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant." You see that such expressions concern the incarnation. Nay, the Lord himself says with authoritative voice: "I am in the Father, and the Father in me"; and again he says to Philip: "I and the Father are one." And he says through the great prophet: "See me, that I am, and I have not changed." And again he says: "I went forth from the Father, and I come." And through Jeremiah the Father says: "They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have hewed them out broken cisterns that can hold no water." Was the fountain [there] yesterday and the water today? God forbid! It is always a fountain, always water. Miserable and ungrateful are those Ariomaniacs; for Nabuchodonosor was found better than them—he who, thinking himself to be a god, and having set up his own image in B Babylon, and having cast Ananias, Azarias, and Misael into the furnace of fire; and when the dew-making Word was in their midst, and had driven away the fire, and they were hymning [God]; and Nabuchodonosor came and saw them singing, he said to his servants: "Did we not cast three men into the furnace?" They said: "It is true, O king." And he said to them: "Behold, I see four men, and the fourth is like to the Son of God." O Nabuchodonosor, who made yourself a god, how did you know that he is like to the Son of God? He immediately answered: "He himself pricked me to say these things." Thus Nabuchodonosor was found better than those impious ones who say that the Son is neither similar nor consubstantial. Tell the impious not to blaspheme, but to glorify C and worship in spirit the Word who is truly God, if by chance the impiety of their blasphemy might be forgiven.
5. Since these have been expelled and driven from the divine choir, let us also speak to their brothers, the Pneumatomachi or Tropici, who say that the Holy Spirit is a creature. O Tropic, have you not heard David saying:
A “By the word of the Lord were the heavens established, and all the power of them by the Spirit of his mouth” (Ps. XXXII, 6)? Behold, the Trinity is indivisible. And again, in the creation of the world, the great servant Moses speaks thus: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth; and the earth was invisible and unfinished, and darkness was upon the abyss, and the Spirit of God moved upon the water” (Gen. I, 1, 2). Similarly, the great Paul also says: “God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (Galat. IV, 6). And the Father himself says through the great prophet: “I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and they shall prophesy” (Joel II, 28). And the Lord himself, who came to save our human race, said with authentic voice: “I am in the Father, and the Father in me” (Joan. XIV, 10); and, “I am the truth” (Joan. XIV, 6); and, “If I go to my Father, I will not leave you orphans, but I will send to you the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth” (Joan. XVI, 7). Behold the Spirit in the truth, the truth in the Father. Behold the Trinity indivisible, the threefold cord, with which, binding the sheaves, we offer them to the Father. Therefore, may these men perish along with the Ariomanites, B this threefold cord, in which we bind the sheaves and offer them to the Father. And they too, then, have perished along with the Ariomanites.
6. Let us speak also against the most unhappy Samosatene Paul, who says that from the time when he proceeded from the untouched Virgin, from that time he was called the Son. O senseless man, have you not heard the Lord himself saying to the Jews: “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad” (Joan. VIII, 56)? And when the ungrateful Jews said to the Lord: “Thou art not yet forty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?” he answered them and said: “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was made, I am” (Joan. VIII, 57, 58). If he is, before Abraham was made, on what grounds do you say that he became the Son after his carnal advent? Have you not heard in the Book of Proverbs how Wisdom C herself speaks: “I was she in whom he delighted; daily I rejoiced before his face” (Prov. VIII, 30), when he was establishing the world, I was with him? And again, that great Writer of Proverbs says: “God by wisdom founded the earth” (Prov. III, 19). Do you see that he is always in the Father? And the great Apostle says: “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. I, 24). What does the insane Samosatene answer to these things? He, too, changing this divine wine into water, when he had drunk it, swollen with watery dropsy, perished with the Ariarites D and the Ariomanites.
A 7. Let us now address the most impious Manichæans, the dregs of evils. O most impious Manichæans, do you say that there are two substances, of the good and of the evil? And you say that the evil one, desiring to fight against the good so that he might take some portion, and the good—so you say—being good and not wishing to fight, gave way and conceded some portion to the evil one, and thus the evil one came to have a half-portion, and the good one a half-portion. And then, repenting, you say, the Good came to prepare itself for war, and fashioned itself in the form of the evil one. But, O most impious Manichæan, when the good was whole, you say it did not wish to fight, but when it had become a half, as you say, it came to war. To this end the most impious Manichæan says, that "I have come to seek that which was lost." O, the great folly! Where then is still a token of the good? Especially since it also took on the form of the evil one, according to you. Just as if a painter B were to paint a paterfamilias’s wife in an image in an unseemly manner, and the paterfamilias passing by should see his own wife in an unseemly form, would he not, stirred with anger and full of wrath, destroy the one who dared to do this? How much more [would he] the one saying that [the Good] took on the form of the evil one? Therefore, that whose form one uses is superior to the one using it. These are the bold assertions of foolish and impious men. O most impious dregs of evils, you Manichæan, have you not heard Matthew saying concerning the incarnation: "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham"? But he will answer that I do not accept the Old Testament. And I will say to him: Why do you not accept the Old Testament? Have you not heard the Lord himself saying to the most impious and ungrateful Jews: "If you believed C Moses, you would believe me, for Moses spoke concerning me." What did he speak, O Lord? "The Lord will raise up for you a prophet from your brothers, like me." This prophet the blessed Samaritan woman confessed, saying: "Lord, I perceive that you are a prophet." And even though the blessed Samaritan woman confessed him to be both a man and Lord and a prophet—behold, everywhere both the Law and the prophets, the great and holy ones, confess [him]. How can a cluster of grapes exist without a vine? How can all the transaction and the salvation that was to be in the world be confirmed? Those great heralds, the prophets, and the law will confess, especially with the Lord himself saying that "The law and the prophets were until John." And again: "Do not"
A come to abolish the law or the prophets, but to fulfill [them]. O dregs of all heresies! The mere name is sufficient for them for their faith. Regarding them, the great psalmist David says: "The fool says in his heart: There is no God. They are corrupt and have become abominable in their pursuits," B since they themselves do not confess the incarnate coming, but imagine it to be a phantom, even though the Lord says to the Jews: "Why do you seek to kill me, a man who has spoken the truth to you?" And again, when he said to the minister who struck him: "If I have spoken evil, bear witness to the evil; but if well, why do you strike me?" Can a phantom be struck, or be nailed to the cross? Was it not a body? And how [then] can he say that it was a phantom? Let those who think the divine wine is not mixed also vanish, and having been struck with mental stupor, let them perish.
8. Let us proceed also to Marcion, Valentinus, and Basilides, who says that the Lord passed through the undefiled and ever-virgin Mary as water through a pipe. O most impious men! Have you not heard the great archangel Gabriel saying these things to the immaculate Virgin Mary: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you. The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, that which is born of you will be called Holy." If he had said "through you," they might have had a plausible occasion for their impudence; but in saying "out of you," he declares that God the Word took from her his temple, that is to say, man. And let these men, therefore, be expelled along with these new Jews, or Ariomanites, the enemies of Christ.
9. Likewise, let us address the insane and most unfortunate Hieracas, who wished to extol virginity and spurn marriage. O Hieracas! Let us say something taken from the Law. God, the Word of the Father, in paradise brought Eve to Adam. C But why do you say, "I do not accept the Old Testament"? Be it so; have you not heard in the Gospel that on the third day the Lord reclined at a marriage in Cana of Galilee, and when the wine ran out, he turned water into wine? And again, when the Jews said to him: "Moses gave us a bill of divorce," what did the Lord say to them? "Moses," he said, gave
A you a bill of divorce because of the hardness of your hearts." For it is written: "What God has joined together, let no man put asunder." And then how can a branch stand if the root does not subsist? How can one be a virgin if one has no father and mother? And may these together with their companions perish in destruction.
10. Let us speak now to Novatus, who claims to be pure and thinks to take away repentance. Being filled with mire and stench, have you not heard the most benevolent and philanthropic God of all speaking through the great prophet: "I desire not the death of the sinner, but his repentance"? And again the great Job: "No one is clean from filth, even if his life upon the earth be but one day." And again, when the disciples were saying to the Lord: "How many times shall we forgive the one who sins? Up to seven times?" And the Lord said to them: "Not so, but up to seventy times seven." As the promise is repeated and renewed, the time of repentance lasts eternally; not so that by hearing this we may continue to sin—God forbid!—but that we might show the goodness of the good and philanthropic God of the universe. And again, through the great Isaiah proclaiming to Jerusalem and saying to it: "Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth: I have begotten and exalted sons, but they set me at nought," and the rest. You know, brothers. And after such a threat of his, he adds: "Wash yourselves, be clean; remove the wickednesses B from your souls." O great goodness! And again, when the great Peter said to him, when he asked the disciples saying: "Who do men say that I am?"— "Some said that you are Elijah, others a prophet." And when he himself said to them: "But who do you say that I am?" And answering, Peter said: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," who is coming into the world. And immediately the Lord said to him: "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in the heavens. You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church. I will give you the keys of the C kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind upon earth shall be bound also in the heavens." And when D he had received so many and such great promises,
A he said to the Lord: "I will follow you wherever you go, and I will lay down my life for you." The Lord B immediately said to him: "Amen I say to you, today before the cock crows, you shall deny me three times." And when the Lord was taken away into the house of Caiaphas, and the whole council was present with Caiaphas, and Peter was standing at the gate, whom the servant boy saw and said to him: "Are you not with him?" And Peter said to him: "I am not." And again, the maidservant having asked him: "Are you not also from Galilee?" He answered and said: "I am not." And when the servant probed him, he denied it, and immediately the cock crowed. And the Lord of all things turned and looked upon Peter, and Peter wept, and with tears washed away his denial in his very repentance. B Again the holy prophet said: "The stars are not pure in his sight." If the stars are not pure, why do you call the pure, merciful, and clement God, harsh and unmerciful? And let this man also be cast out with the other heresiarchs.
10. C Now let us speak against the miserable Phrygian, who says that after the coming of the Savior, Montanus and Priscilla have arrived. These are the ravings of old women. How can it be that after the coming of the Savior a prophet should arrive again? Have you not heard that the law and the prophets were until John? Hear, you people of the Lord. Just as a king is about to go to a certain city, he sends messengers to indicate with what trappings he is to arrive; but when he has arrived there, and the citizens know of his arrival as had been indicated, they worship him; there is no longer any need for the one who indicated it, since they see him with their own eyes. Now if anyone in that very city were to say that the king is about to arrive, would not the townsfolk spit upon him, saying: "We have seen him and we have him with us, and why do you say that another is currently arriving?" And these too, therefore, perish with the other heresies.
11. We speak now of the new heresy which flowed from Syria into Egypt, of the Apollinarians, of course; for Apollinarius brought in a novel doctrine, saying that God assumed only a body from the immaculate and ever-virgin Mary, and that God the Word himself stood in place of the soul. O most imperfect and soulless one! If D...
a perfect man committed transgression, and because of this was cast out of paradise and fell into death, he therefore only partially saved man. By what reasoning could the soul be redeemed? Hast thou not heard that great prophet Isaiah, who preaches these things against thy impiety: A “A child is born to us, and a son is given to us, whose government is upon his shoulder, and they shall call his name the Angel of the great counsel” (Isa. ix, 6). He did not say, “Flesh and not a child and a son is born.” Know, O senseless man, that by saying “child,” he designates a perfect man. Since, therefore, the perfect one has been shown, the great evangelist John, the son of thunder, says in simple voice: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was nothing made” (Joan. i, 1, 3). And the Lord himself says: B “Now is my soul troubled” (Joan. xii, 27). To whom does this utterance reach? To God the Word? Away! Would God the Word, who is untroubled, having come to still the trouble, himself utter that voice? But thou wouldst rather say that the body said it? Thou art mistaken; the body is by itself motionless, unless the soul were in it. Hast thou not heard Moses saying: “Show me thyself?” and he immediately hears: “No one shall see my face and live” (Exod. xxxiii, 18, 20). But after the body had been laid in the tomb along with other bodies, how could the Godhead have descended into Hades to save the souls? It would have descended rather to destroy them than to save them. For no one could see the naked Godhead and be saved. Therefore, C there was a need for a soul, so that in the soul, souls might be able to be saved. And again, the Lord himself says: “The good shepherd lays down his soul for the sheep. I am the good shepherd” (Joan. x, 11). And again he says: “I have power to lay down my soul, and again to take it up.” And again, the angel gives an oracle to Joseph in Egypt, and says to him: “Arise, take the child and his mother, for behold, they are dead who were seeking the soul of the child” (Matth. ii, 20). Behold, how it is testified everywhere in the divine Scriptures concerning the coming of the good and philanthropic God the Word, that he donned a perfect temple, a man, having become man, D so that our entire race of men might be saved. But what wilt thou say, that through Isaiah he said to the Jews: “Your new moons and your Sabbaths my soul hateth?” O most foolish one, through the same prophet he said again: “Behold, the Virgin shall have in the womb, and shall bring forth a son; and a child is born, and a son.” And again, that “He is a man, and who shall know him?” To these things what sayest thou, O soulless one? Along with the others, thou also perishest. The Catholic Church, however, [confesses that] having returned from Egypt, says the angel, “They are dead who were seeking the soul of the child.” Behold, it is testified in the divine Scriptures that God the Word took up a perfect man, possessed of soul and mind, so that a perfect man might be saved. But perhaps thou wilt say that through the prophet God says to the Jews: “Your new moons and your Sabbaths my soul hateth.” O most foolish one, through the same prophet he said again: “Behold, the Virgin shall have in the womb, and shall bring forth a son; and a child is born, and a son.” And again, that “He is man, and who shall know him?” To these things what sayest thou, O soulless one? Along with the others, thou also perishest. The Catholic Church.
which reads rightly and examines the divine Scriptures accurately, has built itself upon the rock; it is the perfect dove, holding the rudder of a right and pious faith in the apostolic ship. The surging waves dash against that immovable rock, and turn into foam, and are dissolved, and vanish. Deem, then, all the heresies to be tempests. But we, I pray you, let us bind the sheaves with this threefold and indissoluble cord—that is to say, by keeping the commandments—so that we may reach the saving harbor in the kingdom of the heavens, and the God, the Word, the Son, and Wisdom of the Father, may say: “Behold, I and the children whom Thou hast given me,” B and may deign to say to us also: “Well done, good and faithful servants; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will set thee over many things; enter into the kingdom prepared for you.” C God grant it! Amen.
ADMONITION CONCERNING THE HISTORY OF MELCHISEDEK
It is manifest that this little work is not by Athanasius, but by some most foolish little Greek, who dared to attribute this fiction of his to Athanasius so that he might publish it. Hence we are surprised that a certain learned writer of this age should have wished to attribute so inept a history to Athanasius. For what smacks more of an old woman’s fable than that narrative concerning Melchi, king of Salem, who, when he wished to sacrifice to the gods, ordered his son Melchisedek to bring calves? He destined Melchisedek himself, who resisted, for the sacrifice; he cast lots with his wife to know which of the two sons should be offered for sacrifice: the lot fell upon the firstborn, who was dearest to the father; he is led out to be sacrificed along with five hundred other youths, and on the other side, three hundred more meant to be slaughtered. Saved by the benefit of the lot, Melchisedek prays to God that those who were sacrificing to the gods might be swallowed up, and then, the earth gaping open, the whole city is swallowed up, with not one survivor. Melchisedek withdrew into a dense forest for seven years, where his back became calloused like a tortoise shell, his nails grew to the length of a palm, and similar ravings, which, even if they were not to be openly rejected on other grounds, should be condemned by this alone, that they flagrantly clash with Scripture more than once. Furthermore, towards the end of the little work, discourse is had about the Nicene Synod as if it had been celebrated long ago, and not in the age of this writer, as the wording seems to indicate. Yet this history is old enough, being such as existed in a Royal codex transcribed more than seven hundred years ago. However, there is a great variety among the codices, because each scribe, having seen trifles of this kind, added new trifles to his own liking.