XVIII. An Exhortation Commanding to Avoid the Communion of the Impious Heretics.

Receive ye the penitent, for this is the will of God in Christ. Instruct the catechumens in the elements of religion, and then baptize them. Eschew the antheistical heretics, who are past repentance, and separate them from the faithful, and excommunicate them from the Church of God, and charge the faithful to abstain entirely from them, and not to partake with them either in sermons or prayers: for these are those that are enemies to the Church, and lay snares for it; who corrupt the flock, and defile the heritage of Christ, pretenders only to wisdom, and the vilest of men; concerning whom Solomon the wise said: "The wicked doers pretend to act piously." For, says he, "there is a way which seemeth right to some, but the ends thereof look to the bottom of hell."¹ These are they concerning whom the Lord declared His mind with bitterness and severity, saying that "they are false Christs and false teachers;"² who have blasphemed the Spirit of grace, and done despite to the gift they had from Him after the grace of baptism, "to whom forgiveness shall not be granted, neither in this world nor in that which is to come;"³ who are both more wicked than the Jews and more atheistical than the Gentiles; who blaspheme the God over all, and tread under foot His Son, and do despite to the doctrine of the Spirit; who deny the words of God, or pretend hypocritically to receive them, to the affronting of God, and the deceiving of those that come among them; who abuse the Holy Scriptures, and as for righteousness, they do not so much as know what it is; who spoil the Church of God, as the "little foxes do the vineyard;"⁴ whom we exhort you to avoid, lest you lay traps for your own souls. "For he that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but he that walketh with the foolish shall be known."⁵ For we ought neither to run along with a thief, nor put in our lot with an adulterer; since holy David says: "O Lord, I have hated them that hate Thee, and I am withered away on account of Thy enemies. I hated them with a perfect hatred: they were to me as enemies."⁶ And God reproaches Jehoshaphat with his friendship towards Ahab, and his league with him and with Ahaziah, by Jonah the prophet: "Art thou in friendship with a sinner? Or dost thou aid him that is hated by the Lord?"⁷ "For this cause the wrath of the Lord would be upon thee suddenly, but that thy heart is found perfect with the Lord. For this cause the Lord hath spared thee; yet are thy works shattered, and thy ships broken to pieces."⁸ Eschew therefore their fellowship, and estrange yourselves from their friendship. For concerning them did the prophet declare, and say: "It is not lawful to rejoice with the ungodly,"⁹ says the Lord. For these are hidden wolves, dumb dogs, that cannot bark, who at present are but few, but in process of time, when the end of the world draws nigh, will be more in number and more troublesome, of whom said the Lord, "Will the Son of man, when He comes, find faith on the earth?"¹⁰ and, "Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold;" and, "There shall come false Christs and false prophets, and shall show signs in the heaven, so as, if it were possible, to deceive the elect:"¹¹ from whose deceit God, through Jesus Christ, who is our hope, will deliver us. For we ourselves, as we passed through the nations, and confirmed the churches, curing some with much exhortation and healing words, restored them again when they were in the certain way to death. But those that were incurable we cast out from the flock, that they might not infect the lambs, which were found with their scabby disease, but might continue before the Lord God pure and undefiled, sound and unspotted. And this we did in every city, everywhere through the whole world, and have left to you the bishops and to the rest of the priests this very Catholic doctrine worthily and righteously, as a memorial or confirmation to those who have believed in God; and we have sent it by our fellow-minister Clement, our most faithful and intimate son in the Lord, together with Barnabas, and Timothy our most dearly beloved son, and the genuine Mark, together with whom we recommend to you also Titus and Luke, and Jason and Lucius, and Sosipater.¹²

By whom also we exhort you in the Lord to abstain from your old conversation, vain bonds, separations, observances, distinction of meats, and daily washings: for "old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."¹³