H. Dodwell, Dissertatio Cyprianica de visionibus propheticis

FIRST DISSERTATION

ON SAINT CYPRIAN'S

EIGHTH LETTER,

BY DODWELL,

ON VISIONS, AND HOW THE ANCIENTS ESTABLISHED THE CREDIBILITY OF THEIR VISIONS, ETC.

§ 1. That visions and prophetic gifts continued from the times of the Apostles down to Cyprian, [shown] from the author of the Apocalypse, from Hermas. — § 2. From Clement of Rome and the author of the apocryphal Esdras. — § 3. From Ignatius. — § 4. From Quadratus, the daughters of Philip, Ammia of Philadelphia and Polycarp. — § 5. From Justin Martyr. — § 6. From Melito of Sardis, Alexander the Phrygian, Attalus, and others. — § 7. From Irenaeus. — § 8. From Perpetua and Saturus. That they were not Montanists. — § 9. It is not true that the pretext of prophecies was left to the Montanists by the Church. — § 10. On the contrary, after the reign of Commodus the catholics refuted the prophecies of the Montanists by this very argument, that the gift of true prophecy was to be perpetual in the Church, whereas among the Montanists it had already been extinguished. — § 11. So Asterius Urbanus, Epiphanius. — § 12, 13. The author of the Acts of Perpetua and Felicity. — § 14. The visions of Natalis and Potamiaena, and concerning Alexander of Jerusalem and Fabian of Rome, who were to be made bishops. — § 15. Origen acknowledges prophecies. — § 16. The testimony of Gregory of Nyssa concerning Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus is set aside. — § 17. A vision of Dionysius of Alexandria. — § 18, 19, 20, 21. Visions of Cyprian himself. — § 22. Another vision of Dionysius of Alexandria. — § 23. Visions were customarily announced openly, and that before the event. — § 24. How fraud under the pretext of visions was guarded against. — § 25, 26, 27. On the arguments, especially the intrinsic ones, by which the credibility of visions was proved. The gift of laying bare thoughts. — § 28, 29, 30. [The gift] of foretelling things to come. Things to come which would not otherwise exceed created powers could nevertheless not be foretold by any other than God, on the principles of that age. — § 31. It comes to the same, whether they were revealed by God Himself immediately or by some intermediate creature. — § 32. The agreement of this hypothesis with the phenomena is an argument of its truth. — § 33. How from the credibility of some prophecies they established the credibility of others. — § 34. Not everything of the true prophets was prophetic. — § 35, 36, 37. Some errors of prophets are consistent with true prophecy, and which these are. — § 38. The truth of a prophecy was proved by the unity of the communion to which the prophet had joined himself. — § 39. Those whose prophecies were all obscure, their credibility could not be commended otherwise than from the unity of communion

— § 40. Visions were proper to the young. — § 41, 42. What is to be thought of those who have held those prophecies of the ancients in derision.

§ 1. — The reader is not to expect here a compilation of the rabbis, or of others who have treated of prophecy and prophetic visions. We shall select only those things which have been passed over by the learned, or not yet sufficiently noticed, so far as I know, which nevertheless will seem to carry some weight for the history of the age with which we are dealing.

The learned therefore do wrong who drag whatever they read in the authors of that age about visions to Montanus and the Montanists, as though visions had failed in the Church from the very times of the apostles, and every pretext of them had been suspect and disapproved in the church, and left to the Montanists alone. There is no reason at all why they should think so. Rather, in all that interval, from the apostles down to Cyprian, the use of visions was continuous, and always approved by the Church. Towards the end of the first century was written the Apocalypse which we have, whether by the apostle or perhaps by John the presbyter, which nevertheless is wholly occupied with the subject of visions. About the same time Hermas wrote his Pastor, for that he wrote under Clement is clear from the first book of the Visions, n. 2. Nor need we linger over those more recent testimonies, all of doubtful credit, of the Pontifical, of the poems against Marcion, or of the letters which bear the name of Pius, to Justus of Vienne. Since his work consists of three books, the first bears the title of Visions, and is wholly on that subject. In the second, too, he treats expressly of the distinction between true and false prophets and spirits (Mandates 11, 12). To what purpose that, unless he had believed that the gifts of true prophets also had remained in the Church up to that time? Blondel calls him a masked prophet and dreamer, a whirlpool of Montanist superstitions (Apology for the Opinion of Jerome, p. 16, 17). Yet the same man in the same place, after his manner, has heaped up the highly honourable praises of fathers who thought otherwise, and indeed of men most estranged from Montanist superstitions. Thus nothing Montanist could they find in him

fathers contemporary with the Montanists, who were also the first to condemn those superstitions. Let the reader who loves antiquity judge whom he ought rather to trust.

§ 2. — We have said that Clement of Rome was contemporary with Hermas, and likewise a patron of the prophetic gifts. For that the authors of the schism prided themselves on gifts of this kind is easily gathered from those words of his: "Let a man be faithful, let him be able to utter knowledge, let him be wise in the just judgement (Clement of Alexandria reads 'discernment', and more correctly) of words" (1 Ep. to the Corinthians, § 48; and from Asterius Urbanus, book 5, ch. 17). These names look to nothing other than the prophetic gifts of those times. That "faith" in which they could glory was no other than that faith of miracles which the Apostle calls "the word of faith", in which place the gifts of the Holy Spirit are called "words" by him. "Knowledge" was not any knowledge whatever, but that knowledge of mysteries which in the heretics who prided themselves on that name the same Apostle calls "knowledge falsely so called". Likewise "wisdom", which he also names "the word of wisdom". "Discernment of words" is the same as "discernment of spirits", in which sense we have said that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are called "words". Unless perhaps we understand "of words" for "of thoughts", in which sense also we shall interpret "discernment of spirits" of the revelation of thoughts. Perhaps the author of the apocryphal books of Esdras was contemporary with these times, the far greatest part of which is made up of visions and revelations of that kind.

§ 3. — Next is Ignatius, in whom these carping critics of antiquity find fault with this very thing, that he is more favourable to these prophetic gifts than they would wish. In § 7 of the Epistle to the Philadelphians he recalls his own prophecy, and calls God Himself to witness that it was truly revealed to him: "For even if some (he says) wished to deceive me according to the flesh, yet the spirit is not deceived, being from God. For it knows whence it comes and whither it goes, and it exposes hidden things. I cried out while I was among you, I spoke with a loud voice: Give heed to the bishop, and to the presbytery, and to the deacons. But those who [suspected] me as though I said these things knowing beforehand the division of certain persons. And my witness is (more correctly the interpolated edition, with the old Ussherian translator also in support: 'But if you suspect me of saying these things as having learned beforehand the division of certain persons, my witness is') He in Whom I am bound, that I did not know it from human flesh. But the spirit proclaimed, saying these things: Without the bishop," etc. The same [writes] these words about his gifts of that kind in § 4 of the Epistle to the Trallians: "Am I not able to write heavenly things? But I fear lest I should do you harm, being babes; and bear with me, lest, not being able to receive them, you be choked. For I too, not because [I am bound], and am able [to understand] heavenly things, and the angelic orders, and the ranks of the principalities, things visible and invisible, am already on that account also a disciple." Nor indeed was Ignatius unique in this matter, as will be established from other monuments of that age.

§ 4. — Ignatius was next followed by Quadratus, who dedicated an apology for the Christians to Hadrian. Eusebius writes (Eccl. Hist. 3.37) that he too, together with the daughters of Philip whom St Luke calls prophetesses, was distinguished by the prophetic grace. And indeed that they reached as far as these times, those of Philip

daughters, is probable from the things which Polycrates wrote to Victor. Ammia of Philadelphia, herself also a prophetess, continued the succession of Quadratus up to the rise of Montanus (Asterius Urbanus in Eusebius, as above). That a prophetic omen concerning his own martyrdom was granted to Polycarp, the Smyrnaeans themselves, witnesses beyond exception, testify in the letter which they sent to the Philomelians about his martyrdom. These same men call him an apostolic and also a prophetic teacher, and confess that nothing was foretold by him that was not confirmed by the outcome. (In Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 4.15.) 'For every word which he sent forth from his mouth both was accomplished,' they say, 'and will be accomplished.' Our most learned [bishop] of Chester holds, and indeed with the greatest likelihood, that he suffered in the year 147.

§ 5. — Eusebius has the same about Justin Martyr. 'He writes,' he says, 'that even down to his own time prophetic gifts shone forth' (Eccl. Hist. 4.18). Rightly indeed. These are Justin's words to Trypho: 'For among us even until now there are prophetic gifts; from which you yourselves ought to understand that those which were formerly in your race have been transferred to us.' (Dialogue with Trypho, p. 308, B.) He afterwards used the same argument against the Jews, that after the coming of Christ there had been none among the Jews, and on this he appeals to their own senses as witnesses: 'that no longer would prophets arise in your race according to the ancient custom; which indeed you can see with your own eyes. For after him no prophet at all has arisen among you.' (Page 314, C, D.) And that they remained among the Christians of his own time too he confirms by the testimony of the same senses, using the same word 'to see': 'and among us too one can see both women and men having gifts from the Spirit of God.' (Page 315, B.) It was therefore as manifest that the Christians had prophets as that the Jews had lost them. Each was so manifest that it could serve as an argument against an adversary. And the Apostle used the same form of argument, Gal. 3:2; for by 'the spirit' the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit are understood.

§ 6. — Towards the end of Marcus['s reign] we have that encomium by Polycrates on Melito of Sardis, that, inspired by the Holy Spirit, he did all things: 'who conducted his whole life in the Holy Spirit' (In Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 5.24). In the same persecution Alexander the Phrygian is said to be 'not without a share in the apostolic gift' (From the letter of [the churches of] Lyons and Vienne, in Eusebius, 5.1). That this prophetic [gift] is to be included in that apostolic grace we have already seen from a similar passage of the Smyrnaeans about Polycarp, where these two are joined together (In Eusebius, ibid., 3). The Gallican Church records a revelation made to Attalus concerning Alcibiades. And Eusebius is the authority that the frequent prophecies of others in various churches lent credibility to those Montanist pretexts about prophecy. For he says thus: 'Very many wonderful works of the divine gift, being still at that time performed in various churches, produced among many the belief that those men too prophesied' (Eusebius, ibid., ch. 4). Thus this pretext was not yet peculiar to the Montanists, as the learned have hitherto supposed.

§ 7. Irenaeus says the same of that age, that is, of his own age too (Iren., book 2, ch. 58), whose words Eusebius has preserved for us in Greek: "And some also have foreknowledge of things to come, and visions and prophetic utterances" (in Euseb., Eccl. Hist. 5.7). This he presses as an argument against the heretics. The same author elsewhere: Where the Church is, there is also the Spirit, and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and every grace (Iren., book 3, ch. 40). He denies that any count can be made of the gifts which the Church had worked in his time: "It is not possible to tell the number of the gifts which the Church throughout the whole world, having received them from God in the name of Jesus Christ, Who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, performs each day for the benefit of the nations" (Iren., book 2, ch. 58; in Euseb., ibid.). From this we also understand how common these things were. And lest we should suspect that Irenaeus could have been deceived here, he adds this too, that he had related these things not merely on the faith of others, but as things which he had himself taken in with his own ears: "And we hear many brethren in the Church who have prophetic gifts, and who speak through the Spirit in all kinds of tongues, and who bring to light the hidden things of men for their profit, and who set forth the mysteries of God" (in Euseb., ibid.). What could be said more plainly than this?

§ 8. I do not cite the testimonies of Tertullian, for the reason that Rigaltius makes him suspect of Montanism, and he does not deny that examples of prophetic visions occur quite frequently in his works. There is also another testimony contemporary with Tertullian, which is by no means to be passed over: that of the Acts of Perpetua and Felicity. There we have visions of Perpetua and of Saturus; and indeed written down and recorded by the very hands of the martyrs, African ones too, and framed quite after the pattern of those of Cyprian. We have also the preface of a contemporary author, in which he proves and commends the use of visions of this kind from the prophecy of Joel. It is strange that the most learned editor should infer from this that the writer, and even the martyrs themselves, favoured the Montanists. It is not at all likely, had this been true, that they would have been reckoned in the roll of the martyrs, and that their memory would also have been honoured in the Catholic Church. For the most distinguished [bishop] of Chester has proved from the same Tertullian that the opinion denying martyrdom to schismatics was not introduced by Cyprian, but had been received in Africa as far back as Tertullian himself. And we shall show presently that the passages which learned men draw in here were composed against the Montanists rather than in accordance with their opinion.

§ 9. For what they think, namely that the pretext of prophecies was left to the Montanists by the Church, is not true. For the Catholics had neither held Montanus or his silly women for true prophets, nor did they believe that the succession of prophets in the Church would ever fail. The Catholics had taught both points against the Montanists, and by either of them they can very easily be distinguished from the writers of the Montanists. They attributed those prophecies of the Montanists not to a good spirit but to an evil one; hence that complaint of his in Eusebius (Euseb., Eccl. Hist. 5.16, from Asterius Urbanus), that he was held to be a wolf, though he was in fact a lamb. Accordingly Zoticus, when Maximilla first pretended to prophesy,

wished to take on the office of an exorcist and to deal with her as one possessed by a demon, had he not been restrained by others, says Apollonius (in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5.18). Concerning Sotas the same thing is attested by Aelius Publius Julius, bishop of the colony of Develtum, in Serapion, from Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book 5, ch. 19. Concerning the aforesaid Zoticus of Comana, bishop, and Julian of Apamea, Asterius Urbanus in Eusebius, ibid., 5.16 (in Eusebius, ibid., ch. 16, 17, 18). This the catholics gathered from the various marks by which true prophets were to be distinguished from the Enthusiasts: that Montanus had smeared his eyebrows and hair with paint; that he had established salaries for his prophets and a kind of trade under that pretext; that his little women had left their husbands when they took upon themselves the office of prophetesses; that they too were wholly bent on avarice and on scraping together money by any art whatever; that they had taught contrary to the custom of the Church handed down by tradition and by succession from above; but above all that that profane spirit had driven them into madness, which the Catholics believed had never happened to true prophets. This argument above all gave Tertullian the occasion of writing On Ecstasy against Apollonius.

§ 10. — But the catholics also used against them that other argument which we have mentioned, seizing this handle. Maximilla had foretold of herself that after her there would be no other prophetess, but the consummation. Her words in Epiphanius are these: "After me there will no longer be a prophetess, but the consummation" (Epiphanius, Heresies 48, § 2). These words indeed persuade me to agree with the opinion of Blondel, not that all those Sibylline oracles which are extant today were fabricated by the Montanists, but at least some of them. For there this end, or consummation, of the world is put off to the reign of Marcus. And it is most likely that Marcellina died towards the end of that reign. For since Asterius Urbanus counts from her death to the year in which he was writing thirteen years, or the fourteenth begun (in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5.16, 17), the learned judge that this can be referred more fittingly to no other time than the reign of Commodus. The catholics, on the other hand, think that they were to be convicted of a false pretence of prophecy even from this, that by their own admission an end of their prophecy was at some time to be fixed; whereas true prophecy would be perpetual and would in fact endure right up to the consummation of the world. So they understood the Apostle, if I am not mistaken, in that passage (Eph. 4:11–13); so the prophets, chiefly, I think, that passage of Joel which we mentioned. By this reasoning they were so far from denying the prophecies of their own times that in whatever Church there had been no prophets, it was not even to be held for a Church.

§ 11. — So Asterius Urbanus argued: "For if, after Quadratus and Ammia in Philadelphia, as they say, the women around Montanus succeeded to the prophetic gift, let them show who among them succeeded those from Montanus and the women; for the Apostle holds that the prophetic gift must be in the whole Church until the final coming" (in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5.17). So Epiphanius: "For if it is necessary that gifts

be received, and there must be gifts in the church, how is it that after Montanus, and Priscilla, and Maximilla they no longer have prophets? Has grace then become idle? But grace is not idle in the holy church. God forbid. But if those who prophesied prophesied up to a certain time, and prophesy no longer; yet neither Priscilla nor Maximilla prophesied after (write 'according to') the prophecies approved in the holy church through the holy Apostles" (Haer. 48, § 2). Plainly these things do not suit the age of Epiphanius, in which it was already acknowledged that these gifts had not continued so far. I think, therefore, that he copied these things unskilfully from some more ancient writer.

§ 12.—To the same pattern argues that ancient author of the Acts of Perpetua and Felicity, whoever he was, a contemporary of the martyrs. When, having adduced the passage of Joel, he had proved that the prophecies of the New Testament are so far from falling short of those of the Old Testament that, on the contrary, greater ones are rather to be expected under the New Testament, he then adds these words to the purpose I have mentioned: « And so we too, who acknowledge and honour new visions, promised alike just as the prophecies were, and reckon the other powers of the Holy Spirit as belonging to the equipment of the Church, to which also the same Spirit was sent, administering all gifts in all, as the Lord has distributed to each one, of necessity both set them in order and celebrate them by reading to the glory of God. So that no weakness or despair of faith may suppose that the grace of the Godhead dwelt only among the ancients, whether in the vouchsafing of martyrs or of revelations: since God always works what He has promised, as a testimony to unbelievers, as a benefit to believers (In the Preface). » The whole of that discussion aims entirely at this: that it should not be to the prejudice of the visions of the age that God deigned to reveal them in the last times of the Church. That this might not be so, he took it upon himself to prove that they belong especially to the last times, and are always to be expected right up to the consummation. These words might perhaps seem to have been said against the heathen; they might also seem said against the Montanists. I should rather believe them said against the Montanists, because what he had said he confirmed by the testimony of the Scriptures. It is certainly plain that what he had here put forward was acknowledged among his own people, which could by no means have been written by a Montanist.

§ 13.—For let it be noted first that these things were written by the author in the year of the Lord 202, that is, about the 23rd year from the death of Maximilla; for we have said that she died in the last year of Marcus, that is, A.D. 179. Yet if she had been a true prophetess, no other prophet was any longer to be expected. He, therefore, who still expected others, and thought they were always to be expected, cannot possibly have held her for a true prophetess, and consequently could not have been a Montanist. For although that heresy was afterwards divided into various sects, yet in this they all agreed, that those first silly women were to be acknowledged as prophetesses. Let it be noted secondly that, even if we interpret the words of Maximilla in the most kindly sense, and understand them of women prophetesses, not of men prophets, not even so could this preface have been written by a Montanist. For it was Perpetua the prophetess's

visions that he was going to embrace; although it is certain that this interpretation cannot be accommodated to the mind of Maximilla. For she who had said that after her there would be the consummation (συντέλεια) must of necessity have excluded all use of prophecy altogether. 3. Since Asterius Urbanus had used this very argumentation, at least ten years before, in refuting that sect, who would believe that a patron of the sect would use the same argumentation? 4. It is also established from the same Urbanus that they in fact ended their whole succession of prophets in Maximilla, and did not admit any other successor whatever after her. Using the same argumentation, Epiphanius (Haer. 48, § 2) confirms that after her death no one else was acknowledged by the Montanists down to his own time. It cannot be, therefore, that a Montanist enrolled Saturus and Perpetua in the register of prophets. This at least the reader must concede from that argumentation of the others, so that he should argue thus, that [the author] is not on that account to be reckoned a Montanist. Nor indeed do those men, certainly learned, who think otherwise bring forward anything else. I know indeed, and gladly concede, that in this whole argumentation about the perpetuity of prophecies the ancients were deluded; nor does it serve to diminish their authority that we acknowledge other and frequent errors of that kind. For they had no other foundation for their opinion than those texts which we have mentioned; whether they argued rightly from them is a question not of their testimony but of judgement, in which they have no support from their antiquity. But what I infer from this, namely that they in fact acknowledged prophecies in their own age too, will now turn on a matter of fact, concerning which their testimony will be most certain for their own age.

§ 14.—But that the discourse may return to the point from which it digressed: in the same persecution of Severus in which Perpetua and Felicity suffered, other examples of visions also occurred (Anonymous author against the heresy of Artemon, in Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 5.28). First of all, that of the confessor Natalis under the Roman pontiff Zephyrinus, by which he was called back from the heresy of Artemon to the Catholic Church (Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 6.5). Then others of Potamiaena, by which not only Basilides but also many other Alexandrians were converted to the Christian faith. Besides these, other revelations and visions, by the first of which Alexander was commanded to migrate from Cappadocia into Palestine (Eusebius, ibid., ch. 11), the second and third with a heavenly voice, which the Jews call בת קל, by which the people of Jerusalem together with their bishop were admonished to admit the same Alexander to the episcopate. Under Maximinus or Gordian, Fabian was made bishop by divine revelation (Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 6.29), the Holy Spirit having descended upon him in the appearance of a dove, in exactly the same form in which He had descended upon the Saviour.

§ 15.— Under Gordian, or rather perhaps under Philip, Origen seems to have written his books against Celsus; for that στάσις (strife) which he mentions on p. 120 is not to be referred to the state (Book 3, Against Celsus), as the translator thought, but rather to the sects of the Christians

Now the Christians had not suffered persecution "for a rather long time", which he also says took place "long ago". He seems altogether to denote that long peace which Cyprian mentions (On the Lapsed); namely, the interval from the persecution of Severus to that of Decius. And that at this time the prophetic gifts flourished among the Christians, he himself is a witness most worthy of credit concerning his own time, who also disposes of the whole matter of the prophetic gifts in a few words: "Neither have any of those foreign to the faith done anything like the prophets, nor are any more recent persons, after the sojourn of Jesus, recorded to have prophesied among the Jews. For it is acknowledged that the Holy Spirit has abandoned them, since they acted impiously against God and against Him Who was foretold by the prophets among them" (Book 7, p. 337). Justin Martyr says the same above concerning the Jews. And Origen continues: "Signs of the Holy Spirit were shown at the beginning of the teaching of Jesus, and after His ascension more, but later fewer. Yet even now there are still traces of Him among a few, who have had their souls purified by the Word and by the actions in accordance with it." That he says only traces remained in his own time, he no doubt looked back to those first beginnings of Christian worship at Pentecost, and he meant that, whereas these gifts which we have called prophetic were once common to Christians of every order under the apostles, they had now become proper only to illustrious Christians and those of the first merit.

§ 16. — Even that single life of Gregory Thaumaturgus, the disciple of Origen, written by the Nyssene, would furnish an ample argument here, were I not afraid that I might detract credit from records of more certain credit if I were to heap up the less certain as well. The Nyssene drew those things not from contemporary records but rather for the most part from oral tradition, and that handed down from an interval of no less than one generation at the least. If he had received them in person, and had not represented the deed to posterity otherwise than it was done, that is, enlarged by his own reasonings and conjectures, I would certainly not see why assent should be denied to the Nyssene, or to any man of proven credit. But such are the things which we have brought forward so far, and which we shall bring forward hereafter.

§ 17. — Therefore let his place be supplied by another fellow-disciple of his under Origen, Dionysius of Alexandria. Towards the end of Philip, when a persecution was breaking upon Alexandria through the assault of the populace raging against the Christians, he was ordered by a divine warning to flee, and [God] also opened to him a way of flight beyond expectation. So he says of himself in his letter to Germanus: "God having commanded me to depart, and having wonderfully made a way," etc. (in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.40). That these things are true, he calls God Himself as witness: "And I speak also before God, and He Himself knows that I do not lie; I made my flight not by deciding anything on my own, nor without God." What shall we do here? Shall we not believe a most holy man even under oath?

§ 18. — We have now come down to the very times of Cyprian, and if we consult his testimonies alone, there will surely be no reason for us to doubt that there were visions and other prophecies, nor that these were also most truthful. In this very letter which we are treating he mentions a vision shown long before the storm of that devastation arose, which

he had already understood beforehand would come. And indeed that revelation concerning the lack of unanimity was such as the Apostle described, by which even the hidden things of the hearts would be made manifest. There was also another revelation which he says was entrusted to the least servant (by that word he had doubtless denoted himself): say to him, it says, let him be secure, because peace is coming. They were already far from the hope of peace when Cyprian wrote these things. Yet he did not on that account think it should be kept hidden; on the contrary, he thought that this very letter should be read to the brethren. Thus it is evident that he was certain of the outcome, that what had been promised would nonetheless come to pass.

When persecution arose he withdrew. This too, just as we have shown that Dionysius did it, so it is evident that Cyprian likewise did it at God's direction. "And you will hear everything," he says, "when the Lord has brought me back to you, He Who ordered me to withdraw" (Ep. 10). The same in Ep. 15, and Pontius at length in his life of him. The presbyters had rashly granted peace to the lapsed without consulting him. Concerning this too, what he should do, he had God as his adviser: "And so the divine censure does not cease to chastise us, neither by night nor by day. For besides visions at night, by day also the innocent age of boys among us is filled with the Holy Spirit, which in ecstasy sees with the eyes, and hears, and speaks those things by which the Lord deigns to warn and instruct us." As for the five presbyters, patrons of the lapsed, what disturbances they caused is evident everywhere from his letters. This too had been revealed to him beforehand by the Lord in a heavenly vision. "This is," he says, "another persecution and another temptation; and these five presbyters are nothing other than those five leading men who were recently joined with the magistrates in the edict" (Ep. 40). So Pamelius understood it, and rightly, as it seems: "He seems to me to allude to some vision in which five leading men seem to have appeared with the magistrates, publishing together an edict against the bishops."

§ 19. — That second persecution of their time, under Gallus and Volusianus, they had already learned beforehand by divine revelation, and they judged that the people should be warned about it in letters still extant. Thus Cyprian to the people of Thibaris: "For since we are quite often urged by the condescension of the Lord instructing us, and are warned more fully, we ought to bring the concern of our warning to your knowledge as well. For you ought to know, and to believe and hold for certain, that the day of affliction has begun to be over our heads" (Ep. 56), etc. Then, after a few words in between: "Nor let us think that the things which are coming are such as were those which have passed. A heavier and fiercer battle now threatens," etc. Again the same Cyprian with the synod to Cornelius: "But since we see that the day of another assault has begun to draw near again, and we are warned by frequent and constant showings that we should be armed and ready for the contest which the enemy declares against us, and should also prepare by our exhortations the people entrusted to us by the divine condescension, etc." (Ep. 54). Afterwards: "For one must obey just showings and warnings, so that the sheep may not be deserted by the shepherds in danger, etc." Again: "It has seemed good to us, with the Holy Spirit prompting and the Lord through visions

many and manifest, warning, since the enemy is foretold and shown to be impending over us, to gather the soldiers of Christ within the camp, etc." Atheists perhaps will not believe these things. But what do they have on account of which they should not judge them worthy of belief? We have visions here, not only many but also manifest; and these not fabricated after the event, but truly foretold beforehand and confirmed by the event; and that not on the obscure credit of some private person, but by the concurring vote of a whole synod, and set down in eternal monuments that would have remained as a record of the matter had they been false, and in writings brighter, as Jerome says, than the sun; I do not see what more they could want for proving the matter of fact, if only they were willing to judge fairly and not to deny all credence whatever to men.

§ 20. — So familiar to Cyprian were visions of this kind that he received them even in the exercise of ecclesiastical discipline, and expected others thereafter. Thus he says of Florentius Pupianus that it would be possible, "if he had made the fullest satisfaction, for them to take account of communion with him, there remaining, however," he says (Ep. 69), "with us regard for and fear of the divine censure; so that I may first consult my Lord whether He permits peace to be given to you and you to be admitted to the communion of His Church, by His showing and admonition. For I remember what has already been shown to me, nay rather what has been commanded to an obedient and fearing servant by divine and dominical authority; Who among the other things which He deigned to show and reveal added this also" (these were doubtless the words of Christ in the vision which he appends): "therefore whoever does not believe Christ when He makes a priest, will afterwards begin to believe Him when He avenges a priest." So frequent were divine revelations in that age that he did not dare to promise, even concerning a repentant Pupianus, what he would decide, lest perhaps something else should be commanded by God; so that he indicated that God was accordingly to be consulted first, so that in the end he expected God's punishment upon the rebel, plainly such as is acknowledged among the learned to have been the companion of apostolic censures. Again, concerning the presbyters who, without consulting him, had communicated with the lapsed: "I shall use," he says, "that admonition by which the Lord bids me that meanwhile they be prohibited from offering, etc. (Ep. 10)."

§ 21. — Thus it is established that all matters of weightier moment, at least those which concerned the public state of the Church, were foretold by visions of this kind. Celerinus the confessor was designated reader by Cyprian (Ep. 34). When he for his part, out of his humility, hesitated to consent to the Church, he was compelled by the admonition and exhortation of God Himself in a vision by night not to refuse. Nor was there lacking that by which the most holy man was warned of his own martyrdom, a dream indeed, but a prophetic one, and truly most manifest. On the very first day on which he stayed at the place of his exile at Curubis, his death, and indeed the very kind of his martyrdom, were represented by a prophetic symbol. He asked for and received a delay of one day, until he should dispose of his affairs by lawful arrangement, perhaps [leaving] them to the Church. That day, according to the prophetic idiom of Daniel and the Apocalypse, signified a year. And the outcome answered most exactly. For on that very day

after a full year had passed, Pontius relates, he was crowned, [the day] on which this had been shown to him a year before (Pontius, in the Life of Cyprian). What do we doubt here? The dream? But Pontius, a member of his household and the companion of his exile, had it from Cyprian himself. Pontius? But even before the day of the martyrdom it had become known to all, so that Pontius could not have invented anything, even had he wished it ever so much. 'For in the meantime,' he says, 'the impending passion was known for certain by all (Pontius, ibid.).' What of the fact that Pontius published these things at a time when the memory of Cyprian was still fresh, when many enemies of Cyprian still survived who were hostile to his name, pagans, the lapsed, rivals, even heretics themselves? Do they think it likely, then, that these men slept, and would pass over the story of the event, if it were false, when it was so easy to refute? The trustworthiness of the dream, then? But the outcome, most manifest and beyond all exception, confirmed it. Therefore, even if those other testimonies, so explicit, which we have seen concerning the use of visions, had been lacking, yet the Cyprianic visions alone would have sufficed for proving themselves, and indeed for commending the whole cause of Christian worship.

§ 22. — In the last times of Cyprian, namely in the pontificate of Xystus, that Dionysius of Alexandria whom we mentioned above records a vision through which, he says, it came about that he was confirmed in the reading of the books of heretics. For thus he writes in the letter to Philemon, presbyter of the Roman Church: 'A vision sent by God came to me and strengthened me, and a word that came to me commanded me expressly, saying: Read everything that may come into your hands, for you are able to set each thing right and to test it; and this was for you from the beginning the cause of your faith also' (in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 7.7). From the end of these times of Dionysius Eusebius takes the beginning of his own times (Ecclesiastical History 7.32). Since he thought it worth noting in his history how far the succession of prophetic gifts had continued, he surely implies that by his own time it had failed. And indeed it was only after the times of Constantine that the reason for its failure was first sought by the doctors, although even so they did not acknowledge the complete failure of those gifts. But I think that there was no one earlier than Constantine who believed that they had failed, much less that he thought one must labour over the reason for the failure.

§ 23. — This too is to be noted, which indeed contributes very greatly to the commendation of the visions of that age: that although they were granted by night and to those asleep, for the most part, yet they were not kept reserved merely within the secrets of private persons, but were announced openly and in the face of the Church at the first opportunity. It is established that this was observed from the very times of the apostles. Those prophecies which the epistle to the Corinthians mentions belonged entirely to the assemblies of the church. Hence the great confusion of those assemblies: that several spoke at once and did not wait their turns for prophesying; that they exercised those gifts by which the Church could not be edified, as those did who used the gift of tongues without the gift of interpreting; that women also, prophetesses namely, in the assemblies of men, contrary to the decorum of their sex, and that without

veils, with their hair perhaps let loose, after the manner of the Sibyls, they prophesied. In no other way did Agabus foretell that world-wide famine which happened under the rule of Claudius; yet, warned by that prediction, immediately, before the famine itself had come, they gave relief with money, in quite the same way in which we have already seen Cyprian meeting a persecution likewise foretold while it was still in the future (Acts 11:28–30). For public calamities were for the most part the subject of prophecies of this kind, or at least those of public persons. Agabus foretold these bonds of St Paul, Acts 21:10-11. Other disciples also foretold them, v. 4; the spirit foretold them city by city, chap. 20:23, that is, as I judge, the spiritual men of the individual churches, which even in that age were distributed according to cities. Thus, finally, the errors of the last times were foretold (1 Tim. 4): by 'spirit' in that place too I understand the prophets of the assemblies, of whom, when he says that they foretold these things expressly, he means precisely this, that these things were foretold in plain words, contrary to the usual manner of prophecies, which were for the most part wrapped in symbols most difficult to understand. This at least is most likely, that no prophecies of private persons were received who had not proved themselves to public examination. Thus we have certainly seen that Ignatius exercised his office in public. The prophets of the same century were commanded to write their prophecies for public use: St John, pseudo-Esdras, who wished to put on the character of a true prophet, and Hermas. In Cyprian's time too they communicated their visions openly and before the face of the Church. We have already shown that that vision of his in exile became known to all, as did also those concerning the imminent persecution. And this is gathered from the very mention of the visions, which is indeed most abrupt, both in this letter, and in letter 40 concerning the five presbyters, and in letter 69 concerning Florentius Pupianus. Thus he certainly touched on them briefly, and never sets out any of them in order, as though he were mentioning a matter already most well known to all, and which therefore needed no narration.

§ 24.— Since this was so, it seemed already very well provided that no deceits of forgers should impose upon the faithful. For in the first place none could be admitted to this office except those whose reputation was excellent, and whose life was most far removed from all suspicion of fraud and cunning. Thus it came about that, with all suspicion of the prophet removed, judgement had to be made only of his prophecy. And for this office of judging to be performed as accurately as possible, there were also excellent safeguards in public. For other prophets were present, and judges of the prophets were present too, who were equipped with the gift of discerning the Spirit, themselves also doubtless of the most unblemished reputation. If he conflicted with any of these, since it was admitted that the same Spirit of God cannot be contrary to Himself, it plainly followed that there was then room for suspicion. For although it was certain that all the gifts of the divine Spirit were equally infallible, yet this too was certain, that as regards what they call the motives of credibility, the arguments why one should be believed inspired were more certain than why others should; and that it was just that he who was less credible should be judged by the more credible. Also, so far as frauds

are a matter of suspicion, the age of the boys whom we have already seen prophesying in Cyprian's time was utterly remote [from it].

§ 25.— Fraud, then, being ruled out, there were nevertheless other arguments available by which that prophecy might be proved to have flowed forth from God as its author. For either the prophet confirmed that he had been sent by God by performing some other miracle, which the writers of the Old Testament call the sign of a prophet; or he proved by arguments intrinsic to the prophecy that it had issued from God. If he wished to commend himself by a miracle, he would have to possess another gift, which, however, according to the economy of the Gospel, is not necessary. Of the intrinsic arguments, however, which aimed chiefly at proving that that revelation surpassed the powers of nature and was therefore to be attributed to the Author of nature alone, there were two kinds. For they brought to light either the hidden thoughts of men or future contingent things. Each of these, especially according to the principles of that age, was proper to God alone and surpassed all the powers of creatures. The former, indeed, because He alone is the καρδιογνώστης, the searcher of things and of hearts, to Whom all things are naked and laid bare. Hence no one could search out the secrets of God except the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2:11). The Apostle also calls the Spirit the discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Heb. 4:12). Whoever, therefore, had laid open the thoughts of others was, where all suspicion of fraud had been ruled out, believed to have been inspired by none other than the divine Spirit.

§ 26.— That there were, moreover, among the πνευματικοί of the Church some who were endowed with that gift too is clear from the Apostle, 1 Cor. 14:24-25: "But if," he says, "all prophesy, and some unbeliever or unlearned person comes in, he is convicted by all, he is judged by all. For the hidden things of his heart are made manifest; and so, falling on his face, he will worship God, declaring that God is truly among you." In this example of the unbeliever it was certain that nothing could have been done by prearrangement, so that it was therefore most certain that whoever thus made his thoughts manifest had learned them from no other source than the inspiration of the divine Spirit. Frequent mention of this grace is made in the history of the Saviour (Matt. 9:2, 4; 12:25; Luke 5:22; 6:8; 11:17), from Whom the Church received grace for grace. St Peter made use of the same in the case of Ananias and Sapphira, as also in that of Simon Magus. Of Simon he speaks thus: Your heart is not right before God (Acts 8:21). And again: For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. St Paul [did so] still more in the case of Elymas (Acts 13:9–10). For he, being full of the Holy Spirit, rebuked not only that deed of Elymas but also his deceitful nature, although he had been unknown to him before. We have also seen Ignatius make use of it, when he was the first to bring to light the secret designs of the schismatics. And indeed I do not know whether this may perhaps have been the gift of the discernment of spirits which the Apostle mentions. Certainly the sacred writers used related words in this very matter of the Spirit. He is called the discerner of thoughts, etc. (Heb. 4:12), the examiner (1 Cor. 14:24); and indeed the use of "spirit" for the heart and its thoughts is too frequent for the reader to need to be warned about it.

§ 27.—Now there were two kinds of men whose thoughts were thus laid open. For either they laid open the thoughts of other prophets with whom they themselves had no dealings, from which a great confirmation was added to the thing foretold. Thus concerning Timothy there was not one but many prophecies agreeing among themselves, about St Paul, of spirits city by city, as we saw above. And greater credence was to be given to these because they seemed to be privy not only to human secrets, but to divine ones as well. And of human thoughts there were two kinds which were to be made manifest by this gift. For either they were those of the faithful, or those of unbelievers. As for unbelievers, if anyone with evil intent had crept into the church's assemblies, whether for the purpose of betraying them, or of exposing them to mockery, or to gratify a worldly passion, that very thing was betrayed by the revelation of the Spirit; whence it came about that, if he were of the number of those whom the Greeks call 'right-minded', he was not so much angry with those who betrayed him as rather carried away into admiration of them, as is hinted in the aforesaid passage of the Epistle to the Corinthians. And the thoughts of the faithful were betrayed if there were any to be enrolled in the clergy, as in the example of Timothy; or if they had used some fraud, as in the case of Ananias and Sapphira; or also plotting, as the Lord Himself betrayed Judas when he was plotting against Him; or finally perhaps any other hidden crime whatever. For this very thing St Peter rebukes in Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:4, 9), that they had dared to lie not to men but to God; that they were tempting the Spirit of the Lord. As if he had reproached them with this, that though they had joined themselves to those assemblies in which they had themselves recognized the gifts of the Spirit, and among others that one too by which secrets were revealed, they nevertheless hoped that their hidden crimes could lie concealed, and that they would carry them off with impunity. And this very thing doubtless struck a great fear even of hidden crimes, since they understood that thereafter no hiding places would be safe, v. 5. Nor is there anything in this very form of reasoning that even the atheists themselves will be able justly to find fault with.

§ 28.—There was, however, another argument too, and one indeed intrinsic to the gift of prophecy itself, by which the ancients confirmed the credibility of their prophecies, namely the prediction of future contingents. That this was certain, and had come from God as its author, was understood when the outcome had confirmed it. And this argumentation was most certain on the principles of Christians. God Himself appeals to it in Isaiah (Isa. 41:23). Nor indeed, on the principles of Christians, could this foreknowledge of future contingents in fact be attributed to any other than God. For granting that there are many events which would not exceed the powers of creatures, yet, once that providence which the Christians defended is conceded, there were nonetheless certain events which had no cause determined by nature from which they could be known beforehand; and indeed those which arose not from some single cause, but from the concurrence and combination of all (such as were most of those that concerned the public), the failure of one cause, or even the intervention of one, made uncertain, so that accordingly they were not

able to be understood to be future except from that cause to which the combination of all other causes was in fact subject. And this the Christians believed to be none other than the first, best and greatest God.

§ 29.—They believed first of all that the world was made not by chance, as the Epicureans would have it, but by a certain definite providence, and that it is still ruled by the same providence by which it was made. They believed next that free will was subject to no other cause except God alone. Accordingly they utterly rejected all those senses of fate which were distinct from the decree of the supreme God, whether that of the Epicureans, sought from the influence of material causes, or that of the astrologers, derived from the heavenly stars, whether from their motion or even from their causality. If, then, they made free will subject to God alone, it plainly follows that the certainty of those events which depended either on free will itself or on some condition to be laid down through free will must in fact be derived from God alone. But as regards the outcomes of material causes, they could acknowledge some mechanical force of the universal motion. Yet they did not acknowledge it in such a way that any creature with which we have dealings could either itself know future contingents from that universal concert of motion, or indicate them to us. Certainly none could indicate them except an intellectual one, which we Christians call an angel. But the angels who move among us they assigned to definite provinces of creatures; the λόγος of all the provinces they held to be the president; so that consequently none of the angels I have mentioned, who move among us, was set over the universal motion, so as to be able to judge from its own causality of the outcome of future contingents. Nor did they acknowledge them to be so incorporeal that they could behold all created things in the mirror of the Creator. Nor did they believe that all created things were known to them, except those which God had deigned to reveal to them, nor indeed that He had in fact deigned to reveal all things to them. That the angels learned the mystery of the incarnation from the Church, the Apostle is witness (Eph. 3:10). That three things also were hidden from the demon before the incarnation, we have Ignatius as authority (Ignatius, Letter to the Ephesians, § 19). But there is no leisure for us to dwell on these one by one.

§ 30.—Meanwhile it is clear, given this hypothesis, that no one can know future contingents, whether depending on free will or on the universal motion, except by that supreme God revealing them. Nor, even if they had known that universal motion, could they thereby judge of the certainty of events of this kind. For they did not believe the whole world to be ruled by God so mechanically that God would not both wish and be accustomed to intervene sometimes against that universal motion, though more often beside it: against it, indeed, in miracles; beside it, whenever He wished to hear even the ordinary prayers of the elect. For the prayers of the pious would for the most part be in vain, especially for temporal goods, if God could provide nothing beside the course of universal nature without a miracle. For miracles of this kind would have to be performed as often as

the prayers of the good were to be heard. But if, besides that universal motion, God should both wish and be wont to bestow many things, it follows from this that, even if it had become known in the fullest degree, nothing is to be pronounced with certainty concerning future contingents.

§ 31. — But if these things, although by their own nature they did not exceed created powers, could nevertheless not be known by a creature unless God revealed them, this one thing abundantly suffices: that whenever they had become known to men, they were nonetheless to be attributed to God with the highest justice. For it is not to be asked whether God Himself, or some creature by His command and permission, yet subject to Him, revealed these things to men, but whether some contrary power did so against His will. For it is in this that the danger of error lies. And yet, granted this hypothesis which we have set forth, it was certain that revelations of this kind could not come from any contrary power. For there was no creature which could know these things against God's will; nor was it likely that God would reveal to contrary angels, most bitterly hostile to Him and to His own, things which were not owed to their nature and which they could not know unless He revealed them. It follows therefore that, if He used the ministry of angels in making a revelation known to men, He would nevertheless use none but good ones. Nor was it to be feared that they would fail to discharge the office committed to them most diligently and most faithfully. Thus it was established that these true revelations concerning future contingents could not be from any but God as their author.

§ 32. — Now although the truth of the hypothesis, of which we have said these are the just and legitimate consequences, was proved from the authority of those who taught it, an authority which was itself commended by other miracles, yet the very probability of the consequences also, and their so fitting connexion with one another and with the phenomena, contributes something towards the truth of the premisses as well. For in causes of this kind, which no a priori reasoning of ours reaches in themselves, men strive for this one thing, to devise for themselves some hypothesis which agrees fittingly with the phenomena; nor do they seek any other proof of it than that fitting agreement with the phenomena, and they judge that one the truer which corresponds to more phenomena and more fittingly. So they judge concerning the motions of the heavenly spheres, of the seas and of the winds; concerning the nature of the magnet and all other things of that kind. Yet the plan of providence is no less hidden from us than that of the heavenly spheres. Nor does this hypothesis of the Christians concerning providence agree less fittingly with the phenomena than that of Ptolemy, or even that of Copernicus, or of any other astronomer, with the phenomena of those motions. On the contrary, the prophecies concerning future contingents of Christians, even those most unskilled in nature, were far more certain than the judgements of even the most skilled astrologers. From which it also followed that it was far more likely that these things were from God than that they were to be traced to any concurrence of natural causes whatever.

§ 33. — The truth of past prophecies having therefore been proved from the outcome, so then the authority of the prophet was added to the success of other prophecies in like manner

to be expected. And the more often the outcomes had answered to his prophecies, the more certainly it was established that these things were to be attributed not to chance but in fact to definite causes. But since prophecies were of two kinds, some clear and easy to understand, in which there could be no doubt about the true sense of the prophet, others again, according to the customary idiom of prophecies, wrapped in symbols and riddles, so that it could hardly be understood what the meaning of the prophet or of the deity was: from the truth of the former, judgement was to be made most soundly about the latter. If all had been obscure, as in the oracles of Apollo Loxias and in the ravings of our present-day enthusiasts, there were then no intrinsic arguments for credibility, so that, unless perhaps extrinsic ones had filled that place, however true they might be, they certainly had no mark of truth by which they might be distinguished from false ones, and so they did not oblige others to believe them true. But if some were clear, then it was an easy judgement what was to be decided about the rest. If the outcome of even one clear prophecy had not answered to it, it plainly followed that the rest were not to be trusted either, but rather that they were to be attributed either to natural enthusiasm or to another spirit, a diabolical rather than a divine one. Thus Asterius Urbanus refutes the prophecies of Maximilla (in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5.16). She had foretold that wars and disturbances were imminent, whereas, when the thirteenth year had already passed, there had been neither a particular nor a universal war on earth, and for the Christians too peace had remained firm and stable. From this he concludes that all credit is to be withdrawn from her. But if the things foretold had come to pass, the prophet's credit was more or less established according to the frequency of such outcomes. This kind of argument was altogether most sound, and I do not see what atheist scoffers could find fault with in it, still less laugh at; nor what similar thing the fanatics born yesterday and the day before could put forward on behalf of their own prophecies, which they peddle today, whether of those who are counted under the common name of Protestants, or also of those whom the papists call mystical theologians. Neither party uses extrinsic arguments, whether miracles performed openly and in public and before the face of unbelievers, or the testimonies of other prophets also acknowledged by us. Neither uses intrinsic testimonies, whether the secrets of the hearts of unbelievers laid bare, or the prediction of future contingents, made manifest long before the event and published in the open light.

§ 34. — Readers are meanwhile to be reminded, however, that it is not the case that all things of the prophets are to be attributed to the prophetic spirit. Not even the Jews about their own, nor the Greeks about the Pythias, nor other gentiles, Phoenicians and Egyptians, about their prophets, nor any who acknowledged prophets, taught this, I think. The misfortune of the Shunammite woman was hidden from Elisha. The most holy Apostle too uttered some things by a human spirit. The credit of a prophet, therefore, is not to be called into doubt if some things spoken in a human way have escaped him, that is, in those things which he himself attributed not to the Spirit of God but rather to his own. As if the Apostle, in those things in which he, not the Lord,

was exhorting, as he gave notice, had erred, that ought not to turn to the discredit of his other prophecies. Nor indeed is the distinction between these two things so uncertain as the profane author of the Theologico-Political [Treatise] would have it. Wherever the sacred writers had inserted a caution, that very caution was a sign that only those things about which the caution had been given were to be excepted, and that the rest were to be understood as coming from another spirit. Thus, because in his written epistles the Apostle had thought it necessary to give notice of precisely this, if he had uttered anything from his own spirit, it plainly follows that the divine Spirit is to be held the author of the rest. Conversely, because Ignatius, in the things which he set forth with the divine Spirit as author, declared in express words that the Spirit was their author, it likewise follows that, these being excepted, the rest are to be attributed to Ignatius's private spirit.

§ 35. But some also hold this: that true prophets, inspired by the Spirit of God, were left to their own spirit in making known the things revealed, so that they might announce them to others according to their own capacity, which was more cultivated and more polished in one than in another. If therefore, in matters noted in passing and contributing nothing to the principal aim of the prophecy, whether through a lapse of their memory, or while they accommodate themselves to the prejudices of their hearers, erroneous indeed but nonetheless received, which were nonetheless more suitable for arguments than the revealed things themselves, because the latter had to be proved, whereas they could use the former as granted: if in these, I say, they had been mistaken, not even that error would be imputable to the prophetic spirit. Therefore, that the Evangelist cites Jeremiah in place of Zechariah; that the Apostle assigns 450 years to the Judges and 40 to Saul; that St Luke records an uncertain number of stadia, St Paul an uncertain number of the baptized: these plainly indicate that trifles of this kind were left to the human capacities of the writers, and that there is therefore no reason why they should be referred to the divine Spirit.

§ 36. There is also another instance in which errors could creep in, not only of those who had heard prophecies, but also of the prophets themselves, namely in the interpretation of obscure prophecies. For some prophecies were, by a certain design of the Spirit, so obscure that they could not be understood without another revelation; so that the first seemed to have been given for no other end than to stir up the curiosity and diligence of the holy prophets towards obtaining the second. We see this especially in Daniel, in whom there is frequent mention of second visions for the interpretation of the first. If therefore he had dared to interpret the first before the second visions, an interpretation of that kind would have had to be attributed wholly to the human, not the divine, spirit, so that consequently its error, if there had been any, would most unjustly be referred to the Holy Spirit.

§ 37. The ancient Christians laid down the same about written prophecies also, wherever they were obscure: that they could by no means be understood with certainty unless the same spirit by which they had been dictated revealed them anew. There is therefore no reason for us to wonder at the delusions of the ancients about the near end of the world. For that [end] had not, in express words,

been revealed by the Spirit. Rather, they inferred it from the very frequent mention of the last times in the prophecies of the Old Testament, whenever mention occurs of matters of the Gospel, which could nevertheless quite suitably be understood of the last times of the Jewish economy. It is altogether unfair that we should impute to the Spirit those errors of men which the Spirit Himself had not undertaken to correct; nor did those who had been inspired by that spirit assert this very thing, that it had been undertaken by the spirit. Meanwhile that sufficiently certain method of judging, which we have described, was at hand. For if the reliability even of those things which were clear, and had no refuge in obscurity, and which had been put forward by the pneumatikoi in the name of the spirit, was constantly borne out, and nowhere at variance with itself, this very thing was a sufficiently manifest proof both that those who had foretold them were inspired by a spirit, and indeed by that most truthful and therefore divine one, so that they were accordingly to be believed likewise in other things also that were manifest and put forward manifestly in the name of the spirit. If, on the contrary, the outcome had belied the reliability of the clear ones, that was enough to annul the credit of the remaining similar ones.

§ 38. — Thus far indeed, unless I am mistaken, we have rightly confirmed the reliability of obscure prophecies from manifest ones, since those obscure ones were of the same prophet as the manifest ones. But the reader will perhaps ask, and not without reason, how, when those prophecies belonged to different persons, so that those of one were manifest, while those of another were all obscure and none manifest, the obscure ones were in that case to be proved from the manifest? A doubtful prophet could indeed be commended by the testimony of an undoubted one. There was, however, also another method of proof, drawn from the common unity of the spirit. For from the principles of that age it was possible to argue thus: that those who belonged to one and the same communion had one spirit, derived from the same sacraments, that is, from the same channels of grace, and by the power of the same institution. Nor did they conclude that the spirit of one communion was one only by that general reasoning, namely that it had in like manner been conferred by the same sacraments, which, since they were symbols of certain definite and legal covenants, concerning namely the conferring of that very spirit, could surely bind none other than those whose symbols they were, so that an evil spirit could not creep into men except those who had in turn covenanted with it; nor indeed could men covenant with it through symbols established by the good spirit; but also because the spirit itself was the bond of unity in the same communion. As therefore from that exterior communion one was to presume an interior communion also, so it also followed that those who had been partakers of the same sacraments had likewise been partakers of one and the same spirit. Given, therefore, some preternatural motion, which could proceed neither from some bodily affection nor from natural enthusiasm, but was plainly to be ascribed to some spirit, it was above all to be supposed that that spirit was no other than the one which was at work in the other members of the same communion. Thus one rightly from

the operations or energies of the remaining members could also judge concerning the spirit of this member. If it had been good in the others, it certainly could not have been evil in this one. The arguments which were perhaps lacking in this member, by which it could be distinguished whether it was to be referred to the class of the good or rather to that of the evil, were nevertheless not lacking in the other members of the same mystical body. Thus at length one had to come to this, that all whatever gifts of the other members, and not only the gifts but also the arguments by which this very gift had been proved in the others, these too were to be referred to the credibility of this one as well, however much it had been destitute of arguments of its own.

§ 39. — This too, however, followed: that there was no safeguard for such obscure prophecies except in the unity of the Church. For just as they have nothing in their own name by which they might be commended, so, once unity had been violated, these external arguments of which I have spoken did nothing towards their credibility. If he had brought in some other prophet as a witness, not even that witness himself was held to be fit, outside unity. As regards the gifts and manifestations of others, they had nothing to do with a prophet outside unity. Rather, on these principles, any prophecy whatever outside the Church was for that very reason suspected of being unable to come from a good spirit, precisely because it was outside unity. For since God had instituted sacraments as means of conferring the spirit, it was necessary that He should have willed this: that whoever refuses to use the means instituted by Him would not obtain the benefits either which are to be gained through those means. Had He not willed this, there would have been no obligation to use the means. And since those means instituted by God are nothing other than symbols of unity (for we are baptized into one body, and partaking of that one bread we grow together into one body), He seems to have intimated by this that He is unwilling to confer His spirit on others than those set within unity. However that may be, it is certain that in fact that opinion prevailed among the ancients, that the Spirit of God belongs to none but the united. Thus in this very argument from spiritual gifts they infer that the spirit which dwells among the non-united is not that Spirit of God which is the bond of unity. We have observed that the Apostle used that very reasoning, in the second part of our work on schism, not yet published. Baptism, by which the Spirit is conferred, they call the washing of regeneration. Who would doubt that there is no principle of spiritual life in the unregenerate? Indeed, those a little later used exorcisms on those to be baptized, thereby again plainly intimating that in the non-united the spirit is plainly diabolical. Would that those who today think so grandly of their own spirit outside unity would seriously weigh these things with themselves. They would at least see that there is not that affinity with the primitive Christians which they so greatly boast of and parade in those pretexts of theirs about the spirit. Those who use other means of conferring the Spirit than those instituted by God are justly suspected of having another spirit than the divine Spirit, especially when those arguments intrinsic to the prophecy itself, of which I have spoken, are lacking. And so much concerning the credibility of the ancient prophecies; in which there is nothing

that I see present-day atheists could rightly find fault with.

§ 40. — Concerning visions, however, this should be noticed in passing (I do not know whether it has been noticed by others): that they were proper to the young. I gather this from that most celebrated passage of Joel: Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions (Joel 2:28). Plainly, dreams are thus suited to old men as visions are to young men. That violent agitation of the humours was, to be sure, not bearable except in the vigour of life. For in visions a very great terror from the things seen hung over them, which even now those who have dealings with phantoms experience so strongly that leanness and pallor seize them and gradually throw them into a most unhealthy habit of body. To this is added the most violent contortion of the possession (κατοχή) itself: the savage countenance, the burning eyes, the foaming mouths, the most laboured panting of heaving breasts. So indeed it was with the prophets of the gentiles, so that in Lucan the Pythia approached the tripod most unwillingly, and some women were even extinguished by the very violence of the agitation. For thus Lucan (Civil War, book 5, line 116):

For if the God has entered any breast, / an untimely death is either the penalty for having received the deity / or the reward: for under the goad and surge of frenzy / the human frame gives way, and the blows of the Gods / shake frail souls.

And Valerius Maximus on the Delphic oracle; « Whence, just as sure lots are sought for those who consult it, so too great a draught of the divine Spirit proves deadly to those who deliver them (Book 1, ch. 8, Roman example 10). » Far more violent, indeed, was the commotion of the pseudo-prophets and enthusiasts, so that by this very mark the catholics judged that the true prophets were to be distinguished from those of the Montanists. There was no madness in the true prophets, none of that so vehement tossing of possession (κατοχή). Rather they remained in possession of themselves, and uttered what was to be foretold prudently and knowingly. Yet the terror of the things seen was hard for the frailty of human nature to bear. Daniel's spirit shuddered (Dan. 7:15): he collapsed to the ground (8:19); no strength remained in him, but his appearance too was changed in him, and he withered, and had no strength at all (10:8); he lay dismayed upon his face, and his countenance clung to the earth (ibid., 9); he stood trembling (ibid., 11); in the vision his joints were loosened, and no strength remained in him, and even his breath was shut off (ibid., 17). Nor is anything other than the terror of a prophetic vision described in Job (Job 4:13–14), and in Abraham (Gen. 15:12). There is therefore no reason for us to wonder that these things were more bearable to the young than to the old. Accordingly, among the heathen too, Tiresias teaches that possession (κατοχή) belongs to the young. For thus he [speaks] in Seneca (Oedipus, line 29):

If mine were green.... / and hot blood, I would shake the God out of my breast.

Our Cyprian, having distinguished night visions, which are rather to be counted among the dreams of old men, from daytime prophecies, assigns the latter to the innocent age of boys (Letter 10): namely possession (κατοχή); that

for his words written out above hint at: to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and carried away from the senses, which in those disputations of the Church against the Montanists is called ecstasy. As therefore we learn from Pontius that dreams were presented to Cyprian towards the end of his life, so, if any of those visions which he mentions were revealed to him, it will follow that he suffered a little after youth, when his age was already declining into old age, which is indeed most probable. For if he had reached advanced old age, it could hardly have happened that he did not become known to Tertullian himself, although we nowhere read that he was conversant with him except in his books.

§ 41. — I admit indeed that even in Cyprian's age there were those who held dreams and visions in derision. But what sort of men they were, he himself reveals in his letter to Florentius Pupianus. "Although," he says (Ep. 69), "I know that dreams seem ridiculous and visions foolish to some, yet certainly to those who prefer to believe against priests rather than the priest." He plainly hints that those who had thought so were of a mind estranged from the Church. That such men should think so, however, was certainly not to be wondered at. For there were, almost coeval with prophecy itself, that kind of men whom Scripture calls scoffers (לצים), who, what they could never accomplish by arguments, would nevertheless attempt by laughter and jests, gibes and witticisms, so as to expose religion to derision. And indeed among the prophets there were gestures somewhat removed from the common usage of men, which it was easy for ridiculous men to represent as being themselves ridiculous too. Joseph's brothers called him a dreamer (Gen. 37:19), which Cyprian himself too had observed. That prophet who, sent by Elisha, had promised Jehu the kingdom of Israel, the captains of the army called a madman, and yet they did not neglect the oracle delivered by him. Thus the one whom they had called mad in name only, they had in earnest judged by no means to be held as mad. And those frequent cautions, even in apostolic times, against despising or quenching prophecies sufficiently hint how inclined men were to do that of which they so often had of necessity to be warned. Nor indeed was anything else to be expected in those times in which the prophets were so stiff-necked and disturbers of public order, when several spoke at once, when prophetesses preached in assemblies of men, even with their heads uncovered, beyond the modesty of their sex; when the prophets displayed their gifts without any regard for edification and usefulness, and had at length to be restrained by ecclesiastical discipline, so that they should not do so thereafter in future. These things were indeed to be imputed as a fault to the prophets themselves, not to their prophetic gifts. For the spirit which they had, subject to them

it is said to be, lest these things should be said to be done at its impulse. Yet we experience today, in a similar kind of adversaries, how easily contempt for the office-holders is turned into contempt for the office; how easily and eagerly they nevertheless seize upon those trifles, if any occur anywhere beyond the opinions of the common people (most unjust rules, assuredly, not to say anything harsher, of what is good and honourable), for the contempt of persons whose consciences are troubled by the veneration owed to the office; how easily, likewise, they allow themselves to be driven so far astray that they do not think the merit of the case itself must be inquired into, whenever they have come to think less honourably of the persons of the prophets. But no one will grant that these are fair judges.

§ 42. — But if even in the times of those prophets who had put forth the most certain testimonies of their prophecies there were nevertheless censors of this kind, it is certainly not to be wondered at if they fell into the times of Cyprian also, since the Epicureans had by then grown strong among the philosophers, who held everything except natural things in mockery. This one thing was enough: if, of those whom we have mentioned, who had understood the prophecies more deeply and had no interest in their being held false, none called them into doubt. And we have seen that contemporaries of Cyprian acknowledged prophetic gifts in the Church, men who were indeed held to be the most learned of that age and the most skilled in ecclesiastical affairs. Nor was it likely that so severe a discipline could have flourished in the Church, unless it were established by the most manifest evidences that a divine power was most present in the Church. But if they could have convicted that pretext of a prophetic spirit of falsehood, at once the faith of the rest would have tottered as well, at once there would have been no reason for them to seek the communion of the Church by a penance of so many years and so unwelcome; especially since there was no magistrate to compel them, but there was, on the contrary, one who would support rebels and with every effort entice them into rebellion. As for the atheist Epicureans, it has always been, and is today, their character that, content with their general hypotheses, they do not think particular instances need even be inquired into. How much they were strangers in ecclesiastical matters is manifest from the example of Celsus alone. Though he had boastfully vaunted that all things were most thoroughly known to him, yet in the matters of the Church he rarely hits the mark. And it is almost constant in him that, when he wished to strike the Church, the things by which he believed the cause of the Church was to be overthrown scarcely concern any others than heretics banished from the Church. A fine censor of the Church indeed, who could not even distinguish the Church from the assemblies of heretics most hostile to it!