of true and false Teachers.

Book against the profanities of heresies.

Lérins, if not the utterances of the Apostles and Prophets? And who are the ravenous wolves, if not the fierce and rabid opinions of heretics, who always infest the sheepfolds of the Church and tear them apart wherever they can? But in order to creep more deceptively upon unsuspecting sheep, while keeping their lupine ferocity, they cast off their wolfish appearance and wrap themselves in the sayings of the divine Law as if they were certain fleeces. But what does the Apostle say? "Let no one," he says, "seduce you with empty words." To Ephesians 5. Here it seems to me that he could most appropriately have called those very bare words of Scripture "empty words" when they are brought forth by heretics without the juice of genuine and divine meaning, but rather in an empty and adulterated manner. From this fact it happens that they speak not the true and genuine word of God (which is contained properly in the divine meaning, not in the characters of the letters) but a false one. For if the word of God did not sound false in the mouths of some, there would have been no commendation for Elijah, about whom that holy widow, by whom he was sustained by the will of God, spoke in this manner: "Now," she says, "in this I have known that you are a man of God, and the word of God in your mouth is true." 3 Kings 17. We understand here that it is otherwise fictitious and adulterated in the mouths of some, and to that extent, false. Therefore, the Lord himself also says in Jeremiah: "If anyone has my word, let him speak my word truly." Jeremiah 23. Why does he command this? Surely because there are those who speak the word of the Lord falsely.