Adversus Valentini, & similium gnosticorum haereses, libri quinque

...of the volumes of the Testaments, and wishes from the heart to put an end to the controversies moved concerning religion. Finally, whoever wishes to embrace that doctrine and faith which from the beginning of Christianity was sown, watered, and planted in the whole world; it is necessary that he consult these men, hear these men, and imitate these men. For these Book on the Morals of the Catholic Church, chapter 1 (according to the most exact judgment of Saint Augustine) were the strenuous defenders and directors of the Catholic faith; the most shining lights of the City of God; men distinguished in doctrine and endowed with clear holiness; illustrious for miracles and other gifts of the Holy Spirit; the blessed Fathers, Sons, Priests, Teachers, and Bishops of the Church of God: most skilled experts of sacred disputes and most fair judges, because they were most free from all party zeal Books 1 and 2 against Julian the Pelagian. These were, after the disciples of the Lord, the diligent planters, waterers, and cultivators of all the Churches throughout the world: the ever-watchful shepherds of the Lord's flock, ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God Luke 12. These were the good and faithful servants whom the Lord appointed over his family. These Isaiah 62 were the watchmen appointed by God over the walls of the spiritual Jerusalem, who did not cease to praise the name of the Lord either in days of tranquility or in the dark nights of the most bitter persecutions. To perform the same thing similarly, they shone before others by word, deed, example, life, and death. Pressing Julian the Pelagian with the testimonies and evidence of several of them, and especially our Blessed Irenaeus, the same Aurelius Augustine adds: One ought to believe and assent to the opinions of these men, if any fear of God or shame before men remains in him, since no one is ignorant that they are judges alien to all party zeal.

Basil and Nazianzen, two distinguished lights of the East, inflamed by the love of these same holy and ancient writers Rufinus, Ecclesiastical History, book 11, chapter 9, hid themselves away for thirteen years in a certain monastery. Seeking the sense of the holy Scriptures from the writings of those men with great care, they obtained it with incredible utility for the whole Church. It was also necessary for Augustine, Jerome, and Ambrose, three most firm columns of the Latin Church, to spend much time and labor in unrolling, consulting, and meditating on the writings of those same theologians of whom we speak. One opposes twenty-four of them at once in one place to the Pelagians; another enumerates in a catalog the works of one hundred and twenty-two writers, both Greek and Latin, which he had read; this one leads them into the battle line against the heretics. He most aptly calls their writings a book sealed by the Confessors, consecrated by the blood of Martyrs, and a heritage of the Fathers not to be violated by any rashness. Athanasius, the extraordinary champion of the most holy Trinity, opposed their doctrine and faith as a brazen wall to the furies of the Arians: asserting it to be a supreme wickedness to repudiate the authority of so many saints and to despise their interpretations so that the inventions of modern and most vile apostates might be preferred to them.

BUT why do I linger in commemorating them individually? For it is established that the most ancient Synods of the entire Christian Church, admitted and approved even by the newest leaders of heresy, pronounced and defined concerning the highest chapters of our religion against its enemies from the interpretations and dogmas of the ancient Fathers who wonderfully agreed with each other, rather than from the express testimonies of the Scriptures. For the Council of Nicaea established that the Son of God is CONSUBSTANTIAL of the same substance with the Father, although it nowhere appears in the Bible, adhering to the traditions of the holy Fathers, it must be believed and professed. The Council of Constantinople, from the same sources, decreed against the Macedonians that the Holy Spirit is a Divine and eternal PERSON, CONSUBSTANTIAL WITH THE FATHER AND THE SON, TO BE CO-ADORED AND CO-GLORIFIED. The Council of Ephesus judged that the most blessed Virgin Mary should be considered and preached as the MOTHER OF GOD original: "Deiparam" against the Nestorians, because the divine disciples had handed down this faith, and they had been so taught by the Fathers. The Council of Chalcedon taught that the UNMIXED SUBSTANCES OF GOD AND MAN IN ONE PERSON OF CHRIST must be believed, according to the decrees of the holy and ancient Fathers, against the Eutychians. And these are the judgments and testimonies of the Synods, which the heretics confess they willingly embrace and revere, concerning the books of the ancient writers.

BUT who will not offer his faith and his right hand when he hears the Holy Spirit himself sending us back to their benches with the clear voices and precepts of the sacred Scriptures? And why not, indeed, Acts 20 since they are the Bishops whom He placed to rule the Church of God, which He acquired with His own blood? And to whose voices and pens John 14 the Church suggests all things which Christ once established concerning her, and teaches all truth? Job 8 Ask the former generation, he says, and diligently investigate the memory of the fathers, and they will teach you: they will speak to you, and bring forth words from their heart. Job 12 For in the ancients is wisdom, and in a long time is prudence. And lest the memory of this most divine command should ever escape us, he commands again: Jeremiah 6 Stand upon the ways, and see: and ask about the ancient paths, which is the good way: walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. And the same again commands Proverbs 22 that we must altogether acquiesce in their common sense and doctrine and remain in it at all times, saying: Do not transgress the ancient boundaries which your fathers have set. For indeed, from these things the one and true Church of the ancient centuries grew together, stood firm, flourished, and bloomed at the same time, which Luke 10; Matthew 18 Christ commanded all to hear and embrace under the threat of eternal perdition. No one, therefore, unless with a protesting...