In the translation and commentary I did on the correspondence between Álvaro of Córdoba and Bishop Saul in the mid-ninth century CE, it will be noted that there is a reference in the correspondence to 'Migentianians,' which is used to denote the followers of an eighth century Iberian writer called Migetius, who was condemned for heresy. I thought it worthwhile in this post to provide a translation and overview of the main source material on Migetius' teachings: namely, the letter by Bishop Elipandus of Toledo to Migetius. The letter primarily focuses on Migetius' alleged teachings about the nature of the Trinity. Ironically though, Elipandus was himself condemned for heresy for his own particular teachings on the Father-Son relationship in the Trinity (specifically it is said that he taught that Christ in the nature of his human flesh was the adopted Son of God).
As per this letter, Migetius supposedly taught that the Trinity was manifested in three persons: David as the Father (since he was Jesus' ancestor), Jesus as the Son according to the flesh, and Paul as the Holy Spirit. Elipandus argues that such teachings go contrary to the conception of the three co-eternal and co-substantial persons of the Trinity in one divinity and godhead. However, there are other alleged teachings of Migetius to note from this letter. Migetius also supposedly taught:
1. Priests could not be sinners (which recalls the earlier heresy of Donatism and is thus associated with rejection of clerical authority).
2. The faithful could not take up food with the disbelievers and sinners, on the grounds that the food of infidels contaminates the minds of the faithful.
3. In the city of Rome alone is the power of God.
Elipandus argues in response to these ideas:
1. All humans are contaminated by sins and vices in some ways.
2. It is not food which comes into the mouth that defiles a person, but rather what comes out of his mouth. It is the abstinence of the soul, and not the stomach, that matters. Further, Jesus is known to have dined with the sinners and publicans, while Paul taught that the believer, if invited by the infidel and wanting to dine with him, should eat what the infidel placed before him.
3. The power of God is not in the city of Rome alone but rather the various Biblical proof texts refer to the whole Catholic Church.
I would like to dedicate this translation and commentary to Zaynooba, a rather monstrous friend of mine who told me that she never understood the nature of the Trinity in Christianity. Zaynooba, if the Trinity has been confusing to you, I wonder if Elipandus' letter helps clarify its nature to you in any way or only makes the doctrine look even more difficult to understand.
For the edition of the original Latin text and the Biblical and commentary references, I rely on the text and notes contained in Juan Gil's Corpus Scriptorum Muzarabicorum.
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The letter directed to Migetius the heretic
We once received your letter to be reviewed, which was adjusted in the measure of writing, arose from the horrific tumult of your heart, was brought forth from the ashy tomb of your heart, and was written not in the voice of an interrogator, but with the power of one teaching. We have seen, I say, we have seen, and have laughed at the fatuous and stupid madness of your heart: we have seen, and deemed worthy of laughter the cowardice of your sense. Therefore we have seen that the one who said the following has spoken through your mouth: 'I will be the lying spirit in the mouth of the prophets of that man.'[i] There, far removed from doubt, we have seen that you are the one about whom the Psalmist says: 'The words of his mouth are iniquity and trickery. He did not wish to understand in order that he should do well: he has meditated on iniquity in his bed.'[ii] And also about whom the prophet says elsewhere: 'They taught their tongue to speak mendacity; they laboured to act unjustly.'[iii]
Nonetheless before the writings of your madness had been brought to us, before the most disgusting odour of your words had breathed at us, while the rumour of the stupid crowd was running about, we believed that several things about you were just. However after we saw the trifles of your stupidity, immediately not only we, but also the whole state of the Catholic faith shuddered at you and all the doctrine of your filth, and we damned it to be stricken with perpetual anathema. Show regard for the fact that it is worthy that those whom the Son of God rouses in no way through preventing grace from the tombs of the heresies: his disciples not only make no presumption to release them in any way, but also submerge them all the way in the profound sarcophagus of anathema, lest the stinking nature of such words should break out further, and thus do the disciples of Christ strike them with the sword of the mouth, that they are not only incapable of resurging within further, but also eradicated at the root they perish, as they do not fear to cut the unity of the Catholic faith with poisoned assertions. And so as we desire to show you and the allies of your error as fabricators of mendacity, and the followers of perverse dogmas, with the testimonies of the sacred Scriptures applied in our support, and with the Son of God going before us in the column of cloud through the day, and in a column of fire through the night, armed as we are with the zeal of faith to encounter you, as indeed against the enemy of Christ, we strive to come out saying: 'May the Lord rebuke you Satan, and may He who chose Jerusalem rebuke you.'[iv] It is said to you, Migetius, you who have the cognomen 'Satan, go back.' It is worthy and just that there should be stricken with such stimulus the one who tries to elevate the heel of haughtiness against the rule of the Catholic faith, so that vengeance may be immediately taken with the blow of justice of this sort, lest we should seem to have murmured lightly against the dog; so that the terrified madness, which barks against the holy mystery of the divine Trinity, may be suppressed immediately by the authority of the voice. For your illness is now not to be treated with the foment of wine and oil, but by the sword, sharp from both parts, is your eternal filthiness to be cut down. Indeed before we strive to strike down the tower of your haughtiness with the battering-ram of justice, lest the shadow of its error should be disbursed to the faithful in fatal illness; before we strive to destroy the fabric of your madness by the stone of reason, lest it should strive to provide a defence fortification for the foolish: in that as you have seized the office not of one asking questions, but previously of one teaching, when the Lord and Redeemer himself on the contrary, showing the form of humility, wanted to be found not first teaching in the temple, but asking questions.
Hence also the blessed Gregorius says insinuating to those who desire to go on the path of the right journey: 'No matter is to be presumed to be taught by the teacher, unless it is learned first with intended contemplation.'[v] And again elsewhere: 'For as if a certain feeding of the word is the censure of silence: and rightly through growing grace also is the conversation of doctrine accepted by the one who is appropriately silent beforehand through humility. For hence it is said through Salomon: 'The time of being silent, and the time of speaking.'[vi] For he does not say: the time of speaking, and the time of being silent; but father he put first being silent, and added speaking after it in subordination.'[vii] Also the blessed Efren,[viii] foreseeing you and your ilk, thus said saying: 'For he who has come to be instituted, before he should be instituted, already desires to institute others, and teach before he should learn. Before he should become erudite, he wants to promulgate a law; and before he should know the order of syllables, he will begin to philosophise. Before he should be subjected for the salvation of his soul, he wants to have others subjected; and before he should obey the orders of the seniors, he will seize the office of one giving orders: and before he should be instructed in reason and the virtue of discretion, he usurps the instruction and advising of others.' And so it is worthy that such a master of mendacity as this should exist, who refuses to be a disciple of the truth, and appears as a teacher of error, who does not fear to assume the power of one teaching with impudent brow.
But as you protest in the beginning of your most filthy essay that there are three corporeal persons in the Divinity, saying: that the person of the Father is believed to be David in particular, on the grounds that he says about himself: 'My heart has uttered a good word';[ix] and again it is believed to have been said about David himself: 'You will not leave my soul in hell, nor will you give your Saint to see corruption.'[x] And again you assert regarding the person of the Son of God that it is the second person in the Trinity, which was assumed from the Virgin, by affirming in the apostolic voice saying: 'He arose from the seed of David according to the flesh.'[xi] But the third person of the Holy Spirit you say is Paul the apostle, protesting that the Psalmist says about him: 'By the spirit of his mouth is all their power';[xii] and because Christ the Son of God says about him: 'The spirit, who will proceed from my Father: he will teach you the whole truth.'[xiii] The aforementioned spirit, full of the mendacity of error, has said all these things in mendacity through your mouth. For rightly about you and your allies the same Paul the apostle said saying: 'Certain people in error have turned into vane locution, wanting to be the teachers of the law, not knowing those things which they speak, not about what they affirm.'[xiv] About these people also the blessed Isidorus, the outstanding teacher, says this on their dogmas saying: 'The heretics do not perceive the scriptures with sane sense. Rather they take them to the error of depraved understanding, nor do they subdue themselves to their senses, but they drag them perversely to their own error.'[xv] And again: 'The heretics defend their lies with huge zeal, and strive with vehement labour so that they should not come to the unity of the Church.'[xvi]
Certainly if it is not as that which we bring forth, how is it possible for one to believe that the person of God the Father is David, because he says: 'My heart has uttered a good word'? For the same David rightly says about himself: 'I was conceived in my iniquities, and my mother bore me in sins.'[xvii] And again: 'I recognise my iniquity, and my sin is always before my face.'[xviii] And elsewhere: 'I am the one who has sinned, I have acted unjustly.'[xix] And again that you assert that David has said about himself: 'You will not give your Saint to see corruption.' If it is so, therefore he also said about himself saying: 'They have dug my hands and my feet, and they have counted all my bones.'[xx] And again: 'They have divided my clothes for themselves, and cast lots over my clothes.'[xxi] And again: 'They have given gall for my food, and in my thirst they have given me vinegar to drink.'[xxii] Certainly if David himself is the person of God the Father, because he said: 'My heart has uttered a good word'; therefore he himself is the Father of the Son of God in divinity, as he said to the Son: 'Today I have begotten you.'[xxiii] If David himself is the person of God the Father, therefore he is the one who said: 'Hear, Israel, your Lord God, is one god.'[xxiv] And again: 'I am God, and there is none other besides Me.'[xxv] And if it is as you assert, because it has been said about David: 'You will not give your Saint to see corruption,' how on the contrary did the apostle Peter say: 'Indeed David, and he was buried, and his tomb is among us up to this say of ours, and his flesh saw corruption'[xxvi]?
But concerning the person of the Son, that which you say, that it is the second person in the Trinity that arose from the seed of David according to the flesh, and not that which was begotten from the Father; if it is thus as your insanity raves, therefore the Son of God only arose from the mother, which is wicked to be said, and was not begotten from the Father without a beginning. Since nothing is believed to be corporeal in the Holy Trinity, nothing greater or smaller, how do you assert that servile form as the second person in the Trinity, when the Son of God testifies through himself regarding how that form is lesser than the Father, as he says: 'My Father is greater than I'[xxvii]? And concerning this form the voice of the Father speaks through the Prophet, saying: 'Behold my slave will understand, and will be exalted, and elevated,'[xxviii] etc. And after some words: 'As a sheep has been led to the killing, and also as the lamb in the presence of the shearer.'[xxix]
But concerning the third person of the Spirit which you claim is Paul, saying that the Scripture says about him: 'By the spirit of his mouth is all their power,' and against that he says about himself saying: 'Neither from man nor through man, but through God the Father and through Jesus Christ,'[xxx] so you say that Paul, because he is the Holy Spirit, has proceeded from the Father and Son. If it is thus to be accepted as your insanity raves, therefore Paul is the Holy Spirit, about which it says elsewhere: 'The Spirit of the Lord was carried over the waters.'[xxxi] If Paul is, as you assert, the person of the Holy Spirit which proceeded from the Father and the Son, therefore he himself is the one who in the form of a dove descended over the baptising of the Lord in the Jordan, he also is the one who appeared in the form of fire over the heads of the disciples; therefore Paul whom we are commanded to adore and glorify with the Father and Son, is also the one about whom the Lord has said: 'When I depart, the Paraclete will come to you.'[xxxii] But how can one agree with your error, when the Lord himself says about the Holy Spirit that 'the Spirit does not have flesh and bones'[xxxiii]? Who ever said that the Spirit was corporeal and visible? How can your fatuity be believed such that those things you assert about Paul are believed to have been prophesied, when the Scripture says about him: 'The rapacious wolf of Beniamin will eat the plunder in the morning, and in the evening will divide the spoils'[xxxiv]? How can that which you assert truly be accepted, when the Lord himself said to the same Paul: 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me? You have gone mad in vain against My name and you have stoned My martyr Stefanus. I will make you My servant'[xxxv]? How do you assert that Paul distinguishes that the person of the Holy Spirit remains in him, when he himself says: 'I am the least of all of the apostles, as I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God'[xxxvi]? How is Paul the person of the Holy Spirit, when he himself came along with Barnabas of Licaonia and on account of admiration of the miracle they called one of them Jupiter, but the other Mercury, and fatuous men wanted to sacrifice to them as gods, but he responded saying: 'Men, why do you do these things? And we are mortal men similar to you,'[xxxvii] so that they should not sacrifice to them? If he himself is the Holy Spirit, why did he endure such great things in sufferings, why having finally been struck by the sword did he fall? Therefore, what is also wicked to say, the Holy Spirit endured death and the tomb. Recognise, wretched one, what great false things you speak from your stomach. Recognise, heretic, what great evils you have brought forth from your cancerous mouth? May there be recognition by the crowd that has come into being from the mass of perdition, which in agreeing with your errors is known to have been deceived. May there be recognition by the crows, which prevented by God's mercy, in no way agreeing with your errors, is seen to have been snatched away by the right hand of the Lord from the abyss of this heretical depravity. No one among the heretics is equal to you, no one a companion to you. As you most new to all, so you are filled with the poison of all heretics, inebriated with the lethal filth of all heretics, and you are recognised openly to be the emissary of the Antichrist.
Tell us, oh one fattened with the filth of all heretics, who among the holy teachers ever taught to believe in the Holy Trinity as you assert it? Which council instituted that the holy Catholic Church should hold the distinctions of the persons as you distinguish them? But we on the contrary or all who sense the right things from God, who know the right things according to the traditions of the forefathers, whose intellect and discourse not of flesh but of spirit were seasoned with the salt of wisdom: thus we believe that it is the person of God the omnipotent Father which is not similar and equal to any man, as He surpasses every creature by the power of His majesty, as it said to the Son: 'Today I have begotten you,'[xxxviii] and again: 'From the womb before the Morning Star I begot you,'[xxxix] that is, from that intimate and ineffable substance of divinity I have produced you, and again: 'My heart has uttered a good word'; about which elsewhere the prophet says: 'By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,'[xl] and through another prophet: 'There will come out from my mouth the word of justice'[xli]; concerning which the evangelist says: 'In the beginning there was the Word and Word was with God'[xlii]; and those things also He says to the Son: 'I will go before you and I will humble the glorious men of the Earth'[xliii]; and concerning this again the prophet: 'The Lord says these things to Christ my Lord, whose right hand I have taken, so that I may subject before his face the peoples and open doors in his presence and the gates will not be shut,'[xliv] and those things also He says to Moses saying: 'Behold I send My angel who may precede and guard you on the way and My name is in him.'[xlv]
But we believe that the person of the Son is not that which you assert to be equal to the Father and the Holy Spirit, as it arose from the seed of David in the flesh in the most recent time; but rather we believe it is that which was begotten from God the Father without the beginning of time, as it said through the prophet before the assumption of the flesh: 'Before the hills I was born, He had still not made the earth. When He was preparing the heavens I was present. While He was marking the limit by the sea, and putting in place a law for the waters, I was.'[xlvi] And again: 'Before every creature I proceeded from the mouth of the Most High; before He was laying down the mountains on the plain, I was there with Him putting together all things; I was the one with whom the Father rejoiced.'[xlvii] But after the assumption of the flesh, it is not that which you assert according to the flesh, about which he himself says: 'My Father is greater than I'[xlviii]; but that about which he says: 'I and the Father are one.'[xlix] And again: 'I am in the Father and the Father is in me.'[l]
We also do not believe the person of the Holy Spirit to be that of Paul, to whom it was given that once a good man was brought out of an evil one, but the one who is without change of itself naturally is always good. Concerning it the Scripture says: 'You have given them Your good Spirit, oh Lord, in order to teach them'[li]; and elsewhere: 'You have sent Your Spirit, and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the Earth.'[lii] And again: 'Do not take Your Spirit away from me.'[liii] And another prophet: 'The Spirit of the Lord over me; because He has anointed me to preach peace to the peoples.'[liv]
Behold three persons, of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, spiritual, incorporeal, undivided, unconfused, co-essential, co-substantial, co-eternal in one divinity, power and majesty: without beginning, without end, always remaining. Concerning them the prophet, with the word thrice repeated, insinuates the trinity of the persons consisting of one deity when he says: 'Holy, holy, holy, Lord Sabaoth, the heavens and earth are full of His glory.'[lv] But the fact that Paul in his beginning, as the rapacious wolf of Beniamin, became in the end the vessel of election, this itself, as (that which we have already mentioned) he testifies saying: 'The rapacious wolf of Beniamin will eat the plunder in the morning, and in the evening will divide the spoils.' With these things said in a straightforward way, as the blessed Gregorius says: 'He is designated the apostle, born from the line of Beniamin, who eats the booty in the morning, because in his beginnings he satisfied his own cruelty by seizing the faithful whom he could; he divided the spoils in the evening, because later he became faithful and granted the faithful the sacred discourses to be expounded.'[lvi]
As for what you assert concerning the priests: 'Why should they pronounce themselves sinners, if truly they are saints? Or if certainly they profess that they are sinners, why do they presume to accede to the ministry? For the Lord Himself says: 'Be holy, because I your Lord God am holy."[lvii] If we say such things, each one of us will be a liar like you. But indeed we could have done so, and thus brought ourselves forth (perish the thought), if that spirit of error, which is in you, had taught our insides. But with us is the one who said: 'When you do all the things which have been commanded to you, say that we are useless servants'[lviii]; but truly with the prophet we proclaim: 'We have all become unclean, and all our just acts like a filthy rag.'[lix] And again: 'We have sinned, we have acted unjustly: receding from You, behold we have committed crime in all things.'[lx] And with the apostle again: 'If we say that we do not have sin, we mislead ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, He is faithful, and just, so that He should remit our sins for us, and cleanse us from every iniquity.'[lxi] You also with what temerity do you pronounce yourself to be holy, when the Scripture says: 'Who will boast that he has a pure heart? Or who will dare to say that he is clean of sin?'[lxii]? And again: 'No one is clean from dirt, and not one person, even if his life is only one day over the earth.'[lxiii] For who is without the complaint of men? Or who will be able to be just when he was born from a woman? For if the heavens are not pure in the sight of the Lord, how much more execrable and impure is man? And again the holy Fathers in their dogmas: 'No holy and just person lacks sin, but it does not follow from this that he ceases to be just, or holy, since he holds sanctity with affection. For not by the strength of nature, but rather the aid of the intent we acquire sanctity through grace. And so truly all saints pronounce themselves to be sinners, as they have in truth what which they can lament, and if not by the reprehension of conscience, certainly by the mobility and changeability of the human condition.'[lxiv] Again the blessed Fulgentius thus orders Peter as he comes to Jerusalem, saying: 'Keep hold most firmly, and in no way also will you doubt that the just and holy men- with the exception of these people who have been baptised as little ones- or anyone can live here without sin, and always there is for every man, both to wash away his sins all the way to the end of the present life with alms, and to seek from God remission in truth with humbleness.'[lxv] Therefore the blessed Ioannes Chrysostomus thus confesses, saying: 'There is none of us alien to sin, just as no one can be free among the dead.' But so that I may still say something further: we also ourselves, who are seen to hold the apex of dignity in the duty of the churches, and are illustrated by holy seats: we, I say, as the very chiefs of the priests, and masters of the people, and teachers, are surrounded by various columns of errors, and are frequently subject to our vices. For so great is His liberality towards men, that when the sin has abounded, there greater grace bursts forth.'[lxvi] You also yourself, you who boast about sanctity, and say you are free from sin, it is openly given to be understood that if you had been personally present in that time in which the Lord and Redeemer, writing with his finger in the earth, said to the Jews concerning that women arrested for adultery: 'If any of you is without sin, let him throw a stone over her'[lxvii]- you yourself could have incurred first the charge of homicide, you who now say that you are free from sin. Therefore to whom should we say you are similar, except him who said: 'I will place my seat above Aquilo, and will I be similar to the Most High'[lxviii]? Therefore to whom are you similar except that Pharisee who boasted about himself saying: 'Oh Lord, I am not like the rest of the men, plunderers, adulterers?[lxix] etc.' Why do you not recall, oh unfortunate one, what the blessed Gregorius says about such people saying: 'He is made similar to the apostate angel, when man deems it unworthy to be similar to man'[lxx]?
But as you try to dispute about food and the excrement of the stomach against the pronouncement of the Lord, who said: 'Nothing that enters into the mouth causes defilement (except the flesh of man), but that which comes out of the mouth causes defilement of man.'[lxxi] You on the contrary assert from the bloody intellect of your heart that the food of the infidels contaminates the minds of the faithful, even though also the apostle says: 'All things are clean to the clean. But to the defiled and the infidels nothing is clean.'[lxxii] And as you refuse to take up food with the sinners, as you think that you are holier than the Lord Himself and our Redeemer and now elevate yourself in the spirit of arrogance as supposedly being without the stain of sin, even though the Son of God, the celestial medicine and the life of the dead, is read to have often dined with the publicans and sinners and not all however were turned away from the error of their way, as the blessed Agustinus testifies as he says: 'Behold all admired, but however not all were converted.'[lxxiii] But all had admiration for the words of the Lord, and not all however had the fullness of belief in His deeds. For also the Lord Himself says in the Gospel about himself: 'John the Baptist has come not eating bread and not drinking wine and you say: he has a demon. The Son of Man has come eating and drinking and you say: Behold a man who devours and drinks wine, a friend of the publicans and the sinners.'[lxxiv] But in order to take away any doubt still remaining from the faithful, the apostle thus said elsewhere: 'If anyone of the infidels calls you and you want to go, eat all that which is placed for you, asking no question for the sake of conscience.'[lxxv] For not the quality of the food in Christians, but rather superfluity is damned and not in abdomen, but in soul there should be abstinence, because, as per the voice of the apostle: 'The kingdom of God is not food and drink, but justice, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. For food of the stomach and foods have a stomach; but God will destroy both the former and the latter.'[lxxvi] The blessed Iheronimus also in the exposition of the epistle to the Romans thus speaks saying: 'For the foods which God has created, whether taken up in ignorance or simplicity, could not make man common or unclean.'[lxxvii] Also the blessed Gregorius in the exposition of Ezeciel thus affirms saying: 'For great is the virtue of abstinence. But if anyone abstains from foods such that he judges the rest by food and also damns the same foods that God created to be taken by the faithful with the action of gratitude, what virtue of abstinence has arisen for this man except the trap of blame?'[lxxviii]
And as you assert that in Rome alone is the power of God, in which Christ dwells, contrary to the oracle of the prophet that says: 'It will dominate from the sea all the way to the sea and from the rivers all the way to the ends of the world,'[lxxix] and as that is merely the Catholic Church where all the holy ones are without stain and wrinkle and as about it alone it is said: 'You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church,'[lxxx] and because there will not enter into it anything defiled and causing abomination and mendacity, and as it is the new Jerusalem which John saw descending from heaven, that mad spirit and intellect of your imprudence has taught you to understand all these things. But we on the contrary believe that not only about Rome did the Lord say to Peter: 'You are Peter'- that is, the firmness of faith- 'and over this rock I will build my church,' but rather about the whole Catholic Church spread in peace over the whole world, about which the Lord Himself testifies saying: 'They will come from the east and from the west and recline with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.'[lxxxi] For as you assert that it is the church without stain and wrinkle and that there will not enter into it anything defiled and causing abomination and mendacity, if it is so, why Liberius[lxxxii] the pontifex of the same church was damned among the heretics? Why does the blessed Gregorius protest that so many wicked men were in Rome? But the Lord Himself testifies that in all the church evil men dwell with good ones and the wicked with the elect, saying: 'The Son of Man will send His angels and they will gather from His kingdom all the scandals'[lxxxiii]; for not in that upper kingdom where there is the highest peace can scandal be found, but rather it has been said about the present church, where, as we have predicted, just not only men, but also beasts are known to have been in Noah's ark, so also inside the breast of the mother church there is no doubt that evil men dwell with the good, until in the end of the age the wheat will be brought into the barn of the Lord, but the little branches of darnel will be burnt in inextinguishable fire.
But as you say that Rome is the new Jerusalem descending from Heaven, who is to be believed: you or Peter the apostle? For Peter calls it Babilon, writing to certain people: 'The church which is in Babilon greets you.'[lxxxiv] Hence in no way is it to be believed that the stones of the same city or the walls of the very city-state, according to what your insanity in your head declares, have descended from heaven. But if you by chance still think that it has been said concerning the saints, neither is this to be accepted, for the saints ascend rather than descend. But as Jerusalem is interpreted as the vision of peace, what else is the vision of peace to have descended in some way newly from heaven other than knowledge of the faith of the Holy Trinity revealed to all peoples predestined for life, illuminating the minds of the believers by its sacrament of holy faith and purifying them with the bath of regeneration?
Notes
[i] 1 Kings 22:22.
[ii] Psalm 35:4-5.
[iii] Jeremiah 9:5.
[iv] Zechariah 3:2.
[v] Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care (1:1).
[vi] Ecclesiastes 3:7.
[vii] Gregory the Great's Homily on Ezekiel (1:11:3).
[viii] Referring to Saint Ephrem the Syrian, though the exact citation is not certain here.
[ix] Psalm 44:2.
[x] Psalm 15:10.
[xi] Romans 1:3.
[xii] Psalm 32:6.
[xiii] John 16:13.
[xiv] 1 Timothy 1:6-7.
[xv] Saint Isidore of Seville's Sententiae (3:12:4).
[xvi] Saint Isidore of Seville's Sententiae (1:16:9).
[xvii] Psalm 50:7.
[xviii] Psalm 50:5.
[xix] 2 Samuel 24:17.
[xx] Psalm 21:17-18.
[xxi] Psalm 21:19.
[xxii] Psalm 68:22.
[xxiii] Psalm 2:7.
[xxiv] Deuteronomy 6:4.
[xxv] Deuteronomy 32:39.
[xxvi] Acts 2:29.
[xxvii] John 14:28.
[xxviii] Isaiah 52:13.
[xxix] Isaiah 53:7.
[xxx] Galatians 1:1.
[xxxi] Genesis 1:2.
[xxxii] John 10:7.
[xxxiii] Luke 24:39.
[xxxiv] Genesis 49:27.
[xxxv] Acts 22:7 and cf. Saint Augustine's sermon 'In Natali Apostolorum Petri et Pauli' (accessed here).
[xxxvi] 1 Corinthians 15:9.
[xxxvii] Acts 14:14.
[xxxviii] Psalm 2:7.
[xxxix] Psalm 109:3.
[xl] Psalm 32:6.
[xli] Isaiah 45:23.
[xlii] John 1:1.
[xliii] Isaiah 45:2.
[xliv] Isaiah 45:1.
[xlv] Exodus 23:20.
[xlvi] Proverbs 8:25 ff.
[xlvii] Ecclesiasticus 24:5 ff.
[xlviii] John 14:28.
[xlix] John 10:30.
[l] John 10:38.
[li] Nehemiah 9:20.
[lii] Psalm 103:30.
[liii] Psalm 50:13.
[liv] Isaiah as quoted in Luke 4:18.
[lv] Isaiah 6:3.
[lvi] Gregory the Great's Moralia (18:16:25) and cf. Isidore of Seville's Quaestiones in Genesim (1:31:61).
[lvii] Leviticus 11:44.
[lviii] Luke 17:10.
[lix] Isaiah 64:6.
[lx] Daniel 3:29.
[lxi] 1 John 1:8-9.
[lxii] Proverbs 20:9.
[lxiii] Job 14-15.
[lxiv] Liber de Ecclesiasticis Dogmatibus, attributed to Gennadius (86).
[lxv] Fulgentius: De Fide (41).
[lxvi] Exact citation of John Chrysostom not certain here.
[lxvii] John 8:7.
[lxviii] Isaiah 14:13-14.
[lxix] Luke 18:11.
[lxx] Gregory the Great's Moralia (26:26:24).
[lxxi] Matthew 15:11. Note that 'except the flesh of man' appears to be a parenthetical insertion.
[lxxii] Titus 1:15.
[lxxiii] Saint Augustine's commentary on the Gospel of John (29:2).
[lxxiv] Matthew 11:18-19.
[lxxv] 1 Corinthians 10:27.
[lxxvi] Romans 14:17.
[lxxvii] Incorrect citation. The quotation is not from Jerome's works but Origen's commentary on the epistle to the Romans (9:42).
[lxxviii] Gregory the Great's Homily on Ezekiel (1:8:8).
[lxxix] Psalm 71:8.
[lxxx] Matthew 16:18.
[lxxxi] Matthew 8:11.
[lxxxii] Pope Liberius, who was pope from 352-366 CE.
[lxxxiii] Matthew 13:41.
[lxxxiv] 1 Peter 5:13.