Letter 175: Your excellency lately wrote to me, plainly charging me, besides other matters, to write concerning the Faith. I admire your zeal in the matter, and I pray God that your choice of good things may be persistent, and that, advancing in knowledge and good works, you may be made perfect. But I have no wish to leave behind me a treatise on the Faith,...
Your excellency wrote to me recently, charging me among other things to write a statement on the faith. I admire your zeal, and I pray God that your commitment to what is good will hold firm, and that as you grow in knowledge and good works you may be brought to perfection.
But I have no wish to leave behind me yet another treatise on the faith, or to draft alternative creeds, and so I have declined your request.
You seem to me to be surrounded by the noise of your associates there -- idle men who say things to slander me, imagining they can improve their own standing by telling disgraceful lies about mine. What they are, the past has already shown. Future experience will make it even plainer.
I call on everyone who trusts in Christ: do not busy yourselves inventing alternatives to the ancient faith. As we believe, so let us be baptized. As we are baptized, so let us offer our praise. It is enough for us to confess the names we have received from Holy Scripture and to resist all innovation concerning them. Our salvation does not depend on inventing new forms of address. It depends on a sound confession of the Godhead in which we have placed our faith.
Human translation - New Advent (NPNF / ANF series)
Latin / Greek Original
[Πρός: Μαγνηνιανῷ κόμητι]
Πρώην ἐπέστελλέ μοι ἡ σεμνότης σου ἄλλα τινὰ καὶ περὶ πίστεως γράψαι ἡμᾶς ἐναργῶς προστάσσουσα. ἀλλʼ ἐγὼ τὴν μὲν σὴν περὶ τὸ πρᾶγμα ἄγαμαι σπουδήν, καὶ εὔχομαι τῷ Θεῷ ἀνενδότως σοι τῶν ἀγαθῶν τὴν αἵρεσιν ἐνυπάρχειν καὶ ἀεί σε προκόπτοντα καὶ γνώσει καὶ ἔργοις ἀγαθοῖς τελειοῦσθαι· διὰ δὲ τὸ μὴ βούλεσθαι περὶ πίστεως σύνταγμα καταλιμπάνειν μηδὲ γράφειν διαφόρους πίστεις, παρετηρησάμην μὴ ἀποστεῖλαι ἃ ἐπεζητήσατε.
Πλὴν δοκεῖτέ μοι περιηχεῖσθαι παρὰ τῶν αὐτόθι, τῶν μηδὲν ἐργαζομένων, οἳ ἐπὶ διαβολῇ ἡμετέρᾳ λέγουσί τινα, ὡς ἐκ τούτου ἑαυτοὺς συστήσοντες, ἐὰν ἡμῶν τὰ αἴσχιστα καταψεύσωνται. ἐκείνους μὲν γὰρ φανεροῖ ὁ παρελθὼν χρόνος, καὶ προϊοῦσα ἡ πεῖρα φανερωτέρους ποιήσει. ἡμεῖς δὲ παρακαλοῦμεν τοὺς ἠλπικότας εἰς Χριστὸν μηδὲν παρὰ τὴν ἀρχαίαν περιεργάζεσθαι πίστιν, ἀλλʼ ὡς πιστεύομεν, οὕτω καὶ βαπτίζεσθαι, ὡς δὲ βαπτιζόμεθα, οὕτω καὶ δοξολογεῖν. ὀνόματα δὲ ἡμῖν ἀρκεῖ ἐκεῖνα ὁμολογεῖν, ἃ παρελάβομεν παρὰ τῆς ἁγιας Γραφῆς καὶ τὴν ἐπὶ τούτοις καινοτομίαν διαφεύγειν. οὐ γὰρ ἐν τῇ ἐφευρέσει τῶν προσηγοριῶν ἡ σωτηρία ἡμῶν, ἀλλʼ ἐν τῇ ὑγιεῖ περὶ τῆς θεότητος εἰς ἣν πεπιστεύκαμεν ὁμολογίᾳ.
Revision history
- 2026-03-20v2.1.0-import
Initial corpus import from New Advent / NPNF.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg2040/tlg004/tlg2040.tlg004.perseus-grc2.xml
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