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.4.1–4].So in these words the apostle openly and clearly revealed the preaching of the devil, which is active now among the.Bogomils, which this apostle calls the teaching of the demons and apostasy from faith in Christ, as you have already heard.That he was saying this in advance about this heresy is clear from the identifying marks and signs, that is, that they teach abstinence from foods and the rejection of legal marriage with a wife.Whose else is this teaching than that of the often-exposed demon-possessed and demon-inspired Messalians, that is, Bogomils?They denounce the impurity of all foods, and when they hear Paul speaking of foods which God established for the faithful to share, people like this, in their folly, say blasphemously that it was the devil who established this.These are people who blame wine because of drunkenness, when they should rather blame the drunkards.The very lustful prevent marriage, because, being initiates, they know the rites of darkness, even though in this they are opposed to Christ and the teaching of the holy apostles.Christ at his first coming hallowed the marriage at Cana, and began to work his divine miracles at the wedding.The Bogomils, who are truly diabolic, not only oppose the teachings of Christ on these subjects, but on thousands more which I have not time to enumerate.They say all that they teach to the honour and glory of their father the devil; they choose this created thing which has no grace but has exalted itself over its maker as the maker of all the visible creation, and its king.Then they name him the son of God, and brother of Christ, and do not learn from the gospels that Christ is called the only-begotten Son of God, as the evangelist says, ‘The only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known’ [John 1.18].For the only-begotten has no brother.O, your forbearance, Christ, our king.The godless Bogomils blasphemously claim that [the devil’s]power and authority is equal to yours.Indeed it is said in all ways that in addition to the honour that they pay him, they invite the devil to his P272CDH127211/28/97, 10:56 AMGERMANUS II WRITES AGAINST BOGOMILSown inheritance, him whom they have chosen as their king.For where the king is, thither his army makes its way.They dwell in darkness with the lord of darkness, and together with the many souls which he has destroyed and daily destroys, they have been sent to Tartarus.It would have been better for them if they had not been born, because without persecution or torture or punishment they denied the ancient faith inherited from the fathers.If anyone who has been swept away by this heresy wants to turn back, though caught in the devil’s snares, and to return again to truth.such a one ought to utter anathema in church and say this distinctly in the presence of a large Christian audience.6If anyone ascribes the making of this perceptible universe, and power over it, to the Lord of darkness, and asserts that the universe is governed by the disorderly and shameless one, anathema.If anyone says that God made only human souls, but the devil made bodies, and combines God and the devil as collaborators in the shaping of men.if he does not rather confess that God alone is the maker and shaper of souls and bodies in accordance with the teaching of holy scripture, anathema.If anyone insults and despises the Old Testament, whose lawgiver is God and law-establisher Moses, but blasphemously calls it the tradition of the devil.anathema.We know that one and the same God speaks in the Old Testament and in the New, even though He adapted His precepts to suit the times and the customs of men.If anyone blasphemes against the venerable and life-giving cross and calls it a gallows, anathema.The holy and life-giving mysteries [of the Eucharist], which our Lord and God Jesus Christ gave to His holy disciples and apostles
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