9. When therefore we teach
ours to blaspheme God that the Priscillianists may believe them
theirs, let us see what evil themselves say when they therefore lie
that we may believe them ours. They anathematize Priscillian, and
detest him according to our mind; they say that the soul is a
creature of God, not a part; they execrate the Priscillianists’
false martyrdoms; the catholic bishops by whom that heresy has been
stripped, attacked, prostrated, they extol with great praises, and
so forth. Behold, themselves speak truth when they lie: not that
the very thing which is a lie can be true at the same time; but
when in one thing they lie, in another they speak truth: for when,
in saying they are of us, they lie, of the catholic faith they
speak truth. And therefore they, that they may not be found out for
Priscillianists, speak in lying manner the truth: but we, that we
may find them out, not only speak lyingly, that we may be believed
to belong to them; but we also speak false things which we know to
belong to their error. Therefore as for them, when they wish to be
thought of us, it is both false in part, and true in part, what
they say; for it is false that they are of us, but true that the
soul is not a part of God: but as for us, when we wish to be
thought to belong to them, it is false, both the one and the other
that we say, both that we are Priscillianists, and that the soul is
a part of God. They, then, praise God, not blaspheme, when they
conceal themselves; and when they do not so, but utter their own
sentiments, they know not that they blaspheme. So that if they be
converted to the catholic faith, they console themselves, because
they can say what the Apostle said: who when among other things he
had said, “I was before a blasphemer; but,” saith he, “I
obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly.”
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We on the contrary, in order that
they may open themselves to us, if we utter this as if it were a
just lie for deceiving and catching them, do assuredly both say
that we belong to the blaspheming Priscillianists, and that they
may believe us, do without excuse of ignorance blaspheme. For a
catholic, who by blaspheming wishes to be thought a heretic, cannot
say, “I did it ignorantly.”
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1 Tim. i. 13