NOTE: - 19 -

“...of the Monophysite [or: Only-Begotten-descended] Armenians.” By this they wish to separate from the very doctrine of the Illuminator, and especially to divide from the fellowship of the Mother Church—founded by the Only-Begotten’s descent and by the preaching of our Holy Father Grigor the Illuminator—the sound-minded members; wherefore they endeavor to establish a certain difference through improper and groundless writing. This very thing is the instigation of the Slanderer, of which we find many examples both in Holy Scripture and in ecclesiastical history, such as was Simon the Magus. He saw the great wonders that were being wrought by the hand of Philip the Apostle of Christ, and he truly believed that what Philip preached was true; he received baptism, yet he was not united in sincere intent to that truth. And seeking to be glorified by the people, and to show himself esteemed before them, and like the Apostles of Christ to be proclaimed by renown of wonders, he was ever travailing in his mind with this counsel of wickedness at the instigation of Satan—that is, to acquire by worldly goods the power of the Apostles of Christ to work wonders. Concerning this man’s most grievous error, Saint Kiwreł [Cyril], Patriarch of Erusałēm [Jerusalem], writes thus: “Simon the sorcerer was the inventor of all heresies—that Simon who is recounted in the Acts of the Apostles, who wished with the commerce of silver to buy the unmarketable grace of the Spirit, and heard what the blessed Apostle Petros [Peter] said: ‘Thy silver perish with thee, because thou thoughtest to obtain the gift of God with worldly goods. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter,’ together with the rest” (*Catechetical Lectures*, on page 101, according to the new edition). And the Nicolaitan [or: Nicodemian] sectarians, who deemed it sufficient merely to believe with the heart, stumbling over the written words of the holy Apostle Pōłos [Paul] to the Church of the Romans: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved: for with the heart one believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Rom. 10:9, 10), used boldly to say: “Our religion differs from the Church of the Romans.” In like manner the Nicolaitan sectarians, who merely believed in the Gospel of Jesus, and that [only] without a living faith, were indiscriminately following...