Chapter II.
The following are various types of people who, under the false pretense of being Christian, shine a light on the Church and are subject to the mentioned sentence. It reminds us how we should avoid the same mindset.
For this is the general opinion regarding all the impious. Therefore, if a Jew offers, who separates the son of the virgin Mary from God the Father, he is told: If you offer rightly, but do not divide rightly, you have sinned: be at peace. (Ibid., 7).
If Eunomianus, who, coming forth from the impious source of Arian impiety, glides down in the overflowing mire of his own perfidy, asserts that the generation of Christ, which is above all things, is to be gathered from the traditions of Philosophy: whereas surely there is one reason of creatures, and another secret power of the divine; and the saying itself is: 'If you offer rightly, but do not divide rightly, you have sinned: cease.'
This is said of the Sabellians, who confound the Father and Son. This is said of the Marcionites, who believe in a different God of the New Testament than the God of the Old Testament. This is said of the Manicheans and Valentinians, who did not believe that the truth of human flesh was assumed by Christ. Paul of Samosata and Basilides are also counted in the same category of opinion.
Likewise, by the authority of the same sentiment, those who denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit are condemned. For some are either Arian Jews or Arian Jews; because just as the former separate the Son from the Father, so too do the latter separate the Spirit from God the Father and the Son of God.
Novatus also and Donatus and all who have sought to rend the body of the Church, it is said to them severally: If you offer rightly, but do not divide rightly, you are guilty. For the sacrifice of the Church is, which is offered to God, to which Paul said: I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, to offer your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God (Rom. XII, 1). Therefore, they have divided the sacrifice wrongly, by tearing the members of the Church.
This statement also confounds those who, by separating the rational soul from the sacrament of the Lord's incarnation, desire to separate the nature of man from man. And perhaps these people rightly offer it to the Trinity, but they do not know how to distinguish between the reason and the nature of the divine and human; for the nature of God is simple, and man consists of a rational soul and a body. If you take away one, you have taken away the whole nature of man.
Therefore, this is the opinion against all heresies, which do not persecute the Church with a brotherly spirit, but rather with a spirit of enmity. Indeed, under the guise of the name Christian and by a certain claim of faith relatedness, they desire to wound us with parricidal swords; because our conversion is towards them, and sinners rule over us in this world. For the sinner rules in this world, the righteous in the kingdom of God.
Let us beware, therefore, lest anyone separate us from the chamber of the eternal king and attempt to separate us from the secret of the mother Church, to which the soul in the Song of Songs signifies that it has been introduced as the Word of God (Song 3:4). Let us beware lest we separate the substance of the hidden nature of the only-begotten Son from the bosom of the Father and the paternal womb, and let us meditate on not inflicting any prejudice on the divine generation by these words by which the truth of the assumed incarnation is portrayed; lest anyone say to us, 'If you offer correctly but do not divide correctly, you have sinned; be silent.' That means: if we do not know how to distinguish what is proper to the eternal divinity and the incarnation; if we compare the Creator with His own works; if we say that the author of time began His existence after time. For it cannot be that the one through whom all things exist is one among all.