← §19 Read continuously Against the Heretics · §20 · Amphilochius of Iconium
Sacrifice and Holy Meals in the Old Testament
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Just as he willed. You have in the old covenant that God sincerely accepted sacrifices from the righteous, and that all the saints ate meat and the other creatures with thanksgiving. You were persuaded through the holy gospels that...........
Greek καθὼς ἠθέλησεν. Ἔχεις ἐν τῇ παλαιᾷ διαθήκῃ ὅτι ὁ θεὸς γνησίως θυσίας παρὰ τῶν δικαίων προσεδέξατο καὶ ὅτι οἱ ἅγιοι πάντες μετὰ εὐχαριστίας ἤσθιον κρέα καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ κτίσματα· ἐπείσθης διὰ τῶν ἁγίων εὐαγγελίων ὅτι ...........
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About this text A fierce defense of Christian truth against deceptive heresies and their harmful influence on believers.
This treatise is attributed to Amphilochius of Iconium (c. 340–c. 395), a bishop in central Asia Minor and a first cousin of Gregory of Nazianzus. The work survives in a single damaged thirteenth-century manuscript, and its beginning and end are missing, so the original title and author are not certain. Gerhard Ficker argued for Amphilochius as the author in 1906, and Cornelius Datema published an updated Greek edition under the title Contra Haereticos in 1978. The treatise was written in the second half of the 370s.
The work is directed against the beliefs and practices of the Encratites and Apotactites of rural Lycaonia, groups that rejected marriage, meat, wine, and material possessions as incompatible with Christian holiness. Amphilochius argues that their strict separation from ordinary life is a deception and an apostasy from the faith of the church. He addresses the heretic directly, arguing against the rejection of the mysteries and against the idea that created things are evil.
The argument moves through biblical examples, including Abraham's hospitality, the eating of meat by holy people, the abundance of fishes at the Lord's command, and the physical reality of Christ's body after the resurrection. The author uses the analogy of a seed dying and rising to explain the resurrection of the body, and he appeals to Old Testament sacrifices and holy meals to show that material things are not evil in themselves. Because the manuscript is damaged, some passages have been restored by editors, and a reader should expect occasional gaps or conjectural readings.
We have not yet re-checked this work against its source. We made this study translation with AI help. No scholar has yet certified it as faithful and complete. Open Greek on any section to see the source text. It is not a critical edition.
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