Letter 54: Even if the blasphemy of Montanus was unknown to you until now, as you wrote, it is ancient and extensive, having...

To Martinianus "What thing more, or foreign to our religion, do the much-wandering and many-godded Greeks [pagans] honor," you say, "when they record a mother as a god, since we too believe in a Mother of God?" Hear, then, briefly the things I wish you to learn rightly. The pagans, for their part, came to know the mother of their very gods and chief deities as one who both conceived and gave birth out of debauchery and unspeakable passions, ignorant of no form of lust, nor leaving any unpracticed, being as she was the mother of such beings. But the one whom we confess to have become the mother of our God made flesh, who received a conception unique and of one kind alone, all the generations of humankind have acknowledged in truth, since neither did seed take place nor did corruption intervene. But if you disbelieve the [...]

Τί περισσὸν ἢ ἀλλότριον τῆς ἡμετέρας, ἔφη, θρησκείας δοξάζουσιν οἱ πολυπλανεῖς καὶ πολύθεοι Ἕλληνες, μητέρα θεὸν ἀναγράφουσιν, ὁπότε καὶ ἡμεῖς Θεοῦ μητέρα πιστεύομεν. Ἄκουε τοίνυν συντόμως, ἃ καὶ μαθεῖν σε θέλω γνησίως. Ἕλληνες μὲν τὴν τῶν θεῶν αὐτῶν καὶ ὑπάτων μητέρα, ἐξ ἀκολασίας καὶ ἀῤῥήτων παθῶν, καὶ συνειληφυΐαν καὶ τετοκυῖαν ἐγνώρισαν, οὐδὲν ὅτι λαγνείας εἶδος ἡ ἀγνοήσασαν, ἢ ἄπρακτον καταλιποῦσαν, ἅτε τοιούτων μητέρα. Ἢν δὲ ἡμεῖς τοῦ σαρκωθέντος Θεοῦ ἡμῶν γενέμην ὁμολογοῦμεν μητέρα, μονογενῆ καὶ μονότροπον σύλληψιν δεξαμένην, πᾶσαι τῶν ἀνθρώπων αἱ γενεαὶ σὺν ἀληθείᾳ ἐπέγνωσαν, οὔτε σπορᾶς γενομένης, οὔτε φθορᾶς μεσιτευσάσης. Εἰ δὲ ἀπιστεῖς τοῖς λε- ---VARIAE LECTIONES ET NOTAE--- λάκις παραδέδοται ἔθνους. Consuetudo, inquit, saepe in legem alicujus recipitur. vers. 7 προ βδελυκτῆς Alt. mavult βδελυρᾶς. Vers. antepenult. expuncto συστήσεται elegantiorem, ni fallor, lectio nem duo soliti mss. Alt. et Vat. 649 offerunt συσστῆς τῆς ἔσται, nemo te sibi assidentem in mensa feret. Paulus enim cum ejusmodi nec cibum sumere, permittit: τῷ τοιούτῳ μηδὲ συνεσθίειν (I Cor. v, 11). Possin. (52) Notabilis diversitas lectionis in codd. Alt. et Vatic. 649 est Pro περιβεβλημένος ἐπὶ γυμνῇ, τὴν πεῖραν, etc., in duobus codd. est, περιβεβλημένος ἐπὶ γυμνοῦ, quod est congruentius loco Marci Εvang. xiv, si quem hic Isidorus respicit. Mox addunt τὴν σπῖραν quod et scribi potest σπεῖραν, et manipulum aut agmen significare, cohortem neimpe comprehendentium Christum, quam ille adolescens Marco memoratus rejecta syndone nudus effugit. Suspicor autem haec verba τὴν σπῖραν cum antecedentibus sine interpunctione connectenda ut referantur ad περιβεβλημένος, et σπῖρα sive σπεῖρα ponatur pro synonymo τῆς σινδόνος. Sane lego apud Eustath. ad Odysseam β, σπεῖρον γὰρ που καὶ τὸ ἱμάτιον, spirum alicubi restum significat. Et ponit auctoritatem in testimonio, σπεῖρα κακ’ ἀμφ’ ὤμοισι. Quod si σπεῖρον vestis, quidni et σπεῖρα sive σπῖρα. Vers. antepea. illud, δὲ clausum uncinis in cod. Alf. non exstat; quare negligatur licet. Possin. (55) Οὐκ ἐπειδὴ προεῖπεν ὁ Κύριος, ὦ θαυμάσιε, τὴν τοῦ Ἰούδα προαίρεσιν, ἐκεῖνος πρὸς τὴν προδοσίαν ὠλίσθησεν, ἀλλ’ ἐπειδὴ ᾔδειν τὴν ἐπιβουλὴν ὁ ἀλιτήριος, ὁρῶν τὰ κρύφια τῆς καρδίας κινήματα, τὰ μέλλοντα ὡς παρόντα προέφηνε.