13° Council of Valence Ill} 855

continue forever. We cannot add anything, nor take away those things
which God has made that He may be feared" [Eccles. 3:14]. "But we do
not only not believe the saying that some have been predestined to evil
by divine power/' namely as if they could not be different, "but even if
there are those who wish to believe such malice, with all detestation," as
the Synod of Orange, "we say anathema to then1" [see n. 200].
323 Can. 4. Likewise concerning the redemption of the blood of Christ,
because of the great error which has arisen from this cause, so that some,
as their writings indicate, declare that it has been shed even for those
impious ones who from the beginning of the world even up to the passion
of our L,ord, have died in their vvickedness and have been puni~hed by
eternal damnation, contrary to that prophet: "0 death, I will be Thy
death, 0 hell, I will be thy bite" [Osee 13: 14]; it seems right that we
should simply and faithfully hold and teach according to the evangelical
and apostolic truth, because we hold this price to have been paid for those
concerning whom our Lord Himself says: "As Moses lifted up the serpent
in the desert, so it is necessary that the Son of man be lifted up, that all,
who believe in Him, may not perish, but may have eternal life. For God
so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son: that all, who be­
lieve in Him, may not perish but may have eternal life" [John 3: 14 ff.],
and the Apostle: "Christ," he said, "once has been offered to exhaust the
sins of many" [Heb. 9:28]. Furthern10re, although they are becoming
widely spread, we completely remove from the pious hearing of the faith­
ful the chapters (four, which by the council of our brothers have been
unwisely accepted, because of the uselessness or even the harmfulness,
and the error contrary to truth, and other reasons) absurdly concluded
\vith nineteen syllogisms, and not outstanding in learning, in which the
machination of the devil rather than any tenet of faith i~ found, and that
such and similar things may be avoided through all (chapters), we by
the authority of the Holy Spirit forbid (them); we believe also that those
\vho introduce these novel doctrines must be punished lest they become
too harmful.
324 Can. 5. Likewise we believe that we n1ust hold most firmly that all the
multitude of the faithful, regenerated "from the water and the Holy
Spirit" [John 3: 5], and through this truly incorporated in the Church,
and according to the apostolic doctrine baptized in the death of Christ
[Rom. 6:31, in His blood has been absolved from its sins; that neither for
these could there have been true regeneration unless there were true
redemption; since in the sacraments of the Church there is nothing false,
nothing theatrical, but certainly everything true, dependent upon truth
itself and sincerity. Moreover, from this very multitude of the faithful
and the redeemed some are preserved in eternal salvation, because through