By Water & Blood

On Nepos

Nepos, bishop of an Egyptian city, agreed in all other respects with the doctrines of the Church, but erred concerning the divine promises, thinking that these would be on this earth—eating and drinking and the Jewish festivals, and periods of a thousand years spent in these. Against him again Dionysius, bishop of the Alexandrians, wrote, praising him in the other matters but in these refuting the error.

These doctrines sprang up between those who deny the humanity of our God and Savior and those who call a mere man him who is also God before the ages. And most of these, as soon as they sprouted, withered and have remained dry. For who now knows anyone named from Nepos, or Nicolas, or Noetus, or Proclus? The East has been altogether freed of Montanists and Novatianists and Quartodecimans; Egypt too has been freed, and Libya, and the West also is free of them; but small portions of Asia and of Pontus still have their weeds. For neither Polemoniac Pontus, nor Helenopontus, nor the Armenias, nor the Cappadocias, nor Lycaonia, nor Pisidia, nor Pamphylia, nor Lycia, nor Caria received these heresies. Of those who proclaim the truth the continents are full, and even the ends of the world are full. For true is the prophecy of the God of all, which he made through the prophetic tongue, saying to the Savior: “Behold, I have given you for a covenant of a race, for a light of nations, that you may be salvation unto the end of the earth.” In accord with Isaiah the blessed David also says: “For he will rule from sea to sea, and from the rivers unto the ends of the world. Before him Ethiopians will fall, and his enemies will lick dust. Kings of Tharsis and islands will bring gifts; kings of Arabs and of Saba will offer gifts. And all the kings of the earth will worship him; all the nations will serve him.”

These prophecies received their fulfillment through the Church. But the teaching of the heretics—some of it was pulled up by the root, and some does not even differ from half-dried plants, remaining in a few cities and villages, and showing the weakness and falsehood of those who composed it. For the Lord scatters the signs of ventriloquists, and divinations from the heart, and establishes the words of his child, and shows the counsel of his angels true. And “He scatters the counsels of nations and sets aside the reasonings of peoples; but the counsel of the Lord remains forever; the reasonings of his heart unto generation and generation.” Blessed then is the nation whose God is the Lord, a people whom he chose for his own inheritance.