87. For even if the Gentiles themselves could have anything holy and right in their doctrines, our saints did not condemn it, however much the Gentiles themselves were to be detested for their superstitions and idolatry and pride, and the rest of their corruptions, and to be punished with judgment from heaven, unless they submitted to correction. For when Paul the apostle also was saying something concerning God before the Athenians, he adduced as a proof of what he said, that certain of them had said something to the same effect,[529] which certainly would not be condemned but recognised in them if they should come to Christ. And the holy Cyprian uses similar evidence against the same heathens; for, speaking of the magi, he says, "The chief of them, however, Hostanes, asserts both that the form of the true God cannot be seen, and also that true angels stand beside His seat. In which Plato also agrees in like manner, and, maintaining the existence of one God, he calls the others angels or demons. Hermes Trismegistus also speaks of one God, and confesses that He is incomprehensible, and past our powers of estimation."[530] If, therefore, they were to come to the perception of salvation in Christ, it surely would not be said to them, This that ye have is bad, or false; but clearly it would deservedly be said, Though this in you is perfect and true, yet it would profit nothing unless ye came to the grace of Christ. If, therefore, anything that is holy can be found and rightly approved in the very heathens, although the salvation which is of Christ is not yet to be granted to them, we ought not, even though heretics are worse than they, to be moved to the desire of correcting what is bad in them belonging to themselves, without being willing to acknowledge what is good in them of Christ. But we will set forth from a fresh preface to consider the remaining judgments of this Council. FOOTNOTES: [391] John xx. 23. [392] Matt. xxiii. 3. [393] 1 Tim. i. 5. [394] Wisd. ix. 15. [395] See Phil. iii. 15. [396] Gal. ii. 14. [397] Cant. vi. 8. [398] Eph. v. 27; cp. Aug. _Retract._ ii. 18. [399] Cant. iv. 12, 13. [400] John xx. 23. [401] Conc. Carth., introduction. [402] Cypr. _Ep._ lxxiii. sec. 22. [403] Cypr. _Ep._ lxix. sec. 11. [404] De baptismi simplicitate ubique agnoscendam consuetudinem. Migne approves of the reading of some MSS., "De baptismi simplicitate ubique agnoscenda," etc., "maintaining the custom of the universal Church to acknowledge everywhere the identity of baptism." [405] Eph. iv. 2, 3. [406] Phil. iii. 15. [407] Bilta was in Mauritania. [408] Eph. iv. 4, 5. [409] Conc. Carth. sec. 1. [410] 1 John iii. 15. [411] This section is wanting in the MSS. and in the edition of Amerbach, so that it has been supposed to have been added by Erasmus from Cyprian (Conc. Carth. sec. 2),--the name Felix, which is not found in Cyprian, being derived from the following section of Augustine. Migirpa, or Misgirpa, was in Zeugitana.