A Discussion Between an Antitrinitarian Anabaptist
and a Franciscan Monk—1569 C.E.

The Author has thought fit to insert in this History the substance of a conference between an Antitrinitarian Anabaptist, named Herman van Flekwyk, and a persecuting Franciscan monk of the city of Dort. His name was Cornelius Adrians. This Frier told that Anabaptist, that if he turned Catholic, and ordered his children to be baptized, he would only be beheaded. The prisoner asked him, whether he would not be deemed a good Catholic, if he did sincerely acknowledge that he had erred in the faith? The Inquisitor answered affirmatively. Herman replied: "Could you shed the blood of a good Christian, without committing a great sin?" Brother Cornelius told him with a furious tone, that even in this case he ought to suffer death, since he had been an apostate. "But," answered the prisoner, "the man, mentioned by Jesus Christ, who had a hundred sheep, did not cut the throat of the sheep he had lost, as soon as he recovered her. He put her upon his shoulders, and carried her home with great joy."

Inquisitor: You have blasphemed against the true body and blood of God, by speaking against the Mass.

Prisoner: I have not said one word about the body and blood of God; and therefore I am not guilty of the blasphemy you lay to my charge.

Inquisitor: Are not the body and blood of Christ the body and blood of God? Are not God the Father, and God the Son, one God? Do you pretend to make two Gods of them? Are you also an Antitrinitarian?

Prisoner: Don't you say, that you offer up every day to God in the Mass his Son Jesus Christ? When you speak thus, you distinguish God from the body of his Son; and yet you say now that tis the flesh and body of God.

Inquisitor: What! Don't you believe that Christ is the second person of the Holy Trinity?

Prisoner: We never call things but as they are called in the Scripture.

Inquisitor: Does not the Scripture mention God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit?

Prisoner: The Scripture speaks only of one God, the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit.

Inquisitor: If you had read the creed of St. Athanasius, you would have found in it God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Prisoner: I am a stranger to the creed of St. Athanasius. Tis sufficient for me to believe in the living God, and that Christ is the Son of the living God, as Peter believed, and to believe in the Holy Spirit, which the Father hath poured upon us through Jesus Christ our Lord, as Paul says.

Inquisitor: You are an impertinent fellow, to fancy that God poureth his Holy Spirit upon you, who do not believe that the Holy Spirit is God! You have borrowed those heretical opinions from the diabolical books of the cursed Erasmus of Roterdam, who, in his preface to the works of St. Hilary, pretends that this holy man says, at the end of his twelfth book, that the Holy Spirit is not called God in any part of the Scripture; and that we are so bold as to call him so, though the Fathers of the Church scrupled to give him that name. Will you be a follower of that Antitrinitarian?

Prisoner: We neither follow Erasmus, nor Hilary; but we follow Scripture, as they did.

Inquisitor: What does it signify, that the Holy Spirit be not called God in the Scripture, since he himself has taught Mother-Church to call him so, as it appears by St. Athanasius' creed? But, if you believe the Scripture, why don't you believe the divinity of our Lord?

Prisoner: God forbid I should deny the divinity of Christ! We believe that he is a divine and heavenly person; which is the reason why you put us to death.

Inquisitor: Tis not true. We put you to death, because you will not believe that Christ took his flesh from Mary his mother.

Prisoner: We believe the Word was made flesh.

Inquisitor: Christ says, I and my Father are one; and elsewhere, He, who has seen me, has seen the Father.

Prisoner: Christ says also: That they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe, that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one. I in them, and thou in me, that they may by made perfect in one. See also the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 4, verse 32, and Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, chapter 3, verse 28, and the Epistle to the Ephesians, chapter 5, verse 31.

Inquisitor: You have sucked the poisoned breast of Erasmus. But, what will you answer to these words of Christ: He who has seen me, has seen my Father.

Prisoner: Christ says also: No one has seen the Father, but he who is of God; and elsewhere: My Father is greater than I. Compare this with Mark 13:32.—It plainly appears from all those passages, that the Father was not made flesh.

Inquisitor: You must not pretend to teach me that. I repeat it again: Christ, the second person of the Deity, or of the Holy Trinity, was made man. You refuse to call him God.

Prisoner: I call him the Son of the living God, as Peter does, and the Lord, as the other apostles call him. He is called in the Acts of the Apostles Jesus of Nazareth—whom God has raised from the dead. And Paul calls him the man—by whom God shall judge the world with righteousness.

Inquisitor: These are the wretched arguments of the cursed Erasmus, in his small Treatise of Prayer, and in his Apology to the Bishop of Sevil. If you are contented to call Christ, the Son of God, you do not give him a more eminent title, than that which St. Luke gives to Adam, whom he calls also the Son of God.

Prisoner: God forbid! We believe that the body of Christ is not earthly, like that of Adam; but that he is a heavenly man, as Paul says.

Inquisitor: Do you believe that Christ is neither true man, nor true God? What is he then?

Prisoner: Christ is the true Son of God, as John says in his first epistle. He is also true man, as Paul witnesses.

Inquisitor: But does not St. John say in the same chapter, that the Son is the true God?

Prisoner: No; for John says: We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true; and we are in him that is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God, and eternal life; that is, the true God, whom the Son has manifested to us.

Inquisitor: But St. John says in the same chapter: There are three, that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one.

Prisoner: I have often heard, that Erasmus in his Annotations upon that passage shows that this text is not in the Greek original.

Then Brother Cornelius, turning to the Secretary and the Clerk of the Inquisition, who were present at this dialogue, told them: "Gentlemen, what do you think of all this? Am I to blame, because I attack so frequently, in my sermons, Erasmus, that wicked, that cursed Antitrinitarian? Tis certain he says so. But, this is worse still. He says, in his Annotations upon the fourth chapter of St. Luke, that a strange falsification has crept into the Holy Scripture, by adding or omitting some words, on account of the heretics. Nay, he says that some marginal notes, which had been made by private men, have been inserted in the text. This Antitrinitarian, whom you see here, and the arch-heretic Erasmus, have the boldness to tell us that we have added these words, who is above all, God blessed for ever. Amen. in the fifth verse of the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. Or, they say that these words are only a doxology, and that they ought to be translated thus: of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all. God be blessed for ever. Amen. Erasmus suspects that these words have been added, and pretends that the like additions are to be found in other passages; these, for instance, Tu autem Domine, etc., Gloria Patri, & Filio, etc., and such other expressions, with which we are used to conclude the lessons and prayers of the Church. As for the words of St. Thomas, my Lord, and my God, he knows not what to make of them. And yet he has the insolence to observe, that this is the only passage in the Scripture, wherein Christ is called God." Let us see, Master Antitrinitarian, what you have to say upon these last words.

Prisoner: Thomas expressed himself right; for, does not David say in the 82nd psalm: I have said, Ye are Gods, and all of you are children of the most High? And Christ alleges the same words to show that he might call himself the Son of God. See also the 8th and 9th verses of the 22nd chapter of the second book of Moses.

Inquisitor: Answer this question. How comes it that Christ did not say to Thomas: I am not thy God?

Prisoner: The words of David and John, above mentioned, may serve as an answer to this question. Tell me, in your turn, why Christ did not say to Thomas, after he had spoke the words in question, I shall build my Church upon this Rock, as he said to Peter, when that apostle declared that he was the Christ, the Son of the living God? Nor did Christ say to Thomas, Flesh and blood have not revealed it unto thee, but my Father, which is in heaven. And why did Christ tell his apostles: I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God? Why did he say: My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?

Inquisitor: But if Christ is not God, how comes it that we call the holy Virgin, Mother of God?

Prisoner: Tis because those of your communion generally affect to speak a different language from that of Scripture. The Virgin is called in the Scripture the Mother of Jesus, and never the Mother of God.

Inquisitor: Do you think we stick much to the bare words of the Scripture? The holy Council of Nice has decreed that the Virgin should be called Mother of God.

Prisoner: Don't you believe that the Council of Trent is as holy and venerable as that of Nice?

Inquisitor: Yes certainly; for the Holy Spirit has instructed us by this last Council, as well as by the Fathers of the Council of Nice.

Prisoner: The Council of Trent has enabled me to judge of other Councils. The conduct of that assembly must needs give us a very bad opinion of the former Councils.

Then Brother Cornelius inveighed against the prisoner. He called him a blasphemer against the Holy Ghost, Beelzebub, a diabolical Antitrinitarian, and enemy to the Mother of God.

Prisoner: You acknowledge that there are three persons in the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and that these three persons are but one God. The Virgin Mary is therefore the Mother of the Father and the Holy Spirit, as well as of the Son.

Inquisitor: Have I not demonstrated to you by the Creed of St. Athanasius, that the Father is God, that the Son is God, and that the Holy Spirit is God; and yet that there are not three Gods, but one God.

Prisoner: If each of the three persons is not a distinct God; if the three persons jointly are but one God; it follows that the Virgin is the mother of the three persons. If it be so, what will become of your Council of Nice?

Inquisitor: May you be roasted in hellfire, wicked and abominable Antitrinitarian! You would make a hundred thousand Doctors of Divinity mad.

This is the substance of Brother Cornelius' discourse with that unfortunate heretic, who was burnt the tenth of June.