They say still unto them that despise me, The LORD has said, You shall have peace; and they say unto everyone that walks after the imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you.
Read Chapter 23
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
I know other persons, however, whom an abysmal lack of wisdom and prudence so deceives and tricks that they think that the faith that they pretend to have will help them before God without the works of justice. They commit abominable crimes without fear by reason of this kind of error, while they believe that God is the avenger not of crimes but of lack of faith. Not only are they willing thus to ruin themselves, but also they strive by their snares to trap others in whom there is not light of divine knowledge. Do not listen to the words of the prophets who invent a vain vision for themselves, which they speak as false prophets from their own heart and not from the mouth of the Lord. They say to those that reject the words of the Lord, “Peace shall be yours,” and to all who walk according to their own desires, to everyone who walks in the error of his heart, they have said, “No evil shall come on you.” - "The Christian Life 13"
Against such people as these the Lord cries out, from these he reins in and recalls his erring people, saying, “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who invent a vain vision for themselves, which they speak as false prophets from their own heart and not from the mouth of the Lord. They say to those who reject the words of the Lord, ‘Peace shall be yours’ and to all who walk according to their own desires, to everyone who walks in the error of his heart, they have said, ‘No evil shall come on you.’ ” - "The Unity of the Church 11"
The Lord cries out and says, “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who invent a vain vision for themselves, which they speak as false prophets from their own heart and not from the mouth of the Lord. They say to them that reject the words of the Lord, “Peace shall be yours.” They who themselves have neither peace nor the church are now offering peace; they who have withdrawn from the church are permitting the bringing back and recalling of the lapsed. God is one, and Christ, one, and the church, one, and the chair established on Peter by the voice of the Lord, one. Another altar cannot be set up or a new priesthood be made contrary to the one altar and the one priesthood. - "Letter 43.5"
We must, however, examine such things carefully. For there assuredly are people who have not been counted worthy of Christ’s grace but make the reputation of being saints and honorable an opportunity for gain. Of such one may say that they are bold and shameless hypocrites, who seize honors for themselves, even though God has not called them to it. They praise themselves and imitate the bold doings of the false prophets of old, of whom God said, “I have not sent the prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.” And so, too, may he say of these, “I have not sanctified them, but they falsely assume the gift for themselves. They have not been counted worthy of my grace, but they wickedly seize those things that I bestow only on those who are worthy to receive them.” These, making a show of fasting, walk sadly with downcast looks, while full of fraud and baseness. And often they pride themselves on letting their nails grow long. They are especially fond of their ...
God gives the promise, “I will deliver them from the hand of the grave, and from death I will redeem them.” So the blessed prophets are in harmony with the decrees from on high. They speak to us not of their own heart or of the will of people but from the mouth of God, as it is written. It is the Holy Spirit speaking within them that declares in every matter what is the sentence of God and his almighty and unalterable will. The prophet Isaiah has said to us, “Your dead shall arise. Those in the graves shall be raised. They who are in the earth shall rejoice. For the dew from you is healing to them.” And by the dew I imagine he means the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit, and that influence that abolishes death as being that of God and of life. - "Commentary on Luke, Homily 136"
The guilt decreed against the wicked heretics is inevitable. They reject the words of the holy apostles and evangelists and pervert them to that meaning that seems to them to be right without due examination. They fall from the straight way and wander from the doctrines of piety, deceiving and being deceived. For while, so to speak, they have bidden farewell to the sacred Scriptures, they speak from their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord, as Scripture says. Even though the blessed Evangelist John wrote to us, that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, they drag to the exact opposite both the tenet concerning him and the quotation that proves it, saying that the only-begotten Word of God was not in the beginning, nor true God, and he was not even with God, that is in union with him by nature; God, who has no body, cannot be imagined to be confined to in any one place. - "Commentary on Luke, Homily 63"
