A man that is divisive after the first and second admonition reject;
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Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
This monster’s cavern [of heresies], your sacred Majesty, is thick laid (as seafaring men do say it is) with hidden lairs, and all the surrounding neighborhood, where the rocks of unbelief echo to the howling of her black dogs, we must pass by with ears stopped up. For it is written: “Hedge your ears about with thorns” and again: “Beware of dogs. Beware of evil workers”; and yet again: “One who is a heretic, avoid after the first reproof knowing that such a one is fallen and is in sin, being condemned of his own judgment.” So then, like prudent pilots, let us set the sails of our faith for the course wherein we may pass by most safely and again follow the coasts of the Scriptures. .
Perhaps even thus being put to shame by the bad odor of their names, they [the heretics] may be enabled to grasp the depth of impiety into which they have fallen. It would be within our rights not to answer them at all, according to the apostolic advice: “One who is heretical, after a first and a second admonition refuse, knowing that such a one is perverted and sins, being selfcondemned.” This is even more the case, in that the prophet says about such men: “The fool shall utter foolishness, and his heart shall imagine vain things.” But since, like their leader, they too go about like lions seeking whom among the simple they shall devour, we are compelled to write in reply to your piety, that the brethren being once again instructed by your admonition may still further reprove the vain teaching of those men.
If he who has been corrected for his first sins and has been deemed worthy of pardon again falls, he prepares for himself a more wrathful judgment. He who after the first and second admonition remains in his fault should be reported to the superior, that perhaps he may be ashamed when further rebuked. But, if he does not even in this case correct himself, he must be cut off from the rest as a cause of scandal and be looked upon as a heathen and a publican.
And again: "A man that is an heretic, after one admonition, reject: knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.".
To Titus: "A man that is an heretic, after one rebuke avoid; knowing that one of such sort is perverted, and sinneth, and is by his own self condemned."
A man that is Many ancient copies have this passage thus, Avoid a heretic after one reprehension. St. Iren us, Tertullian, St. Cyprian, St. Ambrose and many ancient Greek copies, omit a second reprehension. They thought once warning a heretic sufficient; a second correction only served to render him more insolent, and more obstinate in his false opinions. Certainly the faith of Christ has been so firmly established, that a man instructed in Scripture and tradition cannot conscientiously remain a heretic; he must be well aware of the crime of disunion; his own judgment, as St. Paul says, must condemn him.
But as many as separate from the Church, and give heed to such old wives' fables as these, are truly self-condemned; and these men Paul commands us, "after a first and second admonition, to avoid.".
"Such was the horror which the apostles and their disciples had against holding even verbal communication with any corrupters of the truth; as Paul also says, "A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject; knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself."
He shows that they do not so much err from ignorance as they owe their ignorance to their indolence. Those who are contentious for the sake of money you will never persuade. They are only to be persuaded, so long as you keep paying out, and even so you will never satisfy their desires…. From such then, as being incorrigible, it is right to turn away.
A time to speak, when there are hearers who receive the word; but a time to keep silence, when the hearers pervert the word; as Paul says: "A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject."
Who also intimates to Titus, that "a man who is a heretic "must be "rejected after the first admonition "on the ground that "he that is such is perverted, and committeth sin, as a self-condemned man."
