But the multiplying brood of the ungodly shall not thrive, nor take deep rooting from bastard slips, nor lay any fast foundation.
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Optatus of Milevis
AD 400
What you have mentioned is found in the prophet Solomon, "The children of adulterers will not reach maturity, and illegitimate plants cannot strike deep roots," can also be interpreted literally, because whatever you might mean figuratively is borne out by real adulterers. But let us suppose that this could also be understood figuratively. In this case, the passage must be referred to heretics, who make illicit unions of the sacraments and in whose beds is found iniquity. Among them the seeds of faith have been corrupted and now tend to destruction. When Valentinus wanted to assert that the Son of God appeared in the form of a ghost and not in real flesh, he corrupted his own faith and that of his followers. Thus the seed of their origin was destroyed, because they did not believe that the Son of God was born of the virgin Mary with a true body and suffered the passion in his real body. - "Against the Donatists 4.8"
