683. What is a name without something to refer to, but a useless sound, and a mere noise such as that thrown back from trees in a wood or from ceilings, what is called an echo? Or like the more or less meaningless* sounds made by dreamers, or like the sound of the wind, the sea or a machine, which serve no purpose. Indeed, what is the name of king, duke, consul, bishop, abbot or monk without the office the name belongs to but vanity? So what is it to bear the name of Christian, and yet to live like a barbarian and contrary to Christ's commandments, but as it were to contemplate the sign of Satan in place of the sign of Christ; yet His name is woven into baptism with golden threads?
[2] What are those who after receiving the seal of Christ then laugh at His worship, snarl at His name, and claim that He is not the Son of God, only the son of Joseph, but rebels and regicides? What are their utterances but blasphemies against the Holy Spirit, blasphemies which cannot be forgiven, neither in this age nor in that to come? These people are like dogs agape to bite the Word and tear it to pieces with their teeth. In their case, confronted with Christ and His worship,
All the tables are full of vomited matter. Isa. 28:8; Jer. 48:26.
Yet the Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of the Most High God (Luke 1:32, 35); the only-begotten (John 1:18, 3:16); the true God and everlasting life (1 John 5:20); in whom all the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily (Col. 2:9); and He was not the son of Joseph (Matt. 1:25), not to mention thousands of other passages.
* Reading inanis for Latin inanimis 'lifeless'.