Annotation XXXIX

”Do they gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?” — Matthew 7:16

On the Trinity.

The author of the Opus imperfectum, homily 19, judges those to be heretics who confess the most holy Trinity. For thus he expounds this passage: “And it is true indeed that he called all wicked heretics ‘thorns’ and ‘thistles’; yet perhaps the Lord — knowing that this heresy would prevail above all — called them ‘thistles,’ as it were professors of the Trinity, bearing a ‘triangular’ wisdom in their perfidy.” (a sneer of the Arian-leaning author: he puns on tribulus, the three-pointed thistle/caltrop, to brand the Trinitarians.)