Fr. Corn. O you devilish heretic, I have proved to you from the symbol of Athanasius, that the Father is God, and that the Son is God, and that the Holy Ghost is God, and that there are nevertheless not three gods, but that these three are one true, inseparable God, see.
Herm. If these three are not each a distinct, separate God, but if the three are but one true inseparable God, and if Mary is the mother of God, then she must be the mother of all three, or the three must each be a separate God. Where are you now with your council of Nice?
Fr. Corn. Bah, may the fire of hell burn you, you wicked, evil, vile, false, crafty Trinitarian; the devil wags your accursed tongue. Bah, you would drive an hundred thousand doctors of divinity mad and crazy. Jesus, Jesus, worthy mother of God, how you are reviled, despised and rejected by this hellish devil’s brood, But in good faith, how would you have her called—Maeyken Timmermans,[311] as you call her in your hellish, devilish sermons in the Gruthuysbosch, eh?
Herm. We call her the mother of Jesus, as she is called in the Scriptures, And how can you say that we revile, despise and reject her?
Fr. Corn. O you accursed Anabaptist, I will drop this, that you will not call her the mother of God; but is this not odious reviling, despising and rejecting, that your arch-heretic, Menno Symons writes, that Christ did not assume the sinful earthly seed of Mary, but that he came with flesh and blood, with skin and hair, from heaven, into Mary, and thus became man, and that he merely passed through her body, as water through a sieve, or through a spout;—bah, is this not reviling blaspheming, despising and rejecting?
Herm. You do not understand what Menno Simons writes; for what you here say, cannot be found in his writings; but he shows with many Scriptures, that the Word became flesh (as John writes in his first chapter), and not the seed of Mary.
Fr. Corn. Ah, bah, was Christ then not born of the seed of David according to the promise; which seed he assumed in the blessed virgin Mary, of her most pure blood, and of that became flesh and man, eh?
Herm. That Christ was born of the seed of David (as regards the generation of which he was born) we well believe; but the angel said to Joseph: That which is begotten in her is of the Holy Ghost, Matt. 1:20. Again, John 16:28, Christ himself says: I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world.
Fr. Corn. Ah, bah, Christ says this of his divinity, that the same proceeded, and came into the world from the Father, and not from his humanity, you stupid Anabaptist.
Herm. Why then did Christ say, John 6:62: What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? Again, John 3:13: No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man. Again, Paul says, Eph. 4:9,10: That he ascended; what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens.