Is Our Way True?

Est vera secta? te, Magister, consulo  rectamne servamus fidem?  an viperina non cavemus dogmata,  et nescientes labimur?  artam salutis vix viam discernere est  inter reflexas semitas,  tam multa surgunt perfidorum conpeta torris polita erroribus, obliqua sese conserunt divortia  hinc inde textis orbitis.  quas si quis errans ac vagus sectabitur,  rectum relinquens tramitem,  scrobis latentis pronus in foveam ruet,  quam fodit hostilis manus,  manus latronum, quae viantes obsidet iter sequentes devium,  quid non libido mentis humanae struat?  quid non malorum pruriat?  statum lacessunt omnipotentis Dei  calumniosis litibus,  fidem minutis dissecant ambagibus  ut quisque lingua est nequior;  solvunt ligantque quaestionum  vincula per syllogismos plectiles.  vae captiosis sycophantarum strophis!  vae versipelli astutiae!  nodos tenaces recta rumpit regula,  infesta dissertantibus.  idcirco mundi stulta delegit Deus,  ut concidant sophistica,  deque inbecillis subiugavit fortia,  simplex ut esset credere,  lapis nostro fixus offensaculo est,  inpingat in quem vanitas,  signum caventi, non caventi scandalum:  hunc sternit, illum dirigit, Prudentius, Apotheosis

Is our way true? You, Master, I ask: do we keep the right faith? Or careless of venomous teaching Do we fall in our ignorance? Hard to see salvation's narrow way among the twisting paths. So many perilous crossroads confront trod smooth by reckless error; so many lanes branch off and away, here and there winding. If a wanderer, a vagrant follows them, leaving the straight track, he will tumble suddenly into a pit which hostile hands have dug, robbers' hands assailing the traveller who has followed the byway. What would human mind's desire not plot? In what evil not have pleasure? They assail the being of almighty God with lying arguments, cutting up faith with thoughts as wild as their tongue is wicked. They lose and bind with chains of subtle syllogisms. Woe to the sharp plays of tricksters! Woe to crafty cunning! The right rule bursts their tight knots, their plague of speech. Thus God has chosen foolish things to ruin the intellectual, and by weakness He bound strength, that faith might be simple. A stone is set to trouble us, vanity strikes itself on it, the wary's sign, the unwary's scandal; one it lays low, another it guides. Prudentius, Apotheosis