He knew in what causes he should use the power of a prince, and in what he should render the obedience of a Christian. And therefore, lest he should appear impious and sacrilegious, after the verdict of so many priests he left nothing to his own opinion. As one who remembered the end of Uzziah, who, after he had prevailed over many nations and had become glorious, his heart was lifted up to place incense upon the altar, which was not lawful save only for the priests, the sons of Aaron: on account of which leprosy disfigured his most obstinate brow, which reverence had abandoned. Knowing therefore, that most modest prince, that it had not gone unpunished for king Uzziah to have presumed to offer sacrifice, which is lawful even to every single priest of the second order:
he recognized that it could by far less go unpunished for himself either to discuss those things which had already been duly established concerning the Christian faith, which is in no way lawful, or to establish new canons, which is lawful only to the priests of the first order assembled together as one. For this reason, then, that temperate man, content with his own office, willed to be the executor of the ecclesiastical canons, not their author, not their enforcer: who, neither setting aside the prejudice which the violence of Dioscorus had attempted to inflict upon religion at Ephesus, established of himself a new rule of faith against his error, nor compelled to be reconsidered what had been established by the Fathers at Chalcedon. But not by the end of king Uzziah alone, however greatly to be feared, could the emperor Marcian then be moved;
but also by that of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram: of whom Korah, although he was of the sons of Levi, who out of all the people of Israel had been chosen and appointed to the sacred ministry of the temple — yet because they all together usurped the office of the priests, daring to offer sacrifice to God, which is far less than to decree concerning the Christian faith, they were swallowed up by the gaping devouring of the earth, and by their new and singular destruction left to all presumptuous men an astonishing example.
How then could the religious and wise emperor believe that it would go unpunished for himself, a layman, either to reconsider what the holy Fathers had already decreed concerning the faith, or to decree new things himself, when for the sons of Levi — that is, Korah, and those of his tribe who followed him, although set apart from the people for the service of the temple, and also Dathan and Abiram — that which we have proved to be incomparably less did not go unpunished? Indeed, many and great sins of that people had gone before, and — what would be believed the greatest of all sins — it had even already been defiled, together with its priest, by the profanation of idolatry.
For after, for the cause of its deliverance, it had seen Egypt laid waste with wondrous plagues, and had passed through the midst of the sea on dry foot, it forced Aaron to make for it a calf in Horeb, and they worshiped the graven thing, and exchanged their glory into the likeness of a calf that eats grass (Ps. 105:19-20), saying: These are thy gods, O Israel, who brought thee up out of Egypt (Exod. 32:4); and Aaron built an altar before it, and brought burnt offerings, and offered a peace offering, and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.
And yet, when this evil was avenged in them, nothing of such a kind was done as we read was done in the punishment of the presumption of those others, so that a singular and wondrous penalty might display the singular wickedness of the presumptuous. On account of which Moses there says: By this you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works, and that I do them not of myself; if these die according to the death of all men, and if their visitation shall be according to the visitation of all men, then the Lord has not sent me (Num. 16:28-29). There Aaron the high priest both fashioned the calf, and built the altar, and brought burnt offerings, and offered the sacrifice; whence it is written: Moses saw the people, that they were despoiled.
For Aaron had let them loose, so that they were a joy to their adversaries (Exod. 32:25): and yet he obtains pardon for the deed. But there Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, although they were sacrificing to the true God, yet because it did not pertain to their office, are punished with a new and incredible chastisement; and so much is it weighed with the divine justice, whether in his service the order which he established be preserved, that he judges this worse than if the homage which is owed to him alone be rendered to false gods. Those despisers of the divine order indeed seemed, when they rose up against Moses and Aaron, to speak on behalf of the Synagogue, and to fling forth words in the praise of God, when they said: Be assured that in the whole Synagogue all are holy, and the Lord is among them:
and why do you exalt yourselves above the congregation of the Lord (Num. 16:3)? But pride could not on that account be justified, which is wont to pretend such things as a covering for its own contempt. For no one praises God better than he who, approving His judgment in himself, does not usurp what has been entrusted to others. But indeed, if he is to be believed to have been mindful of that precept also which is said concerning the Levites themselves, the sons of Kohath: They shall not touch the holy things, lest they die (Num. 18:3 [4:15]); how could he believe that he himself would escape the condemnation of eternal death, if he were either to decree new things concerning the Christian faith, or to discuss what had already been decreed? But it is too little not to touch the holy things, which they are commanded not even to look upon, as it is written: And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying:
Do not cut off the tribe of the families of the Kohathites from the midst of the Levites: but do this to them, that they may live and not die when they approach the Holy of Holies. Let Aaron and his sons go in and appoint them, each one to the place where he has his burden to carry, and let them not enter suddenly to look upon the holy thing (Num. 4:17-19): nor could he frighten a Christian prince by his exile. When the ark was being brought from the house of his father, set upon a new cart, since when the oxen kicked he stretched out his hand and held it, lest it should fall, the Lord was angered with indignation against him, as the Scripture says: And he smote him for his rashness: who died there beside the ark of the Lord (2 Sam. 6:7):
and so that a memorial of eternal dread might be left to posterity as well, the name of that place was called Uzzah. On account of which David also, who, leading it with rejoicing, was going before it with all Israel, feared the Lord on that day, saying: How shall the ark of the Lord come to me (2 Sam. 6:9)? and he was unwilling to turn aside the ark of the Lord to himself. If we follow the estimation of an ill-presumptuous heart, will it not rather seem the more punishable thing, not to have held up the ark of the Lord, which he thought was about to fall, when he was able to? But we ought to judge according to fear of the divine precept, not according to the suspicion of the rash. For he who had learned that it had been announced to the Levites:
They shall not touch the holy things, lest they die — how could he lawfully touch the forbidden things, who, although in a tight crisis of time, ought not to have been moved by the sudden terror of the tottering ark, but to have been restrained by observance of the divine precept? Since therefore Uzzah, transgressing not from purpose and deliberation but caught off guard by an unforeseen and accidental chance, paid for a single ill-advised touch the extreme penalty of his rashness: by what plausible reason would Marcian Augustus presume to call back into dispute the things established at Chalcedon? But indeed the Church sometimes seems to the preachers of truth — like to the oxen of whom it is said: Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treads out the grain (1 Cor.
9:9) — kicking sometimes against the goad, seems to totter, while those bearers and teachers of it totter, as that ark did; but it is not the office of an Uzzah to hold it up. Its own David goes before it, who leads it on exulting: he himself invisibly governs it with his hand, through those by whom he established that it should be governed. And therefore it can indeed totter, but it can never fall. You have nothing, then, O Uzzah, by which you might excuse yourself under the pretense of pious solicitude, since you perish by the divine judgment for your rashness. But by these and suchlike reasonings and examples it is credible that Marcian of august memory was fortified and instructed, lest he should defile the dignity of the empire entrusted to him by the usurpation of an office belonging to another.
But if even less of the things we have mentioned occurred to his mind, his own reason without doubt tempered the modest man, by which he could most easily think and know that it belongs to Christ alone to have kingship together with priesthood at the same time: since, although certain kings functioned in the priesthood as a figure of him who was to come, yet when the manifest light came into the world, removing the shadows of things to come, he gave to no other what he reserved as singular to himself; but, distributing his gifts among diverse persons, he thus forbade to kings the things that are proper to the priesthood. Wherefore, how would a wise man not judge it profane to wish to seem to be that which Christ alone is?
But when the Church, at rest from the collisions of the heretics, whether by the decree of the holy and great council or by the authority of the prince Marcian himself, was again afterward, upon Leo succeeding to the empire, beset by their factions; willing to confound them not by his own response only but by the common response of the Church, he too did here what befitted a Christian emperor, namely, to send general letters through the metropolitan bishops, consulting concerning Timothy of Alexandria the parricide bishop, and concerning the Council of Chalcedon, that their fellow bishops and clergy assembling with them might signify by their response what seemed good to them. To which letters he judged that this also should be added, that he might say:
Respond without any fear, and without favor or hatred toward anyone, yet setting before your eyes the fear of Almighty God, knowing that you will render an account to the divine Majesty concerning a cause of this kind. Having received these letters, then, those same metropolitans, together with their colleagues, just as they had been admonished, responded each from his own province with a verdict as concordant and constant as the spirit of truth is wont to unite many. For although given from diverse and far-distant places, yet the responses of all had nothing differing among them, by which they decreed that the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon must be guarded irretractably: protesting, as we have already recorded in the second book, and saying:
«Neither one iota nor one tittle can we either alter or change of those things which were defined at that council.» And again: «For just as nothing less is needed to the sun to demonstrate that it is the sun, so also to the great and holy and universal synod of Chalcedon nothing at all of good things is wanting, nor does it need any addition or subtraction, having been established by the Holy Spirit as by a certain divine sun. For indeed those who in it were according to the time condemned, judged unworthy of the priestly order, were by the decree and judgment of the great God condemned as impious. But those who in it were received, having before borne an unjust and tyrannical proscription, were forthwith by the decree of the Holy Spirit justly received:»
«among whom is also the second Abel of our times, blessed Flavian.» To all these things they scorned to give heed who dared to pass judgment upon the verdict of so great a synod, supposing that something could be either lacking in it which they should supply, or present in it which they should amend. But it must be considered what were, in that time, the responses of the Christian liberty into which we have been called, when Leo the most religious emperor did not, from the temporal power which he had received, terrify the priests of God, but rather, against human fear, struck into them the fear of Almighty God. For he says: «Respond without any human fear, and without favor or hatred toward anyone, setting before your eyes only the fear of Almighty God.»
Nor did he fail to forewarn them that they would render an account of their very response, lest perhaps it might be said that they had responded what they believed would please his mind, who said to them: «Knowing that you will render an account to the divine Majesty concerning a cause of this kind.» Which that prince is to be believed to have said not for the sake of the discipline and observance of the Christian religion alone, but also because no authority can belong to coerced decrees, and it is of the utmost vanity either to bring forth against someone, or to receive, a verdict granted to power: since the very name of «verdict» perishes, when that which is felt is not the thing spoken.
Whence nothing is furnished to the cause concerning which it was thus judged, and much firmness accrues from this to those who contradict it. For anyone is convicted of not having judged rightly, who judged under another's compulsion. Hence the Church was once already thrown into turmoil, when the secular power, through the emperor Constantius, usurped for itself within it that which had not been given to it. On behalf of which blessed Hilary, in the letter a part of which we have brought forth in the tenth book, was saying:
«After much and grievous sorrow on the part of us all, on account of those things which were being done irreligiously by the impious, the communion of the Lord is contained among us only to this extent, ever since the Church began to be vexed by these disturbances — that bishops are exiled, priests are transferred, peoples are terrified, faith is endangered, and the decrees of the Lord's teaching are established by human judgment and power.» Therefore, then, Leo of pious memory did not disturb the quiet of the Church, because he did not by his own judgment and power presume to establish the decrees of the Lord's teaching, nor did he usurp anything entrusted to the priests alone. Hence also the things which were defined in his times are confidently opposed to the heretics without the pretext of any violence:
for, knowing that after the coming of the Lord only Gentile princes held empire and priesthood together, he judged that it did not befit a Christian prince to be what once the Gentiles were. But if he had sought to lord it over the Christian faith — which not even the Apostle sought, who said: For we do not lord it over your faith, but are helpers of your joy (2 Cor. 1:24) — he would first himself decree what seemed good to him according to his own pleasure, and afterward superfluously bring forward the priests of Christ to subscribe, and compel them to give assenting hands to those things which he himself had devised. And if they should receive, as the decrees of a council, those things which had been composed by the will of a single layman, he would establish everything — he to whom it does not belong to judge concerning such causes;
while they would decree nothing, to whom it belongs to judge. The aforesaid Augustus, mindful also that a coerced council never subscribed to anything but falsehood — as was done at Ariminum when Constantius compelled it, and at Ephesus when Dioscorus oppressed it — committed the confirmation of the faith to the examination of the priests, to whose power it was also entrusted: which is then truly believed to be done, if it is not subscribed to a verdict of the secular power. For it is one thing, when each one, holding the place of a judge in a council among the other bishops, designates by his subscription what he feels; but another thing, when he is brought forward like a witness, and — what is worse — unwilling, subscribes to another's pleasure.
Whence, although writings of this kind bear the false name of synodal decrees, yet they avail to this, that they show what kind of causes those are to which no one subscribed unless compelled; what kind those are who compelled others to subscribe, and what kind those who yielded to human presumption. Not unaware of this also, the same most religious emperor — that very few are led by reason, but very many by authority — attempted not only not to extort, but not even to forestall, the verdict of the priests; so that, while in a cause — though already decreed and manifest — he chose rather to await their judgment, he might by his very waiting show to all the people how great a reverence it ought to render to priestly authority.
But if he had willed first to establish what was equitable, and afterward to seek that what he had established be ratified by the verdict of the bishops, however just and religious the decree, he would nevertheless make it suspect to many by such presumption. For it would more readily be believed by those who are less capable of reason that they had not obeyed the truth. For if some bishops should subscribe to the decree, but rather had feared to resist the temporal power, then in true matters the authority which is useful to many would be abrogated.
And who can explain what evils will follow upon those who do not follow the order of the divine disposition? Furthermore, since in those things which were established both in the times of the prince Marcian and in those of Leo the Semi-Eutychians have nothing whereof to complain, why did their abettors wish, by a new reconsideration, to bring them to nought? For surely Marcian and Leo were not gathering councils to confirm some headlong verdict of their own, and then, changed again according to the running about of their own mind, compelling the priests of God to alter their former decrees, so that the gravity of synodal authority — which ought to be awaited with reverence — should come into mockery and into surfeit? They never took away from the preachers of the Church the dispensation of the divine sacraments.
For they knew that, just as in the admonition of kings the Lord said through Solomon: They have made thee a ruler? Be not lifted up: be among them as one of themselves, take care of them, and so attend to them (Sir. 32:1-2): so concerning the preacher of the divine word the same Lord again said in the Gospel: Who, thinkest thou, is the faithful and prudent dispenser, whom the Lord set over his household, to give them in due season their measure of wheat? Blessed is that servant whom, when his Lord comes, he shall find so doing (Luke 12:42-43). How would these words of the Gospel not move religious and wise princes, lest they insolently thrust themselves into the perils of so great a business? First, because this servant is called by the Lord not a dispenser of money,
but is called a dispenser appointed by the Lord: who has need of most vigilant discernment, that he may worthily fulfill the one office assigned to him. Therefore not only faithful, but also prudent, is the one sought by the Lord: who should dispense to the household entrusted to him neither in equal measure nor in the same manner; but should distribute the Lord's provision to all moderately and fittingly, according to the capacity and disposition of mind of each. Next, because he is admonished to give the measure of wheat in due season. For often things which, brought forth opportunely, would have been salutary, have at an unfitting time done harm. Therefore opportunity too must be observed, that the measure of wheat be dispensed to the household in due season.
If therefore anyone, ignorant of these perils, while he covets to seem learned, importunely and with no profit urging it on, disturbs the Church with self-prompted questions, this man is not a dispenser of the Lord's household, but a squanderer and a scatterer of the mysteries of God. Which those princes feared to be; and therefore, not only because the magnitude of so great a business exceeded their strength, but also because they had not received it, they did not assume to themselves the office of this dispensation. Whence there is no reason why those things which were established against the heretics in their times should be called weak or less suitable;
since they were transacted outside the judgment and authority of the priests, whose verdict the princes themselves also followed, not unmindful that, just as Peter the apostle, saying: Fear God, honor the king (1 Pet. 2:17), commends to not laymen only but to the priests themselves too to honor princes; so also when Paul, his fellow apostle, is read saying to all Christians: Obey your prelates, and submit to them; for they themselves keep watch as those who shall render an account for your souls; that they may do this with joy, and not groaning: for this is not profitable for you (Heb.
13:17) — not only is it commanded to the common people, nor to the nobles alone, but to kings themselves also, that they obey and submit to the prelates of the Church of Christ, and understand their own souls to have been committed to the reckoning of the priests, if they do not vainly bear the name of Christian. And therefore they oppressed none of the priests, that they might do all things with joy and not groaning, since they believed that this was not profitable for themselves, as the Apostle admonishes. Hence it is that the heretics are now hard-pressed by the decrees of those same priests, because those by whom they were established are not offended as men oppressed.