Sermons & Letters 113

From the letters of your Gentleness our Eternity has learned what the most reverend patriarch Leo has requested of your Eternity. By these letters therefore we make known that concerning those things which were spoken by the most reverend bishop it has been written more fully and more openly on many occasions: from which it is manifest without doubt that we have determined, or decreed, or understood nothing beyond the ancestral faith, or the divine dogmas, or the definitions of the most reverend Fathers, who were assembled both under Constantine of divine memory in the city of Nicaea, and lately by our command at Ephesus;

but this alone we ordered to be established at Ephesus, that all who with harmful injury disturbed the holy Churches should be worthily removed. These are the things which were decreed by the most reverend Fathers, not for opposition, but for concord and for the pure bond of the adorable religion. But Flavian, the author of this contention, was by sacred sentence expelled from ecclesiastical affairs. Knowing these things, therefore, may your Gentleness, most sacred lady, mother and venerable Augusta, never suspect or imagine, as is said by certain persons, that we hold anything contrary to the faith that has been handed down.

We are indeed always delighted with the letters of your desire, and we embrace them with all the sweetness of soul, and we have been accustomed gladly to grant all your petitions, most sacred daughter, venerable Augusta; but concerning the present cause, that is, concerning Flavian — who was a bishop — what has followed in this matter our Gentleness has signified in full to the most reverend archbishop Leo. But to your Sweetness we have approved that this alone be intimated: that the aforesaid Flavian has been by sacred judgment removed from human affairs, so that the contention of all doubt might be taken away from the sacred Churches; and after this nothing further can be defined, since these things have now once for all been decided.

Mindful how much honour and reverence has always been due, and shall always be due, to the most blessed Apostolic See, over which our Lord Jesus Christ willed you to preside for the merits of your sanctity, we took care straightway to indicate to your Apostolate, by letters sent forthwith, the ordination by which our holy brother and fellow-bishop Ravennius, in the city of Arles, after the passing of Hilary, bishop of blessed memory, was, by the agreeing votes of all and with God's favour, advanced to the supreme pontificate.

To which letters that so great a dignation and charity has been answered by your Blessedness, we render boundless thanks, even if we cannot return such as we owe. Although it was already known to us beforehand that our aforesaid holy brother and fellow-bishop had, above all, merited the favour of your crown by the gentleness and sanctity of his character, yet now, having received the letters of your Blessedness, we have plainly recognized with how great a charity you embrace him. Wherefore, having first rendered the offices which are by right due to your Apostolate, we in no way doubt that our suggestion, which performs the parts of justice, will be heard by your crown:

seeing that we desire not that anything new be established, but that the ancient things be restored by you. For it is not just that the honour of him whom, as we have shown, you love intensely should be diminished by that very thing by which another has offended your piety. And it is indeed manifest that the favour of divine grace is present to the Church of Arles, which has obtained such a priest, through whom the privileges of its ancient dignity, which it grieved to have been for a time diminished, may rejoice to be restored for ever by the more recent authorities of the Apostolic See.

For it is known to all the regions of Gaul, nor is it unknown to the most sacred Roman Church, that the city of Arles, first within Gaul, deserved to have as its priest holy Trophimus, sent by the most blessed Apostle Peter, and that thence, little by little, the good of faith and religion was poured into the other regions of Gaul;

and it is manifest that other places, from this stream of faith which the currents of apostolic institution sent to us, deserved to have a priest earlier than the city of Vienne, which now shamelessly and notoriously demands for itself undue primacies. For rightly and deservedly has that city always held the summit of holy dignity, which in holy Trophimus first received the first-fruits of our religion, and afterwards, by zeal of saving doctrine, poured forth within Gaul that which it had obtained by divine gift. In consideration of which honour, all our successors and predecessors have always cherished the Church of Arles as a mother with due honour, and, holding the whole tradition, our cities have requested bishops for themselves from this See.

It is established that both our predecessors and we ourselves were, by the Lord's gift, consecrated to the supreme priesthood by the priest of this Church. And following this antiquity indeed, the predecessors of your Blessedness confirmed, by promulgated authorities (as the archives of the Apostolic See without doubt also contain), that which ancient institution had handed down concerning the privileges of the Church of Arles:

believing it to be full of reason and justice, that just as, through the most blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, the most sacred Roman Church holds the primacy over all the Churches of the whole world, so also within Gaul the Church of Arles, which deserved to have holy Trophimus, sent by the Apostles, as its priest, should claim the pontifical right of ordaining. By these privileges the aforesaid Church makes use according to religion. For the rest, there are many things by which, according to the institutions of the princes, it is preferred to all the cities within our regions. This city was so specially honoured by Constantine of most glorious memory, that from his name — besides the proper name by which it is called Arles — it received the name Constantina.

This city the most clement of memory Valentinian and Honorius, most faithful princes, adorned with special privileges, and — to use their own word — by naming it the Mother of all the Gauls. In this city, whoever within Gaul, from the time of the aforesaid princes, wished to display the insignia of dignity, received and gave the consulship. This the most sublime prefecture, and the remaining powers, always inhabit as a fatherland common to all.

To this city there is a concourse from all the cities for the sake of many advantages; and plainly, by divine dispensation, as we believe, all things have so agreed together concerning the privileges of the aforesaid Church and city, that always, just as the Church of Arles has possessed within Gaul the primacy in the priesthood by the merit of antiquity, so also the city itself has possessed the principate in the world by the grace of its opportune situation.

Whence it has come to pass that not only the ordination of the province of Vienne, but also of three provinces, in consideration of holy Trophimus, as the disclosed authority of your holy predecessors also attests, the priest of the Church of Arles has always recalled to his own solicitude and care. To whom this too of honour and dignity was conferred, that he should not only govern these provinces by his own power, but should also, the office of the Apostolic See being committed to him, hold all the Gauls under the whole ecclesiastical rule.

All these things therefore being made known, and brought to the knowledge of your Blessedness by faithful assertion, we ask and beseech the crown of your sanctity, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who chose in you justice, patience, tranquillity, and the goods of all sanctity and perfection, and by the most blessed Apostle Peter, whom we believe to have been restored to us by divine gift in your life and conversation, that whatsoever the Church of Arles, as we have indicated above, either received from antiquity, or afterwards claimed by the authority of the Apostolic See, all this the authority of your Blessedness, destined to endure for ever, may command the priest of that same Church to recall to his own pontificate. And we ourselves, whether for the cause of our offices, or on occasion of this legation, would have presented ourselves to the sight of your sanctity, had not infirmity called some, and the scarcity of the present year called others, back from this longing of our desires.

But we trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, who has granted to our prayers and desires the effect of your most ready piety, that we who are now defrauded of the office of legation shall afterwards perform the act of thanks to be rendered through our own selves. The reading of the letters of your Charity, which our sons Petronius the presbyter and Regulus the deacon brought to us, we have plainly recognized how benevolent an affection you bestow upon our brother and fellow-bishop Ravennius:

since you request that what his predecessor had, by the merit of excessive presumption, lost, may be restored to him. But the bishop of Vienne, by sending letters and legates, had by his representation forestalled the petition of your Fraternity, complaining that the bishop of Arles had usurped for himself the ordination of the bishop of Vaison. Since therefore both the reverence of the ancestral sanctions and the favour of you all is so to be observed by us, that in the privileges of the Churches we suffer nothing to be torn away, nothing to be cut off, it was consequent that, for the preserving of peace within the province of Vienne, a moderation of justice should be applied, which should neglect neither the usage of antiquity nor your desires.

For the allegations of both parties of the clerics here present being considered, we have found that within your province both the cities of Vienne and of Arles have always been so distinguished, that, by the alternating reason of certain causes, now the one excelled in ecclesiastical privileges, now the other, since nevertheless it was reported by the ancients that a common right once belonged to these same cities. Wherefore we do not suffer the city of Vienne, as far as pertains to ecclesiastical justice, to be utterly unhonoured; especially since it makes use, by the authority of our present disposition, of the reception of a privilege; which power, taken away from bishop Hilary, we have believed should be assigned to the bishop of Vienne. Who, lest he should seem suddenly made inferior to himself,

shall preside over four neighbouring towns, that is, Valence, and Tarentaise, and Geneva, and Grenoble, so that with these Vienne itself may be the fifth, to whose bishop the solicitude of all the aforesaid Churches shall pertain. But the remaining cities of the same province shall abide under the authority and ordination of the bishop of Arles: whom, by the temperance of his modesty, we believe will be so zealous of charity and peace, that he will by no means reckon taken from himself that which he sees granted to his brother. Given on the third day before the Nones of May, in the seventh consulship of Valentinian Augustus and of Avienus, the most illustrious, being consuls. At the end of this letter, these words which follow are found in the Arles and Vallicellan codices:

This precept of the lord Leo was confirmed by the Apostolic See, Pope Symmachus presiding, in the consulship of Probus, the most illustrious.