and not that anyone should judge that he had wished rather to consult his own honour. Then indeed he inveighs against that same emperor, because with military force he had compelled Catholics to hold communion with those defiled by the stain of schism and heresy. This mode of acting he execrates as a horrid and detestable crime; since in no way can it be lawful or fitting for the princes of the world, however great the earthly power on which they rest, to infringe those ecclesiastical rights which, almost from the very cradle of the Catholic Church, have been confirmed and declared not only by divine but also by imperial laws.
Wherefore he objects to him, and recalls to his mind, how the Christian religion, from the apostles down to his own times, though afflicted and tossed about by so many and such great kinds of persecutions from its adversaries, could neither be crushed nor cast down; but the persecutors themselves perished by an evil end, and the orthodox truth itself always and everywhere prevailed.
Meanwhile the pontiff's mind was the more oppressed by this one thing: that pagans, or other men worse than pagans, when—the rules of apostolic tradition having been broken—they had in the East, and especially at Constantinople, public licence to profess their nefarious doctrines together with the evil opinions of all the other heresies, yet the liberty of Catholic communion alone was reckoned by those who esteemed themselves religious as something to be overthrown. Since he perceived himself tormented, and could not (as he longed) apply a remedy to these things, he appeals to the divine judgment, whose protection those could by no means await who had attempted with rash daring to assail Catholic truth.
Finally indeed he praises the custom of the ancient emperors, who, whether on taking up the helm of empire, or on learning that new prelates of the apostolic see had been installed, forthwith sent their writings to it, in order to teach that they were its partners. Since Anastasius had omitted to do this, he professed himself estranged from it; and therefore the holy pontiff judged that he was to be shunned as a rival, a culprit, and an enemy. But in what manner the emperor even gave patronage to the Manichaeans, the holy pontiff indicated in a few words, as we shall presently relate in explaining the case of Xenaias. In the year 1827.
Who then, and of what sort, Xenaias—also called Philoxenus—may have been, whom very many, both from among the ancient and from among the more recent writers, have affirmed to be a follower of the Manichaean doctrine, we shall easily understand. Him above all, when he came from Persia into the dominion of the Roman empire, Peter the Fuller and the emperor Anastasius most greatly patronized; and he stirred up so many and such great tumults and disasters against the Catholics, that, with all the bonds of Christian society utterly dissolved, either schisms or errors ran riot everywhere. Pope Symmachus, at the end of his apology against the emperor Anastasius, attested this—though suppressing the name—assailing Xenaias with these words as a champion of falsehood:
'It is no wonder if the patrons of the Manichaeans persecute Catholics, since falsehood cannot but persecute truth. It is no wonder if they rage against the orthodox—men who can agree with all heresies, and who, being friends to all errors, cannot but be enemies to those alone who do not err.' But before we discourse specifically anything concerning the savagery of this nefarious man against the Catholics, it is needful for us to speak of his homeland, origin, character, and training. In pursuing all these matters, lest we should stray far from the truth, we undertook to survey the volumes of the most illustrious man Joseph Assemani's Bibliotheca Orientalis, that we might select those things which seemed pertinent to our purpose. 8.
We are informed, then, that Xenaias derived his origin as a Persian by race, in the town of Takal in the province of the Garmaeans; that moreover he was by condition a slave, and destitute of divine baptism—so very many ancient writers have affirmed. Yet Assemani himself contends that these can be gainsaid, and therefore he has endeavoured, by adducing various arguments, to vindicate Xenaias from a mark of such disgrace. Affirming, namely, that this man—otherwise most wicked—did not lack baptism, and that he did not make himself out to be an ordained cleric when he came from Persia into Syria.
On this matter he brings forward two very weighty conjectures. The one is drawn from Xenaias's mode of acting, whereby, namely, before he set out from Persia, he vigorously opposed himself both to the Nestorian doctrine and to Ibas of Edessa and Maris the Persian in the city of the Garmaeans, along with certain others—all which could not befit a home-born slave and one not yet baptized. The other he strives to deduce from the writings of that same Xenaias. In these he not only sets forth the genuine form of baptism, but more than once professed that he had been baptized therein and had put on Christ. These things indeed might turn our mind away from the contrary opinion, if we were willing to follow the very great authority of the writer among us rather than the weight of the reasonings.
For that man is endowed with such great knowledge and erudition in describing the affairs of the Syrians, that he has surpassed the other writers of his nation, both his predecessors and his contemporaries. But from a learned man, otherwise most friendly to me, I will await pardon, if I shall affirm that I must note that each conjecture, on which he believed he ought to rely for vindicating Xenaias's baptism, is [wanting]. As regards the first conjecture, then—namely, that in the city of the Garmaeans Xenaias, together with certain other men, opposed himself to the Nestorian doctrine, to Ibas of Edessa, and to the endeavours of Maris the Persian—what then? Even if these things, which are drawn from wholly uncertain records, were true;
could a wily man, who professed the Manichaean sect, be lacking in cunning to conceal his impiety? For the doctrines of Nestorius and of Eutyches directly overthrew, most especially, one chief error of the Manichaeans. For the Manichaeans denied that Christ had been a true man, truly born, truly suffering and dead, and preached in him nothing but a shadowy and phantasmal flesh. From which error indeed the Nestorian and Eutychian doctrines stood at the very greatest remove. For the Nestorians taught that there were in Christ two true distinct natures, and as many persons. The Eutychians moreover did not deny the truth of the humanity in Christ;
but they contended that in the union it had either been absorbed by the nature of the divine Word, or converted into the Divinity. When therefore it should still stand certain that Xenaias had vigorously opposed himself to each heresy, it could not thence be inferred that he had been cleansed by baptism, since he had already given his name to the Manichaeans. I know not, moreover, whether Xenaias could easily have opposed the endeavours of Ibas of Edessa and Maris the Persian in the city of the Persian Garmaeans. For we think it is clear to all that the endeavours of those two bishops were not put into effect except after the general synod of Ephesus, out of hatred for Cyril of Alexandria;
and that between them and the Alexandrian prelate enmities and hatreds broke out afresh on account of the condemnation of Nestorius, and lasted until the very assembly of Berytus, as we understand from the tenth action of the Council of Chalcedon. But who proves that Xenaias had by then been brought into the light of day, or whence is it gathered? Assuredly, in the Acts of the Council of Berytus, convened for the case of Ibas, or in the petitions or writings of those who arraigned Ibas of Edessa both for bad faith and for various crimes, we do not meet with the name of Xenaias or Philoxenus. And yet we find all the names of the accusers who had opposed themselves to Ibas and his endeavours written down.
What at last, if we should grant besides, that after the completion of the Ephesine council which had condemned Nestorius, Xenaias was brought into the light? Shall we perhaps judge that he was then a man of such mature age, authority, and learning, that he could have combated the endeavours of two bishops disputing about matters of faith? Certainly, in discharging this office, the first rudiments of the faith, in which children are wont to be instructed, could by no means have sufficed—since that Nestorian doctrine gave the greatest trouble to more than two hundred bishops in number. But that at that time Xenaias had either not yet beheld the light, or at least could scarcely have attained the years of puberty, [is clear] from the remaining course of his life: for more than ninety years intervened between the synod and Xenaias's death.
For Xenaias departed this life—even on Assemani's own authority—after the year 522, and the Ephesine synod must be assigned to the year 431, at which time I hardly think that this standard-bearer of the Manichaeans had been born. 9. But if it be objected to me that the endeavours of the Nestorians, of Ibas of Edessa and of Maris the Persian in the city of the Garmaeans must be referred to another, later time, I will not gainsay it. Yet so great a delay of time between the two must not be imagined, that we may with good reason draw conjectures both that Xenaias was then born, and that he had procured for himself such and so great supports as vigorously to oppose himself to the Nestorian doctrine and its champions. For Ibas did not persist in those endeavours of his right up to the end of his life;
but, peace having been made with Cyril of Alexandria, he refrained from all disturbances of the heresies before the year of Christ 445, as is understood from the synods of Tyre and of the Berytians. Therefore, although Xenaias's birthday should be reckoned from this year, or from the following one, already that former conjecture of Assemani would collapse; and that monster of heresy and wickedness would have died after the 77th year of his age—which plainly contradicts those things which Assemani described concerning this man before he ended his life. For he confesses that Xenaias, before the end of his life, with the emperor Anastasius favouring or commanding, presided over several pseudo-synods; that he completed various and very long journeys; that for the space of four years, by decree of the emperor Justin, he was exiled from his see;
that he betook himself hither and thither—now into Thrace, at Philippopolis; now into Paphlagonia, at the city of Gangra, in which, choked by smoke, he perished. All which things, since they portend and indicate so great and abundant a store of labours and hardships, we can scarcely be brought to suppose that evils and inconveniences of this kind could have been endured by a man passing his extreme old age. 184. 10. Of graver weight indeed is another conjecture adduced by Assemani, who, to prove that Xenaias was not destitute of baptism, first appeals to the writings of that same Xenaias, in which he bears testimony concerning his faith and baptism; then he tries to show that he had been baptized from the silence of the Fathers of Syria,
who would by no means have permitted hands to be laid upon them by Xenaias, if they had known that he was neither baptized nor rightly ordained. Yet less strength underlies this kind of vindication, if we seek testimony from the writings of others. Theodore, then, lector of the Church of Constantinople, who had seen Xenaias, since he was his contemporary, writes—not merely from report (as Assemani says), but from the narration of the bishops of Syria: 'A certain Persian, called Xenaias, whom, in the time of his priesthood, Calendio, finding him to adulterate ecclesiastical doctrines and to stir up strongholds, drove out of the region. Concerning this man I will relate in part many things which, hearing from divers persons, I have investigated. For, fleeing his own master from the region of the Persians, he arrived among the Romans.'
And a little after: 'Him Peter transmits as bishop of the Church of the Hierapolitans in place of Cyrus. Whom, not long after, bishops coming from Persia arraigned as a home-born slave, and as destitute of divine baptism. Which having been ascertained, Peter, not caring what ought to be done, said that the episcopal consecration sufficed him, for the supplying of the divine sacrament.' If we carefully weigh the force of which testimony, we shall hardly be able to gainsay it. For Theodore the lector did not discourse about a man wholly unknown to him and absent, whose deeds, at least the more principal ones, were not most well known both to himself and to all the Constantinopolitans—especially on account of the favour which Xenaias had procured for himself from both the Eastern emperors Zeno and Anastasius.
For Theodore flourished about the year of Christ 515, and therefore described the history not from report alone, but from those things which he had seen and which he had heard from others his contemporaries. Moreover, did not the bishops of Persia protest, beholding Xenaias taken up to the Hierapolitan episcopate? From none other than from the bishops of Persia did the outcries issue forth: that Xenaias, consecrated bishop at Hierapolis, was a home-born slave and destitute of baptism.
But if Assemani shall judge that credence is not to be given to these, what credence, I ask, will Xenaias be able to merit for himself—Xenaias who, reproved by his fellow bishops and accused as a pagan, in order to wash away this mark of infamy and lest he should be driven from the episcopal see, wrote a letter concerning the Incarnation of the Word to Zeno, in which most craftily and with excessive zeal he feigns that he had been baptized? Do not those very same words, on which Assemani insists, betray the anxiety of that same Xenaias? For he, in one and almost the same paragraph, twice, thrice, and four times, on a sought-for occasion, speaks of his own baptism.
He follows, indeed, in this respect, the art of all knaves, who by their own testimony alone attempt to wash away the just accusations brought against them. Behold the words of Xenaias, which Assemani recites: 'The Only-begotten Son is one of the Trinity, as He Himself signifies when He says to His disciples: Go, teach all nations, and baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Therefore (let us note the writer's mode of acting), therefore in His name I was baptized; I confess that for me He died; and finally Him, in whose name and death I was baptized, I believe that I have put on from baptism.'
So far, then, is it from the case that by this manner of writing we should judge Xenaias to have been baptized, that on the contrary we are led by a greater suspicion that he was destitute of baptism. For he does not appeal to witnesses of his baptism, he does not name the minister of the sacrament, nor does he designate the place or the time in which he had put on Christ by baptism, but makes himself alone the witness and vindicator of his baptism. 11. But that Xenaias had no other vindicator except himself, the Acts of the Second General Council of Nicaea also betray.
For in the fifth action, when Demetrius the deacon, keeper of the vessels, had read the above-praised words of Theodore the lector, none of those three hundred and fifty Fathers—at least for the honour of the episcopate—rejected that testimony as fictitious or of doubtful trustworthiness, but all lent their credence to Theodore who wrote down these things. And so great credence indeed, that, with Tarasius, the most learned and most holy man, prelate of Constantinople, interposing, all the other bishops pronounced anathema against the unbaptized and Manichaean Xenaias, and against those who preached a phantasm and denied the humanity of Christ. I know not, therefore, why or by what reasoning anyone could now cleanse that Xenaias from either of those stains—
believing, namely, that he neither lacked baptism nor gave his name to the Manichaeans; since not one of those 350 Fathers, in approving the just-praised testimony of Theodore, even hesitated in the slightest? 12. Yet lest we should seem to rely solely on that one testimony of Theodore the lector and on the approbation of the Second Council of Nicaea, which Assemani, with much study and the erudition in which he abounds, tries to explain more mildly, it will not irk us to subjoin the Antiochene pseudo-synod convened by Peter Fullo, as it is set forth by the author of the synodical booklet.
This synod, then, Peter Fullo, having returned from exile to the Church of Antioch, with the emperor Zeno—hostile to the Catholic bishops—favouring him, convened about the year of Christ 485, as Labbe, Pagi, Stephen Baluze and others have noted. For then Fullo, driven by dire madness, marked the ecumenical synod of Chalcedon with anathema, and, with many crimes, designated Xenaias bishop of Hierapolis—a Persian by race, devoid of baptism, a fugitive of servile condition, and a most fierce leader of the heresy that accused the Christians. But concerning these profane and illegitimate ordinations which Peter Fullo had performed, Theophanes spoke, writing thus:
'Peter Fullo, moreover, having entered Antioch, perpetrated many abominable things, such as execrations of a synod, abrogations of bishops, intrusions of noxious persons, illegitimate ordinations, and the like.' Theophanes, then, a writer of refined judgment, although in recounting the various deeds of the ancients he followed Theodore the lector—yet because he was not far from the age of Xenaias, by the description of illegitimate ordinations, he wished at least obscurely to designate this man as a home-born slave, destitute of baptism, intruded into the Hierapolitan see of the episcopate.
For since he had written the history of the affairs between the Romans and the Persians down to the year 573, neither the deeds of Peter Fullo, bishop of Antioch, nor the bishop illegitimately ordained by that same Peter Fullo, could lie hidden from him. Let no one, therefore, be angry with me for writing these things, or knit his brow, because in this matter I have not subscribed to a most learned man, already excellently deserving in literary affairs. For the zeal of inquiring into and investigating truth, not a lust for wrangling, so affected my mind that I should not too lightly recoil from the testimony of Theodore the lector and from the authority of the Second Council of Nicaea, so that what I candidly understand I might also openly profess out of religious conscience.
From which mode of acting I will by no means recede, as I am about to explain the Manichaeism of Xenaias. 13. This stain too the same illustrious Assemani did not attribute to Xenaias of Mabbug, even though he calls him a most wicked man. But how greatly Xenaias abhorred the Manichaean heresy is clear from many volumes soon to be reviewed, in which he expressly refutes the Eutychians and the Manichaeans. And first indeed, if Xenaias in his works expressly refutes even the Manichaeans, for what cause does Theophanes of Byzantium write: that Xenaias, also by name Philoxenus, bishop of Hierapolis, holding the same views as the Manichaeans, was driven into exile by Justin the elder?
But this happened in the year of Christ 518, as the most eminent Norisius proves in his work On the Epochs of the Syro-Macedonians. Why, moreover, does the same writer, relating Xenaias's second journey to the royal city of Constantinople, write: 'Anastasius summoned to Byzantium Xenaias, follower of the Manichaeans, otherwise called Philoxenus, inasmuch as he held the same views as himself'? But the emperor Anastasius not only zealously favoured the Manichaeans, as we have said above from the apology of Pope Symmachus, but also upheld the Manichaean doctrines, because he was begotten of a Manichaean mother. 'The Manichaeans and the Arians' (says Theodore the lector, an eyewitness) 'congratulated themselves on the promotion of Anastasius. The Manichaeans indeed, because his mother was a most zealous devotee of that sect.'
If therefore both—namely Xenaias and the emperor Anastasius—professed altogether the same doctrine, and for the sake of this doctrine the emperor summoned that Manichaean Xenaias to Constantinople; if moreover Anastasius's mother was a most zealous devotee of the Manichaean sect—how could it come about that we should despise the trustworthiness of the ancient writers, who most fully support us, relying instead on certain lighter conjectures?
Not so indeed did our forefathers act, who, in the name of Christ, assembling at that Second Synod of Nicaea, judged that most wicked Xenaias to be a follower and prince of the Manichaeans, following also the testimony of another more ancient writer, namely of John Diacrinomenus, who affirmed that he was accustomed to hide in secret places those images which portrayed Christ, so that he might, of course, hint that Christ had assumed not a true human nature, but only a phantasmal and shadowy one—which we have already sufficiently proved, in the preceding chapters, to have been a dogma of the Manichaeans. 13.
But now I shall seem to be failing in my duty, if I pass over in silence what Assemani adduced for washing away this Manichaean stain of Xenaias. For Xenaias wrote to certain monks of Syria a letter concerning the Incarnation of the Word, in which he asserted to Christ the Lord the truth of each nature, namely the divine and the human. Of this letter, written in the Syriac tongue, he presents a summary divided into five chapters, and under number three he subjoins these words rendered into Latin: 'III. If He who was incarnate (is God), He also who was born will be God; and just as He who entered into the Virgin was one spiritual being, whose spiritual nature is from the Father; so the same one came forth from the same Virgin, from whose nature He has the truth of His body.'
'Wherefore she is rightly called the Virgin Mother of God, in that she ineffably bore one incarnate person of God.' These things, I say, and others of the same kind, Assemani declares from various letters or writings of Xenaias, which utterly oppose the heresy of the Manichaeans. Concerning the trustworthiness of this writer and interpreter, especially in translating records from Syriac into the Latin tongue, there can be no doubt. But whether or not Xenaias followed the dictate of his own faith in writing these things, can be doubted. Just as it is also permitted to doubt whether the writings which are now circulated under Xenaias's name proceeded from his workshop, or crept into the books and codices of the Syrians by the zeal and fabrication of some impostor.
These things indeed lay wholly hidden from Theodore the Lector, from Theophanes, from Evagrius, from the bishops of Persia, from the Fathers of the Second Council of Nicaea, from the writers of the following ages—who, led not by empty fear but by the weightiest reasons, held up this knave as leader and prince of the Manichaeans. It seems very difficult, therefore, that these writings—if indeed they existed—should not have become known to those men who described the homeland, condition, character, training, and dignities of this most flagitious man. Or if at last they did exist, were they perhaps so lurking in the coffers of the Syrians, and shut up in trusty custodies, that only in these most recent times, by the study and labours of Assemani, could they come into the notice of men?
Certainly Assemani, who undertook to illustrate such works with his own animadversions, does not praise even one single writer worthy of trust, who assigns such works to Xenaias. And although he sometimes appeals to one or another witness, yet he plucks, carps at, and condemns these as Eutychians and Monophysites. Moreover, with the testimonies and consensus of the above writers now failing, should not answers consonant with Xenaias's letters be sought out? He wrote to the emperor Zeno and to the monks, inhabitants of various monasteries. Where, I ask, are the answers of all these, that we might scrutinize whether they harmonize with themselves, or whether there is in them some mark which, to the learned, smells of forgery?
For I, being placed in so great a dilemma, was led by the greatest suspicion that those works had been falsely fabricated in Xenaias's name by some sycophant. This suspicion was set in motion by the illustrious Assemani's own mode of acting: who, stumbling upon most grievous rocks which he could not forestall, asserts either that Xenaias lied, or that someone wished to construct a fabrication under Xenaias's name. Of what sort, moreover, is that fiction: that the heresiarch Nestorius was summoned by the holy Pope Leo to the Synod of Chalcedon. This Xenaias relates in his letter to Zeno and the monks; pursuing the argument of which, Assemani noted that this, as a putrid figment, must be rejected. For before the holy [Leo]
Leo the Great obtained the pontificate of the Catholic Church, already Nestorius, banished to a fourth place of exile, his tongue gnawed by worms, died in the year 436, as some have said; or at least lived in the oasis until the year 439, as Socrates affirmed; but the holy Leo the Great was elevated to the throne of the pontificate only in the following year 440, on the 28th day of July. Who took counsel about convening the Synod of Chalcedon in the year 450, and this at last was celebrated in the following year, as both sacred and profane records make plain. This palmary error, I say, Assemani noted, and, hanging in suspense, knows not to whom he should assign it—namely to Xenaias, or to some Monophysite seeking Xenaias as a patron for himself. 14.
The learned man Assemani, therefore, did not judge that so great credence should be given to the praised writings, as to suppose that this man had fully abhorred the errors of the Manichaeans. For certain sayings of Xenaias also came before him, which display the heretical Manichaean sense. Among these is celebrated that which the Oriental writer subjoins from the theological book entitled 'Of Rays,' namely: 'Philoxenus,' they say, 'acknowledges the sufferings of the Lord to be voluntary, not natural. Moses Barcepha too testifies that the body of Adam, before he had sinned, the Lord put on. Finally, in the history of Mar Barsumas, the body of our Lord is said to be by no means after the fashion of a human body.'
But that all these sayings breathe Manichaeism, and contain the fabulous figments of the Manichaeans, who is ignorant? Which sayings, although the author of the book does not assign them all to Xenaias or Philoxenus, yet that each single one proceeded from the nefarious workshop of Manes, our preceding lucubrations abundantly make plain. But that this saying of Philoxenus indicates Manichaeism—namely, that the sufferings of the Lord are voluntary—Assemani himself also asserts, and affirms that it furnished occasion to the writers reviewed by us to hold up Xenaias as guilty of this heresy. But the learned man judges either that Philoxenus fell into the error of the Incorrupticolae, derived indeed from Manichaean principles;
...that vice of inconstancy, by which heretics are wont to be very frequently tossed about, [led him] to cling to certain tenets of the Manichaeans, although he himself in his own books everywhere execrates them. However these matters may stand, then, neither can Xenaias himself, on the authority of Assemani, be cleared of every stain of Manichaeism, nor are the works which are circulated under his name and ascribed to him free of forgeries, mutilations, and interpolations. Upon what foundation, therefore, may we rely, when we have set aside the testimonies of ancient and later writers, in order to pass judgment upon his faith?