Sermons & Letters 207 part 2/4

But that Beausobre trifles and plainly fabricates in these matters has already been proved from the very Fathers to whom he intends to appeal. For Tertullian above all, although in the book To Scapula—which Beausobre praises—when treating of oblations made to God he calls the pure prayers of the heart, in a broad sense, sacrifices, yet in very many places has enumerated the sacrifice of the Mass, the priesthood of the Church, and the altars and temples of Christians, as especially in the book On the Exhortation to Chastity, or in the books On Monogamy, On the Resurrection of the Flesh, and elsewhere throughout; in which places he praises and describes not only the dignity of the priests, but the rites by which the ministers of the altar are consecrated.

Beausobre likewise contrives an equal deceit and displays a crafty ingenuity in appealing to Clement of Alexandria, Book I of the Stromata, chapter 7. For although Clement praises the oblation of pure prayers, nowhere did he deny either the unbloody sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ, or the temples or altars of Christians; as we could explain by many passages excerpted from his works, did not the aim of our writing forbid it. Having therefore noted these and other similar deceits of Beausobre, we shall now recount in a few words what remains to be said specifically concerning Anthimus.

He therefore, first together with the rest of his associates, bursting into the city of Constantinople, set up profane altars and alien baptisteries in opposition to the true altar and the holy font, in many notable places of the city itself, and in the suburbs, and in his own house, ceasing not to commit iniquities therein.

Marianus the monk, together with the archimandrites of the monastery of Saint Dalmatius and the other monks and archimandrites of the monasteries of the royal city of Constantinople, of Jerusalem, of Mount Sinai, and of Second Syria, in his supplicatory petition given to Justinian Augustus, testified that Anthimus did these things at Constantinople by the common endeavour of Severus, Peter the Iberian, Zoaras, and Isaac the Persian; adding this specifically concerning Anthimus, namely, that he had long since deserted his own Church of Trebizond, in which he had been ordained bishop, contrary to the divine and ecclesiastical laws, and under a feigned mask of continence had held conventicles with the heretics, so that, by their support, he might snatch the see of Constantinople contrary to all ecclesiastical canons and laws.

All orthodox men shuddered at this violent and iniquitous promotion of Anthimus to the throne of Constantinople, both because the lawful sacraments of the Catholic Church were being brought to ruin, and because they were being compelled to suffer the greatest troubles. But let us attend to what the emperor decreed in so great a crisis of ecclesiastical affairs. For, having heard all the crimes of Anthimus, he did not wish to pass sentence upon him himself; but the most wise prince, taking excellent counsel for ecclesiastical rights and the immunity of the priesthood, entreated that a canonical judgment be made by the Roman Pontiff both upon Anthimus and upon his associates; being led by these convictions, that it is not fitting for one to meddle in ecclesiastical matters.

Being persuaded and instructed by the precepts of both Testaments that the sentence was to be awaited from the universal pastor of the Church—by that precept, namely, Ask thy father, and he will declare to thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee; and by that other, Obey your leaders and be subject to them, for they watch as those who must render an account for your souls—he also willed it to be sanctioned by sacred imperial law that the crimes perpetrated by Anthimus and his associates (just as the authors of the aforesaid petitions had long since demanded, together with the Palestinian bishops and the spokesmen of the other Eastern prelates) should be reviewed and judged by Pope Agapetus.

Nor indeed was Anthimus condemned and deprived of all priestly honour by any other than the Roman Pontiff Agapetus himself. For when the holy Pontiff, having set out for Constantinople and having discerned and proved on every side the impiety of the crimes, cast Anthimus down from that see and declared that he must be held as a heretic, he stripped him of all dignity and sacred office, the name of orthodox and of bishop—in which Anthimus most gloried—being utterly deleted from the Roll of the sacred ministers.

And in order that this sentence of the Apostolic See might be brought to a happy issue, with every gainsayer and stumbling-block removed, Agapetus himself committed its execution to Justinian Augustus, as vindicator of the sacred canons, just as the authors of this praised petition earnestly besought, saying: We therefore adjure your Empire not to despise the just judgment of the aforesaid holy man, but to execute it, and to free the Church of God and the whole world from the pestilence of Anthimus and the aforesaid heretics. For, the holy man Agapetus having been called from the present life, we have looked, after God, to your piety, and have awaited that these matters receive their end from you.

But what parts the praised and most pious prince of the age ought to have assumed for the destruction of the heretics they at once explain in these words: Fulfilling therefore what was justly and canonically judged by him, and confirming those very things by your general sanction, and forbidding that such things be presumed henceforth, you will honour his blessed soul. 14. That the leaders of the Acephali were engaged in this kind of Manichaean manners and rites, the monuments already praised, drawn from sincere sources, clearly reveal. But since, in perusing the Acts of the Council of Menna at Constantinople, other things occur to us which not only settle the present question but also more fully refute the trifles of Beausobre noted in the preceding pages;

therefore the aim of our writing counsels us to append them, lest we should seem to have fallen short. And these things pertain especially to Peter the Iberian, bishop of Apamea, concerning whom we noted various things above, and who—as is made known by the common testimony of the clergy of the holy Church of the metropolis of Apamea—was a worshipper and champion of all Manichaean dogmas and rites, and turned upside down the whole sacred and divine discipline and administration of the Churches of Syria. Nor indeed does our manner of proceeding permit us to recount one by one the things which the praised clergy of Apamea described concerning so wicked a man in their letter to the most holy Fathers and bishops of Second Syria;

nor to indicate the manner in which, by what art, zeal, or supports Peter obtained the throne of Apamea; nor to speak of the cunning machinations he employed to remove utterly the memorials of the orthodox bishops of the East from the sacred diptychs, or of the plunderings by which he transferred the sacred vessels, the moneys of the Churches, and their furnishings to profane use; or of the violent ordinations he more frequently employed to remove humble clerics hostile to himself—the guardians of the aforesaid goods—though wholly resisting, from their lawful grades, by promoting them to higher ministries, contending with sacrilegious mouth all the more boldly that not even Jesus Christ crucified could come down to rescue them from his hands.

These things, I say, and others of the kind, we have thought fit to pass over in silence, since they can easily be surveyed by anyone in the Acts of the councils. But we shall append only those things which point to open Manichaean manners. Of such a sort indeed appear those things by which he undermined holy baptism, when, namely, he introduced feminine unchastity unworthy of the holy font, and made it stand beside the sacred font. And when the divine mysteries (says the praised clergy) are completed in the oratory of the house of the Mother of God, what manner of speech she unworthily makes, which Christian ears could endure such impiety spoken and done. But that all these things proceeded from the school of the Manichaeans, Photius is the authority.

He, speaking of their assemblies and gatherings, says that they were accustomed to call the places in which they met proseuchae, that is, oratories; adding: Nay more, though they reject saving baptism, they nevertheless pretend to admit it themselves, hinting at the words of the Gospel by the mention of baptism. For, they say, the Lord said: I am living water. And a little within, wishing to explain how sometimes some of them, labouring under bodily infirmities, would seek and beg to be washed by baptism, foolishly (he says) thinking that the cross and baptism profit the body—men truly unworthy of every advantage and aid—they judge that their force and operation pertain neither to the cleansing of the soul, nor to any other usefulness whatsoever.

Since therefore we hold with certainty from the Acts of that synod that Severus, Anthimus, Zoaras, and the rest lurking under the name of the Acephali gave themselves to manners and institutions of this depraved sort; that they undermined all the sacred mysteries with profane rites and sacrileges; that they declared war on the sacred images and the sign of the cross, shattered them and trampled them underfoot with their feet—who will be able to deny that they were Manichaeans? And indeed that they were condemned as Manichaeans, both by Pope Hormisdas and by another synod of Constantinople under Menna, is established by his letters and Acts, which can easily be surveyed by studious men. 15.

Having thus completed this first part of our Exercises pertaining to the history of the Manichaeans, it would be needful for us to relate something concerning the sects of the Paulicians, Bogomils, Waldenses, and other heretics, who drank in the doctrine of Manes and followed his institutions and manners. Nevertheless, since concerning these sects—which issued from the school of so great a wickedness—both Peter of Sicily, and Photius, and Christopher Wolf had already discoursed by a certain ordered method, we have rather resolved to describe the heresies of the Priscillianists, Pelagians, and Eutychians which were assailed and rejected by Pope Leo;

especially since it now wearies us to have composed the two preceding books with a rather copious pen, perceiving clearly that by our foregoing manner of discoursing we have run off into, and as it were wandered among, certain questions which will seem to those accustomed to judge us less kindly and favourably to pertain scarcely at all to the intent and title of the work.

But who is ignorant that the greatest men, sometimes practised in literary matters, could scarcely restrain their pen, when it unexpectedly befell them to have to deal with certain men ever devising new systems, who attempted to turn upside down either the sacred religion, or the form of ecclesiastical government and apostolic discipline, in order to overthrow or abolish these? For it was difficult to extricate themselves in few words from the objections, cavils, and fallacies of arguments of these men. Especially when they sometimes fell upon certain questions stirred up by heretics and schismatics, for the dissolving of which the testimonies of one or another holy Father could not suffice. It is no wonder, therefore, if sometimes,

wishing to explain the manner of a holy Pontiff's acting, we have deemed it necessary to appeal to the origin and institution of things, or to bring forward the preceding practice and custom of the Church, in order that we might clearly show that Saint Leo the Great neither overstepped the due limits set by rights in administering ecclesiastical matters; nor laboured with a zeal for amplifying his own dignity, by making light of or abolishing the prerogatives of the bishops of other Churches; nor, finally, was led either by ambition or by excessive severity to coerce the enemies of the Apostolic See and of the Christian religion. From marks of this kind we have hitherto striven to clear him, against Beausobre, Quesnel, and others.

Moreover, we have it in our wishes to accomplish this same thing in the following Exercises. Because, finally, those three theological points are judged to pertain to Manichaean history which, in past years, were given to be discussed in the public papal Academy of councils of our most holy lord Benedict XIV, we have therefore resolved to insert into this work an Exercise of this kind held by us, as an appendix to the preceding ones, with the counsel of most illustrious men and especially of the most illustrious and reverend lord Nicholas Antonelli, secretary of the sacred Consistory and of the aforesaid Academy.

Hence hoping that this labour of ours too, such as it is, will be by no means unwelcome to readers, since it sets forth the ecclesiastical rules of the Council of Gangra published against Manichaean dogmas—the sum, scope, and reasoning of which rules or canons the most excellent and most learned men have already explained in the year of the Lord 1743 in the papal hall, and adorned (as we have said) with most erudite observations. I am bidden to undertake a truly arduous question, hitherto (so far as I know) agitated on every side by none of the theologians: namely, whether from those words of the Apostle in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter XI, 15:

But if a woman nourish her hair, it is a glory to her, for her hair is given her for a covering—it is forbidden to women to cut their hair, according to the Gangran canons 13 and 17; then, whether it be not lawful for the same ever to take up male dress, because in Deuteronomy, chapter XXII, 5, it is read: A woman shall not be clothed with man's garment, neither shall a man use woman's apparel, for he who does these things is abominable before God; thirdly and finally, whether at least for piety's sake it be lawful for women to cut their hair, to take up male dress, especially monastic dress, and to feign themselves men. These three questions, I say, are handed to me to be pursued in this present light, not by scholastic method, but after the academic manner; in expounding which I have proposed to myself to imitate the custom of Socrates.

He therefore taught that in disputes of this kind not yet sufficiently defined, no judgment whatever ought to be interposed by the speakers, but that they ought only to propose and prove those things which seem most probable, to compare the causes, and to bring forth whatever can be said on either side, and, with no authority employed, to leave the judgment of the hearers whole and free. Treading therefore in footsteps of this kind, I shall easily avoid the ill-will of those who always think the contrary. And you, most wise men, will be for me witnesses and vindicators of the things which I now begin to say for the explaining of the three points of theology.

There can be no doubt whatever that by the name of woman the Apostle understood the whole female sex and all its ranks. Which indeed both the whole context of the entire Pauline canon above all proves, and Tertullian demonstrates by various arguments drawn from the texts of the Scriptures; inveighing besides with grave censure against those who less prudently wished to persuade themselves that Paul spoke only of married women, and who by a certain rash daring contended that it was lawful for unmarried women, whether with shorn head or with curled hair, with no covering at all assumed, to come forth both in sacred and in civil assemblies, under the pretext sometimes of a false virginity to be grandly boasted and paraded.

Their opinion therefore, as erroneous and repugnant to the sacred writings, the same Tertullian refutes in his book On the Veiling of Virgins, showing on that account that the Holy Spirit willed by the single name of woman to signify both the married and the unmarried, virgins and all ranks of the female sex, inasmuch as it is a general term, as is also 'female.' This first error being therefore rejected, yet another not unlike it must be plucked away, into which Louis Cappel fell, as his treatise On Prayer not obscurely declares. This heretical man, following the commentaries of Maimonides on the Mishnah, asserts in various places that the Apostle's canon of which we treat is to be accommodated to the custom of the place in which we are.

He says on that account that one ought to pray in the churches in that dress in which men are wont to testify their reverence and homage toward the magnates and princes of this age. And after some things, speaking of various and diverse rites both of the Gentiles and the Muhammadans, and of the Jews and Christians, he adds that the Apostle in this canon had regard to the civil custom which at that time commonly prevailed among the Greeks and Romans, to whom he was writing, whereby all freeborn men commonly came into public with bare and uncovered head.

Since therefore (he concludes) civil custom is not always one and the same everywhere and at every time, but varies very much according to the diversity of times, places, and peoples, those things also which pertain to the ecclesiastical realm cannot be the same everywhere. By a not dissimilar persuasion, reasoning about the female veil and head of hair, he contends that the apostle Paul had regard only to civil custom and usage, and therefore ordered (I use his words) that women should not be present at the sacred discourses in church except with face and the rest of the head veiled. But against Louis Cappel, Rhenanus, Munster, and the other champions of the pseudo-reformed doctrine, the Apostle himself makes resistance.

For when in the said chapter of the Epistle to the Corinthians he seemed to have said enough through the Scriptures and the reasoning of nature to persuade women of the necessity of a veil, yet perceiving that there would be among them certain persons who would resist testimonies and reasonings of that sort, he proposed no other argument rather to prove his case than the sacred custom of the Church. On that account he said: But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the Church of God. Not therefore did the Apostle, in order to confute his adversaries, wish to appeal to the customs of places or to civil usage, but to the sacred tradition both of the Old and the New Testament; as though he wished to hint (says the most learned Melchior Cano):

If anyone is so hard and obstinate that he is not led by the arguments set forth, but still contends that a woman ought to pray with uncovered head, this man I refute in no other way than that the Churches of God have no such custom. So great is the force in tradition, that those whom neither the Scriptures nor the reasoning of nature had moved, Paul deemed must be refuted by the custom and institution of the Churches. And indeed, as regards the Church of the Jews, it is impious to doubt that it followed any other rite than this. There exists a most brilliant testimony of Tertullian on this matter, in the book On the Soldier's Crown, whereby we are taught that it was nowhere lawful for the women of the Jews to cast off the covering of the head, that is, the sign of subjection.

Among the Jews (he says) the veiling of the head is so solemn for their women, that they are known thereby. He confirms this institution by the example of Rebecca, who, at the distant sight of her betrothed, assumed a veil. He inquires the cause and adds: Private modesty could not make a law. And at last he concludes: that precept of assuming the veil derived among the Jews from sacred tradition, was to have at length the authority of the Apostle by the interpretation of reason. Not fittingly therefore does Louis Cappel reason when, in the praised passage, he says that in the time of the apostle Paul this one thing was received and established in custom, that chaste and modest women, especially the marriageable, scarcely ever came into public except with veiled face;

then, turning his discourse to the Jewish nation, he adds: I know not whether perhaps the Jewish must be excepted. But this, on Tertullian's authority, could not be excepted, since the Church of the Jews, by no means resting on civil custom (as the barbarous nations did), but taught by the tradition of the Holy Spirit, always pursued whatever would give patronage to the modesty and bashfulness of the female sex. These foundations therefore being laid, and the opinions of the heretics being rejected, it will not be difficult to resolve the first question, if we say that by that canon of the Apostle it was never forbidden to women to cut their hair, but only to cast off the covering of the head. Nor do we frame this by any recent opinion, or assert it without the authority of the Scriptures.

For excellent above all is that from which the Apostle began this canon: he willed both men and women to be taught by what garb or by what rite there was to be praying in the churches. For I would have you know (says he, addressing the Corinthians) that the head of every man is Christ, but the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. But what that name of 'head' signifies mystically, the same Apostle, in agreement with himself, explains in chapter v of the Epistle to the Ephesians, writing thus concerning women: Let women be subject to their husbands as to the Lord, because the man is the head of the woman, as Christ is the head of the Church. Not therefore must we labour over the signification of that word.

It intimates indeed the rule, power, and dominion which superiors have to exercise over those subject to them. The Apostle moreover proceeds to prescribe to men and women outward signs of subjection, lest their heads be brought to reproach during prayer. Yet he did not will one and the same thing to be common to both, but different things, and those especially which were most consonant with the sex of each, and would better answer to their honour. On that account, in the following verses he at once added: Every man praying or prophesying with covered head dishonoureth his head. But every woman praying or prophesying with head not veiled dishonoureth her head.

Paul therefore willed by that sacred canon to take counsel for the rite of those praying, lest Christian men and women in prayer, sometimes overstepping the laws of reverence, modesty, and bashfulness, should commit anything of reproach or disgrace. But this aim of the Apostle's writing being now perceived, it is by no means to be inferred that in what follows he wished to forbid women to cut their hair. For neither in the aforesaid chapter, nor in other places, do his words seem to have the force of a precept, since he only adorns women with praises if they nourish their hair, because the flowing locks become the female sex. Nor indeed are women praised on this account incongruously.

For the hair is the work of nature, which nature herself is wont to give more abundantly to women, for a covering of the head against nakedness, or for an ornament against the rude and unpolished array of outward conduct, or finally for a protection against whatever rigours of winter or other adverse weather. Moved perhaps by these reasons, the Apostle rightly wrote in verse 15: But if a woman nourish her hair, it is a glory to her, for her hair is given her for a covering. As though he hinted (notes Erasmus) that longer hair was given to women because they need a covering.

This truth, moreover, the ancient writers in Stobaeus, when they observed it, called the female head of hair a covering supplied by nature herself. And Clement of Alexandria, writing on the fashioning of woman, said: God made the woman glorying in her native hair, as the horse in its mane. But the Apostle's manner of speaking, and the very words which he uses, wonderfully add strength to our assertion. For Paul, first of all, calls the hair a covering not properly but only improperly, writing: For her hair is given her for a covering. For indeed if the hair were called a covering with true propriety.

Women who until quite recently, only a few years ago, had been letting their hair grow long would have needed no other veil in churches and public assemblies, and it would have been altogether permitted them to appear in public with head uncovered. From such a custom not only the piety and religion of Christians has hitherto shrunk in horror, but also the seemly modesty of every barbarous and non-Catholic people.

Again, if hair were properly to be called a veil, then neither men who grow their hair long, nor those who go bald, would ever stand in public or in churches with head uncovered. Therefore, in order to observe the Apostle's command (as is supposed), all men of every condition and rank would have to walk about with their locks shorn after the manner of monks — which how absurd it would be, and how false, I think no one is unaware. Since therefore that saying of the Apostle — 「Every man praying or prophesying with his head veiled dishonoreth his head」 — ought not to be understood of the natural covering of the hair, but of coverings put upon the head, namely caps, hats, mitres, and other things of that kind;

then, by the same token, one must infer from the opposite side that the Apostle commanded women to wear artificial veils in churches, so that they might the more easily provide always for their sense of shame, their modesty, and their decency. On the contrary, finally, if the hair were properly a veil, women would already be permitted to go out in public with hair loose and unshorn, like maenads, with no veil cast over them — a manner of conduct which the Catholic Church has always condemned as base and insane, derived from the impious way of living of the gentiles. But the Apostle's own words, which he uses, make our point even more clearly. For he does not employ the praised expressions in place of the veil, or for it, nor to indicate the origin of the matter;

but he takes them up merely to hint at the purpose, as is gathered from the Greek manuscripts which they present, from which my interpreters — namely Chrysostom, Theophylact, and the rest — have asserted that the Apostle wished to infer from the natural covering the necessity of another covering, a voluntary one, that is, and one that is put on. Namely, that women should learn that those things ought to be covered by diligence and art which nature willed to cover, and that by that assumed veil they should recall to memory the first condition of womankind, on account of which it was said to Eve and to all women, Gen. III, 16: 「And thou shalt be under the man's power, and he shall have dominion over thee.」

That these words indeed are to be referred not to subjection in love alone, but to their very condition, Augustine among the other Fathers taught in Book XI On Genesis according to the Letter — namely, that the man ought to have dominion over the woman even when she is unwilling, so that, unless this dominion be preserved, nature would be further corrupted and guilt increased. Let us not then wonder if the same Apostle, referring the woman's veil to subjection as to its true end, afterwards, in verse 10 of the same chapter, calls it 「power,」 saying: 「Therefore ought the woman to have power over her head.」