Sermons & Letters 211

1. Not yet, however, after the grave rebuff which the bishops Instantius and Priscillian had suffered from Pope Damasus, did they believe their affairs had been brought to utter ruin. But, mastered by the heretics' habitual stubborn cunning, and still desiring to remedy the evils and exile with which they were burdened, they devised a new plan: namely, that they should return to Milan, drawn perhaps by some vain hope that they would be received into the communion of Catholics by Ambrose, that great prelate of the Church. By this persuasion, however, only two bishops were led—namely, Instantius and Priscillian; for there did not then survive any other bishop who was a partner of the same crimes and heresy, Salvianus having already died in the City.

But things turned out far otherwise than they supposed. For, when Ambrose had learned the manner of the Roman pontiff's dealing, he too began to turn away from them, reckoning it a most grievous crime to give them a hearing or receive them into communion—men whom the apostolic See of St. Peter had shuddered at. Then (says the same Sulpicius) Priscillian and Instantius changed their plans, so that, since they had not deceived the two bishops whose authority at that time was supreme, they might by lavishing bribes and canvassing extort from the emperor what they desired.

At that time, moreover, Gratian himself still held the supreme power of imperial affairs, at whose court, since Macedonius the master of the offices prevailed more by evil arts than by authority, he easily led him into that persuasion, so that, the earlier decree of exile against Priscillian and his companions being revoked and abolished, he should proclaim that they be restored to the sees from which he had before ordered them to be driven out. Truly a grave and monstrous deed this was reckoned by all.

For Gratian, otherwise a religious man and a most pious prince, being circumvented by the wicked master of the offices, slipped into that rash presumption, so that he not only rendered void and cancelled the preceding decrees most piously issued by himself, but even was willing to set himself against the Synod of Zaragoza, against great Ambrose and the Roman pontiff himself, and against himself (which is more grievous). Rejoicing, therefore, at the emperor Gratian's leniency toward them, Instantius and Priscillian did not long delay to return to the Spains. Thither at last, at the beginning of the year 383, having set out, they seized their episcopal sees, against which Ithacius, though having a mind to resist, could attempt nothing for the defense of religion.

For the means was lacking to him, because the heretics, having corrupted the proconsul Volventius, had strengthened their forces. Indeed, when they saw themselves upheld by so great a power of the age, they rose up all too boldly against the Catholic bishop Ithacius, and demanded him as a defendant before the proconsul, as though he were a disturber of the Churches; and the proconsul, assenting to the wishes of those most wicked men, every divine and human law being sacrilegiously violated, ordered Ithacius to be haled off through a savage execution. But he, undaunted, fled to the Gauls, and there approached the prefect Gregory.

But when Gregory, praetorian prefect of the Gauls, thoroughly learned the sequence of what had been done, he at once orders the instigators of the tumult to be seized and brought to him, and meanwhile, the emperor being made more fully informed of all, he exhorts him to bar the heretics' way of intriguing. But that was in vain (the same Severus adds), because through lust and the power of a few, all things there were venal. Therefore the heretics by their arts, a great sum of money being given to Macedonius, obtain that, the cognizance being wrested from the prefect by imperial authority, the inquiry be handed over to the vicar of the Spains (Marianus), for they had by then ceased to have a proconsul.

And moreover, officers of the militia having been sent by Macedonius to Trier, to drag Ithacius by force out of that city and to carry him back to the Spains to undergo the dire fury of the heretics, nevertheless the bishop of Trier withstood them, who, the fraud being detected, with wondrous prudence of mind and priestly steadfastness thwarted and overthrew the wicked attempts both of Macedonius, master of the imperial offices, and of the officers of that militia. 5. Among the other champions of the Catholic faith, therefore, I judge it sufficiently clear from what has just been said that Britto, bishop of Trier, held no lowly place. For, speaking of him, Severus Sulpicius calls him 'Pritanus.'

But it is to be feared either that he bore two names, or that in the copies of that same Severus, through some affinity of names, an error crept in. For in the records of that Church this name is altogether wanting; but we read another not much unlike it, namely Britto or Britonius, who in the year of the Lord 574 subscribed to the Council of Valence: 'I, Britto, bishop, wish you, brethren, to fare well in the Lord.' Besides the Annals of that city, Bollandus indicates this at the fifth day of May, reckoning Britto among the confessors of that Church. Sirmond in his notes on the Council of Valence supports this; and finally almost all writers teach it, among whom are Blondel and Tillemont. 4.

But now those things must by no means be dissembled which these two latest authors wrote concerning Bishop Britto, in order perhaps to claim for him, among the Western bishops after Pope Damasus, a prerogative of honor and jurisdiction. They assert, then, that the city of Trier, on account of its being for some emperors a seat there collectively, arrived at so great an amplitude of honor and power that even its bishops surpassed others, whether in synods or in public acts. And for this reason they subjoin that the city of Trier obtained the primacy not only in the Gauls, but in the Spains and in England; there either the emperors' prefect, or even the emperors themselves, when they abode in the Gauls, were wont to dwell.

By which reasons the Eastern Fathers being moved, in the letter written to the Roman council in the year of the Lord 382, on the authority of Theodoret, they place Britto of Trier immediately after Damasus and Ambrose, and set him before the bishops of Aquileia, Thessalonica, and Sirmium, in order forsooth by this manner of proceeding to indicate both his virtue and the amplitude of his authority. A witty and fabulous invention indeed! But it is a wonder that on account of this seat of the emperors they did not claim for Britto above Damasus and Ambrose the prerogative of primacy. But how frigid this kind of reasoning is, no one fails to see.

For if the honor and prerogatives of episcopal sees derived their rank not from some civil administration of temporal affairs, not from the power of the age, nor from the emperors' prefects, or seats, or finally from the very consuls of the provinces—all of which, according to the variety of the times, were subject to countless changes, as sacred and profane records indicate—but are wholly to be traced back from their origin, antiquity, and foundation. 5. But that from the privileges of councils and the grants and dispensations of the Roman pontiffs the right of a metropolitan was assigned to certain Churches...

...yet it can by no means be demonstrated that this was given to the see of Trier above the rest of the Gauls, the Spains, and England in Britto's age. Nay rather, if we are willing to give credence to ecclesiastical records, it must beyond doubt be believed that the bishop of Trier did not then hold the honor of primacy above the archbishop of Vienne, or of Narbonne, of Lyon, and certain other bishops of the Gauls, who assembled at the Synod of Valence. For that Britto, concerning whom now there is dispute with Blondel and Tillemont, holds the fifteenth place in the subscribing of the Acts of that synod.

Let them say, therefore, I pray, those two writers who labor to sketch and fabricate a new patriarch, as it were, in the West over the provinces of three kingdoms as the fourth century was drawing to its close—to whom rather ought we to give credence: to Britto himself, namely, who is described as adorned with such prerogatives on account of his seat, or to the conjecturers upon whom some, perhaps in order to disparage the rights of the Roman See, might rely? No man of sound mind will ever persuade himself that a bishop of such great honor and authority sat in the fifteenth place, while that council was being celebrated in Transalpine Gaul, in the city of the Allobroges, subject to the archbishopric of Vienne. But indeed even Britto himself subscribed those acts after Justus, bishop of Vienne. 6.

But as to the letter of the Easterns praised by Theodoret, why do they say that immediately after the names of Damasus and Ambrose that of Britto is met with? But I ask: Is he the bishop of Trier? Nowhere does Theodoret affirm this. Nay, Henri de Valois suspected that he had been bishop of Capua. But we reckon it impossible to settle the matter, since the Acts of that Roman synod convened by Damasus are no longer preserved entire in the collection of the Councils, and the subscriptions of the bishops have long since perished—[assuming, that is,] that this same Britto was bishop of Trier.

Is so solid an argument, then, to be deduced from that letter of the Eastern bishops, that from its heading alone—perhaps badly composed or transcribed—a question of such moment should be settled? Did Theodoret report it just as it was transcribed in his own autograph copy? Or were those Eastern Fathers either exceedingly well informed about the order of the Western sees, or, changing nothing, did they faithfully follow it out? Who will affirm either of the two? For in the first place those Easterns, who had assembled in council at Constantinople, excusing themselves from being present at the Roman synod of Damasus which was then being held, [pleaded that] after so many countless and most grievous afflictions exhausted by the fury of the Arians, they could not undertake so long and laborious a journey as to come to Rome.

For this reason they send three bishops as legates to Damasus and the Roman synod, namely Cyriacus, Eusebius, and Priscillian, who carried with them the letter praised by Theodoret. To those Fathers of the East, therefore, both the order which the Western bishops held in the Roman council, and their number, were altogether unknown. And on that account they described the names of only some, but concluding the rest with this general formula: 'And to the other holy bishops assembled in the renowned city of Rome.' Finally, I shall say nothing of the suspect trustworthiness of Theodoret in reporting ancient records, since Baronius and others already deservedly charge him with like frauds.

But that this fraud is far removed from the Acts of the Council of Valence, Sirmond's diligence already shows. For that learned man took care that they should see the light more corrected, from manuscript codices of Reims, Lyon, Le Puy, Fossé, and three others of the Paris college of the Society of Jesus, of the Isidorian collection. And he judged those codices to have been written more than 900 years ago. Wherefore the entire agreement of the archetypal copies of the same removes all suspicion of fraud whatsoever, as the learned will judge along with us. But come now, let us return to Priscillian and Ithacius.

When, therefore, the attempts of Macedonius and his officials had been thwarted through Pritanus, or Bishop Britto, and at the same time access was blocked lest they should carry Ithacius back from the city of Trier into the Spains, a grave rumor began to arise that Clemens Maximus had assumed empire within Britain and would soon burst forth into the Gauls. Thus then Ithacius resolved, although matters were doubtful, to await the coming of the new emperor, and meanwhile that he himself should do nothing. And indeed things fell out in no other way than rumor had reported.

For in the year of the Lord three hundred and eighty-three already begun, that same Maximus, commander of the imperial forces in Britain, seizing tyranny, was acclaimed emperor by his own soldiers, and, transmitting an army into Gaul, strengthened the empire for himself by means of the legions hostile to Gratian. These things Baronius writes from Victor and Zosimus, in volume IV, at the year of Christ 383.