Sermons & Letters 215

I. Although I have hitherto dwelt at length upon weighing the Acts of the Councils of Zaragoza and Toledo, which pertain to the cause and condemnation of the Priscillianists, nevertheless I judge that I have accomplished nothing unless I apply my pen more exactly to describing those things which seem to concern the bishops Symphosius and Dictinius, once stained with the Priscillianist taint.

For concerning these same two bishops even some of the more recent writers have spoken, among whom the foremost place is held by Paschasius Quesnel, who, in preparing the Works of Saint Leo the Great, indulging his own party too much, drawn on by no zeal for truth, following the mere lust of ratiocination, striving to turn the whole order of ecclesiastical affairs topsy-turvy, either surveyed the monuments of the ancients carelessly, or twisted them into a perverse sense; and finally, having abolished the discipline of the ancient Church, laboured to contrive a new scheme of governance and administration. For he, in his notes and observations on the fifteenth letter of Saint Leo the Great, more openly inquires rather diligently into the cause of the Priscillianists and the councils gathered against those same Priscillianists—the time...

—the time at which Symphosius and Dictinius either lapsed into heresy, or were received into the communion of the Church—he investigates rather diligently. Truly many rash things would come tumbling down which we have never approved as certain, if Quesnel's conjectures had any strength. But this writer, advancing above all as one groping his way, places the lapse of each—of Symphosius, that is, and of Dictinius—before the Council of Zaragoza. Of this heresy each was defamed in the synod of Zaragoza in the year 381 against Priscillian, whose judgment Symphosius is said to have declined, withdrawing himself in the decision of the synod of Toledo. I think this first assertion of Quesnel must be changed.

For that definitive sentence, which is read after the acts of the First Council of Toledo, from which he certainly drew his opinion, by no means agrees with these statements. Since indeed Symphosius is there asserted to have kept his mind in suspense in the search for truth, yet to have presented himself at the Council of Zaragoza for one day only—he who afterwards, by declining the sentence, had scorned to be present and hear it. But by what reasoning these things can cohere with the history of the Priscillianists wholly escapes me. That the bishop Symphosius subscribed to the Council of Zaragoza in the year 381 is most certain. The praised words must therefore be referred to another council held at Zaragoza, of which very many have suspected, but whose Acts are not extant.

Moreover, what is there subjoined seems to conflict with what precedes. For they say: 「It would have been hard for us to hear those already mentioned, yet by the letters of Ambrose of holy memory, which after that council he had sent to us, to the end that, if they had condemned what they had wrongly done, and had fulfilled the conditions which the prescribed letters contained, we might reverently (add: what Siricius the pope of holy memory had urged) admit them to peace..., it is agreed that we showed great patience.」 Quesnel has transferred this narration to his own opinion, yet by no means weighing whether it cohered with the other most certain records of the history of the Priscillianists, or not.

If we recall to memory those things which we transcribed above from Sulpicius Severus, we discover a certain dissimilar manner of acting in Ambrose in the same cause. For he indeed did not hear, did not receive Priscillian, Instantius, and the other men of that sect who refused to present themselves at that synod of Zaragoza in the year 381—although they had set out for Milan—nor did he give any letters to the Catholic bishops of the Spains for receiving them. How then could it have come about that the same Ambrose, after that same Council of Zaragoza, heard, received, and prescribed conditions for performing penance to the bishop Symphosius and to his son Dictinius and to others, who were undermined by the same morals and vices?

But there is besides something else in the narration cited which can by no means be reconciled with the date of the Council of Zaragoza. For there the decrees of Saint Siricius the pope for receiving penitent heretics are praised; nor could Ambrose himself lawfully prescribe other conditions than those which the apostolic authority of the supreme pontiff had decreed. For that most holy prelate of Milan and the other bishops of that province, already gathered in council, recognized that no one excluded from the Church can lawfully enter it again, to whom the supreme Doorkeeper, the successor of Saint Peter, has not opened the door. Therefore Ambrose, writing back to Siricius together with the others assembled in council, thus begins his letter:

「We have recognized, in the letters of your Holiness, the vigilance of a good shepherd, who diligently guards the door committed to you, and with pious solicitude keeps watch over the sheepfold of Christ,」 and so forth. Resting therefore upon these principles, Ambrose ought to have suggested to the bishops of the Spains that they receive the penitents Symphosius and Dictinius unto reconciliation, but only under those conditions which the Apostolic See had already decreed. But since such decrees of Siricius did not see the light until at least four years after that Council of Zaragoza—namely in the year 385, on the third of the Ides of February,

in the consulship of Arcadius and Bauto—for this reason I can never persuade myself that the cause of Symphosius and Dictinius was reviewed in the year 381 at the synod of Zaragoza, and that both withdrew themselves from that judgment of the bishops. For granting that defamation which Quesnel invents, then, that withdrawal from the judgment of the fathers of Zaragoza in the year 381 being proved, they must necessarily now have summoned Symphosius and Dictinius, as contumacious, to the synod of Bordeaux; and if they had refused to be present at it, they would have paid the same penalty as Instantius and Priscillian. What more? They would by no means have escaped the sword of the tyrant Maximus, nor at last preserved themselves unharmed from the fury of the imperial tribunes, as we observed a little before.

Moreover the third synod of Bordeaux was convened in the same year 385 and under the same consuls, in which nothing was said about the defamation and contumacy of Symphosius and Dictinius, as is proved by the silence of Sulpicius Severus. We therefore, that we may guard against a fabrication of this kind, must affirm either that through the unskilfulness of the scribes these words crept into that sense: 「After the Council of Zaragoza, in which sentence had been pronounced against certain persons also, yet with Symphosius present for one day only, who afterwards, by declining the sentence, had scorned to be present and hear it」; or that they must be referred to another council than that which had been convened in the year 381;

and that this could have been held only after the slaying of Priscillian, Instantius, and the rest—that at least is our opinion. Cardinal Aguirre, led on by various conjectures, in the second volume of the Councils of Spain, besides that first Council of Zaragoza, asserts another to have been celebrated there in the year 383; to which we cannot subscribe, since we contend that it was convened later. But although this business is and seems wrapped in much darkness, nevertheless the other things which are subjoined in the aforesaid copy of that definitive sentence supply great light for coming nearer to the truth.

For it is read that Symphosius, in the presence and hearing of holy Ambrose, accepted and laid down these conditions: namely, that he had already withdrawn from the reciting of those who were called martyrs, and would perpetually withdraw; and that Dictinius, having obtained ecclesiastical peace, should hold the rank of a presbyter, and receive no increase of honour, as pope Siricius had already decreed in his earlier letter concerning lapsed penitents. Plainly, therefore, all the conjectures of those fall to the ground who contend that Symphosius and his son Dictinius had lapsed before the slaughter of the Priscillianists. Relating the deeds of that slaughter, Sulpicius Severus says that the cause was that the heresy which had broken out under that author was not only not repressed, but confirmed and more widely propagated.

For his followers, who before had honoured him as a saint, afterwards began to venerate him as a martyr. The bodies of the slain were carried back to the Spains, and their funerals celebrated with great obsequies. And so, Priscillian and his companions having been slain, the Catholic religion began to be defiled the more impiously and superstitiously, since forsooth those whom the sword of the age had killed for their graver crimes were held and venerated as though they were true martyrs. 4. From the novelty of which deed, thus were ecclesiastical...

...affairs were thrown into such confusion that very many bishops of holier life, utterly abhorring that kind of judgment and vengeance, seemed as it were to defend the cause of Priscillian, when—communion being denied to the authors of the slaughter, Ithacius namely and the rest, an anathema being pronounced, and they being stripped of their episcopal sees—they shuddered at so grave and bloody a crime. For from that schism of the Catholics the Priscillianists seized an occasion of propagating their sect more and more, since they claimed for the corpses of the slain the sacred honours of martyrs, and, introducing that impious custom among themselves and into the Churches, they would recite the names of these men among the memorials of other martyrs in the performance of the divine offices.

Into such madness of this kind did Symphosius fall, deceived and encompassed by many, as the copies of that definitive sentence make plain. But of Priscillian's doctrines Symphosius professed only two: the one, that God is unbegotten; the other, that two principles of visible things are to be found. Yet Symphosius never used any apocryphal books, or the new sciences which Priscillian had composed—although Dictinius, all but lapsed through certain letters, condemning all of these as his own by public profession and seeking correction, begged pardon in that Council of Toledo.

All these things, therefore, have such force with us that by no reasoning are we led into Quesnel's opinion—namely, to suppose that Symphosius was defamed in the year 381 in that synod of Zaragoza, and, as a Priscillianist, withdrew himself from the judgment of those fathers. For he could scarcely have earned for himself the gift of ecclesiastical reconciliation, if for the space of nineteen years (such as intervened between that and this Council of Toledo) he had persisted obstinate in his contumacy. 5. Now let us make our step toward other matters, which, owing to the loss of ancient records, are equally obscure and entangled with many difficulties. That Ambrose thus...

...was appealed to, as it were as a mediator of peace and reconciliation, by Symphosius and the others who had lapsed—on this all writers, both ancient and more recent, agree. Yet it is not so clearly ascertained in what year Ambrose received these men who had set out for Milan, delivering to them those letters of communion, so that under certain prescribed and accepted conditions the Catholic bishops themselves of the Spains, who had separated themselves from the communion of the lapsed, might admit them to peace and ecclesiastical reconciliation. But what those letters of the divine Ambrose given to the bishops of the Spains contained within them, since they have already perished through the injury of time, cannot be thoroughly discerned.

From the Acts alone of this Council of Toledo, convened in the year 400, it is evinced that those letters were recited in another, preceding synod of Toledo, to which Symphosius, Dictinius, and the rest of the lapsed, though summoned, refused to come; and further, that Ambrose discharged the office of mediator under these conditions: that Symphosius should abstain from the function of ordaining, and that Dictinius his son should remain perpetually in the grade of a presbyter in such a way that he himself and other clerics of equal or inferior order could never ascend to the higher grades of the Church. But two things indeed then befell which were utterly repugnant to peace and ecclesiastical reconciliation.

First of all, as many as had approached Ambrose refused to condemn before the synod of the Spanish bishops what they had wrongly done—as the same prelate of Milan, relying on the decrees of the Apostolic See, had prescribed should be done; then they departed from the state and purpose of penitents, contrary to the faith they had given. For, the bishop of Astorga having died, Symphosius promoted his son Dictinius to that see and consecrated him bishop; and Dictinius himself, together with the same Symphosius, ordained as bishops many others in the province of Galicia whose faith had not been sufficiently proved. The series of all these deeds is contained in that copy of the definitive sentence which was issued in the synod of Toledo in the year 400. 6.

It now remains, therefore, that we inquire into the date of that Council of Toledo which was held, in which, the letters of Ambrose having been read, those penitents were to be admitted to the peace of reconciliation, from which nevertheless Symphosius and the rest withdrew themselves. And it is more probable that it was held before the death of Ambrose. For Paulinus, in his Life, says: 「Ambrose survived the most Christian emperor Theodosius almost three years」—who also writes that he ceased to live on the very day of Holy Saturday: precisely (Petavius adds) April 4, in the year of Christ 397, in the consulship of Caesarius and Atticus. But Marcellinus assigns his death to the following year, 398, in the consulship of Honorius and Eutychianus.

That synod, therefore, could not have been convened long before the death of the divine Ambrose, for all those nineteen bishops who directed the sentence in the form of a libellus against the contumacious absentees were still surviving in the year 400—which would have been difficult, if a space of many years had flowed between that synod and this Council of Toledo. To these matters and to others like them Paschasius Quesnel had no regard whatever, but, after his manner and disposition, employing guesswork, he distinguished several synods of Toledo, the first of which he placed between the Council of Zaragoza in the year 381 and the Council of Toledo in the year 400, having meanwhile no regard at all either to the synod of Bordeaux, or to that of Trier, or to another...

...perhaps of Zaragoza, which most certainly preceded all the assemblies of Toledo. But let us pass over these things, lest, contending with Quesnel about trifles, we should seem to have wished to look for a knot in a bulrush. 7. Thither, therefore, let our discourse rather turn, where we come upon the graver lapses of Quesnel. And of this kind we judge to be those signal errors with which the notes and observations on the fifteenth letter of Saint Leo are crammed. In the earlier edition of these Works, as though from a pulpit, Paschasius Quesnel had taught that Dictinius was cast out of his episcopal see on account of the Priscillianist heresy, to whom Turibius afterwards succeeded.

But the following words gave occasion to this error, which he said he was reciting from the Chronicle of Idatius: 「Dictinius, bishop of Astorga, having been cast out on account of the heresy of Priscillian, which he professed, along with other bishops of the same sect, was succeeded by Turibius.」 We have also found that the monks of the Congregation of Saint Maur incautiously lapsed, who in their edition of the Works of Saint Augustine, placing too much faith perhaps in Quesnel or in some other lying writer, ascribed that same testimony to the Chronicle of Idatius, though the words of Augustine elsewhere conflict with it, in which he affirms that Dictinius closed his day among the Catholic bishops of the Churches;

and Ferrarius, who wrote that Dictinius is found inscribed in the catalogue of the holy bishops of the Church of Astorga, and that his memory was customarily celebrated every year in that Church on the second day of June. 8. Meanwhile, however, it would be unjust to defraud Paschasius Quesnel of his own praises, who, running through the praised Chronicle of Idatius, confesses that in the first edition he suffered from a defect of memory or a hallucination; and, made wiser by the reading of that Chronicle, he retracted in the second edition what he had already said—yet too craftily. Who indeed would cease to marvel at the disposition of a man who, as long as he lived, would never depart from the things he had once uttered and written against the articles of the Catholic faith?

But no one is ignorant that such was the manner of acting of heretics and schismatics. For they, as very often, when in historical and similar matters, in things that contribute little or nothing to their system, they sometimes failed through ignorance, carelessness, and arrogance, afterwards without difficulty recalled and corrected their errors, and covered them over with certain shades of truth, so that, namely, they might claim for themselves, among their own, the reputation of truthful and candid minds—those minds whom they wished to deceive in the rules of faith and morals. But Quesnel did not entirely and wholly amend that error in his last edition.

He indeed sincerely confessed, and as it were on oath, that those words were wanting in the Chronicle of Idatius, and had not been fabricated by his own effort. Nevertheless he judged that that fragment, with all its underpinnings, should not be erased from the last edition, being led by the hope, namely, that it might one day chance to meet learned eyes in the course of reading, and be conveyed to the printer, to be inserted into this history. And while he insisted on this opinion, he persuaded himself that that fragment was not spurious, but rather to be adjudged to some unknown parent; and, like a dreamer, he imagines many false and fictitious things, which cast down the histories of the Catholic Church and of the Priscillianists, and render the credit and authority of the Councils of Toledo too suspect;

and, what is more serious, he mutilates, corrupts, and twists into a contrary signification the Chronicle of Idatius—which he himself adorns with the highest praises—by his perverse interpretations. But lest I should seem to be inventing out of my own opinion, I shall at once refute each thing that Quesnel adduces. 9. And first I ask, whence does this writer draw that Dictinius was already cast out of his see of Astorga before the year 400, and that Saint Turibius was immediately substituted in his place? Whence, I pray, does he again deduce that Dictinius himself, with the fathers of Toledo assenting, occupied his former see—which manner of reasoning, contrary to the canons of the Church, feigns two bishops administering the same see?

Idatius, moreover, has none of this in his Chronicle, nor do the fathers of Toledo, who uttered not a single word about this restitution of Dictinius, or about the ordination of Turibius. Nay, that Chronicle and the Acts of this council marvellously accord with one another—namely in indicating that indulgence by which it was kindly granted to Dictinius and the other penitent bishops to persevere in their sees, and it was provided only that they should abstain from initiating bishops, presbyters, and deacons, until they should receive letters of communion from Anastasius the Roman pontiff and from Simplicianus bishop of Milan, the successor of Ambrose:

「But Symphosius (say the prelates of Toledo), a religious old man, who did what we have written above, let him abide in his own Church, being more circumspect henceforth concerning those whom we shall restore to him; thence let him await communion, whence he had before received the hope of future peace. And we have decreed that this is to be observed also with regard to Dictinius and Antherius.」 Since, therefore, the fathers of Toledo had decreed that Symphosius, Dictinius, and Antherius ought to abide in their own Churches, has not Quesnel feigned that Dictinius was cast out of his see before that council, and that Turibius was substituted for him? 「Let them abide,」 say the fathers—not 「let them recover their sees,」 as our annotator dreams, which words do not import the same thing, as becomes manifest even to one who attends but slightly.

It is therefore not to be believed that Turibius was ordained in his place while Dictinius still survived, but that Dictinius himself continuously held his post in the Church of Astorga from the day of his consecration until the day of his death.

On this point, as being altogether feeble, there straightway fall to the ground those two conjectures and suspicions of Quesnel: either concerning two bishops administering the same Church at the same time, which is forbidden by the sacred canons; or concerning the extreme old age of Turibius, to which he would certainly have attained, if his ordination were to be traced back before the year 400, since he was still found to be among the living, and fit and able to undertake most laborious journeys, in the year of Christ 447, under the pontificate of Leo the Great, as we gather from his letter, of which we shall speak in the following chapters. But concerning the ordination of Turibius we can define nothing certain from the records which survive.

This one thing alone has been ascertained by us from Augustine: that Dictinius, his predecessor, closed his last day before the year 420. Since indeed, when the holy Father in this year had written the book 「Against Lying」 to Consentius, he indicated by these words that Dictinius had departed from this life: 「To praise mendaciously the life of the bishop Dictinius, if known, or the reputation of one unknown, is thus far more tolerable, because he is thought to have been a Catholic, and corrected from that error.」 10. Nor can we be pressed by any reasoning from that genuine testimony of Idatius, wherein in the 306th Olympiad he wrote:

「In the city of Astorga in Galicia certain Manichaeans, lurking for some years before, were detected by episcopal proceedings, which by Idatius and Turibius, who had heard them, were directed to Antoninus bishop of Merida.」 That by the name of Manichaeans the Priscillianists are there designated, I know not by what means Quesnel affirms, since Idatius in that Chronicle was never accustomed to confound the Priscillianists with the Manichaeans, although both heresies were offshoots of the Gnostics. For in the 24th Olympiad, having described the slaying of Priscillian and his companions, he subjoins: 「Thenceforth into Galicia the heresy of the Priscillianists made its inroad.」 Again, in the 294th Olympiad, treating of Ortigius, who had been ordained at Celenae, he adds:

「But by the machinations of the Priscillianists, driven out for the Catholic faith, he was living in exile through their factions.」 This same manner of speaking Idatius likewise used in discussing the letter of Saint Leo the Great to Turibius of Astorga: 「Leo presides as bishop over the Roman Church for the forty-third year. His writings against the Priscillianists are conveyed to the bishops of the Spains through Pervincus, the deacon of bishop Turibius.」 All which things, when I pondered them with myself, I could not easily subscribe to Quesnel's opinion—namely, that in the former cited passage of the same Olympiad Idatius wished under the name of Manichaeans to designate the Priscillianists, since it is established for us and for others who run through that Chronicle that he called the heretics of each sect by their own proper names.

And indeed a little after, when he sets up a discourse concerning a certain Manichaean Pascentius of the city of Rome, who had fled away from Astorga, he expressly names him a Manichaean, whom the bishop Antonius of Merida apprehended, and, having heard him, caused to be expelled even from the province of Lusitania. But who will affirm this man to be a Priscillianist? Since at Rome never, and especially in the time of Leo, had the Priscillianist plague raged. But although it were freely granted that Idatius there called heretics of this kind Manichaeans, what then? There is no doubt that Turibius, Dictinius having died, succeeded to the episcopate.

His zeal, therefore, employed together with Idatius, bishop of the region of Limia, in detecting the Manichaeans, in no way hinders but that Dictinius sat upon the throne of Astorga until his day of death; it does not evince that he was driven out of his see; nor, finally, that that Church was administered by two bishops. For when Dictinius had died, either Zosimus or Boniface held the Roman see. But when Turibius and Idatius took action against the hidden Manichaeans, holy Leo was already discharging the pontificate, as the same Idatius affirms in the praised Chronicle.