Sermons & Letters 222

1. It was then the four hundred and forty-sixth, or forty-seventh year of Christ, when Turribius, bishop of the Church of Astorga in Gallaecia, as a little tranquility began to dawn, strove utterly to purge away the Priscillianist plague and to proscribe, disperse, or entirely consume by fire the books of Dictinius and other apocryphal writings, which were either kept in private houses or read openly in the Churches. And since he had all this most earnestly at heart, following the examples of the other catholic Fathers, he judged at once that no other judge and master ought to be consulted than holy Leo, the Roman pontiff, to whom he directed his writings.

Therefore Turribius himself entrusted to Pervincius, the deacon of his Church of Astorga, the task of setting out for Rome and of delivering such writings to St. Leo. Now what kinds of writings he transmitted to the apostolic see, Leo himself indicated at the outset of his fifteenth letter, saying that from the discourse of the letter, from the sequence of the memorandum, and from the text of the little book, he had learned that the most fetid dregs of the Priscillianists had grown warm again in those regions. But such writings of Turribius, from which we might more easily have grasped the wretched state of the Churches of Gallaecia and the Spains, have long since perished.

The most grievous loss of this ruin we can in some measure repair only by the letters to the bishops Idatius and Ceponius, which are circulated under the name of Turribius of Astorga, and then by that genuine and celebrated letter which Leo wrote back to Turribius in this cause. On both, therefore, it behooves us at present to dwell, so that we may complete this history of the Priscillianists which we have undertaken to elucidate. 1. And certainly Turribius himself, or whoever bore the person of Turribius, described the deplorable state of those Churches in that letter, when indeed, discoursing of a troublesome and unpleasant pilgrimage, which he had undergone amid two labors and lamentable necessities.

Among these he asserts that he had gained some help, since by approaching things unknown and by learning things unheard-of we are increased with a certain advancement of mind, coming to know by better reasoning that very often those things which among us seemed best had become depraved and made most base. But concerning what matters Turribius, by his travels, came forth better instructed, so that he could easily perceive that things had been rendered depraved and most base which at one time had seemed to him best, he at once makes plain, chiefly commending that unity which he found in all the Churches of those provinces through which he had passed.

For in these, with the highest agreement of minds and without any schism, all communicated with one another, and, all sects of errors being condemned, 'I found' (he says) 'one and the same sense of the catholic faith to be held, coming from the purest fountain of truth, which, cut into no divisions by manifold rivulets, does not dissolve the level plains of the fields into miry gulfs that impede the right path of faith.' By which narrative he wished to recall nothing else to the mind of those bishops than the zeal for procuring this catholic unity and communion.

For long since it had cast out and banished from the Churches of the Spains and Gallaecia the pestilential poison of the Priscillianist heresy. Therefore, in order to kindle the minds of Idatius and Ceponius to zeal for religion, he sets before them the examples of the Churches he had visited, whose pastors reform by the bosom of a pious parent those whom the poison of depraved dogmas had infected, or, if obstinate, cast them out from the fellowship of the holy inheritance like abortive births and not lawful offspring. 2. After long spans of years, therefore, Turribius, having returned to Astorga, was keenly tormented, when he perceived that the traditions long since condemned by the Church, which he had thought fully abolished in those regions, still flourished more stubbornly.

Indeed such torment was increased in him as he came to know that, according to each man's zeal and depraved will, wicked dogmas sprouted forth as though from certain hydra-heads. Of these, some heretics contributed the arguments of their blasphemies to the old error; others openly professed the whole doctrine of Priscillian; others finally, having abjured only in part the more principal dogmas which plainly conflicted with catholic truth, while still retaining some, seemed to cling to the rest. All these things, I say, Turribius asserts had grown more freely here and there throughout the Spains and Gallaecia, since the assemblies and decrees of synods had ceased.

And at length he deplored a most grievous and most impious crime, worse indeed than all the rest—namely this, that men gathered at one and the same altar with differing senses of the faith. But when Turribius recounted all these things, he was moved solely by that charity toward his fatherland, not by rash presumption, from which he was utterly alien. And therefore, zealously pursuing catholic truth, he likened the homegrown heretics to thieves and adulterers, who, truth being withdrawn from sacred dogmas, execrated the authority of the divine word, and, that they might the more easily corrupt it by adultery, having repudiated the canonical and evangelical Scriptures, devoted themselves only to the reading of apocryphal books.

Lest he should become burdensome and troublesome to the bishops to whom he was writing, or seem to exercise mastership over them, serving at once prudence and zeal, he professes that he offered them no exhortation of authority at all, but only the instruction of a suggestion—reckoning himself guilty before God of a graver crime had he kept silent. 4. This, I say, was Turribius' moderation of spirit toward his brother bishops, this his zeal in describing the perfidy of heretical men, whose doctrines and teaching, if any of the catholics rebuked them a little more firmly, they at once evaded the disputations of the debates, going away unaware, and strove to hide their perfidy by perfidy;

and, that they might do this no longer, he describes and lays bare their crafty and cunning devices, by which they either prefer apocryphal Scriptures to the canonical books, or venerated hidden and secret traditions, expressed indeed in no books, not even apocryphal ones, through which they lyingly claimed that the apostles had spoken: or perhaps finally they kept certain other books more secretly among themselves, disclosed only, as they themselves say, to the perfect. 5. But which apocryphal books the Priscillianists especially used, he indicated a little afterward, discoursing in particular of the Acts which were circulated under the name of St. Thomas.

Among these one thing above the rest he notes and marks as to be execrated, in that he says it teaches that one should baptize not with water, as the Lord's preaching holds, but with oil—which depraved custom the Manichees pursued together with Manes himself, their standard-bearer. This offspring, therefore, execrable to all and condemned in all parts of the earth, either received only apocryphal books, or made use of certain other fables stuffed with apocryphal matter, as had become known by their own confession. But among the Priscillianists other books of the same kind were used—namely those Acts which are called of St. Andrew, or those which were said to be of St. …

…John, which Leucius once composed with sacrilegious mouth; or finally that volume, a prodigy of all blasphemies, which was wrongly inscribed 'The Memorial of the Apostles.' For in it pseudo-apostles and pseudo-prophets, lending great authority to this perverse doctrine, forged their teaching; the whole law of the Old Testament was destroyed, and all things that were divinely revealed to St. Moses concerning the diverse natures of the creature and of the Maker. 6. When therefore Turribius had found Gallaecia especially, and the Spains, undermined by so many and so great afflictions and by these wicked and sacrilegious errors, he then stirred up the minds of the other holy bishops to procure and apply that remedy which should be more consonant with the divine and ecclesiastical laws.

Wherefore, that he might more easily attain this, he composed a certain work, in which he set in order those testimonies full of blasphemies which were found in the writings of the Priscillianists, and to these, as he was able, he responded according to the quality of his understanding. This work, wrought out by himself, we suppose he first took care to spread abroad among the people, so that no one (he says) should thereafter, as though ignorant of the matter, say that he simply had or read such books. Then next he submitted it to the judgment, censure, and estimation of Idatius and Ceponius, so that they might indeed weigh all things, and take care, together with other brethren associated with him, to reject and abolish whatever seemed without ambiguity contrary to truth and faith. 7.

But there meets us a learned and erudite man, Stephanus Baluzius, who indeed inquires and doubts concerning the trustworthiness and authority of this letter of Turribius. For they report that to him many marks of forgery had come to light, from the observations with which he embellished the council of Astorga held in the year of Christ 446. Now he confessed that he drew the whole suspicion of the fabrication from the words of St. Leo. For the supreme pontiff, writing back to Turribius of Astorga, ordered that 'at least the bishops of Gallaecia should assemble, for whose gathering our brethren Idatius and Ceponius shall press.' Observing this, Baluzius adds:

'A grave suspicion (that this letter, namely of Leo, put into the mind of some impostor the thought of fabricating that one which is said to have been written by Turribius to Idatius and Ceponius); and so I abstain from it.' But, opposing himself to Baluzius, the most learned cardinal de Aguirre contends that the aforesaid letter is to be adjudged to Turribius of Astorga; and, to remove what that learned collector of the Councils objects, he first excuses him, as one aware of innumerable fables existing in the old pseudo-chronicles, and led by them to reject whatever is narrated in them, so long as they are not supported elsewhere or confirmed by some sure and firm testimony.

Secondly, he says that the letter of Turribius which we are treating was not devised and feigned by those old tricksters who defaced Spanish history with so many fictions and absurdities, but is found in a manuscript of about six hundred years' antiquity, etc. But between these two contrary opinions, to which I should subscribe, my mind long hung in suspense. For the antiquity of the codex, which cardinal Aguirre made so much of, did not remove all suspicion, namely that the letter might have been fabricated and yet praised by some ancient impostor. It settles nothing at all that king Philip II, in the time of Ambrosio de Morales, transferred that codex from the most ancient library of the notable monastery of St. Aemilianus into another, more recent, of St. …

…Laurence's at the Escorial, about twenty years before the fictions of Dexter, Maximus, and Julian. What of it? Were there not more ancient impostors, who could have forged it many centuries earlier? For, the apostles having already departed this life, that under the very name of the sacred Scriptures many volumes were forged by impostors, all the monuments of the Church, and this very letter of which we treat, plainly disclose. The antiquity of that codex, therefore, would prove nothing, unless it proved that a more ancient impostor, exceedingly well informed about the affairs of Spain and Gallaecia, forged this one letter of Turribius, already in the waning eleventh century or the beginning of the twelfth. 8. Yet to this opinion of Baluzius…

…I do not so readily subscribe, but I contend that the reasons of cardinal Aguirre are utterly weak. For if I were to undertake here to treat of the arguments of forgery found in the letter, I could indeed confess that many things in the reading of it offended me, which were noted neither by Stephanus Baluzius, nor by the Spanish collector of the Councils himself, nor by anyone else. Of what sort, for instance, that exordium appears, in which Turribius discoursed of himself as of one coming from a distant pilgrimage, in which he had consumed a long span of years. That these things could be true of a bishop most earnestly zealous for guarding ecclesiastical discipline, who could suspect? For, with so many calamities pressing hard, under the indignation of God and the Church…

…shall we suppose that this excellent pastor wished or was able to desert his flock? No one can trifle with me on this point, especially since St. Leo, to whom Turribius set forth the most wretched state of those Churches, adorns him with the highest praises, because, ever vigilant, he had anxiously bestowed on the Lord's flock the devotion of his pastoral office. Truly, if Turribius had gone on pilgrimage led merely by his own will, the holy pontiff ought rather to have censured and chided him, because he had fled from the Lord's flock, subjecting the sheep entrusted to him to be torn to pieces by the fury of wolves.

Only on a twofold ground could he have escaped these and like reproaches: on the one hand, that of exile, into which, at the instigation of the Arian princes, bishop Turribius had been driven; on the other, that, not yet raised to the episcopate, he had set out on a journey abroad over a long span of years. But each supposition falters. For if, the fury of the Arian princes blazing against him, he had undergone exile, he would exaggerate not the labors and inconveniences of a pilgrimage, but of exile; and moreover, after sentence was passed against him, another would already have been intruded onto the throne of Astorga, just as the Arians themselves were wont to do in the preceding fourth century of the Church. What then?

If Turribius in this letter, to his two other fellow-bishops of Gallaecia, passes over the mention of this penalty of exile, as being most well known to them, would he perhaps have omitted to narrate it in the letter to Leo? Or would Leo himself, in his rescript, not have indicated it as a sign of fatherly compassion? What more? Would Idatius in his Chronicle, who described other disasters of bishops, have kept silent about this one alone concerning Turribius' exile? Finally, why should all the other writers of Spain and Gallaecia have labored under such silence in a matter of the greatest moment? Not therefore is one to have recourse to this evasion. 9. Nor indeed could Turribius have accomplished so long a pilgrimage of many years before he was raised to the episcopate.

For after the death of Dictinius, which befell before the year of Christ 420, as we have seen from Augustine, Turribius had already attained the Church of Astorga. But then it was not Leo the Great, but Zosimus or Boniface, who presided over the catholic Church. Wherefore, since in the exordium of the second chapter of that letter Turribius speaks of himself as of a man just now arriving from a pilgrimage, it thence follows that what Baluzius and Aguirre relate from Idatius' Chronicle concerning the council of Astorga can by no means be thrown back into Leo's age, namely into the year 446. But if at last we should feign that Turribius did not write to Idatius and Ceponius immediately after obtaining the episcopate…

…nor consulted Leo as supreme master and judge, but let that whole span of 27 or 28 years slip away, Turribius would at once be to blame, because so late, when those most grievous evils were breaking out afresh, he deferred to seek and apply the medicine, and, against the statutes of the sacred canons, wished to go on pilgrimage, having abandoned his own Church. It must therefore be confessed that in that letter there are contained at least such obscure things as can in no way cohere and be reconciled with the piety and sanctity of Turribius, with the discipline of the Church, the sacred canons, and Christian affairs. So indeed I reflected within myself, after I had repeatedly read the letter through. In which I met with other things too, which at least savor of the manifest carelessness of the writer.

Of such a sort indeed seemed to me either the things which are read in chapter 4, from 'that they should no longer do this' to the end, in which the genuine sense can by no reasoning be made out according to the rules of grammatical syntax; or what is seen in the subsequent chapter 5, where the same narrative concerning the apocryphal Acts of St. Thomas is repeated, and other things of that kind, which certainly either prove the writer's carelessness, or greatly diminish the excellence of that codex in which, under the name of Turribius, that letter was found and faithfully drawn forth. 10. But although in that letter many things shine forth which differ very much from truth, or at least from verisimilitude, yet I am afraid to judge that it is to be rejected or held as spurious.

Nay rather, in collecting and adorning the Works of the divine Leo the Great, just as Quesnel transferred it into his edition, so also in another new one which I have resolved to make after these Exercitations, I deem it necessary that it be preserved. For that reason I have taken care, to the best of my strength, to embellish it with various annotations drawn from the most approved writers, so that, namely, the friendly reader may be able to guard against the equivocations and obscure senses with which it teems. Meanwhile, however, before I remove my hand from the tablet, I judge that what is there described concerning the state of those Churches of Gallaecia and Spain is to be abundantly approved. For most fully do they correspond with those things which are seen in the fifteenth letter of St. …

…Leo the Great's letter, concerning whose trustworthiness and authority even to suspect would be the greatest crime. For both older and ancient manuscript copies contain it as the genuine offspring of the holy pontiff; the Fathers of the Council of Braga and the fourth general synod adjudged it to St. Leo; all writers, with none gainsaying, since they attested this same truth, opened to the editors a most ample field, so that, every scruple being removed, they might print it in all the vulgate copies. 1. We therefore, supported by so many and so great preceding testimonies, since we could in no way doubt concerning the truth and authority of the fifteenth letter of St. …

…Leo the Great's, we have taken care only to purge it of the errors, if any crept into it. For accomplishing this labor more happily, the necessary aids were not lacking to us; for, besides various most ancient Vatican codices, which we surveyed with our own eyes; besides the Grimani archetype preserved at Paris, according to whose readings Paschasius Quesnel most greatly boasts to have adorned his edition—which we ourselves, aided by the help of friends, took care faithfully to transcribe—we tested that same letter both against the Vallicellan and against two Florentine copies, so that at length, the divine Godhead assisting, all the Works of Leo might come forth in new type, purer, more polished, and fuller.

But let us now return to our purpose. The aforesaid letter of the holy pontiff to the bishop of Astorga has sixteen chapters appended, because Turribius had proposed just so many to Leo to be discussed and defined. These words hint at it: 'Since therefore your dear self, with such diligence as it could, in faithful care comprised the opinions once condemned in sixteen chapters.' But a most ancient Vatican copy, together with the Grimani codex, proves that seventeen ought to be read. This the very division of the chapters more confirms, which in the last place exhibits this Roman numeral with the following title: 'Chapter XVII. Whether the flesh of Christ truly rested in the sepulcher.'

Let those who have been wont to commend Quesnel's zeal, labor, or diligence in adorning and correcting the Works of the divine Leo beyond what is fair, take note, I pray, into what carelessness he lapsed. Let them see whether they have this as an argument, that he took the Grimani codex as a touchstone in scrupulously testing the readings of the Leonine text. Let them say whether he diligently surveyed the Works of the holy pontiff, who in a badly arranged synopsis subjoins only sixteen chapter-titles, the last omitted, when the letter itself is already divided into seventeen, of which the last has its own title, entirely wanting in the preceding synopsis. But of this matter it will be disputed more diligently in its own place, as also concerning another most ancient Vatican …

…Palatine copy of this letter, which presents to us a hitherto unpublished fragment concerning the canonical Scriptures. Whether this is to be adjudged to Leo or not, we shall pursue elsewhere too, since it seems to pertain chiefly only to the rite and order which the Roman Church of the divine Peter was wont to observe throughout the seasons of the year in reading the divine and canonical Scriptures. Now let it be permitted to our discourse only to range so far in the most ample field of this Leonine letter, as it hitherto stands in all the vulgate copies;

since indeed that letter is on every side crammed with most certain and most abundant testimonies, we shall more easily gather from it both the sources and errors of the Priscillianist heresy, and at the same time more clearly behold the authority of the apostolic see and its irreformable judgment in refuting them. 2. And indeed that the Priscillianist dogmas were more wicked than the errors of all preceding heretics, and drew from them every virulent contagion of impiety, St. Leo at once taught in the exordium of that letter, who calls the sect of the Priscillianists the most fetid dregs of all heresies.

He adds that the Priscillianists had plunged themselves so deeply into the darkness of paganism, that, employing the vain lies of the astrologers and the profane secrets of the magic art, they placed the faith of religion and the rule of morals in the power of demons and in the influence of the stars. These and other like dogmas of that most abominable sect Leo recounted, and calls to mind the zeal of the ancient Fathers who flourished in the preceding century, who in councils applied all their efforts that such impious fury might be driven from the whole Church.

He then relates how the princes of the age so greatly detested this sacrilegious madness (namely the tyrant Maximus) that they laid low its author, with very many of his disciples, by the sword of the public laws. This first kind and example of a bloody judgment, by which the princes and magistrates of the age at times punished obstinate heretics, has hitherto been able greatly to torment the mind of old and more recent writers: 'I foresaw,' says Noël Alexandre, Eccl. Hist., fourth century, chap. 5, art. 47, 'that heretics could abuse this history, both against the office of the holy Inquisition, which hands over, or leaves, obstinate heretics to the secular magistrates to be punished with the extreme penalty;'

'as well as against the princes and magistrates themselves, who by their own right punish them even with the penalty of death.' In the same place Father Noël intends to vindicate from all censure that proposition which had crept into his earlier edition: 'No catholic has said that emperors and kings cannot punish a heretic even with the penalty of death.' In what sense, however, he said it, he then explained in his last edition, and labors in asserting this power for the princes of the age. Concerning the same authority of princes his annotator Constantine Roncaglia also wished to treat, in the last Lucca edition.

He, by the primary suffrage of the canonists, shows that in cases of heresy to be judged, the Church possesses power both over those things that are of law and those that are of fact. Then he says: 'That it is not foreign to the power of princes to remove heresies, sacrileges, etc., by enacting laws and penalties, Bellarmine taught,' etc. 3. Truly, if both these most illustrious men, and as many as have discoursed on this and like causes, had attended to our holy pontiff, they would not have labored so greatly, but would more easily and readily have refuted whatever can be objected by the heterodox. But why the princes of the age gave order to exercise that bloody kind of judgment against the Priscillianists, the holy pontiff Leo explains in the following words:

For they (namely the princes of that age) saw that all regard for decency was being taken away, that the whole bond of marriages was being dissolved, and that at once both divine and human law was being overthrown, if men of this kind were anywhere permitted to live with such a profession. Since, therefore, the crimes of the Priscillianists were such that they brought not only the utmost disgrace and gravest injury upon their own religion, but could also lead the very civil commonwealth to complete ruin—in those matters especially which wound the laws of nature—the princes of that age therefore endeavoured to destroy and abolish the profession of that sect together with its authors, employing capital penalties. Resting upon these grounds, the holy Pontiff confessed that a like judgement had long been of benefit to ecclesiastical leniency.

For he adds: This strictness has long benefited ecclesiastical leniency, which, though content with priestly judgement and shrinking from bloody vengeance, is nevertheless assisted by the severe ordinances of Christian princes, since those who fear bodily punishment sometimes have recourse to the spiritual remedy. Capital punishments, therefore, when the Church takes action against obstinate heretics, she does not decree, does not inflict, nor seek to have inflicted. Content herself with her own spiritual penalties, and lest she incur a failing of leniency, she shrinks from all bloody vengeance.

But if nevertheless these things are established by the public decrees of secular princes and magistrates, they profit her greatly, and she is thereby especially assisted, chiefly because offenders, terrified by the severity of bodily penalties, have become accustomed to have recourse to the spiritual remedy—that is, to the abjuration of their crimes and to penance. 4. Nor should anyone, from Leo's similar manner of speaking, persuade himself that the obstinacy of Idatius and Ithacius—of which we have treated above, and on account of which they were hateful to the Catholic bishops, and to Martin especially, and Ithacius himself was openly condemned by Bishop Theognostus—should then be excused. For a bishop can by no excuse be cleared who, indulging his own pursuits,

has despised the judgements of his brethren gathered in councils, and has even wished by his own accusations to press secular princes and magistrates to procure the death of the guilty. It is most evident that this manner of acting is repugnant to Catholic leniency. But from it there shrink most of all the prelates of our Churches, and also that holy office of the Inquisition, against which Father Natalis Alexander foresaw that heretics might be able to devise objections.

And indeed Leo himself confirmed from this too that those severe penalties had been of assistance to the Church: namely, that bodily punishments and the executions of ecclesiastical laws, on account of the gravest vicissitudes of wars, had had to cease over the space of many years, nor could the priests of the provinces themselves any longer come together more frequently in one place, since it was no longer permitted. 'Secret perfidy (says the holy Pontiff) found liberty, and was incited to the subversion of many minds by the very evils by which it ought to have been corrected.' On which account he at once proceeds to bewail the wretched state of Galicia and the Spains, whose people not only, as he had learned from Turribius, were shaken by the deadly plague of the contagion;

but—what is more grievous—their priests themselves, seized by this lethal disease, were oppressing the truth with many errors, preferring the doctrine of Priscillian to the evangelical teachings, and setting these forth at last, corrupted by profane meanings, to the people, or preaching them, so that, rejecting the revelations of the Holy Spirit, they might breathe the dogmas of the devil into the souls of their hearers. These things, indeed, Turribius had proposed to St. Leo as needing to be reformed for the lamentable state of those Churches; to which he subjoined seventeen chapters, briefly comprising opinions once condemned, and which the holy Pontiff, in virtue of the supreme dignity of his apostolate, again refuted, lest any of those same blasphemies should thereafter seem tolerable or doubtful. 5.

In the meantime we judge that it will not be unwelcome to readers here to subjoin briefly, and as it were in a compendium, the sum of these chapters. For the accomplishing of which work, although long ago several rather distinguished theologians have set their hand to the writing of ecclesiastical histories, I do not know whether they have noted down more successfully, or at least fully, all the chief errors of this sect, from which even others of lesser moment took their origin. Nor indeed did Father Natalis Alexander fully attain this, who, undertaking to weave together a certain catalogue or synopsis of all the errors of the Priscillianists, deceived by I know not what fate, noted down only fourteen, three others—and those indeed among the more principal—being wholly passed over.

But from this letter of Leo alone it becomes clearer than light to all that there were seventeen, as we shall presently declare. The holy Pontiff, therefore, in order to fulfil the duty of Turribius, Bishop of Astorga, reviews one by one those same chapters which Pervincus the deacon had brought from Galicia to be judged. First, the Priscillianists thought impiously concerning the mystery of the Trinity, preaching only one three-named person in God, as Sabellius and the Patripassians taught. This error the holy Pontiff refuted not only by the decrees of the Council of Nicaea, but also by theological arguments, which seem to smack of the formulas of speech of the Athanasian Creed.

Secondly, they fabricated certain 'virtues' as proceeding from God, which they asserted God had not always had in His own essence, but had begun at some time to have—as the Arians most wickedly reasoned. Thirdly, they contended that the Son of God is called 'only-begotten' for this reason: because He alone was born of the Virgin. Wherefore either they gave Christ a beginning from His mother, with Paul, Bishop of Samosata, and Photinus, or they believed that there is not one Son of God, but that others too were begotten of the supreme Father, of whom this one was born of a woman, who for this reason is called only-begotten, because no other of the sons of God underwent this condition of being born.

Fourthly, they did not believe that the Lord Christ was born in the true nature of man, and therefore, with Cerdo, Marcion, and Manes, they affirmed that He had joined to Himself only an apparent and illusory flesh. Seduced by this error, they spent the day of the Lord's Nativity and Resurrection in mourning and grief, afflicting their bodies with fasts. Fifthly, they then asserted that the soul of man is of the divine substance, and that our nature does not differ in condition from the nature of its Creator. Sixthly, they said that the devil had never been good, nor had his nature been the work of God, but that he had emerged from darkness and chaos, because forsooth he has no author of himself, but is himself the beginning and substance of all evil.

Seventhly, they condemned the use of nuptials and matrimony, together with the Manichaeans, for this reason, namely, that they might abhor the procreation of lawful offspring, and more easily admit the licence of every kind of turpitude. To which error the eighth also had been most closely akin, since they said that human bodies are the fashionings of the devil, inasmuch as the seeds of conceptions are, they said, congealed in the wombs of women, and that these bodies could in no way be suited to the dignity of the soul, being formed by diabolical power. Hence they denied that a body once dissolved could and ought to come to life again through the mystery of the resurrection.

No less monstrous was the ninth of their assertions, by which they preached that the sons of promise are conceived not of the seed of the flesh but of the Holy Spirit, and that these are in no way subject to sin and to the mortal contagion which pass into the offspring by the fault of Adam the first parent. Tenthly, moreover, they taught that souls, which are inserted into human bodies, had once sinned in the heavens, stripped of all bodily mass, and on that account, fallen from higher things to lower, had come under princes of diverse quality, and had been enclosed by aerial and starry powers—some in harder, some in gentler bodies—by a diverse lot and dissimilar condition, so that whatever occurs in this life variously and unequally may seem to happen from preceding causes.

The eleventh of their blasphemies: they opined that both the souls and the bodies of men are bound by the fatal stars, and therefore, with the pagans, they were eager either to worship the stars favourable to themselves or to appease the adverse ones. Twelfthly, they described the parts of the soul as under certain powers, the members of the body under others, and set the qualities of the interior governors—that is, of the virtues which they feigned to rule the soul—under the names of the patriarchs, to which they opposed on the other side the bodily signs, to whose power the bodies were subjected. They added that the parts of the human body correspond to the twelve signs of heaven, and are composed according to them, placing Aries in the head, Taurus in the neck, Gemini in the shoulders, Cancer in the breast, and so forth.

Thirteenthly, they erred concerning the knowledge of the Scriptures, since they received the body of the canonical Scriptures under the names of the patriarchs. For they fabled that those twelve virtues which effect the reformation of the interior man were indicated in these names. Fourteenthly, they so subjected man to the power of the stars and signs that they contended that many things are found in the sacred books which pertain to the exterior man, so that in the Scriptures themselves a certain contrariety of adversity is at variance between the divine and the earthly nature, and that from one source come those things which the governors of the mind claim for themselves, and from another source those which the framers of the body claim. 6. Fifteenthly, having adulterated the true Scriptures, they introduced false ones, which they called canonical;

to which most grave evil, that the holy Pontiff might meet it, he laid down that general law by which he commanded the priests of the Churches to employ all diligence, lest either falsified codices be kept in use for reading, or apocryphal writings be preserved by anyone. And concerning these he wrote thus: 'Apocryphal writings, which under the names of the apostles contain a seed-bed of many falsities, are not only to be interdicted, but are to be utterly taken away and burned in the fire.' By no defence, therefore, are the heretics or innovators fenced round, who with many injuries assail the more recent Roman Pontiffs, because they proscribe their works and command them to be burned in the fire.

This kind of discipline in the Catholic Church is exceedingly ancient, nor is it to be traced only from Pope Gelasius, or from the council of seventy bishops held at that time, but from Leo the Great, who inculcates that it is to be observed by all Catholic bishops. Wherefore this manner of Leo's acting splendidly persuades and makes plain that, among other Catholics, Van Espen and Beausobre were mistaken.

For Van Espen, when in the earlier part of his Works, which is entitled 'On Universal Ecclesiastical Law,' he by no means adverted to this decree of Leo, and when he set about to treat of the discipline of the Church in prohibiting the books of heretics, insists only upon the Gelasian decree, from whose words he endeavours to take away all force and strength entirely, affirming as though from the pulpit that the Church wished to guard against only the public, not the private, reading of proscribed books. Splendidly, I say, does Van Espen go astray. That this may become known, there will be no need at all that, departing from our purpose, we should now begin to discuss the Gelasian decree. For that has come forth adorned with many learned notes, by the study and labour of Chifflet, Holstenius, and Father

Joseph Bianchini, in their study and labour, come forth so that it is altogether superfluous to enrich it with new observations. To forestall Van Espen's lapse, therefore, it will suffice to advert to those things which St. Leo subjoined. He accordingly interdicted, under the mark of heresy against the bishops who should permit it, not only the public use of corrupted, apocryphal, and false codices by Catholics, but also the giving of leisure to their private readings, or even the keeping of such copies in their houses. Wherefore he subjoined:

'Whence if any of the bishops shall not have forbidden apocryphal writings to be kept throughout the houses, or shall have permitted those codices, which are corrupted by Priscillian's emendation, to be read in the church under the name of the canonical books, let him know that he is to be judged a heretic; since he who does not recall others from error demonstrates that he himself errs.' A most ancient exemplar of the Palatine Vatican manuscript, after these words, exhibits to us a celebrated fragment of this letter, hitherto neither noted nor made public by the previous editors of the Works of St. Leo. Although this does not seem altogether to smack of a Leonine oration, nevertheless the antiquity and authority of the aforesaid codex, as well as the character of the argument, being closely in accord with the preceding sayings of the holy

Pontiff, lead us to this counsel, that in the second volume we should commit it to print, set within its own place. And as regards the antiquity of the codex, the appraisers of ancient characters have, along with us, judged it to reach the ninth century. The character of the argument plainly corresponds to St. Leo's aim in writing. For after the rejection of the apocryphal writings, it seemed to concern him to designate the canonical ones, and in what order they should be read in the church, so that in the greatest concord the ministers of the sacred altar might come together in singing the divine praises and celebrating the mysteries. Besides, by the accession of this fragment, the former parts are most fittingly joined to the latter; and in the codex we come upon this heading, namely:

'Here begins the sentence of Pope Leo concerning the apocryphal Scriptures.' This has its beginning from those words of the praised fifteenth chapter of this letter to Turribius: 'Care must therefore be taken, and provision made above all by priestly diligence, that falsified codices, etc.,' up to those words which in all the editions close this chapter, namely: 'Since he who does not recall others from error demonstrates that he himself errs.' After which, these other things are immediately subjoined: 'Now all the divine Scriptures of the holy canon are read in the church of St. Peter from the beginning of the year to the end in this order. In the time of spring, that is, seven days before the beginning of Lent up to the eighth day before Easter, are read the books of Moses with Joshua the son of Nun and of Judges, etc.'

Two things only, therefore, in this brief leisure, I shall not omit to advert to and note here. The one, that the order described in this fragment for reading all the Scriptures of the sacred canon throughout the course of the whole year does not differ from that distribution and arrangement which is even now seen in the Roman Breviary. For this proves the authority of this sacred rite to be derived from ancient times and from our forefathers, who took counsel to distribute and accommodate, to each of the four seasons of the year, the readings of the Scriptures more suited and more consonant to the divine mysteries to be celebrated in the church, so that they might the more provide and look to the dignity of the mysteries and the instruction of the peoples.

The other is that in the praised fragment all the books described in the Tridentine canon, session 4, are found described, if we except only one or another. Which two things will certainly furnish, to men studious of the sacred Liturgies—who deservedly in these times bestow labour upon this work with great benefit to sacred antiquity—material for learned dissertations. We do not here subjoin that whole piece, lest we should depart further than is fitting from our proposed aim. Nevertheless we shall make it public, just as it stands in the manuscript codex, in the second volume of all the Works of St. Leo the Pontiff, and shall adorn it with brief notes. Returning therefore to our matter, we reason thus.

If, then, considering the rigour of canonical discipline, already in the fifth century of the Church no one was permitted to keep in his house the sacred Scriptures vitiated and corrupted by heretics, how can it now come about that the heterodox complain so greatly, when they understand that they are forbidden by the Apostolic See to read to Catholics their own books under penalty of anathema? But to linger longer over this most thoroughly examined matter would be reckoned to me a fault, and therefore we make our step to the sixteenth chapter, in which the holy Pontiff spoke words concerning the other books composed by the zeal of the heretics. 7.

This sixteenth chapter, then, St. Leo the Great calls the last, in this sense, namely, that the little book of Turribius, transmitted to the Apostolic See, contained sixteen chapters to be discussed. But because the same Bishop of Astorga had subjoined yet another thing in the extreme part of his familiar letter, which is concerning the flesh of Christ—whether it truly rested in the sepulchre—therefore we have deservedly judged that the ancient common reading, namely sixteen, is to be expunged, and that, by the suffrage of the codices, as we have said, the new one, namely seventeen, is to be followed. To the sixteenth chapter, therefore, of the little book of Turribius, the holy

Pontiff, meeting it, first of all approves the complaint of that same Turribius, namely the one which concerned Dictinius, formerly written and treated of in the See of Astorga, of his predecessor. That Dictinius consigned those books to writing when he was polluted with the taint of Priscillian, both the Acts of the Council of Toledo, and Augustine and other contemporary writers, as we have seen, and now St. Leo himself, have most fully attested. But many read those books with veneration, who ought rather to love his restoration than his lapse. 'They do not therefore read Dictinius (says the holy Pontiff), but Priscillian, and they approve that which he taught while erring, not that which he chose when corrected.' Wherefore he declares those to be outside the ecclesiastical assembly who made use of his writings.

Assuredly the Supreme Pontiff excepted no one there, but, that he might comprehend men of every order and status, from the seat of the holy Apostle Peter he pronounces: 'But let no one presume this with impunity, nor let anyone be reckoned among Catholics who makes use of writings condemned not only by the Catholic Church but even by their own author.' After these things St. Leo enlarges upon the arts of the Priscillianists and the Manichaeans, by which they cunningly made use to guard against the severity of the imperial laws. Now the men of these sects, since they had their hearts in common with one another, professed the same sacrileges, although they were called by different names.

Wherefore, although the Old Testament, which the Priscillianists pretended to accept, the offspring of the Manichaeans would refute, nevertheless 'the intention of both (says the holy Pontiff) tends to one and the same end, since, what these attack by rejecting, the Priscillianists corrupt by receiving.' Moreover, that in execrable mysteries, in obscenities and every kind of turpitude, the Priscillianists agreed with the Manichaeans, I think has been proved from the whole series of this history. And Leo, inculcating this especially here to Turribius, appeals to that most solicitous inquisition held at Rome against the Manichaeans, of which judgement and Acts he sent copies to the same Bishop of Astorga. II.

There remains the last chapter, which Turribius had proposed to Leo for definition in the extreme part of his familiar letter, as we have already said: namely, whether the flesh of Christ truly rested in the sepulchre. For this mystery of our religion had come into doubt with very many even of the Catholics, from that fact that Christ had descended into hell. For by what reasoning those two things—namely the descent into hell and the repose of Christ's flesh in the sepulchre—might be joined together with true propriety, the peoples of the Spains were quite unable to understand. That these two dogmas of the Apostolic Symbol in no way conflict with one another, the holy Pontiff demonstrates by various testimonies of the Scriptures.

But that the contrary assertion had derived from the dogmas of Priscillian and Manes, there is no doubt, who 'with sacrilegious sense (says he) so feign to confess Christ that they take away the truth both of the incarnation, and of the death, and of the resurrection.' It is not, therefore, to be feared that in reviewing those chapters St. Leo did not perform the parts of a supreme judge and master. For that the trifles of the adversaries could have no place here, the holy Pontiff himself makes manifest. Who, that his own doctrine and canonical judgements might become known to every rank of clergy and to the several faithful, first commands encyclical letters to be held among the bishops, in order that a suitable place for holding a council might be designated.

He then commands the priests of the neighbouring provinces to come together to this, where, a most full examination being held, he especially wished and commanded to recall to scrutiny whether there were any among the bishops who were polluted by the contagion of the Priscillian heresy. And those whom the council should find stained with so great a taint, all the rules of these pontifical sanctions being observed, he decrees are without doubt to be separated from Catholic communion, if nevertheless they should have been unwilling to condemn the most nefarious sect through the depravities of all their opinions. But that these things, which pertain to the rights of the Apostolic See, might be carried into execution more fully and easily, the holy Pontiff was by no means content with this letter.

But, with no delay interposed, he gave other letters to his fellow-bishops, namely the Tarraconensian, the Carthaginian, the Lusitanian, and the Galician, to whom he proclaimed a general council; in the proclaiming of which he certainly cannot be doubted to have exercised the supreme right of his pontificate. For these words of Leo plainly make it manifest: 'It will pertain to the solicitude of your charity (says he) that the authority of our ordinance be conveyed to the bishops of the aforesaid provinces.' But whether Leo wrote only one encyclical, or several letters, to compel all the praised bishops of the Spains and of Galicia to come to the council, I have not dared to define;

since, whatever those letters may have been, they have not hitherto come forth, and by the injury of the times have perhaps already perished. 9. But now, if I might be permitted to inquire of the cavillers at the rights of the Roman See, why that great Turribius, being amid the greatest straits, directed his consultations to the one Apostolic See, and not indeed to the bishop of another see, what would Launoy, Blondel, Quesnel, and the others among them reply? Will they dare to contend that the whole business was remitted to a future council?

They would indeed be deceived, and would delude themselves. For the Supreme Pontiff, treading in the footsteps of his predecessors, from the throne of the Vatican, not only rejected the several errors of the Priscillianists by theological arguments, but also condemned them under anathema; he proscribed the copies of the apocryphal writings and the private and public reading of the books of heretics, and commanded the same to be burned; declaring outside Catholic communion those bishops who should not have obeyed statutes of this kind. What then? Did he remit these things to be defined by a future council? Or would it have been permitted to the Fathers of the council even lightly to draw back from these rules and statutes?

They would be acting with trifles who feign this, since those who are zealous for the truth understand that to the Fathers of the council was remitted only the examination whether there were any among the bishops who were polluted by the contagion of this heresy—who, according to these responses to the consultations of Turribius, were without doubt to be separated from communion. 'For in vain (says the holy Pontiff) do they use the Catholic name, who do not resist these impieties.' It was not, therefore, to be dealt with in that council concerning the heresy to be condemned, which the earlier Fathers and Leo himself had already condemned; but concerning the heretics to be punished, whose cause had not yet been sufficiently explored by the Apostolic See.

Therefore our Leo, those things which pertained to law having now been sufficiently discussed, subjected to the judgement of a general council, or at least a provincial one, those things which could turn upon persons and fact. 10. And indeed, because the whole mind of the Pontiff was chiefly engaged in remedying the evils of Galicia, and in guarding against the Catholic religion's being led to complete ruin should they creep more widely in those regions, he judged it well to employ the following management.

Namely, if anything should have hindered a general council from being celebrated, he commanded that at least the priests of Galicia should come together into one; for whose gathering the care was committed to Idatius and Ceponius, as one distinguished by metropolitan right, to whom he also joined the solicitude of Turribius, that a remedy might the more quickly be brought to such great wounds, even by a provincial assembly. While, therefore, Leo commanded these things to be done in Galicia and Spain, and while he handed over to Pervincius, deacon of Astorga, the pontifical letters to be conveyed to the bishops of both kingdoms, Calipius and Ardabur were now holding the Roman consulship. That this happened in the year of Christ 447, the tablets of the Roman consuls now make plain.

If, however, those studious of theological matters and lovers of the truth desire to obtain anything more abundant there for refuting the errors of this most nefarious sect, let them consult the homilies of the same holy Pontiff. For scarcely had he learned of the impiety and sacrileges of these most wicked men when he could not restrain his zeal, but, even amid the performing of the sacred mysteries, he assailed and harried that profane religion and its dogmas. Of which manner of acting it is enough for us to have given indication, lest this our oration turn out longer than is just. 1. But now we must write of matters more obscure, and much more difficult than those which we have

already said, especially since, on account of the loss of ancient monuments, we lack those supports which could easily direct and conduct us to the knowledge of the truth of things. In the meantime, however, we shall not withdraw our hand from the undertaken proposal, until it becomes more clearly explored how the priests of both kingdoms obeyed the pontifical mandates. Those bishops, therefore, since—both on account of the diverse administrations of civil affairs, as we have already seen, and on account of the stock, dispositions, and religion of the diverse princes—they were unable to come together into one general council, the metropolitans of each kingdom convened their own synods.

For the Tarraconensian, Carthaginian, Lusitanian, and Baetican bishops, over whom in civil affairs Theodoric the Arian, sprung from the stock of the Goths, held dominion, celebrated their council in that same year 447. Of which matter I am persuaded that celebrated testimony is that which the collectors of the general Councils supply therein. For after the canons of the First Council of Toledo, a certain rule of faith occurs to be read, which bears before it the following heading:

Here begins the rule of the Catholic faith against all heresies, and most especially against the Priscillianists, which the bishops of Tarragona, of Carthage, and of Baetica composed, and which, at the command of Leo, pope of the city of Rome, they transmitted to Balconius, bishop of Gallicia; these same bishops also established the twenty canonical chapters recorded above in the Council of Toledo. That the bishops of Spain therefore assembled at Toledo is shown by those closing words. But let no one persuade himself that the preceding chapters—as they are today preserved in the collection of the Councils—were issued in the age of Leo; for to these Patruinus first subscribed together with the rest, who had assembled in the year 400 concerning the case of Symphosius and Dictinius.

Moreover, Ortigius, bishop of Gallicia, also subscribed—concerning whom we have already discoursed abundantly and more than enough above. But that these men could still have been surviving in the year 447, or that Ortigius was free to come with the bishops of Spain to this assembly, is utterly improbable. Clearer than daylight, therefore, it appears that Harduin's annotation must be approved, who wrote that in the edition of this council prepared by Dionysius these words are read: 'Here ends the Council of Toledo'—which words are an argument that the rule of faith which follows in no way pertains to that council, but must be referred to a council convened at the command of Leo.

Assuredly it was judged no otherwise on this matter by Pagi, who, diligently and more maturely weighing with himself those things that seem to pertain to ecclesiastical sanctions and to the order of the records, in order to forestall confusion of the events, asserted that the profession of faith of which we treat was composed in the age of Leo. To the truth of this the great diversity of manuscripts and printed copies can in no way stand in the way—the diversity which meets our observation in these anathemas—inasmuch as some of the codices contain only twelve anathemas, the printed copies eighteen, while in the Works of Augustine their number is increased up to twenty-six.

Now when Quesnel had observed so great a diversity, he judged that it could profit his own studies and party. And therefore at one moment he adjudges it to Leo, suspecting that Leo tore it away from the Roman codex of canons; at another moment he strives to conjecture that it must be ascribed to Augustine—as though because at some time he either sent it to the bishops of Spain, or it was carried over from Africa by Leo when the latter, while still an acolyte, delivered the decree of Zosimus against the Pelagians, and so forth. Shall we judge that Quesnel reasons rightly and wisely in this place and in what follows? That both suppositions are frivolous and without foundation, Harduin long ago noted.

But that this Parisian editor of Leo's Works, after his custom, wished to fabricate and trifle, those will clearly understand who cast their reckoning both upon the profession of faith and upon those eighteen anathemas appended to it. For who will flatter himself that that rule of faith, with its appended anathemas, had been composed and woven together long before all the errors of the Priscillianists, their devices, and the sources whence they flowed had become more fully known—if we feign that this profession of faith was inserted into the codex of Roman Canons before the bishops of Tarragona, Carthage, Lusitania, and Baetica had assembled, or before Turribius consulted the Apostolic See, and Saint...

...the pontiff answered the consultations, and that Augustine or anyone else had published it—tell me, I pray, could it have lain hidden from Turribius and from Leo, as Quesnel supposes? To have suspected this is not permitted. For both had to be informed of the things done in the Church, and the Roman pontiff above all would have known it, if he had either carried that monument with him from Africa to Rome, or if his predecessors, or he himself even, had inserted it into the codex of the Roman canons. Why then did the holy pontiff never appeal to this profession of faith? Why does he not, article by article of the Priscillianists, oppose the anathemas appended to the profession?

Why, finally, did Turribius himself consult the Apostolic See, if the bishops of Spain had long since received the token of the faith from Augustine? This, then, is my conviction: namely, that Quesnel trifled altogether craftily in adjudging that profession of faith to Augustine. For the bishops of Tarragona and the other Fathers who convened in the council, if they had borrowed it from Augustine's Works, would not have kept his name silent—nay, they would not even have omitted to indicate the canons and statutes of the Roman and Apostolic See, if they had drawn the rule of faith from that codex. But in that heading nothing other than the name of Leo is found to be read; for it has:

'Here begins the rule of the Catholic faith against all heresies, and most especially against the Priscillianists, which the bishops of Tarragona... composed, and which at the command of Leo, pope of the city of Rome, they transmitted to Balconius, bishop of Gallicia.' 5. Nor may one mark it down to an error or negligence of the copyist; for the Fathers of the Council of Braga in the year of Christ 563 confessed it sincerely, when, that is, Lucretius the bishop, president of that sacred assembly, addressing the other bishops, appealed to the synod of Toledo held in the age of Leo and by his command, in which, composing a rule of faith against the Priscillian heresy together with certain chapters, they directed it to Balconius, then prelate of the Church of Braga.

Therefore, if the bishops of Tarragona, Carthage, Lusitania, and Baetica composed that profession of faith with its appended anathemas, or chapters, in the year of Christ 447, it could not then have come to light through Augustine's labor, since the holy bishop had already closed his last day at his see in Hippo in the year 430. If, finally, those Fathers had borrowed from Augustine's Works, or from the collection of the Roman canons, Lucretius would by no means have said: 'composing a rule of faith against the Priscillian heresy together with certain chapters,' but rather, using another familiar form of speech, he would have said: 'Either the profession of faith was recited;'

'or from a codex they read the profession of faith with its appended chapters, or caused it to be transcribed.' But that we should by no means rest upon light guesses is very fully known to those who have run through the Acts and histories of the councils. And Quesnel too would have known this, had he not—too much drawn by the interests of his own studies—neglected to unroll or to understand the acts of that same Council of Braga, to which he appeals. Did not the same bishop Lucretius, after those words praised by us and transcribed by Quesnel himself, immediately subjoin these others? 'Wherefore, since we have here at hand the very copy of the prescribed faith with its chapters, for the instruction of the ignorant, let it be recited, if it please your Reverence.'

Then indeed all the bishops said: 'Most necessary is the reading of these chapters.' And they adduce no other reason but this: that the simpler folk, to whom the ancient statutes of the holy Fathers were being disclosed, might come to know the figments of the Priscillian heresy long since abominated and condemned by the See of the most blessed apostle Peter. But whether these things strangle Quesnel, I beg the reader to observe. Those ancient statutes of the holy Fathers, indeed, by which the monstrosities of the Priscillian heresy were condemned, are attributed to the Apostolic See of the most blessed Peter. Not, therefore, is Augustine to be called the author of that profession of faith and of those chapters;

for he—however illustrious in merits, labors, and honors—when ever did he attain the apostolic throne of Peter? 4. Nor, again, does that so great diversity in the number of the anathemas, so much sung of by Quesnel, cast darkness over this truth. For in the first place, the manuscript copies from which chiefly that diversity was drawn were sometimes corrupted or augmented by the carelessness and drowsiness of copyists; or because, other causes occurring, the Fathers themselves, appealing to the earlier statutes of the Church, brought forward into the midst only those things which seemed to pertain to the newly stirred-up questions; or they added others which they judged to accord better with the matters they were treating.

What wonder, then, if sometimes, in unrolling the writings of the ancients, one and the same monument meets us now interpolated and diminished, now indeed more prolix and augmented? In these matters, forsooth, which depend on the will of the writers and users, unless their mind becomes known, no judgment can be made without difficulty—especially when the autograph copies are lacking. 5. Yet I judge that not much labor need have been expended by Quesnel on this business. For the same Fathers of the praised Council of Braga had at hand, contained in a genuine codex, the Acts of those who took part in the synod of Toledo convened in the year 447.

On that account, having read the copy of the faith with its appended chapters, they judged it necessary, after 116 years, to set forth those same chapters more simply and more evidently, that they might become better known to the less learned—what things had once, under sentence of anathema, been condemned by the apostolic See of the divine Peter out of the dogmas of Priscillian. Although (say the Fathers of Braga) the reading of these chapters has been reckoned necessary, yet let those things which are execrable be now more evidently and more simply declared, with the chapters also thus set before, so that he who is less learned may understand, and thus, under sentence of anathema, the figments of Priscillian's error, long since exploded, may be condemned, and so forth.

We ought therefore to congratulate ourselves that those Fathers reworked those same chapters, for they prepared for us a broad and open way, so that we might come more securely to our knowledge of how many and what sort of anathemas the Fathers of Tarragona, Carthage, Lusitania, and Baetica issued in the year 447, at the command of Leo the Great, to extinguish utterly the noxious poison of the Priscillian heresy. Moreover these anathemas, if we cast our eyes upon them, correspond altogether to Leo's letter to Turribius. It cannot therefore come to pass that, moved by any reasonable foundation, we should either adjudge them to Augustine alone, or feign them to have been entered into the Roman codex of Canons before Saint Leo.