Sermons & Letters 222 part 3/3

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.

Wherefore, lest among the followers of Quesnel we be drawn into the suspicion of invention or falsehood, it is needful for us to relate the reason why those Fathers of Braga reworked those same chapters and wished to explain them more luminously. 'That whoever'—they say—'whether cleric or monk or layman, shall be found still to hold or defend any such thing (understand: with Priscillian), let him at once, as a truly rotten member, be cut off from the body of the Catholic Church, lest either the tainted hearts of his fellowship or of his depravity be reckoned to the rightly believing as some reproach of the orthodox, through commingling with such men.'

Now such a sentence, pronounced by bishop Lucretius, which the Fathers of the whole council approved, contained the chapters formerly established against the Priscillian heresy, as the following words seem to indicate: 'These are the chapters set forth against the Priscillian heresy and reread, which are here contained.'

But since seventeen anathemas immediately follow those chapters—which, as we have said, both answer excellently to the consultations of Turribius, and agree altogether with the responses of Leo, as their reading makes sufficiently clear—I therefore judge it placed beyond all hazard of doubt that the Fathers of Tarragona, together with the others of the three provinces of Spain, wishing to obey the mandates of Leo, then first, that is in the year 447, issued and promulgated both the rule of faith and the anathemas of which we treat. If Quesnel deny this, it will be needful to affirm one of two things:

namely, either that the consultations of Turribius to the Apostolic See had already been discussed and defined before the pontificate of Leo, or that the letter to Turribius must be adjudged to some Roman pontiff other than Leo—which two things savor of nothing but pure and utter figments. 6. Now indeed the refuge which Quesnel had prepared for himself must be forestalled and snatched away. That, namely, which he supposed was furnished to him from the heading of that profession of faith, which the collectors of the Councils exhibited as stitched, together with eighteen anathemas, to the First Council of Toledo. For thus he argues: 'Here begins the rule of the Catholic faith against all heresies, and most especially against the Priscillianists, which the bishops of Tarragona,' etc.

If, then, this profession of faith censures and rejects all heresies, it did not first appear when those bishops of Spain came together into one. It will therefore be more permissible to infer that these Fathers of Spain transferred it to their own use, because they perceived that it fitted the Priscillianists marvelously well. Thus indeed might he blurt out who either adjudges this monument to Augustine, or who feigned that it was borrowed from a Roman codex of Canons issued before Leo. But that such a one labors under the greatest ignorance of ecclesiastical history and above all of Leo's Works, this would be an argument. For what did the holy pontiff proclaim and write concerning this Priscillian heresy?

Did he not write that this heresy was derived from the sources and authors of all preceding heresies, so that in his responses to Turribius he clearly shows that the Priscillianists admitted and championed the errors of the Gnostics, of Cerdo, of Photinus, of Apollinaris, of Sabellius, of the Patripassians, of Arius, of Manichaeus, and of other wicked men? The bishops of Spain, therefore, if they desired to hold fast to Leo's doctrine and letter, had to use these words: 'against all heresies, and most especially against the Priscillianists.' For the holy pontiff, in various places, but chiefly at the opening of his letter to Turribius, discoursing of this heresy, writes:

'For there is nothing of the filth in the notions of any of the impious that has not flowed together into this dogma, since out of the mire of every earthly opinion they mixed for themselves a manifold sediment, so that they'—the Priscillianists, of course—'might drink down entire whatever others had tasted in part.' But to these words he immediately subjoined these others also, which make marvelously for our cause: 'In fine, if all the heresies which arose before Priscillian's time be more diligently examined, scarcely any error is found from which that impiety did not draw its contagion.' Nor indeed let anyone flatter himself that the holy pontiff wished to indicate these things only in general.

For when he met those same consultations and questions of Turribius, he designates one by one the sources and authors whence they derived the errors which he refutes in the seventeen, or in the eighteen, chapters of his letter. This mode of proceeding both the bishops of Spain who convened in that council, and the Fathers of Braga—who, as we have seen, treated anew the aforesaid heads of the heresy—imitated excellently. And concerning the Fathers of Braga, Quesnel has sincerely confessed this, who besides, in his remarks on letter 15, notes that the anathemas, or chapters, of this council were issued according to the norm of the responses which our Leo once directed to Turribius.

Moreover he recognized that they have so great an affinity between themselves that he wrote: 'For there is scarcely any word that the Fathers did not borrow from Leo, no chapters of Leo which they did not include in their own. The first five articles of the council answer to five heads of Leo; the others agree with the others, though neither with the same order preserved, nor in number, they agree altogether.' But who does not see that here Quesnel strangles himself with his own sword? For he confesses along with us that the Fathers of Braga composed their chapters and anathemas out of the sentences and words of Leo. And the praised Fathers of Braga say that they carried forward chapters long since issued and composed in a council of Spain by the Fathers of Tarragona and Carthage.

Therefore the Fathers of both councils, adhering to the instructions and definitions of the Apostolic See, issued and composed altogether the same chapters. It is not, therefore, needful that we adjudge that profession of faith with its appended chapters either to Augustine, or to some uncertain author of the Roman canons. 7. But that this profession of faith is not free from every blemish, both Quesnel and Harduin contend. For they think that it is now exhibited fuller than it once came first to light from its blessed authors; namely, since mention is made of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, which words no one can doubt betray a more recent hand.

This indeed I could see clearly, weighing over with myself afterward the several dissensions which, by reason of the Photian schism, befell between the Roman Catholics and the Greeks in the eighth century of the Church and in those following. But that I should subscribe to the censures of the two critics, not only the readings of Leo's Works, but also the antiquity of the manuscripts against which we tested the copies of the Works of that same holy pontiff, hinder and forbid. For to me, inquiring concerning this dogma from Leo's writings, various testimonies occur which resolve the question already afterward stirred up. Among these I persuade myself that the chief place is held by what he wrote against the Priscillian heresy of which we treat.

For indeed, in describing to Turribius and the other bishops of Gallicia and Spain what must be believed concerning the mystery of the Trinity, without any wrapping of words at all and without ambiguity, he taught and defined that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. So in the first chapter it is shown how impiously they judge concerning the divine Trinity who assert that there is one and the same Person of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit—as though the same God were now named Father, now Son, now Holy Spirit; nor is he one who begot, another who was begotten, another who proceeded from both. But that this passage not only signifies but also expresses the procession of the Holy Spirit also from the Son, I judge no one can deny.

For since he affirms that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both, His procession must be derived equally from the Father and the Son. So indeed, moved by this testimony of Leo, Theodulf reasoned in his book On the Holy Spirit, who, in place of the past-tense word 'proceeded,' used this other present-tense word, namely 'proceeds.' Moreover theologians of the more distinguished mark by no means scented a more recent hand in those words, who, to prove against the Greeks the perpetuity of this dogma in the Church, appeal not only to the testimony of Leo, but also to that profession of faith which they adjudged to the Fathers of the First Council of Toledo.

But in very truth that dogma of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son had already been sufficiently promulgated in the Roman Church, as two other testimonies of the holy pontiff, expressed in his sermons on Pentecost, make known—which it may here suffice to have indicated. Of these we shall say something in the notes to those same sermons, which we shall adorn with notes in type in the following volume.