Sermons & Letters 223

1. But that feeble annotation both of Quesnel and of Harduin having been snatched away, and those things being rejected by which the praised profession of faith with its appended chapters, or anathemas, was wrongly adjudged to others than Leo and the bishops of Spain, it still remains to discourse of Augustine's writings, among which Quesnel alone contends that this monument of which we treat holds a place, indeed in a fuller form. He says that it is cited by the Master of the Sentences, Book III, distinction 21, near the end, in these words: 'According to which reasoning,' he says, 'Augustine says: If anyone shall have said and believed that the Son of God, as God, suffered, let him be anathema.' 'The passage of Augustine' (says the same Paris editor) 'is noted in the margin by a more recent, as I think, hand:'

'A Sermon On Faith, which is the third for the Thursday at Supper.' In truth, in volume X of his Works there exists sermon 129 On the Season, entitled On Right Faith, which the doctors of Louvain did not reject as an appendix, and which they therefore judge to be an Augustinian offspring. Thus far Quesnel, who, thus carried away by zeal for his own party, brings forward into the midst various conjectures—but most trifling and mutually conflicting, and making nothing for his purpose—so that he seems to contend or play with mere trifles and words, as will be plain to readers. In explaining which matter, we should of necessity have to be many, if we wished to note down and then reject each single thing which he there strove to fabricate.

But we deem it better to reduce the question to certain particular heads, that from them we may clearly understand how far he departed from the truth. 2. And first indeed Augustine, in the year 393, when he was still a presbyter, on the occasion of the general council of Africa held at Hippo in the sacristy of the Basilica of Peace, disputing against the Manichaeans, so discoursed of the divine Persons that he neither employs a single formula of speech akin to the words of the praised profession, nor hints at, attacks, or refutes a single one of those errors, or of the sources of errors, which the praised profession indicates and expresses.

Nay, if we diligently observe those things which are there said concerning the Holy Spirit, the cultivators of truth will judge that the doctrine of the African Church was very far removed from the institutions of the Apostolic See. For at that time this dogma had not yet been so copiously disputed by learned and great masters of divine things; therefore, when they preached that He was the gift of God, yet not as a Son begotten of the Father, nor produced from the Son as a grandson of the Father, nor that there were two first principles of all things, as the Manichaeans wrongly opined.

'But concerning the Holy Spirit' (he says) 'it has not yet been so copiously and diligently disputed by learned and great expounders of the divine Scriptures, that it can be easily understood also what is proper to Him, whereby that which is proper comes to be, so that we can call Him neither Son nor Father, but only the Holy Spirit—except that they preach Him to be the gift of God, so that we may believe that God gives a gift not inferior to Himself. Let them nevertheless take heed not to preach the Holy Spirit as begotten, like a Son from the Father, for Christ is the only one.'

'Nor as a grandson of the Most High Father; nor yet that which He is to be owed to none, but to the Father from whom are all things, lest we constitute two principles without principle—which is most false, and most absurd, and proper not to the Catholic faith but to certain heretics.' Since therefore in Augustine's age the question concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit was too obscure among the Africans, the Fathers learned in the sacred Scriptures called Him only God, gift, love—not Son, not grandson of the Father. But they never preached Him as proceeding from the Father and the Son as from one principle.

By what reasoning, then, can these things cohere with the doctrine of the Apostolic See, sufficiently expressed in that profession, which is woven with far other, clearer, and more congruous formulas and phrases of speech? Surely, if among the Africans the phrases of speech of the Apostolic See had come into use, it would have most befitted Augustine to use them in the exposition of the faith and of the Creed. Since he did not employ them—since concerning the Holy Spirit it had not yet been so copiously and diligently disputed by learned and great expounders of the divine Scriptures—this indeed is an argument that the praised profession of faith cannot savor of Augustine's age, style, and doctrine. 3.

But neither do firm arguments supply support to Quesnel's opinion, either those which Augustine, already assumed to the episcopate, answered to Orosius's consultation, or those which are found to be read in his other Works, and chiefly in the book On Heresies, composed in the year 428. For Augustine's Works of this kind have nothing from which it could be conjectured that the profession of faith of which we treat is a genuine offspring of his. In the first place, then, as regards the book against the Priscillianists and Origenists inscribed to Orosius, they will judge that nothing similar or consonant to this profession of faith is contained in it, who have surveyed this work with their own eyes.

For in the opening he confesses that he does not wish to meet all the things expressed in Orosius's memorandum: 'For in certain of our little works' (he says) 'which you either have read, or will be able to read, many things have been said which avail against the heresy of the Priscillianists, although I did not set them before myself as things to be refuted, but, while I was doing something else, I now understand that I also did this, when I hear from you what those men hold.' Not therefore before the year 415 had Augustine set before himself to refute the Priscillianists, since only in that year had he understood from Spain, through Orosius, what the men of that sect held.

He confesses nevertheless that already when he was harassing the Manichaeans, he had written many things which could apply excellently to the Priscillianists—akin in many dogmas to the Manichaeans. But not on that account does any vestige exist in his writings whereby he could have composed that profession of faith. For not yet had all the blasphemies or errors of the Priscillianists become known to himself, nor indeed to Orosius. As though he had drawn his pen only rashly to compose a profession of faith against a heresy whose errors had not yet become known to him. And this indeed I would by no means dare to affirm, unless the writings of Orosius to Augustine, and Augustine's book to Orosius, supplied the arguments.

But since Orosius himself proposes only three questions of the Priscillianists to be expounded, while the others which he subjoins have nothing akin to the errors of Priscillian, but both of them testified that they pertain to the fabrications of the Origenists—therefore not all the fabrications of the Priscillianists had as yet become known to them. But what questions Orosius proposed to Augustine to be explained, we straightway make plain. Of these, then, the first pertained to the nature and substance of the soul, which, namely, the Priscillianists contended was not created at all, but feigned to have in itself a portion of the divine nature.

The second point then concerned the formation of the human body and its members, to which they imagined that the names of the patriarchs corresponded, and that the signs of the heavens were arranged within them; a monstrous invention of impiety and superstition which they strove to confirm from a certain book entitled 'The Memoir of the Apostles.' But Orosius likewise testifies that this book too was stuffed with other fables and fictions. The last question, finally, concerned the mystery of the Trinity, which they preached to consist in a mere word: for whether they assert a union without any existence or property, they were saying that, with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit abolished, this one Christ was the sole being.

Augustine therefore, in countering only these three errors, could not have composed that profession of faith and sent it to Orosius, or to any Spanish bishop, in which—besides those three errors just recounted—fourteen or fifteen others as well are condemned and rejected, which had not yet come to Augustine's knowledge. 4. Nor let the letter of Augustine which he inscribed to Ceretius be objected against me. For what does it prove? The whole aim of the holy Father there is to expose those frauds by which they corrupted the sacred Scriptures and adopted apocryphal ones for themselves, when above all they preferred to the canonical books a hymn which they falsely claimed had been recited by Christ the Lord in the garden before his Passion.

But in what year Augustine wrote such a letter, I do not dare to declare. Yet when I examine it carefully, nothing at all occurs to me that could support Quesnel's conjectures. Indeed, let no one flatter himself that those things can support them either which the same Augustine wrote in the year 420 to Consentius against the lies and perjuries of the Priscillianists, then concerning the books of Dictinius. For there he assails the nature of falsehood, and refutes all the contrary arguments drawn from misinterpreted Scriptures; he affirms that Dictinius closed his last day in the peace of the Church as a penitent, as we have already seen—in all of which, however, we see not one slight trace of that profession of faith. 5.

Now indeed, before we come to that Sermon 129, which Quesnel adjudges to Augustine as a genuine offspring, we must say a word about the book Against All Heresies composed by the same author in the year 428. We admit, indeed, that the holy bishop of Hippo, in number 70, recounted at greater length various errors of the Priscillianists. But if we except the dissolutions of marriages, the shameful deeds and defilements of the flesh in which the Priscillianists delighted, which he himself censures, he adds nothing else there beyond what he had already assailed either in the books to Orosius and Consentius, or in the letter to Ceretius. Not yet, therefore, at that time were all the secrets of that sect known to Augustine or to others.

For if they had become known two years before he departed from this light, he surely would not have failed to describe them, since in this work he had it as his express wish to relate the errors of each and every heresy. Nor is this to be counted against him as a fault.

For at that time the affairs both of Spain and of Galicia were exceedingly afflicted, and on that account the sacred prelates of the Churches—over whom, after the Roman Empire had been torn apart, barbarian and Arian princes held dominion—could not find leisure to convene synods, nor to punish heretics and contumacious clergy, nor finally to send letters back and forth on the gravest questions that arose, and to seek from other bishops of the Catholic communion those aids of instruction which seemed altogether necessary.

To these matters indeed—which we have also described at greater length above—if our reader sincerely attends, he will not easily persuade himself either that we wished to bring Augustine into odium, or to arraign him for ignorance, but only that we relate those things which are judged more and more consonant with the truth. Nor does it help Quesnel to appeal to the consultation of Eutropius and Paulus, Spanish bishops, contending, namely, that these men transmitted a certain memorandum to Augustine against the errors gaining strength in the regions of Spain, on which occasion that little treatise could have been requested by the Spanish bishops and written by Augustine. But whence does Quesnel hold this? He affirms that he has it from the consultation, or memorandum, of Orosius.

But Orosius's own words now cause Quesnel trouble; for 'Eutropius and Paulus, the bishops, moved by the utility of the salvation of all, have already given a memorandum' (says Orosius) 'concerning several heresies, yet they did not indicate them all.' But concerning which heresies those two bishops consulted Augustine, he kept entirely silent. But if they had consulted him about the Priscillianist heresy and its errors; or if Augustine, at the request of those two bishops, had written that little treatise and the anathemas, what need had Orosius to hasten to publish and heap together, 'to bring into one all the trees of perdition with their roots and branches'? Was not all that was needed for the destruction of that heresy contained in that profession of faith, or little treatise;

was not all that was necessary for the extermination of that heresy contained in the eighteen, or rather in the twenty-six, anathemas? Moreover, Quesnel judges either that Augustine, if those two bishops had appealed to him in this cause, did enough by writing back to them, or that he did not. But by either of these darts he cuts his own throat. For granting the first, he is compelled to explain why Augustine, when consulted a second time by Orosius in the same cause, did not refer him to that profession of faith and to those anathemas which, at the request of the bishops Eutropius and Paulus, he had composed. He would indeed have referred him, just as he refers him to the reading of certain little works published against the Manichaeans, 'which you have read' (he says), 'or will be able to read.'

Why, finally, does he confess that he understood from Orosius what the Priscillianists thought, and that those most fabulous ravings had already been refuted among the Spaniards? But that Augustine was not appealed to by Eutropius and Paulus concerning the errors of the Priscillianists, nor ever wrote back anything to those bishops in this cause, I think has been most evidently demonstrated. 6. But truly indeed, although I have written much about this little book of faith, I seem to myself still to have accomplished nothing, if it were to be adjudged to Augustine alone against the judgment of the most illustrious men and the authority of the manuscript copies.

Who indeed would not deem me a trifling babbler, when, other and yet other works of Augustine having now been surveyed—with which that praised profession of faith neither agrees nor coheres—this one alone should remain upon which Quesnel especially insists? Should not credit be given to the ancient codex of Roman canons, to the Master of the Sentences, to ancient and more recent copies, to the doctors of Louvain, from all of whom Quesnel himself borrowed the arguments of his conjectures? But in a cause of such great moment I shall need to expend no labor, if to the judgment of the Parisian doctor I oppose what the Fathers of the Congregation of St. Maur have already pronounced in the latest Parisian edition of the Works of St. Augustine.

That profession of faith, therefore, with the anathemas subjoined, inscribed under the name of Sermon 253 'On the Catholic Faith,' they relegated to the appendix of the fourth class, and they judged it altogether unworthy of the name of Augustine. What kind of censure they passed upon this sermon, we here subjoin. For it refutes thoroughly each and every one of Quesnel's little reasonings, except those which they judge to pertain to the pseudo-codex of the Roman Canons. 'In the appendix,' they say, 'it is now for the first time placed. In the Louvain edition it is doubtful, but by the censure of Erlinus and Widing it is spurious.'

With the exception of the latter fourteen anathemas, which came in here from the confession of the Catholic faith of Damasus to Paulinus of Antioch, it is nothing else than a little book of faith which, in the codex of Canons of the Roman Church, canon 40, is thus inscribed: 'The Little Book of Augustine on the Catholic Faith against All Heresies,' which is also found inserted into the Acts of the Council of Toledo of the year 400, with some variation in the anathemas. The Master of the Sentences cites it under the name of Augustine in Book III, distinction 21, perhaps from that very Roman codex of canons. For in the manuscripts we have seen this little book nowhere existing among the sermons and little works of Augustine. Certainly these modes of speaking savor to us less of Augustine, number...

1. That this Trinity is the one divine name; ibid., that it is 'not an imaginary body, or composed of form alone'; ibid., that it 'perceived all the exercises' (or, as the Roman codex has, 'the ends') 'of the body'; and no. 4, 'that this world was not feigned, and all its instruments'; finally, the word 'Paraclete' put everywhere for 'Holy Spirit.' Estius, in his commentary on Book III of the Sentences, distinction 21, § 5, suspects that it was published by a writer inclined toward the Nestorians, to whose error, namely, certain sentences—especially the fifth anathema—can be accommodated. Thus far the Fathers of the Congregation of St. Maur in the edition of the praised sermon. 7.

But I, in running through and transcribing these things, which wonderfully bear upon our business, am seized with great admiration on account of that very great silence which the Maurist Fathers kept, both here and elsewhere, concerning Quesnel's trifles. These by no means ought to have been dissembled, since Quesnel himself had it in his wishes that these same Fathers, in the new edition of the Works of St. Augustine, for which they were then striving, would lend support to himself and his conjectures. That he indicated this by these words will scarcely escape any of the learned. For after a long series of so many and such great fabrications, he thus concludes that eighth chapter of his dissertation on the Little Books: 'More things, and worthy of a most learned man, we await concerning this little book from Fr....'

'—Dom François Delfau, the Benedictine ascetic, in that edition of the Works of St. Augustine which he is preparing together with his colleagues of the monastery of St. Germain.' Nor do I now dare to contend that those learned and studious men did not exhibit testimonies of their erudition and of a sincere mind. But this greatly displeases me, that in the praised preface to Sermon 129—now indeed 233—they seem to have wished, as it were, to support Quesnel, by asserting that codex of canons of the Roman Church, which they understood to be stuffed with very many documents borrowed here and there, corrupted and interpolated.

We do not think that they wished to chime in with Quesnel the diviner, who, always led by the partisanship of his own studies, disparaged the authority of the Roman Church, striving especially to show gradually that she, in her decrees and constitutions, was made a mere follower of other particular Churches, from which she borrowed now one document and decree, now another, transferring these to her own use. That men renowned for piety and learning deliberately wished to follow this manner of proceeding, we deem it wicked even to suspect.

But truly, with a word or two employed there, they could at least have warned the reader that that codex which Quesnel published under the name of the Roman Church is ascribed to an uncertain author, and is of altogether doubtful credit, or is to be so regarded by those who not only excel in a more refined judgment of criticism, but who have first tasted the first elements and institutions of ecclesiastical history and theology. Come now, at last, dismissing the divinations and trifles of Paschasius Quesnel, let our discourse turn itself to the other councils held in the kingdom of Galicia by the suffrage or command of the holy Pontiff.

But being uncertain in my opinion on account of the scarcity, or loss, of ancient documents, I prefer to rely on the sayings and observations of others rather than to bring forward something new into the midst; of which kind indeed is that of which Idatius made famous mention in his Chronicle. 'In the city of Astorga certain Galician Manichaeans, lurking for some years, are exposed by episcopal proceedings,' which were directed by the bishops Idatius and Turribius, who had heard them, to Antonius, bishop of Merida. My mind now wavers as to whether to add my credence to Stephen Baluze, to the collectors of councils, to Quesnel and other learned men, who judged that by the word 'Manichaeans' the Priscillianists are here hinted at and designated.

For Idatius, the author of that Chronicle, certainly knew that a very great difference exists between the Priscillianists and the Manichaeans, as we ourselves have explained in these dissertations. But these other preceding words further increase the wavering of my mind: 'certain Manichaeans lurking for some years.' Now, that it was the Manichaeans, not the Priscillianists, who were accustomed to seek hiding-places and darkness, has been proved in the first two of our books, which we composed on the Manichaeans in the time of Leo the Great and from the Acts of the Roman Inquisition.

But who can persuade himself that the Priscillianists, most shameless by the very condition of their morals, were wont to dread the light and to inhabit hidden places, especially at that time when in Galicia both civil and ecclesiastical affairs were turned upside down? Then, in those regions, since the offshoots of the Priscillianists had so multiplied that many even of the clerical and priestly order were found to have been corrupted, how could it ever have come about that they should lie hidden?

Finally, this makes my mind waver more and more in this matter: that the same Idatius subjoins in the Chronicle, namely, that among the number of these heretics was a certain Pascentius of the city of Rome, whom, having fled from Astorga as a Manichaean, Antonius, bishop of Merida, apprehended and, after hearing his case, caused to be expelled from the province of Lusitania. Now further, if we recall to memory those things which are found to be read concerning the city of Rome, both in the Annals and in sacred ancient documents, we shall nowhere find that the Priscillianists lurked here or lingered.

But that Manichaeans, coming from Africa under Pope Siricius, sought refuge for themselves in the City, prepared hiding-places, and held frequent sacrilegious assemblies of shameful deeds, to which Roman men and women, as 'the elect' and 'the elect women,' were summoned and accustomed to gather—this is a most thoroughly investigated fact. And when they had remained in that city up to the fourth or fifth year of the pontificate of St. Leo the Great, it was nevertheless brought about by divine counsel that, by the public proscriptions of the Church and of the magistrates, they were sent as exiles beyond the shores of Italy. That perhaps Idatius wished to hint at this when speaking of Pascentius the Roman Manichaean, we can at least suspect, when he wrote:

'Antonius, bishop of Merida, apprehended him, and caused him, after hearing his case, to be expelled from the province of Lusitania.' That Pascentius underwent the penalty of exile more than once, even the particle 'also' has to indicate; and thus these words can conveniently be interpreted of an exile from the City, especially because he 'fled' from the city of Astorga, he did not 'go into exile.' 2. But the conjectures adduced thus far acquire their greatest strength both from the time to which the Council of Astorga must be assigned, and from the preceding praised letter of St. Leo the Great to Turribius. For that council was convened in the year 446, and the Manichaeans were banished from all the shores of Italy in the preceding year, 445, as is clearly shown by the Novella of Valentinian.

But it is probable that these then betook themselves to Spain and Galicia, since non-Catholic princes held dominion over those kingdoms. Moreover, in the year 447 he wrote his letter to Turribius, and St. Leo met each of the questions proposed to him. Do they think that the holy Pontiff would have said nothing about this Council of Astorga, if it had been convened in the cause of the Priscillianists? For Turribius consulted Leo not about the errors of the Manichaeans, but about those of the Priscillianists. Therefore, if the Acts of the Council, together with a single synodal letter, had been transmitted to the Apostolic See, St. Leo would have either approved or disapproved those Acts, or at least made some mention of them, especially since both in the exordium and in the... of the letter here in St....

...he runs through the praises of Turribius, and when he admonishes about holding one general or several provincial synods, both to purge the stains of the Priscillianists and to curb their wickedness and shamelessness. Since therefore he brings forth not even a single word about the Council of Astorga, already convened, who would reasonably wish to have flattered himself that it took action against the Priscillianists? Led therefore by these most valid reasons, my opinion is more inclined to conjecture rather that the council praised by Idatius and convened in the year 446 took action against the Manichaeans. 3.

Yet whether that synod took action against the brood of the Manichaeans, or against the followers of Priscillian, it is by no means to be called into doubt that the precept of St. Leo can in no way be referred to that synod, but to another one convened in the kingdom of Galicia after Turribius had received the holy Pontiff's letter with the resolutions of all the questions proposed. Having therefore received this letter from Turribius, and considering with himself the very grave obstacles which caused delay in convening a general synod, the bishops of the province of Galicia itself took counsel about convening a certain particular council. But in what city those bishops assembled has not thus far been certainly determined.

Severinus Binius persuades himself that this assembly was convened in the municipality of Celenis near the city of Lugo, presided over by Balconius, bishop of the Church of Braga and metropolitan of Galicia. That the preface of Lucretius made in the First Council of Braga supports this opinion is evident. But the words of St. Leo do not cohere with it, by which he commits the care and burden of assembling the bishops to Idatius and Ceponius, as men distinguished, so to speak, with metropolitan right: 'To the assembling of which our brothers Idatius and Ceponius shall attend.' If, according to St....

...the Pontiff, therefore, the dignity and honor of metropolitans was attributed to Idatius and Ceponius, what could have been the reason why the bishops of the four provinces of Spain directed the rule of faith composed by themselves to Balconius of Braga, and not to them? Certainly, unless we wish to invent yet a third metropolitan in the province of Galicia, it must be said that one or the other of those two bishops had died when that Synod of Braga was convened, over which Balconius presided. But that Ceponius, not Idatius, presided over this see before Balconius, Quesnel argues by conjectures not to be despised. Yet while we grant this, there is still doubt about the see of Idatius.

Sigebert in his Chronicle makes him bishop of the city of Lemica, on account of which—besides the metropolitan see of Lugo and the other of Braga—we would be compelled to admit a third also, namely that of Lemica. When Quesnel noticed the consequence of this, he wrote: 'Idatius therefore seems to have been the metropolitan of Lugo, although Sigebert makes him bishop of Lemica. But he seems to confuse two men named Idatius, one of whom lived in the time of Leo and was the author of the Chronicle, the other formerly the accuser of Priscillian, who was really the bishop of Lemica.' Wishing to give the cause of this error, he affirms that it was this: that the more recent Idatius, in the preface of his Chronicle, asserts that he was born in the city of Lemica.

'But if he had attained this bishopric, he would not have omitted to commemorate it in that passage.' And yet, the same Quesnel subjoins: 'He seems to indicate his metropolitan dignity, when in that same place he says that he was created a prelate of the highest office.' And at the end of the praised preface he thus, groaning, laments the deformed state of the ecclesiastical order in the province of Galicia, as if it especially pertained to him, as head of the province: 'By his office to meet and remedy the indiscriminate ordinations, and the almost universal decline in divine discipline.' Therefore, this matter is enveloped in the greatest darkness by these and other similar conjectures.

Quesnel, insisting upon these, does not dissemble that two synods were held in the province of Galicia for the destruction of the Priscillianists, one of which he affirms was assembled at Lugo, the other indeed in the city of Braga. Whether those two provincial councils, indicated by Leo's precept, had a happy and prosperous outcome, the ancient documents do not disclose, and from elsewhere their Acts have perished through the length and injury of time. But if from the records of the Church which survive it be permitted to reason, it must be believed that this heresy then remained in the kingdom of Galicia not utterly extinguished and abolished.

For although Turribius, Idatius, Ceponius, Balconius, and other bishops restrained it by synodal proceedings, so that, while they themselves were living in the flesh and Leo the Great survived, the Priscillianists did not dare to raise their head too boldly, nevertheless, with various years elapsing, it has been ascertained that their errors sprang up revived in those regions. The cause of which matter, before we remove our pen from the tablet, we shall soon complete in the following chapter, briefly setting forth what remains to be said concerning the Priscillian heresy. 1.

That the brood of the Priscillianists, though already harassed in so many and so various ways—both by the Roman Pontiffs and other most holy bishops, and by synods and the princes of the age—was not yet extinct, much less utterly abolished, in the five-hundredth year of Christ, the ancient monuments of Christian affairs make sufficiently clear. For the sacred and Catholic pastors could not, in a short span of time, either purge or heal the poisons of this impiety and shamelessness, which here and there in the kingdom of Spain and Galicia had corrupted the hearts, faith, and religion of many men and women.

Wherefore, although for some time those evil seeds of sacrileges and blasphemies, through the striving zeal of the bishops, seemed to lie hidden, nevertheless, in the course of the sixth century of the Church, especially in the kingdom of Galicia, they burst forth again into the light. This—with the greatest grief of his mind (as is credible)—Profuturus, bishop of the metropolis of the Church of Braga, came to know; who, having first delivered for execution the statutes of the Apostolic See and of the provincial synods, again in the year 558 consulted that same Apostolic See by his letters, on account of new occurring causes, which we shall soon disclose. 2.

Those, therefore, who in the kingdom of Galicia were still surviving, stained with the Priscillianist infection, under a feigned color of religious piety and Christian abstinence, shrank from the eating of flesh. Since bishop Profuturus knew very well that this was done by them not from a spirit of devotion, but of execration, he referred the matter to the Apostolic See, inquiring whether they were to be struck with the same penalties of anathema by which, for the same crime, action was formerly taken against the Manichaeans by the statutes of the holy Fathers. And at that time the Apostolic Roman See of St....

...the See of Peter was governed by Pope Vigilius, who, at once meeting the consultations of Profuturus, first condemned the superstition of those who believed that any food was polluted by contact with flesh, because (he adds) 'of all those things which the mercy of God has bestowed for human sustenance, nothing is judged unclean for Catholics.' Wherefore, for the fuller instruction of this bishop of Braga, and to augment the strength of the decrees of the Apostolic See, he brings forward into the midst those fountains of the Scriptures by which we are taught that such errors are to be guarded against. Of which kind is that which Paul wrote to Titus: 'To the pure all things are pure,' etc.; or that other passage of the First Epistle to Timothy, namely:

'In the last times some shall depart from the faith,' etc.; or finally that which is found to be read in St. Matthew the Evangelist: 'Not that which enters into the mouth defiles a man, but the things which proceed out of the mouth, these are the things which defile a man.' Leaning therefore upon these and other similar testimonies of the Scriptures, the Fathers who preceded Vigilius judged that those especially were to be condemned who, abstaining from the eating of flesh, believed that those things also were to be avoided which seemed to have been mixed with flesh. But when Vigilius wrote these things, it came about by divine counsel that he used that formula of words which would snatch away all weapons from envious men and more recent sectaries.

Wherefore he by no means condemned abstinence for the curbing of the unbridled passions of our body, which the whole assembly of the holy Fathers affirms to be most pleasing to God. For which reason, it is evident that the Church, both in vigils and in the season of Lent, more reasonably prescribed a selection and discretion of foods; but he teaches that those are to be eliminated from the society of Catholics, because they wickedly and superstitiously shrank from the creatures of the Lord. Wherefore (he says) 'we neither condemn abstinence pleasing to God, nor do we receive into our society those who execrate the creature of the Lord.' 3.

But the sacrilegious mind of the Priscillianists had devised yet another new species of error against the mystery of the Trinity, even though the Fathers of Toledo, Braga, and Lugo had in preceding councils composed and promulgated a profession of faith, for preaching and confessing one substance, nature, power, and authority in the three divine Persons. Wherefore, in order that the Priscillianists and the offshoots of other heretics might overturn this dogma, they corrupted the hymn of glorification which the Catholic Church had anciently established to be sung at the end of the Psalms, by withdrawing one or another syllable of conjunction, saying: 'Glory to the Father, and to the Son, to the Holy Spirit.' That this was a new species of error, St....

the pontiff affirms in that same place; and at the same time he writes that this was the aim of those same heretics in acting as they did, namely that they wished to teach that there is only one person of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. But to refute that error (says Vigilius) it suffices that the Lord Jesus Christ, in appointing that the baptism of believers ought to be celebrated in the invocation of the Trinity, said: 'Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.' These words are proof that He commanded those three persons to be named with equal distinctions.

Besides these two questions, which concerned the errors of the Priscillianists, Profuturus also proposed to the Roman pontiff for discussion other matters: those pertaining to the baptism of the Arians, or to the founding and consecration of churches, or to the day appointed in that year for celebrating the Paschal feast and Pentecost. But truly famous is that consultation or question to which the Roman pontiff, addressing it in the fifth place, prescribes that the ancient order of ecclesiastical discipline concerning the divine prayers to be recited in the Masses must be preserved.

In this chapter indeed, since we encounter many and various things described which, concerning the canonical prayers and the festivals of the saints of God, expose the falsehoods of the more recent innovators and critics, I would gladly weigh all these things, were it not that the matters urged against me, which must be discussed, would break the thread of this history of the Priscillianist heresy too much. Yet meanwhile I judged that one thing at least must by no means be passed over:

namely, that the bishops of the more remote parts of the world were accustomed so to depend upon the mandates and institutions of the Apostolic See, that they referred to it not only matters of faith and the affairs of bishops to be decided, but even asked, with equal submission of mind, that those things which pertained to feasts, to the solemnities of the saints of God, and to the celebration of birthdays, be established and written down. And when I turned these matters over with myself, I was easily brought to the conviction that the rule of the canonical prayers was originally derived from the Apostolic See, at least in the West, from which no Church nor any minister of the ecclesiastical order dared to depart. As can most of all be confirmed from that very ancient fragment of the letter of St.

the letter of Leo to Turribius, which we indicated in the preceding pages, and which we have now resolved to make public. At length Pope Vigilius sent to Bishop Profuturus, together with this letter, the order of these canonical prayers, received from apostolic tradition, so that from it he might understand what was to be followed in the festivals: 'Wherefore (he says) we have also directed the text of the canonical prayer itself, added below, which (God being favourable) we have received from apostolic tradition. And that your charity may know in what places you may join together certain things suited to the festivals, we have likewise added the prayers of the Paschal day.'

But to make plain this reverence and subjection of all Churches and bishops, in whatever causes, toward the Apostolic See, I judge it superfluous to dwell upon these things. For Vigilius himself, without any ambiguity of words or fraud against the truth, as though briefly tracing the footsteps of his predecessors and the privileges of his own See, proclaims from the consent of all believers that the Roman Church is the foundation and the pattern of all Churches. For, although the election of all the apostles was equal, yet it was granted to blessed Peter that he should be preeminent over all. And, a few things being interposed, discoursing on the chief prerogatives of the Roman Church,

he asserts that it holds the primacy of all Churches on this ground, that to it—as to the head—must always be referred both the highest affairs of bishops, their judgments and complaints, and the greater questions of the Churches. Therefore the rights which they sanctioned as pertaining to the prerogative of the primacy, to the appeals made from the judgments of bishops to the Apostolic See, and finally those reserved to that same Apostolic See in the greater causes, Pope Vigilius reviewed both in the passage cited and in the remaining context of his letter. But since all these things are most well known to Catholic and most learned men, for the present I resolve to pass them over in silence, intending rather to state the reasons on account of which some might allege that there is something fictitious in that letter.

First of all, that which I might object from the inscription of the letter ought to be considered as lacking force. Namely, that even in the old printed copies it bears the name of Eucherius, or Eleutherius. This indeed Cardinal de Aguirre by no means denied, who taught that this letter should be inscribed to Profuturus of Braga, metropolitan bishop of Gallaecia. But from this objection, what follows? For by no reasoning could the slip and negligence of copyists prejudice a truth so thoroughly established. Wherefore the erudition of those who attempt to draw arguments of forgery and falsehood from the corrupted title and inscription of some document ought to be reckoned less than prudent and utterly futile.

For such a slip of copyists was too frequent and habitual—especially in transcribing the proper names of persons and places—as may be seen in manuscript copies of every age and language. But that which for the present bears upon our matter is this: namely, that in place of Eucherius, or Eleutherius, the name of Profuturus is to be read, as most manuscript codices of the best quality have it, as the catalogues of the bishops of Braga, and the tables of the Roman consuls, and finally the Acts of the Council of Braga celebrated a little afterward make plain without any ambiguity whatever. And indeed many manuscript codices—

namely the most ancient Lyons codex, two older Colbert codices marked with the best notes, from one of which the most illustrious Stephanus Baluzius transcribed this letter—have the name of Profuturus. But that this man was bishop of Braga, the first Acts of that council testify. Wherefore one can scarcely doubt that he consulted the Apostolic See, both concerning the Priscillianists and concerning those other questions, in the time of Pope Vigilius, and that the pontiff Vigilius directed to him the letters of which we treat. 'But concerning the day and year (says the most eminent Aguirre) on which it was given, I think it useless to dispute, since from the Colbert codex it is established that it was written in the year in which John was consul after Belisarius, that is, in the year 538.'

But if in the second place it is still objected that at least the last chapter of that letter smacks of interpolation and falsity—that chapter in which the primacy of the Roman Church is discussed—now I would press my point. For I could not find that it is missing in various codices of the Gauls, or that our adversaries assert it is found only in the pseudo-Isidorian collection. For in the first place this letter was written to the metropolitan of Gallaecia.

'And therefore far greater trust is to be placed in all the remaining most ancient manuscript codices of Spain, seen and collated by the most illustrious Loaysa, as well as in the printed editions, in which that chapter on the primacy of the Roman Church is contained, than in the single Colbert codex, concerning which there could be no slight suspicion that it was written in Gaul in those times when the causes of bishops appealing to the Apostolic See were being contested—especially toward the close of the ninth century, under Pope Nicholas I, and afterward in the cause of Gerbert of Rheims, near the end of the tenth.'

'For it could easily have come about that those who, against Hincmar of Laon and Rothad of Soissons—bishops appealing to the Apostolic See—were striving to snatch away from it the judgments of bishops, mutilated the letter of Vigilius by cutting off that chapter by which they themselves were being throttled.' Thus far Cardinal Aguirre, in the place cited above. Of such aids the most recent editors of the Councils made use in their notes to the aforesaid letter of Vigilius, vol. V, p. 1290. But neither ought we to be so unavenged in wresting away those two objections, if we should resolve to appeal to the authority of the Vatican manuscript copies.

There exist indeed in this apostolic library several copies of this letter which exhibit the genuine name of Profuturus and that chapter on the primacy of the Roman Church, which invincibly prove that the aforesaid letter suffered no wound whatever. 8. But if so many and so great supports did not come to the aid of this harassed truth, might someone still perhaps suspect the falsity and interpolation of this letter? Away with the fabrication! It vindicates for itself far greater sure arguments of truth from the suffrage of the Acts of Braga and the consent of those Fathers, to whom especially it was needful to adhere—rather than to Cardinal Aguirre, Baluzius, and the collectors of the Councils—and to unfold these Acts not merely cursorily, or to indicate them too lightly.

Those Fathers, therefore, as we saw in the preceding pages, in the year of Christ the Lord 563—when John III already held the helm of the Apostolic See, and Ariamirus, or Theodomirus, a king of the stock of the Suevi, was administering the civil affairs of Gallaecia and Lusitania—came together into one place. For long before they came together, they had it in their vows that a sacerdotal assembly ought to be held among themselves, in order that they might thoroughly purge the contagion of the Priscillianist heresy. Therefore they say:

'Now therefore, since our most glorious and most pious son—by the Lord's inspiration upon you—has by royal decree granted us the desired day of this assembly, and we sit placed together, first, if it please, let us inquire concerning the statutes of the Catholic faith.' That this assembly was begun on the first day of the month of May, the following note makes plain: 'The Council of Braga, celebrated in the third year of the reign of Ariamirus, on the day of the Kalends of May.'

But from what statutes of the Catholic faith that council took its beginnings, we have already most clearly stated in the preceding pages, in refuting Quesnel, who, too boldly, was attempting to snatch away the profession of faith set down by the Fathers of Tarragona, Carthage, Lusitania, and Baetica at the command of Pope Leo, so as to assert that it was of an utterly uncertain author. Therefore, lest we do again what has already been done, we take up for examination another part of that council, in which—both concerning Profuturus, prelate of the Church of Braga, and concerning the primacy and rights of the Roman pontiffs—the aforesaid Fathers spoke abundantly.

For the instruction, then, of the whole clerical order, Lucretius ordered them to recite those preceding canons of the Church which the general and provincial synods had drawn up for the safeguarding of ecclesiastical discipline and for the honour of the sacred rites and the ministers of the Church. And when all the other bishops at once seconded this suggestion, they judged it necessary and very useful first to appeal to those institutions which had been directed from the apostolic chair of St. Peter, in answer to the inquiry once made by their predecessor Profuturus of venerable memory. That Bishop Profuturus, therefore, had sat upon the throne of Braga before Lucretius, and had received from the apostolic

chair of Peter received rules for abolishing the surviving remnants of the Priscillianists—this the Fathers of this council confessed. But Lucretius, gladly desiring to adhere to their wishes, at once replied: 'Rightly has your fraternity called to mind the authority of the See.' And in the hearing of all: 'Let the authority of the Apostolic See directed to Profuturus, once bishop, be read again, which on account of its length has by no means been inserted into these acts.' That these things are to be referred to the apostolic constitution of Vigilius, it can be doubtful to no one. For the twenty-two chapters there subjoined and defined rest equally upon this, just as the preceding canons and anathemas were borrowed from the letter of St. Leo to Turribius, which they cited.

In writing these new chapters, therefore, they set before themselves chiefly this aim: namely, to abolish the rites, ceremonies, and every profane discipline, and the rules derived from the depravity of the Priscillianists. For those impious and sacrilegious men had not only corrupted and undermined the Catholic dogmas, but had also perverted the order of the divine offices and of the canonical hours; on the more solemn days too, and in the vigils, they recited peculiar lessons in the celebration of the Masses. For they had departed from that apostolic tradition which prescribes the formula for saluting the people while the sacred mysteries are being performed. They did not observe the same order and form in completing the sacrifice and in administering baptism.

They publicly chanted in the Church other psalms and other poetically composed writings, besides those which are contained in the New and Old Testament; nor, in fine, did all the ministers even of the clerical order make use of the food of flesh-meat. Wherefore in the fourteenth chapter they decreed: 'For the removal of suspicion of the Priscillianist heresy, let them be compelled at least to taste beforehand vegetables cooked with meats; and if they shall despise this' (they add), 'according to what the holy Fathers of old decreed concerning such persons, it is necessary that they, on account of suspicion of this heresy, being excommunicated from their office, be removed in every way.'

These things are truly too plain, and others of the same kind which I could subjoin to make manifest the primacy and prerogatives of the Apostolic See, or to prove that submission of mind and obedience which the bishops of the more remote part of the world fulfilled toward the Roman pontiffs in words and deeds. 10. Of this obedience indeed, and of the sacred covenant of union with the Roman Church, the Spaniards themselves have gloried at every time—as, after the cardinals Baronius and Aguirre, the most illustrious and eminent cultivator of the best sciences, Don Ildephonsus Clemente de Arostegui, has most recently testified, being now in this nourishing city one of the twelve jurisconsults, judges of causes at the Roman court, on behalf of the kingdom of Castile.

For he, to enlarge and adorn the history of the Spanish Church, composed at Rome, on the twelfth day before the Kalends of September, 1747, an exhortation to the Spaniards, with this design: that he might rouse them to the studies of letters for the honour and benefit of their fatherland. Among the other things, moreover, which he recalls to the minds of the men of his own nation, this is one: 'Since from the earliest age of the Roman Church and of Spain there was a very great union and fellowship of both, hence it was to me a most certain thing that in this city there are preserved the memorials and chief monuments which pertain to our history.' And a little below he subjoins: 'Here therefore I judged that there could easily be found the origins and dignity of the individual Churches; here their union, divisions, and translation;

here the Acts of the councils, the appeals of bishops, and the decrees of the holy Pontiffs.' When I had attended to his words, I was led to this hope: that neither to him, nor to any others whatsoever who are engaged in the studies of the Christian cause, would this present labour of mine, such as it is, prove unwelcome—since in composing these Exercitations I have already treated one thing after another which most certainly make manifest that most strict covenant, union, and fellowship with the Roman Church, and others which can furnish arguments—not feeble and doubtful—for coming to know the ancient state, dignities, and prerogatives of those Churches, according as the order of matters and the very method of writing demanded, I have explained.

Since, therefore, I have at last brought to a conclusion those things which seemed to pertain to the cause, errors, and councils gathered against the Priscillianists, and which in this matter of the greatest moment could vindicate the rights and authority of the Apostolic See from the calumnies of the envious, I shall attempt, in the following and last chapter only, to remove two very slight difficulties which have been drawn from the text and narratives of this council, and which have stirred up the greatest itch for disputing in the minds of Paschasius Quesnel and others, as we shall presently see.