Sermons & Letters 227 part 1/2

But although I have noted all these things in the preceding chapter, preserving the order of times, I shall seem to have accomplished nothing yet, unless I overthrow the foundations of Joseph Anthelmi, Ussher, Cave, Martin Steyaert, Fr. Salinas, and other writers. They therefore adduce only one testimony of St. Prosper, drawn from chapter 3 of the poem De Ingratis, by which they flatter themselves that this work was written while Augustine was still alive. St. Prosper thus sings: 'To what other end could that holy Council proceed, whose leader was Aurelius and whose genius was Augustine? whom the grace of Christ, watering him with a more abundant horn, gave as a light to our age, kindled from the true Light; for God is to him food, and life, and rest, and every delight;

the love of Christ alone is his, the honor of Christ alone is his, and while he attributes no good things to himself, God becomes all things to him, and wisdom reigns in the holy temple.' 'Thus Prosper (says Father Salinas), in which lines he celebrates the best master with a sustained eulogy as though still surviving; how indeed does he not there speak of other bishops or men foremost in this cause who were already deceased?' 2. But Martin Steyaert, doctor of Louvain, in adorning or correcting this work, led by exactly the same argument, thus annotated at that word 'reigns': 'From this (namely the word), and from other words of the present tense throughout the whole paragraph, it is gathered that he wrote these things while the holy doctor was still living.' But what is feebler than an argument of this kind?

For if we first consider that kind of praise, than which nothing more sublime or more splendid can be said of any blessed spirit now reigning with God in heaven, that surely cannot apply to a man still living a mortal life except with open and shameless flattery. Besides, in what sense or on what ground could Prosper have sung this of Augustine, were he not still surviving: 'the grace of Christ, watering him with a more abundant horn, gave him as a light to our age, kindled from the true Light'; when afterward, that same man now deceased, the same Prosper more diligently consulted the Apostolic See: 'whether even a rumor of unfavorable suspicion had besprinkled him, or whether he was of such great learning that he ought to be reckoned among the best masters of the Church.'

For how these can be reconciled with one another I plainly do not see; especially since a layman, utterly stripped of all ecclesiastical authority—such as Prosper was while Augustine was still alive—would by no means have arrogated to himself to pass judgment on the holy Father's writings before Pope Celestine's decision. 3. Finally, the words of the present tense do not press upon us, since the talents of poets always use a freer license, very often fashioning for themselves such images that they describe as though present those who are already deceased, and from the deeds and writings before their eyes persuade themselves that the dead are still living.

And indeed Prosper there alludes to Augustine's heavenly wisdom, by which he eluded, rejected, and overthrew the arts, contrivances, and errors of the Pelagians and Semipelagians. Therefore after his death he set him before himself, as it were living, in his composed works. Nor is it true that throughout that whole paragraph he uses words of the present tense; but, wishing to express the thoughts of his mind poetically, he has recourse now to words of the present, now of the past tense, and, as though by a gradual step, he describes him, under the name of wisdom, in these words—passing from Augustine's mortal life to that immortal life in which he reigns with God:

'And while he attributes no good things to himself, God becomes all things to him, and wisdom reigns in the holy temple.' Do the aforesaid writers, whom we oppose, think that these things can be said with propriety of any most wise living man? When has God been wont to become all things to the living, so that, still surrounded by mortal flesh, they reign in the holy temple? That the Scriptures and the Fathers asserted this with truth of Christ alone, the only-begotten Son of God, is sufficiently ascertained by all Catholics; but if we should wish to fit such a saying to anyone else, we must needs contend with the Catholic religion itself. 4. When I had seriously turned my mind to these things, I judged

that the opinion of those was too weak and feeble who supposed that the aforesaid little works were written by Prosper before Augustine died, or before Pope Celestine adorned Augustine's writings with eulogies, or finally before that Julian, the standard-bearer of the Pelagians, was brought to utter destruction with his devices. But the other points which are added by Fr. Salinas fall utterly to the ground, if we attend to Prosper's aim in writing or his manner of discoursing. For the sacred poet had not proposed to himself in that poem De Ingratis to adorn with eulogies those leaders, three hundred strong, who had convened in the case of Pelagius, but his intention was to attack and harass the enemies of divine grace.

Therefore it is no wonder if, apart from Aurelius, primate of all Roman Africa, and the excellent doctor Augustine, he concealed in silence the names of all the rest, especially since in Prosper's age the names of those same Fathers could easily be found in the Acts of the councils, which had not yet perished. 1. But now the reckoning of the time and of our undertaking demands that we speak concerning the writings of Leo the Great. As regards his writings, therefore, nothing more magnificent shines forth—especially in his homilies—than that divine doctrine handed down in the sacred letters concerning the power and gifts of divine grace.

Wherefore, Julian being extinguished, and the Pelagians now destroyed throughout Campania, and the authors of these heretics finally falling silent at Rome, what was there that he could treat amid the sacred mysteries more worthily of so great a pontiff, and urge upon the assembled people? Therefore in the greatest solemnities of the year, to the ears of the Roman citizens, as long as he lived, he directed at least some part of his discourse to this end, that he might censure and subvert the errors of the Pelagians and of other heretics. For in them he now describes the weakness and infirmity of the natural powers, now most frequently inculcates the supernatural power of divine help, necessarily required for attaining the good of eternal happiness.

Hence he explains, from the Apostle, from the Gospel, and from other testimonies of the sacred Scriptures, that the whole offspring of Adam remained corrupted by the sin of disobedience. Then he describes the greatest work of divine mercy, by which, through the cross and death of the only-begotten Son of God—the price of our redemption now paid—the chains of sin were broken, and, the yoke of infernal captivity shaken off, the door of paradise was unbarred for these same and for all the sons of Adam. What more need be said? 2. Perpetually therefore and everywhere the holy

pontiff perpetually and everywhere seizes the occasion of pursuing the Pelagian dogma, in case perhaps there were some among his hearers who doubted concerning the Catholic truth and concerning the sanctions of the Apostolic See, so that, at length overcome by the weight of reasons and persuaded by the authority of the apostolic discourse, they might no longer defer to condemn Pelagius, Celestius, and Julian together with their errors. For this reason especially he exhorts the people neither to presume upon their own righteousness, nor to distrust God's mercy, because almighty God, in order to make His grace wonderful in him (he speaks of himself), conferred His gifts upon him in whom He found no support of merits. And in the following sermon, in the earlier chapter, having described the weakness of human nature, he adds:

'And yet we do not despair, nor do we fail, because we presume not upon ourselves, but upon Him who works in us.' But lest these words should be drawn by anyone into the meaning of the opposite party—as though he wished it thought that the powers of the human will had been so crushed by sin that the faculty of choice remained utterly destroyed—how God repairs us to His own image, that He may find in us the form of His goodness, he explained in the following wonderful and magnificent sentence: 'He gives that whereby we too may do what He works, kindling, that is, the lamps of our minds, and inflaming us with the fire of His charity, that we may love not only Himself, but also whatever He loves.'

And again in another place he compares human hearts to an earthly field, which, if it be neglected through lazy idleness and slothful indolence, brings forth no noble growth, and, given over to thorns and thistles, will produce not what is to be stored in barns, but what is to be burned in flames. Then, about to explain this allegory, he burst forth into these words: 'But this field, most beloved, watered from above by the grace of God, is fortified by faith, exercised by fastings, sown by almsgiving, made fruitful by prayers, so that among our plantings and waterings no root of any bitterness may sprout up, nor may the growths of any harmful stock raise themselves, but, every seed of the vices being killed off, the joyful harvest of the virtues may grow strong.'

Here the holy pontiff speaks in the person of the sacred prelates, who are appointed as laborers in the Lord's field. 3. But that the sacred laver of baptism heals the infirmity and corruption of human nature—which the authors of the Pelagian dogma in some measure denied—the holy pontiff himself teaches in the seventeenth sermon. Yet not so that, once the original disease has been healed by the power of divine help, a man can subsist by his own powers, as though, while living this mortal life, he could in no way turn aside from the grace of righteousness he has attained—whereas very often he does turn aside. For since our nature is mutable, and mortal by the original stain (although even now redeemed and reborn in sacred baptism), inasmuch as it is passible,

just so far is it prone to worse things, and would be corrupted by carnal desire, unless it were fortified by spiritual help: 'Because (these are golden words) just as one never lacks that whereby he may fall, so one always has at hand that whereby he may subsist.' Nothing therefore more agreeable and useful could our most holy Leo undertake than the office of perpetually censuring and assailing the sects of the heretics, and at the same time teaching the people to beware of their errors. Therefore it is no wonder if in almost all his sermons he lashed the Pelagians, and attacked that heresy with such weight of reasons and authority of the Scriptures that he brought very many to repentance. 4. Let the reader consult the first sermon on the Nativity

which the Roman Church has always kept in its Breviary. Does he not, in the earlier chapter, call Christ the Lord the Redeemer not only of all men, but even of infants? For he asserts Him to be the destroyer of sin and death, who, as He found none free from guilt, so came to free all. And a little after, employing those words of Job, chapter 14, verse 4: 'No one is clean from filth, not even the infant whose life upon earth is of one day,' he overthrows one of the fundamental articles of this heresy. Let him also consult chapter

chapter 5 of the sermon on the Nativity of the Lord, in which with all the sinews of eloquence he directly opposes himself to Pelagius, who, arrogant and puffed up under the pretext of defending human liberty, taught that Adam by his fall harmed himself alone, but that the rest of men are born in that perfection of nature in which Adam was created by God. But against this the holy pontiff teaches that this is a mystery of the Catholic faith: that absolutely all men perished in Adam;

so that, unless the Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us, unless the Creator Himself descended into communion with the creature and by His nativity recalled the human oldness to a new beginning, death would reign from Adam even to the end, and upon all men an insoluble condemnation would remain, since from the sole condition of being born there was one and the same cause of perishing for all. And finally, to pass over almost innumerable other passages, let the reader consult the sixth sermon on the Epiphany, chapter 4, where, having described the frailty of the human condition—which always slips down into sins—he demonstrates that one must by no means quickly acquiesce in deceptive pleasure, because no sin is without delight.

Wherefore, amid so many and so great enticements of the flesh, and with human nature beset by infernal enemies, a man can obtain for himself no help or safeguard at all, unless from carnal desires he has recourse to spiritual protection, and, having a mind that knows its God, turns himself away from the counsels of the enemy who wickedly persuades him. But whoever, already delighting in carnal pleasures and overcome by his enemies, is bound fast by the chains of sins, let him never be at ease as to impunity; for if he has lost the time for repentance, he will find no place for pardon.

Let him utterly distrust that he can rise up again by his own power, or that he can at least by the movements of nature dispose himself unto justification, as the throngs of the Massilians and Semipelagians wrongly asserted; but let him flee to the mercy of the God who helps, and beg that the chains of evil habit be broken by Him who—alleluia!—raises up all who fall and sets upright all who are cast down. For then the prayer of him who confesses will not be empty, since the merciful God will fulfil the will of those who fear Him, and will give what is asked, He who gave the wherewithal to ask. But he assails and hems in these same Semipelagians and Pelagians more openly and more forcibly, moreover, in the last sermon on the Epiphany, chapter [ten].

Chapter 3, where, discoursing on true and supernal virtue, he asserts that it is nothing, nor possesses the property of the Godhead, unless it is visited by the Spirit of its Author; for when the Lord said to his disciples, 'Without me you can do nothing,' he therefore immediately adds: 'There is no doubt that a man who does good things has from God both the effect of the work and the beginning of the will.' 5. Finally, in Sermon 18, which is the fifth of Lent, he prepares new battering-rams for the destruction of the Pelagian and Semipelagian heresy, when, namely, being about to prove that the hearts of men are made a temple of the living God by the power of the supernal Spirit, he uses the example and likeness of houses made by hand.

For these, by praiseworthy diligence, provision is made, so that if anything has been damaged either by the pouring of rains, or by the whirlwind of storms, or by age itself, care may restore it to its whole and sound state; so likewise (he says) must we by continual solicitude take precaution, lest anything disordered, lest anything unclean, be found in our souls. But then, presently making the step from human to divine and supernal things, he thus reasons wonderfully to our purpose:

For although our building does not stand without the aid of a craftsman, nor can our structure be sound unless the protection of the Maker presides over it, yet, because we are rational stones and living material, the hand of our Author so builds us up that he who is being restored also works together with his workman. For here Leo does not exclude the effort, the cooperation, and the free consent of the human will, upheld and aided by divine assistance—as afterward Calvin, Jansenius, and Quesnel wickedly and too licentiously dared to assert. Nor indeed did he teach that man's free will conducts itself entirely after the manner of a stone or of some other dead thing;

on the contrary, he taught that when it is stirred by the movements of divine grace, it ought not to withdraw itself from obedience to God, nor to fall away from that Good without which it cannot be good. Wherefore the same holy pontiff, in praiseworthy words, adds these things: 'Let therefore human obedience not withdraw itself from the grace of God, nor fall away from that Good without which it cannot be good; and if it finds anything impossible or arduous in the fulfilment of the commandments, let it not remain within itself, but have recourse to Him who commands, who therefore gives the precept in order to arouse desire and to bestow the effect.'

Meanwhile, indeed, while I was transcribing these things, I was carried away by so great a delight that I could only with difficulty refrain from adducing very many other like passages. But it was needful for me to pass these over, lest I should abuse the patience of my friendly reader. For the rest, our most holy pontiff Leo has very many other sentences, full of apostolic vigor and authority, by which not only the Pelagians and Semipelagians, once the enemies of divine grace, could be checked and restrained, but also others and others still which discomfit and press hard upon Calvin, Jansenius, and Quesnel, and cut to pieces their throngs. But now it is fitting that we discourse concerning the other writings of the Great Leo, and this we shall endeavor to accomplish chiefly in the following chapter. 1.

Come then, now let me turn my mind to those things which were canonically decreed by the holy pontiff Leo concerning the reception back into the Church of deserter clerics who abhorred the Pelagian heresy. Therefore in the fourth year of that same pontificate, neither at Rome nor throughout Campania was the hiss of the Pelagian error any longer heard. But if any here or there were still found tainted with this defilement, either doing penance they bitterly abjured their errors, or at least, struck with a grave fear of punishments, they outwardly feigned to profess the Catholic faith, and strove as it were with a certain veil to conceal their own impiety. This last thing, in the province of the Venetians, S[eptimius]...

Septimius, bishop of the Church of Altinum, understood to be occurring; who, when he had noticed that many clerics of his diocese had abjured the Pelagian heresy only in appearance, and who afterward, once they had been admitted into the fellowship of the Catholics, secretly and as it were by stealth were reviving the heresy they had abjured, at once made the Roman pontiff informed of this matter by his letters. But that the letter of Septimius perished through the injury of time is the settled conviction both of me and of all learned men; for we were not able, even with much painstaking effort, to find it upon searching for it. Yet there still survive two letters of the holy...

...two letters of the pontiff, written to Januarius, bishop of Aquileia, the metropolitan of Septimius; and from both of them the history of the deeds transacted, as well as the decrees of the Apostolic See against the Pelagians, are most easily recognized. 2. As regards the earlier letter, it was long doubted to which of the bishops of Aquileia it was written. The old editors, following perhaps the reading of certain corrupted manuscripts, read the name of Nicetas instead of Januarius. Quesnel afterward published the heading of that letter in a mutilated form, and, having left out either name, wrote merely: 'A letter to the bishop of Aquileia.' But in this matter he asserts that he followed Crabbe, Picard, Isidore, the Cologne edition of the year 1551, and several codices.

But we (as we shall say in the notes), moved by the authority of two Vatican copies, one archetype from Florence, and another from the Vallicelliana, of the best quality, have inserted the name of Januarius, there also favoring us the manuscript Chronicle of the bishops of Aquileia, which exists in the Vatican library, marked with the number 5286, in which the following things pertinent to our matter are read: 'Januarius was ordained in the year of the Lord Jesus Christ 443. To this bishop Januarius St. Leo writes, that bishops and the rest of the clerical order, wishing to return to Catholic unity from the Pelagian and Coelestian heresy, should not be restored in their sees unless they publicly renounce their errors.'

'In the same Chronicle, written by Dandolo, it is likewise read concerning the same Januarius: This man, born in the city of Pola in Istria, and instructed in Catholic disciplines, and a glad bishop, by his prudence and doctrine kept the people subject to him unharmed by errors, though hedged about by many straits because of the pressing persecutions; in whose praise Pope Leo speaks thus: Upon reading the letters of thy fraternity.' 3. But with these words Leo began the second letter, which was written in the year 447, as the note of consolation most certainly makes known.

But since we have resolved first to discourse concerning the canonical sanctions of Leo in the cause of which we treat, we wish to begin our discourse from that letter which was most apt for overthrowing the Pelagians and most weighty for the authority of the Apostolic See. Such a letter, indeed, was divided by its author Leo into five distinct chapters; and in the first chapter, that he might at once turn away from the mind of the metropolitan of Aquileia every suspicion and scruple—namely, that the Roman See had lent its ears to the false rumors of certain men—he not only sets forth the name of the informer, Bishop Septimius, but also appended to this letter copies of the accusation he had received, and transmitted them to Januarius.

In few words, therefore, he expresses all the evils which it was needful for the vigilance of the supreme pastor to meet, in these words: 'By the report of our holy fellow-bishop Septimius, which is contained in the appended documents, we have learned that certain presbyters and deacons, and clerics of various orders, whom the Pelagian or Coelestian heresy had held entangled, have so come into Catholic communion in your province, that no condemnation of their own error was required of them.' 4. After these things our Leo censures the sluggish disposition of certain bishops who, overly drowsy, allowed wolves clothed in sheep's skins to enter the Lord's sheepfold.

...allowed [them to enter], and, against the authority of the canons and of the decrees issued by himself, granted to roving clerics that they might forsake their own churches in which they had either received or acquired their clerical office, carrying their instability about through diverse places, ever loving to wander, and never to remain upon the apostolic foundation. But how many, and what sort of evils, would forthwith arise from such violation of the canons to the detriment of Catholic society, he at once subjoins: 'Since (he says) those who, by no scrutinized examination, are bound by no prejudgment of their profession, especially seek this fruit, that under the veil of communion they may approach many houses, and by knowledge of a false name may corrupt the hearts of many.' 5.

But to which canons or decrees issued by himself the holy pontiff meant to appeal, no one hitherto out of so many learned men who have adorned his writings has noticed or annotated. Yet it is a matter of the greatest moment, nor could it be passed over without grave carelessness of mind. For from it, indeed, the supreme authority of the Roman prelate throughout the whole world in framing ecclesiastical laws becomes more clearly explored; and then, moreover, it becomes most fully known with what and how great honor the statutes of the Apostolic See were received by all the pastors of the other Churches. Therefore, inquiring what St....

...what Leo defined in those canons to which he appeals, we have been able to understand it, besides, both from the Aquileian Chronicle praised in the foregoing, and from Letter 12 as well as from the following Letter 13. In the former, indeed, which was written to Anastasius of Thessalonica, chapter 9, he has these words concerning these deserting and erring clerics: 'Let no one receive, let no one solicit, another's cleric against the will of that man's own bishop, unless perhaps by an agreement of charity it has been arranged between the giver and the receiver. But if the case is conducted against the province, the metropolitan shall compel the runaway cleric to return to his own Church. If, however, he has withdrawn farther off, he shall be recalled by the authority of thy precept, so that no occasion be left either for cupidity or for ambition.'

But in the other, the subsequent letter to the metropolitan bishops established throughout the province of Achaia, treating of the manner and institution of the clerical life, and of the bond of priestly concord to be kept by all the sacred ministers, he not only commands that what he had written to Anastasius be religiously observed, but he willed moreover this to be cautioned, that no bishop should dare to claim for himself the cleric of another bishop, without the cession of him to whom he belongs—a cession which, however, evident writings should contain—since this both the authority of the canons has defined, and the very principle of preserving unity teaches, lest by this license the ecclesiastical order become altogether unstable. But after these things he addressed the same metropolitans of Achaia with these words...

...he addressed [them] with these words, full of apostolic vigor: 'Let therefore those things, dearest brethren, which you perceive to be decreed by us with a devoted affection of mind, descend more deeply into your breasts, that we, who anxiously desire to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, may receive the fruit of our injunction, and may rejoice in the works of your love.' 6. Here Quesnel altogether stumbled at what Leo asserted he decreed and enjoined, and, turning to those words, 'Since this both the authority of the canons has defined,' he rightly inquires to which canons the holy pontiff there looked; but at last, hesitating, he asserts that it seems to him St. Peter's [the holy pontiff] looked either to the 16th of Nicaea, or to the Sardican 18th and 19th, nay rather to the canons of the first council of Carthage;

but he sincerely confessed that no mention is had in the canons of a consent handed over in writing. Why then does he conjecture that this discipline was first introduced by Leo, since he does not find it expressed in the decrees of the preceding councils and of the Roman pontiffs? This inference, moreover, ought by no means to have been dissembled or passed over by a man who had set himself to adorn Leo's life and deeds with study. But now it is helpful to dismiss these and other like matters. For then they will have to be unfolded by us more diligently and likewise more eloquently, when, led very much by the authority of the Vatican archetypes, the titles of the 49 decrees of Pope Leo will have to be treated. 7.

But now the plan of our undertaking demands that we return to the Pelagians, from whom our discourse has for a little digressed. St. Leo, therefore, in the second chapter of that letter, to restrain the unbridled boldness of the Pelagian clerics, and to lead them to the execration of the impious dogma, enjoined upon the metropolitan Januarius: 'That, a synod of the provincial priests having been gathered before you, all—whether presbyters, or deacons, or clerics of any order—who from the fellowship of the Pelagians and Coelestians have been received into Catholic communion with such imprudence that they were not first constrained to the condemnation of their error;'

'...now at least, after their hypocrisy is in some part uncovered, let them be compelled to a true correction, by which it may both profit themselves and be able to harm no one.'