Sermons & Letters 228

1. Turning our discourse, therefore, to weightier matters, we shall indicate in a few words what gave the more recent writers the occasion for such great disputes. That the writers might diverge into different opinions, two copies of one and the same epistle furnished the cause. One was inscribed to Septimius, bishop of Altinum, the other to Januarius of Aquileia; which they judged wholly foreign to the eloquence, doctrine, and manner of writing of the holy pontiff. Persuaded then by this conviction, they most keenly contended that one or the other, as spurious and supposititious, ought to be rejected. Noris, however, in the second book of his Pelagian History, adjudged both copies to Leo, writing:

'For when Januarius had written back to Leo—having, namely, received that former epistle (concerning which we have spoken in the preceding sections)—that he would do all things according to his mandate, compelling the heretics to a public detestation of their error, to be moreover confirmed by voice and in writing, Leo sent two letters of the same tenor: one to Septimius, in which he signified to him what he had enjoined upon Januarius; and one to Januarius, in which he congratulated him because he was promptly carrying out what had been commanded.' But when Noris wrote these things, Quesnel had not yet come forward upon the stage.

For he, in the latest edition of the works of the divine Leo, having weighed the marks and characteristics of each epistle, departing from the former view, with much labor attacks and refutes the conjectures of that same most eminent Noris, contending that the copy of this epistle inscribed to the bishop of Altinum bore many arguments of forgery, and was therefore quite falsely adjudged to our pontiff. 2. But Joseph Anthelmi reasoned otherwise, when he judged that all the arguments of forgery brought forward by Quesnel against the copy of the epistle inscribed to the bishop of Altinum ought rather to be turned back against the other copy addressed to Januarius of Aquileia, and that this one, as spurious and apocryphal, ought to be rejected.

Who, then, does not see that we have come upon a knot to be untied in every direction? And that especially for this cause, because the later most illustrious writers—Tillemont, namely, Du Pin, Father Bernard de Rubeis, and others, if there be any—either are moved to one side or the other, or at least, defining nothing at all, preferred to remain in suspense rather than to assert anything rashly, hoping that in the course of time the truth, not yet sufficiently ascertained, might, when a richer store of documents should at some point come to hand, be more clearly laid open.

Meanwhile, however, I would dare to assert that Noris did not at all err in his conjectures, when he wrote that both copies of that epistle proceeded from Leo, one of which he in fact inscribed to Januarius, the other to Septimius of Altinum—so that perhaps the latter might thence understand both that the metropolitan Januarius was straining every sinew of his zeal for the exile of the Pelagian clergy, and that the Roman pontiff Leo himself, before whom Septimius had petitioned concerning the Pelagian clergy of Aquileia, had already enjoined those things which now seemed necessary for the integrity of the faith. And we are persuaded that the words of Noris, cited a little before, can bear a meaning of this sort even without any mark of folly or fabrication.

Nor is this manner of administration to be judged unusual, nor foreign to Leo's habitual way of acting. For having received from Septimius of Altinum letters concerning the Pelagian plague spreading in the province of Aquileia, he transmitted a copy of these to the metropolitan Januarius, so that he began his first epistle to him with these words: 'By the report of our holy brother and fellow-bishop, which is contained in what follows, we have learned that certain presbyters, deacons...'

Why, then, if one insists upon this example, will it be judged foreign to Leo's way of acting, that he, having received Januarius's reply, likewise committed it, together with the copy of the fourteenth or last epistle, to Septimius—for this reason chiefly, that he too might thoroughly know the vigor of the faith, the pastoral care, and the admonitions and sanctions of the Apostolic See of his own metropolitan? It was surely fitting that Leo should write back to Septimius, from whom he had received the preceding report;

and then especially, since, having now read Januarius's letters, he approved the vigor of the faith which he had once known. And therefore it could well have been the administrative arrangement of the supreme pontiff, that just as earlier he committed the report of Septimius, as we have already said, in his former epistle to Januarius, metropolitan of the province of Aquileia, so, having received the latter's reply, he committed this also to Septimius, with the copy of this last epistle subjoined to him, so that Septimius might know beforehand both what had thus far been done, and what things in the future were to be entrusted to execution for restraining the Pelagians of that province. For the rest, I judge it would be a wickedness to suspect that this second epistle of which we treat, written to Januarius, is a fabrication.

For the most ancient collector Dionysius Exiguus praises it as a genuine offspring of Leo; the Church of Aquileia always preserved it as genuine in its archives, as we ourselves have already said from the manuscript Vatican Chronicle; and finally it possesses all the marks and characteristics by which it is most sufficiently made known that it was given not to some suffragan, but to the metropolitan of the province. 3. But while I adhere to these conjectures, I shall by no means deny that the other copy committed to Septimius, and perhaps at some time found in the archives of the Church of Altinum, suffered some fraud of corruption. That one has its blemishes, from which the aforesaid writers contend that some indications of forgery are perceptible in it.

Such are these: 'We have directed writings to the metropolitan bishop of the province of Venetia'; or those others which are immediately subjoined: 'By which he might recognize that it pertained to the peril of his own state'—which, according to Quesnel, savor neither of the age nor of the style of St. Leo; although in reality they are not of such a kind that they cannot even be vindicated from every mark of forgery. And first, Altinum was once a most flourishing city built on the shore of Venetia, as is ascertained from Pliny, Martial, Titus Livius, and the ancient tables of the geographers. Wherefore those words, 'to the metropolitan... of the province of Venetia,' could conveniently be employed to designate more clearly the province in which Altinum was situated, especially since in Leo's age the...

metropolitan of Aquileia held subject to himself the cities and bishops not of one, but of several provinces. That Altinum then had an episcopal see, the Acts of the councils abundantly testify. For indeed, at the Aquileian synod convened in the year of our Lord 381 under Pope Damasus, among the other Italian, Gallic, and Pannonian bishops who assembled there, Heliodorus also, bishop of Altinum, was present. Moreover, in the year of our Lord 579, at a synod convened at Grado, the bishop of Altinum came to it. For in the fifth place we read: 'I, Peter, bishop of the holy Church of Altinum, have subscribed to these acts.' Concerning which synod Ughelli treated in volume V of Italia Sacra.

The Acts also of the pseudo-synod of Marano make mention of this Peter of Altinum, as is established from Paul the Deacon (book III, chapter 27), namely when in the year 589 Severus, patriarch of Aquileia, thrust forward the libellus of his error. Wherefore Quesnel must be said to be greatly hallucinating, who wrote rather boldly: 'The genuineness of Septimius's episcopal see remains as obscure as if this epistle had never come to light. The impostor, the artificer of the epistle, attributed that see to Septimius, such as it came into his mind, and as he thought better suited to the design of his fraud. Truly nothing was found by Ughelli concerning a bishop of Altinum of this name in ancient monuments, since concerning him there is nothing in Italia Sacra. Therefore...'

How wittily Quesnel deceives, who demands from Ughelli a testimony for asserting the episcopal see of Septimius at Altinum! For if, following Dandolo, he begins his discourse only from the destruction of the city of Altinum—namely, when Paul, bishop of this city, transferred the see to Torcello. But in this matter both Dandolo and Ughelli have erred. For they contend that this translation was made by bishop Paul in the year 651, whom they affirm to have died in the following month. We, however, in the Acts of the Roman council under Pope Agatho, read: 'I, Paul, bishop of the holy Church of Altinum of the province of Istria, have likewise subscribed to this proposal, which we have unanimously constructed on behalf of our apostolic faith.'

But that this council was held at Rome in the year of our Lord 680, I judge is hidden from no one; nor is any other bishop of this name reckoned in Ughelli's catalogue. Nor likewise do those two words, 'of the province of Istria,' stand in the way:

for previously, when the affairs of Italy were in distress, and while Leo was yet living, Aquileia was taken by siege and leveled to the ground by Attila, king of the Huns; then, shaken again by the incursion of the Goths and the fury of the other barbarians as the fifth century was passing; and finally, in the year 579, the bishops of Aquileia, being by no means able to endure the scourges of the abominable nation of the Lombards, by the decree and authority of the Roman pontiff Pelagius, transferred that metropolitan see to Grado, and then the fortress of Grado, with the suffragan bishops consenting, was made the metropolis of all Venetia and Istria.

But if the bishop of new Aquileia was called metropolitan of the provinces of Venetia and Istria, why could he not be distinguished by the same titles before old Aquileia should undergo those disasters? For then too the bishop of Aquileia was the true metropolitan of the province of Venetia. 4. Moreover, those words 'by which he might recognize that it pertained to the peril of his own state' smell of no forgery at all. That they square exceedingly well with Leo's age and style, those by no means deny who know that Leo, in his sixth epistle to Januarius, wrote: 'Let not thy charity doubt that we, if (as we suppose) the things we decree for the guarding of the canons and for the integrity of the faith should be neglected, are to be moved more vehemently.'

He uses just as many words also in the fourteenth epistle, which indeed indicate threats and the future indignation of the pontiff, if Januarius the metropolitan should have consigned the decrees of the Apostolic See to negligence and contempt. For the authority of the earliest Roman pontiffs, in correcting and restraining the dissensions and defections of inferior bishops, was not enclosed within narrow limits, so as to comprehend only those who then belonged to the Roman synod, or those who were ordained by the same Roman pontiff, as Quesnel blabbed. For it was diffused far and wide over the bishops of the whole world, so that the Roman pontiffs might admonish them, rebuke them, and deprive them of communion;

which we could assert by six hundred examples from Leo's predecessors, were this dissertation of ours to proceed further than is fitting. Let Quesnel, I pray, only run through what our Leo has in his epistles to Anastasius of Thessalonica, to Flavian and Anatolius of Constantinople, to Juvenal of Jerusalem, to Turribius of Astorga, to the bishops of the province of Vienne, to Theodoret of Cyrus—all of whom indeed neither belonged to the Roman synod nor were ordained by Roman pontiffs.

Nevertheless he either rebukes, or admonishes, or deprives of communion, or absolves them, casts them down from their sees, or restores them to the same—which are proof that (as concerns the form of bishops also a distinction arose, and by a great ordinance it was provided) that not all should claim all things for themselves, but that there should be in each province single bishops whose sentence among the brethren should be held first; and again, that certain ones established in the greater cities should undertake a fuller solicitude, through whom the care of the universal Church should flow together to the one See of Peter, and nothing anywhere should dissent from the head. From these and other acts that assertion of Quesnel falls: that Leo was accustomed to use threats of this sort in reality against metropolitan bishops.

But from these same things Leo by no means abstained, in dealing with the Eastern bishops; how much more, therefore, could he use the same in transacting business with the metropolitan of Aquileia, immediately subject to the Roman patriarchate? 5. But here again Quesnel brings himself back upon the stage, contending against Noris that it is an argument of forgery that those two copies do not correspond exactly to each other. In the other, however, addressed to Januarius, certain words which seem necessary have been cut out: such as these, 'concerning the fellowship of the Pelagians and Celestians.'

Then, he adds, concerning the clergy returning from heresy, certain things are decreed in the epistle to Januarius which do not appear in the other—namely, that they should not be promoted to a higher order, but be allowed to persevere in that which they have obtained. In this matter I do not at all shrink from Quesnel's criticism; yet I am by no means led to believe that on that account the Norisian conjectures totter or collapse. For the things objected by Quesnel can be an argument only that one or the other copy of that epistle has either suffered some wound, or been augmented by some interpolation—things which indeed can hardly be discerned, especially since the most ancient copies have perished, by whose aid that epistle might come to light purer and more corrected.