Sermons & Letters 246 part 2/4

Since, then, the antiquity and agreement of the manuscripts bears witness, it can scarcely be understood why Quesnel strove so vehemently to lessen and utterly destroy the authority of this session. He contends besides that this same session was not known to Facundus of Hermiane, a bishop in Africa, who composed his work in defense of the Three Chapters. On the contrary, Facundus, when speaking of Domnus, numbers him among the holy Fathers and venerable doctors of the Church, with John Chrysostom and Gregory Nazianzen, as may be seen in book II, chapter 1. It displeases Baluze more gravely that Quesnel called the trustworthiness of Rusticus into suspicion of falsehood;

seeing that the whole Church owes very much to that same man, on account of the outstanding labor he expended on the Latin translation of the Acts of Chalcedon. For Quesnel unjustly surmises that Rusticus fabricated this session in order to show that Domnus had not been condemned after his death. For so it had been falsely persuaded to certain men in the age of Rusticus, as Baluze explained when at once proceeding to refute the other arguments of Quesnel. One of these arguments is the one which we adduced above, also from Baronius, drawn from the emperor Justinian and the bishops of the fifth synod.

But Baluze asserts that an argument of this kind wavers and altogether collapses, owing to the historical errors which are found here and there in the Constitutions of the emperor Justinian, and to other matters by no means true which were inserted into the Acts of the fifth synod. And although all these things ought not to have escaped Quesnel himself, Baluze was unwilling to abuse them for proving his points, especially since nothing about the death or condemnation of Domnus occurs in the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon—a thing which ought to be diligently inquired into by anyone who wished to rely on the testimonies of Justinian and the fifth synod.

10. But now Quesnel contends that Domnus had departed from this light when the Council of Chalcedon was held, on the testimony of the deacon Liberatus and other sayings of the ancients, which are nevertheless violently interpreted. First of all the deacon Liberatus relates how Dioscorus, bishop of Alexandria, at the Robber-Council of Ephesus, deposed Ibas bishop of Edessa, Theodoret of Cyrus, Eusebius of Dorylaeum, Flavian of Constantinople, and other orthodox men, with the consent of Domnus of Antioch, whose authority he was abusing; and after all these: 'And Domnus of Antioch remaining behind from the deposition of the orthodox, because he had become a sharer with Dioscorus in the deposition of the orthodox and in the absolution of Eutyches. But he was deposed by the guile of Dioscorus thus.'

'After he had consented to Dioscorus in all things, the letters were produced in the midst—the letters which Domnus of Antioch had written to Dioscorus himself against the Twelve Chapters of Cyril—and he condemned him, sick and absent, on that day.' But Nicephorus reported another cause for the deposition of Domnus, writing: 'With whom Domnus also, the successor of John of Antioch, confirmed these things by his own subscription. But he, restored to his own authority, retracted his having yielded to them, resisting Dioscorus and the magnates from the imperial court, and crying out against the decrees as having been made against the ecclesiastical sanctions, calling the synod impious, and finally demanding that his subscription be given back to him.'

'But the synod for that very reason stripped this man too of his priestly dignity.' Quesnel adds: 'These two authors are easily reconciled if you say that Nicephorus brought forward the true reason why Dioscorus had thought of deposing Domnus, but that the text of Liberatus has been corrupted by the drowsiness and hallucination of the scribes or printers'; and he asserts that beneath those words lies a battology, and that it must be corrected according to the sense of Augustine, so that instead of 'remaining behind' one should read 'leaping back,' or rather 'returning from the deposition of the orthodox.' He therefore cites a similar passage of Augustine, On Baptism against the Donatists, book II: 'whom we desire to return to the peace and unity of the holy Church'; and another from letter 172 to Crispinus:

'unless they had returned to your communion.' This paraphrase of Quesnel, however, Baluze does not approve, and to the best of his ability he explains a passage long vexed by the learned. For he judged that the true and genuine sense of the words of Liberatus is this: namely, that Dioscorus at the Robber-Council of Ephesus deposed the orthodox bishops; but Domnus, although he himself was orthodox, he did not depose, because he had already consented in the deposition of the orthodox and in the absolution of Eutyches. But this man too, who remained uncondemned, he afterward condemned—namely, after all the others had been condemned—because he had written a letter to Dioscorus against the Twelve Chapters of Cyril. And so he was not deposed by the synod, because he was publicly repenting of having given his consent to the deposition of the orthodox. 11.

Nor does the praised Baluze approve the other conjecture of Quesnel, which he contends is to be inferred from the testimony of Liberatus: namely, that Domnus, sick and absent, was condemned; and that therefore he did not long survive his deposition, nor prolong his life until the Council of Chalcedon. To this Baluze adds: 'He could have aided this conjecture by the testimony of Eutychius, who writes in his Annals that Domnus died in the year following that synod of Ephesus. But he refrained, for this reason, as I think: because that author is full of historical and chronological errors, so that he can give nothing certain about the life and death of Domnus.'

But he opposes Liberatus himself to Liberatus, who a little later described the death of Flavian, and relates how Anatolius had been ordained in his place; and in the same tenor he says that Maximus was ordained in place of Domnus, yet does not add that Domnus had died. Indeed, the following words demonstrate that he spoke of him as living. For after recounting the death of Flavian and the ordination of Anatolius, he adds concerning the ordination of Maximus in the place of Domnus, of Nonnus in the place of Ibas, and of Athanasius in the place of Sabinianus, with no mention made of the death of these men or of any one of them.

As, therefore, Ibas and Sabinianus had not died before the Council of Chalcedon, since they took part in this synod, so neither ought it to be inferred that Domnus had died before this council, because at the time of the Council of Ephesus he was sick. The argument equally negative, drawn from the silence of Liberatus, who, recounting the individual sessions of the Council of Chalcedon, makes no mention of the cause of Domnus—and would doubtless have done so if the things narrated in that session had truly befallen him—easily deceived;

as did also another conjecture drawn from the words of Evagrius Scholasticus, who, writing that Domnus had been deposed in the synod of Ephesus, could not find out what afterward became of him, and, recounting the Acts of Chalcedon, is entirely silent about Domnus. But what does the silence of either writer, or the very ignorance of Evagrius, prove for Quesnel's system? Both these writers used manuscripts in which the session concerning Domnus did not exist, just as (says Baluze) it does not exist even now in the codex which we call the Parisian. Nor is it on that account false.

For just as, if the art of printing had not yet been invented, and someone using that codex omitted that session, he would seem to prejudice nothing against the authority of those codices in which it is found, so the silence of the deacons Liberatus or Evagrius cannot prejudice against those codices which are established to have contained that aforesaid session in their age. 12. But Baluze, with that very great erudition in which he excelled, entirely solves and explains this and similar arguments, clearly demonstrating whence so great a diversity of the Greek manuscripts arose. We think it necessary to subjoin his very words, that we may utterly do away with any suspicion of forgery.

The learned man therefore observes that the end of the Council of Chalcedon is in reality at the sixth session, so that it also embraces the canons. But the sessions which follow, although enacted in the council, nevertheless—because they did not pertain to the cause of the faith but to private affairs—therefore many bishops, the decree of faith having been drawn up, set out upon the road and returned to their own sees. This he gathers from the Life of St. Euthymius the abbot, and from the letter of Pelagius to the bishops of Istria. For it is read in the Life of Euthymius that Stephen of Jamnia and John bishop of the Saracens, who were present at the Council of Chalcedon, after the decree of faith had been published, departing most swiftly, reported it to Euthymius, thinking the synod already concluded.

Whence afterward their names nowhere appear in the sessions which follow after the sixth. But the pontiff Pelagius teaches this more openly. It is shown that most of the more ancient Greek codices contain the synod in only six sessions, with the canons subjoined, so that they do not at all have the rest of the things which had been set in motion by private interest. And a little above: 'Therefore regard the matter with vigilant care, because in its sixth session the profession of the holy faith is completed, and presently in the seventh the rule of the canons is fixed for the instruction of the now faithful, while in the further sessions nothing concerning the cause of the faith, but private affairs alone, are dealt with.' To his predecessor, or rather to himself, if any faith is to be placed in the deacon Paul, St. Gregory writes the same in his letter to Secundinus:

'The holy Council of Chalcedon spoke, as far as the definition of the faith and the promulgation of the canons, concerning general causes. For after the promulgation of the canons it took care to put to rest the special contentions of the bishops.' What wonder, then, if most Greek codices, and indeed the more ancient ones, did not once have the sessions that follow after the sixth? Hence it came about that afterward they added them, and inserted them into the Acts in different ways, with the order of times by no means preserved, inserting now this one, now another, or omitting them, according as each was led by his own inclination. Baluze concludes: 'The old collector omitted the session concerning Domnus, but the old exemplar from which the codex of Julia Patricia was copied did have it.'

13. Besides, that Baluze may press his adversary Quesnel more forcibly, he adduces the example of a session of Chalcedon, in which the case between Photius bishop of Tyre and Eustathius of Berytus was conducted and decided. This indeed the old collators of the Synod of Chalcedon did not have. But it came forth from a Greek Vatican codex, by the zeal of Cardinal Baronius, who found it placed at the end of the fourth session; although Balsamon, in his scholia on the 29th canon of Chalcedon, testifies that it was placed at the end of the Acts in the codex which he used. On this matter we spoke more fully in the dissertation of the Pontifical Academy of Councils in the year 1746, which we have already described in the preceding chapter.

Therefore, discussing nothing about it at present, we turn our discourse to the silence of Evagrius, who was a citizen and advocate of Antioch, as the distinguished Henri de Valois clearly proves. It seems indeed difficult to suppose that he was ignorant of what became of Domnus, if Domnus really survived his deposition, and if expenses were decreed for him at the Council of Chalcedon out of the resources of the Church of Antioch for the sustenance of his life. Baluze admits that it presents a great difficulty, but affirms that it in no way aids Quesnel's opinion.

For the words of Evagrius seem to be confirmed by the author who wrote the Life of Euthymius, in saying that Euthymius had foretold to him an unhappy life in the episcopate, and that he would afterward have to undergo deposition by the zeal and arts of evil men and conjurers, so that, led by repentance because he had not obeyed the saving admonitions of the abbot, he returned to the same Euthymius in Palestine.

'Hence therefore (says Baluze) it came about that the man who passed his life far from Antioch and in silence fell into the oblivion of the Antiochenes, so that it is true that Domnus withdrew into the desert after his deposition; and that Theophanes the chronographer also, and Anastasius the Librarian who received it from him, committed this to written memory, although they bring forward a different cause of his withdrawal than that which the author of the Life of St. Euthymius offers.' 14. But if anyone should contend that greater credit is to be given to Evagrius, who was writing his history at the close of the sixth century, than to Theophanes and Anastasius, who were far removed from the time at which these things are narrated to have happened, I will not gainsay it.

But Quesnel ought to have paid attention to the words of this man, which cannot indicate that Domnus, absent and sick, condemned by Dioscorus, did not long survive, but rather that he departed from the living. For how could his death have lain hidden, if his infirmity did not lie hidden? Therefore it must be said that Domnus fully recovered from that infirmity; but, afflicted with the weariness of his troubles and overwhelmed with confusion, because he had obeyed the impious arts and nods of Dioscorus, he wished to withdraw himself from the throng of men, betaking himself far from the patriarchate of Antioch into the secret desert of Palestine, that he might finish out the remaining course of his life.

Besides, Baluze well noted that the testimony of Evagrius does not contradict the writings of Theophanes and Anastasius, although they wrote differently. For the words of Evagrius teach that Domnus so wished to lie hidden, that, had not Cyril of Scythopolis alone—who was an inhabitant of the same desert which Domnus dwelt in—uncovered that secret, even now we should doubtless, along with Evagrius, be ignorant of what became of him. 15. Less solid are the arguments which Quesnel adduces to confirm his opinion about the death of Domnus: namely, that his condition was worse than that of Juvenal of Jerusalem and of the others to whom the synod, in the fourth session, granted indulgence, and about the reciting of whose names at the altar Anatolius wrote to St. Leo.

But whence is it established that Domnus sought indulgence with the foregoing signs of true repentance? St. Leo ordered some who had fallen in the Ephesine synod of Dioscorus to be received back; but under those conditions which he himself had prescribed in letter 64, of which we treated above: two legations he instituted to the Easterns, one of Abundius and his companions, the other of Lucentius and Basil, for the receiving back of certain penitent fallen ones who were exhibiting due satisfaction; yet concerning the more grievously fallen he reserves judgment to himself, as is established from the commonitory given to Lucentius and Basil, the last legates sent from the City to Constantinople for the receiving back of penitent fallen ones.

But that Domnus was in the number of those whose case seemed harsher, who does not understand? Therefore the judgment and examination of this case was reserved solely to the great Leo, which the most distinguished Baluze by no means observed; nor was the case of Domnus one of those about which either the papal legates, or Anatolius, or any other could judge. Yet another reason adduced by Baluze himself holds good: namely, that Domnus after his deposition withdrew into Palestine to the abbot Euthymius, and ceased to be among the bishops, and therefore there could be no question of reciting his name with the names of the other bishops at the altar. Another argument, which Baluze subjoins, also presses Quesnel very greatly.

For (he says) if Domnus is to be reckoned dead for this reason, that Anatolius makes no mention of him in his letters to St. Leo the Great, then at that time there were also dead Thalassius bishop of Caesarea, Eusebius of Ancyra, and Basil of Seleucia. For Leo, in replying to Anatolius, made no express mention of those who, with Dioscorus, Juvenal, and also Eustathius, had been partakers of the Ephesine robbery. 16. Nor, further, are many other arguments to be deemed any stronger, which, running too laboriously this way and that in defense of his cause, he strove to gather, in order to show that the session of which we are treating is spurious.

Indeed, if we bring them to the balance, as the praised Baluze has already done, we shall understand that they present nothing but words, fallacies, and violent interpretations. Of this kind is that which he believed he could borrow from the letter of Gelasius to the bishops of Dardania, in which the pontiff, bringing forward very many examples of judgments to explain the authority of his see, enumerates the bishops condemned by a synod whom the Apostolic See absolved; he says that pardon was granted to those who had fallen in the pseudo-synod of Ephesus, while he made it void, yet makes no mention of Domnus of Antioch. Therefore (he infers) Domnus had died before the ordination of his successor Maximus.

But what would have to be said about Ibas of Edessa and Sabinianus of Perrha, in whose place Nonnus and Athanasius had been ordained? These likewise had fallen in the Robber-Council of Ephesus; Gelasius in his letter makes no mention of them. Therefore had these too departed from this light before the Council of Chalcedon? But that this consequence is altogether false, both the ancient histories and the Acts of Chalcedon make plain. Nor does the other conjecture obtain any greater weight, which he gathers from Leo's manner of acting, who, having rescinded the Acts of the Ephesine robbery, did not think to except the deposition of Domnus, but asked of the emperor Theodosius that he order all things to remain in that state in which they had been before any judgment.

Hence he persuades himself that the sentence passed against Domnus could have had no effect, if he had been alive. A new fallacy. The deposition of Domnus would indeed have had no effect, if, taught by the fear of punishments, or deceived by ignorance, he had consented to the deposition of the orthodox and the absolution of Eutyches at the prompting of others. But because he had played the leading parts in that Ephesine synod with Dioscorus, he was regarded as a chief of the Eutychian faction, and therefore, since his case, as we have said, was among the harsher, St. Leo, while he was yet surviving, rightly ratified the ordination of Maximus and his own deposition as a punishment for his past wickedness. Indeed, we judge that the Fathers of Chalcedon

so greatly abhorred the previous conduct of Domnus—on account of which he had given himself over, vanquished, into the hands and will of Dioscorus—that they themselves would already have passed a sentence of deposition against him, just as they did against Dioscorus. We gather the argument from the words of Maximus, by which he entreated the judges and the universal synod. 'Maximus, the most reverend bishop of Antioch, said: I beseech the most magnificent and most glorious judges, and this holy and universal synod, that you may deign to exercise humanity toward Domnus, who was bishop of Antioch, and to determine and assign certain expenses from the Church which is under me.'

Whoever is not deceived by hallucination, and is unwilling violently to interpret the words of Maximus, will already fully understand that Domnus had created for himself such canonical prejudices, that Leo the Great and the Council of Chalcedon by no means ought to have made void his deposition, on account of which he had been wholly deprived both of the episcopate and of its fruits. Wherefore Maximus, the successor, desiring in part to have pity on Domnus, suppliantly entreats the council to be willing to deal more mildly and humanely with him, and to permit him to receive a portion of the ecclesiastical fruits as long as he should remain among the living. The council therefore assenting to Maximus's petition, the legates, or vicars, of the Apostolic See, through Paschasinus, interposed the following decree:

'The holy and most blessed pope, who confirmed the episcopate of the holy and venerable bishop Maximus of the Antiochene Church, seems by a sufficiently just judgment to have approved his merit; since the aforesaid Maximus has of his own will wished to make provision for Domnus, that from his own Church he may, out of regard for mercy, bestow expenses as he shall judge fit, so that, content with sustenance, he may rest for the future.' Therefore Maximus was led by mercy alone to grant such a portion of the ecclesiastical fruits to the surviving Domnus, although by no right could Domnus be placed again in his episcopal see. Anatolius too, bishop of Constantinople, praised this indulgence and mercy of Maximus, saying:

'I too praise the fellow-suffering (or compassion) of the most blessed bishop of Antioch, Maximus, in that of his own spontaneous will he himself offered such prayers, that he might furnish expenses to Domnus, who was bishop of the holy Church which is under him, the aforesaid Domnus requiring nothing beyond this.' 17. But that St. Leo the Great ought not to have made void this man's deposition—besides the things which we adduced in the preceding pages, and which we also sufficiently explained in expounding the holy pontiff's letter 64—Quesnel and Baluze could still have understood from the letter which he wrote to Juvenal bishop of Jerusalem, since Baluze especially, under number 45, affirmed that it was difficult to ascertain.

Juvenal had indeed consented to Dioscorus in the Robber-Council of Ephesus, but he was neither deposed, nor did he persist in his obstinacy. Yet he would afterward have been deposed by St. Leo and by the Council of Chalcedon, because he had created for himself the matter of a deposition, on account of which he had rendered himself not only hateful to all the orthodox, but also unworthy of the episcopate for the future; for which reasons it behooved him to be absent from his see for some time, far away, until through the due satisfaction of repentance, in the time of indulgence, he chose the part of those returning to their senses.

But in the fourth session of Chalcedon the case was proposed of the bishops who, with Dioscorus, had presided over the Robber-Council of Ephesus, and it was inquired whether they ought to undergo, equally with Dioscorus, the censure of condemnation, and to be deprived of their Churches. The judges and all the bishops were in suspense. To whom, since the question seemed sufficiently difficult, they demanded for themselves a respite of five days, in order to bring forth a more mature judgment according to the rules of the Nicene canons. Meanwhile, however, Juvenal, Thalassius, Eusebius of Cappadocia, Eustathius of Berytus, and Basil of Seleucia were denied a place in the synod, but, as men doing penance, they had to wait.

'Let the hearing be deferred (we read) until five days, that meanwhile your Holinesses may be gathered to the most holy archbishop Anatolius, and may deliberate in common concerning the faith.' Again, in the same session, after all had cried out that Dioscorus had been justly deposed and condemned by Christ, a few hours having passed, the judges, awaiting the emperor's mandate, said: 'The most pious emperor, learning your prayers, has permitted deliberation concerning Juvenal, and concerning Thalassius, and Eusebius, and Basil, and Eustathius, the most reverend bishops, as has seemed good to you.' Anatolius said: 'We ask that they enter'; and the other bishops cried out: 'We beg that they enter.'

Nor did they obtain a place in the synod by any other means than that their faith was first recognized, by which they had approved the Nicene and Constantinopolitan Creed, holding ratified the decrees of the Ephesine ecumenical council, by subscribing nevertheless with the other bishops to the letter of St. Leo to Flavian, and by condemning those who thought the contrary. Among these, at all events, Domnus was not found; both because he had withdrawn into the desert of Palestine, and because he had not given the signs of returning to his senses at a suitable time, when, namely, St. Leo did not refuse to grant indulgence to the fallen by the clemency of the Apostolic See. St. Leo's letter to Juvenal himself agrees entirely, in which, reproaching him for his past excesses, he says:

'I grieved that you yourself were the cause of your own adversities, and that you lost the constancy of resisting the heretics, because they reckon it not to be free for you to dare to refute those to whom you have professed yourself to have been pleasing in their error.' He then assigns the reason on account of which, after so very grave a fall, it had been permitted him to return to the see of his episcopate, subjoining thus: 'Wherefore, because in the time of indulgence you chose a return to your senses rather than obstinacy, I so rejoice that you have sought the heavenly medicine, that you may at last be able to be a defender of the faith assailed by the heretics.'

Who, meanwhile, does not see that Quesnel devised a grave fabrication when he maintained that Leo, by the decree whereby the Acts of the Robber Council of Ephesus were rendered void, granted indulgence to all who had lapsed, and that he gave no thought to excepting the deposition of Domnus? What then? Was Leo, by rescinding the brigand Acts, perhaps intending that indulgence ought to be given to the ringleaders of that synod even if they had not come to their senses, even if they had not most humbly begged that pardon be granted them, once all the conditions had been fulfilled which the holy pontiff had prescribed for Anatolius, Juvenal, Thalassius, and the rest who had communicated with Dioscorus and Eutyches, having formed a conspiracy against Flavian, Eusebius of Dorylaeum, and the other orthodox?

It was therefore not necessary that, once the brigand proceedings had been rendered void, he should except the deposition of Domnus, since to Domnus himself and to the other leaders of the Eutychian faction no further right could any longer accrue of persisting in the episcopate, which they could thereafter have retained from the indulgence of St. Leo alone, had they done penance.

Hence I judge that Quesnel's deceit ought above all to be noted: for, while discussing the brigand Acts and the letter of St. Leo written to Theodosius Augustus—in which he asked that he command everything to be restored to the state in which it had been before that ill-fated synod—he flatters himself that he believes the holy pontiff to have shown such indulgence to the lapsed that the offences of those men should remain entirely unpunished, who had filled all the Churches of the East with scandals, slaughters, enmities, and hatreds, by fair means and foul, to the ruin of the faith. That Leo by no means held such a mind his subsequent words demonstrate. For he reserves to himself the right of holding full judgment concerning all these matters and their authors, until the greater part of the priests from the whole world could be gathered together.