Sermons & Letters 247 part 3/6

He adds also that 'concerning the peace of the Alexandrian Church he desires that something be brought to you by trustworthy messengers'; and he wished Julian himself to know, by copies that were sent, what manner of writings he had directed to its bishop Proterius, recently ordained, and to his ordainers, that is, his clergy. The other thing which he judged should be added to this epistle to Julian pertained to the epistle concerning the Lord's incarnation, already written four years before to Flavian, and to the synodal acts of the Council of Chalcedon. For the holy pontiff was led by a suspicion that the said epistle, which he had sent through Basil the deacon, had not been delivered to him; and from another cause, since he had found the synodal acts little clear on account of the diversity of language, he therefore enjoined upon the same man:

'That you cause all things to be gathered into one codex, namely translated into the Latin tongue by a most complete interpretation; that we may not in any part of the proceedings be able to doubt, nor in any way may there be any ambiguity in that which has been brought to full understanding by your diligence.' 6. Quesnel, in the second volume of the Works of St. Leo, skilfully noted that from this office imposed upon Julian, bishop of Cos, is derived the origin and custom of the pontifical nuncios, which some perhaps will not be reluctant freely to concede. But since he adds that these, following not ill the learned men, are to be compared with the apocrisiarii of the Oriental patriarchs—various distinctions, however, being preserved between the two—we cannot at all assent to him.

1° (He says), the apocrisiarii were appointed by the patriarchs to the court of the Eastern emperor, when the seat of the empire was transferred to Byzantium; but the vicars were instituted a little after, or a little before, the Chalcedonian synod. 2° The apocrisiarii of the patriarchs lingered at the court not for the cause of faith, but for the special affairs of the Church or diocese; but the Roman nuncios were ordered to reside there for caring for matters of faith. 3° Those were for the most part taken from the order of deacons or presbyters for an office of this kind, but these were sometimes taken even from the episcopal order, namely for the dignity of the Apostolic See, as appears in the case of Julian. The same Quesnel moreover adds:

'In the institution, therefore, of this vicar Leo emulated the custom of the Oriental patriarchs, distinguishing himself, however, in many things from them by his own prerogative, and completing and adorning this office with certain increments and additions. To inspect this thoroughly will not, I think, be idle, nor foreign to this place.' 7. This Quesnellian doctrine, however, although it may seem to present a certain appearance of truth, in many points indeed wavers; nor does it indicate to Julian the reason of the pontifical offices, nor are the pontifical offices delegated to Julian of Cos explained as they ought to be. It wavers in the first place, nay it utterly falls, as regards the origin of the apostolic nuncios.

For if we confound the vicars of the Apostolic See with the apostolic nuncios, the epistles of the Roman pontiffs—namely of Pope Damasus, of Siricius, of Innocent I, of Zosimus, and of Celestine—show that the origin of both is to be sought higher up. This question concerning the vicars of the Apostolic See, their ancient institution and power, D. Franciscus Antonius de Simeonibus has treated with great apparatus of erudition; and, following the Roman collection of Holstenius, he proves from the epistle of Pope Innocent I to Rufus that already before Pope Damasus Acholius, and afterwards Anysius, had discharged this office of vicar among the Illyrians. But whence does Quesnel deduce that the name and office of apocrisiarius were indicated by the ancients at that time?

Then the preceding doctrine wavers, if we compare the apostolic vicars with the apocrisiarii. For what had that word apocrisiarius to signify among the writers of the middle age, save any legate, but a minister sent by the pontiff, or by the bishops, as is held in the Constitutions, Novel 123? On the contrary, however, the name and office of apostolic vicar, since it imports acting the part of another person, concerned those to whom this office had been delegated by the Roman pontiffs, that they should preside over the Churches of those regions which lay far from the city of Rome, and should suddenly go to meet all the evils that arose. This notion of the pontifical vicars we gather from many ecclesiastical monuments, which to recount one by one we deem superfluous.

But lest we should seem to dwell merely upon Leo's manner of acting—concerning which Quesnel wrongly affirmed that our holy pontiff emulated the institutions of the Oriental patriarchs—it does not displease us to subjoin the words of St. Pope Innocent I to Rufus, his vicar in Illyricum: 'This grace, therefore, running forth from on high, so determines that provision must be made for the Churches set apart from me by long intervals, that I judge the care and the causes, if any should arise throughout the Churches of Achaia, Thessaly... should be committed to your prudence and gravity, Christ the Lord granting it. For truly, by his most sacred admonitions, we enjoin this solicitude upon the providence and the virtue of your most choice sincerity.'

Nor is it true that the apostolic vicars were instituted by the Roman pontiffs merely for matters of faith; but also for certain faults not light, which 'are brought to us,' says Pope Celestine, 'since we are farther off, not as they were done, but with an interval of time interposed; all of which we wish to be cut away by the intervention of our brother and fellow-bishop Rufus, whose proven experience in all causes and in the acts of life is clear.' But that by these words true and legitimate power for transacting the pontifical business was delegated to vicars of this kind, no one of sound mind will deny; whereas that the apocrisiarii ever obtained it can be established by no certain testimony.

Finally, what offices the holy pontiff Leo the Great had delegated to be fulfilled by Julian, bishop of Cos, we have already indicated in the prior book of this history, chapter 13, page 444; and we shall demonstrate it more fully from those things which we are about to say in the following chapter. 1. The ambition of Anatolius, bishop of Constantinople, and his crafty manner of acting, would have made the sacrilegious audacity of the Eutychians—already suppressed in the Council of Chalcedon and by the sanctions of the holy pontiff—revive, had not the emperor Marcian and Julian, bishop of Cos, legate of the Apostolic See, disclosed to the holy pontiff Leo, with great solicitude, the new disturbances and machinations again stirred up in the East. There was not, however, one single cause of these disturbances and commotions, but several.

Of these, the one arose from the protestation of the pontifical legates, by which Anatolius was strenuously trying to usurp to himself the privileges of the sees of the East; another was a rumour scattered everywhere through the East, that the Chalcedonian synod had not been received by St. Leo, since it had already become known that its twenty-eighth canon had been declared null and void of force, and that the metropolitan primates of the provinces had been restored to their former right. From the abolition, therefore, of this canon, very many suspected and contended that equally all the synodal acts had been invalidated, so that they should not obtain force even in those matters which pertained to the sanctions of faith. The third cause, finally, was Anatolius's manner of acting, who, since he had borne very ill the holy

pontiff's rebukes and grave repulse—by which he both reproached him with the crimes he had perpetrated and repressed his ambition—being driven by anger and impelled by shame, strove to forestall the public disgrace by concealing those letters of St. Leo in which he confessed that he embraced with his whole heart those synodal acts which had been enacted in the city of Chalcedon for the confirmation [of the faith], but [refused] whatever wicked ambition had coveted against the Nicene canons, with the diminution of the rights of the principal Churches. Nevertheless, the said rebukes and repulses of the holy pontiff did not dislodge Anatolius himself from the hope of the desired honour. Nay rather, the holy pontiff, writing to Julian of Cos, says: 'This also we wish you to know,'

'that Anatolius the bishop, after our coercion, persists so far in the rashness of his presumption, that he approached the Illyrician bishops to subscribe to him.' This new act of daring so moved the mind of the holy pontiff, that he had now resolved henceforth by no means to send his epistles to the same Anatolius, 'although (he says) he himself should ask this to be done, because we have perceived that he is unwilling to be corrected.' 2. But I judge that St.

Leo suffered a greater commotion of mind when, having received new epistles from the emperor Marcian, he understood that the whole East was disturbed and seized with amazement, because the pontifical rescripts upon the Chalcedonian acts had not arrived there—by the lack of which all hearts hung wavering, doubting whether the acts of that council had been confirmed by the Apostolic See. 'We greatly (says the emperor) marvel that, the synod having been celebrated at Chalcedon, and letters of the venerable bishops having been sent to your piety, through which they set forth the whole series of the things done in the synod, those letters were by no means sent forth by your sanctity—letters which, nevertheless, being read in the holy Churches, ought to have come to the notice of each one.'

That it was therefore the ancient custom, received indeed by usage, that the letters of the Apostolic See should furnish sure proofs that the celebrated synods were confirmed and to be held as [documents] of the faith, lest anyone should call them into doubt—this Marcian Augustus plainly indicated. They likewise wish to signify that the synodal decrees obtained, and could obtain, coercive force only after such confirmatory letters of the synods, read in the holy Churches, had come to the notice of each one. For firm was the rule of those times, received by use and by consent of all, catholics as well as heretics alike, that ecumenical councils ought to be decreed and confirmed by the authority of the Roman pontiffs.

Whence (subjoins Marcian) 'to some, who even now persecute the false opinion and depravity of Eutyches, a great scruple has been injected, whether your beatitude, who decreed the synod, has confirmed it.' That the force and meaning of which words escaped Quesnel, or that he studiously dissembled it, must be believed. For he everywhere, in editing the Works of divine Leo, adjudges to the emperors the faculty of convoking councils, and contends that the synodal decrees obtain force and strength of themselves, any confirmation of the Apostolic See being set aside, as we shall say a little later. That the emperor Marcian, therefore, reasoned otherwise, who does not see?

For he deemed this confirmation of the Apostolic See so necessary that without it he believed the synodal acts themselves to be infirm and void of force; and therefore, for a solemn and authentic testimony of the pontifical will and judgment, he immediately subjoins: 'On this account let your piety deign to send forth letters, by which all, both Churches and peoples, may know that the Acts of the synod are approved by your beatitude.' Equally likewise the emperor Marcian asserted to the Roman pontiff the right of abolishing and rendering null the canons and sanctions of the general synods.

For since, from the preceding letters received from St. Leo, he had learned that he utterly reprobated those Chalcedonian acts which patronized the ambition of Anatolius and looked toward the loss of the rights of other Churches, therefore, having laid aside the design by which he had formerly, together with the empress Pulcheria and Julian of Cos, performed the part of a mediator before the Apostolic See for the augmenting of the honour and prerogatives of the see of Constantinople, he now thus addresses St. Leo, and adorns the constancy of his mind with exceptional praises, because he had not suffered the ancient customs and order of the Churches to be abolished by any novelty. For he says:

'That, namely, which befits the bishop of the Apostolic See your sanctity has excellently fulfilled: you have guarded the ecclesiastical canons; and of the ancient custom and order, once established and constantly preserved even unto this day, you have suffered nothing to be abolished by any novelty.' Marcian, finally, at the end of this epistle, more strongly insists and more forcibly urges that St. Leo, as soon as possible, should everywhere signify by letters by which (he says) 'he may most plainly show that you hold the Chalcedonian synod ratified, lest to those desirous of dissensions and discords any suspicion be left concerning the judgment of your sanctity.' 3.

This epistle, which we have just now summarily described through its headings, Paschasius Quesnel translated, from the Bodleian Oxford codex, in Greek and Latin, into his second edition, and he first of all made it public. Nevertheless, I may be permitted to suspect either that he did not carefully survey it, or that he studiously omitted to note the things which are contained in it. And as to the first, who will ever think that he surveyed this epistle, who wrote:

'That the approbation of this synod was born only from the occasion of calumny—namely, lest the deceitful pretence of anyone should wish to have his sentence on its side, and lest through malignant interpreters it should seem doubtful whether he approved those things which had been established concerning the faith in the Chalcedonian synod.' He then subjoins: 'Not, therefore, for this reason did he write this epistle of approbation, lest strength should be wanting to the most sacred decrees, but lest he himself should be defamed by contempt of the venerable synod; nor lest they should glory in him as their leader who resisted the definitions of the Chalcedonian synod; nor, finally, lest he should seem to contradict the imperial will, which he openly professes must in all ways be obeyed by him.'

Thus Quesnel, in his notes to the eighty-seventh epistle, written to the bishops who had been present at the Chalcedonian synod. And at length, in defence of his cause, he calls upon John Launoy, part II of the epistle to the most illustrious man Jacobus Bevilaqua, who treated of this kind of confirmation of the Chalcedonian synod. But that he studiously omitted to note the things which are contained in the preceding epistle of Marcian is most certain, since he adorned this with no notes and observations, lest he should be compelled to retract the things which he wrote against the authority of the Apostolic See in decreeing and confirming synods. Yet who can dissemble the things which Quesnel, against the open truth, by feigning, set down in writing?

He asserts that the confirmation of the Council of Chalcedon was born only from the occasion of calumny, whereas Marcian writes: 'We greatly marvel that, the synod having been celebrated at Chalcedon and letters of the venerable bishops having been sent to your piety... those were by no means sent forth by your sanctity, which nevertheless, being read in the holy Churches, ought to have come to the notice of each one.' Marcian's astonishment, therefore, certainly could not arise from an unusual thing, not yet received by usage, which had been omitted;

But it arose from the violation of the custom whereby the Roman pontiffs, after receiving the synodal Acts, used to send to the Fathers of the synod encyclical letters confirming the decrees or canons, which were read publicly in the churches, so that the coercive force of the decrees might come to the knowledge of every individual. That this confirmation was judged necessary is indeed indicated by those final words, 'they ought to come to the knowledge of every individual.' Moreover, what slander could have moved Leo's mind to do so unusual a thing, and Marcian to demand it? Perhaps, when it was a matter of decrees of faith alone, was Leo brought under suspicion as though he were a Eutychian or a Nestorian, so that it became necessary for him to give public testimony of his own faith?

Away with such a fiction, which not even fools would have devised! Did he not, through the course of many years, undergo most grievous labors to extinguish both heresies? All his letters bore witness to this, sent hither and thither and above all to the Easterners; Marcian moreover, and likewise the Augusta Pulcheria, bore witness to this very thing, so that there could never be any room for slander. 4. Next, one must marvel that Quesnel asserts that Leo did not write that letter to the Council of Chalcedon in order to lend strength to the most sacred decrees of the council, 'but lest he himself should be defamed through contempt of the venerable synod, and lest those should glory in him as their leader who were resisting the definitions of the Council of Chalcedon;'

'and finally lest he should seem to contradict the imperial will.' Could anyone who had never examined the Works of St. Leo, nor ever cast his eyes upon the Acts of Chalcedon, have dreamed up such things? What of it? Did not the Fathers of the whole Council of Chalcedon earnestly beg Leo to honor their judgment with his own decrees? 'We ask therefore' (they say) 'that you also honor our judgment with your decrees; and as we have added concord to the head in good things, so let your supreme authority fulfill toward your sons what is fitting.' What of it? Did not Anatolius himself, hoping that the Acts of Chalcedon would obtain approval and stability from Leo's decrees, believe that they ought to obtain full and consummated strength from the Apostolic See?

And the synod set forth such an example toward your Holiness, 'that we may attain whatever of approval and stability we can, and we beseech that this may be done by you, most holy one.' That Marcian wrote things not unlike these to the same supreme pontiff, scarcely had the general synod been concluded, the following words make clear: 'And we ask that what the holy synod has established, your Religion also may command to be observed in perpetuity.' For what of it? Those things indeed which need another's command, that they may bind in perpetuity and obtain coercive force, gain strength and firmness from him who commands the observance of those same things.

Therefore Quesnel consulted and provided for his lost cause altogether badly, in writing that the confirmation of the Council of Chalcedon arose only on the occasion of slander, lest St. Leo the Great should be defamed, and that it could not lend strength and force to the statutes of the synod. 5. But finally, shall we suppose that St. Leo wrote the letters confirming the synod lest he should seem to contradict the imperial will, to which he openly professes that he must in every way be obedient? Or shall we at least prove as certain and infallible the doctrine of Launoy, to whom Quesnel appealed as his standard-bearer and a doctor of great authority? Trifles, mere trifles! To the powers of the age St. Leo always paid the honor due,

and he did not refuse to assent to their wishes in matters that did not conflict with divine and ecclesiastical rights. But indeed, when it was a question of canons being violated, or of some injury being inflicted in those things that pertained to the universal and supreme administration of the Church, or which could redound to the dishonor of his office and of the pontifical see, he never wished to comply with the emperors' wishes. Quesnel would have understood this clearly and plainly, had he not dissimulated his observation of that constancy and fortitude of soul with which the holy Father opposed himself to the petitions of Marcian and Pulcheria, by which they demanded and prayed that the splendor of the imperial city be increased. For so far was he

so far from complying with their wishes that he abolished and annulled that canon concerning the privileges of the Church of Constantinople, withdrawing from Anatolius himself those rights of ordinations which he had usurped for himself. For Marcian and Pulcheria, taught by Christian piety that they had been taken up to the empire only to preside over human and civil affairs, were in no way moved by the grave rebuff received from Leo, which certainly redounded to the dishonor of those same Augusti, since they, perhaps just as much as Anatolius, were eager to increase the honor and splendor of the royal city. Then, in what sense can Quesnel's praised assertion be generally true: that St. Leo

was unwilling to contradict the imperial will, to which he openly professes that he must in every way be obedient — in what sense can this be generally true, if he had long since fulfilled the parts of his office, and had confirmed the very Council of Chalcedon in those things that pertained to the decrees of faith? 6. But concerning this confirmation of the synod, already made long ago by St. Leo, there is no need at all for us to consult Launoy, that subverter of pontifical rights, to whom Quesnel referred his readers, but rather let us run through the letters of the holy pontiff. For first, in Letter 88 to Julian, bishop of Cos, he acknowledges that he had already fulfilled what the emperor Marcian had suggested to him:

'That I should direct writings to all the brethren who took part in the Council of Chalcedon, in which I might show that what was confirmed by our holy brethren concerning the rule of faith was pleasing to me; on account of those, namely, who, to seize an occasion for veiling their own perfidy, wish the statutes of the council to seem weak or doubtful which were strengthened by no sentence of my consent.' For what of it? Surely, if from some false coloring and novel pretext, received by no custom, the Nestorians or Eutychians had wished to seize an occasion for veiling their own perfidy, contending that the statutes of the council seemed weak or doubtful because they were by no means strengthened by the sentence of the pontifical consent, would not Leo have rejected this contention as derived from a false premise?

Would he have omitted to say that this arrogance was unjust? Yes, indeed. But the holy pontiff answered otherwise, saying that he had long since, after the return of the brethren whom he had sent in his stead, given a letter to the bishop of Constantinople; so that, if he had wished to publish it, it could abundantly have been recognized from it with how great joy he approved the things which they had decreed concerning the faith. Now this letter, in which he asserts that he had approved the synodal decrees of faith, must be assigned to the month of May of the preceding year, the four hundred and fifty-second, when the most illustrious Herculanus was consul, after the return of the pontifical legates to the city;

and that slander, born of malicious interpreters, by which it was doubted whether he approved what had been established concerning the faith in the Council of Chalcedon, was heard and scattered among the common people in the following year, in the month of February, when Opilio was already holding the consulship. Whence then does Quesnel gather that the letter of approval was written by Leo, 'lest he himself should be defamed through contempt of the venerable synod, and lest those should glory in him as their leader who were resisting the definitions of the Council of Chalcedon'? 7. Now I am ashamed to have lingered longer in plucking apart Quesnel's trifles.

For Leo himself, in the letters noted at the bottom of the page, attributes the origin of all the disturbances, suspicions, and false rumor to the evil arts of Anatolius, because, since in the letters of the year 452 confirming the synod, mentioned above, written to the bishop of Constantinople himself, there was contained an answer by which that man's ambition was checked, 'he wished it to be unknown' (says the holy Father) 'what I felt concerning the fraternal constitutions, lest at the same time it should be learned what I had written back in defense of the inviolable authority of the Nicene canons.'

He employed forms of speaking not much unlike these in writing to the emperor Marcian and to the Augusta Pulcheria, in which letters he acknowledges that, when bishop Lucian was returning to Constantinople — who had already come to Rome with the letters of Anatolius — he had directed to the bishop of Constantinople such writings as would clearly show 'that I approve those things which had been defined concerning the catholic faith in the aforesaid synod. But because in those same letters I had reproved the things which were wrongly attempted on the occasion of the synod, the aforesaid prelate preferred to keep silent about my congratulation rather than to publish his own ambition.' And finally to Pulcheria he says:

'Since through the bishop of Constantinople, to whom I bountifully made known my gladness, it could have come to the knowledge of all what I had written, had he not preferred to keep silent about my joy rather than to have the rebuff of his ambition published.' Thus then, having harassed Anatolius, he composed the encyclical letters confirming the synod, and, that they might come to the knowledge of all the priests and churches, he invokes the command and authority of Marcian himself, hoping that, with all occasions of dissent cut away, the peace and truth of the apostolic doctrine might reign everywhere. 1. Much would still remain for me to write, if, with an ordered and strict method, and observing

the order of St. Leo's letters, to relate one by one the things he accomplished in the remaining years of his pontificate for the governance, good, and security of the universal Church. But since various other matters occur which seem placed far from our undertaking, and our adversaries, with whom we had dealings in the foregoing pages, do not supply weighty motives for instituting new engagements, therefore, as it were in passing speech, we shall narrate the things which, for extinguishing the remnants of the Eutychian heresy, were of necessity established and commanded by the same holy pontiff. And first of all, since very many monks and archimandrites of the monasteries had borne ill the condemnation of Eutyches, they tried to stir up seditions and tumults among the peoples.

Therefore the holy Father gave attention to their suggestions, that the foolish madness of these same men might be repressed by an edict of the emperor Marcian, and that the superiors of the monasteries might be reproved by the rebukes of the Augusta Pulcheria. But because seditions of this kind were stirred up chiefly by the monks, while they held sacrilegious assemblies against the faith, he therefore implores even the imperial power, that for the future they might be prohibited from the office of preaching, 'lest they should dare' (he says) 'to claim for themselves those things which pertain to the priests.' He hopes finally that the emperor's zeal against the parricidal Alexandrians must be kindled, so that, namely, he may do what he understands will be profitable to ecclesiastical peace. 2. He judged that provision must also be made for the affairs and rights of the Church of Antioch.