Sermons & Letters 81

CHAP. I. — We call you into fellowship with our solicitude, so that with pastoral vigilance you may take counsel the more diligently for those committed to you, and that nothing may be permitted to diabolical cunning: lest those who are driven from the Lord's flock by our care, while you are not yet forewarned and are ignorant of what is being done, should sow themselves through your Churches, and by stealth burrow the mines of their darknesses among you, so that what has been rooted out by us in the City might be sown among you in shadowy roots. The followers and teachers of the Manichaean impiety, whom our investigation discovered, the divine authority and censure have restrained by vigilance: those whom it was able to reclaim, we have corrected; and we have compelled them to condemn the Manichaeans, by their preachings and disciplines, in a public profession and by the subscription of their own hand;

and thus, having confessed concerning the abyss of their impiety, we have raised them up by granting penance. But some indeed, who had so sunk themselves down that no remedy of any helper could come to their aid, being made subject to the laws, according to the constitutions of the Christian princes, lest they should defile the holy flock with their contagion, have been perpetually banished into exile by the public judges. And all the things which they hold, both in their Scriptures and in their hidden traditions, that are profane or base, we have — that the people might know what to shun or avoid — proved before the eyes of the Christian people by a sure demonstration: so much so that the very man who was called their bishop, being held by us, betrayed the shameful things which he held in his mystic rites, as the series of the proceedings will be able to instruct you.

For the sake of your instruction we have directed these very things to you: which when read, you will be able to know all the things that have been detected by us. CHAP. II. — And because we have learned that some of those whom a stricter guilt had here entangled, lest they should absolve themselves, have fled, we have sent this letter to your love through our acolyte; so that your holiness, most beloved brethren, being made the more certain, may deign to act the more solicitously and cautiously, lest anywhere the men of the Manichaean perversity find the opportunity of injuring your peoples, and teachers of this sacrilege. For otherwise we cannot rule those committed to us, unless we pursue with zeal of the Lord's faith those who are the destroyers and the destroyed;

and, lest this plague be more widely spread abroad, cut them off from sound minds with what severity we can. Whence I exhort your love, I adjure and admonish, that with such solicitude as you ought and are able, you keep watch to search them out, lest anywhere they find the opportunity of hiding themselves. For as he will have from God the reward of worthy recompense, who shall have more diligently carried out what may profit unto the salvation of the people committed to him; so before the tribunal of the Lord he will not be able to excuse himself of the guilt of negligence, whosoever shall have been unwilling to guard his people against the authors of sacrilegious persuasion. Given on the third day before the Kalends of February, in the consulship of Theodosius Augustus for the eighteenth time and of Albinus, most illustrious men.

The superstition of the pagans also, condemned in our times, hostile to public discipline and an enemy of the Christian faith, has not without cause provoked our clemency unto its own destruction. We speak of the Manichaeans, whom the statutes of all former princes have adjudged to be execrable and to be driven out of the whole world. Nor do their crimes, lately detected, admit of dissimulation. For what things, and how obscene both to tell and to hear, were laid open in the judgement of the most blessed Pope Leo, before a most ample senate, by their own confession made manifest! So much so that even of the one who was called their bishop, he betrayed it by his own voice, and all the secrets of his crimes were written out — as is transcribed from law 7, 'Of Lawful Inheritance.' But we have struck out also 'patrician'; for by this title he is indeed inscribed in the laws of the year

446, but not indeed in those of the year 445. This could not lie hidden from our notice, for whom it is not safe to neglect so detestable an injury to the Divinity, and to leave unpunished a crime by which not only the bodies of the deceived, but also their souls, are inexpiably polluted. Whence, Albinus, most dear parent — let your illustrious and magnificent authority know that we have established by this law, destined to live for ever, which it shall cause to come to the notice of all the provinces by edicts set forth: that wheresoever in the world any of the Manichaeans shall have been apprehended, he shall receive, by the authority of public severity, the penalties which the laws have sanctioned against the sacrilegious.

And let it be a public crime, and let there be liberty to every willing person to accuse such men without the danger of accusation. Nor let it be lawful and safe for anyone either to conceal such men, or to connive at such men: since all the constitutions of former princes concerning these have been confirmed by us, so that all may know, by this edictal law set forth, that the Manichaeans are to be deprived of the dignity of state-service and of dwelling in the cities — lest any innocent person be ensnared by converse or association with such men. Let them neither take nor leave inheritances, but let them be gathered to the resources of our treasury. Nor let anything which we openly forbid be sought by any fraud.

Let them be without power of action for injuries, and let them have no free-born persons under contract at all. Let a fine of ten pounds of gold, to be exacted at once through your officers, strike the chief officers of each branch of state-service or of the bureau, if they shall have suffered any man polluted with this superstition to serve; for nothing seems able to be decreed too severe against those whose incestuous perversity commits, under the name of religion, things unknown even to brothels, or things shameful. Given on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of July, at Rome, in the consulship of Valentinian Augustus for the sixth time and of Nomus. — Bishop Leo to Bishop Dioscorus of Alexandria, greeting.

How much affection of the Lord's charity we bestow upon your love, you will be able to prove from this: that we desire to found your beginnings the more firmly, lest anything seem to be lacking to your love unto perfection, since the merits of spiritual grace, as we have proved, support you. Therefore this paternal and fraternal communication ought to be most welcome to your holiness, and to be received by you in such wise as you understand it to proceed from us. For it behoves us to feel and to act as one, so that, as we read, in us also there may be proved to be one heart and one soul (Acts 4:32). For since the most blessed Peter received the apostolic primacy from the Lord, and the Roman Church abides in his institutions,

it is impious to believe that his holy disciple Mark, who first governed the Church of Alexandria, formed the decrees of his traditions by other rules: since without doubt, from the same fount of grace, there was one spirit both of the disciple and of the master, nor could the ordained man hand down anything other than what he received from his ordainer. We do not, therefore, allow that, while we confess ourselves to be of one body and one faith, we should differ in anything; and that the institutions of the teacher should appear one thing, those of the disciple another. CHAP. I. On what day the sacerdotal or levitical benediction ought to be celebrated.

— What, therefore, we know to have been guarded by our Fathers with such forward care, we wish to be observed also by you: that the sacerdotal or levitical ordination be not celebrated indiscriminately on all days; but after the day of the Sabbath, let there be chosen the beginnings of that night which dawns into the first day of the week, in which the sacred benediction may be conferred upon those who are to be consecrated, they being fasting, and by those who are fasting. Which will be of the same observance, if on the Lord's own day itself in the morning, the Sabbath fast being continued, it be celebrated; from which time the preceding beginnings of the night do not depart, for that they pertain to the day of resurrection there is no doubt, as is also declared in the Pasch of the Lord.

For besides the authority of custom, which we know to come from apostolic teaching, sacred Scripture also makes it manifest (Acts 13), that when the apostles, by the precept of the Holy Spirit, sent forth Paul and Barnabas to preach the Gospel to the nations, they laid hands upon them, fasting and praying: that we may understand with how great devotion, both of those who give and of those who receive, care must be taken, lest the sacrament of so great a benediction seem to be negligently fulfilled. And therefore you will have piously and laudably conformed to the apostolic institutions, if you yourself also shall have kept this form of ordaining priests throughout the Churches over which the Lord willed you to preside:

that to those who are to be consecrated the benediction be never bestowed except on the day of the Lord's resurrection, to which the beginning is agreed to be ascribed from the evening of the Sabbath, and which has been consecrated with such great mysteries of divine dispositions, that whatever has been more signally established by the Lord was enacted in the dignity of this day. On this day the world took its beginning. On this day, through the resurrection of Christ, death received its perishing, and life its beginning. On this day the apostles receive from the Lord the trumpet of the Gospel to be preached to all nations (Matt. 28:20), and receive the sacrament of regeneration to be brought to the whole world.

On this day, as the blessed evangelist John testifies, when the disciples were gathered together into one, the doors being shut, when the Lord had entered in to them, he breathed upon them, and said: 'Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you shall have remitted, they are remitted unto them; and whose you shall have retained, they are retained' (John 20:22, 23). On this day, finally, the Holy Spirit promised by the Lord came to the apostles (Acts 2:1; John 14:16; 16:7); so that we may know it insinuated and handed down by a certain heavenly rule, that on that day the mysteries of the sacerdotal benedictions must be celebrated by us, on which all the gifts of graces were bestowed. CHAP. II.

On repeating the sacrifice of the Mass, that satisfaction may be made to the people coming in later. — But that our observance may agree in all things, we wish this too to be guarded: that when some more solemn festivity has appointed the assembly of a more numerous people, and such a multitude of the faithful has come together as one basilica cannot at the same time receive, the oblation of the sacrifice be repeated without hesitation; lest, only those being admitted to this devotion who first arrived, those who afterward flowed together should seem not received, since it is full of piety and reason that, as often as the presence of a new people has filled the basilica in which it is done, so often a subsequent sacrifice be offered.

But it is necessary that some part of the people be deprived of its devotion, if, only the custom of a single Mass being observed, they cannot offer the sacrifice except those who have assembled in the first part of the day. With zeal, therefore, and in familiar wise, we admonish your love that what has settled into our custom out of the form of paternal tradition, your care too may not neglect: so that in all things we may agree with one another both in faith and in deeds. On which account, to our Possidonius the presbyter, on his return, we have given this letter to be carried to your fraternity — who has frequently been present at our processions and ordinations, and, being so often sent to us, has come to know what we hold in all things of the apostolic authority. Given on the eleventh day before the Kalends of July.

To the most beloved brethren, all the bishops established throughout the province of Vienne, Leo bishop of Rome. Chapter I. — The worship of divine religion, which the grace of God willed to shine forth upon all peoples and all nations, our Lord Jesus Christ the Saviour of the human race so ordained, that the truth which before was contained in the proclamation of the Law and the Prophets should go forth through the apostolic trumpet unto the salvation of all, as it is written: 'Their sound went out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world' (Ps. 18:5). But the sacred mystery of this office the Lord so willed to pertain to the ministry of all the apostles, that He placed it principally in the most blessed Peter, the chief of all the apostles;

and from him, as from a certain head, He willed His gifts to flow into the whole body, so that whoever dared to withdraw from the solidity of Peter might understand himself to be without share in the divine mystery. For him, taken up into the fellowship of the indivisible unity, He willed to be named that which He Himself was, saying: 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church' (Matt. 16:18); that the building of the eternal temple, by the wondrous gift of God's grace, might rest upon the solidity of Peter; strengthening His Church with this firmness, so that neither could human rashness assail it, nor could the gates of hell prevail against it.

But this most sacred firmness of that rock, built up (as we have said) by God the builder, whoever attempts to break its power seeks to violate with an all too impious presumption—by favouring his own desires, and by not following what he received from the ancients: since he believes himself subject to no law, held by no rules of the Lord's institution, departing (through the ambition of a new usurpation) from your custom and ours, presuming things unlawful, and neglecting what he ought to have kept. Chapter II.

— But these things, by the inspiration of God (as we believe), preserving toward you the grace of our charity which the Apostolic See, as you remember, always bestowed upon your holiness, we strive to correct with more mature counsel, and to compose the condition of your Churches by labour shared with you—not instituting new things, but renewing the old: that we may abide in the settled state which has been handed down to us by our fathers, and may please our God through the ministry of good work, the scandals of disturbances being removed.

Let your fraternity therefore acknowledge with us that the Apostolic See, out of reverence for it, has been consulted by innumerable reports even from the priests of your own province, and that through the appeal of various causes, as ancient custom demanded, judgments have been either reviewed or confirmed: so that, the unity of the Spirit being preserved in the bond of peace, with letters passing to and fro, what was holily done might profit unto perpetual charity: for our solicitude, seeking not its own but the things that are Christ's, took away the dignity divinely given neither from the Churches nor from the priests of the Churches.

But Hilary, about to disturb this path—always both well held and wholesomely guarded among our elders—the condition of the Churches and the concord of the priesthood, transgressed with new presumptions; so desiring to subject you to his own power, that he does not suffer himself to be subject to the blessed apostle of ordination, Peter—claiming for himself the jurisdiction of all the Churches throughout the Gauls, and transferring to his own dignity what is owed to the metropolitan priests; diminishing also with more arrogant words the reverence of the most blessed Peter himself: to whom, although above the rest the power of loosing and binding was handed over (Matt. 16), yet the care of feeding the sheep was more especially entrusted (John 21).

Whoever judges that the primacy ought to be denied to him can in no way diminish his dignity; but, puffed up by the spirit of his own pride, he plunges himself into hell. Chapter III. — What things therefore have been transacted and completed among us in the case of bishop Celidonius, and what Hilary said while he was heard together with the same bishop, the said bishop being present, the order of matters recorded upon the pages shows. There, after Hilary had nothing reasonable which he could answer in the council of the holy priests, they turned themselves to those hidden things of his own heart which no layman could speak, no priest could hear. We grieved, I confess, brethren, and we tried to heal this swelling of his mind with the remedies of our patience.

For we were unwilling to exacerbate for him those wounds which he inflicted on his own soul by his repeatedly insolent speeches; and him whom we had received as a brother we strove rather to soothe—although he entangled himself by his own answers—than to sadden him by our interlocutions. Bishop Celidonius was acquitted, since he had shown, by the manifest response of witnesses, himself also being present, that he had been unjustly deposed from the priesthood; so that Hilary, sitting with us, had nothing that he could object. Therefore the judgment was set aside, which was read out as pronounced in this sentence: that, as the husband of a widow, he could not hold the priesthood.

Which indeed we, preserving the legal statutes, willed to be more carefully guarded, not only concerning priests but also concerning clerics of lesser office: lest those be permitted to approach the sacred ministry who have such a marriage, or who are shown, contrary to apostolic discipline, to have been the husband not of one wife only. But just as we decree that those whose deed cannot excuse them are either not to be admitted, or, if they have been admitted, to be removed, so those against whom this is falsely charged we must, an examination being held, clear, and not allow them to lose their office. For the sentence pronounced against him would have stood, if the truth of the charges had existed.

And so our fellow-bishop Celidonius was restored to his Church and to this dignity which he ought not to have lost, as the series of the acts, and the sentence which was pronounced by us after the investigation had been gone through, attest. Chapter IV. — This business being thus finished, there followed the complaint of our brother and fellow-bishop Projectus: whose tearful and lamentable letters were directed to us concerning a bishop set over him. A letter also was brought in from his own citizens, confirmed by the numerous subscription of individuals, full of most invidious complaints against Hilary: namely, that to their bishop Projectus

it had not been permitted even to be sick as a free man, and that his priesthood had been transferred to another without his knowledge, and that, as into a vacant possession, an heir had been brought in by Hilary the invader upon a living man. What your fraternity feels about this, we should wish to hear. Although our sentence ought not to be in doubt concerning your minds: since you see a brother laid upon his bed, weighed down not so much by infirmity of body as tortured by another grief. What hope of life is left to him, on whom despair concerning his priesthood is imposed, while another is substituted for him? It appears how mild of heart Hilary is, who believed the slowness of his brother's death to be an obstacle to his own presumption.

For as far as lay in him, he took away the light from that man, took away life, who by substituting another in his place cast in this grief, so that there might be no return for him to health. Grant that the customary migration of the human condition came upon the brother briefly; what does Hilary seek for himself in another's province, and why does he usurp that which none of his predecessors before Patroclus had? Since even that which seemed to have been granted temporarily to Patroclus by the Apostolic See was afterward taken away by a better sentence. Surely the wishes of the citizens ought to be awaited, the testimonies of the peoples; the judgment of the honourable should be sought, the election of the clergy—which are wont to be observed in the ordinations of priests by those who know the rules of the Fathers:

that the norm of apostolic authority might be preserved in all things, by which it is prescribed that a priest who is to preside over the Church be fortified not only by the attestation of the faithful, but also by the testimony of those who are outside (1 Tim. 3:7), and that the occasion of that scandal may be avoided, when, by peace and by concord pleasing to God, with the harmonious zeal of all, he who is to be a teacher of peace is ordained. Chapter V. — But that unlooked-for man came upon those who knew not, and departed unforeseen, accomplishing (as we have learned) many journeys in swift course, and running through distant provinces with such prematurity that he seems to have grasped at glory from buffoonish speed rather than from priestly moderation. For these are the words of the letters of the citizens directed to us:

'He departed before we knew that he had come.' This is not to return, but to flee; not to expend the wholesomeness of pastoral diligence, but to bring the violence of a robber and thief, the Lord saying: 'He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up another way, the same is a thief and a robber' (John 10:1). Hilary therefore was not so eager to consecrate a bishop as rather to slay him who was sick, and to deceive the very one whom he set over by ordaining him ill. Yet we—which we believe will please you, with God as judge—consulting in common for all the brethren, have decreed both that the one ill-ordained be removed, and that bishop Projectus ought to remain in his own priesthood:

establishing this: that if any of our brethren in whatever province shall have died, he shall claim for himself the ordination of that priest whom it is established to be the metropolitan of that province. Hard, as we see, are the cases that have been transacted, in which nevertheless there are many things that seem to have been committed contrary to ecclesiastical reason, and ought to await the censure of a just judgment. But we cannot linger here longer, since we are summoned to other matters which are to be more carefully conferred upon with your holiness. — Chapter VI. — A military band, as we have learned, follows the priest through the provinces, and, propped up by the presumption of an armed guard, serves to invade through tumult the Churches which have lost their own priests.

Those to be ordained are dragged before this office, unknown to the cities over which they are to be set. For as he who has been known and approved is sought through peace, so he who is unknown must of necessity be imposed by force, being brought in. I beseech and implore, and under the invocation of God I appeal to you: forbid, brethren, such things, and remove all matter of dissension from your provinces. Certainly we before God are absolved, who appeal to you that you permit these things to be done no further. Through peace and quiet let the priests who are to be sought be requested. Let there be held the subscription of the clergy, the testimony of the honourable, the consent of the order and of the people.

He who is to preside over all, let him be chosen by all. Let the individual metropolitans of their provinces, as we have already said before, together with those who precede the rest in antiquity of priesthood, defend for themselves the ordination, the right being restored to them through us. Let no other dare to claim for himself another's right. Let each one be content with his own limits, his own boundaries, and let him know that it is not permitted him to transfer to another the privilege owed to himself.

But if anyone, neglecting the apostolic sanctions and giving more to personal favour, shall wish to be a deserter of his own honour, believing that he can transfer his privilege to another, let not he to whom he yielded, but he who within the province precedes the rest of the priests in episcopal antiquity, claim for himself the power of ordaining. Let ordination be celebrated not at random, but on a lawful day; nor let him know the firmness of his own standing to be assured, who has not been ordained on the evening of the sabbath, which dawns into the first day of the week, or on the Lord's day itself. For only the day of the Lord's resurrection did our elders judge worthy of this honour, that the priests who are taken should especially be granted on this day. Chapter VII.

— Let each province be content with its own councils, nor let Hilary dare any further to appoint synodal assemblies, and to disturb by interposing himself the judgments of all the priests. He shall know himself not only expelled from another's right, but also deprived of the power over the province of Vienne, which he had wrongfully usurped. For it is fitting, brethren, that the statutes of antiquity be restored, since he who claimed for himself the ordination of a province not his due has even in the present been proved to have shown himself such, that—although he himself more frequently, with rash and insolent words, demanded the sentence of condemnation—our precept, out of the piety of the Apostolic See, has preserved for him the priesthood of his own city only.

Let him therefore take no part in any ordination; let him not ordain, who, conscious of his own merit, when he was sought for the case, believed that he must withdraw himself by shameful flight, and who is deprived of the lot of apostolic communion, of which he did not deserve to be a partaker: God (as we believe) bringing this to pass, who both drew him, us not expecting it, to our judgments, and, amid the examinations that were held, brought it about that he might depart secretly, lest he should become a partner of our communion. Chapter [VIII].

VIII. — Let communion not easily be denied to any of the Christians, nor let this be left to the will of an indignant priest—which, unto the punishment of great guilt, the mind of the one judging ought to inflict unwilling and grieving in some measure. For we have learned that certain persons have been excluded from the grace of communion for committed and trivial words, and that a soul, for which the blood of Christ was shed, has been wounded by the infliction of so cruel a punishment and, unarmed as it were and exiled from every defence, exposed to diabolical assaults, so that it might easily be taken captive. Surely, if ever such a cause shall arise that, for the quality of the crime committed, it justly makes someone to be deprived of communion, only he is to be subjected to the penalty whom the guilt involves;

nor ought he to be a partaker of the punishment who is not shown to have been a sharer of the deed. But what wonder that such a temper exists toward the laity in one who is wont to rejoice over the condemnation of priests? Chapter IX. — Whence, since our intention seems far otherwise—for we desire that the condition of all the Churches and the concord of the priesthood be preserved—exhorting you to unity by the bond of charity, we both implore and admonish with fitting affection, that those things which have now been decreed by us, God inspiring and the most blessed apostle Peter, all the causes being now discussed and proved, you may preserve for your peace and dignity: assured that it profits not so much our honour as yours, that we are known to have established such things.

For we do not defend for ourselves the ordinations of your provinces (about which Hilary, after his manner, can perhaps lie, to the corrupting of the minds of your holiness); but we vindicate them for you through our solicitude, lest anything further be permitted to novelty, nor let a place lie open any longer to the presumer for annulling your privileges. To our gratification we profess that this alone accrues, if the diligence of the Apostolic See be preserved unimpaired among you, and if, through the guardianship of priestly discipline, we do not allow what is his own to perish, to your honour, by wicked usurpations. And since antiquity is always to be honoured, we wish our brother and fellow-bishop Leontius, an approvable priest, to be adorned with this dignity, if it please you:

so that, except by his consent, a council of another province be not appointed by your holiness, and that he be honoured by all of you, as his age and probity demand, the metropolitans' dignity of their own privilege being preserved. For it is equitable, nor does any injury seem to be done to the brethren, if to those who precede in antiquity of priesthood, according to the merit of their age, deference be given in their provinces by the rest of the priests. May God keep you safe, dearest brethren. To Aetius, illustrious man, count and master of both services, and patrician. It is certain both for us and for our empire that our sole protection is in the favour of the supernal Godhead, toward the meriting of which the Christian faith and the religion venerable to us especially lend their support.

Since therefore the merit of St. Peter (who is the prince of the episcopal crown), and the dignity of the Roman city, and also the authority of the sacred synod, have confirmed the primacy of the Apostolic See, let not presumption strive to attempt anything unlawful beyond the authority of that See. For then at last will the peace of the Churches everywhere be preserved, if the whole body acknowledge its ruler. Since these things have hitherto been inviolably guarded, Hilary of Arles, as we have learned by the faithful report of the venerable man Leo the Roman pope, with contumacious daring attempted certain unlawful things by presuming them; and therefore an abominable tumult invaded the transalpine Churches, as a most recent example especially attests.

For Hilary, who is called bishop of Arles, without consulting the pontiff of the Roman Church of the City, by mere rashness usurped and invaded the judgments and ordinations of bishops.

For he incompetently removed some, and indecently ordained others with the citizens unwilling and resisting. And since he was not easily received by those who had not chosen him, he drew to himself an armed band, and either encircled the enclosures of the walls in hostile fashion by siege, or forced them open by assault, and led those who were to preach peace to the seat of quiet through wars. These things being committed both against the majesty of the empire and against the reverence of the Apostolic See, and examined in order by the cognizance of the religious man the pope of the City, a definite sentence was pronounced against him and concerning those whom he had ill-ordained. And that sentence indeed would have been valid throughout the Gauls even without imperial sanction.

For what would not be permitted in the Churches to so great a pontifical authority? But this reason has approved our precept also: that no longer be it permitted, either to Hilary (whom hitherto the humanity of a gentle prelate suffers to be called bishop) or to anyone else, to mingle arms with ecclesiastical matters, or to oppose the precepts of the Roman prelate. For by such daring the faith and reverence of our empire is violated. And we remove not only this—which is of the greatest criminality—but, lest even a slight disturbance arise among the Churches,

or the discipline of religion seem to be diminished in any respect, we decree by this perpetual sanction: that it be permitted neither to the Gallican bishops nor to those of other provinces to attempt anything against ancient custom without the authority of the venerable man the pope of the eternal City. But let this be as law to them and to all: whatever the authority of the Apostolic See has sanctioned or shall sanction; so that whosoever of the bishops, summoned to the judgment of the Roman prelate, shall have neglected to come, be compelled to attend through the moderator of that same province: all things being preserved which our divine parents conferred upon the Roman Church. Enacted [and dated]…

Whence your illustrious and distinguished magnificence, by the authority of the present edictal law, shall cause the things established above to be observed, a fine of ten pounds of gold being forthwith exacted from every judge who shall have allowed our precepts to be violated. And in the divine hand: May the Godhead keep you safe for many years, dearest parent. Given the 7th before the Ides of July at Rome, in the consulship of Valentinian Augustus for the 6th time and of Nomus, most distinguished man. 1. Since a threefold notable variety, by which the following letter is wont to be found in the manuscript codices, and which thence has issued into the editions in a threefold reasoning or form, casts in very much difficulty;

and since, moreover, the disputation of Quesnel, inserted among his notes and observations—by which he strove to retain and defend one reasoning, but to reject the other two, and to cast away a great part of the letter as an addition fabricated by some impostor—so increases the difficulty, that without any new codex, which might properly reconcile the whole matter, it seems impossible to establish and publish anything certain. 2. The first form of the letter, edited by Merlin and Sichard, and to be edited by us also in the second place, produces the letter only up to the middle chapter and no further, and terminates with those words of the same chapter, 'let us punish with just vengeance hereafter.' This same form is found in the manuscript codices

of collection 5 published by Quesnel, of which he mentions two, the Thuanean and the Puteanean; but we can add two of the Caesarean library, marked no. 39 and 42. It exists also in the manuscripts of collection 10 of Isidore, and of collection 12, to which pertains that codex which alone among the later collections exhibits this form of the letter; and moreover among codices of this kind are to be reckoned the Victorine, the Regniacensis, and that of St. Martin of Auxerre, which, the same annotator noting, present the same collection 24 with the letter of this form. To these codices Quesnel in the second edition added two others, the description of which he received from Rome after the first impression, namely Barberini 77 and 2888.

The first of these, likewise examined and collated by us, is of about the twelfth century, and contains various small works even of a later age, but from Leo exhibits this one letter only. The other, most ancient and written in majuscule letters, comprises the old collection 3, to which we found another similar in the very ancient Vatican 1342. We have moreover obtained this same form of the abridged letter (for so we shall call it) in three other collections, namely in the manuscript Vatican Reginensis collection 1, in the old Lucca codex collection 3, and in the like Colbertine 784, which is praised by Coustant in the preface to the Letters of the Roman Pontiffs, no. 89; and moreover in the manuscripts of the Spanish collection 9, Vatican 1341 and Vindobonensis

Caesareus 41, to pass over several other written exemplars of the aforesaid collections 10, 12 and 24, which we have reviewed in the preface to the letters. Thus eight collections—1, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 12 and 24—together with the peculiar codex Barberini 77, exhibit this first form of the letter. 3. The second form of the same was edited first by Wendelin, then by Pithou, and at last by Voel and Justel in the collection of Dionysius Exiguus. But this omits three whole chapters—the sixth, seventh, and eighth—which are exhibited in the first abridged form; and to the last words of the same first form, 'let us punish with just vengeance hereafter,' it adds the rest, which are carried on to the end of the entire letter. This form is exhibited in all the manuscript codices

of that collection which are called Dionysian, but ought more truly to be called Hadrianean, since all these codices truly pertain to the Hadrianean collection 7, namely to that which Pope Hadrian I, enlarged beyond the Dionysian by some additions, handed over to Charlemagne for the use of the western Churches. Hence very many copies of this collection are found everywhere, which maintain this form of the letter. Quesnel praised only two Thuanean Gallican codices; but P. Coustant, in the preface cited at no. 128, mentions many more diffused throughout the Gauls, among which one is of the year 805. We ourselves also saw many ancient ones at Rome, which we named in the preface to the letters, no. 16.

To these may also be added the codices of collection 8, indicated at no. 17, which exhibit the Hadrianean collection at the beginning. 4. The third form of the edition, blended from both the previous ones—which edition we shall call the mixed—is found one way in the manuscripts, another in the printed editions. For in the codices which we saw, chapters 6, 7, 8, and half of the ninth being omitted, the whole Hadrianean edition is first exhibited, nearly with the chronological note 'Given the 4th before the Ides of August.' Then there are subjoined, as an appendix, the omitted chapters mentioned, taken from the first abridged edition down to its end, so that those words are repeated: 'Since therefore concerning all, etc.,' which in the abridged edition close the letter, but in the Hadrianean had been inserted in their place in the ninth chapter.

This reading Quesnel found in two Thuanean manuscripts and one Cantabrigian; we found it in the manuscripts of four collections, 11, 20, and 23, to which we do not doubt the three codices praised by Quesnel are to be referred. Collection 11, from which the other collections seem to have taken this form of the edition, is especially to be considered, since it is more ancient than the age of Hincmar, as we have proved in the preface to the letters, no. 23. In one codex only, the Venetian St. Mark 79 of collection 22, we obtained this third reasoning without the repetition of the final chapter 'Since therefore concerning all, etc.,' so that to the Hadrianean reading only three chapters omitted from the abridged edition are subjoined, down to those words, 'or to have lost even the body.'

But in the editions of Leo prior to Quesnel, and in the vulgate editions of the Councils which proceeded from codices of this third reading, the editors, since they had detected this form to be incongruous—both on account of the chronological note placed before the three chapters 6, 7 and 8, and on account of the importunate repetition of the period 'Since therefore concerning all'—gave first, supported by the authority of no codices, the Hadrianean edition, except the last period, 'But if there are indeed other causes,' terminating with those words, 'he should except him who was being consecrated'; then they subjoined from the abridged edition the three chapters 6, 7 and 8, omitting the repetition of the period 'Since therefore concerning all'; and finally, after the words of the eighth chapter, they rejected the period,

'But if there are other causes, etc.,' together with the chronological note, with which they concluded the letter. 5. Hence indeed it is no wonder if Quesnel, solicitous about correcting, from the trustworthiness of the codices, the errors of the vulgate edition of St. Leo, repudiated this printed edition, which relies on no manuscripts. But since he perceived so great a variety in the codices themselves, and could obtain no single codex which might suggest a fitting manner of reconciling all things, the first form of the edition—which he saw in the more ancient collections, and described in manuscript—

he judged should be retained and vindicated. But the second form, that of the Hadrianean edition, he the more willingly rejected, because in it certain prerogatives of the Roman See are put forward—toward which, since he was not well disposed, he seemed to himself to see an open interpolation, and several degrees of imposture in the additions of that edition (as he calls them), which he set forth most fully in his notes.

6. But those who, not being equally hostile toward the privilege of the Roman pontiffs, even though imbued with Gallican principles, called Quesnel's notes to account, judged indeed that the abridged edition of the first Form was to be approved, yet did not on that account think the additions of the Hadrianic edition should be rejected, nor did they consider what Quesnel brings forward against them to be either effective or convincing. Among these Stephen Baluze, in volume II of the Capitularies, page 1249, having weighed his arguments, declared: 'I see nothing contrary to the discipline then received in the Roman Church.'

But although Quesnel, in his second edition, dismissed this observation of Baluze as feeble and unworthy of a reply, on the ground that Baluze, there treating the matter only incidentally, did not think fit to set forth his proofs more fully in the manner of a dissertation, nevertheless how firm and well-grounded what he affirmed ought to be held will be made plain from those things which we shall note upon Quesnel's remarks.

Coustant, who read both Quesnel's first and second editions, and whose great skill and critical judgement in the celebrated edition of the Letters of the Roman Pontiffs is acknowledged by all the learned, not only held as genuine the fragment of the Hadrianic edition rejected by Quesnel, but even, at the beginning of the second volume which he had prepared for publication, undertook to vindicate that same fragment from Quesnel's censures, as Fr. Simon Mopinot testifies in his letter Concerning the new edition of the Letters of the Supreme Pontiffs, printed in the year 1724, where, having indicated the chapters of the second volume in which Coustant chiefly laboured, these things are related concerning the Letters of Leo:

To the same pope will be restored certain letters rashly consigned to the class of the spurious, among which holds no lowly place that noteworthy fragment concerning the appeal of bishop Lupicinus to the Apostolic See, wrongly, as it seems, inserted into the first letter (in our numbering the 12th, to the Africans). There is a fragment of this letter contained in the Hadrianic edition, which is struck out by Quesnel. 7. From these words of Fr. Mopinot it is clear that Coustant certainly wished to defend this fragment. Yet he seems to have believed that it was not to be inserted into the letter itself, but to be appended to it as an addition, as those very words of Coustant himself in volume I of the Letters of the Roman Pontiffs, page 969, note (a), also suggest,

in which, about to adduce this Leonine and genuine fragment as it was to be published by him in the second volume, he uses these words: 'In the additions to the first letter of Leo.' This arose from the fact that he found no manuscript presenting the whole and genuine reading and form of this letter, whereby a proper place might be assigned to that fragment. But this fortune has happily fallen to us. For by the very kind favour of Fr. Lector Philippus Maria Serenus of the Order of Preachers, a copy of this letter was communicated to us, transcribed with the greatest diligence from a particular Florentine manuscript, marked collection 13, number 182, of the twelfth century, concerning whose more ancient and pre-eminent origin as regards the Letters of Leo we have said enough in the preface, number 29.

But in this copy all the words of both the abridged and the Hadrianic edition, which stand forth in so many ancient manuscripts and are manifestly of the Leonine style throughout, are duly connected in one natural context, so that nothing is excluded and nothing is perverted. 8. The manuscripts for the abridged edition, whether produced by Quesnel or discovered by us, on which chiefly his argument rests, prove this one thing only: that this part of the letter is genuine; they do not, however, demonstrate that the whole letter is thereby exhibited. And that this may seem strange to no one, let him consider other things similarly abridged in the same manuscripts and collections. Thus the manuscript books of the Spanish and Isidorian collection, and the manuscripts also of the Works and Letters of St.

Leo, collection 24, which present this letter in abridged form, likewise offer in abridged form the letter of St. Peter Chrysologus to Eutyches, indeed deficient in its middle part, which nevertheless is read entire in all the codices of the Council of Chalcedon, both Greek and Latin, of collection 17. In all collections too, and in the Latin manuscripts, the Council of Sardica is presented mutilated, without the three final canons which are contained in the Greek exemplars. In codex Vatican 1341, and in three other Gallican codices praised by Coustant (Volume I of the Letters of the Roman Pontiffs, p.

772), which present the Spanish collection of Innocent I, the letter to the bishops of the Synod of Toledo is abridged, since in it there are lacking sections 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, and even part of the first section. In the manuscripts of the Hadrianic collection only the beginning is written out of the letter of Hormisdas to the presbyters, deacons, and archimandrites of the second Syria, which the manuscripts of the most excellent collection 14 have preserved entire. And, to pass over other things of the same kind, in Quesnel's own collection 5, number 51, the letter of Gelasius to the Orientals is brought forth curtailed at its head. Why then could not the letter of Leo to the Africans likewise be presented mutilated? 9.

The copy of this letter, indeed, which is read in the Hadrianic collection without the three chapters of the abridged edition and with another longer addition, granted that it was not inserted into his collection by Dionysius, as Quesnel most aptly conjectured in his notes, nay, even if it had been added to that collection about the time of Gregory II, as he supposed, namely about the beginning of the eighth century, cannot on that account be proved to be interpolated or spurious. For in all the documents which are read inserted in the Hadrianic collection, nothing apocryphal or interpolated is detected.

But since the style of this letter and its whole context are wholly in keeping with Leo, and since the arguments raised by Quesnel prove nothing—as will be apparent from our observations upon his notes—it is permitted to doubt the authenticity and genuineness of this single document only rashly. 10. Nor let the absence of the three chapters 6, 7, and 8 cause difficulty, which are extant in the abridged edition and are known to be genuine from the most ancient manuscripts and collections. For the adduced examples of similar deficiencies, which we indicated a little before in other documents of excellent collections, show that such deficiencies are not infrequent.

The celebrated letter 14 of Leo, to Anastasius, which is entire in several collections, we have found written out in two ancient manuscripts, Vatican 1347 and Vatican Palatine 579, with the third and fourth chapters omitted; and if other codices or collections had taken it from these, they would present a like deficiency, nor could it on that account be called into suspicion. Are not certain letters of Gelasius also, in some collections, shorter than they were published in the Councils? Most famous is that pontiff's letter to the Dardanians, which not only in Quesnel's collection 5, chapter 50, but also in almost all the manuscripts

of other ancient collections, lacks three longer and nine shorter members, which nevertheless are read in the manuscripts of the most excellent collection 14, and thence were published in the Roman edition of the Letters of the Pontiffs and in the volumes of the Councils; and it cannot be doubted that Facundus of Hermiane used this fuller exemplar. But just as in the manuscripts mentioned a little before, of the letter of Innocent I to the Toledans, only the general decrees being retained, the rest which pertain to individual causes and persons were omitted, so this same thing seems to have pleased the author of the Hadrianic collection in this letter of Leo: for the three omitted chapters concern individual persons and causes. 11.

Furthermore, it is not true, as Quesnel supposed, that this edition of the letter was added to the Dionysian codex in the age of Gregory II, on the ground that the most recent document of the Hadrianic codex pertains to this Gregory. For among the Vatican codices we find one marked number 5845, containing the pure collection of Dionysius, which Coustant praised as most rare, and which ends in the letters of Anastasius II. But in this codex, which is most ancient, and which prefixes to the Decretals the letter of Dionysius to the presbyter Julian, found in this one manuscript alone,

and edited from it, after the pure collection of Dionysius has been written out, there is appended in the same ancient hand an appendix, in which first are placed three councils of Pope Symmachus, one of the year 501, another of the year 502, and a third of the year 499; then are brought forward the titles of six decrees of Pope Hilary, two of Simplicius, and one of Felix; and after the titles the decrees themselves are recited: all of which were afterwards inserted into the Hadrianic collection each in its own place according to the order of the times. But after the decree of Felix, on page 155, is written the letter of Leo with this title: 'In the cause of bishop Lupicinus: Leo to all the bishops established throughout Caesarean Mauretania. Whereas concerning ordinations,' and the rest, with the same form and reading as the Hadrianic edition.

To this letter of Leo, on page 157, is subjoined: 'Letter of Zosimus directed to the presbyters of Ravenna. Admonition of Zosimus to the presbyters and deacons who are at Ravenna. From the report,' etc., which is read in the same Hadrianic codex. Finally, after this letter, as a new addition, there follows a table of 79 chapters, and the documents themselves are subjoined after the table. Of these it must be spoken more fully elsewhere. For now let it suffice to mention the five earlier documents, which are brought forward thus. Page 159. I. Justin Augustus to Hormisdas. 'As we have always been,' etc. Page 160. II. A copy of the petitions from the clergy and monks of Antioch, Jerusalem, etc., to Justin. 'Draw water with gladness,' etc. Page 161. III.

Hormisdas to the presbyters, deacons, and archimandrites of the second Syria. 'The letters having been read,' etc. On the same page: 'Here begin the constitutions of Pope Gregory the younger. In the name of the Lord,' etc. These documents too are neither more nor fewer than those which are found added in the Hadrianic manuscripts to the Dionysian collection, and inserted each in its own place in chronological order. But from the different manner in which they are subjoined in this codex to the pure Dionysian collection, it becomes plain that all were not added together at one and the same time, but at least at two: first the documents prefixed to the table of 79 chapters, then the five first chapters of this table. These last, which end with Gregory II, could have been added in the age of this pontiff or a little after.

But the same is not to be thought of those documents which, prefixed to this table, pertain to much more ancient pontiffs, and were perhaps added a little after the death of Symmachus, who is the last among the pontiffs whose decrees are recited in that first appendix: and in the first place indeed the councils of that same pontiff are referred to, because this pontiff was of more recent memory, whence perhaps by a special formula he is called 'of holy memory' in the title of the synod of 502—which also seems to indicate that this addition was subjoined in the very city of Rome.

For indeed, if these documents prefixed to the table of 79 chapters had been added after the death of Hormisdas, the collector would not have separated the monuments of this pontiff also from the documents of Symmachus, his immediate predecessor, nor would he have left them to be subjoined by the collector of the second appendix. 12. But if these observations and conjectures be judged probable, as indeed they seem to us, then the addition of Leo's letter to the Africans, afterward inserted into the Hadrianic collection together with the disputed fragment, is carried back to about the time of Dionysius, since he too flourished at Rome after Symmachus, under Hormisdas;

and thus it is made true that this letter came to be added to the Dionysian collection about the fiftieth year after Leo, so that it seems to be of the utmost rashness (we use Quesnel's words in his notes at the beginning of this letter) to suspect that authentic codices were lacking to one writing and collecting in the very city of Rome. For just as there is no doubting concerning the added letter of Zosimus, or concerning the councils of Symmachus, so neither is there room for uncertainty concerning this letter of Leo, which was added at the same time by the same author. And hence the origin of the Hadrianic collection is uncovered;

for nothing else was done in it except that, with the order of the times preserved, certain documents were inserted into the Dionysian collection which by a twofold addition and at a twofold time had been subjoined to this collection long before the pontificate of Hadrian, with the order disturbed. 13. Furthermore, the excellent Florentine codex of St. Mark, collection 13, presents the letter entire, drawn from the abridged and the Hadrianic edition. Nor is it strange that in a single codex, or collection, this letter should be found entire, which in all the others of the more ancient collections is read variously mutilated or imperfect. For the aforesaid letter of Gelasius to the Dardanians too is shorter in several and those ancient codices and collections, and is found longer in collection 14 alone.

But the same Florentine codex represents the parts of the abridged and the Hadrianic editions rightly placed each in its own position. For first it exhibits the whole abridged edition together with those three chapters 6, 7, and 8 also, which had been omitted in the Hadrianic; then to the final words of the same abridged edition it fittingly and most congruously subjoins, in 'in these more particularly to dwell,' and the rest of that fragment, which in the Hadrianic is supplied down to the end. Add that this Florentine codex not only has this Hadrianic fragment, which is wrongly believed by Quesnel to be spurious, but also for the most part exhibits the Hadrianic readings in those chapters likewise which are common to the abridged and the Hadrianic editions.

Quesnel, who rejects the Hadrianic form and extols the codices of the abridged edition, in not a few places preferred the Hadrianic readings to the readings of the abridged edition, which accords ill with his own hypothesis. For thus the one differs from the other in some places, so that they diverge not merely in some single word, but in whole members and sentences. And this casts upon us the most vehement suspicion that a twofold copy of this letter was found among the writings of Leo himself, from which so great a discrepancy arose. For the variants of one or another word can indeed be attributed to the drowsiness or caprice of copyists, especially when they corrupt the sense or the style.

But so great a variety of words and sentences, which, although sometimes set forth in more words, nevertheless everywhere reflects the style of the same author (especially if it be detected not in all, nor in many, but in one or another little work only), seems to be attributed not to copyists but to the author himself, who, having at some point emended or even enlarged the same work written by his first hand, wrote it again with second care, with different words and sentences introduced. 14. Fr. Coustant believed that that discrepancy which we mentioned in the letter of Gelasius to the Dardanians, which in some codices is shorter, in others fuller, depended on this: that that same letter had issued forth from Gelasius himself under a twofold form;

and he was of opinion that the same thing afterward befell Hormisdas and Gregory, and before that, our Leo. Read 'Vindiciae Veterum Codicum Confirmatae,' chapter 13, page 713. That this happened to this letter is, from what has been observed before, most probable to us. St. Leo had written, as it seems, with his first hand the letter such as it is given from the manuscripts of the abridged edition; and from this copy, once published or found, the authors of the collections of that edition took this letter. But with a later hand, when perhaps something new had supervened—for example, the cause of bishop Restitutus, whom he now relates to have complained, as it were after those things which Potentius had reported, in chapter 10—

the pontiff, in transcribing the same letter, set forth some things in other words, and added certain things on account of the newness of the case. So too letters 30 and 31, which, partly in the same, partly in different words, are found upon the same matter, addressed to Pulcheria, in distinct and most ancient collections, we shall show in the admonition to be a twofold copy of one and the same letter.

But in the subjoined letter to the Africans, that long fragment which is read in the Hadrianic collection seems indeed to have been added with second care, on account of certain items of information which supervened after the report of Potentius—brought perhaps by bishop David, who is mentioned in that fragment, or by others who had migrated from Africa to Rome, and are indicated by those words of the Hadrianic reading, 'the talk of travellers might convey.' Hence the holy pontiff, into the first reading of the abridged edition, chapter 9, 'Since therefore concerning all things,' with second care inserted the particle 'to convey,' which is read in the Hadrianic edition, because certain things had come in which ought earlier to have been added to the writings.

Nor let the discourse concerning the virgins oppressed by barbarian violence, repeated in chapters 8 and 11, cause difficulty; for in chapter 8 he teaches what the virgins themselves ought to think concerning themselves, while in chapter 11 he decrees what is to be done concerning them by the bishops. Nay, this twofold mention of such virgins sufficiently intimates that the fragment of the Hadrianic edition does not pertain to other letters of Leo, which have perhaps perished, as some have supposed, but to this very same letter 12, as it is exhibited in the Florentine manuscript. And this is confirmed much more by those words which (while the mention of virgins is repeated) are inserted in chapter 11 in the same codex, as was said above. 15.

But in the edition of the entire letter, which we shall give in the first place, we have preferred the Hadrianic readings to the readings of the codices of the abridged letter, not only because the Florentine codex follows the Hadrianic readings—from which the entire letter, as it was written by Leo, has come down to us—but also because readings of this kind seem to have pleased more the author himself as he reconsidered and emended the letter. For indeed these are so fitting that Quesnel himself preferred nearly the same to the readings of those codices which contain the abridged letter. But lest anyone be defrauded of the readings of either edition, the entire and the abridged, after having published the entire letter from the reading of the Florentine and Hadrianic manuscripts

with their variants, we shall subjoin the same abridged letter, chiefly after the exemplar of the most ancient book Barberini 2888, and of another similar one, Vatican 1342, which by Montfaucon, volume I of the Paris Library, page 131, is called 'a most elegant and most ancient codex'; and we shall note the variants of the other codices which likewise present this same letter abridged. But whoever shall compare this abridged edition, which no one hitherto has exactly reproduced, with the entire one (we ask, moreover, that it may not be irksome to compare), we hope it will come to pass that, adding his vote to ours, he will confess that it was emended and sharpened by the author himself. 16. As to the time of this letter, Quesnel rightly established in his notes that it was written before the year

455, in which Valentinian III was slain. For since it is known to have been drawn up while the Moors were still subject to the Roman catholic emperor, and on that account many from Africa from time to time came to Rome, whereas after the murder of Valentinian himself these same Moors had been subdued by the Arian Vandals, persecutors of the Catholics, the Roman pontiff could no longer so easily provide for that province in the matters which are set forth in this letter. Furthermore, since Quesnel could not fix the certain year of this letter, he thought it should be published in the first place, not so much to supply the lack of the letters which were written by Leo at the beginning of his pontificate, as lest he should interrupt the order of the rest which are extant and are marked with a certain chronological notation;

and only in a marginal postil does he indicate that it was written about the beginnings of Leo's pontificate, and in the notes about the year 443. The war indeed which raged in Africa between the emperor Valentinian and Genseric, king of the Vandals, seems to have hindered such an interchange of letters. But this war raged until the year 442, in which year Prosper in his Chronicle relates: 'With Genseric, moreover, peace was confirmed by Valentinian Augustus, and Africa was divided between them into fixed portions.' From Novella 23 of book II it is evident that in the year 443, from the African provinces left to Valentinian, envoys came to Rome, and that it was enacted by law that it should be permitted to appeal to the Prefect of the City. On this occasion of appeals, perhaps, certain things unlawfully usurped among the Moors

was carried to the pontiff by the talk of travellers. Therefore, it is more probable and more cautious to place this letter between this year 445 and the year 455. Furthermore, Leo in chapter 1 signifies that he had learned from those travelling from Africa the things which, on the occasion of a peaceful time—that is, during the war—had been wrongly done in various cities of Mauretania. But it is credible that he learned these things from them rather after peace had been composed, in the year 445, since on the occasion of appeals probably more passed over to Rome than later. And that a suitable time may be given for the transmission and report of Potentius, upon receiving which Leo wrote this letter, it seems to have been issued about the year 446. Now for the first time published entire from the manuscript of the Florentine St. Mark. SYNOPSIS.—I.

He rebukes ordinations made through tumult.—II. What it is to lay on hands hastily.—III. That only men who are husbands of one wife ought to be deacons, presbyters, and bishops.—IV. That the raw and neophytes ought not to be ordained.—V. Those ordained from among the laity are tolerated by Leo, but not the twice-married.—VI. Concerning Donatus, converted from the Novatians, and Maximus from the Donatists.—VII. Concerning Aggarus and Tiberianus, from among the laity and ordained through tumult.—VIII. That virgins violated by force ought not to compare themselves to the uncontaminated.—IX. He exhorts to obedience, and threatens punishments to the disobedient. X. In which places bishops ought to be ordained, and concerning the petition of bishop Restitutus.—XI. What is to be done concerning the aforesaid virgins oppressed by barbarian violence.