Sermons & Letters 82

Chapter I. — Since a frequent report related that certain things had been unlawfully usurped among you in the ordinations of priests, the reasoning of piety demanded that, in accordance with the solicitude which we render to the whole Church by divine institution, we should be zealous to ascertain the truth of these matters, delegating the office of our care to our brother and fellow priest Potentius, who should inquire what the truth held concerning the bishops whose election was reported to be culpable, and faithfully indicate all things to us.

Therefore, since he most fully disclosed all things, and made plain to us by a sincere report under what and what kind of rulers certain peoples of Christ are held in the districts of the province of Caesarea, it was necessary that we should express by a letter sent the grief of our heart, with which we burn on account of the perils of the Lord's flocks: marveling that among you, through the occasion of an untroubled time, either the presumption of ambitious men or the tumult of the populace had so prevailed, that to certain unworthy men, established far outside priestly merit, the pastoral summit and the government of the Church were given. This is not to take counsel for the peoples, but to harm them; not to furnish rule, but to increase peril. For the integrity of those who preside is the salvation of those subject to them;

and where there is the soundness of obedience, there the form of doctrine is healthy. But a primacy which either sedition has extorted or ambition has seized, even if it does not offend in morals and deeds, is nevertheless pernicious by the example of its very beginning; and it is difficult that those things be carried through to a good end which set out from a bad beginning. Chapter II. — But if in whatever grades of the Church it must be providently and knowingly cared for that in the Lord's house there be nothing disordered and nothing preposterous, how much more must labor be spent that in the election of him who is set over all the grades there be no error? For the whole condition and order of the household will totter if that which is required in the body is not found in the head.

Where is that precept of the blessed Apostle Paul, sent forth through the Spirit of God, by which in the person of Timothy the whole number of Christ's priests is instructed, and accordingly it is said to each one of us: 'Lay hands hastily on no one, neither be partaker of other men's sins' (1 Timothy 5:22)? What is it to lay on hands hastily, but to bestow the priestly honor upon those not proven—before the age of maturity, before the time of examination, before the merit of labor, before the experience of discipline? And what is it to be partaker of other men's sins, but to make the ordainer such as is he who did not merit to be ordained? For just as he procures for himself the fruit of a good work who keeps a right judgment in choosing a priest,

so he afflicts himself with grave loss who raises up an unworthy man to the college of his own dignity. For in no one's person is that to be passed over which is contained in the general institutions; nor is that honor to be thought lawful which shall have been conferred through transgression. Chapter III. — For since the Apostle says, that, among the other rules of election, that man be ordained bishop who is established to have been or to be the husband of one wife (1 Timothy 3:2), that precept has always been held so sacred that even concerning the woman to be chosen by a priest the same condition was understood to be observed; lest perchance she, before she came into the marriage of him who had not had another wife, had experienced the wedlock of another man.

Who therefore would dare to make light of that which is perpetrated as an injury against so great a sacrament, since for this great and venerable mystery not even the statutes of the Law were wanting, by which it is evidently defined that a priest take a virgin, and not know the marriage-bed of another spouse—she who is to be the wife of a pontiff (Leviticus 21:13-14; Ezekiel 44:22)? For even then the spiritual marriage of Christ and the Church was prefigured in the priests; and since 'the man is the head of the woman' (Ephesians 5:23; 1 Corinthians 11:3), let the spouse of the Word learn to know no other man than Christ, who deservedly chose one, loves one, and joins no other besides her to his fellowship.

If therefore even in the Old Testament this form of priestly marriages was preserved, how much more we who are established under the grace now revealed ought to serve the apostolic precepts: so that however endowed with good morals a man may be, and however adorned with holy works he may be found, let him nevertheless by no means ascend either to the grade of the diaconate, or to the honor of the priesthood, or to the summit of the episcopate, if it be established that he himself was not the husband of one wife, or that his wife was not the wife of one husband? Chapter IV. — But when the Apostle admonishes and says: 'And let these also first be proved, and so let them minister' (1 Timothy 3:10);

what else are we to understand herein, than that in these promotions we should consider not only the privileges of marriages but also the merits of labors? lest we entrust the pastoral office either to those raw from baptism, or to those suddenly converted from a secular manner of life; since through all the grades of the Christian warfare it ought to be estimated from the increase of progress whether greater things can be committed to anyone. Deservedly the venerable ordinances of the holy Fathers, when they spoke of the election of priests, judged those alone fit for the sacred administrations whose whole age had run, from its childhood beginnings even to the more advanced years, through the stipends of ecclesiastical discipline, so that his former life might furnish a testimony to each one:

nor could there be any doubt about the promotion of one to whom, for his many labors, for his chaste morals, for his vigorous deeds, the reward of a loftier place was due. For if it is unworthy to attain to the honors of the world without the support of time, without the merit of labor, and those are wont to be branded with ambition whom no proofs of integrity assist, how careful and how prudent must be the dispensation of the divine gifts and heavenly dignities, that in nothing the apostolic and canonical decrees be violated,

and that the Church of the Lord not be entrusted to be governed by those who, ignorant of the lawful institutions and unacquainted with all humility, wish not to take their increase from the lowest positions, but to have their beginning from the highest; since it is exceedingly unjust and absurd that the unskilled be preferred to masters, the new to the old, and the raw to the veterans? Indeed in a great house it is necessary, as the Apostle discourses (2 Timothy 2:20), that the vessels be diverse, some of gold and silver, but others of wood and clay; yet the service of these is divided according to the quality of the material, nor is the use of the precious the same as that of the cheap. For all things will be disordered if clay vessels be preferred to golden, and wooden to silver.

And just as in the wooden and clay vessels is figured the kind of those men who as yet shine with no virtues, so in the golden and silver ones are without doubt declared those who, refined through the fire of long instruction and through the furnace of protracted labor, have merited to be proven gold and pure silver. If the reward according to their devotion is not rendered to these, all obedience is dissolved, all order is thrown into confusion; while in the Church those who have undergone no ministry, by the perverse judgment of those electing, obtain an undue primacy. Chapter V. — Since therefore either the partisanships of the common people or the ambitions of the proud have so prevailed among you, that we learn that not only laymen, but even husbands of second wives, or the husbands of widows, have been advanced to the pastoral office;

do not the causes most manifestly demand that we purge by a severer judgment the Churches in which these things have been committed, and that we be moved by a fitting strictness not only against such prelates, but even against those who ordained them? But on this side the gentleness of clemency, on that side the strictness of justice, stand around us; and because all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth (Psalm 24:10), we are compelled, according to the piety of the Apostolic See, so to temper our sentence that, the weight of the offenses having been weighed—which it is agreed are not of one measure—we define some to be in some way tolerable, but others to be utterly cut off. For those who have either entered into second marriages, or have joined themselves to the wedlock of widows, we do not permit to remain in the priesthood;

and much more that man who is at the same time the husband of two wives; or that man who, dismissed by his first wife, is said to have married another, we decree are to be deprived of their honor. But the rest, whose promotion incurs only this much of reproach, that they were chosen from among laymen to the episcopal office, and cannot on this account be culpable, that they have wives—these we permit to retain the priesthood they have received, not prejudicing the statutes of the Apostolic See, nor the decrees of our predecessors and our own, by which it has been wholesomely established that no layman, supported by whatever votes, may ascend to the first, or second, or third grade in the Church before he attains to this merit through lawful increments.

For that which is now in some manner pardonable will not afterward be able to go unpunished, if anyone should presume to usurp that which we altogether forbid: because the remission of a sin does not grant license to offend; nor will we henceforth suffer that which could by some reason be conceded to be committed with impunity. Chapter VI. — But Donatus of Salicina, having been converted from the Novatians together with his people, as we have ascertained, we wish so to preside over the Lord's flock that he remember he must direct to us the little book of his faith, by which he both condemns the error of the Novatian doctrine and most fully confesses the catholic truth.

Likewise one ordained from a layman, though blameworthily, yet if he is no longer a Donatist, and is estranged from the spirit of schismatic depravity, we do not repel from the episcopal dignity which he has obtained in whatever manner; provided that he too, by a book issued to us, manifest himself to be catholic. Chapter VII. — But concerning Aggarus and Tiberianus, whose case differs from the rest who were ordained from among laymen in this respect, that their ordination is recorded to have been attended by dreadful tumults and savage seditions, we have committed all things to your judgment: so that, when the trustworthy account of the examination held before you has been reported, we may be able to know what ought to be determined concerning the aforesaid. Chapter

VIII. — But those handmaids of God who lost the integrity of their chastity through barbarian violence will be the more praiseworthy in their humility and modesty if they do not dare to compare themselves to the uncontaminated virgins. For although every sin is born of the will, and an unconquered mind could remain undefiled by the corruption of the flesh; yet this will be less harmful to them, if that which they were able not to lose in soul, they grieve that they have lost even in body. Chapter IX. — Since therefore concerning all the matters which the report of our brother Potentius contained, you see your Charity most fully instructed;

it remains, brethren, that with harmonious obedience you receive these wholesome exhortations, and, doing nothing through contention, but being of one mind in every zeal of devotion, serve the divine and apostolic constitutions, and in nothing suffer the pious decrees of the canons to be violated. For the things which we now remit by consideration of certain causes are henceforth to be kept according to the ancient rules: lest we afterward punish with just vengeance that which we granted for a time out of pious leniency. That no bishop claim for himself the cleric of another against his will. To his most beloved brethren SENECIO, CAROSUS, THEODULUS, LUCIUS, ANTIOCHUS, and VIGILANTIUS, metropolitans established throughout the provinces of Illyricum, LEO. Chapter I.

— That our letters were received by your Charity with a grateful mind, the discourse of your returning page has testified—those letters which we are known to have directed, solicitous for the state and peace of the Churches, lest any novel presumption should bring in error: desiring that those things be guarded by the priests of the Lord which the authority of the Apostolic See has frequently established; namely, that the Churches established throughout Illyricum should pertain to the care of our brother and fellow bishop Anastasius, prelate of the city of Thessalonica.

So that, if there be any greater causes among the bishops which cannot be terminated in their own provinces, they may be referred to his notice, and by the same judgment be settled under the fear of the divine tribunal. Let this order, destined to profit priestly concord, be preserved, so that the Churches of the Lord may be built up by harmonious counsel, as we desire, and that dissension, with the devil lying in wait, may be able to furnish no entrance through which it might avail to scatter those things which we desire with great zeal and observed moderation to knit together. Chapter II. — Let the brethren, when invited to settle the greatest cases which cannot be finished within their own provinces, if they are held back by no grave necessity, not refuse their fraternal zeal for the benefit of the Church: especially since our moderation has provided

that no frequent necessity, nor one for trivial causes, of assembling be enjoined; and that it suffice for two or three bishops to be present from each province, so that a matter light for the few might be accomplished which would be burdensome for the many; and that thus it be effected by the zeal of charity, that the priestly deliberation may, with the Holy Spirit revealing it to them, establish those things which can pertain to ecclesiastical discipline. For this your Charity shall know that we, wishing to correct the disobedience of certain men by a suitable coercion, have determined: that whosoever with a proud mind, when detained by no necessity of body or of cause, shall have wished all too often to avoid the fraternal assembly, may know that he is to be judged. Chapter III. — And because we have learned by the report of our aforesaid brother's solicitude

that the metropolitan of the province of Achaia has often celebrated ordinations that are unlawful and forbidden by the constitutions of the Fathers and by our authority, and has added this to his own audacious acts, that he consecrated for the people of Thespiae, against their will and resistance, a bishop unknown and never before seen; we permit this to be lawful to no metropolitan whatever, that by his own judgment alone, without the assent of the clergy and people, he ordain anyone a priest; but let him set over the Church of God the one whom the consensus of the whole city has chosen. And so, just as we are not slothful in admonishing what ought to be observed and what avoided, so in carrying out and preserving those things we do not suffer anyone to be negligent:

since a most worthy grace shall attend the one who observes these things, and a more abundant fruit, as we hope, shall follow from the Lord; but the one who strays and is forgetful of the apostolic constitution shall be liable to both ecclesiastical and divine censure. Chapter IV. — This also we wish to be observed by all with equal attentiveness, for the bond of priestly concord, that no bishop dare to claim for himself the cleric of another bishop, without the cession of him to whom the cleric belongs, which cession nevertheless clear writings must contain: since both the authority of the canons has defined this, and the very principle of preserving unity teaches it; lest the whole ecclesiastical order be made unstable through this license.

Let these things therefore, dearest brethren, which you perceive to be decreed by us out of the pious affection of the mind, descend into your hearts; so that we, who solicitously desire to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, may receive the fruit of our precept, and may rejoice in the works of your Charity. For we wish it to be as much yours as it is ours, that it be established through the grace of charity, that it be violated by no art of the lying-in-wait devil. But you ought to observe more fully those things which we have written to be guarded to our very brother and fellow bishop Anastasius, and we wish these things to come to your notice through his letters, from which we do not wish your Fraternity to deviate; that we may preserve the Lord's charity by keeping the ordinance of the Fathers.

Given on the eighth day before the Ides of January, in the consulship of the most illustrious men Aetius (for the third time) and Symmachus. SYNOPSIS (from Dionysius Exiguus). — I. That the prelates of Thessalonica have always fulfilled the office of the Apostolic See. — II. That their rights be preserved to the metropolitans. — III. That by the metropolitans there be ordained as bishops not laymen, not the twice-married, not the husbands of widows, but men irreproachable. — IV. That carnal wedlock is denied to subdeacons. — V. That no one be ordained prelate against his will. — VI. That the metropolitan of Epirus refer to the pontiff of Thessalonica concerning the elect whom he is about to ordain bishop; and that the provincial bishops likewise do concerning an elected metropolitan. — VII. That twice through each single year (A).

...that provincial councils of bishops be held each year; and if some difficult matter should arise which cannot be settled by the judgement of the bishop of Thessalonica, it is to be referred to the Roman bishop. — VIII. That if any bishop, deserting his own city, should out of ambition seek a greater see, he shall not only be unable to obtain that church, but must also lose his own. — IX. That no one presume to solicit or to retain another's cleric without the consent of that cleric's own bishop. — X.

That in summoning the bishops of the province (there is added in the Spanish collection: lest under this pretext the priestly honour be subjected to insults; and that no more than two bishops from each province, whom the metropolitan has approved, be dispatched). — XI. That they be detained no longer than fifteen days beyond the appointed time of the council. How great are the things committed to your Fraternity by the authority of the most blessed Apostle Peter, and how weighty are the things likewise entrusted to you by our favour — if you were to consider this with true reasoning and weigh it in just examination, we might greatly rejoice over the devotion of the solicitude laid upon you. CHAPTER I. On the vicariate of Thessalonica, and the case of Atticus, bishop of Nicopolis.

— Since, just as my predecessors did to your predecessors, so I too, following the example of those before me, have delegated to your Charity the office of my governance, that you, as an imitator of our gentleness, might assist in the care which by divine institution we chiefly owe to all the Churches, and might in a manner render the presence of our own visitation to the provinces far distant from us: so that by continual and timely oversight it might be easy for you to recognize what in each matter you should either settle by your own diligence, or reserve for our judgement.

For since it was free for you to hold in suspense the graver affairs and the more difficult issues of cases while awaiting our decision, you had neither reason nor necessity to deviate into that which exceeded your measure. For the writings of our admonitions abound with you, by which we have frequently instructed you concerning restraint in all your actions: that you should call forth the Churches of Christ commended to you, through the exhortation of charity, to the wholesomeness of obedience. For although there often arise among negligent or slothful brethren matters that need to be dealt with by a greater authority, yet correction is to be applied in such a way that love may always be preserved. Whence the blessed Apostle Paul, instructing Timothy for ecclesiastical governance, says:

Rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father; the young men as brethren; the aged women as mothers; the younger women as sisters, in all chastity (1 Tim. 5:1–2). If this moderation is owed by apostolic institution to any of the lesser members whatsoever, how much more is it to be rendered without offence to our brethren and fellow bishops? So that, although things sometimes occur which are to be censured in priestly persons, yet benevolence rather than severity, exhortation rather than agitation, charity rather than power, should prevail toward those to be corrected. But by those who seek the things that are their own, not the things that are of Jesus Christ (Phil.

2:21), this law is easily forsaken; and while it pleases them to domineer over their subjects rather than to counsel them, honour puffs up pride, and what was provided for concord tends to harm — which, that we should be compelled to say it, proceeds not from any small grief of soul. For I feel myself in a manner drawn into blame, when I learn that you have immoderately departed from the rules handed down to you. And if you cared little for your own reputation, you ought at least to have spared my good name, lest things done merely by your own inclination should seem to have been enacted by our judgement.

Let your Fraternity read over our pages again, and run through all the writings of the prelates of the Apostolic See sent to your predecessors, and let him find ordained either by me or by my predecessors anything such as that which we have learned was presumed by you.

For there came to us, together with the bishops of his province, our brother Atticus, metropolitan bishop of Old Epirus, and with a tearful pleading he complained of the most unworthy affliction which he had endured, in the presence of your deacons who stood by — who by their mournful lamentations showed that the things brought before us did not lack credibility. It was also read in your letters, which those same deacons of yours delivered, that brother Atticus had come to Thessalonica, and that he had even sealed his consent by a written profession, so that nothing else could be understood by us concerning him than that his coming had been of his own free will and spontaneous devotion, and that he had drawn up a document of the promise of obedience — yet in the very mention of that document a mark of injury betrayed itself.

For it was not necessary that he should be bound by writing, who was already proving his obedience by the very office of his voluntary coming. Hence these words of your letter furnished testimony to the aforesaid one's laments, and by that which was not passed over in silence, that was laid bare which had been covered by silence: namely, that the prefecture of Illyricum had been called in, and the most exalted power among worldly dignities had been incited against the display of an innocent bishop — so that, with a terrible executive force dispatched, which would attach to itself all the public offices for the carrying out of the command, the priest was dragged from the sacred precincts of the Church, though charged with no crime, not even a false one, and to whom no reprieve was granted, neither on account of the trouble of sickness, nor on account of the severity of winter;

but he was compelled to make a rough journey full of perils over trackless snows. This was of such great toil and such great danger, that of those who accompanied the bishop, some are said to have perished. I am greatly astonished, dearest brother, and also grieve exceedingly, that against a man of whom you had indicated nothing more than that, being summoned, he delayed to appear and pleaded the excuse of infirmity, you could have been so atrociously and so vehemently stirred up — especially since, even if he had deserved anything of the kind, you ought to have awaited what I might write back in reply to your inquiries. But, as I see, you thought well of my character, and most truly foresaw how courteously I would answer for the preservation of priestly concord:

and therefore you hastened to carry out your impulses without dissimulation, lest, once you had received writings from us disposing otherwise in accordance with our moderation, you should not have licence to do that which has been done. Or had perhaps some crime become known to you, and did the weight of a new charge press upon the metropolitan bishop before your tribunal? But that this indeed was foreign to him, you yourself confirm by objecting nothing against him. Yet even if he had committed something grave and intolerable, our censure was to be awaited; so that you should decree nothing yourself before you had learned what was pleasing to us. For we have so entrusted our office to your Charity, that you have been called into a share of the solicitude, not into the fullness of power.

Whence, just as the things piously managed by you greatly gladden us, so the things wrongly done exceedingly sadden us. And it is necessary, after the experience of many cases, to look ahead more carefully and to guard more diligently, that through the spirit of charity and peace every occasion of scandals may be removed from the Churches of the Lord which we have commended to you — the eminence of your episcopate indeed standing pre-eminent in those provinces, yet the excess of all usurpation being cut away. CHAPTER II. On preserving the rights of the metropolitans dwelling under the vicar of Thessalonica.

— Therefore, according to the canons of the holy Fathers, framed by the Spirit of God and consecrated by the reverence of the whole world, we decree that the metropolitans of the several provinces, over whom by our delegation the care of your Fraternity is extended, are to hold the dignity anciently handed down to them inviolate; so that they depart not from the rules laid down, either through negligence or through presumption. CHAPTER III. Who are to be barred from the priesthood. — In the cities whose rulers have died, let this rule be observed regarding the substituting of bishops: that he who is to be ordained, even if he have the testimony of a good life, be not a layman, not a neophyte, nor the husband of a second marriage, nor one who has, or has had, a wife whom he joins to a widow.

For the choice of priests is so excellent, that things which in the other members of the Church are not accounted a fault, are nevertheless held to be unlawful in them. CHAPTER IV. On the continence of subdeacons. — For although to those constituted outside the order of clerics it is free to devote themselves to the fellowship of marriage and to the procreation of children, yet, in order to exhibit the purity of perfect continence, carnal union is not granted even to subdeacons: so that both those who have wives may be as though they had none (1 Cor. 7:29), and those who have none may remain single.

But if in this order, which is the fourth from the head, it is fitting to be observed, how much more is it to be kept in the first or second or third — lest anyone be deemed suitable for the levitical, or presbyteral honour, or episcopal excellence, who is detected not yet to have curbed himself from conjugal pleasure. CHAPTER V. On the petition and consent of the clergy and people in the election of bishops. — When, therefore, the election of a chief priest is being dealt with, let him be preferred before all whom the united consent of clergy and people has concordantly requested: so that if the votes of the parties should perchance be divided among another person, by the judgement of the metropolitan the one who is aided by the greater zeal and merits should be preferred to the other:

only let no one be ordained over those who are unwilling and do not ask for him; lest the city despise or hate a bishop it did not desire, and become less religious than is fitting, because it was not permitted to have the one it wished. CHAPTER VI. On referring to the bishop of Thessalonica within his vicariate concerning a bishop to be consecrated. — Now concerning the person of the bishop to be consecrated, and concerning the consent of the clergy and people, let the metropolitan bishop refer to your Fraternity; and let him make known to you what has been well approved in the province, so that your authority may also confirm the ordination to be duly celebrated. This, with right arrangements, ought to bring no delay or difficulty, lest the flocks of the Lord should long lack the care of pastors.

But when the metropolitan has died, and another is to be substituted in his place, the provincial bishops must assemble at the metropolitan city, so that, when the will of all the clergy and all the citizens has been examined, the best may be chosen from among the presbyters of that same Church, or from among the deacons; concerning whose name the provincial priests are to refer to your notice, about to fulfil the wishes of those requesting, when they have learned that what pleased them has pleased you also. For just as we wish that just elections be wearied by no delays, so we permit nothing to be undertaken without your knowledge. CHAPTER VII. On provincial councils to be frequented. — Concerning episcopal councils we decree nothing other than what the holy Fathers wholesomely ordained:

namely, that two assemblies be held each year, in which judgement may be given on all the complaints which are wont to arise between the various orders of the Church. And if perchance among those who preside a case arises concerning graver sins (which God forbid), which cannot be determined by provincial examination, the metropolitan will take care to instruct your Fraternity concerning the nature of the whole matter, so that if the affair is not laid to rest by your judgement with the parties present before you, whatever it may be, it may be transferred to our cognizance. CHAPTER

VIII. On the translations of bishops to be curbed. — If any bishop, despising the lowliness of his own city, aspires to the administration of a more celebrated place, and by whatever reasoning transfers himself to a larger flock, he shall indeed be driven from the see that is not his own, but he shall also lose his own: so that he may preside neither over those which he coveted through avarice, nor over those which he spurned through pride. Let each therefore be content with his own bounds, and not desire to be increased beyond the measure of his right. CHAPTER IX. On fugitive clerics. — Let no one receive, let no one solicit another's cleric against the will of his bishop, unless perhaps by an agreement of charity it has been settled between the one giving and the one receiving.

For he is guilty of grave injury who dares either to entice away or to retain from a brother's Church that which is more useful or more precious. Therefore if the matter is transacted within the province, the metropolitan shall compel the fugitive cleric to return to his own Church. But if he has withdrawn further off, he shall be recalled by the authority of your command; so that no occasion may be left either for cupidity or for ambition. CHAPTER X. On the summoning of bishops by the metropolitan. — In summoning bishops to you, we wish you to be most moderate, lest under the appearance of greater diligence you should seem to glory in injuries done to the brethren.

Whence, if some greater cause should arise on account of which it is reasonable and necessary to call a fraternal assembly, let it suffice that two bishops from each province, whom the metropolitans have judged fit to be sent, come to your Fraternity; in such a way that those who have assembled be detained no longer than fifteen days beyond the appointed time. CHAPTER XI. That when the other bishops dissent from the bishop of Thessalonica, Rome is to be consulted. — But if, in that which you have judged should be dealt with and defined together with the brethren, their opinion should differ from your will, let all things be referred to us under the attestation of the proceedings, so that, ambiguities being removed, what is pleasing to God may be decreed.

For to this end we direct our whole affection and care, that what pertains to the unity of concord and what pertains to the keeping of discipline may be violated by no dissension, neglected by no slothfulness. And therefore, most beloved brother, both you and those our brethren who are offended by your excesses — though the occasion of complaints be not the same for all — I exhort and admonish, that the things which have been piously ordained and wholesomely arranged be disturbed by no contention. Let no one seek what is his own, but what is another's (Phil. 2:4, 21), as the Apostle says; Let every one of you please his neighbour for his good, unto edification (Rom. 15:2).

For neither will the framework of our unity be able to be firm, unless the bond of charity binds us together into inseparable solidity: for just as in one body we have many members, but all the members have not the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and each one members of another (Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 12:12). The connexion of the whole body makes one soundness, one beauty; and this connexion indeed requires the unanimity of the whole body, but especially demands the concord of the priests. Although their dignity is common, yet their rank is not general: since even among the most blessed Apostles, in a likeness of honour there was a certain distinction of power;

and though the election of all was equal, yet to one it was given that he should be pre-eminent over the rest. From which form there has arisen also a distinction of bishops, and by a great ordinance it was provided that not all should claim all things for themselves; but that there should be in the several provinces individual bishops whose sentence should be held first among the brethren; and again that certain ones, established in the greater cities, should undertake a fuller solicitude, through whom the care of the universal Church should flow together unto the one See of Peter, and nothing anywhere should dissent from its head. He therefore who knows himself to be set over certain persons, let him not take it ill that someone is set above himself; but let him himself also render the obedience which he exacts:

and just as he does not wish to bear the burden of a heavy load, so let him not dare to impose an unbearable weight upon another (Matt. 23:4). For they are disciples of a humble and meek Master, who says: Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For my yoke is sweet, and my burden light (Matt. 11:29–30). Which we shall then experience, unless that also comes into observance which the same Lord says: He that is greatest among you shall be your minister. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted (Matt. 23:11; Luke 14:11). SYNOPSIS (From the Spanish collection). — I.

Against the Priscillianists, who distinguish the Holy Trinity not by persons but only by names. — II. Against the notion that they believe the Son of God to have been later than the Father. — III. Against their saying that Christ is therefore called only-begotten because he alone was born of a virgin. — IV. On the Lord's Nativity, that on it the Priscillianists observe fasts. — V. Against their saying that the soul of man is of divine substance. — VI. Against their saying that the devil is of himself, or of chaos, and has a nature of his own. — VII. Against their asserting that marriages and the procreation of children are a sin. — VIII.

Against their saying that human bodies are figments of the devil, and are formed in the womb by demons. — IX. Against their saying that the children of the promise are conceived of the Holy Spirit. — X. Against their believing that souls sin in the heavenly places, and according to the quality of the sin receive in this world a lot either good or evil. — XI. Against their saying that the souls of men are bound to the stars of fate. — XII. Against their describing the parts of the soul under certain powers, and the members of the body under others. — XIII. Against their assigning the names of the patriarchs to the several members of the body. — XIV. Against their distinguishing throughout the whole body the twelve signs which the astrologers observe. — XV.

On the apocryphal writings of these same Priscillianists. — XVI. On the book of Dictinius. LEO the bishop to TURRIBIUS the bishop, greeting. How praiseworthily you are moved for the truth of the catholic faith, and how solicitously you devote to the Lord's flock the devotion of your pastoral office, is shown by the writings of your Fraternity handed to us through your deacon, by which you took care to intimate to our notice what a disease of errors, from the remnants of the ancient pestilence, has flared up in your regions. For the tenor of your letter, the sense of your memorandum, and the text of your booklet declare that the most fetid bilge-water of the Priscillianists has grown warm again among you.

For there is nothing of filth in the perceptions of any impious men whatsoever, which has not flowed together into this dogma: since out of all the mire of earthly opinions they have mingled for themselves a manifold dregs, so that they alone might drink whole whatever others had tasted in part. In short, if all the heresies which arose before the time of Priscillian are more diligently reviewed, scarcely any error will be found from which this impiety has not drawn contagion: which, not content to receive the falsehoods of those who deviated from the Gospel under the name of Christ, plunged itself even into the darkness of paganism, so that through the profane secrets of the magic arts and the vain lies of the astrologers, they might place the faith of religion and the reason of morals under the power of demons and in the influence of the stars.

But if this were both permitted to be believed and to be taught, neither would reward be owed to virtues, nor punishment to vices, and all the decrees not only of human laws but even of divine ordinances would be dissolved: because there could be no judgement either concerning good or concerning evil deeds, if fatal necessity impels the motion of the mind in either direction, and whatever is done by men is not of men but of the stars. To this madness belongs that monstrous distribution of the whole human body through the twelve signs of heaven, so that diverse powers preside over diverse parts; and the creature which God made to his own image is under as great a bondage to the stars as it is under a connexion of members.

Deservedly did our Fathers, under whose times this abominable heresy broke out, urgently act throughout the whole world that the impious frenzy might be driven from the universal Church: when even the princes of the world so detested this sacrilegious madness, that they laid its author low, with most of his disciples, by the sword of the public law. For they saw all care of honesty being taken away, every bond of marriages being dissolved, and at once both divine and human right being subverted, if it had ever been permitted for men of this kind to live with such a profession.

This strictness long profited the leniency of the Church, which, although content with priestly judgement, shrinks from bloody vengeances, is nevertheless aided by the severe constitutions of Christian princes, since those who fear corporal punishment sometimes have recourse to the spiritual remedy. But from the time when a hostile irruption occupied many provinces, and the storms of wars cut off the execution of the laws; from the time when among the priests of God travel became difficult and assemblies rare, secret perfidy found licence on account of the public disturbance, and to the subversion of many minds it was incited by those very evils by which it ought to have been corrected.

But how great, indeed, or how large a part of the peoples there is free from the contagion of this plague, where, as your Charity indicates, by this deadly disease even the hearts of certain priests have been corrupted; and by those through whom falsehood ought to be suppressed and truth defended, by those very ones the Gospel of Christ is subjected to the doctrine of Priscillian, so that, by the impiety of holy words being depraved into profane senses,

under the names of prophets and apostles there is preached not what the Holy Spirit taught, but what the minister of the devil has inserted. Since therefore your Charity has, with as much diligence as it could, comprised in sixteen chapters the opinions long ago condemned, we too briefly review them all, lest anything of these blasphemies should seem either tolerable or doubtful. CHAPTER I. How impiously the Priscillianists think concerning the Trinity of persons in God. — In the first chapter, therefore, it is demonstrated how impiously they think concerning the divine Trinity, who assert that of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit there is one and the same person, as though the same God were named now Father, now Son, now Holy Spirit;

and that he is not another who begot, another who was begotten, another who proceeded from both; but that a singular unity is to be received in three names indeed, yet not in three persons. This kind of blasphemy they took from the opinion of Sabellius, whose disciples are also deservedly named Patripassians: because if he himself is the Son who is the Father, the cross of the Son is the passion of the Father, and whatever the Son endured in the form of a servant by obeying the Father, the Father himself took wholly upon himself. Which is beyond ambiguity contrary to the catholic faith, which so confesses the Trinity of the Godhead that it believes the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit to be undivided without confusion, everlasting without time, equal without difference:

because the Unity in the Trinity is filled not by the same person, but by the same essence. CHAPTER II. On the virtues which they feign to proceed from God. — In the second chapter is shown the inept and vain fabrication concerning the processions of certain virtues from God, which he began to have and which he himself preceded in his own essence. In which they also favour the error of the Arians, who say that the Father is prior to the Son, because he was at some time without the Son, and then began to be Father when he begot the Son. But just as the catholic Church detests those, so also these, who think that something of that which is of his own essence was ever lacking to God, as it were. To call him mutable, as also improving, is a wickedness.

For as much as that is changed which is diminished, so much is that also changed which is increased. CHAPTER III. Why the Son is called only-begotten by them. — Now the discourse of the third chapter marks out that these same impious men assert that the Son of God is therefore called only-begotten because he alone was born of a virgin. Which indeed they would not dare to say, unless they had imbibed the poison of Paul of Samosata and of Photinus, who said that our Lord Jesus Christ did not exist before he was born of the virgin Mary. But if these wish something else to be understood from their meaning, and grant to Christ no beginning from a mother, they must needs assert that there is not one Son of God, but others also begotten of the most high Father, of whom this one alone was born of a woman, and for this reason is called Only-begotten:

because no other of the sons of God undertook this condition of being born. Whithersoever, therefore, they betake themselves, they rush into the precipice of great impiety, whether they wish Christ the Lord to have a beginning from his mother, or deny him to be the only-begotten of God the Father — since both he who was God the Word was born of a mother, and no one was begotten of the Father except the Word. CHAPTER IV. That they fast on the Lord's Nativity and on the Lord's Day. — Now in the fourth chapter it is contained that the Nativity of Christ, which the catholic Church venerates according to the assumption of true man — because the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (John

1:14) — these men do not truly honour, but feign to honour, fasting on that same day, just as also on the Lord's Day, which is the day of Christ's resurrection. This they do precisely because they do not believe that Christ the Lord was born in the true nature of man, but through a certain illusion they wish things which were not real to appear to have been displayed; following the dogmas of Cerdo and Marcion, and in all things consonant with their kinsmen the Manichaeans. Who, as they were detected and convicted in our examination, exact the Lord's Day, which the resurrection of our Saviour consecrated to us, in the mourning of a fast; devoting this abstinence, as has been betrayed, only to the reverence of the sun:

so that in all things they may be discordant from the unity of our faith, and the day which is held by us in gladness may be spent by them in affliction. Whence it is fitting that the enemies of the cross and resurrection of Christ should receive such a sentence as the doctrine they have chosen. CHAPTER V. That they assert the soul of man to be of divine substance. — In the fifth chapter it is reported that they assert the soul of man to be of divine substance, and that the nature of our condition does not differ from the nature of its Creator. Which impiety, flowing from the opinion of certain philosophers and of the Manichaeans, the catholic faith condemns: knowing that there is no creature so sublime and so pre-eminent, to which God himself should be nature.

For that which is of Him, that is, that which He Himself is, is nothing other than the Son and the Holy Spirit. But apart from this one, consubstantial, eternal, and unchangeable Godhead of the supreme Trinity, there is nothing among all creatures that was not, at its beginning, created out of nothing. Yet whatever stands eminent among created things is not God, nor, if anything is great and marvelous, is it that which He is who alone does great wonders (Ps. 35:4 [Vulgate 71:18]). No man is truth, no man is wisdom, no man is justice; but many are partakers of truth, and of wisdom and justice. God alone stands in need of no participation, and whatever is worthily, in whatever measure, conceived concerning Him is not quality but essence.

For to the unchangeable nothing is added, nothing is lost; because to be, which is eternal, is ever proper to Him. Whence, abiding in Himself, He makes all things new, and has received nothing which He Himself did not give. Exceedingly proud, therefore, and exceedingly blind are those who, while they say that the human soul is of the divine substance, do not understand that they are saying nothing else than that God is mutable, and that He Himself suffers whatever can be inflicted upon His nature. CHAP. VI. That they say the devil was never good, nor a work of God, but emerged from chaos and darkness. — The sixth annotation indicates that they say the devil was never good, nor is his nature the workmanship of God, but that he emerged out of chaos and darkness:

namely, because he has no author of himself, but is himself the beginning and substance of all evil — whereas the true faith, which is catholic, confesses that the substance of all creatures, whether spiritual or corporeal, is good, and that of evil there is no nature; because God, who is the founder of the universe, made nothing that was not good. Whence the devil too would be good, if he had remained in that state in which he was made. But because he made evil use of his natural excellence, and stood not in the truth (John 8:44), he did not pass over into a contrary substance, but fell away from the supreme Good, to which he ought to have clung;

just as those very men who assert such things rush forth from truths into falsehoods, and accuse a nature in that in which they of their own accord transgress, and are condemned for their own voluntary perversity. This indeed becomes an evil in themselves, and that evil is not a substance, but the penalty of a substance. CHAP. VII. They condemn marriage and the use of matrimony. — In the seventh place there follows that they condemn marriage, and shudder at the procreation of children; wherein, as in almost all things, they agree with the profanity of the Manichaeans: therefore, as their own manners prove, they detest the conjugal bond; because there is no license for turpitude where the modesty both of matrimony and of offspring is preserved. CHAP. VIII.

— They say that human bodies are formed by the devil, and deny their resurrection. — The eighth of their tenets is that the fashioning of human bodies is a fabrication of the devil, and that the seeds of conception are shaped in the wombs of women by the working of demons; on which account the resurrection of the flesh is not to be believed, because the composition of the body is not befitting the dignity of the soul. Which falsehood is without doubt the work of the devil, and such prodigies of opinions are the fabrications of demons — who do not form men in the bellies of women, but forge such errors in the hearts of heretics. This most unclean venom, proceeding especially from the fountain of Manichaean impiety, the catholic faith long ago detected and condemned. CHAP. IX.

They say that the children of promise are conceived through the Holy Spirit. — The ninth annotation makes manifest that they say the children of promise, though born of women, are yet conceived of the Holy Spirit; lest that offspring which is born of the seed of the flesh should be seen to pertain to the creation of God. This is repugnant and contrary to the catholic faith, which confesses that every man, in the substance of body and soul, is formed and animated by the Creator of the universe within his mother's womb — the contagion, indeed, of sin and mortality abiding, which passes down into the offspring from the first parent;

but with the sacrament of regeneration coming to aid, whereby the children of promise are reborn through the Holy Spirit — not in the womb of the flesh, but in the power of baptism. Whence David also, who was assuredly a child of promise, says to God: Thy hands have made me and fashioned me (Ps. 119:73; cf. Job 10:8). And to Jeremiah the Lord says: Before I formed thee in the womb I knew thee; and in the belly of thy mother I sanctified thee (Jer. 1:5). CHAP. X. They affirm that souls, having sinned in heaven, were thrust down into bodies as a penalty for sin.

— In the tenth chapter they are reported to assert that the souls which are inserted into human bodies were once without body, and sinned in the heavenly habitation, and on this account, having fallen from the heights to the depths, met with rulers of diverse quality, and were, through aerial and starry powers — some harsher, some milder — enclosed in bodies of differing lot and unlike condition: so that whatever befalls variously and unequally in this life might seem to happen from preceding causes. This fable of impiety they wove together out of the errors of many;

but the catholic faith cuts them all off from the body of its unity, constantly and truthfully proclaiming that the souls of men, before they were breathed into their own bodies, did not exist, nor are they embodied by any other than God the Maker, who is both their creator and the creator of bodies; and that, because through the transgression of the first man the whole progeny of the human race was corrupted, no one can be freed from the condition of the old man except through the sacrament of the baptism of Christ — in which, among the reborn, there is no distinction, the Apostle saying: For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither bond nor free; there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal.

3:27, 28). What then do the courses of the stars accomplish here, what the fictions of the fates, what the shifting state of worldly things and their restless diversity? Behold, the grace of God makes so many unequal ones equal, who amid whatever labors of this life, if they remain faithful, cannot be wretched — saying, in every trial, that apostolic word: Who shall separate us from the charity of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? As it is written: For thy sake we are put to death all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. But in all these things we overcome, through Him who loved us (Rom. 8:35, 36).

And therefore the Church, which is the body of Christ, fears nothing from the inequalities of the world, because it covets nothing of temporal goods; nor does it fear to be weighed down by the vain din of the fates, seeing that it knows itself to be increased by the patient endurance of tribulations. CHAP. XI. They impose a fatal necessity upon men. — The eleventh of their blasphemies is that by which they suppose both the souls and the bodies of men to be bound to the fateful stars; through which madness it is necessary that they, entangled in all the errors of the pagans, should strive both to worship the stars they think favorable to them, and to appease those they think adverse. But for those who follow such things there is no place in the catholic Church: since he who has given himself over to such persuasions has wholly departed from the body of Christ. CHAP. XII.

They subject souls to certain powers, and the members of bodies to others. — The twelfth among these tenets is this, that they assign the parts of the soul under some powers, and the members of the body under others; and they establish the qualities of the inner presiding spirits under the names of the patriarchs, over against which they set diverse starry signs, to whose power they subject the bodies. And in all these things they entangle themselves in an inextricable error, not heeding the Apostle who says: Beware lest any man deceive you through philosophy and vain deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ:

because in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and you are filled in Him, who is the head of all principality and power (Col. 2:8-10). And again: Let no man seduce you, willing to do it in humility and the religion of angels, walking in the things which he hath not seen, in vain puffed up by the sense of his flesh, and not holding the Head, from whom the whole body, by joints and bands supplied and knit together, groweth unto the increase of God (Ibid. 18, 19). What need is there, then, to admit into the heart what the Law has not taught, what prophecy has not foretold, what the truth of the Gospel has not preached, what apostolic doctrine has not handed down? But these things are suited to the minds of those of whom the Apostle says:

For there shall be a time when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables (2 Tim. 4:3, 4). Let those, therefore, have nothing in common with us who dare to teach or to believe such things, and who by any means whatever strive to establish that the substance of the flesh is alien to the hope of resurrection, and thus dissolve the whole sacrament of the Incarnation of Christ: because it would have been unworthy for the whole man to be assumed, if it were unworthy for the whole man to be set free. CHAP. XIII.

What kind of knowledge of the Scriptures they construct. — In the thirteenth place it is set down that these same men say that the whole body of the canonical Scriptures is to be understood under the names of the patriarchs: because those twelve virtues, which effect the reformation of the inner man, are indicated under these appellations, without which knowledge no soul can attain to be reformed into that substance from which it proceeded. But Christian wisdom holds this impious vanity in contempt, knowing that the nature of the true Godhead is inviolable and unconvertible; but that the soul, whether living in the body or separated from the body, is subject to many passions. Which soul, assuredly, if it were of the divine essence, could suffer nothing adverse.

And therefore the Creator is incomparably one thing, and the creature another. For He is ever the same, and is changed by no variation; but this is mutable, even when unchanged, because, in order that it be not changed, it can have it as a gift, not as its own. CHAP. XIV. They subject man to the power of the stars and the constellations. — Under the fourteenth chapter they are said to hold concerning the state of the body that it is held under the power of the stars and the constellations according to its earthly quality, and that therefore many things are found in the holy books which pertain to the outer man, so that in the very Scriptures a certain hostility sets itself at variance between the divine and the earthly nature: and that one thing is what the presiding spirits of the soul claim for themselves, another what the founders of the body.

These fables are propounded to the end that the soul may be affirmed to be of the divine substance, and the flesh believed to be of an evil nature; since they profess that this very world too, with its elements, is not the work of the good God, but the creation of an evil author; and so that they might color these sacrileges of their lies with fair titles, they have violated almost all the divine utterances by the insertion of their nefarious meanings. CHAP. XV. They adulterate the true Scriptures and bring in false ones. — Concerning which matter the discourse of the fifteenth chapter complains, and deservedly detests this diabolical presumption: indeed we too have ascertained this by the report of truthful witnesses, and have found many most corrupted copies of theirs which were entitled canonical.

For how could they deceive the simple, unless they first smeared their poisoned cups with a certain honey, lest those things which were to be deadly should everywhere be perceived as unpleasant? Care must therefore be taken, and with priestly diligence it must above all be provided, that falsified copies, at variance with the sincere truth, be held in no use for reading. But the apocryphal writings, which under the names of the apostles contain a seed-bed of many falsehoods, are not only to be forbidden, but altogether to be removed and burned in the fire.

For although there are in them certain things which seem to have an appearance of piety, yet they are never empty of poisons, and through the allurements of their fables they secretly work this, that they may entangle those seduced by the narration of marvels in the snares of every kind of error. Whence, if any of the bishops has not forbidden the apocryphal books to be kept throughout the houses, or has permitted those copies to be read in the Church under the name of the canonical which are vitiated by the adulterine emendation of Priscillian, let him know that he is to be judged a heretic: for HE WHO recalls not others from error demonstrates that he himself is in error. CHAP. XVI. On the writings of Dictinius. — In the last chapter, moreover, a just complaint has disclosed this: that the treatises of Dictinius, which he composed according to the dogma of Priscillian,

are read by many with veneration — whereas, if they think anything is to be attributed to the memory of Dictinius, they ought rather to love his restoration than his fall. They therefore read not Dictinius, but Priscillian, and approve that which he taught while erring, not that which he chose when corrected. But let no one presume this with impunity, nor let anyone be reckoned among catholics who uses writings condemned not only by the catholic Church, but also by their own author. Let it not be free for the perverse to feign what they invent, nor, under the veil of the Christian name, to evade the statutes of the imperial decrees.

For it is with so great a diversity of heart that they gather to the catholic Church, that they may both make their own whomever they can, and, while they falsely claim to be ours, escape the severity of the laws. This the Priscillianists do; this the Manichaeans do — whose hearts are so leagued with these men that, distinguished only by their names, they are nevertheless found united in their sacrileges: for although the Old Testament, which these pretend to receive, the Manichaeans reject, yet the intention of both tends to one and the same end, since what those attack by rejecting, these corrupt by receiving. But in their execrable mysteries, which are the more diligently hidden the more unclean they are, there is altogether one abomination, one obscenity, and a like turpitude.

Although we blush to speak of it, yet, having tracked it out by the most careful investigations, and having laid it bare by the confession of the Manichaeans who had been apprehended, we have caused it to come to public notice: lest in any way it could seem doubtful — that which in our judicial hearing, at which not only a most numerous presence of priests, but also the dignity of illustrious men, and a certain part of the senate and the people took part, was disclosed by the very mouth of those who had perpetrated every crime; as the proceedings which we have now directed to your charity demonstrate. But what has been long ago ascertained and much divulged concerning the most foul crime of the Manichaeans, has also been ascertained concerning the most incestuous practice of the Priscillianists.

For those who are in all things equals in the impiety of their senses cannot be dissimilar in their rites. Having therefore gone through all that the series of the document comprises, and from which the form of the memorandum does not differ, we have, as I think, sufficiently shown what we judge concerning these things which your fraternity has referred to us, and how intolerable it is if to such profane errors the hearts of certain priests also consent, or — to put it more mildly — do not resist. WITH WHAT CONSCIENCE do they claim for themselves the honor bestowed upon them, who labor not for the souls entrusted to them? The beasts rush in, and they close not the sheepfolds. Thieves lie in wait, and they set out no watch. Diseases grow rife, and they provide no remedies.