Sermons & Letters 82 part 3/4

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.

But when they also add this — that they refuse to consent to those who act more solicitously, and dissemble as to anathematizing by their own subscriptions the impieties long ago condemned throughout the whole world — what do they wish to be understood concerning themselves, except that they are not of the number of the brethren, but of the party of the enemies? CHAP. XVII. Whether the flesh of Christ truly rested in the sepulchre. — But as to that which you set down in the last part of your familiar letter, I marvel that the understanding of any catholic should labor, as though it were uncertain whether, when Christ descended to hell, His flesh rested in the sepulchre — which, as it truly both died and was buried, so it was truly raised up on the third day. For this the Lord Himself had announced, saying to the Jews:

Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up (John 2:19). Where the evangelist adds: But He spoke of the temple of His body (Ibid., 21). The truth of which thing the prophet David also had foretold, speaking in the person of the Lord the Savior, and saying: Moreover my flesh also shall rest in hope. For Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor wilt Thou give Thy Holy One to see corruption (Ps. 16:9, 10). By which words, assuredly, it is manifest that the flesh of the Lord both truly, being buried, rested, and underwent no corruption: because, swiftly quickened by the return of the soul, it rose again.

Not to believe this is impious enough, and that it pertains to the doctrine of Manichaeus and Priscillian is not doubtful — who with sacrilegious sense so feign to confess Christ that they take away the truth of the Incarnation, and of the death, and of the resurrection. Let there be held, therefore, among you an episcopal council, and let the priests of the neighboring provinces convene at that place which is convenient for all, so that, according to these things which we have answered to your consultations, it may be inquired by the fullest examination whether there be any among the bishops who are polluted by the contagion of this heresy; who are without doubt to be separated from communion, if they refuse to condemn this most nefarious sect through all the perversities of its senses.

For by no reason is it to be tolerated that he who has undertaken the office of preaching the faith should dare to dispute against the Gospel of Christ, against apostolic doctrine, against the Creed of the universal Church. What kind of disciples will there be, where such masters teach?

WHAT religion of the people will there be there, what salvation of the common folk, where against human society the sanctity of modesty is done away, the covenant of marriages is taken away, the propagation of generation is hindered, the nature of the flesh is condemned; while against the true worship of the true God the Trinity of the Godhead is denied, the propriety of the persons is confounded, the soul of man is proclaimed to be the divine essence, and the same is enclosed in flesh at the will of the devil; while the Son of God is proclaimed only-begotten by that whereby He was born of the Virgin, not by that whereby He was born of the Father; and the same is asserted to be neither a true offspring nor the true birth of the Virgin, so that through a false passion and an untrue death a lying resurrection also of the flesh resumed from the sepulchre is held?

But in vain do they use the catholic name, who resist not these impieties. THEY CAN believe these things, who can patiently listen to such things. We have therefore sent letters to our brethren and fellow-bishops, the Tarraconenses, the Carthaginenses, the Lusitani, and the Gallici, and have proclaimed to them a council of a general synod.

It will pertain to the solicitude of your love that the authority of our ordinance be conveyed to the bishops of the aforesaid provinces. But if anything — which God forbid — should stand in the way, so that a general council cannot be celebrated, let the priests of Gallicia at least convene into one place; for gathering whom our brethren Idatius and Ceponius will press on, your own instance being joined with theirs, so that the more speedily, even by a provincial assembly, a remedy may be brought to so great wounds. Given on the twelfth of the Kalends of August, Calepius and Ardabur, most illustrious men, being consuls. CHAP. I. — Wearisome always and unpleasant is that journeying which hard labors bring about, and the tearful cares of necessities.

Yet it has something of help, since, by approaching things unknown, or by learning things not previously known, we are increased by a certain advancement of mind; for the most part coming to know that those things which among us seemed best are depraved and most wretched, when a reckoning of better things is rendered to us. This has come to me by experience, who, in approaching diverse provinces, have found held in all the Churches which stand in the communion of unity — all the sects of errors being condemned — one and the same sense of the catholic faith, coming from the most pure fountain of truth: which, split into no divisions by many-branched rivulets, does not dissolve the level plains of the fields into miry chasms which would impede the straight path of faith.

But those whom the venom of depraved dogmas has infected, it either constrains, when corrected, to be reformed in the bosom of their pious parent, or, when obstinately contumacious, casts out from the fellowship of the holy inheritance, as it were abortive births and not legitimate offspring. CHAP. II. — Wherefore, having returned to my homeland after long spans of years, it seems to me hard enough that, of those traditions which the catholic Church long ago condemned, and which I believed to have been already abolished, I find nothing at all diminished. Nay, I even recognize that, according to each man's zeal and will, depraved dogmas sprout up, as it were with certain hydra-heads: since some have contributed to the old error the increments of their own blasphemies, while others retain it entire even until now;

while others still, whom the contemplation of truth in some part led back to a regard of themselves, retaining some of those notions, are entangled by the rest. This indeed, through the evils of our time, the assemblies and decrees of synods having ceased, has grown up more freely; and most impiously — which is worse than all — men convene at one altar with diverse senses of the faith. CHAP. III. — That I dare to speak these things, therefore, I confess to be rather of pious charity toward my homeland than of rash presumption. For otherwise, being full of all sins, and guilty of great crimes, with what audacity should I write these things to you — mindful of the Lord's voice, which says: In another's eye thou seest a mote, in thine own thou regardest not a beam (Matt. 7:3)?

Then, conscious of that sentence which admonished, saying: But to the sinner God hath said: Why dost thou declare My justices, and take My covenant in thy mouth (Ps. 50:16)? But again I look upon that which is written below: If thou didst see a thief, thou didst run with him; and with adulterers thou didst put thy portion (Ibid., 18). For neither are those alone thefts which are committed by the plundering of others' goods; nor those alone adulteries which we perpetrate by violating the affections of the marriage bed: but also, when the things that are true are subtracted, the assertion of perverse dogma commits a theft of the catholic faith, and against the truth of the word of God, by the adultery of evil doctrines, the seeds of tares are cast. Whether then I should speak, or be silent, I know not, for I dread both.

But lest perchance your holiness be ignorant of what evils and how great blasphemies are contained in the apocryphal books, which these homebred heretics of ours read in place of the holy Gospels, I believe myself to be guilty of a very great crime if I keep silent. Therefore this is not an exhortation by anyone's authority, but rather the instruction of a suggestion. CHAP. IV. — First, then, it is to lay open those things which I have come to know to be in the faith — or rather the faithlessness — of very many: which, when they are taught by many almost by public teaching, if any of the catholics somewhat more constantly, for the sake of demolishing it, resists the assertion, they at once deny it, and cover faithlessness with faithlessness.

That they may no longer do this — both with apocryphal writings, which they prefer to the canonical books as though secret and hidden, and which they receive with the greatest veneration, and from those traditions which they read, and the sayings of their own authors, teaching that the things which are reproved in them are true; but some of those things which are in their doctrine are not contained in those apocryphal codices which I was able to read. Wherefore, whence they were brought forth I know not, unless perhaps where it is written, by those cavillings through which they falsely claim that the holy apostles speak, something is inwardly indicated which is rather to be disputed than read; or perhaps there are other books which are kept more hidden and secret, open only, as they themselves say, to the perfect. CHAP. V.

— But this is especially to be noted and execrated above the rest, in those Acts which are called those of St. Thomas: that it says he did not baptize by water, as the Lord's preaching indeed holds, but by oil alone: which these men of ours do not receive [perhaps read: begin to receive], but the Manichaeans follow. Which heresy, which uses the same books, and follows the same dogmas and worse than these, being so execrable to all throughout all lands, ought to be condemned at the first confession of its profession, without even being examined; since through its authors, or through its chief prince Manes and his disciples, it is manifest that all apocryphal books are either composed or infected: but especially those Acts which are called those of St. Andrew;

or those which are called those of St. John, which the sacrilegious Leucius wrote with impious mouth; or those which are called those of St. Thomas, and things like these: out of which the Manichaeans and Priscillianists, or whatever sect is akin to them, strive to confirm all their heresy; most of all out of that most blasphemous book which is called the Memory of the Apostles, in which, for the great authority of their perversity, they falsely ascribe the Lord's teaching, which destroys the whole law of the Old Testament, and all the things which were divinely revealed to St. Moses concerning the diverse things of the creature and their makers; besides the remaining blasphemies of the same book, which it wearies me to recount. CHAP. VI.

— But as it is not doubtful that those marvels and mighty works which are written in the apocrypha either are, or could have been, those of the holy apostles; so it is agreed that those disputations and assertions of evil senses were inserted by heretics. Out of which writings I have set forth diverse testimonies, full of all blasphemies, ascribed under their own headings; to which also, as I was able, according to the quality of my understanding, I have replied. CHAP. VII. — Which I had need to make known to your ears somewhat more at large, so that henceforth no one, as though ignorant of the matters, may say that he simply either possesses or reads books of this kind.

But it will belong to your estimation and censure deservedly to weigh all things, and, those things which without ambiguity you shall see to be contrary to truth and faith, together with your other brethren — whomever the zeal of the catholic religion or a pious study shall have associated with you — to cut off that excuse with spiritual joy, and to restrain them by the fiery power of the divine word. TO ALL THE BISHOPS APPOINTED THROUGHOUT SICILY. SYNOPSIS (from Dionysius Exiguus). — I. That baptism is forbidden to be celebrated on the day of Epiphany. — II. That all the sacraments of our salvation have been arranged for us in due order of things through the Incarnation of our Lord. — III.

That in baptism death comes about by the slaying of sin, and that the threefold immersion imitates the three-day burial, and that the raising up from the waters is as it were a resurrection from the tomb. IV. That the blessed Peter, on the day of Pentecost, baptized three thousand men. V. That only two seasons, that is, Easter and Pentecost, have been appointed by the Roman pontiffs for baptizing. VI. That at every season those who are pressed by the necessity of death (that is, by sickness, siege, persecution, or shipwreck) ought to be baptized. VII. That from Sicily three bishops each year are to be joined to Rome, and are to attend the synod without dissembling (concerning bishops, on the third day before the Kalends of October).

Leo the bishop, to all the bishops established throughout Sicily, greeting in the Lord. By the divine precepts and the apostolic admonitions we are urged to keep watch with untiring affection for the state of all the Churches, so that if anything anywhere is found liable to reproach, we may recall it with swift solicitude, whether from the inexperience of ignorance or from the usurpation of presumption. For while the command of the Lord's voice abides, by which the most blessed apostle Peter is imbued with the mystical sanction through a threefold repetition of the question, that he who loves Christ should feed Christ's sheep, we are constrained by reverence for that very See over which by the abundance of divine grace we preside, so that, as far as we are able, we may avoid the peril of sloth:

lest the profession of the chief Apostle, by which he testified that he was a lover of the Lord, should not be found in us; because he who negligently feeds the flock so often commended to him is convicted of not loving the supreme Shepherd (John 21:7). Chapter I. That baptism is to be celebrated not at Epiphany but at the feast of Easter. Since, then, being solicitous with fraternal affection concerning the deeds of your charity, it has become known to me by sure indications that you, in that which is chief among the sacraments of the Church, differ from the custom of apostolic institution, so that you celebrate the sacrament of baptism more numerously on the day of Epiphany than at the paschal season;

I marvel that you, or your predecessors, could have taken up so unreasonable a novelty, that, confusing the mystery of both seasons, you believed there to be no difference between the day on which Christ was adored by the Magi and the day on which Christ rose from the dead. Which fault you could in no way have fallen into, if from the source whence you receive the consecration of your honor, thence you had also taken the law of all your observance: and if the See of the blessed apostle Peter, which is to you the mother of your priestly dignity, were the mistress of ecclesiastical reason. To have departed from her rules could be tolerated with less equanimity, if some rebuke of our admonition had preceded it. But now, because correction is not despaired of, gentleness must be preserved.

And although in priests an excuse that pleads ignorance ought scarcely to be admitted, we prefer nonetheless both to temper the necessary censure and to instruct you by the reasoning of the most manifest truth. Chapter II. On preserving the distinction of seasons and mysteries. Indeed, in the eternal counsel of God there always abode the restoration of the human race, immutably foreordained; but the order of things to be accomplished in time through Jesus Christ our Lord took its beginning in the Incarnation of the Word. Hence there is one time at which, at the angel's annunciation (Luke 1:26), the blessed Virgin Mary believed and conceived that she should be made fruitful through the Holy Spirit;

another, at which, with virginal integrity preserved, the child was brought forth and, with the exulting joy of the heavenly ministers, was announced to the shepherds (Luke 2:7); another, at which the infant was circumcised (ibid. 21); another, when the legal sacrifice was offered for him; another, when the three Magi, drawn by the brightness of a new star, came from the East to Bethlehem (Matt. 2:11), and venerated the adored little one with the mystical offering of gifts. Nor are those the same days on which he was withdrawn from the impious Herod by a removal into Egypt divinely arranged (ibid. 15), and those on which, the persecutor being dead, he was recalled from Egypt into Galilee (ibid. 20). Now amid these varieties of dispensations, bodily increases were added:

the Lord increased, as the evangelist testifies, in the advancement of age and grace (Luke 2:52); on the days of the Passover he came with his parents to the temple in Jerusalem (ibid. 41); and when he was absent from the company of those returning, he was found sitting with the elders, disputing among the wondering teachers, and giving the reason for his remaining behind. 'What is it,' he said, 'that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be about the things that are my Father's?' (ibid. 49).

signifying that he was the Son of him whose the temple also was. But now, when, being to be more openly declared in his mature years, he sought the baptism of his forerunner John, what remained doubtful of his Deity, when, the Lord Jesus having been baptized, the Holy Spirit descended upon him in the form of a dove and remained, the Father's voice being heard from the heavens, saying: 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased' (Matt. 3:17; Luke 3:22; 9:35)? All these things we have touched upon with as much brevity as we could, so that it may be known to your love that all the days of Christ were consecrated by innumerable powers, and that in all his actions the mysteries of the sacraments flashed forth;

but that one thing is proclaimed by signs, another fulfilled in realities; and that not whatever things are recounted among the works of the Savior can pertain to the time of baptism. For if even those things which we have learned were done by the Lord after the washing of the blessed John we should honor with an undiscriminating honor, all seasons would have to be assigned to continuous feasts, since all are full of miracles. But because the Spirit of wisdom and understanding thus instructed the apostles and the teachers of the whole Church, that in Christian observance nothing disordered, nothing confused should be allowed to exist, the reasons of the solemnities must be discerned, and in all the institutions of our Fathers and chiefs a reasonable distinction must be preserved:

because we are not otherwise one flock and one shepherd, unless, as the Apostle teaches, we all say the same thing; and we are perfect in the same mind and in the same judgment (1 Cor. 1:10). Chapter III. Why baptism is administered only on the solemnity of Easter and Pentecost. Although, therefore, both those things which pertain to the humility and those which pertain to the glory of Christ concur in one and the same person, and the whole of whatever there is in him both of divine power and of human weakness tends to the effect of our restoration, yet properly in the death of the Crucified and in the resurrection of the dead does the power of baptism establish a new creature out of the old: so that in those being reborn both the death of Christ and his life may work, as the blessed Apostle says:

'Or do you not know that as many of us as have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? For we have been buried together with him through baptism into death: that as Christ rose from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life. For if we have been made conformed to the likeness of his death, we shall be so likewise of his resurrection' (Rom. 6:3-5); and the other things which the teacher of the Gentiles more fully discoursed in commending the sacrament of baptism:

so that it might appear from the spirit of this doctrine that, for the sons of men to be regenerated and to be adopted into sons of God, that day and that season is the chosen one, in which, through the likeness and the form of the mystery, those things which are done in the members should agree with those things which were done in the Head himself;

since in the rule of baptism both death intervenes by the slaying of sin, and the threefold immersion imitates the three-day burial, and the raising up from the waters is after the likeness of one rising from the tomb. The very nature of the work therefore teaches that the lawful day for celebrating grace in general is that on which both the power of the gift and the character of the action arose. To the confirmation of which matter it avails very much that the Lord Jesus Christ himself, after he had risen from the dead, delivered to his disciples, in whom all the prelates of the Churches were being instructed, both the form and the power of baptizing, saying: 'Going, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit' (Matt. 28:19).

Concerning which indeed he could have instructed them even before the Passion, had he not willed it to be properly understood that the grace of regeneration took its beginning from his resurrection. There is added, to be sure, to this observance also the hallowed solemnity of Pentecost from the coming of the Holy Spirit, which depends upon the article of the paschal feast. And whereas other feasts pertain to other days, this always falls upon that day which is marked by the resurrection of the Lord: extending, as it were, the hand of assisting grace, and inviting those whom, from the day of Easter, either the trouble of infirmity, or the length of a journey, or the difficulty of navigation shut out, so that, hindered by whatever necessities, they may obtain the effect of their desire by the gift of the Holy Spirit.