Sermons & Letters 82 part 4/4

For the Only-begotten of God himself willed there to be no distance between himself and the Holy Spirit in the faith of believers and in the power of works, because there is no diversity in nature, saying: 'I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth' (John 14:16). And again: 'But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and will bring to your mind whatsoever I shall have said to you' (ibid. 26). And again: 'When that Spirit of truth shall have come, he will guide you into all truth' (John 16:13).

Since therefore Christ is the truth, and the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, and the name of Paraclete is proper to each, the feast is not unlike where the sacrament is one. Chapter IV. That from the apostolic example baptism is celebrated at Pentecost. But that we defend this not from our own persuasion, but observe it from apostolic authority, we prove by a sufficiently fitting example, following the blessed apostle Peter, who on the very day on which the promised coming of the Holy Spirit filled the whole number of believers, consecrated by the washing of baptism a people of three thousand converted by his preaching. This the holy Scripture, which contains the acts of the apostles, teaches by a faithful history, saying:

'Having heard these things, they were pricked in their heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles: What shall we do, men and brethren? But Peter said to them: Do penance, and be baptized every one of you for the remission of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all that are far off, whomsoever the Lord our God shall have called. With very many other words also he testified, and exhorted them, saying: Save yourselves from this perverse generation. They therefore that received his word were baptized, and there were added on that day about three thousand souls' (Acts 2:37-41). Chapter V. That in a case of necessity baptism is to be administered at any time.

Since, therefore, it is most manifestly evident that these two seasons of which we have spoken are the lawful ones for those elect who are to be baptized in the Church, we admonish your love that you mingle no other days with this observance. Because, although there are also other feasts, on which much reverence is owed in honor of God, nevertheless the mystical and reasonable exception of the chief and greatest sacrament must be guarded by us — the liberty not being forbidden by which, in conferring baptism at any time whatever, aid is brought to those in peril.

For thus we defer the free vows of those who are in health and dwelling in the security of peace to these two festivities, connected and akin to one another, in such a way that in the peril of death, in the crisis of a siege, in the straits of persecution, in the fear of shipwreck, we at no time deny to anyone this singular safeguard of true salvation. Chapter VI. The mystery of Christ coming to the baptism of John. But if anyone thinks that the festivity of Epiphany, which in its own order is to be venerated with due honor, has for this reason the privilege of baptism, because some suppose this — that on that same day the Lord came to the baptism of holy John — let him know that the grace of that baptism was one thing, its rationale another;

nor did it pertain to that same power by which those are reborn through the Holy Spirit of whom it is said: 'Who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God' (John 1:13). For the Lord, needing no remission of sin, nor seeking the remedy of being reborn, willed to be baptized (Matt. 3:15) in the same way as he also willed to be circumcised, and to have a sacrifice of purification offered for himself: so that he who had been made of a woman, as the Apostle says, might also be made under the law (Gal. 4:4), which he had come not to loose but to fulfill (Matt. 5:17), and by fulfilling to bring to an end, as the blessed Apostle proclaims, saying: 'For the end of the law is Christ, unto justice to everyone that believeth' (Rom.

10:4). But he established the sacrament of his baptism in himself, because, holding the primacy in all things (Col. 1:18), he taught himself to be the beginning. And he then sanctioned the power of regeneration when from his side flowed forth the blood of redemption and the water of baptism (John 19:34). As therefore the old testament was the testimony of the new, and the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth was made through Jesus Christ (John 1:17): as the diverse sacrifices prefigured the one victim, and the slaying of many lambs was ended by the immolation of him of whom it is said: 'Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who taketh away the sin of the world' (John 1:29); so too John was not the Christ, but Christ's forerunner;

not the bridegroom, but the friend of the bridegroom, who was so faithful and sought not his own things but those which are Jesus Christ's, that he professed himself unworthy to loose the sandals of his feet (Matt. 3:11; Luke 3:16): since he indeed baptized in water unto penance, but the other was to baptize in the Holy Spirit and in fire (ibid.); who by a twofold power would both restore life and consume sins. Since, then, brethren most dear, these documents so many and so great exist, by which, all ambiguity being removed, you evidently recognize that, in baptizing the elect — who according to the apostolic rule are to be examined by exorcisms, and sanctified by fastings, and imbued with frequent preachings —

only two seasons, that is, Easter and Pentecost, are to be observed; this we enjoin upon your charity, that henceforth you depart from the apostolic institutions by no further excess. Because indulgence cannot be granted hereafter, if anyone shall have believed that the apostolic rules are in any point to be neglected. Chapter VII.

On the council to be celebrated at Rome each year. Wherefore we require this first of all, for the guarding of a most harmonious unity, that — since it has been most wholesomely established by the holy Fathers that there ought to be two assemblies of bishops in each year — three of you always, to be joined in fraternal council at Rome on the third day before the Kalends of October, attend without dissembling: since, by the help of the grace of God, it can more easily be provided that in the Churches of Christ no scandals and no errors arise, when in the presence of the most blessed apostle Peter these matters are always to be treated in common, so that all his ordinances, and the decrees of the canons, may remain inviolate among all the Lord's priests.

But these things, which by the Lord's inspiration we have thought fit to make known to you, we wish to come to your notice through our brethren and fellow-bishops Bacillus and Paschasinus. By their report let us learn how reverently the institutions of the apostolic See are kept by you. Given on the twelfth day before the Kalends of November, in the consulship of the most illustrious men Calepius and Ardabur. 1. Quesnel, who readily indulged in conjectures, took pains to bring the following letter under suspicion by several surmises, so that it might either be believed spurious — contrived with the design that certain estates of some Church wrongly sold off might be claimed back for it — or attributed to another Leo of a later age. And that assent might rather be given to this latter opinion,

this was the reason: that although he could obtain no manuscript copy of it (whence he was chiefly moved to doubt), yet a fragment of it, he says in his notes, is read in Gratian, part 12, question 2, chapter 52, where it is both ascribed to Leo — and the ancient editions of Gratian make this plain, though not the more recent ones. Tillemont, in note 9, volume 15, page 894, on Leo, called Quesnel's several conjectures to account and showed them to be inept; but of the manuscript codices he says not even a word. But we, who shall dissolve his weightier arguments in the annotations to be appended to the letter itself, have found most excellent and ancient codices which, beyond all conjecture, will vindicate this letter to our Leo without doubt. 2.

This letter, then, was preserved for us in eight collection-codices, of which we mention four: the most ancient Vatican 5845; Vallicellian A of the ninth century; a Vercelli codex sufficiently ancient; and Vatican 1353, which was copied from a most ancient Bergamo one. Now the author of this collection, who added to Dionysius very many quite rare documents, made use of another collection unknown to us, which ended at Gelasius and had been composed in the sixth century. For up to Gelasius the documents are added in a fairly congruous chronological order, which is an indication of an ancient collection carried forward to this very time; of which more will be said in the treatise on the ancient Collections of Canons and Constitutions, in volume III.

But that this letter belongs to Leo the Great is surely asserted in these codices, not only from the consulship which falls within Leo's pontificate, but also from the fact that it is written among fifteen other genuine letters of the same pontiff, so that to raise doubt about this one alone, without any sufficiently certain argument, would be rash enough. 3. Moreover, this same letter is found in the manuscript book Vatican 1343 of the tenth century, which belonged to the Church of Pavia, and also in Vatican Ottoboni 297, collection 23. There are added two authors older than Gratian, who inserted some things from this same letter into their own collections, namely Cardinal Deusdedit, book III, chapter 34, in the manuscript Vatican 3833, and St. Anselm, book V, chapter 69, and book VI, chapter

189, in several Vatican codices. Finally, to omit other testimonies, Gerhoh, provost of Reichersberg, at the beginning of the twelfth century, transcribed the whole letter from a German codex in his work On the Edifice of God, chapter 60, which was edited by P. Pez in the Thesaurus Anecdotorum, volume II, part II — whence a copy of this letter was found also in Germany. 4. Here, finally, it must be noted that Gerard Voss, provost of Tongeren, who first of all published this letter in print in the appendix to the Works of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, in the Mainz edition of the year 1604, made use of a codex of Cardinal Sirleto.

Now from the assemblage of the other monuments which he testifies he published from the same codex, and also from the peculiar title which he prefixed to this letter from the same manuscript, we gather that that codex was similar to the praised manuscript Vatican Ottoboni, collection 23. But the greater authority of the other codices which we have praised procures greater credit for the letter. The occasion of particular complaints imposes upon us a care for general provision, so that what has been wickedly done and unjustly presumed in two Churches of your province, we may, by a perpetual constitution, cut off from the usurpation of all bishops.

For the clerics of the Church of Taormina, bewailing its destitution, because the bishop was dissipating all its estates by selling, giving away, and alienating them in various ways; the clerics of Palermo too, for whom a prelate has lately been ordained, brought a similar complaint in the holy synod over which we presided, concerning the usurpation of the former bishop. Although, therefore, it has already been ordained by us in what manner the interests of both Churches may be provided for, nevertheless, lest this pernicious example of most wicked plunder become imitable to anyone hereafter, we wish this form of our precept to be perpetual with your love:

by which we decree without exception that no bishop dare either to give away, or to exchange, or to sell anything of his Church's goods; unless perhaps he does something of these in such a way that he provides for better things, and with the deliberation and consent of the whole clergy chooses that which is not doubtful to be about to profit the Church. For presbyters, or deacons, or clerics of whatsoever order, who have mingled their connivance in the Church's losses, let them know that they are to be deprived both of rank and of communion:

because it is full of justice, brethren most dear, that not only by the zeal of bishops, but also by that of the whole clergy, the increments of ecclesiastical usefulness should be preserved, and that the gifts of those should remain unimpaired who, for the salvation of their own souls, have bestowed their own substance upon the Churches. Given on the twelfth day before the Kalends of November, Calepius, most illustrious man, being consul.