教宗書信集 第 1 章 第 27/50 段

According to this manner, therefore, the case of the children of such persons is likewise to be understood. This is consequently asserted in that place where the apostle says that, unless this sanctification came about between spouses of this kind, their children would be unclean, but now they are holy. For they are holy in a certain manner in comparison with those who are born of both parents enslaved and defiled by diabolical uncleanness. For these children, from that part in which they have sprung from the holy flesh of a faithful parent — a temple of God, bearing the one God in his heart — have drawn something of the divine blessing; in which blessing holiness is contained, and being touched by its favor they are not undeservedly called holy.

Through this indeed they both receive the grace of sanctification, and, in order that they may attain to obtain it as is fitting, they now receive its first rudiments through the faithful parent and recognize the fragrance of holy knowledge. By the prayers of the Christian parent, in which divine mercy is without ambiguity implored for them, sanctification is already offered; and very often, through the faithful parent's zeal, the little ones are either carried to venerable places, or even, being reborn at the font of baptism without their own awareness, full sanctification is conferred on them; or, where they have now become capable of reason, it is instilled by the exhortation and instruction of the devout parent.

That all these are instruments of sanctification is manifest — by which they either come to its firmness, or, if they despise these things, they strip themselves of sanctification and evidently make void the grace of God which is instilled into them through the parent's affection, and thus, cut off from the holy — that is, from the trainings of holiness — they are reduced into the profane company of the unholy. Concerning whom nonetheless it may be said just as was commanded concerning their unfaithful parents: If the unbeliever wishes to depart, let him depart. Are these kinds of holiness or sanctification, then, in any way imparted to children begotten of both parents being profane? Behold, what difference there is between offspring procreated of the one marriage or of the other:

Behold, in what manner these are familiar and near to those who are sanctified, and therefore are not undeservedly brought forth holy; and for whom divine mercy is consequently implored by his prayers, and who are imbued with holy upbringings and initiated by the affection of sacred religion. If they attain to its firmness, they obtain through the sacrament the fullness of that sanctification whose rudiments they had received through the faithful parent even before the sacrament — through which rudiments those who were being prepared by holy instruction have already, not incongruously, been called holy.

But because it was said that the unfaithful spouse is sanctified through the faithful one, was it so said that he now has no need of the sanctification of his own belief? Or rather is it not said the more for this reason: that through that intimacy of the faithful spouse he is made near and close to the sanctification he is to receive? For if he were already said to be sanctified, so that he had no need at all of sanctification, then it would not be said of the same person in what follows: If the unbeliever wishes to depart, let him depart.

So therefore their children too are called holy, because through the affection of the holy parent they are near to a holiness that is to be received — not that they themselves have no need of their own sanctification, which surely, as no Christian doubts, is neither received nor possessed without the mystery of sacred regeneration. Just as their unfaithful parent is said to be sanctified through the faithful one in such a way that, nevertheless, if he himself has not received the lawful effect of the sanctification instilled into him through the faithful spouse, he is called unfaithful. As therefore he whom he called sanctified through the faithful spouse he afterwards names unfaithful — because he himself, or she herself, did not properly believe — so also the children.

Those who, sanctified through the faithful parent in the same manner as the spouse, have been called holy — unless they themselves too properly believe, they consequently turn out to be unfaithful. For it sufficiently appears that this sanctification was in a certain manner attributed to the spouse who is afterwards asserted to be unfaithful: so therefore it is to be understood also concerning the children.

Does then the offspring of the profane in this way — a matter which must often be repeated — touch upon any holiness of this kind by any portion derived from either parent, or take up by any such disciplines, prayers, exhortations of some person, participation or knowledge or hearing or instruction of holiness, that offspring which, remaining under the dominion of unclean spirits and enslaved to diabolical transgressions and contagions, is in this manner always unclean, just as the parents are, so long as it remains in the same perversity? But very often, too, by anticipation — a thing which is more frequently found in the text of Holy Scripture — that is already said to be which is yet to come, as we read in the Gospel:

that Jesus was about to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but that He might gather together in one the children of God who were scattered abroad — assuredly already naming them children of God who were as yet to be renewed by the diffused calling of grace throughout the world, through the sacred mysteries, and to be adopted into the children of God. Or, when it is said: Blessed are they that have not seen and have believed, they were already called blessed who were as yet then going to be blessed, when they, who had not seen, were going to believe. Just as very often, too, things yet to be done are reported as already done, as: They have pierced my hands and my feet.

Likewise, something is determined as though to be done which, some cause intervening, is not to be done — as the blessed apostle professes, out of devotion to the preaching enjoined upon him, that he will go to Spain, which nevertheless, by the sure dispensation of the Deity, did not come to pass that it should be done. Again, when something is called to exist which has ceased to be, or is about to cease to be, that very thing which is said — as Judas the apostle, who by his prevarication lost that which he was called: just as he was likewise called a disciple, though indeed he was not a disciple of Christ but rather of the devil, as it was said of him: One of you is a devil, because he was a worker of the devil; yet he was called a disciple, even though he was not a true one and was about to cease to be so called.

There is also that manner in which something is often said as though generally and absolutely, when nevertheless it is manifest that it does not pertain generally to all — as when it is said to Abraham: In your seed shall all nations be blessed. All nations indeed shall be blessed, nor shall there be any nation under heaven to which the Gospel is not preached, and then shall the end come; yet those nations shall not all without exception be blessed, because faith is not of all. Or as it is: Let every tongue confess to God. To which manner of speaking that sense is connected in which a whole is often named for a part, as also then, the man Judas, when he would beyond doubt name the whole nation.

So also those children can be seen to have been called holy because many or very many of them, imbued through the things which have been said with the heavenly mysteries, will be made holy, and they have deservedly already been said to be that which they are to be; or from that portion by which, through the religious parent, they were partakers of holiness, they have been called holy as though they were already so in full; or because from such children many were to be heirs of full sanctification, these too have already been named from what they were to be; and, although very many of them perhaps were not to be so, from the part of the holy the whole are generally called holy.

But concerning the quality of the resurrection, or concerning what form is to be after the resurrection, let us hear the apostle preaching, where he says: But some man will say, How do the dead rise again? and with what manner of body shall they come? And refuting the diffidence of the human mind, deservedly calling it foolish because it should judge anything impossible to God, that illustrious teacher fittingly introduces a magnificent likeness and comparison, familiar from visible things and human dealings, saying: Foolish man (you who reckon these things impossible to God, or doubt they are to be done), that which you sow is not quickened unless first it die. Which likeness he fittingly adapted to the resurrection of the body to come after death.

Then, what he added following on: And that which you sow, you sow not the body that shall be, but bare grain, as of wheat or of the rest; but God gives it a body as He wills — here he took care to apply the kind of comparison to the quality and form which is to be after the resurrection. As He wills, he says: what do you still seek? As God shall have willed, so will He give to each a body, raised up by ineffable power. But perhaps you may suppose that thereby it is rather signified that not each one's own body is properly to be restored to him, since it is asserted that it is to be restored as God shall have willed.

Attend then carefully to the meaning of him who handles these matters more fully, if you try to know what manner of body God is to restore to each one, this very body, as He shall have willed; and weigh the words of the apostle as though even then answering you on these points. You desire to know what kind of body He is to give to the risen, as God shall have willed: recognize it prudently — And to each of the seeds its own body — which surely the man full of God does not append without cause, save that he might drive away future doubts of men of this kind. Hear, I say, what he wisely added, and from the likeness recognize the very thing to which it is compared. And to each of the seeds, he says, its own body:

if in the likeness there is a proper body, then also in the reality of which it is the likeness it is certain that a proper body is to be restored; for he has without controversy compared these seeds to men, of whose death and resurrection he was assuredly speaking; and therefore, joining single things to single, as far as pertained to the quickening of bodies after death, he wondrously set it forth by the singular comparison of a grain not quickened before it has died. Thereafter, with what kind of body each one should be reckoned to be about to come after the resurrection — that is, whether in this condition which he had borne in dying, or in one far better — he made plain nonetheless by that same likeness, which, following on, he set forth:

And you, that which you sow, you sow bare grain, as of wheat or of some of the rest, and God gives it a body as He wills. In this form, therefore, he clearly expressed that God gives the body more comely than it had perished, as is said in what follows: It is sown in corruption, it rises in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it rises in glory; it is sown in weakness, it rises in power; it is sown a natural body, it rises a spiritual body. Behold in what manner it is not this which is sown of the dying man that is the body to be hereafter; behold, as God wills, He is understood to reform for the risen a body after death, when by the inestimable will of His mercy that which had been sown in corruption

He restores in incorruptible nobility; that which had been laid to rest in the dishonor of its earthly condition, He raises up again in heavenly glory; that which had been dissolved in the weakness of mortality, He restores whole, clothed in the beauty of immortality; finally, that which had died a natural body, He restores and reforms a spiritual body. All of which look to a state of betterment and exaltation; but that part which remains, of the comparison joined on, is affirmed to pertain specifically to the rendering back of the proper body to each one, whereby it is consequently said: And to each of the seeds its own body — where it sufficiently appears that in whatever brightness of the risen, the proper identity of the body is to abide. Nor is it idle that the blessed apostle,

since he was speaking of the human race alone (which alone is assuredly to be raised, nor is any other substance whatsoever to be adorned with this gift), and therefore it would have sufficed, for the one race of men, to apply one kind of seed by way of comparison, through which he might fully teach both that it is not quickened before it dies and that it rises up a more honorable body than was sown:

but in order to assert that the proper body of each sex is to be renewed — which, in one kind of seed, as far as regarded the likeness, it did not have — lest thereby he should be thought to have signified that only one kind of bodies was to be raised, with the distinction of properties removed, he cautiously and fittingly judged that distinct kinds of seeds should also be applied to his comparison, so that the property of the bodies which, as has been said, one kind could not distinguish, the diversity of seeds might indicate, and might fully supply to the comparison the means by which, for designating the specificity of the bodies, it might most fittingly be said, And to each of the seeds its own body; so that what one kind of any grain, with its sex distinct — which it has none — could not intimate, for expressing the property of the bodies, as has already often been said,

the diversity of seeds might furnish understanding. There is therefore in this comparison a threefold proposition, discussion, and definition; and as far as pertains to understanding the bodily resurrection, from the likeness of a grain not quickened before it has died, a fitting and sufficient likeness has been drawn. But as far as concerns this — that it is not that body which is sown that shall be, but God gives it a body as He wills — in the continuance of the same reading the cause is of necessity disclosed why the corruptible body sown is declared to be about to return incorruptible, and the rest which are proved to cohere with this sense.

But as far as regards the teaching of the property of the bodies, it is most fully declared that the blessed apostle, by no means content with the comparison of one seed — through which he could not show the property of the bodies, since one kind of seed, as was mentioned above, did not possess it — was zealous to show from the diversity of seeds that to each of the risen, who are surely compared to seeds, its own body is to be rendered. Men, therefore, quickened after death, shall rise again — men who are surely compared to seeds first dying and afterwards to be quickened;

and it is not this that they rise, that which they die — that is, as it were, that which is sown — but God gives them a body as He wills, so that it becomes from corruptible incorruptible, from mortal immortal, from natural spiritual; so that what had been discolored by the condition of death may be restored comely in immortal wholeness. And they shall without doubt receive a proper body, as each of the seeds — which, because it could not be represented for a diverse sex in one seed, has been conveyed from the diversity of seeds, so that from the diversity of seeds the property of the bodies might be signified;

but if each risen person shall receive his proper body, it undoubtedly follows that to each sex its proper body is reformed, because, as has been said, to each of the seeds its own body is restored and assigned; and if to each of the seeds its own body is restored — by which seeds every kind of man in both sexes is designated — it follows that every kind of mankind, which is designated in both sexes by these seeds, shall have its proper body. These things it is right for us to measure with sober consideration from the words of the apostle, rather than to burst forth beyond them with the rash curiosity of transgressors. On which account we are also admonished: Seek not the things that are too high for you, and search not into things too strong for you; and:

Be not high-minded, but consenting to the humble. Finally, attending to that which was confirmed also by apostolic preaching: That eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for those who love Him. Whoever is not content with the understanding or comparison of the apostle's meaning mentioned above, is at least certainly constrained, will he or nill he, without doubt to this: that those things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor entered into the heart of man, he should presume to fashion for himself by some kind of imagining.

As though indeed any members of the human body had been created blameworthy or unseemly or reprehensible — whereas God made all things very good, and each kind sustained in its own genus by a fitting comeliness — except that these members which are called our unseemly parts had been discolored by the excess of primordial concupiscence. For they had assuredly been so instituted that, serving at the beck of the human mind, they should discharge their functions solely at the choice of the rational soul, for the sake of procreating offspring; but apart from this cause they should bring nothing against the mind's command, neither by anticipating the will too insolently, nor, when the will should demand it, offering any rebellion.

But after the soul did not remain subject to its own superiors, its pride was punished by the same law of rebellious nature in itself, so that consequently obediences should resist this dominion also — that is, the dominion of the soul; and that which the disobedient appetite of the human mind had contracted by the presumption of the forbidden thing, it should manifest in that part of the body through which, beyond doubt, the corrupt generation of a degenerate, discolored, and proud root was to be propagated.

For assuredly, if here below these members had not been defiled by this disorder, they could have persisted—even in an earthly body, without doubt—as gracefully as they are honourable and modest, simply for the propagation of the human race; how much more, then, must we believe that in the spiritual body these can subsist ineffably more becomingly, especially since they will discharge no function of generation in that everlasting glory, but will remain there for this purpose alone, that their appearance and form may not be lacking, so that no other form than the human—to which resurrection is promised—may be judged to have been raised again, and that there may be nothing which does not endure in the perfect resurrection of the flesh, nor another kind seem to be raised up than that which the features of entire human flesh mark out?

But whoever perhaps is unwilling to weigh these matters by sober reason, willing or unwilling—as has been said—either let him return to that higher word, that what eye has not seen nor ear heard, and what has not entered into the heart of man, he should not reckon to be scrutinized; or, if he strives to burst out beyond it, let him himself behold the precipice of his own rashness.

Moreover, that the members of human substance were created honourable, this very fact also admonishes us: that when our first parents were naked in paradise, they had in these nothing of shame, whence after sin, and after the poison of concupiscence had entered, they were confounded by the disordered disturbance of their own bodies. And therefore it appears plainly enough that, if, though placed in that felicity of paradise yet constituted in an earthly body, they could be beheld without shame, much more in the spiritual body and in that sublime blessedness which is to bear the likeness of the angels—and that, so that nothing may be lacking to man in the resurrection of the flesh, he may be restored entire; and lest the Creator seem to have made anything deformed if aught be withdrawn from the resuscitated body, His work may rather be commended thereby as good, so that His creation may remain also in the beauty of that glory.

Unless perhaps these men suppose that even there bodily impulses will arise, where, as the Lord Himself says, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels. And surely, if all were to be raised in one appearance of body and one sex, there would have been no reason at all why this should be said. Nay rather, since to marry is more fitting for the female sex, it is indicated that there it will not be absent but shall wholly cease from nuptials. But since it is nonetheless written, that each one may receive the proper things of the body which he has done, whether good or evil—how shall this come to pass, unless each sex undergo either judgement or receive the reward of a blessed resurrection in the propriety of its own body?

But they are deceived who think that testimony of the Apostle supports them, whereby they seem to assert that all men are to be raised in a masculine form, where he says: until we all meet in one perfect man. What then will they do, when the same Apostle says again: I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you a chaste virgin to Christ?—which will assuredly be, beyond doubt, contrary to this opinion of theirs, unless, the mystery being duly examined, they recognize with a modest mind how each of the two agrees. What therefore this means, that the Church is described in both sexes, we will expound, so far as we perceive by the Lord's disclosure. From the beginning Holy Scripture testifies that Christ and the Church were signified in human flesh by the likeness of wedlock.

Accordingly, when the Church is reckoned under the female sex, the weakness indeed of the human condition is shown, which is fittingly expressed as it were in the Church, the spouse of Christ; but under the name of virginity or continence there is intimated her purpose, or the integrity of faith, concerning which the blessed Apostle himself also discourses. But when it is said:

until we all meet in the perfect man, this is neither diverse nor divided, since whatever is contained in the body of the Church—which is one flesh with Christ—by the law of the sacred wedlock is also His flesh, in all ways to be brought about in either sex; for what has been said, whether there a chaste virgin or here a perfect man, is that they may thus be those who live in the inviolate faith of the Catholic Church and are continent in a holy purpose, although still set in the weakness of the human condition, yet so that, through the one flesh of the Church and of Christ—that is, of spouse and husband—they may receive in Him also the masculine firmness and perfect vigour, by which, through the virgin chastity of the Church's faith, which is one flesh with the same Christ, they too become perfect members of the man.

Here too those words of the blessed Apostle Paul must be treated, in which he says: we were all baptized into one body in Christ. So far indeed as pertains to the unity of the sacrament, we are one body in Christ; but as regards the diversity of the sexes, he himself says elsewhere: whether male or female, we are all one in Christ. For with His whole body, which is His fullness, Christ is perfect; and therefore, because through one and the same mystery, though of diverse sex, His one body is nevertheless received, through the fullness of which body Christ is perfect.

Since therefore the man Christ is to the Church, as it were His spouse, both head and virtue and perfection, deservedly is the whole Church declared to meet in this one perfect man, whose one flesh she is. (98.) LETTER OF POPE GELASIUS TO BISHOP HONORIUS. To his most beloved brother Honorius, Gelasius. Although, entangled by continual occupations amid the various difficulties of the times, we can scarcely draw breath, yet for the governance of the Apostolic See we handle without ceasing the care of the whole Lord's flock, which was committed to blessed Peter by the voice of our very Saviour: And thou, being converted, confirm thy brethren; and likewise: Peter, lovest thou me?

Feed my sheep!—we can neither dissemble nor ought we, when a matter constrains our solicitude, feeling and saying with the blessed Apostle Paul: Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I burn not? For indeed a sad, dreadful, and scarcely credible report has suddenly overwhelmed us, so as to confound, wound, and pierce our mind. For it has been announced to us that in the regions of the Dalmatias certain men have sown the recurring tares of the Pelagian pestilence, and that their blasphemy so prevails there that they deceive the simple by the insinuation of a deadly frenzy. It is indeed a wicked error, the more pernicious for creeping in, the more cunning it is for deceiving by a colour of verisimilitude.

Yet, the Lord standing by, the pure truth of the Catholic faith is at hand, drawn forth from the concordant judgements of all the Fathers, which both exposes the subtle poison of that deadly wickedness and confers upon the human race, for its salvation, medicine from the composing of the Scriptures. Let not, therefore, the discernment of things, not yet in abundance, disturb hearts in any way, until both the hidden wound may appear and singular salvation shine forth: for however great the art with which the spirit of perdition is armed with fallacy, by the holy sword of the chief Spirit it is both uncovered and slain.

Wherefore, through your charity we admonish with brotherly affection all the Lord's priests there, that you who, with the Lord instructing you, fight against these new-fangled errors, ought not so much as by hearing to admit a perversity long ago condemned throughout the whole world. But if it is rashly thought that this must be done, what heresy, fitly extinguished by our forefathers, would dare to provoke us again and, its strength openly resumed anew, contend in the open? Is it indeed permitted to us to dissolve what has been condemned by the venerable Fathers, and to reconsider the abominable dogmas cut off by them?

What is it, then, that we take great pains to guard against, lest the pernicious mischief of any heresy, once cast down, strive to come to examination anew, if we strive to restore what were of old recognized, discussed, and refuted by our forefathers? Do we not ourselves—which be far from us, and which the Catholic Church will never suffer—set before all the enemies of truth an example of rising up again against us? Where is that which is written: Thou shalt not transgress the bounds of thy fathers; and, Ask thy fathers, and they will declare unto thee, and thine elders, and they will tell thee? Why then do we reach beyond the definitions of our forefathers? or why does it not suffice us, if we desire to learn something we do not know,

namely, how by the orthodox Fathers and elders each several thing was either enjoined to be avoided or to be fitted to Catholic truth? Why are not the decrees proved by these? Are we perhaps wiser than they, or shall we be able to stand with firm stability, if we undermine those things which were established by them? Or are you perhaps ignorant that this heresy, of which we speak, was long ago laid low by the Apostolic See through Innocent of blessed memory, and thereafter through Zosimus, Boniface, Celestine, Sixtus, and Leo, by continual and unceasing sentences, and was condemned not only by the laws of the Catholic Church but also by those of the Roman princes, to such effect that its followers were suffered nowhere on earth to have a place to live?