講道與書信 第 182 章

It must therefore be taken care of, and provided for with the utmost sacerdotal diligence, that false codices, at variance with the sincere truth, be held in no use of reading. The apocryphal Scriptures, which under the names of the apostles contain the seeds of many falsehoods, are not only to be prohibited, but even to be utterly 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 free from poisons; and through the allurements of fables they secretly work this: that, having seduced men by the narration of marvels, they may entangle them in the snares of any and every error.

Hence, if any of the bishops shall not have forbidden apocryphal books to be held, or shall have permitted those books to be read in the Church under the name of canonical codices which are corrupted by the adulterous emendation of Priscillian, let him know that he is to be judged a heretic: since he who does not recall others from error shows that he himself errs. CHAPTER II.—Now all divine Scripture of the holy Canon is read in the Church of St. Peter from the beginning of the year until its end in this order. In the time of spring, that is, seven days before the beginning of Lent until the eighth day before Easter, are read the five books of Moses, together with Joshua the son of Nun, and Judges. And in the seven days before Easter, the book of the prophet Isaiah—whence he comes to the Passion of Christ (so the codex)—and the Lamentations of Jeremiah.

But in the days of Easter are read the epistles of the apostles and the Acts of the Apostles and the Apocalypse until Pentecost. In the summer time, the books of Kings and of Chronicles until the middle of autumn, that is, the fifteenth day before the Kalends of November; then the books of Solomon, and of the Women, and of the Maccabees, and the book of Tobit until the Kalends of December. But before the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel until the Epiphany. Afterwards indeed Ezekiel, and the Minor Prophets, and Job until the Ides of February. The Psalms at all times. The Gospel and the Apostle likewise. But the treatises of the holy Jerome, of Ambrose, and of the other Fathers are read as the order requires.

The letter of Turribius of Astorga to the bishops Idatius and Ceponius, which Quesnel published among the Leonine letters after Leo's letter to Turribius, Stephen Baluze (see vol. IV of the Councils, page 731) and some others call into suspicion. But the antiquity of the codex of St. Aemilianus sufficiently vindicates it—the codex from which it was first brought forth by Ambrose Morales—as we shall show at greater length in the observations on note 8 of Quesnel on letter 15 of St. Leo to Turribius. But the other objections which could be brought forward are easily refuted, so that we may believe this letter, no less than the little book against the Priscillianists—which is recognized to have been sent together with this letter to the bishops Idatius and Ceponius—to have been written by Turribius before his episcopate.

Hence these same Idatius and Ceponius are perceived to be bishops older than Turribius: whence Idatius, at the year 445, names himself before Turribius. But the same little book, together with the same letter prefixed to it, seems afterwards to have been sent to Leo, so that from this letter the holy Pontiff, perceiving the antiquity and merit of Idatius and Ceponius, judged them at the end of letter 15 to be most fitting men who might add more effective assistance to the younger bishop Turribius, so that a synod of Galicia might be convened against the Priscillianists.