講道與書信 第 206 章

1. The Manichaeans, after they had lost the houses in the city of Rome into which they had withdrawn, thought that they could obtain for themselves no other, more fortunate dwelling place, and with great ardour of spirit they desired to be able to bring themselves back from the exile which they were suffering. But since they greatly feared the zeal of the holy Supreme Pontiff Gelasius, with which he had proceeded against them and their books, it does not seem sufficiently consistent with the truth that they, having exhausted their punishments, resumed their standing here while he still held the reins of the supreme pontificate. Gelasius therefore closed his days in the year 496, and had Anastasius II as his successor. He, having spent two years in the pontificate, departed from this light, without anything of the sect of the Manichaeans then becoming known at Rome.

But things assuredly did not happen thus in the times of Pope Symmachus. He, when he had ascended the throne of St. Peter in the year of Christ 498, with a most grievous faction of the antipope Laurentius pressing upon him and relying on the authority and power of the emperor Anastasius, the Manichaeans—who in earlier times had twice been banished into exile—seized from that great schism the occasion of setting out again for Rome. For perhaps they judged that no other time more opportune could be offered to them than this. That is to say, when both the Church and the empire were split into two factions, neither the rigour of sacred ecclesiastical discipline nor the severity of the imperial laws could easily be advanced and enforced by the ministers of either the sacred or the civil authority.

This schism, then, was indeed most grievous, whereby the clergy and the senate were divided into two parts, one of which adhered to Laurentius, deacon of the Roman Church, who had occupied the basilica of St. Mary; the other, however, followed Symmachus himself, elected and ordained by lawful votes and sacraments in the Constantinian basilica. When the city of Rome, therefore, was tossed about by these most grievous disturbances, what wonder is it if the crafty Manichaean brood found an entrance for a third or fourth time to inhabit this City?

Indeed, a wider entrance was made for them when Pope Symmachus and his adversary Laurentius, having been summoned to Ravenna by Theodoric, the Arian king, were obliged to present themselves before him, so that he, appointed as a kind of arbiter of this schism and of these disturbances, might pass sentence upon them. Thus this shameful deed of that schism introduced into the Church a certain example of tyranny. For Symmachus, who could not be subject to the laws or decrees of secular princes in those matters which pertained to his lawful election, in order to forestall greater scandals, being compelled to submit to those afflicted times, submitted himself to the royal judgment and decree.

2. But now, that the gates of hell might not prevail against it, God Himself in wondrous ways came to the aid of equity and of the safety of His Church, and all the tumults of ambition and all the movements of that dreadful schism were brought to a fortunate and happy issue. For king Theodoric held to this opinion—one sufficiently consonant with the sacred canons—that of those two bishops the one who had been first ordained, or where the greater part should be recognized, he himself should sit upon the apostolic see. This at length (I use the words of the Pontifical Book) 'equity found in Symmachus, and the truth having been ascertained. And Symmachus was made prelate.'

Matters being thus disposed, Symmachus sets out for Rome, where, a synod having been assembled against the deacon Laurentius—who had attempted by a stealthy ordination to seize the Roman episcopate—moved by mercy, by the apostolic authority which he exercised, he released and absolved him from the canonical bonds by which he had bound himself, both on account of the attempted schism and on account of the unlawful ordination, and appointed him bishop in the city of Nuceria. Meanwhile, however, although the factions of that dreadful schism seemed almost lulled to sleep and abolished;

nevertheless, because the venom of hatred and envy had wounded the hearts of many clerics and of patrician men—most distinguished too on account of the consular dignity which they had held—and had secretly corrupted those same hearts more grievously, therefore the adversaries of Symmachus, now grown more audacious, in the course of time broke out into more savage seditions. Wherefore, four years having elapsed, with the faction of Festus and Probinus flaring up again against Symmachus, they charged him as though a criminal before that same king Theodoric, suborned false witnesses, secretly recalled the pseudo-pope Laurentius from the city of Nuceria so that he might set out for Rome, and, the earlier schism having been renewed and increased, they petitioned that same king to grant a visitation to the apostolic see;

thus, with seditions swelling day by day—both on account of the audacity of Peter, bishop of Altinum, who, relying solely on royal authority and power against the sacred canons, having undertaken a visitation, meddled in the affairs of the Roman see, and on account of the fury of the ex-consuls Festus and Probinus, who had set up a civil war within the City itself against the other senators, and especially against the ex-consul Faustus, who was hateful to them—a war whose slaughters and murders not even the clerics themselves could escape, since some of these, and even women and virgins dwelling in monasteries, were struck and wounded by blows, and priests at length, out of monstrous envy, were struck down and slain either with clubs or with the sword. 3.

That these things happened at Rome at the beginning of the sixth century, that is, in the year of Christ 502, the tables of the Ecclesiastical Annals make clear. At which time, indeed, it may be conjectured that the Manichaean brood, lurking here, never passed more joyful days than then, when ecclesiastical and civil affairs, turned upside down and disturbed, did not permit any attention to be paid to it. Yet that the joy of these men was soon turned into mourning and grief becomes known from the zeal of that same Symmachus. He, first having frustrated the attempts of king Theodoric and of his legate Peter of Altinum, then having cast out the invader of his see, gathered at Rome a council of one hundred and fifteen bishops, before which, presenting himself undaunted, he cleared himself of the crimes charged against him.

And the probity of the holy pontiff's life, the integrity of his morals, and his other virtues—which men powerless against envy and hatred audaciously assailed with calumnies—were, like gold that has been assayed, published abroad among all the nations everywhere in the world, with all upright men applauding. But this happy and just vindication of the holy pontiff was followed a little later by that other good; whereby, namely, the senators and the Roman people beginning gradually to abstain from slaughters, seditions, and rampages, peace and tranquillity shone upon the City and the Church.

But the deeds of Symmachus, and the various and many ways in which he was harassed both by king Theodoric and the emperor Anastasius, the Arians, and by other men of the ecclesiastical and civil service, I shall not recount, lest I seem to wander outside the stage and the scope we have set before ourselves.

This present discourse would surely be drawn out too far, if I were either to enumerate the calumnies with which Symmachus was accused, or to turn my speech to the six synods convened by him for the rights of his see, for the clearing of his own innocence, for the restoration and strengthening of the collapsing discipline of the Roman Church, and for driving far from the fellowship of Catholics all those heretics and schismatics who, defiled by the stain either of Arianism, or of Eutychianism, or finally of the Acephali, denied the doctrines of the true religion. For such matters do not pertain to the history of Manichaeism which we have undertaken to write—although in them many things occur which reveal and vindicate the supreme rights of the apostolic see.

It is of interest, therefore, at present only to report those things which, in the matter of which we are treating, make manifest the great fortitude of Symmachus's spirit. He, when he was pressed on all sides by the greatest calamities, could nevertheless be induced by no fear of the powers of the age to refrain from banishing from the City the Manichaeans lurking therein—whom the imperial authority patronized—and from destroying and burning their images and books. 'After all these things' (says the author of the Pontifical Book in the Life of Symmachus) 'blessed Symmachus found Manichaeans in the city of Rome, all of whose images and books he burned in a fire before the doors of the Constantinian basilica, and he consigned those men themselves to exile.' 4.

Meanwhile, upon these words, 'all the images,' our discourse ought to dwell, inasmuch as they indicate some new rite and custom of the Manichaeans which we have nowhere observed, and which no one hitherto of those who annotated the Lives of the Roman pontiffs has explained—which Beausobre dared to deny, as we saw in chapter 4 of this book. But if we were to consult especially Augustine alone, who described all Manichaean customs, we could at least obscurely conjecture that the Manichaeans employed profane signs and images to point out their rotten and fabulous inventions and their sacrilegious theology.

This above all could be indicated by those words of Augustine, in which he had called the base religion of the Manichaeans not a sect, but a schism of the pagans. Namely for this reason, that they agreed with the pagans in the more principal doctrine of those who assert many gods, but then dissented from the pagans in this, that they laid down as doctrine that good and evil, foul and splendid, perpetual and perishable, mutable and fixed, corporeal and divine, do not have one single principle. For Faustus objected this to Augustine as a Gordian knot, or an Achillean argument, so that he might not only reject that designation of pagan schismatics, but proclaim that they were far worse than the pagans.

But on the contrary, Augustine proved this assumption, harassing Faustus and the Manichaeans, because they sacrilegiously and superstitiously exhibited the worship of Divinity to the Sun and to the other signs of the heavens, or to Hyle, the Earth, and to a fabricated Atlas sustaining the world; they also adored those things which did not exist and which they falsely imagined to exist for themselves. Wherefore the holy doctor reasons thus from such rites and customs: 'Hence we say that you are worse than the pagans, similar to them only in this, that you worship many gods; but dissimilar to them in a worse respect, in that those pagans worship as gods those things which exist, but are not gods; whereas you worship those things which are neither gods nor anything at all, since they are utterly nothing.' Then the holy

doctor, adducing as an illustration some fables of the pagans invented by the poets for the sake of pleasure, briefly runs through those things which the pagans themselves tried to interpret with reference to the nature of things or to the morals of men—concerning lame Vulcan, blind Fortune, adulterous Venus, warlike Mars, and Cupid, a boy bearing the outstanding form of an archer—and concludes: 'This is what we mock in them, that they thus adore, badly interpreted, things which they do not understand; whereas they would adore them, though damnably, yet more excusably.' But Augustine asserted that something of all these things is to be found in reality, although they are of no use for the salvation and profit of men, and that those things which are interpreted from these are found in reality. 5.

These things, therefore, and many others of this kind, drawn from the fables of the pagan poets, Augustine there enlarges upon; and to these fictions he opposes the Manichaean doctrines, so as to conclude from them that this pestilent brood is worse than the sects of all nations. Among other things, moreover, those which he adds are of this sort: namely that invention whereby they describe the first of men as warring with the five elements; or that whereby they fabricated: a mighty spirit, out of the captive bodies of the race of darkness—or rather out of the members of your God, conquered and subjected—fashioning the world and splendidly holding it, having in his hand the remnants of those same members of your God, and lamenting all the rest as captured, oppressed, and defiled;

or finally the mighty Atlas bearing under his shoulders together with him that spirit, whom they fabulously devised, and trifled about beholding as though delineated on a theatrical tapestry. These things, I say, and innumerable others, equally silly and insane, Augustine testified that the Manichaeans set forth neither by painting or sculpting, nor by interpreting. But since those words seem very obscure, it will be too difficult to conjecture whether in the age of the holy doctor the Manichaeans made use of the aids of statues, paintings, or images, so that the minds of their elect and hearers might more easily imbibe these pernicious fables.

Or at least it will be altogether difficult to understand from the preceding testimonies this rite and custom of the Manichaeans in admitting images of the pagans. 6. Nevertheless, often revolving these and other things of this kind within ourselves, we have judged that we ought by no means to depart too far from the words of the Pontifical Book, or from the testimony of Anastasius the librarian, by which it is affirmed that Symmachus destroyed and consumed by fire all the images and all the books of the Manichaeans before the doors of the Constantinian basilica. Nay rather, we have reckoned it a most grievous crime not to dwell upon these considerations, or to deny them credence. For that use of images, first of all, the native laws of the Persians undoubtedly persuade us of, from which the sacrilegious religion of the Manichaeans took its origin;

and those sacred festivals of the Bema teach us the same, which they celebrated in the month of March in recurring years for the worship of the death of Manes and in contempt of the Lord's resurrection. For which reason they used to construct a lofty image of a throne, adorned with great display of riches, by which they falsely imagined the glorious birthday of their master Manes to be signified. But while we touch upon these things, it by no means escapes us that even the Manichaeans themselves wished, in honour of their master, to spread their couches over reeds, so as to stir up for themselves the memory that Manes in Persia, as though out of hatred for the truth, had been flayed with reeds, as Nicetas asserts;

or those things which the Manichaeans themselves had devised in testimony of their impious religion and in mockery of our Catholic faith, when, having borrowed from us the sign of the cross, images of the Mother of God, and other things of this kind, they sacrilegiously and superstitiously mutilated and deformed these, and, thus mutilated and deformed, at one time set them forth as things to be venerated, at another time execrated them, wishing by these artificial signs to indicate those doctrines which their wicked ringleader had introduced into the world.

Nothing therefore stands in the way but that that great pontiff Symmachus, having most thoroughly perceived the sacrileges and superstitions of this most wicked people, destroyed and burned with fire, besides all the books, also all their signs and images which portended some wicked mystery. Nor indeed could the holy pontiff indulge the Manichaeans and the objects which they used in contempt of our religion. For the very reason and office of the supreme pontificate, which he exercised while harassed by such great adversities, demanded also this public testimony of his sincere faith, so that it might become known to all how far his mind was from the Manichaean doctrine, and how greatly he abhorred that sect. 7.

Finally, we think it escapes no one that, among the other calumnies constructed against the holy pontiff Symmachus by the spite and envy of the opposing faction, this one held no lowly place, by which he was traduced through the mouths of impious men as though guilty of the Manichaean doctrine. Indeed his enemies proclaimed this mark of baseness and of injured faith so far and wide that it penetrated to Constantinople, to the ears of the emperor Anastasius, patron of the Acacian and Severian faction. For which reason, that this same Anastasius might elude the sentence of excommunication passed upon him by Symmachus, and more easily despise it, he charged the holy pontiff with this most grievous crime amid much rebuke. It behooved Symmachus, therefore, to exhibit public testimonies of his faith.

And he did exhibit it, when, the Manichaeans having been banished into exile, he destroyed their books and images. But Pope Symmachus by no means thought that this public testimony of his faith could dissolve every calumny. For when he had learned that a defamatory pamphlet had been written by the emperor Anastasius, in which he was rent apart with curses and traduced as a Manichaean among the Orientals and other peoples, he met this pamphlet with an apologetic oration on his own behalf, and thoroughly purged and destroyed every suspicion of the Manichaean stain. But now what remains to be said concerning this apologetic epistle of Symmachus and concerning the emperor Anastasius, patron of the Manichaeans, we shall presently explain in the following chapter. 1.

His enemies never more grievously wounded the reputation of Pope Symmachus than when they dared to traduce him through the mouths of many as an asserter of the Manichaean doctrine. This happened above all when a defamatory pamphlet was composed by the emperor Anastasius against the holy pontiff, filled indeed with many reproaches and curses, by which the holy pontiff was openly traduced as though guilty of many crimes and of injured faith. Placed therefore in such grave peril, having perused the defamatory pamphlets, he was moved neither by hatred nor by anger.

But, rather taking counsel for the duties of his office and for the honour of the apostolic see, never thinking of avenging the injury, with a firm pen he wrote that celebrated epistle, by which, meeting the defamatory pamphlet of the emperor Anastasius, he purged and utterly destroyed each calumny contained therein. And first indeed he began the apology of his Catholic faith from the example of the eight books which Ambrose had written to the emperor Gratian, because it did not irk that emperor to proclaim him more gloriously, and the emperor did not disdain to receive it gratefully. Then the holy pontiff makes manifest the strength and constancy of his spirit,

whereby he would not fear to present himself before a heathen tyrannical emperor threatening him with death, revolving in his mind that apostolic admonition of Paul, and appealing to it: 'Woe is me' (he says) 'if I preach not the gospel'; and it is better to fall into the loss of the present life than to be punished with eternal damnation. 2. Then, that he might proceed in his oration by even steps and gradually, persisting in the same firmness of spirit, he approaches and addresses Anastasius as a Roman emperor, and as a Catholic prince, namely so that he might assume those parts—just as he was also accustomed clemently to admit the embassies of barbarian nations, and patiently to hear the voice of any apostolic prelate whatsoever.

And just as though he could be moved by no blow of the gravest calumnies, he calls to mind that promise of the Lord, by which it is said in Matthew: 'When they shall persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you for justice' sake, rejoice.' And unable to dissemble outwardly that inward joy, he strives to repay the emperor, hostile to him, with blessing for cursing, honour for insults, charity for hatred; yet admonishing him to beware the indignation of the divine Judge, lest, in proportion as he himself, though more grievously offended, willingly forgave, so much the more heaped up would the penalty be exacted from the offender himself.

He adds not a little to these things concerning the very great scandal then arisen in the Church, both on account of the defamatory pamphlet which the emperor himself had written against the head of the Church, and on account of the opinions of Acacius, Severus, and the Acephali, condemned by anathema, which he patronized; and straightway he appeals to various testimonies of the Scriptures, so that from them the emperor might draw out the falsity of those heretical opinions. Meanwhile, since the pontiff's spirit seeks to provide not for his own honour, but for the honour and majesty of his see, from this he plucks at and presses the emperor, because, having spurned human and divine laws, with great disgrace to the imperial crown he undertook the parts of accuser and judge against the supreme pontiff of the Church. Therefore he rebukes him, writing:

'You say that I am a Manichaean. Am I perhaps a Eutychian, or do I defend the Eutychians, whose fury above all abets the error of the Manichaeans?' 3. By which manner of speaking, and figure of irony, he not only indicates that he is unjustly charged with the Manichaean stain, but he intends to censure Anastasius himself, who, while he furnished supports to the Eutychians, also patronized the Manichaeans themselves—namely by having taken up into his own clientele Xenaias, who, since he was a prince of the Manichaeans, strove more and more to foster the emperor's love toward himself by adhering to the party of the Eutychians.

Symmachus therefore, in order to blot out such marks of baseness, and to show that he had never been liable to the Manichaean disgrace, calls the city of Rome as witness, and appeals to the archives of the apostolic see, in which the authentic Acts of sincere faith were preserved. But whosoever judged less holily of his religion, or at least wished to suspect it, he provokes with these his writings, so that they should not shrink from instituting contests with him, and openly bringing forth true proofs of the crimes charged against him; otherwise he declares that they are to be held as infamous and guilty of insults. And I think it not inappropriate to subjoin his words here, so that the sentiments of the holy pontiff may become thoroughly known to all:

'Rome is my witness, and the archives bear testimony, whether I have in any part deviated from the Catholic faith, which I received from paganism upon coming to the see of the blessed apostle Peter. Let someone come forward, and by some reasoning convict me. Otherwise these are insults, not proofs of crimes.' 4. He then, after these things, commits his cause to the divine judgment, whose supreme wisdom and providence he recalls that he had once experienced. Namely when, having been declared pontiff by lawful votes, and proceeding to the Constantinian basilica to receive the order of the pontificate, he escaped free, lest he should be overwhelmed by a shower of stones.

Therefore, hoping always to have God as his helper, he trusts that God is unwilling to permit any of those things which could be harmful to himself and to his see. For neither could the emperor have arguments that God had been angry with Symmachus or with the Roman see. Therefore with the greatest vigour of spirit he thus addresses him: 'Show, then, what you think ought to be alleged, so that you may demonstrate that God, most angry, permitted things which had not been fitting.' And in order to purge or heal the ulcers which had wounded and corrupted the emperor's mind: 'Is it because I in no way acquiesce to the Eutychians? These things indeed do not wound me; but they openly and plainly demonstrate that you have thought to repel the honour of mine, which the blessed Peter imposed by his intervention.'

He therefore makes clear, by adducing various reasons, that God could not on this account have been angry with him. For when he opposed the Eutychians, whom he neither received into communion, and whose doctrines he repudiated, he was discharging those duties which most befitted a supreme pontiff, whose sacred power was as far distant from the imperial as divine things are far removed from human affairs. Wherefore, a comparison having been instituted between the two dignities, he thus addresses the emperor: 'You, emperor, receive baptism from the pontiff, take the sacraments, seek prayer, hope for blessing, ask for penance. Lastly, you administer human things, he dispenses divine things to you.'

And lest he should seem to wish to claim for himself a superior honour, he asserts that at least an equal one ought to befit each. These things, therefore, and others of this kind, Pope Symmachus brings forward for the glory of his pontifical dignity, for the safeguard of his innocence, and for the defence and adornment of his apostolic see, being about to purge above all that mark of baseness which Anastasius had unjustly branded upon him, traducing him by defamatory pamphlets as though a champion of the Manichaean sect. 5.

But since in the aforesaid defamatory pamphlets Anastasius had declared this same Symmachus guilty of conspiracy against his own person—namely because, with the Roman senate conspiring, he had excommunicated him—the pontiff, meeting this objection with wondrous and true reasonings, easily overthrew this calumny too. First the pontiff says that he had innovated nothing, but had followed the same manner of acting of his predecessors: 'You say that, with the senate conspiring with me, I excommunicated you. These things indeed I did, but without doubt I follow what was reasonably done by my predecessors.' Symmachus, therefore, was not the very first of all to pass a sentence of excommunication against the emperor Anastasius.

But two other Roman pontiffs, namely Gelasius and Anastasius II, had condemned him as a defender and patron of the Eutychian and other heresies. Which sentence indeed Symmachus would certainly have revoked, if the emperor, having abandoned the heretics—and especially Acacius—and the Constantinopolitan schism which he fostered having been settled, had been willing to associate himself only with Catholic and apostolic bishops. For the emperor, withdrawing from their fellowship, and no longer mingling himself in their assemblies, could now, as though repenting of his former contumacy, have dissolved the bonds of excommunication. Wherefore the most gentle pontiff offers this remedy for the most grievous evils by which he was so greatly afflicted:

'Do not join yourself to his excommunication (namely that of Acacius), and you are not excommunicated by us. If you do join yourself to it, you are excommunicated not by us but by your own self. Thus it comes about that in either case—whether you withdraw, you are not excommunicated by us; or whether you do not withdraw, you are not excommunicated by us.' 6. After this, with a lengthy amplification, Symmachus assails Anastasius, both because, when he himself had been raised to the apostolic see of Peter, he had not written imperial letters (as the custom was) informing the pontiff of his faith and filial love, inasmuch as to him the care of the whole Church had been entrusted by the mouth of the Lord and Saviour. This grave omission the pontiff reproves only for this reason, lest he should seem to neglect the care of the Lord's flock;

and not that anyone should judge that he had wished rather to consult his own honour. Then indeed he inveighs against that same emperor, because with military force he had compelled Catholics to hold communion with those defiled by the stain of schism and heresy. This mode of acting he execrates as a horrid and detestable crime; since in no way can it be lawful or fitting for the princes of the world, however great the earthly power on which they rest, to infringe those ecclesiastical rights which, almost from the very cradle of the Catholic Church, have been confirmed and declared not only by divine but also by imperial laws.

Wherefore he objects to him, and recalls to his mind, how the Christian religion, from the apostles down to his own times, though afflicted and tossed about by so many and such great kinds of persecutions from its adversaries, could neither be crushed nor cast down; but the persecutors themselves perished by an evil end, and the orthodox truth itself always and everywhere prevailed.

Meanwhile the pontiff's mind was the more oppressed by this one thing: that pagans, or other men worse than pagans, when—the rules of apostolic tradition having been broken—they had in the East, and especially at Constantinople, public licence to profess their nefarious doctrines together with the evil opinions of all the other heresies, yet the liberty of Catholic communion alone was reckoned by those who esteemed themselves religious as something to be overthrown. Since he perceived himself tormented, and could not (as he longed) apply a remedy to these things, he appeals to the divine judgment, whose protection those could by no means await who had attempted with rash daring to assail Catholic truth.

Finally indeed he praises the custom of the ancient emperors, who, whether on taking up the helm of empire, or on learning that new prelates of the apostolic see had been installed, forthwith sent their writings to it, in order to teach that they were its partners. Since Anastasius had omitted to do this, he professed himself estranged from it; and therefore the holy pontiff judged that he was to be shunned as a rival, a culprit, and an enemy. But in what manner the emperor even gave patronage to the Manichaeans, the holy pontiff indicated in a few words, as we shall presently relate in explaining the case of Xenaias. In the year 1827.

Who then, and of what sort, Xenaias—also called Philoxenus—may have been, whom very many, both from among the ancient and from among the more recent writers, have affirmed to be a follower of the Manichaean doctrine, we shall easily understand. Him above all, when he came from Persia into the dominion of the Roman empire, Peter the Fuller and the emperor Anastasius most greatly patronized; and he stirred up so many and such great tumults and disasters against the Catholics, that, with all the bonds of Christian society utterly dissolved, either schisms or errors ran riot everywhere. Pope Symmachus, at the end of his apology against the emperor Anastasius, attested this—though suppressing the name—assailing Xenaias with these words as a champion of falsehood:

'It is no wonder if the patrons of the Manichaeans persecute Catholics, since falsehood cannot but persecute truth. It is no wonder if they rage against the orthodox—men who can agree with all heresies, and who, being friends to all errors, cannot but be enemies to those alone who do not err.' But before we discourse specifically anything concerning the savagery of this nefarious man against the Catholics, it is needful for us to speak of his homeland, origin, character, and training. In pursuing all these matters, lest we should stray far from the truth, we undertook to survey the volumes of the most illustrious man Joseph Assemani's Bibliotheca Orientalis, that we might select those things which seemed pertinent to our purpose. 8.

We are informed, then, that Xenaias derived his origin as a Persian by race, in the town of Takal in the province of the Garmaeans; that moreover he was by condition a slave, and destitute of divine baptism—so very many ancient writers have affirmed. Yet Assemani himself contends that these can be gainsaid, and therefore he has endeavoured, by adducing various arguments, to vindicate Xenaias from a mark of such disgrace. Affirming, namely, that this man—otherwise most wicked—did not lack baptism, and that he did not make himself out to be an ordained cleric when he came from Persia into Syria.

On this matter he brings forward two very weighty conjectures. The one is drawn from Xenaias's mode of acting, whereby, namely, before he set out from Persia, he vigorously opposed himself both to the Nestorian doctrine and to Ibas of Edessa and Maris the Persian in the city of the Garmaeans, along with certain others—all which could not befit a home-born slave and one not yet baptized. The other he strives to deduce from the writings of that same Xenaias. In these he not only sets forth the genuine form of baptism, but more than once professed that he had been baptized therein and had put on Christ. These things indeed might turn our mind away from the contrary opinion, if we were willing to follow the very great authority of the writer among us rather than the weight of the reasonings.

For that man is endowed with such great knowledge and erudition in describing the affairs of the Syrians, that he has surpassed the other writers of his nation, both his predecessors and his contemporaries. But from a learned man, otherwise most friendly to me, I will await pardon, if I shall affirm that I must note that each conjecture, on which he believed he ought to rely for vindicating Xenaias's baptism, is [wanting]. As regards the first conjecture, then—namely, that in the city of the Garmaeans Xenaias, together with certain other men, opposed himself to the Nestorian doctrine, to Ibas of Edessa, and to the endeavours of Maris the Persian—what then? Even if these things, which are drawn from wholly uncertain records, were true;

could a wily man, who professed the Manichaean sect, be lacking in cunning to conceal his impiety? For the doctrines of Nestorius and of Eutyches directly overthrew, most especially, one chief error of the Manichaeans. For the Manichaeans denied that Christ had been a true man, truly born, truly suffering and dead, and preached in him nothing but a shadowy and phantasmal flesh. From which error indeed the Nestorian and Eutychian doctrines stood at the very greatest remove. For the Nestorians taught that there were in Christ two true distinct natures, and as many persons. The Eutychians moreover did not deny the truth of the humanity in Christ;

but they contended that in the union it had either been absorbed by the nature of the divine Word, or converted into the Divinity. When therefore it should still stand certain that Xenaias had vigorously opposed himself to each heresy, it could not thence be inferred that he had been cleansed by baptism, since he had already given his name to the Manichaeans. I know not, moreover, whether Xenaias could easily have opposed the endeavours of Ibas of Edessa and Maris the Persian in the city of the Persian Garmaeans. For we think it is clear to all that the endeavours of those two bishops were not put into effect except after the general synod of Ephesus, out of hatred for Cyril of Alexandria;

and that between them and the Alexandrian prelate enmities and hatreds broke out afresh on account of the condemnation of Nestorius, and lasted until the very assembly of Berytus, as we understand from the tenth action of the Council of Chalcedon. But who proves that Xenaias had by then been brought into the light of day, or whence is it gathered? Assuredly, in the Acts of the Council of Berytus, convened for the case of Ibas, or in the petitions or writings of those who arraigned Ibas of Edessa both for bad faith and for various crimes, we do not meet with the name of Xenaias or Philoxenus. And yet we find all the names of the accusers who had opposed themselves to Ibas and his endeavours written down.

What at last, if we should grant besides, that after the completion of the Ephesine council which had condemned Nestorius, Xenaias was brought into the light? Shall we perhaps judge that he was then a man of such mature age, authority, and learning, that he could have combated the endeavours of two bishops disputing about matters of faith? Certainly, in discharging this office, the first rudiments of the faith, in which children are wont to be instructed, could by no means have sufficed—since that Nestorian doctrine gave the greatest trouble to more than two hundred bishops in number. But that at that time Xenaias had either not yet beheld the light, or at least could scarcely have attained the years of puberty, [is clear] from the remaining course of his life: for more than ninety years intervened between the synod and Xenaias's death.

For Xenaias departed this life—even on Assemani's own authority—after the year 522, and the Ephesine synod must be assigned to the year 431, at which time I hardly think that this standard-bearer of the Manichaeans had been born. 9. But if it be objected to me that the endeavours of the Nestorians, of Ibas of Edessa and of Maris the Persian in the city of the Garmaeans must be referred to another, later time, I will not gainsay it. Yet so great a delay of time between the two must not be imagined, that we may with good reason draw conjectures both that Xenaias was then born, and that he had procured for himself such and so great supports as vigorously to oppose himself to the Nestorian doctrine and its champions. For Ibas did not persist in those endeavours of his right up to the end of his life;

but, peace having been made with Cyril of Alexandria, he refrained from all disturbances of the heresies before the year of Christ 445, as is understood from the synods of Tyre and of the Berytians. Therefore, although Xenaias's birthday should be reckoned from this year, or from the following one, already that former conjecture of Assemani would collapse; and that monster of heresy and wickedness would have died after the 77th year of his age—which plainly contradicts those things which Assemani described concerning this man before he ended his life. For he confesses that Xenaias, before the end of his life, with the emperor Anastasius favouring or commanding, presided over several pseudo-synods; that he completed various and very long journeys; that for the space of four years, by decree of the emperor Justin, he was exiled from his see;

that he betook himself hither and thither—now into Thrace, at Philippopolis; now into Paphlagonia, at the city of Gangra, in which, choked by smoke, he perished. All which things, since they portend and indicate so great and abundant a store of labours and hardships, we can scarcely be brought to suppose that evils and inconveniences of this kind could have been endured by a man passing his extreme old age. 184. 10. Of graver weight indeed is another conjecture adduced by Assemani, who, to prove that Xenaias was not destitute of baptism, first appeals to the writings of that same Xenaias, in which he bears testimony concerning his faith and baptism; then he tries to show that he had been baptized from the silence of the Fathers of Syria,

who would by no means have permitted hands to be laid upon them by Xenaias, if they had known that he was neither baptized nor rightly ordained. Yet less strength underlies this kind of vindication, if we seek testimony from the writings of others. Theodore, then, lector of the Church of Constantinople, who had seen Xenaias, since he was his contemporary, writes—not merely from report (as Assemani says), but from the narration of the bishops of Syria: 'A certain Persian, called Xenaias, whom, in the time of his priesthood, Calendio, finding him to adulterate ecclesiastical doctrines and to stir up strongholds, drove out of the region. Concerning this man I will relate in part many things which, hearing from divers persons, I have investigated. For, fleeing his own master from the region of the Persians, he arrived among the Romans.'

And a little after: 'Him Peter transmits as bishop of the Church of the Hierapolitans in place of Cyrus. Whom, not long after, bishops coming from Persia arraigned as a home-born slave, and as destitute of divine baptism. Which having been ascertained, Peter, not caring what ought to be done, said that the episcopal consecration sufficed him, for the supplying of the divine sacrament.' If we carefully weigh the force of which testimony, we shall hardly be able to gainsay it. For Theodore the lector did not discourse about a man wholly unknown to him and absent, whose deeds, at least the more principal ones, were not most well known both to himself and to all the Constantinopolitans—especially on account of the favour which Xenaias had procured for himself from both the Eastern emperors Zeno and Anastasius.

For Theodore flourished about the year of Christ 515, and therefore described the history not from report alone, but from those things which he had seen and which he had heard from others his contemporaries. Moreover, did not the bishops of Persia protest, beholding Xenaias taken up to the Hierapolitan episcopate? From none other than from the bishops of Persia did the outcries issue forth: that Xenaias, consecrated bishop at Hierapolis, was a home-born slave and destitute of baptism.

But if Assemani shall judge that credence is not to be given to these, what credence, I ask, will Xenaias be able to merit for himself—Xenaias who, reproved by his fellow bishops and accused as a pagan, in order to wash away this mark of infamy and lest he should be driven from the episcopal see, wrote a letter concerning the Incarnation of the Word to Zeno, in which most craftily and with excessive zeal he feigns that he had been baptized? Do not those very same words, on which Assemani insists, betray the anxiety of that same Xenaias? For he, in one and almost the same paragraph, twice, thrice, and four times, on a sought-for occasion, speaks of his own baptism.

He follows, indeed, in this respect, the art of all knaves, who by their own testimony alone attempt to wash away the just accusations brought against them. Behold the words of Xenaias, which Assemani recites: 'The Only-begotten Son is one of the Trinity, as He Himself signifies when He says to His disciples: Go, teach all nations, and baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Therefore (let us note the writer's mode of acting), therefore in His name I was baptized; I confess that for me He died; and finally Him, in whose name and death I was baptized, I believe that I have put on from baptism.'

So far, then, is it from the case that by this manner of writing we should judge Xenaias to have been baptized, that on the contrary we are led by a greater suspicion that he was destitute of baptism. For he does not appeal to witnesses of his baptism, he does not name the minister of the sacrament, nor does he designate the place or the time in which he had put on Christ by baptism, but makes himself alone the witness and vindicator of his baptism. 11. But that Xenaias had no other vindicator except himself, the Acts of the Second General Council of Nicaea also betray.

For in the fifth action, when Demetrius the deacon, keeper of the vessels, had read the above-praised words of Theodore the lector, none of those three hundred and fifty Fathers—at least for the honour of the episcopate—rejected that testimony as fictitious or of doubtful trustworthiness, but all lent their credence to Theodore who wrote down these things. And so great credence indeed, that, with Tarasius, the most learned and most holy man, prelate of Constantinople, interposing, all the other bishops pronounced anathema against the unbaptized and Manichaean Xenaias, and against those who preached a phantasm and denied the humanity of Christ. I know not, therefore, why or by what reasoning anyone could now cleanse that Xenaias from either of those stains—

believing, namely, that he neither lacked baptism nor gave his name to the Manichaeans; since not one of those 350 Fathers, in approving the just-praised testimony of Theodore, even hesitated in the slightest? 12. Yet lest we should seem to rely solely on that one testimony of Theodore the lector and on the approbation of the Second Council of Nicaea, which Assemani, with much study and the erudition in which he abounds, tries to explain more mildly, it will not irk us to subjoin the Antiochene pseudo-synod convened by Peter Fullo, as it is set forth by the author of the synodical booklet.

This synod, then, Peter Fullo, having returned from exile to the Church of Antioch, with the emperor Zeno—hostile to the Catholic bishops—favouring him, convened about the year of Christ 485, as Labbe, Pagi, Stephen Baluze and others have noted. For then Fullo, driven by dire madness, marked the ecumenical synod of Chalcedon with anathema, and, with many crimes, designated Xenaias bishop of Hierapolis—a Persian by race, devoid of baptism, a fugitive of servile condition, and a most fierce leader of the heresy that accused the Christians. But concerning these profane and illegitimate ordinations which Peter Fullo had performed, Theophanes spoke, writing thus:

'Peter Fullo, moreover, having entered Antioch, perpetrated many abominable things, such as execrations of a synod, abrogations of bishops, intrusions of noxious persons, illegitimate ordinations, and the like.' Theophanes, then, a writer of refined judgment, although in recounting the various deeds of the ancients he followed Theodore the lector—yet because he was not far from the age of Xenaias, by the description of illegitimate ordinations, he wished at least obscurely to designate this man as a home-born slave, destitute of baptism, intruded into the Hierapolitan see of the episcopate.

For since he had written the history of the affairs between the Romans and the Persians down to the year 573, neither the deeds of Peter Fullo, bishop of Antioch, nor the bishop illegitimately ordained by that same Peter Fullo, could lie hidden from him. Let no one, therefore, be angry with me for writing these things, or knit his brow, because in this matter I have not subscribed to a most learned man, already excellently deserving in literary affairs. For the zeal of inquiring into and investigating truth, not a lust for wrangling, so affected my mind that I should not too lightly recoil from the testimony of Theodore the lector and from the authority of the Second Council of Nicaea, so that what I candidly understand I might also openly profess out of religious conscience.

From which mode of acting I will by no means recede, as I am about to explain the Manichaeism of Xenaias. 13. This stain too the same illustrious Assemani did not attribute to Xenaias of Mabbug, even though he calls him a most wicked man. But how greatly Xenaias abhorred the Manichaean heresy is clear from many volumes soon to be reviewed, in which he expressly refutes the Eutychians and the Manichaeans. And first indeed, if Xenaias in his works expressly refutes even the Manichaeans, for what cause does Theophanes of Byzantium write: that Xenaias, also by name Philoxenus, bishop of Hierapolis, holding the same views as the Manichaeans, was driven into exile by Justin the elder?

But this happened in the year of Christ 518, as the most eminent Norisius proves in his work On the Epochs of the Syro-Macedonians. Why, moreover, does the same writer, relating Xenaias's second journey to the royal city of Constantinople, write: 'Anastasius summoned to Byzantium Xenaias, follower of the Manichaeans, otherwise called Philoxenus, inasmuch as he held the same views as himself'? But the emperor Anastasius not only zealously favoured the Manichaeans, as we have said above from the apology of Pope Symmachus, but also upheld the Manichaean doctrines, because he was begotten of a Manichaean mother. 'The Manichaeans and the Arians' (says Theodore the lector, an eyewitness) 'congratulated themselves on the promotion of Anastasius. The Manichaeans indeed, because his mother was a most zealous devotee of that sect.'

If therefore both—namely Xenaias and the emperor Anastasius—professed altogether the same doctrine, and for the sake of this doctrine the emperor summoned that Manichaean Xenaias to Constantinople; if moreover Anastasius's mother was a most zealous devotee of the Manichaean sect—how could it come about that we should despise the trustworthiness of the ancient writers, who most fully support us, relying instead on certain lighter conjectures?

Not so indeed did our forefathers act, who, in the name of Christ, assembling at that Second Synod of Nicaea, judged that most wicked Xenaias to be a follower and prince of the Manichaeans, following also the testimony of another more ancient writer, namely of John Diacrinomenus, who affirmed that he was accustomed to hide in secret places those images which portrayed Christ, so that he might, of course, hint that Christ had assumed not a true human nature, but only a phantasmal and shadowy one—which we have already sufficiently proved, in the preceding chapters, to have been a dogma of the Manichaeans. 13.

But now I shall seem to be failing in my duty, if I pass over in silence what Assemani adduced for washing away this Manichaean stain of Xenaias. For Xenaias wrote to certain monks of Syria a letter concerning the Incarnation of the Word, in which he asserted to Christ the Lord the truth of each nature, namely the divine and the human. Of this letter, written in the Syriac tongue, he presents a summary divided into five chapters, and under number three he subjoins these words rendered into Latin: 'III. If He who was incarnate (is God), He also who was born will be God; and just as He who entered into the Virgin was one spiritual being, whose spiritual nature is from the Father; so the same one came forth from the same Virgin, from whose nature He has the truth of His body.'

'Wherefore she is rightly called the Virgin Mother of God, in that she ineffably bore one incarnate person of God.' These things, I say, and others of the same kind, Assemani declares from various letters or writings of Xenaias, which utterly oppose the heresy of the Manichaeans. Concerning the trustworthiness of this writer and interpreter, especially in translating records from Syriac into the Latin tongue, there can be no doubt. But whether or not Xenaias followed the dictate of his own faith in writing these things, can be doubted. Just as it is also permitted to doubt whether the writings which are now circulated under Xenaias's name proceeded from his workshop, or crept into the books and codices of the Syrians by the zeal and fabrication of some impostor.

These things indeed lay wholly hidden from Theodore the Lector, from Theophanes, from Evagrius, from the bishops of Persia, from the Fathers of the Second Council of Nicaea, from the writers of the following ages—who, led not by empty fear but by the weightiest reasons, held up this knave as leader and prince of the Manichaeans. It seems very difficult, therefore, that these writings—if indeed they existed—should not have become known to those men who described the homeland, condition, character, training, and dignities of this most flagitious man. Or if at last they did exist, were they perhaps so lurking in the coffers of the Syrians, and shut up in trusty custodies, that only in these most recent times, by the study and labours of Assemani, could they come into the notice of men?

Certainly Assemani, who undertook to illustrate such works with his own animadversions, does not praise even one single writer worthy of trust, who assigns such works to Xenaias. And although he sometimes appeals to one or another witness, yet he plucks, carps at, and condemns these as Eutychians and Monophysites. Moreover, with the testimonies and consensus of the above writers now failing, should not answers consonant with Xenaias's letters be sought out? He wrote to the emperor Zeno and to the monks, inhabitants of various monasteries. Where, I ask, are the answers of all these, that we might scrutinize whether they harmonize with themselves, or whether there is in them some mark which, to the learned, smells of forgery?

For I, being placed in so great a dilemma, was led by the greatest suspicion that those works had been falsely fabricated in Xenaias's name by some sycophant. This suspicion was set in motion by the illustrious Assemani's own mode of acting: who, stumbling upon most grievous rocks which he could not forestall, asserts either that Xenaias lied, or that someone wished to construct a fabrication under Xenaias's name. Of what sort, moreover, is that fiction: that the heresiarch Nestorius was summoned by the holy Pope Leo to the Synod of Chalcedon. This Xenaias relates in his letter to Zeno and the monks; pursuing the argument of which, Assemani noted that this, as a putrid figment, must be rejected. For before the holy [Leo]

Leo the Great obtained the pontificate of the Catholic Church, already Nestorius, banished to a fourth place of exile, his tongue gnawed by worms, died in the year 436, as some have said; or at least lived in the oasis until the year 439, as Socrates affirmed; but the holy Leo the Great was elevated to the throne of the pontificate only in the following year 440, on the 28th day of July. Who took counsel about convening the Synod of Chalcedon in the year 450, and this at last was celebrated in the following year, as both sacred and profane records make plain. This palmary error, I say, Assemani noted, and, hanging in suspense, knows not to whom he should assign it—namely to Xenaias, or to some Monophysite seeking Xenaias as a patron for himself. 14.

The learned man Assemani, therefore, did not judge that so great credence should be given to the praised writings, as to suppose that this man had fully abhorred the errors of the Manichaeans. For certain sayings of Xenaias also came before him, which display the heretical Manichaean sense. Among these is celebrated that which the Oriental writer subjoins from the theological book entitled 'Of Rays,' namely: 'Philoxenus,' they say, 'acknowledges the sufferings of the Lord to be voluntary, not natural. Moses Barcepha too testifies that the body of Adam, before he had sinned, the Lord put on. Finally, in the history of Mar Barsumas, the body of our Lord is said to be by no means after the fashion of a human body.'

But that all these sayings breathe Manichaeism, and contain the fabulous figments of the Manichaeans, who is ignorant? Which sayings, although the author of the book does not assign them all to Xenaias or Philoxenus, yet that each single one proceeded from the nefarious workshop of Manes, our preceding lucubrations abundantly make plain. But that this saying of Philoxenus indicates Manichaeism—namely, that the sufferings of the Lord are voluntary—Assemani himself also asserts, and affirms that it furnished occasion to the writers reviewed by us to hold up Xenaias as guilty of this heresy. But the learned man judges either that Philoxenus fell into the error of the Incorrupticolae, derived indeed from Manichaean principles;

...that vice of inconstancy, by which heretics are wont to be very frequently tossed about, [led him] to cling to certain tenets of the Manichaeans, although he himself in his own books everywhere execrates them. However these matters may stand, then, neither can Xenaias himself, on the authority of Assemani, be cleared of every stain of Manichaeism, nor are the works which are circulated under his name and ascribed to him free of forgeries, mutilations, and interpolations. Upon what foundation, therefore, may we rely, when we have set aside the testimonies of ancient and later writers, in order to pass judgment upon his faith?

If we rely upon the writings that are praised, we shall be brought into the peril of error, since it is not certainly known whether those volumes issued from the true workshop of Xenaias, or whether in composing them he followed the dictate of his own faith, or finally whether they were falsified by the zeal of others, in order to conceal or blot out that mark of Manichaeism which the ancient writers and the Fathers of the Seventh Synod had branded upon him. But I perceive that in composing all these things I have lingered longer than was fitting, chiefly because I can neither examine the documents written in the Syriac tongue, nor interpret them; which things ought surely to be necessary for any sound-minded man of those who desire to bring a matter of this kind to its conclusion. Wherefore:

Setting aside this manner of disputation, we submit only this one thing: that almost the whole East was polluted with the Manichaean taint by the zeal of the Emperor Anastasius and of the Acephali. And that this may be made more clearly known and better understood, we compose a final chapter concerning the history of the Manichaeans, since the remaining things we might say about this abominable heresy—afterwards propagated among the Armenians by the zeal of the Paulicians—have been sufficiently described by Peter of Sicily and by Photius.