講道與書信 第 236 章 第 5/7 段

Meanwhile, however, lest I should seem to Quesnel, or to anyone else who indulges his pursuits, to depart from the common way of discoursing, passing over the other letters, whether of Galla Placidia or of Eudoxia Licinia written to Theodosius, I cast my eyes upon those two letters of St. Leo assumed by Quesnel as the foundation, as it were, of his dissertation. In those letters the holy pontiff assigns three causes which moved his mind to hold a new general council: one was the wounding of the catholic faith; another the mournful state of all the Churches of the East, so greatly disturbed, whether on account of the prelates cast down, or on account of those who, obeying Dioscorus, gave their hands captive to impious subscriptions;

the third, finally, was that repeated outcry of the pontifical legates, made when they saw that, from the beginnings of the synod even to its end, the rights of the Apostolic See were not only neglected, but trodden underfoot and abolished. Those first two causes St. Leo judged in these words, writing to the emperor Theodosius: 'Therefore,' he says, 'the council of bishops which you commanded to be held at the city of Ephesus on account of Flavian is proved both to be a hindrance to the faith itself and to wound all the Churches; and these things have been ascertained by us not by an uncertain report, but from the most reverend bishops themselves, who were sent by us,' etc. And a little below, wishing to express the grave wounds inflicted upon the Churches, he added:

'But in that judgment we have learned that not all who had assembled were present. For some were rejected, others, we have learned, were let in, who at the arbitrary will of the aforesaid priest gave their hands captive to impious subscriptions, knowing that it would harm their own standing unless they did what was commanded, and that such a sentence had been pronounced by him, that through it cruelty might be exercised against all the Churches.'

Wishing thereupon to proceed to the third cause which was impelling his mind to hold a new council, employing his pontifical authority and tempering the gravity of his own spirit with ecclesiastical moderation, he rebukes the emperor himself, as it were gently, because he had lent his ear to imprudent men, and had thereby exposed even his own mind to the perils of faith and religion, and had not opposed himself to their wicked arts. He calls upon him to remove from his conscience, as the gravest of evils, that human presumption should do violence to the Gospel of Christ; and at length, joining supplications to his exhortations, he asks that, all the Acts of the Ephesine robbery being abolished, he would permit and command that everything be restored to its former state;

namely, into that state in which they stood before any judgment, until a greater number of priests should be gathered from the whole world, and that he should not suffer them to be burdened with another's sin. That such a synod ought to be held Leo himself judged, both because our legates, that is, the legates of the Apostolic See, faithfully protested on account of the violated rights of the Roman See, and because Bishop Flavian also handed to those same legates a petition of appeal. But to what end the protestation of the pontifical legates was directed was not difficult for either Launoy or Quesnel to penetrate, had they attended to the Ephesine Acts set forth by us in the preceding pages. For they protested against those things which were being done in the synod itself, without the consent, appointment, and mandate of the Roman pontiff;

they protested on account of the injury inflicted upon the Apostolic See, even before Eutyches was acquitted and Flavian condemned and deposed were heard; they protested on account of the force applied to extort the votes of the prelates; they protested, finally, in order to hinder the execution of the most wicked decrees made there, so that, according to the rules of law, every judgment should stand in suspense until the prohibition of the supreme pontiff Leo, whose person they represented, should be awaited. But that this protestation ought to be called a true appeal who will dare to deny; or, with Quesnel, who seeks evasions on every side, will he affirm that Flavian appealed to Theodoret, so that the appeal might become known at least to the Westerners;

and that recourse ought rather to have been had by a petition of appeal to him who is both the supreme summit of the whole Church and, as it were, the universal advocate in a cause of faith? A new manner of speaking, a new office of the Roman pontiff, hitherto devised by no one, so far as I know. But we shall refute this fiction—even setting aside the verdicts of so many most holy Fathers who called the Roman pontiff the true and lawful judge of controversies of faith—before we remove our hand from the present matter. And indeed, if the pontifical legates had received Flavian's petition of appeal in order to bring it to Leo as the advocate of this cause, surely St.

Leo, before the ecumenical synod which he was taking care to convoke, would by no means have issued any decree or interdict; he would not have solemnly declared the Ephesine Acts invalid and void in his various letters; he would never have set aside as unjust the sentence pronounced by Dioscorus and that synod against Flavian; in the letters written to the empress Pulcheria he would not have said by his own authority: 'Bishop Flavian persists in our communion and in that of all.' As an advocate, he indeed could have communicated with Flavian, excommunicated by the synod, according to the rules of law; but by what reasoning could he induce all the other priests of the Roman synod to communicate with him? What more?

before the new ecumenical council which he was striving to gather, he condemns Dioscorus himself as guilty of a great crime: 'A great crime,' he says in his letter to Anastasius of Thessalonica, 'has been committed, with the bishop of Alexandria as its author or executor.' Moreover, not he alone and the Roman synod wished to communicate with Flavian; but he also sent letters to the clergy,

the dignitaries and the people of Constantinople, that, deterred by no threats nor driven by any fear, they should not separate themselves from their lawful bishop, following one of supreme authority, adding the declaration that whoever, while your bishop Flavian remained safe and surviving, should dare to invade his priestly office, would never be held in our communion nor be able to be numbered among the bishops. Who therefore, turning his mind without the disguise of envy to this whole manner of acting of St. Leo, can persuade himself that the Roman pontiff, by virtue of that appeal, had played the part of an advocate?

Whence do we ever find that advocates and patrons of causes pronounce judgments, issue decrees, render the sentences of preceding judges null and void, absolve the condemned, request, petition, and command that all things be restored to the former state in which they were before the causes were investigated? I indeed, who have not even saluted court and forum from the threshold, do not see how all these things can hang together. Since I have always heard that advocates can only press, before lawful judges, for the dispatch of causes, bringing forward in public—by writing or by word—those reasons and laws which can lead the judge's mind to the recognition and prosecution of the truth.

But let Quesnel say—I pray you—before what judge did he believe Leo to have pressed, or ought to have pressed, in order to plead the cause of the appealing Flavian? Before the emperor, perhaps, whom he earnestly besought to order a new council to be gathered within Italy? But Leo was pressing and urging the emperor for the free and solemn execution of his own decrees, and that the truth of the catholic faith might be made manifest to the whole world; that the scandals, agitated by so many and so great perils and now ranging through the East, might be abolished; that the courage of the healthy might be increased, and that medicine might be provided for the sick, if they would consent to be cured. Led by these reasons, St.

Leo's letters, written to the emperor and to the empress Pulcheria, to the clergy and dignitaries of Constantinople, to Julian of Cos, to Anastasius of Thessalonica, to Paschasinus, and to the emperor Marcian, bear witness that he asked for a new council to be held, drawn by these reasons; the substance of which letters we deem it superfluous to set down here in detail. 10. Notwithstanding, however, the most depraved force of such great reasons, by which it has been explained and demonstrated that St. Leo, both because of the protestations of the pontifical legates and because of the appeal interposed by Flavian, played the true and lawful parts and office of a judge—Quesnel flatters himself greatly that he has won his case;

so that from Leo's 40th letter he keeps proclaiming that a most valid argument has been supplied to him in favour of his opinion, by which it is established that the synod was appealed to by Flavian, and then that Leo was, as it were, the head of the synod. Let us therefore examine the adversary's artful reasoning.

'For since' (he says) 'from the appeal of that bishop he derives the necessity of convoking an ecumenical synod, it is clearer than the sun that the synod was appealed to, and that the authority of no other was challenged by the petition of appeal, in order that it might pronounce judgment upon the sentence of the Ephesine Robbery.' He then at once subjoins Leo's words, from which he imagines that he can draw the foregoing argument: 'But that this is necessarily demanded after an appeal has been interposed, the decrees of the canons held at Nicaea bear witness.' 'For if' (Quesnel adds) 'recourse was had to one of the Western bishops with a provincial or diocesan synod, why does he not alone, with his fellow-provincials, arrange the judgment?

To what end are the priests of all the Churches moved from their sees, if the cause can be ended by the judgment of one? Why was an ecumenical synod necessarily demanded, when it was not an ecumenical synod that was appealed to? If the primary see was approached by petition, let the pontiff bring the litigants to his own see, examine the matter, demand the bishops' opinion, decree judgment, and the cause is ended.' These things, therefore, and others of the kind, Quesnel added according to his own lust for reasoning, in order to drag the testimony of the holy pontiff to a violent meaning; and—what is most to be observed—he pretends that the deacon Liberatus favours his side, who already expressly writes: 'Furthermore, the place of Pope Leo being held, they contradicted all that had been done:

but Flavian, the sentence having been pronounced against him, appealed through his legates to the Apostolic See by a petition.' Nevertheless, since he chiefly insists upon the necessity of convoking a new ecumenical synod—so greatly impressed by Leo with tears and groans, when he wrote his fortieth letter to the emperor Theodosius—I do not now see that Quesnel has made his case any better, since he does not refute the things we have brought forward in the preceding pages. 11. And first of all it is helpful to ask the adversary: who was it that judged an ecumenical synod to be necessary in the conflict of so great affairs and disturbances? Was it Flavian, or the supreme pontiff St. Leo?

Not Flavian indeed, whom we have seen to have appealed only to the Apostolic See, and who, it is probable and most certain, did not even think of a general synod; not only because four months before he had strenuously opposed himself to the rumour by which it was being reported that a synod was to be summoned on behalf of his and Eutyches' cause, but because from Leo's letters we clearly gather that he so deposited the petition of his appeal in the hands of the pontifical legates that he wished and demanded to have St. Leo alone as judge of his cause. The words of St. Leo which occur to be read in the 42nd letter sufficiently indicate this.

For, having received through the deacon Hilary the holy bishop's petition of appeal, as the sole and supreme arbiter of that cause, writing to him he informed him that he would pass over nothing for the common cause of those things which are to be done, that we may first merit to attain to those things which can come to the benefit of the universality of the faithful. He then says that he is writing a very brief letter; but he subjoins that in so great and grievous a state of mourning and sadness Flavian could have some consolation from the bearer of this letter, who by his words could relate whatever it is to which, with the Lord's help, we direct ourselves by zeal for faith and charity. These things I ought by no means to have objected to Quesnel, who undertook to illustrate and adorn St.

Leo's writings, since they cannot be hidden from him. But let him observe, I beg, that Leo, in saying that for the common cause he passes over nothing, wished to indicate that all solicitude was being employed by him so that he might provide for his own cause, that of Flavian, and that of the whole universality of the faithful. Nor does he have one word about a synodal judgment to which the cause ought by right to be referred. Nor does he affirm that the necessity of holding a synod intervenes from the rules of the canons prescribing it, as often as anyone has made an appeal from a preceding synod.

For if it had been a common, customary, approved, and received practice that appeals brought forward to the Apostolic See were then to be referred to another general synod, St. Leo would have employed another form of writing, nor would he ever have said to Flavian that the bearer of the letters could relate whatever it is to which, with the Lord's help, we direct ourselves by zeal for faith and charity. Who therefore believes that it was necessary for Leo to expend his zeal in decreeing a most efficacious mean remedy, in order utterly to root out and abolish the evils which were then ranging in the Church, if it had already been established and determined by the canons that the business of appeals was to be ended by ecumenical councils?

Do not those words—'whatever it is to which, with the Lord's help, we direct ourselves'—suggest that the Roman pontiff had full power of defining, deliberating, prescribing the manner and order and the remedy itself, by which he might provide both for the collapsing faith and for the charity broken among the priests of the East? 12. But that the holy pontiff Leo was led by those two causes, namely of faith and of charity, so that he himself decreed an ecumenical synod as a necessary remedy to be applied—Quesnel would have perfectly understood this, if he had not extracted from its place the words to which he appeals and on which he insists, neglecting all the others by which the holy pontiff addressed the emperor Theodosius.

He therefore sets forth the most unhappy state of all affairs, indicating that the judgment and Acts of the Ephesine robbery had been devolved to the tribunal of the Apostolic See, both on account of the protestation of his legates and on account of the appeal of Bishop Flavian: 'Inasmuch as both our legates faithfully protested, and Bishop Flavian handed to those same legates the petition of appeal.' From this, therefore, which he premises, he immediately subjoins this other thing as necessarily cohering with the rights of the Apostolic See:

'You should command a general synod to be celebrated within Italy, which would so repel or mitigate all offences that nothing remained either doubtful in faith or divided in charity.' But lest such a decree made by him should seem to the emperor Theodosius unjust or unreasonable, he recalls to his mind the supreme necessity and the wretched state of the Churches of the East. Of these the bishops—some had shamefully fallen in the Ephesine synod, others had been cast down, others less than overcome and afflicted with injuries—for all of whom he prescribes this one thing, as a necessary remedy: that an ecumenical council was to be applied. For by that alone, he subjoins, he affirms that all things could be recalled to the former path of truth.

So that those who, either driven by fear or deceived by ignorance, had deviated from the institutes of faith and charity, or even those who had maliciously defiled themselves with crimes, might by no means fall away or be separated from the unity of the Church—as often as, their counsel being changed, they were brought back to penance through a due and solemn retractation. It was therefore needful for Quesnel to weigh the sense of the following words, before he flattered himself that he had won the case against John David and the other writers of better judgment and learning. 'When the bishops of the Eastern provinces have assembled' (says St. Leo), 'any of whom, overcome by threats and injuries, have deviated from the path of truth, let them be restored whole by salutary remedies;

and let even those whose cause is harder, if they acquiesce in better counsels, not fall away from the unity of the Church. But that this is necessarily demanded after an appeal has been interposed, the decrees of the canons held at Nicaea bear witness...., which were established by the priests of the whole world, and which are annexed below.' 13. It is evident, therefore, to what disposition the most holy pontiff Leo intended happily to arrive; which indeed neither the emperor nor anyone else could have reproved as either unjust or incongruous with the prevailing evils, on account of the two most grave motives expressed in law, on which the supreme pontiff insisted in determining to hold an ecumenical council:

the one motive, therefore, was derived from the genuine Nicene canons established by the priests of the whole world; the other arose both from the solemn protestation of the pontifical legates and from the appeal of Flavian. These two indeed, since hitherto they have not been distinguished by writers, it was then free for each one to reason at his own discretion and to go off into diverse opinions and views, as will be evident to those who have surveyed the writings of Launoy, Pierre de Marca, Quesnel, John David, and others. Nevertheless, we judge it superfluous to set down here at present the various conflicting interpretations of these writers among themselves. Since none of them has attained the holy pontiff's manner of writing;

although, attending to uniting these with the Sardican canons, they have employed various conjectures, about which we forbear to speak at present, so that, as far as we can, we may step by step expend our zeal in examining Quesnel's assertions. 'Recourse, therefore, was not had' (he says) 'to a single one of the Western bishops with a provincial or diocesan synod.' But who with truth has affirmed, or will ever affirm, this which Quesnel imagines for himself? Whoever is so dull and leaden as to go off into this opinion. Yet we do not for that reason say that the Roman pontiff was appealed to together with a provincial or diocesan synod, because, when Hilary arrived at Rome as St.

Leo's legate to the Ephesine synod, while the annual council was being held, he laid the whole matter before the Fathers gathered in the City, intending to hold a conference with them about it. It is made known that the Fathers decreed absolutely nothing concerning that most disturbed state of the Churches of the East. It is established only that they joined their own bitter lamentations, with tears and groans, to those of the supreme pontiff, in order to move the mind of the emperor Theodosius to grant free faculty for holding a new ecumenical synod—just as the supreme pontiff himself had already decreed immediately upon receiving Flavian's appeal. But, Quesnel adds: 'Why was an ecumenical synod necessarily demanded, when it was not an ecumenical synod that was appealed to?'

And he contends moreover that, in so great a crisis of affairs, 'if Flavian had appealed to Leo alone, a single bishop, he could have summoned the litigants to himself, discussed the matter, demanded the opinion of his fellow-bishops, and decreed judgment.' I marvel indeed to hear a man—whom those who reviewed and approved these his lucubrations upon the works of holy Leo have judged to abound in much learning and to be especially versed in ecclesiastical matters—thus contriving, with no account at all had to the laws of equity, prudence, and justice, by which St. Leo was always led in his counsels and deliberations. For the judgment of the holy pontiff had to be pure and upright and subject to no exception.

The strength of which had to depend not only on authority and power, but also on those solemnities required for restoring to the former state the prostrated rights of his see—a restoration which he could never have perfectly obtained without the solemn assembly of the whole universal Church. Moreover, what kind of remedy would he have applied: to summon the litigants to himself, discuss the matter, and decree judgment? If the question had been only between Flavian and Eutyches, perhaps St. Leo would have done that, because he had plenary power, nor would he have been led by various and most grave circumstances and calamities of affairs to decree an ecumenical synod. But let Quesnel say—I pray—how St.

Leo could have compelled Dioscorus and the whole Eutychian faction to present themselves before the Apostolic See; how he could have brought back to a public and solemn retractation the ninety-two bishops who in the Ephesine synod lent their captive hands to impious subscriptions; how, finally, he could have curbed the intolerable audacity of the monks of Constantinople and of Egypt, so that, doing penance, having cast off all pride and impiety, they might not fall away from the unity of the Church? The supreme pontiff indeed owed to the justice and sanctity of Flavian the necessary protections, but at the same time he owed it to prescribe that kind of remedy which would profit all the others;

otherwise, together with so many authors of crimes and their associates, the universality of catholics in the East would have perished. Quesnel, therefore, could have foreseen that what he himself described from Sozomen concerning Innocent the First, supreme pontiff, in the cause of St. John Chrysostom, unjustly deposed, makes very much for our position—saying: 'He strove to convoke an ecumenical synod, and writing to the Constantinopolitan clergy, he inquired with these words what remedy was to be applied: But what remedy shall we bring to these matters at present? A synodal cognizance will be necessary, which we have also said long before ought to be gathered. For that alone is what can blunt the assaults of storms of this kind.'

'Until indeed we obtain this, the cure of this calamity demands that we commit it rather to the will of God and of His Christ, our Lord.' And afterwards, concerning the same synod decreed by him, that it might be put into execution, he says that he deliberates much, subjoining: 'And we indeed deliberate much in what manner an ecumenical synod can be gathered, through which, by the divine will, those turbulent commotions may be put to rest.' Who therefore does not understand that Quesnel cuts his own throat with his own sword, by appealing to Pope Innocent? For the most holy pontiff had decreed an ecumenical synod to be held for no other cause than that Chrysostom had appealed to him. 14.

These things notwithstanding, our adversary flatters himself that he savours lofty things, and contends that two matters of the greatest moment can be inferred from the preceding. The one (he says), which we rejected above, that Flavian's appeal was devolved not to some single pontiff, but to all the bishops of the West at least; the other, that the legates of the Apostolic See took part in the second Ephesine synod not in the name of the Roman pontiff alone, nor were accustomed otherwise to take part in ecumenical councils gathered in the East, but neither could all the bishops of the West take part in them in person.

'This (he subjoins) was the solemn custom of the Roman bishop: that, as soon as a universal synod had been proclaimed, he should admonish all the bishops of his patriarchate about the matter, and himself convoke a synod at Rome, to which the Westerners, being invited, should flock together.' These things indeed are of great moment, which he seeks to sell to men in no way versed in the history and affairs of the Roman pontiffs. But let us examine those two points a little against the rules of law and of truth, that thence we may gather whence they have been drawn, and by what title appeals made to the one supreme pontiff are reckoned to be devolved to all the bishops of the West at least. Either, therefore, he must believe that such causes were devolved to a synod by the will and intention of those who interpose the appeals;

or by the decree and disposition of that single bishop to whom the appeal was made. If the former, then he who appeals ought to direct his petition to a single bishop only; or if he directs but one petition, and wishes also to be judged by the other bishops of the West, he must necessarily express this. But whence does he gather that Flavian made mention in his petition of any of the Western bishops? From what has hitherto been noted by us and by other writers, it is established that he appealed to the Apostolic See alone, and to the single pontiff, holy Leo.

Wherefore here that reasoning of John David would have grave, indeed most grave, weight, by which he showed that Flavian handed the petition of appeal not to the bishop of Milan, or of Aquileia, of Ravenna, of Arles, of Lyons, but to the Roman bishop alone, and to his legates who protested. It remains, therefore, that Flavian's cause ought only to have been devolved to a Western council by the will and decree of St. Leo. But what derogates from the supreme authority of the Roman pontiffs, if they themselves have determined to discuss, examine, and dispatch business in this or that order, manner, or solemnity?

Can they not call into the fellowship of their solicitude some and many bishops of the West, and lay open and expound to them the whole series of the affairs to be conducted, and employ also their votes, so that nothing might seem lacking to the solemnity of the judgments—which St. Leo wished to indicate also by the form of writing: 'Leo, and the holy synod which has assembled at Rome'? 15. Of more grave moment, however, is that other fallacy which the same Quesnel subjoined, which alone he used to lower the authority of the Roman pontiffs and to restrain it within the narrowest limits. Wherefore one must ask him whence he drew that St. Leo's legates were assumed to that office by the mandate and delegation of the whole Western synod?