講道與書信 第 236 章 第 6/7 段

But that St. Leo sent them from his own side, with any other bishop unconsulted, those forms of writing persuade us: 'Whom I have sent from my side; who in my stead may take part in the holy assembly of your fraternity; who may suffice to fill the place of my presence,' and others of this kind, which we frequently meet with in his letters, both those written before and those after the Ephesine synod. Either, therefore, Quesnel must grant that the authority of the whole Western synod resided in the Roman bishop alone, or that those legates bore the person of the Roman pontiff alone. If the former, then the Roman pontiff alone has the authority of the whole synod, and can alone determine, define, judge, decree;

and his decrees will obtain as great force and strength as they would attain if they had been pronounced by the whole Western synod. The same follows if the legates bore the person of the Roman pontiff alone. Therefore Quesnel binds himself tight by either throat in proposing this novel fallacy. For since he must grant one or the other, he will be compelled to confess that those legates bore the person of St. Leo alone. But that the legates of whom we are treating ought not to have received a mandate from a Western synod of bishops is clear. For we have seen in the preceding pages that St. Leo the Great could not have convoked a Western synod, even if he had wished.

For toward the end of the month of May he received Theodosius' letters for holding the Ephesine synod, and he without delay appointed legates to it, as is established from his own letters to Flavian, Theodosius, Julian of Cos, Pulcheria Augusta, and to the Ephesine synod itself, written on the Ides of June. Could he then, in the course of a few days, have proclaimed, conducted, and concluded a council of Western bishops, so that, forsooth, the legates, fortified with its authority, might set out from the City toward the East? Let Quesnel say, if you please, whether he himself, in unrolling and adorning the writings of the holy Pope, foresaw this argument; and if he foresaw it, how he thought to wrest himself free of it. 16.

Those two fictions which he subjoined to delude readers cannot indeed wrest it free, contending that this was done once and again by the Roman pontiffs—either when an ecumenical council was to be held under Pope Celestine, or when the legates of the Westerners had to betake themselves to the sixth synod. He noted, therefore, first, that St. Cyril, in the Ephesine council, resuming the opinion of the legates of the Apostolic See, speaks thus: 'For supplying the place of the Apostolic See and of the whole synod of the most holy and most beloved-of-God Westerners, they deposed [him]: The most pious archbishop of your great Rome, and the whole Western synod, through the most holy bishops whom it sent to us, etc.'

The same author adds: «It is clear from the Acts of the Sixth Council, where the bishops of Porto, Paterno, and Reggio are said to hold the place of the council of ancient Rome, in which one hundred and twenty bishops had assembled. Hence very often, when our pontiff sends legates from a synod, he writes not in his own name alone but also in the name of the council, in this manner: Leo, and the holy synod which assembled at Rome, etc.» Thus far Quesnel, who, under the color of truth, either wished to throw dust in the reader's eyes, or showed that he was utterly ignorant of the histories to which he appealed.

That we may explain both points, we by no means deny that the Roman pontiffs, when occasion was given—by the coming of many bishops to the City when the annual synod was to be held, or when they themselves came to the thresholds of the holy apostles, intending to receive counsel from the Apostolic See concerning the affairs and business of their dioceses—celebrated assemblies, or were accustomed in the customary synods recurring each year to propose those matters which had been referred to them from the East. And this especially, if the question concerned the condemnation of new heresies and the guarding against their authors: namely lest some error be gradually introduced by which the hearts of the simple might be perverted, and lest they should hold communion with men of injured faith.

For then, in both cases—questions both of law and of fact—were discussed in the synods held at Rome, whose resolutions the Roman pontiff would send, as most firm rules to be followed by all, even to the synods or bishops of the Eastern churches. That this happened in the cause of the Nestorian dogma, before the ecumenical synod of Ephesus was convened, is most evidently shown by the letters of the holy pontiff Celestine to St. Cyril of Alexandria. In these he commands that, unless Nestorius within the interval of ten days should retract by a palinode, both by preaching the word to the people and in writings, he should strike him with anathema and set another bishop over the See of Constantinople. This indeed cannot be called into doubt by our adversary.

Since in the synod celebrated in this year there was no action taken concerning legates to be sent to the East for the holding of the ecumenical Council of Ephesus. Therefore the legates of the Apostolic See, of whom Quesnel treats, were appointed in another Roman synod, celebrated likewise in the following year in the cause of Nestorius. And as soon as I cast my eyes upon those words of the Council of Ephesus, on which our adversary himself insists, I was led by grave suspicion that he had set forth the matter otherwise than it actually stood. Nor did I find myself deceived in my suspicion. For when, the Acts of the Roman synod gathered by Celestine in the year four hundred thirty-one having been examined, I clearly understood that not only does Quesnel's edifice totter, but utterly collapses.

In the Acts of this council, then, as the most learned Stephen Baluze too has most wisely noted, we encounter two classes—so to speak—or orders of legates. For some indeed were appointed by the Roman synod for the execution of the condemnation passed against Nestorius; but others were chosen by Pope Celestine himself, to hold his place and stead in the ecumenical synod. One of the legates of St. Celestine was Cyril, archbishop or patriarch of Alexandria; the other was Philip, a Roman presbyter. This latter the pontiff sent from his own side; but to St. Cyril, who never came to Rome to the synod, after a long correspondence of letters, he entrusted the conducting of his own and the Apostolic See's legation in the ecumenical synod.

And since by the decree of the Roman synod it had been determined that a legation should be sent to the Synod of Ephesus, therefore for discharging this same office the bishops Arcadius and Projectus were chosen, who should set forth the sentence of the whole holy Western synod. Quesnel could therefore have seen that the legates of Pope Celestine and of the Western synod were not the same persons. He could also have understood that to those former legates was entrusted the office of acting the person of the supreme pontiff and of holding his place; but that the latter were appointed to set forth before the ecumenical council the sentence of the whole Western holy synod.

This diversity, then, of persons and of legations plainly overturns that Quesnellian fabrication, by which the author contended that the legates of the Apostolic See had taken part in the synod in the name of all the Westerners, and had acted the person of all. 17. We then likewise gather this diversity from the Acts of the general Council of Ephesus: nor are we pressed by the words of St. Cyril cited by Quesnel. For although St. Cyril there makes no distinct mention of the individual legates, nevertheless without expressing names he indicates those who held the place of the Apostolic See, and then those whom the Western synod gathered under Celestine had appointed; and therefore he said:

«For those supplying the place of the Apostolic See, and of the whole synod of the most holy Western bishops most beloved of God, deposed (him).» But that both sets of legates ought to have devoted their efforts impartially on behalf of the rights of the Apostolic See is clear from the commonitory which the same St. Celestine had given them, charging that, when they came to Ephesus, they should direct all their counsel to our holy brother and fellow-bishop Cyril, and should do whatever they saw fit in his judgment. He then added: «And we charge that the authority of the Apostolic See must be guarded.»

How, finally, they ought to conduct themselves in that synod, he indicated in these very words, namely: that if perchance it should come to a disputation, you ought to judge concerning their opinions, not to enter into the contest. By this commonitory Celestine wished to provide for the honor and authority of his See and of the whole Western synod, and therein to act the person of the supreme judge of ecclesiastical affairs and of dogmas of the faith—who had already concluded the cause of Nestorius at Rome, and nothing more was required than the execution of the sentence passed against Nestorius himself.

It is no wonder, then, if from the heading of the cited commonitory we understand that the execution of the aforesaid sentence of the Roman pontiff and of the Western synod was impartially impressed upon the bishops and presbyters going to the East. For all, together with Cyril, were bound to lend their effort that the wishes of the Roman pontiff might be fulfilled. 18. Yet I would willingly grant that Quesnel could not have gathered from the preceding (texts) so great a diversity among the aforesaid legates, either because he too hastily perused the Acts of the Council of Ephesus, by no means reconsidering whether the series of the proceedings supported his interpretations;

or because, led by zeal for defending a new opinion, indulging the sayings of his own amanuensis, he flattered himself that, besides the legates of the Western synod, no others had been sent to the ecumenical Council of Ephesus who acted the person of Pope Celestine and held his place. But I can scarcely reckon him worthy of excuse, in that he did not advert to what was set forth quite plainly in the same session, in the preceding one, and in those following. For in them very frequently mention occurs of Philip, the Roman presbyter, who held Celestine's place and conducted the legation on behalf of the Apostolic See. Then there is mention of two bishops, namely Arcadius and Projectus, who are named as legates of the Roman Church.

In these sessions too, he who first rose to speak was Philip, to whom the first place was given; and who, by the force of the legation which he exercised, held indeed the place of Celestine, and therefore in those Acts (we read): «Philip, presbyter and legate of the Apostolic See, said.» But Arcadius and Projectus, although constituted in a higher clerical grade, spoke after Philip, and to signify their delegation the notaries of the council used the following words: «Arcadius, bishop and legate of the Roman Church, said.» And again: «Projectus, bishop and legate of the Roman Church, said.»

When I had adverted to this diversity of the formulas of speaking and writing, I plainly understood that the whole preceding edifice of Quesnel had been ruined, and reduced to nothing. Especially if we weigh that Philip himself, speaking in second place, asked that the letters of St. Pope Celestine be read in the synod; and when these had been recited, he gives thanks to the ecumenical council, and in a few words proclaims the rights, prerogatives, and primacy of the Roman pontiffs in the whole Church.

Then, because, tossed and harassed by many storms, he could not arrive at Ephesus by the appointed day before they should begin the general synod—and the first session had already been concluded while the bishops Arcadius and Projectus themselves were still absent—he asked that they explain what had been done, namely so that by the authority given to him by the Roman pontiff they might be confirmed. He likewise proclaimed not unlike things in praise of the Roman pontiff, the successor of the divine Peter, in another session, adding: «Supplying his presence, he has sent us to the holy synod.» 19. But now let us inquire whether the Acts of the Sixth Council can support Quesnel's opinion.

But in this part too the Roman synod gathered by Agatho in the cause of the Monothelites betrays that Quesnel stood by a falsehood against the manifest truth. For in this synod, although those three legates had been chosen—namely John of Porto, Abundantius of Paterno, and John of Reggio, or the Rhegitan—nevertheless the supreme pontiff wished to consult his own rights, and to this public legation he added his own. For discharging this office, then, he chose Theodosius the bishop, and George the presbyter, John the deacon, and Constantine the subdeacon, to whom, as Anastasius the Librarian says, he gave in his own name alone a certain letter composed to be sent to the emperor.

Therefore a twofold legation too must be admitted for the sixth general synod. But lest the testimony of Anastasius the Librarian be thought either spurious or ill-interpreted, it will be helpful to bring into the midst the Acts of the Sixth Council itself—although interpolated and corrupted by the Greeks out of hatred of Honorius and of the Apostolic See—from which we shall most evidently demonstrate the truth of which we treat. For the very first who subscribed to the Acts of the general synod were the legates of Agatho. For we read: «I, Theodore, humble bishop of the holy Roman Church, bearing the place of Agatho, the thrice-most-blessed and universal pope of the city of Rome, have subscribed.»

The other two legates of the same Agatho used a not dissimilar formula of subscribing, although they were not constituted in the episcopal order. These, before any bishops whatsoever or legates of bishops, immediately after Theodore subscribed thus: «I, George, humble presbyter of the holy Roman Church, and bearing the place of Agatho, the thrice-most-blessed and universal pope of the city of Rome, have subscribed.» And finally in the third place, with the same (formula) I, John the deacon, legate of the same Agatho, subscribed. But if we look at the subscription of the legates of the Roman synod, we shall certainly find it to have been very different. For in the ninth place the name of John, bishop of Porto, is written with the following formula:

«I, John, unworthy bishop of the holy Church of Porto, legate of the whole council of the holy Apostolic See of the city of Rome, defining have subscribed.» Finally in the twelfth and thirteenth places the subscriptions of two other legates of the same Roman synod are recorded under the preceding formula. Whence, then, does Quesnel hold that the legates of the Roman pontiffs in the ecumenical synods acted, and were accustomed to act, the persons of the whole Western council? Whence does he gather that the legates of the Apostolic See took part in the ecumenical councils gathered in the East not in the name of the Roman pontiff alone, but in the stead of all the bishops of the West, whose procuration they bore, since they could not be present at those councils in person?

Those two examples, indeed, fabricated by him, prove the very opposite. And therefore it will be evident to judge that the mind of Quesnel, not standing upon the facts of ecclesiastical history, did not wish to seek out the truth, but rather wandered off here and there, and clung to the trifles of dreamers, who are wont while sleeping to imagine themselves to have already found whatever they desired most ardently while awake. 20. Yet Quesnel still flattered himself that the preceding trifles could obtain force and strength. And therefore, not departing from his proposed design, he appeals to the seventy-seventh letter of St. Leo, which was written to the bishops of Gaul.

But taking least care to keep before his eyes the aim, the time, and the occasion by which the pontiff was led to compose this letter, he turns his pen against John David, and harasses him, because he had written: «Since from the fact that the petition of appeal was said to have been handed over to the legates, he asserted that an appeal had been made by Flavian to Leo alone.» He at once adds: «Indeed, from what has been said it is clear that the legates acted the person not of the pontiff alone, but of all the Westerners, and consequently the appeal was referred to all of them, in whose name they took part in the synod.» Behold a new dream of Quesnel. Now he imagines that he has conquered his adversary David;

he sings victory, because he has proved that appeals to the single Roman pontiff are repugnant to ecclesiastical custom and to the rights of synods—whereas he ought rather to have bewailed the disaster threatening him, on account of the most grievous fabrications, perhaps artfully heaped up, to lift up and to cast down the authority of the Roman pontiffs. But in the meantime, what is to be said concerning the letter of the holy pontiff to the bishops of Gaul, our manner of writing does not permit us to relate. For we shall treat of it in the other volume of the Works of St. Leo, or when recounting his acts after the Council of Chalcedon, lest we seem to confound the order of the times.

For the present we only note that in it no mention is made of Flavian's appeal, about which our controversy turns. He merely informs the bishops of Gaul of having received their profession of faith made synodally, by which they subscribed to the dogmatic letter on the Incarnation of the Word—which long before he had written to Flavian as a sure rule of faith to be followed by all. He gives thanks to God that with the highest consent, without the noise of contentions, they had chosen to adhere to the evangelical and apostolic tradition. Nor do we encounter one word that would defend the Quesnellian cause, now utterly ruined. 21.

It will therefore be necessary to advance to other matters which present themselves to us in the sixth number of the same dissertation, in which he begins his discourse from the Nicene canons praised by St. Leo in the aforesaid forty-(first) letter. He notes first in the margin: «From the Sardican canons praised by Leo, David argues badly.» And then in the body of the same chapter, alluding to the same David, he says: «But in truth,» says that writer, «St. Leo brings forward the authority of the Nicene canons—that is, in this place, of the Sardican canons—in order to assert from Flavian's appeal the equity of his own request. The Sardican canons, moreover, commemorate no appeal except that which uniquely regards the Roman bishop. Wherefore either St. Leo badly and outside the case abuses the decrees of the synod,»

says he; «or he felt that Flavian's appeal had devolved upon himself.» Our adversary Quesnel denies that David's cause can be sustained by these weak supports, in comparison with the contrary arguments proposed by himself. And since in the Nicene canons no mention of appeals occurs, he as it were mocks David, because he wished to use divination together with other writers. Yet not unwillingly he concedes that the Sardican canons, here clothed under another name, were adduced by Leo to prove the necessity of an ecumenical council. But if this manner of arguing should stand, no one (he says) but would deem it unworthy of Leo. An argument then, which in the schools is called a syllogism, he subjoins for confounding David.

And just as those boys are wont to do who exercise themselves in the first instructions of dialectic, he says: «You see, my David, how absurd is that major premise upon which your argumentation must rest.» And he contends further that the syllogism, composed and explained by himself at will according to David's method, must be arranged in another way, so that from it there may rather be elicited from the decree of the Sardican canons that a council was to be convened, in which the appeal might be discussed.

He then proceeds, following the method of the schoolmen, that «one thing must be supposed»—which he thinks foreign to David's mind, and judges to be of the greatest moment, namely, «that the pontiff was persuaded that, when the Sardican synod gave to bishops the power of appealing to the Apostolic See or to the Roman bishop, it wished the appeal to be referred not to the bishop taken singly, but to him surrounded by the bishops of his dioceses, and judged it to be decided no otherwise than by all the Western bishops gathered under a patriarch.» Wherefore in vain indeed he strains all the sinews of his zeal to defend the system he has set himself. He then subjoins those words of St. Leo pressing the emperor Theodosius:

«With the bishops of the Eastern provinces assembling at all events,» and he adds. For then the pontiff's reasoning, thus pressing the Augustus, will not be faulty, but rather will accord on every side with the canons of dialectic. And that this may be demonstrated, St. Leo's enthymeme must be resolved into a syllogism, from which what he himself had in mind, and what must necessarily be supplied, no one would not see more clearly than the noonday sun. 22. A beautiful edifice indeed, painted with the mere color of truth; but since it is ill-built of bad material, it must appear utterly ruinous to those who are not wont to contemplate the mere surfaces of things, but rather strive to scrutinize and behold things as they are in truth constructed.

For the present, then, I will let pass that subsequent syllogism constructed by Quesnel to confound David. In framing which, since Quesnel labored under a false supposition (as the schools say), he not only totters but utterly falls. Nor let David be objected to me, who under the name of the Nicene canons understood the Sardican, and appealed to them. But why David brought forward these Sardican canons, Quesnel dissembled. For David was pleading his cause against Launoy and the rest of the other supporters of this opinion;

therefore, wishing to confute these, he had first to insist upon the same principles, and in refuting their opinions he was at least compelled to prove, by the force of ecclesiastical law, that Flavian's appeal had devolved upon the sole and single Roman pontiff, not upon the Western synod. Why, then, David could be called into accusation, I do not see. Since rather his adversaries—and Quesnel most of all—ought to undergo the mark of accusation, who have by no means grasped the holy pontiff's manner of speaking and economy of acting. Therefore, that we may grasp the mind of the holy pontiff, two things must be distinguished, neither of which ought to be referred to the Sardican canons;

but one to the divine law, the other to the fifth and sixth Nicene canon, to which it is our opinion that St. Leo especially appealed. For the right of receiving appeals, and especially of cognizing the causes of appealing bishops, the Roman pontiffs received not only from the decrees of the canons, but from divine institution. Wherefore it afterward lay upon them alone, after receiving the petitions of appellants, to decree and establish that kind of judgment which they deemed more fitting and necessary to the necessity of affairs, to the vicissitudes of the times (to which they sometimes had to submit on account of the irregular movements of the powers of the world), and to the utility of the churches and the tranquility of the priests.

At this we ought by no means to wonder, that although after receiving appeals it stands in their power to choose and establish this or that kind of remedy, they determine themselves to that which is more consonant with the sacred canons, and which would provide for and profit the universality of the faithful, not the utility of a few alone.

Since, therefore, the state of the churches of the East was such as he declares the Robber-Council of Ephesus to have been, therefore our most holy pontiff, having before his eyes both rights—the divine and the ecclesiastical, namely—wished, by the force of that received appeal, to interpose and establish a decree, that the causes of all the Easterners should be solemnly treated and settled in a new general council. For the holding of which synod he prescribed such rules as would repair the rights of his violated See through the violence of Dioscorus, and which he judged could profit the universal Church.

This those words of Leo, set forth by us above, plainly indicate—whose former part only, a little before, Quesnel objected, thinking it could give patronage to his lost cause. 23. «With the bishops of the Eastern provinces assembling at all events, of whom, if any, overcome by threats and injuries, deviated from the path of truth, let them be restored to integrity by salutary remedies; and let those themselves whose case is harder, if they acquiesce in better counsels, not fall away from the unity of the Church.» But that this is necessarily required after an appeal has been interposed, the decrees of the canons held at Nicaea testify, which were established by the priests of the whole world, and which are annexed below. Quesnel subjoins:

«For so obscure among most people are those decrees held at Nicaea, which are praised by St. Leo, that nothing (is more obscure).» For nothing of the sort is read among the Nicene canons; and David is compelled to take refuge in the Sardican canons, which he divines to have been cited by Leo under the name of the Nicene, as it was divined by many before him. But this we not unwillingly concede, that the Sardican canons, here clothed under another name, were adduced by Leo to prove the necessity of an ecumenical council—harassing David and subjoining those two syllogisms, of which David had composed one from his own principles, while the other Quesnel himself wove out of his own brain to weaken and utterly cast down David's (interpretation), and (that) of the other sober-minded men, drawn only from the Sardican canons, of the holy pontiff's mind.

He transcribes three Sardican canons—namely the third, the fourth, and the seventh—and contends that the preceding words of St. Leo must be referred to these. But that Quesnel wasted time and labor, those will judge with me without any doubt at all who are willing not only to cling to the last words of the holy pontiff, but who do not refuse to attend with their mind to the texture of the whole context, its order, and the signification of the words. All which things indeed, if they be compared with the Nicene canons, then those divinations of many will utterly cease, into which most have fallen—among whom, on Quesnel's authority, those decrees were held so obscure that nothing more obscure could be desired or found.