講道與書信 第 81 章 第 1/3 段

CHAP. I. — We call you into fellowship with our solicitude, so that with pastoral vigilance you may take counsel the more diligently for those committed to you, and that nothing may be permitted to diabolical cunning: lest those who are driven from the Lord's flock by our care, while you are not yet forewarned and are ignorant of what is being done, should sow themselves through your Churches, and by stealth burrow the mines of their darknesses among you, so that what has been rooted out by us in the City might be sown among you in shadowy roots. The followers and teachers of the Manichaean impiety, whom our investigation discovered, the divine authority and censure have restrained by vigilance: those whom it was able to reclaim, we have corrected; and we have compelled them to condemn the Manichaeans, by their preachings and disciplines, in a public profession and by the subscription of their own hand;

and thus, having confessed concerning the abyss of their impiety, we have raised them up by granting penance. But some indeed, who had so sunk themselves down that no remedy of any helper could come to their aid, being made subject to the laws, according to the constitutions of the Christian princes, lest they should defile the holy flock with their contagion, have been perpetually banished into exile by the public judges. And all the things which they hold, both in their Scriptures and in their hidden traditions, that are profane or base, we have — that the people might know what to shun or avoid — proved before the eyes of the Christian people by a sure demonstration: so much so that the very man who was called their bishop, being held by us, betrayed the shameful things which he held in his mystic rites, as the series of the proceedings will be able to instruct you.

For the sake of your instruction we have directed these very things to you: which when read, you will be able to know all the things that have been detected by us. CHAP. II. — And because we have learned that some of those whom a stricter guilt had here entangled, lest they should absolve themselves, have fled, we have sent this letter to your love through our acolyte; so that your holiness, most beloved brethren, being made the more certain, may deign to act the more solicitously and cautiously, lest anywhere the men of the Manichaean perversity find the opportunity of injuring your peoples, and teachers of this sacrilege. For otherwise we cannot rule those committed to us, unless we pursue with zeal of the Lord's faith those who are the destroyers and the destroyed;

and, lest this plague be more widely spread abroad, cut them off from sound minds with what severity we can. Whence I exhort your love, I adjure and admonish, that with such solicitude as you ought and are able, you keep watch to search them out, lest anywhere they find the opportunity of hiding themselves. For as he will have from God the reward of worthy recompense, who shall have more diligently carried out what may profit unto the salvation of the people committed to him; so before the tribunal of the Lord he will not be able to excuse himself of the guilt of negligence, whosoever shall have been unwilling to guard his people against the authors of sacrilegious persuasion. Given on the third day before the Kalends of February, in the consulship of Theodosius Augustus for the eighteenth time and of Albinus, most illustrious men.

The superstition of the pagans also, condemned in our times, hostile to public discipline and an enemy of the Christian faith, has not without cause provoked our clemency unto its own destruction. We speak of the Manichaeans, whom the statutes of all former princes have adjudged to be execrable and to be driven out of the whole world. Nor do their crimes, lately detected, admit of dissimulation. For what things, and how obscene both to tell and to hear, were laid open in the judgement of the most blessed Pope Leo, before a most ample senate, by their own confession made manifest! So much so that even of the one who was called their bishop, he betrayed it by his own voice, and all the secrets of his crimes were written out — as is transcribed from law 7, 'Of Lawful Inheritance.' But we have struck out also 'patrician'; for by this title he is indeed inscribed in the laws of the year

446, but not indeed in those of the year 445. This could not lie hidden from our notice, for whom it is not safe to neglect so detestable an injury to the Divinity, and to leave unpunished a crime by which not only the bodies of the deceived, but also their souls, are inexpiably polluted. Whence, Albinus, most dear parent — let your illustrious and magnificent authority know that we have established by this law, destined to live for ever, which it shall cause to come to the notice of all the provinces by edicts set forth: that wheresoever in the world any of the Manichaeans shall have been apprehended, he shall receive, by the authority of public severity, the penalties which the laws have sanctioned against the sacrilegious.

And let it be a public crime, and let there be liberty to every willing person to accuse such men without the danger of accusation. Nor let it be lawful and safe for anyone either to conceal such men, or to connive at such men: since all the constitutions of former princes concerning these have been confirmed by us, so that all may know, by this edictal law set forth, that the Manichaeans are to be deprived of the dignity of state-service and of dwelling in the cities — lest any innocent person be ensnared by converse or association with such men. Let them neither take nor leave inheritances, but let them be gathered to the resources of our treasury. Nor let anything which we openly forbid be sought by any fraud.

Let them be without power of action for injuries, and let them have no free-born persons under contract at all. Let a fine of ten pounds of gold, to be exacted at once through your officers, strike the chief officers of each branch of state-service or of the bureau, if they shall have suffered any man polluted with this superstition to serve; for nothing seems able to be decreed too severe against those whose incestuous perversity commits, under the name of religion, things unknown even to brothels, or things shameful. Given on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of July, at Rome, in the consulship of Valentinian Augustus for the sixth time and of Nomus. — Bishop Leo to Bishop Dioscorus of Alexandria, greeting.

How much affection of the Lord's charity we bestow upon your love, you will be able to prove from this: that we desire to found your beginnings the more firmly, lest anything seem to be lacking to your love unto perfection, since the merits of spiritual grace, as we have proved, support you. Therefore this paternal and fraternal communication ought to be most welcome to your holiness, and to be received by you in such wise as you understand it to proceed from us. For it behoves us to feel and to act as one, so that, as we read, in us also there may be proved to be one heart and one soul (Acts 4:32). For since the most blessed Peter received the apostolic primacy from the Lord, and the Roman Church abides in his institutions,

it is impious to believe that his holy disciple Mark, who first governed the Church of Alexandria, formed the decrees of his traditions by other rules: since without doubt, from the same fount of grace, there was one spirit both of the disciple and of the master, nor could the ordained man hand down anything other than what he received from his ordainer. We do not, therefore, allow that, while we confess ourselves to be of one body and one faith, we should differ in anything; and that the institutions of the teacher should appear one thing, those of the disciple another. CHAP. I. On what day the sacerdotal or levitical benediction ought to be celebrated.

— What, therefore, we know to have been guarded by our Fathers with such forward care, we wish to be observed also by you: that the sacerdotal or levitical ordination be not celebrated indiscriminately on all days; but after the day of the Sabbath, let there be chosen the beginnings of that night which dawns into the first day of the week, in which the sacred benediction may be conferred upon those who are to be consecrated, they being fasting, and by those who are fasting. Which will be of the same observance, if on the Lord's own day itself in the morning, the Sabbath fast being continued, it be celebrated; from which time the preceding beginnings of the night do not depart, for that they pertain to the day of resurrection there is no doubt, as is also declared in the Pasch of the Lord.

For besides the authority of custom, which we know to come from apostolic teaching, sacred Scripture also makes it manifest (Acts 13), that when the apostles, by the precept of the Holy Spirit, sent forth Paul and Barnabas to preach the Gospel to the nations, they laid hands upon them, fasting and praying: that we may understand with how great devotion, both of those who give and of those who receive, care must be taken, lest the sacrament of so great a benediction seem to be negligently fulfilled. And therefore you will have piously and laudably conformed to the apostolic institutions, if you yourself also shall have kept this form of ordaining priests throughout the Churches over which the Lord willed you to preside:

that to those who are to be consecrated the benediction be never bestowed except on the day of the Lord's resurrection, to which the beginning is agreed to be ascribed from the evening of the Sabbath, and which has been consecrated with such great mysteries of divine dispositions, that whatever has been more signally established by the Lord was enacted in the dignity of this day. On this day the world took its beginning. On this day, through the resurrection of Christ, death received its perishing, and life its beginning. On this day the apostles receive from the Lord the trumpet of the Gospel to be preached to all nations (Matt. 28:20), and receive the sacrament of regeneration to be brought to the whole world.

On this day, as the blessed evangelist John testifies, when the disciples were gathered together into one, the doors being shut, when the Lord had entered in to them, he breathed upon them, and said: 'Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you shall have remitted, they are remitted unto them; and whose you shall have retained, they are retained' (John 20:22, 23). On this day, finally, the Holy Spirit promised by the Lord came to the apostles (Acts 2:1; John 14:16; 16:7); so that we may know it insinuated and handed down by a certain heavenly rule, that on that day the mysteries of the sacerdotal benedictions must be celebrated by us, on which all the gifts of graces were bestowed. CHAP. II.

On repeating the sacrifice of the Mass, that satisfaction may be made to the people coming in later. — But that our observance may agree in all things, we wish this too to be guarded: that when some more solemn festivity has appointed the assembly of a more numerous people, and such a multitude of the faithful has come together as one basilica cannot at the same time receive, the oblation of the sacrifice be repeated without hesitation; lest, only those being admitted to this devotion who first arrived, those who afterward flowed together should seem not received, since it is full of piety and reason that, as often as the presence of a new people has filled the basilica in which it is done, so often a subsequent sacrifice be offered.

But it is necessary that some part of the people be deprived of its devotion, if, only the custom of a single Mass being observed, they cannot offer the sacrifice except those who have assembled in the first part of the day. With zeal, therefore, and in familiar wise, we admonish your love that what has settled into our custom out of the form of paternal tradition, your care too may not neglect: so that in all things we may agree with one another both in faith and in deeds. On which account, to our Possidonius the presbyter, on his return, we have given this letter to be carried to your fraternity — who has frequently been present at our processions and ordinations, and, being so often sent to us, has come to know what we hold in all things of the apostolic authority. Given on the eleventh day before the Kalends of July.

To the most beloved brethren, all the bishops established throughout the province of Vienne, Leo bishop of Rome. Chapter I. — The worship of divine religion, which the grace of God willed to shine forth upon all peoples and all nations, our Lord Jesus Christ the Saviour of the human race so ordained, that the truth which before was contained in the proclamation of the Law and the Prophets should go forth through the apostolic trumpet unto the salvation of all, as it is written: 'Their sound went out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world' (Ps. 18:5). But the sacred mystery of this office the Lord so willed to pertain to the ministry of all the apostles, that He placed it principally in the most blessed Peter, the chief of all the apostles;

and from him, as from a certain head, He willed His gifts to flow into the whole body, so that whoever dared to withdraw from the solidity of Peter might understand himself to be without share in the divine mystery. For him, taken up into the fellowship of the indivisible unity, He willed to be named that which He Himself was, saying: 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church' (Matt. 16:18); that the building of the eternal temple, by the wondrous gift of God's grace, might rest upon the solidity of Peter; strengthening His Church with this firmness, so that neither could human rashness assail it, nor could the gates of hell prevail against it.

But this most sacred firmness of that rock, built up (as we have said) by God the builder, whoever attempts to break its power seeks to violate with an all too impious presumption—by favouring his own desires, and by not following what he received from the ancients: since he believes himself subject to no law, held by no rules of the Lord's institution, departing (through the ambition of a new usurpation) from your custom and ours, presuming things unlawful, and neglecting what he ought to have kept. Chapter II.

— But these things, by the inspiration of God (as we believe), preserving toward you the grace of our charity which the Apostolic See, as you remember, always bestowed upon your holiness, we strive to correct with more mature counsel, and to compose the condition of your Churches by labour shared with you—not instituting new things, but renewing the old: that we may abide in the settled state which has been handed down to us by our fathers, and may please our God through the ministry of good work, the scandals of disturbances being removed.

Let your fraternity therefore acknowledge with us that the Apostolic See, out of reverence for it, has been consulted by innumerable reports even from the priests of your own province, and that through the appeal of various causes, as ancient custom demanded, judgments have been either reviewed or confirmed: so that, the unity of the Spirit being preserved in the bond of peace, with letters passing to and fro, what was holily done might profit unto perpetual charity: for our solicitude, seeking not its own but the things that are Christ's, took away the dignity divinely given neither from the Churches nor from the priests of the Churches.

But Hilary, about to disturb this path—always both well held and wholesomely guarded among our elders—the condition of the Churches and the concord of the priesthood, transgressed with new presumptions; so desiring to subject you to his own power, that he does not suffer himself to be subject to the blessed apostle of ordination, Peter—claiming for himself the jurisdiction of all the Churches throughout the Gauls, and transferring to his own dignity what is owed to the metropolitan priests; diminishing also with more arrogant words the reverence of the most blessed Peter himself: to whom, although above the rest the power of loosing and binding was handed over (Matt. 16), yet the care of feeding the sheep was more especially entrusted (John 21).

Whoever judges that the primacy ought to be denied to him can in no way diminish his dignity; but, puffed up by the spirit of his own pride, he plunges himself into hell. Chapter III. — What things therefore have been transacted and completed among us in the case of bishop Celidonius, and what Hilary said while he was heard together with the same bishop, the said bishop being present, the order of matters recorded upon the pages shows. There, after Hilary had nothing reasonable which he could answer in the council of the holy priests, they turned themselves to those hidden things of his own heart which no layman could speak, no priest could hear. We grieved, I confess, brethren, and we tried to heal this swelling of his mind with the remedies of our patience.

For we were unwilling to exacerbate for him those wounds which he inflicted on his own soul by his repeatedly insolent speeches; and him whom we had received as a brother we strove rather to soothe—although he entangled himself by his own answers—than to sadden him by our interlocutions. Bishop Celidonius was acquitted, since he had shown, by the manifest response of witnesses, himself also being present, that he had been unjustly deposed from the priesthood; so that Hilary, sitting with us, had nothing that he could object. Therefore the judgment was set aside, which was read out as pronounced in this sentence: that, as the husband of a widow, he could not hold the priesthood.

Which indeed we, preserving the legal statutes, willed to be more carefully guarded, not only concerning priests but also concerning clerics of lesser office: lest those be permitted to approach the sacred ministry who have such a marriage, or who are shown, contrary to apostolic discipline, to have been the husband not of one wife only. But just as we decree that those whose deed cannot excuse them are either not to be admitted, or, if they have been admitted, to be removed, so those against whom this is falsely charged we must, an examination being held, clear, and not allow them to lose their office. For the sentence pronounced against him would have stood, if the truth of the charges had existed.

And so our fellow-bishop Celidonius was restored to his Church and to this dignity which he ought not to have lost, as the series of the acts, and the sentence which was pronounced by us after the investigation had been gone through, attest. Chapter IV. — This business being thus finished, there followed the complaint of our brother and fellow-bishop Projectus: whose tearful and lamentable letters were directed to us concerning a bishop set over him. A letter also was brought in from his own citizens, confirmed by the numerous subscription of individuals, full of most invidious complaints against Hilary: namely, that to their bishop Projectus

it had not been permitted even to be sick as a free man, and that his priesthood had been transferred to another without his knowledge, and that, as into a vacant possession, an heir had been brought in by Hilary the invader upon a living man. What your fraternity feels about this, we should wish to hear. Although our sentence ought not to be in doubt concerning your minds: since you see a brother laid upon his bed, weighed down not so much by infirmity of body as tortured by another grief. What hope of life is left to him, on whom despair concerning his priesthood is imposed, while another is substituted for him? It appears how mild of heart Hilary is, who believed the slowness of his brother's death to be an obstacle to his own presumption.

For as far as lay in him, he took away the light from that man, took away life, who by substituting another in his place cast in this grief, so that there might be no return for him to health. Grant that the customary migration of the human condition came upon the brother briefly; what does Hilary seek for himself in another's province, and why does he usurp that which none of his predecessors before Patroclus had? Since even that which seemed to have been granted temporarily to Patroclus by the Apostolic See was afterward taken away by a better sentence. Surely the wishes of the citizens ought to be awaited, the testimonies of the peoples; the judgment of the honourable should be sought, the election of the clergy—which are wont to be observed in the ordinations of priests by those who know the rules of the Fathers:

that the norm of apostolic authority might be preserved in all things, by which it is prescribed that a priest who is to preside over the Church be fortified not only by the attestation of the faithful, but also by the testimony of those who are outside (1 Tim. 3:7), and that the occasion of that scandal may be avoided, when, by peace and by concord pleasing to God, with the harmonious zeal of all, he who is to be a teacher of peace is ordained. Chapter V. — But that unlooked-for man came upon those who knew not, and departed unforeseen, accomplishing (as we have learned) many journeys in swift course, and running through distant provinces with such prematurity that he seems to have grasped at glory from buffoonish speed rather than from priestly moderation. For these are the words of the letters of the citizens directed to us:

'He departed before we knew that he had come.' This is not to return, but to flee; not to expend the wholesomeness of pastoral diligence, but to bring the violence of a robber and thief, the Lord saying: 'He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up another way, the same is a thief and a robber' (John 10:1). Hilary therefore was not so eager to consecrate a bishop as rather to slay him who was sick, and to deceive the very one whom he set over by ordaining him ill. Yet we—which we believe will please you, with God as judge—consulting in common for all the brethren, have decreed both that the one ill-ordained be removed, and that bishop Projectus ought to remain in his own priesthood:

establishing this: that if any of our brethren in whatever province shall have died, he shall claim for himself the ordination of that priest whom it is established to be the metropolitan of that province. Hard, as we see, are the cases that have been transacted, in which nevertheless there are many things that seem to have been committed contrary to ecclesiastical reason, and ought to await the censure of a just judgment. But we cannot linger here longer, since we are summoned to other matters which are to be more carefully conferred upon with your holiness. — Chapter VI. — A military band, as we have learned, follows the priest through the provinces, and, propped up by the presumption of an armed guard, serves to invade through tumult the Churches which have lost their own priests.

Those to be ordained are dragged before this office, unknown to the cities over which they are to be set. For as he who has been known and approved is sought through peace, so he who is unknown must of necessity be imposed by force, being brought in. I beseech and implore, and under the invocation of God I appeal to you: forbid, brethren, such things, and remove all matter of dissension from your provinces. Certainly we before God are absolved, who appeal to you that you permit these things to be done no further. Through peace and quiet let the priests who are to be sought be requested. Let there be held the subscription of the clergy, the testimony of the honourable, the consent of the order and of the people.

He who is to preside over all, let him be chosen by all. Let the individual metropolitans of their provinces, as we have already said before, together with those who precede the rest in antiquity of priesthood, defend for themselves the ordination, the right being restored to them through us. Let no other dare to claim for himself another's right. Let each one be content with his own limits, his own boundaries, and let him know that it is not permitted him to transfer to another the privilege owed to himself.

But if anyone, neglecting the apostolic sanctions and giving more to personal favour, shall wish to be a deserter of his own honour, believing that he can transfer his privilege to another, let not he to whom he yielded, but he who within the province precedes the rest of the priests in episcopal antiquity, claim for himself the power of ordaining. Let ordination be celebrated not at random, but on a lawful day; nor let him know the firmness of his own standing to be assured, who has not been ordained on the evening of the sabbath, which dawns into the first day of the week, or on the Lord's day itself. For only the day of the Lord's resurrection did our elders judge worthy of this honour, that the priests who are taken should especially be granted on this day. Chapter VII.

— Let each province be content with its own councils, nor let Hilary dare any further to appoint synodal assemblies, and to disturb by interposing himself the judgments of all the priests. He shall know himself not only expelled from another's right, but also deprived of the power over the province of Vienne, which he had wrongfully usurped. For it is fitting, brethren, that the statutes of antiquity be restored, since he who claimed for himself the ordination of a province not his due has even in the present been proved to have shown himself such, that—although he himself more frequently, with rash and insolent words, demanded the sentence of condemnation—our precept, out of the piety of the Apostolic See, has preserved for him the priesthood of his own city only.

Let him therefore take no part in any ordination; let him not ordain, who, conscious of his own merit, when he was sought for the case, believed that he must withdraw himself by shameful flight, and who is deprived of the lot of apostolic communion, of which he did not deserve to be a partaker: God (as we believe) bringing this to pass, who both drew him, us not expecting it, to our judgments, and, amid the examinations that were held, brought it about that he might depart secretly, lest he should become a partner of our communion. Chapter [VIII].

VIII. — Let communion not easily be denied to any of the Christians, nor let this be left to the will of an indignant priest—which, unto the punishment of great guilt, the mind of the one judging ought to inflict unwilling and grieving in some measure. For we have learned that certain persons have been excluded from the grace of communion for committed and trivial words, and that a soul, for which the blood of Christ was shed, has been wounded by the infliction of so cruel a punishment and, unarmed as it were and exiled from every defence, exposed to diabolical assaults, so that it might easily be taken captive. Surely, if ever such a cause shall arise that, for the quality of the crime committed, it justly makes someone to be deprived of communion, only he is to be subjected to the penalty whom the guilt involves;

nor ought he to be a partaker of the punishment who is not shown to have been a sharer of the deed. But what wonder that such a temper exists toward the laity in one who is wont to rejoice over the condemnation of priests? Chapter IX. — Whence, since our intention seems far otherwise—for we desire that the condition of all the Churches and the concord of the priesthood be preserved—exhorting you to unity by the bond of charity, we both implore and admonish with fitting affection, that those things which have now been decreed by us, God inspiring and the most blessed apostle Peter, all the causes being now discussed and proved, you may preserve for your peace and dignity: assured that it profits not so much our honour as yours, that we are known to have established such things.

For we do not defend for ourselves the ordinations of your provinces (about which Hilary, after his manner, can perhaps lie, to the corrupting of the minds of your holiness); but we vindicate them for you through our solicitude, lest anything further be permitted to novelty, nor let a place lie open any longer to the presumer for annulling your privileges. To our gratification we profess that this alone accrues, if the diligence of the Apostolic See be preserved unimpaired among you, and if, through the guardianship of priestly discipline, we do not allow what is his own to perish, to your honour, by wicked usurpations. And since antiquity is always to be honoured, we wish our brother and fellow-bishop Leontius, an approvable priest, to be adorned with this dignity, if it please you: