Epigrams 6 part 1/2

A COPY OF THE SYNOD OF NINETY-THREE BISHOPS HELD AT ROME, FROM AN IMPERIAL RESCRIPT. A NOTICE. Sarazanius received this from Theodoret and presented it in his own translation; I, however, use the Latin edition of Holstenius, as the original splendour of Damasus, as I said in chapter 5. But as to why among Sozomen and Theodoret it is addressed to the Illyrians, while in Holstenius it is addressed to the bishops established throughout the East, see chapter 7. For the rest, the manuscript codex from which it is taken, transferred from the Bobbio library into the Vatican library by Scipio, cardinal of St. Susanna and librarian, was inspected long before Holstenius, and Fr. Ludovicus Capellas had promised to publish it, in his later dissertation on the succession of the Roman bishops, chapter 5; it is also found in the Vallicellian codex 23, p.

107, copied from an old Tridentine manuscript, brought, that is, to that city of Trent at the time of the council, in a book. THE LETTER. Damasus, Valerianus, Vitalianus, Aufidius, Pacianus, Victor, Priscus, Innocentius, Abundius, Theodulus, and the rest who assembled in the city of Rome to hear the case of Auxentius and to set forth the faith, to the Catholic bishops established throughout the East, greeting in the Lord. We are indeed confident that Your Holiness, grounded in the instruction of the Apostles, holds that faith and imparts it to your peoples, a faith which in no respect dissents from the institutions of our forefathers. For it is not fitting that the priests of God should think otherwise, whose part it is to instruct the rest.

But from the report of our brethren of Gaul and of Venetia we have learned that certain men, not from zeal for heresy (for so great an evil cannot fall upon the prelates of God), but from ignorance or from a certain simplicity, being inflamed by perverse interpretations, do not sufficiently discern which opinion of our fathers ought rather to be held, since diverse counsels are pressed upon their ears. In short, they declare that Auxentius of Milan was condemned chiefly for this cause. It is therefore fitting that all the teachers of the law throughout the Roman world should hold the same view concerning the law, and not violate the Lord's faith by divergent teachings.

For when of old the poison of heretics began to creep in, as it has now again begun, and especially when the blasphemy of the Arians had begun to sprout, our forefathers, three hundred and eighteen bishops, together with most holy bishops sent from the city of Rome, having held a council at Nicaea, set up this wall against the diabolical weapons, and by this antidote repelled the deadly draughts: namely, that one ought to believe the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit to be of one Godhead, of one form, of one substance, judging him who thinks otherwise to be a stranger to our fellowship. This saving definition certain men afterward attempted, by other treatises, to pervert and to violate.

But even at the very outset it was corrected by those same men who were being compelled to retract it at Ariminum, so that they confessed that something had been stolen from them by another disputation, for this reason, that they had not understood that the opinion of the fathers had been formed at Nicaea against the contrary view. For no prejudice could arise from the number of those who assembled at Ariminum, since it is established that neither the Roman bishop, whose opinion before all others ought to have been sought, nor Vincentius, who for so many years preserved the priesthood unblemished, nor others of this sort, gave any consent to such decrees:

especially since, as we have said, those very same men who seemed to have yielded under pressure protested by better counsel that it displeased them. Whence Your Sincerity perceives that this faith alone, which at Nicaea was founded on the authority of the Apostles, is to be held with perpetual firmness; in this faith the Orientals who acknowledge themselves Catholic, and the Westerners, glory together with us; and we believe it cannot be far off that those who think otherwise, although by this very effort they may be cast out from our communion, may yet have their peoples, freed from their errors, take breath again. For how shall they be able to correct the errors of the peoples, if error has beset themselves?

Let therefore the judgment of Your Charity also be in harmony with all the priests of God; and as we well believe that you are fixed and firmly established in it, so we too ought, by the reciprocal letters of Your Holiness, to approve that we together with you think rightly. I, Sabinus, deacon of Milan and legate, gave this from the original. OR, THE EXPOSITION OF THE FAITH SET FORTH IN THE ROMAN SYNOD UNDER POPE DAMASUS AND TRANSMITTED TO THE EAST. A NOTICE. These two fragments belong to other synods under Damasus, as I have already said. Coustant also saw this, and the distinguished Father Joseph Mansi, in his Supplement to the Councils, vol. I, p. 234; but we do not agree as to the time of those synods, nor as to the manner of reckoning it.

For the synod which I reckon the very first of all, and judge to have been convened in the year 369, he, with Pagi, supposes to have been gathered in 372. Next, the one which I, from this twofold fragment, hold to be double—one held in 374, the other in 376 or the following year—he considers to be a single one, and says that these very fragments pertain to it, convened in 377. But although the authority of that most learned man is very great with me, as it ought to be, I have nevertheless judged that nothing of what I had already written should be changed.

For since the Orientals, to whom the letters written by those Roman councils had already been brought, were unable—in those dire and turbulent times under Valens—to convene their own synods, as soon as it was permitted upon his death, they gathered themselves together, namely in the year 379, and read all those synodal letters in a crowded assembly, embraced the dogmas defined in them, and inserted into the acts of that council those things which seemed necessary, excerpted from them (see chapter 14); and this is the reason why, although those same fragments were written at different times, I have not thought them ought to be separated. LIKEWISE FROM PART OF THE DECREE. I. By that grace, brethren, that Jericho, which is the figure of worldly pleasures, fell with a great crash and was destroyed, and does not rise again;

because with one mouth we declare the Godhead to be of one power, of one majesty, of one divinity, of one essence (ousia): so that, while we affirm an inseparable power, we yet assert that there are three persons, who neither return into themselves nor are diminished, as very many blaspheme, but ever abide; and that there are not certain grades of power and disparate times of origin; nor is the Son merely uttered forth, so as to deny him generation; nor imperfect, so that anything of the nature of the Father, or of the fullness of the Godhead, was lacking to his person; nor is the Son unlike in operation, nor unlike in power, nor in all things unlike; nor does he subsist from any other source, but is born of God, not false from the true God, but true God begotten of true God, true light of true light;

lest he be thought diminished or different: because the Only-begotten possesses the splendour of the eternal light, since by the order of nature there is neither light without splendour, nor can splendour exist without light: he is also the image of the Father, so that whoever has seen him has also seen the Father. The same Son, for the grace of our redemption, came forth from the Virgin, that perfect man might be born for the perfect man who had sinned. Therefore, brethren, let us affirm that the Son of God took to himself also a perfect man; and let us confess the Holy Spirit also to be uncreated, and of one majesty, one essence (ousia), one power with God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who was sent forth in order to create is not deserving of the injury of being called a creature, as the holy prophet has established, saying:

Send forth thy Spirit, and they shall be created; then another likewise has set down: The divine Spirit which made me; who is joined together in the work of creation and in the remission of sins. This, most beloved brethren, is our faith; whoever follows it is a partaker with us. A body of varied colour deforms its members. To these we give communion, since they approve our opinion in all things. Far be it that the pure faith be patched together with various colours. We admonish, moreover, that this also is to be guarded against: that the canonical order be not neglected in the ordinations of priests or clerics, or that communion be too readily imparted to its transgressors, and that incentives to sin in other matters be furnished. These things, then, had to be made known from our judgment.

For the rest, as concerns the removal of the injuries done to Your Charity, neither does our brother Dorotheus the presbyter unfold them—he passes over everything in lively fashion—nor have our efforts been lacking, as he himself is witness. LIKEWISE FROM PART OF THE DECREE. This indeed we marvel at, that certain men are said to be among us who, although they seem to have a pious understanding concerning the Trinity, yet, ignorant of the powers and the Scriptures, do not think rightly concerning the sacrament of our salvation. For they assert and say that our Lord and Saviour took from the Virgin Mary an imperfect man, that is, a man without a mind. Alas! how great will be their nearness to the Arians in such a notion! They say that an imperfect divinity is in the Son of God:

these men falsely declare an imperfect humanity in the Son of Man. But if indeed an imperfect man was assumed, then the gift of God is imperfect, our salvation is imperfect; because the whole man was not saved. And where then will be that saying of the Lord, The Son of Man came to save what was wholly lost? that is, in soul and in body, in mind and in the whole substance of his nature. If therefore the whole man had perished, it was necessary that what had perished should be saved. But if he was saved without a mind, then, against the faith of the Gospel, it will be found that not the whole of what had perished was saved: since in another place the Saviour himself says: Be angry with me, because I have saved the whole man.

What of this, that the sum of the chief sin itself and of the whole ruin consists in the mind of man? For first, if the mind of man, by which good and evil are chosen, had not perished, he would not die. How then could it be presumed that what is known to have sinned before all else ought least of all to be saved in the end? But we, who know ourselves to be saved whole and perfect, according to the profession of the Catholic Church, profess that perfect God assumed a perfect man. Wherefore take pains that, by the understanding of sound doctrine, the minds also of those may be saved who as yet do not believe that the mind is saved. LIKEWISE FROM PART OF THE DECREE.

That we have no resources at hand whereby our exertions might bring you even a little refreshment: although from this, most blessed ones, you may take great consolation, if, recognizing the integrity of our faith, you glory that you accord with us in one mind; and, as is fitting, presume fully and abundantly that we are solicitous for you as members. For while holding the faith of the Council of Nicaea inviolable in all things, without dissimulation of words or corrupt sense, we in no way separate the Holy Spirit; but, perfect in all things—in power, honour, majesty, deity—we join him together with the Father and the Son:

and thus we are confident that the fullness of God the Word—not uttered forth but begotten, neither remaining in the Father so as not to be, but subsisting from eternity to eternity, perfect—assumed and saved a perfect, that is, an entire man. Here ends this letter, or the exposition of the Roman synod held under Pope Damasus and transmitted to the East; in which the whole Eastern Church, a synod having been held at Antioch, believing with concordant faith, and all thus consenting to the same faith above expounded, confirm it each with his own subscription. Meletius, bishop of Antioch: I consent to all things written above, thus believing and thinking; and if anyone thinks otherwise than these things, let him be anathema.

Eusebius, bishop of Samosata: I consent to all things written above, thus believing and thinking; and if anyone thinks otherwise than these things, let him be anathema. Pelagius, bishop of Laodicea: I consent to all things written above, thus thinking and believing; and if anyone thinks otherwise than these things, let him be anathema. Zeno, bishop of Tyre: as above I believe and have subscribed. Eulogius, bishop of Edessa: likewise I believe and have subscribed. Bematius of the city of Mallus: likewise I believe and have subscribed. Diodorus, bishop of Tarsus: as above, and I have subscribed. Likewise also another 146 Oriental bishops subscribed, whose subscription is today kept in the original in the archives of the Roman Church. Here ends the Roman and Antiochene synod.

OF DAMASUS, POPE OF THE CITY OF ROME, TO PAULINUS, BISHOP OF THE CITY OF ANTIOCH. A NOTICE. Why I have separated this from the other letter of Damasus to Paulinus—contrary to what Holstenius, Quesnel, and Constant did—since I have already said it, I shall not say again. Holstenius, however, determined nothing on the matter, but published it as he saw it transcribed in his copy: Quesnel, on the other hand, took the Holstenian copy, though disordered and confused, as his rule, and was the first of all to judge that both should be printed together, as it were one joined to the other.

For this, besides the authority of the Holstenian copy and of his own, he brings forward as the chief reason: that since Damasus writes to Paulinus that he has sent him a faith, he must have meant to indicate a faith entirely different from that which is contained in the same letter, that is, one separated from that letter itself; but what other faith can we here understand besides that which is immediately appended to the same letter? Yet how flimsy this reasoning is, the very reading of the letter openly proves:

for since it expresses those very dogmas to which he orders Vitalis and his flock to subscribe, and since therefore nothing at all is lacking in it for the full overthrow of the Apollinarian heresy—of which alone the matter then treated—there is no need that we should say another formula was attached to it, which was by no means necessary and besides seemed altogether foreign to that cause. And I shall seek no other witness of this opinion than Damasus himself, who, after having set forth in that same letter all the conditions on which Vitalis and others could be received into communion, finally says that those who should subscribe to this letter without any ambiguity were to be received:

hence it is most plainly established, unless I am mistaken, that there were no others either attached by him or desired, besides those which he had set forth in the same letter. I have also collated for this question the manuscript codices, and two older than the rest: the one of the Dionysian collection, by the leave of the then most religious and most learned abbot, now Besozzi, cardinal penitentiary of the Holy Roman Church, from the monastery of the Holy Cross in the Sessorian field, marked no. 225; the other written in the Vallicellian library in the age of Nicholas I, marked A. V. What I have detected from them is twofold: first, that this letter concerning Vitalis is altogether solitary, separated, that is, from the other, which is called the Confession of Damasus:

for the former codex contains this letter alone out of all the letters of Damasus, which is then followed by the decretal of Siricius to Himerius; but the Vallicellian codex first reports the anathematisms of the same under this title: A Confession of the Catholic Faith, which Pope Damasus sent to Paulinus, bishop of Antioch; then, in another and later place, it recites this letter which treats of Vitalis under this inscription:

Here begins the rescript of Pope Damasus, at the request of Jerome, to Paulinus the bishop; and other codices like to these could be brought forward. The other thing which I noticed from the same is this, that each codex is fuller than the printed books, namely with that entire passage in which the Lord-Man, of whom Rufinus makes mention, is set forth, which is lacking in the editions. These codices, therefore, I have followed, and besides them Isidore Mercator, Baronius, and Sarazanius, and I have published this letter as separated from that which is called the Confession of Damasus, or the Rule of Faith: but I was moved to this besides by other reasons, which, since I have brought them forward in chapter

10 and 15, where there was occasion to treat of the occasion and time of their writing, I shall not here repeat, intending to add some others in the notes. To my most beloved brother Paulinus, Damasus. Through my son Vitalis I had sent letters to you, leaving everything to your will and judgment; and through Petronius the presbyter I had briefly indicated that I was already at the moment of his departure somewhat disturbed in part. Wherefore, lest either a scruple should remain with you, and the approval of your caution should delay those perhaps willing to be joined to the Church, we have sent a statement of faith, not so much to you, who share the communion of the same faith, as to those who, subscribing to it, shall have wished to be joined to you, that is, to us through you, most beloved brother.

Wherefore, if my aforesaid son Vitalis and those who are with him should wish to be joined to you, they ought first to subscribe to that exposition of the faith which was confirmed at Nicaea by the pious will of the fathers. Then, since no one can apply medicine to future wounds, that heresy must be rooted out which is said afterward to have sprouted in the East, that is: it must be confessed that the very Wisdom, the Word, the Son of God, took to himself a human body, soul, and mind, that is, the entire Adam, and, to speak more expressly, our whole old man, without sin. For just as, confessing that he took a human body, we do not at once attribute to him also the human passions of vices:

so also, when we say that he assumed both a man's soul and mind, we do not at once say that he was also subject to the sin of human thoughts. But if anyone shall say that the Word served in the Lord's flesh in place of the human mind, this man the Catholic Church anathematizes; and also those who confess two sons in the Saviour, that is, one before the Incarnation and another after the assumption of flesh from the Virgin, and do not confess the same Son of God both before and afterward. Whoever shall wish to subscribe to this letter—provided, however, that he has first subscribed to the ecclesiastical canons, which you know very well, and to the Nicene faith—him you ought to receive without any ambiguity.

Not that you could not have proposed these very things which we write for the reception of converts; but that our consent may give you a free example in the receiving of them. THE CONFESSION OF THE CATHOLIC FAITH WHICH POPE DAMASUS SENT TO PAULINUS, BISHOP OF ANTIOCH. A NOTICE. This is the other letter of Damasus among those which are extant to Paulinus of Antioch, the reasons for separating which from the former I have already brought forward. Yet it pleases me to note this again: namely, that Theodoret appended it, rendered into Greek, to his History, and reported it as separated from the former, book V, chapter 11. But why did he not recite it whole, if Damasus had so joined the two that the one was an inseparable part of the other?

Or did he perhaps judge that what had been written concerning the name of Vitalis could in no way pertain to the history of the Church? Who would even suspect this? Or rather did he think it should be spared? But he by no means dissembles his heresy in book V, chapter 4. It remains, therefore, that it came to him already truncated and cut apart. But to whose advantage was this mangling and corruption of an entire letter? especially in so great a nearness of time and an abundance of copies? Let it therefore be ratified and certain, that it was not one letter cut into two parts, but two letters of Damasus to Paulinus, distinct from each other.

Moreover, that this one especially, of which we are treating, was perpetually famous and received with the highest applause, we gather from the writers who mention it and hold it for law: namely Celestine and Vigilius, Ambrose, the ancient author of the Sermon on the Seasons 429—once attributed to Augustine, now relegated to the appendix, vol. V, Serm. 233, where several of its anathematisms are recited—Arnobius the Younger, Isidore in the Codex of canons of the Spanish Church, Paulinus of Aquileia, the Council of Troyes, and others thereafter; and among the Greeks, to pass over the more recent, besides Theodoret, the Council of Constantinople, as I at least suppose, and Nazianzen.

Since therefore it was often transcribed for that reason, it could not but be that there is now a varied reading of the manuscript codices, whether by chance, or by rashness, and according to each man's bent; of which, even besides those things which I observed, Peter Constant brought forward more than one example from the codices which he, with his exquisite diligence, inspected. His copy, therefore, I have followed in this edition, both because it comes closer to the Greek transmitted to us by Theodoret, and because it comes closer to the Quesnelian, which two streams are, in my judgment, the nearest to the source of all, and easily for that reason the purer: for if anyone should wish to consider and compare all the manuscript codices, since their number is vast,

he must of necessity either sustain a prodigious and unnecessary labour, or be uncertain in his judgment as to which of them he should choose; although I have sometimes used the Vallicellian codex, because it was at hand. After the Council of Nicaea, which council was assembled at Rome by the Catholic bishops, they added concerning the Holy Spirit. And because afterward that error crept in, that certain men with sacrilegious mouth dared to say that the Holy Spirit was made through the Son: I. We anathematize those who do not proclaim with full liberty that the Holy Spirit is of one power and substance with the Father and the Son. II.

We also anathematize those who follow the error of Sabellius, saying that the Father is the same as the Son. III. We anathematize Arius and Eunomius, who with equal impiety, though in different language, assert that the Son and the Holy Spirit are creatures. IV. We anathematize the Macedonians, who, coming from the stock of Arius, have changed not their perfidy but their name. V. We anathematize Photinus, who, renewing the heresy of Ebion, confesses the Lord Jesus Christ to be only from Mary. VI. We anathematize those who assert two Sons, one before the ages, and the other after the assumption of flesh from the Virgin. VII.

We anathematize those who say that, in place of a rational and intelligent human soul, the Word of God dwelt in human flesh, whereas the Son himself is the Word of God, and was not in his body in place of a rational and intelligent soul, but assumed and saved our soul, that is, a rational soul, without sin. VIII. We anathematize those who contend that the Word, the Son of God, is by extension or contraction, and separated from the Father, insubstantial, and destined to have an end. IX. Those also who have migrated from churches to churches we hold to be alien from our communion for so long as they shall not have returned to those cities in which they were first established.

But if, when one man migrates elsewhere, another is ordained in the place of one yet living, let him who has deserted his own city lack the dignity of the priesthood for so long as his successor rests in peace. X. If anyone shall not say that the Son is always, and the Holy Spirit always, let him be anathema. XI. If anyone shall not say that the Son is born of the Father, that is, of his divine substance, let him be anathema. XII. If anyone shall not say that the Word of the Lord, the Son of God, is God, just as God his Father, and can do all things, and knows all things, and is equal to the Father, let him be anathema. XIII. If anyone shall say that, when the Son of God was set in the flesh, while he was on earth he was not in the heavens with the Father, let him be anathema. XIV.

If anyone shall say that in the passion of the cross it was the Son of God, God, who sustained the pain, and not the flesh with the soul, with which he had clothed himself in the form of a servant which he had taken to himself, as the Scripture says, let him be anathema. XV. If anyone shall not say that in the flesh which he assumed he sits at the right hand of the Father, in which he is to come to judge the living and the dead, let him be anathema. XVI. If anyone shall not say that the Holy Spirit is truly and properly of the Father, just as the Son is of the divine substance, and true God, let him be anathema. XVII. If anyone shall not say that the Holy Spirit can do all things, knows all things, and is everywhere, just as the Son and the Father, let him be anathema. XVIII. If anyone shall say that the Holy Spirit is a creature, or made through the Son, let him be anathema. XIX.

If anyone shall not say that the Father made all things through the Son and the Holy Spirit, that is, things visible and invisible, let him be anathema. XX. If anyone shall not say that of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit there is one divinity, power, majesty, might, one glory, dominion, one kingdom, and one will and truth, let him be anathema. XXI. If anyone shall not say that the three persons of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit are true, equal, ever-living, containing all things visible and invisible, powerful over all things, judging all things, vivifying all things, making all things, saving all things that are to be saved, let him be anathema. XXII.

If anyone shall not say that the Holy Spirit is to be adored by every creature, just as the Son and the Father, let him be anathema. XXIII. If anyone has thought well concerning the Father and the Son, but has not held rightly concerning the Holy Spirit, he is a heretic: because all heretics who think evilly concerning the Son of God and the Holy Spirit are found to be in the perfidy of the Jews and of the Gentiles. XXIV. But if anyone, saying God the Father, and God his Son, and God the Holy Spirit, should allow them to be called Gods, and not God on account of the one divinity and power which we believe and know to be of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit—but withdrawing the Son or the Holy Spirit, should so consider God the Father alone to be, that he is called, or believed, one God: