碑銘詩 第 5 章 第 5/8 段

For the rest, that — whenever the ecclesiastical communion between the two was broken off — this was not long afterward restored, he will scarcely doubt who reads the letter of the same Athanasius to the bishops of Egypt and Libya, or the first oration against the Arians, and sees in that passage Liberius and Hosius praised among the orthodox bishops and defenders of the faith. For since this was written, as Athanasius says, in the thirty-sixth year from the Council of Nicaea, it furnishes a most valid argument of a charity either never broken off or already restored; for if you reckon up the reasons (calculate), the year then running was 360; but if you wish those years to be already completed, the year 361 comes to you.

It does not escape me that there are those who, thinking that letter to have been composed in the year 356 and before the fall of Liberius, count those years expressed in it from the Alexandrian synod which condemned Arius and first sounded the trumpet against his heresy. But those who think thus do manifest violence to the plain words of Athanasius, who says that by the decree of one and the same general synod — namely the Nicene — the Arians were both declared heretics and cast out of the Church. For the rest, lest there should be any occasion of error or of thinking otherwise, the same Athanasius, in the passage where he asserts the Arians to have been declared heretics and driven from the Church thirty-six years before, says that the Meletians were made schismatics fifty-five years before.

But that the beginnings of the Meletian schism ought to be referred to the year 305, or to one near to it, as it seemed to Baronius, the most learned man Marchese Maffei manifestly proved, by producing four hitherto unedited letters of most holy Egyptian prelates and martyrs, which these same men sent to Meletius. For since these were written while the Diocletianic persecution was raging, and were given by that very prison in which they were detained; and since besides they relate the indications and causes of the schism then breaking out, and bitterly rebuke Meletius himself, and exhort him to return to saner counsels;

the famous man rightly concludes that they rest on no solid foundation at all, but rather err, who refer the Meletian schism to the year 300, or to one near to it, and anticipate it by a full three years before the persecution itself. Moreover, the time at which that same letter was written the following words also demonstrate, which are read in it: 'Sojourning in these regions I heard, as true and orthodox brethren reported, that some of the followers of Arius had assembled, and had written concerning the faith as they pleased, and wished to send a letter to you, that you should either subscribe as it pleases them — or rather as the devil suggested to them — or that whoever should gainsay should be cast out into exile.'

For indeed, of any faith (creed) composed by the Arians and then promulgated either in that year or in the following one, there is no trace at all to be found in the ancient monuments: but on the contrary all things agree wonderfully with that year in which we said the same letter was written; for in these words anyone easily sees expressed the Acacian formula, confirmed in the brigand-council of Constantinople, and the power, restricted by no limits, granted by Constantius — which Socrates and Sozomen record — whereby it might be received everywhere;

for then Eudoxius and Acacius, joined together, sent to all the provinces of the Roman empire the formula of faith which was recited at Rimini, together with the additions which they themselves, as though about to correct it, had added to it, and ordered those who refused to subscribe to this faith to be banished into exile by command of the emperor; and then especially was introduced that face of the Church which all the writers of those times describe, and which they say lasted until the death of Constantius. Nor indeed does it drive me from this opinion that Athanasius in the same passage mentions George as one then to be sent to Alexandria:

for the irruption of that robber into the Alexandrian see was twofold: one, which is to be bound to the year 356, or, as it seems to me, to the following; the other indeed to the year 361, after nearly three years from when he had been driven out of that City by a sedition of the people. Both this brigand invasion the anonymous Maffeian records and distinguishes, and assigns each to its own time; and as the count Heraclius, Cataphronius, and Syrianus, sent by Constantius to bring force upon the people, had forerun the earlier one, so also, lest anything should be lacking to the later, Paul the Notary was sent, who set forth an edict on behalf of George and subdued many for the sake of his vindication.

Who then will teach us with certainty whether Athanasius meant to indicate the earlier or the later in the same letter? For as to the fact that mention is also made there of Cecropius, bishop of Nicomedia, who in the year 358, on the twenty-fourth day of August, perished under the basilica of that city overthrown by an earthquake, I do not see what can be argued from this, if that passage be attentively observed; for if, when Athanasius treats of the Catholic bishops, he mentions Maximinus of Trier, Julius the Roman pontiff, and others whom he knew to have died long before, together with Hosius and Liberius still enjoying the use of this light, and places them among the outstanding defenders of the faith, in whose writings concerning the faith there could be no place for suspicion;

so likewise I do not see why, among those whose writings and dogmas he teaches are to be rejected and execrated, he could not enumerate Cecropius and Leontius the Castrated, even if they had already been taken from life; since this one thing he seems to have proposed to himself in that passage, namely that, the bishops of both parties being compared and their writings collated with one another, the bishops of Egypt and Libya might understand whose opinion was to be chosen and whose to be fled by them. I return now whence I had departed, namely to the Synod of Rimini, on whose occasion, moreover, these things are read in the fragments of Hilary: 'But Potamius and Epictetus, while they rejoice to condemn the bishop of Rome at Rome, as is contained in the Synod of Rimini, were unwilling to hear of this.'

That this passage is dislocated, disturbed, and awaits a healing hand — but in vain — there is no one who does not see and confess. If, however, anything can be carved out of it, it seems that something was done in the Synod of Rimini concerning the Roman bishop Liberius. But what cause? Namely that which would be a praise and ornament to this pontiff; and that we may conjecture this, it must be premised that Potamius, already dead — if faith is to be given to the presbyters Faustinus and Marcellinus — was neither present at the council nor could have been present.

It remains therefore that we should say that those things which had been perpetrated in the Council of Milan by the same Potamius and Epictetus against Liberius were rubbed up again and called to memory in the assembly of Rimini, on the occasion of the recent formula proposed by Ursacius and Valens; and since the Catholic bishops resisted it, and knew for certain that the Roman bishop too would resist, it could not but be that they should also foresee that he would again be harassed and again driven from his see. And the outcome indeed proved the matter: for Liberius annulled by apostolic authority all that was done at Rimini and made it void, encyclical letters being given to all the bishops, which Siricius recalls in his celebrated letter to Himerius of Tarragona.

But lest he should give a repeated example of human frailty, he himself afterward, conscious of himself, withdrew, and betook himself into the hiding-places of a cemetery. Of this second withdrawal of Liberius, Sozomen openly makes mention, and distinguishes it from the earlier exile. But Rufinus — by whom Socrates was deceived — ignorantly confounds it with the Beroean exile. Wherefore Tillemont, although he concedes to this very repeated exile some appearance of truth, nevertheless says that the foundation is lacking from which it could be held for certain: for Sozomen, as he thinks, is doubtful, and to the Acts of Liberius, which confirm that matter, Baronius himself gives not much credit: but if this Liberian withdrawal perishes, the vicariate of Damasus also falls.

So at least it seemed to Constantius (the editor) in the preliminary note prefixed to those same Acts of Liberius, relegated to the appendix. But for this double exile neither does reason fail, nor witnesses besides Sozomen. For as to what pertains to reason, from the same Sozomen and Socrates we know that the same power as that which in the East Eudoxius and Acacius held was granted to Ursacius and Valens through the Western authority. And that those robbers abused this we learn both from the same historians, and from Jerome, Vincent of Lérins, and Augustine, whose sayings I would here adduce in vain (needlessly).

Shall we then say that Liberius — who had made the Council of Rimini void, and alone had broken their attempt — was passed over by those wicked men unharmed and untouched? But Sozomen is joined also by Prosper in his Chronicle, which Canisius published entire, and by Lucifer against Constantius. The testimony of the former is by no means doubtful, since he both records and distinguishes each exile, and assigns the one to the ninth year of Liberius's pontificate, the other indeed to the consulship of Constantius for the eighth time and of Julian the Caesar: but the things which Lucifer writes, I confess, may seem somewhat obscure to us who are far removed from those times:

but if they be attentively observed, they furnish an argument in no way doubtful of this repeated Liberian withdrawal: he says therefore to the emperor: 'Will you deny that you invited us to idolatry, to be embraced? If you think it must be denied, the expositions of your sect — of your fellow-blasphemers' bishops, namely — will convict you; the booklets recited by you, and given at Rome to the bishops, even the Catholic ones, will convict you — to this end, namely, that your blasphemy might be strengthened in every place.' There are therefore those who think that by these words is designated that time when Constantius stayed in the City, namely in the year 357;

and that he then recited and distributed those booklets to the Catholic bishops who were present, with this design, that he might perceive with what mind each one would be disposed toward the already premeditated blasphemy that was to be brought forth from the city of Sirmium. But since Lucifer writes that the booklets were recited by Constantius and handed through the hands of the bishops, so that his blasphemy might be strengthened in every place, the reader easily understands that he is treating not of a merely premeditated, but of an already produced into light and promulgated blasphemy:

next, no one will easily concede that the blasphemy — which all know was afterward drawn up in that Sirmian clandestine and chance meeting — could already at that time have been formed, read to the Catholic bishops, and handed through their hands, at the time when Constantius stayed in the City; if therefore anyone should think that there is designated and signified by Lucifer that impious formula which I have mentioned, the Riminian, or rather Acacian, I can scarcely believe that he would depart far from its true meaning. For this is that very one which, after a long disputation before the emperor himself, when it had been received by the prevaricating bishops, was then proposed and publicly recited at Constantinople.

But because at Rome — whither it had meanwhile been brought by the emperor's order — it could not be recited, the bishop Liberius and the whole Church resisting, we read that it was merely handed through the hands of the bishops, yet with absolutely no success. Although therefore Lucifer in that passage does not express whether Liberius, when these things were being done at Rome, was absent or present, it is nevertheless credible that he was absent, with this design, that, free from the power of those to whom Constantius had decreed that all things were lawful against the bishops opposing this formula, he might continue to provide for the integrity of the Catholic faith even by his own flight and withdrawal. For the rest, what most of all makes me not doubt about Liberius's second migration from the City are these words of Anastasius concerning Julius:

'He lived in the times of Constantius, the heretic son of Constantine. He was in much tribulation and in exile for ten months: and after the death of this Constantius he returned with glory to the see of holy Peter.' The old martyrology of the Queen of Sweden, mentioned by Georgius, has these very things. You see therefore Julius driven from his see under Constantius; you see him besides, Constantius being dead, returned with glory to his own see after a ten-month exile. These things, moreover, if you attribute them to this pontiff (Julius), are utterly false:

but if you expunge those things from the Acts of Julius, and restore them — with Baronius and other men of excellent judgment — to the genuine Acts of Liberius, from which they were taken by error, then you both have his second exile, and indeed all things are clear and cohere with one another. For the brigand synod of Constantinople was completed in the month of February. But it is established that Valens and Ursacius — to whom the means of harassing the Western Churches at their own will had then been given — did not at once depart from that city: since they themselves, if we believe Fortunatus, were the authors (instigators) to Constantius that Hilary should be ordered to return into Gaul.

But he (Hilary), in the first months of that year, had not yet departed from Constantinople, as we learn in the same author from the letters of the Gallican bishops to the Easterns. And it is likely that these wicked whirlwinds (troublemakers) did not set out on their journey into Italy before the emperor showed himself about to set out against the Persians — namely when the spring, as Ammianus says, was already advanced. And if you grant this, you will easily also concede that the same men could scarcely have unfolded the tyrannical power made to them by the emperor over the Western Churches, when the course of that year had already passed its midpoint.

Then, for these matters to be carried out through the Churches more remote from the City, if you assign some further space of time, and besides add to this those ten months during which Julius is falsely said to have lain hidden, you will easily reach the death of Constantius, and that time of which Jerome says: 'The bishops who had been banished from their own sees returned, through the indulgence of the new prince, to their own Churches'; and besides, both that those things which are foreign to Julius pertain to Liberius, and indeed that his second exile is by no solid reason called into doubt. And these are the things which, from a diligent reading of the synchronous witnesses, I have judged could be gathered, and certainly asserted, concerning the deeds done by Liberius in exile.

I know there are not lacking men outstanding in erudition who judge that this pontiff was in no way ever fallen, and that the things published against him rest only on uncertain rumor, while the things said to have been written by him are all false, and the work of the Arians;

Although it is well established on other grounds that their devices and deceptions are fabrications, and although they may suppose this not without some plausible reasoning, yet even if these things were taken by us to be true and genuine, I think it is now clear that nothing can be made or hammered out of them which could benefit the desperate cause of those who have been cast out of the Church; and that there is therefore no solid reason why that anonymous patcher-together of the 'Lives of the Roman Pontiffs' should go on, partly with a braggart's insolence toward catholic writers, and with captious and convoluted speech, to reproach us with the fall of that pontiff, as he has done (e).

For indeed, if there was anything blameworthy in him, it lay not in the loss of his faith, but in the relaxation of that former, stricter steadfastness which he had pledged; and that fault was not so grave but that by some reasoning it might seem capable, if not of being wholly removed, at least of being mitigated. For since such was the state of affairs at that time that the force of 'homoousion' and of 'homoiousion' was reckoned, and indeed was, one and the same—both among the Catholics and among the Anomoeans—as Toutteus and the distinguished Gorgneus, canon of Soissons, have abundantly shown (f).

Liberius perhaps subscribed to the Sirmian formula of faith for this reason: that he was confident he could attain these two ends—both that he might keep his faith intact, and that between the Catholics and the Semiarians who asserted the 'homoiousion' a closer alliance of bishops might be entered upon, by which their forces might be enlarged against the openly bursting attempts of Aetius, Eudoxius, and the Anomoeans—an alliance most useful and necessary. Whether Damasus at any time favored Maximus the Cynic against Gregory of Nazianzus; and concerning the two letters published by Sirmond under the name of an Italian council. § I.—Basnage is refuted.

Writers are brought forward, some of whom say that the appeal of Maximus the Cynic to Damasus and the Westerners was invalid and given no weight at all by the Easterners, while others judge that it was not without effect, and that he was received into communion with the Westerners. Both sides rely on one and the same letter of a certain Italian council, which is adduced; though some have doubted its authenticity. If those letters were extant which Nicholas I relates that Damasus wrote, that Maximus should be expelled from the episcopate, there would be no room for this controversy, nor would anyone have dared to assail with infamy, even on this score, the most holy pontiff who was most observant of the sacred canons.

But by the injury of the times it has come to pass that they all perished, save two, which Holstenius published, and which I have listed in the fourth and fifth places. Therefore arguments must be sought elsewhere by which the name of Damasus may be vindicated from calumny. Moreover, since Basnage had the opportunity of inspecting those two that survive, he made himself ridiculous, when he dared to charge Nicholas himself with falsehood, on the ground that no letter of Damasus is extant to support Nicholas's words (a). Would that the registers of the Roman pontiffs still survived! For from them I doubt not at all that the greatest support and honor would shine upon us, but upon the heretics and other assailants of the Apostolic See a light for recognizing the truth.

But now to the matter in hand. Of those, then, who think that Damasus took the part of Maximus the Cynic against Gregory of Nazianzus, there are two kinds of writers: some bent on disparaging the rights of the Apostolic See and of the Roman Pontiffs, others on vindicating them; yet all use one and the same support, namely one Italian council and one letter of it; and all, advancing along one and the same road, set before themselves a contrary end of the journey.

This letter was first brought to light by a man of the highest judgment and boundless reading, James Sirmond, in the appendix to the Theodosian Code, in the last place (b); and thereafter all embraced it as especially suited to prove what they had set before themselves. And the latest editors of the works of Ambrose, as an offspring worthy of so great a prelate's finger, admitted it to be printed together with the rest of his letters. For from it Baluze (c) and certain others conclude that the Sardican canons concerning appeal were then of no use or authority; for if they had already been received, why were they not put forward by the Italian prelates in this very letter, that they might thereby defend the appeal of Maximus?

Dupin (d), however, and Quesnel, as is their wont, venture nothing they would not venture, and rashly assert, with the Eusebians assembled at Philippopolis, that a synod of Westerners is permitted to decree nothing against the Easterners; both because their efforts lacked effect, since Maximus the Cynic remained perpetually deposed; and because the Westerners themselves openly confess this, when they claim for themselves not the prerogative of examination, but seek a partnership in a common judgment. By which words assuredly they mean only this: that they should judge with the Easterners, not concerning the Easterners. On the opposite side Lupus (e) and Schelestrate (f) attribute this very letter to the Roman synod and to Damasus;

and from it they conclude both that Maximus enjoyed the benefit of the appeal, and that Damasus used his own right, in that he received him into communion and restored him to the rank of bishop, from which Maximus had been cast down by the Council of Constantinople. This view recently also the distinguished Father John Anthony Blancus, of the Observant family (g), and Father John Chrysostom of St. Joseph, of the clerics of the Pious Schools (h)—whom I would name for honor's sake—seemed to hold. But whether this argument which those most learned men draw from this letter is firm enough, and rightly fitted for asserting the rights of the Apostolic See, let it be the judgment of those who have considered with themselves what outcome that cause once had.

Therefore, since that letter seemed of doubtful authenticity to John David (e) and to Noël Alexandre (i), and since those eminent men seem rather to have touched the matter with the very tips of their lips than to have settled it, I thought I should do something worthwhile if I inquired into it more diligently, and submitted to the judgment of those who read some weightier arguments, by which both the reputation of Damasus might be set in safety, and the falsity of that letter—on account of which he is here arraigned as guilty of a kind of collusion—might be made the more evident. But that readers may judge the matter for themselves with less inconvenience, I have thought that the letter of the Italian council itself should before all things be transcribed here again.

The letter of the Council of Italy to the Emperor Theodosius, concerning the bishop appointed at Antioch after the death of Meletius; and that Nectarius, ordained at Constantinople after Maximus, should yield his place, or that at Rome a council should be held concerning the ordination of both. To the most blessed Emperor and most clement prince Theodosius. Ambrose and the other bishops of Italy. We knew your holy soul to be devoted to Almighty God with a pure and sincere faith; but you have crowned it with recent benefits, in that you have restored the Catholics to their churches, august Emperor. And would that you had restored the Catholics themselves to their ancient reverence, so that they might innovate nothing against the precepts of their forefathers, nor rashly either rescind what ought to be kept, or keep what ought to be rescinded.

And so we groan, Emperor—more in grief, perhaps, than in want of counsel—that the heretics could more easily be expelled than the Catholics brought to agreement. For how great a confusion has lately arisen cannot be expressed.

We had written some time ago that, since the city of Antioch had two bishops, Paulinus and Meletius, whom we thought to be in accord on the faith, either peace and concord should be established between them with the ecclesiastical order preserved, or at least, if one of them should die while the other survived, no substitute should be brought in into the place of the deceased while the other survived. But now, with Meletius dead and Paulinus surviving—who, as the partnerships maintained without offense from our forefathers testify, remained in our communion—it is asserted that, against divine law and ecclesiastical order, into the place of Meletius someone has been not so much substituted as superimposed. And this deed is alleged to have been done by the consent and counsel of Nectarius, whose own ordination we do not see what order it had.

For in a recent council, when Maximus, bishop of the Church of Alexandria, had declared—by the reading of the letters of Peter, a man of holy memory—that he remained in communion with him; and when he had shown by lucid testimony that he had been secretly ordained within a private house (because the Arians still held the basilicas) by the bishops who were charged to ordain him; we had nothing, most blessed prince, on which we could doubt concerning his episcopate, since he had attested that violence had been done to him while he resisted, by very many even from the people and clergy. Yet, lest we should seem presumptuously to have defined anything while the parties were absent, we thought your Clemency should be informed by letter, that provision might be made for him for the good of public peace and concord.

For in truth we perceived that Gregory was by no means claiming for himself the priesthood of the Church of Constantinople in accordance with the tradition of the Fathers. We therefore, in that synod which seemed to be prescribed for the bishops of the whole world, judged that nothing should be rashly decreed. But at that very time, those who shunned the general council—what are they said to have done at Constantinople?

For when they had learned that Maximus had come to the assembly to plead his cause in the synod—which, even had no council been convened, by the right and custom of the forefathers, as also Athanasius of holy memory, and formerly Peter, bishops of the Church of Alexandria, and most of the Easterners did, namely that they should seem to have taken refuge with the Church of Italy and of the whole West as judges—when, as we have said, they had ascertained that he wished to make trial against those who had refused his episcopate, they certainly ought to have awaited our verdict also upon him. We do not claim the prerogative of examination, but there ought nonetheless to have been a partnership in the common judgment.

Finally, it ought first to have been established whether the priesthood seemed to be one that should be taken from this man, or rather conferred on another—especially by those by whom Maximus complained that he had been either abandoned or attacked by injury. And so, since our communion has received the bishop Maximus into communion, inasmuch as it has been established that he was ordained by Catholic bishops, we have thought that he ought not to be removed by a claim to the Constantinopolitan episcopate.

We have judged that his claim should be weighed in the presence of the parties. But as for Nectarius, since our humble self has lately learned that he was ordained at Constantinople, we do not see how our communion may cohere with the Eastern parties—especially since Nectarius is said to have been at once forsaken, without the fellowship of communion, by those very men by whom he had been ordained. No slight scruple, therefore, is here. Nor does any contention over domestic ambition and rivalry trouble us, but a communion dissolved and disjoined disturbs us. And we do not see how it can otherwise be reconciled, unless either he who was first ordained be restored to Constantinople, or at least there be at Rome, concerning the ordination of the two, a council of ourselves and of the Easterners.