1. I already conceive in my mind that the things which I now set out to say will be too unwelcome, or at least little pleasing, to smatterers (to say nothing of men of wounded faith). To these, since they have never perused the volumes of the ancient holy Fathers, nor have drawn or tasted the history of ecclesiastical affairs except from corrupt and depraved sources, we shall seem to be trifling or fabricating. Just as formerly, when I set out to speak, in private conversations on ancient literary matters, about this inquisition of Leo, certain men, who at that time did not yet perfectly [know] St.
...they scrutinized the writings of the pontiff, and passed judgment upon me, contending that never — as is right — ought the rights of the Apostolic See and the ordering of ecclesiastical judgments to be sought from doubtful and uncertain conjectures. Those, therefore, who resisted my assertions were rather reckoning with themselves that it was not from Leo, but from more recent centuries, that this form of judgment and this name of 'inquisition' had drawn its origin in the judgments of the Church. At that time indeed I had proposed to myself to compose on this matter a rather long dissertation, and one deduced from nothing other than the Works of the holy pontiff; and likewise to prove in it the ancient discipline of the Church, and above all St. Leo's manner of proceeding, in investigating and condemning the Manichaean heretics.
Yet the matter having been weighed more maturely, I judged it more fitting to defer the treatment of this cause to this place, and therefore I am compelled also to subjoin it. 2. First, that the word 'inquisition' had already been employed in Leo's age to signify that form of judgment which the Roman Church then pursued in investigating, without distinction, Christians of whatever order and rank who were infected with the heretical stain; Second, that those suspected of heresy and apprehended were bound to present themselves before the judges of the Church, so as to plead their cause and undergo sentence; Third, that from the very accused, brought before the priests, it was customary to extort both the confession of their crimes and the detestation of the same;
Fourth, that Christians of whatever order and condition were then also bound by a certain oath to report — or, as they say, to denounce — those suspected of heresy to the presbyters of their own churches or parishes; Fifth and finally, that those defiled by heresies were not only constrained by the bonds of ecclesiastical censures, but also, if not enough of penalty had been exacted, were handed over — afflicted with one punishment after another — to the secular power which the Church summoned to her aid. These five things we shall endeavour to render so clear and established from Leo alone, that henceforth deceitful lips uttering falsehood may fall silent.
The first point, therefore, which we here undertake to prove, is chiefly gathered from the fifteenth sermon, in which the holy pontiff treats both of the fast of the tenth month and also of almsgiving. For a little before, in the presence of priests and clerics, together with the most august senate of the City and other noble men, he had proceeded against certain persons defiled with the Manichaean taint. Wherefore, to signify that form of judgment which his pastoral vigilance had observed — whether in investigating and detecting these wicked men, or in exposing and coercing them — he used no other word than 'inquisition.' In the fourth chapter, then, about to speak of their obscene and nefarious sacrifices and solemnities, he has these words:
'Concerning their sacred rites, however, which among them are as obscene as they are nefarious, we do not keep silence about what the Lord willed to make manifest to our inquiry.' He then sets forth how those who had been brought to judgment laid bare their impious dogmas and execrable crimes — which indeed could not be heard without the utmost horror of soul by those who were present at such a confession. And the holy Leo at last, endowed with divine power and forewarned by revelation, had foreknown that only one portion of the harmful men lurking in the City had been coerced and brought to light in that solemn and most holy assembly; therefore, before he closed such a homily, he resolved by no means to desist from the endeavour.
Nay rather, he promises that he will persevere in the same inquiry, until the whole City should be thoroughly purged of such contagion — this being especially demanded by the more diligent watchfulness of his supreme apostolate: 'For therefore the merciful God has disclosed to us a certain portion of the harmful men, that, the danger being made manifest, the diligence of watchfulness might be aroused. Let not what has been done suffice, but let the same inquiry persevere:'
'which, by God's help, achieves this: that not only may those who are upright continue unharmed, but also that many who have been deceived by diabolical seduction may be recalled from their error.' Illumined therefore by the Divine Spirit, and with the greatest vigour of soul and firmness of mind — in which our Leo excelled in conducting and governing divine and sacred affairs — he most excellently foreknew that nothing more useful to the Church of God, nothing more holy and blessed for the Christian profession, could be desired than that ordering of action which he employed. By it, moreover, the integrity of faith and morals is defended and preserved, the worship and honour of God are increased, and the Church herself is kept immune from all those great stains of vice by which she might be undermined through diabolical contagion.
On the contrary, if any be found in the Church either imbued with heresies or defiled by the filth of depraved crimes, they can either easily return to the right path of truth, if they begin to become penitent; or, if they persist in their errors with stubborn obstinacy, they are bound fast by ecclesiastical censures and, cut off from the communion of the whole Church, are removed. And since the princes of the age and the magistrates knew this manner of proceeding to be most admirably suited to the administration and governance of civil affairs, they too by now employed that very name to designate the form of judgments by which the guilty of treason are wont to be punished. But let us now take another step. 3.
Moreover, that which we proposed in the second place is evident: namely, that the Manichaeans, coming forth from their hiding-places, were by the order of Leo the pontiff summoned to court, and that these stood before the assembly of bishops, presbyters, and other pious men as men accused of injured faith, that they might undergo the judgment of the Church. From this, and from other similar proceedings also at Carthage and in the other Churches of Africa vexed by the Manichaeans in Augustine's age, we understand most excellently that criminal Christians, of whatever order and rank, condition and sex, ought to be subject also to the public judgments of the sacred pastors — and especially in those causes in which provision is made for the integrity and truth of the faith.
Wherefore the pernicious opinion of those men is easily refuted, who — wishing to confine ecclesiastical jurisdiction within narrow bounds — contend that it can scarcely be extended save to those men alone who through clerical orders are dedicated to the ministry of the altar. These (they say) the sacred pastors, especially when gathered in councils, can depose from their own grades, deprive of the benefices, titles, and prebends of the churches, and finally relegate, cast, and confine within the cloisters of monasteries or in the narrowest prisons. But on the contrary the laity (they say), living outside the sacred hierarchy, ought not to be subject to the judgments of such inquiries and investigations.
These men (they add) have their own magistrates and judges, before whom they can be summoned to court, and to these especially it belongs to inquire into the life, morals, and habits of the citizens. Finally, if the prelates of the Churches could avail anything against the laity, that would occur only in those matters which pertain to the participation of holy communion, to the administration of the sacraments, or to the celebration of the divine mysteries — of which the laity can, for a just and reasonable cause, be deprived, and be barred from the sacred assemblies. Thus in very fact, ignorant men of depraved conscience could attempt to overturn the foundations of Catholic law.
For the light of faith is not in them, whereby they might understand that the Church has acquired a right over all who — having first renounced every impiety of the world — gave themselves to Christ; namely when, by the more solemn rites, they swore in the chief sacrament of the Catholic religion to profess the Catholic religion throughout the whole course of their life, and to obey the Church. What then must be said? If in very fact, faith afterward violated, they could abuse divine and sacred things, and as it were tear apart the body and inward parts of this most holy Mother — so that if she had no jurisdiction over lay men for coercing impiety — who would ever repair the ruptures made through heresies? who would cleanse the threshing-floor?
who finally could confront the graver diseases and heal them, lest — the scab of evil opinions spreading abroad — the whole body of Christendom, undermined by errors, be led to ruin? Will princes perhaps be able to do this, and the magistrates of the age, which they deny that the Church can do? Away with the fiction! These men are occupied with the civil administration of temporal affairs; they keep watch lest — the rights of nature and of governments being broken — the commonwealths be turned upside down, to the greatest detriment of justice, by those who, on account of their crimes, are not too fearful to inflict, with excessive audacity, disturbance, violence, and injury upon themselves, upon public affairs, and upon the common tranquillity.
Nevertheless the princes of the age cannot for that reason, without contempt of the divine law and without sacrilege, meddle in ecclesiastical and spiritual affairs, except when — to vindicate the rights of religion — the priests themselves demand their protection and aid. This everywhere the Scriptures attest, this the monuments of the Fathers, this finally the epistles and laws of the ancient kings and emperors. All which things the plan of our undertaking by no means permits us to bring forward at present; lest, passing over from fact to right, we should seem to wander beyond the writings of the Leonine Works. Yet, if we wished to add strength to this point, we would appeal either to the decrees of Pope Siricius, praised in the preceding chapter, or to the like manner of proceeding observed by the bishops of Africa in the time of Augustine and Possidius;
namely, when — Ursus the Tribune, who then presided over the royal household, [being in office] — the Manichaeans discovered at Carthage were brought to the tribunal of the Church; among whom was a girl named Margarita, who, being not yet twelve years old, said she had been violated on account of a wicked mystery, and another called Eusebia, held as a woman consecrated to religion, who had likewise suffered a similar violation by reason of a most shameful crime. These things, I say, and others of the like kind, would add credit to our assertions. But since we are treating of the Roman inquiry against the Manichaeans, the plan of our purpose demands that we return to St. Leo. 4.
Leo, therefore, in order to vindicate to himself his good faith — and that he had by no means been deceived by any fraud, nor had proceeded rashly in detecting and exposing the impieties of the Manichaeans — openly testified that he had in no way given credence to doubtful rumour and uncertain opinions. Therefore he subjoins: 'And so, with bishops and presbyters seated with me, and Christian men and nobles gathered into the same session, we ordered their elect men and elect women to be presented.' In chains, then, or at least under custody, were detained those whom the holy pontiff commanded to present themselves before so numerous and august an assembly.
For if they had not yet been apprehended and were still entirely in possession of their freedom, who does not see that they, taking flight at once, would have striven to escape the shame of disgrace and the ignominy of infamy? Especially since this has been given by nature itself to absolutely all men, of whatever order and condition: that they dread as greatly as possible the presence of a judge, the rigour of a sentence, and the severity of punishments.
But if Leo himself calls the men and women brought before him 'elect men' and 'elect women,' by these words he meant to indicate that the criminals had not stood in the lower grade of that sect, but had claimed for themselves the chief place; among whom that man was especially preeminent above the rest, whom — that he might preside over the others in profane rites and diabolical superstitions — they had proclaimed, as it were, their bishop. 'For there were present (Leo adds) all the persons through whom the unspeakable crime had been perpetrated: namely a girl at most ten years old, and two women who had nursed her and prepared her for this crime. There was present also the young man who violated the girl, and their bishop, the contriver of the detestable crime.'
Augustine concurs in his book On Heresies, writing to Quodvultdeus, deacon of Carthage: 'In recent time some of them were discovered and brought to the Church, as the episcopal acts which you sent us show.' Let all those, therefore, stand here awhile with me who (I know not why) are so disposed in mind and spirit that they shudder at the name and functions of the sacred inquiry, since they too boldly disparage this manner of judging. Let them consider, I pray, whether the women, or those men, of whom Leo treats, could ever have been dedicated through clerical orders to the ministries of the altar?
let them say why that sacred assembly then proceeded both against the incontinent and the incestuous, and against the pimps and corrupted women who mixed obscenities with the things of religion. If we should suspect that this was done unjustly, why was there no protest by the senate of the Roman people, why by the Roman plebs, why finally by the emperor? By divine right, therefore, the pastors of the Church — the fourth and fifth centuries now running their course — exercised over all the baptized without distinction the power of punishing, that they might restrain the audacity of those who had fallen away from piety toward the true God. 5. But since the matter shines forth with such manifest examples and arguments, there is no reason for us to dwell upon it any longer.
But those two points, hitherto discussed with a great store of documents and weight of reasons, a third takes up — radiant on every side with the light of most sincere truth — from which, first laying open the order of the events, and then coming to know the confession of crimes publicly made by the Manichaeans, no further room for doubting will remain concerning that ecclesiastical discipline of which we are presently treating. Since the inquiry was held, not merely from indications alone brought forward, nor even from the gravest testimonies;
but, a long discussion of the matters having gone before, the accused, presenting themselves before the assembly, were interrogated and made answer, and notaries themselves summoned for this purpose took down the acts, so that with the utmost diligence all the dogmas, all the falsehoods and turpitudes, and finally all the unspeakable rites, mysteries, and solemnities of that sect were in very fact investigated, so that nothing ambiguous might be left to the less credulous, nothing to the detractors. But how much such Acts can avail against the less credulous or the detractors of this our age, I judge is hidden from absolutely no one. Since the crimes of the Manichaeans were not disclosed in some secret and hidden confession, which we call sacramental;
but in the external and solemn forum of judgments that whole assembly received them, and they were engraved upon tablets by ecclesiastical scribes (as had been done before in the Church of Carthage), which at last St. Leo commanded to be deposited and kept for the memory of posterity in the archives of the Roman Church — as he himself testified in his writings not once, and again, but at least a third time. In the sermon several times praised, therefore, it is said: 'The confession of all of these was alike, and one, and that execrable thing was made manifest which our ears could scarcely bear. Concerning which, lest by speaking more openly we should offend chaste ears, the documents of the acts suffice:'
'by which it is most fully taught that no modesty, no honesty, no chastity whatever is to be found in this sect, in which lying is law, the devil is religion, and turpitude is sacrifice.' Summarily here, and as it were in compendium, the holy pontiff announces what was contained in the records of the Acts. But in Sermon 4 On the Epiphany, chapter 5, having first recounted many of the dogmas of the Manichaeans, he again subjoins: 'Let it profit the universal Church that many of them (the Manichaeans, that is), the Lord having mercy, have been detected, and in what sacrileges they were living has been made manifest by their own confession.' And again, in Sermon 4 On the Nativity, chapter 4, he writes:
'Who, having contrived every reproach of the devil besides, in the very chief feast of their observance — as was made manifest by their recent confession — take delight in the pollution both of soul and of body.' And in the second sermon On Pentecost, having explained the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity and the mission of the Holy Spirit, he assails, in chapter 2 (as we have already said), the Manichaeans, who assert that that divine Spirit appeared in Manichaeus their master, and that the Paraclete promised by the Lord did not come before this deceiver of the wretched arose — in whom the Holy Spirit so remained that Manichaeus himself was nothing other than the Spirit, who through the ministry of a bodily voice and tongue would lead his disciples into all truth.
This error of the Manichaeans alone did he then agitate and pluck out. But concerning the rest the holy pontiff forbore to speak, fearing lest in so numerous and solemn an assembly he should offend the ears of the pious faithful, or prepare a stone of scandal for the holier and purer Christians, against which they might stumble. Wherefore he closes that chapter with these words: 'Which things, on account of decency, are not to be brought forth in our discourse, since they have already been most abundantly made manifest by their own confession.' So solemn, then, and so public was the confession of these Manichaeans themselves, and the detestation of their crimes, that the report of the proceedings must have reached the ears of all the Romans.
Wherefore, since all these things had come to pass in the sight of the whole Church — as Prosper writes in his Chronicle — no one of sound mind could fear or doubt concerning that power and jurisdiction of the sacred prelates, which the consuls, which the senators, which finally the emperor himself had approved by common consent. And that no one resisted this manner of proceeding of Leo, or attempted to furnish protection to the Manichaeans punished with the penalty of exile — as is wont to happen when there is doubt about the lawful judge — has already been made sufficiently manifest in the epistle to the bishops of Italy.
For by it we are taught how, the City having been perfectly purged of that heresy, he had transmitted to those same bishops copies of the Acts, in which the confession of the crimes of the Manichaeans and the execration of the same had been faithfully and sincerely set down. For a little afterward, when it had come into suspicion lest the Manichaeans, by that cunning art which they were wont to employ, should seek out new hiding-places for themselves in still other cities and places of Italy, he therefore — discharging the duties of a most vigilant pastor — divinely made provision for the safety of the other Churches and for the integrity of their faith and morals.
Wherefore, lest they should seem wanting to themselves and to their office, in the aforesaid epistle he forewarned all the bishops of the cities of Italy concerning those things which had already been done at Rome, lest — being ignorant, or at least not yet perfectly instructed about these matters — the seeds of vices which here, when extinguished, had perished, should be stealthily sown by the roots in their dioceses through new shoots: 'Into the fellowship (thus he begins the epistle) of our solicitude, most beloved brethren, we call you...' and, a few things interposed, he adds:
'Lest he who, by the mercy of the Lord revealing it, is driven away from our sheep as a disease through our care — while you are not yet forewarned, and are still ignorant of what is being done — should disperse himself through your Churches, and secretly find the burrows of his hiding-places; lest what is being extinguished by us in the City be sown with dark roots among you.' 6. But how great and how many things the Roman people and the whole Church owed to him, the bishops of Italy could easily comprehend from the following words, in which he sets forth quite plainly what he had purposed, what he had done, and what at last he had achieved, when he found the followers and teachers of the Manichaean sect lurking in the City.
'Very many (he says) followers and teachers of Manichaean impiety our investigation discovered in the City, our vigilance divulged, our authority and censure coerced. Those whom we were able to amend, we corrected: that they might condemn Manichaeus with his preachers and disciples, we compelled them by public profession in the Church and by the subscription of their own hand; and thus, having confessed, we relieved them from the abyss of their impiety by granting them penance.' Behold, then, in this one saying which comprises many things, the authority of the Roman See and the divine manner of proceeding of Leo — whereby the teachers of the Manichaean sect with their disciples, at the command now of the Church, were first detained, then led into the assembly, that they might be compelled by public confession to confess their crimes, and by solemn profession to retract the same;
for the confirmation of which, both the subscription of the accused was necessary, and a sincere resolve to perform penance. Such an ordering of action, therefore — the divine mercy revealing it — did our Leo employ, that he might relieve the Manichaeans, once seized and now penitent, from the abyss of their impiety. But what crimes and shameful mysteries had been recorded and attested in the Acts of the inquiry, that series of the proceedings most fully taught. Wherefore the holy pontiff himself...
the pontiff, for the instruction of other bishops, and that these might have a right rule of how they ought to conduct themselves in such causes, ordered various copies of the same Acts to be transcribed, and transmitted these together with the present epistle to those same bishops, so that, casting their eyes upon the written volume, they might behold as it were at a single glance what had been done, and what in future ought to be done in like causes. To strengthen this truth still more, what else can we do than transcribe the words of the holy pontiff?
'And all things (he says) that they hold as profane or base, both in their scriptures and in their secret traditions — so that our people might know what to shun or avoid — we have proved to the eyes of the Christian people by certain manifestation, to such a degree that the very man who was called their bishop, being held by us, disclosed the shameful things in his mysteries which he attempted, as the series of the proceedings can teach you. For for your instruction we have also directed these very things to you: which, being read, you will be able to know all that has been reprehended by us.' 7.
The fourth point which follows has in itself something greater — so that nothing clearer and nothing more illustrious for our purpose could be devised — namely, for asserting that ecclesiastical law by which it was enjoined without distinction upon all the faithful that they should beware the society of heretics, or especially of the most harmful men, and that they should denounce the same to the sacred pastors of the Church. Nor indeed for any other cause (as we saw a little before) did Leo himself, in the sacred assemblies and before crowds of people, speak of their dogmas and hidden traditions, of their profane and base mysteries, save that the people might know what to flee or what to avoid.
For the sacred pastors were wont to point out most clearly to catholic men the marks and tokens of any false dogma; so that indeed those who bore pure hearts within their breast, recoiling in horror from the base sight of superstitions, might guard against them — and lest the weaker and ruder men, under a false colour of piety, deceived by the wicked, coming into the patronage and fellowship of these, should be defiled with a like stain of vices. This indeed was the holy pontiff's manner of proceeding; this his aim in discoursing when reciting the sacred homilies. And therefore, having more than once publicly assailed Manichaeus and his disciples, he willed to cover their crimes and errors by no oath of secrecy:
but he made it plain, that they should deceive no one by their discriminations of foods, by the filth of their garments, and by the pallor of their countenances. Nay, by an express command he cautiously willed that nothing should be common to any Christian with such men: 'Let there be (he says) no society with such, and no fellowship.' Then, the rest of the arts of their deceit being uncovered, he thus subjoins to our purpose: 'Hitherto they have harmed the incautious, hitherto they have deluded the unskilled; after this, the lapse of no one will be excusable; nor now is he to be held simple, but exceedingly wicked and perverse, who henceforth shall be found bound by the nefarious error.' The like passages are to be read in other places also, as in the fourth sermon On the Nativity of the Lord, and likewise in the fourth On Lent.
But also in the fifth sermon On the Fast of the tenth month — praised here by us more than once — in which, all the faithful having first been generally admonished to renounce the Manichaeans from their friendship and society, he then, turning especially to the women themselves, admonishes them with all vigour of soul to abstain from acquaintance and conversation with them, lest — while the incautious hearing is delighted by fabulous tales — you fall into the snares of the devil.
And finally, to strengthen their faith yet more, and to fortify their modesty, he recalls to mind the fall of the first woman, who — deceived by diabolical suggestions — forever cast down the whole human race from the felicity of paradise, in which most wretched and mournful state it still lies, unless the mercy of almighty God, the snares of the demon being broken, had freed it from the bonds of sin: 'Who (namely the devil), knowing that he seduced the first man by the mouth of the woman, and through feminine credulity cast down all men from the felicity of paradise, now also lies in wait for your sex with more assured cunning, that those women whom he may be able to allure to himself through the ministers of his falsehood, he may despoil both of faith and of shame.' 8.
Here indeed, if the equity and justice of this precept be rightly weighed, I can scarcely be brought to persuade myself that it could be reprehended or disapproved by any man of sound mind. For it possesses this: that it is very conformable to all the laws of nature and of men, by which it is forbidden that anyone can, by private authority, depart from ancestral rites and institutions, or make and have new gods for himself, or introduce or establish another religion and sacred rites even by stealth, unless all these should be approved by the sanction of public authority.