講道與書信 第 235 章 第 1/3 段

1. I think there is no writer on ecclesiastical matters more audacious than Quesnel, nor one in whose mind there has more deeply settled a desire of perverting the form and order of Christian governance. That this has hitherto been abundantly demonstrated here and there in our Exercises, and especially in the preceding chapters of this Eutychian history, will be judged by those who, drawn by no partisan zeal, have not disdained to illustrate the same. But meanwhile, after we have written two whole chapters concerning the appeal of Eutyches to the Apostolic See, we have thought that a third must still be added, in which there may be objected against Quesnel the very letter of Eutyches himself,

...his profession of faith, and the memorials which, for the defense and safeguard of his cause, he addressed to the supreme Pontiff, the great Leo—all which documents our adversary has striven in many ways to suppress and to explain away by violent interpretation. That he might more easily be able to accomplish this, he persuades himself that four kinds of memorials must be distinguished, which memorials Eutyches, condemned by his own bishop, either offered, or lyingly claimed to have offered. 'The first was the memorial of appeal, of which we have spoken. The second was the contestatory one, concerning which S. Leo in Epistle 20 to Flavian, chapter...

...chapter 1, namely: after an appeal has been interposed, letters must be given by him from whom the appeal is made to him who is to take cognizance of the appeal, which letters they call dimissory or apostolic..... But if he does not accept, let him contest, etc.' The third memorial was one of complaint; for he sent to the Apostolic See, through memorials, the complaint of his grief, says our Leo in Epistle 21 to Theodosius Augustus. 'The memorial, moreover, of complaint or grievance, the same Quesnel subjoins, is rightly and properly said to be offered by a presbyter against his bishop or father.' To confirm which conjecture he transcribes that axiom of the jurisconsults:

'That a son complaining of paternal injuries should be heard is just and customary, whereas scarcely anyone would tolerate the same son accusing.' The fourth memorial, namely the suppliant one, Eutyches offered against the sentence of Flavian. Nay, several, which may be seen in Act 1 of the Council of Chalcedon.' 2. This distinction of memorials having thus been premised, Quesnel further reasons thus: 'Four memorials of this kind must in the first place be distinguished, lest the force and energy of each be attributed to another, whence too this whole affair would consequently be obscured. There was, therefore, first the memorial of appeal to the council; second, the contestatory one to the people of Constantinople; third, the querimonial or one of complaint to S. Leo; fourth, the suppliant memorial to the emperor.'

'The first was fabricated, and not really given; the other three were really offered. Of all which memorials S. Flavian made mention in Epistle 1 to S. Leo.' And with these words Quesnel closed his dissertation. If, therefore, this pretty and equally ingenious distinction of memorials, devised by our adversary, should stand, then the things which we have hitherto written concerning the appeal of Eutyches would in part utterly collapse. We would say that Eutyches made only a complaint before the Apostolic See, not an appeal. But I ask the adversary whence he drew that distinction, lest we judge it to have been fabricated and devised for throwing dust?

Certainly in the codices and in the digests of the laws we do not stumble upon those four kinds of memorials being distinguished, so that one alone could not have that whole force and energy. Nay, that the contestatory memorial—which the jurists call evocatory—contains appeal, complaint, and supplication, they will affirm with us who, by no means deceived by the preceding apparatus of Quesnellian trifles, will not be loath to scrutinize the truth of things. Socrates first relates how, in the synod of Tyre, with the Meletian faction acting together with the Eusebians, no natural or ecclesiastical order being preserved, the great Athanasius was condemned as though guilty of many crimes.

Hence Athanasius and the Egyptian bishops, in a contestatory memorial—which today (as Petrus de Marca also noted) would in legal usage be called evocatory—demanded of the count Dionysius, who had been sent by Constantine to the synod to be an observer of the proceedings and a guardian of preserving equity, that he give no place to cobbled-together calumnies, lest through the snares and false charges of their enemies who sat as judges in that council they should suffer injury. The words of the memorial offered to Dionysius are these:

'Since we saw the cobbling-together of many calumnies, and out of these cobbled-together things the snares of Eusebius, Narcissus, Flacillus, Theognis, Maris, Theodorus, and Patrophilus against us—whom, since from the beginning it was not permitted to reject them as those declining our cause, we necessarily came to a protestation, especially since we observe that many things are being carried on to the favor of the Meletians, and many again to the snares of the Catholic Church under the guise of our alleged crimes—we for this reason also present this necessary memorial to you with many entreaties, that, the fear of God being preserved in your soul, who guards the empire of the most august and most pious emperor over Constantine, you may reserve the cognizance of our causes to the emperor.'

'For it is just that you, sent by the emperor, should retain this whole matter intact.' There is no one who would dare to deny that this contestatory memorial contains in itself all the force and energy which Quesnel fancies to be scattered and divided among the four kinds of memorials. Do not Athanasius and the Egyptian bishops complain in it that they were assailed with falsehoods and a cobbling-together of crimes by the calumnies of their enemies, on account of the snares of Eusebius, Narcissus, and the others? Did they not testify, by a solemn protestation, that in that synod snares had been contrived against the Catholic Church, under the pretext of false crimes charged against them, concerning which they feigned to make an inquiry?

Did they not finally, with entreaties, ask that, the fear of God being preserved, the cognizance of the causes be reserved to the emperor Constantine? For the matter concerned false crimes which, if they had been true, would already have offended both the civil administration of affairs and the imperial governance. And therefore it is no wonder if, in those circumstances of such great straits, they appealed to the emperor that new judges be appointed who, led neither by hatred, malice, nor iniquities, might undertake to examine their cause. It is not therefore true that four kinds of memorials must be distinguished in similar causes, lest the force and energy of each be attributed to another, whence too the whole affair would be obscured.

For the affair of an appeal is clearly made known from a single kind of memorial alone, if that memorial has in itself whatever is necessary for constituting and obtaining a true appeal. 3. And indeed that the memorials and letter by which Eutyches appealed to S. Leo are of this kind, the things we are about to say at once will make plain. For that letter, or memorial, contains three heads within itself. The first has two kinds of complaints. The first, that he was accused of injured faith by Eusebius of Dorylaeum, who was hostile to him; the second, that the Acts of the Council of Constantinople were unjustly drawn up against him. Whence, the testimony of the holy Pontiff having been invoked in support of the sense of his propositions and words, he subjoins:

'But the most wicked devil has bewitched such zeal and purpose of ours, by which his own powers ought to have been destroyed. Feigning against me all his household force, he moved against me Eusebius, bishop of the town of Dorylaeum, giving a memorial to the holy bishop of the Church of Constantinople, my Flavian, and, with certain others devised in the same city........ he called me a heretic, not moved to the accusation by truth.' Afterward, in like manner, he complains that, his profession of faith having been exhibited to the Fathers of Constantinople, drawn up in a written memorial and signed with his own subscription, Flavian neither received the memorial, nor ordered that it be read.

He added, moreover, that in that synod he had said and asked that the judgment of the Apostolic See should be awaited: 'I asked that these things might become known to your holiness, and that you might judge what seemed right to you, professing that I would in every way follow what you approved.' Making a graver complaint about this refusal, he at once subjoins: 'But, none of the things that were said by me having been heard, they broke off the synod and published the sentence of deposition, which they were preparing against me before the cognizance.' He relates the violence and deposition threatened against the archimandrites of other monasteries, that they might subscribe to his condemnation. Which things led his zeal to satisfy the people, his confession of faith having been publicly set forth.

These, I say, are the things which regard the complaints of Eutyches, and which the whole first head of his memorial contains. After these laments of grief, the same Eutyches makes a step to his appeal, and, the prior judgment held in the synod of Constantinople having been refused, thus he appeals to the supreme Pontiff, beginning his address from these words: 'To you therefore, defenders of religion, and abhorrers of factions of this kind, I take refuge.' And, more expressly asking that the things hitherto enacted and defined in that synod of Constantinople be abolished and rendered void, he entreats that a judgment and a new sentence be pronounced by the Roman Pontiff.

Hence, therefore, let Quesnel attend to his following words, and say whether Eutyches appealed to the Roman Pontiff or not: 'And I beseech (he says) that, no prejudice having been done to me from those things which were carried on against me by snares, you may bring forth the sentence concerning the faith which shall seem good to you, and permit no calumny thereafter to proceed from the factious against me, and that I be not shaken out and removed from the number of the orthodox, etc.' 4. Moreover, lest the supreme Pontiff should make light of Eutyches's appeal, as though it were not supported by the necessary conditions prescribed by the canons, he joined both memorials to his letters.

That is, the man who had been laid before the synod by his accuser Eusebius of Dorylaeum, and who had been heard by it, was nevertheless not received by Flavian and the synod, nor was his profession of faith, since it was not that which had been decreed by the holy Fathers concerning the two natures. This profession of faith he appended immediately to the letter or libellus just praised, as we have ascertained from a Vatican manuscript codex written about six hundred years ago, in which, after the first two chapters were completed, we came upon the following note: 'Likewise the words of Eutyches.' We here indicate only in summary what that profession of faith contains, since our dispute does not turn upon it. Elsewhere the most illustrious Christian Lupus set it forth in print from the Cassinese codex.

Christian Lupus adorned it, though Quesnel judged that it should be struck from his appendix. Eutyches therefore, in issuing that profession of faith, declares that he rests wholly upon the sanctions of the councils of Nicaea and Ephesus, in which the divinity and incarnation of the Word had been treated; he professes to honour the doctrine and opinions of Saint Cyril bishop of Alexandria, of both the Gregories, of Atticus and Proclus, and of all the orthodox, and he affirms that he holds them as saints and as his masters. Finally he pronounces anathema upon Nestorius, Apollinaris, and all heretics down to Simon, and upon all others who say that the flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ descended from heaven. For He Himself who is the Word of God descended from heaven without flesh, and so forth.

5. Yet our adversary judged that a contest ought to be instituted with the most illustrious Christian Lupus. And for this reason, in the second edition of the Works of Saint Leo the Great, he composed a certain appendix, to which he affixed this title: 'Appendix to the dissertation on the appellatory libellus of Eutyches, which Christian Lupus published from the Cassinese codex, whether it be in truth a libellus of appeal.' For he could not prove this letter to be an appellatory libellus without seeming to sing a recantation. Therefore he first carps at Christian Lupus for having transcribed it into his own lucubration on appeals.

Next, insisting upon what was said before, he denies that it can bear the name of a libellus, thinking himself supported chiefly by the very inscription of the writing and by its author's own resistance. For Eutyches himself (he says) expressly distinguishes between the libelli and this letter of his. 'I have appended (he says) to these my letters both libelli, both the one that was laid before the synod by my accuser, and the one that was indeed produced by me, yet not received.' Therefore the slip of Christian Lupus, or his drowsiness (on Quesnel's authority), seems to consist in this, that he called the letter of Eutyches a libellus, though the inscription of the writing itself contradicts it. But what of it? Cannot the appellation of libellus fit any letter whatsoever, and most especially one of this kind?

For my part, lest I recall the rules of grammarians and writers to Quesnel's mind, I forbear to adduce those examples which could be cited from Cicero himself, though I was not loath to note down at least some of them. Nevertheless I cannot deny that to this letter, even though our own inscription contradicts it, all the characters and notions of a libellus apply. For first of all it contains the narration not of one thing, but of many matters heaped together at once, and by reason of these it may deservedly bear the appellation of a certain commentariolus (little memorandum), in which it will not at all differ from a libellus, as those will judge who have learned the meaning of this word from the Latin writers. Nor is it any objection that Eutyches appended to it other writings which he called libelli.

For these writings were not sent to persons absent, but were merely exhibited in the solemn episcopal assembly; and therefore it is not to be believed that they obtained from Eutyches the appellation of both a letter and of libelli at once. That earlier note of our adversary is not only weakened by what has just been reviewed, but is even wholly dissipated by his own testimony. For he admits that Saint Leo used the name of libellus, yet did not call it an 'appeal,' but one of grief and complaint. 'But when (he adds) he mentions the libellus of appeal, he understands that which Eutyches confessed he had presented in the trial, as the solemnities of appeals demanded,' as Saint Leo says. But he falsely claims Saint Leo as his supporter.

For although one cannot deny that the holy pontiff, writing to Theodosius, said: 'For although the aforesaid presbyter has sent to the Apostolic See through a libellus the complaint of his grief,' yet nowhere in his Works do we find those last words used: 'in the trial, as the solemnities of appeals demanded.' For Quesnel fabricated these out of his own opinion, so as to lend strength to his conjectures. And in the letter to Flavian, in which he treats of the libellus of appeal offered in the trial, he has only this: 'so much so that he asserts he offered in the very trial the libellus of his appeal, yet that it was not received.'

We are compelled to note these things on account of what was said in the preceding. For to fulfil the solemnity of an appeal, it could have sufficed for Eutyches to refuse publicly the sentence pronounced against him, made while the Fathers of the council were still sitting, as is clear from Rusticus the deacon and from Peter de Marca himself, whom we have cited, especially since he solemnly confirmed such a refusal by protestatory libelli. 6. Yet Quesnel contends that these letters of Eutyches have nothing of a canonical appeal. And he appeals to those passages which Christian Lupus adduced for his own opinion, saying that Eutyches wished, first by this saying: 'And I invoke your holiness as witness of my heart.'

'…and for the reasons of my thoughts and words,' to compel the reader whom he addresses (says Quesnel) to judge what error is contained in this sincere profession of his faith; and perhaps he alludes to that saying of the Apostle, 2 Corinthians 1:23: 'But I call God to witness upon my soul.' Hence he afterwards seizes an occasion to censure the translation of this letter as rough and ill-digested; and therefore he distinguished that narration by another rendering, which he judged to favour his own studies. But what indeed could be desired clearer and more express in these letters, that we might gather from them that it puts forward a canonical appeal? That the Roman pontiff…

…is the legitimate judge of such controversies, and most especially of those which arose in the clergy and in the Church of Constantinople, has been most evidently proved by the more celebrated and most certain testimonies, both of the Fathers of Chalcedon and of Anatolius bishop of Constantinople himself, and even of Flavian himself. And especially because Eutyches not only in the exordium of that letter addressed the Roman pontiff as his sole witness, but lays open the whole series of things done against him. He not only complains of the injury inflicted upon him through hatred and circumvention, but professes that he submits himself to the judgment of the Apostolic See, ready in all ways to follow whatever that See should approve. Nor is it any objection that Eutyches wrote:

'I was asking that these things be made known to your holiness, and that you would indicate what should seem good to you'; upon which words Quesnel, insisting, says: 'These are the words of one asking, not of one appealing and demanding judgment as of his own right.' For Eutyches there describes his own manner of proceeding, which he had observed with the Fathers of Constantinople, so that he might either escape the sentence of condemnation, or that at least the judgment of his cause might be suspended, until, the Apostolic See being consulted, it might become known what it should judge of these things. For then Eutyches, lest he should seem to proceed by pride and haughtiness, used supplications, as he did, not an appeal, because, while the Fathers were still sitting in council and discussing his cause, no sentence had yet been pronounced against him.

He had, however, alleged Eusebius, namely the bishop of Dorylaeum, as an accuser hostile to himself, and as suspect on account of a selection proceeding against him through calumny. This manner of proceeding intimated that, if the Fathers had wished to proceed against this canonical protestation, he was already about to appeal to another tribunal. Wrongly and perhaps craftily, therefore, does Quesnel labour to confound the supplications of Eutyches made to the Fathers of Constantinople before sentence was pronounced, with an appeal interposed after sentence was pronounced.

Hence, therefore, his whole reasoning falls, by which, wishing to explain according to his own measure the words of the asking Eutyches, he sought to conjoin them with other things which were said in the second session of Flavian by Basil the bishop, namely: 'If the Fathers, the Roman and the Alexandrian, should command me, I say this very thing; but this not as one appealing, he said, but as one saying: I have not dared to speak before the Fathers.' That this last act of Eutyches is to be referred to those things which the heretic said after sentence was pronounced, we have already observed in the preceding chapter 5. Whence who will believe that these can be joined with those words of one asking? 7.

Not in vain, therefore, does Lupus endeavour to draw the sense and words of this letter toward an appeal, even though Eutyches in another part addresses Leo the supreme pontiff in the plural number, writing: 'To you, therefore, defenders of religion and detesters of factions of this kind, I flee for refuge…and I beseech that, no prejudice being done to me from those things which have been contrived against me by treachery, you would pronounce upon the faith whatever sentence shall seem good to you.' For first of all he asks there two things in few words: namely, protection against the factious calumniators who had laid snares for him; and then a judgment, or a sentence, in the question of faith.

And what else are wont to ask all those who have been accustomed to interpose a canonical appeal, except protection to overturn the snares of the calumniators, and a sentence concerning those things about which the question has been raised? There is added moreover that Eutyches refused the sentence canonically pronounced in the council, and confirmed his refusal by public and protestatory libelli. But other words, which he immediately subjoined to those just praised and which Quesnel entirely omitted to note, show more clearly that those words put forward a true appeal: 'And to permit henceforth no calumny to proceed against me from the factious, nor that I be shaken and removed from the number of the orthodox,' and so forth.

Does he not intend that the full and entire judgment of his cause be reserved to him to whom he writes and to whom he appeals? Therefore Quesnel seems to me to jest ineptly and insipidly when, addressing Lupus as though he were bleary-eyed, he says: 'You see, my Lupus, what you are unwilling to see; namely that Eutyches flees to the defenders of religion, not that he appeals to judges; that he beseeches that no prejudice be created against him from Flavian's sentence, not that he cries the judgment void by the voice of appeal; that finally he demands a sentence to be pronounced concerning the faith rather than concerning his own deposition and excommunication, about which, however, if he were appealing, he ought to have acted first.' This is a plainly childish note.

As if to ask that no prejudice be brought upon oneself from the sentence pronounced were not the same as to cry out and demand that it be made void; and as if one who asks not to be shaken and removed from the number of the orthodox were not demanding that a sentence also be pronounced concerning his own deposition and excommunication. But Quesnel would have seen that Eutyches demanded both sentences, had he not neglected to look at the whole passage; and therefore there can be no doubt that the derision cast upon Lupus applies excellently to its author—especially since from the second Council of Constantinople…

…we have it that the sentence pronounced against Eutyches was suspended, and that the emoluments, honour, and the prerogatives and name of archimandrite were restored to him, by force of the letters of Pope Leo, which had been read to the Fathers of the council. Now indeed Paschasius Quesnel himself flattered himself that these things could suffice him for refuting Christian Lupus. Nevertheless, out of an abundance of right, he judged it should be added: 'This writing, if it was sent whole to Saint Leo the Pope (he says), was not sent to him alone, nor drawn up for him alone; but it is an encyclical letter to all the chief bishops of the sees, whose authority Eutyches was eager to move against Flavian's judgment and to render favourable to himself.'

'For even when those who acted on his behalf at Ephesus feigned the appeal of the heresiarch, they did not name the Roman pontiff alone.' A charming as well as fabulous divination! For its confirmation he again brings into the midst the testimony of Constantine the monk and heretic, and that other testimony of Basil the bishop, of which we have already treated above. But that Quesnel is talking trifles I shall demonstrate in what follows. Who, first of all, will affirm that that letter can be called encyclical, whose inscription puts forward the name of one single person? For that is called encyclical which is addressed to many; as may be seen from six hundred examples drawn from ecclesiastical history and from the monuments of the ancients in Labbe.

But the letter of which we treat exhibits only the name of Pope Leo. And although, whether through the negligence and carelessness of the translator, or from estrangement of mind and malice, we do not find in it those titles of honour which occur in the writings of others; nevertheless we can by no means affirm that a similar copy of this letter was transmitted either to Dioscorus of Alexandria, or to other bishops of the first sees, since the manuscript codices of Cassino and the Vatican have no other inscription than that which Christian Lupus, guided by the authority of the manuscript codices, affixed to it. What of it?

If Eutyches had sent the same letter to other bishops, would Dioscorus, a factious man whose wicked deeds are known to all, have omitted to read it publicly in the Robber Synod, and delayed to cast it up against Flavian and the legates of the Apostolic See to whom he was making trouble? Certainly, lest he should seem to overturn everything by injury and impiety and to usurp for himself the rights of others, and especially of the Roman pontiff, he would have shown this letter or libellus, commanding at the same time that it be transcribed by the notaries into the Acts of the synod.

For this alone could have cleared him from all odium, and made plain to all that on no other ground was the chief part in the synod owed to him and the office of president to be exercised by him, save because, at Eutyches' appeal, he had appealed his own see from the sentence and judgment of the Council of Constantinople. This letter, therefore, is not to be called encyclical, which exhibits the name of the Roman pontiff alone, and of which not a single trace or mention appears in the monuments of the ancients that it was directed to other bishops of the first sees. It would also be superfluous to refute the other conjectures fabricated by Quesnel for this side, since they fall of their own weakness.

For besides that he himself admits that Constantine the monk and Basil the bishop, who acted at Ephesus on Eutyches' behalf, were liars, there is now no reason why we should lend our ears to them. 9. As to what he finally subjoins, 'that it is an encyclical letter its whole self proclaims, in which there is not even a tittle about the Apostolic See, or about the Roman pontiff, whose prerogatives and splendour he would not have failed to proclaim—a man at that time most intent upon conciliating to himself the minds of all whom he needed. He therefore used only those words which are fitting to the bishops of all the first sees. For to which of them do these not suit: I invoke your holiness…that these things might be made known to your holiness…

To you, therefore, defenders of religion and detesters of factions of this kind, I flee for refuge.' Wherefore our adversary, flattering himself too much, closed his appendix with these words: 'Certainly these last words alone: To you, defenders of religion, etc., make plain as the noonday sun that this writing, whatever it was, was sent not to one, but to many.'