講道與書信 第 82 章 第 1/4 段

Chapter I. — Since a frequent report related that certain things had been unlawfully usurped among you in the ordinations of priests, the reasoning of piety demanded that, in accordance with the solicitude which we render to the whole Church by divine institution, we should be zealous to ascertain the truth of these matters, delegating the office of our care to our brother and fellow priest Potentius, who should inquire what the truth held concerning the bishops whose election was reported to be culpable, and faithfully indicate all things to us.

Therefore, since he most fully disclosed all things, and made plain to us by a sincere report under what and what kind of rulers certain peoples of Christ are held in the districts of the province of Caesarea, it was necessary that we should express by a letter sent the grief of our heart, with which we burn on account of the perils of the Lord's flocks: marveling that among you, through the occasion of an untroubled time, either the presumption of ambitious men or the tumult of the populace had so prevailed, that to certain unworthy men, established far outside priestly merit, the pastoral summit and the government of the Church were given. This is not to take counsel for the peoples, but to harm them; not to furnish rule, but to increase peril. For the integrity of those who preside is the salvation of those subject to them;

and where there is the soundness of obedience, there the form of doctrine is healthy. But a primacy which either sedition has extorted or ambition has seized, even if it does not offend in morals and deeds, is nevertheless pernicious by the example of its very beginning; and it is difficult that those things be carried through to a good end which set out from a bad beginning. Chapter II. — But if in whatever grades of the Church it must be providently and knowingly cared for that in the Lord's house there be nothing disordered and nothing preposterous, how much more must labor be spent that in the election of him who is set over all the grades there be no error? For the whole condition and order of the household will totter if that which is required in the body is not found in the head.

Where is that precept of the blessed Apostle Paul, sent forth through the Spirit of God, by which in the person of Timothy the whole number of Christ's priests is instructed, and accordingly it is said to each one of us: 'Lay hands hastily on no one, neither be partaker of other men's sins' (1 Timothy 5:22)? What is it to lay on hands hastily, but to bestow the priestly honor upon those not proven—before the age of maturity, before the time of examination, before the merit of labor, before the experience of discipline? And what is it to be partaker of other men's sins, but to make the ordainer such as is he who did not merit to be ordained? For just as he procures for himself the fruit of a good work who keeps a right judgment in choosing a priest,

so he afflicts himself with grave loss who raises up an unworthy man to the college of his own dignity. For in no one's person is that to be passed over which is contained in the general institutions; nor is that honor to be thought lawful which shall have been conferred through transgression. Chapter III. — For since the Apostle says, that, among the other rules of election, that man be ordained bishop who is established to have been or to be the husband of one wife (1 Timothy 3:2), that precept has always been held so sacred that even concerning the woman to be chosen by a priest the same condition was understood to be observed; lest perchance she, before she came into the marriage of him who had not had another wife, had experienced the wedlock of another man.

Who therefore would dare to make light of that which is perpetrated as an injury against so great a sacrament, since for this great and venerable mystery not even the statutes of the Law were wanting, by which it is evidently defined that a priest take a virgin, and not know the marriage-bed of another spouse—she who is to be the wife of a pontiff (Leviticus 21:13-14; Ezekiel 44:22)? For even then the spiritual marriage of Christ and the Church was prefigured in the priests; and since 'the man is the head of the woman' (Ephesians 5:23; 1 Corinthians 11:3), let the spouse of the Word learn to know no other man than Christ, who deservedly chose one, loves one, and joins no other besides her to his fellowship.

If therefore even in the Old Testament this form of priestly marriages was preserved, how much more we who are established under the grace now revealed ought to serve the apostolic precepts: so that however endowed with good morals a man may be, and however adorned with holy works he may be found, let him nevertheless by no means ascend either to the grade of the diaconate, or to the honor of the priesthood, or to the summit of the episcopate, if it be established that he himself was not the husband of one wife, or that his wife was not the wife of one husband? Chapter IV. — But when the Apostle admonishes and says: 'And let these also first be proved, and so let them minister' (1 Timothy 3:10);

what else are we to understand herein, than that in these promotions we should consider not only the privileges of marriages but also the merits of labors? lest we entrust the pastoral office either to those raw from baptism, or to those suddenly converted from a secular manner of life; since through all the grades of the Christian warfare it ought to be estimated from the increase of progress whether greater things can be committed to anyone. Deservedly the venerable ordinances of the holy Fathers, when they spoke of the election of priests, judged those alone fit for the sacred administrations whose whole age had run, from its childhood beginnings even to the more advanced years, through the stipends of ecclesiastical discipline, so that his former life might furnish a testimony to each one:

nor could there be any doubt about the promotion of one to whom, for his many labors, for his chaste morals, for his vigorous deeds, the reward of a loftier place was due. For if it is unworthy to attain to the honors of the world without the support of time, without the merit of labor, and those are wont to be branded with ambition whom no proofs of integrity assist, how careful and how prudent must be the dispensation of the divine gifts and heavenly dignities, that in nothing the apostolic and canonical decrees be violated,

and that the Church of the Lord not be entrusted to be governed by those who, ignorant of the lawful institutions and unacquainted with all humility, wish not to take their increase from the lowest positions, but to have their beginning from the highest; since it is exceedingly unjust and absurd that the unskilled be preferred to masters, the new to the old, and the raw to the veterans? Indeed in a great house it is necessary, as the Apostle discourses (2 Timothy 2:20), that the vessels be diverse, some of gold and silver, but others of wood and clay; yet the service of these is divided according to the quality of the material, nor is the use of the precious the same as that of the cheap. For all things will be disordered if clay vessels be preferred to golden, and wooden to silver.

And just as in the wooden and clay vessels is figured the kind of those men who as yet shine with no virtues, so in the golden and silver ones are without doubt declared those who, refined through the fire of long instruction and through the furnace of protracted labor, have merited to be proven gold and pure silver. If the reward according to their devotion is not rendered to these, all obedience is dissolved, all order is thrown into confusion; while in the Church those who have undergone no ministry, by the perverse judgment of those electing, obtain an undue primacy. Chapter V. — Since therefore either the partisanships of the common people or the ambitions of the proud have so prevailed among you, that we learn that not only laymen, but even husbands of second wives, or the husbands of widows, have been advanced to the pastoral office;

do not the causes most manifestly demand that we purge by a severer judgment the Churches in which these things have been committed, and that we be moved by a fitting strictness not only against such prelates, but even against those who ordained them? But on this side the gentleness of clemency, on that side the strictness of justice, stand around us; and because all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth (Psalm 24:10), we are compelled, according to the piety of the Apostolic See, so to temper our sentence that, the weight of the offenses having been weighed—which it is agreed are not of one measure—we define some to be in some way tolerable, but others to be utterly cut off. For those who have either entered into second marriages, or have joined themselves to the wedlock of widows, we do not permit to remain in the priesthood;

and much more that man who is at the same time the husband of two wives; or that man who, dismissed by his first wife, is said to have married another, we decree are to be deprived of their honor. But the rest, whose promotion incurs only this much of reproach, that they were chosen from among laymen to the episcopal office, and cannot on this account be culpable, that they have wives—these we permit to retain the priesthood they have received, not prejudicing the statutes of the Apostolic See, nor the decrees of our predecessors and our own, by which it has been wholesomely established that no layman, supported by whatever votes, may ascend to the first, or second, or third grade in the Church before he attains to this merit through lawful increments.

For that which is now in some manner pardonable will not afterward be able to go unpunished, if anyone should presume to usurp that which we altogether forbid: because the remission of a sin does not grant license to offend; nor will we henceforth suffer that which could by some reason be conceded to be committed with impunity. Chapter VI. — But Donatus of Salicina, having been converted from the Novatians together with his people, as we have ascertained, we wish so to preside over the Lord's flock that he remember he must direct to us the little book of his faith, by which he both condemns the error of the Novatian doctrine and most fully confesses the catholic truth.

Likewise one ordained from a layman, though blameworthily, yet if he is no longer a Donatist, and is estranged from the spirit of schismatic depravity, we do not repel from the episcopal dignity which he has obtained in whatever manner; provided that he too, by a book issued to us, manifest himself to be catholic. Chapter VII. — But concerning Aggarus and Tiberianus, whose case differs from the rest who were ordained from among laymen in this respect, that their ordination is recorded to have been attended by dreadful tumults and savage seditions, we have committed all things to your judgment: so that, when the trustworthy account of the examination held before you has been reported, we may be able to know what ought to be determined concerning the aforesaid. Chapter

VIII. — But those handmaids of God who lost the integrity of their chastity through barbarian violence will be the more praiseworthy in their humility and modesty if they do not dare to compare themselves to the uncontaminated virgins. For although every sin is born of the will, and an unconquered mind could remain undefiled by the corruption of the flesh; yet this will be less harmful to them, if that which they were able not to lose in soul, they grieve that they have lost even in body. Chapter IX. — Since therefore concerning all the matters which the report of our brother Potentius contained, you see your Charity most fully instructed;

it remains, brethren, that with harmonious obedience you receive these wholesome exhortations, and, doing nothing through contention, but being of one mind in every zeal of devotion, serve the divine and apostolic constitutions, and in nothing suffer the pious decrees of the canons to be violated. For the things which we now remit by consideration of certain causes are henceforth to be kept according to the ancient rules: lest we afterward punish with just vengeance that which we granted for a time out of pious leniency. That no bishop claim for himself the cleric of another against his will. To his most beloved brethren SENECIO, CAROSUS, THEODULUS, LUCIUS, ANTIOCHUS, and VIGILANTIUS, metropolitans established throughout the provinces of Illyricum, LEO. Chapter I.

— That our letters were received by your Charity with a grateful mind, the discourse of your returning page has testified—those letters which we are known to have directed, solicitous for the state and peace of the Churches, lest any novel presumption should bring in error: desiring that those things be guarded by the priests of the Lord which the authority of the Apostolic See has frequently established; namely, that the Churches established throughout Illyricum should pertain to the care of our brother and fellow bishop Anastasius, prelate of the city of Thessalonica.

So that, if there be any greater causes among the bishops which cannot be terminated in their own provinces, they may be referred to his notice, and by the same judgment be settled under the fear of the divine tribunal. Let this order, destined to profit priestly concord, be preserved, so that the Churches of the Lord may be built up by harmonious counsel, as we desire, and that dissension, with the devil lying in wait, may be able to furnish no entrance through which it might avail to scatter those things which we desire with great zeal and observed moderation to knit together. Chapter II. — Let the brethren, when invited to settle the greatest cases which cannot be finished within their own provinces, if they are held back by no grave necessity, not refuse their fraternal zeal for the benefit of the Church: especially since our moderation has provided

that no frequent necessity, nor one for trivial causes, of assembling be enjoined; and that it suffice for two or three bishops to be present from each province, so that a matter light for the few might be accomplished which would be burdensome for the many; and that thus it be effected by the zeal of charity, that the priestly deliberation may, with the Holy Spirit revealing it to them, establish those things which can pertain to ecclesiastical discipline. For this your Charity shall know that we, wishing to correct the disobedience of certain men by a suitable coercion, have determined: that whosoever with a proud mind, when detained by no necessity of body or of cause, shall have wished all too often to avoid the fraternal assembly, may know that he is to be judged. Chapter III. — And because we have learned by the report of our aforesaid brother's solicitude

that the metropolitan of the province of Achaia has often celebrated ordinations that are unlawful and forbidden by the constitutions of the Fathers and by our authority, and has added this to his own audacious acts, that he consecrated for the people of Thespiae, against their will and resistance, a bishop unknown and never before seen; we permit this to be lawful to no metropolitan whatever, that by his own judgment alone, without the assent of the clergy and people, he ordain anyone a priest; but let him set over the Church of God the one whom the consensus of the whole city has chosen. And so, just as we are not slothful in admonishing what ought to be observed and what avoided, so in carrying out and preserving those things we do not suffer anyone to be negligent:

since a most worthy grace shall attend the one who observes these things, and a more abundant fruit, as we hope, shall follow from the Lord; but the one who strays and is forgetful of the apostolic constitution shall be liable to both ecclesiastical and divine censure. Chapter IV. — This also we wish to be observed by all with equal attentiveness, for the bond of priestly concord, that no bishop dare to claim for himself the cleric of another bishop, without the cession of him to whom the cleric belongs, which cession nevertheless clear writings must contain: since both the authority of the canons has defined this, and the very principle of preserving unity teaches it; lest the whole ecclesiastical order be made unstable through this license.

Let these things therefore, dearest brethren, which you perceive to be decreed by us out of the pious affection of the mind, descend into your hearts; so that we, who solicitously desire to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, may receive the fruit of our precept, and may rejoice in the works of your Charity. For we wish it to be as much yours as it is ours, that it be established through the grace of charity, that it be violated by no art of the lying-in-wait devil. But you ought to observe more fully those things which we have written to be guarded to our very brother and fellow bishop Anastasius, and we wish these things to come to your notice through his letters, from which we do not wish your Fraternity to deviate; that we may preserve the Lord's charity by keeping the ordinance of the Fathers.

Given on the eighth day before the Ides of January, in the consulship of the most illustrious men Aetius (for the third time) and Symmachus. SYNOPSIS (from Dionysius Exiguus). — I. That the prelates of Thessalonica have always fulfilled the office of the Apostolic See. — II. That their rights be preserved to the metropolitans. — III. That by the metropolitans there be ordained as bishops not laymen, not the twice-married, not the husbands of widows, but men irreproachable. — IV. That carnal wedlock is denied to subdeacons. — V. That no one be ordained prelate against his will. — VI. That the metropolitan of Epirus refer to the pontiff of Thessalonica concerning the elect whom he is about to ordain bishop; and that the provincial bishops likewise do concerning an elected metropolitan. — VII. That twice through each single year (A).

...that provincial councils of bishops be held each year; and if some difficult matter should arise which cannot be settled by the judgement of the bishop of Thessalonica, it is to be referred to the Roman bishop. — VIII. That if any bishop, deserting his own city, should out of ambition seek a greater see, he shall not only be unable to obtain that church, but must also lose his own. — IX. That no one presume to solicit or to retain another's cleric without the consent of that cleric's own bishop. — X.

That in summoning the bishops of the province (there is added in the Spanish collection: lest under this pretext the priestly honour be subjected to insults; and that no more than two bishops from each province, whom the metropolitan has approved, be dispatched). — XI. That they be detained no longer than fifteen days beyond the appointed time of the council. How great are the things committed to your Fraternity by the authority of the most blessed Apostle Peter, and how weighty are the things likewise entrusted to you by our favour — if you were to consider this with true reasoning and weigh it in just examination, we might greatly rejoice over the devotion of the solicitude laid upon you. CHAPTER I. On the vicariate of Thessalonica, and the case of Atticus, bishop of Nicopolis.

— Since, just as my predecessors did to your predecessors, so I too, following the example of those before me, have delegated to your Charity the office of my governance, that you, as an imitator of our gentleness, might assist in the care which by divine institution we chiefly owe to all the Churches, and might in a manner render the presence of our own visitation to the provinces far distant from us: so that by continual and timely oversight it might be easy for you to recognize what in each matter you should either settle by your own diligence, or reserve for our judgement.

For since it was free for you to hold in suspense the graver affairs and the more difficult issues of cases while awaiting our decision, you had neither reason nor necessity to deviate into that which exceeded your measure. For the writings of our admonitions abound with you, by which we have frequently instructed you concerning restraint in all your actions: that you should call forth the Churches of Christ commended to you, through the exhortation of charity, to the wholesomeness of obedience. For although there often arise among negligent or slothful brethren matters that need to be dealt with by a greater authority, yet correction is to be applied in such a way that love may always be preserved. Whence the blessed Apostle Paul, instructing Timothy for ecclesiastical governance, says:

Rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father; the young men as brethren; the aged women as mothers; the younger women as sisters, in all chastity (1 Tim. 5:1–2). If this moderation is owed by apostolic institution to any of the lesser members whatsoever, how much more is it to be rendered without offence to our brethren and fellow bishops? So that, although things sometimes occur which are to be censured in priestly persons, yet benevolence rather than severity, exhortation rather than agitation, charity rather than power, should prevail toward those to be corrected. But by those who seek the things that are their own, not the things that are of Jesus Christ (Phil.

2:21), this law is easily forsaken; and while it pleases them to domineer over their subjects rather than to counsel them, honour puffs up pride, and what was provided for concord tends to harm — which, that we should be compelled to say it, proceeds not from any small grief of soul. For I feel myself in a manner drawn into blame, when I learn that you have immoderately departed from the rules handed down to you. And if you cared little for your own reputation, you ought at least to have spared my good name, lest things done merely by your own inclination should seem to have been enacted by our judgement.

Let your Fraternity read over our pages again, and run through all the writings of the prelates of the Apostolic See sent to your predecessors, and let him find ordained either by me or by my predecessors anything such as that which we have learned was presumed by you.

For there came to us, together with the bishops of his province, our brother Atticus, metropolitan bishop of Old Epirus, and with a tearful pleading he complained of the most unworthy affliction which he had endured, in the presence of your deacons who stood by — who by their mournful lamentations showed that the things brought before us did not lack credibility. It was also read in your letters, which those same deacons of yours delivered, that brother Atticus had come to Thessalonica, and that he had even sealed his consent by a written profession, so that nothing else could be understood by us concerning him than that his coming had been of his own free will and spontaneous devotion, and that he had drawn up a document of the promise of obedience — yet in the very mention of that document a mark of injury betrayed itself.

For it was not necessary that he should be bound by writing, who was already proving his obedience by the very office of his voluntary coming. Hence these words of your letter furnished testimony to the aforesaid one's laments, and by that which was not passed over in silence, that was laid bare which had been covered by silence: namely, that the prefecture of Illyricum had been called in, and the most exalted power among worldly dignities had been incited against the display of an innocent bishop — so that, with a terrible executive force dispatched, which would attach to itself all the public offices for the carrying out of the command, the priest was dragged from the sacred precincts of the Church, though charged with no crime, not even a false one, and to whom no reprieve was granted, neither on account of the trouble of sickness, nor on account of the severity of winter;

but he was compelled to make a rough journey full of perils over trackless snows. This was of such great toil and such great danger, that of those who accompanied the bishop, some are said to have perished. I am greatly astonished, dearest brother, and also grieve exceedingly, that against a man of whom you had indicated nothing more than that, being summoned, he delayed to appear and pleaded the excuse of infirmity, you could have been so atrociously and so vehemently stirred up — especially since, even if he had deserved anything of the kind, you ought to have awaited what I might write back in reply to your inquiries. But, as I see, you thought well of my character, and most truly foresaw how courteously I would answer for the preservation of priestly concord:

and therefore you hastened to carry out your impulses without dissimulation, lest, once you had received writings from us disposing otherwise in accordance with our moderation, you should not have licence to do that which has been done. Or had perhaps some crime become known to you, and did the weight of a new charge press upon the metropolitan bishop before your tribunal? But that this indeed was foreign to him, you yourself confirm by objecting nothing against him. Yet even if he had committed something grave and intolerable, our censure was to be awaited; so that you should decree nothing yourself before you had learned what was pleasing to us. For we have so entrusted our office to your Charity, that you have been called into a share of the solicitude, not into the fullness of power.

Whence, just as the things piously managed by you greatly gladden us, so the things wrongly done exceedingly sadden us. And it is necessary, after the experience of many cases, to look ahead more carefully and to guard more diligently, that through the spirit of charity and peace every occasion of scandals may be removed from the Churches of the Lord which we have commended to you — the eminence of your episcopate indeed standing pre-eminent in those provinces, yet the excess of all usurpation being cut away. CHAPTER II. On preserving the rights of the metropolitans dwelling under the vicar of Thessalonica.

— Therefore, according to the canons of the holy Fathers, framed by the Spirit of God and consecrated by the reverence of the whole world, we decree that the metropolitans of the several provinces, over whom by our delegation the care of your Fraternity is extended, are to hold the dignity anciently handed down to them inviolate; so that they depart not from the rules laid down, either through negligence or through presumption. CHAPTER III. Who are to be barred from the priesthood. — In the cities whose rulers have died, let this rule be observed regarding the substituting of bishops: that he who is to be ordained, even if he have the testimony of a good life, be not a layman, not a neophyte, nor the husband of a second marriage, nor one who has, or has had, a wife whom he joins to a widow.

For the choice of priests is so excellent, that things which in the other members of the Church are not accounted a fault, are nevertheless held to be unlawful in them. CHAPTER IV. On the continence of subdeacons. — For although to those constituted outside the order of clerics it is free to devote themselves to the fellowship of marriage and to the procreation of children, yet, in order to exhibit the purity of perfect continence, carnal union is not granted even to subdeacons: so that both those who have wives may be as though they had none (1 Cor. 7:29), and those who have none may remain single.

But if in this order, which is the fourth from the head, it is fitting to be observed, how much more is it to be kept in the first or second or third — lest anyone be deemed suitable for the levitical, or presbyteral honour, or episcopal excellence, who is detected not yet to have curbed himself from conjugal pleasure. CHAPTER V. On the petition and consent of the clergy and people in the election of bishops. — When, therefore, the election of a chief priest is being dealt with, let him be preferred before all whom the united consent of clergy and people has concordantly requested: so that if the votes of the parties should perchance be divided among another person, by the judgement of the metropolitan the one who is aided by the greater zeal and merits should be preferred to the other: