<1r>

Also in the Gauls[Editorial Note 1], Sulpicius Severus, a disciple of Martin, wrote as follows in his Epistle to the Deacon Aurelius on the very day Martin died: Martin will not be far from us, believe me, he will not be far ... he will participate with us when we talk about him, he will stand beside us as we pray – and he will protect us with his constant blessing.[Editorial Note 2] And a little later, discussing the difficulty of the ascent to heaven, he adds: One hope however remains, one final hope, that what we cannot obtain by ourselves, we may at least merit through Martin's praying for us. From this it is clear what kind of religion Martin taught his disciples; and no wonder, since he himself had been a disciple of Hilary of Poitiers[Editorial Note 3], who as I explained above[Editorial Note 4], was one of the first exponents of this superstition. Martin met him in 362, the year Hilary returned from the East and founded a monastery near the city of Poitiers; from that time on he disseminated Monasticism in the Gauls and emerged as the father of all the monks of that Province; this is a good strong argument that all the Gallic Monks were trained in this superstition. And at this time {laymen} regarded monks with the highest veneration as the most devout of Christians.

The situation in Italy and Gaul is clear enough from the abbots. < insertion from f 1v > Prudentius (who wrote in the time of Theodosius the Great and his sons) made it clear enough that the situation in the Spains was similar when he wrote as follows in the Hymn to Fructuosus, Augurius and Eulogius, the martyrs of Tarraco[Editorial Note 5], as follows:

O threefold honour, triple eminence,

whereby our city's head is lifted up,

towering over all the cities of Spain!

We will rejoice in our three Patrons,

under whose protection all the peoples

of the Pyrenean lands are cherished.

One day will come a time

when in the dissolution of the world

Fructuosus will free thee, Tarraco,

from sore distresses, covering thee from fire.

< insertion from higher up f 1v >

They throng together

making petitions with voice and heart and gifts;

and dwellers in the outside world too come here,

for report has run through[Editorial Note 6] all lands

publishing the news that here are patrons

of the whole earth whose favour they may seek by prayer.

No man here in making his requests

has offered sincerely prayer on prayer in vain.

Prudentius, To the Martyrs Hemiterius and Cheledonius[Editorial Note 7].

The martyr, you may be sure, hears with all favour every prayer,

and fulfils those that he finds acceptable.

I obeyed, clasping the tomb and shedding tears,

warming the Altar with my lips, the stone with my breast.–

I was heard. I visited Rome, and found all things issue happily.

I returned home and now proclaim the praise of Cassian.

Prudentius, To the martyr Cassian[Editorial Note 8].

All this company, laid under the everlasting Altar.... prays for pardon for our backslidings ... Cast thyself down along with me, noble city, on the holy graves, thou and all thy people; then when their souls and bodies rise again thou and all thy people will follow them.[Editorial Note 9]

Prudentius, To the 18 Martyrs of Saragossa.

< text from f 1v resumes > < text from f 1r resumes >

So much for the various parts of Europe. For Africa let Augustine speak, the father of the Monks in that region. His mind is revealed in many passages. In Questions on Exodus 109[Editorial Note 10] he says, by the prayers of the holy Martyrs God is propitiated for the sins of his people, and in Question 149[Editorial Note 11] we are reminded that when our own deserts afflict us with the thought that we are not loved by God, we can be restored to him by the merits of those whom God loves. So too in his Commentary on Psalm 88 (towards the end)[Editorial Note 12] he says: Celebrate the anniversaries with sobriety and let us imitate those who have gone before, and let those who pray for you rejoice on your account. In addition in On Baptism against the Do <2r> natists book 7 c.1, he invokes Cyprian[Editorial Note 13]. Let Cyprian, he says, assist us with his prayers, as we labour in the mortality of our flesh as if we were under a dark cloud, so that, as God grants us the power to do so, we may imitate his good deeds as much as we are able. He invokes Cyprian again in 5.17. In addition, in the book On the Care of the Dead ch. 4[Editorial Note 14], he says, I do not see what help is given to the dead by giving them a burial place beside a memorial shrine[Editorial Note 15] to a saint, except that as they reflect where the bodies of those whom they love are laid, they may commend them in their prayers to that saint as if he had agreed to be their Patron and assist them with his prayers to the Lord on their behalf. Furthermore in On the City of God, bk. 22, ch. 8 Augustine narrates, among other miracles, that a certain Florentius, a poor man, prayed in a loud voice to the Twenty Martyrs, whose memory was celebrated among the people of Hippo, that he might get some clothes, and not long afterwards as he went away, he saw a great fish panting on the shore in whose belly was a golden ring. So too, Paul[Editorial Note 16] says that a certain man and, subsequently, his sister Palladia, had been shaken with a violent tremor in all their limbs, and were healed in his presence by praying to the holy Martyr Stephen, whose memorial shrine was in the same City; and, he says, the Church was full on both days, and the whole people, seeing what had been done, exulted with great shouts. From this it is quite clear that the whole city of Hippo had already been infected with this abomination. Add to this that Faustus the Manichean, in Augustine Against Faustus book 22, chapter 21[Editorial Note 17], made these corruptions a general charge against the Catholics. The sacrifices of the pagans, he says, you have converted to your Love Feasts ('Agapes'), you have turned Idols into Martyrs whom you worship with similar offerings, placating the shades of the dead with wine and meals. You celebrate the holy days of the pagans, like the Kalends and the Solstices, with them; you have certainly changed nothing in your lives. <3r> Augustine's reply to this is: the Christian people celebrates the memories of the martyrs with religious ceremonial, both in order to stimulate emulation and to associate themselves with their merits and be helped by their prayers, but with this reservation that we do not sacrifice to any of the Martyrs but to the God of the Martyrs himself, even though we set up altars in memory of them. And a bit further down, he adds: we do indeed very often sacrifice to God at the memorials of the Martyrs. These things Augustine wrote about the year 396 concerning the whole body of Christians against Faustus, who was levelling a general charge against all of them. But what he means by Altars and sacrifices at the memorials of the martyrs, may become clear from the practice of the Christians of this time. For they were accustomed to erect Altars to God over relics of the martyrs in the martyrs' names, and to invoke them while offering sacrifice. Hence in this passage where he has confessed that Christians celebrate the memories of martyrs with religious ceremonial, in order to be associated with their merits and assisted by their prayers, Augustine adds that they were erected to God in memory of the martyrs so that no one would think that the Altars where these ceremonies were conducted had been erected to the martyrs. So also in Treatise 84 on John[Editorial Note 18]: at the table itself, he says, we do not commemorate them [that is, the Martyrs] in the same way as we commemorate others who rest in peace, in order that we may pray for them, but rather so that they may pray for us. Likewise, in Sermon 17[Editorial Note 19] on the words of the apostle: the Church's teaching, he says, holds, as all the faithful know, whenever they recite in that passage the names of the martyrs at the altar of God, there the prayer is not offered for them but is offered for the rest of the dead. For it is an insult to pray for a Martyr by whose prayers we ourselves should be commended. Therefore invocation of the martyrs now began to be regularly practised in the Lord's Supper and thus it became as widespread in the African Church as participation in the supper itself.

<4r>

This too is to be noted in Augustine {illeg}[Editorial Note 20] that he defends this cult in the same way as modern papists. For to the aforesaid objection of Faustus, he replies that he does indeed pay homage to the Martyrs but not with worship. He makes the same distinction between worship (latria) and veneration (duliam) in The City of God, book 10, chapter 1. And in On Psalm 96 he makes a similar reply to pagans who object that Christians worship Angels, and adds: Would that you too were willing to worship them; for you would quickly learn from them not to worship them, that is, not to worship them as Gods but as holy beings.

We have now surveyed the regions of the West, but let us add to our extracts the opinion of Jerome, who, being Western by birth but having lived a monastic life in the East through almost the whole period of Valens, Theodosius and his sons[Editorial Note 21], understood quite well the manners of both parts of the Empire and is able to speak for both of them. He says to Theodora about her deceased husband in Epistle 29[Editorial Note 22]: free of care now and victorious, he looks down upon you from on high and assists you as you struggle, and is preparing a place beside him. And in the Epistle to Paula about the death of Blaesilla[Editorial Note 23], he is praying to the Lord for you, he says, and seeks forgiveness of sins for me. And in the epitaph of Paula[Editorial Note 24] he says: Farewell, Paula, and assist with your prayers the extreme old age of your worshipper. Your faith and your works associate you with Christ, you will obtain what you ask for readily enough. These are particular points; but in the Epistle to Marcella [1] he speaks generally: we venerate the tombs of the martyrs everywhere, he says, and placing the holy dust before our eyes, we even touch it with our mouths, if it is allowed. Besides when Vigilantius (the only one of the western homousians[Editorial Note 25] who I say attacked the cult of the saints) ✝[2] called the worshippers of martyrs Idolators and published a book against them, Jerome responds as follows[Editorial Note 26]: ✝[3] You ask, Vigilantius, why it is necessary not only to give them so much honour <5r> but also to adore that thing what ever it is which you worship as you pass it around in a little vase? And again in the same book: why do you kiss with adoration a bit of dust wrapped in a linen cloth? And in the next passage: We see that something like a pagan rite has been introduced into churches under a pretext of religion: while the sun is still shining, masses of candles are lit, and everywhere they kiss and adore a little bit of dust in a small vase wrapped in an expensive cloth[Editorial Note 27]. – – – – You also say that the souls of the Apostles and martyrs have taken up their place in the bosom of Abraham or in the place of refrigerium[Editorial Note 28] or beneath the Altar of God and that they cannot be present in their tombs and wherever they wish: Will you give laws to God? Will you put chains upon the Apostles so that until the day of judgement they are kept imprisoned and are not with their Lord, about whom it is written: they follow the lamb wherever he goes?[Editorial Note 29] If the lamb is everywhere, those who are with the lamb must also be believed to be everywhere. And although the devil and the daemons wander throughout the whole world and are on hand everywhere with exceeding speed, are the martyrs after the pouring out of their blood to wait shut up in a box and not be able to get out? You say in your book that while we live we are able to pray for each other mutually but after we are dead no one's prayer may be heard on behalf of anyone else, especially when the martyrs in praying for vengeance for their blood have not been able to obtain it. If the Apostles and martyrs while they are still in the flesh are able to pray for others when they ought still to be anxious for themselves, how much more so after their crowns and victories and triumphs? The Bishop of Rome therefore does wrong when he offers sacrifices to the Lord over the venerable bones which we believe to be those of the dead Peter and Paul, but, according to you, are vile dust, and regards their tombs as altars of Christ. <6r> And it is not the Bishops of one city alone but of the whole world who are in error when in contempt of the Innkeeper Vigilantius[Editorial Note 30] they enter the Basilicas of the dead. – Vomiting dirty filth from the abyss of your heart, you dare to say: It follows that the Souls of the martyrs love their ashes and hover about them and are always present lest perchance they should not be able to hear if a sinner arrives. O portent to be banished to the farthest corner of the earth! You mock the relics of the martyrs also with Eunomius the author of this heresy[Editorial Note 31]. You spread a calumny against the churches of Christ, etc. These and things like them Jerome directed against Vigilantius with seething passion and maximum abuse, as his manner was. For his Epistle[Editorial Note 32] is a continual rant. With such fervour evidently was he devoted to the cult of the saints.

To the objection about lighting candles while the sun is still shining, Jerome replies[Editorial Note 33] that this is only done by those who have more zeal than knowledge, and that they are not to be blamed for their devotion: but pace Jerome, men who were numbered among the wisest and most learned, used often to do the same thing. For Bishop Paulinus of Nola, in his Third Natalitium [Anniversary] of Felix[Editorial Note 34], thus describes with approval this ceremony in honour of Felix:

Now the golden doorways are adorned with snow white curtains, the bright altars are crowned with a mass of lamps, the doorways/lights are ablaze with waxen tapers, they burn by night and by day, night glows with the brightness of day, and day itself shines yet brighter, lit by the service of heaven, redoubling its light with innumerable lamps.

<7r>

Indeed[Editorial Note 35] the souls of the triumphant Martyrs now live their lives in the heavenly country, interspersed among choruses of angels: and their bodies are not buried each one in its own individual monument, but ✝[4] cities and villages have shared them among themselves by lot, and they call them saviours of their souls and doctors of their bodies, and venerate them as custodians of their cities and protectors of their countryside: and by their ✝[5] mediation and intercession with God, they obtain divine gifts through them. Therefore when their bodies are divided, their power and grace remain intact, and those small or tiny relics have a virtue equal to the whole martyr before he was divided. For by the grace which continues to be powerful and vigorous he distributes gifts to those who seek them measuring his liberality by the faith of the supplicants. These therefore are truly the leaders of men, their princes, their champions, their guardians, through whom disasters are diverted from us and the evils sent to us by daemons warded off. Then citing Plato, Hesiod and others, he continues: and if the Poet Hesiod calls those men who have lived good and holy lives in the past the helpers and guardians of mortals, and if the best of the Philosophers [Plato] confirmed the opinion of this poet and held that the tombs of these men should be venerated and adored, why, I beseech you, gentlemen [he is addressing Greek pagans], do you find fault with what we do ourselves? For in a similar manner we call those who have lived with outstanding piety and have been butchered and murdered for their piety our Helpers and Healers; we do not so call ✝[6] daemons however: may this madness be far from us, may it be far from us; but we claim that they have been the friends and faithful servants of God, [7] that they have made use of the greatest liberty of speech and have prophesied to us a sure harvest of good things. – Plato [your Philosopher] in the 11th book of the Laws affirms that the souls of the righteous can be concerned with human affairs even when they are outside of this body, and so does Socrates. But neither Socrates nor any of the Philosophers or Kings or Emperors have obtained such great honours as we see that the Martyrs of Christ have obtained. Their sepulchres are barely known, <8r> but the temples of the martyrs are conspicuously visible, magnificent in their grandeur, decorated with every kind of ornament, and broadcasting the splendour of their beauty far and wide. Nor do we visit them once or twice in a year or even five times, but we spend festival days in them very often, we often sing praises and hymns to the Lord on the special days of those Martyrs; and people in good health pray for its continuance, while those who are afflicted by any kind of disease pray to be freed from it. Men who do not have children pray to have them and women who are sterile pray to become mothers. Those who have received a gift pray for its security; those who are starting on a journey beseech them to be the companions and guides of their way: and those who return safe, give thanks: not approaching them as Gods but praying to them as to divine men ✝[8] and asking them to be willing to act as intercessors for them. The fact that those who faithfully seek receive what they pray for is plainly testified by their donations which denote the cure. For some dedicate [in the Temples] a likeness of their eyes, others of their feet, others of their hands, fashioned of silver or gold. — The Philosophers and the Orators have been consigned to oblivion, and most people today do not know even the names of the Emperors and great leaders; but the names of the Martyrs are more familiar to everyone than ✝[9] the names of their friends and relatives. In fact they are eager to bestow the names of these martyrs upon their children when they are born, thus acquiring security and protection for them. But why do I mention philosophers and Emperors and leaders, now that they have obliterated the memory of them from the minds of men, though they were once everywhere regarded as Gods? For their temples have been so thoroughly destroyed that not even the outlines of their shape has remained, nor do men of this age know the form of their altars: all the material from them has been dedicated to the shrines of the Martyrs. Our Lord God has brought his own dead into the temples in place of your gods. And he has made the gods also empty and vain and transferred their honour to these men. Instead of the Pandia[Editorial Note 36] and the Diasia[Editorial Note 37] and the Dionysia[Editorial Note 38] and your other festivals, the festivals of Peter and Paul are celebrated, and of Thomas and Sergius and Marcellus and Leontia and Panteleemon and Antoninus and Mauritius and the other Martyrs. — Since therefore you see what advantage comes from honour offered to the Martyrs, flee, my friends, the error of the daemons and with the light and guidance of the Martyrs going ahead of you, take the road that leads to God[Editorial Note 39].

<9r>

I have written out these things from Theodoret rather fully because they are wonderfully expressive of the situation of Christians at this time. And now to make their situation clearer on the basis of this passage and others I have quoted, I would like to make some comments: in the first place about the mode of defending this cult. Theodoret said that Christians do not approach the saints as Gods but pray to them as divine men. This is also what Jerome said in his Epistle against Vigilantius: Who, you insane idiot, ever adored the Martyrs? Who ever thought a man was God? Likewise Augustine (as we have heard) distinguishes between Worship (latria) and Veneration (dulia) exactly as Papists do today, and says that he does not celebrate the martyrs with Worship. And in much the same sense Epiphanius says that Mary should be held in honour, and God should be worshipped, although this is less clear-cut.

Let us also examine the manner of dividing and distributing the relics of the Martyrs among the churches. This is how Basil distributed the relics of the 40 Martyrs: as a result of which, he himself says in his Oration upon them that they had not confined themselves to one place but being welcomed as guests to many places, they adorned the countries of many men, not however as separate individuals but mingled with each other[Editorial Note 40]. Thus when Orosius had brought to the West certain relics as of the Martyr Stephen which had just been discovered in the East, he distributed them between Augustine, Possidius, Euodius, Projectus, Lucillus, ~ ~ and other African Bishops who soon built an equal number of Basilicas for them, as Baronius[Editorial Note 41] shows from Augustine ✝[10]. He also shared them with the Spanish a[11] and with the French b[12]: hence Eusebius Gallicanus/of Gaul, discussing these relics in Hom. 3 de S. Stephano[Editorial Note 42], says that at that time (i.e., before they were discovered by God's revelation) one place was rendered pleasant by the sweetness of the odours of their tomb, now the whole world from the rising of the sun is filled with the perfumes of their virtues. Baronius (under the year 387, §42) tells us that Ambrose shared the relics of Protasius and Gervasius <10r> in the same manner with the Bishops of Italy, Gaul, Africa, and Noricum. But Theodoret in the passage cited shows quite clearly that this practice of distributing relics was universal; he says the individual bodies of martyrs are not buried in individual monuments but cities and towns have shared them among themselves by lot.

[13] [The enormous multiplication of saints is also to be noted]. For the people not only worshipped those whose sepulchres kept their memory alive from the times of the persecutions, but the Monks also brought on the market every day innumerable other saints who had been revealed to them as it were in dreams from God. Thus the relics of Cyprian are said to have been discovered by a certain man by divine inspiration in dreams (Gregory of Nazianzus, Orations          ),[Editorial Note 43] the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius (Augustine, Confessions, bk 9, c. 7)[Editorial Note 44] by Ambrose, the bones of the prophets Habbakuk and Micah by Bishop Zebennus of Eleutheropolitana through a divine vision in a dream (Sozomen, History, bk. 7, final chapter)[Editorial Note 45], the head of the Baptist by two Monks by revelation (Marcellini Chron.), the relics of the Forty Martyrs by the Empress Pulcheria in a vision (Sozomen, bk. 9, c. 2), the body of the Prophet Zechariah by Calimerus in a vision (Sozomen, bk. 9, c. 16, 17), the bodies of St. Stephen, Nicodemus and others by the monk Lucian in a vision (Sozom. ibid. and the Epistle of Lucian[Editorial Note 46] perhaps in Sur.[Editorial Note 47], and Augustin. Sermon 91[Editorial Note 48]). And not to insist on particulars, so frequent were these revelations that they everywhere filled the very fields and roads with the altars of the dead buried within them, and caused the fifth Council of Carthage in the year 398 to attempt to counter the superstition with this canon. It has been decided, they say, [14] that the Altars which are set up everywhere in the fields or roads as memorials of the martyrs in which no body or relic of martyrs is proved to be buried should be overturned by the Bishops who are in charge in those places if it can be done. But if this is impossible because of popular tumults, nevertheless let the lower classes be warned not to frequent these places, so that men of sense may not be kept in bondage to any superstition there. And <11r> in general no memorial to martyrs will be accepted as proven (probabiliter acceptetur), unless there are either a body or some definite relics there, or there is a highly trustworthy tradition that it is the site of some habitation or possession or passion. For Altars which are set up in some place as a result of dreams or perhaps empty revelations from unqualified persons are in every way condemned. This is what the African Bishops said. And not only Temples, fields and roads but also private houses were filled with relics which had been found through fictitious dreams since the monks were hawking these things around everywhere. ‡ < insertion from f 10v > ‡ For it had become the custom for Christians to venerate Martyrs in private houses. Hence ✝[15] Jerome says to Eustochium: Martyrs are sought for you in your room. How therefore Monks turned this custom to their profit you may hear from Augustine, whose words are these. The very cunning enemy. < text from f 11r resumes > For hear what Augustine[16] wrote about this matter about the year 400 about this matter.[Editorial Note 49] The very cunning enemy, he says, has sent out to every corner many hypocrites in the guise of monks who tour around the provinces, without being on any mission, having no fixed abode, staying nowhere, settling nowhere: some sell the limbs of martyrs, if they are indeed the limbs of martyrs: [others enlarge their own fringes and phylacteries; others pretend that they have heard that their parents or relatives live in that region and they are going to visit them: and they all beg and demand from all men either the cost of their sumptuous poverty or the price of their pretended virtue{]}, etc. This is what Augustine says around the year 400. In fact, before the year 386 these sales of fictitious Martyrs were so prevalent that the Emperor attempted to suppress the abuse by this law which was passed in that year.[17]

The Emperors Gratian, Valentinian and Theodosius Augusti to Cynegius Praetorian Prefect.[Editorial Note 50]

Let no one convey a buried body to another place, let no one divide a martyr, let no one traffic in martyrs: etc. (dated the 26th. day of February in the consulship of Honorius and Evodius) [386.]

The Emperor, as I say, tried to suppress the evil by this law, but in vain, as is evident from the subsequent complaint of Augustine which we just cited. It was admittedly the less scrupulous men who did these things <12r> but from them we may conjecture the attitude of the rest by imitation of whom these things were done[Editorial Note 51]. Also Eusebius Gallicanus[Editorial Note 52] in his third Homily has given a sufficient description in these words: Let us ask, he says, what necessity or what reason there is, since the holy Martyrs living in the light of Paradise do not need human praises, why they are celebrated with such enthusiasm by men, why their relics are revealed to this world so frequently by God's revelation. Without doubt it is for many different reasons etc. These things Eusebius wrote about the year 417 on the occasion of the discovery of the relics of St Stephen. Symbol (cross with its top and each arm recrossed) in text < insertion from f 11v > Symbol (cross with its top and each arm recrossed) in textOn this matter Sozomen[Editorial Note 53] likewise has some words to say: God, he says, seemed to show his pleasure in the Empire, since he not only settled wars and seditions contrary to expectation, but also revealed the holy bodies of many who had once been famous for their sanctity. Similar is what happened at that same period in the case of Zechariah, a very ancient prophet, and the deacon Stephen (Sozomen, bk. 9 c 16)[Editorial Note 54]. < text from f 12r resumes > Ambrose too, in ✝[18] his Oration to the people in the year 387 about the recent discovery of Protasius and Gervasius by revelation, alludes to the frequency of similar revelations and says[Editorial Note 55]: not without reason many people call this the resurrection of the martyrs. Consider however whether certain martyrs have risen for their own sakes or for ours. You have known, indeed you have seen for yourselves, that many people have been purged of daemons etc. You see here that the discovery of new martyrs was so frequent that before the year 387 many people had come to the opinion that this was that first resurrection of the saints which is discussed in Apocalypse, chap. 20[Editorial Note 56]. This is indeed worthy of note.

[[Editorial Note 57]So much on the number of revelations. Now, so that you may understand what kind of revelations they were, I would like to give as an example the celebrated revelation of the bodies of the proto-martyr Stephen and of Nicodemus and Gamaliel as the presbyter Lucian himself tells us it was given to him. Lucian writes[Editorial Note 58] then that the soul of Gamaliel appeared to him three times in a dream and the first time he said Lucian, Lucian, Lucian, go to the city of Jerusalem and say to the holy Bishop John; how long have we been shut up and you do not open for us? particularly as it is fitting that we be revealed in the period of your priesthood? Open for us quickly the monument where our relics have been put and are neglected, so that through us God and <13r> his Christ and the holy spirit may open the door of his mercy in this world. For the age is in danger because of the many terrible things which happen in it every day. And I am not only anxious for myself as for those who are placed here with me, holy men and worthy of much note, etc [i.e. Saint Stephen and Nicodemus]. Then in telling of the second and third apparition of the vision he says that ultimately Gamaliel threatened and roared and said: why up to now have you so long suppressed this news and refused to go and tell Bishop John the things that were said and shown to you? What excuse will you have before God or what pardon will you expect for this contempt on the day of judgement? Do you not see how much dryness and tribulation there is throughout the whole world, and you are so slack? – Arise therefore, go and tell him to open up for us and construct a place of Prayer, so that by our intercession the Lord may have mercy on his people. Lucian then tells how when the Tomb was opened in accordance with the vision, in the same hour 73 persons, who were present, being possessed by daemons or infirm because of other diseases, were healed by the odour of the sepulchre, and a great rain descended to refresh the earth. This is what Lucian says in this Epistle, which was brought out in Latin at the same time, and distributed through the West as well as through the East. And all men gave credence to it, and Augustine and many other bishops of both parts of the empire divided up the relics among themselves as has been explained, and told of innumerable miracles that were done by them. From this celebrated revelation of saints which was performed, it seems, for the great and necessary benefit of the human race, we may imagine the stupendous credulity and superstition of the age and the fraud of men and Devils in other revelations. But I will add one more example: when the people of Milan insisted that the Basilica ought not to be dedicated without a Martyr <14r> Ambrose says[Editorial Note 59] that he replied, I will do so if I find relics of martyrs, and he immediately experienced, he says, a kind of powerful presentiment, then he found Protasius and Gervasius. Notice, I beg you, the powerful presentiment. Does not that presentiment smell of design, intention and machination? But hear further what happened. Paulinus tells us in his Life of Ambrose[Editorial Note 60] that when miracles soon began to occur as a result of the discovery of these relics, the Arians said of the Martyrs or the Priest of the Lord, that they were driven out by the power of an unclean spirit, not the grace of God working through them [the Martyrs], but having accepted money they falsely claimed that they were being tormented. He continues … who … [some words here are meaningless as they stand] [he continues] a man from the crowd itself was suddenly seized with an unclean spirit and began to shout that he wished those who denied the martyrs or did not believe in the truth of the Trinity which Ambrose taught would be tormented as he himself was tormented. This is what Paulinus says. Similar to this is the declaration Ambrose himself made about this in his Sermon 91 to the people on the dedication of the Basilica[Editorial Note 61]. We heard today, he says, those on whom the hand was laid saying that no one could be saved who denied the father and the son and the holy spirit, who did not believe in the omnipotent power of the Trinity. The Devil confesses this but the Arians refuse to admit it. The Devil says: let him who denies the divinity of the holy spirit be tormented as he himself was tormented by the martyrs. I do not accept the Devil's testimony, but I do accept his confession. The Demons said this today and yesterday or last night: we know that you are martyrs; and the Arians say: we do not know, we refuse to understand, we refuse to believe. The Demons say to the martyrs: have you come to destroy us? The Arians say, they are not true torments that the demons suffer but mere impostures. Compare <15r> now all these things with each other, and you may well feel what passion they discovered these Martyrs and defended the name and honour of the Martyrs against those who attacked them. But whether we decide that these revelations of martyrs came about by the fraudulent activity of Hypocrites or by the hand of the Devil exciting dreams (for they seem to have come about in both manners), this whole crowd of people who have these dreams and hawk relics about ought to be reprehended for false prophecy. In any case that Mosaic text very truly applies to them[Editorial Note 62]:

[19]

[20]

<16r>

In addition we should note the custom of dedicating Temples and Altars by the relics of Martyrs. Either relics were sought for the dedication of a Basilica as in the case of Ambrose; or Basilicas were constructed after a successful search for relics, as in the case of Gaudentius of Brescia[Editorial Note 63]. Or if a Basilica had already been constructed and new relics came along, at least a new Altar was set up to them in that Basilica. That is why there are many Altars in the same Basilica. For once the Altar of a martyr had been dedicated, it was not allowed (as I think) to give it a new dedication, nor was a new martyr made available for worship without an Altar. Furthermore, God's Altar and martyr's tomb had already become the same thing, since it was the custom to bury relics under Altars. Ambrose mentions this in his Exhortation to Virginity[Editorial Note 64] on the relics of Vitalis and Agricola, and in his Epistle to his Sister[Editorial Note 65] about the discovery of the relics of Protasius and Gervasius. So too Augustine, Sermon 11 on the Saints[Editorial Note 66], Jerome Epistle against Vigilantius[Editorial Note 67] and Sozomen, bk. 5, ch. 8[Editorial Note 68]. Hence Altars were constructed not only in temples but also anywhere in field or road; since the monks constructed them everywhere for the devotion of the people above the dead bodies which they advertised as the relics of martyrs revealed to them in dreams.

If you now think about the enormous number of martyrs and how several temples were sometimes founded for the same martyr, you will realise what a vast number of temples there were. They preserved as many as possible of the martyr tombs from the times of the persecutions. In addition, innumerable others were accepted as having been discovered by dreams. And very often the bodies of individual martyrs were divided up and dispersed through several cities and villages and sometimes almost through the whole world. Who therefore <17r> will not admit that the whole country was absolutely full of abominations? Who will determine the vast number of places dedicated to this abomination. Certainly the number of Temples was so great that Theodoret says[Editorial Note 69] that if you calculate the number of martyrs on that basis, there were tens of thousands of them. We, he says, [21] have tens of thousands of martyrs to show; witness the temples that have been raised to them which adorn the cities and glorify the countryside. And elsewhere: [22] the Temples of the Idols have been abolished, the altars of the Idols have been wholly overthrown, magnificent Churches have been built everywhere, in the cities, in the villages, in the fields – in the furthest reaches of the provinces very beautiful temples have been raised to the martyrs. And again: [23] the tombs of the martyrs show their splendour everywhere on land and sea. By tombs of the martyrs understand martyr Shrines or Temples. For this is how the Temples were named, from the martyrs buried under the Altar in whose memory and honour they had been founded. 🅇 pag. sequ. Symbol (six-spoked asterisk in a square) in text < insertion from f 17v > Symbol (six-spoked asterisk in a square) in text For the veneration of martyrs began in the tombs: then the rather confined tombs[Editorial Note 70] were built up into meeting places for the people, which the writers of the time named indifferently the Tombs of the Martyrs, Martyr Shrines, Basilicas, Temples and Churches. In the same manner Ecclesiastical Writers say that the temples also of the Pagans took their origin from tombs. Concerning the great number of such sepulchres at this time, the ancient Hermes prophesied that they would spring up, saying that there would come a time at which all the sacred rites of the Egyptians (so he calls the cult of the Pagan Gods) would fall into nothingness and removed from Egypt; and that at that time this land, the holy seat of shrines and Temples, would be completely filled with tombs and the dead. Augustine records that this prophecy was fulfilled in book 8 of the City of God chapter 26[Editorial Note 71], saying: Hermes is shown grieving that memorials of martyrs would succeed to the temples and shrines; so that evidently those who read these things with hostile intent, perverted against us, would think that whereas the pagans worshipped Gods in temples, we venerate dead men in Tombs. — Through him spoke the grief of the demons who lamented that future punishment threatened them from the memorials of the holy martyrs. For in many such places they are tormented and confess, and are expelled from the bodies of the people whom they have possessed.

< text from f 17r resumes >

Having demonstrated the great number of the temples, let us consider their splendour. You have heard from Theodoret that they were adorned with gold and silver offerings set up in honour of the martyrs. In many of them the ceilings and thresholds were made of gold also. For so Rufinus says in his History book     chapter[Editorial Note 72]     that golden beds had sprung up/been constructed in Egypt for the relics of the Baptist. And ✝[24] Damasus[Editorial Note 73] says that a Temple had been constructed for Agnes: which surpasses all other Temples and all earthly things:

For the ridges of the lofty roof glitter with gold.

And Paulinus says in his Third Anniversary of Felix[Editorial Note 74].

The golden thresholds are now adorned with snow-white curtains.

In addition the remarkable ornament placed by Pope Damasus in the church of St Athanasia is revealed in these verses:

[25] Bishop Damasus had adorned the ceilings with glorious painting,

to which beautiful jewels now add splendour.

The nave more precious in its rich splendour

testifies what wonderful things faith can do[Editorial Note 75].

pag sequ. < insertion from f 17v > Prudentius likewise says about the temple of the virgin Eulalia[Editorial Note 76]:

Overhead the gleaming roof flashes light

from its gilded panels,

and patterned paving-stones diversify the floor

so that it seems like a rose-covered

meadow blushing with varied blooms.

So too of the monument of the martyr Hippolytus[Editorial Note 77]:

The shrine itself which holds within it

that body which the soul sloughed off, gleams with massive silver.

On its front a rich hand has fixed plates

whose smooth surface shine with the brightness of a concave mirror,

and not content to cover the approach with marble of Paros,

has added shining precious metals to ornament the work.

Thus he describes the Temple of this martyr as extremely grand and adorned with gold, and in the hymn to Fructuosus, Augurius and Eulogius, the martyrs of Tarraco, he says that that in their temple too the roofs were gilded[Editorial Note 78]. < text from f 17r resumes > Nor were there only a few temples adorned in this manner <18r> but peoples and cities seemed to vie with each other in such magnificence. Hence Jerome in his Epistle to Nepotianus says generally[Editorial Note 79]: Many build walls and construct[Editorial Note 80] columns for the Church, the marbles shine, the ceilings are splendid with gold, the altar is decorated with gems. And similarly to Demetriades: let others, he says, build churches, clad the walls with shells of marble, let them import massive columns, let them gild the capitals of the columns with gold (they do not feel the precious ornament) and let them decorate the great doors with ivory and silver and the gilded altars with jewels. I do not blame it, I do not reject it. Let each one abound in his own sense. It is better to do this than to hoard up your wealth and do nothing with it. But for you a different thing is intended etc. Jerome says a similar thing in his Commentary on ch. 27 of Jeremiah[Editorial Note 81], and also in his Commentary on chapter 8 of Zechariah. Certainly the magnificence of these tombs grew to such an extent that Prosper (Book on Promises and Predictions, part 3, chapter 38)[Editorial Note 82] tells us that in his time, that is before the year 440, a temple had been built whose grandeur and magnificence were such that it had even also a street leading up to it 2000 feet long, adorned throughout its length with precious pavement, columns and walls. In addition the vessels were usually made of precious metals: see Augustine On the Psalms 113[Editorial Note 83]. But we too, he says, have a large number of instruments and vessels made of gold and silver for the purpose of celebrating the sacraments which are called sacred because consecrated by their use. And Prudentius in his Hymn about St Laurence portrays a Tyrant saying[Editorial Note 84]:

It has come out that the custom and style of your secret rites, the rule of your brotherhood, is that your priests make offerings from vessels of gold. They say that the holy blood smokes in silver cups, and that at your services by night the candles stand fixed in golden candlesticks.

And besides all this you have heard from Theodoret how those who received answers to their prayers were accustomed to hang in the temples offerings indicating the cures, namely representations of hands and feet and similar things made from gold and silver. Symbol (diamond with a loop at each corner) in text < insertion from f 17v > Symbol (diamond with a loop at each corner) in text Hence Prudentius says[Editorial Note 85] about the martyrs Hemiterius and Cheledonius that the people flock to them praying with voice and vows and gifts. And about those who flock to the temple of Hippolytus that each one hurries on his journey with his children[Editorial Note 86], and he speaks of the temple of this martyr as opulent with gifts[Editorial Note 87]. < text from f 18r resumes > I do not report these things as if I would blame expense and magnificence in the true worship of God but in order to show the zeal of this century in the false cult of the Saints. This is what is said in Daniel (chapter 11)[Editorial Note 88] about that wicked king. In his seat together with God he will honour Mahuzzimos [i.e. guardians] together with God, I say, whom his fathers do not know he will honour them with gold and silver and gems and most desirable things.

But since I have mentioned this Prophecy, we may also note the division of areas between the saints. They were not all appointed protectors of every city, but one to one city, one to another, and a third to two or more cities, according as their relics were distributed throughout the cities and villages. The cities, says Theodoret, and the villages shared the bodies of the martyrs between them by lot, and venerate them as guardians of the cities and protectors of the countryside. <19r> This is also what is spoken of in Daniel Chapter 11: he will divide the land [among the Mahuzzimos] as their patrimony. Leo I too who was appointed Bishop of Rome in the year 440 speaks about these special patrons of cities and villages or rather guardians of individual men (for superstition had already gone that far)[Editorial Note 89]: as we, he says,[26] have experienced and our ancestors approved, we believe and are confident, among all the labours of this life, of receiving assistance from our special patrons by their prayers to obtain the mercy of God. This is the meaning of that phrase of Theodoret: that when children are born, Christians seek to give them the names of martyrs in order to obtain security and protection for them from this source.

The next thing that we shall note is the devotion of the people towards the saints. The cities and villages, says Theodoret, having divided the bodies of the martyrs among themselves by lot, called them the saviours of their souls and the healers of their bodies, and venerated them as guardians of the cities and protectors of the countryside. They constructed for them everywhere the most extensive temples adorned with every variety of ornament; they celebrated festival days very frequently, often indeed on a daily basis; they sought health, children and every kind of blessing from them, and they returned thanks for the things they had received, and those who had received answers to their prayers also gave them gifts: they knew their names better than those of their families; and as children were born to them they gave them their names in order to win protection for them from them. The tombs of the servants of the Crucified One, says ✝[27] Chrysostom[Editorial Note 90], are more famous than royal palaces not because of the magnificence and beauty of the buildings (for they surpass them also in this) but in that which is much greater, in the love of those who come to them. And elsewhere he says [28], that cities unite at the tombs of the martyrs and the people are inflamed with love for them. And sometimes he encouraged the people (as we noted above) not to become negligent in the rest of their religious practice because of their excessive hope and confidence in the saints. Certainly in Africa before the year 398 the superstition was so widespread, fervid and ingrained that the bishops feared that the altars dedicated to false <20r> martyrs through the fields and roads could not be overthrown without a popular tumult. The affection of the people is abundantly shown by their pilgrimages to centres of superstitious cults. With such zeal did they seek the memorials of the Lord in Palestine that Erasmus in his Life of Jerome[Editorial Note 91] said that at the time when Jerome first went to the East, i.e. about the year 370, so great was the veneration felt for the City of Jerusalem that anyone who had not been to Jerusalem seemed to himself not to be pious. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Admittedly, in his Epistle to Paulinus written in the year 394 at Jerusalem Jerome, while describing the way of life of the monks who lived in the deserts, says that neither Antony nor all the swarms of Egypt and Mesopotamia, Pontus, Cappadocia and Armenia, had seen Jerusalem[Editorial Note 92]; and also in describing the times which preceded Constantine, he says: from the time of Hadrian right up to the reign of Constantine, a period of about 180 years, a representation of Jupiter was worshipped on the spot of the Resurrection and on the rock of the Cross a marble statue of Venus put there by the Gentiles was worshipped[Editorial Note 93]. But about the Christian world of his own time he says in the same passage[Editorial Note 94]: people come here from all over the world. The city is full of people of every sort, and such is the crowd of both sexes that what elsewhere you partly avoided, here you are compelled wholly to put up with. So too in an Epistle to Marcella Jerome describes how from Gaul, Britain, Armenia, Persia, India, Ethiopia, Egypt, Pontus, Cappadocia, Syria Coele, Mesopotamia and the whole world, those in the forefront of religion and especially the swarms of Monks, flock to the holy places, and have done so for a long time, thinking, he says, that they have no piety and no knowledge and have not received the finishing touch, as they say, of the virtues, if they have not adored Christ in those places from which the Gospel first shone out from the cross. Jerome suggests that this custom derived from the times of the Apostles, though he himself in the passage cited suggests the contrary: namely [that it dated?] from Eusebius who in his       {Life} of Constantine says that the holy monuments lay covered with mounds of earth <21r> and were profaned and as it were obliterated by the abominations of the pagans which had been built on top of them down to the time of the council of Nicaea and beyond: because God, as it seems to me, permitted this down to this era with the same intention with which he once willed that the body of Moses be hidden. Certainly very few people before this time used to visit the holy places, and they perhaps did it in order to see them rather than to worship. But now this custom instantly developed into a superstition. For this is what Palladius says in his Life of Rufinus, that over a period of 27 years Rufinus used to receive those who came to Jerusalem in fulfilment of a vow, and entertained them at his own expense – bishops and monks and virgins and all who came. And Jerome in Epistle 154 to Desiderius[Editorial Note 95] says: certainly it is a part of faith to offer adoration where the feet of the Lord have stood. And with what adoration does Jerome express this in the Life of Paula[Editorial Note 96], where describing how she visited the holy places, he says: prostrate before the cross she adored it as if she saw the Lord hanging there. Paulinus speaks generally about this adoration in Epistle 11 to Severus[Editorial Note 97]: by the operation, he says, of a constant miracle of God's power, the Cross having a living force in its insensible material so accommodates its timber to the almost innumerable daily prayers of men from the time [when it was first invoked], that it does not experience loss, and remains as it were intact, constantly dividing for those who take it and always whole for those who venerate it. Cyril of Jerusalem[Editorial Note 98] also mentions this continual restoration as it were by vegetable growth in Catechism 10, saying: Five loaves of bread testify to being multiplied into 5000: the wood of the cross testifies to appearing down to our own day among us, as well as among those who taking from it in faith have already almost filled the whole world. So too Catechism 4 and 13: every part of the Earth, he says, has been filled with the wood of the cross. Let him who can <22r> believe this multiplication, do so. For my part, I suspect that the Cross was not even found but rather was fabricated. For its discovery is attributed to Helen the mother of Constantine, and although Eusebius described the acts of Helen in the holy places in his Oration on the Praises of Constantine[Editorial Note 99], and the discovery of the Cross is more remarkable than anything else, he did not say one word about it. However that may be, it is clear from the quotations we have given that there was enormous superstition surrounding the relics of the Saviour, which Chrysostom in That Christ is God bk. 1 well described in words[Editorial Note 100]: How is it then, tell me, he says, that there is such enthusiasm for the cross in all men and why is it so desired by all men and why is it more desirable than anything else? The actual wood on which the holy body of the Lord was placed and crucified — why is it that the whole world so struggles to have it that those who have even a little bit of it enclose it in gold, both men and women, and wear it around their necks, and hence they are very honourable and grand, protected and guarded, even though it was the wood of condemnation? This is what Chrysostom says and consistent with it is the fact that when Severus asked Paulinus of Nola [29] for Martyr relics, he sent him instead a little bit of the cross enclosed in gold for the dedication of the Basilica.

And the nations went to visit not only the relics of the Saviour, both in fulfilment of a vow and for veneration of them, but also the relics of a whole range of martyrs. Philoromus, who became a monk when Julian was Emperor and was a most dear Master (M. Charissimus) to Basil, made a pilgrimage to Rome on foot, as Palladius tells us in his life of him, in order to pray at the martyr-shrine of Saints Peter and Paul; likewise he set off for Alexandria to the shrine of St Mark having made a vow to do so, and he went twice on foot to Jerusalem in fulfilment of a vow to venerate the holy places. And Augustine in Sermon 1 on Saints Peter and Paul[Editorial Note 101] testifies to the confluence of people at their shrine: <23r> A multitude of people, he says, adore the most Blessed Peter, once a fisherman, prostrating themselves before him. And Paulinus in the Third Anniversary Of St Felix[Editorial Note 102] writes that innumerable crowds are accustomed to make pilgrimages from the remotest places to the body of St Felix. Prudentius also in his Hymn for Saints Hemeterius and Chelidonius, says[Editorial Note 103]:

and dwellers in the outside world come here, for report has run through all lands publishing the news that here are patrons of the whole earth whose favour they may seek by prayer.

And in the passion of the martyr Hippolytus,[Editorial Note 104]

In the morning the people assemble to do reverence; they come and go till set of sun. The love of religion masses Latins and strangers together in one general body. They print kisses on the clear metal, they pour down balsams, and wet their faces with their tears.

In this manner both foreigners and natives visited this martyr every day: but on the day of the festival the Poet describes a greater gathering of peoples than one can almost believe:[Editorial Note 105]

And then when the months have run their course and the year begins afresh,

when the festival of his passion brings again its anniversary,

can you imagine what multitudes gather with emulous zeal,

what prayers join together to honour God?

[30] The majestic city disgorges her citizens in a stream,

and pours forth her patricians with them in equal ardour.[Editorial Note 106]

Shoulder to shoulder the plebeian host

confounds the distinction of the leading men under the impulse of faith;

and equally from Alba's gates the white-robed troops

deploy and pass on in long lines.

Loud sounds of rejoicing rise from diverse roads leading from different places;

natives of Picenum and the people of Etruria come.

the fierce Samnite and the Campanian dweller

in lofty Capua meet together, and men of Nola too are there,

<24r>

everyone in happy mood with wife and dear

children and eager to get wuickly on the way.

Scarcely can the broad plains hold the joyous multitude;

the close-packed company is jammed together even in the wide spaces.

<25r>

It happened that a certain priest who secretly favoured the party of Arius came to the notice of Constantia, the sister of Constantine, and until recently[Editorial Note 107] the wife of Licinius. He was not at first willing to reveal anything at all of this in the presence of the sister of the Emperor: but when increased familiarity gave him an opportunity, little by little he began to drop a word here and there, saying that jealousy had been created against Arius, and that out of private enmity his Bishop[Editorial Note 108] had stirred up contention about it because he was green with envy that Arius was held dear by the people. By often intimating this and other such things, he won Constantia's favour. When, as she was about to die, she was visited by her brother and was kindly and piously urged by him, she is said to have requested, as a last favour, that he would receive the priest into his acquaintance and listen to what he proposed for his hope and salvation; that she herself indeed had no concern for it as she was departing from this world, but she was anxious about the state of her brother in case he should risk the destruction of his kingdom by inflicting punishment on innocent people. Because of these warnings from his sister he gave a hearing to the priest (Rufinus, bk 1 chap. 11[Editorial Note 109], Sozomen, bk. 2 chap. 27[Editorial Note 110]) and decided that the case of Arius should be discussed once again (Sozomen, ibid.). He therefore recalled him from exile immediately – Arius hesitated time and again - with a letter like this:

The Victorious Constantinus Maximus Augustus to Arius:

It has previously been indicated to your Gravity that you should come into our Presence, so that you may enjoy the sight of our Majesty. We cannot at all understand why you have not immediately availed yourself of this permission. Therefore get onto a public vehicle, and hasten to come to our presence, so that you may experience our clemency and beneficence, and return to your native land. Dated four days before the Calends of December.

Not long after Arius had received the letter from the Emperor, he came to Constantinople. He had with him also Euzoius, whom Alexander had stripped of the honour of the Deaconship, at the time when he deposed Arius and his allies. Socrates bk. 1 chap. 25[Editorial Note 111]. At the request of the Emperor therefore they composed a confession of the faith as follows:

Arius and Euzoius to our most religious and God-beloved Lord, Emperor Constantine: As your piety most dear to God has instructed us, <26r> Lord Emperor, we expound our faith, and profess in writing before God that we and those who are with us believe what we set out here. We believe in one God, the father almighty, and in the Lord Jesus Christ, his son, who was born ✝[31] from him before all worlds: God the Word, through whom all things were made which are in heaven and on earth: who descended and was incarnate: who suffered and rose again and ascended to heaven and will come again to judge the living and the dead. And in the holy spirit: in the resurrection of the flesh and in the life of the world to come, and in the kingdom of heaven, and in one Catholic Church of God which extends from one end of the earth to the other. This faith we have received from the holy Gospels as the Lord taught it to his Disciples: go and teach all nations baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Spirit. Unless we so believe these things and unless we truly accept the Father and the Son and the holy Spirit, as the whole Catholic Church and the Scriptures teach, on which all our faith rests; our Judge is God now and in the world to come. Wherefore we beseech your piety, O Emperor beloved of God, that since we are churchmen and hold the faith and sense of the Church and of the holy scriptures by your peace-making, holy piety we be united to our mother the Church putting aside all superfluous questions and disputations: so that both we and the Church, maintaining mutual peace between us, may all together pour out frequent prayers to God for the Pacific government of your Majesty and for all your family. Socrates book 1 chapter 26, Sozomen book 2 chapter 27. ‡ < insertion from f 26v > ‡ As these things pleased the Emperor ✝[32], he convokes the bishops so that they may again take cognizance of the case of Arius. And the faith of Arius pleased them too, and when they saw that he had received his liberty, they no longer demanded that he subscribe to the Consubstantial. And so Arius was received by them into communion, and was sent to Alexandria to be restored to his position. < text from f 26r resumes >

Meanwhile when Eusebius[Editorial Note 112] and Theognis[Editorial Note 113] heard that Arius had been recalled from exile, as they did not clearly understand the reason for his recall, they sent the following letter to these bishops[Editorial Note 114]. We who were condemned by your piety in a formal hearing, should accept the judgement of your sanctity <27r> quietly and in silence. But since it is absurd, to afford grounds for slander against oneself by keeping silent, we have indicated to you that we too have remained unanimous in the faith; and when the notion of consubstantial was examined, we strove with all our zeal for peace and have never followed any heresy. And when for the sake of the security and tranquillity of the Churches we made the suggestions that had occurred to us, and reassured those who were properly to be satisfied by us, we did indeed subscribe to the faith, but refused to subscribe to the anathema; not because we found fault with the faith, but because we could not believe that the man who had been accused was like that, since we had come to know that he was not, partly from what he had written to us in his letters and partly from the conversation that we had had with him face to face. But if your most holy [33] Council is satisfied that they are not in conflict but in agreement with your decrees, we too confirm our agreement by means of this creed – not because we are tired of exile, but in order to avoid the suspicion of heresy. For if you allow us to come into your presence, you will find us in agreement in all matters and firmly attached to your decrees, since it has pleased your reverence to treat with humanity the man who was accused because of those things and recall him from exile. Furthermore, it would be absurd when he who was thought to be guilty has been recalled and has purged himself of the matters objected against him, that we should be silent and of our own accord supply an argument against ourselves. You therefore, as becomes your pious reverence for Christ, deign to give advice to the Emperor beloved of God, and offer our petitions to him, and seek an early opportunity to decree in our case that which seems good to you. Socrates bk. 1 chap. 14, Sozomen bk. 2 chap. 16. Eusebius and Theognis therefore were recalled from exile by order of the Emperor, and recovered their Sees, and expelled those who had been appointed in their places: Eusebius expelled Amphion, and The{ognis} expelled Cl{e}istus. {illeg} (Socr. & Sozom. ib.). And similarly it is proven that the rest of <28r> the bishops and priests were released from exile, though the historians do not record their release, by the letter of the subsequent synod at Jerusalem given to the Egyptians.

But in order to give a clear narrative of subsequent events, we must narrate the history of the church in Alexandria in rather more detail. Eutychius, patriarch of Alexandria, says that in the 9th year of Claudius Caesar, Mark the Evangelist first invited people in the city of Alexandria to have faith in Christ and appointed Ananias patriarch of that city. — The Evangelist Mark together with the patriarch Ananias also appointed 12 presbyters, who were to remain with the patriarch, so that when the patriarchate was vacant, they would select one of the twelve presbyters and the other eleven would bless him by placing their hands upon his head and appoint him patriarch: and then they were to choose some outstanding man to be appointed presbyter with themselves in place of the one who had been made patriarch, so that there would always be twelve. And this procedure of the presbyters at Alexandria, – namely that they should appoint patriarchs from the twelve presbyters – remained in force until the time ✝[34] of Alexander, patriarch of Alexandria, who was from that number of the 318. But from that time on he forbade the presbyters to appoint the patriarch. And he decreed that when the patriarch died, the Bishops should convene to appoint the patriarch. He likewise decreed that when the patriarchate was vacant, they should choose some outstanding man of proven probity from any region at all, whether from the twelve presbyters or others, and appoint him Patriarch. Thus the ancient institution disappeared by which the patriarch was always appointed by presbyters, and its place was taken by the decree about the patriarch being created by the bishops. Eutychius, Annals part 1. The occasion of this change, so far as I am aware, was as follows.

On a certain festival day, as Rufinus tells us, Alexander sees from a distance a game which some boys were playing on the shore of the sea in imitation of a Bishop and things which it is the custom to do in churches. But when he looked at the boys more carefully for a long time, he sees that some rather more secret and sacramental things were being enacted by them. He was disturbed, and immediately <29r> ordered his clergymen to be summoned to him and tells them what he saw from a distance. Then he told them to go and get the boys and bring them all to him. And when they were before him, he asked them what game they were playing and what they had done and how. They were frightened, as children are accustomed to be at that age, and at first refused to say, then they explained the whole thing in order and confessed that some catechumens had been baptised by one of their number, by name Athanasius, who had taken on the role of Bishop in their childish game. Then he made more particular enquiries from those who were said to have been baptised as to what they had been asked and what they replied, and at the same time also asked the same of the one who had asked the questions. When he saw that everything conformed to the rites of our religion, he conferred with a council of his clergy, and is said to have decided that the baptism should not be repeated for those on whom water had been sprinkled after they had gone through the interrogations and responses but that those things should be completed which are customarily done by priests. And Athanasius and those whom the game had seemed to treat as either presbyters or ministers he handed over to their parents whom he had summoned, and had them swear to bring them up for his Church. And a little while later, as soon as Athanasius had been fully instructed by a Writing Teacher and adequately by a Teacher of Literature, he was immediately given back to the priest by his parents as a faithfully kept pledge to the Lord. Rufinus book 1 chapter 14[Editorial Note 115], Socrates book 1 chapter 15[Editorial Note 116], Sozomen book 2 chapter 17[Editorial Note 117]. However he did not remain all the time with Alexander, but went into ✝[35] the desert and associated with the monk Antony (above). And under Licinius he began to be known by his disputations against the Gentiles (✝[36] Martyrologium Romanum, 13th of January)[Editorial Note 118]. Then Alexander invited him to join his entourage, and made him his secretary from that time on, Sozomen book 2 chapter 17. Later at the Council of Nicaea he was made a deacon. He participated in the counsels of his Bishop and very much assisted the old man (Rufinus book 10 chapter 5), contending vigorously against the followers of Eusebius. It was from this time that the greatest part of this controversy burst out (Sozomen book 1 chapter 17). And though he was only now beginning to be known in the world, there is no doubt that he was of the first importance in helping his Bishop in this whole controversy; he was a man in every way fitted for administration, for apart from the subtlety of his intellect, he was an expert in the science of law, and received the title of Jurisconsult <30r> from Severus. And certainly the Circular Letter of Alexander[Editorial Note 119] no less reflects the genius of2 Athanasius1 in defending his opinion than the warmth of the old man in stinging his opponents. Athanasius was therefore in great honour with his Bishop (Socrates book 1 chapter 8) and was selected by him, when he passed on to his fathers in advanced old age, to wear the sacerdotal Ephod after him (Rufinus book 1 chapter 14). Sozomen bk. 2 chap. 17 in narrating how Alexander left him as his successor because he was impelled to designate him as it were by divine commands, adds that Athanasius was said to have been prepared to go into exile and was forcefully compelled by Alexander to accept the episcopate. And he cites Apollinaris the Syrian as witness of this fact, who writes that Alexander, as he was dying, was very anxious for the election of Athanasius as his successor and that Athanasius had fled. Undoubtedly, Alexander knew that he would be much the fiercest champion of his party and canvassed every means to have him chosen as his successor. < insertion from f 29v > ✝ Athanasius was selected by Alexander, when he passed on to his fathers in advanced old age, to wear the sacerdotal Ephod after him. Rufinus book 1 chapter 14. As Alexander was on the point of departing this life, he left Athanasius as his successor, impelled to designate him as such, I think, by divine commands. For Athanasius himself seems to have prepared to flee, and was forcibly compelled by Alexander to undertake the priesthood. The witness of this is Apollinaris the Syrian who says as follows. But after this, impiety never ceases to wage war. First she takes up arms against the blessed teacher of this man; and he was his helper as a son is to his father. But then against the man himself <30v> at the time when he came to succeed to the Episcopate, he made great use of flight but was found by the help of God[Editorial Note 120], just as it had been foretold by God to the blessed man who passed the Epicopate to him that no other than he would be his successor. For when he was summoned from this life and was on the point of death, he began to call Athanasius by name. When he had often called for him, he said in a prophetic spirit: Athanasius, you believe you have escaped. You will not escape. Signifying of course that he was called to the struggle. Sozomen book 2 chapter 17. But1: this4 flight6 of Athanasius5 is3 fictitious2[Editorial Note 121], as will be explained later < text from f 30r resumes > . Now Athanasius was only a Deacon and thus could not be selected according to the old constitution of that church, and this seems to be the reason why Alexander changed the constitution, enjoining that any good man could be chosen, not just one of the twelve Presbyters of the church. < insertion from f 29v >

The Synod of Alexandria held under Athanasius in the year       writes ‡[37] that when Arius had been ejected from the church by Alexander, and the followers of Eusebius wrote to Alexander with many exhortations not to leave Arius outside the church and Alexander refused to accept him, the followers of Eusebius turned their anger against his Deacon Athanasius. And after they had carefully noted that he was in constant attendance on Alexander and was highly esteemed by him, and also had experience of his piety for Christ in the Synod at Nicaea, where he had discoursed with great freedom against the impiety of the followers of Arius, their hatred grew much more; and when God advanced him to the Episcopate, they rekindled their old malice against him and fomented conspiracies against him in every way. This is what they said: Who would not realise from all this that the slow old man has made use of the advice of this young man in this whole controversy, so that the followers of Eusebius have been contending not so much with Alexander as with Athanasius in the person of Alexander? Hence in order to make the distinction clear, let us justifiably designate the champions of this opinion 'Athanasians'. Certainly the circular Letter of Alexander[Editorial Note 122], part of which we cited above, reminds one of the style of Athanasius in defending his opinion as much as of the warmth of the old man in stinging his adversaries, as anyone will realise who compares this letter with the writings of Athanasius.

Since therefore Alexander loved this man very much and saw that he would be by far the fiercest champion of his party, he canvassed by every means he could for him to be selected as his successor in the Episcopate. ✝ For this reason since Athanasius was only a deacon, – – – – he would be able.

< text from f 30r resumes >

And besides since the Presbyters were only able to appoint as Bishop someone whom the people had previously chosen, and the greater part of the people were opposed to the views of Alexander, but the majority of the Bishops whom he had under him shared his views, he was compelled by a certain necessity to attract every power against the people so that the cause would not fail through a lost election. It is not improbable that these changes were made to the old constitutions in the Council at Alexandria in which Hosius[Editorial Note 123] participated; hence also the fourth canon of the Council of Nicaea[Editorial Note 124], by which it is determined ✝[38] that a Bishop should (if possible) be appointed by {the Bishops} of the whole province. That this Canon was made to favour the Diocese of Egypt in order to suppress the people, is deduced from the latter part of it, by which it is determined, against the people who favoured Arius and Meletius, that in elections <31r> either the presence or the authority of the Metropolitan Bishop should have most weight. . The reason for this canon is given by the Synod itself in the Epistle to the Church of the Alexandrians as follows. If it happens, it says, that any of those who are designated to office in the Church, die, then the place and office of the dead man should be filled by those who have just been summoned, so long as they seem to be worthy and the people elect them, provided however that the Bishop of the city of Alexandria supports him and confirms the judgement of the people.

[Editorial Note 125]In the persecution which was raised by the Emperors Diocletian and Maximian – a certain Meletius was held in prison together with Peter the Archbishop of Alexandria and several others. He outranked the other bishops of Egypt, and held the second place of dignity after Peter, as his suffragan. – And as some had happily undergone martyrdom, while others had avoided it, by sacrificing to idols, the latter after their lapse approached the confessors and Martyrs in order to obtain forgiveness because of their repentance. – As a result no little agitation and dissension arose among the martyrs, as some denied that those who had once lapsed should be accepted in repentance, in case others, seeing them swiftly receiving the indulgence they requested, should be led astray, having little fear of punishment, and pollute themselves with the accursed rites of the Pagans. These were Meletius and Peleus and several other martyrs and confessors who undoubtedly (says Epiphanius) were motivated by passion and zeal for God's honour when they said these things. Furthermore the same men were the authors of the view that the opportunity for penitence should be offered them after some reasonable period of time following a persecution, when peace had returned, if indeed they truly had repentance in their hearts and exhibited its fruits. — On the other side, the most holy Peter, <31v> a kind and merciful man, pled with them in these words: Let us admit them since they repent of their sin, and let us set a penance for them (we know from consistent reports that he used these words, says Epiphanius) lest those who once before in their weakness and cowardice were struck by the devil and yielded, should lapse completely because of shame and the long delay. – Thus Peter's plea did indeed look towards clemency and humanity, but that of Meletius and his supporters favoured the cause of truth and ardour for God. When therefore Peter recognized that his advice did not please the followers of Meletius, he spread his cloak like a curtain in the middle of the prison, and ordered a proclamation to be made by the Deacon: those who share my opinion, let them come hither to me, and those who favour the opinion of Meletius let them go to Meletius. And when it was done, the people were divided into parties: the majority of bishops, monks and presbyters and of the other orders went with Meletius: a few of the bishops and the others followed Archbishop Peter. From this time they have celebrated their prayers and sacrifices and all their other ceremonies separately from each other. After this Peter was suffered martyrdom leaving Alexander as his successor, but Meletius with many others was exiled and condemned to the mines of Phanes[Editorial Note 126] where he was held for a considerable time. – And even in the mines they refrained from mutual communion. – And they remained divided afterwards, and gave different names to their churches; those who adhered to the successors of Peter were called the Catholic Church; those who adhered to Meletius the Church of the Martyrs. Epiphanius, Heresies, 68.[Editorial Note 127] In this way therefore the Church of Egypt had been divided not so much because of diversity of belief, but because one party held communion with those who had lapsed while the other party believed that they should be shunned.

<32r>

And in the Council of Nicaea it was decided about the latter that they should submit to Alexander and should not have any power of appointing successors for the continuation of the schism. And so these returned into communion with Alexander, so that the Churches of Egypt now seemed to be completely pacified. In the first month therefore after the Council of Nicaea, Alexander died, [with an oath (Athan.            Theod.    ) and both those who adhered to him and those who adhered to Meletius held communion with each other, and the fifty four Bishops who assembled from the Thebaid and from the whole of Egypt, swore an oath to each other, and decreed that he who would administer the Church of Alexandria should be elected by a common vote (the Arians in Sozomen bk. 2 chap. 17; nor was this denied by the followers of Athanasius in his defence), but seven Bishops from their number violated their oath [together with some others perhaps who had not sworn the oath] and secretly appointed Athanasius (the Arians in Sozomen ibid. and the followers of Meletius quoted in the ✝[39] Epistle to the Churches from the Synod of Alexandria cited above), while the people who were on the side of Athanasius occupied a certain Church, and barricading the doors and not coming out themselves, they did not permit any of the Bishops whom they held inside to leave, until Athanasius was ordained by those Bishops, who long refused to do so: as Athanasius himself and {illeg} almost 100 Bishops of Egypt admit in the aforesaid ✝[40] Epistle of the Synod. When this had been done, Athanasius sought to have his election confirmed by the Emperor by means of a swift messenger, before complaints from the other party could come to his ears. And hence a new conflict, very fierce and long-lasting, broke out. For this reason many both from the people and from the clergy of Egypt refused communion with him <33r> (the Arians in Sozomen bk. 2 chap. 17) ✝[41]. But the followers of Meletius being furious beyond measure, renewed the schism, if indeed they any longer deserved to be called schismatics since they had good reasons to refuse communion with Athanasius. Nor was there only the conflict about the Episcopate of Athanasius, but controversy about the faith also broke out again. So while all men therefore were cultivating peace with each other, the fury of controversy broke out with implacable strife among the Egyptians alone: to such an extent that they gave trouble even to the Emperor, though they did not even so move him to wrath. For the Emperor treated them with every honour as fathers, or rather as Prophets of God, and summoned them once again to his presence; he was again their arbiter; again he honoured them with awards and gifts. He signified by an Epistle the verdict which he pronounced as arbiter, confirming and sanctioning what had been decreed by the synod, and exhorting them to practise concord and not to try to tear and pull the body of the Church apart but to reflect in their minds on the future judgement of God. This is what Eusebius says in his Life of Constantine bk. 3 chap. 23, immediately after giving the history of the Council of Nicaea, and saying that the bishops returned home with gifts and peace was restored to the churches)[Editorial Note 128]. Meanwhile however the Emperor punished several of those who refused communion with Athanasius with exile. Those who were sent to Nicomedia and Nicaea were accepted into communion by Eusebius and Theogonius[Editorial Note 129], the Bishops of those cities, who supported their causes against Athanasius. This is why the Emperor sent them into exile, as is clear from ‡[42] the Epistle of the Emperor written at the same time to the citizens of Nicomedia, in which we read the following. Hear now, I beg you, what Eusebius and Theogonius have perpetrated as companions in insanity. I ordered certain Alexandrians who had fallen from our faith to be brought to you, because the torch of discord had been raised by their efforts and ministry. But these noble Bishops whom the clemency of the Synod had preserved to do penance, not only received them and bade them live safely with them, but also joined them as allies and <34r> participants in their wickedness. For this reason I have decided to act as follows against these ungrateful men. I have ordered them to be seized and deported as far away as possible. – If anyone presumes to make mention of these pests, or be rashly moved to praise them, their audacity will be suppressed immediately by the action of the family of God, that is, of our family. This is what the Emperor said. Also Philostorgius writes that when three months had passed after the Synod of Nicaea, Eusebius was sent into exile, i.e., before the death of Alexander. But ✝[43] Athanasius (if we may trust him) writes that Eusebius entered into counsel with them from the time of Alexander's death, when he heard that the followers of Meletius were once again disturbing the Churches. And the situation itself convinces us that the exile of these two men occurred just after the Emperor pronounced his sentence after assembling the Bishops of Egypt and hearing the case of Athanasius. That is, I think, when about six or almost seven months had passed since the Synod.

At the same time the Emperor, returning from the East ✝[44], celebrated his Vicennalia at Rome: but the rejoicing was dampened by some very sad events. For the Emperor at about this very time ‡[45] removed by poison his eldest son, Crispus Caesar, on a false suspicion of crime, and soon also suffocated his very own wife Fausta in a hot bath: and a[46] he ordered some others who were very closely related as well as b[47] innumerable friends to be killed: on whom consult Baronius under the year 324 section 5 ff.; he is undoubtedly compelled to admit this because he is overcome by the number and clarity of the testimonies (which he names there). However he ascribes the deed to the year 324, following the Chronicle of Eusebius, which is certainly an error, perhaps interpolated here by Jerome since Eusebius was accustomed to extol the Emperor with the highest praises and to conceal all his faults. The true date is derived as follows. Sozomen book 1 chapter 5, on the basis of the laws which were promulgated by Constantine and Crispus together and which carry indications of the dates as well as the names of the legislators, gives explicit evidence that Crispus died in the 20th year of Constantine, i.e., the year which begins on the eighth day before the Kalends of August A.D. 425, while the synod at Nicaea was sitting, which coincided with (interesse) <35r> the celebration of the festival of the Vicennalia at Nicaea. Zosimus also tells us that Constantine committed these crimes at a time when he had set out for Rome, and on the basis of the laws of Constantine which contain the places and dates at which they were given, Gothofredus is compelled to accept that Constantine did not reach Rome before                          , and consequently he assigns these crimes to the period immediately after the famous Council of Nicaea and repudiates the celebrated fiction of the baptism of Constantine which they would like to say took place as a result of these crimes, in order to rebut the accusation before the session of the Synod.     This date is also favoured by the remark of Baronius under the year 324, sect. 27, in which he tells us, on the authority of Zosimus, that Hosius had already returned to Rome from Egypt. We have to accept that this is not likely to have happened until after the Council of Nicaea, since Hosius, following the imperial court, after he returned to Nicomedia from Egypt, went from there to Nicaea with the rest of the court.

So monstrous were these crimes that the consul, Ablavius, a leading man with Constantine (and in this very year 326 Praetorian Prefect, as we are told in bk. 6 Concerning Bishops and bk. 5 Concerning Shipping, which confirms the Chronology)[Editorial Note 130] affixed a couplet to the doors of the Palace, in which he called these times Neronian: as Sidonius Apollinaris,[48] a very grave author, relates in the following words. So that, he says, the consul Ablavius does not seem to me to have satirised the family and life of Constantine more pointedly in a couple of lines or got his teeth into them more forcefully in the distich which he secretly affixed to the doors of the Palace:

Who would now want the golden age of Saturn?

These are jewelled times, but Neronian.[Editorial Note 131].

because of course the aforesaid Augustus, at about this time, killed his wife Fausta with the heat of a bath, and his son Crispus with the cold of poison. Alluding to this couplet ✝[49], Baronius, while discussing the reason for the flight of the Roman Pontiff, calls these times most unhappy, times which evidently deserved to be called times of Nero in the mouth of members of the court. For them it was easy, he says, to turn the vacillating mind of Constantine <36r> against the best people by the lightest of suspicions: so much so that if in this deplorable period his very dear son, the first of the Caesars, his most loving wife, the Augusta, and several others were put to death by the angry Emperor, what wonder if the Roman Pontiff was forced to go into exile, or to continue the exile, which he and his whole family had undertaken previously because of the fury of the Pagans? Clearly the times (to repeat the testimony of Ablavius) were Neronian. This is what Baronius saysa[50]. On the basis of Glycasb b[51], Zosimusc c[52] and the tradition of the pagans in Sozomend d[53], he writes that the Emperor had almost returned to Paganism, but now, after these crimes, he converted fully to the Christian religion when he consulted the Flamens and Sopatrus, a pagan philosopher, about the expiation of sins, and received the response that there was no expiation that would wash away such abominable deeds, but he had heard it confirmed by Hosius that the Christian religion had the power to abolish any sin whatsoever.

And this does not seem to be completely alien to the truth. For not long before this he had wanted the Haruspices to be consulted about his roof being struck by lightning and have their opinions passed on to him – what wonder if he sometimes got involved in other pagan rites, and especially at this time when he had been very wicked. Nor can one regard his piety towards the Christians as an objection to this; for in the actual synod of Nicaea he certainly playing a political game, and under the pretext of religion, attempted to secure the peace of the state, as is pretty evident from a single argument. He listened to the advice of Hosius and turned against Eusebius because of his association with Licinius; and then deterred the Bishops who adhered to Eusebius from coming to the Council, and then others who were fighting among themselves in many different ways, not of the opinion which they had arrived at together but of the one which he himself had chosen, partly by kind words and the authority of his presence, and partly by fraudulent … among … [text breaks off]

<37r>

[,] Moreover the people of God who were not yet worshipping an image, concerning whom God says, the Beast plana tous emous[Editorial Note 132] seduces my people chap. 13.14, and the remnant of whom are subsequently exhibited as the 144,000 in Mount Sion who have the name of God written on their foreheads, chap. 14.1, and those who are signed with the seal of God on their foreheads are said to be from the whole tribe of the sons of Israel chap. 7.3, 4; these are the tribes of the sons of Israel 144,000 of whose number are marked with the sign, the rest evidently having lapsed so as not to be killed, and betaken themselves to the cult of the Image. Does not the Parable/Similitude (Parabola) therefore of the stumbling-block put before the sons of Israel obviously allude to these sons of Israel? The prophecies are so much in agreement that in this part their names are the same.

And the name of sons of Israel is applied to Christians in this prophecy as a result of that august assembly of God and the Church in chapter 4 which is described in accordance with the image of the ancient castrametation in the desert with Israel. The reason for this is that Christians are spiritually the sons of Israel, the heirs of the promises, and the people of God exactly like those men of old. There is one church for both under different laws at Romans 11.17. Both expect one city, which is called the new Jerusalem in this prophecy. And hence they are called Christians. Also Jews in chap. 2.9 and 3.9. And as the sons of Israel and the Jews formerly called all men except themselves 'Gentiles' and 'nations', so in this prophecy all who are outside the church are designated as nations and Gentiles. For instance, in the Similitude/Analogy (Parabola) of Balaam, by Balaam {is meant} Balak and their peoples who were Gentiles, and by the throne of Satan him who once held power over all the nations; and similarly in the prophecy to which this parable/similitude alludes, by the tribes {is meant} the tongues and nations of which the Beast is composed, chap. 13.7 and 11.9, and which are called the gentiles who tread the outer courtyard, chap. 11.2.

Of what kind these were, is made clear in chap. 2.9. I know, says Christ, the blasphemy of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. He alludes here partly to the seven headed Beast <38r> which spoke blasphemies and had the names of blasphemy on its heads, i.e, those who were idolatrous, and partly to the Dragon which is called Satan, and in alluding to both, he comprehends the peoples of both in so far as the religion of all of them is the same, all blaspheme, all are of the Synagogue of the Devil. These, he says, claim that they are Jews, and they are not, i.e., they call themselves Christians but they are not. They are not Jews, that is, they are gentiles. They are the synagogue of Satan, not the synagogue of the Jews as they claim, i.e., they are not the church of the Christians, as they call themselves, but the church of the devil: for as Jews are put for Christians, so also (by the line of the allegory) Synagogue is put for church. And he speaks generally about all who said that they were Jews and were not, that is, about all heretics, and he implies that there is one synagogue of all about whom he speaks, and in the surrounding words, both before and after, he describes the tribulation and persecution under these pseudo-Christians; so that you will not think that these things properly apply to the times of the Apostle, but will refer them rather to the Beast and the Dragon who are worshipped by all men. For this reason these people are also associated with the hour of universal trial in the Parable/Similitude to the Church at Philadelphia, chap. 3.9, 10.

And as a result of both the properties of the Gentiles, both their external profession of the Christian name and their idolatry or spiritual fornication, Christ gave them the name of Nicolaitans[Editorial Note 133]. You have there, he says, some who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling-block before the sons of Israel, to eat food sacrificed to idols and to fornicate: houtws echeis kai su[Editorial Note 134]; likewise you too have some people who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans similarly. He first calls the doctrine of the Nicolaitans the doctrine of Balaam: you have, he says, some who hold the doctrine of Balaam. Then having described that doctrine he repeats: In this manner you too have some people who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans similarly. houtôs is relative, and in the Arabic and Ethiopic versions it is taken relatively. And the word homoiôs at the end of the sentence (which some have thought to be too harsh and have changed it to ho miso, as Grotius notes) points in the same direction. The expression is repeated, so that the sense may be fuller and more certain. Therefore by the sect of the Nicolaitans who in the <39r> time of the Apostles held their women in common, Christ allegorically depicts those who are spiritual fornicators, and in one swoop both incidentally condemns that impure sect and lucidly and skilfully describes the apostasy which would happen in the future. For this description is lucid: both because fornication properly so-called is a well-known symbol of idolatry, and because the sect of the Nicolaitans called themselves Christian, and finally because, if you interpret the name Nicolaitans, it signifies conquerors of the people. How well these things agree with those who worship the Dragon, the Beast and the Image of the Beast may be sufficiently established from this alone, that the Dragon or Satan who deceived the whole world, i.e. idolatry, was not among them from the beginning, but was thrown down from its ancient throne by Michael and descended to them and thenceforth was the kingdom of the Woman who had fled to the desert after the people were seduced – to omit for the time being other arguments that point in the same direction.

< insertion from f 38v > Ⓧ Concerning these Nicolaitans Christ says to the Church of Pergamum: you have there some who hold the doctrine of Balaam. There: i.e., where you live, where the throne of Satan is, where Antipas my faithful witness was killed. You have there, not Balaam and Balak, not the two Beasts, but those who hold their doctrines. The kingdom of Balak himself was different from the kingdom of the sons of Israel, and Balak only did this, in order that Israel might be corrupted by association with the peoples, so that the sons of Israel would contain some who held the doctrine of the Moabites, so that that kingdom would become similar to their own, as the ancient Dragon placed his throne there. Therefore Christ is speaking of the corruption of this kingdom, not of the corruption of the kingdom of Balak, when he says that Balaam taught Balak to put a stumbling-block before the sons of Israel. Hence the {saying} that the image made as many as did not worship it to be slain will have to be understood of this kingdom and of peoples scattered throughout the world who belong to this kingdom. I know, says Christ, your works and where you dwell, where Satan's throne is, and you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith in those days (of that grave persecution) in which Antipas was my faithful witness who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. Antipas my faithful witness, i.e., my whole people. For the word Antipas, to interpret it, stands for all men. And he is a witness of the same kind as the two witnesses in Chapter 11. They signify the bipartite church of God here, <39v> the church considered without parts. He was also killed by the same manner of death as they were. But what manner was that? Not a real death, so that the Church would perish, but death meant figuratively: that death, by which a third of the creatures in the sea are said to have been killed, chap. 8.9, and a third of men, chap. 9.18, and the Beast, chap. 13.3, i.e., by the dissolution of the government, by the abrogation of the polity, by the death of the body politic, whether the polity of that body be temporal and lay or spiritual and ecclesiastic. And if it be ecclesiastic, by the prohibition and cessation of the assemblies which give the Church its name[Editorial Note 135]. By this and by no other kind of death all those could be killed who did not adore the Image, that is, all true Christians, chap. 13.15, just as the slaying of the martyr Antipas is rightly said to allude to the killing of those who do not bow down before it and to signify the same thing.

But I have a few things against you: that you have there some who hold the doctrine <40v> of Balaam, that you have them not among yourselves (the ancient Nicolaitans were not of the church), but there where Satan dwells, in the synagogue of Satan, that you have there those who were previously of your number, that you allow them to be seduced, that you do not strive to recover those who have been seduced, but acquiesce through fear of enemies. Repent then: repent of your torpor, of this timidity, this negligence: begin to preach my word with confidence and with all your force, so that those who are among you may be retained, so that those wicked ones may be recalled from their ways. Repent: you and they together, you for your negligence, they for their iniquity: if not, I will come to you swiftly, and war against them with the sword of my mouth < text from f 39r resumes >

<40r> church) but where you live, on the throne of Satan. I hold this against you that you allow your people to be seduced, that those who were formerly among you are now in the other place because of your listlessness. That among the sons of Israel, where now the throne of Satan is, where the Dragon reigns, you have not Balaam and Balak themselves with the kingdom of the Moabites, not the two beasts, but those who hold their doctrines. You have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans there where Antipas was my faithful witness who was slain among you where Satan lives. Antipas, that is, my people; for the word Antipas, if you interpret it, stands for all[Editorial Note 136]; and the passage alludes to chap. 13.15, where all those who did not adore the Image are said to have been Slain not with a real death so that the Church would come to an end, but with 'slaughter' used figuratively, with that death by which a third of men were slain in chap. 9.18 and a third of the creatures in the sea in chap. 8.9, i.e., by the dissolution of government or, to give a more appropriate example, by the death by which the two witnesses are to be slain, chap. 11.7; for those witnesses are of the same kind as the witness Antipas, and their slaughter, if I am not mistaken, will be by means of the dissolution of the government of the church, by the prohibition of assemblies, and by the scattering and persecution of the people. From such a slaying of the witness Antipas, the killers are rightly called Nicolaitans, i.e., conquerors of the people[Editorial Note 137]. By this slaughter the candelabrum is removed from its place, the government of the Church is abolished, and in its place begins the reign of the Nicolaitans. The Dragon formerly expected to persecute, but as the earth then came to the help of the woman, he departed, he stood on the sand of the sea[Editorial Note 138]. Ceasing for a short time from persecution, he gives the Beast this Seat by the power of which he had persecuted. The Beast by the counsel of the False Prophet, ensures that his image is erected in Israel through his emissaries and confederates. The witness Antipas {is dissolved} of the kingdom / by the worshippers[Editorial Note 139]. The Dragon returns to persecuting. Those who do not worship are overcome by those who do worship. The candelabrum is moved from its place. The martyr Antipas is slain. The Church is destroyed so far as its government is concerned. Then Satan places his throne in the land of Israel.

<41r>

This is what the parable/similitude to the Church of Philadelphia means.[Editorial Note 140] These things says Christ who has the key of David, (the key to the palace of the king of Israel, the key of heaven which in the style of the Apocalypse is the throne) Behold I have set before you an open door, (the entry to the king's palace, the access to the throne). Because you have little power and (in the recent persecution of Diocletian) you have kept my word and have not denied my name: Behold I will make those from the Synagogue of Satan who say they are Jews and are not but lie (from the synagogue of that ancient Dragon, from the peoples whom that Serpent as he brings about the hour of trial will vomit from his mouth behind you, those who falsely say that they are Christians), behold I will make them come and bow down before your feet. (You will enter through the gate to the throne and you will have dominion over those pseudo-Christians. The land which is your region will open its mouth and the river will swallow up into its dominion the waters which the Dragon will send from his mouth, and will make them no longer appear against you. You will gain the victory over the Beast and his image and character and the number of his name, you will wound the Beast with the sword, you will slay him {and} make him no longer to exist. For all the hostile waters will be swallowed up and will cease to appear. Thus the peoples who say that they are Jews and are not, but are of the Synagogue of Satan, those falsely called Christians, will come and bow down before your feet) and they will know that I have loved you. Because (in that persecution) you have kept my word of patient endurance and I (in this manner, with a strong hand) will keep you from the hour of trial which (will begin to fall violently upon you at that time and thereafter: when you have lost your internal virtue because of the abundance of your external goods) is coming on the whole world to try those who dwell upon the earth. Of this time Christ speaks later in the parable/similitude (parabola) to the Church of Laodicea: I know your works that you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! But because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will proceed to spew you out of my mouth. (The beast which was and is not, will be again, it will arise from the abyss, from the depths, its wound will be healed, it will send a stumbling-block <42r> in the midst of your children; it will make its Image to be worshipped again. The Dragon will return to persecuting you. The candelabrum will be moved from its place, as the dominion and government of the church is abrogated and your people are scattered and persecuted. Fraud and seduction will flourish everywhere, and in all ways those who are lukewarm and separated from the faithful will be spewed out of my mouth. Thus will come the hour of trial for the whole world to try the inhabitants of the earth. And this I will do because (as a result of your increased wealth and you prosperity in external goods) you say: I am rich and wealthy and I need nothing, and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.

<43r>

When in the midst of all this Eusebius {disciple} of Pamphilus[Editorial Note 141] passed away, Acacius took over the Episcopate at Caesarea in Palestine. And as a keen imitator of Eusebius, and instructed in the holy scriptures by him, he was also articulate in his opinions and elegant in expressing them; so much so that he left a large number of by no means contemptible writings, and among the rest a Life of his teacher, Eusebius. Not much later the Emperor Constantine was killed by his generals, as he was waging war against his brother Constans near the city of Aquileia. The western part of the Roman empire acceded to Constans, and the East to Constantius, in the consulship of Acyndinus and Proculus, A.C. 340. Sozomen, book 3, chap. 2, Socrates, bk. 2, chs. 4, 5.

<44r>

After this, when the Church at Antioch had been completed, a church outstanding both for its size and its beauty, which Constantine had begun to build during his lifetime, employing his son Constantius as his assistant: – the Bishops of the East convened there in order to dedicate this Church. Sozomen, bk. 3, ch. 5, Socrates, bk. 2, ch. 8. And those who had convened at the time of the Encaenia, says Athanasius, were ninety in number, in the consulship of Marcellinus and Probinus, in the fourteenth indiction, in the presence of the Emperor Constantius. Athanasius, De Synod. Arim. et Seleuc. in the fifth year after the death of Constantine, Socrates, bk. 2, ch. 8, i.e., A.C. 341, eleven days after the Kalends of June. Hilary and Sozomen say 97 Bishops. But I suspect that there were more. One may conjecture from the History of the Council of Tyre how much the followers of Athanasius are accustomed to disparage things eastern, because even though it was bigger than the Nicene Council, yet Socrates says that it consisted of only sixty Bishops. When then the Bishops had convened, they began to make accusations against Athanasius, that although he had been deposed by the authority of a Synod, and not restored by the authority of any Synod, as a private man himself he had dared to have recourse to secular power, and relying solely upon that, had again invaded the Church at Alexandria, trampling upon the laws and authority of the Church in a most tyrannical manner, and wholly subverting them: and that subsequently he had been responsible for causing the death of citizens, as a sedition arose as he entered the city, and many were killed in the riots; some were subjected to beatings at his command, and others were hauled into court. Sozomen, bk. 3, ch. 5, Socrates, bk. 2, ch. 8. Other crimes were added which he had committed in his passage through the East, in no less <45r> arbitrary a manner: as also the crime of selling the corn which should have been distributed among the poor. When these accusations had been enumerated, in addition to the charges which had been tried at Tyre, they discussed the question of a new Bishop of Alexandria. And in particular they consider a certain Eusebius. Using Eusebius {disciple} of Pamphilus[Editorial Note 142] and Patrophilus, Bishop of Scythopolis, as interpreters, he had achieved an excellent knowledge of the sacred books, then declining the priesthood, he moved to Alexandria. When he had been richly cultivated by the learning of that city, he returned to Antioch. Because of his outstanding holiness and supreme eloquence, the churches of Alexandria thought to perfect him, but being well acquainted with the character of the Alexandrians, he flatly refused ordination. And so a certain Gregory was put in charge of the church at Alexandria, who was himself from the church at Emesa. Sozomen, bk. 3, ch.     , Socrates, bk. 2, ch. 8, 9.

Meanwhile, when the followers of Athanasius attempted to pin the label of Arians on the eastern Bishops, because they had received Arians into communion at the Council of Tyre, the Synod sent the following Letter to Churches throughout the world.

[54] Nor have we ever been followers of Arius. For how would we follow a Presbyter, being ourselves Bishops? Nor have we adopted any other faith but the one which was given from the beginning. But being appointed as judges to probe and examine his faith, we accepted him rather than followed him. And you will easily see this from what we shall say. For we learned from the beginning to believe in one God, the creator and sustainer of all things both intelligible and sensible, and in one only-begotten son of God, existing before all times ✝[55], and remaining with the father who begat him: by whom all things were made, visible and invisible. Who in recent times, in accordance with the will of the father, came down and took flesh of the holy virgin: and after he had fulfilled the will of his father in every way, he suffered and rose again, <46r> and returning to heaven, sits at the right hand of the father. He will come to judge the living and the dead, and endures as King and God for ever. We believe also in the holy spirit. And if this too must be added, we believe in the resurrection of the flesh and life eternal.

Not long afterwards, the Synod happened upon a formula written by the hand of the Martyr Lucian himself, a man who was both outstanding in other ways and very well-read in the holy scriptures; he was also crowned with martyrdom in the persecution of Diocletian, and left behind him disciples throughout the east, ✝[56] such as Eusebius of Nicomedia, Marin of Chalcedon, Theognis of Nicaea, Leontius who later was Bishop of Antioch, Antoninus of Tarsus and others. He had a very fierce enemy in Pancratius, Presbyter of the Church of Antioch, who was committed to the Sabellian heresy, by whom he was also betrayed to the pagans during the persecution. And in combating this heresy he seems to have composed a Creed (Symbolum). For when the Sabellians said that there was one substance of the Father son and holy spirit, which obtained those different names in accordance with their diverse properties, Lucian came out in opposition to them and fully distinguished the three. He affirmed that the son is God of God, whole from whole, perfect from perfect, and that there are not just three names of Father, son and holy spirit but three distinct substances, and that the son is the express image of the father's divinity and substance. For this reason when Hosius and other Sabellians disingenuously used the word homousios of the unity of substance and widely propagated Sabellianism under cover of the decree of Nicaea, the Synod put up <47r> the authority of Lucian against this heresy, formulating its faith as follows:

We believe, in accordance with Evangelical and Apostolic tradition, in one God the father almighty, maker and creator of all things: and in one Lord Jesus Christ the only begotten son of God, through whom all things were made: begotten of the father before all times, God of God, whole from whole, alone from alone, perfect from perfect, king from king, Lord from Lord, the living word, wisdom, life, true light, the way of truth, the resurrection, the shepherd, the door; not subject to change or turning: the express image in every way of his father's divinity, ✝[57] substance, power, counsel and glory: the first born of the whole creation: who was in the beginning with God, God the word; as it is said in the Gospel: and the word was God, through whom all things were made, and in whom all things subsist. Who in recent times descended from heaven, and was born of a virgin in accordance with the scriptures: and was made man, the mediator of God and men, and the Apostle of our faith, and the prince of life, as he himself says: I came down from heaven not to do my will but the will of him who sent me. Who suffered for us and arose on the third day and sits at the right hand of God. And he will come again with glory and power to judge the living and the dead. And in the holy spirit, who is given to believers for consolation and sanctification and for perfection, as also our Lord Jesus Christ taught his disciples saying: Go and teach all nations, baptizing all men in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit: so that these are not mere words, words without substance, but <48r> words which accurately express the proper substance, order and glory of each ✝[58]. So that ‡[59] they are indeed three in substance, but one in concord. Holding this faith therefore, continues the Synod, before God and before Christ, we condemn with an anathema every perversity of heretical dogmas. And if anyone has taught contrary to the sound and right faith of the scriptures that there was either a time or a world before the son was begotten, let him be anathema. If anyone has said that the son is a creature like one of the creatures, or ✝[60] an offspring like one of the offspring, and has not spoken of all and every single matter as the sacred scriptures have handed them down to us, or if anyone has taught or preached anything other than what we have received, let him be anathema. For we truly and piously believe and insist upon all things that are taught in the divine scriptures both by the prophets and the Apostles.

Among others ✝[61] Gregory, as Bishop of Alexandria, subscribed this creed, and was then escorted into Alexandria by soldiers, and Athanasius was ejected by force. If he had been truly versed in the Christian religion, he would not have waited to be thrown out by soldiers <49r> but would himself have willingly yielded to the commands of the Emperor and persuaded his followers also to yield. How serious a sedition Athanasius incited by resisting, is easily seen from what he himself says in To the Hermits[Editorial Note 143]: Constantius sent out a letter and initiated a general persecution, using as his emissaries for this purpose Philagrius and a certain Arsacius, a Eunuch. Gregory was also escorted by/sent with a military troop. And the same things happened as before. For with a dragooned mass of cowherds, shepherds and the scum of the market place and with violent youths, they break into the Church dedicated to Quirinus[Editorial Note 144] with swords and clubs, they slaughter some, they trample others underfoot, and they seize many who collapsed and consign some to jail and others to exile, and they get hold of many women and drag them by the hair before the public tribunals, and they shower them with abuse and treat them with great indignity; some people's possessions they confiscate for the treasury, from others they steal their food simply because they acceded to the party of the Arians and received Gregory. Before these things happened however Athanasius sailed off to Rome, and only knew of them at second hand, but he recognised the fury of the heretics and knew that a Synod had been called to remove him. But Julius sent his Presbyters, Elpidius and Philoxenus, with a letter to the Eusebians, appointing a certain day when they should either present themselves or realise that they were in every way held suspect. This is what Athanasius says: he recounts what his <50r> followers had suffered both in the riots and afterwards before the Tribunals as authors of the sedition, but remains completely silent about what they themselves had done in their turn, how they resisted the Emperor's commands, and conspired together and caused a sedition, what they did in the riots themselves, and for what crimes they were subsequently punished. Furthermore, he did not dare to touch on graver crimes which were committed in another church ✝[62] which was dedicated to Dionysius. For since in this church there was an Episcopal Throne (Cathedra), he defended it fiercely with his supporters, collecting a multitude of Pagans also; but when they could no longer sustain the assault of soldiers and a multitude collected from another part, they smash the Altar and set fire to the Church, while Athanasius slipped out secretly and fled so that he would not be punished for so great a crime. After the burning of this church it is evident from what was said above that the church of Quirinus was reduced by siege. But Socrates and Sozomen write that Athanasius departed from the Church without a fight and that it was later, at the time when Gregory had occupied it, that the people of Alexandria, very angry with what had happened, consumed the Church with fire. Evidently they derived the story of Athanasius' peaceful withdrawal from the Apology of Athanasius himself – first page – and inferred from this that the church had been burned after his departure. But they are completely mistaken. For the story that Athanasius tells does not ring true, and does not even belong to this period but to a later period when Constantius, after his conquest of the West, expelled Athanasius once again. Let us therefore listen rather to what the Synod of the Easterners at Serdica, which took place at just about this time, testified on these matters: After, it says, the holy and upright priest [Gregory] had been appointed in his [Athanasius'] place by the judgement of the Council, he like a barbarian enemy, a sacrilegious pest, surrounding himself with a crowd of Pagans, burns down a church of God, smashes the altar, and secretly leaves the city and flees into hiding. With the testimony of the Orientals may be compared what Pope Julius wrote from the other side in a Letter to the Easterners. The acts which <51r> are reported to have been done by Gregory on entering the city, show what manner of ordination his was. In such peaceful times as they report who come from Alexandria, and as the Bishops write, the Church itself was set on fire, Virgins were stripped naked, Monks were trampled under foot, Presbyters and many of the people were treated with indignity and violated, Bishops were thrown into jail, many were robbed, the sacred mysteries about which they accused the Presbyter Macarius were grabbed by Pagans and thrown on the ground, in order to compel by force some men to approve the appointment of Gregory. So Julius. But pray tell me, would it be the supporters of Gregory who burned down the church which would be useful to them, since they were attempting to set Gregory on the throne in it, or would it be the supporters of Athanasius, since they were being forced to give it up? The thing speaks for itself. But if this has to be imputed to the followers of Athanasius, then certainly the throwing down of the altar and the violation of the holy sacraments will have to be ascribed to the pagans who were hired by the same party. Behold therefore the boldness of the Egyptians, behold the temerity of Julius! Since they were unable to hide what they had done, they attempted to blame it on their adversaries! In order to do down the easterners and obtain the spiritual primacy which he fraudulently claims for himself by an erroneous belief, he enters into an alliance with rebels, and as if he believed in them himself, he objects against his adversaries things which it would be absurd to believe. And, what is even more remarkable, he knew that at this time Athanasius had been deposed from legitimate authority, whether Imperial or Ecclesiastical, and thus could not put up the least resistance without the crime of rebellion. He certainly also knew that the 2previous riots 1of the Athanasians [Editorial Note 145] had caused a military force to be sent to Alexandria to induct and protect Gregory, who despite everything could have been peacefully set upon his throne, had not Athanasius, undeterred even by those forces, once again incited his supporters to rebellion. Finally he knew that a Prince has the right to suppress rebels, and that the killings and outrages which happen riots of that kind are not attributed to the prince but to the rebels. These things I say Julius knew and yet he quickly invites Athanasius to visit him, receives him into communion, undertakes to defend his cause, excuses his party of rioting, accuses the party of the Emperor, tolerates <52r> their violence during the rioting, and when they are subsequently summoned to court as authors of sedition, he portrays them as victims, and even as confessors and martyrs. Would that he had not prominently numbered among them holy virgins and monks, would that he had not numbered Presbyters and (what a crime!) Bishops. It is a shame that sedition was excited by such persons. Virgins, he says, were stripped, and monks were trampled underfoot. Presbyters and many of the people were treated with indignity and violated: But what have such persons to do with crowds? Why did they not stay in their cells, in their hermitages and in their private retreats? What else could be expected in a riot?

<51v>

Bishops thrust into jail, but what had the bishops of other cities to do with Alexandria? Would they not have known that Athanasius would have to be ejected by force of he would not go willingly? Would they not have known that he would no less preparing a rebellion, and therefore that they could no longer work with him without aiding and abetting a rebellion? Why therefore did they desert their own cities at this time and converge hither? Why were they willing to get involved with these crowds? If it was not to work with Athanasius and together animate and stir up the people, certainly they would rather have been careful to avoid this place. But the reason why they came here and what they did here, is clear enough from the penalties which they paid and the time at which they paid them, both of which Athanasius describes as follows in his Letter to the Hermits/Solitaries. The followers of Eusebius, he says, give a letter to Philagrius, and are responsible for his going with Gregory for Egypt, and immediately after that the Bishops were whipped and detained in cruel chains. They send Sarapammon the bishop confessor into exile, and as for Potammon who was also a confessor Bishop, who had lost an eye in the persecution [It was he who had behaved shamefully at the Council of Tyre], they inflicted so many blows on his back they did not stop until he appeared to be dead. In this condition therefore he was cast out, and after several hours he barely managed to recover consciousness, as God gave him life. Not long afterwards however he died from the pain of the wounds, having obtained the glory of a double martyrdom <52v> in Christ. How many other devotees of the monastic life were flogged, while Gregory sat on the tribunal ✝ together with the General (Dux Balacius? How many Bishops were beaten with rods? Then after this, the wretched Gregory invited all men to hold communion with him. This is what Athanasius says, how sincerely I do not know. But what if? For this reason more Bishops poured into Alexandria after the news spread that Athanasius was to be ejected, and happened to bring with them not a few of their fellow-citizens, as they had previously to the Council of Tyre. Thus they conspired with Athanasius in his resistance to the Imperial commands, stirred up the people, and excited that huge sedition in which the Church was burned and other major crimes were committed. This was the reason why these Bishops, as many as were caught in the act, were hauled into court, pled their cause before Gregory and Balacius, received an ecclesiastical sentence from Gregory and were reduced to lay status; and when he left, having done his duty, they were also condemned by Balacius to a civil sentence, and instead of the penalty of death which authors of sedition normally pay, they were only beaten with the lash. I do not condone the cruelty of the judge in putting Potammon to death, though perhaps though perhaps either insolence on the part of Potammon or some other grave crime may have irritated the Judge: for the rest, there is no reason to find fault with either Balacius or Gregory. But it was not the punishment but the cause that had power to make persecutors of the one party and martyrs of the other. It is said that in the tenth persecution, when someone moved by zeal merely defaced the edict of the Emperors ordering the persecution, and received the penalty of death for his rashness, Christians did not regard him as a martyr but counted him among the wicked because he was paying the proper penalty for disobedience. But if in the defence of true religion against wicked persecutors a Christian missed the name of martyr for such a slight reason, and was numbered among those rightly condemned, how much more should the Egyptian Bishops be placed in this category since they had excited such a serious sedition and were condemned on this ground alone.

But now if Athanasius and his Bishops made themselves authors of a sedition, what did not the Presbyters, Monks and holy virgins do? By their activity, we have heard that seditions were excited at the time of the Council of Tyre, and for this reason (as the facts themselves indicate) four Presbyters were banished, and Con <53v> stantine wrote in a letter to the Alexandrians subsequently that the presbyters and the holy virgins should behave themselves quietly. But if they did such things in the absence of the Bishops, much more would they do them if they were instigated by the Bishops: But you will be less surprised at all of this if you understand the manners and temper of the Egyptians: which Trebellius Pollio describes as follows in 'Aemilianus', the twentieth of 'The Thirty Tyrants'[Editorial Note 146]. It is the wont of the people of Egypt that, madmen and fools, they are led by trivial matters to become highly dangerous to the Commonwealth; for merely because a greeting was omitted or a place in the baths refused, or meat and vegetables withheld, or on account of the boots of slaves or some other such things, they have broken out into riots, even to the point of becoming highly dangerous to the state, so that troops have been armed to quell them. With their wonted madness, accordingly, on a certain occasion, when a slave of the chief magistrate who then governed Alexandria had been killed by a soldier for asserting that his sandals were better than the soldier's, a mob gathered together, and, coming uncertainly to the house of the general Aemilianus, it assailed him with all the implements and the frenzy usual in riots; he was pelted with stones and attacked with swords, and no kind of weapon used in a riot ceased its work. And so Aemilianus was constrained to assume the imperial power, knowing well that he would have to die in any event. This is what Trebellius says. Again Ammianus at the beginning of book 22[Editorial Note 147] calls the Egyptians a contentious race of men, always very happy to be involved in convoluted litigation, and at the end of the same book[Editorial Note 148] he says that they are excitable in all their movements, quarrelsome and fiercely possessive of their rights ('most persistent duns' Loeb). It is a matter of shame among them, he goes on, if one cannot display a mass of wheals on his body for refusing to pay taxes: and no torture has yet been found powerful enough to induce any heart that is hardened by brigandage to tell anyone his name if he does not want to do so[Editorial Note 149]. So too Flavius Vopiscus in his 'Saturninus':[Editorial Note 150] The Egyptians, he says, as you well know, are puffed-up, madmen, boastful, doers of injury, and in fact liars and without restraint, always craving something new, even in their popular songs. – But lest any Egyptian be angry with me, thinking that what I have set forth in writing is solely my own, I have inserted one of Hadrian's letters, taken from the works of his freedman Phlegon, which fully reveals the character of the Egyptians. From Hadrianus Augustus to Servianus the consul, greeting. The land of Egypt, which you have been praising to me, my dear Servianus, I have found to be wholly light-minded, unstable, and blown about by every breath of rumour. – They are a folk most seditious, most deceitful, most given to injury, – And would that this city had a better character, for indeed it is worthy by reason of its productivity and by reason of its size, to hold the chief place in the whole of Egypt. ‡ < insertion from f 54v > [‡ In his Commentary[Editorial Note 151] Salmasius cites on this passage a certain Greek writer who affirms that neither the courts nor the private affairs of this city could ever have been regulated, and this was peculiar and particular to Alexandria alone more than all other cities that, with so great a mixture of men and confusion of things, it survived not by means of good government, administration and the order of the public courts: rather by the very nature of things it subsisted by chance rather than by good morals and good government.] < text from f 53v resumes > Similarly, Philo Judaeus, speaking of peoples who are accustomed to riot and to attempt revolutions for the slightest of reasons, says, en hois to Aiguptiakon ta prateia pheretai, dia brachutou spintheros eiothos ekphusai staseis megalas, 'among these Egypt takes the prize because it is accustomed to fan the smallest of sparks into great <54v> seditions'. Since therefore this was the character of the Egyptians and the more superstitious element of the people, which is usually also the more turbulent, was attracted to monasticism and since Athanasius mostly created his clerics from the monks, and undoubtedly selected, not the more modest, but those who were rather like himself and would defend his cause, as it seems to me, quite fiercely and promoted the fiercest of them to the rank of Bishop, especially those who had been participants at some time in his own crimes, or had distinguished themselves in previous struggles: certainly no one will be surprised that Athanasius in the course of the sixteen years in which he had already held his See had been able to build for himself such a factious and furious herd of bruisers (Athletae) by whose assistance he perpetrated all those actions we have mentioned and yet more serious acts that we will speak of in what follows.

When Athanasius was driven out, he betook himself to Rome, to which he had been invited by a letter from Julius[Editorial Note 152]. Julius swiftly entered into communion with him and immediately sends the two presbyters, Elpidius and Philoxenus, with a letter to Eusebius at Antioch to summon the Bishops of the East to present themselves at Rome on a specified day and justify the sentence they had passed upon Athanasius, otherwise they should be aware that they would be regarded as suspect in every way. Athanasius, Apology, 2, p. 739. See also the observations of Valesius on Socrates and Sozomen book 1 chapters 2, 3, 4, 5. The synod at Antioch was very surprised at the boldness of the man both because, though he was himself merely a private Bishop, he had dared, contrary to the fundamental law of the churches, to receive Athanasius into communion, who had been condemned by a general synod, and because by setting himself above all the Bishops, he was clearly claiming dominion over the whole world under the pretext of defending Athanasius. In the letter therefore which they sent back by the returning legates of Julius, they reminded him that all bishops have the same authority. They confessed that the church of the Romans was indeed magnificent in everyone's eyes, because it had been the home of the Apostles and the metropolis of piety from the beginning, even though those who had taught it the faith had come to it from the East. But they did not think it was reasonable on that account that they should be thought to occupy an inferior position because they did not excel in the size or populousness of their church; since they were superior in virtue and in purpose. Then charging Julius with the crime <53r>

<54r>

<55r> of holding communion with the allies of Athanasius, they expressed their indignation that their Synod had been treated with contempt and their judgement set aside. And they found fault with that action as unjust and alien to the laws of the church. Having thus complained about these points, and protesting that they had been done a serious wrong, they promised Julius peace and communion if he was willing to accept the deposition of those who had been expelled by them and the ordination of those who had been substituted for the previous incumbents. For they asserted that the bishops of the East also who had gone before them had not raised any objection at the time when Novatian was ejected from the Church of Rome (Sozomen book 3 chapter 8), or when Sabellius was condemned for heresy; nor in turn had the bishops of the West objected when the Eastern bishops condemned Paul of Samosata, but each party mutually confirmed the sentences given by the other. Criticising Julius sometimes rather sharply because of his boldness, they also added that he preferred communion with Athanasius and Marcellus and their allies to communion with themselves. Julius was so stung by this reproach that in his response he could not refrain from abuse.

Not long after the Council of Antioch had ended, Eusebius who had been translated from Nicomedia to Constantinople, died. Socrates. At this opportunity Paul who had once been driven out and was now wandering in the West, ✝[63] is sent by Maximinus, Bishop of Trier, to Constantinople to recover his seat. Meanwhile ‡[64] the bishops of the <56r> neighbouring regions assembled according to the custom of the church and appointed Macedonius. But since the city had been founded and had grown under Athanasian bishops, a majority of the people favoured Paul. ‡ < insertion from f 55v > As a result frequent riots occurred in the city, and many were overwhelmed by their violence and perished. Socrates book 2 chapter 12 And when Asclepas came to the city of Constantinople because of Paul, absolutely monstrous and atrocious things were done right there in the church, a thousand homicides took place which stained the very altars with human blood as brothers were killed and pagans were exterminated. Eastern Council of Serdica[Editorial Note 153]. When the Emperor Constantius, < text from f 56r resumes > who was staying at that time in Antioch, heard this, he ordered Hermogenes, the master of the soldiers, whom he had sent off to the area of Thrace, to pass through Constantinople on his way and expel Paul from the church. When he entered Constantinople, he upset the whole city, as he tried to eject the Bishop by force. For immediately a riot followed among the people, and peaceful people rose up in tumult to defend their Bishop. But when Hermogenes insisted on banishing Paul by military force, an angry mob of people rushed upon him in a violent attack: and after burning his house they dragged him out by the feet and killed him. These things were done when the two Augusti were consuls, i.e. Constantine for the third time and Constans for the second time [AD 342]. At this time Constans overcame the Franks in war and made them federated allies of the Roman people. When the Emperor Constantius heard of the death of Hermogenes, he immediately left Antioch, and races to Constantinople with swift changes of horses, and expelled Paul from the city. The city itself he punished by taking away more than 40,000 pecks from the daily corn-distribution of Corn which his father had granted to the inhabitants of Constantinople. For prior to this almost 800,000 pecks of corn were brought from the city of Alexandria and distributed to the citizens. Furthermore he put off designating Macedonius as Bishop of the city. For he was averse to him also, not solely because he had been ordained Bishop in advance of his own opinion [that is, since those who appointed him were hurrying to forestall Paul's manoeuvers], but also because <57r> many people, including Hermogenes the master of the soldiers, had been killed as a result of the seditions which had been roused between himself and Paul. Therefore allowing him to gather the people in the church in which he had been ordained he set off again for Antioch. Socrates book 2 chapter 13, Sozomen book 3 chapter 7. He deported Paul bound in iron chains to Singara in Mesopotamia, and from there he transferred him to Emesa. Athanasius, To the Hermits.

Meanwhile when Julius had received the letter of the eastern bishops from his legates, he had first decided that it should be suppressed, in the hope (as he says) that he believed that some at least of the eastern bishops would come to the council which he had appointed. In any case he expected, as it seems to me, that some of the party of Athanasius at least would be present, and so a kind of specious appearance of a general council could be celebrated, and contempt poured upon all those who had not come as if they were avoiding the court out of fear. But when he saw himself frustrated of this hope, since no one at all came apart from the fifty Western bishops, he finally produces the letter of the Eastern bishops, pretending that he had wanted to suppress it simply to spare the Western bishops the pain of reading it. The synod therefore confirms the actions of Julius, in holding communion with Athanasius and Marcellus, and then returns home. But Julius was very concerned to see his ambition frustrated and despised by the eastern bishops: subsequently he replies to the eastern bishops by means of Count Gabianus as follows.

<58r>

This is what was happening in the churches of the East. But in Egypt where there was a higher population of monks, there is no doubt that there was a greater progress of these impieties. We shall first adduce the testimony of ✝[65] Polybius, who in the year 388 went to Egypt and became a monk there immediately and visiting a large number of monasteries in the desert and towns of Egypt, adapted himself to the morals of the region: for he had gone to Egypt precisely in order to train himself in the discipline of those monks. As he is narrating among other things in ✝[66] the Lausiac History chap. 67 how he had seen the martyrdom of a certain Apollonius who had suffered with some others in the Thebaïd at the time of the persecution by Maximinus, he says: the Christians have made one dwelling for all of them where now many virtues are practised. And such was the grace of the Man, that he was immediately heard in the things which he prayed for, so much did the Saviour honour him. We also saw him as we were praying at the martyr's shrine together with those who had been afflicted with martyrdom with him. And adoring God we greeted/saluted their bodies in the Thebaïd. This is what Palladius says; from this you can get a fair notion of Egypt. This is another notable thing in those regions that they introduced the cult of their own saints/deified men (divorum)[Editorial Note 154] in place of the temples of Serapis and Canobus that were famous throughout the whole world: indeed the bones of John the Baptist (if indeed they were John's bones which Athanasius had preserved for this purpose) took the place of Serapis, as Rufinus tells us. And what was perpetrated in both places is not difficult to gather from Eunapius, who was indeed a pagan and for that reason unjust and blasphemous towards the martyrs, but for al that he was a good witness of the practice of the Christians of his time. He is giving an account of the soldiers who overturned these Egyptian gods in the year 389 and continues as follows. [67] Later, he says, these men brought into the holy places of Serapis the people who are called monks, who are men indeed in appearance but led a disgusting life in the manner of pigs, who committed in the open air an infinite number of wicked crimes, but part of piety seemed to be to trample upon the reverence of the holy place. For at that time a man dressed in a black cloak, who did not avoid being seen in public in dirty clothing, achieved the authority of a tyrant; that was the belief about what was virtuous that such men had reached; they are also <59r> described in the commentaries of the universal history. They themselves also settled some monks at Canobus, so that in place of the gods who are discerned by the mind they might worship with divine honours slaves and indeed wicked men, since men's minds are addicted to cult and ceremonies. For they used to display as gods the buried and besmirched heads of men who had been sentenced to death by judges for their many crimes; they bowed the knee to them; they slipped them into the company of the gods at their tombs, themselves all filthy with dirt and mud. martyres goun ekalounto kai diakonoi tines kai presbeis ton aiteseon para ton theon. Therefore they were called Martyrs, who act as a sort of attendant or envoy or conveyor of prayers and petitions to the gods, though they had been faithless slaves and humiliatingly subjected to flogging, and carried the scars of their crimes and the marks of their wickedness on their bodies: but such are the gods {the earth produces}. This is what {Eunapius} says: barking with frothing mouth indeed against the martyrs, and perhaps all the more because he thought that the earlier Christians were of the same stripe as the monks and the other disgusting Christians of his time; even so it is still evident from him how much honour and cult the monks of Egypt offered to the martyrs at this time, and indeed that this cult did not begin at this time, but had grown to such an extent that it had passed into religion.

If we ask about its origin: it seems to have begun under the auspices of Athanasius when Julian was Emperor. For Athanasius was certainly much addicted to superstition. This is very clear from the fabulous Life of Antony written by him, from the propagation of monasticism to which he devoted so much effort, and from the superstitious use of the cross. Certainly in his book On the Incarnation of the Lord and his saving advent[Editorial Note 155] he says: by the sign of the cross everything magical is suppressed. And below: if anyone wishes to make a trial of these words, let him come, and use the sign of the cross which they mock, in the face of the illusions of demons and the pretences of oracles and the wonders <60r> of magic, and let him invoke the name of Christ, and he will see how the Demons flee in fear of it, the oracles are silent, and magic and sorcery are brought to nothing. This power he does not attribute to the faith of the man who uses the sign and invokes the name of Christ but to the mere sign and name. But if he attributed such apotropaic power to the relics of Christ, or rather not to the relics but to the sign of the relics, and to the sound of the name, what wonder if he allowed a similar virtue to the relics of saints, and venerated them chiefly by calling upon the names of the saints? They are superstitions of the same kind, except that they attributed divine virtues to mere ceremonies performed without faith in Christ, what could be more superstitious and more abominable. In addition, ✝[68] Athanasius maintained friendly relations with his Master Basil[Editorial Note 156] and with Damasus, Bishop of Rome, who were extremely superstitious, though I would believe that he did not derive the superstition from them but rather they from him. And although scarcely anything survives of the writings of Athanasius after the time of Julian {from which} his attitude to this cult may be inferred, there are nevertheless extant fragments of writers which relate to it. For Athanasius wrote an Oration on the Forty Martyrs, which Gerard Vossius (in his Commentary on the Oration of Ephraem of Syria on these Forty Martyrs) which was extant in his time in the library of Cardinal Ascanio in Italy, and he praises it as a fine oration. If we had even this published, perhaps something similar would turn up for the Basilians and the Gregorians. The martyrs in any case were not Egyptians but Armenians, and Basil <61r> possessed their relics and had a church constructed for them. Hence knowledge of them would {not} have come to Egypt, which is so far away, except through the relationship which Athanasius had with Basil. Certainly Basil was keen to spread the fame of these martyrs: and that not only by means of the Panegyrical Orations which he himself and his brother Gregory and Syrus composed at his instigation; but also by distributing their relics throughout the world. For in the Oration which he wrote on them he says that they have been received in many places and have adorned the countries of many men. Why therefore would Egypt, the leading proponent of the homousian religion, why would Athanasius, the special friend of Basil and his most accomplished (cultissimus)[Editorial Note 157] patron, be without these gifts which were so freely distributed throughout the world? In fact he was not without them. The Oration on these martyrs shows that he was not without them. For the cult of the martyrs followed the relics. In any city where his relics were kept, the martyr was worshipped and scarcely elsewhere. Hence the custom of distributing relics in order to spread the cult. Besides Egypt, as we shall show, was well stocked with its own martyrs, and had no need of foreign martyrs, and Athanasius only took trouble over important matters. Why then would Athanasius be moved to celebrate these foreign martyrs in a Panegyric Oration? Why would these foreign martyrs be thought to deserve so much honour when there were so many home-grown martyrs, except that their relics had arrived, and could not be received |  deposited without a worthy celebration to commend them to the people of Alexandria? If this is so, you may understand the religion of Athanasius from his activity.

We may get some further light on this matter from what Rufinus writes in his Histories book 2 chapter 28; he writes that Athanasius kept the relics of the Baptist enclosed in a recess in the wall of the sanctuary with the prophetic foresight that they would benefit future generations; for them, when the vestiges of idolatry had been overthrown, golden shrines would be erected in what had formerly been a profane edifice [i.e., dedicated to Serapis]. From this passage two things are to be noted. The first is that <62r> Athanasius did not bury these bones underground, but kept them in a cavity of a wall in order to bring them out again into the light. For at one time Athanasius had wanted the relics of martyrs to be buried underground, as we may see in the Life of Antony and as Damascenus taught in Oration 1 'On images', which is based on the writings of Athanasius, saying: we know that the blessed Athanasius believed that the relics of the saints should not be placed in urns but buried in the ground in order to abolish the absurd custom of the Egyptians who did not bury their people underground but place them on litters and couches. Tell me therefore why Athanasius changed his view, except that he had changed his religious attitude* towards the Saints. Before the invocation of the saints began, it was his view that relics should be buried underground: but now that miracles had begun to occur by means of the relics and martyrs were worshipped for that reason, they could no longer be buried but preserved unburied for the uses of the Church. And the Egyptians followed him. For we learn from Eunapius and Palladius, previously cited, that the relics of their martyrs were from that time placed outside of the tomb and were exposed for the veneration of the people on special occasions.

The second thing which I would like to be noted is that Ruffinus who spent a great deal of {time} in Egypt and the East, and {had learned of/about} from the monks of those regions, tells us that the bones of the Baptist were preserved by Athanasius so that edifices of superstition might rise to them. Whether Athanasius did this in some kind of prophetic spirit or not does not matter. This is certain that the Egyptians from whom Rufinus learned these things, believed that the bones had been preserved by Athanasius for this purpose and propagated the cult of the dead in his name; and thus by the testimony of the Egyptians who were contemporary with Athanasius and had his habits/ways under their eyes in daily observation, we must believe that he had made himself a patron of this cult from the time of Julian.

Symbol (diamond between two circles) in text pag. 2 anteced. < insertion from f 60v > pag 2 seq. Symbol (diamond between two circles) in text In order to prove this completely I will add finally a passage from Athanasius himself in which his mind becomes very clear to us. In his Letter to Marcellinus about interpretation of the Psalms[Editorial Note 158], We must be careful, he says, not to adorn the Psalms with secular words for the sake of eloquence, nor try to change their language or to make any substitution of one word for another, but recite and chant them simply as they are written, huper tou tous diakonesantas hagious auta, epiginoskontas ta heauton, suneuchesthai hemin, so that the Saints who supplied those words, recognizing them as their own, may pray along with us[Editorial Note 159]. And a little further on: when the daemons see that the words have been changed, they treat them as a mockery; by contrast, they are terrified of the words of the saints, and cannot bear them. Here Athanasius makes three assumptions: 1) that the saints hear what we say when we pray; 2) that the saints pray along with us, i.e., they pray at the same time that our petitions may be granted to us; for he had said previously that the Psalms were so composed that everyone might, by reciting them, ask for what is appropriate for him; 3) that the daemons do not fear the sense but the form of the words which the saints have left us: which he could not have inferred from anything but his belief that everything to do with the saints is terrifying to the devil. The first assumption therefore is the ability of the saints to see us, secondly their intercession, and thirdly the virtue of their relics: and these are indeed the whole foundation of the cult of the saints and accepted only by those who worship them.

< text from f 62r resumes >

Athanasius seems to have been the author of this cult not only for the Egyptians but for all the churches of the East. Many hold that Basil together with the two Gregorys introduced the cult by means of their Panegyric <63r> Orations: but they were not of such celebrity at that time as to propose and preach a new religious practice which rested upon their own authority alone. In fact, they were surrounded by enemies and almost suppressed, and there was a fear that they would be condemned precisely for this enthusiasm for new things and be completely suppressed by their own people. Athanasius on the other hand already had so much authority among all the homousians that Nazianzen[Editorial Note 160] said that from the time of Julian he was prescribing laws to the world, and the monks (by whose effort this doctrine was certainly propagated) held him in such esteem that they took whatever he decided as law, and on the other hand whatever he disapproved they regarded as forbidden and prohibited for them, and they treated his decrees as the tables of Moses, and they had more veneration for him than should be offered even to the saints. Athanasius therefore could easily spread this superstition throughout the world with the help of the monks, but anyone else would find it difficult to do so, if Athanasius did not agree. Without doubt the mind of Athanasius on this issue was revealed by his Festal Epistles and Panegyric Orations and by his teaching (conversatio), especially to the Egyptians. If therefore he had disapproved of the growing evil, certainly no one else could have introduced it without a serious struggle. But there was no such struggle. All very eagerly embraced the belief, particularly the monks: accordingly it is undeniable that the thing was achieved under the auspices of Athanasius. Finally Chrysostom revealed in very clear words that this was the case, when he wrote as follows in his Oration on the Martyrs of Egypt on the occasion of many relics arriving from Egypt. [69] Blessed be God, that Martyrs are coming forth from Egypt, from an Egypt that strives against God and is utterly insane, and that Martyrs are found in the land of impious mouths and blasphemous tongues, and not in Egypt alone nor only in the neighbouring and bordering regions, but everywhere on earth. It is just like when crops are plentiful and the citizens of a city see that the harvest is greater than their people require, they send them also to neighbouring cities, both in order to show their friendliness and libe <64r> rality, and, apart from the having too much of these things, in order readily to acquire from the other people the things that they need. This is how the Egyptians have acted, with regard to the Heroes (Athletas) of the religious life. When they saw that, by the goodness of God, there was among them a great abundance of such persons, they by no means confined this great gift of God to their own city, but poured out the treasures of their good things to every part of the earth, both to show their love for their brothers, and to treat with honour the common Lord of all, and to win glory for their city among all men, and to display it as the metropolis of the whole world. Therefore, if some petty incidents, of no great value in themselves, which bring us gifts that are beneficial only for this life, have succeeded in conferring this honour on so many cities, surely it is more than just that a city which is not offering transitory and corruptible things but is giving to those cities which are fortunate enough to receive them men who afford security even after death, should be rewarded above all others with honour of the first rank? For the bodies of these Saints fortify the city for us more securely than a wall of adamant which is impossible to breach, and like high promontories visible in all directions, repel the attacks not only of these enemies who are accessible to the senses and visible to the eyes, but also subvert and scatter the insidious attacks of invisible daemons, and all the deceits of the devil, no less easily than a strong man would throw down and scatter children's toys. And all the other devices which men have invented, like walls, ditches, arms, troops of soldiers, and all the things that are contrived the security of inhabitants, can be repelled by the enemy with more, and more powerful, devices. But when a city is protected by the bodies of the saints, they will not be able to bring up any machine that is adequate against the cities that possess them, however much money they spend upon it. Nor is this possession useful for us only against the ambushes of men or against the deceits of daemons, beloved; but if our common Lord becomes angry with us <65r> because of the multitude of our sins, we shall be able immediately to render him benevolent to our city by placing these bodies before him. – And towards the end: let us, he goes on, model our lives upon their patience and tolerance of suffering; so that by their prayers, after we have left this life, we may be able to see them and embrace them, and find our own place in those heavenly tabernacles. This is what Chrysostom says, and I have written it out rather fully so that you may have a clear picture of the religious practice in respect of which Alexandria is described as surpassing all other cities and having poured out the treasurers of its good things into all parts of the earth, so that it acquired glory for itself from all men, and declared itself to be the Metropolis of the whole World. And from the fact that Chrysostom denominates Alexandria the Metropolis of the whole world, this oration seems to have been written in the year 384 at the beginning of the following year, that is, at the time when Chrysostom had just returned to Antioch from the desert, and Alexandria still regulated the affairs of the whole of the East. For after the Council of Constantinople held in the year 381, when the East no longer depended upon Egypt, and Constantinople had become a Metropolis superior to Alexandria, there was less of a tendency among the Easterners to honour Alexandria with this title. As the earliest region to be abounding in relics therefore, Egypt not only shared them with other regions in order to disseminate the cult, but achieved this at so swift a pace that before the year 381, it had spread relics through the whole world. And this is undoubtedly the origin of the Festal Epistles of Athanasius. For gifts of relics required epistles in which they could be commended and the feast days and everything else that pertains to relics set out, and there is no other likely occasion for several epistles of this kind. Following the example of Athanasius, others soon began similarly to distribute relics, as is clear from the relics of the Forty Martyrs which were dispersed through the provinces by the effort of Basil before the year 378. By distributions of this kind the superstition was very swiftly propagated so that it became universal, if not before the death of Athanasius, certainly before the year 381. This is witnessed not only by these gifts of the Egyptians and of Basil dispersed throughout the world before this time and received everywhere with reverence, but is also very clearly demonstrated by the Oration of Nyssenus[Editorial Note 161] <66r> which he gave in the presence of the fathers of the Council of Constantinople who gathered from all over the East at the funeral of Meletius, Bishop of Antioch, since in that very full meeting of Bishops and the people of Constantinople, Nyssenus confidently proclaims the intercession of Meletius. This is what was happening in the East.

Let us pass now to the West.

<67r>

But let us return to Damasus. You have heard how he declared his vows to the saints if they favoured his affairs; which is undoubtedly a step in the cult beyond that of simple invocation. Since therefore he did this at the beginning of his episcopate, you will not be surprised that he was accustomed to invoke martyrs thereafter. But this is a small thing. He put effort into investigating the martyrs, and setting up monuments for their cult, and by placing inscriptions on their tombs in many places he proclaimed himself the patron of superstitions throughout the West. Here, says Anastasius in his life of him, he searched out the bodies of many holy martyrs, and adorned their niches (conchilia) with verses. With what kind of verses the following examples taken from the monuments themselves will illustrate.

[70] This is how he concludes the epitaph of St Laurence, for whose relics he had constructed a church:

Damasus in supplication adorns this altar with gifts, in wonder at the outstanding* merit of the Martyr.

[71] And the epitaph of Saturninus thus:

This is the word of suppliant Damasus, venerate the Sepulchre,

[72] it is permitted to pay one's vows, and pour out chaste prayers,

because this is the tomb of St Saturninus the martyr.

[73] Likewise the epitaph of his sister Irena[Editorial Note 162] as follows:

Now as God comes, remember us all, Virgin,

so that, through the Lord, your torch may afford light to me.

[74] And the epitaph of Eutychius goes like this:

He is sought; being found he is worshipped, he cherishes us, he gives all things:

Damasus has declared his merit, venerate his tomb.

These are in Ancient Inscriptions, Appendix, page 1172[Editorial Note 163], and also in Baronius under the year 384, paragraph 21 ff. There are more of his sepulchral inscriptions of the Saints in Bib. Graec. Patr. Volume 3 page 844. For instance:

Of Agnes

O Agnes, true beauty, kindly image of modesty

I pray, famous virgin, that you will favour the prayers of Damasus

Of the apostle Andrew

Now cherish these feeble persons

and undertake the care of us

<67v>

Of Felix

You grant all things to those who come to you in anxiety:

nor do you allow any pilgrim to leave in sadness.

Saved by your guidance, having broken the bonds of death

I, Damasus, in supplication, pay my vows to you in these verses.

Since therefore Damasus confidently exhibited these and similar verses to be read by the whole people, and no disputes (as far as is evident) arose from this practice, this indicates that from the beginning of his episcopate the people had generally turned towards these superstitions. When Rome was falling, what wonder if the West was falling at the same time.

After Rome let us look at the Church of Milan, which is the second episcopal seat in the West. Of this city in the year 374 Ambrose, from being a soldier[Editorial Note 164], was appointed Bishop. Down to this time Auxentius – – on the last page but one. <68r> I have therefore spoken at greater length in another treatise[Editorial Note 165] about the origin of this church showing that it had declined from the true church as much from a heresy unknown to the Fathers through the first 300 years as from a most manifest schism, and rose up in rebellion in the times of Constantine, Constantius, Valens and Theodosius, and engaged in a violent struggle with the church. But this is not the place to talk about this, my purpose here is to show that this beast rose up from the earth with two horns. Accordingly when I have shown that it arose with two horns I will explain immediately how it rose from the earth.

In so far as earth is opposed to sky it denotes a humble condition, and thus this beast very truly arose from the earth, that is from the common people. Here however earth is rather opposed to the sea from which the other beast arose. Since therefore arising from the sea is to arise from dominion or the civil power of Government, whatever does not arise from that power arises elsewhere than from the sea, and for the sake of the distinction may be said to have arisen from the earth. What arises from ecclesiastical dominion or government is of this kind, since this government was by no means derived from the government of the Romans but was propagated by the apostles and preserved among Christians against the will of that government. And accordingly we shall be right to say that the two horned beast which arose from this government when it turned into tyranny, arose from elsewhere than from the sea; that is, from the earth provided that everything is called Earth which is distinguished in some respect from the Roman sea.

But this beast arose from the sea in a sense which is still more individual and particular. For let us understand by sea the body of the empire united in a civil union like continuous waters, and by the earth let us understand everything that is separated from its civil union; and just as the natural earth is partly continent and partly insular <69r> so also will the political earth be. Continental earth is the aggregate of foreign peoples by which the Roman sea is surrounded; insular earth is the herds of monks who at this time inhabited the deserts and empty places in many parts, who, as they were not ruled by any magistrates according to the laws of the empire, as they held no association with the cities, but were no less segregated from the union of the empire than foreign nations, were rightly to be distinguished from the Roman sea and regarded as Roman earth. And this is the land of which it is said in the Apocalypse 12.12: Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea because the devil has descended upon you with great wrath. Woe to the earth from which the two horned beast speaking as a dragon would be born when thrown down here. Woe to the sea from which the other beast would arise, the beast with 10 horns and blasphemous, i.e., idolatrous. Woe to them because the devil, i.e., idolatry, descending to them would corrupt them and convert them into the worst kinds of men, and it is signified by the two idolatrous beasts which are to arise in the future from the land and from the sea.

If by earth were meant only the Barbarian peoples surrounding the Empire, the devil would be said to have descended not to the inhabitants of land and sea but to the inhabitants of Sea and Land, since idolatry invaded the Roman Christians before the Barbarians. The sea would have been named first because of its nature and dignity: for the beast with 10 horns arose from the sea before the two horned beast arose from the land, and the Angel (chapter 10.2) planted his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land. Why then was land named first except to signify by the order of words that the land was not to be invaded by the devil an instant later but at the same time as the sea, if indeed it would not become idolatrous even more quickly and with greater ease. By this land therefore some Christian land should be understood which especially practised idolatrous worship, and accordingly we should look for this land in the Roman world <70r> and find it in the deserts. For just as the Romans were the first of all men to turn to the cult of the Saints (Divorum)[Editorial Note 166], so among the Romans the monks took the lead in receiving and propagating this cult. Nor could any race of men in the Roman world more properly be said to be land than those who were divided from the civil union that is from the continuity of the waters of the Roman sea, lived apart in the deserts, and were absolutely distinct from the rest of the people in manners and way of life. Either there will be no islands to be found in this sea, or the term islands will be most aptly applied to these companies of hermits.

This therefore is that accursed land to whose inhabitants, as well as those of the sea, the Devil descended, and which therefore was most apt to generate the most wicked beast. And it is very truly said to have arisen from that beast because the monks supplied the body of the beast. Beast denotes a multitude of men, the clergy without the monks were a very small item, but when united with the monks they became a body sufficiently numerous to constitute a beast. Furthermore the monks came to be the source of the clergy, so that the whole beast was very soon comprised of monks, and, accordingly, who will not admit that it sprang from them? This is undoubtedly the most remarkable difference between the early clergy and the new clergy. For the former the monastic life was unheard of, but it was immediately welcomed by all of the latter, as if God wished to mark the Apostasy by this novel manner of living and distinguish it from the true church.

The history of the origin of the beast from the herds of monks is as follows. The first man to be called a hermit is a certain Paul, who, fleeing the persecution of Decius and Valerian, remained in the desert down to the time of Constantius, but gathered no disciples, nor does he seem to have chosen that manner of life because it was more holy but because it was safer. He is followed by Antony, who was driven into the desert by the persecution of Diocletian. And not long afterwards he transformed his solitary manner of living into an organisation and <71r> and a regular training, and was the first of all the Hermits to gather disciples around him and fill the deserts of Egypt with flocks of monks in the reign of Constantine the great, and is therefore regarded by all men as the founder of this organisation and training.

Athanasius was one of his disciples ✝[75], who later became patriarch of Alexandria and infected the clergy with monasticism, so far as he could. It did not seem enough to Athanasius, says Baronius, to transfer the discipline of the monks to the clergy, but he also summoned monks whom he knew to excel in character and competence to be bishops of various churches, because he knew that they would be the strongest champions against the growing heresy of Arius and strongly fortified towers, so to speak, against the Meletian schismatics. Exactly who these men would be – Athanasius himself wrote to the monk Dracontius whom he knew to be highly reluctant to undertake this service/ministry and admonished him in these terms among much else. You are not the only monk to have been appointed [i.e., Bishop] nor are you the only one to have been the head of a monastery nor are you the only one to have been chosen from among monks. For you know that Serapion is a monk and how many monks he was in charge of. And you are well aware how many monks Apollonius was father to. You know Agathon, and you are not unacquainted with Ariston. You remember Ammonius, who went abroad with Serapion. Perhaps also you have heard of Cue in the Upper Thebaid. You will also be able to find out about Paul who is among the Lati, and many others: and yet when they were appointed bishops they did not refuse, etc. This and much more Athanasius said/wrote to Dracontius and it is clear that he finally convinced him; Athanasius also tells us in his Defence of his flight that with other Orthodox bishops he suffered exile as he fought strenuously for the catholic faith. Baronius under the year 328 .23, 24. And under the year 340, Baronius also says, Athanasius came to Rome – and he first introduced to the city the institution of the Egyptian monks, and <72r> also introduced the wonderful life of the great Antony written by himself although Antony was still alive. For Saint Jerome says of these things: none of the noble women of that time at Rome knew of the principles of the monks, and because of the novelty of the thing, none of them dared assume the name, a name which was ignominious (as it was then thought) and vile in the eyes of the people. This lady (i.e., Marcella) learned the life of the blessed Antony who was still living at that time and the discipline of the monasteries of Pachomius and the virgins and widows in the Thebaid first from the Alexandrian priests and their Pope Athanasius, and later from Peter who avoided the persecution of the Arian Heresy by taking refuge in Rome as the safest harbour for his communion. Jerome to Princip. Epistle 6. So Baronius under the year 340.7. ‡ < insertion from the right margin of f 72r > ‡ In agreement with this is what Sulpicius Severus writes about Martin, namely, that when he heard that Hilary, whose disciple he was, had been sent into exile by Constantius, i.e., in the year 355, he established a monastery for himself at Milan. And being soon driven out of there by Bishop Auxenti{us}, he withdrew to a certain island. Then when Hillary was released from exile, i.e., when Julian was Emperor, he set out for Rome in order to meet him there; but as Hillary went past him, he followed in his footsteps and established another monastery not far from the city of Poitiers, from which he was summoned ✝[76] in the year 371 to become Bishop of Tours.

< text from f 72r resumes >

But after monasticism had invaded Egypt and Italy (two seedbeds of the two-horned beast), it immediately spread from these sources throughout the whole of the West and East. Propagated from Egypt, it first invaded Syria, then Asia Minor and Greece; and from Rome it spread through the Gauls, Africa and the whole of the West.

Hillarion, a disciple of Antony, introduced it to Syria when Constantius was Emperor. Nor did anyone, says Jerome, know of a monk in Syria before St. Hillarion. He was the founder and instructor of this manner and habit of life in this province. – by his example innumerable monasteries came into existence through the whole of Palestine, and all the monks vied in running to him. Jerome in the life of Hillarion. Then Basil the Great settled monks throughout Pontus and Cappadocia when Julian was Emperor (Basil, Epistles 63 and 79, and Baronius under the year 361.50, 51). Among others, he invited Gregory of Nazianzus who was already a presbyter, into the desert (Gregory of Nazianzus, Concerning Silence and Fasting. Baronius under the year 363.82). Among the Armenians and the Paphlagonians and the inhabitants of Pontus, Eustathius, Bishop of Sebastia in Armenia, is said to have been the originator of the monastic way of life. Sozomen book 3 chapter 13. And monasticism thus easily established, swiftly invaded the rest of the East.

<73r>

Concerning the invasion of the West: it is certain and well established, says Baronius, that almost all the provinces of the Western world together with the islands were filled with ranks of monks in this same century [that is, before the year 400]. — Rome first received this discipline from the great Antony through Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, and all the other churches of the Western world borrowed it from the Roman Church, as from the great store-room of the discipline; all eagerly embraced, as they habitually did, what they had seen Rome to follow. — The man in the Western world who united monasticism to the clerical state is declared by St Ambrose to be St Eusebius, the Bishop of Vercellae. Eusebius of holy memory was the first, he says, in Western parts to combine the two things in himself, in order that, though he lived in the city, he might follow the rule of the monks and govern his Church with the sober temper of abstinence. — This most excellent kind of life (continues Baronius) ✝[77] Saint Martin, Bishop of Tours, carried across into the Gauls and St Augustine took to Africa, and they, combining the clerical and the monastic status in one, adorned the church as with its brightest stars. Baronius under the year 328 .20, 21, 22.

And meanwhile, as monasticism thus invades the world, the clergy everywhere becomes monastic. What happened in Egypt can be understood from what you have already heard about Athanasius and his bishops who were appointed during the Reign of Constantine. Add to this what Jerome tells us about Paula as she journeyed through Alexandria and the town of Nitria: When she saw it, he says, as the holy and venerable Bishop Isidore, the Confessor, came to meet her with innumerable crowds of monks, many of whom were distinguished by the sacerdotal and Levitical status[Editorial Note 167], she rejoiced to the glory of God and confessed that she was unworthy of so much honour. Jerome, Epitaph of Paula to Eustochium. The clergy underwent a similar change in the West ‡, < insertion from f 72v > ‡ as is clear from the seventh letter of Augustine to Pope Aurelius, where he writes as follows: a very great wrong is done to the order of clergy if those who have abandoned their monasteries are selected for clerical rank, because of those who continue in the monastery we only elevate the more approved and better monks to clerical rank. [Symbol (small grid of crisscrossing horizontal and vertical lines) in text Vide post pag 4 < insertion from f 76r > Symbol (small grid of crisscrossing horizontal and vertical lines) in text: Baronius is correct therefore in writing: It cannot be denied that monasticism was the seedbed in the Church of God of the most holy bishops, of whom Basil, Gregory, Chrysostom and others emerged as the most distinguished in both East and in the West; anyone who says that the great Antony was the Patriarch of them all, will hit the target of truth. Baronius under the year 328 .25. Since therefore it is agreed that the outstanding figures among the bishops and presbyters were monks, what wonder if almost all the rest immediately conformed to their way of life? At any rate let us listen to Jerome, who was contemporary with all this; he says of clerics generally: As if they themselves are anything other than monks, as if whatever is said against monks does not hit the clergy too, who are the fathers of the monks. The animal's defect is the Shepherd's disgrace. Jerome, Epistle, 10. Baronius dates this epistle to the year 385 (Baronius under the year 385.10). < text from f 72v resumes > Furthermore, monasteries of clerics were founded in the West. Eusebius, the Bishop of Vercellae, introduced the custom, as Maximus of Tours testifies in these words: because Eusebius, he says, was excelled in the strength of chastity, he introduced the observance of virginity; because he gloried in the rigours of abstinence, he introduced the strict obedience of the monks; because he shone <73v> in the administrative duties of his episcopate, he chose several of his disciples to be heirs of his priestly service. Therefore although some men leave treasures of gold and silver to their children, no one left richer treasures than St Eusebius, since they all turned out to be either priests or martyrs. For not to mention other things, how admirable it is that in this holy Church he taught the same men to be both monks and clerics, and that priestly duties are enclosed in the same inner rooms in which also a singular chastity is maintained, so that in the men themselves contempt for {material} things would coexist with the carefulness of Levites, so that if you saw the monastic cots, you would judge them to be based on the Eastern rule, if you watched the devotions of the clergy, you would rejoice in the sight of an order of angels. So Maximus in Ambrose, Sermon 69 on the anniversary of Eusebius Bishop of Vercellae[Editorial Note 168]. Symbol (cross surmounted by three circles arranged in a triangle) in text pag anteced. < insertion from f 72v > Symbol (cross surmounted by three circles arranged in a triangle) in text pag. seq.

So Maximus; and this agrees with what Ambrosius wrote in Epistle 82 to the people of Vercellae about choosing a Bishop. In the Church at Vercellae, he says, two things seem to me equally required of the Bishop, the continence of the Monastery and the discipline of the Church. For Eusebius of blessed memory was the first man in the West to unite these different things, so that though he lived in the city, he might maintain the principles of the monks and govern the church with the sober temper of abstinence. It is a great addition to the grace of a priest if he constrains his youth to the practice of abstinence and a rule of integrity, and though living in the city, refrains from the habits and manner of city life. And at the very beginning of the epistle he reminds them of when other churches habitually sought their Bishops from the church at Vercellae. And somewhat later he describes how Eusebius preferred/chose[Editorial Note 169] the harshness of exile for the sake of the faith, and adds: This patience under suffering in Eusebius merged into the practice of the Monastery and drew its tolerance of adversity from the habit of its harsher observance. These words imply that Eusebius had become a monk a good time before the year 355 when he was driven into exile, but whether he founded the other Monasteries of Clerics before that, I do not know. Hilary too was undoubtedly a Monk before his exile, since his disciple Martin is found living a monastic life at Milan in the time of Constantius. Such Monasteries therefore were spread through the West by the example of Eusebius – – – < text from f 73v resumes > Jerome has given us a notable example of this in his Chronicle under the year 372, where he says the Clergy of Aquileia are regarded as a Chorus of the blessed: and selecting three of them for praise he adds: Florentinus, Bonosus and Rufinus are regarded as outstanding monks. When D. Augustine [S. Augustine?], who spent a long time in Italy, observed these things, and in the year 389 took monastic practices with him to Africa, soon thereafter becoming a bishop soon after that, he established a Monastery of clerics in the Bishop's house, as he himself testifies (Sermon 28 or 48 'On Divers subjects'). Symbol (oblong divided by three vertical lines) in text < insertion from the right margin of f 74r > Symbol (oblong divided by three vertical lines) in text And from this monastery he provided almost 10 bishops for different churches on request, as Possidius writes. And in like manner they too established monasteries and as their zeal, he says, grew for the promotion of the word of God, they supplied to other churches brothers who had been promoted to undertake the priesthood. So Possidius in his Life of Augustine. < text from f 73v resumes > Martin too seems to have transferred the same kind of monasteries from Italy where he had been a monk for some time to Gaul. For what else did Severus mean by saying in his narrative of Martin's foundation of a monastery containing eighty disciples near the city of Tours of which he had just been made Bishop: Several of these we have afterwards seen become bishops. For what kind of city or church would it be which did not desire to have for itself a priest from Martin's monastery? (Sulpicius Severus in his Life of Martin). And elsewhere he says about Briction, one of Martin's presbyters, that he had nothing ever before his clerical statu (since he had been nurtured in the monastery by Martin himself), and that from his earliest years he had grown up in the monastery among the sacred teachings of the church and Martin himself had taught him. Sulpicius, Dialogue 3.20. It can be inferred that the same customs existed also among the Spanish from the letter of Pope Siricius, written at the beginning of the year 385 to {Himerius}, Bishop of Tarraco, where Siricius says as follows: <74v> We both desire and will that those monks who are approved for their moral gravity and holy way of life and faith, be brought to undertake clerical duties. In accordance with this policy of the Pontiffs, the Emperors too in the year 398 laid down by legislation that clerics should be ordained from the ranks of the monks.[78] And meanwhile as monasticism thus invaded the churches, those of the rest of the clergy as were married were ordered to abstain from their wives.

However this kind of abstinence seems to have crept into the churches of the West about the time of Diocletian; certainly at that time it had grown so strong in the Spains that the Council of Eliberta, held in the year 305, published this canon. It was decided to totally forbid Bishops, Presbyters and Deacons, indeed to all clerics who held a position of ministry, to abstain from marriage and not to beget children[Editorial Note 170]. Anyone who did so would be expelled from the ranks of the clergy. Later there were some who were in favour of confirming this at the famous Council of Nicaea; the motion was certainly supported by the Westerners and in particular by Hosius of Corduba who had participated in the Council of Eliberta[Editorial Note 171]. But the Council resisted and the issue was repressed for the time being by its authority, but not extinguished. For in the end when the enthusiasm for monks had begun to prevail throughout the West, this continence on the part of the clergy seemed to the closer to their principles, and was therefore soon preached throughout the world and confirmed as holy. Hence Ambrose in Epistle 82 'To the people of Vercellae' says: the apostle laid down 'the husband of one wife'[Editorial Note 172] – not that he was invited by apostolic authority to beget children in the priesthood: for he spoke of one who has children and not of one who makes children, not of one who makes. So Pope Siricius in chapter 7 of his Epistle to Himerius of Tarraco, written at the beginning of the year 385, prohibits those who are in holy orders to have intercourse with their wives. This law Innocent I and Leo I frequently confirmed. That the same thing obtained in the East, Chrysostom sufficiently testifies in his Homily on the patience of Job where he says: the husband of one wife, not in the manner as it is now observed in the churches; for it is proper that a priest be adorned with absolute chastity. And Epiphanius in vol. I, bk. 2, Heresy 59, ch. 4[Editorial Note 173] of the Church, says while giving a general description of the state of the Church: she by no means admits to the order of Deacon, Presbyter, Bishop or Subdeacon any man who still lives in matrimony and is occupied with his children, even though he be the husband of one wife, but only the man who has refrained from relations with one wife or is widowed: as happens chiefly in those places where the Ecclesiastical canons are carefully observed. But, you will say, in some places Presbyters, Deacons and Subdeacons still have children; I reply, that that is not done by the authority of the Canon but through the lax opinions that sometimes occur to men. You see here that continence on the part of married clergy was prohibited by a general Canon before the year 374 in which this was written. And similarly at the end of these books <75v> of Heresies, Epiphanius in his Exposition of the Catholic faith, includes this one among the catholic doctrines and customs. The priesthood, he says, consists principally of an order of virgins, or if not of virgins, certainly of monks. But if suitable people are not available from the order of monks for undertaking this function, priests are accustomed to be appointed from those who refrain from their wives, or live as widowers after a single marriage. So Epiphanius, from which you will recognize that what Jerome likewise declared in a general way in his book against Vigilantius is true; he said, what will the Churches of the East do? What will the churches of Egypt and of the apostolic seat do? They either accept virgins as clerics or men who are continent; or if they have had wives, they cease to be husbands.

You see the practice of the clerics: but how alien it is to true religion, learn from Augustine, who at the end of book 2 of On adulterous unions, speaks as follows: the Lord said, Everyone who has divorced his wife except for the cause of fornication makes her commit adultery. Undoubtedly because, although she lived modestly with her husband, nevertheless now that she is divorced, she is compelled by incontinence to have relations with another man while the former one is still alive, and this is adultery. And she has not done this herself, but he, so far as he can, has compelled her to do it, and God will impute this as a sin to him, even if she remains chaste. But who would not know how very rare are those women who live so modestly with their husbands that, even if they are divorced by them, they do not seek other men. This is what Augustine says in the case of lay people, to which the case of the clerics we are discussing is almost identical. And lest you suppose that clerical husbands have restrained themselves with the consent of their wives, hear also what Augustine writes about this matter in the same treatise. When, he says, we frighten those who have divorced their wives with perishing if they maintain adulterous unions, we are accustomed to put before them the continence of the clergy; for they are very often compelled unwillingly to undertake the same burden [of continence], and once they have undertaken it, they maintain it right to the due end with God's help. We therefore say to them: what if you too were compelled by the pressure of the people to undertake this office; would you not preserve the office you had undertaken in chastity, immediately turning to asking the Lord for the strength of which you had never even thought before? But their position would very much console them, they say. We reply: a greater fear should govern you. For if many ministers of God have suddenly and unexpectedly undertaken this duty when it was imposed upon them, hoping to shine more gloriously in Christ, how much more ought you to live continently, avoiding adultery, because your fear is not that you will shine less gloriously in the kingdom of God but that you will burn in the fires of Gehenna. < text from f 73r resumes > Where also monasteries of clerics were established. For after Augustine had lived for a long time in Italy and in the year 389 carried monastic practices with him from there into Africa, he was soon appointed <74r> Bishop and established a Monastery of Clerics in the Bishop's house, as he himself (Sermons 28 or 48 on diverse subjects) testifies. He had undoubtedly seen that done in Italy, which Jerome gave us an instance of in his Chronicle under the year 372 when he says the clerics of Aquileia are regarded as a chorus of the Blessed, and ✝[79] marking out three of them for praise he adds Florentinus, Bonosus and Ruffinus are held to be outstanding monks. P

But the monasticism of the clergy also becomes prominent from the fact that the Bishops were monastic (Athanasius, Basil, Eustathius, Martin, <75r> Augustine, etc.) – and they took the lead in promoting the profession –, and from this time, as we read, almost all the outstanding clerics on the homousian side are monks. In eastern parts too the Bishops were monks, Paphnutius, Bishop of a city in the upper Thebaid (Socrates bk. 1 ch. 11. Sidonius, Epistle 16 to Faustus), Spiridion of Cyprus (Sozomen, bk. 1, ch. 11           ), Jacob of Nisibis (Theod.[Editorial Note 174] in Jacobo & History bk. 2, ch. 30). These three participated in the Council of Nicaea. In addition Sozomen in a discussion of monks says that many learned and eloquent monks flourished in the churches at the time of Constantius. Among them were the celebrated Eusebius of Emesa, Titus of Bostra, Serapio of Thmui, Basil of Ancyra, Eudoxia of Germanica, Acacius of Caesarea, and Cyril of Jerusalem (Sozomen, bk. 3, ch. 14). Then in the time of Valens and Theodosius, there flourished Gregory of Nazianzus, ✝ < insertion from f 74v > Nyssenus (Theod. bk. 4, ch. 28), Peter the brother of Basil and bishop of Sebaste, Eustathius of Sebastia (Nicetas                ), Leo of Ancyra (Sozomen bk. 6, ch. 34           

Amphilochius of Lycaonia son of Hosius (Metaphrastes to the Life of Amphilochius. Mar was a disciple of Nazianzenus and therefore called son by him (Metaphrastes in the life of Amphilochius, Nazianzen, Epistle 106 and 110 and Testament), < text from f 75r resumes > Epiphanius of Cyprus (Sozomen bk. 6, ch. 32 and Jerome in the Life of Hilarion and others), Elpidius of Laodicea, Melitius of Antioch (Theod., bk. 5, ch. 27) and after Meletius Flavianus and Theodorus of Tyre (Theod bk. 2, ch. 24    ) Protogenes of Carrhae (Sozomen bk. 6, ch. 33) Acacius of Berrhaeae (Theod in Juliano) Theodotus of Hierapolis, Agapetus of an uncertain city, Eusebius of Chalcedon, Isidore of Cyrus (Theod in Marciano) and others. Likewise Barses, Eulogius and Lazarus, not of any cities but appointed in their monasteries for the honour alone (Sozomen bk. 6, ch. 34). With such zeal did the Homousians honour monks with ecclesiastical dignities that there were not enough vacant seats for them. Add also the famous Bishop of Constantinople, John Chrysostom, somewhat later than the others. These were the better known Bishops in the East. In Egypt the virus spread more vigorously.

And in the West the Bishop-Monks were Eusebius of Vercellae, a city of Liguria in Italy, Bishop Hillarius of Poitiers (Sozomen bk. 3, ch. 14). These two died in the year 368 <76r> Ambrose of Milan (Paulinus in the Life of Ambrose), Paulinus of Nola                 (Jerome, Epistle 13 to Paulinus, Compare with Gennadius on Ecclesiastical Writ-* and with Sigibert under the year 403), Petronius of Bologna & (if I am not mistaken) Honoratius of Marseilles (Gennadius, De Script. Eccl), Exuperius of Toulouse (Jerome, Epistle 4 to Rusticus), Heliodorus an Italian Bishop (Jerome, Epitaph for Nepotian), Mauritius Andivagensis (Baronius, year 394    ). Add that when Severus tells that Martin founded a Monastery containing 80 disciples near the city of Tours of which he had just been made Bishop, he says: Later we saw several of them as Bishops. For what city or Church was there which did not desire to have a priest for itself from the monastery of Martin? Sulpicius Severus in the Life of Martin.

I pass over the Bishops of Rome and Alexandria since they were forbidden wives before the origin of the Monks. But the names of certain Presbyters must not be passed over. The more notable of them were Ephrem the Syrian, Didymus of Alexandria, the two Macarii, Jerome and Rufinus of Aquileia, Cassianus Vincentius of Lérins, all of them, with others of lesser note whose names crop up occasionally in writers of this time, were Monks. Nor can I easily recall any Homousian Bishop or Cleric of great name after the time of Cons ‡ < insertion from the right margin of f 76r > ‡ tantius about whom it is certainly established that he was a Monk. < text from f 76r resumes >

This clergy therefore, after the reign of Constantius by whom it had been oppressed and in a manner extinguished, rose in a monastic form, and accordingly is most aptly designated by a beast arsing from the earth, <77r> since the monks were the lowest and most sordid kind of men, and quite different and distinct from the Roman sea, just as earth is the lowest and dirtiest of the elements and different and distinct from the sea. But for this reason, as I said, the Clergy are not to be taken for the whole of the beast but rather for its head and the herds of other monks for the rest of the body. For who does not know that monks are a kind of religious men very close to clerics? The distinction between monks and secular (priests?) is very well known, and Sozomen bk. 6 chap. 34 once in a while calls them Ecclesiastical Philosophers. And undoubtedly they agreed with the other ecclesiastics, not only in the monastic life but also (which is the greatest thing) in their zeal and ardour for promoting superstitions and convincing the people and affecting a sanctity and miracles greater than those of the Apostles and hence winning no less authority for their doctrines with the people. They were alike also in their immunity from secular office and in claiming the privilege of removing defendants from the jurisdiction of judges, < insertion from f 76v > as well as in the nefarious practice of visiting the homes of widows and minors for the sake of the money which they easily extorted from those simple people in the name of the religious. For this reason they are jointly reprehended in the laws of the Emperor which begin as follows: a[80] Let it not be permitted for any cleric or monk to vindicate by force and usurpation those who have been sentenced to punishment and condemned for the monstrosity of their crimes, etc. b[81] No Ecclesiastic, particularly those among them who wish to be designated by the name of celibate [i.e., monks], is to approach the homes of widows and minors, etc. < text from f 77r resumes > They also agreed in the colour of their clothes. Without exception the colour of the monks, says ✝[82] Baronius, was drab-coloured or almost black, that of the clerics had been neither drab nor white but rather violet or chestnut; but now all the clergy, from taking up monastic practice, have changed the colour to black. And on these terms the clergy and the other monks were no less distinguished from the rest of the world than united with each other. Hence not undeservedly Jerome combines monks of both kinds in one body saying: as if clerics were something other than monks, and as if everything that is said against monks does not rebound on to the clergy who are the fathers of monks. Also as a result of the Imperial law, the monks will belong to the body of ecclesiastics rather than to the body of the rest of the citizens. For when the clerics and the monks were boldly overturning <78r> the administration of the laws by removing defendants from the courts, the Emperors met the evil with this law:

[83]Emperors Arcadius and Honorius Augusti

Let it not be permitted to any cleric or monk by force and usurpation to vindicate/claim and hold those who have been sentenced to punishment and condemned for the enormity of their crimes. — It will certainly be regarded as the fault of the Bishops (as other things) if by any chance in that part of the region in which they govern the people of the Christian religion by the inculcation of doctrine, they have knowledge that any of the things which we forbid to be done by this law have been perpetrated by monks and they have not treated it as an offence. – dated the sixth before the Calends of August, in the consulship of Honorius Augustus IV & Eutychianus [A.C. 398].

< insertion from f 77v > The Emperors Valentinian and Valens ✝[84] granted an ecclesiastical court to the Bishops in which Presbyters and other ecclesiastics would be judged in cases which were not foreign to ecclesiastical Courts, being immune from secular courts; and here one must note that the cases of monks no less than of clerics are customarily referred to these courts, although charges against monks are referred to the Bishops if they themselves have not already claimed them. And undoubtedly the custom of taking defendants away from the courts of the secular authorities arose particularly from the fact that clerics and monks especially when submitted to other courts, had obtained too much immunity from them. < text from f 78r resumes > This immunity, whether it was granted by the Emperors or partly usurped through connivance, is quite clearly also referred to by Libanius in his Oration on behalf of the temples[Editorial Note 175] delivered in the year 390, where, in complaining before the Emperor Theodosius about monks seizing the goods of pagans under the pretext of overturning their sacred objects, describes how when they had been robbed, they came to the pastor of the City (i.e., the Bishop) and complained in vain, telling of what they had unjustly suffered. But he does not say that they came to the secular judges, nor did he complain in any way about these judges on the ground that they were unwilling to apply a remedy to the evil, even though it was these [authorities] who were less hostile to the pagans who should rather have been approached, if only it had been within their competence to summon monks to court in a matter which concerned religion. ✝ < insertion from f 77v > ✝ Chrysostom too quite clearly insinuates that monks shared the privileges of the clergy, in commenting upon this precept of ✝[85] the apostle: [let every soul be subject to the superior powers]; he says, these commands are laid upon all men including Priests and Monks, and not only on secular persons. Chrysostom On Romans 13. For this is exactly as if he had said that, even though there may seem to be one rule for Priests and Monks and another for Secular persons, albeit religious persons seem less subject to it than lay people nevertheless the former are no less subject to the Emperors and obliged to obey them than secular persons, notwithstanding their religious profession or the privileges which they enjoy on that account.

< text from f 78r resumes >

All monks therefore, both clerical and non-clerical, are to be treated in every way equally, ‡ so that Monks < insertion from f 77v >

‡should be regarded as a degree of religious person, or ecclesiastic (to employ the term used by Sozomen and later centuries), inferior to Deacons just as Deacons were inferior to Presbyters < text from f 78r resumes > <79r> By their Monastic life, by their zeal for corrupting religion, by which the Prophecy was fulfilled, they were distinguished from the rest of the world by the privileges which they had been granted or usurped, by the colour of their clothes and by their Organisation (Politia), and united as one body of religious persons; all of which accordingly is to be attributed to the two-horned beast; all the more so because Monks, as the years went by, ✝[86] first swelled the clergy, then all obtained clerical status, thus rendering the Clergy exceedingly numerous.

And now it may be quite evident how aptly this species of religious persons is signified by the Beast from the novelty of the profession and from the large number of those who professed it.

Down to the origin of the Monks the clergy had preserved the character and form instituted by the Apostles, but now it put on new ways not known to the Fathers, not commanded by God, but only recently invented by men. If Monasticism had pleased God, would he not have instituted it? How far it is from true religion, will be explained later; let it be granted for the present that this profession is not evil, and yet since God made the Church differently, the withdrawal of the Church from the character in which God established it is certainly disobedience, and accordingly most displeasing to Him, who requires nothing more than obedience. And even if this change were not displeasing to God, yet it would distinguish between the old clergy and this new clergy, and would cause it to be regarded as a new species of clergymen, that is, as a new ecclesiastical dynasty. On this ground alone it is most apt to be designated as a new Beast. For if the vicissitudes of temporal kingdoms are designated in Daniel by the rise of Beasts, <80r> much more should this be so in the case of the Church where the changes are of greater consequence.

From their numbers too this kind of religious persons is notably distinct from the religious of earlier times. There was only a small number of the latter, as much as sufficed for the needs of the church; of the former there was an immense multitude. Palladius, who had not seen half of the monks of Egypt, describes more than fifty of the lives of the Abbots whom he had visited in the deserts and he says that some of them were the fathers of a thousand disciples, as Ammonius was of 3000, Pachomius of the same number or rather of 7000 (for that was the number that obeyed his laws) and Serapionê of 10,000. Hence in comparing the deserts with the cities of Egypt, he did not hesitate to say that there are as many monks in the deserts as there are people in the cities. Palladius in Apollo. If there were this many in Egypt, how many will have been scattered throughout the whole world albeit not so swiftly nor in the same proportion to the cities? The huge numbers in Egypt are indeed celebrated by all writers: but the numbers in Syria and Mesopotamia and other places are sufficiently implied by ✝[87] Jerome and others. In the West there was not yet so great a multitude. The number however grew so that at the funeral of Martin almost 2000 came together Sulpicius Severus, Epistle 3. Everywhere they were accustomed to go about in hordes, and to raise seditions in the cities, and to use violence against the Presidents of the provinces as if they had declared war, as the Emperors say in Law 16 Concerning Penalties of the Theodosian Code, which was brought in against them. How many there were, you may realise from the fact that Zosimus a hundred years later in narrating the sedition of the monks who rose at Constantinople on behalf of Chrysostom, gave this description of them. These men, he says, abstain from legitimate marriages and both in the cities and in the villages fill populous colleges with unmarried men fit neither for war nor for any other essential requirement of the state, except that progressing in a certain way from that time down to our own day, they have transferred a great part of the land to themselves, and under the pretext that they would share all things with the poor, they have reduced all men, I would almost say, to poverty. Zosimus bk. 5. Since therefore the religious in the first or Apostolic dynasty of the Church bore no proportion to the rest of the Government, but in the Monastic dynasty they formed a huge body, <81r> these dynasties will be rightly distinguished, and the later one will deserve to be spoken of as a Beast on account of its size. <82r> For Miltiades had been instructed not to give laws to the Africans, not to insinuate the laws of the Italians into this affair; but to give judgement among Africans according to the laws of Africans. On the {second} of the days therefore the party of Donatus would not come back again (For not only Donatus but also the other enemies of Caecilian abstained from that time from the Council, as Augustine tells us in the passage last cited) a certain document of denunciation was read against Caecilian.[Editorial Note 176] On the third day a discussion was held about the Council of Carthage of the 70 bishops and it was decided that no account should be taken of it because Caecilian was condemned in his absence and unheard. Nor do they want Caecilian to be held to blame because he had refused to attend, since he very well knew that the bishops had been summoned to Carthage by his enemies and among them there were differences and they were comparing heads. Miltiades thought that the question about the traditors should not be put, both because the accusers themselves had held communion with the traitors, and because the traditors (if indeed they were traditors who ordained Caecilian) as long as they had not been condemned and deposed by an ecclesiastical judgement, could rightly perform ordination and the other duties of the Episcopal office. ✝[88] Miltiades condemns Donatus to death as the source of the whole problem. But he pronounces Caecilian innocent, relying particularly upon the argument that his enemies refused to accuse him, according to the statement of the accusers which they maintained. For the judgement of Miltiades ended with these words: [89] Since it has been established that Caecilian is not accused by those who came with Donatus according to their statement; nor has it been established by Donatus anywhere that he was convicted, I give judgement that he is duly to be retained in his ecclesiastical communion without impairment of status.

Not long afterwards the Africans, by means of a legation from their number, again accused Caecilian before the Emperor, asserting that he was held to be unworthy of the worship of the most true religion. When the Emperor said that there was no point in their making that claim, since the case was finished, having been terminated in the city of Rome by the appropriate bishops, they replied that the whole case had not been heard, but a certain few bishops had shut themselves up in a certain place and given the judgement that suited them (Constantine, Epistle to Elaphius). [Diplomatic version used in next few lines] They do not appeal from the Council They do not appeal from the Roman judgement as they will appeal from the subsequent judgement at Arles; but they accuse the Council itself; and /as is easily deduced from what has gone before/ they contend {illeg} when judges were given [judicibus] {illeg} <83r> the Emperor, and they regard the judgement as null*. Hence Augustine in book 2 of Against the Letter of Petilian the Donatist, chap. 92. To the petition of your ancestors Constantine gave an Episcopal verdict both at Rome and at Arles: the first of which you found fault with before him, and from the second you appealed to him. In order therefore to avoid the perceived hostility of the bishops, they attempted to < insertion from f 82v >

bring the case before the Emperor. But he declined to become involved in ecclesiastical affairs, and decided rather that another larger Council should be called; he decided that the former judges should attend, so that they could explain and defend their verdict since that was what was the object of criticism. All these things Augustine thus touches on in Epistle 162[Editorial Note 177]. Grant that we suppose, he says, that the bishops who gave the judgement at Rome were not good judges, there remained still a plenary council of the whole Church, where the case could also be discussed with the judges themselves, so that if they were convicted of making a bad judgement, their sentences could be quashed. And a little later: they dared to accuse the ecclesiastical judges – not before other colleagues but before the Emperor, on the ground that they had given a bad judgement. He set up another hearing for them at Arles consisting of other bishops – for the Christian emperor did not dare to take up their tumultuous and deceptive complaints in such a way as to give a judgement himself about the verdict of the bishops who had sat in Rome, but he set up other bishops, as I have said; from whom however they preferred to appeal again to the Emperor himself.

The Emperor therefore convenes several bishops of Italy and Gaul and the neighbouring regions, writing letters to each one as follows. — — Insert here the letter, then proceed thus — —

At the same time also the Emperor orders that the municipal acts of the city of Aptunga of which Felix was Bishop should be consulted so that from them it could be established whether Felix had handed over sacred books. Therefore ‡[90] on the 15th day before the Calends of March, 4 months having passed since the Council at Rome, the proconsul of Africa hears the case of Felix. His proceedings are still extant today under the title: Proceedings of the Purgation of Caecilian and Felix. They are as follows.[Editorial Note 178]

First it is declared that Felix was accused of having given his consent for the Scriptures to {be handed} over by the hand of Galatius. Then Alfius[Editorial Note 179] Caecilianus was brought into court, who in that year of persecution had been Duumvir[Editorial Note 180], and had been duty bound to seek out Scriptures to be burned; <83v> and when the Proconsul questioned him, he replied that the Christians sent to him in the Praetorium in order to say: has the sacred command reached you? And when he replied, Bring out any Scriptures that you have in order to obey the sacred command, the same Christians sent him to the house of Felix so that they might take the Scriptures from there, so that they could be burnt according to the sacred precept. So Galatius came with him to the place where they were accustomed to hold prayers. From there, in the absence of Felix, they took away everything according to the sacred precept, and burned them. This was in the year of his Duumvirate. Later when he and a certain Augentius were Aediles, Ingentius[Editorial Note 181], who was a scribe of Augentius, came to him and [the diplomatic transcript contains words that connect with accepi 'I received'] ... I received eleven precious holy [books (codices) is in diplomatic version; in the diplomatic version many words are crossed through] ... began to ask whether the Scripture was burnt in the year of his Duumvirate? and he replied: you annoy me; you have been sent as an informer; get away from me. Then they were burnt in the year of your Duumvirate. Then {he said}[Editorial Note 182] that he finally started to attack Ingentius, but under pressure from his colleague he finally dictated a letter. And this letter of Caecilian appeared in the municipal acts of Aptunga, as follows: Caecilian to his father Felix greetings. Since my colleague Ingentius approached his friend Augentius and inquired whether any scriptures of your law were burnt in the year of my Duumvirate in accordance with the sacred law * * which[Editorial Note 183] Galatius alone in accordance with your law publicly produced letters of greeting from the Basilica. I hope that you are well. This is the proof that ✝[91] the Christians and the owner of the Pretorium had sent to me to entreat my mercy, and you said: Take the key, and remove any books you find on the Chair and any codices that are on the stone; but be sure that the officials do not take the oil and wheat. And I said to you, Do you not know that where the Scriptures are found, the building itself is pulled down? And you said: What then are we to do? And I said to you, Let someone take some of your {books} to the area where you offer prayers, and let them be placed there, and I will come with the Officials and remove them. And we came there and took everything in accordance with the sacred command. When this was read out, Caecilianus acknowledged that the Letter had been dictated by him as far as the words, I hope you are well; but he denied strongly that the rest which follows was dictated by him. As a result Ingentius was accused of having falsified the letter. And Ingentius replied: that when the case of Maurus, the Bishop of Utica, who had bought his Episcopate, was being tried, and Felix had come up to the city in order to deal with it[Editorial Note 184], and said: Let no one hold communion with him because he admitted to a lie, I myself replied: neither with you nor with him, because you are a Traditor: for I was grieving, he says, over the case of my friend Maurus, because I held communion with him abroad after escaping <84v> the persecution. At that time therefore I went to Caecilianus, so that they would see whether Felix truly had handed them over or not. And I added to the letter of Caecilianus because I was grieving for my friend Maurus. When he heard these things, the Proconsul gave Ingentius into custody and pronounced Felix innocent.

And Ingentius was rightly punished; but I do not see how this makes for the purgation of Felix. For Caecilianus behaved cautiously towards Ingentius, so much so that from his silence nothing can be deduced. Ingentius (so far as is clear) had no relationship with the accusers of Felix, approached no witnesses except Caecilianus, accordingly his actions have no relevance at all either to the accusers or to the other witnesses. The holy books were burnt at the very beginning of the persecution in the year 303, and the case of Felix should have been decided on the basis of the municipal acts which were composed at that time, not on the basis of the Epistle of Caecilianus which was written as it happens after the persecution, that is after the year 310. And consequently not only is the judgement of the proconsul precarious, but in addition the case of Felix is rendered very suspect. For it is clear from the epistle and confession of Caecilianus that sacred books were taken from the home of Felix and burned, on the initiative of Galatius, a minister of the Christian law and with the consent of other Christians. And all actions of this kind ought to have been written in the municipal acts, but in those acts we do not find anything of the kind written. There was only that letter of Caecilian which had been written as it happens about eight years later. What then shall we say? That the account of what was done was omitted by the negligence of the officials? Or rather that it was deleted and excised from the Acts by the efforts of supporters of Felix after the persecution?

Finally after another four months have gone by, on the Calends of August[Editorial Note 185] the synod convenes at Arles. There the acts of the proconsul are sent. The Africans on the other side prove that Felix handed over the books by bringing witnesses. The synod therefore contends that one should not trust the living witnesses but only the municipal acts. Accordingly it acquits Felix on the ground that the action of Felix did not appear in those acts; and it made these canons.

< text from f 83r resumes >

The Emperor therefore calls together several bishops from Gaul and from Italy by writing to them a letter as follows:

Constantine Augustus to Chrestus, Bishop of Syracuse.

Since already heretofore some men of wicked and perverse minds have begun to dissent from holy religion and heavenly virtue and from the beliefs of the Catholic Church, I, desiring to forestall their conflict, decided that I would send certain bishops from Gaul and also summon from Africa those who were divided into two parties and were engaged in a pertinacious and obstinate struggle with each other, and invite the Bishop of the city of Rome also to be present, so that in the presence of them all, the question which seemed to be at issue could be settled by diligent examination. But since some men, as sometimes happens, forgetful of their own salvation and of the veneration which is due to the most holy faith, do not cease still to maintain their private conflicts, because they are unwilling to acquiesce in the sentence which has already been passed, and assert that it was only a very few bishops who pronounced sentences and declarations {[on a whim]} of their own and rushed into publishing a hasty judgement without thoroughly examining everything that ought to have been investigated, as a result of which it happens that men who should be united in harmonious and fraternal feelings towards each other, are split apart by a disgraceful, or rather detestable, secession, and an opportunity for mockery is offered to those who have a hostile intention towards our most holy religion, I therefore was compelled to make the most careful provision that these things which should have already been brought to an end, once the judgement had been published, by voluntary acceptance, now at last may be able to reach a conclusion by means of the intervention of many men. Seeing therefore that we have ordered a large number of bishops from a very large number and variety of places to assemble in the city of Arles on the Calends of August, we have thought it proper to write to you also <84r> so that you may by making use of the state transport be present on the same day at the aforesaid place.

<85r> And he made these canons. Concerning the Africans, since they use their own custom of rebaptism, it has been decided that if anyone comes out of heresy and into the church, they should question him as to the creed and make sure (praeviderint) that he has been baptised in the Father and the son and the holy spirit, {and} a hand should only be laid upon him so that he may receive the holy spirit. But if when questioned, he does not reply with this Trinity, he should be baptised. Likewise, concerning those who are said to have surrendered the holy Scriptures, or the Lord's vessels or the names of their brethren, our decree is that anyone who has been found out from the Public Acts and not by words alone, should be removed from the order of the clergy. For if the same men have been found to have made some ordinations, and the justification of those persons' ordination remains valid, this should not invalidate their ordination[Editorial Note 186]. And seeing that there are many who seem to be opposing the rule of the church, and think that they should be allowed to bring an accusation by purchasing witnesses, let them not be allowed at all unless they give evidence from the Public Acts.[Editorial Note 187] The former Canon shows with what zeal, the latter with what intractability and unfairness, the party of Donatus was oppressed. But I am not surprised that this was the judgement given, since the judges for the most part were from Gaul and Italy, whose leading men had given the previous judgement, and now sat with the other judges, with the exception of the Bishop of Rome; however his legates substituted for him. Furthermore, Marinus, one of those who had previously given judgement, presided in this Council; the Emperor too was influencing all of them by his letter. The sentence that was passed <86r> against the accusers of Caecilian can be seen {illeg} from this canon of the same synod. Concerning those who bring a false accusation against their brothers, it has been decided that they should remain outside communion until death.

< insertion from f 85v > When these things had been done, since the Africans did not acqiesce, but appealed from this judgement and petitioned the Emperor himself, the Emperor sent Soldiers and Tribunes from his palace to bring them, despite their reluctance, to his palace, threatening them with grievous consequences if they did not see reason immediately. Also in a letter written to the synod in a letter written to the synod [repetition in text] he seriously complained that abandoning the ecclesiastical court, they had recourse to a secular court: and for that reason in that letter he calls them malevolent, servants of the devil, detractors of the law, renegades who without any stringent enquiry had revealed their crimes themselves, men who were monstrous in the eyes of God himself and wicked traitors to religion. He also exhorted the bishops sitting at Arles to show patience despite this, by still offering the option to these abandoned men to choose which they preferred, death or episcopates unimpaired. But he also gave a letter to the Vicar of Africa that any who were found to have these opinions in that part of the world, should be dispatched immediately to his palace under a suitable guard. Concerning all of this consult the epistle of the Emperor to the synod. And Parmenianus ✝[92], the successor of Donatus, reports this through Hosius of Spain.

< text from f 86r resumes >

But Augustine in Epistle 68 says that many have now returned to concord with Caecilian, but others have appealed to the Emperor. And again in Brevic. Collat[Editorial Note 188] bk. 3, chap. 5: already very many have abandoned their dissent and come into agreement as a result of the judgement of Arles, although others still reject it with disgust. Hence since the remainder at that time still numbered about half of the Africans, it is clear that almost the whole of Africa, apart from the few men who ordained Caecilian, supported Donatus at the beginning. Certainly Constantine, in speaking about the African dissenters in his letter to Ablavius, says: [93] before the Roman synod against Caecilian virtually all of them often assembled. And that is why the Council of Arles in the aforesaid canon against rebaptism, calls them not Donatists, not some of the Africans, but simply Africans. For by the Africans against whom that canon is directed, they do not mean the party of Caecilian (this party criticised rebaptism) but the other party which preserved the old custom, and was the universal Church of Africa before it was expelled by the faction of Caecilian.

After many had given in, but others had been brought to the palace of the Emperor, and could not be converted by any <87r> reasoning, Donatus (not the one from Casae nigrae, but another one who had succeeded Majorinus, < insertion from f 86v > they could be converted by reasoning[Editorial Note 189], the Emperor, as Parmenianus complains ✝[94], ordered them to be taken out to the campus, i.e. for punishment — and it is charged against him that he inhumanly ordered this at the suggestion of Hosius the Spaniard (Augustine, Against the Epistle of Parmenianus, bk. 1, chap. 7). But Hosius had perhaps not suggested that they should be killed but that they should be thoroughly frightened. For when they did not lapse even after this, the Emperor refrained from their blood. And already I think that what Optatus[Editorial Note 190] writes in book 1 had happened, namely Donatus [not the one from Casae nigrae but the other one who succeeded Majorinus] petitioned that < text from f 87r resumes > he be allowed to return to Carthage. Then it was suggested to the Emperor by his chamberlain (suffragator), Filumenus,[Editorial Note 191] that for the sake of peace Caecilianus should be detained at Brixia [where the Emperor had a country palace]: and it was done. Then two bishops were sent to Africa, Eunomius and Olympius, to do away with the dual Bishops [namely Caecilian and Donatus] and establish a single one. They came to Carthage; there they remained for forty days so that they might declare where was the Catholic {Church}. This the party of Donatus did not allowed to happen. From the zeal of the parties there were daily riots. The final judgement of the bishops, Eunomius and Olympius, we read, was that they said that that was the Catholic {Church} which was diffused throughout the whole world; and that the sentence of the nineteen bishops already given could not be revoked. Thus they had communion with the clergy of Caecilian and returned. Concerning these things, says Optatus, we have the volumes of the Acts[Editorial Note 192]. ‡

< insertion from f 86v >

‡ When therefore the Emperor saw that the quarrel could not be settled by any means, he himself yielded at last to the importunity of the petitioners and promised that he would hear their case. And since he had in mind to go to Carthage and hear the case there, he allowed the Bishops to return to Africa. This return occurred in the month of April of the Year 315.

Meanwhile the Synod at Arles was dissolved. It consisted of 200 bishops as Augustine tells us in book 1 chapter 5 Against the Epistle of Parmenianus. But only 44 bishops appear in the subscriptions. However, it is likely that there were more since the party of Donatus who rejected the number 19, were expecting a full synod.

But with what devotion the West, too much inclining to superstition, now venerated the Roman Pontiff[Editorial Note 193], is amply seen in the letters of this synod to him: where after these words: Most holy Father, with due reverence we salute you, is added:

< text from f 87r resumes >

For after they had said: Most holy Father, with due reverence we salute you, they add: And would that you had participated, beloved brother, in this great event, you would surely, we believe, have had so much influence that the sentence given to those miscreants would have been more severe, and our assembly would have rejoiced with greater happiness if you had been involved in the judgement equally with us. But since you could by no means leave those parts in which the Apostles also daily sit[Editorial Note 194], and their blood testifies without intermission to the glory of God, etc. Until now therefore the arrogance of the Roman Pontiff <88r> by which it is regarded as beneath his dignity to attend Councils like other bishops had been unknown to the churches; but the Westerners already treated him with such veneration that it should not come as a surprise to anyone if all the rest were to follow any decision he might make in the future, adoring the throne where the apostles daily sit*/reside and preferring the authority of Peter to all arguments. Hence we shall be justified in denominating these churches from now on as Papist.

After this the emperor, rejecting the plan he had made to sail to Africa, commands that the parties meet at Rome on a given day, and that Ingentius, as he instructs* (quoad mandat), be sent to him to be questioned under torture. But when the day came, Caecilianus did not arrive as ordered. And when his enemies made this a charge against him, and demanded that sentence be pronounced against him as contumacious, the Emperor granted a delay and ordered that the parties meet him at Milan. At that point some of the party of Donatus considered that the Emperor was acting partially, and withdrew from the court, and sailed for Africa. When the Emperor had knowledge of this, he ordered the rest of them to be guarded by officials and brought to Milan. Then in the year 316 when Caecilian came with his followers to Milan, he heard the case there, and confirmed the judgement of the bishops with his own verdict. The party of Donatus complained that the Emperor was corrupted by partiality, and had given judgement against them because he was under the influence of Bishop Hosius, who supported Caecilian.

<89r>

After this Nundinarius, a Deacon who had been degraded by Sylvanus, the Donatist Bishop of Cirta, having tried in vain to recover his former position by letters of/to* the other bishops, plots revenge, and in concert with some others brings many serious allegations against the Donatists: as that Sylvanus had been a traditor; that the bishops of Numidia had condemned Caecilian and ordained Majorinus because they had been corrupted by the money of a very rich woman named Lucilla; and that the twelve bishops who had gathered for the ordination of Sylvanus in the year 305, thus constituting a council which is usually called the Council of Cirta, confessed to each other the crime of traditio and granted each other mutual pardon, and then proceeded to conspire against Caecilian. [Purpurius, the Bishop of Limata[Editorial Note 195], was also accused – and the same persons were the source of the accusation unless I am mistaken – of having killed his nephew, and when he was faced with this, confessed it]. Zenophilus, the consular of Numidia, informs the Emperor of all this, adding many things against Sylvanus, whom he asserted to be the principal author of the riots in Numidia. Persuaded by this the emperor condemned Sylvanus with some others to exile. These things happened in the year 320 when Constantine, Augustus for the sixth time, and Constantine Caesar were consuls. At this time also the Emperor brought in a law, commanding that all the places in which the Donatists had been used to meet, should be confiscated to the Treasury. But in the following year, when they petitioned him and affirmed that they were willing to suffer whatever he might wish to do to them rather than commit the sacrilege of that wicked communion, the Emperor ordered them to return from exile and granted them liberty of action, i.e. freedom of conscience. This they enjoyed down to the persecution of Macarius, i.e., for about 18 years.

From these origins the ancient church of Africa which rejected the baptism of heretics, began to be assaulted, undermined and transformed into a kind of unruly sect; and the doctrine of the Pontiff about recognizing their baptism and never repeating it, began to be introduced into Africa by a new breed of men.

There was another schism in Egypt contemporary with this schism in Africa, whose origin Epiphanius reports as follows. [Editorial Note 196] In the persecution initiated by the emperors Diocletian and Maximian – a certain Meletius was held in prison together with Peter the Archbishop of Alexandria and several others. He outranked the other bishops of Egypt, and held the second place of dignity after Peter, as his suffragan. – And as some had happily undergone martyrdom, while others had avoided it, by sacrificing to idols, <90r> the latter after their lapse approached the confessors and Martyrs in order to obtain forgiveness because of their repentance. – As a result no little agitation and dissension arose among the martyrs, as some denied that those who had once lapsed should be accepted in repentance, in case others, seeing them swiftly receiving the indulgence they requested, should be led astray, having little fear of punishment, and pollute themselves with the accursed rites of the Pagans. These were Meletius and Peleus and several other martyrs and confessors who undoubtedly (says Epiphanius{)} were motivated by passion and zeal for God's honour when they said these things. Furthermore the same men were the authors of the view that the opportunity for penitence should be offered them after some reasonable period of time following a persecution, when peace had returned, if indeed they truly had repentance in their hearts and exhibited its fruits. — On the other side, the most holy Peter, a kind and merciful man, pled with them in these words: Let us admit them since they repent of their sin, and let us set a penance for them (we know from consistent reports that he used these words, says Epiphanius) lest those who once before in their weakness and cowardice were struck by the devil and yielded, should lapse completely because of shame and the long delay. – Thus Peter's plea did indeed look towards clemency and humanity, but that of Meletius and his supporters favoured the cause of truth and ardour for God. When therefore Peter recognized that his advice did not please the followers of Meletius, he spread his cloak like a curtain in the middle of the prison, and ordered a proclamation to be made by the Deacon: those who share my opinion, let them come hither to me, and those who favour the opinion of Meletius let them go to Meletius. And when it was done, the people were divided into parties: the majority of bishops, monks and presbyters and of the other orders went with Meletius: a few of the bishops and the others followed Archbishop Peter. From this time they have celebrated their prayers and sacrifices and all their other ceremonies separately from each other. After this Peter suffered martyrdom leaving Alexander as his successor, <91r> but Meletius with many others was exiled and condemned to the mines of Phanes where he was held for a considerable time. – And even in the mines they refrained from mutual communion. And they remained divided afterwards, and gave different names to their churches; those who adhered to the successors of Peter were called the Catholic Church; those who adhered to Meletius the Church of the Martyrs. This comes from Epiphanius, Heresy 68.[Editorial Note 197]

[Editorial Note 198] It happened on a certain feast day that Bishop Alexander of Alexandria saw from a distance some children playing a game on the seashore, imitating a Bishop and the rites that are performed in church. But when he looked intently at the boys for a long time, he saw that some of the things they were doing were even more secret and part of the mystery*. Immediately disturbed by this, he orders his clerics to be summoned to him, and shows them what he saw from a distance. Then he orders them to go and to collect all the boys and bring them to him. And when they were there, he questions them as to what the game was or what they had done or how. As is common at that age, they were afraid and at first said 'nothing', but then reveal the whole thing in order, and admit that some catechumens had been baptised by them by the hands of one of them of the name of Athanasius, whom all of them had pretended was the Bishop of that boyish game. Then he carefully enquired of those who were said to have been baptised, what questions they had been asked and what they had replied, and at the same time he enquired of him who had asked the questions. When he saw that everything was consistent with the rites of our religion, he consulted his council of clerics, and is said to have decided that those on whom water had been sprinkled after completing the interrogations and responses did not need to have their baptism repeated, but only that part added which is accustomed to be done by priests. But as for Athanasius and those whom the game had seemed to treat either as Presbyters or deacons, he summoned their parents, and handed them back to them to bring them up, under an oath to God, for his church. And in a short time when Athanasius had been instructed fully by the Writing teacher and adequately by the Literature teacher, he was immediately given back by his parents to the priest as a faithful offering to the Lord (Rufinus book 1, chap. 14, Socrates book 1 chap. 15, Sozomen book 2, chap. 17). But he did not remain with Alexander all the time, but went off through the desert and joined the Monk Antony (as he says in his Life of Antony). Alexander summoned him <92r> to Tabernium, having made use of his services in writing and reading beyond the usual duties of Readers and Amanuenses. Later he raised him to the position of Deacon (Anonymous Account of the Life of Athanasius, and Sozomen, bk. 2, ch. 17). Apart from Dialectic and Rhetoric, he also had a good knowledge of the law (Sever. bk. 2, ch. 51). And from these beginnings Athanasius began to be noticed, and a way began to be opened for the introduction into Egypt of the superstition of the Roman Pontiff about accepting the baptism of heretics. Athanasius came to the fore under Licinius by his disputations against Pagans (Martyr. Rom. d. 13. Jan.), and since he was a man of subtle intelligence, adroit in administration and educated in various branches of knowledge, Alexander, a slow old man, freed himself in ecclesiastical business by means of his advice, as you will see in what follows.

Meanwhile in the year 312, under the Emperors Constantine and Licinius, peace was restored to the churches everywhere. Later Licinius began again to disturb the churches of the East, but in the year 323 fourteen days before the Calends of October he was defeated by Constantine. From this time the people of God flourished and devoted themselves to honest living with zeal and jubilation. There was no external fear to cause anxiety, since by the goodness of the great and good God a profound and very welcome peace protected the church everywhere. But there was a hidden envy that laid ambushes for the good things we enjoyed. Worming its way inside, it exulted in the midst of the assembly of the saints. And finally it incited the Bishops against each other, raising tumult and altercation among them, under the pretext of divine dogmas. And then as from a little spark, a serious conflagration broke out. It started in the church at Alexandria; this was its source; from there it ran through the whole of Egypt, Libya and the further Thebaïd. But it also consumed other cities and provinces, so much so that it was possible to see not only the very priests of the churches duelling with each other in words, but also the people themselves torn apart. Moreover the spectacle of what was happening reached such a low point of indignity that the venerable lessons of divine preaching were satirised in the theatres of the unbelievers with disgraceful laughter and mockery. Eusebius, Life of Constantine, book 2, chapter 61. The story of these discords is as follows. <93r> In the year 323 towards the end of the war with Licinius it happened that Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, in discussion with his presbyters, proposed a question about an obscure passage of the sacred writings (Constantine, Epistle to Alexandr and Ar)[Editorial Note 199] and the presbyters offered diverse opinions, and a dispute arose. Thinking it better to allow an opportunity for both parties to discuss ambiguous and controversial questions, – he himself sitting as judge together with the clergy, he brought both parties into a debate. When the Council assembled again, they reached no agreement with each other, since they had raised so many difficult and contentious questions. But while the question still seemed doubtful and dubious, Alexander at the beginning vacillated for a while, praising now one party and now the other. But finally he gave his assent to those who affirmed that the son was coeternal with the father, and ordered the principal defender of the other side, by name Arius, to accept this verdict. When he was not able to persuade him, and when in addition many of those who agreed with him were bishops and not a few of the clergy too thought that Arius had right on his side, he expelled Arius and the clergymen who shared his opinion from the church. The presbyters of the Alexandrian Church were Aithalas, Achillas, Carpones, Sarmates and Arius; and the deacons were Euzoius, Macarius, Julius, together with Menas and Helladius. Later also no inconsiderable part of the people went over to them, since some thought that theirs was the right way to think about God, while others viewed them with compassion as having had an injury inflicted upon them ✝[95] because they had been expelled from the church without a hearing.

<94r>

Thus far Julius. Later, as Socrates tells us [96], the Emperor of the West, prompted by the complaints of his own people, sent a letter to his brother in which he demanded that three bishops be sent to him to give an account of the deposition of Paul and Athanasius. Those sent were Narcissus from Cilicia, Theodorus of Thrace, Maris from Chalcedon, and Marcus of Syria; and they offered the following formula of faith to Constans, the Augustus.

We believe in one God, the father Almighty, creator and maker of all things: from whom the whole family in heaven and on earth is named. And in his only begotten son, our Lord Jesus Christ: who was begotten by the father before all worlds/times: God of God: light of light: through whom all things were made in heaven and on earth, both visible and invisible: who is the word and wisdom and life and the true light. Who in recent times was made man for us and was born of the holy virgin. He was also crucified and died and was buried. And on the third day he rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, and sits at the right hand of the father, and at the end of times will come to judge the living and the dead and render his due to each man for his works. Whose kingdom will continue without end for infinite ages. For he will sit at the right hand of the father not only in this age but also in the future. And in the holy spirit, that is, in the Paraclete, whom the Lord promised and sent to the apostles after his assumption so that he might teach and bring to mind all things. Through whom also their souls were sanctified who sincerely believed in him. But those who say that the son is from the non-existent or from another substance and not from God, and there was a time when he was not, the Catholic Church has determined that they are outside.

When they had conveyed this to the Emperor and to many others, and explained their position <95r> in vain, they departed. Furthermore another heresy arose owing to the fact that there was still unbroken communion at Sirmium, a city of Illyricum, between Westerners and Easterners. For Photinus, who presided over the churches of that area, originated from Galatia Minor, and had been at one time a disciple of the Marcellus who had been ejected from his episcopate. He followed in the footsteps of his master, and preached that the son of God was a mere man and nothing more. Socrates book 2, chapter 18. The Easterners therefore marked this man with a black stone, but did not dare to condemn him by ecclesiastical sentence and eject him from his See, lest he should take refuge with the Westerners like his master Marcellus, and fan the flames of discord.

When three years had passed after this, the Eastern Bishops again assembled in a synod and augmented their previous formula of faith by adding many things at the end, and sent it to the Bishops of Italy by the hand of Eudoxia, Bishop of Germanicia, Macedonius, Bishop of Mopsuestia in Cilicia [Demophilus] and Martyrius. Socrates book 2, chapter 19, Sozomen book 3, chapter 11. What they added at the end is as follows. And those who say that the son was from the non-existent or from another substance and not from God, or that there was a time or age when he was not, holy Church considers to be outside the Church. Likewise those who say that there are three gods or that Christ was not God before the ages, and that he is neither Christ nor the son of God: or that father and son and holy spirit are the same and that the son was unbegotten: or that the father did not beget the son by his decision and will: we say the holy and universal Church anathematizes them. For it cannot be said without danger of error that the son was from non-existing things, since nowhere in the holy Scriptures do we find that said of him. Nor have we learned that he was from any other previously existing substance except the father, but that he was truly begotten from God alone. Likewise the divine text declares that there is one who is unbegotten and without a beginning and that is the <96r> father of Christ. But neither is it proper for those who rashly say, without any authority in holy scripture, that there was when he was not, to imagine (praecogitare) in their minds any space of time preceding but God alone who begat him. For times and ages were made through him. Nor likewise is it to be thought that the son is equally unbegotten[Editorial Note 200] with the father and like him without a beginning. For no father or son can be properly said to be equally unbegotten and equally without a beginning. But we have been taught that the father alone is without a beginning and incomprehensible, who begat in some manner which is inaccessible and incomprehensible, but that the son was begotten before the ages, and was not unbegotten like the father himself, but has a head/source, which is the father from whom he is begotten. For the head/source of Christ is God[Editorial Note 201]. And although we confess three things, and three persons – namely Father son and holy spirit – in accordance with the holy Scriptures, we do not therefore make several gods. For we know one God who is perfect from himself and unbegotten, and without a beginning and invisible, that is, the God and father of the only begotten; who himself alone has his being from himself: and he copiously affords existence to everything else. Furthermore although we say that God is the father of our Lord Jesus Christ who alone is unbegotten: we do not therefore deny that Christ was God before the ages, as do the disciples of Paul of Samosata, who affirm that after the incarnation he became God as a result of some kind of progress and promotion, since by nature he was simply a mere man. For we know that, although he is subject to the father and God, nevertheless, being born from God, he is perfect God by nature and true God; and he did not become God from being a man but from God he became a man for our sakes, nor ever did he cease being a God. And in addition we execrate and anathematize those who falsely call him the unsubstantial word lògon[Editorial Note 202] of God endowed with no subsistence, who has <97r> his existence in another: sometimes indeed like a word which is commonly called an 'uttered' word, sometimes like an internal word: but they contend that Christ, who is himself both the son of God and the mediator and image of God, did not exist before the ages, but began to be Christ and the son of God from the time when he took on our flesh from the virgin, about 400 years ago. From that time, they insist, Christ had the beginning of his kingdom, and this kingdom will have an end after the consummation of the world and the judgement. Such are the followers of Marcellus and Photinus, both from Ancyra, who, like the Jews, reject the existence and divinity of Christ before all ages and his perpetual and immortal kingdom, so that they may be seen to emphasise {God's} Monarchy. But we understand that he is not only an uttered or internal word of God, but the living God the word, self-subsisting, and the son of God, and Christ: and not by the foreknowledge of God alone was he with the father, and with him before all ages, serving him in the creation of all things both visible and invisible; but we profess that he is the substantial word of the father and is God of God. For he is the one to whom the father said: Let us make man in our image and likeness; who showed his person to be seen by the ancient fathers; who gave the law; who spoke through the prophets; who, finally (ad extremum) being made man, manifested his father to all men; who finally reigns for ever and ever. Nor did Christ acquire any dignity in recent times: but we believe that he was perfect from all ages and in all things like to the father. Those too who say that the father and the Son and the holy spirit are the same, taking these three names of one and the same thing and person with the highest impiety, we rightly expel from the church, [97] because by the incarnation they subject to suffering and to comprehension the father who cannot suffer or be comprehended: such are those who are called Patropassians by the Romans and by us are called Sabellians. For we know <98r> that the father who sent remained in his own nature of immutable deity: but Christ who was sent filled the dispensation of the assumption of flesh. Similarly to those who impudently deny that Christ existed by the will and decision of the father, attributing to God some involuntary and enforced necessity, so that he begat the son unwillingly, we hold to be most impious and far from the truth: because they dare to utter such things about him contrary to ordinary notions of God as well as to the mind and sentiment of divinely inspired Scripture. For we piously and religiously believe that God is independent and autonomous, and of his own accord and voluntarily begat the son. Furthermore, although we believe, with fear and reverence, that which has been said of him: the Lord ✝[98] created me the beginning of his ways to his works ; nevertheless we do not mean that he was made exactly as the other creatures, who were made through him. For it is impious and completely alien to the faith of the church to compare the creator with the works which were created by him, and to suppose that he was produced by the same manner of generation as external things were. For the divine Scriptures teach us that the only begotten son was begotten, solely and uniquely, but also truly and really. But though we say that the son is and lives and subsists in himself exactly like the father, we do not therefore separate him from the father, understanding thereby certain spatial distances and intervals between their conjunction in a corporeal manner. For we believe that they are joined without any intermediary or interval, nor can they be separated from each other to any extent at all; for the father embraces the whole son in his breast: and the son clings to the whole father as if attached, and alone rests perpetually in the breast of the father. Believing therefore that the Trinity is most holy and perfect in every way; and speaking of the father as God and the son also as God, we nevertheless <99r> confess that there are not two gods but one God, because of one single dignity of divinity and the most absolute harmony of united kingship; so that the father indeed is Lord in general over all things and also over the son himself, and the son is subject to the father; and except for him he governs and rules all things which are after him and were made through him, and he amply dispenses the grace of the holy spirit to the saints by the will of the father. For this is what the sacred oracles have taught us is the nature of that Monarchy which is in Christ. We have been compelled to expound these things rather fully after publishing a formula of faith previously in a compendious form, not motivated by vain and superfluous ambition, but in order to dispel all those sinister suspicions about our faith among those who are deeply ignorant of our belief, and so that all those who live in the West may frankly acknowledge both the impudent calumny of our adversaries and the Catholic doctrine of the Easterners about Christ, which is very firmly established on the testimony of the divine Scriptures, as all may see who look without prejudice.

With these final words the Easterners reveal the reason why they have set out their faith so laboriously. For just as Alexander and Athanasius once calumniated Arius and his allies, so the same Athanasius together with Marcellus and their ilk were now accusing the easterners of teaching, like Ebion, that Christ was a mere man equal to other men, with the single exception that he was created before the rest. When therefore the easterners saw that the people of the West being everywhere subverted by deceit and seduced into the contrary opinions of the Sabellians, they made an attempt to crush the calumny.

< insertion from f 98v > ✝ The bishops of the West had already convened at Milan. The legates of the East attend this synod. With what result Liberius tells us in his Epistle to the Emperor Constantius in these words: What peace is there, most merciful Emperor, when there are four bishops from this party, Demophilus, Macedonius, Eudoxius, and Martyrius, who eight years ago at Milan refused to condemn the heretical sentiment of Arius, and quit the Council in anger.

< text from f 99r resumes >

Under pressure therefore from the Westerners, a Council is finally called for Serdica, which is a city of Illyricum, at the instance of the two emperors, one of whom demanded it by a letter, and the other, i.e., the Emperor of the East, assented. At that time it was the 11th year since the death of the father of the two Augusti: and the consuls were Ruffinus and Eusebius <100r> (A.C. 347) at which time the synod of Sardica met. From the West [and from Egypt] #[99] about 300 bishops assembled, as Athanasius writes [or rather 280, or, as Theoderitus reports from the stone monuments, 250]. And from the East[100] Sabinus reports that only 76 were present [or 80 as the Synod itself asserts]. Among them was [101] Ischyras, the Bishop of Mareotis. – For some pled illness and infirmity, and others gave other excuses. Socrates book 2 chapter 20. For as they might well expect nothing but abuse and tumult, and the authority of the East in governing its churches was being undermined by this very thing, everyone thought it better to remain at home, but the Bruisers (Pugiles) of Egypt and the West, by whose efforts this Council had been called, gathered eagerly.

When the eighty easterners arrived at Sardica, they learn that Athanasius, Marcellus and their allies who for their crimes had been expelled from the council, were sitting in the middle of the church together with Osius and Protogenes and were participating in the debate and celebrating the divine mysteries. They therefore instruct those who were with Protogenes and Osius to exclude the condemned persons from their company and not to hold communion with sinners, and to listen to the judgement that had been given against them by the fathers. But they refused to separate themselves from communion with them. These therefore {the Easterners} thinking it wrong to hold communion with profane men and to degrade the holy sacraments of the Lord, requested them for several days to put away the condemned men from them. But they completely refused to do so. Concil. Sard. Orient. Epist. ut et Occident. Epist. 1[Editorial Note 203]; similarly, Socrates book 2 chapter 20, Sozomen book 3 Chapter 11. The Easterners furthermore requested the bishops of the West not to introduce a new sect or to give any preference to those who came from the West over the Eastern bishops and councils, subverting the law and overturning divine laws and confounding all things. But they in return, rejecting these requests, made threats to <101r> the easterners, and promised with great boasting to vindicate Athanasius and the other sacrilegious/accursed men, as if they could truly do or say anything else once they had received all the criminals and outcasts into their company. For seeing that those who receive condemned men, themselves commit an offence and incur the charge of being violators of the heavenly laws, they attempted to constitute the court with so much authority as to insist on calling themselves Judges of Judges, including those who were already with God at that time, if it was right to revive their verdict*. Concil. Sard. Orient[Editorial Note 204]. For they did not invite the easterners to the council as brothers and coequal bishops who together with them would judge Athanasius, Marcellus and the rest, but summoned them as defendants to judgement; constituting the West the judge of the East. Concil. Sard. Occid. Epist. 1 & 2[Editorial Note 205]. As both sides were arguing therefore, there came forward from the Eastern side the five bishops who were the remaining survivors of the six who had been sent to Mareotis, and they propose the following option to the Westerners: that some bishops should be sent from both councils to the places in which Athanasius had committed his crimes and abominations, and write everything out faithfully, under the witness of God: and if what they had declared at the Council of Tyre turned out to be false, they themselves should be condemned and they would not appeal to the Emperors nor to a council nor to any bishop. But if what they had said before is established as true, let them put forward the same number of Westerners as Easterners that is, any Westerners they choose from those who had held communion with Athanasius after his condemnation, and who were supporters and defenders of Athanasius and Marcellus, and those who were put forward should not appeal either to the Emperors or to a Council or to any Bishop. Osius, Protogenes and all of their allies were afraid to take up this option proposed by the five easterners. Concil. Sard. Orient. But Hosius in reply promised right judgement in all things [and that they would expel Athanasius in every sense if he should be found guilty. But if he were found to be innocent and showed up the easterners as calumniators, and even so he was not accepted by them, <102r> he would persuade him to go back with him to the Spains. And Athanasius accepted these conditions (Hosius, Letter to Constantius [102]. That is, Hosius replies that he promises that those who had previously judged him at Rome and would not be able to retract their verdict and condemn Athanasius without condemning themselves as wicked and impious men, will depose Athanasius if only he is found guilty, that is, if the Westerners were brought to the point of admitting that they had unjustly acquitted Athanasius and the others, and they had heretofore impiously had communion with men who had been justly condemned and had shown themselves more than factious for their sake by inciting these immense crowds. He promises finally that if Athanasius were acquitted, he would take him with him into the Spains, provided they accepted the judgement: a condition indeed which no decent man could either propose or accept. For if the easterners had accepted it, who would not have thought that they had only one object, to expel Athanasius by any means whatsoever. From such a sordid condition therefore one can easily see the mind of the man who proposed it. To this the Westerners mixing the human with the divine and combining private matters with the affairs of the church, stirred up controversy and sedition for the Eastern Provinces by saying that they would import the grave wickedness of schism into the region if they did not enter into communion with them (which was monstrous), and they frequently repeated this. For the easterners had completely refused to hold communion with them unless they expelled those whom they had condemned and showed fitting respect to a Council of the East. Concil. Sard. Orient. When therefore the Westerners refused to abstain from communion with the condemned men so long as their case was being examined, and they demanded of the easterners even before the judgement that they should hold communion with those whom they themselves had condemned (than which nothing more unjust or more impious could be demanded), they refused to show this due honour to the churches of the East and admit them as brothers and judges of the same dignity, and were contriving for the easterners to betray the authority of the East and submit themselves to Western judges and recognize the authority of the Roman Pontiff over the whole world. When finally they did not dare to accept this very fair option of sending some men from both parties to Mareotis who would faithfully review the evidence of everything from the inhabitants and report to the Council, but insisted that the whole thing should be terminated by their own verdict, and in order to achieve this and to stir up the citizens of Serdica and raise the people against the reluctant Orientals, the easterners rightly abominated the injustice, ambition, violence and disgusting manners of the Westerners, and very rightly abstained completely from association with them. When therefore this <102v> prescribed day on which the issues for which they had met should be adjudicated had already passed, they finally [ad extremum], after sending letters sent back and forth, became more hostile than before and met in separate assemblies and produced conflicting verdicts. Sozomen book 3 Chapter 11. The letters in which both parties wrote down the verdict and transmitted it to the churches, are longer than the ones transcribed here and it will be enough to outline their argument. The letter of the Easterners exists in Latin in the fragments of Hilarius and in Baronius under the year 347 and in the Councils. The first Letter of the Westerners which is addressed to the Egyptians and the second addressed to the Churches – and it is worth reading despite the fact that, through the ignorance of the Greek translator and the ravages of time, it abounds in errors – are extant in the second Apology of Athanasius, and in the Councils; the third        to Julius exists in Latin in the fragments of Hilary and in      Baronius and the Councils.

In particular therefore they explain the heresy of Marcellus, how he committed the heresies of Sabellius, of Paul of Samosata and of Montanus, saying that the kingdom of Christ did not begin before his incarnation nor will last beyond the end of the world; and that he was often admonished before he was deposed; that he refused to retract his opinion but afterwards [omitting deponeret], when he was regarded as a heretic among his own people, and was deposed, he requested assistance for a journey so that he might deceive those who did not know him and his writings, and by concealing his writings and their profane sense and by advertising false things as true, he made a profit for himself from simple, innocent people. And the fathers who condemned Marcellus, stored in the archives of the church some of his very wrong opinions against the true faith so that people in the future would remember them and be warned, and now if only the Westerners had listen quietly to the judgements of the Eastern fathers, Marcellus's book itself would be in their hands, from which his heresy could be openly recognized by itself without any help from an accuser.

They then describe at length the crimes of Athanasius, how he broke a chalice, overturned the sacerdotal seat, demolished the basilica to the ground, killed the Bishop, and persecuted those who avoided sacrilegious communion with him throughout Egypt with beatings, chains, imprisonment, by false accusations in front of judges, was summoned in vain to Caesarea, but then condemned at Tyre and then appealed to the Emperor from Tyre, and when an investigation was held and all his crimes were brought before a court, he was condemned and sent into exile. Later returning from Gaul into Egypt, he disturbed the Churches throughout the whole journey, he restored Bishops who had been condemned where none were lacking, establishing them by the armed force of Pagans, <103r> and finally pillaging the Basilicas of the Alexandrians with massacres and war. And when once again he was made {illeg} a sacrilegious enemy, he had recourse to the Pagan populace and burnt down the Church and smashed the Altar and secretly fled.

He made his way to Julius at Rome, and seduced certain Bishops of Italy by means of his letter of the Egyptians, whom he had previously tricked and who were ignorant of his actions, and he was received into communion by them. They subsequently began to be troubled, not so much for his sake as because of their own actions in entering into communion with him, thinking they had trusted him too readily. They add that this same Athanasius had once with his own hand condemned Asclepas with whom he himself held communion now that he had been condemned by the same judges, and was conspiring with him against the judges.

Similarly they describe the crimes of Paul, Marcellus, Asclepas and Lucius and say that Marcellus, like Athanasius, never communicated with Asclepas before he was deposed. And Paul participated in the judgement of Tyre and with his own hand condemned Athanasius. And as long, they say, as each of them was a bishop, they confirmed their verdict against those who had been condemned previously, but when they had been expelled for different reasons at different times, they became united and conspired against the judges, each one indulging in the sins which he had condemned before his own condemnation.

<103v>

Contemporary with this African schism, there was another one in Egypt whose origin Epiphanius reports as follows.

[Editorial Note 1] In the Later Roman Empire the prefecture of 'the Gauls' included other classical provinces such as Britain.

[Editorial Note 2] Sulpicius Severus to Aurelius Diaconus. Sulpicii Severi libri qui supersunt ed. Carolus Halm (Vindonona, 1866), 'Epistula Secunda ad Aurelium Diaconum'. Translation in Sulpicius Severus, Dialogues and Three Letters, tr. B.M. Peebles, in The Fathers of the Church, vol. 7 (New York 1949).

[Editorial Note 3] Hilary of Poitiers c.315-c.368. Champion of Trinitarian orthodoxy against Arius. He returned to Gaul from a four-year exile in Phrygia imposed by the Arian emperor, Constantius, in 360.

[Editorial Note 4] Is this in a previous notebook?

[Editorial Note 5] Prudentius, Peristephanon Liber [Crowns of Martyrdom], 6.142-59. Translation from Prudentius, ed. and tr. H.J. Thomson, 2 vols. Loeb Classical Library (London and Cambridge, Mass., 1949-53), vol. 2, pp. 212-13.

[Editorial Note 6] For praecucurrit Loeb has percucurrit.

[Editorial Note 7] Prudentius, Peristephanon liber, 1. 9-13 (Loeb vol. 2, pp. 98-9).

[Editorial Note 8] Prudentius, Peristephanon liber, 9.97-100 (Loeb vol. 2, pp. 228-29).

[Editorial Note 9] Prudentius, Peristephanon liber, 4.189-91, 197-200 (Loeb vol. 2, pp. 168-9).

[Editorial Note 10] Questions on Exodus 109 in Migne, PL. (1880), vol. 34, col. 635: 'martyres sancti, quorum orationibus propitiatur Deus'.

[Editorial Note 11] Migne, PL, vol. 34, pp. 645-6.

[Editorial Note 12] Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, in Migne, PL, vols. 36-7at p. : 'Natalitia sanctorum cum sobrietate celebrate, ut imitemur eos qui praecesserunt et gaudeant de vobis quo orant pro vobis; ut benedictio Domini in aeternum maneat super vos: fiat, fiat'.

[Editorial Note 13] Migne, PL, vol. 43, col. 225: 'Adjuvet itaque [Cyprianus] nos orationibus suis' etc.

[Editorial Note 14] De cura pro mortuis gerenda, ch. 4, Migne, PL, vol. 40, p. 596: 'non video quae sunt adjumenta mortuorum, nisi ad hoc ut dum recolunt ubi sint posita eorum quos diligent corpora, eisdem sanctis illos tamquam patronis susceptos apud Dominum adjuvandos orando commendent.'

[Editorial Note 15] 'memoria': 'memorial shrine' (Welldon ad De civ. Dei, I.4).

[Editorial Note 16] Orosius (?)

[Editorial Note 17] Augustine, Contra Faustum Manichaeum lib. xxxiii is in Migne, PL, vol. 42.

[Editorial Note 18] In Joannis Evangelium tractatus xxxiv is in Migne, PL, vol. 35.

[Editorial Note 19] Augustine, Sermones cccxcvi in Migne, PL, vols. 38-9. [I have not found the quotation in Sermon 17.]

[Editorial Note 20] Could it be 'in' or 'de'?

[Editorial Note 21] Jerome c. 347-420; Valens emperor in the east 364-78; Theodosius I, 379-95; Arcadius (East) 395-408; Honorius (West) 395-423.

[Editorial Note 22] Jerome, Epistles, in Migne, PL, vol. 22. In the CSEL edition, the epistle to Theodora appears to be no.75, and this passage looks like 75.2. Cf. Kelly, Jerome, 216.

[Editorial Note 23] Epistle 33. Bl(a)esilla, Paula's daughter, died in October/November 384 (Kelly, Jerome, p. 98-9).

[Editorial Note 24] In Epistle 108, to Eustochium?

[1] Ep 17

[Editorial Note 25] This Greek word is characteristically transliterated by Newton as homousians. The usual transcription, homoousians, better represents the Greek.

[2] ✝ Hieron. Ep. 1 in Vigilant.

[Editorial Note 26] Liber contra Vigilantium in Migne, PL, vol. 23, cols. 353-68. [is this first passage from ch. 5?]

[3] ✝ Ep. 2 adv. Vig

[Editorial Note 27] Cf. Gibbon on the relics of the Old Testament prophet Samuel: "His ashes, deposited in a gold vase and covered with a silken veil, were delivered by the bishops into each other's hands." Decline and Fall (Bury, 1909), chapter 28, volume 3, page 220.

[Editorial Note 28] The place of 'refreshing' or 'consolation' to which saints and martyrs go after death.

[Editorial Note 29] In the transcription this sentence is not printed as a question, but it looks as if it should be.

[Editorial Note 30] Jerome alleges in this sneer that Vigilantius' father was an innkeeper.

[Editorial Note 31] Eunomius, an extreme Arian (Chadwick, Church, 258)

[Editorial Note 32] This still seems to be the Liber contra Vigilantium.

[Editorial Note 33] This looks like Contra Vigilantium 7.

[Editorial Note 34] Paulinus of Nola, Carmina, 14, lines 98-103 in Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, vol. XXX, Paulinus Nolanus, Carmina, ed. G. de Hartel (Vienna 1999), p. 49. Also Migne, PL, vol. 61. A Natalitium is the anniversary of a martyr's death.

[Editorial Note 35] The text jumps abruptly from Paulinus on candles to Theodoret on the distribution of martyrs' body parts. Theodoret, (c. 393-c.460), Bishop of Cyrrhus, was a friend of Nestorius, who was forced to recant his views at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. He wrote a history of the church and numerous letters. His works are in Migne, PG,vols. 80-4.

[4] ✝ πόλεις καὶ κωμαι

[5] πρεσβεια

[6] ✝ δαίμονας

[7] των αγαθων μιν επανγέλλον τας τὴν φοράν

[8] ✝ πρεσβευτας

[9] των φιλτάτων

[Editorial Note 36] Apparently an Athenian festival in honour of Zeus Pandios (Brill's Neue Pauly, s.v.)

[Editorial Note 37] An Athenian festival in honour of Zeus Meilichios (Oxford Classical Dictionary, third edition, s.v.)

[Editorial Note 38] The Athenian festival in honour of Dionysus, at which the famous tragedies were performed.

[Editorial Note 39] These excerpts from Theodoretus, Graecorum Affectuum Curatio, ch. 7, 'De martyribus' are to be found in Migne, PG, vol. 83 (?), pp. 1011-34.

[Editorial Note 40] Basil, Homilia in Quadraginta Martyres, in Migne, PG, [vols. 29-32?], pp. 507-26 at 522: 'non in uno loco seipsos concludentes, multis locis jam hospitio excepti, regionesque multas adornantes. Et quod mirum est, non singulatim divisi accedunt ad suscipientes, sed inter se commisti conjunctim tripudiant'. St. Basil 'the Great', one of the three Cappadocian fathers, defended orthodoxy against the emperor Valens, an Arian. Soon after his death, partly as a result of his mediating efforts, the Arian controversy was settled by the Concil of Chalcedon, 381/2.

[Editorial Note 41] Cesare Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici, 12 vols. (1588-1607); co-author of Martyrologium Romanum (1584). [The Roman Martyrology, ed. J.B. O'Connell (1962)].

[10] ✝ Baron an 416. §17, 18, 19.

[11] a Baron an 415 §4

[12] b Euseb Gall. Hom. de S. Steph

[Editorial Note 42] Eusebius Gallicanus, Homily 3 on St. Stephen. These are homilies 'of Gallican provenance' (ODCC, ed. Livingstone) which were attributed to Eusebius, bishop of Emesa (Syria), who died in 359. They were called 'Gallican', I think, because the MS comes from somewhere in France (Clairvaux?).

[13] Innecte hæc miraculis sepulchralibus

[Editorial Note 43] The Orations of Gregory of Nazianzus are in Migne, PG, vols. 35 and 36.

[Editorial Note 44] Augustine, Confessions 9.7.

[Editorial Note 45] Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, 7.29. in Migne, PG, 67, pp. 843-1630. Newton's references to Sozomen in this passage are correct.

[Editorial Note 46] Arius was apparently a pupil of this Lucian of Antioch, who died as a martyr in 312.

[Editorial Note 47] [I cannot identify 'Sur.']

[Editorial Note 48] Augustine, Sermon 91 is in Migne 38, cols. 567-71.

[14] Can 14

[15] ✝ Epist 22.

[16] Augustin. de opere Monach. c. 28.

[Editorial Note 49] The repetitions are in the text.

[17] L. ult. de Sepulchro violato Theodos{ij}

[Editorial Note 50] Codex Theodosianus 9.17.7. The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions, ed. and tr. Clyde Pharr (Princeton U. P. 1952), p. 240.

[Editorial Note 51] This does not seem to say what needs to be said, but it is, I think, what the Latin, as it stands, says.

[Editorial Note 52] For these homilies 'of Gallican provenance', see note above.

[Editorial Note 53] Sozomen, The Ecclesiastical History (London: Bohn 1855), p. 423.

[Editorial Note 54] Sozomen, History, 9.16.

[18] ✝ In Epistola Ambrosij ad Sororem de Prot. et Gerv.

[Editorial Note 55] The works of Ambrose are in Migne, PL, vols. 14-17.

[Editorial Note 56] Revelation, 20.1-5.

[Editorial Note 57] There doesn't seem to be a closing bracket.

[Editorial Note 58] A Latin version of Lucian's Epistle containing this account is to be found at Migne, PL, vol. 41, pp. 807-18.

[Editorial Note 59] Ambrose, Epistle 22 in Migne, PL, vol. 16, col. 1062.

[Editorial Note 60] Paulinus was Ambrose's secretary. His Life of Ambrose is at Migne, PL 14, cols. 27-46. For this incident, see Life, §§14–16.

[Editorial Note 61] Ambrose's Sermons are in Migne, PL, vol. 17.

[Editorial Note 62] There seems to be something missing here. Perhaps Newton did not insert 'that Mosaic text'.

[19] Deutr 13.

[20] 2. Thes. 2.

[Editorial Note 63] Gaudentius, Bishop of Brescia; his Sermons are in Migne, PL, vol. 20, pp. 827-1002.

[Editorial Note 64] Ambrose, Exhortatio virginitatis bk. 1, ch. 1? [I have not found the alleged fact]

[Editorial Note 65] Ambrose, Epistle 22 in Migne, PL, vol. 16, pp. 1062-69?

[Editorial Note 66] Augustine, Sermon 11 is in Migne, PL, vol. 38, pp. 97-99, and is headed 'De Elia et vidua Sereptana'.

[Editorial Note 67] Jerome, Liber contra Vigilantium in Migne, PL, vol. 23, pp. 353-68.

[Editorial Note 68] Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History.

[Editorial Note 69] Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History.

[21] De curat. Græc. affect. cap. 9 in fine.

[22] Ib. cap 6.

[23] Ib cap 11.

[Editorial Note 70] I have translated angustiora, but I am wondering whether the correct reading is augustiora ('the grander tombs').

[Editorial Note 71] J.E.C. Welldon, D.D., ed., S. Aurelii Augustini De Civitate Dei contra Paganos libri xxii (London: SPCK, 1924). Welldon ad loc. says that Augustine is referring to Hermes Trismegistus.

[Editorial Note 72] Tyrannius Rufinus of Aquileia, Historiae ecclesiasticae, in Migne, PL, vol. 21, pp. 463-540.

[24] ✝ In Bibl. Græc. Patr.

[Editorial Note 73] Damasus, Pope from 366-84, adorned the tombs of the martyrs [in Rome?] with a series of marble inscriptions which he composed himself and had engraved by Filocalus. These lines however are apparently not genuine lines of Damasus, though often attributed to him in the past. They may be found at Migne, PL, vol. 13, col. 402. 'Constantina [d. of Constantine I, the foundress of the church of St. Agnes where these lines are engraved] … Sacravit templum victricis virginis Agnes, / Templorum quod vincit opus, terrenaque cuncta, / Aurea nam rutilant summi fastigia tecti:' This poem is inscribed just above that of Damasus on the wall of the apse, and was therefore wrongly ascribed to him. (Damasus also commissioned Jerome to prepare the Vulgate.) His works are at Migne, PL vol. 13, cols. 109-424.

[Editorial Note 74] Paulinus of Nola, Carmina, 14, lines 98-103 in Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina. Also Migne, PL, vol. 61.

[25] Antiq. inscrip. in Appen. p. 1164

[Editorial Note 75] [I think this is what the Pope is saying.]

[Editorial Note 76] Prudentius, Peristephanon Liber, 3.196-200.

[Editorial Note 77] Prudentius, Peristephanon Liber, 11.183-88.

[Editorial Note 78] Prudentius, Peristephanon Liber, 6.154(?)

[Editorial Note 79] Jerome, Epistle 52.10. Jerome's Epistles are in Migne, PL, vol. 22.

[Editorial Note 80] The Loeb prints subtrahunt rather than Newton's substruunt (Select Letters of St. Jerome, ed. F.A. Wright. Loeb Classical Library.).

[Editorial Note 81] Jerome, Commentarii in Hieremiam, in Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, vol. 74.

[Editorial Note 82] Prosper, Liber de praedictionibus et promissionibus Dei, in Migne, PL, 51, 1-868(?); Newton's passage seems to be at p. 835.

[Editorial Note 83] Migne, PL vol. 37, p. 1484.

[Editorial Note 84] Prudentius, Peristephanon liber, II.65-72 [Loeb translation used.]

[Editorial Note 85] Prudentius, Peristephanon liber, I.9.

[Editorial Note 86] Prudentius, Peristephanon liber, XI.210, quoted in full at 24r-25r.

[Editorial Note 87] ibid., line 218.

[Editorial Note 88] Daniel 11.38: 'He shall honour the god of fortresses instead of these; a god whom his fathers did not know he shall honour with gold and silver, with precious stones and costly gifts.' (RSV). 'But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces: and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.' (AV).

[Editorial Note 89] Leo I, pope 440-61.

[26] Serm. 1 de S. Petro et Paulo.

[27] Hom 66 ad Populum Antiochenum

[Editorial Note 90] John Chrysostom, c. 347-407, Bishop of Constantinople, 398-404. Works at Migne, PG, vols. 47-64.

[28] Exposit in Psal 114 sub finem

[Editorial Note 91] Erasmus published an edition of the Works of Jerome in 1516: Omnium operum Divi Eusebii Hieronymi …tomus primus (-nonus) … una cum argumentis et scholiis D. Erasmi (Basle 1516).

[Editorial Note 92] The Epistles of Jerome are in Migne, PL, vol. 22, and also in Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vol. 54. This quotation comes from Epistle 58.3.4.

[Editorial Note 93] Jerome, Epistles, 58.3.5

[Editorial Note 94] Jerome, Epistles, 58.4.4.

[Editorial Note 95] This seems to be a mistaken reference, since Jerome's sole (?) letter to Desiderius and indeed the passage Newton quotes are in Epistle 47.2.2 in CSEL, vol. 54.

[Editorial Note 96] Newton appears to be referring to Jerome, Epistle 108, where this incident occurs in §9.

[Editorial Note 97] This Epistle is in Migne, PL, vol. 61, cols. 190-99, but I have not found the passage Newton quotes.

[Editorial Note 98] Migne, PG, vol. 33 contains the 24 Catecheses of Cyril of Jerusalem.

[Editorial Note 99] This passage about Helena in the Holy Land (326-7AD) seems to be in Eusebius's Life of Constantine rather than in his Oration on the Praises of Constantine. Life, bk. III.43.4-5. Eusebius' Life of Constantine, it is to be found in Eusebius, Werke vol. I.1 in the series Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller.

[Editorial Note 100] The works of John Chrysostom are in Migne, PG, 47-64.

[29] Paulin. Epist {illeg}

[Editorial Note 101] Augustine's Sermons are in Migne, PL, vols. 38-9. Sermon 1 does not seem to be on Saints Peter and Paul but on a passage of Genesis.

[Editorial Note 102] Paulinus of Nola, Carmina, 14 in Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina. Also Migne, PL, vol. 61.

[Editorial Note 103] Prudentius, Peristephanon Liber,1.10-20.

[Editorial Note 104] Prudentius, Peristephanon Liber,11.189-94.

[Editorial Note 105] Prudentius, Peristephanon Liber,11.195-212.

[30] ✝ Roma

[Editorial Note 106] I adapt the Loeb translation in an attempt to follow the punctuation of the transcript.

[Editorial Note 107] Licinius had married Constantia in 313; he was executed by Constantine in 325.

[Editorial Note 108] Alexander, bishop of Alexandria.

[Editorial Note 109] Tyrannius Rufinus of Aquileia, Historiae ecclesiasticae, in Migne, PL, vol. 21, cols. 463-540.

[Editorial Note 110] Sozomen, History of the Church, 7.29. in Migne, PG, 67, pp. 843-1630.

[Editorial Note 111] Socrates Scholasticus, History of the Church.

[31] ✝ γεγενήμενος

[32] ✝ Patet hoc ex sequenti Epistola Eusebij et Theognis

[Editorial Note 112] Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia.

[Editorial Note 113] Theognis, bishop of Nicaea.

[Editorial Note 114] For this letter, see Stevenson, New Eusebius, no. 307 on pp. 376-7.

[33] Note: The contents of this note were not translated because the passage was deleted in the original manuscript

[34] ✝ ejusdem consuetudinis a Marco institutæ meminit etiam Hieronymus in Epist. ad Evagrium. Eandem tamen citius abrogatam fuisse dicit. Sed Eutýchi{um} magis fidendum est de rebus propriæ sedis scribenti.

[Editorial Note 115] Tyrannius Rufinus of Aquileia, Historiae ecclesiasticae, in Migne, PL, vol. 21, cols. 463-540; cf. P.R. Amidon, ed and tr., The Church History of Rufus of Aquileia, Books 9 and 10 (Oxford 1997), pp. 26-7.

[Editorial Note 116] Socrates Scholasticus, History of the Church. Critical edition in the series, Christlichen griechischen Schriftsteller.

[Editorial Note 117] Sozomen, History of the Church, 7.29, in Migne, PG, 67, pp. 843-1630. Critical edition in the series, Christlichen griechischen Schriftsteller.

[35] ✝ Athan. in vit. Anton.

[36] Note: The contents of this note were not translated because the passage was deleted in the original manuscript

[Editorial Note 118] Cesare Baronius (co-author), Martyrologium Romanum (1584). [See The Roman Martyrology, ed. J.B. O'Connell (1962)]

[Editorial Note 119] [Is this the 'circular letter' of Alexander excerpted in New Eusebius, no. 295, pp. 347-50?]

[Editorial Note 120] Apollinaris's Greek words help to elucidate the Latin: polle men apophuge chresamenos, kata theon de aneuretheis.

[Editorial Note 121] These numerals are in the text.

[37] ‡ In Epistola apud Athanasium Apolog. 2, sub initio.

[Editorial Note 122] See p. 30r above.

[Editorial Note 123] Hosius, bishop of Cordova (Ossius of Corduba).

[Editorial Note 124] New Eusebius, p. 359.

[38] ✝ Ruffin.

[Editorial Note 125] This story is told also at 90r.

[Editorial Note 126] It seems that Phanes was in Palestine.

[Editorial Note 127] Epiphanius, Panarion, Heresy 68.

[39] ✝ Apud Athanasium. Apol. 2. p 726.

[40] Apud Athan. Apol 2. p 726.

[41] ✝ Nondum quinque menses præterierant cum Alexander obijt: Meletiani autem – more canum non obliti vomitus sui, rursus Ecclesias perturbare incœperunt. Eusebius igitur hoc cognito, cum propugnator esset Arianæ hæreseos, ad illos literas dat, – & amicitiam clanculum ivit. Athanas. Apolog 2 pag 777.

[Editorial Note 128] No opening bracket.

[Editorial Note 129] [More commonly called Theognis?]

[42] ‡ Apud Theod. l. 1. c. 20

[43] Apolog 2 pag 777.

[44] ✝ Hieron. Chron.

[45] ‡ Artemius martyr sub Iuliano, Hieronymus, Ammianus, Orosius Aurel. Victor, Eutropius, alijs apud Baronium a. 324

[46] a Gentiles apud Sozom lib. 1 c. 5.

[47] b Eutrop. l 10

[Editorial Note 130] Ablavius, consul in 331, Praetorian Prefect from 326-37.

[48] Sidon. l. 5 Epist. 8.

[Editorial Note 131] Sidonius Apollinaris, Epistles, bk. 5, ep. 8, sect. 2. Sidonius is comparing a recent satire by a friend with the couplet by Ablavius.

[49] ✝ Baron. an 324. § 35.

[50] a. Baron. an. 324. 17, 19, 27, 35.

[51] b. Mich. Glyc. Hist. l. 4.

[52] c Zosim. l. 2

[53] d Sozom l 1. c. 5

[Editorial Note 132] In Greek in the text. The quotation is perhaps a variant reading in Revelation, 13.14.

[Editorial Note 133] Rev. 2.12-17.

[Editorial Note 134] Greek: 'so also are you'

[Editorial Note 135] ecclesia in classical Greek means 'assembly'

[Editorial Note 136] pas in Greek means 'all'.

[Editorial Note 137] Greek niko 'conquer; laos 'people'.

[Editorial Note 138] Rev. 12.16-17.

[Editorial Note 139] [I can make no sense of the text in either transcript]

[Editorial Note 140] Rev. 3.7-13.

[Editorial Note 141] Eusebius Pamphili seems to mean Eusebius, pupil of Pamphilus; Pamphilus was Eusebius' mentor (Chadwick, 143). This is Eusebius of Caesarea.

[Editorial Note 142] See previous note.

[54] Apud

[55] ✝ καὶ συνόντα τω γεγενηκό ἀυτὸν πατρὶ

[56] ✝ Niceph l. 8. c. 31

[57] ✝ οὐσίας

[58] ✝ ὑπόστασιν

[59] ‡ τη μὲν υποστάσει τρία

[60] ✝ γέννημα

[61] ✝ Socr. l. 2 c. 10

[Editorial Note 143] Athanasius, To the Hermits.

[Editorial Note 144] One of two third century martyrs called Quirinus.

[62] ✝ Socr. l. 2. c. 11 Sozom

[Editorial Note 145] These numbers are in the text.

[Editorial Note 146] 'The Thirty Pretenders', 22, in Scriptores Historiae Augustae, ed. and tr. D. Magie, Loeb Classical Library ((Harvard 1932), p. 18-19 (translation adapted to Newton's text).

[Editorial Note 147] Ammianus Marcellinus, History, 22.6.1.

[Editorial Note 148] Ammianus, 22.16.23.

[Editorial Note 149] The Loeb has a different text (obdurato illius tractus latrone invito elicere potuit), and translates: 'Any one of them would blush if he did not, in consequence of refusing tribute, show many stripes on his body; and as yet it has been possible to find no torture cruel enough to compel a hardened robber of that region (obdurato illius tractus latrone invito elicere potuit) against his will to reveal his own name.' Ammianus Marcellinus, with an English translation by John C. Rolfe, 3 vols. (Cambridge, Mass. 1935).

[Editorial Note 150] Flavius Vopiscus, 'Firmus, Saturninus, Proculus, and Bonosus', 7.4 in Scriptores Historiae Augustae (Loeb), vol. III, pp. 398-9. Translation slightly adapted.

[Editorial Note 151] This may be the edition of Historiae Augustae libri sex published by Claudius Salmasius, with notes by Isaac Casaubon, Paris 1620.

[Editorial Note 152] Julius, Bishop of Rome 337-52.

[63] ✝ Synod. Serd. Orient.

[64] ‡ Sozom l 3 c 7.

[Editorial Note 153] Or 'Sardica'.

[65] Editorial Note: This Note Empty

[66] ✝ In Biblioth. Græc. Patr.

[Editorial Note 154] Cf. the use of this word in 70r.

[67] Eunap. Ædesio.

[Editorial Note 155] This is apparently the text now called On the Incarnation of the Word and his Manifestation to us through the Body. Newton's quotation is from §48, pp. 254-55 in the edition by Thomson (Oxford 1971).

[68] ✝ Id patet ex literis quibusdam inter Basilium et Athanasium usque hodie extantibus. De quibus consule /

[Editorial Note 156] For this phrase, see also 22r, 95r.

[Editorial Note 157] I wonder if this could mean 'most devoted patron'?

[Editorial Note 158] Migne, PG 27, p. 41/2D-43/4A.

[Editorial Note 159] nobiscum orent in the Latin translation in Migne, op. cit., p. 45/6A.

[Editorial Note 160] Gregory of Nazianzus

[69] Edit. {Fronton} Ducæi Tom {6}

[Editorial Note 161] Gregory of Nyssa

[70] Antiq. inscript in Append. p. 1177.

[71] p 1172

[72] ✝ Nota morem nuncupandi vota martyribus. Ejus etiam alij meminerunt et Prudentius in Hymno de SS Hemeterio & Chelidonio Theoderitus de Curat Græc. affect c 8. Paulinus Natali 1, 2 & 4 S. Felicis, & Palladius in Hist. Laus. c 113

[73] p 1172

[Editorial Note 162] Dictionary of Christian Biography (ed. ), vol. 2, p. 284, s.v. 'Irene' (5).

[74] p 1172

[Editorial Note 163] This is likely to be Gruter, Inscriptiones Antiquae (Amsterdam 1707), vol. 2, p. 1172, no. 10 (not seen).

[Editorial Note 164] Ambrose as governor of Liguria came to Milan to quell the disorders that arose during the process of choosing a new bishop on the death of the previous bishop, Auxentius (Chadwick, 350-2).

[Editorial Note 165] [What was this?]

[Editorial Note 166] Cf. 58r.

[75] ✝ Hieron in vita Pauli Eremita Ep 50. Athanas. in vita Antonij. Athanasium juvenem, inquit Baronius, profectum in eremum adhæsisse magno illi Antonio ipse in ejus vita a se scripta significat. Baron an: 311. 63 & an 328. 5.

[76] ✝ anno 8 Valentiniani. Greg. Turonens.

[77] ✝ De Martino vide Sozom l 3. c 14. & vitam Martini a Sulp. Severo scriptam. De Augustino verò vide August. de diversis serm 28, 29 vel 48, 49. Et Possidium in vita S. Aug.

[Editorial Note 167] The status of a deacon.

[Editorial Note 168] Found at Migne, PL, vol. 17, Sermon 56 'De Natali sancti Eusebii Vercellensis episcopi', sects. 3 and 4 (p. 744).

[Editorial Note 169] Newton seems to leave both verbs in the text.

[78] L. 32 de Episc et Cler. et Cler. C Theod

[Editorial Note 170] This sentence seems to say the opposite of what the context requires.

[Editorial Note 171] Council of Elvira, c. 305, attended by 19 bishops, including Hosius.

[Editorial Note 172] 1 Timothy, 3.2; Titus, 1.6.

[Editorial Note 173] Epiphanius, Panarion.

[79] ✝ Vide Baron a 372. 42

[Editorial Note 174] This seems to mean 'Theodoretus on [the Epistle of] James and History, 2.30.'

[80] a L 16 de Pœnis C. Theod.

[81] b L. 20 de Episc. Eccles. & Cler. C. Theod.

[82] ✝ Baron. an. 394. 9, 10.

[83] L. 16 de Pœnis. C. Theod.

[84] ✝ De foris Episcoporum vide L

[Editorial Note 175] Libanius, Oration 30, 'To the emperor Theodosius, for the Temples' in Libanius, Selected Works, vol. 2, p. 91 ff. (Loeb Classical Library).

[85] ✝ Rom 13

[86] Note: The contents of this note were not translated because the passage was deleted in the original manuscript

[87] ✝ Hieronymus in vit. Hillar. & in Isa. 20.

[Editorial Note 176] [I have translated the previous words as they stand in the text]

[88] ✝ Augustin. Epist 50.

[89] Apud Optatum l 1.

[Editorial Note 177] In Migne, PL, vol. 33, p. 159 ff. this is Ep. 43; the quotation is on p. 169.

[90] ‡ Augustin. cont. Donatis post collat. l. 1, c. 33.

[Editorial Note 178] Acta Purgationis Felicis in Optatus, On the Schism of the Donatists, App. II (CSEL XXVI, pp. 197-204).

[Editorial Note 179] The name of this Duumvir was Alfius Caecilianus.

[Editorial Note 180] The highest municipal magistrate.

[Editorial Note 181] A Donatist informer.

[Editorial Note 182] The syntax is obscure here.

[Editorial Note 183] There is a lacuna here in the text of the Acta.

[91] ✝ in Prætorium

[Editorial Note 184] Vassall-Phillips translates ut tractaret as 'in order to preach'. O.R. Vassall-Phillips, ed., The Work of St. Optatus, Bishop of Milevis, Against the Donatists (London 1917).

[Editorial Note 185] The Synod of Arles convened 1 August 314 (Chadwick, 185). Henry Chadwick, The Church in Ancient Society (Oxford 2001).

[Editorial Note 186] The meaning and interpretation of this is unclear; cf. New Eusebius, 324.

[Editorial Note 187] A somewhat different version of these canons is at Stevenson, New Eusebius, 323-4.

[92] ✝ Parmen apud Augustinum contra Epist. Parmen l. 1, c. 5.

[Editorial Note 188] [Could this be Collatio cum Maximino in PL, vol. XLII?]

[93] Apud Baron an 314 § 44

[Editorial Note 189] Repetition in the text; closing bracket missing.

[94] ✝ Parmen apud Aug contra Epist Parmen. l. 1 c. 7.

[Editorial Note 190] Optatus Milevitanus, De schismate Donatistorum adversus Parmenianum libri VII in PL Xi, p. 884ff.. The quotation is from Optatus, I.26, in the translation by Vassall-Philips, pp. 49-52.

[Editorial Note 191] Philumenus was Constantine's magister officiorum at the time of the Council of Nicaea (Barnes, Athanasius, 21).

[Editorial Note 192] For this passage, cf. The Work of St. Optatus...against the Donatists (I.6), tr. O.R. Vassall-Phillips, pp. 49-52.

[Editorial Note 193] Silvester. A translation of this letter is given at Stevenson, New Eusebius, pp. 321-2.

[Editorial Note 194] Stevenson, New Eusebius, p. 321 notes that the text is doubtful here.

[Editorial Note 195] Apparently, an unknown place in Numidia.

[Editorial Note 196] This story is also told in much the same words at 31v above.

[Editorial Note 197] Epiphanius, Panarion, Heresy 68.

[Editorial Note 198] This story is also told in much the same words at 28r-29r.

[Editorial Note 199] These are presumably Alexander and Arius; Constantine's letters are in PL VIII, 93 ff. and VI, 32.

[95] ἀκρίτως

[96] Socr l 2 c 18

[Editorial Note 200] coingenitus. But Souter Late Latin Dictionary gives 'co-begotten' for coingenitus.

[Editorial Note 201] Cf. 1 Corinthians 11.3?

[Editorial Note 202] λόγον

[97] NB

[98] ✝ NB. Vniversa Ecclesia ad usque hæc tempora et ultra, hunc locum sic legit, versionem 70 interpretum secuta.

[99] # Athanasius numerat tantum 280, et in his multi sunt suppositij Numerat enim 95 Ægyptios cum tamen ipsa Synodus Serdicensis tam in literis ad Ægyptios quam in literis ad Iulium Papam numeret tantum 80. Theoderito igitur magis credendum est qui ex antiquis monumentis asserit 250 fuisse.

[100] ‡ Ipsa synodus scripsit octoginta fuisse: quod verius est: nam inter 76 quorum nomina extant in fine Epistolæ eorum non occurrunt Vrsasius et Ischyras, qui tamen adfuere

[101] Note: The contents of this note were not translated because the passage was deleted in the original manuscript

[Editorial Note 203] Epistle 1 of the Eastern and Western Council of Sardica (or Serdica).

[Editorial Note 204] The Eastern Council of Sardica

[Editorial Note 205] The Western Council of Sardica.

[102] ✝ Apud Athanas. ad Solitar

© 2024 The Newton Project

Professor Rob Iliffe
Director, AHRC Newton Papers Project

Scott Mandelbrote,
Fellow & Perne librarian, Peterhouse, Cambridge

Faculty of History, George Street, Oxford, OX1 2RL - newtonproject@history.ox.ac.uk

Privacy Statement

  • University of Oxford
  • Arts and Humanities Research Council
  • JISC