LETTER XV. TO TURRIBIUS, BISHOP OF ASTURIA, UPON Leo, bishop, to Turribius, bishop, greeting. I. Introductory. take it ill that some one has been set over the falsehoods of those who have departed him, but let him himself render the obedience from the Gospel under the name of Christ, it which he demands of them: and as he does has plunged itself also in the shades of heanot wish to bear a heavy load of baggage, thendom, so as to rest their religious faith and so let him not dare to place on another's their moral conduct upon the power of shoulders a weight that is insupportable. For demons and the influences of the stars through we are disciples of the humble and gentle the blasphemous secrets of the magic arts and Master who says: "Learn of Me, for I am the empty lies of astrologers. But if this may gentle and humble of heart, and ye shall find be believed and taught, no reward will be due rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and for virtues, no punishment for faults, and all My burden light 3." And how shall we ex- the injunctions not only of human laws but perience this, unless this too comes to our also of the Divine constitutions will be broken remembrance which the same LORD says: "He down: because there will be no criterion of that is greater among you, shall be your ser- good or bad actions possible, if a fatal nevant. But he that exalteth himself, shall be cessity drives the impulses of the mind to humbled and he that humbleth himself, shall either side, and all that men do is through be exalted 4." the agency not of men but of stars. To this madness belongs that monstrous division of the whole human body among the twelve signs of the zodiac, so that each part is ruled by a different power: and the creature, whom GOD made in His own image, is as much under the domination of the stars as his limbs are connected one with the other. Rightly then our fathers, in whose times this abominYour laudable zeal for the truth of the able heresy sprung up, promptly pursued it catholic Faith, and the painstaking devotion throughout the world, that the blasphemous you expend in the exercise of your pastoral error might everywhere be driven from the office upon the LORD'S flock is proved by Church: for even the leaders of the world so your letter, brother, which your deacon has abhorred this profane folly that they laid low handed to us, in which you have taken care to its originator, with most of his disciples, by bring to our knowledge the nature of the the sword of the public laws. For they saw disease which has burst forth in your district that all desire for honourable conduct was from the remnants of an ancient plague. For removed, all marriage-ties undone, and the the language of your letter, and your detailed Divine and the human law simultaneously statement, and the text of your pamphlet, undermined, if it were allowed for men of this explains clearly that the filthy puddle of the kind to live anywhere under such a creed. Priscillianists again teems with life amongst And this rigourous treatment was for long a you 7. For there is no dirt which has not help to the Church's law of gentleness which, flowed into this dogma from the notions of all although it relies upon the priestly judgment, sorts of heretics: since they have scraped and shuns blood-stained vengeance, yet is together the motley dregs from the mire of assisted by the stern decrees of Christian earthly opinions and made for themselves a mixture which they alone may swallow whole, though others have tasted little portions of it. In fact, if all the heresies which have arisen before the time of Priscillian were to be studied carefully, hardly any mistake will be discovered with which this impiety has not been infected for not satisfied with accepting 8 3 S. Matt. xi. 29, 30. 4 Ibid. xxiii. 11. 12. 5 This Turrivius was a man of learning and zeal, Bishop of Asturia (Astorga) in Spain (province of Gallicia): canonized by the Roman Church and commemorated on April 16 (Hurter). The date of the letter is given as 21 Jul., 447. 6 Hurter distinguishes these three documents thus: (1) epistola, the private letter of Turribius to Leo; (2) commonitorium, the detailed statement (under 16 heads) of the Priscillianist errors; and (3) tibellus, Turribius' refutation of each head. This heresy was of Spanish origin, having been broached by Priscillian about 380. Their views will be seen in the sequel. 1 Priscillianistarum fœtidissimam apud vos recaluisse sentinam. 8 Multiplicem sibi fæculentiam miscuerunt. princes at times when men, who dread bodily punishment, have recourse to merely spiritual correction. But since many provinces have been taken up with the invasions of the enemy 9, the carrying out of the laws also has been suspended by these stormy wars. And since intercourse came to be difficult among God's priests and meetings rare, secret treachery was free to act through the general disorder, and was roused to the upSetting of many minds by those very ills which ought to have counteracted it. But which of the peoples and how many of them are free from the contagion of this plague in a district where, as you point out, dear brother, the 9 He alludes to the invasion of Spain by the German tribes (Perthel, p. 38). minds even of certain priests have sickened they support the Arians' mistake, who say that of this deadly disease: and they who were the Father is prior to the Son, because there believed the necessary quellers of falsehood was a time when He was without the Son: and champions of the Truth are the very ones and became the Father then when He begat through whom the Gospel of God is enthralled the Son. But as the catholic Church abhors to the teaching of Priscillian: so that the them, so also does it abhor these who think fidelity of the holy volumes being distorted to that what is of the same essence was ever profane meanings, under the names of pro- wanting to GOD. For it is as wicked to speak phets and apostles, is proclaimed not that of Him as progressing as it is to call Him which the Holy Spirit has taught, but what changeable. For increase implies change as the devil's servant has inserted. Therefore as much as does decrease. you, beloved, with all the faithful diligence in your power, have dealt under 16 heads with IV. (3) Their account of the epithet "Only bethese already condemned opinions, we also subject them once more to a strict examination; lest any of these blasphemies should be thought either bearable or doubtful. gotten" refuted. Again the third head is concerned with these same folk's impious assertion that the Son of GOD is called "only-begotten" for this reason that He alone was born of a virgin. To be II. (1) The Priscillianists' denial of the Trinity sure they would not have dared to say this, refuted. had they not drunk the poison of Paul of And so under the first head is shown what Samosata and Photinus: who said that our unholy views they hold about the Divine LORD Jesus Christ did not exist till He was Trinity they affirm that the person of the born of the virgin Mary. But if they wish Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost is one something else to be understood by their tenet, and the same, as if the same GOD were named and do not date Christ's beginning from His now Father, now Son, and now Holy Ghost: mother's womb, they must necessarily assert and as if He who begat were not one, He who that there is not one Son of GOD, but others was begotten, another, and He who proceeded also were begotten of the most High Father, from both, yet another; but an undivided unity of whom this one is born of a woman, and theremust be understood, spoken of under three fore called only-begotten, because no other of names, indeed, but not consisting of three GoD's sons underwent this condition of being persons. This species of blasphemy they bor- born. Therefore, whithersoever they betake rowed from Sabellius, whose followers were themselves, they fall into an abyss of great rightly called Patripassians also: because if impiety, if they either maintain that Christ the the Son is identical with the Father, the Son's LORD took His beginning from His mother, cross is the Father's passion (patris-passio): and the Father took on Himself all that the Son took in the form of a slave, and in obedience to the Father. Which without doubt is contrary to the catholic faith, which acknowledges the Trinity of the Godhead to be of one essence (óuoovatov) in such a way that it believes the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost indivisible without confusion, eternal without time, equal without difference: because it is not the same person but the same essence which fills the Unity in Trinity III. (2) Their fancy about virtues proceeding from GOD refuted. Under the second head is displayed their foolish and empty fancy about the issue of certain virtues from GOD which he began to possess, and which were posterior to GOD Himself in His own essence. In this again See above, n. 6. Quesnel draws attention to the fact that Leo's refutation of the Priscillianist heresy, which here follows, was adopted (almost) word for word by the first council of Bracara (Braga, in Portugal), held in 563, as a sufficient exposition of their own position. or do not believe Him to be the only-begotten of GOD the Father: since He who was GOD was born of a mother, and no one was born of the Father except the Word. V. (4) Their fasting on the Nativity and Sunday disapproved of. The fourth head deals with the fact that the Birth-day of Christ, which the catholic Church thinks highly of as the occasion of His taking on Him true man, because "the Word became flesh and dwelt in us 2," is not truly honoured by ing it, for they fast on that day, as they do these men, though they make a show of honour also on the LORD's day, which is the day of Christ's resurrection. No doubt they do this, because they do not believe that Christ the LORD was born in true inan's nature, but maintain that by a sort of illusion there was an appearance of what was not a reality, following the views of Cerdo and Marcion, and being in complete agreement with their kinsfolk, the 2 S. John i. 14. Manichæans. For as our examination has Himself suffers anything that may be inflicted disclosed and brought home to them, they 3 upon His nature. good, and is therefore not GOD'S creation, refuted. drag out in mournful fasting the LORD's day VII. (6) Their view that the devil was never which for us is hallowed by the resurrection of our Saviour: devoting this abstinence, as the explanation goes, to the worship of the sun : so that they are throughout out of harmony The sixth notice points out that they say the with the unity of our faith, and the day which devil never was good, and that his nature is by us is spent in gladness is past in self-afflic- not GOD's handiwork, but he came forth out tion by them. Whence it is fitting that these of chaos and darkness: because I suppose he enemies of Christ's cross and resurrection has no instigator, but is himself the source and should accept an opinion (like this) which tallies with the doctrine they have selected. VI. (5) Their view that the soul is part of the substance of all evil: whereas the true Faith, which is the catholic, acknowledges that the substance of all creatures spiritual or corporeal is good, and that evil has no positive exist ence ; because GOD, who is the Maker of the Universe, made nothing that was not good. The fifth head refers to their assertion that Whence the devil also would be good, if he man's soul is part of the Divine being 4, and had remained as he was made. But because that the nature of our human state does not he made a bad use of his natural excellence, differ from its Creator's nature. This impious and "stood not in the truth 9," he did not pass view has its source in the opinions of certain into the opposite substance, but revolted from philosophers, and the Manichæans and the the highest good to which he owed adherence: catholic Faith condemns it: knowing that just as they themselves who make such assernothing that is made is so sublime and so tions run headlong from truth into falsesupreme as that its nature should be itself hood, and accuse nature of their own sponGOD. For that which is part of Himself is taneous delinquencies, and are condemned for Himself, and none other than the Son and their voluntary perversity: though of course Holy Spirit. And besides this one consub- this evil is in them, but is itself not a substance stantial, eternal, and unchangeable Godhead but a penalty inflicted on substance. of the most high Trinity there is nothing in all VIII. (7) Their rejection of marriage concreation which, in its origin, is not created out of nothing. Besides anything that surpasses its fellow-creatures is not ipso facto GOD, nor, In the seventh place follows their condemnaif a thing is great and wonderful, is it identical tion of marriages and their horror of begetting with Him "who alone doeth great wonders 5." children in which, as in almost all points, No man is truth, wisdom, justice; but many they agree with the Manichæans' impiety. But are partakers of truth, wisdom, and justice. it is for this reason, as their own practices But GOD alone is exempt from any partici- prove, that they detest the marriage tie, bepating and anything which is in any degree cause there is no liberty for lewdness where the worthily predicated of Him is not an attribute, chastity of wedlock and of offspring is prebut His very essence. For in the Unchange- served. demned. body has been already condemned by the Church. able there is nothing added, there is nothing IX. (8) Their disbelief in the resurrection of the lost: because "to be" is ever His peculiar property, and that is eternity. Whence abiding in Himself He renews all things 7, and receives nothing which He did not Himself give. Accordingly they are over-proud and stoneblind who, when they say the soul is part of the Divine Being, do not understand that they merely assert that GOD is changeable, and 5 Ps. cxxxvi. 4. Their eighth point is that the formation of men's bodies is the device of the devil, and that the seed of conception is shaped by the aid of demons in the wombs of women: and that for this reason the resurrection of the flesh is not to be believed because the stuff of which the body is made is not consistent with 8 i.e. that evil is not anything positive, but only the negation or absence of good which is positive, just as black is not itself a colour, but only the absence of colour, whereas white is the presence (in due proportion) of all the colours of the spectrum. 9 S. John viii. 24. 6 The reader need hardly be reminded of the recorded revela a Latin ending (-atio); for which apparently the Low Latin of the tion of the great "I am" (Jehovah) to Moses (Ex. iii.). 7 Cf. Rev. xxi. 5. Plasmationem, a vile hybrid, being the Greek mλáoμa with Vulgate is responsible. Cf. Ps. cxix. 73, "et plasmaverunt me (quoted below, chap. x.). the dignity of the soul. This falsehood is without doubt the devil's work, and such monstrous opinions are the devices of demons who do not mould men in women's bellies, but concoct such errors in heretics' hearts. This unclean poison which flows especially from the fount of the Manichæan wickedness has been already arraigned and condemned by the catholic Faith. 2 X. (9) Their notion that "the children promise" are conceived by the Holy Ghost is utterly unscriptural and uncatholic. Faith cuts off from union with its body, per sistently and truthfully proclaiming that men's souls did not exist until they were breathed into their bodies, and that they were not there implanted by any other than GOD, who is the creator both of the souls and of the bodies. And because through the transgression of the first man the whole stock of the human race was tainted, no one can be set free from the state of the old Adam save through Christ's of sacrament of baptism, in which there are no distinctions between the re-born, as says the Apostle: "For as many of you as were bapThe ninth notice declares that they say the tized in Christ did put on Christ: there is sons of promise are born indeed of women, neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond but conceived by the Holy Spirit: lest that nor free: there is neither male nor female: offspring which is born of carnal seed should for ye are all one in Christ Jesus 7." What then seem to share in GoD's estate. This is re- have the course of the stars to do with it, or pugnant and contrary to the catholic Faith, the devices of destiny? what the changing which acknowledges every man to be formed state of mundane things and their restless diby the Maker of the Universe in the substance versity? Behold how the grace of God makes of his body and soul, and to receive the breath all these unequals equal, who, whatever their of life within his mother's womb: though that labours in this life, if they abide faithful, cantaint of sin and liability to die remains which not be wretched, for they can say with the passed from the first parent into his descendants; until the sacrament of Regeneration comes to succour him, whereby through the Holy Spirit we are re-born the sons of promise, not in the fleshly womb, but in the power of baptism. Whence David also, who certainly was a son of promise, says to GOD: "Thy hands have made me and fashioned me 3." And to Jeremiah says the LORD, "Before I formed thee in the womb I knew thee, and in thy mother's belly I sanctified thee 4." XI. (10) Their theory that souls have a previous Apostle in every trial: "who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long, we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.' (Ps. xliv. 22.) But in all these things we overcome through Him that loved us." And therefore the Church, which is the body of Christ, has no fear about the inequalities of the world, because she has no desire for temporal goods: nor does she dread being overwhelmed by the empty threats of destiny, for she knows she is strengthened by patience in tribulations. existence before entering man refuted. Under the tenth head they are reported as XII. (11) Their astrological notions condemned. asserting that the souls which are placed in men's bodies have previously been without Their eleventh blasphemy is that in which body and have sinned in their heavenly habi- they suppose that both the souls and bodies tation, and for this reason having fallen from of men are under the influence of fatal their high estate to a lower one alight upon stars: this folly compels them to become ruling spirits of divers qualities, and after entangled in all the errors of the heathen, passing through a succession of powers of the and to strive to attract stars that are as air and stars, some fiercer, some milder, are they think favourable to them, and to soften enclosed in bodies of different sorts and con- those that are against them. But for those ditions, so that whatever variety and inequality who follow such pursuits there is no place is meted out to us in this life, seems the result in the catholic Church; a man who gives of previous causes. This blasphemous fable himself up to such convictions separates they have woven for themselves out of many himself from the body of Christ altogether. persons' errors 6: but all of them the catholic Olim. Perhaps Leo refers to his own action mentioned in Lett. vii. 1. 3 Ps. cxix. 73. 4 Jer. i. 5. 5 In diversa qualitatis principes incidisse, cf. Rom. viii. 38; Eph. iii. 1o; Col. ii. 10, &c. 6 The Pythagorean doctrine of μereμvvxwσis (transmigration of souls) which was in a modified form accepted by Plato (Phædr. et alibi), would seem to have been the original source of this view of the soul's origin. It would naturally be palatable doctrine to the Gnostics and other philosophizing sects. In Lett. XXXV., chap. iii., it is attributed to Origen. For a modern exposition the reader cannot do better than refer to Wordsworth's ode on the intimations of Immortality in childhood. 7 Gal. iii. 27, 28. 8 Rom. viii. 35-37. : not changed, because its power of not changing is a gift, and not a property. XV. (14) Their idea that the Scriptures countenance their subjecting of the body to the starry influences denied. XIII. (12) Their belief that certain powers rule work the reformation of the inner man are the soul and the stars the body, is unscriptural pointed out in their names, and without this and preposterous. knowledge no soul can effect its reformation, The twelfth of these points is this. that they and return to that substance from which it map out the parts of the soul under certain came forth. But this wicked delusion the powers, and the limbs of the body under Christian wisdom holds in disdain, for it others and they suggest the characters of knows that the nature of the true Godhead the inner powers that rule the soul by giving is inviolable and immutable: but the soul, them the names of the patriarchs, and on the whether living in the body or separated from contrary they attribute the signs of the stars the body, is subject to many passions: whereas, to those under which they put the body. And of course, if it were part of the divine essence, in all these things they entangle themselves no adversity could happen to it. And therein an inextricable maze, not listening to the fore there is no comparison between them: Apostle when he says. "See that no one One is the Creator, the other is the creature. deceive you through philosophy and vain For He is always the same, and suffers no deceit after the tradition of men, after the change: but the soul is changeable, even if rudiments of the world, and not after Christ; for in Him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in Him ye are made full, who is the head of every principality and power 9." And again: "let no man beguile you by a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, treading on things which he hath Under the fourteenth heading their sentinot seen, vainly puffed up by the senses of ments upon the state of the body are stated, his flesh, not holding fast the Head from viz., that it is, on account of its earthly prowhom all the body, being supplied and knit perties, held under the power of stars and contogether through the joints and bands, in- stellations, and that many things are found in creaseth with the increase of GOD." What the holy books which have reference to the then is the use of admitting into the heart outer man with this object, that in the Scripwhat the law has not taught, prophecy has tures themselves a certain opposition may be not sung, the truth of the Gospel has not pro- seen at work between the divine and the claimed, the Apostles' teaching has not handed earthly nature: and that that which the powers down? But these things are suited to the that rule the soul claim for themselves may minds of those of whom the Apostle speaks, be distinguished from that which the fashioners "For the time will come when they will not of the body claim. These stories are invented endure sound doctrine, but having itching that the soul may be maintained to be part ears, will heap to themselves teachers after of the divine substance, and the flesh believed their own lusts: and will turn away indeed to belong to the bad nature: since the world their hearing from the truth, and turn aside itself, with its elements, they hold to be not unto fables"." And so we can have no- the work of the good GOD, but the outcome thing in common with men who dare to teach of an evil author: and that they might disor believe such things, and strive by any guise these sacrilegious lies under a fair cloak, means in their power to persuade men that they have polluted almost all the divine utterthe substance of flesh is foreign to the hope ances with the colouring of their unholy of resurrection, and so break down the whole notions. mystery of Christ's incarnation: because it was wrong for Christ to take upon Him complete manhood if it was wrong for Him to emancipate complete manhood. XIV. (13) Their fanciful division of the Scriptures rejected. In the thirteenth place comes their assertion that the whole body of the canonical Scriptures is to be accepted, under the names of the patriarchs 3: because those twelve virtues which XVI. (15) Their falsified copies of the Scriptures, and their apocryphal books prohibited. And on this subject your remarks under the fifteenth head make a complaint, and express a well-deserved abhorrence of their devilish presumption, for we too have ascertained this from the accounts of trustworthy witnesses, and have found many of their copies most corrupt, though they are entitled canonical. For how could they deceive the simple qualitates interiorum præsulum in patriarcharum nominibus (statute) of chap. xiii., and to have insisted on knowledge of the Scriptures as necessary to the proper action of those "* ruling prin ciples" on the soul. Cf. S. Aug. Letter CCXXXVII., chap. iii (Hurter.) |