Rhipsimes and Gaiane, who first struck down the impudent Tiridates and then led him to the faith. A Many, I say, have seen with us the precious relics of this illustrious Leontius, which had neither shed their hair nor lost their nails, but were full of all the fragrance of ointments. And let these things not seem to surpass belief for anyone, for they are of such a kind, and the gifts of grace greater than these exist, for the exultation of the faithful, for the praise of the Churches, and for the glory of Christ our God, with whom to the Father be glory, and to the life-giving Spirit, now and always, and to the ages of ages. Amen.
Notes of Fr. Combefis
B Vitiose edita, ad finem. Thus, it is said, one must approach the sources, which the great Jerome so often inculcates. Furthermore, this great miracle of incorruption, such as the author describes regarding Leontius, I would not think to be common to that entire assembly of Fathers, although it may not have been entirely peculiar to Leontius alone. Baronius, in the year 325, where he narrates matters pertaining to the Council of Nicaea, while unraveling what the authors consistently assert regarding Leontius—namely, that he was present at that same synod when he was acting as bishop of Caesarea—considers the great Basil to have suffered a lapse of memory, who says that Hermogenes, his successor, sat among the Fathers in that council. C This, however, he says, we must note: since all the cited authors affirm that Leontius, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, was present at the Nicene Council, for whom his signature is found among others at the end, so that no doubt can arise concerning these matters; St. Basil is thought (human as he is) to have suffered a lapse of memory when he says that Hermogenes, the successor of Leontius, sat with the Fathers at the Nicene Council, saying: "Hermogenes was diametrically opposed to the Arian opinion, as is manifest from the faith which was first proclaimed by that man at Nicaea." In another place, the same Basil calls the same Hermogenes bishop of the city of Caesarea in Cappadocia. The first is epistle 82, the other 74. It is thought, therefore—but I think those who think so are in error—that clearly in other matters, and at times or by custom more remote, that human lapse might creep in, or even in Basil; but that it could occur regarding Leontius, whose disciple and successor he himself had been, albeit with Hermogenes and Eusebius in between, no one, in truth, could say with sufficiently probable reason, even if one wished to maintain that Basil spoke sensibly. Furthermore, that proof would be weaker—that Hermogenes was therefore diametrically opposed to the error of Arius because he had sat among the Fathers at the Nicene Council and, together with the others, had proclaimed the faith—since there were not lacking among them supporters of Arius and true Arians, who are also found to have subscribed to the synod. D Therefore, Basil intended something peculiar regarding his faith and entirely adverse to the Arian dogma, a true and genuine indication of which he hands down concerning him in epistle 319 to Innocent, while he satisfies one seeking a successor from Basil as from a primate, in this manner: "Observing in the assembly of the presbytery of the city, I chose the most precious vessel, the grandson of the blessed Hermogenes, who wrote down the great and unbreakable faith in that great synod." Diligently observing in the assembly of the city’s presbyters, I chose the most precious one, namely the grandson of the blessed Hermogenes, who wrote down that great and most firm faith in that great synod. This, I say, he intended as something singular for Hermogenes, such that parts of the drafting of the symbol had been entrusted to him by the synod, which, having been drafted by him—and he himself having declared it in it and through it with a clear proclamation—or if he was still established in minor orders, he nevertheless uttered it with his own voice, not sitting among the Fathers. By what reasoning, therefore, did the elder Alexander already count Athanasius the deacon, then a most strenuous athlete of the faith and a glorious companion in the struggles at the very synod—while the most illustrious Leontius counted the marvelous Hermogenes, then perhaps a presbyter, and already of such fame for doctrine and of such proven faith, that that task could have been entrusted to him by that holy synod, and he merited shortly after to succeed that worthy Father to his throne, and to transmit it to that great Basil himself—to whom, as if from an oracle, as Amphilochius narrates, he had been appointed after Leontius and the succession of Leontius, through the mediation of Eusebius (who was also orthodox): from which great succession neither Helladius, the successor and disciple of Basil, was in any way estranged, an excellent man himself and a strenuous defender of the faith, along with the same Amphilochius, Gregory of Nyssa, etc. Thus Baronius errs in many ways in expounding the authors whom he prunes; and would that Spondanus, his continuator, had imitated him when he himself was pruning, or even when he was writing out their entire places and tracts.
ANNNO DOMINI CXL. JOSEPHI GENESII CHRONOGRAPHIA Exstat inter Scriptores Byzantinos qui post Theophanem scripserunt. Vide tomum CIX, col. 989