Table of Contents of the Analytical Notes of Mat. Simonius

whoever, moreover, receives this diatribe of ours attentively and patiently will judge it to have been, on the one hand, no less necessary and pious for the repelling of an unjust accusation—something honorable to us—than for the defense and illustration of your own doctrine and that of the Church. But from you, most illustrious Prelate, I ask this final thing, which I trust I shall obtain: that you preserve for me your whole heart and benevolence against my accusers; and then, that as I in turn promise to you that I am a supporter of your dignity, not like some, by criticizing the labors of others, but in a good and upright manner—by defending, as far as it is permitted, your own memorials—I may remain yours forever. Farewell.

INDEX OF THE DISPUNCTIONS OF MAT. SIMONIUS REGARDING THE ANCIENT RITE OF PENANCE IN THE CHURCH.

CAPUT I. Dispunctions discussed, regarding the names of Novatus and Novatian. It is shown that these ought not to be used indiscriminately. Why the Novatians were condemned as heretics; and regarding the conflict of the dispunctor (author) with himself and with the opinion of R. D. Albaspinaeus; which itself is also contested.

It is strange at the very opening of the chapter, and not a common ^A *parakindyneuma* (a venturesome undertaking): since Novatus and Novatian were two distinct persons, and were the same in neither country, customs, nor character; yet, he who has gathered one out of the two, does not consider that he is either erring himself, or mixing and confusing others. Who can solve this enigma? He states: It is agreed that there were two, of whom one was Roman, the other African. And yet, he says: "None have erred in this, that they mixed those two into one." I would not deem this mystery worth knowing for gold. Tell me, learned sir, what do you think it is to confuse two individuals with each other? Is it not to transfer to one of them those things which are so peculiar to the other that they cannot at all apply to him—to share their names, genus, sayings, deeds, and finally all other things indiscriminately? Compare those Greek and Latin writers whom I have either cited or omitted in my Diatriba: you will see the very thing. But observe the subtlety. "They did not mix them," he says, "because they only knew of one." Very ingenious. Indeed, "mixing" is of two. But what necessity is there to have known both individually? For if they were able to know and discern them, surely they would not have confused them. Therefore, so that any two may be said to be confused and mixed, will you offer a condition of such a kind that ensures they *do not* get confused? What could be more absurd? Did Gregory Nazianzen and others confuse two Cyprians between themselves, or was it necessary to have known the individuals first, before they could be considered to have confused them?

But who would grant you this: that it will be of no harm to anyone to have called the African Novatus and the Roman Novatian, "Novatian" and "Novatus" indiscriminately and indifferently? Surely it will not be of such harm that it pertains to the main cause; but from error and reprimand, no grammar of yours will clear you. "Words," you say, "being slightly altered, are reduced in various and manifold ways, by lengthening, adding, taking away, or changing letters or syllables." Therefore the same will be King, that is, *regulus, regillus, regillianus*; ^B just as one is said to be called a king from the surname, as in the Marcia family, so from other surnames, which are declined from the same source, he could have been called. Likewise, it will have been of no harm to anyone to call Victor the historian, Victorinus; or Cato, *Catus, Catium, Catienum*, to use them *adiaphoros* (indifferently). I omit the rest of the same kind and absurdity.

In my Diatriba (a) I wrote that the Novatians had once excluded the right of releasing sins from the Church: Indeed, that that single indulgence of sins resides in the judgment of the Church, which is obtained through baptism. You confess (b) that you do not understand this. What shall I do? That indeed I do not follow in your reasoning: that Novatus, or Novatian, were held as heretics and proscribed by the Catholic Church because they asserted that no right existed in the Church to reconcile the lapsed and to forgive sins, is a discourse of a tortuous question. You seem to wish to argue against what I said: *that Novatus and Novatian were held as heretics, and proscribed by the Church, because they said that no right existed in the Church to forgive crimes.* And yet, you approve of this with the authority and voice of the Council of Trent. This duty is welcome. But, you say, his words ring of nothing else than that, among the other errors of the Novatians, this was one. Do I say anything else? Page 227, our words are: *Because they took away from the Church and the priests the power of the keys, as they call it, to omit the rest of their errors, the Novatians were condemned as heretics.* It concerned him who would write a Dispunction to refute and deny this.

But also he ^C *maten pterygizei* (flutters in vain), and your disputation runs into itself and, even unwillingly, slides back into what it opposes. What is it that, from the fourth page and consecutively, you strive to prove until the end of the chapter? I suppose it is that Novatian was not held as a heretic for this one error alone—that he denied that the right and power of the keys to release crimes resided with the Church. I neither said this, nor was it at all necessary to demonstrate the contrary. But let us see, then, how you persuade others of that same thing. You bring forward a passage of Cyprian, who, when asked by Antonianus what heresy Novatian had introduced, responds thus: *You should know, in the first place, that we ought not even to be curious as to what he teaches, since he teaches outside. Whoever he is, and whatsoever he is, a Christian*...

^A the passage from Cyprian is brought forward by you to the end that you might show that someone else was judged a heretic for an error other than that he detracted from the Church's right of the keys. For you wished to attack this as if it had been posited by me. But what, in truth, is more alien to that hypothesis and the design of your disputation than that testimony from Cyprian? For show me, even noted in writing within those words, any other error for which he deserved to be considered a heretic. Cyprian denies that one should inquire too curiously as to who that author of heresy is, who does not teach in the Church, that is, who has divided himself from it by schism. There is not a single word about the error or the heresy itself—what kind it is, or what it contains. For the other dogma as well, which is gathered from the commentary of Ambrose on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 6: "He who commits fornication sins also against the Holy Spirit," for which reason he was cut off from the Church, is not to be accepted in such a way that he was judged a heretic precisely for asserting that. Rather, because he thought that sins against the Holy Spirit were of such a kind that they could in no way be released; and because he believed this was concluded from the authority of the Gospel wrongly understood, he taught that the sin of fornication, among others, was in that sense and intent against the Spirit, so that it could not be released by ecclesiastical law and power. For which reason he first brought about a divorce; then, when the error was more fully recognized, he was condemned as a heretic for that very reason. Of these two things, that is, schism, not heresy, the author of the Commentaries indicates in those words: "for which reason he was cut off from the Church." But between us the controversy is not about schism, but about dogma and heresy. For which reason that passage does not assist your cause at all.

But behold: "Three," you say, "errors of the Novatians does the 8th canon of the Nicene synod touch upon." I ask, which ones? The first is that they called themselves Cathari. Is this, in your judgment, an error, or a heresy, for the sake of which Novatian was considered a heretic? Who would condemn, as a heretical dogma, any bare name—however stupid and tasteless—unless there were something else underlying it? Then I would have you note that the Novatians were considered heretics for this reason, that they called themselves Cathari—this has nothing to do with Novatus or the Novatianist [view]; for I do not think it is established whether he ever called himself a Catharus. But yet you speak of the author of the sect himself, Novatus or Novatian, not of his disciples and partisans (a); and indeed you ought to speak so, especially since you conclude at last in this way: "By steps, therefore, rather than by a precipitous course, did Novatus fall." The second error [is] that they departed from the decrees of the Catholic and Apostolic Church; the third, that they utterly rejected the communion of digamists and the lapsed. I am amazed that two different dogmas and errors are thrust upon me, which in that Nicene canon are held as one and the same. The words of the council:

PRO OMNIBUS AUTEM EOS SCRIPTIS PROFITERI OPORTET, QUOD CONSENTIANT, ET SEQUANTUR DOGMATA ECCLESIAE CATHOLICAE ET APOSTOLICAE: ID EST, ET CUM DIGAMIS COMMUNICARE, ET HIS QUI IN PERSECUTIONE LAPSI SUNT.

[ADVERSUS MAT. SIMONIUM.]

Chapter II

Explication of what it is to grant penance; Innocent’s passage, wrongly accepted in the *Dispunctiunculæ*, is elucidated. The conflict of the *dispunctor* with himself and with Catholic doctrine. And also with the Reverend Lord Albaspinaeus, whose teaching is defended. Concerning the fourth degree of penance. It is shown that penitents sometimes remained in it permanently. That communion was once represented as being at the point of death: this from the mind of the Council of Nicaea.

Lemma of the second chapter: Concerning what kinds of sins, and to what extent, communion was denied in the early Church. What weight this inscription has, or why it was prefixed, I cannot divine. For it is either the subject matter for the following disputation, and a summary of those things which are treated in this chapter, or it is the argument of the chapter which he undertakes to oppose, or the *krinomenon*. The *dispunctor* has provided neither of these there. Read the chapter itself, and if you can, extract even the smallest part of it that aligns with the inscription itself. He brings nothing here concerning the kinds of sins for which communion was either represented or denied—*oikothen* [from his own resources]; he refutes nothing proposed by us on that matter, not even in the slightest degree. He harasses a few things, and those certainly not *kairia* [opportune]. Peace, he says, or reconciliation with the Church, which is called absolution, is separated from the Eucharist by a long interval. I suppose there was a danger that someone might confuse absolution with the Eucharist, just as if one were to fancy that a medicine is the same thing as health, or conflate the right to receive the annual fruits of a benefit with the fruits themselves and the grain. No one has been so dull as to believe that absolution is the Eucharist. Therefore, there was no need to labor [the point], neither so that we might understand more easily, nor that we might understand at all. It follows: We must know that in Innocent’s Epistle to Exuperius, penance, absolution, the reconciliation of communion, does not signify the Eucharist. Who is unaware of this? But still, it is helpful to learn what penance is. Penance, he says—that is, the desire to repent—when the blood of the Savior was still warm, was a gift of God which fell upon the souls of the faithful. What now, after that blood has grown cold? Has it ceased to be a gift of God? Or are we to be Pelagians today, so that we would wish the desire to repent to come from somewhere other than the gift of God? It was, he says, a gift of God when the blood of the Savior was still warm. Therefore, it is no longer a gift of God at this time? There follows an ^A *apodeixis* [demonstration] from Leo and Augustine that the Eucharist differs from penance. It was a matter of such great effort to assert or persuade that penance is a gift of God and obtainable without absolution! Beginners in the schools of theology know this, for they have learned that penance is otherwise a feeling of the mind and a duty of a certain virtue; concerning what kind it is, they still argue among themselves today. But that with Innocent penance is nothing other than that sorrow of heart and gift of God, perhaps I shall believe tomorrow, not today; I return yours to you.

Innocent to Exuperius in Epistle 3, chapter 2: And this has been inquired into, he says, what must be observed concerning those who, having been given over to incontinence and pleasures at every time since their baptism, request at the extreme end of their life both penance and the reconciliation of communion. Regarding these, the ^B former observance is harsher, the latter, with the intervention of mercy, is more inclined to indulgence. For the former custom held that penance should be granted to them, but communion should be denied, etc.

Here, penance seems to be something completely different than that interior feeling and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. For it can neither be granted nor denied by men; and as for that which, unless they had already received it, they would never ask for from men—whatever it may be—that is what must be provided by men. Therefore, penance, of which the pontiff speaks, is something else: namely, the right and power of undergoing penance, provided that they might be snatched from the jaws of death and recover; which power was undoubtedly conferred by some rite unknown to us, and by a blessing. This is what I say it is to grant penance; to enroll someone among the penitents, with that rite and ceremony and formula by which it was permissible to be received into the flock of penitents. You hold a different view. Truly, I do not envy you, nor do I attack you. But nevertheless, let us proceed to dispute concerning Innocent’s passage. It was asked by Exuperius what should be established concerning those who, having been given over to incontinence at every time since their baptism, ask for penance and communion at the extreme end of their life. Innocent replies that the custom of previous times was harsher, so that penance was granted to them, but communion was denied. The ^C *dispunctor* interprets this as follows (b): For when the storm of persecutions was raging, to those who were moved by penance, as it was a gift of God, penance was granted; that is, the Church approved of that penance: but without the absolution of sins. But when peace was restored to the Church, it pleased that communion—that is, pardon or the absolution of sins—should be given to the dying; and therein was condemned, though only after a long interval, the heresy of the Novatians, because they did not relax pardon for the dying. What kind of thing is that first one, to grant penance, that is, to approve that gift of God by which sinners have been moved? Who speaks in this way? For to grant is to bestow something which lies in the power of him who grants. Here, he who approaches the Church or the priests ^D to obtain penance, what need does he have to ask that it be granted to him, which he has already received from Him who is able to give it? Furthermore, why did he not say "to admit to penance," or "to approve," but "to grant"? But let that contention over words be omitted, if you like. The rest of the whole interpretation is too ambiguous. I want you to answer me, what do these things mean: "while the storm of persecutions was raging"? Whether you understand that whole period during which the Church was tossed at intervals, and repeatedly shaken by intermittent storms of persecutions, which lasted until about the year 310, and even longer. For these are the times of the persecutions; not because it was afflicted with perpetual and continuous storms of this kind—

^A but because this hostile oppression weighed upon parts of those times. Do you believe, then, that during that whole time, namely those two or three centuries, the discipline of the Church was such that communion was denied to any penitents whatsoever, and that no absolution of sins being granted, only penance was conceded? That is, as you explain it, that the inner sense, divinely instilled into the minds of men, was approved. Your words provide no other interpretation, which teach generally that to those affected by that gift of God, the absolution of sins was by no means granted, but merely that penance was approved.

From this it follows that to no one after a fall was communion—that is, absolution—restored. Was no penitent reconciled to the Church during all that time? Was no one restored to his former state? For those who had once sinned, were they excluded forever from the Church and from the usage of the sacraments? ^B At the very least, you should state that those who had committed certain most grievous crimes were specifically excepted from such severity, which we have shown in the chapter marked by the enumerator was something instituted in the Church only in ancient times for a triple category of crimes. But that all penitents, and those punished with penance for any kind of crime whatsoever, were forever bereft of absolution and communion, is neither true, nor, to say the least, can it be persuaded by any reason or authority. I will repeat again: this reasoning of yours seems to define what you have proven to no one: that in those ancient times, when persecution raged, no one who had sinned more grievously—that is, who performed public penance—could be absolved, reconciled, or restored to communion and the sacraments. For you teach, indefinitely and without limit, that while the storm of persecutions raged, for those who were moved by the gift of penance—that is, by an inward sense of sorrow—that penance was indeed approved, but without the absolution of sins. You add that once peace was restored to the Church, it pleased [the Church] that forgiveness, or the absolution of sins, be given to those who were dying; and that in this, though at a long interval, the heresy of the Novatians was condemned, because they did not relax forgiveness to those who were dying. Thus, so late and at length, was that custom introduced into the Church, that communion was restored to penitents; and not even then at any time, but only in danger of death. ^C You therefore argue thus: In the first times of the Christians, which were infested by persecutions, absolution was utterly denied to those who were moved and were penitent, even in danger of death; but when tranquility was restored, it was conceded only to the dying; and that it was for this sole reason—that peace and reconciliation were at least granted to the dying—that the Novatians were condemned. Your speech and intention are demonstrated not only by that which I cited from page 2, where you write that while the storm of persecution raged, penitents were admitted only to penance without hope of reconciliation; which you take to apply as much to those who were healthy and strong as to those who were dying. For you add that a different and milder custom was subsequently received, which only relaxed it for those who were dying, and in that you condemned the heresy of the Novatians. These things therefore not only argue that in those ancient times absolution was permitted to no penitents at all, and later only to the dying, but also [they argue] those things which you discuss on page 13, when you explain these words of Innocent: "Communion was rightly denied, penance was granted, lest it be denied altogether," into this meaning: "By the approval of penance by the Church, the bond of excommunication was loosened, although absolution was not conceded." Which you think should be understood universally and of the whole class of penitents. For Innocent speaks of those times in which, while the storm of persecutions raged, you said that absolution was conceded to no one at all.

Since, therefore, your mind and opinion are evident, I deny that this mind and this opinion of yours are in agreement with the truth, with the authority of the ancients, and with the customs of the Church, to say nothing more severe. For this being established, no reason appears why the Novatians would have made a divorce with the Catholic Church. For what is it that this heretical faction was principally fighting? I suppose it did not want the lapsed and other sinners to be admitted to the peace and communion of the Church. It did not exclude them from the hope of forgiveness and salvation; it did not reject from sinners that inward gift of God, that is, the intimate sorrow of the soul and penance. On the contrary, they encouraged them to penance, and to that extent conceded—that is, approved—penance. Socrates, in his account of the author of the faction, Novatus (Lib. IV, cap. 13), relates that he himself wrote to the churches everywhere: "Not to receive those who have lapsed into the mysteries; but rather to urge them to penance, and to leave the forgiveness to God, who is able and has the power to forgive ^D sins." That is, [the Novatians taught] all the Churches not to receive the lapsed to the mysteries, but to urge them to penance, while leaving the absolution to God, who has the power and the faculty to pardon sins. Therefore, the Novatians conceded—that is, they approved—penance. This is also signified by those words of Ambrose (Lib. I, De pœnit., cap. 2): "But what is harsher than to indicate penance, which they do not relax?" etc. Whoever thinks that to concede penance is nothing other than that gift of God, and to approve of the sorrow that has fallen into the sinner's soul, will admit that the Novatians granted penance, and thus in this respect did not differ from the Catholics; for the fact that the Novatians further denied that the right of remitting sins resided with the Church, while the Catholics affirmed it, has nothing to do with the matter: first, because in the previous chapter you seemed to deny that the Novatians taught this at the beginning, and that they arrived at it only through certain stages. Wherefore, at that first stage of error, I would like you to respond why Novatus then separated himself from the Catholics because he did not believe that peace should be granted to the lapsed for their forgiveness, if the same thing had been done by the Church. Furthermore, because the controversy was moved by them regarding matters of fact before it was regarding matters of right. I now show that what you discuss is most false;

^A that proof is not of the kind which he confirms; but he pronounces after the Pythagorean manner, that penitence is granted to sinners only without absolution. I believe Tertullian flourished in those very times when the storm of persecution was raging, and when he asserts that peace was entirely denied to penitents. But in his book *De praescript.*, he teaches that Marcion the Pontic—who he said had been cast out of the communion of the Church because of the seduction of a certain virgin—was about to be admitted to peace, had he not been forestalled by death. Therefore, that man, though covered in so many crimes and an infamous heresiarch and sacrilegious, would have obtained peace had death not prevented it. Tertullian's words are in chapter 30: "Marcion later, having confessed his penitence, was about to receive peace as he met the condition laid upon him, if he also restored to the Church the others whom he had instructed in perdition, but he was forestalled by death."

To these things, who does not know that in the same century, though Tertullian, now a heretic, clamored in vain, peace was granted to adulterers after penitence by Pope Zephyrinus and the Catholics? Peace had not yet been restored to the Church, and the storm of persecutions was still raging, when the Church showed that indulgence, or the absolution of sins, was for the living just as for the dying; nor did it only approve of penitence, but it also granted peace and the reconciliation of communion. Cyprian also lived while the storm of persecutions was raging, before peace had been restored to the Church, in the same times as the heresy of the Novatians arose. He writes a letter to Antonianus, which is the 2nd of book IV: "For to adulterers," he says, "a time for penitence is granted by us, and peace is given." Also: "I wonder, however, that some are so obstinate as to think that penitence should not be granted to the lapsed, or that pardon should be denied to the penitent." Furthermore, in the book *De lapsis*, he complains only of this: that they think there is peace—which some sell with fallacious words—before sins are expiated, before an *exhomologesis* of the crime has been made, before the conscience has been purged by the sacrifice and hand of the priest, before the offended Lord has been appeased in His indignation and threats. Regarding which he also complains elsewhere ^B commonly, especially in epistle 10 to the clergy, and epistles 12 and 15 of book II. And epistle 41: he permits raped virgins to return to the Church after full penitence once *exhomologesis* has been made. Indeed, he even decides in epistle 54 that, because of the impending persecutions, the periods of penitence should be shortened and peace should be represented to the lapsed. But I fear that to accumulate Cyprian's authorities might be too long and superfluous. For his letters are full of very certain and most evident testimonies, from which it appears that, with the storm of persecution raging, the absolution of sins was granted to penitents, to the living as equally as to the dying; and it is not true, as you write, that the heresy of the Novatians was condemned only after a long interval, because they did not relax pardon for the dying. That this was done in the Church while Novatian was still alive—nay, even before Novatian—has been sufficiently shown. Let the penitential canons of Gregory Thaumaturgus and others be added, ^C published while the storm of persecution still raged; in which a time of penitence is described, and in the end communion and absolution are proposed. That confessor Serapion, whom Eusebius mentions in book VI, chapter 26 of *Eccl. Hist.*, because he had sacrificed to idols, having been rejected for a long time, was admitted to the communion of the Lord's body at the very time of death: which Dionysius of Alexandria reports in Eusebius as being commanded by him: "A command having been issued by me," he says, "'that those departing this life, if they should ask, and especially if they had previously petitioned, should be absolved.'" By a mandate issued by me, that the dying, if they asked for it, especially if they had previously supplicated, should be absolved. Therefore, there is no doubt that before peace was restored to the Church, and not long after the rise of the Novatians, peace and communion were restored to the dying, which Cyprian also testifies was used by him in his letters.

How much more, then, do I marvel that you write these things, knowing full well that they so openly contradict the authority of Tertullian, Cyprian, and all other writers and canons, so that their falsity is evident to anyone even moderately knowledgeable in these matters. What of the fact that this same doctrine of yours most manifestly fights with those things which you taught in your first chapter? For in that chapter, page 6, you bring forth from Eusebius that decree of the Roman council, which was celebrated in the time of Novatian, ^D which bids that Novatus and his supporters, puffed up with such pride, and as many as assented to that most inhuman opinion of his, so alien to fraternal charity, be held in the same number as those who were excluded from the Church. What is this sentence full of inhumanity, for which Novatus was condemned? I suppose it is that which Eusebius reports in the same chapter 55, book VI, from where you drew these things: that he took away all hope of pardon from the lapsed. Therefore, Novatian having been condemned, it was established that the same lapsed could be cured by the medicines of penitence and restored to health. Even then, therefore, as is apparent, the lapsed obtained absolution of sins from the Catholic Church. And yet, in this very second chapter of dispunctions, page 2, you assert that while the storm of the persecutions was raging, absolution was denied to the penitent, that is, to those touched by that gift of God, and that it pleased the Church to give absolution—that is, pardon or the absolution of sins—to the dying only when peace was restored to the Church; and that in this the heresy of the Novatians was condemned, because they did not relax pardon for the dying. White is no more contrary to black than the sentiment of the latter chapter is to the doctrine of the former. If the heresy of Novatian was condemned long after the time of Novatian and when the persecution was finished; by this very fact, that pardon was permitted only to the dying, how is it true, as you were just now bringing forth from Eusebius and that Roman council (which was certainly held in the time of persecution), that the most inhuman opinion of Novatus, and that most alien to fraternal charity, had been condemned while he himself was still alive? For Novatian only to that extent allowed hope of pardon to the lapsed

whereby he drew them away from the Catholic Church; yet he approved of that affection of penitence, or gift of God and sorrow, or whatever it may be, which penitents obtained without absolution, as we have demonstrated from Socrates, bk. IV, ch. 13, and Ambrose, bk. I, *De poenitentia*, ch. 2, in *Animadv.*, ch. 1. ^A Wherefore, the fact that you confess the dogma of Novatian was condemned in the Roman council on the authority of Eusebius, ch. 1, is the very thing which you demonstrate in your second chapter was rejected and proscribed only at a long interval after him; and that in the very time when you said it was condemned in your first chapter, it was approved in the Catholic Church by custom and usage. These are self-contradictions. As long as the fury of persecution raged—that is, in the age of the council of Novatian, Cyprian, and the Romans, of which Eusebius makes mention—absolution of sins was not granted even at the point of death, as you assert on page 2 of that chapter: and that discipline of the Catholic Church, by your own authority, existed. It is false, therefore, what you posited in the first chapter, page 6: that the most inhuman opinion of Novatian, and one most alien to fraternal charity, was condemned in the Roman council. For you will not say that another opinion was condemned there than that which denied communion and pardon to those who had lapsed in danger of death, ^B since you confess on page 2 that the error of such a sect was that very thing. But if this, which you write in your first chapter, is true—that it was decreed by a council, as no prudent man would deny—then you must retract that other statement of your second chapter: that not even to the dying was pardon accustomed to be granted before the peace of the Church was restored.

Now I shall show that which I prescribed for myself in the very heading of this chapter: that in the disputation of your second chapter you fight against the most certain doctrine of the Reverend Lord Albaspinaeus, Bishop of Orléans, which is consonant with ecclesiastical faith and piety. You write on page eleven, as has been said: "Only after peace was restored to the Church, and a long interval after Novatian, was pardon granted to the dying, and then at last the heresy of the Novatians was condemned, because they denied pardon to the dying." The most reverend bishop, on the contrary, in bk. II, *Obs.*, ch. 20, writes that Cornelius, who lived during the time of Novatian and the persecution, convened a council in which it was decreed and predetermined that when they had extended penance even to the day of death, they should be made partakers of communion. Therefore, the bishop thinks that even during the time of persecution, and before peace was restored to the Church, while Novatian was still alive, pardon was granted to the dying: a thing which you think was granted only much later and not until peace was established, and at a long interval, as you say. Whose opinion, then, shall be approved? I believe that not even you yourself would doubt that the most learned bishop is more true—nay rather, that he alone says what is true, and that you have not written even what is probable in that entire chapter.

Behold another of your dogmas regarding penance ^C in agreement with the opinion of the same, how can it exist? You teach us, on page 8, that the penance about which Innocentius instituted his discourse—when he says that it was granted when communion was once denied—is the desire for penance, or the gift of God, which flowed into the hearts of the faithful. The Reverend Lord Albaspinaeus, in bk. II, *Observ.*, ch. 3, p. 228, judges that this gift of God and inspiration is a fruit and effect which redounded into the hearts from the blessing of penance. He proceeds then, and among other things which he argues concerning the use of penance, which is truly recondite and exquisite, he proves that penance—that is, the state and profession of public penance, which he defines by labors and torments—was a certain kind of religion into which men bound themselves by a solemn vow; by the religion of which vow no one was bound unless it had been accepted and ratified by the Church. And that was done by that imposition of hands and blessing by which it commanded and granted penance. I omit the rest, lest I be too long. I marvel that you, when you were observing this, could either write these things: that to grant penance is the same as that gift, and to approve the inward affection of the penitent, or that when you held and wrote such things, you had professed that you wished to illustrate and defend the doctrine of such a great prelate. For he demonstrates most broadly that that very penance of which Innocentius treats was produced by that gift of God with His blessing, not that the gift itself was penance. Teach us, therefore, what recondite and secret sense lies hidden in those words and opinions of yours; and excuse your discourse from the suspicion of such an error—not to say anything else, which you certainly see can be said—if you are able. For I confess that, having pondered those things often and turning them over in interpretation in every direction, I have hitherto been able to extract nothing by which the odium of so clear a falsehood can be avoided: for the one thing that remained, that you seemed to have held that in the very heat and fervor of persecution, the approach to peace and reconciliation was closed to the lapsed, so that they might repeat the struggle with greater impetuosity of mind and ardor; but afterwards, once peace was restored to the Church for a time, they were treated more mildly—which Cyprian testified in his 52nd epistle was instituted by him—this, I say, which you could have said most truly, you have neither said nor thought, ^D as is manifest from what you append: "Peace having been restored to the Church, it was decided that communion, that is, pardon, be given to the dying; and in that was condemned—but at a long interval—the heresy of the Novatians, because they did not grant pardon to the dying." You defend this restoration of peace to the Church, and the heresy of the Novatians condemned by a contrary and milder custom, eventually at a long interval. But that alternation of severity and lenity of which I was speaking was not after a long interval, but at the very birth of the Novatian heresy, having been received in the Church, it condemned its ferocity and cruelty. [alt-version omitted] The things which you explain in those words are therefore wonderful, and in my judgment false; and they are altogether alien to the mind of Innocentius and to that use of the ancient Church which he sets forth.

^A Petavius, he says, is stuck here. Nay, truly he has brought forward a much more probable and expeditious interpretation of Innocentius. Custom, he says, previously held that penance should be granted to them, but communion should be denied. To whom, finally? Indeed to those about whom he says he is asking Exuperius: "And this was also asked, what should be observed concerning those who, after baptism, given over at all times to incontinence and pleasures, at the final end of their life seek both penance and the reconciliation of communion." To this Innocentius says: "Concerning these, the prior observation is harder," etc. Then, "that it might be granted to them," etc., namely, to those who had delayed penance until the final time of life. Who does not see that it was concerning that kind of penitent that Innocentius wrote these things? Therefore the "piercer" orders the words of Innocentius to be referred to all penitents, and that first, harder observation. I shall never listen. For from that, that absurdity follows: that no penitents were received to peace, that is, to absolution and communion, during those times of persecution, not even in the very danger of death. How false this is, we have sufficiently shown thus far; those whose office it is to judge in this matter will see how it squares with piety and the Catholic faith. You will never persuade me, nor, I think, will you prove to any Catholic, that in those first centuries, absolution and communion were denied to any sinners whatsoever after the performance of penance. And therefore, I do not yet regret our opinion, which we expound in our *Animadversiones* (pp. 230, 231, and following); and it began to please us more, from the time we learned yours.

Another chapter of our disputation is criticized by our censor, because on p. 232 I doubted whether the final degree, which they called *systasis*, was open to those condemned to perpetual penance: in which they enjoyed only the communion of prayers, not yet having become participants of the Eucharist. Although I have inclined the more to believe that they did not at all reach that fourth degree. The censor asserts that I felt rightly about this later. For to those advanced to the fourth degree, absolution had been granted, which was denied to those condemned to perpetual penance. Whether absolution, that is, peace and reconciliation, was granted in the third degree, or only in the fourth and in the *systasis*, was asked by us in the final chapter of our Dissertation, and the arguments on both sides were weighed, by which this could be affirmed or denied. This I did not wish to define in either direction, and I appealed to the judgments of learned men and those consulted on ecclesiastical antiquity. If you are of that class of men, I would have you resolve this doubt for me, and meet those conjectures which are partly proposed there by me, and partly can be brought from other authors. For my part, I think that after sacramental absolution, that is, perfect peace and reconciliation, the penitents were rightfully admitted; and that they had nothing left which would exclude them from the communion of the Lord’s body. For I see that for peace ^B and reconciliation to be subjected in the canons to the participation of the mysteries or the *teleion*: then the part and degree of penance called *systasis* is held, and is specifically imposed. Unless you have diverted me from that opinion by other considerations, I fear you cannot persuade me. But, nevertheless, that matter having been left in the middle, as we have done: (for you will forgive me, I think, if, when I was applying myself to the treatment of those things which, as far as I know, no one had touched before, I preferred to remain stuck in these and similar questions, rather than to judge rashly about such great matters.) But with that part of the controversy passed over, that you assert without any doubt that the final degree was not open to perpetual penitents, that can not undeservedly be denied to you. And so that I might meanwhile concede regarding those who were admitted to public penance, which we taught as having been granted only once during those times: I can show that some, who after completing penance and reconciliation had sinned again, were reduced to the *systasis* alone for their whole life; so that, joined with the faithful in prayer alone, they might receive peace and communion at the end of life. Regarding which matter there exists a clear passage from Pope Siricius, epist. 1, can. 5, concerning those who, having performed penance, return to their vomit: "Concerning whom," he says, "because they no longer have a place for penance, we have judged that he must decide that they be joined to the faithful in prayer alone within the Church," etc. He adds that at the hour of death communion is to be rendered. You have here those condemned to the fourth degree of penance, that is, to *systasis*, in perpetuity, ^C without absolution and communion, which they might obtain only at death. It is not, therefore, likely, as you boast, that those who were in the *systasis* had been granted absolution beforehand. Unless, perhaps, those who had returned to their vomit bore it so with impunity that they received absolution at once without penance, and were treated far more comfortably than those who had sinned once, which surpasses every absurdity.

But he also pities our [(c)] assertion; because we think that peace and absolution were denied to those showing sorrow for their sin and penance, because the Synod of Nicaea, can. 13, calls it "the ancient and canonical law," by which it is prescribed that peace must be given to the dying. O merciful man, who so easily pities the error of another, as he thinks, why is he so harsh and cruel to sinners and penitents that he prohibits them from being reconciled with the Church? Indeed, on p. 231, after I had proved that in certain crimes communion was sometimes denied, I doubted a little whether it was granted even in danger of death. That I might not assert this entirely, I said that I was prohibited by that 13th Nicene canon, where the Fathers decreed concerning the dying that they should not be deprived of their last and necessary viaticum, and that in this the old and canonical law should be maintained. These words of the council, "old and canonical law," signify not "yesterday and the day before," but long ago established in the Church ^D

and it is ^A permitted to dying penitents to receive communion; should it not have carried on for seventy years? Therefore, in the flourishing time of Cyprian, it was already accepted by usage. Thus, in many ways, it is a fabrication that, in the time of the persecutions, and for a long interval before Novatian, communion was denied even to dying penitents.

The respondent objects to these things: ^B that the Synod of Sardica, which is later than the Nicene, denies communion in danger of death. What then? Can you therefore deny that this very thing was decreed by the Nicene Council, since its canon speaks so openly? You do not know that general rules, when the state of the times or the custom of discipline demands it, sometimes override private laws; so that the equity of the Church, in its power and the discretion of its use of canons, often decrees something contrary to the strict letter, while maintaining the authority of the canons themselves. For even that Synod of Side in Pamphylia, held against the Massalians—which is later than the Sardican, and which we mention from Photius, page 18—does not grant communion even at the point of death to those who, after that heresy was anathematized, subsequently gave some suspicion of it, however much they may have been prepared to confess their penitence with a changed mind. You see the acuteness of that reasoning! The eleventh Nicene canon set ^C twelve years of penance for those who fell under the tyranny of Licinius without force or necessity. Will you use a similar argument there to prove that it was never sanctioned by the council? Since the Council of Valentinus, later than the Nicene, decreed in canon 3 that those who have been polluted by the profane rites of demons after baptism should undergo penance until death. But your reasoning does not hold up at all. Nor, therefore, does the one you apply to a similar matter.

You continue, and refute this, arguing about that most difficult passage of Cyprian from Epistle 13, page 234, where the holy pontiff orders that those who have received certificates from the martyrs should make a confession of their fault before a priest, or—if there is a lack of him—before a deacon, so that, with the hand imposed upon them for penance, they may come to the Lord with peace. I interpreted these things—probably, if I am not mistaken—in such a way that there was a twofold fruit of absolution: that one might be absolved ^D from the sins themselves (that is, the guilt itself after penance); and that, having been restored to integrity, they might be admitted to the communion of the Lord’s body and the Church. Both were to be obtained through bishops or priests; the latter, however, when there was no priest available, through a deacon; so that, although sacramental absolution had not yet been received, when necessity required it, they could obtain peace and reconciliation, and become partakers of the Eucharist.

To this reasoning, so open, so consistent with modern usage and customs, what do you oppose? "It sufficiently," he says, "openly insinuates that the Eucharist could be received without absolution."

have been able to be perceived therein. Why should I not openly profess what is not obscurely gathered from that passage of Cyprian? For that deacon did indeed confer peace by the laying on of hands. Moreover, peace is the same thing as reconciliation or communion. Furthermore, it was not that "sacramental" peace, as they call it, which only a priest can confer. It remains that what I have said is beyond controversy, which you do not overturn by any contrary arguments at all. But as for your insinuation ^A that deacons in fact administered the Eucharist, but nevertheless had no right to confer the reception of the Eucharist (for if they could confer that, they could also grant what is less, namely absolution), this is not at all a clever argument. For all priests, by virtue of their order and power, were able to absolve penitents—that is, to impart what they call "sacramental" absolution—but by usage and jurisdiction only the bishop, or in his absence or by his permission, the other priests, could do so. Thus the ancient canons teach, of which the Council of Carthage II, can. 3, 4, and Carthage III, can. 32 occur to me. But deacons could by no means confer this kind of absolution. However, in the absence of a priest, by the bishop's mandate, they could absolve from excommunication and censures, and thus make one capable of the Eucharist, just as is the custom today. For when the means of confession is lacking, one who has a cause for doing so can, without sacramental absolution, receive the right to celebrate or participate in the mysteries, a right which, having been lost through excommunication or other penalty, is revoked solely by the relaxation of this. I do not see what therein can displease you in our opinion. If anything occurs to you otherwise, express it in plain Latin words.

Finally, you vex ^B that which I had written on page 230: "Clinics were accustomed to be barred from the priesthood," that is, those who had postponed their baptism until the point of death, and had thus been baptized while in sickness. Here, indeed, you wished to jest at our expense: "If they postponed it," you say, "until death, they were certainly not being barred from the priesthood; unless perhaps they could be initiated into the priesthood after death." But to postpone baptism until the point of death, and to be baptized while in sickness, are very different things. But who does not know that when it is said that those who had delayed baptism until the point of death were removed from priestly dignity, it carries the sense that they are to be struck with that mark of infamy only if, beyond hope and expectation, they recovered from their sickness? But that those who had been baptized in sickness were rejected from the priesthood is taught by the canon of Neocaesarea XII, and by Pope Cornelius in his Epistle to Fabius, bishop of Antioch, which is extant in Eusebius, book VI, chapter 35, where he writes about Novatus, that he was initiated into the priesthood contrary to the canons: "Since it was not lawful that one who had been baptized in bed due to sickness, as he had been, should be admitted into the clergy." Since it was forbidden that one who had been poured over in bed on account of illness, as that man had been, should be co-opted into the clergy. Our checker here invents I know not what regarding the catechumenate; as if only those who were catechumens, and in that state ^C were baptized in sickness, were held by that law. But the sacred canons universally exclude all those who, whether they were catechumens or not, had been baptized in sickness. Why then do these words mean: Invert that saying of the comedian: "What you wish to compel me to, they do not obtain by their own will"; and you will discover the reason for this canon: then we shall know, when you interpret yourself.

Chapter III

The accusation of the "Dispunctor" against the illustrious Cardinal Perron is purged. The very difficult question concerning his opinion is reconsidered. [It is argued] that public penance was offered even to the unwilling, not sought after by the common people and everywhere. Concerning perjury, incidentally.

You try in vain to stir up resentment against us regarding the most illustrious Cardinal Perron. For he is not even mentioned by name by me, nor has anything been detracted from his reputation. I explained what I felt about the opinion itself in such a way as to spare his name. If it is a crime to depart from the opinion of great men, then you will surely be involved in the same cause, you who have written things about penance and absolution that differ greatly from what those three cardinals, Bellarmine, Baronius, and Perron, teach; nay rather, they are entirely alien to the sense of the supreme pontiffs, of all doctors, and of the Church; some of which we discussed in the previous chapter. But these words ^D: "And there will be no one so witless as to think that those who had committed the same crimes repeatedly, and indeed horrific crimes, were treated more humanely than those who had committed them once; which follows from that opinion"; were said more bitterly against such a great man than the reasoning of a modest person would require. Here, indeed, is that ink of the cuttlefish. Imagine me complaining just now about your unfair accusation: Who will be so witless as to say that one who has stated that something absurd and false follows from someone's opinion is calling that person, whose opinion it is, a liar and absurd? Will you therefore drag me into court with a twisted neck because I called you witless, and wounded you with a word? And yet, as I seem to be about to say the former truly and deservedly, so I neither wish to usurp that other, nor can I be thought to have done so because I said the former. For it is one thing to call someone witless; it is another to argue that what can be concluded from his opinion is absurd, which he himself has not noticed, to declare that he holds [that absurdity] is the mark of a witless person.

Behold, you write on page 14 that you pity me because I gather from the Nicene canon that in former times, in danger of death for penitents, and thus while persecution was raging, communion was granted. Since you mock this opinion of mine in jest, are you unaware that it has hitherto been the opinion of the three cardinals whom I named for the sake of honor, and of all the faithful? You pity these men, therefore, just as you pity us: since this word has proceeded from contempt and rebuke, you understand, surely, to whom that cavil of your mercy pertains. And so, with the most illustrious and...

^A worthy personages, I shall dispute with you regarding the matter itself, as I have proposed it clearly and lucidly. I had written in my *Animadversiones*, p. 256: that public penance is customarily granted by the Church only once, without which, however, no one who had committed those crimes for which that type of penance was imposed, could be admitted to communion. From this truly, I said, a very difficult question arises: what happened to those men who, after their first penance, fell back into the same crimes? Is it true that they were entirely cast out by the Church, and had obtained no admission to any private [penance] by the benefit of which they could be restored to integrity? This was the state of the controversy. Regarding what could be deduced from the words and opinion of a certain recent writer, I thought it should be submitted, with his name hushed. You, whom I had prudently and intentionally kept silent, because I did not approve of his opinion, named [him]—in order to bring invidiousness upon me among the supporters of his dignity and doctrine—rather inopportunely. A deed which no prudent man would praise. Since, therefore, against our will and reclamations, you have brought forth the author of the opinion which we oppose; come, let us see, whosever it may be, why it has been deservedly disapproved by us.

^B He distinguishes three types of penance: for one is public, for public sins; another is private, on account of hidden sins; the third is on account of the same hidden [sins], openly undertaken. This last was not granted to anyone and promiscuously; nor more than once in one’s whole life. But it wiped away the guilt of sin equally with the punishment. Furthermore, to moderate this, that penitentiary presbyter was appointed, whom Nectarius later removed; and Nectarius's successor, Chrysostom, confirmed its abrogation. For he, having first heard the case of the penitents, and having known their crimes through secret confession, would decree what they ought to confess publicly, and what they ought to keep silent. Which, indeed, pertains nothing to judicial—that is, sacramental—confession, but to that which is called satisfactory. For that prior secret and auricular [confession] was never abrogated, but has persisted perpetually in the Church, and persists to this day. This is the sum of the author of that opinion. From whom we have therefore dissented, because it follows from that doctrine: that those who had frequently repeated graver sins are in a more tolerable condition than those who had sinned but once in their entire life. For public penance, for public as well as hidden crimes, was permitted in the Church only once; which is so true that it does not require proof. Let us imagine, therefore, that someone, after public penance performed for public or hidden sins, falls back again into more atrocious [crimes]; what will happen to such a one? If we follow that opinion: he will surely have recourse to the secret and auricular, or sacramental [confession]; which, never having been abolished, and indeed *is* repeated more often: through which, by a shorter shortcut, without that public vexation, he will be reconciled with the Church. This, therefore, was what I said I could not approve; I think that [this point] must be ^C presented more clearly, making the way to peace and reconciliation more accessible to those who had sinned more often than to those who had sinned but once in total. Nor was that public penance, whose authority is cited from Tertullian, Ambrose, and other Fathers, of such a kind that it should be sought after by penitents and coaxed as a great benefit; as if its faculty were granted by the bishops with difficulty. For it is clearer than light that those very persons, to whom Tertullian, Cyprian, and others propose this type of penance, had to be almost compelled to public penance by force and severity, when they strove with all their power and reason to ward it off and beg out of it: so far is it from being granted as a substitute for grace to those who were begging for it much.

It does not escape me that some have sometimes been found who, out of an abundance of piety and divine love—which you said was given by the Church, that is, approved [by it]—would voluntarily desire for themselves such punishments and torments: and who had more need of a bridle than of spurs. But just as that was rare and by no means a daily occurrence, so it is certain that most of the penitents were driven to public penance for their sins against their will, and that the Fathers urged them to it with prayers, threats, exhortations, and frequent and vehement oration. Here I do not use Cyprian as a witness; than whom no one confirms more gravely and clearly that which I say. For his writings are full of exhortations and complaints of such a kind, with which he does not soothe those wretched people with flatteries and gentleness to embrace and undergo penance, but compels them with authority and necessity; then he rebukes their various delays and tergiversations, and chastises them most severely. But with this and others omitted, I will bring forth that one [writer] by whose voice and suffrage the author of that contrary opinion and patron relies; and indeed I will cite that passage above the others, in which he is believed to have made comments concerning public penance for hidden crimes. That will be Tertullian, from whose book, which is inscribed *De poenitentia*, he has brought forward a few sententiae, which he affirms to pertain to that [third] type: from whence you yourself have also taken some things. His words are from chap. 9: *For this second and only one, the less the matter is, the more laborious is the proof, so that it is not held in the conscience only, but managed by some act as well.* Item: *And by temporal affliction, I will not say he frustrates, but wipes out eternal punishment, etc.* In these and other places of the same writer, you think that public penance for secret sins spontaneously undertaken is understood; and you do not disclose the reason why you think so. Yet you will never be able to prove that Tertullian speaks of public penance for hidden crimes more than for public ones. For his oration, as also that of Cyprian, proceeds concerning *any* public penance; and it is of mere choice, not of reason, nor of even the lightest conjecture, that you restrict those passages of Tertullian to that third of the three types of penance which we proposed above. I pray you, teach us, relying on what arguments you understand not every type of public penance, but that ^D...

625 ADVERSUS MAT. SIMONIUM. 626

of those crimes specifically. But come, let it be granted to you, what you affirm gratis, and I will convict you by your own words and reasoning. You do not rashly say that that penitence, of which Tertullian speaks there, was granted. I ask you, could those who had not sinned publicly be compelled to that public penitence for secret matters, and were they truly so compelled? Choose whichever you prefer. If you say they were compelled, in such a way that they could in no wise be reconciled without that public satisfaction: how do you not rashly say it was granted, when it would affect the penitents with such a benefit that it would restore them to the same degree of integrity and innocence they had attained at baptism? By these words of the author and your own, it is sufficiently shown that it was to be sought of their own accord by the penitents and obtained as a favor, and yet not easily granted to those very petitioners. Therefore, the higher question returns: what happened to them afterward, if after public penitence they committed the same secret things for which they had been condemned for the former, which was not to be repeated.

If, in fact, it were permitted to perform penitence by auricular and secret confession, which is undertaken for hidden sins and is the second of the three, would not those who had frequently committed those dreadful yet secret crimes have been in a more tolerable condition than those who had incurred the same but once? For since these latter had not attained peace and reconciliation without the torture and suffering of many years, nor otherwise than by public penitence, while those others, after they had gone through this, had that easy and obtainable benefit of secret penitence. But if it is that they could not be compelled to public penitence, but rather obtained the power of it by request, why did Tertullian in that very book *De Poenitentia* exhort them so intensely to undertake it? Why does he complain that many procrastinate and flee from it? Why does he persuade them so earnestly with examples and reasons that they should want to use it? For after the things I cited earlier, he immediately adds: *Yet I see that most men either avoid this work, such as the publication of themselves, or put it off from day to day, mindful more of shame than of salvation.* The passage which the author brought from the twelfth chapter also contributes to the same point: *Therefore, since you know that against hell, after those first remnants of the Lord’s baptism, there are still second subsidies in exomologesis, why do you abandon your salvation? Why do you cease to approach what you know cures you?* It is apparent from this, if the discourse is about the public penitence of secret matters, that it was not granted heavily and with difficulty like a benefit, but rather offered even to the unwilling, if indeed they were to be reconciled with the Church. For if they could have done so otherwise and by private penitence, they were not to be accused if they preferred to be finished with that easier remedy than to use the other, not in a more laborious way, but also because they knew it could not be obtained from bishops and priests rashly or easily. I said that the man did not commit these ^A *parádoxa* and *átopa*, a man who perhaps had not noticed this; thus he is worthy of an excuse. You, who are prudent and knowledgeable in these same matters, if you will pay attention, I can scarcely excuse. Nor yet will I treat you uncivilly and inhumanely, or call you witless, so that you might think this itself—what modesty it is—what you detract from me, when I, not having been provoked and examined by you even beyond all justice and propriety, have been unwilling to strike back and return abuse and insult.

Regarding perjury ^B I had not fully affirmed that no punishments were constituted for it by the canons, but I only wanted to imply those which bound the laity; for whom public penitence, not that of clerics, was prescribed. Then I was speaking of the first times of the Church, to which that discipline of which the discussion was held properly pertains. And so that Tiburian canon is alien to this business, not only because it prescribes only for clerics, whose public penitence did not exist, but also because it is more recent than those times. Certainly, among the ancient canons, none that was of proven faith appeared that would specifically decree punishments for perjury; nor did I say this with certainty and affirmation, but I only brought it up as an example of grave sins for which no canonical punishments seem to have been established. You could have brought forward the Ilerda canon as more appropriate to your purpose than the Tiburian one; for those that are commemorated from Gratian and Ivo, such as those of the Eutychian or Fabian popes, etc., seem to be of a much later antiquity. But, as I said, I do not wish to argue much about that matter. And it is possible that some canon older than that might appear, which neither of us has noticed.

^C CAPUT IV. *Two errors of the Dispunctor are corrected. A capital question is sometimes delegated by the senate to the consul.*

Your fourth chapter is distinguished by two hallucinations: the first is on page 26, where after you mocked my argument, you misinterpreted those words of Socrates: *Ἡ δὲ γυνὴ προβαίνουσα καὶ ἄλλο πταῖσμα ἑαυτῆς κατηγόρει.* But it is better to hear your words: "These words," you say, "are interpreted (to be sure, by Petavius): This woman, when she proceeded too far in undergoing penitence, committed another sin in the meantime, and declared it immediately." But on the contrary, it behooved us (if we wish to be faithful translators rendering word for word): *This woman, going forth or overstepping, accuses also her other sin; for she says how a deacon of the Church had been sleeping with her.* Is it so that the word *προβαίνειν*, if you wish to render word for word, signifies to overstep and transgress; or is it the same thing as *παραβαίνειν*? Who could bear this new grammar? *Προβαίνειν* is correctly accepted both by translators and by us as meaning to advance and proceed. One thing alone displeased me rightly in Christophorson, that he added from his own the word "in confessing." He thought the woman had blurted out in public confession what ought to have been kept silent, and had confessed that infamous crime among others; which is neither true, nor is it in the Greek ^D contained. This is the first grammatical *sphálma*.

is contained. This is the first grammatical error.

Another error of yours: on page 29 you criticize the fact that I had said that cognizance of capital cases was entrusted by the senate to the consuls, either one or both, before the public inquiry was instituted. "The matter is not so," you say. "The senate never entrusted the cognizance of capital matters to the consuls." This you subsequently attempt to prove until the end of the chapter. And here, if indeed I knew how to use irony and quibble, or if I were not more modest and restrained than you wish me to be, you have provided me with excellent subject matter for jesting. Cicero alone will teach you how correctly you have written these things. In that book which is inscribed *On Famous Orators*, where he discusses the orators Laelius and Galba, he relates what was done at Rome under the consulship of Publius Scipio and Decimus Brutus, in these words: "For when a murder had been committed in her wood (or Scantia), and well-known men had been killed and the family was accused, and partly even the freemen of her society, which had contracted for the pitch-works in the consulship of Publius Cornelius and Lucius Mummius, the senate decreed that the consuls should inquire into and decide that matter." When I brought up that example of the Roman senate and consuls regarding ecclesiastical custom, I had that passage of Cicero in mind; nor had I convinced myself that it had been entrusted to the consuls by the senate perpetually or without the order of the Roman people, but I thought it sufficient to use as an example that it had happened at some time. But you have fallen headlong into the other extreme, so as to dare to pronounce generally: that the senate never entrusted the cognizance of capital matters to the consuls.

But to return to that Nectarian history, I beg of you, upon what argument, upon what conjecture, do you rely to defend the fact that this woman divulged that unspeakable crime in public confession? What author do you name? For Socrates and Sozomen, from whom this history flowed, mention nothing of the kind. Why should it be permitted for you thus to interpret them, so that from your own mind you invent and append that which they do not expressly relate; while for us it is an impiety to accept and explain the words of those same men simply and according to their natural force? Therefore, we shall not linger longer in refuting these things. Regarding the canon, the matter is contentious, and you will not obtain it against our will, whatever you wish (a). For he repeatedly used *kanona* for law and sanction, when he adds: "This canon holds until now in other heresies."

CHAPTER V. On public confession, which is not received by common custom. The authority of Pope Leo wrongly taken in the disjointed comments (b).

In our *Diatribe* we deny that public confession of sins was so received by the customs of the Church that it was established by any ecclesiastical law or by that custom which had passed into law. Regarding which I shall not repeat here what has been discussed more fully and copiously there. But our reviewer, when he protests that to him it is not thought to be established in the Church (c) (for he does not think that any law ordered sins to be brought forth publicly), yet he maintains that such a custom was praised by the tacit and unwritten consent of the bishops. And he does not notice, first, that this does nothing against us, who have spoken of law whether express or tacit; and then, that the same thing which he asserts no less conflicts with the words and authority of Saint Leo and the Council of Trent. Pope Leo, in Epistle 80, calls that public profession of sins, which he had heard was being practiced in a certain corner of Italy, a "presumption contrary to the apostolic rule," which he had recently acknowledged to be committed by some through an illicit usurpation. I would like to know by what reasoning you contend that any "presumption" — by which an illicit act has been committed against the apostolic rule — is praised by the consent of bishops, that is, approved by the authority of the Church. Then, if public confession of sins, even secret ones, could not have been prescribed by any law consultedly enough, as we gather from the words of the Council of Trent, with your approval, will it not appear to be of equal and the same imprudence not only to tolerate that very custom of confessing publicly—which is not even tolerable against the apostolic rule and prudence—but also to adopt and praise it? Whatever authorities you accumulate to build up the case for public confession of sins, it accomplishes nothing. For of these, some indeed speak of that public profession which consists not so much in voice as in the deeds themselves, and the habit of penitents, and mournful squalor, as we know *exhomologesis* to be used; others show what was occasionally and rarely done, not what was sanctioned by law or by common and praised custom. Add also that there was some public confession by which sinners confessed that they were sinners generally and universally: the type of which is that confession which the people recite at the very beginning of the Mass, according to a solemn and legitimate formula, led by the priest. If these few things are observed diligently, they are sufficiently suitable for interpreting those authorities which you accumulate in vain, and for diluting all your arguments. In Leo's testimony, that collection does not please. Since so great a pontiff calls public confession a "presumption against the apostolic rule," and indeed an "illicit" one, you conclude from this that penitents were accustomed to confess even secret sins, and that this is plain even from this passage. Have I not said often that public confession is not denied by me in such a way that it was never practiced, but so that it was never received and imposed upon penitents by any law, whether tacit or express? Then, if you were to read and consider Leo's words more attentively: he does not write that that presumption was once so received that it passed into a custom, but he says that he has "recently acknowledged" that it was being committed by some through an illicit usurpation. Which words, "recently," ^D

by some, do not persuade [one] that the custom was ancient and unknown for many years, or hidden. And it is entirely an idle quibble to seek ^A to prove from this passage of Leo the rite of public confession, even for hidden sins: for [to defend] that which one might claim was lauded by the silent consensus of the bishops, seems to me to defer little to the Council of Trent and to the judgment and authority of Leo the Great; who acts contrary to apostolic tradition in defense of an illicit presumption, as Leo calls it, and defines it—as the Council of Trent calls it, a little-considered action—as having been approved by praised consensus.

CHAPTER VI

An insignificant refutation, a false charge, regarding the history of Origen; then, a hallucination concerning a passage of Augustine. That the Panarion of Epiphanius was not read by Augustine at all.

What the fable of Origen has to do with the rite of penance, which is the theme and subject of the work, I do not see. But that was, clearly, a supplement and an addition to the refutation. In which, one might wonder, for the sake of dignity, how it was done so negligently—a thing you paraded before yourself, so that when you were criticizing me, you did not even understand this, what I had said? We proved with solid arguments—in our *Animadversiones*, page 258—that that history of Origen which Epiphanius recorded is true, and that it has not been rightly considered adulterous and false by some pious and learned men. One thing that was opposed by them, which seemed to have more moment and weight than the others, was that Augustine had supposedly recorded nothing about that fall of Origen, even though he testified that he had borrowed from Epiphanius the things he had written against Origen. To these objections we responded thus: that it does not appear that Augustine read that great work of Epiphanius on heresies, or *Panarion*, but his *Breviary* and a certain *Epitome*; and we said that this had been proven by certain and indubitable arguments in the epistle which is prefixed to the beginning of the work, to the most illustrious Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld. You struggle much to persuade [us] that the sun shines at noon. You copy out the passages of Augustine from which it is evident that the books of Epiphanius ^B *Against Heresies* were known to him. You could have saved this labor and these pages—if you had wished to consult that place where I had treated that matter more accurately, and to which I had pointed with my finger in the *Animadversiones* on Origen's heresy, page 259. For I neither denied nor doubted that some work of Epiphanius on heresies had been read by Augustine, but I said [it was not] that clear and most abundant work which is inscribed *Panarion*. For it is all too certain that he had seen and read some [work]; and we proposed and discussed those same passages which you describe in the dedicatory epistle.

But no one can be amazed enough that, from the very words of Augustine, while you were writing or dictating them, you did not notice how just the suspicion is that it was not the *Panarion* of Epiphanius that was read by Augustine, but the *Epitome* and *Anacephalaeosis*, divided into as many books. For why, pray, would you interpret these things as belonging to that other work of his? Our Epiphanius wrote six books as well, recording everything in a historical narrative, defending the truth without any disputation against falsehood. These booklets are truly brief; and if they were gathered into a single volume, it would not be comparable in length to our books, or to certain books of others. If I had imitated this brevity in recording the heresies, would you not have anything you could demand or expect from me that is shorter? And in the heresy of the Massalians, he calls those six books most brief. I believe that if Augustine had read those very long commentaries of Epiphanius against the heresies; if he had seen those most ample disputations on every single one, and their refutations and the confutations of their arguments, he would either have called those booklets most brief, and would have judged his own [work], which he was writing to Quodvultdeus, to be longer, or he would deny that the heresies had been refuted by Epiphanius, and would say they were merely recounted simply and briefly. But re-read, I beg you, what was argued in the epistle on that matter. And that you might understand our fairness, see whether, from the same passages of Augustine that you cite, you could and should have recognized what I say. Writing about the Origenists, he records these things from Epiphanius: "About whom," he says, "Epiphanius speaks: The Origenists, he says, are disciples of a certain Origen; but they are of a foul practice; these are they who do abominable things, handing their own bodies over to corruption." And immediately adding others [as] Origenians: "The Origenians, he says, are others, who are also followers of that teacher Adamantius; who also deny the resurrection of the dead, and say that Christ and the Holy Spirit are a creature; but they do not believe paradise and the heavens, and other things, according to the letter, but in allegory." These things, indeed, Epiphanius records concerning Origen. Thus far Augustine translated from that work of Epiphanius which he was able to see. And yet, those very things are read in the *Anacephalaeosis*, or *Breviary* and *Epitome*, conceived in the very same words in Greek, and not in that great work of the *Panarion*. See page 146 of volume II of our edition, and the Synopsis of volume I, book II, page 398 of the same edition. There is, therefore, no doubt that Augustine speaks only of the *Anacephalaeosis* of Epiphanius, and that the 6th chapter of the disputation is idle and empty; for as regards Decius, under whom he thinks Origen flourished, one must by all means see what we observed in the *Animadversiones* concerning the error of that passage in the name of the emperor. But that that patch concerning the fall of Origen was woven into the writings of Epiphanius by the calumniators of Origen—as it is easily said, so it is easily denied by us. Anyone who has become accustomed to the style of Epiphanius will judge these to be his most genuine words, not interpolated. But neither does the matter concerning the other patch, which the author of the same epistle thinks was added by the Iconoclasts, seem sufficiently explored. But this is a matter for another undertaking and dispute.

CAPUT VII. Concerning the decree of Theophilus of Alexandria.

That rites were not the same everywhere, and that one should not rashly or universally pronounce upon them—for instance, as to whether the Mass was ever celebrated on days of fasting, a point which *Dispunctor* affirms—cannot be so stated. Regarding the decree of Theophilus on the day of the Theophany, there was some cause for doubt (a): which the inscription itself increases. For it reads: *The address of Theophilus, Archbishop of Alexandria, concerning those who celebrate the Theophany on a Sunday.* Indeed, these words, *who celebrate on a Sunday*, do not seem to be explained in a way that supports your opinion. Moreover, the rest of the canon may cast doubt. But I do not contend over a very trivial matter out of love of strife; let the truth prevail. If not, then at least what is likely.

Regarding fasting and the *statio*, you have inserted these things in passing, but they are beside the point and out of place. Indeed, we must be diligent to avoid precipitating a judgment—especially a universal and infinite one—on ecclesiastical rites; and we must be careful not to transfer so easily to everyone those things which may have been the customs of certain times or Churches. Your prohibition, in which you lay down that never on any day of fasting, even outside of Lent, were the solemnities of the Mass celebrated, seems to be of this kind: a claim you assert too boldly and too generally. For even if it were observed in certain Churches, who taught you that it was observed everywhere and perpetually? For you couch your decree in an indefinite and universal manner. What, then, will you do with Augustine, who, in Epistle 118, when he explains the various rites throughout the different parts of the Christian world, speaks thus: "Elsewhere no day is skipped upon which the sacrifice is not offered; elsewhere, it is only on the Sabbath and the Lord's Day"? We also read in Ambrose, in Sermon 34, that even in Lent, the sacrifice was offered every day, and was received by some. Thus, the usage of all the Churches in ancient times was so varied, and not to be constrained by the same or a general law. The same is appropriately said regarding the participation in the Eucharist: which you assert too confidently, and clearly support only by your own authority, was never practiced on fast days, not even outside of Lent.

These are the points which, for the sake of our *Animadversiones*, we thought we ought to oppose against your *Dispunctiunculae*, lest, if I were to remain entirely silent—as some authors advised I should—you might complain that they were too much despised by us and held as nothing. Furthermore, in this clearing or refutation of ours, I trust that I have maintained such a regard for Christian modesty and charity that you may understand that you could have spent your efforts more happily on other matters than in refuting these *Animadversiones*.

ADVERSUS CLAUDIUM SALMASIUM. CHAPTER I. (Cf. hær. XIX, p. 40.)

On the sect and distinction of the Essenes. The ridiculous observation of Salmasius concerning these, and his corruption of Hesiod. Philo Judaeus is illustrated.

Julian frequently loves to call the sun "God" simply and without any addition, especially in the oration which he wrote in praise of it. Josephus is also believed to have designated it in the same way (Book 2, Chapter 7, *De excidio*), where he treats of the Essenes. For he relates that when they relieved their bowels, they were accustomed to sit in an excavated trench, having first wrapped themselves in a cloak, *as if they would not do injury to the rays of God*, that is, so as not to do injury to the rays of God. For many understand "God" to mean the sun, just as Scaliger does in *Elenchus Trihaeresii* ch. 27, and Drusius in Book IV *De tribus sectis*, p. 241. Although it is not entirely certain whether Josephus here applied the name of God to the sun, especially since the Essenes were Jews, who do not appear to have thought that the sun was God. However, what the same Josephus narrates—that the Essenes sang certain ancestral hymns to the sun, by which they prayed for its rising—does not make their conjecture absurd: *They sang certain ancestral prayers to it, as if beseeching it to rise.* Then that superstition, such as it was, follows: that they considered natural excretion to be an injury to the solar light. Salmasius, when he was discussing that passage of Josephus and the Essenes in his *Solinian Exercises*, was so forgetful of his own modesty and reputation that you might know he had no concern for what he was writing when he penned it. We will briefly examine his argument here, since the opportunity has presented itself to us. He writes in his notes on Pliny, p. 612, that the Essenes (who, as was said before, when they relieved their bowels, were careful not to admit the sun's splendor to such acts) did so in the same way that Hesiod forbids one to urinate standing against the sun, but only at night, in these verses:

*Do not urinate standing, turned toward the sun,* *But when it sets, be mindful of it until it rises.*

These are the words of Salmasius, in which you may recognize a genuine "critic," that is, a grammarian of airy and exquisite judgment. He thinks that Hesiod, in those verses, forbade one to urinate against the sun at night. What kind of monster is this, I ask? Can one...