ADMONITION CONCERNING THE EULOGIES OF PAUL
A ...Chrysostom seems to recall his sermons on the praises of the blessed Paul above in the homily *On the Kalends*, where, at the beginning, he speaks as follows (Vol. 1, p. 698): "Recently, indeed, when we were celebrating the blessed Paul with encomia, you leaped for joy, as if you saw him present... And I wished to descend to the same subject today, but our discourse is driven toward other matters which are pressing, namely those sins committed today by the entire city. For those who wish to hear the encomia of Paul must first be emulators of Paul’s virtue, and worthy of such a hearing." Here you see mentioned both the sermons already delivered and those to be delivered, the subject and argument of which were the encomia of Paul. And yet Hermantius opined that that encomium of Paul mentioned in the homily *On the Kalends* is to be found in the homily *On the Request of the Sons of Zebedee*, number 3, where Chrysostom touches upon the praises of Paul in passing. Tillemont, however, having rejected the opinion of Hermantius, thinks the homily mentioned in the address *On the Kalends* is the one titled *How Wives Should Be Married*, where Paul is praised repeatedly. But, as is clear from the words cited above, it is not a matter there of the praises of Paul—which Chrysostom inserts here and there in his sermons in passing, whatever their argument may be, which indeed happens very frequently—but of many sermons whose argument was the encomia of Paul: "I wished to descend," he says, "again to the same hypothesis," B [475] that is, I wished to preach again on the praises of Paul: by which what else, I ask, can be indicated than the homilies on the Apostle Paul, which we are now discussing? As it is certain that these sermons were delivered at Antioch—for Chrysostom indicates this openly in the fourth homily on the praises of Paul, where he speaks of the temple of Apollo in the suburb of Daphne having been struck by lightning—so nothing certain or even very probable can be established concerning the year in which he preached them. If Tillemont’s calculation stood, by which he refers the homily on the Kalends to the year 387, one could extract the year’s mark from this. For, as we said before, that homily *On the Kalends* seems to have been delivered after one of these seven sermons on Paul, and the rest of the homilies on Paul followed it subsequently. But that calculation of Tillemont relies on the flimsiest, or rather on no argument, as was proven in the Admonition to that homily *On the Kalends*. This one thing we can extract: since that homily was delivered on the Kalends of January, of the sermons on Paul, those which preceded the homily on the Kalends were spoken before January; those, however, which followed were spoken after the Kalends of January.
It remains for us to say a few things about Anianus, or Annianus, who translated these homilies into Latin. We have no doubt that he is that Celedensian deacon, the Pelagian, who attended the Synod of Diospolis and wrote books to assert the Pelagian heresy, which Joannes Garnerius clearly proved (Dissert. 1, after Marius Mercator, chap. 7). For all documents argue for this opinion: namely, the letter which we append, to that Evangelus, a presbyter of the Pelagian sect; likewise his other letter to Bishop Orontius, who was addicted to the Pelagian error and for that reason driven from his see—which letter is prefixed below to the Commentary of St. John Chrysostom on Matthew, because the first eight homilies of the same Commentary were translated into Latin by Anianus himself, as is said in that same letter. Hence the odious names of Manichaeans and Traducianists, by which he—though he does not name him—calls St. Augustine and the Catholics defenders of Christian grace. Finally, it is argued from Anianus’s own words that he translated these homilies into Latin because he thought them opportune for defending the Pelagian error. "This work," he says, "must be the more lovable and pleasing to you because, shining with the light of the holy Scriptures, in the place of a most brilliant star it drives away the night of the Manichaean error. For how great a consolation arises for us when we perceive such a learned and illustrious teacher of the East asserting the truth which the Traducianist attacks in us—a truth which the blessed John, as in all his books, so here too keeps secure, fortified, armed, and kindled on every side, so that he seems not so much to have informed the present disciples as to have prepared for us aids against the opposition to the true faith. For how great is that man against necessity, how great he rises for free will; how, everywhere consistent with our books, he commends the safeguards of divine grace while preserving the law of the will... First by preferring the blessed Paul to all the saints in his little book, and comparing him to the angels. Second, by asserting the goodness of nature from his virtues and statements, etc." These words, indeed, even if they do not openly show forth the Pelagian error concerning the interior grace of Christ (for the Pelagians were accustomed to cover the poison of their heresy with crafty and gilded words), nevertheless, because they were perpetually singing to those against Augustine and the Catholics—namely that they introduce necessity... C [471] ...will, and free choice, not to take it away, as we see is clearly expressed; so that there remains no doubt that this is the very Anianus who fought among the first partisans for the Pelagian heresy.
His Latin interpretation, which we are editing, is not inelegant, nor does it lack accuracy: I confess that I have fallen into the hands of a few interpreters of that ancient antiquity who would translate more diligently. Yet in some places Anianus did not grasp the sense; where this happened, I have substituted the true interpretation in the margin, so that the reader might be warned. Nowhere, however, did I detect him having diverted the sense into another meaning in order to favor the Pelagian heresy. We append his letter here.
TO THE HOLY PRESBYTER EVANGELUS, ANIANUS SENDS GREETINGS.
Recently I learned by experience how useful are the imperial favors of the good to those who walk in the path of righteousness, who bestow benefits under the guise of an order. For what could have been more pleasant or fruitful for me to do than to transfer into our tongue from the works of the holy man, Saint John [478], that is, the seven books of his that discuss at various times in the Church the praises of the Apostle Paul, even if the work seemed, in terms of my clumsy, foreign speech, to involve more pleasure than labor. For it happened that, while I strove to translate for you from the Greek, I myself drank more deeply and enjoyed more fully the truth of such distinguished doctrine, especially since his genius is applied to the subject matter more abundantly on every side. For this blessed Paul is expressed here by him, not painted with the colors of anyone else’s deceptive praise, but formed by the inviolable truth of his own virtues, whom he depicts—now with the magnitude of his works, now with the illumination of his sayings, sometimes with his counsel, sometimes with his exposition D of the deep, and again with the brilliant clarity of his signs—so much so that he does not seem merely to have painted him, but in a certain way to have resurrected him to provide again an example of perfection. For compared with the merits of others, the praise of those who praise him with the usual and somewhat meager discourse seems to resonate on the surface, and the virtues themselves seem to come to commemoration more by their names than by their deeds. But the blessed John, looking more deeply at Paul and clearly bringing him into the middle, seems to me to have examined the veins and marrow of his virtues and expressed them. And so all who live in this eulogy and are adorned by his flowers and fruits, he explains in terms of this sublime [virtue] no less than the Apostle, perhaps we may marvel. This work certainly should be the more lovable and pleasing to you, because, shining with the light of the holy Scriptures, in the place of a most brilliant star, it drives away the night of the Manichaean error. How great a consolation arises for us when we perceive such a learned and illustrative teacher of the East asserting the truth which the Traducianist attacks in us—a truth which the blessed John, as in all his books, so here too keeps secure, fortified, armed, and kindled [(continuing)]