IX. These injunctions to be carried out without contentiousness.
And so now that you see yourselves, beloved, fully instructed through David, our brother and fellow-bishop, who is approved to us both by his personal character and his priestly worth, on [nearly] [111] all the points which our brother Potentius' account contained, it remains, brothers, that you receive our healthful exhortations harmoniously, and that doing nothing in rivalry, but acting unanimously with entire devotion and zeal, you obey the constitution of God and His Apostles, and in nothing suffer the well-considered decrees of the canons to be violated. For what we from the consideration of certain reasons have now relaxed must henceforward be guarded by the ancient rules, lest, what we have on this occasion with merciful lenity conceded, we may hereafter have to visit with condign punishment [112] , acting with special and direct vigour against those who in ordaining bishops have neglected the statutes of the holy fathers, and have consecrated men whom they ought to have rejected. Wherefore if any bishops have consecrated such an one priest as ought not to be, even though in some measure they have escaped any loss of their personal dignity, yet they shall have no further right of ordination, nor shall ever be present at that sacrament which, neglecting the judgment of God, they have improperly conferred.
X. The appointment of bishops over too small places is inexpedient and must be discontinued.
That of course which pertains to the priestly dignity we wish to be observed in common with all the statutes of the canons, viz., that bishops be not consecrated in any place nor in any hamlet [113] , nor where they have not been consecrated before; for where the flocks are small and the congregations small, the care of the presbyters may suffice, whereas the episcopal authority ought to preside only over larger flocks and more crowded cities, lest contrary to the divinely-inspired decrees of the holy Fathers the priestly office be assigned over villages and rural estates [114] or obscure and thinly-populated townships, and the position of honour, to which only the more important charges should be given, be held cheap from the very number of these that hold it. And this bishop Restitutus has reported to have been done in his own diocese, and he has with good reason requested that when the bishops of those places where they ought not to have been ordained die in the natural course, the places themselves should revert to the jurisdiction of the same prelate to whom they formerly belonged and were attached. It is indeed useless for the priestly dignity to be diminished by the superfluous multiplications of the office through the inconsiderate complaisance of the ordainer.
XI. Virgins violated against their will are to be treated as somewhat different to the others, but not to be denied Communion.
Now concerning those who, having made a holy vow of virginity [as we said above, chap. viii.], have suffered the violence of barbarians, and have lost their spotless purity not in spirit but in body, we consider such mode ration ought to be observed that they should be neither degraded to the rank of widows [115] nor yet reckoned in the number of holy and undefiled virgins: yet, if they persevere in the virgin life, and in heart and mind guard the reality of chastity, participation in the sacraments is not to be denied them, because it is unfair that they should be accused or branded for what their wishes did not surrender, but was stolen by the violence of foes.
XII. The care of Lupicinus is in part dealt with and in part referred to them.
The case also of bishop Lupicinus [116] we order to be heard there, but at his urgent and frequent entreaties we have restored him to communion for this reason, that, as he had appealed to our judgment, we saw that while the matter was pending he had been undeservedly suspended from communion. Moreover there is this also in addition, that it was clearly rash to ordain one over his head who ought not to have been ordained until Lupicinus, having been placed before you or convicted, or having at least confessed, had opportunity to submit to a just sentence, so that, according to the requirements of ecclesiastical discipline, he who was consecrated might receive his vacant place.
XIII. All disputes to be dealt with on the spot first and then referred to the Apostolic See.
But whenever other cases arise which concern the state of the Church and the harmony of priests, we wish them to be first sifted by yourselves in the fear of the Lord, and a full account of all matters settled or needing settlement sent to us, that those things which have been properly and reasonably decided, according to the usage of the Church, may receive our corroborative sanction also. Dated 10th August.
[95] Nihil sit inordinatum nihilque præposterum: the two words are well chosen (as usual), and bearing a distinct meaning: the former expressing "disorder" in the sense of want of the divine commission, the latter "disorder" in the sense of choosing the younger over the old, the inferior over the superior, &c.; the same two epithets occur in Lett. XIX., chap. i.
[96] 1 Tim. v. 22.
[97] Ante ætatem maturitatis. The Council of Carthage (a.d. 397), c. 4, fixed the downward limit for deacons at 25, and for priests at 30: and we may presume that that was the general rule in Leo's time, for we find the same ages ordained afterwards in the Novellæ of Justinian (535-565) and elsewhere.
[98] Cf. Letter IV., chap ii., and elsewhere.
[99] No one will by this time be surprised to find Leo calling Sacred Orders either a sacramentum, as here, or mysterium, as in the next sentence: the two terms are indeed in his usage almost equivalents.
[100] Lev. xxi. 13.
[101] Eph. v. 23.
[102] 1 Tim. iii. 10.
[103] The shorter edition of this letter, which is extent, gives this sentence in a very different form: the qualifications are much more exactly defined, e.g., bishops are to have spent their lives in orders a puerilibus exordiis usque ad provectiores annos. I think Quesnel is right in considering this a later version and alteration the better to inculcate the usage of the Church. For although no doubt people were often mere boys [Readers (lectores) for instance: see Bright's note 46] when they entered minor orders, yet the fact that one was an adult layman before taking orders could not ipso facto have precluded a man from becoming bishop, however desirable the rule and general principle might be: in fact Cyprian at least is evidence to the contrary.
[104] Sc. 2 Tim. ii. 20.
[105] Ps. xxv. 10.
[106] Utcumque.
[107] Per legitama augmenta, cf. n. 7 above. This passage makes it clear what is there required is not the puerilia exordia of the shorter edition of this letter, but the multum tempus of this longer edition.
[108] Utcumque again.
[109] Aliqua ratione.
[110] In the case of these two noted African schisms it is hardly necessary to do more than refer the reader to Smith's or any other standard dictionary.
[111] Fere here added probably to account for the long tail of extraneous or repeated matter tacked on to the letter.
[112] Here the shorter edition of the letter breaks off, and there are certainly difficulties in considering that the long coda or repetitions and fresh matter here attached formed part of the original draft of the letter. Is it possible that two letters (the one later than the other) have been welded into one?
[113] Castellis. Cf. Liv. xxi. chaps. 33, 34, where the word is used of the Alpine villages. In the Vulgate it represents the Gk. kome (e.g. S. Mark vi. 6; S. Luke v. 17.)
[114] Possessionibus.
[115] Cyprian (de hab. Virg.) speaks of women who have lost their virginity by their own fault as viduæ antequam nuptæ, and S. Jerome, using the same expression (Lett. to Eustochius on the preservation of Virginity), implies that they very often dressed like widows (plerasque viduas antequam nuptas infelicem conscientiam mentita tantum veste protegere): this will account for Leo's here providing that these unhappy women are not deiici in viduarum gradum. Ball.
[116] The case of Lupicinus seems somewhat similar to that of Projectus in Lett. X., chap. iv, and was similarly referred to local experts.