De Decretis Melchiadi Papae Attributis

§ VI. — On the Decrees Attributed to Pope Melchiades. Isidore Mercator attributed two letters to Melchiades, one to Leontius and the other bishops of Spain, and another inscribed on the Primitive Church and on Constantine’s Munificence toward Her. Both, as having no more weight than authenticity, we have deliberately neglected to print here. In the Pontifical Book, two decrees are ascribed to the same pope: the first, by which it is ordained, “That on no account should any of the faithful fast on the Lord’s Day or on the fifth day of the week: because those days the pagans celebrate as a kind of sacred fast.” To which decree in the same Pontifical Book is immediately subjoined, “And the Manichaeans were found in the city of Rome by the same.” But that this decree is falsely ascribed to Melchiades is clear for two reasons: first, because even before the time of this pope, fasting on the Lord’s Day was forbidden to the faithful; next, because the reason for forbidding it was not that on that day the pagans or gentiles observed a kind of sacred fast; but because Christians deemed fasting on that day to be least fitting, on which Christ gladdened the Church by His resurrection. Moreover, what they had learned to avoid by custom and tradition itself, which teaches that the Lord’s Day is to be observed festively, they then began to avoid with greater scruple when the Manichaeans, not the pagans, began to observe a kind of sacred fast on that day. Lest we seem to say this without basis, both points must be briefly proven.

Before the time of Melchiades, Tertullian wrote in his book *On the Crown*, chapter: "We consider fasting on the Lord's Day unlawful." It is also read at the end of the fifth book of the Apostolic Constitutions: "For he will be guilty of sin who fasts on the Lord's Day, since it is the day of the resurrection." No other reason is given here. But subsequently Augustine, in Letter 36 to Casulanus, chapter 12, number 27, saying: "Fasting on the Lord's Day is a great scandal," added this new reason: "especially after the detestable and utterly contrary to the apostolic faith and divine Scriptures heresy of the Manichaeans became known, who established that day as a legitimate day for their hearers to fast. Through which it happened that fasting on the Lord's Day was considered more horrible." And in number 29, he teaches that one should beware of celebrating a fast on the Lord's Day, especially after heretics, especially the most impious Manichaeans, began to perform fasts on the Lord's Day not due to some occurring necessity, but as if by a sacred solemnity they dogmatized it. Concerning these same heretics, Pope Leo also, in Letter 17 to Turibius, chapter, testifies: "As they were detected and convicted in our examination, they demand the Lord's Day, which the resurrection of our Savior consecrated for us, to be spent in the sorrow of fasting." Therefore, in the Pontifical Book, it would seem nothing absurd if it were said: "The Manichaeans were found in the city of Rome by Melchiades.

Then this pope decreed that no faithful person should fast on the Lord's Day for any reason, because heretics celebrate that day as a sacred fast. Mercator, however, not correcting the Pontifical Book but imitating it as usual, represents Melchiades as decreeing thus: "No one ought to fast on the Lord's Day and on the fifth day, so that a true and not false distinction may be maintained between the fast of Christians and that of pagans, of the truly believing and of the unfaithful and heretics." Around the time of the Council of Nicaea, a certain Eustathius was carrying on and teaching many things akin to the doctrines of the Manichaeans; against him the Synod of Gangra was gathered, and in canon 18, according to the interpretation of Dionysius Exiguus, it decreed: "If anyone, on account of supposed continence or obstinacy, fasts on the Lord's Day, let him be anathema." This council, like that of Caesaraugusta against the Priscillianists, is said to have been held in the year when the Manichaeans were also commonly mentioned; while the canon forbids fasting on the Lord's Day for the sake of time, persuasion, or superstition, it seems in a certain way to permit fasting even on the Lord's Day, provided the cause of superstition is absent. And Jerome, indeed, in Epistle 28 to Lucinius writes: "Would that we could fast at all times," which we read in the Acts of the Apostles (as also Augustine, Epistle 56, observes) that the Apostle Paul and those believing with him fasted on the days of Pentecost and on the Lord's Day.

Nevertheless, so that he not seem to disapprove of the Church's custom and law, he immediately moderates his statement by adding: "Nor do I say this because I think one should fast on the Lord's Day." This law, according to the testimony of Epiphanius (Epiph., Expos. fid., n. ), was so religiously observed that even those who, out of the greatest zeal for piety, imposed perpetual fasts upon themselves, excepted only the Lord's Days and the days of Pentecost: "For," he says, "the Church has established all Lord's Days as festive and joyful, and celebrates no fasts. For it is absurd to fast on the Lord's Day... Nor does the Church itself fast on the Lord's Days even during Lent." Against the same saint, in Heresy 75, n. 3, he justly reproaches the Aerians because, with a foolish display of liberty, they prefer to fast on the Lord's Day, while they eat on the fourth and sixth days. No less vain are the heretics of our own age, who place Christian liberty in despising the laws of abstinence and fasting, which the Church, taught by Christ and His Apostles, has wisely instituted. It is the Church itself which, when it has urged the faithful to fast, whether by exhortations or by precepts, has always excepted the Lord's Day, not to separate them from the Gentiles, but to teach that the day of the Lord's Resurrection should always be celebrated festively. Therefore, it is falsely set down that Melchiades decreed that no one should fast on the Lord's Day. No less falsely is it narrated in the Pontifical Book that he made a similar decree concerning the fifth day.

Never was there such a religion of Christians regarding the fifth day that they were prohibited from fasting on this day. The custom so prevailed that, while some fasted on the fourth and sixth days, others on the sixth and the Sabbath, many considered that they should abstain from fasting on the fifth day, which is near to those days consecrated to fasting. Hence the Apostolic Constitutions (Book V, ch. 24), dissuading us from the custom of hypocrites, who always affect singularities, prescribe: "But let our fasts not be common with hypocrites; for they fast on the second day and the fifth." And Augustine, in Epistle 36, refuting the writing of a certain Roman who contended that one should fast on each of the six days of the week, says: "Among the Romans, on all those six days, apart from very few clerics or monks, how many are found who frequent daily fasts? especially since there it does not seem that one should fast on the fifth day." From this it can be gathered that at Rome indeed a common opinion prevailed, by which it was thought that one should not fast on the fifth day, but that no law existed on this matter; indeed, in Augustine's time, daily fasts of six days were celebrated there with praise by some monks and clerics.

Certainly not only from Cassian, *Collationes*, ch. 24, but also from Pope Gregory does it stand that even at Rome the fasts were not omitted on the fifth days of Lent. Thus Gregory, *Homiliae in Evangelia*, homily 16, speaks: "Six weeks come, of which, of course, forty-two days are made; from which, when the six Lord's days of abstinence are subtracted, no more than thirty-six remain in abstinence." For there, no one fails to see that the name "abstinence" is used for fasting, since the six Lord's days are subtracted not because on those days there is abstinence from meat, but because we intermit the fast. Wherefore Gregory teaches that by this fast of thirty-six days we offer the tithes of our year to God. Hence is clearly refuted what Walafrid Strabo, ch. 20, and after him Micrologus, ch. 50, deceived by the Pontifical Book and the spurious letter of Melchiades, write: "Melchiades, governing the pontificate at Rome, decreed that on no account should any of the faithful fast on the Lord's day or on the fifth day. For the pagans used to observe fasts on these days. Therefore Blessed Gregory, in the arrangement of the offices of the year, left the fifth day vacant within Lent, so that, because it was festive like the Lord's day, it might be celebrated with the office of the Lord's day. But when this fifth day later began to be applied to fasts like the rest, Gregory the Younger decreed that it should be solemn with Masses and prayers.

They further assert this, relying on the authority of Gregory II, who at that time was commonly called the younger, where we read in Anastasius: "He instituted that during the Lenten season, on the fifth day, the fast and the celebration of Masses should take place in the churches, which was not being done." But Walahfrid and the Micrologus are refuted on this point, having spoken from a preconceived opinion rather than from any authority, when they said that the Mass of the fifth day was repeated from the Sunday; for we are taught from this that before Gregory II, no Mass was customarily celebrated on that day. Thus error easily begets error. As regards the fast, St. Benedict knew of no law that forbade its observance on the fifth day. For in chapter [48] of his Rule, prescribing a continuous fast until holy Easter, he does not except the fifth day. St. Isidore of Seville, in his Rule, chapter 10, permits daily fasts throughout the entire year, with only Sundays excepted, following the example of the fathers. Later, indeed, the Rule of the Master, chapters 27 and 53, relaxed the fast on fifth days; but from this relaxation it wished the fifth days of Lent to be excepted. Nor did it give this reason for the aforementioned relaxation, that the fifth day was a solemn fast day among the pagans, but because the Ascension of the Lord occurs on that day every year, that is, because the Lord consecrated that day by his Ascension into heaven. Surely the pagans, for whom it was customary to celebrate that same day as a festival in honor of Jupiter, were far from consecrating it to mourning and fasts.

Therefore, certain Christians, whom the devil had seduced into their perverse imitation, are severely rebuked by Caesarius, bishop of Arles, in Augustine, appendix, vol. 5, sermon 265, no. 5, with these words: "Because we have heard that the devil so circumvents some men or women that on the fifth day they perform neither men's work nor women's wool-working, we testify before God and the holy angels that whoever wishes to observe this, unless they correct such sacrilege through long and harsh penance," etc. The Council of Narbonne, held in the year [date omitted], expressed how indignantly it bore the same matter in canon 15, with these words: "It has come to us that some of the peoples of the Catholic faith, with an execrable rite, cultivate the fifth day, which is also called Thursday, and do not perform work. We execrate this matter out of fear of God," etc. "Nor indeed did this custom displease the Fathers so greatly unless it had been derived from the impious superstition of the pagans. Therefore, to abolish it, fasts were to be appointed on the fifth day, just as at the same times it was done on the Kalends of January for the same reason, rather than prohibited.

A second decree is set forth in the Book of the Popes in this manner: "He ordained that consecrated oblations be sent to the churches from the bishop's consecration, which is called the fermentum." Similar to this is that which the same book attributes to Siricius: "He ordained that no presbyter should celebrate Masses during the week unless he received the consecrated element of the designated local bishop, which is called the fermentum." Although in the Bollandist copy of the Book of the Popes, as also in the Fossatensian, now Colbertine, the same decree of Siricius is expressed simply thus: "He ordained that without the consecrated element of the bishop, no presbyter of any place might consecrate." Where, unless we read "to consecrate," this decree will seem to refer to the consecration of presbyters: which we know was done at some time. We have only noted that formerly in some churches it was received usage that presbyters after their ordination would receive from their bishop portions of the Lord's body, from which they would receive communion for a certain number of days. Therefore, in the ancient Pontifical of Soissons, in our Edmund Martène, *De Antiquis Ecclesiæ Ritibus*, vol. II, p. 322, it is decreed: "Presbyters ought to receive portions of the Lord's body from the bishop, from which they receive communion for forty days." And in the ancient Roman Order it is prescribed for newly ordained presbyters that they communicate from the consecrated oblation given to them for up to seven days.

Indeed, from the more authoritative codices of the Book of the Popes, the Bollandian and the Fossalense manuscripts seem to require correction, so that in them one reads *consecrare* (to consecrate), not *consecrari* (to be consecrated), and this is to be understood concerning the consecration of the Eucharist in the celebration of Masses. But even from this it does not follow that the custom of sending portions of the oblation consecrated by the bishop to the churches and titular churches is falsely attributed to Melchiades as its author: since in the same book the Roman pontiffs are said to have sometimes established this, not because they were the first to institute it, but because they merely confirmed it. For to pass over what is known from Siricius, according to this book, he "decreed that heretics be received and reconciled under the imposition of hands," because in his first letter to Himerius, chapter 1, he confirms what Stephen had already vindicated by the authority of tradition. However that may be, it is evident that the aforementioned practice of sending the *fermentum* to the churches is older than Innocentius, from what the same pope writes in his 25th letter, to Decentius, number 8: "Concerning the *fermentum*, which we send on the Lord's Day to the titular churches, you have wished to consult us superfluously: since all our churches within the city are established. Their presbyters, because on that day they cannot come together with us on account of the people entrusted to them, therefore receive the *fermentum* prepared by us through the acolytes, so that they may not judge themselves separated from our communion, especially on that day. That this ought to be done for the parishes (established outside the city) I do not allow: because the sacraments ought not to be carried far.

Nor do we assign priests to various cemeteries. Hence it is evident that what is said in the Book of the Popes—that priests of any place, unless they have received a consecrated [host] from the bishop, are not permitted to celebrate or consecrate Masses during the week—is quite inaccurate; since this was decreed not concerning any priests whatsoever, but only concerning those stationed in the city, and indeed only on the Lord’s Day. Moreover, Innocent clearly indicates that this practice was introduced so that it might be a sign of the priests’ communion with their own bishop. Hence it is sufficiently understood why the Eucharist sent in this way was called by the name *fermentum*. For it served as a leaven, inasmuch as it joined and united the churches to which it was sent, just as leaven does with the mass with which it is mixed, with their bishop in the one body of Christ. Furthermore, we learn from ancient glosses on the Decretals, cited by our Mabillon in *Analecta*, vol. IV, p. 60, that this particle of the oblation consecrated by the bishops was sent by the priests at the very time when they said in the Mass: “May the peace of the Lord be always with you”—that is, at the same time at which even now a smaller particle of the consecrated host is placed into the chalice by the priests.

Rheticius, Bishop of Autun, His Saying on Baptism. Rheticius (says Saint Augustine), bishop of Autun, was of great authority in the Church during the time of his episcopate, as those ecclesiastical acts show us, when in the city of Rome, with Melchiades presiding as bishop of the apostolic see, he took part as a judge along with others, and condemned Donatus, who was the first author of the schism of the Donatists, and absolved Caecilianus, bishop of the Church of Carthage. He, when he was treating of baptism, spoke thus: Therefore, that this is the principal indulgence in the Church escapes no one, in which we lay down the whole burden of an ancient crime, and we owe the former misdeeds of our ignorance, where we also put off the old man together with his inborn sins.