Melchiadis Sententia de Caeciliani Causa

§ IV. — The Sentence of Melchiades concerning the Case of Caecilianus. In the same year 313, on the second day of October, which fell on a Friday, in the house of Fausta, the wife of Constantine, on the Lateran, the judges assembled and took their seats: Miltiades, bishop of the city of Rome; Maternus of the city of Cologne, Reticius of Autun, Marinus of Arles, Merocles of Milan, and fourteen other Italian bishops, whose names and sees Optatus enumerates. With these nineteen bishops sitting, says the same Optatus, "the case of Donatus and Caecilianus was brought forward by each side. Against Donatus (from Black Houses, as is clear from Augustine, Breviculus Collationis, day III, n. 36, and book to the Donatists after the Collation, n. 17) these sentences were passed: That he confessed to having rebaptized and to having laid hands on lapsed bishops; which is alien to the Church. The witnesses brought forward by Donatus confessed that they had nothing to say against Caecilianus." Caecilianus was pronounced innocent by the sentences of all the aforementioned, and also by the sentence of Miltiades, by which the judgment was closed with these words: "Since it is established that Caecilianus is not accused by those who came with Donatus, according to their own profession, nor is it established that he has been convicted by Donatus in any part, I judge that he is to be retained in the full status of his ecclesiastical communion." That the complete sentence of Melchiades is reported by Optatus is not clear from Augustine, epistle 43, formerly 162, n.

16, who extols it in this manner: "How innocent, how upright, how provident and peaceful is the final sentence pronounced by Melchiades himself, in which he did not dare to remove from their college those colleagues against whom nothing had been established, and, having found Donatus of Casis Nigris alone to be the chief of all the evil, and having blamed him most severely, he left to the rest the free option of recovering their health, being ready to send letters of communion even to those who were known to have been ordained by Majorinus; so that wherever there were two bishops in any place, whom dissension had doubled, he wished the one who had been ordained first to be confirmed, while the other was to be provided with another people to govern! O excellent man! O son of Christian peace and father of the Christian people!... Here neither gentleness corrupted integrity, nor integrity opposed gentleness." And in this sentence, indeed, three aspects of the provident pastor's moderation are to be observed, which were subsequently of great use to the Church in similar cases: first, that, content to condemn Donatus as the chief of all the evil, he left to his other associates the free opportunity to repent. Second, that he did not refuse to admit to his communion even those who had been ordained by Majorinus, who had been placed over the Carthaginian church in Caecilianus's place by the schismatics.

Finally, in those churches where there were two bishops, one ordained by Majorinus, the other by the Catholics, he adjudicated the church itself, which the one who had been ordained earlier was governing, in such a way that he also ordered that another congregation be provided for the other to govern. Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, following the first of these moderating measures, separated himself, together with the Gallican bishops, from communion with Saturninus, Ursacius, and Valens, who were the leaders of the Arians in the West, while granting the opportunity for repentance to their other associates; so that neither the will for peace would be absent, and the foul and corrupting members, advancing toward the corruption of the whole body, would be cut away. And this practice afterward constantly prevailed as a model in the Church. The other practice was followed not only by the African Catholics toward the Donatists returning to unity, but also much later by Pope Felix II, in order to make the reintegration of the churches torn apart by the cause of Acacius more expeditious and easier. "We," he says in Epistle 12 to Flavia, no. 4, "with God inspiring us, reasonably providing... that of those whom Acacius ordained or baptized, with the Catholic confession preserved, nothing be lost for the sake of the reintegration of the Church's charity." That this could be granted without harm to the faith, the African Catholics in the epistle which is in the proceedings of the Carthaginian Conference, chapter 1, [affirm].

16, inserted, they prove by this reasoning: For in them we detest not the divine sacraments of truth, but the fabrications of human error; with these removed, we embrace a fraternal heart joined to us by Christian charity. Anastasius II, pope, explains and illustrates the same reasoning at greater length, writing to the Emperor Anastasius, n. 8. Where we note in advance how vainly the same Pope Anastasius is said by Hincmar, tom. n, pag. 278, not to agree and accord with the sacred canons and decrees of his predecessors for this reason, that he did not refuse to receive those ordained by the condemned Acacius in their orders: since it is openly evident that in that matter he followed both the decrees of his predecessors Melchiades and Felix, and those of the Africans. The African bishops imitated a third point, through a letter which is inserted in the proceedings of the Carthaginian Conference, cognit. a, ap. 16, and which exists in Augustine, epistle 128, promising the Donatists that if, when convicted, they return to unity, they are to be received by them "so that not only may they find the way of salvation, but also not lose the honor of the episcopate. For each of us, they say, will be able, with a partner in honor joined to him, to sit in a more eminent place in turn, just as when a visiting bishop sits beside a colleague.

This, when it is granted to both sides in turn in the basilicas, each is anticipated by the other with mutual honor: because where the precept of charity has dilated hearts, the possession of peace does not become narrow; so that, with one of them deceased, thereafter single bishops succeed single bishops in the accustomed manner. Nor will anything new happen: for from the very beginning of the separation, in those who, having condemned the error of nefarious schism, have tasted the sweetness of unity even late, Catholic charity has preserved this. Furthermore, Tillemont, vol. VI, p. 49, thinks that this plan of leaving two bishops simultaneously in one church was first invented by the charity and supported by the authority of the Synod of Arles. And he offers no other reason for his opinion, except that in the Roman council a different decree was made by Melchiades and his colleagues concerning the same bishops. But since their sentence was transmitted in its entirety neither by Optatus, nor by Augustine, nor by any other, it cannot be affirmed with certainty that that other plan, which the Africans testify was preserved among them "from the very beginning of the separation," was in no way proposed in that sentence. For it could have happened that the Roman synod, over which Melchiades presided, did not open only one path for composing peace in the churches in which there were two bishops.

We certainly read that this was done by the same Africans, who, when they had proposed that the care of one church be entrusted to two bishops at the same time, immediately subjoin this other point about removing one of the two: "Or if the Christian people by chance delight in individual bishops, and cannot tolerate the partnership of two, deeming it an unusual practice, let us both withdraw from the middle, and with the churches, the cause of schism having been condemned in each, established in peaceful unity, let bishops be appointed as needed for unity by those who are found singly in individual churches." These words Augustine, in the Breviculus, collation of the first day, chapter 5, summarizes thus, teaching that it was agreed by the Catholics that if the congregations could not bear two bishops in one church, with both withdrawing from the middle, individual bishops would be appointed, to be ordained by those bishops who were found singly in their own congregations. And indeed, an example of this new arrangement had already shone forth before the Synod of Arles, if Optatus narrates the matter in order: when Eunomius and Olympius were sent to Carthage, who, after removing two from there, would ordain one.

Certainly Optatus, in the words with which the judgment of Melchiades is concluded, immediately subjoins: "It suffices, therefore, that Donatus has been struck by so many sentences, and that Caecilianus has been purged by so great a judgment. And yet Donatus believed that an appeal should be made from the bishops. Where if an appeal from the sentence of Melchiades is indicated, it seems to pertain to the same, that the same Optatus adds: To which appeal the emperor Constantine responded thus: 'With rabid audacity, as is customary in the causes of Gentiles, they interposed an appeal.' At the same time, the same Donatus asked that it be permitted for him to return, nor to approach Carthage. Then it was suggested by the suffragator Filuminus that, for the sake of peace, Caecilianus be retained at Brixia: and it was done. Then two bishops, Eunomius and Olympius, were sent to Africa: so that, with the two removed, they might ordain one. They came and were at Carthage: they spent days, so that they might pronounce where the Catholic Church was. The seditious party of Donatus did not suffer this to happen. From the zeal of the parties, daily disturbances occurred. The final sentence of the same bishops Eunomius and Olympius is read to be such, that they said that the Catholic Church was that which was in the whole world, and that the sentence of the nineteen bishops (that is, of Melchiades and his associates), already given long before, could not be dissolved.

But that Optatus notes the appeal, which followed the Council of Arles, and that the remainder of the narrative pertains to what happened after that same council, is clearly evident to us from the following: first, because the earlier words of Constantine, "the rabid boldness of fury! Just as in the cases of the Gentiles, etc.," are taken from this emperor's letter to the bishops who had assembled at Arles (in Labbe, Council volumes, page 1431, d. c.); second, because Augustine, in Letter 43, section 20, recounts the judgment of the Council of Arles and the appeal from it, and the emperor's just indignation, in this order: "For the Christian emperor did not dare to receive their tumultuous and deceitful complaints in such a way, and to judge for himself concerning the judgment of the bishops who had sat at Rome; but he gave other bishops, as I said, from whom, however, they preferred to appeal again to the emperor himself: in which matter you have heard how he detested them." Finally, because Optatus mentions the sentence of Melchiades and his associates against Donatus not as recent, but as already pronounced some time ago. And this too is worthy of note, that when, after the Council of Arles, Eunomius and Olympius were sent to Carthage to quell the tumults of the Donatists, they pronounced, with no mention made of this council, that "the sentence of the nineteen bishops (with Melchiades presiding), already given some time ago, could not be dissolved.

Therefore, what they did at Carthage seems rightly to have been done not so much by the authority of the Council of Arles as by the judgment of Melchiades. In a word, Melchiades, by that judgment which Augustine praises, showed the way to restore unity: so much so that the various methods by which the African Catholics attempted to reconcile the schismatics to themselves and bring them back to concord, whether in the Conference or before it, may be regarded as various approaches to that peaceful 'Me' which Melchiades had opened for them. He himself, by preserving through indulgence the ranks and honors of clerics and bishops who withdrew from schism, removed the most serious obstacle to the restoration of peace. Then, indeed, the Africans, having entered upon peace by this path, strove to consolidate it in various ways that did not depart from that path, as the times required. On this matter, see also the Codex of Canons of the African Church, chapters [c.] and 118. One further point remains to be observed, by which ecclesiastical discipline is illustrated, concerning the judgment of Melchiades praised above by Augustine: namely, that wherever there were two bishops, he wished the one who had been ordained first to be confirmed, yet in such a way that the other would be entrusted with the governance of a different congregation. In agreement with this judgment, at the Carthaginian Conference, Cognitio I, chapter 16, the Africans, where not only one but even bishops were removed at the request of the people, decree that individual churches should be assigned to each.

I therefore consider this worthy of note, because from this seems to have flowed the custom, thereafter frequently used, of transferring bishops who were either not admitted or were expelled by their own congregations to other churches. From this, indeed, they are proved to have committed nothing contrary to ancient discipline: whether it be Xystus III, the predecessor of Leo, in his eighth epistle, when he arranged for Perigenes, who had been ordained bishop for the Patrenses but rejected by them, to be placed over the Corinthians; or Hilarius, the successor of the same Leo, when he allowed Hermes, who said he was excluded by the Biterrenses, to preside over the Narbonenses (Hilary, ep. 8); or John III, when he handed over the church of Nola to be governed to John, bishop of Alexandria, who had been expelled from his own city (Liberatus, c. 18). By that same reasoning, the migration of Aprunculus is also excused, who, as Gregory of Tours, book II of the Deeds of the Franks, c. 23, and Baronius, in the year 484, relate, was bishop of the city of Lingonica, and began to be held in suspicion among the Burgundians; and when the hatred grew from day to day, it was ordered that he be struck down secretly with a sword. When this news was brought to him, he was let down by night from the wall of the fortress of Divio, came to the Arverni, and there, according to the word of the Lord... he is given as the eleventh bishop.