Notitia epistolarum non exstantium quae ad S. Cornelium spectant (auctore D. P. Coustant, O.S.B.)

existed at Rome, when Victor of Garba was sent there by these schismatics shortly after the rise of the Donatist schism. "For these," says Optatus, "where there were forty basilicas and more, had no place where they might gather." When Blondel, Apology p. 223, interprets this passage as referring to the age of Optatus himself, Valesius rightly notes that it has been misunderstood by him.

Cornelius adds that Novatian could not hope to come to the episcopate, since, having been baptized in bed, he had not received the imposition of the bishop's hands, that is, the sacrament of Confirmation. "Nor, after he was freed from his illness, did he receive the other things which according to the rule of the Church are to be received, nor was he sealed by the bishop" (τοῦ τε σφραγισθῆναι ὑπὸ τοῦ ἐπισκόπου, "and the being sealed by the bishop"). "And since he by no means received this seal, how could he have received the Holy Spirit?" Afterwards Cornelius writes that it was only at the request of the bishop, against the command of the Church, which forbade those so baptized to be ordained, that Novatian was ordained presbyter. Then he reproaches him for having denied his priesthood in time of persecution, and for compelling his own people, as he gave them the body and blood of Christ, to swear, when they ought to answer Amen, as the custom of the Church was, that they would never return to Cornelius. Finally he informs Fabius that the Roman confessors had deserted Novatian's party, and that many bishops, whose names he sends him, had condemned him in a council.

The style of Cornelius, in the judgement of the most learned Dupin, so far as one can judge of it from the few letters of his that survive, is not very elevated; yet he lends enough weight to what he says, adapts matters to his purpose, and in no way spares his adversary.

NOTICE

OF THE LETTERS NO LONGER EXTANT WHICH CONCERN ST CORNELIUS,

BY DOM COUSTANT, O.S.B.

I

1. The letter of Cornelius to Cyprian and the other bishops of Africa, in which he announced that he had been made bishop of Rome. It breathed a certain modesty and simplicity, which the writings of Novatian that came to Africa not long afterwards, full of abuse and calumnies, by no means displayed. Cyprian therefore ordered this letter of Cornelius to be read to the people, and rejected the writings of Novatian. On the authority of Cyprian himself, "the holiness and likewise the truth of divine tradition and of ecclesiastical institution required" that, as soon as the Roman bishop had announced his ordination by letter to the bishop of Carthage, the latter should direct a letter in return to him, and, once notice of his ordination had been carried to each of the colleagues of his province, should instruct them to dispatch brethren with letters to the newly created bishop. Cyprian testifies that he did not fail in this duty.

II

2. The letter of Cyprian to Pope Cornelius, sent by the bishops Caldonius and Fortunatus, in which he was asked to read to the faithful at Rome the letters which Cyprian himself had written both to the clergy and to his people of Carthage concerning the faction of Felicissimus and the five presbyters, that is, XXXVIII and XL in Pamelius's edition. For this reason he was then sending copies of those letters by the aforesaid bishops, and afterwards sent them again by Mettius and Nicephorus.

III

3. The synodal letter of the bishops of Africa to Cornelius, signed in their own hand and carried by Mettius the subdeacon and Nicephorus the acolyte, in which they made known what they had thought and what they had pronounced on the case of Felicissimus and the five presbyters who adhered to him, namely, as is recorded above in Letter XII, written the following year, n. 9, that these had been excommunicated by their sentence. It was perhaps written from that "council of very many bishops" which Cyprian recalls in Letter I to Stephen I, n. 2, in which "Novatian, enemy of the Church

was judged." and it was declared that it was permitted to no one to communicate with him.

IV

In which there is also a discussion of the penance of the major clergy, whether in the first three centuries they were subject to public [penance].

4. To the beginnings of Cornelius's pontificate one may assign both the proceedings of the Roman synod in the matter of the lapsed and the various letters of Cornelius which Jerome, On Ecclesiastical Writers, chapter 76, and Eusebius, book 6 of the History, chapter 43, record. And Jerome indeed speaks of them thus: "Cornelius, bishop of the city of Rome, to whom eight letters of Cyprian are extant (we still have just as many), wrote a letter to Fabius, bishop of the Church of Antioch, on the Roman, Italian and African synod; and another on Novatian and on those who have lapsed; a third on the proceedings of the synod; a fourth to the same Fabius, very lengthy, containing both the grounds of the Novatian heresy and the anathema." Of those four letters nothing has come down to us except certain notable fragments of the last, which we owe to Eusebius. That writer, moreover, has the following on the same proceedings and letters: "When a synod had been gathered at Rome, at which sixty bishops indeed, but many more presbyters and deacons, came together, and when in the provinces (as is probable, of Italy) the prelates had deliberated separately, a decree of this kind was promulgated to all (doubtless by Cornelius): that Novatus (read Novatian), and also those who had arrogantly exalted themselves together with him, and whoever had presumed to agree with his most inhuman opinion, foreign to brotherly charity, were to be held as strangers to the Church; but that the brethren who had lapsed through misfortune and temptation were to be cured and cherished with the remedies of penance. There still exist letters of Cornelius, bishop of the Romans, sent to Fabius, prelate of the Church of Antioch, in which both the proceedings of the Roman synod and the opinions of all throughout Italy and Africa and the other provinces of those regions are set out. To these was joined another letter of the same Cornelius, concerning the things which had been decreed in the (Roman) synod."

5. But when the council on the matter of the lapsed just mentioned was held, and so also at what time the letters on that matter were written by Cornelius, is gathered from these words of the Roman clergy to Cyprian, Letter 31: "Before the appointment of a bishop we thought that nothing should be innovated, but we believe that the care of the lapsed should be moderately tempered; so that meanwhile, while a bishop is waited for, to be given us by God, the case of those who can bear delay may be held in suspense." For no one fails to see that, once Cornelius had been given by God as pontiff at Rome, no reason remained why that matter should be held any longer in suspense: indeed, since Novatian was denying pardon to the lapsed, it was most necessary that it be settled more speedily by holding a council. Therefore among the first transactions of Cornelius we reckon both this council and the letters by which, of the same

council, he took care that the decree should be made known to the various provinces and be held as ratified by them.

6. To the same council appears to belong the decree of which Cyprian, Epist. 28, speaks thus: "And since there are many other grave offences besides, in which Basilides and Martial are held entangled, in vain do such men attempt to usurp the episcopate for themselves; since it is manifest that men of this kind can neither preside over the Church nor ought to offer sacrifices to God: especially since long ago, together with us and with absolutely all the bishops established in the whole world, Cornelius too, our colleague, a peaceable and just priest, and honoured also with martyrdom by the favour of the Lord, decreed that men of this kind could indeed be admitted to penance, but were to be barred from ordination to the clergy and from priestly honour." Although it is plain in this decree that lapsed priests are cast down from priestly dignity and function, and that access to penance is granted to them, what penance was to be required of them is not declared clearly enough.

7. It is the opinion of the learned Morin, book 4 On Penance, ch. 12, to which very many also subscribe, that in the first three centuries of the Church the major clerics, no differently from the laity, were subject to public penance. He brings this forward chiefly in support of his opinion, that Cyprian, Epist. 59 in Pamelius's edition, or 64 in the Oxford edition, writes to Fidus: "We have read your letter, dearest brother, in which you informed us concerning Victor, formerly a presbyter, that before he had performed full penance and had made satisfaction to the Lord God, against Whom he had offended, our colleague Therapius rashly, at an untimely moment and with headlong haste, granted him peace. This matter moved [us] considerably, that there had been a departure from the authority of our decree, so that peace was granted to him before the lawful and full time of satisfaction, and without the request and knowledge of the people, with no illness pressing and no necessity compelling." In this passage the decree from which Cyprian teaches there had been a departure may be understood to be that very one which the same prelate, in Epistle 68, just cited, records as issued by Cornelius together with himself and with absolutely all the bishops established in the whole world. Whence it follows that by the authority of that same decree a fixed time of satisfaction and penance was prescribed for lapsed presbyters, by no means to be remitted to them unless something else were urged "by the request of the people," or "with illness pressing and necessity compelling." But whether that penance which was required of them as "full" was public or not is here too passed over in silence. Nor does Cyprian state it more clearly in Epistle 64, or 65, which he begins thus: "I have been gravely and grievously moved, dearest brothers, at learning that Fortunatianus, formerly a bishop among you, after the grave lapse of his fall, now wishes to act as though unimpaired, and has begun to claim the episcopate for himself. . . . . . . . although he ought to make satisfaction, and to devote himself day and night to entreating the Lord with tears and prayers and supplications, he still dares for himself the priesthood

which he betrayed to claim, as though it were lawful to approach the altars of God after the altars of the devil."

8. But what the mind of Cornelius and of the bishops of the whole world was may be gathered and interpreted more certainly from that very Epistle of Cyprian in which their decree is praised. For in it Basilides is represented as one who had already begun to obey and comply with that decree: so much so that "laying down the episcopate on account of the wound of his conscience, he turned to doing penance, entreating God, and thankful enough if it should befall him to communicate even as a layman." For if in these words, in which Basilides is said to have "turned to doing penance", public penance is by no means to be understood, there is no reason why we should interpret as concerning public penance the decree by which Cornelius, with the other bishops of the whole world, established that "men of this kind can be admitted to doing penance". Yet Basilides turned to doing a penance with which he did not cast away the hope of recovering the episcopate, nay, he even obtained it from Stephen by surreptitious means; whereas this law always prevailed in the Church, that for those who had performed public penance no hope was left either of approaching the clergy or of returning into it. Therefore his penance was not public either. Moreover, what he is said to have counted as a favour, "if it should befall him to communicate even as a layman", the same Cyprian illustrates in Epist. 72, where, concerning those who had rebelled against the Church, he writes thus to Pope Stephen: "We plainly add and join, dearest brother, by common consent and authority, that even if any presbyters or deacons, who were either previously ordained in the Church, and afterwards stood forth as faithless and rebels.... these too are to be received on this condition when they return, that they communicate as laymen, and consider it enough that they are admitted to peace who stood forth as enemies of peace." Therefore those men ought to have counted the lay communion granted to them on their return as a favour, because it would have been permissible beforehand to prescribe for them a fixed time of penance, and to defer that communion until they had completed it; not because custom wished deacons, presbyters or bishops to be subjected to such solemn rites of public penance. Indeed, if of those who read in Book II of Gregory the Great, Ind. 5, Epist. 6, concerning Demetrius, formerly bishop of Naples, accused of most grave crimes: "Reserved for penance, he was deprived of the honour of the priesthood"; or in Book VI, Ind. 14, Epist. 41: "The bishop of Massa Nicoterana was assigned to penance for certain faults", and other things similar to these, there is no one who understands public and solemn penance by the name of "penance" in those passages, what forbids the same name, in the decree which Cornelius sanctioned with the bishops of the whole Christian world, from being understood as used in the same way?

9. Moreover, this moves me greatly, that this decree was not of Cornelius and the Italians alone, but also of the Africans, nay, "of all bishops whatsoever in the whole

world established”, as Cyprian testifies. For a decree confirmed by so great and so general a consensus ought not to have been abrogated except by some solemn law; or, if anyone should suspect that it could have become obsolete of itself and fallen into disuse, he must certainly admit that it could scarcely have come about that this happened so quickly in all the provinces of the Church at once, and that not even among the leading men did any memory of the contrary usage survive. Yet in the fourth century it was not granted to clerics in the Roman Church to perform public penance, as Siricius testifies, Epist. 1, n. 18, where he sets this forth as received by ancient or even perpetual usage, thus: “Just as it is not granted to any of the clerics to do penance, so also after penitence and reconciliation let it never be permitted to any layman to attain the honour of the clerical state.” This very thing Leo also afterwards, when asked by Rusticus, bishop of Narbonne, “concerning a presbyter or deacon who, their crime having become known, seek penance, whether it should be given to them through the imposition of hands”, Epist. 2, c. 2, clearly confirmed in these words: “It is foreign to ecclesiastical custom that those who have been consecrated in the presbyteral honour or in the rank of the diaconate should receive the remedy of doing penance for some crime of theirs through the imposition of hands; which without doubt descends from apostolic tradition.” Was so great a pontiff really so ignorant of the sacred canons that he would pass off as apostolic tradition a custom contrary to the law which the bishops of the whole world had sanctioned in the third century? But so that the agreement of the discipline of the fourth or fifth century with the discipline of the third may be seen the more clearly, this same custom denies to the aforesaid clerics not every kind of penance, but only public penance. Accordingly Leo presently adds: “Hence for those who have lapsed in this way a private withdrawal is to be sought for meriting the mercy of God, where their satisfaction, if it be worthy, may also be fruitful.” For it was fair that peace and communion should not be restored to those from whom a worthy satisfaction was demanded before they had fully made satisfaction; and so this reply of Leo can easily be reconciled with the earlier words of Cyprian in the Letter to Fidus.

16. But if it were astonishing that a decree on a matter of the gravest moment, which the Roman clergy in the third century had not dared to define until God should have given them a pontiff, and which was afterwards sanctioned by the same clergy together with the holy pontiff granted to them from heaven and with very many other bishops, a decree whose frequent use ought continually to have refreshed its memory, could have so fallen into oblivion that in the following century it was utterly unknown in the same Church, it would seem no less amazing how it could have happened that among the Africans too, who had requested, praised and confirmed that same decree and approved it by use with regard to the lapsed, it had at the same time likewise been unknown; so much so that Optatus could say towards the end of book 2: “It is known and proven to many that in the time of persecution some bishops, having fallen away from the confession of God through faint-heartedness, offered incense; and yet none of them

who had escaped, either laid a hand on the lapsed or ordered them to bend the knee." For by what ignorance or rashness would Optatus have dared to affirm this, and in the same place to accuse the Donatists, who laid hands on deacons, presbyters and bishops, as if of an impious and unheard-of crime, if they had done nothing except what in the preceding century Cyprian and the other African prelates, together with Cornelius and the other bishops of the whole world, had prescribed and confirmed by their own example? But that Optatus is free from all blame of ignorance, and that the charge of rashness falls on the Donatists alone, is taught us by the Council of Carthage, in which (doubtless so that no one should imitate the rash ventures and impious machinations of the schismatics), as the fourth century was drawing to its close, in canon 11, "it was confirmed that if at any time presbyters or deacons should be convicted of some graver fault, on account of which it should be necessary to remove them from the ministry, hands should not be laid on them as on penitents or as on lay faithful." Moreover Augustine too, the light of the African Church, in book 1 On Baptism against the Donatists, chapter 1, observes that on the aforesaid clerics "hands are not laid among the laity". In this observation of Augustine, and much more plainly in the words of the Council of Carthage just cited, there appears a distinction between the penance of clerics, at least of the major ones, and the penance of the laity.

11. The same [distinction] is no less manifest in the petition which Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, being at Constantinople at the beginning of the year 360, presented to Constantius Augustus. For in it he addresses that emperor thus concerning the unjust cause of his exile, n. 2: "I shall disclose that you, Augustus, have been circumvented, and your Caesar deceived, trusting in this condition of my conscience: that if I am shown to have done anything unworthy not only of the holiness of a bishop but even of the integrity of a layman, I should no longer look for the priesthood by way of pardon, but should grow old within the penance of a layman." This he would surely have asked in vain, if it had been the custom for layman and cleric alike to be bound by the same law of penance. They are therefore greatly mistaken who think that the major clerics were at one time liable to public penance no differently from the laity, while they suppose that they are helped by this passage, because they hear a bishop permitting that he be compelled "to grow old within the penance of a layman". But they ought to have noticed that there Hilary, from the sure consciousness of his integrity and innocence, was conceding not what is usually done, but what is altogether unwonted and unusual, and what he was entirely confident would not come to pass. Nor indeed does it follow from this that bishops used to be relegated to the penance of the laity, any more than from the fact that Paul says, Gal. 1:8, Though we or an Angel from heaven should preach the gospel besides what we have preached to you, let him be anathema, one may conclude that a heavenly Angel is still liable to anathema. This passage of Hilary, then, is in no small way opposed to them, since it plainly teaches that the penance of a bishop was then one thing and that of a layman another. Now Hilary was saying this both from the custom which in the West, of which

he was bishop, he knew to be customary, and from that which he saw received in the East, where he was living; and which therefore flourished equally in the West and in the East at the same time. Such great agreement of the whole Church cannot arise from any other source, except either from apostolic tradition or from that common law which Cyprian reports was passed with "the consent of absolutely all the bishops established throughout the whole world". This much, therefore, was then decreed: that to bishops or other higher clerics who had lapsed, after their rank of honour had been taken away, peace and communion should be restored following a satisfaction and penance suited to them.

12. Nor is this contradicted by what we have copied from Eusebius's History concerning the penance of Natalius in the times of Pope Zephyrinus. For there we read of what that bishop, if indeed he was a bishop, did of his own accord out of the vehement feeling of a penitent mind, not of what any ecclesiastical law imposed on him. Now this was the constant rule in the Church at all times concerning offenders: that to no guilty person of whatever condition who was not penitent should pardon be granted. Moreover, before it was granted, a worthy satisfaction for the crimes was always customarily required, unless this was made up for in some other way. Therefore, as in the first three centuries of the Church, so also in the following ones, higher clerics guilty of the gravest crimes were not only cast down from their rank of honour, but were also punished with fitting penalties by which they might make satisfaction to God whom they had offended. Hence Cyprian took it ill that peace had been given to the presbyter Victor "before the lawful and full time of satisfaction". Hence also Leo judged that lapsed presbyters and deacons must seek "a private retirement, where their satisfaction, if it be worthy, may also be fruitful." Hence also John II, in his letter to Caesarius, so deposed Contumeliosus from the episcopate that he wished him to be sent into a monastery, "where, mindful of his offences, he may not fail to shed tears in penance, so that.... he may be able to merit mercy from Jesus Christ." Hence Pope Gregory, book 3, letter 50, commands: "We wish Paul, formerly a bishop, to remain in penance in the monastery in which he is"; and book 5, letter 14: "We decree that the deacon and abbot of Portus Veneris, who you indicate has fallen, ought not and cannot in any way be recalled to sacred orders. It is fitting that you assign him, deprived of sacred orders, to penance." But if no one would interpret these and other passages of this kind as referring to public penance, why should we understand similar things about the higher clerics of the first three centuries otherwise, contrary to the judgement of the supreme pontiffs and Fathers who lived in the fourth and fifth centuries?

V

13. About the same time Cyprian, on the advice of all the brethren, sent Cornelius the names of the bishops established in Africa "who, sound and whole in the Catholic Church, preside over the brethren", so that

he himself and, through his agency, the other bishops might know "to whom they ought to write, and from whom in turn they ought to receive letters"; and so, if anyone whose name was passed over in silence in this letter should dare to write, they would know that he was "stained either by a certificate or by sacrifice, or one of the heretics." With similar caution Cornelius, writing to Fabius, bishop of Antioch, had appended at the foot of his letter the names of the bishops who had condemned Novatian either in the Roman synod or by letters, as Eusebius relates, Hist. book 6, ch. 43.

VI.

14. The letter of Cornelius to Cyprian, carried by the presbyter Primitivus, in which he indicated that he was disturbed because, when letters were being addressed to him from the colony of Hadrumetum in the name of Polycarp, bishop of that same colony, Cyprian and Liberalis, on coming there, had been responsible for their being addressed not to Cornelius but to the Roman presbyters and deacons, as if his ordination were doubtful. But why this was done by himself and by Liberalis, Cyprian explains above, in letter 4.

VII.

15. The letter of Cornelius to Cyprian, sent by the confessor Augendus, by which Cyprian was warned that Nicostratus, Novatus, Evaristus, Primus and Dionysius, followers of Novatian, had sailed to Africa.

VIII.

16. The letter of Cornelius to Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, against Novatian.

IX.

17. The letter of Dionysius of Alexandria written in reply to the aforesaid letter, about which Eusebius touches briefly on these things: "Dionysius writes to Cornelius, bishop of the city of Rome, whose letter against Novatus (read Novatian) he had received. In this letter he indicates that he had been invited by Helenus, bishop of Tarsus in Cilicia, and by the others who had gathered with him, namely Firmilian and Theoctistus, bishops of the provinces of Cappadocia and Palestine, to come to the synod of Antioch, in which certain men were attempting to strengthen the schism of Novatus. He writes also that it had been reported to him that Fabius had indeed died, and that Demetrianus had been appointed bishop of the Church of Antioch in his place. And he also makes mention of the bishop of Jerusalem in these words: For as regards Alexander, he, having been cast into prison, died a blessed death." To which Eusebius then adds concerning the same Dionysius: "There follows next another letter of the same Dionysius to the Brethren established at Rome, on the office of deacon, sent by Hippolytus. He writes another letter likewise to the same, on Peace, and also on Penance. Again another to the Confessors established in the same place, who the opinion of Novatus (read Novatian)

were still favouring at that time. He also sent two other letters to these same men after they had returned to the Church." From these words it is established, first, that the letter of Dionysius to Cornelius, in which he announces to him the death of Fabius, is later than the writing of Cornelius to Fabius himself; and secondly, that Eusebius, in listing the letters of Dionysius just mentioned, did not at all keep to the order of time. For the conjecture is that the first two letters were written by Dionysius when, after the death of Fabian, the see of Rome was vacant; the third when he learned that the confessors Macarius the presbyter, Urbanus, Sidonius and Celerinus were favouring Novatian; and finally the fourth and fifth together with the one which he is said to have sent to Cornelius in the first place, namely when he had learned, unless we are mistaken, from the letters of Cornelius himself that these same Confessors had returned to the Church. For just as Cornelius announced the return of the confessors to the Church in his Letter to Fabius of Antioch, so too one may surmise that at the same time he made this very thing known by a letter sent to Dionysius, bishop of the church of Alexandria, and that the latter, not so very long afterwards, wrote back to Cornelius the things that Eusebius recorded.

X.

18. The letter of Fortunatus the pseudo-bishop, sent to Cornelius by his envoys, who went to Rome together with Felicissimus. Of those envoys Cyprian writes this: "After these things, having moreover had a pseudo-bishop set up for them by heretics, they dare to sail even to the chair of Peter and to the principal Church, from which priestly unity arose, and to carry letters from schismatics and profane men, and not to consider that these are the Romans, whose faith was praised by the Apostle's proclamation, to whom faithlessness can have no access." Again, a little later, he speaks thus of the same men: "But what am I to say of these men, who have now sailed to you with Felicissimus, the defendant in every crime, envoys sent by Fortunatus the pseudo-bishop, bringing you letters as false as he himself is false whose letters they carry?" And he notes that the falsity of those letters lay in this, that in them Fortunatus boasted that twenty-five bishops had been present at his ordination, whereas it was established that he was ordained "with only five castaways and excommunicated men assembling"; namely Privatus, an old heretic once condemned by the sentence of ninety bishops; Felix, whom Privatus had set up as a pseudo-bishop outside the Church; Jovinus and Maximus, first condemned by the sentence of nine bishops and then again excommunicated by a larger number in council; and Repostus of Suturnica, who in the persecution had not only fallen himself but had also cast down the greater part of his people by sacrilegious persuasion: "These five," says Cyprian, "with a few who had either sacrificed or had an evil conscience, co-opted Fortunatus for themselves as pseudo-bishop." Of Fortunatus these

letters Cornelius for some time refused to accept, and did not accept them except after terrors and threats.

XI.

19. The letter of Cyprian to Cornelius concerning the aforesaid Fortunatus, written at the same time as the preceding one, was carried by Felicianus the acolyte, whom Cornelius had sent into Africa together with Perseus the bishop: but while Felicianus was held back by the wind, or was detained in receiving other letters, he was forestalled by Felicissimus, who made haste; so that the letters of Fortunatus were delivered to Cornelius before Felicianus arrived at Rome.

XII.

20. The letters of Cornelius, "quite full of brotherly love and of ecclesiastical discipline and of priestly censure", delivered to Cyprian by Satyrus the acolyte, in which he made known that Felicissimus, no new enemy of Christ but one long since excommunicated for his very many and very grave crimes, and condemned by the sentence not only of Cyprian himself but also of very many bishops, had been rejected by him; and that, when he had come attended by a crowd and faction of desperate men, he had been driven from the Church with the full vigour with which it befits bishops to act. It is plain that these letters of Cornelius were written when Felicissimus, after the ordination of the pseudo-bishop Fortunatus, had come to the City together with Fortunatus's envoys, and Felicianus, returning from Carthage with the letters of Cyprian just mentioned, had not yet arrived there.

XIII.

21. Other, more timid letters of Cornelius to Cyprian, attached to the preceding ones and sent at the same time, in which he indicated that he had been somewhat shaken by the threats and terrors of those who had come from Fortunatus: "since they had assailed him with the utmost desperation, threatening that, if he did not accept the letters which they had brought, they would read them out publicly, and would utter many shameful and scandalous things, worthy of their own mouth." Then, therefore, Cornelius judged that he must yield to them, not, as it seems to me, through any fault of an unwarlike or faint spirit, but fearing some greater harm and wishing to avert it. Such are the cases in which holy and anxious pastors, whichever way they turn, fear dangers and sins, over which Augustine groans in the whole of his letter formerly 250, now 195, to Paulinus, and thence in no. 2 concludes: "Behold whence human life upon earth is wholly temptation, since a man is tempted even there where, as far as he can, he is fitted to the likeness of the heavenly life." Certainly Cornelius was striving to fit himself to the institutions of the heavenly life when, as for the scandalous writings,

which he foresaw would be a scandal and an offence to the people, he himself took care, by taking them up, that they should not be read publicly. This act of his, however, Cyprian disapproved of and sharply reproved; nor did Cornelius take that reproof with an ill spirit, nor on account of it did the Christian friendship which existed between those holy prelates suffer any harm.

22. In the same letter Cornelius complained to Cyprian that he had not written to him at once about the new ordination of Fortunatus. And at the same time he directed that this Fortunatus should come to Rome, to be judged there. Cyprian, again not approving of this, writes back that it had been decreed by himself and by all his colleagues that each person's case should be heard there where the crime was committed. But the controversy over the hearing of cases which arose between Cornelius and Cyprian on the occasion of Fortunatus and his envoys broke out afresh in the times of Pope Zosimus and of Aurelius, bishop of Carthage, out of the case of Apiarius. But then too the African prelates, writing back to Pope Celestine, stood by the decree of the council cited above.

XIV.

23. Another very short letter, addressed in the name of Cornelius to Lupicinus, bishop of Vienne, which came forth from the library of Fleury, we have relegated to the appendix. But the two others, which Isidore Mercator forged, we do not separate from the rest of his wares.

XV.

24. In the editions of the councils this single decree is copied from Gratian's compilation, XXII, q. 5, c. 16: "It seems honourable also that whoever dares to swear on holy things should do so fasting, with all propriety and fear of God; and that boys under fourteen years should not be compelled to swear." The same decree is attributed to Cornelius by Ivo, part XII, c. 69, and by Burchard, book XII, c. 42; but by the same Ivo, p. XII, c. 33, and by Regino, book II, chap. 312, it is cited as from book I of the Capitularies. And in actual fact it is excerpted from the Capitulary of Aachen, year 789, chap. 63. Again, its last part, about boys not being compelled to swear, joined with another about girls who swear, is reported by Gratian, ibid. c. 15, as from the Council of Elvira. Likewise Ivo, p. XII, c. 81, brings forward from the same council that other part about girls who swear, which Burchard, book XII, c. 26, cites not from the Council of Elvira, in which in truth it does not exist, but from an Irish council, c. 3.